No ideas but in things.
—William Carlos Williams.
Time is money, and money is losing value all the time.
This anxious feeling inside—tight, rushed, urgent, driven, shallow breaths—is a symptom of timesickness.
It is endemic in our age, in our capitalistic culture, in our growth economy. It is fed by the force of our ubiquitous technology of communication, information, streaming data. It is ingrained by an education system, by media hype, by peer pressure and global competition for shrinking resources.
Affordable housing, food, services, land, health care… shrinking commodities. Self-respect and self-esteem, social status and reputation—how are these calculated, measured, ranked in value?
The solution, I say, is the thing itself. Attention to the here and now, the task itself. Unitasking, to focus attention and still the nervous system from the static of external and self-imposed demands.
Pro sports players cite the mantra, “You control what you can control.” Fame and fortune are beside the point. They might seem the key motivators, but in expressing our skill, our talent, our passion, attention can’t be about “me” or “my success.” These ego concerns just suck energy and focus (for ourselves and others witnessing, our “audience”) away from the thing itself, the gift in hand, the “real work.”
“Just execute, pitch by pitch,” say the pros, “and the rest will take care of itself.”
The same goes for one’s life as a whole—live it well moment by moment.
You can breathe now.
Looking up from my computer, where I’ve been writing about life, and even things like the thing itself, I take a deeper breath and look out the window of this passing scene.
The water: glimmering, shimmering, cloud-silver and fir-gray, inviting the breath to go deeper.
The thing itself.
Is there any other way to say it?
It can be of any size, any duration.
It can be called by whatever name you choose to call it, or tradition dictates.
Look up.
There it is: the water, a face, a memory, a droning meme.
A rose, some say.
It’s stopping to look before crossing to the next moment.
If it’s not one thing, it’s another.
The thing is…
I want to go home.
To the one thing: the thing itself.
Is that a house, a spouse?
A louse to squash, a fortune to amass?
There must be a way home, around here somewhere…
Where is it?
The next momentous pause.
A chocolate recipe, the bird that sings…
It could be anything.
Breathe in, look up:
There it is.
The next…
…unutterable godname.
EverTing
And NoTing
got together and had a kid
they called OneTing
but listener got it wrong
and reported to the realm,
“WanTing,”
They adored that princess, worshipped her
and when she came to rule, they wept.
For she could not save them
from their fears of her demise.
In truth they had to stop all that
and face the thing itself.
Babe in the cradle, cat on the lap.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our explorings
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
–T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”; closing words of Richard Tarnas, Cosmos and Psyche
