Beyond the Matrix

 

What  makes us happy?

4/22/06

 Most of us want a simple answer to attain our goal -- happiness, wealth, freedom, whatever. The answer is in the journey, and in the process we'll find the answer, and the goal is the reward for hard work -- acquiring something more special than the goal or reward itself. Before we did the work, we were not worthy, or ready, to face or manage our goal.

 It was always a challenge to spark the interest of my youngest daughter. Simple talk wouldn't do it. I had to build a vision for her and take her to it. She already knew the words, heard it all before, and words by themselves are just empty words. I had to show her, prove it to her. She grasped ideas and concepts easily if I would do the work for her. I was always rewarded by it -- the wide-open look of comprehension of pure glee of grasping an adult concept. But then, at some point, I told her she had to do the work herself.

 Her name is Tybie Satin, and she began majoring in Fashion and Design at OSU. Her first year, this subject came up again. She was complaining about the work, the long hours, the labs, the study required.

 I had to tell her that it doesn't happen by itself. You can sit in on those classes for four years, or even ten years like I did, and learn very little except a process of lifelong drudgery, of rules and half-truths. And without that life-giving spark, you will never discover yourself and your true potential; you may never truly become.

 At some point, if you don't discover it, then you will need to seek it out. That's probably what happens to most people that quit college. They don't find it soon enough, and don't know what they are looking for, so they begin searching elsewhere (maybe even dangerous places; drugs, alcohol, excitement) or quit looking while trying to figure something out. That something is within yourself, and it just needs a life-giving spark. It can only be found with some certain amount of concerted discipline and effort--it doesn't just happen, and you won't find it in drugs, or sleep, or in wandering. It is in hiding, waiting to be sought out and understood.

 Tybie had let the work and the people overwhelm her, and forgot her original reason and plan for attending college. It was so she could pursue her dream and goal of starting her own company, called Satin Designs. She is a senior now, and it won't be long. Once the fire was lit within her, there was no stopping her.

 Some say it takes heart and soul. No, it takes body, mind and soul. The heart is in the soul, or part of it. The spirit is in the mind. The body must have the energy to motivate it all, and can't be drained by drugs. It takes all three parts of our body to rein in the spirit and give it direction.

 The reward is your goal; maybe a goal you didn't even know existed until you were in the process or on the path. The goal is your reward, and the reward is profound -- it is, quite simply, your destiny. Maybe that's too pat. It is many destinies -- you are in control -- however many you are willing to discover. But all of your purpose and meaning revolve around that one little spark. And when the flame ignites, watch out, because nobody can touch you unless you let them approach. The flame is forever, eternity -- it is life, re-creating itself over and over.

 Once ignited, secrets are revealed in the flame. I have already lighted your way to a degree. You see, because my own flame burns bright, but I can light your way only so far. Do you not see? Look into the different colors of the flame, the vision, hypnotizing, it gives and gives.

 The secrets are in the approach, the process, the mindset of the spirit. You have to look, seek it out, but look from where?

 "Whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy--meditate on these things." --Philippians 4:8

 These are just eight concepts, ideas, approaches, secrets right in front of our noses that we try to find elsewhere. We look everywhere, but they are already within us. Look at any one-year old child. They are all there, and many other things as well. There is no path to yourself; you cannot search outside yourself to find who you are. That's why "things" don't satisfy, and someone else can only satisfy you temporally -- it doesn't last so it doesn't seem real, so you want more love, more sex, more friends, more drugs, but until the flame burns, there is only a void.

 There is a time for love -- but if attached too early, you are distracted before you find your true purpose -- attaching your self-esteem, everything to someone else's person (their dreams, goals, misgivings, insecurities, their rules, their life, their search, whatever that may be?), to something temporal. How can that satisfy long-term? It deludes us at first, love is just an emotion with no brains, and many or most people go right into the care-giving mode, sacrificing self on the alter of love.

 And so often, too often, it crashes and burns, because we lost sight or never found the true purpose and meaning -- there was no fuel for the fire, and a false fire is consumed, and consumes all around it. It leads on to drinking or drugs.

 Sure, love contains all eight secrets and more, sure you were put here to love and procreate, but only after what? Oh, darn, you're going to tell me there are conditions? There are always conditions and priorities; unconditional love is a myth. You must be whole first, or it is attached to temporal fantasy and emotion and entertainment -- existing, not living. Only a whole plus a whole can create a whole something. If one of the parts is not whole, it breaks down into fractions -- unwholesomeness -- destruction.

 Keep your priorities straight. If you fail in one area, all else seems to fail along with it. If your relationship fails, it will tend to self-destruct all other aspects of your life, whether college or other project you are building. If you fail the project or the job, it will disrupt, and probably destruct your relationship.

 Your number one priority is yourself, at least for awhile longer -- not him, nor your father or family -- it is your growth "toward" being the one. The one is everybody's treasure. It sparks and sparkles from a flame of light deep within -- the cherished gift of life created, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that rewards everyone and never runs dry.