Where is this all going?

In everything you can find something. A Buddhist friend once remarked, accurately, that I was lost in decadent passions. Why didn’t I restrict my senses, he wondered, exasperated and disappointed. I’d try to explain that while discipline and morality was important, it’s not the entire cannon of life, and that even within something as dangerous and dirty as sex can be found who we really are. I had another friend who is a profoundly accomplished meditator, who was forever correcting my habits of being conceptual. But language, another stuff of this world, is not merely a distraction, or even merely a tool, we can study the notes of it and learn simple arrangements until we embody language and little symphonies can come out as expressions of our world. That’s worth the effort, and that changes a person too. I mean, you never know who is going to speak to you with something to say – it could be anyone. If something is deeply engaging and you let it have it’s way with you, chances are it will change you. We are only drifting and distracted when we are not engaged, so ping pong or flower arranging or running or rock climbing or sitting still quietly all engage people and change them into more of a person. It’s hard to know what a person is all about if we don’t share their engagements. But basically it seems to me that the magic afoot is sprinkled liberally. Basic keys to seeing, uncovering, and partaking of mystery juices seem to start with faithful honesty and reckless curiosity. So I think a lot of us aren’t exactly rootless expat drifters going after easy pleasures. We may be rootless expat drifters engaging in life’s pleasures. That’s different.