Saturday, June 17, 2006

Going Fishing Indefinitely

I've been posting pretty regularly to this blog since January of 2005. I'd like to continue doing it. But I've decided that I can't give this blog the time, effort, and, most importantly, the quality it deserves unless and until I read more, contemplate more, live more, learn more, and have more to say about things worth saying, and more discipline and skill to say them the way I want to say them.

I don't know when that will be or if it will ever be. I'm trying not to be negative about myself and pessimistic about my future, but I am. I don't feel depressed. I have in the past. I know very well what depression feels like, but I don't feel that now. I just feel a sense of futility in going on the way I'm going. I feel the need to either go a different way, or to resign myself to a life in which the best I can hope for is to earn a modest living, be a decent husband and decent person overall, and stop trying to figure out what it's all about and stop trying to write about it.

Because as long as I go on the way I'm going now, I'm not really going to figure anything out or have anything to say that's worth saying. And more or less just going through the motions of posting to this blog the way I'm doing now is stealing incalculably precious time away from the practical necessities of life that I've been neglecting AND from the kind of disciplined study and integral life practice in which I need to engage in order to produce the kind of blog I want to produce and write the kinds of books I want to write if I really have what it takes to do it and haven't merely been deceiving myself all along into thinking I have what I don't have.

At times like these, I suspect that I HAVE been deceiving myself. I suspect that I bring too little intelligence, talent, and willpower to the table to create anything that isn't less than mediocre, and if I can't be better than less than mediocre at something, I'd rather not do it at all. But the fact of the matter is that I just don't know what I have the capacity to do with my learning and writing, because I've never really given myself the chance to find out. During my time away from this blog, I hope to find out. And if I discover that I have anything to say that seems to be truly worth saying, I'll be back to say it here just as soon as I can.

I don't know how many people read this blog regularly or even semi-regularly and truly give a damn about anything I've written here, but I thank you for spending time here with me, and I hope that if I come back, you will too.

Namaste,
Steve

5 comments:

Gagdad Bob said...

You unfairly denigrate your abilities as a writer and your powers of expression, which far surpass most spiritual writers. Your honest doubt and confusion are far preferable to bogus certainty and spiritual inflation.

All you lack is a certain dimension of experience with the real that would allow you to speak form the inside out instead of speculating from the outside in. Until you have that in a stable way, you will always question yourself and be prone to overestimating others. Your overestimation of others is actually a noble virtue, for it is a mark of the humble man, and God favors the humble and sincere.

But the perpetual doubt is a function of the ego, which is a doubting machine. That's what it is there for, and that is why it must be countered by faith until faith transforms itself into objective knowledge.

When you find it you will know it, for it is every bit as palpable and real as falling in love. You wouldn't question it any more than you would question the evidence of your senses. You will be further humbled by it, but humility does not mean being a shrinking violet or not standing for truth. It is just grateful acknowledgement that the source of truth is not ego, but a grace.

Good luck.

Anonymous said...

Jesus said: " Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. "

In Jesus you will find peace and certainty. God bless you Steve, you have been doing a fine job...

Anonymous said...

http://bible1.crosswalk.com/OnlineStudyBible/bible.cgi

I think you will find this interesting reading, it speaks of a time when John the Baptist had questions...

You are getting close Steve, don't give up!

Anonymous said...

The link won't work go to:
http://www.crosswalk.com/

search Matthew 11

Steve said...

Bob, I appreciate your kind words and suggestions more than you know. They are even part of the reason why I've decided not to suspend my blog after all. I think you're right about me being too hard on myself. We need to have goals and work toward them, but those goals need to be realistic, our progress realistically assessed, and our efforts patient as well as persistent.

I agree with you that I need to develop within myself a faith that "transforms itself into objective knowledge" or something approaching objective knowledge. Actually, I believe that the seeds of that faith already lie within. I just need to cultivate them. Continuing with this blog in the right way can be part of the process. As can an integral life practice modeled not necessarily after Ken Wilber but tailored to my particular constellation of traits and qualities.

Thanks again, Bob

Namaste,
Steve