Alterations

This moment holds all moments.

As so many of us want to be “in the moment” (I understand this) I still see that if we invest so much into how “this” moment is and then use this perceived state to judge ourselves, that if we do this, then we box ourselves out of any attachment to what our lives have been. This provides a “freedom” from suffering because all the things that we “use” to cause our suffering cannot touch us.

I have had these experiences as well so I am familiar with this sensation of not suffering. Beautiful.

I can see that all those “perceptions” that cause or have caused my suffering came into being as a result of many of my experiences (I am sure not all of my experiences were bad, yet it appears the formative ones were unhealthy).

My childhood experiences built the foundations of my worldview. As a result I interpreted the world and my interactions using the language of fear. And I continued to do so throughout my life, even today it is the dominant filter.

I feel like a surgeon, and that I am wielding a scalpel through the myriad of electrical impulses in my very own brain, trying to cleave between healthy and unhealthy signals. What to ignore, what to destroy, what to set aside until later, so many intuitive  choices to make, and to make them with all the distortions still active within, what a task! To observe and discard the very distortions that I am trying to see beyond! Amazing. It is like looking through a fogged lens to see where it needs to be cleaned.

I have read about how a butcher can sense the “joints” of an animal and how he moves the cleaver through the path of least resistance, that it requires very little effort because he knows the structures. What I sense I am doing is beginning to sense the structures, that experience isn’t perception but that it forms it. They are separate entities but they interact, back and forth. Perception can inform experience and experience can inform perception.

I am separating these two, sensing the relationship so that I may sever the connective tissues, lay them out on the table and have a look.

Of course I cannot go back and change any experience. I haven’t got time travel figured out yet. Sensing these as separate yet interdependent is to see the causes and effects of my experience of this day, here and now.

Trying to perceive my perceptions, so to speak.

So far this is a largely intellectual discussion. My perception of my perceptions is about understanding, thinking.

But of course there is the emotional realm in play as well. And emotions are to be felt, not dissected. The ache of a lonely life, failed relationships, and the legacy of traumas are matters of heartbreak.

It is so helpful to understand that my “faulty” perceptions are mutations of unhealthy experiences. So helpful. This shines a light on the way forward, to know that I can set aside the unhealthy patterns.

Setting aside these patterns is a very life-altering endeavour. It requires nothing less than a complete re-make of my entire being. To do this requires that everything must be set aside, that no previous patterns are sacred.

A healthy annihilation.  An act of destruction for the sake of survival.

I have built my life up to the limits that I could handle, and these limits represent my ability to perceive.

The boundaries of my life have been staked out based on my limitations, my limitations have been staked out based on my perceptions, my perceptions have been staked out by my experiences. And many of those experiences were deeply limiting. Hence my life.

Fuck.

See this. See clearly that this is the loose thread of all loose threads. Pull on this and everything falls apart. Alter the perceptions, alter the boundaries.

It has to fall apart. Something in me demands that it falls apart. It makes me shake.