Dictacting Habits

Dictating Habits

I fight with myself.  So far, no bruises, not even mean words tossed randomly out on a hunt and destroy mission.  My battle are small ones.  One of my most current ones is what I am reading. Perhaps, I have touched on the subject before.  After all, I did turn another year older during this month of May so who knows what memories I have stashed in the dark, cold, cobwebbed places in my mind.  I have given up on index cards as so many of my thoughts really have no constructive purpose in existing except for being a flashing minute, whizzing like so many atoms before they decide to join for a singular purpose.  Some of my thoughts, well, are simply there.

 

Books, I loved to be surrounded by them.  I like my piles, promises of adventures leading me to hate one character, root for another or to weep with an outcry of no, not him, not her, or it.  But should I have a goal, a purpose to picking up the next one, turning the page? I read primarily for pleasure.  However, there are times I look at my various philosophy, spiritual or what I think of as nonsectarian books sitting lonely on the shelf. Books, if they possess consciousness, would they wonder where I had gone? I, too, wonder where I have gone.

 

I have been looking at my habits, the little rituals, the paths I follow daily. When I was younger I had no other goal except for drifting up a hillside to reach the top stopping to graze for hours into the valley below, watching the river wind through its channel, the elk grazing quietly on the hillside across the river.  I would wait until nearly dusk until heading down the hill to a home cooked meal by my father. I could breath. I could wonder. I was more alive.

Now my little habits gathered through the years are dictating my life.  I get up, wander into the bathroom, heading to the kitchen to make my tea before opening the refrigerator seeking breakfast. The spontaneity is sadly lacking.  Or perhaps, the responsibilities have taken over, the need to work, to make the paycheck, to pay the bills is what my life is about.  Maslow’s hierarchy of needs still applies to my life.  Without the security and comfort of my home, and the realization food will be on the table I would not even consider life has more meaning than just the basics other than breathing.

A friend who has recently had surgery suggested the following. ”You should write about how a broken toe has nowhere to go.” I decided to take it under consideration.  After all, would a broken toe want to go somewhere? Where is nowhere? And if the broken toe left on a journey, does it have a purpose in implementing said journey? Can it bring into play any goals considering its handicap? Does the toe have a consciousness? An awareness of self? Or does it only wish to be better in order to cram itself back into a very vogue pair of shoes? Back to habits. 

Dictating habits? Often I do the same things over and over instead of creating a new way of doing something until it nearly hits me in the head with an ah moment.  Suddenly, I am aware of a whole new consciousness, barriers have been lifted and I look into myself trying to figure out where the new idea came from.  For a moment, my heart leaps, I do the happy dance, joyful in suddenly finding something new in what I have done before. There is a glimpse of my other self, the mystic, the child of the stars who disappears again.

I am still building up my piles of books, reaching for the tantalizing quick read rather than the more thought provoking tomes of insight. I am sometimes conscience-stricken at my imagined lack of dedication to enlightenment.  Until I find what is dictating habits in my life, I will just move on moment to moment, reading another book, wondering if a broken toe can ever find enlightenment or the perfect shade of shoes.