Instinct

From before we are born, we have knowledge. We have the learning of our species. It comes from centuries packed into us in the form of instinct.

As infants our fingers wrap around things.

We know how to make noise when we need attention. We are drawn to mate to preserve our species. We to fight or flee when we fear danger. Our instinct overrides our reasoning.

We know before we say our names to cry when we feel pain, when we need.

We know things.

How do we know so many things . . . and still not know ourselves?

−me strauss Letting me be

Traffic Jams and Wisdom

At times, I think Sartre was right.
I have no need for hot pokes -- hell is other people.

People. Wouldn’t life be nice without them? Every decision would be easy. No hurt feelings could ever happen. No one would judge what we do. No one would tell us “ought tos,” “musts,” and “shoulds.” We would be in paradise, living a life of Riley, and we could mix metaphors like that with abandon.
Of course, there’s no real logic that paragraph. It’s escapist thinking that comes around when I’m being pulled in too many directions, and feeling too many people making too many demands.

“Go here. Go there. Go out. Go inside. Go up. Go down. Faster. Faster. Slow down. It’s too blurry. You don’t care. You care too much. What are doing there? What are thinking now? Why aren’t you doing what I want you to do? Can’t you see that my way is the best way for to go? If you don’t think like me, you are selfish and possibly clinical. I’d never treat you that way. I’d do what I think you should do. Listen to me. Listen to my needs. They are more important than yours”

Clutter and noise. Noise and clutter. Who can think in the midst that? Who can find the directions a map? “Honk, honk. Beep. beep. Beep. beep. Honk, honk. Screech. Bang. Crunch! Look what you’ve done to me. Why weren’t you paying attention?”

It’s a traffic jam of people telling me what to do, who I should be. Time to find my way to a rest area. One by one, I drive away onto slower roads, until I am alone on the road that is me.

Then I can look inside and listen to my own inner wisdom.

It doesn't yell answers. It merely speaks what I already know.

−me strauss Letting me be

My Place in the Sun

On the first day of school, in a seminar, at someone’s house, peoples say, “Come on in. Find a place. Make yourself comfortable.” They seem to think that’s easy. They seem to think that any place is the same, just the same as any other.

That might be how it works for them. It’s not how it works for me.

When I find a place to be comfortable, I become part of it. It becomes part of me.

I’m an introvert, extrovert, introvert, who likes to be in a cave, on the stage, in a cave. Please don’t look at me or make me invisible. Don’t leave out or put me on a pedestal. I’m really shy, but I never have stage fright. The difference in all of these is holding the microphone.

All my life I’ve had a feeling that I would do something important, something that only I would make happen. Maybe that’s why I’m such a weird combination of contradictions or maybe I’m so normal that I can’t see it. It seems awfully normal towalk around feeling different, contradictory, and confused.

Isn’t everyone looking for their place in the sun?
I think that mine is hiding somewhere deep inside of me.

−me strauss Letting me be