Life: bad poetry, drinking, and awareness

Last updated on: January 9, 2006 at 6:17 am by Justin Whitaker

Life: bad poetry, drinking, and awareness 2006-01-09T06:17:00-07:00 Justin Whitaker

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I haven’t posted much lately, due to numerous factors. One, I’ve been working, which has been fantastic (I love my job), but energy-consuming. Two, I’ve been drinking a ton this past week. It started on New Years, which is always a weird time for me, as with many people I suppose. I had a very nice New Year’s eve with friends this year, though I still finished the night somewhat unhappy, unsatisfied, and certainly drunk. When I finally got home, near 3am, I managed to pen this into my journal:

Poems for the New Year:
I left my nice Spanish shoes on the kitchen table.
I don’t know why….
Perhaps out of anger.

I think I was planning on writing more, but I guess that was enough. I was very contemplative, despite being so drunk, which is a first for me I suppose; a new milestone. I was reminded of those stories of when animals will get angry and respond by urinating or defecating in the bed of the person who they are mad at. I was just angry at the world, at society for making this day so important and burdening it with so much expectation, only, all too often, to let us down.

Then last night I penned this gem:

In January I drink.
Other months I think.
But January, no __ I just drink.
Perhaps its the cold, the sky of grey
Or the all-to-short, sunless day.
Or the boredom between the insanity
Of holidays and family
And further philosophy.
The inanity….
Of being alone
So…. In January I drink.

Not really up there with Dogen or William Blake, but… What can ya do? I’m reminded of a conversation I read not long ago by two students of the great Tibetan master Chogyam Trungpa, one who felt he had succumbed to alcoholism and the other defending him as being ever mindful despite being drunk so often, and surely not deserving the label ‘alcoholic’.

My sister quit drinking, with a short stint in AA; my father almost never drinks now after difficulties of his own; one of my own most spiritually developmental periods of life was four months in 2004 when I swore off alcohol. It has been back an forth for me since then, working to ‘accept’ and ‘make use of’ alcohol in my life without the excess of youthful abandon. I don’t believe in alcoholism, only suffering and a certain very bad way of dealing with it. Accepting a label and giving up decisions to a ‘higher power’ may work for some, and if it works, great, but for me that is not an option.

Instead I seek awareness in the moment, beit sober or drunken, calm or overwhelmingly happy, attracted or repulsed, lustfull or content. Awareness being simply the ability to recognize the moment, the state I am in, the context, the causes and conditions for this, now. How often do we do this? Take account of the countless factors which make up us, here and now. Do this. It makes no difference whether you are happy, sad, calm, drunk, whatever. Just bring awareness to yourself and your world. In this, with practice, I think we can all achieve enlightenment. And Chogyam Trungpa’s defenders, who include the very great Pema Chodron, are correct.

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Buddhism: learning via enigma

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January 11, 2006 Life: A short update from Hawai'i

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