Blue Dot

How do you know where you are and which direction you are going? On GPS maps there is a blue dot which shows your location, and the area around. It is implied that the dot means "You are Here". The map shows you what is nearby.

In life it is not always so clear. There is no longer a general "map" of what is best to do. Society, Religion and other situations used to provide a structure, they dictated the terrain. But those are falling away and we are outgrowing them. How do we know what to do, the best route, the valuable destinations? What I can say is that each person is the blue dot. They are where they are and they decide where to go next.

But what of the map? There is no map. There is not a structure saying what is best, where to go or what to do. It never really existed and that is becoming obvious now. There is not an authority that one can turn to and get answers. You are your own authority. You decide, not based on something someone told you, or a scenario that other people laid down, but based on your perception and needs.

A common saying is: "If the map doesn't match the terrain, trust the terrain." That is the answer. And: there is no map. Just the blue dot moving through the terrain, and that is you. You are the blue dot. There isn't anything to tell you what is real and where to go, you are on your own.

Tiamat

This is what is real. In Egyptian naming there is Ma'at, the Divine World Order. This is everything that we know, everything we can know. Everyone is in love with what we can see, talk about. Of course. What else is there?

But there is also Tiamat: primordial chaos. Chaos is an unfortunate word here, because what was before what is, was peaceful. It was simply unformed, not turbulent. There were no forces clashing, or things being created and destroyed: this was before all that. This is like the Void that I talk about - all possibility, no actuality.

The Void gave rise to all that is - Experience. These are the Two Real Things. When people talk about Nirvana or culmination of some kind, they always ask, "What are we going toward? What is there after this?" The least cruel answer is that there is nothing else. All that is, all that God made here and now, is sufficient! It doesn't matter if there is a Heaven or Hell, because we cannot confirm or deny it. It is irrelevant to the people looking back at you today. It is said that we are made in God's image. But the important point is that what we call God is only an image. Tiamat gave rise to it. Vishnu is said to dream all of Creation. Shiva is said to dance existence in to being. There is no other God, or reality. You are that. You are God's fingers and eyes and ears. You are the love of God. Not as a metaphor or a symbol: actually. All that you see, everyone you know is "What God Hath Wrought." Nothing else exists. Is that not enough?

The reason that I am on to this right now, is that I listened to a song called Procession, by New Order. I used to listen to it long ago, but had to stop, because at that time the person that you would say is "me" was not happy. Perhaps not actually depressed in the clinical sense, but he had no one right then to care for, or to lean on. He had to be self-sufficient. I heard the song again last night when looking for something else, and I was crushed by the wave of horrid feelings that washed over me. Had I been so sad before? I had stopped seeing my friends because I was weighing on them. My family was far away and I would not have sought them out for that anyhow. So when I heard the song last night for the first time in probably two decades or more, I suddenly faced a terrifying gulf. Everything I know about myself now seemed blythe and unimportant. What could I say to that person?

Recently I was talking with my fiancee and she wondered what makes some people go forward in to growth and flourishing, and other people fall back, or give up? This is in fact a version of Camus' famous statement: "The only real Philosophical question is whether or not to commit suicide." Few people do, and I am not so much talking here about actually taking one's own life, but I would have words for someone who makes that choice. Everyone faces difficult, painful, or perhaps even shattering experiences. Au'hua'a saw her community self-destruct and a thousand people throw themselves off a cliff.

But this is not "your" pain. Your experience does not belong to you. It is all that is, you don't get to claim any of it for "yourself", because remember? You of yourself do not exist except as part of Tiamat, rendered in to form as Ma'at. Your pain is the pain of being, of creation, of giving birth. All that is, is Formlessness changing in to Form. It is painful! That does not belong to you!

In the song it says:

Its a problem, you know, that's been there all your life:
How to make you see the world without you, that just turns black and white?

You have the power to go forward, or not. You choose and it is so. But your choices affect others. Not only ones you know, but people around you, and in your future that your touch could heal. You have the power, but not the right, to make others' world turn black and white.

For me, this song is like a thread. I had very little support in my life for my view. I was not a spiritual person at all then. The thread, playing over and over as I listened to the song driving on dangerous snowy roads was like hearing the Sirens sing, and also hearing people who cared about me, people I know I could help, crying out. I was being torn in two. But when my fiancee asked me the other day what made me go forward a few years ago when it seemed like I was facing only walls, I had no words for her. I felt it, with my very being. There is no other answer.

It is not a question of good and evil, of chaos being bad and life being good. There is only one thing, and it leaves us no place to hide in Philosophy, ideology or Religion. We are meant to create, not hide. There is only forward. If you choose to permanently exempt yourself from being, or just fully being, you will be missed. There is no replacement.

ICE (In Case of Emergency)

• Derail Deficiency Thinking. Replace it with Being.
• Always turn away from Story.
• Remember that no one will understand or relate.
• Stop idolizing Choice.
• Think less. Merge thoughts.
• Meditate. (yes, start doing it again)
• Hobby? ("something that doesn't talk back")
• Go "Uh" more often.
• Strive to impart info, not a point of view.
• Don't tell Story.