Holy Curiosity by Lucky

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. ... Never lose holy curiosity.

                                                                                                                          Albert Einstein

I’m a lucky fellow. I found this quote in a manuscript I was reading. The 82 year-old author highlighted her sense that we old folks have a special capacity, if we protect it, to be curious in a distinctive way. This comports with my own sense, and it excites me, when I catch wind that someone else, aging so magnificently, is also noticing it. It turns out, that Albert, in his old age, noticed it too. All of this noticing inspired me to look deeper into, what Albert, in his wisdom, called holy curiosity.

The notion, that questions are a lot more valuable than answers (than even knowing), was introduced to me, years ago, by my partner Xan. She used to say, “there is nothing so precious as a good question.” I was so full of myself, so full of, what I thought of as knowing, that it took awhile for me to get the value of what she was saying. Now, I think I’m getting it. The power of inquiry, of looking deeply into anything is moderated by the quality of questions one asks. Understanding this is changing my life.

Along the way, I’m grasping, that my willingness to experience more of the surprising is growing. I can’t really say that that growth is at my behest. This is an area where Life is changing me. Last time I looked, I wasn’t so keen on experiencing things that didn’t quite match-up with my preconceptions. It wasn’t that I was so arrogant (OK, maybe I was), it was more like I was just too human, not very mature, a product of our culture. Anyway, I’ve aged, and been ripened some. Unbidden, I’m finding a growing desire in my self, to inquire into this mysterious existence. In my mind, holy curiosity is coming on.

I especially like the part of this formulation that considers being curious as holy. Most of my life, I’ve just considered myself (and anyone who seemed like me) nosy. Einstein is suggesting another possibility. There seems to be some awareness that curiosity, the restless nature of my interest in getting at whatever is going on, serves some higher purpose. Wow! Who would have ever guessed being curious is a spiritual practice!

Suddenly, Life is turning out to be a mystery, a who-dunnit that features me as a detective. I like mystery novels, but I’m not sure this is one I would take out of the library. I know too much already about the protagonist. Or, do I? Maybe the mystery hinges upon the audaciousness of my curiosity. I have a mixed-mind, a deep ambivalence, that comes up when I begin to realize, that like it or not, I’m implicated, and somehow responsible, for what is passing.

Anyway, the sense that there is something innate in me, that manifests as curiosity, and that is in the service of anything spiritual, is mind-blowing.  I would be curious about how such a thing is even remotely possible, but I’m too overwhelmed by the notion. Holy shit, holy curiosity might be a real thing!

In the strange way my brain-damaged mind works (if, you could call it that), holy curiosity arises about the time a person realizes they know just enough to know they don’t really know anything. Then some strange alchemy starts taking place. Not knowing morphs into holy curiosity. The desire to experience what cannot be known, takes over. Then the holy shit gets really deep.

Einstein was obviously curious. He was treated like he was this unusual phenomenon, a genius, so rare, but in fact I think he was just an ordinary human being. Maybe he was different because he was so curious, but I don’t think so. I think curiosity is built-in, a compass that is capable of helping all of us find our way home.  It really is a return instinct. Like the one the salmon have — if we let it, it’ll help us find our own spawning ground.

Holy curiosity. It’s in us. The path home is marked by the desire to learn. I blush at never having considered this possibility. I also laugh. The real genius is evolution. Somehow, throughout the many billion years that are involved, this trait curiosity survives, and calls us deeper back to the enchantment that made us possible.

There is a school that develops holy curiosity; it’s called Life. We are right there, right now. Wow!

Reluctance = Resistance by Lucky

I’ve been going through something lately. Something big. Its beating me up, and teaching me a great deal. I’m not really going to describe the details, but I am going to dwell on the process. I’ve found that as I get older that the process of integration, that is happening, brings me up against some of my life-long patterns. When that happens I usually don’t respond very well. I am reluctant to let myself feel the conflict, disappointment, and grief within. I guess it is only natural. I’m human, and much of what confronts me, are patterns of belief and behavior that have clearly defined me in the past.

Life doesn’t seem to care. At least in no way that I have considered caring. What I’m finding is that Life is impeccably ruthless. It rubs my face in the messes I have indulged in making. There is some kind of impersonal and highly idiosyncratic love at work. I’m being shaped up despite myself. The process is reliable, painful, and grace-filled. Life seems to know how to evolve a better me, and very slowly I’m learning how to trust that process and cooperate with it.

I think it was the developmentalist Robert Kegan that first impressed me with the realization that resisting Life is painful. I do it all of the time. And, I am paying for it. But, as I get older, I’m more prone to notice what is at stake, and to suffer more honestly. That means I am more likely to admit to myself, and others, that I have succeeded again in getting in my own way, and making it hard to change. I would rather fight anything than fight myself. Despite my resolve, Life keeps finding the blemishes in my character that need attention, and calling my attention to them.

Right now, I’m being faced with my own well-designed falseness. I’ve lived out a kind of arrogant stance that I know has hurt me, and especially those I professed to care for. That’s a hard awareness to be confronted by. And I’m really grateful that I’m being confronted by it right now, when I can still do something about it, rather than in my last moments of life. Life seems to have a bucket list for me, that if I handle some of these items, I’m going to rest easier when I die. That seems like a kind of compassionate justice I could never imagine.

The problem of the moment is that I have such a reluctance to face the music. It is humiliating, admitting one’s shortcomings; facing how unloving, and self-protective, one is (I’m not past anything yet). I’m not collapsing into shame, although I can feel the temptation. I am standing forlornly in front of my own humanity. I can see that my own reluctance to see what a schlemiel I am capable of being has been a form of resistance. I didn’t want to know myself that well.

This kind of self-knowing is a painful gift. Life cares about me enough to make me really uncomfortable with what I am capable of. And, it’s giving me a chance to find out where integrity lays in my life. In some kind of strange twist of fate, my gratitude grows as I open up to the hurt I have participated in perpetuating.

With all of that kind of awareness cascading into my life like an avalanche of wakefulness, I am enlivened and chagrined. My reluctance before awareness is clearly putting off the inevitability of the gift. Am I resisting, or merely crouching in anticipation of the loving blow? I really can’t say. I know that I have resisted, and that my reluctance has abetted my resistance. I am that human, stubbornly determined to have things my way. But, lately, aging has softened me up, and provided more perspective. I now walk towards what diminishes me, in an effort to cooperate more with the wholing process I now perceive.

Reluctance is turning out to be a faithful scout, a little scraggly, deceptively anxious, but unerring in noticing that something is coming. And, I’m finding that even a broken life is an incredible gift.

Escape Velocity by Lucky

I realized something this week. It has to do with freedom, and is so contrary to the usual way I think about the advantages of aging that I just had to explore this thought. It has to do with overcoming the siren call of cultural manipulation, the normal associations which have so much to do with limiting our imaginations and choices. As I’ve grown older, and been exposed to so much ageism, I’ve been radicalized, to the point where I now consider myself a greying freedom fighter.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about one of the most important features of centenarians. People over 100 years of age are the fastest growing demographic group anywhere on the planet. They are the embodiment of the longevity revolution. They are a pretty interesting group. Each of them has idiosyncrasies that make them compelling, but what strikes me is the features they have in common. One in particular captures my attention. They have managed to escape the gravitational pull of mass mind. By that, I mean that they are no longer captive of the need to live up to any of the standards of the societies they are embedded within. They have achieved a degree of freedom that is unprecedented.

For a while now, I’ve known of this. Sometimes I even talk about it with friends and other older folks. When I do, I usually refer to these folks as ones who have achieved a kind of “escape velocity” of their own, which has allowed them to acquire an orbit of their own. They become totally unique. They are not governed from anywhere but inside.

Knowing of this facet of long life has amazed and beguiled me.  Recently, however, I began to re-think the notion of escape velocity. The usual association with gaining the velocity that defies gravitational pull has to do with speed. The assumption that prevails is that only by going fast enough one reaches escape velocity. In the paradoxical realm that accompanies old age it is a different speed that allows escape from the most egregious components of the cultural trance. Nature has already implemented this change of speed, but by and large we, like good automatons, resist it. I realized this week that the actual way of achieving escape velocity, and getting away from the gravitational pull of cultural hypnosis, is to go slower. Escape velocity at this age means slowing down.

I’ve written before about how speed kills, and how speeding along allows one to miss so much. These are definitely poignant inconveniences, but they have never been significant enough to slow anyone down. Now it seems that there is an aspect of nature’s design that slows us down. Aging seems to have its own kind of gravity. The upshot is that as people get older they get slower.

In our culture that is something to resist— a sign of a turn for the worst— the beginning of a downhill slide. But, in fact, it’s the beginning of a time when one, at last, gets to be themselves. Slowing down is a hallmark, a land mark of age, the beginning of a frontier of freedom. To ignore, and try to resist this inexorable force is dangerous. One’s internal integrity is at stake. So is the sense of belonging here in the Universe.

I remember a time, early on, when I was struggling with my own identity, being freshly disabled. Then a friend confronted me with a difficult question. She asked, “Are you a disabled person, or a person with disabilities?”  That question helped me re-orient myself. I was a disabled person, but I knew, that if I was going to live fully, and actualize my self, then I had to become a person who merely had some disabilities.

This situation is like that. This is a choice point. Are you a citizen of your culture, or are you a citizen of this life? Slowing down can help you make a real decision. It is a fundamental choice, one that has important ramifications for you, and your off spring. Cultural time would have you go fast and barely pay any attention to what is at stake at this point in your life, but nature is going to slow you, and give you the chance, if you want it, to decide for yourself who you want to be.

I hope you can find the internal wherewithal to make a good decision for yourself. And remember, escape velocity is actually slower than most of us believe (and frequently go).

Sinking In by Lucky

As I’ve gotten older, particularly here in the later years of my life, I’ve noticed a kind of movement happening. I’m not referring to anything political or anything that one might consider a form of action. This undertaking seems to be occurring unbidden, rather naturally.  It is subtle, but never-the-less quite powerful. I have associated it with aging, because it doesn’t seem personal and as far as I know, I haven’t done anything that would bring this on. What I’m referring too is that I seem to be sinking down more into my own skin. My life is taking on more and more an inner dimension.

I think of it now like one of the old Tarzan TV programs I used to watch as a kid. Folks were always getting stuck in quicksand. I think I am stuck and being pulled in. It just occurred to me that one of the features of old age that I have been talking about lately is gravity. It doesn’t seem to be my friend. As I grow older I am shrinking. This feels a lot like that. I am being turned inward as my life experience increases. I am sinking in, pulled by some natural phenomenon, into unknown depths.

My early experiences with dreams and psychedelics make this a fairly non-threatening experience. I have generally liked the sense of direction that has come with having a more luminous inner life. This movement, appearing within me now, does seem rather odd though. I don’t know how else to relate to it. Just when my dreams have lost their intensity and regularity, this something else seems to be pitching in to captivate me. I’m dreaming less and imagining more.

I would say that whatever creative impulses I feel now all come to me in this same kind of unbidden way. My thoughts kind of loosely wander into strange places where, for some unknown reason, formerly separate things combine into unusual ideas. Yesterday, for instance, one of my brothers came into my mind and I imagined him doing something I’ve never seen him do. This kind of thing happens regularly now. I’m not about to report some weird form of precognition or even weirder synchronicity, but just the simple recognition that the thought of this brother doing that activity strikes me as endearing, and that tells me I want to see him sometime soon.

More commonly I find myself thinking of the past, envisioning an interaction, and remembering a specific person, place, or time in my life. Suddenly a realization involving my experience with that person, or with that time of my life, will come into my mind. All at once, I see that I was doing something other than what I thought I was doing at the time. Unbidden, my life (or another’s) will be revealed to me, in a light I’ve never seen before.

I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but what is happening is interesting, different, and sometimes illuminating. It happens often enough now where I’ve learned to trust it, and to pay attention. My life seems to be richer for it.

I don’t know about you, but I didn’t wish for this kind of development. Like some kind of alter-me, this gift of weird awareness just snuck into the house of my being. It was never a guest I invited. As I’ve paid a lot more attention to getting older (I’m not trying to, but its occurring anyway) I’ve read that this happens. As people get into their later years they become more and more turned inward. Well, I guess the gravity of aging is pulling me in.

As this has been unfolding I’ve begun to wonder about what’s going on, and why it might be happening with me? Why this particular development? Maybe it’s a movement towards a more balanced being. I’ve never focused much upon being internally aware. That seems plausible. I’ve never placed much emphasis upon inner life. I never meditated, prayed, or been particularly contemplative. Maybe, this is a skill I always had, that maybe I inherited from a relative. Could be, I guess, though no one comes to mind. I come from a line of very pragmatic farmers.

I’ve settled on the idea that this turn inward is a species thing more than a personal thing. I kind of like the idea that evolution has got my back. I think this is a widespread phenomenon that helps each of us become more of what we are meant to be. Just as I am going to die inevitably, I’m going to have some internal capacity to look at my life, with internal eyes, eyes that see things differently, and aid me in seeing more of the mystery of what’s going on here.

I now believe that nature endows us with an innate capacity for an internal awareness that comes on-line later in our lives, to assist us with integrating the experience we are having here. I’m sinking inwards as I age because that helps me become myself, more unique and free. It also increases the likelihood that I can make an original contribution to my community and to this existence.

The quicksand is life taking me inexorably home. An aspect of that movement, like tidal action, is inward. So, I’m slowly sinking in.

Existential Vulnerability by Lucky

There is a natural state, a kind of awareness that everyone experiences. This state, for good reason, is rarely described. I suppose the experience, though very common, is hard to capture with words. I know I feel daunted. The vulnerability that attends existence isn’t felt and experienced the same by everyone.  Words cannot convey fully what happens, or what it is like. In fact, there seems to be a deep ambivalence that attends the experience and protects one from it.

Regardless, of the natural limitations that make this part of being human so impossible to convey, I’m going to try to penetrate that ambivalence enough to refer to this facet of being alive. I know I cannot do more. For, although I think our shared existential vulnerability unites us, I am aware that what we commonly experience does not easily translate into words. The condition that animates us into existence, and attends to us throughout life, often evades us, precisely because of its power in our lives. There is a natural reticence that comes with a deep realization of how fragilely we are created. There is a state of paradoxical nakedness that accompanies each of us no matter how well dressed our station in life. The fact we are alive is so precious and so evanescent!

The vulnerability of existence, the knowledge that each of us is here, and that we did nothing to make it so, somehow sheers from us bravado, and reduces each of us into a quivering mass of meat. This experience underlies everything. Whether a banker, professor, miner, or street person with delusional thoughts, each can be reduced to that same steaming heap of dust. There is humility and a implacable justice that attends this leveling off. All are really nothing, and oddly and inexplicably something. This is the raw state we share.

Recently, I heard someone with a heart pacemaker describe waking up in the middle of the night, with irregular heartbeats, and wondering if this is the moment, the way she was going to die. I have reason to suspect that most of those reading these words have had their own moments like this. Everyone knows our time could end any moment and few of us live like that. I am writing about this, not because I think we should be trying to live out each moment with this awareness. I do.

What motivates my writing today is something quite different, I want to underscore the perpetual fragility of all of our lives. This aspect of what we all share, brings out the compassion in me, and most importantly, arouses awareness in me.  I share the same mysterious origin as others, I am related to them by virtue of the common mystery of our existence.

I find this fact of life compelling. Underneath all of the differences I seem to have with everyone there is this one commonality. We came from the same place. And we all are going back there. No matter who we are, or how well we think we’ve lived and loved, or honored any belief system, the truth seems to be, that we return from where we never really left. All of us, are bounded by the unknown.

Existence is so precarious, uncontrollable, and liberating, that it is a solace to me. It seems that there is a built-in sense of community in our shared sense of vulnerability. I can’t think of anything: ideology, religion, gender identification or not, money, social prestige, intelligence, or particular insight, that overrides.

Integration by Lucky

“The seat of the soul

is where the inner and the outer world meet.

 Where they overlap,

    it is in every point of overlap.”

                                      — Novalis

I don’t know why I dread writing this piece so much. It seems like the assertion of a naturally occurring kind of integrative process would be good news. The overlap, as Novalis says in his brief aphorism, is the “seat of the soul.” For me, the amazing thing is that Nature seems to be guiding us (by that I mean we humans) towards greater integration as we age, and an increased likelihood of achieving the overlap. That realization thrills me, but something else bothers me. I don’t know what it is.

First, I’ll start with the good news. Aging has an unexpected effect. My guess is that the integrative process, which I have come to see as the principle developmental and instinctual thrust of later life, has languished out of sight, because of the blindness of ageism, and the inability to break wisdom down. Nature, never-the-less, seems intent upon ripening human beings into a fuller expressions of themselves. The instinct of integration kicks in during later life in some unexpected ways. The productiveness of commercial and economic activity gives way to the productiveness of increasing uniqueness and becoming more fully oneself. The outside moves in. Creation seems to matter more, in the long run, than the economy.

Devaluing the old, devalues our own future. The human potential movement reveals just how ageist our culture is. The most experienced, most mature, and ripest of us (humans) have been ignored, and worse yet, mistreated. The present is dominated with either/or thinking of the worst sort, and doesn’t acknowledge the benefit of any form of integration. The overlap is not even a possibility in this kind of polarized world, at least not in our human-made world. Fortunately, Life has a larger agenda. Some people escape the gravitational pull of mass assumptions and become more. They are the true elders. Their lives reflect a kind of wisdom that comes from a higher order of integration.

I can fairly easily grasp the warm pleasure that permeates my body when I consider, and notice within, the compelling attraction of freedom and integrity. These by-products of integration have a gravitational pull of their own. But I notice I still feel some trepidation, an unnamed anxiety starts flooding my being, I feel like I’m walking more deeply into a minefield. There is something dangerous here. What could it be?

I’m not sure. It does occur to me, as I dwell on this uncertainty, that pointing out the natural flow towards integration might be construed as an attack upon the other, earlier in development, positions. Am I doing another version of what is so prevalent in this world? Am I saying that polarization is bad? No. I realize that one has to live fully through each stage, to ever even hope to get to anything like the big picture and actual integration. Aging is fraught with lots of difficulty. Not the least of these difficulties has to do with the question about how to hold the past?

It is so hard to talk about the full-range of human development without giving full and essential recognition to every stage in the process. Being human is all of it. There isn’t a point where one is more or less human. All stages are essential to becoming a full human. What does this mean? I don’t know, I’ve only recently begun to grapple with this picture. I thank God, I have lived long enough to actually see this much of the picture. It’s a marvelous vista I get to behold. But it’s a demanding one too.

For instance, I can see that we (humans) are complex. It obviously takes a while for us to unfold fully. And at each step in the process the world looks different and we become capable of different things. None of these developments is all of who we are capable of being. And all of those stages are favored by some, as the way it should be. Human history is full of conflict. Much of it has had to do with asserting the preeminence of one stage of human development (as embodied by a particular culture or individual) over another. I don’t want to add to that misdirected hostility. I’m not asserting that the aged perception is better, only that is different, and that it adds to the larger picture.

I think a big part of what it adds is the perspective gained from integration. Later life is about the coming together of seeming opposites. Inner and outer, as the poet Novalis points out, and also action and stillness, anger and peace, solitude and relationship confinement and freedom. These are seen as opposites, but can also be seen as single points, spaces on the spectrum that overlap. I think our ultimate ripeness is like that, the places were opposites overlap, places of integration. And, each stage in the ripening process adds to that integration.

This is delicate terrain. I can feel the Great Mystery at work. What I think I know, which comprises the discoveries I am uttering here, are my best attempts to give voice to what I couldn’t possibly know. Integration seems to include not knowing. I wonder if it includes the audacity of expressing what one doesn’t know?