I need to go in and get her
Reach out a hand and take hold
Not to drag, force,
jolt, or threaten. We know that doesn’t work.

Maybe we’ll get out together

It was actually the Covid lockdowns that gave me some initial reprieve. In Ireland those lockdowns were long; months of living alone in a city without the usual traffic, shopping, tourism, commerce. And I loved it.

Throughout my mid 20s to my mid 30s I probably never would have said I was depressed, only that I realised we were all wasting our time going through the drudgery every day. Then suddenly with the lockdowns there was this peace, a lack of expectations and a wonderful unknown. Sure there were moments of unease while we couldn’t help but contemplate the worst outcomes, but mostly I enjoyed those years and they brought a new freedom to think creatively about the future.

When the lockdowns finally ended I didn’t want that feeling I had found to end with them. I started to feel my new found peace and happiness drifting away as the people and the cars came back to fill the city again. Except, now that I knew a different way of being with the world was available, I realised I’d just have to work to cultivate and preserve what I had discovered. For me, the long term version of that is giving more deliberate attention to my spiritual life, which at least for now (and my teachers might have some words to say about my lack of commitment there) has taken the form of the dharma, the Buddha, and the sangha.

“The map is not the territory” is a phrase I first heard as a teenager when a good friend lent me his Robert Anton Wilson books. Taking the common understanding of “map” at it’s most literal, it’s obvious enough: a map of the city is not the city. Unpacking it as a metaphor, as usually intended: our understanding of a thing (any thing) is not the same as the thing itself.

And importantly, in both cases, alternative maps are almost always available. Any thing, any concept, can be understood in a number of different ways that are all perfectly true and accurate, if only for a given purpose. In the classic example, navigating the city of London with a map of the London Underground is a fantastic way to get around London when using the London Underground. But probably not such a fantastic choice when walking, driving, or catching a bus.

Similarly, while looking at our world through a materialist lense can be entirely useful in order to maintain ourselves in this material world, having a spiritual understanding of the same territory is certainly no less valuable.

Often problems arise when we conflate understandings, get our maps wrong, or cling to one perhaps outdated idea above all others. Demanding the London Taxi driver take the route we know to be true from our map of the London Underground, straight through that next building and straight on into the river. Or that all there is to have from art, poetry, music, or spiritual practice is inherently less-than, perhaps not worth our time, unless and until we find a way to utilise it for material gain.

Notwithstanding, while there are plenty of good and useful maps and ideas for our world, any wrong or misused map, such as the London Underground map to navigate through traffic, or a map of nations to assign a persons worth, can be useless and even dangerous, sometimes maliciously so. Alongside an open-hearted understanding that “different opinions are available”, so to speak, we need to remain aware and able to identify the opinions which share a truth and a positive value, and to resist those which do not.

Politics as a whole can be another useful example here. Nation states, ethnicity, cultural backgrounds, can all be useful maps at times to better understand our world, but whichever one we might be using it’s always important to remember that it’s just a map. It’s a way of simplifying in order to understand. The subject of our observation itself is always more nuanced, and often has many more ways in which it can be understood.

Open source software as an alternative or as a movement.

A passive protest or an active protest.

Privately owned or profit motivated social media services are harmful and bad. Case in point: all of them.

How you respond to other people

On the dance floor

In the hustle at the bar

Intoxicating

We’re falling through life
not wishing to be always happy
but learning to be with the unhappy
moments too and appreciating them
just as much for the experience

We’re just making too much stuff now.

Is this just austerity from the inside? The bank lent too much in the good days and we need to do nothing but sell shit to each other in order to make enough money in taxes to pay them back.

Thinking about how the mind works. Pure and impure mind.

That word “pure” is a bit much though, isn’t it?

I had an annoyance earlier today when reviewing work from a colleague. I nearly wrote ‘subordinate’ there, which would have been another… unskillful, that’s a better word. Unskillful thought. Or state of mind.

The original one was the annoyance I was having. They handed in some work that I know I could have done better. I called them out on the quality of it very indirectly and then later wrote my own version of the code, which I’m quite happy with. I think all of that was a little unskillful. Not necessarily the actions, they almost don’t matter at all. The actions could have remained largely unchanged if the state of mind was more skilful.

Which, actually, might give me a way out. I can continue from now, after having changed my state of mind, and treat the actions of the past with this new perspective.

But first, to understand the mistakes.

Maybe writing ‘subordinate’ above wouldn’t have been the second but instead was still the first unskilled thought, only never until now written down and examined. But that is what I thought, I think. Not even a colleague to be assisted but a subordinate. Synonymous with ‘dependant’. That’s something I could do without.

I wrote that code almost out of spite. I wanted to prove to… my self? “the world”?… that I could do it, and better, and what was I wasting my time dealing with people who couldn’t. And then I got annoyed at the thought of not having the courage or mental wherewithal to make any use of what I’d done. It was just to prove a point to no-one and I was still preparing to wait, arms metaphorically folded, while they produced the inferior code and then sulk every time I come across it in the years to come.

While actually, with the same actions and a more skilful mindset I instead have a friend who might enjoy learning a few new tricks in a field they’re interested in. And I have a tested example I can enjoy sharing with them.

And there never was any rush, either.

The answer is only the destination, a single event. The journey of discovery could last a lifetime or more. It’s better that we can learn not to grasp at the answers but instead enjoy the time we have to work it all out. It’s better to enjoy the journey.

Why do I come to Buddhism?

Living the dharma. A set of ethics which, so far in my knowledge of them, ring true for me to the point of familiarity.

The sangha. The group of friends who can share guidance and inspiration on the path.

Following the Buddha. An example of what is possible.