Being is doing

Nothing is sometimes greater than something. That I think is what I treasure most. Not so much the presence of something, or something I can hold touch or feel, but rather the absence of things. It is in this nothing that feel the greatest peace, and the greatest comfort. So many times we reach out for things, and push to acquire the baubles of life. We chase the best car, the perfect house, and get wrapped up like a mass produced cheese burger. We look at all the crap that we thin we need, and when we get it all we do is look for the next thing that we have to have.

What I mean by nothing though, is not just the repulsion of consumer based ideals. I am referring more to that state of Zen or enlightenment that our Eastern brothers and sisters talk about. I mean the absence of the static that fills our life. A void of even white noise, and that false promise of peace. I have found these moments in my life. One such moment hit me this morning. I was standing waiting for the bus, eager to go to school. The air was crisp and cold, but more importantly, it smelled like nothing. No exhaust, perfume, animalistic odors, or that boiled onion smell of an unwashed person. It did not carry the sweet scents of fruit, or flowers. No rancid piles of shit, or burning flesh. Neither good nor bad, just nothing.

In that nothing I found peace. For that moment when I inhaled the world had stopped. I was not being assaulted with choice or responsibility. It was not the comforting smell of fresh cut grass. It was not the memories brought on by the permeation of cinnamon touched fresh out of the oven, good old wholesome, American apple pie. No memory or desire tainted this moment. It simply was a moment and nothing more than that. Pressure rolled off my shoulders. Expectations drifted away ever so briefly.

It was in that I found the wisdom of "Office Space." The joy of nothing far out weighs the two chicks at one time. Don't get me wrong, the two chicks at one time is a great experience, one that I would recommend to all my friends, but that is all life is. It is a succession of experiences wrapping around us in a layer of over stimulation. They infect our thoughts, our hearts, and our minds until their is nothing left but the desire to contain, capture and recreate those experiences until all we are doing is looking for the next one. Rarely are we given pause to actually savor the experience of just being.

Life is a buffet and we are so concerned with loading our plates and filling our gut, that we forget to chew. We forget to enjoy the flavor. We forget so much, worried that we might not get to experience something in our life, that we forget to experience life. We get wrapped up in the sensation and rarely get to appreciate the substance. Everything has substance. Textures, feelings, tactile and visceral substance is everywhere. It is in all actions, even the ones we might not think about or enjoy. Sometimes you need a moment or two of nothing to appreciate the circus that happens everyday.

When there is nothing to do, or nothing to see, there is only you, that is when you can and will discover what really has value. There you will find the stories worth telling when you meet you ancestors again. It is then when you can find the things you really do need to do before you are done with this world. It is there that peace lays in wait. When everything stops, there is no distraction, there just is. That is all we really have to do, we just have to be. Its not about being good or bad. Its not about being evil or righteous. It is naught that is right, but not in the sense of right and right, but just in feeling right. It is what is important in being human.