The Quixotic Jedi

At least, I think I have.  Maybe this would be more properly entitled “Turning A Corner” – I’m not sure.

For a little longer than the last two weeks, I’ve been feeling a bit off.  Less self-confident than normal.  Kind of an irrational insecurity – I don’t really know how to describe it.  Being nervous for no apparent reason.  Watered-down delusions of persecution:  that kind of thing.

I’d like to say I’ve turned the corner on it, but I think I might be in the middle of it – the final throes, as it were.  A few more shudders and it should be spent and I can get back to my normal mackdaddy-of-iz-all mentality.  Or whatever passes as normal for me.

I think I entered the corner-turning phase after talking to my friend Emily this past Friday.  I mentioned that I’d felt a bit off for a couple of weeks or so and she said “hey – like since the 12th?” and I was like “yeah, that sounds about right” and she said “Haiti happened on the 12th”.  And everything just kind of clicked into place for me:

It’s the vibes.  The concentrated, localized, intense trauma happening to the human species in Haiti is affecting my mood.  I’m not psychic by any real stretch, but I’m definitely sensitive.  Sure, I knew about the earthquakes when they happened, but Haiti is so far away from me and there’s really nothing I can do – in a physical sense – to help, so it’s not really been on my mind all that much.  Pretty much all of the information I have about the earthquakes I’ve gleaned from facebook and Twitter.

I don’t have a tv, don’t really listen to the radio (except the jazz station in the morning), and don’t really pay much attention to the news on the internet.  I’ve not read one single article about the earthquakes – the only thing I’ve seen have been status updates and whatnot, and even those I haven’t paid too much attention to.  I haven’t really spoken to anyone about it either, and couldn’t tell you one horror story I’ve heard about the whole thing.

That’s why the whole vibe thing clicked to precisely for me.  It makes too much sense.  There’s really no ACTIVE way I’d be able to assimilate the anguish that’s going on in Haiti – it’s somehow reached me, though.

From that conversation with Emily on, it was like a burden was lifted:  “if you can name it, you can tame it”, they say.  And I believe that.  Oh, I’m still feeling echoes of low self-esteem, indecisiveness, fragility and insecurity, but now I have an idea of where that’s coming from and why it’s not necessarily a fact.

Sure, to a certain extent I’m being reminded of my own inherent fragility and insecurity as a human being – in a very subtle fashion.  And as I’m writing this, I’m getting a diluted sense of deja-vu:

No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man
is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a
Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse,
as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor
of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans
death diminishes me,
because I am in-
volved in Mankinde; And therefore
never send to know for
whom the bell tolls; It
tolls for thee.

That’s definitely a reminder of my interconnectedness with mankind.  As solitary as I may be, I’m still a part of the main.  Any man’s death diminishes me.

So I’m able to work with this faint level of pain and ignore it (to a certain extent) because I know where it’s coming from.

I’m saying prayers and sending good vibes – “light” if you wish – to Haiti.  That’s all I can do.  I’m not going to send money because I don’t really believe that my money will help.  But I believe my vibes will help.  That’s all I can do.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll see if there are any prayer groups, meditation sessions, or satsangs going on for the people in Haiti.  That would be much more powerful than just me sitting alone in my apartment sending energy that way.