Freedoms (?)

©2023 michael raven

As I mentioned in passing, I’ll have an empty home (not including the cats) come this weekend, and I am pondering how best to take advantage of the solitude. I’ve considered gaming until my eyes drop out, but another part of me is aching for something different.

Friday, I have to work, but I’m considering not doing anything at all on Saturday. Wake up, drink coffee, eat simple meals, and spend most of the rest of my time honoring the spirits and in reflection. After work on Friday, I’d probably hit something like Whole Foods or Fresh Thyme, pick up a few greens and colorful veggies, lightly add those to some cooked quinoa and beans, and — if I can find a mock recipe — see if I can drizzle some spicy tahini dressing on the grains, greens and beans. Maybe some miso soup. And then, eat like that for the six or so meals I have to myself, swapping out green (or oolong/pouchang) tea for my coffee. I already have plans to make up some hummus to go with pita I have on-hand. Nothing fancy.

I’d perhaps seek company, but I don’t know who I might reach out to as I’ve resumed some of my hermit ways. In part, I have rediscovered my trust issues. Another part is that I don’t want to bother anyone with having to endure my quirks on a one-to-one level (believe me, I really enjoy the uncomfortable silences and don’t feel the need to fill up emptiness with equally empty chatter, but most people find the awkwardness in those silences unbearable, no matter what they say to the contrary; and that’s just one of my quirks).

Then… Sunday, rinse/repeat until I have to get back to adulting.

I’ve also been reflecting on the internet and I have asked myself more than once lately if the chrome shine of it all hasn’t rubbed off for me. Social cesspools aside, I am wondering many times about what it is that I really gain when I engage with the internet. I enjoy some of the educational and informational opportunities but, too often, they are littered with opinion masquerading as fact and you have to critically evaluate all of the “facts” you encounter. If you notice, I tend to eschew anything that seems like I’m trying to inform someone about something on this site. Even my runes pages are merely “suggestions” rather than “here is what they mean”. I don’t want to be confused with someone suggesting they have any real knowledge to present. I’m quite happy being the dumbest person in the room — I spent too much of my life certain I was the smartest one at a gathering and I don’t mind leaving those days behind. In terms of connections, I really enjoy sharing conversations with some of you here (and elsewhere) but, well, see the above paragraph re: trust and you’ll maybe understand why I don’t commit too deeply to a conversation most of the time.

No small amount of my time is spent in looking through the lens of my spiritual stuff and I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason I don’t share the details is that I don’t think there are words for it. I get tongue tied and end up resorting to words like “spiritual” when that is not at all the word that I feel is the right one. I have a path, I follow it, I am a blind man born without eyesight trying to describe a sunset… Then I am reminded of the words in the first chapter of the Tao Te Ching: The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao. As soon as I try to describe this stuff, I lose sense of the stuff and it becomes a pale representation of the actual. That doesn’t stop me from trying all the same, but… well… yeah.

As I try to come up with things to do and consider not doing anything at all with my free time this weekend, I hope all of you are well and not so, well, freakish about such things like I am, as I sit here, overthinking a whole lot of nothing instead of just sitting in it.