The cars were already travelling fast as they passed. It would be difficult for the drivers to pull over here even if they wanted to. He was sure most of them didn’t even see him. The cars were mostly big, usually with just one pale person inside; while accelerating they were steering, changing gear, drinking coffee, eating pasties (or filled rolls), talking on mobile phones and reaching into a pocket or adjusting the AC. Wow. Nobody does only one thing at a time any more.
This was a world away from his cliff-top in Ireland. It mesmerised him. Flashing by, engines powered by the Have-Not mentality. Everyone trying to make a buck off everyone else. Selling our products to make money so we can buy shit we don’t need.
“…the insistent clamour of that disgusting god, money.” wrote Everett Reuss.
Too busy to count our blessings. Or even be aware of them.
Surely, never before in the history of humankind, has my will so universally overshadowed and out-boxed thy will. And none of us are happy. It’s not working. It’s time for some collective honesty on this. And peer support to change the way we live.
If one at a time, but as soon as possible, we all slowed down and learned to relax, and cooperate rather than compete, the whole world would be a lot happier. And richer. And our salvation would be a lot closer. Isn’t it?
Ed gave up. That is to say he still had his thumb out, but he let the cars pass without giving them a second thought. Or even an initial thought. The cars came, and they went, just like before, but he wasn’t following them, thinking after them, he was letting them go.
He became very spacious; rising thoughts were mere clouds in his sky-like mind. He let them pass. He remained on the spot, in the moment. Thought free. Content.
Do we have to be falling before we grow wings? It was a passing thought. One that appealed to him. He followed it. The moment was over. Time began again. Cars whizzed by, piloted by pale people living their extreme existence.
And the thoughts came bumper-to-bumper too; there is something so deadening about a shirt-and-tie commute to a job that begins and ends at the same time each day and has a fixed monthly salary. It’s the comfort and security we all thought we wanted. But it’s a false comfort and fake security. It’s a certain kind of certainty. The illusion of control which makes the surprises, when they come, so uncomfortable. Cruel even.
Right now Ed’s life was an open-ended journey. He was very openly and obviously at the mercy of the elements, and the subject of other people’s generosity. And spite.
He was attracted to this edge of unknowing, of hope and fear, he instinctively knew that surfing it was precondition for growth and transformation. And for feeling alive. Waking up and going out into the world not knowing what each day would hold, taking life as it comes, relinquishing any illusion of control. That’s fresh, that’s a good morning!
edge of unknowing is a slice of Transpose -a self-styled revolution available here.