Need

One of my friends recently asked me, "Why is it I feel like I don't have what I need?" It took me back a little, got me to thinking- "Yes, why is it we never feel like we have what we need." Why are we so seduceable my mainstream media to feel inadequate in the face of life-- as if the one new thing could complete us. My spiritual teacher Lee says, "We aquire based on feeling the loss of our center." I fit that statement- when I'm feeling separate, feeling lonely or feeling not connected to I turn instantly to consumerism on every level-- this is the foundation of my eating disorder, I can say that my feeling of separateness, the Primal Cramp left me feeling so off center that I turned at 8 years old to what I could control, my need for food. It's interesting now to me, after 34 years of battle that when my life get off center I feel the need to aquire and hold onto- it gives me a sense of security it makes me feel "better". And then it doesn't, because I will go through my entire life and purge out what I don't need when I'm feeling centered, full, connected- I have no attachment to "getting rid" of something. I will throw out, just as I would purge food- quickly and without thought- in fact to this day it gives me the same kind of high. On some level I've convinced myself that it's healty to clean out once in a while, to cleanse away that which is not needed- to exhale, and I think on some level it is- as a society we are force fed the need for more better new and improved-- that really in the end we are not enough. As I walk my path, I know that we are enough, that it is a practice, this life we were emobodied into- that we are what we are seeking- maybe if we looked at ourselves as new and improved we would feel complete.

I don't weep, do you?

there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough for him, I say, stay in there, I'm not going to let anybody see you. there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I pour whiskey on him and inhale cigarette smoke and the whores and the bartenders and the grocery clerks never know that he's in there. there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too tough for him, I say, stay down, do you want to mess me up? you want to screw up the works? you want to blow my book sales in Europe? there's a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I'm too clever, I only let him out at night sometimes when everybody's asleep. I say, I know that you're there, so don't be sad. then I put him back, but he's singing a little in there, I haven't quite let him die and we sleep together like that with our secret pact and it's nice enough to make a man weep, but I don't weep, do you? Charles Bukowski!