The Postmodern Dilemma

Dec 23, 2007 - 22:46 PM PST

You while away the days, frantic, wondering, how do I bridge the gap, how do I take my contemplative awakening and forge it in the active reality that 9 times out of 10 kicks my frail little ass into the gutter with a bellow of laughter? And self-realization, that sinister guise of escape, inlooking, just nullifies ever more your presence, your very will in the active world, so what then?

And then, it hits you, like the giggle of a sage through his caves where you found him, searching for the very thing you never saw through looking inward, because your search had gone on so long and exhausted every ideal, so that you could no longer even fathom such a simple thing as self-love would be the stoic bridge between our best contemplative aspirations for life and actually making them unfold. It hits you and you shake your head, wondering how long you've carried that immense burden on your back, how much dread for life you dragged to the heights from which now all is clear.

Self-love, real self-love, foregoes the immediate miniaturization of bullshit hippie acquiescence in the face of opposition; true self-love transforms opposition into education, our good intentions into patient reminders and humble suggestions that, in order for self-love to unfold its blessing upon the active, external world, it first must make irrelevant the world that it seeks to impact for its own sake. Real self-love is the dedication to one's desires to a point of fanaticism, and let temporary claims of selfishness, or imbalance, by those around you, those who even love you the most, be the fuel that sustains you when your deep dark core plummets into the freezing realm of your most hidden inadequacies. When you resurface, that which was selfish will now be for the bounty of all others, through you, which is ultimately a selfless, loving act, and the first step in connecting the active and contemplative realms of existence.