Rut.

buddhist wisdom and nasty messes

Do you ever stumble across something that just bangs you over the head with enlightenment and lifts you right our of your chair? This piece from Parker J. Palmer did that for me today when it came across my radar. Also when I say ‘came across my radar,’ I mean I googled something in the hopes that the vast infinite entropic internet could bring me to something useful. And, alas, it did!

In his essay, Palmer shares a personal reflection about getting unstuck. Even at age 76, with everything the prolific writer had accomplished in his life and career, he felt stagnated. He was overly-tethered to the monotony of life and unconnected to its joy and rigor. There’s something reassuring in seeing an older person grapple with the same things I grapple.

At 33, I feel stuck. If you’ve been following my TV show escapades you might call bullshit on this. And, yes, I have a lot going on that is fresh, new, and exciting. I want to honor those things. But there are other situations in my world where I feel stuck. Like really really really stuck.

There’s a lifelessness in that state - whether it’s creative, personal, or professional. It feels like there’s no spark. There’s no fuel to the fire. When I walk around in stuckness, I walk around on autopilot.

I strongly encourage you to read Palmer's words because he’s vastly more articulate than I. However, his primary argument is that the antidote to stuckness, is to begin again. For him that means adopting what the Buddhists refer to as the beginner mind. Experts slip into melancholic stuckness when they accept their own expertise. The expert mind sees limitations while the beginner mind sees only options.

Given that I’m not an expert in literally anything, it’s hard for me to return to beginner’s mind. I suppose I never really left it. However I can go back to my 19 year-old self. By no means am I arguing that 19 year-old Patrick was a model citizen or useful human being. In fact, he usually wasn’t. He was a lovable but nasty mess.

To his credit though, 19 year-old Patrick had something going for him - fearlessness and abandon. Everything he did by diving head first. Yes, there were head injuries along the way. Yes, there were bad decisions. But there was also life. There was a spark. There were peaks and valleys, stories and adventure. That guy had a beginner’s mind to his own life!

Perhaps that’s the lesson here. The antidote for my stagnation might be looking at my life like I’m just starting out. The answers may appear if I see my world with a beginner’s mind. To do that I would need to rid myself, if only for a moment, of my bitterness and comfort and fear. That unencumbered, fearless question might be - what could really living look like in this situation? What would 19 year-old Patrick think about this?

I’m not saying it’s wise to hand that fool the wheel. But maybe he should do a little navigating from time to time.

At least until we get out of this rut.