Two Milky Ways
Old post but it may be new to you…
Originally titled:
I threw two Milky Ways out the window tonight
The deeper I tumble down the rabbit hole that is Sylvan S. Tomkins’ Script Theory, the more I feel I am actually falling up. Upwards towards enlightenment. I’ve tried meditation and self-help. They offered me quiet introspection, lots of self-jargon and two swollen knees. I, with the words of the zen masters in my head telling me that the pain of the lotus position and of sitting is a key part of the meditation, sat in zazen for over an hour once and as a 6’5″ 260lb man it’s not as good an idea as it seems. I woke up the next day with two grapefruits instead of knees. So now when I meditate I “cheat” and lay down or sit in a nice comfortable chair.
As I fall upwards through damage-repair, limitation-remediation, contamination-decontamination, toxic-antitoxic and a hundred other scripts I realize how easily we can change our behavior once we understand it. Jason Lee in Vanilla sky said “Every passing moment is another chance to turn it all around.” I think of that line often and wonder why or why not? What is at the essence of sticking with the old or venturing the new?Can we change something within our personality on which we do not have a grasp? Must we understand our actions, desires and history in order to create anew? Can we act blindly, stepping forth without knowing exactly where we have been? Can we even orient ourselves in this world of ever-increasing complexity if we know not from whence we derive?
So many questions, but where are the answers? They are in Tomkins’ theory.
Tomkins tells us that the way we act right now is based on the evaluation of our history and what we think may happen in our future. The big nasty mess of our experiences, future maybes and the scene that is in our consciousness right now make one big ball of feeling and how we work with it is emotion…I think (Tomkins’ theory is deeply understood by maybe 50 people on the entire planet and although I’m not in that 50 quite yet, I’m working on it). So, if we look at the past and are satisfied, we should keep dealing with similar situations in the same way. Thats the easy one. If we think our past way of handling things needs improvement and want differently in the future, then we are in trouble! Thats where it gets hard and infinitely complex. How do we go from toxic affect and emotion to the other end of the spectrum? How do we replace the negative with positive? **WE DON’T!** We cannot use old memories and our desire to change those old toxic memories in order to handle similar scenes right now!! We will never deal with the current toxic moment using old methods without some harsh and dense negative affect! We have to use an entirely new way! We must throw out the way things were and remember that the past is gone. IT WILL NEVER COME BACK.
This moment, right now is a fresh canvas eager for our brush of new paint, a wishful garden tilled and fertilized ready for us to plant and nurture something beautiful and full of life. Whatever the current seed is, the issue at hand, we must find a novel place and one to which we have never been, to place that moment, that seed. It is only in that new place, the most beautiful of all places, that we can be on the inside of hope. This certain but ethereal place, is the place where quarks and tiny nuclear doodads go when they aren’t here. They go to the Garden of Hope. These particles are allowed to be magical, they are the hottest topic of study, we know their magic is real. But here is where magic gives us the wand: these particles are a part of every cell, every molecule that forms our bodies and minds. And so: Why can’t we go there too?
I always eat candy at my parent’s house. I never buy candy but every time I go to their house they have a stash in the freezer. It got so bad at one point that they hid their candy horde in the utility closet behind the hot water heater. I of course got blamed when it melted. Earlier today I was over for turkey dinner at my parent’s house; I lifted two Milky Ways. As I was driving home through the darkness I saw the light, the hope, enlightenment; I threw two Milky Ways out the window tonight.
Two Milky Ways,