DoaD #6 - The Need for Silence
Part 1
Hello. Hello. Hello.
This is Episode Six of Diary of a Daoist.
A lot happened today. Oh, a whole load of lovely stuff and fun in the sun. Had my opening for the uni show, and had my work on display along with everyone else. But before that, I was coaching some kids in parkour. That was very fun. Three hours of hectic games running back and forth, catching dodgeballs and teaching kids how to move. It was a great day that went by very quickly.
I want to start with something that one of the kids said which was just beautiful. We were playing the parkour dodgeball game and there was this one last little jump or vault that the kids had to go over at the end to get to the slide to get a Point. In one of the groups some of the kids couldn’t do it in the younger class and it was getting all bunched up and no one was going and they were getting stuck in this tiny little space and they were getting hit with all the dodgeballs because no one was moving. Then, one of the kids was shouting; “guys go go go, allow yourself to be hit so the team can carry on it doesn't matter, it's not about you it's about the team.”
I was on the side like damn that shi facts, these kids be spittin’ some little truth bombs that I tucked away in my notebook for a later day. Making me realize this commitment to be a part of this collective team or this higher purpose of humanity and learning to be okay with taking the hits. Something that I could perceive as bad happening to me may not be bad in the bigger picture or in the collective team that we're all a part of. I may need to take a hit for something so someone else can shine. I can learn from that. How beautiful is that?
It’s not about you… it's about the team!
That's fucking cool. I was getting the train back the beautiful sun was shining (actually it was on the way there) and I was in my little morning fog only-just-caffeinated mindset of city hating. Scribbling in my journal. I’m gonna read out, you can tell where my mind was;
The City “underlined” -
From my view of the city from this orange bar train. There’s lots to notice. The tired tower blocks that shield my view of the blue skies. The many bald spots that stare straight at me. The pairs of eyes terrified to look up and make contact but once they do meet in line with this jungle cat’s vision, they jump back home to safety. Fixed to these four walls. I love the little cameras that pop up on poles as the train gets moving. The city watchtowers hidden in the willow keep a single eye on its inhabitants, making sure there's no one creating conversation or sustaining eye contact. The pacified ones don’t seem to notice they move and watch them. What a beautiful life trapped in this metal rectangle. Who did we lose to get how they didn't? The cranes never seem to stop rising. I wonder how my rent is still going up. Surely more houses we can't afford are the solution. Never mind that’s too much to think about. Mum pass the pacifier, please. My head hurts.
For some reason I love watching these advert boards ripple in the wind I don’t see the point in trees anymore. I can still breathe. Sucks to be them. It’s my time now. They get in the way anyway. Always falling over and delaying my journey. “items trapped in the door cause delay - must listen to what the stickers say”.
Yeah, I was in my city hating shit and then on the way back after writing down some stuff about… I don’t know I just feel very blessed to, I can't even call it a J.O.B because it's not even Just Over Broke, but it fulfils me in a way that I would be doing this if I wasn't getting paid. That is an absolute luxury to be able to say. Being able to do something that I love and fulfil a higher purpose, is being in service to others. It's an honour. On days when I'm completely lost in my problems, in my narrow locked-in sight, I can do a two-hour session coaching kids and come out like…
*poof *
It’s gone. It's nothing. It's complete presence again. Fulfilment and clarity. It is all because I reached a point of… I got this job from being 8 years out of doing parkour and slowly coming back to moving in this way again… then two years ago feeling that godly fucking presence… the feeling I get from Parkour and moving in that way… fluid movement over environments and adapting to….
oop gonna have to pause this one see you in a bit
[friend interlude]
Part 2
-
Okay, we're back after that little interlude of my best mate coming back drunk.
We were talking about, we ahhahha I’m talking to myself, I'm talking to you fellow listener on the other end of this about… I overcomplicate so much with trying to think of things I want to do. Holding off from getting a simple barista job or working in the library, or whatever, just because I've got enough money now to break even on my expenses, and I'm enjoying this free time, I have to write and make and do stuff. But even with the zodiac structure I've given to my week now, there's still a lot of empty time that isn't quite being used well.
Actually what the fuck does that even mean by “using time well” or “using days well”. It's hard when you're on a freelance-esque schedule and it's completely down to you to hold yourself accountable and give yourself that structure. It's very hard when several parts of me are extremely impulsive and spontaneous and hate to be held down by any framework. But then there is another part that obsessively loves order and structuring and my bookshelf right above me is evidence of that.
Today was fun going around my uni’s degree show opening day. I’ve realised I do not fit in there and I'm completely okay with that. I've reached a point of comfort within my solitude and my aloneness that I cherish it, and almost thrive off it now.
I’m so tapped into the sound of the wind and the trees it seems to capture my attention in almost every scenario recently. Something about it. I can't remember that beautiful Japanese word that I looked up…. here it is. Well first, “Komorebi” is the sun playing with the leaves and the light coming through the leaves. “Hagakure”, no idea if I’m saying any of this right, means something like hidden in the leaves. “Hakaze 葉風” is the sound of the wind playing with leaves… rustling… the wind rustled leaves. That’s just fucking beautiful.
I've realized that I almost need my silence and have become dependent on it, maybe not even dependent but I'm very much aware when I'm not tapped into those sounds and the feeling of nature. The more and more I've come into myself and who I am down at my core, the more time I need to spend alone. I can’t get close and connect with that deep part of myself with the noise of others. Unfortunately for the people around me sometimes they can suffer because I radiate this calm serenity that I have cultivated my whole life, just by being a Josh, that oozes out of me and that calmness radiates, clearly, from me without me even realizing it. For chaotic people, even myself, I need that part of me that is serene, and sincere. Sometimes when I'm sharing that a bit too much with other people, and not myself, I get a little bit overwhelmed.
At the show, with everyone doing the same thing and everyone in different stages of how they feel about sharing their work and their little creations, I struggled to connect with a lot of it. For me, it doesn't have any essence in terms of what I'm looking for. None of it's bad, it's all beautiful stuff but it didn’t tap into that deep well of mine. So I struggle to be around that and the same goes with the people and conversations. I don't think I quite realized how much of a thinker I am, with how lost I can get in my mind. My airy elements dominate my natal chart. I think when I’m around a lot of people for too long it's a lot of noise and I don't have that space to think. That probably terrifies a part of me, or I know it does. I was way too hot from the sun and a little bit drunk, with not enough food in my belly, and was bugging out. Then, I realized my film camera was finished, so I went to get my film developed and when I walked straight out I was instantly at….. peace.
The silence on that bridge, just a few steps away from all that noise, changed so much.
I rely on silence now. It's like a brother that I feel disconnected from when I’m in noise.
Especially in that environment, a lot of the conversations are about critiquing and logic and surrounded by a lot of logicians. The more intuitive I become and the more I've tapped into that nonverbal form of communication within myself and with other people it's very hard to have conversations that are purely based on logic. Small things like me deciding not to go to my graduation or not wanting to go to the external show, partly because it felt odd for some reason and asking the I Ching advised that it wouldn't be wise. I can't explain why I don't want to do these things. It just feels right in my heart. That is enough for me. It is exhausting mentally for me to have these conversations with all these logicians who have never listened to their hearts.
How do you explain something to them in a language they can't understand?
All I can say is it… didn't… feel… right. My heart isn't in it. How do you explain the pulls of the heart to someone who doesn't know the language?
I mean, that's beautiful… but how do you?
I can have a conversation for hours but for me, it cannot be sustained if there isn't depth. I get some inexplainable nourishment from deep deep deep below when I have these kinds of conversations with a select few people. But when it's just on the surface, shallow, barely touching the waters, conversation with so many different people in a quantity I get fucking drained. It’s just the sun on top of the surface, there's no going deep beneath into those waters.
It links to what I was learning about two hours earlier, to do with The Way of Heaven from the ‘Dao De Jing’. Simply put, it says;
It's all about sincerity.
Having genuine care and observing before you speak, instead of just speaking and blabbing. Truth is not flattery, flattery is not the truth.
Especially, Benebell Wen’s translation of chapter 81, where it says;
The Awakened Ones are not gatekeepers. The more they give, the more they maintain. The more they let, the more they gain.
I fucking love this book so much.
I don’t know how so much can come from it but it keeps exciting me and I want to learn more about Chinese culture and ancient China. It's fascinating to me. It speaks to everything that I understood as a kid through parkour. Now my life is about finding that balance between…. Today was a bit too much Yang, I probably should have called it off earlier with all that Sun and socializing, outwards expression. Now I've had to balance that Yang with Yin, staying in when my mates have gone out. Also, because I've got coach training tomorrow.
Another little bit here from, The Way of Heaven video;
Cut the excess.
When the work is done, be done.
Return.
I came back and I have all these projects that I'd love to be doing. I just really need to work on my patience and give it time. I'm so so young and I hold myself to such a high standard and want to set myself apart from everyone by being able to do these great things. But I'm just a lonesome lil traveller, who’s picked up a few clues that have helped me along the way. I just gotta keep taking each step and follow my way.
That is something I've come to learn [your way is your way, not everyone’s] before I so desperately wanted to tell other people how they should live their lives because I thought I had the right clues … I have the right way… THE RIGHT WAY… you must follow this way. Then, realizing that that is what has started every war in history.
My way is not the next person's way. My way is the way that I can practice continually. It is the journey I can take. That is not going to be in any way the same for even the person closest to me. Only I can know what that way is for me.
Yeah, it was a beautiful day of ebbing and flowing between the extreme socializing, and extreme needing to retreat. Yeah, let's finish off this episode with a little poem I wrote today…
You the lonesome
The back stander
Walls of compress shoulders
whispers on shoulders
sidesteps to the door
away from the noise
faces of darkness
holes from
a Time Well Spent
left to
you know…
With a crow’s fly home
Slow walkers notice his stride
The lonesome one
…
good night.
