And then after the tedious jazz night alone and the night of the wine tasting, again alone, not looked forward to, working out fine, the mind is working again with ideas, and the stuff of the past is smaller potatoes, some equilibrium restoring itself.  Fretting over an article, not hearing any feedback on it, the creative mind, invested in creativity, grew anxious, at the whim and mercy of the currents.

The outer mind does not always consciously know the secrets of the inner mind.  The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.  The inner mind is the guide, but the outer mind has to take its logic on faith and accept.  It is the task of the writer, the poet, the philosopher, to make contact with that inner mind.  The Buddhists call it subtle mind.  Indeed, it is very subtle.  Who knows why, immediately, and clearly, we do the things we do, or even the general logic.  And I suppose those of us who have taken up illogical things, like writing, impractical things in the eyes of the logic of the current wisdom of man, are more prone to faith, toward attempts to figure out or listen to the subtle sensitive inner mind which speaks in its own way in its own time with its own sense of what is crucial, more prone to believing in and accepting.  Some of us have simply postulated on good faith the presence of such an inner light of wisdom and somehow grown use to walking and talking in its ways, as much as one can, even given the apparent irrelevance.

The ethnobotanist Terence McKenna presents a theory of a time of earlier humanity fed on the abundance of pre-drought Africa.  The human brain made its incredible growth spurt, increasing in size and capability and range.  People lived cooperatively, sharing, having grown out of the lower primate habits of dominant males and breeding rights.   The human creature was stimulated, imaginative, and had success breeding.

And then came the great drying-up of resources.  Having grown up, now the creature's social structures reverted to those of the primate, and so with violence, fights for male dominance, strife, the seizing of property by the strong, the differentiation of mine from yours, my children from yours.

One can imagine the interesting qualities of the period of coinciding with the incredible flourishing of the human mind.  Light on ego, humanity discovered the usefulness of plants, realized the riches of nature.  There were instances, habits of mind expansion.   And some form of peace reigned, one can think, optimistically.  A time of wonder, a time of development for the rich expanding human brain and the consciousness reaching out of the growing skull and improving senses, an awareness of having a mind.  Language.  Thoughts shared.  And in this communal community, there was sexual activity, new levels of pleasure, stimulation, and skill, and the affair was cooperative, not dictated by the big thug alpha male, as the female really was the creature that had to be pleased.

Vestiges of such a thing remain, at least in our minds, which yes, can harbor fairy tales but also a good and decent sense of self-awareness and even right and wrong.

And when we are allowed to see beyond the present situation, one in which aggression is the rule, selfish exploitation of the common resources of the planet, profit, power, hegemony, exploitation of resources, we can see the presence and the beauty of the earlier mindset.

I suppose there could be some mild general statement added to The Commandments and to their treatment, which would be to do what you do professionally, and everything else you do, for spiritual reasons, indeed treating the entire world and all objects animate and seemingly inanimate as neighbors, respecting God the Father, whatever you want to call it, that is in everything down the molecule, which, after all do what they do with no one telling them.

Then I am able to resolve my matters of conscience.  I'm behaving as spiritually appropriate as I can. I never bought into the whole dominant property-owning male thing.  My brain, expanding, never has worked that way, but rather an observer, wishing to be more sensitive (and often failing at it) rather than less, which does speak of the process by which we receive education.

Am I the one impractical, living a fairy tale, given how one must protect the self and the stuff the self has accumulated?  Maybe.    Or perhaps has the inner mind told me to be patient, and respectful, to do what women tell you to do (in their own way), to respect the offerings and phenomenon of the planet as best, and perhaps as passively and peacefully, as one can.


Perhaps what the reaction the back and forth between the inner and the outer, in subtle and the evident, represents is an attempt to come to terms.  As a sometimes sensitive male you have an understanding toward that beautiful legacy period of humanity of creativity, communal matriarchal accepting society.  By instinct you approached a woman's wishes passively, and really, in all things, you were just trying to please her, to make her happy, to jump through whatever hoop she told you to.  You hoped not to be rejected, but such a thing wasn't in your own hands.   You were trying to obey her girlfriends' strictures.   And to realize such was an epiphany in itself, the solving of a haunting mystery, the final high understanding of a man's deep spiritual need to be passive and humble before a woman.  Which might say something about a woman's ultimate spiritual need, to discover the man is on her side, doing her bidding, helping her with her greatest endeavors, and wearing a dignified disguise which she alone can see through.

But in life, people are human and mistakes are made;  confusions happen.   In bowing to her, you failed, because you took one moment of rejection a little too seriously.   You can't blame her for acting so, as she too has to contend with a world ruled by aggression, by imposed might, by dominant males who intend to amass wealth for the sake of wealth and comfort, easily able to justify themselves in the dog eat dog world they perpetuate to the misery of all.

That is the sad thing, perhaps.  You were just trying to be honest.  Naturally, as the being has been fruitfully doing for a long time, to good results, you embraced the good passivity, the kind of thing spoken of in The Sermon on the Mount.  You approached the female of the species with great sensitivity, though it went largely unseen, and unfortunately it's those few times that being young and jittery you weren't gentle enough, clouded by feelings and hormones coursing through the blood and brain.  What little you could do, well, you tried.  Your timing was quite often an absolute disaster, but as you treat woman you treat the world, open to the possibilities, to the richness of its plants, its nature, its offerings, its teachings of wisdom and all its healthy resources, at one with nature as best as you can be.  And to be so is to open the eyes, which is why we have to take such things so seriously.  To really see, to not hide your light under a basket...

That's the wild thing, that you continue, despite it all, to purify that within you, to pursue and execute it, and in the gentlest way possible, the deepest way possible.  The words of the Sermon on the Mount are those of the greatest lover.

Unfortunately, you were forgotten about.  That's how it goes.  And knowing the good in yourself in amidst the evil of the world, you move on, best you can.

Sensitivity, I would imagine, is the source of many failures, many instances of prolonging adolescence, many prolonged periods at learning and taking the lumps of life.  And in the end, it's not only the source of great strength, and wisdom, but ultimately some success when all is said and done.