Journal for Thursday, December 31
On my notepad “suffering is from resistance to what is.” I’m sitting on the couch with the dog next to me. Snow outside covering the grounds and on branches. It’s close to freezing, feels damp outside. My heart is feeling cold and sad.
Life feels meaningless, people are greedy and selfish, there is no god. That seems to be the truth for me right now. I can sit here and hold it. I can remember the drawing of the “good” pieces holding the broken ones with love. I think about how today’s “cold and sad” carries a sense of empty sophistication — it carries some flavor of what I grew up with: upper class, drinking, deb parties, point-to-point, keeping up social status… I realize that’s not the kind of person I am. I wonder if that’s what Mom & Dad felt, and why they drank. I remember a time, I think it must have been in Louisville, Kentucky for some horse event. I was in a room with a lot of adults, all drinking. I think the only person there my age was my friend Patty. Looking back I can see that I was profoundly depressed. I also see that that community was the opposite of Kindred Spirits: instead of authenticity and emotional honesty and sharing, there was pretense, false persona, issues about control and status. I can think about those people and feel compassion.