This essay,
Straight Ahead: A Political Discourse,
is the companion piece to
Runaway Train.
Face in the water.
Pull straight ahead - three strokes. Face out of the water
to the left. Breathe.
Face in the water.
Pull straight ahead - three strokes. Face out of the water to the
right. Breathe.
Face in the water.
Pull straight ahead ... and suddenly out of the blue here
in this pool before dawn has barely broken on this chilly winter
morning, I get
swimming
as an analogy for living.
Here's what I mean by that:
In Life I'm sometimes distracted by what's on the left -
so to speak. I'm sometimes distracted by what's on the right.
Both what's on the left and what's on the right clamor for ie
demand my attention. Only after I generously pay attention
to the one or to the other, do I realize the price of paying attention
to either of them is too high - it's just not worth it.
Paying attention to the demands of what's on the left and / or to the
demands of what's on the right only distracts me from ie
costs me what's straight ahead.
You can easily tell when I'm distracted. When I'm distracted I
debate what's on the left - as if it has more merit, as if
it makes more sense than what's on the right. Other times
when I'm distracted, I hold an opinion what's on the right
is better that what's on the left. Neither is true.
What's on the left doesn't have any more merit, doesn't make more sense
than what's on the right. That's just the ongoing debate.
What's on the right isn't better than what's on the left. That's just
my opinion - or someone else's.
At first, both what's on the left and what's on the right
overpoweringly distract me from what's straight ahead. When I
let them both be, when I just let what's on the left be, when I
just let what's on the right be as they are without
messing with either, without getting my fingers caught in either's
machinery,
the first thing I see after I've
disengaged
from both, is neither are powerful places to stand - neither the left
nor the right.
Saying neither are powerful places to stand isn't an assertion coming
from righteousness. It doesn't come from being right.
Rather it's an
observation
of
what's so.
In fact the next thing I see is while both have no real power, both
serve a purpose. The purpose they both serve is to define
what's straight ahead. They define what's straight ahead by
exemplifying what's around it ie by positioning it's extremes.
If all they were is powerless, I'd have no respect for either. It's
only because they position the extremes of what's straight ahead that
I'm respectful of them. I can acknowledge positioning the
extremes as something useful. I respect that.
The third thing about both what's on the left of me and what's on the
right of me in Life which I see when I
swimas an analogy for living is both sides are the only places
I can breathe. If I don't put my face there from time to time, I
cease fully functioning as a human being. So I'll go to the left from
time to time, and I'll go to the right from time to time because those
are the milieus in which human beings play.
But how Life is governed for me as a human being, how Life
shows up
for me as a human being is neither given by what's on the left of me
nor by what's on the right of me nor, for that matter, by what's
behind me. How Life
shows up
for me as a human being is given by
the future I invent to live
into
ie by what's straight ahead.
