Talk About the Vastness

How much music have we all listened to? Could we ever count it all? How many thoughts have thought there way to me, to my awareness? Yes, I sound too serious probably.

I remember in high school, I was sitting there in some class at some desk, and I was writing something in a notebook. Writing and writing. And this football player cool guy looks over my shoulder and makes a cutting comment, makes fun of me writing. And I was in my reflective thinking mode and not about to be too bothered by whatever he thought. And he saw I wasn't going to give, so he kind of backed off.

So, yes, we think, and we think seriously. We experience life sensing it means something to us. And that happens millions and millions of moments in succession. Just on and on, while we're all wondering however much what it can all possibly mean. What it can all add up to as we keep adding to it, more and more. Incessantly. Aren't we incessant? I don't think I'm only speaking for myself. We are busy beez, buzzing after next and next. Wow. So much thoughtfulness going on. So many songs we put our awareness ears to. So many conversations, books, news, events, weather patterns, family members, cards and letters and words words words.

Feeling our way through this vastness. And it's kind of funny how linear it is. Every story, every song - a linear progression running by our senses for us to recreate inside ourselves, sifting and making sense of it however our particular sensoria makes sense of each slice our attention carves into the vastness. Gosh, it all just goes on and on. And we, ever perking up to keep sensing it all, measuring it, assessing all the possibilities that come to mind.

The bushes in the yard are starting to bud. One little bush and God, how many thousands of buds? All cropping up together. And that's just one little random shrubbery. Grains of sand, particles of hydrogen, atoms and quarks and words in the dictionary. We can't catch them all. We can't hug the whole boundery-less ball in our hungry arms. No, it pours out beyond us, ever pouring utterly more expansive than we could ever chase down.

So, where's that leave us? I mean, we want to be masterful, comprehensive, knowing, well oriented to every direction, abreast of the situation of being this point of being in Life. Well, hell. We just go. We're going now. We just show up best we can among all this vastness. So vast. So generous. And each tiny thing, its own display of universal qualities. Every direction, an invitation, a little 'yes', calling us in, posing there in their own centerfold to stand naked before us and reveal its special qualities. Every direction at all times, calling us in! Well, we can't attend to it all. We just can't do it. Waaaahhhh! Nope. We have to beg off too much involvement. We can't be all places simultaneously, unless that is what the universe is trying to do, and we are being used by it to be singular outposts to this all encompassing wish to encompass the all. Big job there.

Every note ever hummed or sung or plucked or chord-ed. Billons upon billions. And we strolling by it all, getting involved however much we do. Vast to vastness ever going. And we, simply here, at all times, in some here among it all. Lucky to take a point of view. Lucky representatives of all that we experience in our circles of intake and perusal. Yes, each to our own little kingdom of conscious participation. And it's all adding up to so much intake! Even the very simple people (supposedly. I mean how can we tell from the outside of anyone, how much they are processing compared to anyone else?)

Simple or complex, it's all rather complex. So those bumper stickers that say, "Live simply that others may simply live" - well, it's a nice sentiment, but meanwhile, we are among utter complexity running through our very veins and up our circuitries synapsing away so fast and busy-beeing. Yes, we can keep things simple in terms of what we choose to pay attention to. One thing, instead of trying to pack too much in at once. But still, we are made of complexity. And the complexity allows us to simplify. So keeping things simple, wow, that's a rub to contend with. Never really finished. Just shifting next to next. Gathering, organizing, prioritizing, avoiding, denying, evading, forgetting, falling off the page because there's simply not enough room.

I think drugs can remind us how vast things are. They can lift the self-regulating lid off how much we let in. We expand beyond our already patterned being, calculating, processing, filtering. I think it's a bit of a stress stretching outside these comfort zones. Probably why as we come down from drugs, we're a bit ruffled and off balance and wary of what just happened. A bit frazzled and dazed. And it can take some time to "return" to more normal elements of our being.

So, we're playing with our basic life processes. And they can be stretched and compressed and stretched again and compressed again. Kind of an ongoing wobble seeking balance and dynamically testing the limits of what we are capable of holding in our awareness. We partly like comfort and regularity, and we partly like moving beyond the too familiar becoming too drab and obvious and repetitive. And fortunately we have infinity to open to up, which presents us with no end, no finish, always more to expand into. How staggering is that?

Vast just doesn't shut off, does it? Vast as eternity is longer than anything approaching it. So of course, we sort of shut down all the vastness to reasonable proportions for how much we can take in. Sure, some of us drink coffer to speed up our processing speeds. But then others partake among the family of depressants to slow things down. Some go high, others go low, in some grand contrapuntal organic diversification of caring or not, preferencing all different ways, however we feel most inclined at each time.

Anyway, my point is, it's vast. We are vast. Life is vast. Obviously, yes. So what? So it's cool just to think about that. Just to drink in and try to grasp the vastness. Just a little even, like looking over a gian cliff and going, "Woe, that is a lo-o-ng way down! Man!" It can be fun to be staggered by Life. I think Life likes us to be impressed with it. God likes getting everyone off on how fantastically big and grand this all is. Vast so very vast. We're gaining on it, even as it outpaces us. What a chase! What a run to run to run.

Dylan said he figured out at a pretty young age that he sensed he was far far from his "home". And writing songs and singing and performing were something he could do while he took a really long time getting to "home". That was pretty smart. He picked a theme that was pretty vast itself that he could focus on while he's making his way through the vastness to home. I'm not sure what "home" is supposed to mean. I mean, I don't think there is a particular point he or anyone will arrive at that will be his finish or completeness, but that all his resources will carry on somehow. Patterns tend to keep their holding patterns, and dissipating, they pattern elseways. So we shift and shift through the vastness. Psychic surfer dudes. Surf's always up. Waves are always waving, even when we're sitting down watching our in and out breaths. Lungs are waves. We're surfing in so many places all the time.

Vast surfer dudes. Man. Can you dig that. Yes! And then we keep going. Even sleeping is being there among all that surfing and being among all the vastness. How many breaths do we breathe while simply sleeping? Who could take the time to watch? No, probably too busy catching other waves. Hard to decide what to pay attention to among all this vastness. And yet, we get along pretty alright many of us. Trapsing around, scanning, pouring through the record bins, the super market, all the alumni of all the schools we've ever attended. Every word we've ever written. Every smile and wince and urge and step. Every nail hammered.

Vast, really. Vast. I wonder how much we can remember that vastness. Does it matter to remember it? Apparently not. But it can be fun to remember how big this playground is that some Creative urge cooked up. And that's a vast imagination. I think so. Yes, it seems very likely a very vast imagination got all this vastness going. Behold, like the biggest commandment possible. Behold the vastness! And then take a rest. You can't do it all at once. :-)