Where Will You Go?

When a man gazes across the landscape

He sees many options.

This is because he has never truly Seen.

What you have failed to understand

Is that for any of your plights

For all of your sufferings

For each of your significant troubles

There is nowhere in this world you can go for help.

At first glance this will confuse you.

For as you gaze into the world

You see a plethora of options

As far as the eye can see.

In the same way that a man who is lost at sea,

Dying of thirst,

Sees thirst-quenching water far into the horizon.

But if he drinks the salt-water . . .

He dies.

Every human being is thirsty

Lost in an asphalt sea

Surrounded by salt-water.

Options appear plenty.

But, in Truth . . .

He has none.

Imagine that a man is filled with anxiety.

The anxiety torments him day and night.

Here we have a man who suffers from a problem

And he seeks a solution to his problem.

Simple enough, is it not?

Very well.

He sets out into the sea-water

In hopes of quenching his thirst.

He goes to a psychotherapist

Who talks to him about his childhood

And gives him techniques to look at the bright-side.
And various psychotherapeutic techniques

From modeling to tolerating uncertainty to self-talk to “cognitive restructuring” . . .

He tries this in earnest

Years go by.

He has “gotten better” at the technique.

But he remains stricken by the anxiety

His situation has not changed.

He goes to a priest

Who tells him to pray to god,

For god will cure his ills.

He does this in earnest.

Frequenting the church or the temple.

Making a nightly prayer routine

Without missing a single night.

Years go by

But he remains stricken by the anxiety.

His situation has not changed.

He goes to various others.

One tells him to practice positive-thinking.

Another tells him to start a gratitude journal.

Another tells him to practice meditation.

Another tells him to practice mindfulness.

Another tells him to count his blessings.

Another tells him “this too shall pass.”

Another gives him medication.

Another tells him to practice chunking his life into segments to manage them better.

Another tells him to diet and exercise.

Another tells him to download an app.

And on and on and on and on and on and on . . .

And. On . . .

He takes him about 20 or 30 or 50 years to try all of these things.

But he remains stricken by the anxiety.

Despite his herculean efforts

Despite years of earnest practice

His situation . . . Has. Not. Changed.

Even as he was failing at every turn,

Somewhere within him was the hope

Somewhere within him was the tantalizing possibility

That a “different” therapist, priest, monk, or coach would have the cure to his ills.

In the same way that a man lost at sea may think

That a “different” segment of the ocean may have water that is free of salt.

It is exceedingly rare,

Frankly non-existent,

For any man to arrive at this hard-line Truth in his lifetime.

It simply does not happen.

For, like many Truths,

It is simply too frightening.

If one needs to learn how to hammer a nail

Turn a screw

Switch on a computer

Fix a leak

Or install a lightbulb . . .

The world has a solution to these things.

The options are many.

If one seeks anything that is Significant.

Life-transforming.

From becoming World Class

To Curing Anxiety

Achieving Freedom

Or Understanding the Mind . . .

The world has zero offerings.

The problem with Time . . .

Is that it never returns.

No matter how earnest one’s desire to solve his problem

No matter how much he practices

No matter how diligent is his adherence to the prescriptions that are given to him

The decades that he has lost

Will never be returned to him.

And it is THIS more than anything

That is the world’s greatest assault upon the human.

Understand this:

You have only One Shot at this lifetime.

The paths that you pursue in search of a Cure

The paths that you take in search of an Arrival

Had better work.

For if they do not . . .

All you may be offered is an empty apology.

And in almost all cases, Not Even That.

And though you may work to make up the money,

You will Never in all your life . . .

Be able to make up The Years.

Society and the World

Does not offer what a man truly longs for.

For the thing that mankind spends his entire life genuinely Thirsting For

Is beyond the purview

Beyond the pay-grade

Beyond the band-with

Beyond the scope

Beyond the understanding

Of society