Addition by Subtraction
Getting my house in order.
I've always thought that the key to happiness and success was to be found in addition, but I've come to the profound realization in my “senior” years that serenity comes by the process of subtraction. I looked in the mirror this morning and said
“Who is that old guy?” I did not recognize myself. And it was liberating.
Peace does not come to me by adding possessions and acquiring prestige or other ego indulging trophies.
The more I subtract or let go, the closer I get to serenity.
I'm letting go of anger and ambition and pride and vanity and envy and resentment and in this subtraction, I feel like I'm adding to my human experience.
Subtraction Formula: Minuend – Subtrahend = Difference
In this equation for me, "My idea of the totality of myself" is the minuend, my ego is the subtrahend and my bliss is the difference. Only love and acceptance remain.
I see now that my preoccupation with the corruption of society's elite and institutions is honestly a projection of my own shadow self.
My accusations are confessions.
My obsessions were subconsciously designed as ways for me to avoid my own deficits and demons.
C.S. Lewis said the "The gates of Hell are locked from the inside"
We can free ourselves from suffering at any time. We have always had the keys to the prisons we find ourselves trapped in because we built the damned things.
I see that the purpose of life is life itself. To experience the profound rapture and miracle of existence is the point. To replace the rapture with fear is the gravest sin.
"No eternal reward will forgive us for wasting the dawn."
Jim Morrison
If a sunrise or sunset only happened once every decade, people would fly halfway around the world to see one.
As my body degrades, my spirit soars.
I am not the lightbulb, but the light that it produces.
“God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father; through him all things were made.”
We are fractal expressions of the divine and sentient cosmos.
We are ALL-ONE, and this means
We are A-LONE.
Each dimension or universe may be a singular and separate entity, completely alone in its time space.
This idea is at once terrifying, comforting and thrilling.
Like life.
I painted this vintage dollhouse as a symbolic self-portrait. It’s a work-in-progress.
Last week I cleared out twenty years of fancy clothes from my closet and donated them to a rummage sale to raise money for direct aid to Gaza. I agree that subtraction feels good and I am going to continue to subtract (and also produce rather than consume). Love your latest work of art and your words of wisdom.
“Far away in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out indefinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel at the net’s every node, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number. There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now arbitrarily select one of these jewels for inspection and look closely at it, we will discover that in its polished surface there are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is also reflecting all the other jewels, so that the process of reflection is infinite. The Hua’yen school [of Buddhism] has been fond of this image, mentioned many times in its literature, because it symbolizes a cosmos in which there is an infinitely repeated interrelationship among all the members of the cosmos. This relationship is said to be one of simultaneous mutual identity and mutual intercausality.”
—Francis H. Cook, Hua-yen Buddhism: The Jewel Net of Indra