Relaxation

Relaxation. Why is it so scary? We spend our whole lives searching for it, at the same time doing everything in our power to avoid it. The misunderstanding that relaxation is something that we have to do. Margaritas on a beach at sunset. Binge-ing 10 episodes of Netflix. Drinking beer a friday evening after work. Even the act of writing this seems like avoidance. My conscious intention is constantly undermined. What’s worse, I find myself excusing the behavior, instinctly, after catching myself. Instead of picking up the pieces, I smash a few more bottles as a way to deal with the fact that I’ve smashed a few bottles. It’s absurd, of course.

Why is relaxation so scary? It lacks essence. Or maybe that’s all it has. No edges, nothing solid to hold on to. Fluid. It cannot ever be grasped, or known. Not really. But I’m desperate. Desperate to hold on to something, anything. Desperate to know. Otherwise I feel like I’m fading away. I have seen the way towards progress. That’s the worst part. Maybe I could excuse myself if I hadn’t, if I was lost. But I’m not. I just choose to pretend. Too scared to be honest. I owe it to myself, to see it all through. Better to have failed, to have been wrong, than to have lived someone else’s life.

Maybe these musings are all I have. They feel so discontinous, compared to my everydayness. Heidegger brings comfort, in this regard. I have this weird parasympathetic reaction, solely and without fail, whenever I start writing, where my nose starts running. This certainly hints towards something. Writing sooths me. It reminds me of who I am, to myself.

Death. That’s what relaxation brings. Who am I? Nothing more than some knots of muscle and nerves. I desire to desire. But this desire is weakening, and so it all feels lackluster. I guess the undermining is working. Which desire? Desire. So where does joy come in? Where does life? Is there not a certain danger in treading the path with airborne shoes? Does not the heaviness of gravity grant us the freedom to exist? What if it was optional? How could you choose? Who could?

Why are we afraid? I know why. Who will love my Mother when I’m dead? I know God will, but will she be able to hear his voice? Has her ears not lost the frequencies of the angelic harp, wearied by time? How Jesus must have wept, hanging on the cross. Knowing that despite everything, he could not make them see. Could not walk the path in their place. What infinite compassion Buddha commanded, as he set to work enlightening mankind. All that can be done, is to point the way. To be the way.