I’m playing around with the idea that there are only two things in the world. Nothing and words.
When I say playing around with, what I mean is I don’t necessarily believe this is the absolute truth, I just think it might be a useful place to come from.
Nothing is a beautiful experience. It’s like being in the flow, no thoughts and pure presence. A kind of glorious emptiness. Acceptance. Love. Reality as it is. Simple and real and free from judgement or opinion.
Nothing is not a big deal. This experience is not new or revolutionary. Everyone has experienced it. The thing is being able to experience it not just while watching a beautiful sunset or staring into the eyes of the one you love, but to bring that experience (really non-experience if you want to get technical) to everything you do. You stand from nothing in the background, like a blank sheet of paper….and then on that blank sheet you can create possibilities or stories.
And the pencil you use to draw on that sheet of paper is language. It’s not that you can start creating your life from language. It is that you already are and you can become aware of it and do it with more intention. You don’t have to live in the stories you inherited or adopted a long time ago. You can make something new up. It’s all made up anyway.
Let me say that again because it’s so important. You are already using language to shape and mold your experience of life. Once you become aware, you can start to steer the car back onto the road and in the direction you want to go. You can do this at any time. And the other big secret key is that you can’t just set it and forget it. You can’t go on autopilot, or you’ll just wind up in the same spot. You have to consciously keep creating the story or you risk falling back into a story that might not work or be what you want.
So for nothing and language, these are not new things. You have a lot of experience with both of them. The trick is to have awareness and then to practice over and over again so you can exercise some control over the process. It’s not big deal, it’s just your life that’s at stake.
In the coming days, we’ll talk a little bit more about exactly how to access nothing and language and how to practice so that it becomes possible that your entire life becomes a canvas to create something new and fun and worth living. NBD.