Mind Addict

       There’s so much going on inside me, that I can’t even settle on an opening sentence. So I’m just going to state that, and use that very immediate truth as my opening sentence. There. Done. Glad that’s out of the fucking way.
       In a way, this is a perfect reflection of how my life feels to me a lot of the time. I’m an internal combustion chamber of thoughts, feelings, wants, needs. But it’s all coming from my head. I’m addicted to my mind.
       Hello, my name is Clint. I’m a Mind Addict.
       This is not necessarily news to me. But at a workshop this past weekend, I got this old news in a new way. So it’s old and new, all at once. Very zen.
       What is clear to me now, or clearer to me than ever before, is the urgency at which I need to kick this addiction. My life depends on it.
       I’m not talking about my physical life. Technically, I’ll keep living if I remain addicted to my mind. But that’s all I’ll be. Living. Existing. Not truly thriving. Not truly creating. Not doing much of anything that sets me apart from plants or animals. Nothing wrong with plants or animals. I love them. And they serve sacred purposes on this planet. But I’m not a plant or an animal. So I can’t serve their purpose.
       My mind is a beautiful, wondrous tool. It’s actually a magnificent assortment of tools. An absolutely unique and amazing toolbox. But I don’t relate to it as such. I relate to it as just about everything I am. I treat it like a god. Like it can answer all my questions and solve all my problems. Like it can make me happy. In effect, I’m treating a toolbox like a deity. And I’m trying to solve the problem with the problem.
       Again, this is not news to me. But the urgency is. The urgency is new. The urgency I’ve never felt before. I’ve known this before. I’ve realized this many, many times. What I haven’t realized, until now, is the death that accompanies this paradigm. This paradigm of mind as deity. This paradigm of over identifying with my mind. This death sentence that I’ve put upon myself as long as I stay addicted.
       Whilst meditating this weekend, I came face to face with how I deal with life. Face to face with my over riding mental construct of existence. Which, because I’m a Mind Addict, amounts to the near totality of my reality. I came face to face with my inability to be in the present moment. Even as I write this, part of me isn’t here. Part of me is in the past or in the future or off in space, daydreaming. Luckily, enough of me is present to pull this particular task of writing off. Luckily, enough of me is here to create and produce. And through that, thus hopefully able to contribute and express and impact and touch and move.
       Like a broken record, I repeat, this is not news to me. What is news is the sound of the death rattle that sure as shit accompanies it. I haven’t heard that before. I still don’t hear it so much as know it. Whatever. I’m aware of it.  
       I am grateful for this desperation. I am grateful for this sense of urgency, bordering on panic. And that gratitude for sensations like desperation and panic is new to me as well. Instead of being ashamed of these sensations, I thank them. Because without them, I probably wouldn’t be doing things much differently.
       And if I didn’t do things differently, my life would not be terrible. It would still be one that most would envy. Maybe I would come to a new peace with it and it wouldn’t feel like death. I don’t know. I’m not trying to predict the future. I’m staying in the now. And all I can say, is, now, to stay addicted to my mind feels like a prison sentence. A comfortable prison, yes. A prison of travel and adventure and fun. But a prison no less. And I can have fun and adventure and travel without it feeling like a sort of prison. I can travel and have adventure and fun without being a Mind Addict. Kind of like a coke fiend who used to go on cruises carrying an eight ball with him, but now chooses to leave the eight ball out of the equation. Much different experience.
       Most of us are addicted to our minds. Allow me to share more of my personal experience with this. But not right now. This moment asks me to wrap it up.
       Peace.


   
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