(This is an article in 2 parts.)
Today someone I don't know sent me an email calling me a "scumbag shyster." It felt so great to be finally and truly nailed at last, to be "gotten" so well.
The email is titled "the essence of your site" and it reads in full as follows:
"In case no one has told you before you are just another scumbag shyster trying to make money out of promising, but not delivering, the secret of happiness. Taking advantage of the misery of others to make money is bad karma. What goes around comes around and one day you'll surely pay for being a false prophet."
Well, what could I do but agree with such clarity? All my life I wanted some kind of title so I could feel a little bit important, and now I've got one: Mr. Scumbag Shyster. It has a certain ring to it, don't you think?
The part that really, really nailed me was the "shyster" part. There's no question that I'm an incredible shyster. For instance, I have a site that's basically about happiness and I know nothing about happiness, or anything else for that matter.
I'm quite aware that everything I say is just a kind of elaborate fairy tale, having no more actual understanding of "truth" than a beetle understands quantum physics.
Anyway, I get sad sometimes, I get upset sometimes, I get lonely sometimes, I get irritated or angry sometimes, I get anxious sometimes. These things tend to whisper now rather than shout, and they don't happen nearly as often as they used to, but if they do happen they happen. Who am I to stop them?
The thing is, when those feelings appear, I just hold them in a context of great love. I love when they show up, I love to love them, and holding them in that love feels so incredible I can't be bothered with happiness.
Enlightenment? I'm the anti-enlightenment. Whatever the opposite of enlightenment is, that's me. Liberation? I wouldn't know liberation if I bumped into it on the street. Awakened? To what? To whom? Why bother about awakening when the present moment is so precious and is here right now?
I'm sorry to be so dumb, but I can't help it. God made me this way; complain to Him!
But ultimately, of course, I'm a shyster because I can't deliver. It's perfectly obvious to me that even if these scribblings and other efforts were to result in some remote good somewhere, it would still only be a drop in the bucket, a teaspoon in the ocean.
The thing is, I'm in love with that drop and with the ocean too, and with both of them together, so I don't care. It's such a great joy to even make the attempt to be a little useful, despite my obvious disqualifications for the job, that I can't help but be in love with just the attempt itself. And if it's futile, as it almost certainly is, well, then I celebrate the sublime futile-ness of it.
I thought the bit about "false prophet" was especially good. My problem, though, is that I actually took it as a compliment, because you have to have a certain level of importance to be a "prophet," even a false one—so I'm coming up in the world, hmm? Though I'm befuddled as to exactly what a "prophet" is supposed to be.
In any event, I'm disqualified for the role because I'm way too human. For instance, I like porn on occasion. Except for a few hours here and there, I've been working seven days a week for about 16-17 months to come up to speed quickly in certain areas (lighting, sound, cinematography, editing, etc.). My inner guide said to do it and I've done it. Can I spell "workaholic"? Can I spell "unbalanced"? You bet I can.
I haven't had a girlfriend during this time, and so now and then at the end of a long day I''ll take a few minutes and look at whatever porn might be around and it completely relaxes me. It completely takes my mind off of whatever I thought was so important all those hours before. NOW I know what's important!
Nature seems to have hard-wired me to enjoy looking at naked women, or a man and woman having sex, etc., and so I just accept it when life goes there. But obviously it disqualifies me to be any sort of prophet, except the false kind. And I'm glad too. Too much responsibility!
I'm aware also that it's very un-PC, but it's reality and so be it. I just can't oppose reality anymore. It disqualifies me as well to be any sort of saint, of course. Oh well! Anyway, I figure the saints are doing a perfectly good job being saints; they don't need any help from me.
My ideal these days is just to be an ordinary schmuck, albeit one who perhaps works too hard and seems interested in making some sort of difference that doesn't need to be made. But it seems like such a privilege just to be here, just being an ordinary whatever, with the ordinary hope chest of human frailties. I love that.
At a wholly different level, that's one of the qualities I admired most when I looked at the great historical Zen masters such as Ikkyu, Dogen, Hui-Neng. They were just ordinary, "nothing special" as they used to call it.
The demands of the ego to be special, unique, respected, famous or whatever had dropped away, leaving just an ordinary human being, though one very attuned to the preciousness of ordinary reality here and now. I love that they were like that.
(This is the end of Part 1. Go to Part 2.)
—jim sloman, 8/23/02 for 10/08/02
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