"To do is to be." -Nietsche
A human being. A human doing. Is there a difference? Is it possible for one to exist without the other? Remember the pas de deux which inspired this blog...the woman is driven DO...to serve...to save...while the man, in placid serenity, reminds her she is a being...not a doing. It's a truly profound point, enabled through deft wordplay...rather like bringing out the deeper meaning of at-one-ment.
Say the man was the driven one in the scenario, and the woman the calm one. What if it's two men? Father and son? Master and pupil? Does the dynamic change? How?
And...what about being without doing? It's easy not to perceive what's being done, but is that a fair standard? Is it any standard at all? So, what IS being without doing? And the other question, to do without being...what could be more Zen?
If there can be action in the absence of existence, what acts? And upon what? If the answer in either case is "nothing," then define action.
"To be is to do." -Kant
One conclusion I have reached in my life is that nothing does not exist. In other words, zero equals zero. Deep, huh. There is no such thing. It's a sham, a conspiracy, a dream. Nothing is a hoax. I am absolutely, thoroughly convinced of one thing about this reality I inhabit: There is something.
And that is pretty much the only thing I am completely convinced of.
But, there is. Something. And being something, it has qualities. It has dimension...it's yea by yea by yea. It has weight. It has gravity.
Oh, wait. It exists...it has dimension...yea by yea by....what's it bigger THAN? What does it weigh MORE than? How do you know? There MUST be two, there CANNOT be one. Which is to say, there cannot BE one.
One what? If we're talking about two peas, they're in the same soup aren't they? Well, yeah...so far, we're up to three...seven fingers to go...
At what point do we NOT have action? Take away action, and existence goes *pop*
"Do be do be do." -Sinatra
Funny how many of us feel driven...as if we were cattle. This occurred to me back in Texas, around the time of my heart attack. I also thought how we are more like sheep...funny how the scriptures refer to God as a shepherd but never as a cowboy. Sheep are led as much as driven.
And yet we drive ourselves as if we were Ferarris, machines for someone else to fix for money, for which we drive ourselves more. I use a masculine simile but I see it in women a lot. My mom was driven to perfection in everything. I cannot tell you how many college degrees - Phi Beta Kappa, raven-haired, ice-blue-eyed Nordic girl - daughter of a depression-era ne're do well and a mom who did what she had to. Driven. My mom cooked in five languages, sewed ALL our clothes, ironed the sheets, and served as church secretary (while writing a master's thesis about the pastor). Driven, driven, and that paradigm drove her away from us long before her time. You see it in men, obviously. You see it in the way people drive.
If we are driven or if we simply ARE...there is no not doing (nor ever any undoing).
I know so many driven people. Is it a good thing? How can I say? They'd go crazy if we made them sit still, right?
They do sometimes make me want to dance, actually...specially that cute one over there...
And oh, yeah, one other thing? If you can't be without doing, and there is no undoing, there is no unbeing. There's the nub, children: none of us asked to be. Well now, perhaps we did...but I'm being a pouty child, an angstverklempt teen, a jilted lover. I'll just end it all. Then you'll be sorry! Sorry, no. It doesn't work. There is no unbeing. That's a lie. Nothing is a hoax.
If I exist then there must be two of me...me and the other me. Honey, I'm home! Is that me? Sure is dark in here. Oh, there you are. Here, there...what is this place? OK, there's you, me...and the big echo makes three...Anybody out there?
Say, I don't have one of those...! That's nice baby, do it again! NOW there's three. Oh, look. Now there's light!
Apple? What apple?
(Personally, I think it was a pomegranate).
8-D