Reality

What is reality? Is what we perceive about ourselves real? Are we our perceptions? We are not supposed to be, but yet we must live in a world of perceptions. Perceptions can add valuable input to where we are on the spectrum of self-knowledge and nirvana.

Fuck, would I love to be able to feel not subject to perceptions, to not have to do but just to be. One of the reasons I train so much is that in a perverted way, the harder I push, the more pain I put myself in, the closer I think I am getting to that essence of myself--that place where I am not what I do, what I see, what I feel--I just am.

What does it mean to use something so inherently perception, feeling (physical and emotional) and physically based to try and move to that state? It is just my choice. Others might use drugs (which I wish I had right now!), an immersion in all things family, career or some other hobby, or meditation. Or nothing.

No matter how bad I may feel on any given day, I'd rather have something that I can hold onto that makes me feel alive, like there is something to me other than going through the motions of being a human member of society.

And so right at this moment, I can perceive that I went to sleep exhausted. I awoke after a good amount of sleep feeling exhausted. Some of my muscles may even be sore. I wonder how I made it through the last week with all the things I was asked to do for not myself that were eating me alive. I wonder if any of my close friends really know what's going on inside my head, and I wonder if they care. I'm not easy to know. I need to be pulled out of myself as my energy source is deep inside me. Every once in awhile I meet someone who takes that chance with me, who is unafraid to go into that core of me, and it's a real joy. It's well protected in there but also very fragile like a thing made out of glass. Glass protected by steel. I can feel when the steel is deforming--when it is developing vulnerabilities. I worry about the glass breaking and fixing the outer core.

I will train today because maybe, just maybe, it will reinforce me. I will either emerge from it stronger or weaker. I have to take that chance on stronger. Every day is taking a chance at stronger, even as I willfully weaken myself temporarily, or for what I hope is temporarily. Tomorrow I will know.