in this moment,
I am not zen.
I can see the world,
and the world can see me.
I am not zen,
I am dead inside.
not a little,
but a lot.
I am dead to this box,
and this box dead to me.
there is no flow,
the movement is not symphony
as I pry my fingers against these keys.
even though the box complies,
I am not satisfied.
I am not happy.
I am at a loss, so no,
in this moment,
I am not zen.
*nods* not zen. i feel it.
re balance
that just reminded me of something karen solie (a canadian poet) said to my poetry class when she came to read from her book Short Haul Engine last semester. she said what she enjoys most in reading other people’s poetry are the gaps within otherwise perfect expression. (she used better words to express this idea, of course.)
likewise, what i love most about writing are the moments of breakage where the writer either struggles or altogether fails to maintain the balance. so, while balance is generally good, the occasional escape or fall from it is beautiful. /is/ what makes the balance worth striving for.
good job, adnan. for openly admitting the negation of zen-ness. you’re on the right track. =)
i just want to say that i don’t understand why we think of sadness/solitude/(enter your own state of being here) as a negation of zen/happiness/(w/e “positive” state of being).
i hope you can think of it next time in terms other than “not zen” and recognize that it’s something entirely different from – rather than negation,lack, or absence of – zen.
love and hate, two sides of the same coin eh.
I don’t know if sadness is /always/ perceived as a negation of happiness. although, sometimes it most definitely is. and we may tend to emphasize those moments more than other moments of sadness.
there’s nothing particularly wrong with sadness or solitude. but for me, I suppose, zen is also about keeping a balance. and “not zen” can be about losing that balance. (not that I was thinking about a balance when I wrote “not zen”, but now I’m liking the balance idea more)
haha, I’ve been using the word (zen) a lot recently, and I don’t always use it with it’s dictionary definition. it’s the meaning I give to the word, and I’m not sure what that meaning is exactly myself.
conversations like this do help in refining that meaning.
re balance
that just reminded me of something karen solie (a canadian poet) said to my poetry class when she came to read from her book Short Haul Engine last semester. she said what she enjoys most in reading other people’s poetry are the gaps within otherwise perfect expression. (she used better words to express this idea, of course.)
likewise, what i love most about writing are the moments of breakage where the writer either struggles or altogether fails to maintain the balance. so, while balance is generally good, the occasional escape or fall from it is beautiful. /is/ what makes the balance worth striving for.