I was walking the beach yesterday - my respite from the Ojai heat and the medical crisis of my father. And as I walked the beach I saw a guy there who was completely hooked up with technology - headphones, an iPad, a metal detector. And he was consumed with his technology. For me, he was a great example of paperbag living.
I know, what the fuck am I talking about now?
Paperbag living is the kind of life you live when you move through your life like you have a paperbag over your head. You just move through your life, missing great beauty and opportunities to connect because you have insisted in wearing a paperbag over your head.
I mean we could call it avoidant living, but I like paperbag living better. I got the idea from a line in a Pema Chodron book where she describes the three poisons of passion, aggression and ignorance. She also calls them craving, aversion and couldn’t care less. In Comfortable with Uncertainty, she describes a scene where you are sitting on the edge of the Grand Canyon and you don’t see anything because you have a paperbag over your head. She calls this ignorance, but I also feel like it applies just as aptly to aversion.
And ever since I read this many years ago, I now see myself and others in this very caught way of living where there is this big, beautiful amazing life right there in front of us. I mean it is right fucking there, and I am missing it because I am so consumed with putting that fucking paperbag on my head again.
Why do we do it?
Some might say we do it because we don’t know any better. Others would say that we do it because it is a habit. And still others would say it is because we are as afraid of living as we are of dying...
I fall into the later camp. I believe I do the paperbag living thing because I am afraid of what might happen if I am truly present, and in that presence I get everything I want. What the fuck would my life be like then? If I wasn’t worried, scared and anxious all the damn time? I mean, what if there was nothing wrong???? What the fuck would I spend my life doing then?
So much of life and living is about resolving problems and issues. That is what we do. We solve the problems at work, at home, and hopefully, as I wrote yesterday, our own particular personality quirks and issues so that we may lead a more full and meaningful life.
But I think, and I am absolutely sure I am not alone here, that for most of us this whole living of life thing gets a little overwhelming at times and I just need to slow it way the fuck down and one of the main ways I do this is to don my paperbag and then set about living my life.
So yesterday when I saw the guy at the beach, the beautiful and amazing beach, completely wrapped in technology and distraction, I felt for him. I thought, “me too, buddy, me fucking too!”
There he was on the edge of one of the most beautiful beaches in California and he was missing it. He was somewhere else mentally. Like completely totally it didn’t matter where he was because I had a feeling that wherever he was, he was deploying strategies like he was exhibiting yesterday to avoid, or at least check out of living for a little while.
And I could relate. This last week has been a fucking hard one. My dad became seriously ill and septic. I didn’t sleep well or much. I broke my toe. Ended a two year relationship and then had to say goodbye to a dog that I love very much. None of the above was fatal. I didn’t feel like I was being picked on by the universe, it was just my turn to have a shit week. And in the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t really all that bad of a week.
The relationship needed to end. And while I am still grieving the loss, I know it is the right decision. Love is not possession, and that is actually quite comforting now. The dog was his so he is now rightfully with his owner and they are happy together. My dad is improving daily and will likely come home sometime soon. I got to spend a lot of time with my mom this week and that is always a good thing. My toe hurts but it isn’t really slowing me down all that much. Work was totally cool to me and just let me deal with my familial crisis. Thankfully.
And I didn’t put my paperbag on once this week. I just tried to be present. Here in the here and now. I mean I did check out in the evening to Ted Lasso. But I felt like I didn’t escape when it was important to be present. And watching a little Ted Lasso as I fall asleep - or didn’t most nights - was an acceptable downtime activity after being up and going all week.
I slept in this morning and feel more rested than I did earlier this week. I have a busy Saturday which I kind of resent but it will be my day to get shit done and tomorrow I can sit around reading and doing nothing...well, my nothing actually looks and feels like something but I can take it easier tomorrow.
I made it through this week without putting that fucking paperbag over my head and thinking it was living. I cried when I was sad which was actually quite a lot this week. I didn’t go into hyper overdrive (another type of paperbag living). I just let life unfold the way it was going to and did my best to stay in the present moment and trust that I would be cared for and I was.
It takes a lot of bravery to show up for your life without the aid of a paperbag to help you ease the discomfort. And the payoff for that is this great life you have...even when your great life feels particularly hard and demanding. Not putting on that fucking paperbag, allows me to ride the tides up and down without having to completely disconnect myself from the present moment.
Right now I am sad. I am heartbroken. I am tired. And I am in pain. But I am also content, accepting and ok. This last week certainly didn’t go the way I wanted it to go, but it was as it should be and I saw that and felt that the whole time.
So much of my unhappiness in this life comes from my own inability to just accept life on life’s terms. Me thinking things should be different. Or better. Or less hard. And that is always a recipe for dis-ease and disaster. Life is just going to be lifey and the sooner I can get behind that the less I suffer.
I can always use something to take me out of the present moment. And craving, aversion and couldn’t care less are always available to me, they are, in fact, the precursors to paperbag living every single fucking time.
So today I have to give myself a shout out to not engaging those fuckers this time. I probably will engage them, maybe later today. But right now, in this moment, and for the past week, I have been living just fine without the need of a paperbag over my head to help me feel safe and secure in a world that is anything but safe or secure.
I feel lucky and blessed despite all the very many conditions of my life that are not to my liking currently. And as I walked the beach, I took in all the beauty, the grace, the power and the vistas that can only come from walking solo on the shores of the mighty Pacific, allowing each footfall to ground me to this amazing, painful, wonderful life I have been so blessed to live.
Again.
Still.
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