at Screwball Central, it is important not to ‘get away or off from one’s own game’. As Joseph Campbell wisely repeated, “Follow your own bliss.” And that entails taking responsibility for your own life–not passing the buck or blaming others. One has to–as Emily Dickinson did/declared–bless oneself and recognize oneself as the ultimate leader/authority/source of one’s own life.
A conscious life of personal choices reflecting one’s own values, beliefs, and preferences.
I know that often it is very distracting out there each day, with myriad distractions in fact. But one’s life is a personal matter and one has to look after/take care of oneself and those around us who matter to us. It is that simple a basic choice or guide for living, surviving, and thriving in crazy times.
And I think, finally, that an individual cannot pay overheed to what others say or think about one as choices are made. (In many cases, this is just the individual’s fantasy activity anyway borne of fear and self-restriction–the “mind-forged manacles” Blake called them.
Yes, the ‘last trick’ is to free oneself, especially from imagined and over-concerned considerations of/by others. ‘The Group’ will not free one ever in any deeply satisfying way. Only the individual can free him or herself. This next olde poem from 1990 illustrates these ideas and changed/redefined/refocused my life forever.
And So Lately
I choose this island
and its freedom from false face.
I select a landfall apart
from the swell and tides of others.
I claim this lone strand
for the Dominion of Self.
Unattended by minions, I live
without the cant of congregations.
Self-governed, yet worthy
I shun the uncentered
fawners for lost pieces
in the shadows of Other.
I pick my comings and goings,
my music and arts.
I cull first flowers
and pitch the weeds of dependence.
My mind sharpens and sculpts itself
in monuments to glory and love
begging naught of another.
I go it alone, unafraid and unperplexed.
Respectful of this reign,
my hopes people this island.
I harvest the metaphors of life
with a timeless abandon
that knows no thought of Other.
Bygone, the grey deep moans,
now distant, unheard.