...and there was nothing to fear
nothing to doubt...


some of you will recognize these lines as coming from a Radiohead song. they used to be somewhat of a test for me. there have been times in my life that i have coincidentally heard the song and for some reason it signaled me to believe that if my life were to end at this moment, everything would be fine. as some who know me understand, i am not a religious person. i am, however, a 'spiritual' person, and these few words usually hit home pretty hard for me in the sense of summing 'it all' up. at certain times that i heard it, i would have this massively overwhelming sense that, based on the current moment in my life, everything was going to be all right. this is not to say that a 'heaven' was awaiting my arrival, but simply that whatever happened was not going to matter anymore. neither good or bad. just perfect.

i have a very hard time believing in a heaven ("it's fine...there's a shortage of chairs...yeah..."). not to say that there isn't an afterlife, but the idea that it's some wonderful, splendiferous locale where you get to see all your family and your pets and play craps with jesus just seems to be some wild pipe dream forced into our heads by the authority figures that are trying to keep people morally in line during our so-called 'existence'. i think of it more as escaping corporeal bodies into a collective consciousness in which there is "nothing to fear...nothing to doubt". on the other side of the coin, our consciousness may end as we depart our corporeality, at which time there would be "nothing to fear...nothing to doubt" simply because we wouldn't have the mind to fear or doubt.

going back to my original thought... i heard it tonight, and it did not hit me the same way that it had before. i encountered its beauty and simplicity but was not brought back to the feeling of content that i usually experienced. this leads me to believe that i have currently realized that i can offer more to this reality than i believed i could before. it's not very normal for a 19 year old to be at peace in departing his existence... it gave me a glimmer of hope that i'm progressing towards something and not just aimlessly wading in the currents of life.

quoting Ram Dass (some of you will know him as Dr. Richard Alpert), we should "Be Here Now". that's a powerful and univerally recognized statement that spans throughout mysticism from any spiritual background. it brings about the question of whether our existence is a totality of our deeds, actions, decisions, beliefs, etc. or whether we simply find beauty and life in a series of fleeting conscious moments. i think that during the moments that i felt at peace, i was at peace. no matter how awkward or seemingly premature they were, i was there. i'm not saying that i was complete in those moments, but considering the scope of my life to that point i was content. due to this, i think that having these peaceful moments are signs that i can be truly at peace, but within the current state of my life, i'm not. this is in no way a negative thing. it's refreshing. i've been there and my experience of these moments can only increase, both positively and negatively.

something that few people fully understand is the need for a balance between positivity and negativity. if life was 'perfect' we wouldn't know that it was. we would be bored, unsatisfied, and uninterested. beauty lies completely in this balance. we can only experience happiness on the scale that we've experienced sadness and vice-versa. i truly believe that this peace can only be obtained by a complete balance of these two, independent of the breadth of the individual scales.

my potential progress lies in the knowing that i'm not currently at peace. finally, a sign that i'm moving towards something.