" Looking in the Mirror "

There I was looking in the mirror
There I was for everyone to see
Yet hidden in the door with all my confusion
Part of the megapopulous, that is me

Breathing clearly as one door I open
The others open slowly-- just in case
Radioactivity from back in the 50's
But it's hard to part with what's waste

There I was on the tv screen
Finding there's millions with my disease
I'm not a freak of nature, but something almost sinister
Little by little, becoming free

OCD, maybe a little
Though I don't count steps or alphabetize
Mistaken no one can do what I can do
Staring completely overloaded and mesmorized

Perfectionist at the wrong end of the spectrum
False gratification from all the wrong things
Embarrassed yet at home, generational seasoning
Chaotic organization in my upbringing

Self observation I wish I'd had much sooner
Not even realizing the things that I'd done
Compulsory obsessions, clean addictions
This is a battle that has to be won

There I was in the mirror
On the tv I saw there eyes as mine
Feeling the pressure, anxiety, and inferiority
There are many of us guilty of the same crime

BJH
2/23/2006

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This is an improvement you posted ages ago, isn't it. It's been fucking forever since I last had a look in this forum.

It's more material in it's metaphors than I would have expected from someone who agrees with my own mirror concepts.

I've since let go of the mirror-isms. They are an appellation and do not exist. I've more become focussed on emptiness, or sunyata, as it is called in Zen and most strains of Mahayana Buddhism. I'm becoming closer to Enlightenmet I figure, although I believe there is higher than it. Someone who grasps sunyata is close, say the bodhisattvas (one being the Dalai Lama).

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There's not a whole lot of metaphor in this once you know what it's about. There's a lot of packrats in the world for various reasons and I'm one of them. I caught part of a news show about "us" and the more I learn about it the more interesting it is and freer I feel to part with some of my stuff. That's basically what it's about.

I have changed one line in it after discussion with someone else. The enxt to last verse is:
Self observation I wish I'd had much sooner
Not even realizing the things that I'd done
Compulsory obsessions, clean addictions
A war within is on

Thanks very much for your indepth comments. I'm a packrat of philosophies, too. Most are unnamed to me.

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Packrat?
Sorry, my lexicon is all esoteric and vernacular. And metal and guitar...

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My my, I want a lexicon like that.

I think I see. There's a lot of different... directions in the piece. Sorry, my active vocabulary seems to be caving at the moment. But I like the way that you move out in many ways and then tie it up towards the end as being the selfinsight of a life that, bad or not, have lacked in introspection.
Maybe you could tell a little more about the show that inspired you? It is always interesting to know a bit more of the background of any given piece of poetry of lyrics.

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Some people have trouble parting with objects they've acquired over the years. It seems that each generation from my past has done that otherwise there probably wouldn't be a framed Currier and Ives coloring print in my attic from the early 1830's. The people on the show were newspaper clippers and savers of things that might or might not come in handy at some point in their lives. They had stacks of this or that. Compulsive savers are packrats.
I never associated it with ocd, but I can understand it a little more. From my own perspective I learned at my child welfare classes a few years ago that some people who have attachment issues are that way because of their past. Since I was "detached" at birth from my biological parents and had a rough, unrealistic view of that until later in life, anything that was mine was mine with a vengance. Even in grade school I can remember saving the pretty colored papers peeled from crayons just because. Once I found out that there's a quality of attachments that means something above any others it got much easier to part with a lot of things. But I still have a ways to go. My family is most important and what I've acquired materially I can give to someone else who might be in need.
I never want to have a perfectly tidy home though. I just want it organized so I can dive into projects and actually finish them. Actually find them! I shared a lot of the same ideas that some of the people on the show did.

I also tried to find a lyric to post the link to a song that sums up the packrat idea. It's called "Desert Rat" by Michael Murphey from his Blue Sky, Night Thunder album back in the 70's. It's probably got clips on amazon at the album.

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I can't really tell you how to get a transcendental lexi', it's developed throughout my life, as my interests have grown.
Reading the dictionary and writing lyrics on 'higher' topics helps. I looked through my old lyrics today when I was clearing my cupboard. There are some words in there I have forgotten since my "the-dictionary-is-my-favourite-book" days.

It's a good piece, LB, but I can't help feeling that you are trapped in vain lament/repent.


To lyrical transcendentalism.

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Yeah, I am I suppose, but it gives me something to write about sometimes. Life is a growing and expanding experience and it just seems to take me a little longer. I know that's only if I compare myself to someone else, but some things I know I did make me satisfied inside. I could get long-winded about all my should haves and ifs, but I won't.
I appreciate all the remarks.

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A bit ago I attained a high Jhana in RMPS when I realised there is no such thing as life or death. The reapings of seeds sown long ago...
It came when I was comtemplating the ideas of evolution (monkey-to-man, that kind of thing), which we were being taught that day.
It only arose because I was converging the ideas I had learned when I was 13/14.
The Buddha was wrong when he said that science is a distraction from the truth. But his dying words were that we should question him and seek our own salvation.

In Zen, strange meditations are practiced, as you well may know. I've found I am constantly meditating.
Thus the Enlightenment above.
I was very calm for the rest of the day and I ploughed through everything that was set for us in Maths which came after RMPS.

I find that I too am very abnormally brought up, but I am thankful for it. I am a much happier person than most of those who boast a 'normal' upbringing.
I think the Jhana was third level.

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What's RMPS? I'd have pm-d to ask, but someone else might like to know, too.

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Sorry, Religious, Moral and Philosophical Studies.

I think only Scotland here has it.

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Thanks for the info.

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And Jhana is an ascendant state of mind, attained by focussed thought.
There are eight apparently.
The bottom four are describable but the top four are formless.
Apparently.
It could be Mahayana bullshit.
I was reading Buddhist news.
The dharma's well dead (ultimate truth, path to it, a better word would be forgotten or lost).
We need that prophecied Buddha, Maitreya.
Apparently he's living out his second last life right now.
I believe he's alive here now, or he's not going to attain Buddhahood before all sorts of other prophecies start popping up (many of which are apocalyptic).
Like that Aztec one. May 2012 is the destruction of the world by an earthquake and the reduction of human numbers by headaches.

They got the description of the one who would destroy their empire correct centuries before he appeared. Pale skin, gery beard, metal helmet and war-skin. AND the time he would arrive. The equivalent to 1521 AD.
I believe they also had a crude pronunciation of his name too...
Shit!

(300th post!!!)

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