Lions and the civilized man

Frailties

Looking back, I see all these mes. Some of them boasting with life, others with lots of self-confidence, others lost and confused, others trying to please. In all these mes it's hard to find a common ground. Something which connects all of them. It reall shows how the self is just a construction and a context.

But there are contexts in which I more frequently "fall to the ground" and, once there, it is almost impossible to come back up.

The opposite of that is when I'm doing lots of exercise and going to Kung Fu classes. Then my light shines. These are the times where I "own" my self, these are the days full of stars where I can, like a surfer, ride my own feelings and thoughts and penetrate, without falling on some inner recesses of my mind. Some of the mysteries of the world open up their frangrance and I can smell and live a little of their magic.

When I fall... my mind becomes the center of my attention. Specific things in my mind occupy me for hours and days without end. I loose the sense of the all. I get lost in details. Feelings that arise from an unconcious daily life start to dominate me. I loose control of myself, of who I am and where I am going. In deeper and deeper voyages I become less and less conscious of the journey. I become less and less like the surfer glinding in the wave, I become more and more like a fisherman swept by strong currents. I loose sight of the bigger picture, where things make more sense. Instead I focus more and more on the detail, until I loose it all.

Some people I'm with also inspire me more or less to go into the broader or shallower picture of what's happening. In a very specific case, some people seem to be incompatible with the broader vision, with the "lion" vision. When I'm the lion, they seem to want to tame me. They don't like the lion. I don't think they're afraid of it, they really don't like it. They think it's rude and ugly. Unproportionate to the occasion. Something is deeply wrong with the lion, in their view. It shouldn't roar, it shouldn't smile, it shouldn't tumble. It's a capricious lion. And they don't like that either.

They try to tame the lion,
to tame the lion,
to tame the lion...

But then the lion just dies.
In fact the lion never existed. It was just an expression of freedom. And freedom cannot die, it just disappears. It stands in waiting, until a new opportunity comes for its arousal.

You cannot tame freedom. But can you deal with the tamer? Can you be with the tamer, talk with him, spend the day with him, eat with him, spend the night with him, share your whole life with him, and still... be free?

Perhaps it would even help the tamer! Perhaps it would free the tamer. Knowing that such a happy lion was roaming about, has his friend. Would he become a lion too?

What divides the lion and the tamer might be this: both like the lion, but one of them like him better in a cage. So, to change, the tamer would have to see, not only the beauty of the lion, but the ugliness of the cage.

The problem is, probably the tamer loves more the cage than the lion. He also lives in a cage, he is a cage man, or, in other words, a modern man, a civilized man. He doesn't even exist without a cage!