Perhaps

I am sitting here wondering perhaps self awareness (self appreciation?) resides in three states or possibly four?

"For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so" (Hamlet Act II, Scene ii), perhaps there is something beyond good and bad? Something more vital and important than this convenient (but perhaps not so useful) duality?

The Unexamined Life.
We are prisoners of our non-reality, seduced by our own elaborations, assume everything we think, see and feel is real because we deem it to be so. We are blissfully numb in the warm illusion of impermanence and perfection. We reside in a state devoid of 'common sense' because we have severed any sense of commonality or connection to what is real.

The Examined Life.
We realize our reality is a projection we make of ourselves. We can put our hands into the fire in Plato’s cave and burn through the illusions that contain us. It dawns on us that our life are not as clearly defined as the boundaries and meanings we cling to attach ourselves to and attach themselves to us. So we sift through the bones (our memories) in the ashes and try to make sense of what the being that these remnants inhabited?

The Un-examinable Life.
We cut the thread of our taught (self-tight and other-tight) notions of reality. We are free from illusion, we waft between orientation and disorientation fearlessly, open to surprise. Free from the clutches of prescribed meaning, the soft convenience of construction. We have been taught to think of wisdom traditions as being either eastern or western, perhaps there is a raw power in the traditions of the north and south, of the untold power of shamanism in african, the “native” american, the incan in the south or the untapped truths of the artic circle, the eskimo tribes of the north?

Once we peel away the constructs of our cartesian minds and it dawns that perhaps even the notions of NEWS (north, east, west, south) itself is an illusion, perhaps the truth is closer and deeper than "we think" therefore we are. Perhaps we are always getting in the way of our own story? Perhaps we only need to trust life itself?

Life Itself.

A fleeting kiss, the light that taps us out of a deep sleep, the curl of a babies grip on our fore-finger, a poem that takes a glimpse into our core, the elegance of geometry, the intoxication of a single word or the thud that hits home when we are confronted with the death of a loved one? We know the map is not the territory. Perhaps the territory itsef is not static but dynamic, impermanent and unknowable reality just waiting, aching to be felt?

Perhaps these truths felt are the ones with the power to move us from the unexamined to the unexaminable and beyond into a fourth way? Perhaps we don't need to think, perhaps it is right here waiting for us to be part of it and all we need to do is let go? Perhaps, that is what appreciation is.

It’s just a thought.