The Edge

I think I have been mad for quite some time. Most of the past year, to be sure. For quite some time before that. Not the madness of insanity, though I would argue that "insane" is a fitting descriptor. No, this was a dull madness, an everyday madness, brought on by only thinking rather than seeing, listening. I think, perhaps, it was the pain of the past year that made me realize it. Once I learned to sink beneath the pain, sink the thoughts and be here, in this moment, and some moments are harder than others...once I learned to sink at will rather than at the whim of chance, I could tell the difference. With the mind not sunk, the thoughts race and race and race, and they think nothing of consequence, though each thought seems like the most consequential idea in all of the world. Sunk down, fewer thoughts come, and those that come have meaning. Substance. It is possibl to be aware of more than the square foot in front of your eyes when the thoughts are sunk. Possible to recognize your own pettiness and madness. So, for the moment, I am striving to stay sane.

It reminds me of when I started trying to incorporate the taiji walk into my everyday gait. My legs weren't quite strong enough to maintain it past a certain distance, yet when I lapsed back into the old way of walking, I felt ill. I preferred to sink my weight back down and let the legs work rather than fall back into former habits. That's what this is like. With the mind sunk down, everything is clearer, but it takes effort right now to keep it sunk. When it rises back up, the madness comes again, and I feel sick. Now, at least, I can push the mind back down, but there is some...mental strength required to keep it there. It took several months for my legs to build up to the point where I could keep from bobbing up and down as I walked. Perhaps it will take the same amount of time for my mind to stop bobbing up and down as I live.