A Mistake
or, In Lieu of My Regular Friday Post
He wanted to change the energy, his energy. He wanted to take his frustration and irritation and, like an alchemist, turn it into flamboyance and originality. It was a small thing—it always is—a minor mistake involving his computer, a small copy-and-paste error that caused him to lose an hour and a half’s work, a page or so of writing, his blog post. He wanted to breathe deeply so that the mistake and the frustration would pass through him, he wanted to have the energetic prowess so that he could make that happen, quickly and efficiently. He wanted to be able to tell himself, “It’s okay, it’s no big deal, you can rewrite it, it wasn’t that good anyway (it rarely is),” and he wanted that mantra to be enough to bring him back to a state of relative equilibrium. He wanted to be King of the No Big Deal, or at least a middling Prince of Equanimity. But he couldn’t be, after all, he was human, and a little f-ing mistake like that would cost him, dearly and severely, it would cost him another hour of his day as he fumbled in the refrigerator for comfort food, for a slice of turkey and some pickles, yes, the mistake would cost him. Mistakes always cost him dearly, like anybody, because his mind tended to make everything into a Very Big Deal. So he would lie down on his bed for a minute and perform his g.d. breathing exercises and not worry about his post until next time. He would Let This One Slide. He would breathe into his g.d. toes for about ten minutes and then he would be okay. He would remind himself that the mistake moment is gone, and a fresh moment is arrived, and in truth, nobody really gives a damn anyway about your little mistake drama (in the positive sense of nobody-really-gives-a-damn-so-stop-taking-yourself- so-seriously-and-just-relax). He wanted to work with his energy without having to put it all into words, but alas, that was what he did, he put it into words. That was what he always did, and thereby, through that special alchemy of putting-into-words, he did come to realize he was okay, that everything was all right, sure, he had lost his post, but whatever, it was No Big Deal, well, that is, unless he kept on like this, unless he insisted on wearing down everyone’s patience, including his own, stretching their attention and capacity for tolerance to their extremes. Yes, if he kept this up, he would succeed in making it a Very Big Deal, again. Anyhow, the whole No Big Deal versus Very Big Deal seemed pretty much at the heart of it—it now being suffering—and in the end, just as the knots in his chest released and relaxed, and as he rose from his self-made bed and returned to his desk to work, he was able, finally and forever, once and for all, for the sake of eternity and the Eternity of Now, he was able to just let it go.