Reading what I write

Awake (Godsmack album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I rarely go back and read what I I have written. When I do I'm usually pleasantly surprised. Like today, when I read this post about writing mindfully. I'll come back that post in a minute. But first:

Question for future me:

Will you please let me know why the fuck you never read what I've written?

 I kill myself trying to get these things done, and then what?  

Why am I writing if you never read what I write? 

WTF? Really?

Anyhow.

It took me a while to get to that post. So let me tell you (future me, and others) the story. Or one of the stories. First tell you the stories I am not going to tell.

I'm not going to tell you the story that begins:  "It all started when I reached 70, said 'WTF!' and started this blog."

I'm not going to tell you the one that begins: "It all started nearly 73 years ago, when I was born." Or the one that starts "It all started nearly 74 years ago, when my parents fucked."

I'm not going to tell you the one that begins: "It all started 13.8 billion years ago, when the universe exploded into existence and pretty much everything started."

All true. All different stories. But not the one I'm gong to tell.

Today's story starts in May, when I read Sam Harris' book Waking Up.  I realized (more than ever in the past) that I spent most of my life "not awake." And I wanted to wake up more often and for longer periods.

What was I doing when "not awake?"  Maybe in a waking dream. Maybe immersed in an illusion. But not, as I now define the term, awake.

What is awake?

For most of the time that I've been writing this, I've been "not awake." My conditioning, my programming, knows how to write blog posts. It does a pretty good job. A kick ass job, actually. I don't have to wake up to supervise it. I don't have to do a fucking thing. Sit down, type, and it just happens.

But now, right this moment, for this part of this post, I am awake. (Or have been for parts of the writing and editing, but not all.) The difference between blogging while not awake and blogging while not awake probably can't be perceived by anyone but me.

But I know.

When I am blogging while I am awake I do everything that I do when I'm blogging while not awake. The only difference is consciousness. In one case I am not conscious that I am doing what am doing it. I just let the system do it. In the other, there is. It may not be doing it, but it is conscious.

Right now, I am sitting at my computer keyboard, moving my fingers and words are appearing. That's been happening all along. Or at least I assume so, because--how else did those other words get here?But most of the time I was unaware. Now I am.

So who was writing the post before I woke up. And who is writing during the few moments that I've been awake?

More important: who is going to push the "Publish" button.

Reply from future me to the question that past me asked at the top. (Well, a short distance in the future me, but a future me is a future me, right?)

"Maybe it's because you make finishing a piece such a pain in the ass that by the time you finally press Publish I never want to see the fucking thing ever again.

"I'm just saying. 

"PS: maybe you should read what you wrote about the self being an illusion. 

Good job, future me. Nice way to wrap up this post.

The thing that I learned from rereading that post is this: no one needs to push the button.