Be Here Now?

Luke made a post the other day that really resonated with me (and also reintroduced me to this lady about whom I had forgotten).  In it he discusses something that I've been grappling with lately (and always):  the inherent difficulty of living totally "in the moment," of experiencing pure enjoyment, even when one feels that one is making a genuine effort to do so.  Feeling good and connected, like I'm getting the most out of my time by enjoying myself fully, is really important to me.  It's something that I'm always trying to work toward (sometimes less than I should be, don't get me wrong) but rarely get close to.  When I was little (I don't know how little) I remember trying to figure out what the "meaning of life" was; after my dad read a scene to me from one of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books about a big party the prairie people had with singing and dancing, and I told him I thought that maybe that was life's point, to have fun and enjoy ourselves.  I was feeling really bad at the time about having to eventually die.  My dad said he felt that was true but I could tell from the way he responded that it was going to be a lot more complicated than that, not to mention easier said than done.  (Side note:  this was probably not actually a huge turning point in my life, it's a lot less dramatic than I'm making it out to be.)  Anyhow, Lukey says in his wonderful post,

Are we ever really “there” in our lives? It is rare and precious indeed when we feel the moment is all there is and all we need. These peak moments are blessings and between them we just have to enjoy the steady stream of life. I've hankered for explosive experiences and am having to accept that sometimes life is just life, it is a coat of many colors and the florescents wouldn't look so bold if there weren't grey days for them to stand out against.

I feel I can definitely live with this.  As long as there are some moments (hopefully more frequent than not) when I feel like I'm enjoying the fluorescents to the fullest extent I'm able, then it's Totally Worth It.  I guess if I were completely blissful all the time, it wouldn't be bliss after a while.  Also, would I really be able to recognize that I was enjoying a moment fully if I weren't able to take myself out of it, either at the moment or afterwards, and tell myself that?  I don't know if that made any sense, so I'll try and say it another way:  I feel that in order to reeeeally experience happiness like that, I have to know that that's what's going on.......even if I were able to attain it every day, I would only really be satisfied if I felt like I really appreciated how good it was and how lucky I was to be able to feel that way.

Happiness like what?  A couple weeks ago I suddenly Stumbled Upon a feeling (it lasted a few hours until I went to sleep) that I hadn't felt in a few years.  I felt so Good I didn't know what to do with myself.  Usually when I'm feeling pretty happy little doubts and uneasinesses are tugging at my mind (I guess no one's ever completely happy) for whatever reason; maybe I worry that I'm neglecting something I'm supposed to do, or maybe I don't feel entirely satisfied with my physical appearance.  There's always something, of course.  But for these few hours I was for once just completely blissful and content, so aware that this was the way to be.  I felt totally in Love with myself and everyone and everything.  I can't even describe it--I don't really have the words, and also I no longer really remember what it felt like--so I'm not going to even try.  I don't know where it came from, either.  I got there partly on my own and partly through a perfect combination of pot and alcohol, but I do know that I made the change from Regular to Indescribable within seconds.  I was so hopeful that I had really hit something, that This was the way I would feel from now on, for the rest of my life.  Alas, when I woke up the next morning, I definitely felt better and more positive than I had in days, but it was nowhere near that beautiful high I'd felt the night before.  It did tweak my perspective a little, maybe even a lot, but I was disappointed that I didn't wake up in that same mood, which was certainly naive.

(I'd felt that way at least a few times before.  I have to admit that it usually happens when I am drunk and high at the same time.  That sounds sort of bad to me, but I'm not gonna say it is...inebriation has come to be demonized in our culture (for both good and bad reasons), and not merely in our culture of course.  But it seems to me that people have been using it as a tool forever (since the dawn of time practically) to attain these sort of states of mind, for religious or spiritual purposes or otherwise...on the other hand, as I've demonstrated to myself time and again, drugs and alcohol (or whatever) often combine to have the OPPOSITE effect of that feeling I'm trying to achieve...on the other other hand, I can't blame the fact that I'm not totally happy on stuff like that, because I don't believe it's true in my case.....but anyway, I should save this for another time.)

Any way, I guess I know that it's not enough to merely will myself to feel completely joyful and connected.  It has to be a combination of that and really thinking through my thoughts, trying to make myself happy by working through what kind of thinking isn't making me happy.  I can't overdo it either way, there has to be a balance...

I haven't said all I want to say about this and I don't know if any of that made sense, but this is good enough for now.  Orrr it'll have to be.  I think I need to go think about it some more and then come back.  Thanks, Luke, I Love You, thank you for inspiring me to make my first post.  This is going to be a good exercise in self-reflection.  I have already learned that I have a compulsion to write "definitely" way too often.  Rain Man.