discipline or compassion
a rambling journal entry I wrote back in February; or the time I skipped my kung fu class for the first time since I began practicing martial arts.
Tue, Feb 24, 5:30β―PM
Itβs 22 degrees outside. This morning it was only 4.
I slept for an hour in the afternoon. I know because I timed it.
I know that whenever I wake up feeling like this, I need to be careful. Remain vigilant.
Idleness is the silent worm that eats away at me from the inside.
A swirl of familiar thoughts begins to leave a trail behind me and wherever I drag my body. This apartment has seen too much of me.
If I move, itβs involuntary but if I donβt, it becomes rebellion. I become defiant.
For I have remained still for too long and still, something in my nature has led me to believe that I mustβve shared a previous cycle of life with the likeness of a rock.
On good days I dare to imagine: Perhaps a mountain...
Inamovible. (es)
Itβs true, I do not know who I am.
At times I get glimpses of who Iβve been; pieces of an ever changing puzzle. Water in my hands emulating a mirror. Today it is hard to do anything without wondering why.
Why it is that I must, why it is that I might not want to and more importantly, why it is that even amidst this numbness, something in me would still want to.
I have been waking up at 5:30 am for the past month and a half. I would like to write the word βeverydayβ next to the hour but itβs not the case. I have been waking my body at 5:30 in the morning from Monday through Thursday in what has become an exercise at disciplining myself. I carry the weight of my carcass into the bathroom and throw it next to the shower before coming back to life to the sound of falling water. I arrive at what they call βthe templeβ (but in reality is a classroom with street facing windows and a whole wall covered with mirrors) at 7 am. There is a writing on the wall holding my reflection that reads, βel error es un regaloβ. I am scared once again of what the next two hours will reveal about my condition. My tyrant mind wonβt grant me a second of mercy before reminding me that I am weak and have been my whole life. The only thing that has been able to disarm it is the fact that I have once again, showed up for class.
Two hours of Tai Chi or Kung Fu (depending on the day) later, I am granted permission to tell myself that I am stronger than yesterday.
Only to be reminded that there is still a tomorrow.
I let myself surrender to today, knowing that in doing so, a greater battle than the one I face in the classroom awaits.
I have made peace with the mind that Iβve constructed for myself. The voice that I have shaped, the words that I know will make or break my day. I have made peace with the way I talk to myself for I have also learned to raise a different voice when the latter has become too much. Today is the first time in a month and a half that I do not leave for class at 6 am and it has left me feeling quite disoriented. There is not much else going on in my life right now that I can hold on to other than the irrevocable proof of discipline that practicing martial arts has become for me. Silence reigns on days like these, when I cannot decide whether I need discipline or compassion.
This feels like an eye opening discovery but it is a reality that Iβve grappled with for a while. Self-enclosed within the walls of my apartment, I try to sit with my thoughts in an attempt to dissect myself once more. Why do I feel like this, when will I stop feeling this way, what do I need to do, how do I begin.
Who will I become? Who among us feels at home and how do they do it, I wonder too.
I feel like as we grow and change, we continuously have to confront our pasts I guess to make sense of the changes or fit them within a new narrative as our identities are so tied to our initial circumstances. Do you ever feel like you fit in and are loved as you are or do you also feel like a perpetual stranger between worlds?
It is true, I do not know who I am. I only know what I have, what family I can still count on, what friends still remain by my side, what feelings carry me through life and in this world. I only know who Iβve been, and it seems as though all those versions eluded my consciousness at the time. I can only tell who Iβve been from a distance, I can only tell when I look back. I suppose that makes me a perpetual stranger between worlds.
I constantly think of the βLitany Against Fearβ from Herbertβs Dune (while trying not to cringe too hard at myself for doing so) whenever the uncertainty of our times becomes a tad unbearable. I find the words to be reassuring and simple:
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
At 5:29 pm I feel my soul begin to settle back into my body. I think I am ready to start my day.