the pain between reality and illusion

For many who have had a limb amputated, they afterward have an experience described as a phantom limb. That is, the limb that has been amputated continues to feel. But most frequently, this feeling is pain. Often after a painful several weeks (or months) trying to save a limb – muscles tensed, nerves severed – the decision is made to amputate, mainly to relieve the pain. But the pain endures.

Dr. Ramachandran – English born, of Indian heritage – at UC-San Diego postulated that the mind was tricked into thinking the limb still existed: convince the mind it doesn’t exist, and the pain may be resolved.

He placed a mirror in between a phantom pain patient’s arms (between the remaining hand and amputated hand), told the patient to make the exact same gesture with his remaining hand as he feels in his amputated hand, and adjusted the mirror so it appeared to the patient that he had both hands in tact. When he instructed the patient to look in the mirror (at the virtual limb) and unclench his functional hand, the patient did so and was amazed – it was as if they were controlling their phantom limb and the tense “muscle” pain was immediately relieved. After several weeks sessions of mirror therapy, patients reported their phantom limb had ceased – they convinced their minds that their limb was really gone.

I think that there could be a parallel with depression. If I see myself differently than I exist in reality, that could cause the pain I feel. If I see myself as an intact whole although I am an imperfect being, this could cause distress.

And I do, I think highly of myself. I have grand ideas, I’m confident in my abilities when applied, I’m compassionate and excitable about ameliorating society’s ills. But when I measure myself against my perfect ideals, I fall short. I feel unable to exact change, unable to act on my ideas.

But this distress is an illusory pain – the distance between reality and illusion. I’ve tricked my mind to think that it is real, though – that it has some cause. I could set out on a journey to reconcile reality with illusion , but if I do this, I’m missing the point (although this sounds like a worthwhile journey). I’d be spending my time sifting between reality and illusion which is a daunting task.

The point is that the pain is not real – it’s something I prefer to experience in order to feel perfect, intact.

The cause doesn’t exist because the cause is a discrepancy in perception. It’s as easy as letting go of what I want to be – which is also the hard part.

Interesting is all…

Well, to be fair, I am a racist.

But it’s cool, cuz I’ve got black friends. Oh, and also because I think Martin Luther King, Jr. was one of the most visionary men recorded in history – he cultivated compassion when no authority would bestow it upon him. And I’m proud of our society for overcoming the race barrier in the presidency. But all of that circumstance is beside the point. I’m still a racist.

But it’s not because I think that all races are inferior to whites, or that whites are superior to other races. As an American, though, in a pluralistic society – as an American who wants to propel change – and as a Buddhist whose practice is based in reality, I have to be the best darn racist I know how to be. I’m not going to be a prototypical racist, though. Difference of skin tone is trite. The “Civil Rights” brand of racism is no longer constructive.

Out of that movement all races in America are legally equal – as written in the constitution. Equal to pursue life, liberty and happiness. I acknowledge that that’s probably not universally practiced. I’ve met ignorant racists in my day – those of the “lynch mob” mentality. I’ve learned the facts about the impact that race plays in our criminal justice system.  But this is hate and ignorance-based racism. These racists have had their day in the sun; they are on the fringe; in large, they no longer matter. I’m interested in an informed racism – racism developed out of sense of survival reacting to the facts, statistics… reality.

Homicides in Chicago… they don’t happen in my neighborhood. They have happened in my neighborhood (2 blocks away, a man stabbed to death last Sept.), but this is the exception to the rule, so I stand by my assertion that they don’t happen in my neighborhood. They happen in Englewood. They happen in Lawndale. They happen on the south side of Chicago. They’ve happened everywhere, but they happen on the south side.

Socioeconomically, in general, the south side is poor compared to the north. Racially, in general, the south side is black and the northside is white and the west side is Hispanic. In general, of course.

If I’m to to understand homicide in Chicago, if I’m to internalize it in a way that it is practical information – in a lay sense – then I’m going to develop my fear of the south side and perhaps develop my fear of blacks. I might even go so far as to conclude that most blacks in Chicago come from the south side. I’m not a criminologist, a public defender, a sociologist – I go to work, I meditate, I play and I try to survive. In my town, blacks are improportionately violent compared to other races. If I’m not to be murdered or robbed, I will develop a profile of someone who will kill or rob me. A profile in general: this is fear.

But as a Buddhist and a man of compassion, I understand that fear is ignorance. It cripples compassion, it dismantles reasoning. It is no less real because of this, though. So I will embrace fear and the problem seems to elucidate itself: I react to blacks on the south side as I would react to a potential thief or murderer. I am a racist. But as an enlightened racist, I’m not committed to my racism. It’s a result of being a young American of a post-Civil Rights America: it exists more subtley, but I was not able to resist it totally. But I can overcome it. Grounded in reality, I can transcend this legacy.

As a Buddhist, I observe. To me, this is the only hope for authentic change: genuine care and considered observation. I will be a racist. But i will also not let myself need to be a racist. As it matters to survival, I’m to see clearly that a black murderer is not black, but that he or she is a murderer. This matters, not race. And if murderers and thieves are improportionately black, well then I have identified the injustice: it is unfair that a minority in America is more violent than American society as a whole. American criminal justice has failed it’s constituents, all of them – this justice perpetuates racism. If this was found to be intentional, we would rebel. But it is not intentional, it is systematic, so we are complicit.

Maybe justice doesn’t have to be putting violent offenders behind bars. Maybe justice can be creating a society where people don’t need violence in the first place. This vision is bigger than my dreams, but I believe that all it takes is a spark.

Is “green capitalism” oxymoronical?

I’ve been reading a recycled copy of the 14th Dalai Lama’s autobiography that I got from my friend Christy (thanks CS!). She received it from a friendly stranger (she is friendly to all strangers). I will only hang onto it long enough to read before passing it along to someone else.

One aspect of the book that fascinates me is the relationship between “material progress” and [the alternative]. The Chinese conquerors possess material progress while the Tibetans possess the alternative. The Dalai Lama doesn’t say it in so many words, but it seems the “alternative” to him is spiritual progress. For me, I’m much too secular and philosophical to call it “spiritual” – but I think the sentiment is there. The alternative to material progress is some semblance of peace, contentment – not needing to progress materially.

Material progress requires obsolescence – the higher the turnover of a type of product, the quicker the innovation. As soon as a new model with new features is available, the previous version is considered obsolete (and still I have my 1st gen. iPod). This spurns commerce and is a great tool in capitalism. It’s an active pursuit of the Buddhist law of impermanence.

But “green capitalism?” The Dalai Lama’s not making a dime off his book from me, Christy, a friendly stranger, and any number of other folks (and somehow, I’m sure he’s still glad I read it). but we’re recycling.

It seems you cannot have a great nation without material progress and the waste that it requires. The Tibetans are a peaceable nation that no longer exists because it didn’t produce.

I’m just speculating, but it seems that until capitalist culture demands more of the “alternative”, there will always be expeditious waste – regardless of whether there’s an organic sticker on it or not.

You just can’t peddle happiness.

When God opens a door, sometimes he hurts a biker

It was hovering around freezing. The snow was coming down thick and wet. If I took off my glasses, snow pellets would pelt my eye, making it impossible to see. With my glasses on, snow would land and melt into droplets, the warm moisture from my face fogging my glasses.

Going north on Lincoln, I had passed my temple a few blocks back, deciding I was going to meditate at home tonight. My glasses were so fogged I stopped at the light at Irving to clear my lenses. Moments before the light turned green, a biker rode by slowly – she had my exact chrome bag, the skin of her ankles was exposed. The light changed and she went. I was slow to push off, returning my glasses to my face. It’s unusual for me to stop at this light; more unusual not to beat every other biker off the line. i had caught up to within 15 feet of her – a car opened its door – I saw her jerk right then jerk left but she couldn’t avoid it. The door was not fully extended – there was zero give. She caught the edge and spun off her fixie into the middle of the street. Thank God there were no cars coming just then. I slammed on my brakes and jumped off my bike. She was on the ground but got up – obviously in pain. I didn’t touch her. She was in shock, disoriented. I guided her to the curb to sit. Her head, neck and torso were rigid. A pedestrian stopped and called an ambulance. The driver recounted what happened out loud, to no one in particular. He was not apologetic. No, she was not alright. She sat for a moment regaining her composure. She was coming from work, TraderJoes – going to class, somewhere. At one point she got upset – considering that her ribs and collar bone felt broken – she was concerned about “how am I going to get around”. She had contacted someone from TJ’s to come meet her – I told her I would take her bike back to TJ’s. Several firetrucks showed up. A cop pulled up. Minutes later an ambulance arrived. They put a brace on her neck, rested her on a hard, flat gurney. The snow was coming down in fat, wet flakes. They moved her underneath an awning. Snow was still falling on her face – I cupped my hands over her head to keep her face dry. The paramedics put her in the ambulance. A minute later they yelled out “Ross!” Yes? “Can you take her bike to Trader Joes?” Yes.

I walked our bikes the several blocks south to TJ’s. I was a little shaken up. There was nothing wrong. Things happen all the time. But Janna apparently didn’t have anybody to call but her manager. I was fortunate that I was able to be there for her, for a complete stranger – that I could be the name she’d think of in the ambulance to ease her mind the tiniest bit.

I understood that in any other circumstance, had I stuck to my habits, there would have been a different outcome – whatever that may have been. But for every parallel universe that could have been, there is more definitely this one that just is. I came home and poured myself a shot of Jameson’s. “La vie.” I drank.

It wasn’t until later that I considered this with respect to an event earlier in the day – a contractor took several of us to a nice lunch at a fancy grill. To spare the details, I made myself uncomfortable here and was having a difficult time overcoming my own discomfort. In the end, my discomfort was unjustified. But this was so stupid! I was worried about feeling comfortable in some pretentious place but – that’s not me.

I found a little bit of myself crouching across from Janna. It was easy, it was perfect. I didn’t know what to do but that didn’t matter because, for that 20 minutes, it wasn’t about me.

Sometimes it never is.

Karmic Bank in times of recession

I’ve got a friend who is a karmic banker. She’ll make occasional deposits but more frequently she’s making withdrawals. The simplicity of karma – what she knows to be karma – is her moral ATM. But in recession, she’s amazed that she has insufficient funds. She’ll make several deposits, but stops seeing the return on her investment. So in recession, she spends less, but she also makes fewer deposits – ever further from getting out of debt.

Karma is probably one of the most popular Buddhist concepts in the canon of western appreciation. You even got Earl making right. I feel it’s completely misunderstood though.

In the west there are two kinds of karma: good karma and bad karma. Each is derived from action, conditional on the moral weight of the action. It is said that fortune is good karma, a product of good actions; whereas misfortune (bad karma) is a product of bad actions.

But there can’t be two karmas, there can only be one. It’s a law. The west is fond to bifurcate morals into good and evil – it’s written in our code of justice. But karma’s a law on the order of Newton’s 1st law of physics: each action has an equal and opposite reaction.

But the opposite reaction in karmic theory isn’t good for bad; it’s good for good, and bad for bad. It’s not the moral value that changes, it’s the direction of the moral value that changes. When I put forth good, the same value of good will be returned to me. But this is a very simplified theory, and I think it is often misunderstood. It doesn’t relate my actions to the larger order of things. It’s misguided because morals are worthless as personal conceits; they have value only as they relate to the whole order of things.

Really, it doesn’t matter what I do. I don’t believe in action and i don’t believe in self. When good comes to me, it’s not because I put forth good, it’s because my place in the order of things demands “good” to be a stable entity. Like in physics, when two balls in motion collide, they each provide the same force at the point of contact in opposite directions. It’s as if I am the point of contact between two forces. Or to put it another way, when you rest a bowling ball on a cushion, the ball does not “cause” the cushion to compress (i.e. it is not cause/effect), the actions happen simultaneously.

Karma as understood is the strongest moral stance a person can take – a person that truly understands this principle need not even take action and karma will guide the outcome. Like Gandhi and MLK, Jr. – these stalwarts of moral conviction – for as much as we credit them with being the voice and face of their respective movements, they didn’t have to do anything to succeed in their moral campaigns. They understood the moral order of the world: Gandhi understood the British could not keep Indians from making salt – people may die, but salt production cannot be owned; MLK, Jr. understood that segregation was unstable, tapping the consciousness of an ever-waking nation, and therefore had to fall. Abraham Lincoln too understood: he was not an abolitionist, but he understood that slavery in America would not last if the tenets of the constitution were as true and powerful as the nation that rest upon them. In all these cases, our heros endorsed the inevitable.

And here is the difference: one cannot create karma. A person can only choose to embrace it or fight it. It appears that a person who embraces the inevitable receives reward (i.e. good karma) when in fact, they are only getting nearer to the inevitable, nearer to something called “truth.”

Food Matters (book)

“A Guide to Concsious Eating” is it’s tagline – what more incentive does a zen practitioner need to read it? The book is Food Matters by Mark Bittman, author and NYT columnist.

I’m a vegetarian. Have been for 7 years. And like most vegetarians, the first question I get on the subject of diet is “why?”.

I’m fairly confident my decision was not causal. There were plenty of anecdotal reasons* (see below) – most of them unverified or unverifiable. No single reason was compelling enough and, frankly, no combination of reasons could do the trick. But that I was already fascinated by the idea and open to it when the opportunity presented itself made the transition natural (I was working at a summer camp that offered a vegetarian option, so I pulled the trigger).

And yet, my diet was still not entirely conscious. I observed the place meat had in my diet and the holes it left behind. I recognized the omnipresence meat has in our society (especially in the midwest, not as much when I lived in California and upstate New York: if you don’t bring veggies to a Chicago bbq you’re eating buns and chips). I can’t honestly say I felt better or healthier. It didn’t affect my athletic performance or energy (not that I could see). I think I stuck with it for so long because I ate food I never before tried (could be coincidental, though, with moving to Cali annd NY state) but also I enjoyed having a societally-marginalized diet.

My diet-consciousness stopped here, though. When I accepted the term “vegetarian” when applied to myself, it became habit instead of a purposefully-chosen diet. Food was the same to me as it was for the 20 years when I ate meat and was being fed by my mother, college dining halls and habituation.

Fortunately, the U.S. is in the midst of a food golden age where food is abundant here and society is obsessed with health. There were corporations, food councils and dietitians out there who observed this and saw that there was money to be made in health. Enter fad diets, the organic & natural movements, health magazines and blogs, etc. For good or bad (I won’t judge) it’s here. This pricked my consciousness enough to get me to look into the subject more: are there benefits to vegetarianism? should I eat organic? local? how are vegetables farmed? what makes a food “healthy”? what advice to I follow when I sit down to eat?

I recently came across the book Food Matters by Mark Bittman in an airport bookseller and bought it. I’m pretty reserved with my spending, I almost didn’t buy it except I really wanted to give it as a gift to my friend Megan who recently acquiesced with vegetarianism. And over the course of my flight from Denver, I read the entire book (sans the 180 pages of recipes).

It’s an awesome tool of awareness.

Bittman delves into the American culture of overconsumption (this pares wonderfully with The Story of Stuff www.storyofstuff.com) and its roots, rise and profitablity. He investigates our government’s role in your diet and mine as well as the roles of corporations and food councils. Like many developments in American culture, there is a profitabilty component. He even looks at how we are being marketed to and brings into questions what we know about nutrition and what can be known of nutrition.

This isn’t hard science, but Bittman ties it together so coherently and cohesively that the support he provides is enough to keep my skepticism at bay. I think one of the most pertinent conclusions of the book is that the science of food is not far enough along to provide us solid data for our diet choices. More important in our age than a scientifically-supported diet is a meta-consciousness of food: from how we’re marketed to, to the high fructose corn syrup and 7-syllable-latin-based ingredients in processed foods.

It begs a simpler diet (he calls it “sane eating”). As in zen, consciousness involves learning what is knowable and knowing what is unlearnable. This simpler diet admits we cannot know what diet is “right” for us. But it then encourages us to stick with what we can know: simple ingredients, traditional farming methods, an awareness of the impact food marketing has on us.

In sticking with what I know, I have a greater awareness of what is truth and what is illusion (or marketed as truth although unknowable). After reading this book I am excited because it has encouraged me to raise so many questions about my diet. These questions themselves are consciousness, and the process of finding answers will raise even greater questions and greater awareness.

*Support for vegetarianism for me included: the health benefits, the environmental benefits (vegetarians save acres of rainforest each year; food production is more efficient (takes 10x more energy to produce same caloric quantity of meat); cattle farts contribute to greenhouse gases with 1/5 of the worlds methane emissions), the practice of self-restraint, the practice of a conscious diet, the endorsement of Einstein (“Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”) and Gandhi, the diversification of my diet (because most veggies have a lower caloric density than meats, it requires more veggies to get the same energy), self-righteousness, etc.

Pointless practice

A dear friend of mine has a life coach. She has weekly phone calls and assignments. She is constantly inspired from the things she learns about herself, from quotations she finds and from Oprah. She has committed to being a better “her” and has her coach to rely on. She believes in happiness and she believes this process will work for her. It works for her. I wish it didn’t – I wish she would take to meditation – but it works for her. Being my dear friend, I support her and accept this although I’m determinedly against it. What little I know of life-coaching, I think it is fatally flawed.

The logic is there: if a coach can enhance your performance in sports, then why not in life? A life coach takes on a support role that is critical to happiness and success – tantamount to the support of friends and loved-ones, but supposedly with a singular focus on the “liver” (I mean, one who lives). In addition to support, she is essentially enrolled in a life-building agenda. This can be seen as the equivalent to the dharma. After all, the same faith in following a life coach is required of a dharma follower. I want to say it’s different, but it’s not. There are no 2 types of faith – there is just one, and it hinges on not knowing for sure but beleiving anyways.

But her experiences brought up a poignant dichotomy for me: the value of practice versus exercise. When I sit on my mat and when I apply this in my world, I call this practice. My friend, though, has meetings, assignments and goals; I call this exercise.

Exercise is very general. Working out is a form of exercise. It contributes to health but it doesn’t really make you better at exercising. The more exercise you get, the easier exercising becomes, but I don’t think you would say you are a better exerciser. I don’t think that’s the point. In high shcool I would do math exercises for class. I did exercises before tests. The goal was to learn what I was taught – not to exceed my learning.

I think this is the singular difference between exercise and practice: with practice you are better equiped to exceed your learning, exceed your coach, exceed the rules of the game. In high school basketball, my coach would tell us how to do a play, or take a shot – the goal was not to do it textbook, but to do it better than textbook… to exceed our learnings so it couldn’t be picked apart by a smart opponent.

I guess this is the flaw I find in life-coaching: there is nothing to exceed. No one has come before me. My life to this point is not a benchmark. I cannot exceed my learnings if I continue to learn in the same vein. Even a life coach wants me to be only as happy as her – she will not admit to someone being happier because she is the happiest. isn’t this why the Buddha taught after enlightenment? If he were to have this thought, he would know there could be no happier. I don’t categorize life-coaches as enlightened, though. It’s a faithless bias, I know, but that don’t change my mind.

In unlearning, though, there is something to exceed. I have been taught my whole life. As I write and as I think, I am being taught. Some could say I am  being taught by my culture, but it’s greater than that: I am being taught by what I know. That is the most flawed teaching! What does this rest on, this that I know? If I don’t know that, then I know nothing. And so, I accept, I know nothing. But this is not enough. I have to know even less. I have to unlearn what I know. I have to acquire negative knowledge.

And this is my practice, my pointless practice. I sit on my cushion and just sit. I am not amazed. But when I am in the world, I am amazed at what I can unlearn. In my interactions with others. There is so much worth not knowing. I may be like a child that gets excited not because I learn something new, but because I learn that I didn’t know something – that there’s anything at all to learn!

It will take so much practice, but at least I know my benchmark to exceed.

A writer not to be read

An unexpected fate has befallen my blog: people are reading it. I don’t know how people can stand to be read and then just continue to write. My posts attract unremarkable numbers, mind you, but they (you) are nonetheless people. When I sign in, I see my stats – an exhilarating moment. I get so excited to see what people are reading, what they are saying… it’s maddening.

Praise is as detrimental as criticism if internalized. And as a writer, to be read is a form of praise. Basking in praise is not accepting myself for what I am – it is an opportunity to not be myself. I’m drawn away from my love of writing by a desire for validity – a foolish validity to perpetuate my writing. But in all honesty, I don’t want to write because it’s good, I don’t even want to write because I love it – I don’t want to want to write. In other words, my pure ideal for myself as a writer boils down to this: I don’t want to write.

Praise and criticism are so distracting! Both have the exact same effect: my wanting to do “good.” Even now I’m struggling to write this post because I want it to be good. I want it to be meaningful to readers and express my thoughts in a way that it is conveyed appropriately. But there is no room in my writing to be “good.” The harder I work to make my writing good, the more I edit, and the further my end product is from my genuine thoughts.

This isn’t about doing good, it’s about doing. It’s about the impossibility of doing – the contradictions of doing – and doing nonetheless.

the times when I feel closest to myself are the times I’m amazed that I’m actually acting. Another word for it is spontaneity: when I catch myself doing something and ask myself “why am I doing this? there’s no reason for this? how is this possible? and why won’t I stop myself?”

In my agonizing and ignorant attempts to make this post “good,” I composed the following. They arose out of disingenuous premises, but in foundering so, are pure nuggets of distress:

In the haunting words of Nietzsche on the virtuous (the words that vividly distilled Christianity in my mind): “They want – to be paid besides!”

It is the very moment when you acknowledge you are happy that you cease to be happy. The moment ceases to be about happiness and becomes an opportunity to validate happiness and it’s worth. The truth is, happiness has no worth – it can only be what it is, no other. Identifying a moment as happy is a panicked attempt to hang on – to spice this moment with the past.

no-self is greater than self-confidence

The sexiest trait a woman can possess is self-confidence. (that’s true of men too.) Always knowing, unwaivering, with no hesitation.

But I feel a strong self-confidence is a rare thing.

I know people that are self-confident not because they don’t question themselves, but because they don’t question anything. This is a shallow self-confidence and isn’t as attractive as that self-assured confidence.

And then there are people who are topically self-confident. Intelligent in many matters, well-read, highly knowledgeable in all of their interests (financials, sports, music, technology, etc.), they do not have to dig deeper because their interests guide them where to dig. They do not question their interests.

There’s also people that are confident in their abilities. This is the competitor. This would probably be me. I can do anything as good if not better than anyone else and I don’t even have to try it to know.

And then there is a self-confidence that seems to be grounded in absolutely nothing. To me, this is the most attractive of all. It seems to stem from nothing and is unshakable precisely because it is not tied to anything at all. This person is confident even when they are questioning. Their admitted ignorances are a source of their confidence. At every moment they are aware of what they don’t know – and they don’t shy away from that. They embrace it. They walk towards it. They do not commit themselves to erasing their ignorance, but to expanding it. Truly, the further you dig into any subject, the less you realize you really know. They can make decisions not merely on what they know, and not just with the added benefit of what they don’t know, but through both of these in addition to knowing what they might not know.

This is the process of uneducation. My whole life it’s been hammered in me to know things: to know the answers to the test, to know how to deal with people, to know what I want to do with my life. But knowing has its limits – and I think I exceeded that limit when I graduated college. In my current work, I am much more advantaged to ask questions – and not merely for answers, but to question the entire apparatus. it usually just exposes flaws in the system, but occasionally there will be a clear take-away, something to help me think less like an educated man and more like a thinking man.

I’m inclined to side with the Buddhist notion of no self – mainly because it lends a solution. My specific history, independent interests and all that I “know” are indicative of a unique “I,” a vessel through which these traits are bundled. But these things only point to a self, they do not prove a self. If I got rid of all of my interests, got rid of my past, my possessions, my knowledge, I would cease to be a self. I would have to question everything because I would have nothing solid – nothing self-like – to rely on. I would not find answers within myself; finding an answer ironically contributes to selfness. i would not find answers. But i could appreciate the questions.

In the words of e.e.cummings: “always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question”

fighting a ghost

I don’t know what it is that sets it off within me. It’s usually the unsatisfiable stirring. The feeling that something can be done and that I can do it. This feeling usually comes in the morning, or on my bike. But when I pause to do it, the feeling is stillborn. It manifests itself, lifeless.

But when i breath, when I see the world without having to look for it, it vanishes. It’s an illusion, a specter.

I choose to fight it. There’s the reality of the illusion – in essence it’s creativity. This thing that does not exist that I have created for myself. It’s pure insanity. It’s a paradox.

There’s a dramatic element – a certain mystique that, cherishing it, something will happen. The worst thing in the world – for someone of this world – is that nothing happens.

A depression is wearying. It beats me down to not want to do anything. It has me judging what is good or bad for me and does not impel me to do good. It is an authority.

When I fight it, I don’t take aim. (I am aware of where only the aim can be taken.) Instead, I fight it by letting it take hold of me. I let myself believe in the reality of it. And that in fighting I am accomplishing something.

A cousin of mine claims to have seen a ghost in her former apartment – a young woman dressed in a white dress. The story of the much-former tenants lent to the validity of the story. Lying in bed, she saw the ghost before her very real. Terrified she stayed in bed, unmoving, waiting for the sun to rise.

I don’t believe in ghosts. But I do believe that my cousin actually saw a ghost. Having seen a ghost, would she ever choose to disbelieve in ghosts?

And instead of being terrified, what if she were to fight the ghost? What if she could turn that fear into aggression, and that aggression into action? If she were to fight the ghost, confront it, regardless of the outcome, she would be less afraid of the ghost next time.

Fear is passive ignorance – lying there not knowing.

Fighting is active ignorance – acting out against a ghost.

It’s the sense of active ignorance I hang on to – that at least I do anything. If I get rid of my ghost, how can I act?