Pay Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

[this is going to be a rough blog, best to be considered a first-draft... more a collection of statements than a cohesive work...]

If you hold on to the handle, she said, it's easier to maintain the illusion of control. But it's more fun if you just let the wind carry you. -- Brian Andreas

In the book The Way Out, Dirk Vaughn recounts waiting in line for a backcountry permit. He listened as the people ahead of him asked questions about "which trails had toilets, wooden steps, shade, cell phone reception." He goes on a rant from there, and it's one that I agree with (heck, it might be one I've had myself). He makes his point: "We're so addicted to information and knowing everything a person can possibly know that we can't just say oh, here's a nature trail, let's go check it out."

Now allow me to reintroduce myself. I am an advocate for giving up control. I don't need air conditioning--I can survive without it (and have, for almost half my life). I don't need television, I don't need computers, I don't need my car, I don't need anything I don't have, and neither do I need most of what I have.

And yet I have a hard time giving up control. I doubt any half-hour of the day goes by that I don't check my phone for missed calls or text messages. I didn't even see how deeply this addiction ran, because I didn't see it as such until I read that passage from the book. That really brought some things together for me.

I like it when I forget my phone somewhere. BAM! It's out of my hands. It's not good enough to lack coverage--then, I just check the signal status constantly. But that made me realize that not having the phone took more than the physical object out of my hands--it took the control it allowed me out of my hands.
Which made me thing of traffic. I typically don't mind traffic, and when I would drive from Murfreesboro to Nashville to work I would actually enjoy it... because it took control out of my hands. I have to bust my ass to get to work on time (not that I did, really), but as soon as I hit traffic, sorry, nothing I could do.

And this tied to my appreciation of disaster. That is perhaps hard to explain, but another example is a microcosm of the situation: They say that if you want to hear God laugh, make a plan. I make plans with the actual hope that they'll fall through. Traffic? Flight delayed? Car broke down? Power outage resulted in a reset alarm clock? Hurricane destroyed your house? Bliss.
A couple of years ago, hearing the Post Secret guy talk (I can remember his name any other time, of course), he read a postcard, Everybody who knew me before 9/11 thinks I'm dead. It sent chills down my spine, and I think that feeling was a combination of horror and exhiliration.
The only thing that seems to feel good to me is to give up control, I'm starting to realize. (This isn't even a new thought; I'm just experiencing a more full realization of what I've always known... that Andreas quote up there is from a print I've had on my wall for years, and I've always known it was right.)
But check this out: I could be am described as having self-destructive behaviour. I took this into great consideration when planning to leave Tennessee and, rather than making a plan that couldn't fail to get me out, I simply sabotaged all the plans that could keep me there. Now, if this is self-destructive behaviour, would that imply that these plans, this control, is our concept of self?

I advocate giving up control, and yet I go on controling my life. As I mentioned in a previous blog, I won't allow myself into a management position at my job, because I know what a control freak I am. We're taught to believe we should be in control. We're taught to be in control, and never even question whether we should be. It's not even acknowledged that we could not be.
But we "have to" be in control... the only other option is chaos, we're given to believe. Except that's not true... that's the backdrop painted by people who want to be in control. One more tapestry in the story we tell ourselves we need to perpetuate. L. Frank Baum tells us if we look past the curtains, you'll find the Wizard. Daniel Quinn calls it Animism. Buddhas call it Nirvana. Jesus calls it Heaven. I call it Life. It's all there really is, but for the illusions of control we've made to distract ourselves from it.