Hibernation

Day 11
All I can hear is the creaking and cracking of the bamboo swaying in the wind, the cooing of the doves, and the distant sound of someone working on their house. An airplane flies by. I'm sitting on the lanai with the laptop on my lap, feeling I should be writing something, yet there is nothing to say. The retreat has been a soothing balm to my brain. I seem to have dropped all anxiety about having to “produce” every moment of my life. It’s finally time to put the computer—and my mind—on “hibernate” for a while.

It amazes me to see how wrapped up I’ve been with writing for the past ten years, day after day, thinking I have some important message to share with the world. In the last six months, three books have come out with the same message I thought was so important—and doing it better than I could have done. So, where does that leave me? Free! I no longer have to save the world!

Elizer Sobel out-wrote, out-experienced, out-humored me in his book The 99th Monkey; Mark Matousek out-researched, out-performed, out-slicked me in When You’re Falling, Dive. James Swartz out-memoired, out-sexed, out-nondualed me in his online memoir. The funny part is that I can barely remember the names of their books and none of them have stuck with me. The stuff I wrote is just as forgettable. Even funnier, any idea of getting rich off a book went out the window. I doubt any of them made more than a few pennies. So, what was I was trying to prove?

In retrospect the book was an attempt to win the “next race,” to be recognized, to be better than, to give the finger to just about everyone. Now I have no idea where the writing will go—if it goes anywhere—and it no longer matters.

Adyashanti talks about the idea of “striving” (coming from the mind), versus “allowing” (coming from a place of not-knowing). True creativity is like an artesian well, naturally bubbling up from the earth. Ego-creativity is like using a high-pressure pump to force it up from the depths.