Shiny and old (day 46)

A small package of new just entered my life.  A shiny aluminum package.  The click of the keyboard is louder and the click pad is stiff.  I've rebooted twice and each time I marvel at how quick it is.  Each time something new comes in a little bit of disappointment also sets in shortly after.  Chogyam Trungpa wrote that disappointment is a source of great learning.   He also called enlightenment the ultimate disappointment.  He might have been on to something.  Disappointment is that feeling you get when you come face to face with your projections onto the future, the object, the person.   Feeling disappointment can be the pointer to the places where you still long for the magic formula.  So I suppose the ultimate disappointment would be the deep realization that this is it and there is no magic incantation, no super perfect way to be, no state of grace where you are judged good and worthy of a life without suffering of any kind.  There is simply the capacity for delight in paying attention to what is.

I am grateful for the shiny in my life.  I'm also grateful for the aging in my life.  And this is the curious thing.  When I think about having something new, the feeling is so completely different from taking care of something (or someone) aging.   They are both full of projections, but one is a promise of ease, and the other is a promise of struggle.  But the reality is that in the taking care of the old I appreciate the life lived.  In those moments when I let the joy of the process seep in, the old is a gift.

One of my favourite songs for this post.