Mark Dohle

Quite a jig

December 25, 2009 |  5 comments
Image Credit: Midjourney Mark Dohle: I love to waste time, or perhaps at times it is a compulsive running away from the nothingness of the moment. I often wonder what it would be like to be disciplined like many of my friends are. They have set schedules that they actually follow, different times for certain activities that they keep to. While with me, well, while I do like things organized around me, my insides can often be spread very thin indeed.

Often I wonder if this facade, for that is what I present to those around me, a mask of sorts, that changes as I encounter different people under different circumstances, has any reality at all. How much of that is free, how much automatic and in the end how much do I believe what I say is true. I really can’t answer that question, for if truth be told I don’t know who or what I am. What makes it even more complicated is that I seek to understand and at the same time run away from that understanding. Quite a fix, a sort of inner paralysis I think, for I often feel that I am merely treading water simply trying not to sink below the waves before my time.

Self awareness, trying to figure things out is something that I can’t break away from, just one inner landscape after another, endless chewing of the cud going nowhere. So yes I feel stuck, trapped in a way of dealing with life that could be something based on self delusion and lies. I wonder what is below all of this inner tumult. For surely what is below, hidden, is what is the most important, substantial and permanent.

In silence I often feel a place of home, no thought, or, if one does come to the surface it just sinks again or perhaps dissipates. First this now that, yet the silent awareness, if allowed to simply observe, to watch, learns that soon it is gone, like a cloud passing over head in the skies. One moment seeming to be solid then soon, very soon, it is gone. What feeds these images, gives them life? Is it something primordial or transcendent? Perhaps both, maybe the layers never end, though some of them can seem hell like when present to their influence.

Roots, maybe it is about that, our past feeds the present, clouding it, running things from that pre-conscious part of who we are. Silence; well maybe that is the key that opens the door, allowing what is in Pandora’s Box to come out into the world of day. In any case, it will come out, either by opening the box, or it will explode outward under the right circumstances. Nice quiet people going mad doing great harm, the box perhaps not known even to be there, suddenly releases waves of primitive energy that needs to be expressed in ways often unseemly. I feel that walking over the abyss is not too far off the mark as a metaphor, when dealing with what we humans deal with on a daily basis, known or unknown.

I know I am universalizing my own inner experience; yet, I am a normal human being of average intelligence, just trying to make it through the day and doing what needs to be done to do that. I am not a time bomb, just aware of the intense energy that dwells within, that is not only life giving, but also if unchecked can lead to deep inner chaos and destruction of self and others. I often feel that our cultures are a mirror image of what goes on within.

So what are we or what am I? Well I often think that we are all children, young and no matter how wise we think we are, we are just at the beginning of a very long journey. I know many disagree with this, thinking that the world is only made up of chemicals, that there is nothing out there and we being here by chance and in the end meaning nothing. I sometimes envy that perception, so clean, neat and promising an end. Well if the collective understanding of most of mankind that we don’ end, well what about that, what if it is true, is that really such a consolation? To think that we are responsible for our lives and the good and yes the evil we cause and that must be faced at death, is not always a great comfort. Endless rest, now that can be a comfort after a long hard day wrestling with others and also with oneself. Perhaps that inner confrontation when all is stripped away and only naked truth there, perhaps that is the reason we fear death?

The human heart seeks something. Looking for what? What is our deepest desire? Do our cultures tell us the truth about what is important? Or, are we brainwashed into believing what is presented to us by commercials on the TV and radio, and yes by what movie stars want us to believe?

Science can’t answer many questions that pertain to the seeking of our inward selves. It can tell us how thing are, but not anything about our deepest longings and desires. In fact science like religion has caused a great amount of havoc in the world today. We kill each better because of science, our planet is polluted almost beyond repair because of scientific advancement and yes little by little all privacy is being taken away from us by al the breakthroughs in technology. So science as used by humans is not going to give us many answers about our human predicament, but could in the end make it much worse.

Religion is often no better, though I am a Roman Catholic, I am more than aware of the evil and pain that was caused by the leaders of my faith. So religion can be a big problem along with science today. However I am not simplistic, both science and religion are needed, for the human race also has a spiritual side that needs to be nourished and not crushed. The problem comes when religion thinks it has all the answers, allowing no room for the seekers inner spiritual self to grow and prosper. For I think we are seekers after the truth and when someone comes and gives us a package neatly wrapped as the truth, then this idol can become dangerous. Living with doubt is part of the journey, trying to get rid of it is not possible and very unhealthy.


Secular governments that become all powerful are not much help either, all one has to do is to study the 20th century to see that our salvation does not come from that direction either. Unless we can learn to understand that the problem is not science, governments or religion, but it is our human natures that allow the darkest aspects of who we are to take over, that is the problem. Scape goating is a waste of time and just a way to forestall a deep looking into ones own heart. Blame is easy but it leads nowhere. In any case, I don’t think any thing will do any good. It seems as a species we are bent on self destruction, and I am not sure anything will be able to stop that. We are irrational and we have to fight hard to even think rationally, or if we do it is often clouded by deep wells of emotional overload leading only to more trouble.

Perhaps it is the listening to that inner silence that will help us, to quiet down, to settle, to sit and do nothing, to get in touch with what is truly deep within us, the primordial and yes the transcendent. Until then, we could be considered puppets dancing to a jig, played by a man, insane to the core. I think only humans could build up arsenals of nuclear weapons to insure peace; yeah quite a jig.

Mark Dohle[!gad]I love to waste time, or perhaps at times it is a compulsive running away from the nothingness of the moment. I often wonder what it would be like to be disciplined like many of my friends are. They have set schedules that they actually follow, different times for certain activities that they keep to. While with me, well, while I do like things organized around me, my insides can often be spread very thin indeed.

Often I wonder if this facade, for that is what I present to those around me, a mask of sorts, that changes as I encounter different people under different circumstances, has any reality at all. How much of that is free, how much automatic and in the end how much do I believe what I say is true. I really can’t answer that question, for if truth be told I don’t know who or what I am. What makes it even more complicated is that I seek to understand and at the same time run away from that understanding. Quite a fix, a sort of inner paralysis I think, for I often feel that I am merely treading water simply trying not to sink below the waves before my time.

Self awareness, trying to figure things out is something that I can’t break away from, just one inner landscape after another, endless chewing of the cud going nowhere. So yes I feel stuck, trapped in a way of dealing with life that could be something based on self delusion and lies. I wonder what is below all of this inner tumult. For surely what is below, hidden, is what is the most important, substantial and permanent.

In silence I often feel a place of home, no thought, or, if one does come to the surface it just sinks again or perhaps dissipates. First this now that, yet the silent awareness, if allowed to simply observe, to watch, learns that soon it is gone, like a cloud passing over head in the skies. One moment seeming to be solid then soon, very soon, it is gone. What feeds these images, gives them life? Is it something primordial or transcendent? Perhaps both, maybe the layers never end, though some of them can seem hell like when present to their influence.

Roots, maybe it is about that, our past feeds the present, clouding it, running things from that pre-conscious part of who we are. Silence; well maybe that is the key that opens the door, allowing what is in Pandora’s Box to come out into the world of day. In any case, it will come out, either by opening the box, or it will explode outward under the right circumstances. Nice quiet people going mad doing great harm, the box perhaps not known even to be there, suddenly releases waves of primitive energy that needs to be expressed in ways often unseemly. I feel that walking over the abyss is not too far off the mark as a metaphor, when dealing with what we humans deal with on a daily basis, known or unknown.

I know I am universalizing my own inner experience; yet, I am a normal human being of average intelligence, just trying to make it through the day and doing what needs to be done to do that. I am not a time bomb, just aware of the intense energy that dwells within, that is not only life giving, but also if unchecked can lead to deep inner chaos and destruction of self and others. I often feel that our cultures are a mirror image of what goes on within.

So what are we or what am I? Well I often think that we are all children, young and no matter how wise we think we are, we are just at the beginning of a very long journey. I know many disagree with this, thinking that the world is only made up of chemicals, that there is nothing out there and we being here by chance and in the end meaning nothing. I sometimes envy that perception, so clean, neat and promising an end. Well if the collective understanding of most of mankind that we don’ end, well what about that, what if it is true, is that really such a consolation? To think that we are responsible for our lives and the good and yes the evil we cause and that must be faced at death, is not always a great comfort. Endless rest, now that can be a comfort after a long hard day wrestling with others and also with oneself. Perhaps that inner confrontation when all is stripped away and only naked truth there, perhaps that is the reason we fear death?

The human heart seeks something. Looking for what? What is our deepest desire? Do our cultures tell us the truth about what is important? Or, are we brainwashed into believing what is presented to us by commercials on the TV and radio, and yes by what movie stars want us to believe?

Science can’t answer many questions that pertain to the seeking of our inward selves. It can tell us how thing are, but not anything about our deepest longings and desires. In fact science like religion has caused a great amount of havoc in the world today. We kill each better because of science, our planet is polluted almost beyond repair because of scientific advancement and yes little by little all privacy is being taken away from us by al the breakthroughs in technology. So science as used by humans is not going to give us many answers about our human predicament, but could in the end make it much worse.

Religion is often no better, though I am a Roman Catholic, I am more than aware of the evil and pain that was caused by the leaders of my faith. So religion can be a big problem along with science today. However I am not simplistic, both science and religion are needed, for the human race also has a spiritual side that needs to be nourished and not crushed. The problem comes when religion thinks it has all the answers, allowing no room for the seekers inner spiritual self to grow and prosper. For I think we are seekers after the truth and when someone comes and gives us a package neatly wrapped as the truth, then this idol can become dangerous. Living with doubt is part of the journey, trying to get rid of it is not possible and very unhealthy.


Secular governments that become all powerful are not much help either, all one has to do is to study the 20th century to see that our salvation does not come from that direction either. Unless we can learn to understand that the problem is not science, governments or religion, but it is our human natures that allow the darkest aspects of who we are to take over, that is the problem. Scape goating is a waste of time and just a way to forestall a deep looking into ones own heart. Blame is easy but it leads nowhere. In any case, I don’t think any thing will do any good. It seems as a species we are bent on self destruction, and I am not sure anything will be able to stop that. We are irrational and we have to fight hard to even think rationally, or if we do it is often clouded by deep wells of emotional overload leading only to more trouble.

Perhaps it is the listening to that inner silence that will help us, to quiet down, to settle, to sit and do nothing, to get in touch with what is truly deep within us, the primordial and yes the transcendent. Until then, we could be considered puppets dancing to a jig, played by a man, insane to the core. I think only humans could build up arsenals of nuclear weapons to insure peace; yeah quite a jig.

Mark Dohle

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