almost here

are you feeling or thinking?

Turns out this email might be quite helpful in getting you to stop thinking you’re wasting your time and do something good with your time.

My dad passed away this week and I’m not sure I’ll finish and send this Substack. I feel very, very tired.I’m not going to chronologize my feelings from the week but instead use what’s happening right now to help you to develop your understanding of the relationship between thought and feeling in order to use time well.

A few moments ago I sat down to write in a room that overlooks a U-shaped bay that meets the Long Island Sound, which eventually meets the Atlantic

I’m on the floor with my legs crossed, under a big, low table my mom got in Vietnam in the 70s. I had to slide in sideways to get down between the couch and the table and then get my legs under the table. I try to sit like this when I write. It’s a bit of lingering flexibility OCD.

The tide is almost high. This morning I noted that I can only recall seeing low tide the last few days. Every time I looked out, or took a walk – low tide.

Now the tide is high. It’s raining the small, tight rain of New England. In Montana the rain is bigger. In Montana I’m a little afraid of the weather. You have to be.

There are a few small sailboats rocking a little. Most of the docks are empty because it’s only just May. The top foot below the water line where the rock is darkened is visible. Over the gray-green water is a jagged slice of almost black and above that is the granite, which has many specs of color up close but a muddy peach color from up here, like a mosaic. I like the color of granite.

I like writing and describing what is out on the water that is just 75 yards away, down the steep rocks and the tips of the almost completely submerged sea grass. Sometimes the simple act of writing what I see brings up great waves of emotion. The emotion is all of the presence inside me that has been waiting to be released. That is why it feels like a torrent.

Think of all the presence inside you waiting to be released. Feel what is inside you and feel how you have an inclination to do something else immediately.

Often, we think we are all the way here but we are not, because we have learned lots of ways to be almost here that we think are all the way. The emotion of arriving is because it is something, really something, to be present. To do this, to write this, I have to be right here, now.

Over on the opposite side of the bay is a pine tree with a trunk that has taken a turn over the water and is parallel to the water. With the grey rain sky it looks like a Japanese painting.

Think of how it feels when you finally get somewhere. Remember how it feels when a problem is resolved. Those feelings of expansion are waiting for you.

One of the big traps that keeps us from being present and a little more free is that we think we are feeling but we are expressing thoughts born of the same feelings we have not really learned to feel.

That’s why it feels like people don’t listen, or shut you down. That’s why nothing changes. You can feel the thoughts but you cannot think the feelings.

This is often the breakdown in communication. I’ve seen it in my own family. Someone just wants to be heard, to share feeling – what is that so bad? Sound familiar?

Unfortunately, because we are not coached to experience and alchemize our feelings, we do not hold the distinction between feeling and thought. An opportunity for productive vulnerability is lost when what is “shared” is a litany of reasons why someone thinks they feel the way they do.

Feelings do not tell you why or how you landed where you are. Feelings simply tell you where you are.

When I sat down to write the first thing I did was feel the pressure of doing something. This is a normal pressure. Pretty soon, I have to leave for a family thing. So a normal pressure propagated a thought pattern of defeat about how I would not have enough time to write and what a fail, and why even start. All that.

I noticed how I was confusing thought for feeling. I felt. I looked out at the bay, the small waves, the granite, the pines, the docks, and a big freighter way out in the channel.

Any writing would be good to do. Any writing would be practice and would be the best possible way to fill the hour and a half before it was time to drive to the train station.

Now here we are.

Use time well. It’s very valuable.

Love,
Benjamin