2002-08-09 - 3:12 p.m.
After my yard work yesterday, I walked down to the nearby funky little business district just to window shop and get some tea. The New Age store never seemed to be open when I was in the mood to shop, but this time it was. So I spent a good amount of time browsing all the accoutrements that one might acquire to support the spiritual life. I admit these things hold quite an attraction for me, as a person who tends to seek significance amidst the randomness. I could picture myself in flowing dresses, in beads and silver, repeating some poetic incantation by candlelight.
Magic charms. Talismans. Crystals. Pyramids. Pendulums. Ink called "dove's blood." Hundreds of books, all supposedly revealing the great secrets. Some of these objects seem hokey, created more for the marketplace, than for the spirit. But some of them seem beautiful, and I considered whether purchasing them would endow them with the value to activate their powers. Because the idea of magic is so appealing that I want it to be true. Except that I can't really believe in it, any more than I believe in mainstream religions. Even though I willingly accept the existence of mystery, the idea that there is more to life than we know. Who is the author of some mass market book to reveal a cosmic mystery?
Where does faith come from? I understand the power of belief, but I don't know WHY I should believe one thing over another. Do you believe deeply in something just because it is appealing? Why do people latch on to an idea and accept its truth? Because somebody else said so? Because it is written in a book? I suppose I stood in the skeptic line too long. Or like Alice in Wonderland, I don't think I can believe impossible things.
The world around me seems so surrealistic and full of contradictions. It is hard to know how events affect each other, what must be rejected or overlooked in order to believe something that gives order to your life. Stepping into a high priced boutique, I overheard a woman saying she was buying an expensive trinket for a friend's "little girl who is redecorating her playhouse in oriental." Outside, a one-armed shoeshine man sits in a boarded up doorway, waiting for business. There is a single rose drying in the sun on a park bench. A young woman grimly drives her motorized wheel chair down a dangerous street because the sidewalks are obstructed and broken up. I find fragments of a photograph and pick them up. It is a picture of a young man sitting on a bed, in what looks like a dorm room. He looks worried. I wonder why someone has torn his picture into five pieces and left it on the street.
All I can do is look around, and try not to decide in advance how things ought to be. Just a funny little thing I believe in: The power of clear vision. In a world of smoke and mirrors.
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