I had already been at the office for two hours when my buddy Matt sent me this “Death Metal Rooster” video via email. The subject heading read “WAKE UP!!!”
I watched it with the volume muted, to keep up the appearance that I was working on the monthly accounting report. Eventually I did get to working on the report, and the day passed in an uneventful haze. A coworker gave me a ride home, which added about forty-five minutes of precious me-time to my evening. Once home, I decided to finally tackle the job of dismantling my condenser mic to figure out why it was no longer working properly. I was ready to give up more than once, but persisted in taking the mic apart then putting it back together, a process which miraculously resulted in the mic working once more like a charm. Relieved and self-satisfied, I headed off to bed, albeit a bit later than I would have liked.
As often happens, I popped awake at about 2am feeling restless and stiff. I fell into a meditative trance while loosening up my muscles with gentle, subtle micro-movements. After about twenty minutes of this, it happened. Again. A sense of clarity dawned on me so intensely that the last several months of waking life seemed like a coma by comparison. All the life issues I’ve been struggling with felt either completely resolved or else utterly unproblematic. I knew without a doubt what I needed to be doing with my life, how to refocus and realize my full potential and destiny. Part of this crystal clear life plan involved re-immersing myself in my study of Somatics and Integral Psychology, so I ran downstairs to look up a few books online. Flipping open my laptop I noticed a new email. It was from my father-in-law. He had written the obituary for his father, who has just passed away at the age of 94. I knew his father and felt a profound admiration for the man. When I married his granddaughter he gave me the honor of wearing and owning the wedding band he had worn on his finger throughout his more than fifty-year marriage to his wife, who had passed away a few years prior. Reading about the man’s long, full life made me feel even more intensely awake and committed to living my life full-throttle. I could hardly go back to bed at this point, so I picked up my guitar and began to strum a few chords. Within about thirty seconds a song idea came to me that promised to be my best ever creation. I quickly recorded the basic idea then jumped back in bed. It was about 3am by this time. Only an hour had passed, an hour I would normally spend dreaming and drooling.
This was not the first time I’ve caught a glimpse of crystal clear consciousness and I hope it won’t be the last. I knew it would fade. I knew the alarm clock would ring with cruel precision at 6am. I knew I’d have to drag myself through the day in a relative fog, and I knew that by the time I got home I’d barely have the presence of mind left to tap out a hasty blog post about the whole thing.
For whatever reason, I felt the need to post something on Twitter last night before I surrendered to unconsciousness:
I just woke up, as if from a coma of 10 years. Suddenly, everything is possible. Books, albums, written in my head. 3am. Back to sleep?
135 characters — five to spare… Life!
I was walking to the mailbox yesterday evening, lost in a daydream I’d been wandering through for hours. I looked up at the sky and daydreamed about how cool it would be if I looked up at the sky and had a true moment of awakening, a flash of clarity about my place in the universe. I reached into the mailbox and pulled out a coupon flier and a bill for my cell phone. I walked by the recycling bins, dropped off the coupon flier, and shuffled back to my apartment.
This morning I was waiting at the bus stop when a man hollered at me from across the street: “Hey friend, do you have a quarter? I’m trying to get me something to eat.” I waved him over and gave him the handful of change I had in my backpack—somewhere between a buck or two. He seemed very appreciative (and a little drunk) and bid me adieu with “Have a blessed day.”