A Scream of Consciousness Wake Up
and Embrace the Present Moment
Warren Bluhm b.w. richardson press http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/wpbluhm
A SCREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS This book was published in October 2011 and is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ or, (b) send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 2nd Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, CA 94105, USA. For more information visit www.creativecommons.org and www.wbluhm.blogspot.com. Written and edited by Warren Bluhm. Published by Richardson Press. Edition 1.0
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Did you love or hate this book? Please don’t tell me it left you indifferent. On second thought, do tell me. I want to know how to make this, and future books, better. Tell me about your own screams of consciousness, how this book helped or hindered you along the way, and any other thoughts that could help future editions.
wpbluhm@netnet.net wbluhm.blogspot.com
Table of Contents A Scream of Consciousness ..........................
1
Turn Off the TV ............................................. 11 Find Your Passion ......................................... 17 Refuse to be Afraid ....................................... 23 Respect Your Instincts .................................. 29 Take a Stand ................................................. 33 Be Here Now .................................................. 39 Remember the Joy ........................................ 45 Trust God: In Touch with The Sacred ............ 57 Overcome, One Moment at a Time ................ 65 Trust the Still, Small Voice ............................ 69 Step Out of Your Comfort Zone .................... 73 Waste No Time on Hate or Judgment ............. 77 Get Quiet ....................................................... 81 Eschew the Corporate and Collective ............. 85 Stay Here and Now ......................................... 91 Acknowledgments .......................................... 93 Appendix: The Emperor’s Three Questions ..... 97
A Scream of Consciousness Have you ever, figuratively or literally, awakened from a stupor and become acutely aware of who you are and what you’re doing? You
had been lulled to sleep by a stifling
everyday routine, and one day you woke up and said, “Wait a minute. There’s got to be more to life than this!” Someone was abusing you, psychologically or physically, and suddenly you stood up and said, “I don’t deserve this!” You were enslaved by a bad habit and suddenly you became aware that you were headed in the wrong direction. You stopped in your tracks and
2 | A Scream of Consciousness
said, “I’m not going to do this anymore!” Or maybe you just were sitting by a window on a cool summer morning and became aware of the call of a bird, or several birds, and all you could concentrate on was that beautiful sound and how very much alive it made you feel. Each of those was a scream of consciousness. You rose out of your psychic fog and realized you didn’t want to keep going in the direction your life was going. You may not have known where you want to go and what you wanted to do, but you knew you didn’t want this. You
gained
consciousness and
screamed
—
perhaps you literally shouted, or perhaps it was more of a whisper of amazement. Whatever the decibel level, in that moment you let out a scream of consciousness. It may have been born from the frustration of realizing you had been unconscious, or it
may have
been born
from the
discovering beauty. But the moment
joy of
you gain
consciousness — when you realize or remember
A Scream of Consciousness | 3
that you are sentient, that is, you are alive and aware of being alive — is exhilarating. There’s more to life! I have no doubt God has a sense of humor. The inspiration for this particular book is a case in point. In the fall of 2010 I made a homemade album of songs I had written the previous year, and I gave it the title Ten Thousand Days. One of the tunes was meant as a nonsense song. I had been sitting at a park bench and, more as a kind of exercise than any real intention to write a song, started stringing phrases together at random, as fast as I could. Orange dogs and old black cats are crying at the door; A painted lady called my name, but I don’t go there no more. Pained ecstasy haunts aging dreams, and it’s time to go to bed ...
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The song gained a title, “All That’s Left You,” when my
wandering brain
stumbled
across
a
fragment from the Simon and Garfunkel song “Bookends” — “A time of innocence, a time of confidences ... Preserve your memories, they’re all that’s left you.” Recognizing that all I was doing lyrically was to yield to my ongoing stream of consciousness, I adapted Paul Simon’s words to: “A stream of consciousness, a stream of confidences, Protect your innocence; it’s all that’s left you.” And when I came to that line while recording the song,
I
goofed.
I
sang,
“A
scream
of
consciousness.” I laughed, and because it was a nonsense song, for a time I thought about leaving the song that way. I’m still not sure I made the right decision by going back and re-recording the line with the original lyric. But I got to thinking about that phrase. What would a “scream of consciousness” be, anyway? When it hit me, I had the idea behind this book. In
A Scream of Consciousness | 5
a way, that “eureka” moment was a scream of consciousness in itself. God, with his big sense of humor, gave me a book when I stumbled over the words while singing a nonsense song. How cool is that? Inspiration can strike in the most exciting ways when you keep your eyes and ears open to the moment at hand. All you have to do is stay conscious and be aware of the moment.
Every moment.
Tend to this
moment; it’s all we have. Easier said than done, of course: Every day is full of traps to rob you of your consciousness, lull you with a dull routine, and pretty much turn your brain off. How do you stay awake moment to moment, so that when the idea of a lifetime presents itself, you can seize it? A scream of consciousness! Sinking into the moment, one is suddenly struck
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by the realization that the moment is all there is. The concept of time — our universe split into yesterday, today and tomorrow — is an abstract apart from the reality of the moment. Yesterday is a collection of moments like this. They cannot be retrieved; what's done is done. Tomorrow will be another such collection; it cannot be accessed, not yet, not ever. A joke I heard from Barry McGuire, the folk singer who gave the world “Eve of Destruction” and has contributed so much more since that 1965 hit song: Guy walks into a bar (as so many guys do in jokes) and sees a sign: “Free beer, noon tomorrow.” All right, sez he, I’m coming back to this little gin joint tomorrow for the free beer. The next day, right before noon, the guy walks in, plants his hands on the counter and says, “Line ’em up. I’m ready for the free beer.” Bartender looks at him as if he’s nuts. “What are you talkin’ about? There’s no free beer today.” The two men quarrel
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for a few moments, and to prove their arguments, they both point at the sign: “Free beer, noon tomorrow.” That’s when the first guy gets the joke. Tomorrow. Tomorrow doesn’t exist. Only this moment is real. What does this moment require? That’s the most important
question.
The
conscious
person
considers the needs of the moment, and acts. When Barry talked about this, it reminded me of the cover of a book that had a bit of a cult following years ago when I lived in the 1960s (I was very surprised to discover it was published in 1971):
Be
Here Now. I never read
it, but
I
remembered the title: It has always seemed as good a good philosophy of life as can be summarized in three words. Mr. McGuire said he encountered the idea in The Sacrament of the Present Moment, written 350 years ago
by
a
priest named
Jean-Pierre de
Caussade. I ran out and found the priest’s book; it
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is slow going but it is amazing if a person is so inclined. Here’s the gist of it: Only this moment is real. You have control only over your actions of this moment. What do you need to do? Do it. Now. Do you have a task to do that appears too much for you? Do you think you can’t possibly handle all that the task requires? Well, do you think you can handle it just for this moment? Barry spoke in the context of a friend who was trying to stay sober. He asked the man, Do you think you can keep from drinking just for this moment? “Sure, that’s not so hard.” OK, How about this moment, now? “Yeah, I can do that.” And now this moment, drinking for this moment?
can you keep from Great. Now you’re
getting the hang of it. Each day is a collection of moments. Stay in the
A Scream of Consciousness | 9
moment
at hand,
and
do
what the
moment
requires. Don’t fret over past moments; you cannot change
what happened
then.
Don’t fret over
tomorrow; tomorrow doesn't exist — and if you tend to the moment, the needs of future moments will become
self-evident. Stay
in
the
present
moment. I believe a scream of consciousness occurs when you drift away for a while, only to occasionally wake up and say to yourself or to the world, “I am here! I can do this!” And then staying in the present moment is the key to staying conscious.
Find Your Passion Nearly halfway through my fifth decade on this world, I met a little red-haired girl. Well, “girl” is a bit of a misnomer, since she had also spent almost four and a half decades on this planet. When I began writing newspaper columns, she became Red — well, actually, her dad had been Red, and she was known as Little Red when she was a little redhaired
girl. But for
all
practical
intents
and
purposes, she is Red now. And more than a decade later, she is still my best friend and dearest companion, a relationship I pray will continue until my last breath. Red is a joy to behold in a garden. She will spend hours digging in the soil, trimming wild growth into
Find Your Passion | 11
some semblance of order, planting seeds and nursing them into bloom. Sometimes I will step into our yard, where wildflowers and roses and morning glories and cedar trees compete for the eye’s attention, and am overcome with the beauty of the fruits of Red’s labors. I can only imagine what she feels when she steps back to see what her dirt-smudged hands have created. Well, I can do a little bit more than imagine, because she has converted me to the cause to a certain extent. I need a little reward at the end of my journey, so my focus has been in the realm of growing food. I know the thrill of biting into a radish or a tomato that I planted, and I know the frustration of tending a plant that never yields what it promised, so I guess I do have a small idea how Red feels about her gardens. But as wise souls know, in many many ways the journey is the reward. Although there is some satisfaction in the finished product, the point of digging in the soil is the joy of digging in the soil.
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Red just has a passion for working with the natural processes of nurturing and growing. Often the results are spectacular, sometimes not so much — but as she follows her passion, she retains a focus that
simultaneously
settles,
recharges
and
energizes her soul. I have a similar feeling when I sit at a typewriter keyboard typing words like this, or holding my guitar trying to coax a new song out of it. I believe the process of creation is inherent to human nature. The X-Files was a popular TV series of the 1990s (Yes, I know, I told you to turn off the TV, but ...), and at the end of each program creator Chris Carter inserted the sound of a child’s voice saying with pride, “I made this!” It was a charming moment. An indescribable exhilaration accompanies the completion of a project, as you step back and admire the task and then realize, “I made this!” Studies
have
shown
that
people
feel
more
Find Your Passion | 13
motivated when they have a sense of ownership in what they create during the course of a workday, whether
it’s
a
physical
product
or
a
more
existential or intellectual handiwork. We were built this way. It is said that God made human beings in His image, and after all “In the beginning God created ...” The act of creation puts us in
touch with the divine,
with something
essential to our very being. And especially gratifying is when we can step back, examine our finished creation and conclude, “It is good.” How do you maximize the number of moments when you can cry “I made this!” or sigh with satisfaction, “It is good”? Find your passion. What is it that you enjoy doing so much that it feels more like play than work even when you’re working on it? What makes your heart beat faster when you do it or even just start thinking about it? What gets your attention to the point that when
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you’re learning about it or finding out how to do it or reading about it, hours can go by and it’s like time stood still? That’s your passion. Happy is the soul who is making a living doing what he or she loves best. These are the people who have found their passion, for whom “work” is more like play. Well, maybe not quite — people who love their work still work hard; it’s just that the drudge work doesn’t seem so bad. For Red, digging in the soil is a release and a source of satisfaction; for
someone
who
is
not
passionate
about
gardening, it’s just digging in the dirt. When I’m not writing tomes like this or composing songs, I’m a small-town newspaper editor. Editing can be a timeconsuming and repetitive task, but often the end of the workday takes me by surprise, because I enjoy the work. “Hang on a second,” you might be asking at this stage. “Is Red a gardener by trade? Does she ‘make a living’ digging in the dirt?” Good question. No, she isn’t and no, she doesn’t, at least not as of this
Find Your Passion | 15
writing. But she is more fully alive because of the time she spends following her passion, and that helps her focus on her chosen field. When you are following your passion, it’s easier to remain conscious. Your attention zeroes in, your senses are fully engaged, and your thoughts are focused. It’s possible to look up and discover that hours have gone by. You have stayed “in the moment” for many, many moments. You were here now, and many many “nows” have gone by. It is a scream of consciousness: I love doing this!
Remember the Joy There is a temptation when you find yourself standing in the moment, enjoying the moment, to waste time being frustrated. Wow, I’m alive, you think. I’m surrounded by color and beauty and I know exactly who I am and what I want to do with this life. But then, perhaps, a pang of regret: Why can’t I feel like this all of the time? Being alert and aware in the present moment is clearly an improvement and an occasion of joy — literally clear. Consciousness just makes everything sharper. Real life is more clear than the life you perceive in your dreams when you are asleep. You can mope about not being conscious of the
Remember the Joy | 17
present moment all the time, or you can enjoy the moment and work to sustain it. And yes, it will take a bit of work at first. Learning anything takes time. From walking or riding a bicycle to figuring out how to operate a complex computer or piece of machinery, the first time will be tentative and awkward and you won’t master the process the first time. So it is with living in the moment: The sensation will be new and unfamiliar, and it will take a conscious effort to remain aware. The mind wanders. Not only is this natural, it’s part of the process. Every day and every moment in modern life, we are assaulted by a variety of stimuli. The natural impulse is to dull the senses, either by tuning out the distractions that are not directly related to the task at hand, or by ignoring them altogether. Maintaining your scream of consciousness will take an effort at first, a mighty effort at times. The story of my depth perception may provide an
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example. When I was nearly 50 years old, it became clear that it was time for me to get reading glasses. But an interesting thing happened at the optometrist’s office. He showed me a device that displayed two green lines, which appeared to me to be flickering. “Tell me which green line is ahead of the other,” the doctor said. I was completely confused. I could see the two green lines, one more clearly than the other, but they weren’t side-by-side and neither seemed to be closer to my eye than the other. My doctor seemed baffled, but after a little more examination, he had it figured out. My right eye was stronger than the left, and the more powerful right eye had over the years taken control of how I saw the world. I had always been proud of my vision — in my younger days I could read a street sign almost a block away — but I never realized the 20/10 vision in my right eye was accompanied by a more pedestrian left eye. The right eye was doing most of the work.
Remember the Joy | 19
In addition to giving me glasses that sharpened words in front of my face, the doctor added a prism that would force my eyes to work together cooperatively. Putting those glasses on was a bizarre and almost frightening experience. The world turned wobbly. Lines on a page that I knew were straight appeared curvy and distorted. The distortion was not so great that I was hampered in walking or driving, but it was great
enough
that
I was
convinced
the
prescription for the glasses was wrong. “Give it a couple of days,” the nurse assured me when I called to ask for help. “If it doesn’t clear up, call back.” On the third morning after receiving the glasses, I dutifully put them on and walked out to get the morning newspaper from our mailbox. There was a grove of birch trees across the street, and when I looked at it I suddenly saw the trees in the forest. In addition to the side-by-side distances, I could perceive a gap between the front trees and the ones
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deeper off the road. I had always thought that 3-D movies and those old Viewmaster photos looked fake, because the real
world didn’t
look
like
that.
Suddenly
I
understood that it wasn’t the 3-D effect that was wrong — it was the way I saw the world. I remembered a conversation I had with my dad when I was a little boy, and we were watching the old science fiction movie World Without End. A man about to battle a cyclops mused that he had an advantage because with one eye, his adversary had no depth perception. “What’s depth perception?” I asked Dad. “It’s the way you can tell one thing is closer than the other, because you have two eyes working together,” he said. I
remember
nodding
but
not
quite
understanding. Now I finally saw what he meant, quite literally. At some point through the years, I had turned into a cyclops who did not perceive the physical
Remember the Joy | 21
world in three dimensions! That first glimpse of the woods was a revelation. But I lost concentration, and the perception faded, as I realized later in the day when we went shopping. While browsing the aisles of the local Hobby Lobby, I recalled my 3-D experience and realized I had lapsed into my old two-dimensional way of seeing things. Upon that thought, suddenly, breathtakingly, the aisles unfolded for me very much like the scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, when stairwells suddenly expand and it becomes clear how far off the ground his protagonist has climbed. I saw and felt how long the aisles were, not just how wide. I began to tell people about my glorious new 3-D world. It seemed nothing short of miraculous. But I could not depend solely on the new glasses, because even with the artificial nudge, my left eye fell back into its old lazy habit. For the longest time, I would have to say to myself consciously, “Left eye. Use your left eye,” to unfold the world
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into its three dimensions. In time
it became
easier, and
the greatest
triumph came the morning that I saw in 3-D before I put the glasses on my face. My eyes were finally learning to work together without prompting! I am telling you this story because living in the present moment is very similar. It begins with a scream of consciousness, but you are accustomed to the unconscious way of living life. For a time you will be very aware of the moment, eager and willing to tend to its needs, but after a while without even realizing it, you’ll ease back into your comfort zone. But having seen and felt life in all of its dimensions, you will eventually be able to reboot
your
consciousness
with
a
simple
command, much like my “Left eye!” reminders. There is a joy in being alert and aware and alive. Remember the joy, and you will be able to find it again. Being awake is the opposite of sleeping and dreaming, and the process of staying awake is similar. When you awake from a memorable dream,
Remember the Joy | 23
you want to remember it all, but it quickly fades. Only with prompting and effort can you coax some of the details from your subconscious. Capturing the present moment is like that — when your consciousness begins to become less sharp, it takes an effort to regain it. The secret of doing so is in the joy. Because, at its core, the scream of consciousness is, in fact, a joyful noise. You were asleep, and now this moment you are awake. I’m alive! I feel this moment! My mind and soul are fully engaged! I think this moment, therefore, this moment, I am! I am living life to the fullest! And now, the joyful challenge: To stay awake, to continue to think and feel and be, moment by moment. Have you ever felt so much at peace, and so alive, that you remarked to yourself, If only I could bottle this feeling and take a drink of it when I need it? The good news is that you can. When I began to see in 3-D, it wasn’t quite like flipping an electric switch. I had to concentrate on
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my left eye until it cooperated and opened up the world for me. After a while, all it took was for me to think the words “left eye” and there was my threedimensional view. Some time later it did indeed work more or less like flipping a switch, but only after months and months of reminding myself to see the world in 3-D. And even today, almost a decade later, I sometimes have to remember to flip that switch. Consciousness of the moment is the same way. Inertia is the enemy of energy — the tendency of a thing at rest to remain at rest. Anytime you push against
something
to
get
it
rolling, you
are
overcoming inertia. Once you get it going, it still wants to slow down and stop, but once it’s moving you will need less energy to keep it moving. Seeing the world in 3-D, or living life in the present moment, is much the same. Each time you’ll find it’s easier to return to the scream of consciousness, and you’ll stay awake and aware longer. Find a way to prompt yourself — I’m here now! or I’m alive!
Remember the Joy | 25
work for me. The good news is how joyful it is to be conscious. And the longer you can sustain, the greater the joy. I enjoy joy. Embracing the thrill of living in all of its colors feels delightful. When joy is the default condition of the day, it’s a banner day. Willow, our golden retriever companion, is a remarkable example of how to live a joyful life. At 2 years old, she seeks out joy with the curiosity of a child and the wisdom of the joyous. When I follow her lead, I achieve an unmatchably warm and peaceful contentment. Therefore, any time I am in her sphere of influence, I make sure I throw her ball or her orange disk, rub her belly, hug her with all my strength, or whatever else the moment requires. The late winter and early spring in Wisconsin can be short on moments of joy. But Willow has no such
shortage.
She
prances
across
lingering
snowdrifts like a miniature whitetail deer, she plays hide-and-seek with her ball and whines impatiently
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when I haven’t found it yet, and she comes to me frequently with a look that seems to say, “Relax. Life is joyful. Just live it.” And so I choose to raise my head and lift my spirits. They say when you have no control over externals, you still have a choice over your internal reaction. The choices are to laugh or to cry; I choose
to
laugh.
The
choices
are
grumbling
through my work or pausing frequently to play with Willow; I choose the puppy. The choices are to sink into the mud or embrace the joy of the soaring eagle; I choose the sky. I enjoy joy. And for my own mental health, as often as I remember, I choose joy.
On the cover Willow, our golden retriever companion, is a remarkable example of how to live a joyful life. At 2 years old, she seeks out joy with the curiosity of a child and the wisdom of the joyous. Chapter 8, “Remember the Joy�
Who is this guy? Warren Bluhm is author of five books — this one, Refuse
to
Wildflower
be
Afraid,
The
Man and The
Imaginary
Adventures
of
Bomb, Myke
Phoenix — podcaster, amateur singer-songwriter, life-partner to Red, friend of Willow and other furry beasts, and journalist, among other pursuits. Red, Willow and I live not far from the shores of Green Bay.
Contact
me
at
wpbluhm@netnet.net
or
wbluhm.blogspot.com. You can find other books I’ve written and edited at http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/wpbluhm.