Separate. Incomplete. Connection. Completion. “S.I.C.C.ness”.
A PlayBook
By
Sean A. Mulvihill
Introduction
I was out for a walk tonight when it struck me finally, what it is I want to write to you: we can only be one or the other: separate and incomplete, or connection and completion. I’ve purposely made the first two singular adjectives, and the second two intangible nouns, because the first two describe an imagined condition, the second two actually exist. Lol
If you are confused already, then you are reading the right book. We have to keep trying, if we are to cure our S.I.C.C.ness.
Part One
Separate
When I was a boy, I can remember a particular instance when one of my goody-two-shoes classmates was crying because someone stole her merit-tickets out of her desk, and the teacher was coming around to count them up to give out rewards. Behind Suzy Goody-two-shoes sat tubby Jose Troublemaker, with a big grin on his a face and fist full of merit-tickets. You can imagine where he found all those tickets! Well, needless to say, the principal came down and gave him a good talking to after class. And of course, he confessed to stealing the tickets, but he also made a good point: “if she didn’t have someone bad like me to be compared to, she wouldn’t be so good.” Lol. Jose and Suzy needed each other. It was because of Jose being the worst, that Suzy could be the best.
In high school, my senior year, I decided to take early release from school and get home at noon each day. The only problem was, no one I knew was as clever as me at getting early release, so even though I was home early, I was bored and lonely because I had no one to hang out with. I was always excited to get out of school, but there was no one to call, no one to celebrate and share my excitement with. This still happens when I have the day off on a Wednesday. Nobody is around to make plans with, and I feel alone.
I don’t know about you, but I feel like no one really gets me or even seems to notice me. It seems like the other people in this world look at you for about 10 seconds and that whole time they are trying to figure out who you are, and then they decide who you are, and then they interact with their image of who you are for the rest of your life. Lol
So the point I am trying to get across with these stories is that we are separate here. I am in my body and you are in yours and no matter how hard we try, we are never going to be in the same body, we are never going to have the same point of view, and we are never going to see 100% eye to eye, aka we are always going to argue!
So this does not bode well for peace in the Middle East. This basically means, that unless some radical evolutionary shift were to suddenly occur where we could actually hear each others’ thoughts with complete accuracy and understand them with 100% compassion, the goal of a world without conflict is a meaningless one.
Well, damn, that seems pretty futile doesn’t it. I might as well not even write this book. However, this world may not be the real one, it turns out, so read on.
Part Two
Incomplete
When I went sailing with my Princess friend and her fiancee, it was clear: she was acting like a bit of a gold-digger and he was a bit of a slacker living off his trust fund. Now they are broken up, but it took five years for the thing to end. They fought like cats and dogs – why did it last so long?
When I was in love with a young lady from a state with its own religion, the sudden discovery that she would actually make love with me even though it was forbidden by her church, made things all the more exciting. I felt like I was in a very special exclusive club. When she got sick, I skipped my own birthday party to take care of her. But when she moved back in with her parents, I was given my walking papers. Then I realized that we were totally wrong for each other. Why did we try so hard to make something special when we had to know it was gonna end like that?
I have been trying for years to be the next Orson Welles or Charlie Chaplin. Only problem is, I haven’t figured out the right formula, and I’m still working at my day job. But every day, I hope and pray that today is the day that I get my big break, today is the day I get discovered and finally the world knows about my talent. Is it today?
Most of our lives seem to be a long list of past experiences, decisions, judgements and etcetera, always finished with a question mark. The question being, “When will I get to my destination?” I have done all of this stuff and tried so hard, but still, I’m not anywhere closer to happiness, what am I doing wrong?
However many times we ask the question, we never actually get much of an answer, and we fall asleep or get sucked into Facebook before we even formulate an answer. Yes, we will eventually reach our destination, but who knows where or when. Those of us who can’t cope with that answer, commit suicide. The rest of us who “know better” find ways to self-medicate: stay overly busy, drink, party, obsess over something like TV shows or hobbies…anything so that we don’t have to answer our question – “Why is it that I feel incomplete?”
Part 3
Connection and Completion
When you share a piece of your pizza with somebody, you lose a piece of your pizza. According to the world, when you share your love with someone, you take it from all the other potential mates and give it to that one person. In the world, we believe that to give is lose. And in the world, it is true. I give my vow, I give my time, I give away clothes to Goodwill, I lose these things. Sure we have heard the term to give is to receive, but really the worldly version is something like: “If I donate to charity I can write it off on my taxes. I will receive by giving!” That sound about right?
So here’s what I’m getting at with all these stories: we are striving for connection in this world, but because we are separate bodies and separate minds, there really doesn’t seem to be much chance of connection. Even if we connect tonight and make love, tomorrow morning you are going to have to go to work and so am I, and we’ll be sad because we’re apart. We want LASTING connection.
Imagine eternal, lasting, and total connection. All things are not only connected, but they remain that way indefinitely. This is where things blend together, for if things are connected totally forever, then that clearly means that there is completion as well. So, in order to have total connection, you’d have to have total completion.
But we don’t have either of those in this world, so what is the point of imagining them? Well, clearly, the only way for there to be true and total connection and completion is for – what? – there to be nothing separate or incomplete. So the only thing that would have to happen for us to reach our agreed upon goal of connection and completion would be for the world as we know it to change dramatically: there would be no more bodies, no more stores, no more rivers, no more Wal-Mart. So who would want that? I mean, we love our girlfriend’s beautiful body, we love going fishing, we love cheap deals…I mean, why, even if I could, would I want to leave this beautiful world for some LA-LA LAND where everything is just some big ball of light and we’re all singing and harmonizing in God’s choir or something. Sounds pretty damn boring if you ask me!
Well, let’s put it this way: do you really have a choice whether or not you leave this world as we know it? I mean, sure there is that hope that science will actually come up with some fountain of youth that will keep us young indefinitely, but then there is that nasty business of the sun actually expanding large enough to engulf the earth in a few million years, so then we’d have to find another planet to live on in our young, sexy androgynous bodies…and so on and so on. So I guess there is a chance you could remain in your body for some extensive amount of time if you played your cards right, and science actually delivered on these things. I suppose it is possible.
But what I am getting at is: are you REALLY THAT HAPPY being in this world? Be honest. When you look back at your life up to this point, how much crap did you go through that you would NEVER, NEVER want you or anyone else to ever have to go through? Probably about 50% of your life story is crap you’d never want to happen again. So is this world really that good? I’m just sayin’.
So, it is your choice to hope for connection and completion that LAST, from a world that has yet to produce one example of lasting and complete connection and completeness. Even people of faith question their faith and have doubts and throw their anger at their God from time to time. And if I am throwing my anger at something, I am surely not connected, because if I am connected I am throwing anger at myself. And I am surely not complete, but completeness can never be angry because completion explicitly implies satisfaction.
So the answer to the question: “When am I going to reach my destination? When am I gonna make it and really start living?” is right here, right in front of us, and unfortunately to some of us, it is not the answer we want to hear. Because the answer is: NOW. But you say, “Now? I am still a waiter, not a movie star, I am single, not married, I am broke, not rich! How can my destination be here and now? I don’t want this.”
This is where you messed up: you taught yourself what happiness is. You, the separated and incomplete taught yourself what completion and connection are. How absurd. That is like me teaching Roger Federer how to win Wimbledon. He’s done it a few times. I’ve WATCHED it a few times. Lol. But seriously, the only lesson we need to learn in this world is that we do not know ANYTHING. And then just live with that. And when you’ve opened your mind to that truth, the answers, which show you completion and connection in their pure forms, just dawn on you!
Here’s an exercise. This should be experiential. Write down everything you think it would take for you to be totally happy for all of eternity:
Now, I wrote things like: pure love, pure joy, endless wealth, perfect beauty, unending health and youth, creative outlets, fun, imagination, unlimitedness, total power
And now, be honest and answer two questions:
Do any of the things you listed physically exist in this world? YES or NO
If they do exist in the world, will they last forever in perfect condition? YES or NO
If you have answered Yes to Both, CONGRATULATIONS, those things that meet both requirements are the keys to happiness and they exist in an incomplete, separate world – you did it – you solved the impossible riddle! Please email the secrets that have eluded the masters for millenia to me at seanamulvihill@gmail.com because I would like to know what they are!!!!
If you did not answer yes to both questions, CONGRATULATIONS! You are honest! You can finally admit that you don’t know what lasting happiness is or what it looks like. You only know that you want it.
Remember that completion and connection are here and now, and that if you think you know how to find them, you don’t. Simply realize this: for completion and connection (which we all seek in our own way) to exist, the physical world cannot exist. So you simply must choose, and time is of no consequence. Choose the world, you choose to be separate and incomplete. Choose completion and connection and you turn your back on this world.
Good luck deciding what you want, and remember, we’ll be here waiting for you with big smiles on our faces and with big hugs when you are ready for some completion and connection!
Sean
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