How Did You Get Here?

Dear You,

I was having lunch with one of my students today, when he asked an important question about you, and I must admit I was a bit taken aback by it. The problem is, it's a question about you I keep getting asked as of late, by quite a few people, from different people in different situations, and I fear it is signaling an important consideration in our mutual understanding.

The question being asked as of late is: "how did you get to this point in your life?" It's a question about change, a question about the journey of change, a question about how an abused kid from New Jersey eventually became a college professor. It's a question that assumes quite a bit of "having reached successfulness" at this stage, especially in the face of where you came from, which assumes a  large amount of collapse in origin.

I have been trying to tell your story: the sexual violence, the abuse, the fear, the being bullied, the martial arts, the Occult studies, the fighting, the drinking, the adultery, the violence, and then the waking up, reading Nietzsche, reading Rilke, reading Heidegger, discovering Jizo, the teachers (academic and martial) in your past that changed you and saved you, the dangerous situation that scared you straight toward this direction, the bet that you lost, but really, I think those "facts" are more like shadows that you think are real people, but are nothing more than fractured light.

To be honest, my dear, I think you are fractured light. I don't know how you got here, I don't know how you left me here, why you left me here, I don't know why you are there, let alone, how you got here, why you are still here, or what reason you have for being here, anymore.

I remember you told me about something you read once, it was in the Kabbalah, or someone writing about the Kabbalah, and the author, a rabbi of some learning in things hidden and revealed (or in the state of revelation), he stated that Kabbalistic wisdom can be framed by the following questions:
1) Who are you?
2) When did you get lost?
3) Would you like to come home, now?

I feel like, my dear friend, you have wasted the better part of 40 years on that first question, and you've just had to ask for a "pass" at this time; it's unfair question and you still have no solid answers for it. But now the darkest of times have begun, and now you must answer for your lack of self-knowing, and now you must realize that you cannot know yourself without realizing how very lost you are to yourself, to your friends, to your family, to your soul. You are a lost soul drifting through calm seas and dark nights. You are praying that something larger than yourself will consume you, so you will have to not worry as much anymore: the lose is a concern, and I know the concern is leading you to not care. Heidegger said that concern would signal care, and care would signal the authentic search for selfhood, but let's face it, your lack of concern reflects that you no longer care for your selfhood. You are the monster lurking in the depths, yourself.

I keep getting asked the question of how you got here, and the question is really one of how you got lost, and for that, no story of the past will do us any longer. I don't have a story to sell to anyone anymore that will make you look like the redeemed soldier, the atoned fallen angel, the existential ubermensch who has leapt over his multitude of dwarves: maybe because your story is a logical fallacy, an argument from silence, and you've been silent for so long, not objecting, not resisting, not representing, that I've been speaking for you as if I knew who you were, and again, this is not the case.

Please, I beg you, ponder these questions, and when you get a chance, write me, let me know how you got here, for the least, so that I can better answer this question, for the most, so that you can start figuring out how you can unloose yourself (what was lost, is now found, I hope). Notice I didn't pressure you to come home. You can't find your way home if you don't even know you are lost, and you can't find your bearings if you don't know who it is that is struggling to find their bearings. I only pray these questions do not come too late.

Write when you get a chance.

Sincerely,
Admiringly,
Your Dearest

A Lesson from Kendo

Dear You,

I'm in a hurry right now (when am I not, these days) but I felt that I had to tell you something before I forgot the moment, lost to the wilds of making it through the life of a professor.

I was just watching a documentary on Japan, and as you know, Japan has been important to me, and to you, for as long as I can remember. On the day I left for India, those famous words I said upon first waking up: "Oh, how I wish I were going to Japan instead." These days, Japan is our chance, mine and yours, to reclaim myself from this great sense of "Lost" that has overcome me over the last few years. The documentary has many sections on parts of Japan: sushi, trains, Ikibana, Zen, nightlife, Geisha, and Kendo. It is the Kendo section that taught me something, and I wanted to share it with you.

In Kendo, when the swordsmen let lose their powerful blows with their bamboo swords (Shinai) it is not only THAT they hit, that is important, but that they CALL out the location before they hit it. After the strike, there is no celebration, there is a passing by the opponent, then a reset of stance (San-shi), and then swords touch each other again, and then engagement begins again. Insights gained:

1. It is not enough to swing the sword, you must call out where you wish to strike as well.
2. If you don't strike where you called out, you haven't struck anything at all.
3. Nothing from the strike, or being struck, is taken for granted.
4. How you hold yourself is essential. Win or lose, cut or not cut, hit or get hit, you hold yourself in a way where the entire experience is taken as a whole.
5. The holding (of the self) is the thing.
6. Neither celebrate nor mourn, but be in the experience.
7. Reset your stance, and strike, or be struck, again.
8. The optimal moment is what one trains for.
9. 20 years is nothing, it's a start.

I thought you would appreciate these insights.

Sincerely,
Admiringly,
Your Dearest

My First Letter to You

Dear You,

I was thinking that I should start writing you as of late. I took a train ride recently, went back to where my people are from, saw the people I come from, wandered the city of my youth (one of them), and I had many insights into my life with you. It seemed that creating a correspondence, writing you on a regular basis, is indeed a needed and valuable correspondence to begin. I know that you have been avoiding these conversations, the things that I need to say to you and you need to say to me, but for both of our sakes, it's time that we spoke, honestly, deeply, and in the depths of said and being said,  so that we can finally begin to move forward and into the new phase of our life.

This is just a quick note, a shot across your bow so to speak, to let you know that the conversation has officially begun. I pray that you too will reply now and then, for I long to hear you speak, as I long to see you soar, and I can only do the former without you, but the latter, only with you.

To your future health and happiness I send you these greetings, this offer of conversation with you.

Sincerely,
Admiringly,

Your Dearest