Stalking Myself

"Any warrior could become a man of knowledge. As I told you, a warrior is an impeccable hunter that hunts power. If he succeeds in his hunting he can be a man of knowledge."

"To seek the perfectin of the warrior's spirit is the only task worthy of our [humanity]." Everything else is death, which is nothing. (Journey to Ixtlan by Carlos Castaneda)

To live as a warrior means to be conscious, fearless, impeccable.

Here's the thing:

If I were talking to don Juan, he would say that I care too much what others think of me. I'm too needy for the company of other people. I should be comfortable with my own company.

But the fact is, one can become too comfortable with one's own company. It becomes a defense mechanism, a way of cutting oneslef off from others so as not to feel anything, especially to avoid feeling what's at the core, which is fear.

One can feign detachment, but in truth, it's just a protective shield against feeling anything. That protective shield then becomes a prison.

If you are truly comfortable in the company of others -- in other words, there's no self-consciousness or fear of rejection, then you're free of self-importance and self-reflection. You're also free of neediness because you're connected to a feeling of abundance. Then you feel at ease whether you're alone or with others.

So my "problem" isn't that I need to become more comfortable with my own company. I'm so comfortable with my company that it's become a defensive shield and a prison of fear. What I need is the opposite: instead of getting comfortable with my own company, I need to get comfortable being around other people.

I chose to spend the summer here as a way of forcing myself out of familiar, comfortable rountines. Those routines become ruts that get deeper and deeper over time until it becomes impossible to see over the walls and I may forget there are other ways of being.

But I am discovering that simply changing locations is not enough on its own to catapult me out of old ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. However, it does make them easier to see.

The challenge now is to isolate the things that are most difficult for me to do and force myself to do them. Basically what I'm doing this summer is stalking myself.