It has been nearly a year since the last time I wrote in this blog. As luck would have it, a big reason I haven't been writing in here is the subject of this entry: laziness. I am probably not going to spend a lot of time developing the thoughts behind this bit of writing because I'm worried that if I do I will overthink and ultimately not write it. And since this is the most effort I've made in writing on here for quite a while, I want to go with it and get it out there rather than let it die.
Recently, during indoctrination training onboard the carrier I'm assigned to, it was suggested that in one way or another, all of us joined the Navy because we are running from something. Perhaps we're running from bills, drugs, a dead-end job, a bad neighborhood... After I considered this for a second or two, it occurred to me that perhaps this person was making a good point. Maybe it is not true of everyone in the Navy, but at least I could say honestly that I joined the Navy because I was running from many things. Among these things is one of the five hindrances to buddhist practice: torpor, or laziness.
I want to digress for a second and say that I dislike calling this quality "sloth". The sloth is a noble creature. It lives a wonderful life, and I feel that to shame such an awesome animal by associating its name with a negative characteristic (in fact one of the seven deadly sins in Catholic teaching) is to say God erred when he created that marvelous thing.
Back to my entry.
When I decided to join the Navy, I was almost 27 years old. I had been living in Los Angeles for just over four years. Now a lot of people, and I was one, would say that making it past even one year in that city is a big deal. But the more I thought about it, the less I felt like I had accomplished anything just by BEING there. After all, my parents had subsidized my gas and food and car insurance (and I was driving a car they purchased... and which they took back at some point leaving me to get around exclusively using public transportation) for most of those four years. I was living paycheck to paycheck. I nearly got kicked out of my apartment at some point by my roommates for being late in paying the rent. I was miserable, and I wanted to change my situation, but I felt trapped. I felt like I was spinning my wheels and going nowhere, so I didn't put forth a lot of effort towards acting or comedy... and I therefore perpetuated a self-fulfilling prophecy of going nowhere. I was lazy. I smoked a lot of pot instead of working hard after finishing my shift at Starbucks to realize the dream that had brought me out there in the first place. One night after my enlistment paperwork was signed, while a coworker and I were closing up the store, I actually blurted out, "I think I joined the Navy because I needed an excuse to quit smoking pot."
I had considered a few alternatives. I could move somewhere cheaper and work at a different Starbucks until my debts were paid off and then just go live at Tassajara. I could apply for scholarships for grad school. I could re-double my efforts in acting and comedy and work to justify my existence out in the City of Angels. But these didn't motivate me in the same way that joining the Navy did. To my mind at that time, the Navy represented the opposite of everything I was doing wrong. I felt like I was being selfish to try making money in popular media. I felt like it would be a scam to go directly into monastic life and monk training. I felt like I wasn't contributing. I felt like nothing I did mattered. And most of all, I was tired of feeling so fucking lazy. So, I felt like I could join the Navy and solve all of that. I felt like I could get away from those feelings if I was a United States Sailor.
It's funny how the mind will play the same tricks on itself over and over again. It had barely been a month after I finished my summer at Tassajara -- where I clearly learned that I can never run from any of my problems since I am always the root cause of them -- before I was trying to run again. But that's no matter. Really, as I explained in my first couple entries, there were many reasons that inspired me to join. For now, though, I'll finish exploring the silliest of them.
I haven't been completely wrong. I am doing more, earning more money, than I was back in Los Angeles. I am constantly accelerating... no more a victim of stagnant inertia. And, of course, I don't smoke pot these days. But now, it seems, I see more laziness in and around me than ever before. And now, too, I have another hindrance to battle: ill will. I see some garbage laying around the classroom or the head, and the laziness of the people who left it there infuriates me. I hear someone talking about the studying they are doing, or see two guys going off to the gym, and I fume inwardly that I am heading to bed instead of doing those things, too.
These days, laziness is a special trigger for me. I often feel torpor is humankind's worst sin. It is the biggest hindrance to us all. We could soar like angels, but we are too lazy to use our wings. Giving up our prejudices takes too much work. Putting aside our comfort for the greater good is counter-intuitive to our species. I am no exception. And so it goes.
Ironically, to stop running and face the aspects of myself and others that I would rather not with radical acceptance rather than disdain is too great a task for me right now. Or at least that's how it feels. But as my teacher Greg says, perseverance is the way to practice with this. I'll try.
