Did Homer do it, subliminally speaking, on purpose?
Or, how we might let go of the burdens that we are holding onto
This follows on from ‘The “Two Hand’s Clutching at Cans” Theory of Healing’
Homer is a simple man, but here he is divided. He, like us, is stuck in a vending machine (conveniently preventing him from going to the ballet) but is only stuck because he is holding onto the soda cans. (Well, not exactly like us. You’ve probably never been stuck in a fucking soda machine. But we’ve all been mentally and emotionally tormented, often when on a path we do not want to walk down, and yet the torment was mostly the result of our own subliminal choices, just as Homer’s trap is of his own making).
Homer doesn’t really know what he wants in any supremely true sense. So he ends up doing nothing effective at all; he chooses the trap. Has he done it on purpose? He is dragging the machine along while holding on to the can on his way to the ballet. Intuitively, he desperately doesn’t want to go to the ballet and yet also doesn’t want to fuck off the ballet plans and down a few cans of sweet, sweet soda. He is in denial with two selves, both unsurpassably opposed to one another.
Yes, he’s a moron. You can laugh at him, but you don’t want to be him. Mentally, physically, relationally, or as a society and civilisation, we want to let go of the shit that drags us down but has become so enmeshed with who we are that we feel at home with its stench. So how can we stop holding onto the things that are holding us back?
Develop inner awareness and intuition: how you do this is manifold and doesn’t matter. Meditate, move, masturbate: find a way to get in tune with your deeper instincts and roots. If you’re a tree, don’t just focus on the wind in the trees but also on your roots.
Acceptance that you are holding on to the can is the first step to letting it go. Be radical. Accept the good and the bad. Accept the fact there is not much difference between the two. Accept the past and the future, and that the present lies about them both. Accept your self-hatred and self-idolatry and self-love and self-oblivion. Accept that you were born and will die against your choosing. Don’t think, talk, know … but truly accept the can you are holding onto. No judgement. You want something that is not good for you. Accept it. Your holding onto something, deep down, that is fucking you up. Just a deep breath: accept.
Collective identity change is part of individual healing as much as individual change. We are all connected in this. Who is connected to you, and how?
Help us out. How did you go? What did you do? What are some questions we can ask ourselves in this process of being aware of our cans and accepting and letting go of this self-sickness and trauma? I need some answers, people!
Don’t try, hold, or resist anything too strongly. It’s okay. Don’t worry about letting go too much. It’s just life. It just is.
The extremist view….
(Only read this section if you’re slightly mad in that you not really into self-development or personal growth. You know you want to improve yourself, and you should, really, but on some deeper level you don’t care and are suspicious about the motives behind continually striving for something greater, a better you, more and more and more and more and more … )
But, deeper down, there are the deep cans we hold onto, the deepest, the deep ones of reality itself. Enlightenment, growth, life, death – these don’t matter. These aren’t real. It’s a cosmic joke. Nothing is real. Let go of the cans and float free. When nothing is real, then all things matter in their creation, in their holding and letting go. When nothing need be real, then you don’t need to ask yourself whether you will climb this mountain of inner turmoil and exhaustion, whether you will survive and grow, whether you will pass through. You have walked up and down many mountains and will keep doing so; the up is the down and the down is the up; it is the same, one and the one. Of course you will pass this test, only because all things are passing by you and through you, since reality is not real, not in the sense that you have pinned your hopes on it until it has pinned you down. All things are passing by you and through you, you are on the river, find your flowing current, and the toxic and clean, the pretty and rough, the sweet and the parasitic, the joy and the fear, all these things will come and go, flowing into your hands and out again, flowing in and through you on the great river, for you to catch and feel and be and then let go, each its own way, as you flow up and down and in every direction, every twist and bend, on this great river, this time and space of life, where life and death are not real, and nothing need be, because everything is, and the river flows on and on, embracing all and embraced by all.