Resolution and Being, part IV

The human psyche, the essence of our soul, must become a measuring tool of not of things, but of process, if we wish to understand what Being means. In this sense, even the word Being itself is deceptive. The word, after all, is a very simple noun with this brief etymological mention in the Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology: 

“from earlier use meaning existence, developed from verbal noun be.”

To be is an irregular verb, whose etymology has a metamorphic character. Like what it describes, the word itself has been constant movement throughout its use in the various Germanic tongues that coined it. Being is not a thing; it is an action. When I say I wish to be, or I wish to have Being, I am not referring to something tangible which I can have and hold. My wish is for a state of action, an ability to act. 

That action takes place not within the simple field of consciousness, which even a worm or a molecule occupies; it takes place within a field of awareness, that is, a capacity to observe and evaluate.

This, then, is what struck me as what it means for anything to have a resolution: it means to be aware. 

The only resolution that can ever truly exist within life is this resolution of awareness: my being, the action which I take. 

It's the resolution of now.

That can be resolved in an inward sense alone; I have the capacity to be aware within myself. This, in this moment, is an absolute and objective resolution; not a subjective one. It’s objective to the extent that my awareness is detached from the presumption of resolution in the physical world: the world of objects, events, circumstances, and conditions. There will always be movement and change here; and there will always be desirable and undesirable outcomes and consequences. Yet there will never be resolution there. The only resolution that can be achieved is this inward resolution of awareness.

At the same time that this becomes evident to me, the requirements for living within the material world and all of the deceptively attractive “resolutions” it offers — every one of which must be attended to, often even with passion and conviction –are brought into question. 

Taking that into account, I’ll revisit my abbreviated Oxford English dictionary list of meanings for the word resolution and see how each one of them, in one way or another, applies to this question:

1. To melt or dissolve, reduce to a liquid or fluid state.

2. To disintegrate, to break up, separate into constituent or elementary parts.

3. To soften. To disperse or dissipate.

Within the action of awareness and being, I attempt to allow all of the solidity of the experience of what I call myself to gently melt or dissolve, becoming more liquid and fluid. What “I” am now is strongly integrated; a rigid structure that actually needs to be broken into pieces in order for it to be better understood. Those elementary parts all have an important values, but they need to discover a new, different kind of relationship. 

I can become softer; my experience of myself can thereby become more permeable, like a liquid that receives all of the things that take place, easily moving from one state to another in the same way that water flows and penetrates what it encounters. 

I can let go of this solid creature I believe I am, this one who demands all the absolute answers, and make more of an effort to inhabit the moment in a gentler way.

4. To slacken or relax, as in the limbs.

I can allow myself to relax. I give myself permission to let go of a bit of the physical tension and anxiety I constantly feel when confronted with this demand for one resolution after another. It's a foregone conclusion I won't get all the resolutions I seek; anyway, most of them are sheer fantasies in the first place… why not just try and take it a little easier here?  Within myself, perhaps I can allow myself to Be instead of trying to force a resolution of Being.

5. To cause to pass away.

6. To separate a thing into its component parts.

7. To reduce by fundamental analysis into more elementary forms principles or relations.

8. To pass into another form or into simpler forms.

It's all right to let each moment go; to welcome it, taste it, release it. 

Things with me need to be taken apart, removed from the complexities of my beliefs and insistences. Simplified. I need to sort them out, to see them individually for  what they are, rather than believing in the structures they have created. By seeing, through a concise and more objective awareness, all of these elementary parts of myself, I begin to appreciate what a patchwork my psyche is, and how careful I might choose to be about assuming responsibility for each piece of it. 

Wishing the best for you on this day,

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.