How to be the one
because home is not what you think it is
One of the ways into your heart is by making you pay attention. It establishes a connection. Scribbling my weekly piece I often unconsciously try to trick you into alertness and lead you across. It is a tightrope act. Laying a tightly stretched cable from wherever you are to here, the fictional place I have concocted for you. I make it seem doable. Do my best to keep you from looking down. I praise you, you are courageous, so far so good, but the wobbly bit lies ahead of you. It always does.
This circus act analogy is a good one. Let’s stick with the balancing act a bit longer. Just slide your foot forward, slowly breathe out, feel the weight of the pole, notice the slight breeze, you are in balance, gravity is your friend. And there are only two outcomes. You stay on the rope, sliding step after sliding step, or you fall down and that’s it.
Either or
Either/or logic is nasty. It always presents itself like there is no way around. There is either a dead end or a way through. Either/or is a no choice. Either/or is always right. One way or the other.
Except that it’s not. It’s incomplete. Not the full truth. Either/or tricks you into believing the limited conditions presented to you are the defining factors. You enter the agreement at a point of unknowing. At the entrance to the world of limited choices you either sign the contract or aren’t allowed in. Welcome to the mall-of-this-or-that. The religion of yes or no. The politics of with or without. The kingdom of take or... (here, for my own sanity I leave out the other ninety-five variants dribbling at my brain-room’s exit like full-bladdered toddlers).
Dead or alive. Black or white. Let’s deconstruct that nasty binding semi-proposal and give ourselves some means to resist. To declare the contract nihil. To cross the divide.
You have two brains
Because the divide runs right through the middle of you. You have two brains. Two ways of looking at this troubled world. Two ways of being here. You have lots of two’s. Eyes, ears, hands come in two’s. The world is riddled with them. Man and woman. Day and night. There is boat full of couples to get us through the flood. But why?
You are brought up with a simple lie. One and one — they tell you — is two. Anyone who tells you otherwise is labeled an imposter. A liar. Anyone squeezing in a different view is spreading misinformation.
One and one equals two. It is true. It is also brutally incomplete. Like the tightrope image it has gotten rid of most of the surrounding factors to present you with a cleaned up, polished little treasure. A perfect gem.
It’s plastic. No, I mean literally plastic.
The circus-act-fantasy has many outcomes. Two steps in on the rope you can throw away your pole, turn around and head back for solid ground, back to base camp.
Or... a gust of wind pushes you off. You start the inevitable fall. And then it turns out you are not alone. The sky is full of random tightropes, you grab one and get another chance, and some sky-walkers even got together and used their long sticks to make little platforms they call communities.
Or... you just imagined being high up. And yes, you fall but it is only two feet down. You laugh and lie in the uncut grass contemplating your next try.
Or... you do fall, endlessly it seems. The air rushing by, your heart racing. Then a sudden shock, and you are in your bed. Waking up from the rough landing. You dreamed that tightrope dream again. Wearing nothing but a skirt.
1+1≠2
See? One and one is not just two. One and one make a baby. One and one is a third. The in-between. The in-between-child is important. Either/or always has offspring hidden somewhere. The bastards never told us.
You have two brains. One thinks it’s home, the other knows it is not. One is asleep, the other realizes it is dreaming. And sometimes... a child is born.
Now there’s an old story worth retelling. When the two come together a light is born unto the world. New and innocent. Clear eyed. Worthy of worship and gifts and celebration. This child is everywhere. Hidden from sight.
Inside and out. One and one is a third, an in-between.
End of part one.
Part two is unsettling. One you’d better not read when unsure. This twisted rope needs real trust to step on.
Home is not what you think it is.
I am placing a big order here. Asking you to reconsider what you think of as home. It is also a difficult dish to prepare and serve, easy to fuck up. To spoil a bucket of great ingredients and produce a plate of mush. The reward, when we succeed (we because I need your help, your assistance on this), is worth it. The result will be stunning and unforgettable. Also; when moving house from a familiar place to a new and unknown location, a bit of sadness is inevitable...
When you were pushed violently out of your mother’s womb, you left home for the first time. So... you know, you’ve been there. We all know on some level, but we forgot. A lot has happened since. And you’ve never returned. We have that in common. All the living are no longer home. How’s that for unsettling?
The world you walk around in, and this includes the yous on wheels, on crutches, on privately owned wings, on the dirt track between slum and landfill, and the many yous in prisons; this world is not your home. Some of you have learned from experience. Some of you still move around the place as if it is all yours. No matter if you own the mall or visit as a mere customer. You either believe you are providing a home, building one, buying one, decorating the thing, expanding the building, working for a bigger version, or you are collecting the best spots around the world with the most luxurious versions of this crazy little thing we call home. We eagerly buy or sell the great delusion. It matters not if you own the building or sit on the doorstep with your plastic cup and a crap guitar. The chased home is out of reach.
Bleak huh? Yes, it is. But one and one equals two. That’s life. You can’t own your cake and enjoy it to the last crumb. Living life to the fullest is ending up a splotch on the sidewalk. Right underneath your privately owned tightrope stretched between the twin towers of your materialized assumptions. You better up the insurance.
Home is not what you think it is.
Home is the dot at the end of the book. Period. Home is you coming, arriving at the place you longed for, smooth and moist, and surrendering with a sigh of relief to the unknown after. Home is the last note of the song, resolving all tension. Home is you dying. Home is the world of suffering, ending. Home is the apocalypse knocking on heaven’s door. It is you, suddenly recognising the stranger at your abundantly laid table. Nothing but the best for your guests, huh? And then you just know the one sitting across from you is not here to enjoy what you ordered to be prepared so meticulously. You are not the host of this place. You never have been. It is the one facing you, here to take you home.
Or life steals your home from you. The thing you love the most is rendered useless, damaged beyond repair, you have tried to save it but couldn’t, or you didn’t. The child is taken from you, or never even given, never conceived. And you are here lost and alone. Homeless and longing.
Home can be like death.
Death is not what you think it is. You know when you have died. Then I do not have to tell you that falling doesn’t equal death. Not like you thought it would. Letting go doesn’t mean to disappear into the abyss. Into the void of nothing. Death is around. It is here. In the world, in you. Home is around. In the world, in you.
Confusing? Great. I have unsettled you. Now we can move for real. Now we have a bit of play. Now we can resist the narrative of false promises.
The supermarket loves to make you feel at home, so does the television, the mesmerizing screen. Any salesperson tries to make you feel at home. Notice the comfortable couch in a bank when you come for the loan. Coffee, cappuccino?
Art often does the opposite. It makes you uncomfortable, questions the familiar. And the familiar constantly shifts. If shocking you becomes normal, the task of art suddenly is consolation. It can slap you in the face and cuddle you. Some great works do both at the same time.
Life — this utterly strange experience we seem to share — is about that edge. The thin line between pain and pleasure, between falling or staying in balance. The kiss becoming a jawbreaking slap brings out the true relation, the betrayal is exposed. The familiar is the monster. Just before you push your shaking spear into the dragon’s heart you know who it is you try to slay.
You are home. And you are not. The child is you and it is not. This body is yours, your beloved home and it is the most alien thing you’ve ever encountered. The tightrope crossing the divide is your home.
You have two brains. You really, actually do. And they hold incompatible perspectives. Inside you a war is raging. And a peace reigns. I don’t care which is which. Both take place on the field of in-between. The important bit is the child. The third. One and one cannot help but be more than two.
Finding the child. Following the newfound star and finding the newborn in an unlikely place and honoring it. Raising the child. That might well be the essence of life. One and one do not equal two. Think of the countless ones meeting other ones today. Any encounter, all of them, render a child. Pen meeting paper. Light hitting object. Finger pushing button. The smallest of touches, the humblest of words, spark new lights. All the ones added up remake the universe every instant. That’s the overwhelming reality of this place we visitors call home.
You, the bigger you, (not the either/or version) is constantly being born from this reality of many ones. Death is accompanying you on every step. Is that scary? Mmm, maybe, but less than it was before. Now I feel a bit more at home with not being at home, now I have learned to be okay, alert, with the unfamiliar, my fear is in check. Joy can embrace suffering. I can sense my balance, the strengths of my (metaphoric) two-leggedness. I can decide for myself. I can move forward. Step by step. Control lies in centering me. Adjusting to the rope, to the earth as a whole, to gravity. Tiny movements suffice. Trust. Others have fallen before you, and you are here. Still here. Now is the time to feel your feet, to hold the wide weighty stick of life. You are on. You are the one. I look up to you. You can do it. I trust you like I trust myself. Sparking the new is unavoidable.
Death is near. It always was close. Relax. Home is not what you think it is. And you have two brains. More than enough to get this dichotomy, to marry the two extremes, to tie them together with a strong cable and tension the string until it sings. Until it makes the body sing. Until the crowd trembles. Until the monster lowers its gaze in submission.
Does death conquer life? Or does life conquer death?
Did you recognise the false dilemma in that question? It doesn’t matter which is the right answer. What matters is the mystery of the third arising in between.
You create like you are created.
You are the child.
One, ready to meet the other one.
Even if ‘like’ may not be the right word, don’t forget to let me know you’re not indifferent….
Bertus - amazing. this holds so much meaning for me this morning. I feel like it was written just for me. (narcissistic much lol) I have been deeply grappling with 'home' and with death/endings. The theme of what and where is home, and leaving home, new home and cleaning out other people's homes, has been a constant thread in my physical life for the past two years and now I contemplate letting go of all concept of home, of spreading wings and taking flight, and having no home. Last night I dream of finding a damaged butterfly, who cant fly, and I have to find the nectar to feed her, to set her free...But I realise that it does not have to be either/or - finding the inbetween is the ticket.
"You have two brains. One thinks it’s home, the other knows it is not. One is asleep, the other realizes it is dreaming. And sometimes... a child is born."
So special. Also last night we watched a movie together, and it was about the birth of a child. A movie we are suckers for and have seen many times, called Knocked Up. There were tears after - we knew that it was the greatest gift of life that we got to birth a child into this world. It was a miracle, every birth, not matter how mundane, is a miracle.
And this elusive home that you speak so well of here:
"When you were pushed violently out of your mother’s womb, you left home for the first time. So... you know, you’ve been there. We all know on some level, but we forgot. A lot has happened since. And you’ve never returned. We have that in common. All the living are no longer home. How’s that for unsettling?
Well yes - it is always out of reach. I think of that expression from Ram Das, ‘we are all just walking each other home’. Trying to find it. Trying to come home again at last. And yet always trying to be free?
So I have just read the whole piece again, I feel like it is a treasure map to carry with me. Thank you so much Bertus - your pen has dipped into the ink well of life and is dripping with wisdom! (that's me trying to be poetic too ;-)
Wow, Bertus! I'm going to print this one out and carry it with me! ♥️♥️♥️ Years ago, I had what I've been calling a goddess appear to me and tell me "see the third pillar, be the third pillar". It was almost comical, sounding like a movie quote. But I have been a student of tension and relationship ever since. In your brilliance, you put to words what I have been trying to understand since that day. Thank you!