Artwork by Ingrid Lill
This simple little drawing holds the key to breaking through some points of inquiry I've been trying to get at for a while. Only I didn't realize I'd been trying.
It's funny how when you need something (and I don't mean material things, I mean life lessons), it comes right to your doorstep. In this case, it came to my computer screen in the form of Ingrid's next doodle in her facebook doodle stream, Just this morning, rather than try to stop my habit of negative thinking, I sat down with it.
Like a lot of people, a generalized sense of anxiety about a nebulously uneasy expectation can sneak up on me. This usually happens in the middle of the night and kicks off with one of those dreams with a repetitive themes. For me, the theme is generally centered around an apocalyptic event. A tsunami. Nuclear War. Something fun like that.
The secondary theme both within the dream and outside of it seems to be about escape. I just want to run as far from the situation as possible, and without a glance back. I want to escape my own skin.
But what if there is no need for escape from anything at all? What if the situation doesn't apply to anyone and is just a situation, happening? What if the troublesome habit IS the self? It has to be because there's actually nothing holding onto it. I just checked. And there was no sign of an owner of a habit.
So, if I try to find the thing that escapes a physical situation, it would be the body moving away from a point in space or time. But if it's an escape from the habit of anxiety, it's all about getting away from thought.
What would get away from thought?