Alo and De Mistake #64
(PD) Alo and De Lake on Land.
Copyright ©2018 November 10, 2018
Alo: Almost half a lifetime ago... again I had sat near a front window, looking out, thinking of Nature... first time, was at about five years old... I reasoned that before man could exist, first there had to be earth... had to be a planet... man cannot live floating in space... must have food, water, air, a sequence of coming into existence... and so, next, after earth, had to be many things... air, water, sun, cycles... next had to be plants... trees, plants for food... next, animals... last, people... the logic was simple... still is. Similarly, half a lifetime ago, I sat looking out the front window, thinking of how narrow Nature's boundaries are... so few possible choices... maybe to many people, there might appear to be many choices, but the people do not appear to recognize that what they think of as being many, is actually very few. I continued reading, expecting, or at least hoping, to find an answer... my wishing to be better than I was... to somehow become a good man... I had found large claims of an ultimate way... I studied, and then, applied the teaching's way... about two weeks of following the way, then about three days to achieve the way...
De: Overachiever... others, lifetime...
Alo: Perhaps so... but, being an overachiever is not always wanted... able to do more things, faster, sooner... make more mistakes, faster, sooner... have time to make much bigger mistakes... the claimed way, was a mistake... a very bad mistake... I had written at the time, 'egolessness is egotistical'... I was very displeased with myself for having done something so stupid as to give trust in an outsider's beliefs. And yes, there was a small benefit, but the cost was huge... it destroyed the good things in my life... it took almost the rest of my life to regain what I had lost... De... there... the old self, was reborn...
De: But, appreciation?
Alo: True... the bad mistake, now has given to me a huge appreciation of the good things... De, to you, especially... the old hurts, are now, the foundations of new happiness. Chidao... no harm to self... no hurts... no destructions... no regrets... no beliefs in magical powers... all proper... all creative... now, I sometimes sit, and wonder, what it might have been like, if I had heard of chidao before hearing of the wrong way... I would have avoided the mistake, but... would I be a better person? In many ways, yes, surely... but, in other ways, maybe not...
Yan: Back to the extremes of good and bad... to avoid a mistake, also avoid appreciation...
Jun: Also, cannot have compassion alone... cannot be kind to others, alone... know loneliness and hurt, to know appreciation...
Yan: Yes indeed...
Alo: Agreed... but still, the memories are present... regrets for making mistakes... yes, learning from mistakes, a strong way of understanding... but the cost... how can such a cost be excused?
De: Morning hear dao, evening die able...
Alo: True... I suppose most everyone makes mistakes... natural... unavoidable... and it is true, that the whole of my life is now found to have been worthwhile, because, of you De... because, I can now love you more... yes... in that view... a million lifetimes of huge mistakes... worth every one...
Yan: A funny thing I saw once... a woman publicly complained, that she had had something like thirty-five common-law marriages, but she could not find a good man...
Alo: Hahaha! Ah, poor woman... now makes my mistake seem small...
Yan: Maybe we all, sometimes, weigh our mistakes only upon our own standards for self... what some of us think of as being a big mistake, other people might judge to be a small mistake, and visa-versa...
Jun: Must not have been big, if De here...
Yan: That is right... Alo, look... no good man would accept a woman who had thirty-five husbands... the woman, now, it is now all but impossible for her to find a good man... but look... who is your wife now? Would she accept a bad man?
Alo: ... Would be so easy to relieve my discomfort of judging self-worth, by telling a dumb joke... but, no, De would not accept a bad man...
De: I have already admitted of having made the mistake of once believing that I had made a mistake... but, seriously, my little mistakes, happen... big mistake of bad husband, never...
Alo: Teaser... must be a flaw in your thinking ability...
De: Ha! But that cannot be so... in your eyes, I am perfect...
Alo: Ha! I have to admit... that is true...
Yan: I am older than everyone here... more time to make more mistakes... I have not spent a day without discovering how to make more mistakes...
Alo: And Jun is also here... maybe, maybe-maybe, my own mistake was not such a heavy cost after all... I am more deeply realizing now... any other path, would not have led me here...