I’m finding renewed interest in many old habits that are so intertwined they seem like one big habit. I’m seeing there are many threads to this old knotted-up accumulation of karma (habits/feelings), and if I can let go of just a couple, that helps with loosening the Knot of Self.

I’m going through the awareness that my awarenii ( I know), have shifted. First I thought. Oh, no! Senility! and it may be that, but I prefer to see it as a reformation of the things that matter in relation to the things that don’t.

Many habits don’t matter at all, especially when bundled with our opinions, and are a bane to aging and also natural result thereof, because they make most things a “Yeah! I know!” situation; which is how we represent Not Knowing ‘for sure’, to ourselves. Aging can bring on false certitude and insistence and all sorts of arrogance. And, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Examining my thinking and opinion and habits where they meet (Everywhere, at every intersection) is not easy and usually after the fact. I’m now understanding that After the Fact is OK. That’s how most teachings for my own good have always arrived. Arrived. Yet, not too late. It’s usually just a mistake, a knowing or good intention gone South for the Winter or longer.

So, life is more interesting and I’m still adjusting and at times I don’t like it, finding sadness that I’m just now comprehending this tiny little bit. Better late than never, and on it goes.

Thankfully, I’m making some interesting new friends that I’m learning to love the hard way, the real way it turns out; by dropping expectations and age-old and old-age story lines. Hell, I’m learning to refrain, to hold back a little (sometimes quite a lot), and open up more sincerely. Especially when it disturbs my precious Comfort Zone, a stinky old couch-like structure, that I spend way too much time on. Like Oldcoots like to do.

Making room for Change, not just running around yapping about accepting it; and then just being very disturbed by that huge Uncertainty of Life, which I’ve come to see as the best description of Suffering (and all it implies), I’ve encountered.

So, now what? Next steps

Is What! That’s what walking

The path, trail or way

Is All about, anyhow.

Honesty comes with aging. Not necessarily an open honesty, rather a refined pick & choose honesty. That’s the kind that many writers and artists and ‘creators’ or ‘makers’ (as some style themselves), tend towards; a prevaricated honesty. A tool, a refined and sifted openness that tends towards varnishing. A way of appearing honest while creating more fog onto placid seeming waters. For effect, no real purpose.

The problem with that type of honesty is that it no longer works. I used to be able to fool myself with it. That’s what made it so ‘precious’, which often creates a feeling of unfinished accomplishment.

I’m becoming more in tune with the double-edged nature of aging. Lots of seeming understanding, which often is just a glossed over and un-investigated awareness of one’s past, motives and intentions.

I’m finding myself in the strange, yet probably prosaic position of seeing my mental diminution accelerating and there may be nothing I can do to mitigate it. But, there are ways to redirect it. They involve effort, willingness and allowing.

Yikes! I’m too old for this? (Hopeful piano tinkling in background.)

Old feelings that haven’t been noticeable are reappearing. New wrappings around well used yearnings, wantings, wishings and if-only’s, doesn’t turn them into presents, it just becomes more opportunity for creating clutter. The worst part is, it feels fresh.

Now, that’s a delusion! Thank you. I’m sure its not one I’ve perfected but do take curious pride in, and I know it is just putting off the inevitable of having to face the simple fact that, sooner than later, there will be even less control and actionable awareness in this loss of self. The very thing that I’ve been trying to loose all these years of Zen and associated practice, but now I realize I have to let go of control and have an opportunity to practice real trust. It’s frightening, this ‘Letting go’. Yet very attractive and beckoning.

Releasing the grip of self on the

Self, is supposed to be freeing, but

It’s a slow undoing of knots, a

Procession of events. What’s next?