cap pistols and dolls

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When I was a kid, boys played with cap pistols and girls played with dolls. Roughly speaking, that was the frame of mind ... not always or even insistently true, but more or less.

I had a lot of cap pistols and I knew girls who had a lot of dolls.

Cap pistols were a part of my world -- pretty important, pretty defining, pretty empowering, pretty consoling.

I don't own any cap pistols any more, though I have picked up a couple of interesting dolls at tag sales. Dolls and cap pistols ... well, they're pretty much out of the picture. Somehow they walked away. It's not a matter of sadness or arrogance: They just disappeared at some point, into the realm of memory and a recognition that without them, I could not type these words.

No one can push the river -- excise what is not yet ready to be excised, focus the attention where it is not yet ready to be focused....

But this morning I think of cap pistols and dolls and, in the same grab bag, spiritual endeavor. Somehow -- and I'm not really sure how -- I think this is a necessary matter. All the specialness and support and wonder and delight and wisdom and accuracy ... all very good stuff. But like love, it only works when you give it away or fuggetaboutit.

Isn't it funny about religion? -- people came before religion ever hit the scene and yet recognizing that fact is often treated like dog shit on the sole of your shoe. If someone were to acknowledge it within, I guess, that would be unbearable somehow -- imposing the kind of responsibility that a well-fashioned God allows you to surrender.

It's just you ... as any number of Zen teachers and others with sense have suggested. Keep the cap pistols and dolls as long as you like. They were and remain excellent companions. Wriggle and squirm and praise and blame and exercise your little heart out and still ... it's just you and do you really need a cap pistol or a doll?

I know ....

Yes, but
Yes, but
Yes, but
Yes, but

I'm not trying to convince anyone or slander anyone's particular persuasion. It's just that it occurs to me and so I write it down. Does it really take any endeavor to prove and actualize who you are? Of course if you try to define or delineate -- if you rely on cap pistols or dolls -- the shit may start to pile up around your ankles. But outside that ... here you are.

You got a problem with that?

I doubt it.
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