there's always something

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There is always something, don't you think? Young or old, rich or poor, smart or dumb, tall or short, there is always something -- some concern or activity or set of circumstances to be attended to or worried about or delighted with. Can you think of a time when this was not so?

This morning I got up late -- 7:15 or so. I generally get up much earlier, but not today. On Sundays, I apply for unemployment insurance online and the Internet application window opens at 7. So there was that to consider and the timing of zazen and email and wondering if I will get out and rake and plant flowers and put down some grass seed later. I also bought supplies for a new batch of muffins yesterday -- something more adventurous than my first attempt: This time I'll try apricots, raisins, dried cranberries, brown sugar and maybe some cinnamon. The computer is balky and suggests back-up discs to meet what it considers an imminent crash.

There is always something. I'm sure others have more interesting a energetic somethings to consult with, but, whatever the interest level, there is always something.

But what is this something that seems never to rest and is always at work like some Mafia highway project ... the one that never ends, causes endless traffic delays, and rakes in millions of dollars? From what necessity does this something arise? Is it necessary to the doom and delight anyone might feel in their life?

There is always something, and, on a guess, I would say that something is just me -- the one who requires constant patching and gluing and propping and asserting. Just me. I am so habituated to this me -- to this something -- that it never occurs to me to wonder or investigate: If there is something and if this something is me ... what exactly is this something and is it really worth the energy?

There is always something. But of what does this something consist? What is its starting point and where does it end? I don't ask from some Buddhist framework that is likely to have ready answers, but rather from a human standpoint, the one that existed long before anyone made up Buddhism.

Would I be unhappy if this something took a sabbatical ... just took a break? How would I know? There is always something and yet there is no thing I can think of that is provably "always." Things change and "always" seems to be a misnomer or a wet dream of some kind. But is it?

What something is always? What something does not change? Since everything demonstrably changes, it seems fair to say that nothing does not change and that therefore something is nothing ... but what is it?

I suppose the great answering machine within could come up with something convenient like "life." But it is one thing to say "life" and another thing to just live it -- just accord with the circumstances that arise and leave the gluing and propping and patching and asserting for another time.

There is always something, but aside from the weltschmerz-filled breath with which such a statement can be issued, wouldn't it be more soothing simply to actualize the something that is always, the nothing which is always, and let the something take care of itself instead of insisting on taking care of it?

There is always something.

Why not just relax?

Patching and gluing a propping and asserting are extra, don't you think?
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