I want to be right

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There were horrific and rending consequences as well, but today it occurs to me how fortunate I was to be molded in an upbringing that left me with no assurance I was right. How I envied, over time, others who seemed confident in their beliefs and biases, who went in warming social groups and had a place in the universe because if 'everyone' said so and they too said so, then they were right and belonged and were at peace. Baseball, religion, wealth, marriage, altruism, science, race or gender bias, chocolate milkshakes ... cozy, cozier, coziest.

I tried to mimic this behavior and probably had a half-baked success now and then, but I never seemed to be as convinced as others could be. When, for example, Beat Generation author Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" made a big splash and when I and the group I hung around with all read it and marveled at its open-armed, rebellious spirit ... still, whispering from some private corner of my mind was the secret thought that the book really wasn't very good and that I could understand why eleven publishers had turned it down before it ever went to press. I wanted to agree with the agreements of those around me. I wanted to be somehow 'right' and bask by that fire ... but I could never find a resting place that gave me the rest I wanted ... to be right and to be part of some group activity where 'right' really was right and I would finally be at home.

Others seemed to lay loneliness to rest by being in the company of others -- to find their contentment and right-ness in the agreement of those around them. So I tried, but I wasn't very good at it. The sense that a period-on-the-sentence right-ness was always just out of reach ... it lingered, like a fart under the covers, oozing out and tinting the air around me. Where was the air that wasn't stinky?

This sense came with me through my teenaged years, when everyone is a bit nuts, and into young adulthood as I went into the army, worked at a book publishing house and finally ended up as a newspaper reporter in the late 1960's and early 1970's.

And it was during that time as a reporter that I encountered spiritual adventure and was hooked. On the one hand, it seemed to offer a way to finally be 'right,' to find a home in a homeless land. But of course old habits are not outflanked with the wave of a wand, and, together with the promise I could feel in spiritual effort, there was also doubt.

As time passed and I read more and more books and loved spiritual approaches more and more, I finally codified my doubts with a couple of statements that stayed with me in the years to come: 1. When it came to spiritual life, I did not want to know in order to convince others; I wanted to know purely and completely for myself -- was it true or was it bullshit ... a bullshit defined by the group hugs and social agreements so common in other realms. Somehow I knew that 'everyone's' agreement could never fill the bill. And 2. If spiritual life, whatever the hell it was, was incapable of breathing free and easy in the scuzziest barroom I could imagine, I wanted nothing to do with it.

These were just my parameters. I could see as I moved into a world of Zen Buddhism that there was something to be said for group hugs and agreements and commonality of purpose, but the uncertain and churlish voice remained in my heart ... no more bullshit. This was something I was going to get 'right,' an endeavor that would put loneliness and doubt to flight. This time, by god, I was going to be right!

I worked pretty hard at it. Flunked out of a monastery and kept going. Kept going and kept going and kept going. There were ups and downs, tears and laughter, certainties that turned uncertain and then returned to a revised certainty that then returned to a revised uncertainty. Five or six or seven years into zazen or seated meditation practice, I once remarked to an older member of the group I belonged to, "I find it easy to love them [the other members of the group], but I find it hard to like them." To which she replied mildly, "That's interesting. I find it easy to like them but hard to love them."

Years passed. I got married and had three children. I built a small zendo or meditation hall in the back yard and made it available to others who might want to practice. I thought I could 'help,' as if helping were some touchstone for being, at last, 'right' and at peace. Then that too faded. The meditation hall was a place for formal practice, that's all. It had nothing to do with helping or being right or escaping from uncertainty. It was and remains a nice little house and I am happy I built it. It's not a scuzzy barroom, but it's close enough.

And today what crossed my mind about my good fortune at never being right was this: I was right all along but being right is not all it's cracked up to be. It's not an adequate defense and it's not a very good offensive weapon. It's as if some voiceover announced, "Yes, you are right. So what?" And that "so what," that peaceful observation without all the overlays of peace or home or understanding or deeeeep meaning is enough for me.

You don't have to be 'right' in order to be right.

Or maybe you do.

Anyway, it's not my problem. The skies are grey and threatening this morning and the wind is caressing the Japanese maple across the street. It looks like a storm is brewing, so I think I'll get my ass in gear and get cigarettes before it pours.
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