The Cosmic Yes

You're already familiar with this concept. You are.

It's everywhere. Movies refer to it -- In Tin Cup, Kevin Costner says, "A tuning fork goes off in your heart and in your balls."

He's speaking, of course, of a perfect golf swing, the moment of contact between the club face and the ball, but life is like that, too. You're cruising along, thinking of something else entirely, and DING! a moment of purest enlightenment.

And when that happens, how do you react? You shout, "YES!" That is the Cosmic Yes.

It never happens when we're looking for it, though, does it? You try and try and you just can't find what you're looking for. Think about all the things in your life that you'd like to have but seem to be eluding you. You know what it is for you...for me, it's been finding a woman to spend my life with.

Friends tell me, "you'll find her when you're not looking." Thanks, I'd say, just exactly how the hell is that going to happen?

Lately, though, I've begun to connect things in my head. Martial arts and Zen both teach that the path to understanding is through doing-not-doing, mind-no-mind, being-not-being. Concentrate, but don't work too hard at it. Keep doing it until it becomes second nature, until you needn't think about it. Let understanding come to you.

My golf instructor used to tell me not to hit the ball. "Swing through the ball, but let the club do the work." I never got that until this morning, sitting in my kitchen in shorts and a t-shirt, watching daylight sneak in through the marine layer, years after I last swung a club.

You feel the tuning fork when you're not looking for it.

So. What's that got to do with today?

I have no idea.

I woke up early this morning, tossed and turned a bit, and finally got up around 5:30, feeling at peace with the world. Today is my birthday. At 2:58pm Pacific Time this afternoon, I will be exactly 44 years old.

I'm at a time in life when most men ask themselves how they got where they are. They wrestle with the question, as though the answer will somehow bring understanding. And because the answer doesn't come, they look for it elsewhere: a new Corvette (or a classic one), a younger woman...

I already know how I got here.

By not really thinking about it too much.

DING!

Yes.