Ten Personal Journal Entries

In lieu of an essay this week, you get to peak inside my private journal

Greetings, my kind and supportive friends and readers. This week I have selected ten recent shorter entries from my private journal to share with you. Thank you so much for reading and supporting Shy Guy Meets the Buddha! 🙏💚

If you can read my writing, you’re welcome to read this randomly opened page from an older journal (nowadays, I journal on my laptop)

1/11/2024

Meditation insights:

—Do not resist my suffering, my feelings of anxiety or insecurity. Connect my suffering to everyone’s suffering. And just... let it be.

—Non-resistance is the answer, not self-improvement.

—In my meditation this morning, I was thinking about a Substack essay I just read, in which the writer went on for a thousand words talking about how they were trying to resolve their feelings of insecurity about being a writer, about participating in social media, etc.. And I suddenly felt so sick—of myself, of everyone, for being so self-absorbed. I, I, I, me, me, me. Poor me, what should I do? How can I be better, feel better? Who am I? Who can I be? I literally saw myself throwing up, ejecting all of my own sorry ego obsession.

Within minutes of that, I was off again thinking about [my son’s] anger at me.

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

This concept of self and the need to protect, defend, coddle and comfort it, is so ridiculous. And yet, it is also just how things are.

Is it completely insane to want to rise above the ego? Isn’t the ego wanting to transcend itself no different than a dog chasing its own tail?

From phone notes app:

1/8—When I look at myself—closely, honestly, courageously—what I see in just about every motivation, desire, and impulse that carries me through my typical day, is a little boy who wants his pacifier.

Give me something to stimulate me, to excite me, to satisfy me, to fulfill me, to comfort me, to make me feel safe, loved, and undisturbed.

1/9—If you’re worried about how you came across in that last Zoom meeting, remember this: Everyone else in that meeting is human like you; they’re probably thinking about how they came across, too. And that means, unless you made a total spectacle of yourself, the only one thinking about your flub or your stumble or your haircut, is YOU! 😊

1/15/2025

Started my screenwriting class today at the Wellfleet Preservation Hall with teacher Claude Kervin.

Meditation insight:

Think about my own name. Don. Sure, there’s power there. Just writing it, I get a strong sense of self. But when I really think about it, my name does not actually belong to me in any way whatsoever. It’s not attached to my body, my skin. If you operated on me, you would find no name tag, no “essence of Don,” no matter how deep you looked. My name is not coded in my brain or stamped on my chest. It’s nowhere. I am NOT ACTUALLY DON. That fact hit me strongly tonight. I am not, I am not, I am really not Don.

1/19/2025

I’m getting so tired of reading that the world is going to hell in a hand-basket, “We’re living in dark times,” or “These unprecedented times.” (This was an uncompleted thought/journal entry. To expound; I think that people aren’t looking at the complete picture—of the world and of history. Humans have been grabbing at power and treating each other cruelly for millennia. Yes, we need to stop Trump and his henchmen in order to save our democracy, but what’s going on isn’t unprecedented. And also, there is still lots of good happening all around us, so “dark times” is an inaccurate description [and yet, and yet…] )

1/28/2025

The search doesn’t end when you find what you’re looking for; it ends when you realize that what you’ve been looking for doesn’t exist.

1/30/2025

I just unexpectedly learned something about myself through a phone conversation with Jennifer. She called from her car to tell me about a program she’d just heard about on the radio called, “Host homes.” It’s a shelter and mentoring program where you temporarily take in a homeless youth 18-24 years of age.

I responded reflexively, “I have no confidence in that role. I feel like I have nothing to offer.” Jennifer was surprised to hear me say that.

“I feel like you have so much to offer!” she said.

It’s not so much that I don’t have anything to offer, I told her, I’m sure I do. It’s more that I feel completely incompetent when I imagine myself in the role of mentor to young people (I have felt this way in the past when contemplating volunteering for Big Brothers/Big Sisters and other mentoring programs). As a failed father I don’t have any confidence that I could help. I feel like they would just be like, ‘Fuck off, you’re not helping. You tried, but you couldn’t, so don’t bother.’”

As my own spontaneous words sank in, I began to feel so sad. I didn’t realize how profoundly my experience of losing my own children’s trust has damaged my belief in my ability to help others.

When Jennifer said that these are young people who actually want and choose to go to someone for help, it shifted my perception a little. To have a young person who actually came to me, who needed me and asked for my help, who trusted me, would be just so amazing and wonderful.

—When will it be time to start writing about this profound wound? Soon?

1/31/2025

Two meditation insights:

1) I’m pretty sure that “knowing” is a faculty only enjoyed by those who are alive, and this is good news because it means: we will never know death.

2) Would you rather:

—Believe you’re destined for greatness, and then with every passing day be confronted with the disappointing evidence that your grand expectations have eluded you once again,

Or,

—Find a soft sunlit pine grove, sit down on the dry leaves with your back against an ancient tree; breathe in that fresh pine and earthy scent; let the sun’s flickering rays warm your thighs; listen to the birds chirping in the branches above; and realize that this gentle peace and beauty is yours, available to you every day.

2/1/2025

I have recognized that there is no ultimate meaning or purpose to life that I can know of, and that has made all the difference. Now I don’t have to wonder if I’m on the “right” path, if I should have lived my life differently, whether I could have accomplished such-and-such if I’d only done this or that. I can just let go of the past and the future and just enjoy where I am right now.

I participate in activities that give me pleasure (writing, working with my hands, walking in the woods, meditating, traveling, spending time with my loved ones) but I am not waiting for some grand payoff. Some days will be good, some days maybe not so much, but it doesn’t matter. I’m not expecting more than life can give me in each moment.

It’s the expectation of something more that makes us unhappy, in my opinion.

There is only now, and right now, I’m okay.

2/3/2025

By paying close attention to self, I gain a clearer understanding of my feelings and their sources, and I blame the world less. That’s mindfulness. That’s peace.

DB

Always a pleasure!