THE COLOR BLUE

1 step towards Awareness.
Close your eyes and let every thought, every memory, every dream, every evocation sigh out of your lungs and disappear into the evening sky. Everything except the color blue.
Breathe out, and with that breathe, lose yourself, lose your mind, lose your intelligence, lose your sovereignty, lose your ambitions and hesitations, lose your fear, and your knowledge..
lose everything except the color blue.
Let everything leave your mind... except the color blue.
The color blue.
The color blue.



We were drinking wine a few nights ago.
My brothers and I, on the porch of a small cabin, nestled in the mountains of Ben Lomand. Ben Lomand is a tiny town outside of Santa Cruz, CA - it is in a valley of spectacular redwoods, and is truly an amazing place.
The air was chilly and fresh, and we were keeping warm by conversing about the origins of reality, and the mystery of perception.
A glass of $1.99 Merlot from Trader Joe's loosening up our mouths, letting truth and bullshit flow freely.
As we spoke and debated, and theorized about life.. the idea of Suffering became the topic of the night. In all its forms - physical, mental, universal. We started talking about "why" suffering exists. We started discussing, the reasons, the torment, the pain - we tossed god into the mix: if there is a god, why does he allow suffering? Is suffering good? Is suffering necessary?
"If only we were able to live without suffering!", we would shout! A life without the burden of anguish. Suffering is decidedly not good.. and especially when it happens to "good" people.
After several hours of debate, and reasoning and loudness.. we finished off our wine, got drowsy, and went to bed. Nothing resolved - except the conclusions in our own minds.
I crawled into my sleeping bag.. zipped myself up, and waited to fall asleep.
I couldn't.
I waited.
I turned over, and twisted, and sighed. Everything was quiet, and I could hear my heartbeat thumping.
I couldn't sleep because.. there was a color slowly filling up my imagination.

It was the color BLUE.



I want to consider for a moment the awesomeness of blue.
Void of context, void of reason or place.
Simply consider "blue".
I immediately think about the sky, the oceans, waterfalls.. but even beyond that, there is just the color blue.
Why? Why do I see it?
My eyes see it every single day of my life.. and I take it for granted! I treat "blue", like I am supposed to see it.
I am oblivious to how beautiful - how much depth and sensuality, how much life it contains.
Just one color. And yet it is absolutely, inexplicably marvelous.
What would life be like without the color blue?

There is no reason I should see blue. And yet I do.
There is no defining guideline to existence that says I get to experience blue. And yet I am able to.
I have no right, no born qualification, no talent, no innate gift - nothing about me deserves to see the color blue. And yet, I see it.


Take suffering. Take pain. Take agony, take anything that feels undeserved, that feels wrong or unfair, or unjust. Take all that hate for god, for letting those things happen to people. Take it, and place it against the color blue.
All that pain, all that suffering, against a color that I have no right to see.


I have to grasp how incredible 1 simple color is.
I have to understand how beautiful 1 single breath of life is.
I have to realize how sacred and awesome it is just to touch dirt.
Just to smell redwood trees, just to move my finger, just to taste a drop of water on my tongue.
I have to know how entirely undeserving of those things I am.
ONLY THEN - I can look at "suffering". only then I can decide how much pain I should have to endure.

My question becomes.. "Why, since I have been given so much undeserved awesomeness, should I not have to suffer?"



The point of this madness.
Suffering is only unjust in my mind, because I have not yet realized how incredibly undeserved are each of life's seconds.
It is true, suffering is agony, and makes our hearts and bodies bleed - but what is suffering, compared to life?
Maybe, if I understand the limitless awesomeness of the color blue - just that single color; maybe, I will see that suffering is nothing compared to the brilliance that I take for granted every single day.

Give me blue.





(Andrew Tipton)