obedient to benevolent forces

Revisiting old journal entries here, I have settled into March of 2008 sitting alone on a hotel balcony in Litchfield Beach, South Carolina. I was on walkabout, something I do (did) when everything in me sets to jitter (Oh, and it does. For the life of me, I cannot keep this roar at a hum for any lengthy extension. I don't know what part of me malfunctions; I only know it does.) I rented a car and drove south and west for 10 days.

I had a moment with a dead jellyfish that I thought was kind of important, and I think about it off and on. It was washed up in the sand like a gelatinous blob, really not so attractive when dead and motionless, tentacles not so much like cool dreadlocks when they're still. And I thought about many years before when I read an article about jellyfish in a Natural Geographic. I gave a presentation to my students at the juvenile detention center where I worked at the time. I used it as an example for how you can make your own curiosity, how everything is interesting and nothing is boring if you inventory its details. The jellyfish has no central nervous system, and yet it is one of the longest surviving species and most efficient predators in the ocean. How can something without a brain be so good at what it does?

I thought of this looking at the dead jellyfish. It was dead. It didn't give a crap that it was dead, because it never over-thought its life. It didn't sit around drinking coffee with its friends and bemoaning its watery existence. It didn't fret over what to do next. Didn't make plans. Didn't stare into mirrors all day long. Didn't get anxious. Didn't act out of selfishness or guile or wayward psychology. Didn't feel insecure or threatened or superior. It didn't evaluate anything or anyone. It just existed. It gave itself to the tide and to instinct, totally obedient to a bigger plan.

And I thought, "Good on you, Dead Jelly." That must be very peaceful.

Not that I want to be mindless. I just want to release and float and be obedient to benevolent forces and then sting crap with my tentacles, I guess.