How It Is
James Lewelling

You are trapped. You know you are trapped but you think you might be able to get out later. As long as you think you might be able to get out later, it's almost as if you are not trapped to begin with. After all if there's a time later when you can get out, at that time, when you are getting out, you will be thinking, so I wasn't trapped after all. But actually, you are trapped. You might be thinking I might be able to get out later but that thought is just a way of dealing with the situation as it is. That is, the situation in which you are trapped. Certainly there would be no point in thinking, not to say hoping, you might be able to get out later if you were not in fact trapped right now -- if you were not in fact trapped and you knew it. People aren't perfect, but still they manage to get along. They get along by telling themselves little lies. Who can deny that? For example, if a person is trapped, really really trapped, that person may be capable of dealing with being trapped but at the same time incapable of dealing with being trapped forever. In that situation, the person will say to him or herself, O.K., I'm trapped but I might be able to get out later. In that situation, the person thinks he or she might be able to get out later not because he really believes that he might be able to get out later but because thinking he might be able to get out later is the only way he can deal with being trapped. But if you can get out later, you aren't really trapped are you? If you can get out later, it's much less a case of being trapped and much more a case of being detained. Being detained isn't the same thing as being trapped. Being detained is almost the opposite of being trapped. The idea of being detained contains the idea of getting away. Being trapped on the other hand contains only the idea of not getting away. That's what being trapped is all about. So this person who is trapped but thinks he will be able to get out later really thinks he is not trapped but actually merely detained which is actually very nearly the opposite of the condition that actually pertains -- that is being trapped. A person like that is completely in the dark. A person like that is twice trapped -- once he is trapped because he is trapped and he is also trapped because he doesn't even know he is trapped. He's trapped in ignorance. He can't even begin to deal with being trapped until after he's dealt with ignorance. But all the trapped people really know. They know they're trapped. It's not an ambiguous word and it is not an ambiguous situation. Nonetheless the first thing a trapped person will think about is getting away. Some animals just die. I've read that some animals are smart enough to know when they are really and truly trapped and the very moment these animals figure it out they just die. What else is there for them to do? But people don't just die. The first thing a trapped person does is think, maybe I'm not trapped. Maybe I'm merely detained. The trapped person doesn't think this as an honest appraisal of a real situation. He knows he's trapped. There's no doubt about it. He thinks, maybe I am detained because he knows he's trapped and thinking maybe I'm detained is his only way of dealing with the situation. He doesn't want to know. The funny thing about not wanting to know is that you have to not want to know something. In other words, you have to know what you don't want to know for you to know what it is you don't want to know. You know it. This "maybe I'll get out" is a kind of kidding. It's a way for a trapped person to kid him or her self. They're kidding themselves! And they know they are kidding themselves, so sooner or later they stop. They stop thinking: maybe I'll get out later, and start thinking, so this is the way it is. Being trapped is the way it is. Getting out becomes more and more remote. In fact, the whole idea of it goes away completely. This is the way it is. There's no getting out. The idea of getting out is just a shadow of the idea of being trapped. Being trapped is what's real; getting out is just a shadow. You can walk right through it. It offers no resistance. It's hardly there at all. In fact, after a while, the idea of getting out evaporates under the slow heat of so this is how it is. And at that point, it's hard to say you're trapped. You can't say you are trapped because contained in the idea of being trapped is the idea of not being able to get away but after a certain point there just is no such thing as getting away. It can't be negated because it isn't there in the first place. And so you find you are not trapped after all. Not trapped at all. It's just how it is.

1996 © 2011