Breaking away, a new life, obstacles, puerile and xenophobic intolerances, and friends

***

The moment I began to break away from my old life and old self, it seemed that people were attempting, in many subtle, unconscious ways, to detain me, to keep me in my place, so to speak. And when they realized that they were powerless to stop me, some would take to condemning or deriding what no longer fitted into their minds, seeking any justification to blemish my escape. I found this even amongst those who were claiming to be my closest friends, most likely because the moment I turned aside and headed down a different path, their own lives were thrown into a barrage of questioning and conflict. But by that time I was beyond criticism, beyond care. No matter, we are all pathetically inclined to defend the petty realities which the unsupportable ego has created and balances precariously over a crashing wave.

            If a time comes when you have neither need nor desire to partake in another’s little reality- because you have become wholly immersed in, and accepting of, your own vision and destiny- well then the tribulation and discomfort mounts in others to a violent crescendo as the foreign landscape ignites their xenophobic intolerances, and their uncertain soul quivers for a brief second wondering if they might have taken a wrong turn, and that is too much, and the armaments build instantly, and out from the well protected turrets comes a ruthless discharge of arrows and hot oil in an attempt to drive away anything which does not support the unreality game.

           A puerile and disgusting show it becomes, as those closest to you are so caught within their own cage that all they can do is reach through the bars and try to keep you from walking on. That is when you must cut away without concern all the tentacles which entangle and bind you. And you must let others fall away and not look back nor worry that you’re the only one who will come to know what it means when you have found what only you can find.

***

These selected fragments are excerpted from unpublished writings by Jack Haas; selections from the notebooks 1990-2005.