Vague Stumble Exploration

Trying to figure something out. Sometimes as simple as typing in a search bar or using a calculator (probably the search bar-based calculator, judging from what I imagine are plummeting calculator sales). Other times much more challenging. Sometimes “figuring it out” is more than just an old Nickelodeon game show hosted by Summer Sanders, the “it” is far more complicated than a childhood talent, with a far fuzzier field of possibilities. In these cases, when wading through an “it” swamp trying to figure your way out, Vague Stumble Exploration may be your best option (particularly if you aren’t totally stretched for time or wondering if it’s a crocodile or an alligator swamp). Vague Stumble Exploration (or VSE for short) is a method for solving problems that aren’t exactly problems that only sort of have solutions. Fuzzy in, fuzzy out, as you might be wondering, is not a particularly preferable place to be, and what could possibly be a type of issue that might require VSE, you might be asking (besides the question of how many commas is too many). VSE applies to intractable or weird or information laden circumstances that are usually better described as circumstances than as problems (not discrete enough, you know?). Things like, how do I deal with the fact of my own mortality or how do I write a poem about awareness without second guessing everything. These are problem sets (circumstance-sets?) that, unless you’re a subscriber to the Buddha’s magazines or you are a poetry machine with no feelings, might benefit from VSE. To explore mortality without experiencing mortality. To learn to cook without any recipes (always a recipe abstention evangelist, at your service). To get to know the situation in a new environment and become a part of the environment without being consumed or rejected by the environment. This is when it’s helpful to do the following: stumble vaguely, explore vaguely, and stumble exploratively. It’s a pretty triangular concept, non-linear and such. So if you want to make it out of the swamp, you first have to decide that you don’t want to leave the swamp. That you’re entirely happy in the swamp. That even if your mortality were to strike while you were standing in that swamp, all would be good and Buddha-y. You don’t have to love it, but you have to be happy in it. Different things. Then, in whatever swamp variety in which you find yourself (including in a swamp where the word in is used far too often) you must get to know your swamp. Not intimately, at least at first. But with a somewhat casual meander. Ask the swamp questions, but don’t demand answers or call out loudly. Consider the nature of metaphors, metaphysically, in between questions. Physically meander, I can’t emphasize enough. VSE requires the body, not just the thumbs or the mind. If you find yourself stuck, ask yourself, who am I in relation to this circumstance? What series of mistakes led me to be reading this run-on paragraph instead of figuring my environment out? Anything to shake back into awareness, to orient. You won’t be able to use a compass, because magnetic North does not correspond to the compass rose you care about. But that’s okay. Anyway, just make sure to use some sort of hidden childhood talent to get out of whatever swamp you’re in and you’ll be fine. You’ll be fine anyway.