
I noticed this morning that I had been at the Slabs for a week now. I had only intended to stay a few days, but somehow the time got away from me. I talked to a guy yesterday who has lived here for three years. He makes his living digging “septic tanks” and bumming beers. Once you’re in the Slabs and you’ve got nowhere else to go, then you’ve got very little reason to leave. The Slabs are sticky that way.
Many who arrive here fall into a Dark Pit, either alcohol or drugs or even retirement. Once in their Pit, they rarely can see a way out–indeed, sometimes they don’t even know there is a way out.
But Dark Pits aren’t limited to the Slabs. Most people fall into pits at some point in their lives. I was in the Corporate American Pit for over twenty years because I was too afraid to leave. Currently I’m dealing with (more accurately, not dealing with) two people who, right in front of my eyes, fell into their own Dark Pits: one into a Pit of Anger and the other into a Pit of Depression.
The sad part is, Dark Pits are all in our heads. The Pits of Anger, of Jealousy, of Fear, of Envy, of Depression, of Regret, of Revenge–none of these Pits are real. They don’t exist in the real world. These Pits, when people find themselves “trapped” in them, are only in their heads. How do I know this? Because you’ll never find a frog in one of those Pits. You’ll never find a sparrow, or deer, or tree, or cloud, or grain of sand, or beach, or ocean, or sun, or anything else that is real. You will never find anything real in any of those Pits.
So I stand up here in the sunlight, waving my hands, shouting, “Up here! Come up here where the real world is! Come up here where there’s light and wind and fresh air. Where there are birds on telephone lines. Where there are forests and mountains and lakes. Come up here where there are oceans and beaches and thunderstorms and Life! Come up here.”
How do you get out of a Pit when you find yourself in one? You just go for a walk in the real world. Just walk, and look, and listen, and live.
And when those thoughts pop up and try to drag you back down into a Pit (and they will) remember: Anything contained in a thought is just a Horton–and all Hortons are just figments of your imagination. The real, wonderful, living World is up here. Suffering, Sorrow, Misery, and Anger live down in the Pit. They live based on a past that no longer exists. They live only in a Pit deep down in your mind.