I think to "drop out" is to give up on the idea that any of these transitory experiences are ultimately satisfying.
They bring pleasure for a moment, and then that pleasure wanes, and then it is gone.
We look back and remember them, and we smile for a bit, and then it wanes, and then we are onto the next thing.
I think it's giving up trying to extract our happiness from our experience.
We get a little bit, hold onto it like sand, and then get anxious at it slips out of our fingers.
I think we could pick up the sand, let it pour through our fingers, and just smile a bit, enjoy the pouring.
People come, people go, it's nice to share a few nice moments with them.
And one day, when we have to face our death, we will see all this experience shrivel up.
No more sight, no sound, no taste, no smell.
We'll feel our breath cease, our heart stop,
And what will be left of this experience that we've constantly been trying to get something satisfying from?
If it all must leave us, every last drop, then why is this our source of refuge?
Why is this transitory life what we hold to be most precious.
Realizing the impermanence of it all, every experience becomes more precious, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.
All experiences become teachers, showing us it's own impermanent nature, it's fickle fleeting.
And so maybe for a moment, we could sit back, and try to enjoy things as they are, just try to be in our own skin, as we are, as with everything else as it is.
Everything is as it is all the time.
This equanimity is something we can always come back to.
All we have to do is be mindful, and breath.
All the sudden all of our wanting and grasping just sloughs off.
It's not so important that we keep the sand,
It's not so important that we throw it away,
We just watch it mindfully pour through.
We watch as the pond still to a serenity.
We watch as the waves and rapids topple over eachother,
The trees blow to and fro in the wind,
The clouds shift across the sky,
The sun turn to rain, and the rain turn to sun.
Can I not enjoy the rain?
Can I not enjoy the sun?
Life sweeps us off our feet, and before we know it, all of this experience has gone by,
We'll find it's like a dream, that seemed so full and so vivid, and in the end, it just blows away,
And perhaps we might even forget.
So what more is there to do but to breath, and spend our time here in the moments we can?
And to try and make it the best for all our friends around us, so that too when they have to go, they can smile and think,
"That was pretty good, I had a fun time. A lot of people loved me, and maybe I learned a bit."
And I have to think,
Why am I so bad at this?
I don't breathe,
I don't just sit back and relax,
I want the sun to come out and for the rains to cease,
I want to stir up the pond and see the silt.
I want the damn trees to just stand there for a moment, I'm trying to paint here!
I want the storm clouds gone, and for a bright blue sky.
And so I feel the anxiety, the clinging, the grasping,
And I drink, and drink, and drink.
I think maybe it could just be worth it to just give up.
If I gave up on what I wanted to see, and what I wanted to hear, and what I wanted to smell, and taste, and think and feel and experience,
Maybe I would really just start seeing, and hearing, and smelling, and tasting, and thinking, and feeling, perceiving, contemplating, reflecting.
In the words of a tired old cube:
Fill your heart with joy.
Do no harm.
And leave the world a more colorful place than when you entered it.