Consider the Turtle

Or don’t. It doesn’t really matter to me. Seriously. When I think about the things that are worthy of consideration, whether or not you consider the turtle doesn’t even make it on the top 500. But I’m beginning to think that this perspective is not in keeping with the public at large.
Let’s be honest. There are a helluva lot of people out their giving a helluva lot of attention and care to some super serious horse shit.
Bugger ‘em.
Relax, bro. You can’t really help it that you got involved in this situation, now do what’s right and get out.
Simple as.
But why does it seem like we want that kind of thing going on in the first place? It is as if people put themselves in these situations deliberately—if only to have something interesting to talk about.
My most extreme apologies if I don’t give a flying fuck about who’s fucking who. Excuse me if the goings on of Ryan Reynolds or Brad Pitt or one of the new ones that I’m not even aware of don’t have any bearing WHATSOEVER on my existence. Reading about other people’s shitty or glorious lives does nothing for me unless it’s surrounded by a few hundred pages so I can know EVERYTHING—or at least everything I’m supposed to know. This dealing in portions from parties to create a feast always winds up tasting foul.
I am distrustful of law because it deals with types and not individual instances. In higher courts you cite court precedent, but as soon as you do you are saying, “This is the same type of thing.” Nothing is ever the same. Nothing.
On the other hand, it is only through the proceedings of the trial that we can all attempt a kind of more-appropriate judgment.
If you dig too deeply into the facts, the facts will overwhelm you. If you don’t dig deep enough, they all begin to look the same.
What I’m saying is precisely the opposite of the unintended intentionality that you’ve recently been reading so much about.
Consulting slowly now the last remaining brain cells bent on creation, what do we find but that which can be created can create
or destroy and that which can be destroyed can be created or destroyed.
Does that mean we’re all creators and destroyers?
Yes.
Yes, it does.
There once was a man named Roderick Jason Taffeta. Rodi, as his sister called him, was consistently careful.
Careful to jump out of airplanes only when the proper altitude had been reached. Careful to ensure that the bungee cable had been checked thoroughly before dropping 143 meters and screaming for what seemed like ever. Careful to pack exactly two days of food and no map for the three day hike in the mountains. Careful to experience as much as he could as safely as he could.
“Give recklessness a go!” came the din.
“No.”
“Once?!?!”
“I’ll do just about anything once, if it seems to be worth it… which only a vast array of experiences can tell you.”
“You are a strange sort of fellow… saying nothing and something simultaneously.”
“Thirsting I see.”
“Right…”
“We got hotdogs and American cheese on slices of bread with Mac and Cheese for dinner Rodi,” called his sister from somewhere in the distance, “come on down.”
Awesome, he thought to himself… Awesome to the max…

Dear Fates~

I am setting out, embarking as it were, on a new chapter—perhaps a new book—in my existence, and I suppose that this little epistolary communiqué is meant to be a plea. May the transition not be too easy, but neither make it too hard. May it be not unendurable at the very least, and endurable at the most.
You see, I’m especially susceptible to the visceral kinds of emotions and feelings that one encounters when doing what I am going to do, and there is a part of me that is almost excessively worried about what it going to happen to my brain when it begins to settle into a new mode of being. I’ve done it before, you know, and it’s something like a metaphysical hemorrhaging that happens: the spirit opens up, gushes forth, and it is everything a body can do to keep it basically enclosed. By this I mean that particular kind of gushing that is unbecoming of a spirit and makes the body and the mind vulnerable to all kinds of attacks. The gushing of the spirit in goodwill and kindness towards other human beings is downright beautiful, but this particular kind of gushing is dangerous. When the blood is gushing into the heart to be pumped into the lungs, where it is filled with oxygen, then gushed back into the heart and then sent to the extremities of the body where it nourishes needs, we have good gushing. When the skin has been ruptured due to some external force or implement, and blood is gushing out of the body, there is a distinct sense of peril.
Basically, I’m scared. Should we be afraid, at least a little bit, of the people we love? I think so. Love exists in at least two realms, and it has taken me a long time to come to terms with this: the love we share and the love we keep for ourselves. The love we share is combination love. When we love each other, when we say that we love our relationship it is a particular kind of love. When I say that I love ____. That is my love. That person cannot take away that love from me, so long as I choose to hold onto it. The love that is a combination of loves can be ripped asunder as soon as one person steps away from the equation. After all, if there is only one person in a love relationship, in what sense is there a relationship.
Family, being whatever it is, is in the unique situation that it manages to cross those two boundaries. Your immediate family cannot, technically, be ripped asunder. Your father is the man who impregnated your mother, and your siblings are those who were a further part of that union. You can say, “You’re not my father,” but that doesn’t make it any less true that your father is in fact your father. That’s family: even verbally disowned is still blood related. Divorce or disowning is the ending of the first kind of love, but the second kind of love remains as long as we hang onto it.
Is that romantic? That’s what I’m dealing with here. Do you see how it’s dangerous for me? Do you see why I need your help?
I’ve been gone so long. A decade IS a long time, isn’t it? I know that from the high point of knowledge of history, ten years is not a very long time, but on the scale of a human life, and during the formative years especially, a decade can be forever.
I know that all I can do is be the me that I’ve become, and believe me that’s what I plan to do, but I’m just hoping (against hope) and praying (to whoever/whatever might hear me) that what I have become is worthy of where I’ve been and what I’ve done. You have been so good to me already, and it is my ardent desire that the gifts I have been granted, the possibilities I have ridden, and the events of my existence have carved out of the marble block of me a suitable character.
All that being said, I’ll cut you a deal… if you even make deals. I will do my best to continue on the path to becoming the best me that I can be if you continue to offer me the blessings you have so consistently offered and the lessons you have so unswervingly, parentally taught me. The balance I feel in my life is thoroughgoing. For every opportunity I have taken, it feels as though an equal effort to experience that opportunity fully has followed, and I only hope that I am not mistaken in this. So, if I continue to work hard to improve myself: mind, body and soul, will your lot continue to reward me when you see fit and teach me when necessary?
Let my fear be a sign unto your greatness. I don’t know your official title (the title of this piece is simply perfunctory and expedient), and I can’t say that you go by the same name everywhere, but I am quite certain that you are, whatever that may mean. And I will take that old mystic fallacy of the drug culture with me to the end of my days, and perhaps beyond, but there must be somebody tending the light at the end of the tunnel.
I feel you when lost in the music in my guitar.
I feel you in the words that issue from my fingers.
I feel you in the motion of the seasons.
I feel you are everything.
I feel you might be composed of nothingness.
I am afraid of you.
I do love you.
I go to meet you wherever you are.
I am in perpetual awe,
and I think you appreciate that more than anything.
Peace
Love &
Gonzo
Eli
p.s. If it’s not too much trouble, could you find it in your infiniteness to direct my course to people I can help to grow and people who can help me to grow.

Work

“There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily. Labor omnia vincit improbus.”

“When ascetics stay in one place for a long time,
they begin to languish, stuck in a mire of sloth and intertia.”


“There is no royal road to learning, no short cut to the acquirement of any valuable art.”

People who come up to me after playing a show somewhere often say that they too want to learn the guitar, and, usually, that they even tried, but they gave it up for one reason or another. Anybody that asks me for a free lesson or two, gets them almost immediately because they actually take no time whatsoever to learn:

1) Play every day: the more the better. If you can only play for 30 minutes, that’s fine, but if you can play for two hours, that’s better. Half of playing guitar is the ability for your fingers to hold down the strings for a long time, and if you don’t play every day the muscles in your fingers atrophy. Nobody thinks about finger muscles.

2) Give it time. Perhaps in 6 years of steady playing, you will be competent. Even if you’re playing it as a hobby for thirty minutes every day, you will be decent enough in a few years. If you’re really serious and play two hours every day, sure, that time will probably reduce, but if after one year you can play a C and a G chord really, really well, you probably don’t understand how far you’ve come…

Most things in this life could probably be boiled down to these two little rules: practice and be patient. As a matter of fact, I personally guarantee that absolutely anybody can learn absolutely any skill with enough practice and patience. Admittedly, we’re dealing in the world of the physical here. By that I mean it might not be possible for anybody to learn the details of string theory or quantum mechanics or neo-materialist literary theories, but if somebody wants to learn how to bake, having had no previous experience with flour or ovens or cutting in butter or anything, with enough time and enough practice, they will eventually be able to bake about anything you could want.
As a matter of fact, I would say that anybody CAN learn about quantum mechanics or string theory or anything else if they are determined to. It might take twenty years of daily effort, but if they want it badly enough, they will get there.
Therein lies the nut, though. Desire is something that we generally consider to be the major player in the world of the physical. I want your body. You want to kiss me. I want to eat delicious food. I want to see something beautiful. I want to learn how to play the guitar. I want to learn to bake. What gets lost in the melee of growth and development that happens as a result of desire transmuted into effort for the acquisition of the desired object(ive) is that desire is mental. What happens when you learn something new or put effort into getting something? The mind expands. The mental world that you have developed for yourself grows in conjunction with the skill or effort required to possess the object petit a.
Sometimes what we think we want has nothing to do with what we really want, and the only possible remedy for such a situation is the attempted acquisition of what we think we want, because only then will we be able to have the truth of our desires.
Oh, let them talk about the constant motion of desire and the inability to ever have what we want, should we decide against ever attempting to acquire our desires, the human experience seems to get lost. Perhaps it is that we have become too accustomed to our inability to have what we desire:
--Beautiful celebrity bodies being paraded on every channel
--Unobtainable automobiles
--Skills obtainable but requiring a lot of effort
--Advertisements for things not everybody can afford
Perhaps we try for a while. We go to the gym. We save up every month. We practice for a while. We play the lottery. But years of failure have taught us all that we can’t get most of the things we desire, so what’s the point in trying?
We are all ascetics. When we languish in our mires of sloth and inertia, our resolve grows weak, and when once resolve is weakened, the dam might as well have already been breached.

All Things Come to an

end, but not all things get finished… or at any rate finished in the way that we want them to be. It’s funny how instructive our middle school years can be in this arena. Thinking back on timed group projects where the winners were the first people to completely finish their project, I remember the dejection of looking at an unfinished project when the time came to an end.
On the other hand, it also seems as if when a things finishing time and ending time coincide there is a moment of something-or-other. It’s that moment when you look around and see that everything is as best as it could be for the moment, and something like a touch of pride comes over you for having done what you set out to do in the allotted amount of time.
My time in Korea is coming to an end. In just over a month I will board a plane and return to the land of my birth, to the land of pounds and inches (good-bye the simplicity of a system based on tens), to a land of expansive emptiness and massive cities (although Seoul puts them all to shame in terms of mass), to the land of freedom, and to the land of beer that’s worth drinking.
I think part of why I am okay with leaving Korea now is that I have finished my project: a book reflecting the culture of Korea (emphasis on reflection), noting personal adventures, and full of cogitations on what it means to be a human being in general.
Freedom comes up frequently in these thought-sessions, and it occurs to me that freedom is a concept that exists in the two worlds of existence: physical and mental.
In the physical realm, it is usually pretty easy to tell if you have freedom: are you confined to move in a small space, do you wear shackles, or do you live behind a locked door that you didn’t lock. On a larger scale, there are the geographical confines of the country in which you live and the reality that other countries are different: language, culture, values, morals, etc. It’s amazing how much of a factor fear plays in the reality of freedom. I find that a lot of Americans have the attitude that there is probably no better place to live in the world than America, so why should anybody ever leave. From a psychological standpoint, I believe it’s that they fear their paper towers might be torn down from the reality of another country being… better than America. On the other hand, Koreans aren’t afraid of that. Most of them don’t like Korea and want to go somewhere else, but they don’t because there aren’t many places where speaking Korean is going to get you very far… so they learn English. Physically confined, whether from an institutional or geographic sense, is usually uncomfortable for the other side.
Freedom of thought is an incredible thing. The ability to have a revolution of the mind is perhaps the greatest freedom in the world, and it must be owned that western people are generally the people that have this characteristic. From an early age, we learn that it is entirely possible to defy our parents. We say, “No!!” we bear our punishment, and we learn that it will be just fine—and perhaps all of this because it’s what we see all over the culture (especially in the media). This one characteristic of Western thought carries itself through to moe in the adult manifestation of our ability to change our mind and be independent. Perhaps that’s what we don’t understand when we are children, but the defiance that we pay for is exacted from us in the future as well with the independence we must all bear. On the other hand, Korea is a country where when father or mother says you “should” do something, it’s the same as saying you “must” do something. What seems like a hint or a nudge in America is an edict in Korea, and you can probably guess what an order feels like to a Korean. If mommy or daddy says you must do something, there is really no not doing it. What they get from it, though, is essentially a lifetime of dependable dependence. They’ll live with mom and dad until they get married, and mom and dad will determine if the boy is worthwhile or not—usually depending on how much money the boy has and what prospects he has for the future.
At any rate, my time being associated with these cultural differences is coming to an end, and a whole new period of being culturally different from the place I am is going to begin. I am afraid of this particular ending.
I’m afraid because it feels finished. I’m afraid because I have changed so much. I’m afraid because I plan to be in a place that I haven’t been, steadily, for ten years. I’m afraid I might like it. I’m afraid I will find it odious.
Sometimes beginnings are far more terrifying than endings.
What I have gotten used to, and what is coming to an end, is simply (yet complicatedly) this: everything I now know is just a little different. Did you catch the most important word in that sentence? EVERYTHING. Every single thing is just a little bit different than what I used to know, and now everything I’m used to is tinged with the dust of being just slightly different. Everything from McDonald’s special sauce to the grocery store experience to the pub experience to the restaurant experience to the food experience (which is sometimes VERY different) to walking down the street is different. There is nothing like seeing big groups of Koreans standing on opposite corners of a vacant street and not daring to cross because the sign is telling them not to… I always think that my mighty western ability to think logically tells me that there is no danger, so I can probably run across. Also, I know that’s called jaywalking, but tell me the last time you saw somebody get a ticket for jaywalking… much less a foreigner on a neighborhood street in Suwon, South Korea.
It’s all ending. The parts that remain unfinished are simply my relations with the people I have met here. The people I’ve become acquainted with are very special to me. It can be difficult to make lasting friendships here (look up Aristotle’s three types of friends) and this is because there is that nagging, lingering reality in the back of your head that reminds you of the ending of your time here. Generally speaking, you can come away every year with about two or three truly good friends. The hundreds of others that you wind up meeting all fall to the wayside eventually—for me at least. Once again, the physical aspect of the friendship is coming to an end, but the mental aspect endures until such time as the physical can be re-ignited.
All endings are beginnings, but not all finishes are. When you finish a race, you don’t immediately begin another race. However, at the end of the race, you begin a period of not running. I’m not sure if my logic is spot on in this aspect, but I think it’s something like all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. Finishes and endings are certainly related, but why do movies not end with the words: The Finish. Even the French “fin” or the Italian “fine” that comes at the end of movies translates to “end.” What is their relationship? Finishes, it seems to me, are those brief periods of elation or dejection that come from small victories or defeats on the way to the end. Life will end, and whether the bulk of your experience comes on the side of defeat or victory, remember that what’s important is growth, learning, and the ability to free the mind from dangerous constraints while developing it into a muscle for good.

Appypollylogies

This is once again bound to be more of a journal entry instead of a serious inquiry into the state of the human character, but perhaps there is something inside the things we do that helps us get a glimpse of what we are.
I’ve been on vacation for a week. It all started last Monday. We just had to get through Monday, and then we were all free for a week—Korean Thanksgiving… thank you for falling smack in the middle of the week this years instead of on the weekend like last year. So, as was usual, I made some tentative plans: off to the mountains on Tuesday, in the mountains on Wednesday, back home Thursday, pub quiz Thursday night, Friday – friend’s going away party, on Saturday my band was making its debut, and Sunday was a day devoted to time well spent with an important person in my life—my intimate friend.
But Monday came first, and Monday morning I found that I needed to clean my apartment because I was hosting a small gathering that night. This took up most of my morning. Work is six and a half hours of teaching small children the intricacies, delicacies and preposterousness of the English language. Then, the gathering began with one. Then, there were two, and then our party was complete with four, and we decided to eat grilled pig intestine and drink perhaps too much. After much, much, soju, beer, and bokbunja, it was time for pool and the continuation of the imbibing of quantities of the aforementioned. Once again… vacation. Celebrate now, because to wait for even a moment puts you in danger of regret.
Tuesday morning was rapid packing for going into the mountains. It was easier packing than usual because we didn’t plan to rough-it as much as we could have—by “we” I mean myself and my Chinese best friend: just a couple of nights camping but not having to cook. More expensive, but we were in celebration mode as it may or may not be one of the last times we ever see each other.
Unfortunately, when we arrived in the city that was the gateway to the mountains, there was one of those… what’re they called… typhoons. That’s the one. Camping became a last resort very quickly. So, we took a bus to the base of the mountain range where there was a small village and stepped into a hotel and out of the incessant rain: 30 dollars for a floor with pads, a TV, a fridge and a bathroom. Grand. I have an idea…
Because this room had no beds, it turned out that it was the perfect size to pitch our two individual tents and have our camping experience right in the motel.
First, we’d eat and get a little tipsy, because there is nothing like putting up a tent when the odds are most against you.
The night ended on a jocund note: the pure enjoyment of good company, good food, good drinks, and the knowledge that this moment is significant.
Seoraksan National Park in South Korea’s Gangwon-do has had a very special place in my heart for a long time. The first time I went there, I went with a friend, and we managed to find perhaps the most difficult hiking experience in Korea. The second time I went, I once again went with a friend to tackle the beast again and test it and myself; however, we were turned away because of lingering snow on the top which we were not prepared for. The third time I went, I went alone, and conquered that trail with something like aplomb, and including a brief dip in the river along which I hiked. This was my fourth time in the park, and for the first time, because of some safety concerns involving the slippery nature of the large rocks Korea uses to create their trails, it was time to stay at the base of the park and do all those things that most people usually do when they go to the park.
The rain ended in the morning, and we woke up prepared. There were waterfalls to see. Just past the entrance gate to the park, there is a left hand turn that leads to a series of waterfalls which terminates in something called The Rain Dragon Waterfall. It had rained heavily for almost 24 straight hours. The streams were swollen and the river was heaving. Essentially, somebody very big had seen that this series of waterfalls actually resembled an entire dragon: smaller falls all the way up, curving, jumping, diving, leaping, powerful falls in themselves, to a powerful fall that became a nexus point for the entire stream. All the water that went down to the valley came from this point. Magic.
Then we took the cable car to the top of a mountain where, with a little rock climbing, you could literally stand on a rock that you had no doubt was the exact tippy top of this mountain, and the expansive views were definitely incredible—but I’ll contend that when you walk all the way up there it seems even more moving. We ate some stuffed squid and took a little nature walk for a couple of hours, left the park feeling how powerful the sight/smell/touch/taste/feel of nature could be, had some more stuffed squid and beef stew, and then we went camping.
It isn’t quite fall in Korea. It’s just around the corner, and it usually lasts for a week, but every once in a while, mother nature likes to send previews of what lies in the future, and after a typhoon seemed like the perfect time: it froze. We froze. For the first time in almost 6 months, I believe that it was actually 0 degrees celcius.
Thursday was about the trip home. When I got home, I got a surprise visit from the girl I’ve been seeing, and, after a couple of hours, as I was putting her on the bus home I got a reminder about the pub quiz happening that night. “I’ll be there man.”
Fortunately, we took a cab—it’s an hour and a half walk, but I was tired. Unfortunately, we lost the pub quiz. Unfortunately, we decided to walk home. When I arrived at home, I literally fell on my bed, not feeling well, and having an uncomfortable presentiment about the following days.
I woke up Friday, or rather I should say I finally got out of bed at 7pm. The truth is that I woke up at 8:30am to vomit, and spent the rest of the day not doing anything or talking to anybody, because I sounded like Tom Waits with strep—band performance tomorrow… I’m the lead singer…
It’s always strange to watch someone go away from Korea. You know they all eventually will, but you never get over the sense that your time here is transitory, your days here ARE numbered, and that very soon it will be you that’s the one leaving. At any rate we looted our friends apartment after a night of debauchery—a strange, soothing, mollifying process that lets you know they’re gone and pacifies you with things you need but haven’t been about to acquire.
Saturday consisted of 18 cups of tea, cold medicine, and rest—not to mention loads of emails to the band members about the probability that our show might not happen then deciding that it’s going to happen no matter what. It happened. It was our debut. Considering that it was our first ever performance, that we practice once a week (sometimes 2, sometimes 0), and that I still sounded like Tom Waits with strep, it went over pretty well. At the very least, we got a lot of sycophantic praise that we stuffed into our caps and walked away with. And we did walk away, too… 45 minutes away to a chicken and pizza restaurant. Booze kept me going, and when I got home, it ensured that sleep was almost immediate.
Sunday was a day devoted to the girl I’ve been seeing, but I hadn’t unpacked from Seoraksan, I hadn’t done any cleaning in almost a week, the dishes were still piled up from the last two days’ extended couch stay, and I had promised to make her food—the ingredients of which were absent from my apartment. So, I did what needed doing: dragged myself out of bed, forced myself to ignore that my body felt like it had been through a meat grinder, went to the supermarket, cleaned my apartment, and started cooking. Galbi jjim, look it up, it’s delicious, and it uses grated pear in its sauce.
Essentially, it was another day in bed… essentially.
She left at 8pm. At 10:30 I was asleep. I woke up at 10:30 this morning and played guitar for 2.5 hours until I had to go to work.
That’s it. That’s the end of another week…

I am

exhausted.
But that’s how I like to be.
I have been so active in the course of the last couple of weeks that I am finding it difficult to function right now. What I need is something like fourteen hours of uninterrupted sleep in a cool room with no thoughts of doing anything other than sleeping. That’s what I plan to do, too.
But I’ve performed twice in three days, been heroically drunk, done things that a good boyfriend ought to do, and I am the proud owner of a bronze medal bearing the mark of a bodybuilding competition in which I took part in the bench press competition.
I think it’s entirely possible that drinking beer from noon until 2am the night before the competition seriously affected my performance, and I actually feel pretty bad about the whole thing because the team that took second place earned that spot by virtue of the fact that they did one more rep than my team.
Jam session
Open mic host
Going away party
Pool hall adventure
Outdoor music and beer festival
Bench Press Contest/Open Mic
Now I’m at work. It’s not that I don’t like work, but I’m certainly not that fond of it that I want to be there while simultaneously being completely exhausted. It’ll be fine.
Unrelated note: I think that one thing Asian animation has going for it is that it does still no how to make a body wait for the action. It understands how to build tension by making you wait for the smoke to clear, and, what’s more, they’ve even managed to make so many of these similar situations that a body is still not sure if the maneuver just pulled off will be successful or an utter failure. Sometimes the smoke clears and it’s all over. Sometimes the smoke clears, and it’s just beginning. That makes for a pretty decent life metaphor, doesn’t it? I’m waiting for the smoke to clear and I’m not sure if what I’ve done here will have been successful or fruitless.)
I have 9 weeks left in Korea—that’s the outside figure. The inside figure is six weeks. These facts are playing wild tricks on my mind. You see, I’ve gotten so used to being in Korea and on my own that it’s difficult to imagine how I will adjust to being in a place where people understand not only my language—well, for the most part—but also the way my mind works.
What’ll it be like to take the spirit that I have developed for adventure in Korea and turn it toward my homeland: every day is an adventure here, and I will desperately attempt to keep that same frame of mind for the return home.
For example, the other night I was busking in Seoul near Gangnam station, when a group of foreigners came up to where me and my friend had set up shop and started talking to us about things and stuff. It turns out that they were also from Suwon and just happened to be visiting Seoul. Two of them had been in country for two weeks and were still wild with the excitement and newness of things. Well, we had stuffed our earnings into a backpack and decided to head home. When we got to the bus stop, we realized that we didn’t have the bag. We trooped back to our home base and noticed that the bag was gone. We assumed/hoped/prayed that the people we’d just met had picked it up, but as none of them had phones, and only one of them asked for an email address, it was still a bit touch and go. Anyhow, we consoled ourselves that all we lost was money, some extra clothes, and a small day pack… in other words, nothing too important.
The next day I was having dinner with my girlfriend when I received a phone call from a friend of mine who had received a phone call from a friend of his saying that he had a backpack that belonged to a certain busker. Ah, the way the universe moves is sometimes extremely intriguing. At any rate, that which was lost on Saturday was returned on Sunday, money and clothes in tact. As a bonus to the story, the guy who picked up the bag (and you’d better believe I treated him to a few beers for the effort) is also a pianist, and it has been mentioned that the band I am currently fronting could use a good keys player… I’ve invited him to our practice. He does also play the saxophone, which could be interesting.
What kind of equivalent story will there be when I wander back through the world of the United States of America. Could I, like I did at the music festival, walk up to the organizer, say, “Could I play a few songs?” and wind up as one of the performers? Could I win 3rd place at a weightlifting competition? Could I find out how small the world is meeting good ‘ol Midwestern boys while busking and having it turn out that they are all somewhat musically inclined? What are the chances?
If I remember correctly from two years ago, it is sometimes hard to meet people attempting. It can be somewhat difficult to encounter people that are actively seeking out newness and freshness and coincidence and beauty and truth and going and doing and being. What I seem to remember is complacency and apathy and an entire generation of people that forgot about Rage Against the Machine and are currently growing fat and illusioned and sinking into the illusion and loving it. Plato’s image of people staring at the shadows on the wall and believing that the shadows are the things themselves rings in my ears when I see the vapid reality of modern culture all over the world. If you’re not going to attempt to see the objects for themselves at least take the time to try to find the light source.
Damnation, I do get preachy sometimes, but forgive me for being invested.
So, perhaps I have just answered some of my own questions. I have a unique “in” to the generation I’m talking about. The children of this country are being daily corrupted by an educational system that is focused on attempting to gain funding for things they’re not even sure about: when the business of education becomes the business of making money the business of educating slowly moves down the rungs of importance. The older generations are too set in their ways. It is the generation of affectable human beings between University and their mid-thirties to forties that hold the keys to the future of this country and whether or not we will become a nation of dunces or a nation of people committed to understanding the reality of things. Are we ready to take up the struggle? My plan is to put down in print the reality of things and attempt to wake up the slumbering juggernaut of the energy of a generation with so much power it has been purposefully lulled to sleep by the powers of the people that that energy would slaughter. Words should be our weapons. Our battlefield is the field of the mind. When that’s been won, the physical dominoes fall into place. This blog was all over the place… I’m not sorry…

My social calendar is full

and I hate it. I’m essentially a reclusive ascetic content to spend my days and my time in the comfortable research of what it means to be a human. Every so often, however, it crops up in my research—and in my existence in general—that part of being human is all wrapped in being a part of humanity: the community aspect. Roughly, I am engaged to be functioning in society (as opposed to the gentle autocracy I wield over myself in my own residence) every evening for the next week.
These times are always important for me, and they remind me of how lucky I am that have the opportunity during the other times of my life to pursue those things which seem to fulfill me most fully: study and practice. However, study without application and practice without the game are exercises in masturbation. So it is that these moments of putting what I’ve been studying and practicing have special meaning for me.
I hate the fact that I have to get myself away from practice, but practice is very safe. If you screw something up, nobody’s watching you and quietly saying to themselves (and sometimes yelling loudly): “You suck.” That’s the beauty of practice. It’s the quiet advancement of the self in whatever area you are attempting to improve; however, it is in the game that what you have been practicing for so long really makes itself known.
Okay, it has just occurred to me that what I am differentiating between when I say study and practice is precisely what Plato is always on about: the visible versus the intelligible realm. When I talk about study, it is the reading that takes up some of my time every single day of my life. Whether it be a novel, an academic work, or language acquisition book, the thing I am exercising is my intelligence. When I talk about practice, it is the physical labor involved in acquiring any kind of skill. So, my practice is going to the gym three times a week, playing guitar/singing, and walking.
This is kind of strange, but my intelligible realm and my physical realm seem to have awkward counterbalances… damnit, I’m looking at myself through a strange lens… I would say that walking and language acquisition make up a duo, going to the gym and reading a novel are a duo, and playing music and reading academia are a duo.
When I go walking, I tend to do so at a particular pace and with the express purpose of being in the midst of a walk. Every time you go walking, you can find something new. Oh, that restaurant looks awesome, I’ll have to come back here. Oh, that’s where the library is. You’re picking up the language of the place where you are. The language of where everything is. You’re drawing a map inside your brain by engaging with the physical reality of the thing. This is what the acquisition of language does. Language is the drawing of maps with the mind toward meaning. When you “get the lay of the land” by actually traversing the land in question, this can be likened to getting the lay of the land of language: the more you traverse it, the more you feel comfortable with it. The bulk populace: temperance/consciousness
Going to the gym is something that happens three times a week, and it’s basically always the same. It’s comfortable. I know what I’m going to do. I know how it’s going to feel. I know that it is going to require some effort, but I know that kind of effort all too well—thanks to years and years of practice at it. In short, it’s become something that is basically just a part of my existence. Having spent the last ten years of my life almost insatiably reading novels—for pleasure or for academic purposes, my life would feel naked if it was void of a novel to read. In short, reading novels is comfortable, I know how it’s to be done, I know how it’s going to feel (especially if it’s a good novel—Proust was an exception (I’ve never felt anything like that from a novel)), I know that it will require some effort (or, at least, it should), and I know that effort all too well. The auxiliaries: courage/the body
The practice of music and the study of academia are paired because of the strenuousness of the activities. They require more effort than the others because this is the active attempt to learn something, to change the way I think about myself and the world at large. Music has the special, magical affect of being effective to the mind as it watches harmonies and melodies fall into place. It is basically sensory practice: it has a look, a feel, a sound, a touch, and (in some cases) you can almost taste it when it’s done well—perhaps that’s why we call some music tasteful and others disgusting. Reading scholarly works performs the same actions for the intelligible realms. It helps the mind see more clearly, feel more appropriately, hear what people are saying more thoroughly, touch the inner recesses of the self, and taste what it means to be human. The guardians: wisdom/sub-conscious
It occurred to me (and Gad how I love how writing does this) that writing pervades them all. They are all doing their jobs, and writing is somehow related to all of them. Walking is one of my greatest sources for writing fodder, and one constantly learns about themselves at the gym (if they are paying attention), which means words to be made. Novels are chock full of meaning that needs to be struggled with, and there is nobody out there who would deny that acquiring a second language doesn’t affect the way we write and what we write about: we are language. Finally, the deepest sources of writing whathaveyou comes from the strenuous exercises of practicing music and studying scholastically. The community: morality/spirit
I am just a writer who is doing the job that I’m most fit to do, and it is with this in mind that I bear the labor of pulling myself away from my practice and study in order to gain the knowledge that comes from the combination of theory (that which results from practice and study) with experience. I will bear the inanity and mundanity of a society that has moved away from a desire to truly know what it means to be human and finds itself floundering in a world of trivialities involving which celebrity is wearing what designer and wondering what it must feel like to be a millionaire. I will taste the fruits of the lifestyle I’m battling against in just the same way a flu shot works: a bit of the infection so the body knows what it is fighting against; and I will breathe the air of a freedom that looks good on the outside, but bears inside itself the seed of slavery that will one day ripen. To be the slave of a slave:
Brannigan: I'm de-promoting you, soldier. Kiff, what's the most humiliating job there is?
Kif Kroker: Being your assistant.
Captain Zapp Brannigan: Wrong. Being *your* assistant.

Teacher and Student

These two labels seem to follow me around and lurk in all the corners of my world. In this moment I’m a student, and fifteen minutes later I’m playing the role of teacher. Even in the sub-conscious realm that writing comes from, it becomes apparent how I see myself:
“I’m a student.”
Vs.
“I’m playing the role of teacher.”
I don’t feel worthy of the title of teacher. To be a teacher is an incredibly important job. It means that the lives of young people are in your hands. I am absolutely certain that the importance of the role of the teacher has been almost completely lost in the bulk of the civilized world—although it might be preserved somewhere in the uncivilized world (although I can’t say for sure). We’re talking about a person who, for an extended period of time, is in control of how our children are learning to think. Imagine the importance of that. Is school important? Hell Yeah! I’m afraid that both schools and teachers have been tainted with a healthy dose of economics and politics, which basically serves to render them impotent.
(In a side note: if you are interested in a world where the educational system is something else, check out “The Glass Bead Game” or it’s alternate title “Magester Ludi” or it’s German title “Das Glasperlenspiel” by Hermann Hesse. It’s… educational, and it won a Nobel Prize for a good reason.)
Being a student is one of the greatest situations you can find yourself in, and what I call “terminal students” are all over the place. I once new a guy who was just heading back to school in order to get his third Master’s Degree. Don’t get me wrong, what I’m talking about here is the fact that I absolutely love being a student, but what I have learned in the last couple of years is that there are most definitely two different kinds of students.
One of the greatest pieces of advice that was ever offered to me, was given by a college professor, and it was just as I was finishing my Master’s Degree and trying to decide whether or not I simply wanted to continue on with my PhD or do something else before jumping right back into academia. She told me that being a professor is more difficult than it looks. Apart from all the academic knowledge that you must be up on: proper ways to make your paper comply with the MLA, tidbits and factoids that you must know, metaphor analyses, and language components (she was definitely an English Lit teacher), there was the fact that so many students from so many various backgrounds walk into your office, and, in a way, it is part of your job to ensure there success somehow. This goes for all subjects and all levels of education, but it is especially true in the studies of the humanities.
With that advice in mind, I embarked on a quest to become a student of life.
Of course, the ironic part of becoming a student of life is that to do this I became a teacher in Korea, but I’m going to be very honest and say that teaching English in Korea is not the most academically intensive occupation one can do.
I have been a lot of places and done a lot of things in this life already, and I feel confident that I have experienced enough to be able to teach some people some things; however, I don’t want to simply be a teacher, I want to be THAT teacher. You know the one, right? The teacher that actually affects their students. Oh, you accept up front that you won’t be able to affect them all, or, what’s even more depressing, even most of them, but I know that I remember the name of my high school English teacher to this day—well, one of them. I don’t know how many teachers I actually had throughout my education—countless perhaps?—but I know that I only remember the names of a few of them, and I’m sure that this is the case with most people.
It is with this goal in mind that I set sail for some of the most random occupations that are available. When I tell my mother that I’m going to be a long distance semi-trailer truck driver for a while and then I’m going to be a farmer, she is—as is certainly appropriate for a mother who is concerned about the state of her offspring—*ahem, concerned. You can imagine the conversation:
“You’re wasting your education. You should be teaching not farming.” Etc.
I know that she means well, but I am getting my graduate degree in living right now, and once I have that, then I can return to the world of academia knowing that I will be well-prepared for the baggage that students will be carrying with them into my office.
Everyone’s path is different. This is the struggle that maintains the parental/progeny battle. As soon as parents understand that their children must be allowed to go their own way at some point, the sooner the world crumbles. They never will and never should accept this because they ARE the owners of years of extraordinarily valuable experience, and it is their job to be the voice of reason that their children disregard but come crawling back to—or not. They represent a path that has been taken, tried, and found acceptable. Children naturally rebel against this path. They want to find themselves, so they must move away from the teachers and be what they’re going to do, be their own teachers, and become students of the world.
Here I sit: studentteacherstudent. I learn daily from Plato and William Thackeray and the guitar and exercise and run-on sentences and inappropriate lists and my students. Meanwhile, I teach the nuances of essay writing, grammar, reading, listening, and writing to some eager and some not-so-eager young faces. Then I come home and try to learn from everything I do.
What I want most in the world is to be a conscientious student, but I find myself to be lazy sometimes.
Have you ever wondered what happens to a mind that is constantly engaged? I want to be very clear and state that engagement and entertainment exist in different realms. Because I have a Korean girlfriend at the moment, last weekend I went to see Step Up 3 in 3D, and I quickly realized that when something is visually stimulating or impressive, the story, the engagement, the challenge (which is a word that I would love to have perpetually associated with the word engagement), and the effort are not necessary. If you’ve ever seen a movie from Hollywood, you can guess the story from the first fifteen minutes.
I digress… Engage the mind and see what happens. It responds remarkably well to challenges. Remember all those people that said they wrote twenty-page papers in one night and got good grades on them. That’s the effect and power of adrenaline mingling with the brain juices. You can accomplish a helluva lot when pressed to do so, or you can accomplish nothing with a lot less effort. Something or nothing seems like a pretty simple choice to make, but effort is something else. For now, I will remain mostly student and look forward to the day when I will be able to say that I am mostly a teacher. Until then, I am always a writer.

Why do we want to feel fear?

Amusement parks specialize in the peddling of safe fear. The reality is, of course, that on any given day, at an average of 10 minutes per trip with (roughly) thirty people, that math is something like:
30*6=180
180*12=2160
So, more than 2000 people EVERY DAY ride those “terrifying” things. In a year, it’s hundreds of thousands. Those statistics ought to be enough to make one feel absolutely secure in sitting down on those death machines, but why does your stomach still turn and your heart rate jump exponentially?
It’s because—apart from the “being freed from gravity”—there is always that possibility that something will go dreadfully wrong.
Human beings love being that close to danger.
It’s the same in love. We are at once willing and yet unwilling at the same time because we know we’ll be at the precipice of potential disaster, but when it comes to matters of the heart we can be even more unwilling to let our guard down.
As it turns out, most things depend almost entirely on the attitude you take into them. If you take an attitude of arrogance and entitlement into something, you’ll find out pretty quickly that this particular attitude can be quite off-putting to quite a lot of the population. If you take the attitude of genuine interest and enjoyment into whatever venture you’re wandering into, you’ll find that people respond in kind.
I don’t have many opinions that matter. Socrates was right, we’re all ignorant, and it’s because there is too much to know. The amount of things that I know for sure could be counted on a hand that’s been maimed—and indeed that image seems most appropriate—while the things I don’t know couldn’t be compared to all the sand in Hawaii.
It has occurred to me on more than one occasion that I should start to believe in things other than human nature, but it seems like the investigation of that one thing could occupy a body for the entirety of a lifetime. It encompasses everything, see. Politics, literature, art, music, science, math, culture, economics, morality, ethics, sensuality, sexuality, language, and knowledge all fall under the umbrella of human nature.
But it’s unimaginably complex, and that’s a bummer? The structures of exactly how a human goes through its world can be broken down into types, but there is always room for jockeying, and that one piece of information means that there is always room for jockeying in everything.
I teach students how to write long sentences, and it makes me happy when they write nonsense:
Fat Eli and ugly Benjamin almost always drink dirty soju, which is delicious, over the moon, but crazy Alice and stupid Peter powerfully sleep in the subway, which is loud.
Does it mean?
Music means something, I think.
I wonder sometimes whether or not politics in the modern sense of the term has anything to do with the politics as the ancients envisioned it?
What kind of effect does the population size have on the method of governing?
What does it mean that almost all philosophers and political theorists and religions forget about the ground of their theories: is-ness.
Without the body there can be no mind. Without the land there can be no country. Does the mind actually create? Or is it perpetually a step behind?
Right now I feel compelled. That’s all.
It seems like I want to cry, and my stomach hurts, and I’m confused about why it seems like there’s a car horn honking in the next room, and all I really want to do is play the guitar, and I keep wondering when my bowels will unleash the hellish bind that I know is in there, and my computer died, and I don’t know what to do about the future, and how the hell am I going to send all these goddamned books home, and when will I finish my studies of the Korean language, and what do I do about the feelings I feel for a girl I know (and she knows) I’m going to leave in a couple of months, and why do I find myself in that position, and why do I think I actually want that particular situation, and why does it feel safer to love at a distance, and why do I believe that I am (as yet) incapable of loving because I still don’t know myself well enough, and I’m pretty sure I know about four people (probably more) who would hate that statement, and I don’t believe in a Christian god, and I know about a million people who would hate that statement, and what kind of arrogance does it take to know something that’s impossible to know, and what’s wrong with having a belief that’s different, and there are so many words I don’t know, and the decadence I’m dealing with in my life must be remedied, and what’s so decadent about using the air conditioner, and I eat leftovers all week, and survival seems like a more worthy goal than the acquisition of free time, and it is a belief I have that most of the free time across the world is spent exceedingly unproductively, and that makes me very sad, and TVs in taxis makes me even more sad, and the more I understand what is possible for people in general the less I understand people generally, and when will parents learn that their kids inherently want different things than life-givers, and when will kids learn that their parents have that most incredible of all of life’s little educators: experience, and when will humans learn that it doesn’t matter whether we know these things or not it is precisely that conflict has always existed and is necessary and productive when understood as a method for growth and development, and I fucking hate war, I hate war, I hate war, and I don’t understand why people are so bad to each other, and I’m sorry I got into an argument with one of my best friends, and I feel like I need to talk to her, and I had a dream about her the other day and we were in Venice with my father, who looked exceedingly sad as he was perpetually attempting to get away from us while toting (very literally) two babies with him and I wandered off on a walk—which happens so frequently these days that I sometimes get very scared to step foot outside my door lest I wander around for hours and stare in rapture at the fact of existence, and I miss having meaningful conversations, and sometimes it feels like I’m a dinosaur investigating my own extinction, and sometimes I just want to be quiet, and half of my time is spent recovering, and the other half is spent ailing, and I don’t know what from.

The Monster

There has been this lingering demon in my head since about a year ago. My friend and I had made it to 설악산 (Seoraksan) National Park in South Korea, and we were trying to figure out the best hiking that we could get in when we ran into a Canadian girl who said she had done this loop in about eight hours. It was the only loop trail, because the trail everybody traditionally took was straight up 대청봉 (Daecheongbong) and then came back the same way. My friend and I are anything but traditional. What we did, however, fail to take into account is that this young female was born and raised in the mountains, spent every weekend in Korea at another national park climbing as many mountains as she could. My friend and I spent every weekend getting sauced and climbing very low hills if we did anything—another longish story. At any rate, that climb took us (precisely as the KPS times told us it would) around 12 hours. It hurt so bad it is almost incomprehensible to think about. There aren’t even any Koreans who are crazy enough to do that. They stay in a hut about halfway through (well, it’s more like two-thirds of the way through).
I have this mildly sadistic challenge streak inside me, and I wanted to know if it could be done better, faster, and with less ache. I trained. I went back. These are the notes I took:
I had intended, during the course of my hike yesterday, to keep notes and give an accurate description as possible to what one encounters on what I call “The Monster.” What follows is basically an hour-by-hour transcript of the bastard.
Some words of advice: realize that this route is VERY dry. At the top of the mountain—for basically six hours—there is no potable water. In other words: BRING WATER… lots of it, because, like I said: dry, arid, and painful at the top. Second piece of advice: it is twelve hours, and you’ll need plenty of food. You’ll need a fair bit because you’ll need hourly snacks and something significant every four hours or so. Third, do something to train beforehand. It will help, even though you’ll still definitely feel it. Fourth, invest in some proper hiking apparel because attempting this route in jean shorts and t-shirts WILL result in very uncomfortable rashes—in places you might not imagine.
Okay, the first hour takes you through 소공원 (So Gong-won)—the park at the base of the mountains). The entrance fee, as of 2010, is a staggering 2500 원—the equivalent of about two dollars. The park itself is nice. There’s a tourist motel inside of it. As of this year, there is a bunch of trees whose claim to fame is that there has been a restaurant under its shade for 200 years. There’s a garden. There’s a giant statue of Buddha. You can take a cable car—but get there early for this as it fills up extraordinarily quickly. There’s a trail to a waterfall.
Your trail rambles past all of this and past a couple of restaurants deeper in the woods. Finally, you come to 비선대 (Biseondae)—a rock, a restaurant, and the crossroads. The trail to 대청봉 (the previously mentioned peak) is to the left. It’s 10.8km away and the backwards version of what I’m describing. To the right is about 10 minutes of moderate incline. At this point, the 1st hour is over and you can choose to go see the monk who lives in a cave on the side of the mountain (to the right) or continue up the trail to the left. The main advantage of the cave is that it affords one of the greatest views of 설악 (Seorak) Valley, and the main disadvantage is that it adds about 30 minutes or an hour to your ordeal. Understand that from this point, the next three hours are essentially ascension. There are brief respites here and there, but for the most part you must keep in mind that you’re going up a mountain in Korea, and what better way than to throw down millions of stone stairs and walk straight up that fucker.
Anyway I should make a couple of important points. The 2nd hour (as in the hour moving away from the cave) is probably the hardest. It just keeps going up. In the third hour it is possible to get some spring water, but ONLY if it has rained recently. If you’re desperate, there’s usually a trickle you can get something out of. The fourth hour has a more reliable spring, although still touch and go if it hasn’t rained recently. It also begins to let you know what the KNPS classifies this particular (ahem… 2-day) hike as a hike/scramble. It’s dry and rocky at the top, which means that you’ll be doing some “scrambling” over bits of mountain.
Take a break and assess yourself. Get a bit to eat, because after four hours you’ll be at 마등령 (madeungneung). The KNPS says its 1327m. If you’re fatigued, just turn around and walk the three hours out. Seven hours is already a helluva long hiking day and there is nothing to be ashamed of in it. If you feel up for it, just keep to the trail at the left. The next five hours are a great mix—and by great I don’t always mean good. Essentially, what you need to keep in mind is that you are walking along the ridge of the mountains. This means two things (at least): fantastic views, vistas, and geological features; and walking over mountains that range from 1300m to 1200m. In other words: in order to get from view to vista to geological wonder you will have to do steady alternation between ascending and descending, sometimes significantly. After a steady descent of 20 or 30 minutes, you’ll find the corresponding ascent just around a corner. Three hours of this (after the previous four hours of steady ascent) has the tendency to make a body tired. So, the last two hours are psychological hell. There is a long descent at the end of the third hour, and you start to believe that you are going down in earnest. You start to feel relieved. You start to breathe easier. You start believing: that wasn’t so bad. Then, you turn a corner and start going up. “What sadistic bastard put this here,” you think, “but, oh well.” The you turn another corner and you’re still going up. You turn a third corner and you see an almost sheer scramble that terminates youknownotwhere: MERDE!! The main advantage you have no is “having come this far.” Either way is four hours—maybe six if you turn around—and it’s best to just press on. A little hint: baby steps are fine, and the knees prefer them to having to pull the body weight long distances.
So, you take another forty minutes of ascent in stride (as it were) and realize your situation. It hurt psychologically and physically, but you’re heading back down now and everything is going to be fine of course. Not on your life. You got more ascent yet to come. Essentially it is only the last 30 minutes of this five-hour section of hiking which are pure descent. 희운각 hut awaits the weary traveler with foresight enough to make a reservation. Otherwise, you head to the right and three hours of walking down steps made of stone or metal. A recommended 2-day hike is what I have just described, mated with a stay at the hut, then an ascent of Daechoengbong the next day.
However, since that’s not what we have decided to do, I recommend that you take this ambling, non-strenuous section of the hike—which follows a river all the way back to the park—is: take your time. If it gets to be after 6 or 7 and you’re near the rock that was crossroads, take the opportunity, break the rules, and jump into the crystal clear river. It’s cold, clear and perfect for a body aching from (by now) 10 hours or so of hiking. At the very least, find a place to put your feet in.
The most enjoyable part of this section of the hike is watching the river trip and fall and create pools that look delicious bare are made inaccessible by… factors. After 2-3 hours of river-watching and steady heading down off the mountains, you make it back to the rock. Keep in mind that you still have a one-hour walk to the park gate, but after what you’ve been through, it’s like a walk… in… the park. The beauty of 설악산 is its relative closeness to society (Koreans would have it no other way). If you’re staying in a motel, you can just stop at a restaurant on your way back. If you’re camping, you can pick up some beer, soju, or (and) maggeulli and spend the evening—which will be very short—over a couple of drinks and grub. Sleep will be easy to come by.
Either way, the images your brain will be processing at the end of the day will be: mountains in the distance, sparsely populated with foliage, that look like great bowls of ice cream topped with chocolate syrup; three and four level waterfalls emptying into deep pools; vast expanses of mountain range that seem to dance waltzes with the imagination; never-ending trails of rock stairs that have been conquered; scrambles over treacherous mountain-adz tops that you realized would have maimed you had you slipped; and finally, what is possible for humans to do in a day.

lethargy

The last few weeks have seen me in a noticeable state of lethargy… in a way. I am not entirely sure that I can even really call it that, because lethargy for me still involves doing quite a lot. I still manage to do quite a bit of reading (FINALLY finished Hume’s tome), study the Korean language, go to the gym, play the guitar, and go for four-hour training walks (I’ll soon be hiking). I suppose that what I’m really talking about is the fact that I haven’t done a whole lot of writing lately, and this is largely because all that reading, exercising and studying is just such a part of my daily/weekly routine that I find in them only the pleasures that one usually associates with those things that are solid and reliable. The fact that I haven’t written much lately is a sign to me that A) I have been living too much in the future and planning my return to the states (which I necessarily wish to keep somewhat secretive, and if I write about it, it’s not very secret is it?)
B) I haven’t had a whole lot to write about. Which is both true and untrue because I believe that there is ALWAYS something to write about; however, what I’m experiencing at the moment is a re-surgence in my sex life which I have always had a hard time writing about because of modesty and respect for the nature of that act.
All that being said, not enough people write about sex in such a way that does it justice. I’m afraid that “Marko, breathing his hot breath on her heaving bosom was enough to send shockwaves of desire through her body. His gentle caresses and strong, firm but soothing voice had caused a need in the pit of her being that could be satisfied by only one thing. She grabbed his ebony hair and let him know what she wanted.” just doesn’t quite do justice to something that can be of such great import.
I had a girlfriend for seven years (essentially), and for the bulk of that relationship it was long-distance. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out what two college-aged students who would go for long periods of time without each other would do when they finally got together. Perhaps the best word for it was frenzy. Usually they’d only have about two or three days together because of the restraints of school or work and, for those of you who have experienced something like it, that’s generally a good amount of time to spend doing basically that one thing. After that, the spirit might be willing, but probably not, and the flesh will be spongy and sore. However, it is as a result of sessions like those that I learned a lot about what IT means.
I think that I have actually been blessed by the fact that I am not an excessively pretty person because that meant that I didn’t get to experience a lot of one-night-stands. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t until I have been in Korea that I had that hollow experience, and I can say from experience that it is much more fulfilling and dignified to have the experience of the body with somebody you care deeply about.
It seems highly probable that I’m just a big softy and that my parents raised me to be respectful of women, but two of my favorite things are spooning and—dear god I wish it had a more manly name (maybe I should make one up)—pillow talk. There is something about the intimacy of the act that seems to permeate everything that goes from the build-up, through the act itself, and it seems like the only appropriate finish is the intimacy of touch-to-touch and close conversation. As a matter of fact, it was precisely when these things stopped happening that the previously mentioned relationship started to fall apart.
I’m also beginning to see that there are a couple of different possibilities for significant kinds of physical intimacy. Almost everybody that’s had an opportunity to get drunk with somebody they love has experienced the kind of alcohol-fueled madness that results from what starts as gentle hand squeezes under the table or soft skin caresses that nobody sees. It can be wild and passionate and one helluva lot of fun because it so often feels like the primal call of nature: I need your body. I don’t care how intelligent you are or how funny. Right now, I want your body. This is the urge (not always accompanied by drunkenness) that affects those dealing with even low levels of satyriasis and furor uterinus: a pure desire to slake the physical thirst that wells up in all of us; however, in the bulk of the population this thirst peaks its head out only periodically.
Another kind of physical intimacy that is possible occurs when two people want to illustrate, using the body, how important they are to each other. This shouldn’t be overlooked. I have often considered that there are a lot of triptychs out there (conscious, subconscious, spirit; father, son, spirit; guardians, managers, workers; etc), but I think that the most frequently left-out aspect of all of these is the ground—thanks Heidegger. Without an earth, there can’t be humans. Without humans, does the concept of god exist? Without god is there a need for heaven? Without the body, can there be a seat for the soul? One of Rudolf Steiner’s greatest ideas was that the soul is outside the body, but, unless I missed it, I’d like to think that it doesn’t just sit outside the body but permeates it, through and through, and extends beyond the confines of the body. Call it an aura, but I guarantee you that you have met somebody or been around somebody and felt them immediately. That’s the extension of the soul outside the body. It is during this kind of physical intimacy, where two souls are charged with the connection of intimacy, love, caring, and compassion that something different happens. The fulfillment of the physical need of the human body to release itself is one thing, to touch souls in this particular way is something that warms the entire being, from the consciousness to sub-conscious, from the soul to the body.
It could be argued that the accomplishment of this warming is what the kama sutra is about. Sure, it teaches you a lot of fun ways to go about doing something that’s already fun, but it could be argued that these are attempts to find the most pleasant and fulfilling way of satisfying your partner. Let’s all be honest and say that man-on-top-pounding-away is perhaps the most boring of all the potential positions. It is the remnant of a man-centered universe. It can be fun every once in a while, but variety is the spice of life, and that almost goes double for the bedroom. Get creative, not because it’s fun, but because it is an illustration of how much you want your partner to feel. It’s an illustration of how on fire your soul is to touch their soul in a meaningful way.
Sometimes, I think the most important moment in any relationship is the simultaneous laughter that happens during the act itself. It’s possible. It ought to be fun, and what’s more natural than to laugh when you’re having fun?

#100...What the...

*&^% is happening to me? I have been in Korea for eight months, and the amount of mental rupture and rebuilding that has happened in that short amount of time strikes me as somewhat unbelievable.
The things that I have held to be gospel seem to shift almost as rapidly as the weather. To be perfectly honest, perhaps nothing would make me happier than to know that I have managed to so attenuate myself to nature that my mind and body go through seasons that directly coincide with the seasons of the earth, but I know that’s not the case.
While I am no doctor (I might have to ask my doctor friend about it though), I think that what I am experiencing is a psychological un-rest the likes of which I have heretofore not been acquainted, and it’s all because I am trying to deal simultaneously with the past, the present, and the future—which, for me, is a lot to juggle. Generally, I live my life from day to day (on a budget of $35 a day) and deal with things when they come up; however, because my present situation is becoming tenuous due to the fact that my work contract is nearer to being finished than it is to its beginning, my mind naturally turns toward that almost impossible question: what next?
For me, tomorrow is today, and today is yesterday, and yesterday is tomorrow. Floating seems like an appropriate metaphor. I’m up above the clouds, floating through the atmosphere as a cloud and thinking about what’s underneath the cloud cover.
What is most peculiar is that I am comfortable here. It might be upheaval, but what I know from experience, and the reason I feel so calm during what I know is change, is that these are the fundamental moments of any particular life. These are the times that define who you are going to be. These are the transitional moments from who you were to who you are becoming.
Focus is changing, and I just noticed that there are so many –ing verbs here, and that makes me extremely happy, because any time you are –inging, it means that you are, right now, in motion.
You know what?
That’s it for now.
That’s all I wanted to say.
Well… that was all I wanted to say.
But, just as I was about to post this, I realized (saw) that this is my one-hundreth post, and that means something.
Okay, I’m not sure exactly what it means, but “something” seems reasonable.
I started this blog because I was unhappy and needed a place to vent. Then, it became a venue for me to work through all of things that don’t quite fit together in my head—one of the beauties of writing is that when you are engaged in it you are engaging one of the most fundamental aspects of humanity: the ability to create meaning. And what happens when you do this? Jigsaw puzzle pieces suddenly start fitting together.
Generally, I have no idea what I’m going to write about when I sit down, but I have found that when you just let the fingers do their thing and turn off the consciousness, the sub-conscious seems to spill itself all over the page, such that when I return to it I understand myself more fully.
At my current teaching position here in South Korea, I teach an essay class, and the most difficult part about the entire class is getting the kids to actually forget about content and simply do the writing. I have for a long time maintained that the only important thing about writing is that it’s done. It is done to a higher or lower degree of accuracy in some cases, but that only barely matters. The ability to use complex symbols on a field an almost distinctly human attribute, and the more involved we are with our humanity, the more we understand ourselves. Korea is a funny place because people here don’t really want to understand themselves. Rather, to be more specific, they are taught that it doesn’t really matter to understand their selves because everybody is essentially the same. Now, Korea is one of the most homogenous cultures on the planet, and it is certainly interesting to see a society functioning based on the fact that everybody is pretty much the same and it is only our age and our title that distinguishes us, but it doesn’t jive very well with my western conception of the individual.
Apparently, there was no Enlightenment in Korea.
I can’t decide if there is a better. Koreans don’t care, AND it doesn’t matter to them because they have been raised to not care. So, Koreans walk around being super-Korean, and it’s easy to predict what everybody’s going to do.
(In an interesting side note, this has an adverse affect on their ability to learn English because when you are attempting to learn English, you necessarily have to get involved in the culture—language is not a tool, it’s something that we exist, something that we are, something that defines us. They can learn vocabulary and use the vocabulary, but it isn’t until they begin to understand the culture of individualism that they can truly grasp the language.)
On the other hand, western people are so unpredictable, that you have millions of people walking around doing whatever the hell they want, and it sometimes goes way too far. All one has to do is look around the public school systems in America right now to see what too much individualism will cost you, and in my humble opinion the price is dear.
So here I am, writing blog number 100 about God-Knows-What and I’m staring at my books that will have to find their way back to the USA soon and I’m drinking coffee that hasn’t been prepared from an instant coffee-creamer-sugar mix and I’m wondering whether or not I will be able to learn the skill of hunting when I get back to the states and I’m dreaming of the home that my friends and I plan on having together with the crops we plan to grow and I’m thinking about whether or not justice is a natural or artificial virtue then coming to the conclusion that it seems more artificial than natural to me and I’m thinking that it’s no wonder Ernesto Guevara turned out the way he did after seeing the things he saw and meeting the people he met and I’m trying to figure out what kind of songs I should put together for the show next week—new songs, old songs, some kind of mixture…--and I’m thinking about the worthless, cheating girlfriend I had when I first came to Korea and I’m thinking about the incredible, worthwhile girlfriend I have now who will have to be given up—not something either of us are looking forward to—and I’m thinking about a double digit number that seems kind of incredible given that it was three or four for so long and I’m thinking about the fact that one of my classes is finishing their book today which means I will buy them pizza and I’m thinking about how to make the future tense in Han-gul and I’m thinking that earlier this morning I conducted an entire banking transaction entirely in Korean and I’m thinking that becoming a writer is probably the best idea I have every had and I’m thinking about the weekend and I’m thinking about the sound of my air conditioner and I’m thinking about thinking and I’m thinking about you.

Thought Nuggets

A recent trip to the aquarium inside COEX mall in Seoul put me onto thinking about the diversity of life and adaptation. A quick look at the diversity that makes up the life that lives in the waters of the world, and it shouldn’t be a far step to understand the diversity that is possible, not only simply on the surface, but within the character of each individual as well.
There are fish out there that look astoundingly like rocks, and you would have trouble distinguishing them yourself if you weren’t assured by a little placard just off to the side insisting that there is a fish in there—and then it actually moves.
I think about camouflage in both the literal and physical sense. There are insects that camouflage themselves so well that you can literally step on one and be none the wiser. Furred animals have adapted the color of that fur to better suit their surroundings—simply look at the red fox and the arctic fox (not to mention scores of others). People use camouflage in warfare to keep the enemy unaware of their presence for absolutely as long as possible. Finally, people camouflage themselves when it comes to their feelings and emotions and true selves. How many times have you gotten to know somebody, and after a while you realize that the person you met at first was very different from the person you know now?
(I want to point out that this personal, metaphorical camouflage is by no means a “bad” thing, but rather something that almost every human being in the world makes use of in order to accomplish goals. It is a reality rather than something that ought to be judged. The use some people make of this human characteristic can be questionable, but by and large we ease people into deeper knowledge of us.)
There are fish that actually go fishing. The anglerfish has a strange fleshy growth that sticks out from the top of their head and acts like a lure. Other fish would do what is more properly called hunting. The bigger predators (sharks, whales, dolphins, etc) are obvious, but there are other fish that use camouflage and lie in wait (flounder and other flatfish).
Once again there are parallels in the world on land that extend to both the physical and mental realms. In the physical world, fishing is a term that means both the physical act of going to a body of water and putting a line in it and the metaphorical sense of things like “fishing for compliments” or “fishing for answers” or “fishing for approval.” Essentially, any time you are using a lure (either in words or physically) you are doing the act of fishing. Hunting is in much the same category. I grew up in the Midwest, and let me tell you that hunting is quite an ordeal in that particular area of the country. Guns, bows, scent killer, tree stands, licenses, birds, deer, and whatever else can be brought down. It could be said that any time you set a goal, plan the work you have to do, work the plan that you’ve set down, and then attempt to accomplish something you are hunting.
There are animals that have managed to develop a method for needing both the land and the water. Imagine a penguin that was entirely landlocked. Without the ability to fly, that penguin would be in an absolute world of hurt. Thought about another way, the fact that penguins can stay on land keeps them out of the jaws of some fairly hungry whales that are probably swimming around. Frogs, snakes, walruses, seals, and many others have this ability to traverse the treacherous realms of land and water.
Man is at the top of the food chain precisely because he has the ability to be a predator in both realms of land and water. While he might not frequently go into the water to catch fish (although it is possible and happens), he has the ability to float on it and to use it to his advantage, and perhaps that’s the nut: man has the ability to use both the land and the water to his advantage. In the realm of the mind of man I think we could definitely liken this to the distinction between possibility and the world of the senses. All those things that are simply believed without having been proven is the world that lives in the water:
“Based on these and other observed patterns, conservative extrapolations suggest as many as 2,000 or more coral-reef fish species await discovery on deep coral reefs throughout the Indo-Pacific.” --The Marine Technology Society Journal. And that’s just on coral reefs. What about the depths? The land is what we can see, what we can experience, and what we can feel with our own two hands. Man is perpetually caught in this whirlwind of that which he believes and that which he knows through experience and understanding. It is land and water.
Finally, there are anomalies. Excuse me, but what the fuck is a seahorse? Where did this character come from? What kind of madness did this species go through to develop to this point? What’s the point of a jellyfish? The moon jellyfish reproduces both asexually and sexually, while also going through something that resembles a plant stage. Exqueeze me? Just look at a blobfish. Look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DvdcrcihBA&feature=related
or this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX90r12ANjY&feature=related
and you will have no problem saying that there is some diversity among aquatic creatures.
What could be more obvious that the diversity among the species on the surface. There are about 900,000 different kinds of insects, just for starters. Take this and add to it all the other varieties of birds, amphibians, reptiles, arachnids, mammals, and (the big kahuna of them all I think) plant life, and you start to get an understanding of diversity that borders on incomprehensible. Finally, if you take all of this apply it to the scope of the human mind, what becomes possible? The physical diversity of the aquatic scene (if we can trust our previous examples) is probably capable of being mirrored in the human mind, and that (if I may say so) is mindblowing, shocking, and eye-opening. Think about the way you think, how and what. Think about the number of things your mind does every second that you don’t have to think about, the number of things your mind is conducting in a day, and the number of thoughts that controllably or uncontrollably race through your head. If you can think about these things and find that you are not suddenly standing in awe of all that is right here in front of you, possible for you, available for your investigation, then I’m afraid you might be missing it.
The difference between man and the animals is something huge, and yet it is nothing at all. One of the major differences is that man provides for vast quantities of others, instead of just for himself. Man has formed societies and created a leisure industry (can you imagine anything more laughable to a cat?). We pay for our time off with money, instead of work. That distinction seems unimportant, but it wholly separates us from animals. When you’ve hunted, eaten, and protected yourself, you’ve earned a rest. Remember to watch the way the world is and appreciate what you’ve got. Work hard. Appreciate diversity. Calm down. Other people are probably just different from you.

What do you do…

when this is what’s floating around your head?

--The efforts which the mind makes to surmount the obstacle, excite the spirits and enliven the passion.
--People have (with the help of convention) oriented all their solutions toward the easy and toward the easiest side of the easy, but it is clear that we must hold to what is difficult.
--‘Tis impossible that reason and passion can ever oppose each other, or dispute for the government of the will and actions. The moment we perceive the falsehood of any supposition, or the insufficiency of any means our passions yield to our reason without any opposition.
--All those who love know exactly the limit they are prepared to go to. They know exactly what is required.
--To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation.
--We speak not strictly and philosophically when we talk of the combat of passion and of reason. Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.
--How keen everyone is to make this world their home, forgetting its impermanence. It’s like trying to see and name constellations in a fireworks display.
--For this reason (love being difficult) young people, who are beginners in everything, cannot yet know love: they have to learn it. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered close about their lonely, timid, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love.
--Morality is not an object of reason… vice and virtue are not matters of fact.
--But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and so loving, for a long while ahead and far on into life, is—solitude, intensified and deepened loneness for him who loves.
--When the mind pursues any end with passion… by the natural course of the affections, we acquire a concern for the end itself, and are uneasy under any disappointment we meet with in pursuit of it.
--Love… is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world for himself for another’s sake, it is a great exacting claim upon him, something that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.
--The pleasure of study consists chiefly in the action of the mind and the exercise of the genius and understanding in the discovery or comprehension of truth. If the importance of the truth be requisite to complete the pleasure, ‘tis not on account of any considerable addition which of itself it brings to our enjoyment, but only because ‘tis in some measure required to fix our attention.

My world consists these days in the maelstrom of love, passion, understanding, human nature, and truth. I’ve thought about it for a bit, and I’m totally fine being thoroughly unable to accurately define any of those terms in a relatively small space. Then, I think about the fact that those things are swirling together, and defining them while attempting to overcome the contiguity they share with other ideas and impressions, the causes and effects of their existence or absence, and the resemblances they have to the constant stream of my impressions, and I wind up in awe at the state of the human character.
I understand why people drink.
I understand why people do drugs.
When you let the mind run free and wild, it overwhelms itself… easily.
Most people learn to curb this complete mental freedom that we all have through their training as children—and you’d better believe that everything that happens to you in school and at home is training. They learn to focus on certain things. They are taught that some things are important while some things aren’t. They are shown what it means to love every day they watch their parents interact. Passion is illustrated through the media, the relations, and the relationships that are seen every day. Understanding is reached whenever I am told it has been reached, whether that’s a test score, a light bulb moment, or a goal being reached. Human nature is constantly being monitored, constantly updated, and it is in our nature to be nurtured while nurturing our nature—that whole argument is stupid… not ignorant: stupid. Truth is the combination of individual theory and practice (and I’m going to leave it there because it would take a lot more space to try to define it), but it is seen and felt periodically enough to not give up on it completely.
Currently, I am teaching English as a second language in South Korea, and I have had the unique opportunity to observe some cultural phenomena that are highlighted by similar phenomena in the USA.
Korean children are taught to abhor failing. This cannot be stressed enough, so I will illustrate it. When I first arrived here, I would give a test or quiz, and fifteen minutes later check up on how things were going. Sometimes, if a Korean child doesn’t know the answer to number 1, they stop, having failed, and will not simply skip it and go to the next one. Any inability that they have is an automatic failure and they get that deer in headlights look we are all so aware of because they know they are in the process of failing.
American children are taught that sometimes it’s okay to fail, which always registers as: failing is fine. We lower our standards so that they’re not failing, but this is a backhanded way to say that failing is acceptable because we can always change the standards by which we’re held. You have only to see the educational standards of the United States stacked up against the rest of the first world—what an awful denomination, and I have no doubt that you will see what I mean.
The problem, as I see it, with both of these systems is that the focus is entirely wrong. In the first place, it teaches students that failure exists. Failure can only be the unachieved goal set for a person by somebody who is not that person. When I set a goal for myself, it’s a want. When somebody else sets it for me, it’s an external expectation. When I don’t achieve somebody else’s goal, I don’t get them what they want. When I don’t achieve my goal, I don’t get what I want. That’s it. I haven’t failed anything.
Doesn’t that sound a lot like: the only failure is not trying?
Yes.
That’s because (with a slight modification): in every genuine attempt involving legitimate effort, progress is always achieved, even if it looks like a regression. Attempt to love, attempt to feel passion, attempt to understand human nature, and attempt truth.

More Notes from the Bus

My enemy has presented himself to me. He is loud. He understands nothing. Believes instead of knows. If you were asked to bow as you entered the temple of another faith (a temple that you have chosen to come to out of curiosity), simply as a sign of respect for other human beings attempting to struggle with their reality and searching for it wherever they can find it, would you do it?
I would.
The problem is, of course, that you cannot engage a religious warrior un-religiously. Try as you might, there is no possibility of them being able to separate their cause from your attack:
You attack A Muslim? You are attacking Muslims.
You attack a Christian? You are attacking Christianity.
We love taking our victimization and extending it through contiguity to our group—whatever that might be.
Perhaps the most fundamental flaw in the religious program is that the individual is lost, engulfed in whatever belief system they have associated themselves with, and the importance of the individual may be this:
his or her ability to maintain objectivity in the quest to develop society towards the next phase of human growth. Tainted with the beer goggles of religion, this is impossible. Why are there so many shared stories? Why are the traditions so many and various, and yet so similar? It would seem totally possible that in ancient times people simply spread out, and as they observed their world the stories which had been passed down to them changed as their personal observation allowed it to change, and right no we’ve got what we’ve got. I like the idea of the brotherhood of man. Eons ago when Jacob and Esau were on the outs, it was Brother V. Brother. Are we not all descended from that unknowable, primordial wellspring? Whether it be God, whether it be an accident of nature, or whether we are simply a fungal growth on some giant turd floating in the toilet bowl of space, we can all call each other by our proper name: human.
Stop disseminating hate—and believe me that when you’re telling someone they’re wrong you ARE disseminating hate.
Ask them to define their terminology more clearly for themselves, for you.
Ask them to clarify their position and simply identify any potential non sequiturs.
Ask them about the meanings of words such as belief, faith, love and meaning.
To be able to accurately define these words for one’s self is the first step on the path to the dissemination of love. Control yourself.
…
I try to avoid the topic of religion because people get so worked up about it. The thing that I am most put off by is proselytizing. I understand that Jesus said something about making fishers of all men, but he didn’t say what kind of fishermen. Catholics read that verse, too. It doesn’t say Catholic fishermen or Baptist fishermen or Protestant fisherman, simply fishermen. What is a fisherman but a seeker of nourishment the belly ache for understanding that we all have? Seekers and, sometimes, finders of those calming moments that remind us we are on this beautiful place for a time—and indefinite article kind of time. Seek to love. Find love. Seek peace. Find peace. Take the example of almost all religious leaders: live by the example of peace, harmony and love.

The Mind of Man

is a hall of mirrors. Almost every thinker from the beginning of time has noticed, one way or another, that they way the human mind works involves reflections. It is absolutely appropriate that reflection is the word that has many meanings, and those meanings are basically the structures of the mind of man.
The first and most basic definition of reflection is could be thought of as direct observation. I see my reflection in a mirror. That reflection is passive and inactive. It is a bit humorous to think that when we see ourselves, our bodies, we are looking at the thing that is inactive; however, the body is merely the stage for the action. Think about the theatre. Does a stage do the acting? It can, and certainly ought to be, a character—in some methodologies and in some plays the stage might even be the central character, but it doesn’t actually do anything. Its simple existence is enough for it to be important, and it is enough for the body to exist to make it important.
(In a small aside here, I would like to make a plug for taking care of the body. In general this involves three things, and they are the biological imperatives. Eat food that is conducive to good health. What will happen if you eat McDonald’s every day for thirty days? Bad things. What will happen if you eat a balanced diet and one day (let’s say in a month) when you’re out and about, you happen to stop at McDonald’s for a convenient meal? Probably not too much harm will come from this. Do something physical. Have sex, go for a run, play soccer, and do whatever it is that needs doing for a few hours every week. You don’t have to be a gym rat, going every day, just ensure that you are taking care of the physical needs of your body to stay in shape, otherwise atrophy ensues, and that kind of atrophy is impossibly slow and painful. Taking care of the body’s shape is essentially the shelter from the always-impending storm of atrophy. Protect your body, as much as is possible from harm. Don’t do incredibly stupid things that are guaranteed to harm you. It is important to note that the body ought to be put in certain dangerous situations every once in a while, but don’t be reckless about it. Your body will thank you for it.)
The next kind of reflection that happens is the first that happens in the mind. Let’s call it a Hume-ism: impression. Essentially, all this amounts to is that you are taking in all the sensory bits and pieces that you can. When you look at yourself in the mirror, you see yourself and you start to think about the scar just below your right eye, or the zit that creeping into existence on your chin, or the fact that your left ear is slightly higher than your right, or “Damn, I need a haircut,” or that black eye is swelling up pretty intensely. These impressions are, in themselves, some of the simplest thoughts that human beings can have, but they are floor number one, built on the foundation of the existence of the thing in the mirror.
It works equally well with the other senses. Close your eyes and touch your skin. Your impressions are that your arms are really hairy, or your fingernails seem to be long. Take a deep breath and smell yourself. Lick your skin. What do you taste like? Listen to yourself, and I mean really listen to yourself saying something. All of this information we pick up about everything around us through the sense organs that have been granted to us, and it is the most basic information that we have. If the stage is the foundation, the sensory impressions that we pick up become the set on the stage. We are beginning to get an idea of something coming together.
The third type of reflection involves giving back—let’s call it a reaction. Imagine a line of mirrors set at an angle and a laser being pointed at the first one, only to have the light reflected down the line of mirrors. This is the first stage at which something actually happens. It is at this point that we are actually doing something about the idea that we now have, and it amounts, basically, to an explication of what the impression is. Take the color blue. The eye sees the color blue, the brain recognizes it as a thing existing on a plane, and finally you say its name: blue. Action, in this sense, is the very physical action, whether in speech or motion, that takes place as the result of an idea. First impressions become ideas that give rise to a reaction. If we continue with our analogy of the stage, then the actors have begun to populate the set. We now see that there is A) a stage B) a set and C) actors. These actors are even saying things, but it is essentially incoherent babble for the most part, or, if comprehensible, then the most rudimentary of meanings. In our other analogy (that of the building) this is essentially the enclosed building. It exists, it has vitality and color, it is populated, and it is enclosed. Foundation. Floor. Ceiling.
The final type of reflection is that metaphorical type of reflection that reaches into the past—and I am pretty sure it is always into the past that it reaches. When I sit and reflect on my life, I am thinking about the accumulated knowledge of my days on this planet, the myriad routines I have subjected myself to, and the cultural knowledge that has somehow been implanted in my brain. This is where the magic happens. Habit and our customary way of doing things are pulling the strings. We only recognize blue because we have seen it and been told its name before—in the past. Had we encountered blue for the first time, without having been told its name, there is no way that its particular moniker could possibly spring to our lips. Think of a child just learning his or her colors. We must be told something in the past for it to affect our present or future.
What presents itself as a problem for this type of reflection is that everything gets muddled here. Before the roof was on the building, we could see inside it and understand what was going on, but now our view is obscured. Before, the actors were wandering around the stage babbling in basic incoherence, and now they are saying things that seem to matter in a way that seems to make sense, and it is the unseen hand of the director that is reflection in the metaphorical sense that makes it all possible.
I have encountered this four-fold in other places, and it took me a long time to accept it, but when a thing keeps coming up in so many and various places, you start—perhaps by habit and a customary way—to believe and understand it. Heidegger’s four-fold is almost essentially this, but with different names: earth and heavens, mortals and gods. The earth is the existing thing, the initial impression (the entrance of the mind onto the scene) would be the heavens, mortals would be the populated stage, and the gods would be the realm of history and habit that seems to invisibly pull strings.
It seems to me that this is the way we go about things. Call them whatever you will, but these seem like reasonable structures of the consciousness: body, consciousness, sub-consciousness, and spirit. It’s what makes humans capable of doing the things they do. Animals do not have the same metaphysical structure. Their minds and spirits do not work in the same way. If for only this, I implore you to go about using the abilities and skills that are inherent in you simply by virtue of being human to start working on your understanding of your own reflections. Sit quietly for a while and stare at yourself, notice that you are, notice what you really look like, say something to yourself, do something with, go somewhere, and be great.