One of the most difficult subjects to understand that I have ever encountered is Love. There is of course the argument that love is not meant to be understood, and there is some validity to this argument: as a feeling, it’s only requirement is to be. It is meant to be felt, not thought about.
But what manner of emotion is it?
What is it about love that makes us do the things we do?
How can love make us feel so intensely?
Is there a right time for love?
Can you force love?
What happens when you want somebody so much, and yet it seems as though the world is conspiring against you?
Is love personal? Or universal?
Can we love? Or is that just a plurality of loves?
It has been my experience that “I love.” What I mean by this is that the emotion I feel for somebody is my own. The emotion that somebody feels for me is his or her emotion. The most common manifestation of this principle is how people tell each other that they are in love:
“I love you.”
And the response is usually:
“I love you, too.”
When “too” is used in this position at the end of the sentence, it means “also.” In other words, what is really being said here is that “I love you,” and “I also love you,” but, in this situation, “you” is the same thing. In other words, what these two hypothetical people are saying is that they love their relationship, not the other person specifically. What are the psychological ramifications of this? Are there any?
It seems to me that it is fairly common to fall in love with the relationship. The person can be anybody—proven by the commonplace that we oftentimes come out of a relationship, fall into another relationship, and look down to find ourselves in the same relationship with somebody else. It is in this situation that the love is not for the person, but it is for the psychological fulfillment that comes from having somebody with you.
Perhaps I am simply being pedantic. What kind of importance can a little world like “too” have in reality?
Yes, that was most definitely a rhetorical question. I will leave it up to you start having this conversation with your loved one:
Look them in the eyes before and during your saying, “I love you.”
And as their response, have them say, while looking at you, “and I love you.”
Change as necessary.
It could be an interesting experiment. Maybe nothing will change, but I know, from personal experience, that is sounds and feels different. The “why” it feels different doesn’t matter, the “what” that feels different is a matter of language—and I have been over the fact (many, many times in this blog) that we ARE language, and the how of what changes is the personalization of the salutation (you know that this person is talking about you specifically).
The changeover to personalization is huge. What happens when you start lauding the relationship over the person is that the other person is put in charge of being able to take the love away. What I mean by this is, “YOU can end OUR love.” When love exists in the form of a fantasy-type relationship (in that there is no way to combine two people into one—sex is the greatest illusion of this), the love sits outside of the individual on this very precarious pedestal. When love is personal, I make the decisions regarding it. If “I” decide that I love “you” no matter what you do, then I grant all. In other words, “you” can do things that might make “me” reconsider our relationship, but because this love is mine and mine alone (which, by the way, is simply a recognition of the fact from both a theoretical/philosophical and physiological standpoint that we are all individuals and “we” is simply a plurality that is easily divisible), I make all the final decisions about who takes it away.
The easiest argument to make against this position is: what kind of love is it where there is no trust, or where there are no boundaries? If you think about the question long enough you’ll see first that when there are no boundaries, this love is boundless. I am not sure, but I would imagine that in this love where there are no boundaries and all is honesty and truthfulness and faithfulness to the truth of love in the individual, there would probably be less “infidelity” than one would imagine. Who wants forbidden fruit that isn’t forbidden? As far as trust goes, it is simplified. The only trust I need to have is that you love me right now. The trust is taken out of time and placed where it ought to be: in the present. Traditionally, you are trusting your partner to make decisions that don’t negatively affect the future of your relationship. In this new love you are trusting only in the fact, the reality, that your partner loves you right now. There is no future beyond if there is no love now. Two people focused on their present individual loves seems to me (scary and unconventional as it might seem) to be “the love of the future.”
Everybody loves a little romance. It is nice to feel wanted. It is nice to have those little gestures that say, “I care about you.” It just plain feels nice. The problem with romance is that it is traditionally concerned with the future. How many couples would complain that all the romance went out of their relationship after they got married? In this new love, there would be room for romance because it would be day-to-day courtship. Every day would be a glorious affirmation of my love for that person, simply because I have him or her right now.
Ah, yes, the older generation is probably sneering at my youthful naiveté, and why not, they’ve got life experience on their side, and that teaches them that they need to plan for the future; however, they’ve also never tried living an entire life this way. I think that there is discipline in living your life in the present. I believe it takes a great deal of will and strength to wake up every day and joyously affirm that I love this person. I don’t even know if it’s possible. Maybe it’s not, but why isn’t it worth trying? Is it too free?
“They're scared.”
“They're not scared of you. They're scared of what you represent to them.”
“All we represent to them is somebody who needs a haircut.”
“Oh, no. What you represent to them...is freedom.”
“Freedom's what it's all about.”
“Oh yeah, that's right. That's what it's all about. But talking about it and being it...that's two different things. It's real hard to be free when you are bought and sold in the marketplace. Don't tell anybody that they're not free, because they'll get busy killing and maiming to prove to you that they are. They're going to talk to you and talk to you about individual freedom. But they see a free individual, it's going to scare them.”
“Well, it don't make them running scared.”
“It makes them dangerous.”
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
A Collection
This is simply a collection of the things that I’ve read in the past week: snippets, if you will, from what I’m trying to put together in my head. I guess this is most aptly what I'm doing with my life.
11
Thirty spokes converge upon a single hub;
It is on the hole in the center that the use of the cart hinges.
We make a vessel from a lump of clay;
It is the empty space within the vessel that makes it useful.
We make doors and windows for a room;
But it is the empty spaces that make the room livable.
Thus, while the tangible has advantages,
It is the intangible that makes it useful.
--The Tao Teh Ching
“It is very useful, when one is young, to learn the difference between “literally” and “figuratively.” If something happens literally, it actually happens; if something happens figuratively; it feels like it’s happening. If you are literally jumping for joy, for instance, it means that you are leaping in the air because you are very happy. If you are figuratively jumping for joy, it means that you are so happy that you could jump for joy, but are saving your energy for other matters. The Baudelaire orphans walked back to Count Olaf’s neighborhood and stopped at the home of Justice Strauss, who welcomed them inside and let them choose books from the library. Violet chose several about mechanical inventions, Klaus chose several about wolves, and Sunny found a book with many pictures of teeth inside. They then went to their room and crowded together on the one bed, reading intently and happily. Figuratively, they escaped from Count Olaf and their miserable existence. They did not literally escape, because they were still in his house and vulnerable to Olaf’s evil in loco parentis ways. But by immersing themselves in their favorite reading topics, they felt far away from their predicament, as if they had escaped. In the situation of the orphans, figuratively escaping was not enough, of course, but at the end of a tiring and hopeless day, it would have to do. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny read their books and, in the back of their minds, hoped that soon their figurative escape would eventually turn into a literal one.”
--Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, No. 1: The Bad Beginnings, or Orphans!, Ch 3, last paragraph
"Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or think, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!"
-- Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Ch. 13
“The external proletariat (including, as its largest part, the peasantry), which came to provide the Soviet leadership with a mass basis for the struggle against capitalism after the First World War, emerged as a historical “subject” seemingly by virtue of (from the Marxian standpoint) an exogenous event, namely, by, virtue of the fact that the revolution succeeded in backward Russia, failed to materialize in the advanced industrial countries, and subsequently spread from Russia into preindustrial areas, while the advanced industrial countries continued to remain immune. But this event was not quite as exogenous as it seems… The sustained weakness of the revolutionary potential in the advanced industrial countries confined the revolution to that area where the proletariat had not been thus affected and where the regime had shown political disintegration together with economic backwardness.”
--Herbert Marcuse, Soviet Marxism: A Critical Analysis, Ch. 1: Marxian Concept of the Transition to Socialism
“The right of nature, which writers commonly call jus naturale, is the liberty each man hath, to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life; and consequently, of doing any thing, which in his own judgment, and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto… And consequently it is a precept, or general rule of reason, that every man, ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek, and use, all helps, and advantages of war. The first branch of which rule, containeth the first, and fundamental law of nature; which is, to seek peace, and follow it. The second, the sum of the right of nature; which is, by all means we can, to defend ourselves.”
--Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Ch. 14: On the First and Second Natural Laws, and of Contracts.
“It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
Half of the night with our old friend
Who's showed us in the end
To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.
Already, I lay snug,
And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.
I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
Suddenly, from behind,
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
Your instep to my heel,
My shoulder-blades against your chest.
It was not sex, but I could feel
The whole strength of your body set,
Or braced, to mine,
And locking me to you
As if we were still twenty-two
When our grand passion had not yet
Become familial.
My quick sleep had deleted all
Of intervening time and place.
I only knew
The stay of your secure firm dry embrace”
--Thom Gunn, The Hug
11
Thirty spokes converge upon a single hub;
It is on the hole in the center that the use of the cart hinges.
We make a vessel from a lump of clay;
It is the empty space within the vessel that makes it useful.
We make doors and windows for a room;
But it is the empty spaces that make the room livable.
Thus, while the tangible has advantages,
It is the intangible that makes it useful.
--The Tao Teh Ching
“It is very useful, when one is young, to learn the difference between “literally” and “figuratively.” If something happens literally, it actually happens; if something happens figuratively; it feels like it’s happening. If you are literally jumping for joy, for instance, it means that you are leaping in the air because you are very happy. If you are figuratively jumping for joy, it means that you are so happy that you could jump for joy, but are saving your energy for other matters. The Baudelaire orphans walked back to Count Olaf’s neighborhood and stopped at the home of Justice Strauss, who welcomed them inside and let them choose books from the library. Violet chose several about mechanical inventions, Klaus chose several about wolves, and Sunny found a book with many pictures of teeth inside. They then went to their room and crowded together on the one bed, reading intently and happily. Figuratively, they escaped from Count Olaf and their miserable existence. They did not literally escape, because they were still in his house and vulnerable to Olaf’s evil in loco parentis ways. But by immersing themselves in their favorite reading topics, they felt far away from their predicament, as if they had escaped. In the situation of the orphans, figuratively escaping was not enough, of course, but at the end of a tiring and hopeless day, it would have to do. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny read their books and, in the back of their minds, hoped that soon their figurative escape would eventually turn into a literal one.”
--Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, No. 1: The Bad Beginnings, or Orphans!, Ch 3, last paragraph
"Where is it I've read that someone condemned to death says or think, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he'd only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!"
-- Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment, Ch. 13
“The external proletariat (including, as its largest part, the peasantry), which came to provide the Soviet leadership with a mass basis for the struggle against capitalism after the First World War, emerged as a historical “subject” seemingly by virtue of (from the Marxian standpoint) an exogenous event, namely, by, virtue of the fact that the revolution succeeded in backward Russia, failed to materialize in the advanced industrial countries, and subsequently spread from Russia into preindustrial areas, while the advanced industrial countries continued to remain immune. But this event was not quite as exogenous as it seems… The sustained weakness of the revolutionary potential in the advanced industrial countries confined the revolution to that area where the proletariat had not been thus affected and where the regime had shown political disintegration together with economic backwardness.”
--Herbert Marcuse, Soviet Marxism: A Critical Analysis, Ch. 1: Marxian Concept of the Transition to Socialism
“The right of nature, which writers commonly call jus naturale, is the liberty each man hath, to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own nature; that is to say, of his own life; and consequently, of doing any thing, which in his own judgment, and reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto… And consequently it is a precept, or general rule of reason, that every man, ought to endeavour peace, as far as he has hope of obtaining it; and when he cannot obtain it, that he may seek, and use, all helps, and advantages of war. The first branch of which rule, containeth the first, and fundamental law of nature; which is, to seek peace, and follow it. The second, the sum of the right of nature; which is, by all means we can, to defend ourselves.”
--Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, Ch. 14: On the First and Second Natural Laws, and of Contracts.
“It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
Half of the night with our old friend
Who's showed us in the end
To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.
Already, I lay snug,
And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.
I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
Suddenly, from behind,
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
Your instep to my heel,
My shoulder-blades against your chest.
It was not sex, but I could feel
The whole strength of your body set,
Or braced, to mine,
And locking me to you
As if we were still twenty-two
When our grand passion had not yet
Become familial.
My quick sleep had deleted all
Of intervening time and place.
I only knew
The stay of your secure firm dry embrace”
--Thom Gunn, The Hug
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
An Un-Special Wednesday Morning
Somehow, it’s May. Somehow, it’s well into may. My mind is swimming right now; or would it be more appropriate to say thrashing? Poetry, language, though, photos, religion, pedagogy, existence, fruit, subjects, posture, form, function, style, content, objects and action all have very powerful daily effects on me. What is it about these subjects that drive me? Maybe it’s a desire to know. Maybe it’s simply a desire to do. There’s a big difference there, and I’m not sure I’m capable of distinguishing it.
I want to make music. I want my life to be music given to others. I want what I consistently fail at achieving.
Do other people think, almost daily, about the importance of the length of sentences in determining their relative importance in the meaning of a piece of literature?
I do.
And I’m sure others do, too.
How do we go about filling up our time on this terrestrial sphere so that the uselessness of existence isn’t an ever-present burden to the affected consciousness?
There are so many ways.
And they go by diverse names.
Thinking of the past can consume much of one’s time, as can thinking of the future, but so, also, can existing entirely in the present—this latter being, I think, most conducive to actual existence. Cogitations of that which has gone by is a waste of the moment you’re living in on a moment that cannot be changed. Rumination—which has an interesting double meaning—of things to come ought to be done carefully as time can, and usually does, make fools of us all. Perhaps this is why I am a bigger fan of direction than directions (that “s” makes a huge difference). What we miss when we are involved in these time-thoughts is that they are all happening in the present. Again, we miss the present.
Where are you… right now?
To lay down the load seems like a thoroughly enjoyable thing, and I suppose it is entirely possible. Mercurial seems to be the best nomenclature for the perpetual state of my mind: that which I believe today might, by tomorrow, be altered by new information. Or, it might not. It’s hard to say. There is so little absolute truth in the world. Everybody’s right. Everybody’s wrong. Can there be a nugget of absolute truth that humanity can know? I hesitate to mention God—with a purposeful capital—because you would be hard-pressed to find a Hindu or Muslim who would agree with a Southern Baptist, and conceptions of God always seem to me to fall into the realm of personal truths—because if I’m right and somebody disagrees with me, then they are wrong and need to be shone the true light (which is to say: my light… this little light of MINE).
I think there is truth to be found in consciousness. We all have it. It is universal. As a matter of fact, it could be argued that every consciousness in the world even has the same shape or form or style. What gets put into it might differ in content, but the shape (consciousness, sub-consciousness, and spirit) remains the same. The consciousness is the sensual world (what Hobbes might call the “voluntary actions”), the sub-conscious that of the involuntary actions (to a point), and the spirit is that nugget of reality that is so tangible and yet so difficult to describe. Maybe it’s time for me to start asking a new question: how is truth?
I want to make music. I want my life to be music given to others. I want what I consistently fail at achieving.
Do other people think, almost daily, about the importance of the length of sentences in determining their relative importance in the meaning of a piece of literature?
I do.
And I’m sure others do, too.
How do we go about filling up our time on this terrestrial sphere so that the uselessness of existence isn’t an ever-present burden to the affected consciousness?
There are so many ways.
And they go by diverse names.
Thinking of the past can consume much of one’s time, as can thinking of the future, but so, also, can existing entirely in the present—this latter being, I think, most conducive to actual existence. Cogitations of that which has gone by is a waste of the moment you’re living in on a moment that cannot be changed. Rumination—which has an interesting double meaning—of things to come ought to be done carefully as time can, and usually does, make fools of us all. Perhaps this is why I am a bigger fan of direction than directions (that “s” makes a huge difference). What we miss when we are involved in these time-thoughts is that they are all happening in the present. Again, we miss the present.
Where are you… right now?
To lay down the load seems like a thoroughly enjoyable thing, and I suppose it is entirely possible. Mercurial seems to be the best nomenclature for the perpetual state of my mind: that which I believe today might, by tomorrow, be altered by new information. Or, it might not. It’s hard to say. There is so little absolute truth in the world. Everybody’s right. Everybody’s wrong. Can there be a nugget of absolute truth that humanity can know? I hesitate to mention God—with a purposeful capital—because you would be hard-pressed to find a Hindu or Muslim who would agree with a Southern Baptist, and conceptions of God always seem to me to fall into the realm of personal truths—because if I’m right and somebody disagrees with me, then they are wrong and need to be shone the true light (which is to say: my light… this little light of MINE).
I think there is truth to be found in consciousness. We all have it. It is universal. As a matter of fact, it could be argued that every consciousness in the world even has the same shape or form or style. What gets put into it might differ in content, but the shape (consciousness, sub-consciousness, and spirit) remains the same. The consciousness is the sensual world (what Hobbes might call the “voluntary actions”), the sub-conscious that of the involuntary actions (to a point), and the spirit is that nugget of reality that is so tangible and yet so difficult to describe. Maybe it’s time for me to start asking a new question: how is truth?
Friday, May 1, 2009
Tomorrow…
is Buddha’s birthday. I’ve never really thought about it before, but I suppose it makes sense. Jesus has a birthday. Muhammad has a birthday. Sure. Why not? This is not something that is generally celebrated too often in the Western world, but it is a national holiday in Korea, and, I’ve heard somebody say something sometime about being Rome and… well, I forget the rest of how it goes.
At any rate, tomorrow I am going to celebrate Buddha’s birthday. I’m going to do this in what is probably an inappropriate manner—having had very little experience with what a celebration of this kind would entail, but I will spend the day in meditation, introspection, and fasting. Traditionally in Korea, a visit is made to the nearest temple—or whatever temple you choose—and the monks there provide the visitors with food (usually gimbap—sort of like a California roll: seaweed, rice, and whatever is around all rolled up), and everybody attempts to understand themselves a little bit better.
So, instead of gabbing on here about whatever it is I think about whatever it is that’s going on in the world of my mind these days, I’m simply going to leave you with some thoughts to make your “Buddha’s Birthday Bash” a beautiful one:
“To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.”
--Buddha
“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.”
--Buddha
“On life's journey Faith is nourishment,
Virtuous deeds are a shelter,
Wisdom is the light by day and Right mindfulness is the protection by night.
If a man lives a pure life nothing can destroy him;
If he has conquered greed nothing can limit his freedom.”
--Buddha
“When the student is ready, the master appears.”
Buddhist Proverb
“Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes. ”
Alan Watts
“Zen is not a philosophy, it is poetry. It does not propose, it simply persuades. It does not argue, it simply sings its own song. ”
Osho
“Sit quietly doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself. ”
Zen Wisdom
“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both. ”
Zen Wisdom
“To what shall I liken the world? Moonlight, reflected in dewdrops. Shaken from a crane's bill. ”
Dogen
“May all living beings,
All of my neighbors,
Be happy,
Be at peace,
Be comfortable.”
--Beop Jeong, Seon Master
“This spring, I am going to set off on the road again.
I have been staying here about as long as I am meant to,
so now I think it is time to find a new place to reside.
When ascetics stay in one place for a long time,
they begin to languish, stuck in a mire of sloth and inertia.
I want to embark on a new path, like an eternal beginner,
clumsily starting all over again from the beginning.”
--Beop Jeong, Seon Master
Right This Moment
“Do not let this moment escape.
Pay close attention, every second, with the thought,
"Now, I am living in this way."
Do not be distracted, do not think useless thoughts,
do not get lost in the words of others, but rather inspect things for yourself.
In the same way, do not get bound to my words here.
Go on your own path!
Do not spend this moment in vain.
These moments pile up and become an entire life.
Do not be to tense.
If you are, you lose your resiliency,
and then it is difficult to maintain consistency.
You have to be joyful in the living of life.
Everyday begin again.
Again and again, wipe yourself off and rise up from this tired old quagmire.”
--Beop Jeong, Seon Master
At any rate, tomorrow I am going to celebrate Buddha’s birthday. I’m going to do this in what is probably an inappropriate manner—having had very little experience with what a celebration of this kind would entail, but I will spend the day in meditation, introspection, and fasting. Traditionally in Korea, a visit is made to the nearest temple—or whatever temple you choose—and the monks there provide the visitors with food (usually gimbap—sort of like a California roll: seaweed, rice, and whatever is around all rolled up), and everybody attempts to understand themselves a little bit better.
So, instead of gabbing on here about whatever it is I think about whatever it is that’s going on in the world of my mind these days, I’m simply going to leave you with some thoughts to make your “Buddha’s Birthday Bash” a beautiful one:
“To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.”
--Buddha
“Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.”
--Buddha
“On life's journey Faith is nourishment,
Virtuous deeds are a shelter,
Wisdom is the light by day and Right mindfulness is the protection by night.
If a man lives a pure life nothing can destroy him;
If he has conquered greed nothing can limit his freedom.”
--Buddha
“When the student is ready, the master appears.”
Buddhist Proverb
“Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes. ”
Alan Watts
“Zen is not a philosophy, it is poetry. It does not propose, it simply persuades. It does not argue, it simply sings its own song. ”
Osho
“Sit quietly doing nothing, spring comes, and the grass grows by itself. ”
Zen Wisdom
“The master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his information and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence at whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both. ”
Zen Wisdom
“To what shall I liken the world? Moonlight, reflected in dewdrops. Shaken from a crane's bill. ”
Dogen
“May all living beings,
All of my neighbors,
Be happy,
Be at peace,
Be comfortable.”
--Beop Jeong, Seon Master
“This spring, I am going to set off on the road again.
I have been staying here about as long as I am meant to,
so now I think it is time to find a new place to reside.
When ascetics stay in one place for a long time,
they begin to languish, stuck in a mire of sloth and inertia.
I want to embark on a new path, like an eternal beginner,
clumsily starting all over again from the beginning.”
--Beop Jeong, Seon Master
Right This Moment
“Do not let this moment escape.
Pay close attention, every second, with the thought,
"Now, I am living in this way."
Do not be distracted, do not think useless thoughts,
do not get lost in the words of others, but rather inspect things for yourself.
In the same way, do not get bound to my words here.
Go on your own path!
Do not spend this moment in vain.
These moments pile up and become an entire life.
Do not be to tense.
If you are, you lose your resiliency,
and then it is difficult to maintain consistency.
You have to be joyful in the living of life.
Everyday begin again.
Again and again, wipe yourself off and rise up from this tired old quagmire.”
--Beop Jeong, Seon Master
Friday, April 24, 2009
Wandering Mindspace
On my way home from work this evening, I was pondering what it is that makes up a person’s day. I thought about my own experience because that is what I am most accustomed to, but I would like to know how other people view their days. On an average week, I put in at least five, solid, sixteen to eighteen hour days without trying. At least two days a week, it’s more like twenty—and they’re not the days you think.
It’s raining gently outside, and on this evening, I’m letting the light clackety click click clack click clack of the keyboard play a harmony to the universal melody outside my window. That is what I think about in your average moments.
I was asked the other day, by a very good friend of mine, two of the most difficult questions I have been asked in a very long time—and their ontological nature probably has something to do with it;
“What do you do when you get lonely?”
and
“What do you do when you get bored?”
Starting with the second question first, it is entirely possible to take the Slavoj Zizek approach to the question and Hegelize things a bit by saying: I never get bored. But, then again, I’m always bored. Consistently bored. What have we accomplished? Perhaps nothing, but perhaps I really don’t ever feel bored. My sixteen, eighteen, and twenty-plus hour-long days come with zero effort on my part. I wake up, I have many, many things to accomplish (usually some combination of reading, writing, playing the guitar, sorting out business with whatever needs sorting out) in the morning, I spend ten hours involved in work-related, school-type things, I come home and spend three hours doing more of what I did in the morning (except this is also usually when I study Korean), I have a bit of dinner, and that’s a solid day. On Wednesdays I go into town and play the guitar. On Saturdays I let the wind take me where it will. Both of these days are usually very, very long. Sunday is devoted almost entirely to reading, writing, playing the guitar, and doing something physical (hiking, walking around, running, the driving range, whatever). I quite honestly have very little free time.
So, with all these things taking up my waking hours—to the point that I barely have a chance to take a breath and have to schedule in relaxation time—how is it that I am unfailingly, bewilderingly bored? The answer to that question is that I am perpetually avoiding boredom. Somewhere along the line in my life, and who’s to say exactly when it was, I decided that boredom was a curse. We choose to be bored. How can you be bored inside an existence that has so much to offer? I have considered the possibility that perhaps it is the creation of things that keeps me occupied. In any given week, I write forty-sixty pages of words. That’s not an incredible amount by any stretch of the imagination, but I spread that out over the course of the week, chipping away at it, an hour here, an hour there, and, suddenly, I have managed to spend between twenty and thirty hours of my week in the act of writing. Practice is one of the biggest focuses of my life, and my body is currently practicing writing every day—only barely caring about what happens over the course of that writing helps (I once had a writing professor tell me that quality comes from quantity, by which he meant that without the appropriate amount of material to work with, there is no way you’ll be able to craft the highest quality product—we’ll get it in editing!). I read at least a hundred pages from a variety of books during the week (I’m currently working on Style in History, Confessions (Augustine), and May All Beings Be Happy), and I read fairly slowly, marking, and notating (DAMN YOU EDUCATION HISTORY) which tends to take time. I could play the guitar for hours on any given day of the week, if I were allowed. I am very actively running away form boredom. I exist boredom in the sense that I AM not bored. Or something like that.
As far as the second question goes, it is important to know that the question was posed to me by a known womanizer after he had just been broken up with—as with the other question, but that had happened earlier in the day and was unrelated to his philandering. We were in Busan. He was lying on the bed and I had a traditional mat on the floor. “What do you do when you get lonely?” To be honest it caught me off guard, but I think the answer to it is roughly the same as the other one: I never get lonely, unless of course I'm horribly lonely.
Our lives are like a giant block of marble that we are given when we are born. For the first few years, other people hack away at it and give us a basic shape. Then, after a while, they tell us to help them out, and we gladly hack away at this gigantic block of marble. After a while, something strange happens that I can’t really understand right now. We are left holding the chisel and the hammer. Other people can come along and, if we let them, they can start hacking away at our block of marble, and we can wander over to theirs and do the same. The problem is that if you want to create your block all by yourself, you have to keep people away. Most people want to hack at your block of marble. They want to put their imprint on your life—perhaps it is the sub-conscious need for re-direction from the affairs of their own life. We wind up in a sticky situation because everybody wants to make their own life’s work, and everybody wants to hack at other people’s lives. Sometimes this is beneficial because sometimes people need help with their vision. Sometimes it is detrimental and downright annoying.
Existential theory says that we are forever alone because our consciousness cannot be combined with another consciousness. Christians say that God is that fulfillment. As a matter of fact, most mainstream religions make the claim that what they are offering is the fulfillment of the void. But, does spiritual/consciousness loneliness fulfillment mean the same as physical loneliness fulfillment. I think only a fool would say yes, if only because they aren’t the same species. The same genus… perhaps, because they can have the same effect, but the tactile sensation of being held FEELS different.
I guess what I’m getting at here is that mankind seems to be perpetually stuck in the abyss—or at least hopping back and forth over it—between the physical and the spiritual. In the physical world, we do our work for the day. In the spiritual world, we do the work of our life. Every day, when we are simply doing whatever it is we’re doing, we are accomplishing this two-fold fact of existence. Investigation of the spirit that is alive and well in the world requires physical effort, and when there is spirit to investigate, who could be bored? Who could be lonely?
The funny thing is, I just had the thought… at least that’s what I think RIGHT NOW. It could all change tomorrow. I, in my perpetual, professional ignorance don’t know.
It’s raining gently outside, and on this evening, I’m letting the light clackety click click clack click clack of the keyboard play a harmony to the universal melody outside my window. That is what I think about in your average moments.
I was asked the other day, by a very good friend of mine, two of the most difficult questions I have been asked in a very long time—and their ontological nature probably has something to do with it;
“What do you do when you get lonely?”
and
“What do you do when you get bored?”
Starting with the second question first, it is entirely possible to take the Slavoj Zizek approach to the question and Hegelize things a bit by saying: I never get bored. But, then again, I’m always bored. Consistently bored. What have we accomplished? Perhaps nothing, but perhaps I really don’t ever feel bored. My sixteen, eighteen, and twenty-plus hour-long days come with zero effort on my part. I wake up, I have many, many things to accomplish (usually some combination of reading, writing, playing the guitar, sorting out business with whatever needs sorting out) in the morning, I spend ten hours involved in work-related, school-type things, I come home and spend three hours doing more of what I did in the morning (except this is also usually when I study Korean), I have a bit of dinner, and that’s a solid day. On Wednesdays I go into town and play the guitar. On Saturdays I let the wind take me where it will. Both of these days are usually very, very long. Sunday is devoted almost entirely to reading, writing, playing the guitar, and doing something physical (hiking, walking around, running, the driving range, whatever). I quite honestly have very little free time.
So, with all these things taking up my waking hours—to the point that I barely have a chance to take a breath and have to schedule in relaxation time—how is it that I am unfailingly, bewilderingly bored? The answer to that question is that I am perpetually avoiding boredom. Somewhere along the line in my life, and who’s to say exactly when it was, I decided that boredom was a curse. We choose to be bored. How can you be bored inside an existence that has so much to offer? I have considered the possibility that perhaps it is the creation of things that keeps me occupied. In any given week, I write forty-sixty pages of words. That’s not an incredible amount by any stretch of the imagination, but I spread that out over the course of the week, chipping away at it, an hour here, an hour there, and, suddenly, I have managed to spend between twenty and thirty hours of my week in the act of writing. Practice is one of the biggest focuses of my life, and my body is currently practicing writing every day—only barely caring about what happens over the course of that writing helps (I once had a writing professor tell me that quality comes from quantity, by which he meant that without the appropriate amount of material to work with, there is no way you’ll be able to craft the highest quality product—we’ll get it in editing!). I read at least a hundred pages from a variety of books during the week (I’m currently working on Style in History, Confessions (Augustine), and May All Beings Be Happy), and I read fairly slowly, marking, and notating (DAMN YOU EDUCATION HISTORY) which tends to take time. I could play the guitar for hours on any given day of the week, if I were allowed. I am very actively running away form boredom. I exist boredom in the sense that I AM not bored. Or something like that.
As far as the second question goes, it is important to know that the question was posed to me by a known womanizer after he had just been broken up with—as with the other question, but that had happened earlier in the day and was unrelated to his philandering. We were in Busan. He was lying on the bed and I had a traditional mat on the floor. “What do you do when you get lonely?” To be honest it caught me off guard, but I think the answer to it is roughly the same as the other one: I never get lonely, unless of course I'm horribly lonely.
Our lives are like a giant block of marble that we are given when we are born. For the first few years, other people hack away at it and give us a basic shape. Then, after a while, they tell us to help them out, and we gladly hack away at this gigantic block of marble. After a while, something strange happens that I can’t really understand right now. We are left holding the chisel and the hammer. Other people can come along and, if we let them, they can start hacking away at our block of marble, and we can wander over to theirs and do the same. The problem is that if you want to create your block all by yourself, you have to keep people away. Most people want to hack at your block of marble. They want to put their imprint on your life—perhaps it is the sub-conscious need for re-direction from the affairs of their own life. We wind up in a sticky situation because everybody wants to make their own life’s work, and everybody wants to hack at other people’s lives. Sometimes this is beneficial because sometimes people need help with their vision. Sometimes it is detrimental and downright annoying.
Existential theory says that we are forever alone because our consciousness cannot be combined with another consciousness. Christians say that God is that fulfillment. As a matter of fact, most mainstream religions make the claim that what they are offering is the fulfillment of the void. But, does spiritual/consciousness loneliness fulfillment mean the same as physical loneliness fulfillment. I think only a fool would say yes, if only because they aren’t the same species. The same genus… perhaps, because they can have the same effect, but the tactile sensation of being held FEELS different.
I guess what I’m getting at here is that mankind seems to be perpetually stuck in the abyss—or at least hopping back and forth over it—between the physical and the spiritual. In the physical world, we do our work for the day. In the spiritual world, we do the work of our life. Every day, when we are simply doing whatever it is we’re doing, we are accomplishing this two-fold fact of existence. Investigation of the spirit that is alive and well in the world requires physical effort, and when there is spirit to investigate, who could be bored? Who could be lonely?
The funny thing is, I just had the thought… at least that’s what I think RIGHT NOW. It could all change tomorrow. I, in my perpetual, professional ignorance don’t know.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
This Past Weekend
Normally, this is the kind of story that would go in the book about the sheer possibilities of life in terms of what can happen to you when you go to East Asia to teach English, but I’ve decided to go a slightly different direction and put it here instead:
The plan was to wake up in the middle of the night on Friday night, go into town, have a couple of pre-bus drinks, and catch the bus to Busan. It was a friend’s birthday that weekend, and we had organized a road trip to that beautiful city on the water in Southern South Korea—famous for its sushi. I had managed to wrangle myself a gig, so that Saturday we would take the bus down to Busan, do whatever, Saturday night I would play a show (a little guitar and singing action), and Sunday we would go to the beach. Awesome.
We all met at the scheduled time (3:30am) at the scheduled place (MJs in Chungdae, Chungmun, Cheongju, South Korea… REPRESENT!!!), and everything was going fine. The sun started to come up and we decided to take off in the heavy mist of the morning. We had been playing pool, and part of the reason we were leaving is because one of the people we were playing pool with had been getting hot-headed and saying stupid things (mainly because he had been losing), so we thought it best if we just leave. I went to go say good-bye to the owner who was a good friend that hosted Cheongju’s open mic night (loving labeled Acoustica), and when I turned around I saw my friend get hit in the face. I don’t think our hot-headed friend realized what happened, and, to be honest, neither do I, but before the situation could be sorted out, all 6’4” 275lbs of me was on top of him, smashing his face into the ground telling him to cut it out, or we would seriously stop it. When I got off him I could tell he wasn’t done, so I picked him up like a baby and repeated the… um… threat. When I put him on his feet, you could tell he was still upset, but having experienced the ease with which I had dealt with his feeble British body, he decided to stop. We wandered off into the morning, one of us with a wobbly tooth and blood coming from a fat lip.
So, we proceeded to get shockingly drunk. It is what it is, they say. It certainly made the four-hour bus ride on a bus built for Asians more tolerable—most of which we slept through.
We arrived in Busan, secured accommodation (always take care of the essentials first), and then our little group split up. There were three boys and two girls, and we were only barely acquainted with each other, which meant that we had different agendas. One of the girls had a friend in Busan, she managed to contact him, and he had met them at the bus terminal. So, the three of them headed off on their adventure, and the three of us headed off on our own. They went to a temple, and we went hiking to a temple/hermitage.
I love hiking. There will never be a time in my life, I’m pretty sure, when the shocking beauty of nature is not the most pacifying moment of my existence. Where we walked has some of the best views of Busan that I have ever seen, and we all stood in awe for some time, marveling. Then, we made our way back to the cable car that would take us the rest of the way down the mountain. The cable car takes you about two-thirds of the way up the mountain—meaning that you have another two hours of walking (or so) to get to the top, but also meaning that it is about a four hour walk up and a two and a half hour walk down. The problem was, of course, that we had no idea which way “down” was AND it was getting dark. What to do? Fortunately, god-given Koreans that owned a restaurant near the cable-car departure at the top decided to help us out. This was interesting, as we had seen cars on top of this mountain, but we had often wondered how they got up there. Let’s just say that it involves one helluva lot of off-roading. So, the three of us went four-wheeling in a Land Rover a Korean couple that looked as if they were easily in their sixties. It… was… awesome, and we figured out how they get the cars up there.
When we got down, two of we three went to the spa—one person decided that he had been to the spa once and had seen enough penises then to last him a lifetime. Korean spas are separated into male and female and the rule is complete nakedness. Having spent most of my adolescent years showering with my wrestling team, this didn’t present much of a problem, and our other companion was a man from China—where they have similar institutions. The gigantic spa attached to the Nongshim Hotel in Busan is one of the greatest and most relaxing experiences I ever get to have. Love’s it.
But, it was getting quite late by now and I did have to play a show after all, so we went back to the hotel, collected our traveling companion, rejoined our other companions, and we all wound up at a very special place near Busan University called The Basement. This beautiful little spot (“A place devoted to subterranean living”) is, aptly, in the basement of a building, and the owner is a westerner from Syracuse. I played my set, it went pretty well, we all had some fun, and the owner invited everybody that was left in the bar out to eat—granted, this was very late at night and there weren’t that many people, but still… it was a very nice gesture, and he took good care of us. Call this a reckless plug for the Basement in Busan… GO THERE! Tell them Eli from Ochang sent you and you’ll get taken care of, believe me.
(There is a short bawdy story involving one member of our merry crew (not me), but this story is best left for another space.)
After stumbling home, we managed to pass out in our rooms and a-wait the dawn of the new day. We were going to the beach, but we had to get supplies first. So, we went into the equivalent of Wal-Mart Supercenter: Tesco’s Home Plus. We bought towels. Okay. I bought a capo for my guitar because I had managed to lose mine. This was a little bit unusual, as I had never before seen a music section in a Hope Plus, but okay. Also, I bought a set of stainless steel nunchuck’s from the sporting goods section… for the equivalent of $3.50. Yes, it was that easy. These things could easily level somebody’s head—thank god we didn’t have them Friday night—and I had bought them at Tesco’s for less than $5. I think that is the only reason I actually bought them.
The rest of the day was spent on the beach, laughing in the sun, wrestling, playing in the sand, walking through the water, and enjoying life. Towards the end of our stay, we decided it was time to sample the famous Busan sushi. For those who don’t know, sushi in America isn’t sushi. That’s what we call Gim-Pop—a rice roll (the California Roll, etc). Sushi is when I see the man remove two fish from the tank, watch him take them back to the kitchen, and return about three minutes later with sliced fillets on a bed of uncooked noodles. Freshest fish in the world. Delicious with sauce.
Well, we got so into the raw fish that we missed our bus home. Whatever, these things happen. So, we stayed another night in a hotel (a grand total of a $12 expense). We caught the first bus back in the morning and slept all the way to Cheongju. Then I got taken for a sucker by a cab driver, but was too tired to argue… because I was home.
The plan was to wake up in the middle of the night on Friday night, go into town, have a couple of pre-bus drinks, and catch the bus to Busan. It was a friend’s birthday that weekend, and we had organized a road trip to that beautiful city on the water in Southern South Korea—famous for its sushi. I had managed to wrangle myself a gig, so that Saturday we would take the bus down to Busan, do whatever, Saturday night I would play a show (a little guitar and singing action), and Sunday we would go to the beach. Awesome.
We all met at the scheduled time (3:30am) at the scheduled place (MJs in Chungdae, Chungmun, Cheongju, South Korea… REPRESENT!!!), and everything was going fine. The sun started to come up and we decided to take off in the heavy mist of the morning. We had been playing pool, and part of the reason we were leaving is because one of the people we were playing pool with had been getting hot-headed and saying stupid things (mainly because he had been losing), so we thought it best if we just leave. I went to go say good-bye to the owner who was a good friend that hosted Cheongju’s open mic night (loving labeled Acoustica), and when I turned around I saw my friend get hit in the face. I don’t think our hot-headed friend realized what happened, and, to be honest, neither do I, but before the situation could be sorted out, all 6’4” 275lbs of me was on top of him, smashing his face into the ground telling him to cut it out, or we would seriously stop it. When I got off him I could tell he wasn’t done, so I picked him up like a baby and repeated the… um… threat. When I put him on his feet, you could tell he was still upset, but having experienced the ease with which I had dealt with his feeble British body, he decided to stop. We wandered off into the morning, one of us with a wobbly tooth and blood coming from a fat lip.
So, we proceeded to get shockingly drunk. It is what it is, they say. It certainly made the four-hour bus ride on a bus built for Asians more tolerable—most of which we slept through.
We arrived in Busan, secured accommodation (always take care of the essentials first), and then our little group split up. There were three boys and two girls, and we were only barely acquainted with each other, which meant that we had different agendas. One of the girls had a friend in Busan, she managed to contact him, and he had met them at the bus terminal. So, the three of them headed off on their adventure, and the three of us headed off on our own. They went to a temple, and we went hiking to a temple/hermitage.
I love hiking. There will never be a time in my life, I’m pretty sure, when the shocking beauty of nature is not the most pacifying moment of my existence. Where we walked has some of the best views of Busan that I have ever seen, and we all stood in awe for some time, marveling. Then, we made our way back to the cable car that would take us the rest of the way down the mountain. The cable car takes you about two-thirds of the way up the mountain—meaning that you have another two hours of walking (or so) to get to the top, but also meaning that it is about a four hour walk up and a two and a half hour walk down. The problem was, of course, that we had no idea which way “down” was AND it was getting dark. What to do? Fortunately, god-given Koreans that owned a restaurant near the cable-car departure at the top decided to help us out. This was interesting, as we had seen cars on top of this mountain, but we had often wondered how they got up there. Let’s just say that it involves one helluva lot of off-roading. So, the three of us went four-wheeling in a Land Rover a Korean couple that looked as if they were easily in their sixties. It… was… awesome, and we figured out how they get the cars up there.
When we got down, two of we three went to the spa—one person decided that he had been to the spa once and had seen enough penises then to last him a lifetime. Korean spas are separated into male and female and the rule is complete nakedness. Having spent most of my adolescent years showering with my wrestling team, this didn’t present much of a problem, and our other companion was a man from China—where they have similar institutions. The gigantic spa attached to the Nongshim Hotel in Busan is one of the greatest and most relaxing experiences I ever get to have. Love’s it.
But, it was getting quite late by now and I did have to play a show after all, so we went back to the hotel, collected our traveling companion, rejoined our other companions, and we all wound up at a very special place near Busan University called The Basement. This beautiful little spot (“A place devoted to subterranean living”) is, aptly, in the basement of a building, and the owner is a westerner from Syracuse. I played my set, it went pretty well, we all had some fun, and the owner invited everybody that was left in the bar out to eat—granted, this was very late at night and there weren’t that many people, but still… it was a very nice gesture, and he took good care of us. Call this a reckless plug for the Basement in Busan… GO THERE! Tell them Eli from Ochang sent you and you’ll get taken care of, believe me.
(There is a short bawdy story involving one member of our merry crew (not me), but this story is best left for another space.)
After stumbling home, we managed to pass out in our rooms and a-wait the dawn of the new day. We were going to the beach, but we had to get supplies first. So, we went into the equivalent of Wal-Mart Supercenter: Tesco’s Home Plus. We bought towels. Okay. I bought a capo for my guitar because I had managed to lose mine. This was a little bit unusual, as I had never before seen a music section in a Hope Plus, but okay. Also, I bought a set of stainless steel nunchuck’s from the sporting goods section… for the equivalent of $3.50. Yes, it was that easy. These things could easily level somebody’s head—thank god we didn’t have them Friday night—and I had bought them at Tesco’s for less than $5. I think that is the only reason I actually bought them.
The rest of the day was spent on the beach, laughing in the sun, wrestling, playing in the sand, walking through the water, and enjoying life. Towards the end of our stay, we decided it was time to sample the famous Busan sushi. For those who don’t know, sushi in America isn’t sushi. That’s what we call Gim-Pop—a rice roll (the California Roll, etc). Sushi is when I see the man remove two fish from the tank, watch him take them back to the kitchen, and return about three minutes later with sliced fillets on a bed of uncooked noodles. Freshest fish in the world. Delicious with sauce.
Well, we got so into the raw fish that we missed our bus home. Whatever, these things happen. So, we stayed another night in a hotel (a grand total of a $12 expense). We caught the first bus back in the morning and slept all the way to Cheongju. Then I got taken for a sucker by a cab driver, but was too tired to argue… because I was home.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
A Few Questions
Can you care about somebody so much that you would rather deal with the pain of premature separation than deal with the pain of loving them even more? Or is that simply running away? Can you simultaneously run away and run toward something? Can you make decisions that would be called hard by some standards, selfish by others, ridiculous by still others, and incomprehensible by others yet? Can life become something other than you had intended it to be?
Because it always does.
Did you ever feel yourself sink, in just a matter of seconds, into a quagmire of incomprehensibility manifesting itself and cogency? Did you ever wonder stupid shit like this winds up a possibility: You’ve been shot on the hand with a Monster XL Machine Blaster filled with Root Beer. SPLAT!!! Click here to shoot someone back Water Gun Fight!? Or did you ever wonder whether or not there is value in things that are popularly considered to have value, only to find that the value that is placed there is misplaced there by an overwhelming sense of urgency to conform? Did you ever break something and rebuild it perfectly?
Because it always is.
Where have you been that you cannot remember? Where have you been that you want to forget? Where have you lied down underneath the stars, simply to be precisely where you are, and wonder at the nature of emptiness? Where were you when you thought to yourself that the nature of the modern world society, no matter where you are, is one of hopeless emptiness? Or did you manage to look at society and never find this to be the case? Where were you the last time you looked at somebody with the thought in your mind: I share the same genus and species as this person?
Because you’ve never been.
When was the last time you stopped in the middle of the road as you walked home from work because your mind had been working overtime and finally, finally, finally come to an understanding of something? When was the last time you unleashed your subconscious into a work of art? When was the last time you had a conversation with somebody that was actually worth a damn and not full of platitudes about the weather and the more recent Hollywood release? Or did you manage to make it this far in life without ever experiencing anything like that? Where is there peace in this world? Where is there understanding of the fact that a peace is not a where?
Because you never did.
Who am I? Who is the most important person in your life? Who would you say has influenced your life more than anybody else? Who can seemingly make you do anything—even the things you don’t really want to do? Who came into your life when you least expected it and significantly impacted it to the point that you would say they changed your life? Who broke you? Who says so? Who played with you? Who laid next to you in the morning light and reminded you that life is still beautiful because it has them in it? Or did you never ponder the importance of the other people in your existence and the effect they have on who you are? Who can say what is what? Who can say this is this? Who has all the answers?
Because it is always nobody.
Why do you continue to ask questions to which nobody has the answers? Why do you ask questions concerning history that is unchangeable and immutable? Why do you sometimes wonder why “Why” is such a difficult question to worked up about any more? Why is the reason behind something so often given so much importance that what was done is overlooked? Why does it seem that the real meaning of something that has been done seem so much like it isn’t the reason behind it, but what happened as a result of it? Why is that intentions are always so emptily reducible to: because I felt like I was doing what was right? Why is it always a question of explaining oneself, when then this is pretty generally an impossibility based on the movements of consciousness that, while perhaps known, are only partially able to be tracked and very rarely fully disclosed to even the one attempting the explanation? Or is it possible that Why is truly a silly question, laced with grotesque distortions of inexplicable motion? Why can I never fully understand? Why are you so beautiful? Why am I so ugly? Why am I so beautiful? Why are you so ugly? Why is life such a day to day existence, impossibly pinned down?
Because of is.
What can you do about it? What are you going to do about it? What are you doing about it right now? What is it? What is what? What is a word? What is language? What is thought? What is consciousness? What is religion? What is life? What is love? What is pleasure? What is pain? What is worthiness? What is authority? What is a regime? What does it mean to be so involved with existence that you miss out on existence? What does it all mean? What is god? What is it about me that makes me wonder? What is it about you that makes you wonderful? What is it that makes us wonderfully wonder? What is human nature? What can you gather around you in one lifetime in terms of goods and things and products and stuff? What can you gather around you in one lifetime in terms of growth and development and an experience of the possibles of the mind? What can you gain from stuff? What can you gain from investigating your possibles? What is it about revolution that is so goddamned appealing? What is it about human beings that makes them capable of deciding on a whim? What is it about me that drives me to question things so incessantly and accept only that which I come to understand gradually? What is it about you that allows you to accept wholesale what I sell you? What is it about you that makes you question in the way you do? What is it about me that allows me to accept in the way I do? What does it mean to be exceptional? What am I supposed to do now? What condition of the mind allows for this sort of thing? What? Or did you never realize the power of What? What can you make of it?
Because it is everything and nothing and something in between.
Because it always does.
Did you ever feel yourself sink, in just a matter of seconds, into a quagmire of incomprehensibility manifesting itself and cogency? Did you ever wonder stupid shit like this winds up a possibility: You’ve been shot on the hand with a Monster XL Machine Blaster filled with Root Beer. SPLAT!!! Click here to shoot someone back Water Gun Fight!? Or did you ever wonder whether or not there is value in things that are popularly considered to have value, only to find that the value that is placed there is misplaced there by an overwhelming sense of urgency to conform? Did you ever break something and rebuild it perfectly?
Because it always is.
Where have you been that you cannot remember? Where have you been that you want to forget? Where have you lied down underneath the stars, simply to be precisely where you are, and wonder at the nature of emptiness? Where were you when you thought to yourself that the nature of the modern world society, no matter where you are, is one of hopeless emptiness? Or did you manage to look at society and never find this to be the case? Where were you the last time you looked at somebody with the thought in your mind: I share the same genus and species as this person?
Because you’ve never been.
When was the last time you stopped in the middle of the road as you walked home from work because your mind had been working overtime and finally, finally, finally come to an understanding of something? When was the last time you unleashed your subconscious into a work of art? When was the last time you had a conversation with somebody that was actually worth a damn and not full of platitudes about the weather and the more recent Hollywood release? Or did you manage to make it this far in life without ever experiencing anything like that? Where is there peace in this world? Where is there understanding of the fact that a peace is not a where?
Because you never did.
Who am I? Who is the most important person in your life? Who would you say has influenced your life more than anybody else? Who can seemingly make you do anything—even the things you don’t really want to do? Who came into your life when you least expected it and significantly impacted it to the point that you would say they changed your life? Who broke you? Who says so? Who played with you? Who laid next to you in the morning light and reminded you that life is still beautiful because it has them in it? Or did you never ponder the importance of the other people in your existence and the effect they have on who you are? Who can say what is what? Who can say this is this? Who has all the answers?
Because it is always nobody.
Why do you continue to ask questions to which nobody has the answers? Why do you ask questions concerning history that is unchangeable and immutable? Why do you sometimes wonder why “Why” is such a difficult question to worked up about any more? Why is the reason behind something so often given so much importance that what was done is overlooked? Why does it seem that the real meaning of something that has been done seem so much like it isn’t the reason behind it, but what happened as a result of it? Why is that intentions are always so emptily reducible to: because I felt like I was doing what was right? Why is it always a question of explaining oneself, when then this is pretty generally an impossibility based on the movements of consciousness that, while perhaps known, are only partially able to be tracked and very rarely fully disclosed to even the one attempting the explanation? Or is it possible that Why is truly a silly question, laced with grotesque distortions of inexplicable motion? Why can I never fully understand? Why are you so beautiful? Why am I so ugly? Why am I so beautiful? Why are you so ugly? Why is life such a day to day existence, impossibly pinned down?
Because of is.
What can you do about it? What are you going to do about it? What are you doing about it right now? What is it? What is what? What is a word? What is language? What is thought? What is consciousness? What is religion? What is life? What is love? What is pleasure? What is pain? What is worthiness? What is authority? What is a regime? What does it mean to be so involved with existence that you miss out on existence? What does it all mean? What is god? What is it about me that makes me wonder? What is it about you that makes you wonderful? What is it that makes us wonderfully wonder? What is human nature? What can you gather around you in one lifetime in terms of goods and things and products and stuff? What can you gather around you in one lifetime in terms of growth and development and an experience of the possibles of the mind? What can you gain from stuff? What can you gain from investigating your possibles? What is it about revolution that is so goddamned appealing? What is it about human beings that makes them capable of deciding on a whim? What is it about me that drives me to question things so incessantly and accept only that which I come to understand gradually? What is it about you that allows you to accept wholesale what I sell you? What is it about you that makes you question in the way you do? What is it about me that allows me to accept in the way I do? What does it mean to be exceptional? What am I supposed to do now? What condition of the mind allows for this sort of thing? What? Or did you never realize the power of What? What can you make of it?
Because it is everything and nothing and something in between.
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