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.

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.

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.

Daily Meditation

2
On the traveling road, I can feel the weight of my soul.
It allows me to reflect upon my own inner face,
how I live within all of life's situations.
Traveling is no simple hobby,
it is a rigorous journey of regulating oneself,
an opportunity to rediscover the significance of life.
It is also practice for bidding farewell to this world.
--Beop Jeong ("A Though a Day")

(I have long lived by the principle that traveling is one of the greatest things to do on the planet--if only because there is a planet to travel around on (echoes of "Don't end your sentences with prepositions?). At any rate, traveling is simultaneously one of the most challenging and rewarding things a body can engage themselves in because it forces you to renew your outlook on yourself every time you come into contact with new people or a new place. That is the "inner face." You see yourself when others see you, and you see yourself (probably) more clearly when new people see you. People that have a history with you will see you tinted by that history, tinted by the way they want to see you, and tinted with the hues of whatever else they might know about you. New people will consistently judge you differently and force you to recognize yourself in a new way. There is absolutely something to be said for the comfort that is conferred by those that know you and know you well, but I think you would be hard pressed to find anybody who has truly had a "comfortable" life. Life is a challenge. It moves and changes. In a way, you could say that traveling mirrors human reality. We are constantly on the move from pure consciousness to object and back again: subject, object, subject, object. We are forever in motion, and traveling in the physical waking reality is sense is simply the manifestation of what we're doing internally. Traveling, I think, ought to be further refined to take on a kind of Spartan sentimentality (in the "sparse" sense), and leave the luxurious four-star amenities at home. We're talking here about moving and finding your way, not calling ahead and reserving a room. Traveling ehre is stepping into the unknown. People often say they are "trying to find themselves," and they usually do, but what they don't realize is that the reason they find themselves is the trying, not where they look. It is the seeking that is important, not the place itself.)

Confessions

I have spent most of the day crying at random intervals for reasons I can’t really explain. I have done things in my life that I can’t regret doing, and yet I can regret the fallout. Sometimes we all have to change. Sometimes that change has to bring with it a certain amount of pain. Can you imagine an existence, a person, who goes through life without crying? We are brought into the world crying, sort of an omen of things to come. Existence is a blissful agony. Sometimes we love to suffer. We think it makes us better, and maybe, in some instances, it does, but it only begs the question: “what is it about existence that necessitates this method?”

When we are infants, we cry because we are hungry, we cry because we are tired, we cry because, essentially, we really don’t know what we want. As we grow older, the reasons we cry might seem to be more diverse (i.e. the loss of a loved one, the end of a relationship, the past, a physical injury, etc.), but the reality is that we cry for exactly the same reason in all cases: we don’t know what we want. Even in the event of the death of a loved one, what we are dealing with is our inability to know if there is someplace for the soul to go, or, if you claim to “know” that, then if they went there, and if you claim to “know” that, then what to do with that part of your life that was devoted to that person. You don’t know what will happen now. I cry because I don’t know the answer to a question: “What now? What comes next?” The inability to know the future is the fate of humanity. We are always moving toward it, never away. We are pushed, impelled, prodded, poke, goaded, delivered to the future by unseen hands, and there is nothing we can do about it. We have to move. We have to change. Even in stagnation, we’re forced along by time and life to be something other.

In a very short period of time in my life, I managed to hurt brutally, callously, and unforgivably at least half a dozen of the people that mean the world to me. Because I couldn’t… what? Because I couldn’t know. I know that this is no excuse, but sometimes I feel like there is something inside me that I am heading somewhere that will make most people feel uncomfortable, and I can’t know what will happen as a result of this, and as a result of that, I can’t bring that pain on those people I love.

What the hell is a sacrifice anyway? There is no way to know whether a thing done is a sacrifice until the future, even if the intention might have been stated as sacrificial, especially because it is often that when we are dealing with in terms of sacrifice is the reality of the world of the sacrificial party. In ancient times, the sacrifice was always an animal, and that animal, without fail, was required to die. This is why Jesus was the sacrificial Lamb of God: instead of an animal, it was a human sacrifice. That is an awkward thing for me to think about. Did God initiate a human sacrifice? What does that mean? No, no time for questions like that now.

I, for some reason, was reminded that Regina Spektor is alive in the world and has produced four (pretty good) albums. This reminder sent me to the world that I had lived in only one year ago, and hearing the soundtrack of that time period in my life sent me surfing on waves of unintelligible emotions. I didn’t know so much then. I was lost in a world where I didn’t even know if my mind would be able to hold out, and I’m actually pretty sure it didn’t. I was completely out of control. Perhaps it is best if nobody knows what was going on inside my head at that time, but then again, it is nearly impossible for me to live in this world knowing that those thoughts at that time were what they were. Or, rendered perhaps more appropriately, knowing that there was no controlling my thoughts or myself or my actions, and knowing that I had no me to hold onto. I didn’t know so much.

“You are my sweetest downfall. I loved you first, I loved you first beneath the sheets of paper lies my truth. I have to go, I have to go. Your hair was long when we first met. Samson went back to bed not much hair left on his head he ate a slice of wonder bread and went right back to bed, and history books forgot about us and the bible didn’t mention us. The bible didn’t mention us, not even once. You are my sweetest downfall. I loved you first, I loved you first beneath the stars came falling on our heads, but they're just old light. They're just old light. Your hair was long when we first met. Samson came to my bed, told me that my hair was red, told me I was beautiful and came into my bed. I cut his hair myself one night, a pair of dull scissors and the yellow light. He told me that I'd done all right and kissed me till the morning light the morning light and he kissed me till the morning light. Samson went back to bed. Not much hair left on his head. Ate a slice of wonder bread and went right back to bed. We couldn't break the columns down. No, we couldn't destroy a single one and the history books forgot about us, and the bible didn’t mention us, not even once

You are my sweetest downfall
I loved you first.”—Regina Spektor, Samson

Sometimes I don’t know whether I am Samson or Delilah, and sometimes I think I’m both. I guess I don’t know. Maybe I don’t want to know. Maybe crying sometimes is what reminds me that I’m living. Maybe it is the knowledge that I have made decisions. Maybe it is the knowledge that I have screwed up some of the greatest things I’ve ever been given… consciously. Maybe it’s the knowledge that I cannot undo the hurt or the pain for any party involved. Maybe it’s the knowledge that I would probably do it all again—even if I might do it differently. Maybe it is my inability to understand my own world. Maybe it is the fact that I don’t know so many things. Maybe existence is too overwhelming sometimes, and if we don’t break down and cry at the realization of the reality of our situation, then we are not really realizing the reality that we are. Maybe it’s the fact that that which is called sacrifice by some is selfishness to others. Maybe it’s the fact that selfishness is the way we’re built (at least at some level), because if there is no self-preserved self, then there is no self to give out. Maybe I’m scared of what I can become. Maybe I’m scared of what I am. Maybe I’m scared of that which haunts the darkest corners and recesses of the deepest, dankest parts of my consciousness… those long-undusted corners existing in perpetual darkness and solitude, but existing all the same. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

The Value of Hard Work

In what might have been some kind of sub-conscious slip up, I almost wrote down for the title of this post, “The Value of Hard Words.” Perhaps it was just a mix up in the right and left hand digits, some wire that got crossed somehow—seeing as how the same finger on both hands is responsible for the D and the K respectively—but perhaps that is what I meant to say.

“In the beginning was the word, and the word was with god, and the word was god.” Word is god. I’ve been struggling a lot lately with the concept that we don’t employ language as a part of our existence, rather, that we are language. We exist language. Whatever it is that has brought us to this understanding, it seems to be a very real and difficult to understand concept.

I teach English to Korean children. My teaching strategy basically revolves around reading. Any time you are trying to learn a new language, there are four aspects that you must consider: reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Those are the four components of any language, really. I make every single one of my students read whatever the current passage is that we’re working on out loud. Sometimes, they get bored because, especially for the higher level classes, the passages can be long; however, when reading out loud, you are practicing three of the four aspects of language: reading, speaking, and listening. Once I explain this to them, they usually understand. Then, a curious thing begins to happen. They get noticeably better at the language.

What I have discovered is that when they are reading out loud, they are interacting with the language, and, by proxy, with themselves. That’s why reading is such a dangerous thing for your totalitarian regimes: any time people are reading, they are learning about themselves and understanding their essential freedom in the form of consciousness and understanding. When we read we understand that there is nothing anybody can do, as long as there is something there to read, about how far we can read (I meant to type “reach,” but I like “read” better) into our own minds. But, the turnaround is, of course that this is a lot of hard work. You don’t just pick up a book and not work through it. Even when reading for pleasure, there is a certain amount of work that goes into deciphering the symbols on the page.

Language, the thing that we essentially are, the thing that we exist as, is an exemplar of existence in that it requires work. Life ought to be work. Don’t let me be misunderstood here: I’m not saying that life should be about going to a job. There is a difference between going to a job and doing the work of life. I think I’ve said it before, somewhere, somehow, but your life is either your work, or your work is your life. This is why I will never rise to the top of a Fortune 500 company. In the words of Bob Dylan: I’d give ‘em my heart, but they would want my soul—and, believe me, I’ve been close enough to this situation to understand that this is exactly what they want.

I have also been thinking about words, and heresy has come up pretty often, because I have been thinking about consciousness, as such, and the nature of religion—especially in its Christian mold—and there seems to be a parallel in the structure of the trinity and the structure of human reality, and I can’t help but think that my thinking here is complete heresy.

The three aspects or manifestations of the almighty are God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Taken at a metaphorical level, God the Son is the physical manifestation of God, and this would represent the human body. God the Holy Spirit is the untouchable, but felt, essence of God that is haunting the world, and this would represent consciousness. God the Father is only knowable, only touchable, only approachable at a purely “real” level, after death. Oh, I understand fully from my years as the son of a Baptist minister and the grandson of a Baptist preacher that you can communicate with God every day through the power of prayer; however, what I am talking about here is approaching God in the sense that you can see him in his full glory in Heaven, you can eat at his table, and walk on his streets of gold. After going over the Nicene Creed, it is an understood part of church dogma that Jesus as God’s son was made of the same stuff of god and that he was not made, but rather begotten—meaning that he was always with god. In the same way, the Holy Spirit has always been. They are all manifestations of God. More accurately, they are all God. God is God. Jesus is God. The Holy Spirit is God. This only begs the question of me: what am I? Am I my body? Am I my consciousness? Am I the death that know awaits me eventually? Yes, yes, and yes. Also: no, no, and no. Just as god is not JUST God, or is not JUST Jesus, or is not JUST the Holy Spirit, I am not simply my body or my consciousness or my death. That kind of parallel structure is difficult for me to reconcile. Ah, faith. The issue isn’t faith, either, because what is implied is a specific form of faith. You can have faith in just about anything. Any time this fallback is invoked, in the sense of, “You just have to have faith,” what is really being said is: “You just have to have faith in what I and other people believe. You are not allowed to have another faith, because you’d be wrong.”

Do I have to believe in your shape of God? Do you have to believe in mine? What is the shape of God? What gender is God? Is he beyond gender? Where we created in God’s image or was he created in ours? There is something entirely incongruous about the image of god as a squishy human. As he exists in reality, God seems to be contingent on the physical human form to exist through, and that's weird to me. How can we be created in his image if he is omnipresent and omniscient? Or, did he have an image of us and create us into that, which would effectively make us a work of art? What are the ramifications of a thing like that?

I don’t really want to be heretical. I have a lot of work to do to understand this god character, especially now that he seems to be something of a metaphor of words. Or, perhaps, god is metaphor precisely as word is metaphor—there are hints of post-structuralism running around here. God is a lot of work to understand. God is a lot of words to understand. Words are a lot of God to understand. Words are a lot of work to understand. Work is a lot of words to understand. Work is a lot of God to understand. It would be a lot easier to just give up the struggle and go one way or the other: I believe in your Christian god OR I am an atheist. I choose to be other. I think I’m actively choosing, right here, right now, to engage in this struggle. Christian God is not winning right now, this is true, but who knows what happens when we truly engage and work out the words of God.

Scribbling

I oftentimes find myself someplace, it doesn’t really matter where, seized by the urge to scribble down some note or other. Last night, a piece from a napkin entitled: Buzz Bar, Since 2003.

“For some reason
the primal need to
lay words down on
a blank field is
especially strong and
who am I to resist
a primal urge, huh?
What is this thing
we call need? Really?
I have to… I have to,
what? I have to survive
and reproduce. Those are
the only rules, technically,
but what are the repercuss-
ions of the biological
imperatives? Art is the
abstraction of reproduction.
It is the essence of the
“I have created something,”
and this, if for no other reason,
is the importance of art.
The primal need to create
something other. Reproduction.
What do we make then of
the mass produced? That for
which production in a
quantity is the only rule?
Does quality always suffer
from quantity? (and vice versa)
Is it merely the result of
having so much that
we actually wind up
regressing? Is it not
the sheer possibility
of vacancy that truly
troubles us? The sheer
possibility of the very
real anything that
terrifies us? Do we
not, rather, feel far
more comfortable
in a world in which we
understand everything?
And to that end, do
we avoid the incomp-
rehensible nature
of reality?”

A little piece I call: Scribbled on My First Setlist, Busan, January 2009

“What good
are all those
pills if they
don’t actually
help? It’s all
personal.”

And finally, an ambiguous piece I call: On the Back of a Grocery List

“It seems as
though there
is an absolutely
necessary number
of things that
Must, Must, Must
occur to me on
any given day, and I
am either suffering
them or controlling
them. Today I woke
up late and didn’t get much
done this morning. I paid for it
later.”

What does it all mean? And why do I HAVE to do it, knowing I don’t HAVE to do it?