Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Intensity

I spend much of my lesiure time these days emerged in heavy reading through which, I have gained a new grasp on the ideas of Thich Nhat Hanh, T'ai Hsu, and similiar scholars. How incredible is it that we, as free thinkers, have soverignty over ourselves? Sometimes I lose sight of myself in the midst of the changes in my life, to whichever extent they may occur. Usually people become busier and busier, day after day, especially in our fast-paced world.

Revisiting old, familiar places after a long time, I am continously astonished by these very changes. They cannot be helped. Yet, if an individual allows herself to become completely involved in the excitement of her busy life, she will be lost. The solace I have been searching for will allow me to keep my mind calm and constant so as to keep me away from the noisy world, even though I am gridlocked in the midst of it. The strangest part of all of this is that the reading I've done is primarily regarding zen. Yet, zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our everyday routine.

I have spent the past twenty-three years, my entire lifetime, hoping to live and to love with an intensity which I've only ever honestly been able to posess in art. It is an intensity which describes the relative purity and visual strength of color. I suppose what I ought to seek instead is a world in which the colors are subdued, reminiscent of a work by Whistler and more in sync with the sublime found in art and literature.

In the romantic era, that sublime became of it's own importance. Revealing what was felt took precedence over reporting what was seen. The value placed on the intuitive and emotional romanticisms was anticipated by that very essence. I felt for a long time that I was at a standstill. I would swallow that lump in the back of my throat and share the words, 'I love you' with someone whom I did, in fact, care for tremendously. Only, realizing then that I'd arrived at the point in each of our lives where we need to surrender ourselves to defeat. The reality that resulted from that situation was that the man I'd spoken to was unable to hear me anymore. Our hands were sad; our bones grew tired; we were choking on dirt. Because we are human, we enjoy all aspects of life as long as we protect ourselves and keep our guard up. I do this by looking at my life as an unfolding big mind, I do not care for any excessive joy, so I have to carry imperturable composure.

I have spent a wealth of time being angry about the way things have turned out with my relationships (at every level), hoping that the sun would suck the earth dry and my pain with it. I wished that it were physically possible to stab the skyline until it blead and I knew that it would make no diffrence because blood comes from privilege too. The final conclusion is that to find true peace, we need to be the peace which we hope to see. I hurried myself in intensity because I wanted to make that impression on those around me and upon the world. In all actuality, I feel sublime in wilderness landscapes, storms, melodramas and in simply being with someone who acts like we are the happiest people on earth. The other side is to let go of the past and recognize that althouh, I often wonder and hope for only the best for those I have lost along the way, I wonder where I will be when they find it.

Monday, April 12, 2010

Bruce Lee and Charles Bukowski


Charles Bukowski wrote, "Often the best parts of life were when you weren't doing anything at all, just mulling it over, chewing on it. I mean, say that you figure that everything is senseless, then it can't be quite senseless because you are aware that it is senseless and your awareness of sensselessness almost gives it sense." To carry on with the redundancy, this makes sense.

The past few days I have spent doing nothing along set guidelines. Even my professional life these days is not scheduled, where I come and go as I please. Yet I find myself feeling quite content. Only recently I was heartbroken, lost and clinicallly depressed; while I still suffer from each of these, I can think more clearly and am learning to cope with each burden seprately in its own right. The people which I surround myself with lately have helped tremendously. I used to see the world like Bukowski which was, to say it bluntly, not the most pleasant of viewpoints.

And how is it that I ever believed I'd seen the world in one clear way? Well, it's simply that I am foolish and naive. I, in all honesty, don't even know what it means to be 'worldly'. As it is here, a figure of speech, it probably means to be a rogue of sorts with no care for god. In this sense, pretaining to the people or laity' secular, not ecclesiastical, religious, et cetera. It doesn't even have anything to do with actually 'knowing' of the world. People have often said I speak and write as though I've experienced a lot, like I'm some worthy person of offering my opinion, and worse, them seeking it. These are people whom believe that I have the ability of stating my feelings clearly. While I am flattered by their assumptsion, I wonder why it is that this claim is made. So lately I've been taking a closer look at the dynamic. Based on that observation which my friends and colleagues make, I believe that I have somehow exposed myself and therefore, am projecting my shame and embarassment onto these people (and that includes you).

I look at writing like any other, often more illustrative, art form. Take for example, documentary photography. I guess that wehre photography is concerned, I've always thought that a photographer's goal was to leave those viewing her subject asking questions. The other goal would be for the photograppher to try and keep herself out of the photo and to let it play out like a narrative. Granted, it is the ultimate conclusiion that the artist behind the camera is, in fact, a part of her photo in tone alone; yet, at first the goal being very much evident.

Rhetoric is just one of those arts. It is the art of writing or speaking effectively. In a lot of ways when I write online, I can share this goal by leaving my identity behind. I can virtually disappear, had I choosen an alias. Unfortunately, it seems that those individuals reading this see past the cold feeling of plack text againgst the glow of a white screen and the emotionless fromat in which I write. I don't expect words to touch any person and I'd prefer that they don't. some people reading this haven't got a clue about me. They might not even know my name which is ideal to me (I realize this is impossible for those reading via facebook). I feel sometimes like it'd be much easier to live where no one knows my name or my story, instead they just had this, a raw jumble of words and a great hope for making sense of things much larger than the human mind.

Sometimes I watch old clips of Bruce Lee (something I first learned to do from my friend, Holly). I love his knoweldge to flow and let flow. "Be like water," he says. While I would love to know and understand the true weight of water, I am walking lightly upon a virtual tightrope. Conflicting emotions in the face of certain change are perhaps understandable from an on-looker's perspective and perhaps might be the reason those around me seem to proclaim I think and write logically. It's the sorting out of those emotions which is more difficult than undergoing the actual changes in my relationships; be it intimate, friendship or immediate to my family.

So while it all might seem clear as you sit on the opposite of this screen, and my hope is that this will; I sit and type what seems redundant and crazy. There is no sure way of knowing that a sound mind will be able to create that same stability with words on paper. Language and existance are questioning. That might be the bottom line and I struggle daily to accept this.

Choices are often the precursor of fears and always the initiator of free will. I'm working toward a lifestyle in which I act to exercise that very free will; directing my outward actions toward choices that will serve my destinyy (as the saying goes, "check yourself before you wreck yourself". Unfortunately, wondering the entire time if the drugs and past relationships have already 'wrecked' me). Fear must be controlled or transmuted if ti's truly personal growth that a person is after, but fear can be useful to showing exactly where she may need to go to achieve those very choices. I dance around subjects sometimes because I have A.D.D. and also because it's much simplier than facing them head on. So one might imagine my confusion when friends and strangers alike approach me, believing that any of this is logically in place.

The point is that I'm finally understanding that fear is not the only option; choice is. I think of how ridiculous it is that people actually believe I make sense because it's a jumble of a sorting process - everything I post here. It's my self-help, you could say, because I'm too frugel for buying pyschology books and too embarassed to check them out of the librray. I'm insane. Nonetheless, I believe that any person can be at peace, emotionally, the very instant she chooses to be. with awareness and a healthy dose of detachment, a person can exercise her right to choose which emotion serves her moment to moment. Now, THAT is a new feeling!

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

F@#k You!

Bitterness is all the rage. It is an element of human emotion that destroys someone inside and out. I think anger fortifies a human being and cannont be realized until a woman stares herself in the eye and feels comfortable with that reflection. My rage is something that I work diligently to contain. I keep it locked up and hidden from those who surround me. This is not to say that I am some woman who ought to seek anger management, but to say that when I do infact become angry, it effects me severily. My body shakes with discontent. I do not eat properly nor sleep regularly and focus soley on a vexation which is never human.

So a man comes to me and says that I have upset him. This man is angry with me and confronts me soon after realizing his unhappiness. He says I have caused him great stress while I cannot seem to fathom how it is that I am capable of changing someone else's feelings. We have never been lovers: never been enemies.

I keep as much of my time locked up as possible. Perhaps this is why I do much of my writing and communicating with others via the internet. I don't need to go away to see them or talk, not that I am totally against those types of social interactions. Likewise, I don't need to open my door to them, allowing them to look at my books, the foods I eat, the bed in which I rest, et cetera. There is a tremendous comfort in keeping people at bay. I figure I can save time by refusal to share mine with anyone else. This way, I'm at least in theory prolonging my own time.

At any rate, I stand confused by this man's accusation. I have vexed him? I have irritated him? And how so? My very lack of presence? I feel as though people get angry at their connivance, as it is something to do. I feel sometimes that people don't know what real hurt is. I wonder how it is that a man can overlook the fact that the pain or aggravation in itself is a presence. People's arguments are often aimless and without grounds. In this case, I never said I would be somewhere and later was not. I never changed my mind in a last minute rush, I simply did nothing. Imagine that!

So this would-be-friend wants to ridicule me for an aspect of social longevity which I have never possessed. I wish often that I'd be more prone to get togethers and cute little encounters; unfortunately, I am probably in that classification of loners and hermits. I'm more independent on a serious note. I can have my brief encounters with people but they are no more intimate than brushing against a stranger in a crowded avenue. I simply like to stay in and theorize, imagining that one day, I may have thought something through enough to make a difference.

So go ahead, be bitter. Get upset. Lash out. I really am made of steel. It doesn't matter in this moment, hasn't been thought-provoking in moments passed and will not sustain into tomorrow. Keep your memory of me and all the stress I've created. I am a monster and even monsters are tangible.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

You

I sit here with my old dog, getting closer to eternity all the time, and it gets very depressing. What can I do? I had high hopes in myself and in the idea of an "us" over the past couple of years. It seemed we all did. But what does an evil old recluse do now that he's finally made it to his destination? Now that he's finally there in a crowd of strangers and he's hurt the one person who swore she'd never hurt him? Just sit and be evil? This is something quite difficult for any human, I imagine, unless he is an adept at evil and a 'made-man'.

The lack of overhead light lends a special dreary look to my bedroom. I'm surrounded by bitter reminders every day; the muddy snow outside, the gray-blue landscapes, that moment before the telephone rings and the sigh I'm forced to emit when there's no one on the receiving end. These streaks of dull russet ink make me sick but it's really no match to the disgust I feel knowing that I'm going to try again.

All I want to do is make an offer; start fighting and you will know who you are fighting. There is always a fight here. This is a war universe. I'm not afraid of being alone. This is the inherent way of life. I have realized the emptiness of anger and conflict that exists in our lives. I know the illusory nature of victory and vengeance in our world. There is no holy grail. There is nothing gratifying enough about being human which urges me to surround myself with another. Likewise, there is nothing intriguing nor passionate left in the person I once craved.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Some Religion

I am twenty-three years old, curled in the fetal position on my bed. I am a grown woman so lonely, I have twisted my body into a knot so small that I feel it may be tight enough to make me disappear and I hope that it does. I turn the air conditioning on and have striped myself bare; I'm shivering just to feel alive and wondering if I ought to feel this way at all.

How a person gets here, I wonder while the tears fall from my face. I'm writing at my computer so I don't have to blur pen ink across pages that I'll give back to the eath in days that pass. Nothing can stop the dark, dingy purple shades from creeping into my eyes from lack of sleep.

In Taoism, an affinity between life and death is part of the answer to either one specifically. In this particular moment, I don't even know if life is something to desire yet alone ponder the depth of. I started studying the Tao from afar as an activist dimension, believing that life could be prolonged by drawing on it's power. This by all practical definitions alludes to present-day fitness regimes having been prefigured in Taoist philosophy and practice: meaning that some things in modern society which exist make sense. These are aspects of life such as diet, exercise and using natural substances to strengthen health. Chinese alchemy focuses greatly on life prolongation and it was mirrored later in western development.

So while in bed, shivering in the cool air, thinking, crying and not wanting to move which included the contraction and expansion of my lungs within my chest. I am torn between two vicious choices. Do I continue to live and wonder in a cruel body which grants me a sound mind capable of thinknig and feeling-hard-to-swallow emotions, or do I die and perhaps reach the end where nothing is certain? Thinking of life, people are at least implicitly thinking of death. Human beings, being free-thinkers, are attracted to the idea of a life that somehow flourishes and renews, continuing despite a universe that seems so finite.

I used to listen to the story of Messrs Ssu, Yo, Lai and Li over and over again as a child. It was my favorite and perhaps is the reason I am so interested in the belief that those characters follow (the Tao) to this day. Anyway, the story goes that these four guys are good friends. They get together on a reagular basis in search for the truth from everything very complex to things quite simple. Ultimately, the friends realize that language will not help them. Well, one day, Lai gets very sick and it is obvious that he will die soon. His family is very upset by the news so they surround Lai to share stories of his life and sob in memory. That is, until Li shows up and tells them all to leave. Shh! Don't interrupt the process of change! He says. It is then that Messrs Ssu and Yo return to speculate with Li about what is to become of Lai. How extraordinary the great creator of life is, they imagine. Where will he go? What will be made from him next? They wonder until he dies and the three remaining friends return to their quest for truth.

The truth is that for now, I feel content. I can swallow my bad days in a few cool moments where I sob like a baby, but I surround myself with a solid, daily solace of generally good company. I realize that I am no Taoist nor do I seek to become one, but I find great comfort in knowing that in a place so far from here, there are people contemplating, with great discomfort, the same philosophical and religious questions I struggle with on a daily basis. It is time for some rejuvenating.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Mind Play

"The creation of something new is not accomplished by intellect, but the playing instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the object it loves" - Carl Jung

Does a woman find her life in drugs for the same reason? I guess now my time as a user is all distant memory. In the moment, I found drugs a colorful arrangement of temptations for which I could play and be played with. I was not initially uncontrolled or completely dependent on the substances which I surrounded myself with. I found them an inlet to another state of mind or sense of emotion. It was much like the way I view artwork, granting it a power of influence great enough to arise various feelings. Art fails when it creates no alteration of it's viewer's emotion.

For a moment when I was eleven years old the world felt right. I had taken my first hit of marijuana and actually felt like i'd let it drag enough to feel that high. There is nothing in this world quite like the first puff of sweet, sweet green and the way her scent lingures. I think my interest in marijuana was out of curiousity at first. I was big into poetry then, too lazy to read novels, and I can remember it vividdlythat I'd been reading a book of Whitman when a friend passed the joint toward me. I inhaled, exhaled and thought for a few momemnts that I'd reached that point in life where it truly is as good as it gets. The next line I read was, "to be surrounded by beautiful, luminous, laughing flesh is enough," and it was on that day.

Later the weed I smoked was never good enough. I had smoked so much so frequently in a craze that my tolerance had built up and in many ways peaked. I could smoke in a circle of friends watching as they'd get high. I could smile, laugh and feel decently but I wasn't getting high anymore. I didn't feel anxious or paranoid and my laughter was not that of a mind on drugs. I thought about leaving and never coming back because I needed to find something that would make sticking around worth the while. It got to be hard to fly.

I suppose my first addiction was to pills. Opiates could kill me and not in the same context that they'd kill most users by overdosing. I am fatally allergic to them. I think I took ecstasy because I longed for that company of mind and would settle for the company of body which rolling brought. I needed to be with a lover those days and I never actaully knew what a lover was. Ecstasy was an entirely more complicated sense of awareness than just that of strangers and the contact which I desired from them. The lights were better; the music became enhanced. It created a surrounding that urged my body to move; to dance. I would breathe faster than I could think and often felt overheated. I remember a few times when there were sober, clean kids around just wanting to move and shake. They would offer water to users including me but too much water could be dangerous. In fact, everything in life seems potentially quite dangerous especially love and that is primarily what I was after. People's emotional lives are not linear like their waking lives. I wanted to find a source for all of the emotions of abandonment and loneliness I was going through. I figured if I had sex it was the most secure and passionate thing I could do. Instead, sex provided a certain numbness. It was that feeling of nothingness that made me feel tremendously uncomfortable and so I sought new medication.

Methadone is a prescribed drugused to suppress heroin addiction, often in amounts so high that hardcore junkies can harvest addictive qualities for it. I had a friend that was messed up on the needle and she never took the meth to get better so I took it because it was there and it was inexpensive, comparatively. I suppose it took about a week to become addicted and then it wasn't a matter of getting high, but being happy. Meth was one drug, one aspect of my life, that never wanted anything from me. I liked that for once in my life, I was the user.

LSD was a way to get away; it was a place I could visit and leave my body all together. I did some crazy things in this state. I remember taking showers fully clothed on a number of occasions and thinking I was somewhere very diffrent. Then I would lie on my bed or upon the floor drenched and wonder why I was so cold. It never dawned on me that I had just been in the shower. In many ways there is a part of me that went missing when I became hooked on LSD. I got caught up in discovering just how many areas of the brain are used for vision and I needed more than life to expand my line of sight. I'd hallucinate before I would ever consider closing my eyes. In some respects, I still feel this way only it is much more readily available to paint or draw than it is to take an acid trip. Now I can think back and it makes fair sense. I feel like I'm back on the right track but the reality of it is that I was not living then in this reality so I will never truly have those years back. It's just a memory of them which is difficult to take in sometimes.

There is a part of me that thinks this was crazy and irrational behaviour. I find myself thinking back on my life in the past only to discover that I've left every aspect behind without any hesitation. Every past relationship and many friendships, I have just taken off and figured the other individuals involved could use a little neglect seeing as I had endured a great deal up to that point. I guess, despite the loss of memory, rages and pits of depression which I'd gone through back then, I turned out okay. I might have a skewed way of laying it all out and I find myself restless with people more than I'd like to admit, but I have survived it and many people that care so much for junk like I did, don't survive. Twenty escasty tablets could have killed me and there were nights when they ought to have. I certainly don't know the reason that I breathe tonight, but for once, I can safely say that I'm okay with it. I'm a pretty damn thankful lunatic.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Medicine

It's a pity, to me, that before people learn to think philosophically, the world becomes habit. It makes me wonder if people might somehow lose the abilitiy to wonder about the world - the great mystery.

I have always desired an inquiring mind, this paired with an enigmatic world. I don't think I have ever gotten used to the world. Is it habitual? Yes; more or less. I wake up and fall asleep. I attempt to have meals throughout my consciousness. I meet people, maintain employment and have interests. In this sense, I am living. However, I refues to join the apathetic and indifferent. In this sense, I am being.

I have been thinking a great deal about medicine and health lately. Perhaps it is that my dear friend is visually dying in front of me. Perhaps it is some innate reason, already inside of me; my loneliness, maybe. What baffles me most is that there is no satisfactory explanation for it - no assurance that a person who thinks clearly will be able to live contently under the influences of some perscribed stability.

Medicine is perhaps the art respected by all men in all times. When socratic irony fails, it is drugs that work. I don't think of my flaws as mental or physical imbalances, but rather a belief that nature has gone off-course. Health, likewise, requires more than a sound body and a sound mind. It takes moderation of all things, harmony and a healthy lifestyle.

I also consider 'right' and 'wrong' and how these play a role in medicine. I have a pretty good understanding of them by society's definition. If a man lies, cheats, and steals is it right? No, not by society's standards. Is the man happy? I don't know, yet I suppose that he is and therefore pass no judgement. This is much like my inability to speak up in relationships about the parts that may cause my restlessness and insecurities. It may not be healthy, but I think it's habit. People accept the love they think that they deserve.

I suppose I used thought to participate in life. I wonder too much, maybe, about one small detail in great depth until I feel like I comfortably understand it. This letting the quite that results from thought, put things where they're supposed to be. This saves me a great deal of talking aloud with other people. I figure that the world is much too old for us to talk about with our new words anyway. It sets me up for disappointment, so I just assume pretend that my lips are chapped to the point where talking hurts - remaining mute.

This is, perhaps, the same reasoning that differentiates those drugs and medication from god and spirituality. With religion and theory, people observe everything in unison and harmony; with drugs and medication, they become a part of it.

One of my girlfriends told me the other day that I'm "maniacal". I grinned, shrugged and suppose that places me in the lightly sinister category with all other subterraneans with their maniacal overtones, and I don't feel so bad.