Sometimes when you're feeling down, the universe provides you with all the uplifting positive energy you could ever need. It has also been known to provide phenomenal amounts of negative energy as well, but in my mind, energy is energy and it doesn't matter where it comes from so long as it fuels the machine. To think of it another way, insults and compliments are both forms of observation. Someone notices something about you and remarks upon it in a positive or negative way. Since it isn't an actual charge, who determines that value?
I write like a "selfishly driven, narcissistic, overly sensitive woman, who has been hurt a lot" and I couldn't be happier. That's one hell of an observation and what different does it make how it was intended to be received? It's energy of exactly the type I need for this here digital endeavor. After all, I'm certainly selfishly driven. I've never shied away from that label because whenever I can wear it proudly, it's a nice fit. When it's a bit shameful is when it's offensive.
Selfishness is a necessary survival trait, obviously, you need to consume enough energy to survive another day. That energy needs to come from somewhere. Ultimately, all energy on earth comes from the sun but the only truly selfless entities in the chain are plants. They absorb the freely given sunlight and carbon dioxide and turn it into stored energy in their leaves and roots. Along come the animals that consume these living creatures in order to survive. Then come other animals that consume those and so on and the life cycle is interesting and all but not the topic of today. Every thinking creature exists at the expense of others. A little bit of selfishness is necessary, a lot of selfishness can be a bad thing.
It's like anything else in life, moderation is key. However, experience and Oscar Wilde have taught me that "nothing succeeds like excess." Like the raptors in the original Jurassic Park documentary, you gotta know your boundaries. If you never test your boundaries, how are you going to know them? Can you know yourself adequately enough without knowing your true limitations?
The phrase "speak truth to power" originated in 1955. It was about pacifism and love. The root of the saying comes from the heart. "Our truth is an ancient one: that love endures and overcomes; that hatred destroys; that what is obtained by love is retained, but what is obtained by hatred proves a burden." It is also from the Quakers and their horse and carriage riding friends, the Amish/Mennonites. Speak Truth to Power: A Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence written by the American Friends Service Committee.
The notion of speaking truth to power has far outgrown the humble roots it has in pacifism and blossomed into something more. I guess I refer more to the phrase, because the idea of speaking truth to the powerful is timeless. It's inherently human to question and challenge and fight. The irony that the phrase comes from an argument for pacifism is not lost on me, so I'm all right with continuing its use. Life is a struggle and at some point we all have to fight for something. I understand the desire to be peaceful but, a peaceful man can still avoid conflict while not being a pacifist. I'm somewhat peaceful now and it was a struggle to get here so I can respect pacifists even if I don't understand them.
Ghandi, MLK, Mandela, Tutu, and the actual Dalai Lama are all included in the introduction to the Wikipedia article. Obviously, these people would have still done what they did had the phrase "speak truth to power" not existed. The declaration of independence was a wordy way of telling the King of England, one of the most powerful at the time, to "kiss our ass" and there have been plenty of other instances across our history where truth comes at the powerful pretty fast. The ides of March is remembered because of the swiftness with which the Roman senate needed to speak truth to Julius Caesar. The "shot heard round the world" took out Archduke Franz Ferdinand to kick off the first world war. These are violent acts and while speech is not actually violent, I know some folks have felt violated after speaking with me. I know because they've told me so, and then cried, as if physically hurt. That acid tongued killer's instinct with words is what has cost me a lot over the years, but it's exactly what should be aimed at the powerful. It took me a while to realize it, but words can hurt other people though they may roll off me like water.
Family. We all have one, or had one. I don't think there's been any successful test tube babies gestated fully outside of a human but who the fuck even knows anymore? Human parentage can be a bit ambiguous with science playing a large part. If two genetic parents provide their samples, or whatever, and they're mixed up and added together in a lab. I imagine there would be vigorous shaking involved followed by a turkey baster of some sort? I'm no scientist so I can't be sure. Well, however it is done, if they do this thing, who are the parents? If you're genetically from two parents but you gestated in another, which is your mother/father? Does it actually matter?
This isn't a science post and it's not even going to be about the other kind of jeans. This is going to be one of those personal posts, where I just kind of type for a while and see what shakes loose. As opposed to the ones where I have a general idea (or singular topic) and just kind of type for a while and see what shakes loose. These types of posts here actually take some thought, not now though. Earlier today, or I guess it would be two days ago now. I decided it was time to talk about this stuff with myself and with whoever is reading this.
About a month or so ago I started writing again. There are loads of reasons and I've gotten into some of them already in that time period but one of them is this notion that I carry a weight. It's akin to guilt but a lot lighter, like a Halloween prop ball and chain. My actual guilt, the things I feel most sincerely about, I've never spoken of here and I still debate whether or not I want to re-live them, again. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. This will be about some of the stuff that makes my weight lighter or heavier, to me.
I remember one time, years ago when I was smoking a bit more weed than usual and had a somewhat steady supply of shrooms, I convinced myself that the lost city of Shangri-La was real and could be found if sufficient research was given to the subject. I spent a few weeks or months in the pursuit and eventually gave up because the internet doesn't have nearly enough information and I wasn't about to fly somewhere to be swindled by some counterfeit monks.
The whole thing left me with a bit of a sour taste for a while as far as cryptic lost locations go, then I'm pretty sure I got real into Lost and my interest was renewed with my palette cleansed. The focus shifted towards more reasonable lost locales such as Atlantis or Mu. Most folks may have heard of Atlantis because I think they filmed the Justice League documentaries partially in the actual city, but I doubt many have heard of the lost continent of Mu in the Pacific.
It's easier to lose an island or a city than an entire continent, so I'd personally like to try some of the drugs the folks who lost a continent were using. That's some super charged ayahuasca they were brewing, and they probably lost the recipe too, considering the continent. There's actually loads of people clamoring about a large landmass or something of the sort in the Pacific. It would explain (to them): lemurs, snake people, snake people and Maya hybrid languages, Egypt, Greece, India, Burma, the civilizations of South America, shape shifting humans, rosicrucianism, and the Turks, among others I'd assume. This is all stuff I read in that Mu article. Different folks think those things and peoples and cultures came from Mu, the lost continent in the Pacific that may have been up to 50 million square miles.
Mu is pseudoarchaeological, in the sense that it hasn't been proven to exist. I have absolutely no idea, personally, whether it does or not. I'm going to make some jokes about it here for a while and then conclude with something I think is insightful and hopefully you will too.
I had a run in today with a bolshevik sissy, Nikolai Bukharin. Well, I guess I kind of did and I only think he's a sissy because I'm searching for context as to why I'd write his name down in a notebook years ago. He was a typical bolshevik of his time: he rode the popular wave of snitching on his comrades until he didn't have anyone left to snitch on. Then, of course, conspiracies started to swirl about him which eventually led to his imprisonment and execution.
I'm trivializing the era of upheaval in Russia from the 1917 revolution to the great purges under Stalin in the 30s. It reads a lot like a soap opera and there's some serious thinkers thrown in the mix. I'm only saying Bukharin was a sissy because he wrote letters begging a paranoid autocratic lunatic (Uncle Joe Stalin) to spare his life. It's like asking an ice cube not to be cold and then becoming increasingly crazy as it refuses to cooperate. Anyways, I got caught up in reading a series of essays Bukharin wrote to Vladimir Lenin who was kind of like the first head crazy in charge over there after the dust settled and he was one of the least crazy of the time. It's interesting and there's some stuff I need to finish reading before I can explain to myself why his name is written in a notebook of mine.
Anyways, I took a break from that bullshit and decided to do a softball post about Viracocha, the Incan creator god. Or, kind of. "Viracocha created the universe, sun, moon, and stars, time (by commanding the sun to move over the sky) and civilization itself. Viracocha was worshipped as god of the sun and of storms. He was represented as wearing the sun for a crown, with thunderbolts in his hands, and tears descending from his eyes as rain. In accord with the Inca cosmogony, Viracocha may be assimilated to Saturn, the "old god", the maker of time or "deus faber" (god maker), corresponding to the visible planet with the longest revolution around the sun."
I'm gonna quote again from the Wikipedia after the page break but it's only partially because I said this was a softball post. And also, sometimes softballs can be hard, like when you take one to your soft... spot. I think it's important that I present the summary unedited because I want to explore some of the similarities between other gods and the like. Not in an entirely Joseph Campbell kind of way, but somewhat, enough for me to include this sentence with that link. There are similarities between creation myths but it's pretty clear that there needs to be because we all observe what seems to be the same reality that supposedly needed created at some point. Personally, I think the issue is beyond our scope, which is just a polite way of saying it doesn't matter.
One of the recurring themes here lately, due to events inside and outside my control, is thoughts. I guess I'm a fairly thoughtful person, but mostly because I think a lot and not because I am very considerate of other people. I can be, and I think that can be maddening to some folks who deal with me on a daily basis. I just often get preoccupied with other thoughts and kind of forget where I am, get lost in the moment, maybe? Space out, more likely.
I often find myself in peculiar situations because not only do I think a lot, I tend to think out loud as I do. When my cats are my sole audience it's just a crazy man in the garage, but when there's other people around and I do this, it can be very distracting to their thoughts. Or so I'd imagine, but that's a big part of why I think out loud. I want to elicit other's thoughts about whatever it is that is occupying mine. It's always nice to have a second opinion on things but it can probably be quite a distraction. I think it's overall a better situation to drag random strangers into your love life than to just stand there and stare at clouds for a while as you deliberate silently.
I'm sure there's a happy medium somewhere, but sometimes there are thoughts so persistent and pressing that you just have to deal with them immediately. The alternative, keeping them down and unthought, is appalling. It's also a recipe for madness because those thoughts eventually need to come out and if not now, they might at some other less opportune moment. I'm aware not everyone is quite as impulsive as I am with my thoughts, but they're not quite as impulsive with their emotions either.
Antonio Damasio is a Portuguese professor mostly responsible for coming up with the "somatic marker hypothesis" which is basically a theory that says our cognitive and emotional processes are impossibly intertwined. When we make decisions, we like to think that this is just a thought process. We think about the pros and the cons and then make a decision accordingly. Sometimes though, the decision is just a bit too hard. There's maybe a few too many variables and we leave it up to chance or talk it out with someone and come up with a decision, or sometimes we make no decision which is itself a decision, I think there was a Rush song about it, in fact. These have consequences and those shape our future decision making because they elicit emotions the next time you have a similar conundrum of conscience and can't decide. If you flip a coin for a hard decision and it works every time, does it actually work every time or do you just feel good about the consequences of a difficult decision?
I picked up an old notebook this evening and paged through it for some mild amusement. That wasn't my initial intent but it was still nice. Who doesn't like to laugh at themselves? Those people are too serious and are undoubtedly unhappy. If that's the life you'd like to lead, go on with your bad self. I just don't have any time for those folks. I really like to laugh at myself, in case you couldn't tell. You're always with you and if you can make yourself laugh, well then you can literally laugh whenever you want. Ignore the fact that people think you're crazy and that's a recipe for a happy life.
When I read a lot, obviously, I have less time to write. At the same time, my mind starts to fill up with thoughts. I try and get these down while I remember them and turn them into something worthwhile in the form of missives and mysterious one liners. Reading through them is like looking at an electron. One minute you have a good idea of what you're looking at but can't tell where it's coming from and the next you understand it but you can't quite make out what it is.
The beginning is as good a place to start as any, and the first fella up to the plate is Joseph Campbell. I assume I meant The Hero with a Thousand Faces, or at least the general ideas held therein. There's other stuff he wrote or was involved with but I know I was not reading any of his stuff when I wrote that down. That's kind of how he rolls. Joseph Campbell, or his ideas, tend to pop up anywhere or everywhere. Basically, it's the death and rebirth with knowledge cycle that a lot of myths tend to include. The very first time I came across this guy was in an Intro to Western Civilization or some such class way back in freshman year. That's literally half a life ago now, or very nearly. Unless you think I'm younger, then I obviously went to school early and especially didn't repeat preschool because I refused to socialize.
So it was my main Sumerian homeboy, Enkidu, that made me realize a lot of these old thyme-y myths were a little bit similar. Gilgamesh, Enkidu's other homeboy, gets in trouble and there's a bunch of shit that goes down but basically Enkidu dies and comes back with all kinds of cool trivia. Except it's like "hero receives aid from supernatural" and all kinds of stuff I'll get into shortly. I actually summarized it the other day quoting Kurt Vonnegut: "Somebody gets into trouble, then gets out of it again. People love that story. They never get tired of it."
I started reading again this week. It'd been at least a year since the last time I read something substantial. It seems so unimportant these days because we all read so much online, but reading memes and headlines means nothing. It's a passing idea and even when you get into something longer and more substantial, it's still only a little bit of curated information. This thing I do here seems longer on average than most of what I find elsewhere. It makes sense to get your information as quickly as possible so as to move on to the next whatever. However, it does something weird to my brain. Television has a similar effect, only horrifically worse.
Our brain is a muscle, right? Or something. A cursory glance at the human brain wikipedia entry leads me to believe that it's made of white and grey matter which don't sound like muscle tissue but I think the analogy here is still apt. I refer not to the actual physical brain itself being a muscle, but to the act of using it to promote strength. The more you use any "muscle," the stronger it will get. Neuroplasticity, or something like that, is the brain's ability to "get stronger," in this scenario. It's important to explore the nuances of any topic for "mental strength" here, but when it comes to reading, I just pick up a book and it's a handheld nuanced story to occupy my thoughts for a time.
Obviously, sometimes they're terrible and I want to throw it out or burn it or something equally dramatic. I don't, usually, but occasionally I do. It's harder to burn books when they're e-books but it's still possible. This particular book was all right. It was Kurt Vonnegut's Sucker's Portfolio, and it was just all right. That's not really important to me. I've read plenty of terrible books for different reasons and this was probably the worst reason I've ever had. Obviously, it was the realization of how long it'd been since I'd last read anything real. And if you check that out, it'll only take a few hours for the whole thing even if you don't read very fast, which is something I noticed had slowed since last year for me. I'm not sure if you'd call a collection of short stories something substantial but it was enough to get me started again. I tried to kill so many brain cells over the last two decades that it's well past time I try and grow some back.
The last year, if you've been following along here at all, has been a kind of busy one. At least in the sense that I've been working on myself and my health and everything. Cleaning out my spiritual closet, so to speak. It's like one of those Narnia closets where it's way bigger and there's all kinds of shit on the inside that shouldn't be there. In fact, it's a lot like a magical realm, but it's all blood magic and dark rituals. It's been a battle and the struggle has been very real, especially lately. I've been fighting real and imagined monsters and I didn't have the time to read, or the inclination. I've picked up other hobbies like starting fires and lock-picking, but I never circled back to the one thing that truly started everything about me... reading.
I never really talked about the corona. I probably never will get into it like I should, because it was just too fascinating. There was too much shit to get into and I think it's too fresh now anyways to give it a good analysis, a real thorough examination or whatever. Any time you apply pressure, interesting things happen. The corona was a legitimate experiment to me due to all of the interesting and unexpected things that happened. I spent most of the time getting in great shape, physically. Now that it's over I still need to get some mental things in order, though I definitely worked on that too it faltered on me recently so I know I still have work remaining.
I think I had a natural reaction to the events of the last year or so. Not that other people's reactions are unnatural, but they kind of are... you'll see. The biggest change is that I no longer watch the news. At all, as in follow or pay attention or any of that. There's this whole issue I have with the media dating back to ... well, always. I'm a student of history and the media will always be fucked. It can't be beneficial in the way it ought to because of nuance. If you had the whole hour to tell one story, maybe you could make it work. When you try and share complex issues to the masses in 5 second blurbs, you're gonna fail. That's idiotic to even attempt, unless you don't really give a shit about sharing stories or "news" but instead want to sell stuff.
The news, and I mean all news media: internet, print, television, even the stuff you find online, is disingenuous, at best. It plays into this voyeuristic thing humans have where we want to know, but we don't want to spend the time actually doing the learning. Give me the info quick and I'll move on is what we want but what we need is to sit down and dissect something to truly understand it. I don't know how to fix news media other than making it inaccessible to the masses by mandating long-form publications. Think like Ken Burns documentary style, or at minimum those NPR and PBS style interviews. I actually think Joe Rogan does an excellent job of this but it's not because he's particularly bright, but he can be insightful and he's curious and he's chosen the best medium: ask some questions and it takes as long as it takes, for the most part.
Lack of nuance is also what's wrong with the political process, and democracy. Depth of nuance is what makes the world outside of all that stuff so worthwhile. It's complicated and interesting and infinitely fascinating. Every single person you will ever meet has a whole story you'll never have enough time to hear because we only have so much time. I'm pretty sure there's a German word for that time of thinking but it's a bit late to be doing research.
I'm not trying to say we shouldn't be informed but that other shit is going to keep happening whether we know about it or not. Circling back to the corona thing, at the beginning I was following with interest this story about a virus in China and everything. I was on it, I was also on alcohol. I had a steady, free supply of it and I was going hard. That's my default speed: full tilt like a Peterbilt. When it's good, it's the best. But when it's bad...
Then, I had a moment of clarity and I said fuck it. I turned it all inwards (slowly, not overnight) and went hard on fixing myself. I just had a strong urge to insert a sentence here stating more or less that my old lifestyle was acceptable though not for me, that's not true. We should be healthy, and I'm here to help anyone that wants to be healthier. I still have some questionable health habits (e-cigarettes and loads of milk shakes) but I use skim milk now so it really is a brand new day and if I help you, you'll help me learn more about the human condition. After all, that's what's most fascinating of all.
Anyway, I then spent the rest of the time slowly turning even weirder than I was before, weirder and much stronger. I did not expect to get this strong. I knew what I was doing because see above about my constant erection for nuance and I'd done this before. Getting my life together was actually harder the second time because I didn't really want to, I even debated suicide a few times. And with any good story, the darkest part comes right before the brightest: that obviously didn't happen and I went HAM this winter. I was out in the dark putting in work. I was out in the cold getting larger than life. Now I feel like I just need to adjust my eyes to the light of day and see what shakes loose.
The corona virus made me so sick I had to get healthier than I've ever been. It was a metaphorical sickness but the result was real and now I've got my mojo back. So, thank you corona virus? For that, but for all the other stuff? That wasn't so great.
I'll post something more coherent soon, but this was fine for now. It's late and I've things to do when the sun comes back up. I'll include a media element here for the corona.
It's something inherently obvious when you watch interactions, but you have to pay close attention. Of course, I refer here to the way people ought to handle insults. I sling these types of things around like I'm a lunch lady and it's all you can eat pizza day so it's hard for me to miss but it may be something those of us less insulting than I may have trouble investigating.
When you're insulted you can react in different ways. You can take the insult personally and get offended that someone would ever make such a comment about how your ass looks in that sundress. It's 2021 and I'm allowed to wear what I'd like. If someone thinks I have a fat ass in my sundress, then I'm gonna shake that fat ass. Preferably in their face, because they're obviously admiring it enough to comment. I'm such a nice guy I wouldn't even charge my admirer for the booty shakes. Maybe you can see what I did there?
The other way to handle insults is the only rational way, in my opinion. Anytime anyone makes a constructive comment (insult) about me, I lean into it. Someone says I'm stupid? I ask them to teach me how to read because it's hard for me to admit that to a lot of folks. Someone says I'm incompetent? I'm the most incompetent person that's ever existed and it's actually my first day this week I had my shit together enough to even make it here and I definitely wouldn't trust me to fix whatever it is you want fixed.
This is the one thing those LARPers that call themselves improv groups have right: "yes, and". They do that thing where they agree to whatever they're pretending about and then try and come up with something to add to the bullshit on stage. This type of bullshit has no place on stage, firstly. If you're going to put on a production, put on a production. Don't invite people to your stage to watch you fuck around with your idiot friends. Sit down with those idiot friends before the audience gets there and think of something worthwhile to perform. Secondly, what a bunch of degenerate assholes, they're worse than vegans and hate being called LARPers because it stands for live action role playing and that behavior is significantly different from live action role playing on a stage because of reasons.
I guess that kind of sounds accurate, right? I "sound like a woman who's been hurt a lot", but don't we all from time to time anyways? I think a better way to describe this emotional roller coaster I unleash every couple days is "working through some shit", clearly. In my mind, that's just been these past few weeks because of what I assume is the universe's way of making me do some kind of penance for the misdeeds I've unleashed upon it. At some point in the somewhat near future, I will return to the monsters series, but for now I think it's best I keep it light.
When I stop and think about a woman who has been hurt, it's not an insult. Everyone hurts sometimes and some of us hurt all the time. The woman aspect doesn't bother me either because I've always thought my words were aggressive and too masculine for the average person. Injurious insults and colorful compliments are commonplace here, though I suppose those are as gender-less as any other words. It's 2021 and gendered thinking is out the door. Unless, of course, your language has gendered words, like a lot of languages other than English. This is basically like a whole other post, but I sometimes wonder what the gender discussion is over other languages with gendered words and professions and such. It sounds way too nuanced to come up in many mainstream locations but I expect there are some wonderful words to read on this subject somewhere on the internet, hopefully here on the internet soon.
It's complimentary, in a way. If true, that is. I'm conveying emotions, though they may be too much and the words used to describe this thing here, this confessional corner/diary/creative outlet thing... This thing where I send people when I want them to know me better... This thing that scares people away, lures them in, or most often just confuses... This thing where I "sound like a hurt woman", has a long history. If it were a human, it'd be in high school? Maybe it's older, but it was definitely held back for attendance and behavior issues. There's a ton of shit to unpack here on this thing and here I will attempt to do so, and briefly, since it's nearly 2AM and I've things to do when the sun comes up.
We all have days or weeks where we're not ourselves, not fully anyways. Of course I'm me, who else would I be? But sometimes, every once in a while, things get a little out of hand and you can't be the fullest you that you want to be. At least, not to the rest of the world. When the universe kicks me in my dick, I normally get a little introspective and try and see how I can maybe do better the next time she pulls back for a field goal attempt between my uprights.
Sometimes, no matter how you look at it, you can't do any better. That's because the universe wants to humble you. You get thrown such a wild pitch that you're just in awe of how beautifully strange things can become. Then you realize you shouldn't mix baseball and cosmic metaphors because your message becomes muddied. Then you just keep plodding on because it'll probably work out in the end.
Which is exactly what you have to do when you're left with your mouth hanging open from the shock of how little the universe cares about you. Winston Churchill said "If you're going through hell, keep going" or something like that and it's pretty apt for what I'm talking about here. Imagine going to a restaurant you think is like any other, they will have food of some kind and drinks, probably. There will be some shit on the walls, there will most likely be some kind of dress code for the staff, and you'll shove the slop down your throat and have a great time. That's what you think you're getting, but then the luscious hostess pulls aside a curtain behind which is the most delectable buffet you've ever seen. You'd heard tales of such grand places but never thought they existed.
You have the time of your life and you feast upon the bounty of the harvest. You're drunk with hedonistic pleasure as you fall peacefully asleep dreaming of another trip to this paradise. But it's gone, shattered. Maybe it was an illusion? Maybe I'm just being overly dramatic. Probably both? Somehow, that makes sense. Somehow, I keep going.
Her name was Estrella and she danced to the tune of the universe. That sounds dramatic but it's about as accurate a summary as we need for this type of story. You see, Estrella wasn't a dancer and she wasn't some type of sorceress. She was just a woman, but that's definitely trivializing things too much.
Estrella had all the womanly qualities you'd expect in someone worth telling a story about: fair hair and soft skin with a graceful elegance. Her eyes could launch a thousand ships if she were born in another age. They were piercing, yet gentle and the corners crinkled with every pleasant thought. When you looked in them, you were lost. Only for a moment though, as time seemed to stand still and a warm embrace wrapped around you, encompassing you but tantalizing you at the same time with youthful playfulness. Mystery and magic lurked around every corner if you imagined seeing the world through such wondrous orbs.
Her lips were divinely inspired models of cherubic delights. They enticed and allured with their beauty but the words that issued forth over their rippled crests were like music. The kind of music that you hear when a thunderstorm beckons on the horizon. It snaps you to attention so you can listen to every word. The angelic lilt accompanied the inquisitive voice and you found yourself lost in a siren's call of ideas and emotions the likes of which you've never known before or since.
Estrella's dance was the most magical of all. It happened like a bolt of lightning and the effect was much the same. Watching her wiggle to some tune you weren't sure you were even hearing had a hair raising effect. It wasn't scary but it was filled with anticipation, like when you're about to do something exciting and you've been waiting for years for that moment. She exuded hope through every pore and you could almost smell it over her own intoxicating scents. She smelled sweet and floral and earthy like walking through the woods after a late spring rain.
Such a cosmic being couldn't stay long, after all. Estrella wasn't meant for this monstrous world. Such magnificence can't spend much time with monstrosities or it will eventually be tainted. She's gone now, but the question remains: was she even real?
I have a few ideas of some stuff to write but they're still underdeveloped. If this is the first thing you've ever read here, that might sound normal. If this is not, you're well aware I rarely have a developed plan or any kind of plan. I just sort of start with an idea and see what happens. Today, I have no starter idea, I just felt like I needed to write something. I'm not quite ready to dive deeper into my memories to get down any more about monsters and I don't feel right discussing fitness when I skipped my Sunday morning run.
Everyone has off days and everyone should take days off. I get at least one relaxation/recreation day per week and I think it's important for overall health. On days like today anything is possible. There are trees to cut, bridges to burn, and minds to mend. Or something like that. A day off from worries can be a day on to heavy exercise, or it can be a quiet day with a book. I think the point of mine is to have some sort of improvement, no matter how small. I remember every once in a great while I used to spend the entire day sleeping. I would hydrate and use the bathroom as needed but otherwise just sleep. An entire day of fasting, quiet meditation, and rest.
Maybe it's a bit indulgent to take a day every week for yourself. Obviously, you can't always take it entirely alone but you can schedule things or say no to trivial nonsense to allow yourself a day where you spend it in pursuits that make you feel better. You don't have brunch if you don't want. Say you can't go, don't be specific, and sit at home and type up some bullshit on the internet instead.
One of the many ongoing themes here is philosophy. Philosophia is Greek for love of wisdom. In this pursuit I think we should find ourselves at all times, but this here will probably be enough for today. There's branches of "Philosophy" that are interesting and pertinent to today, but not necessary to discuss one of my personal buddhas: Bruce Lee. Some things I say here could have lead the initiated to the conclusion that I think Bruce Lee was everything we should try and emulate, which is kind of interesting considering what he had to say on the matter: "We have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate. We
cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything that has its
roots in us. The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing
alone; we are not alone when we imitate. It is thus with most of us! We
are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay." Simply put, standing on the shoulders of giants means you're not alone.
Solitude is a place I've come to know intimately. I think it is actually the only place where you can get any real self reflection done. You can quiet out the other voices, silence the weariness in your soul, and focus on learning yourself. Socrates, another philosopher, said "the unexamined life is not worth living." He's right but it's also impossible not to examine your life from time to time. It's learning and almost everyone is capable of growth, it's whether we do it or not that makes the difference.
This type of growth is inevitable but if we embrace it, truly magical things can happen. Everyone's journey is unique and as far as I can tell, everyone's journey is uniquely fascinating. What we need to do in an ideal scenario is to stand on those shoulders to get us to the next plateau where there's firm ground in which to set our own roots. Using the wisdom of the past to guide our minds and hands towards the future is what I so eloquently stated in another post was (paraphrasing) "old fucks that were only half full of shit arguing with each other and occasionally finding a nugget of truth."
In order to receive any of this wisdom, we need to be receptive and open to the journey. I can remember plenty of times where I've known better and did the "wrong" thing anyways. It's maybe a bit of insanity, but it's inherently human. We try and we fail and we fail some more until we eventually figure it out. Every once in a while someone slips in a pile of shit and comes out smelling like roses, metaphorically, but human history is mostly a series of failures marked periodically by some great success. Someone wrote about this stuff, I want to say Malcolm Gladwell in Tipping Point but I don't think that work encompasses what I'm talking about here. Human successes are paradigm shifts in collective thinking and action, human failures are everyday occurrences.
Once in a while we fall in love. It can be for a moment or a millennium. Maybe you've fallen head over heels in an instant or it could be that it took years to develop the rock solid understanding that is your love. Some folks have never known love's sweet embrace while others abuse it like a drug.
What you do with your love is your own business. You can give it away daily or keep it forever. What I do with people's love is, I guess now, everyone's business. With this pretty beginning, you may have already guessed this is going to be an ugly story. I like to mix it up instead of mirror things. I suppose the way I look at things at times is as if through a distorted lens, but I'll get into that another time.
Think of that which you love. That's a weakness, it's a vulnerable spot. If someone were to take it away, you'd be hurt. You might be devastated. You might even laugh because it's so absurdly painful. When you love another that is capable of love, you expect some love in return. Not always, though.
Comfort. Familiarity is almost the definition of comfort for a lot of people. That which is familiar isn't necessarily comfortable all the time, but there's something in our minds that just likes the routine. Some dark recess of our older brain that still wants the routine all the time because that's the easiest way to survive. Familiarity becomes part of our habits and ultimately, part of ourselves.
Stuck in a rut. Think out of the box. New experiences. Et cetera and so on.
We acknowledge our routines and suggest to each other that sometimes all you need is a break from the ordinary to cure what ails you. That can be true, but it's more like lip balm when you should actually just drink more water. It's a shortcut method of fixing the problems in our lives. In fact, getting away from your problems or drinking your time away to forget about them for a few weeks or months at a time is no way to actually deal with them.
Familiarity also breeds contempt. If that which with you are familiar is no good, you will eventually suffer. We can take a break or a day off or go on a month long cruise but if the issue isn't resolved when we get back, the cycle repeats. Getting away can be a kind of drug and it's definitely intoxicating at times to see new things and explore but it has to be for the exploration and novelty itself. If you run from your battles they will only return, or worse, pursue you into the places where you wish to hide from their baleful gaze.
The one thing you need to deal with the problems of familiarity is courage and they're at odds with one another and always will be. Courage and strength are needed to conquer the insidious evils of settling.
This was short. Maybe it was sweet. Here's a youtube, for certain.
