how it works

empty self; negligence of thought, so as to be creative; the universe is a series of contradictions trying to work themselves out, be courageous; so as to not succumb to a despair born of comparison, find piece/peace.

empty, create, put forth, find piece/peace.

infinite jest

If everything is but a progression towards one phrase.. 'I love you,' 

then I would think it comically tragic if life were not an infinite jest.

If everything is but a recession from one phrase.. 'I love you,'

then I would think it tragically comical if life were not an infinite jest. 

As it stands, life is a jest of infinite proportions.

You are here to probe at my deepest held sentiments, so that I don't seek refuge in the recesses of conditioned response. 

And I, to you. 

Lose my mind, find my body. 

Out of my head, into the music. 

Less about me, more about you.

Less about you or I, more about us. 

I hope that my children, upon reaching that stage of development whereupon, in reminiscing, they come to find that those motherly words of wisdom were more than just words, can remember "my mama told me there'd be days like this."  I hope that I can teach my children to love, not loath this cycle of  bliss ~> wonder ~> despair ~> neutrality..... so that their whole lives are not neutral, emotionless, loveless. So that they can stick it out through the bad times and remember that the good times will pass too. So that they are able to empathize, be compassionate. So that they don't just have to sit idly by during a downturn and watch the sky change colors because there is nothing else to do, but that they watch it change because there is nothing they'd rather be doing. 




SEXISM 


you allow me to be me. you give me what I lack. my mama always told me to be able function independently. but i want to always be lacking something. empty somewhere, waiting to be filled, the continuous progression towards and recession from 'i love you.' because if i am full, independent, strong, then i can't be in love, because i'll have everything i need. you allow me to be me and i'll let you be you and together will have never felt so good.  

Acidic Reflections of Trips Long Past, Still to Come, and Never to Be

It was just me and you in the room, in bed, swaying to oldies. It was the only place I wanted to be and I found that I was happy that I didn’t yearn for something more. I imagined everything other than this room, this feeling, and you to be impersonal, unfamiliar, and frightening. The city is big yes, but more importantly fast and cut-throat. These four walls will protect us. But then the four walls caved in, got closer and closer like I was being strangled and I felt claustrophobic. I needed to go out and be amongst the impersonal, the scary, the unfarmiliar so that I could appreciate the mundane. I needed to explore! I needed to do things I’d never done before! Get dirty, feel unsafe, cry a little! I imagined life as a big adventure or a mystery waiting to be solved and I wanted to solve it! Life is waiting for me out there! What the hell am I doing in this room staring at a picture? But then I convinced myself that I shouldn’t need to do that. That I should be able to conjur up gratitude, peace, and contentment from somewhere deep within my soul. And every decision felt so weighty, so full of “what-ifs.” I was in prison, a mental prison. Is there any other kind?

Everything was big and scary. Everything was small and intimate. Nothing felt good. Everything felt good. I had no idea who I was or how to be myself. I was myself and it felt so good. 

I found the bad music and the sky turned dark. My attention turned to all of the garbage lying around me and the crowds of people checking their cell phones and complaining about the light drizzle. Then I found the good music and it was bliss. Colors were brighter and my focus drifted towards the happy, dancing people, the careless ones. I danced and thought to myself “this is it! All you have you to do is tune into the good music!” Which is very different from finding the good music.

Inklings of that earlier ‘weighing down’ episode kept creeping to the forefront of my consciousness. I could feel them coming on – those doubts, those “what-ifs?,” that gal in my head trying to convince me that I should try and find a way to enjoy things that didn’t feel right. But I had found the good music and I was determined to keep it playing for as long as possible. And so I shooed them away and felt empowered.

What if this never ends? Or, worse, what if it’s already over and I just don’t know it. Or, better, what if it’s a glimpse of eternity that I’ve just stumbled upon. The beginning of the collusion of trips long past, still to come, and never to be. The sky doesn’t turn dark in the winter and colors aren’t more majestic in the fall. It’s my own undoing and redoing.  

whyyy

 Less in my head, more in my body.

the way this cycle keeps appearing in my life is interesting…….

bliss ~> wonder ~> despair ~> neutrality. 

 Learn to love the circle? Or live into the neutrality? Wade in the peace? I guess it's a matter of choice. I guess I haven't lived long enough to determine whether or not this circle is sustainable, desirable, inevitable or something that diminishes with age. The magical space where music meets circumstance seems to only happen in movies now. Ironically, most of my most magical musical moments have been completely silent. And I’m beginning to feel as though the hues in this circle are beginning to dim. Like the bliss isn’t so blissful anymore and the wonder isn’t of such depth and the despair isn’t of such heft. Like everything is becoming more peaceful. Like everything is magical, wonderful, wistful, and sorrowful, but in a peaceful sort of way. Like I’m ok with not being ok. And then again maybe this is all just fictitious.      

follow your bliss.....

Having any sort of hate in my heart or ill-feelings towards another makes me feel self-conscious. And I can tell when I am self-conscious because it becomes hard for me to move/speak/act and dance fluidly. And when I am not fluid then I am participating in the achievement of life rather than achieving life. I know this because if there is hate in my heart then it is because I am measuring another person up against some standard as if I, myself am somehow justified in making and passing such a negative judgement, as if I myself have been measured against the standard and have proven to be so much more. Being preoccupied with negativity/jealousy/bitterness/loneliness… any such emotion or negative state forces me out of my authentic, transcendental self and into an ego-driven flytrap that needs feeding. It means that I am focused on achieving things, which means I can’t relax and be affected by the ebb and flow of life’s many forms and affect them authentically as well. And then I won’t be able to follow my bliss because I’ll be unable to open up my mind enough to figure out what it is.

Anyway, I am slowly learning why nurturing a spirit of love/empathy/compassion is important. Before it was because someone/thing/doctrine told me so and then it was because putting something loving out into the world was usually reciprocated with something loving in return (made me feel good - and if I'm only acting a certain way because I know i'll affect someone else in a way that will turn around and positively affect me...... ). Both of these things are predicated on recognition, on achievement. The first involves achieving acceptance and appraisal by whomever/whatever it was that was telling me that I should act a certain way. The second involves achieving a desired emotional state. This latest reason feels like the most selfish reason of all, but really it is the least because it does not require anything of anyone/thing; it requires no recognition or achievement, no celebration, or faux reciprocation. It's simply what makes me feel the least self-conscious and therefor the most deeply happy- feeling like myself. 

What is the secret of the timeless vision? From what profundity of the mind does it derive? Why is mythology everywhere the same, beneath its varieties of costume? And what does it teach?

let me love you by doing things with you that you don't want to do, things that are in your...our... best interest....not by indulging with you in fantasies of the flesh, offering you something that you can lust after or helping you satiate some need to feel coddled, being inordinately agreeable, spending a lifetime perfecting the art of cordiality, and i hope you would do the same for me. and i hope that i never become so disenchanted by my surroundings, by so many people hooked on a feeling that i don't appreciate this divine act of love. hooked on a feeling, i'm high on believeing that you're in love with meeeeeee. the more time i spend with you, the more intimate I become with you, the more I  learn to to love you, the less inclined I am to gravitate towards temporary fixes. happiness is already inside of me, no need to put on a show or lust after one. things are great right here, truly. and whenever I start to feel anxious, like they are not, I start searching. i can picture myself going here or there or playing this role or that and it feels good to remember just how adaptable i can be. but really, things are great right here. i am monumental, and so are you.

honestly..?

I’ve been having trouble writing an honest blog for a really long time. Probably because I have a few people who read my blog and have strong opinions about right/wrong that make me feel like I can’t express myself as honestly as I want to.

Ironically, the person who introduced me to the idea of hating a person was the person who taught me the most about love. Self-consciousness always gets in the way… of everything! I grapple with self-consciousness all the time. About how important “me” is and how much of myself I should let go of in the name of learning, feeling, and sharing. I’m definitely attracted to things that require you to surrender yourself for something bigger- I think that maybe everyone is. Playing music with others is one of these things. Dancing is another. Theater is another. The military is another. Spirituality is another. I’ve noticed this most recently in teenage girls trying to learn how to move and be in their bodies. I can’t teach them as well as small children or more mature gymnasts because they are too busy thinking about how they look etc. etc to really allow for freedom of movement. This is who I am when I am at my best – carefree, giddy, silly, focused. People tend to love me when I’m in this state (which is cool feedback) and I love myself too and I try to be there as frequently as possible.

But there are things that get in the way of me being there. These things are all fears. The fear that I don’t have a solid, consistent, core group of friends with whom to share things with. The fear that I’m not consistent enough myself – too unpredictable for people to accept or rely on. The fear that I’ll get sucked in to contributing something(s) that are less than honest to the world, that I’ll have offered a series of facades or episodes in which I’ll have introduced a self that was really not myself for some superficial, ulterior motive like security.

I’ve been attracted to musicians for a while now. Namely because you have to lose yourself in the music in order to play good music – transcend yourself. I've found some free-spirited dancers who are like this too, and I love them just as much. 

 This is what you tried to beat out of me- any iota of self-consciousness. You said it in so many ways and did it mostly with music. I have to make some decisions now, like where to move to, whether or not to be in a relationship, how I’m going to survive, what kind of direction I want to steer my life in. Really, though, almost anything is enjoyable if i can get to that place.

I’ve experienced some divine moments, some really loving moments. Some of them have stretched on for long periods of time. Others have been fleeting glimpses of bliss. But they all make me think about eternity. And I've experienced some really scary moments too - mostly those involving loneliness.

Bonnaroo was great, again. But there, just like in Cali, NYC, with any sports team or movement-based discipline or any group that has any sort of an identity at all - I could almost instantaneously discover the "formula" for what it took to become a member of the "music festival" gang or the hippie gang or whatever you want to call it- consumerism gives you a good idea of what you need to do to be a part of whatever it is you want to be a part of. ironically, the very thing that i was initially attracted to because it offered the appeal of carefree unself-consciousness, out-of-body, love and connectedness proves to be just another example of role-playing - namely hippie culture - listen to the grateful dead, participate in some drum circles, get some dreads, do a lot of acid, smoke a lot of weed, wear earthy colors and tie dye things, talk the talk, walk the walk - consumer culture gives you a pretty good idea of how to be whatever it is you want to be and other people let you know whether or not you are successful at whatever image you are pursuing by accepting/rejecting you through the manifold ways we have to communicate. But any time I've found myself gravitating towards fashioning some predictable/reliable imagine of myself is when I've felt the most empty - like a walking advertisement or a visual math formula - nothing genuine, nothing honest.

ironically, the jist of this blog is the thesis for almost every piece of academic work i've had to write for school - maybe that's why school was so enjoyable for me - because I wrote honestly about transcendence and connectivity and roleplaying and the many ways that different cultures/political groups/artists/other groups of people do it. But then towards the end, I had thought about this so much and knew it so well in theory that it started to make me angry that it was so pervasive and I stopped knowing it in practice.

Really knowing something is so painful. You have to be so brave, so willing to get hurt.

What I know is that I can feel when I’m in love – it’s effortless – and I can feel when I’m not in love – it’s when I’m focused on image maintenance or preservation of some scene. Sometimes I’m unable to get to a place of love because my mind is clogged up with so many different fears. Consistency is I guess my main concern at this point in my life. There was a brief span of time where I felt like life was about adapting. In order to be in a place full of love I need to surrender any idea of myself as maintaining some sort of image or being an agent in helping to preserve some schema. I guess this is what I mean by “consistency.” It’s what puts the majority of people at ease I suppose – but maybe that’s only because the majority of them are also trying to preserve some sort of scene, whatever it may be, because then everything is OK. And if that’s what it takes to have a consistent group of people in your life or a consistent anything than I’m not so sure that’s what I want. I want to be consistently in a place of love, surrender, sillyness. I guess that is ultimately what all of these quirky little fall-backs are for – blogging, callisthenics, music, theater, my box in the woods, spirituality, books, movies, games, whatever whatever – in order to feel good and have fun doing any of them I need to surrender and sometimes they help retrain me, refocus me on that ultimate task when I’ve lost my way.   

I hope to offer something genuine to the world –whatever I do, whoever I’m with, wherever I am. I hope this blog was honest.