Mock Me

Too much mock meta-physical/philosophical gobbledeygook running around here.

Can't wait until the weather turns warmer so that I can sit outside on my patio, fire up the barbeque and listen to steaks sizzle while I sip a nice cold beer.

Stretching the Happiness

Cycles. The moon rises and falls, new moon to whole moon and back again. The sun rises and sets. The seasons spin, hot to cool to cold and back again.

Even in our personal lives we seem to behave cyclically. One moment ecstatic, one moment livid, one moment depressed, one moment shamed, one moment fearful, one moment contrite and back again to happiness.

I'm wondering if leveling the emotions so that they don't mirror the much larger and longer moments in space/time would do us all some good.

Progress

"Suffering is our experience of the distance between what we are and who we wish to become."

Robert Fripp

Work Related

Busy at work and flying for work and thinking about work and suffering for work...

The Dreaming

The dreams lately have been mostly of an...um...erotic nature so I won't write about them here simply because I don't feel they reflect any deeper value. As letters to the editor of various adult magazines though there may be some value of a, shall we say, more superficial nature.

The Reason Not to Listen to U2 Late at Night

It's about the search for meaning of course. Not the scientific and rational how do things work, why is the sky blue, how can fish survive hundreds of feet under the sea, but the true search for why is my sky blue and if it weren't what would that mean to me and you and what does that have to do with fish under the sea, why nothing of course only it's all inter-related and what affects one affects the other.

It is about finding a way to live a spiritual/religious/ritualistic (whatever you want to call it) life in a wholly rational yet insular world with wholly irrational (to the beholder) occurences.

Interiors

Still thinking about Hunter S. Thompson's death...Killed himself with a shotgun it seems. Got me thinking how some of the toughest exteriors hide the most brittle interiors.

A problem with many boys growing up is that they're never taught how to express emotion and therefore never learn how to deal with feelings in a constructive matter. They are left to cope the best way they know how and often it is not sufficient to get them through adulthood.

Thompson also seemed to be a product of his times. Talk and walk tough. Show the world the man and then end it all in a blaze of...something.

I will be re-reading many of his books over the next few weeks.

Hunter S. Thompson R.I.P.

Damn.

Hunter Thompson died today. By a self-inflicted shotgun no less. Another victim of his own created identity perhaps, a la Hemingway.

I started reading Thompson fairly late in life when I was less impressionable and so the glamour of the drug trips didn't affect me so much. What I did like about Hunter was and is just the sheer humour in his writing. Even when he was deadly serious about a subject, Nixon say, or guns or drugs, he was damn funny. Read any of his books and they are like nothing you've read anywhere else. Part journalism, part auto-biography, part creative fiction, part social commentary, part travelogue and all guts.

The Curse of Lono, ostensibly about the Honolulu marathon, has just about nothing to do with running races but it doesn't seem to matter because whatever Thompson did write about is far more interesting. And did I mention funny?

I mean here he is in Las Vegas to write about a stock car racing event, blasted on every drug known to man and lizard-kind and he stumbles into a national DA’s convention on narcotics…bad craziness indeed.

He could also turn a phrase with the best of them. "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro", "Generation of Swine", "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas". I think if I had ever met him I would have been scared shirtless or in such awe that I would have babbled incoherently and I would have ended up just another drunkard or failure to maybe write about or not.

He changed what a journalist could write about or which stories to cover. He put himself (or at least what he wanted us to think was himself) right in the forefront of the story and yet still kept a part of his intellect back to observe and report on the craziness. He often created the craziness even if only in his head and then put pen to paper. He demonstrated that you could literally write anything you wanted and if it was good (or very funny) people would read it.

He had a distinctive voice, both in his writing and speech. He was himself and that was the most important thing I liked about him. Still do.

Plus his road trips sounded better than mine.

“We were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I remember saying something like “I feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive….” And suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to Las Vegas. And a voice was screaming: “Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?”

Hunter S. Thompson; Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas; page 3; Vintage Books 1989

Happy Again

And just as suddenly as it appeared, the sickness is gone and all is renewed and happy again.

Don't Mean a Thing

Violence begets violence.

And all the sorries in the world don't mean a thing when you're sobbing because the one you loved and protected you opened you to the world.

Dream - 3

Fragment (as most of them are):

I am in a building waiting for a large elevator, looks like a freight elevator, along with two other people, male and female. The elevator opens and we get in. I press the RC button and thrown off-balanace when the elevator starts to move sideways. From then on the elevator moves up and down and sideways but always unpredictably and never for long in one direction. The couple seems not have any trouble, but I can not get retain my balance for long with all the changes in driection. I wake when the phone rings.

The interesting thing is that this building and elevator are familiar to me from other dreams. It seems to represent the work life, or business, or capitalism or perhaps my life. I'm not sure. Need to visit some Jungians.

The Mouths of Babes

"Is he a good guy or a bad guy," she asked.

He's both. He's good and bad because he's honest," he replied.

To Begin Again

Thinking about yesterday's post.

I hope to some day have the courage to inquire further into where I came from.

It would at the very least make for a good story.

At the very most, it would allow for a beginning to end and a new beginning to begin again.

On the Turning Away

My grandmother passed away a few weeks ago and I still feel nothing. It's not I like I didn't know her. Though she did live in another part of the world she had stayed with us for several months in the late 70's and I had visited her for a few weeks at a time since then. It's just that we never really grew close or indeed, knew each other at all. I always had the feeling that she saw too much of my father in me and instinctively turned away. I also felt that the sins of the grandparents were being visited upon the grandchildren. Her own relationship with her daughter (my mother) was strained though I have not had the courage to dig deeper. My feeling was that I was a secondary thought to her, much like I believe my mother felt growing up. I'm not sure what she felt for me exactly if anything at all so even though I am probably projecting, I don't wonder that I feel nothing. It's all very sad really.

Remedy

Still sick. I'll just turn over now. Goodnight.

Video Killed the Radio Star

Sick as the proverbial dog. I'm under the covers listening to the radio like I used to do when I was a wee lad.

Late nights listening to west coast baseball games, sports talk shows, and the occasional live concert. There was a station that played live shows once in awhile and I vividly remember listening to King Crimson's last date at the Spectrum in Montreal in 84 which just blew me away. Roger McGuinn on solo guitar was another that had me late for school in 79. Triumph's launch of an album I can't remember now, Men Without Hats, The Smiths...

Remember when we used to get excited about the next release from a musical group?

The Moderns

See, now I did it again. I read the newspaper this morning and can't get stuff out of my head. Just like the pharmacist tells you to take the anti-biotics for the full ten days it says on the bottle even if you are feeling better, I didn't take my own advice.

One of the perils of modern man/woman. Information overload creates paralyses. Discuss.

The Value of Sesame Street

It looks like the hitmaps link is broken because for the past month and a bit it continues to show the same number of visits. I haven't tried to repair it because the outfit that was providing the free service no longer provides a free service but is supposed to maintain the existing users.

Q: Why should I even care if anyone is reading this?
A: I shouldn't.
Q: How do I stop from caring?
A: Understand why I care.
Q: Why do I care?
A: Weird form of validation...narcissism...mistaken belief in the meaningfulness to someone other than me...pointed stick.
Q: Which of these things is not like the other?
A: OK, I get it now. I think.

The Try

So it's been about a week now and I haven't read a newspaper. Not even glanced at it except to read the comics.

And guess what? I feel great!

I have enough stress at work and home without having to take on the additional pressure of bad news elsewhere. Does this mean I don't care about seismic issues or corruption in the corporate world or terrorism masquerading as religious will? Of course not. I care deeply. After all, I am part of humanity and what happens "out there" affects me as well. But it was starting to influence my behavior; actually, I was letting it influence me much too deeply. Now that I have backed off, I can attempt to learn to ingest stressful news without letting it affect or influence me.

The attempt is what matters ultimately. The try.

Dream - 2

Another fragment of a dream last night. Might be work-related...I'm not sure.

I was a demon-hunter. That is, I was hired by some shadowy person or thing to hunt demons in this world. Before I could do that though, I had to go through what seemed like endless interviews, examinations, discussions, talks, guidance counselors and personality tests.

The place where all this took place was cloaked in greys and browns, dim and hazy. Very difficult to see who had hired me or was asking questions.

As I went through these interminable steps I started wondering if the demon I was hunting was me. Then, just before I woke up, I had the intense feeling that these demons were a lot smarter than I had given them credit for and might have been before my eyes the whole time.

Footsteps

I have been reading Karen Armstrong's The Spiral Staircase this month and last and have enjoyed it immensely.

It is an autobiography of Ms. Armstrong's life as a Nun and after she left the convent. Her writing is elegant yet clear and precise and she doesn't shirk from personal responsibility.

Even though I am not familiar with catholic religious orders, I have a deep interest in spiritual callings and Armstrong clearly describes her life with this in mind. She shows us that some searches are universal no matter what name we give them. Highly recommended.

Some quotes:

"I needed to escape into other people's books and minds, because when left entirely to own devices, I found that I had nothing to say." Page 31. An experience that I fight every day.

"...the ability to experience pain and sorrow is the sine qua non of enlightenment..." Page 263. Add forgiveness to the equation and you have a key.

"We are...most fully ourselves when we give ourselves away, and it is egotism that holds us back from the transcendent experience that has been called God, Nirvana, Brahma or the Tao." Page 279. A paradox. And a concept that most of us are afraid to try.

And my favourite sentence:

"You have to be prepared to extend your compassionate interest when there is no hope of return." Page 299. This is an important point where most of us fall down. If we humans, followers of various gods and deities, would be able to follow these simple words, we would then surely follow in the footsteps of the great prophets and redeemers of history and myth.

Fallen

Now you're probably saying shit, this blog's fallen to amateurish poetry in place of content. Well you're right. It's an attempt, much like the haiku earlier, to display another side of me in an attempt to get to the core. I make no apologies and you should ridicule me to your hearts content if you wish. This is also an attempt, for those who look closely, at self-effacement and misdirection. If they laugh and I laugh with them, maybe they'll forget I'm being heartfelt.

one of those days

we have the shutters
closed tightly,
it’s one of those days.
no amount of light
must be let through.
the cat will be yelled at,
the bed will be left
unmade,
it’s one of those days.
we won’t speak to
each other much,
only in grunts and sighs,
it’s one of those days.
every blemish will be an
excuse for anger
and the cat will go
to its secret hiding place
for a few hours
but we will be left
to face each other,
it’s another one of those days.

The Weight

Spirituality (mythos) is concerned with meaning.

Fact (logos) is concerned with functioning.

Both are needed in today's world where functioning has no meaning and thus atrocities, both little and large, are committed daily.

A Perfect Way

There simply must be a better way.

A Face From the Ancient Gallery

We are more than just one person. We contain multitudes and display the different faces depending on the situation.

The key is to get down to the essence, the core, the final one personality.

As scary as that might be.

The Work Life

The work life.

Discuss, count to ten, discuss, count to ten, discuss, decide, justify, discuss, count to ten, clarify, discuss, count to ten, discuss, discuss, count to ten, discuss, decide, justify, count to ten, start over.

Effort-less

Not much to say today. It was one of those days where you just can't get anything going. You then need to stop and think about why...but it's too much effort.