Did I ever tell you how lucky you are?

When I was quiet young and quiet small for my size, and I stood no higher than a child looking out on the world I took the world to be a wonderful place, a place inhabited by God. Songs were sung to me that Jesus loves me, this I know- for the bible tells me so.

Then as I moved through life I move away from such innocent beliefs. Discounted their value, thought better would be otherwise. Even went through a period where it was my custom to say I am without God. That was challenged in Barcelona on the steps of a cathedral having spent the night in drunken revelry and the dark night was passing into the grey morning and it was stated back to me that I was not without god, no- my argument was with religion- not god.

Why should we argue with anything so awe inspiring as nature? We just lack the vocabulary to describe what is happening every second of the day. It makes the head dizzy to even consider what occurs in the soil at our feet, not to mention in the deep blue ocean. Life abounds.

Saturn’s rings can be had with a telescope.

Life at its worst is better than nothing when in fact nothing exist without life.

 

Empties into my blog

What ever society has put into my brain.

Are we discursive as a river overtaken its shores defining newness as its reaches and increases outside what was normally its contour? Is it better to write nonsensical than to be nothing that can sort itself into something.

Are bloggers nobody? do they exists as nonentities pushing at the door at what has been impossible, has been denied them? Bloggers are a sad bunch of an even sadder bunches being told by an idiot that blogging is insignificant. Who told you that? Doesn’t matter. What matters is that there are all levels of human participation going on in multiple strands. People need a mouth piece. For lack of a better descriptor blogging is much like open mike night; where anybody and his brother can take the stage and belt out a song and for a moment they can bath in a certain amount of applause, return to their table and continue nursing their libation of choice and clapping on cue with the other drunken denizens whose frequencies keep such places open, but there are other garden varietals such as those who take the stage and karaoke their way to some sadly similar applause.

In truth I am beat, not by life. No, just your average dick in the dirt brought low by having spent some two hours trying to dig out a root ball for a particularly nice piece of bamboo. I had to hand saw it from the mother-ship and then dig around it some 18 inches, then climb high into its upper reaches so as to tilt it over and it did tilt and out it went. Then cutting it down from it 25 feet to a truck size of ten. Then transport it; then dig a hole, place manure and plop it down, pack dirt, dig a trench, water and return next day much surprised but not really that it has returned to life, nice green leafy matter with beautifully characteristic stalks.

Then there is the matter of domestic responsibilities, plus the continuance of our livelihood; all matter of things that would otherwise suspend writing. But look see who is here pounding on the keys.

I laugh because; you laugh; we laugh.

But is it funny; have I said anything funny? have I wrote anything that you could go to a store and buy? Is it important that I do? In some way yes, not that I want fill shelves with more mindless clutter, nor do I want to make a living painting rich lady’s nails, or cleaning rich people’s toilets. How did we reach a place where economics has some on top and others serving those: come to America and clean our toilets and paint our nails. That is the ultimate social divide, never has it been race. It’s the have and the have not.

It’s like we need to have a day where we do nothing but think about what could be a better way to serve each other.

What is Zen and what does it mean to aspire towards Zen

Zen precepts are few, fewer than five. What are they? This is how things begin: set tight borders and let things stew. Whose to say what might arise. Sure I can go look up something, make an attempt to quote something not related to what might occur if I were to pull it out of my hat.

When you think it is too much, it probably is.

Leave off anything too obvious, make abstract the obvious.

Look at it from many angels, and if you are satisfied leave it.

Odd numbers work better, especially asymmetrical outcomes.

The final outcome should evoke a sense of well-being.

What we are talking about is taken a subject from multiple directions. Zen is at once elusive, at once locatable. It is an ideology. It is a state of being. There are laws governing its outcome, like laws of physics that try to explain natural phenomena. Zen is a heightened sensibility. Zen is a cultural phenomenon. Zen was born in Japan. He went abroad. People felt hip using it as way to see the world. That is zen. All the while zen was just zen. Zen is very much related to Taoism. Maybe that’s what happen: A Buddha met a Taoist and the two produced a Zen practitioner.

I am a Western man speaking about something Eastern though I have long separated myself ideologically my very foundation is Western. That wont never change; or will it? Does it need changing? Yes. Double yes. Things are wrong in the West and they are fastly spreading their counterculture of pharmaceutical and insurance companies passing out business cards while they fuck your woman. Not sure where that came from; but left field is prime real-estate.

I am beating my head with a metaphorical stick trying to make sense of this plodding post, having earlier aborted my morning attempt; here I am with the day’s catch needing cleaning and all and sundry unattended, but damn it all to hell I am gonna get a thought edgewise.

Zen occupies me; informs me; sends mental memos. What would you expect if you feed your brain for years zen oriented literature? Zen is maybe only seconded by my passion for existential literature. Maybe Zen and existentialism share keynotes such as this idea of starting from zero, adding value and leaving well enough alone.

This post is grudgingly taking me down, leaving me winded. I can usually buzz through this inanity but the fish awaits my knife. It’s scales are drying. A sadness overcomes me, not at my simple catch but those butch males that were in their motor boats with their music blaring casting their nets. It was hard to ignore them. You see them. They populate the earth. They make sport of killing. They ride under the banner of salt life, but it’s death they bring.

Looking around for something to write about as if it were outside me

Actually gazing across the property at the oaks seeing where they are touched by the morning sun. Now drawn out under their vast interlocking limbs that seemingly crisscross into what? A break down occurred here because some ineffectual cliche ridden descriptor interpolated itself. To write for a time employing hackneyed phrases is elemental to becoming a writer provided that you also come to a time where you realize that you are using middle school taught scaffolding strategies.

Writing is just as much about unlearning.

Words of themselves evolve into sentences seemingly on their own; you read enough and this becomes a natural occurrence. I am never without recourse to words and ideas being as I am highly conceptual. Not sure how to account for this. Was I always conceptual or has my quest for knowledge made me conceptual? Reading for me has always been first and foremost existential.

Late afternoon skies overhead darkening attended by thunder leaning on the stone parapet in a state of quiet wonder watching the top most portion of the trees being cast this way and that as if rag muffins. It is a spectacle to behold in every aspect of saying such a statement. When we have nothing to say nature has a way of communicating her needs. Transfixed unable to move, not willing to move while something so big moves. Not just moves but violently shoved this way and that with a careless disregard, the wind running its fingers through the moppy hair line. The top most trees limbs unmoored, seemingly floating out of control cast about as if to make sense.  This maelstrom. This shift. This mood. Whence comes it from; what direction is untold. One second the tree is merely a green bush, the next every limb is squalling seemingly ready to be pulled from their sockets. There is no pretense of holding on. This day belongs only to what can sustain this gale force wind. Otherwise the member is discarded, rejected, slung as it were with nothing no longer mutual. Ties have been severed.

Then just as quick rain slackens the wind with its own subduing powers. I return inside and sit. Sit like a dog told to sit. My mind, or parts of my mind are discovered where possibilities leave off. What is possible? Every fucking thing. Sorry, it has been awhile sense I wrote something profane. Profanity has attended most of my life, but as an adult male raising girls I have really made bold attempts to completely erase it from my usage; at least my verbal exchanges. To hear one of your children use choice words that were probably learned form your mouth can be quiet dismaying. In fact it seems with my children that they are more about the old me acting out my worst behavior with the new improved me looking on much trying to be centered.

What I try to offer them is practical wisdom. Like today my daughter was angry in traffic. I tried to promote a benevolent nature in her, saying drive with your palms up and understand that the person in front of you could use the same consideration you would like to be shown. That there is no real difference in small and big anger. Many smalls finally erupt. Better to practice benevolence.

Tonight I have been afforded space to write which this morning was not possible. Will try again in the morning. Sweet dreams.

What will you occupy today?

Baffling questions lead somewhere, even if all they do is bring to the surface inner conflict by bringing awareness to something that occupies.

Much like Occupy Wall Street, now there are protestors occupying Gezi Park in Taksim Square where the government wants to raze it and to replace it with a mall designed like an Ottoman-era barracks. While their Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan- the potato-head bloke, itching his belly sends in riot police using tear gas and water cannons forcing thousands of protesters from the square.

 

 

To truely write; we must write

In spite of the odds, in spite of other people’s better judgment. Who has any inkling why and how we operate? To think so is to be grossly mislead.

Don’ t put me on a pedestal; you will only have to knock me off it at a later date. Better to take me as I am, than to inflate what is deflatable. I follow the laws of physics; what goes up surely comes down.

Maybe I get better with age, less BS; more what you see is what you get. Fun. Language is fun. Farcical. Language is farcical. Maybe I don’ t want to write like that latter sentence. In fact, such sentimental displays discourage me is this all I can do is conduct trivial banter? I rather surf the waves, ride the hills anything but such triteness.

Why do we have to populate our solitude with enemies? Better to sit quietly following the intake of your breath for a seven second count. At the moment you think you can’t hold it, at that place where your brain is starved for oxygen and you feel heady naturally pull out the stops and breath in.

It’s like I want to save the world by eliminating any damage that I could cause. We are the world’s enemy. We are. But it can be otherwise, right? Sure we tell ourselves things but what have they actually done to change us. Can we be otherwise; are we set in stone? What is your nature?

In some way, I address myself to a limited public that demands of me much more than talent or genius. They want my blood, the very thing that pulses through my veins. I search out what escapes others. I am a cave dweller, future man will rummage in the dark with torches lighting what I left on the wall.

Fun to be grandiose, to write at the border of psychosis. What is it to be sane? we really don’t know what it means to be insane. Sure we can experience psychotic episodes, or near brush with death, but insanity is a one way ride.

Maybe we must grow up, take responsibility for the totality of our life. What does that mean? Not sure, I am working on a doctoral thesis but that is a lie but I thought you know I could tell you anything at this point and you might believe me. I was watching this film and the actor told this woman a tragic story than had sex with her; made me question the validity of his story or of any story.

All stories are spun yarn. What stories do you tell, have told? I can share one lie that I was able to act out. Having befriended a cluster of blind people drinking at a bar outside of  New Orleans. Not sure how it happen but we were approached by this large group of girls and it was quickly assumed that I was blind because I was donning my then characteristic night shades. I played my part to the hilt with her trying to be my seeing eye dog as we weave our way through the city with great comic relief me knocking in to things, falling down, groping her breast. At some crazy juncture, I raised my glasses above the sockets of my eyes and peered into hers and said I am not blind. She slapped me so hard it knock the glasses off my face.

It’s like you wake up and there is that rock

You must spend the day rolling it up the hill.

It’s like I don’t have it in me to write the first sentence, but once you get a thought rolling it moves of its own momentum. The hardest thing sometimes is to begin. But habits carry us for good or bad; where are mine? One sentence begets the next. What you have to combat is those sentences and thoughts that impose themselves as if they were you own. For example, I started to paraphrase Hemingway, but thought better. Time is of the essence; how much time can you give to another man’s thoughts? What I mean is when you have been enlisted to write, why write someone elses thoughts.

I didn’t say you could not appropriate someone elses thoughts, but in the appropriation their thought should become a vehicle for your thought. A vessel as it were to carry your meaning, your thought expressed with their words. Makes me giggle at the randomness of actually writing. Yesterday, I spoke about a desire to be brilliant. Funny, but I read that very word numerously while I perused the new york times.

Who am I? See nothing follows; no connective tissue. I am at a loss for words; this age old question stumps me. Who are you? Maybe we have to say who are we because we are a collective; we influence one the other, for good or bad. Which begs the question what is good; what is bad? These concepts are nuanced feelings that inform our existence. There seems to be a divide, so many people you encounter in any given day are going to either be cordial or set you ill at ease. Everyone you meet, every chance encounter has within it the potentiality of being a life enhancing experience or something that throttles your very being.

We are in constant competition. We want the gold, we want to come out on top, but just as well we constantly screw up. That’s where god comes in, our therapist. We try to devolve to him what pains us; we mold our words in way that could only be called a prayer. Some people don’t allow themselves this dialogue; I would be at a complete standstill without it; it’s like I in am in a constant state of prayer. More than likely it’s just some sort of cognitive voodoo. Whereby thinking one thing other things are left unthought. Where we mess up is where we think we have to solve things; things either solve themselves or don’t.

My problem is I keep coming up short.

By nature I am explosive, set to explode by the slightest provocation. It’s like awareness is an afterthought; where in truth it should inform my very being. We spend too much time in dialogue with ourselves about the wrong things. We need to follow what we do with a fine tooth comb; label this experience washing dishes: I am washing dishes, my hand is submerged; the hand is lifting a cup. Lets call this a spiritual practice. I will go about this day differently than yesterday; I will bring awareness to the forefront; I will leave off worrisome thoughts, which ultimately distract from what is at hand.