June 29, 2020 Teaching Stick Shift and On Love

It's around 2:30 pm. I've only had one cup of coffee, but I feel wired. I went to the barber for the first time since February. And I picked up my pants from Blue Owl in Fremont; they did a nice job of darning my most worn pair of jeans.

Yesterday I made a big deal about teaching Caitlin how to drive manual transmission. We were both frustrated and angry by the end of it. She had promised to practice for one-hour and twenty minutes, and we did it. It was a very long hour and twenty minutes. By the end of it we were totally burned out. I'm disappointed at my own lack of patience because in my fantasies about myself, I am perfectly patient and understanding. 

I also treated the lesson as if it were a metaphor or analog of our relationship, which I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do or not. I think it is like a metaphor or close to a metaphor because at the root of the issue, we were working together doing something stressful, and we both came away angry. But it could also be just a one time occurrence, and it was also one-sided with me playing teacher; we were not problem solving an issue together. 

She's better at driving manual than she realizes, and it's frustrating to see her unwillingness to take to the road because she's scared. Maybe that's the issue I have; I want to force her to overcome her self doubt, but I can't. 

I am forceful. That is one of my issues.

I yell at the garden, telling it to grow faster. 

If I am lucky, my spit will wet the ground and my breath will feed the leaves.

[...]

Reading Plato's Symposium has made me think about love. I'm not finished reading it. But I have some thoughts already.

In the work there are a few different theories on what love is. One says that love is among the oldest primordial gods, having come into existence shortly after Earth (Gaia). Then there is another theory that says that love comes in two forms, the higher form and the lower form.

The higher/heavenly form of love is Urania (Heavenly Aphrodite); this type of love makes the world a better place, and it has integrity.

The lower/vulgar form of love is Pandemos (Common Aphrodite); this type of love is selfish and fleeting.

This is making me realize that I have been placing love on too high of a pedestal, or I've only been using love merely ironically like when I refer to an excellent slice of pizza. 

In hindsight, I have loved more women—and men, pets, places, art, etc—than I have realized.

I am realizing that when I see a beautiful woman walking down the street and her beauty touches me deeply, that is love; and the same is true for many of my fond-friends in the military and college. Much of that love might have been the vulgar form of love, but it was love. And the thing about that is that it takes much time, effort, and risk to determine what love is higher and what is lower.

I feel the need to say the following:

It has taken me far too long to realize how much love I have in my life. There were too many times where I spent time and energy to tell myself that I was not in love, when I really was.

My god, how easy it was easy to let love go unrecognized.

What I have said so far is not related to Socrates' part of the dialogue.... Anyway, this is not where I thought reading Plato would take me... How strange. 

[...]

The above part about there being two loves, one higher and one lower was by someone named Agathon. However, Socrates gives a different account that was told to him by Diotima that's called the Ladder of Love. (My translation says staircase.)

It goes something like this: A man falls in love with a beautiful body. Then he falls in love with another beautiful body. Then he eventually may become a lover of all beautiful bodies. Then he learns that the soul is more beautiful than the body. 

Here is a slightly different take from a few paragraphs later: 

1. To love a body
2. To love two bodies
3. To love all beautiful bodies
4. To love beautiful customs
5. To love beautiful things
6. To know what it is to be beautiful

I think Jung copied Socrates'/Diotima's idea in his idea of Anima Development (Eve > Helen > Mary > Sophia) or (Sex > Power/Money > Morality > Wisdom)

And I also see this develop in my life in regards to intellectual pursuits. I think this description of the soul's growth: it is a movement from the particular towards the universal.

1. I was obsessed with psychedelic mushrooms
2. I became interested in psychedelics in general
3. I became interested in the ideas surrounding psychedelics
4. I became interested in ideas, namely philosophy and political theory.

Now, I am feeling the reverse process. 

1. I was interested in philosophy
2. I became interested in applying philosophy to the everyday world
3. I read All Things Shining, Shop Class as Soulcraft, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
4. I am now going to buy a motorcycle because I have seen how something material (a motorcycle) connects to something higher (philosophy: poeisis, excellence, quality)

Universal to Singular

Singular to Universal

Universal to Singular

Singular to Universal

Universal to Singular

Singular to Universal

Ad Infinitum

June 26, 2020

It's mid afternoon. Today is a good day because I passed my motorcycle endorsement. But that led to me going home and instantly looking up bikes that I could potentially buy. 

I have the mindset of a junkie. When I have my eyes set on something, it's over; I become fixated. And that is where I am right now. The little money I finally have put together is instantly starting to burn a hole in my pocket. I want to keep looking at bikes out on the market right now. God it hurts. It hurts good. 

It's not much different from the burning sensation that would push me to spend everything I had when I worked for AWS.

I'm not sure what to call this impulse or drive. I need a name for it. So far the phrase "burning a hole in my pocket" is surprisingly apt. It is not much different than burning pain.

Something else interesting about this is that while I am in this state where holes are being burned in my pockets, is that I don't experience any existential despair; I'm not worried about existence; I become goal oriented. I have a purpose—one that I am failing to achieve. 

June 24, 2020: Rest in Peace Gusset; and the aesthetic of the athletic

I'm at the kitchen table, sitting on a bench next to my roommate's half-empty 18-pack of Rainier, eating pan fried beets for lunch. This is not a typical lunch for me.

I spent this morning with fragmented attention.

I edited a story I wrote two years ago (Terry). 

I rewrote a general cover letter. 

I applied to three different positions—one of which I am interested in.

I spent a lot of time browsing both Craigslist and the internet at large looking for places hiring in Santa Fe and Albuquerque. This last part was mind-numbingly depressing. It doesn't look like there are a lot of jobs in Santa Fe, and rental prices are seriously bloated.

I think I know what I am doing wrong: I'm trying to fantasize about the future rather than plan for it. I think the smart thing to do is to take opportunities as they come; that's the lesson I need to learn right now. I will adjust as time passes. Every single moment has its virtues and opportunities. I should focus on making the most of what today offers.

Today is going to be no better than I make it, so I'll try to make the most of it.

[...]

I had an idea sitting on the porch listening to Modest Mouse. I was thinking of ways that I could contribute to my local community. Writing seems like it would be a good way to do it. I made a reddit post on /r/seattle seeing if I could volunteer as an English/writing tutor for free. I'm still waiting to hear about that.

But then I had an odd idea.

It might be a little bit dangerous. But it won't be boring. 

I was thinking I could just go to a rough corner and bring a book—the kind with a lot of homeless people. I was thinking something something odd and/or poetic the first two that come to mind are Bukowski and Heraclitus. They're conversation starters to say the least.

It might end horribly, or it might just fizzle out. It's worth a try. 

[...]

I tore my favorite jeans throwing a frisbee a little too excitedly in the park with Dan. The gusset is blown out. The plan is to get the jeans repaired. But before I tore them, I had something come to mind. It started as a line from Bukowski's poem The Laughing Heart but the idea is also mixed in with my having read Plato's Symposium earlier in the day.

your life is your life. 

know it while you have it. 

you are marvelous

the gods wait to delight in you.

That last line is the one that stuck: the gods wait to delight in you. I'm going to see if I can unpack my thought here.

Dan and I are not good at throwing a frisbee with consistent accuracy. I'd say we're average at best. So, it's not like anyone is going to enjoy watching us throw a frisbee. On the contrary, if we were any worse then we would be an eyesore. So, I was dragging myself down thinking that we were pretty lame compared to a real athlete. And that right there is one of my biggest personal challenges—comparing myself to others, "better" or "worse" than myself.

But then I took the comparison one step further. I compared a prime athlete with the gods. The best athlete can't beat the gods. And that left me a little bit perplexed.

We take delight in the best athletes because they are the best among us.

But do the gods delight in the best athletes? Or more fundamentally, do the gods delight in the world of the humans? Now the root question, why does it matter if I do something athletic? Where is the value?

I think the answer is found in aesthetics.

Different feats of athleticism each have their own unique aesthetic—feeling, texture, and form; the contemporary word is vibe. Alternatively, a hippy-type might say that each different sport has its own energy. When we're playing sports, our being/consciousness/soul/subjective-experience takes the form/vibe/energy of the sport.

Here are some examples:

A football player is brutish (in a cool way, obviously).

A golfer is cool and focused, precise.

A long distance runner is steady and enduring.

A sprinter explodes.

A surfer skims.

Me, a frisbee thrower, aims and adjusts (and misses).

When we take these forms, we are taking part in the gods' delight.

And when we think about these forms, like I am doing right now, we lose our ability to enjoy them because our heads get cluttered with language instead of the athletic/aesthetic form. 

June 23, 2020: Grimace at the Absurd

It's shortly afternoon, and I'm part way done with eating a mandarin. My room is getting hot because the sun is finally out here in Seattle. It won't take long before I'm begging for fall and hoodie weather to return, but this sun is long overdue. 

I feel ugly inside. This is one of those times where the ugly feeling isn't directed at anything in particular. If I give the feeling a voice it becomes critical of me, or it says ugly feelings about those around me. This is more of a super-ego type of voice. It shows everything wrong with the world. But it is not without purpose. The best thing I can think of doing is digging up an old memory.

The memory is a memory of a picture. I think the picture is gone, or it will be once my facebook is permanently deleted in a matter of days.

The year is 2014. And it's probably early May. I'm a sergeant in the army, and I'm on leave, visiting my hometown of El Paso after spending a year in South Korea. I am with a good friend and fellow soldier having a drink at a chicken-wings-and-drinks franchise that features attractive waitresses in tight shirts. I am wearing a ridiculous shirt: a black T-shirt that I bleach tie-dyed while visiting friends in California the previous week. Moreover, I had translucent yellow wayfarers clipped to my shirt that looked like the conceivably douchiest possible take on Hunter S. Thompson. The amount of cringe I feel makes the thought of seppuku seem a reasonable alternative to bearing the knowledge that I wore that outfit in pride. And the pain is really because it was more than an outfit. That outfit represented who I really was at the time.

The friend sitting beside me was and is successful in the traditional sense; he is now in law school at Georgetown University. In the picture, he is holding a gin and tonic while I have a beer. The look on his face is an irritated, albeit friendly, eye roll. He really liked me. We were good friends before I left Korea. And fortunately for me, he could see past whatever it was I was doing at the time.

At the time I didn't understand the meaning of my face in that picture. I really didn't understand who I was or what I felt. My life had become meaningless in the army, so I took to psychedelics—which explains the bleach tie-dyeing in California the week prior. What I was left with was a world that looked totally absurd. Nothing really made sense. Life in the military seemed nothing more than an arbitrary set of bureaucratic rules and ceremony that I had to tiptoe, limbo, and dance through.

My world had become become covered in and, melted by, acid, stripping everything of its essence and structural integrity—both as a metaphor and literally in that I had taken LSD a week prior which was giving me a new (and dubious) perspective on life. I hadn't yet read any of Camus' work, but I knew at the time that what I was facing the absurd. 

Since existence itself has no meaning, we must learn to bear an irresolvable emptiness. This paradoxical situation, then, between our impulse to ask ultimate questions and the impossibility of achieving any adequate answer, is what Camus calls the absurd. Camus’s philosophy of the absurd explores the consequences arising from this basic paradox. (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Link

I was just beginning to learn to cope with the absurdity of life—the fact that there is no one true meaning to it all. I began by pursuing my conception of "the sublime", which I found in esoteric works like Crowley, CG Jung, and by psychedelic tripping. I'm not really sure what "the sublime" is, but I was chasing it at the time. And when I felt like I was in the presence of the sublime, I had a knowing, shit-eating grin. I might have been chasing ghosts, but I could tell when I was getting closer to something. Perhaps I was searching for a lost paradise—the comforting garden of religious belief that I once held.

But my chase for the sublime lead to to a place where I confronted the absurd. And when I looked at the absurd, I grimaced. In that picture of me with my friend at the bar that I was previously describing, I was grimacing. I only realized this now, over six years later. That grimace portrayed the essence of my character, my persona, my guiding myth. My face was halfway between a wince and a smile, somewhere between laughter and disgust. I thought I looked cool, but now I see the pain in my own eyes, pain that I couldn't feel at the time.

I'm a long way from the man I was then, thankfully. I have an idea of how things could have turned out much worse, so I'm thankful that I made it here from there, because that was a lot of ground to cover. 

I wonder what face I am wearing now. —faces, I wonder what faces I am wearing now. 

[...]

It's shortly after 10pm now. I'm dealing with another bout of I-wish-I-was-rich-and/or-famous. It started when I picked up Camus earlier. I felt an all too familiar untruth: "I would be happy if I were someone else." Unfortunately this is a logical impossibility. I would not be happy if I were someone else, because I cannot be someone else. But I still can't help feeling envious of Camus' wit and his success. 

A quote comes to mind: "Now is the envy of all of the dead." World of Tomorrow by Don Hertzfeldt

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be doing at 10pm on a Tuesday. I guess the answer is, "Living, breathing, experiencing. Listening to my stomach and heart." I could should have spent more time cleaning.

I feel like I am on the verge of seeing and appreciating the beauty of the everydayness of my life. Every grain of sand contains within it a universe—supposedly. But I'm stuck striving for more.

My fear?

Stasis and stagnation.

June 22, 2020

I have finally finished typing up a story, Post Divergence. I had finished writing it a few weeks ago now. But typing it up took a few more weeks. My intention is to put it on the Kindle Marketplace. But it is still far from ready. I printed out a copy to edit by hand and then a copy of the first draft for posterity. 

Writing this story became a chore towards the end, which is unfortunate. It started out as fun. I was whimsical at first. I had a loose idea of what I wanted to happen, which is good for creativity. It wasn't until I was over halfway done that I had an outline. The problem with writing this story in this way is that there are a lot of plotholes and incongruities between the beginning of the story and the end of the story. So much of it changed as I went along. And now there's a lot I have to fix. But the important part is that I finished something.

I did it. I wrote a story. It's not quite a full novel. It's sitting at 27,000 words. But it exists. And it's important to me that it exists, even if it isn't polished.

If there is one thing that I can take away from writing this story it is this:

If I'm going to work on a creative project, I should pick a project that I love because creative projects require my undivided attention, and my heart-soul-and-brain. It is crucial that I do not rush.

(I certainly rushed during this project...) 

We can also substitute the word love for care. Care is more relevant than love. Love strikes me as insufficient; it's tainted by its association with mere-infatuation. But care is deeper than love. Care implies that the relationship is meaningful, that the relationship itself is important, that the object of care is not merely a means to an end but rather an end in itself.

If I would have cared more for this story, Post Divergence, I would have spent more time with the characters. I would have listened better. But I was too wrapped up in finishing the story so that I could move on, which meant I cut corners. I should have been more patient. And I wish I could have enjoyed the process of writing.

Deadlines and goals are fine, if not necessary. But I was treating an imaginary deadline as if it were a finish line. A deadline is not a finish line; do not race towards it. A deadline is more like a frame; fit as much as you need and can.

"Frame"

That's another important idea. It came up during psych-therapy a few months ago. My therapist said that it was important that we limit our sessions to a certain time. She didn't explain exactly why, but it's something that I have thought a lot about.

A time frame forces us to prioritize, to sort, to first bring forth what is most pressing. Suppose that your house in on fire and you have two minutes to escape with what you can. What do you grab? —what you care about most.

My life is short and fleeting. And my time to write is even shorter. If I am going to spend my time writing, I should write about what I care about most.

Now how do I figure out what I care about most?

[...]

I want to be a published writer. Or, at least I think I do. 

I know that I would like to say, "Yes I am very smart and a good writer. And I can prove this to you because my work was published in Asimov's."

I worry that my desire to publish is ego driven. The problem I see with being ego driven is that that would mean that I didn't really care for my work; I was merely writing to be published which would make me feel better about my insecurities. Another problem with doing a project motivated by ego is that it is shallow. I don't want to write something shallow. I want to put my whole self into it. I don't want to merely craft something that will pass.

But the problem is that the more you put yourself into your work, the more rejection hurts. Maybe that is part of my reluctance to work on something that could be published. 

Why do I have a desire to be published? —Maybe I don't need to answer that question. Maybe it's sufficient to have the desire and approach it in the right way. 

[...]

I took a class to get my motorcycle endorsement on my license last Friday. I'm part of the way there. I only have my permit. I need to retest for my full endorsement.

I keep thinking about something that the instructor said: 

"Ride your own ride." 

He said this on a few occasions, namely when someone would ask a really specific or overly general question that didn't have an obvious answer.

Me: A friend told me that when I'm on the freeway I should go somewhat faster than the flow of traffic. Is that right?

In John Oliver's voice: Ride your own ride.

The instructor was English, so I kept pretending his voice was John Oliver's. It helped pass the time during classroom sessions.

But there's a lesson in this. The rider/writer has to assess their circumstances. Platitudes and "expert advice" won't make you a good rider/writer. Every situation is different. You must respond accordingly. But by all means, practice turning, swerving, speeding up, and braking. And keep a buffer between yourself and the other cars. But the real lessons are learned en route. 

I guess another way you can put it is this: Write your own story.

June 16, 2020

Yesterday I found a lawn mower 

by some trash bins in an alley

with a tender green vine 

wrapped around the pull-cord.

New spark plugs

And a clean carb

Were enough to get her going.

She smoked heavily at first, 

but she quit.

Then today in an Beacon Hill alley

There was a chicken

That had escaped from its coop.

I gently picked her up

And lifted her over the fence. 

She gave me a gentle cluck.

She was a nice girl.

A young hipster couple watched.

I like to think they were

Tripping on something pleasant.

I'll drink beer with Dan now.

I have a bottle.

Barley wine—

barely beer,

hardly wine.

June 15, 2020

It's just after 10am, and I have just finished eating a gold nugget sumo orange. Now I'm going to open up a Reign sugar free Razzle Berry energy drink while I quietly think to myself about why the ridiculously expensive oranges are so much better than the normal priced ones.

This morning it took me 1.5 hours to write about 660 words. Actually, I wasn't even writing I was editing and transcribing at the same time, which I would rather just transcribe, but my mind won't just let me be. That is waaay too long. But my gods, I don't know how to make this go any quicker.

I am just now flashing back to yesterday when I was writing about being stuck in a low gear. I'm there again, stuck in low gear. That means I can sit here and write this blog, right off the cuff; I can devour simple books; I can write and read reddit/news articles. But I can't do a steady, high-speed, high-gear, transcription for a long period of time like I wish I could.

Okay, fuck it. We're going back in. Siri, set a timer for one hour. 

Alright. 550 words. That is not enough. The caffeine is putting me on an uncomfortable edge. And I had too many distractions. I sent multiple texts and Instagram messages. Well, damn. It's lunch time now.

[...]

I think I am having trouble respecting my writing, namely the story that I'm working on right now called Post Divergence. I started it on a whim because that's the only way I knew how to start. And it came together well enough; it's a proper story. But I wish I had planned better for it. It's going to require massive amounts of editing because of how the plot evolved. Crafting a story really takes a lot of love and care. 

I might be running low on love and care for this story right now. I regret that I just want to get it over with. Maybe that just means that I need to let it sit for a while. I was really pushing myself to finish it by the end of August because without a deadline projects can continue indefinitely, and it's better to have completed something in a half-cared-for manner than it would be to let it sit unfinished.

The voice says: Chip away as much as you rightly can, and do it regularly. Savor the entire elephant one bite at a time. 

June 14, 2020

It's Sunday, and I'm in bed. Today was largely uneventful. I ate fried chicken gizzards from a gas station on Beacon and 15th; they were the best and only chicken gizzards I have eaten in the US. I also bought two motorcycle magazines and a copy of Hi Fructose. It came out to $40; it turns out magazines are shockingly expensive. 

On the other hand, last Friday was eventful. I spent a few hours on hold and then two more hours with an agent from the Washington Employment Security Department. The agent that helped me was a guardian angel in a bureaucratic doom labyrinth. Then I went to Fort Lewis with Caitlin to help her sister move. And now I'm going to be honest because this is my journal, and if you're reading my journal, you're going to get my personal thoughts. Her sister and her brother in law are the worst family whose home I have entered—or at least that I have been able to consciously realize....

It's kind of hard to quickly describe how a relationship can be toxic like that. There was never sincere communication, only yelling and sarcasm. But I could see that the married couple really hated each other. They were open about. It's those kinds of relationships where I think, why bother? I told Caitlin that if we're ever that miserable together, I'm going to divorce the shit out of her as quickly as I can. The level of suffering that I witnessed was not worth the price of half of all my future earnings.

Also being back on a military base brought back memories. Even going to the AAFES shoppette was a throwback. I don't know if I was projecting old feeling, but my god, there were so many dead, soulless faces. In addition to that Caitlin's brother in law hired a mover who was an absolutely classic army burnout—combat arms, pushing 30, never made it past E4, who was a raging alcoholic pounding back several Steel Reserves instead of helping us load the largest moving truck you can rent without needing a CDL. That time really brought back some memories.

I have this theory: If you're doing really poorly at the army, then you're probably not a good person; if you're doing really well in the army, you are also probably not a good person. This is a rule with exceptions. There are professionals 

But I'm speaking from the perspective of an enlisted soldier. The officer corps is bourgeois as fuck, as far as I am concerned. Not that I have that much to complain about; I had an office job. 

Anyway...

Somehow Saturday and Sunday have escaped me, Sunday especially, and I want to write here to figure out why. I felt stuck in a certain mindset—as if locked in first gear. I was uneasy. I felt as if there were something I was avoiding, but that I was able to reasonably hide that something. 

I'm not sure if I was ignoring something inside of me. I didn't have peace of mind, but I kept myself busy with reasonable things. I spent more time on youtube than I meant to, but I also read non-fiction, and learned a few things about people who tour across countries on adventure bikes. My motorcycle obsession is frustrating me, especially because I know that if I over do it, then I will only be disappointed when I finally do own a bike, but I can't stop thinking about the topic because it's a really nice break from the scifi story that I'm trying to finish transcribing to my computer and edit; and it's easier to watch motorcycle reviews on the internet rather than read Plato.

The feeling itself was like I was overheating. Stuck in a low gear: good for getting started and climbing hills but bad for covering long distances on the freeway. —There's a metaphor in here. 

Actually, now that I think about it, it reminds me of the last therapy session I had where I melted down into anger. I distinctly remember seeing a hot flaming sun with arching solar flares in my mind's eye. Today, that sun has still made its presence, but it's like I'm standing in the shade, but it's not shade because it's actually a really hot metal box. The sun is somehow obscured but remains hot—that is the phrase that comes to mind. 

Maybe if I'm stuck in a low-gear, then I just need to do low-gear things. Then when I'm stuck in high gear I'll do those things. We'll see if the metaphor sticks. And then the next challenge is to be able to appropriately determine which gear I am at anytime... hey and someday I'll learn to change gears and then be able to focus on the right things in the right way. 

[...]

Today and Yesterday I spent about 20-30 minutes listening to Joe Rogan interview Duncan Trussell. It was interesting. But the entire time I kept thinking about something I read a few days ago when I briefly picked up Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy in the chapter on Schopenhauer. I forget if it was the historian/author talking or if it was the philosopher; more than likely it was the latter. It very loosely goes something like this:

Be careful when you read. If you only read, you will never have thoughts of your own. And if you must read, then read from the masters themselves. Do not begin with a commentary on Plato. Begin with Plato.

And when I thought of that reading, I stopped enjoying listening to Joe Rogan's podcast. To put it accurately, albeit overdramatically, I felt violated. I think this is because I used to have a bad tendency where I would identify with whatever speaker I was listening to and agreed with; I would have a hard time differentiating myself because it was a reliable method of escape. It was nice feeling like I was glib and educated. But the fantasy would die when I would try to explain things myself.

Anyway, in a sense, the podcasters were inside of me. And like, that's fine. But today, giving them my time felt too intimate. I don't really like those guys anymore, even if I do find them interesting. I know I'm using sexuality as a metaphor here; I would rather find another metaphor, but it's pushing midnight, and I'm going to wake up in less than seven hours.

So, I panicked and slammed my computer shut and came here to write—because Duncan Trussell was in my mind-brain making himself a little too cozy.

June 11, 2020

I'm just here to rant today.

I've been without work for a while now. Months. Unemployment hasn't come through. I have spent a few hours this week waiting on the line with the unemployment office. I've called literally hundreds of times. It was a miracle I got through. But my case is fucked. And I need to reach a higher tier of support, but I keep getting disconnected because the queue is full, or maybe they're hanging up on me for one reason or another. I actually broke down and cried today after my third time getting through the call disconnected because of a mysteriously bad signal.

It's hard just sitting here knowing I'm running out of money. I won't be homeless. I have a plan for that. But I'm stuck. And my future is uncertain. And when my future is uncertain, I start regretting all my past choices. 

Given all that is going on, I don't feel like my pain is worth mentioning to anyone. They say I have a lot going for me. But it doesn't feel that way, not right now. I might just be a broken prototype. You know. One of nature's useless iterations cast aside. Because that's what she does, you know: she makes us at random. Deep down inside, I know that there is more to life, the world, and nature. But right now this is all I can see and feel. And so I guess I have to feel and see that right now. 

I have about $200 of cash tips from when I was a barista. I'm going to dig into that fund for a pack of cigarettes. And I think I'm going to just sit on the porch and smoke and hurt today. 

[...]

HR Giger came in the mail today.

June 10, 2020: Money is the Congealed Shadow of Value

A year ago, like almost exactly a year ago, when I was earning good money working for AWS, I called my uncle, and I told him that I did not know what to spend my money on. He said something like, "save some money, but make sure to buy the things that you want. You don't have to save every penny. Live a little." He assumed that I was saving my money—which I was most certainly not. I was recklessly over-"living".

I'm not entirely sure how to diagnose the root of my problem at the time. I knew I was spending too much and living beyond my means. But I was in a Catch-22: If I had been wiser, I would not have spent so much; however, if I had been wiser, I probably would not have accepted that job in the first place. My motivation for working was inseparable from my spending habits. When I saw that my decadent spending habits (eating out, drinking out, and buying expensive clothes on a whim) weren't making me happy, my reason and motivation dried up. This was a visceral transformation beyond my rational, conscious control. 

During the first few months of unemployment after I was "quit-fired", I became a will-less wet noodle. I told myself that I was going to become a writer and give up my love of worldly possessions; I was going to live a life of the mind. And that's kind of where I am right now, but I feel like I am growing beyond being just a hermit or just a careless spender.

But I remember those times of careless spending fondly, even though they all blur together. It would go something like this—

It was as if I would see an item—for example a $200 pair of techwear pants—I would lust. I would be overcome by desire. I wanted the thing. And when I would spend the money, I would feel release. To be frank here, making a purchase was a lot like jerking off or hooking up with someone at a bar: you feel disgusting afterwards, but what else is there to do if you are incapable of seeing better alternatives?

Picture me, an idiot, doing this: 

A store display catches my eye, or picture on Instagram makes be pause and hit that tiny little heart button just below the picture. We flirt for a while: I circle around the mannequin, or maybe I start looking up product reviews on reddit. 

Then comes the buildup. —I try her on. Then my beloved goes into the basket. We're not quite together, but we're holding hands. I caress her, feeling the texture of her skin fabric;—during those first moments when we meet her touch is sublime. Many of my clearest and most vivid dreams happen during this short period; I can see all of the lovely times that we're going to have together—showers of compliments, instances of radiance. I will be the sun, but she will be the light.

It is during these times that I use my credit card rather than my debit card: It puts to rest my fear of even a momentary dysfunction brought on by a lack of libido funds.

Then, consummation.

I insert my credit card. ...Or—less euphemistically—Google Chrome autofills what it can, and I'm left digging through my wallet to read off my card's CVV—the one I haven't memorized (yet).

Then, I am free—perfected, desireless, yet gestating expecting the arrival of something good in 2-14 business days.

But it is done. The hookup is over. The giddiness fades. And if I am capable of financial accounting or a modest self-reflection, then I am disgusted with myself, yet not so disgusted that I am going to make a return, because to make a return would be to admit that I was wrong, and I was not wrong; I'm an adult and I gave my consent, so if I gave my consent, then how can I have any regrets? 

It is not that there's anything wrong with my brand of financial wontoness. Rather, during that phase in my life I hoped for something more, something steady. And it took a lot of time, pain, and debt to realize that.

Digression: Okay, all that being said, there are some articles of clothing that I truly love despite their apparent extravagance. I love my (Iron Heart type-3 overdyed 14oz denim) jean jacket. I spent a butt-load on it, and I would never take three times that money in return. I'm going to wear that thing until it fucking DIES. Sometimes something good can come out of the mess of mindless erotic-shopping, but it is necessary to be at least passively looking for things with future value—i.e. dollar per wear.

Today, I am no longer a totally-spent, will-less, wet-noodle. I am only totally-spent. What has changed is that rather than merely lusting, my desire and attention is focused. And that's where a motorcycle comes in. I want a motorcycle. And I want to pay for it in cash. I don't want to go around spending my money on just whatever catches my fancy just like I don't want to go around hooking up with whomestever. I'm on the lookout for something of more substantial, less-fleeting, and longer-term value.

Money is merely the congealed shadow of value. And a motorcycle is merely the congealed form some other higher thing—a union of engineering, beauty, and the human desire to push beyond our physical capacities, etc., idfk.

But what I do know is that I can vividly see (read: dream of) something worth saving myself my money for. And that's kind of nice. Because for a second there I was worried that I was going to be totally content with a humble collection of dense paperbacks and a cardboard box for a home.

One desire's consummation is the birth of yet another desire. Desire (itself) is never satiated. —And that's okay; there's an art to it.

June 8, 2020: The Zen Rider's Alchemist

Something is going on.

I was told to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in 2013 by my NCOIC (my firstline manager in the army). I put it off until about last week—over seven years. And it turns out that book is actually excellent. That book really and truly blew my mind with its sophisticated take on the split between the rational and romantic. I had originally figured it was going to be wishy-washy self-help bullshit about living in the moment. —It's not. I thought I was too smart for the book, but the truth was, I didn't know enough about Platonic and Aristotelian thought to appreciate the book. It's a top tier book written by a former professor with legit academic credentials. 5/5.

Then, almost one year later in 2014, I was told to read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho by my girlfriend at the time. I did not read it. I read an online summary. And I thought that I got it. I thought I already knew "the message". Plus, at the time I was reading CG Jung's take on "real" alchemy; I didn't want to read a best-selling hack. Also, this was during a strange time in my life where I thought that I was about to crack the secrets of the universe: it had something to do with reality being constructed of tensions of opposites which I was learning to "control", but what I had in fact discovered was that my ability to perceive-and-describe things was based on pairs of opposites—that human experience is largely based on a dialectic of sorts. 

Anyway. In fact, I did not get it. I did not understand The Alchemist (nor the secrets of life). (The book had nothing to do pairs of opposites.) But I set it aside because I figured a top-seller like that is probably full of useless platitudes that tickle ears. The book slipped to the back of mind while I read more "important" things. 

Today, a friend asked me if I had read The Alchemist. I said that I would read it soon. Then within the hour, I received a text saying that the Kindle that I had ordered was at my door—an omen. And so I am reading the book now, six years later. And the first thing that I am struck with is the simplicity of the book. In previously having read the first few pages, I had originally mistaken its simplicity for naivete, foolishness, vulgarity, and a lack of sophistication. But that is far from the case. The book's simplicity is one of its virtues—a sign of graceful simplicity. Moreover, it contains wisdom that I was not ready to hear six years ago.

Sometimes the most valuable and important things are impossible to notice because of their apparent commonness and simplicity. The wisdom of The Alchemist is like this. I am not finished with the book but this stuck out so much to me that I had to write it down:

"You must always know what it is that you want."

There it is. I feel it is profound—more profound, meaningful than many philosophy and political theory lectures I attended.

Coelho says that our true desires are the universe's same desires, and the universe will conspire to help us achieve those desires.

Now before I talk about how the universe is fucking with me by giving me what I want I should first ask which desires are our true desires? I think our true desires come from our true self. I found a good answer to what our true self is in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Robert Pirsig, the author, says that a bike is a reflection of its owner—particularly when the owner takes care of maintenance. If the owner lacks patience, that lack of care is reflected in the bike. The subtleties of this relationship are most obvious to motorcycle riders and, if he is both attentive and reflective, to the owner himself. 

I'll give another example. Right now I am wearing raw denim jeans. First, this makes me a conceited asshole, which I feel the need to acknowledge. But. Second, these jeans are a reflection of who I really am. Raw denim fades according to how they're worn. And these pants are fading most quickly around my ass because that's what I do in pants. —I sit. When I noticed this, I was disappointed because I like to think of myself as being active and doing a variety of activities. But these jeans can't lie. That is the difference between my real self and my ego/ideal-self.

I have gotten what I have wanted and asked for. It's true. It's just that things never quite turned out how I expected. When I graduated from college, I wanted to live in Seattle, and I did that.  When I lived in Seattle, I wanted a "well-respected job that pays well," and I got that, but I was miserable, and I was spit out.

So what do I really want? Well, if I look around, apparently I wanted La Croix, because there's a lot of empty La Croix cans sitting around me. But I have time, books, and a girlfriend. And next month, if things go according to plan, I will have solitude, because I will be camping in the desert for a month or so. Then I will start grad school a few months after that. So I guess that is what God or The Universe or The Great Magnet or my True Self has given me. But it still doesn't seem to be quite right. Things feel too unstable and this flux is too chaotic.

Here are some thoughts about what I want (in no particular order).

• Wisdom: to guard, grow, and nourish my soul.
• A Motorcycle: To enjoy the ride-and-journey to new and old places—to enjoy something for its own sake.
• Health: to be able to participate in life
• To Write as a Craft: to bring value to the world and to develop my own soul.
• Friends: with whom to share good and bad times.
• A Family: to love and cherish; to grow with. 
• Wealth: enough to support my self/family, my passions and live a healthy life—and to donate the excess to charity.
• The ability to find soul-satisfying meaning during the daily grind—some days in happiness, other days in pain.

That's a start. But only a start. I get the feeling that we don't get to choose our desires. We discover them and work with what we have. The above list is only a shadow what I have discovered so far. When it comes to this type of knowledge, what we know is written on our hearts.

June 5, 2020: Ares horn, and Apollo's tower.

I walked to the park this morning for a workout, and this came to mind. 

I leave the world of Anthropos (ἄνθρωπος) and enter another world, one that is orthogonal to our own. I am somewhere on the plains at the edge of a battlefield. I feel my heart in my chest, pounding a steady rhythm. 

I see a man with a ram horned helmet in the distance. He is overlooking a battlefield. In front of him, several hundred men charge into a fog-shrouded battlefield. In his right hand he his holding a horn. 

I cry out to him, "Ares! Is that you?"

"You! Astatos (άστατος)! Coward! Go and join the fight! Look at the fighters out there in the distance. They are great! They will be rewarded. Their spirits grow. They will be mighty. But you will wither. Your flesh will heap and sag from disuse. If you do not abandon your comfort, then you will remain in the dark, banned from the light. You will be a rat, scampering between the legs of the victor."

"But I am unsure of how to contribute to justice on the battlefield," I say.

Ares scans the horizon, surveying the plain and says, "Do you see her? I did not see her here on the plain." He gives a mocking laugh.

A familiar voice, in silence, tells my heart old words: There is no justice on the battlefield—only power. 

I leave the edge of the battlefield. I see a tower in the distance and I walk toward it. When I arrive, a guard tells me to place my soul on a set of scales. My soul is measured against a golden heart. The scale shifts and wobbles. It does not become steady. At the sight of this the guards summon an old man dressed in fine clothes; he then inspects my soul. He shakes his head, as if in disappointed and inconvenienced. He whispers in a guard's ear and steps inside. Two more guards appear from a small guard shack adjacent to the tower and step behind me, preventing me from leaving.

The finely dressed old man returns, beckoning me without a word. We climb a marble spiraling staircase in the center of the tower. He guides me to a door at the highest point of the tower, which I enter by myself. We are standing on an open turret overlooking a vast field. In the distance, I see the fog-and-battle where Ares is commanding troops.

"Welcome Astatos (άστατος)," Apollo says.

"Why am I here? Why did you wish to speak with me?" I ask.

"You are here because I summoned you, and you knew that already. You will do well not to ask why things are. There is no reason here; we are not beholden to the ways of Anthropos. Now, Astatos (άστατος), you spoke with The Ram, Ares. What did he say to you?"

"He called me a coward. He said I will grow weak if I do not enter the battlefield. And he said that Justice was not on the battlefield," I say.

Apollo looks at me with contempt, "Justice is in The Mountain. Where else could she be?"

"I am sorry Apollo. I am from Anthropos. This land is alien to me. I am a stranger here," I say.

"Yes, that is why your insolence have been spared. Now, hear me. Ares is a blind fool——a ram gorged on blood-soaked grass. When you were on the battlefield, did you hear the drum?"

"No, I only heard the beating of my own heart." I say.

"Your heart is in Anthropos. What you felt on the battlefield was Ares' drum. It is the calling of the drum that brought you here, Changing-One. It called you to the battlefield. But you saw Ares before he blew his horn, and thus you were spared the battle."

"Yes, I was spared the battle, but I am a coward, and I will be weak," I say. 

Apollo holds up a single finger and motions me to silence. He readies his bow and fires several arrows toward the battlefield where Ares is waging a war.

And a chorus sings: 

Apollo's arrow pierces one 

Ares' sword cleaves two.

 

"You killed men on both sides!" I shout, the words having left my mouth in careless shock.

"Astatos, you know nothing of the gods. Ares had cleaved the mass in two so that they may battle. And I have made the battle more perfect. We do this——lest Ares and I return to our feud.

"Now, be gone, mortal. Before your ignorance of the ways of the gods incurs more anger," Apollo says. And I suddenly I am whisked away in a whirldwind.

As I return to the world of the living, Hermes, in secret, snatches me up. He speaks quickly, "Hey, man, real quick, you didn't see me. Keep the 'energy'. Don't give it to those two bastards okay. I'm not saying that it's rightfully yours, but it isn't necessarily theirs. Okay? Now get the fuck out of here."

And I find myself in a park south of Seattle, and the sky is grey. A woman who reminds me of an older version of a college friend is jogging around the park passing me for the third time. I tap my left headphone with my finger, and a narrator resumes reading a book by Murakami.

June 4, 2020: Eulogy (and Pan)

It is after 10pm. My room is littered with La Croix cans, grocery store receipts, clean clothes, dirty clothes, an empty box, and... misc. There's lots of misc floating around my room. I have decided to embrace the disorder, even though I think it reflects badly on my character. But I am disordered. That's the way it is. So that's the way it's going to be. —for now. 

Anyway. I wrote a eulogy. And it's down below. And I "composed" the music for the piece as well.

I've been reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and it has changed my life. It gave me the realization that I could express my soul through motorcycle repair: this is because a motorcycle is a rational system that can be tinkered with methodically, and then the act of riding is a romantic experience because it is just that—pure experience—, and then when we combine the two things (pure experience and the rational) you can arrive at a third thing—quality. 

Unfortunately, I am too poor to purchase the ideal vessel for quality, so I settled for a broken lawn mower on craigslist. I drove 1.5 hours away from Seattle to south of Olympia to pick up a broken mower with the intention of fixing it.... If you watched the video, you will see that I was not particularly successful. I gave up. (In the words of the author, I ran out of gumption—and cash too...) But I learned a lot. So, I have that going for me. 

June 3, 2020: Giger, Mucha, Gaudi

Long post. (TL;DR at bottom)

A miracle happened. 

A few years ago, I learned about HR Giger. He was a guy born in 1940, and he died in 2014. He's responsible for designing the xenomorph from Alien. This dude had his finger on the dark pulse of the collective unconscious. When he was younger he had constant nightmares. When he got older, he became a professional artist. And at some point, he underwent a process called art therapy. I'm almost certain that he had a Jungian therapist consider the fact that he spent much of his life in or near Zurich, which is near where CG Jung operated. Anyway, so during art therapy, Giger started drawing some really dark shit. His work is marked by the state referred to as Negredo, which symbolizes the burning away of impurities from the soul. 

My hot take is that Giger's soul/self/personality/etc grew beyond the first stage in the Jungian process of development. But what happened was that he had the capacity to channel the Zeitgeist of the time. And the Zeitgeist was carrying a really thick (German: trächtig) shadow. 

Another hot take—it was around this time—starting no later than the 1960's—that it became really obvious that we were damaging the human soul with quickly advancing technology. We haven't been able to keep up with our changing world; we lack the wisdom to safely use the tools at our disposal. And I think Giger's artwork illustrates that danger on a visceral level. It shows us a world in which our soul has become horribly entangled with the machine. 

Anyway, so after watching a documentary on Giger, Dark Star (2014), I ordered two posters for my room. However, of the two, only one of them was the correct order. The other poster was a painting by Alphonse Mucha titled The Moon (1902).

(pic 1) (pic 2) 

I fell in love with The Moon. I messaged the company that I bought the poster from, telling them that they sent the incorrect order but that I was actually really happy with their mistake; I figured it would be important for them to correct their inventory. And they refunded me for the incorrect order! So, in my room I had the two posters: Li and The Moon on opposite sides of my room; I figured I was caught between these two images—the light and dark aspects of my soul (see: anima).

Not long ago, I got rid of those posters, but I kept their meaning close to heart. Posters just don't survive moving apartments very well, and those posters are easily replaced. 

Then, a little over a week ago, I had a random impulse. I bought an artbook with HR Giger's work. The package arrived at an interesting time. I was sitting on my couch, when I was overcome by a massive wave of dark depression. I felt the need to walk, so I walked around the corner and went to the store for a pint of ice cream. When I came back, my order had arrived.

I thought to myself, "Ah that must be why I feel so depressed. That book is coming into my life, and it has a heavy shadow. Very well. Come in."

But when I opened the book they messed up my order! Taschen sent me a massive book of pictures of the architectural works by Antoni Gaudi. The first thought that went through my slow brain was, "Gaudi?—more like gaudy."

I disliked the book cover because it looked cartoonish and gnome-like, and I was upset about the mistake until I realized that Antoni Gaudi is the architect of the famous Sagrada Familia—which I believe is the most interesting and beautiful cathedral. Moreover, this book was priced at FOUR times as much as the Giger book, which is wild! When I emailed Taschen, they said that they will be sending me the Giger book, and they will let me keep the Gaudi book free of charge!

This is symbolically significant.

Giger represents darkness. And instead of only receiving a dark book, I was given something else—something that will take me time to understand; afterall, it took me a few years to understand what Mucha symbolized to me, thought I haven't put that into words either.

Were these two events accidents or a miracles?—mu—the question is so wrong that I cannot answer it truthfully, nor can I give a false answer. 

But what I see is that darkness can turn into light—they are related, as if by magic.

According to entropy, order will devolve into chaos.

But there is an order that arises from that same chaos, and it is totally independent of us, and it operates according to principles that are beyond my ability to rationalize or understand. I don't have a name for it. It is like an emergent order, an organizing principle of the universe in which we are able to find personal meaning.

June 2, 2020

I'm in my room. Caitlin is beside me. We're both on our computers. She's working from home; she left work early without getting full permission because protestors are expected to march from Westlake to the Seattle Opera House which is right next to where she works.

I'm having a difficult time. I feel guilty for writing something that isn't going to contribute to positive change or fight injustice. But this is my journal. And I need to organize my thoughts. So here we are...

I gave my parents and little sister the middle finger today, not literally, just figuratively. I told them that I don't want to talk to them anymore. I feel a lot of hate right now. And my parents are the easiest target. I hate that I am this way, but here I am. I can't stand my parents—as if I were an angry teenager.

I am disgusted with my own character.

I wish I were respectful and less impulsive.

But I can't keep my head on straight.