I am sitting at a beautiful but cold table made from metal and wood outside of a cafe in Queen Anne on the corner of Boston and Queen Anne drinking one of the best lattes I have had in a long time. I am sore and sunburnt, more sunburnt that I have ever been.
Caitlin and I are at odds, especially since last night but this doesn't seem like the right place to share that argument; I think she would disapprove. But no one takes the time to read these things, so it's not like it really matters one way or the other. ...one way the other, I feel the need to write it down.
...
A man walked by in a pineapple print tshirt. I think that trend is now collectively agreed upon as passe. But he didn't look like he was trying too hard which redeems him.
...
While walking up here I flipped off a fat, middle-aged bum who was bitching at an exceptionally beautiful, super-fit, interracial couple. A part of me was ready to put my watch in my pocket and confront him. The fact that I was concerned about my watch says a lot about who and what I am.
Wasting my time and effort on that sort of thing is a dangerous game with no discernable payoff that I can see. But the extent to which I engaged that piece of shit felt good.
Fuck that guy.
...
Mariah, Caitlin, and I took her sail boat to Blake Island. There was no wind, so we had to use her tiny 5hp engine. That little engine was a champ, even though it died a few times, but we got it up and running each time. We suspect that the fuel line jiggled loose more than once.
The only occupied building on the tiny island was a small tourist-trap restaurant/bar, which we hiked to. We spent a lot of money to get drunk, but it was some of the best binge drinking we have done in a long time.
We had fun. Sailing-with-a-motor was an experience I had never planned on having.
I hope we take next weekend off and relax.
...
I am having recurring fantasies of slamming that guys head into the ground; he dies or is severely injured, and I am sitting in a jail cell trying to figure out how to pay for a lawyer.
...
I guess at some point in the development of a self, there is no more room for reasoning. There is only an assertion of will. I can't but help think of my father. I had tried to reason with him in the past. But every time I did, I felt like I had to step onto his field and play his game.
At some point I am going to need to tell my father that I hate him, and that I hate his beliefs, and that I hate who he is and how he raised me.
None of that has anything to do with reason. I have no "good reason" to hate him. Other people are much worse off and love their parents. As far as bad parents go, he wasn't all that bad, but I guess that doesn't matter.
I can't help but think that my hate for my father (and now more recently my mother) is a flaw in my character. Whether or not that feeling of hate is a flaw in my character, it is a real part of my character. I am not proud of it. I'm not sure what I am supposed to do with this.
Matthew 10:35
Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. 37Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Well, they wanted Jesus, and this is what Jesus has to offer. I'm not sure how Jesus, the Prince of Peace, can also say, "I have not come to bring peace, but a sword," but that is what he said.
So, do I tell me parents I hate them? Or do I act on my hate through silence? Lying to my parents and telling them that I love them seems out of the question.
Do I express my hate? Or do I let it simmer in silence.
Someone who thinks they are reasonable, or perhaps even wise, would probably tell me at this point, "Don't say anything that you're going to regret. Your parents will be dead some day, and you will miss them."
Well, wise guy, there is no right answer. In a Kierkegaard-like phrase: Tell them, and you will regret it. Don't tell them, and you will regret it. I won't lie though. I won't lie about my feelings. I used to lie about my feelings; that created alienation and numbness in me, and I became detached from who I was and what I felt.
...
Life given to us by our (mass) culture is fucking meaningless.
Life isn't meaningless. But the life our (popular) culture has to offer is meaningless.
Meaning without culture is madness.
Culture without meaning is death.
...
Last Friday, a man approached me at the base of Kerry Park while I was exercising using resistance bands. He was short, lean, with a short ponytail, likely in his mid twenties with two very-blond toddlers.
He approached me and he said, "Hey you look like you know what you're doing."
I said, "Yeah, I did a little bit of powerlifting and strength training while I was in college."
He said, "I work out with a group of guys at Gas Works Park. I'd like to invite you to join us."
"Sure what's the name? Does the group have a website or an Instagram?" I asked with sincere interest.
I don't remember the exact name he used, but he something like, "Yeah, so we have a website, look up 3-F, Faith, Fellowship, and Fitness."
"Oh. I see. That's not really my thing. I'm sorry. I grew up really religious. And then I joined the army, and then I studied philosophy in college. And now my beliefs are kind of complicated. I know what this is about. No thanks," is what I tried to say, but I'm not sure how much of that I successfully communicated. I know I sounded really disappointed.
"Well, we still would like you to join us. We're not about religion. It's about being a part of something bigger than yourself," he said. And as he said that, I feel like I better understood the stupid look on his face.
He had a placid look on his face, as if he was slightly mesmerized by looking up at something beautiful. —Heaven, the love of a perfect father, communion, grace-and-forgiveness, the comfort of a knowable and ordered and rational reality, freedom from the fear of death, I imagine. I do not doubt his internal state of surety, stability, fullness, comfort... And being a part of that group would, in fact, lead you to become a part of something bigger than yourself. They lose themselves and join the hivemind.
I think ponytail guy is blinded by light. When he looks up at heaven like that, he is blind, which is probably not all that different from being too stoned while being surrounded by stoners; it works when everyone is in on the same program, but that doesn't mean they're not stupid and full of shit (i.e. not paying attention or unconscious in the Jungian sense).
Am I any better?
If that christian guy is blinded by the light, then I am in the darkness: we are both likely to stumble. Now, I might be stretching this metaphor too thin, but I think that I would rather be in the dark because I think I would be more sensitive to subtle changes in light. You can't see stars if you're staring at the sun; stare too long at the sun, and you won't see anything at all ever again.
The Ghost Speaks:
Stand in the light, and you will see that which casts a shadow.
Stand in the darkness, and you will see that which shines.
...
"The truth with set you free. But not until it is finished with you."
The thing that I have learned about truth is that it is never finished with you. It always has more to say.
...
The truth is infinite. We may grow too tired of the truth, or we may set our foot down and say that is the most truth that I can abide. I almost wish I could know it all, but I would be destroyed in the process; we are simple, temporal, limited creatures.
...
The details of how this came up are not important and they are many.
Early last evening Caitlin looked up to me and said something like, "I think I'm getting chubby."
I nodded yes. She is. She's put on over 20 pounds in the past six months since we started dating. It's not subtle.
She cried for a long time, and then I rushed her out the door, and we went out with friends for a ride. Things have been tense since then.
I'm not sure what the right thing to do is. I want her to live her best life. Maybe her best life is full of activity and self-development. Or maybe it's sitting around watching TV, drinking beer and over-eating unhealthy food.
That isn't my best life. I want to stay in good shape. I want to be active.
Or, at least, I know I'm miserable if I let myself get out of shape and don't do anything.
Complacency seems worse than death.
Mere action is not the answer. I guess the easy answer is saying virtuous action is the answer—whatever that means.
...
I'm in a bad mood...
Everything is self-perpetuating bullshit. But the lines between Selfs are blurry. Much of what we feel and desire are not us. We are the tools and playthings of greater powers and those powers are subject to greater powers.
And The Ghost says that it all rolls up to ABRAXAS. These are the ghost's words, not mine.
Me? I'm not sure what to think. Every time I open the news it seems totally removed from truth. It's the words of a great beast; it is information running through his synapses. The words are not false; they command and organize groups of people. Those words create an order. They're doing something; they're just not describing reality, like people expect them to.
The words of the beast/demiurge/collective-man appear to be a truth that describes the world around us. They do not. Those words are either a call to action; or they mold and shape the collective values.
There is, however, sometimes, a kernel of information regarding physical happenings in the world: events—deaths, births, killings.
Those words send out the will of a god.
Much, if not most, of what we feel is not our own.
Is any of it our own?
...
Reading Educated:
It is the story about a woman who was raised to think that she is stupid and worthless, but she discovers that she is so much more—an exceptional scholar who overcame ignorance and poverty.
When I compare myself to that book, I feel like I was raised to think I was so much more, but I am discovering that I am a piece of shit.
I am continually disappointed in myself.
...
There's a lot of people who really want to make a difference and do something meaningful. I think we can call this gainful employment. It's hard to find gainful employment. There's no good collective myth to translate labor into meaning. We're all running around on our own, spinning in circles lacking unity.
Did I say we? I meant me. I don't know what to do with myself. Having a family and settling down into a career doesn't seem like the solution
...
The past—especially our individual history and genealogy—is a gamble, a roll of many dice. How can we blame anyone for who-they-are-and-where-they-are?
...
The words of the gods move through matter and rearrange it. We have little to do with it all. We can hardly understand what is being said.
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