We Have Moved

 We are now at www.curiousredthread.com 

Regards,

Andy

The following is a message to my past self who is blackout drunk, half-covered in mud, singing Fortunate Son, stumbling around the perimeter of a military airfield, on his way back to the barracks:

This moment of despair is now absolved.

It's nearly five in the afternoon. My window is cracked open. The blinds are closed but up a quarter of the way, and the sun is streaming in. I am on my second Czech pilsner. The goal for the evening is to keep relaxed, since today was my first day at the new job site. Despite having adequate time over the past few days, my room got messy. But I feel a desire to keep it that way, as if I could comfortably nest in the half-clean/half-dirty laundry that is beginning to pile on my bed.

The next month (or perhaps longer) will be busy. I'll be working longer hours at the new Climate Pledge Arena, installing data (CAT6) and other limited voltage electrical systems. The pay for the site is shockingly lucrative—over twice the typical rate for role and with opportunities for overtime which I will begin taking advantage of tomorrow. This is precisely the windfall I was hoping for in order to pay down some minor debt and pad my savings. (And I want a Canon R5) But how to adapt?

This wage demands hard work. And hard work requires sacrifice. —what to sacrifice?

Tomorrow I will begin work at 5:00am (with the option to begin at 6:00) and I will work till 3:30pm. Five days a week, for ten hours per day. (Or possibly 4/10's on swing shift.) I still have every intention of continuing Jiu Jitsu. So that doesn't leave much time for leisure. I'm thinking of my uncle right now who is a successful fellow electrical worker who works austere hours. To my knowledge, he doesn't do much after work on weekday evenings; I hope I'm wrong. (I'm going to call him soon tp how he structures his time (re: coping)).

The project itself is interesting. It's a unique project. They lifted the giant roof of the old arena, dug out the arena down below to make it significantly larger, and then placed the roof back down; and then they made the building carbon neutral, and the hockey ice rink that is going in will be made from rain water collected from the roof. At the newcomer orientation safety briefing this morning, one of the superintendents relayed a point to us originally made by the CEO in charge of the operation: this is a place where people are going to make memories that will often last a lifetime—hockey games, concerts, and perhaps basketball games—, and we're laying the groundwork for those memories (literally, in the case of the guys who were pouring a massive slab of concrete last week). It gave me a big feeling, like I was one of the slaves guys working on the Roman Colosseum, minus the timeless design and sense of relative contemporary achievement.

There was also a big emphasis on safety. The superintendent made a big deal about making sure that everyone got home safe at the end of the day. He repeated the phrase, "perfection is acceptable," which bothered me, because he should have said perfection is the standard or zero injuries is the standard or zero injuries is the maximum. And then, when he got up to leave, he got up on two crutches. He then sat on a three-wheeled mobility scooter, in which he was seated precariously high for a man of his size (three feet up). He made a four point turn, and slowly wheeled out with a light buzzing sound as the next speaker made his way to the front, moving extra slowly in a failed attempt to not make it appear that the superintendent was slowing things down.

If I had to guess, it seems that the superintendent suffered an injury. Hopefully it wasn't on the job. Because that wouldn't make for believable writing.

Anyway, I'm here writing. And it has taken me about an hour to get this far (including running downstairs to get beer number three, a locally made hazy IPA, which isn't doing it for me). I could have spent this hour doing a other things. But writing is important. I need it to stay sane. And I will continue to write. 

Someone close to me (someone special) told me that I need to write more and structure my time so that I can have time to write. But I'm not sure what to write. Maybe I need to take up a project, like another short story or that long essay on Sophistication as a Virtue that I have been meaning to write for two years now

Actually, writing that last one on sophistication would be good. I need to put nails in that coffin and close it to seal that container and trap that thing idea that refuses to die. I think I'll do that. 

Now, how often and consistently can I write? How can I keep up that habit when I also intend to work crazy overtime, go to the gym, practice Jiu Jitsu, ride my motorcycle, and do photography?

....the ax is coming. Time is limited. Desires are many, but resources are few.

...

If it wasn't for vanity and shame, I'm not sure that I would keep my room clean or groom my hair. I'm not sure if this is typical human nature, or if this is a sign of poorly developed character. Let's say it's both.

..

What do I want?

And what am I willing to sacrifice to get it?

The second part of the question is fundamental. 

 It occured to me just now that I do not look like a writer. 

I hesitate to call myself a writer. Labels make me feel weird. (It's because of how special I think I am.) But I can say this: Whether or not I am a writer,  I do not look like a writer.

This revelation (which, as you will see shortly, is worthy of eye rolls and scoffing) occurred after I stepped out of the shower and was admiring both my biceps and my genius after discovering that I could mix sunscreen with lotion to apply it to my tattoos quite a bit easier; (a quick google search says not to do this, but I'm going to do it anyway.) I just came back from the gym, and my upper body is a little bit swollen, meaning my arms are at their best. I'm also down to 181, which makes things show up much better.

Af first glance, I look vain, especially when I wear a medium sized t-shirt. Shallow. —a bro, but one with decent taste, I like to think.

Upon closer inspection, I appear pretentious and mercurial, with hints of intelligence and depth.

A little closer and then my anxious neuroticism appears.

If you go deeper, you end up here. This is where the/m[y] my ideas are. I spend a lot of time here.

Maybe my appearance is why people don't take my ideas more seriously. I don't look like a guy with ideas. But I want to be a guy with relevant ideas that are taken into serious consideration—whether at work, in writing, or in conversation.

If I want to communicate my ideas with more people, I am going to have to cultivate my persona and my reputation. (Which does not include giving up squats and bicep curls.)

It is a brute (and cruel) fact of life that people do not (or perhaps cannot) spend the time to get to know my/your deeper, truer self (unless they are your closest friends and family, but even they are suspect). So, personas and reputations are important. They must be tended to. They are a bridge-builder and a key.

...

A ghost sits by a great and unscalable wall. The ground is barren. The sky is dark. Yet the wall is clearly pale and golden, a lusterless, dull yellow. The ghost appears to suspect that there are many gods and buddhas beyond the wall. And so he stands there.

I do not know what this means.

Thoughts on home: 

I am from the border.  

From a distance, the border appears to be a line. 

The border is an area. —rather, it is a world, one that draws its own lines. 

 I wrote the following in a journal using an extra fine black pen last year on May 14th, 2020:

I feel that much of my pain and disappointment has stemmed from my expectations. I wanted the world to give me a lot. I saw people with wealth, and I thought I deserved that wealth; when I saw that the path to wealth crossed decades and generations, I came to resent wealth and the wealthy, for many of the wealthy did not need to cross the violent and vast spanning river of trial-and-time-and-chance. 

I grew resentful, fearful, and hesitant as time passed—feeling as if I were trapped in a devious mechanism whose purpose was to drain my life and soul to sustain the livelihoods of those that stood on the shoulders of generations. I was a man living in the shadows of vampiric titans and unconscionable gods. My heart tells me this is so: the world is, in truth, such an awful a tragic place for any man who dares look up with open eyes.

Regardless, I sense the need-and-calling to step forward in whole-being—entering into the world, humbly, expecting neither blessings or curses, expecting neither pain nor pleasure; going forth, not as lamb to slaughter, nor as a compassionate-mindful-monk. 

—Rather I would go swiftly, attentively, with measured caution, and calculated force.

Ride onward, Hermes
Between Scylla and Charybdis
Forward!
Beyond good and evil. 

I'm at, or near, that place again. I'm tired. But sleep isn't the only thing I need. I need rest again. I put a lot on my plate again, as much as would fit and then I piled on more.

I'm sitting at my new desk. The lights are on, but this corner (not quite a nook) is a bit dark. It's not even 3pm, but feel it could be dusk. I'm going to do a quick inventory of everything that hurts: 

• Neck, both from the jiu jitsu classes I just started and from staring up at the ceiling all day.
• Upper back (same as previous)
• Right bicep, bruised from jiu jitsu.
• right middle finger, scraped and scratched from work 
• abs/stomach, sore from weighted crunches
• glutes/butt, sore from squatting and wrestling teenagers smaller than me jiu jitsu
• Right shin, sore from jiu jitsu
• feet, sore with one blister because of the socks I wore today. (I ran out, so I had to use a sub-optimal pair.)

I'm (desperately) trying to make the most of my time. And now I'm here again with a minor case of burnout. Fortunately, I'm not really burned out; I haven't lost anything. There's a part of me that wants to go to the gym right now. But I'm looking at him, and I don't think he's concerned about my overall well-being. He's looking at me, and he's happy that I'm both at my lowest weight in years and still retaining good muscle; but he only wants more—bigger biceps, a stronger chest, a few reps to keep the rear delts in good condition.

Not today. Today, I will do laundry. I may read. I must rest. I will have to make sure to rest well-before sleeping; that is exceedingly important today.

I want a beer. 

The old man says don't get a beer. Anything but beer he says. Wine? No wine. 

I'm not sure who he is or if I should listen to him. But the voice of my inner-accountant says beer is not in the budget. We definitely need to get together and set weekly budget goals. We are headed in the right direction, however. 

...

Today and yesterday I was feeling bitter about my wages. It hurts knowing that I was making more on unemployment. Right now, I believe I have the lowest paying job in Local 46. I mean, someone has to do it... 

I'm reminding myself that this is a part of the path I chose. It is a long path. I can change paths. But it doesn't make sense to at this point. There aren't any viable alternatives—not without first inventing a time machine.

...

When I got home and parked my car, I saw a chickadee just outside my door before I opened it. I waited there for a few seconds and watched him. He was weightless. He jumped around, almost instantly moving a few centimeters, like an electric spark albeit with a more predictable path. I'm not sure why this caught my attention. 

Is it possible this bird was teleporting?

May 1, 2021 A Mind Like Wax

(Written by hand originally. It took a few days to write this all down. Distractions abound.)

...

It is 4:00pm exactly. I meant to get coffee in Greenwood at Herkimer, but they weren't offering any indoor seating. So, I walked down the main road looking for another cafe along the way and found my way into a beer bottle shop with over a dozen beers on tap. 

I'm having a saison from Holy Mountain. Typically a saison is funky (due to bacterial fermentation that happens alongside the yeast—I think (correction: a saison typically features wild yeast.))This one tastes somewhere between Michelob Ultra and a middle-shelf, dry white wine.followed by a slightly hoppy, slightly bitter finish.

There's a vinyl record playing. It's bluesy, groovy, with heavy electric organ use. 

It's gray and misting. 

The passing cars sound like an intermittent river.

—Quick pivot: today was my first day at my new MMA/Jiu Jitsu Gym. I am currently sporting two bruises; and my right shin hurts because a +200lbs, former army combat medic's knee landed right on it. We warmed up with five minutes of jogging and practiced drills for 45 minutes. Then, for the last 5-10 minutes, we rolled. (Wrestling with each other, which is also known as grappling.)

I am better at grappling than the average person; but that is true because the average—the typical person, rather—has absolutely no experience. John, the former combat medic and I rolled for a few minutes. He won both times, but he was good about letting me fight at my skill level without immediately destroying me. He called it "rolling at half-speed" or something close to that. 

After John and I rolled two or three times, Coach suggested I roll with Spike. 

One of the things that I failed to mention is that of the dozen or so of us at the class, only John and I were adults. Coach was watching us along with his son who is my same age and a semi-pro MMA state champ. But otherwise, all of the other students were under the age of 15 or so. 

I am 6' 0''. 
185 lbs. 
Lean. Muscular. And broad shouldered. 

Spike is a teenage who recently got braces, doesn't have facial hair, and I think he may weigh as much as 120 lbs—maybe.

When we first squared up on the mat, he looked at me with large, calm, gray eyes. He was confident, eager, and curious. I didn't sense a trace of cockiness, which made it that much more humbling when he kicked my ass twice. 

I was still breathing heavily five minutes later as I was walking into the grocery store to pick up ingredients for a late brunch. 

I hope I can kick his ass someday. 

Earlier in the session, I had a moment of reflection and insight. Coach's sun, whose name I can't recall, stepped in to give advice to John and me. —There's something special about having a "master" teach you. A master teaches with their whole...
—not their words alone
—not with their body alone
—not the dogma
—not their emotions
—not their vibe nor their soul. 
A master teaches with their whole being. which is reflected in the student. The reflection—the image or the form—impresses upon the student. It transforms him, likening him to the teacher. 

An impressionable student becomes like the teacher, not the lesson.

I was only really there, learning for the first half, right up until my perception became a blank gray wall of static because I was tired and brain fried. But my last, most-productive moments died and brought me the memory of a philosophy lecture.

It's Spring quarter three years ago, and Hud Hudson, one of contemporary analytic philosophy's most notable metaphysicians (and theists), is giving a lecture. He is a middle aged man, wearing an Under Armor hoodie, cargo shorts,  and keen hiking sandals. His lectures sound like he is reading from a beautiful and lucidly written book. My initial impression is that his style is merely the product of careful repetition, rehearsal, and the memorization of key phrases that inevitably follows. However, he answers questions with the same cathedral-like elegance and detail—shining light where it matters most. 

The class he is teaching is called History of Philosophy: The Empiricists. I almost failed the class. I passed with a C, which may have been charitable on Hudson's part. The lecture was on a particular philosopher: Descartes, Locke, or Hume. (Though maybe it was an Ancient Greek philosophy who said the following:)

The mind is like a soft clay tablet (or perhaps like wax). The world makes impressions upon the clay-like mind through the senses—sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.

In more simple terms, the empiricists believe that all knowledge came from the senses. They left no room for inborn instinct or synthetic a-priori knowledge.)

I struggled with this class because partially because its lessons were to disagreeable to my own ideas and experience. I did find the ideas interesting and valuable, but only as mere abstractions. —until now.

Today, while the coach's champion fighter son teach, I felt an intuitive, subjective sense for what the empiricists meant when they said the mind was like impressionable clay. It was the first time that I felt what they meant when they said the mind was like a clay tablet. 

Subjectively, as the prize fighter was teaching me jiu jitsu by going through the various bodily motions, I felt the lessons sink in. Then, I did my best to repeat the fighter's movements. I felt him mark and his impression. Its form lingered as it sank in. This is different from my other experiences. I tend to overthink lessons, often relying too heavily on language and relating the lesson to as many other lessons as I could, looking for similarities across other domains. But for part of the lesson, my mind was like soft clay. 

However, that state did not last long. I returned to my typical method of learning, which is in a different direction than the empiricists:

The form sinks in, and it enters a garden (my mind); there it must learn to survive—be it through force, viciousness, cunning, or cooperation. The form is not a mere shape nor a sophisticated blue print. It arrives like a living animal, with a spirit, capable of independent existence.

A master's lesson is both metaphor and spirit. 

And the metaphor-and-spirits—they talk amongst each other. They organize themselves, perhaps like a mandala or perhaps like a social community, like a city. They are each capable of stepping forward to work when they are needed, (or they step forward, by their own compulsion, when they feel they are needed.)

...

Everything that can be talk about, exists. (There is no non-being.) The question is, how does it exist? 

(E.g. A hallucination is a real experience. The problem is that the hallucinator is liable to confuse non-material entities for physical entities.)

It's all real. The question is, how is it real, and how do we relate to it? —whatever it is.

...

To experience is to suffer—among other things.

...

 I'm two or three (moderately heady) beers drunk on an empty stomach. I'm in bed. Ita's about 7pm, and I want to sleep. The Sun in shining through my window slats just perfectly so it hits me in the eye, but I've decided not to move away so that I could write about the light hitting me in the face. 

...

I haven't slept enough this April. I've been busy helping Madeline Owen with a mural in Capitol Hill off of Broadway. We've worked late into the night, and I wake up at 4am for work. 

...

I have a lot to write about work. 

...

ZADurday is coming up. (Zack/Andy/Dan). Birthdays. We're going to get eat oysters and get drunk on beer that cost more than decent wine but also Coors or Budheavy.

...

My 29th birthday is coming up. In theory, I should be panicking (or maybe the panic is supposed to start next year, and I am allowed one more year of denial.) Instead, I feel okay. I feel like I am on the right path. I have panicked enough already. I have looked forward enough—or maybe too much. Now, I'm t/here. 

I am not in love with the beauty and freedom of youth. Beauty and freedom exist independently of youth.

...

I don't know if I have ever been this far behind on sleep and yet felt this okay. (This isn't mania; this is meaningful experience that is keeping me going.)

...

There are many Andy's.

As time goes on, they are becoming more unified.

...

I am becoming more acquainted with the Pantheon. 

Onward, Hermes; guide this wayward soul.

Hello, Aphrodite. 

Aries rises.

Hephaestus nods.

Apollo thinks that...

...

One of these days, many days from now, I am going to re-read Jung, and have a deeper understanding of mythology, and my mind will be absolutely blown. But also I will have a lot of input and corrections for him. Reinterpretations. Additions. 

Mythology isn't over. It is still being. 

I am in Lynwood. Caitlin is driving back to Portland. After several days of work, we are done moving.

Starting over again is like tearing up a garden. 

In my mind I keep seeing burning things. A burning heart. A burning tree. Fire. I have cried a lot today. 

A few minutes ago while unpacking, I picked up a heart-shaped cookie cutter that Caitlin and I bought on Valentine's Day of last year. We used it to make small pastry-puff hand pies with cherry filling. She gave them to her coworkers, and we ate a few. At the time we had been seeing each other (again) for a little over a month. I felt ambivalent about our relationship. I wasn't in good shape at the time—financially, emotionally, or in any other facet of my life, really. Maybe I was in okay shape, but I was lost, very, very lost. I tried occupying myself with writing and reading, which sort of worked. 

When I pulled that cookie cutter out of knife bag—which is another story—I felt my heart sear. (I say sear because when I say I felt heart-burn, it just doesn't sound like what I'm going for.) In that moment the value that she brought to my life last year became bright and clear: 

I saw light and felt flames. It was real. 

Seeing the truth is a matter of perspective—distance, angle, focus, aperture, length of exposure, development, etc. 

I don't know precisely why I separated from her. For a while I had a suspicion that I was only doing it for the wrong reasons. Well, if the end justify the means, I did the right thing: I learned a lot, and I changed a lot, especially over the past few days. Old memories are springing back like forgotten bulbs blooming in unexpected places. This new growth was only possible by starting over. I don't know if Caitlin and I will get back together. We certainly could. 

...

"Time to get these seeds in the cold ground, it takes a while to grow anything."

...

 It's a poetic irony that so much has happened on today, April Fools' day.

To new beginnings.

 It's raining. 

A lot has happened, more than I can really write about: I visited El Paso with Caitlin; I have been doing well with photography; and, starting the day after tomorrow, I will be working with a union electrical contractor as an installer, which I don't really know what that means. 

I don't know if I can drink anymore. It puts me in a depressive mood the next day, or I just get moody. (And a ghost of an old man meticulously berates me telling me that my soul is getting soggy when I drink.)

...

When I was in El Paso, I took portraits of my mother and my father. They portraits are okay, compositionally. I wish I could have spent at least a few more minutes getting everything set up, but there was traffic, it was terribly windy, and my mother was getting cold. When I looked through the lens at my mother, I felt my heart sink in my chest. I saw her aging, and I saw the pain that I had caused her by being so far away for so long—physically and emotionally distant. The picture is shockingly clear. I intend to get it re-scanned and printed in the near future.

That moment, along with a few other pictures felt more like magic, synchronicity, or psychological-transformation than mere-photography. 

Maybe that's what I should be chasing—that feeling that feels all-too-real or too-real-to-be-real or too-meaningful-to-be-ordinary-reality. Those moments are rare. But through care and cultivation, I think I can find more of those moments (and improve their composition). 

I'm in my kitchen. Chicken is frying in the background. Caitlin is taking a picture of herself in the mostly-empty living room; she's preparing to sell a bright lime-green blazer. 

I've had a bad day, for no real reason other than I have a slight hangover. My body is fine, but my emotions are not. I'm impulsive and brooding. Sensitive in bad ways.

But I'm still present. I'm coping well enough that Caitlin and I haven't fought at all. 

Caitlin had a FaceTime video chat with her new roommates in Portland. They have a lot in common, to the point of it being shocking. (Into vintage clothes, from LA, going through a relationship issue.)

The rice cooker just ruined two cups of rice which is fine, except that we're h[u/a]ngry. 

...

Yesterday, Caitlin and I went to Federal Way to attend Billy's BBQ with his wife and a few of his friends. 

Good conversations were had. But I did that thing where I get way too into my ideas to the point where it's off-putting. [Caitlin says she promises I wasn't offputting.] However, there was one guy there that seemed to enjoy it. We have very similar interests.

This phrase came to mind while I was having conversations: don't let it get too hot. 

When I get too excited, it gets too intense. I get too intense. (Like my father, yuck.) People don't like that level of agitation and intensity. 

So I thought back to a conversation with Caitlin about what it means to be cool. I believe her definition is superior to my own. (I was saying that a cool person is more popular with sophisticated taste.) She says a cool person is someone who is easy to hangout with. While sophistication and popularity have their place, I think she's right about the word cool.

This brings me back to my earlier point about the conversation getting too hot. A cool person can dissipate the heat of a conversation; they're good at keeping their cool (and helping others keep their cool). A cool person knows what to do with the heat that comes from the scorching spotlight of awareness and the friction that comes with social interaction.

...

I look down at popculture and "basic people" because I don't stand a chance at competing against them for attention. I should stop that. Who am I to say what is worthy of being paid attention to?

Under the Thin Film

(It's the morning after. I'm here to edit. I wrote this without thinking, just before passing out on the couch (sober). I'm not sure what to expect. I don't remember what I wrote. —hey that was pretty good!)

...

I've been moody lately. That's what I get for not taking my own advice. (Too much coffee, too much alcohol, not enough sleep, not enough time relaxing, too much time multitasking). But also, sometimes my emotional weather is just bad. My brain has a mind of its own.

In the material world, it was sunny but cold. This is one of many "fake spring" days to come. The weather is teasing that it is going to start getting warmer, but we know it isn't. I rode to Greenlake. I had a mediocre americano by the lake. At the cafe there was a person whose face was perfectly lit by the harsh sun reflecting off the smooth concrete floor and onto their face. I don't remember if it was a man or a woman or their age or anything. I just remember that they were the best lit person in the cafe out of two dozen others.

Outside there was one young woman who was painfully beautiful; she had the kind of beauty that gives me the same recurring feeling of of burning jealousy. As a young man I would have merely experienced this ugly burning and then unfairly projected a negative trait onto her, telling myself she was shallow or stupid, so that I could protect myself from feeling hopelessly attracted and totally inadequate. I still feel the same attraction to her. And her type of beauty still elicits feelings of inadequacy, but it doesn't have the same sting that it used to. The inadequacy is impersonal now. I guess beauty feels like a force in the world (like gravity); it's not just about her and me; beauty, to me now, is a natural force. And that beauty isn't really hers; her beauty is only a shadow of what beauty really is. I feel small in comparison to the beauty that she represents—in the way that standing on a beach with massive driftwood trees implies the existence of tremendous and terrible waves; it speaks of a force that has passed and left its mark.

I also edited pictures today. I built up a queue of pictures to post on Instagram. I've added a few followers; I am slowly making progress to getting 1000 (active) followers. We're a long way away. I'm not sure I can do it without being more gratuitous (boobs and butts).

How does one build an audience? How does one play to an audience? Do I even want to make that compromise? Well, for the time being, I think I would benefit from growing an audience. I couldn't sell-out if I tried.

....

It is so strange how much there is going on in the mind, just outside of our awareness. It is possible to try to break that nearly-invisible surface-tension-like film. But when that thin layer is broken, the thing beneath the surface isn't the same.  There are tricky and clever ways to see the machinations that are working down below. (This is self-knowledge and the study of psychology.) 

—there’s this motorcycle enduro rider, Graham Jarvis. He’s a poet and a dancer with his dirtbike. He’s one of those high-performing athletes that just blows my mind. When Jarvis—or any Motogp racer really—is working, they're on another level, far above our pathetic, vulgar, Earthly lives. But then they come back.

After a race they’ll sit down with their coach and discuss what they were doing. And then, somehow, their discussion will just automagically sink in and have an effect on their future performance. —how that works is a mastery that blows my fucking mind.

Somewhere, somehow there is a back-and-forth transition—a transformation—of language (propositional knowledge) to tacit knowledge (being physically able to do the cool thing).That transformation is a mystery. I’m not sure if we mere-humans have the ability to to have a theoretical understanding of that process, but we can do it.

I think that the most productive thing that we can do is to separate these two modes. —Do the thing, or think about the thing; you can’t both both at the same time. When we're nervous or overly self-aware (like in a job interview) is an example of when we're crossing the streams. Keep the streams—the modes—separate. (If there is a way to combine them, I know nothing about it.)

I would I could tell my younger self: Quit thinking. Take notes if you have the time. Examine the outcome after it's over. Reflect on it. Then, get back to doing it. Obviously, this isn't about forethought and impulse. This is about performance. 

On a Particular Feeling of Discomfort

I'm in bed, typing. Caitlin is working beside me. We're listening to Jefferson Airplane. We had a busy weekend dog sitting Missy-Misdemeanor, visiting the Olympic Peninsula, and attending a greyhound meetup at Discovery Park.

I had a long conversation with Mariah on her boat after I dropped Missy off. We talked about future plan and how we both go through cycles—moments of restlessness that push us to pack up everything, move, and start over. These cycles range in scale. Sometimes it's just switching from one hobby to another; other times it's moving to another part of the country. 

However, there is another type of cycle, closely related to the above cycle. It's like a more-stable, non-pathological version of bipolar disorder—periods of hypomania followed by minor depression. Mini-obsessions followed by a period of disillusionment. Over and over again (in increasingly larger concentric circles, it seems). I have cultivated this cycle, made it more stable—tempered it. 

I would like a name for these cycles, this inhalation and exhalation, this creation and fall. 

Toward the end of a cycle, I experience a particular, uncomfortable feeling. I also want a name for this feeling; that way, I can identify it more easily when it comes up. (This feeling also presents itself somewhat at random.) Here we go:

After a period of creativity, I begin to experience a feeling. The feeling tells me that I must, must, must do something, for stillness is complacency, and complacency is death. But this feeling becomes toxic and soul crushing; as if it were the inevitable corruption a creative urge. I begin to lose focus and inspiration. Yet, I still feel the desperate need to continue working. But as time goes on (hours, day, or weeks), the work, the project, the creation becomes less and less fulfilling, and the feeling becomes more desperate and painful. Then the creative urge runs the risk of shattering, a painful experience.

I have found a simple, effective, yet extremely frustrating solution to this problem. The solution is to rest. The challenge here is that the solution is the opposite of the feeling/impulse. The impulse is to work, but the solution is to rest.

In times like these, one must fight to rest.

Here, resting is not relaxing. Here, rest is a fight to pause—to forcefully compel the mind, soul, and body to stillness.

This stillness is uncomfortable, painful. It carries somewhat-pure, rather-distilled, elements of human suffering and the tragedy of life; (these feelings are often times not grounded in one's life and seem to have a life of their own). (Pick your religious metaphor—Christ on the Cross, Buddha under the Tree, Odin Hanging, Prometheus having his liver plucked out by vultures, Sisyphus watching his boulder roll down the hill once again.)

...

How much time have a wasted trying to be better than I really am?

How many times have I taken my picture and tried to be more beautiful by straining and contorting my face?

How many times have I say at the keyboard and internally begged, why, why, why can I not write more clearly, more cleverly, more wittily, and more swiftly?

When are we at our (pathetic) best? When?

...

When there is an unresolvable conflict, a tension of opposites (e.g. an unstoppable force meets an immovable object, or a Catch-22), one of two things happens: the forces cancel each other, or there is transcendence, the creation of a third, greater thing. The nature of the latter is life's most precious mystery, the stuff of alchemy, and the false hope of religion. 

There are many things that can be said whose opposite is also true; these paradoxes mark the edge of one paradigm and the beginning of another.

...

What I was as a young man, that is, who I was, was totally disconnected from what I felt I was. It's such a broad thing to say. Useless without elaboration. I don't have the heart to go into detail right now.

Looking Toward My Future

We have five weeks left in Queen Anne. It's February 21st. Our lease is up at the end of March. Dani is moving out tomorrow which means Grr will be leaving. I love that cat. 

Big changes are coming. Dani leaving is a real harbinger. Seeing her pack her boxes has made me pause and go, "oh shit, this lease is up real soon." 

Where to next?

Caitlin is headed to Portland.

I'm between moving to Central Oregon and just south of Seattle. Spokane is now lower on the list because the apprentice electrician program isn't as big. I'm ranked 770 in Seattle; still waiting on word from Oregon and Spokane. —Yes ranked 770th of who knows how many. This might be a while.

Whether I stay in Washington or move out, I will probably be "on the books for a bit." I have to sign up for a position as a stockman (picking up and dropping off supplies) or a I-forget-the-name-but-they-pull-wires-and-it-pays-slightly-less-than-stockman-while-being-slightly-more-miserable-supposedly.

I'm walking up to a major crossroads that will determine where I'll be for the next five years. There isn't a right answer.

I have the strong gut feeling that I don't want to stay in Seattle. And, yes, I have reckoned with the fact that I will be leaving good friends behind. I don't want to be 35 and be in Seattle. That being said, PSE stands for Puget Sound Energy, not Seattle Energy. The Puget Sound has a lot to offer. For example, I could—though not likely—end up on the Olympic Peninsula. My experience is not-all-that-typical in that I have lived close to downtown during my entire time in Seattle. I could probably find a place in this region that I would be comfortable in (and maybe even afford.).

Central Oregon is promising, but it is unknown and probably quite different. However, in my experience, wherever I have gone, I have made friends. I have met good and bad people. Everytime I have moved—even just within Seattle—I have learned something new: a new neighborhood teaches you new things. But moving has been growing increasingly painful. 

What incredible lengths we go through to find a sense of home.

I am going to be very lonely soon.

I'm not too sure what I feel right now. There's a few things going on. 

The first is that I feel a sense of surprise. I'm kind of shocked to see myself wishing to hear a part of my self saying, "Oh can we just have some stability and stop moving for once and just live somewhere," and then not have my immediate response be, "Fuck no, we have shit to see; we're not stopping anywhere nearby."

I don't feel like I am merely wandering anymore. It feels like I am looking for a place to settle. That might happen in two years, or it might happen in ten or fifteen. Probably closer to ten.

I'm trying to take care of 40 year old Andy. It's hard to imagine him at 40. (It's shocking to see that number—40—written.) I've been trying to take care of myself ten years out. At 21-22 I wanted 30-35 year old Andy to have a good body, good social skills, and an education that he would find meaningful and that would find him work. (We're almost there with the work part.)

What does 40 year old Andy need?

I think he'll want a wife. He won't want to be dating because that takes a lot of time and energy, and at that age people prefer meaningful, deep, long-term relationships. I think he'll want to have a family started already (at 35 or so). I think he'll still be reading good books. I hope he'll still regularly ride motorcycles (with tempered enthusiasm). Maybe he'll have a small photography business on the side. I hope he'll still keep his body in good shape. He probably won't have as much time to write like he does now, but I think he'll still keep a journal to organize his thoughts. He'll write thoughtful letters to friends, family, and himself. He'll want to own a house because he grew tired of renting well before the age of 28. He will have chickens, or he will have grown tired of raising chickens. He'll have a dog or two. 

It feels weird to write all of this out like just like that. It almost feels like a dubious move—as if I were invoking bad luck—to spell it all out so clearly. Because, tragedy can strike at any moment. And tragedy will eventually strike. Every relationship ends in tragedy. Every star fades, or blows up, or something. We all die. Some live well; many do not. (As I type this there is a deranged man outside our apartment screaming nonsense at the top of his lungs, nonstop for the past ten minutes, at 1am on a cold and exceptionally windy night.)

Anyway, I have a sense of direction. And I have forward momentum. I'm going to keep that momentum.

(A cause of many minor accidents in beginner riders is a lack of throttle. The spinning of the tires, and to a lesser degree of the internal components of the engine, creates a gyroscopic force that keeps the rider upright. If you want to stay upright, keep moving.)

...

A thought mostly unrelated to the above writing: 

I think that dating apps like Tindr, Bumble, etc. are like a mirror. They're a mirror just like dating is in general. You'll find what you're looking for (not what you think you're looking for). Granted, I get that women get a lot of unsolicited dick pics. And granted, ugly dudes don't really stand a chance online. But besides that, the dating scene is a ruthless mirror. If you repeatedly come across a similar type of person, it's because that's what you're looking for. Or, perhaps more often than not, that is what your shadow is looking for.

Most of us don't realize what we're looking for. We just notice what we keep finding. Sometimes this works out fine, and we're happy. But not in my experience. Maybe that's too general to be meaningful.

It's serious work learning what we (authentically) enjoy. And it's more work learning what is both (truly) good and (authentically) enjoyable. And then it's even more work leaning to (truly) enjoy what is (truly) meaningful and (truly) good. (I authentically enjoyed LSD for a while, but that didn't work out so well. —Philosophy, however.)

Ares rests. 

Onward, Hermes. Guide this wayward soul.

...

Photography has been good for me.  It has been a creative exhalation after what felt like a relatively long period of inhalation (reading and thinking). 

I now have a tangible goal to further hone my NYE resolution: I want 1,000 followers on my photography account, and I want to follow no more than 500 people (300 would be more ideal).

Is this mere vanity? —No not quite. But vanity is an element, a motivating force.

If this was shallow vanity I would be aiming for mere-likes, shallow finger taps. And the easiest way to do that is to post pictures of beautiful people, namely women. 

I would rather post beautiful-pictures-of-people rather than pictures-of-beautiful-people. (Maybe someday I will post beautiful-pictures-of-beautiful-people).

Anyway,

I have a few rules in mind for my instagram acct, but nothing official yet—

• No gratuitous sexy bullshit
• No makeup
• No Cleavage
• No abs
• No ass
• No Photoshop (to clean up skin)

I'm searching for a deeper beauty, and I want to bring it to light. Maybe I'll find it. Maybe I won't. Maybe I'll merely devolve into a pornographer. —probably not.

...

A ghost says, do not get fat on low hanging fruit; it is not becoming. I do not know what she means, so you will have to interpret that.

...

They say that there is nothing behind the veil. I say that they need a better metaphor. While Life may be a mystery, 

 Ares is on the move again, ready to set fire and cleave apart anything he can. 

...

I’ve been working with despairation. Editing photos all day. Time is ticking. So many seeds scattered by the wayside. So many seeds on rocky ground

so much wasted

all hope and no technique  

...

Tonight isn’t a night for well-articulated thoughts. I’ll just lay here in bed and burn. And in the morning I will reconstitute the ashes into a new man. The new man will be quite the same man as before, but we will have lost some pieces. Maybe we will assemble the remainder in a more harmonious way than before; It is unlikely.

...

Ares is on the move. And he wants to pick a fight with you. 

February 3, 2021: Nostalgia set to max

"We had it so much better than I (inadvertently) chose to remember."

I (inadvertently) spelled Andres to Ares. That was interesting. I hadn't made that connection before.

Feb 2, 2021: Nostalgia // It's Imbolc, apparently

A friend [hi Lauren, nice seeing you here, hope all is well, we don't get so many visitors here] posted videos on her private Instagram story of her family videos, the kind taped on a camcorder where you can hear the autofocus better than the dialogue. It got me feeling nostalgic, and I remembered that I have a hard drive that my father sent me a few years ago. I figured it was time to really sort through it. 

There were so many memories and pictures on that HDD that I had totally forgotten about. The funny thing about really forgetting is that you don't know how much you have forgotten unless you come back to it. —That's where I am right now.

The pictures are a mess, many unlabeled, with many duplicates, but mostly organized by date. 

Organizing these pictures that my father has given me is a metaphor for how I feel about him: thanks, it's meaningful, but it's a mess; it's a pain in the ass, but I'm sure I can make something of this if I put effort into it.

...

It's Imbolc, or it was until the sun set. I'm not sure what that means other than the fact that it's a synchronicity. 

...

There is so, so much to unpack. I'll leave pictures and sort through the ideas later.

This... this isn't how I was remembering the past. I have a lot of anger and resentment towards my past, much more than I deserve, especially my teenage years.

A ghost speaks, now you understand what Socrates meant that the Daimon is the guardian—the guardian shadow, preventing you from speaking or acting when you would rather have done so. 

Yes, he can be quite the tricky fellow.

Jan 29, 2021: On Depth

I'm recording a timelapse video right now of Caitlin and I sitting next to each other in bed. She's working from home. I'm doing my thing—reading and writing this. I'll post it here in a bit. It feels weird to share this part of myself but... well, why not? (Because our room is a disgusting mess; there's a beer can in the shot from the night before last and more hidden out of view.) We're in need of cleaning...

It's 10am. At 1pm I'll go to a friends house in West Seattle. Kris (and Will) will be there. Will has a nice mirrorless digital camera that he's using to take video. Apparently he was involved in film production somehow and he wants to learn how to do more stuff so he can stop paying other people do that stuff. Anyway, he's going to film me, wearing his helmet and jacket, riding his bike. And. Um. His bike is a Ducati Hypermotard, which has 2x as much horsepower as my bike. It's intimidating. And I can't fucking wait. 

...

I've been slowly working my way through The Listening Society. I've said this before, I forget where: This book feels like a capstone to so much of my reading, neatly tying so much of what I've been trying to put into words, and it does it in relatively simple language. 

There are a few chapters dedicated to what the author(s) call Depth. I needed a new understanding of this word. According to Hanzi, depth is the capacity for a person to subjectively experience—to feel—high states of being and low states of being,. to feel really good and really bad, but in a more religious sense—to travel between heaven and hell in one's everyday life. 

Depth isn't a good thing or a bad thing. It's not related to how intelligent a person is. It's not related to how educated a person is. Depth is the intensity of the high and low feeling—and not just low or high, it is the total distance both, the distance between an ocean trench and a mountain peak. 

Hanzi pokes fun at Eckhart Tolle, which made me giggle. I fucking hate Tolle. Tolle is a quasi-religious figure. And I could not figure out why I hated him so much until now. It's because he has great depth, but he's really unsophisticated. He thinks flowers are enlightened plants and that we can stop suffering in this world by "spreading light". But it's like dude, you're forgetting about a lot of things—politics, sociology, economics, epidemiology, natural environmental disaster etc. Providing one single answer—kindness, awareness, "light", healing, or love—doesn't solve anything no matter how hopeful it feels.

Anyway, everyone has a different level of depth, but the problem is that we can't see other people's depth because we can't experience exactly what they experience. We all feel that we're a walking mystery, a special black box. 

This is one of those rare "intellectual books" that handles the nature of religious experiences in a way that really does them justice. There's value in that.

Hanzi also has a good definition of wisdom: a combination of good mental health, depth, and complexity (in my words, intellectual-sophistication). 

Here are relevant quotes:

"Depth is a person’s intimate, embodied acquaintance with subjective states. A person’s inner depth increases through her felt, lived and intuitive knowledge of a new subjective state (lower or higher than previously experienced)—and when the intimate acquaintance of that state becomes an integrated part of her psychological constitution; a part, if you will, of her personality."

"...another way of describing the matter is that depth is a person’s innermost recognition of the greatness and/or seriousness of reality. As with subjective states we don’t have the relevant data, which means that we cannot say very much about how depth is distributed in a population."

"A great-depth response involves yet more universal values which do not necessarily correspond to aspects of everyday life: to manifest divinity in the world, to find radical acceptance, to serve the becoming of the most profound possible unity and multiplicity, to surrender fully and without compromise to God or existence, to “be” wordless emptiness and recognize the pristine meaninglessness of the ultimate truth."

"Beauty, in this sense, is a kind of recognition. We recognize things such as harmony, balance, proportionality, contrast, pattern, variation, rhythm, repetition; aspects of the world that we spontaneously seem to appreciate. We appear to be able to deepen our relationship with reality by expanding this recognition."

"I would like to suggest that there are three specific forms of inner depth that a person can develop. These follow the fundamental philosophical form of Plato’s “big three”: beauty, truth and justice. Although in this context I have found it more appropriate to speak of the three categories beauty, mystery and tragedy."

"But for all its blinding beauty and mysterious elegance, the universe is always broken. We have already discussed that our planet is perpetually screaming into the silence of the surrounding cold, empty cosmos. All systems, all living organisms, are always falling apart. A million things always can, and always will, go horribly wrong. [...] If there is a fundamental divide between the innocence of (healthy) childhood and the maturity of adulthood, it is that children live in blissful unknowing of the utter tragedy of existence, whereas the (spiritually mature) adult lives in full awareness of suffering."

January 27, 2021 (Not a vegetarian)

(I definitely need to come back and edit this later)

I can reasonably say that I don't have COVID. Caitlin and I received negative tests. If we were exposed last sunday, then we are still in the incubation period. However, Mariah, our dear vector, tested positive last week but tested again this week and came back negative; last week was probably a false positive. She has been getting tested twice a week at her work. I suppose a false-positive was bound to happen at her place of work eventually. It's just funny that it happened to her. 

...

I'm doing intermittent fasting with the help of a half-dose of BronkAid (over the counter ephedrine) in the morning paired with black coffee. I'll start going on walks in the morning soon. I've been too sedentary. I'm looking forward to having a gym again.

I feel weird admitting that I'm using ephedrine, but it's the truth. And I'm aiming for honesty here. 

From a phenomenological (subjective) perspective, it doesn't feel like much is going on. My head is a little quieter. I'm not hungry. I can breather more clearly (surprise surprise). I feel more focused, but not by much. 

I had an adderall prescription some years ago, and that significantly altered my state of being—and not in a good way either. The difference between half a dose of BronkAid and a 30mg dose of Adderall is like comparing drinking half a glass of wine to two or three back-to-back tequila shots. Maybe a full dose of Bronk will upgrade the experience to a full glass of wine.

...

Oh, here's a big one: 

I'm in the early stages of limiting my meat consumption for ethical reasons. I finished the book The Feeling of Life Itself by Christof Koch, on a recommendation by The Listening Society. The book made a good argument that animals do have some level of consciousness. 

I wrote an okay paper in an epistemology class that discussed consciousness. I said that the fundamental difference between the human mind and the mind of a chimpanzee (or a bee) is similar to the structural difference between the hand of a chimp and the hand of a human—one slight change to one particular bone in the hand or thumb and a species goes from smashing rocks against things to making machines that can manipulate individual atoms. I called this uniquely human quality universality; universality is a quality of mind and body that we possess and other animals do not—as far as I can tell, anyway.

Language, and the mind, can turn in on itself and transform itself in infinite ways. Given enough time, we have the necessary equipment (brains, hands, and language) to represent any true proposition or really do anything. Meanwhile, the "animal kingdom" seems to be at a steady equilibrium. (This last paragraph is dubious, but you get the idea. We have in us, right now, a quality that animals do not, this quality includes the capacity for ethics Zack made an interesting point yesterday, saying, should we allow animals to eat each other? —sure why not.) 

Anway—yeah—I think humans are fundamentally different from animals in terms of our subjective experience. Humans have meaningful experiences; animals just have mere-experiences. (And we have what Heidegger calls Dasein, and animals do not.) We are unmatched in our ability to represent and transform our environment according to our desires (for better or worse because of how short sighted our desires are). Yes, I think we are, in fact, special. I also think that given enough time and the right conditions, any species could eventually reach our level. But we are more capable in terms of our development of consciousness. (See: Model of Hierarchical Complexity)

All that being said, I think that animals do experience the world, albeit in a less sophisticated way that we do. And I also think that hippies and animal rights activists overestimate the capacity that animals have for consciousness/subjective experience. But I don't think animals are mere clockwork. 

So here's the grand conclusion:

I want to eat less factory farmed meat. Life is tragic and full of suffering. We're all just struggling to get by on Earth. We all meet death, and that encounter often involves great pain. But a factory farm is hell, not Earth. Every being deserves a reasonable chance at living at least an okay life.

Not all animals are created equal; so here's my first shot at a hierarchical list of what not to eat:

• Dolphins and friends
• Apes/Monkeys
• Pigs
• Octopuses (unsure about squid)
• Corvids/Parrots
• Rats/Racoons/Squirresl
• Cows
• Chickens
• Most fish

Fair Game: Generally speaking the idea is to avoid factory farmed meat. 

• If it's hunted or wild caught, it's probably fair game. 
• Happy, pasture raised cows/chickens are okay 

...

I am reminded of being seventeen, wandering the desert that one night, tripping my balls off, and standing by a yucca plant and feeling a white glow of being. In its own way it said, "Hi, don't mind me here; I'm just here growing."—Now, that's some hippy, pantheist bullshit. But that's what I felt. And it was meaningful, even if it was just a projection (my mind simulating what a plant might feel). 

Anyway, if carrots scream, then, sorry carrots; this is necessary: life feeds on life.

Jan 25, 2021

I might have COVID. We'll see in within the next 48 hours. Everyone involved is asymptomatic at this point. One friend just happens to get tested twice a week. 

...

I found myself taking a piss (literally) and fantasizing about great future achievements of great philosophical achievement. I imagined people coming to me from far away to see my wisdom. But rather than being on a lonely mountaintop, I would be tending a garden, or riding a motorcycle; I would be out there living a good life.

I don't suppose I'll ever be a great thinker. That dream stinks of caustic golden smoke. But I see the value in that fantasy. 

...

Some popculture guy probably already figured it out. I need to pay more attention to popculture movements. I need to figure out if there is some meaningful trend I am missing. It's too convenient for me to just wave it all away. 

January 20, 2021 Hell is a place on Earth

It's just before 5pm. I've just returned from the grocery store to pick up beer, onions, and ground beef. The cat is sitting beside me while I type this up. The groceries need to be put away, but I find that it is more important to get these thoughts down. 

There was a woman outside the grocery store entrance, wearing a thin white t-shirt with no bra, black pants, way underdressed for a cold, dry, evening. She was attractive, quite beautiful, but tragically so. She had short hair which was fairly well-kept, all things considered. I have seen her once before, in the summer, walking barefoot along the same sidewalk, in a confused, solipsistic daze. This time, things were different. 

I can still see her standing there. I'm walking toward her. There's a crowd of four gathered behind her. She's staring past me, screaming. I can't make sense of what she is saying. I don't remember precisely what she said. —demons! There are demons here! Can't you see? They are all here...— It doesn't matter precisely what she said. It was her comportment, her countenance—her being. 

This moment will stay with me. Another ghost joins the fold. 

There go I but for the crapiscious will of chance. I am one traumatic brain injury, prion, or other meaningless misfortune away from joining that woman in hell. 

Hell is place on Earth.

Hell is in my neighborhood.

...

I wish I could have gotten this on video. I wish others could have felt what I felt in that moment. It had the power of what Maslow called a Peak Experience, but it was in the other direction. The experience came with a message, and the message was this: You and your neighbors, in spite of your virtues and vices, may find yourselves in hell.

I have a lingering doubt whether or not this was "real". It could have been art. Well, if it was an art performance, it was real enough. This moment was an accurate representation of a larger problem, repeated in too many people.

How many live in hell like this?

...

This woman needs help. There are many people like her who need help. Many of these people who need help do not have friends or family. Many of them have alienated every ally. Many of them are ugly in face and in soul; they are socially and economically useless. Even so, they deserve better than hell. The least we can do is better accommodate them; if we can, we should. —Social programs, church programs, community outreaches, it really doesn't matter, the more the better.

...

Reading today, Hanzi's The Listening Society:

"A lot of the less-than-fully-functional people in society tend to out-depth most of us—or at least they have the potential to do so. [They have deep hearts, deep emotions, existential depth.] Broken and crazy people, for all their limitations, often live in greater worlds; they have walked to hell and back. A lot of them just stumbled on their way back."

January 14, 2021: ghosts

Before I fell asleep last night, I was visited by a ghost: I heard my mother weeping bitterly. I texted her this morning to make sure she was still alive. She's alive. But, nonetheless, it was her ghost.

I get the sense that this is one of those moments that is important from a psychoanalytic standpoint. When I felt her weeping, she wasn't weeping as my mother. Rather, she was weeping because she was in grief. She was weeping in the fullness of herself, in a greater totality of her being—not as a mother.

It's an achievement of personal development to be able to understand our parents as individuals with their own lives, seeing them not framed within their archetypal role as parents. That being said, I feel behind the curve because I have had such a problematic relationship with my parents because of our religious and ideological differences.

...

The feeling itself was intense. It has colored my thoughts even now after I return to this document over twelve hours later. Every time I think of my mother, I think of her in a state of suffering. She's suffering with the totality of her being.

I don't think she would have ever showed me such a face. She would never admit to despairing of life; she instantly pulls up a mask of humble, god-fearing, piety.. I assume that she felt the need to set an example—to point to the right way. 

But children need to watch adults overcome, for they do as their parents do, not as their say; for they are as their parents are, not as their parents wish they were.

...

On the metaphysics/ontology of ghosts: 

They are real. And you have encountered them. I do not know if they take physical form beyond the firing of neurons in the brain. But they exist and influence our world. Their relation to the world of physical matter is beyond me; they are not readily summoned by materialistic means. But the arts [e/i]nvoke them. 

They live alongside our ideas and the gods. Oftentimes, we're unable to distinguish between our ideas and them; most people don't even notice the difference between themselves and gods and ghosts.

A ghost says, the gods and daimons speak; you only need to inquire within. 

Jan 12, 2021

I am in the living room. The TV is going. Regular Show is playing. It's underrated. Caitlin loves it. I love it. I hope an academic acknowledges its brilliance someday, if they haven't already. 

A thought came to mind that I felt the need to share. Hopefully I can catch it. 

So, there's this idea that if you're doing the right thing in the right way, then you're so busy being "good" (that is, good at something) that you don't notice how bad the world is. This phenomenon is better accurately described by psychologists when they describe flow. 

I think the opposite of flow is the Heideggerian idea of present-at-hand—when we encounter an object/habit/something that is no longer working, it forces us to sit and contemplate the theoretical nature of the object. If we're at our keyboard, in the middle of trying to post something to reddit and the internet stops working, then we're no longer on a reddit-machine; we're trying to diagnose a problem; we're in problem solving mode, trying to figure out what it really means. The computer stops being a tool, and it becomes a series of puzzles.

I feel like over the past two years I have been coming out of a present-at-hand mindset—a fog. It as if my being—what I am—has been in a state of constant-maintenance, like a motorcycle that spends too much time in the garage. But now I feel like I am a more reliable machine, worthy of long-distance travel.

This is good. When I was younger, if I would have been in flow I would have been "flowing" in the wrong direction—better to be (self-aware and) neurotic and set my-self in order. 

That being said, it's not that I don't find myself in the garage often. Rather, I feel that I have the confidence to ride—to do and be—onward, however long the journey may be, I can plan for it. (Well, within one or two lifetimes; eternity is another matter, for the opus magnum is seldom completed in one lifetime.)

January 9, 2021

It's actually the 10th, shortly after 1am. I'm in bed, and the rain has just started to pick up outside, slow steady drops. Caitlin is asleep beside me. She's not snoring this time. We had a good day today. We drove to Cle Elum and Roslyn. I found Caitlin a pair of good ($20) socks for $3 at a thrift store.  I took pictures, and then we drove back. Then we had my favorite fried chicken at Sisters and Brothers Bar on Ellis, a few blocks away. I spent the rest of the evening editing photos.

While we were making our way over the pass, Caitlin read a little bit of The Story of Philosophy by Durant. She's only getting started with the book (and reluctantly). She's reading about Plato's Republic. Its discussion about the potential perils that we face as a society feel exceptionally relevant at the moment. The Capitol building was breached by Trump fanatics who wanted—well, no one is quite sure precisely what they wanted, but we know that it's bad and that it's stoked on by Trump's insistence that he won the election. 

I sincerely wish the entire country would read The Story of Philosophy. But I doubt I can even get Caitlin to read it. Well, pearls before swine; garnets in the grass. —Sorry, Caitlin. (My father shares this same impulse, the desire to force information on people. I can never forget him once saying that he wishes he could do a Vulcan mind meld on people so they could know what he knows; sorry, Father, a Vulcan mind meld goes both ways.) 

I'm not sure how afraid I should be. I have been worried for a long time that the United States may face a civil war or perhaps prolonged domestic terrorism. It doesn't look like we're going to suddenly plunge into war and strife. But there will be fallout. If his spell isn't broken and his lies aren't brought out of darkness, Trump will be remain political martyr, a rally cry. 

I found the New York Times article The American Abyss by Timothy Snyder to most accurately reflect my beliefs. What I wrote above is significantly influenced by his opinion. (I signed up for The New York Times today on Don and Zack's recommendation, so far so good.)

...

The new website is coming along nicely. I think the plan is to make it a reflection of my most important ideas.

January 4, 2021

It's just before noon. I have work in an hour. I'm in jeans, sitting beside Caitlin on the bed while she works from home.

This weekend was busy and full: We had friends over. I bought a new camera. We accidentally spent $50 on two chicken legs (2 pounds) from a truck operated by Sea Breeze Farm at the Ballard farmers market; the chicken was, without a doubt, worth every penny, and now we are ruined, for every chicken will pale in comparison, living in the shadow of that . I also lost myself in Adobe Lightroom for hours. And I pu

I bought a used DSLR at a good discount from Glazers. Like the idiot noob I am, I thought it was broken because the viewfinder was blurry. So, now two days later, I went back to the store to see what was up.  Well, turns out that there's a small dial by the viewfinder. Anyway, I bought a spare SD card, a lens cleaning kit, and two books—The Essence of Photography and Extraordinary Everyday Photography. Reading makes a difference, especially when it comes to things like this; technical manuals are not enough. 

I also bought the domain curiousredthread.com to use for my short stories and essays. That is going to be an interesting project. 

Here are some pictures I took. I'll need to figure out a way to format them to make them look good on this blog.