September 3, 2020

 I feel like shit today.

...

I spoke with my therapist, and I felt like shit. 

In that creative part of my mind I saw an oozing, slimy, black substance, slipping out of a vagina or a massive womb-cave. Mind says that's not good.

I don't think I will see my therapist again. Either she does not understand me, or I don't understand myself. When she repeats back what she thinks I mean it seems way off, and it is immensely frustrating.

...

I have sent an email cancelling my future appointments, ending our relationship.

...

I've reached a tipping point. I don't want to waste any energy on anyone who uses the slogan ACAB (All Cops are Bastards) or Blue Lives Matter. My life is too short and to waste my energy on those things. I wish I didn't care. But I do care. So I have to fight to get my resources back from these warring ideologies.

ACAB is stupid and short sighted.

Blue Lives Matter is closer to being reasonable, but it's just another slogan. It is the seemingly inevitable counter-counter-movement to the counter-movement.

BLM (Black Lives Matter) has lost its way. It has become meaningless. It has run its course. But the problems remain.

If there is a revolution, I will likely die a coward and a traitor by the hands of whichever side pulls me out of the gutter first. 

...

So much heat and no light in my world.

Better to find a new way.

...

I finished At the Existentialist Cafe. I've been meaning to read it for a few years now. I couldn't get around to actually reading my physical copy, so I listened to it as an audiobook, mostly during my semi-regular morning walks. I learned a lot. I cured me of my fascination with existentialism. I like Sartre and Heidegger much much less. I like de Beauvoir a little less on a personal level, but my respect for her work remains the same. Meanwhile my love and respect for Camus has grown. (I'm working on his book The Rebel, and it is life affirming.)

I may need to look further into the less known existentialists like Merleau Ponty. It's hard to keep track of all of the other less famous names because I'm using an audiobook. (This little clip of Hubert Dreyfus discussing Ponty is promising.)

...

Studying philosophy and misc. intellectual ideas has been a long and unfolding drama. Sometimes it feels like nothing more than words—woven air. Other times it's brilliant. Today it feels like one or the other from hour to hour. At the moment, intellectual pursuits feel like bullshit. 

I know I can't quit reading. I sort of wish I could. But that would be death. 

I used to think that reading would make me great. It made me greater. But I am not great. I'm starting to get diminishing returns. I'm not an intellectual like Camus or any of my other heros. I am unusual but in an unremarkable way. 

...

I miss the gym. I miss lifting weights. I hope I can return to it someday. I feel weak without it. I would be sad to see my body continue to go in the direction that it is going at its current rate. —Feels like death.

August 31, 2020

 It's after five pm as I begin to write this. I think I hear Caitlin making her way up the stairs. Grr is sitting on my lap as I am laid down on the bed slouching way too far to be comfortable, but the cat is comfortable, so the law says I have no choice but to endure this position. —Caitlin is not making her way up the stairs; she texted me that she has picked up the torts (tortillas) from Safeway. I'm supposed to cook dinner tonight. I bought some pre-seasoned chicken from Trader Joe's earlier. But I ate a sriracha burger from Jack in the Box only two hours ago. This isn't good.

We spent the weekend in Corvalis and Portland with Caitlin's friends which was absolutely lovely. But the main thing I'm thinking most about right now is the four-hour long way-too-late motorcycle ride home through the night. It was cold. We averaged about 80 mph for the majority of the way, often hitting 90 mph for long stretches. Caitlin says she fell asleep behind me from shortly after Olympia until the first exit to Renton, however long that is. It was miserable, but only hours later it's a fun memory.

...

I had a good conversation with Madeline Owen this morning. I have a commission for her. She asked if she could record our conversation, but I was too nervous. We might rehash that conversation again and record it. I'm excited about this. But I don't want to write anything else about it for fear of disturbing whatever is at work.

...

I had a brief job interview today. We met in a QFC parking lot. I spoke with the owner of Salmon Bay Windows. I had told him my story over the phone, namely that I plan on leaving Seattle in January. He vaguely recalled that and used it as a bargaining chip saying that he's trying to put a long term crew together and that if the other guys didn't work out he would call me, and I would have to accept his lowest wage offer.  I'm not particularly interested in cleaning gutters, windows, and moss. But a part of me thinks that "real" work would be good. When I left I realized that I had never even asked him about commute times and other practical questions. It looks to me like I didn't really care. I felt sleepy and lethargic on the way there.

He drove a Dodge Ram and wore a black tshirt with an American flag made of gray arrows—modern hunting arrows with various deadly-looking tips. We spoke across the bed of his truck. He had a tool box with a few low-key bow hunting, archery, and marksman-optics stickers, and a SIG sticker, as in the gun manufacturer Sig Sauer. Funny enough, I remember passing a Sig Sauer building south of Portland yesterday which is burned into my mind. (I was more of a Glock guy, but I never owned a rifle.)

As he was talking, I was looking at his toolbox. And I realized that if I would work for him, then I would be funding his hobbies. I would be working for him. My labor would fund his hobbies. My labor would—albeit somewhat removed—allow him to live his dreams to a greater degree than I would mine. He is an entrepreneur—taking on the dual burden of financial risk and organization. I'm not saying that working for him would be an unjust arrangement. But I am, at best, ambivalent, so I am not right for the job. 

I'm not sure what is causing this disagreement in me. I'm not sure if it's because I want to be an owner or if I find "using" other people's labor to be disagreeable for other reasons. This is something that I need to figure out because I will need to work eventually. 

August 25, 2020

Can I just be done with intellectual bullshit? I'm not sure how it's contributing to my life anymore. 

August 18, 2020

 Too much bourbon tonight, but I'm not drunk.

This question has been bugging me for the past few days: What is the value of reality over fantasy?

I've desperately clung to "reality" over the past few years. But now the line between fantasy and reality is beginning to blur, and the rightful value of one over the other is beginning to change.

...as if we were capable of relating to reality (without burning up) ... 

What does a fantasy have that reality does not?

...all fantasies have a grain of reality/truth just like a pearl has a speck.

...

Unrelated to the above thoughts:

Neon Genesis Evangelion is some real existential shit. It's legit. Papers can and should be written. Background knowledge of Christian Gnosticism, Kierkegaard, and misc weeb-shit would be required. It's a unique intersection.

Spoiler: The protagonist finds existential salvation in the fact that his self may exist in multiple possible worlds—the one which is being attacked by monsters as well as one where he is a normal student

...

Camus Quoting Nietzsche in The Rebel: 

"No artist tolerates reality."

What is this reality that Nietzsche is referring to? —Our most accurate perception of the current-state-of-affairs-and-our-environment without room for imagination: the past and the present moment devoid of imagination, creativity, and possibility. 

August 17, 2020

 I'm at Storyville again.

...

Yesterday was probably the hottest day this year Caitlin and I rode up to Bellingham. I showed her the city. We even rode through campus (illegally). 

Riding through campus felt like a metaphor. A motorcycle, for me, symbolizes individuality, exposure, and awareness. "Illegally" riding through campus felt empowering. I really don't like to use the word empowering because it's currently being overused, but it feels appropriate: I am no longer a student; I am an individual revisiting my past while asserting myself. 

...

Caitlin says that I woke up last night talking frantically, looking up, asking something over and over again, and then I laid back down and was panting heavily, trying to catch my breath. I vaguely remember panting. I don't remember my dreams too well. I remember one where I am walking through downtown Seattle but I can't really see the ground; skyscrapers are going up and down as if they were bridges, towers, and walkways all at once—something that used to point up but that has now turned into a labyrinth.

...

I get the sense that I urgently need to do something.

....

There is a reminder on my phone that says, "Take a noches towel."

...

There is a young girl, no older than 18 across the street sweeping and tidying up a restaurant called Grappa. She is beautiful. And I honestly feel that I can say that platonically. As I have grown older I am beginning to understand the "beauty of youth". It is the beauty of a fruit on a vine—symmetrical, unblemished, smooth, taut-and-supple, fresh. But this is not beauty in its highest form. The best raw fruit often is bruised and blemished; a few years reveal the deeper qualities of natural beauty. And the most beautiful things require much time, effort, and care; and many of the most beautiful things can only be understood after long reflection.

Beautiful young people are like fresh, not-quite-ripe fruit on a tree.

Beautiful adults are a bounty of ripe fruit; it does not always look the prettiest, but this is when it is at its best.

And with age, beauty may be lost. But there are ways to preserve it. The first way is to attempt to desperately retain the qualities of the beauty of youth. The second is preservation by way of transformation; the body becomes spirit/spirits: like how fruit can be fermented into preserves or alcohol. The beauty that comes with age takes work to make, and it takes understanding to enjoy.

—body becomes spirit

...

I need to think more about wabi sabi. I have an intuitive sense for it, but I don't really have the words for it.

...

Earlier this morning I wanted to angrily kick rocks and say that Plato has nothing more to offer me and that, intellectually speaking, I am worthless. Well, Plato still has value... I know that much. But I'm starting to wonder if I might better off skipping grad school and instead train to be a motorcycle mechanic.

άστατος—astatos

The Mercurial One. Always changing.

"Tell us of The Rat King," they say.

"He is only a distant and dubious vision."

...

Despite recent adventures and excitement, my world seems like a wasteland; it is missing crucial things. A better world is promised around the corner, but I know that this is all I get.

August 13, 2020

 Be careful what you joke about. In January 2019 I began speaking with Chris, the owner of Backflows Northwest. He asked what I wanted to do. I said that I wanted to write in a cafe, drink too much espresso, and smoke cigarettes. The only thing that I am missing right now is the cigarettes. I'm back at Storyville in Queen Anne. I drove up here. It's almost exactly one mile. I rather would have walked, but I have therapy in one hour, and I'm going to sit in my car because that's the only place that feels private.

I'm sitting on what must be an expensive brown leather couch with my MacBook in my lap. I'm wearing a white tshirt, olive chinos, light gray desert chukkas, my Stowa flieger, a leather bracelet made of one strand of black leather cord wrapped three times around my wrist, a black bandana around my neck because of COVID-19, and my navy twill messenger bag from Filson with a small black-and-brass crow pin. There is a copper colored chainmail curtain to my right—for decorative purposes only; after only a few adjustments it could be a Faraday cage, which would make getting wifi signal problematic, but maybe it would keep the voices out. I cannot see the espresso bar because it is hidden behind a column veneered by wood. The mood is quiet; soft voices are used at the counter. There are four people, including myself sitting at computers. One person is at the counter. There are two baristas. The vibe is expensive more than it is sophisticated. But their coffee is good—better than Cafe Ladro's right up the street (or down the same street depending on how far you're willing to walk). 

I enjoy being able to look put together—not that my execution is particularly good, but at least I make an effort unlike most Seattleites. Anyway, I would rather be getting my hands dirty. I could never just be a scholar. First, it would make Nietzsche sad if I only used my brain. Second, it's not who I am; I am not only a thinker. I need a close relationship with my body. I am beginning to realize that when I was in college, a big part of my life was weightlifting. I think motorcycle and hiking are a part of that. Weightlifting alone is too ascetic and severe—boring, really. 

...

Too much of what I say is not from my own voice. But I guess that's because my own voice never really had much to say; other people said it better first. but then the problem was that I wasn't paying attention to my own being, and other people's words led me away from myself; their-words-in-my-mouth painted over my window into the world. Most people are better off not looking through their crystal window; better to watch the veil-and-screen. Information is easier to consume and incorporate when it has already been digested and then regurgitated. We—the non-enlightened, the poor, the non-initiated—are not equipped to face our environment because it's so ugly, harsh, and cruel. But that is where value is...

...

So, what do I want?

I thought I wanted to work a corporate job in downtown Seattle, so I could get experience, find a wife, then move somewhere else and raise a family. That plan has changed. I did not fit the bill. I had no business working for a corporation. Maybe I could have survived in a small business. But I'm a fucking asshole who doesn't do exactly what he is told. I always think I know better—especially when I don't. "I learn the hard way," I have said many times.

Well, now what? 

Move to New Mexico. Attend SJC. Ride motorcycles. Probably get a dual sport like a WR250R and then maybe trade in the T100 for something tall that is good for long rides and commutes. Working with motorcycles and fixing them, sounds meaningful. Getting into something even just tangentially related to motorcycles seems like a move in the right direction. I never thought I would consider becoming a mechanic.... It sounds better than anything I've done before. I don't know if I would be a good mechanic. I wouldn't want to work in a big shop. I would do it for minimum wage or less probably, which is a good sign.

Do I want to be a mechanic? Not exactly. I want to learn how to work on my bike. I don't want to work for someone else. I don't want to make someone else rich. I hate the idea of making someone else wealthy off of my labor. It makes me sick and furious. 

See, this is how I am a piece of shit. I'm pretty sure this is how people can end up homeless later in their lives: they just don't want to just accept the opportunities society gives them, so they (read: future me) sits around being resentful with no excuse.

...

After the cafe I stopped by Safeway for orange chicken. I ate it on the sidewalk on my way to the car. A beautiful woman of mixed race, part black with pale green eyes caught me off guard and asked me what I was eating. I hadn't seen her, and I felt bad about being on the sidewalk without a mask. The most I could manage while trying to keep distant from her was to say, "—The worst orange chicken I have ever had." She left as quickly as she came. My first thought was that she must not be from around here; no one is that friendly on the street here in Seattle. 

...

Therapy was good today. I sat in my car after taking a piss behind an almost-well-enough-wooded-to-hide neighborhood bus stop in upper Queen Anne. I used refining gold as a metaphor for self-development but then—organically—by the end of the session I used growing a tree which sat much better for the two of us. 

...

I bought two bottles of bourbon, a gallon of milk, and a bag of frozen Orange Chicken. That hot blonde woman was working the register. She's tall and has a perfect figure. She can't be older than thirty. I always remember she's there. But if I saw her on the street I wouldn't be able to recognize her. She's a body behind a mask. Public anonymity. Shallow personas. Masks greeting masks—literally and figuratively. I guess it has always been that way. It is always that way. It's masks all the way down. ...No that's not entirely true. 

....

August 12, 2020

Today it feels like my frustration is losing its ability to become words and stories. Only the feeling remains; it has no object or target. Usually it generates fantasies of wild success or revenge. Today it is itself, like a burning fire, altering the shape, color, and texture of my being. 

I am in a mood. 

...

I'm sitting in the living room with a cup of black coffee from Trader Joes. This can of coffee is one of the worst we have had in awhile. My feet are cold. 

I skipped breakfast, and I will skip lunch. I'm getting fatter than I want to be.

Intermittent fasting is good. And it seems to match my mood by adding a dash of self-imposed austerity.

I keep thinking of moving to New Mexico and pacing around the house. But I should be cleaning my room—our room...

Our apartment is a metaphor for our relationship. Common area is clean, but the bedroom—where we're most intimate—is a mess. My side is messy; and she has boxes still packed from over one-and-a-half years ago, mostly her dead dog's things. 

...

If I could focus on like one thing I could probably get good at it, but I am scattered across too many things. It's nice to see the similarities across all of those things (reading philosophy, riding motorcycles, wishing I were a writer, doodling/drawing back in the day, knife sharpening, video game playing, raw denim wearing...) Man, I'm pretty fucking useless. 

Oh hey look, that fire-and-frustration turned into words again.

...

"I am nobody," a voice says. I almost confuse it for a thought of my own. It's not my voice, but it's in my voice. 

"This again?" I ask. 

The voice shrugs a pair of invisible shoulders, unsure of what it's trying to do. We've been through this before. This conversation devolves into a dialectic where the voice concedes that what it is trying to say is that I am socially insignificant and I should feel bad for being socially insignificant and that maybe I should do something to make myself better. But when I try to inquire about how exactly it is that I am supposed to make myself more socially significant, the voice becomes useless.

And now a spirit says, live the good life and know that it passes through shadows and through dark nights. 

...Yeah okay. Very deep and equally vague. Thank you. Nice. 

...

Watching Peaky Blinders (autocorrected to Pesky Blinkers on my phone earlier) with Caitlin happened to lead me across a phrase that has stuck in my mind—second sight. In the show, Polly has a near-death experience, and she comes back a broken person (who recovers). While she is broken, she caves into fringe Romani spiritualism—seances, visions, speaking with ghosts, etc. But when her family needs her, she pulls herself together and automagically recovers. As a normal, high-functioning gangster, her spiritualism becomes second sight which seems to function like really good intuition.

There is something to the idea of second sight. It's another lens to see the world through, one that primarily relies on intuition—the ability to perceive interrelated patterns that take place over longer periods of time and across wider causal-order-of-events than our senses and rationality can extrapolate and predict; it is more meaningful and less physical; it is empirical but unscientific.

I've been walking through Queen Anne in the mornings over the past few days, and I have felt like I can switch to second sight. It's my second sight. I might be better off calling it poetic sight. There isn't really anything esoteric about it. 

There is a story about an apprentice magician who is trying to learn to open his third eye. He is told to sit in meditation until it opens. He continues to sit and sit. He is a diligent and promising apprentice, so his master reveals to him the secret: his third eye had been open this whole time, the fact of which must remain a secret, and that many apprentices have cruel masters who indefinitely hold power over their students by never telling them that they already have that which they seek. 

The "spiritual world" is full of very real meaning, and it is right there out in the open for anyone to see. But, in my experience, you're not going to like it. In my experience, it has revealed a lot of poverty. When I open my poetic vision, I see an impoverished world, as if I were an urchin kid walking through filthy streets despite walking through an upper middle class neighborhood.

Actually it's more sophisticated than that. Some houses look like fake plastic shells, others warm, others overflowing with life. Churches have a surprising amount of energy. Schools beget an order. 

(Third eye? More like TURD eye... hah)

Here's my quick how-to/what-it-is guide for second sight/poetic sight: 

It's your own lens and paradigm; it is the world seen through the totality of your experiences, the books you've read, the actions you've taken, the feelings you feel; you must step up to it everytime, as if hiking to a viewpoint, and the way up changes each time; it is bigger than you realize; it is an extrapolation as far as things can get extrapolated; it also requires a degree of secrecy; it does not like to be made too public.

I think I'll call it poetic sight from now on.