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. 

December 29, 2020

I stepped into the shower thinking that something is missing, that something isn't right in my life, that I am supposed to be doing something more important—saving the world from destruction, working on the alchemist's opus magnum, or whatever other dream. But instead I am putzing about the apartment, waiting for my menial job to start. 

Buzz Lightyear from Toy Story came to mind, and it took me a bit to figure out exactly why. From a writer's perspective, Buzz is actually quite clever. Buzz comes into this world with (flase) a priori knowledge, thinking that he is a Space Ranger equipped with deadly weapons and military training. But he's really just a child's toy, which he eventually learns to truly appreciate. He overcomes his inborn fantasies/complexes and fruitfully embraces reality. 

I wonder how many times I have arrived at this same conclusion—that I must stay in the present, awake, attentive, and with care, all in spite of the feeling that this is worthless and that I belong somewhere else. If I would like to go somewhere better, I must make my way from here, this spot right here where I am standing; this is the end and the beginning, the end and the means. 

"Each day is equal to the rest," said the weeping philosopher.

It appears that the process of realizing the value of my everyday-mundane-life is like the sun, rising, then setting again. I'll be here again, with a new metaphor or story in hand.

...

Last night, I couldn't sleep, so I was sharpening our kitchen knives, thinking about the following: 

For years now, I have felt a part of me, an internal part of me somewhere deep, struggling with the distinction between being and experiencing. It's as if a deep part of myself didn't understand how to differentiate between these until just recently. (I have the intuition that this is related to a process of maturation, a concretizing of identity.) These two words are deceptively simple and, at times, almost interchangeable. But I will be differentiating them here.

Being and experiencing are related to each other, quite intimately. 

Being is what a man is. 
Experiencing is what a man feels he is.

I'll tell you of two:
Humble is the first,
Internally exalted,
his station is low.
The other is mighty,
tho may not feel it so.

..

A ghost speaks: Many great things can be achieved with little awareness.

I do not know what he means.

...

The world at large is uninterested in me as I am. Yet, I crave its attention, a tiny seedling in me wants to be adored like a celebrity. 

A ghost speaks: respect is more mindful than adoration. 

I do not know what he means. 

December 17, 2020

Yesterday, I was hiding from the rain, standing under an airplane, probably one of UPS's MD-11's or 757's. I waved hi to a coworker, and—over the noise of an idling airplane (or whatever the technical word for it is when an airplane is hooked up to generators on the runway and makes a lot of noise, but the turbofans aren't running to avoid sucking in FOD or union employees)—I said, "Melodie, right?"

She nodded yes with big starry eyes that were framed by good-looking, yet obviously fake, eyelashes. We stood relatively close to each other for a while without really looking at eachother or talking. I realized that (and how) I enjoyed her mere presence, something I wouldn't have noticed, oh say, a year or two ago. I also noticed that Phil, a 40 year old truck driver who wants to become a pilot and also my favorite coworker, noticed me waving hi to Melodie; he nodded his head, to himself with a kind of, "huh, okay then," as if to acknowledge that a part of my personality is flirtation. —And then May, who has been exceptionally friendly to me, walked past the three of us. She looked angry, jealous even.

I stood under that jet for ten minutes and stared out into the air ramp for ten minutes, processing what had just happened, thinking about how I would be here, writing this.

Granted, it is entirely possible that I am projecting all of the drama I have described here. Even if that is the case, this is still the drama that I am (perhaps only semi-consciously) living. This is the game that I am playing whether I choose to acknowledge it or not. —Not that I want to play this particular game. We all play social games. A Jungian analyst would say that we're all living various myths and that it is in our best interest to understand the myths we're living because sometimes those myths are not in our best interest, which is what I'm trying to do here.

Standing under the jet, I realized a game that I play—or perhaps a strategy, or a modus operandi. It's a bit devious. When I go into a new place, I turn on my charm and I lightly flirt. This flirtation isn't explicitly sexual. It is possible to flirt with people's various interests. In this non-sexual sense, flirtation is non-committal socialization; or perhaps that is what charm is. Anyway, I "flirt", promising more social-attention than I care to give. This is attractive to some people. However, I merely continue to flirt; that's all they get—shallow, friendly greetings and small talk. I am not really able to move beyond this stage and really get to know the person because that would ruin the charm, and they would see that I cannot live up to the expectations set by my charm. 

The end result of excessive charm ends in one of two extreme cases: (1) enthrallment or (2) disenchantment/disappointment.

If someone is enthralled, they worship someone in the way that movie stars are beloved by their fans. The result of this is a cruel power dynamic, but it may also be fairly inconsequential.  Disenchantment may also work in my favor; the person may realize that they cannot have me, and I relish their misery because it proves my superiority (false superiority that is). Whereas when I elicit disappointment, it hurts my pride and vanity.

On a bigger scale, I think I am driven to this "charming/flirtatious behavior" by my need to feel special. I enjoy feeling like a celebrity when I walk into work. I don't want to be merely greeted by people; I want their adoration. The worst part of this is that I think many people have recognized this behavior in me. I don't imagine that they always had the words for it, much less a reason to call me out on it, since confronting me wouldn't do them any good. 

I would do better to earn respect, not adoration. I suspect that is a very important distinction for me to make when I try to gather people's attention, especially in the work place.

....

I've been reading The Listening Society at work during my downtime between planes, oftentimes huddled over my phone in an attempt to keep the screen dry from rain. There is one main argument in this book which I find simple, yet profound: the reason for much of the suffering in this world is that many people have failed to (psychologically) develop themselves across a sufficient number of domains. The author then also describes the process of development in a way that I agree with; moreover, this process unfolds in the individual and within a group/culture/society (scalefree). This parallels "my" ideas on sophistication as a virtue and our human tendency to a particular type of universality. 

Reading this book has been uncomfortable in the way that reading Nietzsche was uncomfortable. But, at least, it is more hopeful.

December 14, 2020: Family Garden

A lot has happened in the past two weeks. Perhaps the most important thing is that I started working, and I also drove down to Redmond, Oregon to take the entrance exam for the IBEW. I'll hear back in 4-6 weeks, hopefully sooner. 

It's 9am. I have work in the early noon. I have a pot of coffee brewing. 

I have a story from my high school days. It's about one of those moments in time where a lot of information is suddenly revealed in a flash of light.

"Thunderbolt Steers All Things," said the weeping philosopher. 

As a teenager, I attended a Bible study every friday evening with my family. The Bible study was lead by Shawn Sather. He was an interesting guy who deserves to be written about in a separate entry. Half the time my parents would host the Bible study, and the Sather's would host the other half. 

Sometime during my sophomore or junior year, when I went to the Sather's house for Bible study, I saw a picture of the Doak's hanging on their fridge. The Doak's were a family close to the Sathers who lived in Alaska. They were a beautiful Christian family. The father of the family was a retired army sergeant major (or first sergeant, who knows). And, what I believe was their oldest daughter, who was nearly my age, was also exceptionally beautiful. —Tall, pale white, dark hair, blue eyes (probably), and looked nothing like any of the (all but exclusively) Mexican girls I went to school with. For better or worse, I can't remember her face or the clothes that she was wearing, other than the fact that it was a sweater. —I fell in love with her picture. And I do mean love. 

I never met her. I met her father, John Doak. I met her brother, Tom. But I never met her. Almost every time I went to the Sather's house, I would look at that picture on their fridge. I would stare too long. I thought I was being sneaky, but now I'm sure I wasn't.

Falling in love with a picture is a metaphor that adequately describes how capable I was of loving someone. The Andy that went to that Bible study was only capable of loving the mere image of a person. I had more feelings for that picture than the girl I lost my virginity to. —Is that tragic or merely pathetic? (Now, after reflection, it is tragic; back then it was pathetic.)

But when I woke up this morning, I wasn't thinking about the picture I fell in love with. (—Jessica, perhaps? I would rather forget her name.) I woke up thinking of John.

The night of one particular Bible study, I knew the Doak's were visiting, so I was trying to be on my best behavior. I walked into the Sather's living room. John was there, sitting, speaking with somewhen. He noticed me when I stepped in.

He looked me up and down and said, "Oh, you're a punk." 

His tone made it obvious that I did not have his respect or approval. Apparently, that comment lodged itself really deep since I'm writing about it now, twelve years later.

I was wearing bootcut Bullhead Jeans from PacSun that were torn at my heels from being stepped on by my converse, which were dirty and written on with pen. I was probably wearing a too-tight Volcom shirt or a tattoo-inspired graphic-T from Anchor Blue. I didn't feel cool or trendy, (and I wasn't). I only remember feeling an urge to dress in that particular style. I was beholden to values I didn't understand.

I didn't consider myself a punk. I had a specific idea of what it meant to be punk. Punks were anarchists, and while I appreciated the aesthetics and rebellious energy of anarchy, I had every intention of joining the military after I graduated high school. I thought I was a good teenager, a Christian. I spent my Fridays at Bible Studies—not with friends or girls (not yet anyway).  I figured John didn't understand me—not the real me, at least. So, his comment rolled of my shoulder, but it left an ugly taste in my mouth.

But he was right. His judgement was—as far as he was considered—very correct. He had no business respecting me. He could see that I was not like him.  John had his niche; he was a well-established American, a Christian, the father of a large family, and a retired soldier. He was well-adapted. And it was in his interest to protect his family from people like me. The World at Large was calling me. I was not a good christian. I was already beginning to lead a double life that would, only a few years later, cleave in two, leaving me on the side of atheism.

John did not understand me, nor did he care to try; but I do suppose that I could have eventually earned his respect. (On the contrary, Shawn thought he understood me, and he idealized me.)  John saw that I wasn't a good Christian; I certainly did not look like one. He could tell that I was trouble. He knew that I was not like him. He could see that I would not do well in his community.  I was an outsider. All of which was true. Despite my ability to keep a cool face and have reasonable conversations, I was immature—emotionally stunted. If he would have let me into his life I would have been trouble.  And he made his feelings instantly clear with his first words to me. 

Well, good riddance, John. Thank you for sparing me your virtues and vices. For now I know how tall the walls are around your family's garden and how vast is the world outside of it. And I know that you can hardly even bear to look beyond those walls, for there isn't a gate. 

...

The past weeks I have looked back at my days in college. I've thought about a few of my relationships. Back then I wouldn't allow myself to say, "I love you." I always wanted to say "love" and really mean it. I didn't want to cheapen the word. Instead I withheld the word when I should have said it. I left love unacknowledged. And because of that I lived in a poorer world. Sorry. I won't name you here. But I have in my heart.