September 9, 2020: LA? More like Hell-A (you lizard scum)

It has been quite the week. 

It's nearly 8:00 am as I being to write this. I'm listening to XTC. I have had the song Complicated Game stuck in my head all day; the lyrics are almost too relevant. 

I dropped Caitlin off at the airport at 6am; I missed an exit, which led me to drive the most agressively I have ever driven. Weaving through traffic with my pedal on the floor in my slow car is, in comparison, about as scary as moderate traffic on I-5 on a motorcycle. 

Right now I'm in the mood to fight. I told-off a college friend who I was once close with but disagreed with. (We were close enough so that I joined her for Thanksgiving in Eastern Washington a few years ago.) I sent her an agressive-passive-agressive message, waited for a response and blocked her. —Petty but not wrong. Despite our history, it was time to cut the baggage.

This past week I have been looking for for excuses to delete people off of my Instagram friends list. It feels relieving despite how petty it is. As much as I would like to think that social media doesn't matter, it is actually a big part of my life. It wouldn't be right to throw my phone in the blender, so I best make due with what I have.

I realized that I have been hanging too tightly onto internet friends/connections. I also didn't realize how many acquaintances that I regularly checked up on don't follow me back, which makes me feel like a fucking idiot; I don't like giving my attention away for free like that. I've maintained a falsely inflated sense of social connection for too long.

...

I broke up with my therapist over email. She sent me this email:

Dear Andy,
 
Of course, you can end your therapy with me at any time and for any reason. However, I wonder if you would agree to one more session to bring our work to a thoughtful end. The abruptness we both experienced last week can leave you feeling that what you’ve accomplished over the past months amounted to little rather than giving dignity to your accumulated efforts.
 
You may also help me to understand where I disappointed you so that you needed to cut the work short.
 
Warmly,

L 

She wanted to know where things went wrong, and the evidence is right there in the email she sent. She used the word disappointed. Why the fuck does a therapist need my approval? I'm not disappointed. But the fact that that is how she worded it is a red flag; yes, maybe she meant something else, but the phrasing is a real red flag. Plus, therapy is literally never over. There is never a good time to stop going into analysis; the drama of human life is infinite—always an open end left to tie off. Stories and art offer a sense of completion, and many of the most excellent works are left open.

I'm curious what this will look like in hindsight. Was my therapist getting too close to the root of a problem when my defenses kicked in? Or was our rapport problematic? No one knows—not even the shadow because he's too involved. I hope time will make things clearer. 

I would leave therapy very angry and in a bad mood more often than not over the past month or so. That too is enough. My decision to cut ties was correct.

...

I met up with Billy last week. We had a beer and caught up. We were both with the 3-2 General Support Aviation Battalion at Camp Humphreys. We only hung out once or twice maybe. But that one time we hung out I gave him an excessively large Mexican hat while I wore a poncho and a sharpie mustache, and we went around the barracks and the 'Ville just outside the base. I played guitar, and he played percussion (a trashcan). He says that while we were out in the 'Ville there was a general coming through and some officers were scouting areas beforehand and they needed us to leave. Supposedly we ran into that general that night; that's how he tells the story, and he tells it well. I don't remember details of that night. I might have been drinking too much that night. Those were strange times.

So, Billy and I caught up after six years, and he invited me to join him on a roadtrip to LA four days later. Caitlin asked me if I was prepared to spend a long time in the car with someone I don't know well. But I told her that we were both in the army, and he deployed. Military people know how to deal with each other in confined spaces for long periods of time. We have a certain kind of stoic social-awareness that says, "we're both suffering, so let's do whatever it takes to make this suck less." If someone left the military under honorable conditions, chances are they know how to behave reasonably enough.

This weekend was the worst weekend to go. The area experienced record breaking heat, and there were massive forest fires along the way that made a 9am trip down I-5 look like a 9pm trip through a reasonable-sinner's rural neighborhood in hell: the sky was totally dark, gray, thick blanket of smoke, but there was an orange glow on the horizon which gave a sense of dubious hope.

Billy didn't say where exactly where we were going. I just assumed we were going to be visiting friends that he had met in the army. —Nope. We met his VRChat friends. Before we arrived I had never heard of VRChat. VRChat is...interesting, worth a google. So it turns out that the people we were staying with are also interesting.

We stayed with B and Ela. B is an entrepreneurial mid-twenty-something. Ela—Ela Darling—is a pornstar (probably one of the better educated porn stars by a significant margin)—a legit porn star whose level of success and fame I only began to realize when Billy and I left their house and I saw that she had 30k Instagram followers. And then seeing this Rolling Stone article after a quick google really made the gravity of her reach sink in. —Not that she's particularly famous, but still, it's more than I had expected on this trip. I mean, I don't know anyone else who gets invited to the AVN Awards.

Ela and I had a multi-hour long conversation on Saturday. I took a few notes on my phone. Here they are:

"First learn how to direct your own focus. But then a big part of conversations is learning to direct others' focus."

"My default mode is dialogue."

"Mask Maker"

The majority of our conversation revolved around the topic of persona, which was a particularly apt conversation because actresses, especially those in porn need serious persona management. They need to create distinct boundaries within their lives, dividing between fans and friends, nearly-never letting their fans slip too close.

I won't be able to recreate our conversation. But I'm going to write what I got out of it. 

Persona is the mask we put on whenever we're in a social setting; (I could argue that we always use a persona to interface with our environment). It's our interface. It's our filter. It is our face. It directs our focus. Our self is too complex, too multifaceted, too nebulous, too paradoxical, and too liable to injury to rawdog the things of this world.

Learn to Direct Your Focus
The persona is a lens that focuses on what matters—that is, on what it presumes matters. When you're driving, you're focusing the road. When you're talking to someone you're looking at body language, or if you're like me, you direct your spotlight-of-consciousness on yourself (creating a feedback loop of anxiety) even though it would be better to focus on common interest.

Learn to Direct Their Focus
There is a wrong way of approaching this idea that goes something like "manipulate people into focusing on what matters to you." Rather, we ought to comport ourselves in a way that reflects what we are trying to do. This is why people wear suits at work and sexy clothes in clubs. And there are more subtle ways of managing this, both positive and negative. Every conversation involves a dance of illumination and censorship, for we all are Legion. 

When two people are talking, it's like their both trying to reference a similar point a space—a shared subject or a goal. An effective persona drives forward the conversation by highlighting certain things and dimming others. Sometimes deep emotions need the spotlight, and other times they don't.

We are all responsible for comporting ourselves. 

The Mask Maker
This came as a vivid fantasy. I saw my nebulous self—an unknowable mass from which my consciousness was arising, and I saw from the mass, many arms growing in various directions and at the end of each was a mask. And I heard a soft voice ask, "where is the mask maker?" After this I saw three things: The Self, the Mask Maker, and the Masks. 

Personas arise without effort—just like trees and weeds. Also like trees and weeds, they can be cultivated. Most people allow nature to do all of the work; sometimes this works perfectly, for there are many great trees in the forest. 

I think that acting is the highest form of persona management. It is the deliberate formation of a persona according to the needs of the situation—whether on a stage or not. My intuition says that actors know how to manage a social situation effectively using their persona. They are mask makers. 

Lastly, I realized that I was really really really bad at persona management in the army, at school, and at AWS. The professional world that I had entered was extremely impersonal and collective, while I acted like a lost child with a bleeding heart in my shirt pocket, in search of praise, desperately promising to do my very best.

My Default Mode is Dialogue
While Ela and I were talking I noticed that we were talking in a very different way than Billy and B. Ela and I were going back and forth discussing ideas while Billy and B were very laughing while providing commentary. This is when I realized that there are different styles of conversation, and I default to dialogue (and monologue). I try to get people to speak with me in a Socratic way where we discuss topics to arrive at true (truer) conclusions.

• Debate
• Dialogue
• Monologue
• Flirtation
• Storytelling
• Lecture
• Bullshitting 
• misc.
• etc.

Each mode requires its own persona. When in a conversation, both peoples' personas have to match up. (Not everyone wants to or is capable of engaging in socratic dialogue.)

...

If you can help it, don't be star struck—especially pornstar star struck. It is a fetter to good conversation.

...

I just bought an app that is going to help me unfollow my non-followers. I need my daily greyhounds-and-memes fix, but I have reddit for that sort of thing.

...

Guess I'll have to unfollow Ela on Instagram since she doesn't follow me back. Oh well.

...

Paraphrasing a bit from The Art Spirit: 

"The class of free men is small: so many of them are ground to dust by the wheel of poverty while many others are in prison. They have an idea that they live by, and they are true to it, for it is the only way they know."

A voice spoke this morning:
Would you rather follow your soul into hell, or would you die an unwitting slave?

...

Dune trailer just dropped. I am hyped.

"The hype must flow," said a redditor. 

...

Current earworm: 

A little girl asked me should she part her hair upon the left
A little girl asked me should she part her hair upon the right, no
I said it really doesn't matter where you part your hair
For someone else will come along and move it
And it's always been the same
It's just a complicated game
It's just a complicated game

—Complicated Game by XTC 

...

Ambivalence—ambiguous valence.

...

Two enemies and a third thing—star on the horizon, transcending our petty lives.

...

I just realized that becoming a published in a philosophy journal isn't as cool as writing a good reddit post and communicating with peers in a democratic fashion. More people will read a reddit post, as will younger people. Writing on reddit isn't as sexy (i.e. formally respected) as getting published in a real journal. But I'll be damned if it isn't quite meaningful. 

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. 

....