I don’t want to be a downer or sound like I’m complaining, especially after what I said yesterday. To be clear I love life, being alive is one of my top 10 favorite activities. I stop to smell the roses, I dance when I hear a catchy tune, but that doesn’t mean there’s an easy street in life. Our experiences are better described by the Yin and Yang symbol. I went for my run today and it was hard. That’s probably not a surprising statement to many, exercise is hard for a reason; it’s good for you. The things that are good for the body and those that are enjoyable seldom overlap. That means if you want to stay alive, you have to work for it. What an awful trade, I didn’t ask to be in this situation and now I’m placed in an eternal struggle if I want to remain. The alternative is a frightening unknown. The Buddha says desire is the root of all suffering. I desire to live forever and have nothing bad happen all without any work, that is not a decision that is under my control and for as long as I fight reality, I will suffer. I’m a fan of Buddhist philosophies, but I feel fully embracing them makes a weak person. It’s a path to being one with the universe, but that’s it. It’s up to the individual if that’s what they’re after, but you know if you’re after something then you’ve got a desire and I don’t have to tell you what the Buddhist say about desires. When I say “weak person”, it’s a complicated meaning because if a person lives in Nirvana then they can’t be hurt, nothing weak about that. I want to then say, “but their Nirvana is limited only to the universe.” What does that mean, you can’t get bigger than the universe. Well they’re apart of the universe, they can’t manipulate it. That’s part of what I’d mean by a strong person. These days it’s trendy to hate on people who manipulate the world around them, but try living without the manipulation of agriculture, water filtration, oil refining, and electricity; all of which came about by the manipulation of people into adopting new beliefs. The people who figured those out bent the world to their will and should be seen as heroes. The universe doesn’t care about individuals, so people have to be strong to make a difference.
789
Everyday I have to ask myself, “What am I doing?” I guess that’s why or at least one reason I got suicidal ideations. That question is impossible to answer in the grand scheme, but if I don’t have an appointment that day then the answer is something like, “Staying alive.” Doing basic functions like eating and emptying waste until enough time has passed that I can go back to sleep and not have to worry about the day anymore. How many days like that until a person goes crazy. I can feel I’m angered by this because I never have an answer, my best answers are self imposed and that means at anytime those pillars can be removed. If the foundation can be removed, it isn’t holding anything up. When I get tired or angry, I’ll ask what I’m doing and my faux beliefs won’t be there, so I become a mouse in a wheel. I’m just saying, “I don’t know, what am I doing, I don’t know” Best thing I’ve found is pot because it stops that sort of thinking. Thanks to growing up with DARE I can’t think of that as medicine without a ton of shame and guilt that I’m throwing my life away. Next time I see my therapist I guess I’ll try another one of their meds, but the problem is really one of existence and acceptance of who we are. I feel like I’m doing something wrong, so I can’t live like this, but the only solutions people offer are mouse wheels. I want to be stronger and I’m already plenty strong, but I can’t be invincible. My mind say, “then kill me now”, if there’s nothing I can do to stop it then the wait makes it worse. Aye there’s the rub. I’ll never know that there’s nothing I can do to stop it unless I try everything.
A Cow’s Ability
Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, do you know what that means? I’m not totally sure, maybe I’ll watch a YouTube video on it tomorrow. I’m sure Ash Wednesday will be trending, kids love putting dirt on their faces. I’ll tell you what it means to me, Lent begins tomorrow. I think Lent represents the time Moses freed the slaves from the ancient Egyptians and they wondered in the desert for 40 days. That’s an old testament holiday that was celebrated during the life of Jesus, he was killed the final day of Pentecost.(maybe the same as lent?) For my Catholic upbringing Lent ends with Easter; the resurrection of Jesus. There is also a secular connection that Easter is held on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. I’m really excited for the Spring Equinox, but Lent is meant to be a very serious time. Our savior is about to be crucified. I can’t wait till Easter to explore what crucifixion would feel like, but also the symbolic meanings and I’m all about my symbolism. We are pattern recognizing machines after-all. Before crucifixion is the dessert though, no dessert without your desert. The slaves are freed from pharaoh, but that doesn’t mean life is instantly made better. Now the people must rebuild everything the pharaoh was providing that became normalized. This is a hyperbole, but maybe under the pharaoh people had agriculture and sewage removal. Those are a big comfort to life and big projects to start from scratch. The slaves may have escaped tyranny, but they are then faced with desolation and must prepare to work the hardest they ever have. Lent is a time a sacrifice and maintenance so we may sow the soil in Spring. I’m certain I’ll go insane at some point, but hopefully I’ll be drawing and reading the bible a lot. If bad turns to worse, there’s always Eminem.
The apple of my adams
I’ve begun the house hunting process. Today I went to view some houses with a realtor and am working on submitting an offer. I’m writing this while I go back and forth with the realtor through text, he’s writing up my offer. I have a similar feeling to last time we were looking at a house. When I’m doing things that feel best to me, I feel like I get the most push back from the them. I remember hearing to get your own realtor because if you use the seller’s one, they might not have your best interest at heart. I don’t think anyone who makes money from me spending money will ever have my interest at heart. I don’t want to spend money and they would benefit from me spending more. The whole process drives me nuts because I know they’re filling in the blanks on a pre made legal document. Sure, the initial writing of the document is work, work that I disagree with and would rather be allowed to do myself, but I’ll submit that it’s work. What I see the realtors doing is click an empty box and type the number I told them, that I can definitely do myself; they’re just getting in the way. Charge me for the inconvenience while passive aggressively pushing me in deeper. Maybe a realtor will read this and take offense, I’m not talking about you, you’re one of the good ones. We used to be able to enter into agreement with each other and in theory we can and only people can, but the system is so twisted in order to create money out of nothing. I’m very frustrated about this because it makes me tired and gets in the way of my life. Since when is buying a house apart of life?
Early Rising for Easy Raving
Were that these writings be a journal or an exercise in creativity. I supposed they’re just a place for me to dump an overflow of thoughts. I did some stretching last night that I would like to make routine. The idea being similar to this writing, that I move my muscles and it pushes any excess out of the system. This writing is different than just stretching because something is left on the table afterwards, specifically the words I’ve used. I can say writing this doesn’t matter so I’ll just put down anything and sometimes I do, but that is also saying that I don’t matter because these words are me. Nearly everyday I’m faced with a thought that this is the last thing I’ll ever write and I better say everything I want people to know, I’ve done that so many times that the list of things people must hear is growing quiet long. Maybe a lesson people should learn is there is only love. If an action is done without or in conflict with love, I doubt it should be done. It’s a hard nut to crack because hitting person A to defend person B is done with love for person B, but the hitting is not done with love. Should everyone be a pacifist and allow themselves to be walked all over? I might say so, but who’s going to swallow that pill. I think the pacifist is happier being a pacifist than the average person is when they slug a baddie. Perhaps violence is like cursing, it shows a lack of vocabulary. I like to think of violence not only as hitting, but an eruption of energy. In my previous scenario, there is overwhelming lover for person B, so a reaction to protect them comes forward in the mind without thinking. We have few choices before us when we’re not thinking.
Can’t get rid of me that easy
I took some time off to think. I had talked to Ben about working more, then I got a strange message from him that made it feel like I was expected to work more. I didn’t like that. I understand where he’s coming from that he wants to get his work done, but I want to get my work done; that’s ultimately why we can’t work together. On Monday I’ll message him back saying I’m not going to come back so I at least have the weekend to think about this decision and if its what I really want. While working for him and going to my painting class, I’ve been at my lowest level of drawing production since November, that tells me what is good for me and what is bad. I talk with Ben about isolation and the dangers of it, I agree with him a lot, but we’re different people and some degree of isolation is healthy for me. I struggle because society says we should all be extroverts and socializing is valued. I think a sense of community should be valued over socializing and we can’t have extroverts without introverts. Some people thrive in a crowd and some work alone. My wife and I have everything we want. Maybe we’ll build a castle around ourselves and have a wonderful life for awhile until one of us dies. It will be hard, maybe impossible by then to step outside of the castle, but you can’t have a good place without a bad place. I know what makes me happy and what doesn’t, I’d be willing to wager I know these things more than the average person knows their self, so I won’t be told I need to live differently when I’m happy and not hurting anyone else.
Not till the appropriately sized woman sings
Tomorrow will be a good date. 2’s and 0’s flying all over the place. Today went really well. The exercise Ben started me out on was thought provoking. As I was leaving he said, “Sometimes it’s harder to figure out what needs to change than it is to change it.” Then he mentioned Yoda. Now that I notice that I’ve called him Ben, Ben Kenobi, would be great because then I get to be Luke which is at the epicenter of the Hero’s Journey for me. I can’t believe how much we covered in our conversations, I performed him my Rap God verse because I figured he had probably never seen anything like that; He’s 70 years old. I know Shady has mass appeal and Ben is hip, but he was putting kids through college instead of popping molly. Which makes me think about my life. Is he what I could have been if I went another route? Both timelines leading to art. He got a business degree.
Oh man, I caught him checking stocks! I told him about my crypto currency trading. I was thinking that I should talk to him about my day trading. Today we only talk about long term stocks. He gave me advice I’d never heard before and told me how I could check for myself to see if its true. He asked if I’ve ever written a novel and I feel like that’s not a question a lot of people would ask, then I felt ashamed for never getting around to writing my book. I’ll see if he’d like to help me write it because when I showed him my raps he mentioned his recording equipment and OMG I almost asked if he ever made an album! If he said no we would have been on the same page. Anyway, what I was trying to say was the exercise had me only drawing the dark parts of a picture. More important my lesson is that I didn’t get it right so I have to keep working on it.
Serenity in Troubled Waters
The veil is lifted and what is seen? Fortune and fury. We bury the dead and cheer the child for walking. For what can a child do but follow in the footsteps of their elders? My footsteps will lead to Humbaba. When Baba is you Barbara Ann is too. Shakespeare wrote so well, it’s hardly worth saying anything at all. That’s why I should be reading him to write my wrongs. You’re only as good as those you surround yourself with. I search for giants with broad shoulders. Raising the bar too high can cause despair, but it’s only temporary. Stay focused on that star and it will reveal a mirror. Do good onto others.
I suppose I’ll return back to English, I mean, what is that stuff? I guess what I’m trying to do is pack as much meaning as I can into what I’m saying. There is a sacrifice to a coherent story, but that only shows a lack in my skill. I have to keep trying at it if I am to succeed in saying more. I had the thought that in trying to have multiple meanings to everything I’m saying, I went from having a conversation with myself to having a conversation with my-selves. I’m not very good at characters, I’m sort of unidimensional in my morality, so I struggle to put myself in a characters head who has goals other than the greatest good. I suppose I could if I think about the thief that steals a loaf of bread to feed his family, you just scale it up to promoting sub prime loans to short the housing market. I don’t like playing those characters though, I see myself in them, but I want to know what’s at the molten core of my soul. Tomorrow I’ll begin learning from Ben, I hope it goes well and that I will test my metal.
From Pharaoh to Frying-pan
It’s morning, my wife said she didn’t understand what I was saying yesterday. When I feel like I’m making the most sense seems to be when I’m at a loss. I’m trying to think about my word choice more selectively. Its possible I’ll get lost down my own rabbit hole. When tripping I say everyone is having 3-5 conversations at once. What those conversations are will differ for each person, but there’s usually one conversation everyone agrees to and that’s the one that is had out loud with words. Words have multiple meanings, an artistically good sentence intentionally tells two different stories when the word is looked at from two different meanings. That would be called a double entendre. I’m not yet good enough to scale this up from words to sentences to paragraphs that tell a coherent story from select avenues of approach. Taking it up another level would make a good book. Maybe someday, but it depends on challenging myself with focusing on these words.
There’s so much I want to do and I have so little time, I feel I should push myself to do more, but I can’t yet. I’ve chosen art to focus on and that’s what I’ll do, but I know I can do more without crashing. I have to build up to that strength. BEN will be a deep resource if I use it properly. I’ve been told of the attitude shift I need to have. While this past week I’ve wanted to tell him, “Let’s get to work”, I needed time to prepare myself to learn. Casting off my pride so I can absorb as much knowledge as he’s willing to share with me and to be grateful for the opportunity to be here, also that someone thinks I’m worthy of their time. He’s going to invest in me with the expectation that he’ll get little or nothing in return, that’s a miracle.
Every Word Counts
All kidding aside, I’m trying to be grown up about this. Serious solutions surrender themselves to soldiers of salvation. When the sun reaches it peak, it’s job is only half done. Day is only half of a day, and night has its own beauties. A tree will grow in the night or day according to the temperament the fruit. Amide waxing and waning of the earth, we revolve around the sun. There are lands that receive too little light, while others burn from over exposure. Still the trials continue. Mountaineers build motivation beyond movement by making beautiful magma boil mankind beyond material beliefs. Focus and effort do the body well. “If you don’t use it, you lose it.” A parable we’d all recognize as true on some level, yet do we make use of our best gifts so we may hold onto them?
If I’m ever complimented, it is from a stranger because to know one’s self is to know what one could be. This world is not Edan and cities should not be defined by where they put their walls. Knowledge hurts, growth hurts, we accept it with weight lifting, it should be just as obvious with the brain. To know one is not actively trying to be better is painful knowledge, but its better to go through the work of jarring fruit so one may eat through the winter. When the roster crows it’s third time, to whom do we pledge our allegiance. There is good in this world as long as there is evil. All metals tarnish with age, but polishing can bring back the sheen. People will believe lead is gold so they won’t have to perform routine maintenance, but the stomach of a human cannot survive on a diet of lead. If you understood this, you don’t need me.
Chris' Morning Pages 