i think
(i think)
an artist or a poe
Sunday, October 25, 2009
before the sun dies
in its last and sputtering death throes
and coronas
i will walk the halls
and bid each fitful sleeper
a quiet kiss
and turn their dreams away
from what will
what must
come.
and the world
and the world
will spin on in its orbit
its boundary of love and fear
as it has always done
and promise and pretend
an "as it always shall be."
in its last and sputtering death throes
and coronas
i will walk the halls
and bid each fitful sleeper
a quiet kiss
and turn their dreams away
from what will
what must
come.
and the world
and the world
will spin on in its orbit
its boundary of love and fear
as it has always done
and promise and pretend
an "as it always shall be."
sometimes we keep our mouth shut. the hurt done by others may have been intentional, even, but we still don't speak, because what good would it do? to wage war, to be motivated by the insult or the injury, only makes matters worse. i know my mouth bears fangs when i speak from that place, and i can't abide the apologies and the sight of blood afterwards. and besides, i will have to file down my teeth to keep from cutting myself when i speak again.
people misunderstand this gesture. so many people prop themselves up with conflict, that they don't understand what you are doing when you withdraw from the game. they call it "impotent passivity" or even "irresponsibility." why don't they understand? why can't people stand up by themselves and not just for themselves? why do people need to push off to stay up?
show offs, braggarts, all... each in his own manner and fashion. i get tired of it.
i suppose i have this disease myself, perhaps i have it in an even more virulent state... but it just seems as though the machinations of others seem so obvious and hurtful. obvious. child's play...
it's funny. i idealize the purity of childhood, and have a cynical view of the "maturity" of adults... and yet, i also shy away from the "pure" energy and the obvious aggression, calling it "child's play." i suppose i can't have it both ways... i suppose i don't want to answer any contradictions or inconsistencies anyway.
i just want to go away.
***
i'm tired. i suppose people like me don't really have a strong sense of justice in them. i mean, i will defend a weak child to my death if need be. but in the contradictions of "normal life," i'm not so clear or determined. there is no "principle" that i would, without hesitation, raise above the heads of others to beat them. i have the eyes of a sponge, and i "see" everyone's perspective given even a short amount of time... and like some sort of reverse osmosis, conviction in any single viewpoint leaks out of me...
yes, maybe i don't have a backbone.
all i ever wanted was for everyone to be okay. (this is like the question max asks bob and ted in "where the wild things are." 7 words. "how do i make everyone o k?") i don't believe in a right that makes someone wrong (except in certain obvious instances). and i never wanted to hurt anyone.
i am in a situation right now that demands a change and a rippling of circumstances. and there will be tearing and trauma no matter what. it is all for the best, i suppose, but by nature, something in me resists... i keep leaking, my will is squeezing out of me...
***
take the position of the least among you. if nothing else, it is a safe and true position, because it is so close to the ground.
don't just take this as a platitude. understand it. live it. not in its superficialities, but in its spirit.
i think if you are humble, you can appreciate the universe. it will speak to you, and share its secrets, because it will think it is talking to itself, or, to be more precise, it is talking to nobody at all.
people misunderstand this gesture. so many people prop themselves up with conflict, that they don't understand what you are doing when you withdraw from the game. they call it "impotent passivity" or even "irresponsibility." why don't they understand? why can't people stand up by themselves and not just for themselves? why do people need to push off to stay up?
show offs, braggarts, all... each in his own manner and fashion. i get tired of it.
i suppose i have this disease myself, perhaps i have it in an even more virulent state... but it just seems as though the machinations of others seem so obvious and hurtful. obvious. child's play...
it's funny. i idealize the purity of childhood, and have a cynical view of the "maturity" of adults... and yet, i also shy away from the "pure" energy and the obvious aggression, calling it "child's play." i suppose i can't have it both ways... i suppose i don't want to answer any contradictions or inconsistencies anyway.
i just want to go away.
***
i'm tired. i suppose people like me don't really have a strong sense of justice in them. i mean, i will defend a weak child to my death if need be. but in the contradictions of "normal life," i'm not so clear or determined. there is no "principle" that i would, without hesitation, raise above the heads of others to beat them. i have the eyes of a sponge, and i "see" everyone's perspective given even a short amount of time... and like some sort of reverse osmosis, conviction in any single viewpoint leaks out of me...
yes, maybe i don't have a backbone.
all i ever wanted was for everyone to be okay. (this is like the question max asks bob and ted in "where the wild things are." 7 words. "how do i make everyone o k?") i don't believe in a right that makes someone wrong (except in certain obvious instances). and i never wanted to hurt anyone.
i am in a situation right now that demands a change and a rippling of circumstances. and there will be tearing and trauma no matter what. it is all for the best, i suppose, but by nature, something in me resists... i keep leaking, my will is squeezing out of me...
***
take the position of the least among you. if nothing else, it is a safe and true position, because it is so close to the ground.
don't just take this as a platitude. understand it. live it. not in its superficialities, but in its spirit.
i think if you are humble, you can appreciate the universe. it will speak to you, and share its secrets, because it will think it is talking to itself, or, to be more precise, it is talking to nobody at all.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
kindness
the irony of kindness is that, if it's capital, then once you spend it, no matter on what little trifle you betray it on, it's gone forever.
if you are kind, then to maintain it, like a perpetual motion machine, you must be kind forever.
kindness is based upon a kind of trust. the trust that you are gentle, and would never introduce anything of force or edge to the situation. that you are a friend. a smiley face.
the danger of kindness, of course, is that you are taken for granted. and, in certain situations, that you will not only be at the bottom of a pile of bodies, but that you will be disrespected, nay, even hated for this.
it is only with children and animals that kindness seems to work in its unadulterated state. "adults" are a different matter entirely, and run on a strange mixture (the "unleaded version") of cruelty and morality.
i tend not to understand adults, even though i am one. they are either totalizing, future-extending, or whiny... and they never pay attention. and, by the way- case in point- they are hopeless hippo-crits.
i would run with the children, if they only knew where they were heading (that is, despite it all, to adulthood).
if you are kind, then to maintain it, like a perpetual motion machine, you must be kind forever.
kindness is based upon a kind of trust. the trust that you are gentle, and would never introduce anything of force or edge to the situation. that you are a friend. a smiley face.
the danger of kindness, of course, is that you are taken for granted. and, in certain situations, that you will not only be at the bottom of a pile of bodies, but that you will be disrespected, nay, even hated for this.
it is only with children and animals that kindness seems to work in its unadulterated state. "adults" are a different matter entirely, and run on a strange mixture (the "unleaded version") of cruelty and morality.
i tend not to understand adults, even though i am one. they are either totalizing, future-extending, or whiny... and they never pay attention. and, by the way- case in point- they are hopeless hippo-crits.
i would run with the children, if they only knew where they were heading (that is, despite it all, to adulthood).
radiohead's "fog"
i love this song. will attempt to "garage band" it... can't do a live record, cuz my camcorder's got lockjaw... and we can't operate.
Friday, October 16, 2009
and he cried, "help me, would you? help me find a way out, would you?"
but they all walked around the pit, heads turned away, ears deaf to him.
and who could blame them?
it was he who had dug the trap. and what's more, they all knew: his dark secret eyes held the power of a gorgon; his voice could summon forth fatal maledictions and unfortunate storms; and his touch could roll heads as easily as dice. even if they could see that behind all of these things, he was a kind and well-intentioned soul, they dared not approach: they were all too afraid.
and so, he was alone in the pit, in the center of a crowd that drifted around him like an uncertain river. and in time, his voice grew hoarse, and he gave up calling altogether, and the reaching out slowly turned into a reaching in. and it was not a pleasant reaching in. for his hands, as i've said, even the figurative ones, were viciously cruel in shape, and what they touched, they cut and scarred and bled deep. every face of innocence that healed over his heart like a scab, he peeled off again, so that the raw edges could feel the air, and feeling could flow again, flow and pulse like an angry red star and its wavering corona. and when the sensation dulled, and the scabs stopped forming, and the bloody feelings stopped being deceived into emerging again, only then did he stop everything, both the reaching out and the reaching in.
and that is when he turned into the stone of the world, and its deepest and most secret heart. a thing frozen and unknowing, secrets buried within secrets, darkness tumbled over in darkness.
and for a time, he knew a measure of peace, or, to be more precise, he didn't know anything... didn't know anything at all.
but they all walked around the pit, heads turned away, ears deaf to him.
and who could blame them?
it was he who had dug the trap. and what's more, they all knew: his dark secret eyes held the power of a gorgon; his voice could summon forth fatal maledictions and unfortunate storms; and his touch could roll heads as easily as dice. even if they could see that behind all of these things, he was a kind and well-intentioned soul, they dared not approach: they were all too afraid.
and so, he was alone in the pit, in the center of a crowd that drifted around him like an uncertain river. and in time, his voice grew hoarse, and he gave up calling altogether, and the reaching out slowly turned into a reaching in. and it was not a pleasant reaching in. for his hands, as i've said, even the figurative ones, were viciously cruel in shape, and what they touched, they cut and scarred and bled deep. every face of innocence that healed over his heart like a scab, he peeled off again, so that the raw edges could feel the air, and feeling could flow again, flow and pulse like an angry red star and its wavering corona. and when the sensation dulled, and the scabs stopped forming, and the bloody feelings stopped being deceived into emerging again, only then did he stop everything, both the reaching out and the reaching in.
and that is when he turned into the stone of the world, and its deepest and most secret heart. a thing frozen and unknowing, secrets buried within secrets, darkness tumbled over in darkness.
and for a time, he knew a measure of peace, or, to be more precise, he didn't know anything... didn't know anything at all.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
misunderstanding.
a loss of motivation.
the doors are swinging constantly, like shifting reeds in a restless eddy.
the difference between the possible and impossible is only a matter of time, and in a matter of time, the span to freedom is gone again.
one fish of two has imbibed this truth, and sits back, back, back watching with unclosing eyes the way of this world, laughing resignedly, desperately, at it all. the other fish, tied to its twin by an invisible cord, sleeplessly monitors the shifts of the current, always pushing forward, always pushing forwards, for a way out.
neither has an absolutely convincing argument that it knows the universe.
and so, it continues, a stillness and a motion, a drift and a flutter... the fish all the while little suspecting the whirlpool forming around this inconstant but constant struggle may find its source in their own irreconcilability.
---
"little baby's eyes, eyes, eyes."
---
you should respect all aspects of yourself, if at all possible. a person, unfortunately, is rarely a unified thing. a person is a constant working out of shifting forces. like dreams, we work out something presentable to the eyes and the mind, a narrative that, even in a very rudimentary sense, can be discerned and followed. but ultimately, honestly, none of it really makes sense, and the more authentic we are, the more we come to understand this fact.
i think the more honest we are, the more we realize how impossible it is to be honest...
why do we call an adult "an adult"? it is because the adult is adulterated, impure. not necessarily because the adult "becomes" impure (although some may argue this point, particularly some daoists), but because understanding and knowledge of the way of the world has, let us say, become more complex, subtle, and "mature."
the difference between what a child sees and what an adult sees is not the difference of right and wrong, but of simple and complex. we would like to maintain the force or verve or passion of the good and the true in the child, but it is the adult appreciation of the complexities that tempers our full or one-sided advocacy of anything. "that would be idealistic..."
---
i have been thinking of things in terms of pressure gradients. things like hope and passion (and even the social collective effervescence) operate according to the dictates of pressure. if the walls of circumstance, like the walls of a balloon, say, suddenly withdraw, and we are "given too much space," then hope/passion/motivation tend to diminish. as dr. mcdougall would say, there is a negative correlation (inverse relationship) between the amount of "space/freedom/ease" and the intensity of hope/passion/motivation. if circumstances become pressing (but not CRUSHING), then hope/passion/motivation take on a commensurate, even desperate, force, working towards particular ends...
this would be the apparent perspective on these things. and yet, i feel, taijiquan person that i would like to be, that it is possible to maintain a kind of pressureless force... with a kind of ease in my heart and mind, to have the capacity to allow hope and love to flow in vague but effective ways...
a loss of motivation.
the doors are swinging constantly, like shifting reeds in a restless eddy.
the difference between the possible and impossible is only a matter of time, and in a matter of time, the span to freedom is gone again.
one fish of two has imbibed this truth, and sits back, back, back watching with unclosing eyes the way of this world, laughing resignedly, desperately, at it all. the other fish, tied to its twin by an invisible cord, sleeplessly monitors the shifts of the current, always pushing forward, always pushing forwards, for a way out.
neither has an absolutely convincing argument that it knows the universe.
and so, it continues, a stillness and a motion, a drift and a flutter... the fish all the while little suspecting the whirlpool forming around this inconstant but constant struggle may find its source in their own irreconcilability.
---
"little baby's eyes, eyes, eyes."
---
you should respect all aspects of yourself, if at all possible. a person, unfortunately, is rarely a unified thing. a person is a constant working out of shifting forces. like dreams, we work out something presentable to the eyes and the mind, a narrative that, even in a very rudimentary sense, can be discerned and followed. but ultimately, honestly, none of it really makes sense, and the more authentic we are, the more we come to understand this fact.
i think the more honest we are, the more we realize how impossible it is to be honest...
why do we call an adult "an adult"? it is because the adult is adulterated, impure. not necessarily because the adult "becomes" impure (although some may argue this point, particularly some daoists), but because understanding and knowledge of the way of the world has, let us say, become more complex, subtle, and "mature."
the difference between what a child sees and what an adult sees is not the difference of right and wrong, but of simple and complex. we would like to maintain the force or verve or passion of the good and the true in the child, but it is the adult appreciation of the complexities that tempers our full or one-sided advocacy of anything. "that would be idealistic..."
---
i have been thinking of things in terms of pressure gradients. things like hope and passion (and even the social collective effervescence) operate according to the dictates of pressure. if the walls of circumstance, like the walls of a balloon, say, suddenly withdraw, and we are "given too much space," then hope/passion/motivation tend to diminish. as dr. mcdougall would say, there is a negative correlation (inverse relationship) between the amount of "space/freedom/ease" and the intensity of hope/passion/motivation. if circumstances become pressing (but not CRUSHING), then hope/passion/motivation take on a commensurate, even desperate, force, working towards particular ends...
this would be the apparent perspective on these things. and yet, i feel, taijiquan person that i would like to be, that it is possible to maintain a kind of pressureless force... with a kind of ease in my heart and mind, to have the capacity to allow hope and love to flow in vague but effective ways...
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