nothing untowards.

***

he says, they call it sublimation. when something magically goes from solid to gas. like dry ice. yes, dry ice. nice thing, that. it doesn't mess around, being a liquid, touching things and sticking, getting everything wet. it's, well, clean...

but, she says, you can't really simply replace one with the other, can you? changing ice into clouds, when all the while you're so very thirsty, so very- dry, as you put it? in the middle of you, there's a dry cracked need, and you can't deny it. can't overlook, overstep it.

he pauses, chooses words carefully. it's true. undeniable. in people, in me, the change and the choice isn't always as clean or easy or automatic as i'd like, and there's something remaining, a bitterness, a sadness, perhaps. but i know, if i am to maintain myself, maintain my impartiality, my responsibility, i- i can't. so, imperfect or not, i make the leap. i- sublimate.

***

on the other side of himself, the twin that is his negative image gives in yet again. and in the moment of release, there is one flashing fulguration of insight, in that disappearing instant when you get what you want, and you lose all wanting for it. and he glances for an instant, as though caught in the strobe flash of a lightning strike, at the pattern of himself, random and erratic splashes, collecting in the arced and heaving folds and valleys of another nameless her. there is a secret in that ultraviolet fluid, in the shape of its calligraphy, and he struggles to decipher it...

this morning, i woke with an insight of sorts. a deep calm filled me, and i thought that no matter what the world threw at me, i would be unperturbed. zen masters never feared death, or the end of the world. they had so thorough an experience of selfhood/emptiness that nothing could disturb them. their eyes open, breath flowing. i felt that, or thought i did, in the face of potential stress. concerns flitted through my mind like butterflies or dust motes. but i was in my own skin, in my own delicious space, and even if the world came crashing in on me, i would still be- this. this experiencing. this- thing...

the world is an impossibility. but yet it is. i am a miracle. i cannot understand myself, and i cannot capture my experience of time and space. but yet i/it all happens nevertheless. everything is an incomprehensible dance. we can't know the full rhythm, or when the chorus happens, or what the lyrics are saying. we just move to it all, whether we want to or not, whether we know what we're doing, or are just reacting. it all happens. i felt that this morning, and i felt alright with that...

concerns

past couple of days i've been really tired. maybe it's because i took a break from the p90x (i needed to, to get my blood test for my life insurance policy- we'll see how the results come back)...

it's been a restless kind of sleep that's drugged me and dragged me down. my dreams feel like voices that are not my own, that have been imprinted into me like a needle vibrating through wet vinyl... carving me up. i suppose that that is the worst kind of dream for me, the dreams that leave me feeling dispossessed of myself, as though i am out of control, and incoherent... last night, i thought of that whole kappa noodle story i've been working on (more like working off) for, like, forever, and i thought of ways i could tie that feeling into it... the need to find one's own voice speaking within one's own head... and later today, i thought how interesting it would be to have alternate voices speaking to me, as surrogate advisors, like the beatles (after all, i practically taught myself how to read using their lyrics) or alfred hitchcock... these, as counters to the ambiguous and sometimes nightmarish advice of the kappa...

the thing that i hate about being tired is it withdraws me away from life, and living. and there is so much of that around me.

i am reminded how antisocial i am almost every day. and the consequences of that stance. i don't necessarily want that, but i feel resigned to it. the way i react to the world is almost physical. i've come to accept things, the discomfort i feel around most people, the need to maintain a distance, and to contextualize conversations to prevent revelations of the mollusk i am inside, but at times, it is sad when people take me the wrong way. i don't mean to be aloof. in fact, i think i have chosen things to do (even if against my nature) distinctly to push me in the face of serving others. i really want to help. even if, in the process, i am disregarded.

instinctively, i react against arrogance, because i feel it is my antithesis. how is it possible for some to so deny the nature of things and the universe that they can hold themselves even for an instant above others?

i would like to speak (after a long silence) about judgment and the current it engenders, and the secret way to defeat it. there is a world of hatred and gossip and duplicity, and it can feel at times suffocating to walk within it, underestimated and hidden beneath the laughing weight of a thousand thousand words. but if you walk true, if your heart is within what you do, and if you can discover your secret art, your tie to the sacred, then you have nothing to fear. as shodo once said to me, "words are like the echoes of the cast off moltings of cicadas at the end of summer"; they are the hollow sounds of the hollow people. if you can delve into the plenitude of your silence, into the true feelings of your heart, then you can find the place that the words cannot touch. and you can find yourself, your true self, there.

it is impossible to predict what your individual art/religion/spirit is. i have, at times, glimpsed it, and felt comfort in, the feeling of brokenness, and the truth of storms. i have, at various instances, constructed constellations from the broken leavings of the world, like a crazy bower bird, and felt a certain rightness in that, in the "snapshot" of the feeling of being thrown... now that i have become a bit more domesticated, i find my greatest peace in my wife and my children, especially in watching them sleep. whatever fills you to overflowing with a feeling of oneness or "truth" is your link to god, to spirit, to sacredness. sometimes, when the hatred of the world crowds in, it is not only preferential, but vital, necessary, that one discover, rediscover it...

if you are a fellow silent walker in this world of sibilant and sycophantic whispers, then take comfort. i walk with you, even as you walk alone...

resolutions

this year, i resolve to:

1) get organized. this is something i resolve to do every year, but somehow never get around to really doing. i suppose i am by nature a person who likes his freedom, and likes to "play things by ear," but i really need to get my s**t together, especially since i have so much of it, and so many different kinds of it, lying around.

2) really spend time with my kids. i suppose i am decent, in that i try to keep my kids relatively in line, and doing what they're supposed to. but i guess there still needs to be more work in this department, partly because of resolution #1, me being not organized enough to address the needs of my children in a balanced and effective way, and partly because i don't REALLY spend time and appreciate them (as opposed to "telling them what to do"). my children are the center of my life, and i should act like it.

3) appreciate my wife. similar to #2, but far more pronounced, is the lack of quality time i spend with my wife. again, i use #1 as an excuse, but it is far more than that. i really need to actively think and plan of ways to show my wife how much she means to me...

4) get in shape. i think i've fallen off the fitness wagon this year, what with the stress of another job, etc. i have to devote a little time each day to keeping fit.

5) meditate and pray. i understand that there is a lot of hatred both without and within, and i need to devote myself to coming to the realization of the state of "thusness" outlined in the heart sutra: "there is no suffering, and there is no escape from suffering." this, i feel i can only develop through daily meditation...

6) assorted sundry goals: like, writing the other 3 books of marsilani, one story at a time, and actively promoting it so that it can get exposure (like the bare ass of a monkey!) if not actually developing as a revenue stream (HA!); practice drawing every day; playing the guitar; getting good at taiko; developing my taijiquan practice of fajing and other qualities; writing a style manual of acupuncture and bodywork to define how i do things (so i can do things in a far more systematic way); being the very best teacher i can be (in particular, learning how to teach reading comprehension and basic math literacy); creating a flow chart to detail all the tasks necessary for the whole iep process; etcetera.

well, i wish you all good luck with your resolutions! work a little bit each day towards your goals, and hopefully, you'll make some headway! i'm trying, in my own meager way, to swim "against the current" of my own inertia...

sorry for subjecting you all to that "freewriting exercise." to be honest, i thought it would be okay since no one reads this blog anyway. and besides, most of my blogs are relatively "stream of consciousness" anyway, although there are a lot of darker, dirtier topics that i wouldn't dare post (they likely would make this blog a bit more exciting... then again, maybe not).

this morning, we (my family) went to ice palace. like most of the country, we are experiencing a lot of "weather" lately, here, in the form of frequent violent rain storms. so doing anything outside with my family (now that my wife has a rare day off) would be out of the question. options considered were ice skating, or bowling, or going to a museum. we opted for the former.

anyways... hadn't been to ice palace in ages. it opened in about 1982, and always served as a pretty cool place to go (no pun intended). i remember skating beneath that disco ball, dots and fragments of light dancing across the dark white of the floor, as i glided (in my mind) to the sounds of songs from michael jackson's "off the wall" album. dreaming of girls. and then afterwards, sitting, drinking hot cocoa (whatever i could afford), and feeling all cozy and warm. it was the coolest thing, the coolest place to be.

today, in the role of father, things were a little different, a little more encumbered, but it was great to see a burgeoning excitement in the faces of my kids, to introduce them to this cool hangout place, to the new activity of ice-skating. we hung out in the kiddie section, the kids pushing the "sleds" like shopping carts, while i or my wife would kind of hover along behind, giving gentle directional guidance in little nudges, or lifting the kids up when they would collapse... my skates were either too loose, or too big, so eventually, they started to splay my ankles outward. by the time we were ready to go, i was so desperate to get out of those skates that i took them off and WALKED across all that wet floor (in my socks!) to the locker to get my shoes. i was thankful for the feel of terra firma, flat soled, after that experience.

we were kinda tired out by the skating, but we still managed a brief trip to ice garden in aiea (i dimly mused how ironic that was, considering where we'd just been). i didn't order anything, but kinda stood around, looking at the cramped confines of the shave ice place. they have a case of pinned butterflies hanging up on one wall. i noticed that the dessicated thorax of one of the insects was lying in one corner of the display, and i tried searching for the butterfly that it belonged to...

back at home, i fell asleep while the kids played their wii games (they have been playing electronica far too much this break!!!). later, dinner, and that brings us roughly to now. pretty boring dull day. the weather, i feel, is really starting to bug me. dampen my mood. i'm not exactly a fan of sunshine, but i do think it's starting to be a drag, not being able to go out and play...

well, yes, another boring entry. i'm reserving my "private" freewriting rambles for my own computer, thank you very much...

timed writing, per "wild mind" rules

once again, i am trying to abide by natalie goldman's rules from "wild mind." one of the rules is to not stop the writing hand from moving. i think she wrote this in the time of pen/pencil and paper, and not so much in the technological age we live in now, but the principle remains the same... do not stop writing for the duration you set out. i have set a modest time of ten minutes, so... here goes.

today, i made a sirloin beef soup. i utilized the steak my wife made for dinner last night, not the one i ate, of course, but the remaining generous steak, which had been sitting bent in half on a plate, covered over with seran wrap in the refrigerator. i took the steak out, cut it in cubes, and - what's the word - cooked it in a pot (the instructions said a large sauce pan, but the instructions also said to pour in four cups of water, and what i had wasn't all that deep). i poured in the aforementioned four cups, brought it all to a boil, and then poured in the powdered soup and noodle mix, turned the heat low, and allowed the mixture to simmer for about 20 minutes. what i loved most about the whole procedure wasn't the end product (although it was tasty!); it was the whole process, the whole "neatness" and crispness of each action. of course, it was an easy, pre-made recipe. but i suppose that easy recipes like this make it much easier to realize the "zen" (i'm probably abusing the term) of things. that's not to say that "zen" (presence of mind) doesn't exist in very difficult, awkward, complicated tasks; it's all about the approach, the settling, the mindset, i suppose. but all i'm saying is that i approached the task of making this soup (for my kids) with a settled mindset, and the overall experience of it all was "great," simple, perfect. i like this, and if it is in my cards, i hope to keep it, to maintain it...

speaking of "zen" stuff... well, i started playing an app called "osmos" on our new ipad. it is a very well-done game. i think a lot of thought was put into it. of course, being the "contemplative fool" that i am, i read a lot into it, into the gameplay, into the mission of the game. basically, and simply put, you are a cell/orb/planet, and your objective is to absorb anything that is smaller than yourself (by touching it), and keep away from anything that is larger than yourself (which will absorb you). you maneuver by ejecting little pieces of yourself, and using the propulsion of such ejection... many insights in this. first of all, if you "move" too much, via continual ejection, then you diminish yourself, you lose size, and thus you complicate your situation (because the goal of the game is to get big, not small). reminds me that continual, nonstop action will only result in powerless restlessness. this is a truth of life, i have directly experienced this...

another truth which i have "gleaned" from the game is that: it matters little what intentions you have for the universe, if you are small and of little influence, then you will only succeed in getting absorbed by those around you, and all of your good intentions will be for naught. if you manage to strategically influence the universe (i.e., if you work locally, gradually absorbing those whom you CAN influence), then you will eventually have the MASS (momentum/inertia) to absorb others to your cause... this is true as well. it matters little what intentions you bring, and how "hard" you have worked (refer to the previous paragraph about excessive action), you must find a way to accumulate mass/wealth/influence, and primarily via understanding and "going with" the way of things, the tao, the whatever, to be in a position of advantage... this, i suppose, is where zen becomes "strategic."

we usually consider "zen" to be a philosophy of liberation, and we usually (especially here in america) consider liberation to be a wildness, an uncontrollable force that is good in and of itself. but in actuality, such "wildness," if left untempered by an understanding/awareness of the nature of things, the way of the universe, it only becomes a self-aggrandizement, a greediness on the way to the destruction of both the self and the world. that is the delusion that i feel we in the modern world are trapped in, the blind belief in our own "liberation" and "mastery." we must seek liberation, it is true, but we must also learn to align our liberation, our self-hood with what is best for nature and the world at large... this is the complexity of zen, the part that americans in particular are reluctant to acknowledge...

well, ten minutes is up. enough psycho-babble...