lost dreams

at one point, i was a worker at a starbucks or some random restaurant. i was to take a survey or something on an online computer or hovering touch pad with icons done in the same chalk drawings that restaurants typically make to display their daily specials. in the survey, i needed to identify my role in the store/restaurant: server? cook? and then, i was supposed to answer some sort of question, only now, i can't remember what it is. i sort of turned into this girl, who at first seemed a typical starbucks employee, only later it seemed as though she were both a waitress and a chef, taking orders and preparing the dishes. i recall her manning the burners. the dishes became somewhat elaborate, even turning into seafood, caught fresh...

"i" hovered through the store, and saw a group of black-clad youngish guys who were clearly into ninjitsu, judging by the tabis they were wearing. they were surrounding a wok? with fresh vegetables steaming. they opened the lid, thus ejecting all the collected steam. i warned them that each time they did that, their vegetables would take longer to prepare... as i was walking back, i noticed the tabis of one of these guys, all wet. and i had a thought, that if this guy wanted to, he could very well kick my ass. i didn't want trouble...

there then "appeared" a huge lobster tank. a man dressed as a samurai (actually, all of the people in the tank were dressed as samurai) was moving around inside the tank, dropping esa (bait) for the others, who were apparently lobsters. at the same time, however, he was stomping his feet loudly, so loudly that i was afraid that the bottom of the tank (which was glass, and raised) would shatter, and all the water would come rushing out...

in any case, the man seemed intent upon "training" the lobsters, by combining fear and love (i.e., feeding them). eventually, it worked, and the "lobsters" began bowing to the man. the man gave some kind of speech about wanting to train them to become samurai. all of a sudden, i noticed that above the "men", in the fishtank, were a bunch of samurai swords, hanging from above in their sheaths. the man took his sword, unsheathed it, and continued his lecture. for some reason, i thought his sword was dull; there was danger in carrying a truly sharp sword in this, which amounted to some kind of play...

in yet another sequence of the dream, perhaps a prequel: i dreamed of a quest, an objective, with a potential risk. for individuals deemed insane, or trapped within some "complex" or conundrum of the mind, notably with their eyes closed, a few compassionate individuals volunteered to venture within their thoughts and dreams, and attempt to pull them out of their states of varying catatonia, in order to shorten their time within their own private hells. i visualized the entrance into the mind as being a burrow (like a tunnel) that started from one eye, delved deep into the brain, and eventually ran out the other eye. the danger was that some souls were so sneaky that they would trap the volunteer, and escape themselves, thus leaving the helper to remain trapped within their dream, within their coma, for some unspecified time...

***

i have lost my dream, or had lost it, for quite some time. over this past week, which has been somewhat of a respite from many things, i have been somewhat like an empty vessel, caught on various wayward currents, with not a rudder nor captain to guide me. i slept a lot. i had no memorable/vivid dreams until the night before...

i think the world has two traps, both having to do with (in simple terms) matters of focus. both arise from a desire or need to keep moving, or to maintain the illusion of movement, of belonging. there is nothing that tempts mutiny so much as laying adrift purposeless in a boundless sea, after all. we are meant to be sailing this sea, conquering it, drawing our lines across its trackless expanse, discovering new things, transporting goods, be they slaves, or sugar, or cotton, or information...

in any case, one can be myopic and invent little things to accomplish, and once they are done, pretend that one has "done" something. or, one can choose no direction at all, appreciate the roundness of things, allow the world to penetrate into one (or be absorbed by the world); sure, you don't really get anywhere, but it gives you "perspective," right? i am oversimplifying things of course, but at present (this interminable present), i oscillate between the two, getting nowhere.

perhaps i am depressed, perhaps not, but it seems as though i have disconnected myself from the worldstream, and, at some level, disconnected myself from actively caring. maybe a bulb or fuse has burnt out, but, while attending to my daily responsibilities, i no longer receive any particular joy or gain from anything, nor a feeling of particular despair at not doing something else. i have realized that nothing i do really amounts to anything (no, this is not a "it's a wonderful life" issue; i do think that what i do has some meaning, in the sense of moving others to believe in themselves, helping others to feel happiness or learn something new... but it neither convinces ME nor the WORLD nor GOD in the least)...

you can't stab the ocean. you can't piss in the sea and leave a trace. everything dissolves and moves away and fades. if i try really hard, perhaps i can build an island, but i will have to pay for it with my life.

and for what?

***

to parenthood: you can train your children, you can appreciate them for what they already are. these are not two extremes, just as being a parent involves both loving them for what they are, and moving them to better themselves. no contradiction. in a sense, both are present as the plenitude within the moment. each moment is not a pearl in and of itself, with no connection to the stream of time. so too, each soul, when touched, has a past and a dream of a future. we don't just "bliss out" and appreciate a moment in its "moment-ness", it is always by its very nature here and gone. fleeting. to appreciate a child is to move it on its course, on its own momentum. honoring everything, pushing nothing particularly... at present, my vague dream is to prepare my kids for their respective grade levels, to get back to taijiquan training, to improve in data-collection and record-keeping as a teacher, and to basically heal the two year or so wound (if that) that has really gotten at my heart. healing, i realize, is an iteration. it's an experience of the other. if you don't incorporate it into your dialectic, then it remains as history repeating itself. my way is to understand it, and remain true to my motivations of helping others. i now know that i can't help anyone unless i am healed. a broken man, after all, has sharp and hidden edges, and each touch can cut unawares...

Marsilani Chronicles: it has been a while since my last posting. well, ...

Marsilani Chronicles: it has been a while since my last posting. well, ...: it has been a while since my last posting. well, this is not really for my nonexistent readership as it is to chronicle the slow and strang...

Marsilani Chronicles: hey.allow me to articulate a problem (one that i...

Marsilani Chronicles: hey.

allow me to articulate a problem (one that i...: hey. allow me to articulate a problem (one that i have referred to ad nauseum). what if, deep in your heart, there was a vicious and relen...

it has been a while since my last posting. well, this is not really for my nonexistent readership as it is to chronicle the slow and strange changes that occur within me over time...

currently, i feel as though i am in a bad place. there are a few enormous stressors in my life, such that i feel i don't get enough sleep, and yet, i can never get enough done. i feel like a body of flesh that is meant to suffer between moments of respite; an unfortunate locus of -whatever- that is where blame and trouble tend to be drawn towards...

i envy those with a regularity in their lives, those who can sleep and who have interests that they are allowed to follow. they are real, integrated people, who have a space for themselves. i find that i am little more than disconnected snapshots, a life passed through a shredder, and the bits and pieces i find in the dumpster are what i try to put together to find an identity.

i envy those for whom life is a continual move towards bigger and better things. for me, the simple things still offend...

i love, i love, i love. love is that wonderful pull towards some other greater whole. my children, my wife, those whom i spend so little and diminishing time with, they are everything to me. the peaceful home we have established. and yet, i feel an alien to them at times, they are walled off from me and my unrelenting concerns... the stresses of life are sometimes blows to my chest and abdomen, and make my smiles with those i love seem forced, hollow, coughing.

i long to sleep. i long to forget for a time, just long enough to return renewed. but sleep comes rarely, and too shallow to allow me to drown and resurrect.

i pray to god in abject moments. i no longer forget him/her, because calamities occur in every blind moment. i feel suspended by a faith that does not offer respite, but continually stretches me to each successive challenge.

friends? do i really have any? someday, i will die, and leave people the task i left unfinished, to assemble some fiction of a self, and a narrative of a life, all dissatisfactory. they will wonder what to say. they will wonder what was missing now that i was gone, or, more precisely, what used to be present. i still often wonder what it is, who it is, that is present with each passing day: a certain reluctance, an inevitable tumble into the fray. that is all i really am, that is all i will ever really be?

hey.

allow me to articulate a problem (one that i have referred to ad nauseum). what if, deep in your heart, there was a vicious and relentless hatred of who you were and who you are. as a result of this hatred, everything and anything you did and everything and anything you tried to become had at its heart the motivation to somehow escape or alleviate or change the mind of this hatred. but because this hatred was not specific, it was impossible to convince it of anything.

there were ways to temporarily escape or alleviate this hatred. if you did something new and exciting, or went somewhere new and exciting, or met someone new and exciting, then, for a time, you seemed to lose that hatred, or it lost you, and, for a time, things would be innocent and happy. but inevitably, something bad would happen, or, for that matter, nothing bad would happen at all; it didn't matter, because no matter what, you would find yourself in the same place again, confronted and dogged by this relentless hatred.

sometimes you would find reason to believe that the hatred actually came from outside of yourself, from other people, perhaps. and perhaps you were right, that other people did dislike, or actively hate you (although more often than not, it was more that you were "below the radar" and "beneath contempt"). that still didn't change the fact that that external hatred was merely a patina, a superimposition, of a more fundamental hatred.

as a result of this hatred, it was difficult for you to have a clear and positive sense of self. everything you were and are, after all, was motivated by the need to somehow escape that hatred. there was very little that you actually understood to be you, or by extension, yours. if anything, your one desire was for rest, for an end to the chase, for a measure of peace...

i am writing using a rhetorical "you", because i think it COULD be you, although, for all intents and purposes, it is me.

it is always only me.

***

there have been people that i have loved, and loved deeply (loved more than life itself), but for a person who hates himself, what does that mean? it only means, perhaps, that one loves the world relatively more than the impossible-to-love self. and that, even in moments of great sacrifice, is probably not authentic love...

i have made mistakes, and proved myself inauthentic time and again. and i have said sorry, and tried to prove how sorry i was, by destroying myself time and again. and the world has picked up the pieces, and found a temporary place and use for me, so that it could pretend that i belonged time and again. but it always happens that that place vomits me up again, over and over and over. this tumbling awkward existence, this relentless exiling.

***

sentiment is a glue made of tears.

it is intended to pretend emotion, life, and a soul, when the person who hates himself is always confronted by the deadweight reality that he has none of these things.

***

redirect!!!

marsilanichronicles.blogspot.com

this morning, i had a dream that i was riding a yellow motorbike to work. i was kinda late. i recall passing the jack-in-the-box in pearl city, and then parking at some auto mechanic shop. for some reason, i got distracted, and, next thing i knew, my bike was gone. the mechanic shop turned into some old dilapidated house. i went into the house, which was filled with old broken screen windows, and peeled green painted walls. it was a haunted house. i remember at one point helping a pair of japanese girls carry a television out of the house. i was walking outside, and i was barefoot, carrying the tv. i had to stop, because i saw a dead cat in the moist ground, and it was surrounded by large pink maggots, "disco rice." i didn't want to get the maggots on me...

***

i want to feel human again.

people like myself don't need much. just a word of conversation, a recognition that you are a person, alive inside the cubicle of your assigned role. i don't want much more than that, but if i had that, i feel like i could survive. i feel as though, with that, i just might make it.

***