Me, You

10/27/2004
Wow. I have so much to say - i mean - lots of material. Lots of things I could just go on and on saying and on and on. But what is the point of saying things? What is the point of this blog? I don’t have an audience at all. Maybe somebody would stumble along randomly and find all of this interesting but . . . I would prefer to write something that is eminantly fascinating to myself. Sit down and start typing and something on the page magically comes out interesting or . . . at least helpful. I guess that’s what I would like to do. I don’t spend my day spinning threads of I am this and I am that and I like this and I don’t like that. That’ is my main thing, you know, to just keep from making those sorts of evaluations. I’m already lost. So I would like to do something worthwhile with my life - something of value - not in terms of history though . . . not like some desire to have my name printed on a plaque over a library door. I just want to not miss out on anything. I mean, I want to relax. Something like that. Yeah, mainly, I want to relax. I want to feel deeply and satisfyingly relaxed. I am always querying myself like this. Automatically I am doing something or another all the time. If I am relaxed I am only DOING relaxed. That isn’t the same thing. So if I notice myself, if I come up in the room, like from the depths of the ocean, i will give myself some chore to do. I will say, ‘meditate’ or ‘clear your mind’ or something like that. Constantly it is like this. And so it actually sort of consumes me - this questing. Infact it is difficult for me to have conversations with people at times because the only thing that I think about is how to acheive some total relaxation or some real comfort. At times it is very difficult. Even if I am not going over my latest point of clarification with some person who probably doesn’t give half a fuck, I am ACTIVELY not going over that - holding my mind a certain way and watching. That doesn’t seem very relaxed really. I don’t feel especially tight, mind you - that should be clear - I am talking about some TOTAL relaxation. I’m totally obsessed. Something about TOTAL RELAXATION really bothers us. But I am sure now that it is the only thing that is possible to maintain. I mean, indefinintly.

Total Relaxation needs more said about it. Total relaxation is just typing a blog entry. That is not true for me. What is it like? It is just letting go. Does it feel like letting go? I mean, is there some feeling that can be associated with letting go? No - i guess not, because it would have to become something to be let go of. Everybody is figuring everything out. Ken Wilbur is a God because he is putting everything into a position - getting down to what is going on. People love that shit. They love to know what is going on. But there is something about an idea of TOTAL RELAXATION that keeps people from going with certain explorations - like certain explorations are for those strong in heart. I’m trying to be coy here whereas every person that I have ever respected said that they would much prefere straight to the point type of stuff.

People are bothered by dying. Dying is a lot like total relaxation. People don’t want to talk about dying. They don’t want to know anyone elses idea about it - it is not a propler topic of discussion I have noticed. No matter how deep or intelligent or ‘out there’ or open or whatever that a person seems to be, this topic of death seems to be a stopping point. It stops conversationon. People flash back to all sorts of bad times and they reallize deeply their connection to the ones around them but at the same time they fear the loss of that and it is just all way too uncomfortable for people. People also don’t like to talk about depression much - at least not those of us who are ‘normal’, but it seems to me that ‘normal’ to a certain degree, means not acknowledging or discussing in detail your problems. I mean, if you are discussing your problems then I don’t think you should consider yourself normal. People don’t like to think there is anything wrong with them and they don’t like to think that they are going to die and they don’t like to think that people they love are going to die. Some people think that other people shouldn’t live. I mean they get kind of a kick out of thinking that someone could get killed or something - because they deserved it. So maybe in that case people don’t mind talking about death. Death to stuff that sucks is great.

You are going to die and I am going to die. Right? Everyone knows that. In a song called ‘Do you realize?’ by ‘The Flaming Lips’ there is a lyric that says,

‘Do you realize that some day everyone you know will die?’

And I hadn’t! I had not thought of that. And so thinking just a bit more about that I realized that everyone on the entire earth that is alive right now - Al Gore, Tommy Hilfiger, this guy named Rodney - and more - all the animals too and plants and everything that there is will be gone. But focusing just on the people I know - within maybe 120 years we will all be dead - and so will everyone we know. That’s not a long time at all! So the person you are mad at right now (asuming you are mad at somebody - some are, some aren’t) is going to be dead relatively soon. And you too - and me. Nobody likes to talk about this - maybe goths and morbidly depressed people. They like to fantasize about the end of their problems. Oooh. TOTAL RELAXATION. I suppose I want the same thing. But I am not morbidly depressed. I think I was. I THINK that most people have trouble with motivating - they feel exhausted and they wonder ‘WHAT IS THE POINT?!’ I think some people think that a lot and become depressed. They usually find God or Buddha or something at that point. Or Vallum, right? or . . . a new girlfriend, new job. Something. Some don’t though. Some dwell there. I am sort of habitually a dweller - but lately I’m trying to not identify with various things - so . . . .

What is total relaxation? What’s that like? What tension is being released? What is included?

Body
Mind

I feel like I just lost you.

Let’s change topics. Who am I talking to? Myself - entirely - projecting an audience. But I think about a person reading this - some person silouhette out there - some unknown entity staring at these words and so you represent this unknown. I will say these words to myself and then I will think about you, reading this right now and I have no Idea what you think. That drives me nuts, that you can just sit there and think anything you want. So I will use 100000000 words to try to be sure that what I am thinking is coming out. But usually people say at some point, ‘you have just overwhelmed me’. And so that is pretty much exactly the opposite of good communication. So I have to let that go. I have to let go of you in that way. You should be completely blunt with us from now on. Ah I know a fun convention:

You should always be very clear with me. You should always. I am not going to check anybody’s mind anymore - I’m done with that. I’m always wrong about whatever you are thinking so I am not going to bother myself in that veign - trying to divine meaning from your raised eyebrows. But I will always know if you are upset - because. Because at my very core I don’t want to bother you unnecessarily, I am very alert to any signs.

what dies?

what is it that goes away and that ends?

can you get your finger on it? can you tell it’s texture? What is the living thing that passes away? All the cells that you are made of right now will be gone in 7 years - for the most part you will be a brand new thing. In Seven Years all the cells in your body will die and be replaced by many, many, new ones. And where will you be then? That thing - that you, is the thing that will die. I mean, your body is in a constant state of death and birth. I’ve heard it said that something like 90% of household dust is skin cells. That’s because we are constantly regenerating our skin and making new, fresh skin. We are always being made brand new and also falling apart at the same time. So the body will only die and will not live. THe living part of the whole thing will stop and then you will die. That’s the truth. But what is it that dies completely? What is not regenerated?

Enter Dogma Stage Center (As in coming out of the floor of the stage with billows of suspicious smelling ’stage smoke’).

See, if you get past the fear of it, then through looking at it you can trip yourself out. This is why religions exist, because somebody got to this point of pondering and they wondered what is it that dies and then everything tripped out. Probably they just tried to stare at something. They probably started by holding something very tightly in their mind - trying to see the dying aspect. The changing aspect. This is all beyond death though - this is sort of playing with death - with the concept of it - and of life, and of what it is that is living and dying - this self that we are.

People think that I am very intelligent. Some do. Maybe most do. I don’t know - I don’t ask, but every once in a while somebody will say something about me being like the smartest person. But I am not the smartest. I can think of at least like two people who are smarter than I am.

Just kidding.

I don’t think I am intelligent or not intelligent. I don’t think in those ways but every once in a while someone will say that I am very intelligent.

So I took an IQ test. I am brilliant in one area of this one test that I took. But in the other areas I was just average. Like out of seven measurements including ’spacial’ and ‘coding systems’ and ‘pattern recognition’ I was average. But I got like really high marks in ‘conceptual’. Anyway, I am not a practical genius. I am just a genius sort of in an imaginary way. But that comes through and people respond to it sometimes. Strange to say something like that. I guess its another thing you aren’t supposed to talk about. The point of my little writing exersize is to relax though and these are the things that I think about and at this point I don’t really want to censor myself because I think by censoring myself I deny the posibility of utter fascination with the process.

I’m really tired of checking myself, just as much as I am through with checking your own head, I would like to quickly end the checking of my head - any analyisis I do is on an imaginary situation. I am in a constant state of slight - or subtle rather, censoring. Sort of refining myself down to a proper chris point. But it is not me - I am a frozen piece of air - stale ice crystals only.

Could anyone still be with me? If I gave this to you and you are still reading - god bless you. You see - this is just nature - just like watching a nature show, for you to be reading this now. Meaning, sadly, that I am not writing this for you. I am just writing. If you are following it is because you are a peeping tom. That seems a strong accusation, eh?

I’m not trying to be obscure - i just lose my focus. I try to do something spontaneous and free of restrictions and something like the above comes out. I don’t like to edit myself or censor myself but I think I am in a constant state of doing one or the other. I would like to get back into my work and be sort of absorbed by that again. But I don’t really care. The world keeps on ticking away no matter what happens. I think I’ve big enough balls to pull it off so it seems unlikely that I would become morbidly depressed again. I think that is the benefit of thinking about and pondering death.

Does this writing seem lyrical to you? Like a song? I feel a rythem to it. But I can’t really express that. And you can’t answer me anyway so I will move on.

I will eat a grilled cheeze sandwhich now.

12:58 PM 6/27/2005
And here I am morbidly depressed! I seem to be at the end of my rope and finding any balls would require the most refined quantum formulas for they have passed out of any existance that you or I could even consider. I think that last entry was a manic kind of energy - so much to say, but in reading it again, I was interested. I am glad that there is at least the possibility of my writing being coherent. I started to talk about this ‘great relaxation’ and a field of thoughts - like grasshoppers zipping out and cascading to the startling innocent footstep - these thoughts bound one after another dancing all around the heaviness of an interupting thought of ‘Deep Relaxation’. Do you feel that way? Do you see how your thoughts explode all around? Some thought comes and then a chain reaction of analysis and labeling occur all over reality. So I am morbidly depressed . . . this is because I am not living up to my responsibilities - I have a morbid neurosis which compels me to not complete the things that I have agreed to complete. I am not going to get too much into analysis of this but I think it won’t hurt to at least contextualize it in regards to the Great Relaxation.

Effortless effort, I think it is called. You can see just from that the ‘great relaxation’ is not a thing - it is a process - like opening. Opening is not a thing, is it? It is a minute point between closed and open. Between closed and open is 0pening. So this should perhaps be called ‘great relaxing’ - but i will make the jump and say that the moment you slip un-ceasingly into that relaxing process is the ‘great relaxation’ or ‘nirvana’. Now apparently this is a big problem to talk about such a thing directly because it is said that words can not approach it and I think that is true - like words can not express ‘playing tennis’. If you have it - if you play it or see it or whatever - then you approach it’s expression. Words are only echos of that expression. Actually, they are a continuation of the expression. So with the great relaxation it can be said that the words about it are like the continuation of its expression. From within a state of deep relaxation others have communicated out to those tight multitudes of which I am a card-carrying member. So I am gripped on with great fear - and so I have become obsessed with this. Cars, Tennis, Girls, Religion, Dogs - all are ashes of tired inspiration which fails inevitably at the force of my appetite. But this emptiness has obsessed me eternally!

Old habits die hard - so I maintain distance from my responsibilities and tightly clutch a feeling of dread only to be fully expressed - in a sort of interpretave dance - at the time of my ‘break down’. This break down has as its cause the maintenence of distance from my responsibilities. So this is very much the opposite of the great relaxation.

What’s a poor obsessed boy to do? Perhaps I should cry out to God, “nooooooooooooooo!”, while crouched on my knees staring wide eyed up at the heavy streaking percipitation. I could pound my fist into the tons of air billowing up towards space and yell in furry and disobedience. That feels good, doesn’t it?

I’m going to go get a hot dog and a giant thirst buster and then crawl into work on my hands and knees, throat sore from yelling to/at God.

12:58 PM 3/20/2006
And that’s what I kept doing - I crawled into work on my hands and knees over and over and over until I got used to it. It’s all fine. That’s the trick. If you can make sad just fine and ecstatic just fine then you solve the problem. If you let go of your expectations for everything to go a certain way, then you have a chance. I expect this great relaxation and really it is the expectation that is obscuring the whole thing. It drives me nuts to think about things like, ‘the only way to get enlightenment is to completely let go of enlightenment’, but it’s true. Leave it all behind, give it all up. Then you get it. I feel my mind giving it up REALLY HARD. I’m gonna give it up the best ever, I’ll tell ya. I can’t really get into it like that. There is no ambition there - which, frankly is hard for me because I am always in trouble because I lack ambition. I get in big trouble because I just don’t care. I’d rather just sit here and type messages to myself. There is something though, a couple people have contacted me about this page - I talked about silouettes before and they have taken some form. Maybe you are a silhouette now - like you have emailed me and come back - sort of a more substantial silhouette, revisiting the scene of the crime. Welcome. Now the problem is that if I end up fine I have nothing to say. Well, maybe some poetry:

And this is it?
But I’ve already been here!
The Universe on the tip of the tounge
does not vanish
everything is stardust

I was talking to this guy in the office today. His name is one of those that is just two letters together like PJ. He just lost his dog - he had to put her down because she had bone cancer. PJ really loves this dog and so he talked for awhile about how it is hard and suprising and how he dreams about this dog now. Its really sweet because he’s really in love with this dog. He said if this dog were a human she would look like Cindy Crawford. She was the ‘perfect dog’. So he’s trying to come to understand how she is gone now and we get on in the conversation - one of those long ones that just kills your day and we come to how everything is impermanent - how things don’t last and how we take everything for granted.

Everything is temporary. Although, there seemed to be this possibility of the dog living on in his memories, memories of this and that time and knowing this and that about her - but really, that fades too - it just becomes stories. The memories lose their edges overtime and become blurs. Things just wash through, they bleach out. What are we left with? Well, with just the love, the hate, the fear, the visceral emotional feelings of things. If you are a positive person maybe you will do good things and you will feel alot of love as your memories fade, but if you are a kermudgen then really everything is a problem all the way through. If we grab on to every little thing that is going on with hardcore expectations about it then what? But if we realize that everything is temporary then there is a possibility of realizing that each and every moment of your life is precious and spontaneously alive.

We are temporary to the point where it can be said that there is no thing that is changing. It can be said and it is true. Thats why this is said. In some cases things are said for other reasons, but in this case it actually true. We are temporary to the point where it can be said that there is no thing that is actually changing. And that completely dynamic nonthing that is always changing moves through every seemingly solid situation. We are temporary like that and we are bound for the creamatorium - but yet, here we are, spontaneously. It’s amazing. It can’t be understood. You can’t wrap your head around it at all. The best that you can do is be it and nothing can be said about that at all. For instance, right now you are reading this. What can be said? It is not going to last long. It is probably almost over. I am getting tired.

Everything is already fine. Without all of the hangups - imagine that for a moment, if your mind were quiet, relaxed, where would your problems be? You know how when you feel bad, really bad, you wake up and for just a second you forget that you are sad? That’s because in deep sleep you got a break. Your mind was still and deep. You wake up and you feel good for a second, forgetting to spin up the story you have been telling yourself. But then you notice and remind yourself that you are depressed - that life sucks. If you watch, you will see that. So if you want to overcome your obstacles, you must learn to quiet your mind. Mine is still a wild pig of a thing, so I am on this journey too. It’s like we want world peace, right? Well first we have to become our own peice of peace. Disarm internally, the Dalai Lama says. There is a Tibetan saying that goes, ‘why cover the earth in leather to protect yourself from the hard things, when you can just put some leather on your feet’. They are talking about meditation - about protecting your mind. If you find peace yourself, then it is the same as world peace. So that’s where I’m at right now. I’m too tired to complain right now. I’m 31. I can’t complain about anything that I haven’t complained about already. It’s time to get to work.