"Do you know how they say that love is like a dream? With a dream, you eventually wake up from it. It's hard to force yourself to wake up."

- Kumin Tsuyuri, Chuunibyou Demo Koi Ga Shitai! Ren
From episode 11, time 8:15 - 8:26.

My Heart's Coal

Although I may be a charcoal grill
with all the coals gray and cooling, 
deep within there's still a flame sparkling and burning.
How to be bored. Some of us have to learn.

Watery Eyes

As I get closer to the point I will be moving, I have been letting certain people know early. The ones who see me regularly get watery eyes when I tell them, and that surprises me. I have been called a bright spot, and told that I have a "winning" personality. A gap will be left.
I don't feel this way. When I reunite with someone, I communicate in a way that creates a feeling as if no time has passed, or so I've been told. I don't believe in time, and perhaps my lack of feeling is because I fully expect to see everyone again one day, and it will be like no time has passed. The feeling of loss is for those who believe they are experiencing a real loss. The loss I feel is not for the leaving, but for the possible futures missed at having not left.

Seen at a Thanksgiving Table

A long ovular table comfortably surrounded by chairs. Family is seated to dinner: old and young, immediate and extended. The typical dinnertime conversations of those who don't get together often: where one is and what one does. Occasional pseudo-intellectual topics proffered over the glowing screen of a smartphone. At the table, I feel like I've seen this before, and I have. The family/friend reunion meal shown in innumerable movies and TV shows, inspired by, or modeled after, us. Only this time I'm in the movie, although too perturbed to participate in the acting. I look over my shoulder and see myself standing in a doorway, seeing the scene from the appropriate perspective of a camera - watching me watch myself.

Inverse Camus

'In the midst of summer, I found there was, within me, an invincible winter.' -inverse Camus

Sex

Sex is an activity that is referred to as a possession. In conversation, people say they have sex instead of doing sex. "Doing" is straightforward, but I don't understand what it means to "have" it. Therefore, it eludes me and I cannot have it.

Wittgenstein's Habit

Life is more enjoyed with risk. People sky dive and use strange drugs, for something different and the uncertainty of what may happen next. Other sorts of risks can be taken that are as dangerous but without action. Some people, dependents, or things inadvertently anchor you. Loosening anchors in order to experience a disengage from reality bears risk. Slowly letting the string run between your fingers, you kite upward into the atmosphere, gliding and hovering. Below, one small anchor holds down the end of the string, this thin filament that is the only way back. The ecotone between fugue and non-fugue states. It's the sky diver just before pulling the chute cord; it's the drug beginning a road trip on the body's interstate.

Icebreaker

The inevitable question comes up: What do you do? The intended meaning being for a "living" (viz. for money). The answer will be interpreted under that Western societal assumption¹.

'I'm a writer.'
'Oh, what have you published;' or, 'Have I heard of your work?'

The conclusion drawn from the answer is that the activity must result in receiving compensation, in this case through the act of publishing, or acknowledgment within certain circles. "Fame and fortune" is very much a Western obsession², and through Google Books one can see the phrase itself has been consistently publicized going back to 1800³.

There is also an identity crisis in the answer. Rather than responding with what one does, the activity becomes the self-definition of who that person is and not simply an activity. 'I am a writer' instead of 'I write.' This also isn't a very accurate portrayal of a personality. Writers may share some common traits, but their chosen genre and syntax reveals much more about their personality than the overarching theme of writing.

---

¹ Admittedly, other geographic cultures may be focused on income or fame inducing activities. All cultures likely have activities that are enjoyed without producing income or fame. The question is if discussion centering around remuneration and renown is a ubiquitous human trait or something culturally specific. I would venture that most cultures consider such discussion impolite, which is why Western society dances around what it really wants to know with banalities such as 'What do you do.'

² Although it's probable that each term may hold a different meaning in other cultures, or that the English meaning referenced here is attached to a different word in other languages. In fact, upon translation of the phrase, one can see the following: a steady decline in use in French, negligible usage in Russian, no usage in Hebrew, and peak usage in German in the 1940s followed by a steady decline. Spanish usage showed a steady increase through time, and simplified Chinese ran hard with the phrase beginning in 1980.

³ Consistent over the long-term with a very gradual and bottoming downtrend. Since 1960, the phrase has enjoyed a steady increase in literary use and is currently close to a peak usage not seen since the early 1900s.

Eating Out

I'm actually beginning this post with the intention of writing about eating out, but I will first mention something seemingly unrelated. That is, the sky of Colorado is so expansive, often tablecloth blue, with large, bulbous and billowing clouds that mirror the mountains below. I find it difficult to imagine something giving a feeling that comes close to the satisfaction produced by that sky. Maybe that's one of the meanings of life.

"Eating out" is something I often think about because the people I work with continually comment on my bringing the same simple lunch every day. The people who comment are the people who always eat out. I never really feel good after eating at restaurants, and reckless abandon comes to mind when faced with the prospect of putting that food inside myself everyday. I don't think convenience is the primary reason behind eating out that often; these days, many foods are saturated with chemicals (natural or artificial) to cause a sort of climax, and there is further reinforcement of the climax due to the ability to eat out frequently. We're adults earning money, which bestows upon us the power to have others feed us. And I think this seemingly unconscious capacity becomes the epitome of existence for some people; after all, we need (or would like) to eat several times a day, every day.

The goal, for me, is to attempt to differentiate between distraction and what has (or should have) meaning. I'm not sure what meaning there is in a sandwich containing previously individually wrapped, refrigerated meats and vegetables made by a stranger. All I know is I don't want to get to the point where I can't tell the difference between that sandwich and that big blue sky.

Thoughts on CO

"I thought I was relocating geographically, and wound up moving to a brand. Colorado is no longer a place; it's an idea, a trademark."

Little Natty

Ideological Nomad

Standing Before an Ocean

The noticeable presence of time can be like a cage. I can fill an office position within a company that is metaphorically a void of time - the epitome of an existential crisis - and feel unhappy despite being very well paid for the position. It can be an entry-level office position, which through some basic level of functioning causes me to appear to “outperform” others in the same position, thereby leading to higher wages through no special exertions. In other environments, another entry-level position may not offer the same possibility to “outshine,” and may not even start at the same wage as the other aforementioned position; yet as tedious and meaningless as the new work may be, and as little as it may pay, it could cease to be a cage in terms of time. As I get older, I often feel as if I’m standing before an ocean, and it’s at once tranquil and exhausting. Life increasingly becomes less about finances and more about finding ways to pass time.

Desire to Become Digital

Current Mood:
Quiet

Are we different online, more interesting, and does our internet and physical presence change geographically? Perhaps Dallas holds too many memories, a mass that leaves no room and will to create; or Colorado holds too few, a void and longing needing to be filled by some outlet. The DFW character, during a contentious scene in The End of the Tour, stated, "If we had done this by the mail, if I had access to my library, if I could look stuff up... When I’m in a room by myself, alone, and have enough time, I can be really really smart." Maybe it's just that most people, myself included, aren't that interesting in person, even if we have much to say. There isn't a conclusive answer here, it's probably dependent person to person, but I definitely feel more coherent and intelligent and in my own rhythm when I post here. I often wish I could merge the two.

R.O.D.

There is so much on the internet, an inordinate number of moments and images that would take a lifetime to sift through. Somewhere, within the mass, there are moments and images applicable to each of us - perhaps others waiting to be found by like minds. How many will go or have gone undiscovered? Likely, there are some who went on to be discovered off the net, their digital image continuing its plea; and likely, there are digital images that have outlived their source and are discovered too late.

*****

Rather than wanting actual things, I want the experience of those things. I want the fluid endless possibilities that come from not having anything, because not having anything is not committing. This is why I like books, and blogs that gather and stream less-known images from over the internet. For the cost of a used book or a monthly subscription to the internet, one can have access to many lifestyles without particularly committing to it. The problem is you have just the timeless two-dimensional image, or the passage, and your imagination; you can be in it as long as your muscles of attention hold out. We can't yet fully immerse ourselves in it, short of showing up at the owner's doorstep and being invited in. And who wants a casual observer sitting at your breakfast table or in your den. Alternately, I'm sure there are people who would be interested in similar images of my lifestyle: a warm setting sun's light on my crumpled t-shirt draped over a wicker chair, or a few bones and leaves on one of my bookcase shelves. However, I'm more interested in perceiving and mentally being in other's lifestyles than in documenting my own (sorry!).

*****

One day:
When resources become too thin for the number of people, their bodies will be maintained with very basic elements, while their mind lives in the digital space. Where end products can be traced back through layer after layer of essential units, in the digital space, those essential units and end products are the same - an infinity of ones and zeros - everything can be endlessly had. It's just a matter of the quantity of information.

The Perk

"I look at people holding hands in the hallways, and I try to think about how it all works. At the school dances, I sit in the background, and I tap my toe, and I wonder how many couples will dance to 'their song.' In the hallways, I see the girls wearing the guys’ jackets, and I think about the idea of property. And I wonder if anyone is really happy. I hope they are. I really hope they are."

 

A Conflict of Dreams

I had a strange dream, set in a sort of camp; I remember running back to a picnic bench with people around it.

I think I noticed a pack of wolves, giant ones, hanging at a distance, playing with each other, and one came over to me. I was sitting on the bench and it jumped up next to me and rested its head on my lap as a domestic dog would do. Then I saw a giant red fox, maybe six feet long, and the wolf ran after it and they started fighting. I asked one of the people if the wolf would be okay, and they said, "sure, dogs always beat cats."

 

HOWEVER,

that's the story that makes sense in words (that follow dream chronology), but the images I remember from the dream tell a different, fragmented story.

I remember seeing the six-foot-long red fox at a distance and I went over to it. After picking it up, I ran back to the bench and then noticed the wolves, one of which was watching me. On the bench, I let the huge fox curl in my lap. The wolf came over and sat sort of like a domestic dog, and that's how the scene was for a while. I believe I didn't move at all because I was afraid of any sudden  violence the wolf might do.

Then the fox ran off and the wolf chased it and fought with it. I asked the same person if the fox would be okay and they said they didn't know because it was a wolf fighting a fox.

 

It's like I had two versions of the same dream but can only remember the chronology of one and the images of the other.

Drugs I Have Known

Since I began life at college, I have been exposed to many new ideas and items, which sometimes are one in the same. I've been thinking about drugs, due to my plants and civilization class, and how they have become one of the biggest impacts in my life, connecting me to a new-found spirituality and shaping my perceptions of the world. Reading Carlos Castaneda has given me specific insight into what I was vaguely learning on my own and a poetic means to discuss them.
I probably won't ever get around to it, but I thought of writing a piece, a series of vignettes, personifying the plants I have met, giving them physical definition and personality.
Here I just want to lay out an outline with some minor notes on how the drugs seem to me.

I. The Natural
A) Mushrooms - The teacher; wise; collected; sometimes male, sometimes I'm not sure.
1. Yellow-cap (psilocybin) - Hesitant, though not closed off. Took more time to open up but once accustomed was willing to share and treat like a friend.
2. Amanita - Greeted like an old friend, almost like a hug. A tranquil vibe, willing to share easily if the right questions are asked. Treated me like a friend, but distrustful of strangers (created the latter feeling with me as a medium).
B) Marijuana - Very unstable and temperamental; felt like a female presence. Each meeting was different. Volatile at first (perhaps because I was approaching with the wrong intention), eventually a sort of complacency as if putting up with me; sometimes friendly.
C) Nutmeg - Meeting time so removed from consumption and meeting so brief it was hard to tell anything.
D) Kava Kava
E) Smoking blend - Just a mixture of other plants with minor effects, more of an "rock" or "water" personality than a "human" personality. Potentiates other plants.
F) Hawaiin Baby Woodrose Seeds

II. The Man-Made
A) ADD Medication - An interesting chemical for someone without the disorder. Although they are similar I feel that there is a difference, but it has been a while since meeting the substance so I don't remember.
1. Focalin
2. Adderall
B) Acid - Similar to yellow-caps, yet kind of hollow. He is like a passionate artist; very productive. Calm, but without so much emotion. It's hard to trust someone like that.
C) Molly - Not much of a person from what I can tell.
D) DMT - The most natural feeling of all the man-mades. Definitely a teacher, but unaware of how comfortable it is with the information, so with comfortable ease it tries to pass too much information. Casual, just trying to make a good impression.

I'm hesitant to call the man-mades people, because they're usually too far separated from the plants which birth them. A mind or emotion separated from the body, floating in a sea of consciousness; over time, without sensory connections to this planet, they dissociate and are purely what they are.

New Mix

http://8tracks.com/walking_daydream/i-ll-miss-you

01 Album Leaf - Airplane
02 Yo La Tengo - Our way to fall
03 Caribou - After Hours
04 Cary Brothers - Blue Eyes
05 Charlotte Gainsbourg - Dandelion
06 Coconut Records - The Summer
07 Ray Lamontagne - For the Summer
08 Eric Clapton - Wonderful Tonight
09 Iron & Wine - Love And Some Verses
10 Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
11 Coldplay- Talk
12 Death Cab For Cutie - Brothers On A Hotel Bed
13 Counting Crows - A Long December
14 Foo Fighters - Next Year
15 Pheonix - Long Distance Call
16 Robert Francis - Where You Came from
17 Kings of Convenience - Until You Understand
18 Helio Sequence - Shed Your Love

Hopeless Romantic

One thing that has not, and probably won't, change about me is that I'm a romanticist. Emotion flows through me in such quantity that it flows over me. Like a fuse struck by too much power, with a POP, it all goes out. I often have to recharge because moments of overload are inevitable to those who feel too much. I'm fragile and hurt, lost and confused, lonely and longing.
The worst part about the mind is how it can create something so big that never existed; something true to only one person.

Ways Of Life

As I was working in the garden today, I could hear the sorority house across the street - the repetitious two-bar tune and the lyrics of any stereotypical cheer leading scene, how great they are and how everyone wants to be them. I couldn't see them because of the courtesy trees planted on the edge of the greenhouse property but I imagined they were all outside, standing in rows, heads held high.
On the other hand, I was bent over a raspberry bush; a simple act of collecting my food. I tried to picture myself in a situation of singing in front of a house and doing nothing geared toward my survival. Some guys rode bikes past me and said something scoffish. Could they put themselves in my position instead of paying five dollars for a small container of what I picked a half gallon? It is a status, showing that one doesn't have to go to the source. But the source is that of more than just physical sustenance.
And then a phrase came and went: I heard the echo before the call.

Dreamt

I've been having vivid dreams lately, strange ones. It seems the melatonin is becoming variable because not all my dreams are like this, though I have started taking it every night rather than stopping on the weekends, to avoid the hangover effect of the hormone.
I forget these dreams because I stop thinking about them which is why I'm writing this one here. I believe I had two dreams last night, and this isn't strange but for the fact that each was at the same location and yet not.

The first scene took place in a large mansion and all I remember is that it was a rugged old home and that I had some purpose within it.
The second scene took place outdoors in a mid-depth pool of clear, still water. Looking one direction showed me the mansion a little way off and looking the other way showed me an orange-red marmalade sky of a setting sun. A little grassy distance on every side ended abruptly as if the location were on a cliff or it was floating in the air.
Mikenzie, a small girl in my hall with an attractive pixie cut, was there and looked quite cat-like. She had these sharp claws that dug into me and hurt me. There was someone or something else there that told me things, like the fact that Mikenzie was cat girl and evil and had nine lives. I picked up bits that reminded me that within the house I fought many evil characters, and Mikenzie was the last. I can't remember who the hinter was or why it was there.
The only thing I had at my disposal was the pool, so I drowned Mikenzie many times as she scratched back. Suddenly, though, everything went melodramatic and the setting sun became even deeper, the hinter was farther in the background, and Mikenzie was laying in my arms looking up at me with innocent eyes, as is shown in many movies. She said that she was evil and had to die and so was resigned to it. I started to cry because I really didn't want to take her last life, and so I held her to me, and she said it had to be done. I kept crying as I started lowering her without resistance to the water and the sun kept setting. Then I woke up.

I've been tired all day. I think I wanted to keep dreaming to see what would have happened next.

The Lonely Shower

I made headway in my application for SCA internships. I'm at the stage where I have to get the permission of three people to use as references and for recommendation letters. So far I've gotten the permission of my favorite philosophy professor at Webster, Britt-Marie. I updated her a bit about the new college life and she commented that I didn't sound too happy here. I thought about it and realized I'm not too attached to this school except for graduating purposes. I further realized that since I've been here I feel I've somewhat lost touch with time and reality. I have no idea what I'm doing here and sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be here.

"Have you ever looked up at a plane flying overhead and wished to be on it? To leave everything and put your life on some track that's already been going, only with other people?"
"I don't often look up."
I guess that's what I should expect to hear.

It's strange. I shower each night, and shave, go to class, and eat, and sleep (though now with the help of melatonin). The same schedule repeats so often it's no wonder I can't keep things straight. Sure the assignments and projects differ, but they're all the same in frequency and effect. If it were warmer I could go to the mountain on the weekends. The only thing to do around here is go to parties, and they've never been my scene.
I think Britt-Marie may be the only adult I'd confide in regarding reality and the drugs and life. But maybe I'm just feeling that for this moment.