Disappeared

The more I try to strengthen something, the more I end up weakening it.  My skin will always be itchy because I have itchy skin.  I cannot make the itch disappear without making the skin disappear.  The only thing I can do is change the perspective.  The more I try to weaken something, the more I end up strengthening it.  The more I break something, the more indestructible I make it.  The more I try to fix something, the more I end up breaking it. 

Tonight I realize that even the smallest bit of light from my computer's charger is as bright as one million suns blazing all in unison in my room.  A little green dot of light is enough for me to see everything I need to see.  Even if it is not enough light, my brain will make it enough light to see whatever it wants to see.  

This is what it means to be alive.  Truth or knowledge has nothing to do with being alive.  Or rather, I do not need truth or knowledge to know that I am alive.  The ability to interpret and create is the defining characteristic of my being alive.  Wherever the line stands between the real world and the created world, the Only World I Can Ever Know, I don't know.  Spending time trying to find this line is a compete waste of energy simply because, even if it existed, it would have no impact on how I live my life.  Whether I spend my time creating or living as a product of my creation is not always up to me.  Whether my life is one or the other I also cannot say.  All I can do is create perspective.  

I find it really funny, interesting and telling that wise people often talk about Buddhism and their transformation/realization because of it as if it were a recovery from substance abuse.  To the enlightened person, all unenlightened people are "substance abusers".  It makes sense to me.  Being an addict to the substantial world--a slave to it--seems to be a part of the problem.

I dreamt/remembered this one time when I was still drunk on a couch I fell asleep on at a house I hated with people I didn't like and one of the people who lived at this house had turned on a college football ball game at an extremely high volume.  He had no regard for me sleeping on his couch and I will never expect him to have.  The idea of me cold and alone curled up on a couch, still intoxicated and lost breaks my heart.  Almost like I feel this deep compassion for this stupid poor creature lying in his own filth.  I wish I would have behaved differently and did something to help him, but I didn't and now I have to live with the guilt of having not.  And all of this about my past self.  There are many other situations and people that have been treated by me in the same way throughout the years.  Some hurt worse than others at different times.

I have no idea how to interpret this other than to store it here.

I also have no idea what to do with the sex dream where I was looking at internet porn  Not even real sex in my dreams?

Meditation

I'm really trying.  I was struck by how sad I have become and how close happiness is to me at all times.  There are things I desire greatly; almost so great it brings tears to my eyes.  I want to move back to Michigan.  I want to move back to Grand Rapids.  I feel like I've been on an extended vacation that I no longer want to be a part of.  A vacation that has turned into a prison term.  And now that I know I want to go back to my home where my roots are and always will be, I feel like I never will be able to.  I feel like I have amputated a limb that is now impossible to reattach.  Logic, emotion and reason are no comfort.  Right now I am being confronted with the realization that I may be stuck in Chicago for the rest of my life.  This is a terrifying thought that I am completely unequipped to deal with right now.  But right now is when I have to deal with it.  The only way I can ever leave is if I can deal with the fact that right now, I cannot leave.  This is what I believe to be Patience.  I have very little Patience and have never spent a great deal of time trying to cultivate it.  I guess now is the time when I will either cultivate it and move on with my life, or I won't and I will be stuck forever.  The dark side is awful because there never seems to be any end to it.  The dark side is inherently hopeless while the light side is inherently hopeful.  The light side also feels endless and you never remember any of the dark thoughts when you are in it.  I have yet to understand that they are both beautiful.  This is one thing I must learn before I can ever find peace.  Before I can ever leave my vacation.

I am trying to convince myself that change does not occur for me and that I am somehow the exception to the rule.

I'm being a bit foolish...

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Marc

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Review of John Steinbeck's Cannery Row

A very simple, straight forward book that disarms the reader with its slight size and bursts of blind humor. There is something very tender going on here that has something to do with friendship, time and the brevity of all things. None of which are to be lamented but celebrated. There is a great deal of heartbreak and plenty of sudden violence here, but it all feels contained within a blanket of human goodness. In the end, all the nerdowells Do Well. That sort of thing. As far as writing style goes, Steinbeck has this very--I don't know if this is the right word--"wholesome" way of putting things that doesn't feel crass, rushed, or banal yet is at the same time far from scholastic or proper. He spent his youth as a laborer and kept himself untainted with the reek of academia and his compassion for all types of minds/ways and means shines through in every passage. The wine-guzzling drunks are treated with just as much respect as the post-doctorate researcher and they very often trade social places. Maybe that is what I really like about this story: It is a portrait of human beings at their finest. When people are not separated from each other because of class, but are held together because of their merits. Regardless of education, elucidation or diction; all people look on everyone else as equals capable of experiencing the same limitless depths of fear, pain, happiness, pleasure, sadness, boredom, etc., etc. All beings are deserving of the same amount of consideration and Steinbeck considers them all. This book is also Goddam hilarious. The metaphors are often punch-lines: Not the shitty non-sense you would find in something like Chuck Palaniuk, or however the fuck you spell that guy's name, but something with class and thought put behind it. At this point in his career, Steinbeck was an expert whose mindless flourishes were on par, or if not better, with some of the most brilliant efforts committed to page by writers who I would consider to be legends, (i.e. Ken Kesey, Joseph Heller), yet it feels completely off the cuff as if he wrote it while he was waterskiing or drinking beer and playing darts. The result is that none of this feels desperate. It reads like writing that is not at all worried whether ten people read it or 300 billion. It also doesn't worry about whether it gets to the point or reaches some kind of cathartic crescendo that makes you stare at the ceiling for thirty minutes. Yet it DOES do all these things. Shitloads of people read this book. It does build into something bigger than itself and I had to gather myself at end. It is the kind of book that you can throw away and the kind of book that you dig out of trash. It should be read several times a year and should never be taken more seriously than the people who inhabit it would take it. Dammit! What more can I say. This book fucking rocked. It won't take long to read. Do it.