my wandering life

morning pages

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 04:57:21 GMT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

morning pages

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:32:54 GMT

back still hurts some, but i'm back to the gym. had a good day yesterday getting the apartment cleaned up, doing emails and whatnot.

not much more to say...i think i'm starting to "get it" though. i still have strong emotions about getting older, not having money, etc., but i'm able to talk myself out of it far more than ever before. and not just ameliorate my situation either. but for real: recognizing that my reaction to life's situation is a choice...one that i am beginning to exercise when i am mindful to do so.

i still think i can become predominantly happy. if i can predominantly, and mindlessly, choose being critical or choose depression/powerlessness, then i can get to where i automatically choose to see positive energy. to see that all things are of god, to see that there is no other place than right here right now, and that most of the suffering comes from being somewhere else than in the present moment and with what is.

also, K has had a recurrence of vaginal lesions and having procedure on tuesday. i know that a year from now my life will be different...but it might be really different.

morning pages

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:05:44 GMT

this morning my back is out of whack.

and i am glad that i did my mind movie because i am immediately reminded of this: i give thanks for all that i have received and all that i will receive.

i'm also reminded of paul's "be thankful in all circumstances for this is the will of god for you."

and why not? this back pain is more annoying than anything. sure, it hurts and the sensations running down my legs are ever present and nagging, but they serve more as distractions than incapacitations.

why not relax through it, be thankful for whatever situation i am in, understand that much of my experience is my thoughts about what i experience, and know that this too shall pass. and even if it doesn't pass, everything passes even if it isn't in the way i'd hoped.

it just so happens that this will pass...it has before and it will again. which is another reason to simply relax. i know it will be a week, so i'll stop fighting it.

last night i experienced something that was interesting too. i began to notice how different my life is looking...and it was a little frightening. frightening like when you start up the roller coaster and just crest the top of the first drop. there were several thoughts that raced through my head...most of them the old self-destructive thoughts from years past. it doesn't really matter what they were/are, but what matters is that i was able to see them for what they are: thoughts. automatic reactions. just thoughts.

and as i begin to see that, my life or what i think is my life begins to become misty.

it's hard to describe that sensation. you don't exactly think that "nothing is real it's just thought," because clearly things are "real." but what you start to realize is that "reality," no matter how concrete, is 90% or more a function of your thought about it. there is no denying the solidity of my coffee table, it is therefore real...in the conventional sense where we would distinguish between illusions, dreams, hallucinations, or delusions. you can knock on the table and your hand doesn't go through it...you can stub your toe on the table.

the reality behind the "reality" is that the table is a collection of atoms vibrating at a frequency that makes it appear to our senses and our definition of the word/symbol "solid." the table is a product of my brain.

that seems useless until you start to think about your own thoughts in the same way. they seem very real too, but they are just thoughts. and when i say "just thoughts" it means they originate in one place and one place only: my head. they "materialize," create a bodily sensation, and then proliferate. but they are self-contained.

like the pain in my back. the pain is there (a chemical response by my body) and it generates thoughts in my head about it. they are just chemical reactions to another chemical reaction. any more than i see the "pain" as "me," my thoughts are just reactions. they rise like vapors, all around me...like walking through a thick underbrush in a forest, but they are essentially harmless...if not terribly annoying.

the reactions are automatic. pain = ouch. but soon thoughts arise: i would rather this wouldn't hurt = this sucks = anger = my life is a mess. knee jerk, all of them. so the trick is to let them rise without attaching to them. let them go. walk through the weeds, accept the occasional snag and the difficulty in walking, but don't think that the weeds are you. like sitting in a vicks vapor bath with that cartoonish animation floating up around your face. if you fight the thoughts, sooner or later, your are faced with fight or flight. sooner or later your body will get involved....you feel the need to run away from the thoughts. which you can't do.

so the answer is to let them go, see them as thoughts that exist in your head, and just sit there until they go away. it hasn't helped me to try to replace them. they are jealous and don't like to be pushed aside. they can also tell when you are ignoring them or pretending they don't exist. no, the virtue isn't in getting rid of them, the real work is in sitting with them and knowing that they are your own and there is no need to be afraid...as scary as they seem.

i mean, they ARE scary. your body feels that. but it is all self contained. the confusion, the sprinting from thought to thought, the need to fix and the need for order being thwarted at every turn, and gradually the feeling of being out of control. it is all "real." but none of it exists outside the body threatening to kill you. it is you, sitting on the couch next to yourself, generating thought after thought.

thoughts carry energy and there is no denying any of this as "illusion." this isn't christian science. it is understanding what really is. the brain as an organ is doing it's job. right now the pain receptors in my back are doing their job. no one is stabbing my back. no one is thinking the thoughts. i sit with my back pain and know it will pass. the thoughts i had last night about my life changing drastically will pass too.

i can't ignore my back pain...i can't ignore the thoughts. but i can accept it all as a function of my body and my brain. my quality of life is a function of my brain...but only for itself. in a way, everything i experience as "me" is a function of "my" body and "my" brain. like a boat in a river, the boat knows nothing but itself and the river. like me, the pilot of the boat can fight the river and only know the river as a hostile environment...but there might be someone in a plane who can see the river and know that it is full of calm places and not calm places....it is all one.

the goal, realy, for myself isn't to be happy...it is to be accepting of what is wherever it is.

morning pages

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:27:41 GMT

early this morning i woke up at 4:30 and couldn't go back to sleep. worried about money.

here is the deal with money: i really have an abundant life in all areas...virtually every single area of my life...except my bank account. and of course, even there, i always seem to have enough.

so...

without getting too deep into the "law of attraction" thing, i have to say it works. it just does. it is so odd that i feel so good about everything in my life and yet my bank account is shrinking. right now the only thing i "need" is a bed for madeleine to sleep on when she comes over. apart from that, it is just day to day living stuff. of course the big thing is my medical debt from the surgery, but apart from that i have everything i need.

so why does it keep me up at night?

one thing i find really interesting...and i might have talked about his before...but in my sex fantasies i am always being dominated in a wrestling match. could be by a guy, either beautiful or not, or a woman, beautiful or not. these fantasies usually have some kind of "plot" in that i am quite capable of beating most of my opponents. there are times when my opponents are bigger, but not usually. so the "plot" is that i somehow get cheap shotted or the other guy lands a blow or they just get the better advantage and then it is a squash match from there. occasionally i win, and i usually win big too, but most of the time i lose.

i have had this fantasy since i was probably 13 years old or even younger. i remember being "beaten" by a friend in his bed when i was no more than 5 or 6.

never mind "where" it comes from, the point is, i enjoy it. and even in the case of my friend in his bed 40+ years ago, the power to "lose" is my own. i choose it. it's like i can win at anything but i choose to lose. i mean really, all of the fantasies in my head are made up. i've only really wrestled twice since i've been a "grown up" and they never turn out like my fantasies. in those matches, i am dominated and thrown around the ring and taken advantage of sexually in ways that would likely never happen in real life...and even if they did...it would be pretend. i am giving in to my power.

this is also why the closer i get to being really fit the hornier i get. i love the idea of being muscular and ripped and getting beaten. the height of power and then dominated.

so why do i mention this? it's because it's how my life plays out.

why do i always seem to need money? why do i always seem to be second to guys like JH or JR or MP or anyone else i compare myself to? why do i always seem to get ahead a little and then fall way behind?

it is, i think, to be found in my wrestling fantasies.

how can i carry on these fantasies of being dominated (regardless of my strength) and then go about my business? i am holding myself back in life because i like it. it seems, at this point anyway, to be that simple. i like losing. i win only to set up my losses. in a way there is a timeless poetry to this. for me, since i have no way of tracing the origin of these fantasies, a strong guy losing and being dominated is almost an archetype. you can see it in mythology in places and in all kinds of stories.

i remember reading campbell about norwegian mythology. how the norse gods found heaven through fighting valiantly in the face of overwhelming odds. winning was no big deal, but fighting to the death in a sure losing battle got you into heaven. and what is more, eventually even valhalla will be overrun and the norse gods there will lose that battle too. but in losing that battle through valiant effort, they win.

i have no idea why i am wired that way. i guess there are others like me. but here is the deal: i lose because i choose to. and this isn't a bad thing to me...you see, i like it. this morning i was able to finally just accept that. i like it. i like being dominated, i like being a "tragic" figure of strength but losing, somehow weakened, and then used and taken advantage of.

i wonder if it is important to know the "cause." i wonder if it is just me.

i have read a lot on the law of attraction and have come to the conclusion it is the real deal. this is only part of the journey, however. just accepting its veracity doesn't get you money or abundance. what gets you that is, according to the law, when your subconscious is aligned with your conscious. that is, YOU make things happen...either way.

so essentially i am playing out my fantasies in real life because i like it. do i get a woody? no. but there certainly is a level at which i enjoy the outcome. it is more than comfortability. it is more than expectation. that would assume i don't want to lose any more. but you see...I DO. i enjoy the losing. i enjoy the beating. i enjoy the exploitation. it makes sense to me somehow. not sense in the cognitive sense, but it "feels" right.

would i like several commas in my bank account? yes, i would. do i like winning? yes i do.

THAT is interesting though...because, true to the norse mythos, "winning" isn't as satisfying as fighting valiantly in loss. it's as though winning is second, and really losing is third. so in football the lowest virtue would be being a sucky team and just simply being beaten. next from there would be to be a great team and beat a sucky team by a large margin. from there would be to be a "championship" team that would fight and claw through games and win every one. on top of that, at the very top of virtue, would be a team that wasn't very good but never gave up the season or their games, but lost every single one. each time they thought they could win it and fought hard but each time would be beaten back and overcome. winning is good, but losing is better in some ways. losing like that is far better than winning a game you should have won. there is no virtue in that...it's just an exercise.

but back to my "successful" dreaming. i can work on my subconscious all i want to becoming a "winner." one of those guys who sits on the beach wearing a gold chain around his neck talking about setting his mind to the goal of winning, of getting what you want, then going out and grabbing life by the balls and getting it. by believing you can get it. by attracting it to yourself. but somehow, this just isn't me.

i have always loved the feel of a honky tonk. of people crying in their beer. of the destitute. of the under belly of life. i have always also loved the feel of the underdog, the grit and determination in spite of the odds. and for me personally, i have enjoyed the struggle to become what i have become...or at least to do what i have done. two steps forward, one step back. sometimes one step forward two steps back.

i know that musically speaking i am one of the most talented people i know. this isn't bragging...it's just simply a sense that i know the language of music better than most people. by all rights i should be "on top of the world" and making lots of money...or at least not worrying about it.

but i have to admit this...accept it...or simply acknowledge it: i enjoy digging myself out of the pit. i enjoy cutting myself off and having to work my way back up again. specifically, i enjoy making relationships then fucking them up and making new ones...keeping some along the way, but not holding on to any for the sake of "positive" outcomes. to me, positive outcomes are found in the work.

in my fantasies, "positive outcomes" (i.e., ejaculation) are found in the process of being dominated by another person of my own creation. assigning strength to another "person" (who does not exist) and using that strength against me. of course so much of this is psycho-speak and much of that is just ephemeral thoughts of fancy that come and go...no matter...what is important is that i recognize that while i bitch and moan about the bank account, ultimately i enjoy it.

i don't know if that can be "fixed." i don't think, according to my nads, that it needs to be fixed. i like it. you have to fix something you don't like...or something that is broken. i could go to a counselor trying to "turn things around" and maybe live a life more like others, but right now, that would be just another way i would find to dominate myself.

morning pages

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:32:00 GMT

i probably should have had the girls over last night. SB was sick and had A, and M had to go to a friend's house that really isn't her friend....and the guy there is also a K enabler, so he thinks M has emotional problems and will likely overreact.

funny how you like some people right away, and there are others that just vibrate differently. he is someone that i just don't care for.

anyway, i got a call from SB last night about 6pm and she said that K was "having a rough time," and was staying on her retreat an extra night to "get it toghether." coming from SB, the queen of overreaction and imagining the worst, i can only imagine what that meant. i suspect K was doubled over in a cabin somewhere in KY, moaning and in the fetal position. and i also suspect that i was linked somehow with it all...which leads me to why i feel i "should" have helped with the girls last night (and why i didn't.)

K is attempting to do something that could eventually get her killed. going to graduate school, steel reeling (imagined or otherwise) from chemo therapy, still reeling from the emotional aspect of having cancer and being fired, not having a job, getting a divorce, and having to pay for a house and all that goes with that. it is a lot. it would be a lot minus the chemo and cancer and divorce. she is embarking on this journey, saying it is a "once in a lifetime" opportunity, and so making this all or nothing.

no one can help her. her mom is sick (and she would love to have her mom come down and bail her out and fight her battles (discipline the girls, lay guilt all over me, go to war with the insurance company, etc) and her mom would be happy to do it. her friends can't do it, they're busy with their lives, and the guy i mentioned earlier has tried to do it, but he gets too involved and maybe even scares K some.

at any rate, she is choosing something and then getting all bent about the very thing she is choosing. it doesn't matter, really. i can't fight her battles, i tried once or twice and was put back in my place, so i've learned that her mess does not include me bailing her out or helping...in fact, part of her "mess" involves me being part of the mess...and there is nothing i can do to change that.

but, back to my story about last night. i didn't help out because precisely what i just said: she has chosen this way and has made it crystal clear she doesn't want me involved until she says so...which is usually at some nadir of suffering that she can't be pulled up.

i don't know what to do, but i do know that this is her mess and not mine. SB has decided to help K...and when you get sucked into the mess and you find yourself with your own mess...that too is YOUR mess not mine.

i suppose i could come riding in on a white horse in armor and rescue these people, but what good would that do? it seems like they are the ones who determine when they are rescued...like hero-on-demand...and then when i don't rescue them i become black bart and turn immediately into an evil villain. it doesn't matter how many times i "rescue" the situation (because those rescue efforts are due to their cues), when i don't respond i become instantly evil.

SB didn't call last night and ask me to take the girls. she called last night and said K was "having some trouble" through coughing and hacking of her own and when i told her i had already made plans based on a previous plan (that had changed several times), she asked me to change them...only instead of saying, "i'm sick and can't take your girls," she used this guilt double-speak passive/aggressive BS that K is noted for as well.

so i said no. no to the judgment. no to the guilt. no to being sucked into the drama. no to being hostage to their overactive imaginations. no to the game.

morning pages

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:58:23 GMT

last night i had the strangest dream.

i dreamed i was one of two guys who were caught digging their way out of some camp or someplace. hard to tell where, and it really wasn't so much about escape as it was about the hole and the punishment. i was one of the guys and then i wasn't...but there were two of them. and their punishment was to keep digging the hole, deeper and deeper, and they had to live in it. it was small in diameter, about 3 or 4 feet, and it went down fairly far like 20 feet or so. i remember peering in to see them digging. they would get out (through a mailbox!) but would have to spend most of their time in there digging.

it wasn't disturbing at all. but i woke up and for some reason, on my way back to sleep, i started thinking about it. and i started thinking about being confined and buried alive, and that led to more thoughts of confinement that actually could happen, like guillian-barre syndrome or a body cast or being burned horribly or then, thoughts racing now, of any and all cruel things done to man or that man has experienced that has basically cramped his freedom of simply moving around.

i was freaked. terrified.

then i remembered that i'm not confined. i am free to move, i am healthy, i live in a society and world where atrocities like those from earlier times don't happen.

but it is a reminder yet again of my deep belief that lingers in the world...that it is an unfriendly and nasty place. but more practically, it reminds me of the weird tendency i have to think in terms of despair and torment than to think good things. i mean, why could i not have easily woke up and started thinking about the good things that "could" happen in my life? why not think about all the good things that happen to people randomly every day? why not think about love and the universe and how we have evolved to enjoy life fully each day in spite of our situations?

and then there is the question of who it is that is thinking this stuff. one of the things that "woke me up" from this spiral of crappy thought was to realize that there was no one in the room but me. the crazy thoughts of burial or body cast or massive burns were only my own. there seemed to be a teller of the gory stories and a listener. and of course, they were the same person....me.

and we're back to this: all thoughts and stories about anything and everything, in spite of appearances and what seems "obvious," are my own...told by me, heard by me, and reacted to by me. continued telling of those stories (even when shared with others) only lead to further stories told by me, heard by me, and reacted to by me. even when someone tells me their story, my reaction is my own.

"woe is me," "i'll never live up to expectations," i am a loser," blah, blah, blah...are told to me by one voice and one voice only: mine. it's the equivalent of telling yourself a scary story, knowing it's just a story, knowing it's made up, but being scared by it anyway. i guess because the story is coming from a place inside that has automatic credibility. i'm thinking it, i'm feeling about it, so it must be true.

so two things:

1. why oh why must i insist on telling myself the grizzliest of stories? or the most depressing? or the most hopeless and powerless?

and

2. why oh why must i listen? if there is an ornery part of me that insists on telling crap stories, why not just discount it as "that ornery part of me that insists on telling crap stories?"

take back the power of your mind. sure, those stories will be there for a while out of force of habit. but because they are there doesn't mean you have to believe them or even entertain them. you need to be vigilant in noticing when those stories emerge so that you don't find yourself engrossed in them and sucked into the vortex of darkness before you realize it. it is, for now (and only for now), seemingly "natural" for you to think such things. they emerge effortlessly and often. driving down the street you engage four or five people in your head about what they have done wrong to you and why you feel the way you do. speculation about events you know nothing about creates a mess of emotions that lead you down further rabbit holes into further darkness so that soon you are lost in depression and demotivation and tiredness and anger and anxiety and testiness and don't even know why.

choose to dwell on the good. think about who you are (200+ million cells), think about where you are (a planet suspended in space by the force of gravity) and where you come from (the stuff of everything) and let those thoughts lead you into a wider, positive awareness of the universe as an organic whole full of experience and blessing. there is enough material there to keep you busy for a while. you don't have to solve anything, you don't have to "get your head around" your own awareness, or try to choose happy thoughts to erase bad ones. just choose to think big thoughts and let those thoughts take you deeper into optimism and hope and gratitude.

discount the negative stories as a habitual choice. you lost 40+ pounds in part because you chose new choices over old ones. it was habitual to eat carbs. it was habitual to drink each night. it was habitual to believe that you could never lose weight. it was habitual to think you were "fat." you chose differently and got different results. you began to choose to believe in your body. you began to choose to believe your new thoughts.

so last night's little horror show will come and go. just see it for what it is. misspent energy. habitually misspent. you can picture yourself in a body cast or you can picture yourself soaring for the highest goals you can imagine. you can picture yourself buried alive or you can see yourself moving through your life unencumbered from judgment and fear...FREE. either one your body will respond to. both are rising out of your imagination. but one goes one place and the other goes another.

choose good. paul said at least one good thing:

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."

morning pages

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:41:00 GMT

there seem to be two currents in my life right now...the new, wild, and unconventional way, and the routine, conventional, and "normal" way. i oscillate between the two of them regularly these days.

the routine way is the way that seems mainline...what everyone else who is similar to me does: work hard, hope for the best, endure hardship best you can, and just make it through to the other side. you'll be happy sometimes, you'll have really tough times, and hopefully, at the end of the day, you'll have been through more happy times than bad.

the new way is nearly completely counter to the way i was brought up. this way acknowledges that i am the awareness within a body made up of about 200 trillion cells. i vibrate energy that attracts other energy. there is no time like the present, in fact, there is nothing but the present. in this space you can be happy, or at least "at peace," 100% of the time since you are really not attached to your emotions of sorrow, longing, regret, pain, anguish, anxiety, etc. the world is a benevolent place, we are all made of the same stuff, and life comprises both birth and death.

when i am in the old way of thinking, i feel "comfortable," yet pressured, judged, and powerless. the comfortable part is familiar and associative, as in, i feel at one with my family, some of my friends, and most of all, what i have learned to live with. in the new way i am relatively uncomfortable, yet i can stave off all kinds of negative emotions by reminding myself who i am and what is really real.

this tension is at once alarming and exciting. and i am squarely in both at any given moment. kind of like a water diverter, the flow either moves one way or the other.

the bottom line is that i am aiming to be free.

right now, for instance, i caught my cat chewing through the power supply cable on my mac. it's the third one i will have to replace, at $80 a pop. she has damaged other things as well as facilitated to my injury. in the old way of thinking (which is where i am right this second) i would get rid of her. in fact, i just might. i can't afford to keep replacing power cables, contact lenses, cereal boxes, etc. i don't really have that much connection with her...for this very reason. i am just a hair's breadth away from putting her up on craigslist or even worse, taking her to a shelter and dropping her off.

the new way seeks to see that this whole scenario is no more that what you would read in a book. there might be people who would read this blog post and smile...to them it has no meaning apart from a story about a curious cat and a guy that takes his possessions way too seriously. sure, they might relate to my inability to afford to replace everything, but with the same kind of sense as when frodo is trying to get the ring from golem or when spider man is fighting the sandman. intriguing, but not personally invested. and this new way seeks to understand that life is like that. it's the judgments that get you into trouble.

so, on the one hand i chase the cat down and threaten it within an inch of its life...knowing that it is completely ignorant of its crime and the fear factor does little to keep it from being itself...which only leads me to getting rid of it. and on the other hand, it's just a story.

morning pages

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:39:17 GMT

reading sophies world and almost done with it.

the other day i read about darwin...and how that part of the book touched on and overlapped with two books i just finished reading, virus of the mind and the biology of belief.

i attach to what i see and feel. i attach to the experience i perceive with my senses...those experiences give rise to bodily sensations, also known as emotions, which make the whole of my experiences familiar. it's as though the only way i make sense of anything is through the continuation of emotions and perceptions which give rise to a sense that i have been here before and so i can deal with it.

according to the VotM, we are basically mid-evolution, or in other words, since physical evolution is on such a dramatic scale of time, our physical evolution, specifically of our consciousness, is still adapted to our earliest days. with the rise of consciousness and self-awareness, we have been able to manipulate our environment in such a way that the evolution of our environment (in the form of ideas and subsequent technology) is far beyond our physical perceptions. so we are basically responding automatically to a newer, safer environment with different kinds of dangers in the old way...fight or flight, the need for procreation, and the need for safety.

so yesterday, when i read the email from my niece blasting me for not responding to her family based on her expectations, i was faced with a choice: blast back, however subtle, or use the experience to watch the primal response to a modern threat.

i am a collection of cells. each individual cell holds a small blue print of my entire make-up, but each cell has adapted and taken on "roles" within my body to carry out certain functions on behalf of the whole. each cell has a process of responding to external stimuli (or external awareness), eating food (acquiring it, ingesting it, digesting it, and excreting waste) and a central nervous system (or internal awareness).

my thoughts, my feelings, actions and reactions, are the result of the corporate interaction between these millions of cells. i have the ability to perceive my environment, determine the relative safety, and take the steps necessary to avoid pain and attract pleasure.

the VotM guy believes that we are continuing to evolve, but since we can't watch our bodies evolve (it takes too much time and it is so slow that we can't detect it), we can see how ideas evolve....and they are evolving rapidly. it is as though (this is my opinion) that with the presence of consciousness, self-awareness, and our ability to adapt mentally, this awareness is approaching a new nexus.

it's as though the physical evolution was a base that took a long time to develop, and now it has moved to mental evolution which seems to be moving quickly.

so what does this mean for me? well, it does help to know that my reactions to things are automatic based on my physical evolution. and it also helps to know that the voice i hear getting in the gap between my acutomatic response and my conscious awareness is part of the process too.

for some reason this isn't make the kind of sense i sense in my head. i'll have to think about it more. but basically, it is freeing. we move through time and space, which is of our own mind's construction, and use our senses to get by. it's these senses that can make this a pleasnat journey or not. if you know that whatever reactions you drum up are due to a chemical and "old skool" reaction to your environment, you can take a step back and not need to attach yourself to it. sure, you still have it. but you no longer have to judge it...you no longer have to interpret it one way or the other. you no longer have to attach to it or identify with the thinker or reactor.

the cat on my lap has awareness, and a sense of space. i'm not sure about time. i, on the other hand, am aware and exist in time. we are basically the same physically when it comes to reacting to our environment. but she doesn't have bills to pay, or in-laws/family to deal with, or time constraints, or politics, or taxes to deal with. she has to deal with eating, getting pet-me time on my lap, and running from me when she does something she either knows she shouldn't do or because i am simply chasing her with a broom and she knows i am angry. once the danger, or the hunger, or the need ofr warmth is past, she moves on.

i don't.

tolle says his cat teaches him unattachment. i don't think my cat does...because it is just not in my nature to stop thinking about stuff. we all do, it is what makes us human. so the goal isn't to become like one of our less-complex animal friends and to stop thinking about thinking...it is to see that our thoughts and reactions are manufactured through a function of our cells' response to the signals from our central nervous system, which is a function of each individual cell's need for safety, food, and sex.

it is only that. we are giant complex amoebae. in some ways mindless reacting to the environment, and in other ways mindlessly self-aware, and still another way, able to step in and check the mindlessness.

morning pages

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 14:26:37 GMT

anger.

i guess i shouldn't be surprised that i have it being's as i am, on the whole, unhappy. and the added frustration of the knowing what i ought to do, or even knowing, in part, how to do it, and still not doing it only adds to the anger.

there is a wall. it is not tangible in the concrete sense, but it is certainly tangible.

first there is the realization that there is a "better way." there is no shortage of books written on that subject.
then there is the desire to get to that better way. nothing else matters but that. i make the attempt to read every book written about it.
then there is the realization, pointed out in some of the books, that trying to achieve this "better way," won't get you there.
then there is the trying to relax and not try so hard...but only with a look over your shoulder to see if it's working.
then there is seeing that wanting to achieve the "better way" is a symptom of the "not so better way."
meanwhile, my life is up and down, a combination of experiencing the "better way," and also seeing how tethered i am to the "not so better way."

i want to be better but that desire is because i actually to need to be better but until i give up really wanting to be better i won't be. hence, the wall.

in this maze of mind games it is so easy to get lost, to stick your head up and see the goal and yet endlessly wander around...not aimlessly, but really endlessly. i recognize that the "goal" is just to be okay with the maze. but this, turns out, is just another one of those tricks. it is still a maze which means paths that lead to walls, or circle around to where you started from, or just plain lead nowhere. you discover a new path, but that path, turns out, is no different than the last one in substance.

i read yesterday about kant believing that we would be totally unable to understand any of this because we are "das ding an sich"...or "the thing itself." in other words, we can't know who we are any more than we can see our eyes.

of course, one of the catching points (above) is the word "understand." there is no understanding it. the brain can not grasp it. "das ding an sich" is the same as picking yourself up by your bootstraps...which is something i've written about before. you can be the strongest man in the word, but you can't pick yourself up. you can pick up something that weighs as much as you do, but it won't be your body. in the same way you can be "strong" in understanding all there is to understand about waking up or the law of attraction or what have you, but you won't be able to get it because you are the thing itself. you can't dissect yourself. it is like the buddhist idea of awareness...your ego can't know that awareness, if it did it would still be part of the ego.

today i am angry. angry that K is so inconsistent, that she gambles with the lives of her girls, that she her reasoning and rationale is just intrinsically different than mine which makes communication nearly infinitely difficult, and that she not only didn't do anything for M for her b-day, but she seems incapable of even noticing that...to her, she is "recuperating" from cancer treatment and engaged in an intense graduate program and she has no money...so, to her, she is "spent and as a result is unable to do something for her daughter for her 14th birthday. i am angry that she didn't have any money to buy mads anything or to even shop for her because she is "sick," "tired," or "busy." instead, she seems to be blissfully ignorant fo all of this and expects me to do it because i am healthy and, frankly, the only one else to do it. and she continues to feed her friends with bullshit that i am selfish and/or have some kind of agenda with the girls. i am angry because she is whack and there is not a goddam thing i can do about it. she is just never NEVER going to change. AAAAARGHH.

and that feeling of anger is within a closed system. it exists only in my head...the very head that is trying to get rid of it. maybe that's why we hope for a god who will redeem us, because we can't redeem ourselves. we are the thing itself.

if i am in full-blown anger about something, it means i believe it. if i didn't, i wouldn't be angry. the full force of my beliefs, my thoughts and my emotions are running in concert with the entire sensation of anger. never mind that anger is a secondary emotion...when you are in anger, it is first. when all thoughts and feelings race to one end, you are in it.

now, along comes the thought, inside the anger, to change...to choose the "better way." in that moment, when the lights are on and everything is a go, the "better way" is bullshit. the train has left the station and nobody is going to stand on the track, hold their hand up and say stop and expect the train to stop...nope, you're going to get run over.

this, again is the wall. the person on the track holding up the hand is the "thing itself." the train and the one holding up the hand is one and the same.

whatever we experience is filtered by this mechanism...and i say "mechanism" because indeed, it is like a machine...an automatic reaction set into motion by a stimulus. or, if that is too much like being attached to external circumstances, then it could be seen as something that is already resident with you that the stimulus triggers. either way, it is YOU. the one wanting the "better life" and the one thinking the better life is bullshit is the same person. and because it is the same person, there is the wall. you want change and you don't want change. you feel empowered to change and yet you experience powerlessness in the face of the brute....that brute is you, btw.

so wtf?

give up trying? i have put on about 5 pounds since my surgery. i was down to a solid 171 before my injury now i am at 175-177. i lost 40 pounds...i used to be 209. the person gaining the weight is the same person who lost the weight. the person who is 175 still views himself as 209. the person fighting with his weight is the thing itself. one part struggling to lose, the other part convinced he never will. do i give up? well, no, since that is really the only thing i have going for me. that HAS changed. now the person on the track with the hand up can actually stop the train...so long as the train doesn't get too big.

i don't know. i just don't know. i guess it really is becoming existential angst. i sit on my couch, chained to the other voice...the one that commands the train. his voice yammers on and on and on and on. he tells story after story after story about this and that, stoking the engine, continuing to feed the fire. and i, whichever one that is, sits on the couch next to him, forced to listen. his voice is my voice. he is me. i am him. however it works, i perceive that voice as separate, like it has a will of its own, and yet, there is no one on the couch but me.

it really seems like what the buddhist says about awakening. it is right there behind me, i just need to turn around and drink from tthe raging river so close to me. i sit on the couch and hear stories told in my own voice. i seem powerless to stop it. and maybe it is because of what kant points out, i am the thing itself. i can not redeem myself.

the law of attraction is less about a benevolent (or malevolent) universe, and more about the peace that comes within. again, as kant points out, the law exists within us and the degree to which we act in accordance with that law dictates the peace that we experience. it is as though there are two (maybe more?) compasses within us and the goal for every human is to get those compasses to line up. until they do, we are whack. until we do, the circumstances around us will be forever triggering the misalignment within us, and because the compasses are misaligned, there is little we can do about it. we can notice the misalignment, but we can't align it by sheer force.

that is because the misalignment is a function of two directions and one person. each direction inextricably mixed within the person. both directions equally personal. it is hard to tell which has the upper hand...it seems that one does one time and another does another, but why that is is hard to tell. tolle talks about the pain body and how it needs to feed and that occasionally it will take over just to get the energy it needs to sustain it. the hicks talk about your view of reality which encourages you to look around at circumstances for signs that will corroborate whichever view you have. in other words, we look for signs that prove our beliefs. there is the story of the two wolves fighting for imminence in our minds, a good wolf and an evil wolf, and the one who wins is the one that is fed.

clearly man has been trying to explain this tension, the two directions one person, anomaly for a long time. it is my prayer to myself that i, the one person, unify my directions. how that is going to happen, given that i am the thing itself, is beyond my knowing. reading lots of books only helps me see it clearly. just as i might clearly see a man with a gun shooting at me...there just seems to be little that can be done to unify the directions...unify the effort. to bring the two of us in one body sitting on the couch into a unified front.

the anwer is to rise above both voices, i know. but which one of us wants that? until both voices are unified in that effort, it will continue to be one voice pulling one way and the other pulling the other. the "negative" self-sabotaging voice will always fight the "positive" self-loving voice...it won't be until...

i don't know when it will be. i get it all, but i don't "get" it.

morning pages

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 12:41:26 GMT

a couple of things.

as for the law of attraction, i know i believe it works. only trouble is, deep down i believe it explains why i am not any further along financially and emotionally, but i don't seem to turn the corner to become positive. in short, i really do believe that i am holding myself back. any books i read on the law of attraction are meant to convince you that it exists. i don't doubt it exists. now i need to see that the power to change is within me. the power to choose to change.

i also read a bit about hume the other day and found what he believed to be interesting. the only thing we can truly trust is our senses...that is what is concretely acting upon our senses at any given moment. the rest is subject to interpretation. in fact, there is very little that you can trust as being "pure" or empirical experience. i'll have to read it again to find the right words to use...but essentially, in matters of thought, there is no way to know for sure. since we don't have a full picture of what is, we can't ever know the way we can with stuff in our senses.

for instance, 2 + 2 = 4. there is no disputing that. (except that quantum physicists have been able to capture one electron being at two places at the same time). and a ball that weighs 12 pounds feels weighty. we may have to agree that "12 pounds" is difficult to measure conclusively, but we could agree, without dispute that a ball weighing 12 pounds is heavier than an ordinary baseball. basically, according to hume, our brains are gifted at blending "still shots" together to form moving pictures. the "stills" being each moment, and the moving picture is time. his goal was to remove all expectation and judgment from our experience and, like buddha, live life in the moment.

even math equations and measurement are being questioned with quantum physics...so very little remains that is concrete and verifiable outside of our own understanding. in fact, quantum physics has basically said that there is nothing that can be known without changing it. our attention, even to concrete reality, effects it.

what does this say to me? well, first, from hume's standpoint, you really only have the concrete experience of empiricism, anything else is interpreted. and from that standpoint, all debate that exists in that realm, is futile. the guy that cuts me off in traffic, the asshole who fires me from a job, the fear of not having enough money, etc. all of that is in the realm of interpretation, or imagination, or ephemeral flights of fancy. there can be no real knowing on any of it...and yet, here is the key, i think i do.

shelby spong makes the point that evangelicals are wrong on the literal interpretation of scripture because, since they can't know what the bible actually says (no original manuscripts) and since there are no other writings to corroborate those scriptures and since the writers were writing within another culture and time, we don't have all of the information to successfully and comprehensively interpret them. oh, but we can interpret. but according to spong, the danger is elevating that interpretation to the level of inspiration itself.

well, what is the difference between that and my thoughts on caligula at the donelson snr ctr?

or byron katie's deconstruction of thoughts? is it real? can you know beyond a shadow of a doubt it's real?

truth is, we only "know" anything through comparing one moment to the next. one moment is no more or less true than the previous one, yet we see "truth" through the comparison of the two....and so truth is deduced by the combining of all experiences (that we happen to remember consciously or unconsciously) like coordinates and then the brain spits out a projected trajectory. nothing is wrong with that, so long as you don't begin to think that the trajectory is "truth."

scrooge's question to the ghost of the future makes sense: is this future written in stone or is there still time? that story is what this is all about...combining coordinates along a time line and projecting the path. it works in a book as fiction. and it works in life--as fiction.

so the point of this is to show first of all how difficult it is to know anything, and secondly how truly futile it is when you concretize what you can't know and act like it is truth.

the judgment i pass on others, while it "makes sense" to me, it is conjecture...no more real than a thought about me taking wing and flying over the trees. similarly, the judgment i feel from others is in the same vein. i can never know what they think, what they "truly" think, and the whole scope of their life and thought process (neither can they, turns out) and so, any judgment i sense and project, is a mist. it exists...oh and it DOES exist, in one place and one place only: my mind. it is arbitrary, ephemeral, and morphous.

so why attach to it? why defend it? why perpetuate it? why identify with it?

you don't have to.

and what's more, my search for enlightenment and understanding and even "freedom" falls into this category. there is very little that can be agreed on as pure empirical experience. the rest falls into the field of my mind's playground.

this doesn't mean that i don't think or have goals, it means i simply recognize the tenuousness of my premise: what i feel so very strongly about that causes me to feel and act, may not be anything but a ghost of thought.

katie says "what would you be without that thought?" that is what remains after the tail or butterfly chasing is complete. start to see yourself as the lasting awareness that experiences life...INCLUDING the thought-life. don't try to solve the thought life, just see it as intelligence in overdrive.

morning pages

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:04:04 GMT

today, in prosperity thing, it said to take 24 hours and find butterflies. so i did. (i spent much of the day inside...but i went out a couple of times). it is october, there are no butterflies outside flying around.

BUT

i was reading a comment on FB. a totally random comment by a friend of mine in fort wayne mention "butterflies." this afternoon, on the treadmill at the YMCA, i was reading a book. it talked about chuang tzu's dream of being a butterfly. on my way home from the grocery store, i decided to find a butterfly. it is a 7 minute drive down colorful gallitan road...surely there will be a butterfly somewhere there. i look and look...nothing. as i get closer to my turn into my neighborhood, (away from signs and advertisements that might use butterflies), i start to think, "wow, i wonder how the universe is going to come up with a butterfly."

as i turn into my neighborhood (about 3 blocks from my house) i look for any sign at all of a butterfly. scanning, not too much (i was driving), but looking...actually believing that a butterfly was going to catch my eye. about 1 block from my house i started to think it wouldn't be that big of a deal if i didn't see a butterfly, but i was hoping to see one...i had *intended* on seeing one.

so, i come to the final turn onto my street, and there, on a flower pot, on a porch, is not one, but a whole bunch of butterflies. i smile.

then, i get to my house, i gather up the groceries and take them into the house and i look down, and there is a cluster of berries from a tree that look *exactly* like a butterfly.

i am going to make a mind video...which is a dream vision board only in video form. i have intended to make a vision board for some time...it's been on my to do list for weeks. but for some reason, i haven't been able to picture it...what materials, how to put the pictures up, where to get the pictures, etc. but i kept it on my list.

so today, randomly, i run across a video site that talked about the importance of visioning, but that visioning with the old way of doing things was kind of boring. the *new* way is through mind videos...and i downloaded free ones just to see how they were done.

now i know what to do with my visioning board. and just two weeks ago i made a video for FF.

thank you universe for hearing my prayer.

morning pages

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:36:15 GMT

it strikes me more and more that this waking life is not unlike dreaming life. it is really like trying to waki up inside a dream. i've found that i am so easily distracted in dreams. when i go to try and wake up, it's really like being very sleepy, i just go on to another thought or scene in my dream. so here in this waking life. i say "wake up," and for a few seconds i'm focused on that and about 5 seconds later i am worried about the toilet paper, or any other complete random thought.

waking up to the real reality is truly like being in and out of sleep.

"wake up! it's time to get up!" "i will....(mumble, mumble)...just a few more minutes..." "no, get up now!" "okay...i'm up...zzzzzzzz"

and so on. getting roused from a deep groggy sleep, where you know you need to get up, but as you try to open your eyes, you only fall back off into sleep. that moment is what trying to wake up out of this life is like.

the reality is that i am energy. if there is any limit at all on what i do, or my lot in life, it is my own self-imposed limits due to my slumber...and the tendency to indulge the sensual pleasure of sleep. ahhh, i will get out bed, ...but it feels so good....even though i know i *need* to get out of bed.

so, as i walk along in my waking/dreaming life, i know i need to wake up, but the life i've chosen, the limited and difficult life i'm living which is full of talent, missed opportunities, opportunities lost, small thoughts, and fear, feels "so good."

there is a parable of the maids who trim their lamps waiting for the bridegroom to return. they all fall asleep, and then when he returns, they are long gone and irretrievable.

i've got to really want to wake up, and then i just have to do it. just get up. it isn't a war. there is no one holding you in bed, or a sandman pelting your head with fairy dust.

wake up to what is real: you are awareness manifest in a body. from each cell in your body, to the processes that your body goes through, to the brain's ability to think...it is a glorious system to be sure. wake up to the energy. wake up to the reality of connectedness. wake up to the reality of choice.

morning pages

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:09:02 GMT

who do i hold as a role model for truly prosperous living?

BL
RT
JMHS

how do i feel imagining myself walking a similar path to "success?"

first, i can do it. i have the talent, the intelligence, and the creativity. this isn't to say these guys aren't smart or i am smarter, it's to say i am not deficient in any way to accomplish what they have.

second, i would love the travel, the wide-spread acclaim and appreciation for my talent, the opportunity to express myself in my particular way. of course with the caveat (though not an attempt to throw a wet blanket...lord knows i've done enough of that) that this is about full expression, freedom to manifest, rather than the attempt to be liked. that is one thing the three of these guys seem to have: an inner confidence that is not dependent on outer success. they are simply doing their work.

if there is one thing that i have become truly aware of, it is that point: i have to give up the need to find love in my work...to find work as the means to the end of being loved. and it is at the point of letting og that the manifestation will finally arrive. it is right there. you can't pretend to let that go. you can't pretend to be humble and humbly doing your work. you have to do it.

when i imagine myself in this similar path to theirs, i see myself finally getting over that. finally letting go of the need to be loved through my music. finally accepting myself and embracing myself as a god-being, first and foremost, or as "the universe in a body," or as a divinely manifested energy. the rest follows from there.

the baghavad gita says to do the work and from there let it go. but first you have to be willing to let it go. i am willing, help me in my unbelief. yesterday i read some about jesus (in sophie's world) and it struck me...it is important for me to include the universe in this quest. this can't happen purely on my own...i need help. i need mercy. i need grace.

so god help me in my unbelief. i want to believe. i want to accept myself unconditionally and without further expectation. i don't want to ask this in order to find love, but to find the grace to love myself first and then love others. help me to see myself as you do.

morning pages

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 14:09:55 GMT

to continue along the path from yesterday...

as i sat in church a couple weeks ago, looking at the back of the heads of the people there, i noticed a sensation of dread. i know consciously that they weren't all thinking about me. i know they weren't thinking about what i thought they were thinking about...which is, "you better impress us week after week or you're out." or, "we suspect you're flying by the seat of your pants, we're watching you." i know they were listening to the sermon and thinking that about the rector.

but, the sensation betrayed a larger issue: i believe that people like me and maintain relationship with me only because i am successful.

granted, those people in that church are my "employers." the friends i work with in the studio are my employers...professional colleagues. just about everywhere i turn my relationships are based somehow in my work in music. so, to be fair, there is judgment built in. the folks at st. ann's are paying me money to be something week in and week out. and if i fail to deliver, they have every right to let me go.

so there are two aspects to my general relationships. one is professional, the other is personal. but i guess what i am trying to expose is that the professional aspect does not need to be personal.

if i "fail" at music, i am no worse off for it. i am myself either way. if PW or SR or RB decided i sucked as a music director, it would not be a referendum on me as a person. i am not that work. i do the work and god takes care of the rest. i am not the work.

the dread of looking at the back of those heads, judges every one of them, is a function of me holding on to music as my schtick, my calling card, my value, my person-hood. if they judge my music (oh my god) and find it wanting, then i am no good...at all.

so first, they are not judging. period. even if they are "judging," they aren't judging. nothing is personal.

second, i must give up thinking that music is me.

i have escaped, for the most part, the association of my kids to me as a parent...and then mistaking my parenting for me. there are some that take children's failures very personally. i don't mean taking responsibility for a few lapses in education, but actually having their self worth wrapped up in their children's success. and kids in that environment are beat up...they are objectified and become the means to someone else's ends, and because that other person is trying to fill a void via them, they can NEVER fulfill that role.

but that is what music is for me. an object, a means to an end, and that end is my self-worth. i see judgment in people's faces, read it into the back of their heads, in fact.

and just as children resent being used, so my music must surely suffer. it is self conscious, full of fear of failure, imbued with an uber-dose of "what do you think?"...so much so, that my delight in it is almost solely through the eyes of those who hear it. i don't know what i like any more (or what i really want to do) because my sense of good or bad in music is wrapped up in what others think...and not, ultimately, what they think about the music, but what they think about ME as a result of the music. if they don't like it, i am hurt because i am wrapped up personally in it.

isn't it good to have personal investment in music?

yes, but only as it relates to myself. i can do music better and better related to myself. like an athlete motivated to compete with themselves to continually self-improve, i can push myself to get better and better. this in turn gives me personal satisfaction because i am manifesting close to what i have been given talent capable of doing.

but if i am personally invested in the way i am now...which is that my self worth is wrapped up in what others think about my music, i have put too much weight on the music...AND myself.

because ultimately, in the scenario i am in right now, my self worth is based on my next success. and then the next one. and then the next. and i know that one day i'll be 90 and won't be able to perform at this level i am now. and i know that right now, so down deep i know i am doomed to keep up this pace of maintaining my successes for the sake of keeping my head above water and being loved, accepted, or at the very least, not rejected.

when i came out of the closet, this was one of the things i found. music had been my cover. i thought, by being successful there, i would find love *out there.* i wouldn't have to accept myself if i was successful in music....but i didn't think about it that way, i was just operating out of pure need: i need love and music was my vehicle. this was why i never was able to enjoy my successes...because those successes were for others...namely, for others to like me, or in other words, a means to an end.

and it wasn't just the successes...it was the process itself. always there were virtual people looking over my shoulder...not to help in the process, but to serve as models for what the final product would bring: love and acceptance, peace and freedom.

maybe the ZM was all about me finding out that i am not my music. that strauss' comment was not aimed at me directly, and the only way to get passed that was to see that he was just saying shit because he was a broken individual himself. the ZM wasn't about me feeling better about my music so i could make more of it and therefore get more acceptance (though that is basically how i interpreted it early on). it was about seeing that i didn't need music to love myself. personal affronts to my music were not personal affronts to me. for whatever reason JS said what he said, that doesn't matter. what matters is that i took it to be an attack on my fortress. and all the intervening years were basically about me trying to repair the damage.

until the ZM...then in a blink of an eye, i saw that JS was just a human without any amazing insight. his comments were separate from me. and this, in the immediate moments, freed me up to see that i didn't have to be enslaved to trying to repair any more damage. it didn't cure me of trying to gain love through the music, that would come later. in fact, about six months later. but even then, the brief glimpse that i was hiding behind music still didn't eradicate it. at that moment i just got a divorce with the confidence that if things got really ugly for me, i still had music (to act as my attractor...my love tool...my savior, redeemer, and friend).

no, it wasn't until just recently that, as i became aware of judgment, that i was able to see what that judgment was: my own expectation, projected onto others, that music was all that i had to be lovable, accepted, secure.

as i walk around with the egotistical thought, "do you know who i am? i'm a great musician!" or, "here is the great musician, a tragic figure who tried his best to make music and was still unfairly disliked...he was only trying to make music," i can see that both of these statements/attitudes resonate with my habit to link music to my self-worth.

also, when i wrote my affirmation, "i have been given a gift of music from god, but i am not that gift," i felt a tinge of something like disbelief, or skepticism, or hesitation. for the longest time (as long as i can remember), that gift was me. and that gift (and god) were charged with bringing me happiness and joy and peace and love and security and relationship and connection and on and on.

i am not the gift. and even then, the gift that i have been given is only a tool that i find expression through...from there it is indeed god's job to determine where it goes.

it may be my mouthpiece to the world, but it isn't me and how people hear what i have to say isn't my responsibility.

morning pages

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:01:58 GMT

rough day today and it's not even 8am yet.

i really wish i knew what i wanted. it's as though i won't be happy until i get "it," but for some reason, i don't know what "it" is. you would think, as strong as my feelings are about "it," and how sucky i feel because i don't have it, it would be blatantly obvious to me what it is.

is it a career thing, a money thing, a personal self-acceptance thing, a time thing, or what? i have lots of things, lots of comforts, i have plenty of work, i have enough money (and i know the universe continues to supply), BUT i am just not happy.

it could be a habit in the way i think or in the belief systems resident in my sub-conscious. endless looping of habitual thoughts, feelings, reactions to life playing over and over unabated for so many years is hard to overcome, i suppose. and i have to keep reminding myself that just because i react doesn't make whatever reaction i'm having true. and it isn't a referendum on my quality of life or on my self-awareness or even my long-term happiness. but it still is difficult. this morning a guy cut me off in traffic...a rude thing to do. so i tail gated him...and it isn't so much that i tail gated him, it's that i reacted the way i did. that it mattered at all. that i got angry.

then, just as i entered the house to get the girls ready for school, i remembered something a relatively new friend said last night. he made a comment about a guy who is playing for major touring shows here in town. i told him it was interesting that this guy wasn't playing for community theater...i guess, in my mean spirited kind of way to emphasize that some really good players won't even touch community theater...the same community theater types that jerked me around. and he said, "maybe it's because he is busy with his professional career." which i automatically interpreted as, "only not-busy and bottom feeders take part in community theater and community choruses."

is that what he meant?

i don't know. you know, we talk with words and words are just blunt symbols that communicate ideas. there are subtleties that words don't capture and so we have to read between the lines to understand each other. in order to understand each other, we fill in gaps. did he say that i was a loser? not in those words. did he imply it by saying that this other guy was "busy doing important stuff and only people who have nothing to do get involved in community theater?" maybe.

maybe the better question is, why the fuck does it matter to me? am i talented? am i doing everything i can do to get better doing what i do? does anyone play all of the cadillac gigs all the time? am i doing what i enjoy and weeding out what i don't enjoy? am i acting, to the best of my ability, in line with my beliefs and convictions? and even further...are there better players than i? are there better business minds at what they do than i?

at the end of the night he told me what he thought about me playing a rehearsal tonight with some hack leading it. he said that i was "over-qualified." i think he meant that as a compliment.

i think maybe what he's really struggling with without saying it in so many words is that i am talented but not doing much to show it.

AND THAT IS TRUE.

i've always struggled with that. taking lesser gigs because it impresses folks, and just not taking the initiative to do what RT is doing with his quilting and CD work.

to this point in my life i've fiddle fucked around. and this is contrary to what i know about myself and so the tension exists between what i do and what i know i am capable of doing.

getting back to my post on sunday about me feeling that music has always been a compensation for getting people to like me, i can see where i would be afraid to do anything and fail because so much of my self-worth is wrapped up in my success as a musician. if i keep it simple and shine in small venues, then i will be liked. (which is why the community theater thing hit me so close because i did do a good job and yet they still didn't "like" me...and to me, music is all i ahve to be liked. if you don't like my music, i, so it seems, am in trouble.)

so i am at an impasse with myself: stymied by the fear of failure and therefore loss of love, i don't do what i know i can do and even what i long to do, and so the tension exists between what i know i can do (and "ought" to do) and what i am actually doing.

this is why it was so important the other day to realize that "doing" was more important than "being." who i AM will never change in the long run, i am all that i can be and i am qualitatively perfect in the eyes of the universe. sure, i can amass more knowledge and hone my talents and skills and understanding and wisdom and everything, BUT, when it comes down to it, i am a manifestation of the universe. the universe in a body. i can no more become "more of who i am supposed to be," than a tree can become "a better, more perfect tree."

no, the really defining measure for the egoic mind is in the doing. it's the entire book of james. faith without works is dead. talk talk talk...but until you DO something, it's just talk. you can still be a perfect manifestation of the universe but not live up to your manifested potential. and the only way to do that is to DO. not wait to become better, or "the best you can be," but to do...to engage in action...to manifest your talent externally in the world.

i am not what i do. i am not even my talent. for me to put some kind of value on those things that would validate my existence will create problems. and it has. i create things and not so much hope people like those things (though that is okay too), but that they would like me because i create. "hey everyone, love me because i am a good musician." and i hope like hell i never fail.

that needs to be exposed for what it is: misguided compensation.

i am not what i do. i am not my talent. i am lovable as i am and for who i am. this means that my talent, my intelligence, my personality, or any other thing i need to prop up as a lovable aspect of myself, is not the sole arbiter of my lovableness. like the song says, "i am a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, i have a right to be here." there is a freedom in that lyric for me. i don't have to maintain a perfect and stellar and successful career in order to be loved and accepted.

when i hurt my arm and was faced with the prospect of giving up ever playing again, it wasn't about that. it was about no longer having the golden tool with which to forge relationships and maintain love. without it, without the tool, i was alone on an island...vulnerable to rejection because i had no way to combat it.

now, when i feel "rejected," i retreat to my music and look to my next success to shore up my defenses. i find solace in "success." if there is no success on top of rejection, i feel doubly vulnerable. but even then, i still have the golden tool. i still have the potential. without the tool, i am totally lost.

i suppose if you trace it, you can find it going back to when i was home alone, mom and dad were fighting, i feared their relationship would destruct, and all i had was music. my successes ameliorated many of those conflicted feelings. then when strauss told me i would never be a pianist, the rug had been pulled out from under me. even my brother told me, while i was recouperating in michigan, that he thought, for me, music was my best friend. when he said that i cried. it was indeed...and to have strauss pull the rug out, (which he personally did not do, but i interpreted as such, since my self-worth and value was wrapped up in my ability), i was scared shitless.

i turned to religion, but ultimately found a foot hold in playing different kinds of music. this led me down a path that took me further and further from where i "wanted" to be, but hey, any port in a storm. i was finding success at the bible college playing "pop" music and then later with jingles and then later with studio work. all the while, building a parapet of musical success to use as defense against the world, and to gain love from the world.

all of this to say, music has had to suffer the burden of making me lovable. further, i have had to work very hard to maintain the parapets or ramparts built with my musical success and created from the very stuff of my musical talent. so long as i had the talent, the walls held.

so...rather than using my talent as protection, i need to relax and let my talent carry me.

i come back again to my analogy of my dragon inside protecting my pearl. the question lingers about who the dragon is, who put it there, and whether this dragon is my friend or ultimately my enemy.

the need for protection is one thing. the means of protection is another.

maybe the "it" i am looking for is this reversal. that i am no longer maintaining my music to keep me safe and lovable. but that i find the security in myself as a manifestation, perfect and blameless, and see my musical talent as a means to enjoy living. rather than being a static, rock solid (and in need of continual maintenance) rampart/parapet, the music that i express will become the wind that carries me to lands i have to now only dreamed of.

when i wrote, "i have decided to no longer try to be the musican i've always wanted to be, but instead, to enjoy doing the things i've always wanted to do," it strikes at the core of this very truth. put the striving of "becoming" aside (read: becoming lovable), accept myself as myself...as the awareness of my biology and consciousness, and let the talent i have been given, have freedom to roam and do what i love doing.

as for the comments last night from JT, if i am not attached to the need for music to validate my self-worth, then what he said, no matter how he meant it (and it must be said that if i wasn't attached like i am, we may never even be having this conversation), would find a home in my soul. his statement landed in a gap in my defense.

i guess the answer isn't in a reversal, but a transformation. so long as i maintain a defense, i am defensive. it's as though the defense perpetuates itself. but when i don't need a defense, i am not defensive. so long as i use music to defend, it will be a wall that is a burden to maintain...and the joy will be sucked out. if i can see that i need no defense, and that music is an expression, i am free.

morning pages

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:56:08 GMT

i think i may have found the reason for my fear of judgment.

it's hard to put this into words, and i've tried most of the day to articulate it. in fact, it came up when i talked to my counselor about comeing out of the closet. at that time it was important, but i couldn't get my head around it then either. it is still there, but still hard to articulate.

basically, the deal is that i have been using music to compensate for my judging voices. in other words, since i was very small, when the judging voices were still around in my life, i owned the judgments. i felt, not so much that i was fat, but that i was unlovable given the shape i had. i felt that my secret desires (masturbation, fantasies, experiences with the boys of the neighborhood) made me odd and an outcast, and therefore unlovable. when i moved away from my childhood neighborhood and was shunned by the kids in the neighborhood, i felt unlovable.

this unlovableness was qualitative. i felt odd. i felt different. confused. angry. depressed and lonely.

then along comes success in music. this became my saving grace...my salvation. literally.

to this very day, i have and continue to feel that, as long as i am successful in music, i am lovable. with that comes the overwhelming pressure to a) perform at a high level every second of the day, and b) the need to continue to surpass all previous achievements and continue to grow.

so long as i am successful, i am lovable. i get my worth not from playing the music, but from my achievements.

this isn't exatly it yet. i'll continue later.

morning pages

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:40:13 GMT

today i feel a little trepidation. i am to be commissioned at st. ann's. i like it there, better than CLC...but i don't look forward to the commissioning part.

why?

i'm not sure.

i will have to get up in front of the congregation. i will have to be "in the spot light." i am struggling to respect rick given some of the recent stuff he's said to one of my choir members...who, it must be said, i don't know if i can fully trust. but rick certainly requires a certain energy...and i seem to gravitate to places and situations where there are people who share kristine's ADHD symptoms.

there is lyn and her judgment.

there is the pressure of making the choir something that it can't be.

there are the politics of church...the continual pressure of attracting members to the choir and keeping them.

there is the pressure to be "on" each sunday, to be pastoral and caring, to be attentive and present, to be something that i am not comfortable being.

it all takes energy. and then there is the judgment. every sunday being under the microscope.

it seems it does come down to my continued perceived judgment of myself by others. through the smiles, through the congratulatory hand shakes, there is a balance or a scale, measuring each handshake, move, performance, note, etc. rather than having proved myself as qualitatively capable, there is a scale that measures quantity.

on one level i feel this judgment. but i also know that it is my problem. it is my perception. it is where some of my growth lies.

because:

i am capable. i have proven myself. i do not need to defend myself. i am not on trial. any "judgment" on their part is received on my part only because of my own judgments of myself. the teeth of any perceived judgment is found in my own.

i may perceive them to judge me, but in reality, it is me judging myself. when i stop, the perceptions will stop.

all of the complaints above

rick
lyn
choir membership
politics
pastoral presence

have, at their root, my own personalized and self-imposed judgment within them. people "judge." but they judge out of their own personal shit. lyn is autistic, rick is ADHD, anyone else like them has their own issues, their own needs...none of it has to do with me. their judgments are based on narrow understandings...which is why i am defensive about them, because my counter complaint is that you don't know me. but i can't change their judgments, i can't get inside their heads and tell them to stop.

look at my own head...i can't stop it from judging myself. how could i expect them to stop judging me?

i could run away, but my own self-judgment will follow. it will follow me to street theater, to HCC, to teaching, to contemplative concerts, to composing, even to FF.

today, as i walk into the crucible of my own making, let me be aware that the perceived judgment of others is rooted in my own judgment of myself. the voices from my past that have been on auto pilot for all these years. the background programming that reacts "naturally" to the presence of certain situations like i would respond to a deer in the road on a dark night. it's automatic. but just because it is automatic, doesn't mean it's true. the judgment i feel from those long lost voices are just habits. the judgment i feel as i look into the eyes of paula, lyn rick, travis, john, and others is just mindless reaction. they may indeed harbor thoughts, but those thoughts are their own. their judgment of me only has roots in my personal belief about myself.

it is time to shed those thoughts. face them as demons. ask those voices of judgment what they really want. what are they trying to accomplish? they will be present today...ask them.

morning pages

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:59:17 GMT

last night (as usual) i woke up. it was the same old thing. it's starting to be like having ghosts around. first, they're kind of scary, then, you just get pissed. i am becoming more and more aware of my unhappiness, but more than that, more aware of my inability to tell myself what would make me happy. that is what is pissing me off. i am unhappy...okay, i get that. but what would make you happy?

something is making you unhappy...can you even name that?

money came to mind, but then, i know that there have been times when i've had more than enough money and that didn't do it. it isn't doing something i love or am "called" to do, because even then, when i'm doing those things, i'm barely happy.

so i challenged the thought of "you'll never amount to anything" last night. you'll never be what you want to be. your life is a pathetic waste of talent and opportunity and you will never have more than you do right now. there are tons of other people in town with less talent making far more money than you, money that you'll never know. in short, the thought was, "you'll never be financially successful."

i tried then, and again when i woke up, to own that feeling. to get in touch with that thought. to get it to well up in me from the shadows in all its glory. it is partially that thought that keeps me down. it is the subconscious mind plugging away with a thought that, to my conscious mind, has no more relevance, but to my subconscious, it is hell-bent on finding corroboration of its veracity.

so i wanted it to truly manifest so that i could get inside it and find out what it really wants. at first, i wanted it to see and then admit that it can't be 100% sure. that's where i am right now. to find that feeling, and see that it is a "half-truth."

it just simply is not 100% true....or what's more, provable. the thought gets its power from the belief that it is undeniably true. you got history, you got emotions, you got surety. this is what my conscious mind is up against...a subconscious that is running a program that emits confidence in its veracity. so the hope is to get inside it, get that feeling going, and then ask it if it can be totally sure.

once i get it to admit that it might be wrong...or that it has at the very least a *remote* chance that it isn't 100% accurate or as accurate enough to cause me trouble, then the next question is what good does thinking this do me?

what good does waking up in the middle of the night do me? how often do i need to tell myself i'll never be anything worthwhile? to what end?

this is the part that pisses me off. if you are going to nag yourself about no making anything at all of yourself, then what it is that is actually making you upset? there has to be something...or otherwise there wouldn't be this thought.

the question probably isn't as important to be answered as what does nagging do for you? if you are going to nag, be specific.

dream pages

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 06:48:39 GMT

i dreamed that dad had died and we were going to his funeral. mom was there at the church, so was mr. yanike. it wasn't the methodist church, but it was a church i "knew." i was very familiar with it. we were waiting for the hearse to park and take the casket into the church. it was backing out of some long alley/drive way.

they took the casket in and mom and the family, dressed in black, went inside. i stayed out. i seemed to have a cold or something. i was pacing was unsure about going into the church. i decided to peek in just to see the body. i walked up the steps into the church. there were people already seated and as i walked in i was walking right onto the altar where mom and the others (whom i assumbed to be family) were seated.

i kept taking steps inside, and eventually was all the way into the church and sitting next to mom. the casket was in the center aisle. i looked into it expecting to see dad...black hair, but instead i saw reddish hair, longish, and i saw it was jan.

everyone was somber, it was quiet the whole time. there was someone working on the body, apparently getting it ready for burial. whipping it's head around as if to get it into some optimujm position to awaken in the next life. it seemed like whoever was doing this was taking too long. or something wasn't going just right, the manipulation took extra time. everyone just seemed to wait patienly.

at one point jan's arm came out of the casket, very limp.

i wasn't sad, i was just somber like everyone else. a little surprised at first that it was jan, not dad...yet not horrified or shocked. everyone in the building seemed to know it was her, and i seemed to be the only one who didn't know. and at the time, in my dream, it didn't occur to me that i had been worng about who was in the casket.

what i do remember thinking about there, waiting for the body to be positioned, was that it was being positioned now and that one day she would "wake up" and notice she was put in this position. kind of like someon putting you in a position whil you are asleep and then you wake up and immediately think of that person who laid you down and knowing they had laid you a certain way.

i woke up thinking about death and crossing over. that sometday i will go there.

and that is why i am writing here in my journal. i am afraid, or maybe it is better to say unready to crossover. taking that final breath, crossing out of this life into the next.

and the weird thing seems to be that this life here and now is no more tangible than my dream. one day, when i transition, this life may simply dissappear as easitly and as simply as my dream did. like if you forgot to write it down you would just completely forget it.

morning pages

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 12:40:46 GMT

this last couple of nights i've been in a town called red boiling springs, tennessee. i did a gig at the thomas house, which is supposedly *certified* haunted by at least one ghost, maybe many more. the owners of the hotel have EVPs (recordings) of "sara" saying "peek-a-boo" and "barbara" and some other things.

there are stories of salt shakers flying across the room, tables upset, rifles moved, images caught on camera, and the tv show "paranormal state" spending time there and finding several ghosts.

interesting stuff. certainly one of those kinds of things that, if you come to believe it, it should shake up your world view. accepting that there are ghosts is more than just being afraid of the unknown. it is seeing that the universe is bigger not just spatially, and sub-atomically, but in another sense dimensionally. you have to accept yet again that what you see isn't everything you get.

so last night i returned to the comfort of my own apartment, and still in the throes of being creeped out by the sensation of being watched when i piss or when i sleep, having various ghosts eavesdrop on conversations, and the fear that at any point something could fly through the room.

last night, then, in the middle of the night, i had a feeling come over me that was very hard to explain. it was like a feeling you get when you suddenly remember you are late. kind of like that, but not quite. i do remember thinking that i wasn't afraid, even though my bodily sensation was that of fear. i dunno...it was a weird sensation that comes on the heels of a weird weekend.

which, btw, come to find out bed shaking is a "common" poltergeist activity. and when i lived alone in fort wayne i experienced. i also experienced someone crawling into bed with me...who was hot to touch and kind of spiny...and i think was male. when the bed shook, i woke up and was so sure someone had jostled the bed that i had to make sure the apartment was empty. after the episode with the guy in bed with me, i was freaked out, but i figured that was demonic pay back for my living with KS in "sin." i had friends over and we prayed for god's protection...i didn't stay much longer there because i moved to anderson, but i never had another experience there.

i did have a couple of experiences at sherman court. waking up to images dancing on the end of the bed, a little girl approaching me while i was laying with madeleine, and it seemed like another one when i was asleep.

trouble i have with ghosts is that there are too many questions. first, i personally believe (like i know) that "personality" is a construct of the mind. awareness is manifest in the body through the five senses and the brain's central nervous system. it could be that this egoic awareness is somehow indented into the energy that somehow animates us and is left behind when we die. but there are problems...

one, is clothes. why do ghosts wear clothes? clearly, they don't *need* them. so they don't decide to wear them. which leads me to believe that when we see a ghost, we add the clothes somehow...it isn't modesty surely. second is "weight." like when these folks at thomas house reported hearing footsteps. since ghosts are basically energy, intangible energy...i.e., you don't "bump" into them like you do a chair. sure, according to some, you feel the energy, but still, the energy has no density/mass that is subject to the laws of physics and gravity. third, why all the skulking? if there are ghosts around, and if they can interact by throwing salt shakers around, why don't they (or at least one or two) interact more constructively? surely, someone nice has died that sees that we mortals have struggled with this belief for ever, and all they would have to do is write a few notes from the other side to help us understand what we're in for. maybe we would lead better lives. fourth, the EVPs are recordings of voices that are occurring right now, that we can't hear, but ordinary recording equipment can pick up. what you do is record a conversation with an ordinary cassette recorder, and then play it back and see if you got anything "extra."

at thomas house they have sara saying "peek a boo," and lots of other things. yep, it's peek-a-boo alright. but here is the problem: if ghosts don't have "bodies" or need to breath, how would speaking work exactly? they have no actual lungs or vocal chords, they have no breath that flows over the vocal chords to make sound, and then there is the problem with them not being heard and yet, still saying things like "peek-a-boo." to my knowledge, they don't have a ghost speaking in complete sentences....just eerie cryptic messages.

i do not question the presence of "other." of some kind of awarenesses that are not inanimate or animal....but seemingly consciousnesses that sometimes you can actually sense. but "ghosts" in the conventional sense i think are manufactured. i think we impose our reality into other areas of energy that creates this sense of skulking, mystery, and fear.

if ghosts are everywhere, and so active, we would see them more often. we would read reports of them and by now, in the course of human development, we would be so used to their existence they would become like cattle we pass by the side of the road...pointing them out to our children until they grow up to the age where they no longer care about such things.

if we are all connected, and i mean all creation, at a molecular level, then the only problem with ghosts is that they have made their way into our conscious awareness. that is what creeps us out more than anything. let's say that knots of energy roam the earth, that is, forms of energy held together the way lightening is held together, or fire. formless, yet "real." or let's even say that "reality," that which we perceive with our antennae, our five senses, only accounts for a narrow sliver of what actually "is." and when something outside our purview enters into that sliver of perception, we can only make sense of it by interpreting it according to the five senses. ghosts have clothes, they have voices, they have gravity, they have names, and histories, and personalities, and they like to play games, or they get angry.

i've just recently read that galaxies actually appear to have the same kind of intelligence as a cell. and of course, we as a community of cells, take on a similar intelligence. this presence of god and all stuff is so manifest that it is easy for our tiny egoic minds to label it from our direction. to anthropomorphize everything...especially things that make no sense to us. it is how we make sense of stuff that is beyond our abilities to make sense of anything.

it is creepy because it is unknown. and stories abound that emanate from man's imagination that inform our perception of "sara." there aren't many good stories...all ghosts are creepy. death, beyond the grave, "other-worldly," are all things that inspire fear in us...fear of unknowing.

the only "good" ghosts, i.e., angels, or god himself, don't seem to hang out in the same way. there seems to be a ton of weird ghosts and a shortage of good ones.

these are all perceptions. i do not doubt there exists things i can't see. but, ultimately, i do doubt that they exist the way we perceive them to exist. i don't doubt the existence of "ghosts," but i do think that "sara," the entity we describe as a little girl who died from a stomach ailment in the 1800s who plays with children, who says peek-a-boo, and yet who, at the end of the day, remains elusive, is totally made up from our stand point. is there a knot or knots of energy at thomas house? yes, but i suppose they must be everywhere if they are there. there doesn't seem to be a special portal there in RBS different than where i am now.

but even as i accept these knots of energy, i have to understand that while they may exist, my resignation to their existence doesn't mean i believe in ghosts. it doesn't mean i walk around my apartment now knowing in my conscious mind, that "other" forms of energy, with names and clothes and feelings, are pal-ing around with me...like roommates. it just means that i am surrounded by energy. i am energy myself. and we are all...ALL...connected.

morning pages

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 00:01:12 GMT

I have but i don't want:

† internal self-sabotaging stories from childhood (subconscious programming)
a history of quitting
bills/obligations that take away from my ability to use money for positive/creative/life fulfilling things
some negative experiences
1. christian music industry (greg nelson, word publishing, etc)
2. john strauss
3. william black
4. karen lynn deal
5. wayne watson
6. morgan cryar
7. sandy patti
8. doug meyer
9. kevin schwartz, kevin frauhiger, kurt schippers
10. provident music
11. marriage
12. donelson dinner theater, tim larson, circle players, jim manning, kate adams-johnson
13. CLC church
14. moving from 12th street to lincoln
15. kai brown
a degree from FWBC

transformed:

I want but don't have:

positive edifying stories from my past
a new lease on life that is typified by persistence
the ability to pay off the necessities of living in addition to being able to afford doing positive/creative/life fulfilling things
a strong and present memory of the positive things that have happened in my life
experience and educational experiences that are deeper than anything taught in universities
1. spiritual education
2. musical education

morning pages

Sun, 14 Jun 2009 13:28:14 GMT

changing thoughts...so critical and yet so difficult.

choosing happiness is so simple, and yet so difficult.

remembering to think positively and count my blessings is so obvious, and yet so far removed when i need to do it.

morning pages

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:16:46 GMT

the universe has given me this gift. it is a gift to me, i am not the gift. i am responsible for my work, not the fruit of my work. the universe has endowed me with a desire and a talent to make and direct music, it will continue to lead me and bring me opportunities.

i am looking forward to the influx of high paying and high profile gigs this month. today i will receive notification of an important gig.

morning pages

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 13:16:37 GMT

it's funny the habit of thought. when you're busy, and deep into a task, focused and intent, there are no thoughts of regret...or even fear. it is when my brain is free to roam that it seems to scan the thought horizon for thoughts. or somehow the feelings are more intense, closer to the surface.

the feelings percolate, arise without thought but give birth to thought. the thoughts then match up with the feeling.

so it seems somewhere in the environment there is a trigger. i don't know if it is an internal physical trigger, like a body sensation that cues the feelings, or visual cue, or one of the other senses. whatever it is, some kind of cue gives rise to a feeling that gives rise to thoughts. and these initial cues are not universal.

some days, like yesterday, i never once felt regret. but this morning when i woke up, as i rolled out of bed, i felt it. then it gave rise to the feelings and then the thoughts.

the thoughts, by the way, don't always follow...at least not closely. usually, when the feeling comes, the inner voice speak are just expletives or prayers (weird, i know), but there aren't actual "you suck" kinds of thoughts or "i'll never make it," or whatever. those thoughts do come occasionally...but from some visual/inner cue arises the feelings...then i feel that familiar feeling of oppression and lethargy.

i guess the hicks say that you can't change "radio" stations and move your emotional set-point from one extreme on the emotional spectrum to the other...it happens little by little as you move to "the next best thought" each time you get that feeling. then, through the same force of habit that got you where you are, you gradually move yourself out.

so that is where i want to be. i'm tired of this feeling holding me back from really enjoying what i am doing, where i am, who i am, what i look like, who i know, what i see, etc. it is like an anchor, a millstone, a drag, a stuck brake.

it isn't the feeling so much, it is the result of the feeling that bothers me.

maybe the answer is similar to what happened yesterday in the studio with my arm. i certainly felt my arm, the bone, the muscle and tendon, etc., but i played in spite of any tingling. i didn't let the sensation of my arm deter the results of my arm. as an aside, it is interesting to note the amount of difference in effect between a physical discomfort and a mental one. i can easily play through physical discomfort, but the emotional feeling of regret or fear seems to really slow me down.

i had surgery and it stopped me for two weeks. i have regret and i'm incapacitated for months. i am able to see my physical discomfort for what it is and, if need be (or not), adapt to the situation. but when my brain puts on the brakes, it's like putting a 300 pound weight on my arm and i am unable to move.

that is what i want to fix. that is what i want the universe to help me overcome. my guardian angels, my spirit guides, god help me to overcome the transient, subtle feelings of regret and fear.

when it comes to it, it really is the thoughts that arise that stop me. the incessant "no." the plodding that comes as a result of "i'll never..."

that "i'll never" is a most powerful phrase. the feeling rises and the thought is lurking there in the mist. but it seems that it is the feeling first that gives rise to that thought. yesterday in the studio i never once had that thought. in the studio i can do anything. i was fully loaded for bear, in full control (the very thing i missed immediately following my surgery and my biggest fears of losing my arm's full ability) and never once did the thought (or the feeling) cross my mind.

in fact, yesterday was a difficult day in the studio. 11 hours doing 31 songs. the players were mostly green, the engineer told the same stories over and over about gear, the need for the drummer to play a certain way, etc., and the director's whiney kind of demeanor made the situation challenging. but, in all of that and in the midst of facing the challenges and checking thoughts and trying to hear what people were really saying in their words, never once did the feeling of regret arise and therefore not once did i think, "i'll never..."

i enjoyed yesterday. in a day like that, i love everyone, i am less likely to bitch about anything, and i truly have endless energy.

so when the feeling never rises, the thought doesn't either. when the thought doesn't, then i am energetic, up for the challenge, am able to listen and hear, and to lead. the thought "i'll never," when it rises, is like a mosquito. no amount of swatting stops it from flying around, landing and biting. not until you squash it do you get relief.

in thought, you can't out think it. though, i'm doing better with deconstruction, but ultimately it is the equivalent of swatting. you may get a reprieve, but it comes back. i don't want to become a workaholic either. i don't need days and days of yesterday.

but somewhere, there is a trigger...the open window that allows the mosquito in...that needs to be shut. the trigger that gives rise to the feeling that gives rise to the thoughts.

please god, guardian angels, universe: help me find the trigger. wake me up to the mechanisms that keep me from being compassionate, from truly loving and giving and enjoying.

morning pages

Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:52:55 GMT

more on regret.

i don't i've got anything new about it, but it sure helps to deconstruct it.

yesterday i noticed that it helps to re-cap a day in such a way that you remind yourself that the day didn't go all that bad. yesterday i sat in my apartment most of the day, but i got some work done. i wrote some important emails, i journaled, i went to the Y, i went to a friend's party, and i even ran into my girls serendipitously at a kroger gas station.

i found myself thinking about money, and i was able to account for both large projects this month and a couple more forming on the horizon for next month. i also was able to rest some...took a bath, lit some incense, etc.

but there is an automatic response that sneaks in and discounts everything that's been done. this is regret saying that i am in a bad place and ALL of my decisions have brought me here, ALL decisions, good or bad. so it doesn't matter what i do, i'm damned by regret. and from yesterdays journal, i see that regret can be dealt with the same way fear is dealt with...turn around and face him. ask him to prove his assertions. ask him to elaborate on his assertions.

tell me, regret, which decision could i change to make my life better. exactly which? then tell me, regret, once you've detailed the single most regretful decision, prove to me that i would be in a better place now. i would like you, if you can, to prove to me that i would be in a different place had i made a different decision along the way.

if you can't think of one definitive regret, then name them all. don't leave any out. because, by your logic, the goal is wipe out all regret. the goal is to blame for every regret. if you are going to nag me in the present for a life poorly lived in the past, then you're going to have to be exhaustive in your recounting of the past decisions in my life. picking and choosing will get you nowhere. after all, you might choose 50 regrets, but that 51st was the key one.

once you name ALL of my regrets, then tell me how changing them would definitively put me in a different place today. is there an alternate universe? and let's say that science determines that there ARE alternative realities, what are you going to do about this one you're in right now?

regret, you are blaming me for the here and now. you are saying that the present moment is not good enough. maybe that is the bite of your nagging. i will agree that i would like to continue to improve and move forward, enlightened, fulfilled, happy. on that we agree.

but in your line of thinking, had i made a different decision (even with all of its variances and nuances), a decision i did not make, a decision you are holding me to but doesn't exist in a moment of truth...in short, it's a vapor, a cloud, a mist, an ocean wave...a vague idea of something done...then i would be in a better place....a place equally vague. and a place that has no correlation to the changed decision. you either have to change all decisions or none at all. the logic of it all is absurd. there can be no prediction of what would happen "if."

sure, there are decisions i would like to make again. but it doesn't correlate that a different decision would lead to a better result. and what about bad decision i've made that do lead to better results?

regret, there is one reality. it is now. there is no tweaking it. i will not be held hostage to your phantom "better" choices and your equally phantom "better" results. none of them exist, yea, none have ever existed. and what is more, you can't even name them if they did. you can't point to a moment, only a feeling. try as you might, you can point to one decision, but you can't a) categorically prove that it was categorically bad, b) describe the alternatve decision and all of its subsequent results, or c) predict where it would lead me today.

there are things i have done i would like back, there are things i have done i'm glad i've done, there are things i didn't like at first that turned out okay, there are things i've done that i thought would be great, but turned out not so good. most every decision i've ever made has a mixture of both good and bad. decisions about coming out, not getting married, staying at luther, and the like, have so many moving parts and involve so many other historical contexts that you've long forgotten, that you are holding me prisoner with absolutely no proof or evidence.

when you descend upon me at night, or in the late afternoon, or in those moments where you bring a sigh to my heart, i will face you. i will hold your feet to the fire to prove to me what you say through my beliefs is true.

you told me once that you are there to guide me. okay, i'll buy that. today is a new day and i can learn from my past. i can redeem all of those decisions i made under duress or in ignorance or in fear or what have you, by moving on today.

but learning from the past is different than being enslaved to the past. the past is past. if quitting is in my past, that can inform a present decision about sticking to something, but quitting in the past does not make me a quitter today, and in fact, you can't prove that quitting in the past can be reversed to "staying the course" with a more "positive" result.

you see, quitting in the past might have been such a mixed bag of results, that it just can't be summarily dismissed as a bad choice.

the crux of your argument is "if only i had done if differently..." and yet you can't can say what that different choice was, and what it would have led to. you also imply that there will be some kind a "next time" (within which i will have an opportunity to learn from my past) but there is no "next time" that parallels the first time...or the time in the past i'm supposed to learn from. today is never the same as yesterday. whereas, in the past situation i might have needed to quit, now i don't...or vice versa. just because there is a different decision to be made, doesn't mean that either are wrong. different times require different decisions. faced with certain situations today, i would definitely handle them differently. faced with previous decisions (however impossible that is) in their contexts with only the information i had at the time, i would handle them the same.

i don't remember ever trying to fuck my life up. that would be a decision i would regret. and let's say i did try to fuck my life up once or even twice, i've come to this point here an now. there is no other point. and had i not made any bad, self-malicious decisions, doesn't mean i would be in a better place. extricating evil does not create good. good, "right," or anything preferable to the alternative, transcends evil. light uses the shadow. again, even in a scenario that i have a legitimate reason to regret, the "fixing" of that decision or scenario does not necessarily lead to a "better" place.

regret, i do not doubt your existence. but until you can give me proof of your assertions, you are noise. you are an extension of your master, fear. you both claim to want to protect and serve, yet you do neither. i want happiness and freedom...you offer only despair (for something that cant be changed or ever dealt with) and slavery.