intellectual properties

textual impotence

if you’ve been following along you’ve noticed that i’ve once again encountered the problem with words, in that that they’re abstract and incomplete and volatile.

every word is both an overstatement (in its inherent categorization) and an understatement (in its representation of reality).

to say or write anything true is arduous.

so instead of my own words what you’re getting is a lot of  posts about art and philosophy and poetic things. and the apocalyptic visions of each, but that’s always been the case.  these are the things i’m thinking about and struggling with and it’s where my head is (school).  and it’s all very disorienting, to sit and read and talk and think about how your self and your culture and society and world is constructed/deconstructed/constituted for hours and hours and days and days.

please forgive the resulting lack of coherence.

inner child

my mom was just visiting. and she said my personality hasn’t changed much since i was 5. i was an anxious child. i was reticent.

this blog is 12 years of subjective proof. reading backward, i can see myself change only ever so slightly.

i’m not sure if it’s comforting or terrifying to know we never really change.

i guess the point is more about growth than change.  the whole tree is inside the acorn. the tree is always the tree.

i’d rather be invisible

some days i am a ghost, walking through.  people look at me on the street, straight in the eye, and they look a bit confused. like they are seeing someone without a soul, and it scares them. at first i thought it was just my projection but it happens all the time.

(how to disappear completely.)
(i’m not here.)

sea change

what could be said that is not the truth or a lie?

now everything i said is true
now everything i am is here
and everything depends on now.

we are where we wanted to be,
but there is always doubt –
maybe the map was wrong.

there has been a sea change,
and i have no direction.

happy-?

i just watched this movie, Happy.
http://www.thehappymovie.com/

it’s pop psych, mostly, and a little cheesy. and some of the tragic moments are also really hard to take. and some of the segments maaay go on a little too long. but overall: thoughtful.

if you’re reading this, i am wishing you would watch it, and want to know what you think.

and i don’t just mean what you think about the movie. i mean i want to know what you think about your happiness.

partly this is because i feel a little disconnected right now, being in a new city and submerged in content, which is isolating. but mostly because i think this is something we all really think about.

this was the first movie i’ve watched since August, since i’ve been so focused on other things. i’m a little burnt out today. which is why i watched a movie about happiness. so i can’t respond for myself right now. but i will write more about this from my own end soon.

i am not who i thought i was

i am completely out of sorts. all of the routines i had are gone, and it’s not quite time to start new ones as we are not in our permanent home and i am not in school yet for another 2 weeks.  for the past 23 days since leaving California i have eaten odd things at odd times, slept in various places and lengths ranging from 1-12 hours, and only figured out where i am part of the time.  before i left i had very particular patterns, working in the same place for 12 years and also being a bike commuter and having to plan my days out and figure out the order and times to do things to avoid backtracking/extra effort/timing.  so this total lack of pattern is surreal in many ways.  it happens to most people while on vacation, and what people enjoy about escape, but this feels like a very long time to be without anchors, especially since i am not going back to what was before.

who am i in this place?

i am regularly feeling, very acutely, that i am not who i think i am.

meaning:  the idea of myself (and the ideas that others had of me) that i had in that place, where i lived so long and had a distinct community and reputation and established relationships, was mostly being defined externally.  if you take away all the patterns and defined spaces/relationships, it’s kind of scary how much is revealed; how much of who you thought you were is not who you really are.

it’s easy to see why some people are mortally terrified of moving outside of their comfort zones, their known reflections.

there are other personal matters too, relative to this flux, that have made this dissonance loud and clear of late.  it’s disorienting, realizing you are not who you thought you were, who you said you were, who you felt you were. but it’s also liberating, when the things defining you fall away, discovering you can be someone else, someone more like who you want/ed to be.

attitude of gratitude

it’s true that even a small headwind affects the pleasure of the ride.  you have to push a little harder. it’s not easy breezy.

i have developed a yogic cycling mantra in these times when the weather or terrain are causing friction:  feel good, stay grateful.

oh, and “at every intersection, look every direction” – practice conscious biking. some times i look up from the handlebars and i suddenly realize i haven’t been paying attention.  for how long?  what did i miss?

.::.

despite my frequent anxiety, i have been working at cultivating and maintaining an attitude of gratitude.  you should see my life.  it’s amazing.  there are, as with any life, complications and uncertainties. but they are all my choices.

.::.

i seem to get caught up in the philosophies of right vs wrong.  can something be

right but evil

wrong but good

evil but right

good but wrong?

i think we all grasp the wrong but good, good but wrong. but the right but evil, evil but right?  that seems a lot more complicated.

i get overwhelmed.

.::.

i love this time of year.  late spring/early summer always feels full of so much potential.

.::.

speaking of which, for the 7th year in a row on June 3: False Profit presents Spring Training, a free day party @ Joaquin Miller Park, Oakland. honestly it really is one of my favorite days of the year. i sit around on all day on a blanket in the sun in a beautiful park overlooking the bay, listen to my friends play killer music, dance on top of waterfalls, and everyone i know shows up. it’s awesome. you should come.

.::.

dreamstate

i feel really out of sorts. just so much is……what is going on? the familiar turned uninviting, shifting and without solid ground. unsettled. uncertain. i’m generally into marginal, liminal, elusive, slipstream consciousness, but lately i feel like my whole life has been taken over by someone else’s dream.

this is an edge.

.::.

i just had a 8:15 ecstatic-dancing-with-myself to Seahorse.

if you’ve never put this song on (loud) and listened to the whole progression, i highly recommend it, either dancing free or still with eyes closed.

I’m high and I’m happy and I’m free
I got my whole heart
Laid out right in front of me
And I finally can see
The way it’s always been
The need for peace
Starts from within

So I leave my possesions to the wind
And I’m done with ever wanting anything
Well I can die satisfied
No desires do I hide
Not today, not today
Nor for the next one thousand lives

I want to be a little seahorse
I want to be a little seahorse
A little seahorse

I want to be a little seahorse
I want to be a little seahorse
I want to be a little seahorse…

Well I’m scared of ever being born again
If it’s in this form again
Well I wanna know how why where and when and then
I wanna see you be the bright night sky
I wanna see you come back as the light
I wanna see you be the bright night sky
I wanna see you come back as the light

a holding pattern too tight

i don’t have to create any intricate similes or metaphors to explain this

the pain in my right arm, this constant, chronic pain from my ear down the right side of my body, into my fingertips and hip socket

is most literally

from a tension held so long, a finger cocked, waiting to pull the trigger.

feeling the edges

i have been down lately.  and when i say down i mean like, feeling the bottom. do you know what the bottom feels like?  i thought everyone did, but recently a friend of mine told me he’d just experienced a “bad day” for the first time that he could remember – like, 15-20 years. and my mind was sort of blown. that’s possible for a sane person?

.::.

the other day as we drove  through west oakland i thought about this, about what he said, and i thought that it seemed impossible to me, to have that kind of mentality, when 1. all of the atrocities in the world are visible on every street corner and 2. to me it appears that all of us are always standing on the edge of a cliff. every day, living on the edge, the potential for falling into the abyss present with every breath taken, and that the spectrum of awareness goes from paralyzed with fear at one end to completely oblivious and doing cartwheels at the other.

i am not paralyzed but i am always aware of the edge.

later that night, my head buried in my pillow, i bemoaned my disposition and jay said “you just have to let go.”  and i said: “how can i let go when i feel like i’m balancing on the edge?” he agreed with me, which is why i love him, but i’m sure there is some platitude about “faith” or something.

to be clear i know that there is nothing either objectively or subjectively “wrong” with my life. in fact it is by most standards BLESSED and i am not ungrateful.   i am also aware of this idea of “creating your own reality” and choosing to ignore atrocities.  i can’t.  i can’t live in this world full of torture and persecution and injustice and just “focus on myself” and my beautiful friends and my beautiful life. yeah, if i blocked all that out – starting from my doorstep in west oakland to the regimes of oppression worldwide – life would be fucking grand!

and if you try to tell me you live the best, most non-consumer non-imperialistic socially-conscious life possible and that is all you can do so why not focus on your own happiness the rest is out of your hands/isn’t being a happy human a greater asset to the world than an angry one? i will 1. point out that your reading this on a computer/gadget made in China negates that defense about you not willingly having anything to do with atrocity and 2. respectfully and sort of jealously disagree while acknowledging that this is an ancient philosophical/POV debate.

the weird thing is, despite all this psychological torment i put myself through, and despite these occasions where i feel weighed down, overall i think i’m actually a happy person. just maybe not an optimist.

the point is that some days i don’t know how to take a step back from the edge, that edge where i can feel the present and future stew of everything and everyone, nothing and no one and feel like i am/we are falling forward.

.::.

anyway, stress work existential angst anxiety fear of the unknown self-doubt global unrest blah blah blah i did not have a good weekend and let’s not get any deeper into that other than to say that while yes, it is possible i might benefit from some therapy and/or medication, at the same time i am also always fighting my way back to the top so don’t worry too much (mom). i’m just emotional and dramatic.

as is often the case when i am down, my chronic shoulder/back pain flared up again yesterday to a more than just annoying degree. the fact that it’s been almost a year since i’ve written about it says a lot about how under control i have this still-undefined thing, but it has not been gone, oh no, and i have to be hypervigilant with my PT, and when i am down there, in the bottom my friend doesn’t feel?  i am not vigilant.  i am the opposite of vigilant. i am destructive. and if you are me and you live in San Francisco in the year 2012 you have access to a lot of tools for self-destruction.

so yesterday i was whiny and in pain and i didn’t sleep well last night and needed to not be typing and all that so today i only went to work for a couple of hours but that was OK because it was sunny and 72 degrees in february and so i left work and biked across town and went and hung out outside at cafe in downtown oakland until time for yoga.  I KNOW, RIGHT?  see why i’m depressed? #affluenza

.::.

this DJ person i live with is playing electronic music of whatever microgenre that is he plays (i’ll keep out of that debate) – i do not listen to electronic music unless said DJ is playing it at home or/ i am out dancing.  i was actually quite offended when an old phish friend said “oh right you only listen to electronic music now” when i didn’t know some new band.  on evenings when he is doing this, i am often in the bathroom listening the Velvet Underground or somesuch while i do one of any number of beauty treatments on myself (it’s only been 10 days since i last bleached my hair and i am already unhappy with the color gradient.  UGH.  maybe maryann is right; i should shave my head. ANYWAY.)

so just now i was there in the shower listening to Built to Spill Perfect From Now On (1997) which is still, now, 9 years after i first heard it on KALX, also while in the shower one morning sometime in 2003 when we lived in that brownshingle on Benvenue avenue in berkeley-  wow  that was a long time ago and wow it’s been since 2006 that we saw them live? holy crap. – it is still one of my favorite end-to-end albums to listen to from the first track to the last (my friend Allie talks about doing elliptical workout jams to rock music and i could def bust a long elliptical jam to Perfect From Now On.)

all that is to say that you should listen to it if you never have.

and also if any of you out there are going to good indie/psych/punk/emo rock shows in SF will you clue me in?  i’m looking at you 40goingon28.

.::.

my younger sister used to say i was mean. and i was always defensive – no i’m not!  i love people. LOVE. but the older i get,  i think she was/is right.  i can be CRUEL/i don’t know why.  i mean, a guy i know who has the word “evil” as part of his nickname told me at the club on friday night that he has always stayed away from me because i seemed like someone he didn’t want to fuck with.  am i really that unapproachable?  man.  but i am so soft on the inside.

.::.

and to cap off this completely boring old-skool whatididtoday/iamsoEmo blog post, here is what i ate today: Continue reading »