I
woke up at a little after 7AM. I’m looking at the clock and it’s 7:16 and
already I have pondered a number of things, some of which I really should let
out in the blog. Including:
- The natures of my insomnia(s) and all the harms they do.
- My health problems and why they are worsening and not being properly addressed.
- Why I constantly have useful thoughts and revelations which I almost immediately lose.
- Why this blog is never what it’s supposed to be and what I can do about it.
- Why my fiction is never what it’s supposed to be and god-knows what I can do about it.
- Why people have such unhealthy minds.
- The benefits versus harms in “recreational” drugs.
- The wisdom in Zappa’s statement that parents make kids weird more so then music, TV, etc.
- The generally healthier minds of younger people and why I’m generally more drawn to the company of younger people these days.
- My friendship with Neo and why I’ve so largely failed to pass on so much of the valuable perceptions I wish him to benefit from.
And
there’s probably more that I’ve forgotten already
The
most useful thoughts I have occur when I have just gone to bed or when I’ve
awoken too early and stay in bed praying I’ll be able to fall back asleep. I’m
losing stuff. Every day (or night) I lose most of my most valuable thoughts. It’s
extremely unfortunate. The job I have carved out for myself in life is to share
the benefits of my research and contemplation in terms of the areas which I’ve
had rare access to and which offer solutions to serious problems. Clearly the
process in not working; is not complete.
This
morning I made the very rare choice to give up on sleep after just 4 and half
hours of it and grab the laptop and try to write down some of this stuff instead.
But my mind flies through so much stuff so fast (as minds do); so infinitely
faster than I can type! Plus the action of recording my thoughts drastically
interferes with my thoughts themselves! The barriers to making the optimal use
of the human mind are staggering. Instincts, illusions, the very undeveloped
nature of our infantile consciousness itself. The great barriers to
communication; both interpersonal and internal…
I
want this blog to be open and intimate and not preachy. I want it to be more
useful to people or potentially useful. I often think I should liberate the
blog from its own compromised past and start a fresh one, but with anonymity
more of a priority.
How
do I know I’m losing stuff (ideas, understandings etc.) if they’re lost? Only
because the experience of thinking useful thoughts which I know need to be
retained while conceding not to write them down, is such an incredibly familiar
one. I remember the constant recognition of this scenario. While the scenario
of remembering previously escaped ideas etc. is incredibly rare. That’s
not good. And poetic voices have warned of this – in few words – and in the
same spaces refer to a need for discipline, both in terms of doing your poetic
work every day and in terms of practicing simple focus.
You
know, just yesterday a new writer pal (I make one or two every November) was
talking about the common dilemma of dividing her time; kids, responsibilities
and two hobbies: writing and knitting. She was describing the sort-of tedious
experience of knitting and having to focus on something so simple and
mechanical because there is great jeopardy if you make a mistake. You’ll
discover it later and then have to undo all the work you’ve done since the
mistake was made. I found myself suggesting to her that her knitting might be
making her a better writer; that such an activity may be strengthening her
mind. It has been suggested that the real purpose of alchemy was to transform
the alchemist’s mind through the practice of extraordinary discipline. The
techniques of the alchemist required immense concentration on menial processes
and that the lead to gold thing is largely a metaphor for the transformation of
mind.
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