OH my GOrD he's Writing a blog pOsT

Yes he is, ladies and gentlemen. He's hunting and pecking away at his little keyboard and pecking the wrong key twice in every five pecks and drumming on the backspace key more than anything else.

And now, ladies and gentlemen he's marched it all the way back to "hitting" and changed it to "drumming on" because, Holy Noodles Batman, he's a writer don't you know!

And he's living the dream. He stayed up ALL NIGHT because he knew there was no use trying to sleep. He did some championship level laundry in the early dawn gloom. OH YES boys and girls, the early dawn gloom! What a wordsmith. Unrivalled I tell you.

He crashed mightily come morning, awoke after an hour and a half, PROMPTLY FORGOT he slept an hour and a half and would later tell a filthy scheming evil lie about not even sleeping a second.

Oh and what's this? He's speaking in the third-person perspective now! Wait. Check the records. Check the.... the.... thing. Whaddaya call it? What the court reporter... transcript?? Let's say transcript. Okay, never mind. Turns out he's been speaking in the third person since the very beginning.

Now where was I? I mean, He.

So after a good bout of confusion where I almost cancelled the Big Outing I actually got together with The Ponderer. She picked me up; me freshly showered, Santa-nian beard trimmed way back, newish clothes, teeth brushed etcetera, in shoes even... And we hit the Dollarama for bread, some chili, some noodles... what Caramilk bars? Who said anything about Caramilk bars? Some crackers what will make my lonely cheese happy...

We went to Tim's for coffee, tea, hot chocolate and bagel-muffin food and talked about dead and dying people but in a good way and was reminded how much I love life and love my friends to pieces. The Ponderer of course and even the ones once close who I don't see anymore. Even the ones who I loved so dearly with all my heart, such that every day was either blissful or aching. I wonder sometimes if they read this blog even though they've had enough of me in person. Well, if you're reading... I still love you with all my heart, as I have every single day, even the days when you were sadly mistaken, and thought that I didn't.

Peace y'all.

My friend, the Ponderer

 Just a shout-out today, to one of my fave pals, The Ponderer, and her favourite band:

Day seven already?

So I was a sleepless wreck for a few days. Finally last night I enjoyed a couple decent little sleep sessions and am feeling motivated today. I put all the garbage and recyclables out to the curb and am now still basking in the glory of this accomplishment.

But I have also committed to writing for the rest of the day and evening except for a skype break with my dear family and have invited my writing buddies to a virtual write-in on our google hangout. Two have joined so… here we go. Wish me luck.

M is for Middling

In the last 36 hours I have:

• Lost my wallet and $190.
• Negotiated with burdened outdoor renovation workers to access my own driveway.
• Attended the 8th or 9th annual Wafflepalooza of which I was a founding father.
• Hugged friends.
• Reminisced with my dear writer pals concerning the inspiring ascent of The Liaison, who departed oh so young on the verge of a writing career breakthrough.
• Hugged more friends.
• Tinkered with yet another indulgent mindcrack lair.
• Found the wallet!
• Barely -- barely -- endured the 45-minute torture of an ultrasound session in which the tech sweated buckets trying to push holes through me (drawing blood even but not much).
• Butted heads politely with a senior bank associate trying to smother Gramps and I in a blanket of red tape and liability paranoia leaving me exhausted and almost hopeless before a wonderful junior associate, a young black man with brilliant instincts, wisdom and kindness gave us everything we needed as soon as the former departed.
• Parked strategically so Gramps could piss in a parking lot.
• Talked about life and literature with Earth Writer and remembered how we used to be closer (I think).
• Attended Scooterville NaNo Thank God Its Over celebration.
• Won nice little prizes.
• Hugged friends I’m very glad to find are still friends.
• Sat in the car hoping that a young person I will always care for will come to understand I would never ever want to hurt his feelings and that I only want his life to be better and him to be happy. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

I’m in the middle of things.

Peace.

B is for Brocrastination

Okay that was a cheat. But B is for bed-ridden, blurry-eyed and.... Bengals.

Bengals as in Bengal tigers - as in the Jr. B lacrosse team that landed in the middle of my life about the time I disappeared from blog world, and swept me away.

An old pal - we'll call him - LaxMasterMind has quietly become an internationally elite lacrosse GM and coach in the fifteen years since we were associates with the Chiefs Jr A team. Oh wait - I blogged about this two years ago.

Long story short: I was dragged out of my Total Lacrosse Retreat by LMM with the news of a local Jr B team which he was basically running and which I did not even know about (this community has spawned previous junior lacrosse enterprises over the years which emigrated to nearby communities). I saw a game, was amazed at the new elevated caliber of Jr B lacrosse, felt inspired to write about it, but was at a complete loss how to do so. One: I have changed so much in the intervening years and competition, winning and losing have become so very uninspiring compared to such higher-evolved things - like creativity for instance, and generosity, which are for me important elements of lacrosse. And two: I was no longer an insider. I knew nothing of the current lacrosse community and its peoples. How would I write as an outsider?

Fast forward April 2019 and LMM speaks up again: the team is looking to fill new exec positions including Director Marketing and Media Relations. I seize on that one. It's my way back in. I take it on faith that I will find a way to write about it. And god knows I should have the time for it given the 101 important projects I've been blissfully ignoring (B is for blissful ignorance).

"I'll be your director media marketing," I type back after literally about 20 seconds of deliberation. I was intentionally bold. Take it or leave it.

He took it.

The task I took on for myself; the goal, is enormously ambitious. The work I cut out for myself is potentially endless. And I admit I don't know how to accomplish the goal, if indeed it's possible. But I trust in finding useful components and pursuing them on faith that they will be part of the final solution. More on all this some other time.

Was I crazy to take this on given I can't keep up with anything currently? Here's my weird rationalization: To take on a world of work which is unlike most of my current work in that there are tight schedules and outside stakeholders, which means I will be properly motivated to Get It Done, which may be just the thing to re-teach me a proper work ethic. When the season ends in a few months I can move my new work ethic and apply it to my own works.

Well that time is now.

So I'm back.

I say that I am here to stay. Fingers crossed.

And by here I mean blog world, yes, but I mean much more. I want to really be here. Being present again. Being productive. Making a difference. Being the person I should be instead of the loser I have been for the last year and a half.

This morning I arose after 6 hours of sleep (not bad! though sleep remains a critical Needs Improvement Area) picked up Chess Champ, met up with The Healer, journeyed to Station One former fire-house turned cafe and there met Sweetproserpina and the Ponderer for a joyful write-in. Here I am. The Ponderer's partner is beating her cancer. The Healer's mate has finally become employed again by a college where I worked for awhile. And Chess Champ has finally released some writing to the semi-public sphere. A big step. I really look forward to finally giving him a read. Given sleep and eye problems I have not really read for this year and a half. Another Needs Improvement Area.

Continuous improvement. Every day. Am I back? It would be nice if I were back.

Love Fwig

Roller coasters and merry-go-rounds

Ooh, I wouldn’t do that, I thought. No, I wouldn’t do that either... Mmm… I wouldn’t say that... This is too linear and yet unclear….

She had sent me the draft, looking for an honest opinion. Would an honest opinion be possible? The 6-minute oral memoir performance was scheduled for this evening! If there are too many problems with the draft there wouldn’t be time to fix them all. In that case, better to down-play concerns? No sense worrying someone about that which cannot be fixed.

When it comes to storytelling, whether I am on the telling or receiving end, I am firmly in the subtlety camp. Not necessarily on the blog, mind you. When people send me tell-not-show writing, wanting my feedback, I am at a loss. I barely remember my tell-reading days. I can no longer really identify what works and what doesn’t. I eventually tell tellers, "Look: You have to find someone else to beta read for you; someone who gets your style. I’m not in that camp!" So my feedback did not seem to me very useful at all.

I also have no experience at six-minute memoirs (though I was approached by the event organizer last night about my possible future involvement, which indeed interests me as I have always been a natural with public speaking, even when I was a shy, awkward, teenage introvert. Which is rather mysterious I know. I was always instinctively more comfortable talking to an audience than to an individual. Weird is all I can say.

So my friend gets up and reads her piece. And I am completely hooked. The words have not been changed dramatically that I detect. And yes, I would have done it differently, but what she has done, now that it comes from her own mouth, with her own precise tones and inflections, well damn… it’s perfect!

She speaks of her roller coaster love life past, and the merry-go-round that is her stable new relationship. Like a pro, she carries the metaphor through to the inspiring end. I was hugely moved. I was in tears for six minutes. So much panic she had seemed to endure and why? She had it nailed! But what deep courage she needed in order to go through with it, both for obvious reasons and also for “political” ones. Meanwhile I continue to put off the stand-up comedy workshop even though I have several routines prepared because… well, what if I’m not funny?

I write this at the Espresso bar in Little Italy, a block from the Eloquent Potter’s home and looking forward to a major dinner-and-drink binge before he departs for Vietnam for another three month tour. This will be the last before he relocates permanently. I am armed with beer, wine, bread, cheese and a bouquet of flowers. The florists all hugged me; yes hugged me! - when I told them my friend would be leaving permanently! “Oh you must be broken-hearted!” they said. This is riotously funny. I guess when a man buys another man flowers they assume they can only be a gay couple!. It is such a warm moment for them that I just smile and tell them I will be fine! I do nothing to correct them nor to mislead them further.

The potter has made great strides learning a ridiculously difficult language and planning a new business and new life abroad, in a beautiful ancient culture.

I was once extraordinarily courageous. Then I became largely a chicken-shit again; just a wiser one. Today I am in awe of the courage of my sweet friends.

Together

I’m noticing, over the last few days, how increased mindfulness (or wakefulness etc.) doesn’t only avail wisdom but also the simplest intelligence. I have had many meetings and social engagements lately and have been a little more on the ball and have noticed how much clearer I see the relationship dynamics without the nigglings - the wisps - of pride and paranoia twisting my perception. All these relationships look so much more joyful, beautiful and worthwhile and full of possibility through detached observation.

The word detachment seems to scare people off though. I’m talking about perception that is without these false filters of need; dependency; expectation. I find this hard to describe. For me it comes through organic trust in the lessons I have learned, first-hand, about the illusions spun by instinctive mind. For me detachment has no negative connotations. It is not about lack of love, for instance. In fact it avails so much more love.

I’m sure that Tolle or Buddhist literature would describe a different path for finding this detachment; a path or paths which I seem to have forgotten precisely. I recall these readings too dimly at the moment. For me it came through the habit of creative solitude and a bottomless fascination for truth; or more accurately it turned out, the absence of truth and the forensic study of its displacement. It is why, in my more powerful state of former years, I was strong in leveraging influence; nudging people more toward creativity, before I began faltering and eventually withdrawing, more intentionally of late.

I am reminded the advantages of clarity when one is not so self-interested in the dynamics of relationships. It is enough that we are all alive, human and imperfect together, and taking on this great drama together, as witnesses to the universe, and to our own potential as a creature of harmony; both internal and collectively.

The Big Reveal

Hey, so April A-to-Z is coming along real soon and writing pals have been asking, Gosh Fwig, what will you do?

My answer has been that I will be an A-Z rebel and work on my outstanding A-to-Z’s from 2016 and 2017 which I never finished but have always intended to.

Yeah, not going to happen.

...Just yet.

The Ponderer, who declares that she can write a poem on any topic under the sun (and I believe her) has asked for help proving it by inviting me to summon a list of 26 A-Z topics for her to tackle over the next month. I did so and included a few topics I thought would be of interest to her, many that are of interest to me, and a couple of fairly wacky concepts just to give her a hard time.

I then realized I ought to take the same challenge and so invited her to send me a list. I think she followed pretty much the same formula.

I hope you’ll tune in starting April 1st for my poem of the day. I hope you find some of them entertaining and some insightful and some hopefully both!

And be sure to check out The Ponderer on H day where she’s been given the title: Hamburger Phone!

Later.

How doth the city sit solitary…

…that was once full of people.

I remember many occasions sitting in my Streetsville apartment looking out the big window, contemplating at great length and seeing all these structures and machinations of society: I had never felt so alone; so utterly alien. At the time I regarded this with some degree of emotional peril; not as much as you’d expect, but more than I later would. My yawning separateness was to some degree just another observation; another new important revelation in a long roster of them. It was then that I found some comfort in that opening line from the book of Leviticus and then that I began reading the Christian bible for the first time since grade school, and then that I began finding wisdom instead of nonsense; wisdom which few priests would, so far as I imagined, ever interpret much the same way I was. It was then that I began to sense that much of this “religious” material must have been borrowed from other sources and that much of it was not intended at its roots to be a tool of Christian doctrine at all.

That alien feeling persisted for a long time, varying in intensity.

I remember a long night wide awake in my attic eyrie which I rented from Long Time Companion; the friend formerly known in blog space as Peter Pan. I’m pleased to say that he has come a long way, finding some peace, and considering that when we were breaking up years prior to this rental arrangement and I’d threatened to murder him (and possibly meant it) in a fit of outrageous jealousy - I guess I’ve come a long way too.

That night I’d felt the weight of this threshold; this decision; this gateway to… what? Enlightenment? This reckoning that I’d found no one yet who was willing to take my hand and proceed with me.

It was that night when I strummed the guitar and the song The Line came out: a simple three-chord ditty in which I tried to voice this conundrum; this great step in evolution (or so it seemed to me then) and my concern that I was becoming too alien from everyone around me and that I was losing the capacity to relate and thus to communicate and thus the potential to teach or to guide.

I did not want my learning; these immensely powerful and useful understandings to benefit me alone!

What I don’t remember is any conscious decision; any intention to back away from that threshold, but indeed that is what I did; not ready to give up on others; and not feeling any confidence that I’d ever be able to reach anyone again if I took this step and launched too far into another realm.

I remember being surprised to so easily embrace a reverse-pretentiousness, how easy it was for me to “play dumb” in a way, to reveal no insights in day to day circumstances where I was wise in relevant terms but wise enough, also, to know that what I had to say would not be understood or not be embraced and so I remained quiet and nodded like some very simple man. I was surprised how easily I could keep my ego in check.

I remember feeling lonely at times because I had no one I could be completely myself with. I literally had no secrets. This is a huge statement to make. I doubt it can rarely ever be honestly said. I had no secrets but yet I had to keep quiet about some things, not for shame (I could admit any flaw or fault I was aware of) but for other people’s comfort. I had no energy or any mandate to challenge everyone’s illusions all day every day.

When I met Neo and observed what astounding mental freedoms he possessed, I knew he was very special and that I had to make myself available to him. And with the brainstorming of excellent associate JazzLion, I began writing a novel in which I tried to plant all my most important and relevant understandings, with the thought that if he read it (along with others if it got published) and was of the kind of mind I had been crediting him with, then as an adult he might unearth that book and look me up. I did not indulge in any romantic notions about such an encounter but in essence I could imagine him saying, “Dude! Remember me? I understand what you’re saying here! And I thought we should talk I don’t imagine you’ve been expecting many people to get it…”

Instead Neo took such an immediate interest in me that we became associates when grade school graduation should have otherwise separated us.

In hindsight, maybe that was all for the worse. Another regret? Should I have finished the damn book instead, and put it in his hands and said goodbye?

One of the joys in our association; call it friendship; call it mentorship, whatever, was that I had someone I could be one hundred per cent myself with. I regarded him as completely trustworthy. Not trustworthy in that I could trust him with my secrets (because I felt I had none) but trustworthy in that I trusted him to be able to handle the truth; to be able to handle the things I had to say.

For the first time in quite a while I had someone I did not feel alien with.

This is the crux of my broken-heartedness.

Imagine being a human but growing up on some far away planet where everyone is wildly different than you and finally you meet another human; the only other human on the planet, and you just feel so at home finally, and your friendship blossoms and then after eight years he just says, yeah I can’t do this anymore bye. 

Sometimes these days I think surely we’ll get back together again. Surely he’ll come to his senses.

But sitting here, trying to be a little present; a little wakeful, I think: How carefully have I monitored this alien issue over the last eight years?

Am I sure that no one else is capable of letting me be me, without me having to be concerned about scaring them off?

I know that the Ponderer and Skeeter Willis are frequent readers of this blog (god knows why; it is so scattered and indulgent) and I must ask with honesty; not to flatter, are they not willing and capable?

I wonder too, about Dog Whisperer and Earth Writer and Aqua Lad. I barely knew them eight years ago. Have we not developed an almost familial bond?

On that note what about my mother and my brother?

Surely JazzLion and Renaissance Kid and Global Citizen; though they live rather out of the way to varying degrees, so to rely on them regularly would be difficult.

And the Earnest Chef too. And The Healer. Thinking about them now, are they not slam dunks? Have I not already felt free with them and just not done the accounting?

Perhaps even the Thoughtful Educator. Haven’t all these relationships broadened and solidified over these years? Have I failed to give some special people fair credit?

And then there’s Dr. Lock of course. I’m surprised as I think about this now - how many friends I am able to consider in this regard

Perhaps I need to sample the waters; open up to more people the same way I did to Neo and see how it goes; if they are comfortable or not.

It would help, I’m sure, if I could be my gentler self with them. Which would happen naturally I’m sure if I could bring myself to be more present; more mindful. I might not be ready though. Let me cradle myself in the writing for now.

With regards to that evolution, I suppose this is another regret: When Neo asked, But why wouldn’t you want to embrace enlightenment if you could? Why ever choose otherwise? For some reason I gave him a cryptic answer that was more about my remaining addictions; my susceptibility to identity, instead of a straight answer. God knows why. It just happened.

I should have told Neo the more simple and sincere perspective: that I was waiting until he was ready to go there with me.

Pipelines

Kinder Morgan

The Ponderer has been pondering the current crisis of North American oil pipeline projects and the chaos that surrounds them. She shared her latest thoughts; sensible ones, which I have responded to from a perspective of perhaps wider context:

The Ponderer:  Maybe the best way to stop the Pipelines is to stop creating a demand for the oil that it's transporting. But we can't do that can we? We have to have our cars and our vehicles and we have to heat our homes among other things. I think very few of us are willing to live without those things. It's easy to be all pro save the environment until it causes us discomfort or inconvenience. Perhaps the pipelines are the safest way to transport the oil, that we tell ourselves we so desperately need. Is there a safer way? Train? Ship? Trucks? I don't think so. Don't get me wrong I am not pro pipeline I just think the solution is a lot more complicated and I think our government made the best decision in a bad situation. And thank you to my friend Barb for giving me a different perspective.

New Day Rising:  Yes, we're very greedy, very spoiled. Life itself is not naturally easy. Life has been a very difficult thing for every species except for a small percentage of humans for a tiny blip of time. Us. But as bizarre and unholy as our circumstance is, it is our normal. It is natural for us to embrace the unnatural normal we are born into.

But it will not be our normal for long and we'd be really smart to get our stubborn heads around that and plan accordingly instead of so fully embracing this brief Disneyland with such entitlement. What we have not yet discovered about ourselves is that we do have the capacity for change and for embracing new normals. Oil will be gone in another tiny blip of time no matter how much extra destruction we wreak to get at it. And if we survive the disaster that is born of denial and inequality and our enmity against the biosphere then we'll do just fine with the next normal, as all the YA dystopia books so brightly suggest, but unfortunately the next normal's forecast grows worse and worse every day that we resist it. Every day that we refuse to cut a deal with mother nature, the less she will have to offer when we finally do, or else on the bleak day that there is no more leveraging available. The life-capacity of the biosphere is shrinking every day. We are trading it away for the gadgets and comforts which can not last, which we pay for with death. And if we never cut that deal then the Earth will have almost nothing left for us.

North Dakota

The new oil pipelines are an investment in the future. They are a commitment to expansion of death; a commitment to cut no deals. They are a migration in the wrong direction. I know its very hard not to be greedy but if I woke up tomorrow and every gas station was dry, I would be immensely delighted. Giving up my car would then be easy because we'd all be in the same situation together and we would survive just fine. We would adjust together. Where as giving up my car on my own tomorrow would seem disastrous because my society would not cooperate with me; would not bend to the changes I would require.

"Oka could happen again..."

Giving

It may have largely to do with the recent reading of an extremely inspirational book (more on that later) that I have become so appropriately “generous” of late; generous in a very personal sense. It might be better to say accepting or tolerant. Perhaps even detached or unencumbered, or simply present.

Specifically I have found myself dismissing concerns around the dynamics of close relationships. The various ways, for instance, that some friends, through no conscious intention of their own, cast a force upon me which tries to draw me back into my old ways, or into the more socially normal behaviors which seem to pose a threat to me. Or the ways that they underestimate me so that they can perceive needs I do not have, so as to satisfy their loving nature by tending to them. (Do I do that too, to some?) Other things: Grandpa Munster’s poor choices and consequences. The apparent disrespect of bread-and-butter friends forced to think me pretentious in order to deny their own suffering. (How much of that is in my head?)

All these apparent little hurdles, suddenly they are nothing! I have read passages which sound like my own voice, reminding me of lessons I once learned and like magic I am experiencing greater freedom. These little hurdles do not matter! I need not plan my way around them. I am full of love and strength. Everywhere I look my associates are suddenly more beautiful and harmless.

Generous may not be the best word for this; this mentally letting them be who they are, whatever they are, however I perceive them. But I like that word right now. I like it because generosity has been returned to me these last few days but tenfold. My old car bit the dust in spectacular fashion; the suspension crumpling beneath me. My friends were quick to offer counsel and rides. The Ponderer actually loaned me her car in order to get to work for two nights. Dog Whisperer offered the same. Peter Pan offered me a $1500 loan to help buy a new car. I accepted $1200. The purchase emptied my bank account. The new car has a battery problem which I believe will be worked out. Friends all over have come to my rescue. The Ponderer and Healer have fed me dinners this weekend. All these gifts have arrived without my asking. Mom, too, has offered money which I have declined. 

As I said to Dog Whisperer earlier, “I am blessed.” May I have the opportunity soon, to give as generously as I have received!

I have committed to myself to repay the loan swiftly. Unfortunately this will probably mean further delays to seeing Skeeter Willis or Renaissance Kid and that I will not visit Neo down at his new home where he goes to school, as soon as was planned. (He’s grown up so frightfully fast.) I want us to just have fun for a day, without the sobriety of sustained serious conversation that has long been our mode; to perhaps hit book stores, music stores, antique stores… to explore… make a short film perhaps…! and definitely go over his latest brilliant music album production and provide feedback. I want to give him a wok and show him some great cooking options that I think he’ll enjoy and which are easy, healthy and efficient. I do worry about his nutrition.  

I’m willing to bet that without the pressure to maximize efficient conversation over dinner or coffee, that we might actually make more useful connections naturally, while just doing what we enjoy. What I would really like, I think, is simply for us to laugh together as we once did.

Yes the universe seems to have done me wrong; monkeyed terribly with my car and then, with my bank account emptied and me thinking it owed me some good luck at least until next payday, it monkeyed with my new car! But it also showed me how much love there is around me and reminds me how much I have to give.

In which FWG adopts little-girl strategies

I got rip-roaring sick over the holidays which turned me into a pouting indulgent lazy slob; a habit that has been hard to give up upon recovery. Then, in trying to re-capture an iota of discipline and a proper writing habit, I unleashed a crisis of confidence. Everything I tried to write swiftly prompted the question: Who would want to read this shit?

The one thing I have done in any responsible measure the last couple months is research and sustained quiet contemplation. There is much to report from all that, and much overdue. Very often of late I have questioned my goals and direction; even my “outer purpose” in life. More on all of that to come.

One thing I think I know though: Writing still has a major role to play for me, even if it is only to document my struggle for the sake of some peer or peers on a similar path. In fact, I think that that may be the real purpose of this blog. That may be the answer I’ve been seeking since I started this – what? Ten years ago?

I must get back in the writing habit and make it a stronger habit then ever. My most productive writing came in the years I lived with the Liberal Theologian. We celebrated her life last night, a year since her passing. We sang songs and shared words. And food of course! I am inspired by that and also by the documentary, Life Itself; the story of Roger Ebert, a (Pulitzer prize-winning) writer and film lover; a man whose passions I share.

I saw Neo recently. We talked for more than eight hours. It was very comforting. I will see Renaissance Kid soon and Skeeter Willis and also lean on their good counsel and energy.

Changes are happening. I have much to share.

Dear friends The Ponderer, The Healer and The Liaison, all fine writers, two of them so far published, have drawn me into their Constant Writer Club. In the eternal battle for writing discipline, we have shamelessly adopted the strategy of small children!

Today I wrote. So I got a sticker on my calendar. Just a small one for now because it’s only day one of the streak. They’ll get larger as I go to work daily without a day off. Today’s sticker is a clam. ‘Cause that’s how happy I am to be writing again.

Spare a dime, brother!

The Earnest Chef is in town today. Haven’t seen him in a couple months. He’s joined myself, Chessmaster and The Ponderer for one our weekly breakfast write-ins at The Joker’s Café. Following, he’ll attend my weekly hike with The Healer and little Doctor Dizzy at a lovely cave-dotted conservation area.

Officially I am in financial crisis with my employer pretty much ignoring my existence, however I spare not an ounce of stress over it. I seem to know inherently that stress is useless. Also I know inherently that I am not going to starve on the streets no matter what happens.

Also, I am simply in a happy place. Just as with Siddhartha or Aurobindo’s treatment on the Bhagavad Gita, I am now reading a book which has me in joyful tears. I am once again connecting superbly in terms of matters that are core to my understandings of people, the world and the universe and which I can almost never communicate to any real degree with the living people around me, a phenomenon that leaves me feeling like an interplanetary alien most of the time.

The magnificent factor this time around though, is that this author is alive. Alive! The effect of this is beautiful. I am suddenly not so alone. I now know for certain that there is at least one person on this planet here and now who would fully understand me; who could have a discussion with me where I could utterly be myself and be understood and vice-versa. Where I need not monitor myself and hide insights which would alienate my company or cause them to think I am a liar or delusional.

That said, I am fully myself, I believe, with Neo and Neo believes he understands me but I am not convinced. He does not demonstrate that he understands me. I’m inclined to think he understands more of me than perhaps any other, or perhaps believes he understands who I think I am but without believing I am necessarily without delusion – which would not offend me. Scepticism is generally very wise in a world that is invariably 99% bullshit.

Back to this book, which was recommended to me years ago by The Journeyer and recently by The Healer and which has languished on my bookshelf untouched for years!:

Every paragraph it seems, contains yet more and more affirmation of my long roster of understandings. He describes the process (which I have thought of as the poetic process) which reflects my experiences precisely, though he calls it simply spirituality, or the new spirituality, a habit of consciousness; presence; awareness.

Being perfectly patient when properly engaged in my work; my poetic pursuits, I am content to simply finish the book and then do some research on the author, a German I believe, and only then, if this marvelous symmetry still holds up, figure out how I can meet him, or else with some organization he perhaps champions (if such exists) and finally have humans I can communicate with for real - again, not to diminish the trust or belief I have in Neo. I am just not sure, currently, exactly where we stand in this regard.

My hope, in doing this, is not just to dispel the specter of alienhood, but to get help in refining my goals in life. I long ago lost interest in all normal pursuits and being so regularly joyful, peaceful and free of a great bulk of societal illness, have desired only to be useful to others; specifically to champion harmony and the evolution of consciousness which I believe I have taken part in and which I interpret confidently that this race of humans must embrace, and soon, if we are to survive as a species.

I might be begging on the street soon but life has never been better!