TMoL

this post, lady and germ, is about The Meaning of Life. or today's thoughts on the topic, at least. i have an idea that the point of all life, if there is one [i don't mean in a "divinely prophecied" kind of way so much as a what's-most-natural/what-makes-sense-given-the-seeming-senselessness-of-it-all kind of way] has to do with purest, truest SELF-ness.

nature never lies. animals [with whom we begrudgingly share that title] are THEMSELVES, purely and simply. a chicken pecks around in the dirt, with no great regard for its purpose or for the image it projects in the minds of other chickens — it is simply exhibiting / being / enjoying its utmost chickenness. of course we can loop into the discussion the idea that the chicken is concerned on a greater level with species survival, and that dirt-pecking is exactly what's needed to keep chickens chickening for generations to come. and we'd be right. same too with humans, i think. as we are animals, we are also primarily, cellularly, interested in propagation of the species, and maybe by following our urges to do the things we most love doing, by getting our brains & bodies all excited/entertained in the particular way that suits us as individuals, we too are making our own gene-propagation a little more progressive. our added consciousness (above that of animals i mean) makes this strategy more interesting than simply a question of Strongest / Most Attractive / Most Fertile. we can actually make conscientious, kind, good-for-all-species decisions, rather than just for our own. every creature, everywhere, can benefit. rather than just the melee of species duking it out for domination, the conscious folks can assess the situation, decide what's likely to do the most/least damage to the planet and all species in general, and act accordingly.

the question would arise, i think, 'what about the people who enjoy killing other humans or raping small boys who help light incense at mass, etc?' — to which i think the obvious response is that this theory is based on a preconception of the humans under discussion being as free from this sort of psychological problem as possible. and ideally humans would help humans who are this screwy to unscrew themselves and be able to contribute better, etc etc. this is a bigger topic...  but, i have to say in defense of the rapey (blowjobby?) priests, this seems to me more of a cultural problem than a personal psychological one. but it's a perfect example of a time when we can assess our situation and revise our worldwide strategy, right?

so the point, if i'm not belaboring this one to death, I THINK, is that the trick of life is to discover our ultimate USness, your YOUness, my MEness — and to act accordingly. something weird has happened in our culture over the past bunch of years to make this a bit harder, though, and i think television has made this effect grow exponentially. people, as social creatures (like all apes and many animals), care what others think of them. it makes sense, again, for propagation of the species purposes. but something has happened in us where we are so concerned [and i speak from experience!!! intense experience!!] with the perception of us that it almost eclipses the reality of us. or that we BECOME the perception or something like this. i think tv [and i do love it - don't get me wrong] has turned us into GAZERS and people who feel/are GAZED UPON, as opposed to BE-ers and DO-ers. (i am borrowing that phrase from the late great David Foster Wallace, to be fair.) tv has become the arbiter of worth, and our personalities have stepped in line, offering the world of viewers, watchers, judgers a version of ourselves that we feel will be favorable, given the context of all the other stuff we gaze at on the tube. i only bring this up because i think this [and its all really obvious i'm just talking it all out for fun] might be why and how it's become difficult to connect anymore with our own sense of our us-ness. and therefore, our sense of purpose.

the end.
to a possibly really silly entry.

habits

hi. trying out a new font. WHICH, i just realized, is very appropriate, given the topic i want to write about today: Habits, and changing them. 


“Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.”- Mark Twain 


(just found that online when i googled "changing habits." but i think before i explore further online, i should just discuss what i'm thinking this morning.)


i have a feeling humans are largely made of HABITS. we make some deliberate decisions, yes, but these seem to be nested in a much larger, much deeper and more insidious house of habitual behavior and thinking. in fact, it's the thinking element i'm most interested in right now. i am very curious if anyone out there [you know who you are, you two!] has ever had any luck in changing a mental habit — a persistent belief you'd had that you suddenly one day decided was A) not true or B) not helpful any longer. and you went about changing it? and did you use specific steps? did you succeed? did it take a long time?  i am so curious about this topic; i wonder what would be possible if we could alter lifelong perceptions of how/who we are, how/who others are, what anything means. 


i've read that it takes 21 days to change a habit — not sure if this applies only to things like exercise, quitting smoking, etc — but it's interesting to ponder that we could change ANYTHING about ourselves in 21 days. like, what if, instead of endlessly TALKING about starting a damn coffeeshop [which, my broad audience may be aware, i've done for, oh, about 15 years], i actually did some work toward it for 21 days. on day 22, would something magically happen, something change that turned this notion into a reality or this "experiment" into a fact / a bonafide intention? 


people often say that "changing is hard." and while i can acknowledge and agree with this on one level, because it "doesn't come naturally" (i'm into "quotes" today), i also think it's often not so difficult to CHANGE, so much as difficult to REMEMBER to change. it's the old ribbon-on-the-finger thing. we are creatures of habit, and as such, do some things / think some ways almost automatically. we've created the neural pathways (i'm back on that - holyshit, did i already write this same post and i forgot about it? hopefully it's tangential enough to not be totally reiterative and boring), and we just truck-on-down these highways, endlessly, usually with similar results to before. yeah - i think the real key is the awareness of the thing you want to change. THAT's the hard part — not the changing itself. this is a slippery bit to contemplate, we're so accustomed to thinking of behavior change itself as hard. 


anyhow. that's probably about enough on this topic. i'd seriously love to hear about anyone's experiences with changing mental behavior (or even non-mental!).  
Thanks Everybody!


post-script: i read online, and i think this seems smart and plausible, that stopping a behavior is good but REPLACING that behavior with another, more desirable one, is even better. this seems like a good idea, because where is your mind to go when you remove the undesirable idea? you have to give it a place to rest, right? what's a good metaphor ... i can't think of one just now.... maybe next time. i hope you have inspiring mental-habit-change stories for me!!

RANT!!!

sorry to unleash this on all (2 of) yall, but WTF IS WRONG WITH THE WORLD THAT NO ONE CAN DO THEIR JOB AND/OR TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR SUCKING AT WHAT THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO DO? i think i am officially an old bitter bastard, because i swear my aunts and uncles bitched this very same thing when i was a kid. i'm just going nuts. today's installment: The company who owes you $20k declares bankruptcy and says "sorry" for being unable to pay outstanding debts, and, relatedly, the county clerk lost the affidavit you hand-fucking-carried to them a month ago, proving you served a summons to said shithead now-bankrupting company.

like, if your only damn job is to stamp an affidavit when someone hands it to you and file it in a g.d. drawer, why are they paying you a salary when you DIDN'T FILE IT IN A DRAWER? and why do you have ZERO REMORSE about it? honestly, i am flummoxed. i feel like the world doesn't make any sense when shit like this happens. it's akin, in my mind, to someone just randomly driving on the lefthand side of the road, or cutting in front of you in line and being like "yep, i did." no excuses, no logic, no nothing. i feel like saying "GO LIVE ON MARS, WEIRDO." but don't keep working at the fucking clerk's office.

and i'm done. thank you. eff!

in other news, life is very very decent. I'm as-yet jobless, but getting to focus, in the meantime, on cool stuff like trying-to-become-a-calmer-person (meditation) and at-long-last-uncovering-my-creative-medium (writing). i'm totally committed to these two things, right now. i have a ton of ideas about the first of these two endeavors - and i'm hoping to communicate them via the second. boulderhomecook made a good point, after my last post: namely, that PRACTICE is really the key (and i'm carrying this truth into my two new "commitments" mentioned above) and that - right - writing is also about saying something that might not necessarily have a place for expression in your own, normal, day-to-day world. it's a place to go a little poetic and soft and adventurous, rather than the standard hard-edged, goal-driven approach that dominates most of life and its writing.

i'm hoping my blog turns into something that has a distinctive perspective. i'm sort of just ranting and journalling on here so far. sharing experiences. which, honestly, isn't terribly interesting, i think. i've at least determined that, AS A WRITER (he-hem! i am trying out calling myself that), i am, at least now, more of a non-fiction kinda writer. i love reading fiction, but i really want to talk about ideas and philosophy and life/reality when i write. maybe this just means i'm less well-adjusted than fiction writers and i'm desperately trying to make sense of all of this. which is totally true, who am i kidding - i find life to be a totally bizarre and nonsensical experience.

et voila.
xo

snow. discipline. chickpeas.

hi. both of you. it snowed like hell in ny yesterday — it was a dream. literally, i felt like i was in a dream, walking through the park while it blizzarded. there's something about snowstorms that make me feel like i'm 8. maybe it's the oversized clothing, the massive mittens/unusable hands, the impermeability/flop-on-down-ability. i dunno, but i like it.  i felt like i was in a painting, or in the best scene from the best, most hopeful, subtle movie ever. yeah - there's something weirdly hopeful for me about when it snows, how it changes the landscape you know and take for granted, how everything suddenly falls into shades of white, grey, and brown - sometimes a little orange; how the world you are so familiar with suddenly surprises you and feels like WHO KNEW we could have THIS EXPERIENCE here? i was walking through silent WOODS (in brooklyn!) where the snow stacked up on all the branches, leaving the undersides dark brown, and one side of every trunk was puffed with 6" of snow or so.  the lake in the park had frozen almost entirely and was green-grey, in contrast to all this white/brownness. this doesn't make for a very interesting story, methinks. but i was so crazily MOVED by this long walk i took in the snow. it was so QUIET. so thought-provoking. i was elated. i notice i feel similarly when it rains / pours. [do you guys experience this love-of-precipitation?] i like how a natural phenomenon just stops everyone in their tracks and brings us all to the same wide-eyed experience.  cool.  [wow - and incidentally, Loudon Wainright just sang a song on FressshhhAiirrrr with Terri Gross called "Grey in LA" - which is all about how the best days in california are grey, cuz there's just too much damn sun there -- WHICH echoes my main complaint about that state / and my main love affair with this one: seasons and the moody awesomeness of a landscape and sky that has more than one happy-go-lucky mood.] rant!

in other news. i've been thinking a lot about writing lately. i've been writing since i was 7 or something, keeping dumb journals (not unlike this one!) and i just remembered, i used to write POEMS in elementary school and even "performed" one (lengthily!) on-stage when i was 11. i thought rhyming was the coolest. anyway - i got to asking myself questions like What is the point of writing? Why write? What do i have to say? and while i (clearly!) don't know what i have to say, i realized the urge to write is really at the crux of things -- like, you could ask any painter, photographer, sculptor, musician "Why do your thing?" and i think the answer would be something along the lines of "i just feel like i want to" or "i can't help it." and then the message or experience for the end-user is secondary? i always struggle with this question of what-to-say, and i asked a writer-friend (a pro) how she knows what to write about, and she said "it's not a question of knowing what to write about. it's about writing everyday, and following what is going in an interesting direction." i felt so dumb after she said it. like i had just learned the alphabet yesterday and been given my first pencil. so obvious. any artist i've ever talked to says discipline - a daily ritual - is the place where inspiration is born. i tend to get a lot of inspiration and never apply any discipline to it, and i think i've been going about things backward. in any case.

i just ate chickpeas (cooked with fennel seed!), mixed with garlic-mayo and hot-peppers-in-oil. so damn good. it's always good eating around here when i can't seem to get to the store for any fresh stuff and i have to start getting creative with the LEGUMES that sleep in the cupboard for months on end.

bye!

a question, security and ferocity

i just tried to make a title for this post - but i have no idea what it's going to be about - so i'll wait until the end. i'm thinking it might be loosely based on an INTENSE and kinda frantic writing session i just had. the basic gist of it, as i get knee-deep in romantic intensity and what-not, was the question: WHAT DOES A COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP GIVE YOU? and i think for most people it might give something a little bit illusionary. i want to hear other peoples' thoughts on this topic. my notion is that humans chase the [false] idea of Security and Stability all their lives — in relationships primarily, jobs secondarily, and then maybe kids terti..arily [i.e. the Security that comes with knowing part of your genes will carry on after you're dust, and they get down to the business of living life that maybe you yourself abdicated in the pursuit of providing-for-your-gene-carrier, etc]. i feel a little bad writing this, b/c the one person i think who reads my blog is a parent - and i am not intending to breeder-bash (at all!) (i still toy with breeding meself, don't laugh), i just think the topic of kids is germane to this idea of Security-seeking — which appears to be the point of the post, so i have to say it.

ANYHOW. we all die. it's a fact. and it's not just life that ends, EVERYTHING ends eventually. The flan you just ordered, the clean tub you just scoured, the high feeling from the superfun night you had with your friend, the close connection you're feeling to a person/any person, the inspiration you got from that art show, the feeling of security you have when there's money in the bank, an earth that's not quaking, a town that's not war-torn, etc. all these things, i believe, come to an end. which is to say EVERYTHING comes to an end. yet humans chase this idea of the NeverEnding. i would venture to say most humans spend the bulk of their time trying to secure things that are by definition ephemeral. which, when i think about it, feels like a monumental and yeah, tragic waste of time and energy. to really come to terms with the fact that NOTHING is secure, that you are completely and irrevocably insecure, seems like a sort of key to the kingdom, to me. like, then you can actually spend your time and your energy and your life pursuing the things that make you feel alive — rather than trying to run from things that remind you of death, which be comin, no doubt. to get secure in the insecurity, such that you can go forward and PLAY with life, seems like a really good idea. and honestly, the only true way to live.

i'm just speaking for myself, obviously. this isn't meant as a polemic against people who want to find security, cuz I GET IT. i've been doing the same thing my whole life. and now that i'm in a relationship, i feel these weird, irrational tugs to try to secure this partnership in some way, to make myself not feel afraid of its (eventual, let's be honest, one way or another) ceasing. and this is what's leading me to ponder these ideas. and the biggest question that comes out of it for me [and i want to know what others think, for real] is WHY ATTACH TO ANOTHER? and the best reason i came up with for why i feel attracted to this fella, outside of all the aforementioned security/comfort reasons (which are nice, for sure, if not fantasy-derived) is that he actually lives in a way that i want to live. namely: courageously, playfully, engagedly. he finds inspiration and joy and fun and interest in everyday things. and he challenges his mind on nearly every point he or anyone else makes. he is rigorous in his enjoyment and rigorous in his contemplation of things. it feels like he lives pretty fully. this isn't meant to be an anthem to his coolness, i am just trying to sort out the reasons i have personally — the ones i can really get behind, rationally i mean — for being in a relationship. and i guess it IS like i said comfort for one, inspiration for two AND, a third is that this level of intimacy is the closest any of us get to living in another person's skin. which is sort of like a dream-come-true. how to have a life-experience that is not your own -- that is a real trick. and i think we can become so much smarter, so much cooler and funner and more compassionate and all-around wiser, by seeing out the eyes of someone else. this is a trite point perhaps, but still a cool phenomenon. and one you don't get [i know from experience!] chilling in your own world on your own couch by your own damn self. hmmmKAY?!

okay - i guess that's all i have to say on the matter. i went on for 6 pages in my journal around this topic, and it bled into all different areas, pretty fun. oh yeah, and the word i took away from my journal writing was FIERCE. i feel like a Fierce life would be one that totally embraces this idea that nothing can be contained or grasped, and so we have nothing to lose, and so we have nothing to fear, and so we follow every instinct, idea, spark that gets us going. we live big. in open air, like birds or something. we're alive while we're alive and we'll be dead when we're dead — not trying to escape death while we're alive. not a poetic ending.

i dedicate this song...

I can't decide which thoughts and feelings are the biggest right now. But i will say that i am wildly, heart-clutchingly grateful for the relative EASE and PEACE i've been feeling the last few days. it's weird how we forget the truth in the old adage about this too shall pass and all that — why is it so hard to imagine feeling any different than we do at the moment? Every emotion feels terminal. I guess there's also fear involved, which only makes things seem more desperate, more bound-for-hell. in any case (i can't decide if i'm converting to a Titlecase kinda gal or if i should just stick with my usual lc style) - things have shifted. And i get a little surge of adrenaline at even the GALLING ASSUMPTION... life is truly so weird, people.

what helped. for one, the tools i discussed last time. for two, being BUSY. my kingdom for a full schedule these days. i'm unemployed at the moment and boy does my idle mind go to bad places lately... also, FRIENDS, SISTERS, STRANGERS. i have a bad habit, when i'm all raw-and-open like this, of telling every damn person what is going on with me. and luckily people are really nice. but the best people to hang around when my head is spinning out are those that always shock me into some kind of understanding. i'm thinking of one friend in particular. he has a very matter-of-fact style always, and it is damn comforting to hear that man say "Sounds normal," and "It'll pass," with his signature eye-close and wipe-away-turn of the head.

This is not the most inspired blog, because i'm about to THERAPIZE, people, so i'm a bit distracted, but i find also that the other thing that helps is working these tricky mindbits through in a (semi-) public sphere. not that anyone is reading it even [thank you if you do!], but it feels loads more productive, somehow, than simply bleeding onto my journal YET AGAIN. i am feeling less and less certain of the purpose of my journalling. it's one place to work through things, but i am starting to recognize in myself a real penchant for screwing-around-in-one-fucking-place-forever. to wit: 20 years of emotional romantical solitude. sorry, Dave! maybe i should write a Willie Nelson style cover To All the Men I Couldn't Love Before. might be helpful.

i believe that is enough for now. thank you and good night.

holy hell.

hi everyone. i'm terrified. i don't mean this in my usual, hyperbolic assessment of some new (relatively) trifling work or personal situation. i mean this in the WILL-I-EVER-BE-THE-SAME fright that only a long-denied, wholly unexpressed childhood fear can elicit. turns out, i have never before experienced panic. or at least not in my adult life.* ... but this is something i feel best described by the phrase "bone-rattling." literally, my bones shake. my organs shake. i shake. it's fear. the subject / content of which is probably less interesting than the phenomenon itself. let's just say, in short form, it's about getting hurt (again) in romance. startlingly singular and fascinating, i know! i'm the first person ever! so... the mystery of my two solidly single decades is solved, at least - or on the way to being so. this is progress, i have no doubt about that. but fucking HARD-FOUGHT (and not yet entirely won) progress. mother of god. i didn't know people could feel this way. what follows is not a cry-for-help, NOT YET - it's merely an expression of a new kind of understanding: i now understand why people off themselves. poor david foster wallace. i can't even imagine the pain. i've been reading his "a supposedly fun thing i'll never do again" essay the last few days; the weird thing is that everyone feels connected to that guy. how can someone so observant and warm and hearty and hilarious and weird not feel the love back? how could we all adore him and his thoughts so much [and by association his person] without him feeling this love? what happens in us / to us / between us that keeps all the understanding-magic from inhabiting us or eachother? anyhow, back to my suffering. cuz like i said, that is fascinating stuff.

i've been reading / listening to / talking alot about fear lately. the buddhists compare fear to a dream where, e.g., you're being chased by a tiger and you fully believe it to be real until you wake up and then of course realize "it was just a dream" - and the terror instantly vanishes into nothingness. they say our thoughts and stories and fears are exactly the same, except that it's harder to pull back the shade of fiction, because we live in it and are committed to it on some subconscious level. where we all agree consciously (and subconsciously) that dreams are not real. neurobiologists say that the amygdala, which houses our fear and emotional center, connects only in a one-way street to our pre-frontal cortex, where reaction-decisions are made -- a major superhighway from fear to action. the reverse path, however, whereby we can make decisions and reverse the fear response or alter it by the force of our reason, is only connected by a series of small, bumpy, winding, unpaved backroads. i like the idea of trying to pave this road.

the odd thing about this experience, about fear, is that much of the trauma comes from the fear itself. it's the fear the body reacts to - that's why the raised heartbeat, the sweaty forehead, the numb limbs, the burning chest and gut. which, it usually turns out, is the extent of the negative experience. it's all right there in that moment, when you have a scary thought and your body responds. the next, crucial step, from what i am gathering, happens when you indulge that thought and extrapolate out a life of lonely devastation and perpetual sweating. that's when the mind starts to lose its hold. the purpose of the mind is  to protect the body from such traumas, so it comes as no surprise that a "crazy" experience takes hold as you fully experience the fear. your mind is logically arguing that you GET THE FUCK AWAY, but for whatever reason, you're in it. and now your body is in charge, bearing the brunt of the mind's vomit. i never thought about that: fear is the mind's puke. and it actually feels just like that, come to think of it. the mind does not know what to do with fear other than RUN AWAY and protect. this is the superhighway aforementioned. it's instantaneous. it tries to save you.

i've been told recently, much to my dumbly surprised nearly-40-self, that fear is "part of being human. get used to it." somehow i was under the impression that i didn't really so much have any of that. well, joke's on me. some fears are just too big to be unearthed without the help of hormones and luuuurve, turns out.

tools. i have been given a few tools so simple-sounding that you'd almost think they aren't worth listening to or trying. but isn't it always the case that the smartest tools are also the simplest ones? Number One: Breath. When the panic hits, if you can train yourself to be instantly aware of the physical or mental/emotional cues and start to breathe deeply into the belly, you're halfway there. part of the crazy-feeling comes from thinking you're losing your mind, when in fact you've just let fear take over - whose JOB IT IS to get you to run like hell, like we said. so to be able to take a few deep breaths and literally say in your head "oh, fear's here. terror's here. pain is here. hellooooo guys..." makes you YOU again - puts you back in control of the situation. and let's be honest, this is all about control in the end. Number Two: Acknowledge that Love/Life/What-Have-You is larger than the pain and fear you're experiencing. that you, your heart can handle it. Number Three: Tell the scared person (kid?) in you not to worry - that you're in charge now and you know what to do, that a very smart person taught you a very smart system and all you have to do is allow it. Number Four: Use Your Senses. Name 5 things you see, 5 things you hear, 5 things you smell, something you taste (p.s. metal is the taste of fear, i have discovered). this part of the exercise puts you firmly back in your body, in the world, and reinforces that you are alive in this very non-scary room or place, wherever you are. it's a good one. very grounding. Number 5: SEARCH for the fear. look for its remaining hiding place. maybe you feel a little tremble in your belly or a residual burning in your arms/chest or numbness in your calves. the instruction i've been given is to "Let your kind breath touch that spot." Where breath meets terror, terror cannot live. sounds way too simple, but i'm telling you people, it works. BREATH. who knew? all the buddhists, actually.

alright. i guess that's all i have to say on the subject for now. this is quite a trip, an insane-feeling adventure. but i also know that it is leading me down the path to being able to experience virtually ANYthing that life hands me - and hopefully it will even make me smarter to the hidden/disguised fears that have been kind of ruling my life and inadvertently choosing on my behalf for the last 40 years. oy.

*i suppose i panicked a bit in cameroon - my first 3 weeks nothing short of a ghostly dream and me sort of lacily floating through it all sincerely exclaiming to my new international co-volunteers: "do you feel like you're dreaming?"

POST-SCRIPT: my therapist recommends i do a lot of exercise, spend a lot of time around trees, eat alot of root vegetables (potatoes, carrots, beets, rutabagas, etc) and drink "Irish Guiness." no shit. i love her.