drama drama drama.

	Is Dancing Terrorism? quote: While you might say it is scary seeing the weird guy with the spiky hair kissing the buff longshoreman type out in public, it isn't exactly terrorism.
sometimes, i feel like...

at first, i wasnt' going to write about this, because i felt that i was being too harsh.

or insensitive. or something.

but, of course, since i don't believe in repressing myself, i'll write it anyway. the words are harsh and they concern suicide, depression, and online publicity. if anyone is reading this and feels threatened or targeted, that's your problem.

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i was thinking recently about closing this site... i wondered about the purpose of keeping an online journal, and had almost come to the conclusion that it would make more sense not to. after all, in order to be honest with my feelings, i stay anonymous [relatively speaking]. i am proudly not a cam-boy or a linkwhore or whatever... although i may break down eventually and post a pic of myself for some strange reason. still, no one will find my real name attached to this blog through a search engine, and i intend to keep it that way.

the basic premise is this: casual snoops don't need to know.

i was perusing my semi-irregular blog readings, and i came across someone that i had been relatively fond of reading up until a few months ago, maybe longer. this person has tons of psychological issues and loves to spout about them all over her web site. i must admit, it was an entertaining read until i realized that she seriously has problems. i felt strange reading about her daily life, as if i was peeking in her bathroom window. the one-way dimension of the communication started to disturb me a bit, and her obviously strained attempts at self-expression were becoming somewhat monotonous to read.

so i took a break from her online persona and stopped reading her blog for a while.

recently, i decided to visit her site again through a link from another blogger who i read from time to time, and i noticed that this time she was trying to open herself up to the world for some reason -- to "be more honest". i liked the idea, so i kept reading.

one topic in particular that came up was that of suicidal thoughts and their related manifestations in the life of this particular individual. i thought, "hm... i feel that" so i wrote her an email empathizing with her apparent inner turmoil and the fact that i too, at times, grapple with the issue.

i had emailed her a couple of months before with some "feel better"-type message, not realizing that her problems ran so deep. i admit that most of what i wrote in the first message was upbeat -- not exactly the type of thing that is appropriate if a person is considering suicide [information that i was not privy to at the moment]. having felt a particular resonance with her recent writings, my most recent email was more expressive, kind of like saying "damn... you know what? me too". no well-wishing or creative navel-gazing this time around.

so i found it strange when she wrote basically a "fuck off" entry in her journal, as if somehow her privacy was being invaded by all the 'well-wishing strangers' or some similar nonsense.

my curiosity is this:

if you don't want people that who don't know sending you emails, why do you post your email address on your web site?

if you don't want "strangers" reading about your inner life, why do you keep a journal on the world wide web?

at least password-protect the site if you're going to be obsessive about "privacy" [which mostly an illusion if you've got your first name plastered all over your web site].

it seems to be a bit disingenuous that someone would write about their problems and then try to fake surpise when people actually respond to it. if you crave attention, just admit it to yourself. i bet that being a cam-girl is fun... you get to pretend that you're cute and if you know that people are watching, it's even better. writing about post-adolescent angst is fun too, especially if you can pretend that you really don't enjoy the attention that you bring to yourself by writing about all the drama in your head at the moment. but it reeks of two-facedness to pretend that you don't bask in the role of the sad little flower admist a raging storm in front of an audience. this is the world wide web. yes, people are reading what you write. and guess what, if you use the right words, "big brother" might be one of your biggest fans. regardless: that pouty, overwrought "but i didn't know you cared - please stop" act is more than just bullshit -- it's an insight into how you treat the people around you.

i just have a particular distaste for bald-faced manipulation. and to think i fell for it twice.

so grow the fuck up and just be yourself. you know who you are.

footnote: in a year or two, if i'm around to read this, i'll probably be scratching my head, wondering how this could possibly have been so important to me. actually, i'm scratching my head now. i suppose it's really not that important after all.

time: 1.25am

as i sit here typing in deft one-handed mode, i consider myself fairly well-versed in the spanish language.

having gotten up to college-level classes in high school, and always having latino friends meant that a fair portion of my formative years have been spent either learning spanish or hearing it spoken. from my last job, the dominican guys are the only ones i still keep in touch with. it just happened that way.

so when i realized that it actually was my thumb that i had managed to slam in the car door tonight after saying good night to my friend [who was driving], it really wasn't all that surprising that the first word out of my mouth was an astonished "conio".

i was actually rather proud of myself.

something i wrote on 2.01.2002
»» it's been languishing in the memo section of my palm desktop.
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I think my mind moves too fast.

Problem: I feel that if my mind moves at less than "as fast as possible", then I will fall behind and waste my time. Time is all that a person has, the only way that a person can measure what has happened, is happening, and will happen. But it may be that the concept of time is an illusion -- a convenient means of making a structure out of that which is not inherently concrete. It may be that life and existence itself are not "things" at all, not marks on a calendar or entries in a journal, but rather a single moment, infinitely changing.

Anyway, my mind races here and there, grasping, confused, spinning but never finding its axis. From my observations of other people, many other people live their lives without even realizing that they are confused. My confusion is that I often feel that life is a freight train zooming past, churning by in a faceless blur of moments. It is as if I need to find a way to jump onto the train without losing my life in the process. As a result, I often end up with over-compensation and the inevitable sense of having added a layer of complexity rather than removing the undesirable aspects. Revealing clarity should be simple, right?

This is the dilemma of the logical mind. In everyday life, the mind is shown all of these gleaming examples of superior human organization and the wonders of scientific thought. The corporate business structure, the pseudo-democratic process, the tightly controlled "free media", are just a few inescapable aspects that are omnipresent in my daily life. I have been taking a break from computer programming and design studies in order to refresh my mind, instead choosing to meditate, read, draw, and recuperate from the winter blahs. I finished a few books and went on to re-read some others that I had neglected to maintain an active memory of. My choice of reading centered largely around martial arts, zen and similar topics, and I came to realize the amount of mental exertion that I submit myself to even on a subconscious level. With the spring semester at school in its beginning stages, I feel this drive to make it happen this time. It's my money that I'm sinking into this; my time, my effort. My life.

It's not that I feel any localized stress; in fact, I feel relatively calm throughout most of my day. The problem is that I feel a sense of overall pressure. The only person that matters regarding my schooling is me; I intentionally keep it to myself so that none of my family is involved. Their presence is more meddlesome than helpful. Or rather, I should confine that to my mom and brother; my father invests nothing in me any more, and I've learned that his authoritarian presence is a stress unto itself that I do better without.

Too much control makes a person feel like a roped calf or a cat with its back to the wall. That sensation is exhilarating and challenging at first, but it is a trap that eventually suffocates creativity and drowns motivation in a morass of obligations, deadlines and self-neglect. Just relax, meditate and keep the mind open. Learning to flow with the emotions and thoughts, letting them pass, is a subconscious skill. That is the way to eliminate unnecessary tension. Feel the thoughts as they rise and let them go before attaching the weight of obligation to them. I could put it this way:

I am already thinking of this thing, it isn't necessary to remind myself that it is there, and then to again remind myself to pay attention to it, and then to go farther in giving it a priority that I will use to order my thoughts in the future.

All that processing just for one thought or idea! No wonder I get stress headaches, the kind that make you want to close your eyes and sleep it off. My brain is trying to tell me to shut up and stop trying so hard...

I think that the conscious mind is the final destination for thoughts, the place where the upper layers of mental function are processed. The vast majority of thought takes place far out of the reach of conscious thought, but it seems that social conditioning toward logic and rational order eventually supercedes the natural mental processes. This creates stress. The very idea of a discrete "thought" is the creation of a logical structure to define something that is not originally separate from anything else in the mind. The essential quesion arises: where do thoughts come from?

I imagine that they come from deeper mental structures. These structures can be felt, not made.

Ah well. Back to meditation.
Ripping off layers to find the roots.

wherefore art thou

thinking to myself [again],i wonder where exactly it was that i made that wrong turn.

i was on my way to realizing a positive sense of self, doing what it was that i felt would make me who i want to be. and then something happened, i made a turn, and ended up not far from where i started. it happened during the first attempt at college, i think... or rather, after the first attempt.

during the break after fall 1999 semester, my freshman year of college, i came back to live with my parents for the nearly month-long vacation. i had been dorming at school up to that point, enjoying the freedom of being away from the constant nagging, fighting and aggravation of the past. i had been working out as hard as possible, as often as possible, and i felt strong and motivated. my grades weren't all that bad, and i knew things would get better as long as i stayed focused.

having returned "home", i realized that compared to dorming and being in a city environment, being out in the middle of Bumblefuck, SuburbanUSA had some serious disadvantages. no big deal, i thought... i'll just take this month off, and start fresh next month when i get back to school. Of course, upon returning to school things shifted just a bit to another perspective.

that perspective was a very painful kind of introspection. the kind of introspection that makes you ask yourself just what the fuck do you think you're doing? over and over and over and over and over. of course there is no answer that can pacify that open sore of a question, because the question itself is a "why" question -- "why" are you doing what you are doing. "why" questions only have answers if you let them have answers. if you give up and say "ok, that's why". otherwise, the question just keeps gnawing at you.

i dragged myself through the second semester of school, taking more pleasure from the time spent with friends and writing code on my spare time than from studying. martial arts was still foremost in my mind, but that in itself wasn't enough to drive me into the future anymore.

at the end of the semester, having just barely eked by, i came back "home" again, and immediately felt the distance that the months away had put between myself and everyone that i used to know... indeed, everyone that i had purposely shut out in an attempt to forget what had come before. i had no use for the memories of my childhood, nothing that i wanted to keep. i didn't want the friends that i had made in the past to interfere with the dreams i had for the future. fuck it, i thought, i don't need them, and i sure as hell don't want them... all i could think of was the bad memories.

so i spent the summer vacation thinking about getting to get back to school, but in midsummer, the dream was bashed into a false hope, an impotent hallucination. i had been depending on my parents and substantial financial aid to pay for school, and suddenly my father announced that his attempts to start a business were failing. of course, the message was masked in a whole life's worth of optimistic bullshit, but essentially, that was the point. suddenly, i had to go to work just to rescue any idea of going to school, but more importantly, i had all of those loans to pay off because my parents didn't even have the money to pay for those. suddenly the focus had shifted from my education to my father's crapshoot business venture. i thought i could take it in stride -- while i should have been sleeping through computer science classes, i had been teaching myself html and javascript, and some graphic design. i could be a web designer - that would make good money.

over the next two years, i worked doing some web design, some knowledge management work, some administrative assistant work, etcetera... i became a wage slave. go in to work as the sun comes up, leave work as the sun is dropping from the sky. i still kept up with martial arts; in fact, one of the stipulations of my hiring was that i be able to work my schedule around leaving early some days if necessary. the salary was shit but i couldn't see myself going gray-haired like the nine-to-fivers shuffling to and from work every day... i had to keep some aspects of myself intact, even though i had to wear the company-regulated dress code. fuck that - i would loan them my body, but i couldn't let them take my mind.

after my stint as a desk jockey was over this past fall, i enrolled back in school in the city [ different school ] . the tuition is cheap, but every day the question rings in my ears like the worst tinnitis.... why?

and so now, it's called academic probation. when i got the letter in the mail, i just laughed. sometimes this life just needs to step back and breathe for a minute. i don't tell my parents about this because it's my money i'm wasting on school, paying thousands of dollars for an "affordable" state-run education, quickly running my funds down to zero while looking for a job that isn't there, going to lectures with over a hundred students and professors who really don't give a fuck... the last thing i need is "mom and dad" talking all that moralistic bull-shit in my face. and then there's this slightly violent temper of mine. all the zazen just makes it harder to reach, but i still feel the anger rising sometimes.

the funny thing about meditation is that it just lets you listen to the thoughts go by -- there is no fundamentally moral aspect. i'm not a particularly "better" person after meditating, but i can better choose which thoughts to listen to...

isn't it frustration that drives the human mind to create? is it more a question of which direction you are frustrated in rather than what your particular aptitudes are?

ah, these damn questions.

audio: faithless.muhammad ali

I remember being at a funeral some time ago and I heard the remark that

"Funerals are not for the dead. They are for the living."

At the time, I only saw one interpretation of that statement. But now I see that there are many others.

When I die, I would like for those who understand to celebrate my life, not mourn my death. Mourning is such a waste -- almost as if to lament the unspent potential of the deceased individual. One's own failures and unlived dreams projected into sightless eyes of the "dearly departed".

The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long ...

The interesting aspect of that cliche is that no matter how you live, the equation is still balanced. Live fast or die slowly, it doesn't matter. The quality of the life lived is the only real variable. As far as I can tell so far, the only determinant of a life well-lived is how close to the present you can sustain -- how can I enjoy life if I'm always looking forward to enjoying it later?

and so.

i was thinking of going to this party out in the city tonight, but then i called up a friend that i wanted to go with and he wasn't home. the party ends at around two am, so i figured it's kinda late to be just heading out now. i would get to the party around an hour from now, probably later than that, actually. not much time to get into any kind of groove...

then i got to thinking about what my real reasons were for not going to the party. thinking about that annoying "what if" that nags me every so often, i thought, "what if my friend was home and said 'sure, lets go'"? would i have gone? pondering that idea for a minute, i thought to myself, "probably so". i think that most likely i would have gone, if only for the sake of having company while out.

but then i thought to myself that this is actually a limitation. applying the idea to the various other parts of my personality and 'self' that i could have made contigent upon the presence of a friend [or otherwise co-conspirator], i realized that:

many of the things that make me who i am are things that i have done alone.

in other words, if i had decided to be accompanied by friends when making the decisions that led me to my current state of mind and body, i would not be who i am. examples:

i most likely would not be a martial artist,
  i would probably be supporting a psychological addiction to weed or ecstasy,
i would probably be lazy,
  i would probably have a couple of STDs by now,

etcetera etcetera.

on the other hand...

i would probably be more socially well-adjusted. but then, i think i'd probably be a mean drunk...
  i would probably have more sex than i do now,
        i would probably be either in-the-closet or homophobic,
i would probably be a jaded raver-boy and take "the scene" way too seriously,
  i would probably have decided that the way of the world is right, i.e. --
                marriage is good,
                having my "shit together" would be a looming priority,
                my parents are right because of their immense "life experience",
                being safe is more important that being alive,
                having children and a "family" is my duty in life.

and so on.

the mind turns back to the original concept. who would i be if i depended on my friends for my sense of identity?

my answer is that most likely i would be a very different person. i think that to an extent, i have chosen a path for myself in life... kind of an individualistic path... not very communally driven. actually no, by definition, as a human being, i am part of a society. to say otherwise would be for me to lie to myself. but having considered that, i also think that i am more inclined to observe the workings of society from the standpoint of learning than of participating. i think the development of that outlook has been as much the product of the social environs that i grew up in as much as a conscious choice that i made over the years. isolation was an unfortunate consequence, one that became a lifestyle choice. but more about that another time.

the idea that i arrived at through my musings was that there are two things that having a friend present could do for me:

a. psychological support- having another person that i know to be a "friend" with me has the aspect of reinforcing my sense of self-importance -- self-esteem in the face of society. indeed, to an extent, i believe that it only takes two individuals to create a society between themselves.

b. physical safety- the old fallacy of strength in numbers.

i see the idea of psychological reinforcement as a weakness of the mind; an individual is no stronger when he/she has someone to agree with their point of view than if he/she were standing alone. mob consciousness emerges from the desire to be one among many -- it is easier to be agreed with than it is to use your own mind to form an intelligent opinion, particularly if standing alone is the result.

illusion=something that cannot be empirically proven
delusion=the desire to believe in an illusion

feeling comforted by having someone nod their head at your worldview seems to be more delusion than truth to me.

and the idea of physical safety has some truth to it, but it seems more sensible to just steer clear of situations that seem potentially inflammatory... find a place with a good vibe and everyone will be better off for it. if trouble follows you anyway, deal with it and move on.

so then -- the next time i want to go out and party, if i don't have any friends who can/want to go with me, i will just go myself, and make new friends when i get where i'm going. even so, it is important to keep in mind that what i find beautiful and inspirational is just that; the presence of others is a lucky coincidence and a happy one at that. but nothing more.

or am i just fooling myself?

aha ha... crazy bastard i am.