The Society Which Valued Failure

 What  would a culture that values failure as much as ours values success, look like?

Your first thought might be that it wouldnt be a culture at all, it would all just fall apart...

But think for a moment more, our emphasis on success has not eliminated the existence of failure,

why would their emphasis on failure eliminate success?

They would celebrate their failures, jubilantly orating their wayward experiments and boasting of their furthest falls. Success would still come, but it would be met with groans and eyerolling. The results would be applied, but no time or energy would be wasted in reveling in one's own success, there's no time for it, more mistakes and failures must be made!

Darko Don

 A motorcycle barrels down a side road in a suburban neighborhood as my thought process and feelings  surge with the realization of how lucky I am to have my parents. They are my guardian angels. This is not an idealization, I am painfully aware of their flaws and shortcomings, but if it were not for them, I would be under a bridge, or in a cave, or in some shithole dumpster gutter somewhere...

Working through "this".
Whatever the fuck "this" is. "This" that keeps me from being able to live like everyone else. It isnt just an injury, the injury and pain I sustain every day is but the surface of something I cannot define.
I swear I tried. I really did, but something in me fucking screams at the 9 -5 monotony. It screams in retaliation to the bullshit rat race, run in place, chase the dream that someone else sold me, con game.
The carrots which usually are enough to lure the asses, are carrots that I dont fucking care about. I tried to make myself care about them, I really did.
If I could tell you what that "this" was, I would.
If I could tell you which carrot would work for me, I would.

There is this whole notion that we must carve ourselves from stone,
or to build ourselves up,
or to choose who and what we are,
but it has never been or felt like that for me..

Sure I tried to, but it always felt like bloodly knuckles on concrete .
Instead, it has been a process of reflecting,
discarding, and discovering.
reflecting, discarding, discovering.
Reflecting. Discarding. Discovering.

Reflecting on what is present within me,

discarding that which is no longer in congruence with my current perspective,
and then discovering...

Discovering how I really feel about something.
I dont decide how I feel about it.
I can decide, but that decision is just a layer ontop of how I actually feel about something.
Those layers can be built with reason, bargaining, perspective shifts. magical thinking, religiosity, all those tools we use to change how we actually feel about something, to how we think we should feel...
it is only after we come to see and accept the foundational layers of ourselves that true change can take place.


Perhaps thats why most people burn out at 40 or 45,
they were all living by the "build ourselves up" or "carve ourselves from stone" bullshit
and so they built their layers ontop of foundations of emotions, desires, and beliefs with which they actually had no awareness of, and those feelings were in stark contrast to the lives they had built and the choices they made. The foundation shows through eventually, and when the structure atop it is not in congruence with its fundamentals...well, thats when it all comes crashing down...

I see my friends, and its already too late. We are at hour 2 of the zombie movie, and they've all got bites...
They've already put too much on the line, the ante is huge, and even though they could fold, what would they do? Its not my place to say these things to them, I'll just love them, and let nature take its due.

The Love of Alley Cats

 We were just two lost streetcats.
It must have been a storm, otherwise there would be no way for us to tolerate another being in our presence.

So close, that the echos of our hearts, though soaked in subterfuge, exchanged secrets messages against the best wishes of our minds.

The streets taught us over and over how painful it can be to trust, to dare, to love...Yet on that night we somehow found ourselves too close for comfort.

Through the discontent, our minds and bodies melted.

The storm broke, and as the morning sun came, we hissed each others names.
Hair standing straight up, backs arched, and fangs bared.

Each slowly backing away,
as if there was never a storm,
as if we had never shared that moment,
backing away to the cruel street corners from whence we came.

6/20/2015

 

To be pushed to the edge. To have all of your seams pulled and squeezed simultaneously to the point that you cannot decipher if you will explode or implode.

This is the place, the mental space where we test our mettle. Where and when we know what we are made of and what we stand for.

You never know your true potential, the depths of your essence until you are there, hip high in the middle of hell's fury, heaven's draw, and the chaos of the present moment.

Do not hide. Do not focus on the end, nor the beginning, nor things yet to be. Be present and grit your teeth. Let it in. Feel the metamorphosis of sensations rising, falling, and transmuting like waves of sand, to fire, to water, to substances unknown.

Mātariśvan

 My eyes are moths
and all the screens are flames.

I know they are blinding me,
but I cannot deny their light.

Bound and transfixed,
the screens get bigger,
the stars fade from night skies,
and the miracle of the milky way
becomes just another mystery whispered-
from an old forgotten age.

Sleight of Mind

 The ego is the left brain's greatest attempt to fool you into believing that you are it.

The secret, the answer, the truth, the solution,

these things lay not within the brain,

they are of the being.

They are in and of the body.

The answer does not come by means of mouths and words,
but by bodies, movement, feelings, openings, and experiencing.

Media Barrage

Constant sensationalism decreases our sensitivity and capacity for nuance.
The greater the distance between nuance and ourselves,
the greater the distance between ourselves and reality.

The common affliction in both the individual and the collective

 

The root of our political and social problems/conflicts

is of the same nature

as that which is the root of our personal problems/conflicts-

We increasingly rely upon top-down systems as a means of control and regulation.

For example, they are creating legislation to mandate officers do everything within their power to protect the lives of children(among other things)

"https://www.foxnews.com/.../senate-bipartisan-framework..."

This could sound like to some to be a good idea, others may have problems with the specifics of the policy, but both of these aspects are negligible when it comes to the true root of the issue. The problem is the forcing of behavior and action imposed from "above" onto all that which is "below".

If the officers of the Uvalde shooting had truly been of the community, they would have naturally rose up in the face of danger to do anything for those kids.

With the forced policy, at best, youll get officers pretending, and at worst, a growing sense of animosity from both the community and police departments.. You can't top-down force altruistic actions, it is something which arises naturally from the bottom- up. Trying to force it will only continue to create more and more cans of worms of policy and predicaments.

We do this same thing in our daily lives, within our own minds. Some of us are gentle with ourselves, but that is not the norm. One must actively learn to be gentle with themselves and unlearn their self-imposed cruelty. The truth is most of us are tyrants and villains and bullies to ourselves.. whether it be habits we have which we torture ourselves over, or a constant sense of inadequacy with our physical appearance or personality or whatever.

This pattern of top-down emphasis expresses itself through many forms in each of our lives. When we are able to be a bit more gentle with ourselves, to decrease the constant stream of top-down authority and cruelty, life starts to open up more. You start to see more possibilities-

You begin to become familiar with you,

With the gold that lays in sleep, waiting for you in the deep.

Maybe Baby

 Maybe it all will end tomorrow.
Maybe it will all go on forever.

maybe life is far more complex than we could ever imagine- let alone perceive,
maybe its far more simple than what we see.

maybe our effects on the environment are exactly what the earth needs for the future stages of development,
maybe we are just devastating everything..

maybe its all falling apart,
maybe its all coming together.

Maybe I should see a psych about depression.
Maybe depression is a gift.

Maybe everything that happens, the people around, the world at large, is a strange case of the portrait of Dorian Grey..
...Maybe not, and I'm only responsible for me.

Maybe its all bullshit,
Maybe its all true...

Maybe life is nothing but suffering,
Maybe... Just maybe..... its exactly what we need.

and perhaps, between the swaying maybes lay the dynamic dance which reveals the everything,
and maybe its just a dream.

the writing process

 Sometimes when I write,
the words come pouring,
not like a river,
but like fire and flame.

Each word, phrase, sentence-  an inferno of feelings, memories, imaginings, sensations-
all rise and pour forth from my entire being.

It comes in a wave, a rising, an ebbing, then bam bam bam,
as things start to bring themselves to a close,
I find the words I had just writ to be like coal.
They are too hot to touch, still radiating too much heat that I cannot bear the sight of them.

If I were to gaze for too long,
my mind and my ego would begin to plan and plot,
to turn and to say to me,
"oh no my dear boy, lets say it this way instead, surely it will be better received! Others will think you so smart and wise and creative!"
That's when I know it is time to stop writing.