March 14, 2006

March 14, 2006

The Sky Is Gray

...and the wind is pink.

You may have heard these words in an Ernest Gaines short story dramatized on a PBS special. In the book there is a pivotal character who makes the statement that the sky is gray and the wind is pink. A young black man in the south in the turbulent fifties questions the reality around him. He reads the constitution and its words are meaningless. He sees justice in the form of lynchings and he sees equality in the form of poorly maintained facilities for African Americans. He causes quite a stir one day when he announces that the sky is gray and the wind is pink, but he explains that he can no longer take anyone else's words over his own experience since he has learned that other people don't mean the words they use.

I remember reading about the history of america and thinking of all the atrocities of the past as something I was so lucky to have not experienced. The trail of tears, Jim Crow, Japanese interment camps, all the way back to the puritanical 'rule of thumb'. (If you didn't know, the original rule of thumb was a law that a man was allowed to beat his wife with anything thinner in circumference then his thumb.) I thought as a child that we had finally entered into a modern day system of equality, luckily just as i was being born in 1974.

But now i am not so sure. James byrd in Texas, Amadou Diallo and Abner Louima in New York, Matthew Shepard in Wyoming. As much press as these cases have received, what we have yet to realize is that we live in a country that is hostile towards women, homosexuals, Muslims, immigrants, blacks, Latinos, etc. We are living with this hostility around us everyday. I watch women get called bitches and fear for their safety, because they reject lewd sexual advances. I watch gay men and women get persecuted by people who have truly perverse sexual fetishes for humiliation and sadism that just happen to be mainstream. I watch Muslims get harrassed in airports. It just goes on and on. I can no longer think that the world USED to have institutionalized hatred and discrimination.

I am beginning to think the wind is still quite pink.

I am not ranting because I know that I help play my part in maintaining the status quo. I have allowed the value system that maintains hate to seep into my psyche. It's a peculiar country, America. You are free to do anything you want, but yet everybody is supposed to want the same thing...the American dream...its kind of like Henry Ford and his model T...you could have any color you wanted so long as it was black.

And what is that dream anyway? It's not just to have a house and 2.3 kids and a dog...it is to do all this stuff and somehow be better then everyone else...to be special in all the mediocrity and unoriginality which is the traditional American value system. Almost all of us get caught up somewhere trying to prove at least to ourselves that somehow we are better than all these other schmucks grabbing at the same straws as us. "I am noble...I am not like these other poor slobs"...or at least that is what we think. If America has a characteristic sin, I would have to say its vanity...hands down. We are all just like Narcissus trying to gaze upon our own beauty and specialness and trying our best to ignore, if not destroy anything that threatens that perspective. We all want to be the fairest in the land...but the only way to achieve that is to succumb to everyone else's idea of what makes one fair, and that first requires us to enforce that everyone share the same value system in the first place. 270 million people playing and only one guy can win and he is probably not even enjoying it, because he's to busy trying to stay on top of the heap.

Even if you win the rat race...you are still a rat.

-dred

March 13, 2006

March 13, 2006

Slaves and Salvation

I work in Redondo Beach. Beach communities are always a little exclusive, but beach communities in the Los Angeles area tend to be really exclusive. Don't get me wrong...anybody can come down to Redondo Beach and work, shop, or play, but the high rents and the heavy "hands-on" presence of law enforcement insure that by the time night falls, the cities of Hermosa, Redondo and Manhattan Beach are almost exclusively inhabited by young professionals, upper middle class families, retirees who invested well, and a couple of rich kids burning through their trust funds like no tomorrow. There are a few surfers and college students who pile into apartments, and manage to make ends meet just to live down here but they don't stand out much because the last thing you want to be identified as around here is poor.

If you ask most of these people about living in this beach enclave they will tell you that they feel very blessed. I don't know how many young engineers I have met from Purdue and Michigan and M.I.T. who cannot get over the fact that they can play beach volleyball in the dead of winter. But when I look a little closer I see through the facade. I see people trapped by the insulated community they call home. Their identity is so intertwined in where they live that the thought of moving east or south where they might actually be able to afford to buy a home rather then pay the huge rent down here makes them shutter. Oh sure, many own their homes, but even most of these folks are struggling with mortgages that are so massive that they will be working for a long time to pay that puppy off...and what will be their reward at the end of thirty years of mortgage payments? Huge property taxes eating into their life savings. Of course they can always sell that huge liability cum treasure chest they call home, but as I said before, it's tough to admit that you can't keep up with the Joneses and high tail it out of the beach. And let's not forget that these very people who love it here are often scared of their own shadows (too dark i guess), and they just feel like a target walking and driving around in the majority of LA that is multi-cultural and diverse.

I strangely feel at home working here in the beach community. I don't live here, but I feel like more then anyone else down here, I belong...why? Well the beach is all about relaxing, living in the moment, and freedom. But the price of living down here for most is tension, constant worry and the shackles of indentured servitude that these lawyers, engineers, accountants, and investment bankers call careers. I on the other hand work alongside these folks, but I live well within my means and an early retirement looks very possible if I choose to do so. And nothing makes you feel more laid back then realizing that you don't have to struggle with a burden. I guess I am a beach bum with a job.

I have a big presentation tomorrow and it dawned on me that I needed to pick up something from a beauty supply to help me get my hair looking somewhat conservative for the customers. Well you know its hard to fine wave caps, murrays and dax at the Rite-Aid in a city so lily white as Redondo Beach, so I headed east to the other side of the rail road tracks. I drove east toward Hawthorne into Gardena. (Next stop if I keep driving east? "city-city-city-city of Compton-home of NWA and a lot more good people then you might think). It's amazing what a difference a few miles can make. Gardena is a long way from the beach economically. Is that a check cashing establishment I see? How can a place stay in business by just cashing checks anyway? Hey look its a billboard for a strip club. And another and another. Liquor store after liquor store and more fried chicken and '$1 a scoop' Chinese restaurants then you can shake a stick at. (side note: just how much do you have to have of something before you are overwhelmed with fear and wonder at the gargantuan mass before you are unable to shake a stick at it?).

But somehow i feel even more comfortable here in this neighborhood that ain't quite the 'hood where the majority of the people i encounter don't speak english as well as they do some other language. I would have to say this area is almost exclusively light blue collar & small business owners, with an almost perfect ratio (1:1:1) of asians, latinos, and blacks. This place depresses me in some senses. but it invigorates me in other ways. I found it disturbing that there is a store specializing in hip hop clothing (you remember that form of music that was born when kids with no money for instruments got creative with two turntables and a microphone) where all the jeans cost $70 dollars and are emblazoned with somebody's corporate ass trademark in full view. I found it disturbing that there are four "gentlemen's clubs" (there is something princely about the swaggering wannabe thugs and players who i saw out front, but gentlemen is hardly the right word) in walking distance from that hip hop store. Also in walking distance are two local casinos (one casino is owned and operated by Larry Flynt and appropriately named Hustler Casino...gotta get the brand name out there right? Now I wonder if the casinos helps sell porn or if the porn helps attract patrons to the casino or is it a mixture of both).

The people in these communities aren't living below or even close to the poverty line so they do have some discretionary income, but how sad that there is so much of it being shoved across poker tables and and carefully slipped into g-strings. I am always surprised by the cars i see wheeling around in Gardena: Yukons, Expeditions, Lexuses (or is that Lexi?). How do these folks do it I wonder? Afterall, I make twice what teachers make and the thought of covering the note on a $40,000 vehicle makes me cringe. I make pretty good money, but i see no need to trade in my saturn that i bought in college as it still runs well after six years.

I guess what makes me so at home in Gardena is that just this kind of phenomenon: people with new luxury cars driving to Popeye's for a 1.99 two piece of nitrates with some chicken underneath all that batter. Kids dressed head to toe in name brand clothing but bored to tears as there is no money for piano lessons, little league, etc. I guess it is a little sick to revel in all of this, but i can't help it. It makes me feel liberated. Because when I look around I see people who are slaves...slaves to their own insecurity, slaves to their own lack of identity, slaves to their vices, and slaves to their own inability to define success on their own terms. And I am lucky to not be one of them. I have my own vices too I guess, but acceptance is the first step so I try to be vigilant about not slipping into the prison cell that vices so often lead to...

And it dawns on me...I live in the 'hood...Damn near the ghetto. Technically, South motherfuggin Central and that is where I really am at home. Well actually I live in a little place call Lemeirt Park that is really just ghetto adjacent. Its safer then you think, especially if you don't walk around with fear in your eyes or try to demonstrate the excessive wealth you don't have. Live modestly and be kind towards your neighbors, and this place will hold you down like mom's lap. No lie. To know you can go anywhere, in any car, in any clothes and know/embrace who you are and laugh at the ignorance of those who cannot see the regal nature of the person that you are...that is real freedom right there.

I am not done on my journey of liberation. On the contrary, it has only just begun but i am so excited about the fact that I am on my path. It's ironic, but I am almost certain that somewhere in some prison cell there lies a man who has tasted more freedom then you or I have ever known. In the face of losing everything he has been stripped of the shackles of the American Free-Dumb we all use to mentally enslave ourselves. I guess the best things in life are free...but it wasn't until just now that i realized that the best people are too.

-dred

March 12, 2002

March 12, 2002

Object of Desire (Correspondance with DA)

I had a brain fart about Ayn Rand the other day while I was snowboarding...made a mental note to bounce it off of you so here goes.

I was talking to some women the other day trying to explain to them how they can objectify men in the same way that men can objectify women. True, the traditional system of values used by your average American man to objectify women is pretty superficial (unrealistic/narrow-minded physical expectations, paradoxical desire to have women appear to be intelligent and confident, yet at the same time helpless
and uncertain of themselves, her willingness to be submissive or respond to authority). But I remarked to the women that they too have their own system of values that are just as superficial (maybe not in society's eyes) if you define superficiality as something that is "on the surface" and easily observed, but yet has nothing to do with how that person relates to them. Women also value certain physical qualities. I once heard a woman say that a man that isn't taller then her (5'5'' in my estimate) in heels is not a man at all. Women value confidence, self reliance, and they too have a paradoxical desire to have a man be sensitive and empathic but still demonstrate some kind of emotional control or even worse demonstrate a limited emotional range personally.

I remarked to the women that men are no more comfortable with being objectified then women are. We accept the rules of the game and although some of us play harder then
others, few can say that they act completely obliviously to the rules. I know few men or women (none who aren't rather old) who don't allow what the opposite sex finds valuable to influence our own values and actions. We live in an objectifying culture.

I looked up the word objectify and this is what I found:

1 : to treat as an object or cause to have objective reality 2: to give expression to (as an abstract notion, feeling, or ideal) in a form that can be experienced by others - it is the essence of the fairy tale to objectify differing facets of the child's emotional experience

To 'cause to have an objective reality' is to give something a reality independently of individual thought, independent of the mind. The whole ideal of objective reality was really popular in medieval philosophies, but its kind of like a religion in that you just have to have faith that there is a reality outside of the mind. So to objectify something is to really take it from the realm of personal experience to the world of symbols and ideas. Symbols and ideas are good for communication, but I think they fail to produce the truth that human experience does. When we objectify someone we no longer are concerned with our relationship to that person and the nature of that relationship...we are no longer concerned about what we are experiencing or capable of experiencing through them, we have created a system of symbols to communicate what they are to ourselves and to others. So strong can these symbols be, that we give them more merit then what we do experience in regards to that person and we begin to trust the objective reality more then we trust our own human reactions and responses.

Whether the objective reality exists or not is a moot philosophical debate though. The truth of the matter is that almost everyone behaves as if there is an objective reality so we might as well acknowledge that fact. This reality of the collective is so powerful and ubiquitous that most of us (except for babies who have yet to learn to communicate on a sophisticated level and who aren't even aware of their own boundaries yet) are hard pressed to determine what is a part of our own reality and part of the objective reality. The two are intertwined and fused to the point that the individuality of either is impossible to determine. My problem with objective reality is that it supercedes the realm of human experience, yet I am only concerned with my experience as a human. I care not to discover the truth but simply to experience a truth, a personal truth, and although my more romantic self likes the idea of sharing that truth with the world...sharing it is a far cry from enforcing it or being arrogant enough to believe that my personal experiences have somehow come closer to the objective reality then anyone else. The objective reality doesn't serve me...I can only serve it, and somehow my experiences have led me to submit to this objective reality (even if it doesn't exist) in order to get some feeling be it happiness, pleasure, content, peace or whatever.

So anyway, all this thought about objectifying and objective reality got me to thinking about Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand called her system of philosophy Objectivism. She based her philosophy on rational thought (which is one of the sturdiest objects in our objective reality). It appears to me that Ayn Rand was trying to unify human minds so that it would become congruent with the objective reality. Of course this is like trying to shape the land around a bridge rather then build the bridge so that it spans the intended gap. Let me say that Ayn believed the objective reality was static and unchanging and for us to discover through honest, fearless, rational thought. I think that Ayn believed that the measure of a man was their ability to be truthful to this objective reality. If they were truthful enough to the objective reality then all of their experiences would become unified with the value system of the objective reality. Its kind of paradoxical that Ayn believed that it was the clear and unfettered mind that was most useful in discovering the objective reality, the same objective reality that denied the omnipotence of the mind.

What do you think?

-dred

March 6, 2006

March 6, 2006

Hip Hop and Hero Worship

Musicians are pretty much a bunch of guys blessed with good ears who know they will get laid much more often and by much more traditionally attractive women if they use their talent rather then sell insurance door to door.

I guess rappers are what you get when you don't even have the musical talent. Don't get me wrong...I love hip hop...always have...but the world of hip hop is less about music and melody and traditional elements of sonic art, and more about image, attitude, politics, etc. then any other musical genre. (*People who say the word genre make me nervous.*) What does this mean? It means that rather then listening to a song because it has a catchy sound, we are forced to actually pay attention to what the song is about.

So considering that hip hop lyrics are the most often heard, understood, embraced and quoted lyrics of all the popular music forms why are the most popular rappers void of depth and complexity, but merely super macho agressive characatures?

Here is my theory: The majority of hip hop superstars portray themselves as these uber-players born of the projects and ghettos who have transcended poverty and hopelessness to situate themselves at the top of the foodchain. So many brag about their heartlessness, their skill at exploiting women, sexual prowess, cunning, thuggishness (is that a word?), business acumen, material possessions, street wise ways, etc...sounds like a pretty dispicable person unless you are a young teenage male in this country. Then these men are your heroes.

And it occurs to me that perhaps the rappers are our epic heroes and the rappers we embrace are just a representation of our own beliefs about what an epic hero should be like.

Just as the rastafarian holds Bob Marley up as an epic hero, I believe our youth are holding up Jay-Z, Ja Rule, and Eminem as the higher visions of themselves. They picture themselves wealthy like Jay, lucky with the ladies like Ja, and flippant like Marshall. Afterall, to a teenager these men seem like masters of the universe as followers of some ghetto code of ethics that includes 1) carrying a general resentment for women (save your mother or your sister) but at the same time being able to sleep with any and all of said woman 2) ostentatiously displaying one's wealth while holding onto the world view, perspective, survival tactics, etc. that result from destitution and poverty 3) emotional indifference (except for anger which is acceptable) with the exception that sadness and remorse can be expressed toward fallen comrades. There are more rules to this code...but the code is strict and instead of Lancelot and Guinevere, we have Biggie and Lil' Kim...goodie goodie!

-dred

March 6, 2006

March 6, 2006

Saving Friendship

I just got off the phone with RW. RW is one of my greatest dearest friends. He no longer lives here in LA. As a matter of fact he has been living in Phoenix now for more then half the time I have known him. RW and I met at a random pool party 4 1/2 years ago. I don't know how we became such fast friends because our meeting was the kind of meeting you have a thousand times in your life. You are at a social gathering and you strike up a conversation with someone else...you both have probably been drinking a little or perhaps you are just in a good mood because its a relaxing celebratory environment. You talk and debate and perhaps discover common ground, maybe even enough common ground to agree to hang out at a later date, but rarely does that later date ever materialize again.

In RW and I's case, we actually did end up chatting (literally because the common ground we discovered is that we had already probably met anonymously because we frequented the same WBS chat rooms) two days after the party and agreed to go check out a comedy club that night. Ever since then we have grown as friends, discovering that we are cosmic twins with spiritual and emotional paths that frequently converge and then diverge only to converge again.

So like I said, I just got off the phone with RW and I am in unusually high spirits. Isn't it amazing how theraputic and invigorating a long talk with a good friend can be.

When I was a teenager I would sit and talk with friends for hours and I am certain that most of those discussions did more to increase my insecurity and lessen my sense of individuality and unique identity. But at the time I thought my friends were the most important thing in the world. They had so much influence over me, and I didn't feel like much without them. Ten years later, I am 27 years old, and I take my friendships for granted all the time, especially people like RW who I don't see very often, but they are actually more important to me then friendship ever was. It's funny but the more you grow as a human and assert your individuality, the more your relationships become rewarding and important. When you are a teenager running with a crowd...many of your 'close' friends can be almost interchangeable although you never believe it at the time. But as you get older, friends carve out unique and special niches that really firmly plant them in your life. Its odd, but you have to give people a unique role in you life before they can even become special to you...otherwise they are just generic and replaceable.

-dred

March 5, 2002

March 5, 2002

Judge and Jury

Have you ever noticed how much time people spend recounting stories to each other in which they have been victimized by someone or there has been some kind of confrontation?

It has been my experience that female teenagers are the masters of this skill. For them, recounting with painful detail all of the events that led to some impasse is an artform, debating all of the nuances of every subtle glance, inflection and word chosen. But almost everyone I know does it from time to time. I can't count the number of times I have marveled at how willing two or more people can be to discuss the minutia of some long since past encounter. Read my last post* if you want to see an example of how much time we can spend recounting some event that went
"wrong" in our opinions.

I don't know what the cause is for other people doing this, but I am certain about why I do it. It seems that whenever I have a confrontation with another human being, I am forced to rationalize my own behavior if I am at all uncomfortable with the events that took place. It doesn't matter who is at fault, who is being selfish or aggressive or if there is some kind of dishonesty or manipulation involved...if there was something painful about the encounter I will relive it.

It seems that most of my "mentally re-living" past events usually involves me taking a stand. Every time I take a stand for myself and refuse to placate someone or submit, and they don't accept my stand, I end up feeling guilty. I assume that every discussion that ends in an unresolved argument or worse is my fault.

Just as it takes two to fight, it takes two to reconcile, but I usually have a hard time not feeling completely responsible and ashamed because i wasn't more understanding or more passive. I end up reliving the events over and over again. criticizing myself for my "all-too-human' responses and emotions.

I tell anyone who I think might be interested in listening my subjective version hoping that they will remove the guilt that my self-convictions create, but rarely do these third parties offer much consolation (which is probably why I just rant to my diary so that I won't bother any of my friends with this nonsense). The worse part is that if I do rationalize to myself that I had to act in my own best interest, I always am left with this feeling of being self-absorbed and arrogant, as if I think I am always right and everyone else is always wrong.

The funny thing is almost all of my confrontations are simply the result of miscommunication and difference of opinion or perspective. I guess wars are fought for the same reason, but America seems more certain about protecting its interests and standing up against its enemies (and anyone they decide to associate with its enemies) then I could ever be. I can't even figure out if I am entitled to being loved and appreciated for who I am. How un-American of me. I can't remember ever feeling entitled to being hostile but America and the majority of her flag waving citizens sure don't have a problem with it. Perhaps the problem is I am Swiss...wanting to remain neutral and be left alone. Maybe FD is right...maybe I am from another planet.

-dred

[*note from mr. wilson: previous post not included in this public archive to protect privacy of referenced individuals]

February 25, 2002

February 25, 2002

Love is Love

While at a coffee shop today, I overheard two young ladies talking. They appeared to be college-aged. In the midst of a conversation that wallowed in negativity, one of them paused to quote, of all people, Ja Rule. She stated matter of factly, "'Love is Pain, Pain is Love' when you think of all the shit that goes along with [love]"?. As much as I am dismayed by the fact that this young lady was looking to a gangster rapper, (whose pre-loverman rants about the joys of murder leave a lot to be desired philosophically speaking) I have to admit that she latched onto a rather thought provoking concept.

I have never been in love in my opinion. I have loved many and, maybe, for very brief stints, been quite enamored with one young lady or another, but I cannot say that I have ever been in love. And the more I think about it, the more I wonder if it's a good thing or a thing to be desired at all. To be in love appears to be a place where, one gives up oneself to a collective. Call it emotional Marxism. And just like Marxism relies on strength in numbers and the greater good of the collective, so does being in love. I have often heard people describe being in love when you become "one". But my immediate question is: which "one" do you become?

Perhaps that is why I have never been in love, because I have never found one who made me that much stronger. Relationships always seems like work to me (and that is because of how I approach them and my own perspective) and I am usually made emotionally weaker. I get no sense of security from the fact that someone is there to love me. Perhaps I already have an adequate amount of love from my family and my friends. Perhaps the love of one person threatens the love of others since being in love requires me to give myself to another (which implies that I am taking myself away from others). I can't call it, but the more I think about it, the more I think that I am just not capable of being in love. And even if I am, its well within my control (and not this irresistible force) and due to the lack of rewards vs. risk, it just isn't the kind of choice I am going to make.

I guess I am thinking about this all too much, but ceasing my debate about it would mean that I was not bringing myself any closer to falling in love. I believe the only reason that I do think about it at all is all of the propaganda that love gets. I have listened to the love songs on the radio and heard the poets at the coffee houses my entire life. They have all painted the state of being "in love" as this huge paradox that creates the greatest sense of elation with this inevitable suffering always lurking in the future somewhere. "One has never lived if they have never been in love," appears to be the consensus of the general populace.

So I have been forced to look at my lack of love analytically in hopes of finding the culprit which has caused it to elude me. The only thing I have been able to come up with is that I agree with Ja Rule (to a certain degree): what most people call being "in love" is eventually a painful experience. The whole process of falling in love is born out a reaction to pain and suffering in the first place. The pain of being alone...we are not falling in love, so much as we are falling from aloneness. But the feeling always returns eventually because we eventually realize that this other individual has not fused with us, but is still as separate from us as they ever were. Hmmm...maybe being in love is just a momentary reprieve from being alone...kind of like how being drunk or high is a momentary reprieve from reality.

The peculiar part of all this is that I still believe the most important part of the human experience is the way we relate to each other. I do not believe that man was meant to be alone, but that we must strive to feel as connected as we possible can to our fellow man. I believe in love and its power, but I just don't believe in being in love...they don't seem that closely related to me at all when I really think about it. Love is a far cry from being in love...they are almost night and day... in love" is a shrinking, contracting action as we fold ourselves into one entity, but love is an expansion (albeit, with its own risks) where we maintain our individuality but still manage to give ourselves to one another. Two completely different motivations, two completely different results...I am reminded of the words of Khalil Gilbran' "The Prophet":

THEN Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage master?

And he answered saying: You were born together, and together you shall be for evermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness. And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf. Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping. For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.


-dred

February 22, 2002

February 22, 2002

unspoken (for TL)

we talk a lot but say little
although we both lie left of middle
why fiddle
with the delicate balance
that would certainly be challenged
by the unabashed honesty we avoid like nemesis...
we make no promises
for we be doubting thomases
not of each other, but of our selves

we find it hard to communicate what we feel,
there is no love poetry for the anxiety that kills
the fleeting seconds of closeness that still
the weeping of two fragmented hearts so filled
with desire to be healed
in this union.

there is no romantic way to relay fear
so we remain delayed here
silent souls on pause
trying to defy natures laws:
every effect has its cause
and change is inevitable
a fact that is hardly forgettable
so why fix our mouths to say this is indelible

regrettable as all this is
we do have these moments that shine
with a radiance so devine
that we think about god more...or at least along the lines
of a higher power or truth that defines
all this uncertainty
thats hurting we

how can i even speak for the both of us
when we are scared to discuss
anything that matters much?

somethings are better left unsaid
and some questions better left unasked
so our love stays masked
behind the muted morass

we call our love...but i forgot, even that remains unspoken.

February 20, 2002

February 20, 2002

I Cannot Believe I Choose This Life Everyday

Its 1:10 in the morning and I am just finishing up here at my office and getting ready to head home. I took a break today to go out to dinner with TL, because I have really felt like I haven't been giving her enough time. The sad thing is that she wants even more of my time and I just don't really have any time to give.

How can I continue to give so much of myself to others when I know that I am not my own to give? I am giving them a shell that they animate with their own perceptions and beliefs. I am not a full person, yet. I am trying desperately to become a full person, but that is why I sometimes fear I am wasting time by giving so much of my time away. Except for my analysis sessions, I feel like I sacrifice the rest of my time to other people or causes. I sacrifice time to my fear of being uncomfortable or destitute by working, to my fear of losing friends who feel ignored, to my ego which pushes me to get in the gym and take care of my body, etc.

I wonder what I would do with my time if money were no object, if friends were going to love me (or not) unconditionally and there was nothing I could really do to intensify or nullify their feelings, if my ego finally took a rest and said that I am worthwhile and not a big fraud in everyway. What would I do then? Maybe I would listen to a lot of music and even try to make some. Maybe I would read more and write more. Most likely I would watch a lot of television and take really long hot showers. I'd probably ger my Onan on a lot too, LOL. But that is all a dream because as it stands right now I am far from learning how to live independent of economics, fickle friends, and my insecure little ego. Sooo, I guess I will continue to dole out my time to all the wrong stuff and wish for my time just for me.

If time is such a rare commodity for me, why am I even trying to keep this online journal? Whose benefit is this for anyway? Do I think that exploring my mind in a forum so public as the internet will somehow be more rewarding or liberating then doing it the way I have always done it (my old fasioned journals)? Probably not...even though there is something liberating about exposing ones' self. Do I think that the world will be impressed with me and my depth and validate me? Not really...I am not doing a very good job of being deep anyway.

I guess my hope (or fantasy) is that somehow I will connect with someone mentally or spiritually. Its my belief that much of human suffering or at least my suffering comes from aloneness and feeling disconnected from the rest of humankind. Spending far too much time in our own minds and the hells we create for ourselves in our own thoughts. The rich world of experience and life lies outside of us as much as inside and its my hope that this will help me step outside of myself...

good luck

February 19, 2002

Febraury 19, 2002

Clouded Futures and Distorted Pasts


I was driving down California Highway 395 on my way back from Mammoth Lakes yesterday, and I saw two very disturbing sites:

1) The first was an historical monument at Manzanar, the site of a relocation center of World War II. Relocation center is a euphemism for internment camp. After an executive order issued in 1942 to intern Japaneese nationals or American citizens of Japaneese ancestry, more than 100,000 people were forced to relocate to one of the ten concentration camps that were eventually built. Manzanar, the first of of these camps, held over 10,000 persons behind barbed wire perimeters monitored by guard towers.

2) The second was a huge lakebed that was virtually dry. Apparantley, this valley just east of the Sierra Nevadas in the Owens Valley supplies a large portion of Los Angeles (100 to 200 miles to the south) city water. Over the last thirty years, this entire valley has been losing lake after lake to the unchecked consumption of Southern California.

These two sites were disturbing enough on their own, but justaposed next to each other they demonstrated an awful reality of the American psyche. It doesn't seem like America can deal with its past nor come to grips with its future. Although, its considered very Zen to live in the moment we Americans do this in a most perturbed way. We decide that we can ignore aspects of our past and impending future that cause us the slightest amount of discomfort.

We congratulate ourselves on our heroic protection of freedom during WWII, when we violated our own laws and the freedom of our own citizens, in one of the most racist and hysterical periods of American history. Its odd that racism always seems to become more acceptable to display and act whenever there is an 'enemy' of America. We never acknowledge our mistakes and we doom ourselves to repeat them and suffer.

We wash our cars and water our manicured lawns in the face of a crippling waters shortage that is less then 20 years away. And do we elect officials who could possibly avert the impending doom and present destruction by changing policies? No because these politicians will raise taxes in order to fund our water sources. We hire the guy who won't raise the cost of living one cent...regardless of what the living is going to be like. The sad thing is that L.A. is going to have to learn to get along without water or find and alternate source eventually anyway. The same problem is going to be staring us in the face in 20 years, but we will have completely dried out a region ten times bigger then LA County in the process, and we won't have a back-up supply of water to help us out while we try to implement a costly solution.

I wonder if we will ever wake from the American dreamstate we are in...

February 14, 2002

February 14, 2002

If All The World Were To Listen To Me

What a daunting task...to write in a forum so public as the internet. All of our lives we spend a lot of time trying to be special, to be noticed, to be worthwhile. Rarely do we think about what we would tell the world if it were to finally turn to us and say, "You ARE special and worthwhile and I care about what you think and feel." I sit at this keyboard realizing the limitlessness of my audience and I am almost paralyzed with indecision about what I should say. But just the mere idea that I could (somehow) connect with others and elevate the human experience through this medium is so exciting that I must type on.

At the same time, I am grappling with a very contrary motivation...the fear of aloneness, the fear of never being heard or listened to or understood. The fear of being ignored or even worse, being insignificant. This journal is just one little speck in the realm of cyberspace and I shall be surprised if anyone stumbles across it and even more surprised if anyone stays for long.

It appears this journal will be written on the emotional fault-line of these two opposing forces. Although I don't generally advocate deluding oneself, I need to suppress both the fear that this exercise is pointless and the awareness that it could be magnanimous. I am going to ignore the external audience somewhat and write this journal for the only audience I am certain will read with interest and that is myself. So this first entry is the last of its kind (for the near future anyway). This will be the only time I really address the external world. All subsequent entries will be (hopefully) more intimate in nature and more stream of consciousness in style.

I suppose that I could give you a bunch of information about myself such as my age, sex, height, weight, ethnicity, nationality, hobbies, education, marital status, etc. Perhaps it would help to establish a frame of reference to understand my entries or just give the reader some perspective. But I think I will leave all of that arbitrary information a mystery for now. After all, background information can mislead just as often as it can illuminate. Besides there is so much more to me than statistics. I am bigger than a bunch of numbers and names and other data that we would use to fill out a questionnaire. I am a human dealing with the same fears and fancies that all humans experience, but yet I am immutably unique, an ndividual, a person. And anyway, when I sit down and really think about the question: "Who am I?" I realize that one never finishes answering that question anyway since we are constantly creating ourselves? in a never ending cycle of self-definition and re- definition. I am sure whatever truth I decide to reveal in cyberspace will come out at a natural pace as I express my thoughts. I will unfold before you just as I unfold before myself.

Serenity