I feel my spine decompressing,
Pleasant thoughts floating through fiberglass,
World war 2 is over and world war 1 is long past (though it still haunts me)
But not now, right now I am feeling and floating, living in the present, a shape in the sheets.
I dreamt I was a boy who happened to be the antichrist. The dream progressed from the time I was a child until I was about 19.
At the beginning of the dream, when I was quite young, a disaster occurred in my home town, and my mother and I had to evacuate. We ended up in an abandoned hospital with other evacuees. I was a finicky kid, so I really hated the leaky ceilings and lack of heat, but when some of the adults went exploring, I tagged along. There was a huge old tower attached to the hospital, and we climbed it. About twenty minutes into the climb, there was some kind of confusion and I ended up alone, to my dismay. As I was searching for them men I had come up with, I found an older black man with a very kind demeanor. I hadn’t seen him before, and he was alone in a room at the top of the tower. He told me I was the antichrist, that I had a job to do, that there was no getting out of it, and then he returned me to the others.
This game has caused an existential crisis in me. What I have done… what I’m trying to do… what I’m trying to become…
I have a long, long way to go, if this is who I am today.
We live in this perpetual state of, “Once I do this, I’ll finally be happy.” We’re constantly trying to overcome some obstacle or better ourselves in some way in order to reach that sweet “happiness” we all crave. But we never really reach it. Sure, we accomplish our small feats and feel content for a moment; but within the few seconds it takes for us to put our hands back down from our celebratory roof raising, we’re already thinking about the next thing we have to do to feel that same rush of happiness and relief again. I guess I just don’t get it. Do we do these things in order to reach some mythical ‘ultimate happiness’ where everything is good and we’re never unsatisfied again? Do we do them because these times are just “the bad times” and once we make it through them we can forever bask in the good times? We waste away our youth trying to constantly make ourselves happier. We move so quickly through the stages of adolescence, convincing ourselves that that’s what the problem is. That once we’re older things will be better, things will be easier, I’ll be satisfied. That’s how we get ourselves into this state, we pushed past our youth to find happiness and since we haven’t found it yet, why not keep pushing? When are people going to realize that “the bad times” are not “the bad times”. “The bad times” are our life experiences and we’re blowing past them in the hopes that one day we won’t feel so displeased with the cards we’ve been given. I don’t know, it’s just a thought really. But recently I’ve realized that I’m blowing past my youth trying to find happiness and I’m losing touch with the present, constantly searching for a satisfactory future. I think I need to change my views of the present. Gil Pender in Midnight in Paris said it best, “That’s what the present is, a little unsatisfying because life’s a little unsatisfying”.
This entire phenomenon is a result of living in the future. We’re taught as kids to plan ahead, think about our future, think about what we want to be when we grow up, how many kids do we want, what our wedding will be like, will this help me to fulfill my plans, and the list goes on. No one is teaching kids about happiness, about living in the present, about being content now. But this is the culture we live in, people are obsessed with the past and constantly planning for the future, and they think that as long as they keep planning for someday when they will be happy, they will be. But their whole lives are spent looking forward to someday, what makes them think that right then, when they are happy, they will suddenly automatically switch mindsets and exist in that happiness? They won’t. And that’s exactly what you’re describing.
I know this because I don’t do this. I live in the present, and I love and exist and am happy now. I plan for tomorrow, and I have a loose plan for the next year, but once I’ve figured it out I stop thinking about it. I write it all down, and I know what I need to do, but it’s usually out of mind. When I walk to class, I am right there, on the sidewalk, under the trees, feeling the wind and the air, and I am nowhere else. I’m happy.
My philosophy teacher “proved” God in class today, God being defined as that which is higher than all else.
His argument was, in essence, that some things are greater than others (ex: humans are greater than ants) so there must be something that is highest above all, perfect, and that is God. Simple, obvious, inarguable, the nature of reality, right?
My problem with this, is that the entire concept of some things being better than other things, the existence of good and bad, these are all moral issues. Morals are the grand result of human subjective thinking. Now, if God is higher than all, including humans, God must be above subjectivity, however, the entire concept of God is based on subjectivity. So, in order to talk about God, we have to think objectively, and thinking objectively, all things are equal, meaning that no one thing is most high, meaning no God. The concept contradicts itself.
paralyzed
blazing eyes
blinding skies
crystal minds
aggravate
can’t relate
underweight
certain fate
minotaur
crowded bar
falling star
crashing car
go green
trampoline
barbed-wire scream
double team
Looking at some meditation journals I did a while back.
January 4th: I identify a change in my personality and display extreme dissatisfaction with it. I identify a cause and resolve to fix it.
January 6th: I identify the rout of the cause and find a path to fix it.
January 9th: I make it to the end of the path, and completely remove the rout of the problem.
Present: The negative trait is completely gone, although I did not notice it’s departure. I’ve been better for at least a week, probably two, maybe more.
It took me little more than a month to completely correct a negative piece of my personality, with no more effort involved than 3 brief sessions of meditation and a blank page in front of me. The unconscious mind is amazing.
You will plunge through the surface as an infant.
You will sink gently, dazed, and after a long time,
you will get your bearings, and begin to look around you,
and you will realize that your lungs are close to bursting,
and maybe you will realize that air is at the surface,
and if you are one of the lucky few, you just might make an effort to reach it,
and you probably won’t
but you might try,
and you might get close,
and there is a small, small chance that you will graze it with your fingertips,
and maybe even, if you are so lucky, you will also graze it with your lips,
and take a breath,
and if you can rub the sea salt from your eyes in time, you might even open them and look around you.
It will be your first sight, and you will be dazed and amazed.
But all the while, death is swimming up towards you,
from the depths.
He felt the ripples from your splash, and has been approaching your entire life,
and if you are so lucky as to have seen the sun, and the sky, and felt the air in your lungs,
you will know that he is coming, and you will look around you and see the sea in ever direction
and you will wait for him,
and perhaps, when he comes,
even give him a kiss. [x]
(Source: gamma-radio)
You make a point to not ingest artificial chemicals, because they don’t do anything nice for your body.
You might also want to make a point to not participate in artificial intimacies, because they don’t do anything nice for your soul.
Today I had a really great cry-fest because of WWI trench warfare. I couldn’t tell you why for the world, but whenever I hear about that shit or watch anything relating to it, I get so over the top emotional. The whole way back from class I was on the verge of tears, and when I ran into my friend in the hallway and he hugged me, I just started bawling into his shoulder. I feel like I lived it, the fucking squalor and death and constant torment, and I can’t deal with it. It’s like a part of my soul really was down in those trenches, and I don’t always remember it, but when I do, it hits hard and it shatters me.
