the "enemies" are not people.
"the other" does not exist.
the enemy is in ourselves if we allow it to be.
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"One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am — a reluctant enthusiast... a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards."
-Edward Abbey
Enemies?
-Edward Abbey
Enemies?
Man, it was great to see Ben (Joselyn) last night. We talked about so much that has been on our minds. And I finally felt like someone understood what I was saying, and really wanted to hear it. Sometimes when I have discussions with people I generally agree with, I feel like I am wasting time, ya know, preaching to the choir. But I guess I really needed assurance this time, that all the crazy things in my mind actually hold some merit. And talking to him helped me believe that. This break has been great for some introspection. I have written so much in my journal now that I have had the brain-space to work through some of what has been building up in there. This is going to be a long blog, but please read it, and do so carefully.
------------------------------------------------------
Ben and I discussed individuality, and how we have all gotten so caught up in looking out for ourselves that we don't remember how reliant we are on the rest of humanity (and all of nature, really) and vice versa. We forget until we look at the stars, and then we think "oh damn, i really am small." But even still, it seems like we don't recognize what that means. It means that all the petty things we worry about in our individual lives are quite unimportant. I don't meant to say we should disregard our individual experience, but perhaps we can creatively use it to affect the collective experience more positively.
I have just been reading people's blogs and tumblr accounts, watching people's statuses on facebook, observing the suicide rate in the country (especially amongst young adults), and I am just sick of it -- that everyone feels so worthless. That people feel the need to be in a relationship, or buy something, or look like someone in order to feel worth anything.
Ben and I were talking about how, perhaps, we feel so useless in what we are doing in our lives that we have to create problems for us to fix. We have to feel needed by something or someone because we don't feel needed in the world. I will come back to this later. There are also problems that we don't necessarily create, but that we allow to perpetuate. People get depressed because of the state of the world, but then it seems we perpetuate that state by not resolving the pattern in ourselves, but instead, seeing the current state as the only option and accepting that it already is how it has to be. But if we adopt the pattern in our self then we only further the pattern and further our unhappiness with the state of the world, and with ourselves.
"X's father has had a hard life; he's seen some pain, and he is starting to drink more. But its damaging to X to see his father getting drunk. And X is so scared by this image of his father getting drunk that X wants to forget it, so X goes and gets drunk too. Then X feels like shit for resorting to that which he hates in order to escape that which makes him upset."
How do we stop this pattern. There is a psychology about people that often makes them emulate what they have always seen. But there was a place where the pattern started, and it can be broken anywhere, and it can be for better or worse. I don't have the answer but I think it has to do with decisions of the individual AND of the collective...
----------------------------------------------------------------
Ben and I discussed the education system, particularly in the valley, and we noted how unhappy the majority of people here are. There is no reason this has to persist, but it will if nothing changes. We live in a beautiful place where there are so many opportunities for experiential education, and yet we are sitting in a concrete building regurgitating information, not applying it our lives, and feeling utter useless in the process.
One of the most prominent things I remember from my high school is staring out the window of a classroom at a snow-speckled Mount Si and wondering why the heck I felt like I prisoner. "The mountain is right there, it is a beautiful day, why am I inside learning the word for snow in Spanish, when I could be on the mountain experiencing it." Why couldn't we have been learning the word for snow in Spanish while playing in the snow?
It is bigger than this though because we have (maybe not purposely, but definitely) been conditioned to think of school as separate from the real world. How could this not happen when the real world is so disregarded in education? The school couldn't acknowledge the reality of the world. We couldn't even have Homecoming hallway competitions because the school became so collectively afraid of internal opposition. But then we are still encouraged to take the PSAT and try to get the highest score so we can become National Merit Scholars. If you get in a certain top percentile your picture goes right in the main hall of MSHS. Not only does that encourage competition, but it also rewards a certain learning style, or (in this case) the ability to take multiple choice exams, which is completely different than having a particularly good understanding of the material in those exams. So we are also being encouraged to figure out how to best the system such that the school gets collectively high scores, which obviously demonstrates the ability of teachers to teach, and the ability of students to learn from these teachers. That is ludicrous and its a pile of shit. I was looking through my portfolio of work from Earth Science 9th grade and I just about cried. I wasted so much of my life copying key terms word for word from the text book, because if you miss the word "is" when writing the definition for what the mantle of the earth is then you miss the point for the whole sentence. I think I remember the first time we peer graded our key terms the teacher would read the definition word for word and people would ask "what if they wrote it this way instead?" and she would say "was that exactly what I said? If not, then its wrong."
You know what I see here? An expectation that all students will learn the complexity of what something means by writing a stream of individual words, making sure it looks exactly like the book, which is completely false. An expectation that the book is correct and that if we all conform to what it says then we all must be right. Whats really going on? Laziness. The teacher doesn't have to deal with any variation. The student doesn't have to worry about developing their own way to present the definition. Basically no one is using their brain.
Now that's an extreme example, and perhaps the valley is an extreme example in general, but it is my experience, and it is the experience of thousands of students who go through the valley school system (except the lucky one's who were smart enough to go to Two Rivers, the alternative school where you are put in classes not based on grade level or graduation requirements, but on individual understanding of and interest in a particular subject).
-----------------------------------------------------------
Ok, now I seem to be contradiction myself.
A) We should stop being so caught up in the individual because we get so caught up in our own lives and forget about the rest of the struggles in the world.
B) We need to consider the individual in order to create the most effective and enjoyable method of education.
Yup. Both.
Like I was saying before, perhaps the root of so much of this unhappiness is that we don't feel necessary or useful. We desperately hold on to the boy who made us feel needed and wanted because there is nothing else that makes us feel that way (and then we get so caught up in our own unhappiness that we over-exaggerate the individual situation we are in and forget about everything or everyone else). Even if there is something else that we are interested in, we don't feel empowered to be involved because we have been copying useless things from textbooks rather than honing individual skills and working toward a place where we have the knowledge and ability to be involved, which is the very thing that could give us a greater sense of purpose, and allow us to see how trivial the "drama" really is.
If the ability to find and hone those things that really ignite our souls could be built into the education system, then school and reality wouldn't have to be so disconnected from each other. Students wouldn't feel like prisoners, wouldn't have to create drama in order to have something to work toward, and would probably be happier.
Additionally, there is a sense of community that emerges when everyone's sense of individuality is empowering to them. The person in their own self is happier because they are doing something they enjoy (eliminating the very compensation of self-consciousness that drives the diminishing of others). And because everyone is doing something individual everyone has something to share with one another. And because it is more geared to personal interests they are probably excited to share. This creates interaction and allows for connections to be made. The connections that are made (which in my experience at Evergreen are pretty much endless) will then allow students to see how each of their interests/disciplines/focuses interact and rely on each other. This creates community AND empowers individuals.
In this way it is possible to embrace individuality (which is real and important), without allowing individuality to become petty or SO individual that we forget who we rely on and who relies on us.
(Oh, this is all so very simplified and roughly laid-out, and I know that. I am just drawing the from examples I have been observing recently, most of which surround people ages 13 to 21, but assuredly extends to people of all ages.)
---------------------------------------------------
Read it again:
A Ritual to Read Each Other
If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep."
-William Stafford
-----------------------------------------------------------
There is a note to myself in my phone a while back. It says "individual liberty destroying collective liberty." This is something I want to explore further when I pick this subject back up later. It is related to this idea of entitlement too.
I don't think I can continue with these now because I have been writing for hours, there is actually homework to be done tonight, and I need some feedback before I write about this more. So I am hoping that somebody makes a thoughtful response to this post. What has it brought up for you? Do you disagree with any of it? Do you want to talk about a particular aspect in more depth? Anything else?
------------------------------------------------------
Ben and I discussed individuality, and how we have all gotten so caught up in looking out for ourselves that we don't remember how reliant we are on the rest of humanity (and all of nature, really) and vice versa. We forget until we look at the stars, and then we think "oh damn, i really am small." But even still, it seems like we don't recognize what that means. It means that all the petty things we worry about in our individual lives are quite unimportant. I don't meant to say we should disregard our individual experience, but perhaps we can creatively use it to affect the collective experience more positively.
I have just been reading people's blogs and tumblr accounts, watching people's statuses on facebook, observing the suicide rate in the country (especially amongst young adults), and I am just sick of it -- that everyone feels so worthless. That people feel the need to be in a relationship, or buy something, or look like someone in order to feel worth anything.
Ben and I were talking about how, perhaps, we feel so useless in what we are doing in our lives that we have to create problems for us to fix. We have to feel needed by something or someone because we don't feel needed in the world. I will come back to this later. There are also problems that we don't necessarily create, but that we allow to perpetuate. People get depressed because of the state of the world, but then it seems we perpetuate that state by not resolving the pattern in ourselves, but instead, seeing the current state as the only option and accepting that it already is how it has to be. But if we adopt the pattern in our self then we only further the pattern and further our unhappiness with the state of the world, and with ourselves.
"X's father has had a hard life; he's seen some pain, and he is starting to drink more. But its damaging to X to see his father getting drunk. And X is so scared by this image of his father getting drunk that X wants to forget it, so X goes and gets drunk too. Then X feels like shit for resorting to that which he hates in order to escape that which makes him upset."
How do we stop this pattern. There is a psychology about people that often makes them emulate what they have always seen. But there was a place where the pattern started, and it can be broken anywhere, and it can be for better or worse. I don't have the answer but I think it has to do with decisions of the individual AND of the collective...
----------------------------------------------------------------
Ben and I discussed the education system, particularly in the valley, and we noted how unhappy the majority of people here are. There is no reason this has to persist, but it will if nothing changes. We live in a beautiful place where there are so many opportunities for experiential education, and yet we are sitting in a concrete building regurgitating information, not applying it our lives, and feeling utter useless in the process.
One of the most prominent things I remember from my high school is staring out the window of a classroom at a snow-speckled Mount Si and wondering why the heck I felt like I prisoner. "The mountain is right there, it is a beautiful day, why am I inside learning the word for snow in Spanish, when I could be on the mountain experiencing it." Why couldn't we have been learning the word for snow in Spanish while playing in the snow?
It is bigger than this though because we have (maybe not purposely, but definitely) been conditioned to think of school as separate from the real world. How could this not happen when the real world is so disregarded in education? The school couldn't acknowledge the reality of the world. We couldn't even have Homecoming hallway competitions because the school became so collectively afraid of internal opposition. But then we are still encouraged to take the PSAT and try to get the highest score so we can become National Merit Scholars. If you get in a certain top percentile your picture goes right in the main hall of MSHS. Not only does that encourage competition, but it also rewards a certain learning style, or (in this case) the ability to take multiple choice exams, which is completely different than having a particularly good understanding of the material in those exams. So we are also being encouraged to figure out how to best the system such that the school gets collectively high scores, which obviously demonstrates the ability of teachers to teach, and the ability of students to learn from these teachers. That is ludicrous and its a pile of shit. I was looking through my portfolio of work from Earth Science 9th grade and I just about cried. I wasted so much of my life copying key terms word for word from the text book, because if you miss the word "is" when writing the definition for what the mantle of the earth is then you miss the point for the whole sentence. I think I remember the first time we peer graded our key terms the teacher would read the definition word for word and people would ask "what if they wrote it this way instead?" and she would say "was that exactly what I said? If not, then its wrong."
You know what I see here? An expectation that all students will learn the complexity of what something means by writing a stream of individual words, making sure it looks exactly like the book, which is completely false. An expectation that the book is correct and that if we all conform to what it says then we all must be right. Whats really going on? Laziness. The teacher doesn't have to deal with any variation. The student doesn't have to worry about developing their own way to present the definition. Basically no one is using their brain.
Now that's an extreme example, and perhaps the valley is an extreme example in general, but it is my experience, and it is the experience of thousands of students who go through the valley school system (except the lucky one's who were smart enough to go to Two Rivers, the alternative school where you are put in classes not based on grade level or graduation requirements, but on individual understanding of and interest in a particular subject).
-----------------------------------------------------------
Ok, now I seem to be contradiction myself.
A) We should stop being so caught up in the individual because we get so caught up in our own lives and forget about the rest of the struggles in the world.
B) We need to consider the individual in order to create the most effective and enjoyable method of education.
Yup. Both.
Like I was saying before, perhaps the root of so much of this unhappiness is that we don't feel necessary or useful. We desperately hold on to the boy who made us feel needed and wanted because there is nothing else that makes us feel that way (and then we get so caught up in our own unhappiness that we over-exaggerate the individual situation we are in and forget about everything or everyone else). Even if there is something else that we are interested in, we don't feel empowered to be involved because we have been copying useless things from textbooks rather than honing individual skills and working toward a place where we have the knowledge and ability to be involved, which is the very thing that could give us a greater sense of purpose, and allow us to see how trivial the "drama" really is.
If the ability to find and hone those things that really ignite our souls could be built into the education system, then school and reality wouldn't have to be so disconnected from each other. Students wouldn't feel like prisoners, wouldn't have to create drama in order to have something to work toward, and would probably be happier.
Additionally, there is a sense of community that emerges when everyone's sense of individuality is empowering to them. The person in their own self is happier because they are doing something they enjoy (eliminating the very compensation of self-consciousness that drives the diminishing of others). And because everyone is doing something individual everyone has something to share with one another. And because it is more geared to personal interests they are probably excited to share. This creates interaction and allows for connections to be made. The connections that are made (which in my experience at Evergreen are pretty much endless) will then allow students to see how each of their interests/disciplines/focuses interact and rely on each other. This creates community AND empowers individuals.
In this way it is possible to embrace individuality (which is real and important), without allowing individuality to become petty or SO individual that we forget who we rely on and who relies on us.
(Oh, this is all so very simplified and roughly laid-out, and I know that. I am just drawing the from examples I have been observing recently, most of which surround people ages 13 to 21, but assuredly extends to people of all ages.)
---------------------------------------------------
Read it again:
A Ritual to Read Each Other
If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.
For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.
And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.
And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.
For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep."
-William Stafford
-----------------------------------------------------------
There is a note to myself in my phone a while back. It says "individual liberty destroying collective liberty." This is something I want to explore further when I pick this subject back up later. It is related to this idea of entitlement too.
I don't think I can continue with these now because I have been writing for hours, there is actually homework to be done tonight, and I need some feedback before I write about this more. So I am hoping that somebody makes a thoughtful response to this post. What has it brought up for you? Do you disagree with any of it? Do you want to talk about a particular aspect in more depth? Anything else?
climbing = joy
Peru = joy
suddenly finding 500 places to climb in Peru = I'm pretty much exploding with joy right now
Peru = joy
suddenly finding 500 places to climb in Peru = I'm pretty much exploding with joy right now
a ritual
a ritual
a ritual
a ritual
a pattern
a pattern
a pattern that others made
a pattern that others made
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
maybe the root of all cruelty
maybe the root of all cruelty
THOUGH WE COULD FOOL EACH OTHER
Though we could fool each other
Though we could fool each other
we should consider
we should consider
it is important
it is important that awake people be awake
be awake
be awake
or a breaking line may
or a breaking line may
or a breaking line may
or a breaking line may discourage
discourage
discourage
may discourage them
if you don't know
if you don't know
if you don't know the kind of person I am
and
I don't know
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern
a pattern
a pattern that others made may prevail
may prevail
if you don't know
and I don't know
if
may
if
may
if
a ritual
a ritual
a ritual
a pattern
a pattern
a pattern that others made
a pattern that others made
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
maybe the root of all cruelty
maybe the root of all cruelty
THOUGH WE COULD FOOL EACH OTHER
Though we could fool each other
Though we could fool each other
we should consider
we should consider
it is important
it is important that awake people be awake
be awake
be awake
or a breaking line may
or a breaking line may
or a breaking line may
or a breaking line may discourage
discourage
discourage
may discourage them
if you don't know
if you don't know
if you don't know the kind of person I am
and
I don't know
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern
a pattern
a pattern that others made may prevail
may prevail
if you don't know
and I don't know
if
may
if
may
if
everyone feels this
everyone feels this
everyone feels this
everyone feels this
everyone feels this
get up, and go do something else.
everyone feels this
everyone feels this
everyone feels this
everyone feels this
get up, and go do something else.
...
i miss my dogs.
i miss my dogs.
fuck.
Anger.
[Fuel. I can't wait to climb tomorrow. I am going to be so strong tomorrow.]
I needed a window into your soul, and I found it tonight. It's been out there all along, just hidden.
I want to scream at you. EVERYONE DREAMS THE WORLD TO BE DIFFERENT! Anyone can dream...
Pick yourself up! FIND A WAY!
DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
I can't. say anything. I have to allow you to feel this. I have to let you find your own way...
But I love you so much. I love you so much. I love you so much. I love you so much. I fucking love you. I wish I could feed that to you. I wish I could make you better.
...I know better than that...
How do I get you to hear me?
I don't.
Anger.
[Fuel. I can't wait to climb tomorrow. I am going to be so strong tomorrow.]
I needed a window into your soul, and I found it tonight. It's been out there all along, just hidden.
I want to scream at you. EVERYONE DREAMS THE WORLD TO BE DIFFERENT! Anyone can dream...
Pick yourself up! FIND A WAY!
DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.
I can't. say anything. I have to allow you to feel this. I have to let you find your own way...
But I love you so much. I love you so much. I love you so much. I love you so much. I fucking love you. I wish I could feed that to you. I wish I could make you better.
...I know better than that...
How do I get you to hear me?
I don't.
"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom" - Marcel Proust
i don't want to make that gesture. i don't want my shrug to shatter something important.
there has been this image in my mind that has pervaded almost all my thoughts. it is a breaking in two of something; of everything. sometimes it seems necessary, but most times it feels negative. i thought i learned to bend, and not break. now, i think i am learning how.
-------------
i keep reading the poem over...
there has been this image in my mind that has pervaded almost all my thoughts. it is a breaking in two of something; of everything. sometimes it seems necessary, but most times it feels negative. i thought i learned to bend, and not break. now, i think i am learning how.
-------------
i keep reading the poem over...
the scariest part of this whole thing was the fact that you wouldn't help me.
The first rule of true loyalty and unconditional love is that there can be no deciding expectation of reciprocation.
We can decide to make our relationships conditional, or we can choose to endure the betrayal (and other ills that seem to pervade every interpersonal connection) and respond with unceasing love.
This purest form of love is illustrated in the lyrics below, written by Thrice. Obviously it is a love song from god --or some other deity, or nature, or just Life (depending on your beliefs)-- to me and you and everyone. Even though I don't have religious beliefs, I think it is one of the most beautiful expressions of our ability to take things for granted, especially the things that give and sustain life and make it worth living.
From tender years you took me for granted
But still I deign to wander through your lungs
While you were sleeping soundly in your bed,
(Your drapes were silver wings, your shutters flung)
I drew the poison from the summer's sting,
And eased the fire out of your fevered skin.
I moved in you and stirred your soul to sing;
And if you'd let me I would move again.
I've danced 'tween sunlit strands of lover's hair;
Helped form the final words before your death.
I've pitied you and plied your sails with air;
Gave blessing when you rose upon my breath.
And after all of this I am amazed,
That I am cursed far more than I am praised.
We can decide to make our relationships conditional, or we can choose to endure the betrayal (and other ills that seem to pervade every interpersonal connection) and respond with unceasing love.
This purest form of love is illustrated in the lyrics below, written by Thrice. Obviously it is a love song from god --or some other deity, or nature, or just Life (depending on your beliefs)-- to me and you and everyone. Even though I don't have religious beliefs, I think it is one of the most beautiful expressions of our ability to take things for granted, especially the things that give and sustain life and make it worth living.
From tender years you took me for granted
But still I deign to wander through your lungs
While you were sleeping soundly in your bed,
(Your drapes were silver wings, your shutters flung)
I drew the poison from the summer's sting,
And eased the fire out of your fevered skin.
I moved in you and stirred your soul to sing;
And if you'd let me I would move again.
I've danced 'tween sunlit strands of lover's hair;
Helped form the final words before your death.
I've pitied you and plied your sails with air;
Gave blessing when you rose upon my breath.
And after all of this I am amazed,
That I am cursed far more than I am praised.
for that day Ben and I went to the black market in Cusco.
for that night NYSC was in DC walking around the monuments, trying to keep my group together and meet the checker pairs.
for that night NYSC was in DC walking around the monuments, trying to keep my group together and meet the checker pairs.
I am reading next week's seminar book entitled Water. It is quite beautiful so far, and I am resonating a lot with it. There was a section I read tonight that hit way too close to home for me to continue reading without writing some first. As I am still on a quest for new journal, this is the most apt place for these thoughts right now. The article is called "Women, Water" by Jowita Bydlowska and discusses this archetypal image of a women, broken-hearted in the bath tub, smoking a cigarette, seeking comfort in the slowly releasing warmth.
I haven't taken a bath...
for...
a decade, maybe (scary to be able to say). Maybe less, but it has been a long-ass time. Even so, I knew what the author was getting at. The feeling of water --of being immersed in water, or feeling it cascade over my head-- is one of the most comforting (and raw) experiences there is. In controlled situations, like a bathtub, it does not feel dangerous, except when dealing with unattended children, inebriated people, or... a self that doesn't necessarily ever want to emerge. "Depression" she says "is not waiting. Not waiting to find out what is out there, why, when, who's around the corner, is anyone. It is not caring if no one cares and one does care then you do not anyway. When the worst of depression strikes it is falling to the bottom of a dark lake, slowly, majestically, silently."
This is when bathtubs become dangerous.
[Your calm, internal terror is more concerned that you will let go intentionally, then that you will slip.]
"I let my arms float, my hair move about my face like weed. I opened my eyes. My hair danced. The water stung. I shut my eyes. But I remained on the bottom."
"I realized then that I was wrong. I was waiting. I was waiting for something after all. This confused me. Did it mean that I wasn't serious about what I was thinking of doing?"
"How do you fight when you have no fight left?"
"I wasn't quite ready to drown all the way."
"I needed to be moving. Otherwise I was going to end up like..."
"[Time] stretched and opened before me endlessly, a surface so wide it crushed me with possibility."
"We are still, but not stuck."
like water
I haven't taken a bath...
for...
a decade, maybe (scary to be able to say). Maybe less, but it has been a long-ass time. Even so, I knew what the author was getting at. The feeling of water --of being immersed in water, or feeling it cascade over my head-- is one of the most comforting (and raw) experiences there is. In controlled situations, like a bathtub, it does not feel dangerous, except when dealing with unattended children, inebriated people, or... a self that doesn't necessarily ever want to emerge. "Depression" she says "is not waiting. Not waiting to find out what is out there, why, when, who's around the corner, is anyone. It is not caring if no one cares and one does care then you do not anyway. When the worst of depression strikes it is falling to the bottom of a dark lake, slowly, majestically, silently."
This is when bathtubs become dangerous.
[Your calm, internal terror is more concerned that you will let go intentionally, then that you will slip.]
"I let my arms float, my hair move about my face like weed. I opened my eyes. My hair danced. The water stung. I shut my eyes. But I remained on the bottom."
"I realized then that I was wrong. I was waiting. I was waiting for something after all. This confused me. Did it mean that I wasn't serious about what I was thinking of doing?"
"How do you fight when you have no fight left?"
"I wasn't quite ready to drown all the way."
"I needed to be moving. Otherwise I was going to end up like..."
"[Time] stretched and opened before me endlessly, a surface so wide it crushed me with possibility."
"We are still, but not stuck."
like water
vivid and terrifying dreams were something I use to experience nightly. It had been so long. That is probably why I was so petrified. And it was a normal dream to begin with, though I don't remember the start. I do remember that I was at Evergreen and Tony and I were walking through the CAB (though it was different, as places always seem to be in dreams). We got in the elevator. The elevator had a climbing wall in it. Tony climbed up and I began I campus-ing my way up, easily. I had no clue why climbing was suddenly so easy, why my arms were so strong. My phone started ringing and I dropped from the wall to answer it. It was Mom. She was yelling about how "it's happened again." I knew what she was referencing (having a memory that is only real in a dream is fucking weird). The "again" she was talking about was a friend who died, who had called her in the middle of the night saying she was terrified for her life... that she felt a presence and that she knew she wasn't alone. My mom had tried to calm her friend but the next time she heard of her friend she had allegedly died in her sleep. This had happened again, apparently. My mom explained to me what was going on. That she had just gotten an email that had (somehow) woken her from sleep in the middle of the night (which is what time it was for her). The email was a friend (Father Jim, from the church in Sunriver, but who she was calling "Good Evening"). The email talked about feeling this presence and evil behind him, but that he was too afraid to look, or reach back to see. My mom tried to get back to him, but worried that the email was too slow. She was awaiting a response as I tried to console her on the phone. She said "I just know I'm next. It will be me soon, that they come for in the night." Moments later she got a response that somehow told her "Good Evening" had died in his sleep. She was freaking out, laying in her bed, alone (I guess), in the dark, in the middle of the night. It was like I was there; I felt a presence, and I heard breathing over my shoulder.
I woke with a start, throwing my arm behind my left shoulder, and, upon hitting the wall, reaching around for the light switch. It took me about 5 minutes to move. I cried a little, and thought about going to my parents room to check on them, but I could hardly move out of terror. Eventually I gained the muster to grab my phone at the foot of the futon, and text my mom. She came in shortly, as she often does when I have nightmares. We talked and cuddled and she helped calm me. I jumped at a vibration of my phone. It was Daniel, texting me at 4:30 in the morning. "You were in the dream I just woke up from" he and then proceeded to be Daniel (after I replied that I needed to sleep) insisting that it wasn't time to go back to sleep, but time to tell stories, and (jokingly) suggest that we are soulmates since we both woke up from dreams around the same time. I was too tired for that. Mom went back to bed, and I fell back asleep.
The second dream was much more subtle, in the sense that it was more like a dream, and didn't physically affect me. However, it was still fucked up beyond all reason. I don't even think I have a grasp of what all was going on. The characters were seemingly infinite including Tyler, Carolyn, Ari, Eric, Britney Spears, Shane, Nygil, my parents, people from highschool, and probably people from camp. Most of the details are fuzzy, but if I remember correctly, someone was trying to get to me by killing all the people I cared about. And not just killing, but like... eviscerating and leaving them in places I would find them. But their remains were all bagged in the shape of people (which I mistakingly opened the first time I found one), the human shaped bags were masked with these crazy... characature pictures of... something. And the killer was also masked, but I knew who he was. But that kept changing too. But his method was always the same: he was usually near the victims when I found them, and he would say something to taunt me before and after he would kill someone. He would clue me in on who was next, and then I would race to find them before he could, but he always got there first. There was blood everywhere. I could hear the screams and know I was too late. No one else would help me. I saw Britney Spears in the restaurant near the lobby of the hotel/motel/school that this was all taking place. She has nothing to do with anything else going on in the dream, why was she there?! I DONT FUCKING UNDERSTAND MY MIND!
Both dreams we just absolutely terrible. I wonder if the change of scenery really does make me dream more vividly? It seems a pattern that I start having nightmares when I return home. If I have one tonight, that will be really interesting, because I seriously only remember the framework of most dreams I remember having since school started. And none of them have been near-debilitatingly scary like this.
I woke with a start, throwing my arm behind my left shoulder, and, upon hitting the wall, reaching around for the light switch. It took me about 5 minutes to move. I cried a little, and thought about going to my parents room to check on them, but I could hardly move out of terror. Eventually I gained the muster to grab my phone at the foot of the futon, and text my mom. She came in shortly, as she often does when I have nightmares. We talked and cuddled and she helped calm me. I jumped at a vibration of my phone. It was Daniel, texting me at 4:30 in the morning. "You were in the dream I just woke up from" he and then proceeded to be Daniel (after I replied that I needed to sleep) insisting that it wasn't time to go back to sleep, but time to tell stories, and (jokingly) suggest that we are soulmates since we both woke up from dreams around the same time. I was too tired for that. Mom went back to bed, and I fell back asleep.
The second dream was much more subtle, in the sense that it was more like a dream, and didn't physically affect me. However, it was still fucked up beyond all reason. I don't even think I have a grasp of what all was going on. The characters were seemingly infinite including Tyler, Carolyn, Ari, Eric, Britney Spears, Shane, Nygil, my parents, people from highschool, and probably people from camp. Most of the details are fuzzy, but if I remember correctly, someone was trying to get to me by killing all the people I cared about. And not just killing, but like... eviscerating and leaving them in places I would find them. But their remains were all bagged in the shape of people (which I mistakingly opened the first time I found one), the human shaped bags were masked with these crazy... characature pictures of... something. And the killer was also masked, but I knew who he was. But that kept changing too. But his method was always the same: he was usually near the victims when I found them, and he would say something to taunt me before and after he would kill someone. He would clue me in on who was next, and then I would race to find them before he could, but he always got there first. There was blood everywhere. I could hear the screams and know I was too late. No one else would help me. I saw Britney Spears in the restaurant near the lobby of the hotel/motel/school that this was all taking place. She has nothing to do with anything else going on in the dream, why was she there?! I DONT FUCKING UNDERSTAND MY MIND!
Both dreams we just absolutely terrible. I wonder if the change of scenery really does make me dream more vividly? It seems a pattern that I start having nightmares when I return home. If I have one tonight, that will be really interesting, because I seriously only remember the framework of most dreams I remember having since school started. And none of them have been near-debilitatingly scary like this.
i intake conflicting things. i cannot bifurcate into two people. i oscillate between these things. eventually i create a new identity that makes compromises. in essence it can stay the same, or it can change. this is growth. or, if the compromise i make compromises other values then do i not lose some of the growth i had gained in the last oscillation? it is possible. it is possible, then, that the choice i make based on weighing decisions could allow me to fall backwards instead of move forward. or to do them equally at the same length, but in different respects.
for conflict to result in growth there must be acceptance that conflict exists, and there must be compromise.
[spirals]
--i am reflecting, and trying to learn through a session. Jayson...
the subject is so thick and his is doing great things with it in his paper. it is so relevant to everyone. and everything.
[fractals]
[[gifts]]
chaos. my head is full. i just need some of it to drain out right now. it is taking so much effort to put down thought to paper. i don't want it to leak out anyway [drip. drip drip.. drip. drip....drip..dripdrip]
i want to know it all, hold it ALL in my head. keep it. work with it. learn. grow from it. i want it. BECAUSE i am being exposed right now and it must fit somewhere, here.
my brain is starting to learn to work on two tracks at the same time. it has to. i have to write and read. write and speak. speak and write. think and write. read and think and write. do and think and remember. draw and see. connect and disconnect. listen and climb. climb and focus. climb and relax. hold and release. let go and hold on. let go. move on? hear. listen.
forward things.
conflicting things.
build, crash! descend, crash! paradigms, leverage and
CRASH.
how much? how much disruption can faith endure? as much as we want. as much as we can hold up. or is it a matter of will? and how much is that? how many times can betrayal befall loyalty before loyalty collapses? small collapses. small renewal.
always on the verge
never enough energy or time to make sense of things enough to actually break through.
ignore this.
it is mush...though a fairly accurate representation of the feeling in the mind of an Alex/interdisciplinary student/writing tutor/writer/friend/daughter/human/animal/cell/thingggggggggggggggggggggg/(blue whale)
AND
if i continue thinking right now, i might collapse.
back to mind-numbingly sketching the way a striped shirt falls over a jewelry box.
[next time there is an election, lets make an initiative for having more hours in the day.]
for conflict to result in growth there must be acceptance that conflict exists, and there must be compromise.
[spirals]
--i am reflecting, and trying to learn through a session. Jayson...
the subject is so thick and his is doing great things with it in his paper. it is so relevant to everyone. and everything.
[fractals]
[[gifts]]
chaos. my head is full. i just need some of it to drain out right now. it is taking so much effort to put down thought to paper. i don't want it to leak out anyway [drip. drip drip.. drip. drip....drip..dripdrip]
i want to know it all, hold it ALL in my head. keep it. work with it. learn. grow from it. i want it. BECAUSE i am being exposed right now and it must fit somewhere, here.
my brain is starting to learn to work on two tracks at the same time. it has to. i have to write and read. write and speak. speak and write. think and write. read and think and write. do and think and remember. draw and see. connect and disconnect. listen and climb. climb and focus. climb and relax. hold and release. let go and hold on. let go. move on? hear. listen.
forward things.
conflicting things.
build, crash! descend, crash! paradigms, leverage and
CRASH.
how much? how much disruption can faith endure? as much as we want. as much as we can hold up. or is it a matter of will? and how much is that? how many times can betrayal befall loyalty before loyalty collapses? small collapses. small renewal.
always on the verge
never enough energy or time to make sense of things enough to actually break through.
ignore this.
it is mush...though a fairly accurate representation of the feeling in the mind of an Alex/interdisciplinary student/writing tutor/writer/friend/daughter/human/animal/cell/thingggggggggggggggggggggg/(blue whale)
AND
if i continue thinking right now, i might collapse.
back to mind-numbingly sketching the way a striped shirt falls over a jewelry box.
[next time there is an election, lets make an initiative for having more hours in the day.]
dreams are blurring into reality again. not in a painful way, but its just that I am having trouble keeping straight what actually occurred and what might have. these are little things like me checking Tyler's blog and there actually being a new post (when in reality, there isn't), and that Aubrie and I helped a cop stop a little kid from driving away from the Evergreen field in a semi-truck cab version of a school bus (which would have been really strange). It just takes me a while to realize "oh, I guess that was a dream."
I was listening to Jupiter Sunrise earlier and missing Science Camp like crazy! JS is a band that (I believe) originated at NYSC through some of the staph from a couple years ago. The lyrics just make me want to be cuddling on the field under the stars with all my friends there.
"Sleep in the grass in a blue field
The fireflies blinking past Orion
All sprawled out beside the bikes, the wheels still spinnin'.
I know a shortcut along the stonewall where
Evergreen soldiers point their branches for a child-like mind, like yours and mine to follow.
C'mon, steal me
C'mon steal me.
I drew a map so we can get home or maybe come back here in the summer
But I'm not sure how to draw a path to get to moonlight.
So, tonight, these stars can shine as our halos and the pine trees watch over like guardian angels,
Protecting a perfect love between twilight and all a lifetime of yearning.
I won't be awake for much longer
So c'mon, steal me."
I miss Madelyn (I GOT AN EMAIL FROM HER TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She's in New Mexico adventuring and learning with her class.)
I miss Josh.
and Alana.
and Vienna.
and Colin.
and Malex
and Kalex
and EVERYONE!
including Peter Mulvey! Though, he keeps me company well-enough with his music which I listen to pretty much daily, to reminisce about sitting at the fire circle with all delegates and staph.
mmmmm. so much love.
"turn the god-damned TV off and listen to the old pipes cough, watch the shadows all go soft and its just me and Albert..."
"Sleep in the grass in a blue field
The fireflies blinking past Orion
All sprawled out beside the bikes, the wheels still spinnin'.
I know a shortcut along the stonewall where
Evergreen soldiers point their branches for a child-like mind, like yours and mine to follow.
C'mon, steal me
C'mon steal me.
I drew a map so we can get home or maybe come back here in the summer
But I'm not sure how to draw a path to get to moonlight.
So, tonight, these stars can shine as our halos and the pine trees watch over like guardian angels,
Protecting a perfect love between twilight and all a lifetime of yearning.
I won't be awake for much longer
So c'mon, steal me."
I miss Madelyn (I GOT AN EMAIL FROM HER TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! She's in New Mexico adventuring and learning with her class.)
I miss Josh.
and Alana.
and Vienna.
and Colin.
and Malex
and Kalex
and EVERYONE!
including Peter Mulvey! Though, he keeps me company well-enough with his music which I listen to pretty much daily, to reminisce about sitting at the fire circle with all delegates and staph.
mmmmm. so much love.
"turn the god-damned TV off and listen to the old pipes cough, watch the shadows all go soft and its just me and Albert..."
