Incomplete thoughts 

with garnished evidence of the Kali Yuga

 

 

 

 

Oct 31, 2002

    Updates twice a month all the dedication I can muster. I hate Halloween.  This is a recent development.  I think it comes from the constant, this is my favorite holiday.  

Costumes: Yeah I like costumes: but we wear one everyday.  What passes as "scary" is usually surprise. Boo.  

 

 

Oct 15, 2002

Ides of October, stopped going to class, I'm wondering if it is that I have no time or it's too much bother.  Don't care anymore. 

Nani is happy as of late.  I am rummaging around in depression. 

I will always be depressed because I am fundamentally torn. Torn between an isolated comfortable life, with books, and a chair to read them in, or sailing around the world, and living life less vicariously.  

I made my decision one winter day, sailing my boat alone, en route from Ventura to to Santa Cruz.   I was out there, it was butt cold, I was extremely tired, I had to change headsails for the 10th time that day, and I knew I didn't have it in me, that the dream was just an armchair dream.. With that choice I left my only friends, Ruben and Richenda, and my life truly began with nani. 

 

I think my mistake with Buddhism, is to think that it as a means to happiness, maybe I should see it as a means to peace? To find peace even in turmoil.

 

 I draw this conclusion: I've seen the shores of nirvana whilst drunk and only then.

 

Oct 1, 2002

It's 3.am. and that strikes a chord to my past,  I'm in a reminiscent mood. 

"how far back? way back...." when Ventura was writing, and Henry Miller was in my veins. 

Ruben and I, we were as good as friends get, I was living in l.a., I was writing consistently,  and I owned the second of my three Cal 27's.  For someone as negative as I am, I'm surprised I can still remember that period.

Ruben used to tell me I should only write about the present. I used to tell him my past was my now.  My past has shadowed me so much, I'm married to her now.  Unless you're Henry Miller, life stories are dull.

 

 

 

Sept 25, 2002

I'm taking a graduate course in Computer Animation, in hopes of making a career change... 

"Well yes. Yes. Of course, it's a bit of a jump isn't it? I mean, er, chartered accountancy to lion taming in one go. You don't think it might be better if you worked your way towards lion taming, say, via banking?"

http://panther.bsc.edu/~gklersey/VGC-Sketch.htm

Actually I want to see if I can still make it as a student, perhaps get a masters..... but not likely, already 2 classes in and I'm running a cold sweat.  Instead of approaching the classroom as an educational forum, I take it as a parent/child relationship, the overwhelming need to rebel , and escape.  I've had several bad dreams.

 

Yesterday was my dad's birthday, I'm half his age now, in other words,  I'm as old as he was when he had me. Which brings up the big child issue, to have or not have.  Obviously it's a personal issue that no one wants to read about.

 

"This world ... was only the first rude essay of some infant deity who afterwards abandoned it, ashamed of his lame performance;it is the work only of some dependant, inferior deity, and is the object of derision to his superiors...."  David Hume

 

Much like this writing..... 

 

Again tonight I sleep in hopes for a haunting dream.

 

 

Sept 16, 2002

Bukowski once wrote, that talking about writing sort of let the air out of the tires.  For me, it's waiting.  It's not sitting down when the thought occurs, but rather optimistically thinking that I will remember later.  I seldom do.  And such a thing occurred this week, I had a good idea of how I was going to tie together some of the thoughts I've written here. i.e. public and private, time, and art. Those ties evaporated, or they were a mirage, incomplete thoughts that ring well when in the mind, but when drawn out, never take on form.   Most of the time the postponement comes out of convenience, it'll be 4.a.m. and the bed too comfortable and the early morning uninviting.  Let's make it an aphorism: Comfort kills creation.  

 

Sept 9, 2002

Let's start off by saying that I have very little time to write and maintain this site.  Let us also say that you probably have even less time to read it.  For your benefit (and mine) I will be brief and quote Lyotard.

"So, in the next century there will be no books. It takes too long to read, when success comes from gaining time.[....]   Reflection is not thrust aside today because it is dangerous or upsetting, but simply because it is a waste of time.  It is 'good for nothing' it is not good for gaining time." 

 

I will add this:  What is it that we expect from books, movies and art in general?  for the most part I see that it gets reduced to entertainment and way to pass the time. Not to belittle that, for as Frank Sinatra said , whatever gets you through the day, but I always considered art more, a peep through a keyhole into the possibilities that are available. But like that man above, I  may be missing what's all around me.  

 

So what is more barren, my mind or my surroundings?

 

 

Sept 3, 2002

 

 

From just casual observation, some of the ugliest behavior that I exhibit, seems to stem from the protection of my insecurities. 

 

Cows and sheep do not herd because they want to herd, they herd because years of evolution killed off the cows that did not herd. If you want to benefit from vast resources of empirical data, and years of subject testing by Madison Ave., a quick analysis of advertising techniques will let you in on human instinctual herding mechanisms. Such slogans as "it's the number 1 movie in the country", and "the most watched....", are clear examples of these types of enticements. I may be stretching a bit, but I will also include the sway that opinion polls seem to have on voters as another example.  My conclusion is that humans are very herdish. 

When is it that we herd? Well... when we are insecure, its a defense mechanism. No big news here, but let  us wrap it up by saying, a very effective mechanism to get people to do things unaware is: 1. make them insecure. 2. inform them what the rest of the herd is doing. 

Number 2 is reasonably easy to identify.

Number 1 is harder perhaps because it's everywhere in our media.

 

Moral: stop reading magazines, and read more eggy.com.  

 

 

 

Sept 4, 2002

 

One keen observer (who has spent too much time at eggy.com) writes:

"In promoting eggy.com, you yourself attempt at making the reader insecure of an instinctual herding behavior. Now,  all that is lacking in the stated formula is to tell them what the 'herd is doing.'"

 

I was just about to get to that:

 

Eggy.com is the #1 site of malcontent Yankee 30 owners.

 

Gather round y'all.

 

 

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