REDIRECT

Friends,

I am now posting blogs on a semiregular basis at adventuresinsolitude.blogspot.com
I will not be posting here again.

Enjoy the new and improved blog.


best

AA

thoughts on responsibility

this is the end of a few days of thought. a 4 in the morning post, so i dont know what it will truly say in the morning, or if it will be powerful. It is mostly for myself, but it is also for all y'all. To that special someone reading this...i am daunted by the monument of existence and the trials of my lifetime. I get confused and worry that my limitations will seek to change you. I worry i am not accepting enough of myself and my current state, but i have faith, and great peace when i think on you and how we face things. with love...

RESPONSIBILITY
All over the world there is a general abdication of responsibility. Responsibility is tough, and people don’t want to accept it. People do not want to act, do not want to make decisions, because the very action creates responsibility for that action. I don’t know any way to get around this…though there might be one. The people who are willing to make decisions and accept the responsibility of their actions are at a tremendous advantage in the world. If they desire anything they can achieve it, (career, motherhood, family, knowledge, whatever) simply because they are willing to make the decisions necessary for that achievement. This could also be called living with a purpose, or passion, since a purpose is nothing but the name we give to a strong inner-decision. The outward manifestation of a purpose is a string of decisions consistent with the inner decision. Here are the pitfalls and obstacles to those who are willing to live with purpose, passion, and responsibility.

1) the cult of false modesty: one who makes decisions must “not care” about the feelings of the masses who are unwilling to accept responsibility. There is a great collective pulling down or energy leech that this mass is creating. Generally they will rail and complain about decisions made for them, neglecting the fact that they have had ample time and ability to make those decisions for themselves. They will rationalize their indecision by calling it humility. They will call those who are willing to pursue a purpose “self centered”, “self serving” and “egotistic”. When they confront a decision maker they are ill at ease in his/her presence (and rightly so, they are operating at a different level) because of their subconscious awareness of their own irresponsibility/lack of purpose. They feel threatened, and (the laws of thermodynamics are applicable here) they will unconsciously try to pull everyone down to their level, their temperature. My father talks of people in this process as “pissing on your dreams”. I find the metaphor vivid and correct. To “not care” about their feelings is to not give heed to their attempt to pull down your purpose filled existence. It is not out of contempt that a decision maker does this, but rather out of love and necessity, hoping that he/she can stand as an example to all who wish to live a purposeful life. Therefore, as a purpose filled person strives forward in the act of “not caring” he/she is really doing the most charitable thing possible to truly care for the well-being of all he/she contacts. It is necessary not to listen to those who would subconsciously desire such a homogenization. But prepare to be misunderstood. The reality of worldly existence is that it is like the sand worm’s hole from Star Wars: if you are not actively pulling yourself up you are undoubtedly sinking. There must be self acceptance, but THERE IS NO STASIS.

2) self love, self doubt:
if you do not love yourself enough to think your voice in the world has merit and beauty then you will never be able to make powerful decisions. In your intrapersonal relationships, if you do not feel you have equal merit as your partner then it will be difficult to not be timid in the expression of your true desires. There will always be moments of doubt, but the greatest purpose-filled people have, always, at their deep core, a belief that they are worth the goal they seek. It is important here to make the distinction between true purpose filled decision makers and those who seem driven only to fill up holes in their emotional makeup (the “im gonna prove it to the world” syndrome). Such will only achieve happiness temporarily, and usually at the expense of others, until their deficiency of self torments them into more negative behavior. The true decision maker wishes to prove nothing to the world but the potential of the world’s children. His/her’s motives behind a purpose driven life are never based on fear, want, or feelings of inadequacy. Though it is understandable that they might have moments of all these emotions. It is also important to note here that normal social success markers of achievement do not normally apply to a true purpose filled decision maker. Happiness and peace are the only things that matter. But, because society wishes so badly to live purposefully (the easy way, by association), they will often reward the purposeful with wealth and any number of other distinctions. Don’t reject such lavishings, but use them in charity to further lift up those who just rewarded them. In this light a purpose driven person can be like the new robin hood, receiving from the responsibility poor, transmuting that into a higher currency, and then giving it back to the same people. Also, self love is the confidence required to overcome the downward homogenizing force of those who do not understand. They will make a decision maker question her/her correctness in the path. If there is not enough self love and righteous self confidence there will be no transformation.

3) Over charity:
this is a nasty ploy of the adversary. It is charity for the world and ourselves that will lead us to be decisive and purposeful, but one need only twist this charity a bit to turn it harmful. If you love (especially in interpersonal decisions and relationships) too much, you can begin to second guess your decisions regarding that person. You can wonder if you are making decisions for them, something you would never want to do because you want them to grow on their own. You can wonder if your decisions are hurting them, or keeping them from happiness, or giving them happiness to easily, or not challenging them. You can wonder at the motives for your decisions in their lives. Also, over charity, over concern for people will lead you to wonder about all the tiny decisions of life, decisions that often do not need to be made, but sometimes we love so much as to always want to analyze every little decision so we can make the one we perceive as best for them. There are many, many things to worry about. Each one is positive on some level, but when they lead you to constantly second guess even small intrapersonal decisions then they are extremely draining and ultimately paralyzing. The solution is to be decisive, and to continue to act towards that person or situation with the same purpose. Your trust is that they are decisive enough themselves to let you know what they truly want in the moment, and if your decisions are infringing on that agency. If they are not, then it is probably an indication that they are lacking in self love, which is ok in moments (because life is tough), but unchecked and patternized will lead to inequality and discontent in the relationship. It is also important to note here that many men and women in relationships fall back on social constructs of subservience. These constructs are all false. Men and women are equal partners. Duties and their various responsibilities should be consciously divided within a relationship, but when men neglect duties because of tradition and when women neglect responsibility, especially within the courtship construct, it is wrong.

4) Keeping the tank full:
This is the hardest, as the purpose filled person is, of course, human. Living with purpose is the only way to true happiness, but it requires a lot of energy. Part of this is due to the fact that there are so few beings left who will not drain the energy of a purpose filled person. If more people accepted responsibility then each decision maker would face less decisions. In the meantime, it can seem like a purpose filled person holds up the energy deficit of the world. This doesn’t have to be the case. This is why it is so important to pick your battles. Life is all about balance, and there must be times given to accept things, to rest, to enjoy, to laugh and to commiserate. A purpose filled person must first and foremost look to ways to maintain their balance, their energy, their strength. They must learn to say no to responsibilities that are not beneficial to their purpose and their health. They must learn to ask for help when they cant do it alone. there is no shame in help if your ultimate motive in asking is charity for yourself and for others. They must cultivate habits like meditation and scripture study and prayer and yoga and running etc. that fill up their energy and allow them to face, each day, the entropic world. They must know themselves (mostly) and be able to understand their wants and needs. If not, how are they to determine what decisions to make and paths to pursue? They must cultivate means of loving themselves, so they can assert themselves in confidence and love. Guilt is the crippler here, as the world will again make them feel self-centered for such personal time and space. This must not be heeded, because it is simply irrational.

Ultimately, the only people who change the world for the better are those who approach it with purpose and passion. It is the hardest way to live, and nowadays there are so many ways to self-medicate that some can go through life mostly unaware of their profound unconscious unhappiness. But it is my belief that there is goodness in the human spirit, a goodness that recognizes purpose when it sees it in others, and that that goodness will ultimately prevail over the laziness that our culture has slid into. In other words, it is clear to me that the victor of this most crucial of struggles will be the divinity inside each one of us. I hope something I have said will resonate within me and within those who have lived the moments that require their purpose to be reckoned with. I love you.

discontent

Discontent

A broken upper window throwing back half the sunset
Holds my image of discontent, tonight.

That or the three quarters yellow moon that followed us home
Along 1-15.
By "us" I mean me and my beautiful woman partner
Who lost her mother when she was six.

I imagined the moon was her mother, following us along the Wasatch corridor
South from salt lake.
The spiteful mountaintops trying to block her view of her flawless daughter
Or, maybe merciful, to hide her daughter from the still unfulfilled sickness of that moon.

Or neither. The moon and the mountains aren’t mine, who am I to compare them to a mother I did not see rise, fall, wane? Who am I to say that my beautiful woman partner is flawless? Things, I dare say the moon, she, the mountains, would disagree.

There is the problem of loss, of human emotion, of aching, of lust, of oneness and rightness, of death, of binaries, of absolutes, of theory, of touch, of womanhood and manhood, of family, of loneliness, of achievement, of history, of discontent.

and there is still that matter of the broken upper window and the half sunset.
I would like to claim that metaphor and imagine myself
throwing half the three quarters yellow moon,
half a mountain,
half my beautiful woman partner
back at the angled world in strange representation.

about time

happy holidays everybody. Let me say about the previous post:

1) its been up long enough
2) i am grateful for all the comments recieved
3) some were frustrated that i had it "figured all out" and felt my post was haughty. Those who know me know any haughtiness is just misunderstood earnest.
4) i have learned so much since then. learning is fun. getting in contact with members of the community of suffering and joy is better than fun.

5) here is a rough draft of my first piece of new work in a long time.


a shadow

I mentioned once of little girls in a parade
Sitting on a float and looking like young mothers.
That is where I thought I’d left them, waving slowly
from the back of a pony drawn hay cart.

Now I must admit the little girls have followed me
From the fairgrounds in southern Alberta
Over the Going-to-the-Sun road
And south into the Montana summer,
Flush with huckleberries.

Their pony must have mistaken my overloaded bicycle
For a lost mate--
If such a story can be believed.
I should turn to ask him “why the long face?”

Instead I keep on pedaling,
But I know they’re there, because in the evening
Their shadow catches me when I turn east.
The arms of it are still waving slowly.
I am sad. They must miss their young mothers.

putting my foot down about sadness

-this is a ten page treatise i spent all day writing today. one of those things i couldnt put down until it was completed.

On Modern Sadness

My attempt at clarity though I freely admit my experience with philosophy begins and ends with “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”. I do not expect these views to be shared by everyone, but I believe the larger themes they convey are good and worthy. They are merely my reflections; perhaps they will be of use to you.

Part 1: A Few of the Modern Causes of Sadness.
I have a lot to say concerning modern sadness. Recently I have been very closely acquainted with the aspects of sadness, but it wasn’t until I sincerely looked at the situation of a dear friend that I was struck with some realizations about the causes of it and the solutions to it. I have a close friend, who is wonderful, and also very sad. She has a blog as well, and is always honest about her depression, which is beyond courageous. I have noticed a trend, however, as I have paid close attention to her posts, especially the ones that deal with her sadness. Her sadness seems to be heightened, if not created, by a sense of Isolation. This is something I can relate to intimately, as it has run through my meditations as well. It’s a strange sensation of being "chosen for awareness" in a world where many are perceived as living "blissfully unawares".

First, before I dive into the complications of "chosen for awareness", let me hypothesize about the connection between awareness and sadness, and why my friend is sad. I believe her sadness is a byproduct of how she views her awareness. She is aware in that she is intelligent enough to see the shallowness of many of the social behaviors that people lean on for their own transient happiness. She is intelligent enough to realize that a happiness based upon such worldly conditions as money, education, fame, etc, is a sad counterfeit for lasting contentment. She is aware that the things our society seem bent on procuring are merely shadows of joy. So, being charitable and noble and courageous she goes in search of real Joy, but does so feeling isolated from the masses that seem content with the worldly solution to the problem of happiness. Her feelings of "being chosen for awareness" become a noble Cross, a responsibility, a solo burden, or more poetically, transmute themselves into the deep pain she imagines people seeing as they look into her eyes. This is her sadness, that she must be the enlightened one of her family, the prophetess in her own country, and the message bearer to a blind world. This feeling is perhaps best described as a "weight". It is a sadness that can be easily heightened by feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy for the task at hand, or stagnancy along the road to enlightenment, or frustration with self, or of a host of other things I am not aware enough to intimate. These, all compounded, form an interesting definition of depression.

The solution to this sadness lies in a critique of the whole "chosen for awareness"
idea, but to understand the critique its necessary to first understand another reason why modern people are sad. When a seeker of true Joy (and by this I mean the happiness of which fame and money are merely counterfeits) begins their search, they often believe they will find an absolute. But the journey towards happiness provides no absolutes, only an infinity of worthy hypotheses. Let me explain: Awareness is primarily an understanding that you are unaware of a completed picture of anything. It is Socrates' humility in stating that above all he knows; he knows that he knows nothing. The analogy is opening a door to find a room filled with one hundred more doors worth opening. Each one of those doors leads to another hundred doors, and so on. Anyone who has delved into a search for enlightenment will tell you there are a lot of truths out there, and a reasonably intelligent mind cannot hope in such a short lifespan to get a complete understanding of it all.

This is not to say there isn’t an absolute truth, (I firmly believe there is) but it is to say that fragments of that truth, while also found in the absolute, are scattered in infinity throughout a million other hypotheses. And to arrive at a complete understanding of Absolute truth and happiness is to exhaust all of those truth fragments, which is, in mortality, impossible. The cause of happiness cannot be the goal of understanding it. Our modern sadness comes because we are a society bent on understanding, whose natural tendencies demand order. We periodize our history, we systematize our learning, and we create logical hierarchies. When a person bent on completion, bent on understanding, is faced with the ever-changing and unfathomable intricacies of life, a hopelessness of understanding in the face of the intricacies can emerge. The hopelessness is not found in the lack of a solution, but in the sheer number of potential solutions. This was best explained to me unwittingly by a dear friend when she commented that she can't stand to go to a bookstore anymore because seeing all the great books she will never have time to read makes her inconsolable. The inability to accept the length of the journey, coupled with the sadness of isolation, can be very depressing. This feeling is sometimes compounded when a modern seeker falsely believes that others have figured out a final solution, and reached a time to rest. Thus the insecurity plays on both sides; contempt for those who have not yet become aware and envy of those who seem to have it all figured out.

Part 2: A Solution to Sadness

Since you have so diligently struggled with me this far, I will try to be clear and concise with the solutions I propose. There are two answers to sadness, and the first is community. The way to overcome sadness is through an acknowledgement of the large population of sadness. In other words, there is intense joy in community. This is clear in our lives. Take my blogger friend for instance: in response to her latest post about sadness and isolation there were 8 comments detailing how others in her circle of friends were going through the same thing. She must view them as true friends, as partners, and the joy she gets from them is probably what has kept her going. I have often daydreamed about this principle, and tried to define those that are aware of their journey as the "Community of Suffering and Joy". In fact, I have dedicated books to this community and decided that my purpose in writing is to help people take deep breaths and become aware that they are part of a Community of Suffering and Joy.

Let me tie this together by talking just a bit about "art". I suggest that most modern art is considered quality if it is an accurate expression of the human condition, or a commentary on that condition. Why do you think most of those in my generation who consider themselves aware or "chosen for awareness" are so drawn to alternative music, Indie movies, Emo, confessional poetry, etc.? Maybe its because we view them as accurate and honest expressions of the human experience, which is tinged with enormous suffering and joy. We find Joy in holding on to such artists and art. In my experience I have found incredible Joy in music, in knowing there are groups like Modest Mouse (and so many others) out there poetically expressing what its like to live in the modern world. I find Joy in knowing there is a small community that feels like I do. I find Joy in knowing there are people who face my issues and understand me.

To understand the concept of finding joy in community is to realize that the idea of isolation is a myth. The idea of being "chosen for awareness" is itself a dangerous myth unless everyone is chosen. To use the Christian maxim, "God is no respecter of persons". To my blogger friend and myself I clearly say that to believe anyone or we are chosen for awareness while others are not is the worst form of pride. The ability to grow is everyone's right by birth. The prideful view presupposes that there are those who can go through life unaware. I do not believe anyone can experience life without at one point, becoming aware that there is more to life than the shallow things. I mean everybody. I mean every prejudiced person. I mean everyone we might consider conceited or slow or content (in the bad way). No one escapes the experience of life. Everyone is, at some level, a member of the Community of Suffering and Joy. When that truth is embraced, the burden, the weight, the cross of responsibility that so often accompanies sadness is lifted completely. Our joy in the community becomes absolute when we realize the community is everybody. Can you see how such an epiphany can liberate your mind? Can you feel the weight being lifted?

Now, there are those who do not believe what I just said. Which explains why some hate when the underground music, movies, theatre we love becomes popularized.
They lose their sense of community (which has become so crucial to their happiness) when the masses they believe are selfish and inferior also find Joy in true and expressive art. I have seen this played out a hundred times, (once very clearly in regards to Modest Mouse) and it is this pride, so indefinable to me until now, that compounds the feelings of isolation. Those who believe they are more enlightened than others must hold on to these art forms because it is where they get a lot of their Joy in community. They must cultivate their exclusivity. You see this in every country club, at every art show, in every underground concert, at every University. The more exclusive a community is, the more they are wholly dependent on that single community to achieve the Joy of Community and therefore it logically follows they are protective of the status quo and hateful of those outside their circle. Anyone who has ever been on the short end of prejudice knows this phenomenon well. As I described earlier, they are insecure of those who are more enlightened and contemptuous of those who seem to have less.

Conversely, this is why the masses resent and fear the rebels and the artists. Not for what they do, but for how they seem exclusive about what they do. Everyone has their own insecurities, and when we feel judged we tend to react with judgment. To those who insist on being "rebels" I would say the modern "rebel" is never a rebel because he/she is merely following a pattern so rote, so basic, and so predictable it has become a part of common sense. No, a true rebel is one who possesses groundbreaking truth and brings it back to the populace. They bring it back to the populace because they trust the populace will believe it, and because they love. In other words, they act as if everyone is a member of the Community of Suffering and Joy. They act with the truth that everyone deserves the blessings of the Joy of Community. Jesus Christ is the perfect example of this phenomenon, and while time has tried to marginalize his truths, one thing is clear, that he taught them; that he, one who understood all the intricacies of life, still loved enough and thought enough of us to return and teach.

Now I want to explain the second key to overcoming sadness, and I want to do so by returning to the concept of everyone being a member of the Community of Suffering and Joy. When we realize that real community is limitless because the Community of Joy is everyone, we come closer to the second and most crucial key to lasting happiness: The acceptance that happiness is in the process of enlightenment and not the outcome. This is a trick, I know. It’s a mental shift. But the ramifications are amazing. The realization (taken to heart) that everyone is a member of the Community of Suffering and Joy immediately engenders great feelings of love and charity for everyone you see. Prejudice disappears. Racism cannot exist. It's as if the feelings my blogger friend had for her closest confidants in sorrow were suddenly applied to every human being on earth. Then, the joy she so easily finds in helping her closest friends be happier, (which incidentally, is the same joy I feel as I write this) becomes available when she helps even the most distant of human beings. The end of her entire existence shifts from a selfish quest for personal happiness into a passion for helping others (with an acknowledgement that our own quest continues through the experience of guiding). In other words, the "experience of happiness" during the process of enlightenment becomes the purpose of that process. The mind shifts from outcomes to experiences, it detaches from a perfectionist view of the future and adheres to the glorious present of helping other people.

Our only sadness then becomes the momentary feeling when someone is stuck in their own journey, or when someone momentarily refuses the journey. Physical imparities no longer produce permanent sadness, because we are not alone in them, and because they are merely a different and equally powerful experience along the road to awareness. We no longer hold back the pearls of our minds from what we perceived to be a mass of fools. In our new acceptance of the world we now share freely of our experiences with those we truly hold up as equals or future equals. We love those who are less aware of our favorite random specificities because we realize there are other areas in which they far surpass our maturity. We Love those who we perceive as more mature, further along the road, and we realize that we have qualities of our own that they must learn from us. Isolation, fear, insecurity and sadness all melt away. The modern metaphor is the idea that everyone is a different graphic equalizer of traits, and that the process of reaching out to others along the path of enlightenment is the only way to get everyone to the max settings.

Now, let me end by saying that I love you. I hope I have not confused you with my often-interchanging definitions. I hope you will realize my earnestness, and take to heart whatever is of value in these reflections. And for those who read this and are aware of things I cant yet comprehend, love me. Love me in the same way we must all love everyone else, because we are on the road; because we are members of the Community of Suffering and Joy. In a final note, I would like to say that my only sadness tonight stems from the inability to express in words all that I mean and feel. I look forward to a time when written language will match emotion and be able to convey the exact meanings of our minds and hearts.

a moon i saw

not the human kind :)

i was walking out of the the JFSB on monday night, rather low, and i looked up to my left and saw the most stunning moon poised right above the V between the mountains. And there was a cloud that moved across it that crested at the top like a wave. I was immediately charged, in a very trancendentalist way, to go attack the rest of the evening, which i did, which was good. I just thought i'd share that little experience with Nature. Here is another very rough poem

Seeley lake montana

A woman held a huckleberry child
Close against her breast.
Lovers by the lakeshore
Threw themselves against the flame
A man in a pale blue western shirt
Saw the ochre token, and stopped

Our town sits beside a lake in a valley
There is a post office with green shingles and an ace hardware .
There is a fair every july,
and the little girls sit on floats and look like young mothers.

I saw the flame. It tasted like cinnamon.

When we asked the old men
They paused a long time and finally said
“the winter will put her out”

mood fits the template

Dear blog readers, i love you all. But i must confess that my mood has matched the black template of this blog for quite a while now. Between boot, gally gal (what were now calling my tricksy gall bladder) and other random and semi-crushing disapointments both personal and professional, its been a rough semester for the ol' blogster. But a good one too, as i can see light at the end of this tunnel. And oh, what a petri dish for poetic bacteria... so here is another poem, another dense and rather dark one I'm afraid. Enjoy.

Ode to the weeping birch outside my window, before the first snow.

It wasn’t mercy that blocked your veins with a wall of cells
And trapped the sugar in the small oval leaves,
Turning them sick in their sweetness.

it wasn’t your guilt then, either
that moved your split trunk in a gentle sway and
waltzed the leaves from their thin, dark partners.

Your split trunk killed its covering
And opened up it’s white chest
To show its scars, to sing like sirens to the snow.
Its whiteness, like a duck hunt decoy
brought the snow circling down.

It was your shame, and need, that submitted to cold, and gravity.
A shame that invited snow to build slowly upon your windward faces.
Or to grow like a moat and rampart around your base.
It was your need to incubate and sleep in your circular cocoon.

(Somewhere in the secret heart of trees
Even when they are young and green
There is always this shame and need, I think.)

You must know, in your hibernation
That when the snow melts you will have become:
Thicker.
More terrible.
One step closer to Bethlehem in your slouching creep.
One season closer to your birth.

The first snowflake always falls slow, always turns over and over itself in the air
And tonight, on your paper thin nakedness,
lands like a single locust.