I've Got A Feeling

Reading this morning, slipping into the protective world - peace-filled and worry-free - that reading offers me.

The story revolves around monks living in isolated seclusion in a very private monastery. The thought occurred to me that I could dig that. A life stripped bare. A bed, a table, a lamp. Books. Simple chores. Living with people who are forbidden to talk.

I don't engage well with life. I was not meant to live in the 20th and 21st centuries. I was not meant to be around people. I am not built to be decisive. I just want to live. I just want to feel.

As the fantasy formulated in my embattled brain, a thought exploded into my head - if that was my life I would not have my family. It was the kind of thought that jolts you - it doesn't just get thought - it surges through your body like electricity with the full power of your brain, your heart, and your soul behind it.

It screamed "You could not live without your family. It could never happen. You would shrivel up and die."

Been talking to a shrink, talking to my family, talking to myself - my brain is making creaking noises like doors in haunted houses make. My brain is evolving.

My entire adult life has been spent in warped perspectives, strangeness that prevents me from fully experiencing the joy I should experience in the way it should be experienced. Which is a big thing to say because I worship my family, I appreciate and love my family, but my diseased mind has kept me one step removed from the nirvana that I seek. The nirvana I am actually living.

What I experienced this morning, the visceral reflex that refuted the possibility of monastic living, is proof to me of change. I am realizing what I have. Fueled by 72, by thoughts of mortality, by fear, by thinking and questioning everything about myself - my whole being spontaneously rose up to say "You have exactly what you need, buddy - don't taint it with illusion."

It was a feeling much more than a thought.

Which makes it exponentially more powerful.

Those Who Oppose You

Howl, you sick beast. 

Make your mark. Break the bones of the ones who mock you, silence the voices, destroy their descendants.

You are here for a reason; justification or clarification is unnecessary - you can do as you wish. Those who oppose you must be crushed in excruciating pain. Make them suffer so others will learn. 

Your road is the only road, your dreams and desires override all others. Get what you want. Fashion your life exactly as you always dreamed it to be.

Howl, you sick beast.

Make your mark.

An Irish Prayer

 "Dear Lord, give me a few friends who will love me for what I am, and keep ever-burning before my vagrant steps the kindly light of hope. And though I come not within sight of the castle of my dreams, teach me to be thankful for life, and for time's olden memories that are good and sweet. And may the evening's twilight find me gentle, still. Amen"

Your Mind Is A War Zone

Very few of us ever have clarity.

At some point in your life you cross the Rubicon into a life you can't understand. It becomes bewildering. But your mind won't let go. It just won't let go. That voice, that voice rips you to shreds. The real you belittles compromised you. You can't stand it and you can't silence it.

Booze and drugs are required, whether it's a once in a while escape or a lifelong passion, you got to silence that annoying voice. There is nothing wrong with that.

Brief aside: Do you think the War on Drugs is real? It became "official" in 1971 thanks to that paragon of virtue, Nixon. You can't stop drugs. People need drugs, they need booze. In large part because of the nasty things the government, the rich, and big business do to control your life, to limit it, to keep you in your place. Which is a place you never wanted to be, a tiny place, a suffocating space with shit jobs, shit pay and a whole lot of "yes sir no sir."

The war on drugs is just another dance, another way to misdirect the attention of the little people from what's really going on. It is a way for those in power to control who benefits from all that delightful drug money, who directs it, funnels it, controls it. The power elites (the scumbags) preach about evil publicly, and then spend the weekend in a $25 million second home to snort coke off their mistresses' sweet asses.

Ah, what a world.

Most people adopt a cynical world view about life and wear it on their sleeve. That cold-hearted, "that's life, baby - deal with it" type of attitude. But they don't really accept that because they can't accept that, and that's where the torture comes in. The War. You can see it on their faces. It shoots out of their eyes like fire.

Wonder how many people show up to work with hangovers every day.

A majority, for sure.

That's life, baby - deal with it.

Will I Ever Find Out?

 "I'd rather die at the hand of a friend, than that of an enemy."

Winston Scott in John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum

I wonder which of my friends would be willing to kill me.

It Is Time

I would like to be either Harvey Keitel or Michael Madsen.

Madsen exudes an over the top, tough guy cool, but in a restrained way. Keitel exudes an understated, tough guy cool in a sophisticated way. Either one of those would work beautifully for me.

I gotta decide soon.

It is time for the transformation.

Working The Odds

 "Picking one up he marvelled, not for the first time, at the perfection of nature where leaves were most beautiful at the very end of their lives."

From The Brutal Telling, by Louise Penny

This is my only hope at this stage of my life.

I am counting on it.

I am betting on it.

Selective Connection

 "I insist he comes along, said Gamache, holding out his hand to the boy, who took it without hesitation. A small shard stabbed Gamache's heart as he realized how precious this boy was, and would always be. A child who lived in a perpetual state of trust.

And how hard it would be for his parents to protect him."

From The Brutal Telling, by Louis Penny

Gamache in this scene is holding the hand of a boy with down syndrome.

Where I work, Ian comes in with his Mom every Thursday morning about 15 minutes after I open up. He has down syndrome. I don't know how old he is but he is not a little boy, he is not a child.

He has become my buddy. He lights up when he sees me, we fist bump every time, then we talk a little. When he learned my name a while back he started using it relentlessly. Every sentence has my name in it two or three times. It's cool.

His Mom is remarkable. She is so in tune with him, so patient with him, so delicately loving. They communicate perfectly, seeming to anticipate each other's thoughts.

I have seen other parents with a lot less patience for their kid's disabilities. I hate them.

When Ian has what he wants the visit is over. Our conversation ends abruptly and he and his Mom turn and leave.

He makes my Thursday mornings.

A lot of elderly people, a lot of very young children, and some people with disabilities come into my workplace. I get along well with them because I am a sensitive sort.

The regulars disappoint me. Every day people. Self-absorbed, insensitive, sometimes rude, impatient. They never listen, only talk.

I'm trying to work my way to a place in my life where I have minimal contact with other humans, unless it is a situation of my own making. 

Until then, I will connect selectively.

Works For Me

I have found a new comfort zone when I read.

Inspector Gamache. This is so unlikely for me, yet I am gobbling up these books and enjoying them like the finest dark chocolate.

A long running series written by Louis Penny. 

I think maybe I am a sexist. Maybe not. But I don't read female authors. I've tried a few and found them lacking in whatever it is I need from a story. Perhaps I pre-judge them, or maybe there really is something about the female perspective that does not provide the entertainment that I need.

However, the Inspector Gamache series is giving me the peace I need right now. The characters are human, they are fragile, imperfect, petty, substantial, quirky, loving, conniving, confused, cocky, self-doubting and more. They truly come across as genuine, flawed, sensitive human beings. Reading the books makes me feel peaceful. I sprinkle them in amongst other books I am reading so I won't Google 101 ways to commit suicide.

The stories are murder mysteries and they are good. But the characters blow you away. They are not superheros, they are your neighbors or normal people you meet every day. Even Gamache is achingly human.

I am not adequately expressing myself, so I'll let Louis Penny herself do it. In the intro to The Brutal Telling she writes:

"No one quite appreciates and recognizes the light like those who've lived in darkness. That awareness is what I try to bring to the books. The duality of our lives. The power of perception. The staggering weight of despair, and the amazement when it is lifted. The gap between how we appear and how we really feel.

At their core, though, these books are about the profound decency of Armand Gamache, and the struggles he has to remain a good person. When "good" is subjective and "decent" is a matter of judgement.

These books might appear, superficially, as traditional crime novels. But they are, I believe, more about life than death. About choices. About the price of freedom. About the struggle for peace."

This country being what it is right now, you may need to read these stories just to regain your sense of yourself as a human being.

They work for me.

A Powerful Work of Fiction, and.......................

thank God! - who could live in an actual country like this?

Big Brother Is Watching You

War Is Peace

Freedom Is Slavery

Ignorance Is Strength

"Parsons was Winston's fellow employee at The Ministry of Truth. He was a fattish but active man of paralyzing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms - one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than the Thought Police, the stability of the Party depended."

"He picked up the children's history book and looked at the portrait of Big Brother which formed its frontispiece. The hypnotic eyes gazed into his own. It was as though some huge force were pressing down upon you - something that penetrated inside your skull, battering against your brain, frightening you out of your beliefs, persuading you, almost, to deny the evidence of your own senses. In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it...........................

The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."

Slogans and excerpts from 1984.

I Knew You Were Faking It

 "Very few people do this anymore. It's too risky. First of all, it's a hell of a responsibility to be yourself. It's much easier to be somebody else or nobody at all."

Sylvia Plath

Alone Again

I really wanted Djokovic to beat Alcaraz. 

To win the Australian Open. To grab that elusive 25th.

Alas, it was not to be. I fear that record breaking major is fading further into the rear view mirror for Novac.

Djokovic is 38, Carlos is 22. Age vs Youth. Generation after generation in all walks of life.

I was hoping for a miracle to help inspire my own, the miracle it will take for me to go out in a blaze of glory.

Guess I'm on my own.

Again.

Perfect Peace

 If you long to connect your soul to the Absolute Truth of Life, if you want to feel the perfect peace that accompanies that experience, then listen to Tom Russell - specifically a CD called Blood and Candle Smoke.