I had two dreams recently that I didn't bother to put down in detail, but remember the general outlines. In one was the love of my life, Amina, and we were at least in each other's lives, if not "together". Perhaps it was what we might be today if we just remained friends and didn't fuck things up royally by going out. Whatever it was, I remember it felt good. When I woke up, I realized how glad I am she isn't in my life, how glad I am not to have that attachment to my physical life.
The other dream was very brief, it was more of a feeling. I dreamed that I woke up having met my short-term trigger, it was August and it was a warm day. And I didn't want to act on it. I don't put much stake in that. It's not about what I want, it's about letting go and shedding layers, one by one, layer after layer of physical self.
Sunday, June 29, 2003
Friday, June 27, 2003
I'm all there, right next to you:
Damn, there's a song off the latest Peter Gabriel record that has been getting to me lately, "More Than This". It is an ecstatic expression of the metaphysical revelatory experience.
I love the way the song builds with a disjunct, mechanical keyboard riff starting it off behind the image of waking up before dawn and walking out the door, then turning metaphorical, almost mystical, walking till "I couldn't walk anymore, to a place I'd never been."
With the chorus, the rhythm eases off and smooths out with the first "more than this", and builds to the revelatory "so much more than this, there is something out there, when all that you had has all gone."
The second verse is all descriptive about the way we live our lives and the struggles we face to learn from and get past to a higher understanding, "now we're busy making all our busy plans on foundations build to last, but nothing fades as fast as the future, and nothing clings like the past until we see more than this."
The chorus builds again to the line "and more than this, I stand alone and so connected." I love that line because of juxtaposition of being alone and also being connected, seeming opposite, but in the revelatory sense, that's what it's about.
In the bridge, he brings things down to reality a bit, "it's alright, when with every day, a little bit falls away, and like words together, we can make some sense," going straight into an extended chorus and the coda "much more than this, way beyond imagination, much more than this beyond the stars." I like that because of the scale, human imagination is unlimited, and he's saying that the "more than this" goes way beyond that.
Maybe it's because I relate to this and his images, "with my head so full, so full of fractured pictures." It is precisely how I feel, that reality is so much more than the thin slice of it that the physical (re)presents, and it is with taut ecstacy to feel that, to feel that connection with the universe that simultaneously makes you feel important as hell and insignificant as an ant. It's frustrating and wonderful, it's an overload that makes you want to burst out of your skin and get to what's next or be in a different slice of it.
Out for pizza with Amy, Lisa, and Melissa down the street from Zeitgeist in the Mission. They have paper tablecloths and provide crayons for drawing.
Damn, there's a song off the latest Peter Gabriel record that has been getting to me lately, "More Than This". It is an ecstatic expression of the metaphysical revelatory experience.
I love the way the song builds with a disjunct, mechanical keyboard riff starting it off behind the image of waking up before dawn and walking out the door, then turning metaphorical, almost mystical, walking till "I couldn't walk anymore, to a place I'd never been."
With the chorus, the rhythm eases off and smooths out with the first "more than this", and builds to the revelatory "so much more than this, there is something out there, when all that you had has all gone."
The second verse is all descriptive about the way we live our lives and the struggles we face to learn from and get past to a higher understanding, "now we're busy making all our busy plans on foundations build to last, but nothing fades as fast as the future, and nothing clings like the past until we see more than this."
The chorus builds again to the line "and more than this, I stand alone and so connected." I love that line because of juxtaposition of being alone and also being connected, seeming opposite, but in the revelatory sense, that's what it's about.
In the bridge, he brings things down to reality a bit, "it's alright, when with every day, a little bit falls away, and like words together, we can make some sense," going straight into an extended chorus and the coda "much more than this, way beyond imagination, much more than this beyond the stars." I like that because of the scale, human imagination is unlimited, and he's saying that the "more than this" goes way beyond that.
Maybe it's because I relate to this and his images, "with my head so full, so full of fractured pictures." It is precisely how I feel, that reality is so much more than the thin slice of it that the physical (re)presents, and it is with taut ecstacy to feel that, to feel that connection with the universe that simultaneously makes you feel important as hell and insignificant as an ant. It's frustrating and wonderful, it's an overload that makes you want to burst out of your skin and get to what's next or be in a different slice of it.
Out for pizza with Amy, Lisa, and Melissa down the street from Zeitgeist in the Mission. They have paper tablecloths and provide crayons for drawing.
WordsCharactersReading time
Thursday, June 26, 2003
What is it to die of a disease or condition? Something attacks or damages vital organs or functions, causing them to fail or shut down. We only recognize the physical as legitimate. It is illegitimate when the vital organ is mental, the mind, the spirit. We don't even understand it. We don't even conceive it. The spirit is indomitable. There is always hope when the spirit is alive.
It's never like that anti-smoking ad where the doctor goes, "I can't operate". There's never the psychiatrist feeling the bumps on my head and concluding, "This has gone too far". Talking doesn't work anymore. Don't drugs miss the point completely? Someone could have me locked away, but that would just reaffirm and reinforce the "problem" in the first place.
But it's not my poor little spirit being crushed here. I am affirmatively moving forward into what I think is the next step in a natural, if not logical progression. There's the front side of me that is affirmatively striding forward into this, and there is a backend psychology that is propelling me.
It's never like that anti-smoking ad where the doctor goes, "I can't operate". There's never the psychiatrist feeling the bumps on my head and concluding, "This has gone too far". Talking doesn't work anymore. Don't drugs miss the point completely? Someone could have me locked away, but that would just reaffirm and reinforce the "problem" in the first place.
But it's not my poor little spirit being crushed here. I am affirmatively moving forward into what I think is the next step in a natural, if not logical progression. There's the front side of me that is affirmatively striding forward into this, and there is a backend psychology that is propelling me.
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
I am so done. What am I gonna do for the next two months? I go back to San Francisco tomorrow, back to routine, back to the daily juxta-diametrically-opposing facets of my non-life, wondering about the walls. I'm not living. I'm not going to just continue this for the sake of people not having to deal with my not continuing this.
My brother just got married, congratulations to him. We're at marrying age. We have gotten to the stage in life where we need to move on to the next step. Get married, start a family, buy a property, that's what's supposed to be next, the paradigm of my background and upbringing dictates. But fuck if I'm gonna live to those paradigms. And really fuck if I can't come up with a new paradigm of my own.
I wish upon my brother, both of my brothers, and actually every one I know, a happy life, a fulfilled growing old. But doing that myself just goes against every screaming fiber of my being. It almost offends me.
The Einstein exhibit at the Museum of Natural History in New York. I think this exhibit was the effect of extreme gravity on light. I can see I was wearing my Genesis concert shirt from 1987.
My brother just got married, congratulations to him. We're at marrying age. We have gotten to the stage in life where we need to move on to the next step. Get married, start a family, buy a property, that's what's supposed to be next, the paradigm of my background and upbringing dictates. But fuck if I'm gonna live to those paradigms. And really fuck if I can't come up with a new paradigm of my own.
I wish upon my brother, both of my brothers, and actually every one I know, a happy life, a fulfilled growing old. But doing that myself just goes against every screaming fiber of my being. It almost offends me.
The Einstein exhibit at the Museum of Natural History in New York. I think this exhibit was the effect of extreme gravity on light. I can see I was wearing my Genesis concert shirt from 1987.
Monday, June 23, 2003
The day after the wedding, I drove down to D.C. to visit Meghan, and that night we went to see Peter Gabriel who happened to have been playing that night. During "Growing Up", Gabriel got into the huge hamster ball and rolled around the stage, bouncing during the choruses. Meghan took this shot with my camera.
Saturday, June 21, 2003
Wednesday, June 18, 2003
Many a summer evening while I was a teenager was spent perched on my window ledge in New Jersey watching the sun go down. Glorious sunsets with the trail of headlights on Rte. 80 disappearing on the horizon.
Even on a rare clear day at the coast in San Francisco, we never get sunsets with the full spectrum of roy g. biv. We'd get several shades of an OK pale orange. No deep, rich indigos and orange, or fiery, passionate red, or definite streaks of green and yellow.
How can I be living in a place that doesn't have decent sunsets? The symbolism is so important! Maybe it's not fair making the comparison, since the sunset I saw tonight was on the plane, 27,000' above Syracuse, NY, considerably more vivid than most of the sunsets I'm talking about. I hear Tucson has great sunsets.
On the plane, I thought that I'm too tired to move. I'm too exhausted to seriously consider relocating. Holding back a wall of water with my bare hands? Or molasses? Maybe jello? Not quite as prosaic as Sisyphus. Not quite as dramatic as the Titanic filling. Not quite as romantic as the sea of love where there are no shores, all there is to do is drown.
I knew when I moved from Noe Valley to the Mission in December 2001 that I was too exhausted to ever move again. Relocating to another city is that times ten. That's pretty darned tired.
In the room I grew up in, circa. 1983
A day of flying that ends with Fort Lee Pizzeria pizza is indescribably heaven.
Sunsets shot from planes are always beautiful. 27,000' over Syracuse, New York, according to the captain.
That patch of green in the lower left is the large Sunset View Cemetery. If it were possible to swing around 180 degrees from this point of view on the ground, we'd be looking at Berkeley.
Flying over Oakland. The first place I lived in the Bay Area was around Lake Merrit, and it's in this shot, but I won't bother to try to pinpoint where. Suffice it to say, there is a small cloud over it, on the other side from this shot. Rte. 580 snakes its way up and down in this shot with the diamond of the MacArthur Maze connecting it to 980.
Birds-eye view of the Presidio with Crissy Field hugging the shoreline and the half-circle of the Palace of Fine Arts in the north-east corner.
Soaring over the Golden Gate Bridge:
We took off in high level fog, so it looked like a cloudy day on the ground, but we quickly got above the fog to a clear, sunny day. This sums up what San Francisco is to me. Everywhere else is warm, bright, and sunny, and I happen to live in the one place that is foggy, dreary, and cold. Bite me.
The Seacliff area is on the right, middle of the shot. The Golden Gate Bridge connects into the Presidio.
Waiting to take off. Airports are the ideal place to get around by bike.
San Francisco Airport. Going to New Jersey.
Even on a rare clear day at the coast in San Francisco, we never get sunsets with the full spectrum of roy g. biv. We'd get several shades of an OK pale orange. No deep, rich indigos and orange, or fiery, passionate red, or definite streaks of green and yellow.
How can I be living in a place that doesn't have decent sunsets? The symbolism is so important! Maybe it's not fair making the comparison, since the sunset I saw tonight was on the plane, 27,000' above Syracuse, NY, considerably more vivid than most of the sunsets I'm talking about. I hear Tucson has great sunsets.
On the plane, I thought that I'm too tired to move. I'm too exhausted to seriously consider relocating. Holding back a wall of water with my bare hands? Or molasses? Maybe jello? Not quite as prosaic as Sisyphus. Not quite as dramatic as the Titanic filling. Not quite as romantic as the sea of love where there are no shores, all there is to do is drown.
I knew when I moved from Noe Valley to the Mission in December 2001 that I was too exhausted to ever move again. Relocating to another city is that times ten. That's pretty darned tired.
In the room I grew up in, circa. 1983
A day of flying that ends with Fort Lee Pizzeria pizza is indescribably heaven.
Sunsets shot from planes are always beautiful. 27,000' over Syracuse, New York, according to the captain.
That patch of green in the lower left is the large Sunset View Cemetery. If it were possible to swing around 180 degrees from this point of view on the ground, we'd be looking at Berkeley.
Flying over Oakland. The first place I lived in the Bay Area was around Lake Merrit, and it's in this shot, but I won't bother to try to pinpoint where. Suffice it to say, there is a small cloud over it, on the other side from this shot. Rte. 580 snakes its way up and down in this shot with the diamond of the MacArthur Maze connecting it to 980.
Birds-eye view of the Presidio with Crissy Field hugging the shoreline and the half-circle of the Palace of Fine Arts in the north-east corner.
Soaring over the Golden Gate Bridge:
We took off in high level fog, so it looked like a cloudy day on the ground, but we quickly got above the fog to a clear, sunny day. This sums up what San Francisco is to me. Everywhere else is warm, bright, and sunny, and I happen to live in the one place that is foggy, dreary, and cold. Bite me.
The Seacliff area is on the right, middle of the shot. The Golden Gate Bridge connects into the Presidio.
Waiting to take off. Airports are the ideal place to get around by bike.
San Francisco Airport. Going to New Jersey.
Monday, June 16, 2003
Meg sent me this article on internet assisted suicide.
On one hand I find it bizarre and disturbing, on another hand I . . . for some people I'm glad that there are groups online to help prevent botched, unintentionally messy, or disabling suicides.
Of course every case has specific circumstances and no article can present the whole story, but from what that article said, it sounds like Suzy Gonzales was the real thing, it was a sure thing, it wasn't a "cry for help". The fact that she was able to hide it so thoroughly from her parents, who describe their relationship with her as being "particularly close", suggests to me that it wasn't a cry for help. If they were "particularly close", they would have known something was up.
I do agree with condemning online groups for "never giving any hope", if that actually is the case, I don't know if it is. Personally, hope should always be pushed, and hopelessness should never be advocated. I have a hard time believing people who go to these online groups are irresponsible and have a cavalier disregard for human life and the despair of others.
What I find disturbing and twisted is any suggestion that there is a community of suicide or the suicidal. It is an individual, personal decision, and it, by nature, should be a difficult one, difficult to reach, and difficult to execute. But that's just me because I'm still comparing the before and after pics.
For Suzy Gonazales, who knows what the truth was? Who knows what could have been done to prevent it, or if it was preventable at all? Not all suicides are preventable or treatable.
Suzy's father described going to the online group as "throwing gasoline on the fire". We know what the gasoline was, but there's little indication what the fire was.
Our society and mental health system are woefully inadequate in dealing with death in general and suicide specifically. That idiot psychiatrist Michael Naylor is an example, spouting antiquated blanket statements that suicide attempts being a "cry for help" and that suicides don't realize that this is the end. How fucking condescending.
If I knew someone who was suicidal, I wouldn't recommend that they go through the mental health system unless it was clear to me (and I have no idea what that would be) that it was a cry for help and that traditional thought could help them.
Otherwise online groups provide a forum for expression without the threat of the indignities of the mental health care system. I laugh at my case now: the first thing the mental health system did was call my parents, the source of the problem. It was so incredibly stupid and quixotic, you have no idea.
The movies often depict the mental health system going wrong. It's true that there are plenty of success stories. But these are people's lives and minds, any fault in the system is perceived by victims as nothing less than a violation.
In general, I'll give online users credit. Those seeking help will find online groups that will help put things in perspective. If those people seeking help find themselves in a group aimed at people who are sure and are looking for a method, I think they will find that they don't belong there. People who are sure and are looking for a method, I respect their decision.
Me? I wouldn't seek any help. I would just make sure it is as hard as possible and uncertain to execute. If I succeed, I was meant to. If I don't, I wasn't.
Default shot. Corner of Hampshire and 19th, outside my front door.
Sunday, June 15, 2003
I sat in front of Amy and Lisa on the MUNI, my arm slung over the back of the seat so I could talk to them. Lisa reached over and ran a finger along a faint scar on the exposed part of my arm, but didn't say anything. Amy probably saw it but also didn't say anything. I looked at my arm and we just continued our conversation.
Nothing special except that was exactly the advice I had written somewhere recently on what you should do if you notice something suspicious like that on another person, but aren't close enough to inquire about it. The idiot reaction is typically, "What happened to your arm?"
My advice was, as a first step, just let them know that you notice it, don't ask any questions, don't make them uncomfortable. I didn't specify it, but what Lisa did was what I had in mind. It doesn't make the person uncomfortable, it communicates that you notice it and aren't ignoring it, and it's tactile, there's a level of intimacy, even tenderness, but not enough to invade their space.
Though no one will fault you for just ignoring it, that's totally acceptable.
Martini.
Nothing special except that was exactly the advice I had written somewhere recently on what you should do if you notice something suspicious like that on another person, but aren't close enough to inquire about it. The idiot reaction is typically, "What happened to your arm?"
My advice was, as a first step, just let them know that you notice it, don't ask any questions, don't make them uncomfortable. I didn't specify it, but what Lisa did was what I had in mind. It doesn't make the person uncomfortable, it communicates that you notice it and aren't ignoring it, and it's tactile, there's a level of intimacy, even tenderness, but not enough to invade their space.
Though no one will fault you for just ignoring it, that's totally acceptable.
Martini.
Thursday, June 12, 2003
When people die, other people console the survivors by saying, "They're in a better place now". I've seen that a lot recently.
If dying means going to a better place, what's to stop us? And why would anyone want to stop someone else from going there?
Things I just don't understand.
What? If you do it yourself you end up in a worse place? How much worse does it get than this? That often being the point.
one year ago
Ocean Beach.
current soundtrack: Versus - "Dead Leaves"
If dying means going to a better place, what's to stop us? And why would anyone want to stop someone else from going there?
Things I just don't understand.
What? If you do it yourself you end up in a worse place? How much worse does it get than this? That often being the point.
one year ago
Ocean Beach.
current soundtrack: Versus - "Dead Leaves"
Thursday, June 05, 2003
I don't know if it's the isolation that is getting to me. I don't know if it's the weather that's getting to me.
Or maybe it's the lack of physical activity; I haven't run since the Bay to Breakers, and I haven't gone on a ride since Memorial Day. I was planning to go today, but the fog was too oppressive. I'm planning to go tomorrow, fog or not, on what should come close to another 50 mile ride.
I wondered once whether anyone had blogged a suicide, but dismissed it as not being my style. To the extent that I've always referred to my journals as my "suicide note", maybe I am. But to keep it in perspective, more than 10 years of suicide note has not produced any results.
I do feel there is something fundamentally different now, but haven't I always thought there was something "fundamentally different now"? That's fine; if there is something fundamentally different this time, fine; if there isn't, fine.
It's a fine line between non-attachment and suicide. When the feelings of isolation, or weather-related oppression, or general stagnation emerge, the feelings are fine, but the negativity associated with the feelings must be stripped away.
But they can't be stripped away by suppressing them, they need to be engaged, turned around, and understood and dismissed for what they are . . . fleeting, being part of reality where "reality" is ephemeral.
If the feelings are the cause of suicide, that is wrong. Non-attachment as a reason for suicide is also wrong. Suicide must only be suicide for what it is and why it is. Zenaida once asked, as we are all asked eventually, whether I believe in destiny. Odd question, as we were no longer that kinda close by that time.
I believe in destiny and fate, but it's a flexible destiny. Our, or rather my (I don't speak for anyone else) destiny is not written in stone, but opportunities show themselves in the form of fate and destiny. As an individual, one has the independent choice how to act when confronted with that occurence of fate or destiny. In catch-phrase terms: we don't approach our fate, our fates approach us.
I trace back my timeline, the path that I have chosen, the choices I have made when confronted with fate or destiny. There is a lot I would do differently if I could do it all again, but no, where I've been led and led myself is fate.
When I think of it that way, I smile. I don't know why, but it's alright. At the end of my journey, whenever it happens, I know, I know, I know that I will be smiling. Hopefully I will have the presence of mind to acknowledge that this is the end of my journey and remember to smile.
Or maybe it's the lack of physical activity; I haven't run since the Bay to Breakers, and I haven't gone on a ride since Memorial Day. I was planning to go today, but the fog was too oppressive. I'm planning to go tomorrow, fog or not, on what should come close to another 50 mile ride.
I wondered once whether anyone had blogged a suicide, but dismissed it as not being my style. To the extent that I've always referred to my journals as my "suicide note", maybe I am. But to keep it in perspective, more than 10 years of suicide note has not produced any results.
I do feel there is something fundamentally different now, but haven't I always thought there was something "fundamentally different now"? That's fine; if there is something fundamentally different this time, fine; if there isn't, fine.
It's a fine line between non-attachment and suicide. When the feelings of isolation, or weather-related oppression, or general stagnation emerge, the feelings are fine, but the negativity associated with the feelings must be stripped away.
But they can't be stripped away by suppressing them, they need to be engaged, turned around, and understood and dismissed for what they are . . . fleeting, being part of reality where "reality" is ephemeral.
If the feelings are the cause of suicide, that is wrong. Non-attachment as a reason for suicide is also wrong. Suicide must only be suicide for what it is and why it is. Zenaida once asked, as we are all asked eventually, whether I believe in destiny. Odd question, as we were no longer that kinda close by that time.
I believe in destiny and fate, but it's a flexible destiny. Our, or rather my (I don't speak for anyone else) destiny is not written in stone, but opportunities show themselves in the form of fate and destiny. As an individual, one has the independent choice how to act when confronted with that occurence of fate or destiny. In catch-phrase terms: we don't approach our fate, our fates approach us.
I trace back my timeline, the path that I have chosen, the choices I have made when confronted with fate or destiny. There is a lot I would do differently if I could do it all again, but no, where I've been led and led myself is fate.
When I think of it that way, I smile. I don't know why, but it's alright. At the end of my journey, whenever it happens, I know, I know, I know that I will be smiling. Hopefully I will have the presence of mind to acknowledge that this is the end of my journey and remember to smile.
Wednesday, June 04, 2003
I do miss a sense of community and/or being part of a group. I'm not sure what that means to me, I've always been pretty much a loner, much more a satellite of a group than part of a group; more of an afterthought than part of the plan. But that's not even true anymore.
I don't know why communities fade in and out of my life like ghosts. I like the feel of them, but I'm not one to stay in one. Story of my life. I still feel and appreciate aspects of this world, I just don't want to participate or put the effort into participating in them.
I don't know why communities fade in and out of my life like ghosts. I like the feel of them, but I'm not one to stay in one. Story of my life. I still feel and appreciate aspects of this world, I just don't want to participate or put the effort into participating in them.
Monday, June 02, 2003
I haven't seen anyone I know for almost two weeks, and the interactions I then had rang hollow.
Valerie was in town and I met up with her. She's a great person and I loved her just as everyone at Oberlin did, but we were never that close. She was too good and too positive for me. Also, at Oberlin, she was like a mentor for the whole Asian American community, and that put her in that category of people I reject as being able to be close to me – adults, authority.
I tried talking to her as an equal this time, and our conversation got too deep and too serious way too fast. I thought it would be possible because she's gone through some serious shit since Oberlin, so I was hoping we could relate, but it didn't really work.
Sadie I'm finding, after a year, I don't know at all (which makes sense, knowing a person a year in your 30's means less than knowing a person a year when you're 21), and hanging out with Sadie means hanging out with Bob with Sadie watching the dynamic where anything deep or serious is uncomfortable and taboo. Neither of these I want.
Through this, resonating through all my past friendships, is a cultivated, manicured isolation. I'm wondering if the isolation has ever been what it has currently become.
For the past three and a half years I was working, before that I was in a band, before that I was in a relationship, before that I was in school; all built-in social interactions. All through it was isolation, but I can't recall when the isolation was so complete that it compounded into a dark and fragile day after day of not seeing anyone, with no prospect of social interaction anytime soon.
It's rich, it's warm, it's appropriate and I'll take it, but it makes tentative prospective social plans hard. I should be cutting everything off right now. I may be losing perspective, I may be spiraling, but . . . no, that's all.
Valerie was in town and I met up with her. She's a great person and I loved her just as everyone at Oberlin did, but we were never that close. She was too good and too positive for me. Also, at Oberlin, she was like a mentor for the whole Asian American community, and that put her in that category of people I reject as being able to be close to me – adults, authority.
I tried talking to her as an equal this time, and our conversation got too deep and too serious way too fast. I thought it would be possible because she's gone through some serious shit since Oberlin, so I was hoping we could relate, but it didn't really work.
Sadie I'm finding, after a year, I don't know at all (which makes sense, knowing a person a year in your 30's means less than knowing a person a year when you're 21), and hanging out with Sadie means hanging out with Bob with Sadie watching the dynamic where anything deep or serious is uncomfortable and taboo. Neither of these I want.
Through this, resonating through all my past friendships, is a cultivated, manicured isolation. I'm wondering if the isolation has ever been what it has currently become.
For the past three and a half years I was working, before that I was in a band, before that I was in a relationship, before that I was in school; all built-in social interactions. All through it was isolation, but I can't recall when the isolation was so complete that it compounded into a dark and fragile day after day of not seeing anyone, with no prospect of social interaction anytime soon.
It's rich, it's warm, it's appropriate and I'll take it, but it makes tentative prospective social plans hard. I should be cutting everything off right now. I may be losing perspective, I may be spiraling, but . . . no, that's all.
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