I find, not surprisingly, that using falling asleep as a meditative "rehearsal" for dying is a more tangible version of my general personal inquiry into existence and reality. It's a direct confrontation of my surroundings and senses, as a representative of my surroundings and senses the rest of the time, that this will all subjectively become nothing. That's the reality. The surroundings and senses rendered illusory.

It continues in the morning when confronted with another day of the illusion of surroundings and senses, usually with 45 minutes of just sitting quietly in my own mind. These days, my immediate future comes up for contemplation.

Within the next month or so, I might be in Taiwan. A host of steps still need to be taken for this to happen. The logistics are far from concrete. Things like having no idea what I will be doing once I step out of the airport. These things need to be settled. I need to know where I'll be going from the airport and how, for starters.

I've trained myself not to get stressed out about the future. The illusion of the future is a vast, heartbreaking unknown. It's very intangible. It will change my current situation. By nature that is what the future is supposed to do.

Switch focus to my past, looking at how I got here from there, it doesn't matter. It's all gone. When rehearsing dying, fading to sleep, trying to keep my eyes open and aware of my immediate surroundings and senses, those feeling are no different from the past memories I have. Then die, fall asleep.

The future is not here yet, the past is gone, live in the present moment, sitting quietly for 45 minutes. The present moment isn't even tangible. Each time I try to identify the present moment to live in it, it almost immediately becomes the past.

That's supposed to be sorta profound. Or not.

iTunes soundtrack shuffle:
1. Fake French (Le Tigre)
2. Fading ("Haibane Renmei")
3. It Would Have Been Wonderful ("A Little Night Music" - Sondheim)
4. Final Storm ("Secret Garden")
5. Sexthinkone (Shriekback)
6. Humdrum (live) (Peter Gabriel)
7. Duppy Conqueror (The Wailers)
8. Buzz (Throwing Muses)
9. The Colonial Wing (10,000 Maniacs)
10. Testify (Parliament)