I guess I should've gone to the emergency room.

The thing is that I don't see doctors, I don't go to hospitals, much less emergency rooms. And it turns out the quote from Northern Exposure is really true that the human body is a wonderful healing machine and the role of doctors is often just to give a patient peace of mind (or to administer drugs to alleviate pain in modern society). I forget if it was Leonard or Uncle Anku who said it.

I don't even know how to go about "going to an emergency room". In the worst of it, when I thought it might be necessary, I had stuffed a few things in a backpack to be ready to grab to run out into the pouring rain and catch a cab and tell them to take me to the nearest hospital. Is that even right? Or is that the point when you call 911?

The rain was actually a really interesting part of the whole incident because it was a perfectly sunny day. I wasn't surprised when I started hearing rain outside because that would still be normal for Taipei weather, but it was raining pretty hard and it was still sunny outside. I kept walking out into the hallway where I can see outside, asking, "How is it raining?, it's totally sunny out there", and I looked for a rainbow and found it and assumed the rain would end shortly. But it didn't, and when the pain started it kept raining and poured through the whole 4-5 hour ordeal.

That kind of rain was strange and I wonder if it wasn't a factor in discouraging me from going to the hospital. But going to the hospital is simply unthinkable for me. Even when I was preparing for it just in case it got that bad, I didn't really think I would or could do it.

I started having sharp abdominal pains and at first I didn't think anything of it. I thought it was intestinal, not uncommon in Taiwan. It's worse when it occurs when I'm out, but I was still home. I figured I'd feel some sharp pain, go to the bathroom and it would clear up and I'd feel fine in short order.

It was just like the pain when that happens, but it didn't let up and started to increase. It was like someone was gripping and squeezing and twisting whatever internal organ – stomach, intestines, liver – and it also occurred to me it might be appendicitis, which if you don't take care of your appendix ruptures and you die.

The pain increased as twilight turned to night outside my window. I'm not a screamer. I would probably scream under torture, but not internal bodily pain. I groan and I writhe.

And then I found it true that meditation techniques do help manage pain. It wasn't a conscious thought process of, "Oh, this hurts, I think I'll go into meditational equipoise to manage the pain with my mind". It was more visceral. I was sweating so much from the pain that I had the air conditioner on even though the cold air was uncomfortable. But I found myself in a position on my bed with my palms flat on the mattress, and I started visualizing the pain as energy and then directing the energy through my palms into the mattress.

From a modern science point of view it's a distraction technique. You mentally occupy yourself in a way that makes you feel better by not thinking about the pain. But when you actually try the method and even marginally think you're succeeding, there is a sense that qigong, or taichi, or even Tibetan descriptions of energy flow are real and are an important part of our being.

I was basically in that meditational state for a good 3-4 hours, focusing on mind and controlling the pain energy and directing it into the mattress. It also occurred to me that before directing the pain energy into the mattress, I had to think of the energy positively since I didn't want to discharge negative energy anywhere, even into an inanimate object. So I reminded myself that pain is good, it tells us and warns us when we're in distress and we need to do something about it, so while discharging the pain energy into the mattress, I was also thanking it.

I don't know what I think of that now, that's just what was going through my mind at the time. It may be just an indication of my own subjective mind, rather than some objective reality. But then that's the way it would be for all of us.

It started to alleviate about 9 in the evening when there were clearer moments when the pain subsided. There were several trips to the bathroom through all this. I think the grand finale was vomiting when I hadn't eaten anything in almost 24 hours and what came up didn't look like the only thing I had ingested, which was coffee with cream. A lot of blackness.

If that incident was an earthquake, I continued to feel aftershocks for over 24 hours and even into today, but now it seems to be completely gone. I'm not sure what to make of it and since I didn't go to the emergency room like a normal person would have or if I lived with other people, I'll never know.

I don't know what triggered it. All through the 24 hour period of "aftershocks" when the pain would re-emerge and I'd get worried if it would get blown out of proportion again, I wondered if this was liver failure. I read that a stage of liver failure may include "pain on the liver" but it made no mention of "excruciating pain on the liver".

But now if it seems it's not continuing, then it's not liver failure. Actually, I'm not totally writing it off just yet. I'm not going to say that it's totally gone just yet. It just seems mostly gone at this point, but I still feel something. That said, if it's not liver failure, then the only thing I can identify as being a trigger is what I ingested right before it started, which is a single cup of bottled iced coffee with an artificial liquid creamer.

Focusing on the creamer, there was a recent scare in Taiwan in the past few months of unscrupulous foodmakers putting something bad in their products that caused health problems in a bunch of people. Some plasticizer. It was big news, but being a foreigner I only get the translated news. I worked at an English-language newspaper and can testify the most experienced Taiwanese writers of English-language news can only express at a level at least one step removed from a native English reporter.

I didn't think the news applied to me. From the TV reports it looked like it was mostly about bottled drinks and the store where I buy bottled drinks is reputable and posted signs that ostensibly said that their products had been inspected and were safe. I never saw non-dairy coffee creamer in those reports. 

However, I now can imagine what it was like for those victims, that if some toxic substance was added to a food product and wreaked havoc on their liver or kidneys upon ingestion, that their family members would have rushed them to the emergency room.

If I was living with family in Kaohsiung, I might have successfully resisted being sent to the emergency room because I'm not a screamer. I can keep it in in a way that other people wouldn't panic, but otherwise I imagine that they would have called 911.

Then there were my thoughts that I might die . . .

Speaking of Buffy season six, coming back after being off the web for two months is a little like dying and then being brought back to life, ripped out of heaven by friends using magiks. OK, not that last part, but it is disorienting.

Like, what am I doing here and why? I drag myself through my days by constantly reminding myself I'm going to die sooner or later, probably sooner because thinking 'later' would be even more unbearable than the being here right now, and whatever problems or issues come up, it's just not worth it not to tell myself to just be happy right here and now.

Work can get tense and stressful as we're rushing to send the last pages to the printers, but once the heat is off, it's not worth it to let it linger. Swoosh, let it go, done, gone, off.

When the chief editor starts raising his voice and getting angry or frustrated, I don't take it personally. In fact, I start feeling sorry for him because I know he doesn't mean it personally, either. He's just getting caught up in it, and once the paper's out, we don't linger on it.

Work, band. Am I doing anything different from San Francisco? In San Francisco, I had work and I had a band. In Taipei, I have work and a band. Why didn't I stay in San Francisco. Right, because I wanted to die in San Francisco.

So in another way my life, for lack of a better word, has been resurrected. But it is different. In between I had the monastic experience, albeit short, to get things re-aligned. Death as a focus is still here but slightly reconfigured. And I work but also see so many aspects of doing this thing as absurd. Same with the band.

The work here and the band here are relatively jokes compared to the "real" job I had in San Francisco and the "real" band I had in San Francisco. I can't take these things seriously anymore. It's just a change in attitude. And in general I look at my whole life, for lack of a better word, and the absurdity of it all is so underwhelming.

The mindfulness/meditation practice is still the most important thing. Oh, I guess I can add that to the things I've been doing that I've found absurd.

I started hanging out with some people associated with a meditation group affiliated with one of the four major Buddhist institutions in Taiwan. I've broken it off since I've started working since I really don't have time for it. I really did join them just for the social aspect. The Saturday afternoon group practice was not necessary compared to my daily sitting habit.

I guess they were mostly cool, I'm just thinking of a few people, and only one with whom I have a major beef. And the major beef is a relative thing because she thinks she's so clued into the practice when she's just the Buddhist equivalent of a Jesus freak. The other "few people" are just tripping along on the path, just as we all are, and I actually do like them.

Then I think the rest of them I was associating with really get it. We get it because we don't need to talk about it.

The practice is the one thing that isn't absurd. So I guess my aim is to find out how to make it absurd.

Northern Exposure quote of the day:
"I'm no rabbi, but it seems to me the purpose of saying Kaddish is to be with your community. And what I realized this week is that, well, you're my community" - Joel

WordsCharactersReading time

Going forth:
Time to sign off. I'm still needing to put a gargantuan effort into keeping calm in the moment, and keeping my anxiety in check. Everything will be fine if I just concentrate on keeping calm in each moment, and mindfully move forward on this path.

So many thoughts and issues rise up to overwhelm in this going forth again.

It’s the coming back, the return, which gives meaning to the going forth. We really don’t know where we’ve been until we’ve come back to where we were, only where we were may not be as it was because of who we’ve become. Which, after all, is why we left.
- Bernard Stevens, "Northern Exposure"

I've come back more times than I care to have, and still I keep going forth. What am I running from? What am I running to? What am I doing on this lonely road? I thought I was killing myself, but now I'm not.

A lot has changed from all this going forth and coming back. And now my feeling is you have to keep getting better, you have to keep progressing, keep transforming. The Jedi training never ends, even as Luke confidently enters Jabba the Hut's lair to rescue Princess Leia.

I have to keep asking, "Is this place better for my having been here?", and as I move on, hope that I can do the same thing wherever I'm going. Even though San Francisco and anyone I met there is no better for my having been there. Not the point. Not the point. It's not?

Ironically, I think my family in New Jersey is better for my having been here. Even my parents, ultimately will have been better for my having been here. Weird for me to think so. I'm such a different person than I was just a year ago. That, I suppose, is the point of going forth.

So tired of all this travelling
So many miles away from home
I keep moving to be stable
Free to wander, free to roam
"Sky Blue" - Peter Gabriel

Feb. 21, 9:27 p.m. - airport lounge. I'm trusting my camera timestamps more than Blogger's, which may be my fault in failing to adjust settings or Blogger having trouble dealing with time-zone hopping. Vagaries of the digital age. I left on February 21.

"Feb. 22, 5:11 p.m." - Somewhere high in the air, some hours into the flight, probably before I adjusted my camera's clock setting, which I probably did after arrival.

Feb. 23, 6:17 a.m. - approaching Taiwan. who the hell cares if the time stamp is correct or not?

6:29 a.m. - it's a credible time stamp, meaning I adjusted it to Taiwan time before taking these shots.

Feb 23, 6:59 a.m. - On the ground. erm, meaning it took 30 minutes from being above the clouds in the air to landing and processed through the airport for this shot? Apparently so, the discrepancy wouldn't be a factor of adjusting camera settings. And this shot might be after de-planing but pre-airport processing (immigration and customs).

7:38 a.m. - Taoyuan Int'l Airport. A view that would become very familiar for many years hence arriving in Taiwan, leading to the bus terminal to catch a coach to Taipei proper.

iTunes soundtrack:
1. Fuck and Run (Liz Phair)
2. All Hands On the Bad One (Sleater-Kinney)
3. Art Decade (David Bowie)
4. Symphony No. 38, III. Finale (Presto) (Mozart)
5. Get Out of My House (Kate Bush)
6. You Won't Be an Orphan for Long ("Annie")
7. Symphony No. 24, III. Allegro (Mozart)
8. Thin Air (Pearl Jam)
9. Dose of Thunder (The Replacements)
10. it (live) (Genesis)

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
Joel: It's a clear cut case of damages as far as I'm concerned.
Maggie: You want damages? OK, Fleischman, let's get this over with once and for all. Come on, damage this, Fleischman, come on!
Joel: O'Connell, you're making a fool of yourself.
Maggie: C'mon, Fleischman, give it your best shot!
Bystander: Hit her, doc.
Joel: Do you mind?

I'm living a pretty luxurious lifestyle here at my parents' house. It's even better than the monastery. I can continue my studies and practice at my leisure, the only downside-which-is-not-really-a-downside is that I have to maintain my own discipline. The annoyances of living in a community are replaced by the annoyances of living with the 'rents, but my gratitude towards them for shelter and occasional food far outweigh those.

The biggest downside is that this can't go on for much longer.

I have to move on, figure out my next bold move. I haven't gotten any further on researching Nagasaki, nor have I contacted Madoka since leaving the monastery. I have some great resources for Taiwan that I haven't perused yet. And to get to the point of moving on, I need or want to re-visit my perennial suicide ideal – the euphemistic "leaving".

I know that after the last time I said I would buckle down and just accept living. That was really naive, and at no point did I really think that would happen. I also said that entering a monastery was my only living option. I still feel that way, which is why leaving is again at the forefront of my thoughts. But after years of holding this ideal and never being successful in executing it, I'm not dogmatic about it. And same deal as last time: I'll plan it, talk about it, say that I'm going to do it, but until I succeed, no one should take me seriously.

Again, if I'm serious about doing it, then I should be able to walk out the door and execute the plan right now, and I'm not. I'm blogging. Furthermore, I tell myself I'm waiting until my brother and his wife get back from their honeymoon since I'm picking them up from the airport. What? If I leave before they come back, they'll be stranded at the airport? It wouldn't be nice news to come home to, but when will it ever be nice news? Stupid.

I'm looking at the original planned date from two years ago. Right before they left for their honeymoon, they were trying to convince me to take sailing lessons with my sister-in-law, the first one being the day before that date, two more on the following weekend. My impulse was that agreeing would interfere with my plans, but that's also stupid. If I go for a sailing lesson on one day and leave the next, that's fine with me.

I'm obviously not going to do it.

My brother's marriage was in crisis mode even before they got married. These sailing lessons are an attempt to form a bond between them, something they can do together. First she lets him pull her into his hobby, then hopefully something reciprocal occurs in the future.

The idea for me to take lessons with her is to keep her company (no, I'm not interested in learning how to sail). I asked why didn't he go with her to the lessons, and the response was that would mean paying x amount of money for him to just sit on a boat, hearing what he already knows.

It doesn't enter his thinking that the money would be a small amount to pay to build up a much-needed bond between them. The idea is for them to do these things together. I'll try to explain this to him in simple, non-offensive language after they get back, but his habit-patterns of selfishness will make it a hard argument.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day: I tell her we'd never work out because we have nothing in common, because I hate everything that she likes. And in return for my forthrightness and honesty, I get, at best, if ever, her grudging respect, when like Jules what I really want is to lick her naked body from head to foot like a postage stamp. - Joel

I'm gonna smack the next person who advises people with wireless routers to secure their connections. In January, there was no wireless seeping into my parents' house. In March, I found a connection in my brother's old room and in the dining room. Now I've got one in my old room, but only when I'm sitting at one spot on my bed. And shit is fast! If I ever get a wireless connection, I will not secure it. Power to the people, man.

Guess what I finally won off eBay:




I won an entry level model shakuhachi in March from this guy who makes them in New York. It was made only for meditation purposes and I knew it wasn't in perfect tune, but then I found that I could tell it wasn't in tune, and I wanted one that was. Mind you, it is an excellent flute and serves its purpose well as a meditation flute.

This red shakuhachi is made by the same guy and is in tune, and knowing the quality of his flutes, I know I won't be disappointed. Unfortunately, he's out of town for the week, and I won't be able to ride into the city to pick it up until after my brother's wedding next Saturday.

At least that gives me time to get comfortable on a bike before taking on New York City streets.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
Maggie: She's suffered an appalling tragedy and in her despair and her darkest hour of life, she comes to you, knowing how much resistance she's going to meet, knowing that in all likelihood she's going to have to bear the brunt of your suppressed rage. Still she comes to see you, Joel Fleischman, that's how important you are to her. She's reaching out, Fleischman, for a familiar shoulder for compassion. Just let her know she still has a friend. Be a mansch.
Joel: I believe the word you're looking for is "mensch".

It’s still sinking in that I got rejected from the one monastic system that simply does not reject people from becoming aspirants unless they are clearly unfit for it. In general, if someone asks to be an aspirant and demonstrates an ability to live in harmony with the community, they’re in. But I didn’t ask to be an aspirant in my letter.

In retrospect, it occurs to me how incredibly clever my letter was to perpetuate my own karma. My letter was the paper embodiment of how I live my life. I don’t make decisions about my life. I put indirect factors in motion and then let fate decide the main issue. If that doesn’t work, I wait until the last moment and flip a coin.

I cleverly worded my letter so that it was up to the monks to decide whether I was an aspirant or not. I made it a matter of interpretation. Although in principle the monks will never make that decision – it has to come from the aspirant – they could have read the letter and seen that I clearly considered myself an aspirant. They could have said they weren’t making a decision for me, it’s on the face of the letter that I see myself as an aspirant . . . man, I’m fucking brilliant.

And I was ambivalent when I wrote the letter, I remember writing it and being ambivalent. What’s so fucking genius about the letter is that I can go back to the letter now and be outraged that they rejected it when clearly it could have been interpreted that I wanted to be an aspirant.

It’s not just the letter, though. Their lack of communication and the role of my so-called mentor also contributed. He did not act as an effective liaison between me and the community. He didn’t try to get me to my true heart and expression of it, so he couldn’t understand me or my position and communicate it to the community.

He also did a poor job at communicating to me the thoughts, feelings, and reservations of the community, or offer any guidance of any sort so that any issues could be resolved with mutual understanding.

It’s all my karma. It’s perfect. Incredible. I take full responsibility for it, and nothing that happens to me hereafter should be attributed to what the monks did or didn’t do. Psychologically speaking, it has nothing to do with karma, and I manipulated all the conditions to have a high probability of turning out this way.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day: Shelley, if there's anything I've learned in the past couple of days, it's that you're more to me than your feet - Holling 

One week left at the monastery before I leave. I think I’m done with this monastery. I won’t be back. I think my final analysis is right – this is my karma that I’m living out and unable to change. I got rejected from the one monastery where I couldn’t possibly be rejected! 

One monk told me that through observing me, each and every monk wanted to see me go to the root monastery as an aspirant, but that my aspirancy letter appeared ambivalent. I’m sorry they interpreted it that way, but that’s as good as it gets. They think I can do this, they think I can be good at this, it was their choice to make it easier for me or harder. They chose to make it harder, perhaps as a further test of my commitment. 

But you know what? They’re right. I am ambivalent, just as I’m ambivalent about everything else about my life. Just as I’m ambivalent about my life itself. They rejected me, “oh well. next." What they interpreted as ambivalence has nothing to do with the effort and commitment I would put in as a monastic. It's just my style.

My gut feeling is that I would have been a great monk. But they also failed my test to them, whether they’d give me breadth in my training, or if they expected me to toe the line while jumping through hoops. I won’t play their institutional games and if they reject me for that reason, I’m better off without them. 

In 3-5 months, when I’m still alive and desperate for what to do next, I don’t see why I wouldn’t just print out the exact same letter and send it to them. Either that or a one sentence letter, but if that would be less ambivalent, I’d be disappointed in them. 

But man, if they knew how well their decision plays into my idea of my own karma, I think even they would be impressed at their insight, how well they are plugged into the ether, whatever else is out there affecting our lives that we can't see or touch. This relentless push of my karma towards suicide or something like suicide. Something. Or a fight against it by pushing me towards it. But really, everything in my life has pushed towards it. Anyone want to commit suicide with me?

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day: Let me just say that I have more important things on my mind than carnal, erotic pleasures. I do. Now granted Chris might be a stud, but I am not some cow in heat waiting to get poked by the lankiest bull in the pasture. - Maggie

The truly suicidal do not go out and buy the Third Season of Northern Exposure as soon as it comes out on DVD. I am just wallowing in the wonderment of this old TV series. It’s pretty sad, I must say, when your last refuge of feelings is in DVDs.

I realized yesterday that my feelings can't be verbalized. I can't talk about my feelings, no one can verbally fish for them and expect to get a picture anywhere near accurate. My feelings only come to me in bits and glimpses of images that pop into my mind. Tears can well up in my eyes, but they dry before they fall at the risk of me bashing myself in the eyes with a baseball bat.

I can point to a scene on a DVD, a movie, a TV show, and say, 'yea, that's the feeling. That's it'. Chris Stevens is giving off pheromones that allows him to have his pick of any woman in the small town of Cicely, Alaska, but he has eyes only for one woman – the itinerant eye doctor who isn't affected or attracted at all. The last scene, at night, the eye doctor is driving off in her RV for the next town. Chris, a DJ, sends his final musings over the airwaves as he watches her leave from the DJ booth. He steps out onto the front steps in the warm Alaskan summer night, and sits on the stoop with a beer in hand, the neon lights of the radio station softly glowing. Now that's what heaven feels like.

I can't believe how much I love this show.

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

if i should stumble
and what if this monastery charade is just another ploy; a sidetrack. what if there is no transformation. what if this is the same thing i've always done. i look down into the well of my psychology and the laugh echoes and echoes and echoes on on on on on.

i don't need to enter the monastery to accomplish the purported reasons for which i'm entering the monastery. everything is already complete. the answers manifest. there is no attaining enlightenment, everything all is enlightenment.

i don't think the path is wrong or deluded. i think the monastery is right, i think they're onto something, but what do i want. maybe i'm not ready for the monastery, maybe i'm way beyond the monastery. maybe i haven't even begun to climb the mountain, maybe i'm on my way back down the mountain, maybe there is no mountain. who knows. who cares. what do i want.

the patterns of my life swirl around me and i might be shamming myself with this idea about the monastery and what it's supposed to do. but do i believe in the core of my being, do i trust myself. how many more times do i let other people test me as to whether i'm a fucking aspirant or not.

next stop: taiwan.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
Chris: The fact that we don't know this man isn't important really, because his experience is our experience, and his fate - up here - is our fate. "Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas", says the preacher. All is vanity. I think that's a pretty good epitaph for all of us. When we're stripped of all our worldly possessions, and all our fame and family and friends, we all face death alone. But it's that solitude in death that's our common bond in life. I know it's ironic, but it's just the way things are. Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas. Only when we understand all is vanity, only then it isn't.
Maurice: Sometimes I have trouble following his train of thought.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
Maggie: What's the matter, Fleischman, you're a doctor, haven't you seen dead bodies before?
Joel: Yea, and I'm still rattled, I don't like people committing suicide. All the ethical considerations aside, it's just plain bad for business.
Maggie: He was doing fine until you told him to think about his future.
Joel: ...I was talking about a walker!

Englewood Cliffs, NJ

God, I've been totally remiss on the Northern Exposure quotes, it's been a long time and there are so many, and it's such a good show. This is probably a good time to mention that the second season has been released on DVD. All my friends have already gone out and bought or rented first and second seasons, or they're planning to. This is because that's a requisite for being my friend. Right, friends? Hm, I'm sure they're out there.

It's still cold. I haven't lived in this kind of bitter cold since 1992. California has thinned my blood and it's a hard acclimation, but in a few days I'll be in Taiwan where I'm told by unreliable sources (parents) that it should be warming up like Springtime quite nicely.

Yup, and since I hadn't been here in Winter for so long, I forgot that my parents aren't such big fans of spending money on heating the house. It's a brisk 62 degrees in my room, which is colder than the rest of the house so I never close the door.

Of course it's below 20 degrees outside, which brings back a vague memory from high school years when, in order to warm up, I'd go stand outside or in the garage for five minutes. Coming back in was just as good as coming into a well-heated room.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
Chris: Well, you know, the way I see it, if you're here for four more years or four more weeks, you're here right now. I think when you're somewhere, you ought to be there because it's not about how long you stay in a place, it's about what you do while you're there. And when you go, is that place any better for your having been there. Am I answering your question?
Joel: No, not really.

I gather that there is this subatomic world that is governed by uncertainty. Matter at the subatomic level doesn't really exist except as probabilities. These subatomic particles, the ethereal building blocks of matter, move at such unfathomable and frenetic speeds that they are undefinable in the way we define ordinary matter. Or something like that.

It's very poetic. Break matter down into its smallest constituent pieces and basically you have non-matter, you have fields. Fields of probability. I prefer fields of probably, but I'm no scientist, fortunately.

I don't know if this is a good analogy, but the way I manage it is to imagine our planet as an atom. And as long as I'm blowing up a single atom to that size, I might as well speed it up proportionately, too. Speed up our planet's life to the speed of such a huge atom, and we are the subatomic particles. The surface of the planet is the field of probably er, probability, and our lifetimes flashing by as sparks so minute that they are undetectable.

As soon as you try to point at one life, it's gone and billions of other lives are flashing in and out of existence each fraction of a second; so fleeting that they can't be said with any certainty that they happened, just that they probably happened; that they probably were there, mm? All our lifetimes become a blur until they all seem like one thing, only discernible by standing way off in the distance.

I don't really understand Heisenberg's uncertainty principle (rather esoteric stuff, understandable only by certain high priests and wizards we call 'physicists'). I just think it's hilarious for a sound principle of science to be called the "uncertainty" principle – the "well, we don't really know" principle. I mean there's a hell of a lot I'm uncertain about, but I'm not going to go make a principle about it.

It's kind of flaky even. How about having a religious uncertainty principle – having a belief in God governed by an uncertainty whether He or She really exists. Or an uncertainty principle regarding education (eh, I may or may not pass that class) or work (when your boss asks you to do something, ask her whether she's heard of the uncertainty principle in regard to getting it done). Logging onto gmail is obviously governed by some immutable uncertainty principle.

Fortunately, quantum mechanics is not nearly as important as employment, education, or, God forbid, God. It's just the study of the fabric of existence, something we can all take for granted unless the fabric of existence, space itself, starts breaking down and losing cohesion, and then it won't matter anyway (stranger things have happened, I'm sure). Them scientists can afford to be uncertain. Our lifetimes are just sparks anyway.

I knew I had written before what I wrote about in my previous post. Still not as in depth as it could be, but at least I'm consistent in my descriptions, I think.

I believe in God, but not in a being that is God, nor a higher power that is God. A lot of people might say right there that I, in fact, don't believe in God; I've just twisted and distorted my definition of God to encompass what might really be an agnostic or atheist position.

For me, God starts with us. Or me. Or Me. From there it spreads like a quantum wave encompassing every little, iddy biddy, tiny bit of the fabric of all existence, non-existence, all that can be known plus whatever amount of what can't be known.

In a way, I see cosmology as an ongoing scientific study of or search for God.

In fact, as soon as you say "God", you've already missed it by trying to grasp it, control it, own it, know it, unless your conception of God is such that when you hear the word "God" it blows up like a supernova, and you lose any attached conception of God, especially any "religious" conception of God. It's probably no coincidence that this is more or less the same as enlightenment in Buddhism.

But I digress. The important facet is that it starts with me. Or Me. And no religious doctrine, canon, principle, or belief should stop me from realizing that for everybody else, it starts with them. Or Them. Not that it does, since others have their own conception of God and probably don't want me imposing my conception of God on them.

But it means that no religious doctrine, canon, principle, or belief should ever be exalted over Them. Especially when dealing with Them. Face to face. That is all. And that's only where it starts.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
Joel: Hello, O'Connell.
Maggie: What do you want?
Joel: I just wanna talk.
Maggie: So talk.
Joel: Could you put the ax down, please?

Oh, and gmail gets the big donkey shaft from me.

It occurs to me that people who know me might recognize my current approach to suicide as . . . just that, another approach. Still trying to get to it, even when I'm smirking at myself about it. That might be so. Other people who know me might go along with my personal take on it, that I still don't believe I'm gonna do it. Even if this is another new approach, I'm still smirking.

Why the doubt? Why any doubt? To me, it's just right. Every indication not only suggests that it's alright, but affirmatively points to it. It occurs to me that it may be a part of my path, it may be a test, it's something to learn from. I know, modern psychology would put me clearly in the delusional if I think suicide is justified by any concept or force outside of myself like destiny, signs, or voices telling me to do it.

We all have our lessons in life to learn, determined by ourselves, what we have decided. We may have set for ourselves the challenges we meet in life. We struggle with money; we struggle with greed; with love; with lust; with physical pain; with attachment; with acceptance; with whatever, you can figure out for yourselves what your struggle is with.

At one point, I thought my struggle was with existence. And the thing with these struggles we pose for ourselves is that we always have an out - suicide. If the challenge is too much, we eject, we abort; try again. I don't necessarily believe that anymore. I don't necessarily think existence is my struggle anymore. It has become more attachment to existence. It is both what I'm struggling against and what I'm attached to.

Theoretically, I see it, I get it. But I need to feel it, to really understand it, moth to the flame, just keep diving into that candle because that is truth that I theoretically know so well. Only theoretically.

I think that I've been killing myself for the past string of lifetimes to understand this. That's what it's taking to understand it. Lifetime after lifetime, and it's this hesitation, this doubt, this mark of my attachment to existence that trips me up every time; that when I do it, it's still, 'no, you still don't really understand it'. Existence is illusion. Attachment to existence is attachment to illusion.

Am I worth learning this lesson? There are other ways to learn it, but I don't think so for me. This is the way that I have to learn it, and even with the red carpet that my life is, I balk. Even with this lifetime, maybe I hesitated too much and will have to go around again.

I watch a lot of movies, I watch a lot on TV, different places, different lives that have it a lot worse than me. Thank god I'm where I am, with the comforts and luxuries I have. But...is this so wonderful? Attachment. Attachment to me just because I'm me. If I were in any of those other situations, I would make do because that would be who I am, but I'm still thinking how glad it is to be me. Let it go.

Once I get over this hurdle, suicide won't be an issue. I'll be able to live in this world without it even being a consideration; the way money and health aren't a consideration for me in this current life. I might even be able to condemn it in other people, to be a barrier for their true understanding of it so that they really learn it.

So really, what do you want for me?

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
Rick: Maggie!
Maggie: Rick! Rick?
Rick: Don't worry, I'm still dead.
Maggie: Where are we?
Rick: Heaven.
Maggie: Heaven. You're in heaven?
Rick: Well, it's really not all that hard to get in. I'm mean compared to an Ivy League school or some of the NBA playoff games, it's actually a breeze.
Maggie: This looks like the Grosse Point Country Club. Heaven is the Grosse Point Country Club?
Rick: For you. It's your dream.

I did my ghost thing around the Castro this afternoon, walking around like I wasn't there, imagining a different world where the people I saw didn't look so heavy. Where people smiled and randomly said hello to each other. Where people didn't feel threatened or the need to feel threatening or dish out attitude. Where common courtesies were second nature because society was good about valuing them. Where people owned automobiles, but chose not to use them as a primary mode of transportation. Where people blew bubbles instead of smoked cigarettes. I'm in a commercial now, ain't I?

And then I ran into ex-co-worker, Ken. Nothing kills a ghost act than someone you know walking up and saying hi. I've fallen to such lows.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
Walt: Good afternoon, Rhoda. I've got a little chest cold. What have you got for it?
Ruth Anne: Well, let's see, Tincture of Opium's good, codeine, oh and heroin syrup. Why don't you try them all and see what works best?
Walt: Much obliged, put them on my tab.
Ruth Anne: Mm-hm.
V.I. Lenin: I'll take these bunion shields.

I guess this is safely what may be called a "lull" in my life. Nothing going on. Nothing planned. Turning around and shining a flashlight of skepticism on the past eight months to scrounge out what was real and what was clutching at straws.

Everything I believe in is real, as it should be. To the extent that what I believe in had to be couched in religious terminology is merely unfortunate. Religion is just so problematic when it comes to human application.

I used to bridle at the disparagement that Buddhism is not a religion, but a philosophy. It was mostly Christians asserting the superiority of their hegemony. But all things equal, I'm fine with Buddhism as a philosophy, and I'd sooner take offense at it being called a "religion".

I'm all for "Westerners" taking Buddhism as a philosophy and applying the principles that make sense to them to the religious tradition in which they were raised. That's better than pretending to be "Buddhist" and falling for all the exotic trappings of Asian cultures because it's new and different from their own traditions.

The concept of religion is so emotionally charged and imbued with competitiveness, judgment, heirarchy. Holier than thou. Righteousness, implying someone else's wrongeousness. We're going to heaven, you're gonna burn in hell. Now with philosophy, it's all good to proclaim and debate one's philosophy being better than someone else's. At the end of the day, we're all just human.

Philosophy is about how we live our lives each day. My philosophy regarding riding my bike is: "Don't get hit!". When I head out on my bike, that's not an abstract concept in the back of my mind like a religion. It's practical reality regarding how I ride and negotiate traffic. And believe me, from what I've seen, it's obviously not everyone's philosophy.

I'm perfectly comfortable saying that I don't have a religion. My philosophy inspired by Buddhism fits perfectly well on a practical level. Even the mystical and metaphysical parts for me, because for "me", not just as this simple individual entity typing this, those are practical.

It's not an easy philosophy. It requires transformation. Being able to transform. Transform my life, my being, my environment, my reality, by tapping into something more than just the physical manifestation that we call reality.

It might even mean suicide; it means breaking through the barriers of our normative lives and perceptions. If I think suicide is what most people seem to think it is, then it's wrong. But if it is what I think it is, then it's transformation, in conception and execution. This is just an example.

But Buddhism does require a transformation. It requires a radical way of looking at the world where the interest of the self does not prevail over the interests of everyone else. Where we treat everyone we meet as members of our own family, and we treat the members of our own family very, very well. With love, understanding, compassion, and equanimity. Screw all the imagery and religious sounding mumbo jumbo and nirvana and enlightenment. And you don't have to be Buddhist to implement that transformation.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
One Who Waits: Do you recognize this place?
Ed: Uh, I don't think so.
One Who Waits: This is where you were welcomed into the tribe. There is an old saying that if you come back to the place where you became a man, you will remember all of those things you need to be happy.
Ed: I, I don't remember anything.
One Who Waits: That saying never did make sense to me, but I thought it was worth a try.

I'm toying with the idea of doing a week of pure confessional. No cryptic shit. No intellectualizing. Just the honest truth of what I'm doing, thinking, and feeling. How much more boring and trying than usual would that be? Left-turn shit, but it's my weblog and my expression and I can do whatever I want. We all can.

But it's April, and for some psychic reason Aprils are always hard for me to get through. I thought this year would be different, just by not believing in it. But not only is this year no different, this year is the first year that the start of Daylight Savings had absolutely no positive, mitigating effect. No "shit is spiraling out of control again, but at least there's more sunlight each day". This year I just haven't given a rat's ass.

I don't know how far I want to take this, I'll probably be out of the mood of doing this by tonight.

But so far, I haven't seen anyone this month. More than half of the days I haven't even gotten out of the apartment. I've tried going on some bike rides, but hills are killing me, and hills are the only thing I'm good at. My computer caught a virus which has been annoying and I just don't want to bother so I keep the computer off. And I'm getting over being sick for the past few days.

Yea, sick. I don't want to get into that just yet. Light-headed, dizzy, loss of equilibrium/balance, light nausea, low electrolytes, feeling bleah. It's my own doing, so this is no pity parade plea (save it for the computer virus). In fact, in the midst of feeling like shit, I'm wondering if I'm actually enjoying this (definitely enjoying it more than the computer virus). Through this all I'm maintaining my sitting regimen as best as I can, since that is the only thing that is real this month.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
Joel: Holy cow!
Holling: It's changed, isn't it?
Joel: Changed? Holling, that doesn't even begin to describe this. I mean, this is, this is...
Holling: Pink! Careful you don't bump into those little glass unicorns.
Joel: Wow, Holling, Holling. I gotta tell you, I mean, this would bind me up. It would totally tie me up, my colon would be tied in knots. I mean...no man could move his bowels in here!

No more projected dates.
No plans.
Just floating.
Feels like pudding fading.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day: The countess and the doctor hadn't planned things to work out this way. I guess we're all a little like John Casavetes after all. We just don't know the ending. Till we get there. - Ed

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day:
Maurice: At forty-six five I had a moral compass, Chris, but at 55 I'm lost. Half of me says 'take the money, you fool', the other half says 'don't sell to these two guys!'.
Chris: Still hung up on that gay thing, huh?
Maurice: I don't care what consenting perverts do in their own home. I just don't want 'em doing it in my backyard, that's all.

This recent rash of Northern Exposure quoting is the result of a recent rash of Northern Exposure viewing, which is the result of recently finding out that Northern Exposure is to be released on DVD! I don't know where to begin gushing about how Northern Exposure is my fave TV show of all time.

Does anybody remember Northern Exposure? I wasn't really into TV when it originally aired, so I don't remember exactly how popular it was, but it did win a bunch of Emmy's. I don't hear many people referencing it these days, but I do know that there are fans out there as rabid as me.

It's weird. The show feels like a time capsule to me, capturing a very specific niche of a social, political, cultural, and spiritual philosophy. It arguably portrayed white liberalism at its pinnacle most enlightened, before it got flaky and PC-policed out of popularity (my earlier knock against white liberalism notwithstanding). After decades of social, political, progressive struggle, we finally had our eyes open.

Our multicultural, multiethnic, multipolitical, multieverything society could be inclusive and tolerant of race, gender, sexual orientation, age, education, social status, ability, background, etc. We could recognize and accept our diversity and differences, while always showing baseline civility to the people around us. It's really not that hard!

After decades of struggle and court battles, we had the philosophical groundwork for a non-self-destructive society that worked on the strengths of its citizenry, and didn't exploit and capitalize, literally, on its weaknesses, but also didn't try to artificially erase the difficulties of living in communities and the potential ugliness in the name of equality.

Northern Exposure showed this all to us in the quirky, metaphoric, and sometimes metaphysical and magical utopia of Cicely, Alaska, on the cusp of the Alaskan Riviera!

Socialized health care!

*ahem*

But the show was so much more than that. And less. If you're my friend, you'll buy this DVD when it comes out. Or if you've never seen it, you'll check it out, rent it from Netflix, borrow it from a friend. Heck, you can come over and watch it if you live in San Francisco if I'm still around. Or we can watch it at your place. And if you like it, you'd still have to buy it to be my friend. If you don't like the show, I'm sorry, but I really do not see how we can continue with this relationship. I'm sorry.

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day: Good lord, you're only a doctor. Tell me, do you reproach yourself when Winter comes, when the grass dies and the leaves fall from the trees? Nedra died because it was her time. And she died well. She died with all her wits about her and with her loved ones by her side. She said all her good-byes. You and I should only be so fortunate, Joel. – Ruth Anne, after a disconsolate Joel loses a patient he couldn't find anything wrong with.

I've been engrossed in the so-called "Tibetan Book of the Dead" (again) lately. It was written in the 8th or 9th century by the great Indian adept, Padma Sambhava, who had come to Tibet, and who later hid the text in a period of turmoil and decline. It remained hidden until it was re-discovered in the 14th century.

The text of the book is a guide to be recited to/for the recently deceased, or to be familiarized for one's own death. Apparently there were adepts like Padma Sambhava who focused on the experience of death and reincarnation using yogic, esoteric, tantric, or whatever methods, and through countless many lifetimes were able to not only figure out what happened between death and rebirth, but were able to navigate and retain the experience.

I do believe in that continuity, that strong or recurrent elements in our current lives are resonances and remnants from previous lives. There's a reason for my fear of spiders and heights, and my attraction towards trains and . . . well, heights.

It is not only the Dalai Lama, who is discovered by a child's ability to correctly identify objects and elements relevant to the previous Dalai Lama, who can manifest retention of past knowledge. It is not because he is "holy". We all have that potential if we commit to cultivating it. Over countless many lifetimes, that is.

My thing about the book is, having been educated in white liberalist and critical thought, that the death experience is universal. So for credibility to be placed in it requires an ability for it to be applied universally. And, of course, if you read it, it's filled with Buddhistic deities and icons and Indian imagery.

The book was written in a cultural context and references a specific region's mythology, belief, and aesthetic, just as Biblical mysticism draws on ancient Greek and Egyptian mythology, belief, and aesthetic. So to bring it into the 21st century multicultural context, even just for myself, the text would need to be able to be re-envisioned to apply to various and different belief systems (mind you, it just needs the ability to be re-envisioned, it doesn't necessarily need to be).

I don't have a deep background in Buddhist deities. For me, I go by what the book itself makes a point of – that the deities encountered, or whatever is encountered after death, are a projection of our own true self.

That works for me really well, since it's an extension of my belief about physical reality, too – that it's a projection of my own imagination and self. The world around me is a reflection of my own emotional landscape. I'm my own "archetype deity", although I have to leave it open what that means or looks like. I get it intellectually, but I'm still working on the deep understanding part.

And as modernist practice, I use falling asleep to plot and map the loss of consciousness to the dream realm. It's highly fascinating and I recommend trying it, insomnia notwithstanding.

I lie flat on my back in bed, arms at my side, and try to bring my consciousness into sharp focus. My eyes can be open, half-open, or closed, it can vary. I concentrate on my body and track my breathing and think about my blood pumping.

I try to be aware of the room, the objects, the sounds, and the light and shadows. I try not to change position when it gets uncomfortable because I found that whenever I do that, I plunge into sleep and recall very little after changing positions. Go figure.

And then I track my consciousness and be aware what's happening as it slips away. The next morning, I try to remember what I remember and recall any dreams and imagine having been lucid in the dream.

What's up with all these long entries?

Northern Exposure Quote of the Day: "Spring, spring, spring, spring. Naturally, this young man's fancy turns to thoughts of death. Not death in the "that's all, folks" kinda death, but death in the cyclical sense, like high tide/low tide, sunrise/sunset, that sorta thing" - Chris in the Morning

Needless to say, if I ever decide definitively against suicide, this weblog would end. Same thing, although for a different reason, if I decide definitively in favor of it.

This morning, it was all about wondering about living. Not because living is such a great idea over dying (in the long run, that is), but because of how vague "living" and "dying" have become for me. Particularly "dying", as of late. It's gotten much less tangible. Almost as intangible as "living", in fact.

Dying has always been a fixation of mine; sometimes morbid, sometimes existential, sometimes just fact. Living my life; living my life out without a forseeable end has never been my reality.

Living and dying is like breathing in and breathing out, two parts of a whole. Yin-Yang, day-night, left hand-right hand, sunrise-sunset, high tide-low tide, sleeping-waking, spring-summer-fall-winter. I believe. If our lives are the breath of god, living is just one half of it.

Why not live while alive, die when dead? Death seeps into our living anyway; we live, but death is always there. And in dying, if you believe in reincarnation, living is still the focus, still the goal, where you came from and where you're going. My absolutes have broken down, and I'm not so sure anymore how dying now, or foreseeably, necessarily . . . serves that little, clear, blinding light that is my true self and purpose.

But to decide to live now? After scuttling every possible future where I may have landed and have been remotely happy functional?

Let's just say I'm having a crisis of confidence. I don't know what to do. And that's worse for me than knowing I want to do what everyone else doesn't want me to do. This, my friends, was my posting on living.