shadows

[90_hour_sleep]

....point taken.....sorry, TOV!!

 

i can feel her brooding...can you feel it? heh

[90_hour_sleep]

''...all things, to all things

perfectly indifferent,

perfectly work together

in discord for a Good beyond

good, for a Being more

timeless in transience, more

eternal in its dwindling than

God there in heaven.''

[tiredofvampires]

Let me do this. But bear in mind -- hand over heart! -- this is not me being manipulative! This is me taking a slightly different approach -- one that will give you an active role here, rather than a passive one.

 

But first let me say that elcie, you are more than right. It's all that lies under the hair that counts...really counts to me. By light years. A good 3 lbs. of the great grey goo can easily justify anything up top.

 

But be that as it may.

 

Let your imagination roll, sleepy -- this is a "you stepping into my shoes."

 

While bearing in mind that for every one rock star with short hair, there are about 1000 with long hair.

 

And that when the lights and heat of the stage are blasting, said hair gets drenched with sweat, and can be flung about wildly. It can be tossed around, grabbed ahold of...it sticks to skin, it flies, it falls. Hair holds scent, and pheremones. (And Mr. Magic Scissors would say, a story, too!)

 

Now let me ask you...you're me, right. Is that just a matter of "eccentricity" to you?

[elcie]

Please tell me where you got that great saying!!!....you have a way of quoting profound words......I think I'll cut and paste and put it in a folder marked "Great quotes -as relayed by 90_hour_sleep"..........

[tiredofvampires]

well...just hair. maybe we should refrain from trivializing the hair while the ticking time bomb that is tiredofvampires is still lurking...

 

Muah. But please accept my apology for this incredibly silly foray in your journal. Hehe.

[90_hour_sleep]

^^ literal?

[90_hour_sleep]

Please tell me where you got that great saying!!!....you have a way of quoting profound words......I think I'll cut and paste and put it in a folder marked "Great quotes -as relayed by 90_hour_sleep"..........

 

Aldous Huxley...from the last of his novels -- Island.

 

have a feeling you'd enjoy his writing, elcie!

[90_hour_sleep]

Muah. But please accept my apology for this incredibly silly foray in your journal. Hehe.

 

pfft...apology. if you can't be incredibly silly here of all places...then the world is truly a cruel place!

[tiredofvampires]

^^ literal?

 

Huh? Lol, yeah, literally silly.

[elcie]

Aldous Huxley...from the last of his novels -- Island.

 

have a feeling you'd enjoy his writing, elcie!

 

Thanks TOV, ....I'll probably be able to download the book, I'll look into it ASAP!

[90_hour_sleep]

i'm not sure i follow...to be honest.

 

is the hair simply an extension of the man...or does the man become an extension of the hair? or is the hair representative of the man? or...misrepresentative maybe?

 

my idea of ''rockstar'' has changed quite a bit in the last few years though. so maybe an attempt to appeal to that latent desire within me was based on something that i no longer possess?

[90_hour_sleep]

"one always has to know when a stage comes to an end. if we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.

 

did you lose your job? has a loving relationship come to an end? did you leave your parents’ house? gone to live abroad? has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden? you can spend a long time wondering why this has happened.

 

you can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that. but such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister. everyone is finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.

 

things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.

 

that is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home.

 

everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts – and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place. let things go. release them. detach yourself from them.

 

nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood.

 

stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

 

nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.”

 

before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person – nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. this may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.

 

closing cycles. not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life.

 

shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust.

 

stop being who you were, and change into who you are."

 

-- Paulo Coelho

[elcie]

 

shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust........

 

 

.......shave off the beard?

 

No seriously....love the words.....in other words, learn to let go and move on.......into the folder it goes!

[90_hour_sleep]

.......shave off the beard?

 

No seriously....love the words.....in other words, learn to let go and move on.......into the folder it goes!

 

yep...let go and move on. he makes a convincing argument...doesn't he?!

 

lol. i used to have little notes tacked up in my hallway (a collector...like you, elcie not sure why i stopped. i think i was embarassed when someone came over. what i should've done...was EMBRACE THE MADNESS!!! i tore them down in a sort of depressed tantrum though. there's only one left. maybe i'll start again. but this time i think i'll add a visual element too. could be interesting.

 

and yah...i'm thinking a shave would be alot like shaking off the dust. haircut first though. sorry vamperage...

 

stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

 

that one reverberates a bit...

[elcie]

Hey, I think an inspiration board....or in your case, an inspiration hallway, is a great idea!....especially with visual images. What a statement that would make as you walk through it!

 

My daughter's first boyfriend had images and poetry drawn and written all over his bedroom walls....no cowardly corkboard for him!! A very artistic young man who's now studying Dramatic arts at university and already directing plays.....ah!, the energy...I'm a bit jealous!

 

(by the way, she didn't break up with him because he drew on his walls-she was impressed by that-but because he tried to make her interested in arts and culture. She wasn't!)

[tiredofvampires]

i'm not sure i follow...to be honest.

 

is the hair simply an extension of the man...or does the man become an extension of the hair? or is the hair representative of the man? or...misrepresentative maybe?

 

my idea of ''rockstar'' has changed quite a bit in the last few years though. so maybe an attempt to appeal to that latent desire within me was based on something that i no longer possess?

 

Hmm. I don't think I see it so much as an "extension" as part of a composite that conveys a suggestion of something out-of-the-ordinary.

 

I don't particularly care for tightly manicured lawns, and I'm a bit the same about hair, somehow. On EITHER gender, actually. I think there is a flow, a freedom about longer hair that clicks with me. I know that I'd like the way that feels to me even if most of "conventional" society didn't hold it in such low esteem. Because the aesthetic of something that touchable and sensually tactile appeals to me regardless. I mean, there is nothing quite like running fingers through someone's hair. But the fact that society disparages it means that a guy willing to sport it is willing to do his own thing, a bit. I don't think that by that token, all men who have short hair are NOT doing their own thing, internally -- because life requires certain practicalities, and having to fit a mold in such an external way (or even just keeping it short for convenience) doesn't necessarily signal anything in and of itself about his personality (though I think the styles we choose do say something about what vibe we gravitate towards, and therefore, our personality.) There would never be a better case for the cliche, "Don't judge a book by its cover." But the guy who is wearing his hair long is signaling some departure from the mainstream, and therefore, alternative values are suggested by this. And that appeals to me as well. Even though just having alternative values in certain ways doesn't mean he would align with me -- it would be the individual person he is in those values that would become meaningful to me, of course. Long hair is just a hint. (There are cases though where I've found it signals vanity and immaturity as well.)

 

And aside from all this thoughtful fine-tuning of my sentiments on the matter -- in unvarnished, possibly inelegant plain English -- it's the hottest, sexiest goddarn thing in the whole wide world, as the visual and tactile become one in the experience. There's something more carnal about "letting down your hair" -- it's messier, it's less put-together, it's less concerned with decorum. And that's nothing but solid ROWRR!

 

But oddly enough...I can also appreciate someone who looks and acts conventionally at first...only to spin my head later with all kinds of atypical views. I like being fooled like that, too. That's good stuff. It all really comes down to the grey matter in the end.

 

It's just like I said...it comes down to a combo of the sensual, the rebel, and the "there's something a little less 'manly man' and more emotive here" that draws me, is all. Surfers being exempt from this hair profiling, lol.

 

For some reason, it just seems natural to me, given lots of things about you...that you'd "come" with long hair. Haha. I mean...you're not all that straightforward and easy to figure, but you embody a lot of those qualities I've just been talking about, with being outside the box and letting things get a little "messy" and being comfortable in your skin with that. You're okay not having to parade around with the "social standard" or to prove your masculinity through your style. As I sense it, anyway.

 

AND, it's evidently not even a mandate for any practical reason in your case, so what excuse do you have to rid yourself of it, huh? J/K.

 

I think I'd be interested to know why you grew it out in the first place. Was this just a companion to the beard, with the withdrawn associations? Because I think you've assessed correctly that women are by and large not hugely wild about big, bushy beards. More women break the mold though on long hair.

 

As for the "rockstar" thing...are you saying you no longer possess that latent desire? What are you saying you no longer possess?

 

Well, rockstar or not...I still say, minus the beard...and minus the crazed killer face...plus a guitar...you're Kurt Cobain. And I'm standing by that. Thankyouverymuch picture thread, R.I.P. (And what of his hair? I don't think he'da looked better shaven.)

 

Or, I confess...my undying fondness for this long-lost age is showing through.

 

 

 

Well, that is the HARDEST SELL I could muster! And I still suspect I flunked....

[tiredofvampires]

haircut first though. sorry vamperage...

 

Aw, well, I tried. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do!

 

But didn't you say you had a pic with the hair a few posts back? I say dig it up at some point!

 

I absolutely love that excerpt you quoted -- it's SO timely for me. WOW. So many passages in it that I need right now and which I've been churning over.

 

BAM BAM BAM BAM BAM.

 

Count me in with the collectors!! Oh, you too?? It's possibly one of my most embarrassing fixations...but I also have used materials that are recycled for art. So that's how I rationalize SOME of it...but there's something much deeper about that. Wanting to hang onto things and being unable to part. BAM.

 

Which is a good reason to cut your hair. Long hair is a tale, which I love -- but then when the story changes, the past is cut with the scissors.

 

I love old objects...ancient objects, for their history. So much character in old things -- and in mementos, it's quite eye-opening sometimes to look upon them with fresh eyes, 5, 10...20 years later. One feels the pulse of time in that, and the progression by looking back. So I don't think I could dump everything.

 

And yet, when does history become a burden to carry? It's all in *here* in the end.

 

I've read that post several times...and I probably will file it, myself. Hard to read, in places.

 

But it's fitting in major ways right now.

[Cheetarah]

what if the victim mentality isn't but a mere facet of one's consciouness. what if it becomes the ENTIRE consciousness (and by that...i mean the part that one is consciously aware of ) it's a mentality...but it is also one's identity (and for some people...it's the only identity they've come to know). it's the filter through which one sees himself...and the world he occupies. it shades his perception of all things. it molds and shapes his reality. it becomes his existence.

 

A victim identity, you say. Well, don't we all know at least one person who is always getting spit on, the poop end of the stick, so on and so forth. I'm all for believing in periods of misfortune and some of these things are out of our control...As I've said before, I believe a person is a victim once, generally speaking, with most situations.

 

I was reading a book last night called "Toxic Men" (the book reiterates 200 times that these same broad personality types are applied to women as well, so it's no man bashing book - also, scary to see yourself in there), and one of the "types" was the "Self-destructive gloom and doom victim". The gloomer is someone who carries around an immense weight of emotional pain, helpless, overwhelmed, etc. No esteem, no self-love, everything is both their fault and everyone else's fault, at the same time. Projections of self-hatred. Eternal victim, because their ego cannot take one more weight or they'll crumble.

 

What's sad, other than the fact that I can identify with some of this, is that this has been a withstanding pattern of men I have chosen for romantic relationships. So is it that birds of a feather flock together? Dysfunction attracts dysfunction? It seems to go one of two ways, when it comes to such things - Either 2 peas in a pod...Or you've got one 'savior', one 'martyr', one 'fixer-upper' whose need to be needed outweighs their desire for actual love. And even with 2 peas in a pod, someone by default always chooses a minor role of the latter, even if it's not their natural inclination.

 

i get part of your post minty. i'm not following the last bit of your first bit (?). i know you're not really old leather. but maybe you're saying that at some point you have to live up to your own contribution to your leatheriness? and when you can do that...you can own your own pain...really feel it...and really let it go? accountability...for yourself? i guess that would be the idea behind being a victim. it's a constant projection away from ''me''. always concluding that the accountability is elsewhere.

 

That's essentially what I'm saying, yep. When you can tear the ego down enough to do that...Which is really scary as that's a huge layer of our self-protection(among other things), I think THAT is being liberated. I don't see liberation necessarily as being free of pain, but I do see it as being free of the chains that bind us - Which we've locked ourselves into.

 

So when I see people in an immense amount of pain...And myself...I am so hopeful for all of us because I know that right there, that is the cusp, they, me, we, are right on the edge of liberation. If we can just ride out that pain for awhile and not give into it(bandage, destructive distraction, relational distraction, so on so forth), there's so much to be gained you can't even measure it. But our natural inclination to self-soothe with things that AREN'T actually soothing at all, nothing more than temporary relief but produce long-term negative effects...It puts the brakes on. Then each time we go through intense pain, we are not only feeling the present but everything else we put hold on...Until it becomes so huge, massive and overwhelming that we've buried what's good inside of us, good in the world, good in others, and have lost sight of liberation. Even the idea of it.

 

I recently spent time with an ex of mine from nearly 4 years ago - Who I was crazy for, head-over-heels, something I took a VERY long time to get past(probably in some ways, I haven't still). I have seen the finished product of someone who buries and it isn't pretty - He is so full of rage and hatred that I can hardly recognize him now. He is so far gone that even I wondered at first if there is any hope for him initially. Of course there is, but what I think doesn't matter, it's what he thinks - And he doesn't think that. He was troubled when I was with him and I had hoped to see changes for the positive after these few years...But he's gone the opposite direction.

 

One thing I know, is that I don't want to be that way. And I could go that way, I have started the path but I try to get back on track. To me, there isn't anything more sad than watching a good-hearted person you love self-destruct, and being absolutely powerless to do anything about it but hope for them.

[Cheetarah]

Jeez, I was really late on my reply, sorry to bring in all the gloom and doom during haircut week!

[Silverbirch]

Hey, I think an inspiration board....or in your case, an inspiration hallway, is a great idea!....especially with visual images. What a statement that would make as you walk through it!

 

My daughter's first boyfriend had images and poetry drawn and written all over his bedroom walls....no cowardly corkboard for him!! A very artistic young man who's now studying Dramatic arts at university and already directing plays.....ah!, the energy...I'm a bit jealous!

 

(by the way, she didn't break up with him because he drew on his walls-she was impressed by that-but because he tried to make her interested in arts and culture. She wasn't!)

 

One of my friends has the most amazing toilet with lots of art and inspirational writings - the walls are just totally covered. Of course, there's a comfortable place to sit and appreciate it all!

[elcie]

One of my friends has the most amazing toilet with lots of art and inspirational writings - the walls are just totally covered. Of course, there's a comfortable place to sit and appreciate it all!

 

Love it!!!!

[ProtestTheHero]

90, I grew mine out for 4 years. I didn't do it to consciously appeal to or repel certain people, and I wasn't trying to necessarily project anything. It was something I wanted to try and I did it. There were a couple of girls that responded to it like ToV...a couple. They were really into it. For everyone that loved it, there were at least 10 that hated it, and ever single person in the professional world pretty much told me it would have to go if I wanted to go into anything semi-serious.

 

For me, it was a stage. I had the hair at a time where I was doing the music thing and performing. I was in college so it wasn't a huge deal. I don't really do those things anymore. No more studio time or on stage performances. I was just ready to look semi-civilized, and even though I wasn't focusing on the opinions of my hair I would be lying if I said that the response to the cut wasn't overwhelming positive. That's the beauty of facebook -- you upload a new photo and I'm getting messages from girls I knew in high school that I completely forgot about. It is what it is -- and having it dry in less than 5 minutes is pretty insane after what I went through.

[elcie]

A "hairs on the back of my neck rising" experience!

 

The interpretive skills of the young pianist are simply amazing! Thanks for bringing her to our attention, sleepy!

[Silverbirch]

My connection is very slow so I can't listen to it right now, but will come back for sure.

[90_hour_sleep]

"nobody needs to go anywhere else. we are all, if we only knew it, already there.

 

if i only knew who in fact i am, i should cease to behave as what i think i am; and if i stopped behaving as what i think i am, i should know who i am.

 

what in fact i am, if only the man i think i am would allow me to know it, is the reconcilliation of yes and no lived out in total acceptance and the blessed experience of not-two.

 

in religion, all words are dirty words. anybody who gets eloqunet about buddha, or god, or christ, ought to have his mouth washed out with carbolic soap.

 

because his aspiration to perpetuate only the ''yes'' in every pair of opposites can never, in the nature of things, be realized, the insulated man i think i am condemns himself to endlessly repeated frustration, endlessly repeated conflicts with other aspiring and frustrated men.

 

conflicts and frustrations -- the theme of all history and almost all biography. ''i show you sorrow,'' said the buddha realistically but he also showed the ending of sorrow -- self-knowledge, total acceptance, the blessed experience of not-two.

 

 

knowing who in fact we are results in Good Being, and Good Being results in the most appropriate kind of good doing. but good doing does not of itself result in Good Being. we can be virtuous without knowing who in fact we are. the beings who are merely good are not Good Beings; they are just pillars of society.

 

most pillars are their own Samsons. they hold up, but sooner or later they pull down. there has never been a society in which most good doing was the product of Good Being and therefore constantly appropriate. this does not mean that there will never be such a society or that we here are fools for trying to call it into existence.

 

 

 

the yogin and the stoic -- two righteous egos who achieve their very considerable results by pretending, systematically, to be somebody else. but it is not by pretending to be somebody else, even somebody supremely good and wise, that we can pass from insulated manhood to Good Being.

 

Good Being is knowing who in fact we are; and in order to know who in fact we are, we must first know, moment by moment, who we think we are and what this bad habit of thought compels us to feel and do. a moment of clear and complete knowledge of what we think we are, but in fact are not, puts a stop, for the moment, to the man charade. if we renew, until they become a continuity, these moments of the knowledge of what we are not, we may find ourselves, all of a sudden, knowing who in fact we are.

 

concentration, abstract thinking, spiritual exercises -- systematic exclusions of the realm of thought. asceticism and hedonism -- systematic exclusions of the realm of sensation, feeling and action. but Good Being is in the knowledge of who in fact one is in relation to all experiences. so be aware -- aware in every context, at all times and whatever, creditable or discreditable, pleasant or unpleasant, you may be doing or suffering. this is the only genuine yoga, the only spiritual exercise worth practicing.

 

'the more a man knows about individual objects, the more he knows about God.' translating Spinoza's language into ours, we can say: the more a man knows about himself in relation to every kind of experience, the great his chance of suddenly, one fine morning, realizing who in fact he is -- or rather Who (capital W) in Fact (capital F) ''he'' (between quotation marks) Is (capital I).

 

St. John was right. in a blessedly speechless universe, the Word was not only with God; it was God. as something to be believe in. God is a projected symbol, a reified name. God = "God".

 

faith is something very different from belief. belief is the systematic taking of unanalyzed words much too seriously. Paul's words, Mohammed's words, Marx's words, Hitler's words -- people take them too seriously and what happens? what happens is the senseless ambivalence of history -- sadism versus duty, or (incomparably worse) sadism as duty; devotion counterbalanced by organized paranoia; sisters of charity selflessly tending the victims of their own church's inquisitors and crusaders. for faith is the empirically justified confidence in our capacity to know who in fact we are, to forget the belief-intoxicated man in Good Being. give us this day our daily faith, but deliver us, dear God, from Belief."