1000 Words

[tiredofvampires]

I can't believe I've almost forgotten what it feels like to be lonely.

 

Oh...

 

...right.

[tiredofvampires]

"Some songs are bigger than life."

 

Indeed.

 

 

 

[video=youtube;w9jtr0y_dcU] ]

[dias]

To be honest it's the first time i hear that a break up is caused because people don't chat while eating . He had a very bizarre quirk . But ok eating takes 20 minutes if you eat slow . After that?. Unless we are talking about a ritual

[tiredofvampires]

Well, it would be very much over-simplifying it to say that the "break-up" was over not being able to chat while eating. Or even him telling me that he had to be alone when eating, which was the next step. That stuff just started the dominos falling...the ball rolling towards its end.

 

The problem is that it was all about his terms -- all about his comfort zone. To the extent that my comfort zone fit his, we were hunky dorey. That was how it worked -- by his design. I consciously went in knowing at some point, this would become untenable for me -- I just didn't think it would happen right now, over such mundane and inherently inconsequential issues.

 

We had an agreement that our relationship was going to be primarily a physical one. And he was very clear up front that he dislikes in-depth discussion, at least with me (and again, this relates back to my precision-orientedness, which is not his cup of tea, even though oddly, I think he's one of the sharper knives in the drawer himself.) I have never sought or engaged with a man on those terms, and have turned down opportunities for that because I need the emotional intimacy in all ways. But there were things about both him and me that are not typical in terms of how we approach physical intimacy, and I felt that at this time in my life (as it's been many years since I've been with a man in a physically intimate context), this would be a mutually good experience and match, in this limited aspect. I felt that it would advance my healing in some ways that I can't go into depth about on here. And in fact, even though emotional intimacy of the kind where you talk about your concerns, your fears, your day, your plans, etc. was off the table, there was an emotional intimacy and vulnerability that showed up in a very palpable way in the physical realm. My femininity, seeking expression, is something he handled with great attentiveness and care. We were almost frighteningly attuned and in sync in this realm. I could not have ever entered upon a pure "wham bam" type of arrangement, and this was not that by a longshot. There were powerful incentives. It would even be fair to say that I don't know if I'll ever find a match that well-tailored, in this regard, again.

 

But his needs around a variety of practical things, starting with the eating issue, started to necessitate discussion, because they were affecting how we do things on the most basic level; and then his resistance to having these conversations started to affect how I felt on further levels, so there was a meta-discussion to be had. And he needed to flee all that, turn the tables, for his own emotional reasons.

 

So -- moral to the story, nothing is EVER just a physical interchange. When he left, he said, "this was supposed to be a physical relationship", and the problem with that is, we will never be just bodies without minds, emotions, and spirits attached. It will never be "purely" a physical experience, and anyone who has "meaningless ONS" is lying to themselves to think that. Even if you are emotionally detached, that's an emotional response. We will always and forever be a holistic amalgam, with our different aspects integrated and no reductionist model will ever prove otherwise, I feel certain of that (even though it is easier for men than women to seemingly separate these elements, which I think is also a bit illusory, as ALL experiences leave their emotional imprints.) Funny that he could not see how his own emotional landscape was the driver for his various aversions and requirements and limitations, and so even he was a product of emotional need. This was all projected onto me, though. Good luck buddy, looking for your "physical only" relationship -- that is not something that even EXISTS.

 

I've known him to be consummately self-absorbed, but I was able to put that aside to focus on the ways that we DID connect, and in terms of physicality, he was kind of a rare specimen, in a good way. A part of me that has been long suppressed could come out, with him.

 

It seems we've come to the end of that road, which means, this is diminishing returns.

 

The ugly part of it was that on his way out, he tried to place the blame on me, and attempted to pathologize ME. Using what I think he knew were doubts I have about myself to his advantage. And then just saying stuff that might not have been true, like that he has "always" felt like I was "taking energy from him." If that's the case, he should have walked a long time ago, instead of telling me what a special girl I was and how he loved my kisses, how he was lucky, adored me, and that I was so loving. Whatever else he couldn't handle, he did not have to leave with that (probably untrue) blow below the belt.

 

It's even more complicated than this -- this is only a couple of angles of something that was rather complex and multidimensional, but the bottom line is that the demise of this relationship was at his own hand and all he can see is that I was somehow demanding something of him that he didn't owe me.

 

I just think saying, "I love you" (which we did say, and it felt real in those moments, as we were embracing) was more of a feeling for him and to me, it's fully an action. As they say, it's a verb. So we understand and live out that word, "LOVE" in different ways.

 

I don't know what I'll respond to him if he contacts me ever again, but I have half a mind to send him that Corinthians quote and leave it at that. Let him figure it out.

 

No "spiritual practice" from any tradition is worth a hill of beans, and in fact is only worth a hill of rotting meat, if it cannot translate into treating people as you would like them to treat you, continually seeking to take the plank out of your own eye instead of focusing on the speck of dust in someone else's, and putting yourself in someone else's shoes so that compassion and nonjudgmental direct your speech and actions.

 

Wow, I am like I said not religious, particularly in the biblical tradition, but suddenly, all the good flecks of it that can be distilled have emerged here as absolutely fundamental to what sets apart love and all that parades as it, but is not. As I contemplate the root cause of this ruination.

 

Again, it would be unrealistic to ask anyone to model perfection of such lofty aspirations, but I don't see how his behavior has even come close to resembling all this, so you can digest all the food you eat in silence, wear your hair in the manner of the god Shiva (his association with his dreadlocks) and still be a bully and a punk. What a fraud.

 

I wish I could wake him up to his self-deception, but narcissists don't wake up, for the most part. It's a bit glib to say, but "his loss", I suppose.

 

Even though I'm still bleeding out from this. There's an emotional and intellectual schism here within me, obviously. I really wasn't ready to cash in my celibate life just yet, for god knows how long. I'm not just talking about sex or "getting off", I'm talking about the enlivening experience of being elated just to hold someone in your arms and feel the full radiance of Love channeled through that touch.

 

He's quite a capricious person though, so...what will come is a mystery.

 

I do know for me, there are certain bullets you can't recall back into the gun.

[tiredofvampires]

The spark is gone.

 

 

It is like a stone that keeps pulling me down, as I try to rise.

 

He took something with him.

 

*******

 

MACBETH

How does your patient, doctor?

DOCTOR

Not so sick, my lord,

As she is troubled with thick coming fancies,

That keep her from her rest.

 

MACBETH

Cure her of that.

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,

Raze out the written troubles of the brain

And with some sweet oblivious antidote

Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff

Which weighs upon the heart?

 

DOCTOR:

Therein the patient

Must minister to himself.

[tiredofvampires]

I'm all for the complete phase-out of the social pleasantry question, "How're you doing tonight/today?", as asked by store clerks and other types of service people.

 

You don't care, and we both know that. What are we doing here, ha ha. It just feels so foolish. Cue: "FINE! Good, good, you?" When did that ever become something we do with a straight face?

[tiredofvampires]

There's a subject that's been consuming my life. I want to write and share more about it. But it's so huge that I hardly feel this journal is the right place for it. I don't really see this journal as a platform for activism or advocacy, though that's a huge part of my struggle and life now, and a mission.

 

These things always start with something personal...a personal catastrophe that changes your entire life and all that you envisioned for it.

 

If I really wanted to make a journal or blog for it, I think I would have to start a whole new one just devoted to this...and maybe not even on this site, even though education and awareness can start anywhere.

 

In this case, my audience is...well, everyone, though that might be limited here.

 

I do have a story past and a story present that this relates to, but as I'm feeling quite devitalized at the moment, I will save those stories. Sharing at least a piece of it all here.

 

What I will say is, what I've dealt with and what I am going through now is part of an underground story that is going to go mainstream within the next 20-30 years. I am the tip of an iceberg. I just don't know, at the rate of things, whether I'll be alive to see it ripen, and the backlash that needs to happen against the forces that be. But there IS going to be a tipping point.

 

For now, people look at you like you're a mutant to bring such things up. There is laughter and dismissal and derision. You immediately stigmatize yourself as a neurotic by broaching anything about such issues. We've even seen it, I've experienced it, on this very site.

 

We who deal with this condition have been dubbed by the medical profession (at least the one that recognizes us, which is a minority), "the canaries in the coal mine" -- after the once-held practice of sending canaries into coal mines because their small body weight and size would more readily pick up and metabolize the toxic vapors in unsafe mines. If they died, miners would not go in. So they were like the "testers" of the safety of the mines, where the human nose would not be able to detect the danger.

 

The only thing is, the miners respected the portent of the dying canaries. They knew the danger and the warning was real, it existed. Those of us who are the "canaries" in this upperworld landscape of increasingly toxic environmental burdens that our genome was never designed to handle, are treated with anything but the respect that those poor canaries got.

 

We are the harbingers, and some day, at some point, with enough education and awareness and more people becoming victims, the laughter and dismissal is going to stop.

 

And the listening will start.

 

I think if there is one thing I'd devote my life to at this point, it would be taking all the experience I've gleaned from my anti-tobacco fight and turning it to this new threat we have, which in some ways is even more formidable because the foe is even more ubiquitous and uncontained. This is truly "the new secondhand smoke", and in some ways, secondhand smoke is so yesterday.

 

But deja vu, here we are again with the naysayers -- the consumer advocates and the ones hard-hit as casualties, the messengers -- being poo-poo'd, while the industry laughs its billions to the banks, crooks as they are because they know their secrets, and the so-far unafflicted, fortunate populace embraces their fixes, saying, "I'm just fine -- perfectly healthy here, I don't see a problem." It's like a time warp, proving that in terms of history repeating itself, human beings are gluttons.

 

And with a nonchallant wave of the hand they say, "Everyone dies of something."

 

Like global climate change...it'll just sneak up on everyone who doesn't want to believe any of it, or thinks it's someone else's problem or remote in the news, while life seems to go on as usual.

 

This video is OUR story (only in my case, it began with my art materials and exposures, 20 year+ ago):

 

 

 

It's going to be told again and again.

 

If I have any book in me...it may be about this.

 

The ignorance is so colossal.

 

This is only a trailer, a preamble.

[itsallgrand]

How are you doing, TOV?

 

I'm sorry to hear about the end of your relationship with Dreads. Particularly the how of its ending. It's never fun ending on a sour note. Though I understand why people sometimes go that route, it still sucks when it happens. I'm fascinated reading your insights from this. As always, finding you such a smart and emotionally amazing woman. And some of those thoughts..I've had myself at times and can relate to -no further explanation necessary .

 

I'd love to read anything you put out about this passion you have...about toxicity. Truly, I think the world really needs you and your brains and awareness and compassion and temperament on that.

 

I often get the feeling upon reading your words of excitement at what you are voicing, and this wave of warmth because you stir up so much affection in me.

 

Anyways, a reminder I guess...other side of the world, very different life..but I hear you..relate...care

[tiredofvampires]

Thank you so much for that reminder, IAG, and your thoughts. Your post really comes at a time where I could use it...and I take to heart all that you've said, in a big way. It means a lot to me and makes a difference. Really. Really. I'm very touched by all your kind words and care, particularly in the face of what I've been encountering lately with "feedback".

 

I'm really glad to know that you might be interested in more about this mission, with the toxins and their impact. Thank you for your interest and solidarity, and for being one of those who I feel is on the same page with me about this, IAG. I need more you's! I might post more about this stuff, as this is emerging in me as almost a "calling" I've got to pursue in a concerted and possibly long-term fashion. It's starting here -- now. It's actually started for a long time...but started, as in, beginning a strategic life endeavor move, you might say...that's more coming into focus. I've cut my teeth testifying for improved quality of life and public health in the state legislature, interfaced with various big disease orgs and their representatives, as well as prominent legal minds in the field -- and now that's starting to feel less like an isolated venture, and more like the inception of something bigger.

 

It's not good enough to endlessly fight giant, apathetic bureaucracies for the two lungs I need. It's the macro picture.

 

It's funny how things that come our way seem to choose us, rather than the other way around, much of the time. This is not at all what I pictured would occupy my mental real estate so much, and I have many other passions (some of which feel dormant, like my art) but it seems life has carved out a channel for me where I've got the choice to respond with a level of commitment, if I want all this suffering to add up to something concrete and relevant to more than myself.

 

Right now, it's almost like I feel I'm "in the closet". But that a tide is turning for me there.

 

This is about as out-there dramatic as I could possibly be, but I am not exaggerating when I say that I'd feel satisfied with the scope of the work I've done, and the energy I've invested, if I start to receive anonymous death threats from the multi-billion-dollar industry hawks who are responsible for the false advertising, the marketing, and the widespread hoodwinking around this invasive, pervasive industry, the fragrance industry. lol. I know, sounds pretty maniacal, but I would consider that "mission accomplished". There is a lot of increasing awareness and concern, if you do any google search -- but no one has yet made the case in a way that it's become common knowledge, with the industry having to answer to laws, regulations, or an educated consumer base, as with cigarette smoke and now, GMO products.

 

 

It feels as if my life has turned into a tornado -- and I'm looking for the eye of the storm, but I don't find one. I have a number of inner resources which I pull from, that have usually kept my head in a space where its faculties remain intact. Being able to see in the dark. Being able to wake me up when I'm drifting into a nightmare that I've prematurely created. Being able to turn my focus, to command my legs to move when they need to be moved, to find that grounding rod. To find that place in me that is free of harm because it can't be harmed, as it is above the worldly ruckus.

 

But now even those I feel slide through my fingers more easily. Because the truth is that I AM in a nightmare.

 

It's not just that I'm fighting for a life that I could love and take some joy in -- this fight is one for my very base survival. It's been going along like this for 6 years where I live...but it's at an all-time crisis, and it's not sustainable. I know without background context, this is pretty vague, but these are just the raw jottings of the situation.

 

Dreads...I thought that with all this going on, getting myself out of a metaphorical house fire, thinking about Dreads would blessedly quickly dissolve into relative pettiness in the face of what is immediately needed, on Maslow's pyramid. But as it turns out, the intensity of this scrape I'm in has only magnified the sense of amputation I have about the way he left and the missing piece he's left in the puzzle. It feels like an unfinished song -- like someone cut the power just as you were starting to find your groove, dancing.

 

He was by no means someone I talked to about my challenges and efforts, the content of my life. But when he walked into the room, or I greeted him at the door with a kiss, I didn't need to, and that's a rare experience for me. I actually started to enjoy that different quality, and me being different than I usually am. I think the fact that when he left, he left with some choice words..."neuroticism", "obsessive sht", "unhealthy" and "the anxiety I feel in your vibe"...to describe me has left me feeling haunted and branded. I actually don't relate to leaving like that -- and I could have easily countered, with more accurate psychopathologizing of him, of my own. But you know, that's below the belt -- and a sign that you don't have much to go on except insult. As little as I regard his skill or credibility as a psychology Ph.D. student knowing how to "box" me, somehow his pigeonholing me with words that have been used in the past to label, cut, or otherwise marginalize me, which HAVE come from sources and voices that I internalized, has me reflexively running a looping inventory of myself and my qualities. And for that reason, I feel I'm falling into a trap, knowing he laid it for me -- asking myself what I did or said that I shouldn't have, what I shouldn't have revealed, even though I can see intellectually that he treated me very coldly and aggressively.

 

Abandonment. It's about abandonment and turning that inward. Of course, look -- how much more flagrant could it get. He told me he was listening to me and that I was heard, as I sat on his lap, and then I told him something about how I felt and he LEFT SKID MARKS on my floor and porch. It doesn't get much more literally abandoning than that.

 

It's been such a long time that I felt this way, it feels like I'm time-traveling to a person that once felt these things and learned to fashion a shield of newfound self-worth. And now, where is that shield?

 

In the past, things like this just demolished me. It's not the case this time. A lot of this is pure (though not simple) grief. But I find myself -- especially given the isolating and weathering practical circumstances I'm in, which make me more vulnerable -- revisiting some of the most fearful and forlorn outposts of my being.

 

The tattoos.

[tiredofvampires]

I am somewhat regularly seeing a particular health care provider...a chiropractor who does very little in the way of standard adjustments.

 

Mostly, I sought him out for a type of electrotherapy treatment called Frequency Specific Microcurrent, though he also does nutritional consultation and delves as well into a process called Emotional Freedom Technique, which a lot of practitioners use for trauma release work. He's one of the few out there -- and it truly is a painfully tiny handful -- who I've encountered who are more than "doctors" -- they are "healers".

 

It takes some very specific qualities to be a healer. And I think you have to be born with them. No amount of education in whatever stream of medicine you've chosen can teach these things, and the type of degree or credential you get isn't necessarily a good indicator of whether you're one of them or not. For one, it takes into account that a patient is not just a collection of symptoms and codified dysregulations. The whole person -- the sum that is greater than the parts -- matters, and the individuality of that person's experience is honored. It takes an uncommon type of empathy and patience, one that transcends judgment completely, and has a gift of seeing into each patient as an absolutely unique composite. It also takes a measure of selfless emersion in someone else's pain, with the gift of being able to help them to be unburdened without becoming burdened.

 

Finally, while all professions require monetary compensation, and therefore it's a business transaction, with healers I never feel it's about the money, or that the challenges of my care come with price tags dangling in my face or shaming for the time or effort spent with me. In fact, all the healers I have dealt with who are the real deal leave me feeling that I have benefitted them and the world in some indirect way by offering my journey to them, entrusting them as a guide. And that they weren't keeping score.

 

Rare, as I said. Very RARE. They stand far apart.

 

Even those in the healing fields who have a great knowledge of holistic, integrative medicine practices (the only kind that's suitable for me) can be little more than skilled technicians running a business.

 

Almost by accident, I found this guy. And he's clearly one in that unpopulated lot. He was a lucky accident, a find that started out as a demoralizing experience with another practitioner (doing that electrotherapy modality I was seeking) who treated me abusively and then dropped me from her practice. Turns out that turned into something better, because I found him. He practices in the town I was raised in. Older gentleman, in his 70's. A real veteran who I was told "has been around forever", with surprise that he's still in practice.

 

But I see him as almost a mystic. He has clearly done the hard work himself. (Another mark of a genuine healer -- their empathy comes from a directly humbling personal experience of their own, and they have evolved as "wounded healers" with a wisdom that is unassuming and doesn't seek to project anything onto anyone else, but listens inquisitively to each person with a sense of relatability.) When he speaks, it's with a robust and sanguine passion, and he has these blazing blue eyes to match. He's been around the block with all kinds of theories about what heals a person, how people heal, what relationship we have to our own power to overcome, what attitude has to do with it, and the role of such things as "positive thinking", with its many versions. We've spent hours talking -- to the point I almost feel I'm close to wearing out my welcome, as he's just spent whole afternoons in these deep talks with me sharing his perspective (which amount to far more than I'm paying him for.) We've talked about the sense of alienation that comes from living in a largely unconscious society, dark nights of the soul, allegories in literature and words of the sages. That, alongside the wirings of the brain and the biochemistry of the nervous and immune systems. He's just the total package. Again -- rare for me. And I should know...because I've been at this a long time, with many.

 

I told him about a lot of what's been coming at me, on the airwaves -- stuff I'm well-familiar with, but now it's reaching proselytizing heights. I told him how disgusted I feel with so much of it, which would fall into "New Age" territory, some of it pseudo scientific, some of it based on some valid brain research, and a hodgepodge of notions that may or may not be unfalsifiable and inherently subject to confirmation bias.

 

Generic summary: "If you think you can, you can. If you believe it, it will manifest. And the only failure for that to happen would involve some defect in your faith in its manifestation."

 

Other versions and my response in parentheses:

 

"You are in constant co-creation with your reality." (grain of truth)

 

"You create your reality." (now we've gone off the deep end -- maybe in some ways, but as a blanket statement, it's way oversimplified)

 

"Everything that happens to us is a product of what we chose -- consciously, unconsciously, preconsciously, through our 'soul's decision' (a priori), from a past life or this one, or any other faculty that we have little access to." (BS, and give me a trash can to vomit in, because a toilet isn't big enough)

 

(Of course the proponents of this ideology -- this rhetoric -- will say that this violent rejection is part of an avoidance of the Truth, and therefore the reason I can't or won't progress in my life/heal/overcome my obstacles, so I am "not ready to heal"; which of course they say in angelic tones and with the affectation of great kindness is "not a judgment, it's just a statement about my soul's needs right now, and choices"; so it's all good and right, and where I'm supposed to be, which may not be healing in this lifetime even though CONSCIOUSLY, I may believe I'm seeking it.)

 

READ: YOU. ARE. A. FAILURE. (but we will refrain from using those words because we are above judgment after all)

 

So anyway, this doctor -- I'll call him Dr. R -- said he's been there and done that. Dig for the truth. Find your blocks. Set yourself free. It's all here for you to just tap into, your own joy and happiness. Used to be an adherent, a fervent adherent to those philosophies.

 

"Oh, girl, I used to be peddling all that stuff. Twenty years ago, you'd have seen me saying the same things. It's the world of a child though. IT'S THE CANDY-COATED MOUNTAIN -- it's the magical world, the fairytale land of a child. I'll twirl my wand and create the world to my vision." Is there that grain of truth? Yes, he said, but the message is fraught with the same kind of sheep-like wishful thinking and superstitious edge that infuses a lot of religion. You don't question, and therefore, you are saved...in this case, saved by your own sense of limitless power to do anything. It's not real...it's built on something fictitious and grandiose.

 

"So what happened?" I asked.

 

"Years. More years on me. Learning. After I went through my second divorce, I went deep into the dark nature of it all, and my patterns, and I asked my good friend and colleague, 'Jim, do you think we ever eradicate these imprints, these patterns? And this is a guy who has also done the emotional techniques I do. And he says, 'Nah. They're tattoos, and we are just lightening them over time.'"

 

That's what it's about, he told me -- we're just fading the tattoos.

They won't ever disappear, but we can make them lighter and fainter. And each time we see them again, we have another chance to work with them and make them fainter.

 

This to me is the truth, as I know it. I trust people who tell the truth.

 

He told me he no longer feels the need to eradicate them. He doesn't have that much more time on this earth, and he can't waste it on the candy-coated mountain people. Now, he just goes into the language of the tattoos, how they look, feel, appear...explores their nature. He said, he's just digging. Digging to nowhere. No expectations. No revelations to be sought, even if they may come. The project is goal-less, and its point is just in showing up to keep digging...excavating the layers, the strata, seeing things for what they are, so the tattoos can fade on their own without any force or demand. Pure acceptance without judgment. Letting them be instead of willing them gone.

 

Now you're speaking my language.

 

 

So with Dreads. It's like someone took the knife and re-engraved a few marks of my tattoos. And I actually think he is perceptive enough to have deduced that would be the effect, even though I think he was in a completely self-protective reactive mode.

 

And part of this for me is that I want to some how re-invite him into my life to fix it. To make it better. To make up, make peace, make it okay again. Make him okay with me again, make him see he was wrong, make him feel good, make us feel good. To make it whole again. Take us back to the place we were at where I was holding him in my arms and he wanted to be there.

 

I have had to fight feelings of wanting to crawl back and sell my soul to the devil, for a mess of pottage, to try to recapture that little bright spot he afforded in my life. That bright spot where I was thinking about wearing a cute, coquettish skirt for a change, and what would be underneath it. The bright spot where I'd feel the warm water of the shower cascading down my body, imagining how it would feel to have our torsos joined in that (which we said we wanted to do, but then we never got to it). I felt, even if quasi-delusionally, that I "had" something because of his presence in my life, that wasn't there before. I felt more part of things, life and belonging in it. I was an earth mama with a whole lotta juice, not a tortured soul looking to fix life problems, with him. I had something...whatever that something was. And it's evaporated. How fleeting that all was.

 

I find myself thinking, if only I'd see his name on an incoming text, whatever the content, it would be like a thorn yanked from my flank.

 

I ask myself if he's going to break down at any point, like he's done in the past when he has left abruptly over some perceived affront. Last time he left, I was sure it was the end of it forever, but great scott..6 months later he returned. And that's when things really escalated into higher gear. I've checked his online profile more times than I'd care to admit, though not obsessively, to see how active he is, and in some way, just to still feel connected to him. It wasn't a "break-up" because we weren't "together," but for all intents and purposes...it feels like one because of how consistently and exclusively we were in eachother's lives as physical intimacy goes, at the very limited level that it operated on.

 

I would never compromise myself -- my pride or my dignity -- to reach out to him now. I'm staying this course of silence. I'd love to say he's in my rear-view mirror, and I sometimes do -- but I do an awful lot of glancing into that mirror, instead of watching the road ahead.

 

And it disturbs me that after weighing all his qualities and behaviors on a scale, what comes out is a pure longing to be held by him again...and a missing him that's so intense at times, it physically hurts.

 

I just want to forget everything for a little while so that I can watch love bleach the tattoos to white.

 

I need a break from having to always carry myself.

 

I want to be plucked from this, all of this, and be rewarded for all the hard work. Somehow.

 

I'm entitled to a reward, right?

 

 

Right?

[tiredofvampires]

“The idea is not that because there are a million people doing the same thing as you, you feel secure because you’re not the odd man out. The idea is more that you are the odd man out in any case, and there are lots of odd men out together.”

 

— Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, The Path Is The Goal

[tiredofvampires]

This week something happened that just made me laugh and for some reason, was comforting.

 

I was on my way to the Capitol, and as usual, taking a cab there, and my driver had a really thick Asian accent. Of course, he was Asian, very dark-skinned. I have a habit of striking up conversation with cab drivers usually, unless they seem really quiet or don't know English, but his was pretty good. For some reason I thought he was Chinese, since his accent sounded a bit like my Chinese acupuncturist, which is very distinct.

 

When I got in, I told him where I was headed, and since he'd taken a little longer to arrive than I'm comfortable with, so I was a bit nervous, he assured me we'd be there in about 12 minutes at this hour of the day.

 

Naturally, we hit a bunch of traffic pile-up almost immediately, even though he was taking a slightly shorter route (one I find faster too). It was just solid bumper-to-bumper, and I was starting to freak out a bit because I'd allowed what I consider the usual amount of time to get to the Capitol, about 15 minutes, plus another 15 minutes or so. This was the second day in a row I had to go, and just the day before I'd gone the exact same way, with lots of time to spare. But it looked like this pile-up could keep us stalled a lot longer than that. We were in this lineup, and he started to get short with the drivers in front of him, honked once, a couple of times going, "goddammit, stupid people" and little mutterings of exasperation, which was how I was feeling, too. He finally said he thinks we should turn around and go the main drag after all, because maybe everyone had the same plan to take the shorter way. So he did a really fast U-turn and stepped on it to get back on another track.

 

We started to talk about how irritating driving around my city is. He said we have now hit #1 in traffic congestion in the country. Unsurprised, I said, "So, even worse than LA?" And he said yes, and he's lived in LA, where the freeways are clogged but the city streets are still usually clear. He said now, it's just a nightmare here everywhere and it's getting worse (a lot of people who travel have told me this, or compared it to LA.)

 

We hit the main artery, which passes by the Capitol, but immediately ran into all this traffic funneling into one lane, lanes blocked off, with a ton of construction going on. Construction horses, blinking arrows, the whole bit. I was really panicking now, and he said, "No worry, I get you there, I know how to go," and started zooming past traffic that was stuck, by staying in the far right lane. I felt like he was sort of superman, flying past everything carrying me.

 

He kept throwing out these little frustrated sounds and words, looking at the construction, saying "This is a mess" and I said, "Where are you from?" He said, "Originally I'm from Vietnam, but I've traveled all over the place." And he was telling me that he lived in San Francisco for a long time. He said, "This is crazy place, I don't like this place," which was already amusing me, and I said, "You don't like living here?" And he said, "No, I don't like it. The structure, not the people. The way they think how to make things, do things. Construction everywhere, no one knows how to make anything work right. Don't know how to make buildings, roads. Falling apart and so behind rest of the world. When I went to France, I study English which isn't so good [i broke in that I thought his English was pretty good, and he said I'm just very "kindness"], but I study the language and try. When I come here, I thought the English is so bad, I feel like I'm in a third world country." I asked him if he knew what pidgin (the local mutt dialect) was, and he said, "Ya, I know, the pidgin. But it's not intelligent, not caring to read books, to learn anything new, just stay behind [i then asked him if he reads a lot of books, and he said he loved to read books, in Chinese, Vietnamese, etc.]. Everything falling apart like not American, not part of the rest of the world. Here, it's not like in Japan, like the way Asia is modern, but not like American, either. More like just a sandwich, in the middle. Not in the modern world, not want to catch up with everyone else."

 

I told him I think part of it, a big part, is that education and books are in people's minds part of what white people brought, and being white is really not a good thing here with all that comes with it. We agreed on the idea that this is the 21st century, and it's too late to crawl under a rock and pretend you aren't part of the world. He said, "I don't see white or black or color, I don't think of me Asian, I just think I am me."

 

We were arriving at the Capitol and he capped off this vent by saying, "Trust me. I live, travel all over the world. San Francisco, LA, Paris, Tokyo, Taipei. I seen the best places, what is out there. I go all over the world and trust me, this place issa piece-a junk."

 

Hahaha! I know you had to hear it with that accent, but it was so funny, I was laughing all the way through him swiping my credit card. "Piece-a junk." Especially funny as I sat there looking at this plastic cartoon cat pendant and gold rosary hanging on his dashboard. THIS PLACE ISSA PIECE-A JUNK.

 

I told him, "Well, you know what people tell you here if you say that? They say, 'If you think it's a piece-a junk, fly your ass out and go somewhere else!'" and he said, "Yeah, but I don't scared by them. I know how to talk to them." I said well, they probably respect you more if you say that then if I do, because you're Asian, so there's that. And he said, "You know what they call the construction here? Coconut construction!" He is clearly very irked by all this shtty, perpetual construction all over the roads, and I was so frazzled, I really appreciated how mad he was! I told him I'd be laughing the rest of the day over this "piece-a junk" thing, and I know he probably wasn't sure why that was so funny, but he seemed happy that I was overly amused.

 

I got there with 10 minutes to get where I needed to be, so it was close. It really could have been a disaster if he wasn't so agile with his car.

 

Anyway, it's still kind of cracking me up and comforting. Weirdly depressing and comforting at the same time.

[tiredofvampires]

That was easily one of the hardest votes I've ever cast. Certainly, in my lifetime, for this race.

 

It was between what I'd like to see...and a more predictable product which changes little.

 

Between the dream. And the next best thing -- reality.

 

For an idealist/pragmatist...a Solomon's choice. I will admit, I almost went with the "safe" choice. A choice that I think could pass muster, with its own merits and appeal. And even which I find less worrisome in some regards. I was on that fence a long time.

 

But I went with the dream.

 

Because too many people have told me "it'll never happen" and I saw it happen. "It". There having been more than one instance of that in my lifetime.

 

And counter to my post above...this was a little different in feel. It felt like a piece of something larger, literally -- a bunch of friends separated only by distance, but not the dream. Holding in our hearts things in common. Things that have hurt us, made us want something different for our lives and our country. Things that have made us mad enough to bother to last-minute register for a party and wait our turn in long lines in a hot high school cafeteria. Even the skate punks showed up.

 

Having all our own reasons, but those being shared and overlapping reasons. Believing it's worth the risk to hold onto a vision in spite of the odds, take a chance.

 

They quickly ran out of stickers for my candidate. Cleaned out even before the proceedings started. We're going to own this, then.

 

We are in this together. Caring about something inclusive of our own selves, but bigger than just that.

 

It was not about isolation, today.

[tiredofvampires]

Abraham Hicks teaches that when we start attracting people into our life that have what we want it is "driftwood" - an indication that our vibration is starting to line up with that thing. So, if you see a couple being really sweet to each other - rather than feeling jealous - "pivot" recognize that you are seeing something that you desire, and the fact that you are seeing it means that you attracted it, which means you're getting closer to having it yourself. Make sense? I love that perspective because it allows you to celebrate the good things around you even when others have them and you don't - yet.

 

This being taken from a post on Facebook (which I'm newly on), within a private discussion/goup, as stated by the facilitator/coach I've just finished a 2.5-month online class with. She's a health coach in a particular sub-specialty who came highly recommended, and as I had registered to her email list, was invited to sign up for this women's health class. After giving it some ambivalent thought, partly because of time constraints recently and partly because of the vibe of some of the language in her blogs and mass emails, I decided to go for it.

 

And not even a couple of weeks into the class, I started running into the very types of problems I worried I would. And the language that was rubbing me the wrong way turned out to indeed be indicative of the kinds of things I just about can't stand.

 

I've touched on how some mindsets and running pop psych and pop philosophies make me nauseous, but this is something that deserves to be taken apart more aggressively. What better place to start than here, specifically.

 

Since I did something completely thoughtless and sprained my hand as a result, I'll have to pick this up again later, but I wanted to capture that one quote before it falls off the radar, and it will very soon since the FB course is technically done and these posts will be taken down soon.

 

But that is so prime, right there -- and to give it some context, it was a partial response to one of the women who asked a question about what sort of emotion "jealousy" might be (one premise of this class being that there are only 4 cardinal emotions: anger, sadness, fear, and joy, with all the others being spin-offs of that. An assertion that I believe is taken from one of our reading materials, which I'm quite behind on.) So this was one piece of her answer, addressing what jealousy is about, though what she's referring to here is actually ENVY. Which is, wanting what someone else has and you don't. The questioner had asked about jealousy, so I don't know if she was also confusing envy with jealousy (which is the feeling of being threatened that someone will take away something you have). At any rate, this is how the coach interpreted the question.

 

Apart from making the very common mistake of confusing envy with jealousy (which we all do in common parlance, but in a class, I would ask this student whether she meant "envy" or "jealousy" before answering the question), this coach offered the above statement, inspired by "Abraham-Hicks", a husband-wife team, Jerry and Esther Hicks, who are pretty much the king and queen pushers of "The Law of Attraction".

 

One of my doctors once lent me a CD of them, and I listened to about 5 minutes, and then had to turn it off. And I'm usually at least curious enough to listen to things I can't stand, so that tells you something.

 

So, jealousy. Aka, "wanting what others have" (envy, actually). The way we can view this experience is that by seeing something we'd like to have in someone else, that indicates we are one step closer to having it because our "vibration" has drawn it close to us. If it's in our environment, that must mean we are magnetizing it to us, because that's the kind of power we have. We have the power to draw objects and people to us, from wherever they've come, because of our state of mind. I mean, vibration.

 

So if I'm surrounded by people who have all the things I want but I don't have those things, that's good news for me, because that means I'm getting stronger and stronger in my ability to manifest those things, too. I'm on the right track!

 

If I'm out at the beach park and see all those tourist weddings, that's all about me getting closer to being a blushing bride myself, and the fact that I happen to live at the mecca of tourist weddings that fuel an entire local economy is just incidental. This goes back to the moment I was conceived, by the way, in this paradigm, when I was enacting a choice to be born here, where I'd be stuck long after my family has moved away, ensnared in a government safety net that keeps me here. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

 

Ergo, I should not be "jealous" -- I should be happy, because that's auspicious for me. They are reflecting back to me what I'm closer to getting myself. I just don't have it...."YET!" (but I can certainly be sure I WILL have it, it's just not manifest yet!)

 

Right, so this is a great way of looking at others' good fortune and how you can be happy for them, instead of boiling over with feelings of deprivation: it's about good omens of your own destiny and elevated energetic status, not so much a challenge to call up "sympathetic joy" (to borrow a Buddhist phrase) for its own sake. You feel good to see someone else with something you'd like because it's all about you.

 

Where do I begin with punching the holes. Even as I faintly wish I was weak, deluded, and critical thinking-challenged enough to embrace it all. How much more soft and fluffy everything would feel.

 

They sleep on feathers and maybe even Dippin' Dots at night...I sleep on concrete slabs.

 

But enough for now. My hand's killing me. This was burning a hole in it, though.

 

Let's let that much sink in.

[tiredofvampires]

God...I would have been expelled from that class if she even knew. Ha, I'm such a covert heretic.

 

I almost feel vaguely guilty. Not apologetic...but keenly aware of the way I'm judging others right now, and knowing it's never felt good being the object of such harsh judgments. Or even wondering if I was being so judged behind "closed doors."

[tiredofvampires]

Dedicated in loving memory to my uncle, a lifelong classical violinist and violin connoisseur, who argued with me frequently about the insipid, composition-poor, "insulting to the human ear" nature of the music I listen(ed) to.

 

[video=youtube;0sP1_xecALY] ]

[itsallgrand]

I'm so sorry for your loss, TOV.

Huge hugs.

I really love that music you posted.

[tiredofvampires]

Thank you so much IAG. Thank you for the hugs, they are greatly appreciated.

 

It's not exactly a fresh loss...but I still do think of him, and it hasn't been that long. He was the more gentle, sane version of my dad, even though he had his real blind spots, too.

 

I'm glad you liked the music...I think she did an amazing job of interpreting the original, where the solo goes into the higher registers.

 

I sent it to my mom, referring to my uncle, and she said:

 

This piece played on the violin reminded me of Rimsky Korsakoff's "Flight of the Bumble Bee" in its verisimilitude to the actual thing. Did [my uncle] hear this...piece played on the violin, or was he reacting to the original rock version? I think the instrumentation would've made a difference to him, as we both couldn't —and I still can't—stand the sound of the electric guitar.

 

Well...he never heard this version. I didn't, until just the other day.

 

He just detested rock in general. Thought every song was like every other song. And he used to scoff, "There are no dynamics! No forte, no pianissimo, just everything at the same EAR ATTACKING volume non-stop. It's like an ASSAULT on the system."

 

I wish I could have played this for him. Or my dad for that matter, who was of the same persuasion, naturally, and nodding from the grave. After all...the original guitarist who played this taught classical guitar.

 

"Can't stand the sound of the electric guitar." And what "sound" would that be?

 

I almost didn't post this, but why not.

 

The original:

[video=youtube;FVovq9TGBw0] ]

 

It was good then...and it's good now.

 

But it's also like looking into the leaves of a book that has gotten so dusty, the words there are but a haunting deja vu. It brings me back to a hope and sense of ethereal jubilation that only music could bring me. Old school MTV. It was where I took refuge.

[Silverbirch]

Thanks for the music TOV. How's your Facebook a Group going?

[itsallgrand]

Loss is loss, and I'm sorry for yours, no matter the time span. I still miss my dad and grieve him sometimes, and I've now lived longer without him than with him in my life. But I loved him and his impact was deep.

 

It really sounds like the resonance of love for music goes deep in your family. Perhaps expressed differently, and even loved differently, but you've got it too.

There's something nice about that from my point of view- the music goes beyond our mundane human limitations and can be this universal connection, even after our time here on earth.

 

Anyways, I feel like I understand you here, and i love when you post music.

[tiredofvampires]

Needing this a lot lately...

 

 

 

[video=youtube;IvtZBUSplr4] ]

[tiredofvampires]

This world is on fire.

 

I don't believe in any holy books as accurate portrayals of the universe and its organization. And they don't hold any prophetic power to me, as divination manuals.

 

But I do believe that the allegories and mythologies of all strains and traditions contain powerful understandings of human nature, and the dangers we face as a unit.

 

Sometimes it does come down to polarities...polarities of what appears to be "good", and what appears to be "bad", not just by arbitrary subjective evaluation, but by what we can see around us as construction versus destruction, in a very objective way.

 

And I feel...watching what's going on now...as if a lens is coming into focus. There is a conflagration, and it's spreading. It's not a conflagration of natural combustibles in the environment -- of trees and flammable objects, houses and liquids like kerosene. Not, at least, in the way I'm speaking.

 

It's a conflagration spreading from heart to heart. The hearts are the trees...voices are the kerosene, the matches.

 

I don't know if there is a putting out this fire, but that makes the ones bringing water all the more heroic and precious. The ones who see a fire and pour water on it, not kerosene. The ones who in their little corner of the woods build a place of stones and call on others to enter, so that they won't be burnt alive; and make their fortress as large as they can, building it rock by rock each day to hold more.

 

But I admit...I see these forces coalescing, condensing, on their opposite sides. In a universe where we have yin and yang, dark and light...we have construction and destruction, and the fight for homeostasis is rising to a fever pitch. "Good" and "Evil" are catchwords...so I don't care for them too much. But sometimes they work, as shorthand. So I will say it -- I am absolutely in awe of how much evil, and evil parading around as acceptable and justifiable, is thriving. Building on itself in an exponential fashion. And even in a universe where there is as little relevance for the words "winning" and "losing" as "good" and "bad"...I see evil appearing to gain more ground. To be winning. It is becoming so much more dense. At very least, it's forcing the good to become more dense and concerted in response.

 

I'm not just talking about frank, in-your-face atrocity evil, which most people condemn. I mean the evil of doing nothing, of aiding and abetting doing nothing, the complicity of apathy, of being okay with the status quo, and of living for self-indulgent self-insulation and pure personal gain. Or living only for a perceived personal wrong righted, at the expense of everything else that matters.

 

I mean the evil of not feeling anymore, unless it impacts you specifically.

 

I mean the evil of not caring about this planet which is our home, our only home which gave birth to us, as a grace, a few nanoseconds ago in the scheme of its existence, and instead of treating it like our only HOME, our HOME that protects and keeps us alive, treating it like a slave that is entitled to serve us even when we beat it to death.

 

I'm talking about the evil of ignorance -- ignorance that does not care to do away with itself. I'm talking about the evil of a mind that accepts its own reactive ego as an inerrant authority. I'm talking about the evil of a standard of justice that is only upheld when it serves such a supreme ruler as this.

 

I'm talking about the evil that resides in lack of empathy, which can grow from a tiny spark plug burning out to an all-encompassing dead motor.

 

And the evil that seeks to convert others to this sickness of being. And the grip of that evil, for being so attractive and tantalizing.

 

If "goodness" comes in silver and pearls, "evil" would come in gold and diamonds. But it's not as fortunate as that, even. Good comes in cotton and burlap, and what it unwraps is nothing you can touch or wear. Its rewards do not come loudly announcing themselves.

 

All in all, none of it conforms to the model. The transactional model that people base their entire existences upon. So it's unrecognizable or disincentivizing, on that plane of things.

 

You've got to first want to check that box. You've got to want to check it even though it's not promising. Even though you don't know how it will serve you. Even if you do know how it could serve you and feel it's "not enough." You still have to check it, to check it, to keep checking it. You still have to raise your pen and check it, to be part of it.

 

And I know the following story isn't evil. But for some reason it doesn't seem entirely divorced from it in a really far-fetched way.

 

I went out to watch fireworks on the Fourth of July, a few blocks from where I live, so a short walk. I'm lucky that each year, they have a spectacular display over the bay where I swim and walk. It's a major urban area, so it's always a throng out there. This year was no exception -- and for some reason, I saw more red, white, and blue clothing than I've ever seen before. It seemed like a phenomenon...why all of a sudden the hat with white and blue stars, the red-and-white striped leggings, the dress with an entire FLAG on it? It's never been quite like that...like gaudy Christmas sweaters but for the 4th. I wonder why? Are people feeling this much more patriotic and celebratory...now that the world is on fire?

 

Anyway. I went up to the top story of a parking lot where I could get a good view, and stood in the crowd. And there was this girl next to me, with her phone camera. And for the entire show -- which seemed to go on longer than usual, at least a half hour, though I didn't look at my watch -- she had her viewfinder pointed at the show, recording it. She was watching the fireworks show through her camera, so she could get it all on a memory chip. She didn't lower her arms the entire time, as I glanced over watching her adjust the frame and centering the picture. I mean, not once did she lower her arms to just watch, with her eyes trained to the vision in front of her. She must have had pretty good endurance to keep her arms up that whole time. My shoulders were fatigued just looking at her.

 

The show was spectacular, and it seems to get moreso every year. There were formations that looked like they took up 30 miles in the sky, though I knew that was an optical illusion.

 

Some of them looked like the darkness had poured golden streamers out of nowhere, as they cascaded from the void, sparkling to earth. It was like the sky was exploding with stars that weren't there. And you had to take in the bigness of it all, the towering green of the greens, the ambers and fiery reds. The purples brought back memories of the violet phosphorescent creatures I used to see in the sand at night when I was a child, washed up on the shore. The long shore stretching out in front of me in the dark. Expanding out with these flame-blues were the orbs above me.

 

I can't even imagine confining this to a 5-inch phone screen and thinking that I had seen anything at all.

 

She saw it all, experienced none of it. And I was so close, after the grand finale, the applause, and people breaking up, to say to her with a wry smile, "Hey, you missed it!" But of course I held my tongue.

 

I don't know why that very common sight, which happens all the time...in this case made me feel borderline angry. What was that about? My reaction, which was so intense? I had to take a look at that.

 

And I think it has to do with what it shows about how much of the entire world we are tuning out and missing through our little, narrow lenses. How much we block out, how little we experience the full sensation and rapture and feeling of everything. Why are we satisfied to see a facsimile of an experience? Replace the real thing with it? What has to happen for someone to prefer to stand there making sure to have a record of something forever and ever and ever (and we all know it's just going to be erased one day to make room for another more fresh event) that they have not even bothered to witness as it was actually happening? Why is memory, which is fluid, and what we take away from something not important anymore, so lowly compared to something immutable and static that can be replayed and look the same every time? Why is the utmost thing about being there to have files upon files of impressions taken and catalogued? The irony of making something important enough to hold onto, yet unimportant enough to not even be present for fully, in the moment it's REAL, is not easily put into words.

 

Why are memory and experience and reality -- the only things that make life worth living, in my opinion -- of so little value? And instead, what we have is the documentation that life was lived.

 

It all seems so pointless, and yet it's so satisfying to everyone. She seemed so satisfied to have gotten her video done right. It seems to me to be something about security...the security that now you HAVE something, and it's there to hold onto. But it's something you didn't really "have." It's just been well-boxed. Now she'll send it to all her friends...and they will see...images of colors, muted and digitized, flat and 2-dimensional. What a wonderful night.

 

So why is this even in a post about evil? Besides that I am quasi free associating and on a roll?

 

There's something related. It's about tuning out. Tuning out of what's really going on. Tuning out of what's in front of you and preferring to have a concept or an image of something out there, rather than getting to know and feel it intimately. And so then, one is one step removed, estranged, only acquainted with it on a very superficial and conceptual level. There is nothing intimate about that, no. Nothing HERE. It is just THERE. Very external.

 

It's several arms' lengths away...or maybe a whole sky away.

 

And from there...connection is lost, and where connection is lost, so is the pipeline to the aquifer. And then everything dries up, from the ground up.

 

And then there is fire. And torching everything to the ground. It's just the natural progression of things.

 

It starts with a little bit of tuning out. And ends in destruction everywhere.

 

It's not sustainable to live at a distance to anything or anyone.

 

You don't have to try to cure the whole world. For now, you might just consider putting your damn phone away, I say.

 

 

 

[video=youtube;xNL_iYrpojw]

[Clarisse]

Such a great post. I agree with every word and experienced the exact same thing this 4th of July. Such a sad commentary of our society. I fear for humanity.

 

You write beautifully.

[tiredofvampires]

Oh, thank you, Clarisse. While I'm not "glad" you had the same experience, I'm glad to know you share this feeling and reflection, and it's good to know I wasn't the only one. Thanks for relating that. Can you imagine how many times that played out in all pockets of the country this 4th of July? I'm sure it's in the many millions. To me...it would be as if someone shot me up with a general anesthetic and said, "Wake me up when it's over." We lose so much of life while still awake, and it's all so "normal"!

 

We need to stick together, not be alone in this fear for humanity.

[Capricorn3]

Been away for a while and had to do some catching up. Just wanted to say, as always, amazing posts. Your writing is powerful and a pleasure to read.