The snow storm changed our Thanksgiving plans, so I won't be celebrating food with family until next weekend. But I did just have a feast of sorts, with friends, at an Indian restaurant. Our friend is returning to a country on the other side of the spin ball, so we got together for dinner. My friends chose the restaurant, but it was fitting, as I've been reading about India quite a bit this weekend. 5 years ago my family got in the car to go to Long Island, the next day I got on a plane to go to India, and I've been on the journey ever since. I wonder what I will learn from people tomorrow, and what I will learn from what I've already written.
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Saturday, November 29, 2014
Thursday, November 27, 2014
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Tuesday, November 18, 2014
A newish roommate told me he is thinking about going back to finish his education and get a better job, and when I asked him why, he said he thinks it's because he wants more things and better status. He sees a lot of people with plenty of money and status around him, and he thinks he'd be happier if he were in their positions. I have seven years of experience on him, although my life is different no matter who he might be, so I could only help him by telling him what I know. I told him I've learned during my twenties that although material gains and improvement of position with age are necessary skills for survival and psychologically rewarding after you've put in the necessary work, there is plenty of time for all of that. Investing in skills is far more important than investing in things or titles that don't actually represent who you are. I think that the most valuable investments one can be fortunate to make during one's 20's are in one's abilities to work hard, develop stamina, connect with, understand and care about other people, and improve who one is as a person, in any way.
Sunday, November 16, 2014
We talked about television and movies for our group conversation a couple days ago. I think we were mostly positive about it, although, as with most topics, I do my best to drum up viewpoints from both sides.
I love language, whether the language be verbal, written, vibratory harmonics, visual or sensual.
The value of movies is that they give you the opportunity to enjoy your life in the moment, and some of them carry the potential to inspire you beyond the direct experience. They can expand your imagination and therefore your world. Information, history, science, philosophy, geography, culture, style and beliefs can all be expressed and understood through such magical media.
Television does the same, and in plenty of other ways as well. You can learn about your world, see beauty, and take breaks from life's various stresses here and there.
Thank you to all of the imaginations, writers, directors, players, cinematographers and everyone else who makes these ideas become realities for us to hear and see.
And we all know that most movies thrive on music, so a thank you to all the musicians in the world.
In fact, thank you to every artist, hard worker, and smiling beholder of beauty everywhere
I love language, whether the language be verbal, written, vibratory harmonics, visual or sensual.
The value of movies is that they give you the opportunity to enjoy your life in the moment, and some of them carry the potential to inspire you beyond the direct experience. They can expand your imagination and therefore your world. Information, history, science, philosophy, geography, culture, style and beliefs can all be expressed and understood through such magical media.
Television does the same, and in plenty of other ways as well. You can learn about your world, see beauty, and take breaks from life's various stresses here and there.
Thank you to all of the imaginations, writers, directors, players, cinematographers and everyone else who makes these ideas become realities for us to hear and see.
And we all know that most movies thrive on music, so a thank you to all the musicians in the world.
In fact, thank you to every artist, hard worker, and smiling beholder of beauty everywhere
Saturday, November 15, 2014
Today's activities:
Appreciate that I am alive, look at the sunlight, admire the yellow leaves, breathe in the air, eat some food, and drink some tea... check!
See our great friend Jack on his first day back in the states for his two week vacation from Australia! I haven't seen my only visitor in San Francisco since the completion of my first week as a language teacher in the states, March 2013.
Watch Hiromi at Stony Brook on Long Island, the city where my father worked for DEC and supported our family the first decade of my life, and the university where my mother got her social work master's degree! I think I might visit nearby Smithtown too, since I was born there.
Appreciate that I am alive, look at the sunlight, admire the yellow leaves, breathe in the air, eat some food, and drink some tea... check!
See our great friend Jack on his first day back in the states for his two week vacation from Australia! I haven't seen my only visitor in San Francisco since the completion of my first week as a language teacher in the states, March 2013.
Watch Hiromi at Stony Brook on Long Island, the city where my father worked for DEC and supported our family the first decade of my life, and the university where my mother got her social work master's degree! I think I might visit nearby Smithtown too, since I was born there.
A thought from a few nights ago while looking through the window and listening to a motivational speech where the speaker assumed that I didn't read many books in the past year:
1st I read Hero With a Thousand Faces by Campbell, like you and you and all of you, if you want to be, maybe you are already, or maybe you're still on the path to your own special destiny, a unique, incredible, irreplaceable and important journey... I don't know, that's not up to me... hope I can help u
1st I read Hero With a Thousand Faces by Campbell, like you and you and all of you, if you want to be, maybe you are already, or maybe you're still on the path to your own special destiny, a unique, incredible, irreplaceable and important journey... I don't know, that's not up to me... hope I can help u
Wednesday, November 12, 2014
Tuesday, November 11, 2014
What a day today. The sun shining bright, blue sky, people
moving about. A seat on the train, Temple of Heaven green tea, and a classroom of sometimes smiley students awaiting me. Best of all, I have the ability and permission to teach in a way that makes me feel free intellectually, and yes, even spiritually. The goal is to feed the students quality so they increase their bravery as they battle to express their inner truths with the world, and then, hopefully, accept, feel and spread life's joy more freely.
I am fortunate to speak with and listen to lots of
people every day, and even luckier that they pay me to do so. Depending on the class, we may have group discussions or smaller conversations in groups or pairs. Today we did both. We discussed all sorts of family topics. I enjoy the back and forth,
although I don’t always agree with everybody, and I know that some of them feel the same way about me.
That’s what being an individual with a unique experiential point of view
provides you: you may say what you think and express what’s inside.
Expressing yourself is one challenge, but having a quality conversation which improves all involved requires a whole extra journey that starts with fearful risk of your protective shell, but if you're lucky, proceeds toward mastery. To speak takes skill, practice, courage and something worthwhile to say in the first place, but to listen involves patience, love, peace, understanding and the ability to improvise in ways that bring out the best in both of you.
When we have breaks I often go to the teacher's lounge, and sometimes a discussion with some level of intellectual depth takes place. We had a very good one today. Somehow a teacher got riled up about mysticism because of a book another teacher was reading. He groaned and grunted and generalized and complained and was soon putting down half the magic spin ball in favor of a homo sapien information diet of pure rationalism. Yes, I know, a conversation that happens and has happened all over the world through all time, so where are we going to get during a lunch break on this one? Still, it was interesting, a little fun, and of course, I learned something. Definitely better than sitting in silence or muttering about things that don't matter. The only problem was the guy didn't want to listen to anyone. He had his ideas, and that was it. All you need are facts, apparently, or at least to say things that sound like facts while raising your voice and smacking your hands together. Yet I think that if one is more open to the world, one may push the mind to contemplate, making new imagination resonate, and a soul will vibrate
Whatever the idea, the tone or the words, please, for your own sake, listen. If you listen to many people, you will sound more intelligent, informed and trustworthy when you speak to others, and you will also be more confident and content on the inside, because you'll know that you are speaking with as much authority as any life could hope to be. We don't have to have a conversation with anyone, but if we're going to speak, then we have time to listen.
As for the group of international individuals speaking
together, with a rich variety of opinions offered by all, we learned a
lot about each other this afternoon. We also learned a little more about our respective cultures’ general tendencies of thought, that is, as accurately
as those could ever be conveyed by single representatives of supposed
nations of complex individual human lives weaved together in intricately spiraling sophisticated
stories. This was only one group of
people in a little room on a big ball, but I enjoyed the experience and felt completely
natural and comfortable with the circulation of communication. I had an
advantage in my comfort zone because I am experienced with starting, organizing and energizing
otherwise completely organic conversations amongst human beings. I am used to hearing large varieties of
opinions expressed by people from all sorts of stories, experiences, beliefs, languages, pleasures, fears, families, cultures, philosophies, nationalities, traditions, religions,
ages, smiles, accents, laughs, fashions, diets, styles, ideas, artistic joys, and levels of inclination toward imaginative innovation. Whoever you are, you are welcome to voice your inner truths and share them with the class, so long as you accept the universal gifts of your classmates' wisdom, knowledge, experience, imagination, creativity and personality.
In fact, I encourage you
Thursday, November 6, 2014
The content of this peace is frequently being updated significantly (11/6/14, 7:33, 10:00, and 7/11/14, 6:47, and 7:57)
1st things first: the letter you say just like "sea" doesn't work when I press the key on my p.sea. Recently, when I try to press "see" and then press other keys, it starts automatically activating the "si" key, so I get a string of them across my screen, whether it's in a word processor, the web address line, or anything else I want to see. Sometimes I write a sentence ancd itc ctucrcncsc ouct licke tchcisc. In previous days it would do this quite often for no apparent reason, even if I hadn't touched the keyboard. I have had the challenge of writing daily in my journal due to this letter behaving as wildly as the human story, whether understood musically, religiously, scientifically, governmentally, economically, artistically, and on and on with new words from infinity.
I wrote the first draft of this while on break at work, thus the obvious appearance of this letter of which I speak. I began to edit this at home, and soon realized that I needed to be imaginative when it came to writing the letter sea. Then I figured out that I could simply copy and paste the letter from the original. This has made the process slower and frustrating, but sometimes something you need isn't there, and you have to improvise. It takes longer, but it's the only way. And there is always pencil and paper. I wrote "Hero Journey In the Himalaya With a Guide Named Buddha" on a yellow legal pad in a hotel room in the northern foothills of the India Himalaya. Approaching the story this way to some degree may evoke a special memory, insight or emotion from the journey.
Also worth mentioning, in the ever present journey of understanding the world and how best to move with the world, I've been reading about why the economy is the way it is, has developed the way it has, and how they still really don't understand very much about why it works the way it does, just like many universal mysteries. They certainly have learned a lot, and brilliant minds have helped us solve problems and move forward, but there's always a new mystery to befuddle the most brilliant business brains, on top of other persistent mysteries that appear to be solved and then turn out to have new dimensions. I say all of this to illustrate the contrast of reading about industrial capitalists, aristocratic land-owners in England, and the basic ideas of property ownership and conspicuous consumption with my present situation of barely holding on for the next pay check (taking a week of unpaid vacation involves some economic patience afterward) and finding that most of my few prized possessions are beginning to stop working properly.
While on vacation these headphones I am so blessed to have at all, well, they began to short out. I am so happy there are the beautiful sounds in the first place, but even so, I have to hold them perfectly still and adjust them very carefully for a while before finding the exact right spot where both headphones work, but that remedy will only work for so long. If I take them off for any reason, I have to do it again. You may think of embracing heavenly vibrations as a minor activity, but music saves my soul from the toll of constantly hearing those wheels roll on the street below. I think it's simply a communication problem between the opposite ears. Music usually calms my fears, which makes me happy, enthusiastic and positive around other people, so the expense is worth the energy
The world has righted the balance for me by giving me a TV so I can experience visual imagination with more easily visible quality. I applaud the TV, amidst many other friends given to me from reality and accepted thankfully. Specifically, I accepted this 27" TV in front of me, the first of its kind to exist in my place to be. Before you flip out on me, you should know that I only have a TV because my newish roommate has lent one to me because he recently bought a TV about four times the size of the one in front of me, and for not that much more money, if my memory serves me correctly. This is another reason why my recent trend of certain possessions slowly deserting into a worthless sea of obscurity didn't bother me as much as that would normally. Yet another example is my classic iPod's battery, the only handheld gadget that really truly means something to me (someone always has a phone if you really need to make a call). I learned a few days ago that they will not make classic iPods anymore, and the battery on my current favorite iPod which has served me on many a wondrous journey is starting to go for shorter and shorter stretches before needing a charge. It won't matter how much money I have when I want a new one: they won't make them anymore, because they said they can't get the parts, and it isn't in their financial interest as the most valuable company in the world to find a new way to make them even though that same miracle of innovative vibratory communication is what truly endeared them to our collective human imagination after they had gone for long periods of creative stagnation. Now we can communicate whatever we want whenever we want, and at the same time spend less time looking at the people who are in front of us and want to communicate directly. The small screen is truly making the scene lately. As for me, I've been so focused on other experiences that I've just joined the wave of having my own gigantic screen. Then again, it is still a p.sea., because I don't have a cable connection, so I'm just making the world wide web larger with higher definition. Trust me, these enormous images relived from this journey with reality are helping this soul achieve an important creative goal.
Then, on Tuesday night, I learned people were angry about the current powerful "party" not fixing the challenges fast enough. These spring forth from the life we all live together. Even so, if you want to view the world through the lens of elections, plenty of these challenges were manifested by the efforts, influence and openly acknowledged goals of the previous "party," so apparently "we" want the previous "party" to get back to applying the very same game that formed challenges for all of us to get angry about in the first place. The Daily Show bemoaned the victory of "money" over "ideas." That sounds about right, but it didn't really get to me that night. I'd recently read about wars and economic depressions, so I wasn't as dismayed as I would have been ten years ago when I was studying government every day. Despite overcoming the initial disappointment of the election results, at the end of the night I sat in my reclining chair (which I received as a hand-me-down gift about two months ago, marking the end of a five and half year period of living without a remotely comfortable chair), and, keeping with the spirit of that night's events, the right side decided to stop cooperating with the rest of the body and detached itself. The screws were not only loose, but they had completely fallen out. Of course, this very suddenly caused the entire chair, and me, however briefly, to fall to the floor. Luckily, I wasn't hurt. I stood right back up. The first thing I did was inspect both sides and conclude that everything could easily be put back together again. Things break, and we repair them. I did not panic or get angry, which happens sometimes when inanimate objects reveal their shares of surprises. It seemed fitting at the time. I had waited a long time for this chair though, so I wasn't going to give up that easily. I simply turned on the light so I could see more accurately, flipped the chair over, studied it's dirty webbed underside, found the place where the screws had come out, found my tool kit, and got to work. I didn't have enough screws in the kit in my room, and it was very late at night, so I waited until the next evening to go to my vehicle to get better devices from the box and finish the job. The chair still works, the gadgets will once again work properly, eventually, the country still works, albeit to differing degrees for you and me and he and she, and most importantly, life still works in ways that go beautifully beyond words like money, although it may not appear that way every day to everybody, what with all the painful problems afflicting humanity.
Of course, after maintaining my calm on Tuesday, without much of a problem, I was stricken with a rare bout of insomnia last night. I used to have it all the time in college, but it hasn't been a problem for years. And then, out of nowhere, I couldn't fall asleep. I was hungry, and the pantry wasn't exactly empty, but it wasn't exactly plenty either. I ate what little I had left, but I was unable to fall asleep until 5 am this morning. I woke up two hours later to find that it was raining steadily. Of course, I was making small mistakes during my morning routine because I was so tired, so it took me a little longer to get out the door, and a little behind schedule at that. Naturally, I felt somewhat frustrated as I approached the train to begin my six hour teaching day. I don't care if people respect my professions, because I spend my time helping people enjoy the present and the future through communicating effectively and, when possible, playfully. Whether I'm working 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12 hours, I have to use all of my improvisational, creative and communicative powers while attempting to transmit knowledge, wisdom, smiles and feelings of freedom and bravery to whoever is willing to play this language with me.
As I waited for the train, I saw a guy next to me wearing a cap supporting the Memphis Grizzlies basketball team. There was a picture of a gigantic, ferocious grizzly bear holding a ball in his enormous furry paw. I instantly remembered a certain walk in a park well after dark. As the 1 train approached, I decided life has been treating me incredibly well, and I am thankful to you for this.
I would learn that that wasn't even the most dangerous animal I would symbolically encounter today. While traveling in the American West I had been honestly concerned about the possibility of an invisible gargantuan grizzly bear appearing from behind the trees in the dark of night and tearing me limb from limb while I froze petrified with fright. That's the memory that the man's hat on the train brought back to my brain. After arriving at work and beginning class I had another flashback. 5 years ago my imagination of the future had suffered much more fear from the sheer idea of sitting somewhere in India or Southeast Asia and hearing the sudden high-pitched emergence of miniscule malarial mosquitoes. About halfway through the first group of international students attempting to improve their understanding and use of the most widespread language in the world, we learned from the text book that mosquitoes are indeed the most deadly animal in earthly existence, killing two million people with malaria every year. When the students emitted high pitched whines about their impending future of facing the routine weekly five point evaluation, I didn't have to work too hard to put things in perspective for them. You just need to focus people's imagination.
As for you, this is my thesis of the economy, that word which supposedly summarizes the symphony of human moments that are based in being yet always manifest as ever-evolving experiences of almost everything imaginable, which would inevitably, amongst it's infinitely creative variety of relativity, involve trades of energy acting as material entities which those who speak the lingua franca fluently eventually named money, amongst infinite entities acting with plenty of loving humanity.
I am thinking about bears, whether polar, black, panda, yogi, or grizzly, and mosquitoes, however many varieties of those necessary nuisances there may be, and all the rest of fear flag flying forces from infinity whose purpose within divinity is to make you remember what it truly means to be brave and free. What we like to call money will help us trade what we have with ourselves and sometimes give us green art to wonder upon while waiting in the queue to trade the green paper for life giving energy food. I also have learned that I may buy bear mace to keep the confused, fearful and rare predatory bear out of our face, and a bear box to keep our food safe and prevent that which may steal the true joy from our lives from entering our place, mosquito spray so we can feel like we are doing something every day to keep the fear away, and some clothing so they can see they may as well leave us be. That's what money can do in the fight to keep you loving U, which includes everything, even you. I also understand the scenario that most malaria bears don't care whether we have any profound ideas to spare. Perhaps... but who sees through those I's we call theirs? Something invisible in the air? Is there loving wisdom which cares? Where can we find this mind? Do our ideas make our way in there?
Most humans have yet to ask me. They ask the TV. Recently, in between speaking directly with humanity, spending time with you on public transportation, seeing you on the street whether walking with you or in my window seat, reading your words in books and writing my own to strengthen your story, I watched the TV. I learned that my country, one of 200 or so, approximately, said they were impatient with economic improvement, and wanted the government to change everything so that life would be excellent. Actually, it wasn't the entire country. It was a very small part of the entire country, in fact. Even so, they elected more representatives from the group of people who are audacious enough to call themselves a party while playing a game named capitalize on blame, grabbing life's ears with production of fear, which, even without their help, is always near. Thankfully, you have life, and we have life, and life is everywhere, and life cares about your shares of dares with bears.
I enjoy the TV's input, but I will continue to ask people I know what they know, then ask new people what they know, and tell them what I know about where the show makes me go, and read what the universe's imagination seed, and listen to the music of heaven's inspiration to generate sensation.
Values based on financial fear and cultural smear cannot come near to the vivifying value of vibrant living art we produce with hearts and minds from this aye of soulful human kind.
I wrote the first draft of this while on break at work, thus the obvious appearance of this letter of which I speak. I began to edit this at home, and soon realized that I needed to be imaginative when it came to writing the letter sea. Then I figured out that I could simply copy and paste the letter from the original. This has made the process slower and frustrating, but sometimes something you need isn't there, and you have to improvise. It takes longer, but it's the only way. And there is always pencil and paper. I wrote "Hero Journey In the Himalaya With a Guide Named Buddha" on a yellow legal pad in a hotel room in the northern foothills of the India Himalaya. Approaching the story this way to some degree may evoke a special memory, insight or emotion from the journey.
Also worth mentioning, in the ever present journey of understanding the world and how best to move with the world, I've been reading about why the economy is the way it is, has developed the way it has, and how they still really don't understand very much about why it works the way it does, just like many universal mysteries. They certainly have learned a lot, and brilliant minds have helped us solve problems and move forward, but there's always a new mystery to befuddle the most brilliant business brains, on top of other persistent mysteries that appear to be solved and then turn out to have new dimensions. I say all of this to illustrate the contrast of reading about industrial capitalists, aristocratic land-owners in England, and the basic ideas of property ownership and conspicuous consumption with my present situation of barely holding on for the next pay check (taking a week of unpaid vacation involves some economic patience afterward) and finding that most of my few prized possessions are beginning to stop working properly.
While on vacation these headphones I am so blessed to have at all, well, they began to short out. I am so happy there are the beautiful sounds in the first place, but even so, I have to hold them perfectly still and adjust them very carefully for a while before finding the exact right spot where both headphones work, but that remedy will only work for so long. If I take them off for any reason, I have to do it again. You may think of embracing heavenly vibrations as a minor activity, but music saves my soul from the toll of constantly hearing those wheels roll on the street below. I think it's simply a communication problem between the opposite ears. Music usually calms my fears, which makes me happy, enthusiastic and positive around other people, so the expense is worth the energy
The world has righted the balance for me by giving me a TV so I can experience visual imagination with more easily visible quality. I applaud the TV, amidst many other friends given to me from reality and accepted thankfully. Specifically, I accepted this 27" TV in front of me, the first of its kind to exist in my place to be. Before you flip out on me, you should know that I only have a TV because my newish roommate has lent one to me because he recently bought a TV about four times the size of the one in front of me, and for not that much more money, if my memory serves me correctly. This is another reason why my recent trend of certain possessions slowly deserting into a worthless sea of obscurity didn't bother me as much as that would normally. Yet another example is my classic iPod's battery, the only handheld gadget that really truly means something to me (someone always has a phone if you really need to make a call). I learned a few days ago that they will not make classic iPods anymore, and the battery on my current favorite iPod which has served me on many a wondrous journey is starting to go for shorter and shorter stretches before needing a charge. It won't matter how much money I have when I want a new one: they won't make them anymore, because they said they can't get the parts, and it isn't in their financial interest as the most valuable company in the world to find a new way to make them even though that same miracle of innovative vibratory communication is what truly endeared them to our collective human imagination after they had gone for long periods of creative stagnation. Now we can communicate whatever we want whenever we want, and at the same time spend less time looking at the people who are in front of us and want to communicate directly. The small screen is truly making the scene lately. As for me, I've been so focused on other experiences that I've just joined the wave of having my own gigantic screen. Then again, it is still a p.sea., because I don't have a cable connection, so I'm just making the world wide web larger with higher definition. Trust me, these enormous images relived from this journey with reality are helping this soul achieve an important creative goal.
Then, on Tuesday night, I learned people were angry about the current powerful "party" not fixing the challenges fast enough. These spring forth from the life we all live together. Even so, if you want to view the world through the lens of elections, plenty of these challenges were manifested by the efforts, influence and openly acknowledged goals of the previous "party," so apparently "we" want the previous "party" to get back to applying the very same game that formed challenges for all of us to get angry about in the first place. The Daily Show bemoaned the victory of "money" over "ideas." That sounds about right, but it didn't really get to me that night. I'd recently read about wars and economic depressions, so I wasn't as dismayed as I would have been ten years ago when I was studying government every day. Despite overcoming the initial disappointment of the election results, at the end of the night I sat in my reclining chair (which I received as a hand-me-down gift about two months ago, marking the end of a five and half year period of living without a remotely comfortable chair), and, keeping with the spirit of that night's events, the right side decided to stop cooperating with the rest of the body and detached itself. The screws were not only loose, but they had completely fallen out. Of course, this very suddenly caused the entire chair, and me, however briefly, to fall to the floor. Luckily, I wasn't hurt. I stood right back up. The first thing I did was inspect both sides and conclude that everything could easily be put back together again. Things break, and we repair them. I did not panic or get angry, which happens sometimes when inanimate objects reveal their shares of surprises. It seemed fitting at the time. I had waited a long time for this chair though, so I wasn't going to give up that easily. I simply turned on the light so I could see more accurately, flipped the chair over, studied it's dirty webbed underside, found the place where the screws had come out, found my tool kit, and got to work. I didn't have enough screws in the kit in my room, and it was very late at night, so I waited until the next evening to go to my vehicle to get better devices from the box and finish the job. The chair still works, the gadgets will once again work properly, eventually, the country still works, albeit to differing degrees for you and me and he and she, and most importantly, life still works in ways that go beautifully beyond words like money, although it may not appear that way every day to everybody, what with all the painful problems afflicting humanity.
Of course, after maintaining my calm on Tuesday, without much of a problem, I was stricken with a rare bout of insomnia last night. I used to have it all the time in college, but it hasn't been a problem for years. And then, out of nowhere, I couldn't fall asleep. I was hungry, and the pantry wasn't exactly empty, but it wasn't exactly plenty either. I ate what little I had left, but I was unable to fall asleep until 5 am this morning. I woke up two hours later to find that it was raining steadily. Of course, I was making small mistakes during my morning routine because I was so tired, so it took me a little longer to get out the door, and a little behind schedule at that. Naturally, I felt somewhat frustrated as I approached the train to begin my six hour teaching day. I don't care if people respect my professions, because I spend my time helping people enjoy the present and the future through communicating effectively and, when possible, playfully. Whether I'm working 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 or 12 hours, I have to use all of my improvisational, creative and communicative powers while attempting to transmit knowledge, wisdom, smiles and feelings of freedom and bravery to whoever is willing to play this language with me.
As I waited for the train, I saw a guy next to me wearing a cap supporting the Memphis Grizzlies basketball team. There was a picture of a gigantic, ferocious grizzly bear holding a ball in his enormous furry paw. I instantly remembered a certain walk in a park well after dark. As the 1 train approached, I decided life has been treating me incredibly well, and I am thankful to you for this.
I would learn that that wasn't even the most dangerous animal I would symbolically encounter today. While traveling in the American West I had been honestly concerned about the possibility of an invisible gargantuan grizzly bear appearing from behind the trees in the dark of night and tearing me limb from limb while I froze petrified with fright. That's the memory that the man's hat on the train brought back to my brain. After arriving at work and beginning class I had another flashback. 5 years ago my imagination of the future had suffered much more fear from the sheer idea of sitting somewhere in India or Southeast Asia and hearing the sudden high-pitched emergence of miniscule malarial mosquitoes. About halfway through the first group of international students attempting to improve their understanding and use of the most widespread language in the world, we learned from the text book that mosquitoes are indeed the most deadly animal in earthly existence, killing two million people with malaria every year. When the students emitted high pitched whines about their impending future of facing the routine weekly five point evaluation, I didn't have to work too hard to put things in perspective for them. You just need to focus people's imagination.
As for you, this is my thesis of the economy, that word which supposedly summarizes the symphony of human moments that are based in being yet always manifest as ever-evolving experiences of almost everything imaginable, which would inevitably, amongst it's infinitely creative variety of relativity, involve trades of energy acting as material entities which those who speak the lingua franca fluently eventually named money, amongst infinite entities acting with plenty of loving humanity.
I am thinking about bears, whether polar, black, panda, yogi, or grizzly, and mosquitoes, however many varieties of those necessary nuisances there may be, and all the rest of fear flag flying forces from infinity whose purpose within divinity is to make you remember what it truly means to be brave and free. What we like to call money will help us trade what we have with ourselves and sometimes give us green art to wonder upon while waiting in the queue to trade the green paper for life giving energy food. I also have learned that I may buy bear mace to keep the confused, fearful and rare predatory bear out of our face, and a bear box to keep our food safe and prevent that which may steal the true joy from our lives from entering our place, mosquito spray so we can feel like we are doing something every day to keep the fear away, and some clothing so they can see they may as well leave us be. That's what money can do in the fight to keep you loving U, which includes everything, even you. I also understand the scenario that most malaria bears don't care whether we have any profound ideas to spare. Perhaps... but who sees through those I's we call theirs? Something invisible in the air? Is there loving wisdom which cares? Where can we find this mind? Do our ideas make our way in there?
Most humans have yet to ask me. They ask the TV. Recently, in between speaking directly with humanity, spending time with you on public transportation, seeing you on the street whether walking with you or in my window seat, reading your words in books and writing my own to strengthen your story, I watched the TV. I learned that my country, one of 200 or so, approximately, said they were impatient with economic improvement, and wanted the government to change everything so that life would be excellent. Actually, it wasn't the entire country. It was a very small part of the entire country, in fact. Even so, they elected more representatives from the group of people who are audacious enough to call themselves a party while playing a game named capitalize on blame, grabbing life's ears with production of fear, which, even without their help, is always near. Thankfully, you have life, and we have life, and life is everywhere, and life cares about your shares of dares with bears.
I enjoy the TV's input, but I will continue to ask people I know what they know, then ask new people what they know, and tell them what I know about where the show makes me go, and read what the universe's imagination seed, and listen to the music of heaven's inspiration to generate sensation.
Values based on financial fear and cultural smear cannot come near to the vivifying value of vibrant living art we produce with hearts and minds from this aye of soulful human kind.
Sunday, November 2, 2014
I did the old "where was I today" game with the journal, and here are the results:
5 years ago: Painting houses in Cambridge while living with parents. My father gives me the Iroquois Thanksgiving Address. Thank you earth, sun, stars, water, trees, plants, moon, animals, wind, thunder, and enlightened teachers.
4 years ago: Couch surfing during my first ever visit to New Orleans, en route to San Francisco for the first time as well. I stay with a construction manager. I recall sitting in rocking chairs on his porch, sipping bourbon and smoking cigars while talking about teaching in Japan someday.
3 years ago: Teaching in Japan. Apparently I had a very long day with many classes, but it was very rewarding. Then again, it was stressful to teach for so long and then arrive at the conversation club where I conversed and lived, because if classes were running you couldn't use the kitchen or the main room, and they ran until 9 pm. We had our own rooms, but not really our own apartment, so to speak.
2 years ago: Having a rare day off amidst the intensity of harvest, so I decided to drive to San Francisco. This was my first visit to the city since I'd arrived in the area six weeks earlier and unexpectedly begun working wine harvest in Sonoma County, north of the city. I explored the city with my car, had a great time driving through the hills and along the ocean cliffs which reminded me of similar drives in New Zealand, and then came home to discover something very strange. I saw that somebody or something had taken it upon itself to relieve my tent of its duties, that is, by smashing the portable home which had served me so well on two east-to-west journeys through America. Thank you, tent. Although I still have you somewhere, I miss you. Luckily, on that particular evening I had planned to sleep on the ground beneath the stars anyway, but the ensuing confusion surrounding the circumstances of the tent's unexpected early retirement made it clear to me that it was time to leave harvest and move indoors. I already had a six day house sitting gig in Oakland lined up, and it became apparent that the Bay Area journey was bound to begin very soon.
1 year ago: Staying inside my friend's apartment in Astoria, Queens, pretty much all day, except for a few walks to do laundry. I was nursing the after effects of massive amounts of fun at a Halloween party in Park Slope, Brooklyn, the previous night. I did this by watching my friend's giant television from the couch where I routinely slept and wrote and ate dinner and talked to my friend and watched television. There weren't many real windows, save for a few opening into the closed alleyway. Although it wasn't very sunny, I was just happy to be somewhere in New York City, and with my friend at that. After all, I'd just up and left Oakland one month before without knowing if I would get a job or not. I was only at it for about two weeks at this point, and wasn't sure how long I would work for that company, live on the couch, or even make it in the city my second time around.
Today: Taking time enjoying the sunshine from inside my apartment. After some food I ventured into the windy cold and blue skies, and found a new path along the river. That is to say, I found a path I'd walked down before, but decided to walk much further down to see where it would take me, which turned out to be a lot of water, trees, sunshine and cars on the highway. Then I returned to my place, which, I must say, although humble, has a style that makes me feel at home. I have a comfortable chair, a ramshackle but useful desk, a classy green and gold-looking banking lamp, some photos, some inspiring words, some books and teas stacked on shelves, and access to the bare necessities. I also have a window which opens up into the world and gives me a view of the sky. I feel the energy of the city even when I'm typing here at this desk. Cars and people are moving by the corner of my eye. I'm happy I didn't fall off the ladder, or get picked up by any crazy drivers or lawmen while hitchhiking in the south, or rattled in any aftershocks, or happen to be in the tent when it met its historic end, or decide to walk away from the job in the Bronx and the couch in Queens simply because it was uncomfortable and challenging.
As for the World Series that culminated with the epic domination by Madison "Mad Bum" Bumgarner of the San Francisco Giants over the Kansas City Royals, I have this to say: I respect both teams, and have rooted for both of them at times in my life, especially when I was younger. I chose the Giants as my backup team behind the Mets because they used to be from New York, and they had had Willie Mays. I liked the Royals because my aunt lived in Kansas City and sent us some of their memorabilia sometimes. As for the meaning of the result of a contest between two groups of men throwing balls and swinging wooden sticks at them and then trying to catch them and throw them to each other and touch each other with gloves, I think the best poetry is that the contest between the two cities was really a matter of style and values. One team is from the Heartland, away from the water, conservative, set on one religious philosophy, and has very even flat terrain. They love life though, and they fight hard for what they believe in, so they almost defeated the champions. These champions come from a hilly city known for peace, love, innovation and creativity, with water from the bay and the Pacific Ocean in the immediate vicinity. Congratulations to all of the champions in the Bay Area this evening.
Of course, all of this is important whether or not you hit the stick with the ball or kick it with your foot or throw it or bounce it and feel it beneath your feet while one reflects and the other shines the light of our lives as this play thrives.
5 years ago: Painting houses in Cambridge while living with parents. My father gives me the Iroquois Thanksgiving Address. Thank you earth, sun, stars, water, trees, plants, moon, animals, wind, thunder, and enlightened teachers.
4 years ago: Couch surfing during my first ever visit to New Orleans, en route to San Francisco for the first time as well. I stay with a construction manager. I recall sitting in rocking chairs on his porch, sipping bourbon and smoking cigars while talking about teaching in Japan someday.
3 years ago: Teaching in Japan. Apparently I had a very long day with many classes, but it was very rewarding. Then again, it was stressful to teach for so long and then arrive at the conversation club where I conversed and lived, because if classes were running you couldn't use the kitchen or the main room, and they ran until 9 pm. We had our own rooms, but not really our own apartment, so to speak.
2 years ago: Having a rare day off amidst the intensity of harvest, so I decided to drive to San Francisco. This was my first visit to the city since I'd arrived in the area six weeks earlier and unexpectedly begun working wine harvest in Sonoma County, north of the city. I explored the city with my car, had a great time driving through the hills and along the ocean cliffs which reminded me of similar drives in New Zealand, and then came home to discover something very strange. I saw that somebody or something had taken it upon itself to relieve my tent of its duties, that is, by smashing the portable home which had served me so well on two east-to-west journeys through America. Thank you, tent. Although I still have you somewhere, I miss you. Luckily, on that particular evening I had planned to sleep on the ground beneath the stars anyway, but the ensuing confusion surrounding the circumstances of the tent's unexpected early retirement made it clear to me that it was time to leave harvest and move indoors. I already had a six day house sitting gig in Oakland lined up, and it became apparent that the Bay Area journey was bound to begin very soon.
1 year ago: Staying inside my friend's apartment in Astoria, Queens, pretty much all day, except for a few walks to do laundry. I was nursing the after effects of massive amounts of fun at a Halloween party in Park Slope, Brooklyn, the previous night. I did this by watching my friend's giant television from the couch where I routinely slept and wrote and ate dinner and talked to my friend and watched television. There weren't many real windows, save for a few opening into the closed alleyway. Although it wasn't very sunny, I was just happy to be somewhere in New York City, and with my friend at that. After all, I'd just up and left Oakland one month before without knowing if I would get a job or not. I was only at it for about two weeks at this point, and wasn't sure how long I would work for that company, live on the couch, or even make it in the city my second time around.
Today: Taking time enjoying the sunshine from inside my apartment. After some food I ventured into the windy cold and blue skies, and found a new path along the river. That is to say, I found a path I'd walked down before, but decided to walk much further down to see where it would take me, which turned out to be a lot of water, trees, sunshine and cars on the highway. Then I returned to my place, which, I must say, although humble, has a style that makes me feel at home. I have a comfortable chair, a ramshackle but useful desk, a classy green and gold-looking banking lamp, some photos, some inspiring words, some books and teas stacked on shelves, and access to the bare necessities. I also have a window which opens up into the world and gives me a view of the sky. I feel the energy of the city even when I'm typing here at this desk. Cars and people are moving by the corner of my eye. I'm happy I didn't fall off the ladder, or get picked up by any crazy drivers or lawmen while hitchhiking in the south, or rattled in any aftershocks, or happen to be in the tent when it met its historic end, or decide to walk away from the job in the Bronx and the couch in Queens simply because it was uncomfortable and challenging.
As for the World Series that culminated with the epic domination by Madison "Mad Bum" Bumgarner of the San Francisco Giants over the Kansas City Royals, I have this to say: I respect both teams, and have rooted for both of them at times in my life, especially when I was younger. I chose the Giants as my backup team behind the Mets because they used to be from New York, and they had had Willie Mays. I liked the Royals because my aunt lived in Kansas City and sent us some of their memorabilia sometimes. As for the meaning of the result of a contest between two groups of men throwing balls and swinging wooden sticks at them and then trying to catch them and throw them to each other and touch each other with gloves, I think the best poetry is that the contest between the two cities was really a matter of style and values. One team is from the Heartland, away from the water, conservative, set on one religious philosophy, and has very even flat terrain. They love life though, and they fight hard for what they believe in, so they almost defeated the champions. These champions come from a hilly city known for peace, love, innovation and creativity, with water from the bay and the Pacific Ocean in the immediate vicinity. Congratulations to all of the champions in the Bay Area this evening.
Of course, all of this is important whether or not you hit the stick with the ball or kick it with your foot or throw it or bounce it and feel it beneath your feet while one reflects and the other shines the light of our lives as this play thrives.
Saturday, November 1, 2014
The water is in the air everywhere today.
I am reminded of the latter half of my vacation.
After several mountain and wilderness adventures in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, I drove to my favorite place to be, Lake Champlain. I looked forward to relaxing within some familiar shelter. I would make a fire, stare at the waves, paddle the canoe in the sunlight and beneath the stars, write, and read, read, read. The latter was my first mission: I intended to read all of my web logs from the previous year, that is, since I've moved back from San Francisco to New York. In fact, I read the previous 14 months of web logs, including my month in Oakland when I made the decision to come back.
Anyway, I got some sunshine and stars, but it mostly rained the five days I was there. I got to know myself much better in that solitude. I'm pleased with much of the writing that made its way onto this page, and I see there has been much improvement through time, which is always necessary. Obviously, when you create something new so frequently, it's very difficult to be as creative, interesting and high quality every time. Then again, if I really didn't like something, I would have changed it. As for you, the audience, I don't know what you've liked, so I'll just keep expressing what's inside me and around me. Overall, though, I'm thankful for my experiences in the city, the people I've met from around the world, the inspiration and the income this place has provided me.
I enjoyed walking to get food in my raincoat earlier today, but am much happier to watch the rain from indoors tonight, though I miss the simple sounds of water on the roof.
I am reminded of the latter half of my vacation.
After several mountain and wilderness adventures in Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, I drove to my favorite place to be, Lake Champlain. I looked forward to relaxing within some familiar shelter. I would make a fire, stare at the waves, paddle the canoe in the sunlight and beneath the stars, write, and read, read, read. The latter was my first mission: I intended to read all of my web logs from the previous year, that is, since I've moved back from San Francisco to New York. In fact, I read the previous 14 months of web logs, including my month in Oakland when I made the decision to come back.
Anyway, I got some sunshine and stars, but it mostly rained the five days I was there. I got to know myself much better in that solitude. I'm pleased with much of the writing that made its way onto this page, and I see there has been much improvement through time, which is always necessary. Obviously, when you create something new so frequently, it's very difficult to be as creative, interesting and high quality every time. Then again, if I really didn't like something, I would have changed it. As for you, the audience, I don't know what you've liked, so I'll just keep expressing what's inside me and around me. Overall, though, I'm thankful for my experiences in the city, the people I've met from around the world, the inspiration and the income this place has provided me.
I enjoyed walking to get food in my raincoat earlier today, but am much happier to watch the rain from indoors tonight, though I miss the simple sounds of water on the roof.
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