Fear & loathing

Distance is a barrier for love, and hate, merely preference divides the two. The desire of one equal only to the repulsion of the other.

Weight, given or offered; the value we install in another. Earned or given by title; a betrayal is equal in depth to that given in weight.

We fear what the other can do to us. The unknown quantity; the limitless of imagination, possibility of power, ability, menace and means. This other has little.

The Apple offered man a means, but to what ends. When a man knows vulnerability, he knows weakness, then he knows fear.

What will the other do. Little; for he knows you not. But thy brother; he knows you well.

Expectation is a certain kind of death, what it lacks is life, possibilities and opportunities. But some kinds are beyond this, but not beyond good, nor evil. A title is given, maybe not by choice, but a title is responsibility.

Where does fear become loathing. I fear not the other, should I fear thy brother.

The closest dagger digs the deepest.

The Devil and I

The 20’s are often a period of discovery and change for most people and it certainly has been for me. Now in the twilight of that decade I can look back with the knowledge I’ve gained and draw lessons from the many phases I went through.

In my early-mid twenties I became very interested in psychology and in particular Jung’s psychological types and the Myers-Briggs personality system. The understanding I gained from that phase has been monumental, I developed a lot of understanding about myself and others. Now closing in on 30 I see how it had led me astray. Strangely nothing in the culture around me at the time suggested I was wrong, in fact it reinforced my path and encouraged me to keep going.

This journey sent me inward. For years I revelled in my differences, my uniqueness, my complexity. In my mind I snared at others for their failures to understand me. None were like me except those few of my type, and even then, they were still different. I was part of an elite club, I was special. I was, an individual.

Now I don’t say any of this to critique personality typing per se, I believe it holds a lot of value, insight and practical knowledge. I encourage all to learn about it and use it to better understand themselves and others. However, personality typing comes from “The Century of Self” and in this detail, lies the devil himself.

During the 20th Century psychoanalysis was used to convert people into individuals, this was done by corporations and politicians using the theories of Freud. Once all notions of collective and community minded behaviour had been removed, people were much easier to manipulate, predict and control. Born of this manipulation of the Western mind has been a focus of ones individual needs. The “Century of Self” taught people to be an individual and what an individual should desire. Whatever desire they had was exploited by those looking to manipulate and control. Examples of this are things like Tattoos, divorce rates and the endlessly growing choice in consumer goods. In general it has worked to create a more egocentric population of consumers looking to satisfy their own individual desires.

So what happens when people apply this new philosophy to relationships? What happens when the man who once worked for the benefit of his community and family, but now works for the benefit of himself alone? He looks for what can satisfy his every need. A partner no longer should have skills and traits like kindness, honesty, integrity or a desire to be a mother. But they should be independent, able to understand you to the core of your being, be experienced and open sexually and desire the same material desires; travel, dining, shoes, houses.

For a while I thought this was what mattered. I had learned about myself and what I needed so I looked for someone who could satisfy the needs of my own unique individual self. I indulged myself as this complicated being with a multitude of complicated needs. I needed someone who intuitively understood my nuances and idiosyncrasies. To this end I found partners who were looking for the same thing. But can anyone really know and understand you enough? The answer I received was a resounding no. All I found were those willing to dive into this Self worship with. Those willing to forgo all for the pursuit of happiness. Plain happiness, the kind you get before you lick the ice cream, the false kind, it only exists in the moment of anticipation. By the time you’ve got what you wanted you realise it isn’t going to satisfy. You need more and more. Always a new frontier to be explored and exploited.

The material world has a way of being unendingly unsatisfying. It takes a certain kind of individual to be completely satisfied with living purely in the material world. This constant need for more has a way of spiralling. You seek people with an ever descending desire to push all morality aside for the next level of satisfaction. A very real question is at what point do you start worshipping Satan openly? If you’re doing it unawares, is it any different? Having descended into the depths and returned I can see a clear path to the devils door. That’s how I know evil exists. That is how I know God exists.

If there is anyway way upward instead of down, that is through creation. Don’t mock life with hedonism, create life with love and family. Find that path, then perhaps, salvation will await.

An art of zen

Becoming zen, more zenned out.

That illusion.

 

No find behind a door waiting to be unlocked.

No elusive shrine that you discover after staring at the ceiling long enough.

 

It’s not an answer.

It’s not a pathway.

It’s not a space.

Nor a trance.

 

It’s nothing but you.

 

The you that your heart beats for.

The you that scratches an itch.

The you that smiles in such a special way.

And the you that forgives you.

The secret moment

When blowing up a balloon, excitement running rampant.

“I can’t wait to play ping-pong with it” she says.

“I’m giving mine to my mother when she picks me up,” another second grader exclaims muttering.

Time goes by blowing, with breathlessness and dizziness defeated by strict perseverance.

Exerted, jaws aching.

Eyes pressurized, like that of the balloons ever expanding.

Both balloons pop.

Faces splashed with its own slobber.

Surprise reflexes immediately all encompassing.

On the verge of tears from freight.

They recollect and acknowledge the other.

They succumb to laughter.

And looking into each others eyes, knowing this is their secret to keep.

 

 

*I would like to acknowledge that the beautiful image is not my own.

Juggling a fast paced life

My dad has always told me ‘leave work at work, never bring all of that back home with you’. It is one of those things he still cannot accomplish himself.

In this age of fast paced benchmark driven labour world, the literal pinch to maintain a healthy relationship with yourself is becoming harder, more painful and never ceasing. We are holding onto everything so tightly in our lives, allowing ourselves, our relationship with our own mind and bodies to slip out of our own palms, slowly to pour out from the top.

Society makes people. People are made to juggle shit. People juggle shit. When the focus says ‘bye-bye’ and the concentration required to juggle is lost, we end up shit everywhere. The term is ‘the shit has hit the fan’. In one of these moments, it is precisely used to mean ‘the shit you have thrown up, you have dropped, squished or simply forgot about, it has landed everywhere, all over you, look at the shit in your hair.’

We are not jugglers, regardless even jugglers themselves know when to take a break, a technical time out. Some things we juggle are heavy, some may be light, but one thing is certain there are too many objects thrown up at different heights, we can’t predict which one we are to prepare ourselves for next.

The art of living a healthy lifestyle, well the understanding I am learning to slowly employ in my own is just that, an art. Letting go: to put down the shit we either no longer have to juggle, no longer have the energy to juggle at the time, or simply should not juggle. Work often falls into that second category, manipulative relationships the third category. Put all the heavy chainsaws and bowling balls down, those lighter watermelons, cellphones, pencils and mint flavored M&M’s, put them down too.

We have to make time for ourselves, we have to consciously let these go. Don’t break them, just sit them down, to be picked up again conveniently, but only when we have to.

We have to find the breathing room within ourselves, the strength to juggle our personal things effectively, first and foremost.

How can we expect to bring happiness and newness into our lives without creating space for them first? Ditch the clutter.

A Tribute to Hermann Hesse

“Romantic souvenirs had a way of attaching themselves to one when one wanted to move on, but they were not to be taken seriously.”

 After turning the final page, after reading the final page of the fifth Hermann Hesse book I have finished, I found myself fuzzy. Like in all his other published titles, I found myself fuzzy. He places me in someone else’s shoes to such a degree, that when I am finally required to take the shoe off, I look down to see a foot that is not my own.

Narcissus and Goldmund was a book, similar to Steppenwolf, that I saw myself in. While reading it with my night light on, my person not only cast a shadow on its pages, but also in its pages, in its story.

I want to discuss a quote from this book, the one written above.

This quote came from the mouth of Goldmund, a romantic character, a wanderer, living in a world like my own in which the lines between him and his surroundings are ever dissolving.

The quote above depicts Goldmund in a nutshell. It depicts the person I strive to become.

Living in a world of giving. Influencing those around you in the purest way only you can. Each person has their own capabilities and blessings they can offer everybody around them. Each person has something they can teach, inspire by. When you offer and give this willingly, without expectation nor greed, not possessing a feeling that you deserve repayment for the act, people will then gravitate.

People will become transfixed, encapsulated, shrouding you in romantic souvenirs. Attempting to hold on to the romanticism, joy and perception you have distilled into their lives. People will begin to hold on to you for that romanticism, joy and perception you have yet to distill in their lives. You, you like Goldmund must stay focused on your capabilities, being the purest you you can be, learning the most you can, teaching the most you can.

Boundless love is only found between two that stay focused on their own capabilities. Whilst offering each other all they willingly can, without expectation nor greed, while not possessing a feeling that they deserve payment from the other for their acts. A boundless love shared between two givers. Boundless love that doesn’t require for one to move on. Boundless love that realizes that learning and teaching each other is giving to each other, loving each other.

In memory of my nephew Kobe

Staining Kobe into my skin.

Showing him the world that could have been.

His eyes transfixed. Glued on the world and growing older by the day.

He will never fade. This is his place to stay.

 

In remembrance, happy new years little man, you are in our hearts, on my flesh.

Being A Dad

Being in my twenty-somethings and having friends falling pregnant, I often wonder. When I become a father, what will being a father entail. This is my attempt to define my imaginings:

 

The time had come, I am a dad. From the first time I saw the porcelain sheen of her forehead, never would I forget. Never would I lose touch with that moment. A man keeps the memories that inherently make him a man, close to his chest. Some would say in his blood. I say in me.

In that moment something bizarre happens. For the first time in any man’s life, whoever it may be. Stuart Green the smiley, charismatic next door neighbor. Martin Luther King and Adolf Hitler. The plumber that you hired, once you realized the blocked sink really was not going to fix itself and might have been a fraction too far outside your skill set to combat. See all of these men, at this exact moment in their existence were greeted, introducing their child, their newborn bundle of joy into this world. We are adults, we knew and damned well expected that our lives would change. But in what ways and by how much?

Expectation: The Destroyer of Creation

While scouring through the internet slightly heartbroken, recovering, reminiscing. I stumbled upon two articles that touched at my intrigue-strings, that got me fragmenting and sorting, thinking,  about my ‘grand ideas’ and their definite place within them. During some troubling times, I aim my anger and confusion at my intuition (destroying my own castle from the inside), picking at it and querying as to why it did not provide me the insight I needed to see the coming of this troubling time. These articles provided me the answers to those queries. Should I say I found my answers to those queries in these articles.

I will put forward one of these articles now.

 

The first article weaved its way up to the point like a mountain biker does up a forested hillside:

You get what you create, not what you expect.

My understanding is that:

Creation is the husband to love. Creation is a production, a working on something that you have little to no attachment to once completed. A creation draws upon your current worldview, self-awareness and confidence and wraps it up in a package sent around the world, but returned back to you.  Creation draws me out of my head and into the now. Creation allows me to open up my heart. Creation allows me to accept others. Without creation, I would not have realized that those people who are too scared to create are not worth having around. Creation has made me realize that my life would be unrewarded without creation. Having creation is to have virtue, having bravery, empathy and hope.

Expectation is simply the death of creation. Expectation sets a benchmark, a limitation to your own growth. Expectation leads to being unsatisfied, anxious and bitter. What I thought were expectations, were mostly simple projections my intuition produced for me, for my future. I lost the ability to determine these expectations from my projections. For me as an INFJ I find that my projections are predominantly emotionally based, dreaming in endless love, purity, harmony, and in colors ranging from all regions of the color wheel. I dream about the feeling of waking up next to my partner, I feel the warmth of her face. My expectations however put a face to that dream lady, my expectations attach cold logical possibility to them. Pegging and strangling the beauty of my dreams by producing a timeline or step-by-step method to achieving its expectation. This expectation blinds me into thinking there is something to work towards. While in life if things are meant to work they will and the more you expect them to, the harder you strive to have them in your grasp and the more you suffocate them and push them away. Expectation weighs me down, filling my pockets with lead, while I attempt to swim to a remote island getaway.

I chased after that face in my bed, of the person in that expectation. Not allowing for that moment in my projection to rather flower and form its beauty if it was intended.

 

You walk your own path, do not walk mine, it is filled with self-sacrifice.