Building up your human skills

It’s like the Karate Kid. You do menial labor, so it seems, over a long period of time, and in the end you have something useful to show for it. You are developing your human skills. But it’s frustrating because it’s so hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I was getting guidance, and that helped give me hope about the light. Hope that I wasn’t just spinning my wheels. But maybe in the end you have to walk into the light all by yourself. You have to approach the light by yourself. Maybe the approach is the “walking into.” It’s not just a last second thing.

The difficulty of whiteness~bleakness / the allure~danger of noise / glasses challenges

Everything’s white. Unless it’s colored. I am petrified of whiteness. It’s bleak, preternaturally. Silence seems colorless. But I need it. It will be my salvation. My overly colorful, busy, noisy life will kill me.

I’m not kidding. The very simple potion used to rob me of my life force is — noise. Overinundation. Where is that tipping point? That’s what I’m supposed to be testing, to be dipping my toe into. What will happen if I eschew all the noise? Will I explode? Will I heal? What if I go on a meditation retreat? Do I need that, or can I take my own personal mini retreats? Why is it so hard to think of this as the antidote when I’m in the moment of decision? Maybe that’s the hardest time to practice this practice. I must fit it in between pressure points. Not rest on my laurels. On the other hand, every moment is a moment of decision of sorts.

On a side note, why is it so difficult to make the seemingly constant adjustments to my vision? It’s not that it’s literally difficult, it’s just a pain in the neck to keep track of my (new) glasses, to get used to wearing them, to keep them clean (and have a system for that). I also miss having perfect vision, I guess. I used to kind of pride myself on that.

To write or not to write / take it or leave it diet

I will try to write without breaking the trance that aids me, so it seems. The meditative state, perhaps. I will take it or leave it. That’s my diet of the day. If I can feel that I can take it or leave it, perhaps in a sort of blasé way, then I am left in a position of being able to make my own decisions. Because it’s not that I don’t understand how to eat. It’s that I feel compelled to eat inappropriately.

There are inner and outer triggers that qualify as compulsions. Maybe I feel that I will disappoint someone if I don’t eat in the manner they expect me to. Or I sense a ghost lurking inside me advising me to eat this or eat that, maybe because I did it before and it didn’t kill me, so what’s the harm?

Real and illusory

Some of the most beautiful things in life are total illusions. TV. Junk food. Music. Porn. The feeling in a fancy car. Money. Wealth. Even God.

I guess it’s no accident that I have been drawn to some or all of these things. They are beautiful. They certainly rival real things. Like family. Like babies. Like togetherness. Communication. Like cooking healthy, real food. Like family meals. Like gardening. Like exercise and sports.

A difficult night / elusive change

If only the reasons I am sure life is worth cherishing could help me help myself. I seem to be okay with not completely flushing my life down the toilet. I can retain a modicum of life force in the face of all that weighs me down.

Unfortunately, my ability to make positive change stubbornly evades my attempts. I guess I knew this about myself, but I also seem to stubbornly believe I should keep trying. Haha. Stubbornness against stubbornness. Butting heads. Sound familiar? It echoes life and relationship. What fun are relationships if not for these head butting matches? A lot, actually. But my fate does not seem to be limited to peace and tranquility. No matter how much I think it could or should. I have angst, damnit. My supposed zen calm may very well be angst in disguise.

Generational bonds / connections

Whereas it seems like everything is happening in a small vacuum to me personally, it makes a lot more sense that there is a contingency of people going through the same journey. It is liberating in a way to feel unique. But it is unrealistic, and it may end up leading to nowhere.

We humans set up situations to encourage a feeling of bonding. Like national holidays. It is then that you’re supposed to feel connected. We don’t understand that we are always connected, in deeper ways than that. We don’t talk about that though, in mixed company. Maybe in secret rooms, secret hiding places.

I imagine many things are generational. I am unintentionally experiencing life in much the same way as others in my generation. They like to label generations. But that’s an external label, which doesn’t tell you much about your personal experience of it. I think I am aware of this generational bias, and I try to steer Cody in healthier, better directions, having learned what works and what leads nowhere. I would like him not to have to repeat the same mistakes I made (and still make). Maybe he can’t simply by virtue of his being in a totally new generation. It’s funny – I feel such a bond with him, but in the end he will be living (and has already lived) in such a different culture and world. Even the difference between Naples and Potomac is pretty vast. Plus Potomac in the 70s and 80s and Naples in the 10s are starkly different I’m sure.

Not judging yourself harshly / seeing things on a realistic scale from bad to good

You can grade the risks and benefits of anything you do on a fairly detailed scale. Titling a blog in a less obscure, more specific way, probably doesn’t rank extremely low on a bad to good scale. It’s not particularly self destructive.

I should respond to my life choices in relation to that scale. I should attempt not to get upset about something that isn’t absolutely perfect (double negative) as long as it’s fairly high up on the list. In other words, I can remain peaceful if something is only a little bit out of my zone of perfection. Funny I use a word like that. I didn’t even realize I think in those terms. At Eastman we were taught to be very wary of words like perfection. Maybe it has its role in the lexicon. Maybe I do have to be wary of overusing it, even unconsciously.

Titling blogs / benefits of expressing yourself / benefits of not expressing yourself

It matters. It matters what you say. It matters how you think. It matters that you exist. It matters if you speak or don’t. Some things are better left unsaid. Mom advised not to speak too readily under certain circumstances.

Was it for this reason? To keep something in your heart? Close to your heart. Close to your sleeve. Is it that important what you do or don’t share? Am I known for my shares? And non shares.

It’s interesting to distinguish between things that might be perceived as practice for life and things that are real life. One distinction might be the question of cost. Is real life by definition free? Real for yourself, at least. Your real experiences are to some degree untouchable and untaxable. Unknowable to an outside party. I can write and write and write, but won’t there always remain a proportion unmentioned? Not on purpose. Just by deleterious destiny. There’s an inner life and an outer life. People talk about a rich inner life. That could mean a wide range of emotions and pieces of understanding that inevitably remain unspoken, unexposed.

If I were to title this blog in some sort of legitimate way, not in any way obscure, would that take away something from the expression? Is it along the lines of what I’m talking about, ways to express myself or repress myself? Repressing is a term that certainly has a bad rap. Maybe it’s not so bad if it only applies to not expressing yourself on the outside. I used to believe that if I wasn’t writing or in some way bearing my soul, I was essentially dead. What if that isn’t the truth? What if I don’t turn to ash the moment this blog entry has run its course?

Maybe one reason I don’t title appropriately is that I don’t want to reread the blog right after I finish. I am using it as a way to intuitively express my ideas and feelings. It’s not an essay for an English course. So if I don’t reread it, I won’t have a sense of its entirety, an overview. In fact, I write specifically so that I don’t have to have the ideas in my head. Rereading will reinsert those ideas back where I don’t want them. Since almost no one reads this, it has become more of a private journal anyway. It doesn’t have to be made to attract readers in that sense. I suppose in another sense I would be glad to be a source of some solace or wisdom to anyone that might be in need of it. Maybe I can scan the entries quickly to get a sense of what my main points were.

Maybe even for myself, if and when I want my own solace or need some wisdom, I will be able to search topics more easily if the titles clearly state what I wrote about.

Getting & letting ideas out

What happens when writing? What happens when talking? It’s different than thinking, isn’t it. Thinking is an enclosed space, very enclosed. In your noggin. Then when you open your mouth, it escapes. The space it escapes to may have some bearing on the reach it has and the effect it has on your experience and ingestion of the information.

And writing is also that way, it seems. Writing to an audience of zero affects me differently than this blog, for instance. Or writing an email to one person. And the person also matters – imagining the way they read/listen.

I was kind of holding my feelings and ideas in for a while, like a few weeks. Then I attempted to let it out verbally, to explain it in a way that makes sense. It wasn’t easy. And by letting it escape from my head, it lost some of its intimacy. It dissipated. Dispersed. I had to kind of start over with it, reunderstand it. It’s logical but odd. Counterintuitive.

cash

Perfect. What if I felt perfect? No trouble. What if I enjoyed each moment. Just for its perfection? What if I enjoyed my perfect Cody? My perfect Khwan? And what about my perfect orchestra? I feel something, listening to Genesis, perhaps, or being hungry. Or a nice combination.

Or maybe something else. That I can’t put my finger on. But it’s important. I don’t want to forget. That’s why I got out of bed to write this. It’s the Buddhist middle way, middle path. Seemingly. In my satiation, I can’t forget my hunger, and in my hunger I can’t forget my fullness. One cannot preclude the other. The middle way allows for both ends. It’s walking the line. Just like I was telling Cody about yesterday, on our walk. After he sang the Johnny Cash song at school. I would walk the line for him. That’s what I’m doing, with my diet. It’s a Cody diet. I want to be around for him as long as possible. So I’ve pledged to diet for him, which for me is walking the line. A thin line. Perfect love.