i finished a book!!

...here are the last couple pages...
(read and insert my 'i told you so...' where applicable)
!!!!!!!!!!!!

"People can be happy in almost any situation. External conditions determine well-being much less than we usually think. Extensive studies have shown that the enjoyment of life is neither a question of age nor of gender. It doesn't depend on your IQ, or on how many children you have, or on the size of your bank account. A craftsman in Bangladesh has different but not fewer opportunities for enjoyment than an office worker in Boston. Both--all of us--have to use the opportunities at hand...
...And neuroscience has shown something else: happiness is more than simply the absence of unhappiness. We have dedicated circuits in our heads for positive feelings, enabling pleasure and enjoyment to thwart negative emotions such as sadness and fear...Our ability to make our lives happier rests on these two basic principles: we can strengthen the circuits for the positive feelings with conscious practice, and we can seek out situations that give us pleasure and enjoyment...
-The well-being of body and the well-being of mind are inseparably linked...Exercise and sex have proven the surest means of raising our spirits.
-Activity makes us happier than doing nothing...Our controls over thoughts, intentions, and feelings are closely connected in the brain, so we worry easily when the brain lacks anything else to keep busy. On the other hand, the brain's expectation system releases a sense of anticipation as soon as we set a goal, and we experience triumph when we reach it. Thus, activity almost always leads to positive feelings.
-An alert mind increases a sense of well-being even when it's only observing. Concentrated perception is often accompanied by feelings of elation...This capacity for enjoyment through attentiveness is something we can learn.
-By giving into negative emotions like anger and sadness, not only do we fail to appease them, but we actually reinforce them...
-Variety gives pleasure...When we change our pleasures more frequently, we avoid taking something for granted. And in learning to value the unexpected and to see from new perspectives, we stoke our vitality.
-When in doubt, it's better to have control over our decisions than to have our wishes fulfilled. The control over our own fate is for most of us an absolute condition for happiness and satisfaction. Helplessness is one of the least bearable of all feelings...When a wish is fulfilled only at the price of dependence (going into debt, for example), one usually does better by choosing freedom.
But what is most important of all for well-being is our relationship to other people. It is no exaggeration to equate happiness with friendship and love. The attention we pay to those close to us redounds to our happiness..
The choice has to be yours.
Therefore, the most important task in the search for happiness is to know yourself. We will all discover our own answers. We are six billion people, and there are six billion paths to happiness."
-The Science of Happiness (Stefan Klein, PhD)

AMEN. (ps I don't have a PhD and I've been saying all this all along!)

reality check

...quite possible...
...that its not impossible...

********************************************
"...you are suffering; you do not fundamentally enjoy your life. Your entertainments, your playful affairs...are temporary ways to distract you from your underlying sense of fear...for you they are addictions, not enjoyments. You use them to distract you from your chaotic inner life - the parade of regrets, anxieties, and fantasies you call your mind...If you don't get what you want, you suffer; if you get what you don't want, you suffer; even when you get exactly what you want, you still suffer because you can't hold onto it forever. Your mind is your predicament. It wants to be free to change, free of pain, free of the obligations of life and death. But change is the law, and no amount of pretending will alter that reality...Life is not suffering; it's just that you will suffer it, rather than enjoy it, until you let go of your mind's attachments and just go for the ride freely, no matter what happens."
-Way of the Peaceful Warrior (Dan Millman)

tilted

sit inside
the distance
(between the sun and the earth)
where snowflakes are born
beautiful
lone
crystalline droplets
each unique
from the next
none like another
the ground seemed cold
but will warm when lined
with the pages of books
and the sparks of the mandolin
the beauty and magic
of the season
has left you saturated
soaked through to the skin
unbutton it from yourself
peel off the layers
and leave only your nakedness
hang it out to dry
and trust
the distance
(between the sun and the earth)
the gravity
that will keep you on the ground
and upright once again

you came like thunder, stayed like christmas, and you feel better than the sun
-chris robinson

Best Birthday...

and the goofiest one was actually the most sober!

a reply: insistence on the proof

love is not a fantasy. love exists.

When it exists in reality, it is a world of beautiful truth, a world that admits it knows no 'forever' and cannot and does not fathom 'always.' It is the world of two becoming, never one, but TWO happier individuals, a world of real love, of falling in love, and of appreciating love and its potentially fleeting composition which lends to its beauty. Its not to be worshipped, but respected, admired, and cultivated, only to the extent that it is never a chore or an obligation. It is patient with pains that don’t need or want to heal,and there to help in whatever way it can or is asked to. It can captivate, but is never the pinnacle of all things, only the rungs on the ladder to freedom and happiness. It most certainly can inspire, but should not be a sole source of inspiration.

What the wise see as love is the sometimes synchronistic tendency of two individuals’ thoughts, smiles, emotions, hormones, and intellect. It should never attempt to join these individuals as one, because what should have brought the two together in the first place was the admiration for the other’s wholeness, not the admiration for the other’s admiration. Real love understands that its okay to never completely know, understand, think, or feel as one, and this ensures an attainable reality with lack of expectations that will inevitably be incredibly satisfying for both individuals. There will always be wonder and novelty in rediscovering the other, and watching from the sidelines as the other makes their own discoveries to share if they wish. Real love knows that this love should not become everything in the other's life, and understands that it is not possible find or be all the things that one needs in another person. Completeness should come from within one’s self, not from being with or possessing the parts of another.

Love should never become a tangled web of obligation and expectation where consolation is found by the pacification of long term fears with short term joys. Desires and demands must be dropped, and attachment will not have the roots to grow. Only then will the truth shine through allowing moments of beauty that overshadow any fantasy that could have been imagined (but fantasizing should be dropped as its simply expectation’s easy cousin).

If there is ANY greediness revealed, it should only be a hankering for the other’s happiness to be found wherever it occurs naturally, without claiming credit. Love should never be pursued, only found in the flow of one’s own life, allowing the other to share where they fit. Time has no bearing, as there is only now, and the present IS the present, the best gift to receive. Shared interests and activities should only enhance and should diverge when the flow of energy diverts those things to other people and places, like the two people themselves. When the beauty is overshadowed by efforts, struggles, bargains, and fights, the two should admit their purpose in each other’s lives has been served and move on with their individual lives once again. If others observe the love, that is fine, but its not something to be shown off or worn like a medal of conquest. Real love should be impossible to pin down, and undesirable once fenced in, a product of the appreciation of its free spirit, intangibility, and inability to be defined or put in any sort of box, impossible to be collected in any sort of way, and an expression of an honest overflowing of happiness.

Only then is love right, and only for as long as these qualities can be felt...

Love is "...not its meaning, but its feeling; not its permanence, but its moment; not its fulfillment of our expectation, but its truth; not its “fantasy”, but its reality.”

...only then will love become so much more...

appreciation. synchronicity. wordlessness.

so that last post may have seemed a little silly, but i just don't know what to say.
and if i did, i certainly wouldn't know how to say it, in a way that could possibly do it any justice.
to make comparisons is entirely lacking, though it might help one to understand, because this is really a thing with no comparison, no equal, suspect to never have even been experienced before, by myself or anyone who would read this.

"When there is so much to say, it is always difficult to say it..Whenever you feel something overwhelming, it is impossible to say it, because words are too narrow to contain anything essential...All that is great is beyond language [oh but watch me try anyway], and when you find that nothing can be expressed, then you have arrived. Then life is full of great beauty, great love, great joy, great celebration"
-osho-

so much more than...

...

yup.
wondermazing.
etc. etc. etc.

when change is allowed into the equation...

words = just words
tiny, inadequate
incomplete lines and ink
humans lack the capability
or capacity
music or
the universe
will be the only possible
analogous beauty
knowing = known
answers = answered
someday = today
wISh = (just) IS
thIS = (just) IS
.it.

Quote

"The more completely the majority adapt to the purposes which the dominant minority prescribe for them (thereby depriving them of the right to their own purposes), the more easily the minority can continue to prescribe"

-Freire

7 mile addiction?

On my way home from the gym today, I wondered if perhaps it was possible that I could develop an addiction to my runner's high? Nothing to worry about, my dinner reading assured me. Out of my 8 half finished books, I once again picked up the right one at the right time (psst! the answers ARE in books!)...

"The positive effect of physical exertion on healthy people is even stronger...As Rousseau wrote, "For the mind's sake, it's necessary to exercise the body." Exercise improves our mood in many ways. Moving muscles stimulates the production of hormones like serotonin and presumably also endorphins that can trigger feelings of slight euphoria...as the body begins to exert itself, the limbs warm up, the muscles relax, and the pulse increases a bit - and it is precisely these responses that reflect the body's sense of well being. By moving, we can gently manipulate the neurons in our brain, coaxing the organism into the condition that it otherwise experiences in moments of happiness - and from the appropriate physiological signals, the brain, in turn, automatically generates positive feelings....

...Physical movement has a two-fold effect on our feelings. First, when it's done right, it always gives a feeling of success...People who don't like physical activity balk at the effort, the sweat, the ordeal of it all - but therein lies its power. There is a guaranteed reward for beating your inner couch potato: just knowing that you've done something for yourself by facing down your sense of lazy comfort can chase away a good deal of sadness.

Second, physical activity has a direct effect on the brain. Movement encourages the growth and even the new formation of neurons...neuroscientist Fred Gage...put rats on a simple treadmill in a cage and observed greatly improved scores in subsequent memory tests. Even the mice that had not learned well were better able to do so after running...that ran had more nerve growth factors and twice as many newly formed neurons as those that had just hung around...
Regular exercise for half an hour three times a week is as effective against melancholy with some people as the best medications currently available."

From The Science of Happiness
Stephan Klein, PhD

300 days of sunshine baby

I'm a lobo, that's right, a lobo.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/casaverdesol/2061791999/in/pool-unmflickr/

http://www.flickr.com/groups/unmflickr

p.s. tao pi zen (and lots of blue moon with a guinness float)

bears repeating...

"If they are dependent on each other, clinging, possessive, if they don't allow each other to be alone, if they don't allow each other space enough to grow, they are enemies, not lovers; they are destructive to each other, they are not helping each other to find their souls, their beings. What kind of love is this? It may be just fear of being alone; hence they are clinging to each other. But real love knows no fear. Real love is capable of being alone, utterly alone, and out of that aloneness grows a togetherness.

Kahlil Gibran says: Two lovers are like two pillars of a temple - they support the same roof, but they stand separate; together as far as supporting the same roof is concerned, but utterly separate as far as their own being is concerned. Be pillars of a temple, supporting the same temple of love, the same roof of love, yet rooted in your own being, not distracted from there. And then you will know both the beauty, the purity, the cleanliness, the health, the wholeness of aloneness, and you will also know the joy, the dance, the music of being together.

There is a beauty when somebody is playing a solo instrument - a solo flute player - there is tremendous beauty in that. And there is also beauty in an orchestra. And love knows both together: it knows how to be a solo flute player and it also knows how to be in rhythm, harmony with the other..."

More wisdom from The Book

"The speed and efficiency of transportation by super highway and air in many ways restricts freedom of travel. It is increasingly difficult to take a walk...All in the cause of "safety first" and foolproof living...Orderly travel now means going at the maximum speed for safety from point to point, but most reachable points are increasingly cluttered with people and parked cars, and so less worth going to see...
...Real travel requires a maximum of unscheduled wandering, for there is no other way of discovering surprise and marvels, which, as I see it, is the only good reason for not staying at home."
The Book, Alan Watts

my girl friends suck

9 times out of 10
(the 4 times out of 8 that they actually get BACK to me)
they can't hang out
maybe thats normal
but it certainly makes my guy friends seem
incredible in comparison
i wonder what would happen
if i had lesbian friends...

Passage for my girl friends...

"Self knowledge is only possible in deep aloneness. Ordinarily whatever we know about ourselves is the opinion of others. They say "you are good," and we think we are good. They say,"You are beautiful, " and we think we are beautiful...whatsoever people say about us, we go on collecting. That becomes our self-identity. It is utterly false because nobody else can know you--nobody can know who you are except you, yourself. They know only aspects, and those aspects are very superficial. They know only momentary moods; they cannot penetrate your center. Not even your lover can penetrate to the very core of your being. There you are utterly alone, and only there will you come to know who you are. People live their whole lives believing in what others say, dependent on others...Because you have to depend on their opinions, you have to continuously conform to their ideas; otherwise they will change their opinions. This creates a slaver, a very subtle slavery. If you want to be known as good, worthy, beautiful, intelligent, then you have to concede, you have to compromise continuously with people on whom you are dependent. And another problem arises. Because there are so many people, they go on feeding your mind with different types of opinions--conflicting opinions, too...hence a great confusion exists inside you...You become suspicious about yourself, about who you are...a wavering...You have many voices inside you. Whenever you ask who you are, many answers will come. Some answers will be your mother's, some will be your father's...and so on and so forth. And it is impossible to decide which one is the right answer...This is where man is lost. This is self-ignorance. But because you depend on others, you are afraid to go into aloneness--because the moment you start going into aloneness, you start becoming afraid of losing yourself. You don't have yourself in the first place, but whatever self you have created out of others' opinions will have to be left behind...the deeper you go, the less you know who you are. So in fact when you are moving toward self knowledge, before it happens you will have to drop all ideas about the self. There will be a gap; there will be a kind of nothingness. You will become a nonentity....mystics call this "the dark night of the soul." It has to be passed, and once you have passed it, there is the dawn. The sun rises, and one comes to know oneself for the first time...all is fulfilled...all is attained."

Self and World: Readings in Philosophy by James Ogilvy

"absolute solitude is on this showing the ineluctable destiny of the soul."
-Ryle

8.5 miles to exERcise my demons...

choose one of the following:

[oh the things i'll do for...]

or

[small price to pay for...]


a beer, bed for the day, some sanity regained

**************************************

Love ain't the answer,
nor is work,
the truth alludes me
so much it hurts
-jamie cullum

ooh! she said, i feel so free!
i am a butterfly, you are a tree!
yes, i said, and a lucky tree
of all of the forest, you land on me...
do you love me
the way i love you
when you love me
the way that you do
-railroad earth

lack

...seems as though the dopamine levels will drop/have dropped/are dropping.
take your pick. doesn't much matter. and i certainly don't have the desire to figure out which.

somewhere over the rainbow...

you may find joules




What does it "mine"?
"Dopamine helps control our alertness and attention. It stimulate curiosity, the ability to learn, imagination, creativity, and sexual drive...the brain releases this transmitter whenever we desire something or someone...(my desire, in a biological sense, reawakened?)...Under its influence we feel motivated, optimistic, and full of self-confidence...enables us to feel euphoria...feel a surge of happiness, a joyful and excited...it makes us aware of particularly interesting situations...to remember good experiences - dopamine supports learning. (!!)...dopamine encourages the creation of new connections in the brain. Desire and understanding are very closely linked. Desire makes us smart, and without it, learning is difficult...
...The union of curiosity and desire that dopamine creates in the brain is also the root of creativity...Jean-Paul Sartre wrote his last books in an artificially induced surge of creativity. Facing encroaching blindness, the aging French philosopher took amphetamines, drugs that raise the dopamine level, in an attempt to win the race against time...
...in a milder form, these feelings stimulate creativity. They enable us to see connections that are otherwise hidden and to combine things that have never been brought together...Mood, then, influences mental ability...happiness and reason are not mutually exclusive...Students who can laugh and are comfortable in class learn more easily."

The Science of Happiness
Stefan Klein, PhD

names i can't seem to escape these days:

steven pinker
oliver sachs
daniel levitin
noam chomsky
sartre
pat metheny
david gilmour
steven levitt
stephen dubner
steven landsburg
(lots of stev(ph)ens!)
gestalt
descartes

mirrors again..."the guitar sound of pat metheny or david gilmore use multiple delays of the signal to give an otherworldly haunting effect that triggers parts of our brain in ways that humans had never experienced before, by simulating the sound of an enclosed cave with multiple echoes such as would never actually occur in the real world - an auditory equivalent of the barbershop mirrors that repeated infinitely"
-daniel levitin

take it as you will...and run with it

He argued that social arrangements should be reasoned out from scratch and agreed upon by mutual consent, based on knowledge that any person could acquire. Since ideas are grounded in experience, which varies from person to person, differences of opinion arise not because one mind is equipped to grasp the truth and another defective, but because the two minds have had different histories. Those differences therefore ought to be tolerated rather than suppressed.

Steven Pinker, "the blank slate"

i don't want to explain what i'm getting at here and i quote more often than explain and preach for that very reason...this quote actually captures that...you will create your own meaning from your own experience...it might be more fun to see how you interpret and where you go with it than me telling you what i think and influencing the journey...no blueprint, no outline, no expectation of direction...leaves a lot more room for limitless discourse and fun philosophizing ;)

those bulgarians...

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3jzvz_split-series-jason-mraz-its-a-lovel_music

hear me roar

e.e. cummings
lets see how you like it!

e
.
e.cum
mings

you piss me off
ooh! i found return on the keyboard! ain't i profound?!

but i'll give you my half smile here:
"...meanwhile my

self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et

cetera
(dreaming,
et
cetera, of
Your smile
eyes knees and of your Etcetera"

and your fragments befriend and reflect recent frailty

the answers aren't in the books
i know
but they are both
a funnel
and a fertilizer
for the trees along the road
to Manifest Destiny
(light on the destiny please, waiter)
at least her law of attraction
was amended for freedom of choice
(choice as a noun not a verb)

borders
with its lack thereof
tonight, though, less than usual
were its calming effects

lack of logic? abounding obscurity? its ok
because you won't
since you already did
buoyancy leaving me less than centered
detachment leaving me less than grounded
alas, i am a female after all.

Beg your pardon, Alan...

I've been doing a lot of reading, on a whole lot of subjects, from music, to philosophy, to psychology, to environmental concerns, to economics. So many books, not enough time. It makes me value the time I have to read and the quality of what it is I choose to read. And it ensures that I read critically, not simply a sponge, but a selective sponge. Reading more and more, I've come to find that its a myth that we only use part of our brain. Maybe they meant, at one time, but in any case, our entire brain is utilized. In that case, its precious real estate and I want to make sure what I'm storing in there makes sense to me so it sticks.

So when Alan Watts says, "We are in a hurry about too many things...account of someone's day: The person got up in the morning and made some coffee, and I suppose it was instant coffee, because that person was in too much of a hurry to be concerned with the preparation of a beautiful cup of coffee. Instant coffee is a punishment for people who are in too much of a hurry." I ask him, Alan, ever consider what I'm going to do once I've got my coffee? I'm going to sit over there on my couch and read your book. If I sit there lovingly pouring a perfectly proportioned milk to sugar ratio for that coffee, I've got less time to read. And in the spirit of living in the moment, which your statement implores us to do, one is of the understanding that its because time, life, and love are transient. And I love coffee just as much as you appear to Alan, calling it a beautiful cup of coffee, its clear we are on the same page there, but you can be assured that I'm not rushing through something I enjoy to do something I enjoy less...only to get to something I value more. So maybe he wasn't talking to people like me, but instead to the masses who rush through life missing out on all the little beauties and things there are to appreciate, the people who live for the cliched milestones they are "supposed to" get excited for. I hope so, because instead of making some kind of three course elaborately prepared dinner for myself, I'm feeding my brain and soul during the time I'm saving, and I like it that way.

So when the philosophy is to realize that now is all we have and to not wait and leave things for later, to make the most of every present moment because there is no future, how can I be criticized for doing something unimportant quickly to allow for more enjoyment of that present?

Grist Mill magic...

"chapter 1: the birth of sustainability has a subheading called "the core of contemporary sustainability: the THREE E'S.
and the three 'e's' are in fact, ecology (environment), economy (employment), and equity (equality)"
and the fourth e later described: education (enlightenment)!!
"the sustainability revolution: portrait of a paradigm shift." andres r. edwards

Time to Eternity

"This is our problem, you see. We are not alive. We are not awake. We are not living in the present. Take education. What a hoax. As a child, you are sent to nursery school. In nursery school, they say you are getting ready to go to kindergarten. And then first grade is coming up and second grade and third grade. They say you are gradually climbing the ladder, making progress. And then, when you get to the end of grade school, they say, "You've been getting ready for high school." And then in high school, they tell you you're getting ready for college. And in college you're getting ready to go out into the business world with your suit and your diploma. And you go to your first sales meeting, and they say, "Now get out there and sell this stuff." They say you'll be going on up the ladder in business if you sell it, and maybe you'll get a promotion. And you sell it, and they up your quota. And then, finally at about the age of forty-five, you wake up one morning as vice president of the firm, and you say to yourself, "I've arrived. But I've been cheated. Something is missing. I no longer have a future." "Wrong," says the insurance salesman. "I have a future for you. This policy will enable you to retire in comfort at sixty-five, and now you can look forward to that." And you're delighted. You...retire, thinking that this is the attainment of the goal of life. Except that now you have prostate trouble, false teeth, and wrinkled skin. And you're a materialist. You're a phantom. You are an abstraction. You are nowhere, because you were never told, and you never realized, that eternity is now. There is no time...
...Time is a fantasy. It is a useful fantasy, just as the lines of latitude and longitude are. But they aren't real lines....Time is a convenience...But let us not be fooled by convenience. It is not real...
...People who believe in time and who believe that they are living for the future make plenty of plans. But when the plans mature, the people are not there to enjoy them. They are busy planning for something else...they are never here. They never get there. They are never alive. They are perpetually frustrated...the future is the thing with them. Someday it is going to happen, they think. And because it never does, they feel frantic...They are terrified of death, because death stops the future...
Please wake up.
I'm not saying that you should be improvident, that you shouldn't have an insurance policy, that you shouldn't be concerned about how you are going to send your children to college. Except that there is no point in sending your children to college and providing for their future if you don't know how to live in the present, because all you will do is teach your children how not to live in the present. You will end up dragging yourself through life for the alleged benefit of your own children, who will in turn drag out their lives in a boring way for the alleged benefit of their children...
...In our colleges, we value the record of what has happened more than we value what is happening. The records in the registrar's office are kept in safes under lock and key, but not the books in the library...
...When the record becomes more important than the event, we are really up the creek with no paddle...our education system is pretty abstract. It neglects the absolute fundamentals of life and instead teaches us to be bureaucrats, bank clerks, accountants, and insurance salesmen. It entirely neglects our relationships to the material world of which there are five: farming, cooking, clothing, housing, and lovemaking...
...it is time to get back to reality, to get back from time to eternity, to get back to the eternal now, which is what we have, always have had, and indeed always will have."

-Alan Watts, 'From Time to Eternity'

19, maybe 20, braingasms

So I had an IM chat today of epic philosophical proportion that was quite the mirror facing a mirror. The discussion's topic itself was of that very idea of the cyclical nature of EVERYTHING, and then how that reflects my own life experience is mind blowing.
Here is how it went:
Yang, "what does humanity's progress curve look like...as far as advancement and evolving...like people like you and I think about all the ways productive thought it being stifled these days...the ways people distract themselves from really thinking...back in the old days when there was no tv/entertainment...when mathematicians and philosophers made all their advances because that was all there was to DO...SIT AROUND AND THINK...so they developed all these crazy theories and plus back then most of it was original thought....now when we make advances they are built on that foundation so NOT AS MUCH HAS TO BE CREATED FROM SCRATCH, btu advances are still profound bc we're so far along so the material theories and ideas we are starting with are already so evolved...so when we do make steps forward, they are still huge...."

Yin, "it's probably exponential...like everything else"
Yang, "precisely what I was thinking"

Yin, "but, then again, an actualized humanity would be very powerful...i don't think it could happen without first casting off the shackles of institutionalized control, however."

Yang, "would evolution become static?"
Yin, "i don't think so...as Bill Hicks states, if we weren't so busy watching 'American Gladiators' and blowing each other up, we could actually move towards exploring inner and outer space as a team, as a species"

Yang, "hmm...but would be, or is actualization saying we wouldn't feel the need to, because 'its all good, and it is just what it is.'"

Yin, "actualization for me is the state of bliss induced by creativity"
Yang, "hmm, actualization for me RESULTS in creativity"

Yin, "haha...in order to be creative you need to be actualized?"
Yang, "no no...it can happen before or after but certainly when i feel the bliss of actualization, i'm it makes me feel productive in a creative sense"
Yin, "i feel as though if i'm not being creative, i'm not reaching my potential, and therefore not actualized"
Yang, "see when i feel i'm reaching that potential, i'm inspired to see what i can create from it...we are saying the same thing, we just differ on chicken or the egg...REALLY ITS ALL A CYCLE, like everything else"
Yin, "indeed...similar to music and mood, one affects the other, symbiotically, as does creativity/actualization"
Yang, "freedom/love"

Yin, "symbiosis, and i definitely appreciate when biological terms can be applied to philosophy"
Yang, "or the one i came up with "symbiOASIS...when two things are so symbiotic that its bliss"

Yin, "or maybe mutualism?"


Yang, "ooh i forgot that symbiosis has to do with DEPENDENCY...i don't like it anymore...in my personal adaptation of the term, it doesn't fit..."
Yin, "so perhaps mutualism is a better term? i don't think dependency in these circumstances is necessarily a negative...as all biological systems are interdependent, so are philosophical ones..."

Yang, "but i used it in such a way to describe two INDEPENDENT people being symbiotic...how can independence be dependent?"
Yin, "but think back to Alan Watts, 'The Book'"

and the ideas I had trouble allowing to agree in my brain...as they seem like contradictions...that you are alone in this world and your experience is completely your own and no one else could ever really know you or have your experience...but at the same time, we are all connected, which i've also seen and known to be true...

so my idea of symbiOASIS created by two INDEPENDENT things joins those two theories and perfectly depicts what i believe and shows how freedom can be a trap, independence can yield positive dependence, etc etc!!!

and then!
Yin says, "did you scroll down on the mutualism wiki page?? "The question how and why species might cooperate has also been addressed philosophically. Gilles Deleuze, for example, was interested in the way this questioned the conception of evolutionism and the notion of linear historical progress."

SCROLL BACK UP...WHERE DID THIS CONVERSATION BETWEEN YIN AND YANG BEGIN??

and then yin says "isn't it funny, too, that we're so concerned in creativity, but might consider ourselves to be 'evolutionists'...where the great "debate" of creation-evolution has existed all this time?"


and there again...why does it have to be one or the other when both so clearly need each other to exist but can't exist without being their own independent separate entities to begin with????

creativity <> evolution <> actualization <> potential <> independence <> interdependence <> [how the heck to i make an infinity symbol on the keyboard...i need it to reflect 1. the discussion's topic 2. the discussion itself 3. how i feel about my life and its endless possibility for exploration 4. life itself]
karma, energy in, energy out

This is what happens...

...when you listen to Dark Side 5 times in a row....

And to think I considered lack of sausage stuffing as a potentially less than spectacular Thanksgiving!!
Here is why I was thankful today:
1. ...my 16 year old cousin saying, "They asked us what we were thankful for in school and I wanted to write, 'Bush being out of office soon,' but I wrote, 'the troops in Iraq fighting for our freedom,' because thats what THEY want you to write."
2. ...my uncle at the table wearing his Albuquerque T-shirt
3. ...being old enough to crack open and polish off a bottle of Alice White Riesling with my aunt
4. ...my aunt and cousins who are cool enough to want to watch Wizard of Oz synced up to Dark Side of the Moon (and then try to transfer its powers onto The Suite Life of Zack and Cody yielding endless laughter)
5. ...pumpkin pie
6. ...hilarious games of scrabble
7. ...liberation from guilt-induced obligation (of ALL kinds, familial and otherwise)
8. ...that second sliver of pumpkin pie
9. ...that slice of pumpkin pie in the fridge for tomorrow morning

herenow prayer

Now I lay me down to dream,
I thank the universe for what i've seen
If I should die before I wake,
a smile is all I'll need to take.
and if I wake to greet the day,
with gratefulness and wonder i will say,
thank you for the peace of heart and mind
I'm so amazingly lucky to continue to find.

"We can't cure the world of sorrows but we can choose to live in joy." -Joseph Campebll

Grow, Change, Learn: Self as a work in progress

"Adolescence seems to provoke this difficult inner quest, since growth away from one's parents forces one to come to grips with life on one's own, but the quest for self-knowledge out not to be regarded as a "stage" that one passes through and leaves behind. Finding and maintaining self-identity can be a lifelong process. While it makes sense to expect that we can carry on the process without the pain and desperation often experienced in adolescence, it is a mistake to assume that once the pain has stopped the process is over. Rather than suffer the doubts and uncertainties of growth toward an indeterminate destination, many people fix a destination very early in life and then define themselves in terms of that destination: "I am a good parent"; "I am an engineer"; "I am a dropout." Many people imagine they can settle the account of self-identity once and for all and then live in the security of their certainty. But that premature decision is a subtle form of suicide. It amounts to opting out of life, for to live is to grow and change. "

(Self and World: Readings in Philosophy by James Ogilvy)

If you are alive you HAVE to be inconsistent -- you have grown, the world has changed, the river is flowing into new territory. Yesterday the river was passing through a desert, today it is passing through a forest; it is totally different. Yesterday's experience should not become your definition forever...one should be able to go on moving with time. Once should remain a process, one should never become a thing. That is intelligence." (Osho)

"Once you are in a relationship, you start taking each other for granted-that's what destroys all love affairs. The woman thinks she knows the man, the man thinks he knows the woman. Nobody knows either! It is impossible to know the other, the other remains a mystery...they are processes, they are not things. The woman that you knew yesterday is not there today. Relate again, start again, and don't take for granted." (Osho, "love, freedom, aloneness")

digging or building?

Digging myself another kind of hole
But its okay
Because its lined with library books
So at least it smells good
And when I'm ready
I can stack them up like a ladder
And let knowledge be my way out

curse and contradiction of consciousness

...wonder is not a disease. Wonder, and its expression in poetry and the arts, are among the most important things which seem to distinguish men from other animals, and intelligent and sensitive people from morons.
-Alan Watts, "The Book"

I met on my travels an old Brahman, a very wise man, full of wit and very learned; moreover he was rich, and consequently even wiser; for, lacking nothing, he had no need to deceive anyone. His family was very well governed by three beautiful wives who schooled themselves to please him; and when he was not entertaining himself with his wives, he was busy philosophizing.

Near his house, which was beautiful, well decorated, and surrounded by charming gardens, lived an old Indian woman, bigoted, imbecilic, and rather poor.

The Brahman said to me one day: "I wish I had never been born."

I asked him why. He replied:

"I have been studying for forty years, which is forty years wasted; I teach others, and I know nothing; this situation brings into my soul so much humiliation, and disgust that life is unbearable to me. I was born, I live in time, and I do not know what time is; I find myself in a point between two eternities, as our sages say, and I have no idea of eternity. I am composed of matter; I think, and I have never been able to find out what produces thought; ...I am sometimes ready to fall into despair, then I think that after all my seeking I know neither where I come from, nor what I am, nor where I shall go, nor what shall become of me."

The state of this good man caused me real pain; no one was either more reasonable or more honest than he. I perceived that the greater the lights of his understanding and the sensibility of his heart, the more unhappy he was.

That same day I saw the old woman who lived in his vicinity: I asked her whether she had ever been distressed not to know how her soul was made. She did not even understand my question: she had never reflected a single moment of her life over a single one of the points that tormented the Brahman; she believed with all her heart in the metamorphoses of Vishnu, and, provided she could sometimes have some water from the Ganges to wash in, she thought herself the happiest of women.

Struck by the happiness of this indigent creature, I returned to my philosopher and said to him:

"Aren't you ashamed to be unhappy at a time when right at your door there is an old automaton who thinks of nothing and who lives happily?"

"You are right," he answered; "I have told myself a hundred times that I would be happy if I was as stupid as my neighbors and yet I would want no part of such a happiness."

This answer of my Brahman made a greater impression on me than all the rest. I examined myself and saw that indeed I would not have wanted to be happy on the condition of being imbecilic.

I put the matter up to some philosophers, and they were of my opinion.

"There is, however," I said, "a stupendous contradiction in this way of thinking."
For after all, what is at issue? Being happy. What matters being witty or being stupid? What is more, those who are content with their being are quite sure of being content; those who reason are not so sure of reasoning well.

“So it is clear," I said, "that we should choose not to have common sense, if ever that common sense contributes to our ill-being."

Everyone was of my opinion, and yet I found no one who wanted to accept the bargain of becoming imbecilic in order to become content. From this I concluded that if we set store by happiness, we set even greater store by reason.

But, upon reflection, it appears that to prefer reason to felicity is to be very mad. Then how can this contradiction be explained? Like all the others. There is much to be said about it.

(Francois Marie Arouet (Voltaire))



The "Story of a Good Brahman" was written by Voltaire in 1761

...to elaborate/explain my relation and adaptation of this entry to my own beliefs:


...what i'm saying is how, based on the economic model of capitalism, people, young people, at too young of an age to really decide, are unknowingly deposited in an area of study based on the demands of society and the market rather than their own demands of their own heart and mind. yes, its works, and for good reason, but i don't think it would fall apart, either, if we were able to stress to these students more often to follow their dreams. there would still be accountants and advertisers, because there would still be people inclined to be interested or adept in those fields or who truly sought financial security as their form of happiness due to their personal nature and need for such. but people LIKE ME, would not have, not wasted per se, but misdirected her intellectual energy pursuing a field because it seemed lucrative. luckily i found marketing (began as business management!) which was actually interesting to me because of the behavioral, creative, and mathematically-challenging aspects of it. but again, do i really want to do anything in marketing in the corporate sense...i've changed my mind about those companies that do higher ed marketing, so no i don't.

and we, in guidance positions (high school or admissions side), throw terms at these young people that impact them far more than i think we realize..."one of the most highly demanded professions right now." = if you go to this school, you will get a job. I think they often associate it, perceive it, attach to it a respectability because they've been taught all of their lives to be a part of the group, to be needed, wanted, popular...it all goes way back to the group think instilled in them throughout school and we aren't aware enough of their intellectual foundations when using these kinds of terms. and also just the fact that its the first thing we say and make it seem most important because, to us, from the point of view of the college, its a SELLING point. something is intrinsically wrong with this, and it goes deeper than somehow blaming the economics of a country. its got nothing to do with placing the blame there, as that is a neutral and naturally occurring mechanism that exists for factually good reasons, not as some form of humanly devised protection, enhancement, or service to society, but just because it DOES.

its got to do with what we, as human people, emphasize, what we stress, what we deem important and its gone a little askew these days (going to say "in America" but its probably everywhere) because of the power of marketing really. it needs to be balanced, but i think people are afraid that the system will fail if we give people another outlook or consciousness.

and yes, its hard, because its all intertwined and you can't always separate on from the other. and thats why im saying its not about separation or restructuring the whole thing; simply about consciousness of this fact and about making sure we are all THINKING FOR OURSELVES. all i'm saying is that we are way too influenced by the market and need to be aware of that when influencing those we are deciding on educational and employment choices that are supposed to result in fulfillment, whether that fulfillment be in the form of financial security, creativity, happiness, interest, etc etc.

Education as Liberation (Bert Lambeir)

"What we are faced with are mechanisms that aim to discipline society by disciplining each of its inhabitants. This results in a society as a collection of individuals, a multiplicity of subjects that can be ordered, numbered, and supervised...
'[w]hat is perceived as being worthwhile in education, and what is perceived as quality education, are being imposed...from outside the traditional educational institutions' This is to say, in part, that we are deluded in our notions of 'good' (rational) and 'wrong' choices, and that the way we choose is subtly directed in some way...We are not only or simply confronted with our freedom to choose; this freedom is imposed upon us, and we are expected to see our lives as 'the making of choices'...We cannot choose what we choose, neither that we choose (to choose)...
...The popular and concrete idea of lifelong learning incorporates mechanisms that discipline and therefore normalize people instead of emancipating them. The orientation towards the market ensures that specific economic needs will be fulfilled...The resulting normalization provides society, not so much with well-educated, liberated persons but rather with inter- and exchangeable units...And it becomes easy to manipulate the needs, interests, and choices...And again the irony is that the individual--as an entrepreneur--will keep on developing and updating her competences, in order to be wanted.
This being wanted as a unit in contemporary society differs strongly from being respected as the person you are.
...Suppose lifelong education is more than the provision of skill modules, freedom to choose and switch. Could it be?...
Respect is equated with obtained certificates, recognition is levelled to acquired grades. This installs an enduring 'hunger' to 'learn' more, and the subtle coercion upon those who are endangered to fall by the wayside, to jump on the carousel. As such, it has become a part of the human condition to be frustrated for the things one cannot realize, and to try to distinguish oneself fruitlessly from the uniformed, grey mass of 'autonomous learning entrepreneurs.' Is this constant striving, and the expansion of one's certification collection, what counts most? Is this what makes us think of those whom we respected most? Obviously not the skills of the other but the person she is, is what impresses us, what sticks in our memory. If so, this might have to do with finding and sharing meaning, with developing a personal stance, with creativity, with wisdom, with being captivated and interested, with joy and with being content, with taking time for oneself and the other, and with caring for oneself and the other.
Education then...means to be a live example, or to encourage learners to find one. It means addressing them in a way that stimulates exploring their own ideas and wants. This too is learning for life--a continuous process that in the end may be very worthwhile.

The word "education" derives from the Latin educare, meaning "to nourish"

we made it...

(so I should say that I PREFER the "in" for its connotation: inner, inside, in love, into, within, whereas "out" is linked to out of, outer, put out, go out, run out, all out. but, as pondered on the PATH train, here you go...)

out of the notes in the songs
out of righting my wrongs
out of finding my way
(from thinking of what you'd say)
out of just being us
out of abstaining from lust
out of discipline of temptation
out of building a foundation
out of the beauty of trust
out of abandonment of must
out of the cards in the hand
out of supply, not demand
out of the words from those lips
out of carbonated sips
out of packages and email
thanks to msn and gmail
out of markers and a board
out of a very long phone cord
out of everything thats free
out of letting me be me...

...

...so yea, being happy alone is great, rarely bored, almost never lonely, fulfilled by catching up on intellectual exploration and musical discovery...but when you really want people around, and no one is...the one time you are feeling lonely and no one has time...everyone thinks you are so self-sufficient, and then you realize how cold and lonely the hole you've dug yourself really is.

Trishna>Nirvana>Marga

"This is the wonderful thing about a great human being. He is like an animal or a flower. When a flower bud opens, it has no hesitation or doubts...when a bird sings, or the chicken egg breaks or a flower buds, there is no doubt about it at all. It just comes forth...
...He notices everybody around him looking dreadfully serious. Looking as if they had a problem. Looking as if the act of living were extremely difficult. But from the standpoint of the person who has had this experience, they look funny. They don't understand that there isn't any problem at all.
...the meaning of being alive is just to be alive...and this is what we are all here for, as well: to be. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves. The funny thing is, they are not even quite sure what they need to achieve...
...this frenzy of activity all seems very weird, absurd. It is not to be criticized in an unkindly way, however. It's just a pity that they don't see their own absurdity..."

-Alan Watts

anitya

"You might love the sound of running water that you hear in a stream passing through somebody's garden. And you think, "Oh yes, I'd love to have that water in my own garden." And you arrive there with a bucket, and you pick the water up, and you take it away. But having caught the water in the bucket, it's dead; it's no longer living running water."

-Alan Watts, "Buddha and Buddhism" from "Eastern Wisdom, Modern Life"

Full Circle

With the Bear Mountain Bridge in my rear view mirror,
recruitment season is officially behind me.
It was really moving to have my directions home lead me over the bridge
opposite the way I normally come
Full circle, indeed, and on a beautiful day
the sunshine screaming at me to take notice and take pictures
to savor the last of fall's glory and travel season's freedom.

shoveling out...

"There are no outside causes of happiness or unhappiness; these things are excuses. By and by we come to realize that it is something inside us that goes on changing, that has nothing to do with outside circumstances...Now you understand that you are free from outside excuses, because nothing has happened on the outside and yet your mood has changed within a few minutes from happiness to unhappiness, or the other way around. This means that happiness and unhappiness are your moods and don't depend on the outside. This is one of the most basic things to be realized, because then much can be done. The second thing to understand is that your moods depend on your unawareness. So just watch and become aware. If happiness is there, just watch it and don't become identified with it. When unhappiness is there, again just watch. It is like morning and evening. In the morning you watch and enjoy the rising sun. When the sun sets and darkness descends, that too you watch and enjoy."
-Osho

"I Want To Sing"

I want to sing to you my love ...
Don't be so blue so blue my love
Take off your shoes take off my dress
I want to sing to you my love ...
Don't be so blue so blue my love
This too shall pass this too shall pass

But tell me, what have I done to deserve you?
Must have done something cause that's how it works
Must have been kind to kittens and birds,
In a previous life must have thought happy thoughts...

'cause there, you were there right beside me
Then somehow inside me while inside myself
Books on the shelf thoughts on the shelf
Hands to myself, i should definitely keep my hands to myself

Love is a dangerous pastime
Caught between madness and gladness of flight
Nothing is wrong and nothing is right
Falling asleep in your arms every night

But Love's such a strange situation
Full of frustration and anger and fear
Everything's tears
Nobody hears
Nobody's here, and nobody hears...

I want to sing to you my love ...
Don't be so blue so blue my love
Take off your shoes take off my dress
I want to sing to you my love ...
Don't be so blue so blue my love
This too shall pass, this too shall pass...

-Regina Spektor

...lost in my blizzard

its snowing
leaving a blanket of...
no, too warm an analogy
vast, pure, clean
but so cold
and so empty
they try to tell me its beautiful
and if i were able to feel any warmth
or any(thing)
i might see it too
but for now
indefinitely
vast, cold, silent, empty,
buried

where it can be found...

in the books of the sage
in the turn of a page
in the paragraph's pause
in the mystery of cause
in the suspension of belief
(and in flight's landing relief)

in the beauty of a machine
(right there on the screen!)
in the knowledge we glean
in the wonder that's seen
in the things that we mean
(then AND in between!)

in the softness of a sheet
in the completion of the feat
in the tab of a can
in the boy and the man
in the pupil's black mirror
it keeps getting clearer

in the 6 am hour
in tonight's incessant rain shower
in the way the notes look
(those of music and book)
in the here and the now
in the let go of how...

dobbs ferry wednesday

so even though i met not a single interested student,
i met this beautiful day...

...from panera yet again...

"Love ain’t the answer nor is work,
the truth eludes me so much it hurts.
But I’m still having fun and I guess that's the key,
I'm a twenty something and I'll keep being me"

ALMOST done with recruitment season...the end is in sight...
and the holiday feeling is creeping in...
right here right now in my sunny spot in Middletown
deep breaths and one thing at a time...

there's no place like...

"Tiredness fuels empty thoughts
I find myself disposed
Brightness fills empty space
In search of inspiration
Harder now with higher speed
Washing in on top of me
So I look to my eskimo friend
I look to my eskimo friend
I look to my eskimo friend
When I'm down, down, down.

Rain it wets muddy roads
I find myself exposed
Tapping doors, but irritate
In search of destination
Harder now with higher speed
Washing in on top of me
So I look to my eskimo friend
I look to my eskimo friend
I look to my eskimo friend
When I'm down, down, down.

Kosketa minua - Touch me
Älä käsilläsi - Not with your hands
Vaan niin että tunnen sinut - But so that I feel you

Halaa minua - Hug me
Älä käsilläsi - Not with your hands
Mutta sielussasi - But within your soul

Minä kaipaan eskimo-ystävääni - I miss my eskimo friend

When I'm down, down, down.
When I'm down, down, down.
When I'm down, down, down."

...from oz...

Do not hold onto your goal too tightly. If the Wizard accidentally takes off in his hot air balloon without you, the universe may be trying to show you something better. When Dorothy lets go and connects with her inner essence, she ultimately realizes she has all the love she needs within her own heart to be at home with herself...To acquire anything you desire, simply give up your attachment to the outcome.

Just in case

anyone is wondering
where i am...
i'm out enjoying
the evitabling
of an
unspeakability
in all of its
jawdroppingness.
and in my own wondermazement
of it,
i'm floored

Hendrick Hudson Free Library, Montrose NY

50¢ books + big windowed quiet study room + sunshine and foliage behind me + wireless internet = bliss

Sunday Sound

Stuck up in a lush life
The phone lines are down
Out on the salt flats
They take their money to town
Just like water on the ground
We will find our way

Hallucination nation
We got our vaccine
Dancing for quarters
'Ain't as underground as it seems
Just like water on the ground
We will find our way

Well I'd like to dance with you
As the band plays on
I'd like to talk with you
'Till dawn
We'll make a Sunday sound
Loud and clear
We'll make a Sunday sound
That love's here
Love's here

Decompression, coming up for air
A minor complication
To what it is you caught down there
And just like water on the ground
Say we will find our way

New Mexico love song
Warm your feathers in the sun
Your California traffic
Well it just it just ain't no fun

Just like water on the ground
We will find our way

Well I'd like to dance with you
As the band plays on
I'd like to talk with you
'Till dawn
We'll make a Sunday sound
Loud and clear
We'll make a Sunday sound
That love's here
Love's here

-New Earth Mud

Mr. Barker

"Just the other day I was reading a sentence by Jean-Paul Sartre. He says that life is like a child who is asleep in a train and is awakened by an inspector who wants to check the ticket, but the child has no ticket and no money to pay for one...The child is also not at all aware of where he is going, what his destination is and why he is on the train. And last but not least, the child cannot figure it out, because he never decided to be on the train in the first place. Why is he there? This situation is becoming more and more common to the modern mind, because we are somehow uprooted, and meaning is missing...I know that everybody one day feels like a child in a train. Yet life is not going to be a failure, because in this big train there are millions of people fast asleep, but there is always somebody who is awake. The child can search and find somebody who is not asleep and snoring, someone who has consciously entered the train, someone who knows where the train is going. Being in the vicinity of that person, the child also learns the ways of becoming conscious."
-Osho

How uncannily appropriate that this was the page I opened to in Osho.
It seems as though it has happened again that "when the teacher is ready, the student presents himself." It seems as though I've found a child on the train.
But I also get to be that child, at the same time, learning from another child, the ways to become conscious. When the teacher is ready, the student presents himself it seems. To reacquaint the teacher with the wonder and beauty of learning and curiosity.
Certainly this young man has resparked my interest the culmination of music, art, poetry, and literature, and the magic it brings to leading a richer life. Another young person with the desire to capture that beat generation feeling and weave it into your own unique quilt of what life's beauty will look like for you. He has reinforced in me the desire to always find something educational and mentally productive in nearly everything one does. But most of all, the simplicity of letting things flow and not forcing them upon yourself or anyone else for that matter. And these aren't things I'm interpreting as I want to, these are actual statements and conversations that were had! The overwhelming satisfaction I'm getting out of simply connecting with a young individual with such wisdom to realize the really important things in life at a younger age than even I did. He says to me "If I want to stay here and just take classes after I complete all of my requirements for my major, is that ok?" and when I explained the expectation of the school for a student to graduate, he saw and stated the irony of an institution of higher learning that squelches your enthusiasm and desire for "lifelong learning." Especially ironic when the tagline for the institution is "Learning for Life."
At a time when I'm questioning the necessity and achievement of my own job satisfaction, who is getting more out of this acquaintance?

p.s. And don't even get me started on the Jazz!

Dear Steve Jobs...

Dear Steve Jobs,

I am sending you this picture of me to show you just how much I love the MacBook Pro. If I wasn't in Panera right now (where they make the biggest if not best and foamiest cappuccino), this might be a picture of me in...er, planting wet kisses on the screen. Without it, I may not have be quite so happy for the past month. WOW, has it only been a month? Seems like I can hardly remember life before this beautiful little machine.

I hesitate as I compose this letter, worried about what it says about me that a computer has so positively impacted my life. But I toss that aside when I realize that I've been able to achieve some very real freedoms as a result of this computer, and, for me and my life, freedom is the thing to live by, the rule of thumb, the feeling I seek in nearly all aspects of life.

So as I sit here at a Panera - gosh I do love Panera for allowing me this wireless connectivity - and I listen to Coltrane, reading, emailing friends and family, sharing and keeping in touch, watching DVDs, catching up on work, I am reflecting on the life enhancement that this mac product has provided. Like my IPOD, it brings me ambiance wherever I may find myself. Thats another mac creation I need to thank you for. Really, in the hectic and always different lifestyle of a college recruiter, this machine has made it possible for me to balance my work and personal lives in a way that satisfies me entirely.

I have lots of ideas for enhancements to your products should you be interested. Thats another thing this computer has done: kept my brain juices flowing. When I'm feeling fried, I can relax and watch a DVD. When I'm feeling productive, the internet and other creative tools are at my fingertips and on my lap. There is no "waiting until I get home (when I'm too tired or lacking momentum)."

So thank you, and keep up the good work.

Signed,
Loyal Mac User

p.s. And thanks for making the pro so goddamn sexy. Everyone around me with their silly IBMs and Dells is drooling. No joke.

Travels through Pleasantville...

Dragonfly Caffe...lovely...

i tend to agree...

...from the Riverside NY City Public Library

I love this job and i love this computer.
I DON'T love Commerce Bank when the card swiper isn't working.
I love $1 cups of coffee that leave $4 for the Tappan Zee.
I DON'T love people driving behind you who honk because you are leaving a safe following distance in traffic.
I love sunshine and sun rises over the Tappan Zee Bridge that make it worth having woken up at 5:15 am.
I DON'T love people who complain about test dates and having enough time to study.
I love The Office.
I DON'T love COSI when the wireless isn't working.
I love public libraries.
I love love love Steve Jobs.

stay tuned for my love letter to Steve Jobs...

Not sure I can handle...

...any more perfection in my life...
but here it is anyway...
after an amazing day that was really just an extension of yesterday's beautiful weather, jazz (talked to my favorite WPU frosh and the music admissions guy), and general wonderment...i get this sky...
...and these leaves....

The Rotation

a wise woman once said "screw commitment to one man...i can't even commit to one book!"

Super Jazzy Sunday

Absurd and absurdly amazing day...

My favorite admit of my (short) admissions career, a fellow jazz enthusiast, and I were able to catch up and experience the celestine adventure of a garage sale treasure discovery: jazz and trumpet music books. So wonderful to see a motivated and turned on student who has endless potential and excitement to learn. And then to hear him giggle over some awesome big band jazz!

During a magical musical moment, the yin hands me this fortune: "Your problems become your stepping stone. capture the moment." and its so true if only amended to say "capture AND RELEASE the moment." Difficult to do with such incredulous musical moments, and the wisdom of an Octogenarian coinciding with blissful discoveries of my own.

Jimmy Heath performed at the William Paterson Jazz Room this lovely cloudless 73 degree Oct 21st. He spouted off such wisdom as:

"I relate to the students....I find myself learning from THEM. You never stop learning and as soon as you think you know everything, your journey has ended...as long as you have that thirst, you are going to develop..."

Musical profoundity: "Charlie Parker reinterpreted the language of jazz, changed the vocabulary." Something we all should do but, instead of jazz, sub in "life."

The man is tiny, all of 4 ft 11 inches most likely, and quite the comedian:
"When you hear someone playing your music, it touches your heart- and it may touch your pocketbook!"

"I got outta high school and said 'I'm gunna play jazz'... I wasn't big enough to play football, basketball, baseball...I'm the size of a jocket, and I'm AFRAID of horses!"
Imagine this said with absolutely perfect comic delivery and timing.

And all of this musical wonderfulness sandwiched between
the most speechless of days
Again, bliss is all I could possibly say to even begin to explain the very something
that has no explanation.

Ah now I get it, Marilyn....

Rose's Soliloquy

"Life exists in vulnerability, it exists in danger, insecurity. There is no security, and there cannot be...The higher the quality of life, the more fragile. Look at a rose, look at a poem, look at a song, look at music -- it vibrates for a second and then is gone! Look at love: One moment it is there, next moment it is not...So there is nothing wrong with vulnerability; it is understanding how life is...So just learn to accept your vulnerability, and then there will be a very deep understanding and a deep flow of energy..."

"Be positive and enjoy more...be more cheerful, enthusiastic about small things...Life consists of small things, but if you can bring the quality of cheerfulness to small things, the total will be tremendous. So don't wait for anything great to happen. Great things do happen...but don't wait for the something great to happen. It happens only when you start living small, ordinary, day to day things with a new mind, with a new freshness, with a new vitality...One has just to go on collecting pebbles on the shore...There are a many people in the world who miss because they are always waiting for something great. It can't happen. It happens only through small things: eating your breakfast, walking, taking a bath, talking to a friend, just sitting alone looking at the sky or lying on your bed doing nothing. These small things are what life is made of. They are the very stuff of life."

-Osho

freedom fighter

Honestly, its not HARD to make the best of this job
From the flexibility to grab a workout midday (when I actually have energy)
to the honest, rewarding assignment of simply talking to high schoolers about plans for college...
From getting to drive around experiencing different parts of the tri state area,
finding all the new spots for day trips on my work hours,
getting paid to listen to my IPOD for hours
to finding inner peace sitting outside a panera
catching the wireless on my pro
From the potential for a fully reimbursed graduate degree
to the best pension plan you can get...
It was a good day...

jamie cullum...

so hail a taxi cab and come around here
and i will meet you right outside.
i got some DVDs and a couple of beers,
if you want to,
we can stay up all night.
it's nothing fancy, just a little couch and me
and conversation for your mind.
so let's explore all the possibilities
of the things that we both talked about last time.


take a trip to my yard
don't you know the grass is greener on the other side?
take a trip to my yard
don't you know the love that you've been dreaming of is mine?

i'll be your neighbour at the other end of town
and the benefits you soon will find.
so let's enjoy the fact that we're on our own
and we will answer to nobody else this time.
tonight might be nothing but the moon and me
any time that we take the script and flip it baby
take a trip to my yard


take a trip to my yard
don't you know the grass is greener on the otherside?
take a trip to my yard
don't you know the love that you've been dreaming of is mine?

Global Drum Project

more experiences without words...
perfect vermont day
perfect peter travel companion
perfect pint of long trail
perfect percussion

i guess the word could be perfect?
but it was so much more
"i can tell you much more, so much more"


aka: http://sayitaintpete.blogspot.com/2007/10/letter-from-utopia.html

lonely vs alone

"You have to come to terms with your loneliness, so much that the loneliness is transformed into aloneness. Only then will you be capable of moving into a deep, enriching relationship...Loneliness is a state of mind where you are constantly missing the other. Aloneness is a state of mind where you are constantly delighted in yourself. Loneliness is miserable. Aloneness is blissful. Loneliness is always worried, missing something, hankering for something, desiring something. Aloneness is a deep fulfillment, not going out, tremendously content, happy, celebrating. In loneliness, you are off center. In aloneness, you are centered and rooted...Loneliness is a dependence, aloneness is sheer independence...
Nobody is here to fulfill anyone else's expectations, everybody is just here to be himself, to be herself...When you move according to your loneliness you will fall into a relationship with somebody who is in the same plight, because nobody who is really living his aloneness will be attracted to you...One who is on the peak of aloneness can only be attracted toward someone who is also alone...
First become authentically happy that if nobody comes it doesn't matter. You are full, overflowing...The person who has lived in his aloneness will always be attracted to another person who is also living his aloneness beautifully...When two masters meet -- masters of their beings, of their aloneness -- happiness is not just added, it is multiplied...tremendous phenomenon of celebrating...they don't exploit, they share...
Whenever two lonely persons meet, they look at each other, because they are constantly in search of ways and means to exploit the other -- how to use the other, how to be happy through the other. But two persons who are deeply contented within themselves are not trying to use each other. Rather, they become fellow travelers...The goal is high...far away. Their common interest joins them together."
Osho, "Joy"

why being alone, apart is essential

"When you have moved into a deep relationship with somebody, a great need arises to be alone. You start feeling spent, exhausted, tired -- joyously tired, happily tired, but each excitement is exhausting. It was tremendously beautiful to relate, but now you would like to move into aloneness, so that you can again gather yourself together, so that you can again become overflowing, so that again you become rooted in your own being.
...Love arises out of aloneness. Aloneness makes you overfull. Love receives your gifts. Love empties you so that you can become full again. Whenever you are emptied by love, aloneness is there to nourish you, to integrate you. And this is a rhythm...
Love is a spontaneous phenomenon. Whenever it happens, it happens, and whenever it doesn't happen it doesn't happen...
When I want to be alone that does not mean that I am rejecting you. In fact, it is because of your love that you have made it possible for me to be alone...so that he can again gather together his being, so that again he has energy to share. And this rhythm is like day and night, summer and winter; it goes on changing..."
Osho, "Intelligence"

wondermazement

I'm not sure what is more amazing about all this: the fact that I am de-defining and rethinking the constructs society tries to force upon you, or the idea that I'm actually able to live according to my new definitions, many of which I had already created and had abandoned as idealistic dreaming.
We live in a society, with already defined norms; this society that almost seems to tell us how to conduct our lives should we choose to participate in one of its institutions - education (read a lot, memorize, take the test, succeed, finish your education -ha! you never finish!), family, marriage.
My problem and hesitation in "relationships," for example, is to be blamed on society's definition and experience; all that "should"...what it is "supposed" to mean, be, and what role it needs to take in your life. But I get to make "relationship" whatever I want in my own life. Just like marriage, and education, if I assign my own meaning, role, significance, priority, understanding to the concept, then in my reality, that is what it is. I have that freedom.

In all seriousness and in general, don't make your choice to want or not want, like or dislike something based on what that thing's popular perception and definition has always been. Deconstruct, undefine, and redefine when ready. You decide what the experiences in your life are able to become, to signify, and to impact.

The extra wonderful part is having someone in my life who understands this idea of dedefinition as well as they understand (and often agree with!) what it is I'd like to avoid and also to live out. A person who, like me, questions and critically thinks the institutions as well as more abstract concepts in general. Their ability to think on all these different levels will continue to stimulate my thinking joyfully.

Still a little bit of your song in my ear
Still a little bit of your words I long to hear...
It's not hard to grow
When you know that you just don't know
-Damien Rice, Cannonball