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[TonyZ]

I randomly vented to a friend over email, realized this was a better spot for that vent, let me know what you think:



I find myself on this christmas a little emotionally closed off, a
little distant from myself, even. I think it's because I've poured so
much of what's happened into the last year into what I do, that with
ten days off of work, I'm a little more than surprised how confronted
I find myself with the situations I put myself in.

We have all this leftover food form all the volunteers we've had over
the last couple of weeks. Rather than let it rot, I've taken it out to
the street kids, the squatters, the ones I've found with good hearts,
and nothing but each other. I of course, come to them as an outsider,
but rather than with words and admonishments, I've gotten a chance to
play santa claus, and think about how close I am from being a street
kid myself.

I don't really know what makes me so different from them, on the
inside. I think there is this part of me that clings to the life of an
indoors person, something about me that like clean clothes, and a
kitchen to cook in. I don't know what it is about me that makes
maintain this indoor domestication, when really, I am wild and free. I
suppose, I would only want to be wild and free in the woods, or on the
coast, where food was plenty, the pollution naught, and the people
around me just as capable to maintain a real lifestyle really
connected to the earth.

It seems like we all really on have things in pieces, that none of us
seem to be doing well for ourselves anymore; we just getting either
better, or worse, at hiding this fact from the rest of the people
around us.

I don't feel particularly exhausted by the facade that is this
culture, I just wish the moments when you feel good about yourself and
understood your place lasted longer, and connected to each other more
often. But moving from lifestyle to lifestyle only changes those
moments, it doesn't make them last any longer.

and so, here I am with a broken heart, and an unfulfilled promise, that not even hard work, or superior domestication, will solve my humanity, will cure me of mortality, or bring heaven on earth.

Having rejected hope as a fools errand, having made it this far without cutting myself on occam's razor, where do I rest my heart?

It's in the whirlwind of fullfilling work, for now. With suppressable fleeting moments that all in my psychology is wrong.  I hope these 'holidays' end soon.

[grog]

I'm a little more than surprised how confronted
....I find myself with the situations I put myself in...
 and think about how close I am from being a street
kid myself.....
I don't really know what makes me so different from them, on the
inside. I think there is this part of me that clings to the life of an
indoors person, something about me that like clean clothes, and a
kitchen to cook in. I don't know what it is about me that makes
maintain this indoor domestication, when really, I am wild and free. I
suppose, I would only want to be wild and free in the woods, or on the
coast, where food was plenty, the pollution naught, and the people
around me just as capable to maintain a real lifestyle really
connected to the earth.

It seems like we all really on have things in pieces, that none of us
seem to be doing well for ourselves anymore; we just getting either
better, or worse, at hiding this fact from the rest of the people
around us.

I don't feel particularly exhausted by the facade that is this
culture, I just wish the moments when you feel good about yourself and
understood your place lasted longer, and connected to each other more
often. But moving from lifestyle to lifestyle only changes those
moments, it doesn't make them last any longer.

and so, here I am with a broken heart, and an unfulfilled promise, that not even hard work, or superior domestication, will solve my humanity, will cure me of mortality, or bring heaven on earth.

Having rejected hope as a fools errand, having made it this far without cutting myself on occam's razor, where do I rest my heart?

It's in the whirlwind of fullfilling work, for now. With suppressable fleeting moments that all in my psychology is wrong.  I hope these 'holidays' end soon.

I love your thinking! If I(a selfish stranger) could say something to help heal your broken heart I would(after healing my own).
I don't quite understand

Having rejected hope as a fools errand, having made it this far without cutting myself on occam's razor, where do I rest my heart?

Do you believe you extended your logic beyond necessity in trying to find happiness in helping others? It's a wonderful metaphor I would like to understand. Sometimes I can be a little slow 

[TonyZ]

not quite. I think intelligence and reason brought me to a place waaay beyond  what I was given, psychologically at birth, to understand.

I appreciate your question, it does raise a large point that in my rantiness, I glossed over.

I feel like, to me, spirituality happens in experience, especially as a shared experience. I've had some pretty powerful shared experiences in the last month since I've moved down to New Orleans, but left to myself over winter break, and going out and getting deeper into the lives of the people I'm here to work for, I find myself really confused as to what the differences are between myself and 'the client' if I may be so impersonal.

I'm deeply unsettled to think I 'have what it takes' and they 'don't'.

For me, it reinforces my feelings of being a 'daywalker' a child of the night who has a day job.

All this sleeping and dreaming....It's somewhat.... psychedelic.

I to pointedly answer your question, and not just share how I feel, I don't feel like I belong. I feel over-unique, over-qualified, to be domesticated or a street kid. You see, the domesticated that I work with pity the kids on the street. The street kids I work with pity the domesticated. But combined, they each have a part of what this life is. And, being two opposites on the same pole, I feel like every stereotype on this continuum still doesn't add up to a whole person. And yet, there is this battle, from when I was 13, and 15, and 17, and all those indivisible integers thereafter, do I stay, or do I go?

Cause I could take my rewilding baddassness and create something awesome for a what could be a tribe, using my outdoor techniques to build a village in a city. (ya'llshould see some of the squats here, they are so Afterculture). I can take my intellectual faculty badassness and passion for the youngest of people and train an army of children learning permaculture, grant writing, mycoremediation, and so on.

The problem is, you can really only commit to one, and gloss the other over. People need more than leadership, they need more than service, they need commitment, in order to truly blossom, they need to feel like you will always be there. In death and beyond.

and those aren't the only two options.

I guess, restlessness isn't so bad, I could just sleep when I'm dead. But where did all this peace go that I once found? My peace was a time and a place, when I was removed from the world and still gathering ammunition, fletching arrows, and such.

As a reckless young man, I heeded the words of the buddha and others to stop making so many cuts in the world, to help heal the bleeding. but I am a warrior, and while my cuts don't draw blood, there is still a remorse one feels when having a great idea watching people line up behind it.

why is the loss of possibility and commitment so painful?

ramble ramble ramble....

[Richard]

Here's what I think, and I'm not trying to sound dumbass or smartass here

>where do I rest my heart?
in your ribcage.

Reminds me of the question : Where do I find my path?
at your feet.



I also recently wrote a letter to someone regarding the Amurikan holidays - specifically the New Revolution around the Sun resolutions. A thin link, but someone might find this useful, and I want to display it. I shot from the hip, let the fingers blah away without stopping to think... some of the stuff sounds more like disjointed mushy philosophical brass than the solid, heavy, refined philosophical gold I love so much.

Without no mo ado, something on resolution - let's get ready to ramble

--

Grounding oneself in the present tense is very important. The Samurai did so by way of daily meditations on their death. Mythologies purporting the Sun as a God (I don't know of any in which the Sun was believed to be a Goddess) often believed that it might not rise the next day - making it an ingrained fact that this might be the last day and should be lived as such, as well as tying into the whole reverence for life and 'need' for ritual which we find in every nook and cranny of such mythologies.

The wish, the desire, the ambition which says "I will become something else" distracts us from tending to what already breathes within us. The image of what we think we must become usually presents a distortion, an impossible fiction, and creates a friction between our true reality and a false fantasy of how things ought to be.

The difficulty with discipline is, as I see it (and I'd like to think the -as I see it- is an understood underpinning to all I assert), when is it another form of smothering control and when is it natural?

Surely if I have a damaging habit, and I see that it's damaging, the habit will end. When I see a piano hanging by a thin strand above my head I step out of the way, unless I'm a sick martyr.

If I apply pressure to the habit, try to choke it out of existence, it will just rear up in a different form - forced into a different groove and pissed due to the abuse. If I focus on creating something ideal out of smoke and mirrors I do not notice the reality, I stand right under piano trying to telekinetically tie my shoes.

I can think of two ways to change - by seeing or by pushing. Seeing propels effortlessly, you can see what must live and what must die, what to nurture and what to deracinate. Pushing creates schisms and aberrations, it warps the form. Having a goal also brings about Reward and Punishment, Success and Failure, and there are a host of insanities linked to that dichotomous way of thinking.

Knowing yourself is the only way to change without friction, to follow the natural blueprint without struggle. It's like what's written on Charles Bukowski's grave - "Don't try". & that's Taoism, and a fuzillion other philosophies, that's freedom - right?

[TonyZ]

Thanks Master Yoda. I don't know how else to respond but to say I really appreciate all the food for thought you shared, it'll nourish me for a while now...

[Huby7]

Richard,

I just noticed, having received an email for the Teaching Drum yahoo group (I think it's yahoo, at least), that you're in it as well. I thought that was interesting because I also remember you being on the Ishmael messageboard I joined. I just had to point that out, sorry, haha.

Right now I'm reading First and Last Freedom , by J Krishnamurti. And a lot of what you said in your last post and the quote above reminds me of what Krishnamurti talks about in FaLF.  I'm curious, have you read JK's work before?  I was turned on to him by the famous animal tracker Paul Rezendes.

Take care,

Curt

[Richard]

Tony --

I appreciate the appreciation.

Curt --

I've read and listened to Krishnaji for 8 years now. I really wish I could have attended one of his dialogues... he would frequently ask questions, pause, and nobody would answer. He also seemed to say things he didn't mean to see if someone would dispute him and then interrupt whoever agreed with huffy agitation. I think the public response to his work often disappointed him and caused him to doubt his effectiveness, it seemed especially apparent in his last public speaking. He kept asking things like "Why am I here?" and "Why are you listening?"

I swear I would have pulled up a chair right next to him. I think he would have welcomed it.

You can find a lot of his material right here: http://www.jkrishnamurti.org/audio

One of the brightest teachers I've come across, for certain.

Take care

- always, you too.