Month: July 2018

I feel most all of us are crazy.  Even normal people are crazy.  Our world is not focused on the permanent and real.

And all the digital distractions, the constant PRESENCE of one more hit, one more drag, one more one more, and our madness itself is mad.  As Lao Tzu put it, insanity goes on for a very long time.  Who can know where and when it will end for any of us?

I feel that all poetry ought to be bad, just as all art should be folk art.  Shelley did not become a good man by writing admired poetry.  He left polished shells which really belong in the ocean.

Poetry and song are the footprints you leave on the sand as you walk, which are quickly washed away.  It is a sign you were here, that you lived, that you tried.

And there is more poetry in washing dishes well, than in composing epic philosophical rants.

It is quite impossible to know what is there until you look, and few of us do.  I’m only beginning to become aware it is possible for me.

It can take a very, very long time to even get to the starting gate.  This is learning how to learn, as the Sufis put it.

This blog: it is toxic for me.  I feel it.  I like to think I have interesting and useful things to say, but the PROCESS of diving into abstraction is, at this moment, not healthy for me.  I am an addict–I am the “sort” who finds it hard to reconcile intent with regular action–so I will be back, I am sure, but I have now posted a Note To Self.

I think Buddhism is a pretty advanced set of beliefs.  It is for mature people.  It is not for screwups–too many days, like me–who are not facing life properly.

Buddhism, and you can quote me on this, is the maturity of mature people.  It is the growing up of grown ups.

If you are a child, focus on not being a child.  If you are juvenile, focus on not being juvenile.  If you are a grown up, focus on learning how to live in harmony.

If you can live in harmony, as an adult, then and only then, seek to learn about what lies beyond.

If I might offer commentary, it feels to me like many people think if they pay more money, they should get better experiences.

Your experiences flow from who you are.  And who you are is, over the long haul, the integrated sum of your decisions over that period.  What are you adding, today, to the sum, that will make it better?  What did you add yesterday?  What can you add tomorrow?

I don’t think life is so very complicated, or so very difficult.  It does not ask of us everything all the time.  It asks of us a bit, regularly.  It asks that we give willingly.  And it asks that we celebrate the dishes bought with what we have paid.

Dive in.  Remember who you are.  It is not so hard.

Well, I don’t think it is so hard.  I don’t remember who I am either.  If you figure it out, let me know.  We can both stand there looking at the waves and sand and wondering why shells make noise, and think we might write poetry, but it likely won’t be very good.  But we will know who we are, and that goddammit is something.

Buddhists don’t drink gin.  But we are supposed to kill the Buddha, or something like that.  Yeah, I vacillate between reason, rambling, and something that could be mistaken for poetry by an outsider

or an imbecile.

[editorial note: I find this funny]

Seems timely:

Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget;
For we are the people of England, that never have spoken yet.
There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully,
There is many a free French peasant who is richer and sadder than we.
There are no folk in the whole world so helpless or so wise.
There is hunger in our bellies, there is laughter in our eyes;
You laugh at us and love us, both mugs and eyes are wet:
Only you do not know us. For we have not spoken yet.

The fine French kings came over in a flutter of flags and dames.
We liked their smiles and battles, but we never could say their names.
The blood ran red to Bosworth and the high French lords went down;
There was naught but a naked people under a naked crown.
And the eyes of the King’s Servants turned terribly every way,
And the gold of the King’s Servants rose higher every day.
They burnt the homes of the shaven men, that had been quaint and kind,
Till there was no bed in a monk’s house, nor food that man could find.
The inns of God where no man paid, that were the wall of the weak.
The King’s Servants ate them all. And still we did not speak.

And the face of the King’s Servants grew greater than the King:
He tricked them, and they trapped him, and stood round him in a ring.
The new grave lords closed round him, that had eaten the abbey’s fruits,
And the men of the new religion, with their bibles in their boots,
We saw their shoulders moving, to menace or discuss,
And some were pure and some were vile; but none took heed of us.
We saw the King as they killed him, and his face was proud and pale;
And a few men talked of freedom, while England talked of ale.

A war that we understood not came over the world and woke
Americans, Frenchmen, Irish; but we knew not the things they spoke.
They talked about rights and nature and peace and the people’s reign: 
And the squires, our masters, bade us fight; and scorned us never again.
Weak if we be for ever, could none condemn us then;
Men called us serfs and drudges; men knew that we were men.
In foam and flame at Trafalgar, on Albuera plains,
We did and died like lions, to keep ourselves in chains,
We lay in living ruins; firing and fearing not
The strange fierce face of the Frenchmen who knew for what they fought,
And the man who seemed to be more than a man we strained against and broke;
And we broke our own rights with him. And still we never spoke.

Our patch of glory ended; we never heard guns again.
But the squire seemed struck in the saddle; he was foolish, as if in pain,
He leaned on a staggering lawyer, he clutched a cringing Jew,
He was stricken; it may be, after all, he was stricken at Waterloo.
Or perhaps the shades of the shaven men, whose spoil is in his house,
Come back in shining shapes at last to spoil his last carouse:
We only know the last sad squires rode slowly towards the sea,
And a new people takes the land: and still it is not we.

They have given us into the hand of new unhappy lords,
Lords without anger or honour, who dare not carry their swords.
They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes;
They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies.
And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs,
Their doors are shut in the evening; and they know no songs.

We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet,
Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street.
It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first,
Our wrath come after Russia’s wrath and our wrath be the worst.
It may be we are meant to mark with our riot and our rest
God’s scorn for all men governing. It may be beer is best.
But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet.
Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget. 

Communism partakes a bit in the myth of the return of the just king.  Think the return of Richard in the story of Robin Hood, or the ascendancy of Arthur in a time of war, or–what made me think of this just now for unknown reasons–the story arc of “The Lion King”.

When you are unhappy, the story of a rescuer is compelling.  Communism posits that the “rescuer” is the People, as represented–necessarily–by the intellectuals for whom this myth has the most appeal.  Most of these intellectuals are small, grubby, gloomy, unwanted human beings.  But as Communists, they partake of the glory of Kingship, nobility, and all that is good in the world. This is why this whole thing has a comic book feel, and always has.  It does not consist in the sober plans of competent people, but the juvenile fantasies of people too ignorant to even realize they are ignorant.

It is one of the horrors of history that such people have in many cases, in many nations, gained true power, and exercised it brutally.  They usually find a true sadist to be their leader, but even as the bodies pile high in the streets, they continue to believe that the are contributing to justice, truth, and a righting of wrongs.

First off, Communism, Fascism, authoritarianism, and totalitarianism should be used as de facto synonyms in our present environment.  Yes, they have different shades of meaning, but the de facto discussion is if we should continue our Liberal project in the industrialized, democratic nations, or reverse it and return to ruling elites not constrained by any laws, whether juridical or moral.  Do we believe in human rights as a PRINCIPLE, or don’t we?  Simple question, but there are two broad and conflicting answers in the present social and political conflict, a fact which is complicated by the pervasive tendency of the authoritarians to mask their work in lies.

Be all that as it may, I wonder if we might stipulate that Communism is the result of disordered and insecure/avoidant Attachment Styles.  Better parenting supports freedom.  Bad parenting supports fascism.  If you want to know why so many hippies are breeding crazy children, we could of course blame excessive permissiveness, which is likely a part, but in my experience hippies in general are emotionally highly disorganized, highly addictive, and frequently unreliable and emotionally unavailable.  This creates life long effects in children, too.  I have heard plenty of hippy horror stories.  You probably have too.

I do think, other than the complete solution I have proposed, it would be useful to figure out some way for new mothers to stay home longer with their babies. Maybe tax credits to corporations who support it.  Maybe tax credits to grandmothers who are able to help.  Maybe a massive tax credit for the first year a woman stays home.

And for single mothers, it is likely a good investment to support group homes.  With a lot of these kids, we wind up paying later for their prison terms, not to mention the social damage they cause on the way to getting locked up.  It’s not a question of whether we will spend money on them, but how much, and to what purpose.

It is much easier to worship a person, group, or idea, than to take it seriously.

I think it was the Buddha himself who said “if you meet me on a road, kill me.”  People read this and think “oh, how clever he was.  What a good story that is.”  This is missing the point completely.

To worship is to separate.  To worship is to push away, not to reel in.

And I really think worship in a great many cases is a form of narcissism.  It is a way of creating the image of yourself participating in something great, without actual participation.  “Social Justice” is something a certain sort of person worships in our own age.  They don’t do the work of improving anything.  No, they do the work of celebrating the ideal in public, and demanding others do the same.

I will add a comment I think I can fit in here.  If you consider what narcissism is, which is, in my view, having had the proper social, empathetic brain taken off-line to some greater or lesser extent by Developmental Trauma, then its connection with outright sociopathy becomes clear.

What guides all morally sane people is some combination of empathy–which is a direct emotion felt at specific times, for specific people, for specific reasons–and principle, with the Golden Rule being the most common, most obvious, and by and large the most useful.

As a principle, the Golden Rule asks you to ask yourself if you would be OK with other people doing to you what you are about to do to them.  If not, don’t do it.

But sociopaths are unable to place themselves, imaginatively, in anyone else’s shoes.  They see through their own eyes, and their own eyes alone, and from that perspective, morality is limited only by what they can get away with, without corresponding violence to themselves.

I might state this as a general rule that “violent people require violent laws.”  This, in important respects, is the major disconnect between European standards of justice, as they have evolved, and the Islamists among them.

Be all that as it may, whether someone is only a narcissist or a full blown sociopath really depends upon where a fear of consequences was placed in them, if it was.  And I have to say, imaginatively, I am having a hard time myself distinguishing them.  All the narcissists I have known were capable of great cruelty.  Maybe the difference is the guilt response.  True psychopaths feel no remorse, and narcissists do, even if they can’t usually tell where and when guilt is warranted.  Although even there, guilt can be a conspicuous display, which provides narcissistic supply.

I’m not sure where I am going with this.  I will leave it for now.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/12/books/review/michael-houellebecqs-sexual-distopia.html

I didn’t know this Incel–involuntary celibate, aka man who can’t get laid–was a thing.  But I have been saying for some time that in my view much Islamic terrorism comes from these people.  I have had Arab friends, and the math is that if the rich can have four wives–and an unlimited number of concubines–then a lot of young men will never get married.  I know I’ve discussed this somewhere (this theme of repeating myself recurs because I try not to be repetitive, but am quite sure I fail often; even this theme is recurrent, but likely not more than once a year or two).

I suspect a problem with a lot of “Incels” in the West is that they view sex as an end.  Porn makes this inevitable, as well as making frustration much harder to bear.  No woman wants to be viewed as an end, purely, unless she is having fantasies of being a slut.  Ironically, the way to get laid is to stop trying to get laid.  Tantalus and his solution, again.

My personal view is that if prostitution were legal everywhere, a lot of social problems would be eased.  Young men would not be so sexually frustrated, and I think many marriages could be saved if men had outlets for just a few things their wives would not do.  All men age in their bodies, but most of us look at 25 year olds as if we had not.  Propriety keeps most of us from even pretending we have a chance–although we do have a bar around here where a 23 year old was hitting on me hard the one and only time I went there.  I just couldn’t wrap my brain around that.  Come to think of it, that happened another place too, but I’m digressing.  I guess I’m doing that thing where I assess my desirability, and it seems to be OK, even if I’m still crazy.

I have even thought that rather than make this institution peripheral, in the red light district, that we place it in the center of our society, with something like sacred prostitutes, in temples built to the purpose, that we learn to make sex an act of worship of some sort, that we elevate it.  We all have sexual urges.  This is human, and it is ridiculous to deny it.  And these urges, when satisfied, make us happier, more relaxed, healthier, and more creative and generous.  This, too, is not to be denied, at least among reasonably psychologically healthy people. 

Just as self restraint can be taken too far,, though, so too can license.  Everything good in this world depends on psychological health, which I think in turn depends on accurate and useful spiritual ideas.  The men who visit such a temple may drive their wives mad.  So we get rid of wives, but then insane jealousies come out in men over the prostitutes. Etc.

All of us are alone, in the end, but in a universe which is not fundamentally hostile.  And we can build islands wherever we choose, islands of people, islands of love, islands of joy, islands of peace.

I’m rambling, but thought I would comment on this.

I will add that reading Bukowski brings out the obscene in me–I am mimetic by nature– but I don’t think anyone reading him can fail to appreciate he spoke many truths which needed speaking.

I was thinking about sex this morning.  My vascular system seems to be in good order, as do my testosterone levels, both of which leave regular reminders (cue the opening scene of “40 year old virgin”).  Ah, but even for me that’s too much sharing.  C’est la vie.

But I was thinking about many things.  Mostly, I was thinking about this sort of Sherlock Holmes sequence I go through with women, and by this I mean the recent cinematic version (versions?) with Robert Downey, Jr., where he imagines the full sequence of events in a moment, then makes his decision.

For me, I always see failure.  Not sexual failure, and not even failure in the seduction.  I’m not as good looking as I used to be, but if I pick a woman of about the right age, I’m sure I’m as good as I once was.  I can talk to anyone about anything, and make most people laugh.  I’m a good conversationalist, and I’m good–I think–at reading non-verbal cues.  I’ve had multiple barmaids in my bar come on to me, but I just wasn’t feeling it.  They got mad at me, for a time. I don’t blame them: men are supposed to want to fuck every woman they meet, so it’s a personal insult when they don’t.

No: what I see is increased loneliness.  What I see is coming so CLOSE to emotional intimacy, and failing.  What I see is myself, fucking, but still alone in the room.  What I see is me with a woman, but not with that woman.  And of course all women on some level want the man to be there, to be seeing her, valuing her, appreciating her.  I would assume this holds even for prostitutes, although they likely get quite numb at some point, and don’t feel much emotionally at all.

And I go through this sequence, and I see, every time, that I have to finish my work.  I have to inhabit my own body. I have to get over my dissociation, my need for distance, my pushing away, my inability to trust anyone very much.  It’s frustrating.  It’s a bit like the torment of Tantalus, which is an interesting metaphor.  If we accept that all internal hells are of our own making–granted, people can place us in hell, and inject hell into our minds, but once free, their continuance is over some time horizon a choice–then the solution for Tantalus was to STOP TRYING, and to forget about the fruit and water, and to find water and fruit in his soul.

I have been playing with a concept in my mind in recent weeks of social freerunning.  Within the science of biological rhythms, free running sleep is when the cues are removed which regulate human–or hamsters–to a 24 hour, regular rhythm.  People who are blind have major problems with this, because they cannot register the light/dark cycles which the rest of us respond to unthinkingly, automatically, instinctually (absent too much artificial light, of course).

Social freerunning is living as a hermit, as I kind of do, without the synchronizing signal of hearing my name, of seeing people who recognize me, of being reminded who “I am” by people who have seen me before, all of which enable all of us to “reset” to our previous defaults.  I am who I am because other people see me as I am, as they have long done, and will always continue to do.  I can always inhabit new roles with new people, but this process of continual reconciliation remains.

My children are the only ones who have ever visited me where I live.  I have been making a more active effort to expand my social life, but historically it has mainly consisted in hanging out in bars, where I know the people who work there, and most of the regulars, all of whom are lonely people like me, who need to see people sometimes, but get away from them too.  An arm’s distance at a bar, with a beer in hand, is ideal.

But I am toying with pulling that out of my life.  I have no office to go to, and my job sites vary.  Wherever I work, I rarely work there more than a week, and quite frequently it is in other States.

And I live with myself.  And when I mean that, I am close to my emotions.  They cannot but run through me.  Most people seek distractions–idle conversation, video games, TV, stupid things that mean nothing to them–to avoid all that.  When you spend a lot of time alone, you find the enemies within you, the patterns which make you miserable, the true reasons you cannot find peace, why there is a difference between sitting contentedly and doing anything else.

Buddhism really consists, at root, in three ideas:

1) all people who have not done focused inner work carry with them inconsistencies and miseries that they can easily spend a lifetime failing to see.  Let us call this karma. Or Samsara.

2) There exist methods for loosening these emotional knots, for releasing chronic emotional pain, for learning to be tranquil and at peace.

3) It has been done.  This part is important, because the world is filled with people spouting theories which “should work”.  I know too well, as I have been, and likely continue to be, one of them.

To this I would add the implied principle of Self Similarity, aka “As Above, so Below”.  What works to generate inner peace and tranquility is inherently spiritual, and what is spiritual helps in whatever other worlds there may be too.  There is no conflict.

This, in turn, leads to an interesting idea: if you would not want to see a given behavior in heaven, do not enact it here.  If you would not like to be punished for “improper” belief in heaven, don’t punish people here.  Why would any infinite being care about our opinions on the Sabbath, or the perfection of the Koran? It would seem places where violence are happening, are not heaven.  Put another way, if you want to go to heaven, do what you can to create it here.  Build harmony in yourself, and seek to build it around you.  Seek beauty, seek kindness. And do not tolerate those who seek to destroy it, but do not make their spirits your enemies.  Seek no enemies, but do seek Goodness. I am perhaps spouting cliches.

What I have been leading to is the observation that emotions can be divorced from their objects.  I’m pretty sure I have said this before, but if so, it has cycled around again.  I go in circles, but I hope expanding circles.

When it comes to sex, for me the most pleasurable aspect is the anticipation, knowing I’m going to “get laid” tonight.  Sex feels very good, but it is the feelings around it which last.  Especially as a man, the best I can hope for is Bolero.  There is the feeling of “conquest” as a man–and to some extent for a woman, who has proven herself desirable.  And there is both a Beforeglow and an Afterglow.  There is excitement, energy.  These, to me, are the best parts of sex.

And to some extent, Tantric practices recognize this.  One practice I know of consists in having what amounts to a picnic, then penetrating a woman, and simply remaining within her for 30 minutes, while looking in her eyes.  Now, this is not sex.  It is not oriented around orgasm.  It is oriented around a relationship of shared joy and attraction.  And although I have not done this, I think the feeling generated would be permanent.  It would be something you could always recall. It would, actually, be a good way of concluding a marriage ritual.  Seriously. 

And materialistically, think of the pleasure you get of ordering something, and awaiting it expectantly.  Oh, it is going to be so good.  The new book, the new dress, the new whatever it is.  Or think of the pleasure you get for a time owning a new car.  Or the joy you feel as a new parent.

What I think is that Buddhist “Emptiness”, or the “void”, or “Fundamental Openness” is nothing but realizing that all of these feelings–and more–are possible without attachment to the objects we THINK occasion them.  It is empty because there is nothing there.  There is no person you need to feel that feeling.  There is no new car.  There is no anticipation of anything.  All the things, in important respects, were placebos, which enabled you to activate a potential that was already there, in potentio.

This is something you can lean on which will never let you down.  This is an emotional and spiritual SKILL which means that, no matter your material or social circumstances, you never need fear change.  But it is also a FULLNESS.  The space, the plenum, is filled with infinite energy.  It is an infinite ocean–in an often used metaphor backed up by modern science–and matter something like foam on waves.  You can be free in this space, though, and this freedom makes you more generous with yourself, and with others.  Why not share your bread–physical and metaphorical–when there is an infinite amount to go around?

Within Kum Nye, there is a practice of remembering a wonderful time, a wonderful day, and focusing on it, and expanding it.  For me, I have been dissociated my whole life, so there is very little to draw on.  But I think all of us have felt this anticipation of getting something–a blowjob, a love letter, a trip around Europe.  This is a useful starting place.  Feel the feeling, then let the rest fall away.  This is emotional skill practice.  This is resilience training.  This is prehab for emotional pain and suffering.

I look around me and see my own difficulties echoed everywhere.  Everyone’s house is on fire.  The only “normal” people are the ones you don’t know very well.

But so much more is possible.  I see this.  I feel this.  I don’t know how much more time we have, but let us all try and wake up, and remember–perhaps not what we have forgotten, which is the point of this work–but THAT we have forgotten, something, and it is time to start trying to remember; to wake as babies with new eyes, in a new world, confused, but hopeful.

I believe, in any event, that is our destiny, which we can choose to accept, or not.  Authentic religion is about remembering we all got lost somewhere.  It’s not a sin.  It was not a crime, any more than, to use a Christian metaphor, there is something personal intended when small lambs go astray.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/donald-trump-sparks-fury-posing-12914158

Would these not be the same British, the mayor of whose largest city–and once arguably the most powerful city in the world, and certainly the most important city by far in Britain–approved raising a balloon of the American President in diapers?  I’m surprised Trump did not take a dump on the lawn somewhere.

The British don’t respect themselves.  They are not protecting their civilization and institutions.  They can’t demand respect for them they are unwilling to grant themselves.  Habits are outer forms.  The substance of their culture has been in decline for many, many years.

It is true Churchill did support something like the EU.  It is also true he fought personally in one massive European conflict, and led Britain in a second.  That sort of thing will cause you to see the value of being interconnected.

But Churchill was very clear sighted as far as Islam.  His quotes on the subject are of course not politically correct, but they were the result of close personal observation.  Among other things, he fought against the Mahdi in the Sudan, if memory serves.

Islam, as being practiced currently in most of Britain, IS NOT compatible with Liberal culture.  Period.  There is no need to qualify this statement in any way.

Now, given how many nations Britain has invaded and occupied, perhaps it would be just for it to fall to those who come from those nations, but any genuine Liberals in the West cannot accept this without protest.  Islamization is regression for the rights of women, for children, for gays, and for everyone unable or unwilling to submit to Islam.  They want everyone to believe as they do, and they want to inflict physical violence on those unwilling.  No sane person can accept this, particularly when the religious content is that of a 6th Century sensibility.

So even though it is a bit comical watching some British pretend they have standards, it is really more sad.  It is sad for all of us, sad for those who think that the concept of human rights is beautiful and should be protected for all.

I think many people resent the growth of others because it reminds them of their own captivity.  A crab crawling out of a barrel reminds those who are there that something else is possible.

Perhaps in some ways, all cruelty comes from this root dynamic.  Many sadists seem to prefer children, not just because they are relatively weak, but because they had so much potential, and could have gone so many places.