nausea

Streaking Canopy

I can’t sleep. Insomnia has plagued me. Not insomia, per say, more of a total lack of diligence. I’ve been observing myself from afar the past few months, and I can’t help but think I’ve degenerated into a raving lunatic. There’s something of a compensatory malaise that’s settled on me, a disease of the imagination, one of the heart. I’ve succumbed to old vices, justified desultory behaviors, yielded to impulse, all in the name of fulfillment. And while I can’t say I’m in a state worth complaining about, I’m not exactly sure I feel any more fulfilled because of it.

Where is the self-discipline? I rationalize my passions, these unpredictable tyrants, with aphorisms like “reason must be a slave to the passions” and other nonsensical speak. What is balance? Before the structured society, nature imposed her rule, through time, the seasons, the setting sun. I’ve lambasted society’s strict structure as a pathetic excuse to escape responsibility from her order, all in the name of wildness. But am I an animal? Where is my personal narrative, my imagination? Why can I not call on a thread of story to sow meaning back into my life? I find myself with fading preoccupations that come and go with the tide, and I proclaim my evolution. But all the while the shore recedes and I am left with less than when I started. Am I too harsh? I have declared the reclamation of merit to live on a whim, but at what cost? Have I regressed? Have I grown into myself, or out of myself?

Change is something of a comfort. I’m tired of these thoughts, these stagnating feelings, these perduring words that have etched themselves into my psyche, that beat incessantly at my consciousness like a dripping faucet. Stillness breeds pestilence: placid pools choked of a streaming consciousness. Familiarity has evaporated fresh thought, leaving me with more of the same. Where are the revelatory insights? Do they come and go? Do I implore the world for more of her wisdom? or do I dig and mine for it from within? And what of the world and my proper place in it? Do I tell stories? do I listen to stories? or do I create them?

I am surrounded by enablers. People that feed my ego, that affirm the worth I continually seek to discard. I need to molt, to metamorphisize into something grander. Can this happen in my current state? Should I seek new frontiers? How should I employ my experience? How should I demonstrate my value? Where might I find something that doesn’t reek with past association? What is it that I am trying to escape? Where does this restlessness arise? Do I stab at it with self criticism? Do I strangle it with satisfaction?

But I want to do great, I say, want to change the world in an unprecedented way. I keep my eyes cocked, one pointed outward toward the world, the other inward toward my soul, to achieve balance, I say, but I only become disoriented. What will salvage this soul of mine? Is it literate? Do I leverage words over the minds of men, persuade them to embrace the clairvoyent alms I offer, the values I impart to the world? Do I act as a torch to light the way? And who will light my path? Is that for me alone? Or do I light the torches within other men, one by one, so that they become their own beacon, their own true north?

There are only questions, endless seas spanning leagues and chasms and planes. If I was a bird; I would have a voiced graced by divine inspiration and wings to carry me above the rising currents that bake the earth. I could soar across new landscapes, traverse valleys and streak up the hills, catch secret shade in towering canopies, and greet frontiers of wide open blue. Where is my place in this world? Is it in words, in symbols, in relations? Do I steep myself in meditation, in reflection? Or do I act with unrequited abandon and throw myself into the world? But the balance, you say, the moderation that beckons every stable being, where is that in this wide open dream?

Facebook, these digital landscapes, falsifies reality. The updates. The information. We are drowning in information. Do we need more knowledge? Does this world need more knowledge? More abstracted meaning? More stuff to fill our minds, to clog our souls, to muddle our mental machinery? I believe we are overflowing with information. Do we need more scientists? What of all the science we have? Are we getting any closer? What is the end, here? What have we achieved? Is our society any better off? Are we any better off? Do we have any more answers than when we started? So what is the goal? Should we make more of an effort to learn more? To stuff our brains with more symbols, more words? Will that provide the meaning, the answers? Will that suffice? I believe we have reasoned from the wrong premises, and our conclusions, natural as they may be, will fail us. I want to start over. From where?

I will secure a j-o-b soon. I type it like that because it’s often said like that, as if the word contains a frightful taboo, a terrifying reality that we should shield ourselves from. Upon securing this job, what have I to do then? Apply myself, earnestly produce value for my employer, all in the name of a paycheck, in the name of some core values and mission statement coined in a conference room by men wearing pin striped suits whose aim is to devise a moral incentive to maintain company performance. Workers are numbers, applicants, positions: faceless and nameless in the sea of business, in the market of operations. Performance is dictated by necessity, and beliefs are formed accordingly. We have bills to pay, mouths to feed, cash to accumulate, things to buy that extol our worth and achievement, and suddenly work becomes meaningful. But when all of that is provided, life suddenly becomes meaningless. The only outlet is pure self-expression, artistic screams that cry for some transcendental worth to imbue activity with meaning. But the crowds are fickle, and appealing to them for direction and value is a fruitless endeavor. No, you must dictate direction and value to the crowds.

Figures in authority ask the questions. It is not your place to question me if you are inferior, they say. Who do you think you are? I ask the questions, and you provide the answers. Let us educate our workforce in this way, silly complacent children.

The boys come and go. They are preoccupied with the thoughts of others. They seek approval of their worth, so they act the part, play the role, pander to the appraisal of others. Their lives, like most others, are empty; their own thoughts do not stay close but pass through them like a sieve. What is retained is a shallow film scraped from the sides of their hollow canisters. It is the same grime, the same soot, the same slime that festers across the airwaves, that penetrates the media madness, that trickles across the ticker, that dawdles down the twitter. The same information, reaffirming our crumby selves, our empty selves, devoid of self imposed rule, of self affirmed value. We become machines, with machine minds and machine hearts, latticed with everyone else’s ideas, with everyone else’s dreams, pipe dreams.

Dure

What’s wrong with our country? Our economy, our politics, our propaganda, our values, our media, our individuals: our culture: a fabricated fortress of rhetoric that keeps more in than it keeps out. We are at the pinnacle of our glory. It could be argued that we’ve been improving along the way, but I don’t think we’re any further along than the Romans or Greeks or Egyptians once were. We’re proud and gluttonous and utterly facile. We’ve built a society that takes care of the harder tasks of life and we’ve grown grotesquely dependent on it. We seek to escape the struggle to survive as if we were above it, as if we were gods and not crawling creatures and defacating animals. Every culture seeks to mimic the glorified, be it Christ or Buddha or Caesar or America or celebrities or politicians or businessmen. I’m not convinced we’re free or further along at all. In the struggle for survival it seems humans quite naturally seek to rob themselves of the very skills to survive until they are at the mercy of a machine of influence and power that they claim is a true reflection of their wants and wishes. Somewhere along the line this towering confluence of congenial compromise conquers its makers it a brash and booming way. And I think we’ll all be around to see it happen. I read that scientists believe that the first person that will live to 150 years of age has already been born, and within the next fifty years the first person to live to 1,000 years of age will be born. Man is obsessed with conquering. It’s the heroism that bolsters the ego out of its wormy condition. The ultimate obstruction for man to surmount is death. I do not think we’ll accomplish this feat. I believe we’re terribly blinded to the realities of our physical nature. The economy, the government, the science- it’s all supported by a delicate web of beliefs built purely on faith. And once the pacification is jarred and we’re confronted with our frailty? it will unravel and crash. Until then, the media and government and society- the culture- will continue perpetuating it’s childish myths as fact and not fiction. It serves the utility of contemporaneousness community and comfort.

I feel like history repeats itself. I watched Doctor Zhivago this evening (If you didn’t know already, the novel is amazing, and the 1965 is equally riveting and moving). While I was watching the movie a particular quote struck me quite profoundly and I kept it in the back of my mind until now:

In bourgeois terms, it was a war between the Allies and Germany. In Bolshevik terms, it was a war between the Allied and German upper classes – and which of them won was of total indifference. My task was to organize defeat, so as to hasten the onset of revolution. I enlisted under the name of Petrov. The party looked to the peasant conscript soldiers – many of whom were wearing their first real pair of boots. When the boots had worn out, they’d be ready to listen. When the time came, I was able to take three whole battalions out of the front lines with me – the best day’s work I ever did. But for now, there was nothing to be done. There were too many volunteers. Most of it was mere hysteria.

This quote made me think of our current situation. Wars all across the globe, on foreign fronts where the massacre and murder can be fed to us second hand at a safe distance. Who makes the decisions for our country? Our government, almost synonymous with the lobby powers of business and political influence, our modern bourgeois. They speak and the masses listen with hysterical enthusiasm to whatever call that strokes their insecurities and passions.

I made music tonight. It felt good. I went to Vladik’s this evening to celebrate his completion of the DAT examination. We conversed while drinking shots of Silver Tequila and smoking cigarillos. I played guitar and he produced beats and rhythm on the keyboard and computer. We got about a minute of music and lyrics down. It sounds good. I’ll post when we’re finished.

Part-E.

The tentacles of their gaze wrap around me. I look away to escape the entanglement. My thoughts are reluctant to turn with my head: they are transfixed on the motioning masses. Huddled in clusters, they divide themselves evenly throughout the room. Every so often bodies will detach and absorb into another cluster, near or far, like a firing neuron. They maintain a hum, a gentle hum, a hum that cackles and keeps the insipid look in their eyes alive. They pour more of the intoxicant down their throats, trying to consume it with coolness, not realizing it is them being consumed.

I avoid their eyes. I don’t want to stir their mind. I want to see them as they are: complacent automatons molded and shaped by self fulfilling events. A glint of metal whirrs above me and a cool malted fragrance mists the air and settles on my brow. It smacks against the wall with an empty crack. Deep cheer and laughter erupt from one of the clusters. A boy stands with his spine erect, like a conquering hero; a rapacious smile hangs on his face as glistening liquid drips off his lips and soaks into his curling facial hair. I watch as their dull eyes reflect admiration, but I cannot make out their praises. I examine the once whirring metal, now motionless on the ground: an empty beer can. A hole punctured in its lower quarter. Shot-gunning.

I force myself to look around. My eyes return. I do my best to maintain casual eye contact. Do they see the fear in me? Are they afraid it is I that sees the fear in them? I want to be alone, but I stay. I have roles to fulfill; people to please. I pull a smile across my face. I feel my lips tighten and mimic the expression of a voluptuary. I tell myself I am pleased. I continue to scan the room. Make eye contact. My lust admires the youthful figures shifting in front of me: Boys and girls, courting one another with self-conscious precision. They have practiced this routine, this dance, these gestures: The alluring batting eyes; the coy retreats that indicate bashful vulnerability. They beg to be swooned. To be noticed. They don’t want to be taken a fool. They are ready to play this game.

The boys stand tall, proud, chests out, chin erect, like adolescent steeds. Their loud gestures fill the room, sweeping motions, legs spread, trying their best to dominate as much space as possible.

Starblance

Slumbering sleep surmises stargazing semblances; slowing sauntering amidst sombre skies; starless shadows.

I was walking between classes this afternoon, and I realized a tingling in my chest. I concentrated my gaze, and the world suddenly popped out at me. Colors permeated my senses. The landscape began to glint and glisten. I was fighting off the angst. I was crawling to escape its rapacious depravity. I focused my intention on the now.

The brown conglomerate path continued appearing before me in reliable fashion. My steps were automated and involuntary. I stared at the small brown pebbles embedded in the concrete, smoothed from years of wear. An abraded cigarette butt passes in the corner of my eye. Dry crinkled leaves skip in the wind. I raise my head and take notice around me. Faces everywhere. Everyone lost in their world. Their narrow microcosm of existence. Such is me. The trees shine. Humidity mixes with the suns rays and sends a wave of heat that caresses my face. I hesitate before taking a moment to reflect. Gone. The angst has subsided. My thoughts return. Freedom clothes me. Social and political philosophy class.

I have a tendency to find myself coming back to the same maxims time and time again. Maybe not maxims in the principled sense, but general truths. Focus. Focus must be the greatest asset of mankind. The ability to concentrate the minds gaze with precision, so that no peripheral object enters into consideration. Perhaps focus is none other than the will? And those with a poor focus simply lack a strong will? Whatever the case, focus allows us to eliminate distraction by keeping the attention on the specific details at hand.

I hear the word discipline and a heavy yoke comes to mind. Those who exhibit discipline, do so unknowingly until we extol their virtue. For those with focus, with a definable aim in mind, discipline is no burden. To them, there is no burden. They simply exist moment to moment with the single function of being. Burdens are distractions. Where there is no distraction, no competing force vying for your attention, there is only living. Who you decide to be takes care of all you need to do. When you fail to decide to be, you are left managing the various demands telling you what to do.

If discipline was a burden to endure, few would bother taking it up till the end.

When you fix your sight on an object, the world at large melts away, and with it, all the clouded obstacles that haze ease and clarity. What becomes paramount is the figure of your intense transfixion. Nothing else matters but what perception beholds. Problems evaporate, dilemmas melt away, and difficulty yields the aggregate joys of life. No more do you shy from being. Being triumphantly trades the multifarious pains of life in exchange for the duty to a singular calling that gives clear purpose and direction. The reward is two fold as progress yields growth as well as fruit. Character as well as achievement. Doubt and hesitation cease to ebb and flow with the tides of change. Indecision and idleness choke and die. Action swells and escapes through every corpuscle in your body.

Anyway…I’m going to bed soon. It’s late. Big MacroTheory exam tomorrow. Work in the early morn. One more chapter to study before I’m confident I’ll ace it.

I went to bed late last night. I was up reading over old journals, assessing my progress. Morning found its way to me too soon this day. As did night.

Today was good.

Dolor.

I am not running any longer. I am not fooling myself. The world looks on, the circus continues. I want real. I want a real me. Why must I be something greater than the clod of earth that I am? Somewhere I lost sense of the point. The higher calling that was my own soon became an lone empty echo. I am alone. My room seems to fall away from me. Everything is distant. I seize consciousness and my senses reach out. The floor vent releases a streaming chill that catches my pant leg; the skin tightens and my follicles erect. Air palpitates through my nostrils in soft attenuated breathes. I slouch. My eyes fixate ahead. A dyspeptic yellow emits from my lamp and sinks into the noxious green walls. I am lost in this yellow sea.

Fuck it all. I do not want to look inward any longer. Narcissism has left me nauseas.

There is no hope in ignorance. The deficiencies and flaws gather and glare with evil eyes. There is no escape from who and what I am.

I’m finding it difficult to read for class. I’ve spent far more time reading for leisure. It leaves me feeling open; accomplished. Confession number one: Class is a bore. School is boring. It is mind-numbing. Is it me? I fear it is. But I’m more than alright with that. My mind was not meant to be domesticated. It comes and goes and there is no wall or discipline that will harbor my curiosities. Such things are ineffable.

I cannot placate my anxieties with deception. My hate and ill intentions shape my nature. I am all too human. I need to embrace the quaking anger, speak my mind without remorse. Just as today will take care of itself, so will tomorrow. No need to disown whats mine. There is no illegitimate me.

Have you ever experienced a sudden ‘coming-to’, where an utter repulsion sweeps over your body? An unfamiliarity stings the air and you become uncomfortable with your place and time. The walls, the paint, the clothes, the people. All strange and repulsing. Anxious and aware, you are lost in the scenery. You’ve created this world, and yet you are disgusted with the way it has unfolded. A sickness sweeps over you. The desire to refuse it all begins to glow. Nausea turns to anger, to bitterness, to helplessness.

exploding senses

Fuck my mind. Yes fuck it. I hate analyzing. i hate thinking. I hate guarding. I hate being cautious. I want to live wildly. Yes, wildly. I hate this business of looking right, talking correctly, being something. This image that I try to fill. This life I try to mold. It is driving me crazy. I want to break all molds, all conceptions of normal. I do not want to be regular. And how typical does this sound?
Continue reading “exploding senses”

where is

Where is my inspiration. Where is my focus. my drive. my desire. where is the novelty in it all. Where is my reason? I want a reason.

My concentration is out of control at the moment. I feel dull and lethargic. I want to expand my mind. I’m stale and I don’t like it. I need stimulation. I need to read more. I feel that school is slowly sapping the satisfaction I got from learning. When it’s a chore there is no novelty. Its nothing new- everyday is the same.

I have this routine going on right now. Its making me nauseas. The same routine.

What is it that drives people crazy? I need to think life into myself. I need to invigorate. i need to find new. Fresh. novel. I am getting tired of solitude.