End Of This World

Well something had to change today.  I think I'm done here.

This blog is proof of the Allegory of the Cave.  Here I am, talking to shadows, waiting for them to respond.  Not with words, for shadows cannot speak, but with movements and gestures.  Every now and then words bounce off the walls these shadows are cast upon, and it sounds like a new truth, new advice to follow.  But we are all just shadows, us viewers of this blogspace.  The real people are out there, outside the cave.  If you asked me anytime before today I would have said that these are the real people, that this is the real me.  These words sent and received are reality, not what everyone else sees.  Even when I step outside the cave, while my eyes work just fine, I don't recognize you or I as human.  No, I can't see that you and I are just human.  We laugh, we try, we fail, we succeed, we deceive, we despair, we hunger, we sloth.  All the humans are outside doing things, but I'm in this cave talking to shadows.

Six years ago, I had my second surgery and I told myself that one day a day of great change would come about, and I would no longer need to write my notes from the underground.  I really didn't think it would take six years.  Somewhere in that time my ladder became my tomb and I was encapsulated by my notes, suffocated by these words.  But a few moments, a few people, a few desires, kisses and yes even a few words have set me free and given me the will to climb free.  So now I will.

This blog retires today.  It will merge into my Google+ account and my job is to make sure that it represents the man on the outside of the cave.  The introspection is superfluous now, we've reached atomic levels.  Let the physicists ponder our strings, my eyes are set towards the celestial fabric that binds us all.  I will share only this journey.  Let my quiet cave thoughts remain only in those caves where I once dwell; where no other man dear journey.

The world did end today, my world.  It was already ending but today I have to be at peace with it.  Next year I turn 30.  Next year I publish my first work for sale, next year (hopefully) I'm back in school, next year I move out, next year I complete my true sales training, next year I actually put myself first.  It's a new era for me; I won't be who I am. It's time to put my adolescence behind me.  There's no rum left to drink.

Thanks Yvonne for introducing me to this world.  Thanks to the yous who know who you are, for visiting me in the dark places where only the truly loving and caring would venture.  

Also thanks to all the randoms worldwide who have visited this page over time.

Furthermore dem neva ask yet.

How are you feeling? Asked dishonestly more often than from genuine desire.

What has changed? What hasn't? Is it safe for me? Why not?  Do you have an answer for me? When will you? How dare you?  Why did you?  Those are the real questions.

You should. You shouldn't. You don't really. Get over it. Stop thinking. Do more. Care less. Want more. Stop asking: Answers waiting for me.

I used to close my eyes and imagine someone who had questions for me, not about me. I'm a cat who couldn't care much for curiosity.  You'll know enough about me when I'm famous anyhow.

I'm here worked up about how I have affected them. Are they as worried about how they've affected me? Am I? Thick skin gets me through these winters but man I want to enjoy next summer.

Who cares enough to ask me something for my benefit?

"None ah dem nah see we pain, furthermore dem neva ask yet. Silence ah di baddest weapon so you know wha mi do, mi talk less."

Surrealist

Realists, cowards and theives yee lot.

Too afraid to dream of the things that aren't so you bore me with details about what is. Describing to me what you know about this red aluminum can on the table between us. Telling me what this can does to the environment, to our bodies, to our economy and others. So many words about nothing at all, trying to prove to yourself that you are awake by refusing to dream.  You're just so afraid of being wrong even once, you don't see the value of 100 hunches.

Here's a fable, once upon a time a man dreamed that there was more to this than just that. He thought, beyond our eyes is a world that connects us all in a way we just can't yet see. You realists laughed and fed yourselves with cold words.  Now you warm your food with his rays of light. He found a world past our eyes and you still can't see it. You have no time for new dreams so you microwave your stale food and stale ideas and get on your way. Out the door like a thief and you have indeed stolen. Because what you forget is all of your realism is nothing more than the theft of the dreams of wiser men.

I hereby withdraw my membership to realism - I am henceforth a surrealist.

Writer's unblock

"You're still provin' m'boy. Don't see it yet? You tryna tell the wise they aint. You tryna tell the ignant they is!  Who gon' wanna read that?"

Then it hit me, it finally pierced through. Found out the hard way why I couldn't think of more words worth writing. See I didn't have writer's block, I had sunblock on them words. Couldn't let the light touch them so all the words were dull and pasty.

See good writing is about keepin' things in transit. A good book always moves you one way or another, from there to here or here to there. You either didn't know and now you do, wasn't sure and now you are, or you were dead set in belief and now you have newborn questions, was bored to bits but now you're up all night with wonder.  A good book keeps the people in transit, but what I was saying was like a depot; words sold for free by the side of the road. Best damn words this side of the river, but they're so heavy you can't lug'em with you on your travels. Yea those words were anchored, to truth at least, but still killing the transit. 

Time now for dancing words, words that bust a move.

On the outside

Looking in. Wondering what's going on. What are they all saying without me there. Woulsn't matter; if I came back into their lives the conversation would stop. Party done, captain serious has arrived. Why is he always so serious anyway? He's funny but no fun. He's smart, but I don't need to be corrected. What use is he?

Out here my fist is buried in pudding. I've pulled out of my past lives in every form and proven the universal truth; I've achieved nothing. I am where I was. In debt, alone, confused, injured, hobbling, overweight, tired and deflated.  When you're still deflated after all this huffing and puffing you have to wonder if there is a hole in me. Where are my gaps, from which end of me does my hapiness escape?  My head has the most holes, that has to be the source of the problem. Pretty flowers taken in by the nose; sad resentment out through the mouth. And all the while gestures of love and affection passing from ear to ear. My head needs fixing, some patching up.

Attack the head and the body will fall they say. I hope so.

Fat and losing weight

My new boss gave us a hard rundown today before sending out a nasty email about our call metrics being too low. I couldn't have been happier to be the new kid. As he used extremely professional corporate management tactics to motivate us to do better he gave us advice which I decided to use and misuse.

He's right, exteremely right about the fact that things could be worse then cold calling and there are worse jobs out there from a cost benefit perspective than ours. Coming from one myself I fully understood him. The key in life to being successful isn't understanding good advice, but living good advice. Wisdom and knowledge are just ways of knowing good advice from bad. So I've decided to use it:  Every half day before lunch and before I leave for the day I will take a moment to myself to remind myself something along the lines of, "This morning, I didn't have to clean, install or fix a toilet, because that is not my job, and.for this.I am thankful."  I will do this exactly 1000 times, because I believe there are 1000 jobs worse than mine. 500 workdays later I will demand and deserve a raise or promotion. 

Nobody else in the office will do this. Nobody else I know will do this. We should, but we never do. I started to realize the truth. Most of us are not truly working. We are cashing out on our lotteries. We sell things we don't spend the time to truly understand, we meet deadlines just on time or late. We love leaving the office early for a pint and telling our friends how France has it better with shorter work weeks. I looked at my training material, which up until now has been a pain to read because I too wish to cash in on the lottery. I know work - I have cleaned shit, serviced washrooms, unloaded trucks, worked the night shift, carried 2 jobs, pulled all-nighters, stood serving customers until my foot swelled, unpacked deep freezers, built inventory departments, fought with my manager, fought with my employees, made less money per hour than the price of transportation, quit and been laid off, and that's just a brief history. I know work, very well, but I am guilty of not working. Because I too want to do the least possible for the maximum amount of money. That is not work, that is a lottery. Work is when you build a nest, and the larger a nest you build, the more confortable it will be for your love to lay eggs. Work is when you circle and prospect for hours, waiting, anticipating, for that moment when you pounce! With all of your might and ability you cease the moment and capture your prey. Work is when you want to do more, not less. Work is when you make your own mark on the world as a result of your abundance of action. Work is when you sweat because your body needs to cool down because your heart is beating. Work is when you will your heart to beat faster, everything else is rest.  When you work, you don't despair about your job versus someone else's job, because when you work you finalky realize who else is working and who is not. When you work you appreciate everyone else who is working and you approach the only distinction in the character of man. When this happens, you learn to love all the work that is being done for you, everywhere.

Up until now I've done these things in doses, but I haven't woken up wanting to do this any more than I have today. It doesn't just apply to my j-o-b, it applies to everything. I already described how I will use my boss' advice, but importantly is how I plan to misuse it. I stayed late in the office today because I realized that my whole life I have been gobbling down on information and chewing on inlt the way I chew on entertainment. I let it come to me and whatever lands in my mouth and tastes like important logic I swallow it. Everything else; crumbs on my face. But I haven't worked for knowledge for so long. It's been so long since I set out with an agenda to find out those things I've been curious about and pained myself to understand them so deeply that they become a working part of me. So I can use them, like energy, and instead of sitting here fat with knowledge, I can live a robust life of action. I put out an action plan of everything I need to know and complete to near perfection for 2013. For the next year I have very little time for entertainment - my ankles are killing me, I can't afford to put on any more weight.

Second Course

The tastiest appetizer, wants wrapped in shoulds. I've feasted. I don't even know what they taste like separately. I haven't wanted anything without thinking that it should be what I want.

But then, I chew on either my desire or beliefs so much that I'm only left with a feeling of obligation or purposeless desire. I hate the taste of wanting something that doesn't seem right or having something that doesn't feel right.

A matter of taste is all this is, look at the others. They never think twice, never. Why must I? Oh right, I think more deeply, I question more.  When they like me they note that I'm so deep, I have so many answers. They love the result and hate the process.

With whom shall I proceed to the entré?

Dear Diary: Letting Go

Today I went to the plantation
To read
Pslams and Proverbs
For the last day approaches

I sat there with my glass of wine
Soaking it in
Honouring today
For tomorrow cannot be a continuation

Hours later I walked over to the book store
As always
Looking to see what I would find
Nothing this time, what despair

Philosophy, Poetry, Science
All now in the back corner
Replaced by self-help and manga
The world is moving away from here

I could give up, I could give in
But this was affirmation
I used to walk its aisles to build myself
From now on I live only to destroy it

The world is moving as you wish
Only when you stand still do you forget
Still waters are best worshipped
By the eyes of a labourer

It is time now
Not to go, but to change
If you don't understand why
You don't understand me

This too will change
My words' humble abode
They too now must toil
Digging beneath man's surface

No more resting here
Drinking jamaican rum
Trying to grow without scrutiny
And thus failing to grow

This blog is not a blog
Never was it
Nor shall it continue to pretend
It is a mere diary

Visit it from time to time
If you wish for a lens
To the ongoing subtext
Of actions you may have missed

Today I'm letting go
Of a lot of pain
And a lot of love
Given to me and by me

The hardest part of letting go
Is the letting
Most of it is already gone
So I close my eyes

To the man who wished to convince
Conjure, persuade and prove
Here in this abode
I will now only describe

So you have no questions to ask
If you see me
Here will be the things you don't know
Out there are the things I don't know

Thanks for reading
What once was a blog
Hope you enjoy
My subtle life's diary.

Smoked Meat (unfinished draft)

It came to me one afternoon at the kitchen table with my parents.
-Smoked meat
-The harvest
-Savouring food as one savours the spring
-Why I dont appreciate my food. I insulate myself from the toil it take to prepare it. Afterall that is wyy I bought it fast. 
So why buy food you like to not even savour it to its fullest?
I shave it down my mouth, so I can only taste its sweetness, not its richness. That I might come to realize how good it tastes without reflecting  on why.  Just good and more good, while it's still hot, before it melts, before it gets hard..

fables 1 (unfinished draft)

Student to Sensai
"Where can I find?
Sensai finds it
Something more outlandish
Something outlandish and magical
Student asks sensai, "Sensai where do you find such things?
It's about time one of you asked.  For countless days you ask me to bring you wonders, wonders of the mind and of the heart.  Yet it takes you this long to wonder from where your mind and hearts desires reside?  Each day you see me dart off in the sake diection, surely to return with that for which you have beckoned, and yet who among you would follow my path?  You would rather satisfy your own life's quest at my pace than each of yours?"
He paused his rhetoric only to continue more mildly "It is not your fault, it has become your nature.  From youth we elders have trained you to drink only what we have poured.  We teach you to drink from the cup instead of directly from the well.  We teach you to drink when we feel it is time but not to drink when you thirst.  You know not how to thirst for water, if you knew how to thirst for water you would know what it is to thirst for life.  When life trickles through your fingers because you do not have any means to grasp it forever, so you drink it with passion, lapping up every drop.  When you have sucked each finger dry you spot some on the ground and you still thirst for life, only then will you bend your knees in true faith, giving yourself to the land with your very lips.  Only then will you pray for rain clouds instead of complaining that too much rain has come down against you.  These lessons you cannot learn from a cup.

My baby (unfinished draft)

easy easy
im here
have i not fed you,
have i fed you too much
do you want to play
do you miss your dada
hope you do
are you frightened
or do you need to sleep

Happy in twos

Paint happy with two colours
Blue and green

Hear happy with two notes
C and G

Pick happy with two directions
Up and left

Choose happy with two people
Me and God

Find happy with two traits
Imperfection and humour

Deliver happy with two gifts
Hands and mouth

..

Spot happy in two animals
Dolphin and snake

See happy in two places
Beach and pitch

Smell happy in two scents
Bread and hair

Touch happy in two textures
Water and cashmere

Sing happy in two languages
Spanish and Mandarin

Describe happy in two words
Today and tomorrow

Of all time...

Tomorrow I won't be here

Don't look for me

I am deathly afraid 

Of being stuck

In the past

The past is all I know

I have a great memory

And greater memories

Of when everything was vibrant

And full of hope

The future

It used to be a cherished prize

What more wonders might unfold

With unexpected happiness

And sadness filled with lessons

Tomorrow I won't be here

Don't look for me

I will panic and look for lovers

And more lovers

Instead of love

Past lovers are all I know

I have a poor memory

And so, poor memories

Of how they hurt me

And how I hurt them

The future looks grim

It has turned into an obligation

What time is left for wonders

When happiness eludes

And sadness comes with no lesson

...

Today I am here

You keep looking for me

But I am not good for you

I took our happiness

And turned it to sadness

You think these words help me

But they destroy me

Sudden realizations

That what I want

Is less than what you want

The present is filled with guilt

Would you have been happier

If I never gave it a try

If we never met at all

Would you know that you are worthy

Today I am here

You keep looking for me

Because yours is a determined love

You wish only for our combined happiness

But defiantly reject our individual sadness

You think I speak from above

But below is where I dwell

I keep trying something new

Because the way I used to love

Has failed me numerous times

The present is filled with anguish

Would I have been happier

Alone this entire year

Instead of trying each time

To find some love

...

Yesterday I was here

Looking for a way out

Because I hate hurting you

You worked so hard to make me happy 

I think because you knew I was sad

My heart can be manipulated

I want to believe that someone wants me

I felt overcome with obligation

Upholding your love so strong

With my weakened conviction

My past has taught me

That love is permanent

But relationships are temporary

And not in my control

Even when I'm in control

Yesterday I was here

Looking for a way in

Because I hate seeing you hurt

I tried so hard to make you smile in the face of waves

Not knowing you would have to face mine

My heart hates being manipulated

I want to believe that it was me 

That you love, and not your life

That needs changing, because I can't

Hold your hand and teach you to swim

Our past has taught me

That love is clear

But desire is misleading

You can be running away

Even when you try to run towards

...  ...

Forever I am grateful for the love we shared  

It was love that we shared, in the face of desires  

I'm sorry that this ended before you could smile at its worth  

I'm sorry this ended before I could embrace its worth

Please stay open, and share with the world what you have inside

Six

The walls were grey. The street was grey. The sky was grey. Our suits were grey. Our shirts were white and pressed which only emphasized the grey. Grey is the only colour that can make white sad. Grey makes you scream for colour, real colour, not just brightness. We were all at lunch, standing. There is no tike during the day for savouring, and who would want to savour this?   I realized right there that I had made the wrong choice. My life was meaningless. I was in a tunnel, where the only purpose was to get from point A to point be.  That's why there was no colour, and no time to stop.  I had entered the cycle that never stops. It was too late to find passion life love art and ecstacy. I was a broker. Life is short, too short for second chances. I won't make it to dinner, I'll die before night falls. Unless I run, now!  Unless I run so fast and so far that I never see the core ever again.

I woke up, sweating a heavy but cool unscented sweat that only a child of age six could mustre. That's when I decided to cheat death. That's when I decided to search for more.

I'm sorry six year old me.

Space and Time

Space and time are linked as a fabric.  There is no space wothout time; there is no time without space - even as a gift.  There is no giving space without giving it some time; there is no giving time without giving space.

I need to give both. I thought it was me who needed this gift, so I asked others for it. It's a gift I needed to give myself.  Sorting through emails I realize that I have been in perpetual romantic sadness for 6 years now.  I have not grown. I did then what I do now. I send corrective emails, though not as long. I get angry at anything that makes me feel like a commodity for her happiness, though not as angry.  I get lonely and dependent on the next thing, without knowing anymore what that is.

I want none of you, I want all of you.  I want you all to pamper me, even though I am not a victim.  I want you all to leave me alone, even though you're the only people who tell me you love me.  If I die tomorrow, or anytime really so long as I don't get alzheimers, I'll look back on this time and remember that I pushed away everyone who told me they loved me.  Today I can justify: Not right timing, not enough love, too much, doesn't feel right, I'm smothering her, she's manipulating me, and so on.  But sometime tomorrow when this has finally become a memory and not my reality, there will be no refuge.  I will have lost touch with those who love me. I asked them to look at me through the glass. The ones who I loved first I want a glass between us so they can one day see me happy and know that it wasn't because of them.  The ones who loved me first I want a glass between us so I don't hurt them with my experiments.

The truth is I'm still experimenting, still not sure if I really know what love is. I used to think of love as something that you just want to feel.  Now love seems.like something I should feel. I should feel it when I spend years chasing her, I should feel it when she tells me she feels it, I should feel it when we're together, I should stop feeling it when we're not. Or maybe I should keep feeling it if it really is love 'cause if I don't then it mever really was.  So love can change her appearance, hop in and out of my reality, maybe even leave me for years. I shouldn't force love, it should just happen, they say when I'm trying for it.  Love doesn't just happen, you've got to fight for it, they say when I let it pass.  I'm never right about love.

I am not a victim of love, none of us are. Love isn't punishment even when it feels like it.  I'm not a true non-believer of love, I want with my every fibre to wake up one day and without even having to roll over, to say I'm in love.  That has not been the case, for years.  I've woken up wondering, Is this love?  I've woken up and rolled over to ask, Am I in love or is this just an illusion?  I've woken up wondering, will this feel like love? Will she love me more or less? Will I, so that this feels even? Is love even? Or is there a reason why it always feels odd?

I have all these questions for love and yet I have no questions for unicorns. They might both be the same fable: the mystical entity that women yearn for from the earliest age that also congures good from the hearts of man when he is brave enough to ride. But maybe women grow up to realize it's not really true, and that love is just a device that can be used to conjure favours, guilt, obligation and security. What else is love good for, among you women?  When else do you offer up your precious four letters but to secure these promises? Maybe men grow up to find out that love is a unicorn without a saddle, a painful experience to ride, and grabbing it by the horn is a mistake because once you do it disappears. But I've forgotten, all men are dogs and women have the short end of the stick when it comes to wielding love. I forget that I have hurt every woman who has loved me, and I do not feel pain. I forget that no woman has ever been attracted to my vulnerability or feared my strength. I forget that love is a choice a woman allows herself to make and a promise a man should uphold.  I forget what every woman in the last 6 years has pointed out to me, I don't know what real love is.

They're right. Hands to the sky I have no clue. For the ladt 6 years I've been searching for somehing I don't even recognize. In fact I've done it again.  I do it all the time. Somebody loves me and I love that somebody but I can't make it work. I can't let it work. I realize now that I don't want it to work.  I never wanted love to work.

Each time when things felt complicated I ended it. There is no fight for love because I don't believe in it enough to shed blood. Nobody can promise me that love is a place where I can settle.

Love has not felt like a destination, it has felt like a voyage, one that I'm still on.  Every now and then I find a port, and I ask out loud if this is where love is.  They tell me yes, and so I stay a bit, until either they tell me know.or I find out for myself.  I've been stopping at so many ports that I don't even know where I'm sailing to anymore. 

Love is not a voyage, this isn't an exercise in poetry. It is a destination. You arrive there and everything is perfect. You feel perfect when you are there because that place is perfect for you. There are no winds, you can let down the masts. There are no waves, you need not anchor. Every direction is the right one, you need not steer.  I have not arrived there, I have just wanted to.

Hearts are broken, either theirs or mine. I never leave without a fight though, so I will break their hearts regardless.  There isn't a woman alive who has said 'I love you' to me who doesn't now feel that her life is better without me.  And when they allow themselves to want more from me, to remember those smiles we shared, I remind them of our frowns.

I piece them all together because they are all the same. They all dared to love a man who is more obsessed with love than them. I don't believe in them any more than I believe in love. I don't believe them because what they want is what they want.  They wanted it before they met me. They wanted it when they met me. They say it's me that they want, and that's when I stop believing. They've never met anyone like me, they don't know what they're talking about, and so on.  How could they love me when I'm not even done getting better.  They want my jokes, my attention, my kindness, my caring - but they don't believe in this quest that I'm on.  They have no doubt that I'll get there, they doubt even less than I do in my success, but it is not where they want to go.  They don't want to follow me there to those dark corners, they just want me to take them somewhere, away from here.  Thanks for the lift, they shout back.  So I am weary, weary when they are aboard my ship.  For how long will you stay? Where are you steering? This is not where we ought to go.   Shipwreck.

This is all very convoluted, as it should be trying to explain 5 failed relationships with 1 analogy.  This will only incite anger and resentment, because nobody wants to be made into an anecdote, no less a grouped one.  But resentment is like debt; eventuslly you incur so much of it that you don't even know the difference anymore.   I know for damn sure I can't make anyone else happy, neither when I try or give up. I'm not a victim of love or women, I'm the bad guy, remember?  I'm the guy who has only questions and no answers about love, about anything.  I don't know what love is, all I know is I'm going to make a bunch of attempts at answering what it is before I look for it again.  I don't know if the answer is in my head, but it's a safer place to ask.

Life of Piscine

I'm stranded at sea and none of you can come to my rescue. You can't rescue me because you already tried.  You saw me there, broken, not knowing what the problem was, but maybe you were the solution.  I thought you were. I didn't realize that being stranded was the solution. This is for each of you. This is for every I love you that I grabbed hold of only to pull you down with my panic. When you're drowning the key thing is to remain calm so that you can actually be saved, but I pull and push with vigour and fury.

So I should drown. I should stay out here in this sea to find the calm deep blue I keep idolizing. I am on my voyage after all, as I keep telling myself. Well as a voyage on, know this, know what it is I'm hoping to find.  Nothing. I hope to find nothing. God willing I hope to finally find nothing.  Room, space, an empty cup. They all mean the same thing. I need to create.  I am pregnant with something different than love, so my creation will not be what is wanted. But I gotta get this shit out of me and into the streets.

Fables (excerpt)

...

"Sensai, what are emotions?"  asked the pupil.

Without a moment's pause Sensai replied, "Go ask the dog!"

The pupil was an earnest learner and asked his master, "How should I ask the dog about emotion?"

Sensai replied, "Exactly as you would ask me."

Student went back to his study, unconvinced but willing.

Shortly after he made his way to the yard.  There, the dog was chewing on an extremely large bone.

Student walked behind the dog, standing over him from behind watching him gnaw away.  He asked, "Dog, what do you know of emotions?"

The dog did not respond, not even a flinch.

Student repeated less patiently, "Dog, tell me what are your fine thoughts on emotions?"

Dog looked back at him and growled and then continued gnawing.

Student sunk in his stance, defeated, and returned to his master.

"Sensai, I asked the dog about emotions and he had nothing to to tell me," he exclaimed.

"Has the dog died?" Sensai asked.

"No, he was a live and eating his bone." Student replied.

"Then surely there was a response," Sensai asserted, resuming his writing.

"No, he simply growled," Student replied.

"Then you didn't ask him properly," Sensai confirmed, not even lifting his head this time.

"I did, I asked him plainly with simply words, honestly wanting to know." said Student.

Sensai slammed his pen against his pad.  "No you did not!  I know my dog so I know how you asked him.  My dog eats his bone in the back of the yard.  You approached my dog from the rear, not asking for his attention but demanding it.  Then you asked him a question, no doubt while he was chewing, expecting him to speak to you while chewing.  When have you seen me show such little etiquette?  Then you likely repeated your question plainly, still as he ate, assuming from his silence that he was lacking in knowledge of such things.  Is this how you feel about me?  When you ask me questions, are you merely testing me? Do you feel I am unworthy of your questions?"

Student sunk his head, not knowing now what to say.

Sensai picked up his pen again.  Began to write.  After a few sentences he said softly, "Go now, and ask my dog your questions as you would ask me. Tonight you will clean the bathrooms."

Student agreed and thanked his master for a second chance.

Student approached the yard again later once he knew the dog had finished eating.

Dog was resting now beneath a tree.  Student walked towards him politely and sat down before him, waiting.   Dog then rose to his feet when he was satisfied. 

Student asked him humbly, "Dog, what are emotions?"

Dog walked up to student and said, "I do things, you see me and say happy words to me, I do those things again.  I do other things, you see me and say angry words to me, I don't do those things anymore."

Student thought about what Dog said and replied, "So you are saying that emotions are a tool that you use to get what you want from me?"

Dog laughed. "You are confused, Student.  You confuse your emotions for mine.  The things I do are what dogs do, that is my dog nature.  The things you say are what you say, that is your human nature.  If you were not here, I would still have my dog nature.  If I were not here, you would still have your human nature."

Dog paused for student to understand and then said, "Whether I am here or not, your words are either pregnant with joy or sorrow.  Emotions are the chosen delivery of a nature already conceived - a nature conceived by either joyous or sorrowful living."

Student thought more about what Dog had said and asked, "But don't you have emotions as well?  Aren't you affected by my words of joy and sorrow?"

Dog smiled, knowing Student had at least understood the basics.  He said plainly, "It is my choice to either feel happy or angry about your human nature, just as it is your choice to either feel happy or angry about my dog nature."

Student understood the message and stood up to leave.  He bowed towards Dog, and dog sat down, wagging his tail still with a smile. 

Student then said, "Dog, I am sorry that I disrupted you while eating earlier."

Dog licked himself and continued sitting, staring blankly.

Student understood and smiled.

A to Z from J

A. A Ruby

In the earliest dawn two lovers awoke
And sipping some water she said,
"Who do you love more,
Me or yourself?"
She wantes the truth.

So he replied, I can't love myself,
I don't exist anymore.
I'm like a ruby held up to the sun
Melting into one redness.
Can you tell the gem from the world
When a ruby gives itself to sunlight?"

That's how holy ones can truthfully say
I am God.
So be a ruby at dawn
And hold to your practice
Keep up the work, digging your well
Until you strike water.
Hang a ruby in your ear

And it will be the sun.
Keep knocking at door
And joy will look out the window
To let you in.

Z. Unloved

Have you seen the kind
Who settle for less?
Who creep into corners
Just big enough for one?
They are unopened letters
Whose message is this:
Live! Live! Live!

J. Night sounds

Through the night comes a frail wavering song.
The moment I can't hear it
I will be gone.

-All by Rumi

Remember for 1 minute

We do enjoy the civil liberties of freedom. We enjoy so much that the forefathers fought for. It is.very Canadian - very kind, very honourable, very human - to remember.  It is also true however that what we enjoy today is also the cessation of the mistakes of the past.  We are so protected from what we used to have to do.

We like to think that gone are the days where we would be drafted, forcd to kill pther human beings to protect our lands. But this is not true. Our ability to sit and not fight is not a function of our humane awareness but rather a function of supply and demand.  There is simply not enough supply if military wars to warrant mandatory demand for soliders. 

But the world is still a battlefield, a battlefield of the soul and mind, and we should remember today that we have all been drafted to protect our race, our species, from the threats againat our good nature.  Which of us will fight this war?

Übermensch returns

I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?
-Nietzsche

I have slept. Slept tirelessly so as to attack darkness. Held her down and demanded she repay me. My dreams, my dreams, she took them!  Stole them from my wakeulness and hid them beneath my slumber.  I ripped them from her hands.

I have fallen. Fallen into the daze of days. What illusion! This idea that time had stopped and started again, only to change costumes from friend to foe. I notioned tomorrow was a surely my hero, yesterday a villain, and today a mere pedestrian.

I am outraged. I did this to myself. Working for less and asking for more, all the livelong day. I need a complete reversal; I ask only that you sustain me Lord.

I have reached another plateau. Can't live with so little art and I don't know how to get better at it.Everything is laying down flat and smooth. When the bumps settle it's time to pick up speed for take off.

I will use every instrument. Each day will be notes of my grand concerto. My pen and guitar, actions and erhu, feelings and bamboo flute, woodwinds and string my friend I am not so brass.

I will not feast; this fire was lit for more than dead meat.  I've had my fill and anyway while each of you sleep someone has got to get back to translating those stars. How else will we get off this rock?

Bed 1

Outside is so scary, my bed is the spot.
Out there, who knows?
You never know. Bugs, or cold or zooming cars.

And the people! It's always the same thing.
Packing themselves into loud places, where it's okay to not make themselves heard.
Children. I would rather my books.
Every page turn is a triumphant roar.

And my games, and my comfort. 
No need for shoes or gloves.
Not here. I would be naked but I would feel awkward.
If those people came in here, or watched from out there.

This is the life right here.
I got everything I need, I think.
But I think I'm hungry.
I'm not sure for what.

Where are my keys?

Purge the purg

Purgatory.
Purgatory isn't dark.
Purgatory is when the light of your past shines on the light of your future.
Purgatory is flood lighting; blinding, disabling.

Close your eyes; it pierces through your lids.
Dim your past light; future light burns hotter.
Fear doesn't help; darkness is light's favourite canvas.

Purge.
Purge yesterday for today.
Purge today for tomorrow.
Purge light like you would purge darkness.

Cinquain - "Pooh"

Pooh
Oh you
Haunting my dreams
Sent by my dream
Pooh

Happiest Hallowe'en - No Chocolate

Gramma, today was the best day.
It's your birthday today and yet you're the one who was full of gifts.
I woke up this morning not sure, will it be a success will it not?
I have to confess a secret.  I forgot it was your birthday.

I remembered Halloween was your birthday, I'll never forget.
I forgot today was Hallowe'en.
It was just a due date.  I was afraid I was going to prove to be a failure.
I woke up and I powered through it.  You saw me, I bet.

I took a break to go with dad.
At your grave site I told you a bit about how my year had gone and what I was working on.
I came home and you blessed me
Just like you always would when you were alive.

I finished my book.  It's written and submitted for a contest.  My first one.
I finished my collection of poetry.  It's written and submitted for a contest. My first one.
They finally called me.  They offered me a job.  I'll be working again soon.
I won't say fingers crossed, I know you blessed me.

You've done so much for me, Gramma.
You gave me my name.
Now I will make something of it.
Promise

Maktub

I will finish. You pushed me forward and held me back. But it is due. I am due. Lord as my witness. He granted me the time. I will use it better each day. Today I will prove this. It is written.

H.O.L.

The monks all agree.
Row, row your boat

Life is illusion.
Wake up

I fought back.
Still I fight

Verily, verily.
Life is not a dream

Can't smell in a dream.
This stinks

So I must be up.
You need not

Slumber still sweetie.
It's so cozy

Not like this floor.
Cold and hard

Good for the back.
Better posture tomorrow

Go for a walk.
Head to the sky

Angels hark.
How could you slumber

And this is why.
Hymns over lullabyes

And this is why.
Hymns over lullabyes

Something else

There is no remedy
Are no drugs
Is no exercise
Nor stretches
Nor drinks
Nor music
Not a prayer
Not a lover's embrace
No tears
No laughs
Meditations or lullabyes
For this

This is not insomnia. This is something else at work. Something within, something without.

Subject Matter

"I paint myself because I am often alone and I am the subject I know best."
-Frida Kahlo

I saw this quote on the walls of the Frida exhibit at the AGO.  I went there last week with my ex girlfriend.  It's doubly weird to call her my ex.  Out of 21 years of knowing each other there have been less than as many days where I would have been able to say that we were an item.  And for however many days I would feel that she was mine, she would likely divide by as many days in her figure.  I imagine - as I have to imagine - that she would not argue - at least out of sympathy - that there was at least one day that she felt as she was mine.   So you see, this paragraph, as with many of my paragraphs, was a waste.

I don't have a life, I just have the ability to describe one.  I waste so many words, countless letters, on a fiction that only I believe.  21 years out of perhaps only 21 hours, I have a knack for transforming the mundane into the epic. With a fearful heart, I imagine many life witnesses at my graveside whispering to each other about my life story "it wasn't quite so."  Fiction, says they who know me best.  Fact, says those who simply love my stories.

I've been trying to put my finger on why it is I have felt like I'm in a metaphorical bubble.  The short answer is, because I'm in one.  So I can and have put volumes of words about how I feel, to the people for whom I have felt them, describing most often the life that I don't have with them.  What sorrow, my pen has lived more than my fingers, and my fingers moreso than my body, and so on. 

My life to date has been carried out in a handful of days, so many other days have just been dots in between.  Dots I pencil in to make it seem as though I've made a line, as though I'm on a course somewhere.  But where?  Where will I go?  Where did I really come from?  I keep asking myself these meaningless questions because I am obsessed with myself. Yes, obsessed.  Any moment that I haven't spent thinking about certain someones, I have spent worrying about myself, forgetting all the while that living helpfully is vastly different than living selflessly.  Living without self; neither for self, about self, towards self, or with self in mind.  There are true rewards in selflessness I am yet to reap. 

Basically, I realize tonight that I've spent the large part of the last decade trying to capture facts out of a fiction, when in fact what I should be doing is making a fiction out of the facts.  I deal in the world of complexity, and while it is still my job to show you that things aren't as they seem, it is no longer my job to suggest that I am more than you give me credit for.  I am not.  I am as you would have me be.  But that is just my self, not my whole world, and there is more to my world than my self.

To start, I need new subject matter.  I don't just need new subject matter to write about - in other words to possess as my own - I need new subject matter.  There needs to be more in all of this than me.  There needs to be more in each day's experience than what it means for me.  I live to read words that describe the world as it is, rather than the world as certain people see it. Today, and moving forward, I want to be more in touch with the world outside my bubble.  And it starts by describing less of what I want - for that is just a projection of the self - and more of what is out there.  It's time to find out all the things I haven't yet learned and see what those things teach about life.  And then, as a novelist I will synthesize those lessons into something general that we all can share in. 

Food Synthesis

Eat simple. Feel simple.
Eat everything. Dwell on everything.

Eat live fruit. Fresh ideas.
Eat dead fruit. Morbid thoughts.

Eat dirty animal. Be dirty animal.
Eat clean animal. Still be animal.

Eat bad oils.  Machine slows down.
Eat good oils. Machine spirals forever.

Eat from mother earth. In touch with mother earth.
Eat from sky. Sky will fall.

Eat more than produce. Always feel without.
Eat less than produce. Always able to give.

Eat to stay alive. Life will stay same.
Eat to change lives. Life will change.

Reshaping

Admitting you went too far...
Too many words
Too many questions
Too many tears
Too many attacks
Too many defenses
Too many reasons
Too many gestures
Too many awakenings

Forgetting you didn't go far enough...
Not enough words
Not enough answers
Not enough tissue
Not enough actions
Not enough acceptance
Not enough proof
Not enough finality
Not enough rest

Believing you have a future...
Make words match words
Make answers match questions
No tissue for tears
No attacks for action
Accept all defences
Prove all reasons
Never gesture the end
Never awaken just to rest

Write Out Insanity, Right out!

Obsessed with the topical
Searching for spaces
Fall back on the tropical
To take us to new places

Just did it again
Turning this into a topic
A thesis on men
When only I can stop it

Only I can change
The flow
The beat
The pressure
The sorrow

Of not finding peace
When peace is all around me
They say take two of these
But these just make me drowsy

I can't breathe in this place
It's too stuffy in mind
All these thoughts on the race
And I say I'm on my grind

And I don't wanna change
The hustle
The drive
The push
The breakthrough

Cuz it's the only way
I tried the rest, I swear to God
I'm thankful everyday
Like gratitude's my only job

But I got more to do
I gotta translate these moments
I write this shit for you
So you don't fall back on omens

You people need to change
The borders
The lies
The guesses
The answers

Cuz there's a natural order
Before I die I'll solve the puzzle
And then it's finally over
All your fears will have a muzzle

I'll put it all on paper
And when the last word is written
I'll just say see you later
I baked a pie, its in the kitchen

I won't be hear to change
Your views
Your rules
Your diapers
Your hearts

You can take it from here...

Kyla La Grange - The River

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADd6kIv7b8U

Keep writing Jam.  Enough people know, and everyone wants to.

Does it get better?

4AMs have turned to 5AMs. It gets darker than before but also closer to sunrise. I got harder to remember I was asleep and hurting. Does it get better if I stay awake?

Approaching Autumn

Oh I know what the autumn brings
It happens every year
The leaf changes her colour
And strikes me down with fear

How full of life you were before
How crisp you looked to touch
Each day I saw you 'neath the sun
I loved you ever much

Too high for me to ever reach
I loved you all the same
You were mine each day each night
But never mine by name

I searched the ground to find your roots
A first step for my climb
From roots to trunk, trunk to branch,
Soon you will be mine

And there I was on tippy-toes
Trying to make a stance
Reaching in to finally feel you
Hoping for a chance

Stop! You howled. This isn't fair
This place isn't for us
I didn't beckon you climb this tree
I'm just not worth the fuss

I'm just a leaf upon a tree
There are so many others
And though you think to know me
You do not know all my colours

Lo, to my surprise and gloom
As I was now in range
To see you weren't kidding
All your colours had now changed

The life is not within you now
You look so ever pale
Your green is now a bashful yellow
Your touch is oh so frail

And with one touch I lost you
Just one was all it took
For you to leave this place you loved
Without a second look

Goodbye, old friend, you shouted back
I do want you to know
It meant a lot, this quest of yours
It's sad I have to go

The ground is where I'm meant to be
It's so much warmer here
I couldn't survive the winter
Living just by your hot air

So down you go to where I was
I should have just stayed put
But this year I feel different
I don't wish to move my foot

I like it here, up in the sky
It's where I dreamed I'd be
'Neath the sun, perchance with you
 Nestled in this tree

The ground it doesn't suit me
I grow tired of those things
And when I look hard at myself
I discover I have wings

Up here I see yet greater heights
Heights I could never perceive
It meant a lot, this quest of mine
But now it's best to leave

I too will jump to destiny
Won't hold us back with jeer,
For I know what the autumn brings
It happens every year

Break point

Up all night
Then down all day
Take over

It's all due

This month. It all comes together and it all unravels this month. I am in a cocoon  or an egg, I'm not sure, but if the barrier does not part on its own I will peck through by my own beak.  By my own words I will find day light and start this new life I was formed for.

This month. It is all due this month. I have this month to make the most of this incubation period as it is almost over. You just know these things. I did not create this timeline but I will abide by it.  This deadline was not created for you but for me. I am not waiting, I am not packing, I am not asking; I've waited, I've packed, I've asked.

This month. This job will start because the last one ended. This book I'll start writing because the last 3 are finished. I've searched enough to know what I want. I've read enough to know what to write. 
But it's all due now. I have given and been given much time. Time to spend it.

These minutes

But I have these minutes. Each night as I fold my body between the sheets and mattress, I have this moment. This moment between the harsh realities of the day and harsh realities of my dreams. I have this moment when I close my eyes and open my ears and hear only myself. What stories I tell myself, what adventures await, what desires will yet become realized. They are all possible in these moments.  This is when I feel my best. Pity it's at such a dreadful hour.

It's setting in

I come home
Take off my shoes
My clothes and the rest
Pyjamas and toothpaste
Retainer and alarm clock.

Today becomes yesterday
That was a lot of fun
But now I am here, in bed
What about tomorrow
Oh right.

Another day will pass
Waiting, hurting, praying
Why would tomorrow be any different
It won't, I'll need an escape
Tomorrow I'll go somewhere new.

I wake up
Alarm clock and retainer
Pyjamas and toothbrush
My clothes and the rest
I put on my shoes.

To leave this place
I never really do
I make tomorrow a today
To make today another yesterday
This is getting old.

TIFF Meditations - Ship of Theseus

Plank by plank life is taken away from me. Her joys, her friendships, her successes, her lovers. Plank by plank life is restored.

 Time will do this for me, he is a tireless servant of change. He does everything according to plan and follows his orders despite my requests. Never does he halt nor take caution; he has no freedom and works without fault. But me with all of my freedoms, I should look to time for inspiration, for I take caution where none is needed and stand still before green lights. I can change myself, I need not fear it. Plank by plank I can restore my life.

I wonder, if I change too much too fast will I still be myself? Like the Ship of Theseus* I wonder what will become of my identity? Surely I will not be entombed in this body forever. This body that changes each day and will soon change to naught. But what of my other planks, the things I hold near and dear to my identity. My anger, my sensitivity, my beliefs, my disposition, my motivations, my ideals, my dreams. Which of them should I keep and which should I change before time changes them for me?

 [Relate to character's plot developments]

If my planks - my body, my words, my actions - are just the vessel and my identity is actually my life story, my great quests and my character in times of strife, then I am not attached to my planks. Let each plank that accepts water in the face of the great tide be replaced. Let each of my beliefs that sink me to sadness be replaced by beliefs that keep me afloat. It is neither time for this ship to sink nor return to shore. I am on my journey and by faith I know I have enough planks to make it, old and new. Some planks were meant to take you from shore to shore and others were meant to take you only most of the way. Sometimes you have to risk being wrong to truly know when you are right. Life is ordered even when it is hurtful, and the great sea will swallow the weak and glorify the strong.

The planks I have, the person I have become, will go far, but I wish to go farther than far. There is much more out there for me to learn, I miss learning. There is much more out there for me to experience, I miss experiencing. It's time for a change. Today is the day to go down to the gallows and search for puddles, not to admonish myself for them, but to bless the puddles, for they will lead me to the planks that need reprieve. When I look at my life in this light, it's all quite elementary really.

TIFF Meditations - End of Watch

We have a long way to go, our society, this is often very easy to see. We have come along way, our society, this is often very difficult to see.

I think this is difficult because we look out there instead of inside ourselves for progress. Sitting there in the upper balcony of Toronto's prestigious Elgin Theatre before the movie I gazed momentarily at the crowd while most of my group had gone to buy overpriced water. Gazing out at the empty and likely unused reserved sections, and at the tired feet of the volunteers whom have stood for hours tirelessly at our service to receive a very tired applause from the crowd (once prompted to show our appreciation, of course, by a sponsored ad), I saw only classism, only pretense, separation of wealth and other bourgeois delights. But looking inwards, taking a step back from myself to gaze within our booth I saw just the opposite. 2 Jamaican guys, 2 Italians and a Portuguese sharing a balcony that previously would have been reserved for classism was freely occupied by us. In our groups of man and woman, old and young, employed and jobless, we are divided by no lines, separated by no differences. We are free in ways those before us could only dream, and free because they dared to.

But of which freedoms will we dare to dream, and for which will we strive? We're still talking about progress, just as before. If we look for freedoms elsewhere we are likely to find only barriers, but if we look within ourselves we will know what changes can be made. In fact, I should make the effort to stop using the word we. 'We' is such a presumptuous word. Far be it from me to assume that my hardships are your hardships, or that my life lessons will be ours.  I've spent enough time in a corporate leadership position to know that if an idea is truly good enough to be used in a person's life they will steal it. In fact, people prefer it; to take an idea, augment it and make it their own. Patent law exists for a reason. The true valuation of an idea is its propensity for the theft. So, I will speak only of what I think will work for me, possessing my ideas as my own. And if you visit me ever to find my ideas presented with open doors, fear not, the keys are in the ignition, you just have to turn them. Take them wherever you please, to the bank, to your job, to your spouse. I left them unlocked for you. I'm somewhere else now, picking the locks off new ideas for myself, finding out which freedoms yet unseen are out there and worth daring for.

"Can you live without her? If you can, then cut her loose now before you even think about marrying her."

TIFF Meditations - Mumbai's King

Those without. I envy them.  I envy them because while they may hunger more, they hunger for less. They would be happy with even half of what I have, and yet am I happy with half of what I have? Am I even happy with what I have now?

Tough circumstance has humbled them, they are always quite loud.  They laugh more loudly than we do.  And loudly do they share in their disgust for our opulence, our greed.  In return, we despise them right back because they are right about our greed.  They know of our greed oh so well.  What we know is that we are the embodiment of their greed. They may never know that they are but the germ of our greed, that we are the graduated poor.

We hope for more just as they hope for more, the only true mark of poverty. Poverty isn't a description it is a disposition. If a rich man had but one orange and one glass of water, he would feel blessed to have a meal, but those of us in poverty live for tomorrow's breakfast, next week's brunch, and the endless steak dinners.  Make no mistake, poverty is in us all, but only some of us deserve to lay claim to it.  The hungry deserve to be poor, deserve to want more, as in their case want and need are in harmony. But we who want for the sake of want, we have rights to neither our monetary affluence nor spiritual poverty.  We want for the sake of want and create new needs for the sake of need to balance the scale.  Then we wonder why instead of balance, our scales teeter evermore violently with our added pressures.

Yes, I envy them, the poor. I am trapped, bound by my first world problems my eyes are green with this envy.  I envy them so much I want them all to be gone, yes I want them all gone.  I want all of the poor to be rich like me, only then will my eyes change colour. As the witch doctor fights poison with poison I will fight green with green.  I think even the poor deserve a chance, a real one.  Sitting behind the reserved seats tonight my date and I overheard from the film's press agent that the two young boys who played the lead actors from the slums of Mumbai were in fact just poor slum kids from Mumbai.  The one who sold balloons for a living in the film did exactly that before the lights were on and likely still does today.  The press agent is starting a charity to get those kids an education but they simply don't want it.  Only reinforcing for me that there is a deeper level of poverty than monetary, and also a deeper level of affluence. There's something they have that we can't see in all our desire for them to have more, sometimes greed is externalized and nicknamed  philanthropy.  All the same, what they have lost is hope, and that you can never have enough of.  When it comes to hope, the rich and the poor alike could afford to be greedier. 

Perhaps this is where I can help.

TIFF Meditations - Fly With the cranes

Between our hearts there are bridges and barriers; mine are all paved with words.

Something beautiful about Toronto is that while every year it seems people are a bit busier and a but more attached to their person networks, when you strike up a conversation with a stranger rarely are you met unkindly.  The homeless man on King Street yesterday had a stronger desire to impart knowledge on me than relinquish me of my change, once I spoke with him as a person. Even he was not too busy to stay true to his roots and represent our city with the politeness people fly here for. Today, sitting here in this theatre, is testiment to the point that not only the seemingly insane are warm to strangers. Waiting for my date to arrive from her late work meeting I struck up the most delightful conversation with Helen, an older lady with a delightful misunderstanding of the importance of technology. If there's one thing I miss about my old job it would be the satisfaction of having a pleasant conversation with a complete stranger.  I told her about my previous job in IT which immediately facilitated a discussion around her children and their misunderstansing of the importance of technology. I love being 30 because I feel my ability to relate to antiquity and modernity is immeasurable. I'm young and old enough to know thag we're all wrong.  We do provide so much more but achieve so much less with our tools. 

I know enough to feel both happy and sad at the idea that the way technolgy is going, there is harsly any reason for us to have to actually talk any more.  How utterly analogue, the act of speaking.  How much more our minds could achieve in this digital world. I was only 13 years old or so when I realized that the average picture is actually worth about 365,000 words, by Kb.  As time and technology advance, perhps our ability to relate will ascend to a higher cognitive realm. Perhaps the things we hold dear will be up for more than simply discussion, or debate.  We could instantly poll our opinion to know how the world felt about even the most minute topic.  We could know what the atoms inside our science project actually look like, not just how we prefer to sletch them.  I imagine a world before we hard words, where dance and growl and thrust and laughter were all we had, and so were cherished out of necessity.  Now we growl less, we look less, we laugh less, and we talk more.  But as this paradigm changes again, as our sonnets and ballads and orations fall the wayside to tweets likes and votes, it's worth wondering if we're paving roads or barriers.

Now the movie is over, I'm only herr typing this to you because my date is sending an important email from her blackberry that absolutely needs to get out before dinner. If there's one thing I dont miss about my old job...But this is exactly the debate of the day.  On the one hand, we've just finished watching a movie that forced us to remember that in these days of modernity, we've forgotten how to listen.  Only the innocent young mind, untarnished by modern values morals and logic could hear the simple plea of his wonderful dying old grandfather.  It's true that in this age of noise, this age of more information and less words, we forget how to truly listen.  We're too busy for listening.  But maybe it's not so bad. I've lost  nothing of my friendship with my date in the last 15 minutes; she is advancing her career and me my own quest. Sitting here shoulder to shoulder, phones in hand, she's discussing what she deems important and I the same. And by the looks.of it, she seems to be done, so perhaps now we'll compare notes the old fashioned way, verbally across a table of fried tofu and vietnamese pho.  How wonderfully analog.

TIFF Meditations - The Cowards Who Look To The Sky

I have many ideas about who you are just as you have many ideas about who I am. These ideas will always be about me, about you, until we have experienced one another.

Commonly I would have found this to be true in the light of rumours, hearsay, conjecture, biases and the sort. I would have committed to my moral code the decisions not to judge you based on these things. I would be an empathetic and caring person who reserves judgement until I have processed only my own observation. Freedom from prejudice and initial observation seemed to be fair enough cause for evaluation, but now I'm not so sure.

Do you know a person once you have met them? Did you know me from the start? Could you predict the words that would flow from me to you on the day we met? How about a few weeks later? How about today? You may have observed my effects but do you know my causes? Worse still, if I may presuppose a human spirit, are you in touch with that which lies between cause and effect? But I spare you the digression, because today I only wish to ponder lazily; how little observation is truly necessary for you to know me. Particularly me, a man who hopes to forever grow, forever change, forever dream, forever aspire; in short a man who never truly wishes to be known. Come to understand my past through that which you remember or have heard but tomorrow I could be someone brand new.
And aren't your tommorows made up of a thousand todays, each one undiscovered until it becomes a yesterday? I wish I could go back in time, back in your time, see the life story that brought you to today. Maybe then I could know you? I don't think I can know your past based solely on what you've told me of it, we all pick and choose which pages of our life story to reveal and which to tear free from its binding. But what still of your pages revealed? Can I know you simply from observing the words shared from or about you? If I sat down in a comfortable sofa with an empty open mind to watch the movie of your life story, would there not be scenes, long and important scenes, filled with a silence more important than any words in the script? Would the camera not pan in on you, sitting there with your head back pressed against against the wall, gazing towards something unseen, eyes filled with rage or perhaps tears, redefining your identity - your beliefs, character and goals - in a silence I will never hear? How often have you gone to this secret place, this place inside you too far for me to travel? How much of you is there, how much of you is here?

Who are you, really, to know me? Without being you, how can I ever truly understand you? You live in a world bent on categorizing me as different than you. I am male, you are not. You are white, I am not. My age, your wealth; your desires, my insecurities. Am I blind to the light of your soul for as long as I view it from my own lens?  Or can you see me for who I am, if we callibrate? And how would this happen?

It would take something more than honesty, honesty is an obvious component.  Lying obscures both what has been said and what is yet unsaid. But it would take more. To understand your causes you would have to speak to know effect, lest I mistake one for another. To absorb my yesterdays you would have to discard my tomorrows, lest you come to understand me backwards. If I am to be known I have to evaluate each word that I utter to you to make sure I am not guiding you away to understanding the man I aspire to be, rather than the man I am - the sum of men I once were. You need to tell me who you were as a result of the women you were before, not merely as a progression towards the women you hope to become. Such diligence, such shared meditation, such fearlessness is not always easy and not often desired.  Facing ourselves is hard enough, but at least we already know what we will think; having someone else truly face us naked, without knowing how they may then perceive us is the true test.

When are we so brave? When do we finally tire of letting people have ideas about us, and rather let them touch us?  To whom will we offer this experience?  Or is that even our choice?  How many people who have touched us were willed into our existence by a formal request?

Do we really choose the life that we lead?

TIFF Meditations - Great Expectations

Are there heights to which we were never meant to ascend?  Are there the depths to which we were never meant to sink?

I think about free will a whole lot more than I act upon it, but when I do I wonder if there are moments in my life that were meant to happen whether I wanted them to or not.  It's not altogether a bad feeling.  It's one thing to have an idea of what happiness might be and another to know it.  The same goes for pain, and I think a great life needs both.  My dad used to say life is like fruit punch, the best ones are not too sweet and not too sour, but altogether more sweet than sour.  But in a less general sense, because I think we all will find a way to experience pain and pleasure - if we have two much of one we will search for the other - perhaps I'm going through all of this because I was meant to? The heartache, the unemployment and debt, the frustration, the physical injury, all at once.

Before it seemed I was dealt the absolute worst hand with these five cards in front of me, but poker is a man's sport and when you're on your last few chips and it's looking bad at the flop, go all in and wait for the turn - you'll either bluff or luck your way out of it.  So maybe I was meant to touch ground, once again.  Maybe the usefulness of my past fortunes have served their purpose.  I was meant to know power, for no great man should live his whole life in the shadows, but now my kingdom stretches further than those walls.  I was meant to know love, completely, from all angles; just as a man wishes to know his woman, and as we wish love to know us.  I was meant to know debt so that I would know the true value of what I was paying for.  What truer currency is there than payback hours? The value of money will swing to and fro with interest rates enough to keep the majority of the public on the treadmill, but when you're paying stuck interest you know what is worth the exercise and what isn't. Frustration is beautiful; only when you face that which you do not understand do you come to understand it.  I've reached a certain age where the only remaining growing pains are mental.  Which isn't so bad, because physical pain just sucks.  I could do without this ankle injury, full stop.

So here I am in life in those building scenes before the climax, where secrets of the past are beginning to unfold and hard lessons of the current day are remolding me, and while I'm now rather convinced that I was meant to endure these hardships, I'm still left wondering why.  To what end, or more positively to what new beginnings?  This movie and my life's movie has me looking for a little bit more closure.  When life has you facing more than you ever thought you would or could all at once, you start to wonder what else there.  But this is not the time to wonder.  I'm free from all the hardships of yesterday which is God's way of giving me the pen to write tomorrow's triumph.  I can feel the pen here in my left hand, I dare not insult God further by trembling and fearing what I should write.  It's time to just write. It's time to just write.  I have time to just write.  It's time to just write.

Time is our best friend and worst enemy.  Our short lives spare us from enduring all of the world's hardships but prevent us from experiencing all of its bounty.  Beyond that, there's enough time to experience the highest heights and lowest lows, as long as we use it all.  Make the most of time and time will make the most of you.

TIFF Meditations - Detroit Unleaded

Where talent meets hard work a higher power intervenes.  A story that needs to be told will be told, and only the story teller knows from whence it came, but if he does not tell this story, if he keeps it for himself and does not share, a higher power intervenes.  

Today I watched what I would call a grassroots production, so much so that the actors and production staff were afflicted with a distinguishable and distinguished air of humility.  Lined up after the movie they were severely interested in having discussions with each of us.  The lead actress despite her immeasurable beauty was almost annoyingly shy, the type of person I would have turned away in a job interview.  The lead actors eyes were backwards - typically during a Q&A I find the lead actors eyes to be faced only inwards, only on delivering to us the great untold story within him.  Yet today our noble knight wished only to comment on my sweater and his other external observations.  But today we wanted to know them, not ourselves, they do not yet know how important they are, it hasn't hit them to understand that they have not paid $20 to see us! Perhaps when the movie gets distribution and they see more revenue, this will drive home the point.

But this inspires me. What separates the artist from the super artist? It's quite simple, it is not merely the talent, and not only the hard work.  The super artist fixates no longer on what is out there, but rather on what is inside him.  He delivers to us what we all paid to see; a glimpse inwards, to that place where a higher power has intervened.   That is all I have to do now.

TIFF Meditations - The Sessions

A writer's life is always so complex, and yet a writer's work in borne from simplicity. While the writer may himself be dealing with a depth of emotion beyond that of the average Joe, the very nature of his duty as a writer is to translate this convoluted esoteric dissonance into simple words that we can all get in touch with. To take that which is unknown to us, either by our ignorance or by our fear, and serve it to us in a way we either could not or dare not refuse.

The true writer, furthermore, does not simply write with this process, he lives it.  He lives through his tropical depression and delivers to us summer rain. He suffers through the flurry of words sketched in the sky and sets the most important ones down against the ground as we know it He carries through bliss and anguish, relationships and solitude, frustration and clarity, dotting each 'i' and crossing each 't', with only one pen, his soul.  The true writer has no identity separate from his pen, lives in no world separate from his parchment; he and they are one. And when his soul is revealed through these words shared, received and sent, who amongst you readers could deny such humble beauty, such defiant devotion?  Who amongst you would prefer to live as beasts do, without words, without the writer's soul in your life?

TIFF Meditations - Writers

To be in love. It used to be the most serious concept in the world. It used to mean everything, and make everything else mean nothing as a result. The circumstances that precede it, the possible life to follow, the life we live outside of it, all were nought - just give me love and I will be full. Remove from me love, and I will be empty. What a strange thing, love.

To be in love. It used to be the most overrated thing in the world. What a stupendous lie, this idea of love. To suggest we could be completed by someone else is hardly different or better than suggesting we could be completed by something else. What despair, this festering hole inside us, left unfilled until a mysterious foreign object attempts to change or destroy us. To which other virus would we bestow such honour? To which other plague would we hope for such a populace infestation? To which other cancer would we hope for such growth, despite knowing it requires such intense treatment? What a strange thing, love.

Love is only strange when it is not familiar. Love is only unfamiliar when it is not a part of us. When we are apart from love, we lose ourselves in an obsession to posess it. To reposess that which never rejected us.  Love only asks of us a simple favour and reminds us when we forget. Love asks us to live with it. More correctly love asks if it can live in each of us. Love isn't satisfied living in our office, our our dogs, or in the other objects of our desires. Love does not want to be apart from us, it painfully begs us to love ourselves, to trap it there, ironically, to give it shelter. Love wants to share the same house, we just have to set the table and invite it for dinner. After that, love will give you everything you've been waiting for.  Let love be in you and you will be in love. Oh, to be in love.

TIFF Meditations - Dangerous Liaisons

It's not hard to believe that we were always like this. Growing up I left it to the scientists and Stephen Spielberg to tell me what the dinosaurs looked like, left it to Gene Roddenberry and my science teacher to teach me about the stars and galaxies.  There's so much about mankind, our history and our place in the universe, that I can only chalk up to assumptions that my story tellers are telling the truth.  But if you listen closely to enough stories you start to find out the inalienable truths about our people.  And so, I have to repeat that it's not hard to believe that we were always like this.

Evil, we were always evil.  I'm trying to find proof that we were not.  I can find evidence that some of us weren't, that most of us wish not to be, that a few of us don't know how to be; but evil has always been in us.  We have always had greed, always had deception, always had jealousy, always rage despite obvious regret, in our hearts.  That's where it is, in our hearts.  I'm trying so hard to find refuge from this belief but I cannot.  Indirectly, I see it everywhere.  Don't you?  Don't you see it everywhere?  Don't you see it in our history books and in every depiction of Rome?  Can you tell the tales of our great empires of the past without evil? Don't you see it in our most beautiful poetry?  Can Shakespeare be as mighty without Othello's Iago? Don't you see it in our newspapers, our magazines, our great novels, our every printed word?  Can you point me to the religion where man's evil need not have been addressed?  God himself has had to put words towards our evil, can you imagine? He begs us not to cheat lie and murder, begs that we deny ourselves these ever natural impulses.

But a hungry man will slay, and a hungry hypocrite will at least let die and feast all the same.  Then he will pacify himself in justification for his own sustenance.  That I might live by your death, gain by your loss, have joy by your suffering, feast by your toiling, because this is simply the way it should be.  This we are all guilty of, and to this we lose ourselves in the aimless debate: Is man essentially evil?  What a gloriously unimportant question.  If this is the case, and there is free will, than we can change our essence; if this is case, and there is no free will, than the answer is yes, but somehow we can still do good.  The change from evil to good is in either case easier and for the most part less expensive than a change in sex, and the words we put around nature versus nurture are in both cases pointless.  The question to ask of ourselves is not whether humans are essentially evil, the question to ask is whether evil is essentially human.  Make no mistake, we are not alone in this - hyenas will have to answer to God for their thefts, Lions for their pride, Praying Mantis' for their cannibalism, pigs for their gluttony, and so on.  But as we have evolved to embody every aspect of evil we can think of, can this change?  Can we disembody ourselves from this evil, or have we been formed by it? Our societies, our economies, but also each of us in our days.  Can each of us identify in ourselves the evils we possess and dispose of them thus? Or do we hold on to them just as we hold on our limbs, and for the same reason?  Who are we without the evil within us?  Who are you when all of your evil is gone?

TIFF Meditations - Differently, Molussia

Concepts are overly subject to their common definitions. We try so hard to formalize our understanding of things, put boxes around what they mean so that we can be sure about where they are in our mind - we forget that everything is interconnected and our definitions only limit our understanding.
 
When something is caused, all and everything before it was its cause.

We wrap our thoughts in these packages and to keep them in order we give them values: Good and bad, right and wrong, for or against me, worth it or not.  But isn't the large majority of our confusions and frustrations based on our inability to free our thoughts and feelings from these packages? It's not worth it for me to convince you if this is true, think back.

Proving does not prove anything at all.

But what if we were to live life with our thoughts flowing freely from these packages? How ever would we deal with the chaos?  How ever could we teach our kids right from wrong without such labels, or know where to focus our attention without the values worth it and not?  Well, I can only begin that exploration here, I shouldn't say more about what this may entail until I have experienced what this will indeed mean. But might I at least start by suggesting that the answer is exactly in my example?

Perhaps, just as with children, where we spend their early years curbing their actions around concrete directions, until we feel they are at a level of maturity where we can learn to deal with grey decisons with broad values and morals, like the golden rule; perhaps when adults reach a level of maturity, where golden rules and shoulds and shoulds not no longer satisfy us intellectually, this is when we need a more personal approach. Perhaps at this point we have to finally not be lazy, and live our lives considering each case, each example, in its very uniqueness, and prescribe not an out the box solution to our gloom, not a doctrine handed to us from the ancients, not values and morals handed to us from our friends and inner circles, but perhaps all of these things together.  Perhaps we have to approach our day to day lives with the totality of human knowledge rather than small convenient segments. 

When we are free from binding our life problems with mere values, we'll be free from binding our life solutions with mere values.  Anyway, that would be a start.

Century Room

Everyone is beautiful.  Most of us are sexy. The music is enormous. The dresses are short. The emotions are long. Worlds unlived. Conversations not had.  Mundanity avoided but along with the thrill. I am in the zone.  I am in my own zone. It's confortable here save the sweat, save the smoke, save the spilled drinks. It's comfortable here in this booth. What was his name again?  This bass is the only thing heavy enough for me. It has taken me away. Good bye.

On the brink

Oh yes I see, I see how you are Earth
You don't want me here
The summer party has finished
You want me to take a cue

Your ground doesn't want me here
It now lashes back at my every step, punishing my knees
Your sky doesn't want me here
It now sweeps me into small caves with its icy cold winds

Your livestock doesn't want me here
It punishes my organs as I feast on their flesh
Your humans do not want me here
Not one of them look at me with satisfied eyes

Yes, but you will see, Earth, how I am
I don't need you or them
This world here was just a start for me
I only stayed for the open bar

When I come back

When I come back
You'll see my face
You'll squint and stare at me
You'll ask my name
I will remind you
You will ask me where I've been

When I come back
I'll see your face
I'll notice you've forgotten me
I'll tell you, knowing I shouldn't
Your face will sink as you remember
I shouldn't have brought you back

When I come back
You'll admonish my past
You'll tell me what could have been
You'll remind me it was my fault
I left you just when you were ready
You never could trust me

When I come back
I'll resent the scolding
I'll roll my eyes at more passed possibilities
I'll concede your summation
You were always better at conclusions
I just never wanted them

When I come back
You'll be happy
You'll have found peace in simplicity
You'll finally be able to tell me you made the right choice
I was never going to be yours
You just wanted to be mine

When I come back
I'll be upset
I'll wonder why you never searched for me
I'll finally be able to realize
You never wanted to leave the beach
I was beneath an ocean of despair

A new course

Hey Tiger. There's a whole world out there, you know.   You keep searching within yourself, and I get why you would, there's a pretty great world inside of you too. You've got all this passion, all these interwoven stories, a bit of mystery behind a humble transparancy.  You've become an awesome guy, but there's more to be had. You keep giving what's inside of you because you're afraid to take what's out there. You've made this awesome stew and you think any added ingredients will mess up the recipe, and you're right.  The stew is finished, take it off the burner, stop stewing.  Make something new. Make something brand new, not just a side dish. Make yourself a whole new dish.  Do it today, while the stew is still simmering make something new that will go great after it.  Something sweet, treat yourself, but not too sweet, don't spoil yourself.  Enjoy this meal and everything you've prepared by the sweat of your brow.  But you're a good enough chef to make more than one course.  Set a new course.

We don't cry

We men don't cry. We come back hard.
We harden our hearts. We harden them with bad food and bad drink.
We harden our minds. We harden them with bad advice and bad plans.
We harden our bodies. We harden them with good workouts and good women.
We harden our egos. We harden them with good memories and good compliments.

We men don't cry. We come back hard.
Fresh out the kiln we come out reformed; harder, stiffer, more rigid, harder to bend but easier to break.  When we were boys we could cry. We could absorb things like soft things do. Pain was one of them.  All the pain seemed to find itself drowning beneath our tears and washed away.  But now we are men, we are hard, things either bounce off us or break us into pieces.

I find myself today unable to cry. I've come back hard.
Unable to bend, you will not hear from me offers to compromise.
Unable to soften, you will not hear from me offers of soft words.
Unable to absorb, you will not see me taking in any more gestures.
Unable to fall, you will not see me taking any more plunges.

Life is not fair

Life is not fair.
At times it is amazingly bright, dazzling to the soul and majestic to the spirit; other times it is insufferably dark, gloomy to the eye and aweful to the heart.
Life may be bright or dark but never just fair.

Life is not fair.
At times, life will be stacked in your favour, you'll feel as though nothing can hold you down; other times life is a notorious trickster, you'll know that it only waited for you to reach your highest to pop your bubble.
Life can be favourable or unkind, but never just fair.

Life is not fair.
At times you'll feel as though you're the best equipped to face the challenges in your life, you control your destiny; other times you'll approach the racing blocks only to find out that others have been given a headstart that overshadow your fine qualities.
Life may be a cheat for you or a cheat against you, but never just fair.

Life is not fair.
At times, to be human may feel to be the most sexy concept of existence, life is filled with joy and adventure; other times, life is an ugly exchange of utterances that achieve nothing but partial delay from inevitable passings-on.
Life can be beautiful or horrid, but never just fair.

Life is not fair.
To be fair is to be apart from life.  In other words fairness is death - just as it feels. Why then should I be fair?
I can be unfair for good or for bad, but I can never just lay down and accept life has passed.

Living Calls - Next morning edit

The air is calm.  It passes through the open window beside me and seeps through the logs of this cabin like a kind thief, wishing for me not to wake but allowing me no sleep with its presence.  Laying here on this bed my eyes are open and my ears are fixed on the commotion beyond these walls.

Outside the crickets' commotion is at crescendo. There must be thousands of them.  In a few hours it will be morning and they will have missed their chance.  It's been hours already, hours of calling out for a mate.  Asking to be heard, to be noticed, to be chosen.  If this doesn't happen now it may never for them; all of the frantic commotion heard in these final hours of the night are an instinctive reminder to each of them that tomorrow they may meet their final hour. Life is hard but for this they are lucky, these crickets.  Every night they create this commotion, they sing and they dance with all that they have on the line, because there is never any reason to save, there is no reason to hold back.  Only the deeply religious have been promised a life after this one where they can try again, but even they are not promised more than tomorrow in this life.  So they reason: If we don't find what we need in our lives tonight, if tonight we are not heard, not sought after, not found, then what is it all for?  Crickets remember what we spend our whole lives trying to forget. 

Every night is an opportunity to either spend life or die saving. We love our possessions, so we try to posses and save even life itself.  Tomorrow I'll live, spend life living, but today I'm going to save up, put life away somewhere safe with all the other lives I haven't lived.  Yes, on a rainy day I'll go back to the vault of my past desires and finally start spending life happily.  Only on rainy days do we ever seem to remember what we would do if it were sunny.

I suppose we're not so different from crickets. We wait until the dark to appreciate the light, they wait until the possible end to finally start.  After all, crickets seem to do a lot of hoping and praying as well, just listen to them out there with those mating calls.  I wonder though, if they truly are aware of how silly all of this waiting is.  If they were, they would know that while we are no better than them, they are no better than us, with those mating calls.  Mating calls are just active wishing, and wishing is not trying. Wishing is not living. Someone has to make a move to make it happen. Mating calls are for the inert, for those who wish to die, I will spend my life making living calls.

4am draft

Layong in this bed, on a summer's night in the cottage, feeling outside with the shelter of inside.  Hearing how things have changed from silence to activity - knowing the crickets and grasshoppers have now become aggressive.  There are only a few hours left.  Each night is like a death because each day may become one. They starve for meaning now. What is this all worth if not for tonight, if we won't have tonight our who lives may be worth nothing.  They know this every night and so I envy them. We forget this.

Written in the calm of night but with.a tired heart.  No patience.  What will I write in the day?  No patience needed. See you soon.

Bougainvillea

I found you on such a simple day and in such a simple way.  Walking through the garden you were there among all the other flowers.  I was used to seeing them, used to talking to them, but with you I wasn't sure how to approach.  Then I just did. I came by and introduced myself suddenly to you and it took you by storm.  Isn't it curious that I'm filled with the same doubts and the same fears as when I first crossed your path?

Do you need sunshine or do you need rain?  I could give your roots so much to drink, give your petals so much sun to strive towards.  Would you mind if I shared with you some sweet words, or would I only disturb your tranquility? And tranquility is so hard to come by in these gardens, they're so close to the city.  When I see bad spots infesting your stem, would you care for my pruning, or are my sheers too sharp for such a delicate bougainvillea.  Could I visit you every morning with jolly and cheer, or would that undermine the hard work you put in each day to grow? Could I beg you to consider seeing the lot of land I'm cultivating, or have you already settled on this being the greenest of pastures here?

Maybe I should just wait. Eventually you'll have to give me a sign, we all thirst for something, there's got to be something I can do for you, got to be something I can do to show you I can be trusted. I know I'm a stranger and trust needs observation, but I just don't want to give you something you don't even need.  There's gotta be something you'ld want from only me. All the other potters know just what to do, and normally so do I.  But you, you're not just some bushflower, you're the bougainvillea that shines so brightly you paint my iris from brown to rose.

When we met, just as today, I have fewer answers than I do questions.  As there is only one answer.

Protons

I know what life is.

People talk about life the way they talk about a proton: They kind of understand it, they're pretty sure that it's on the net positive, but ultimately they've never seen one. They're left wondering if what they think, what they've theoried, what they've diagramed about life is in fact true, or will the generations to follow come to understand it better than we do.

The true despair is that just as with protons, since some people never truly directly experience life, they don't really know what it is, all they can observe is its effects - all they can do is say they're pretty sure that this thing right here is life.

I've come to know life. I've come to experience it directly. I am alive.  If nothing else, like Descartes, at least I am certain of this. But better than him, while I maybe still don't know my life's purpose, I know it has meaning.

Thank you, my life.

How many before

How many farewells before I leave?
How many I love yous before you stay?

How many sunrises before I catch one?
How many sunsets before I admit to addiction?

How many days before I finish what I have to?
How many days before I start what I want to?

How many nights before I concede fatigue?
How many nights before I concede mortality?

1 is too many.

Latches

I feel them in my back, these latches, snugly fitted with cord
It's a good thing I'm thick skinned, my flesh will not tear from my bones
When it tugs, when you tug, you will not let me leave this bed
When it tugs, when you tugs, you will not let me touch the ground

They pull me back from the cave, I want to hide there with my spoon
I can dig, carve out my own path and make this cave into a tunnel
On the other side, if you want, it could just be me and you
On the other side, if you follow, nobody else would find us

I know you wish to keep me here, I know what latches are for
But there's no home for me here, unless you can describe it
Let me go, let yourself go, to a place we've never seen
Let me go, let yourself go, to a place we haven't thought of

They don't hurt when you hold on, they hurt me when you tug
I don't want you to pull my back, I don't want you to pull me back
These latches, my latches, were put there for safe travel from misery
These latches, my latches, were fitted for your cord