My two...

"A philosopher who is not taking part in discussions is like a boxer who never goes into the ring."
-Wittgenstein

Look out.

"Money is human happiness in the abstract; he, then, who is no longer capable of enjoying human happiness in the concrete devotes himself utterly to money."
-Schopenhauer

Done, agreed.

"You hurt the right person, you'll be wrong all your life"
-Tyga

Too late.

“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.”
― Thich Nhat Hanh

And manageable.

"A lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies."
-Tennyson

Black power

"Art is magic delivered from the lie of being truth."
-Adorno

Abracadabra, bitch

"All evil done clings to the body."
-Shinto Proverb

How long?

"The cruel are feared even by the wise."
-Hindu proverb

Especially them.

"Be a different animal, be the same beast."
-Kobesystem

Bear, Dragon.

"A good writer possesses not only his own spirit but also the spirit of his friends."
-Nietzsche

And foes

Horse and Carriage

And what of me you ask? Watching Whitney's funeral this weekend I realized that my personal angst was answered many years ago and put into magnificently succinct phrasing:

Buju always taught me to find a woman who would love me for me, not what she wants me to be. In short order I set out each time to find a woman who would accept me without a good job, or being in the best shape; one who would accept that I am black, and that I'm not quite six feet tall. Not unlike my fat child from passages preceding, I held back the greatness within me to see who would find light in my darkness. God bless those of you who saw past 250 lbs of casually-employed dissonance. I wouldn't want to be locked in a room with that much pork for longer than 8 months either.

Yet I didn't see the folly of my ways. Was that me? Am I without ambition? Does my untapped potential bring me happiness? Would I like to remain a man full of anecdotes but devoid of a story? They loved me as one loves my bakery. I was the scent that crept in from the kitchen on their wedding days; the cake they cut to celebrate having moved on. They'll never forget me. They didn't like me despite those things, they liked me because of them. On the eves of their matrimony they wanted to indulge in a fat, loyal, sweet and fanciful slab of chocolate, just one piece.

I bake bread, not cakes. I want to be known for providing what is needed not merely what is wanted. Nobody will simply love me for who I am until I am who I want to be. I was so obsessed with possessing a love of self before becoming a self to love. As mentioned at Whitney's funeral, I put the proverbial carriage before the horse. Rather than becoming the man whom I want to have loved, I hoped to be loved in spite of not being him, and then to become him.

I want to be successful, healthy and healthy looking. I want my roots and my dark bark to be celebrated as the very cause of my excellence. I want my potential to be converted to results and for the results to bare my name. In short, I don't want you to love who I was; a glimmer, no matter how romantic, is defined by light in a world of darkness. Why would I wish such a world upon you?

Between a rock and a mountainside

I meant to show you I've been there. I meant to bring you something tasty with not too many calories because I know you can't workout and that bugs you. I meant to give you the good luck you gave me. I meant to come to you and talk, without need or cause or purpose or ambition. I've been there. I will again, while you are there.

Then you won't be there and I will be happy. You will be wherever you want to be, walking and running. I won't be there but I will hopefully also be running by then. I'm running now in fact, in circles mostly - soon you will see that. And that's it really.

You might think I have a purpose, that I somehow am the conductor of this piece filled with quiet, but I too am sitting in front of empty sheep music. If I have a purpose in this silence then what would I hope to achieve? Why, if my hands could heal...

I think about why you paint me as a monster, why you make sure my weekend starts with your disapproval of me. That's all I'm faced with at this point, your disapproval. My presence is intimidating - all of it. So you leave, to delay our misery. I dismay in having less of you each day: Of your words, your photos, your ability to express to me how you feel, your desire to speak deeply. Each day you relinquish one more, and then finally you villainize me for not being there. Presence and absence are both my fault - I don't know how to exist anymore. I am your bane. For not commenting and grabbing hold of the subtle nuances of your affection.

Yes, I know it all! And I know how much you tire of speaking indirectly because I tire of hearing indirectly. And yet, indirect is all I have, all we have. Oh, if you only knew with what ingredients I fill my hours these days, you would not judge my absence. But it doesn't take knowledge to set us free, it takes only belief. If you really read me religiously you should know my silence is not a knife.

Love potions turn to venom without the right preservatives. Soy sauce, as with other indirect methods of salting meats, doesn't keep (and frankly I don't have the taste for asian anyhow). Within days, indirect seasonings wear off and the meat goes bad again. Here we are. If you want love to last it needs salt, real direct salt. I know this, you need not remind me of my shortcomings, I had not forgotten them. But not while the wound is still open. I spare you my affections for the same purpose I always have, right now they would only sting the recipient and bite the applicant. I can only dream of the day when I can pepper you with all that I've meant to say, when I can tell you more of the predictable without you searching for the right response of the day.

It's a bit peculiar, after the landslide came coming we were both left hanging here on this mountain, looking down. We know we both need to get to the top, and yet to our discomfort we're for the first time in a position where holding each other's hands just makes things harder. And yet, you feel I'm closer to the top and wonder why I won't offer you my hand for the moment. You don't realize that you're closer to the top and by the way I'm much heavier than you. You can't carry my grief without falling. I reject your hand for the same reason you offer it - I want us to both make it up there, because up there is the only place where you could face my direction and actually want to be where I am. I never wanted you to fall for me, only to rise for me.

But I've been there. I've been where you are, where you will be when you close your eyes to these words and the night has seen your mind. In a world of inactivity and pain no comfort from afar can make you feel close. These words will feel like daggers when they were meant to be arrows. I only meant to give meaning to a silence that I thought was asked for. If you have an hour tomorrow, I would prefer to give meaning to pamily day.

Ambition and Love

In many of my relationships, if not all, I become consumed with the idea of what the relationship really is - what it's worth, what it will become, what it will mean for me. In a very real sense I never got to enjoy them for what they were. When they come to pass, when I can no longer will them away from destiny, when they remind me it's over, all of my heartache is around the fact that they will never be mine - I will never have a permanent claim on their heart, they will never want me as they once did, or suggested, etc. For only reasons of failed ambition do I look upon the women who kiss me and tell me they love me with absolute scorn. I forget they kiss me still, at night when I am alone they remind me I once wasn't, and comfort me with the historical impermanence of despair. Yet I rebuke the little love they gave me for the imaginary lots of love they could have given me. And while my failed romances may be poor examples to prove what I think is an important point, they remain my examples to suggest that ambition diseases love.

Even with friendships, we have a way of appointing our friends a certain way, ascribing to them ambitions of how we hope to see them, happy successful and the lot. Then we feel utter disappointment to see them led astray. Astray, from what? Rather than simply loving the lives they lead we resent the lives they aren't, ultimately meaning they are led astray from us.

But I feel my ambition for others fading, maybe because in management you have to let even your closest friends make their own career decisions. I wish Amrit the best in her career in finance because I realize I would have only selfish reasons to feel that she will want a continued career in sales. And yet I have nothing left to mentor her on, I have no job left to lead her towards, I have no further use for informal relationships - in the cave it is quiet and decision making is easy. I should love every facet of Amrit leaving my team now, and so I do, though she will be missed. My ambition for her is empty and makes room for love.

Love is timeless, not because timeless things are pretty. Love is timeless because it has no tomorrow. Tomorrow is ambition's sandbox, love is the swing-set that makes the journey to the sandbox worth bearing, though it may sway back and forth. To and fro, my life jumps between ambition and love. There's so much more to achieve and everyday I feel closer. There's no way I can stop now. Then a gentle breeze presents to me a familiar scent - a warm scent - and I am paused. I remember the sun of the morning, when love delivered its kick to my nether region, and I knew the pain was worth it just to feel her decend from the swings to embrace me. I remember feeling love when I felt I had nowhere better to go.

Rhetoric without love

Rhetoric is a mouth with no tongue, which is probably why rhetoric is all the French ever need to be motivated. But for those of us who were not born blessed with the art of kissing, we need to add our own love to rhetoric to give its voice any meaning.

I'm rather tired of rhetoric. I find myself less motivated by bold suggestions of where I should be, and I find myself motivating myself instead with small glimmers of where I once was. An example:

The other day I bought He Got Game (Denzel and Ray Allen). As I wathed the dynamic play out between a father who pushed his son to be the best ball player ever, despite ultimately not being there for him, and seeing Ray Allen exude filial hatred and refusal to take his father's advice, it became apparent to me that this is what I do...what we all do.

Why do fat people stay fat? Skinny people always wonder why we don't just stop eating. It's easy, eat less and you'll lose weight. Control yourself! Stop being selfish! You're hurting yourself! I used to think that sometimes people are actually emotionally twisted and will stay fat to spite the people who scold and tease them. I felt something like this myself in never wanting my dad to be 'right' about my own weight problems. But watching He Got Game gave me a new perspective on this apparent insanity. It's not emotionally twisted at all, it's quite natural. The idea is, you never want to continue your abuser's abuse. They already made you cry and told you what they want - for you to lose weight - the last thing yiy want is to give them what they feel they deserve, the right to abuse you. To let them feist on the fruit of their abuse is contrary to human logic.

When a parent's pushing is not coupled with compassion and humility (just as Denzel's was) the abused locks himself in a room full of resentment, and in our case cupcakes. This isn't a pan-excuse, just a description of why it feels impossible sometimes to just pick up and do what needs to be done, to make the sacrifices necessary to better yourself. My point here is this is often what strips away motivation and ambition, the unjustified or even unqualified scorn. And more rhetoric about the way one should eat or the way one should look won't make a fat person change.

But I use fat people as only an example, I came to terms with my dad many years ago, though there seems to be residue of my problem along my waistline even still. But I think this is why rhetoric doesn't move the American people, why rhethoric doesnt cure the fat, the impoverished, sinful, greedy or otherwise. If that rhethoric isn't coupled with compassion and humility, it simply becomes a description of the way things should be, a description that pushes should further away from is. Without love, rhetoric orders all and serves none.

So I'm motivating myself less with rhetoric and more with those tiny moments and words of compassion - that of others and my own. The lessons of Liaofan helped me identify that I have been generally too wrapped up in the 'mathematics of destiny,' which I understand to mean the constant striving to figure out what product of actions will equal a prosperous future. An equation that hopefully balances on both sides with destiny as the equal sign. In many ways rather than putting all of my mindspace on reshaping my destiny, I'm trying to recapure today, the moment. Not to indulge blindly, but rather to appreciate the today in today, as opposed to the lack of tomorrow in today (or worse still the abundance of yesterday in today). Today, I have a host of things I have to do, and a few things I want to do, and enough time to do most of both. For now, that's all that matters.

Inspired by Yes

Seated on opposite sides we approach this meal.
You with you fork, I my knife, both of steel
Cold and pointed, we stab them into separate plates once shared
Lives split into two, lives once helixed with love and care

A table set for stomachs ill-fated, looking at a past that changed colours
A past looked upon now with hatred, or shame when we hide it from others
In fact that is why we are here, on opposite ends not side by side
Who could see us together and not jeer, at two souls trying for one last ride

Our menu of despair, we feast upon it daily in mourning the past
Heartbreak tapenade, spread over burnt ambitions to make it last
Yet I want everyday to clear the table, to cook something new and healthy
You and I together in this world in love, and so, endlessly wealthy

Rhetoric! No action behind these words, like you need more of my talent
I'll never defend my words with action or prove to you I am gallant
Posture and prose is all I am made of, the terrific fire breathing dragon
But a night club or hospital or chalet was too far for my love, you imagine

Awaken you will to pain filled commentary, the type we will never address
For kindred spirits so easily tire of causing each other duress
So what to say to the woman I loved who wishes I love her no more
The answer is simple I love you in silence for our story is written in lore.

And when you further tire of this, which I imagine you already do
It's okay to say you've moved on and that your focus is someone new
For mine is the same, I've decided today to focus only on me
And since you are the air in my lungs, in lore is where I will be

Beckon me not, for that implies distance between our souls
Summon me as your longing servant waiting to play his role
Until you do fear not my absence, my silence is not a knife
Today, tomorrow just as yesterday, I still want...