In my soul day is light and dark is night, Blind are lies and truth is sight; And in my soul the deepest spite, For a world where right is wrong and wrong is right.
Tag: existential
Why glimpse into the ether? – comment
In response to a recent query. I thought it worth sharing, as it highlights the motivation behind the seemingly tortuous mission to ‘know thyself’. ‘For me, I not only glimpse into the ether, I spend days, months, years, living within and breathing the ether. If by ether you mean the unknown, the fear and anxiety […]
This is Water – David Foster Wallace
Note: this commencement speech was given in 2005. It was recently recommended to me by a close friend. It distills and conveys an approach to living that, in my mind, should guide each of us on our journeys. YouTube audio can be found here. “Greetings parents and congratulations to Kenyon’s graduating class of 2005. There […]
Thought for food – 4
Each path a life; the worn and barely used alike. The majority of your fellow travellers rarely, if ever, escape their guiding illusions, their paths crisscrossing the world, forming wide corridors and highways of frenzied activity, leading nowhere. They may have tread many more an empty mile than you, but in your stubbornness and reluctance […]
Alone in a world of believers
You are blessed and cursed to have found your meaning in the question of meaning itself. Blessed to be motivated to take a journey of deepest discovery, not only of the universe without, but of the universe within. Cursed to be born in a world of believers, who are constantly and continuously tricked by the […]
As I lie awake staring at the faint light filtering through the space between the boards in my mind
Raising head, Lifting eyes from dark, Stepping outward, From underground. Strange hollowness, Echoes in mind, Empty of pretense, Confident in not knowing. Optimism seeking light, Broken long dormancy, Entering the world without, Blinding, suffocating familiarity. Same grey streets; Same concrete buildings; Same managed woods and rectangular fields and forgettable faces on Sunday walks on worn […]
Notes – What is consciousness?
Immediate thoughts after meditation session: For a brief time I was able to invert the common experience of consciousness being located behind the face and in the middle of the head. I was able to expand the location of consciousness to fill the four walls within which I was seated. I am still pondering this […]
Conversations with myself – #4
I’ve resisted writing. There is little new to say. Old terrain, worn terrain. And I annoy myself. And how! But it goes round. This thought. And that. Fueled by fear. Fear itself. Fear of failure. Fear of embarrassment. Fear of weakness. Fear of being seen. Fear of second place, of ridicule, of pain. Fear of […]
Mission statement for 2019
Don’t mistake the crowd for the truth; failing to fit in does not mean you’re broken. Your horizons might extend further than your neighbour’s, your colleague’s, your friend’s; trust in your own eyes, let others trust in theirs. With deference to Hamlet, might I add: there is also nothing either right or wrong, but truth […]
Optimism
Set me adrift in the blackness, Let me spin aimlessly like a homeless globe, Traversing endless light-years without bearing. Release me to the void. To the black velvety comfort of a lightless horizon. I see. I hear. Nothing. A selfish bastard denying the world. One final cowardly display of spite. I spit at thee and […]
Alienation: an experiment
Here’s an experiment. Tomorrow, before entering the world, wear your hair a different way. Don socks that don’t match. When asked ‘how are you?’, don’t lie. Frown. When the queen walks in, remain seated. Be honest. Be yourself tomorrow. Unless you are infinitely agreeable, unless your hair looks equally good parted, unless you are God, […]
Aphorisms – 2
Heed not too quickly the disapproving gaze, it may be the clearest proof yet you are on the correct way.
Aphorisms – 1
I’d rather fail a thousand times, before succeeding at something I despise.
An introvert’s reminder
Arrogance is bad. Arrogance grounded in ignorance is even worse. Independence may be a defense from the truth, a form of self-righteousness and silent arrogance. Don’t seal yourself from the world, and claim superiority. We may be our own worst (or forgiving) judges, yet removed from the tempering wisdom found only in human contact, our […]
Venting
Don’t hide behind clichés to justify yourself. Don’t blame the craziness of this world for your crazy actions. Take some goddamned responsibility. Yeah, this life is crazy! Simply acknowledging that does not excuse your craziness, does not give it justification, does not clear the path to forgiveness and understanding. Let me tell you, you don’t […]
The switch
The mind has made a switch, From days inward searching spent, To heed the call of assumed responsibilities, And rejoin the careening wheels of society. The mind has made a switch, And slides sadly into this communal pit.
…rhyming Homer with Homer…
Insight my mind has not brought! Endless loops with doubt fraught! Infinite thoughts pitifully caught! Stagnation has only wrought rot!
Conversations with myself – #1
I can’t force the parts of me to emerge, to come out from hiding. That is one of the paradoxes here: set the mind to let go of control, make that a goal, and the mind automatically elects an executor, gives it the label ‘I’, and sets to work. But by that very act, the […]
Dissociation
Stop that grasping, and just let it go. I don’t exist, and never have. This body, this mind, these cells of bone, muscle, nerves and skin. I am an illusion, emerging from a neural network, unifying through gross abstraction, these multiple, interacting, embedded parts. I am and I am not. I am here, but I […]
Bus station ecology
Outside a café by the central bus station. Wasps. A gentle breeze stalling their forward propulsion. They hover, drawn to the foamed milk and cocoa powder topping my cappuccino. Enlightening places: central transportation hubs. A congregation of humanity’s diversity: addicts; homeless; drunkards clasping and gulping bottles of warm beer; schoolkids travelling home from school; workers […]
