Ahimsa (Non-Violence)

For the past several days I have been concerned and thinking about how to approach/handle a particular situation at work. If you don’t know, I work with a older man who is quadriplegic. I am his Personal Aide. Lately P-- has become more and more passively-aggressive in his communication with me as well as at me. Passive-aggressive behavior can manifest itself as learned helplessness, procrastination, stubbornness, resentment, sullenness, or deliberate/repeated failure to accomplish requested tasks for which one is (often explicitly) responsible.

I would like to provide example; however, I really don’t want to describe to entire structure and dynamics of the situation…

I have been considering how to approach this passive-aggressiveness of P--. At first, I thought I would “bite back” or “snip,” you know, like a dog when playing. When I tried this approach I realized I was merely giving into my anger. I was allowing my anger to manifest, and I was becoming resentful of P--. After I left work doing this, I realized I invested more into the situation. I woke up in the middle of the night trying to figure out a solution. So I am clearly wrapped up in my response…And I would certainly get involved in my explanation and rationalization of my response, but I think it would only be me trying to make sense of it, make it into an idea that supports a feeling of me being “right”.

I realize my “biting back” and “snipping” were self-defensive violent acts. I realized the passive-aggressiveness of P-- was challenging my sense of self, and I was allowing myself to be defensive of my actions (or in some cases things I forget).

The idea of ahimsa comes in because I read today, “In accordance to [ahimsa], eating of some foods, whose cultivation harms small insects and worms as well as agriculture itself, is to be abstained from. Violence in self-defense, criminal law, and war are accepted by Hindus and Jains.” When I read “self-defense,” I thought, that is what I am doing. I am defending my self. Defending my self is not what I think I want to do. And! This must mean I am recognizing a idea of self which is inadequate, which I think is untrue…but! When P-- makes his comments I feel inadequate.

What I realized here, was that I don’t want to be violent as a means of being self-defensive, and I don’t want to be self-defensive. This reminds me of a passage from Ram Dass’s book “Paths to God.” He writes,

I said, “Yeah--but you also told me to tell the truth, and the truth is that I’m angry.”
Then [Maharajji] leaned toward me, until he was nose to nose and eye to eye, and said, “Give up anger, and tell the truth.”
I started to say, “But…”-- and then, right at that moment, I saw my predicament. See, what I was going to say to him was “But that isn’t who I am.” And in that instant, I saw in front of me the image of a coffin, and in that coffin was an image of who I thought myself to be. And what Maharajji was saying to me was, “I’m telling you who you’re going to be, after you’re finished being who you think you are.”

And so, perhaps by labeling P-- passive-aggressive I fuel my anger, and don’t look at the self I think I am. Really, the situation is offering an opportunity to “Give up anger, and tell the truth,” to become who I am after I’ve finished being who I think I am.

Dharma is your Karma, Karma is your Dharma

The term dharma, is an Indian spiritual and religious term, that means one's righteous duty or any virtuous path in the common sense of the term.

Righteous - wise, way, manner
-Wise – “to see," hence "to know"
- Way - road, path, course of travel
- Manner - method of handling
Combined definition: To see or to know the method of handling your course of travel.

Duty - due, owed
- Due - to owe
- Owe - to have, own/possess

Virtuous (1) – chaste (for women), valiant, valorous,
- Chaste – pure from unlawful sexual intercourse
- Valiant - stalwart, brave
- - Stalwart - good, serviceable
- - Brace - splendid, valiant
- - Splendid - magnificent, brilliant
- -Magnificent - doing great deeds
- - Service - celebration of public worship/ perform work
- Valorous - courage in the face of danger/ be strong
- - Courage – heart
- - Heart - middle
Virtue (2) - moral life and conduct, moral excellence
- Moral - proper behavior of a person in society
Combined definition: Celebration of public worship by doing good deeds as proper behavior of a person in society.

Karma yoga (also known as Buddhi Yoga) or the "discipline of action" is based on the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita, a sacred Sanskrit scripture of Hinduism. One of the four pillars of yoga, Karma yoga focuses on the adherence to duty (dharma) while remaining detached from the reward. It states that one can experience salvation (Moksha) or love (bhakti) of God by performing their duties in an unselfish manner for the pleasure of the Supreme, which is the welfare of the world.

Sankata Mochan kripaa nidhaan

Sometimes I go to the Whole Foods near downtown because I think if I go there I will see people I know. Specifically I think I will have a chance to see a girl I use to date. I think out off all the times I have gone to Whole Foods with this agenda I have only seen the girl twice.

Today, after swimming I decided I would go toward downtown near the Whole Foods to get a bite to eat, but I also wanted to visit some bookstores—I was searching for the book The Shack. When I arrived downtown I parked in the Whole Foods parking lot and walked around to the bookstores—where I didn’t find the book for used. So I headed back toward Whole Foods where I was playing to get a cup of coffee, but first I stopped by Cosmic Cantina to buy a burrito.

After Cosmic Cantina I went to the Whole Foods to buy coffee, but by the time I got there I wanted something juicy or sweet. As I stood in the store deciding what to buy a cold chill, some what like a breeze came over me. Then I thought, maybe I know someone in here. So I walked around the store and found no one I knew.

I decided upon an Orange Crème soda. I went outside to the eating area. I found a chair and took off my jacket. Upon eating a large farmer-like looking man walked outside from the Whole Foods. The man was tale and plumb, wearing a red flannel shirt tucked into his pants with suspenders; sort of the stereotypic farmer looking guy. He sat down far from me and began talking to me about the weather. He said I would need a jacket tomorrow because it was going to get really cold. The man began to ask me questions and I mostly said, “Yeah.” Then he stopped talking to me.

Half way through eating my burrito a woman with yellowish grey hair and a lime green shirt comes walking toward the door where I am sitting. I recognize the woman. She is the mother of my once girlfriend from four years ago. She and I and her family have some history, some good and toward the latter part of the relationship sort of rough. I decide to wave to her, but her attention seems to be on someone else, a woman she is meeting.

I realize they are going to be sitting at the next table over from the farmer man. I begin to feel nervous, sort like an odd feeling in my chest, with preconscious questions of how to respond in this situation.

Wanting to be merely sooth I look for my iPod shuffle to listen to Krishna Das (Hindu mantra music, also knows as kirtan). I find the iPod and turn to a track titled Baba Hanuman.

The lyrics are:
Namo... Namo...Anjaninandanaaya
I bow, I bow again and again to Anjani's son, Hanuman
Jaya Seeyaa Raama, Jai Jai Hanumaan
Victory to Sita and Ram, Victory to Hanuman
Victory over the darkness of suffering...
Jaya Bajrangbalee, Baba Hanuman
Victory to the one with the body of a thunderbolt
My Baba, Hanuman.
Sankata Mochan kripaa nidhaan
You are home of all Grace.
Destroy all my problems, calamities and sufferings.
Jai Jai Jai Hanuman Gosaaee
Hail My Lord Hanuman
Kripaa karahu Gurudeva kee naaee
You are my Guru, bestow your Grace on me.
Sankata Mochan kripaa nidhaan,
You are the destroyer of Suffering, the abode of Grace
Laala Langotta, Laala Nishaan
You wear a red langotta and carry a red flag
Hare Raama Raama Raama, Seetaa Raama Raama Raama

As I begin to listen to the song I don’t have a need to look to this woman I am nervous about. I am not nervous. I eat the burrito and look around peacefully. It was an odd thing.

However, I wondered what will I do when I walk right in front of the table where she is sitting? Continuing to listening to Baba Hanuman I walk in front of the farmer man, throw away my trash and realize the farmer man is talking to me. He is confirming I am going to wear my jacket tomorrow. I tell him I will. Then began talking about something different and I realized he wasn’t interested in my response, but it was merely talking to talk at someone. So I listened. Rather than listening and trying to think of what to reply with (because it was irrelevant) I looked into the man’s eyes, deep in to his crystalline blue eyes. The man began to stutter more than before.

Before I knew it I was standing with my back to the ex-girlfriend’s mother. The farmer man kept talking. I realized this man will probably not stop talking as long as I am attentive. I decide to say things that would indicate that I am going to leave, but be kept talking at me. So then I said to him, “Yell, bye bye.” I turned toward the stairs (with the table with my ex-girlfriend’s mother to my right) and walked down the stairs; put in my earbud, and walked toward my car.

Just as I was about to cross the street I realized: I didn’t even think about that woman, I just walked right past her. Hmmm…

"Romantic" Dharma

I do not have much intellectual or mental clarity, but I have a feeling. Perhaps the feeling is enough; perhaps I do not need the intellectual/mental clarity. However, I pressure myself to provide an explanation—an explanation I do not know how to give. I do not know how to give. Perhaps that is the explanation. I do not know how to be romantic.

I once wrote a paper on the matter of romance and relationships. In it I wrote, “Romantic relationships, if truly romantic, are marked by an imaginative and emotional appeal.” I believe I have lost, lost in the sense of ceasing, that imaginative and emotional appeal.

I am here today with no particular motivation to perpetuate my current “romantic relationship” with the girl I have been seeing. I have no motivation to be “special” with her. Now, why does this concern me? As it always is for me, I am concerned about communicating my loss of interest to her; I am concerned about a negative response from her; in a generic sense “I don’t want to hurt her” (which I can’t do.)

When the question of emotional hurting someone comes to mind, I think of Arjuna’s predicament in the Bhagavan Gita. Arjuna’s is being asked by Krishna to fulfill his dharma (spiritual duty) and fight against his family. Krishna says it is his duty, and it is the karma of those who fight to be killed.

If I can make a parallel here… I see my predicament of hurting “her” emotionally similar to the bleak outcome of Arjuna’s battle. Yet, I feel it is my dharma to not be in a relationship right now. I can’t explain that. I don’t know how to explain it. And! If I were to try to explain it I would destroy the feeling, making it in to an idea or philosophy, something stagnate and not alive. Essentially I would be doing the same thing to myself. I would be muting the still small voice within, which says, “This does not feel right.”
The simple fact of the matter is that I don’t feel right about continuing the romantic relationship I currently.

A Situation of Anger, and maybe Growth

Disclaimer: I am writing to express a state of anger and mild frustration.

Today, now (3:56), I have been at work since 7am. That is eight hours of work. During my work day I was surprised how present I was able to be. I considered my ability to be present could be accounted for due to a massage and cranial sacral therapy I experienced the day before. While at work I was able experience a soft gaze, hear many sounds--and their nuances, have light fleeting thoughts, and an ability to stay curious rather than think theoretically or of the past or the future.

On my way home, I was driving at 70 mph, cruise control, and with a soft gaze, watched the other cars on both sides of the road, the ominous clouds around, and the tall trees that line both sides of the highway. I was feeling pretty good.

When I got home I arrived to my step-mother, Zondra, feeding my 4 month old niece, Laureli, with a bottle. Laureli noticed my presence, stopped feeding and stared at me. After a moment I said, "I am not going to distract you from eating," and left the room. When I returned a few minutes later, Laureli was finished feeding, and Zondra was burbing Laureli. Once again, Laureli looking at me and stayed staring at me. I looked at her in her small blue eyes, and didn't say anything. Zondra, using a high pitched baby-talk voice, began to say things like, "Hi. Can we say hi?" "That is uncle Sean." "Hi." (I don't have the inclination to say this type of babble to Luareli. And mostly I have nothing to say or don't know what to a child who doesn't know what I am saying in the first place.) Laureli and I continued to look at one another.

I then held up my index finger to Laureli so that she could grab it, and she did. She began to pull my index finger toward her mouth, perhaps to suck on it as if it was her own. However, I was not going to let her do that. She continued to try and I play with her tugging at my finger. In several moment Laureli began to make a pouting face. I responded to her face, "Awww," reflecting some frustration and saddness on her part. Zondra replied, "Now, we don't need to cry." To which I responded to Laureli, not thinking of Zondra's approach, "Yeah, we are going to cry." Laureli did not cry. She seemed undecided as to how to respond. I believe it was obvious she was frustrated she could not manipulate my finger to her liking.

I continued to promote Laureli's expressing of frustration, while Zondra spoke to her asking her to suppress the child's crying. After only a few moments of this interchange, Zondra said to me in a stern voice, "No. She is not going to cry. She needs to learn how to not be startled by new people."

It is obvious Zondra's and my understanding of this situation is different. I think Laureli is frustrated because she can't move my finger where she wants it. Zondra thinks Laureli is upset because she needs to "adjust" to me being in the room. I disagree with Zondra, because when ever I visit Laureli at my brother's house, she never becomes upset with new and strange visitors. However, according to the psychiatrist Donald Winnicott, children experience subjective omnipotence, "This experience takes place when the mother-child relationship is entirely symbiotic and the child experiences everything subjectively. At this point the baby feels as if it is merged with the mother. The baby considers themselves all-powerful and the center of existence. This is because, to the baby, whatever they wish occurs." Therefore, if the child wishes for my finger to be in the her mouth and it doesn't happen, her subjective omnipotence is frustrated, and the child responses to frustration with crying.

As adults when we experience frustration, such as Zondra wanting me to not say something, she sternly says to me, "No. She is not going to cry." Zondra expresses her frustration that she is not in control. Or the adult may cry or express some emotion.

Back to the story...

I paused a moment and said, referring to my approach, "It's called affective attunement." To which she replied, "I don't care what it is called. I don't want to know it." This is were my anger arouse. I think my initial response was the feeling of being "shut down". However, after I eased my way out of situation, I left the room and had another insight.

When I was younger, 4-6 years old, my parents split up. Zondra became my step-mom around that time. I remember being confused, and frustrated with my situation of my parent's split. I believe my confusion and frustration was acted out through anger. As a child I acted out my anger in many ways, and I remember the response from Zondra was being punished, an attempt to condition me to not express the emotion. In Gestalt Therapy, the holding in of an emotion is called retroflection. Another way to say this is, turning back on oneself, e.g. holding your breath, or thinking a lot.

My second moment of anger was realizing Zondra is trying to teacher Laureli to not express the emotion, similar to how she did with me. From my perspective, after several years of therapy, I discovered that my inability to express my emotions was a learned process of someone, most likely my parents, telling me I will be punished for my expression--you can see this shunning still from Zondra's response to me. Similarily Zondra is teaching Laureli to not express her emotions when frustrated.

So my anger comes from my own shunning of saying to Zondra, what I am doing has a purpose...but her purpose was to teach suppression rather than expression.

I believe my anger arose from my own frustration with Zondra managing to suppress Laureli and myself. Granted Zondra is babysitting the child and her comfort level of babysitting seems to a level where Laureli doesn't cry. This doesn't necessarily go along with my comfort level; I am okay with crying.

I found this experience interesting. I was able to get in touch with my anger, where it came from, and now I am uncertain as how to breakthrough the impasse of being shunned (perhaps writing this blog is serving to be my therapeutic expressive outlet?)...because I certainly don't want to start an argument, not now.

Now, after this situation and a good day at work, where am I? I am continuing to hold a little anger in my body, mostly below and the sides of my sternum. I suppose I will return to my original plans and eat some ice cream.

Hmmmm....

I love having an expansive affection and appreciation for someone. When I am able to experience a feeling of care and gratitude I am calm and clear headed.

And...I think that is pretty cool.

The Path of the Wind

As you might have read in one of my previous blogs, I have considered life to be to “meaningfully meaningless,” and sometimes I become depressed by such a belief. I wonder around thinking of reason as to do much of anything, and I end up spending my time on activities which merely use or waste my time. In these times I am often alone, as I often am, and I wonder about why I am alone. The other day I considered it was karma; I have karmic aloneness. I thought, I owe it to my self to be alone rather than seek company. That wears off easily.

Then today I took a bathroom break from watching the move The Duets and I thought, I have no real material wealth or sentimental wealth, and I think “most” want one or both of these qualities in someone in which they spent their time, romantically or otherwise. I thought, perhaps I have not acquired material or sentimental wealth because I don’t want to be seen or used as a disposable commodity i.e. I am only desired company when I have the “appropriate’ material or emotion the other needs. However, if I don’t have material things or sentimentality I will never be used and/or then disposed of. This is a good way to insure aloneness.

Then I realized there was a time when I had both, material and sentimental wealth. When I did I was “in love”. And in my “disposal” I became jaded, angry, and diminished, among other things. Then I realized, I can’t clam up or resent anyone for “disposing” of my once my giving is no longer useful. Just as I have limited life, my giving does as well. It runs its course. But can I accept that?

Then I remembered Ram Dass saying, “All you can do is throw your bread upon the water.” There is the image of fluffy bread hitting the surface of the natural water and in moments the water is absorbed into the bread as it becomes uneatable.
I then decided to read the source of Ram Dass’s quotation, the Bible.

Ecclesiastes 11
1 Cast your bread upon the waters,
for after many days you will find it again.
6 Sow your seed in the morning,
and at evening let not your hands be idle,
for you do not know which will succeed,
whether this or that,
or whether both will do equally well.
7 Light is sweet,
and it pleases the eyes to see the sun.
8 However many years a man may live,
let him enjoy them all.
But let him remember the days of darkness,
for they will be many.
Everything to come is meaningless.

Meaningless. Really?
What is to live for if even the Bible says “Everything to come is meaningless [and is a chasing after the wind.”?

Ecclesiastes writes,
9 Be happy, young man, while you are young,
and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.
Follow the ways of your heart…

And then as I we live happily, and follow our hearts, we “cast our bread upon the water,” and “There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven,” and we “do not know the path of the wind,” and even though there is a time and a season for chasing the wind, I suppose as we cast our bread the wind will take it where it will, and perhaps in many days we will find it again.

A man reaps what he sows…. 9Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. (GALATIANS 6: 7-9)

Playing

"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.

The finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing the play...

The rules of the finite game may not change; the rules of an infinite game must change.

Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries.
Finite players are serious; infinite games are playful.
A finite player plays to be powerful; an infinite player plays with strength.
A finite player consumes time; an infinite player generates time.
The finite player aims for eternal life; the infinite player aims for eternal birth.

The choice is yours."
-James Carse, Infinite and Finite Games"

Today, I learned I am most definitely a infinite player.

And that is all I have to say about that.

Every moment....You never know

“Everything has a purpose, even this, and it is up to you to find it”

–from the film “Peaceful Warrior”

“There are neither good nor bad qualities in the Self. The Self is free from all quality. If there is unity there is also duality. The numeral one also gives rise to other numbers. The truth is neither one nor two. It is as it is.”

-Sri Ramana Maharshi

Every moment is a chance to awaken.

Every moment?

What is awakening?

Awakening is often referring the spiritual path of the Buddha (or Awakened One). For the Buddha, when he awoke, he is believed to have realized complete awakening and insight into the nature and cause of human suffering which was ignorance, along with steps necessary to eliminate it.

If every moment is a chance to awaken, then every moment is a moment to realize the nature of human suffering. I believe in order to have this moment of awakening we have to experience human suffering in order to realize its nature.

Currently, I am involved in Summer school, where I am taking two classes: Chemistry 111 and Education 201. The Chemistry class meets 4 days a week and an additional 3 times for the laboratory work (a total of 5 hours of Chemistry a day). The Education class meets twice a week for c. 4 hours. Therefore, on Tuesday s and Thursday s I am in class for a total of 9 hours a day, not including homework time.

Now that you have the set up, I discovered a week ago I failed the midterm (60%). I was disappointed. I thought, “I might fail this course.” And if I fail the course…

1) don’t graduate from college in the Summer

2) I have to take classes during the Fall semester

3) Will not have a job

4) I will not have worked during the summer to pay for Fall living expenses

5) Logically, I would have to retake Chemistry 111.

6) I am sure there are other things…

When I discovered the pressure I had put on myself to finish this course, I realized in order to pass I need a Chemistry tutor. I was able to have two Chemistry tutors. I began to study for longer periods of time, and I was continuing to make low grades on the quizzes (a moment to see if I know what I think I know, and to pull up my grade). I began to get more frustrated.

I then realized how I am failing this course. I am not remembering and processing the nuances of the class material. By forgetting, not knowing, or merely getting confused with the quiz material I am making the same mistake over and over, and making a low grade on the quiz.

So I learned something about myself. I learned I don’t make or remember small differences in mathematical data, computation and theory.

What do I do? I can’t change how I process information. However, I know I process the data of Chemistry to a level which is not aiding me in passing the class....I discovered how I am creating my suffering. I have come to realize my ignorance, and so… how do I eliminate it?

I realized my list of six things that would happen if I failed this class, (1) I don’t know for certain they would happen, (2) I can simply decide nothing on that list is bad.

As Sri Ramana Maharshi said, “There are neither good nor bad qualities in the Self”. Being that my Self is all aspects of my life, passing or failing Chemistry is neither good nor bad.

* * *

The farmer had a horse and the horse ran away, and the neighbor said, “Oh, isn’t that too bad.”

The farmer said, “You never know.”

The next day, the horse came back followed by a beautiful wild stallion. The neighbor said, “How fortunate.”

The farmer said, “You never know.”

A short while after the son of the farmer was riding the wild horse, fell and broke his leg. The neighbor said, “Isn’t that terrible.”

The farmer said, “You never know.”

Short there after the government was coming through conscripting the young men for service, and because the boy had a broken leg he was left behind. The neighbor said, “How fortunate.”
And the farmer said, “You never know.”

Inspired by reading "The Elegance of the Hedgehog"

Today on my lunch break I stopped at Borders bookstore. I picked up the book "The Elegance of the Hedgehog"(Muriel Barbery) and began to read. In this book, there is a 12-year old girl who is extremely intelligent. She is intelligent enough to surmise that life is absurd and has no meaning. I continued to read what little I could, since I was falling asleep as I was reading--this had nothing to do with the book's content.

On my way out the bookstore's door, I thought, Indeed, life has no meaning in the since any inherit meaning to discover. Life's meaning is not like a hidden room in a mansion; it is there all you have to do is find it.

Life at its most fundamental sense is formed, like babies are, from two components (the mother's egg and the father's sperm). The two people did not create life, they formed life using their collective resources. I think the fundamental shaping of life is analogous to the meaning of life, we shape it with what we have i.e. the resources of our life.

I began to think about this shaping of life like a painting (I am a painter, so I began here). Often, you begin a painting with a white "blank" canvas. This white "blank" canvas analogous to life's meaninglessness. However, because the canvas is white I can apply paint to it and shape the colors into whatever image I want (to the best of my abilities). Life's meaninglessness provides this same opportunity. Because life is meaningless I can apply and shape any meaning I want onto it. Therefore life is meaningless, but my life can have any meaning I want.

Then I thought, Wow that is overwhelming. I have heard an economist say that products don't sell if there are too few or too many choices. Too few and you want more options, and to many and making a choice is too difficult. When I considered a market economic point-of-view I thought of a quote from the film "Adaptation," when Susan Orlean says, "There are too many ideas and things and people. Too many directions to go. I was starting to believe the reason it matters to care passionately about something, is that it whittles the world down to a more manageable size. "

To create a specific meaning for life, or even to believe life has a meaning and all we have to do is find it allows us to whittle the world down to a more manageable size. I am skeptical about this approach. However, I see it happening all the time. I see people constantly limiting how much of the world they can manage. They only have a few close friends, or only hangout with their significant other, only communicate with people who are in their immediate location, etc. I am not suggesting this is incorrect. I think they are examples of people whittling their world to a manageable size. But why?

I infer, just as the character from "The Elegance of the Hedgehog" posits that life is meaningless and absurd, if we can manage, narrow and "whittle the world down" shaping a meaningful life is a less difficult task. However, the flip side is that shaping a meaningful life is not a difficult task, no matter how small or large we perceive the world to be. It is not difficult because there is no need to control life.

Hence, you can not control the meaning of something which is meaningless. However, you can use your acquired, meaningless resources to compile and shape and impose meaning onto life. Then, from your perspective, life will appear to have meaning.

The inverse of this would to say life has no meaning and in saying that, life has a meaningful meaninglessness.

Peter and I talk...

Today on my lunch hour I saw an old man, with a white cane, wearing a safari hat, jean shorts, a flannel shirt, and a sign around his neck, which read: "I enjoy company. How about a 5-minute conversation?" I loved it. I was about to get up to invite him over, when a woman from another table asked him to sit with her.
Meanwhile, I sat at my table, eating a cookie and drinking coffee, writing some notes on the opportunities of two different types of aloneness ("all-one-ness" and "a-lone-ness").

I was in the middle of pondering the question, "What are the specific opportunities of my aloneness?" when a I saw the woman from earlier inquisitively address a couple. She asked her question, put her thumb into her pocket. The couple began to look around in their bags. I inferred she wanted a pen or a pencil. So I asked her, "Do you need a pen?" She said she did. I handed my to her and she walked back to her table. She returned with the pen, and then returned again, and I said, "Do you need the pen again?"

She said she didn't and wanted to know if her friend(the guy with the sign around his neck) could sit with me. I said he could. I was intrigued and wanted to ask him about his sign.
He sat down, told me his name is Peter. I asked him about his sign.

He said, "I am blind, and I spend a lot of time alone in my house. I get cabin-fever, you know. So I decided to make a sign. And it has worked. I have met a lot of nice people since."
I said, "When I saw your sign I was a little envious."
He said, "You should make your own sign."
"I think it is a great idea, and if it weren't for social stigmas, I would make a sign."
"What?"
"Stigmas"
"What stigmas?"
"A young guy showing his desperate need to not be alone. I mean, you have to really own your aloneness."
He said, "Yeah, sometimes I get really depressed, and sometimes I accept it."

I told him I was writing about aloneness before he sat down. He asked me what I wrote, and told him I was writing about aloneness's opportunities and how I split aloneness into two categories. I told him I thought aloneness can allow us to be more adaptable.
He said, "We are social creatures. We need to talk to people."
I agreed. The conversation meandered a little. He then told me how his life is in turmoil because he is in the process of divorcing his wife. He said, it would be okay if she wasn't still living in the house. However, he also expressed some lentiment because he is losing a person who could help him live more easily, but he can't do it because she isn't emotionally stable.

Here is a blind man, who began to lose his eye sight in 1987. He went into early retirement because of his eyesight was failing. He was a flavor chemist. He comes to Weaver Street Market Wednesday, Fridays, and Saturdays from 11:30am-2pm so he can talk to people.

Today, Peter and I talked. We talked about aloneness or perhaps (at times), we talked about loneliness.

Split: Authentic and Inauthentic

"When you left me, I left Earth. Does that not show you I care?"
from the graphic novel, Watchmen

I finished a instant message chat with my ex-girlfriend (2005-2006), and after our chat I realized since our "split" I have lost some of my authenticity. Rather, I denied some of my ability to be genuine. I think I did so out of fear. I feared...I think I feared it-wasn't-worth-it. I think I feared grief; and somehow I connected authenticity with grief.

I thought that if I denied my authenticity, then any experience of loss would not amount to grief, because the loss would not be an authentic loss. I think the inauthentic loss is in direct relationship to behaving and experiencing an inauthentic life. I believe I imitated being genuine. I was playing politics with myself.

Playing politics is living a double live, a divided life. The double life was one of authenticity and sincerity, which I had suppressed; and the other side was the mask of playing a role which disguised the despair of fearing authenticity.

As Soren Kierkegaard wrote in Sickness unto Death, "A person in despair wants despairingly to be himself. But surely if he wants despairingly to be himself, he cannot want to be rid of himself. Yes, or so it seems. But closer observation reveals the contradiction to be still the same. The self which, in his despair, he wants to be is a self he is not (indeed, to want to be the self he truly is, is the very opposite of despair)" (p. 50).

* * *

I am not going to go into a manifesto over what is my true self.

* * *

I believe my fear of being authentic was a response to trauma. I had traumatized myself by believing that if I choose to not be authentic I could ground my certainty I will not experience grief. However, there are two sides to every coin, and if you don't not have heads there is no tails, hence there is no coin. Similarly, without the experience of grief there may be no experience of pleasure--authentic pleasure.

What I learned from chat with the "ole ex" was:
1) I care about her. I care, and that is such a huge feeling. I learned my care does not have to be selfish, as it once was when I was "in love".
2) I learned I have something to offer, that was and is still valued (in some way).
3) No matter how others change, my authenticity (even in the midst of my own change) is something that is pleasing, and can not cause grief.
4) I also feel very gratified she and I were able to chat (although I don't entirely prefer the internet chatting system) and shared what was on our minds, and then said goodbye.
5) I can say goodbye, and feel the 'bye' is actually good.

Dim Illumination

Last night I watched the movie "Adaptation" with a girl, who is a friend of mine. She left my place at about 11pm. When she left I began to think about what I wanted to do until I went to bed. I sat in front of my computer, flipping back and forth between websites. I thought about reading a book. I turned off the light to my room, and without changing from my day's clothes, I crawled into bed. Very shortly afterward I fell asleep.
It is now 9:30 am. I am in the same clothes I wore yesterday and slept in, I am still in the same chair I was in last night, and mindlessly surfing the internet. Only now I am writing a blog about the mundanity of my life.
You (the reader) and I (the writer) are now lead to the present moment (only the present moment will be no longer "my present moment" when you read this).

My room is dark with a light blue glow from the morning shadowed light bending around the objects between my bedroom and the sun. The funny thing is even though the sun is low in the sky, at high noon my bedroom will not be much more light than it is now. Why is that funny? I draw humor from it because I am amused by the fact that the universe can shift, the earth is rotating, and in many (or most) places in the world the earth's rotation causes a drastic shift in how much light is received and perceived. These places become illuminated by the earth's rotation. Despite my bedroom becoming pitch black at night and slightly more illuminate during the day, there is not a drastic shift in the amount of light that enters my bedroom.

Just as I lulled last night, thinking about what to do; I wake this morning in a similar state. (I have plenty of things to do...and not all I want to do right now, and some I don't even like thinking about doing.) Yet, to use the metaphor of my bedroom's positional capacity to receive the illuminate qualities of the sun's relationship to the earth's rotation, at times I also position myself in such a way I limit my capacity to receive the illuminating qualities of the sun's relationship with the earth's rotation.

At moments I dim my ability to be illuminated. I obscure my mind and senses causing myself to not "lighten up." It is not so much I become serious, but lethargic, hence my position limits by capacity to receive illumination. However, this is of course more disposition-al than positional. And at times our disposition affects our position.

It is now 10am.
(I intend to stop writing without a "conclusion". So rather than feeling like the writing is unresolved, I encourage you to feel the writing is open-ended.)