a fugue, a drifting

text file haiku

ghostpines — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:48:40 +0000

these standing faces
our eyes meet: mind gone
another witness

End

ghostpines — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:46:57 +0000

I spent the last sixteen months with these people and it’s unlikely I’ll ever see them again. It’s over. The reward of education is doing it. My education will continue on my own terms, perhaps at a better pace.But this chapter is closed. I’m more sad than excited tonight. I’m disillusioned with school, it’s good to be moving on. It’s just not what I’d pictured this feeling like. Expectations are just useless, aren’t they?

History

ghostpines — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:53:35 +0000

Reality isn’t the place most humans prefer to be, even though it makes us happy. People would rather hear stories or watch games. Alcohol. Humans have consistently sought ways to.alter consciousness. Sherlock drinks embalming fluid in the new movies, I assume to quiet his mind. He’s not a healthy person because he represents the core Western virtue. Our society is unhealthy for similar reasons.

I want to be healthy. Does that mean tuning in or tuning out? Focus or flow? Even creativity seems like an escape. Narrative, future, past. Prayer is all that’s real.

Manifest

ghostpines — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:54:51 +0000

I’ve learned that love has a presence. It is not the status of a relationship. It is not a word about intent or the unusual strength of fundamental emotions. It is a kind of spirit. You can know its character. Love is impartial absolute value. You cannot give it to yourself. You can’t accept it unless you know it’s impossible to deserve.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Because love is personified here I used to think this was describing or defining it. These things are residual. They don’t add up to love. They occur because the presence of love displaces the ego. Love debases the tension between the self and the universe by restoring the self to validity. Love grants the heart sovereignty. The heart no longer plunders the meanings of objects, relationships, goals, pleasures, talents or occurances to fill the uncertain absence of self. Its needs have been provided for, love has answered. What now is there to envy? What now is there to doubt? Whatever the outcomes, the self is not at stake. Love is the inexhaustible constant of truth. Nobody can take it away because it doesn’t come from people, it is the presence of God. My epiphany last year meant sensing love spatially, being engulfed… infinitely, not in distance but in the entirety of the moment.

Jasmine is the human aspect of that experience. She teaches me what it means to share love; she compels me to practice love. She convinces me to be loved. She is persuasive. Love has a presence in Jasmine. She is an expression of love… love manifests itself through her countenance. The zen contours of her body stir in me a timeless and universal sense of revelation. A sense that Beauty itself is apparent in Jasmine, that she is the lens through which I may experience and contemplate Beauty as an accountable witness. That as I explore her I also discover the universe. And that the feminine spirit–vital, alluring, mysterious–is relating to me individually. It is profound to me to feel that connection and ponder the paradox of metaphysical reality made available to the human senses through the personhood of my beloved Jasmine. Perhaps microcosms can be more than symbolic.

Flow

ghostpines — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 11:35:23 +0000

I figured out how to journal from my new kindle, so here we go. First of all I’ve been thinking lately that every time I quit a vice I just shift to something else. I stop smoking and start drinking, stop drinking and start eating candy, stop eating candy and get a fast food habit or start spending money impulsively… it’s always something. I always find an unhealthy way to avoid feeling bad when I don’t want to. Sometimes I play computer games not because they sound fun but because I don’t want to let my mind wander.

I think there are better ways to handle anxiety or sadness. Prayer helps when I’m willing to focus on meaningful things. Managing behavior is about navigating your body’s need to alternate between stress/stimulation and depression/relaxation.

The only way to live well is to regulate productively. My life has gotten better but I’m lazy. I ritually avoid stimulation because for years I was constantly seeking ways to depress the overstimulation of anxiety. I’m happiest when I’m stimulated by something external. I’m not often stimulated by daily problems. I have to provide myself with challenges and most of the time I don’t. It is probably the worst aspect of my personality. I wonder if I’ll ever overcome it. I need to create the satisfaction for myself by learning how to reframe actions in relation to meaningful goals. I also need to reread Flow. Life is in practical terms just too easy.

Of that which you can and cannot control

ghostpines — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 11:53:56 +0000

Sister, you are exceptional. I don’t know how you manage. I don’t know why you must. I don’t understand why you married him. When you called me and asked how I knew I was in love I probably didn’t know the answer. I knew I wouldn’t marry Marie unless something changed between us. There was nothing you wanted to change in your relationship? You married him before we trusted him. You didn’t want to hear how he treated us poorly. What did he offer you that you needed so badly?

Being together now is so sad. You look so unhappy. He doesn’t take care of you. I don’t respect him because he doesn’t respect you. He just depends on you. Sometimes I’m angry. I try not to project my own feelings into it. I know what illness is like. I know he will never heal as long as his mentality is ill. I want to hear and see him love you. I see you being reduced. How does he appreciate you? I am offended by his inability to witness genuine emotion, empathy and love. He winced and moaned when our parent’s cried and kissed each other because of dad’s gift. Unless he’s getting something for free he acts like he’d rather be somewhere else. I don’t respect him. I wish you’d considered us when you made your decision to marry him. Mom and Dad didn’t understand, Chrystal didn’t understand and neither did I. I feel guilty for not loving you better. I’m sorry.

Christmas Steps

ghostpines — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 11:04:51 +0000

If I am fortunate, this time last year will be the bottom of my life and not simply a dip. Perhaps no one is that fortunate. It’s people who depend on fortune that are at risk of actual ruin. I was ruined and I am renewed. I was hopeless and killing myself. I was spiraling so deep in boundless despair consciousness was agony. I couldn’t seperate anxiety from existence itself. In a moment I felt love, a unifying field that collapsed truth into a singularity the size of the third dimension. No one can give or take true freedom. It’s claimed by the soul. I was touched by something Other and I am forever changed. That is salvation.

Late, anxious

ghostpines — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 12:11:36 +0000

Yeah, I know I shouldn’t be but I am. It’ll take another week for my antidepressent to catch up again. I just want to turn my head off. I went to Jasmine’s tonight. She was exhausted. I wonder sometimes if being married would be like that. The sad part of my twenties has been taking stock of the world and coming to the conclusion that I may not be able to offer my kids the same upbringing that I had. Will I be able to spend time with my family? Will we be too poor to ever relax?

The future is so unclear. I don’t know what, where how or when. I think Jasmine is my who. Tonight I feel completely unprepared for life. I feel unsafe. Nothing is garenteed. I need to let it go. I just have to let life go again. There is a tension between accepting what is and determining my own fate. I need to go deep. I don’t trust this world.

Swore

ghostpines — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 07:35:21 +0000

The cold mountain poems crossed my mind today. It occured to me I don’t spend time like I used to keeping in touch with myself. Insight could help me this month. For that matter maybe my therapist. It’s goes so deep. Deeper than thoughts, deeper than voices. Deeper than meaning. The barrier of consciousness obstructs our shapes in time. Useless.

Mind Killer

ghostpines — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 10:45:37 +0000

I roleplayed a client in a therapy session tonight. I talked about Jasmine’s past relationship and my role with Cyrus. Brant said it sounded like I loved her and I was fearful at the same time. I am afraid. It feels like a new word. Fearful. It feels like a risk. An actual, legitimate risk. Relationships come with risk. But I’m not worried about her. I have confidence in her. I worry about waking up too many days in a row with an awful feeling. I worry that I won’t be able to handle the mundane scenareo. That it would never leave my thoughts.