Happy ageing!

In the summer/Ooh, I love her/Like no other/She's my mother

In the summer (Loon Lake)

Was Is Am Are

Saying you are more than the sum of your past actions at any point of life is like saying the contents of a used condom is 'life'. Everything has potential, or in the words of Sartre (on talking about these kinds of people) - "Circumstances have been against me. What I've been and done doesn't show my true worth...there remains within me, unused and quite viable, a host of propensities, inclinations, possibilities, that one wouldn't guess from the mere series of things I've done". Such self deception is almost amusing. In stating humans are what they have actually done doesn't neglect their potential to be more but rather, is "optimistically tough" within an unforgiving rational context (which is the best kind if you want my opinion). We need to value reality more, because it is reality that affects others and our futures, and it is reality that spurs onwards. This idea "prompts people to understand that reality alone is what counts, that dreams, expectations, and hopes warrant no more than to define a man as a disappointed dream, as miscarried hopes, as vain expectations. In other words, to define him negatively and not positively". 

I love rereading Sartre's essays every once in a while. Touch me, I give you consent (Existentialism and Human Emotion). 

Internal nature.

Tell me, tell me.

Do you ever find yourself overwhelmed while walking in the day? Perhaps it is the music or lack thereof, perhaps it is the taste of air, perhaps it is the warmth of the blood that travels through your bones; whatever your source of crippling emotion - the moment you are able to simply observe the world outside of yourself is when you are able to appreciate the incredulity of all existence. I have always understood the human affinity with nature as a natural component of being a part of nature and as everything is concerned with itself, this seemed only ...natural. Yet we have constructed opposing worlds we brand as 'man-made' but children remain drawn to mud and seashells over plastic pebbles and the elderly walk as the sun rises and thumbs only get greener and I never feel more comforted than when I am doing simply nothing in my backyard. We try to contain nature in zoos, gardens and photographs but if there were any subject humans have tried to conquer, nature would be our greatest rivalry. We cannot extinguish the source of life without falling into destruction ourselves. So the next time when you are walking, and you decide to slow and realise in what wonderment you are a part of, let oxygen currents charge your lungs and breathe the way bodies do and hearts need.

For the love of Beauvoir.

“I am too intelligent, too demanding, and too resourceful for anyone to be able to take charge of me entirely. No one knows me or loves me completely. I have only myself” 

“In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; either, a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation.”

“I am awfully greedy; I want everything from life. I want to be a woman and to be a man, to have many friends and to have loneliness, to work much and write good books, to travel and enjoy myself, to be selfish and to be unselfish… You see, it is difficult to get all which I want. And then when I do not succeed I get mad with anger.” 

“All oppression creates a state of war. And this is no exception.” 

“Regardless of the staggering dimensions of the world about us, the density of our ignorance, the risks of catastrophes to come, and our individual weakness within the immense collectivity, the fact remains that we are absolutely free today if we choose to will our existence in its finiteness, a finiteness which is open on the infinite. And in fact, any man who has known real loves, real revolts, real desires, and real will knows quite well that he has no need of any outside guarantee to be sure of his goals; their certitude comes from his own drive.” 

“No one would take me just as I was, no one loved me; I shall love myself enough, I thought, to make up for this abandonment by everyone. Formerly, I had been quite satisfied with myself, but I had taken very little trouble to increase my self-knowledge; from now on, I would stand outside myself, watch over and observe myself; in my diary I had long conversations with myself. I was entering a world whose newness stunned me. I learned to distinguish between distress and melancholy, lack of emotion and serenity; I learned to recognize the hesitations of the heart, and its ecstasies, the splendor of great renunciations, and the subterranean murmurings of hope. I entered into exalted trances, as on those evenings when I used to gaze upon the sky full of moving clouds behind the distant blue of the hills; I was both the landscape and its beholder: I existed only through myself, and for myself… My path was clearly marked: I had to perfect, enrich and express myself in a work of art that would help others to live.” 

Painful/Pain-free.

Sitting in the shade of today's weather is perfect. It's too windy in a good way. My eyes are still half swollen shut after watching 'Earthlings' at 3am in the day. It's tiring how human we are.

"Animals and humans suffer and die alike. Violence causes the same pain, the same spilling of blood, the same stench of death, the same arrogant, cruel and brutal taking of life". That's what our lives are; appetite over suffering, fashion over pain, death over life. We don't own life, we are a part of it. Why have we forgotten? Why do we not care?

I still feel sadness, I still feel despair, I still feel a bone-trembling anger. I want you to feel it too, I want you to be skinned alive (fur), boiled alive (food), burned alive (medical investigation). I want you to hang from hooks upside down with your heart flooding in spills of blood from your throat. I want you to watch your child, your baby, die like this, and for all family and other friends. I want you to writhe, to scream, to shake and collapse because you are more suffering than anything else. I want to throw blunt spears into your flesh and neglect you of hygiene, of space, of shelter, of food and water. I want to inflict pain on you and foster for deformities and disease. I want you to become a cannibal in your own desperation and bite on the flesh that is as much yours as it is mine. I want you I want you I want you to only know death for as long as you have life. We are humans. We make connections to love but we also make war. But I trust the poison we feed them will be the same poison that kills us and in no manner that is soft, quiet and quick, but one of no anesthesia and complete suffering. That's when we can start talking about equality.


*Dick Gregory

The Issue of Being Serious.

Sometime at the end of last year I began to blog in a different voice. I slashed most of the tiresome metaphors and started to use efficient words (i.e. instead of saying "my insides are preparing for bloody baby making" I now say something more like "I have my period"). While my heart aches to continue my excessive syntax, I realised I started to concentrate more on the way I like to talk rather than what I would like to talk about. That's an important distinction. Now admittedly, my tone of voice sounds a lot more serious which to many, carries negative shadowings. Today I was told - "You look so serious, it makes me worry", to which I replied "Why is serious a bad thing?". (But anyway that could've just been cause I was reading about the psychology of suicidal notes Clicky Click if you happen to be curious too.) I get that being serious can relate to sadness and anger and other things that make the boots heavy but how can you extend upon conversations without a level of seriousness? It took me pretty long to realise I was overusing adjectives and metaphors in the same way people do with humour. 

I'm uncomfortable - Ha!
I don't know how to talk to you - Ha!
That was racist/sexist/ageist/offensive etc. - Ha!  
I'm unsure of what just happened/is happening - Ha!
I can't even describe my own thoughts, ideas or feelings - Ha!
I really have no idea who you are or for that matter, who I am - Ha! 

Basically, a lot of 'Let's talk about things without actually talking about them so that we remain sure of ourselves by being ambiguous and seemingly knowledgable! I realised it came down to vulnerability and that inevitable insecurity we wish wouldn't transcend our screens into the virtual public sphere. It was a subconscious decision to halt getting lost in translating my internal thought to external expression. While this new change understands the idea that [serious = boring], I think personally, being more serious has extended a whole new space for interest. I enjoy doing things seriously, from reading peer reviewed articles daily (not really a part of the nerd trend but plainly curious enough to get educated) to enjoying classical music to having serious conversations about serious issues that impact on a larger scale than me and/or my friends/family to listening to slam poems to of course, writing serious blogs. 

Oxford dictionary says:

Serious


1. Demanding or characterized by careful consideration or application  
2. Acting or speaking sincerely and in earnest, rather than in a joking or half-hearted manner
3. Significant or worrying because of possible danger or risk; not slight or negligible
4. Substantial in terms of size, number, or quality

To me, it seems most of the things I do that are serious entail a quietness, sometimes literally but mostly metaphorical (for the opportunity to think), and that's something I've really come to appreciate. 

Anyway, I am off to manufacture Z's. Night, y'all. 

Intruder, Intruder!

"The level of intensity fluctuates according to time and place, but it can be stated as a truth that religion does not, and in the long run cannot, be content with its own marvellous claims and sublime assurances. It must seek to interfere with the lives of nonbelievers, or heretics, or adherents of other faiths. It may speak about the bliss of the next world, but it wants power in this one. This is only be expected. It is, after all, wholly man-made. And it does not have the confidence in its own various preachings even to allow coexistence between different faiths"

(Christopher Hitchens)

* "The Milky Way from the Uludag National Park in Turkey. The stunning natural spectacle hangs above manmade pockets of light from the towns and villages below." Tun Tezel/Royal Observatory

'I share therefore I am'

“Texting, emails, posting. All of these things let us present ourselves as we want to be. We get to edit, and that means we get to delete. We get to retouch face, voice, flesh, body. Not too little, not too much, just right. Human-relationships are rich and they’re messy and they’re demanding. And we clean them up with technology.”

(Sherry Turkle)

For a long time, I have felt that this text of controlled spacing, backspace buttons and immediate thesauruses (sounds like a clever dinosaur) are like little islands that create lands made of only footpaths. It feels unauthentic. I feel unathentic. There is no doubt that when we are texting and typing we try so very hard to let ourselves show through. Perhaps choose a different font type, add an emoticon or punctuate with a little onomatopoeia. But spell checks remain reminders and immediacy is subject to ourselves and only ourselves. We control the time we can use to craft a sentence. Texting serves narrow purpose and should remain within such constraints but it's growing, has grown, and doesn't cease in fragmenting ideas and ourselves. We're untraining ourselves, we can no longer listen or talk, we can't bear silence, we don't understand how to be ourselves irrelative to other people. We need the opportunity to say the wrong thing, we need the opportunity to be unconsidered, we need to be real. I don't doubt that many a meaningful conversation has (for me), occurred over the space of a LCD screen, but my words feel borrowed and my thoughts, processed. There are times when this is great, of course. Like if your friend has an annoying voice, or if you're in the middle of an argument that calls for google support. I'll admit I've never felt the availability of education to be so wonderfully accessible but it still remains that this kind of interaction doesn't require communication. Lubricants might be a trusty invention for many but let's not lubricate all of our words and experience it all a little more naturally, and be a little rougher on ourselves (sexual innuendo intended).

Worry about how it works.

I do appreciate a quality vlog or fifty.

Jelly babies.

The wonderful thing about children is that they are yet to know how wonderful they are and will become, that they still have no clue how much wonderful is in this world. To them, there is so much that is dormant, quietly waiting to be woken, shaken, made alive. To children, the world is endless wonder. They question and chase, wide eyes filled with a skin of hunger adults have long ago shed. There is not an instant they are not learning and eager for such learning; repetition has not yet clung to them like the words in my sentences do. They carry hands with muscles readied for captures and never passive palms. Their miniature minds and bodies form new memory production lines, experience everything without a history that burdens. Instead it is new and vividly fresh, like waking to the smell of good baking permeated into your pillow. The worlds of children are made of possibility never permanency. To me, there is nothing more exciting than being a helping hand in their discovery, as they grow and grow and grow to become another near impossible coincidence of wonderful. 

From here.

“If I should have a daughter…“Instead of “Mom”, she’s gonna call me “Point B.” Because that way, she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me."

- Sarah Kay.

Don't stare, it's rude.

Sitting outside on my front step after a short stroll in the dark, enjoying the delicious smell of burning matches and lazy, folk-pop tunes much to the rhythm that represents this country - free, at a comfortable pace. It's hard to believe that other's worlds aren't as quiet as mine tonight. It was only yesterday that I had, in my dismay and frustration, spat fiery words into a stack of blog drafts only to be left incomplete and distracted with exceptional Q&A content. (Something I enjoy as much as I like to jab matches vertically into a hard surface to watch the burnt pieces crumble - makes me sound a little vicious, no?) One poet had it right when he wrote - "Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence" (Robert Frost). Pardon that I'm not in an elaborating mood. Let's appreciate and move on. Poetry has been a lot more on my mind recently - I've always found there to be a disconnect in my ability to read a poem and comprehend as much as I would like to. Perhaps it was the broken lines or how things rhyme (appreciate what I did there?), words with too many syllables and condensation - an expression I've never been akin to, but I've found my space; slam poetry. I had come across a stray video here and there but nothing that had ever struck me, poisoned or possessed me the need to chase such a thing. But as with all things, the exception glanced straight at me and led me - Andrea Gibson's expression and talent is shattering, and shatters me with only bare minutes that manage to cry books worth of importance. I cry as though I have been drinking tears all my life - she has the ability to stir an emotional chaos in anyone who is in the presence of her poetry. Her sheer unapologetic fierceness is unfailing. And did I even mention she used to work as a preschool teacher? No words.

Swingset.

One of her milder poems but one that means so much to me.

Luggage with a Disability.

Wonderful, wonderful.

January come I will be headed to Washington where I'll be thrown insight into the big U.S's mind on education (CWU, show me what you've got!), where I'll greet opportunities to wander and explore. 6 months of clutching my plans of lust to a disproportionately minute suitcase and a wallet lacking the generosity I require. Of days spent in conversation with myself, strangers and the characters of a well chosen novel. Of days spent rushing because I am lost and terrified. Of breathing a different kind of oxygen that expands my lungs and fills my feet with the capacity to run for days. Of learning how to pronounce words I do not know and learning to taste the flavour of foreign. Of discomforting sleeps in scratchy beds and carrying my life in a suitcase threatening to cripple under pressure. And even when wheels stop rolling and handles snap, I'll still be quite pleased. Such is my euphoria.

YOU'RE fucking easy.

Easy?

You think it's easy?

Do you think understanding humans is easy? Do you think assessing all the little bits and pieces of the world and developing a way to inform a human being how to be, is easy? Do you think being in itself is easy?

I understand that at many times I use very deprofessionalising terms to speak of my chosen study - Early childhood education. I deduce it to sentences strung like soiled nappies and kitschy paraphernalia but this is in no way a representation of education, nor my interpretation of what I do or wish to do. I understand the mindset that it is "easy", that education is a natural skill - that is, to know how to learn and how to teach but in an unnatural world, I beg to question what exactly are we teaching and to who is it appropriate? What is relevant, what is optimal, what is it we want, what is it societies, communities annd families want, and what does the child want? Education is something I cannot stand people misunderstanding and demeaning. And I have surely heard a few snarky comments lately. A friend who does not understand my dedication and passion and what education is, can kindly exit. Ironic as it is, the remedy I'd recommend would be - get a little educated.

Sure, the statistics in that business unit you need to hammer through is tedious, and the reports on whatever readings you need to complete come in batches at the most inconvenient of times, but what is education in an international context? Can you even define such a thing and what structure should its content hold, what questions to be solved, what values to be believed, what wrongs to be condemned? And if you don't know, then how do you teach it? How do you even know what to try? And what happens when every single person is every single person and not all the same thing we can apply a concrete set of rules and techniques to? What happens when most days carry change so dynamic that confusion is startled for we've got no clue what is good or bad for future generations?

I don't think of my degree solely as any specific occupation (and especially not as my current position - child care centre educator). I enjoy my studies as much as I do because it is mind broadening. I am sure we all think of human sciences in a somewhat warm regard. Afterall, we're human, we like to be understood and to understand each other. So why not when we are young, when much of our learning is imperative to our later development? Babies are not empty slates. Children are not undeveloped adults. They are people of their own with minds and hearts that operate differently then gradually, similiarly because we teach them to. 

Children are able.

They used to call us workers. Nowadays, I would like to say the term is actually educators. 

We are the intervenors, we direct, not control, we embrace, not discard, we care for diversity, not inequality, we interact, not talk at. Learning isn't measured by academic tests. Your child understanding their own body by crawling is learning just as much your child learning algebra. Teaching your child affection through how you treat them is as much teaching as writing them an exam and marking it with blood red pens. It angers me that child care centres can be run as businesses but primary and above education cannot be run this way. Is the beginning of a child's life able to be trivialised, demeaned and made an economic exchange? Society thus far has answered this question in the affirmative. Who can we blame? Answer me, does it discomfort you that your young child will be treated as a tool to earn profits from? That the well being of your child isn't ensured because there is quite frankly, hardly any incentive for educators to bother (other than our own passions, love and responsibility)?

I'd like to see how any one person can tell me education is an easy discipline. It may be easy to find a job, and easy to do your job but who is doing it right? Who the fuck is doing it well? Tell me the 'right' way to be a human in simple actions and words and I'll pass it on. Something that is timeless too, let's not forget that little detail, and oh, it also has to apply to all humans regardless of their differences. 

Yeah, you try that. Tell me how it goes.

If you fail to see the complexity of education, you only express how much you are failing to see the complexity of being human, and that to me, is pretty fucking clueless.

Biological Postcards.

One of the most wondrous things I know:

Babies cry in the accent of their mother’s voices.

9 months of learning before we've even breathed with our own mouths for the first time.

Exactly.

Shrink.

"How do you teach homosexuality? Is it like French?"

The United States of Absurdity.

People think being alone is a lie. They don't believe in this kind of freedom but are used to the loss and gain of exchange. We all quietly want to fall involuntarily into a solititude that can't be disturbed by others but it doesn't happen, we're much too absorbed and attracted to the world that is not ours. We want to be frowned and smiled upon, silly danced with, the other half of a large portioned meal, and warmed by the presence of someone else's body. All those little things that zig zag back and forth between you are like flashing endorsements all carrying the same logo - 'you matter'. They think it's ludicrous yet incredible. Of what kind of esteem do we owe the man who is alone? The title of being insane or absurd. Are either bad? No, not at all. There's no healthy way to be so just carry on. So why not nights of ears filled with Tin Sparrow, browsing vintage luggage and sucking on chocolate dipped almonds? Shrug off sacks of worried eyebrows and get packing. The incessant need everyone has to chase each other like tails of their own, is becoming a little irrelevant. Too much maintenance and not enough to pay off the investments of myself isn't the best advert they could offer, yet I bought that shit anyway. Not so clever. I want out, you schmucks.

The Big Scary.

Stranger. You are my everything. The world is full of people who lean on the belly of tomorrow's rising sun. Yet it is the stranger, the outline of limbs and torso, of a mind encased with handfuls of hair, that I invest myself in. Should I blame other people's stories? But of course, I don't believe in blame. Oh those images and words spinning knots of seductive faux figures, they're as much mine as they are others. I remember someone once told me "No, the people I write about are made up..well not really, but I'm talking to no one... or no one I really know. It's just people." Just people. Are people so often constructed that we've nonchalantly crafted too many ideas of everybody and now the only decent task left to exhibit is to staple all these extra copies in a bundle for storage? It's really our physical reality that is the most incoherent, that fails us most. 

*B041 by MADEIN.

"In my whole life I never thought I'd have to clean a piece of art with a vacuum cleaner! Bring out the dyson!"

Joyous July.

I talk about things too much before I have done them. I'm ageing, quickly reaching another bookmark which feels somewhat substantial. It has been a productive year. I have little regrets for the happenings that have changed me and my life. For the first time, I know what it is to have a mind that is clear. One that will organise my days into weaving threads of me, family, friends, studies, play and of course, work, knowing fully what each of those things stand for. I have brought myself enjoyment this past year; void of tripping on things because I've learnt to watch my step. I'm in a good place. The holidays have been a fusion of working alongside the sun's schedule all day every day, playing and planning. Planning is an exciting phenomenon. I've formally submitted my exchange application so in half a year, I may or may not be on a plane setting off to experience the foreign and wondrous again. Everything on my body is crossed. Hoping that the workings of the universe think I'm worth the encouragement and will happily send me off. I want to be terrified. But for july, I've planned plenty. Beeday celebrations (I will bring a photo of your face in my bag, Vee). Melbourne again. Too soon? Well, priced at $10/flight...I couldn't say no. Then splendour, glorious splendour. LET'S DO IT GAIZ.

Bite the worm.

Most probably undeniable to me is the fact that waking early is a wondrous thing. Not the waking part of course, that 5 minutes of alarm-hating, bone-aching, shivering cold and questioning of whether we can just pin the other side of our blankets to our undies in replacement of clothes, is a shared nightmare. Yet once you're up, the air carries a light, damp crispness, a foreign freshness that can't be found within the day, it's fog pressed on your windows, ice at your fingertips. The counting of how many hours you have left in the day, which is many. Just imagine the myriad of possibilities of what you can do today! The anticipation in that thought embellishes me with the invincibility of a child. Manage your time, they say. If we imitated the sun in the morning, we perhaps wouldn't be faced with our current troubles (though undoubtedly, we'd be inventing new things to occupy ourselves with). Up you get, go go go! Or not. Lounge around with a cup of hot tea, a favourite read and the joy of watching your own breath appear in puffs at 7am. There's just no way you'll have a bad day after this.

Cruel.

"Thus humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being."

Anger, anger, anger. CONSOLE ME BEFORE I ERUPT. 

Okay. Y'know what?! You, yes YOU are a manipulative SEXIST and narrow-minded MISOGYNIST. You've heard the word 'Respect' millions of times in circumstances and teachings that society has so carefully sculpted for you yet you have no idea how to exercise it?! Well big fucking surprise. Is it simply a case of bad luck that I know people that may be the most distant thing from being progressive, possible? All that shit we hear about, all the disputes, all the controversies regarding sexual inequality and sexualisation, objectification, domination and violation of women - is in fact...let's see, TRUE. HAPPENING. ALL AROUND US 24/7. Patriarchy is not a lost invention, our world is COATED in its sticky permanence even when we have been fully aware this whole time of its fluidity and fallibility. When you talk or act in a demeaning manner to a person, it IS disrespect unless your relationship rests on a mutual understanding that you both do not in any way actually believe the jokes and shitty comments bubbling out of your mouth. What right, may I ask, and in what type of CONTEMPORARY WESTERN SOCIETY does this shit remain such a norm? What happened to the feminists, the academics, the progressive, the humanists and fighters for equality? Since when did they become minoritised?! With women surrounding me, internalising corrupt and wrong images from the media, I am growing so bloody tired. And yes I ascribed the media and sociocultural influences as WRONG and if depiction of the female body and its so called 'perfection' as something other than the diversity that it naturally carries is WRONG then something is definintely fucked up. I am sick of hearing wonderful people complain to me about their stomachs, their thighs, their chest sizes, their limbs and their faces, their skin and their hair, their physical genetic makeup evolved from millions of years of tested survival is apparently insufficient and appallingly unattractive. Ever think about function over aesthetic?! Is your acne really preventing your nose from sticking to your fucking dumb shit face? WE are labelling ourselves disgusting, hurting from our own words then transferring and establishing an escalating pool of fear, self hatred, lack of confidence and BLINDNESS. We are internalising our own pain, nodding our heads to voices that tell us we are inadequate, acting in bad faith that shoots bullets through nobody else's but our very own brains, letting the poison that is discrimination and imbalanced power infiltrate our minds, and pollute our daily functioning. We can make jokes and dip our uncertainty and uncomfortableness in humour but what happens next, who the hell is going to demolish the psychological oppression of every single bloody individual who has been exposed to our twisted societies, cultures, traditions, religions and norms when there are in fact NO NORMS?! NORMALITY DOES NOT EXIST.

And if you're like me and don't even actively facilitate and fight for equality (which is shit enough), at least be fucking aware of your own actions and words and how much power they thrust in the faces of the unknowledgable and vulnerable. AT LEAST BE RESPONSIBLE. Nobody should have the right or opportunity to fucking hurt another individual by manipulation and complete ignorance. This is ridiculous. This is bloody common sense. This is the 21st century. This is no laughing matter we can brush off our shoulders.

World, you make me so, so angry.

Inflatable heads.

“Looking at the world from other species' points of view is a cure for the disease of human self-importance.”

(Michael Pollan.)

What right and reason do we have to wiggle our fingers at billions of other species and deem that all existence is for us? Our arrogance is absurd.

 

What breaks you.

I plunge my head in twisted torture when I think that between me and a plane stands a tremendous dollar sign. Part of growing taller and travelling forward is perhaps the ugly realisation that everything they tell you as a child reappears, statements with hands on their hips, smug in their expression. "Study hard. Get a good job. Get money. Money, money, money." Our lives revolve around an invention that is so concrete in our exchanges; one that traps and suffocates for reasons we don't understand. And don't we all wish it weren't this way? In our naive youthfulness we laugh in the face of such complaints and assure the world we will not be the same, we will not bear the struggle, we will not become his possession. But we get swept by the same wind into the same traps and speak of the same protests. Money carries us in his pockets. We feel warm and safe, brushed against bundled plastic until stitching wears away and we fall through. Where can you go? Left amidst crowds of strangers, I'm shaking, shaking.

Jonathan Adler.

In a quaint little furniture shop in NYC my senses melted when I breathed in grapefruit scented air. Sweet, fresh and just right. Now my room is forever happy, and with bowls of watermelon and a tea pot of Napa Blanc tea (green tea infused with white wine and peaches, and it tastes as delicious as it sounds), How can I bear to go to sleep? Guess I'll just sit here bobbing to music until I eventually nod off and fall onto the floor. 

Then I'll sleep. 

Weight to your tongue.

It's been a while.

I'm starting to think that perhaps the curse of being human is the capability of our minds to imagine. With its power, we take ourselves to better places and better people, better circumstances for all. We seem to know a better reality than our crushing own, cursed with the refining imaginative frame that trickily flicks away the flaws of our days. But we open our eyes after our seconds of fluid joy and find the same images flickering teasingly, unchanging and one step behind our minds. We've been taught perfection, and given minds capable of dreaming as much, but the poison in the air tells us otherwise.

The weather's growing cold and it's been a quarter of the year since I've really paused and given much thought to anything. I should know, nothing is easier than being preoccupied working, studying, eating, sleeping, tiring, recovering; chase chase chase. I've hardly read but that's okay, with nights spent with Passenger in my ears, I've hardly been discontent. I cannot explain this phenomenon to people. Are you supposed to recognise happinness when it is your own? I calculated mine mathematically. Work = Good. Uni = Good. Friends = Good. Family = Good. Therefore, happiness. Like they say, it's not grand. It's a pretty colour not a magnificent one. Somehow I don't feel quite okay with that. 

Anyways, 

Will manufacture some Z's now.

Honey Trees.

“The absurd man will not commit suicide; he wants to live, without relinquishing any of his certainty, without a future, without hope, without illusions … and without resignation either. He stares at death with passionate attention and this fascination liberates him. He experiences the “divine irresponsibility” of the condemned man.”

 ― Jean-Paul Sartre

 In Soho, NYC, a man created 3D artworks out of twisting wire. I asked him to create a favourite phrase of mine.

Is this about you?

You make me comfortable, and when we share worlds and conversations, I am comfortable, more than comfortable, I am dulled, and for that the blame is not on you but I cannot continue this hibernation in circling mental exercise and place ignorance on the contradictions we sport as we complain about them on others. Yet you know I'm not one who finds satisfiction in such calmness, I hunger for chaos, chase exposure and don't mind a collapse here and there. So let me, and let me tell you; break yourself for me, but mostly for you. Change is but a label behind which we create corners of refuge. It is not negative, it means no harm, it carries us onwards. Remember that we are water, and change is our current. You cannot write me down for ink runs with the touch of me, trust that I am content and you can be too. In dread, do not let the subject be lost in confusion. Be open, be free, discard the layers with which you have wrapped yourself in, immersion will not take charge but deem you your own master, and with that power, you will finally understand what you are doing and for who you are doing these things for. 

González-Torres.

This was one of my favourite installations from the MoMA. The silver carpet is made of hard candies, and the security guard had the job of encouraging all visitors to take as many pieces as they wished. We sucked on candies and listened. This artwork is dedicated to the artist's lover who died of AIDS in 1991. Everybody is taking some, sharing, infecting, killing. Terrifying, isn't it?

Lapse.

Who are you, who and what are you supposed to be? Why I cannot hold onto you I know, but why must we be two bodies and not one? What should I be feeling, how does everybody feel, am I feeling what they feel, am I feeling what you feel? Have I escaped your memory? Why have you almost escaped mine? I thought this was precious; a singular, unmoving importance but it appears the same as all things. You appear just like any other, yet I did not think so. Now, empowered yet dulled I'm run by confusion. Where do I stand now? Which seat do I take, and who do I sit next to? There are no chairs, no chairs and I am sprawled, slathered, shrunk across the timber. Perhaps this is why you are of such esteem, but I am in control of you. We cannot take turns, to share the sky like moon and sun; you would blind me. Oh, how I dreamed greater. I now lust to conquer and reign, to be and be more but how should I? That was me, and this is me, halfway there is a division and I must expunge it but what answer am I recovering, to what and whom am I bidding goodbye? Laughter, ha! I hear it too, because I know the answer I agree to. But does that mean I lose all of them? Do I mind? Perhaps not. Have I run again? Leapt without so much as a clue? I clench a faint apology at my throat because I am no longer as they knew me. They feel this arctic heat, this stranger in my expression but I cannot explain to them. I am suffering them and I wished otherwise but my movement takes me and I have no words appropriate. Take what you had and what you approve of me and leave me, leave!

Delight.

"The worst thing is not that the world is unfree, but that people have unlearned their liberty."
 
Milan Kundera

My Days, Mine.

Knowing you will be infinitely alone, and excel at doing so, to finally hold disregard for the strange inferiority that crushes our ability to navigate, and to thrash away plagues of insecurities that contaminate us throughout the days and evenings of our lives, is something I have claimed to be my own. A possibility realised in a constant struggle for greatness of mind; now seeking methods to distinguish and adorn my experience with appreciation not embitterment. A time to supersede pettiness but enjoy the smallest of things, a time to remain in a state of drenching hunger yet collect sums of satisfaction, a time to cast the expectations of others and to extract from them that which I love. My motive, apparent. My joy, abundant. This may be the essence that embodies my chase, the very enchantment I have been seeking. This complex conviction that devours me is  now answered with a fullness, a wonderment spirited by itself. The life I have been waiting for in recurring aspirations has landed beside me, and it is so entirely convincing and wondrous.  

April 21st.

All the rowboats - Regina Spektor.
A song about art trapped in galleries and museums = so much 'Yes!'.

Boogie!

I feel there's a need to say that if you're finally doing something relatively exciting (I'm really just referring to travelling), DON'T DEDUCT THE EXPERIENCE BY POSTING ABOUT IT ON FACEBOOK. I know it's validating and makes you seem all sociable, mildly interesting, active, cultured, etcetera etcetera, but it's such a shitty cause, distraction and time killer. I vouched to stray from facebook during my trip and besides two (guilty) 'Check in' updates, I succeeded! It also felt bloody terrific to stop using ze mobile phone during the day time and to actually experience a lack of procrastination via technology. The point is to immerse yourself in what you are experiencing, conversing and sharing the experience with others external to that experience should be kept POST-experience. I get that we hunger for efficiency, immediacy, but the constant stream of photos, statuses and check ins are so extremely excessive and unnecssary. The technological age sucks. Except for the invention of 'Just Dance 3', which I say should be readily available in any public or private environment. As amazing as my love for life right now, yep I said it, I'm all + positive and prancey and shit because 2012 is treating me like a diseased queen (because people become really nice to you when you're sick, and especially so if you're royalty).

"Some people would rather die than think. In fact, they do."

I usually favour things because of what they stand for. Like how I default like atheists (or the atheist aspect of people) because they represent rational thought, and many other things but that's not what I want to talk about. But there are so many people in my life who represent all the wrong things. They are essentially, the definition of blindness and conformity, of pettiness and lack of perspective. The school of thought you are conditioned to have, needs to be challenged for fuck's sake. How are people still not getting this? To me, if you stand for nothing I appreciate, then you mean nothing. And this is difficult to come to terms with because this is the majority. While blindness is my largest hate, I also hate selfishness. It is assumed that as human beings built with minds to execute our own personal well being and joy, we are selfish. Yet to function socially we have to dismiss this (for the most part) and develop relations and consider not only ourselves. But if you are utilising companionship with the base intention of reaffirming your own beliefs and being entirely ignorant to whom you are establishing this companionship with, then fuck off. I'm sick of sticking my brain in and out of unnecessary shit to better understand people I don't even understand why I'm bothering with. Perhaps I am expecting too much. I'm being told that I am being too intense for anyone's liking because people like to be comfortable, but I do not and will never aplogise for challenging parasite mentality. I hear people are always surprising others, I hear stories of how someone seemed like an absolute ape until they discovered a conversation  or a hidden blog that enlightened them, and they would think about the ape - "since when were you so brilliant?!". But I've had no such luck, so what the hell is going on. The realisation that my optimism is for myself and people "in general" but not the many in my life, is a sad and infuriating one. I'm not reverting back to 2011 but this is still something I have to learn to accept, not just acknowledge.

The miracle of consciousness, of human capability and thought, is completely wasted on you.

Title: *Bertrand Russell

My Optimism.

People like to question whether we are who we are, or who we want to be. While I mostly argue it's who you are right in this moment, I can't help but credit that some will extend and struggle their being into exactly who they want to be. But when I say some, I'm indicating a ratio of about 1/10000000. People will lose a so called 'childishness' and stop dreaming, they will see mountains rising in their path and they will squeeze their minds into understanding a new desire; to reside at the foot of the mountain. Safe in a shadow of their own creation. But do you see, the person you are now is that person you foresee as yourself? You have the opportunities just not the perseverance. You must will your mind, and then everything becomes yours.

Since the moment you made your first conscious decision, your life has been YOURS. Every action and word you take is your doing. You are the way you have been, are being, and will be, because of your ability to choose. We are entirely responsible for ourselves. There are no excuses; you don't "have to" do anything, or conform to expectations of any nature. All you have is to sink into this beautiful understanding and feel the liberation I feel. I am free, you see. Finally settling into my mind, creating jagged metal hurdles to toss myself over. Bleeding and pained, I am drowned in pleasure for it. Losing exactly the remnants of a blindness that swallowed me whole. I am now at peace because I can feel myself tumbling in a straight line towards truth.

You should know, you should realise. You cannot know a person without knowing their beliefs. You cannot, because they are that person as a result of their beliefs, and just like how you cannot describe a story with no beginning, you cannot describe this person true to them. All you know will be facts and moments, that will inevitably realise as meaningless without a purpose. I often talk about people with others and we will say things like how X is like that simply because X is X, but that's not true. X cannot be excused of our need to re-understand X just because it is much easier to lean on the knowledge we already have. X is X because they chose to be X. And that is the reason you shall take to understand why I grew such a hatred of people, because I gave them no excuses, because they are so blind, because they give more of their time to alcohol and gossip and buying shit, than they give to themselves. It takes time, and suffering persistence, after all, what is more important than learning how you want to live your life? We are born with minds that allow possibilities only imaginable to me now. So stop wasting time, run, run, run.

Marvellous.

"It was, for De Beauvoir, an experiment in loving of which "existentialism" was the child."

Hopscotch on rocks!

I'm a child, a child digging at the earth with my smooth fingers, crumbling the construction of all pre made conditioning with struggling strength and a mind of shields. This year will be spectacular, not only because it will be but because I will make it that way. I can't think of another recent time I have been particularly content for 3 consecutive days let alone 8, though my aim is not contentment. Lovely things are happening, and I will let them. I'll list my new years resolutions and in December I will return and tick them off.

I will read more. More genres, more essays and more on my beliefs, in particular, atheism. It begins with 'The God Delusion'.

I will dedicate more of my time to music, and learn their accompanying poetry.

I will give strangers a chance. 

I will learn another musical instrument. Harp guitar? Guqin? Oboe?

I will join a gym and attend classes and work on being physically healthy.

I will learn Chinese ink painting.

I will write more.

I will stop using Facebook so frequently.

I will save money for a car, my parents and my travels.

I will activate as much of my brain as possible and study as I have never before.

I will listen better.

I will work less, play more.

I will forget perfection.

I will forget perfection.

I will forget perfection.
I will feel the world as a human with a heart. Let myself be naive, inconsistent, struggling, and empower myself with ideas.

We're off to a good start my love. Let's go!

if I hide, will you seek?

Black eyed peas once were cool before all that shit club music.
'Where is the love?'

What's wrong with the world, mama
People livin' like they ain't got no mamas
I think the whole world addicted to the drama
Only attracted to things that'll bring you trauma
Overseas, yeah, we try to stop terrorism
But we still got terrorists here livin'
In the USA, the big CIA
The Bloods and The Crips and the KKK
But if you only have love for your own race
Then you only leave space to discriminate
And to discriminate only generates hate
And when you hate then you're bound to get irate, yeah
Madness is what you demonstrate
And that's exactly how anger works and operates
Man, you gotta have love just to set it straight
Take control of your mind and meditate
Let your soul gravitate to the love, y'all, y'all

People killin', people dyin'
Children hurt and you hear them cryin'
Can you practice what you preach
And would you turn the other cheek

It just ain't the same, always unchanged
New days are strange, is the world insane
If love and peace is so strong
Why are there pieces of love that don't belong
Nations droppin' bombs
Chemical gasses fillin' lungs of little ones
With ongoin' sufferin' as the youth die young
So ask yourself is the lovin' really gone
So I could ask myself really what is goin' wrong
In this world that we livin' in people keep on givin' in

Makin' wrong decisions, only visions of them dividends
Not respectin' each other, deny thy brother
A war is goin' on but the reason's undercover
The truth is kept secret, it's swept under the rug
If you never know truth then you never know love
Where's the love, y'all, come on (I don't know)
Where's the truth, y'all, come on (I don't know)
Where's the love, y'all

I feel the weight of the world on my shoulder
As I'm gettin' older, y'all, people gets colder
Most of us only care about money makin'
Selfishness got us followin' our wrong direction
Wrong information always shown by the media
Negative images is the main criteria
Infecting the young minds faster than bacteria
Kids wanna act like what they see in the cinema
Yo', whatever happened to the values of humanity
Whatever happened to the fairness in equality
Instead in spreading love we spreading animosity
Lack of understanding, leading lives away from unity
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' under
That's the reason why sometimes I'm feelin' down
There's no wonder why sometimes I'm feelin' under
Gotta keep my faith alive till love is found