It was a cold and rainy Sunday--Mother's Day-- and before I made the short drive to the town over planned to stop at an AORTA Anti-Oppression Training at the Collective A-Go-Go for a few hours. My shop-mate and temporary boss, Scotty Guzman, was the event organizer, having contacted AORTA, or the Anti-Oppression Resource and Training Alliance, and, most importantly, fronted $500 for the cost of the 8 hour workshop. Scotty was exiting a particularly traumatic bout of social castration following a number of sexual assault confessions by women in the scene. The Collectives fed on him like sharks as he was immediately banned from damn near every space he had called his home for the past six years. Labels such as "serial rapist," "sexual predator," and (my personal favorite) "monster." The scene (a term I use for the hippies, the activists, the social justice clique, the white woke, the rads) was putting him on the cross. Scotty was the dart board for the sex crimes of his fellow men, known and unknown, preceding him and he accepted it. Putting on an anti-oppression workshop focused on patriarchy and misogyny was the least he could do.

The circle was full of good vibes, man. Here we were sitting in a cozy living room of a certainly rotting house on the edges of Worcester. Anarchist mumbo-jumbo, organizing slogans, and dried herbs dripped from the haphazardly painted walls. These organizing events always start with awkward conversation; coy grown up nerds and fringe folk who were never particularly gifted with the social graces needed to feel relaxed in a group of more than... one. (But, shit, honestly this is coming from the extrovert that hates meeting new people. I'll talk to a stranger all day but please God don't put me in a room with acquaintances I'm supposed to like.) Folks were smiling, catching up over vegan stuff and fruit, some anxiously checking the Facebook event and a few quietly staring at either the floor or ceiling from the ripped couches. The facilitator, donning a leather motorcycle jacket over a graphic crew neck over a flannel, happily called us all in to fill the mismatched chair and sofa circle. With impressive ease (she/her/hers) breathed out calmly to start and welcomed the room.

Connections Between Sin and Suffering

It is only now that I am starting to see the connection between suffering as referred to by the Buddha within the Four Noble Truths and sin as is understood within the Bible. Suffering is a contagious germ that flows between living things. To experience reality is to experience suffering. Reality is suffering. God can be understood as the overarching oneness that connects all things together. The oneness that binds everything is supreme and is God. To alleviate suffering is to use compassion towards sinners, who can be understood to be those people who are trapped in and thus perpetuate suffering. To be saved is to overcome suffering. Jesus was the human embodiment that allowed people to conceptualize suffering in a way that offered salvation through compassion. We are saved from sin when we see, recognize, and love the oneness that binds everything, what Christians refer to as God and Buddhists refer to as insight, and show compassion towards all living things (Buddhist compassion).

Paul

Funny how I come back to this everytime I'm supposed to be doing something different--namely, academic writing for a Masters degree that I never got... probably for this reason.

There's a friend of mine, Paul Lynch, who is worth spending a couple of sentences talking about. Paul is a 60-something New Hampshire native with a Florida accent who comes around to our motorcycle shop nights to observe each of our projects and dump some stories he has sitting around. The man is a what I would imagine a fox to be if they took on the human form right down to the strawberry blonde/red hair. He has the ability to spin anecdotes into mechanical advice in way that leaves your thoughts up--the world, your own story, his story, and the guts of the bike all weaving in between each other like a blanket.
It only took a meeting or two for Paul to convey that his heart is quite thoroughly decimated from a massive heart attack nearly five years ago, from which he admits was resultant of decades of hard drinking. His heart operates at 16% of normal functioning for someone his age. The doctors tell him without reservation that it's not medically possible for him to continue daily life with his heart in the condition that it is. Despite this Paul works full time, builds and rides vintage Montesas, and teaches chess at a local community college. That dead man walking does more than the goddamn rest. Hell he does at least 4 times what I can boast for my productivity.
There are days when Paul looks worried. He talks as if he's constantly telling a story--the same story-- which seems to keep everything flowing, like he doesn't have any secrets. He's a dying man and he'll tell you that "Today I'm dying quicker than usual." The joy in his tale comes from the defiance of living well while his weak heart still beats.
I wonder if we'll even know when Paul dies. I almost feel compelled to check on him every couple of days half-expecting a still silence, no response.
Don't compromise on life. Don't accept living a half life because death will just round up anyways. Your mind will stay sharp if you sharpen it and being sharp is what makes this all a fun place to be.

Buck Mind

Started to reel it in this morning.

Last night I realized that I have been identifying with the ramblings of my mind for the past few days. More stress was starting to build and things were becoming reactive.

Morning meditation, consciousness of the breath, perceptiveness of my surroundings brings me back to level-headedness.

I am not exactly sure why Call of the Wild was my selection for an audiobook to listen to. Call of the Wild suits my crazed pursuit of each fleeting thought. A reversion to instinct and a survival mode, though the material conditions with which I find myself do not merit such a state of mind. I'll continue with it thought for consistency's sake.

Guess I am looking for something to write about again.

Jerked off at
the WEIRDEST time
today!
Felt empty but didn't
know it
until
I saw myself leave
in streams!

Probably shouldn't be posting shit like this on the internet even if my "privacy settings" are restrictive.

Wish there was more silence.

I'm going to up my sex game with Sofia this week.

11 reasons

11 reasons why you're a fucking shithead:

1. Want to save people to reinforce some kind of narcissistic superiority complex that you have
2. Not do what you say you're going to do
3. Lie to everyone and try hardest to lie to yourself
4. Self-awareness 
5. Sit almost naked on your bed all day and, when they ask what you did all day say, "Oh ya know."
6. Fucking hate yourself
7. Break your promises
8. Stop making promises because you honestly can't think of a promise that you couldn't break
9. Try to get old friends back while simultaneously hating them for leaving you in the first place
10. Jerk off to porn within the first 5 minutes after your girlfriend leaves for work
11. Brainstorm ways how to sabotage your closest relationships because you feel like you can do better even though you know that you can't

Ancient Greece

I got our vehicle on Sunday. Still figuring out whether or not to ditch me calling the bus mine. Sofia calls it ours but I switch pretty frequently or have to correct myself from "I" to "us."

The more time there is to do nothing--no required labor that provides for my existence--the more threatening boredom can become. Looking at the ancient philosophers, they argued that freedom was only allowed when Man was provided the means for their existence without their personal labor. In ancient Greece this came in the form of slave labor. In my case in came in the form of an insurance pay-out of a hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I do tend to sit here on certain days and wonder whether or not this is freedom. There is Henry Miller on one shoulder reminding me of bible passages, "look at the lilies of the field, they neither toil nor spin," and on the other the Buddhist phrase, "before enlightenment chop wood and carry water, after enlightenment chop wood and carry water." We wonder what is the basis for the "good life" but maybe there is too much judgment in that question to be at peace.

Haven't maintained a steady meditation practice. On the days that I do things
start
to slow down and I feel much
more
at ease.
The seeds of doubt
of judgment
Speed me up.

Plus I've started smoking again.


Sofia was balling when she heard her sister
Was getting married.

Her face was scrunched
and her shoulders lifted
and trembled
In a familiar kind of way

"After all that we've been through
I'm just
so
Happy for her"

There was always a space waiting for me

Drove into New York a few times this week to get my visa squared away for Shanghai travel and China exploration. It was solo which was romantic at first but only so much in that it felt like running. When you start running whatever it is that you are running from catches up to you. Maybe when you're young you can get lost in the scenery and it makes you forget for a little longer. But I'm more grown now and reality sunk in when I slept in my truck thinking about the warm bed with Sofia at home.

The connection between us people comes like waves, like two contacts between circular intervals. When we fall apart we can revel in it or suffer over it, then--if we can accept it--connect again. When we communicate we allow that connection to ease the tension of our rotation. It's like we come back home on the outbreadth and say, "I see you and am ready for this connection."

Kind of a vague Buddhist influenced post... My cheap interpretations that help me make it through I guess.

Morning on Monday

Here I am sitting here in the morning at 8:49. Today is packed full of little tasks that would have been impossible to do leisurely if I was still shackled to a 40 hour 9:00-5:00 slog. Fuck I still get shudders thinking about that life.
There are droves of people I know--and admittedly can't stop caring about--who would fritz out knowing that I do not have to work or suffer right now - an absolute dissipation of respect. All of me would be reduced to cold threatening privilege. Even now I get a shudder of guilt, something in line with their sentiments I'm sure, that I can enjoy the day-to-day. I do not have to sit and listen to an idiot tell me how to do something I already know how to do, or can independently find out a way to do, or (most importantly) see no need to do. People do not like me for that.
Simultaneously people are envious of that and love me for it. Like some kind of ego trip when our external identities are vibing and we feel in tune I am the coolest, the most desirable, but when we are at odds - oh shit! I am the scum of the earth. Hell, maybe the dirty work times were just the same.

Today continues the preparations for China. I'll be visiting Erick and Peter who are teaching little Chinese babies English.
A key component of my trip will be visiting important Chinese Buddhist sites throughout the north of the country. So far I intend to travel to the sacred Mount Wutai and the Longmen Grottoes. Shit, I'll probably go to Mao's Palace too.

The morning is quiet here like most mornings.
The dog is back.She rests lightly pressed against your thigh when she sleeps.
She'll make everything a little more calm I think.

Our Song

Breathing in, I am breathing in
Breathing out, I am breathing out
In
Out

Breathing in, my breath grows deep
Breathing out, my breath goes slow
Deep
Slow

Breathing in, I feel calm
Breathing out, I feel ease
Calm
Ease

All phenomena are temporary
They are subject to birth and death
When you remove notions of birth and death
The silence is called great joy

What are we to do with the creation of the eternal All before us everyday expanding and contracting above our heads in the heavens and in the unfathomable seas in our bodies? There is wonder in knowing that reverberations make us cry and laugh and that our deepest rage is the same that moved everything into itself from the void. Flickers of joy the same that lit the first movement of what we call life, sighs of relief the calm of death. We are everything and nothing, light twisting the darkness, the center flowing inward.

The lillies neither toil nor spin

"They are one in the same - Daily Work and Dirty Work."

"If it's Dirty Work equals Daily Work and if tomorrow is another day and if you are talking about people who will float in the self-contemplation or self-expression, who is going to do the Daily Work or doesn't the Daily Work need to be done?"

"Well that is a very interesting and profound question. You see, Jesus said, 'Look at the lillies in the field. They neither toil not spin.' And the thought behind it is that we are creating this work not because it has to be done but because we are busy bodies and do not know how to swim on the river of life. And we prefer a kind of senseless insect activity to a genuine activity which may often be no activity or inaction - do you see? I don't say to be quiet or to do nothing. I don't say that at all. But I do say it should have sense, it should have meaning what we do - you see? And the greater part of what we do everyday has damned little meaning." 

John Fahey is the sound of the void

Death Chants, Break Downs & Military Waltzes

by John Fahey 

1. "Sunflower River Blues"
2. "When the Springtime Comes Again"
3. "Stomping Tonight on the Pennsylvania/Alabama Border"
4. "Some Summer Day"
5. "On the Beach at Waikiki"
6. "Spanish Dance"
7. "The Downfall of the Adelphi Rolling Grist Mill"
8. "John Henry Variations"
9. "Take a Look at That Baby"
10. "Dance of the Inhabitants of the Palace of King Phillip XIV"
11. "America"
12. "Episcopal Hymn" (based on "At the name of Jesus" by Ralph Vaughan Williams)

Bandit and a Heartbreaker

Had some good influences this week. More books and music to come.

Merry Christmas.

 

Maus

by Art Spiegelman

The Psychedelic Furs

by The Psychedelic Furs

 

 

Ritual Lo Habitual

by Jane's Addiction

 

Judee Sill

by Judee Sill

 

 

Creative Destruction

The shop is starting to come together slowly but surely. There is not enough bench space currently to get any real work done... even if I did have the time or organization of thought to do anything.

Actually, fuck it, I've barely started putting my work space together. As with most of my accomplishments lately I'm still in the tear down phase. Creative destruction maturing in - I don't fucking know when.

__________________________________________
Edit:

Incepspiration

Haven't figured out a name for this blog or even what the content will be past needing a place to organizing my sources for inspiration. Below is an note from a source of my inspiration, Max Schaaf of 4q Conditioning.

Kind of funny because the work he does inspires me and this quick piece is about inspiration. Very heady I know.

More to come.