Therapy?
I switched dorms and went to the Therapeutic Unit. It sounded like the place someone like me needed to be. Plus it had the added benefits of a six month cut off my sentence upon completion and removal from my job in the kitchen. A prison kitchen is one of the most disgusting environments on the face of this planet.
I continued sending C. letters, but by now I was down to one every couple of weeks. She continued not responding. Not that I blame her now, but back then...........
There was a creative writing class in the T.U., taught by one of the counselors. A guy I had worked in the kitchen with went to the class, and he stopped by my bunk one night to talk about it. I had mentioned before to him that I wrote. He told me I should come to class and I told him I would think about it. He asked if he could check out some of my writing and I told him I was working on a few things and would show him once they were straightened up. Now I had to write something or be a liar.
The T.U. is supposed to be different from the other dorms in the prison. It is supposed to be peer driven, with as little interference from the counseling staff and officers as possible. You can imagine how well this goes over. There are two reasons why this fails. Reason number one is that most inmates don't like being told by other inmates that they are doing something wrong and most inmates don't like to tell other inmates they are doing something wrong. (There are some who enjoy the latter, but they tend to spend most of their career in protective custody.) Reason number two is that the people in control seldom want to give up that control. It is all nice in theory, and looks good on paper when presented to the people in the state government responsible for funding these things, but it is basically a bunch of bullshit.
I am not good at telling people what to do, so I took a job as a tutor. This way I avoided any of the jobs which put me in the line of fire. When I wasn't at a class or tutoring someone I sat on my bunk and read, staying out of everyone's way.
GOD?
The T.U. doesn't require that you turn into a religious wacko, but it does encourage it. Prison in general is home to every misinterpretation of every denomination imaginable, and in the T.U. your are encouraged to find some belief system or spirituality to ease you over those inevitable bumps on your road to recovery. I have known Buddhists who couldn't go more than a day or two without starting a fight, Black Power Muslims who wouldn't think anything contradictory when showing you pictures of their white baby mommas and mixed children, and Christians who felt the the Bible gave them the right to hate any and everybody who was slightly different than them. All you have to do is find out which one of these freaks you think is right and join up.
I didn't make any commitments, but started looking into religion. I read the Bible, Torah, Koran, and the Buddhist Sutras. I read about Taoism, Jainism, Hinduism, and Paganism. When I ran out of religious isms, I read about Empiricism, Existentialism, Pragmatism, Cynicism, Skepticism, Communism, and Socialism. I read about every ism I could find in the library. I didn't know what kind of ist I was or which ism was right for me. I closed my eyes at night and thought about crosses and prayer rugs and infinities and meditation and salvation. I wondered if I had a soul, and what it meant if I did or didn't. I saw Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and Shiva. I wondered about beings and existences and essences and Things-in Themselves.
The problem is this: I don't get religion. I don't have the part of the brain that is susceptible to that particular ailment. I was raised a Catholic. I was baptized, had my first communion, and was confirmed. I had to attend religious instruction classes until the tenth grade. None of this stuck with me. I don't remember anything other than other than sitting in class wondering what my friends were doing and wishing I was out with them. Oh, and that one of my instructors was Billy Sheehan's, the famous rock bassists, older sister. Of Mr. Big and The David Lee Roth Band fame. Yes, THAT Billy Sheehan! (And yes I did just Google his name to make sure I spelled it correctly.) The two bright spots of my religious experience were the parties after my communion and confirmation and the money I received. I never had a spark or an Aha! moment. When people talk to me about the ecstasy and rapture they feel, and how they "Just Know" things that they can't possibly know, I get embarrassed for them.
But I was going to try.
I decided I could be a Buddhist. I signed up for Buddhist Sangha, which met from 3:30 to 5:30 Monday afternoons.
I don't know if this is what the Buddha had in Mind?
My first encounter with Buddhism in prison was more awkward than I ever could have imagined. I mean, it's Buddhism? Isn't it supposed to be all warm and fuzzy? Calm and welcoming? If I wanted to feel awkward I could have stayed a Catholic. I walked into the room where the Sangha was being held. About a dozen people sat on chairs, which were arranged in a circle. It appeared about eight of the attendees were regulars, and the rest of us were newcomers. I was the only person there for the first time, though.
The first half of the Sangha went by quickly. I learned that Sangha meant community. I was told that I could enter into a powerful group, that not everyone could understand this power. This group had tapped into the vital forces of the universe, and now had them at their disposal. All you had to do was chant a Japanese phrase for at least 15 minutes a day and this power could be yours. The rhythmic sound of this phrase was perfectly in tune with those forces, and when you repeatedly uttered this phrase the vibrations of your vocal cords put you in tune with this force. Or something like that. The veterans talked about how much this Buddhism had done for them. They said that anything you wanted could be yours if you chanted for it. Some of them had received sentence modifications and had good jobs waiting for them upon their release. Many had chanted for, and received, sums of money to be deposited on their accounts. To my knowledge none of them chanted for world peace.
When they were done they asked if anyone had any questions. I had a few.
I asked the veterans if they had ever done any meditation. I wasn't an expert on the subject, but most of the Buddhism I read about at least mentioned meditation. They didn't meditate. I asked them about the Eight Fold Path, and if they thought that chanting for material objects conflicted with the Four Noble Truths and the fact that the Buddha said that our desire was pretty much the problem with us humans. The had somewhat convincing answers, which seemed rehearsed, sort of like a con game or a snake oil sales pitch. They didn't meditate and they didn't follow or even know any of the precepts which I had come to understand were at the heart of Buddhism. They kept coming back to, "Trust us. It works. Chant for something for at least 90 days, for at least 15 minutes a day, and you are guaranteed to get it." My thinking at the time went along the lines of if you were stupid enough to do this for 15 minutes a day for 90 days, then you would be stupid enough to accept the excuse served up to you when your dream didn't materialize.
Then came the second half of the program. One of the veterans placed a tiny (about two inch by two inch) piece of white plastic in front of the group. It had carvings, which you could barely see, on it. I think the idea was it was supposed to look ancient and ivory. The veterans said this piece of plastic was very powerful. Some type of portal into the heart of all existence or something similar. We were all coached on the proper annunciation to ensure we sent out the right cosmic vibes. Then someone rang a bell and everyone started chanting. It went on for 15 minutes, at which time the bell rang again and the chanting stopped.
When the chanting stopped I sat there feeling weird, not particularly comfortable. The veterans talked about the power they felt in the room. A few of the newcomers joined in to say they felt it as well. I didn't feel shit.
Still, I let them sell me on the 15 minute 90 day plan. I decided to chant for a letter (and hopefully some money) from C.. Screw world peace. I chanted about five times over the next few weeks, and attended Sangha for a couple months. I never received a letter. I became an apostate.
Something did Happen
I wrote something. I even finished it.
The pressure was on and my fear of looking like an idiot took charge. This guy wouldn't go away. He kept stopping by to ask if I wanted to come to class and how my writing was coming along. He persisted and I ran out of excuses. I either had to show him some writing or admit to him that I talked about being a writer but didn't actually write. At least if I showed him something I wasn't a liar. I never said I was a good writer.
I wrote a story about a man and Jesus having a conversation. Jesus was up on the cross, and the man stood in front of Him expressing some concerns he had. Jesus and the man went back and forth, the man expressing doubt and Jesus trying to convince him that faith was the best option. In the end, there wasn't much of a resolution. Jesus closed his eyes and the man, now being called the doubter, walked off unconvinced and still a skeptic.
I showed the story off the next time the guy stopped by my bunk and asked if I was done with any of my writing. He liked the story and told the instructor of the creative writing class about it. The instructor called me to the officer's desk the next day and asked to see my story. I gave it to him, and when he brought it back to me he said it was excellent and told me he would like to see my other writing when I got it done. Other work? I had no other work, but now I had praise and motivation. I started writing more.
I wrote a few crappy stories which focused on my dislike of religion, rape and violence and other forced symbolism. I was trying hard to get across a point which would have been much better to handle with a little subtlety and not so cliche. I didn't know this yet.
The next thing I wrote that had any value to it was a story about a family who had been farmers and soldiers. It followed three generations and three wars. The family faithfully served country and God, and in the end neither rescued them from the banks and the foreclosures. I sent a copy to C.. I wonder if she still has it? I would like to rewrite it.
It is pretty easy to see that my subject matter was being influenced by all the isms I had been reading about. My soul searching never gave me a Divine Revelation, but it made me more sensitive to matters I hadn't given much thought to before. My writing opened up to more than just how unfair my life was and how unjust my situation. I could write about how unfair life was to other people.
Writing in General
What I consider writing, or, more exactly, the idea I have about the writing process has changed considerably from those first few stories. I am not a pro, don't know if I ever will be, but you have to learn something. It is impossible to put a sizable portion of your life aside, devoting it to any one thing, without learning something.
This is what I thought back then: I thought that writing was a painfully slow process. I would sit there for hours and hours, writing and erasing, crossing out, crumpling up, and starting over. I thought you had to make it as perfect as possible, because once you finally got it all down, that was it. I had no concept of rough drafts or multiple rewrites and revisions. I thought you had to nail the perfect opening, and if you didn't then you never got started, never got past the opening paragraph. This all seemed to be getting worse. The more I tried to write, the less I could get onto the page. It started to really bother me, sitting for hours staring at a blank piece of writing paper, the lines begging me for words. I searched for solutions, even read a book about write's block.
The answer to the problem, or at least what the problem was, was explained to me by the counselor who taught the creative writing class. He had taught college level creative writing for 17 years, and had been a journalist for a while after graduating college. He used to tell me he would sit down one day and write about all the amazing things that had taken place in America and and all the exciting things that had happened to man during his 70 years of existence. He had seen and done a great deal. He knew more than I did. I had no reason to not trust him. He had the credentials.
I read several books on writing back then, both on technique and style. I worried about my grammar and vocabulary. I never worried about having anything to say, just how to say it. My lack of education scared me. My idea of a writer was someone who had an MFA and had been through the famous workshop at Iowa. I worried about commas, semicolons, colons, sentence structure, what a paragraph was and what went into it, and all the other rules of grammar. The thought of writing a passive sentence or ending a sentence with a preposition freaked me out. I felt like I didn't know enough six and seven syllable words to amount to anything. What if I didn't have enough conflict or a proper resolution? What if I couldn't state clearly my theme or plot, had no story arc, or had a flat character? The more I read, the more paranoid I became.
My counselor noticed I wasn't showing him as much work as I had been and asked me why. I explained the situation as best I could. He told me the rules were there to be broken, or bent as far as you needed them to go. The trick that separated the average writer from the good writer was knowing when to bend the rules and when not to. This came with practice. You had to get enough knowledge of grammar and punctuation to know just what you had to and what you could get away with. He also told me I wasn't doing myself any favors by comparing my rough drafts to the polished masterpieces of the great writers, It's okay to look for inspiration, but when you let yourself get intimidated by the things you are reading you have to back off a bit for your own good.
I took his advice, and decided I would just write and worry later. It didn't go exactly like that.
To be continued........................
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Saturday, March 21, 2015
Writing and Stuff
In the Beginning
I started writing instead of just talking about writing. I was 35 years old.
The first time I remember thinking I would like to be a writer was when I was 11 years old. I remember talking with my fifth grade teacher about it. I was 12 the first time I attempted to write a story. I don't remember too many of the details, but I know it had several references to caves and possibly took place in a cave. We had recently studied spelunking, so it was a fresh, exciting topic.I don't remember if I finished it, but I think I did, though was not satisfied with the ending. A pattern that continues to this day. The next story I wrote, and the first I remember finishing, was written when I was 20. Somehow it involved two sets of twins, two murders, and a cross that became a double cross, that became a double-double cross. Patterson eat your heart out! I don't remember what I was trying to say, or how I said it, but I am sure the piece was of great philosophical and literary significance, and it is a shame it has been lost and the world will never know its treasure.
For the next 15 years I spent a great deal of time talking about being a writer without doing any actual writing. Sometimes I would buy but one of those handheld, spiral notebooks, make a couple of entries, and then misplace it.
The summer of 2007. I am 35 and in prison. I have decided to write, because what else have I got to do? I had pens and pencils and lots of free time. I had a yellow legal pad. I even had a muse.
C...
C. and I were living together when I was arrested. She is two years younger than I am, and from the old neighborhood. She dated one of my friends while we were growing up. When I was released from prison in February of 2007, I found out no one I knew actually talked to each other anymore, they just sent messages on MySpace. I also found out that everyone I had ever known was somehow connected and talking to each other. I ran across C., contacted her, talked several times a day, and a week and a half later I was traveling by Greyhound from Bloomington, IN to Buffalo, NY to live with her. Things move fast when you are in love!
C. picked me up at the bus station. Later she would write about out reunion, writing that she had never been in a bus station before and that it smelled like tacos. I think it says something pretty substantial about her, the fact that she had never been in a greyhound station. It could be good or bad, depending on your perspective, but for me I am not sure if it is good for someone to go their whole life without ever having stepped foot in one. I think the Greyhound experience builds character. She was pretty close to the girl I remembered, except now she was 32 and not 20. Tall, skinny, intelligent, witty, and liked to have fun. The only thing that seemed to have changed was that her factory stock red hair was now dyed jet black, and was shorter. We stopped at the sub shop for sandwiches and the liquor store for wine, before heading to her apartment.
The living together phase of our relationship lasted about a month. One afternoon, as we walked down the stairs on our way to my mother's for dinner, the Village of Hamburg Police walked up the stairs with a warrant for my arrest. Of course I tried to give them a fake name, and of course they already knew my real name. C.'s sister had phoned them to tell them who I was and where I could be found.
I had missed a court date. It is hard to make your court date in Indiana when you are drunk in New York. Believe it or not, I was leaving on the bus the next morning to turn myself in. I had even contacted the court in Indiana and told them where I was. They weren't going to come after me, as long as I did what I told them I was going to do.
I had been released from the Indiana State Farm on February 5th and was booked into the Erie County Holding Center on March 20th. Not my most successful run.
But during those 40 days (worked for Jesus) something happened. I started writing. Drunken ramblings on MySpace, but it was writing. C. and I would sit around drinking and try to see who could write the craziest blog. They were the same as every other blog on MySpace-- unnecessary personal information, written in choppy, grammatically incorrect sentences. (Come to think of it, that describes all my writing. I believe the phrase "Over Sharing" was invented with me in mind.) Most of them contained an anecdote involving myself and the latest person I had reconnected with, since this was also my first experience with social media.
C. and I talked about writing a movie together. We would pool our resources. With my darkness and her wit how could we go wrong? We went to the bookstore to purchase a book on screenwriting, but the parking lot was crowded, the weather bad, and we needed a drink, so we went to the bar instead.
I was extradited back to Indiana after a week in the Holding Center. C. came to visit me before I left Buffalo. She brought me money, boxer shorts, t shirts, and socks. We talked about how this was going to be a good thing, how I would get this over with and we would get back to our life, but this wasn't my first rodeo and I figured this would be the last time I saw her. So far I am correct.
I was in the county jail in Bloomington for six months, and talked to C. every night on the phone. We wrote letters almost everyday. I wrote a couple page draft for a story while in the county about C. taking a cigarette break and thinking about how she was going to stick by this guy and trust him. I sent it to her. I suppose I was trying to convince her, manipulate her under the guise of literature. I was so full of shit at that point of my life, even more than I am now.
Prison Bound
I left the county jail, passed through the Reception and Diagnostics Center, and made it to prison. I decided that I had wasted too much time in the county jail playing poker and not writing. I decided I was going to write every night at 9:00, which is when the lights are turned down. There are security lights, so it is never actually dark, but it quieter and more conducive to creativity. Even though you are still surrounded by people the dimness creates the illusion of intimacy. It is as close to privacy as you get. This was when I would work.
For a few nights I stuck to the plan. I sharpened my pencils. got my legal pad out from under my mattress, and forced out a paragraph or two of words which would later be crumpled up and thrown away. Most of it was me whining about the situation I was in and the life I had created for myself. I needed a lot of help, not just with writing, but that was all I was interested in focusing on.
I went to the prison library ad found a book which claimed to have a foolproof creative method contained in its pages. A Surefire Way to Short Story Mastery! The book stated that people couldn't rely on plain old inspiration and creativity, that even the greatest writers of all time dried up sometimes and needed a little shove. Now I was going to get somewhere! I was smart enough to follow a recipe, have been a cook for most of my life, and this was pretty close to the same thing.
The equation in the book was easy enough to grasp. You needed a couple hundred three by five cards, something I had no access to, but two boxes of letter sized envelopes would do the job. The book broke down life into categories, many of which I can't remember, but the basic idea is still there. You separated your cards (envelopes) into groups of ten. These packs would make up the individual examples under each of the category headings. The categories were things like: Ten People I Admire, Ten People I Don't Care For, Ten Places I Have Been, Ten Places I Want To Go, Ten Jobs, Ten Traits I Want To Have............... and the list kept going. When you were done with all your lists, all you had to do is shuffle the cards, deal one from each pack of ten, and string the details into a story. Who needs to be creative?
I made it about a quarter or the way through the book and decided if this was what I was going to have to do to become a writer I didn't want to be a writer. Creativity was the reason I wanted to write. What the fuck does creativity mean when you take the creativity out of it? I wanted to struggle. I wanted to be the tortured artist, sitting in my one room apartment, pulling the words one by one from the painful part of my gut. (I had read a lot of Bukowski while in the county jail.) If I wanted to follow a plan it would be easier to be a plumber. Or a Christian. I threw away all of my envelopes. I decided that I was a purist, a real writer, and that I was going to continue to write, but do it the old fashioned way.
This is about the time C. stopped writing. She never set up a phone account so I could call her. My muse ascended. This has happened a few times, since most of my muses seem to be women, and one could argue that I pick the wrong muses, but I think like the ancient Greeks that the muse picks the writer, not the other way around. And who says a muse has to be permanent. They come and go. I stopped writing, except to send C. letters, which she never replied to.
To be continued...............................
I started writing instead of just talking about writing. I was 35 years old.
The first time I remember thinking I would like to be a writer was when I was 11 years old. I remember talking with my fifth grade teacher about it. I was 12 the first time I attempted to write a story. I don't remember too many of the details, but I know it had several references to caves and possibly took place in a cave. We had recently studied spelunking, so it was a fresh, exciting topic.I don't remember if I finished it, but I think I did, though was not satisfied with the ending. A pattern that continues to this day. The next story I wrote, and the first I remember finishing, was written when I was 20. Somehow it involved two sets of twins, two murders, and a cross that became a double cross, that became a double-double cross. Patterson eat your heart out! I don't remember what I was trying to say, or how I said it, but I am sure the piece was of great philosophical and literary significance, and it is a shame it has been lost and the world will never know its treasure.
For the next 15 years I spent a great deal of time talking about being a writer without doing any actual writing. Sometimes I would buy but one of those handheld, spiral notebooks, make a couple of entries, and then misplace it.
The summer of 2007. I am 35 and in prison. I have decided to write, because what else have I got to do? I had pens and pencils and lots of free time. I had a yellow legal pad. I even had a muse.
C...
C. and I were living together when I was arrested. She is two years younger than I am, and from the old neighborhood. She dated one of my friends while we were growing up. When I was released from prison in February of 2007, I found out no one I knew actually talked to each other anymore, they just sent messages on MySpace. I also found out that everyone I had ever known was somehow connected and talking to each other. I ran across C., contacted her, talked several times a day, and a week and a half later I was traveling by Greyhound from Bloomington, IN to Buffalo, NY to live with her. Things move fast when you are in love!
C. picked me up at the bus station. Later she would write about out reunion, writing that she had never been in a bus station before and that it smelled like tacos. I think it says something pretty substantial about her, the fact that she had never been in a greyhound station. It could be good or bad, depending on your perspective, but for me I am not sure if it is good for someone to go their whole life without ever having stepped foot in one. I think the Greyhound experience builds character. She was pretty close to the girl I remembered, except now she was 32 and not 20. Tall, skinny, intelligent, witty, and liked to have fun. The only thing that seemed to have changed was that her factory stock red hair was now dyed jet black, and was shorter. We stopped at the sub shop for sandwiches and the liquor store for wine, before heading to her apartment.
The living together phase of our relationship lasted about a month. One afternoon, as we walked down the stairs on our way to my mother's for dinner, the Village of Hamburg Police walked up the stairs with a warrant for my arrest. Of course I tried to give them a fake name, and of course they already knew my real name. C.'s sister had phoned them to tell them who I was and where I could be found.
I had missed a court date. It is hard to make your court date in Indiana when you are drunk in New York. Believe it or not, I was leaving on the bus the next morning to turn myself in. I had even contacted the court in Indiana and told them where I was. They weren't going to come after me, as long as I did what I told them I was going to do.
I had been released from the Indiana State Farm on February 5th and was booked into the Erie County Holding Center on March 20th. Not my most successful run.
But during those 40 days (worked for Jesus) something happened. I started writing. Drunken ramblings on MySpace, but it was writing. C. and I would sit around drinking and try to see who could write the craziest blog. They were the same as every other blog on MySpace-- unnecessary personal information, written in choppy, grammatically incorrect sentences. (Come to think of it, that describes all my writing. I believe the phrase "Over Sharing" was invented with me in mind.) Most of them contained an anecdote involving myself and the latest person I had reconnected with, since this was also my first experience with social media.
C. and I talked about writing a movie together. We would pool our resources. With my darkness and her wit how could we go wrong? We went to the bookstore to purchase a book on screenwriting, but the parking lot was crowded, the weather bad, and we needed a drink, so we went to the bar instead.
I was extradited back to Indiana after a week in the Holding Center. C. came to visit me before I left Buffalo. She brought me money, boxer shorts, t shirts, and socks. We talked about how this was going to be a good thing, how I would get this over with and we would get back to our life, but this wasn't my first rodeo and I figured this would be the last time I saw her. So far I am correct.
I was in the county jail in Bloomington for six months, and talked to C. every night on the phone. We wrote letters almost everyday. I wrote a couple page draft for a story while in the county about C. taking a cigarette break and thinking about how she was going to stick by this guy and trust him. I sent it to her. I suppose I was trying to convince her, manipulate her under the guise of literature. I was so full of shit at that point of my life, even more than I am now.
Prison Bound
I left the county jail, passed through the Reception and Diagnostics Center, and made it to prison. I decided that I had wasted too much time in the county jail playing poker and not writing. I decided I was going to write every night at 9:00, which is when the lights are turned down. There are security lights, so it is never actually dark, but it quieter and more conducive to creativity. Even though you are still surrounded by people the dimness creates the illusion of intimacy. It is as close to privacy as you get. This was when I would work.
For a few nights I stuck to the plan. I sharpened my pencils. got my legal pad out from under my mattress, and forced out a paragraph or two of words which would later be crumpled up and thrown away. Most of it was me whining about the situation I was in and the life I had created for myself. I needed a lot of help, not just with writing, but that was all I was interested in focusing on.
I went to the prison library ad found a book which claimed to have a foolproof creative method contained in its pages. A Surefire Way to Short Story Mastery! The book stated that people couldn't rely on plain old inspiration and creativity, that even the greatest writers of all time dried up sometimes and needed a little shove. Now I was going to get somewhere! I was smart enough to follow a recipe, have been a cook for most of my life, and this was pretty close to the same thing.
The equation in the book was easy enough to grasp. You needed a couple hundred three by five cards, something I had no access to, but two boxes of letter sized envelopes would do the job. The book broke down life into categories, many of which I can't remember, but the basic idea is still there. You separated your cards (envelopes) into groups of ten. These packs would make up the individual examples under each of the category headings. The categories were things like: Ten People I Admire, Ten People I Don't Care For, Ten Places I Have Been, Ten Places I Want To Go, Ten Jobs, Ten Traits I Want To Have............... and the list kept going. When you were done with all your lists, all you had to do is shuffle the cards, deal one from each pack of ten, and string the details into a story. Who needs to be creative?
I made it about a quarter or the way through the book and decided if this was what I was going to have to do to become a writer I didn't want to be a writer. Creativity was the reason I wanted to write. What the fuck does creativity mean when you take the creativity out of it? I wanted to struggle. I wanted to be the tortured artist, sitting in my one room apartment, pulling the words one by one from the painful part of my gut. (I had read a lot of Bukowski while in the county jail.) If I wanted to follow a plan it would be easier to be a plumber. Or a Christian. I threw away all of my envelopes. I decided that I was a purist, a real writer, and that I was going to continue to write, but do it the old fashioned way.
This is about the time C. stopped writing. She never set up a phone account so I could call her. My muse ascended. This has happened a few times, since most of my muses seem to be women, and one could argue that I pick the wrong muses, but I think like the ancient Greeks that the muse picks the writer, not the other way around. And who says a muse has to be permanent. They come and go. I stopped writing, except to send C. letters, which she never replied to.
To be continued...............................
Monday, January 12, 2015
More Journals
Everything continues to go according to plan. Dad and sis coming to finish moving the rest of the big stuff today, and Drew coming over after to paint the apartment. Get rid of these old, stained walls. Or cover them up, at least. Boxes everywhere, a state of disarray, but it is oddly comforting to me. I am restless by nature, and a feeling of transition calms me. It is when I completely settle that I start having problems. But that is another idea, for another time.
Today I will continue going through the journals. Forget Oz. Forget Orange is the new Black. Forget Escape from Alcatraz. Prison is mostly boring. Excitement happens, but it comes in spurts, followed by days and days of monotony.
Wednesday. 7/10/2013. 4:30 am. After breakfast. It is finally hot. Sweaty and sticky. Coffee is almost unbearable, but necessary. Left my radio on all night and killed the battery. I don't know what I will do when I get out of here. I don't want to go back to Bloomington. I don't know if I will be ale to get a job. It is scary. It gets worse every time I get out.
I will try to have a story done and ready to send to PEN contest by Monday. I will probably not be satisfied, but I need to just send one of them and stop screwing around.
Monday. 7/15/2013. He had a wild, gray/black/white thunder cloud of hair. It wasn't long, but he could never keep it together. I don't think he cared. He would wear his boots or his shower shoes to the bathroom, and then come back to his bunk and lay on top of his blanket with them still on. His footwear would have collected dirt, cock hairs, boogers, blood, semen, etc. He would rub his feet together and you could imagine everything from the bathroom floor being deposited onto his blanket. After a while, he would reverse his position and lay his head where his feet just were. He talked to himself, and drew pictures of people being killed. He had one where there was a line of people waiting to get into this huge dryer. The dryer had flames coming out of it. The caption read, "Dryer Rides!". I woke up this morning and his bunk was stripped clean. There were five pairs of indigent shower shoes, the cheap flip flops they give you when you get here, under his bunk.
Tuesday. 7/16/2013. Stressful dreams. Searching for dope. I woke up stressed out and didn't want to get up or go to breakfast. Crazy how that shit still affects me, even when I am not using it. Crazy that I go back to it. What the hell is wrong with me? Going to brush my teeth and go back to work.
Wednesday. 7/17/2013. Afternoon, in class. Hot and sticky in my brown, one piece jumpsuit. In the day room, sweating. Can't hear the video for the Spiritual Literacy class, because the fans are too loud. About twenty-five of us in a semicircle. A hemisphere. Coffee stains, food crumbs, and cock hairs litter the blue-green linoleum floor. Anthony Bourdain on the television behind the television I am supposed to be watching. Meth-heads and crackheads. Heroin junkies like me. Black boys with braids and cornrows. White boys with rubber bands in their beards. Bad tattoos. Everyone trying to get what the video is telling us to get.
Wednesday. 7/24/2013. The fan doesn't hit me and it is hot. People can't hear the video, and they sit around and complain. They installed some new machines in the day room.The machine were actually installed a few months ago,but now they are turned on. Sort of. All you can do is register your name. Supposedly you will be able to send and receive emails (45 cents a pop), and there will even be picture sharing and video conferencing. I wonder how much the half hour video visits will be? Another way to get money out of inmates and their families. Restitution comes in many forms, with many hands held out. I wonder who will be the first to get escorted out in handcuffs for waving their wiener at the screen?
Wednesday. 7/31/2013. There wasn't any soap in the bathroom. Four or five shiny, porcelain sinks. It was clean, someone had just done their civic duty and cleaned. But there was no soap. The blue and white tiles of the floor were beat up, chipped, but clean. There were names and profanities scratched into the paint, but the walls were clean. It smelt clean. Antiseptic. But there was no soap to wash your hands with. The light from the fluorescent lights bounced off the sleek, shiny, mostly white surfaces.The bulbs were bare, exposed, no covers. The light was harsh. I squinted. I wanted to wash my hands with soap, but there was no soap. I had just taken a shit. I felt like I should have soap available to wash my hands in situations like this. I rinsed my hands, and stepped out of the bathroom into the hallway. The hallway was brighter than the bathroom. One of the counselors was in the hallway. Black lady, light skinned. Beautiful. I yelled to her that there was no soap. I yelled that there were people in here with diseases and they couldn't even wash their hands. She held her hand up. "Okay," she said. "Calm down." She turned and walked down the shiny hallway and into her office.
Monday. 8/12/2013. The van stunk. It smelt of body odor, old food, and cigarette smoke. The carpet was gray, matted down from years of abuse. Crumpled McDonald's french fry wrappers and a few fries crispy with age. Two bench seats and eight passengers. Four more passengers on another bench seat behind the front seats. Everything separated by cages. The smell of rotting people and rusting metal and desperate smells made by desperate people. Uncertainty. A nineteen year old Mexican picked up in Charlotte, NC, heading back to Texas to face a double murder charge for a drive-by shooting in Houston. They have the death penalty in Texas, and they aren't afraid to use it. It was super hot in the van and super stinky. Two uniformed drivers and twelve passengers. Chains and handcuffs. Leg shackles. We ate McDonald's three times a day, seven days a week. The good drivers would pass out cigarettes after meals. Park at the back of the parking lot and pass cigarettes through the cage. One cigarette for every two smokers. Share and be nice or no more. What do the families going to their meals think? Towns in the middle of nowhere, but they have a McDonald's off the highway exit. I hope I never smell that shitty van again.
Monday. 8/19/2013. I stop to think about all the wrongs I have done, but I usually don't dwell too long. Sometimes, and it kills me. I know they are serious misdoings, but I feel that if I were to dwell on them would go insane. There is n way to repay all I have done, so the only thing I can do is try to live right from now on.
Tuesday. 8/27/2013. They are poisoning people in Syria. There are babies on the news, naked and crying. They want to kill each other, and now the US will send warships. We will get involved and kill people so we can teach them that killing is wrong. We will force our civilized ways on them using uncivilized brute force.
Tuesday. 9/3/2013. Sometimes I go pee for no reason other than boredom. I tell myself that I really don't have to go, and then I get up and walk to the bathroom, stand in front of the urinal, and dribble a little out.I end up dripping more down my leg, because I strain so hard that when I walk away it will keep coming. Slowly. I piss at least once an hour, maybe more. I should find something else to do with my time, but a routine is a routine, and it is easy to fall into a pattern here, which makes me ask myself this- If it is so easy to fall into a routine doing the things I do to avoid the things I should be doing, how come it isn't as easy to all into a routine of doing the things I should be doing? I devote as much energy, or more, avoiding things than I would expend doing them.
Monday. 9/23/2013. "She was the kind of girlfriend God gives you when young, so you'll know loss the rest of your life." Junot Diaz. From the book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
7/3/2012. "A man is a reasonable being and is continually in pursuit of happiness, which he hopes to find in the gratification of some passion or affection, he seldom acts or speaks or thinks without a purpose or intention. He still has some object in view; and however improper the means may sometimes be which he chooses for attainment of hie end, he never loses view of an end, nor will he so much as throw away his thoughts or reflections where he hopes not to reap any satisfaction from them." David Hume
The trick I guess, is to focus thoughts, actions, and speech in the right directions. For the right satisfactions.
Today I will continue going through the journals. Forget Oz. Forget Orange is the new Black. Forget Escape from Alcatraz. Prison is mostly boring. Excitement happens, but it comes in spurts, followed by days and days of monotony.
Wednesday. 7/10/2013. 4:30 am. After breakfast. It is finally hot. Sweaty and sticky. Coffee is almost unbearable, but necessary. Left my radio on all night and killed the battery. I don't know what I will do when I get out of here. I don't want to go back to Bloomington. I don't know if I will be ale to get a job. It is scary. It gets worse every time I get out.
I will try to have a story done and ready to send to PEN contest by Monday. I will probably not be satisfied, but I need to just send one of them and stop screwing around.
Monday. 7/15/2013. He had a wild, gray/black/white thunder cloud of hair. It wasn't long, but he could never keep it together. I don't think he cared. He would wear his boots or his shower shoes to the bathroom, and then come back to his bunk and lay on top of his blanket with them still on. His footwear would have collected dirt, cock hairs, boogers, blood, semen, etc. He would rub his feet together and you could imagine everything from the bathroom floor being deposited onto his blanket. After a while, he would reverse his position and lay his head where his feet just were. He talked to himself, and drew pictures of people being killed. He had one where there was a line of people waiting to get into this huge dryer. The dryer had flames coming out of it. The caption read, "Dryer Rides!". I woke up this morning and his bunk was stripped clean. There were five pairs of indigent shower shoes, the cheap flip flops they give you when you get here, under his bunk.
Tuesday. 7/16/2013. Stressful dreams. Searching for dope. I woke up stressed out and didn't want to get up or go to breakfast. Crazy how that shit still affects me, even when I am not using it. Crazy that I go back to it. What the hell is wrong with me? Going to brush my teeth and go back to work.
Wednesday. 7/17/2013. Afternoon, in class. Hot and sticky in my brown, one piece jumpsuit. In the day room, sweating. Can't hear the video for the Spiritual Literacy class, because the fans are too loud. About twenty-five of us in a semicircle. A hemisphere. Coffee stains, food crumbs, and cock hairs litter the blue-green linoleum floor. Anthony Bourdain on the television behind the television I am supposed to be watching. Meth-heads and crackheads. Heroin junkies like me. Black boys with braids and cornrows. White boys with rubber bands in their beards. Bad tattoos. Everyone trying to get what the video is telling us to get.
Wednesday. 7/24/2013. The fan doesn't hit me and it is hot. People can't hear the video, and they sit around and complain. They installed some new machines in the day room.The machine were actually installed a few months ago,but now they are turned on. Sort of. All you can do is register your name. Supposedly you will be able to send and receive emails (45 cents a pop), and there will even be picture sharing and video conferencing. I wonder how much the half hour video visits will be? Another way to get money out of inmates and their families. Restitution comes in many forms, with many hands held out. I wonder who will be the first to get escorted out in handcuffs for waving their wiener at the screen?
Wednesday. 7/31/2013. There wasn't any soap in the bathroom. Four or five shiny, porcelain sinks. It was clean, someone had just done their civic duty and cleaned. But there was no soap. The blue and white tiles of the floor were beat up, chipped, but clean. There were names and profanities scratched into the paint, but the walls were clean. It smelt clean. Antiseptic. But there was no soap to wash your hands with. The light from the fluorescent lights bounced off the sleek, shiny, mostly white surfaces.The bulbs were bare, exposed, no covers. The light was harsh. I squinted. I wanted to wash my hands with soap, but there was no soap. I had just taken a shit. I felt like I should have soap available to wash my hands in situations like this. I rinsed my hands, and stepped out of the bathroom into the hallway. The hallway was brighter than the bathroom. One of the counselors was in the hallway. Black lady, light skinned. Beautiful. I yelled to her that there was no soap. I yelled that there were people in here with diseases and they couldn't even wash their hands. She held her hand up. "Okay," she said. "Calm down." She turned and walked down the shiny hallway and into her office.
Monday. 8/12/2013. The van stunk. It smelt of body odor, old food, and cigarette smoke. The carpet was gray, matted down from years of abuse. Crumpled McDonald's french fry wrappers and a few fries crispy with age. Two bench seats and eight passengers. Four more passengers on another bench seat behind the front seats. Everything separated by cages. The smell of rotting people and rusting metal and desperate smells made by desperate people. Uncertainty. A nineteen year old Mexican picked up in Charlotte, NC, heading back to Texas to face a double murder charge for a drive-by shooting in Houston. They have the death penalty in Texas, and they aren't afraid to use it. It was super hot in the van and super stinky. Two uniformed drivers and twelve passengers. Chains and handcuffs. Leg shackles. We ate McDonald's three times a day, seven days a week. The good drivers would pass out cigarettes after meals. Park at the back of the parking lot and pass cigarettes through the cage. One cigarette for every two smokers. Share and be nice or no more. What do the families going to their meals think? Towns in the middle of nowhere, but they have a McDonald's off the highway exit. I hope I never smell that shitty van again.
Monday. 8/19/2013. I stop to think about all the wrongs I have done, but I usually don't dwell too long. Sometimes, and it kills me. I know they are serious misdoings, but I feel that if I were to dwell on them would go insane. There is n way to repay all I have done, so the only thing I can do is try to live right from now on.
Tuesday. 8/27/2013. They are poisoning people in Syria. There are babies on the news, naked and crying. They want to kill each other, and now the US will send warships. We will get involved and kill people so we can teach them that killing is wrong. We will force our civilized ways on them using uncivilized brute force.
Tuesday. 9/3/2013. Sometimes I go pee for no reason other than boredom. I tell myself that I really don't have to go, and then I get up and walk to the bathroom, stand in front of the urinal, and dribble a little out.I end up dripping more down my leg, because I strain so hard that when I walk away it will keep coming. Slowly. I piss at least once an hour, maybe more. I should find something else to do with my time, but a routine is a routine, and it is easy to fall into a pattern here, which makes me ask myself this- If it is so easy to fall into a routine doing the things I do to avoid the things I should be doing, how come it isn't as easy to all into a routine of doing the things I should be doing? I devote as much energy, or more, avoiding things than I would expend doing them.
Monday. 9/23/2013. "She was the kind of girlfriend God gives you when young, so you'll know loss the rest of your life." Junot Diaz. From the book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.
7/3/2012. "A man is a reasonable being and is continually in pursuit of happiness, which he hopes to find in the gratification of some passion or affection, he seldom acts or speaks or thinks without a purpose or intention. He still has some object in view; and however improper the means may sometimes be which he chooses for attainment of hie end, he never loses view of an end, nor will he so much as throw away his thoughts or reflections where he hopes not to reap any satisfaction from them." David Hume
The trick I guess, is to focus thoughts, actions, and speech in the right directions. For the right satisfactions.
Saturday, January 10, 2015
Been A While
So........ it has been a while. I have completed the torture of the Interstate Compact Process, and am now in my cozy, little apartment in North Tonawanda, New York. The moving has gone slow and comfortable. My father is coming with his truck on Sunday morning to complete the moving of the larger items from my sister's garage. I am finally comfortable. I am ready to resume my writing.
I have been reading through my prison journals, and thought I would pick a few excerpts to share. Of course, I will post them as originally written. No editing. Raw, insider's view, cutting edge journalism. Or something like that.
Here we go.
Monday. 4/15/2013. A bomb exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, and right away I am thinking religious wacko. Probably a Muslim. Is the reason I think this-- the second after finding out about the bomb --because religious people (Muslims in particular) are more likely to blow things up? Or is it because the media picks these things to sensationalize and force down our throats? Or is it because I have a prejudice against religious people? That would be tied in with the first question, because my prejudice against religious people stems from the fact that I really think many of them like to be hateful and kill shit and use their faith as an excuse. I guess I have my answer. But is my prejudice founded on anything or the result of an overzealous media? Don't know. More later.
Tuesday. 4/16/213. Forgot to sign the recreation sheet, and I think I made the officer's day. He is new to this dorm, though I have seen him around the compound. He s a dick. He yelled, "Four twelve, no rec. Forgot to sign up." There was a detectable amount of happiness in his voice, even when trying to play the "Just Doin' My Job" consummate professional. I don't fall for these things.
Still no word on the Marathon Bomber. I am placing my bets on a Conservative Christian, NRA wacko. It was Patriot's Day.
The Marathon Bombers has now replaced Theater Massacre as least tasteful band name.
Wednesday. 5/1/2013. Caryn's birthday was yesterday. I assume she is hungover right now, probably she has taken the day off work in advance. She was always a good planner for these things, whatever her other faults may be. Not that she has too many. She likes to have fun. I hope she had a good birthday. I hope her head is not giving her too much trouble this morning. Maybe she will have a Bloody Mary.
Monday. 5/27/2013. Memorial Day.
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." Albert Einstein.
I am going to try and implement some better time divisions. I sit around and don't do anything. I need to have time for work, recreation, reading, and writing. I am setting a goal of 500 words a day.
Wednesday. 5/29/2013. The guy who slept diagonal from me, above my neighbor, is gone. Normal release days are Monday and Thursday, so maybe he had court or something. I thought he had a little time left. Maybe he went to the hole? Maybe his big mouth finally got him in trouble? Maybe he was abducted by aliens? Anyways, I won't miss him. He was pretty obnoxious, and had some annoying little friends who would crowd around to talk to him, invade my area, disturb my peace. I never knew his name, but goodbye. Bon Voyage.
Saturday. 6/1/013. Filled my commissary order form out. I ordered a peanut butter, a box of oatmeal, a bag of rice, four packages of black beans, two packages re-fried beans, a bag of coffee, a bar of soap, and a tube of toothpaste. A grand total of $18.87. So far, the highlight of my day.
The Dungeons and Dragons boys are at their table and the game is in full swing. A guard is walking around shaking people down. People are still sleeping or lying in their bunks watching Rawhide. 11:30 am is not terribly exciting.
I am going to try and get some writing done after lunch. I need to get something done before the September 1st deadline for the PEN contest.
Tuesday. 6/11/2013. America's Got Talent is on and I don't care about any of the acts. I just stare at Heidi Klum. I am a pervert now. Four years of living with men, and I can't look at a television show or commercial or magazine without perving out on the women. I am forty-one and I feel like I am sixteen. I have to talk myself out of masturbation twenty times a day. You would think it would get easier, but it only gets worse. If only I could focus on my writing as much as I do on lusting.
Thursday. 6/13/203. New class starts today. "Developing a Winning Attitude!" The doctor told me my blood pressure was up, and I needed to lose some weight. I have never been in the position of someone who has to lose weight. This is new.
Sunday. 6/16/2013. Some people who work here really seem to hate the people who reside here. They seem to believe they are better, and treat everyone equally shitty. Even the people not in custody uniforms, the laundry workers, the food service staff, they all act like this. It is especially weird coming from the Aramark workers in the kitchen, since it appears none of them have ever had a job or could pass a GED. They still hold their noses in the air.
GOTHIKA is on and Halle Berry has an incredible body.
Monday. 7/1/2013. First day of the pallet shop switching to two shifts. Up at 3:30 am. I think this will be a good thing for me, once the initial shock wears off. Time to read a little, drink coffee, write in the journal, and get ready for work. Work will be from 5:00 am to 11:00 am from now on, but for the first week a few of us are working some overtime. So exciting at $0.90 an hour.
The pallet shop has been good to me, though it is slave labor. I have been in a position of some authority, and I try to stay responsible. If anything, I act like a dick, then go back out of my way for people who don't appreciate it anyways. But it is good to have something like a real job in here to keep you from falling into the despair that has so many of my fellow inmates in its grip. Nothing to do all day but get in trouble, tattoo, argue with the cops or other inmates, sit around and complain. It is really a terrible life if you let it get to you. I am trying to keep myself focused, dividing my day into sections for all the things I want to accomplish, and give all my attention to the task at hand,
Tuesday. 7/2/2013. Good morning. put the laundry out. I wonder if I will ever be able to stop letting insignificant things bother me. Something will happen, usually something someone else does, completely meaningless, and I will dwell on it. I will tell myself that it is stupid to sit there and brood over this minor thing, then a week later this same thing will pop back into my head and I will dwell on it some more. I wish I could have the strength of mind to be a Stoic or a Buddhist, but it is so difficult. Especially in here. There is no way to get away from people in here. I live in a small area with 250 other people. When I get out of here I would like to go somewhere and sit by myself for a couple of days. Maybe get drunk and smoke some cigarettes.
Friday. 7/5/2013. Wednesday we had no work because our dorm was quarantined for treatment against the scabies epidemic that is sweeping the prison. They claim it is under control.
Yesterday was the Fourth of July, but there were no parties or BBQs or fireworks. Pretty boring, actually. Worked out, ate, slept a lot. got three stories ready to retype today at work.
The old man next to me is loud. He is sixty something and hangs around with a bunch of twenty year olds. He acts worse than they do. He tells the same stupid jokes over and over, and acts like an idiot all day long. He has the most fucked up toes I have ever seen. His big toe is huge and curls up over the tops of his other toes. I wonder how he can stand, but I guess it doesn't bother him. He had to cut the sides of his boots to fit his toes in. It doesn't stop talking about methamphetamine and having sex with sixteen year old girls. He can do that all day long.
Tomorrow is Christmas in July. The church people come in, preach for a few minutes, and give us a bag of food. The Amish sing Jesus songs. It is the one day out of the year that I don't mind religion.
Monday. 7/8/2013. The morning drive calls for sixty-eight to seventy-two degrees. Perfect. Eighty-nine degrees later. It's 4:30 am, and no breakfast yet because they forgot to put the potatoes in. Fake potatoes. A shooting investigation in Evansville. A plane crash in San Francisco. There are worse things than forgetting to put the fake potatoes in the oven.
I wonder what Laura is up to? Still in Cali or back in Jersey? We had some fun, and then I could only concern myself with the drugs and getting high. Sorry, Laura. I didn't mean it. But that sounds cheap. If I didn't mean it, I wouldn't have done it.
When you become overwhelmed with the vastness of the universe and the smallness of yourself, it is easy to feel insignificant, easy to feel that there is nothing special, and it doesn't matter if you are here or not, and you are here so it is special. The paradox of trying to be existential. It is a tough job being absurd.
I have been reading through my prison journals, and thought I would pick a few excerpts to share. Of course, I will post them as originally written. No editing. Raw, insider's view, cutting edge journalism. Or something like that.
Here we go.
Monday. 4/15/2013. A bomb exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, and right away I am thinking religious wacko. Probably a Muslim. Is the reason I think this-- the second after finding out about the bomb --because religious people (Muslims in particular) are more likely to blow things up? Or is it because the media picks these things to sensationalize and force down our throats? Or is it because I have a prejudice against religious people? That would be tied in with the first question, because my prejudice against religious people stems from the fact that I really think many of them like to be hateful and kill shit and use their faith as an excuse. I guess I have my answer. But is my prejudice founded on anything or the result of an overzealous media? Don't know. More later.
Tuesday. 4/16/213. Forgot to sign the recreation sheet, and I think I made the officer's day. He is new to this dorm, though I have seen him around the compound. He s a dick. He yelled, "Four twelve, no rec. Forgot to sign up." There was a detectable amount of happiness in his voice, even when trying to play the "Just Doin' My Job" consummate professional. I don't fall for these things.
Still no word on the Marathon Bomber. I am placing my bets on a Conservative Christian, NRA wacko. It was Patriot's Day.
The Marathon Bombers has now replaced Theater Massacre as least tasteful band name.
Wednesday. 5/1/2013. Caryn's birthday was yesterday. I assume she is hungover right now, probably she has taken the day off work in advance. She was always a good planner for these things, whatever her other faults may be. Not that she has too many. She likes to have fun. I hope she had a good birthday. I hope her head is not giving her too much trouble this morning. Maybe she will have a Bloody Mary.
Monday. 5/27/2013. Memorial Day.
"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." Albert Einstein.
I am going to try and implement some better time divisions. I sit around and don't do anything. I need to have time for work, recreation, reading, and writing. I am setting a goal of 500 words a day.
Wednesday. 5/29/2013. The guy who slept diagonal from me, above my neighbor, is gone. Normal release days are Monday and Thursday, so maybe he had court or something. I thought he had a little time left. Maybe he went to the hole? Maybe his big mouth finally got him in trouble? Maybe he was abducted by aliens? Anyways, I won't miss him. He was pretty obnoxious, and had some annoying little friends who would crowd around to talk to him, invade my area, disturb my peace. I never knew his name, but goodbye. Bon Voyage.
Saturday. 6/1/013. Filled my commissary order form out. I ordered a peanut butter, a box of oatmeal, a bag of rice, four packages of black beans, two packages re-fried beans, a bag of coffee, a bar of soap, and a tube of toothpaste. A grand total of $18.87. So far, the highlight of my day.
The Dungeons and Dragons boys are at their table and the game is in full swing. A guard is walking around shaking people down. People are still sleeping or lying in their bunks watching Rawhide. 11:30 am is not terribly exciting.
I am going to try and get some writing done after lunch. I need to get something done before the September 1st deadline for the PEN contest.
Tuesday. 6/11/2013. America's Got Talent is on and I don't care about any of the acts. I just stare at Heidi Klum. I am a pervert now. Four years of living with men, and I can't look at a television show or commercial or magazine without perving out on the women. I am forty-one and I feel like I am sixteen. I have to talk myself out of masturbation twenty times a day. You would think it would get easier, but it only gets worse. If only I could focus on my writing as much as I do on lusting.
Thursday. 6/13/203. New class starts today. "Developing a Winning Attitude!" The doctor told me my blood pressure was up, and I needed to lose some weight. I have never been in the position of someone who has to lose weight. This is new.
Sunday. 6/16/2013. Some people who work here really seem to hate the people who reside here. They seem to believe they are better, and treat everyone equally shitty. Even the people not in custody uniforms, the laundry workers, the food service staff, they all act like this. It is especially weird coming from the Aramark workers in the kitchen, since it appears none of them have ever had a job or could pass a GED. They still hold their noses in the air.
GOTHIKA is on and Halle Berry has an incredible body.
Monday. 7/1/2013. First day of the pallet shop switching to two shifts. Up at 3:30 am. I think this will be a good thing for me, once the initial shock wears off. Time to read a little, drink coffee, write in the journal, and get ready for work. Work will be from 5:00 am to 11:00 am from now on, but for the first week a few of us are working some overtime. So exciting at $0.90 an hour.
The pallet shop has been good to me, though it is slave labor. I have been in a position of some authority, and I try to stay responsible. If anything, I act like a dick, then go back out of my way for people who don't appreciate it anyways. But it is good to have something like a real job in here to keep you from falling into the despair that has so many of my fellow inmates in its grip. Nothing to do all day but get in trouble, tattoo, argue with the cops or other inmates, sit around and complain. It is really a terrible life if you let it get to you. I am trying to keep myself focused, dividing my day into sections for all the things I want to accomplish, and give all my attention to the task at hand,
Tuesday. 7/2/2013. Good morning. put the laundry out. I wonder if I will ever be able to stop letting insignificant things bother me. Something will happen, usually something someone else does, completely meaningless, and I will dwell on it. I will tell myself that it is stupid to sit there and brood over this minor thing, then a week later this same thing will pop back into my head and I will dwell on it some more. I wish I could have the strength of mind to be a Stoic or a Buddhist, but it is so difficult. Especially in here. There is no way to get away from people in here. I live in a small area with 250 other people. When I get out of here I would like to go somewhere and sit by myself for a couple of days. Maybe get drunk and smoke some cigarettes.
Friday. 7/5/2013. Wednesday we had no work because our dorm was quarantined for treatment against the scabies epidemic that is sweeping the prison. They claim it is under control.
Yesterday was the Fourth of July, but there were no parties or BBQs or fireworks. Pretty boring, actually. Worked out, ate, slept a lot. got three stories ready to retype today at work.
The old man next to me is loud. He is sixty something and hangs around with a bunch of twenty year olds. He acts worse than they do. He tells the same stupid jokes over and over, and acts like an idiot all day long. He has the most fucked up toes I have ever seen. His big toe is huge and curls up over the tops of his other toes. I wonder how he can stand, but I guess it doesn't bother him. He had to cut the sides of his boots to fit his toes in. It doesn't stop talking about methamphetamine and having sex with sixteen year old girls. He can do that all day long.
Tomorrow is Christmas in July. The church people come in, preach for a few minutes, and give us a bag of food. The Amish sing Jesus songs. It is the one day out of the year that I don't mind religion.
Monday. 7/8/2013. The morning drive calls for sixty-eight to seventy-two degrees. Perfect. Eighty-nine degrees later. It's 4:30 am, and no breakfast yet because they forgot to put the potatoes in. Fake potatoes. A shooting investigation in Evansville. A plane crash in San Francisco. There are worse things than forgetting to put the fake potatoes in the oven.
I wonder what Laura is up to? Still in Cali or back in Jersey? We had some fun, and then I could only concern myself with the drugs and getting high. Sorry, Laura. I didn't mean it. But that sounds cheap. If I didn't mean it, I wouldn't have done it.
When you become overwhelmed with the vastness of the universe and the smallness of yourself, it is easy to feel insignificant, easy to feel that there is nothing special, and it doesn't matter if you are here or not, and you are here so it is special. The paradox of trying to be existential. It is a tough job being absurd.
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Depression? Why?
I don't understand depression. I don't want to. I don't like it. I have had several bouts with it over the years, probably contributing to some of my transgressions, but not excusing them, and probably should have sucked it up a long time ago and talked to a professional about it. Now I have grown so used to dealing with my darkness by myself that the idea of counseling is so far removed from my thought, treated with such hostility by myself, that I will most likely never do it. Even if I think it would help me. It's like I think I have done all this by myself, why change now? Of course, I ignore the fucked up travesty of a job I have done. And I guess I am lying when I say I don't understand depression, not lying, just understating. I understand some. I understand the effects and some of the causes, just not what it is for.
I tend to think of things in a natural way. Some of you will tell me that is the problem, that I am thinking of things in a natural way, which are outside of nature. I will tell you, "Thank you. But you are wrong." And, as I have said countless times, this is my blog, my feelings. If you write your blog and your feelings, I would be happy to read it.
So, because of the way my brain is wired, I try to think of these things (emotions and actions) from a natural, scientific (limited science, I am not a scientist) way. It is all I have. I have read all the books, precepts, moral codes, whatever, and looked into most of the main religions of the world. None of it makes sense to me. None of it clicks, and I have tried, honestly, so if it was meant to be it would have been. I do not understand how people, intelligent people, can tell me with a straight face that they believe all the outrageous claims their religion makes, usually at the same time as they are telling me how outrageous and ridiculous the claims of other religions are. Religions which basically make the same claims as their's, just worded differently. Which is what it is all about, when you get down to it, an argument over linguistics and schematics. To an outsider it all looks silly to want to kill over the same words put in different order. I suppose I understand the feeling, because when I read something on evolutionary biology or a particularly striking passage in a philosophy book, I get a chill and goosebumps. I get the lightening strike, the AH HA! moment. But I have never gotten that feeling from a religious text, and I have tried. Close from some Buddhist and Hindu scriptures.
You can think of a use for almost every human emotion, when looking from an evolutionary angle. As much as the devout like to dispute this. The absence of a Dogma does not make you a foaming at the mouth, homicidal maniac any more than being a believer makes you a good person. A friend of mine told me a story the other day. He is in the restaurant business. He was having a bad day. A person of a different ethnic background than his came in (makes no difference what either of their races is for our purpose here, just that they were different). This person was being extremely contrary and rude. My friend had a derogatory comment on this person's race creep into his head. He asked me if I thought this made him a terrible person and a racist. I said no. I said it made him a human being. We all have these thoughts. When we are mad or hurt or upset, we lash out. We go for the easiest, quickest, most hurtful jab we can. What ever packs the biggest bang with the least amount of effort. It makes no difference if it is a comment on the person's race or sex or weight. If a person with one arm pisses me off, I will think something about all these fucking one armed bastards getting in my way. Whatever is the most obvious difference between us and the object of our displeasure is what we will latch onto. When you vocalize these thoughts or act on them is when you become a terrible person and a racist.Then my friend and I started the conversation which led to much of what I am talking about right now.
You can think of many ways in which these thoughts would have been useful when lifting our species to its lofty position on the top of the pyramid. Distrust and suspicion of outsiders, people different from our own, served to keep us going. This was mainly true in the Hunter Gatherer stage, I am sure. There was no reason to cooperate. We already had enough trouble filling the stomachs we had in our clan. Someone from another clan might be after our food or breeding stock (sorry ladies, but that is basically what you were then. you have come a long way!). Even if they weren't up to anything nefarious, they were still a problem. They were another mouth. They were competition. We learned the best thing to do was to keep to ourselves and shun outsiders.
The problem is that just because something has worn out its survival usefulness doesn't mean it has gone away. It is there, buried in the shadow or the ego or somewhere like that. It can creep back up from time to time, whether we want it to or not.
When we learned how to plant veggies and herd animals we settled down and made communities. Our distrust and suspicion was still needed, someone could always being trying to take something from you, but it had to be lessened a bit. Relaxed. This is also where love and compassion and cooperation came into being. Morals and ethics were needed long before religion was. That should be abundantly clear, if you look with an honest, open mind. Contrary to what many people think, morality is easily explainable without religion. In fact, I think it should be obvious to any somewhat intelligent person that that is an indisputable fact. How could it not be? We wouldn't be here if it weren't true. Science tells us that man has been in his modern format, the one we find ourselves in now, for about 50,000 years. Our oldest religious texts are a few thousand years old at best. That leaves 47,000 years of religious free survival. We would have never made it through, especially once we became farmers, without some niceness. Making the argument that there would be no morality without religion is impossible task in my opinion. All one has to do is point to all the immoral acts, acts which people of all faiths believe to be immoral, are committed each day by the devout in the name of their chosen deity. Your case crumbles faster than a Mighty Taco hard shell. And, if it were true, then the opposite would be true too. If you can only have morality with god, then without god you have no morality, but look at all the secular organizations helping people everywhere.
So I think almost everything can be explained in a natural way. I even disagree with the people who say monogamy is unnatural. There are examples of it in nature. You would have to look at what benefit it would give the species. Our species is a perfect fit for it.
Anthropologists also think (many of them do) that when we stopped scrounging the earth for our food we could settle down and start religions. Some one, probably the strongest male, took charge. He made the people farm and store food. Then he started pushing his worldview on the masses. Religion and power have been intertwined ever since.
I have gotten off track, as I often do. But this is a blog by some retard sitting in a coffee shop, not a polished piece in Time magazine. You will read it anyways, and then you will say to yourself, "What the fuck is that idiot talking about? How does he find the time to sit around and write this bullshit?"
Depression. I watched a documentary the other night (yes, I know I watch too many documentaries) about bipolar disorder. I kept thinking, "What pussies. At least they get to enjoy the highs. I want to jump in front of a bus everyday, and I don't get any highs, only lows."
I know this is no laughing matter. I know their lows are probably places I don't want to be, and I did feel sorry for them. The thing which struck me the most was that most of them were writers or artists.
What is the natural, evolutionary purpose for depression? Is there one? It could be that it is a side effect of some other trait which is desirable. Maybe it piggy-backed along with compassion or something like that, evolving and being protected. Or maybe it is here to ensure we have enough literature, art, and music. That was one thing many of the people in the documentary said, when they took their medications they lost their creativity. There was only one guy, an artist and architect, who used to cross-dress and smoke crack, who said it didn't. Remarkably, the guys wife stayed with him the whole time. He said he would go to the gay bath houses and have unprotected sex, trying to get AIDS. Fucked up dude. Suddenly. thinking you want to jump in front of a bis doesn't seem so crazy.
Maybe depression is a mistake. Gods might not make mistakes, but the process of evolution does. Having the main entrance point for food into the body shared with the main entrance point for oxygen might be efficient, but that is no consolation to the thousands of people who choke to death every year. Your incredibly large brain might come in handy (for those of you who use it), but up until a few decades ago, your mother might not have made it through your birth. Mistakes abound in nature.
I am on my third cup of coffee, and we have solved nothing. Maybe. I am not as depressed as when we started. I have a solution, though. There is a Solution. Those of you who have been to AA will laugh at that. I only have to have the Powers Which Be let me go home and 90% of my issues will be solved. I also have writing, which makes me feel better. And I have all of you. I am lucky and glad for that, even if I don't always show it.
I tend to think of things in a natural way. Some of you will tell me that is the problem, that I am thinking of things in a natural way, which are outside of nature. I will tell you, "Thank you. But you are wrong." And, as I have said countless times, this is my blog, my feelings. If you write your blog and your feelings, I would be happy to read it.
So, because of the way my brain is wired, I try to think of these things (emotions and actions) from a natural, scientific (limited science, I am not a scientist) way. It is all I have. I have read all the books, precepts, moral codes, whatever, and looked into most of the main religions of the world. None of it makes sense to me. None of it clicks, and I have tried, honestly, so if it was meant to be it would have been. I do not understand how people, intelligent people, can tell me with a straight face that they believe all the outrageous claims their religion makes, usually at the same time as they are telling me how outrageous and ridiculous the claims of other religions are. Religions which basically make the same claims as their's, just worded differently. Which is what it is all about, when you get down to it, an argument over linguistics and schematics. To an outsider it all looks silly to want to kill over the same words put in different order. I suppose I understand the feeling, because when I read something on evolutionary biology or a particularly striking passage in a philosophy book, I get a chill and goosebumps. I get the lightening strike, the AH HA! moment. But I have never gotten that feeling from a religious text, and I have tried. Close from some Buddhist and Hindu scriptures.
You can think of a use for almost every human emotion, when looking from an evolutionary angle. As much as the devout like to dispute this. The absence of a Dogma does not make you a foaming at the mouth, homicidal maniac any more than being a believer makes you a good person. A friend of mine told me a story the other day. He is in the restaurant business. He was having a bad day. A person of a different ethnic background than his came in (makes no difference what either of their races is for our purpose here, just that they were different). This person was being extremely contrary and rude. My friend had a derogatory comment on this person's race creep into his head. He asked me if I thought this made him a terrible person and a racist. I said no. I said it made him a human being. We all have these thoughts. When we are mad or hurt or upset, we lash out. We go for the easiest, quickest, most hurtful jab we can. What ever packs the biggest bang with the least amount of effort. It makes no difference if it is a comment on the person's race or sex or weight. If a person with one arm pisses me off, I will think something about all these fucking one armed bastards getting in my way. Whatever is the most obvious difference between us and the object of our displeasure is what we will latch onto. When you vocalize these thoughts or act on them is when you become a terrible person and a racist.Then my friend and I started the conversation which led to much of what I am talking about right now.
You can think of many ways in which these thoughts would have been useful when lifting our species to its lofty position on the top of the pyramid. Distrust and suspicion of outsiders, people different from our own, served to keep us going. This was mainly true in the Hunter Gatherer stage, I am sure. There was no reason to cooperate. We already had enough trouble filling the stomachs we had in our clan. Someone from another clan might be after our food or breeding stock (sorry ladies, but that is basically what you were then. you have come a long way!). Even if they weren't up to anything nefarious, they were still a problem. They were another mouth. They were competition. We learned the best thing to do was to keep to ourselves and shun outsiders.
The problem is that just because something has worn out its survival usefulness doesn't mean it has gone away. It is there, buried in the shadow or the ego or somewhere like that. It can creep back up from time to time, whether we want it to or not.
When we learned how to plant veggies and herd animals we settled down and made communities. Our distrust and suspicion was still needed, someone could always being trying to take something from you, but it had to be lessened a bit. Relaxed. This is also where love and compassion and cooperation came into being. Morals and ethics were needed long before religion was. That should be abundantly clear, if you look with an honest, open mind. Contrary to what many people think, morality is easily explainable without religion. In fact, I think it should be obvious to any somewhat intelligent person that that is an indisputable fact. How could it not be? We wouldn't be here if it weren't true. Science tells us that man has been in his modern format, the one we find ourselves in now, for about 50,000 years. Our oldest religious texts are a few thousand years old at best. That leaves 47,000 years of religious free survival. We would have never made it through, especially once we became farmers, without some niceness. Making the argument that there would be no morality without religion is impossible task in my opinion. All one has to do is point to all the immoral acts, acts which people of all faiths believe to be immoral, are committed each day by the devout in the name of their chosen deity. Your case crumbles faster than a Mighty Taco hard shell. And, if it were true, then the opposite would be true too. If you can only have morality with god, then without god you have no morality, but look at all the secular organizations helping people everywhere.
So I think almost everything can be explained in a natural way. I even disagree with the people who say monogamy is unnatural. There are examples of it in nature. You would have to look at what benefit it would give the species. Our species is a perfect fit for it.
Anthropologists also think (many of them do) that when we stopped scrounging the earth for our food we could settle down and start religions. Some one, probably the strongest male, took charge. He made the people farm and store food. Then he started pushing his worldview on the masses. Religion and power have been intertwined ever since.
I have gotten off track, as I often do. But this is a blog by some retard sitting in a coffee shop, not a polished piece in Time magazine. You will read it anyways, and then you will say to yourself, "What the fuck is that idiot talking about? How does he find the time to sit around and write this bullshit?"
Depression. I watched a documentary the other night (yes, I know I watch too many documentaries) about bipolar disorder. I kept thinking, "What pussies. At least they get to enjoy the highs. I want to jump in front of a bus everyday, and I don't get any highs, only lows."
I know this is no laughing matter. I know their lows are probably places I don't want to be, and I did feel sorry for them. The thing which struck me the most was that most of them were writers or artists.
What is the natural, evolutionary purpose for depression? Is there one? It could be that it is a side effect of some other trait which is desirable. Maybe it piggy-backed along with compassion or something like that, evolving and being protected. Or maybe it is here to ensure we have enough literature, art, and music. That was one thing many of the people in the documentary said, when they took their medications they lost their creativity. There was only one guy, an artist and architect, who used to cross-dress and smoke crack, who said it didn't. Remarkably, the guys wife stayed with him the whole time. He said he would go to the gay bath houses and have unprotected sex, trying to get AIDS. Fucked up dude. Suddenly. thinking you want to jump in front of a bis doesn't seem so crazy.
Maybe depression is a mistake. Gods might not make mistakes, but the process of evolution does. Having the main entrance point for food into the body shared with the main entrance point for oxygen might be efficient, but that is no consolation to the thousands of people who choke to death every year. Your incredibly large brain might come in handy (for those of you who use it), but up until a few decades ago, your mother might not have made it through your birth. Mistakes abound in nature.
I am on my third cup of coffee, and we have solved nothing. Maybe. I am not as depressed as when we started. I have a solution, though. There is a Solution. Those of you who have been to AA will laugh at that. I only have to have the Powers Which Be let me go home and 90% of my issues will be solved. I also have writing, which makes me feel better. And I have all of you. I am lucky and glad for that, even if I don't always show it.
Friday, December 12, 2014
Karma
Needs have been (for the most part) met. Coffee, a steaming plate of Hunan Pork, nicotine. A little sleepy, though. Waiting for the Muse to descend.
Start with a thought, let the words flow form there. Happy little words. They're your words. Do what you want with them. Give them free reign. Rope them in when they get too sure of themselves, too carried away. They have a habit of doing that, like teenagers the first time the parents leave them home alone for the night.
A travel advertisement? Bloomington, Indiana is located in the south-central part of the state. Rolling hills and virgin forests of pine and hardwoods. They say this is were the glaciers ended their march during the last ice age, the reason for the hills. Stopped and retreated. Bloomington is a culturally diverse city, due to the size and prestige of Indiana University. You can eat foods from around the globe, and meet people of several different nationalities. There is even a Tibetan monastery here, and several members of the Dali Lama's family. The Dali Lama himself has been here many times. I cooked for him twice. Bloomington also has a drug and homeless problem that would be outrageous in a city twice the size. Sometimes I feel lucky to be here, but mostly I hate it.
Diminishing returns on your social investments. You feel like you give to humanity, not financially, but socially, and the payoffs get smaller and smaller.You hold doors for people. You wave when they stop to let you cross the street. You say please and thank you, and even God bless you, though you have no idea what you mean by it. People don't care. They take, want more, don't give anything in return. You set yourself up by doing the things you think everyone should do, that constitute good manners, and expecting the same in turn. People in cars cut in front of you while making a turn at the light, making you stop and wait, even thought it is twenty degrees out and you are walking and they are in a warm car. Is it your fault they are late? Is it your fault they hit snooze ten fucking times before getting out of bed? No. But they will blame you if they are fourteen seconds more late, like it matters when added to the twenty minutes they have already made themselves late. They will focus on those seconds.
So you are unsatisfied with the returns and you start investing less in society. You stop doing all the little things. What happens then? There are people out there who are appreciative of the little gestures that make up polite society, and when you let those who don't influence how you treat everyone, you are creating a chain which has no end. A chain of misery and ill feelings. And the links start to get bigger. They connect with even bigger links. Before you know it, letting a door slam in someone's face turns into someone being murdered on the other side of the planet. You start someone's bad day, and they affect the next person, who affects the next person, and on and on and on and on and on and on and on......................
Maybe it is Karma? Could it be that the people who are rude to you are doing it because you deserve it for some past deed? My problem with Karma is that the wrongs done to you don't just affect you. They cause you to mistreat others, who mistreat others. There would have to be a cosmic supercomputer placing all the links in the right spots, so that all the right people would be punished. What would be the sense of punishment, then? If everyone is just acting out their part, filling their role, like Judas, what would be the meaning of life? People being punished for punishing people, and having no say in it. This is the problem I have with the way the church treats the memory Judas Iscariot. If he was just playing out a necessary role in a predetermined, vital plan, why all the bad mouthing? He should have gotten a sainthood. If Karma does exist, I hope someone is keeping a close watch so it doesn't get off track.
Could it be possible that we are all just cogs in a doomsday machine, which will run until it finally goes out of control and explodes, taking us all into the cosmos with it?
I doubt it. But if we are, we could always try to buck the system, refuse to mistreat each other, and reverse the timer on the machine.
I doubt that would happen, either. Unfortunately.
The idea that we are doomed seems more likely to me.
Bored with this topic. Time to change gears. Pick another topic.
I have witnessed a lot of racist chatter lately. Most of it seems to stem from the incident in Missouri. I saw a post by someone who used the word monkey several times when talking about it, and championing the police. This guy also has several police glorifying posts on his page. I actually thought he was a cop when I first saw it, then I found out he had done time in the Federal Penitentiary. I don't understand this. I don't like cops. I don't go for the old, "just doing their job" thing. The police are tools of oppression, and everyone knows that, so if you willing accept that job you must be fine with the fact that you will be oppressing people. How can you relish the death of someone you have never met, especially at the hands of the people who would easily do the same to you? I can't wrap my head around it. You are doing exactly what the Powers That Be want you to do. They don't want the people in this country to get along, especially the people who have no money. If people did that, they might start getting ideas. They might get together and realize they are all being played and taken for a ride. The rich and powerful don't see race as an issue. All they see is money and power. The struggle in this country is not about race. The struggle in this country is a class struggle, ans when you fall into racism you are doing what the government wants you to do. The same thing goes for abortion and gay rights and religion. The politicians, mostly the Republicans, couldn't give two shits about any of these issues. They use them as a smokescreen to drum up support and votes. This is a fact: The most under-educated, most homophobic, most hate filled, most republican states are also the most religious. People are pawns. They continue to let their ignorance, fears, and insecurities be used against them. The political parties sit back and laugh at how stupid we all are, how we can't even put petty differences aside to try and better our situation.
Got off track there at the end, but that is something that has been on my mind.
Start with a thought, let the words flow form there. Happy little words. They're your words. Do what you want with them. Give them free reign. Rope them in when they get too sure of themselves, too carried away. They have a habit of doing that, like teenagers the first time the parents leave them home alone for the night.
A travel advertisement? Bloomington, Indiana is located in the south-central part of the state. Rolling hills and virgin forests of pine and hardwoods. They say this is were the glaciers ended their march during the last ice age, the reason for the hills. Stopped and retreated. Bloomington is a culturally diverse city, due to the size and prestige of Indiana University. You can eat foods from around the globe, and meet people of several different nationalities. There is even a Tibetan monastery here, and several members of the Dali Lama's family. The Dali Lama himself has been here many times. I cooked for him twice. Bloomington also has a drug and homeless problem that would be outrageous in a city twice the size. Sometimes I feel lucky to be here, but mostly I hate it.
Diminishing returns on your social investments. You feel like you give to humanity, not financially, but socially, and the payoffs get smaller and smaller.You hold doors for people. You wave when they stop to let you cross the street. You say please and thank you, and even God bless you, though you have no idea what you mean by it. People don't care. They take, want more, don't give anything in return. You set yourself up by doing the things you think everyone should do, that constitute good manners, and expecting the same in turn. People in cars cut in front of you while making a turn at the light, making you stop and wait, even thought it is twenty degrees out and you are walking and they are in a warm car. Is it your fault they are late? Is it your fault they hit snooze ten fucking times before getting out of bed? No. But they will blame you if they are fourteen seconds more late, like it matters when added to the twenty minutes they have already made themselves late. They will focus on those seconds.
So you are unsatisfied with the returns and you start investing less in society. You stop doing all the little things. What happens then? There are people out there who are appreciative of the little gestures that make up polite society, and when you let those who don't influence how you treat everyone, you are creating a chain which has no end. A chain of misery and ill feelings. And the links start to get bigger. They connect with even bigger links. Before you know it, letting a door slam in someone's face turns into someone being murdered on the other side of the planet. You start someone's bad day, and they affect the next person, who affects the next person, and on and on and on and on and on and on and on......................
Maybe it is Karma? Could it be that the people who are rude to you are doing it because you deserve it for some past deed? My problem with Karma is that the wrongs done to you don't just affect you. They cause you to mistreat others, who mistreat others. There would have to be a cosmic supercomputer placing all the links in the right spots, so that all the right people would be punished. What would be the sense of punishment, then? If everyone is just acting out their part, filling their role, like Judas, what would be the meaning of life? People being punished for punishing people, and having no say in it. This is the problem I have with the way the church treats the memory Judas Iscariot. If he was just playing out a necessary role in a predetermined, vital plan, why all the bad mouthing? He should have gotten a sainthood. If Karma does exist, I hope someone is keeping a close watch so it doesn't get off track.
Could it be possible that we are all just cogs in a doomsday machine, which will run until it finally goes out of control and explodes, taking us all into the cosmos with it?
I doubt it. But if we are, we could always try to buck the system, refuse to mistreat each other, and reverse the timer on the machine.
I doubt that would happen, either. Unfortunately.
The idea that we are doomed seems more likely to me.
Bored with this topic. Time to change gears. Pick another topic.
I have witnessed a lot of racist chatter lately. Most of it seems to stem from the incident in Missouri. I saw a post by someone who used the word monkey several times when talking about it, and championing the police. This guy also has several police glorifying posts on his page. I actually thought he was a cop when I first saw it, then I found out he had done time in the Federal Penitentiary. I don't understand this. I don't like cops. I don't go for the old, "just doing their job" thing. The police are tools of oppression, and everyone knows that, so if you willing accept that job you must be fine with the fact that you will be oppressing people. How can you relish the death of someone you have never met, especially at the hands of the people who would easily do the same to you? I can't wrap my head around it. You are doing exactly what the Powers That Be want you to do. They don't want the people in this country to get along, especially the people who have no money. If people did that, they might start getting ideas. They might get together and realize they are all being played and taken for a ride. The rich and powerful don't see race as an issue. All they see is money and power. The struggle in this country is not about race. The struggle in this country is a class struggle, ans when you fall into racism you are doing what the government wants you to do. The same thing goes for abortion and gay rights and religion. The politicians, mostly the Republicans, couldn't give two shits about any of these issues. They use them as a smokescreen to drum up support and votes. This is a fact: The most under-educated, most homophobic, most hate filled, most republican states are also the most religious. People are pawns. They continue to let their ignorance, fears, and insecurities be used against them. The political parties sit back and laugh at how stupid we all are, how we can't even put petty differences aside to try and better our situation.
Got off track there at the end, but that is something that has been on my mind.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Desire and Acceptance
I haven't written in a week or so. I have been concentrating on some other writing, but the going has been slow there, too. Basically, I am depressed, and it is hard for me to write when I am depressed. Some people, artists, spend their whole lives depressed, creating some of the greatest works this world has ever known. I cannot do that. And then I get depressed by the fact that I am not writing and a terrible spiral ensues.
Desire and acceptance are what I am struggling with. I suppose those are what every human being's problem is, at least with the exception of the Buddha, but he is long dead. Desiring the things I can't have, and not being accepting of the fact that I can't. That is life in a nutshell. From the instant of our birth, the desire for our first gasp of oxygen, and once that is fulfilled, our mother's breast. These are desires the attainment of is necessary to life, but desires none the less. We desire life. So, from the first instant it begins.
And then it grows. After tasting other foods, we are no longer satisfied with the tit. We want something with more texture and flavor. If we get a taste of sugar, forget about it. Nothing else will taste the same. We become little, toddler dope fiends. Then we want toys. We get tired of toys, and we want new toys. With each desire satisfied comes a new one.
Why is this? Why can't we be happy with what we have? A trait necessary to our survival, a longing to better our situation which helped us to get out of the trees and caves and with the struggle to store enough food to survive the winter? A genetic predisposition to never be satisfied, to keep looking forward no matter what, which is no longer needed and now causes nothing but grief? Something akin to isolationism and racism, which severed to ensure the propagation of our lineage and the advancement of our genes? Hating outsiders was great before we had supermarkets and more than enough breeding stock to go around. Now it is pointless. I suppose desire could have had similar benefits. Desire is what made our species the lords of this planet. If a dog has a warm place to sleep, some food, and an occasional scratch or two it is fairly content. We would look for a better place to live. tastier food, and a $2000 massage chair to do our scratching.
There is no end to it. Everywhere I look there is something I want. A house, a car, a phone, a pair of shoes, a woman, a drug...................... the list goes on ad infinitum. If I got one of those things, I would want one of the others, or the newer version of whatever I had attained. I have learned very little in my 42 years, but I have learned that. It is hard to think of myself as ever being content.
But my desires have scaled down. I don't want a Ferrari. I don't want a 22 year old model to sleep with. (Maybe just once, but not to marry) I don't even want to be rich. I want to be happy. I want love. I want to go home. I want to one day write something humanity will find good and remember. These are not extravagant, I don't think. And who knows? Maybe if I actually reached these goals I would be happy and content. Desires to seem to shrink as you get older. Or maybe acceptance grows stronger. Maybe you can reach an equilibrium between desire and acceptance, desiring mainly what is reachable and accepting the fact that most things are out of reach. I don't know. Part of the difficulty for me is the things I most desire are pretty much out of my control.
I don't have much else. I am trying to get out of the rut I am and get back in the swing of things. This is me getting my feet wet and back into the practice of writing. I have had people writing and asking me what is going on, so I wanted to tell them. Someday I will be happy again and the words will flow.
Desire and acceptance are what I am struggling with. I suppose those are what every human being's problem is, at least with the exception of the Buddha, but he is long dead. Desiring the things I can't have, and not being accepting of the fact that I can't. That is life in a nutshell. From the instant of our birth, the desire for our first gasp of oxygen, and once that is fulfilled, our mother's breast. These are desires the attainment of is necessary to life, but desires none the less. We desire life. So, from the first instant it begins.
And then it grows. After tasting other foods, we are no longer satisfied with the tit. We want something with more texture and flavor. If we get a taste of sugar, forget about it. Nothing else will taste the same. We become little, toddler dope fiends. Then we want toys. We get tired of toys, and we want new toys. With each desire satisfied comes a new one.
Why is this? Why can't we be happy with what we have? A trait necessary to our survival, a longing to better our situation which helped us to get out of the trees and caves and with the struggle to store enough food to survive the winter? A genetic predisposition to never be satisfied, to keep looking forward no matter what, which is no longer needed and now causes nothing but grief? Something akin to isolationism and racism, which severed to ensure the propagation of our lineage and the advancement of our genes? Hating outsiders was great before we had supermarkets and more than enough breeding stock to go around. Now it is pointless. I suppose desire could have had similar benefits. Desire is what made our species the lords of this planet. If a dog has a warm place to sleep, some food, and an occasional scratch or two it is fairly content. We would look for a better place to live. tastier food, and a $2000 massage chair to do our scratching.
There is no end to it. Everywhere I look there is something I want. A house, a car, a phone, a pair of shoes, a woman, a drug...................... the list goes on ad infinitum. If I got one of those things, I would want one of the others, or the newer version of whatever I had attained. I have learned very little in my 42 years, but I have learned that. It is hard to think of myself as ever being content.
But my desires have scaled down. I don't want a Ferrari. I don't want a 22 year old model to sleep with. (Maybe just once, but not to marry) I don't even want to be rich. I want to be happy. I want love. I want to go home. I want to one day write something humanity will find good and remember. These are not extravagant, I don't think. And who knows? Maybe if I actually reached these goals I would be happy and content. Desires to seem to shrink as you get older. Or maybe acceptance grows stronger. Maybe you can reach an equilibrium between desire and acceptance, desiring mainly what is reachable and accepting the fact that most things are out of reach. I don't know. Part of the difficulty for me is the things I most desire are pretty much out of my control.
I don't have much else. I am trying to get out of the rut I am and get back in the swing of things. This is me getting my feet wet and back into the practice of writing. I have had people writing and asking me what is going on, so I wanted to tell them. Someday I will be happy again and the words will flow.
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