Art and Entertainment: an excerpt from an essay on Cinema as an Institution

Everyday-life tends to make us mechanical and out of touch with ourselves. Art provides a background for slowing down, stepping back, and seeing our situation, as well as our self, in a way that clarifies or stimulates a searching for clarity. Since we are often out of touch with why we are doing what we are doing, and what is important to us, art cuts away the noise, filth, and the functional nihilism of everyday life. It brings up that thing we were suppose to do but didn’t have time to do. The secret-simple-thing. That thing we forgot. The artist says: do you remember?

Art and its ‘reminder’ can be contrasted to entertainment, for while art and the artist seeks to turn on the bright light, turning it off marks entertainment. It is distraction from the matter at hand. It is an invitation to forget everything.

She's Alright: A Short Story

I create an ambience of calm with the very pressure on the brake. The car slows in a gradual way. It’s clean inside and out. No cold shrilling squeals, no grinding edge, no musky smells, just the perfection of a stop that can only indicate to nearby drivers that I do not need to be anywhere particularly. I take this really nice breath. In through the nose, then out through the mouth.

It is spoiled soon enough as cars driving by shake the stillness. But it’s ok. The pine smell from the car refresher I bought this afternoon makes things better, feel better. The car wobbles uncomfortably fast then slows while I listen to the Doppler effect. I stare at the red and then at the sudden green. Motion and then deep breathes.

What will we talk about?

My nerves will follow me to the door, I suspect. They are worries of appearance, anxieties of acceptance; and despite the familiar curves in the streets and the calm dark trees with their recognizable roots in the sidewalk, this tension will continue without release. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Pine. I see that I know the way just as one knows one’s way to all of their houses, jobs, and schools, years after. It’s the kind of knowing that lends itself to one’s dreams: you always know the way back school in your dreams.

Left lane, left blinker; red light, slowly stop.

I make a point of looking at a nearby church. I haven’t seen it since I left for school but I remember it well enough. They put these vaguely religious phrases on a large black and white sign and light it with a light bulb. It reads: What have you done for Him lately? I wonder if they are suppose to be jokes after all.

Beside the church and its sign is the shabby park. Next to which is this flower shop that I still wish I could get hired at. Submit application, nothing. Submit application, still nothing.

I pass by the public and private high schools that are opposite one another. They look more like a maze of parking lots and detention halls with high fences and stuffy professionalism. You look down the familiar empty halls for a moment. The suburbs are all such mazes of asphalt, private and public divisions, churches, and doctor offices. Warm alienation - everywhere‘s local specialty.

The lights on the streets come on. Remembrances as well as pieces of sentences, her timbre, and vague feelings that were had in and around this neighborhood. The evolution of shyness, to tasteful bravado, to meaningful intimacy, to controlled aversion, and then to indifference. But it all doesn’t seem to matter so much now. I have some other hopes and optimism. I have humor.

Somewhere inside me says: go and park and look down the row of similar houses, no hurry in face or motions.

Pale tones, sharp tile roofs. Unimpressive small patches of grass that hired gardeners keep up. Excitement and also defensive straight faced-ness. You’ll walk up the concrete path between the grass and then up the steps onto a porch. You’ll ring the bell and wait and try to relax. When she answers, smile when she smiles.

But you can’t prepare for spontaneity. Static and ringing.

We’ll see.

I look both ways, exit the car, up the path, and ding-dong. Dog’s bark, quiet footsteps. The door flies open. She smiles, says hello, and gives a tentative hug. She stands on her toes and her sweater touches my bare neck

Warmth.

Cinnamon.

Itchiness.

We look past her porch at the windy trees and the clean 2-door coupe I borrowed from Paul and then she walks back inside for a heavier coat.

Huh.

I look into her parents’ house through the blurred glass by the door and can’t remember if it looks the same - just tables, a sofa, knick-knacks, and glass and wood cabinets. Plain and warm. Dog still barks, keeps me wary. When she returns, a smart black belted raincoat over her sweater, she locks the door and then jogs to the street with a smirk.

Look at that! Energetic steps. Follow behind her. But please don’t comment. I spot the duality in my motives at once.

She chatters to me and we catch each other up without much trouble. She mentions the grinning fellow I saw her draped upon at the park as well as her father’s newborn daughter - Devin and Alexandria, respectively. I listen as we drive our way into town, remarking very little. I notice a urge to impress her on the one hand, and a movement of boredom on the other. She talks about Devin: she sits next to him in a film class – homework friends and then kissing friends. She talks about her part-time job and the regular customers. She says, Do you know that I work at a coffee shop? I nod and politely say, Yeah, I remember. Politeness is easy with people you don’t really know anymore.

She tells me about a group of homeless people who come during the afternoons. They order tea and sit by the window and just stare, take up space. She says that she talks to them a lot, now. She says that she is thinking of writing a book about each of them. It would be a factual narrative about who they are and how they got to be the way they are.

There’s a tension and hurt. Please repress it, somewhere says.

I get caught up in my thoughts as she talks about the project: Don’t laugh or pout. One can’t remember everything, obviously. But breathe for gods sake. What have you done for Him lately? Smaller than a shadow in the corner of the car. In the cracks with the dark. Don’t you remember! At the Italian deli a few months ago after you spotted me reading in the park, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I was smoking a few minutes earlier, wondering if you realized, we drove separately to the arts and crafts store to get a notebook and some supplies, and you wanted me to go with you to a homeless shelter in Los Angeles in a week or two and interview whoever would want to be apart of the project. And you talked about who you had already interviewed, like that woman who, when you asked what her favorite color was, she said rainbow and who used to live with a guy who abused and raped her and that she only stayed there because she had nowhere else to go, and then she finally left, and you said it was kind of a good thing that she was homeless.

What do they think about this? I ask, suppressing the noise.

I don’t think they mind, she says. They all seem to tell me the basic information.

When we stop at a Mexican restaurant by the freeway she orders for me while I get a table. I’m vaguely proud of myself. Cold breeze, stiff chair.

She asks me in a less polite way how I’ve been as I stare at some loud children free of their parents by our table.

I’ve been fine, I say. You know, calmer, fitter, healthier, and more productive. Like a pig in a cage on antibiotics.

Certain sad old men with grimaces and certain worried women with few words, she says, trying to be me.

Poetic, I say. I don’t really know how to answer the question and I say so.

I know that, she says.

And then she smiles like a child. Too large – or maybe cute-naive. She's alright, you think to yourself. Nice even.

It starts to rain as we eat and the ambiance makes me feel warm and vital. We discuss parents some more and our old friends. I refill our sodas and chips. She asks me when I will be leaving.

In a few days.

Cycles and SelcyC dna

You don’t know how it worked out but it came to that you were doing the same things over and over. You’d get up late, feel stupid, feel disgusted about your parents, feel trapped, drink, drink too much, try to chill out, sit and try and get in touch, do this for a while, forget about it, come back to it, feel as if nothing really helps, feel mechanical, feel there is no way out, shut the fuck up, go on a jog, skive off commitments and drive out to the middle of nowhere, work on interpersonal skills, write about that thing that you were reminding yourself to think about, try to get close to someone, feel like its worthless, watch a lot of tv, recall that things don’t really matter, recall that this means that the self doesn’t exist, recall that feeding the self pleasure and shielding it from pain only escalates matters, forget how this makes sense, wash your truck, mow the lawn, clean your room, do the laundry, want to dress better, go to the library to sit quietly, pick out a billion books you won’t read, wish you’d grown up with a different family, masturbate, look at your cell phone to see if anyone called or text, feel lost, feel very depressed, watch old movies, drug yourself to sleep, try to get up really early, feel as though you must exercise much more than normal, think that its all about discipline, read something and think about putting it at the start of a novel or essay, feel stupid and dull, go back to something you wrote, remember how you still have to read this book someone lent you, remember its your mothers birthday soon, feel that you are too old to be disgusted by your parents, their habits, and the environment they bring with them, feel trapped, spend a few days away from home, notice how different you are while not at home, wonder who you are, remember that you never figured it out when you were first burdened by the question, feel stupid because you don’t know what is important, think that sensitivity is a virtue, feel okay, want to destroy the vulgar bullshit in the world, want to throw yourself into a spiritual practice, feel neglected because you haven’t met an experienced practitioner that could help you, resolve to get to sleep earlier, resolve not spend much money, face some fears, feel okay, not feel able, not feel warmth, believe in yourself, hate things, fuck them, notice how weird it is…

A Mediocre Essay for a Film Class

Pulp Fiction: Pop-Culture, Crime, and the Longing for Vitality

Like many postmodern works, Quentin Tarantino’s 1994 box-office and critical hit Pulp Fiction is saturated with pop-culture: fast food (“Royale with Cheese”), The Beatles (“Ringo”), celebrity personas (the waiters and waitresses of Jack Rabbit Slim’s), surf rock and rock-and-roll, the Pepsi-challenge (Amsterdam drugs vs. American drugs), and what is perhaps the biggest pop-culture reference one can make, the Bible – to name a few. Even the use of neo-noir and the gangster content in Pulp Fiction allows for a play upon pop-culture expectations. For instance, the two central thugs in the film, Vincent and Jules, walk into an apartment building to make a hit, and among other things, they intelligently discuss the differences between McDonald’s in America and McDonald’s in France all the while planning to retrieve a mysterious suit case from inadequate business partners. In addition to the constant presence of pop-culture in Pulp Fiction, there is also a constant presence of drugs and violence. The wife of the big-boss of Los Angeles, Mia Wallace, goes to “powder her nose” with cocaine after a lull in conversation while out at a 50’s diner with Vincent Vega, her husbands employee (who shot heroin just before the meal); experienced boxer Butch, after being captured by a pawnshop pervert, breaks free from the ropes tying him down and instead of fleeing the premises, decides to kill his captors and free his boss, but not without first deciding between available weapons – a baseball bat, a chain saw, or a katana. That Tarantino’s main characters all exist on the fringes of society as outsiders, that Tarantino himself was something of an outsider in the industry at the time, and that the narrative is told in a fragmented but extraordinarily humorous way, points to some of the concerns of the postmodern society – namely, that we experience ourselves as alienated, not feeling connected to any order or whole anymore, and that we must work to seek release from this ridiculous state. In constant nearness to pop-culture and against the backdrop of the banalization of drugs and violence, Pulp Fiction points to, basks in, and ultimately seeks to leave behind the televised and alienated mass of Reagan and Bush’s suburban society.

By the 1990’s the convergence of pop-culture and the mass media had been fundamental to the American psyche for some time. For by the end of the 1950’s ninety percent of American homes had television sets, the new suburban “leisured masses” entry into pop-culture (Belton 322-323). One effect of this is that even the outsider, the person who exists on the fringes of society, even she derives identity and substance from pop-culture in a way similar to how the suburban 9-5’er does. The outsider is just as likely to have a television and watch movies as anyone else. Hit man Jules admonishes his partner early on in Pulp Fiction because he says he doesn’t watch TV and doesn’t know what a pilot is. We could say that Tarantino uses pop-culture in Pulp Fiction for seemingly two reasons: to show the pervasiveness of its reach and to make the violent and drug addled gangster world feel relatable and humorous.

Pop-culture, essentially the “transcript” or social-narrative of a culture, may also be thought of as the public value system of a society: “that set of images regarding space, time, relation, evaluation…which is shared by the mass of its people” (Boulding 64). Such a reality forms the background to which we as individuals move around in the world: it is a lens or a filter placed on our senses that focuses everything taken in so that specific associations arise and so that we all can understand one another to an extent impossible without. When we say Marilyn Monroe, for instance, we associate her with Jane Mansfield and other such starlets of past eras. When we pass through the door of an office building we look to see if we may hold the door for anyone. When driving we stay on a designated side of the road. When we need to release our bladder we use a restroom. When making decisions that affect others we collect a census or tally a vote. Traditionally, the pop-culture is passed down from generation to generation via formal education (books and teachers), one’s parents, and one’s peers (informal education). With the development of the motion picture camera and the dissemination of televisions, however, a communicator may literally spread information to everyone in the world as if they were standing in the living room. An effect of this is that images and values could now be spread in a much quicker and palpable manner as well as from subculture to subculture, unifying them in sense. The California gangster and the South African novelist share the same scene, associate images similarly, and observe manners in like ways. Mickey mouse is recognized no matter where one may happen to be. Our world has entered a state of globalization.

Throughout the destabilizing happenings of the Vietnam War, Watergate, the civil rights era, and the woman’s movement, a large group of the American culture found themselves unable to follow the line – that is, the mainstream way of life – anymore. A broad counterculture, a mass that cultivated its own media and its own system of values in contrast to that of the mainstream, bloomed naturally out of this dissatisfaction. The communal lifestyle and beat attitudes of the hippie, her anti-establishment idealism, drug experimentation, and perception that there is an “incoherence which informs the social and cultural reality” of today, such things were eventually stitched into the tapestry of the mainstream pop-culture as the counterculture’s steam faded away (Belton 374). Even though the Reagan and Bush era with which Pulp Fiction’s audience would be most familiar with was marked by economic posterity and produced a cinema in which nostalgia for and rejuvenation in the past reigned supreme (Back to the Future / Indiana Jones, etc.), something remained of the suspicion and deep-seated dissatisfaction which arouse pointedly during the time of the counterculture in the 1960’s and early 1970’s. The absurd logic and consequences of Reaganomics, the unsettling arms race, the Iran-Contra, the continued ideological foreign policy resistance to communist groups, and the new spectacle of televised wars, such things irritated the wound (Conlin 818-842). If this carrying over of the counterculture’s dissatisfactions did not find its way into postmodernism and its mainstream, as a people we would not relate to (or find affecting) films like Taxi Driver, Do The Right Thing, The Graduate, and The Matrix: films which address alienation, prejudice, and the desire for transcendence from the humdrum.

As if to reaffirm the dissatisfaction with the social-narrative that has become characteristic in postmodern art, Pulp Fiction begins with two lovers, veteran robbers, eating breakfast in a small coffee shop. In order not to feel cheated by the system, by the alienating labor of daily desk jobs, the couple has learned how to cheat. But even this insight has failed them because it’s become too dangerous to go on robbing liquor stores and gas stations. As with virtually all of Pulp Fiction’s characters, the way out of the unfulfilling and alienating drudgery is to utilize some form of crime. “Well what then,” Honeybunny asks, “day jobs?” “Not in this life,” Pumpkin replies. Life by the rules, the spirit of the counterculture suggests, is a life of the square and the alcoholic (Easy Rider). In other words, it’s a life of slavery. And so a further insight occurs to the couple: they will rob coffee shops, collecting not only the cash register but also the wallets of the customers. And so there, in the sunny vitality of a Los Angeles coffee shop, the two kiss, get up, and declare their criminal intensions jammed full with characteristic profanities. Tarantino freezes on the two, guns out, faces lit with tremendous energy as a classic surf song blazes on the soundtrack. The powerful, subversive, and near adolescent intensity that is achieved with this short introduction paves the way for how to interpret the rest of this film. The outsider is dissolute perhaps, but contains innocence and non-cruel intentions.

In effect, the film is broken down into three separated story lines: The Bonnie Situation, Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace’s Wife, and The Gold Watch. In the “Bonnie Situation” Vincent makes a hit with Jules (1a), experiences a miracle and helps to clean up Marvin (1b), Pumpkin and Honeybunny plan to rob the coffee shop (1c), Vincent eats breakfast with Jules at the same coffee shop, altering Pumpkin and Honeybunny’s plans (1d), and then they both deliver the suitcase to Marsellus (1e). In “Vincent Vega and Marsellus Wallace’s Wife”, we follow Vincent the day after the happenings of the “Bonnie Situation” as Vincent obtains heroin and shoots up (2a), has Dinner with Mia Wallace (2b), and deals with her O.D (2c). The final segment “The Gold Watch” starts with a flashback regarding the meaning of the watch (3a), moves to Butch making a deal with Marsellus to throw the fight (1e/3b), from here the story is picked up two days later when Butch boxes (3c), drives back to his hotel to see his French girlfriend (3d), wakes in the morning to retrieve his watch, ‘accidentally’ kills Vincent (3e), runs into Marsellus, gets trapped and frees himself at the pawn shop (3f), and rides back to the hotel to pick up his girlfriend on Zed’s motorcycle (3g). However, these three interrelated storylines are stringed together out of order. The film is presented like this: 1c, 1a, 1e/3b, 2a-2c, 3a, 3c-3g, 1b, 1d.

In editing Pulp Fiction in a non-linear manner, Tarantino achieves two things. First, he allows the most transcendent conclusion of the three segments to be the conclusion of the film: (1d) Jules’ expresses his ambivalence about crime, discusses the possibility of ‘walking the earth’, and saves the amateur criminals. Second, the structure functions as an allusion to (or pastiche of) the pulp-fiction magazines of the 30’s and 40’s whose contents typically were arranged with short stories that “began in the front of the magazine, competing for the reader’s attention, and were then continued in the back” (Stone). We are introduced to the hopped-up couple that plans to rob so as to avoid the doldrums of day jobs, and are brought to the conclusion (after having been immersed in the gangster world) that such a ‘way out’ is not ‘righteous’ but ‘weak’. Jules, re-interpreting his bible passage suggests that he, himself has been the ‘the tyranny of evil men’ with his vocation as a professional hit man, but has since felt the presence of ‘God’ in his activities and wants to become the guide “in the name of charity and goodwill [that] shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness…” The valley of darkness is tantamount to the postmodern predicament: the fleeing from the enslaving narratives of the pop-culture by the reactive employment of drugs and destructive activities. Jules dismisses these activities and submits that they are sleep inducing. You got to stop running and start to walk if you are going to flourish. But unlike other films of this time, Pulp Fiction doesn’t end with the reaffirmation of the community or of the family. Rather, Jules reaffirms some aspects of the counterculture and its spiritual path and points to the kung-fu paradigm of mindful being: he’ll ‘walk from place to place, meet people, get into adventures.’ It is irrelevant if he is called a bum, he’s just Jules. One of the errors of the ‘weak’ is to follow a way of life prescribed by others – consumerism and crime, for instance. You got to ‘calm that bitch down’ in yourself if you are to get past the urge toward drugs and mechanical retaliation against society. The way is beyond society, alienation, and late-capitalism.

The more formal aspects of Pulp Fiction deserve note. The acting style is straight and never over the top despite the ubiquitous humor. Vincent Vega, as Alan A. Stone points out, is a “laid back, get-along kind of guy who is living a depraved and drug-addicted life as a paid killer, but has an astonishingly innocent soul, as do most of Tarantino’s low-life characters.” It is this innocent feature mixed with qualitative humor and compelling intelligence that keeps the film afloat despite the violent content. The use of pop-music and the bright, non-judgmental cinematography incite vitality and clarity, as one might expect a line of cocaine or a big cup of coffee might. We go along with Pulp Fiction diverting our attention away from the baser realities of the gangster world, choosing to play along with this fragmented narrative because it hits all of those deep-seated desires we all carry around with us – namely, to cut out the acquired apathetic tendencies of the armchair anger toward our culture that lies in ourselves, the one that suggests our culture has left underdeveloped our finer fruits and instead made us mechanical and greedy. Pulp Fiction allows us to get high, and to kill and destroy, getting it out of our systems so that we may learn something perhaps in the catharsis.

Works Cited

Boulding, Kenneth E.. The image; knowledge in life and society. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1956. Print.

Conlin, Joseph R.. "'Morning in America" & "The Millennuim Years"." Since 1865 . 8. ed. Fort Worth [u.a.: Harcourt College Publ., 2001. 818-842. Print.

John, Belton. "The Film School Generation and Into the Twenty-First Century." American Cinema/American Culture. 3rd ed. New York, New York: McGraw-Hill, 2009. 339-415. Print.

Stone, Alan A.. "Boston Review: Alan Stone on Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction." Boston Review — Home. N.p., 1 Apr. 1995. Web. 5 Aug. 2011. .

On 'Recoursing'

Wasted time is murder of sorts. You sense that in order to not commit this crime you must be able to ‘recourse.’ To recourse is to return to your highest purpose, to get in touch with the warmth and meaning of the endeavors of your circumstances. Such a movement, in order to be an effective tool, must be made available in a variety of habitats and moods. It must be utilized not just in moments of ease and deliberation, but also in moments of crisis, and in moments of near despair and pervasive dissatisfaction. More important still, this most-basic-vocabulary, this grounding project, will need to be sensed when distraction sets in or is about to occur – for movements of distraction and escape are far more prevalent than crisis in an environment of air conditioning, automobiles, Avon, and supermarkets.

So, the most-basic-vocabulary will need to be fleshed out, translated from experiential value to existential project. Trust in the project is essential. Deliberate projects, that is, goals that one makes a resolution to bring about do not often work. Sleep sets in. One forgets the ‘why’ of the project and so the effort to remain resolute loses its justification subjectively.

The problem of how to remain resolute has been with you for sometime – at least since you independently undertook to face your fears socially. Philosophically, you noticed Gurdjieff/Ouspensky and Krishnamurti to be talking about this problem: How to stay awake, they would say. Hyrum Smith in his book on Natural Laws of Success articulated many helpful things in this direction. Yet there is still the problem. There is still the submitting to sleep, the forgetting, the hopeless lost feeling of having no most-basic-vocabulary ‘at-hand’, for you often fall off, give in to pressures, to peers, you often indulge in entertainment and other releases, waking up out of their resultant hallucinations days later. As for meditation, you stopped looking at this direction because of its hurdle of boredom. Perhaps it is essential to get beyond this.

There is, though, the yearning for purity, for clean honesty, for a practice and a walking of the path at a stable speed.

If you blame a lot of this suffering from self-forgetting on environment, and you feel a lot of it is because of the ‘noise of thought’ of the familiar – from expectation and poor ways of living of family and community – then how do you live upright, stably, purely, in this environment until you move up to Arcata in January? How to prevent entanglement?

Discipline is necessary but not sufficient. For you will need to develop trust in the reason for the application of the discipline if you are not to develop resitance to it and so fall into entanglements. The search for Quiet will have to be subservient to the deliberate project. In the past Quiet was sought when it was not in play even if it was in conflict with what the high project necessitated. You have noticed the limitations of this. Quiet is essential. This is true. But it is not an end in itself. Or perhaps it is, perhaps the highest end is Quiet. You notice however, that such an end will not suit your circumstances, circumstances wherein action and decision are demanded. And so you will, for the moment, let the highest end shift and leave the evaluation of its meaning and assumptions for another time. This is where trust must come into play if ‘recourse’ will be a useful tool in times of distraction and crisis.

Hike, The Source of Cynicism, and The Mode of Resistance

A hike tomorrow afternoon to camp the night in Indian caves.

You wonder today about where to go philosophically. The day is spent comfortably – a sandwhich at Dino’s, a coffee at Café Noir, and the quiet of a library sofa.

Yes, the social narrative, the lifestyle, aims, and governing values of our people are ungrounded. They provide confusion and a source for cynicism to those seeking good, honesty, effortlessness, and self-knowledge. When we see one another in the ‘street’ we do not acknowledge each other. Perhaps this is a universal occurance in all societies that have grown large in number.

Man in this narrative is constituted by resistance. He resists almost everything he hears. Growth, as a person, is not possible when in the mode of resistance.

Peer/Friend and thoughts about The Memory of Earth

A warm day. Nice and blue with little, if any, wind. It was pretty awful. You felt dull and drained from a night of drinking with friends. Acquaintances, really. You’d call them friends in normal conversation but not to yourself. They were acquaintances because 1. at bottom you didn’t feel as if you could relate to them and 2. you didn’t sense as though it would be helpful to speak seriously with then to move things toward self-disclosure. They were peers, of course, but again only in normal conversation. To yourself a peer and a friend were nearly the same thing. The terms both implied similarities in lifestyle. For instance, a peer is someone who you can relate to because they share with you a role, a niche, in a society. A peer is someone who is at the same level of development as you and who is likewise endeavoring to move in the same subtle direction. In short to be a peer is to encounter similar problems and confusions. To contrast this, a friend is someone whose disclosure of the path is possible and who finds sharing enjoyable. So a friend is a little more than a peer and a peer is a little more than someone of similar date of birth.

You forget about flourishing sometimes.

Maybe it is lost in a sense of injustice: the conditions seem all wrong, they don’t let you grow, no one around here is of any value, has ever said anything worthy of the effort of speech. This rebellious Margo Roth Spegelman thing.

The curative imaginings: go off and ‘get it’; move in with her and intimately share.

The movement of the tao.

You occasionally grasp this insight that you have had in the past. The insight is: there is only the circumstance, and everything flows from it. From this perspective its perhaps impossible to get angry with oneself and other people because there is no other possibility of movement. Yet it is confusing.

Getting up early may be helpful. The social guilt or shame will not be a variable.

“I felt like is was something being done to me instead of something we were doing together.” (The Memory of Earth by Orson Scott Card, pg 20-21)

Thoughts on The Memory of Earth:

• The conflicts of movements of transitional-adults, the unease of relationships of those beyond who feel themselves being usurped in someway.
• The curative imaginings: go off and ‘get it’; move in with her and intimately share, quiet down, be well, figure out.
• It is necessary to move beyond instinct in order to develop. In fact nature is urging one not to.

Sort-of-Friendship and the Path without Risk

There is an emerging pattern: you fall into sort-of-friendships. And as such, you wonder if it’s possible for you to have genuine friendships. What would that mean?

At first the other arrives on the scene, and there is a genuine eagerness to explore the possibilities of the other, to see what the relationship may bring up, to see how far it can go, and so on. You encounter; you test the water; you manifest what you imagine to be your highest tastes. In short, you enter into the scene very conscious of how you are being understood by the other. The other has a narrative about themselves and the world and you try to feel it, feel what its like to be that person. If you see some possibility, if you sense that there is a meeting of interests you get the other to like you. You do a lot of stuff that you really don’t want to do, but it is done with the view of opening yourself up to the others way of being, to bring out into the scene your deepest way of being. You desire something that will only come when it’s possible to say anything and to be utterly honest with the other. So, you are flawless for a time in your relations. You pay debts, you yield favors for favors; and then, as if you’ve come to the end of a chapter, something invariably happens: you cease to care. You sense there is nothing they may teach you. And it’s a chore to be with them; the same tendencies come up, the same awkwardness. Trapped. There is both a wanting to hang out with the other and a notation that it will be a waste of time. The aloneness makes you look around and think about what to do with yourself: what books to read, what to do this afternoon, this evening.

This, of course, occurs with individuals as well as with groups. But the upshot is usually the same, you tend to look about you and see how off your situation is. You always walk onto a path or stop at a street corner and wham – an attractive couple talking softly. The yearning comes. You berate your awkwardness, your lack of confidence. You blame poor parental upbringing, yourself, society, and god. The mixed-up quality regarding the faltering sort-of-friendship becomes more apparent and pronounced in your thoughts. Blah, blah, blah, right? It goes around and around. Stupid thought, the body dull, irritation, on edged-ness, and yet you are apathetic.

And through this process, you just want yourself to shut up. You’ve heard all this before, the circular sensational thinking. You want to operate differently, on a higher level. Quiet down.

Down the path you forget the intention – It falls out of the pouch strapped to your middle. And since it’s the intention that points the way both the heat and the wind start to get to you. You start hiding behind big, mangled trees along the side of the road to block out the piercing of the sun. When the wind picks up you take to throwing yourself onto the ground and covering your body with your sleeping bag. And behind the tree and under the sleeping bag, you complain about the state of the path: it’s lined with sharp bushes that hurt your legs, and the road itself is washed out and rugged, which doesn’t help much, either. And you go on complaining until its dark and your cold. You fall asleep. The next day you can’t remember which way you were suppose to be heading – it looks the same in every direction. So you keep up the game: you duck under the wind, you hide from the sun. On and on it goes until you stumble upon the intention. You look at your pouch and notice it was empty. You pick it up and feel it. And so it goes.

Friendship dies so long as there is hiding. Risk. Risk is good.

The Space to Notice

In the heat it is nice. The cold seems to prompt a lot of considering about dress, discomfort, alienation, and so on. You’re on your own little island trying to keep warm. The heat seems to draw forth a togetherness – we are all sweating, kind of drowsy, etc., so don’t worry about it. You’re out in the open with everything, sharing what’s there.

You get up irritated. It’s around lunchtime and you are forced in to going to lunch with Trish. She does a kind of postmodern guilt thing. You can’t really remember what it was. It would be difficult to explain anyway but it’s something that happens occasionally. Perhaps this is a mother/son thing. Assertiveness doesn’t really work the way it ought to.

Anyway. Lunch then to Nana/Papa’s to do some gardening. You bring a cassette player and some tapes on Buddhism that you got from the sangha in SLO. You listen while you drive around and while you garden.

You trim some bushes, load some wood in the back of your truck, and start to dig up the root of a lemon tree you had cut down previously. But its hot. After an hour and a half or so you call it quits for the day. You shower, change, and eat a bit.

The tapes help you. You go to the café on Broadway and have a cup of iced tea and later a cup of coffee. You intend to research the Electoral College so as to write a paper for class but end reading an email from Nick on experimentation. This prompts you to send him a quote you mentioned to him a few days ago. From here you read some stuff that’s on your red thumb drive. Old stuff. You read some work you did over the summer and realize its related to what Nick and you have been discussing in relation to ‘the path’. You send it to Nick. Its actually pretty good.

You are really seeing the importance of at-hand trajectory awareness at this point. You decide to eat at Nana’s. You then take a break – you decide you will chill out for just one hour. You play hearts on the computer for about 45 minutes. You lie down and watch your thoughts.

You get up and watch your thoughts. You watch your thoughts all the way to the library. You read near the window about the Electoral College. You find a good site and are interested. You stay till it closes. The employees say good bye to you while they wait by the stairs. One of them uses your first name. You watch your thoughts.

Shane texts you while you are driving home. You do not respond till you get home. You run a through a four way stop on purpose. You listen to a tape.

You tell him to come along on a hike on Saturday. Later he texts you about hanging out tonight. You intend to finish the Electoral College assignment. But later you change your mind. You will hang out.

You write this. You showered and then did some calisthenics and then sat on the cushion for some time, panting. Then you eat an orange and then you write this. You want to see the point of going to hang out. Earlier you had some thoughts about making things more growth centered with Shane. You want to show him him. Mirror. But you want to do this so that you can push things a bit further.

You have thoughts about just keep that space of silence open. Watch your thoughts. And also know why your doing what your doing. This is important. Really important. For now. So what is the purpose now? You will go to the party why?

Earlier you thought about the reason for doing the E.C. paper. You go: doing it will help to get more points, so that I may get a fair grade for the class, so that I may have a good enough gpa so that I may get into Humboldt easier for the second time, so that I may go to Humboldt next January, so that I may be around people interested in philosophy like me, so that I can push things further and see clearly.

Seeing the whole project in front of you but not as words, as feelings as narrative – such a thing gets rid of all insecurity and distractive meandering.

You will be space. Take the time to feel how you feel. No easy going with it. This shuts you off. Find the real honest reason for the movement. Don’t bullshit with the reasons. Make it so you have the time to see the real reasons. Then see if such a reason is commensurate with how you intend to be.

No stupid movement then.

Initiation of Vlog

03.17.11 Midday

While you eat breakfast you sit at the computer and watch a few youtube videos in your subscriptions box. Somehow you stumble upon a video about 11 seconds long titled day 21 or something like that. It featured bits of video of a fellows day edited together - like snapshots of fluid recollection. You watch all 20 or so videos on his channel in high admiration. While you exercise and shower you have an impulse. You locate Trishes flip video cam and see how it works. you make a quick recording and then figure out how to erase it. Perhaps you'll experiment with just the same format: throughout your day you will record moments, trim them down before you get to sleep, and upload them. You toy with the notion of doing something different so that it is not complete imitation. However, you quite like what the idea is. Perhaps you will also write up a short daily related blog and attach a link to the video.

You believe that such an experiment with video recording and journaling will assist in the endeavor toward self-knowledge. For one, you will be aware of leaving/arriving, the shift of roles, boundaries, and thresholds in a much more acute manner as you will be documenting the transitions of life - the traveling, the meals, breaks, the lulls in engagement with that which is at hand, etc. You will also be allowing for 'memory' to have deeper hold. That is, the dual process of video recording and right recollection of events in the written form will likely foster and concentrate the skillfulness of your associative and recollective powers. This is something you've noticed to be worthy of effort: it seems that the tendency of 'diffusion' has greater pull or gravity when Techniques of Self are employed. In different terms you are in a position to be far more

in-touch with yourself when you allow time to remember your 'ultimate concerns' a few moments during the day. Less fragmentation, less indulgent negativity, less distraction seeking.

Perhaps you'll contact the fellow who put up the string of videos after you've attempted the format, explaining your intentions so that lack of permission will not be an

irritation. It will be both a homage and an adaptation, after all.

Gurdjieff, Longing, and Wondering Thoughts

You are pulled. You long for a complete devotion to the path. You think of reading the S.A. book. Maybe call Michael and resume talking things through.

You speak with your political science teacher, Scarfe, about testing, standardization, educative intentions, and the mood of community college. You like her one on one. You kind of get into this really slow, deliberate façade with her.

You worry about things. Presentations in the weeks to come worry you. You feel also like you don’t have time for what’s meaningful – and for doing things right. You wish you could connect with someone. This girl in your Bio class reminds you of the main character in the French movie “Water Lilies”. You watch the rest of the film on netflix.

Maybe you’ll ride Steve’s bike. Save some money. Have it handy for path things. Maybe you’ll talk to Michael about trajectories. Maybe finish stats in summer and just ‘take off’. You’ve been yearning. Go away to school only when you think paying money to do so is worthy. You don’t want to get stuck owing money for a fucking loan. Stuck, etc.

A Gurdjieff quote recalls a lot of stuff about ‘right movement’:

“I wished to create around myself conditions in which a man would be continually reminded of the sense and aim of his existence by an unavoidable friction between his conscience and the automatic manifestations of his nature.” —G.I. Gurdjieff, ca. 1913

This reminds you of the way out. Eckhart Tolle in a park.

You are angry that school doesn’t provide instruction in self-knowledge. It can then only be an authoritative exercise. This is the bulk of the argument you have against ‘education’.

Mundane Ethical Dilemma

3.7.11 Early Afternoon

This morning when you went for a jog after your early class you notice a $20 bill lying in the gutter of a suburban homes driveway – there’s a newish van parked nearby. You look around. You pick it up. It’s wet from the water in the gutter so you wipe it off inside the pocket of your running shorts. There’s the thought that goes: ring the doorbell and ask if someone had dropped it. But you’re dull and jumbled. You stick it in your pocket, look around again and continue on your way.

While you jog you encounter a few thought-movements related to the banal moral dilemma. Could this be an experiment? – stick a twenty in the gutter and watch what happens from behind a fence? No, highly doubtful.

You are brought to an insight you had some few months ago while emailing Tom. Amongst the emotional resistance and arguments of the thought-movements you recall that ethical thinking comes about primarily when faced directly with a dilemma; it comes about secondly after the dilemmas themselves occur, when one begins to wonder if what one had done was ‘right’; and thirdly, ethical thinking springs up from the encounter and identification with stories, but at much weaker strength.

Your emotional movements stimulate the ethical dimension of the ‘lost’ bill. It goes: perhaps someone dropped it and will ‘need’ it. Or, you have not earned the money, and you also do not ‘need’ it. And, it will be growth-centered if you ring the doorbell.

You jog along listening to music and reacting to the narrative in your mind about what to do. You think about what you could do with the money. A haircut? You felt unattractive this morning and could use the twenty to get a haricut – smooth things out. And, as if to add support to this trajectory, you remember one time when you were younger that you’d lost the same amount of money while riding your bike – a lot of money to you then. This is reasonable, it says.

There’s a counter argument, though. It goes: you do not ‘need’ it, and it is not yours. There’s a recalling of what the ‘commissaris’ says in one of Janwillem van de Wetering’s Amsterdam detective mysteries – “I have not seen much of the Law, but what I have seen has effected me.” You think that returning it may be good. For instance, it would clarify some of your jumbledness this morning. Is this sufficient though? A negative aspect of yourself says it isn’t, that there’s a sort of childish stupidity about it. Yet it is not so. You are not doing it so as to be a ‘good boy’ or merely to feel better about yourself and the world. You feel that a voluntary action aimed at returning the money would help the ‘world’; that is, the quality of the movement would be noticed – perhaps not initially, but later – by the lost money’s owner, and that they would then be in a position to contact this ‘quality’ themselves in their further movements. Perhaps not use it just yet or ever, but they would feel it.

You think that the thinking is not necessary – all of those thought movements are confusing. At the moment of noticing the bill, the feeling was the guided argument. But then the thought came in and you reasoned about not feeling particularly up to ringing the bell because there was an anxiety about dealing with people. Perhaps the early feeling was the higher emotional center, the ‘thinking’ was mechanical.

And so you flip back and forth. There are some times your swayed by both impulses. Yet you finally side with the ‘qualitativenss’. You walk up the steps after jogging back to the house with the van. You ring the doorbell and wait. You ring it again and wait. You wonder if you might just put it under the doormat. The door opens up, suddenly. A girl about your age, attractive in a fleshy sort of way, blonde, but not uninteresting and dull. She’s sleepy looking, dressed in shorts and a baggy white shirt.

You tell here the story, leaving out that you jogged about with the money in you pocket before returning it. She opens the door the whole way and you hand it to her. You don’t ask it if it’s hers. You feel sweaty. She say’s: you’re nice to do that, have a nice night- I mean day.

Well, there we are.

To Break A Social Norm

There is a project for your group speech and communications class. It goes like this: break an implicit social rule and write about the experience. You have some idea what you will do. You just want to do this, though, and the project gives it an extra nudge into being. The idea is to stand on a corner of a street, perhaps a busy one, for a few hours. Just be there. You’ll be with the inappropriateness of the situation, noticing in awareness the movement to do the appropriate, and you will breathe well from the stomach, noticing. For what you will work on is detachment – detachment and the practicing of power.

Perhaps you will do something further. The intention of putting these words down here was threefold: 1. to explore the reason behind the urge to do such a thing 2. to quell the movements to not do the project by addressing these movements and asserting the projects purpose 3. to approach the project from the intention of the teacher so as to see whether what you are to be doing is parallel to it.

There was an idea that occurred a few days ago suggesting that you purchase a small display board, leave it blank, and hold it above your shoulders. Would this harmonize with the project more than simply standing on the street? Will this be something to hide behind? Another idea to walk back and forth from sidewalk to sidwalk.

What you wish to practice and develop is quietness, stillness beyond the social narrative. The social narrative pushes one about, in many directions, toward many distractive ends. The social narrative, however, isn’t real. Its just habitual movement mixed with evolutionary tendency.

You have noticed many times that you are not content with an activity if its source is cold to you – that is, if the activity is presented, encouraged, and practiced in such a way that you are ‘suppose’ to know the meaning of it without the addressing of the meaning. The abundance of the ‘suppose-to’ stripped from its ‘why’ kills the vitality and stillness that is the potential of man, and he falls about dull and in opposing directions. You wish to be able to get behind an act, to know what you are talking about, to leave nothing undone.

To break a social norm and to watch the movements of the self is what you want to do. To acquaint oneself with the triggers and impulses is to be in a position to not be bothered by them.

You will find a corner that has moderate to heavy traffic. You’ll park near by and put on a coat. For the first hour you will stand at the corner and not address any one unless you are spoken to. If spoken to you will say that you are exploring the nature of what is socially appropriate and how in crossing the boundary how it is that the self reacts. It’s a sort of exercise in self-knowledge. You will adjust the explanation to fit the speaker if necessary. You will stand and watch yourself and be acquainted with the environment.

The Point?

The plot to a horror movie bugs you, sets you in motion to want to watch a movie that will take away the bad unpleasant destructive vibes, or read a mystery book or something. Perhaps you’ll write a story. You don’t know how, though. Perhaps you’ll talk about your day, journal, etc. You really didn’t do anything. You get up too late. You are in a haze. You have plans to organize yourself, prepare for school, get in the right mindset. Mostly you sleep late, much too long, then you try to get vital, then you try to wind down.

Perhaps you’ll blog. You’ll publish this on the internet. Perhaps not. Maybe just get some more white wine.

You play music with some friends today. About two hours. You want to play drums but you play guitar – one of the guys only plays drums. The first song you play is wonderful, alive. Most everything after is stillborn. Kelly walks you out and talks to you briefly about this girl he was attempting to share his feelings with. You are drained. You find that you are never growth-centered with him You are very hungry afterwards. You eat then take a bath. You go on the internet for a few hours, aimless, enveloped. You watch Parenthood at 10. Unfortunately Trish comes out and watches it with you. Garrett is outside with a friend; she waits for him. You dislike watching things with her, she comments too much, sticks your relationship on the screen. You lose touch with your feelings and the narratives feelings. You’re not silent enough in such a situation.

What’s the point of a thing like this? Writing something like this, that is. You have some ideas. You like the idea of caring for yourself in the Foucaultvian way by recalling the day. You also find that there is a stillness and an inspiriting energy culled after from such work. Perhaps with this in mind it may be to the point.

Values Project for School - From last month

1. I am Self-Directed

I recognize that I may flourish only if I will what I am doing. I recognize that Heath is that state of being in which one’s actions and trajectories reflects how one authentically cares about things. In contrast, living one’s life so as to meet the expectations of others or of ‘society’ is a life divorced from Self, it is a life of fear, diffusion, superficiality, entrapment; such an Expectational way of living houses feelings of incompetence, unbalance, and ultimately produces reactivity. Self-Direction is a skill involving self-knowledge, emotional-intelligence, clarity, and for me, everything mentioned on this list. It implies a sensitivity and commitment to one’s authentic agenda. It implies trust in one’s experiences, principles, and intuitions. It implies radical self-honesty. In the end Self-Direction is Self-Trust: it is fearlessness in how one acts from the heart.

2. I care for myself

I am kind to myself. I wish to get to know myself. I do not force myself unless I observe that it is meaningful to do so. I practice techniques that cut out noise and negative emotions so that my mind is clear. Clarity is stillness and in-touchness with Self. I meditate so that I may develop concentration and so that I may free myself from habits of destructive thinking. I keep a journal so that I can more adequately understand my movements throughout the day. I recognize that before I can be honest with my fellow man I must first be honest with myself. I will not discount myself when others discount me. I will not yield when I am alone in something I deeply care about. To care for oneself is to be sensitive to one’s circumstance.

3. I am Naturally and Passionately Engaged in my Work

I orient myself to that which I deeply care about. I work hard. There is nothing else worth pursuing.

4. I surround myself with and cultivate Growth-Centered Relationships

Honest and trusting relationships are extraordinary phenomena. The medicine of Self-Disclosure and Intimacy is unparalleled. I commune with and disclose myself; they commune with and disclose themselves. We meet at the same level at the same time. We are likeminded. I value that pocket of honesty. We show the other what they look like when it is necessary. We help each other. I gain courage to be myself in the warmth and attempt to help the other do the same.

5. I learn by others example and works

Those that have come before me have much to say. Whoever has located the way has been lost in the darkness of the forest. I listen closely, watch, and read. I experiment with ideas. I endeavor to penetrate as far as possible.

6. I am sharp in body and mind

I jog and practice various calisthenics daily to maintain vitality of body. I recognize that a major source of mechanical and emotionally illiterate activity comes about when the body is tense and dull. I eat and exercise to maintain sharpness of sense and to allow for suppleness. I practice cleanliness in all aspects of life.

7. I am unrushed

I am deliberate and slow paced so that I may care for myself rightly. Rushing only confuses me and invites comparison to others. I endeavor to be mindful and alone with myself, to center myself throughout the day so that I can be in contact with how I really am. As I value my time I notice more and more that it is eaten up and distorted when I rush.

8. I am simple in speech and manner

I endeavor to always know what I am talking about and doing. I speak plainly, to be understood, and I structure my actions and words so as to be as direct as possible.

What factors have influenced my value system? Have I experienced a significant emotional event that has influenced my values?

Centrally, the above value system points toward a cultivation of self-knowledge. It submits a real need to be awake, calm, still, supple. It is suspicious of the life-project as encouraged by the public narrative. It sees a tendency to fall into an imprisoned sleep where one is going about the day, limping, without genuine motivation. The value system suggests that such a life produces a sense of worthlessness, a fragmented mind, and untold misery. To be healthy requires a great sensitivity to oneself and one’s situation. It is to practice various forms of centering and mindfulness. It is to trust one’s most basic values.

Why have such things become valuable to me?

Since before graduating from high school (2006) I felt as if I were not really deciding the course of my life. I felt pulled along in a sense, like there was no choice and that what was important was to go to college and complete my education. There is in fact nothing wrong with this course except that it would not be directed by me, that it would not spring from the genuine desire to do so. When I was a senior and while most of my class was applying to colleges I suddenly felt buried under expectations and insecurities. Basically I imagined that I had to go off to school, that not doing so would reveal my incompetence. I withdrew and completed high school in turmoil.

For a year and a half after I attended Allan Hancock College. I did well in the classes that most interested me, but in classes that required me to speak in class frequently or that did not interest me, I developed an approach/avoidance conflict. I was anxious and I rationalized that not being motivated by them I could just do the bare minimum. But eventually I started to think this way about school in general. My grades were poor because I both didn’t care about what I was doing and because I had developed an anxiety disorder. Following some good advice I decided to take some time off from school in order to figure out what course was worth pursuing.

I got a full time job and saved up for a few months. This past summer I moved to Washington State to stay with my aunt and uncle. I helped them build a deck and a carport and resolved to consider myself. I read a few books and spent a lot of time alone. Being somewhere that was unfamiliar helped to untangle and reveal to myself some of the habits and narratives that had been cycling around. I could recognize that through a lack of assertiveness and through my tendency to be the mediator in my family that I had neglected caring for myself. All of the values listed above spring from my resolution to become familiar with and trusting in my path.

A Night Out And A Walk Back To High School

You walk to your old high school with Shane today. You plan to time each other running a mile around the track. You tell him about yesterdays outing with Garrett N briefly. You say that you probably won’t hang out with him anymore unless it’s with a group of people. You’d hoped he had a part of him that was genuinely grounded and growth-centered but you didn’t really encounter it.

Yesterday afternoon you go to the café, drink coffee, write about the ‘narrative’ that you have developed with Nick, and read from ‘The Transparent Self’. When you finish your latte you spend an hour or so in the library reading some more.

You get the idea to call up Garrett N., perhaps talk to him about writing – the purpose, the impulse, and the function.

You pick him up around five. You decide to eat Mexican food. He mentions that Austin might be on his lunch break around the time we will be eating. Maybe he could eat with us?

You like Austin, but you wish to see Garrett N. alone so that you may see if he has anything to say about writing. However, you don’t know how to go about maneuvering this kind of thing. Before Austin arrives you sip your hot tea and ask Garrett N. what it is that he goes about doing when he writes, what is the movement that brings one to it? He thinks about it and then gives through away answers until Austin shows up. You eat one tamale, a chicken taco, and rice and beans. Austin mentions the plot of a horror movie that you think about throughout the night.

Walking out Garrett N. wonders if what else we might do. He mentions a billiards bar not to far away. You might be able to talk to him more intimately there.

You order a Heineken. They don’t take plastic. You’ll pay Garrett N. back. You play some pool. When people begin to show up it becomes clear that Garrett N. hasn’t much to say to you really. He takes a lot of smoke and bathroom breaks. He talks to a lot of nearby patrons. You end up sitting by yourself much of the time waiting for him to come back to take his turn. When he returns he apologizes profusely. He does this ad nauseam. You think about leaving; you text Vanessa and Shane as something to do. You don’t really drink because you’re driving. When Garrett N. does talk to you its about music, panic attacks, or our small circle of mutual acquaintances. You’re bored, unconnected, and tired from hiking the day before.

Austin shows up around 9, and a whole bunch of other familiar people drizzle in as well. You notice Kelly, and Everett and his girlfriend. Perhaps you’ll play music with Kelly in a day or two. You have to tell Everett about your situation with school because he wonders why you’re not in Washington. You ask him about VTC.

Near 10:30 or so you finally get up the nerve to tell Garrett N. that you’re going to take off. He asks if it’s cool that he can finish his beer. While waiting you notice Doug, an old high school friend. You stand and watch him play pool for a minute before initiating conversation. It is so weird to see him. You catch each other up briefly. There’s a lot of unresolved stuff between you and him but it’s not too hard to talk. He gives you his number and tells you to give him a call – he’s in town for a while. Perhaps it would be good to meet up with him, figure things out.

Garrett N. ends up staying at the bar. He gets a ride from a friend’s friend who plans to stay until they throw him out. You stand outside and talk to the guy while he has a cigarette. He offers you one and you take it – well, you take Garrett N.’s, because he pulls his out faster. He’s pretty cool actually, Ryan. You both laugh at this guy that Garrett N. starts talking to: a car salesman who starts free styling. This other guy walks out to smoke and stars talking to you too. He’s Hungarian and works for a drinking water company. He starts talking about not trusting people, not even himself. You say that that’s pretty natural, not trusting yourself. He say’s that he thinks he is talking to a shrink; you go: maybe it’s the collared shirt. When you say goodbye and leave he tells you to remember what he said, but he didn’t really say anything because he was mumbling and drunk.

You make some tea for yourself and Garrett (your brother) when you get home. You talk to him about Avatar The Last Airbender. You check your grades online before you go to sleep. You passed your life management course but not your statistics one.

You walk from Shane’s house to the track. He begins to talk about his relations with a young woman who you vaguely remember from high school. He spends a lot of time articulating himself about it: she has just finished university, is back in town, is potentially moving to Chicago soon. He has recently spent good time with her, growth-centered, intimate, caring, I-Thou time. But there arises some blocks. The relationship began with the notation that it was casual and potentially finite. Shane has come to appreciate and care, nevertheless. As she heads to Chicago for an interview of some kind Shane wishes to see her off correctly. Perhaps there is a need for her to maintain control of those factors that commit her – she is after all only 22, just out of the forming institution. Shane wants to see her the morning she leaves – not too sure why, but thinks its right. He reads you some text messages: he comes off as a bit irritating and clinging perhaps. She reacts a small bit, boxed in, suggests she is disappointed in him, didn’t we address the ground rules? From here Shane begins to be possessed by the potentiality that it’s not as important to her as to him, just another notch on the old belt. He goes over all this with you. You get him to further articulate and translate. You wonder what he wants - from you here and now, from her. You suggest the interpretation that comes to you most warmly: that even though she supposedly never gets angry, finds positive in his weaknesses, and is refreshingly mature – things he finds appealing about her - that she was feeling not so competent about her interview, has not yet defined their relationship to herself, that the two pulls resulted in an imprisoning feeling. You suggest that he write about all of this to himself, that ‘what to do’ will drain out of it. You say its good that you have experienced this kind of thing, it opens yourself up to yourself. Emotional intelligence is about filtering out those possessing movements and reinstating activity that you can will, can get behind. You say that when you meet her next that he should prepare for it, get silent to himself.

You run a mile around the track as Shane times you. You get tired on the third lap. You think about Vanessa – a sort of uplifting image or trajectory. It helps some. You stay with your breath and your body when the pain sets in. Shane says 5:03 when you finish the third lap. You pick up your pace, its not so far really. You finish at 6:38. You hadn’t done this, really tried to run a mile, since perhaps junior high. You’re reasonably satisfied.

You walk and jog with Shane a bit afterwards. You talk rather loudly about erections, now versus in high school, as this fellow passes by on the track. When you sense someone behind you, you turn around. He goes: Its okay, I can just pass you by here. He walks on the grass to your left.

You walk back to his house talking about the meaning of Donnie Darko, the death of the community, and ‘honesty’. You plan to go to waller park to eat and chill out. You make tuna sandwiches, walk to your house, put on warmer clothes and have some tea.

You listen to the Donnie Darko soundtrack on the way. Its just right. When you eat the sun is going down and the wind sets about a chill but it becomes clear to you how wonderful and just-so it is being with Shane. He is the type of person you can be yourself with. It’s good that you are friends. Its not bullshit at all.

When you drop him off, you don’t even talk about what you are doing. Its just obvious that this is what we are doing. It is just-so. It means we are tired, but not tired of each other. He says lately he has been looking forward to taking showers. You say that you keep expecting to run into Tom. That every gray haired slim fellow you walk past makes you turn your head to get a glimpse. He says that today was a good day, that he tries to think about the day near the end of it. You listen to nice music from the 5^th and 6^th Harry Potter films as you drop him off. The first track is somber and the second track is whimsical. You take a bath when you get home. Trish talks with you in a wonderfully warm way regarding school. She hugs you and wants you to be doing it for you. You say you will sleep on what to do regarding your failed class.

Outline of Points for Work - from a few months ago

• The Public-Narrative/Expectational-Living is both ungrounded and, as it is, is incapable of being so.
• The Source of all issues may be seen directly in one’s subconscious, can be traced in one’s ‘thought’.
• There can be no flourishing if one can’t will what they are doing.
• Mechanicalness, that is, Expectational-Living, puts one to sleep, brings one into the sleep-forgetfulness-cycle.
• Mechanicalness: doing while one’s intention is foreign to one; doing when one doesn’t know why one is doing what one is doing; when there is a disconnect between will and action.
• All illusions, fears, conflicts, disturbing and destructive movements arise from this disconnect.
• There is no such thing as a morality when one is within Expectational-Living. Morality is impossible when one cannot go against one’s society.
• The institutions of the Public-Narrative once were grounded – that is, connected with the Source – but when the Source is not seen and the story is still passed on, people cannot act from the will, cannot practice the real values which the story arises from. The way then becomes dead, lulling people to sleep.
• Without the Source, there is no possibility of flourishing. Without, in other words, the ability to recognize trajectory in Self-Narrative and the Public-Narrative, there is only mechanical movement.