There seems to be a magic point in writing for me where my thinking intersects with my fingers, and it is more like catching a wave body surfing then stepping onto a train from any platform i’ve ever stood upon waiting. What i must relinquish in order to enjoy the process of sharing my ideas with, g_d knows who, is to cease the interminable judgement that characterizes so much of my existence. I have given up hope for approval, because it is a yoke i’d rather not carry to my grave. That is not to say i am not susceptible to unity, for that is at the core of my thinking, but i can see no point in assuming false positions simply to gain concurrence with minds i often find facile and selfish. I have come to understand i am able to perceive that manner of thinking only because i possess the same to one degree or another. What i yearn for is self-aware individuals who do not presume that because i am willing to discourse about my manifold faults ad nauseam, that i’m looking for any sort of cure, but rather a society of equally troubled minds tolerant and able to convey kindness as a resort to cruelty.
What’s stupid about my objective is seeking non-conformists to conform with. At age 11 or 12 i acted out some morality play from the pool halls of Pinocchio and engaged in unsupervised firecracker frolic at a local playground - i was blindsided by the toss of an explosive enough to rupture my eardrum and change my life ever after · It forced me to look hard at what i want and why; for example - in the decency that was my family at the time a mold was made of my ear canal that was meant to block water and allow me to continue following in the footsteps of my CIF swimming champion eldest brother but which mostly called attention to one more defect in his dual-eyed-cyclops younger brother; it is no one’s fault, and i’m sure meant with the most noble of intentions - what it lacked was will on my part · i don’t remember asking how i could continue swimming, it was simply assumed i would.
Pop in his poetic fashion found an adequate distraction prior to our yearly pilgrimage to the shores of Baja Mexico, and took me one afternoon to the sporting goods store and had me fitted for a 45 lb recurve bow i could substitute for romping in the waves. Little did i know at the time that bow would take me deep into the waves of my inner life; i found a happy union between my sight and my hand that allowed me to master carving granite with a 2 lb hammer aimed at a 5/8” chisel head and to lead jack rabbits well enough with a bow and arrow to know i need not take pleasure in the death of another, however fast they flee. Later, i was to work in aerospace where computer programs for launching missiles were based on an earth center, and i understood why - trajectory for a dual-eyed-cyclops is central to existence, but as i learned when attacked by a child lacking any awareness for the results of his attack with a lit explosive - nothing will protect you from what you cannot see.
Now, as prideful and defiant a human being as i have become in my solitary trek across the surface of this planet, i have to accept that from a lack of perception i have been living in the midst of proto-fascists from my own culture but was unable to attribute the nagging unease i have felt for nearly a year and a half to this fact. In truly arrogant fashion, i’d believed my unease was due love sickness for which had no foundation; so thanks to a history rich in release i have to plumb deeper to discover the cause of my self-imposed blindness. Once again - there is no one to blame but myself, if blame is even the right word. I think now, gratitude would be a more apt description for what i feel - gratitude for the life i have lived which allows for responsibility for every step i take and every choice i make.
I like it; no, i don’t like it, i LOVE it. For for longer than i’d like to admit, i have wallowed in a vat of deference, which while consistent with other episodes of learning ¡’ve waded through, is more meaningful because my growing understanding is closer to an intersection of greater import - my passing · I am not a kid sitting in the backseat listening to adult language thinking to myself - “i know what they’re talking about, who do they think they are fooling?” The trick is accepting that as a pattern of my own history, even the deeper premises of my continued behavior and distinguishing it from other information that i might wish to disregard: like the recognizable patterns of behavior for reactionary economic predators, as well as emotional confusion about behavior from a family who shuns me based on far less (i imagine) self awareness than what little i possess as i march to my demise determined to find joy, and love and peace - even if my 1st wife was named “Joy” and for whom i welcome the prospect of never sharing another word.
jts 15/11/2020
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