230820 - Extinction Chronicles ·

My last gainful occupation was as an “heir hunter” at the Los Angeles Superior Court of Los Angeles - i gained the requisite hours for my Private Investigator license, but the outfit i worked for out of Tucson was then owned by an alcoholic in training who had just inherited the 100 year-old firm from his father who’d recently keeled over - i was too stupid to know i’d been hired as a “bag man” who was supposed to keep his mouth shut and make no real effort to track the estates of the recently deceased, it wasn’t a good fit, but a very interesting end to my own checkered career. When i say checkered, i don’t mean that in the pejorative of “dodgy,” like my last employer who was in over his head, but checkered in the traditional pedestrian condemnation of a familial “black sheep” who wasn’t quite dark - more like ______fill in the blank · resistant to the judgement of others who had not the patience nor inclination to look more deeply than that of their own self-righteous prejudice. 

I probably see that character defect so often because of my own myopic predilection for sanctimony - we all have our cross to bear · In terms of synchronicity, it is more than fascinating that this particular period of my life would intersect with the looting of my own father’s estate, which i can assure all concerned was to the “letter of the law,” but lacked the humanity that i understood to govern my father’s complete existence. He once ceased communicating with his 2nd father-in-law because the man had the temerity to call my father a “liar” - not a good move. Pop may have been delusional, emphatic even rigid, but he was a “truth teller” to the bone. He was the kind of guy who would interrupt a phone conversation and demand that you drive the additional hour out of your way, just so he could look into your eyes and gauge for himself his feelings about what you were asserting in your phone call - regardless of the obvious inconvenience of his request.

We live in dodgy times, full of dodgy characters - a reality that must be accepted simply by the physics of money. Consider that 12 human beings control more wealth than 5 billion other human beings, unless you’re just stupid or without any real world experience, where exactly do you think all that surplus wealth is going, if not to pay off a considerable portion of the human population to turn a blind eye, and/or actively participate in the rape of our planet. Am i the only person who is suspicious of ostentatious wealth in a time of such depravation and suffering by so many? What kind of character is going to align themself with a handful of criminals attempting to subvert the, however dysfunctional workings of an 800 year-old attempt to establish democracy¿ that’s a question?

How greedy does one have to be to sell-out the generations of their unborn children based on personal gain - another question · I’m through waiting for an answer to that question, just, as “Judge Judy” might say, "don't piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining". The world we see on our screens bears very little resemblance to the world we live in - I am surrounded by pettiness, and suspicion, jealousy and subterfuge · but with people who are largely decent when push comes to shove; what i see is a population struggling mightily to do the right thing; yes perhaps mostly for those that are close to them, or those that are only within the family circle, but still making an effort to benefit and protect those they care for. Show me where this is reflected in fact by any leader today - “free world, corporate, political or legal” · morals do not exist for the people who claim leadership; the only guiding principle is greed.

To that end “they” who would claim your allegiance utilize power - a power that is paid for out of your pocket to subordinate you to their control: be it police, management, media or _____fill in the blank. No where do i find a direct correlation to the email polls asking this or asking that which results in “you” being heard, conned maybe, coerced and shamed maybe - mostly manipulated. And they are not content to post content, it is propagated flagrantly that if you resist or are otherwise disposed to act independently, you are an enemy. What is missing is to whom exactly are you an enemy. No one in any position of responsibility that i have heard, save Bernie, Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Julian Assange and a handful of muted others actually raises red flags about the danger we face, rather they are depicted as enemies of all that is good and right in a world being poisoned for profit, imprisoned for dissent and raped for no reason other than intimidation and mayhem - are you okay with that · i am not 

good luck to us all - may freedom ring · and reason resume, soon.

jts 23/08/2020he http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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220820 - Extinction Chronicles ·

Four minutes ago i had written the entire 1st paragraph of this essay in my head - and now ______ · Something must be working, and i have no idea exactly what that might be. From the thunder i hear, i know the rain is coming and so closed the cover to the laundry room; i have been able to return to my normal bicycle circuit and found in my short absence the same hills were no longer insurmountable and my vanity nap was no longer a vanity. The large city just to my North is now testing every foreigner for the virus, and to believe my small hamlet is not next would be too ignorant for even my feeble intellect. Just yesterday, my temperature spiked to 37.3 and dropped to 37.1 within minutes - all i can do is observe the protocols, wash my hands better than i have and continue to “shelter in place” which seems to suit my ways far better than butting up against the fence like some rutting ram i never was, nor hoped to become. Where exactly does that leave me in the the cultural crossroads of miasma, biology and fear¿ any ideas?

Yeah, me neither, but i did manage to recall the thread i was aiming at with what had once been described in my collegiate days as a “scattershot” approach to literature - it was a party · an epochal party in the early 1980s in a 1940s dance studio at the corner of 4th & Main in Santa Ana. I like to party and began practicing that peculiar alchemy seriously on the 1st “Earth Day” 22 April 1970; it may have even been the 2nd or 3rd "Earthday" - things get hazy when looking into hazy days. Unfortunately for my single mother, i was more of a budding druid than ecologist and the revelry she returned to after teaching art to spoiled Newport Beach middle school brats, scarred our relationship to this day - but they say radical accountability · and i nothing if not radical; i am sorry ma, please forgive me. The party in Santa Ana nearly a decade later was simply the apex of those early experiments in merriment. The party in Santa Ana was a Masquerade with a remarkable mix of characters, from college professors, doctors, engineers to tradespeople from all walks of life that might have been found anywhere in the roaring 80s of Orange County.

I had just commenced an engineering career as a “C” draughtsman in the same factory i had worked swing shift fabricating aircraft antennae when i graduated high school nearly a decade earlier. At this party, enter one too old to know better, and too vain to understand fellow, but genial enough Senior Engineer replete with comb-over a la early _rump. One of the elder “solder ladies” most certainly an emigre without documentation, and conservative to her core dressed in costume of her native country - wearing an elegant mask making her identity apparently unrecognizable to to said engineer; she also intrinsically understood the spirit of the Masquerade and chose to speak not a word throughout the entire evening. Our poor swain was enamored from the tip of his balding pate to the toes of his, if i remember correctly white patent leather shoes. Chapters would be inadequate to describe the lengths this poor smitten fellow went to that night to charm our mystery lady, a mystery i fear only to he who could not gain traction with her whose heart he coveted, maybe to save his soul.

You need to understand that in her normal workaday world this man’s contempt for anyone who could not benefit his professional standing or resonate with his grandiose self-image simply didn’t exist; yet here on her Cinderella Night she held his heart in the palm of her hand the entire evening. He could not see sideways, up or down - though the dance studio was full to the gills with young nubile and sensuous dancers from the local college, for one of the guests was in fact a modern dance professor who appreciated a good party. To our mystery lady’s credit, when Monday came and work resumed there was never a hint of humiliation for the engineer, though there was a sizable contingent from the proletariate who witnessed her quiet dignity to he who in any other circumstance would have barely acknowledged her existence, much less _______ fill in the blank. To this day, it remains an object lesson for me about the relationship between fact and fiction, the heart and reality, and courage and dignity.

Years later, or maybe even closer i was gifted “Man and His Symbols” by C.G. Jung. Within this concise compendium of human psychology/anthropology/mythology was a passage on the 30s movie “The Blue Angel” (German: Der blaue Engel) a 1930 German tragicomedic film directed by Josef von Sternberg and starring Emil Jannings, Marlene Dietrich, and Kurt Gerron. The gist of this poignant story was the blindness of an aged professor when faced with the self-aware beauty of a vibrant young woman simply being all that she could be - however the dice may fall · I cannot say for certain that the “Mystery” woman at my party did not eventually exact her pound of flesh, i was too young and arrogant to understand what i had witnessed much less know that i too would be faced with similar circumstances even to this day; i know young women who have witnessed my aged “game” with a patience i have  misunderstood as affection. Was the professor in "The Blue Angel" a fool, or was Marlene Dietrich a predator - it is an ancient game; i remember from my art school training a Renaissance painting of a young swain offering in his open hand his bag of riches to the young love of his life, while in the same frame an ancient hag was reaching around his blinded waist lifting the purse from his belt; as the French proverb goes, so goes the world: “Plus les choses changent, plus elles restent les mêmes” - A. Nonyme ·

jts 22/08/2020he http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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210820 - Extinction Chronicles ·

Just now my kind neighbor - the farmer’s wife is rinsing my floor, and i am trying to act like nothing is happening · i’m very unaccustomed to other’s in my home, much less cleaning my dirt; oddly it is in everyone’s interest - she gains some currency during harder than usual times; the landlady gains the comfort of having her rental swept by one she knows along with periodic peaks at my curious lifestyle and i must acquiesce to someone doing me a kindness which is not my long suit - when i say kindness, i mean when was the last time someone brought you rice and vegetables when they came to clean your house. The good news is my temperature is very close to normal, my floors will be clean for another 2 or so weeks and i have contributed something to a community i find difficult to do good in (know that that feeling is entirely in my own mind and not based on external indications of failure). 

This morning i found my normal bicycle shoreline circuit once again open after a momentary lockdown which with the pitch emotions of dodging viral particles with tobacco tuned windpipes does not inspire the deep sleep that engenders hard work and a cheerful face for the savagery that comes from species collapse, but these are not your problems, they are mine. I am attempting to rewire my mind to observe rather than react, and to open myself to the possibility that though my current existence does not include a “loving other,” there is a spirit seeking me as i seek her. That she might resemble the courageous cheerfulness of my friend The Farmer’s Wife, would please me to no end, though as never before i do not covet the company of she who has become my friend in the small hamlet i live. I simply accept that the qualities of my neighbors embody those native parts of my self such that the admiration i feel for my friends may aid me in winnowing a reasonable match for what i feel inside to be a good companion.

I have read that one should find those with which you have much in common: i add the lemon rinds from my daily ration of whiskey and beer to the skillet i sautee my rough-cut vegetables; i wash my body with a bristle brush from coconut fronds and rinse my body with apple cider vinegar; i do not own a phone and communicate mostly with characters i have known in person during my travels on a social media platform that is making clear daily its allegiance to a corporate putsch that is unfolding worldwide as i type - where am i to find a woman in common with such. And the only child i know of that was mine, was aborted by a model from a weeklong tryst without my knowledge or consent nearly 40 years ago - the two elder siblings in my family refused my friendship on fb, and the younger brother does not respond to email questions about his or his family’s wellbeing, i understand that is known as “estrangement.”

And still i believe, even at this late date, alone in a foreign nation that i will find a companion who will help me to understand those last lessons from my time here at University Earth. Not only learn the lessons but feel the sublime pleasure of a woman’s soft skin; so certain am i of this that though i have pisspoor dream recall i know that last night the vivid tactile memory of the softness of a woman’s skin literally hovered over my awareness only to surface just now in one of those events that gives credence to the concept of “synchronicity” whatever that may mean to you. To me, it is communing with those parts of my being that have been cauterized by too much “socialization,” too much ego and too little simplicity and love. And yet, even in so fragile an existence as mine, seemingly friendless and perhaps bent on self-destruction, the beauty of our world bubbles up like some mountain spring out of this mountain of life we cannot seem to stop climbing.

Nor should we, anymore than i, though i be aged and crusty, possibly toxic, should ever cease expecting a caress or deprive myself the opportunity of “copping a feel” or continuing to explore the sensuous richness of a vital dynamic emotional state however beaten i may feel each night i frighten myself to sleep wondering if the painful tension in my frame is from a growing tumor from living in a land laced with agent orange, or early exposure to the carcinogenic materials during my career building weapons for the “man,” of simply the arrogance of youth never believing that i could be taken down by something as pleasurable as “smoking and drinking,” yet compared to the quiet comfort i just witnessed of the farmer returning from his day’s labor is all i could ask for from this existence - he to his loved ones and they to his quiet courage is all there is for us in this lifetime and to aspire to more than that is to live in a delusional landscape devised by well-paid advertising execs who likely haven’t slept a peaceful night from the moment they devoted their energies to floating a fake dream with a fake ending to a people who simply want to love genuinely - go figure.

jts 21/08/2020he http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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200820 - Extinction Chronicles ·

i just spent more time than my delusions about time understands resolving technical issues to publish my previous post; i could be frustrated, but am sure i am more amused than frustrated. My purpose is not to publish content that can be monetized, which i now begin to understand is at odds with the platform on which you may, or may not be reading this. This glitch is not for me to resolve - my assignment in the later years of my existence is to plumb as deeply as i may for language that is comprehensible to as broad a spectrum of an imaginary reading audience as i can imagine - my imagination may be the only aspect of my existence that remains vivid. I have read “By all means marry, if you get a good wife you will be happy, if you get a bad wife you will become a philosopher” - (attributed to Socrates) · an ancient Greek philosopher who was forced to drink Hemlock, but was later resurrected by an unscrupulous poser wishing to link his/her thinking by simply assuming the moniker of the original. It is sort of like discovering that the “Desiderata” which i had painstakingly copied onto vellum at the height of my draughting career, only to discover the document ostensibly dated 1692 - but later attributed to Max Ehrmann, was written sometime during the 1970’s.

It doesn’t really matter does it, whether the tale of the two wolves fighting for the soul of humanity was a weathered warrior of the Sioux Nation or the last wheeze of some LSD sojourner from Woodstock - what is important is how each of us resolve the multitude of “truths” placed in front of us, of which there are more and more each time you refresh your screen · or so “they” would have you believe. I accept that my time here is shorter and shorter which sweetens my freedom like nothing i’ve ever known before. What is peculiar to my fantasy is love. I have honored the feeling as best i know through blizzards of lust and deserts of longing, only to find there is no external confirmation enough to quiet the ache. But when i look inside and accept the hunger is my own to satisfy, the pieces begin to fall in place. I am not the failed son who could not prevent his mother from declaring about him publicly, “how can you talk to him - he has fangs ·” What i can do is tend to my wounds however much time later and try to understand the pain of another that would provoke such a cruelty to one of her own.

At this turn in history with so much subterfuge and dishonesty about emotion, i count myself fortunate to have been raised by someone with so little control over her own boundaries. At least i have some measure of perspective when i see “it” coming toward me. Not that that was always the case and that i haven’t to too large an extent internalized another’s reality as my own, but at least i have a point of departure for my own investigation of reality. What i feel is compassion for my Mere. She must be in much pain to have wanted to displace her’s onto the shoulders of one as aggrieved as my physical reality has determined. As a Franks Breech, i’m still not sure which is up and which is down, and as a two-eyed cyclops it is difficult to know always which way i am facing - but i make do and with the added challenge of deciphering the emotional landscape of one 26 years my senior · i realize what a benefit such foreshadowing might be in approaching my end with some measure of peace from maelstroms not of my own design - of which there seem to be more and more ·

And again more importantly and perhaps useful is the determination to allow that natural flow of events that is the greater reality of my existence than the conceit of willfulness borne of ideas and ambitions by my own volition having abdicated personal agency in favor of compliance - an obedience toward some voice that did not, nor does now acknowledge the deeper recesses of peace within which i believe we all possess as long as we peer deeply enough  past the the wounds we have inflicted on our own souls simply from longing or confusion about what it is to die. I am the person who’s life will end, and it is my responsibility toward that life to live as fully, openly and honestly as i can learn to do by accepting my wrongs, atoning for my sins and doing penance for any unwillingness to accept the responsibility for having drawn my allotted portion of air during my lifetime.

Whether i can transmute that privilege using my energy creating “Carbon Train” into useful product for those that will be left upon my demise is not for me to determine. My job right now as i “Slouch toward Bethlehem” is to wreak less havoc, have more fun and do more kindness than would be suggested by my previous 65 years of behavior - a time that has at most been occupied by dismantling the fictions of my cultural indoctrination, shredding mythologies about my intrinsic nature and searching for the being below the persona i have yoked myself to in service of accommodation to some overlay that i do not own, nor have agency over. And again the central focus of any such renovation must be in service of the one aspect of my character for which i have no doubt - i love you as i hope to love myself; how the two ever became so inverted is of little concern to me insofar as i may once again sit in the Captain's Chair and steer my ship with all that i felt as i awakened to this mystery which i am too soon to leave. 

jts 20/08/2020he http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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190820 - Extinction Chronicles ·

I live in “The City of Wagging Tongues,” as i’m sure, so do you all. This particular community is unique for its bilingual nature and Occidental Occupation - there is a gulf of misunderstanding which it has tried to resolve through a mutual pact of greed under the guise of entrepreneurial development. This is not the first community i’ve lived in that was predicated on “fleecing” the visitor. I once lived in a high desert community at the southern foot of the California Sierras. Though vastly different in demographics, the two are remarkably similar in their defensive conceits - with deeply divided communities joining forces in service of extracting money from a mostly unwelcome tourist population. The segment which i sort of resembled in the high desert was white and old, while their partitioned confederates were the original indigenous inhabitants, greatly reduced in ranks due to genocidal incursion by the whites through the years, but still controlling enough real estate clout to make their voices heard and force a coalition of sorts. 

The whites whom i knew considered themselves “Mountain Men,” which is shorthand for reactionary operatives - think, _rumpian stronghold on Meth. They considered anyone who hadn’t lived in “Klan Valley” more than 2 generations as “flat landers.” The indigenous people were even more inhospitable, with good reason, for the entire valley had been entirely their’s before it was stolen by “settlers” less than 150 years earlier. I can’t say for certain because it has not been an area of scholarly study, but there are many similarities in most of the cities i have traveled to in the past 5 years. Though the state of Oaxaca is the most diverse in terms of ethnic breakdown and incidentally the poorest state in Mexico, while the bulk of the real estate in the city of Oaxaca is foreign owned, mostly by Spaniards. While the original Spanish invasion was stopped by the native Oaxaquenos on the slopes of Mont Alban, ultimately they had their ways and simply bought the town of Oaxaca.

A circumstance that has been sadly repeated in the province of Quang Nam where the ancient city of Faifo is located (Faifo - meaning the city of friendly strangers) though now known in the Hipster Doofus websites as Hoi An · considered a prime destination for the cultural adventurers hanging worldly savvy on their belts like so many “scalps” confirming some twisted version of courage and intrepidness in their trek toward enlightenment, or away from their inevitable earthly demise depending on where one stands. I don’t know anymore and am as guilty as any other interloper in this unique nexus of shore and history where farmers have been nurturing the loving abundance of rich wetlands at the crossroads of an epochal struggle between two jealous behemoths who are currently engaged in some incestuous fluid-exchange at expense of each of their ostensibly “free” populations but who are in reality consumer fodder for an economic system off the rails.

And there is very little between the socio-sexual-economic climax of these two mirrored images of the face of greed to intercede on behalf of our species survival. The powers-that-be have effectively divided us such so that wherever one travels it is nearly impossible to explain to anyone present how what Leonard Cohen so beautifully described as “steering by the venal chart” is not in our species’s best interest. Just a moment ago the wind rush that announces the rain squalls to come tipped over my smoking station at the back porch. I was greatly relieved to find no ceramic had been broken, but while rearranging the parts and pieces of my disgusting, but highly satisfying habit, i remembered back to one of my earliest assignments chopping vegetables in the Chinese restaurant in my home town. The owners were generous and gently amused by my cultural curiosity, even offering to apprentice me to a Chinese chef they were importing from China to a restaurant in Hollywood - how much different might my life have been had i accepted their kind offer rather than my reckless and myopic pursuit of fame and fortune in the wilds of the NYC art world circa 1974.

But the relief i felt finding no broken accoutrements of my possibly enjoyable, but very lethal tobacco habit coincided with a still remembered admonishment by my friend the restaurant owner watching me light up a cigarette at the end of our communal meal after the dishes were clean. “Dirty Habit” was all he said, and while appreciating that no ceramic had been broken by the change of weather, i had to chuckle to myself at the tobacco soot and grime i was picking up from my back porch along with the unbroken dishes/ashtrays - and acknowledge the timely truth of his kindly rebuke · Maybe that is the wildcard of our human experience - that nothing is lost through time and that no matter how vicious and demented the “whip hand” gets our collective search for meaning and relation will always rise up through the rhizome C.G. Jung used to describe the human trajectory. I don’t know, and i’m glad as hell that i have relieved myself of that conceit so that i might more carefully consider each invaluable passing moment in my own steps toward death, and beyond.

jts 19/08/2020he http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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180820 - Extinction Chronicles ·

“The true revolutionary is guided by strong feelings of love” - Che Guevara ·

Pop called it “fun”, Ma called it “cutesy”; i’m at a loss do describe it, but if you ain’t loving you ain’t doing ‘shit,’ in the vernacular. There is lots of unnecessary tension in our world - a pitched (pun intended) battle for the calm of our world’s heart. Even if the dreaded plague is as deadly as the figures describe, is that not all the more reason to find that gentle compassion in each of our hearts that nurtures recovery, rather than disease and death? We are not stupid creatures no matter how incessantly we are so depicted. Yet the only enemy we refuse to face is our own sordid fear. Know this, i am describing my own weakness, not yours - i don’t know you · however much energy i expend addressing ‘you’ day in and day out. I understand that when i visit sites on the internet and do not participate, i could easily be described as a “troll;” i visit not from some salacious interest in what you might reveal, but because i am curious about my fellow creatures, especially during these times of unrest and anxiety.

However i am built for candor and have found that when i express “contempt, lust, anger, affection” however fleeting these emotions may be, the reaction from others is often disproportionate to my observation, and so i prefer to remain silent, however observant. That is the delusion of connectedness on the internet. I much prefer the “blood and guts,” of "i’m not comfortable in your company, and so i’ll see ya’ later". Conversely, and paradoxically the same warmth i have managed to maintain through my wounds is not often welcomed - which sadly, i entirely understand, having been conned · first by myself toward myself, which then manifested from others, along with my tacit encouragement and guidance on exactly how to accomplish the “con.” I know, it’s complicated, but i’m working on it. What i no longer allow from myself or others is the condemnation of my intention. If i am able to restrain my rage toward the “leader of the free world” even an iota, then i figure i am entitled to the same courtesy of those i offend with my renegade approach to existence.

We are all wounded, all of us are hurting, and no one has escaped the whip of judgement. Mine own judgement of myself i can assure you is far more unjust and inaccurate than any rebuke you might ever conjure based on any perceived betrayal i may have committed, knowingly or unknowingly. It has been many years since i have allowed myself to expend energy to the detriment of others; there is no point. As a young swain wading into the egos of other “men” and women, it became clear to me early on that no one gets out alive and to waste my time or sully my karma, accomplishing what mother nature will do on her own in her own good time without my help is a fool’s errand. What then to do with my outrage became a responsibility that was entirely my own¡ the deeper i peered the more i became convinced that any outrage was a conceit entirely of my own making, and therefore required a resolution of my own design.

Something, much easier said than done. Those same pillars of conviction that justified my outrage never seemed to be my own architecture - always a loyalty, conviction or debt i had assumed rather than embraced; from those cracks in faith i had to reassess my entire raison d'être which finally caved under the weight of a fading vision that rendered my life’s work - the finest art i was capable of - a charade · I am an artist, but not because of any outward recognition that my “wounded child” demanded, but because creativity is fun - that of the many sensations i have found in my blind but deeply feeling existence found momentary exaltation when what i could see, lined up with what i could create. My last two drawings deprived me of that satisfaction, but if i was truly honest, i would say none of my drawings, carvings or paintings ever matched the standards i had set for myself out of hubris and pain hoping for some kind word that could never be provided by anyone but myself.

I have caused havoc for which i am remorseful and am only just now beginning to see my role in such delusional behavior. If i feel shitty about anything ever - it is my doing, and no one else · The remarkable truth that flows from that belief is, i have not caused any havoc that was not based on someone else’s purpose, and from that comes compassion for the unkindness we each, everyone of us does to ourselves. Conversely, if i am dedicated to a gentle acceptance of my own conceit about retribution and payback, i am also capable of a determined kindness for others who suffer from similar delusion. Someone, anyone i meet or have met, may very well wish me unkindness, an unkindness that can never have substance for it stems from an internal conviction that has little to do with my own. If i can focus continually on the wellbeing of all around me, devoid of any sel-interest i may have in that outcome - only good can come from my thinking, i LIKE that. It doesn’t matter whether i am successful in my ambition, for that is the responsibility of each of us to do kindness to ourselves, first and foremost and then to aid and abet where possible others in their pursuit of that understanding - an entirely feasible ambition · far more than becoming acclaimed and lauded at some point in human history where one is no longer breathing or caring . ain’t love grand ¿? 

jts 18/08/2020

http://stoanartst.blogspot.com 

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170820 - Extinction Chronicles ·

So what the fuck is love¿ that is a question? I once proclaimed myself as a gangster of love because of a song i’d heard, talk about your hubris. Master Thay - Thich Nhat Hanh - has little solidarity with romantic love, which was disconcerting to hear, for so much of my interior has been occupied with the chivalrous notions of King Arthur and the “Round Table.” From which, much that i am now certain, is due to the lack of close reading of the betrayals and deceptions during that much lauded epoch - and the same could be said about my reading of the “Tibetan Book of the Dead;” the “I Ching;” even about Doctor Hawking’s “A Brief History of Time.” Does this mean i should simply stop reading in search of understanding about what it means to love as a human, or that i should apply more carefully all that i read to the life in which i am intrinsically linked? When i was young, there was much discussion about the proper ways of everything, and from that i was much criticized for being too much "in my head"; yet those same critical mentors failed to realize that without feeling i would have literally been bouncing off walls due to my peculiar monocular visual reality.

I can still remember Patsy Donahue’s freckled pug nose when she was 7 or so, that would be close to 50 years ago; if i struggle, i might remember how she played tetherball - lord g_d forgive me, i sort of wish she was the only female who'd ever captivated my imagination, but i’d be lying. At an older age, i remember cupping Jan Ogden’s waist at a Junior High School dance, thinking what a perfect fit that was as we glided on and off the dance floor of the fully lit auditorium, an experience that was too soon to devolve into darkened light shows with quiet corners that barely contained the vibrant embraces of other young women encouraging my ardent advances - which oddly corresponded to impassioned communiques of “love ever after” and “no one but you’s” none of which actually panned out - though i kept plugging with some well into my 50s · Pop always did say “you’re not a fighter, you’re a lover.” 

Still and all this romantic stroll down the clap trap of lover’s lane does not help me to understand how a loving heart such as mine so closely resembles the persona in Leonard Cohen’s simple phrase - “to every heart love will come, but like a refugee.” It is encouraging to me that i am at such a polar opposite with the reprehensible repulsion of our world’s outcasts and feel such solidarity with their plight, however dishonest is my material distance from their suffering. I am now faced with the age old dichotomy of “am i my brother’s keeper?” but face that question alone and without support for myself, save my own prudent path toward my own solitary demise. I am not complaining and am as generous as i know how to dilute the suffering of those around me - be that emotionally, or materially · anymore the distinction feels blurred. My fear is that given my propensity toward “in for a penny, in for pound” i no longer feel the, for lack of a better expression “wind under my wings,” fear has blunted my youthful exuberance and seems to have stifled my native generosity.

Or, i am a wounded warrior in a corner marshaling what is left of my fighting spirit of love and loathe to squander what is left of my “miracle” on the vacuousness of a population brought up on the “con” and more than willing to relieve me of the last of my resources - you tell me. No, don’t i will find out for myself, for one of the advantages of old age is previous experience and the look of authenticity so many use to obscure behavior they are often too stupid to hide. Am i cautious¿ fucking “A” right - but not too much so · more in passing, for my theater of operations no longer includes the entirety of our species, only those i interact with. Master Thay is more than wise, he is loving and mindfulness does not cover a multitude of sins, but illuminates a multitude of blessings. People are not inherently devious, but they are inherently loving, so finding who is so and who is not so, is not as complicated as one might imagine.

The more difficult task is finding within myself that which is devious and double-dealing, or as they used to say when ‘merica was gr8, “talking out the side of your mouth.” There is no exorcism that i have found which will excise the evil in my own being, but i’ve also found that there is no evil within my being that is not subject to loving intervention; when murderous rancor rises up from the bile of my wounded parts and claims agency over my actions, it is the ghost of the “i” banished to the outer perimeters of my soul that can only but obey my determination for mercy regardless of the outrage. Ever closer we march to a place where it doesn’t matter what you feel, only what you have done, while each new instant is an opportunity to do something different than you have ever done before - if you are searching for magic in a world full of grievous wrongs, i can think of no more fearsome weapon than individual choice · love and peace my friends, or bust .  ..  ···

jts 17/08/2020

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