from A Moveable Feast

I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, "Do not worry.  You have always written before and you will write now.  All you have to do is write one true sentence.  Write the truest sentence that you know." ----E. Hemingway

From Chapter on "Essence is Life".

"...Because our environment wasn't hospitable, compassionate, loving, or supportive, we think we can get satisfaction by getting an environment that is loving, compassionate, perceptive, and appreciative of who we are. What we are saying is that we want that positive merging again, otherwise we're not going to feel good. "I have to have somebody who loves. I have to have somebody who sees me, who values me." It is true that this is useful and supportive at the beginning, but if you continue depending on it, this will stop you from owning and being who you are. Being who you are, being your essence, should be completely independent of any other factor, inner or outer. As I said in the beginning, Essence is life. Essence is the fullfillment. It's not the environment, not the situation, not the job. It is Essence itself, your essence."-A.H. Almaas

The Stranger: Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes, well, he eats you.

-from The Big Lebowski

Quote

"...It took a while for the personality of civilization to become so dominant. The more mechanical we become, the more culture is a matter of filing holes. Many people say that in the past there was more love and presence, more recognition of reality, and that people were more in touch with their essence than they are now. You've heard of the Golden Age? In the Golden Age, people experienced their essence, no holes. The Silver Age began as Essence diminished and the holes began to appear. Then came the Bronze Age. Now we're in the Iron Age. It's the darkest and heaviest. Iron is nothing but defense...."

"Being who you really are means being free of all the identifications from the past that have built your false sense of identity; it does not depend on what you do in the world. What you do in the world can be an expression of who you are, but it does not define you. When you are your Personal Essence, your own true sense of identity, anything you do will have an essential orientation. You usually think that the job you choose, whatever it is-gardner, physicist, mother-will make you feel who you really are. But that means you are identified with being a part of the world. It means there is a distortion of reality."- A.H. Almaas, Diamond Heart, Elements of the Real in Man

Friday Night

Ah, the end of the week. Yet the beginning of the weekend. Should I be drinking? Tired of drinking, so boring, relentless, useless, waste of time, and keeps me from my run in the mornings.

Perpetually twelve years old am I jumping up and down on the trampoline trying pull the apple out of tree. Then, I hit my head and complain, yelling and swaring at the branch, but later hugging the trunk telling it how much I love it's beautiful "permanence". What a brat! Seriously, I need to severly tape my mouth shut in order to avoid what my friend Sarah calls, word vomit.

Am I stressed out? Uh..a little...ok a lot. So that's what exercise is for right? Well, ok do that three times a week, or more. Still out of shape...another one of those questions. What does that mean?!! Am I supposed to be a circle, triangle, rectangle, or a square? Hmm Passive=Circle???? But I like squares...and why can't I go way out and be a dodecahedron! Platonic solids rock, and they have lots of meaning. Of course, I don't know if I want my definition to be "The Universe in all it's infinite wonder." I don't know about you, but that's a little too much pressure for me. Hmm maybe the center of a simple round circle within a circle...within a circle. Yes ok, I've read way too much esoteric babble and it ends up in one tangled mess of an equation inside my head. A Sculptor I knew put it like this, "They make artists go to school and learn equations with all these x's and y's, why not something like

CAR(BUS) +LIMOUSINE = DOUBLE WIDE??

Yes, that is the kind of language that most certainly makes sense. Except in my head not only do you get automobile algebra, but houses, and pathways, and weird laughing libriarians with pet snails. Yes, a surrealist for sure. I like to think of it as putting it altogether in one cohesive vision so anyone could relate or understand. Of course, I'm more than likely insane.

A Moment

Sitting in my room early one morning, it became clear that I've been lying to myself over and over again. Every time, that I watch myself doing this, I stop, but then comes an external lie. Wondering what is happening?, and constantly looking for a group. There is no where for me to go alone and this is something I've known for quite sometime. Keep making inquiries, but little or no response. It's out here, I've heard. That's ultimately why I drove 2025 miles exactly, dumped all those attachments and "belongings". And what does belonging mean? Looking back, how?

Despite my current struggles, finally really beginning to see who H. is...if she is? What am I? A machine only wishing to be human? If so, tired of mechanics. It doesn't make sense.

Ultimately, What does it mean to be conscious?