Wealth Woes

The last few days have not been fun for me.

Nothing has been particularly different than the days preceding, but despite my best efforts, I have been feeling a lot of anxiety. Most of my discomfort comes from money, as it has been a big problem for me in the past. I think I've come to the conclusion that I hate money, or perhaps more accurately, I'm afraid of it (apparently, that's called Chrometophobia).

Not a deep or extreme fear or dislike, but enough to ruin my day. I know what you're thinking, "people without enough money tend to hate it," or possibly, "afraid of money? You're just afraid of making money."

Maybe you're not thinking that, but if you know me well enough, that's probably what you're thinking.

I've been doing my best to stay positive and keep my head above the water and by and large, I'm doing a decent job of it. I will probably have enough money to squeak by another month or two. This stuff tends to work out for me, either by luck or maybe just where my expectations are at. However, whenever I think I might not have enough to get by I start to panic. Worse still, when I DO get a lot of money, I fret over it. How I'm supposed to budget it? What I should use it for? Since there's a surplus maybe I should pay some people back? How can I make it last a long time? How long can I last on it? Things people think about every day. Paycheck to paycheck. So I guess I'm just a little (or a lot) unequipped to deal with money. Whether I have it or not, I'm always freaking out about it.

For a while I was doing pretty well with dealing with the anxiety. So well, in fact, that I'd nearly forgotten what it felt like. I was doing what I could, slowly figuring out how do change the more difficult things, and accepting and letting go of the things I had no control over. Suddenly, I looked at my overdraft credit card, phone bill, I had some runarounds and confusion with the bureaucracy (I realize it's important, but my tiny brain does not deal well with it) and it all came crashing back and I realized how fragile my mood is right now. I dealt with it a LOT better than I would have last year, but it was still a harsh reminder of the fact that I have a long, long way to go. The good part is, this time I'm willing to try and get there.

It's all reminding me that, while happiness has to come from within and can't possibly be found elsewhere, that means doing things outside of myself to fix my life, and that requires a tremendous amount of organization and effort on my part.

Story Time Boys and Girls!

As he walked down the path, thinking about this and that, he came across a lizard.

"Hello, there." He said, "Who are you?"

"A lizard, obviously." It replied, sounding offended.

Flummoxed by this answer, he asked, "What, then, is it that makes you a lizard?"

"I do!" It shouted, then skittered away under a rock.

He continued to walk until he found he had become tired and came across a magnificent tree. A great weeping willow. The curtain of tiny leaves created a canopy for him as he rested under the tree.

"Hullo!" said one of the tiny leaves.

"Hello, there. Who are you?"

The leaf replied with warmth and energetic kindness, "I am this tree!"

Hearing that, he laughed himself to sleep.

It's Actually a Joke

A voice came crashing into his mind as sudden as a gunshot, but gentle as moonlight. His own voice, he was certain, but he could not say where his thoughts were coming from if he was indeed thinking at all.

"Look at the wall," he said, "and through."

He stared intently, but did not understand what he meant, and felt he was failing at his own instructions. The lights in his bedroom caused two shadows to be cast on either side of him, staring back at the starer from the walls they were draped across. Confused and sitting at the head of his bed, he spoke again without thinking

"Close my eyes. Put my hands against the wall."

Again, he obeyed himself, gently reaching out his hands.

"I know what the world looks like outside this room. I have seen it. I can see it without leaving my room. Just look."

With a sharp gasp, he felt the wall ripple and slide in different directions. In a few moments, he could guide it could in any direction he wanted without having to move his hands.

Weightlessness ensued.

While he was not off balance, he had no idea which direction was which. It was bliss.

The wall felt weaker. Malleable, like wet paper.

He felt his hands begin to fall through. His forearms. Elbows.

Not able to wait any longer, he was ready to leap through, feeling as though he would take flight. He pushed hard.

A strong wall. Sore arms.

"I'll try again tomorrow."

He laughed. There is understanding in laughter.

And Now For Something Completely the Same

Zen master Basho once explained, "When the pupil is ready, the teacher will appear."

I believe this is also found in the Upanishads, but I'm not sure about it. It's not really important who said it or whether it's Zen or Hindu, the point is it was said (probably by somebody old, beardy, and funny) and it's true.

Not being an expert in these sorts of things, I could easily be wrong, but I can draw from personal experience to explain what it's all about. It is true on the interpersonal level of literally finding a teacher (mentor, author, philosopher etc.), or on the much more complicated, yet in a way easier, level of assimilating things on your own, using the world as your teacher.

A person who "doesn't get it" isn't necessarily a fool, they may simply not be ready to understand. Many things have to fall in place for somebody to come to an understanding, enlightenment, Nirvana or whatever. One cannot force himself into understanding something just as he cannot force himself into reading a sign on the other side of the ocean until he takes the trip to get there. Something has to catch on his mind. Something has to click.

I remember deciding one day, a few years back, that I was going to be a philosopher. As if it were a decision to be made. The very thought of it is laughable. I went through book after book without really understanding any of it. Each philosopher's work seemed to be a construction of deliberate complexities and webs on top of webs on top of webs. One day, in the middle of the reading, I quietly closed the book and threw it in the garbage. I don't endorse the mistreating of books in any way but at the time it was an act of frustration. "PHILOSOPHY IS STUPID," I screamed, internally and decided that either I was a fool or these authors were. Little did I know, that action had planted a seed in my brain that would blossom years down the road.

The problem was, I had no need for understanding what life was all about at the time. When you have no need for something, it's hard to have an appetite for it. When you have no appetite for something, it's hard to consume it.

It often takes reaching the breaking point to gain a need to understand just what the hell your head is all about (of course it can tragically go the opposite way, as well). Why do you think self-destructive celebrities, and suicidal rock stars often suddenly take seemingly drastic u-turns into new philosophies or religions? You'll never find anything if you don't feel like looking. Once you do find yourself needing to understand, well, the closer I feel I come to it, the more joy I feel.

Things started to fall into place: discipline, happiness, energy, practice and a sense of self-respect not felt ever before. A person who practices the piano and hates it until the day she dies will never become truly great, no matter who is teaching her. A person who experiences pure bliss whenever she plays will find herself becoming better and better, regardless of teachers.

However, now I am making it sound like being ready to learn is the same as desiring to learn, which is still not the case. Sure, you can hammer the multiplication tables and "amo, amas, amat" into a person's skull and have them memorize it perfectly, but the great mathematicians and linguists understood something beyond the simple structure of their respective fields. They were able to absorb, recreate and revolutionize because perhaps something just happened in their minds through a combination of education and experience.

The aforementioned teacher is, in a way, the self. True genius, I think, comes entirely from within and is merely augmented by education and cannot blossom without the self being ready; and once it is, there is a trust in oneself that must be present.

Even Einstein, one of the most prominent figures in physics (among many other things), once said, "If the facts don't fit the theory, change the facts."

Amazing thing, I thought at first, to hear one of the greatest examples of the scientific genius in the last century would think of facts, of reality, as being so flexible. Until you realize that he did indeed disprove widely accepted facts of physics and replaced them with his own. I find it hilariously appropriate that his most well known achievement is called the theory of "relativity."

So I believe this is the nature of understanding, learning and subsequently, genius: observation, desired education, experience, unselfish confidence, and humor.

You are the first real teacher you will ever have.

F*cking Arts? How Do They Work?

The credits to the fabulous documentary "My Kid Could Paint That" are rolling and I really want to get my thoughts down while they are still fresh. In a way I suppose this is a bit of a mini-review of sorts.

Since I've been doing such a good job of getting on the internet and feeling ways about stuff, I might as well say that I was genuinely and deeply touched by the film. I never thought I'd really say this about somebody I saw on television (and will jam screwdrivers through my temples before I ever say it again) but the first thing I noticed is what a gorgeous family the Olmsteads are. I even nearly got all teary over it, not just when things got dramatic. There, since that is now out of the way I'll stop being an old lady about it and start getting serious.

Art. Let's talk about art.

I started watching this thing thinking that it was going to be about how insane and absurd the modern art world is. With a title like that, who can blame me? I believed it would be a condescending look at abstract art as childish and the people who buy it as dupes. Well, it wasn't about that. The focus was merely on the paintings and the dispute of where they really came from, and whether or not that mattered. Did a child paint them? Does that matter?

The thing is, I expected to scoff at the paintings themselves and pompously think, "Yeah, that looks like a kid's painting alright. Stupid stuffy, pretentious, cheese-eating boobs can't see the sewers for the shit." Yet, this is not what happened. I found myself awestruck by most of these paintings, particularly "Zane Dancing". I was not willing myself to like them and yet something stirred in me when I saw them. Why is that?

"Zane Dancing"

It is said that nobody can perfectly emulate a child's paintings, because to unlearn all skill as an adult is nigh impossible. A child can grow into a great painter, but a great painter cannot become a child. These paintings evoked a sense of joy, exuberance, innocence, frivolity and other fun words that make me sound either smart or sissy, depending who you are. The point is, these are childlike qualities; ones that we tend to lose and long to have again. Is it possible that it's just as difficult to find that childlike joy, as it is to paint like one? Modern art is chalk full of cynicism and oppressively pessimistic imagery, and when it isn't I personally find it to be beige and boring.

Yet, with the same style of Pollock, little Marla poked at parts of my heart I had forgotten were there.

"Heart"

I wonder if it's because of where it comes from. I wonder if the very fact that a 4 year-old girl painted them is a part of the whole draw. Despite my jaded approach to the movie and modern art in general, maybe the sense of wonder was merely because of aforementioned wistful feelings of missing my childhood.

Now I find myself wondering, "Does that make it less of a work of art?"

Or more?

My Brain is a Tumble Dryer of Thought-like Things

Having something great to offer to the world seems to be an increasingly big deal, yet the idea of common good seems to be fading fast.

Think about your state of mind when you watch a movie. Other than possibly critiquing it as you watch, you aren't thinking about other things, but are receptive to what is in front of you. Try doing that when you are walking down the street. Once you've gotten good at that, try getting there in your head while staring at a blank wall.

Why do I feel my intelligence has been insulted when somebody corrects me on something I know little about? Or even when I know a lot about it, for that matter.

I really need to stop entering philosophical/religious discussions in order to convince people. It is both presumptuous and pompous. Likewise, I need to curb my need to justify myself when I am on the other end of the conversation.

People who grin when they are wrong are weird.
People who grin when they are right are creeps.

People who smile when they are right are great.
People who smile when they find they are wrong are fabulous.

When somebody says, "That is not like you," reply with, "It was."

No fortress is impregnable. Which is good, because that means you can put people in it.

If something you do does not bring you goods or recognition, can it not still have worth?

Accepting things as they are is not the same as taking things at face value.

If you think there is the concept of a perfect thing and yet it can't be achieved or found, why even bother with the concept of "perfect"? Just go with "better." If you still insist on this concept, go find a tree or a rock and look at it for a second. It does exactly what it is supposed to without needing a flawless version of itself. It is perfect.

Giving while expecting reciprocation is not truly giving.
Receiving without reciprocating makes you a dick.

Any magic(k), divine influences, or otherwise supernatural occurrences can probably be explained. However, maybe not all of them should be.

I think I've forgotten something very important, but I was too young to remember.

Everything I know is infinitesimal compared to how exciting everything I don't know is.

Those are all the things. I got no more things to say.

The "H" Word

One evening, while I was at a party, I was in a conversation about Eastern philosophies, music, religion and their effect on the Western world. A friend of mine overheard the conversation and called me a "hipster". I was genuinely confused for a minute. It occurs to me that the word is thrown around quite a lot without discrimination. While this isn't something I'm particularly vocal about, it has been on my mind for awhile. I am more of a hippie than a hipster, although I still don't like the negative connotations attached to hippies. I don't have a beard or billowy tie-dyed t-shirt, but within my breast beats the heart of a freaky-deaky, bleeding heart, Taoist vegan. So why throw out that word?

Back in high school, "hipster" hadn't quite become a thing yet, but we did have the emo, who usurped and stained the reputation of the goth (something I, at the time, was fairly disgruntled about). Because of this rising of the overly whiny child-person, any movie, music, or book that had anything resembling sadness or personal anger got the emo label slapped on it. There was some genuinely bad stuff out there, but I tried to refrain from using the word mainly because I felt a lot of people missed out on some a lot of great works because of this stigma. So what happened to them?

Well, they grew up and perhaps learned a thing or two from their beatnik ancestors. Now we have hipsters. The same negative attitudes are now pointed in another direction: snobbery. These tossers are everywhere. You know that archetypal guy? The one who wears horn-rimmed glasses and tight clothes with graphics on them that say things like "ZAP!", which is probably not an onomatopoeia, but the name of a band that hasn't made an album yet. The one who scoffs at everything you have to say about any form of media. Well he's real, and he's ruining it for the rest of us.

You see, it all starts out well and good. A fun, albeit grossly unorthodox sense of style, a genuine interest in independent media, and a burgeoning love for hand-rolled cigarettes and cheap beer. Then something sinister happens. It nearly happened to me. If you catch yourself having a conversation about a genre of music or something, and your friend gets excited and mentions another band in the same vein. If you, like me, without batting an eye, dismissively and arrogantly say something like, "They're ok," STOP RIGHT THERE! YOU ARE IN DANGER OF MORPHING INTO SOMETHING EVIL!

I am become Hipster, destroyer of enjoying

genuinely entertaining mainstream media

See, I like the style commonly associated with hipsters, I like the music, the clothes and the cheap ways of getting drunk (see: mooching); but it's a slippery slope my friends. Don't forget to keep liking stuff and not because you're the only one special enough to have heard of it. Get excited about things, and for Chrissake stop turning up your nose at people who do.

Feedback For the Soul

You know when you have a microphone and it's at a high volume? You know that thing that happens when you put it close to the speaker that it's connected to?

this generally tends to happen

if you're lucky you don't blow the speaker

I seem to be bumping into the same sort of feedback in recent meditation. It is a problem everybody faces when trying to quiet the mind but allow me to expand on why I think this is.

First, there is the misconception that the purpose of all meditation is to achieve some sort of "nothing" state in the mind. While this is partly true, I believe the word is misused. I'm still new to all this, but it seems to me (not through entirely my own contemplation, thank you Alan Watts again) that "nothing" in this context is more akin to the word "background". When you see a forest from far away, it is difficult to make out a single tree; but take away all the trees but one and then place that one against a blank sky, and you can see it clearly from a great distance. This cleansing of noise and wiggly backdrops is, I think, the real purpose of meditation. Now, whether that one tree represents a thought, physical/spiritual presence, state of mind, absence of thought or whatever is up to you, I suppose. I am simply trying to concentrate on having a still mind. Which brings me to:

con·cen·tra·tion

n.

1.

a. The act or process of concentrating, especially the fixing of close, undivided attention.

"Undivided attention" is a tricky thing. As soon as you attempt to focus with all your mental muscle, you become strained and tense. You begin to concentrate on being concentrated. So you're not concentrating on that thing anymore, because your attention is elsewhere so you reel back into focusing on that first thing because, dammit, you're going to beat your brain at this game. Then you become focused on being focused again and you aren't letting yourself get rid of that wiggly background and so you force yourself back into focus and then you focus on getting your thoughts under control but then that means you--

EEEERRRRRRRRRREEEEEEERRUUUUUEEEEEE!!!!

How am I supposed to quiet my mind using my mind? How am I supposed to control the ego with the ego? Concentration is a conscious effort, which makes it useless in meditation and, in fact, just about everything other effort ever. It just makes more noise. Unless you were to use the word in the (albeit pretty fucking loose) second definition of the word.

b. The condition of being concentrated.

To have concentration; to be concentrated. With practice, a musician can play a piece without even seeming to try, and we say "it seems so effortless." When learning how to use a weapon or musical instrument, you are told to, pardon the cliché, be one with your instrument and have it be an extension of yourself or an extra limb. You do not violently impose your will on the thing, rather you use it as what seems to be the good way (notice I avoid the word "designed" way) to be used. With enough practice, I think the mind can be used the same way. Like the musician who has memorized Paganini's "Caprice No. 24" and can play it without even trying, I think the thinker can make his thoughts do what he pleases without invoking thought controlling thoughts, or giving acknowledgement to the existence of the thinker. I have nothing to back this up, it's merely a hypothesis, since I haven't experienced this yet, but I will keep trying. Trying to not try, that is. Ugh, that's the problem with writing this stuff down. It makes perfect sense until you try to explain it.

This Blog is Hypocritical Just By Existing

"Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth"

-Alan Watts

This quote inspired me, hilariously enough, to try and define myself; to try and lay down in a line precisely what it was, exactly, that was going on in my brain. This decision was fairly recent, but I've made so much headway that I'm a little frightened that I probably missed something somewhere along the line. I think it's likely that I've gone too fast and made some mistakes but they certainly haven't presented themselves so far and it feels as though I'm thinking with more clarity than I ever have before. Until these mistakes decide to show up in whatever form, I'm just going to keep plodding along the way I'm going.

which could easily be straight into one of these

Let's take a trip back to almost exactly a year ago, where things will seem grim for a bit but don't worry, I got better. I've struggled with depression off and on throughout life, and had just moved to the big city and was excited as hell to become a character artist or cartoonist or something or whatever. Point was, I was going to join some awesome hipster art zine beer commune, have awesome flatmates, make awesome money and have an awesome time. The world was going to know just how fucking amazing I AM.

Well, only one of those things happened (I was blessed enough to have the most kickass roomies of all time, they even got me a job). As you can guess, nobody gets all that stuff overnight and it takes work. The more I worked at my drawings, the more I realized I was resenting it and hating it. The more I resented it, the less progress I made and the less I did. So fuck it, I thought, I'll let it be for now and draw only when I feel like it (consequently my art began to improve; something I didn't pick up on until later) and deal with money-getting work for the time being. Summer was coming and since I worked in a fancy-ish kitchen, it would be busy and I could just occupy my time with that. Three spontaneous nose-bleeds and a handful of panic attacks later, I realized that this probably wasn't the job for me. I waited until the end of the summer rush, gave my two weeks, and off I went and looked for something else. What I found was a simple dishwashing job at a diner. Awesome, something simple and mindless.

The deceptively heavy work, combined with the freezing fucking cold (back door wasn't properly sealed in the winter) and the "gogogo" attitude of any kitchen made panic mutate into depression. Getting up every morning to go to a dead job in a cold, dimly lit room with no windows, then going home to go to bed in a cold, dimly lit room with no windows started to get unbearable. I started to loose my grip on things and working just the three days (paying bills was kind of difficult, yes) a week I had to work seemed like three years. I can't really describe where my mind was at with any sort of eloquence, but it was bad. To make matters worse, my asthma started flaring up, my knees and back started to give way. Feelings of worthlessness, self-pity, disconnection, anger, isolation blah blah blah cry cry cry. It got to the point where, at the lowest point I think I've ever experienced, it seemed the only solution was to sit on the wrong seat at the subway station, if you catch my meaning.

However, I thankfully tend to learn from suffering, even if it sometimes puts things in a haze. In a fit of what I consider to be the first wise decision in my life, I said "Wait a second. I'm not being honest with myself here."

After a meeting with my doctor (and yeah, I got prescribed some welbutrin), I quit my job at the diner, quit smoking, got my drinking under control, went on state money, put in an EI claim, applied for school, began to meditate, became a vegetarian, told my roommates I was moving in with my brother, and most importantly, came out as queer. I'm not going to go into specifics of what exact branch of "queer" that is, but that was the biggest and smartest decision I ever made. Yay, me.

Now, I am more elated than I have ever been and this feeling has persisted for over a month. It is all because I am subscribing to that Taoist philosophy of taking "the path of least resistance." If you push against the current, not only will it simply go around you but will also push back against you even harder. This is not advocating inaction or laziness, but patience and contemplation. Once I finally made the decision to look at my life and see the things that were unhealthy, change them, and accept those things that I can't things felt lighter. This may seem obvious to some people, but all too often I see what happened to me happen to other people.

Desire to prove yourself to the world turns into lust for result

Lust for result becomes fear of failure

Fear of failure becomes failure

Failure becomes simply getting by

Getting by becomes survival

Survival becomes a struggle

Struggle becomes overwhelming

Overwhelming feeling becomes desire to die

Trying to justify everything you do by a code brings confusion.

Trying to have everything you do define you, or make you shine in front of other people brings anxiety.

But if you do things because it seems like a Thing To Do; because it's as natural to you as blinking or opening and closing your hand, then life, it seems, works out for the better. So, now that we've gone down that horrible road, here I am, eating up philosophies from the East (especially Taoism) and applying them to my life. I feel unstuck, free to flow, natural.

This long winded, sobfest wankery is simply a preface to what I hope to be my more uplifting musings; from the serious and deep to the playful and the how-much-I-like-dragonflies.

I only have one bit of advice first. Don't read them, I'm a very silly person.