Fear and Longing

Someone hacked into my Paypal account and paid 55 Euros (of my money) to a German online gaming service... or some such shit. Luckily, I caught it as it happened and was able to protect myself and my fragile, feeble financial assets from further harm... I hope. As it happened I immediately went into panic mode, which is not usually a productive place for me to be, but today it worked, and I guess there's no arguing with results.

I'd like to say that it's out of my mind; I'll get my 81 dollars back when PayPal's investigation is complete and they realize that I never authorized such a transaction. It's not out of my mind though; fear lingers, and I wonder how vulnerable myself and my family are to such intrusions.



Thankfully, though, my copy of Fauna's "The Hunt" CD arrived in the mail today, and I think it's about time for me to crack a beer and drift away into a spiritual realm of enormously moving blackmetal... that always makes me long for Minnewaska. Keep telling myself I can wait for Tuesday, but I always long for Gertrude's Nose, especially in Winter... my spiritual home to which I shall return once again.

I might also mention, though, that I'm apparently taking this semester off from grad school. There are positive and negative ramifications for this maneuver, but I think in the grand scheme this should prove to be a wise move. I'm going to spend the time enjoying my wee ones, reconnecting and communing with nature, and working on some other ventures that for now will remain hush-hush.

What will not remain hush-hush is my excitement for this. Will surely be awesome, and now that I won't be taking any classes for a while, I can train for this monumental day. I wish I wasn't so psyched for it, but honestly, I can't wait.

Winter Clarity...

Walking through the fresh fallen snows tonight, with Paysage d'Hiver as a trusted companion, a lot of things began to make a fair amount of sense. That, or things became infinitely muddier...

I admit to harboring fairly misanthropic tendencies, and to being highly cynical at times; I don't feel particularly comfortable around people I don't know; most nights, I'd rather stay in than go out and actually do something, unless that "something" is going to a show; as a general rule, I don't trust people, even when I know I should; and finally, as I watch humanity destroy all that is sacred to me, I am deeply doubtful that we (as in the human race) will be able to "return" to our roots, to nature. I want to believe it, and I even see and feel hints in the air that suggest that it may not be too late to save ourselves and our planet from an untimely demise... I want to, so badly, but it's more than difficult - it seems to betray my better judgment.

Somehow, though, I also believe strongly in the redemptive capacities of man; we are animals after all, and while some might claim that placing "redemptive capacities" in the realm of animal characteristics is overstepping the boundaries of human knowledge, foresight, and consciousness, I know better. I've seen it with my own three eyes more times than can be accurately counted. I'm centered enough to know - to remember - that anything with the tiniest degree of self-consciousness has the moral capacity to be redeemed.



Perhaps my mind is clear because the Winter season is finally upon us; anyone who knows me knows that I am fully alive and at the height of my being in the Winter. Sure, I'm prone to depression, but not in the Winter, as many sadly are. There is simply too much beauty to feel sad now. The fresh coldness of the air is sweet upon my tongue, the snow soothing and reassuring to my spirit, the bitter winds a sometimes harsh reminder that no matter what we have to endure on daily basis, we are alive, and in our selves and our souls we are free. In that freedom we are kind, giving, and essentially good, and while I may not always choose to remember that, there is something to be said for plastering that on the filthy walls of civilization in order to remind our brethren that there is no need to dominate and destroy the sacredness of the natural world that we inhabit. We need only touch our inner being, in concert with a oneness with Life, to see that we, in our actions but not necessarily our selves, have gone wrong. If we simply look around and act upon our spiritual instincts, we can find our way once again.

Something tells me that we are doomed, but the more people perceive this impending doom, the greater the potential for redemption and salvation. I don't need some bankrupt belief in god to tell me that.

On this Veterans' Day...

... I offer up the salient lyrics of Dystopia's "Jarhead Fertilizer," not to offend, not to be purposely caustic and incendiary, but to try and prod you to reflect on this: From where do we get the fucked up notion that veterans have made some noble sacrifice in serving their country? Are they serving for us? Or for the rich fucks that send them to murder women and children and round up more blood money? If more people understood the TRUTH, the American military, and in turn the American Empire, would crumble to pieces in front of our fucking faces.

Happy Fucking Veterans' Day.

"Education stable career
Join the army
Become a murderer
Kill for god and country
Return to be a hero
To tell you the truth
I hope you don't come back

Courage
It takes a big man to push a button
Fight with your honor
Like shooting children
and cutting their parents throats
Go to the frontline
Watch your friends
Get cooked by napalm...
...and they're murderers just like you
Getting education by killing people too
Bodies blown apart
You feel a sharp pain in your stomach
Now you've lost both of your legs to a grenade
Blood and vomit spew from your mouth
No career education
And you're sent home in a doggy bag

Waste your life
While taking others lives away from them
Left so empty
Just a pile of shit to me...
...And your parents looking stupid
Their son reduced to a pile of shit and dog tags
But he did what he was programmed to do

Such a good soldier.

...I hope you're fucking proud of your son...
Fuck your son I hope he fucking dies..."

Depression and Piggy Flu

The initial consultation with the psychologist was today, and once I got over the nervousness, I think it went pretty well. She seems very good, and what's more, she seems to genuinely care.

It was bizarre for me to hear someone essentially say, "With everything you're telling me, your heart should ache." Probably true, but hard to acknowledge nonetheless. I've had a facade up for so long, it was about time it started to crumble.

Next week, Monday at 3.

Progress... perhaps.

And people are getting all freaked the fuck out about swine flu, or H1N1... of the 1200 kids in the Bethlehem elementary school, more than 600 were out sick last Friday with flu symptoms that hospitals can't and won't treat. "Go home and drink plenty of fluids," they say. Well yeah, no shit. Seriously, what are people expecting from doctors right now? I had to tell a fucking woman earlier this evening that I was sniffling because I had been crying, and not because I have swine flu.

Some good advice to anyone freaking out about piggy flu right now - Do two damn things: 1) Sit the fuck down, and 2) shut the fuck up. Kaythanks!

The Last Man

There is something about being the only person walking on the grass, across the common, every day at school, while others choose to walk on the pavement - on the disgusting, unnecessary and worthless pavement - that makes me feel like the Last Man, and that the rest of these fucking fools are industrial machines on their ways to get fitted with new bearings or whatever.

Yet here I sit with my laptop, handheld PDA, and mp3 player (no advertisement of brand names necessary). I've got my gear and I'd hate to part with it.

I've got tar on my feet... worms are crawling out of my skin.

I choose to feel the ground beneath my feet, to walk amongst the trees - not the tall buildings of this false academia, the so-called ivory towers - because with those strategically placed yet somehow still majestic trees I find camaraderie. With the majority of my classmates, I sometimes feel a sickening revulsion. I like them well enough, and converse and even sometimes spend time with them, but I can't help but hate them and all that they want. Because they're just like me. Fucking just like me.

Pursuing An Impossible

How do I possibly live with myself? How do I get up out of bed everyday, somehow content with what I have become?

I fall in line everyday. Actually, I fell in line long ago, and continue to go through the daily drill of lather-rinse-repeat, to somehow make myself a more acceptable person - an acceptable student, worker, husband, father - all the while disgusting myself with the things that I do, which often contradict the things that I believe - nay, that I KNOW - to be true.

I could take the usual short cut and blame society. Society is, of course, fucked up beyond belief. Literally beyond belief. People that are genuinely good, with good hearts, good intentions, and good actions, become corrupted by the society which the elders have allowed to come into existence - which the elders indeed created. There is no reality in this society, this unsustainable pile of unbridled consumerism, wreckage and despair, and there is no reality left in our lives.

I throw stones at that which I partake in. Oftentimes gladly.

Simpler people should have and would have thought this impossible, that we could somehow destroy everything good and sacred and replace it with materialist nonsense. But alas, we achieve the horrifyingly impossible everyday, going down new avenues of the grotesque and deplorable.

There are, of course, other options. I could just as easily choose to destroy society, but I refrain, because I don't think that would achieve the desire of returning to the sacred simplicity of former times. There must be some way to get to that, because it exists in our minds - and not as forced delusion. But at this point I am not aware of a path that would lead back to that.

That is sort of what my life is turning into - a quest, or a journey through the depths of pain, disappointment, loss, and despair, hopefully to arrive at another path that will bring us back to something else - not something that it simply more aesthetically and materially pleasing to the 6 senses, but something entirely fucking livable, in all four dimensions.

Perhaps I wear the disguise to conceal what I know to be my true purpose; perhaps I wear it to evade that purpose. Perhaps I'm entirely full of shit.

We achieve the impossible everyday. It is high time to start erasing imaginary lines, to pursue a different,purer impossible - a headless impossible. One that we conform to, not one that conforms to us. One in which we are not front and center, we are not on the periphery - we just are. It exists in the mind, and once it arrives it will be necessarily headless - out of the mind and into the hands of a world that accepts it and experiences it and the richness of spirit that it is composed of.

These are not easy things to understand, given the brutal context of our lives. But they are necessary and essential in every practical and reasonable sense; do what you must to understand. Don't take my word for it - because seriously, who the fuck am I? Mess with your head. Indulge in illicit chemicals if you must - I did not, but some require it. In short, do whatever it takes to expand the parameters of your consciousness to include the impossible and unimaginable, because therein lies the heart of darkness.

Let's go digging.

"Those who engage in Western left-hand path sex-magick, the rituals of Thelema and various other mental techniques designed to bring the operator into contact with a superconscious reality (what Terrence McKenna might call the entelechy of the Overmind) are openly setting themselves up to be exploited by that which resides on the other side."

-Blair MacKenzie Blake, "DMT and Magick," in Dark Lore, Vol II

I've often operated under the assumption that one of the prime motivators in life is the promise of great riches, material and otherwise, if only we are to obtain enough knowledge. Knowledge will make life bearable, yes? Knowledge will show us the way. Knowledge will allow us to live the good life.

Knowledge also possesses a great deal of intrinsic value, to me at least. It is valuable in and of itself, and we should appreciate it for what it is, not for what it does.

Well, I am growing tired of knowledge - particularly self-knowledge (indeed, one of the trickiest types of knowledge). I'm tired of these little epiphanies that the typical person is supposed to experience as we learn about ourselves. They're nonsense. I'm tired of trying to understand myself in terms of the things I already know of myself. "I'm this way," and "I'm like this," and "I do this when x happens." All incredibly boring, time consuming and pointless. I'm beginning to think that it would be a much more worthwhile experience to try and understand myself and the world that I inhabit in terms of the things that I don't know about myself. It's an seemingly arcane piece of wisdom that the unknown has vastly more to teach us than the known.

I rarely know what the hell I'm doing anyway. So fuck it. Let's go digging.