Frame Analysis

So, i offer my little (13yr old) bro who lives in the sticks to bring him some spiffy city duds, and you know what he says to me????

subliminalinertia — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:12:25 GMT

<<so i says...>> you want me bring you anything? cool city shit that you can't get in kaslo? don't be all weird about me spending money, i'm an adult for christsakes, what seems like a lot of money to you is peanuts to me. spending a couple hundred dollars isn't that big of a deal for me. so yeah. whatchoo want boy?? clothes, shoes? you best hurry and lemme know, cause i wont' have that much time to go get it. i LOOOOOVES you. <<and then he says....>> "ummmm.........im not quite greedy enough to have my sister whos trying to get money for university to buy gifts that cost hundreds of dollars but if you insist..............lol" <<so i says....>> hah! they don't have to cost hundreds of dollars!! that hoodie i got you only cost lik $40. it was on sale though. you aren't gonna give me any suggestions?? like, am i right thinking you'd like clothes? it isn't about greed jasper........ why is our society so fucked up that people think they can't accept gifts????? why are we so fucking scared of everything??? aaAaGRRGgggghhhh! money is stupid. i hate money, and i absolutely, categorically refuse to let it run my life. that means i don't worry about it. it means i do whatever the fuck i want with it, and frankly, i'm doing ok ;) besides, I'M DONE!!!!!!! (university) and from now on, like if i come back to do a masters, THEY PAY ME!!!!! seriously. they pay my tuition, and they give me money to live on. I GET PAID TO STUDY!! whooop! i've already gotten grants and funding as an undergrad. maybe not everyone does, but i'm exceptional.. i'm not just bragging, i'm in the top 3% of my faculty. i'm smart, i do well in school, and people fucking fall over backwards trying to open doors for me. it's great. so don't you worry about that. aaaaaaaand, do you know how much money i make treeplanting? i make $300-400, A DAY. so fucking tell me what you want already. none of this fucking 'guilty/greedy' shit or i'm going to have to whup your ass. have you heard of fredric nietzsche? "do whatever you will, but first be such as are able to will." as in, do whatever you want, but have enough balls to want things in the first place. guilt is a fucking disease. people who are always apologising for themselves are pathetic, and only live half-lives. whatever you want jasper, DO IT. don't let anyone fucking stop you. LISTEN TO YOURSELF. haven't i told you that before??? people will try and tell you what you should and shouldn't do for your whole life. not just authority figures, like teachers and parents and police, but your friends, people you go to school with, people you work with. everyone has some fucking agenda they are trying to push on you, when really, all they are trying to do is justify why THEY ARE MISERABLE. if they can convince you to believe in the lies they tell themselves, then they don't feel like such assholes. people just want to keep you down where they are, they don't want you to bust out, cause then it makes them feel like idiots for fucking staying down there.. and guess what?? THEY ARE. you don't help them by feeding into the lies. you help them by exposing the lies for what they are. "Our worst fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'who am I to be so brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?' Actually, who are we not to be? You are a child of God: Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone and as we let our own light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." ~Marianne Williamson now fucking tell me what you want!!! you wear cologne? what size are you? that hoodie i got you was a medium right? if you don't give me some idea what you like, then i have to guess, and it's less likely that you'll like it.... see!! and for one last time, don't get all fucking weird about it. that 'greedy' stuff is bullshit. i'm offering. you didn't demand anything, you don't expect anything, how can you be greedy?? that's such fucking crap, it makes me so fucking angry that you have been brainwashed into thinking that way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <<and then he says..>> .......................................ok ummmm i dont really want anything............im pretty set. im serious i dont want anything at the moment. except maybe to just have more fun in life. maybe some more exciting friends lol. actually the best gift you could give me is just coming and hanging out...... *************************** WHAts the world coming to???????????????????????? fucking non-materialistic kootenay hippie kids.

healing....

subliminalinertia — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 03:20:14 GMT

i just want to express my appreciation for tribe. it's been a fabulous place for me to explore different aspects of myself... to find answers and heal to understand myself and the world so many people have shared such incredible wisdom... spoken to things i never thought anyone would understand. i'm continually amazed by the things people say, the comments they leave. such beauty! such compassion! it's just been... wonderful. thank you... all... very much love, more than i can say... at the moment anyway. i'm a little overcome... :)

what reality?

subliminalinertia — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 09:55:45 GMT

Well here I am. After my grand walk home, my stupendous internal monologue. I fell over, or laid down, in the grass in a park, next to a beautiful gothic church that I have always admired. I was walking home… having decided against the initiative it would require to ‘take someone home’. Frankly, too much effort. I scurried off rather than open myself to that script… oh ego, you subversive elusive thing. I can’t even communicate.. the subtle intricacies of that battle… I will, I wont. Doubled and replayed, a million times, into infinity. So that the hologram of life arises. I know, with some strange internal certainty, as I have always known, that at some point all that I have written will be examined with the attention necessary to see what I have written. I know that when people are ready to see my voice, they will see… not before. And so perhaps I will allow the desire to conform… to slip. I do not need to tell you what it is that you want to know. But I will, as the mood strikes me. I was drinking in a bar. People played music, “open mic”. It was fun. I got to do my little dance, and watch myself being admired… and that’s about as satisfying as an orgasm… although even orgasms get old. My dearest friend was there… and that was a blessing like caramel. Just to have her presence… gave hope to my despondency. And so I played my game, my old familiar game, and then ducked out before whatever consummation I was pretending I wanted. I realized today that I can’t deny ‘love’. I hate it, and it enrages me… but it remains unperturbed. Whatever force it is that drives this absurdity.. I can’t win over it. Attraction. Desire. Love. Need. Craving. Addiction. I don’t know. I don’t care. Because in the wisdom of my accumulated experience, I have come to see that it doesn’t matter. A rose by any other name… it is. And my protest achieves nothing. So I can’t give up my body without needing the illusion … the illusion of love. I used to believe in love. Now I believe in absurdity… I believe in paradox. “a plethora of paradigm prerogatives”. One person put that graffiti on a wall that will haunt me for my life. Maybe one thing I write will haunt someone else… maybe that person will solve the puzzle.. maybe the solution is that there is no solution. This is it. And I always knew… oh GOD. I always knew. I was too young to know anything, when I prayed to be ignorant. But I begged for this… and here I am. I have dreams.. I see through this veil. I know what eternity feels like. Tastes like. But I am here. Temporally bound. Encased in space. I am the cat. I am the cyanide. I explode and kill myself. Over and over again. What do you care? You don’t care. Fuck you. Go away. My audience will come… perhaps they are not yet born, but they will be. I will be understood, received. Sometime. I laid in the grass. I tried to use my cell phone, to call the few people whom I though might have something to offer me. I left messages. Lying in the grass, strings of snot hanging from my nose. Crying and slipping into infinite nothingness. It sounded like someone was tuning a violin. I though about getting closer, listening, speaking, sharing, interacting, communicating. But I thought better of it. Because I know, when I’m honest with myself, that there is nothing they could say or do, or play, that would tell me what I don’t already know. This is it. I am here. Here I am. We. You. Me. There are no divisions between consciousness. Maybe you understand that, maybe you don’t. maybe you accept that I have felt your deepest secrets, maybe you don’t. maybe you laugh as I do, in convulsions of tears, that we believe ourselves original. Unique. There is nothing I can say that has not been said. What was I thinking, as I stumbled over the curbs, what wisdom that I would impart once I was home, here, before my blessed computer? What nugget of irrevocable wisdom was I destined to voice? As I walked, and laughed at myself, because I taste the hologram, the shifting refracting light that permeates everything. What point do I choose to occupy? What righteousness can I claim? Here I am. I have no morality. My necessity is self deprecating. I write from my heart, devastated by knowing that probably no one will ‘get’ or ‘grasp’ what I say. and yet I do it anyway. I have dreams… an instant of my dreams more profound than any life… but I still sit here. Facing my computer screen. Flailing in the direction of some experience of communion that can never happen. But has already happened. You that feel me, do. The rest of you go about your business. I’m done. Not because there is any end to what I say, but because I want to go to sleep now, and sleep off the alcohol.

wow, it's been ages...

subliminalinertia — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 11:05:02 GMT

i've been on hiatus from tribe for a while... i would say i was spending my time more productively, but i have to admit, with chagrin, that i've been sucked into the sugary sweet junk-food addiction that is facebook. ahhhg. the dreaded. ..... but they have chess! and scrabble! who wants to write term papers when you can play scrabble. seriously. and so.... life goes on. the place i was living in didn't work out.. i moved out mid november, and was officially 'homeless' for a couple weeks. luckily, i have enough friends that i didn't have to sleep in my car. although i did try to one night, maybe i was trying to assert my independence, but it was too cold, and so i came sneaking into some friend's living room at 2 in the morning. utterly defeated. now, in a strange twist of events, my english literature professor invited me to move into her basement. and that's where i am now. and it is such a blessing to have a room of my own... you forget what a privilege and luxury it is to have that kind of personal space. it's so easy to take for granted.... in north america anyway. homelessness was novel for about a day, at which point i recalled that 'roughing it' is hardly new and exciting, and i'll take my advantages where i can, thank you very much. no, i am not interested in feeling the gritty reality of the streets, of 'slumming it'..... and it drives me nuts that there are so many 'tourists' of poverty. oh god. if i start talking about that there will never be an end to it. jesus. there is nothing glamorous about being cold and not having enough to eat. maybe, if it's for a day... but day in, day out... it gets old fast. but i guess... when a call to your dad will stop it all, it isn't the same as having nothing else to do. (go wiliam shatner!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-y5eBRWQerY&feature=related uh. yeah. so anyway, i took the money i saved on rent for december and bought some ridiculously expensive scalper tickets to the tool concert. that was kind of a triumph, because i had been bitching for weeks about not being able to afford to go, and hating the vermin leeches that step in to make a profit at every turn. yah, so i got 2 front row tickets from ebay, for $300 each. managed to sell off the other one, phew. i hardly ever go to concerts. i wasn't about to go and Not be in the front row. that would defeat the whole purpose of a live show... to my mind anyway. i had never seen tool before. but i really like their music, and i was excited to see the people, real live humans, and relate the empathy from the music to those humans... anyway. it wasn't what i expected. they were so separate, so distant. and then i realized... they do this night after night... for screaming mob after screaming mob. and i think they've been on tour for a year...and that seems insane to me. i can't imagine it. so yeah..... i see how naive and silly it was of me to expect to feel some kind of intimacy during the performance. but it was still hard to be on the other side of that barrier. it was so limiting... i mean, confronted with the limitation... when my friends play music i can dance around and they interact with me. it's a reciprocal dynamic. with tool... well, i was just a part of the screaming mob of thousands. except i wasn't screaming. i was just pressed up against the fence, listening with my flesh, and getting off, until,... well, for the whole show more or less, until i couldn't hide what i was doing and it was indecent. so ya. i didn't let my frustration stop me from enjoying the show. but i did go home and write them a letter! because i'm like that. just rambling on about feeling disappointed not to be able to interact with them, relate energy back and forth.. anyway, it was a goofy letter, mostly i wrote it for my own therapy i guess, but i mailed it anyway. because i get kind of determined and obsessive about things........ i feel like a pit-bull terrier, when i want something the wanting just takes over, and i can't stand in my own way. random impulsive compulsions... god. ever since that show i've been mildly obsessed, i hope the spell wears off soon. it's so weird....... the whole idea of celebrity and fame..... it reminds me of high school, where everyone knows the popular kid's business... i always hated that. i refused to talk about someone as if i knew them when i didn't....... especially if they didn't know me. gaah. that drives me insane. i refuse to be a spectator of life. dammit. i wanna participate, i want to play. if i can't be a part of the action then, fuck the action. i'll go somewhere else. but i'm not just going to stop liking the music..... meh. i almost wish i hadn't gone... they would still be abstract ideas in my head instead of real people who's emotions i was able to read, even if they were on the other side of a mountain of speakers and metal and security guards. i hate that paradox. we feel so close to something, and identify with it, but can never actually be close to it. i don't like it. i think i'm going to stick to local indie music from now on. like my one friend, beautiful woman, who was talking about creating actual interactive performances... sigh. dreams... possibilities. term papers that i'm not writing... funny, it's always late at night when i'm tired but stuck here like a broken record that i write these tangential rants. ya. anyway. to all a goodnight.

broken heart, hearts broken

subliminalinertia — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 06:04:53 GMT

this heart says: aaahhhh.. i want to scream 'No! you are not allowed to break'.... or be torn... i want you to feel me loving you... know that you are loved. i want to tell you i'm sorry, so sorry, sorry for the ...but i know, from experience, how beautiful the breaking is. as sad... as hard and terrifying as it is... it is... terrible, beautiful, in ways that are perhaps.. difficult to see now. to be shattered... "there is a crack, a crack in everything... that's how the light gets in."

stuck in the city of lights

subliminalinertia — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 04:05:21 GMT

so i'm sitting in the las vegas airport feeling mildly ill from the too-large bag of cinnamon coated almonds and pecans that i didn't have the good sense to pass up. what can i say about las vegas from the airport? the ding-bling-bleep-chirp-click-click of the slot machines has become like white noise, after only a few hours. to get from security to the gate one has to take the very-silent strange and futurisitc sky train thing. and there are palm trees in the parking lot. they made me take off my shoes, again, and the security guard asked me if i really thought he would taste good with ketchup, in reference to the sticker on my laptop. at least they've got a sense of humour. the sleekysmooth -and actually kind of cute- lounge jazz christmas carols are periodically interrrupted with annoying redundant warnings about heightened security and not leaving baggage unattended or checking baggage that isn't your own. and frequent admonishing calls for passengers who don't seem to be showing up to board their planes. maybe a certain percentage of traverllers get absorbed into the blinking whirlling rows of slot machines, becoming blinkity-light zombies, or maybe they eventually morph into the machines themselves, fusing with the buttons and coloued lucky 7s and wild cherry wheels. wheel of fourtune wheels. beep beep bleepidy beep beep, tweet twert twert tweet, beebeep. blink burp. chirp chirp. it's gonna be a long night until my plane leaves at 1am. this is not the first time i have been stuck in an airport for 10 plus hours. at least this time i am not gravely ill. aside from cinammon sugar almond-pecan nausea. when things get really rough maybe i will go huff some oxygen at the oxygen bar. then maybe i will venture towards the slot machines and see if i can't relate to the thrill of it, although in all honesty, they remind me of nothing so much as video games. and i hate video games with a crazy twitching eye. something in the bleeping and the repitition just makes me feel tense and insane. on a brighter note, i have never seen anything like the nevada sky. screw las vegas city lights. the desert peeking in through the terminal windows fades right into the dusk, taking on the blue and orange hues of sunset. there doesn't seem to be any division between concrete runway, sandy hills, rocky cliffs and sky. it's all blue and dusty dusky twighlight... it's beautiful. well, it was anyway, it's dark now. just glittering city lights on the horizon. suddenly there is a horizon, in place of those gradients of colour and air. just darkness split by a thin swath of twinlklely gold dots. and if i hear that stupid announcement about unusual activites and unattended baggage one more time i'm gonna... uhhhh.... sit here and cringe a little harder. ok, well, enough ranting, pa-rum-pa-pum-pum, rum-pa-pum-pum-rump-a-pum-pum. mary nodded, rum-pa-pum-pum whoooo, lots of mistletoe, lots of snow and ice, everywhere we go... ho ho ho. right, good luck. try lots of rocks and sand. what is this bizaar fascination with snow at christmas? not only was jesus not born in december, he wasn't born in a climate that knew anything about snow. umm... right. so, god bless, and merry christmas. if anything interesting happens in mexico i'll let you all know. xxo cloe "do you hear what i hear, do you hear what i hear...?"

burning fire

subliminalinertia — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 19:43:49 GMT

something on the idea of identity... and liberation. just thought i'd throw it up since i haven't written in a while I wish my sex was separate from my person. But it’s not. It’s hopelessly intertwined, and this is constantly frustrating. My physical cravings are so overpowering that they usurp my ‘presence’ in the world. And by presence I mean what I consider to be my identity, my projection, my reflection in the world- how I have learned to perceive and present myself to others. Unfortunately, this learned presentation of self has very little to do with my sexuality. And I don’t know how to reconcile the two. I am extremely sexual-as I am extremely sensual… my consciousness is tactile. I am tactile. I like to touch, to get up close and explore… to know something completely. It was difficult for me to learn not to touch people, to smear myself all over them and taste their essence. Not everyone is comfortable with this intrusion into their private world. And so I restrain myself, but it is uncomfortable, I feel uneasy, like I cannot really communicate. I feel like everything I want to express and sense depends on that touch, but that touch is taboo because you can’t just reach out and stroke the stranger next to you. And I am never sure when this is allowed, when touching is acceptable behaviour, so I restrain myself and I feel like itching and crawling and bursting inside because I don’t want to speak, speaking is never anything more than a hollow echo of the message, speech cannot communicate like touch can. So much of what I want to communicate only exists as a physical resonance of being. I cannot translate this. I like sex. At least I like the idea of sex. I find so many things erotic and a great deal of the time I am semi-aroused just by the experience of being present, physical, the feel of clothes, the breath of wind on me. I crave sex. When I am attracted to a person it is almost unbearable. It consumes me and I am lost and distracted by the driving desire to know this person’s full being. I want to experience them, touch them, drink them, feel them on the deepest level, transcending all boundaries. I’ve been told that I have problems with boundaries. I’m sure I do. I am attracted. The power of attraction flattens whatever ideas I may have about reality, obligation and expectation. My ‘person’ (that constructed idea of what I am, in relation to you) is flattened by my attraction. The concept of identity seems paltry in comparison to this driving force of sensuality, and here lies the crux. What attracts me is intangible, illogical, capricious and absolute. I can’t justify it or explain it. I can only burn with the power of it. And it drives me insane. Everyday, as I move through the social rituals of our world, I feel these tugs at my being. Some more moving than others, but always a constant flow of forces exerting pressure on my awareness. Sometimes I can ignore this, pass by, or through it, with minimal scorching of my soul. Other times it knocks me down and takes the wind from my lungs, the way oxygen rushes into an explosion of flame. I am left gasping, disoriented, completely unbalanced by the weight of it. I can only be cooled by allowing this flame to lick the body of desire… I must, I need… The holding back destroys me one straight, composed face at a time. In the social world, the face to face normality of interaction, I can’t navigate this desire. It doesn’t translate… or it is lost in the translation. It becomes something else, something … sacrilegious, stupid. The necessary labels anger and insult me. This raging consumption obliterates words, attitudes, definitions. This fire of death, of destruction, is so great, so undeniably beautiful, so complete… I cannot tolerate resistance, and yet, I resist. I resist because I do not know how to communicate this feeling. To me, feeling is everything and identity is nothing… and yet identity, “I am ______ and you are _______, I _________ you.” obstructs the path of this divine burning. The identified social world is so superficial to me, so alien to the feeling of my truth, but no amount of fire-breathing rage can deconstruct the boundaries of ‘who’ we are. You are over there, and I am over here. And I want to be inside of you, exploding your light into a million blinding shards, until we are collapsed in the vastness of nothing, but how do I say “let me burn you with my fire, let yourself die in me so that we can pass through death together and emerge as careening spirits free of the earth”. How can I say that? It can’t be said… to a stranger, a man, a woman, a teacher, a peer. It can’t be said across the roles that define our expression of being in this world. I am too afraid of what I have learned; that I am my role and this is how I will be measured in the world. I can’t face exposing my beautiful soul aflame to these judgements, and so I spend a great deal of time hiding behind some kind of flimsy and hollow construction of the moment… and becoming dry inside, less alive, a little at a time. I want to rebel against this denial. I want the roles fall away, slip down to our feet like silk, like gossamer, like so much imagination… until we stand face to face, truthful, exposed, defiant, and glorious. I want to say, “This is Me. I am a volcano, I am a torrent, I am a drop of water, I am the space between breath. Consume me and let us die together, so that we may be reborn as the vastness of eternity, egoless and without identity.”

the structural integrity of my paradox

subliminalinertia — Wed, 27 Sep 2006 17:07:45 GMT

so many things i have been wanting to write about... but the morning is lilting dangerously close to noon, and i have class, and readings to do, and business to attend to. i wanted to talk about the beauty of dialectics... the paradox, the contradiction inherent in perceptions of reality. so many ways. too many ways to name. this is coming up in a class of mine now, as it has in classes before. and i remember sometime last year, in a theory of perception seminar class with a notable canadian philosopher, how my brain bit relentlessly into the problem of knowing and perceiving... how i spent nights trying to assimilate the entirity of Physics into my mental tool-kit, and trembled through my classes because i wasn't sleeping more than a few hours a night, if at all. at one point, deep in the pathos of logic and mind/matter dualism, researching obscure esoteric philisophical points and attempting to write my term paper, i had a vision. suddenly i understood, in a very intimate way, the two material basises of all that exists. the split that reoccures throughout information and culture, good and evil, yin and yang, bianary code, creativity receptivity, construction destruction, chaos order, being not-being... all these things and more, fused together in my brain. i saw myself, and all of existance, sourced in two simple opposing forces, their names unimportant. i saw that the tension, the conflict between these forces, itself a Third thing, or dimension, was my existence here, the existence of everything here... and then i saw that this trinity, seen as a whole (the Fourth aspect of being and awareness) was the basis of the reflexive, conscious mind.. it might have ended there, or may have evolved into a complex network of looping back potentials and possibilities, as that fourth thing, the entirity, again becomes one of two basic things, composit forces, this time manifested (from our perspective) as the competition between 'sub' and 'ob'-jectivity... or whathave you, the same dimensions played out in ever direction, on every scale, ad infinitum. the cosmic holographic nature of life, the universe and everything. i might have become enlightened, or transcended my physical self, in fact, that may have been what was happening to me, because at that point in my Very Real vision, i began to feel my substance, my very self-existence, folding in on itself. physically, my body seemed to be imploding, there was a great rushing in my ears and throughout my core. i seemed to be dissolving into a vacume, a conduit to... nothingness, i'm not sure, whatever lay on the otherside of that metamorphasis, it meant the death of all that i perceive to be real, my own identity, my existence. i know, and i feel on some level, that some essential part of my being, probably the mutable essential common basis of everything, would persist, evolved in some other form, but whatever that form was or could be, it has nothing to do with my 'individuality' here, my ego, my sense of self. and this is what fought the void that threatened to consume me. my ego championed my continued survival, the persistence of my form. on some level, as eternity rushed through my ears, i knew that i was dissolving because i had removed the -tension-. by 'understanding' so perfectly, everything, as i had, i had removed the integral conflict of my awareness, the necessary paradox which allows me to be. i had shifted from the third to the fourth, or maybe to the fifth from the fourth, - i don't much care to squabble over the semantics of this,- level of being. i had trancsended, or was in transition between dimensions, having removed the barriers that kept me within my rightful constraints. so, ME, this me, not the universal ever-lasting me, but the egoic self-centered human-shaped contextual me fought back against this transcendance. i lay down on the floor and concentrated my mind on This Here. i felt the smooth cool pressure of the wood beneath me, and invited ever stress and conflict and tension-ridden thought that plagued me to tea in my brain. i did. i opened the gates wide to the reality of This existence, the sublime paradox of everything as it is here, now. me. my room. my life. family, school, friends, the absurdity of toiling away into insanity for the sake of a philosophy paper. and i came back, or solidified, stabilized, whatever, however you want to look at it. i narrowly evaded becoming a black hole. so that i could continue to live my unique perception of reality on this planet. ha. but i did. i guess it was mostly fear that held me here, fear of change, of death... maybe sheer suprise as well. but, in the end, i still choose This, over transcendance. and do i believe this 'vision' was real, really Reality... can i, deep down in my heart, my guts, honestly accept the possibility that i would have, could have, mutated into a vacume of space, like the black holes we speculate about? no, of course not. it is my conviction that keeps me here. if i truely accepted this 'knowledge' deep into the core of my being, as i nearly did in a gap of defences due to fatigue and stress, i would not be here. so there you go. i'm late for school, i've managed to write out one of the many things that i desire to express to the world at large, out there, something that picked itself, since i didn't begin writing with a clear idea of what i was going to say. someday i'll write about the complex lucidity of my dreams, the expansion of my heart, the ephermal beauty of oaks decaying in the sunset, and whatever else happens to tickle my imagination. love, and ...contradiction to you all. cloé

still planting

subliminalinertia — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 20:15:01 GMT

just thought i'd drop this little note out there, in case someone is wondering what the hell has happened to me.. i'm still planting... out in the bush, on the block, in the crummy, time flows differently.. i'm not sure i'm even still on the same planet as the rest of you.. the normal world, i mean. i don't really know what day it is, and even if i do, dates no longer seem to have much relevance to my mind.. time operates on a 'day 1, day 2, day 3... day off... day 1, ... etc' basis. any other treeplanters might relate to this. but it's summer, and everyone has better things to do than sit in front of a computer.. its just too hot and sticky for that kind of thing. come winter we'll be reunited in the spark of cyber-ness. and that's all my sticky stiff swollen bruised and scratched hands have the patience to put up here for now. i love you all... so much... more than i know how to express. but you know who you are.. at least i hope you do. here's my toast to you, and i'll be thinking of you. cloe.

The future of my Guatemala writing

subliminalinertia — Sun, 28 May 2006 19:14:53 GMT

from: http://bcics.uvic.ca/anthill/v6/i1/guatamala.htm BCICS Student Researchers: Working in a Guatamalan Women's Co-op Cloé Bayeur-Holland, a student in co-operative studies and a BCICS researcher, recently returned from Guatemala where she spent four months living and working with a women's weaving co-operative. While there, Cloé sent a series of emails detailing her experiences to us here at the BCICS. These emails are a personal and touching account of her time in Guatemala, and relate in real terms to the struggle the women of Guatemala endure to provide for their families and to survive in the harsh reality of Guatemalan life. The BCICS is preparing to publish a book that compiles these emails, along with photos Cloé took while in Guatemala and an academic paper she wrote that details the state of women's co-ops in Guatemala. Look for the book in early 2007. Meanwhile, here are some snippets to whet your appetite: "Ongoing and overt racial discrimination and segregation ensures that the Mayans remain an uneducated and exploitable workforce. Government and Big Business (United Fruit Company) control most of the fertile land, forcing the Mayans to cultivate their maïze from steep mountain slopes where yields are insufficient to meet their dietary needs. In 1950, the elected president appropriated the fallow lands of private and business estates with large holdings in order to distribute them to peasant co-operatives. The United States government, consumed by McCarthy-era delirium, quickly lashed out to crush the 'communist regime'. A small group of intellectuals and dissidents fled to the jungle to form a resistance. Civil war was declared and the military opened fire on the Mayan people. From 1950 to1996, over 200,000 Mayan died or 'disappeared' and some 440 highland villages were obliterated-buildings burned to the ground and inhabitants massacred. Countless widows and orphans were left behind without means of providing for themselves." "ASOMADEK is a women's weaving co-operative that fights the social and economic oppression of Indigenous people in Guatemala. The Co-op was formed in 1987, following the worst period of violence. A Canadian working with Guatemalan refugees in Chiapas came to the mountain region of Sololá to see if he could help alleviate the devastating poverty there, especially among the women widowed by military massacres. The only skill claimed by women was, and is, back-strap weaving. With a group of community leaders, Ron (the Canadian) devised a plan to market the traditional weavings to a North American market. However, Ron insisted that the women themselves take up the management of the project, contrary to their culture and tradition. Teaching the women to take on leadership roles has been difficult. They are almost entirely illiterate, many do not even speak Spanish. They lack the most basic education that we take for granted. It is difficult for us to imagine the absence of this education. Efficiency is sometimes traded for autonomy but the goal of ASOMADEK is primarily to empower these women, secondarily to maximize profits." "I hope the pictures I bring back will convey some of what I have failed to communicate with my letters. And maybe one day I will try and tell you about the missing teeth, the bare feet, the worn out clothing, the deep, deep lines that age young faces, the open sores, the braids, the colours, the hopelessness and the endless smiles." "I met this woman in the movie theatre last night. Her name is Bonnie. She was the only other person watching Finding Neverland. It was a nice film. Bonnie and I struck up a conversation afterwards. I told her what I was doing here, and she told me about the schools she has helped to set up and run in Santiago de Atitlan. Yet another do-good gringo, I thought to myself. But she is intelligent and we hit it off. We got to talking, I don't even remember about what specifically...the violence, which she witnessed, the disregard of the Maya people, our families, our religion and our love affairs. She told me about her children, and her grandchildren - who are older than I am. About her family who supports the war in Iraq. She explains how her family responds to her protests against US involvement in the military overthrow of the government in Guatemala 50 years by saying, 'Well something has to be done about the spread of communism.' Bonnie wears a t-shirt depicting the face of Ernesto Guevara smoking, and she likes to pick fights with her conservative church congregation back in the US. She is the most incredibly revolutionary grandma I have ever met, and I've met the infamous raging grannies. Bonnie left Guatemala in 1980, when the massacres in Santiago became too overwhelming. But she didn't stay away long. This is her home, and she loves these people. She returned to encourage the people to send their children to school. She said, when she was first here in the 70s, literacy was around 2%. It has now reached 40%. She says there is hope; things are changing. She wrote a book in the 80s. The publishers declined it because they didn't want to deal with the problems it would cause them. The book is called, Guatemala: Blood in the Cornfields. It tells of her experiences in Guatemala watching the violence escalate and of the refusal of people in the United States to believe what was going on. Her book is now, finally, going to be published. It should be coming out in a few months. She also showed me her poetry. I spent the night at her house, and heard all about her budding love affair with a man who is younger than her children. He has all the characteristics she admires in a person. I was both surprised, and not surprised at how much we have in common. She is returning to the States in a couple days to visit her grandchildren. I will be gone when she gets back. She left me with the words, 'we will see each other again, maybe in the afterlife... if we end up in the same place.' And she walked away with a wink." "I know in a previous letter I expounded on the virtues of the uneducated Mayan people, but now I am here to contradict myself. When running a business, virtues leave something to be desired. I almost forget that no one I am working with has more than a grade three education...even less, considering the faults of public education in this country. I almost forget, because they are so smart and resourceful. Yet, I know the youngest, brightest can not do basic math. Yes, this cooperative takes a lot of external guidance...no, it is not autonomous, independent, and self-sufficient. But, as much as I would love to see these people empowered, and determining their own future, they do not have the skills to propel this business into success by themselves. That just isn't the reality. This is a hard blow, to my romantic, naive, idealistic vision of marginalized peoples everywhere. I come here determined that WE should be learning from THEM. But what do I see? They need help. They need much help. They need patient, gentle guidance. They need to be taught, educated about things that are so basic, so taken for granted to us in the North, that we don't even realize we have the knowledge. I hardly consider myself an expert on business, on marketing and sales. I took an introductory economics class once. But wait, here I am, trying my best to offer my aid, my skills-that-I-didn't-know-I-had, my creative genius to furthering these sheltered people's advancement into the world of international business, 'trade', commerce....I am encouraging them to use capitalism as a leg up into the world of health, happiness, and well being. 'Here, let me help you market yourself a little better.' This goes against everything I have always told myself I believe. And yet...what else is there to do? What better thing to do?" Cloé Bayeur-Holland - Edited and formatted by Adam Harrison

love breath

subliminalinertia — Sun, 07 May 2006 00:45:56 GMT

you can be close to me if you want to. i open this door, because i wish to acknowledge the breath between us. here. look. you must learn to feel me... feel what i feel listen to me, when i am not speaking. know the things i don't say i am this heart there is place for you in this sanctuary, but none for your illusions whatever battles you have to fight, they are not my battles. and you are not your war you say that you long for me, but i am here, i am always here. and i can be seen with reverence. you would be near me... honour me turn all aspects of your being only to me ...leave yourself behind ...leave this battle behind. leave your past in the past this is how you pay homage to what is sacred. come, walk naked and new into this embrace

Mahonia aquifolium

subliminalinertia — Wed, 26 Apr 2006 06:08:57 GMT

last night i dreamed i stood under an oregon grape, as big as an oak tree... with berries as big as cantaloups... i looked up at the dark purple globes, hanging heavy on the branches, and wanted to eat them. i thought, 'this is what happens when this plant is left undisturbed... in a far off land, where there are no roads, no people and exhaust to stunt and hinder their growth. this is a full grown oregon grape tree. what beautiful fruit.'

wikimebaby

subliminalinertia — Mon, 24 Apr 2006 18:40:24 GMT

Subliminalinertia............Sub-Liminal (slightly 'outdated' concept from psychology, literally means "below threshold", and is refering to what aldous huxly called the 'doors of perception') ... Inertia (inherent tendancy of matter to continue in trajectories laid by 'external' forces... collusions of forces... i'm not a physicist... might wanna look that one up.) "subliminal inertia" ~ i'm trying to post this on wikipedia/wiktionary... and figured i may as well put it here too. this has been my online 'handle' or nickname, or alias, or whatever you like to call it, for some years now. people often ask me what the hell it means. this is a concept I invented, largely for my own amusement, but it sprung from the combination of my areas of academic study (social sciences and philosophy). in spite of its 'unknown' status, i believe this term fills a niche in the intellectual world. I suspect it will evolve through my lifetime. what follows is a 'loose' or rough explanation that could use much refinement. anyone is (obviously) welcome to add or contribute ideas and discussion. subliminal inertia, is meant to describe the tendency of many people, my self included, to accept the social definition of reality that is passed to us from our cultures and societies as absolute, without question, and for an idefinite period of time. it continues until some 'external' force (such as exposure to different social perspectives of reality,) knocks us on the head and awakens us to slightly different, and usually 'broader' perspectives because the new perspective often incorporates the old... this 'new' perspective is generally then adopted in the same manner, as if it were indisputeable truth... until some new convergence of events shifts our paradigm again. and on and on. (look up the physical law of inertia..) self-awareness seems to be an exit-door from this 'law' of human consciousness, however, the existence of self-awareness is greatly exaggerated in human beings generally. Reflexivity does seem to offer the promise of true objectivity (the only plausible one that i can see...), in the sense that, to the degree that our ability to understand and perceive ourselves as objects in the universe emerges we are able to observe the forces at work on (and in) our minds. debateably (!) we can then come to influence the confluence of acting and reacting forces, to the degree that we might be said to be consciously directing the interaction of forces which influence our own state of awareness. that smacks of circular reasoning, in case you wondered, and that is why i called it 'debateable'. perhaps the best we can aspire to, is to be aware of this tendency of our own minds, and in consequence not take our own social paradigms of reality quite so seriously. a little bit of cognitive flexability, can go a long way. mental elasticity? hmm. the ability to grasp a multitude of shapes and sizes of paradigm, and toggle around between them with little difficulty. accept them for what they are, and let them go. this is the essence of much meditation and spirituality, some of which has been documented as long as 2500 years ago. so perhaps it is not such an 'unknown' concept. there is probably some buddhist or sanskrit word which describes it. but i want a word that describes it in the western intellectual context, because that happens to be my home playground.. not that i am averse to understanding and using foreign concepts.. heheh.

dazed by the lights of life

subliminalinertia — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 17:55:33 GMT

and brimming with wonder for the unknown what have i learned, that separates me from the pure feeling of being how am i not myself ...ask, ask, and ask again. ask until the world unravels... ask until i feel again.

Grace...

subliminalinertia — Fri, 07 Apr 2006 22:23:32 GMT

Mama and me

Thank You

subliminalinertia — Thu, 06 Apr 2006 18:46:47 GMT

On this Day, I am grateful for ... everyone who has sent me love today ~all those who have shown me that i could be loved ~the people who continue to see beauty in me ~all the people who continue to hold me in their hearts... and do not let me falter ...the light rain that wet my head last night, while i wandered lost .... the kindness that i can feel in the hearts of all people ~every gentle word ...forgiveness... ...water that is good to drink...children who are four-years old. ...my little brother, and the love his mom gives him ~...my older brother, who never stopped trying to teach me ~...my father, who stretched his heart wide, in order to love ~...my mother, who does not know her own grace .. my self... because ... i am alive. and i continue to live... and i do not give up my soul... because, it wells with the mystery of all that is my heart, because it continues to believe in love. and Britz for being the first -in-person to give me a birthday hug and good wishes. and Jorma for being the second.

April 6, 1983,

subliminalinertia — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 22:09:31 GMT

in a little country house paid for by my grandmother, in Sainte Sabine, a rural area near Quebec City, surrounded by farmland, my mother swept the floor and washed the dishes in the lulls between her contractions. for 5 hours she felt the intermittent cramping in her stomach, culminating in 20 minutes of hard labour. witnessed by my brother, my father, my father's lover who was an aspiring mid-wife and a local doctor, my mother gave birth to her second child. in the Province of her own birth, and a continent away from where she had intended to, she brought a girl into the world.

Love... never gets old.

subliminalinertia — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 20:09:16 GMT

Then said Almrita, Speak to us of Love. And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a great silence upon them. And with a great voice he said: When love beckons to you, follow him, Though his ways are hard and steep. And when his wings enfold you yeild to him, Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you. And when he speaks to you believe in him, though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden. For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning. Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun, So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself. He threshes you to make you naked. He sifts you to free you from your husks. He grinds you to whiteness. He kneads you until you are pliant; And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast. All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart. But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure, then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of Love's threshing-floor, Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your Laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears. Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself. Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For Love is sufficient unto Love. When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart" but rather, "I am in the heart of God." And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, it it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has not other desire but to fulfil itself. But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To Melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To Know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; and to bleed willingly and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; To rest an the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy; to return home at eventide with gratitude; And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips. Kahlil Gibran - from The Prophet

subliminalinertia — Tue, 28 Mar 2006 18:11:49 GMT

can i express this? there are very few things that i don't tell people. i usually tell everyone everything... it just spills out of me like unloading weight i dont want secrets. but there are things burried in me that i am still struggling to unearth i suppose... i seek approval. but i have learned to be scornful of that seeking. very early i learned that 'wanting' was a path to disaster and devastation was the only peace. so i set out to sabotauge my yearning undermining any way that i might be vulnerable by grinding stones and dirt into my open wounds that i might not forget the danger of lacking pretention. but a lifetime of this has not changed that i seek approval. or that i must deny any such affirmation of my worth. and so i will use hazey reflections of your own grace to illuminate an illusion of myself for you to admire ...but at the last moment, the second before surrender and acceptance i withdraw and fall, fall from your own from my desire so that i begin again with nothing this dance is ongoing the intricate interplay of penance and punishment so subtle they brush against twirling together locked in embrace delicate ruthless infinite. and even here, i can't help but stand in obscurity impeding myself paradox that i am. hyppocrite. contradiction. seek truth deny essence perhaps some things are best left shrouded in mystery

"God is dead"

subliminalinertia — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 19:39:35 GMT

The Madman. .. Have you ever heard of the madman who on a bright morning lighted a lantern and ran to the market-place calling out unceasingly: "I seek God! I seek God!" As there were many people standing about who did not believe in God, he caused a great deal of amusement. Why? is he lost? said one. Has he strayed away like a child? said another. Or does he keep himself hidden? Is he afraid of us? Has he taken a sea voyage? Has he emigrated? - the people cried out laughingly, all in a hubbub. The insane man jumped into their midst and transfixed them with his glances. "Where is God gone?" he called out. "I mean to tell you! We have killed him, you and I! We are all his murderers! But how have we done it? How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the whole horizon? What did we do when we loosened this earth from its sun? Whither does it now move? Whither do we move? Away from all suns? Do we not dash on unceasingly? Backwards, sideways, forwards, in all directions? Is there still an above and below? Do we not stray, as through infinite nothingness? Does not empty space breathe upon us? Has it not become colder? Does not night come on continually, darker and darker? Shall we not have to light lanterns in the morning? Do we not hear the noise of the grave-diggers who are burying God? Do we not smell the divine putrefaction? - for even Gods putrify! God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! How shall we console ourselves, the most murderous of all murderers? The holiest and the mightiest that the world has hitherto possessed, has bled to death under our knife - who will wipe the blood from us? With what water could we cleanse ourselves? What lustrums, what sacred games shall we have to devise? Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater event - and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto!" Here the madman was silent and looked again at his hearers; they also were silent and looked at him in surprise. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, so that it broke in pieces and was extinguished. "I come too early," he then said. "I am not yet at the right time. This prodigious event is still on its way, and is traveling - it has not yet reached men's ears. Lightning and thunder need time, the light of the stars needs time, deeds need time, even after they are done, to be seen and heard. This deed is as yet further from them than the furthest star - and yet they have done it themselves!" It is further stated that the madman made his way into different churches on the same day, and there intoned his Requiem aeternam deo. When led out and called to account, he always gave the reply: "What are these churches now, if they are not the tombs and monuments of God?" Friedrich Nietzsche. The Gay Science (1882), section 126

fear of death and emptiness

subliminalinertia — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 00:18:23 GMT

I've said before that every craftsman searches for what's not there to practice his craft. A builder looks for the rotten hole where the roof caved in. A water-carrier picks the empty pot. A carpenter stops at the house with no door. Workers rush toward some hint of emptiness, which they then start to fill. Their hope, though, is for emptiness, so don't think you must avoid it. It contains what you need! Dear soul, if you were not friends with the vast nothing inside, why would you always be casting you net into it, and waiting so patiently? This invisible ocean has given you such abundance, but still you call it "death", that which provides you sustenance and work. God has allowed some magical reversal to occur, so that you see the scorpion pit as an object of desire, and all the beautiful expanse around it, as dangerous and swarming with snakes. This is how strange your fear of death and emptiness is, and how perverse the attachment to what you want. Now that you've heard me on your misapprehensions, dear friend, listen to Attar's story on the same subject. He strung the pearls of this about King Mahmud, how among the spoils of his Indian campaign there was a Hindu boy, whom he adopted as a son. He educated and provided royally for the boy and later made him vice-regent, seated on a gold throne beside himself. One day he found the young man weeping.. "Why are you crying? You're the companion of an emperor! The entire nation is ranged out before you like stars that you can command!" The young man replied, "I am remembering my mother and father, and how they scared me as a child with threats of you! 'Uh-oh, he's headed for King Mahmud's court! Nothing could be more hellish!' Where are they now when they should see me sitting here?" This incident is about your fear of changing. You are the Hindu boy. Mahmud, which means Praise to the End, is the spirit's poverty or emptiness. The mother and father are your attachment to beliefs and blood ties and desires and comforting habits. Don't listen to them! They seem to protect but they imprison. They are your worst enemies. They make you afraid of living in emptiness. Some day you'll weep tears of delight in that court, remembering your mistaken parents! Know that your body nurtures the spirit, helps it grow, and gives it wrong advise. The body becomes, eventually, like a vest of chain mail in peaceful years, too hot in summer and too cold in winter. But the body's desires, in another way, are like an unpredictable associate, whom you must be patient with. And that companion is helpful, because patience expands your capacity to love and feel peace. The patience of a rose close to a thorn keeps it fragrant. It's patience that gives milk to the male camel still nursing in its third year, and patience is what the prophets show to us. The beauty of careful sewing on a shirt is the patience it contains. Friendship and loyalty have patience as the strength of their connection. Feeling lonely and ignoble indicates that you haven't been patient. Be with those who mix with God as honey blends with milk, and say, "Anything that comes and goes, rises and sets, is not what I love." else you'll be like a caravan fire left to flare itself out alone beside the road. Rumi VI (1369-1420) from 'Rumi : One-Handed Basket Weaving

...Like this...

subliminalinertia — Sat, 25 Mar 2006 02:26:21 GMT

If anyone asks you how the perfect satisfaction of all our sexual wanting will look, lift your face and say, Like this. When someone mentions the gracefulness of the nightsky, climb up on the roof and dance and say, Like this. If anyone wants to know what "spirit" is, or what "God’s fragrance" means, lean your head toward him or her. Keep your face there close. Like this. When someone quotes the old poetic image about clouds gradually uncovering the moon, slowly loosen knot by knot the strings of your robe. Like this. If anyone wonders how Jesus raised the dead, don’t try to explain the miracle. Kiss me on the lips. Like this. Like this. When someone asks what it means to "die for love," point here. If someone asks how tall I am, frown and measure with your fingers the space between the creases on your forehead. This tall. The soul sometimes leaves the body, the returns. When someone doesn’t believe that, walk back into my house. Like this. When lovers moan, they’re telling our story. Like this. I am a sky where spirits live. Stare into this deepening blue, while the breeze says a secret. Like this. When someone asks what there is to do, light the candle in his hand. Like this. How did Joseph’s scent come to Jacob? Huuuuu. How did Jacob’s sight return? Huuuu. A little wind cleans the eyes. Like this. When Shams comes back from Tabriz, he’ll put just his head around the edge of the door to surprise us Like this. -rumi (who else?)

just looking for a little ego-stroking appreciation...

subliminalinertia — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 23:46:39 GMT

*this was originally posted in a place where... well, it wasn't at home. now it needs to be valued for what it is.... sigh.* Re: Judge-mentality? Mon, March 20, 2006 - 9:27 AM in response to: Re: Judge-mentality? oh oh, itch-twitch, i can't help myself, i love this stuff. i guess i wouldn't spend all my time studying it if i didn't... hah. i can't really take this further with 'casual conversation' . call me brainwashed by academia, but i need some 'semantic discussion' to proceed with the issue. here i go... (anyone not predisposed towards abstract reasoning might want to skip this... it will probably be boring and meaningless.) >>we are unable Not to judge.<< in the narrow biological sense i think this is true. if the brain had to assess every single sensory input 'from the beginning' we would be totally stationary and drooling like babies... quite literally i understand. in this sense, judgement is the veritable substance of consciousness... ie, "Kant argues that the mind must contribute those features and make it possible for us to experience objects as objects. ...a deep interconnection between the ability to have self-consciousness and the ability to experience a world of objects. Through a process of synthesis, the mind generates both the structure of objects and its own unity." thats what i think you would call a trancendant concept of judgement (if you were in philosophy) or heuristics and biases as information processing (if you were in psychology) but i don't think this is the same as a 'mentality' or being 'judgemental' . having the mentality of judgement, which (it would seem to me) takes the subjective nature of experienced human reality, and gives it the status of objectivity. which most people agree is not logical, unless they are religious fundamentalists. in which case i don't know why they would be interested in this conversation. value judgements, according to philosophical and scientific understanding, cannot have objective value... "...As opposed to an objective statement of fact or a conclusion reached logically through rational analysis, a value judgment is formed by the specific values or value system held by the one asserting it. It can be argued that true objectivity is impossible, that even the most rigorous rational analysis is founded on the set of values accepted in the course of analysis. Consequently, some argue that all such statements and conclusions are necessarily value judgments. This might be compared to axioms in mathematics and geometry—for instance, [...] Postulates that are true in one geometry but false in another could be considered analogous to value judgments that declare something to be right given one value system but wrong within the confines of another." now, of course we all have value judgements. ... however, this does not make a person "judgemental" which is when a person assumes that their value judgements are objectively valid- that values are 'reality' rather than opinion. if you buy this, then you agree that a "judge-mentality" is irrational. of course we all have the choice to 'wholly trust' our own judgements - or not. we can leave some room for (prudence), speculation, reasonable doubt... at which point we are not really judgemental, in the sense of passing judgement. choosing to give people the benefit of the doubt, and still take measures to avoid whatever it is we don't like about them, is having judgment (about what furthers/obstructs oneself) without being judgemental (declaring that someone/thing else is good or bad) to 'judge' a person (or thing, as the case may be), is to take a definitive stance... an 'objective' stance. this is not the same as discussing our morals and ethics, which would be talking about our various subjective value systems... which is what Jorma was getting at, but not what Nicole was proposing. ( although i could be wrong on both counts- who knows! ) >>If someone was on here saying they killed people, or molested children, we wouldn't be debating judgment.<< are you certain? if they killed in self-defence, as a last resort, to save their own life and/or that of their children - we wouldn't be debating judgement? if they were mentally retarded and could not comprehend what was wrong with wanting to touch children? i think it is dangerous to underestimate the power of "what if"... and 'what if' encompasses everything that is Possible, and Unknown... personally, i think defaulting to 'opinion' is most wise. note, i said Personally. i don't like to claim to know more than what i think is real and true. i'll suspend judgement on what is good for other people -no matter how i feel about it. to make 'valid' judgements, ie- those to which reasonable people will not disagree, one must have a near-omnipotent access to information... (Nicole i believe was getting at this) and when is anyone ever that well informed? i don't think there is anything BUT grey area. unless of course, you are prepared to claim the 'immanent' philosophical stance ( -that there is one, indesputable Right or Good, applying equally to all things and situations-) which i personally am a little partial to, but in the nietzschean sense of determination, and not the religious dogma sense... anyway, after all that, i fully agree that it is >>where people are personally involved and sensitive as to how they are percieved that the issue of whether or not we are being judged comes up. << hell, we are human after all. i know i get kinda jumpy when i think i am being judged (as i think people have seen...!) however, i don't think that means we can't (or are not), debating 'judgement'. i do think definitions/semantics and some level of committment to rational thinking are important for sincere debate... by sincere i mean they are interested in exploring the logic of different arguments, as objectively as possible. all above quotes were taken from wikipedia, and here's a neat article on information processing, decision making and biases. dsslab.sims.monash.edu.au/dss20...oy.pdf and now i'm done. i have officially overdosed on tribe, i'm getting outta here. so you won't have to navigate my posts anymore! (at least for the time being.)

Perfection ~ and nothing less

subliminalinertia — Sun, 19 Mar 2006 03:54:43 GMT

elaine~ said: ---> True and unconditional love is hard to find and hard to give sometimes. But there is a time when it is okay to say "Game Over" and walk away from the situation. You sometimes got to let people make their own karma and solve their own problems. You can still love them and still want the best for them without joining in that oh so awkward and stiff Dance of the "I dont knowwhatIwant." Its a short life, go and play, have fun, and be happy with whom you are. < elaine~ Thank You. this is the most straight-forward and Tangible thing i think i have ever read about relationships. it's a blessing, for me, because while i believe that ->>You can still love them and still want the best for them without joining in that oh so awkward and stiff Dance of the "I dont knowwhatIwant." <<- with all my heart, there is a lot of pressure Not to walk away, but to give up yourself and let the world control you. pressure from our culture's immature romantic idealism, pressure from our fear of being alone... from fear of being selfish, proud, fear of demanding too much from life. ... fear of being hurt, but more so- fear of hurting. especially as women. we are supposed to be caring and forgiving, the nurturers... we are constantly barraged with a mess of insecurity and guilt. it takes more than a little piss and vinegar to stand up to the expectations that have saturated your whole life. especially something as insidious and corrosive as dependency and need. ha!- i'm laughing now because i have such a tendency to drift towards the abstract, and you make more sense in a sentence than i manage in a paragraph. but what you said spoke to me, and made me feel grateful grateful, because most of the time i am struggling to crawl out from under the onerous burden of guilt, and it's could be paranoia, but i default to feeling the disapproval of the whole world. and so i crawl away to hide, in shame, for insisting that i can't live for someone else or let someone else live for me. life is short, and i am not willing to give up what i know is real, right, and true... even if i will be seen as selfish, inconsiderate, hurtful.... and yet, there is more to this, things are as complex as you are willing to acknowledge, and there is no such thing as Good and Bad. H-dog said: ->He became my best friend and I haven't felt as close with anyone since then... But even when I was in it, it wasn't enough. He had qualities about him that I hoped would change, and I don't think will ever change. And they were really toxic qualities for me to be in a relationship with. The hard part is knowing he was not right for me, but never being with someone before that was as right for me as he was, and not finding anyone else since. It starts to feel like maybe he's the best I can get when I never had anyone like him before and have not found anything else since.... That's the stuck and yucky part.... but sticking with my gut is important... and the gut says that while he was lovely in many many respects, he was also a shit on many others...and the shitty part is just as real as the lovely part.<- and this is also so-very real to me... people are very rarely bad people... they are just either hurt and afraid or ignorant, and neither of those things are really blame-worthy. the most difficult thing is seeing how beautiful someone is, and loving them so much, but realizing that something in them is harmful to yourself, and that you can't just 'overcome' that. admitting that there are things you can't work through with them -for them- and that all you can do is try to stick to the things you believe in, and not comprimise your own well being, because making a martyr of yourself is not going to help them anyway, you will benefit them more as an example of self-esteem and integrity. the definition of co-dependency is having your bad patterns reinforced/encouraged/triggered by another person's bad patterns. and getting stuck there, maybe because it seems safe... comfortable, familiar. because you know what to expect, and if you leave, hey, you might never find something 'as good' again. but the truth, if you are willing to look at it, is that you are never really safe, because the damage you do to yourself by sacrificing the unknown is more painful than the damage you will suffer by risking loneliness among the endless possibilities of embracing the unperdictability of life. the real danger is to harden and crystalize at any point in your life, to plant yourself firmly in the status quo and atrophy in place. .. to stop 'loving like you have never been hurt', and to marry your pain rather than be willing to pitch yourself headfirst and backwards into the void. 'the challenge is to be willing, at any moment, to sacrifice everything that you are for everything that you could become.' and it's scary as fuck. its really fucking hard not to be dictated by fear. but the more you tell your insecurity and doubt and fear to go fuck itself, the less power it has over you, and it gets easier and easier, until you can't believe that there was a time in your life when you would have swallowed anything just to avoid ... being alone? dissapproval? what? why do we believe the versions of reality that other people impose on us? when someone hands me a big pile of their hurt and anger and pain, why do i just open up my hands and take it, without questioning whether it actually has anything to do with me? what the fuck? i have enough of my own crap to sort out without believing that i am responsible for someone else's crap. and yet, i can't seem to get away from it. maybe it's because i do care too much, in spite of my 'philosophical stance' i hate to see people hurting, i can't handle it and i either cave in and try to 'fix' it, taking up all the guilt and forfeiting my honesty and my freedom, or i just tune out, fragment, become numb to everything, and then end up doing things that i regret. but no more. i don't want to do that anymore. i dont' want do things i will regret, i don't want to regret the things i do. the only way i can see this happening is to ruthlessly do what i know is right, no matter how much it will hurt. i will not be afraid. i will not cringe and cower from being alive. this means i will not accept the responsibility for other people's problems. this means i will not allow someone else to be responsible for my hurt. i am not wounded by others, nor do i wound them. i choose to be a victim, because it is easier than refusing to be a victim. i accept other people's pain because it is easier than watching them suffer. and then i end up resenting them, and i forget that i love them, deeply. i forget how absolutely beautiful they are. i forget how to REALLY have compassion for them, and all of their misery. this is a deadly cycle. i have discovered that the only way to break this deadly inertia is to first refuse to be wounded myself. to stand back and observe them, observe myself, see that i take nothing personally, that no thing they fling at me has power over me unless i hand over my ability to determine my reality. most importantly, i have to stand resolutely in my love for them as a human being. no matter what the person says, to refuse to see them as the 'bad-guy'. and not take anything that they offer when they are obviously confused by their own fear and pain. but i do think it is important, most important, to insist on seeing them with love, sending them loving kindness, even when they tell you that you are the cause of all their misery. and the only way to be able to do that, is to constantly, each moment, leave everything that has been behind, and step into what could be... every moment, every second, you make a decision to either bring all the past hurting into the present situation and carry out your ongoing battle with that same hurt, or to step forward without defences, without guards, and without fear. and now i feel ill from sitting here typing for so long. i gotta get packing and continue my buisness of refusing to cave in to fear and doubt and insecurity. because i will have perfection, or die trying.

Re: your life purpose

subliminalinertia — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 17:42:11 GMT

new post Re: your life purpose Today, 9:36 AM >>>I feel as though there are people who have known themselves from the beginning and what direction they want to go. then there is the rest of us.<<< thats me. i mean, from the beginning, i have felt that i knew myself and what direction i wanted to go. a force that compels me, so strongly, there is no room for dallying -even a little- on the way. like gravity, like inertia in space, i simply GO along the course that has been laid for me. i don't doubt it, i dont' question it. the closest i have ever come to 'uncertainty' is a hopeless dispair that my aspirations are impossiblely high, that i will continue to smash myself into the brick wall, until i slowly bleed to death from my wounds... however, there was never any question that i would give up - stop trying to push through. even if i do just pulverise my body. i don't feel like i have a choice. people sometimes say 'oh, you are so motivated, look at what you accomplish' or things along those lines. and i never know what to say, because the truth is that it isn't true. i don't feel motivated. i feel compelled. i feel driven. i feel like i can't stop and rest because the devils will torment me in my sleep. (the devils being my own propensity towards self-destruction) the force in me, the force that drives me forward is so strong, so absolute, that if i were to somehow trick my will away from my 'path', that force would promply turn inward and consume me. i would be dead within the year. and that is not a hyperbole. there have been times in my life (particularly when i was younger and was unable to 'direct' the course of my life's events, due to physical dependence on others) where i felt frustrated, obstructed, as though i was not 'moving forward'... at these times i willed myself to die. when i was a little (not much) older, that feeling led me to consumed drugs and alcahol at a kamikaze rate - found myself, repeatedly, on the verge... in the hospital for overdose... in the hospital for septic shock so severe it collapsed my entire circulatory system... and worst of all - torturing eveyone who loved me with a blatent disregard for my own well being... nay- life. i think i first started to think about death when i was 7 or 8. i always felt that dying was the only other option. "give me satisfaction, or give me death." and that has never really left me. if i can't accomplish what i want to -need to- accomplish, i can't imagine that i would continue to live and breathe. like those myths about native americans who simply curled up and died when they were confined in prisions. i think i would simple curl up and cease to be. what has changed, i guess, is that as i get smarter, my goals become more refined, and my tactics more sophisticated. the whole affair appears to have evolved a great deal on the objective take, however, the feeling that exists inside of me is identical with the feeling of the 6 year old who collected dead animals to build a shrine in the forest, and called the ravens, and offered her prayers to be carried up to the sky on the branches of the cedar trees.