Piece of Peace of Pisces

Like a ghost. Gliding around in space with all the pleasures of sense, but none of the hang-ups, the stubbing of toes, or the hitting of head on freezer door. Friday after work - and this is a fitting follow-up to my last post - until the wee hours, was in a state of general serenity. Coked up on serenity, one might say, if that were possible. No explanation really, only the tale:

After hitting the ATM (allowance doled out to myself in sparing and controlled spurts), met Tania, and we went to the Texas State History Museum. Hot evening, but in the shade, few worries. The purpose at this point was free Rudy's BBQ first, and live music second. The little BBQ dogs did not disappoint, and I had seconds, plus some of that Sweet Leaf iced tea - original and peach. Tania, not feeling the meat so much, wanted a supplement, so we wandered over to the Dog and Duck Pub - where I had not been since visiting Austin last February - for some great beer (an experience I don't have as much these days, due to budget restrictions, sticking to PBR and High Life, the occasional Tecate) and falafel plate for her. Spicy too. Too spicy, in fact. But with the beer, the background music, some stimulating conversation, and the cushioned seats at a booth in the center of the room, the serenity seeped in further.

And then back to the museum, no food or iced tea left, and still not feeling the music. No prob; primary goal (to remind you, that was the BBQ) had been achieved. With at least an hour of sunlight left, Tania had an idea. Hit the road. Scooter ride was breezy, smooth, well-paced, and quite in alliance with the atmosphere - wind and air. She took me to Mozart's Cafe, on the lake. One of the most charming places on the lake, and anywhere, really. Sit outside, as sun goes down, gazing at yellow-purple reflections dancing in the ripples of water in front of dense green hills - for a half an hour, I was only eyes, nose, and ears. No body, and no mouth, because why talk at times like these? Other people talk - about school, about food and drink, about art and culture - but it seems to exist in another dimension, a TV I can turn on and off with my consciousness. Bugs flying around become part of the landscape; with the right depth of focus, the bugs in the foreground mingle with the birds flying over the hills in the background, and I can't tell the difference. At any rate, I can't feel them... they don't bite, and thus become part of the painting. And that's that. Bliss.

Must move on, and I hate to say it, but I must get groceries. Get dropped off at the supermarket, and you would think this experience would end the serenity. At times, sure, but there's a certain peaceful awareness in counting tomatoes and choosing Honey Bunches of Oats over H.E.B.'s wholesale muesli concoctions. The walk home, with a full and heavy backpack (including a Steel Reserve twelve-er) and two other bags, all 20 minutes of it, is not serene, per se - I am sweating like a New York Knicks center in the '93 playoffs - but it is part of the night, and somehow, like the ice bag that takes the swelling down, is comforting. In a mind-numbing way. At home, putting groceries away, become embroiled with Tania and Anjela in conversations about lingerie; and the fact that the female sex can multi-task better than their counterparts. But years of interactions with various females leave me at least semi-prepared. Make a turkey-swiss-and-mayo-on-wheat, pop a couple Reserves (at 8.1% ABV, they are fortifying), and sit back. Still... still at peace.

No one else wants to go out, but there's a free punk show at Stubb's that I want to see, so I do. Last #5 leaves my house at 11:30, into the club to see Me Against Everybody - pretty good hardcore, like a cross between Murphy's Law and Black Flag. But getting tired, the serenity seems to be waning. To the street. Up and down 6th street, I transform from a ghost to a fish. Swimming around in a sea of attractive, carefully presented bodies, figurehead cops on bikes, and stumbling frames reaching out for a direction... but in a way, they all become one - part of the sky in my mind that has turned from dreamy ambivalent clouds to bright constellations and raucous shooting stars. Still, it surrounds. Pisces, a fish in the sky. In this state, I decide it best to continue the show.

On a $5 budget, nourishment is difficult. Slices are all $3 or 4$, sausages and dogs up there too. They can charge whatever they want on this street. But finally, my research pays off, spotting a $2 sausage wrap on Red River and 7th. Chow down, lubricated with BBQ sauce, this is my seventh meal (albeit small) of the day. Into the club, and say bartender, do you have anything in the $2 range? A High Life would be great, and here's a dollar for your trouble. Downstairs, the Krum Bums are playing; a great band, by the way, sort of reminds me of the Virus. With the five members on stage seeming to be approaching an ecstatic choir like anthemia, the crowd dancing and singing along, and I - pleasantly full, ears and eyes absorbed, living the High Life - feel still, still, still serene. A different end of the spectrum, to be sure, but the peaceful mind makes no judgments.

Back down 6th, in time to catch the night owl bus, and home. And just like that, it ends. This is how many words it takes to describe an essentially singular feeling, and now I ask, what's the point? Why do I bother? Well... although it can't be recaptured, one must try. And I can't help but to try to express the contents of an existence that, in ceaselessly trying, will not end. Ever.

All the times, after all, all the same

Been reading The Miracle of Mindfulness, by Thich Nhat Hanh, a book about meditation, and Buddhism to an extent, but most importantly, about the idea of living every moment of life with mindfulness - creating a harmony between your mind and body and your environment. (I will say right off that all this stuff is difficult to paraphrase, because it's abstract to begin with. Been having trouble understanding concepts myself, and that's no way to begin explaining things in writing, but... to hell with constraints, ya know?) The primary concept, which I believe is the reason Aaron got the book for me, revolves around the importance of living every moment, period. But beyond that, it gets tricky. I fully support the concept, and it's gotten me re-interested in meditation and other things, but I've got my reservations too.

From my personal standpoint, the live every moment dictum (which, when you break it down, is anything but a dictum - reservation #1) falls into two strains: the Buddhist perspective and the anarchist/situationist perspective (e.g. "Who wants a world in which the guarantee that we shall not die of starvation entails the risk of dying of boredom?" - Vaneigem; "You will end up dying of comfort;" etc.). (Incidentally, Henry Miller probably bridges the gap between the two most completely.) One of the main differences here is that Buddhists like Hanh advocate being mindful during all activities - washing the dishes, drinking tea, working for the man - while the anarchists essentially do as much to discredit or avoid the work aspect as possible.


(I keep typing "meditation" as "mediation," and it's funny, because they are almost opposites - meditation is about direct contact with your environment, and mediation is the intervention between the two. Still, there may be some cautioning irony here....)


It seems to me that most post-industrial jobs, in the form they currently inhabit (in other words, market capitalism), are either directly or indirectly harmful to the well-being of humanity. Directly harmful jobs are those that directly support Capital (retail, marketing, so much else) - which essentially keeps us all enslaved to an immaterial entity (money, credit, etc.) - and those that directly support the State, which regulates Capital and the power of the wealthy elite to the detriment of the rest of us. Indirectly harmful jobs, if they don't contribute directly to these institutions, often contribute to the deterioration of the worker him/herself mentally (through monotony, obedience, stifled creativity, etc.) and/or physically. My current job, an archival one, is a great example: I work for a state-sponsored department, but what we're doing does not support the State or Capital directly, and on the positive side, could theoretically be benefical to the natural environment. However: every day the mind-numbing work deadens me a little inside.


(Overdramatic? It may seem so, but take a step back and look at what these lives do to us. Children, the gleam will leave the father's eye. It's only blasphemy when you don't really believe it.)


The compromise for me, then, is, until a more clever sounding phrase comes up, the "supplement of creative absentmindedness." Exactly as it sounds: while working in an uninspired and uninspiring environment, your mind is elsewhere - on creative ideas, blissful memories, psychedelic dreams, etc. It's a way to make every moment your own without succumbing to the indoctrination of Capital or the State. With this particular job, it hit me a couple of weeks ago, after a majestic Sunday evening: Phil, Laura, Tania, and I went to Lake Travis for swimming and grilling. Had no charcoal and no utensils, but we collected wood and Phil started a fire, and we were off. Then, as the sun went down, scanning the horizon from inside the lake, a craggy fossilized landscape under purple sky, ghostly trees set up against it like in a Road Runner cartoon, inspiration hit and insulated itself in the cranium. Didn't even feel bad about going to work the next day. In the morning, I read something - might've even been Vaneigem - to stimulate the cranium a bit, and I was off... in the world, in my own world - as opposed to the world dominated by the dollar - where peacocks crow and everyone walks around with big yellow cell phones that are actually rotary phones ripped from the cord. Do the phones actually work, or are we all crazy? It doesn't really matter....

Thinking of a letter Kerouac wrote to Philip Whalen: "I'd be ashamed to confront you and Gary now I've become so decadent and drunk and dontgiveashit. I'm not a Buddhist anymore" (found on Wikipedia). But really, it's selective: why can't we be Buddhists some times and inspired decadents others?

Been working on this entry for a week now, because it seemed fitting to only write it while at work. But today, with every song piping from the muffled radio in the nearby cubicle sounding like "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips, I am done. Sufficiently, creatively, and passionately absentminded.

Like a bowl of Cheerios

Dropped in the bowl, I am a Cheerio;
Milk surrounds and milk is my guts;
Other humans make a meal of cereal;
Dropped in the bowl, we are Cheerios.
Floating around, in existence ethereal;
None in control, we are also nuts.
Dropped in the bowl, I am a Cheerio;
Milk that surrounds me becomes my guts.