In Which It Is Noted That There Is A Window Out the Window

06/29/2006 6:07 AM – 6:30 AM

Remember again that existence exists without your permission, that writing is just throwing the words down on paper as they are told to you, that editing is something different from writing and is done at a different time. Where is it that you want to be? Want to be where you are and the desire is accomplished, you are content. The carnivore makes a better shepherd than the herbivore because it has more at stake. Better not to have a shepherd and run unencumbered. The past is immutable, the future is unknowable, and the present is already gone. Seeing what is here is better than desiring what isn’t.

I was seventeen once. I was six. I was twelve. Just yesterday, I was thirty. Doesn’t matter. There’s a window out my window. There’s wind in the trees. There’s clouds and sunlight. This is enough. Doesn’t feel like it? All that it is is feel. Is or is not. Can you make it be? Is it worth the effort? What in the future has strong enough feel to out-weigh the pull of this instant? Save your money. Perhaps if I remind you enough, you will. Let go of the foolish nows and remember the necessary weight of the future betters.

But then they say there are no betters. Bah. Only in the present. You have to make assumptions. You have to buy into the system for a time in order to buy out of it. That the system is flawed does not change the fact that is rides most everything. You want to get out of the system? Then don’t buy that slice of pizza. Keep your money. That is the thing. Remember in the instant that in the instant, all things are equal and choose the hope over the shiny trinket. Get rid of your shiny trinkets and hold on to the intangible hope. Of course this contradicts, most true things do. Swallow the contradiction and hold it until it dissolves and becomes self-evident. Get up in the morning, go to work. Have as few obligations as you possibly can. Save your money. Don’t eat the pizza. Eat the sandwich you made at home. Exercise. Sleep at night. Go. Eat your bread with joy and drink your wine with a merry heart. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all you might. God has already accepted your works. You will find nothing better in all of the strange days of your strange life.

Which Is To Say, Stop Being Miserable, You Miserable Bastard

06/26/2006 7:06 AM – 7:41 AM

Whenever possible, it’s better to be happy than miserable. This seems obvious, but since you often do not follow this simple rule, I thought it best to remind you. Misery does not imply depth, nor happiness foolishness. This is your life; when you’re dead, you’re the one that will be gone. Stop trying to show how smart you are by showing how well you know misery. You don’t need to show a godamn thing. Be, and in your being, be happy. It’s shallow to pursue pleasure, but it isn’t nearly as stupid as pursuing misery.

Pursue contentment, and, going further along, pursue delight. Be content in all things, but strive for delight. You will be dead and gone, and what can you take with you? Naked you came and naked you will go. Be kind but realize that you cannot make anyone happy. That is the special providence of the individual self. Let go of the way you look to anyone else, they aren’t going to be buried in your casket. Love your neighbor, but save yourself. You cannot save the world, you cannot save your neighbor, and it’s stupid arrogance to think you can. Let it go. Each man must dig his own grave.

So now you’re angry at the imposition that the existence of others places on you. Stop it. Doesn’t do you a damn bit of good. Smile and nod and go on your way. Remember that the greatest and most annoying Other is your self. This biting and kicking thing. While he is alive, a man that has control of himself can make a heaven out of hell. You’re still alive. Be content. Remember in all your fun things to do, that the only thing worth being is happy. When happiness won’t stay, let it go, but be content. This is enough. This will always be enough. Eat and exercise as is fitting a biological machine designated “hunter-gatherer.” Save as much money as you can, it’s the only way you’re allowed to tell society to go fuck itself. But remember that this right now is enough. Even if you never get to tell society to go fuck itself, this is more than enough, because you’re not dead yet and you don’t have to be miserable. So wake up. Notice your existence. Be happy, you miserable bastard.

On the Other 99% of Life

06/19/2006 7:32 AM – 7:53 AM

That you stand behind a desk for six hours a day during the weekdays does not change the fact that you are biologically designed to be a hunter-gatherer. There are things that can be learned from that perspective. That sometimes the Perhaps of the world outside the small one you inhabit seems to vibrate with greater potentiality does not change the fact that you take yourself with you and are bound by laws of physics and present economy.

Make money and save as much of it as you can. Future pleasantries are paid for with present work. What is it that you question again? Is this all? Yes. In every circumstance that you can imagine, you will still have to recognize the base reality of your existence. You were born, you will die, and you can’t know what comes after. In the meantime, you are doing. This is what it means to be alive. You are not Braveheart. You are not the Gladiator. You are not Neo. Neither were they. Your life, like the lives of the millions of lives of the other people that have, do, and will exist are just lives. Be ye whatever you are and be content in that.

This is enough. Your great battle is to get up in the morning and go to work. Every day. Your great struggle is to eat the right foods and exercise as is fitting the descendant of the hunter-gatherers. Your life will not make for an excellent movie. Your life is just itself. Just like everyone else that has ever existed. Good luck plays in, as does bad luck. But, for the most part, it’s just getting up and going to work. Napoleon's life makes for a good story because 99% of it is left out. If they left out 99% of your life, you’d make a good story too. There is no need to be great. That is the great con of man. You need only feel the greatness of your own little life. Let go of the lie that there are great men. There are no great men only men. Some of them had more peace, and others more wisdom, and others more photogenic. Be whatever it is that you are supposed to be right now. That is great enough. Perhaps you will find your cabin, but if you do not learn to be content in this waning city, you will not be content in the green county. Let go. Let go of everything except what you need to be doing right now. This is all there is and it is more than enough.

On Holding On and Letting Go

06/15/2006 9:14 AM – 9:33 AM

What is this writing thing that I do? These instants, I’ve always done some version of them. I probably always will. But what is this thing where I keep telling myself – you have to write, you have to prove your value. No I don’t. I am myself. I always have been and I always will be. If you can’t find peace in the city, you won’t find it in the country. I think I’ll always have some nebulous form of story rattling around, but that doesn’t mean I’m supposed to write it down.

What is better: to have lived a good life or to have written good tales? The two do not have to be exclusive, but I don’t see a point in insisting that I get to my cabin by writing. Writing is an outgrowth of what it means to be Spike. It is not the definition of Spike. Spike also takes pictures with a cheap digital camera. Spike also doodles. Moreso, Spike reads. It is enough to sit. It is enough to eat. It is enough to let it go. What do you want, O Spike? What is it that your face before your grandparents were born looks like? Who are you? I am myself. I was born without my permission; I will someday arrive in the grave where there is no longer any meantime.

So what is it that one should do in the meantime? Work and enjoy the fruits of your labor. Should time and chance effect the plans unfavorably, scream and shout and pound your fists into the ground, and when it is time to run out of tears, run out of tears, stand up, dust yourself off and start again. This is the task that God has appointed to man all the strange days of his strange life. Let go of desire, desire breeds only disappointment. No work is a glorious as a fantasy. Let the fantasy go and be here in the work. Work with humility and gratitude. See the purpose of your life in the living of it. Gather while you can. Let go when it is gone. There is a time for everything. Everything is beautiful in its time. Let go of it. Its time is here. It is already beautiful. Let go, little lost boy. Let go, forgetting old man. Let go, whoever you are right this moment. All things that arise arise. When their time is full, they arise, and in arising, they are the beauty that exists. They are the only beauty that exists. So let it all go. This is enough. Wisdom and planning and patience and self-control and letting go when these fail. This is enough.

My Second Favoritest Photo Of Myself

Mullet... pirate shirt... too... damn... sexy... must... look... away...

The "Nothing Better" Verses

Of the Meantime

06/14/2006 7:37 AM – 7:57 AM

Why come back to sitting every day, when it seems to lead no further? Practice, I think. One does not get chased every day, but it would be good to be in shape for those odd moments when you are. Perhaps I am approaching that desert area where one cannot turn back, but neither can he see why he keeps taking that next step. But one step at a time, you move on, walking toward some distant, unseen hope. What does it matter what you do, if you are alive and have some sense of the deep river that flows unseen beneath the dry sands?

This too is a gift of God, says the Preacher. A God whose origin, nature and purpose we cannot fathom even in two times a thousand years. No matter what you do, you will end up in the same place. Take comfort in that. All is forgiven by the grave, for the grave cares nothing for you. Get up now. Get up and find a goal, though that goal is mistaken, the movement towards is what fills the air with breath. But perhaps that is a lie. But perhaps, who really cares? You are alive, as far as you can tell, for there is labor in the day and strong drink in the evening and sleep in the night. All things that arise descend.

Where was I when You laid the foundations of the earth? What was my face before my grandparents were born? I was not. The potential for my existence was present, obviously, but I was not. In some time, I will not be. My existence is very brief, and yet it is all that I can know. What should one do? How should one live ones life? Fight to hold it and when you discover that you can’t, let it go. Grab everything that you can without hurting anyone else and when the whirlwind knocks you down and takes it all away, get up, dust yourself off and start again. That is all that you can do. But our chief task is to enjoy those things that we are given. There is a time for everything and everything is made beautiful in its time. Letting go of those things that are not now, we press on to what may not be. Who can discover true silence? Who can ascend His holy hill? No one. But we can find in ourselves the echo of the one true moment. Sit a while and let it go. Let all things go and see if, after seven days, they return upon the waters. Where was I when God laid the foundations of the earth? Who am I to question the actions of God? Why, I am myself – who was born and will die and was often called, “Spike” in the meantime.

In Which, On a Good Day, the Moon Goes Down in Ohio

06/13/2006 5:40 AM – 6:01 AM

So what do you conclude, old man – is it better to be wise or happy? I don’t really know and it’s beside the point anyway. I’m up and the world is turning. Let go of that which doesn’t matter. What matters? And that’s the question isn’t it. Not knowing the end of the matter, how do we decide which way to proceed?

I recommend “Peanuts” and Dean Martin. Throw in Romantic Comedies for levity. All this circles around. You are now alive and it’s better to be happily alive than unhappily so. So. Get up in the morning. Drink your coffee, do something that slowly builds up to something. That which wastes the time you’re living in, let go. Save your money. Own less stuff that you’ll never use or only use once. Go ahead and get those few things that you’ll use again and again. If you can afford it. Find out what those few things are. What are those few things? That’s a question worth musing on the day through. Thoreau borrowed his axe. And the land his shack was on.

When you can, let yourself enjoy this. When you can’t, hold on ‘til you can. Perhaps someday, you’ll learn how to enjoy the hold damn thing. This this being all you have. The waning moon is still in the sky, sinking down in the southwest. Perhaps somewhere in Ohio. Two birds flew in front of the window and then vanished behind the houses. Where were you going? Where did you come from? Where are you right now? This is where we are. In this now. Can we make it better? Then let it go and be. You have more than enough, do something with it. Underneath all, pursue peace. Wake up and shake the dust from your eyes. See the world in its better light. Your soul is the appraiser of its existence. Value it highly. Now let it go and be. This is enough. This is more than enough. The little room is larger than you need. One inch square is one inch square to clean. Live here and save your money for that thing which will come when the time comes – a fort against fear, provision for the journey. You’re awake. You’re here. Though you cannot prove to Whom you give it, give thanks. You’re life is that good.

On the Negation of Desire

06/12/2006 6:43 AM – 7:05 AM

To extinguish desire. What an odd and difficult desire. To desire the good. To desire the better. The better for ones self. But the self is an illusion. And when someone says that the self is an illusion, I hold tight to my wallet, experience telling that what they want is for my self to buy things for their self.

How much desire should one then keep? Enough to keep you from stepping in front of a bus, one master said. What then is the Good? What is it that you need to do to keep yourself on the Good Path? Desire the Good. What is the Good? What is the Good Path? Compassion I can understand in the context of societal harmony, but what is there to be compassionate towards in the mountain hermitage? The self, what self? If there is no individual self, there is no universal self. But we live here and now. Somehow, I hope this line of questions leads to righteousness, peace and joy.

I don’t know what the koans mean. I don’t know what the parables mean. I can feel it sometimes. Too tired and thirsty for my mind to grab the definition and description of water, I know what water is. All that I come back to is “save your money.” But that implies that the future is present. Perhaps it is. Perhaps I am merely being cantankerous. Perhaps I am merely struggling to let go of the desire for the Good. I doubt it, somehow. But I’m awake. I’m up in the morning and though I do not have my mystic’s eye glancing round the world and finding the Silence of God eminent in all things, I’m here. I have some level of peace. I still fear for my body. I still fear for my soul. The food tastes too good. The cigarette smoke feels too good. Somehow, there is a way underneath the covers where the monsters are forgotten and the warmth of just being is enough. There is, somehow, a game where, as one plays it, one finds one’s self in the abstract and things don’t hurt and they don’t pleasure. Is that what it takes to have peace - the negation of existence? I’d swallow the red-hot iron ball if I could be sure. But surety is in notoriously scarce supply and its value is undeterminable. They are fools or liars who have said that they are not selfish. Every time I have forgotten myself, it was in service of my self. Maybe that’s how we have to go to get there. And so for now, just let it go and save your money.

The One With the McBLT Box

06/09/2006 6:53 AM – 7:22 AM

I wasn’t late (well, like three minutes) and the morning glories have sprouted. There is a difference in thinking and writing the instants. A work of art is not the thing you’ve planned, but the thing as it is finished. The glorious thing in your mind is not the work; it is just a tool of the work, like the ink or the camera. Time and chance also. So let it go and watch to see what the actual is.

When I was a child, I thought as a child, I understood as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. Unless you become as a child, you cannot even see the Kingdom of heaven. Paul vs. Jesus – it’s the classic modern Christian rumble. Of course, you can relieve the tension by asserting that the two speak different words for different instances. And that’ll work fine in the day-by-day, but when it’s time to create, let the opposition roll through the rounds. Flicker down the days in the darkened theatre. It’s just this. Again. But without the implication of ending or starting. Set the opposites together in your mouth, keep the cold cold and the hot hot. Like a McBLT box.

Did the remembering of death terrify you again last night? Good, now let it go and be right here where you are. This is where you are. Will you manage to write something? Will you eat and shower? Are you there yet? Then do this. This thing that you’re doing right now. Master, set my mind at peace. Bring your mind to me and I will set it at peace. I cannot find my mind to bring it. Then the work is done. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? What was your face before your grandparents were born? Just let it the fuck go. There’s a cup of coffee right there on the desk. There’s food in the fridge. The toilet is working and you’ve got toilet paper. You’ve got a little money in the bank. You’ve got a job. You’ve got a bed. You’ve got a roof over your head. Be thankful, you silly schmuck, and get on with this strange thing of being alive. What is love? Baby, don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me. No more. Wake up from your nightmares of fame and fortune and be this thing that you are. Save your money. Don’t save your money – doesn’t really matter. But save your money.

On Ansel Adams

06/08/2006 10:50 AM – 11:08 AM

They say that the moment that Ansel Adams went from being a photographer to Ansel Adams the photographer was when he realized that he couldn’t capture the majesty of the scene he was photographing, he had to make it in the final print.

A realistic portrayal expressing the exact tonal contrast of sky and rock wasn’t enough. In order to invoke the sense of awe he experienced in the presence of nature, he had to change the picture. He darkened the sky and decreased its information content. He lightened the cliffs and increased their data. By changing from realism to iconism (albeit subtle iconism), he was finally able to invoke naturalism in his viewers. I find this very amusing for some reason.

Why is it that this was the thought that kept coming back to me as I sat? Why didn’t pass through? Why is my mind so fascinated with this that I’m risking being late just so I can get it down? I don’t know. The sky is oddly the more permanent thing in the picture. The granite rock face, which seems so sure, rose and will fall beneath the fluid consistency of the airy sky. The sky requires constant upkeep, as is demonstrated every night when the atmosphere grows transparent in the absence of sunlight. But when the glorious rigidity of Half-Dome has crumbled to Yosemite’s valley floor, the sky will still be that distracted blue that it is everywhere else in the world. The transient illusion outlasts the reliable solid. If he could get a bottle of bourbon out of it, Mr. Id would love this. Save your money.

oooo... pretty...

Which Is About Waking Up

06/07/2006 5:13 AM – 5:34 AM

Wake up, oh groggy mind. Wake up, oh sleepy body. Wake up and worship your Creator with being. The streetlights are still on, you’re thinking of writing something. This is a good day. Wake up and do. The air is still chilly with night.

For advice, I’d say: don’t spend your morning looking up gossip on Meg Ryan. It will just make you grumpy. Let everything go and come back to the still, small point. This is being. Right here and now. The morning glory seeds are all planted. It’s a Wednesday. Let go of the passage of time. Find the point of reference that grasps the one, long moment. Eat only what you need. Save your money. Live simply. Desire only what is here. Keep your body well. Sit every day. Write every day. Every moment is good enough until at last we find our separation from the Divine too much to bear. Be here now.

There is more than enough in those few bits to keep you busy for a lifetime. Be humble as the streetlights flicker out, finding peace in the letting go. This too shall pass, whether this is hard or easy, pleasant or unpleasant. Let it go and hold onto the single moment that is being alive. Change is impossible, nothing is changeless. Fade and grow strong. Just sit. There is more than enough. How can you be poor when you have more than enough to eat and wear? How can you be worried when you can see the peace at the heart of all being? Just let go of your stubborn insistence on a flawed perspective. You are here. Delight in it. Enjoy all the strange days of your strange life, this is the command that God has given man. Let go of your anger at the wind, it’s a rather pointless point of view. This passes. All things pass. Wake up your delight. Enjoy your existence. We never left the garden. Our fall was to see it as not enough. There is no cause for shame – all your debts are paid. Wake up.

In Which Where We Are Is Good Enough

06/06/2006 6:59 AM – 7:25 AM

Get up. Get up to let it go. Let it go, there’s the sky again. Let it go, there’s the trees and the streets and the cars and the houses and the sunlight illuminating the tops of far clouds. What is it that you were just looking for? What is your goal? My goal is to accumulate money. Why? Because an accumulation of money is the only way to buy out of the system.

Why do you want to buy out of the system? Because the system is opposed to contemplation. Why does that matter? Contemplation leads to wisdom, wisdom to peace, peace to contentment, and contentment to thicker joy. So let it all go. This is where you are. This is as it is. Don’t forget that you’re not trying to change the world, just act well your small part in it. This to this to this is the only righteousness. What is this we do? Why is it that we sit? All things end. Some things never begin. We get up in the morning. We get up in the morning and learn to lay it down. What is is. What will be will be. Let go and save the self. To save the self is to let it go.

Just let it go, Spikey Jim, let it go. See the shadows the trees cast on the neighbor house. Love don’t cost a thing. Our purpose is enjoyment, the path is delight. Let it go and be delighted. Let it go and return to the face you had before your grandparents were born. What joy can you bring to your tiny little life? What is the substance of an uncalculated smile? Just let it go and live in your existence. Let go, let go, let go; letting go, in the end, even of letting go. Then you simply are and the breeze blows through the widows and the marsh reeds bend with the weight of silver-gray dew. We are. Be content with this because it is all you will ever have, whether you buy out of the system or not. The light suddenly brightens and the little houses glow in a cacophony of wordless chorus. There is the jogger. There, the bus. There, the dust on the widow. Where we are is good enough. Where we fight to climb, spending our last, will be just good enough too. Sit down and sit. Sit down and type. Sit down and draw. Sit down and dream. Then let it go. This is only just what is and its value is more than you could ever earn. So get up. Get up and let it go.

On Accepting What Is Again. Again.

06/05/2006 6:30 AM – 6:53 AM

The light comes up in the morning and shows only traces of clouds, stretching themselves across the horizon. Some seeds were planted in the pots on the fire escape last night; more will be planted this evening. Wake up and do this.

Things change and other things stay the same. I am grown up, and somehow, this is what I want to be. Why did I want to be this person that I am right now? Does it really matter? What matters then? Peace. What’s peace? Peace is recognizing the inherent all-rightness of this existence. Letting go of pointless striving, we seek to grasp the base level of full silence. Where were you then? What were you striving for? Do you really need what you want? Is what you want more necessary than the possibility of future peace? If not, let it go and return to what is freely given in this second. The tick of the clock. The stillness of the morning light. Forgetting all that is behind, we press on towards whatever will be.

Save your money. Divest yourself of all that isn’t necessary to this small right here. Like us, time moves in small circles, progressing ever on to what is next. It is not necessary to run to keep up with it, merely walk or sit. But sometimes run so hard that your lungs scream from the terror of cool air. Accept what is again. Wake up and recognize that this right now is what is. Floating down the wide river, gather the fruit that bobs in the water. Eat what you need and save what you can. There are seasons without fruit. Let it go and be where you are right here. Put down that knife unless you need to slice an apple. All things that are will go. Only some things come to be. Resolve yourself to reality. The only way to do it is to cherish the grit of it all. Let go, old man. Let go, little boy. All things you are will stop their striving. Pass on into the silence of the growing life. Find the green inherent to the muscle and the red inherent to the leaf. Let it go and be yourself as you are. Peace is not found in fantasies of the future, only in finding the peace of this very now. Accept this cup and drink it down. Drag your stick along the white picket fence that marks the front yard of the unknowable. I am here. I am here. I am here.