Being Nobody, Going Somewhere

The scat in the hat

2009-11-17T03:35:00.001-08:00

I've decided to present to the world my 'I done a poo in a hat' cycle of poems. Enjoy, if you can.

************

I done a poo in a hat
You can't say fairer than that

I done a poo in a lake
A girl fished it out with a rake

I done a poo on a lathe
It started out slight but turned into a swathe

I done a poo on a cat with no legs
They washed it all off now she sits up and begs

I done a poo on a runcible spoon
but the dish ran away at the sight of my moon

I done a poo on a jellicle cat
I wonder what old Thomas Stearns thought of that

I done a poo on a fisherman's wig
the volume was large as the meal had been big
it took him three years to get rid of the smell
with the strict application of strong-scented gel

I done a poo in a radial arc
you'd do the same being chased by a shark

I done a poo on my doctor's white glove
the aim had been mainly to show her my love

I done a poo thrice a day for a year
to break a world record I've always held dear

I done a poo in a patented style
the judge fined me dear for infringement of bile

I done a poo on a rare Jackson Pollock
by way of critiquing that mad alcoholic

I done a poo on some Japanese prints
my Hiroshige have looked much better since

I done a poo on some Japanese prince
who endured it with grace though the smell made him wince

I done a poo on my surgeon's cream bun,
Now my colectomy's put an end to the fun.

A joke the kids will love

2009-11-17T03:30:00.001-08:00

Q. What do you call someone who is in favour of Transmutative Endless Anarchic Novelty?
A. Protean.

Swallow, drowning butterfly

2009-11-05T03:44:00.000-08:00

If the world is my oyster, it needs more garlic.

In my free time I feel restless, so I go out into the city and end up buying books with the intention of reading or studying them in my free time. But in my free time I feel restless, so I go out into the city and end up buying books... Perhaps I should head for the country. Perhaps I should move to a place where the feeling of restlessness can immediately be quelled by a 10 mile hike into the wilderness, and the dark, cold winters make one glad to be indoors. Take me, Isafjordur!

Even when you find what you're looking for, the compulsion to keep looking remains; the habit cannot be broken merely by being rendered unnecessary. So should life simply be embraced as a quest with no expectation of finding the hole-ridden grail? An endless search for clues leading to more clues like a bad Dan Brown usuel (my coinage for a novel which has nothing new about it. Or how about notvel; novalue (pronounced novel-you); or shitfest?).

Perhaps this writing about it is the thing to be doing. Should I turn inwards and examine the ennui in microscopic detail, then try and get the sightless insights published. No, the world is already drowning under the weight of words, and the weight of wordbuoys thrown in to help the drowning, but which end up merely helping the drowning.

Collapse of the 4th corner

2009-10-16T12:19:00.000-07:00

What is this new feeling? And what are its roots?
I've been having feelings of contentment on and off for the past few months, but now there is also a budding of a sort of positive, active attitude towards the world. It is as if for a long time - perhaps the whole of my adult life - I have moved along a passive continuumm of resistance/acceptance, avoidance/tolerance. The best I could hope for was to avoid embarassment when with people and learn to make the best of my solitude. I was an old man in a hut, hiding from visitors and gathering scraps dropped by strangers. Now I have a sense that I am growing younger and could leave the hut if I wanted.

The passive introvert. To me this shelled up life has always felt like the norm. People who eat life are a different species. I find it amazing that there are people who actually have an energy which drives them to do things, be with other people, seek things from the world not for solace but for fun. Could I metamorphose into such a person?

This recent feeling of openness began, I think, with a shift, which will I think be very difficult to describe, in my perception of my relationship to the world. Based on this new feeling, I get the impression that I normally regard the world as a kind of surface out there, a wall or canvas on which everything happens, and on which I could imagine myself plotting a pathway, painting in a little area which would be my life. There's me, slowly filling the next 30 or 40 years of a small area of space, painting it with a degree in Chinese or a year in Vietnam or whatever.

The change in perception is something like realizing - not just intellectually but at a deeper, more intuitive level - that the canvas is not out there. The canvas is created in the act of looking, and all looking is in fact a looking inwards.... When I think about myself it is always me in the world, an agent interacting with other people or slabs of experience, doing things which will bring happiness, pain, boredom, etc. But now I sensed that this me-external world dichotomy could be further dissolved by turning inwards, exploring the contents of my mind without any reference to an external world and my place in it, not as an excercise in discursive meditation but rather as a fishing for creative seeds that might give birth to a poem or picture. Hmm, is this just a convoluted way of saying I've rediscovered the dimension of creative self-expression that's been absent from my life for a long time? Well, maybe. So what. Fuck it. I need a drink....

Time

2009-10-09T09:01:00.000-07:00

For we, the immortals, it seems a tragedy that so many of our fellow humans have died and will continue to die. Each of those lives was as precious and important to its owner as mine is to me, as yours is to you, and yet while their time on this Earth was limited, I (and perhaps you - we are few in number, and nobody reads my blog anyway...) will live on, watching the aeons pass, seeing civilizations rise and fall, miraculous discoveries and inventions made (I predict nanoscale wind turbines in the anal passage, powering embedded wetware which provides us with a continuous feed of everything that's happening everywhere right now on the ground as it happens. And sprout wars.), making my own philanthropic contributions here and there (... isn't this the plot of a Simone de Beauvoir novel? Ah yes, All Men Are Mortal (thanks memory)).

I often seek different perspectives as a way of crow-barring some meaning into life. Consider recent human history - or rather prehistory, preagriculture. Consider those generations of people who were anatomically and cognitively identical to modern humans, yet whose lives were lived in small groups of hunter gatherers (as some still do now in certain parts of the world). How would they have thought of the future and their relationship to it? We in the modern world are locked into the idea of progress and have been for centuries. There is a sense, so deeply ingrained that it has become invisible, that we are going somewhere, that our civilization will continue unbroken into the far future in a process not just of change but of improvement, improvement for everyone, eventually, probably.

Viewed from space there is merely, century after century, a change in the arrangement of physical matter (to borrow Beaty Russel's idea) on the surface of the earth, but for us down here these rearrangements are associated with our hopes and dreams, daily needs, work and play. When I think about my own life, my own possible futures, they must necessarily find their form within the larger forms of 'progress' to a better tomorrow - or at the very least the forms of 'maintenance' of what we have now. But when I think back to those nasty, idyllic, brutish, halcyon prehistoric hunter-gatherer days, I can't help feeling that that was the default form, the correct form, the non-aberrant form, which we must necessarily return to over and over as civilizations continue to collapse and reemerge. It is like a pulse, a leap to nowhere, a slow encrustation and sloughing off on the surface of the earth - civilization - primitive - civilization - primitive.

Of course, it is only from the perspective of a modern post-prehistoric mind that such thoughts can be had, but then I wouldn't need their solace if I was out worrying a wildebeest.

If you fill things up it is because they are empty

2009-09-29T15:52:00.000-07:00

What do I mean by this? Ah, the usual moderately interesting psychological experience...

For example, recently 'Zen' has taken up residence in my brain again. As well as the practice of just sitting and letting body and mind drop away, I'm feeling an attraction to the wabi and the sabi and all that lovely Japanese culture dripping with the blood of Zen - the calligraphy and haiku and honkyoku, all the signs and symbols of Zen. My big black zafu squats on my floor, Dogen's essays and Basho's Narrow Road sit on the sofa. These things, for me, have a kind of fullness. Their appearance satisfies me. They promise something. They will be my travelmates on a journey to a richer life.

But then occasionally, as for example yesterday, a nausea overcomes me. The objects are suddenly exsanguinated of their meaning, and just as the sight of a corpse might suddenly shatter the youth's feeling of immortality, I am returned to the meaninglessness and futility of all things and the indifference of the world outside to my internal world. Actually it's similar to the experience I used to have sometimes in the days of girlfriends, of suddenly seeing - not as a result of jealousy or argument, but just a spontaneous flipping of perception - my beloved with utter detachment and indifference, just a person, barely a perrson. A skinsack.

It always fades, and I am soon back in the world of illusory fullness. In our impermanent non-selves, any object of attachment is an incompatible organ transplant which must inevitably face rejection. But the world is a donor of infinite generosity.

Stumbling along the eightfold path

2009-09-26T06:40:00.000-07:00

Recently I have been re-engaging with Buddhism and trying to apply its teachings to my life. (I even started a couple of blogs on the subject but found I had nothing interesting to say). In many ways I have already stumbled a certain way along the eightfold path: my mind is empty most of the time, so when I meditate I am rarely troubled by the sorts of streams of thought that apparently bedevil other meditators; I have few worldy attachments, drives or desires that could bring me into conflict with other people; my livelihood is quite right; I have a shaved head...

But for me the important issue is, as ever, living with or without motivation and goals. If I am to follow the Boddhisattva ideal and strive to lead all living beings to enlightenment (in principle at least, since in practice it obviously ain't gonna happen) or, more realistically, to make the lives of other people (and cats, otters and wasps) better without seeking anything for myself, does this mean I have a duty not just to dwell in the four immeasurables (compassion, loving kindness, sympathetic joy, equanimity) and apply these ideals to situations and people as and when I encounter them, but also to actively reorient my life so that I get involved in beneficial activities such as volunteering or teaching dharma or even retraining to be a doctor?

...because that's all rather against my 'nature'. As a studious introvert, when I think about walking the Buddhist path I am naturally drawn towards adorning my own life by studying the languages of the Buddhist canon, maybe doing a PhD in Buddhist studies, memorizing and chanting sutras, practicing Zen calligraphy or blowing the shakuhachi - all things which can be safely done with minimal or no encounter with other people, and which certainly don't obviously directly benefit others - though indirectly if they lead me towards a more enlightened state then through my (minimal) encounter with others their benefits will manifest.

But of course even these activities are not necessary to practicing Buddhism, they are just potentials that appear on my horizon, and on the contrary they may simply be a case of enchantment with the beautiful grain of the raft while losing sight of the farther shore.

If I believed that my studying classical Chinese, for example, could really help other people (!!!) then my natural interest in the subject would be in alignment with the Boddhisattva ideal and there would be no conflict. As it is, I am drawn to the subject, but believe it to be fairly useless, and I know that this awareness will gradually undermine my motivation to study the language. But at the same time unless I am able to radically alter my introvert nature, I shall not be helping the needy in the meantime. Not doing what I want because I don't feel that I ought, not doing what I ought because I don't feel that I want to, I end up doing nothing.

But at least this gives me more time to sit in my garden and enjoy the trees.

Start as you mean to, go on

2009-01-01T14:00:00.000-08:00

I started 2008 with a sense of new possibility as I realized that I was well established in my profession and could basically earn enough money to do what I pleased.

I begin 2009 with my friend pointlessness sat upon my head like a squatty toad.

What do I do? A job comes in, I do the job. When I have no work to do, I can do what I like, but I have no passions or even interests really.

So I resolve to use some of my free time for jobby improvement - studying the subjects that come up in my work, enhancing my profile, making myself known to more potential work-givers. This is a dependent motivation, do B to do A better. If there was no A, B would be pointless. Also, I only do A to earn money. If this was not necessary, I would happily never do A again, and would probably let the supporting skills and connections wither.

Why earn the money? Independence. Self esteem. The foundations of a tolerable life.

I don't seek much for myself, yet I have little to offer other people, except the skill I use in my job - but in this I am merely aiding the flow of communication, not touching the lives of individuals. Is that what I want to do - touch the lives of individuals? Maybe with a long stick.

The ideal death sentence

2008-06-18T17:44:00.000-07:00

What would you do if you were told that you only had one week left to live?
What about if you only had a month to live?
What if it was a year?
What about 5 years, 10 years.
And so on
What if you only had one lifetime to live?

Live every day as if it were the only one and you will never amount to anything. This is the problem for people who have seen through the red dust of the world but still, for whatever reason, continue to breath it in. Life is a miracle, the sky is an endless dream of colours, grass sings on the slopes of a volcano, a dragonfly hovers for a moment before alighting on a child's outstretched finger.

But still we must eat, shelter, mate, trade, and write our theses on symbolism in medieval Mongolian love poetry.

Breastfeeding in Iceland

2008-06-16T16:23:00.000-07:00

On a recent trip to Iceland, I spent a lot of time breastfeeding.

I went there in the hope that exposure to a bit of raw nature might do something for the ennui. Anyway, while gazing at senile volcanoes, their slopes balding black or covered in hoary moss, I was reminded of an insight I first had in Japan when climbing Mount Fuji.

Fuji, as any half-decent volcano should, has a glorious form: a perfect cone with an areola of snow, and foothills gently sloping into the surrounding planes. Seen from a distance on a clear day it has a powerful sensuousness that makes you want to do more than just look. If only you could experience that gentle form, that soft snowy texture, more directly, more intimately. Ah, to touch, to stroke, to mount Fuji. And so, you decide that a full consumption and consummation can only be achieved by actual physical presence on the mountain.

Climbing mount Fuji was one of the most exhausting, miserable and disappointing experiences of my life. The driving rain, the strength-sapping monotonous climb up a winding grey ash path, the altitude sickness that prevented me from continuing to the very summit, all these things constituted the haecceity of Mt. Fuji, the essential nature of the thing, and as with all things, this nature was not fully apprehendable from a distance. Nevertheless, as the clouds and my head cleared, I surveyed the scene from the slope I was on and saw an exquisite vista of mountain after feathery mountain receding into the misty distance. I resolved to climb every one.

Two points emerge from this: first, we are very bad at predicting what will make us happy. I regard this mount Fuji disjunction as a metaphor for the imagined futures we spread out before us. Every ambition is a little Fuji - a new job, holiday, weekend away with a suitcase of Danish pastries, will when actually experienced consist of nothing but a fine-grained shale of unforseen moments. It is not even a question of expectations being fulfilled or disappointed, but rather that those expectations are representations of the wrong subject in the wrong media - a crude crayon sketch of a man on a hill instead of a novel about beef, played by an orchestra.

The second point is that maybe, just maybe, this strong attraction to hilly things stems from the fact that they resemble in form the breasts we suckled as babies. As a breastfeeding baby, the image of this areola-capped mound rising up from its surroundings must surely have been the most comforting, most attractive image to form in the blanky mind, and maybe it's impossible for a grown man to look at a breast or breastoid form without stirring up some deep root of comfort and pleasure. Of course I am not saying that when I see a volcano I think to myself 'Ooh, that looks like a breast, but it's too big to suck, so I'll just go and climb it instead' - that would be silly. On the contrary, I believe that when I see a volcano, some primitive part of me thinks 'Ooh, that looks like a breast, and if I climb it, maybe I'll get the milk.'

Hopeless monsters and tiny greenfields

2008-06-14T16:38:00.000-07:00

Max Mosley, head of Formula One's governing body, has been (about 2 months ago - I do try and be up-to-date) under pressure to resign for allegedly indulging in a Nazi-themed orgy with a number of prostitutes. Presumably an orgy with such a morally dodgy theme added excitement and increased the prick's priapic potential.

Personally, I was more outraged recently when on an edition of the Andrew Marred 'The Weak Start' on BBC Radio 4, Professor Susan Greenfield insisted on pronouncing the 'nano' of 'nanotechnology' as 'nay-no.' (I expect she pronounces 'grey goo' as 'graggy'). This flagrant disrespect for oral rectitude left me fuming in my bed, and I believe I was justified in my anger, for language matters; incorrect pronunciation leads to miscommunication and misunderstanding, and from there it is only a short step to war.

Yet I somehow doubt that the newspapers would have even bothered to print the Mosley story if the orgy had involved a team of naughty neuroscientists shouting 'nayno, nayno' while covering Max in a grey chutney blanket.

Chutney Blankets

2008-06-13T16:05:00.000-07:00

It is my opinion that this word pairing is chronically underused in the English language. Until now these words have apparently never appeared in this order on the interweb, nor have I ever heard them uttered together by another person, living or dead. I am not sure what a chutney blanket is, but my guess is it is a blanket made entirely from chutney, and is probably used to keep one warm in a sandwich.

The world may not yet be ready for this wordy union, yet I like to think that at this very moment, in a restaurant or library, or lazing on a hammock in a landlocked country, another person is contemplating these lovely syllables and wondering at their import. Indeed if you, gifted reader of this blog, should take it upon yourself to spread the chutney blanket meme by slipping chutney blankets into your conversations, essays or marriage vows whenever appropriate, you will be partly responsible for further enriching the English language, and your life will not have been in vain.

Killing time

2008-06-13T08:03:00.000-07:00

Just as when waiting at a bus stop or airport you might get out your novel or sudoku book or other such time-killer specifically brought along for its murderous purpose, so it often seems to me that all our goals, ambitions, achievements are just killing time between a birth and a death. At least, I myself am often overcome by this nauseating sense that in my own life this is the case. In general I find that in socially acceptable time-killing situations such as the departure lounge, I prefer to let time live, and to watch, to sit with an empty mind - my mind is invariably empty - and to do nothing. But when expanded to the scale of a lifetime, this same tendency manifests itself as a lack of ambition, abandonment of projects as pointless, a sense of futility and a wish just to watch the world pass without either attempting to engage with it or to make full use of the time by doing anything 'useful'.　

Whatever I choose to do, it is simply killing time until I die. This feeling, which is by no means constant in me but is I think interesting enough to write about and regular enough to be a problem, is perhaps the result of a particular line of philosophical reflection, or of my own peculiar psychological make-up, or an interaction between the two. If I was constantly driven, if I had a burning ambition or obsession which demanded fulfillment, then perhaps this feeling would never arise. I have occasionally felt driven, and I suspect it is precisely at moments when the fire goes out, when a ballooned ambition is pierced by real experience, when - to shift metaphors - you find yourself stranded centre stage with the mask (and until now you never suspected it was a mask) suddenly peeled off to reveal a faceless, scriptless nobody, and you shuffle offstage into the dim auditorium to sit and watch as your fellow actors continue to flap their mouths and roll out their roles - it is at these moments that you realize you can either remain in the empty (it is always empty) auditorium or fashion a new mask and carry on with the play.

If, having seen into the emptiness and absurdity of it all, you choose to re-enter the play, it is with a lost innocence, but also with the potential for a greater freedom to remake yourself, to alter the script, paint your face with gold or shit. Once you have had this experience of seeing the play for what it is, I wonder if it is ever possible to lose that perspective, to forget, to allow a mask to etch itself onto your nothingface again. I don't think it is possible for me. I can play the part, but I know that my attempts at impersonation are all pretense.