Guru Padmasambhava Invocation Hill
Tuesday, April 03, 2012
At This Time
Looking back at old words written a few years ago. Thought that comes to mind is, could not write like that now. Head not in the same place...backwards or forwards, which direction has it gone? I just don't know. More than likely stayed the same, only different scenery passing through. Just the way it is, no use complainin'. 50 this month. Wow!
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Karma Glue
Random thoughts, idle jots...who knows where they will lead? Nowhere probably I guess. Just about to book a ticket to go out to India. Yes, India again. Think I have been there pretty much every year since 2000. That's the way it goes. That is just the way the cards have fallen I. Go out there to visit the family, Tamdin's family strictly speaking, but mine as well I guess. Down in the south, the deep south of India. Karnataka. West of Mysore a couple of hours. Still gonna be the hot season down there, hot and sticky but that is OK, maybe hot and sticky is what I need. Beers on the roof again, can't be bad. Head pulled back and looking up at the stars, seeing satellites, sensing the spirits of the country, the deep country of Karnataka. Looking forward to it I guess, in a tired and oh so familiar kind of way. Like I said, been there so many times before. That is just the way the cards have fallen. Some people get to go to the Carribean year in year out, stretch themselves out on beaches made in paradise... or maybe they go up in the mountains skiiing their hearts out amongst all that snow, skiing like pros, skiing like the chosen people. Well I get to do nothing like that, just back and back again to South India where a bunch of Tibetans live in exile, slowly but surely being forgotten by the rest of the world. Being forgotten by themselves even as so many of them now have their heads full of dreams of going to America the land of milk and honey, the 21st century Shambhala in the eyes of the Tibetans where all their dreams will come true. And they might.
What will I do when I get there? Same things as usual; speak a bit of broken Tibetan, hang about on the roof jotting pieces of stuff down in my notebook, spend some time my carefully selected books, do a bit of meditation and that is about it. Rest of the time try not to get too bored and to look completely and utterly lost. Same old deal in other words. Been doing it for so many years now it is almost second nature to me. Oh yes, there will be the usual eating quite a bit of delicious food and drinking beers in the evening time. Nice, no complaints about that. No doubt I will be going through patches of paranoia as well as I think to myself "Shit, here I am the only pale skin with a bunch of Tibetans who are speaking a language I can hardly understand despite the fact I have been coming out to see most years for nearly 20 years. What went wrong? Why do I still have so many limitations? Damn strange thing in an unbelievably sad, middle aged already seeing the end of the road pathetic kind of way. I can hardly bring myself to explain how it has come to be. Must be the prayers of others that keeps the whole show on the road. People race past me year after year but here I am still, in the backwaters of life watching the time pass by, slowly but surely losing the energy that I still possess as my face gets fatter and my belly too. What is it that I am supposed to do?
Karma. Feel it now, hard and fast. Only so much one can do without blowing the whole deal apart, leaving things messy, bloody and a sight that no one really wants to see. India, land of exotic dreams for many. Land of pligirmage, land of the multi-headed myriad coloured dream deities who can turn your world inside out. Yes, there is all of that, and then punks like me come along with so little to offer if truth be told, but there you are, it is how it is. Karma. Back to India. Sitting in the car staring out upon the dust, the roadside shacks looking like any minute they will fall over, the fruit stalls...yeah all of that, the signs of life that you pass by all in a blur. Sunsets over the fields and the hills in the distance out to the west, red sun behind them, all of it looking unbelievably beautiful. Turn my head back east and watch the moon rise above the shadows of the holy hill further into the land, brings on all kinds of thoughts in me. Don't know if those thoughts will ever add up to anything. Thoughts of India... better get out my Tibetan notes and brush up yet again, on all those things that I still don't really know even after all this time, ha ha, hee hee. But what else is it that I can do? The consistency year in, year out, that is about the best that I can come up with. Keep on going whilst my health is OK, try to keep the connection with the people. So there you go, that is how it is. I can see it all now. Sitting on the roof with old man Namkha as he drinks his whiskey down and me sipping on a local beer. Complete opposite to those 21st century dreams of the ipod generation, only know the pod is now a pad, but it don't really matter, they would be unable to see the beauty of the basic dust of life even if it rose up and hit them in the face.
Drink it down, this karma, this destiny to do what you have to keep on keeping on. Last year I wrote a bunch of poems when I was there or at least what I thought were poems and I gotta admit I was pretty happy with them. Thought they were good in an oh so modest kind of way. They are there for all to see on Ghost Eternal 2. Maybe same thing will happen again this time round, strike lucky, but lightning don't really ever strike twice. Don't matter as long as I don't up in some kinda scrape which with my profoundly unadventurous spirit is unlikely anyway. Hit the road see a bit of the country if I can. Stare out in wonder, happy briefly, but still as stuck as ever.
What will I do when I get there? Same things as usual; speak a bit of broken Tibetan, hang about on the roof jotting pieces of stuff down in my notebook, spend some time my carefully selected books, do a bit of meditation and that is about it. Rest of the time try not to get too bored and to look completely and utterly lost. Same old deal in other words. Been doing it for so many years now it is almost second nature to me. Oh yes, there will be the usual eating quite a bit of delicious food and drinking beers in the evening time. Nice, no complaints about that. No doubt I will be going through patches of paranoia as well as I think to myself "Shit, here I am the only pale skin with a bunch of Tibetans who are speaking a language I can hardly understand despite the fact I have been coming out to see most years for nearly 20 years. What went wrong? Why do I still have so many limitations? Damn strange thing in an unbelievably sad, middle aged already seeing the end of the road pathetic kind of way. I can hardly bring myself to explain how it has come to be. Must be the prayers of others that keeps the whole show on the road. People race past me year after year but here I am still, in the backwaters of life watching the time pass by, slowly but surely losing the energy that I still possess as my face gets fatter and my belly too. What is it that I am supposed to do?
Karma. Feel it now, hard and fast. Only so much one can do without blowing the whole deal apart, leaving things messy, bloody and a sight that no one really wants to see. India, land of exotic dreams for many. Land of pligirmage, land of the multi-headed myriad coloured dream deities who can turn your world inside out. Yes, there is all of that, and then punks like me come along with so little to offer if truth be told, but there you are, it is how it is. Karma. Back to India. Sitting in the car staring out upon the dust, the roadside shacks looking like any minute they will fall over, the fruit stalls...yeah all of that, the signs of life that you pass by all in a blur. Sunsets over the fields and the hills in the distance out to the west, red sun behind them, all of it looking unbelievably beautiful. Turn my head back east and watch the moon rise above the shadows of the holy hill further into the land, brings on all kinds of thoughts in me. Don't know if those thoughts will ever add up to anything. Thoughts of India... better get out my Tibetan notes and brush up yet again, on all those things that I still don't really know even after all this time, ha ha, hee hee. But what else is it that I can do? The consistency year in, year out, that is about the best that I can come up with. Keep on going whilst my health is OK, try to keep the connection with the people. So there you go, that is how it is. I can see it all now. Sitting on the roof with old man Namkha as he drinks his whiskey down and me sipping on a local beer. Complete opposite to those 21st century dreams of the ipod generation, only know the pod is now a pad, but it don't really matter, they would be unable to see the beauty of the basic dust of life even if it rose up and hit them in the face.
Drink it down, this karma, this destiny to do what you have to keep on keeping on. Last year I wrote a bunch of poems when I was there or at least what I thought were poems and I gotta admit I was pretty happy with them. Thought they were good in an oh so modest kind of way. They are there for all to see on Ghost Eternal 2. Maybe same thing will happen again this time round, strike lucky, but lightning don't really ever strike twice. Don't matter as long as I don't up in some kinda scrape which with my profoundly unadventurous spirit is unlikely anyway. Hit the road see a bit of the country if I can. Stare out in wonder, happy briefly, but still as stuck as ever.
Bob Dylan in China
Guess I'm disappointed with Bob Dylan for recently playing shows in China. Been kidding myself these last few days that by opening those shows with Gonna Change My Way of Thinking he was sending out a deliberate subtle message to the authorities over there that he was on the side of what is right all along. But really the truth of the matter is that that is not the case. He just does not care anymore, has not cared for a long time in fact. The Chinese scrutinised all the possible songs he might have played and told him that it would not be be possible to perform some of them. In other words he let himself be censored. He let the Chinese poke their noses into his business and for the time he was with them to dictate to him what was what. This is one of the most repressive regimes in the world in case we have forgotten. All this at a time when political oppression and human rights abuses by the Chinese are worse than ever. The most obvious example is of course the recent case of the artist Ai Weiwei suddenly disappearing off the face of the earth, but there are countless others as well.
As usual in the middle of this storm and comment Bob Dylan is totally and completely silent about what his thinking and his motives might be by playing these shows. Sometimes silence just is not good enough, it can only get you so far, and this is one of those occasions. For someone who is so closely associated in the minds of so many people with songs of freedom and the upholding of the dignity of human beings it is now extremely sad to see him kow-towing to the Chinese in this way. It can have no other effect than endorse China and its regime of oppression which shows no sign of slowing down, in fact it is getting stronger and stronger.
In real terms he has made no effort whatsoever to be controversial in these shows, he just went out on stage and played a selection of his songs that could in no way be interpreted as challenging anything or anyone. All the time wearing his big hat and saying nothing apart from introducing the band. The only conclusion that I can draw from it all is that for Bob the whole point of going to play in China was simply because it was another place on his list to visit and then to notch down that he had played in. I think it has been a big mistake and he has opened himself up for criticism and ridicule again, maybe like he has done before but somehow different to before because it really is so hard to forgive what he has done this time. China is really not the place to be if you want to go against the authorities and what they say you can and cannot do.
No doubt his reaction to all this if he even bothers to pay attention to it will be to shrug his shoulders and move on to the next place on the road. Fully enclosed in his own world in which he is very much the imperial emperor, and wondering just what all the fuss is about. Well the fuss is about drawing a line in the sand for once and just saying no, I am not going to cross that line. Clearly for Bob the line is not there. What a shame.
As usual in the middle of this storm and comment Bob Dylan is totally and completely silent about what his thinking and his motives might be by playing these shows. Sometimes silence just is not good enough, it can only get you so far, and this is one of those occasions. For someone who is so closely associated in the minds of so many people with songs of freedom and the upholding of the dignity of human beings it is now extremely sad to see him kow-towing to the Chinese in this way. It can have no other effect than endorse China and its regime of oppression which shows no sign of slowing down, in fact it is getting stronger and stronger.
In real terms he has made no effort whatsoever to be controversial in these shows, he just went out on stage and played a selection of his songs that could in no way be interpreted as challenging anything or anyone. All the time wearing his big hat and saying nothing apart from introducing the band. The only conclusion that I can draw from it all is that for Bob the whole point of going to play in China was simply because it was another place on his list to visit and then to notch down that he had played in. I think it has been a big mistake and he has opened himself up for criticism and ridicule again, maybe like he has done before but somehow different to before because it really is so hard to forgive what he has done this time. China is really not the place to be if you want to go against the authorities and what they say you can and cannot do.
No doubt his reaction to all this if he even bothers to pay attention to it will be to shrug his shoulders and move on to the next place on the road. Fully enclosed in his own world in which he is very much the imperial emperor, and wondering just what all the fuss is about. Well the fuss is about drawing a line in the sand for once and just saying no, I am not going to cross that line. Clearly for Bob the line is not there. What a shame.
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
The Struggles of King Basil
All this running around - where has it come and from where do we go?
Creating busyness. Giving ourselves justifcation for carrying on, livin' and breathin' on this earth.
So hard sometimes not to let the feelings overwhelm you. Those negative feelings that leave you under a cloud. The number of times I have wanted to punch someone in the face for not behaving in the way that I want them to is simply uncountable.
Those dreams of being in places that you cannot be - how painful! Of not accepting the reality that has come to pass. Head full of wishes when I look to the sky...useless dreamer.
Seems like I am is where I always was - sitting in my room an' wondering just what the hell it is I am supposed to do with my life. Same old place.
Certainty - apart from death there is none.
Gotta pull myself together. Say the same thing to myself time after time but it don't ever seem to make that much difference.
Will it change, who can tell?
Head full of dreams...wondering down the streets of memory, always thinking I should be somewhere else. Not taking responsiblity of the day to day hard and fast reality of where I am and what I am.
Too many dreams too much desparation. Feel like I'm walking round with a sign on my head which says avoid at all costs... you won't find any joy with me.
Neck hurting, pain in the neck. Pain in the shoulders too. Too much thinking, too much negative thought. This is the price you pay ain't no doubt about that.
Looking for a brighter day...but the brightness don't lie out there, only place it can be found is within. Life is what you make it simple as that. Roll across the heavens banging your drum, roll across the heavens till death comes. That is the way it is.
Don't know why we have to run into such confusion. Don't know why I have to be so overwhelmed with emotion when it is swinging the wrong way. What can be done but drink it down?
It is always gonna come. Don't know if I will ever find that place in the sun. The shadows haunt me and will always haunt me if I sit here thinkin' my lucky break is gonna fall down from outta the sky with me ever doin nuthin'. It don't work like that, simply don't work like that.
Dreamer. Basil is a dreamer. One of the worst if truth be told. Basil just can't stop dreaming thinking all his problems will fade away...
Just ain't gonna happen like that. Don't believe in fairies, don't beleive in magic, don't believe in the sun breaking through from behind the clouds...nuthin like that.
Sitting in my office on a nice warm sunny day and all I can think of is that, shit I'm stuck in Ilford, stinking smelly Ilford, instead of a nice place in the country where the warm breezes blow fresh and there is a peaceful stream at the bottom of the field close and all I'm looking out upon is the green green green grasses of home. No, no, no, not like that at all where I am, here in Ilford and those thoughts of yearning can only make me feel miserable.
When will I stop having this patheic King Basil attitude towards all these things?
Think myself as a Buddhist but really, am i? Fundamental promise of Buddhists is to stay until the end, to be where the worst things are, to be there because others need our help. Don't really feel like that myself I have got to say. Just want to get the hell out of here most of the time, as if it is all just some kind of horrific karmic accident, get the hell out of here and go to where the beautiful people go, where they sun themselves day and night, living the life of ease and leisure. Yeah, I'm a liar to think I can stand all this ugliness when that is where I really want to go.
This is the kind of thinking I have and it naturally makes me suffer. How could it not when like I said the reality is that I am where I am and where I am is Ilford and like I said it aint necessarily pretty, in fact I find it a dirty stinkin' place to have ended up. But it has all been written in the stars and nothing happens in life by accident. There are no mistakes, every step that I have ever taken has led me here.
There are people here who make the best of it so why can't I? Probably there are plenty who are proud of it and might even think it is close to being the best place on earth.
So there is no point in getting down on my knees to pray for the well being of others when I can barely stand to be in the place that I find myself. Is there? Gotta throw out these useless thoughts of ending the life of King Basil. Of disappearing in a puff of smoke, or slowly fading from view like a ship sailing down the river into the red sun of eternity. Just not the best idea. I know that and I know I have to fully and completely comprehend it, otherwise no matter what I do, if it invloces running away in any shape or form, it is only going to make things worse. Still, I might just do it.
Bitterness over where I find myself is no good, it won't help. I know it ain't gonna change things so why feel bitter and twisted with the way things have spun? Gotta learn to be a better King Basil, face up to life with dignity; what it is and where I find myself...find the dignity of a King Basil.
Useless feelings of despair are only going to make me feel more sad. People live and work, are happy and sad under these Ilford skies so why can't I do the same? Be the same?
Guess the danger is acceptance and not fighting at all, but then again why fight? When it is what it is then that is it. Only need to change if it fits and the thoughts I have about change don't really fit, just involve running away or doing myself in or praying that somehow a whole load of money is gonna fall from outta the sky and solve the whole thing, this whole damn question.
It ain't gonna happen baby, it ain't gonna happen, so shape up and see things as what they are and learn the simple fact that nothing is mistaken. If this is where I am then it is where I am for a very good reason. All the previous paths I have taken across uncountable destinies have led me to this place right now. No good thinking it is a quirk of fate, some unlucky, unjust, bizarre accident that should never have occured because, oh my god King Basil you are too beautiful, too precious and too good for this dirty stinkin' ugliness. No way baby, it happens because it has been made by you baby and no one else.
It might sound harsh it might sound cruel but only a fool would try to deny it. Get on with life ya silly old king. Throw those setting sun thoughts out the window cause they ain't gonna do you no good. But that, I know, is so much easier said than done, and when I am sitting here feeling these feelings of complete and utter boredom, misery, despair then I know full well it is so much easier said than done.
Yes, it is a struggle and a struggle that leaves me with little more than a huge lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. So bad that a cool headed person might be driven to think, hey this baby should never have survived.
So yes, for this King Basil it can be a mighty big struggle.
Creating busyness. Giving ourselves justifcation for carrying on, livin' and breathin' on this earth.
So hard sometimes not to let the feelings overwhelm you. Those negative feelings that leave you under a cloud. The number of times I have wanted to punch someone in the face for not behaving in the way that I want them to is simply uncountable.
Those dreams of being in places that you cannot be - how painful! Of not accepting the reality that has come to pass. Head full of wishes when I look to the sky...useless dreamer.
Seems like I am is where I always was - sitting in my room an' wondering just what the hell it is I am supposed to do with my life. Same old place.
Certainty - apart from death there is none.
Gotta pull myself together. Say the same thing to myself time after time but it don't ever seem to make that much difference.
Will it change, who can tell?
Head full of dreams...wondering down the streets of memory, always thinking I should be somewhere else. Not taking responsiblity of the day to day hard and fast reality of where I am and what I am.
Too many dreams too much desparation. Feel like I'm walking round with a sign on my head which says avoid at all costs... you won't find any joy with me.
Neck hurting, pain in the neck. Pain in the shoulders too. Too much thinking, too much negative thought. This is the price you pay ain't no doubt about that.
Looking for a brighter day...but the brightness don't lie out there, only place it can be found is within. Life is what you make it simple as that. Roll across the heavens banging your drum, roll across the heavens till death comes. That is the way it is.
Don't know why we have to run into such confusion. Don't know why I have to be so overwhelmed with emotion when it is swinging the wrong way. What can be done but drink it down?
It is always gonna come. Don't know if I will ever find that place in the sun. The shadows haunt me and will always haunt me if I sit here thinkin' my lucky break is gonna fall down from outta the sky with me ever doin nuthin'. It don't work like that, simply don't work like that.
Dreamer. Basil is a dreamer. One of the worst if truth be told. Basil just can't stop dreaming thinking all his problems will fade away...
Just ain't gonna happen like that. Don't believe in fairies, don't beleive in magic, don't believe in the sun breaking through from behind the clouds...nuthin like that.
Sitting in my office on a nice warm sunny day and all I can think of is that, shit I'm stuck in Ilford, stinking smelly Ilford, instead of a nice place in the country where the warm breezes blow fresh and there is a peaceful stream at the bottom of the field close and all I'm looking out upon is the green green green grasses of home. No, no, no, not like that at all where I am, here in Ilford and those thoughts of yearning can only make me feel miserable.
When will I stop having this patheic King Basil attitude towards all these things?
Think myself as a Buddhist but really, am i? Fundamental promise of Buddhists is to stay until the end, to be where the worst things are, to be there because others need our help. Don't really feel like that myself I have got to say. Just want to get the hell out of here most of the time, as if it is all just some kind of horrific karmic accident, get the hell out of here and go to where the beautiful people go, where they sun themselves day and night, living the life of ease and leisure. Yeah, I'm a liar to think I can stand all this ugliness when that is where I really want to go.
This is the kind of thinking I have and it naturally makes me suffer. How could it not when like I said the reality is that I am where I am and where I am is Ilford and like I said it aint necessarily pretty, in fact I find it a dirty stinkin' place to have ended up. But it has all been written in the stars and nothing happens in life by accident. There are no mistakes, every step that I have ever taken has led me here.
There are people here who make the best of it so why can't I? Probably there are plenty who are proud of it and might even think it is close to being the best place on earth.
So there is no point in getting down on my knees to pray for the well being of others when I can barely stand to be in the place that I find myself. Is there? Gotta throw out these useless thoughts of ending the life of King Basil. Of disappearing in a puff of smoke, or slowly fading from view like a ship sailing down the river into the red sun of eternity. Just not the best idea. I know that and I know I have to fully and completely comprehend it, otherwise no matter what I do, if it invloces running away in any shape or form, it is only going to make things worse. Still, I might just do it.
Bitterness over where I find myself is no good, it won't help. I know it ain't gonna change things so why feel bitter and twisted with the way things have spun? Gotta learn to be a better King Basil, face up to life with dignity; what it is and where I find myself...find the dignity of a King Basil.
Useless feelings of despair are only going to make me feel more sad. People live and work, are happy and sad under these Ilford skies so why can't I do the same? Be the same?
Guess the danger is acceptance and not fighting at all, but then again why fight? When it is what it is then that is it. Only need to change if it fits and the thoughts I have about change don't really fit, just involve running away or doing myself in or praying that somehow a whole load of money is gonna fall from outta the sky and solve the whole thing, this whole damn question.
It ain't gonna happen baby, it ain't gonna happen, so shape up and see things as what they are and learn the simple fact that nothing is mistaken. If this is where I am then it is where I am for a very good reason. All the previous paths I have taken across uncountable destinies have led me to this place right now. No good thinking it is a quirk of fate, some unlucky, unjust, bizarre accident that should never have occured because, oh my god King Basil you are too beautiful, too precious and too good for this dirty stinkin' ugliness. No way baby, it happens because it has been made by you baby and no one else.
It might sound harsh it might sound cruel but only a fool would try to deny it. Get on with life ya silly old king. Throw those setting sun thoughts out the window cause they ain't gonna do you no good. But that, I know, is so much easier said than done, and when I am sitting here feeling these feelings of complete and utter boredom, misery, despair then I know full well it is so much easier said than done.
Yes, it is a struggle and a struggle that leaves me with little more than a huge lump in my throat and tears in my eyes. So bad that a cool headed person might be driven to think, hey this baby should never have survived.
So yes, for this King Basil it can be a mighty big struggle.
Monday, March 21, 2011
King Basil
Don't know why I have the feelings that I do...
Feelings of despair...
Feelings of wanting to throw myself in the river...
Been giving myself a hard time.
Looking at the world around me and thinking to myself - why is everyone and everything so much better than I am?
Why am I so worthless? Why do I have so little in the way of redeeming qualities?
What were the tricks I missed? What were the paths that I didn't take in my life for things to end up like this?
Feel so sensitive sometimes it is as much as I can do not to just curl up into a ball and burst into tears.
2011 another year. Nights beginning to get lighter and from Sunday they will be lighter still as that is when the clocks go forward.
Frightens me that I can spend so much time thinking that I wish I was somewhere else, that I wished that I was not where I am. Same old situation that I have always had in other words. And that is simply not being to get it out of my mind that the time and place I find myself in and the people I am with are somehow not good enough; that I deserve something better and because I don't get the things that I want I feel sad, feel depressed, feel like hardly wanting to say a word to anyone. Been here so many times before.
In Buddhism this is what is known as the basic suffering of having what you do not want and not having what you want.
Having what I don't want. Guess we can keep this simple and say well, I don't want to spend my life working in Ilford. But that is the experience I have and have had for the last 10 years and which will continue into the future for as far as I can see. Day in day out, working in Ilford, in a falling apart office that I always feel could be so much cleaner and tidier than it ever is.
Not having what I want - and what would that be? A place in the country a job in a nice quiet place say at the end of a lane by a stream of clear running water where the winds gently blow. That would be nice. Those are the things that I want or at least those are the things, the visions that run through my mind when I sit in my office in Ilford and of course as a result of having those desires I suffer because of them.
At the end of the day it is all down to mind. More than possible that someone could step into my shoes and think by contrast they are luckiest person in the world to have all things in life that I have. More than possible...all to do with mind and how you see the world.
Mind. Those feelings of jealousy which are so easy to arise when I look around and see people living in nicer places than I do, leading fuller lives and in general just being a damn sight more capable at making their way in the world. Difficult not wish them, all those countless numbers of people living and breathing on this earth right now, having some kind of nasty accident. Crazy, pathetic of me I know.
At the end of the day though the fact of the matter is that I have come to where I have come to simply because of me and my own actions. So easy to sit back and in my mind blame it all on others..."oh yes, I didn't have that but had this when I was a child and therefore that is the reason why I am what I am..." Not good enough to think like that I know but at the same time very difficult to shake myself out of it. So very difficult.
Another spring time coming along, some nice sunny days thrown into the bargain and yet again I find myself thinking just how great it would be if I took off disapearred and lived a life in the sun...but with what? It would turn into a crazy pathetic setting sun kind of existence and would inevitably only cause me more pain.
Yes, I look at myself, look at what I have and feel like curling up into that ball again. Why do I have such a small penis? Why do I have no DIY skills so that I could at least keep the house in which we live in good shape? Why do I feel so full of fear when any potentially confrontational situations come along? Why do I feel the sweat on my palms when I imagine confronting people who have upset me? Why do I feel such despair over thinking that they know I am an easy push over and that they can do what they like with me? Why does that lump in my throat grow so large it is as much as I can do to squeak the words out? Words of rage and helplessness...
These kind of thoughts have been with me the whole of my life, now at 48 soon to be 49 I feel just as far away as ever from solving them, from being able to accommodate them in such a way that does not end up in visions of me just wanting to kill myself, of wanting to do myself in simply because that is the only way I can see to get rid of these feelings...crazy thoughts I guess but then what is the alternative? To live with them and suffer the feelings they engender for the rest of my life however long that might be? No, no, no...if possible it is best if I try to understand them, to see that they have not come along without a reason, that they are not just some dirty trick being played upon me. They are the reflection of my inner state of being and they are 100% rock solid in their formation, they could only have come about by what I have done in the past, how I have behaved towards others and how in my mind I have treated this sacred gift of life.
Seems like this life and the situations it throws my way is telling me that if I ever want to have any hope of getting at least to a decent level of happiness and contentment, to shake out all this frustration that I feel then I will eventually have to do something pretty drastic as regards to taming my mind. To opening up to the fact that it is no accident that I am where I am and that if I sit there in the corner wishing things were different I am missing countless opportunities to expand into this life and actually learn something from it.
If I don't manage to do that then it is just going to be more and more of running away from it, head full of dreams and on the sure road to even greater tragedy than what it feels there is now. So buck up Basil, it is entirely up to you how you want this flash in the pan to play out.
Feelings of despair...
Feelings of wanting to throw myself in the river...
Been giving myself a hard time.
Looking at the world around me and thinking to myself - why is everyone and everything so much better than I am?
Why am I so worthless? Why do I have so little in the way of redeeming qualities?
What were the tricks I missed? What were the paths that I didn't take in my life for things to end up like this?
Feel so sensitive sometimes it is as much as I can do not to just curl up into a ball and burst into tears.
2011 another year. Nights beginning to get lighter and from Sunday they will be lighter still as that is when the clocks go forward.
Frightens me that I can spend so much time thinking that I wish I was somewhere else, that I wished that I was not where I am. Same old situation that I have always had in other words. And that is simply not being to get it out of my mind that the time and place I find myself in and the people I am with are somehow not good enough; that I deserve something better and because I don't get the things that I want I feel sad, feel depressed, feel like hardly wanting to say a word to anyone. Been here so many times before.
In Buddhism this is what is known as the basic suffering of having what you do not want and not having what you want.
Having what I don't want. Guess we can keep this simple and say well, I don't want to spend my life working in Ilford. But that is the experience I have and have had for the last 10 years and which will continue into the future for as far as I can see. Day in day out, working in Ilford, in a falling apart office that I always feel could be so much cleaner and tidier than it ever is.
Not having what I want - and what would that be? A place in the country a job in a nice quiet place say at the end of a lane by a stream of clear running water where the winds gently blow. That would be nice. Those are the things that I want or at least those are the things, the visions that run through my mind when I sit in my office in Ilford and of course as a result of having those desires I suffer because of them.
At the end of the day it is all down to mind. More than possible that someone could step into my shoes and think by contrast they are luckiest person in the world to have all things in life that I have. More than possible...all to do with mind and how you see the world.
Mind. Those feelings of jealousy which are so easy to arise when I look around and see people living in nicer places than I do, leading fuller lives and in general just being a damn sight more capable at making their way in the world. Difficult not wish them, all those countless numbers of people living and breathing on this earth right now, having some kind of nasty accident. Crazy, pathetic of me I know.
At the end of the day though the fact of the matter is that I have come to where I have come to simply because of me and my own actions. So easy to sit back and in my mind blame it all on others..."oh yes, I didn't have that but had this when I was a child and therefore that is the reason why I am what I am..." Not good enough to think like that I know but at the same time very difficult to shake myself out of it. So very difficult.
Another spring time coming along, some nice sunny days thrown into the bargain and yet again I find myself thinking just how great it would be if I took off disapearred and lived a life in the sun...but with what? It would turn into a crazy pathetic setting sun kind of existence and would inevitably only cause me more pain.
Yes, I look at myself, look at what I have and feel like curling up into that ball again. Why do I have such a small penis? Why do I have no DIY skills so that I could at least keep the house in which we live in good shape? Why do I feel so full of fear when any potentially confrontational situations come along? Why do I feel the sweat on my palms when I imagine confronting people who have upset me? Why do I feel such despair over thinking that they know I am an easy push over and that they can do what they like with me? Why does that lump in my throat grow so large it is as much as I can do to squeak the words out? Words of rage and helplessness...
These kind of thoughts have been with me the whole of my life, now at 48 soon to be 49 I feel just as far away as ever from solving them, from being able to accommodate them in such a way that does not end up in visions of me just wanting to kill myself, of wanting to do myself in simply because that is the only way I can see to get rid of these feelings...crazy thoughts I guess but then what is the alternative? To live with them and suffer the feelings they engender for the rest of my life however long that might be? No, no, no...if possible it is best if I try to understand them, to see that they have not come along without a reason, that they are not just some dirty trick being played upon me. They are the reflection of my inner state of being and they are 100% rock solid in their formation, they could only have come about by what I have done in the past, how I have behaved towards others and how in my mind I have treated this sacred gift of life.
Seems like this life and the situations it throws my way is telling me that if I ever want to have any hope of getting at least to a decent level of happiness and contentment, to shake out all this frustration that I feel then I will eventually have to do something pretty drastic as regards to taming my mind. To opening up to the fact that it is no accident that I am where I am and that if I sit there in the corner wishing things were different I am missing countless opportunities to expand into this life and actually learn something from it.
If I don't manage to do that then it is just going to be more and more of running away from it, head full of dreams and on the sure road to even greater tragedy than what it feels there is now. So buck up Basil, it is entirely up to you how you want this flash in the pan to play out.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Strange Coincidences, Windy River & Into the Crowds
Took a long walk into town yesterday after an initial bit of indecision as to how tired I was gonna feel and whether it was worth it. Weather yesterday was windy with fast moving clouds rollin' across the London sky but the clouds were stacked in banks so behind them just lay another bunch and then another bunch with no hint of any blue sky. But that was OK because the temperature was good, warm in fact, and in comparison to what it has been like for some periods this winter it was positively beautiful. I was also to be thankful that the clouds did not produce any rain, I mean I more or less ran the gauntlet the whole time I was out but somehow the rain held off.
Yesterday was Saturday so in the morning first thing I had things to do like go over to Ilford to drop off a bunch of shirts at my favourite Muslim dry cleaners, then drop into the office for a couple of things that needed sorting and also I had to leave the car on the fifth floor of the Ilford Exchange car park in order for it to have a clean and valet by the Poles. Guess it all worked out pretty well and by 11 or so I was back in Woodford with a couple of chicken tikka masalas from M&S which were on special offer at half price, and a couple of Danish pastries for a late breakfast. I got back home made a large mug of tea and then quaffed those pastries down in about two minutes flat, caveman style which meant that after not very long at all my gut was nicely full. Thunk. Then did stuff in the house for about an hour or so as I needed to get things more or less in shape for Tamdin's return from India tomorrow. Yeah, all those things which seemed so important to do at the time and which are now, barely tewnty hours after I did them running around busy as a bee, so goddam hard to recall.
It was just after 12 when I was out again, down to Woodford tube for the ride into town. Sat on the tube with the last part of David Copperfield to read and in the back of my mind tried to decide which stop to get off at, how long I was gonna walk for and stuff like that. Buzzin', buzzin', in the back of my mind. Jumped off the train at Bethnal Green which turned out to be a good decision. As soon as I hit the high road for the walk due west down to Brick Lane I told myself that I had to walk slowly or at least slower than the usual fast pace that I set myself. Reason for this was simply that I knew my energy reserves were low and that if I set off too fast I would pay the price later. Pay the price big time, like getting back home and having to go to bed for a couple of hours because mt body was completely and utterly fucked.
So glad I had the presence of mind to do this, and almost straiught away I was seemingly able to observe so much more by walking at this slower pace and not only that it also felt so much more natural. I was able to take in more of the local Bethnal Green scene, a fascinating melting pot of East End London if ever there was one that is for sure. I have always had a good feeling about Bethnal Green; it is inner city of course but for me at least it never feels oppressive. Dunno why but I think it might have something to do with the fact it is so close to the City, that is the real City of London, where incredible history and amazing buildings lie as markers to the cosmos, and at the weekend it has a powerful sense of space and emptiness that is hard to find anyplace else. Not only that, but you can also reach the river through the backstreets and suddenly find yourself in a different world entirely. So it is good, Bethnal Green is good, strangely different from Whitechapel which is pretty close but a lot more sinister.
Going along Brick Lane which by the time I reached it must have been just after one or so, I dropped into Rough Trade to see if they had any Orb or Chemical Brothers going cheap. Funny thing happened there in store as the day before I had been down to Foyles bookshop in the middle of town to hand over some information on new books to Kenny, the guy I know there who works in the Foyles religious department. When I had gone into Folyes Kenny had been crouching on the floor picking a bunch of books from a lower shelf. He got up when I said his name and we then had a good chat about how things were going as far as our part of the book trade was going. We talked particularly about the evils of the internet in the form of the dreaded Amazon and all the punk ass little books sellers who exist on Amazon supposedly as partners or some shit like that and who were selling stuff for next to nothing. Felt warm towards Kenny as we had our chat and I could see from his face that for him, just as for so many others in the countless millions of people in London, life was probably a bit of a struggle when it came to negotiating the hazards of survival both spiritual and physical in 21st century urban living.
So, I walked into the Rough Trade store and right there crouching down at the bottom of one of the CD racks was Kenny! Couldn't believe it, I just couldn't believe it. The funny thing was that I was aware of a presence there in that space, a familiar presence and just before I looked down I had the complete and utter certainty that it would be Kenny. Guess I felt confused and I didn't say anything to him as I knew that he had not seen me and it would just be too damn awkward for me to introduce myself to again this time in a different but still strangely familiar situation.
In our conversation from the day before we talked for a while about the changing landscape around that part of Charing X Road where Foyles was situated and the fact that the Astoria, a kind of famous music venue, had been now been knocked down. I had mentioned to Kenny that I had seen Augustus Pablo play there in the 1980s and he had seemed well impressed with that. Oh man, that now seemed a long time ago! Augustus Pablo, Junior Delgado and whole posse of reggae rastas who had flown in across the big, big waters straight from Jamaica. It truly had been an incredible show, the bass, the bass...!! And now, the next day here was me and Kenny again. Weird, no doubt about it. These things happen I guess, strange conincidences, karmic echoes from out of the realms of the very strange. All that I could do was silently observe this situation which had briefly come about, and then quietly move on. Felt even more tender towards Kenny as a consequence of seeing him there crouching down between the CD racks. There he was on his day off checking out the music, unless of course he happened to work at Rough Trade at the weekends. There was always that possibility I suppoose.
Got down to the river at London Bridge, north side of the Thames and one of my favourite entrance points to be by the fast flowing waters. As always, I was blown away by the sight of the Thames. Does it to me every time. Soon began to recite my Green Tara mantras and walk as close to the river as i could, tight up against the wall above the waters. No doubt in my mind that Ackroyd is right when he calls the Thames a divine feminine. It is, and that is why I only ever recite Green Tara prayers when I am walking beside it. I love it, love it so much I cannot even begin to describe how joyful it makes me feel. North, always the north bank these days, so much better than the south and all the crowds, so much darker too with so many little pathways and tunnels you have to negotiate, but of course the important thing for a loner, a solitary ghost such as me is that there is so much less people.
The tide was low, there used to be a time when I was disappointed if I got down to the river and the waters were not flowing full. Not anymore. These days I now think that I actually prefer it when the waters are low and it is possible to get down the steps and and walk along the shore. The feminine again, as you can really feel the power of the moon as it pulls the vast amounts of water in and out a couple of times a day, and in the process so radically changes what it is that you are looking out upon when you find yourself down there. Sucking those waters in and out again a couple of times a day, every day. The difference between high tide and low tide on the Thames is great, sometimes over twenty feet.
Yesterday it was low, pretty close to as low as it can be I guess. Walking along the north back with the strong but warm westerly winds blowing in my face, and looking out at the swirls of the brown muddy waters with the usual river traffic plying trade right down the middle was all pretty fantastic. Think I must have been in good tongue yesterday because the Green Tara mantras spilled outta me with hardly any effort, guess I was inspired, guess I was even getting close to feeling holy, religious, whatever it is you want to call it. Kept stopping and staring down at the river show below me; the debris washed up from out of the waters...a traffic cone, a skateboard, a lorry tyre... all kinds of stuff and of course there were the sands, the stones, the ancient wooden barge beds and remains of Roman wharfes poking up out of the water. All looked good to me, everything. Especially enjoyed looking over the south side and the sands, the clean sands by the river there, so much sand that it could be a beach. I was happy that I was still walking slower as well, if it had been colder then I probably would have had to have speeded up because things are often rougher by the river but the temperature was still pleasent and even with the wind blowin' I was still able to keep it slow.
Stuck close to the river all the way down to Embankment Gardens when I then crossed the road and walked through the gardens on my way up to the Strand, across the road to St Martins and on to the bottom of Charing X Road. Always feels unique to me, Embankment Gardens; they are so close to the river so that they have a sense of being really quite different from other London parks, but at the same time they still feel far away from the Thames because you cannot actually see the waters. Seems to me that you get people in there who look like they have no other place to go. Sad looking people with big rucksacks, I see them there sitting on the park benches staring at the ground, lost in their thoughts but probably only really wanting someone to talk to. It seems as if the river has almost sucked them down to that point. Think that kind of thing has no doubt gone on for hundreds and hundreds of years.
By the time i hit Charing X Road and Leceister Square things were getting decidedly busy, pavement space was hard to find, different scene entirely to what I had just come out of. Now there was an intense concentration of people and it was clear that a lot of them suffered from varying degrees of disorientation due to the fact that they were clearly tourists and obviously all was new to them. Time for me to step up a gear and to make my way through the crowds as seamlessly but as quickly as possible. No point anymore in hanging around. Dropped into Fopp! to pick up a Chemical Brothers cd for only 3 quid which pleased me and then hit Foyles to buy a Penguin Classics copy of Great Expectations. Felt so fortunate that I was now into Dickens; a great London power if ever there was one. Awesome, nuthin' less. Stepping out of Foyles I snaked my way through Soho and along to John Lewis where I bought a nice blue bathrobe for Tamdin. That was it now, mission accomplished and the only things to do then was carry on west down Oxford Street to the Bond Street tube and the train back out east to Woodford.
Must have got back to Woodford around 4:45. Already dark, still only mid-Jan after all. Got in and sorted out the stuff I had bought, then brewed myself a cowboy coffee from what was left in the jar from this morning. Sat down and finished David Copperfield, only thing to say about it is that it is one of the best books that I have ever read. Early evening I managed a 45 minute meditation, better than the last few sessions which have been really tough going, before coming downstairs and having a couple of beers which for some reason I did not enjoy as much as I thought I was going to. Dunno why that was, maybe I needed a bit of company, after all it was Saturday night and this life that I lead does have moments of lonlieness, there aint no about that. Jus' ghostin' along...anyway Tamdin will be back tomorrow, all the way from India, land of the Om vibration.
Yesterday was Saturday so in the morning first thing I had things to do like go over to Ilford to drop off a bunch of shirts at my favourite Muslim dry cleaners, then drop into the office for a couple of things that needed sorting and also I had to leave the car on the fifth floor of the Ilford Exchange car park in order for it to have a clean and valet by the Poles. Guess it all worked out pretty well and by 11 or so I was back in Woodford with a couple of chicken tikka masalas from M&S which were on special offer at half price, and a couple of Danish pastries for a late breakfast. I got back home made a large mug of tea and then quaffed those pastries down in about two minutes flat, caveman style which meant that after not very long at all my gut was nicely full. Thunk. Then did stuff in the house for about an hour or so as I needed to get things more or less in shape for Tamdin's return from India tomorrow. Yeah, all those things which seemed so important to do at the time and which are now, barely tewnty hours after I did them running around busy as a bee, so goddam hard to recall.
It was just after 12 when I was out again, down to Woodford tube for the ride into town. Sat on the tube with the last part of David Copperfield to read and in the back of my mind tried to decide which stop to get off at, how long I was gonna walk for and stuff like that. Buzzin', buzzin', in the back of my mind. Jumped off the train at Bethnal Green which turned out to be a good decision. As soon as I hit the high road for the walk due west down to Brick Lane I told myself that I had to walk slowly or at least slower than the usual fast pace that I set myself. Reason for this was simply that I knew my energy reserves were low and that if I set off too fast I would pay the price later. Pay the price big time, like getting back home and having to go to bed for a couple of hours because mt body was completely and utterly fucked.
So glad I had the presence of mind to do this, and almost straiught away I was seemingly able to observe so much more by walking at this slower pace and not only that it also felt so much more natural. I was able to take in more of the local Bethnal Green scene, a fascinating melting pot of East End London if ever there was one that is for sure. I have always had a good feeling about Bethnal Green; it is inner city of course but for me at least it never feels oppressive. Dunno why but I think it might have something to do with the fact it is so close to the City, that is the real City of London, where incredible history and amazing buildings lie as markers to the cosmos, and at the weekend it has a powerful sense of space and emptiness that is hard to find anyplace else. Not only that, but you can also reach the river through the backstreets and suddenly find yourself in a different world entirely. So it is good, Bethnal Green is good, strangely different from Whitechapel which is pretty close but a lot more sinister.
Going along Brick Lane which by the time I reached it must have been just after one or so, I dropped into Rough Trade to see if they had any Orb or Chemical Brothers going cheap. Funny thing happened there in store as the day before I had been down to Foyles bookshop in the middle of town to hand over some information on new books to Kenny, the guy I know there who works in the Foyles religious department. When I had gone into Folyes Kenny had been crouching on the floor picking a bunch of books from a lower shelf. He got up when I said his name and we then had a good chat about how things were going as far as our part of the book trade was going. We talked particularly about the evils of the internet in the form of the dreaded Amazon and all the punk ass little books sellers who exist on Amazon supposedly as partners or some shit like that and who were selling stuff for next to nothing. Felt warm towards Kenny as we had our chat and I could see from his face that for him, just as for so many others in the countless millions of people in London, life was probably a bit of a struggle when it came to negotiating the hazards of survival both spiritual and physical in 21st century urban living.
So, I walked into the Rough Trade store and right there crouching down at the bottom of one of the CD racks was Kenny! Couldn't believe it, I just couldn't believe it. The funny thing was that I was aware of a presence there in that space, a familiar presence and just before I looked down I had the complete and utter certainty that it would be Kenny. Guess I felt confused and I didn't say anything to him as I knew that he had not seen me and it would just be too damn awkward for me to introduce myself to again this time in a different but still strangely familiar situation.
In our conversation from the day before we talked for a while about the changing landscape around that part of Charing X Road where Foyles was situated and the fact that the Astoria, a kind of famous music venue, had been now been knocked down. I had mentioned to Kenny that I had seen Augustus Pablo play there in the 1980s and he had seemed well impressed with that. Oh man, that now seemed a long time ago! Augustus Pablo, Junior Delgado and whole posse of reggae rastas who had flown in across the big, big waters straight from Jamaica. It truly had been an incredible show, the bass, the bass...!! And now, the next day here was me and Kenny again. Weird, no doubt about it. These things happen I guess, strange conincidences, karmic echoes from out of the realms of the very strange. All that I could do was silently observe this situation which had briefly come about, and then quietly move on. Felt even more tender towards Kenny as a consequence of seeing him there crouching down between the CD racks. There he was on his day off checking out the music, unless of course he happened to work at Rough Trade at the weekends. There was always that possibility I suppoose.
Got down to the river at London Bridge, north side of the Thames and one of my favourite entrance points to be by the fast flowing waters. As always, I was blown away by the sight of the Thames. Does it to me every time. Soon began to recite my Green Tara mantras and walk as close to the river as i could, tight up against the wall above the waters. No doubt in my mind that Ackroyd is right when he calls the Thames a divine feminine. It is, and that is why I only ever recite Green Tara prayers when I am walking beside it. I love it, love it so much I cannot even begin to describe how joyful it makes me feel. North, always the north bank these days, so much better than the south and all the crowds, so much darker too with so many little pathways and tunnels you have to negotiate, but of course the important thing for a loner, a solitary ghost such as me is that there is so much less people.
The tide was low, there used to be a time when I was disappointed if I got down to the river and the waters were not flowing full. Not anymore. These days I now think that I actually prefer it when the waters are low and it is possible to get down the steps and and walk along the shore. The feminine again, as you can really feel the power of the moon as it pulls the vast amounts of water in and out a couple of times a day, and in the process so radically changes what it is that you are looking out upon when you find yourself down there. Sucking those waters in and out again a couple of times a day, every day. The difference between high tide and low tide on the Thames is great, sometimes over twenty feet.
Yesterday it was low, pretty close to as low as it can be I guess. Walking along the north back with the strong but warm westerly winds blowing in my face, and looking out at the swirls of the brown muddy waters with the usual river traffic plying trade right down the middle was all pretty fantastic. Think I must have been in good tongue yesterday because the Green Tara mantras spilled outta me with hardly any effort, guess I was inspired, guess I was even getting close to feeling holy, religious, whatever it is you want to call it. Kept stopping and staring down at the river show below me; the debris washed up from out of the waters...a traffic cone, a skateboard, a lorry tyre... all kinds of stuff and of course there were the sands, the stones, the ancient wooden barge beds and remains of Roman wharfes poking up out of the water. All looked good to me, everything. Especially enjoyed looking over the south side and the sands, the clean sands by the river there, so much sand that it could be a beach. I was happy that I was still walking slower as well, if it had been colder then I probably would have had to have speeded up because things are often rougher by the river but the temperature was still pleasent and even with the wind blowin' I was still able to keep it slow.
Stuck close to the river all the way down to Embankment Gardens when I then crossed the road and walked through the gardens on my way up to the Strand, across the road to St Martins and on to the bottom of Charing X Road. Always feels unique to me, Embankment Gardens; they are so close to the river so that they have a sense of being really quite different from other London parks, but at the same time they still feel far away from the Thames because you cannot actually see the waters. Seems to me that you get people in there who look like they have no other place to go. Sad looking people with big rucksacks, I see them there sitting on the park benches staring at the ground, lost in their thoughts but probably only really wanting someone to talk to. It seems as if the river has almost sucked them down to that point. Think that kind of thing has no doubt gone on for hundreds and hundreds of years.
By the time i hit Charing X Road and Leceister Square things were getting decidedly busy, pavement space was hard to find, different scene entirely to what I had just come out of. Now there was an intense concentration of people and it was clear that a lot of them suffered from varying degrees of disorientation due to the fact that they were clearly tourists and obviously all was new to them. Time for me to step up a gear and to make my way through the crowds as seamlessly but as quickly as possible. No point anymore in hanging around. Dropped into Fopp! to pick up a Chemical Brothers cd for only 3 quid which pleased me and then hit Foyles to buy a Penguin Classics copy of Great Expectations. Felt so fortunate that I was now into Dickens; a great London power if ever there was one. Awesome, nuthin' less. Stepping out of Foyles I snaked my way through Soho and along to John Lewis where I bought a nice blue bathrobe for Tamdin. That was it now, mission accomplished and the only things to do then was carry on west down Oxford Street to the Bond Street tube and the train back out east to Woodford.
Must have got back to Woodford around 4:45. Already dark, still only mid-Jan after all. Got in and sorted out the stuff I had bought, then brewed myself a cowboy coffee from what was left in the jar from this morning. Sat down and finished David Copperfield, only thing to say about it is that it is one of the best books that I have ever read. Early evening I managed a 45 minute meditation, better than the last few sessions which have been really tough going, before coming downstairs and having a couple of beers which for some reason I did not enjoy as much as I thought I was going to. Dunno why that was, maybe I needed a bit of company, after all it was Saturday night and this life that I lead does have moments of lonlieness, there aint no about that. Jus' ghostin' along...anyway Tamdin will be back tomorrow, all the way from India, land of the Om vibration.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Aftermath of Bein' Groan Awoken
One of those work days today where a part of me just could not be bothered and as a consequence the day seemed to drag like hell. For so much of it all I wanted to do was to get the hell out of the office, be anywhere but there, even with the cows in the fields by the Dagenham power towers and wind farms on the north bank of the Thames. Think I wondered half the time today if i really was cut out to do what i do, but in reality questions like that are completely and utterly useless. I mean let us put it this way, I do what I do and have been doing it now for over the last 20 years and by the looks of things all of that is not going to really change anytime soon, so in that respect the die is cast and whether I think I am cut out for it not is almost irrelevant.
After writing a long peice about my day in January I went to bed last night feeling kind of strange. Read a bit of David Copperfield and then tried to sleep but found it hard to. Guess it might have had something to do with the extra large pizza I had eaten at around 10 pm after drinking a couple of cans of Stella. Not the best of habits, late pizza eatin'. Lay there in the dark feeling full again. Then finally I drifted into a kind of half sleep before suddenly waking myself up with a groan. Yeah, distinctly remember letting out a moan or a groan and the sound of it waking me up. Maybe I am confused but I think I dreamt of Jack the Ripper risin' up from out of the drains and going off to kill somebody, dressed in black and pure evil. It was almost enough to bring me out in a bit of a cold sweat. I had to raise myself out of bed and push the window open in order to let in some of that cold January air. My god I needed that fresh air bad and I think it was a lot better for me after that. Guess my body just needed the ventilation. Slept pretty much OK then and did wake up till six in the morning which for me in this current phase of poor and broken sleep was really quite late. Fell into that bliss state when I woke of just lying there in the dark, body warm with the air blowin' on my face from the open window.
So it is possible that that strange experience of being woken up by my own groan had had some weird kind of effect on me today at work. Possible. Made me feel as if I could just could not bothered with much as far as business was concerned. Just too much for me to make any kind of effort, but of course I guess I did make some kind of effort because as usual there were plenty of little experiences during the course of the day which irritated the hell out of me and which I resisted reacting to by saying something like "You know what? Why don't you just shut the fuck up? You know what? Am I really going to have to spend the rest of my whole fuckin' life listening to the all this complete and utter shit that you come out with day in day out?" Yeah, guess I made the effort to restrain myself from saying tings like that. But then I am too much of a coward to confront people like that anyway.
So...where were we? Oh yeah. Strange nights leading to strange days. The attitude problem of today might also have had something to do with the fact that when I woke up this morning and came downstairs I realised that both the cable tv and the broadband was down. God knows what happened there but there was nada, big fat nuthin'. Checked the Virgin Media website when I got to the office and it just said that a fault had been reported for my area and that it was being seen to. Engineers were on the case, sorting it out. Depressed me, the whole thing depressed me. Not necessarily the thing itself but my reaction to it. The fact that something which I use so much and so often, in other words every day, is completely and utterly out of my control when it screws up. If it is not wokring it is not working, simple as that and there is nuthin' absolutley nuthin' that I can do about it. Feel so useless, feel so dependent, feel so goddam desperate. Anyway by the time I got home from the office the services were back up and running again, and needless to say that made me feel better right away.
What a tiny little insect I really am, too full, way too full of my own hopes and fears and very surely will one day I will get squashed.
After writing a long peice about my day in January I went to bed last night feeling kind of strange. Read a bit of David Copperfield and then tried to sleep but found it hard to. Guess it might have had something to do with the extra large pizza I had eaten at around 10 pm after drinking a couple of cans of Stella. Not the best of habits, late pizza eatin'. Lay there in the dark feeling full again. Then finally I drifted into a kind of half sleep before suddenly waking myself up with a groan. Yeah, distinctly remember letting out a moan or a groan and the sound of it waking me up. Maybe I am confused but I think I dreamt of Jack the Ripper risin' up from out of the drains and going off to kill somebody, dressed in black and pure evil. It was almost enough to bring me out in a bit of a cold sweat. I had to raise myself out of bed and push the window open in order to let in some of that cold January air. My god I needed that fresh air bad and I think it was a lot better for me after that. Guess my body just needed the ventilation. Slept pretty much OK then and did wake up till six in the morning which for me in this current phase of poor and broken sleep was really quite late. Fell into that bliss state when I woke of just lying there in the dark, body warm with the air blowin' on my face from the open window.
So it is possible that that strange experience of being woken up by my own groan had had some weird kind of effect on me today at work. Possible. Made me feel as if I could just could not bothered with much as far as business was concerned. Just too much for me to make any kind of effort, but of course I guess I did make some kind of effort because as usual there were plenty of little experiences during the course of the day which irritated the hell out of me and which I resisted reacting to by saying something like "You know what? Why don't you just shut the fuck up? You know what? Am I really going to have to spend the rest of my whole fuckin' life listening to the all this complete and utter shit that you come out with day in day out?" Yeah, guess I made the effort to restrain myself from saying tings like that. But then I am too much of a coward to confront people like that anyway.
So...where were we? Oh yeah. Strange nights leading to strange days. The attitude problem of today might also have had something to do with the fact that when I woke up this morning and came downstairs I realised that both the cable tv and the broadband was down. God knows what happened there but there was nada, big fat nuthin'. Checked the Virgin Media website when I got to the office and it just said that a fault had been reported for my area and that it was being seen to. Engineers were on the case, sorting it out. Depressed me, the whole thing depressed me. Not necessarily the thing itself but my reaction to it. The fact that something which I use so much and so often, in other words every day, is completely and utterly out of my control when it screws up. If it is not wokring it is not working, simple as that and there is nuthin' absolutley nuthin' that I can do about it. Feel so useless, feel so dependent, feel so goddam desperate. Anyway by the time I got home from the office the services were back up and running again, and needless to say that made me feel better right away.
What a tiny little insect I really am, too full, way too full of my own hopes and fears and very surely will one day I will get squashed.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
A January Day: Year 2011
Energy, where is it and how do you get it? Definitely can feel the batteries getting lower as the years go by. Today was a dark January day, kind of wonderful in a half light kind of way. I had things to do today like go up to the back lands of Harlow to pick up some DHL packages for Tamdin which had arrived for her from India, and then I had to send money across to her in India as well, stuff like that. Then in the afternoon bombing across to Lakeside to pick up a bit of clobber and then on my way back dropping in on Waitrose South Woodford to get a bunch of food shopping for the next few days...you know, grub for my survival. And then when all that was done getting back to the ranch and feeling pretty damn shattered. So shattered in fact that at 5 pm I had to go and lie down upstairs... more or less stayed there for a couple of hours.
Where did that come from? The sudden collapse of energy...that need to go and lie down or else I might die? Well, I dunno...was it a collapse or more like bowing to the inevitable?
energy banks / wanna mine the highways of infinity / on the luminous roads / way up to the stars / but the reality is / I can barely keep myself together here on earth...
So, to recap for this January day in the year 2011 -
Woke up at 7 am, dark morning, wet and the wind was blowing but it was not cold. Got up, brushed my teeth threw some water over my face and dunked my head in the basin full of warm water, the usual tricks I have been employing for ooh my god I dunno, maybe the last 25 years, pretty much in that period on every day of my life. Then after washing, rituals in the shrine room, a little bit of mantras, prayers and meditation. Guess all that took a maximum of half an hour, grey rolling clouds out the window but not much inspiration to sit with it, so downstairs where I brewed a pot of coffee, enough for a good couple of mugs and with some still left over for a cowboy coffee later in the day.
Did my coffee drinking checking the net on the lap, and getting various bits of paperwork together - banking for Tamdin, collection documents for DHL for when I went to Harlow, and also arranging for taking money out myself in order to send to India. Little bits and pieces in other words but the funny thing is that to do it right you need to be organised. Seemed to take a while for me to get all the necessary stuff sorted but when I was finally ready at around 9:45 am it was straight up the M11 to Harlow. It was just as well that I punched the DHL postcode into the satnav on the Prius because it turned out the DHL depot was a tricky place to get to, mainly due to the fact Harlow is a new town and spread out over a fairly large area, with lots of roads and roundabouts to negotiate. In its own way I found it rather beautiful and a part of me thought how great it would be to live there...to up sticks and move to Harlow, but like I said without the satnav I would have come to grief.
Found the DHL depot and picked up the packages for Tamdin after showing some ID but not as much ID as I had been led to believe that I would need when I spoke to them on the blower a couple of days ago, and this would have saved me more than little of anguish. Guess I had spent a fair bit of time worrying that they might turn me away for some obscure reason because I did not have the correct identification, but as it turned out there was none of that, not even a hint or a whisper. Paid the customs charges due on the packages then loaded them up into the back of the Prius under the grey Harlow skies and then I was set to go. Took a drive through the town and then returned to Woodford through Epping and the forest rather than the M11. When I drove out of the city to Harlow I saw that there was a stack back on the motorway coming back in, so, best to be avoided in other words. Grey old day by this point, approx 11am but that was fine by me as all I had to do was drive my Prius, take in the scenery with the Chemical Brothers on the sound system. All the same even then, just sitting and just driving, a part of me, down inside, felt pretty damn tired. Winter tiredness no doubt, too much dark, wake in the dark, work and then leave the office in the dark; not enough sun.
Got back to Woodford by around 11:30, took the DHL boxes out of the car and got them into the house. After a quick piss I was out again, down to the bank to pay cheques in and to get money out, then across the road to sort out sending money to Tamdin through Western Union. All this was done with not much problem, paid the money over to the agent and got the code. On the way back home I dropped into Budgens and picked up a couple of Danish pastries for breakfast as I was feeling pretty hungry due to the fact that apart from the coffee I had eaten nothing.
Then had about an hour in the house, had a mug of tea and the pastries, texted Tamdin with the details of the money I was sending her. As I expected, it was not long after texting her that she gave me a call, and we had a chat for a good 20 minutes, going over what she was up to out there with her family. This was the first time in eleven years that I had not gone out to India at around this time, mainly because I had gone to Oz with Dad back in September. Then after talking with Tamdin I sorted through more paperwork, filed stuff away and cleaned a couple of household objects. That done it was around 1 pm and I decided to drive over to Lakeside as I wanted to buy one more pair of trousers for work. I had bought a couple the week before but felt that another pair was needed.
So, back in the Prius and into the January grey, this time I had Mojo by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on the system, having bought the CD after seeing Bogdanovich's epic four hour documentary on Tom Petty, Chasing Down a Dream on BBC 4 last Friday. Drove eastwards along the North Circular to the Beckton roundabout and then on to the A13 heading east to Lakeside which was about 10 miles down the road. Driving through the outer edges of East London; Barking, Dagenham... yeah, i guess you know the score. Kinda awesome in its own special way. Grey weather still and wet, but even with my energy low it felt quite amazing to be alive, driving through the Ford City of Dagenham along the north bank of the Thames just where the river gets pretty damn industrial and dirty, not long before the Dartford bridge, but that was OK with me as it is possible to see beauty everywhere. Even there when you drive in the car through all that industry there are cows in the low lying fields next to the towers of power stations and god knows what and all looks well with the cows, they could just as well have been in the Outer Hebrides.
Must have hit Lakeside by around 1:45 / 2pm. Tried Next for my trousers but struck out this time around after buying a pair from there the week before, hit lucky in M&S though which was a relief as it might have been a bit of a downer going all the way out there and not getting what I wanted. Things like that can make all the difference; buy something and and you have achieved purpose, not get anything and you can be staring into the abyss. Well and truly staring...On top of getting a pair of trousers I bought a shirt and then a pair of shoes from Jones the Bookmaker in their sale, all in all felt sorted and all for just over 105 quid, even if one of the shoes felt slightly too big. This all must have taken an hour or so and as I was getting hungry I thought about eating at Lakeside but could not quite bring myself to going into Burger King or Ed's Easy Diner so left without getting anything, just popped a tic tac into my mouth when I got back to the car.
Drove back down the A13 to hit the North Circular again at Beckton with a view to dropping off at the Redbridge roundabout so that I could hit the back roads to Waitrose South Woodford. Back past the grazing cows, wind farms and Ford City. Going westwards on the North Circular I began to hit a bit of traffic and by the time I had got off at the Redbridge roundabout things were heating up a bit. One of those borderline East London times when an accident further down the pipe soon has everything else into a state of semi-chaos. This was pretty much how it was. After the roundabout it was very busy and very slow going through the back roads as by then everyone else had had the same idea in a desperate attempt to avoid getting stuck in the jam. Finally got to Waitrose and there I spent the best part of 30 quid on grub and booze. Had seen a couple of crazy examples of frustrated driving along the way as well, which could so easily have ended in tears, we live in a time when for a significant proportion of the population complete selfishness is fused with a patience level that is close to zero. One day it is sure to all kick off.
After I had done my shopping I ate a couple of deep filled sausage rolls in the Prius in the car park as I knew it would be a little while before I got back home due to the continued heavy traffic. Quaffed those rolls down like a caveman, letting the pastry flakes fall into my lap with cold sausage meat on my breath. Gut filled I then drove back down to Charlie Browns roundabout and got home along the Chigwell road. Good move as the traffic down that way was pretty clear. After unloading the car and then sorting everything out - beers in the fridge etc - on my return it was around 4:45 pm and already dark. By five I sat down to read a bit more David Copperfield but it was as much as I could do to keep my eyes open at this point. Energy was shot, didn't even have the strength to get the pan out to heat up my cowboy coffee to see if that would wake me up. Decided the only thing that I could do under the circumstances was go up and lie down for a while.
Sensible decision. But...energy!! Where does it come from and how does it go? Is it really the case that my batteries are running out? Might be the case that I had done quite a bit so it was natural for me to want a rest...an' yah, yah, blah blah...really dunno. Fact is I was shit whacked and had to rest, no other option. Lay there in the dark in the second bedroom, window open January breeze of the dark early evening blowin' on my face, rest of the body safely under the covers. Lay there in a state of half bliss, bathing in the security of knowing I could rest for an hour, two hours, didn't matter as there was nuthin' to get up for.
Fact of the matter was I felt as full as hell from the two sausage rolls i had eaten in the motor, lay there and thought to myself yet again that there must be better, more gentle ways that I can go about feeding myself. Lay there and wondered if I might be dyin', thought in the half bliss state I was in just how much or how little there really was for me live for, and also if I might be dying it was pointless and stupid for me to want to live for as long as possible anyway. I think that at that moment if anyone asked me if I was afraid of death I guess that I would have to say no, not really. Why? Well, I think that in many respects I have hit the buffers as far as hopes and dreams for my life go anyway...I mean, I do what I do and it does not seem like that there is much chance that it is going to change much. On and on we go... the prospect of years more of the same does not really fill me with elation; just acceptance, tired acceptance. So maybe I can just work myself into the ground before the big shut off and it will all be OK. Just don't know how much energy I really have left to sustain me. Might be enough for another 50 years or maybe it will not even be enough to get me to the end of 2011. Who really cares? Either way I really don't think that I mind that much. Just do what I do and as long as I don't upset people or cause too much misery for them that is OK and then i am sure that I will be OK as well, including if I just lay down one day and didn't wake up. Energy spent, batteries totally flat.
Managed to finally raise myself at 7 pm, really couldn't make it any earlier than that. Came downstairs in a daze like what always happens if I crash in the early evening. Made myself that cowboy coffee then sat and watched a bit of news on TV, some amazing floods taking place in Oz which had me glued to the screen. Not so amazing if you were caught up in them though, then maybe more like a nightmare. Man against nature, really at the end of the day there is not much contest as to who will win I am afraid. Then went up for some meditation but it was not that great, too spaced out, too hot as well, and I found the process was not doing me much good at all; expecting things to be great is not really the point anyway, so I cut the meditation short and came downstairs, opened a cool can of beer from the fridge and began to write this, a January day in the year 2011.
Where did that come from? The sudden collapse of energy...that need to go and lie down or else I might die? Well, I dunno...was it a collapse or more like bowing to the inevitable?
energy banks / wanna mine the highways of infinity / on the luminous roads / way up to the stars / but the reality is / I can barely keep myself together here on earth...
So, to recap for this January day in the year 2011 -
Woke up at 7 am, dark morning, wet and the wind was blowing but it was not cold. Got up, brushed my teeth threw some water over my face and dunked my head in the basin full of warm water, the usual tricks I have been employing for ooh my god I dunno, maybe the last 25 years, pretty much in that period on every day of my life. Then after washing, rituals in the shrine room, a little bit of mantras, prayers and meditation. Guess all that took a maximum of half an hour, grey rolling clouds out the window but not much inspiration to sit with it, so downstairs where I brewed a pot of coffee, enough for a good couple of mugs and with some still left over for a cowboy coffee later in the day.
Did my coffee drinking checking the net on the lap, and getting various bits of paperwork together - banking for Tamdin, collection documents for DHL for when I went to Harlow, and also arranging for taking money out myself in order to send to India. Little bits and pieces in other words but the funny thing is that to do it right you need to be organised. Seemed to take a while for me to get all the necessary stuff sorted but when I was finally ready at around 9:45 am it was straight up the M11 to Harlow. It was just as well that I punched the DHL postcode into the satnav on the Prius because it turned out the DHL depot was a tricky place to get to, mainly due to the fact Harlow is a new town and spread out over a fairly large area, with lots of roads and roundabouts to negotiate. In its own way I found it rather beautiful and a part of me thought how great it would be to live there...to up sticks and move to Harlow, but like I said without the satnav I would have come to grief.
Found the DHL depot and picked up the packages for Tamdin after showing some ID but not as much ID as I had been led to believe that I would need when I spoke to them on the blower a couple of days ago, and this would have saved me more than little of anguish. Guess I had spent a fair bit of time worrying that they might turn me away for some obscure reason because I did not have the correct identification, but as it turned out there was none of that, not even a hint or a whisper. Paid the customs charges due on the packages then loaded them up into the back of the Prius under the grey Harlow skies and then I was set to go. Took a drive through the town and then returned to Woodford through Epping and the forest rather than the M11. When I drove out of the city to Harlow I saw that there was a stack back on the motorway coming back in, so, best to be avoided in other words. Grey old day by this point, approx 11am but that was fine by me as all I had to do was drive my Prius, take in the scenery with the Chemical Brothers on the sound system. All the same even then, just sitting and just driving, a part of me, down inside, felt pretty damn tired. Winter tiredness no doubt, too much dark, wake in the dark, work and then leave the office in the dark; not enough sun.
Got back to Woodford by around 11:30, took the DHL boxes out of the car and got them into the house. After a quick piss I was out again, down to the bank to pay cheques in and to get money out, then across the road to sort out sending money to Tamdin through Western Union. All this was done with not much problem, paid the money over to the agent and got the code. On the way back home I dropped into Budgens and picked up a couple of Danish pastries for breakfast as I was feeling pretty hungry due to the fact that apart from the coffee I had eaten nothing.
Then had about an hour in the house, had a mug of tea and the pastries, texted Tamdin with the details of the money I was sending her. As I expected, it was not long after texting her that she gave me a call, and we had a chat for a good 20 minutes, going over what she was up to out there with her family. This was the first time in eleven years that I had not gone out to India at around this time, mainly because I had gone to Oz with Dad back in September. Then after talking with Tamdin I sorted through more paperwork, filed stuff away and cleaned a couple of household objects. That done it was around 1 pm and I decided to drive over to Lakeside as I wanted to buy one more pair of trousers for work. I had bought a couple the week before but felt that another pair was needed.
So, back in the Prius and into the January grey, this time I had Mojo by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on the system, having bought the CD after seeing Bogdanovich's epic four hour documentary on Tom Petty, Chasing Down a Dream on BBC 4 last Friday. Drove eastwards along the North Circular to the Beckton roundabout and then on to the A13 heading east to Lakeside which was about 10 miles down the road. Driving through the outer edges of East London; Barking, Dagenham... yeah, i guess you know the score. Kinda awesome in its own special way. Grey weather still and wet, but even with my energy low it felt quite amazing to be alive, driving through the Ford City of Dagenham along the north bank of the Thames just where the river gets pretty damn industrial and dirty, not long before the Dartford bridge, but that was OK with me as it is possible to see beauty everywhere. Even there when you drive in the car through all that industry there are cows in the low lying fields next to the towers of power stations and god knows what and all looks well with the cows, they could just as well have been in the Outer Hebrides.
Must have hit Lakeside by around 1:45 / 2pm. Tried Next for my trousers but struck out this time around after buying a pair from there the week before, hit lucky in M&S though which was a relief as it might have been a bit of a downer going all the way out there and not getting what I wanted. Things like that can make all the difference; buy something and and you have achieved purpose, not get anything and you can be staring into the abyss. Well and truly staring...On top of getting a pair of trousers I bought a shirt and then a pair of shoes from Jones the Bookmaker in their sale, all in all felt sorted and all for just over 105 quid, even if one of the shoes felt slightly too big. This all must have taken an hour or so and as I was getting hungry I thought about eating at Lakeside but could not quite bring myself to going into Burger King or Ed's Easy Diner so left without getting anything, just popped a tic tac into my mouth when I got back to the car.
Drove back down the A13 to hit the North Circular again at Beckton with a view to dropping off at the Redbridge roundabout so that I could hit the back roads to Waitrose South Woodford. Back past the grazing cows, wind farms and Ford City. Going westwards on the North Circular I began to hit a bit of traffic and by the time I had got off at the Redbridge roundabout things were heating up a bit. One of those borderline East London times when an accident further down the pipe soon has everything else into a state of semi-chaos. This was pretty much how it was. After the roundabout it was very busy and very slow going through the back roads as by then everyone else had had the same idea in a desperate attempt to avoid getting stuck in the jam. Finally got to Waitrose and there I spent the best part of 30 quid on grub and booze. Had seen a couple of crazy examples of frustrated driving along the way as well, which could so easily have ended in tears, we live in a time when for a significant proportion of the population complete selfishness is fused with a patience level that is close to zero. One day it is sure to all kick off.
After I had done my shopping I ate a couple of deep filled sausage rolls in the Prius in the car park as I knew it would be a little while before I got back home due to the continued heavy traffic. Quaffed those rolls down like a caveman, letting the pastry flakes fall into my lap with cold sausage meat on my breath. Gut filled I then drove back down to Charlie Browns roundabout and got home along the Chigwell road. Good move as the traffic down that way was pretty clear. After unloading the car and then sorting everything out - beers in the fridge etc - on my return it was around 4:45 pm and already dark. By five I sat down to read a bit more David Copperfield but it was as much as I could do to keep my eyes open at this point. Energy was shot, didn't even have the strength to get the pan out to heat up my cowboy coffee to see if that would wake me up. Decided the only thing that I could do under the circumstances was go up and lie down for a while.
Sensible decision. But...energy!! Where does it come from and how does it go? Is it really the case that my batteries are running out? Might be the case that I had done quite a bit so it was natural for me to want a rest...an' yah, yah, blah blah...really dunno. Fact is I was shit whacked and had to rest, no other option. Lay there in the dark in the second bedroom, window open January breeze of the dark early evening blowin' on my face, rest of the body safely under the covers. Lay there in a state of half bliss, bathing in the security of knowing I could rest for an hour, two hours, didn't matter as there was nuthin' to get up for.
Fact of the matter was I felt as full as hell from the two sausage rolls i had eaten in the motor, lay there and thought to myself yet again that there must be better, more gentle ways that I can go about feeding myself. Lay there and wondered if I might be dyin', thought in the half bliss state I was in just how much or how little there really was for me live for, and also if I might be dying it was pointless and stupid for me to want to live for as long as possible anyway. I think that at that moment if anyone asked me if I was afraid of death I guess that I would have to say no, not really. Why? Well, I think that in many respects I have hit the buffers as far as hopes and dreams for my life go anyway...I mean, I do what I do and it does not seem like that there is much chance that it is going to change much. On and on we go... the prospect of years more of the same does not really fill me with elation; just acceptance, tired acceptance. So maybe I can just work myself into the ground before the big shut off and it will all be OK. Just don't know how much energy I really have left to sustain me. Might be enough for another 50 years or maybe it will not even be enough to get me to the end of 2011. Who really cares? Either way I really don't think that I mind that much. Just do what I do and as long as I don't upset people or cause too much misery for them that is OK and then i am sure that I will be OK as well, including if I just lay down one day and didn't wake up. Energy spent, batteries totally flat.
Managed to finally raise myself at 7 pm, really couldn't make it any earlier than that. Came downstairs in a daze like what always happens if I crash in the early evening. Made myself that cowboy coffee then sat and watched a bit of news on TV, some amazing floods taking place in Oz which had me glued to the screen. Not so amazing if you were caught up in them though, then maybe more like a nightmare. Man against nature, really at the end of the day there is not much contest as to who will win I am afraid. Then went up for some meditation but it was not that great, too spaced out, too hot as well, and I found the process was not doing me much good at all; expecting things to be great is not really the point anyway, so I cut the meditation short and came downstairs, opened a cool can of beer from the fridge and began to write this, a January day in the year 2011.
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