-{ redgeek.net }-

My friend’s fiance wants things. She wants a new car, a new laptop, a new piece of furniture … things that are bigger, better, faster version of things she already owns. She whines plaintively about not having these things, about getting these things, about the joy of eventually having these things. I don’t believe she whines because these things out beyond her means, and that they are not beyond my friend’s means, but because she worries. She worries that her life is too stressful, that events won’t work out, and these smaller, older, slower things she already has provide minor annoyances that grate on her already frazzled outlook.

Material things will not ease an already troubled mind.

I have things. I’m currently trying to get rid of things; to pare down to the necessities (of both utility and beauty.) Although I believe I currently have too many things, there was a time when I had even more things. There was a time when I was pulling in twice what I make now, and my cost of living was half – I had four times as many things.

And I can absolutely tell you, more things don’t make you feel better, more relaxed, less stressed, etc. If anything, you have to worry more about losing said things, or repairing them, maintaining them, all of which only adds to your stress. Of course, there are the obvious exceptions – a new bed can definitely help you relax and get a better nights sleep, thereby improving your wakeful mind, but these are not the things I’m talking about. I’m talking about the things you’ve gotten along without thus far.

These new things are distractions, they don’t address the problem. The problem is the troubled mind. Stress relief comes from removing or dealing with the stresses themselves, not the feelings they produce. Sure, maybe life seems a whole lot easier when you get that new bedroom furniture – you have room for all your stuff, and it’s so easy to get to everything! – but ultimately the stress and worries of life will manifest somewhere else. You think, _ if only I could do the same for the garage,_ but it never ends. Once the distraction becomes banal, the stress returns and you go looking for a new distraction.

Getting new things is generally treating the symptom, not the source.

Now, I’m not against owning things as a principle, but one of the problem with the consumer culture we live in now is that the consumption tends to be used as a crutch to avoid personal introspection, a kind of snake-oil cure-all for your mental needs. It’s not strictly a need-versus-want question, either. You’re allowed to have things you want and don’t need, that perfectly alright. But do you want them for the right reasons? Do you want a new car because your old one can’t make it out into the woods to go camping? Sounds like you need a new car. Maybe that’s valid. Or maybe it’s just an excuse – perhaps it’d be more fun to park farther away, and backpack in to your campsite.

I’ve been thinking about this a great deal lately, since I’ve been on a minimization kick. I’ll be keeping plenty of the things I already own, such as antique furniture and whatnot, but I’ll be placing those and many other things in storage and pretty much forgetting about them. What do I want after I sell the house? I think the core boils down to:

• Clothes, enough to get through 2-3 weeks
• Set of dishware, glasses, and utensils for two people
• Small table and two chairs
• Bed and linens
• Laptop and related sundry
• Camera and related sundry
• Car, with iPod
• Some nice art to hang on the walls

Books? Storage. CDs, end-tables, coffee-table, chairs, miscellaneous kitchen gear, power tools? Storage. TV, stereo, miscellaneous furniture? Will be sold or given away. It may appear to be somewhat “college bachelor” style, but I believe it can be done tastefully and minimally. And when it comes down to it, most of the rest of the stuff I could retain I don’t really use. Not right now, anyway.

Of course, I realize that, just like acquiring things isn’t a cure-all, neither is relinquishing. But it does help relieve distractions, making it easier to concentrate on your self.

I’m about 100 hours and 9 day deep in a 12 day workweek. My boss is on vacation, my boss’s boss is gone, and I’ve got three “Priority 1” clients. The sales engineers have all incredibly disappeared. I don’t even know if I have the time to solve the outstanding issues for even one of the clients. I don’t have the tools I need nor the time to configure them if I did. I’m reverse engineering kernel-level behavior on a proprietary black box. I’ve had no direction, no disclosure of policies, no knowledge of timelines and business plans and product lines. No indications of power imbalances, policy spins, or expectation management. I have no idea what’s been promised, aside what from comes out of the clients’ mouths – which, in the business world, is naturally suspect. I rise, go to work, return home, eat, and sleep. I haven’t even had the time to train. Things are not going well.

I noticed the low-grade frustration building on Sunday, but I kept turning the world upside down: this is on opportunity to stand and lead. Push through, quietly succeed. But I could feel the frustration boiling to halfway through today – I haven’t been meditating; I haven’t been keeping myself under control. I haven’t been breathing. I know I have to get of work before someone trips one of my wires; before I counter this imbalance; before I let myself get out of control. I left promptly after my daily status report hit the Exchange server at 7pm.

I speed south down I-15, industrial music coursing through my veins, driving too fast, too loose, too dangerous, walking a fine line in order to fan the flames, anticipating the workout to come. How far until I push too far? When do I move from dangerous to self-destruction? How do I tell the difference?

I needed to harness this. I arrived at the park fanning the flames, embracing the adrenaline and anger, reflecting on fire, desperate to take the distress to a lesson. Fire is brilliant and contagious, actively seeking out things to consume, even to it’s own peril – as opposed to water, which quietly acquiesces to it’s environment, taking whatever shape is available. I wanted to explode, to nurture this feeling, to kindle the blaze; I wanted to exhaust the fire, to use it, to not let it exhaust me. This, I decided, would be my lesson.

I bowed to my teacher for the day – the simple presence of the park – and leapt right our of seiza into … something. I don’t know what it was – not a particular dance or scheme, not some pre-arranged sequence of movements, but this attitude, this mindset. Something of a cross between a tiger and a tengu, for those that know me. Dances came and went, in evolutions and permutations, schemes and modifications and variations. I found myself quite loud and snarling, spit flying, full of guttural emanations, striking harder than I’ve ever imagined. This was not “do what I have to do to survive” mode, it was far beyond. My survival was not in question – the nature of the enemies demise, however, was the only thing that could be unanticipated. I shudder to think what would have happened if someone had challenged me during this time. I was not right in the head.

I was unadulterated rage.

In my mind I was destroying enemies without hesitation in ways that were … mean. There’s no other way to put it. I was vicious, violent, unnecessarily cruel. And I was looking forward to it – and it was coming without effort or arrangement – a natural progression, if you will. This was not “let’s see if my art works,” this was a visceral understanding that it does, and that I wanted to inflict monumental pain; I wanted to destroy the soul, not just the body. I was sadistic. And I wanted that. I wanted the next guy to attack; I wanted to ignite more fuel, I was compelled to destroy. I’d recognize of piece of a dance or a scheme, here or there, but it wasn’t pre-meditated – my body was manifesting some form of interpretation of my mind – and the mind was bloody murder, nothing else. In retrospect, the ferocity astounded me.

I don’t know how long I went, but it was dark when I finally sat back in seiza. The lesson began to form: Turn it off, turn it off. Meditate on water. Then back up, rage, back down. Turn it on, turn it off Up, rage, down. Control. You are in control. Up, rage, down. Instant on, instant off. Is there any left? Any ember of fuel? That pit of heat in my belly? Yes – back up – consume, destroy – exhaust this fire, use it! – back down. Control, take it back down.

It wasn’t until I finally exorcised those demons that I realized my body was shaking — no, more of a violent pulsing – something far beyond physical exhaustion. This wasn’t my just muscular chemicals – I’m quite familiar with that – this was like my soul vibrating. It was electrified, pushed toward action and powered by something far beyond animal instinct. This was rage defined by intent, powered by … well, something else. That revelation is for me, and I couldn’t be audacious enough to try to put it into words. I can say, however … I scared myself a bit tonight. A lot, to be truthful. There’s a dormant dark side of myself that’s more capable and more vicious – and most importantly, more ravenous – than I would have guessed.

I have a long way to go.

But It was one of the best lessons to date. At least now I’m familiar with the territory. And I’ve got some experience with letting the tiger out, and of caging it again.

Letting it out? Easy. Reigning it in?

That’s part of what scares me.

I had last Monday off and couldn’t wait to trek down to the beach to get some sun and relaxation in. Given that it wasn’t a national holiday, I was excited to get to the beach when it was relatively empty (although it is tourist season here in SD.) I found parking in PB, tossed my beach bag on my back, and walked down the Law St. ramp to the beach. Not too crowded, but not too empty. I’d have to walk north to the cliffs to find a little more privacy.

There were mostly tourists out, with some locals, but you can tell the tourists at a glance. In particular, the tourists like to leave their trash all over the beach. I had a backpack full of discarded water bottles before I even reached the cliffs at Tourmaline.

Even that far north, there were still some families camped out on the sand, so I kept going until the closest people were a pair of girls about a hundred yards away, and I was somewhat invisible to the rest of the beach due to the portions of the cliffs that jutted out.

Today was to be entirely a Ba Gua Zhang day; circle walking in the sand. I find the sand to be and excellent partner for circle walking, as it starts relatively smooth and level, leaves a record of your footwork, and as you move to progressively complicated guas, your spinning and torquing change the topography, making it turbid and uneven, thereby requiring even better footwork. I didn’t mind if people watched, but I didn’t want to be bothered, nor did I want to be the center of attention. And, I haven’t done the Yang guas in a while.

After an hour or two, my chest was starting to get a bit sunburned and I was sweating too much to re-apply sunscreen, so I go for a quick dip in the ocean to cool down. As I emerge, I see those two girls walking the stretch from their outpost to meet me at the edge of the water. I can see they’re going to ask me about what I was doing; I’d say most people haven’t seen Ba Gua before, which looks fairly distinctive with its proliferation of twisting and coiling.

The blond is merely curious, asking me what the name of the art is. She has a noticeable accent, perhaps German, so I write out “Ba Gua” and “Pa Kua” in the in sand. Her friend, not simply curious, is excited: “So you’re working with energy, right?”

“Um, yeah – all the Taoist internal arts place import on energy movement over physical movement.” I see the question forming on her face. “The three pillars of Taoist internal arts are Ba Gua, Hsing-I, and Taiji. Have you ever seen a bunch of people moving really slow in unison at a park? That’s Taiji. So, this is kind of like that, but different.”

“Oh, right, okay. Cool. How did you learn, did you download instruction off the internet or something?”

It’s hard to suppress a chuckle, but I do. “No, you really need to find qualified instructor.” Motioning to a folder that’s open on my backpack, I explain, “These are just notes from class.”

“Well, I do this too.” I’m thinking, learn Taoist internal arts from the internet? “See, I don’t have any training or anything, but I come out here at night and dance around, when no one can see me, and I feel the energy come out my head. There’s a big triangle,” illustrating with her hands, “of energy out of my forehead, or sometimes it’s square,” again, illustrating with hands, “and sometimes, a circle.”

“That’s, ah, that’s great.” I really don’t know what to say at this point. How much of an instant gratification culture do we live in where martial arts and/or spiritual elevation can be downloaded off the internet? Where tradition and form is so brazenly discarded, or not even looked to in the first place? Okay, so you may be able to mimic some physical movement if you download a video, but do you really have the nei gung/samadhi/whatever? Is whatever hand waving and dancing you make up just as good as the practices that were codified by those that devoted every hour of their entire lives to the subject, which then evolved by centuries of disciples with the same level of dedication? Is this just gulp-and-go personal development? Now, this may have been this girls recreation time, which is fine – but what about these people that genuinely think making up some random movements will “sculpt energy” to “purge their bad luck” or “bring them success at work”? As my instructor would say, they’re just “stirring soup” – there’s no mindful practice of internal workings going on.

I’ll be the first one to admit that following tradition blindly is not wise, but in cases such as this – internal energy development – until we have the understanding that our precursors obtained, we may want to think twice about going off on our own. Today, we simply don’t have the time available to devote to these studies that our ancestors had. So, with few exceptions, we’re just not as good at it. Let’s pay attention (whatever the art) to the system they codified in order to preserve that they perceived the important practices.

At this point in my training, around ten years in total, I believe I have just a little bit of internal energy; I can generate small amounts of internal power. But it’s like an ant compared to elephant in terms of what is possible, so I’m not going to abandon my teachings yet, or look to the internet for instructions. If I thought that’d work, I’d do it.

It’d be a whole lot easier.

I was down at Baja Fresh yesterday, my customary chicken Baja burrito in one hand and lunchtime reading in the other, when a grating metallic sound worked it’s way into the periphery of hearing. It had a texture similar to when I’d get sand in the bearings of my skateboard wheels, only lower pitched, rougher, like an blender dying. It was intermittent and irregular, and extremely annoying – and I still like industrial/noize, like Wumpscut and Pan Sonic, so you know this had to be bad.

Looking around for the culprit, I find a small child with what appears to be a Godzilla head mounted on a handle with a trigger. Every time he fired, Godzilla’s eyes would flash and he’d his his electronic roar. Over the course of a microsecond, neurons fired in a trajectory something along the lines of:

My lord, why doesn’t his mother stop him from doing that constantly?

She must be totally de-sensitized to it, I feel so sorry for her.

Thank god I haven’t bred.

You’d think he’d get tired of that thing by now.

Actually, I was just as easily (and repetitively) entertained at that age.

I wonder if, right now, I can find the joy in that toy that he’s found.

Well, I didn’t. I tried to re-capture that youthful wonder and enthusiasm and self-centered-ness, but I couldn’t. Until, that is, he took me back to the magic of childhood, when he tugged on his mother’s pants legs and asked, “But what’s he saying?”

Yeah, what is he saying? Why can’t he be alive and communicating? Who says you mother can’t speak “Godzillian” (or some other lizard dialect)? Why not?

I tried to be young intellectually, when what I really needed to do was to throw away all that I know, and let the unknown be just as possible; I need to drop constraints. It’s an incredibly wonderful feeling, a buoyant, light accord with the environment. I savored it for as long as I could, although it slipped away quite quickly.

That roar was still fucking annoying.

I hung with G—— quite a bit this weekend, what with both of us showing at the art walk this weekend. On Sunday, during some downtime, G——‘s friend A—— came over and hung out for a bit. She was in the back when I went to grab some chicken off the BBQ and we had a surprising conversation, at least for me.

She stood with her head and hip cocked to the side, pulling on a cigarette slowly. She was analyzing me, but smiling, trying to figure out just a little bit more about me. “I’m so glad you’re here, I didn’t know if G—— was going to be alone all weekend.”

I wasn’t sure if she knew I was presenting as well, or was trying to elicit more information with the vagueness of the question. And, well, we’ve have been hanging out beyond the art circuit as well.

Cue the sufficiently vague answer: “Yeah, it’s been a pretty crazy weekend, we need all the support we can get.” Besides, I don’t know if G—— wants it out about the art scene. Last thing I want is for people to think I’m getting gigs, and I’m recommending her for fashion shows, just because, well, you know. (Particularly since that isn’t the case – I think she’s a good designer – I’m not a big fan of her art, but her clothes and fashion I think is wonderful, I would say her strong suit – and I believe she thinks the some of my photography is reasonably good.)

She continues: “You two,” I can already see there’ll be pause before the end of the sentence, “make such a great” and here, letting just enough time elapse to let both of us know she doesn’t know what to label us, is the break. I fill it for her, honestly, but without resolution: “I don’t know what we are.”

She smiles. “You’re a good guy. She talks about you.”

“Reaallly?” There’s a playful, descending tone to the interrogative.

“Good things.”

“Interesting.”

She pulls another drag off her smoke and smiles coyly from a three-quarter profile. “You’re good together. Sweet. You’re so … innocent.”

I smile back, thinking. “Even more interesting.”

She stubs out her cigarette. “Well, I’ll see you out front.”

In that twilight of wakefulness and sleep, before I fall completely into a deep slumber, I find myself skipping non-linear through a review of the day, taking tangents and what-ifs and introspections just two steps from lucid dreaming. I run into the conversation again: am I just that innocent? Or perhaps she was just complimenting me? Maybe giving me a hint? Do I hide my the scars of my past indiscretions that well? Are my indiscretions so minor compared to her environment that they truly qualify as a relative innocence? Is she just obtuse?

Or do I realize that dark side of me is something I have, and will always have, but that it is not what I want right now, and that when I turn it off, it is off completely; it doesn’t seep through into the rest of me? That my innocence is just a reflection of a lack of malcontent, an appreciation of what I was and what I am? That the two are not dissimilar but not the same, that there is a trajectory between the my past self and my current incarnation, though my coordinates are no longer rooted to my old propulsions?

Probably a little of each.

Thomas Pynchon, on writing:

Everybody gets told to write about what they know. The trouble with many of us is that at the earlier stages of life we think we know everything – or to put it more usefully, we are often unaware of the scope and structure of our ignorance. Ignorance is not just a blank space on a person’s mental map. It has contours and coherence, and for all I know rules of operation as well. So as a corollary to writing about what we know, maybe we should add getting familiar with our ignorance, and the possibilities therein for ruining a good story.

I believe that applies to more than just writing, but to life in general.

Interestingly enough, the undercurrents post generated more mail than any other post I’ve written. (Even more than the “bizarre dating stories” posts!) The responses range from “yup, dude, that’s you,” all the way to this gem (excerpted) that gave me a nice warm fuzzy:

Oh, and I always liked your lack of expression … wait, that doesn’t sound right. I wouldn’t characterize it as a “lack of expression”, but rather, (as I perceive you, anyway) a lack of drama that hints at something deeper beneath. A realness. Like the courtyard within the gates of a Japanese house.”

Thank you, T——, that mean a great deal. I just wanted to thank you public, ‘cause you know, sometimes the little comments mean more than you expect. (And I wouldv’e used your full name, I’ve I’d been kind enough to ask you for permission to reprint. But I was lazy.)

As I said last post, there’s a light side to the deficits I enumerated. It’s not in my nature to look at them as negative unless I see them as something to be modified or corrected, so now I’ll delve into the yin and yang.

Superficial, aka Visually Oriented: No doubt about it, this is something that needs modification. The only upside is that this informs my photography and art appreciation. It assists my composition and allows me to tell you exactly how and why I like or dislike a piece of art. When applied, it allows me to dress and carry myself with aplomb. However, I definitely need to work on the distinction between necessity and th inessential, that which is required for a composition to work and that which is an ornamental splendor.

Consumed, aka Passionate: I genuinely love all sorts of activities, which means I naturally connect with a wide range of people and personalities. I’m never at a loss for conversation, or having some new interest sparked in me. I have pursuits that lie outside of whatever inter-personal relationships I’m involved in, and if some event, date, or occasion falls through, there’s always something else I can do that I love. I’m not clingy.

Elitist, aka Knowledgeable: When I’m talking about something I love, I usually know my shit. I don’t assume knowledge about things I haven’t trained and/or studied extensively in, and am more than willing to ask for information, opinion, advice, and insight. But when you’re in my world, I’ll generally give you damn accurate info.

Lack of Expression, aka Genuine: When I do express myself with words, what I express is my complete and utter truth, it is an unfiltered slice of myself. I never bluff, I never fake it. And if you’re aware of my actions, you’ll see more expression than most.

So, who wants to hang out with a visually oriented, passionate, knowledgeable, genuine person? Line forms to the right….

What are deficits? How can they be viewed as assets? Enemies versus allies? Can you determine when which is which? Yeah, there’s always a lesson in there somewhere.

Ok, so I got this anonymous email (which makes me wonder if it’s someone I actually know, although readership has bumped recently) regarding many of my posts demonstrating my “perfection.” That I’m frequently proselytizing as to how to act, how to respond, or in general, how everyone except myself is always wrong and inappropriate.

My first response was a hearty “Hell no.” I mean, all these lessons I’ve related are due to the fact that at some point, I did the exact wrong thing, and have since learned from it. If you do everything right the first time, you probably won’t remember the other options. When you mess up, that’s what tends to stick with you, and hopefully, prompts you to keep from doing that in the future.

My second response was to initiate some introspection. What do I still need to work on? With that in mind, here’s an incomplete list of personality defects, hopefully in the decline:

Superficial. I’m still extremely visually driven when it comes to girls. I like hot girls, pretty girls, cute girls. I want to go out with them, all of them, and I probably don’t even notice the one’s that aren’t that may like me. Hell, I want it all: beautiful, smart, sexy, passionate, funny, all that good stuff. Of course, everyone wants that, but I have a tendencies to cut off relationships if the girl isn’t smarter, prettier, and wittier than myself. (So am I looking for the girl that has all this, but is looking for someone that much less than herself? Quite a double-standard; requiring so much more of a girl than I have to offer.) Which kinda of leads to…

Consumed. I have a lot of hobbies/passions/activities, which you’ve no doubt noticed if you read this blog with any regularly. Not only the sheer number of thing I enjoy, but the depth to which I pursue them. I have a habit of placing my passions first, which leaves precious little time for friends, family, relationships, and all that other good inter-personal stuff. This has lead to the demise of several relationships. Because of this study-in-depth attitude, I tend to be…

Elitist. I’m horrible at taking advice. In one ear and out the other, even with the minor things. I get so into whatever it is I’m doing that I have a difficult time allowing someone less impassioned than myself on the matter contribute useful information. I think, “I’m the guy that’s been doing this in depth for X years, why should I listen to the dabbler?” Well, the dabblers have good advice as well. I remember one time a friend recommended a band to me she’d just heard of, Portishead, and I completely dismissed the suggestion because “I already knew what I liked,” after all, I’m the guy with vacuum tube mono-blocks and a separate transport and DAC, who chases down local bands at various dirtbag venues to catch the latest CD release. Of course, Portishead eventually came to be one of my all time favorite groups. I don’t even know if I ever told that girl how spot-on she was; I had a…

Lack of Expression. I don’t express my emotional as much as I should, or that social graces say I should, be it positive of negative. Despite what I feel, I don’t tell people I love them enough, or tell others to fuck off when they’ve crossed that line. I’ll try to demonstrate either of the above, as I believe the adage that “actions speak louder than words,” but frequently, words are all that is necessary, and may be more appropriate.

Now, there’s benefits to all these characteristics, depending on how you cast the light, but that’s not for this post. This is a refutation of “perfection.”

So who wants to hang out with a superficial, cold, unavailable elitist? Line forms to the left….

I’d just finished my Japanese final and trudged on down to the Pub to relax for a few. I was greeted by a friend of mine who’d just come off a long few weeks of work punctuated by an otherwise enjoyable weekend with a female acquaintance. Somewhere through the evening he related a story regarding an indictment posed as a theorem, that crux being that people who work in the hospitality industry, as he does, may be lacking something that they’re trying to make up for in their work life, that there’s something they’ve missed out on and feel compelled to compensate for.

I passionately disagreed, at least as far the generalization goes. Why assume that there’s something missing? Where is the benefit of the doubt, where is the yum? I told him as much, and went so far as to assert that, “It’s the completely wrong way of looking at it.”

“Are we so perfect or complacent to believe that we are ‘all that we could be,’ as the Army likes to say? Does one actually believe that we’ve achieved the pinnacle of perfection and omniscience? Don’t we still have lifetimes of interactions to experience, each one of which will inform us, positive or negative, of our relationships in this world?”

“You particularly, being in the hospitality industry, are privy to more expressions of humanity and individuality than just about any other field. Would it not be a monument of ego to presume that we have it all? Are we never to old or inexperienced to learn something new? It’s not ‘what am I missing?’ rather, it’s ‘what can I add?’ Not, ‘what completes me,’ but ‘what enlightens me?’. What pushes me, what forces me to re-examine myself and others? What can I gain, and out of that, what can I pass on to others? How can I affect others as they’ve affected me?”

Midway through my diatribe, I realized I was answering both the statement addressed to him as well as elucidating and refining my answer to a question asked of me a long while ago: “What drives a man to train so hard, what is missing from his character?” My initial response is nothing, nothing is missing, nothing is a deficit, it is part of who I am. And while I believe there’s still truth to this answer, clarification presented itself: be it nature or nurture or both, there is a part of me that does not want to assume I’ve reached perfection. To make that assumption refutes the very assumption. As my old Sifu in Phoenix said once, “If you’ve met your own expectations, they’re probably not high enough.”

To assume that there’s nothing left to learn presumes godliness. I am not a god. I am not a master. I am just someone walking a path. Everyone, no matter who, can teach me something nontrivial. A sapling is not ‘incomplete’ or ‘missing’ something because it isn’t yet a towering redwood, but it will continue to grow and encompass so much more than it is right now.

My recognition of this isomorphism continued tangential to another memory: I had just filmed some techniques for my Sensei, and the person filming asked me, “Would you like to film again?”

“No. I believe it accurately presents my theme and the techniques, which is the point of this exercise.”

“Is it perfect?”

“Of course not.”

“If it’s not perfect, why don’t you want to film it again?”

“Because it will never be perfect. I will always be learning and improving. This does not end here. When I can no longer improve, I will be dead.”

“If this is your only chance to film this, would you be satisfied?”

“I already answered your question, so now I’ll answer a question larger than you’re currently asking. Your question was, ‘Am I satisfied with this rendition?’ And I say, ‘Yes, it is the best I have tonight.’ But now I’m answering the question, ‘Am I satisfied my evolution?’, and my answer is ‘No, God no, and I hope that never changes.’”