Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Random Tests Of Knowledge and Owl Wrapping Paper: Change and Love

I went to a trivia night at the lookout, a local bar i frequent with a few friends. I had a few beers. I liked them. More so the 3 grid than the Manny's. We got 2nd place. But jesus fuck is it cold. And boy howdy do I like how cold it is.

Not because it feels good.

But because I should feel privileged to experience extremes.

My blinds are broken right now. The chord on one of my Venetian blinds has snapped and is all fucked up. They only got 4/5 of the way down. Not a big deal. Practically it means close to nothing. But it is a minor annoyance. But hardly.

It reminds me of how when I first moved into this apartment the shower was all fucked up. I had a ghost in my shower. The knobs moved upward by themselves, constantly changing the temperature of my shower water. But then I got that fixed and life assumed a new form.

Transformation. Life changes.

And my broken blinds are the newest thing to change. What else will change?

One interesting question my good friend prompted was: What do we not want to change? With all the emphasis on transformation that me and him talk about, that our favorite thinkers stress, what is the continuity? Is there something that we want to hold onto in the midst of all this change?

The answer is yes.

And the thing that we want to hold onto is love and compassion.

We want to transmit a loving and compassionate perspective to those that come after us.

Life such a crazy thing. It doesn't feel good all the time.

But I'm too often struck by people who love.

People like Amit Goswami. Goswami is a quantum physicist who talks about the relationship between physics and god. I like his idea of 'the quantum self' (which I wrote about on June 1st) and how it can allow us to livea more loving and compassionate existence.

Or people like Martin Luther King Jr. I don't know enough about him. But people who preach love and compassion as the highest duty. I told someone today that I wanted to be the next MLK. Someone who can give speeches that make people want to love.

Do I laugh at myself for saying things like that? Do you laugh at me for saying things like that?

The answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the second is I hope not.

I still want love. And I still want the rest of you to love.

Hating hurts too much and takes too much effort.

So is there such a thing as a constant and effortless love?

I suspect it has to be effortful. But I sure hope it can be constant.

Like I said, I've had a few beers. But I mean all of this. And I titled the post this because I went to trivia and felt so funny in the midst of random knowledge tests. And because today I bought chocolates to take to thanksgiving. I am going to the house of a strange for thanksgiving. The friend of my aunt's friend. So I bought some chocolates to take to them.

I asked for the people in my store to gift wrap them. They didn't have a bag or anything like that. They simply had boxes ad wrapping paper. So I chose the wrapping paper with funny little owls on them.

I'm making some progress on my big writing project 'Art, Zen, and Insurrection'. But not as much progress as I would like. It is such a long project. And for Part I I am so locked into Collingwood. But I'll be getting out of his woods soon. Soon I'll be expressing myself as me, rather than as Collingwood.

Life is just exciting. I'm just excited.

I'm just feeling like I am good. Like I want to be good. Like I want other people to be good.

I have countless little topics and little essays to explore. I have so many thoughts. I'm so lost in them.

I'm enjoying socializing so much, too.

I told my friend tonight that I regretted how I couldn't socialize and write at the same time. They are so different. They are so social vs. solitary.

I'm just so excited and excitable. I'm a very loving boy.

I want to keep loving despite all this confusion and frustration.

I want to keep pushing people with weird questions. But sometimes I don't know how. I just forget. I just lose myself. I just take orders. I don't prod all the time. I want to prod more. I want to walk more. I want to talk to strangers more.

Life becomes so metaphorical for me. I want life to become poetic for me.

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About Me

I spend most of my time working as a mental health professional. I have been preoccupied with philosophy, politics, healing, and many other questions for the last 15 years or so. I am currently working on putting together my study of Plato and Aristotle with contemporary work in philosophy, psychology, psychotherapy, and trauma research. I use this place primarily as a workshop for ideas. I welcome conversation with anyone working on similar problems. The major contours of my basic project have been outlined here

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