Why? He says

I love the way this stone wall feels as I walk down this dark hallway. It is more intimate than I would have expected. I watched a worm slowly scale a vertical wall. I watched as it flailed from side to side, groping and hoping to find something soft and moist in the darkness.

As I continued down the musty stone hallway I became aware of all the moments that had led me on this latest bout of exploration. I was restless. I was curious. I was hungry.

It is unfortunate that these boots are corrupting my ability to really experience this stone hallway in all its force. I know that it could make me shiver from head to toe if I were only willing to let it touch my toes and my head. But I'm a little too attached to my hat, to my shoes, to my warmth. To your warmth.

I'm pretty certain that I came here for a reason. I told myself that I wanted to embrace a certain type of experience. But I can't seem to take my shoes off. I can't seem to let you do this to me.

Thickness, Fullness

This hallway feels swollen.

Standing here I feel like my space is being invaded. The walls are thicker than they should be.

It is an imperceptible thickness, though. You can't see it. Nothing looks different in any way. Just orange walls. Just doors. Just an ordinary orange hallway.

But why does my life feel so saturated by them? Why do they appear to be breathing? Slowly expanding. A constant inhalation.

It reminds me of the expansion of the universe and the possibility that we are inside an enormous cosmic creature's lung. What if this universal beast is just inhaling? We exist during this giant creature's attempt to take in its vital substance. I don't feel helpless if I keep walking, though.

So I walk down this hallway knowing that orange is my favorite color.

I'm so full on this hallway. It has got me feeling like I am going to burst. Like I too could be the universe. Like each of my inhalations could be creating another universe inside of my lungs that some beings experience as a lifetime, as multiple generations, as millennia.

And then I exhale and feel the death of a world.

Weekend Sluggishness

I wake up on the weekends and I feel tired. I wonder if its because I work hard all week, or because I like to go out partying and socializing. Probably both.

But when I wake up and I'm in my apartment there is a different feeling from the rest of my week, the rest of my time. Is it the feeling of waking up alone contrasted with how many people I've been dealing with throughout the week? Probably something like that.

The social life. My inner world. What a weird thing.

This coffee tastes pretty good though.

Today I want to do some laundry and I want to get some work done on my essay. I also want to do some dishes. I have lots of things that I want to do.

Do I like babbling into blog documents? Yes.

Why do I do it? I'm not sure.

Perhaps I do it because I'm in a room by myself and it makes me feel like I can imagine that I am communicating to other people.

But I'd like to get some serious writing done today.

But when I wake up in the mornings I feel out of it. I feel like there are things that need to settle in my mind. Water and sand? What? I'm not sure.

I just had this image of my mind being clouded and me having to wait until all the particles settled to the bottom. Not sure what that means.

I like it when I experience thought as imagery that I can't quite clearly articulate. I like when suddenly there is an idea that exists but it doesn't exist as words.

But then again, what I want right now is to write some words.

When Singing Karaoke, We Are All Vulnerable Children

Tonight was the second night in a row that I was out at a karaoke bar. I enjoy it. Watching people sing. Being there. It feels so funny.

It feels hard to write right now because I drank a bit. But I know I want to write a few things. Because I have a few things to say.

One thing I will say is about something my friend said to me. He said he forgot how hip this crowd was, the crowd we were out with. I was the friend of a friend. It was okay. Didn't get to talk to too many people because it was so crowded and loud.

But these people, sure, were 'hip'. But then I see them singing karaoke and it's like, 'you motherfuckers are goofy just like me, what is this hipness we speak of, why do we play these roles'. Because I don't think that they were hip. Sure, they dressed well, had gauges in their ears, had beards. Whatever. Fuck that. I don't care.

When we sing karaoke we all just feel awakrd in front of a crowd of people. Or we don't. We have a good time. We sing. It is funny and exciting.

But I guess what I'm getting at is the more crucial idea of the distinction between childhood and adulthood. When do we really become adults? I don't know that we do. Life is continuous, dynamic. There is never this single switch to adulthood.

I just don't like that.

Margaret Mead? She did work on adulthood in other cultures I think? Or work on adolescence? I dunno. What is with this idea of coolness?

Why do people hold things above other people? Why do people act like masculinity is some kind of shit to be trumpeted? To make jokes about?

I can't be explicit here because I don't want to call anybody out. I don't want to be directly aggressive in my writing. But sure, perhaps I'm being passive aggressive.

If you want to joke about how you are manlier than me, then I already know we are gonna have some problems.

This is pretty much what happens when I write blogs after drinking a bit: I drift into this space where my social life and my intellectual life blend and swirl.

And here is my big secret: my intellectual life and my social life always blend.

I was thinking that maybe these drunk posts read very abstractly. Like I'm talking pure wind or nothing at all.

I can't express to you how deeply embedded they are in my daily social life.

I can't even tell you because it would sound too abstract.

But the social world is my only world. My thought is always about it.

So many of my ideas that I write about come to me after I tell a co-worker that I am having a bad day, or that I hope they feel better.

I love small talk.

And my best ideas come right after my bouts of small talk. I think I'm getting better at being persistent with my small talk. Some people seem so far gone. So removed. They seem miles away. I ask them how they are and they say good without batting an eye and without contemplating reciprocating the question.

Does it make me crazy? Maybe.

Does it make me worried? Definitely.

What is it about this world that makes us so disconnected from one another?

I feel so connected to people. I hope I can make other people feel that way on occasion.

Oh! The love I feel!

I'm sorry for the aggressive comment earlier about masculinity. But I do think it's a pretty fucked up way of engaging with yourself and with other people.

To poke fun at others because you are too locked into social values about the maintenance of body and image? Poppycock. Get over yourself. Get some perspective on your behavior.

And at the end of the day, here I am. Pained by my perspective on myself.

But guess what. I think I prefer it to being locked in.

I prefer to float in personal and social uncertainty than to be unreflectively locked in to a cultural world that eludes my understanding.

A Short Essay On Identity, Relationships, and Baggage

I have an idea.

I've been thinking a good bit lately about people and their relationships with one another. I think about how we relate to others and how that constitutes our own identities. I've been thinking about the issues of baggage from previous relationships. Why it is that time has to go by until we feel comfortable or different.

In my post called this world that world your world our world something like that, I was exploring this issue in a casual sense. How much each of us exist by bending our identities to different minds. We go from mind to mind to mind.

I was struck by this idea in the Coke closet at my work. Stocking coke products. What a treat! (Extreme sarcasm).

I was thinking about my friend Rob. Shouts out to you Rob.

I was thinking about how we have lost touch a bit since I moved, and how thats okay, because I know we will reconnect. But why does it matter to be separate from other people? Why is that good?

Here is what I wrote in my notebook in the Coke closet:

"Life in relation to others. My post on many worlds. Life is a conglomeration of all the people and perspectives inside us. New people, new life. Takes time to disconnect. Me n Rob aren't in touch much."

What to make of all these issues?

How to think about the way other minds relate?

Simulation theory is certainly a part of how I'll deal with the issue.

But what else? How?

I feel like my ideas were clearer when I was in the Coke closet. But now I'm not so sure.

I'll be ruminating on this. I hope I can turn it into a bigger statement about empathy, relationships, baggage, identity, so on.

The I and the Other are inseparable.

There is no Me without You.

These Damn Blue Jeans And Black Coats!

I was walking home in the cold from my friends house. I was passing strangers in the night and I was reflecting on how it might be awkward to say hello to them. I walked past a guy in a black coat who had glasses on. Much like me.

I walked past a girl and I thought she might be cute. I wondered if she thought if I was cute too. But then I thought about how I had a hat and a scarf and blue jeans and a black coat on and how I probably didn't look like much in that dark night.

Then I stared thinking about how in The Principles Of Art Collingwood comments on how little people were able to express themselves through their clothes in early twentieth century England. Here is the quotation: “The cosmopolitan civilization of modern Europe and America, with its tendency towards rigidly uniform dress, has limited our expressive activities almost entirely to the voice, and naturally tries to justify itself by asserting that the voice is the best medium for expression” (244-45).

Just that our forms of expression are restricted to the voice, and that clothing has implicitly been ruled out as a legitimate means of individual expression.

I just wear these blue jeans and these glasses all the time. I just wear these coats. Everyone dresses so similarly. It is difficult.

It is one of those things that I have never really thought about a ton.

It just seems so natural.

But it isn't.

It is so cultural and historical. What if I could express myself more through my clothes? I wonder.

I read a quotation in a facebook page. Something to the effect of 'Style is being yourself, but on purpose'. Style is expression through clothes? Sounds fun.

I should think about that a bit more. It just sucks that clothing typically costs moneys. Who knows.

A White Room

I was standing in the middle of a room three hundred feet up. I was eating something that was unfamiliar to me and I was thinking about moving on. I couldn't stop looking at the horizontal red strips that lined this white room. Bones.

All I could think about was bones and the way that these red and white layers reminded me of the inside of my body. The way that I imagine the inside of my body to be.

Sometimes I wonder about rooms and space. I think about the inside of my body as a space. As a place where cogs turn and tiny beings work. But that space of the inside of my body is something I don't know at all. I know the inside of my mouth. I know it because my tongue is constantly probing and exploring crevices, cracks, awkward nuances and the memories I associate with them. But what about the rest of my body?

Does that internal space mean anything at all to me? Do I really know anything about it?

It makes me think that perhaps this room is just like the inside of my body. Maybe this room is the inside of my body.

But then I stop thinking so much about the inside of my body and I think about the door. I walk towards the door. The only spot in this entire room that is void of those delightful red stripes.

Funny, though, there is no handle on this door. Only a knocker. An old knocker that looks like something I would have frivolously bought at a yard sale when I had more space, more money, and more hope for ornamentation.

I don't even waste my time thinking about knockers. I just knock as hard as I can. I'm still eating this unknown substance. Every now and then I swallow a little bit of it and I wonder what happens to it when it goes inside of me. I wonder how my mind works. I wonder if my mind digests in a secret space just like my stomach.

In a few minutes I hear something rustling on the other side of the door. I suspect it is a non-human animal. I suspect I want to eat it. But I'm already eating this other thing so I won't worry about that right now. I'll just kill it so I can start descending again.

When I was on my way up to this red striped room I had to kill a few things. Not family members or anything fucked up like that. Just a few small creatures that never knew how to love.

Sometimes I forget that the world I live in is magical. That it changes everyday. That there are countless monsters that live in it. That if I wanted to or needed to I could take the head off of them and stop imagining the insides of their bodies.

Then maybe I would finally feel connected to space again. If I could just clarify the existence of my body's internal world maybe I could regain my faith in the external world. Because these days everything blends in this terrible pool of my imagination. I've lost faith in these red striped walls. So I'm going to go eat all these little beings that won't open this god damn door. I use the knocker every day. They told me that they wouldn't let me out until I was ready to eat them alive. Maybe I just need to know the inside of my own body. Maybe I just want the internal world.

Because this external world feels so unreliable. Big mind feels like a good alternative.

But what about my blood? What about my guts?

Oh well.

I don't trust anything physical except my body.