…That’s the name of whatever it is I’m drinking. Ingredients include sugar and GABA (Gamma Amino Butyric Acid) which is supposed to increase production of alpha brain waves and decrease beta brain waves. Since I’ve started to work grave shifts on the weekend I’m experimenting with stay-awake stuff: this one isn’t really an energy drink, which is probably a good thing ’cause energy drinks are filled with bull sperm and cocaine, but also a bad thing ’cause I’m really tired. Anyway, I don’t feel super clarified and focused yet — I was hoping to do some productive things while I have all this time, but I ask my brain to be creative, and it just responds back to me with a dull “buuurrrrmmmmmmmmm.”
Gnghaha. I just woke up from a nap. There is a couch outside the office and I gave myself permission to sleep a wink. I had a dream that it was 6:30 and everyone was awake. Oh man. I think in the dream I was sleep walking. rrrmmm… everything in blurred sickly slow motion. I woke myself up, I’d been snoring… I love the warm fuzziness of sleep, like being submerged underwater. And I like dreaming. But sometimes it can be scary, to be so far gone from the real world. To be tossed upside-down and out through the window of logic. I was never a big fan of Alice in Wonderland, for example. I like people to stay in the frame of expectations I am familiar with, and not morph into little turds with wings. As fascinated as I am with psychology, I get very nervous with anything that delves into mental disturbances. Logic is my reassuring blanket of stability. An apple is an apple, a fruit that you eat. A road is a road, something you drive across. My existence is my existence, and it will be the same tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.
In some ways I guess it holds me back to cling to such a closed-minded frame of reference. Doesn’t a lot of inspiration come from allowing yourself to slip dangerously close to the moss-covered bank along the river of illusion? Musicians and writers seem to embrace a little bit of mind-opening states of consciousness. And spiritual people too – I think the Buddha would approve of insanity. I’ve been (trying to) read this book Jack Kerouac wrote “Wake Up: A Life of the Buddha” here’s one of the big epiphanies Gotama had while sitting under the Bo tree:
“Deeds come from attachment, deeds are done for a reason of imagined need to which a being has become attached and in the name of which he’s made his move; attachment comes from desire; the desire comes before the habit; desire comes from perception, you never desired something you didn’t know about, and when you did, it was a perception of either pleasure which you desired, or pain which you loathed with aversion; perception came from sensations, the sensation of a burning finger is not perceived at once; sensation came because of the contact of the six sense organs (eye-seeing, ear-hearing, nose-smelling, tongue-tasting, body-feeling and brain-thinking) with their mutual objects of sense, as, no finger is burned that has never contacted the flame; six sense organs come because of individuality, just as the germ grows to the stem and leaf, individuality growing its own sixfold division of what was originally neither One nor Six but Pure Mind, mirror-clear; individuality comes because of consciousness, consciousness like the seed that germinates and brings forth its individual leaf, and if not consciousness then where is the leaf?; consciousness in turn, proceeds from individuality, the two are intervolved leaving no remnant; just as a man and ship advance together, the water and the land mutually involved; thus consciousness brings forth individuality; individuality produces the roots. The roots engender contact of the six sense organs; contact again brings forth sensation; sensation brings forth desire (or aversion); desire or aversion produce attachment to either desire or aversion, this attachment is the cause of deeds; and deeds again engender birth; birth again produces death; so does this one incessant round cause the existence of all living things.”
Makes total sense, right? Yeah. I mean, I kind of get it. I’m not enlightened enough to really understand this stuff (still working on my inner eye) but I think the gist is: attachment to this world brings pain and misery — but once we destroy our reliance on our concept of individuality, and get rid of all desires and attachments to the world, we will rise above the vicious cycle of death and birth and achieve ultimate peace and understanding.
I don’t know, I don’t really understand the nirvana process. Sometimes I’ll be zoned out, and will have an “epiphany” or two. It might be an eternal truth plucked from the outside realm of higher consciousness (such as, “love is all you need”), and it might help me here, in this real life, to have extra clarity and focus. But I think I’m skeptical about the possibility of reaching a zenith of comprehension, a state of permanent consciousness without pain or suffering, and I don’t know if I’ll ever emanate sparkly dust from every pore of my body. But I guess it doesn’t hurt to try:
THE NOBLE EIGHTFOLD PATH!!!
1. Right Ideas 2. Right Resolution 3. Right Speech 4. Right Behavior 5. Right Means of Livelihood 6. Right Effort 7. Right Mindfulness 8. Right Meditation
That’s pretty non-specific. I can handle it, right? Maybe I should finish reading this book.
Maybe later. Typing seems to be the only activity that keeps me awake. Here is a poem I wrote a while back. I can’t remember where it came from. But it kind of fits with the theme of this post:
What is Love?
Projecting my expectations, forgive me –
this monotony of relationship communications circles
cycles, the confrontation breeds babies
born with questioning, savagely/ acutely
overly analytical with nothing but time
to reflect and regret.
Who is the possessor of real love?
Trueness is faith and fidelity. But reality is eternal truth.
When I say I love you: a projection
of youth’s wistful whimsy, ideals
reels play on the screen scenes from parenthood dreams
projecting and protecting
from the conflicts and confusion of a guide-less world
outside the constructs of social structure
in the void of individualism
free from ropes of right/wrong.
Monogamy is monotony. Love is for everybody. ~End.
Hm. A pro-polyandry poem? Maybe so. Anyway, guess what my second job (at community college, just started this week) is mostly writing and editing; I really love writing! So much better than customer service. I’ve been starting to wonder (again) whether I should just forget about teaching or social services because deep down, I will never be super comfortable in those settings. Deep down I love people but deep down I am biased towards calm people without drama. So maybe I should just stick to quiet jobs like “grant writer” and “publisher” and “librarian” and stop denying the introverted bookworm inside me. But I guess in the end it’s all up to me! My personality test says I’m an INFP (Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving) and in stressful situations: “the INFP will feel lost and perplexed. As stress builds, INFPs become disconnected from their own personality and perceived place in life, etc.” and this is very true, me no likey stress. Although I am proud of myself: I have been doing pretty well lately at work keeping calm. Like, last weekend, some clients got in a fight and then two other clients came running to tell me about what sounded like domestic abuse next door, and I calmly called the police and calmly talked to the arguing women, and only got a little emotional (domestic violence makes me go into protect-and-destroy mode! but the police told us it was only a tickle fight…)
Anyway. Back to the personality test. It also says: “INFP’s are focused on making the world a better place for people. Their primary goal is to find out their meaning in life. What is their purpose? How can they best serve humanity in their lives? They are idealists and perfectionists, who drive themselves hard in their quest for achieving the goals they have identified for themselves.”
This is also very true. You see, I can’t help but drive myself crazy, questing for the perfect life path. It’s an integral, inescapable part of my personality. Except I’m still working on the goals part.
The test listed a bunch of careers that are ideal for my personality.The list was spot-on! I’ve dipped into nearly all of these in some way:
college professor (notice how it doesn’t say “high school teacher”? thank you, test, for not making me feel bad because I failed at student teaching and I don’t like kids. college teacher is definitely close to #1 on my list of preferred jobs)
researcher (meh? I got research skills)
legal mediator (not really interested. have had a few paralegal job interviews; law jargon leaves a bad taste in my mouth)
social worker (love non-profits, but there are a lot of social service jobs out there I would probably hate)
holistic health practitioner (since working at one of those “natural food” stores I have been interested in holistic medicine, like herbs and such. lately, I’ve been thinking a more and more about becoming a yoga teacher. i want to be a yogi!)
occupational therapist (nah…)
minister/priest/rabbi (eh. monk?)
missionary (been there, done that)
psychologist (inspired by current job: substance abuse therapist)
writer/journalist/editor (my original passion. no matter what else I do, eventually I WILL write and publish something)
The only thing the list didn’t mention was forest service worker and blues musician…
Man. I’m so lucky I have all this leisure time to mull. Mull mull mull. Guess I’m lucky I don’t have kids who throw temper tantrums either. But I’ll probably have a kid someday, if not children at least a Sean Connery look-alike boyfriend to grow old with (if all goes according to plan).
