this morning i used a garbage can in a landfill. placed my tissue cherries on top knowing theyll fly away anyway. one must imagine trashyphus happy.

i like pacing in my free time.

its cartoonish aside from a good generator for thought. most of my ideas come to me mid motion—even this one—can’t think if i sit to. i reflect on the day, if i died or not, or the fact that i am pacing back and forth. and that my back hurts of course (old age making room for itself). also dont live somewhere walkable so its good exercise.

but a recurrent theme i notice in my pacings is how hard independence from external sources to feel steady is. thats voodoo for equanimity. unshaken by unpredictability, ugly events—or i guess: reality. that stable, uninterrupted, internal bliss. a zen master enduring a hurricane; wet wind blows, fish slaps his eversmiling face.

how does one manage to do that? its impressive.

okay. i do know. its not woo woo. but knowing is not believing. believing is not integration. and integration is… humiliatingly difficult.

feels like deceiving everyone and yourself. tiny bitter man cosplaying positivity.

and this is why i cant stand optimists. am i envious of what i lack or are they truly obnoxious i dont know, all i know is theyre zen master’s biggest enemy. irritatingly good at pointing out your differences while you quietly work hard on square one. and i live with one so, thoughts and prayers.

i wont lie, ive had a few uncharacteristic wins. but when it gets bad its bad. almost cried over my grilled chicken today.

its been bad and, no rush, i want to learn how to ignore it. might this be delusion? copium? might. but its better than pandemonium.

for now all i know is how to pace like a madman, even in public. its a good regulator.

so till then, ill keep moving.

to a stable core.

mind the gap.

you can find all sorts of weirdoes in the holy: a nosy, green-shoed, bug-eyed snapper, a hoodwinking trafficking recruiter.

the building has moved me to tears. ah man, there’s no going back now.

decay alongside beauty; the former fails to dim the latter, but im still frustrated at the neglect. its like they spat right in his dead face. obstacles to experience: broken glass, overflowing bins, interrupted circulation, crude and thoughtless additions, a bathroom whose door i had to wrestle with, whose desolation i immediately left for fear of a lurker waiting to greet me--no safety of mine is worth checking out an architect's toilets.

no safety of mine, but i had to see the rest. ununlockable but i try, hoping for the narrow stairways to royal balconies, expanded hallway, open windows and double doors first time since installation probably--the porous bliss of it all.

my every move feels suspicious. i jitter and jump because ive sensed someone inside. i pray im left alone. but they come out in my peripheral immediately. i knew i was doing something wrong.

but instead of trouble im faced instead with flying attempts at speech, none landing. what was it, cerebral palsy?

i politely smile and ask for a repeat in hopes of sealing it with a quick yes/no/maybe/here/there/its 12:00/were all going to die anyway. but no dice. i understand though. this is plan b when ambush at empty bathroom fails. invoke sympathy via supposedly disabled lady, catch off guard, sell kidney.

she leads and i follow to my surprise, chummy with my fate. cant look like an asshole even in danger. but only in the face of the door i slammed shut myself did i finally understand what she needed. silly me, women in abandoned holy buildings dont lure you to traffickers.

so i have a second round with the door for her. it opens, she thanks me--this i could understand, her english was bettter i told her, like me. she calls her friend over and im left feeling safe and stupid and a little herculian. better sorry than safe i say.

and so i resume my failings to unlock and instead resign to lament in the carpetted room while the two women perform their rituals. my partner calls and tells me he stepped in bird shit--twice--and only then do i notice the pigeons and open airity of the building. i decide to leave before my feet end up in the same shit and this becomes a net negative experience.

i say goodbye to my new friend, glad she survived the ambush and hoping she’ll survive the pigeonshit, and snap some pictures outside on my way back. im slowly getting over my fear of looking like a tourist, guess its part of the job.

you can find all sorts of people in the holy, individual and full of care in their own ways.

fear is a nasty bugger.

stay safe and kind.

choose bravery.

internally shifting, i see liberation's light. theres the sun.

the bear was a bear after all, not an extraterrestrial being enduring relentless draughts on an eternally wintering planet, jet fuel frozen solid interplanetary connections severed. the hibernightmare is over, im going to be okay.

i took what was mine and left the rest to shrivel and die without sucking any more of my blood. i am free, the next step is to be me. recalibrate to live from the inside out, i want to witness the beauty of my change. or maybe it was always there.

deliberately living a life aligned with the mind successful regardless of its standing is the major pursuit of my life. i hope i remember that, i wonder if it will transcend time.

stop polishing a ball of dirt. embrace your messy individuality, unlearn the straight lines, leave them for papers. within reason.

grim but important reminders to live for yourself. catch yourself distorting or contriving, you have lost sight of meaning. there seems to be a physical barrier but all you seek on the outside exists within really.

the bridge is the destination. the point is not to reach the summit, but to walk the trail. the sooner you learn enjoy it the easier it is for your legs to carry you. also, its not to walk without fear, but to look fear in the eyes and walk anyway.

and i continue, or to me begun, to seek fellow navigators of this murky sea that is life, each with a unique piece of the map to exchange. and hopefully one or two lasting connections amidst the transient, but that is contingent.

but more importantly, i seek to start using my senses more, see what truly surrounds me, to rely on my touch, smell, and vision to guide me through the world more often. you live thinking, you forget to live. that, i believe, is my greatest fault.

the mind body gap remains, and the bear might have another hibernightmare, even twenty, but in this hurricane that is the everythingness and everywherity of life, its most important to make sure your boots are firmly planted in the ground. everything follows.

in the better part of the cycle. these feelings, too, are fleeting. i will be back soon. samsara.

i might come to terms with the fact that i may not be a ray of sunshine after all. my mind only knows the image of a tiny constipated bitter man. in every ritual. the universe cheers on this tiny man to let go of all the damn shit already and be a tiny man with some jolly, a big heart, thick skin, and some capacity for appreciation of its jokes instead. but convincing yourself of a state never guarantees the body follows. its matter over mind, the limitations are real.

but so is the urgency. i imagine this lightness only comes to you at old age when the trivialities of youth have become so distant that youre now allowed to reflect and respond with the calm objectivity of an outsider. or corpse. mortality, who knows their final hour.

i want to make the choice before resignation or death do it for me. its a beautiful, beautiful world, a shame if you arrive late or never at all. i might not know how to balance joy with other feelings, but at least i know thats a hint of the answer.

we learn in public and along the way, no matter.

nazus unt goltmunt knocked me out with an existential roundhouse uppercut. am i goltmunt wearing the cloak of nazus?

my love for logic is real despite ineptitude. i can speak my unscientific bird language gib and still express something precise. but its important i dont operate where i dont belong, been sensing that. i must, as narcissus tells goldmund, recognise my "innermost unreasonable force, drives and weaknesses." mind and nature, consciousness and dream, are far apart. i must go back to my childhood, i must learn from my dreams.

i started to think in my dreams and dream in my thoughts.

love.

do you know what im talking about? do i know what im talking about?

a cloaked gardener on tv. a walking reference of poetry, history, and botany. a character, rooted between his trees. i aspire to be the same but wonder if there is a place for my sincerity in his collapsed sealed ecosystem. there must, where else does this slight traditionalist go? what do you invest in besides home and how would you decide what deserves anyways? nothing but home does. but home doesnt redeem itself, never will. conflicted between prioritising, crazy to think i bowed to and prided myself in it not too many yesterdays ago.

is it me or is it them? i dont want to resort to blame, but im more afraid of it being the truth.

a gardener belongs to soil not concrete, a cycle not fixed. he sows his seeds in the changing landscape and adapts to what they become. but does the soil i sow my seeds in raise at all? and will the garden that i loved as it grew grow to love me back?

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“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.” ― Henry David Thoreau