where is the pleasure here?

2008-02-15-0558

I've begun to ask.

Visions of the impossibility of individuality,

Of watching behavior flow through me/this node

Of staying still until the motive came to move,
of swimming until the motive came to stop.

Of laying still, watching thoughts come, go, cycle--

letting them go--coming again--where are they coming from?

Where is the pleasure here?

Of looking back afterward on the absolute unquestioning in me as I wrote an email or worked on a web page for a long time--

Of questioning the turmoil that sending an email, preparing for an action, caused in me.

Why is this node / am I doing this? Where is the pleasure here.


Seeing and feeling there was no pleasure in the turmoil, in the cycling of thoughts--

I began to practice stopping -

When we ride on a horse which is out of control, I think our deepest wish is to stop. How can we stop? We have to resist the speed, the losing of ourselves, and therefore we must organize a resistance. Spending two hours on a cup of tea during a tea meditation is an act of resistance, nonviolent resistance. We can do it because we have a Sanghakaya [community of practitioners]. We can do it together, we can resist a way of life that makes us lose ourselves.

(From Nhat Hanh, The Path of Emancipation: Talks from a 21-Day Mindfulness Retreat. Parallax.org, 2000. 110. 7-9)

- I saw Thay Nhat Hanh's smiling face. I saw the smiling, loving face of the monk teaching walking meditation. -

I slowed my walk, clasped my hands in front, and breathed in with a few steps, breathed out with a few steps, walking slowly. Bringing attention to where this node / I was, dissociating attention more often from the cycling thoughts, smiling a half smile--

all that I'd learned from Nhat Hanh, a visit to Deerpark, and time with others too--

So, where is the pleasure here?

I'm typing here--, I'm smiling a half smile, I have a little tears--

Where is the pleasure here?

Where do the words come from?

Why is this node / am I typing them?

Why do I continue?

Why did I start?

When will this motive stop moving through this node / me?

-------

I go back to WIE.org's little blurb about Teilhard de Chardin's omega point.

There is a Vision moving through me / this node.

Moving through every one--

If we practice stopping we can feel it coming.

----------------------

Where is the pleasure? Lila?

Why did I ever mindlessly eat and read, eat and read? Not stopping till the food or reading was done?

Why did I ever work on sending an email, making a web page, not stopping even when it first got published, but going over and over the parts of it as if bombs had been dropped in my landscape, leaving new features to explore?

---------

Why am I / is this node / is this writing / are these words
moving through this node.


---------

So, the vision is coming.
I can relax about it.

I can practice stopping. Leaving the thoughts.

They will all get thought.

The ideas will all become happened.

------------

Why is there ever lack of control?

What is the vision?

Why is it not already here? Is it not?

-------------

Why do we ever act contrary to the vision?

--------------

do we ever--

------------------------

So, I watch my starting and stopping. Wondering where they come from.

Once, maybe unhappy, I thought there was no point to anything.

But I see now "I had never really stopped" (See Satish Kumar's story of Angulimala--_The Buddha and the Terrorist_. Buddha: "I have already stopped. You, Angulimala, have not.")

The thoughts kept going--

never really stopped.

-----------------------

So, do I just watch the vision coming? Where is the pleasure here?

Are the automatic times when it is coming? Is the writing here when it is coming? Is the working in the garden? Is the eating? the reading?

-------------

I don't just sit still and thoughtless for ever. The time comes to move again.



-----------------------

I rarely sit still and thoughtless for very long at all.

the helicopter circles compost that relaxes thich nhat hanh's smiling face as his body burns. overwhelming force. motivation embed.

[written 2008-02-10-0901 posted 2008-02-15-0746]
sdprim.blogspot.com
sdpbb.blogspot.com

what does the connection I may be seeking look like?

live that way now

a motivational connection.

(1) I care for my body--the lack of connection is not such that I stay up late, neglect exercise trying remedy it

[so, live that way now]
----------------------------------

(2) As part of our connection, we're helping transform the city into a more connective, less isolative space--

The motivational connection we create, tends to open up, to generate neighborhood-level love, connection, action support-- consistent with what city repair has done---
Reducing the motives people have to travel outside their neighborhoods--

[so, live that way now]

-----------------------------

Helping organize in fallbrook is not consistent??-- Well, rainbow is closer than quail springs.--


-----------------

Recognize that others all many of them seek connection too--

So I seem to feel it most strongly -- the drive to connect?
with people of similar age and background--

how do I help others of different ages and backgrounds do the same--
in a healthy, life-fulfilling/enhancing way?

City repair.

-------------------------------------------

Recognize that years of dissociative, isolating planning and building have occurred and even now still continue,
resulting in an urban environment which is physically, socially, psychologically dangerous to be in--


Recognize we need to be together close, in the outdoors, in places free of that devastation, and pay the costs of doing that, though we may leave the city that needs to be repaired to have those times.

----------------------------

Now, I want to explore a smallness in me-- it may be a smallness--That may tend to isolate others from me--[--tend to create barriers between me and others]

I don't seem to share the confrontational focus of many activists in the area--I didn't help with no borders camp, for example.

Inwardly, I tend to fault many of these activists for accepting the use of the car in their work--, or in their daily lives.

So that is an isolative smallness I have, even as I occasionally will use cars.

Another isolative smallness I have:

If people are polished, stylish, creating a good, classy appearance, going to fancy restaurants, - - -

I tend to feel they are reinforcing "death culture" - They drive, they fly, they have 'culture.' the culture that destroys.

----------------------------------

In that, I'm not different from the more confrontational activists--

If people are well polished, well equipped with consumer goods--

I tend to have this feeling that something is wrong there--there is rotting flesh there--

----------------------------

---------------

This may not be a wrong feeling on my part--
the ones who are successful in the culture of life, even as they draw funds from culture of what came before, do not have this feeling about them--

Warren Brush--, the folks at quail springs--they hardly have this well-consumed appearance--though they have vestiges.

The folks at earthaven. . .

I have what my mom sends me . ..

---Don is a good example of near total opposite,
though we all have vestiges of the time of conspicuous, classy consumption.


--------------

What is hard is that in SD it is very much the status quo--
if you go about with a non-conspicuous consumption appearance--
You must be strong, or it is easy to feel inferior--

We love to go with the herd, we love to not have to question what to do all the time--The more different we are, the more isolated we may feel (unless we are some spiritual god on earth--but even they needed their posse before they were strong), the slower, more weakly we may function, because just to exist requires constant self-reinforcement.

----------------------------------------


The primitive skills groups---
what does this have to do with the new culture?

Because there is a kind of renunciation, of simplicity that goes on. . .


Buddhists monks and nuns are different, living simply, and they have their posse to help them be strong in that way--


-------------------------------------------------

---------------------------

That's it.

The other vision---------------

That I don't knock myself out trying to do everything that could be done with the computer--

mapping all the gardens,
all the carfree casualties,

contacting all those who could be contacted. . .


That, like activistsandiego, we have a group who finds value in doing those things.

-------------------

Do I need to learn to deal with money??

Kinsee, Kinz, Morlan, has her student loans. . .

---------------------------------------------------

Now what about the overwhelming force that is arrayed against or dragging behind the kinds of values i may be getting at--

just now, a helicopter is circling-- that is the kind of overwheming force--

--the highways are driven on, my grandma puts on perfume..


The newspaper people turn people's attentions to local and less local politicians--

some even support the building of new roads,
the attendance of mass sporting events. . .

--The helicopter circles, , ,

The highways roar. . .

The overwhelming force against peace---

Every year-- 12,000 [7,000] more state students--

overwhelming force--

The largest Meetups, the general--lets make friends--lets go to theme parks, lets go to ball parks, thats what friends do.

--the helicopter circles--

--The airplanes land and take off--

people, politicians, concern themselves with roads and airports and fire defense of suburbs--

--there are absolutely massive areas of pavement left over from poor planning days, and maybe even new ones (see the toll roads) planned--


-------------
----------
-------------

These massive forces against life and peace make urban life one of

---
because just to exist requires constant self-reinforcement, and some how a practice of acceptance of abuses of peace, of good sense--

one cannot deal or thrive with constantly being dismayed,

by the helicopter that still circles--

by all those other things.

-------------------------------------------


So what about these massive overwhelming forces that make me all to glad to escape, to give up, to accept death, to embrace to encourage the tumors inside me that will kill me and free me from these things at which I wish I were not so often feeling dismayed at, gritting my teeth at, shaking my head why at.



----------------


In the world I wish, these forces continually weaken, diminish, weaken, diminish, lessen, fade, wane, relax, mist away, cool, ease, are soothed, stroked to sleep and perhaps their throat slit so they die without adrenaline in their blood, making compost that relaxes.


Now what if I'm so far wrong? So far wrong that the trees in the little shred of a natural canyon left near here are cut down and the cyn is built up?

What other expansion of force could there be into my life at which I would dismay even more?


What if I read in the news, more suburbs are built, more roads are paved, more forests are cut, more helicopters are flown, more airports are expanded, retail sales are up, home size grows, water use grows, more habitat destroyed, more oil fields opened, more golf courses, more soldiers, more chicken factories, more dams, more people, more SDSU students, more cars,

I read in the news. . .

more helicopter overflights, more rumbling mufflers, more black soot on the leaves, on the figs,

------------------------------------------

More IDs. More tickets for being a pedestrian, more scrutiny, harrasment for not fitting in,

-----------------------------------

If all that and more?????


Given that there is all that and more? The confrontational anarchists, the ezln, the irc, survival international, starhawk, monbiot, your favorite activist here, remind us?

------------------------------------

I just see Thich Nhat Hanh's smiling face.
As his body burns.

But it doesn't.

His body is younger than mine, and he is more than twice as old.


-------------------------

Can you be peaceful, at peace colin? not driven to consume to kill your health, your body?

--------------------------------------------------------

---------------------
the overwhelming force of all the lives so caught up in obligation to get to spend, even kinsey, kinz morlan, even , especially her?


------

not especially.

------
[from the notepad from a sitting near Chollas lake:]

"I am giving you your space,
to be yourself here."

"the non-story story
I want to tell --
the non news--

"moving from the
internet connection
w/ like minded,
to the in person
connection w/ like
minded--

"-see and touch and care fore
in person

Discoveries about the region --

your own discoveries

--
moving from region
to neighborhood focus

"They will continue to
pave, expand, grow,
make noise about it--

"the PC view / vision

"being so different,
how do you interact w/ people who are not your way??

------

"People in different
parts of the region
writing about their local area

"I love not having
to question what I'm doing

"what motivational
network would
I participate in?
In what would I
willingly self-
embed--

"still, unchanging,
automatic,
until forced--
impinged--

---
"development" as death
as refinement

"real people?"
"poor people" ?


Motive networks
time spent questioning

willingly re-embed

attention networks

--
Wanting to connect,
healthily

what is that
connection like?

What's it look like?
-----------------------1024

one shining contact [emerging from incoherence]

[written 2008-02-08-1928 posted 2/15 0648]
this is

no more

procrastination possible.

----------------------------------------------
must reflect.


1938
have been
working on
blog--

escaping reflection

---------
in working on blog, I encounter
professionals

peaple with jobs,
who make money

------------

I hear news

-------
so time for silence, sensing
this node's space.

----------
The blog--
the drive--
I guess,
about connection.

Some garden work done--

But the contact with people I seem to crave more,
or??
and that contact is there, in the electrons sent, sensed

That contact is there,
in my refining of some posts, again and again, to be more readable--

That contact is there.

--------------------------------

and do I want no job?
what would I do with money?


----------------------------------

Now--
is there any non-computer way to have that contact with people?

Having no job?

--------------------------

it seems fine.

----------------------------------------

any change?

-----------------------

More balance with how computer used, would be good change.
No sitting here all day, never exercising. No more of that, would be good.

----------------

More work in garden might be good--
I haven't done it much though.

Connection not there?

------------------------

The only new connection I see is a north county gathering to weave willow, eat wild plants.

--------------------------------

Everyone else goes on about highways, airports, jobs, houses, money

--so far, I get to play.

so far, I see no end--

to that play--

--------------------------------------

The toll, though,
being the odd one--

seeking connection--

neglecting peace, care for body--

----------------------------------

So the Internet work,
leads to connection like that.

--------------
can't I stay here?

care for the garden here?

----------------

I expect it will all get done.

Let what happens .

------------------------------

So what happens to one who does none of what one is supposed to do, living in US in 2008?

we're finding out.

------------------------------

The blog, only thoughts, has to be for the writers.

Readers can go so many other places.

will it be a place that elicits writing?

--------------------------------

------------------------------------

I guess,
that's all.


a gathering to plan--one shining contact--
a verge, perhaps, to plant --a cloudy contact--

---always more computer work--mapping carfree casualties, mapping gardens-- ah, archiving carfreeuniverse--

and the garden here to work on.

------------------

no more than that.

-------------------------

can there be a blog of no news? of no issues? of no leadership?

Can't you all walk away and live with your grandmas?

---------------------------------

will the doers end up housing me someday, who stopped doing?

-------------------------------------------

When I explore the world, for the blog, I find doers.

Not peace.--creative spirituality maybe--
not stillness.


--------------------------------------

Too, the force in me, is not to total stillness, inaction. . .

It seeks connection?

----------------------

The force, not what I am.

-------------------------------

a computer seed planted long ago, that is what is growing here.

------------------------------------------

What projects can I work on not needing to travel around?

-------------------------------------------

night.

Don

Written 2008-01-27-0652, Posted 2008-01-31-1434

I'm back. I.

We, for two + weeks.

Don, I.

Mad, mindless eating for quite a while. Mindless, maybe not mad.

Goodies are gone now. All that's left is

- flour to make into bread.

- a basket to finish weaving.

- a verge to plant.

- a rat trap to make.

- amaranth to winnow.

- a life to re-evaluate.

wounds to heal:

- poison oak in unpleasant places,

maybe probably still on some articles, the oil.

- a hurt knee.

- rotted back teeth.

another way of living witnessed, experienced, to forget.

Upcoming events:

- feb 2, sister's birthday

- feb 3, go to circus

- feb 3, city repair

- feb 9, verge planting.

---------------------------------

nothing else.

---------------------------------

read all the papers.

ate all the food.

no internet back here, and used it all yesterday.

---------------------------------

itched all the itch.

---------------------------------

first Josh. Now Don.

two accomplished men.

Don, not looking like one to most people-- never showers, only washes, swims. Scavenges.

grows tons of food. Holds land. Plants trees. Drives a small car. Fixes cars. Skilled. Sufficient. Producer. Sustainable.

Looking back, on --- [deathbed], for life to be a success, what would have had to happen.

Is this a question to consider.

or just meditate.

-----------------------------------

also, my friend, [I am] so small.

Not helpful.

There is not any other.

[I'm] gone.

------------------------------------

So what do I come back to here, having been gone so long in We. Piggybacking on, creating with, another's motivation?

Don, a grower, a creator.

-------------------------------------

Stillness. Silence.

-------------------------------------

Was reading Michael E. Arth.

-------------------------------------

[I tear] down.

[Read] to reject.

[Sense] to reject. To contract against. To shut out.

-------------------------------------

[stew] in, [reinforce], [enjoy](?), [my] own isolation.

-------------------------------------

0732

she's back. Just now. We meet at 10 ish.

to go to rec ctr .

--------------------------------------

oh, no. I cannot go anymore. no association is better. not so.

---------------------------------------

the life that was here stabilizes.

---------------------------------------

The route offered out by Don--

primitive skills gatherings,

the people met there. Like him.

--------------------------------------

Not just like, but of similar freedom.

From addiction.

--------------------------------------

He is the master.

He is renunciation and abundance.

He is Buddha.

--------------------------------------

He is energy, activity. Yang. Obsessed.

--------------------------------------

Has use for the world. Has use for life.

--------------------------------------

The migrants, too. The migrants in the forest. In Pine Creek Wilderness.

--------------------------------------

He is vitality, vigor, health, in weathered, well-used skin.

--------------------------------------

0812

I guess there's no more to say. I'm not Don. Not Michael E. Arth. and I'm not not.

I can be still. Undriven.

So I let it all go. What stays, .

change

--------------------------------------

peace,
colin.

Josh

Written: 2008-01-04-1022, posted 2008-01-31-0223

Again. Begin.

I've been gone doing manual labor on a permaculture-style landscaping project in Jamul.

I'm restraining several urges:

- to eat lots of peanuts

- to go to the front and get on internet and check sdfnl email list

1031

Well opera feed reader had downloaded part of that-- so I see I'm not missing anything huge. I do not have the cfn or sdpg (carfree_network, San Diego Permaculture Guild) as a feed though.

--------

So, for many days now, what to do with myself has been taken care of--I go to work, and be directed. There were some times where what to do required figuring out or patience.

----

Now what?

I do work tomorrow.

I sort of wanted to bike across the highway to the decent food store and get the stuff to make a decent calorie restriction- type meal--See page 220 in _Beyond the 120 year diet_ (on amazon or google books).

To see if I can shift to some better eating habits.

---

I'm not eating now, and haven't been for a while. This is a good thing.

---

Things to think about.

Well. There's no free internet back here any more.

I still spend time checking on the old node I used to use.

I could get internet for $10/mo. But would be a hassle. . . and I don't love it.

I can still go to the front of the house and get on a node there, but that is grandma's space.

----

So it's just us--

---


I was working with Josh of eden on earth ecological landscaping (he has a website).

He is motivated and motivating. Younger than I, established in a business, having a house, teaching permaculture--


He's doing good things.


----


On my own, I tend to default to nothing. To a type of maintenance.

--I could start some sort of ecological landscaping business here.


With a car or without.

But why work--

--
I can look into attitude.

My friend Rebecca called--

I haven't seen my neighborhood friend for a while.

It is so easy not to see her.

But I'll probably be walking by her place later today.

So mind shuts down, and blanks on possibilities that


--

I work tomorrow. Challenge course stuff.

---

I agree planting trees is what needs to happen-- the five [seven] f's of plant uses: food, fiber, forage, ?, ?[, ?, ?]


But I'm not.

I read about the great things going on, in _Communities Magazine_

communities forming-- elsewhere now,


but they'll be happening here too--

--

and-- I feel like rolling over and dying?

---
ah-- here's some from emerson:


--2007-12-03-1747
http://www.emersoncentral.com/transcendentalist.htm

It is a sign of our times, conspicuous to the coarsest observer, that many intelligent and religious persons withdraw themselves from the common labors and competitions of the market and the caucus, and betake themselves to a certain solitary and critical way of living, from which no solid fruit has yet appeared to justify their separation. They hold themselves aloof: they feel the disproportion between their faculties and the work offered them, and they prefer to ramble in the country and perish of ennui, to the degradation of such charities and such ambitions as the city can propose to them. They are striking work, and crying out for somewhat worthy to do! What they do, is done only because they are overpowered by the humanities that speak on all sides; and they consent to such labor as is open to them, though to their lofty dream the writing of Iliads or Hamlets, or the building of cities or empires seems drudgery.

--

A great man will be content to have indicated in any the slightest manner his perception of the reigning Idea of his time, and will leave to those who like it the multiplication of examples. When he has hit the white, the rest may shatter the target.

--

New, we confess, and by no means happy, is our condition: if you want the aid of our labor, we ourselves stand in greater want of the labor. We are miserable with inaction. We perish of rest and rust: but we do not like your work.

--

When shall I die, and be relieved of the responsibility of seeing an Universe which I do not use?

----------------

"When shall I die, and be relieved of the responsibility of seeing an Universe which i do not use?"

---

It's not that I do not use it.

But all around, everyone's being used by it.

And I do not believe.

Something like that.

------------

I believed in what Josh was doing enough to accept Marc's offer of a ride out there.

--------

That's promising.

----------------------------------------

The course of action as I see it now:

Return to pure maintenance-- my exercising, my sitting, my stillness.

I have the added advantage now of no internet access. Or less.

--------

The only work I was doing in that previous period of stillness was internet work--the sdtjdph blog.

Intending to help the San Diego groups network, organize themselves, map out where they are, what they know about.

---

I may get back to that.

---

But will have to go to campus or to a cafe or to the front room,

and work there.


-----

Challenge course work will come up.


Permaculture stuff will come along.

And that will be it.


--

When I see all the goodness and energy of other paths-- say Josh's. Say Quail Springs. . .

Say--almost anything.

It shakes me up a bit. Maybe I could be doing that.


------

Maybe I could go somewhere where I did not fear or dislike transporting myself around the landscape.

Europe?-- [to help Rebecca in Boston?]

---

So, then I return to the status.

The violence of the rushing cars ---

I seek to avoid this.

I've just been around more of it than usual--riding in cars, biking from Jamul twice, to Jamul once.


--

So I do not even want to cross the highway for the better food.


I can make myself do it. And will be glad to be across. Coming back is not so hard.

---

Serenity, though, may come from not going there.

There is some hard effect. Some reaction to the repression of the in-your-face awareness of the violence. The ugly brutality.

---

If I did not seek escape by eating---

eating and reading.

Lacking other joy, that is where I go.

---
The full realm of possibility is too vast to begin to consider,

I am nearly incapable of directing myself.

--

So, Josh, encouraging and as good a model as you are,

I am not yet, and may never be the one to bring the degree of good leadership you represent to this place.


--

I'll muddle along-- in a quirky way

with the internet project--

talking to myself half of the time--

to others on occasion.

I can help the community gardens get mapped.

--what becomes of the rest, I do not know.



---

I may still eat to escape, for a self-destructive pleasure--

"I want to die"-- repeating in my mind as I do what is mindlessly not helpful--


--

I'm here now though. A peaceful, more or less aware state.

Not driven to self-destruction.

Just aware,

aimless.

--

Mind continuing its perception of self-existince,
by continuing flow of thought.

--

Sit, and be still, and some degree of action will come from that.

Some degree.

Not on the scale of Mollison, Thich Nhat Hanh, Geoff Lawton, Warren Brush, Ellee, Josh Robinson, etc., etc.,

But a fraction of that degree of creation--

--

Possibly a channel could begin to be hollowed out,

Leading later to a greater flow.

---

Talking here won't figure out my day. Tomorrow is already taken care of.

---

Peace,
and Love--

Colin

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