I liked Kanin’s wife. That lady knows whats up.
When Picard mopes, obsessing over the 'true' life he used to know, she tells him to enjoy his life here, with her.
“When are you going to let go and start living this life, was that life so much better that you cling to it so stubbornly?” This clinging to the life of the past perpetually serves to demean the present, which Picard later says is “always the most precious time.”
In fact, Picard goes full circle, proclaiming that he does not want his daughter "burdened with things (she) cannot change."
Remember that Kanin's wife told Picard, right before she died, to put his shoes away.
We all laughed at this: this mundane event at a crucial moment.
But this is like the Zen story of the student who, after a meal, asked the master what the secret of enlightenment was. The Zen master asked the student, "have you finished your porridge?"
The student said, "Yes."
The master said, "then wash your bowl."
And immediately the monk knew all the secrets of all the universe.
A lifetime burning in an instant.
every instant.
Like the tortured narrator of Stranger than Fiction said, it is the trivialities, the nuances that fill our life up, make it worth living.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
This was a dream I had a few months ago…
This was a dream I had a few months ago…
I was in a subway, among a crowd of people, waiting for a train. I siped from a large, custom made, forty ounce bottle of malt liquor. I remember having immense pride concerning my custom bottle. At it’s top sat a tiny figurine representative of myself, holding a miniature bottle above its head, upside down, as though I had posed for it while dumping an entire forty ounce bottle onto my head.
It was a drinking trophy.
A badge of madness.
The bottle worked like this: the beer flowed out of the bottle, through the figure’s arm, through the miniature forty and into the holder’s mouth.
It flowed smoothly down my throat, glug after wonderful glug of cold malt liquor.
I admired the bottle.
Somebody noticed it. He moved close and asked for some with his stinking breath on me.
I hand him the bottle and as I do so, I begin to notice that the figure’s arm is much too small for beer to flow through freely.
And immediately the man is having trouble. He says its clogged and I just shrug. He tilts it straight up to the sky and begins to bob obscenely up and down and side to side in order to get a better, more fortifying glug.
I notice a female security guard.
“Keep it down man, keep it down!”
She is already coming nearer.
I snatch the bottle from the man and shove it into my coat.
“what is that?”
“excuse me?”
“That bottle, give it to me. There’s no drinking in the subway”
“this bottle, er, mam, is a custom-“
But she cuts me off. She is demanding now. Her body language is threatening. Her mouth is moving but I can hear no words.
And I wonder: do they let security carry guns in this place? Pepper spray? Buck knives?
I am terrified. Dread becomes my every thought.
I begin to back away from her.
The train is pulling up –no, taking off. It slowly gains speed.
I race toward it.
The roof is far too high to jump onto. I harden my resolve, leap and soar onto the top, spitting defiantly into the face of physics.
The train takes off and the security lady just gawks.
And now I soar on and on through a tunnel past secret shanties of cardboard and lice, where free men live out their arthritic lives in tunnels like moles. And I rend my breast and loose a wailing for the pure joy that animates all things toward the ragged edge of madness,that wild ecstasy that only a fugitive knows –until the moment he is caught –only to be released –only to be fined again for fun and jailed by the dark swinish forces of hypocritical law. I clutch the roof of the train and race onward…
I was in a subway, among a crowd of people, waiting for a train. I siped from a large, custom made, forty ounce bottle of malt liquor. I remember having immense pride concerning my custom bottle. At it’s top sat a tiny figurine representative of myself, holding a miniature bottle above its head, upside down, as though I had posed for it while dumping an entire forty ounce bottle onto my head.
It was a drinking trophy.
A badge of madness.
The bottle worked like this: the beer flowed out of the bottle, through the figure’s arm, through the miniature forty and into the holder’s mouth.
It flowed smoothly down my throat, glug after wonderful glug of cold malt liquor.
I admired the bottle.
Somebody noticed it. He moved close and asked for some with his stinking breath on me.
I hand him the bottle and as I do so, I begin to notice that the figure’s arm is much too small for beer to flow through freely.
And immediately the man is having trouble. He says its clogged and I just shrug. He tilts it straight up to the sky and begins to bob obscenely up and down and side to side in order to get a better, more fortifying glug.
I notice a female security guard.
“Keep it down man, keep it down!”
She is already coming nearer.
I snatch the bottle from the man and shove it into my coat.
“what is that?”
“excuse me?”
“That bottle, give it to me. There’s no drinking in the subway”
“this bottle, er, mam, is a custom-“
But she cuts me off. She is demanding now. Her body language is threatening. Her mouth is moving but I can hear no words.
And I wonder: do they let security carry guns in this place? Pepper spray? Buck knives?
I am terrified. Dread becomes my every thought.
I begin to back away from her.
The train is pulling up –no, taking off. It slowly gains speed.
I race toward it.
The roof is far too high to jump onto. I harden my resolve, leap and soar onto the top, spitting defiantly into the face of physics.
The train takes off and the security lady just gawks.
And now I soar on and on through a tunnel past secret shanties of cardboard and lice, where free men live out their arthritic lives in tunnels like moles. And I rend my breast and loose a wailing for the pure joy that animates all things toward the ragged edge of madness,that wild ecstasy that only a fugitive knows –until the moment he is caught –only to be released –only to be fined again for fun and jailed by the dark swinish forces of hypocritical law. I clutch the roof of the train and race onward…
20 minute lifetime
It interesting to apply this notion to a drug called DMT. It causes hallucinations that blot out the world around the user and allows them to enter another state of being entirely. Often users report having been gone for a long time when in reality they were just rolling around on the floor with their eyes closed for about five minutes or so.
this first link is a little crazy, but gives you some idea of the results of the drug, and perhaps the ideas brought up will apply to issues of self and other addressed in Moloy.
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dmt/dmt_writings1.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyltryptamine
this first link is a little crazy, but gives you some idea of the results of the drug, and perhaps the ideas brought up will apply to issues of self and other addressed in Moloy.
http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dmt/dmt_writings1.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimethyltryptamine
Upon Waking: In Tribute to Life Water
Eyes thrust open. Something in my hand. A phone, check the time – I’ve missed all my classes today. Shoes still on. No blanket over me or my dog, who sits whimpering at me, and I start to wonder- what happened last night? How did I get here?
The water of life.
My knuckle is cracked open. Little beads of oxygenated blood cling the parted lips of the open sore. Somebody may have gotten punched last night.
Last night, at the bar, I had made sure that everyone knew about her and that she’s dangerous.
Why do we give them the power to wreck our minds, livers, souls? With one lie, a temple is brought to ruin.
The little black Buddha on the floor, by the bed, near the crushed beer cans and dirty socks that reek like cat piss; he is a reminder of the bliss of perfection mixed up and entangled with the tortured, half-remembered chaos of the mysterious night before.
So up now! Arise! The one thing constant in my life, my whimpering dog who remains faithful to me even after all the world will have left me weeping or cursing -he, he grows old.
And the bag of dog food on the floor, beneath the desk, is empty now.
I’ve got to make him healthy, home-made food.
The kind of shit with no preservatives or trans-fats or intestine meat, food like she used to make me.
And so, maybe she did love me.
But I cannot dwell upon the whispers of ghosts. One of the beers at the foot of the Buddha is still half full! And there’s too much fun to be had in the present to shut it up like a coffin under soil from the past.
The water of life.
My knuckle is cracked open. Little beads of oxygenated blood cling the parted lips of the open sore. Somebody may have gotten punched last night.
Last night, at the bar, I had made sure that everyone knew about her and that she’s dangerous.
Why do we give them the power to wreck our minds, livers, souls? With one lie, a temple is brought to ruin.
The little black Buddha on the floor, by the bed, near the crushed beer cans and dirty socks that reek like cat piss; he is a reminder of the bliss of perfection mixed up and entangled with the tortured, half-remembered chaos of the mysterious night before.
So up now! Arise! The one thing constant in my life, my whimpering dog who remains faithful to me even after all the world will have left me weeping or cursing -he, he grows old.
And the bag of dog food on the floor, beneath the desk, is empty now.
I’ve got to make him healthy, home-made food.
The kind of shit with no preservatives or trans-fats or intestine meat, food like she used to make me.
And so, maybe she did love me.
But I cannot dwell upon the whispers of ghosts. One of the beers at the foot of the Buddha is still half full! And there’s too much fun to be had in the present to shut it up like a coffin under soil from the past.
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