part fourteen

to teach others is to discover about ourselves. this is the coin of the two sides of teaching and learning. by finding out what others do not know (some of which to you might be common knowledge or simply intuitional), one learns about oneself. seeing how other people think and work out problems helps us

to develop our own ways of thinking. the relativity of ones own knowledge. different backgrounds. viewpoints. help to question. or solidify. your own. by meeting others who are shy, we might learn that we're not so shy after all. or not as short. or tall. or fat. or dumb (or smart) as we thought. we can

see how others live their lives. and make judgments on our own. after all. these things are but relative. to exist they need a contrast. to have ideas about who you are, who you would like to become. you must know who you aren't. who you would not want to become.

this is a reason to meet new people. of a wide and varying culture. to clarify ones own sense of self. to learn about others. (and ultimately to discover there is no difference. no contrast. all one. no self).

# # #

last friday night. exploring these new worlds. worlds chat. alpha world. three dimensional virtual worlds with graphics and sound. with other people walking around in the same world. as i meet someone from montreal. later one from alaska. and we go wandering around this world. talking about the rooms, the

way they look. other people. as we explore and discover. in this three dimensional world. consensual digital hallucinations.

and it seems to be all the more important to learn how to differentiate our different realities. as our different realities become so much more real (closer to full sensural immersion) and we become so involved. tied to these realities. realities beginning to merge like they never have before.

so long ago. reality was one. imagination was else. then photographs. and radio and television. moving pictures with sound drawing us in. now three dimensional interactive virtual realities just waiting for full immersion. where before. no need to keep realities separate. so few. now. each movie, book, television show. different reality. drawing us in. so people worry about too much sex and violence on television. because it does affect us. because we have not yet learned to keep our realities separate.

why peter carroll talks about belief systems. and the ability to switch between them. and fully believe. with no doubts. this other reality. a right-wing creationist republican in the bible belt. the neo-nazi hiding

away in canada. the pierced tattooed dyed modern primitive in san francisco. the gang banging og in compton.

and now i also understand another aspect. that aspect of which belief system to use where. and how switching belief systems at will now becomes a skill in our multi-cultural multi-reality society. and the need to not let belief systems muddle. the bible belt republican can listen to gansta rap. but when they start taking on all that as a part of their social circle kansas businessman reality....

these ideas are still flowing together in my brain. incoherent. muddled bits of something. trying to grasp. but each time i write about it. or talk about it, it becomes clearer. and its at least a starting point. for these things to start colliding in your brain as well. who knows.

# # #

Notebook:

The mental-physical involves an exploration of how the physical affects the mental. In a similar way piercing explores this. Altered states through physical contact. New ideas. Tantric is an exploration of the mental-physical. Enlightenment through physical contact.

The physical-emotional explores increasing intensity of emotional through physical. The bringing of two people together emotionally. Becoming one through physical oneness. Exploring spiritual oneness?

The mental-emotional explores what?

# # #

Short Story...

sitting in front of my computer. naked. as a women with a soft sensual voice speaks on the answering machine that serves as my tape player. the phosphorus green reflects against the keys i type. my hands enveloped in that eerie glow. it is dark. a candle burns on the mantle. next to it sits a small statuette of Confucius. an incense hand rises from his hand burning. as the sweet smell of opium fills the room.

i am not fully naked. a blanket wraps around my body, protecting me from the cold of the floor below. the keys i press belong to the computer. because my typewriter is out of ribbon. the rest of the room does not matter. i am painting a picture. i have nothing to write about, this is about nothing. except sitting on a floor staring at a computer, writing naked as a candle and incense burn on the mantle and the soft voice of a spanish women plays on an obsolete answering machine. thats all. there is nothing else tonight.

# # #

watching the krishnas dance last night. and chant. and drum. i call it a ritual. but i think this is my own word for it. to them it is celebration. prayer. but it seems closer to a ritual to me. so thats what ill call it.

thinking about rituals. a certain power a ritual creates. coming from within. for

# # #

monday. monday is the day which makes or breaks us. the day where we become the next netscape. explosive. the day we become the future of computing on the web. or not. maybe nothing will happen. all the publicity we're trying to create by inviting two thousand people from all over the industry. heads

of companies. ceos. presidents. venture capitalists. monday is when we announce our presence to the world. and what happens if it fails. we go on working in the background like any other web design company. designing sites for the customers we can get. continuing along with the wave of people

trying to get on the web and companies trying to put people there. if we fail, we become average. but if we succeed. if we succeed, then the world will be our oyster. our day, month, year of glory will begin. other

companies will start to use our product to design their web sites. we will become THE way to design interactive web sites. web designers will purchase our web development kits and develop web sites for their clients. companies will come to us to design their high-tech interactive web sites. we will be

the next netscape. we find out on monday (of course, there may be something in between here).

# # #

writing in a journal is one of those things that helps one learn about oneself. looking back at things i wrote. some only a month or two old. and now seeing the naiveté. realising the wisdom i have learned since then. wisdom i might not have realised i acquired if i didnt write down my thoughts at a time when i was younger, not now, understand? and this helps to realise how naive one still is. and how naive one will always be. the older i may grow, the wiser one may get about certain things, but there is still a world out there that one is a naïf child in. always the child, even when not. writing helps me to realise this. curse your parents for being right with things you realise as you grow older. but also realise that they were wrong at things too. things that they were just a child in because they had never experienced

things the way you experience them. society. life. the world. constantly changes. and we have to always re-learn everything we learned before. and yet.

# # #

now lucas' hair is a beautiful thing. it is almost impossible to describe without seeing it. experiencing it. like some creature unto its own self. some mop top on his head that moves about at will, taking on different shapes and personas. like last night in the cafe. looking like some mad eccentric scientist. all raggedy. standing up. pointing in a thousand different directions. the way he ties it up. to the top of his head. so it sticks out. and flops about in this frenzy. or sometimes he tries to barrette it back. and it is a look that is so lucas. (although it does run in his family. his sisters hair sometimes performs in much the same way). you just gotta laugh when someone starts seriously writing about hair. but it is just so part of

lucas, and yet, like i said, a creature unto itself.

# # #

so why are you reading all this shit anyway. did i give it to you telling you it was the story of my life. dont worry, i do that to a lot of people. maybe youre reading this now and its been published somewhere. and you have no clue who i am. maybe youre dying to know who i am. maybe you dont give a shit. are you getting anything out of reading this book. i mean, after all, dont you think i wrote it for people to get stuff out of it. i write it for others after all. yeah, i do write it for myself to. like i said so long ago, to remember

the things that happen. when i am no longer who i am now. dont worry. im just being antagonistic toward you because im in that kind of mood. i feel like being very confrontational right now. i want you to think about who gave you this book. did i give it to you. did someone else. who else. was it someone you care about deeply. or some homeless person on the street trying to make a buck for a forty. was it your parents. or did you just happen to wander into a bookstore somewhere. your eye just happening to settle on the cover. maybe i left a copy in an old apartment i used to live in. or someone else left their copy in an old apartment they used to live in. maybe its some time from now and i became another person who committed suicide. lonely on the streets. and you're the coroner who happened to be going through my pockets and decided to read it. maybe. maybe. just why are you reading it? do you think its good? sometimes i think its good. sometimes i think i should cut out a lot of the pointless stuff. but then again you never know where someone will find enjoyment. enlightenment. you never know if just one paragraph that i thought completely sucked, but was too tired to take out. if that paragraph will inspire a person to become someone great. so thats why i keep everything in here. if youve been wondering. of course, you never know. if i ever get this published, they might tell me to cut here and there and there. and i might be broke and you might never be reading this because the editor thought this section just didnt belong in the book. you never know, now do you. well i guess you know. i dont. funny that. the reader knowing something about a book that the writer could never even imagine. like that concept lucas and angela and i were talking about in the cafe the other night. about how art is not in the artist or the viewer, but on some plane in between. that intersection that creates the line of reality. ah, who cares. go on reading. i hope you do get something out of it. after all, that was why it was written.

# # #

poem to mahogoni:

the cure. a candle lit in remembrance. as the freshly fallen rain lies softly on the grass outside. alone in a room. in solitude. feeling my life drain away. falling.

i lie in my bed. staring at the reflection of the candle in the mirror. the ghost trapped behind the glass frees itself in my mind. remembering you standing quiet in the rain as i ran to your heart to be near. shattered glass. broken flame. reflection gone. drifting into darkness.

if only i stayed beside you. i could have held onto your heart. but the fates decreed before we met our parting song. and i read it in wisdoms book. some dream. morpheus. slipping away.

merlin the magician. who always knew tomorrow before yesterday. who recited the alphabet backwards. and aged younger. and why didnt he kill himself. what kept him so sane. not to die. not to die. i want to know why. merlin. never drawing the king of hearts. where are you now?

whenever sands may fall. drift in the wind. i will always love you. and once again it is time to die. i will always love you. love you.

# # #

as this comes to an end. i see the beginning of something newer. bigger. started as just a journal. then a letter to friends. a book. beyond as i make plans to revamp my web version of this book. incorporating more and more. a form of my life. mixing literature. pictures. art. programming. music. everything. everything which composes me. creating something massive. something beyond. all the parts of my life combining into one thing. one final.

# # #

i feel a pull toward that other reality. that reality i first stepped through into back in august during that candy-flip trip. and then again more recently when i was ill. though this time i knew where i was. the pain was too much to explore. but i had that sense again of walking in this great space. the great space of the universe. of the mind. and it is to this space. back that i want to return. it will be the uplifting my life needs right now. the drab non-living of working constantly. though a different experience. and one that is exciting and challenging in its own way. one that lacks that essence of life. so i think ill wait one more month. then i return to mardi gras once more. and then. and there. will be the time and place to return back out there.

in the meantime im reading and studying peter carrolls liber null and psychonaut. and sometime soon i also want to read stardance. slowly (with not as much devotion and energy as i should put into it) learning to master the powers of the will and the consciousness. practising visualisation exercises, remembering my dreams, no-mind (wu hsin). i know it takes many years. and im finally getting old enough to realise this. that it wont happen tomorrow. that what im slowly working toward, aiming at, will take a very very long time. but someday.

# # #

christmas eve. and im talking to this friend of mine on the other side of the country. about how many beautiful women there are in our lives. and learning how to love them all. but society says we must pick one. that

music affects what we write about. how we write. sitting at my typewriter. so unfocussed. listening to the soundtrack to pulp fiction. wanting to continue. or finish one of the half dozen stories i have lying in a pile next to my typewriter. but somehow im not in that kind of mood. i cant write a story of darkness. or deep sexuality. or. dont really know what to write. so im writing this.

last night i was feeling kind of lonely. not lonely per se. but missing in some way that whole idea of a girlfriend (how often does this happen to me. and in many cases how often is it my own fault for not having the courage to simply go up and talk to a stranger i dont know. or making some sort of innuendo to one of your friends who youve been attracted to for the past five months). i looked through the newspaper at the romance ads. and was thinking about calling one of them. the only one i could find that sounded intriguing. then a friend calls long distance and we each talk about our romance woes.

and now its the morning again and i simply want to write. but not knowing what to write about. the longing from last night temporarily gone. but also the drive to pick up the phone and respond. stuck in an impasse. did i mention that the average character width of an eight and a half by eleven piece of paper is eighty characters?

staring at things knowing something must be done. last night as i gave advice to just take the risk. go out there and do something. and here i am typing, not taking that risk.

# # #

tried fasting. first time it didnt work. couldnt control myself. chocolate in my drawer at work. couldnt concentrate. second time barely made it through the day. everything was food. people going out to eat. people eating. talking about food. its amazing how quickly you realise how much of the advertisements on the television are about food once you decide to stop eating. oral fixation. i eat because i want something to do with my mouth. and so true. when you decide to consciously make an effort not to. its not the hunger that gets you. its the desire for some taste in your mouth. some sweetness, richness. something to suck and bite. for just one day water will cure the hunger. but the rest. this is why i must fast more. to control our desires. (and of course the cleansing of the body, primary reason).

# # #

I found a cassette tape in the trash last week. I've been masturbating to it lately. It's labeled Madoline in washed out red marker. I put it in the tape player and a sensual Spanish women begins to speak. Spoken words of broken love, mourning, darkness. I turn off the light and light a candle. Placing a stick of opium in the small delicate china Confucius that sits as my incense holder on my mantle. I take off my clothes and lie on my dark black sheets naked, listening to the words of this unknown Spanish woman as she speaks so slowly and sensually. Her words gliding into each other, sliding over beautiful music that lies in the background played on a tape recorder.

The tape has a date on it. It says it was made on May 7, 1994. Every once in a while the tape cuts off for a second, then starts again. Sometimes you can hear the microphone tap against something. A quick rush of static. The Indigo Girls are playing in the background now. She speaks about the paths we walk in relation to each other. I lie staring into the darkness.

I imagine that her name is Madoline. That she has long curled Spanish hair, a dark olive complexion. She is somewhat tall, maybe five eight, five nine. The clothes she wears are bright and lively, but elegant at the same time. When she speaks to you, she speaks slowly, like she does on the tape. Sometimes she does not answer right away, pauses to consider the question. She is burning inside, a fire burning. She makes these tapes to release some thing. Something deep inside. Perhaps no one knows she makes them. She does it late at night when everyone else is asleep and no one can hear, or care.

She works at a bookstore during the day, working the register. She smiles at everyone who comes in. Chats with them as she rings up their book purchases. Sometimes she tells them the novels she really likes, or ones she thought were absolutely horrible. They always take her advice.

# # #

things left unfinished. because they will be finished later. maybe not by me. maybe by you as your read this. or later on when you think about things. or someone you tell. or maybe i will finish things. later in my life. when i know how to finish them. the answers to end the writings. but right now. thoughts getting disturbed. or else just still confused. so sometimes its better to start things and leave them hanging than never to have said them at all.

# # #

beginning:

anais nin. henry miller. dh lawrence. wolfgang van goethe. marcel proust. dostoevsky. clive barker. thomas pynchon. robert a heinlein. robert anton wilson. hakim bey. vladamir nabakov. charles paliser. hp lovecraft. oliver stone. quentin tarantino. dave sim. peter greenaway. marcel du champ. pablo picasso. neil gaiman. andy warhol. madonna. janet jackson. richard bach. lewis carroll. stardance. peter carroll. david bowie. crash worship. blood simple. imajica. reservoir dogs. the crow. sandman. the crying of lot 49. the art of war. stranger in a strange land. illusions.

[and on and on and on...]

# # #

people tell me. argue with me every once in a while. telling me i cannot know how women are. because i am not a woman. and yet they suppose. because they are. that they can tell me how every woman is. how they feel. they assume they have intrinsic facts at their disposal by being a woman.

so one tells me how orgasms dont help cramps in women. but how can she know. she offers no proof. 'i should know. im a woman.' but what she should say. they dont help cramps in her. she is not all women. and no two women are exactly alike.

in the same way people yell at men who are pro-life. angry at 'man' for taking away their rights to their body. and how would they know what its like to be pregnant. but they dont have to. in their eyes they are stopping a killing. regardless of who the killing will benefit. there are pro-life women as well. do they have any more or less right than the men. neither are that teenage girl who has family pressures, school pressures, whatever. neither can fully understand what its like to be her. neither can pass judgment any more rightfully than the other.

[in the end. one must realise. yes. similarities between people. and i can understand people who are similar to me better than those who are not. but there are so many differences between people as well. and just because one single aspect is similar. doesnt make for an understanding. each person is different. and it is so hard in our world to accurately generalise (though i try all the time)].

# # #

and excellent old idea from my friend jeremy p bushnell. to write your top one hundred best things in the universe. and looking at other peoples top one hundred. and your own top one hundred a few years later as your write up another top one hundred....

new orleans... understanding... the secrets of life... going to the bathroom after a long trip... a homecooked meal... talking to someone for hours in deep conversation... intensity... making someone happy... mahogoni... playing with fire... candles and wax... smelling the flowers... pushing technology forward... changing oneself... fires in the woods... multitasking... ultra-fast computers... freedom... being... talking to a stranger... second chances... belonging somewhere... showers... holding her hand... cities... women in stockings... sitting at home with people you love... differences between people... that feeling you get all over your body... comfortable silences... books... masturbating to someone you truly love... exploring... discovering new worlds... the night... rainy days... running in a field under the sun... walking through forests... raves on mountaintops... travelling... getting a hitch after being stuck somewhere for five hours... kindness... reading what we wrote long ago... yoga... doing things by oneself... succeeding.. failing (and learning)... sleeping on someones couch... subcultures... not worrying where youll sleep that night... pain turning into pleasure... the dark side of life... candles in the dark... anais nin... dancing in the rain... a letter from a friend... not knowing... giving an orgasm... mardi gras... fog... sex with someone you love... candy-flipping... the internet... sitting on the mississippi river... hanging on the streets with no place to be... long full sensual backrubs... drumming... dancing deep into the night... listening to music and letting it flow through your entire body... a girlfriend... old girlfriends you still love and who still love you... typewriters... virtual reality (and all its possibilities)... meeting new people... connecting with someone on a level beyond words... walking in the grass barefoot... squat families... catching up with old friends... the cure... special gifts given and received... memories... returning to a place you havent been for a long time... incense... crash worship... learning (constantly)... finding a really good find in the trash... laughing... cheese... magick... being in a group of people all in the same mood... gentle kisses... becoming the spirit of the wolf... holding someone... finishing a project... cheesesteaks... fantasies and dreams... games... smiling... thinking the same thought as someone else... love.

# # #

my typewriter just ran out of ribbon. ive been writing stories lately. if writing is what you can call it. i seem to pick some topic and then let my mind roam and my fingers type. i no longer think about what i write as much anymore. brief pauses to look back and see what ive just written. but not as much thought on what will be written. is it automatic writing they call it. zen writing in a way. the wu hsin. no mind. just doing. no thought. writing and that is all.

i am beginning to enjoy writing now. this way of writing is almost as a joy. a strange feeling of compelling to write. to let my body and mind go with the flow. and just type. nothing more. words appearing from no where. once one learns something. makes that learning a part of oneself, one no longer

has to think about doing that thing. it becomes automatic. this is what the martial arts are about. learning to respond to situations automatically. training the body to do something rather than the mind. because the body is so much faster and more efficient at performing than the mind. perhaps it is now my body writing and no longer my mind. my mind is simply a rider in this wave of words.

robert anton wilson calls this the second circuit, bio-survival circuit. is it like heinlein said that a writer must write to live. because that is how they live. theyve integrated writing into their bio-survival circuit. but of course i think wilson was overanalysing the situation. trying to make thought out of that which is no thought. that which can only be known in a way that cant ever truly be expressed. but i guess thats why he provides exercises. to learn that which he writes about.

i am now convinced in some way that the isaac asimov. who writes some twenty or thirty books a year, writes this way. where writing just happens rather than something which is done. like sleeping. one can lie down in bed. but one does not think about how to sleep. one lies down and does. thinking your way to sleep takes forever. just letting go and sleeping and before you know it you dont. you are asleep with no thinking any longer of sleep.

so now i am mixing thinking and doing in writing this. i think a thought and then let my mind/body type out that thought in whatever way it feels. knows. understands is how i will express it. there is no pre-thought. no thinking before speaking. writing. the old adage of thinking before one speaks only serves to set ones mind into a state that all things must be thought before they can be expressed. this i don't. no longer believe is true. one can simply express before the thought has formed. this is why writing is such great therapy. we write before we develop the thoughts of what we are writing about. then we read what we have written and that is when we first think the thoughts. after the fact. anais calls this the white heat of writing.

so often we surprise ourselves with the things we write. speak. people sometimes call this a freudian slip. it is not a slip, but rather the body expressing before the mind has a chance to think the thought. how often do you begin to argue something and then realise halfway through the argument that what you actually thought was not what you thought you thought. i have this conception of thought. this thought of what thought must be. and this causes us to have beliefs which are not that which are us. who we are. we begin to think of ourselves in these conceptions. instead of letting go and becoming. being that which is not conceived, but which is.

so often we surprise ourselves with the things we write. dont you think?

# # #

a man once said that to get to where you were going you had to go out there and forget. forget your reason for leaving. forget to where you were going. so perhaps i never really knew where i was going. i thought i was going out to san francisco to become some famous artiste. where i could make subtle artistic renderings to make fun of the world around me, or enlighten it. where i could explore life in some limited secure way. but the journey there changed my destination. threw me out into the world ultimately on a search for myself.

and in ways ive arrived. ive not become that muse i spoke about to rebecca all those years ago. for the most part i wouldnt even call myself a muse anymore. except when fire and others might say, you may not be a muse to everyone, but you were a muse to me. and perhaps in some way that is where ive become a muse. inspiring those around me. those that i really care about. those who inspire me.

a time of my life is closing as i write this. a time that will never come again. through all my life so far, these past three years, written here. are the ones i remember most fondly. they were a time when i was alive with life. learning and discovering and trying to tell others of that discovery. that time is not over for me, but the ways are now different. i have a career and an apartment. and when next i may decide to throw it all away again for the life of the road, it will be another time and things will have changed. this

time of my life is at an end.

so when the ship lifts, no regrets, eh? my story is at an end. and like most stories, it continues on even after the last word has been spoken. i hope its been inspiring, enlightening, entertaining. i may never write another book. in which case others will have to write more for me. as the nike commercial says, never put a hold on life.

no time, need, desire to drag this out. the time is done. i leave you no longer as artiste, muse. but as myself. a person who is many things to many people, all of them as one. so now we (you, i, the world) curtsey the final bow and open life to the infinite of possibilities. (to learn, to create, to inspire, to live)

sometime in the morning you wake up and its all a blur. last night. last week. your entire life.

- 23. December 1995
Muse

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