clomp clomp clomp clomp clomp clomp
my little brother's boot-clad footsteps against the hard wood floors wake me.
6:30
i had fallen asleep around 3:45. on a futon i had received as a gift after my tumor surgery when i was around 13. a 12 year old futon may as well be a swatch of itchy fabric. my back was killing me, my eyes burned. my little brother's empty bed called my name sweetly and softly.
i nestle in, only to realize the iHome he had received as a christmas present the previous day shined with the might of roughly one million (LED) fireflies. i quickly grab the first few things i can reach on the night stand and encase the iHome, drowning out the light.
sweet sleep....
katherine, rick, myself, and a few other (obviously unimportant) boys are hanging out. rick gets hungry. we head to the car (now just me and the boys) and make our way ACROSS THE STREET to burger king. it's closed, so we swing the car around and head to canes. we walk inside only to find, surprise!, it's also closed. no worries, however, seeing that taco bell is a whole 180* spin-of-the-body behind us. which is perfect, because now katherine is part of our escapade and what she really wants is a burrito, mainly for the beans they put on it. the agitated line cook seems to think the burrito is much better WITHOUT said beans, and proceeds to make the burrito much to katherine's DIS-liking. katherine walks outside to wait in the car.
just then, a loud noise. a wreck, perhaps? there WAS a car stalled in the median earlier, maybe someone had hit it? i walk to the large front windows and door to look. it was not, in fact, a wreck but rather a distraught and shifty man open firing on the crowd outside. he walked up to the front porch, yelling orders (as crazed, hostage-holders often do)and had us all in his sight...
sweet, sweet wakefulness.
7:10
once i had time to wake up and process the fact that not only were my eyes still burning and my back still killing me, but now i had experienced a huge load of stressful crappy dream time in my roughly 20 minutes asleep. this dream could only be related to one thing: hidden anxiety about a near shot-to-the-head a few weeks earlier.
pan back a few months. gerard and i are shooting his sig sauer 40 s&w at the shooting range. it had been a good year since i had shot a gun, but it was surely nothing new. i grew up around them. i got my first gun when i was 5. we had about 10 in our house at all times. we hunted and shot skeet and shot at pumpkins and coke can pyramids. but the thought ran across my mind: what would happen if someone actually walked up to me, pulled one out, and demanded something or just shot? my mind was reeling. a lot would happen, i thought.
not so true in real life.
pan right on back to about a month ago-- to a nice, small restaurant bar filled with 2 bartenders, myself, and 2 older, very drunk men (complete with hiccups and drunk-eyes and slouching and general weird temperaments). a small conversation starts between one of the men and i. we discover that we were from the same town and he knows my family, etc. the other man slouches in his chair, hiccuping, and says nothing.
when the conversation died down a bit, he looks at me and says "i'm scared of you."
"i'm sorry," i say. "was i being rude? a bitch?"
"i'm scared of you," is all he says.
he proceeds to half-way get up, crawl to the next chair (the one occupying the space between him and me), reach into his jacket, and pull out a small gun. right up to my face.
* nothing * nothing * nothing * nothing * is he fucking serious *
"are you serious?"
he laughs. an evil, condescending, asshole, drunkard laugh.
*freakout of the friend and bartender (my friend) ensues*
* still nothing *
he is made to leave the bar, in a very hush hush manner.
i think some more. about what you may ask? hmmm. jacob, sarah, and theresa. my face splattered on the wall behind me. a past lover. not having the chance to say goodbye.
all in all, a much more different experience than i had previously imagined. no life flashing before my eyes. no extreme panic. no elevated anxiety and heart rate. a lot of anger at the carelessness and thoughtlessness of this older, rich, high profile man, with children around my age. a little jittery when i had to walk to my car in the dark. c'est tu.
since then i've become nervous about stupid things i never used to get nervous about.
i've gotten more and more angry. i replay a scenario in which i storm into his office and announce to him in front of his workers and colleges what an ass he is, how i'm going to expose him.
"how about let's replay the scenario with your daughter and my dad?" i would say.
"if you were my father i would be ashamed of you. how disgusting that someone with so much power and notoriety in this city would be a drunken, testosterone-laden buffoon stupid enough to fudge his career and family life. AND POTENTIALLY SHOOT A YOUNG GIRL IN THE FACE."
it's times like these i can't wait to see how hard karma kicks him in the ass.
and yes, something will be done about it.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Sunday, December 26, 2010
buddhism witout beliefs
things to write on:
what am i here for? am i living in such a way that i can die without regrets? how much of what i do is compromise? do i keep postponing what i "really " want to do until conditions are more favorable?
asking such questions interrupts indulgence in the comforts of routine and shatters illusions about a cherished sense of self-importance. it forges me to seek again the impulse that moves me from the depths, and to turn aside from the shallows of habitual patterns. it requires that i examine my attachments to physical health, financial independence, loving friends. for they are easily lost; i cannot ultimately rely on them. is there anything i can depend on?
it might be that all i can trust in the end is my integrity to keep asking such questions as: since death alone is certain and the time of death uncertain, what should i do? and then to act on them.
probability is not certainty
agnosticism is not excuse for indecision. if anything, it is a catalyst for action. for in shifting concern away from a future life and back to the present, it demands an ethics of empathy rather than a metaphysics of fear and hope.
self-confidence is not a form of arrogance. it is trust in our capacity to awaken. it is both the courage to face whatever life throws at us without losing equanimity, and the humility to treat every situation we encounter as one from which we can learn.
such a friend is someone whom we can trust to refine our understanding of what it means to live, who can guide us when we're lost and help us find the way along a path, who can assuage our anguish through the reassurance of his or her presence...
these friends are teachers in the sense that they are skilled in the art of learning from every situation...
for true friends seek not to coerce... these friends...draw forth what is waiting to be born.
what features of contemporary life are most likely to affect the concept of true friendship? mutual respect for the creative autonomy of individual experience would take precedence over submission to the dogmas of a school or the autocratic authority of a guru. the responsibility of a friend would be to encourage individuation, self-reliance, and imagination.
the pivotal moment of human consciousness: it becomes a question for itself.
no conditions are permanent;
no conditions are reliable;
nothing is self.
-buddha
agnostic stance is not based on disinterest. it is founded on the passionate recognition that i do not know. it confronts the enormity of having been born instead of reaching for the consolation of a belief.
(The agnostic eschews certainty because she values doubt, treasures creativity, finds what happiness she can in the groping quests of art and science, in the private affections of family and friends. -Raymo belonging)
awareness is a process of deepening self-acceptance. whatever it observes, it embraces. there is nothing unworthy of acceptance.
distraction drugs us into forgetfulness....
focused awareness is difficult not because we are inept at some spiritual technology, but because it threatens the sense of who we are.
what am i here for? am i living in such a way that i can die without regrets? how much of what i do is compromise? do i keep postponing what i "really " want to do until conditions are more favorable?
asking such questions interrupts indulgence in the comforts of routine and shatters illusions about a cherished sense of self-importance. it forges me to seek again the impulse that moves me from the depths, and to turn aside from the shallows of habitual patterns. it requires that i examine my attachments to physical health, financial independence, loving friends. for they are easily lost; i cannot ultimately rely on them. is there anything i can depend on?
it might be that all i can trust in the end is my integrity to keep asking such questions as: since death alone is certain and the time of death uncertain, what should i do? and then to act on them.
probability is not certainty
agnosticism is not excuse for indecision. if anything, it is a catalyst for action. for in shifting concern away from a future life and back to the present, it demands an ethics of empathy rather than a metaphysics of fear and hope.
self-confidence is not a form of arrogance. it is trust in our capacity to awaken. it is both the courage to face whatever life throws at us without losing equanimity, and the humility to treat every situation we encounter as one from which we can learn.
such a friend is someone whom we can trust to refine our understanding of what it means to live, who can guide us when we're lost and help us find the way along a path, who can assuage our anguish through the reassurance of his or her presence...
these friends are teachers in the sense that they are skilled in the art of learning from every situation...
for true friends seek not to coerce... these friends...draw forth what is waiting to be born.
what features of contemporary life are most likely to affect the concept of true friendship? mutual respect for the creative autonomy of individual experience would take precedence over submission to the dogmas of a school or the autocratic authority of a guru. the responsibility of a friend would be to encourage individuation, self-reliance, and imagination.
the pivotal moment of human consciousness: it becomes a question for itself.
no conditions are permanent;
no conditions are reliable;
nothing is self.
-buddha
agnostic stance is not based on disinterest. it is founded on the passionate recognition that i do not know. it confronts the enormity of having been born instead of reaching for the consolation of a belief.
(The agnostic eschews certainty because she values doubt, treasures creativity, finds what happiness she can in the groping quests of art and science, in the private affections of family and friends. -Raymo belonging)
awareness is a process of deepening self-acceptance. whatever it observes, it embraces. there is nothing unworthy of acceptance.
distraction drugs us into forgetfulness....
focused awareness is difficult not because we are inept at some spiritual technology, but because it threatens the sense of who we are.
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