I Am Going To Die

Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and told yourself you're going to die? Before tonight, I hadn't either. But while I was taking a piss tonight, I was also mulling over mortality, and after I finished, saw myself in the mirror. I realized I flinched and kept from looking at myself with the thought of death in my head.

Well, I couldn't accept that so, I looked myself in the eye and told myself I was going to die. Repeatedly. It was pretty cool, actually. Took some of the charge out it. Felt like I was leveling with myself.

And then I realized that it's a beautiful thing, too. Exactly as it should be. An honor of sorts. In this universe, everything changes, all life transforms. It's what we do. Letting go of this life is just letting go of one form of life. It could be a thing to celebrate and embrace. It should be. The only real hangup is my ego and, well, tough shit for it.

Now pain and heartbreak and evil and all, I still love life. With luck and and good decisions, I'll live to a ripe old age. But like every other creature in this universe, I am going to die. Cool thing is, I keep finding different way to come to terms with that.

Adapt Or Die

If there were an owner's manual for life on this planet, that'd be the only phrase needed.

Update: Or come up with a better idea.

A Fractal, My God

It's the craziest thing. I have the strangest feeling, tonight, that I'm a point on the end of a point in an ever-changing Mandelbrot set. Constantly churning, constantly in motion. A slave to its volition and not my own. Times like this, I think Pete is right about free will. (Hey, Pete!)

I almost feel like a channel. Not in the hucksterish sense, but like I'm just a vessel for this energy that's passing through me. Like I'm it's captive, moving at its will. It sounds ludicrous, I know. The deeper I get into a rational/science-based worldview, the less comfortable I feel saying something like that. But that's how I'm experiencing the sensation.

My reason tells me one thing, my experience another.

But I feel aflame. On fire. As if the brutality—the beautiful brutality—of life on this planet is charring me and molding me. Having its way with me.

It's as if science itself is Rumi's "Friend." Mysticism with a different language and better methodology.

Christ, now I'm sounding like the obnoxious woo practitioners that I've been poking fun at for the past couple of years. But it's what I'm authentically experiencing. Fuck, the diametrically opposed shit that lives in my head!

As irritatingly conceited as it must sound, I feel a strong sense of what Whitman meant with: "Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes."

But then, I'm not actually myself anyway. Just this...

Update: So that's what I write like when I'm high.

Born Again Pessimist

It's finally happened.

For nearly 40 years, despite being sodomized as a four-year-old, despite being molested by my mother, despite 30+ years of conservative ideologues, religious fundamentalists and corporate plantations running my country into the ground, despite a world that's been poisoned and is rapidly falling part, despite watching dreams go unfulfilled, despite heart breaks and divorce, despite financial setbacks, despite years of floundering for a purpose, and despite countless reasons not to be, I had managed to remain an optimist. 

Oh, I wasn't a Pollyanna. I could see the shit in the world. But nevertheless,  the old me would somehow see beyond it to something heartening. Turn the next corner and things will be looking up, I figured. Wait long enough and things will improve. Look at the big pic and be encouraged. 

Well, no more. Nuh uh. Done. 

Clinging to such optimism has led to nothing but bad choices, disappointment, heartache, and pain. It's a childish need that it's time to let go of. Like believing in Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy. Or god. Or lifelong monogamy. It's time to move forward without it. 

Good riddance. 

Happy Blah, Blah, Blah

So, let me get this straight? A British-born Roman slave becomes a Christian, spends 30+ years driving paganism out of Ireland—ushering in 16 centuries of Roman Catholicism—and we're supposed to celebrate the guy?

No thanks.

I will raise a pint to the Irish, though, who throughout the centuries have shown unbelievable grit and, despite their trials, managed to create an astonishingly rich artistic culture. And who after 1,600 years are finally throwing off the yoke of their cross dressing oppressors.

I'll Take A Pass

Can anything be more disappointing, infuriating, and maddening than being a human being?

We come into this existence thinking everything revolves around us. We have two people who spend years reinforcing that idea. Then we spend the rest of our years reconciling reality with our faulty formative experience.

Worse, we're these hairless apes who are presumptuous enough to think we're something beyond that: spiritual beings having a human experience. Pffft. Monkey, please. Physically designed and programmed to behave like bonobos, we twist ourselves in knots to believe and act contrary to that nature. We have these diametrically opposed, deep-seated needs: the biological imperative for propagation (variety, pleasure, promiscuity), and intimacy with a mate. Then on top of that, we invent and impose cultural templates which insist we deny or denigrate our physical selves, and cripple ourselves attempting to reconcile our needs and beliefs.

Could we be any more fucked up a species? Seriously, if we're the pinnacle of natural selection (and I'm not saying we are), then, fuck, the competition must have been weaker than a Tea Bagger's reasoning skills.

Now, I've fucked up recently and disappointed myself and wounded someone I loved. I destroyed something dear. So, some of this is the personal projecting out. But I'm not wrong.

We are an exceptionally delusional, self-important bunch of meat sacks, who, at our best, tell good stories and make pretty things.

Really, if this is the best evolution can do, I'll take a pass.

Aging, Death, Mortality and Angst: Happy Birthday, Dad!

Signs of decay

I'm getting old and signs of decay are everywhere! Madonna's turning 50 and looking like shit. Isaac Hayes is dead at 65. Prince just had a hip replacement. The famous Wall Arch in Utah's Arches Nat'l Monument has collapsed. Kids are younger all the time. Youth has become this exclusive club that I've been kicked out of and have no chance talking my way back into. My skin is losing elasticity and my hair's turning gray and I have to monitor cholesterol levels. I fucking hate it!

**********

Happy birthday, Dad!

Today was my dad's—James Benjamin Altemus'—birthday. It's weird, the more time that goes by between now and his death, the less I think of him. This feels like a betrayal somehow. Like I'm a shitty son. Of course, I don't feel like I should constantly mourn him or obsess over him, but I figured I'd think of him more often than I do. 

When I do think of him lately, it's connected with mortality. Much to my embarrassment and frustration, I've become obsessed with my own mortality since his demise. It's like he was this buffer between me and death and now that he's gone, the buffer's gone. I'm next in line.

Now, I loved my dad. I've grieved his death. I've missed him. I've talked to him. I've imagined his presence. And I've honored him and his memory. But for the first time since his passing, it occurred to me yesterday I'm angry with him. (No one's ever accused me of being excessively rational.)

Really, though, I'm pissed that I'm left with this burden, this knowing that I'm going to die. That I can't run from it, hide from it, trick it somehow. That no matter what I do, I'm on a train that has only one destination and there's no getting off. 

Look, I've known this in my head since my early teens. But to really know it in your bones, in your gut, is a whole other thing. And ever since dad shuffled off his mortal coil four years ago, I've been deeply, irritatingly intimate with the knowledge. I've been slimed and I can't wash it off. 

Some background

It started when I realized he was dying. After a week in the hospital with little improvement after a nasty bout of flu kicked his ass, we moved him to a nursing home. He was clearly on his way out. I found myself unable to sleep through the night. I'd wander my house and think about going to the home to be with him. I think I must have believed I shouldn't sleep, lest I miss any time to spend with him, even if I wasn't in the same room. Actually, I don't know what I was thinking. I never felt more connected to him and more selfless than in those three weeks that he took to complete his dying process.

My obsession with mortality reached its nadir about a year ago or so. I found myself unable to sleep soundly several nights of the week and was on my way to becoming an insomniac. Worse, while I lay awake (or after I arose to putz around) I would focus on my eventual death. I was experiencing angst that would make a teenager blush. Serious, brutal existential angst. A recognition that sometime, whether tomorrow or in 70 years, I would be no more. And whether I was an Einstein or a homeless bum didn't matter. What difference does it make how I affect this world? I'm still going to be gone. The pieces of consciousness that make up my personality will be no more. 

And this drove me crazy. I writhed in psychic anguish. I felt I was staring into a black abyss that would consume me, if not now, then eventually. I realized that underneath all of my belief in spiritual possibilities, I—or at least a big chunk of me—was an atheist. I was furious, sad, lost.

It was absurd. 

Moving forward, then back

This winter, for reasons that stretched back farther and deeper than my newfound (though profound) mental discomfort, I started a course of antidepressants. A pleasant and unexpected side effect was that the anguish died down and I was able to sleep full nights again. And such had been the case until about a month or so ago. 

Though, not feeling the sheer agony and brutal fear that I felt last year, I've been once again focusing on my decay and death. (It seems though, that this time I have company, as Beck's latest album, Modern Guilt, is infused with the themes.) Anyway, it's back. And I'm sick of it. 

Because obsessing over aging and dying isn't doing me a damn bit of good. It's not making me a better person or giving me wisdom or helping me to enjoy life more. To the contrary, it depresses the hell out of me. The worst part is that I'm losing my sense of optimism, my sense of spirituality. No, the worst part is knowing that this is part of my birthright as a human being. This is pedestrian. I mean, who among us hasn't blanched at the thought our death? Which religion or spiritual sect or set of rites isn't birthed from the realization that our flesh will turn to dust and we will cease to be? How fucking tedious and useless.

What I want, what I'm craving right now, is the sense of limitless possibilities that I once had. The ability to disregard thoughts of mortality and just live. I'm not sure how to get back to that or how to redirect my thoughts away from the dead end they've been hanging out in lately. I'm not sure that I can.

**********

All that said, I still want to recognize my father for his warm heart, his integrity, his gentle nature. So, happy birthday, dad. I love you. I owe you my life and I thank you for it. 

Now, I've just got to figure out a way to get out of my head and live it. 

Gobs Of Love

I've been noticing something lately that really hit me last night and again tonight: I truly adore my friends. 

Last night, I went to Eric's house warming party. After the neighbors left, it was down to Rhys, Jennifer, Eric and I hanging out, enjoying each other's company. What was so great was that I felt so totally in synch and relaxed and content and happy. We've been through so much, both together and individually—including times that were strained where we weren't so connected—that to feel so in tune with them now, feels…just amazing. I couldn't have been happier.

Until tonight. Eric and I went to see AnnieMac at 4 Daughters in Medford (a very cool new Irish pub, which I recommend checking out). There, we met Jennifer, Terry, Pete, Cindy, Mike, Goa, and Shanti, and again, I felt completely in synch, etc., with everyone. We all had a blast dancing and shooting pool and people watching and just hanging out. 

I've been grateful for my friendships for some time now, so that's not exactly new. But what is new is how comfortable and compatible I feel with everyone now. Maybe something's changed within me or maybe it's all of us or something else entirely, I don't know. 

What I do know is that I think I'm actually in love with my friends. That sounds absurd, but hey, it's how I feel. I'm truly lucky/blessed/rich/whatever to have such amazing people in my life.

Thank you all. 

Random Musings

Finally got back to the gym today. It was such a struggle to get there, but, of course, I feel much better having gone. Annie's convinced that my gut has shrunk since those Burning Man 2006 pics (what I call the 8-Months Along Series), but looking at the Hawaii 2008 pics I can't tell a difference. 

So, in an effort to get in touch with my inner six-pack, I forced myself to go. I hadn't lost as much momentum as I'd feared, though I definitely had to lower the weights at first. Regardless, it was good to get back into it and I'm glad I went. Now, if I could only give up sugar like Nathan...