Edge Lord

Another day slips past me. And then another week. And now a month…. I sink further from the ideal. I feel a high-calling continuing to grow away from my reach. When I was younger, I comforted myself with the thought that there was still time for an impressive virtue or talent to suddenly blossom in my life. Now, as I get older, the ceiling of my capabilities is more apparent, and that realization is disheartening. The gap between my sense of naïve entitlement-to-greatness and my actual place in life continues to grow. And it elicits despair. I live the life of a man, a well-fed, social, literate man. What do I have to complain about? The state of man: —subjugated to an ape-like existence The ape-ness is inescapable. I cannot do without social hierarchy, or food, or sex, or any of the other vulgar-and-base conditions of this existence. But there seems to be something hidden in ape-ness. I imagine that in a different time, or in a different human/cu...

There was I, in a luke-warm black sea. Above me was a sky or cavern-ceiling. Dim constellations of dubious form. I kept swimming. When I could not swim, I floated. I closed my eyes; Accepted despair. I awoke to a rhythmic beating of wings, carrying me up. ... The alchemist says, "The spirit must be rescued from the waters. "It cannot be sieved or filtered. It must rise of its own volition." ... The water floats, as a sphere, touching not the glass of the retort. The soul circumambulates until it gives up its spirit. The spirit is lifted to escape the retort, guided by the principle of the air, the angel, the wind of paradise. ... The angel is four wings, brown and white. ... The black water is found in the deep, gathered in abyssal wells, carried up, in dark earthen vessels. Placed in the alembic, the black water gathers, like an orb, reluctant to touch the ignoble, the lowly the earthly, the common, the things on the sur...

Found in a sketchbook, written in December 2018 ... Layers of paradigm: Science (method, not body of knowledge) > Logic > Language & Grammar > Image & Symbol > Sensation & Intuition > Drive & Instinct .... I, for no good reason thought that, if I dug deeper, I would find the  source-of-meaning-and-creation. But under the surface—below, as far as I could go—I found nothing . It was void. But, before I touched the void (falling into it), I found madness. Below the surface—below the appearance of things—nothing corresponded to my conception of order. The underworld [the depths of the psyche] abides by principles that will never agree with that which exists in consciousness. Waking life [our conscious experience] is the fruit of a garden named  will. But who is the gardener? .. I followed a path. And I don't know why I chose it. It promised me knowledge—knowledge hidden in plain sight. It said "The path is treacherous but worthwhile....

Long story short: When I get wrapped up in worrying about losing what I have—namely, my material possessions—I remember that I will die. ... I like my things. I like my job, my new apartment, my jacket, my boots (whose price I can never tell my parents), as well all the other material possessions I am accumulating. I don't just like my things. I love them. They're all expressions of who I am. I spent time, money, and mindful care picking (most of) them out. And I like shoving my things in peoples faces, parading myself everywhere I go. But my love and purchases of material goods are more than socio-economic flexing. I worry—constantly. One reoccurring theme involves a sharp and sinking sense of anxiety in my gut when I think about potentially losing my things because I have lost my job or the economy has imploded or the proletariate revolution is finally upon us. (I haven't been saving because I keep buying too many things, so i'm extra stressed, and I'm str...

What if folding laundry is really important? What if, today, when I folded my laundry, it was important that I did so with care and attention? What if, folding laundry deserves as much care and attention as anything else? Everything is a metaphor. (For what? I don't know. But everything is a metaphor.) Everything we touch is a metaphor for our self: the way we make our bed (or don't make it at all), the way our jeans crease, the shape and depth of the bags under our eyes, the length and trace of a lingering glance when a beautiful person passes by, the amount of sugar one puts in tea, the type of tea one drinks, one's gait,  one's pace, one's posture, and one's cadence of speech. Is your laundry piled? Is it unfolded or dirty? Has it grown mold yet? Is it perfectly tucked away in a cedar scented drawer? Whatever it is, it is a metaphor. I'm not saying that you should go clean your room. Maybe it's fine the way it is. I searched my heart, and ...

Some people just don't get it. Some people just don't ever learn. Some people are incorrigible. Humans are free yet incorrigible. Some things won't be learned by certain people. Some habits will never change. Some values will never change. Some people will always have a gambling addiction. Some people will always run late. Some people will never stop living paycheck to paycheck. Some things never change. But blessed are the incorrigible, for theirs is nature. Blessed are the incorrigible, for they are each a mountain—unmovable. ... The lesson: Don't waste time trying to change nature. Don't beg a mountain to move. Scale it, or walk around.