Okay, so I'm not special and everyone's a bit fucked up. And working on/through/out of past experience because when it comes down to it, that's what we have, we're moving through space and time so this life thing is rolling and we don't have any way to stop the ball. We're mortal and it's going to give anytime now or in the next few decades. And I can't possibly understand what death is until I get there - except I've seen it a few times now, and there is a flow / pattern that's familiar at this point. I think, maybe, I could recognise it for myself, when, so I don't think there's reason to worry about the inevitable 'end to this great day'. A more immediate draw is ... this. My actions here in this life are what I can do/change/control and there's no point in fighting life... haha! Enjoy!



So what if no one's perfect and nothing lasts forever, it's the impermanence and imperfections that give us grasp for understanding... like, mould will grow in the groves and scores of a plate, we humans seem to understand most things of this life by the peculiarities and outliers.


This morning, I saw what looked remarkably like a crow collecting pigeons for breakfast. Terraced house, our garden overlooks neighbours in vicinity with short walls, it's like a miniature valley of green between the house backs with a row of trees (must be older than me) behind the roofs / hills opposite from my perspective. This beast is nearly a metre wing tip to tip: Crow comes gliding through a couple of foot above head-height and roared out a call as he passed me, beautiful and so graceful. At the end of the row he turned and flew back high over the houses to his tree, in his wake a half-dozen pigeons came out of hiding from roof tops all around the valley aimed right for the stash of nuts I was laying out. "Food! Crazy singing human's got BREAKFAST!" .. is what I assume he was saying. It's a great thing to feel like part of the local wildlife.


This life this is so vast I don't know how I could expect myself to understand it, in totality, but maybe that's a point - understanding's one of the most important things for me, but there are times to just feel and let go of understanding for something much deeper, sometimes that can even lead you out to a greater awareness of the balance within ourselves.

Experience, which yes happens all the time, but active experiencing is something else. One my most deadly self-harm techniques [and I've been doing it a whole lot longer than since that fucker fucked with me]. I deny myself the opportunity to seek experience, sure some of it's fear or social anxiety or whatever, but I think deeper than that I don't let myself get caught up in things. I retain a distance from my surroundings. I guess that's part of why I love nature; when there's no humans around it's easier to let myself spread out and not worry that my presence could be harmful (I have a history of fucking up). I've always had a fine toned sense of empathy (I hope, I think) and ... there's good reasons why to people on (typically hallucinogenic) drugs they say 'don't look in the mirror.' You will see things that are not there and not real, but that might be representations of things that are there under the surface and are real in your mind. When I look into my own eyes I see sadness that could fill an ocean; a cruelty that I'm scared sometimes to understand; a silent kindness or love that always seems to drive deeper than I expect it to; and drive for some -something- love of motion and adrenaline, a craving for weightlessness. By denying experience for anything other than sadness (the most common form of depression, in my field of awareness) a cycle can form, and neuroplasticity, be written into the way you do you / things. Breaking through that cycle can be as difficult as ripping your tongue off the metal pole that it's frozen to - it'll be so much better when it's over but it's going to fucking hurt while it's happening. When someone listens or talks, it's warm water.

Recently a friend said: "I hadn't said some of these things to anyone before, and I was terrified... It was terrifying saying the words." This is a really important time for that person because each instance (and that's still in single figures) the words are said aloud it will take her back and re-write that pattern, overlay it with the new experience. Like new skin forming over the wound, this time she might be able to taste the blood just under the surface but next time it'll be a little easier to see it healing and at some point she'll look back to see that it was just a thing that happened: an experience in a field of everything.

I remember those first times. Felt like I could smell blood in my brain, nothing prepares you for the thing that nothing prepared you for.  For me now, it's an old scar and there are fresher wounds over the top that need sewing up.     Very off topic: Code Black is the new favourite tv show here. I'm referring everything back to medical analogies now... :)

It sometimes feels like dramatising to describe ~psychological behaviour~ in the manner I utilise. But things that are happening don't have the same perspective as they have post-experience. I guess awareness of the shifting perspectives of time is life's real puzzle.


/ thanks for reading and I hope your day is a lot more sunny than this drizzle.

 
Add: I wanted to share a section of Avatar (the introduction of Koh) seems to me to be describing.. something I'd love to have words for. It's a weird scene and part of the setup for the first season's two part drama.. unfortunately it's a pain to find online. If you're in the US just search Avatar Siege of the North and you'll get the full episode/s (119 & 120) on youtube - anywhere else in the world (because Nick are dicks like that) here's the audio of the bit I wanted to share and there's a fan-trailer of the two-part which is actually pretty epic (I'm not usually one for fan vids, this is cool).