long time no self conceted ranting

Hey there me
I havent been writing for a while. There was a period of movement, one that is I think eternal, but I got swept away for a while there and didnt get a chance to talk to myself here. So here I am. There have been the fair share of revelations I expect but a dash more waiting that I had hoped for in the past while. I would have liked to see her by now or at least have news that she was on her way. still the minor news that we did receive was enough to spur me along for a while.
I was thinking about getting back into the studying the other day. I was thinking about developing the outline of a study plan to propose to my ex lecturer and see what he thinks. It could be great. Thinking again. Being eternally frustrated again...while missing her. I decided to leave it for a little while. I have enough to do with just making the place ready and getting a little bit fit. I dont want to be he man but I would hate to get back and just develop a big pot...that would suck. i think when the added inspiration of her arrival is imminent I might decide to go that next step and make a meet with my lecturer.
I wonder
often
I shall be here again soon I believe
saludos

can you reminisce while still there?

I am sitting at Plaza de Armas in the city of Queretaro in Mexico. I have three weeks left here. It's not very long. I find m mind wandering into the realm of reminiscence and I am yet to leave. So sad. It reminds me of the movie Donnie Darko and the scene where his future is stretched out in front of him. The meaning is different but I feel as if perhaps its a similar concept. As if I am already living in the future. As if my mind, my soul perhaps, is ahead of me. It has already taken flight and is simply waiting for me at my next destination. Though it not long I need to learn to live in the moments. There is no advantage from striving always forward like this. What of the now. This is a stunning place this little plaza...but my thoughts are all in the past or present perfect. Everything has already finished. The fountain in front of me is already a memory, slowly fading...

How does one return to the present?

Monday

Obviously I have a headache and I have more work than is likely to be able to be finished. I have no money, again, and it DEFINITELY feels like Monday. I am not having a bad day, productive, partner is helping out and staying positive, but Monday just has a special place...ninth ring I believe.

Anyway...so I wander through this foggy haze of mild pain, undirected anger and a bizarre desire for something that neither I have nor have the remotest idea of what it is...

Mondays suck

Why do we stress?

I woke this morning, at 5:15am, and throughout the day have simply not been able to shake the feeling that everything sucks and is all going wrong. It is a very unobjective and rather incorrect view but I just cant get rid of it. Seriously. I mean we are on top of things, kind of. The things we aren't on top of aren't life or death, nor close. Why would one, that'd be me, stress so much. Really, and it doesnt take an ingenious interpretation, I have had and continue to have shit fall in my lap. Jobs, a loving wife, travel, opportunities, new skies etc....and it is a long list. Yet, a little form, the possibility of something going wrong and I freak out as if I had cancer....i mean what is with that. It's not even real, it's just the chance that it could go wrong...oh my god!! anyway...I've said my bit...so why??

so much to say so little time

There are days when you just feel like you just want to get it all out. Vomit words, regurgitate ideas....but those are usually the times when you dont have time.

groggy morning head

Well world...looks like it is you and me again. You seem to have me at a disadvantage though as my head is all groggy and I cant seem to construct an adequate reality with my waning faculties...Still, I shall triumph. I shall sally forth and conquer in the name of me and my kingdom. I shall not, today nor any other day, succumb to the mediating affects of the bed. As always world your very existence shall be shaken by my triumphant return. Do not be deceived or lulled into a sense of superiority by my blurry eyed expression, my yawning and my constant stretching. I may not be at the top of my game but I am far from an easy defeat. I shall triumph yet again and not for the first time as we both come to the end of the day it shall be I who is left standing while you slowly wain into shadow!!

dredging the distant past

I stumbled upon these words I wrote for my now wife and thought them worthy of sharing with the world.

I wonder why it is we search for stagnant words to support and define each other when daily we live side by side and share our worlds. Is it fear? Is it perhaps that by stilling the words we make them safer than the reality. Face to face we are forced to confront the complexity that is us directly. We literally have to stare our own weaknesses in the face. With the other there in front of us we struggle vainly to give everything we can. To hide our weaknesses behind the facade of strength. To prove that despite our human frailness we can be everything the other needs. Or is it the feelings themselves?

Perhaps the still words let us hide our fear but it is our very frailty we are trying to hide from. Human beings feel. It seems despite the ludicrousness of it, the senselessness, we are obliged to feel. Working, living, cleaning, counting money, every little breath you share with another builds feelings. Many are harmless. A few are even directly beneficial, not to mention enjoyable. Nevertheless many weigh. Individually they do little harm but overtime they build and collect, pushing you down. And if by chance you are living with someone, those feelings begin to be reflected. Not intentionally, usually, but nevertheless it expounds and exacerbates the situation. The couple begin to lose their rationality amidst a sea of feelings. In time they begin to thrash about, consumed by feeling. They harm those around them, those they care for the most. They do not mean to cause harm but the very nature of feelings cloud our judgment. So perhaps we turn to words as a way to step clear of the fog of emotions. A way to rediscover rationality. But who can really tell....

I turn to words when I am confused. This is not one persons doing, especially not yours my love. Confusion feels like the unavoidable consequence of consciousness. It seems that in time, if we think a little about it, all of it, it is very confusing. And so I, almost instinctively, turn to words. I'm not sure if I ever get any closer to a less confused state, but there is a strange comfort in just writing the words down. The last few days have been very confusing. Full of emotion and fear. Parts of my logical mind leapt upon rationality as the answer. i tried to justify or overcome all the apparent incongruities with reason. I said to myself 'Communicate, the very act itself will logically bring us closer to some form of understanding within this confusion.' It helped in moments. In others it did not. What I did not give sufficient merit too was the of human beings. We are confused, it is not where we end up but where we start. The confusion does not lead to fear or emotions. This is simply what we are. Part of me refuses to abandon the fight but part of me thinks that perhaps through acceptance we may find, at the least, a quieter place. Perhaps the reflection of each others emotions and the magnification of our fears lessen when we accept. Perhaps not.

Nevertheless i want to this meandering reflection of the recent past on a positive note. I have no desire to placate you but I am learning from you every day how important it is to fight. So even if we accept that as complex human beings we are drawn into the drama that is being we can fight to make that drama less like a soap opera. We can fight to find a balance between emotions and and our rationality. I know when I look at you, even when we are angry, that I am a better person with you. I WANT to fight now that you are in my life. I want to strive to make our lives more ours and less theirs. With you in my life i think not only can I do it but its worth doing. My facebook says 'The world is not well but wellness lingers yet' let us strive together to find the good that remains and do all we can to protect and foster it, no matter the outcome.

Creating ourselves

I was reading some of my last blogs, how intriguing. It is rather strange but on a daily basis we create our selves. We define our conceptual selves and delineate our individual boundaries. The Barefoot Wanderer, a figment of my own reality is in turn becoming increasingly more solid and hence impacting the relaity that once created it. Mikhail Bhaktin mentioned something similar when he talked about the characters of Tolstoy...or was it Dostoevski (it was)...and how he was a true master at creating a polyglot reality and that his characters were not enslaved to the authors will. I think this applies to us as well. Though we right our own stories, and I am a strong supporter of this theory, the more complex our characters become the less control we exhibit over there destination. A crazy paradox perhaps but nevertheless apparently true (to me).

This idea works well with complexity theory as well. The whole is more than the sum of its parts. It is impossible to retrace the steps that have created a human being (should the human being be an adequately complex individual).

What insane fun we are...bizarre creatures...

food, again

I was working in the kitchen today, making breakfast at nearly midday and thought, 'sometimes I just cant be arsed!'. Already i was thinking about cornflakes, toast and the myriad other instant foods as i was blending fresh tomatoes from the garden with garlic, onion, coriander and chicken stock for the salsa for the eggs I was making but it made me think. No! It is worth the time. Food is an essential part of how we live, of what we enjoy about life. If it was not for the exquisite flavours and wonderous textures of the finer foods in life the world would be just that little bit darker.

Eating. The sharing of food. The savouring of flavours. These are some of the reasons for life itself. If we take the flavours away, if we inundate reality with bland sameness and cheap sugar we remove the richness of life. Its not just the flavours either. The process is also vital. The patience, the tasting, the balance...it is all so important. I think it is a metaphor of life....

Life, like food gives only what is put into it. If you take the easy option, if you buy the fast food instant soups of the world you will only ever get from it enough to remain standing. We are what we eat in so many ways and hence a rich, complex and varied diet that is always searching for new combinations of flavours and realities...well what more can I say, life will follow.

To eat is to live, in so many more ways than we can ever imagine.
In life, take big bites, but savour every mouthful

Kiel

The bottle isn't empty. The night isn’t over. The song has yet to be sung.

He sat, tired and wondering aloud to himself. There were often nights like these - empty and mentally drifting. He had long ago given up trying to discover why or how, it all ended up the same anyway. It was best to just embrace it and try and ride it out. Maybe within the depths of his own sordid mind he could discover something true. A reality as yet undiscovered…he took a swig and sank deeper…

It had happened once before. The second time had been so much worse. The first time I had woken up at least three times at once. It was fucked up. I had been sleep talking and walking, not all that uncommon but she had been scared. She had woken me. It was terrifying. I had woken up, several times, all at once. I was me. But I was not alone. It was as if several distinct and unique individuals, all of whom were I, awoke sharing the same reality for a moment. It is with deep gratitude that it was but for a moment, as I have just learnt. The silence of my mind, the singularity that is I, has gone. I can neither forget that glorious reality from better times nor can I rid myself of the insanity that now clutches me. I am thankful that at least it remains undetected, I do not live in a tolerant time.

My name is Brian. It was a simple name given by a simple man, my father, William. It has been some time since I have been known by that name. I long now for that vile name I once scorned. The reality I once created now hangs heavily upon my shoulders. Kiel, my reality for these past four years, was of a strength and determination I had but dreamed of as Brian but his reality required every ounce of it and more. It was a lonely monotonous unrelenting style of life. Kiel never traveled far but never stayed still. His ingenuity and bravery were….

Lunch

Yesterday I had the most amazing lunch. Do you know how important food is to us as complex systems? Think about it. Our system has been designed by nature over 30 odd thousand years. Tailoring itself, bit by bit, to the variety of what exists. When we eat we are fueling this machine. Should we choose to eat something that is constructed from polymer chains and Mon Sodium Glutemate and Magnesium molecules our incredible body adapts and retrieves what it can from your cheese burger. But what about all the subtle trace elements that we have been weeding out of our realities. Did you know that a wild Rabbit has suprisingly high levels of Omega 3 oils, apparently very good for you. Interestingly, the same variety of Rabbit's, farmed, have only trace amounts...interesting no. I think the complex nature of reality, of nature, creates minute traces of various products that though they may seem not to be essential, are a vital part of our diet. Not to mention they taste better. Yesterday I at a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich. Nothin fabulous eh...well. It was home made wholemeal bread made with freshly ground wheat. Full of seeds such as linseed, Amaranth, Sunflower, Pumpkin and Sesame and a sprinkling of herbs from the garden. The tomato was from the garden and it was toasted in REAL butter from a local supplier. It was mouth wateringly good. I still remember it. Actually I think I shall go and make myself another for today's lunch...hasta luego

An idea

I was making Bread, washing dishes and generally keeping house. I find during these times, if I am not under too much pressure, my mind is set free to wander. On this particular day I was thinking on friends, on being positive (something I am often accused of not) and generally getting along. Something came to me, an epiphany if you will. Like so many ideas it was insanely simple, nothing more than a conjecture based on an even simpler observation and yet its profundity seemed almost boundless. I was struck by the ingenuity of it really. I finished kneading the bread, something I find that helps me relax and returns my muscles to a balance, and headed straight here to jot down my idea. Immortalise it in the magic of the immaterial void. Naturally I was momentarily distracted by some of the blogs I had chose to follow. I returned to my blog and the idea wasnt there. It had gone. The simple idea, and it was simple, has left me. It was a foundational idea. Something so simple and basic the simple awareness of it may have had the ability to shake the very foundations of who I am...

Oh well.

Productivity - A myth busters challenge

Today is a new day. Most days are but anyway. Today I am determined to show to myself that I can be self motivated, energised and productive. As I write this I must say it sounds awful familiar. Regardless, I shall acheive. I will start by creating a master peice of a breakfast and preparing an even more amazing lunch. From there its publicity and ray, back for lunch, epiode of deathnote, classes and emailing...lets see if this dream can become a reality.

Side note - This is not the first time I have attempted a produtive day and I must say that I am not sure how successful I can be. but lets go for it anyway.

the joy of gluttony

I had one of those mornings, you know, the ones that sound like my last blog but hits you at 10:00am. Anyway, as I have found it works, I hit the kitchen. Made some enfrijoladas (firjole based enchiladas), marinated some marylands with some amazing garlic chilli paste and some herbs from the garden and ovened it. About ten minutes ago, when I had finally stopped eating and could barely walk, I felt this gorious satiated feeling wash over me. Now this sated feeling does NOT come about from simply sating satiating your immediate hunger; you have to immerse your self in the food; consume it and let its flavours and benefits in term consume you. It is a glorious feeling. Pure gluttony. Intense flavours and aromas. It is a true delight. I love eating, it makes me feel whole and complete.

So anyway. As I was saying i had had one of those mornings, now receding into the era of memories, and have had trouble getting the things i need to get done done. I need to get going soon. Spurts of activity.

I recommend to all to eat. Eat and enjoy it.

I was writing a summary for a website for a tour today, Peña de bernal. As I was sitting, utterly exhausted, I was reminded by the friend that we need an option for those who cant or dont want to climb the monolith. "Some people just cant make it BFW (barefoot wanderer), and I know this from experience." Now I was thinking to myself, unenergised, demotivated and not far from flat-lining from inactivity, who an earth can't make it to the top? Why is it, here in the house, after a good nights sleep, I can barely find the energy to raise my fingers above the keyboard but mention a 350m hike up basically the side of a cliff and I'm all gung ho...eh?? Whats with that? Why cant i find a way to tap into that special reserve of energy I seem to have stored away for...well...things I enjoy and want to do, when ever i want. I mean right now. Why cant i find the energy to just sit down and DO the small amount of work required to go from now to then when I will be teaching again..seriously though...

I need to find a job I love doing

Why not...nothing stays stationary anyway

Blogging...how intriguing

I sit swigging cheap vodka with Moulin Rouge in the background. Ideas and emotions, confused and infinitely endless whirl in constant contradictory turmoil. I spoke for a while with one of the few esteemed people in the path that I call life. She helped. She always does and yet she can not change the reality of change. Though the insecurities abate, the confusion and bemusement clears for a moment, tomorrow is a new day. Our minds are infinitely complex and hence the inevitability of change simply never truly leaves....so it is that I choose a topic and hold it up to the light for a moment to analyse its temporal reality.

Love. Always simply a complex concept. vodka swig. It is not and can never be more real than a concept but ideas shake the foundations of our world. We are a frail and powerful species. It is our contradictions that make us an almost all powerful race but why is it that these frail, flippant concepts that offer goodness, that offer us the chance to create a better concept of humanity are squandered, shelved into the archives of frivolous fashion. The vodka lingers onwards. I watch the world...as perhaps it watches back...and see its downward spiral. I see the value of brotherhood, of love, of dignity being traded for shiny trinkets. I see the value of work and loyalty being thrown by the wayside and for what. It all tumbles down around us and we have nothing tangible to show for it. We live longer. Do we live better? perhaps...I see cracks. Sometimes I feel we are reaching the point where the gaps are all that are left...emptiness...a life, an existence that is no more than existence.

We compromise. We take a step backwards on the theory that if we dont it would only be worse in the long run. Then we take another step backwards. And another. Love is just another step. It becomes nothing; a sacrifice along the way. Before too long we dotn remember the point of the concept in the first place. another swig...

Every now and then we glimpse the ideas that created that concept. We remember the reality. greater minds that held on give us a glimpse. Stop being afraid. Don't let go of the shreds that remain. Be it love or any of the myriad concepts that carry part of a greater truth. There are truths, perhaps even realities that last for more than a moment, hidden within those concepts. Perhaps