For the longest time I've been trying to look inside myself. To see what's there. But most of the time I don't even have the slightest clue what I'm doing. What does it mean to look inside yourself? What do you do? A lot of times I'll sit on the floor of my room and just say to myself: " I'm looking inside now". But I'm not aware of any real looking inside. I even picture some mysterious content inside my body that I'm trying to see with some figurative mental x-ray. So far, no results. What is inside that you are supposed to see? Is it your thoughts? Not according to this anyway. I'd love to understand Zen, but I don't. And you know what? You may as well not even read the fucking shit. I mean all these Zen masters talk about is how words and concepts lead you astray, so instead of reading about whatever vibe they were plugged into, you end up reading some third-hand account of some teacher-student interaction that only would have made sense in the exact context of that moment which was probably 1500 years ago. On the other hand, I can't deny that there are a lot of interesting zen stories too.
Sometimes I don't think I have any real point of view on anything.
I've also noticed that my thought patterns are a result of the context I expose them to most. Not so weird. But when I am aware of it, it seems crazy. For example, at one point, when I was thinking about this blog all the time, every interaction with everything had to go through the filter: Could This Conversation/Thought/Experience Work As A Blog Entry? I didn't like that.
And now, at work. All I watch are celebrities being interviewed. The result is that my entire thought process has evolved into a kind of superficial and egoistic question and answer session with myself.
I can see thoughts I have manifesting in reality. But nothing that provides me with any meaning I can understand. Repeating numbers. Very small synchronous interactions between my thoughts and the world at large. I can't tell you how many times the numbers 1 and 4 appear. And as a result, I've become hyper aware of these numbers, so that part of me is seeing them, but part of me is madly searching for them too, trying to make a connection. Is it a date? We just had a weekend where 4/11 was the Friday and 4/14 was the Monday. I thought some crazy-ass shit was gonna go down, but it didn't. I'm at a point where I know that these numerical experiences go beyond coincidence, but I'm starting to believe that there may be no meaning in them whatsoever. Am I missing something? I got really into Sankey's entry about flow. He talks about recognizing patterns in order to stay with the flow rather than against it. But what does it mean to recognize patterns? For example, 1 and 4. That's a pattern. There, I recognized it. Now what? Am I supposed to follow these numbers in whatever manifestation they appear? (Should I have got on streetcar 4144 the other day?) Or am I supposed to ignore them because they are patterns of mind, and mind cannot be truth.
I just found something about mind vs. no-mind. I wonder if it will help. I can't understand how keeping a koan in your mind for 24 hours at a time could produce any result save insanity. But I guess it's worth a try.
It's hard when the line between thought and the material world breaks down. I feel adrift, with no meaning to anchor me, and yet my thoughts thunder along inside my head. "What the fuck is going on?!!"
Will anything ever make sense again?
Posted by King at Abril 22, 2003 06:18 PMJeeze, cartesian dualism, orientalism, psychological ramifications of late-stage capitalism, negation and the self... King you've got most of the heavy-hitting debates of continental philosphy from the last 50 years DOING BATTLE inside your FUCKING HEAD!!!
Take it easy guy. Maybe you should shave your head like Ken Wilbur and get a whole lot of ketamine and stop sleeping and JUST FIGURE SHIT OUT. Maybe with weird and elaborate charts on graph paper or something. Actually, you know what? That's probably not such a good idea. But really you should take it easy. Maybe try golf? You know Deepak Chopra just wrote a book about golf. That makes it too legit to quit.
The more I think about this, the more I think you're on the verge of a breakthrough, King. Stick with the Zen, baby - ride it on through!
Posted by: D on Abril 25, 2003 01:27 PM .Dog, I don't know how seriously you've thought the Ken Wilber angle through but I'm changing my mind; I think it's a good idea if you avoid the ketamine and not sleeping part. I think you could pull it off no problem. I saw a novel by Ken Wilber today. It was called "Boomeritis". How shitty is that? I think it was before he started swinging from Krishnamurti's nutsack because in the author photo he still had long hair and his bio talked about what an MIT computer hotshot he was. How badly do you want to read a novel by Ken Wilber? I know, I know, soooooooo badly. It might take your mind off things, even though I suppose that's not the point, the point is to work stuff out or whatever but maybe the Ken Wilber novel could be like a casual friday for your crisis of consciousness. I hope you're all right guy.
Posted by: TheDiscourse on Mayo 4, 2003 12:39 AM .Don't think too hard man, you'll fuck your brain. Trust me, looking for too much meaning in oneself will often lead to major bouts of depression and alchoholism. I'm not trying too hard to figure out the number 117. I have "faith" that when the time is right it's meaning will present itself, as it does little by little each day.
Posted by: Apriori Reasoning on Mayo 5, 2003 06:57 PM .How does it reveal meaning little by little Apriori? And Discourse, I think at this point it's worth showing people a picture of Ken Wilber. God he's arrogant looking.
For those with time to waste and pretentious gibberish to ingest, read the article he wrote about Iraq.
Posted by: king on Mayo 6, 2003 02:54 PM .Jesus fuck, that Wilber 'essay' is horrid. And what's with starting the article with "Hello friends"? I'm not your friend, nor will I ever be, you smug slapheaded fuck. It's the worst kind of pseudo-scientific horseshit. It's not even worth the effort of going through line by line, pointing out logical inconsistencies and bizarre assumptions; this sort of thing makes my brain shut down & renders me incapable of saying anything more intelligent than "fuck you". As such, I shall have to type the rest of this post WITH MY ASS:
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