Thoughts
I find myself saying “not bad, not bad” a lot during ear training.
The half empty part of me wants to say: not good, not good.
but I’m ride or die with the half-full, so I’ll keep with: not bad, not bad.
A few months ago I used a random art generating website to give me something to zone out/meditate to when I needed a quick break from tasks. While I enjoyed it, I didn’t enjoy having my attention drawn back to the computer where so many distractions live. I recently stumbled upon an old Frida Kahlo book and realized it would be perfect for those “I need a reset!” moments and tore out some prints. Idk what it is, but her art is more striking than I ever remember.
Author’s note: Frida also does a great job of camouflaging that hideous Xbox lmao.
I’ve been struggling a bit lately,
but it’s really something fantastic
when you begin to figure out
what’s worth struggling for.
I’ve been randomly writing.
This random one was influenced first) by the movie Sorry, Baby.
There’s a scene where the main character asks to see her love interest’s soft lil weener.
He gets weird about it, and I felt weird about it realizing my own estranged relationship with my non-erect weener vs the demanding expectations of señor boner.
Second) was a line in a poem that was highlighting hypotactic language, “Laying himself gently down by me, he invested me behind, and giving me to feel the warmth of his body, as he applied his thighs and belly close to me, and the endeavors of that machine, whose touch has something so exquisitely singular in it, made its way good into me.” The poem got me thinking on the ‘singular’ nature of a penis and whether I agreed or not
My thoughts in response:
A Flaccid Cunt
A vagina is brutalized by weaponizing it: cunt.
The word cunt puts sharp teeth in a vagina,
so that it can bite a dick off.
A penis is brutalized by disarming it: flaccid.
The word flaccid takes the sharp tip off a hard dick
and rounds it, child-proofs the vagina from it.
But really, as a modern, masculine man, your dick can exist in both spaces.
Do not live in fear of a soft, gentle penis at peace with the world
as it daintily flops from one thigh before hugging the other.
Our dicks are soft but not sexless, it’s a sexuality that has been
stolen from us: sexually honest. But honesty is disarming to those men
scared most of all by being soft, and the softness
that emanates divine between their thighs.
A: What’s your plan for the day?
B: Fail, fail again, and keep failing.
A: That sounds depressing.
B: Depressing is never experiencing failure.
As I now understand it, it’s in large part due to coming from a dysfunctional background that
I’m finding myself starting to do and starting to pick up so many new hobbies and interests.
And I so often follow each of these with the tag: “started L A T E R I N L I F E “.
What is later? What was earlier? Was there a right time? A wrong time?
Up until my 30s, I could count on 1 hand the number of minutes I spent on a musical instrument.
Up until my 30s, I could count on 1 hand the number of minutes I spent seeking spiritual connection with the world.
Up until my 30s, I could count on 1 hand the number of minutes I spent genuinely tearing myself open in order to grow.
Up until my 30s, I could count on 1 hand the number of days I had felt meaning in the world and in myself.
If this is LATER, then what was EARLIER!?
If this is getting older, then why do I only feel younger?
What is what is what is what is any of this?
Happy to be alive
Happy to be here
Will be happy to be dead
Because I’m going to bed
Without feeling so much
of that existential dread.
Yesterday was a pretty difficult day for me to stay in the zone,
and while I asked myself some good questions to see if I was in the mood to practice,
I woke up with the realization today that maybe I’ve been asking the wrong questions in those moments.
Typically, I’ll ask myself something along the lines of,
“If you don’t want to practice now, what do you want to do?”
And very often the response I have is “Nothing”,
so I just keep on practicing because I can’t think of anything more worthwhile to do.
However, I think that response hasn’t been translating properly,
in part because I was asking the wrong question.
Instead, I need to start asking, “Would you prefer to do nothing right now?”
Perhaps I’m not looking to switch tasks, I’m looking to drop tasks and sit in nothing.
The key word is nothing, and I think that’s where my mind and body want to spend
more deliberate time in order to cool down and reset,
instead of pondering adjacent things to check off
from my daily agenda.
Here’s to nothing!
I’ve been writing myself lil notes
That I leave for my future self
And I say stuff like “u rock, bro”
“you’re doing such an awesome job!”
Sometimes I even get deep in the corn
and write something like, “I love u so mhch”
Smh Think I’m falling in love with mysefl
This song just came on,
and it is tearing my fucking soul apart.
Can I ask for more than that?
I mean, I am so thankful to be alive
and feeling all of these things.
I’ve never been more alive
than I am right now, in between this
sonic experience and how it affects my soul.
Think I’m ready!
Week(ish) later edit:
Well yes, but just a little early with the energy to readiness formulation!
See you tomorrow, see you in space and time!
Let’s gooo!
I’m back here
Where have I been?
Around.
“Recalibrating” is what I’ve been telling myself and others.
It’s been messy, difficult and exhausting,
so I think that can only mean it’s been worthwhile.
My plan is to resume my music on Monday.
Why?
Gosh, I don’t really have that answered yet do I.
Okay, I gotta get back to recalibrating a bit more.
I’ve just finished the book “Courage to be Disliked”.
The book has knocked me on my ass in the best way, and I sincerely appreciate the teachings of Adlerian
psychology that I hope to adapt to my own life. One of the closing messages in the book was viewing the individual
moments and interests in our lives as a dance. We can enjoy each moment as a dance, and some dances we will perform
only once or twice before moving onto new things that life introduces to us. Other dances we will perform for the
rest of our lives, and perhaps we will become so lost in those dances that we will find ourselves in new careers.
I have those types of thoughts related to my project with music, but I don’t want to think about possible future careers.
It’s my duty, that is the duty of happiness, to shine a light on the here and now.
My duty is to dance and enjoy this dance that I’m doing now, and as long as I keep dancing,
the unknowable future will be one that I enjoy.
Anyways, I am not in a mood to dance the dance of music today, and I wasn’t for most of yesterday.
I am in the mood to dance the dance of books, reading and the fantastic world of the printed page.
I danced the literary dance a lot as a kid, but reading was kidnapped from my life as a form of enjoyment
somewhere between disassociating with video games and the utilitarian approach to books i adopted in college.
But today I am back to books as a dance.
And while I can’t pinpoint each moment that contributed to this rediscovery,
I feel a big debt of gratitude to the Oshkosh Public Library’s “Not Your Classic Bookclub” bookclub,
and everyone who shared with me 1) what they were reading, but much more importantly
2) the profound meaning and joy they inherited from reading.
Thank you OPL!
I haven’t been able to keep on practicing songs like I was for much of October,
but it’s only really because I’d been struck with a desire to start living more authentically,
and living authentically it turns out, takes up a shit tonne of your time!
My new favoriate activity has to have been the Oshkosh Public Library book club,
and I left the 1st meeting with two books of poetry, a book on tape, and many books ready to be checked out.
I forgot how enjoyable reading for pleasure can be, and am thankeful to see myself stepping away
from a utility focused approach.
The schedule shakeup seems to be settling, and I can better sort my time,
because I really do want to get back to learning actual songs, and develop a more musical vocabulary that
songs provide vs the more standard practice I do on weekdays.
Khanyways, I wanted to write that. SO I DID. The end.
I have really been trying to put one foot in front of the other and be intentional about working towards the ideal person I want to be, and I am so proud of what I have been doing for the past month or so!
I think one reason things have been feeling so good, is just realizing that working on yourself is the same type of practice that goes into playing an instrument.
It takes TIME, LOTS OF TIME. You make mistakes LOTS OF MISTAKES. Some days are awful. Some days are great. But you just gotta keep going, knowing that every ounce of effort you put in is going towards a beautifully rewarding final product.
And like learning an instrument, you can only compare yourself with the ideal version of yourself you want to be. Comparisons with other players, wishing that things could be different, wishing you could do something someone else could do, these are the bringers of practice doom… Fuck I could go on, so many (good) thoughts in my head that I’ve been really listening to, and which I hope to practice more and more and more.
I often feel like I don’t have the words to talk about things I’m interested in
Music
Film
Politics
The world
I’m just not sure I’m a word person, more of a feel it kinda guy.
I hunger for virtue. I hunger for a life well lived.
Fulfillment makes me satisfied, full.
Not living for that makes my neglected emotions hungry
for disassociation from the disappointment and regret
via food, drugs, sex, doomscrolling, and so on.
Shame incoming!
Note:
It’s amazing how well you can know yourself when you’re willing to look at yourself.
It’s often impossible to appreciate the moments that shape and influence your direction in life.
For myself, I can pinpoint one:
A Perfect Circle’s performance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in 2004, when I was just starting high school.
What I can pinpoint:
Maynard James Keenan’s long hair, and whatever exactly he’s doing with it, and the ensuing desire to grow out my own hair for the first time. I had long hair for the rest of high school, but it would be nearly another 20 years until I grew it out again. I still haven’t fully committed to whatever the style is in the photo, but maybe some day! Maybe this performance will be my halloween costume next year.
If you can look look past the tiny wrist, you’ll see a very large Apple watch. That’s not the important part, but if you see that, your eye is in the right spot.
The important part is the mantra. Well, ackshually, they are lyrics from a Her’s song that I find to be the perfect mantra for living life.
I’ve recently been introduced to daily mantras, and I hope to come up with some good ones on my own for various situations to help guide me through the day. Affirmations are similar, and I get some great ones by using the How We Feel app.
