deep and dark

june 29th. 2011.
i am up early, sipping freshly brewed french roast starbucks, so deep and dark in its ways. naughty. the java is bathing in a hot pool of caffeinated bliss alongside a slightly ridiculous amount of cream and raw sugar, both carefree and totally nude.
the nevada sun is pouring through the bay windows here, designing geometric shadows on the round glass table i am sitting at. looks like its gonna be another triple digit day outside, not a cloud or breeze to be found.
in the background, rex chomps emphatically on his breakfast. And further down the hall, reggae music beats its way through thin air to find its way to my vulnerable eardrums.
even my coffee cup has a reggae theme.
and one more cup, please and thankyou coffee gods.

last night, during dinner, forest and i revved up vintage ideas and philosphies, including the suffering in this world, so deep and dark in its ways. and..in our quest for world peace (ahem), we nodded at the notion that it really is all about perspective. yea, thats a period there. i suppose circumtance weasles its way into unhappiness as well. and maybe even genetic makeup. but the majority of tortured souls have a choice. and what is this life for if not to be happy? how could we NOT desperately seek a state of well-being, as if our lives depended upon it? which they do.

and so it goes. heres to perspective.

elephant and you

so, there is this analogy that attempts to explain the relationship between the two sides in everyone. one side is logical, sensible, and stays on the straight and narrow...attempting to hit 'the mark'. and the other side, careless and whimsical, whose impulses are so strong and beat so hard that the mind and body are consumed and taken over, given free reign to the innate impulses that resonate and push you in a direction, missing 'the mark' by a long shot.
the analogy is this:
imagine that your two sides could take form. your careless side is an elephant and your logical side is a small version of you...riding the elephant. you have reigns and a harness on the elephant and you sensibly guide this big part of you in the right direction, down the path and to a particular destination. the elephant listens and follows your lead. however, if the elephant decides that it wants to veer off of the path that has been laid before it...no amount of redirecting will stop it. it is too large and powerful and hang on because, you are going for a ride.
is there truth to this? yes, i think so. but with discipline and practice, the elephant will begin to adhere to the principles of sensibility far more frequently.
and in doing so, the persons' psyche will be more disciplined to stay on course than be distracted with that resounding impulse to veer astray. also, not all elephants are the same, in that some elephants are more riddled with curiousity and mischeviousness than others...causing this tendency to be stronger in some while milder in others. but its there in everyone, all the same.

naked

i have been in the desert now for a month and a half. ish. its beginning to get hot. the heated serpent, dressed in tans and greens, likes to flick its forked tounge at me...so close to touching me i can feel its hot breath down my neck like the shift of an air current, burning a little hotter than the second before. the desert is a different kind of place for me. it has stripped me of all of my belongings and habits and false bottomed securities. naked i am. alone. with forest, yes. but far away from anything familiar. i have no crutches anymore. nothing to lean on when i feel weak. and this may be a good thing. forces me to stand up a little straighter and summon the strength that i have known was there all along. the courage to face my fears..that seem to lie...in wait...for a weakness in the armor that i wear. these fears have snuck in, manifested, and made a home inside of me. they lie dormant for most of the time. but, here, in the desert, my fears and i...well we have more confrontations. one just as horrible as the next. and i know why. its because i used to have mechanisms to push them at bay. to temporarily relieve myself of the angst of fear. to shut it out and push it down. i have no mechanisms here. when the shutters open, and i feel weak, the darkness inside of me rushes through me like a Montana thunderstorm on a summer day.
and the maddening part...of it all, is that these debilatating fears are not even real. they are but a figment of my tainted imagination.