Summer fades into color and wind...

 Summer fades into color and wind.

I consider why I am here, why I might stay for the winter.

I have no good reason, other than it's where I'm already at, and that's ok.

I feel like so much of 'who I am' or 'who I was' has crumbled away in the past decade.

I did not seriously reflect, I could not-- I had not gotten the life experience yet:

to contemplate what I say in my teenage years,

That, "These years may be the best of my life."

In some ways, they were, but only because I was a blank slate in many ways.

I have been thinking lately, philosophically, on what it might mean to be a ronin,

a 'wave man.' A person without much purpose, or at least,

existing outside the usual hierarchies and structures of society.

Perhaps not 'outside,' I don't think there is an outside,

a better phrase would be 'on the edges of society.'

Similar in feeling to a person sitting on the edge of a cliff:

A wonderful view, a nice breeze, but no certainty in the ground underneath oneself.

The biggest danger is the other people close to the cliff-- they might push or shove, and without

meaning to, I or they might fall off and be hurt.

Standing at the edge of the rest of my life,

joyous at heart, but also alone, with some amount of melancholy,

can I let go? Sit and be ok, with not amounting to much?

I love to lay in the sun and watch the clouds,

to rest by cool river waters,

to watch the ravens fly over the canyon,

yet being alone feels so painful.

But alone is not forever-- and pain is not endless.

Joyous in this retreat, yet still feeling melancholy,

can I train to endure and overcome my own suffering?

Love and hate do still matter,

even though I'm here alone--

because it's what is in the heart that matters.

We carry antidotes and poisons in our every day minds-- I do whatever I do to myself.

But I can still sit quietly and alone,

and watch the fire burn low,

as I listen to the sound of the rain,

late in this autumn evening.

 

 If I cannot 'self-start', or find my own motivation, I will forever be tossed about on the worldly winds. Going in your own direction is the benefit of discipline and discipline simply means choosing the same over and over even if it hurts sometimes. This requires the ability to rationalize-- a double edged sword.

Throw out the jeans and re-examine life

 Pressing questions on my mind?  Must I answer them?  I think I can put down a lot of what was worrying me a few days ago. I don't have to have all the answers.

Survive, fulfill basic social obligation/mutual aid imperatives, then pursue preferences and avoid disliked phenomena. Horribly abstract, but there it is. Even some of that could be argued as not foundational.

Currently reading REBT book. Trying to get my head around things...

Ouch. Small burns I didn't notice.

 Feeling emotionally more stable today. No answers to meaning of life, but less worry about it. Also my fingertips hurt-- it looks like I somehow managed to burn them without noticing earlier in my illness, and my pain sensitivity has finally returned to normal and I've noticed. Teacup or instant noodle cups were the culprit, judging by what parts of my fingers are affected. I can still type okay, but any sort of twisting or pinching motion hurts, as does  holding/using my phone.

My mouth also hurts and probably is/was burned, but it is hard to distinguish that from general throat soreness.

Life is too ugly to fit these jeans

 Just these past few days I was so sick that I thought I might die. I got all prepared for that, and life threw me a curve ball and I'm all better now. Every day I've gone to sleep since sunday I've woken up feeling slightly different but better and more energetic overall. I realize this sounds morbid, but it would perhaps have been so much easier to die than to have to come to grips with continuing to live. I am perhaps as I write this experiencing some kind of post illness psychological shock.

To be clear: I'm glad I lived, and I intend to keep it that way. I'm just feeling a bit lost on the particulars at the moment. I feel like I've lost track of why. So why all the exercise? Why bother keeping on at anything? I was spared-- but there was no destined purpose at the end of my literal fever. So what's the point?

Perhaps the problem is that I'm looking for answers-- trying to fit this all into some sort of concrete story of 'my life.' But life is just too ugly to fit a straight and narrow, or to compress down into paper and ink.

Anyway. I'm still on the mend. A few days yet, if things keep looking up for me... :S

'Highly Active' Versus the 'Average'... I can do better.

 I am tired of being that muscular warrior in the game and being nothing much in real life. I am consistently frustrated by the sedentariness of both myself and those around me. It's encouraged by the culture we live in, the structure of our lives. I will flip that damn table-- because I will be strong. Fast. Agile. Enduring. And calm.

Apparently 12k steps a day qualifies me as 'highly active' compared to the average. I'm already accidentally hitting 10k as of the past few days, and I want to go so much further. I will leave 'averages' in the dust. I'll leave sedentary life in the dust, dipping in only to make the 'fuck you money.'

I want to scream and jump and shout and play my days away. You know in the past I have literally juggled or played catch all day, and been perfectly content? That hasn't changed. I just forgot... for a while.

But I'm awake now, and it's time to run.

The Journal Update That Got Really Big... o.o

 My daily barefoot walking/steps target is 3.1 miles for this week and so far I'm hitting it. Last week it was my left leg that hurt, now it's my right leg-- an old familiar pain which when I was younger I didn't know how to stretch away or manage. It's why I quit going barefoot originally-- somewhat nervous as to whether trying to work past it will reveal some inherent flaw in my muscle or bone structure that might prevent me from hitting my long term goal of 10 miles or more a day.

The sheepskin I ordered arrived before the leatheworking tools. So now I am literally laying on top of it, waiting until I can begin really working on it. The good news is it's quite warm and adds some more padding to my floor-bed. Have I mentioned yet that I dislike the regular american type of bed? Takes up tons of space in a room, is bad(in my experience) for the spine and joints, and is hell to move from one room to another. There is a large bed in my current room, a bed which I don't use. If I could be rid of it, I would have more than double my current 'living' space. Unfortunately, it's not my bed to throw away or move.

I have recently become fascinated by Sashiko stitching and Boro. It never occurred to me to stitch across a given patch to further anchor it to the underlying piece. I'll be keeping the technique in mind, though at this point I'm nowhere near wearing a hole through any of my clothes. Unlike five years ago-- I have so many! I am not living in just one pair of jeans and a couple shirts.

I am finding with walking even just the one more mile than before I started my program of intentionally increasing distance there are some changes: 

I eat more, about the expected amount of 100-200 calories, but this is also partly due to the weather getting colder. 

My sleep is better, longer duration, less difficulty falling asleep, less anxiety around 'enough' sleep. 

Because my only real goals each day are to do a set amount of my paid work, and a set amount of walking-- I feel free and light in regard to my time. Only on days where social demands soak up time do I fail to get 'enough' done, though there are benefits there too: a bit of rest, and whatever benefit comes from social time/chores/etc.

I am less stressed and more robust to my own depressive tendencies. I still have sad thoughts. I still feel anger. But I recover much faster than I ever have before. Even so, that doesn't excite me-- it just solidifies for me that the path I am on, that of intentional physical training, even in something well, pedestrian, like walking long distances, is what I'm suited for.

Currently, I am writing less and reading much more. Having access to the local library's digital catalog via my phone has been a gamechanger, and has consumed and overwritten most all the previous time I would have spent on video games, TV and social media. (Though I did recently commit to rewatching Golden Kamuy. Because it's just that damn good. This coming from someone who answers most questions about TV with "I don't watch TV." Which is true: I rarely find anything worth going onto my 'rewatch' list.)

I recognize that most of the time I prefer silence or small conversations. Certain people talk a lot-- and it's clear from how they do it that they're not pausing to see if I'm still with them. They don't notice my lack of engagement, the lack of responses, the focusing of my attention elsewhere. Talking is not listening, and I often notice in those situations that it occurs to me that I should consider asking the other party to slow down or shut up. I have not yet done this: it is less of a hassle to weather the storm and then move on with my day, so far anyway.

I am sitting on a few things that I am on the fence about, considering saying goodbye to. A pile of old buddhism books, of which I have digital copies, and also my magic card collection, which I have barely played with over the past few years. And 99% of it isn't valuable enough for resale. And yet my friends still talk about playing sometime... and I don't have the time now. But it's at least another way to hang out with them... I could sort the collection and cut it down... but that also will take time and energy. In short, I'm just not to that point yet.

Sometimes the polite thing is to say what you don't mean.

September 2022 Walking Log (2022/8)

The 28th. Started this log...

Primary Footware: wooden sandals(japanese style geta). Distance 3.15 total.

The 29th. Wooden Sandals. 1.99 miles.

The 30th. Wooden Sandals. 1.03 miles.

The 31st. Barefoot. 2.19 miles.

social/emotional voidness and the empty platitudes of things

 Going through old things, sorting what to keep and what to say goodbye to. It occurs to me, with these things-- one of the most emotionally painful things that has happened to me is being given things. People have bought solutions to problems I've brought up before-- and in some cases the problem is long gone but the 'solution' hangs around gathering dust.

What is so wrong about people trying to help in this way? Nothing-- it's good, I think. But I realize that in my own narrative, in telling others about certain things-- it's not their purchasing power that I want. I didn't want them to buy me a solution, necessarily. What I wanted was to get them into my life, have them be a part of things with me by sharing both pain and triumph.

In a way, I just wanted someone to listen and socialize with. But the end result is that instead of a person, a solidified social bond-- instead I have all this stuff. And stuff cannot fill that emotional void or provide that sort of comfort I sought. I appreciate the person, I appreciate their gesture of kindness and goodwill-- but the thing... the things just remind me that I am alone. The person(s) bought me things and now the things remain, but the person is gone.

And that's just fucking sad. People over things. Experiences over 'getting stuff.'

I don't regret not having the shiniest toys, a higher income, fancier things, etc. What hurts is that some of my friends did get those things-- it can feel as though I were left behind. I don't have the same things as them anymore, so we can't be together in an activity: our activities together were based on shared things, shared interests. Oh how easily it all crumbles.

So much of my life I know now was not as solid as it seemed. There is indeed some loneliness, bitterness, regret and anger floating around in me around these issues.

It has been great fun, being gifted this fancy nintendo console and getting to play with some people again. But I can't scrub out the thoughts which I've clarified above. It can't last unless we all commit to running on the treadmill together. Companionship is, in a way, tied directly to suffering and stress.

Seeing the danger in a cohort, a company,

wander alone like a rhinocerous.

Though I still yearn for the warmth of friendship.

Toys and games and things are not the point.

Happiness is nothing if not shared.

I think-- with some of my old things when I handle them, there is anger. And this anger, I feel, is rooted in the giant lie of the world: that things make us happy. I can remember the happiness of the past in a given thing, but when I look at it now it does nothing for me. Maybe my wires are just crossed, but if something no longer pleases me to own, then fuck that thing. I am far more ruthless about things in this way than I ever was before, because I am more painfully aware of what it costs to hold on to things.