"Lay aside your history, your research into the past, and try to get in step with our rhythm. In a society such as ours, industrialized to the extreme, dominated by science, there is no longer room for your sensitivity. You have to be tough to be able to live. It is no longer enough to play ball with the world; you have to master it with integrals and atoms. Of course, they will tell me, from time to time when we are tired of all that concrete, we will turn to you as our children, our naive, ingenuous, and spontaneous children. We will turn to you as the childhood of the world. You are so authentic in your life, so playful. Let us forget for a few moments our formal, polite civilization and bend down over those heads, those adorable expressive faces. In a sense, you reconcile us with ourselves."

A white man speaks to Franz Fanon, from "Black Skin, White Masks." (pp. 111)

Where I'm coming from and where I'm going

We were recently asked to think about where we came from, where we are, and we want to go.

Such a question is hard, it's one's existence, in words. Here's the quite pathetic try I gave it.

Where I've Come From

I've been a child, caught in imagining reality the way I wanted it to be. I've been obsessed with proving myself on the soccer field, on the basketball court. I've found joy in playfulness, lightheartedness, and fantasy. I've played video games about forests, fairies, imaginary worlds, horses and magic. Loved Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z. I've caught a boat from home to school everyday. Lived in a hotel that's built upon a mountain on a lake surrounded by three volcanoes and thirteen Mayan towns. I've been angry at my parents for fighting. I've fought my brother a lot. I've focused on girls, wondered what to do do make them like me, getting nervous in front of them, putting up fronts for them. I've focused on being wanted by friends and teachers.

Where I'm Going

I want to be in control of my state of mind. I want to have a network of people I've met throughout my time who I respect and who respect me back. They will form an integral part of the projects (which we design together) that will take up my time and energy. What motivates my work is empathy, curiosity towards the question of what it means to be human, and the unfolding discovery of the variables that form the way communities of people live, how they think and what gives their life meaning.

Apart from what I do and think, I want to get joy from relating with a beautiful woman I call my partner. If I have kids with her, I want to be in love with them, admiring their every independent creation and action and guiding them with the ideas and world view I've gathered in my years. I want to have a home in a place that's surrounded by nature, where I have the comforts, toys and tools that go along with what I spend my time on. A large collection of books, music, photographs, pieces of art that I've acquired and kept meaning throughout phases of my life.

"It's such a shame today. Nobody just does. Sometimes you just gotta get up and do things."

Spring semester 2010

Back in school for the spring semester. It never gets any less strage to hop on a plane and fly passed my volcano backbone and everything I call Guatemala and land in some NY airport to catch the tunnels to home dorm. But I'm here, the routine is piling on, I know where and more or less which classes to go to, and I'm really looking forward to this semester. Some latin american economic history, some contemporary civilization, some cultures of accusation, a bit of beginners fiction, ethnobotany and a photo seminar. Boy I've been uninspired to write down my thoughts. I've lost (hopefully temporarily) the ability to put thought I live in the everyday down on paper and feel happy about it. Hopefully this writing class will help.
So for now I take up my time with readings once more, looking for summer research funding and internships, hanging out with Zehra, and occasionally going to a talk, club meeting or city event.

So the last few days have been good. Some firsts to report. I've felt stable, in control of how I feel. It seems as if I've finally become familiar with how my body reacts to things like sleep deprivation, hunger, thirst, caffeine, sex, stress. So this learning makes it so that everything is under control, all is good at most times, and that leads to a good ability to feel well. All of this seems good. It seems good, and then goes to heaven suddenly during what we call a "phase." Maybe what I'm noticing is that tendency becoming a bit more infrequent.

I got my bread machine. I have a crock pot, too. It's good to have good food that's easy to make.

Karate is going well. Good exercise, I can feel my pecks a little stronger already and I know I'll be into karate for a while.

Photo is also good. I know I'll learn a lot from this class, too.

The weather's getting colder. Walking home from the library today I found a lot of trash on the street, i got free bagels and wondered why it wasnt ok for me to steal them when they throw them away every other night. It doesnt make sense, and on top of that, its infuriating. My bikes running well, went on two rides to the met and beyond with Jia this weekend.

I've suddenly become organized (or at least how I've felt recently). I have a 'blackberry' and a to do list system that works. I have been surprised at how well its been working. I am waiting on a job, hopefully won't have to get one. DJing at the radio this semester. Somethings going on with Jessica, my neighbor, dont know what yet. Im trying to decide whether I want stability or whether I've grown accustomed to the up for grabs.

I become really happy when I think about the near future and plans made or to be made in Guate. I want to make this happen. Whatever this is. It's such a potential its hard to grasp confidently. There's really nothing huge in the way. My will is there, and there seems to be nothing huge or unpredictable in the way. Oh my.

fire and water

fire and water
heat and cold
good and bad
life and death
wood and food
work and heat
work and fire
fire and work
heat and work
loss of selfhood
loss of sense of space, of where I left my backpack, of where the trail was, of who's my own feet were.
loss of sense of time, losing interest in time, it was 4:30 am and I had no reference points with which to guess.
living a poem that goes beyond the constraints of language, temporality, subjectivity, sociality. Simply noticing its universal sense coalesce and vanish for ever after.
knowing that an attempt to capture experience would be absolutely futile.
being in control of creation
scanning for signs to make sense of, anything that will slow the interminable scanning, anything that the mind will hold in with its threads and sew to the meaning of... everything.

a cohesion of mind amongst members of the group with ideas, moods and vibes
an unabated joy at the marvels of unbound synchrony of mind and creation.
four minds dancing with each other in and out of, above and below, behind and in front of, beside and inside of the same plane.
the timeline of one's life plainly visible, yet blank, in front of you.
voices and footsteps behind, only darkness
a presence of a fifth person
a giver, a purger, a Nordicman, Zen, a mother
the forward march of reason, bum!-bubum!!-bubum!!!-bubum!!!!
a song, that went like ooooooooooooh-oooooooh-ooooooh-oooooooooooooh-OOOOh-aa that was irresistible, overwhelmingly emotional, and nearly absolutely beautiful (its eppitome), came and went at the will of its own life.

full body pleasure comparable to a constant orgasm indistinguishable of, an intrinsic part of, a result of, the fuel for visions of the most objectively beautiful scenes and images, unbound by the limitations of physicality that constrain the reproducibility of art: art that surpasses the limitations of dimensionality, color, animation (alive or dead), art that achieves with absolute precision the collective conception of the beauty. Living, irreproducible art that cascades with sheer meaning. Art that would manage to sell any capitalist product or idea to every living human being that has existed on the planet.
an overwhelming hyper-awareness of what felt like the five senses bleeding together enveloping our cardboard shack of consciousness and imbruing us with death's blood: life at the opposite extreme of death.

Light everywhere its wanted
Space can be rippled by wanting it to be
awareness of the nerves running up and down the legs, arms and back, all tingling with life.
Caressing a friend's feet, and forgetting that they weren't my own.
A yes to everything, capable of positing everything immediately after its utterance.
A lingering song that materializes itself and floats through minds like animate steam and comes to life during the collective chant. A song that exists without sound.

The processes needed for the survival of a human organism, uncomplicated, directly traceable from the fruit in the mouth, to the energy fueling the mind that knows its time to stock the fire.
Stalking a fire for no one but the group. (I)All for (I)all.
Collecting wood in pitch black woods, frustrated at its absence, gratified by the materialization of a stick or log at the tips of (un)blind fingers, another one, another one. The realization that after all, we're in a forest, there's enough wood for a bonfire to keep us warm.
creating heat within by creating heat for us
Losing my folded legs to grant someone still sleep, not knowing when it's supposed to hurt, feeling them reappear in an intense pulsating cacaphony of pain and pleasure simultaneously as I get up.
As she falls asleep, realizing that she's gone, and asking, "where did she go?" as her body shut down.
Imagining her gone, knowing the impossibility of fathoming the goneness of a loved one.
When death happens, you know it's happening, like knowing when that car is about to hit your moving bike, and thinking, it's ok...
at times ceasing to differentiate between warmth and light, and wet and darkness.
Drying off while being rained on
Warming up while being cooled down.
Hearing voices in the vaporized rain drops that hit our fire.
overcoming the night in a perfect cycle of circular opposites - cold - warm, darkness - firelight, wet clothes - dry clothes, afraid - confident, lost - vivid, alone - in synchrony, meaninglessness - excess of meaning, pleasure - pain, weariness - energy, dirtyness, cleanliness, cold - warm, alone - together, awake - asleep.
Noticing a barge increase in size as it rode down the Hudson, seeing a new barge appear with each increment of size, glance after glance. Knowing that if the barge were to disappear to my company, it would've never existed to me, as the condescending footnote in my high school history book noted to happen to the original American people when the Spanish boats (dis)appeared on the horizon.
Feeling the relevance of ritual, chant, tradition, event to being human. Understanding why absolutely misunderstood rituals have lived necessarily unchanged in the spirituality of many American peoples. Understanding (wondering) what a forceful lack does to us.
Killing and animating God simultaneously