My Sense of Humor is Broken

I woke up earlier this week in an odd mood.  Maybe I'd dreamed something that bothered me, or maybe it wasn't a dream that was bothering me, but some other subconscious inclusion that had festered long enough in the gray matter and had forced itself to the surface.  I couldn't remember dreaming and whatever the thought was, given the date of October 16th, it was between new and nine years old.  I had a sense of impending doom, existential angst, fear of failure, fear of success. And nine years is a lot of thoughts.

I ate two wiener wurstchen and finished my coffee.

I went for a walk.

It didn't go away.

I took a nap, calling upon my ability to force vivid dreams on my way in to the inner world.  The dreams were fast and furious.  I woke an hour later and couldn't remember any of them.  I just knew they were good ones.

Off to the Cafe.  Coffee.  Reading.  People watching.  I opened a new page in the notebook.  I scribbled furiously.  I came up with a poem.  It wasn't very good.  I went for another walk.

It's three days later.  I'm okay, but my sense of humor is broken.  I laugh at my toilet every time I flush it.  Maybe it's symbolic.

Just Another Sunday Morning without the Benefits of a Healthy Breakfast

Kirmes (for those of you who don't know, it's a fair, a fest, kiddie rides, beer, bratwurst, and other delicacies) is on since Thursday night, which is when the rain started.  Today is the closing day and the weatherman promises skies that will alternate between clear and cloudy.  No chance of rain.  We'll see about that.

I'm not the greatest fan of Kirmes.  I don't drink beer that has alcohol (more than 0%, which means trace), rarely eat the brats (although I'm fond or Riesen Krakauer, or giant Polish bologna) and I don't ride the kiddie rides.  There've been enough photos of our fair city made from the top of the ferris wheel.  What I am fond of, is watching people enjoying themselves, which means I'll make a round or two to smell the smells and hear the sounds and watch the kids trying to weasel another euro out of mom and dad.  Kirmes occupies the Alter Market, Linenbauerplatz, Rathausplatz, and a little bit of the Neuermarkt.  It doesn't extend to my neighborhood, the Gaensemarkt.  In order to compensate, the Gaensemarkt will be the home of the Herbstmarkt today, a collection of stalls selling produce, meat, potables, and other stuff to get you through the coming winter.  There will be some fotos to make and some stories to fashion.  Which is why no healthy breakfast.  I'll be eating out today, and I can assure you, whatever it is, it will contain a week's worth of fat.

I Like October

October is, to me, the fairest month.  It is a new year, a new love, a new life, each and every October.  I don't remember when it started, this October infatuation, maybe it's always been like this.  Something about the weather and the way the Sun goes down makes me happy.  I've started love affairs in October, written some of my best poetry, begun my most interesting wood carvings, and taken some of my best walks.

October smells of wool and flannel and burning leaves.  In my youth, it was spent in hunting grouse and rabbit, and flipping the best of my flies at the biggest trout.  And of course, a month into the school year, there was always love, if not of women, at least of new knowledge.  October makes me smile more than any month in winter, spring, or summer. It may just be the light, or the air.  It may just be the way a woman looks in a wool sweater, or the way a trout rises, or a grouse flies.  It may just be October.

The Shortsightedness of Technically Assisted Immortality

And now, for something completely off the wall.....

I am a wire-head. I've got tablets, phablets, and other silicon driven devices coming out my yin-yang.  Not what you'd expect from a guy who professes zen as the way to be, but an aspect of my development that I use both to see what the world is thinking and to suggest what it might like to think.  This is a suggestion day.

I do a lot of research in the area of artificial intelligence.  The latest developments suggest that the singularity is near and not so near.  You see, the singularity is something like god.  It's levels of complexity higher than the human understanding of it.  If you lived at the level of a point, you couldn't really understand a line, and a line can't understand a polyhedron and......  You probably get the picture.  A great many of the things I read deal with the extension of human life by technological supplements, the notions of artificial life, immortality, and even technological spirituality.  To me, these things are all possible, and, if you look closely (or distantly) enough, they've probably all been done already.  The big questions for me are all tied into the semantics of existence.  To be is no big deal.  A series of variables cluster, combine, evolve, and poof!!!! Let there be life.

Complicated stuff, and fun, but also reason for existential angst, agnosticism, and in extreme cases, madness. I opt for madness.  God and existence are poorly defined.  Madness is solid.  Concrete.  A madman is anyone who doesn't believe what you believe.

I don't believe anything.  There are things I know, through direct experience.  Things I feel, through direct and indirect contact with the universe.  Things I do, based on the whimsical combination of unconstrained variables in my environment as they interact with the constrained variables of my current moment.  This NOW says:  suggest.

I suggest you find a quiet place to sit and sit there, quietly.  You'll find it useful.  Don't worry about rogue planets, the North Koreans, the price of sugar, or genital warts.  Just sit.  You'll find it useful.  Being is good, being aware of being is better.  But don't be too aware or you'll start rambling like I do.......

peace and love
The Madman of Stone Street in the City of Herford in Eastwestfalia on a Friday morning in late September, a day which will probably come again......

Marktkauf: the Garden of Earthly Delights

Supermarket marketing is an interesting phenomena.  Years ago, a supermarket was a grocery store that had a butcher shop and maybe a bakery attached.  You could get fresh fish, fruit, and vegetables and all of the canned goods, cake mixes and whatever else.....

Today, I am forced to hike a kilometer through clothing, electrical appliances, books, office supplies, shoes, and in some cases, a liquor store before I get to the food.  It used to annoy me, but I've changed my mind.  It's something to do when the grocery list is fast in my head and I've got no plans.  Wander around the store, look at what they've got to offer, and sometimes, in a rare fit of extravagance, but some of it.  Not the liquor, of course, I am, after all a teetotaler.  But tee shirts for 10€ or socks for 3, those are deals, and I love deals.

Christmas is a comin' and the geese are getting fat, so I've got to fill my shelves in case of guests (a phenomenon not experienced since 27 December, 2009 (with the exception of the chimney sweep who sees my gas furnace is 'in ordnung' every January)).

It's not that I don't like company, it's just that I get enough of it in the cafes and beer gardens and bistros I haunt, not to mention the supermarket.  Here on Steinstrasse, solitude is the order of the day.  Solitude, and cooking, and eating.  Occasionally, I write something silly or carve a figure from basswood (lindenholz) or play an ancient folk song (something out of the '60s) on one of the guitars.  In between, I meditate (on my navel, and yours) and walk around.

Thank you for your attention.  I am very happy you dropped by.

Happy Birthday Antie!

Today is my sister Mary Ann's Birthday.  Her body's no longer here to celebrate, but there's plenty of her left.  She was a sweet and loving woman, especially when it came to her nieces and nephews. She never married, and never had children of her own, so the kids were all special to her.  As was I.  She used to tell me I was her hero, because I'd finished University and gone on to management in big companies.  I wish she could have lasted long enough to enjoy retirement, but two years after packing it in, she died.  That may have been the reason that I, between jobs at sixty, decided to take advantage of life and start to live it.  

I wish she was around to take walks along the river bank, through the fields and woods, or just to sit under the umbrellas and drink a coffee with me, as she did today, in my mind.

Stone Street Zendo Mumbles

I was thinking this morning about how I could strengthen my practice and crawl closer towards enlightenment, and so I looked out on the internet to find the proper robes and cushions, custom made, pretty expensive, and ritualistic, Soto Style, Rinzai Style, layman, monk, polyester.  STOP

Gautama sat around in his everyday clothes, loose and comfortable.  No special apron.  No special stuff.

I'm pretty sure Jesus did the same, and Ghandi, and all of the other holy guys who came before them.  It is the religious complex that dictates such and such material in this or that color, with this chant or that and the reading of this text or that one.  The real practitioners get comfortable and sit.  What they experience internally is the reality of their practice, not the special incense or bells, the experience.  Of course, you can make yourself more susceptible to altered states of consciousness with smells and sounds, but the real challenge is being all alone inside of yourself in silence.

So, I'm gonna just sit, quietly.  And when I'm finished, I'm gonna go for a walk, like a snail, and find my next meal or my next smile.

Peace and Love from Steinstrasse/Stone Street, home of the Schneckenbuddha.....