harold_maude's journal

I've been listening to Tom Waits for the last couple of days, and watched the "Kill Bill" movies as well.
Intersting combination. I've come to the conclusion that I would really love to be able to discribe things like Tom Waits, and have the focus of the woman who kills out of revenge in the movies. Take away the revenge part, and just have the focus part.

I thought about that for a while this morning and decited that I would like to be able to discribe things like Tom Waits but I wouldn't want to be a carbon copy of him.
That happens sometimes when a person comes across another person and their work and it's so inspiring that they begin to try to shape their lives to be just like that person.

It would be wonderful if I could traslate all the momentary flashes of perfection that go floating by, and make them real...take one teaspoon gunpowder and one heaping cup of vision and add water and you have instant thing.

Would be nice, but then I would miss all the cool clods of dirt that end up in my mouth as I go skidding across the highway of life trying to figure out what kind of job suits me.

I would miss all the moments of stress that hit that make me feel so out of control that I want to put some violent music on and beat the walls and anything else standing in my way.
And take all thoes other people who are no different than me and put them on a desert island for a few weeks so they wake up from the hypnoitc state of uniformity that every corporation is trying desperately to stuff every human into from the moment of conception.

I would miss the cliff hanger walks that I take on a regular basis everytime I find myself in no mans land of trying to figure this stuff out.
I would really miss the journey and discoverey that happens, and I really do like that part. The pain is something I could do with out, but then pain is part of life, in one way or another.

Sometimes I wish answers were as easy to come by as making coffee.
But being who I am, they never are. I have learned to look at things and depending on how they go, using them as a way to find out what I'm really suited for to make a living from.

Sometimes a job that doesn't last is just a bridge that you end up on so you can cross a swollen river and not drown.
That's what life feels like when you don't know if there is going to be a next job so you don't end up out on the streets.

So it's back to the drawing board, so to speak. And wandering around the molten bush of life, and all my quirks and weirdness, and off skew views and observations that make me who I am.
I know I hate corporations for how they exploit humans. I love small businesses that are struggling to survive.
And for all that it does and what it really is, money is something that has to enter into the mix, because for some odd reason living by bartering doesn't apeal to landlords and grocery stores and other places of business.

What I really would like is to find some crazy eccentric millionair who loves art and has money to burn and sell them all my art and then do, I don't know what, maybe make more art.
I love art. It's a passion in my blood that makes me go zing alot.
It flows out my eyes and hands, and makes me think about lots and lots of things that could be done with everything from brand new things to garbage.
It makes me want to give everyone cans of paint and let them loose on the whitehouse and tell them paint away and change it from the whitehouse to the house of many colors.
It makes me want to change the colors the millitary wears to kaki shorts and loud hawaiian touristy shirts.
It makes me want to take all the people who are in teaching jobs and give them a new view of life by giving them all the millions of pounds of things that are thrown away in this country and tell them make something new.

But, I don't know where that crazy eccentric millionaire lives, so I guess I'll have to figure out something else.
I just don't know what it is yet. And I wish I did.

Sometimes I wish there was someone I could go to and lay all this stuff out in front of and they would take me by the hand and pat it gently and tell me it's ok, and help me sort through it all, and not try and tell me well if you just do this or just do that and do it my way you'll suceed.
I met someone like that once upon a time. He was dying from cancer. I got to spend a month with this man, and it was one of the best months of my life.

I miss his wisdom. And his fire and his passion about life.
It sucks that I can't go see him now, and even if I could and he would yell at me for what ever because I'd missed some of what he was trying to tell me, that would be ok too.
Because alot of time I feel really alone in life. Even though I live with the coolest people in the world, and I can come here and write about all kinds of things. I still feel very alone.
Even when I pray, I still feel alone.
I used to have this wish. That I would be walking on a beach somewhere and this person would show up out of no where and walk along side me and we would talk, and it would all make sense.
All the reasons that I was created like I was, and all the reasons for the gifts that I've been given. Most all of them can never be translated into something that I could ever find a job with.
And why oh why it seems that the walk of my life means that no one in my life can stay for very long.
I used to pray for such an encounter. I think I got that prayer answered when I got to spend time with that man.

I would like that again now. I'm really in need of that again.
I know alot of people out there in this big wide world feel the exact same way. About different things sometimes, and they never talk about that. Just like they don't talk about death or sex or anything else that makes them seem out there and vunrable.
I think that's not so right. To keep all thoes things tied up inside. Thoes things are what opens the doors to dispair, and depression and sucide.

So I'm willing to talk about them. I'm willing to ask for what I need. I know I'm very strong inside. Most of the time. I have to be. There is no one waiting in the wings to catch me if I fall, and I don't expect there to be anyone there.
I know the people around me care for me, but none of them are able to help me in the way I need help now.

Yep, I miss that man, and wish with all my heart that God would send another person like him into my life and let them stay longer this time. I'm exausted so deep down inside where the well is, and I don't have the strength to go to the river and fill buckets.
Who knows maybe tomorrow I will. Anything is possible. But for today, I don't got it. And I haven't had it for a long time now. All my resources have been used up.

That's about it for today.

I got a phone call last night that one of my uncles died.
It was a strange thing. One more in several years of loosing relatives.
It's going on 10 years now that people who I'm related to have been dying.
It's strange because it's gotten to the point where my new years hope is that this will be a year free of loosing someone that I'm related to.
But each year it happens.

Some have been harder than others. But each has left me thinking about things. And this one is no exception. Time is moving forward and stops for each person when the last page is turned.
We remember and pull the memories from the shelves of our minds and dust off the cobwebs that have settled there and reflect.

But it reminds me that it's important to be real with the people in our lives. To cut through the bullshit because if bullshit is all you share with a person and never get down to where the conversations count, where you actually get to share in the things that matter, when death comes you find that you wish you had.

I've tried to live my life for a long time in the real, instead of living in bullshit.
There is a difference. My uncle was crabby most of his life, but he was honest about how he felt about things, and made no bones about telling anyone what he thought.
I think like alot of people of the generation before mine the deep real things were kept somewhere deep inside.
The things that make your heart go bump in the middle of the day.
And all the dreams you never share with anyone. And like many people of that generation the dreams were different than what dreams are now...
maybe I'm wrong about that. I don't know. But if they were dreamers alot of them never said anything, at least not to the ones comming after them, their children.

I've got lots and lots of memories of this man, and back when I was little and the world looked so huge, like most adults in my life, he was this larger than life person who was bigger than me and there was no point in arguing anything. It would have been disrespectful of me to argue.

Now, here it is years later and the only thing I would like right now is to be able to make it to the funreal. But it's now possilbe.
So I will deal with my memories like everyone else who won't make it. And for months, think about all the people I can't go see and share lunch with, or talk about what ever comes to mind with.
There is just silence now.
All of this seems so unreal. So undone. So like when my father died.
And how weird I felt after.

Where ever he is I hope he's happy now. And at peace inside.
And if he had to fight anything inside, it's all done now.

I will be there at the funreal, even if it is only in my thoughts and prayers. That will have to be enough.
At least for now.

For the last two nights I've slept so good. All the wonders of being stress free.

All of this whole experience has made me realize what I need in the next job I take.

A boss who is consitant. A job that doesn't have people who expect you to give them all the answers.
And a realistic idea of how many hours depending on the wage that I can live on.

So at the moment I'm looking for something behind the scenes.
Like being a dishwasher. Or a janitor. Or someone who just files things.
All very unexciting jobs. But one's that would give me what I need to work effectivly in a job.
Either that or win the lottery and become a recluse.

I such an odd duck. I have no need for huge amounts of social interaction.
I perfer to be out of sight when it comes to the public.
But that's a paradox in itself.
I think about this place. It's very public, and there is some interaction with other people, but it's in a way that's removed from physical interaction.
So I guess it's not a paradox.

Comming here is like standing in a crowed room only you can't see anyone.
You can read what they have to say, and many times you get to see what the rest of the world doesn't.
In side.
That's really where a person is.
Not the surface. Not the daily quirks that make people decide who that person is and if they want to get to know them.

In that respect I think people who are phsically blind have a definate advantage over the seeing world.
They don't have to deal with all the masks and crap the rest of us have to.

They get to "see" the real of a person.
And that's awesome.
This place is kind of like that.
And I know that's one of the things I like about this place.
I love being able to come and write here. And it doesn't matter if no one reads it.
It's simply here.
If they read what I write, they arn't in my face and demanding explainations, or asking me how to create this or that..in short doing the work for them.

I can come here and write as weird or as thoughtful as where I am in the moment.
And that is awesome.
I'm free here.

I tend to stick pretty much to my journal, but venture out once in a while, and read other peoples thoughts and ideas.
And sometimes I have something to say about what they've writen.
But alot of times I just like being the silent obsever.

This is one of thoes places that mirror the places that I love to hang out in.
When I go to thoes places it's a rare thing that anyone will come up and talk to me.
So I either spend time painting or writing in thoes places, observing the people I see.
They are a kind of private haven as well.
And it goes to confirm what I have believed about myself for many years...that the only time a person is in my life is when they are in need.
I have met very few people who want to just hang out with me.
And I'm very ok with that.
For many people that would be a hard place to live. They would probably end up feeling used.
But because I know what my purpose is here I'm at peace with the idea that in this life most of my life is solitary.

As a result of all of this I suspect that when my time comes to leave this life I will be alone and have to leave instructions as who to get a hold of to take care of the last details.

And as with everything else in my life, I will attend to it.
I am a vapor that comes for a little while and then disapates, and there is no memory that remains.
Except when something comes and reminds one that there was a moment in time when it existed.

There it is for a thurday morning...

Well, saturday is my last day at work. I don't know if the manager fully knows that or not.
But I told him I would stay until another person was found for the possition.

It happened very quickly. He asked me if I would be interested in another possition and it took me about 3 seconds to know the answer was no.

What ever I needed to do there is done. I remember a few months ago I got two job offers from a very large corporation and declined them both.
I talked with both the assistant mangager and the manager and both of them had different views on the subject.
The managers being if it's more money and will help your career, than go for it.
I told him at the time that it didn't always have to do with money.

I realized what I've known for so long. That when I end up in a place it's for as long as I need to be there.
What ever it is that is required of me in the place is more important than anything.
With a job the money is so far down the list of important things.

Which when I thought about it all over the last few days made me realize how much my life is just a series of appointments.
There is something to do there, and then when it's done, I have to leave it.

It's usually been very easy to leave because it becomes so uncomfortable, and keeping on gets exausting.

I will miss a few things and alot of people. But I'm not going to the moon, and there is an invention called the telephone.

I seriously doubt that any relationship I had with anyone will survive unless there is purpose in it.

When I leave somewhere I don't look back and wish it was still a part of my life.
To me that would be like saving the bits of oatmeal stuck to a bowl for months after breakfast.
Thoes bits are no longer something that I feel complelled to hang on to.

Any relationship that started in a work place for the most part fades away with time.
So far there has only been one person that I've worked with in this state that there is anything left of now.

So it goes. I have put applications in different places. But the place I'm suppose to be will show up.
And I will stay there until everything about it shuts down.
I don't get to stay in a job for years and years.

It's a very tribal view.
In many primative tribes everyone has a function, a place and what they do helps the whole tribe.
Even the contary ones, as they are refered to by the indians here in this country.

Everything goes with a certian flow and everyone lives in that flow and there is no confusion, just a rythem and pattern that continues.
It's the way it should be with each life. To know your purpose and live by the mandates of that perpose makes your place in this world the reason why you do and go tord certian things.

Everything else is just extra things.
Even money.

If as my sister claims of me that I am neuotic, then there has been purpose in that too.

My life is not ment to be static. I don't get to know what working at the same place for years and years is like.
And I don't get to have many people stay in my life for my whole life.

Being aware that after saturday everything is done has done several things: it's made it so I can sleep again.
I wake up in a peaceful state.
And I am happy.

I also know that the next place I'm going to end up at will have something very specific there that I need to do.
And unless something has changed about the flow of my life, it too will be temporary, even if it lasts for a year or more.

When I talk to the person who is going to hier me, they will understand.
And it will be ok.

And having made note of all of that I'm off to bed so I can get some sleep.

Nite all. Sleep well.

I was wandeing through a book the other day on psychiactric nursing, and found some interesting things.

In the glossery it had all kinds of unique terms and what they ment and I found it to be not boring reading at all.
I tend to fall asleep when I read text books. They are the next best thing to taking a pill to make sleep come.

Anyway, it listed among other things personal space. I thought wow, here in the middle of all these terms relating to things people live in the middle of everyday, there is personal space.

The reason I started looking at this book is because my sister was talking to one of my roomates on the phone while she was waiting for me to get home from work or long enough to kind of sort through this person she was talking to, and she still has the impression of me that I'm neurotic.

I thought about it. What does it mean to be neruotic anyway?
Is that like a brand of socks that someone identifies with you when everyone does their wash together?
Or maybe it's really like a package of hot dogs that has a certian name on it that we reconize as tasting a certian way.

So the search was on. We don't have a dictionary in the house. I know that's not normal. Everyone should have a dictonary even if it's covered with dust.
Anyway, I pulled this book off the shelve, and started looking for nerotic.
I found a cool quote that kind of sums up the whole mental quirk thing:

"Nerotics build the dream house, Pshycotics live in the house, and the phsychitrist collets the rent"

I though I want that on a t-shirt!
But it still didn't answer my question. What does neruotic actually mean.
Well acording to this book neuroctic means one who worries alot.
Well if that's the case then most of the world is neurotic.

I loved this idea as well, that neurosis was only attrubited to the weatlthy and the poor were just psychotic...(who decited how to write these words? They have strange letters in weird places)

So I'm poor, that means I'm not neurotic, I'm just psycho...
I can't afford a neurosis!
It cracks me up. Half the world according to the definition is psycho and the rich part are the ones who can afford neurosis.

I could see a store call neurotics are us...things for thoes special times of worry...

It was all too funny.

50 cent words to say that worring too much is a bad thing.
I figured that part out, it makes you sick, and robbs you of sleep and makes everything else get scewed in your vision.
It becomes all you think about.
And it doesn't think about your income or anything else for that matter.

I think my sister, the only one I really ever talk to anymore, doesn't have a clue as to who I am.
She still has me in some kind of little box.
She can keep that box.
I don't live there anymore. But sadly, like most people who used to know who you were can't get it that your not that person anymore.
Even if they say the same thing about how people from their past view them.
She's fond of saying she's not the person she was way back when.

Anyway, it was a good search after all. I found out some strange things. And lots and lots of big words with too many letters, and all of it seemed so detached.
I wonder if that's what it takes to be a good head doctor...or would it be better stated an explorer of the mind?
I like that term best. Makes the person who gets 75 dollars an hour to listen and pretend they really care about the person they are listening to, when in reality they would probably much rather be somewhere else, just like the rest of us who don't like the work we do.

Ah well, there it is. Now I know what it means when people lable me neurotic.
I haven't the heart to tell them I'm too poor to aford a neurosis, but that all I can afford is a phsycosis...it's the fast food plate at the mind resutrant.

Night before last I was thinking about the ant I killed and what that did to me, and then other things began to stir.
It occured to me that we, here and now are the hope and trust of the future.

What we do now will be the inheritance we leave our children's children.
It occured to me and made me wonder if what is going on in the world is going to make the world an unlivable place for them or if wisdom is possible so that there will be a livable place for them to exist in.

I considered the rate of consumption of natural resources, and the rate that things in almost new condition are thrown away.
I considered the third world as it's refered to by the affluent one and wondered if all the things that come under the heading of aid, including, by some, what has happened in Iraq.
I put the war in that catagory for this reason, the reason given for us going to war was to free the people from tyrany and oppression.
That would be condsidered aid from the stand point that aid is designed to help people who are in a desperate situation or destute situation that can't help themselves.

Now from my perspective, the war wasn't about helping thoes people to get free from tyrany, but rather to gain control of more of the world's oil, which would be aid to the very wealthy.
Kind of a sick twist on the idea of aid.

Anyway, as I was thinking and pondering all of this, it occured to me that no one with the power and money to change what is being done here and now that is so distructive is wanting to do anything about the status quo.
No greedy rich corporate executive or no power hungry goverment leader is going to go without or less just to make things better for the future.
The only concern is the here and now.

It reminds me of a line from Juassic Park where Malcom says about the sienctists who stood on the shoulders of thoes who did the genetic research on the diasaurs, "They knew they could but did they ever thing whether or not they should"

What an intense sentament. The same could be said of the place in our history where the technology out ran the wisdom needed to keep people from doing distructive things.
We, at this point in history, are like children holding bazookas and know how to shoot them but don't understand that when we do we distroy so much.

There is no wisdom in what is being developed in so many things.
Take a look at all the drugs that are now being released to the public. The end result isn't completely known. And some of thoes drugs carry worse side effects than the problem their designed to bandaid.

The real problem is that we have become such a microwave society that there is no thinking things through to the possible end conclusion and then deciding if going through with it is really worth what it will do.

I wonder if the Right Brothers had realized the ultimate end of what their work on flying would bring, the atom bomb being able to be dropped from a plane, if they would have proceeded with their persute of conquoring the air.

I wonder if when Alber Enstine was a patton clerk, he could have seen into the future and know that he would be in part responsible for millions of death by makeing the atom bomb possible, if he would have chose to stay a patton clerk or not.

We are at a place where it's very possible to know what the future will be. We understand how fast the technology is growing and that so many things are possible.
But we forget that it is our nature to be warring creatures.
And so we keep making more things that take us further and further away from reason and wisdom.

And we are paying for it. Much of the food we eat is dead. It's been so geneticly altered and processed that any value is gone.
There are no vaible seeds comming from this "food" as it's grown.
The seed that is viable is nearning the time when it will be no longer useful.
There are people out there working to preserve species of plants and foodstuffs, and that is hopeful for the future.
But it will only remain so until the corporate farms completely wipe away the individual farmer, and the organic farmer.

Right now getting organic food is a very in thing to do.
I call that the yuppism of health food.
There is no real push to change. It's far to easy to just buy the food from some health food store and do nothing else.

It's too easy to let that food go to waste. It's too easy to shop for the latest fashion and disgard things we tire too easily from.
There is no thought for what we are really doing.
Our children are learning that having a credit card answers the impulse wants too easily.
There is no responsiblity.
And a whole generation of children are growing up believing that the only place to buy food is at a store, and that they just have to have that splashy sparkly thing a ma jig now.
In a little while they will weary of it, and then demand the latest and newest thing.

Our future. Our childrens children. They are in need of us using wisdom in how we treat the earth. We are only the caretakers of it and not the owners.
We are the temporary inhabitants of what they will inherit.
My question is this, will what they inherit kill them or give them an example of how to take care of this fragil place we call home.