Affection

Tonight, my ego is telling me how terrible I am at affection.

So, I agree. I am pretty awful at making signals to people that demonstrate how much I like them. I am afraid of touching people, looking them up and down, flirting, and saying nice things about them.

I'm not surprised that I'm single. I trail people off away from potential and into confusion. I talk and I talk and I don't really enjoy talking because I think my nature is more physical, maybe more intuitive, and learning to be in touch with my nature is like writing with the other hand.

I believe sexuality is so much interconnected to our humanity and everything we do.

I don't know what people are thinking, but I definitely create stories that convince me otherwise. Here at Twin Oaks, everyone I meet thinks I'm crazy and weird (the bad kind of weird), and I'm not interesting, I don't make any sense, I'm just not cool enough.

So, to my ego I say, you're right. You've always been right. You dwell within a pretty pitiful being.

I agree because it's my coping method. Years ago I used to fight my self-inflicted criticisms and that seemed to stoke the flames and make things worse. Now I just agree. There was one time over the summer where I was waking up every morning to my ego telling me how lazy I was, that I was a sloth for sleeping in so late. So, I agreed and refused to leave my tent until my ego could empower me. I told my ego: Fine. I'm lazy. I will just lay here like you said and be as lazy as you say I am.

I usually wake up pretty rejuvenated now. Telling myself I'm lazy is just silly.

So, telling myself I'm unaffectionate is silly, too, yeah?

When you notice another guy looking you up and down and making eye contact and find him sitting next to you at a party and getting right to the point with: "My name's Jesse. You have really pretty blue eyes," how do you respond? How do you regift that affection?

I don't know how to do this. I don't know what to say.

So, I'm disappointed in myself.

Stories and otherwise

Handwriting 1,667 words every day for 30 days is definitely a lesson in handwriting technique. Once I get to the last two pages I'm writing in the day, I start to feel my elbow and forearm muscles responding to the work I'm putting them through. I haven't yet reached that point where my wrist starts to feedback, so I'm hoping I'm doing just enough not to hit a tipping point. And also, these appendages do everything else for me besides think. They prepare and put food in my mouth, they help me make motions that accentuate oral communication, they assist in maintaining hygiene, they wipe my ass, they put on my clothes, and so on and so forth. They really do a lot for me. So, thank you hands. I've really been meaning to use my left hand in writing. It holds the book in place, but it's really been begging for a turn. And even now my right arm is exhausted, or at least close to it.

It's too late

It's too late, or at least that's the general feeling I'm getting about our culture's impact on planet Earth.

And it probably is. It's too late to bring back all the ecosystems we stole from all the species that once shared our world. It's too late to bring back from the dead all the indigenous cultures we annihilated for the sake of progress and expansion. It's too late to go back 10,000 years to find out exactly what the hell happened that would drive us to think the world was made for whatever humans wanted to do with it.

And it may as well be our course to plow this train full speed into global collapse. Our imaginations explore this through story-telling. Many of us want to take a glimpse into that future. What will it be like to live in total collapse? And then: what would cause it? What would be the first domino falling over in this catastrophic effect? And maybe, is there a way to foresee this? To prevent?

It's fascinating.

I agree whole-heartily that it's too late. I don't know what drives the general consensus to maintain the status quo, but from my vantage point I don't see enough change of mind. It's cute and admirable if a lot of people are doing their little share to - say - recycle, compost, drive less, or spend more time with family and community than with television, but this is not enough. Our way of life is deeply rooted against natural laws. Shit, even "Green" is a brand. As long as you're okay with filling your void with products and categorizing your memories with what name of brand you associate, it will entirely depend on our global collapse to see the kind of changes each of us dreams of. Hence the adage: "it has to get worse before it gets better."

But please don't misread me here. I am not fully engaged with fatalism. I don't read on every item that talks about how things will eventually be, simply because this one single moment we are always in has yet to reflect the visions our cultural seers are forecasting.

I don't think it's healthy to think about global collapse every day. At the same time, I don't think it's healthy to fully trust in the global system. I don't like buying food shipped in from hundreds and even thousands of miles away, so that's why I grow my own food or join a Community Supported Agriculture with a local organic farm. I don't like buying products that eventually have to be stuffed into a landfill, so I go towards recyclable and compostable or nothing at all.

I think within the conscious there has to be a state of balance, just like the two hemispheres that form our brain. You have to think of the inverse and the converse at all times, the "what if..." and the "what if not...".

I may be reading about our coming global collapse, but in no way does this impede my pursuit of self-sufficiency, mostly because I think "why not?" I'm sticking to my gardening plans for many reasons, one being that I enjoy learning about this kind of thing. Tomorrow morning I expect five different herbs to show their little seedling heads to me. This is my joy. Less than 10 weeks from now and I expect my body to reside in an intentional community known as Dancing Rabbit, a place where the residents live closely to a neo-tribal state.

Right now, I'm living with my family whose mainstay depends on the status quo. They frequently buy food shipped in from thousands of miles away, typically forget to recycle, lesser so to save compostable scrap, and generally abide by what the global culture has to offer. It's challenging for me because I feel it so necessary for me to question these things, and to live amongst people who don't frustrates me to no end. In fact, we live in mostly separate metaphysical camps. We probably regard each other equally with "why can't you just do this!" But we still do what we do. What can we do to improve our social body? I don't know how to convince people they'd be better without television. We know that we love each other, but perhaps each of us shares a kind of yearning for closeness that we blanket with distractions. We're all afraid to make the first move and even then, what would one of us say?

I think we need more boredom. Daniel Quinn says humans need more of what humans need, and this has to do with what makes life honestly worth living.

I think a global collapse would be interesting to see. I wonder what would people think to do when they won't be able to use the television or the internet or "things" to occupy their time. Cormac McCarthy certainly gave us a desperate and moody depiction with cannibalism and nomadicism and grayness.

But until that time, I'm learning. Part of me wants to stand on a soap box with a megaphone and appeal to everyone in earshot how we need to take matters into our own hands. Let's band together, here and now. Form one of many thousands of tribes to support each other indefinitely in the name of a better human life. And why not for your kids? Why not in general? We can't be babied like this forever.

Ah, idealism, but then it surely is entirely possible. I could get laughed at or arrested, but who cares? It'd be worth a try.

Next week I want to build a compost bin for my family. I'm taking pictures of jewelry to sell on ebay. I'm reading a lot of books. I miss hanging out with friends and having long conversations with many tangents that leave me with a refreshed state of mind.

What keeps me going is that I generally believe I'm following my own unique path. It's true that we think we have time and that it's this illusion that has afforded us a state of life dependent on finite resources, but damn, I don't think I can just stop doing what I'm doing because it's all too late. I'm still apprehensive about car culture, but still, somewhere deep within the timeless essence of soul I feel it can never be too late. All this human drama is just a silly drama, and it's very well a nightmare, but you're only part of it so long as you're in that human vessel of yours.

So, I suppose what keeps me going is the belief that whatever my soul is, it's not distinctly human. I probably won't be remembered, and judgment may be nothing more than a human mythology, but I believe it's important to do what you feel is right. The idea of always being Aaron Jay Schmidt is a little maddening.

A bunch of random

So, I’m going to start this entry on a sort of random whim that I’m not really sure what exactly I’m going to be writing about. I’ll probably just mention a number of different things going on outside of the internet world. By the way, I think it’s obvious that the internet is a real place. Maybe not something that you can physically be in or experience by the five senses, but for sure it tweaks your state of consciousness. I know it does mine.



I really want to start challenging my mind. I’m using my left hand to do things my right hand would normally do. I remember back in high school art class I made a drawing with a pencil in either hand going at the same time. I drew a little cartoon person. It was interesting. One half was decent, the other a little more nervous. I think I’d like to revive this for regular exercises. Also, I heard that if you write in yellow, your inner critic will have no idea what to correct while you’re writing. For writers, this is fantastic.

I still have hemorrhoids. Yeah, by now we’re good friends. Frequently I’m needed to address certain issues, like “What is that smell?” or “what is that awful pinching feeling?” or “Toilet paper is making this worse.” When I first started getting these symptoms, I felt like I was one of those hopeless young adults with failing health, that this was just the beginning. Earlier in 2009 I felt like I had an evil presence in my body towards my stomach. I referred to it as cancer, and I frequently dreamed about it. When my hemorrhoids came about, I thought this was its ugly head rearing itself. And then I was ashamed of myself and embarrassed because the idea of telling others about this felt like I would have to be pitied. Maybe it’s no one else’s business. It’s certainly a little gross, so I can understand why it would be taboo.

But I think having hemorrhoids is a way to get in touch with my body. I’ve been asking my body questions at certain times. How do you feel? What’s up? And it certainly responds. I’m uncomfortable here. You’re sitting on me weird there. Move a little bit this way and the pressure will ease. Thank you. And I breathe deeply more. A lot more. I read from Andrew Weil, M.D., that he had never met a healthy person who did not breathe deeply. That helped me. And reading on hemorrhoids has clued me into certain bad habits. I’ve been aiming to share time on my feet with my ass. I go for walks. I think I eat healthy.



I’ve been thinking about that musical side of my mind – I would really like to record what I’m hearing in there.

I have this dream that gives me goosebumps whenever I think of it, and then following this rapture of good feeling is another feeling that one day I’ll do that. One day. What does this mean? The dream is a film, it’s full of color and moods and motions and pantomime and it just moves me. I should probably elaborate. I’ve been having this experience since a very young age. Bus rides to school were more like meditations of the imagination. I would listen to my trance music and see extraordinary things playing out in that universe of the mind. Imagine a part of a song or a scene from a movie that gives you the chills of your life. I mean, chills that run down your back and up from your legs and into your arms and then up into your face. I regularly gave myself goosebumps and I would hide them because I thought someone would find me weird to just be getting goosebumps on the bus. In the end, I don’t think anyone even looked or cared.

I’ve been using this skill (I’ll call it that) to work on my projects. Most of my drawings come from this meditation of the imagination. I capture the key image in what I’m seeing, in what I’m hearing, and I put it to paper to see what it looks like out there.



I’m probably not that important. But then I am. What is that? I’m important as far as the limited scope of humanity is concerned in that as one of a great common, the small part that is played by me actually tips the scales. But concerning billions of microorganisms and billions of galaxies, I’m not that important. I think of this paradox as a blessing. And maybe it holds the tinge of what freedom is. Old adages hint to this, things like “God has a sense of humor,” or “I’m sincere about life, but I’m not serious about it,” or “row, row, row your boat…life is but a dream.” I think we needn’t fool ourselves. We already know the truth. I also think that’s why I liken to reincarnation. Nature is cyclical. There are no wastes. There is no linear way. So why is consciousness different? Why do our souls transmigrate to judgment and face what is essentially black or white?

I suppose it’s the Ishmael trilogy that has me chuckling to myself. I always wondered about the story of the Fall – it just didn’t seem right to explain our existence. But explained from a different perspective, from indigenous cultures, it makes all the sense of the world. We abandoned God, our union with perfection, 10,000 years ago, and whatever we did to do that, was best told in an allegory. It has to do with how we grow our food, why we’re driving other species into extinction, why we shit on thrones, why we send our children away to factory schools, why we have cancer, and why most of us hate our jobs.



I’m not sure what it is, but I feel like there’s a mental block in the way of fully understanding The Crack in The Cosmic Egg (“Yeah, it’s called stupidity”). But really, there’s some truth to what my inner critic (also known as The Voice of Treason) has to say. The Crack has a language that makes sense, but I couldn’t tell you after reading a chapter what in the bloody hell I had just read. I could tell you more of what I was thinking about – books that don’t exactly “capture” tend to lead the reader astray. There’s a level of interest and curiosity that keeps the book in your hands (you want to FINISH it!), but while your eyes drift lazily from line to line, your imagination is looking out the window. You’re daydreaming. That is what is happening here. I’m not saying the book is badly written, I’m saying that my comprehension level isn’t there yet, or maybe the subject matter hasn’t yet reached significance in my life yet.



I recently adopted a macramé hanging basket from my grandparents and immediately transplanted the spider plant we had gotten from our neighbors. The photo shown here is of it three days later. It’s definitely showing some new growth. And the soil I used? I combined the old stuff that came with the pot with compost I harvested from my worm bin a few weeks earlier. This probably goes against some old gardening adage, but I’m experimenting.



I guess that’s it for now. I never really have just one thing to write about.

The wonders of squatting

So, I'm not very good at keeping up with this. But while I'm on here, a few things:

The earlier post about squatting - remember? The kind of squatting for effective bowel movements? Well, I've been doing it for (I'd say) at least a month now. It's great.

Now, if you're one of those lucky humans who has twice daily regular movements, this probably won't help you. For people like me, who have slow snail metabolisms, I recommend whole-heartily. And now I say why.

It's real comfortable. More comfortable than "sitting on the throne."

Now, remember: the reason why our culture sits on a throne to pass their poo is because, obviously, it's a symbol of wealth, an act of kingship, a philosophy that we're not animals, we're made in the image of God, et cetera. I've spoken with a few people about squatting, and the general reaction is a screwed up face along with an "ew."

That's fair. It's powerfully ingrained in our collective cultural mind that this is the way the world works. If you choose to doubt it, well, you're heading into dark territories. Good luck.

This is prime experimentation for me, though. I revel in thwarting cultural norms. I questioned compulsory schooling, our monotheistic religion, and the workplace. I am now aware that all of our deeply cherished cultural trends are illusions. They're silly and mostly laughable.

When someone says "that's the way the world works," I think about the natural environment, which for the last 10,000 years man has been desperate to divorce. The way the world works, for me, lies in how the natural environment works.

And how humans naturally pass their poo is by squatting.

Unless you experience this, you might still think of it as disgusting, however, you should be aware that this notion is entirely illusory (in the sense that the monster in the closet is illusory).

When you sit on the throne, you are forcing your body, your bio-machine, to work against itself. That is why many of us strain, because we don't know that if you squat, your diaphragm against your thighs (when you simply inhale) naturally creates the pressure needed to poop.

Keep in mind that sitting on the throne keeps your large intestine locked and hinged - you're not giving it the proper signals to tell it that you are in the correct position to poop.

I'm not really keen on what damage continues to occur to the body if you sit on the throne, but from what I've read it's not good at all.

I did read that it explains why almost half of us get hemorrhoids. Yeah, that's an ew.

Okay, so I need to get off this fire and brimstone talk about sitting on the throne. Just remember that it makes all the difference if you squat. It's a little awkward to do it with a throne toilet, but you'll probably get used to it. I even developed muscles in my thighs I never knew I had, which makes all the difference when I'm standing, walking, and running.

A lot of people talk about getting back in touch with nature. Something I recently read and felt was so true is that we humans can never be divorced from nature - it's always inside us. It is us. We are nature. Why a long time ago we decided that we were something more astounds me. And I find that it explains why a lot of us feel despair with all this shallow entertainment and alienation.

Nature is you. It's in you. It's around you. So, if you want to get back in touch with nature, start squatting. You'll be on your way in no time at all.