A story inspired by a dream

A dream I had

It's an involved story about a group of young adults - their futures, relationships, society vs man, betrayal, and murder. Not an easy dream for me to recount coherently, to untangle, nor to understand.

Untangling the story

Summary

I'll try to highlight some of the key observations made in my 1 hr 40 min recollection about my dream, because needless to say, no one (perhaps least of all me) wants to listen to that whole recording. Time stamps in the descriptions below refer (roughly) to the section of the recording that explains it.

The cast of major characters:

Green.
 an average guy with zeal for integrity.

The Bachelor (a.k.a Smart Guy)
  a young man with bright future prospects. somewhat naive. he is the focal point of other character's interests in partnership, and his decisions with whom to partner creates turbulence and tension among his peers.

Anne
  a young woman with equally, or perhaps even more, bright prospects as the Bachelor. a calculating and manipulative talent with an insatiable desire to advance, come out on top, and control the political landscape.

Jealous
 a slighted and forgotten lover who formerly had a homosexual relationship with the Bachelor. murders the Victim.

Braids
 an air-headed girl with a loud voice who spreads gossip and influences her protegee younger sister.

The Victim
 starts a riotous protest at Graduation, during a disbursement of Social Benefits. is murdered by Jealous during the disorder. there's a very likely possibility that the Victim is the same person as Green.

Poetry Night

Reading poems by W.H. Auden

A Day of Music

These music posts are getting boring. I find posting them boring. But I do enjoy being able to play the recordings back to myself.

If you want to listen, I highly recommend the 'In an underpass' recording. The acoustics under a bridge make everything sound nice.

A Musical Hike

Today I took a hike in pursuit of interesting places to play flute. I carried my sitting box under one arm, and humped my flute across my back.

First, I climbed up Pulpit Rock to play on the mountain. A persistent wind forced my retreat.

On the mountain

Wind is a formidable adversary.

Then I came down from the mountain and played in an underpass between the University to the shopping center. A lack of warmth and of sunlight prodded me along.

In an underpass

The acoustics are amazing!

For the remainder of my day, I followed signs leading from the shopping area to a recreational trail. I set in search of sunlight, but ended up walking for miles out of curiosity for what I might discover. The sun was nearly below the horizon when I stopped at a soccer field on which to spit out a few more tunes (unrecorded).

I mistakenly thought the trail was a scam, nothing more than a glorified sidewalk around the shopping center. But it turned out to be much more. The wide paved tract wound up a hill, sprinted past homes, stretched across a frozen lake, and curled around bike and skate parks.

Bike park (left) with dirt ramps. Skate park (right) with posers and tweens

On my way back, I created an original theme song (probably by plagiarizing bits and pieces of music I had played during the day).

Walking theme song

Greenway Trail

From the looks of the map, there seems to be a recreational trail that connects northern city of Monument to the southern city of Fountain, a distance of about 35 miles. The Greenway trail is the section of this trail system that runs through Colorado Springs.

Greenway panorama at the University Village Center in Colorado Springs.

Two roads diverged by a yellow fort

A straight path was stitched across 180 degrees.

Greenway panorama along a reservoir near the Garden of the Gods

I heard a cacophony of barking coming from across the reservoir. There's a building on the far side of the ice marked with a sign that reads "Lucky Dog". I think that's where they make 'Red Tick Beer'.

*Tastes* Hmm, needs more dog.

Extreme Tricycling

Came across this l'il guy doing extreme riding at a bike park. He's on a trike. I find that hilarious.

When that little kid grows up, he needs one of these.

Saw a guy doing laps on this l'il red devil at the university parking lot.

The bike's father proudly told me about the incremental souping up he did on the engine. The top speed purportedly does 50 mph, tested by his buddy on a dirt path near his house.

It reminded me of that TV show Home Improvement, where Tim 'the Tool Man' Taylor's philosophy of 'MORE POWER' applied to everything!

Ulix

what a cutie

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Balanced Rock 

 

This was from Garden of the Gods a week ago.
Big Google Brother automatically made an animation from my pics.

frands: "how'd you get up ther??"

cool girl: "¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

A sign on the rock said, 'Please do not climb up'. -____-

Pian'er

Banged on the piano today. Got both hands together on this Chopin waltz. I question whether to post the recording. My playing ain't great. But that hasn't stopped me before!

Chopin Op.69 no. 2

A couple of real musicians started recording in the next room. Violinist and guitarist. A library employee came to tell me to stop playing. But he invited me to see the musicians, they were good he said.

His word was the truth. They were good. Mighty fun playing together too. I sat in the studio mixing booth watching them warm up and improvise the musical score. The violinist let loose some sass and flair into her fiddling. The guitarist strummed along and added notes here and there to his music.

Their sound technician adjusted and set up and re-adjusted and configured various microphones, levels, and other acoustics I could not tell the difference. They'd been setting up for an hour and a half. Another hour before they would start recording. The tech was an elderly gentleman who reminded me of my Dad setting up a photo shoot in the way he fastidiously made endless adjustments. We would get tired and worn out, having lost interest in having our pictures taken, by the time his camera was ready.

I saw the musicians rehearsing endlessly and hoped they would not likewise get worn out by the time the recording was ready for them. The librarian tech joked, they would be here till 2 pm, and in fact he was right! When I came back to check on the studio at 2:40 pm, the musicians had left but the gentleman making the recording was still there, pondering over his instruments. I asked the evening shift librarian what time did the musicians leave, and he estimated around 2pm.

I danced and bobbed my head to the duo's jiving and country rhythms. The violinist even brought a huge bag of food to the studio (to make a good impression on the staff). It was just one guy with the library staff, I wasn't even an employee, but I helped myself to one of three sandwiches in the bag. The librarian requested knives when he saw me eating the big ol' sandwich. He asked me rhetorically with bulging eyes, 'I wasn't going to eat the whole thing was I?'

Their music is probably copyright. and this is probably not good to have my private recording. but i honestly think their music at beginning (unrecorded) sounded better. and i was recording myself but left the recording on unintentionally after i walked away from the piano. i didn't know that it was still recording until afterwards, and they'll probably never know... hehe.

Real musicians recording

Reading Notes

The People of the Abyss

by Jack London

" her hat and jacket were found on the towing path by the Regent's Canal, and later her body was fished from the water. _Verdict: Suicide during temporary insanity_. Such verdicts are crimes against truth. The Law is a lie, and through it men lie most shamelessly. "

"Temporary insanity! Oh, these cursed phrases, these lies of language, under which people with meat in their bellies and whole shirts on their backs shelter themselves, and evade the responsibility of their brothers and sisters, empty of belly and without whole shirts on their backs."

It was a sane and calculated decision to end her life. A normal person put in her situation might make the same decision. It is not a 'temporary insanity' that drove her to suicide, but real inescapable destitution and the horror of her hopeless future that effected her decision. To dismiss it as her personal irrationality, and not a looming social problem is an unethical lie.

Reading Notes

The People of the Abyss 
by Jack London

Project Gutenberg edition

"In a civilisation frankly materialistic and based upon property, not soul, it is inevitable that property shall be exalted over soul, that crimes against property shall be considered far more serious than crimes against the person."

"the young girl who takes a lodging under the pretence that she has work commits so dangerous an offence, that, were she not severely punished, she and her kind might bring the whole fabric of property clattering to the ground."

"It must be understood that efficiency is not determined by the workers themselves, but is determined by the demand for labour. If three men seek one position, the most efficient man will get it. The other two, no matter how capable they may be, will none the less be inefficients."

Likewise no matter how incompetent the higher ups are, they dont need to actually improve their stock, just simply make a show of being more 'qualified' than others. Its not a value based assessment. It is an awards based sham of a meritocracy that is self fulfilling. The more honors and recognition you seize or swindle, the more prestigious are your affiliations, the more merit is forthcoming by virtue of association.

Palmer Park

Palmer Park, Colorado Springs.

Today another local hike, before the Omaha vs Brady football game.

I hiked the outer trails around the park. The park is huge with many trails and recreation sites. There are barbecue pits, roofed picnic benches, grassy open areas... a volleyball court, a Doggie Park, a playground... a horsie ranch. There were mountain bikers, runners, hikers, Doges, womens and childrens.

Palmer Park photo album

Panorama-rama

Austin Bluffs - Pulpit Rock park

next to the Colorado Springs University.

Check out these Google-auto-bot-created panoramas from today's hike.

Pulpit Rock

Atop the bluffs

Austin Bluffs

A day at home

Welcome to my house

Room for two.

I'm thinking of putting a down payment on this house instead.

Castle on a cloud

Pike's Peak

Today was a blast!

I was at it againe... Hieronymo's mad againe.

Performing an offering of flute music to the Sun and Moon, at the Valley of the Gods.

Fluting and praying and offering and gave-ing...

An intriguing rock formation

The rock behind me is white. It is different from the three orange rocks around it, because at one time the orange pieces were one solid rock.

According to an elderly park ranger at the info desk, at one time the ground shifted along the fault line between rocks and pushed the orange rock apart. The white rock was connected to another one just like it, further away.

There is some meaningful, enlightening interpretation to this fact which I leave it to the reader, as an exercise, to work out... because I am too lazy to fabricate something and sell it t' ya!

An encounter of the Supernatural kind

A Chinese man came up and asked me if I believed in some religion whose name I couldn't understand with my limited knowledge of the language. He asked me about my flute playing, if I was at 练习, practicing, and I said it was kinda my 爱好, hobby or passion.

He again asked me, then walked 'round and once more asked me, if I was at 练习, trying to understand why I was playing. I couldn't express my intentions, but then he imparted on me that this was a place having a kind of 气 "Chi" that Westerners couldn't understand, that he thought maybe I played not to gain anything but to offer a service to the rocks, the people passing by, the spirit of the mountain. I jumped on his description and exclaimed, 'Yes! That is the gist of what I'm doing.'

He was surprised. 'You understand then, what I am saying?' he asked. 'Yes, I think so.' Then he revealed that he had come in the very same endeavor, holding forth a bag of bread, apparently to feed the pigeons nesting atop the rock formations.

The man told me in three nights time I will have strange dreams, and then I will be touched by a spirit. Reminds me of the Tales of the Supernatural by Pu Song Ling, where a traveling Daoist monk would do that to people.

How reading? Me wan' look sky and ground

Full album of pictures. (That's pronounced 'Pik'cha's' to you immeegants)

Vale of the Gods

Vale, I mean, Garden of the Gods

Vale of the Gods, The Last Remnant.

Garden of the Gods, Colorado. 

Garden of the Gods, Colorado.

See album. With other pictures in front.

Reading Notes

Planned poverty

Jack London. The People of the Abyss.

(continued)

p28. "Not only is it unwise, but it is criminal for the people of the Abyss to marry... There is no place for them in the social fabric, while all the forces of society drive them downward till they perish... If they reproduce, the life is so cheap that perforce it perishes of itself... The world does not need them. There are plenty, far fitter than they, clinging to the steep slope above, and struggling frantically to slide no more."

Induced poverty to control the population numbers. To prevent the poorest from reproducing, and to kill them off by manual labor and inadequate housing, medical care, food, and living conditions... as they produce wealth for the rich to prosper. So there is more wealth at the top, and less people below them to divide up the bounty.

Snowpiercer-style planned society. That teacher with the huge bulging eyes is a perfect caricature of the 'morality' of such a society, indoctrinating children the 'rightness' of their position on the societal train and why it is proper and scientific for people of lower order to mire in destitution.

"The London Abyss is a vast shambles. Year by year, and decade after decade, rural England pours in a flood of vigorous strong life, that not only does not renew itself, but perishes by the third generation... the aged poor and the residuum which compose the 'submerged tenth,' constitute 7.5 percent of the population of London. Which is to say that last year, and yesterday, and to-day, at this very moment, 450,000 of these creatures are dying miserably at the bottom of the social pit."

"Four hundred and fifty thousand is a whole lot of people. The young fireman was only one, and it took him some time to say his little say. I should not like to hear them all talk at once. I wonder if God hears them?"

They don't talk in unison, because their voices are scattered, suppressed, dissuaded by fear, by faith, by reproach, by weakness of will and of body, by ignorance, by personal vices and dysfunctions, and by a simple appealing lie, a shiny carrot dangled before their noses on a string tied to a stick that forever out-paces their greed and desperation. 

That they will one day be king of kings, that liquor and substance abuse will transform their reality, that their children will have the life they can't, that the iron gate of the owner's mansion has a welcome mat at the door, if only one can spend a lifetime tending the gardens, manning the entrance to block one's comrades from entering, that the voice at the door will say, come in, you've had a hard day of labor, come inside to rest and all will be well. That they will sleep in the mansion, while their former friends and allies remain outside. 

Or that one in 292.2 million of the lottery tickets will be a winner. That they will go on a big jet plane to smoke a fag with God, and when the time comes, their faith in the dream will amend the failings of a colossal lie.

Like the signs in the "bargain hunting" poor people's stores, that say "we buy in bulk from department stores, so we can pass the savings to you!" Right, because Macy's buys clothes one at a time, so that's why they're so expensive. Blatantly exploiting ignorance with lies for an intent to profit.

Like the sign hanging in front of the Walmart employee's area, with a stock price and an inspirational message "Tomorrow depends on you!" The stock price of a $485 billion a year revenue corporation with 11,500 sites world-wide has nothing to do with a provincial individual's customer satisfaction. It has to be designed for that not to matter to keep going. It's not a mom and pop store where one disgruntled patron will tell his 4 buddies and you lose half your business in the town. The point is it doesn't matter whether you like it or not, you're going to shop there or the other 19.7 million people per day will, because "People living in households with incomes of less than $30,000 a year give us our highest marks-proving that those who value Wal-Mart most need Wal-Mart's low prices the most." source

Rockrimmon'

There's a town close to the mountains called Rockrimmon. It inspired me to keep it real.

Contains explicit language and mature content. Parental discretion is advised.

Rockrimmon' y'all...

Reading Notes

Jack London. "The People of the Abyss"

London Novels and Social Writings. ISBN 0-940450-06-2. 1982. Literary Classics of the United States, Inc. New York, NY.

Jack London goes to the ghettos of East London to understand and chronicle the existence of the impoverished, as well as to see humanity more clearly at the fringes of society.

Quotes and responses:

p18. "This they indignantly denied, with snapping eyes and guilty red cheeks, as though it were an essential of true refinement to be able to discern under his rags a man who had no need to go ragged."

The daughters are toadies. Looking to get on the good side of whoever is richer, above them. Dismissing of people below them to keep themselves up.

p17. "His two daughters beat him home from church"

They want their father to come home quickly because there was the prospect of money, a business opportunity.

Actually, no. I thought the hyperbole image was of daughters hitting their father with their purses, as one might a beast of burden like a carriage horse, to go faster. London just meant that the daughters got home before the father did. But were that line used in my way, I feel it would be a better 'turn of phrase'.

p17. "It was the certain weak and delicate prettiness which is no more than a promise with no grip on time, and doomed to fade quickly away like the color from a sunset sky."

A nice description of an age-old cliche about beauty-cum -youth of young ladies fading with time. Also, I like the redness of the sunset. Red symbolic of sexuality, lips, lipstick, virginity. And the grotesque bloodiness of the act of deflowering a virgin. Or the draining of blood from a pale face. IDK. Getting morbid here.

p14. "The fear of the crowd no longer haunted me. I had become a part of it. The vast and malodorous sea had welled up and over me, or I had slipped gently into it, and there was nothing fearsome about it."

Fear is of the unknown, and of the different. Becoming one of them you realize there is nothing dangerous. The fear is irrational, it is the fear of becoming them. When you accept giving up the things you own, the comfort, and the security that creates this fear, you have no danger.

London's friends made the East end of London out to be this unspeakable place that one could not step foot in without risk of losing one's life. Actually, London was quite fine. He choose to forgo his comforts and had nothing to lose. Here I'm talking about the narrator to his fictional story as London. I just realized the city and the author share their name. It can be difficult to disambiguate.

Reading Notes

Topics: Poverty and Wealth

 

Reading Notes about Affordable Housing

 

source: OUT OF REACH 2014 pdf

printed at: 727 15TH STREET NW, 6TH FLOOR // WASHINGTON, DC 20005

"For example, in April 2013, the DC Housing Authority decided to close its waiting list of nearly 70,000 applicants when the average wait time for a studio apartment was 39 years and 28 years for a one-bedroom unit."

"Affordability in this report is consistent with

the federal standard that no more than 30% of a

household’s gross income should be spent on rent and

utilities."

"In the United States, the 2014 two-bedroom Housing Wage is $18.92. This

national average is more than two-and-a-half times the federal minimum wage,

and 52% higher than it was in 2000. In no state can a full-time minimum wage

worker afford a one-bedroom or a two-bedroom rental unit at Fair Market Rent."

"Overall job

growth has been heavily concentrated in low-wage industries, with 58% of new jobs

in the post-recession recovery period paying no more than $13.84 per hour. 18 This

trend is likely to continue over the coming decade, with job growth between 2010

and 2020 projected to be dominated by low-wage jobs"

"78% of minimum wage

workers work at least 20 hours per week and 80% are at least 20 years old, dispelling

the myth that the majority of minimum wage workers are teenagers working parttime

after school.20 Low income workers affected by a minimum wage increase are on

average 35 years old, about 54% work full-time, about 69% come from families with

incomes less than $60,000, and more than a quarter have children."

"Residents of SeaTac,

Washington voted to increase its minimum wage to the highest in the country:

$15 an hour. Yet, these wages are still below what is needed to afford a decent

rental home in local markets."

 

Look how much more expensive Boulder is compared to the Springs.

 

 

 

Irresponsible, lying wealth: Rolling Stone article about the Koch Brothers article

The Koch brothers were in the news for publicly announcing their fund of $889 million for the presidential election. The winner of the powerball $1.5 billlion prize couldn't do that after taxes.

Kind of bothers me that this libertarian worship was in Colorado Springs!

The company and the Koch brothers leadership lie and cheat like sociopaths. They have no qualms about business morals, just profit.

How to Rule the World

How does an oligarchy maintain its control over United States, and by extension the rest of the world?

Two lies and a big stick.

For its own population, it maintains two lies. One for domestic policy: the American dream. One for foreign policy: Freedom and Democracy.

For the rest of the world, it uses military force. A big stick backed by diplomacy.

Placating the masses

People within the country have to be lied to, because a class ruling by wealth in a supposedly democratic nation cannot use its military force to control the internal population. The socio-economic oligarchy system hinges on the people's belief in a domestic lie. The American Dream.

So long as people within the country are pleased and distracted by their material possessions, their creature comforts, and their entertainment weekly's they will not revolt.

Maintaining a Lie is a lucrative business...

 
There is enormous money to be made in fabricating and preserving a lie. That's why professions in media, sports, and entertainment sectors can be so lucrative to earn money. They are in the business of preserving a lie. We are distracted from an international lie and deluded by our media, entertainment, and rhetoric from noticing the activity of the United States on the global scene.

Unemployed need not apply

The unemployed are unemployable.

Remember this catch-22 in hiring practices from 2012?

"Around the country, several newspapers have reported on signs put up at companies hiring new workers: "Unemployed need not apply." Apparently, employers fear that the unemployed will have to be retrained, their work ethic and their habits of punctuality relaunched. It is, some worry, too much baggage - far easier, when it's an employer's market, to simply pick from the active workforce." p29

People are such douche-fags.

American policy: 'It's better to lie, when everyone knows but can't prove it, than to tell the truth.'

You know public outrage caused employers to remove the statement from job postings, but it didn't change their hiring practices. Now you won't even know that you have zero chance of being hired when you apply. It's effectively worse for job seekers.

Americans are so fucking fake. Americans will be smiling and being nice to you on the surface acting like something will come of their empty promises and leaving you hanging until you give up of their own will so 'it's not them barring you, you left of their own choice' to avoid illegal discrimination.

"Legal experts told the Times that explicitly barring unemployed people from applying does not qualify under the statutory definition of discrimination, since unemployment is not a federally protected status like age or race. But the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently set out to establish whether employers were discriminating against certain protected groups because they are overrepresented in the ranks of the unemployed, such as African-American and older workers.
...
it sure feels unfair for the more than 6.3 million Americans who have been out of work for more than six months to be told they are automatically disqualified for the few openings that are out there. "I feel like I am being shunned by our entire society," Kelly Wiedemer, an unemployed information technology specialist, told the Times." http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/job-listings-unemployed-not-apply-133143362.html

All these legal, politically correct practices don't change the way people treat each other or solve prejudice. It just makes discrimination not spoken about, seen but not heard, denied, unproven, lying to your face, fake, flaky as fuck.

American Poverty

Reading notes and responses to:

The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives. Sasha Abramsky. 2013. ISBN 978-1-56858-726-4.

Americans want quick fix solutions

"No society in human history has ever successfully banished poverty; and no polity with a modicum of respect for individual liberty has entirely negated the presence of inequality. But it did reflect a confidence in America's innate sense of possibility; in an era of space travel and antibiotics, computers and robots, poverty was just one more frontier to be conquered, one more communal obstacle to be pushed aside. When it turned out to be an order of magnitude more complicated, Americans quickly grew tired of the effort." p3.

Consumerism is so ingrained in American culture that it is an inescapable way of life. To participate, to socialize, to feel like a member of this society you need disposable income.

"Too poor to participate in the consumption rituals that define most Americans' lives, too cash-strapped to go to malls, to visit cafes or movie theaters, to buy food anywhere other than dollar stores, these men and women live on America's edge... All of these people share an existential loneliness, a sense of being shut out of the most basic rituals of society." p4

The first step to change is intention. People often fail to change, not because they can't, but because they are not willing to change.

"Our political leaders have ignored what's staring them in the face and instead enacted policies that make economic hardship worse for those already on the margins or starting the long slide into destitution. As detailed in this book, they do so because America's political process is increasingly beholden to powerful financial interests, its priorities shaped by what used to be seen as a Southern mores: a belief not just in the inevitability of inequality, but in the desirability of oligarchy as a social structure, in the usefulness of poverty as a social control mechanism." p8.

Americans don't produce the goods that they consume. Our economy is not motivated by how much value we create, but by how much of that value ends up in the pockets of the rich.

"It is an economy that, to a large extent, revolves not around the making of things but around the shuffling of money - hence the overblown impact of financial sector, insurance, and real estate instability on the broader economic system. And it is one in which, for the last several decades, ordinary Americans have borrowed against home equity, run up credit card debt, and taken out loans to go to school, all just to survive on a daily basis." p8

Poverty is inescapable. However, inequality and socio-economic divide is intentional. These are products of our beliefs that condone systemic injustice.

"[Marshall] Ganz explained, "They're missing the whole point. Poverty is evidence of a problem; it's not the source of the problem. They're all based on the weakening of collective institutions - the decline of labor, of common interests. The core question is not about poverty, it's really about democracy. The galloping poverty in the United States is evidence of a retreat from democratic beliefs and practices." p11.

In every society there will be poor people. Poverty is not the problem. It's the systemic creation of poverty that is a problem. When the things we work for can't lead to sustainable living, not by chance or grave personal failings, but because the process does not deliver what it promises. Education, low wage employment, health-care are failed promises.

We are lead by a fabricated vision of consumption, material goods, and spending to lead a prosperous, healthy, happy life. Instead, it drives us into debt, enslaves us to depressing jobs, drives up the prices of homes and goods as we compete with each other to purchase better things and discard the outdated.

The wealth does not stay in the pockets of the lower and middle class. All our consumption funnels the wealth to the top. The working classes do not retain the wealth that they earn.

American 'Democracy'

Freedom is not free. It costs a lot of money. 

Democracy is in the hands of the wealthy. Therefore it is not democracy. This nation is not a democracy. It has always been a republic 'with democratic beliefs'. But it is not really a republic in practice, either.

What kind of government does America actually have?

Small but powerful interest groups controlling the nation's wealth influence policy to further their economic gains. This form of government is broadly described as an oligarchy, where a small number of people with status, connections, and wealth control the vast majority of the population. But more specifically this form of oligarchy can be described as a 'biased pluralism':

"Biased pluralism on the other hand argues that the entire system is a mess and interest groups ruled by elites are fighting for dominance of the political process. Also, because of their vast wealth of resources, interest groups of large business tend to dominate a lot of the discourse.

In either case, the result is the same: Big corporations, the ultra-wealthy and special interests with a lot of money and power essentially make all of the decisions." http://mic.com/articles/87719/princeton-concludes-what-kind-of-government-america-really-has-and-it-s-not-a-democracy#.8sdzDxdI6

'Like us on Facebook'

Social 'popularity' is so important to Americans, because it's a trickle down effect of the oligarch system that status and being well-connected leads to power and wealth. I suppose for any system that is true. But I feel Americans take that mechanism to extremes, because the oligarch system accentuates its effectiveness.

A Nation's Priorities

What do upward aspiring Americans value most? Popularity, then connections, then wealth. Wealth unlocks higher tiers of social interaction to work to attain social clout with more powerful people, these connections lead to more wealth and you move up - often slowly, since you are there to basically serve as a chump to the already wealthy and powerful.

You discard your 'friends' as you move up. People are as disposable as the consumable beverages and services you utilize to maintain your image. People and products feed your self-image, self-esteem, and ego that your social betters profit of you, and you use to exert superiority over social lessers.

American Values 

It is more important to upwardly mobile Americans...

• To be 'liked' than to be respected. 
• To be 'popular' than to be reliable. 
• To be 'exciting' than to be calm. 
• To be 'noticed' than to be appreciated. 
• To be 'fun' than to be responsible. 
• To be 'the best' than to be valuable. 
• To be 'talkative' than to be wise. 
• To 'know people' than to understand someone. 
• To 'enjoy life' than to make life better. 
• To 'be a leader' than to guide. 

In short, social-climbing Americans are superficial hypocrites!

Escape from Boulder

I'm back in Colorado Springs today.
I can tell this is a cool place just by the good rock music playing on radio stations.

Thoughts now that I'm outside Boulder.

I needed a heavy dose of self-therapy after my stay in Boulder

Decisions made from desperation,
No way to go...
Internal instincts craving isolation
for me to grow.

My fears come alive
In this place where I once died.

Demons dreaming,
Knowing I, I just needed
to realign!

- Godsmack. "Realign"

There's more value in being a decent human being, than having a little more than somebody else.

Jonathan, I need to talk... 
Alright, Jonathan what do you want to talk about?...
Something feels not right... *exhale*
*sigh* Oh boy...

OK, lie down on the couch.

There's more value in being a decent human being, than having a little more than somebody else.

"[When I left Boulder] I felt this freedom, this relaxing of breath, like I could finally breath with some open space. Feeling released from something I didn't even realize was there. While I was there I didn't know why I felt uncomfortable, I just felt uncomfortable. "
04:10

Complaining defined

Complaining

n.

1. An act of voicing one's dissatisfaction about something that has finished happening, for no other purpose nor with any intention to do anything about it.

2. Expressing dissatisfaction with oneself, by finding external reasons for your own unhappiness, transferring the blame of your problem to the people and things around you.

Tirade about complaining

"People complain about things when they have an issue with themselves, they are unhappy about something with themselves and then they find external things to complain about. To me, what complaining is, is something already happened, it's done, and then you have to bring it back up and then you say why somebody else or something else was not good enough to you and then you have an issue with that."

"It's people. It's not the thing itself. You can't fix somebody's complaint by giving them what they want. Cuz once they have it, they'll complain about some other shit. Complaining is an issue that you have with yourself, you're not happy about yourself in some way, and then you have to find something external to find an issue about, that you feel you're not being treated as good as you deserve to be by this other thing outside of yourself. When really, the issue is you have some problem about feeling good about yourself."

Poems

2016.01.05.2200 Tuesday

Tomorrow morning comes at night. When you wake up, it is already here. You go to bed full of the thoughts about the morning. Where to go, what you will see and do. All that you hope to accomplish in a day begins at night. At night, in your dreams, the morning comes. When you open your eyes, a new day is won.

New day
You are WINNER!

2016.01.10.2100 Sunday

I write, but I am not a writer.

I sing, though I am not a singer.

Slender
Tityre, tu patulae recubans sub tegmine fagi 
silvestrem tenui Musam meditaris avena;
You, Tityrus, lie under the canopy of a spreading beech,
wooing the woodland Muse on slender reed
- Virgil, Eclogues.

I am an artist, though I neither draw nor paint.

I am a scientist, but I have no lab or title.

I speak without words. I dance without music.

I laugh with no one around to hear.

I take pictures, yet I am no photographer.

I run, but not to get anywhere, nor to win, nor to get away, nor to lose pounds, nor to be seen.

I run because I am free and my hamstrings ache for release.

I am the wind in your hair on a cool autumn evening.

I am the firewood burning to embers in your cabin by a frozen lake.

The aliens came down...
doo, doo, doo, doo, doo
They saw a man...

I am the wet ring around your warm finger, as you touch the frost on a window.

I am the lure, the bait that flashes red in dazzling sunlight on the skin of a lake.

I am the million sparkles and winks, with which the face of water greets an afternoon visit from the sun.

I am cold embers, floating adrift, evading one's touch that would turn me to ashes.

I am fear, sour and enticing, that spurns the mind in circles and sets the heart up flights of stairs.

I am the milkman, delivering milk.

(Well dressed, respectable. Unnecessary, obsolete.)

I am a hundred different things, all at once - and I am none of them. I am something more.

A waft of faint perfume off a shelved magazine. A poppy seed in a stable cavity, dislodged with a toothpick.

I am in a place all too familiar, like a habitual dream that resembles nothing yet feels like home.

I am not alone.

Has Ulix. Not alone.

Unshackled

On Monday, I signed up for Food Stamps and Medicare. I got both approved.  Yay!

The SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits started the same day. I have an EBT (Electronic Benefit Transfer) debit card that I can spend on groceries. No hot prepared meals are allowed, but the cold ones are okay. The best part of paying with the card is there's no sales tax on the purchase!

My Medicare card arrived! I have no idea what my coverage does, but I pay no premium on it. The card is just a piece of paper with perforated edges pushed out of a larger sheet of paper. The card is kind of crappy, so I expect my coverage to be equally thrifty. I'll find out what Medicare doesn't cover when I break both my legs on a solo hike.

The medicare card was the reason I couldn't leave the area. I needed to receive it in the mail. The homeless shelter allows me to receive mail through their address and this morning I went there and found my card arrived in a letter. Now that I have the card, I'm free! Yay!

Medicare Card

Rocky Mountain National Park

On today's sunny Sunday itinerary, we have the Rocky Mountain National Park.

Horseshoe Ranch overlook

Here's the full set of photos.

My primary destination: Bear Lake and surrounding areas. The lakes are tiny - at least, when frozen in winter. Length of the trail was no longer than a mile or two. After Bear Lake, there was Dream Lake, and Emerald Lake. All three attractions could be visited in two hours.

Bear Lake

I walked across Dream Lake without realizing it. It was just some frozen rocks to one side, on the way to the mountain buff overlooking Emerald lake. On my way back, I saw a sign for Dream Lake and followed a trail. It went back to the windy flat patch of snow that I had just run across minutes before.

The view from Dream lake was my favorite. The mountain in the distance looked like a giant half-pipe.

Dream Lake

Flute

Yay, new sheet music to sight read!

I want to hike to the star on the mountain

I played at a bus stop in front of Safeway. There was a shopping cart nearby that I used as a music stand. The sun went down around 4 pm and my fingers started to go stiff, so I packed it in after an hour. Outside temperature was around 28F when I got to my car.

I like the Braveheart theme and Top Gun the best. I wish I could find Shadowfax's theme from LOTR. In 9th grade, we played that song in the New England Conservatory youth wind ensemble and I remember it being really fun and catchy. The Hobbit/Shire melody would be a nifty tune to play from memory.

Saturday Morning with Ulix

I found out some disturbing secrets about Ulix this morning. He made me laugh so hard!

"You don't know what I'm like when you're gone"

Self-therapy

Now lie down on the couch. Wuh-what does that mean?
You're a nut! You're crazy in the coconut. What does that mean?
That boy needs therapy.

 - Frontier Psychiatrist, The Avalanches.

I've been recording my memories, feelings, and half-dreaming thoughts as I'm falling asleep and as I wake up. Speaking my dreams and explaining them aloud forces me to think more clearly. The way writing an essay forces you to organize your ideas and understand your own thoughts more clearly to be able to express them in writing. Self-therapy helps me strengthen whatever insights my memories have to offer.

Ranting

Raving

Lunatic

Doge

University of Colorado: Boulder main campus

Vocab

lem·nis·cate

noun.

1. The symbol for infinity.

source

2.  Two loops in a plane that intersect in the shape of a figure-eight.

Legally Short

I had a friend in middle school who was 4'10". We found out he was legally a midget.

But then in high school he grew, like, one inch and was no longer a midget. I was kinda pissed at him, ha ha. What's the point of being short, if you don't get neato legal status?

I don't think being a midget gave him any special benefits either, that's why it was so funny!

source

Poetry Night

Monday. January 4th, 2016.

Longmont Public Library. Longmont, CO.

Diary - Eldorado Canyon

Sunday. January 3rd, 2016.
Great day for a hike. Sunny, blue skies, temperature in the 40s.

Eldorado Canyon State Park

(Caution: mega-post!)

A truce in class civil warfare

The non-combatants

There are homeless people sleeping and eating at the library. They aren't loud or disruptive, but they are ostentatiously homeless. Dirty faces, body odor, and carrying around lot of stuff. Some read a newspaper, but most close their eyes and sit around.

All of them have large backpacks and it makes me self-conscious about wearing my large backpack. Every time I use the bathroom, one or more homeless people are occupying stalls.

Buy Capitalism bonds!

How can you tell a rich person? Their kids are well dressed. They have funny looking dogs. They aren't loud or disruptive, but they are ostentatiously rich. They have nothing they must do that day, and are not a bit concerned.

Like the homeless, the rich people walk about without a purpose. What difference is there between the rich and poor, just material goods. The rich deposit their excess cash into the open beaks of shops, clubs, and restaurants. They spend money in search of leisure and sensations. They are doing the same thing as the homeless, loitering about.

Choose your sacrifices

Be willing to sacrifice 

 
You can choose which sacrifices you make, or you can let life choose for you, push you around. If you want gains with no loss, that is impossible. Then life will decide for you.

As you try to hold on to every nice thing in your life, this or that will be taken from you, like a goalie tending many open nets. How easy it is to score a goal on an unguarded net while its tender is away trying to keep all of the nets safe.

journal entry with light revision.

Want one thing, and accept the sacrifice that comes with it

Better is to hold onto one net, give up the rest so you can defend it. Pick a good net, one that you have enough reach to manage, yet enough room to spread yourself across. Pick the one that matters most to you. Let others tend over the remaining open nets.

If you don't pick one net, the best will be taken from you one by one, as you try to hold onto all of them. They will be lost to you if you try to keep them anyways. If you don't make a choice, you will be left with the one that no one else wanted to take from you. You will be forced to accept sacrifices of the best choices that you yourself were unwilling to make, wishing to have everything nice.

Don't hold on to trains moving in opposite directions

You are holding onto the reins of horses scattering to the four directions, until one by one your grip is broken and you are left holding onto the weakest horse, all your beautiful stallions galloped away with resolute riders. You will see the ones you wanted most ride away, because you would not choose between them.

In an eclipse, you have all good things at once by a rare alignment of timing and circumstance. To keep all of it, you think to stand in one place where the stars align and stupidly hope the heavens stay aligned forever. You think doing nothing but enjoying the view will keep all the bright points in perfect alignment.

This is not a valley, where good things collect at a single point. It is a crossing of trajectories in a momentary meeting shared by bodies on different journeys. They will all depart from you, standing still on that singular intersection where they meet. Your choice is not all of them to have; it is which trajectory you are willing to sacrifice the others for. You gift is first pick, not all of them.

To want everything is to want none of the work

You wouldn't want what I have if you knew
what I had to go through to get it.

The only place you get everything is the lowest point in a valley, where all the shit tends at the bottom.

Ithaka

Boulder, Colorado. 

Come to Colorado. It is beautiful. It is freedom.
Refreshing air, modern facilities, and liberating open spaces.

Road to Ithaca

Piano

Another video of playing piano in Pikes Peak 21b Library from a few days ago.
It's a longer recording taken from my phone that took some time to upload.

I tried to play actual songs by sight reading sheet music.

Merry Happy Year

Denver, Colorado. December 31, 2015.

Denver County Courthouse

I [subject] went [verb] to the New Years Eve celebration [contextual metadata] in Denver Colorado. There were fireworks at 9pm and midnight. I got in just before 9, danced like it's 1999, and left after the old year retired.