half-stream of consciousness

Why can’t being alive by my motivation for living?

I was walking down the street, had just passed a piazza, on my way to school, remnants of the beautiful day still playing in the sky, a man was approaching the same space that I was. Bikes were crowded on either side and instead of stopping we both squeezed our shoulders in, allowing each other to pass, including his little dog. And at that moment (as with all moments) an idea surfaced from my subconscious and muddled around in my conscious for a little while, testing the waters. The more I make them wait the more frustrated and bored they get, and if I can’t pull them from my brain through my mouth they usually go back home, waiting another day to poke their heads out and say hello.

I’ve been referred to as a sea otter, and I like it a lot. I remember one time at the beach, at the aquarium, and a faint memory comes back to me. I don’t know who I was with, but the walls were dark green, black, but green if there was light. Or maybe from the water, the reflections that are just as much a part of the walls then the material itself. Just a second, a young boy, wearing black, turning a corner into another room straight ahead, and it’s blurry. The substance is there but the classifications aren’t, maybe that’s why I can’t let it go: I can’t understand it.

Am I uncomfortable not knowing something? Is that why I walk around thinking, pondering, trying to learn? Walking on that same strip, at the same time when the same man was walking with his same dog. The same bikes, the same space, the same time, the same idea, just a different permutation. A different form, but the same purpose, the same aim, the same function. Whatever that is, if there has to be one, I don’t know.

The first idea was that we move, we change shape in order for others to move and change shape. We work together even if we don’t want to talk about it, even if we don’t know each other nor ourselves. We do it, what, to survive? Surviving infers many things; animalistic, another classification albeit closer than human. War, fear, aggression, and then the individual was born. I think survival is about as independent to human thought as gravity is to the universe. Two ideas, made, created, their creations implying a continuous need for them to exist.

The second idea: I don’t know anything, and that makes me happy. No expectations, no assumptions, no bullshit. Not even ignorance, because knowing how to not know goes away as well. Empty? Free? Both? Letting things go, letting everything go, even the idea of letting go, but again, another “philosophy” that is born by the death of another idea. Why do I keep trying to murder ideas? What’s my problem? Am I in love?

My motivation to learn, to know, I want that to be my knowing of nothing. But nothing, the same, the different, who are they? Nothing, everything, to define it as such has to invoke a relationship. A relationship, things are starting to make more sense, this isn’t “good” this isn’t “right.” Dualities at the same time, the need for one another, squeezing their shoulders inside themselves to let others pass by more easily.

Good, function, the end result. Why is it that we have to destroy the universe with knowledge? We build it back up again, the way we want it, but still being a part of it, hypocrisy. Circles, constant circles, finding the relationship and then escaping it, letting it escape, go away, float somewhere else, not having to hold on to it: letting it go, letting it grow.

Identity, something that makes something the same or different. Classifications, hierarchies, putting things in their place, locking them up, throwing away the key. Intellectual humility? The art of being a scholar means to learn how to be a student, learn how to be a slave to the mind, accepting without question, questioning within limits, learning, getting smarter, and then finally, finally being able to rebel. Why not rebel during the process? Why not rebel in the beginning? Why not never start something that we have to rebel against? A society needs an enemy? We create societies, we create enemies, we create the needs, we control. Power.

I was reading La Politica (Politics) the other night. Aristotle was talking about education, saying how Plocrotes thought it meant to help others find truth, giving people the tools, teaching people how to think. Aristotle saw it more as the continued betterment and improvement of institutions, that is the goal of education. Both, for me, punch this sense of followship, a path lined out, all we have to do it start walking. Don’t mind the things around the path, the hard questions have already been figured out, the hard work is done, just follow me, and I will show you things you already know…

I don’t know what education is, but I know what I would like it to be. I lied. I don’t even know that. Ideas, education, learning, knowledge. We’ve destroyed learning and knowledge with themselves, time to find other words to fill their gaps-NO! Building a house requires it to be built on something else, a replacement, a change of the same, making it still the same because it is different. Opposites, language games. English has about 500,000 words, more than double Spanish and 5 times more than French. Easier to bullshit with more words? Easier to say the same thing again and again? Yes. The same thing again and again, isn’t that what we all keep doing? Vocabulary is important because it is then harder to hear the bullshit, it covers it up, it makes it taste good, and we eat it. We eat it all up, because we’re hungry. We want to think, we want to be happy, so we believe. I don’t want to believe anymore.

Nihilism, the belief that nothing matters. Bohemian Rhapsody, a connection, a relationship. Identity, being something, but why the need to break things down? We are going in circles, moksha. The idea of finally being able to be liberated from the recurring reincarnation cycle and go to the worldly paradise. Right now I’m trying to find the relationships, make the circles as big as I can, and then let them go. You see how linear time is almost un-escapable?

Is it the only way we can understand? I want to expand myself, I want to cover the earth with my hands by using my mind and body. I need to keep traveling, but if all places are the same place? I’m always traveling.

Intellectual humility, I was talking with a teacher about the genius path towards enlightenment. It bothered-bothers me, the path set up for all of us. We just have to walk, the way is labeled. We can walk slow, easily, walk on by, go through the motions. We can run, work hard, become geniuses. We can do both, we can do neither. Why is it that if we stop walking, if we leave the path, that we are either lazy or crazy? Can they be the same thing?

A question about history, I was obscure because I tried to tell the truth. “This could be for anything.” EXACTLY, as I am trying to find the molds and not the copies. I assume them to be there, fallacious? The templates, fundamental ideas, not ones that we keep replacing. The reasons, a different kind of knowledge, and I see it in school. To exploit those that exploit us, keep the relationship even, keep it equal, keep it the same. Keep it identifiable, classifiable, keep the need.

I’m all over the place and I’ve never been so lost. Words pouring out of my hands like drugs, do my ideas not like where they live, are they trying to escape? Or could it be my body trying to get rid of the ideas that it does not like. Can we live together? Are they really leaving? I’m trying to grow, not to get taller nor bigger, nor smarter nor more intelligent. I don’t know what it means, and I think sometimes it’s better that way.

Intellectual humility: holding your breath, accepting truth to be true, going through the motions. After the first phase is over then can we open up, the path becomes wider, the same one, however. Why does genius have to be academic? Why can’t I know nothing? Why can’t I be happy to be alive? What’s keeping me from all these dreams?

Myself. My identity.

Time to get un-known.

-Anthony