conditioned existence

Going outside to talk on the phone, visiting with katie at Nathaniel's wedding

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well check this shit out

[Christopher Anonymous]
10:16am
[i am] burning up with desire and passion and need get out
[Christopher Anonymous]
10:19am
yeah i feel SO restless lol
i feel like...hmmm...I'm not a normal person like
you do A then B and move to C and everything is ordered and arranged according to how it "should" be
i don't even think I could do that if i tried haha
[Court Anonymous]
10:23am
me either, bro
and, i think you do try.
or you have tried, in the not-too-distant past
so you know what works and what doesn't
[Christopher Anonymous]
10:27am
i THINK i'm best at music idk lol
[Court Anonymous]
10:28am
sure you know
[Christopher Anonymous]
10:29am
yeah
i believe i tell myself i think
and prevent myself from pursuing it cuz i'm scared
and want to try and be normal
[Court Anonymous]
10:30am
well it's good to not keep your views cemented, to always question them
i hear ya
[Christopher Anonymous]
10:31am
i'm not against taking the time to consider what is and isn;t
i just seem to be my biggest enemy in the arena of my passion and goals
[Christopher Anonymous]
10:36am
I seem to have trouble doing this all on my own...I'm not a follower, and I couldn't lead many people anywhere lol...but I need to find something in the middle and make it work

time on fire

Two weeks ago this time yesterday, I was just sitting in a train station in Seattle. Two weeks!

In the weeks preceding that, I was stressing about how to get "everything I could not do without" into my pack. I bought a pack more than double the size of my original pack, and still didn't fit it all in.
I've been shedding things since then, and am pretty sure it won't be long before this pack is far more than I need. Keep this up long enough, and I'll become the monk I set out to be three and a half years ago. (Only three and a half years?!)

Since I've arrived at my mom's house we've watched three movies (probably eight hours), and three and a half hours of TV. I haven't been here for forty-eight hours, and I've slept for twenty of those. I remember Geshe Michael Roach talking about returning from a three-year retreat and spending days watching movies. So I don't feel too bad. But I've only been "gone" two weeks! Am I just throwing myself into comfort? When I hit the road again in a month, will it be as painful as these past two weeks have been?

Yes. That's the point.
It's like being on fire.

testing

Trying out a new phone app that will, hopefully, make blogging from the phone suck less.

I just got into Hollywood. Already I prefer the previous hostel. Those people were all Travelers who happened to have parties. First impression here, these are mostly Partiers who happen to be traveling.
As a guy from the shuttle said, "eh, LA. The movie stars can have it."

Checked in with my father. He asked, "what are we meeting for?" Meeting? "I thought we were meeting each night with a cop." We're not meeting tonight. I'm in LA. Why would we meet a cop? "I was waiting for a cop, for the pill." What pill? What's going on? "Oh, I've gotta go, Court. I'll call you back in five minutes."
Rinse/repeat x 3.
Can't tell if he's on drugs or if his brain's gone wrong due to some blood sugar issue. He said his blood sugar is fine. Guess I just have to trust him for now.

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like a band of gypsies we go down the highway

So here's the plan at this point:
at the end of november, take a train from seattle to berkeley
after x days in berkeley, start making my way down the west coast, stopping in at as many communes as possible
try to make it to mom's house for xmas
january 22 is nathaniel's wedding in casa grande, az
spend a few days in tucson
my march, make it to east tennessee
- hopefully visit linnaea and her ex
- hopefully scott, leslie, charles, adrienne & valerie will be able to come along

other than that, it is just a matter of moving from collective to collective, learning and contributing as possible

update:
December: California, Texas
--Berkeley for a few days
--SP meetup in SF on 12/10
--meet up with kim & visit alcatraz
--get to texas, visit aunt jo & my father, xmas with mom & jenny
--visit plum blossom sangha with robin
--lunch with daniel quinn
January: Texas, Arizona
--visit Jessie in El Paso
--spend a few days with the Samberg family in Casa Grande (Nathaniel's wedding)
--visit with leslie, chip, age, val, dawna, corbin as much as possible
--visit stone curves
February/March: Hawaii
--WWOOF on Maui
--meet up with Lisha, maybe attend Decompression
March/April: Arizona - Tennessee
--meet up with Leslie & Chip
--spend time with Nashville peeps
--put up Private Property signs around the farm, give hunters fair notice
--visit Linnaea
May: New York, Vermont
--visit (kidnap) Chris
--visit Katie, Charissa, Andrew
--visit Twelve Tribes / Back Home Again
June - July: Virginia
--volunteer at Innisfree Village (innisfreevillage.org)
August: Tennessee, Nevada
--work on the farm (cutting down overgrowth in fields, mending fences, etc)
--collect my sister & whomever else, go to Burning Man: Rites of Passage

these being, of course, tentative and merely highlights along a path of couchsurfing, WWOOFing, and visiting intentional communities.

find your own dream

In his 1931 The Epic of America, James Truslow Adams coined the phrase "American Dream." He says: "It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position."

When I came across this, I expected to find a statement that I disagreed with. But I think it's a pretty good statement, really. But even as he defines it, he admits, "too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it." Why? What's the problem?

I've been kicking it around for a few days now, and finally, I think I put my finger on it. Social order.

[...]

"There are obviously two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live. Surely these should never be confused in the mind of any man who has the slightest inkling of what culture is. For most of us it is essential that we should make a living...In the complications of modern life and with our increased accumulation of knowledge, it doubtless helps greatly to compress some years of experience into far fewer years by studying for a particular trade or profession in an institution; but that fact should not blind us to another—namely, that in so doing we are learning a trade or a profession, but are not getting a liberal education as human beings." The quote is part of an essay by Adams entitled ‘To “Be” or to “Do”: A Note on American Education’ which appeared in the June, 1929 issue of Forum. The essay is very critical of American education, both in school and at the university level, and explores the role of American culture and class-consciousness in forming that system of education.

[...]

The Element, by Sir Ken Robinson

[...]

Buckminster Fuller: "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."

food

In 1995, I started my first real job and, around 2PM, I had my first real lunch break. I went down to the food court, to Sbarro, and ordered a slice of pepperoni pizza. For every working day of the following year, I went to Sbarro, and had a slice of pepperoni pizza. After a year of that, I switched to Chik-Fil-A's chicken strips. After that, I switched to a bacon cheeseburger from Frank 'N Stein. After a year of that, I went back to Sbarro. I don't put a lot of thought into eating. I enjoy food that tastes good, but generally I feel like eating is an unfortunately necessary waste of time.

This year, I've thought more about food than I ever have before. Earlier this year, Leslie started a new blog: Call Me Vegan. Having devoted such a large amount of time to studying Buddhism, I've long considered vegetarianism to be a noble decision. However, I have always thought that veganism was just showing off ("Oh, you think you're a better person for not eating meat? Well watch this!"). This idea was aided by the fact that the majority of vegans I've encountered are assholes.
Reading Leslie's blog (Les not being an asshole at all) opened my eyes a bit, and staying with her and Charles earlier this year really did. I'm a meat eater, big time. In my mind, food that is not meat only exists to accompany meat, and I have a hard time imagining enjoying more than one meal a day that does not contain meat. So three or so days living with vegans was a trip. Meal after meal, I was surprised that I was enjoying it. Even when the two of them didn't think it was very good, I did.
So that's what got me thinking originally.

The next thing was a book called Food Rules by Michael Pollan. It was recommended by a co-worker and sounded interesting. At $11 and 140 pages, I thought it was overpriced, but I also thought there are worse things to overspend on.
Meanwhile, Jenny and Lisha had been gardening the hell out of our back yard. We'd been eating salad out of it for a while, and by the time I started the book, we were eating spinach, broccoli, and potatoes out of it as well. Completely by chance, I found myself practicing what I was reading.
One of the things that really gripped me about Food Rules was the mention of evolution. When I think of evolution, I think of this lineage, this chain from single-cell life to today's fish and monkeys and humans. Homo erectus became Homo sapiens. Except that's not the truth of it. Some Homo erectus became Homo sapiens, and others became lots of other things that died. Evolution does not mean we, as a species, eventually graduate to the next level; it means that we all change, most of us die. Some things work, some don't, and the things that don't, kill us. That's the point Pollan makes in his introduction: the current Western diet kills us, whereas in his research he has noticed some things about other diets that don't.
He makes it simple (no chapter is longer than two pages; many are a single sentence) and amusing (e.g., #18, "Don't ingest foods made in places where everyone is required to wear a surgical cap," or #36, "Don't eat breakfast cereals that change the color of the milk"). At the end, I decided that this little book was well worth more than $11. I recommend it.

The next food-thought-inspiring thing was Jamie Oliver's TED Talk. Take the twenty minutes now to watch it. It sounds like a good chunk of time, but after I watched it, I watched it again. Plus, if you're reading my blog, you probably have the time to spare.
In his talk, Jamie Oliver is compelling and he demands a revolution in the best way. A new favorite quote of mine: "If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea." -Antoine de Saint-Exupery
I think Jamie Oliver accomplishes this in those twenty minutes.

...killing & cooking...

We Must Fight Because We Can't Lose

Who makes no grand gestures or cries,
He would happily wreck the earth
And swallow the world in a yawn.
-Charles Baudelaire

"Well I used to stand for something
Now I'm on my hands and knees."
-Nine Inch Nails

I'm not satisfied. Are you?

At a time when so many Americans do not, I am lucky enough to have a pretty steady job. I rent a house with a wonderful girlfriend and an inspirational roommate. We have a garden and friends loving families and all sorts of luxuries. So who am I to be dissatisfied? Unfortunately, I cannot manipulate this emotion with this kind of logic. As much as I want to be here, and despite the fact that I have all I need and more, I am disturbed.

Years ago, when I lived at J140, I was irritated at the fact that I only needed my job to pay for my car, and only had my car to get to and from work. Neither the car nor the job was inherently frustrating--the cycle was. Either would have been unnecessary without the other, and therefore they demanded each other's importance. At this point, Jenny and I are both disillusioned with our jobs but, in spite of the choices and changes I made in 2007, we cannot leave these jobs. Lifestyle:car job:jobs. We could get other jobs, but I see no reason why it wouldn't be just the same. The trouble is the idea that we have to be living this way. (I know, I've been here, I've done this. I know better and have proven that I don't have to live this way. But with a changed variable--Jenny--I am trapped by the idea that we have to live this way; if it's going to be "us," then it has to be "this."
Samsara is translated as "the endless cycle of suffering," and in my mind this is a perfect example.

I grabbed my trusty Path of Heroes recently and opened, randomly, to page 133. (We only notice opening to a random page when doing to produces a resonating result, and this is what happened.)

From birth we have been trained in samsara; our models for action are worldly models. Because we are deeply enmeshed in samsaric patterns, we rarely sense that there could be other possibilities for thought and action.* For us to consider a fresh perspective is like being asked to wake up from a dream when we do not know that we are asleep. Thinking ourselves to be fully conscious, we may even laugh at those who try to help us awaken.

Even as we consider the teachings presented here, our judgment is samsaric. Tricky and clever, samsara twists our thoughts into a pattern of self-deception. Although we may admire the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas, we may feel that their way is not for us: We feat that if we were to lose our samsaric pleasures, life might no longer be enjoyable or worthwhile. It is very difficult to go against this pattern and persuade the mind that another way of being is not only possible, but vastly preferable.

And yet, once we have caught a small glimpse of the true nature of existence, we can see our situation with more clarity. We can see for ourselves that suffering does not have to be our reality, and that it will disappear if we wake up. It is time for a different way of being: the path we have traveled so many times before has led us only to pain and suffering.* If we change our patterns of mind and behavior, there is no need to repeat them.

The term "samsara" may be more easily understood in the form of Daniel Quinn's Mother Culture:

Mother culture teaches you... Your place is here, participating in this story, putting your shoulder to the wheel, and as a reward, being fed. There is no 'something else.' To step out of this story is to fall off the edge of the world. There's no way out of it except through death. [ish, p37]

If you consider our civilization today, I think it's easy to see how the idea of samsara applies. For nearly as long as I can remember, I've been overwhelmed by the feeling that something was wrong. There are people who love and who thrive in this culture; I am not one of those people. Even before I knew what samsara is, I knew I wanted to escape the pattern; saw no use for it, felt like there was no reason to live by it. So I got where I am now by trying to escape.

Stephen Batchelor points out in his book, Living With the Devil: "While in Hebrew Satan means "adversary," the Greek diabolos means "one who throws something across the path." In India, Buddha called the devil Mara, which in Pali and Sanskrit means "the killer." [p 17]
If my goal in life is to escape samsara, then whatever lies in my way is the diabolic, the devil. There are innumerable things in my way.

One of the big excuses that I used to put up was, If I'm Going To Break Away, I Need More Money First. I learned that this was wholly false, and yet here, years later, I still feel this way.

I used to think it was something I'd have to do on my own. I thought this because nobody seemed to feel the same. I felt like (feel like, really) that if I pulled someone along with me, they'd be just as dissatisfied as me, living a life they didn't feel strongly for. And plus, I'm just a loner kind of guy anyway. I've intentionally distanced myself from friends and family to make my course easier. I spent a number of years (2001-2009) planning on being a monk, because it just made sense to me. I never committed to monkdom though, because it ultimately seemed like a sheltered life; I figure to live an authentic life, I would best live it in the company of the world, rather than run from it.

When I started getting stressed over what this could mean for my life here, and my relationship with Jenny, I came across this passage from from the Pali canon of Buddhist texts:

[the one about the log and the river]

After reading this, I realized there was no real reason why I couldn't

... There are many things in my way, but really there is only me.


'I see your troops all around me, Mara, but I will proceed with the struggle. Even if the whole world cannot defeat your army, will destroy it with the power of wisdom just as an unfired pot is smashed by a stone.' [lwd, p18]

- -- --- ---- ----- ---- --- -- -

*emphasis added by me

The Growing, Non-Existant Court Anonymous Web-Presence

Remember that time I had a couple of drinks and passed out and don't remember what happened? I'm glad you do. Anyway, I lost my phone somewhere in there and, having been convinced by Michael, I have an Android phone.

Once upon a time there was this blog, and then, when I left Tucson, there was this twitter. Also once upon a time, I used to love designing web pages for a budding Web.
And now that I have this phone, I'm interested in making a Court Anonymous app for Android. I expected Android to be like Flash... instead, I have learned that I need to learn Java. I'm... working on that.

Reading Rule the Web by Mark Frauenfelder has also gotten into my head that podcasts are not beyond my capabilities.
Now, back before I moved into this house with no cell-phone coverage, I would talk to many of my friends (Scott, Nathan, Age, Chris, Leslie, Katie, Mom, my sis, etc) at least once a week, and the talk was good. Nowadays, weather permitting, I'll talk to a distant friends once every three of four weeks, or two or three months. With ideas like my Android app, books like Rule the Web, and some nice weather... I'm thinking of recording some conversations to podcast.
I try not to hold myself to self-importance; however at this stage of my life, I'm convinced that I am the most important thing in my life and, regardless of whether I have an audience, I'm determined to make this podcast thing happen. If these conversations aren't starting a revolution, if they're not changing the world, then it's only for lack of trying. I'm convinced these words need to get out, and by God, we're the ones with the words. So, as the brand that yearns to be burned across my forehead says, Let's Fucking Do This.

Who's in?

A Moot Point

Last month at ted.com (one of the most worth-while sites on the Web, imho) was posted the talk given my Christopher "moot" Poole, the inventor of 4chan.org. I'd been interested in seeing this because I'm a fan of 4chan (I'll explain why), and because it was announced that he'd be speaking on the subject of "Provocation." Now that I've seen it, though, I wonder why they posted it.

It wasn't bad or pointless, really. It's just that Chris is not a public speaker. And it's a shame because, with a title like "The Case for Anonymity Online," he certainly had some good things to say.

[See, now this is why this blog exists--I intend to write what I think he should have said.... but now dinner's ready. So, draft it is.]

(I recommend visiting the site and, whether you watch the video or not, read the comments on the talk.)

A Test Page

Because sixteen blogs weren't enough, here is another. I developed it because I tend to start lots and lots of articles, but lots of them remain unfinished as drafts. I didn't want to post half-writings on the blog, but I didn't want them to sit behind a curtain for, let's face it, ALL OF ETERNITY. So here is my test-blog, where I'll write, and if I happen to actually reach a conclusion, I'll just copy/paste it over to my real blog.