Don’t try to understand me. There is no me; just an idea of me. There is no us; just a fleeting, transient notion of a familiarity, a likeness of an idea of a person.
He and she.
He has lived the life which has brought him here. He could be no other way — only always blissful. He has found something which is uniquely his own. Something — some great joke, which when he plucks it, rings quiet to every other person .
Her name is Cat. She smiled at me so brilliantly. She was spinning crazy with some strange fleeting idea of what it means to be happy with someone. Happy for her self I would say! She was floating around me; above me! Boy was she above me! She’s above it all! Her head is in the clouds but her eyes! Her eyes are fixed on the horizon with the intention of some great admiral. Maybe the proud dog of some proud admiral; but proud nonetheless. Proud eyes! Eyes proud to be eyes! Eyes proud of their sockets, sockets proud of their brows, brows of their forehead, forehead of their cheeks, cheeks of their nose! The whole composition is grinning at itself. A delicious, mischievous grin of pleasure and the pleasure in pleasing! No idea…no!…no conception of humility or shame. She is love. She is fire and radiance. Taken by a drift, or drifting and going with some beat. Some tidal beat of a smile that carries a laugh that punctuates a heartbeat and a tear in the tear duct of my grinning eye that can’t squint sadly at being with her. And what good kisses she could kiss. The whole head. She kissed my whole head. Ears, neck, chin, beard, ears, nose, those, no toes, and so it goes.
“Raw with love”
Raw With Love little dark girl with kind eyes when it comes time to use the knife I won’t flinch and I won’t blame you, as I drive along the shore alone as the palms wave, the ugly heavy palms, as the living does not arrive as the dead do not leave, I won’t blame you, instead I will remember the kisses our lips raw with love and how you gave me everything you had and how I offered you what was left of me, and I will remember your small room the feel of you the light in the window your records your books our morning coffee our noons our nights our bodies spilled together sleeping the tiny flowing currents immediate and forever your leg my leg your arm my arm your smile and the warmth of you who made me laugh again. little dark girl with kind eyes you have no knife. the knife is mine and I won’t use it yet.
-Charles Bukowski
Dad, Lou Salome
To break with taboos you must have faith that you can win in spite of the taboos. I think most people disagree with many social conventions but recognize (and appreciate) the normalizing, unifying effect that they have on society. So most would rather fit in and satisfy the requirements imposed by society - one real triumph - than resist and take the risky path to emancipated self-definition - another great triumph. The problem is that the quality of the two triumphs is incomparable. It is impossible for any individual to foresee the devastation and fulfillment that both paths are capable of yielding. Unfortunately social cohesion and the socializing pressures tend to triumph over the minds of most people, and so the path to true individuality (a very risky path, no doubt) gets explored far less often. I should clarify though that I don’t think fitting in is in the end a much easier task. It is fraught with torments and anxieties that that are of a very different nature than the path followed by the secluded individual. The quality of these torments are, again, incomparable. But my intuition tells me that the path of the individual is a more noble one.
I can now see my father’s stupidity as a kind of friction in his mind — a suppression of the possibilities of a life unburdened by children and family. He cannot accept that his place in my life might have been destructive, and so he makes it easy on himself. He tells himself that it was a good thing that he stuck around; even though I’m sure things would have been better if he hadn’t. But were I to tell him this I don’t think it would register. To him the possibility of his absence would seem like the ultimate doom.
Expression is everything. You may have a world of love to give but if it doesn’t find expression it’s useless. I think of my father and the goodness he has in him, but he’s spent a lifetime sinking away from intangibles and unfathomables and so his love is lost.
The point isn’t to win or to come out on top, but to act with grace when you can, and to feel empowered by the things that come free in life.
Let your soul age while you are young, but never let your heart slow its pace or lose the vivacity of its beat and flow. I have a picture in my mind of some years down the road, where I’m reclining and thinking of the wisdom of my youth, and wishing that it was all I feel it to be now.
How to avoid shame and criticism
Don’t be a damn fool!
Mild
Is a mild-mannered personality made ugly by self-questioning or is it just ugly on its own?
The summer in winter
“In the midst of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.”
-Albert Camus
