A Tree's Life Like a Man's (Frederick Douglass' Grove)

Centered in a grove of trees arranged in an octagon, I've taken just my wireless keyboard out and am typing. I write freely and I feel uninhibited...

I think I am among wise men in a temple, standing as proudly and as frozen as marble statues. They are like the sages in Ocarina of Time.

I am now looking at a third tree and this one is very different from butt crack tree and strong tree. This one is something like Frankenstein's lab assistant, Igor. This tree gives off an impression that it did not live a healthy life, for it is shorter, twisted, scarred with indentations, and it only has one burst of leaves. I am thinking of this tree's human statue. This is a man who suffered through a winter and icy solitude in his final stage of life. It made him sick and haunted his branches, which jut out like rigid and dead tendrils and hang up in the air like teathered bones. HEH. This tree has conceded the race for more sun loooong ago. What about you? The tip of this tree, though shorter, takes him into the great canopies of two other trees. His life ended differently than all the others will because it opted out of society. This tree died consequently died with others. Really in the arms of loved ones in a way that someone fighting in the rat race of society never can due to ego. Dwarf tree dies enmeshed in the canopies of two great trees that meet right atop the dwarf tree, where it would most certainly have the greatest advantage in fighting off the other trees' desire for more light, if it had wanted to fight. Igor tree has a first burst of leaves, but not a second. It is a small burst of leaves, lower than in the other trees; I can almost jump and touch the lowest leaf on this tree. Now I am closer to Igor and see there is more to this tree! As I continue to look, I notice there are no cut ins at all. These are mushrooms! Aha! Why does only this tree have mushrooms on it and no others? Maybe this is the youthful malign (is that a word? FUCK it, MY BLOG) that stunted its life. Hmm, well anyway it lived a life just as good as the others, though I can see this tree had a harder time.





All of these trees have the same long and narrow trunk. Maybe they've all come from the same primogenitor and look the same because the conditions of their youth were similar, except for one tree that is just a stump because it has been split by some event unknown. All of these trees have branches jutting out from their trunk at two points -- at their midpoint and tallest point.

The trees become unique at about halfway up. One has a deep rivet, one that looks like a butt crack. Another is straight and tall all the way up through its top. Other than having a distinct feeling of strength, it is just like the first, except for that when it bursts out in branches at its middle and its top, the explosions are larger and more verdant. Maybe these are periods of great creativity. Can you say that both a baby and sapling have their entire biology determined at birth and what happens to them which alters that trajectory is not worthy of praise or of blame because the input is hella complex and the interpretation/integration process involves all of that pre-determined biology? No credit or blame belongs because we are like flutes to wind? We have logic, but in a sense we are unable to dodge what life throws at us, similar to a tree -- which we dont blame for anything. Things like time and chemicals can alter us in ways we do not see or understand because we make sense of them after they have passed. Our entire blame structure is built on the expectations of reaction to particular stimuli; i.e. Cry when sad. A friend told me she is working on not laughing as much, and I told her this is the worst thing she can do. You should not fight against your most basic proclivity towards happiness. A perfectly good man is ruined by trauma the same way a tree is struck by lightning.

A grove of trees can tell a whole story of life and time. A statue is a snapshot, meant to misdirect your senses and make you think you know a man. A piece of art is more like a statue than a tree. Art is not anthropomorphic or humanistic, though, like a statue. It can be but whatever. Instead it involves a larger spectrum that is inherently undetermined, unintelligible, and unique to the viewier. Artists and thinkers have called this confusing mess of symbols in art a reflection for the viewer. I love how Oscar Wilde puts it in the preface to Dorian Gray. Trees, however, are not like art or statues. They tell no lies in the stories of their life from beginning to its end and even offer a full perspective on how the beginning is to be considered, relative to the end of life. I mean to say you know the beginning of the story by looking at the end of it and you see the complete relationship of birth and life to death in a tree. As the tree grows up, it grows out and becomes all the more satisfying and deep, but it is always complete. It is a poem, not art.

"Responsibility starts where the imagination begins."
- Kafka on the Shore

Frederick Douglass' House Museum in Anacostia, MD/DC (Hood AF)

There are many trees around me and actually more further out in a second ring. These trees are very different. I dont want to think about trees anymore and I'd like to move on somewhere else. In the distance, an old steel school alarm bell rings. Im back to real life, suddenly. Im in an oasis in the middle of the hood, and there are mosquitos biting my sun burned body. On my way! Just musings that sink to the bottom of my mind, where I can reach them.

Three old wise-men and their riddles.
Three old wise men pondering a blue game of chess. 

The Seven Days of Tolerability -- My Ramadan Retrospective and Resolution

Ive finished Ramadan and I feel unsatisfied. I think my suffering was not enough. I began the period with such focus and spirituality but fell out of it as easily as I might slip out of a dress. I feel shame because I went on vacation and did not keep up my practice. The 'rules' of Ramadan say this is okay, and so I trusted that, but it does not feel okay to me.

Today I feel like my decisions will have everlasting permanence. I feel like the world is going to end tomorrow and that today is the only day where anything matters. Like there is no time. Why do I feel like there is no time? Is this a normal thing? I am almost sure it is not, but my memory is foggy right now. I am like the force was when Palpatine was rising to power. Things were clouded and even the Jedi, the seers, could not see. I am in this fog. I Think... No I dont need to think about anything.

I just need to relax.

I need to take the time to take the time. I know that I am in the eye of a hurricane.

I feel bad for myself. Oh, the weather is coming and it'll be bad this time -- im sure of it. But why do I delve into the deepest beauty for me that Seattle has to offer. It must be to rid myself of this moss that has grown over me.

I think I went into Trump's DC and came out so swampy that I cant stand myself or anyone else. Wow. That's really what happened. I have a bad taste in my heart because I licked dirty materialism, vapidity, and a million stories everyone told themselves. In truth they're puppets to ego. Ego. Ego. Ego. Ego. Ego. Eet goes where you go.

My mind is colonized. That's a hard truth. I believe that everything is socially constructed -- I almost believe in a blank slate. No, today I do believe in a blank slate. I think that the world is a maze ants have tunneled into shit and if you're not tunneling you're making the rounds in other peoples tunnels. It's all shit and doesn't matter anyway. You stomp, 6 legs deep, into shit. You skitter and scatter through pipes so tight you smack your dangling ball sack on them and so smelly we learn just not to smell really at all.

Yes, we are ants. Not mice. Not dolphins. We are the ants. Our cities are ant mounds. Our tallest buildings look like termite hives turned upside down and that makes sense. They are subterranean and we are not. The queen is an interesting allegorical comparison. She exists for us too but im not sure how to talk about her because our queen is abstract. Our queen is Beyoncé. Our queen sleeps in bed with us with her huge ass (which is all we want) and is there the next morning to soothe or shatter us. In either case, she becomes our attention and our focus and our drive and our meaning and takes from us the morning's golden magnificence. Fuck 12.

I feel very free right now. Just now, as I write to you, I have pushed myself off of a bench and fallen into the grass of the Seattle Japanese Garden because I was slouching too much to use my keyboard. I am writing in my favorite way. Blindly. I will edit what I have written, but I cannot see when I type. I like to write on my wireless keyboard. I still dont like this angle... hmmm. I must move then.

...

I totally forgot to write about the seven days of tolerability. I am treating myself to seven days of experiences that are tolerable. Experiences that are intolerable are multiplicitous; too numerous to list. Some typical seattle intolerabilities I will not put up with are 1. Homeless people acting a fool just to troll 2. People trying to avoid saying hello on the sidewalks 3. Wearing uncomfortable clothes to fit in. I will try my best to have an experience each night which lets me get away from these things but is also to my liking. Today I went to the Seattle Japanese Garden, my favorite alcove in the Washington Arboretum, and then I spent too much money at Nishima Sushi. I appreciate good service in restaurants, but that is really hard to find -- especially on the West Coast. People are filling up my water way too often, asking me more than a polite amount of conversation, just sort of being  half-genuine/half-customer-oriented half-wits. Sometimes I make friends behind the bar or in the restaurant; dont fake it, though. Feel it for real. Dont fake it.

IF people are intolerable to me on the streets, I will try to kill them with kindness. Yesterday, some guy threw something at my foot and I did get mad at him. I was caught off guard. I am sorry. It is tolerable that you throw something at me, provided you have a good reason. It was like 10PM and the dude said it was an accident -- unlikely, but maybe it was.

Today a homeless man came up to me and yelled and was like spitting on me so I bonked him on his head. Intolerable. 

Shortly thereafter, a person trying to get signatures for some sort of ACLU something and then some environmental company waved at me like they knew me. This is intolerable. Don't try to manipulate my emotions. I waved at her and said "No!" She said 'I was going to give you 10 dollars." I considered this and said to her "I am more expensive." 

People are being very inappropriate to me on a daily basis and for seven days I will treat myself to not having to deal with them at all if they want to come at me sideways.


The reason I am doing the seven days of tolerability is because Ive just finished my own personal practice of Ramadan and I feel like there is no reward on the other end of the practice for me. If you are Muslim, you have a big festival called EID where you get to celebrate with your family and have a great time all day or waste away on Instagram commenting things like "DEAD" and liking memes about how youre not doing anything for EID. I dont have a community to celebrate the end of Ramadan with. Ive tried celebrating with the Muslim folk but their celebration is too religious. I am not uncomfortable with them. They are extremely kind, welcoming (mostly), and last year I actually made peace with a 6'5/6 homeless dude who I had beef with from a random rap battle. I will not recount that tale here, now. That man and I made peace; big + for me lol.

This year I had an extremely solitary practice. I have decided to take seven days to really treat myself well and according to what I think is best for me, regardless of convention -- as best I can. My writing comes off as very insensitive and pejorative and that is how I am feeling, but I am also able to tap into a calm and open spiritedness I cultivated during long days of no eating. I am frustrated and feel I've betrayed myself by breaking my practice early.

On Staring at a Person

I recently read about staring and what your relationship with staring says about you. I have always had a hell of a relationship with staring. When I was a child, I would stare people down and I would relish when they would stare back and it would become a stare off. One time everything changed. I felt a sudden onset of fear and had to avert my eyes. That fear has been with me ever since. I've learned to resist it; sometimes I have to lie, sometimes I dont. I still try to hold a stare because I am trying to prove something to myself -- that I do not fear someone preening into my emotional state, regardless of whether I feel good or bad; but its not always easy at all. There was also a time where a teacher invited us to stare into a partner's eyes for as long as we could. That was a very important person to me and that was a endlessly mystifying half moment. Another thing I dont like is getting engaged in a conversation with overly concentrated, disengaged eyes. This is when both of you are staring RIGHT into eachothers eyes and both have really wide eyes like youre super engaged in the conversation. In truth, none of your eyes are saying anything. Both of your eyes have this gloss of falsified interest showing. That is the ultimate bull shit. Im going to poke myself in the eye the next time Im in that situation and just be like 'sorry, I had to break the lie.'