Thoughts

Random writing 1

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I’ve been randomly writing.

This random one was influenced first) by the movie Sorry, Baby.
There’s a scene where the main character asks to see her love interest’s soft lil weener.

He gets weird about it, and I felt weird about it realizing my own estranged relationship my non-erect weener vs the demanding expectations of señor boner.

Second) was a line in a poem that was highlighting hypotactic language, “Laying himself gently down by me, he invested me behind, and giving me to feel the warmth of his body, as he applied his thighs and belly close to me, and the endeavors of that machine, whose touch has something so exquisitely singular in it, made its way good into me.” The poem got me thinking on the ‘singular’ nature of a penis and whether I agreed or not

My thoughts in response:

A Flaccid Cunt

A vagina is brutalized by weaponizing it: cunt. 

The word cunt puts sharp teeth in a vagina,

so that it can bite a dick off.

A penis is brutalized by disarming it: flaccid. 

The word flaccid takes the sharp tip off a hard dick 

and rounds it, child-proofs the vagina from it.

But really, as a modern, masculine man, your dick can exist in both spaces.

Do not live in fear of a soft, gentle penis at peace with the world 

as it daintily flops from one thigh before hugging the other. 

Our dicks are soft but not sexless, it’s a sexuality that has been

stolen from us: sexually honest. But honesty is disarming to those men 

scared most of all by being soft, and the softness

that emanates divine between their thighs.

Later in life

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As I now understand it, it’s in large part due to coming from a dysfunctional background that

I’m finding myself starting to do and starting to pick up so many new hobbies and interests.

And I so often follow each of these with the tag: “started L A T E R I N L I F E “.

What is later? What was earlier? Was there a right time? A wrong time?

Up until my 30s, I could count on 1 hand the number of minutes I spent on a musical instrument.

Up until my 30s, I could count on 1 hand the number of minutes I spent seeking spiritual connection with the world.

Up until my 30s, I could count on 1 hand the number of minutes I spent genuinely tearing myself open in order to grow.

Up until my 30s, I could count on 1 hand the number of days I had felt meaning in the world and in myself.

If this is LATER, then what was EARLIER!?

If this is getting older, then why do I only feel younger?

What is what is what is what is any of this?

Happy to be alive

Happy to be here

Will be happy to be dead

Because I’m going to bed

Without feeling so much

of that existential dread.

Here's to nothing!

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Yesterday was a pretty difficult day for me to stay in the zone,

and while I asked myself some good questions to see if I was in the mood to practice,

I woke up with the realization today that maybe I’ve been asking the wrong questions in those moments.


Typically, I’ll ask myself something along the lines of,

“If you don’t want to practice now, what do you want to do?”

And very often the response I have is “Nothing”,

so I just keep on practicing because I can’t think of anything more worthwhile to do.

However, I think that response hasn’t been translating properly,

in part because I was asking the wrong question.

Instead, I need to start asking, “Would you prefer to do nothing right now?”

Perhaps I’m not looking to switch tasks, I’m looking to drop tasks and sit in nothing.

The key word is nothing, and I think that’s where my mind and body want to spend

more deliberate time in order to cool down and reset,

instead of pondering adjacent things to check off

from my daily agenda.

Here’s to nothing!

Lil notes

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I’ve been writing myself lil notes

That I leave for my future self

And I say stuff like “u rock, bro”

“you’re doing such an awesome job!”

Sometimes I even get deep in the corn

and write something like, “I love u so mhch”

Smh Think I’m falling in love with mysefl

This song

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This song just came on,

and it is tearing my fucking soul apart.

Can I ask for more than that?

I mean, I am so thankful to be alive

and feeling all of these things.

I’ve never been more alive

than I am right now, in between this

sonic experience and how it affects my soul.

Nearly a month later post

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I’m back here

Where have I been?
Around.

“Recalibrating” is what I’ve been telling myself and others.

It’s been messy, difficult and exhausting,

so I think that can only mean it’s been worthwhile.

My plan is to resume my music on Monday.

Why?

Gosh, I don’t really have that answered yet do I.

Okay, I gotta get back to recalibrating a bit more.

Dancing

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I’ve just finished the book “Courage to be Disliked”.

The book has knocked me on my ass in the best way, and I sincerely appreciate the teachings of Adlerian

psychology that I hope to adapt to my own life. One of the closing messages in the book was viewing the individual

moments and interests in our lives as a dance. We can enjoy each moment as a dance, and some dances we will perform

only once or twice before moving onto new things that life introduces to us. Other dances we will perform for the

rest of our lives, and perhaps we will become so lost in those dances that we will find ourselves in new careers.

I have those types of thoughts related to my project with music, but I don’t want to think about possible future careers.

It’s my duty, that is the duty of happiness, to shine a light on the here and now.

My duty is to dance and enjoy this dance that I’m doing now, and as long as I keep dancing,

the unknowable future will be one that I enjoy.

Anyways, I am not in a mood to dance the dance of music today, and I wasn’t for most of yesterday.

I am in the mood to dance the dance of books, reading and the fantastic world of the printed page.

I danced the literary dance a lot as a kid, but reading was kidnapped from my life as a form of enjoyment

somewhere between disassociating with video games and the utilitarian approach to books i adopted in college.

But today I am back to books as a dance.

And while I can’t pinpoint each moment that contributed to this rediscovery,

I feel a big debt of gratitude to the Oshkosh Public Library’s “Not Your Classic Bookclub” bookclub,

and everyone who shared with me 1) what they were reading, but much more importantly

2) the profound meaning and joy they inherited from reading.

Thank you OPL!

 
 

Out and about

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I haven’t been able to keep on practicing songs like I was for much of October,

but it’s only really because I’d been struck with a desire to start living more authentically,

and living authentically it turns out, takes up a shit tonne of your time!

My new favoriate activity has to have been the Oshkosh Public Library book club,

and I left the 1st meeting with two books of poetry, a book on tape, and many books ready to be checked out.

I forgot how enjoyable reading for pleasure can be, and am thankeful to see myself stepping away

from a utility focused approach.

The schedule shakeup seems to be settling, and I can better sort my time,

because I really do want to get back to learning actual songs, and develop a more musical vocabulary that

songs provide vs the more standard practice I do on weekdays.

Khanyways, I wanted to write that. SO I DID. The end.

Practice works in life, too

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I have really been trying to put one foot in front of the other and be intentional about working towards the ideal person I want to be, and I am so proud of what I have been doing for the past month or so!

I think one reason things have been feeling so good, is just realizing that working on yourself is the same type of practice that goes into playing an instrument.

It takes TIME, LOTS OF TIME. You make mistakes LOTS OF MISTAKES. Some days are awful. Some days are great. But you just gotta keep going, knowing that every ounce of effort you put in is going towards a beautifully rewarding final product.

And like learning an instrument, you can only compare yourself with the ideal version of yourself you want to be. Comparisons with other players, wishing that things could be different, wishing you could do something someone else could do, these are the bringers of practice doom… Fuck I could go on, so many (good) thoughts in my head that I’ve been really listening to, and which I hope to practice more and more and more.




DISASSOCIATION

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I hunger for virtue. I hunger for a life well lived.

Fulfillment makes me satisfied, full. 

Not living for that makes my neglected emotions hungry 

for disassociation from the disappointment and regret

via food, drugs, sex, doomscrolling, and so on.

Shame incoming! 

Note:

It’s amazing how well you can know yourself when you’re willing to look at yourself.

Moments that shape you

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It’s often impossible to appreciate the moments that shape and influence your direction in life.

For myself, I can pinpoint one:

A Perfect Circle’s performance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno in 2004, when I was just starting high school.

What I can pinpoint:

Maynard James Keenan’s long hair, and whatever exactly he’s doing with it, and the ensuing desire to grow out my own hair for the first time. I had long hair for the rest of high school, but it would be nearly another 20 years until I grew it out again. I still haven’t fully committed to whatever the style is in the photo, but maybe some day! Maybe this performance will be my halloween costume next year.


 
 


Mantras and Affirmations

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If you can look look past the tiny wrist, you’ll see a very large Apple watch. That’s not the important part, but if you see that, your eye is in the right spot.

The important part is the mantra. Well, ackshually, they are lyrics from a Her’s song that I find to be the perfect mantra for living life.

I’ve recently been introduced to daily mantras, and I hope to come up with some good ones on my own for various situations to help guide me through the day. Affirmations are similar, and I get some great ones by using the How We Feel app.

Song

 

Ready 4 a new week anxiety

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I’m going to have a think about what this new week anxiousness is made up of.

It’s kinda like no matter how the previous week ended, or the weekend has gone,

I still get a pit in my stomach as another week of practice is about to begin.

I suppose this can be a good thing, but I do feel like there is some stuff in there that needs a deliberate looking at.

I’m gonna do that right now!

I gotta stop spoiling a great week and a nice weekend with some overlooked emotions.

I gotta sort things out if they’re gonna be sorted.

I am just trying to start as many sentences as I can with I.

I have been out of ideas for a while, but I really just want to keep the I train going.

I am done!

I am out.

Edit: 1) I did good. I started working on that right after typing the first draft :)

2) I also really appreciated what I read today in The Gifts of Imperfection related to spirituality, and how

finding inspiration in the truth that everyone struggles and has imperfections brings us together, unites us.

Impromptu shame vacation

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Wednesday was challenging. I was fighting myself.

The night before I had been practicing a song, and for some reason my feet weren’t agreeing with my brain. This disagreement made me spiral. What I now realize is that I was experiencing shame. I felt unworthy to play music. I felt like a fraud. An imposter. And above all, a complete waster of my time and an idiot for thinking I could play music. My response to that was to stay up late, face planted hard into the YouTube algorithm with fistfuls of M&Ms.

Though Wednesday was difficult, I was able to look inward enough to open a book. Serendipitously, I found myself reading about the role of shame in a person’s life and how to counter it. I didn’t understand shame prior that day, at least not how shame affected myself personally, but as of today I’m working on shame resilience and developing strategies to put my shame in the open so that those events are minimized. I know this path won’t be easy, but it feels liberating, and I look to forward to honing those skills and building connections.

Thursday was less challenging. I was motivated to read, but honestly the work was leaving me too drained to do much else. I’m proud of myself for how deliberately I read and the amount of energy I spent to really digest the words on the page and my relationship to them.

Friday was primarily recovery. I read in the morning and then took an afternoon walk. After getting back, I did have a brief thought of taking the rest of the week off, but I knew that wasn’t what I really wanted to do. I am ready to return tomorrow. I also practiced the song that set this whole chain of events in motion, and though still a bit sloppy, I was able to play it nearly to tempo.

I need to develop better strategies moving forward to remember that not being able to play something does not equate to being a bad musician. I need to become more comfortable sharing moments like that with people close to me so that the shame cannot set like concrete in my body, and leave me handicapped for days while I hope to find a jackhammer somewhere in between the wallowing.

I’ve got work to do, but I’m eager to do it. It won’t be easy, but there is such a big payoff waiting if I do, and I believe I have the courage necessary to do it.