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it’s kinda funny, i look through the hip-hop i have on my laptop here (which i admit, is a bit sparser than my external hard drive), and i know i want something on that level. but i look through it all and i think what do i want from it at this moment? what precise level of hip-hop am i feeling at the moment? i look through, over and over, knowing that there will be one pass through the same list and i will know that is what i want. i just have to see it right. i mean, there’s stuff i know i could handle, but i want to pick it out of the abridged version that exists on my laptop. i mean, i must have something here, right? and then somehow, mushroom jazz 2 shines through, with everything about it resonating in my head due to insight gained from a multitude of listens.

here i sit, listening. i found it.
it sings, i listen.

i can just grab my head by it’s ear handles and pour it out. it feels like it wants to dump something out to make some more room, but it feels like doing it indiscriminately, as opposed to times where it is done through a strainer. everything must go! get rid of it, quick, quick. nothing to make room for, just a need to generate space.

so maybe i can do that. i just don’t know if i can string together the words that are going to be coming out if i really go for it. can’t dump them without putting them in order, and a lack of desire to put them in order. just go with it, dude. this is the life you live, a quest for something you don’t understand, and wouldn’t really want to. how deep can we go here? there’s some depths i’ve been looking to plumb, just to see if there’s a bottom. but i already know the answer to that one, there is no bottom to this, only time to generate a quick map of that which i am capable of knowing.

find new depths, get acclimated, then go deeper.

that’s the idea anyways, the way my mind keeps itself occupied when it’s looking to challenge its existence. it works out OK. but lets try and keep the dumping coming along. it’s not just enough to challenge my existence, there has to be some meaning tacked on. meaning that i develop, and grow comfortable with. i feel like i have this down to an art these days, i find it hard to develop an opinion because i see too many sides and think that it all sounds like it could be right. at least in trivial things like politics and ideas. i mean, this body was mostly designed to avoid being eaten by something bigger than it, in purely physical terms. now, all of those pathways that were cued to fire when a bear was chasing you are still there, but now you don’t get chased by bears and these same pathways fire when you get stuck in traffic. our bodies can’t keep up with our minds, despite these bodies being the most amazing machine ever conceived by something divine or random chance (notice the lack of opinion on how we got here… i think that stems from some matters being immaterial whether it is believed one way or the other). we are outracing evolution by light years, in hopes that we can emulate it a bit ourselves (digitally or organically), with some morality tacked on to it. who knows, it could work. i may or may not be around when it does, but it wouldn’t really make a difference. humanity is so huge at this point, that just our existence is going to carry ideas into the future. they may be repeats from time to time, but as long as it isn’t completely wiped out, it will keep moving forward, towards something i cannot even fathom. i at least get to be on the train for a bit, with an acute sense that i am immaterial to that around me, yet am also all that there is. and what of it? look at that idea for what it is, and realize how nice it is to pull in a lungful of air, walk the most trivial distance, see, hear and experience it all, and catalog it for later. i can get so caught up in dramas created for me, that i can lose sight of the own i create for myself, even if the two are intertwined. it’s easy to focus on what others do to you, as opposed to what you do to yourself. it’s kinda the ego’s job, and as much as i’d like to pretend i want to separate myself from my ego, i know it’s about the only thing keeping my life interesting. keep those emotions coming, and apply them to ideas in hugely internal ways.

plumb the depths so that you at least have an idea of how long it’s going to take you to come up for air.

I have to throw this out there while the residual smile is still on.

Stop Biting at the LoFi is too much fun for a Tuesday night, and yet it somehow happens and gives me so much happiness.
I can’t even describe it right now, because i want to roll with it for the time being.
All i can say is that everything that is beautiful about hip-hop (and life) exists there.

i have to say ben was correct today in saying to watch out because there is crazy in the air.

one of those days…mayhaps the full moon? the fact that clouds have been in the sky for three days straight meaning that the direct sunlight we have been receiving for two months straight has been cut off? Mercury in retrograde? it could be anything, but people are antsy. hell, i’m antsy. it’s why i’m here. i talked in my last post about my mind railing against my surroundings, and for the moment, i can see the other side of that coin.
previously my mind was railing against it’s situation by denying it any credence. by temporarily shutting it out. then, somehow, the floodgates reverse, and i see that my mind can rail against this seeming futility by creation. what better way to laugh in the face of futility than by trying to contribute something to it?
and yet, what to create? it can be anything, i just have to try and create a little order out of chaos as opposed to the other way around. which is the obvious root, now that i state it like that. the more i think about that statement, the more i consider it the root of most statements, declarations, actions, being. it’s simple, but it doesn’t feel like oversimplification. it smacks of truth, but i think it’s too general to achieve that level. i accept it as a mostly-truth. because if i start committing to 100% truths, then somehow perfection is achieved, and then i am only able to see things perfectly.
snap out of it, you’re becoming a cliche.
you did come here to be imaginative though, you consider yourself some sort of writer since it is one of the few things you do on a semi-regular basis. but if i didn’t have this, i would probably not keep the writing knife sharp, because writing things longhand takes so much time, and there’s no perceived audience for a journal. so i have that to be thankful for, a place to regurgitate all the ideas i consume, a place to gather thoughts and put them in order. i mean, that whole order and chaos thing? i’m not mentally fit enough to keep track of explaining those kind of ideas to myself without making a physical representation of them.
look at what you write though. so directionless, so misguided at times. i see people all over the internet writing about very specific ideas, some even based exclusively upon facts. i sit at this keyboard, this portal, at this location, and dissect my ideas. trying to find out what makes them what they are and collecting more of them in an attempt to gain more perspective by power in numbers.
so i keep an open mind, and go out to collect some more specimens for dissection, while reminding myself to keep a sense of humor and smile a little, dammit. things are getting better. sometimes, you can just feel these things.

maybe this is what you want to do, you finicky idiot?

sorry, just my inner self trying to slap the outer representation of myself around, however that works out. in blog world, rules are what you make them.
i mean, here it is my weekend, and i am lost for what to do besides resign myself to the business that will be the rest of it. that’s right, resign yourself to bitterness, it’s what you have to do occasionally, right?
something’s bugging you. what could it be? take a look around and break things down a little more. look at them for what they are, look closer.well huh, imagine that. take a look deeper and what do you see sometimes? unimaginable beauty. but wait, take a look again. huh? what happened? it’s completely devoid of meaning.
can you see? the inherently conjoined dichotomy? what are you going to do about it? what can you do about it? it all exists in the same object, the same idea in your head. existing for you to define, waiting for your validation. the object doesn’t care so much as i crave to bestow my consciousness upon it, to make it a part of my world through my ideas of classification. it seems to work out, for the most part, as well it should. i can’t seem to crack my mind out of that mold, or am afraid to do so for the ramifications that would entail. or just afraid in general, the lines blur when i want them to.
it only makes sense, when i do think about it. i mean, my mind has to rail against it’s surroundings to find any joy in them, right? at least it’s not all one, or all the other, all the time. i’m not ready to truly balance myself yet, but with practice and time, maybe i will be.
the extremes aren’t as extreme as they once were, but i’m still not ready to leave them behind.
i wonder if i ever will, and i smile not-so-inwardly.

hey you, you live in Seattle right now?

then you are probably roasting in your skin. i’ve heard values all over the map for various locals of how hot it was, but i’m reasonably sure we did get over 100 degrees today all over the Puget Sound.
all-consuming heat, it’s the only thing that can be thought about. i’m not suited for this type of weather, in the consistent manner it’s occurring. strangely, this has been messing with my head. things like lack of sleep, slight dehydration, and general fatigue let the mind run wild. me, myself, i feel like i’ve seen everyone getting a little on edge lately. but when i think back, i wonder if it was just me, feeling off-kilter and assuming that everyone is out to get me, in all this ridiculous heat. that makes me laugh a little, having time to reflect on a moment in my life, where i may have let my emotions run free, due to some applied stress. what can i say?
i literally went on a run at 5:30PM today around the business park i work at. it was probably damn near 100 in the shade, with it definitely that high in the sun. i pointed this out to the people i am running with now, but i feel i have to throw it into my journal here for the future. today, was the hottest day in Seattle history (so far!) and i went running on it. a credit to still being somewhat young.
so here i am, subjecting my body to stupid physical extremes, with my mind someway compensating in sympathy.
needless to say, terrible sleep is very prone to dream making, since you can’t hit that REM sleep that cycles every 40 minutes or so. you’re bound to wake up in the middle of some deep sleep pattern due to general heat discomfort in the night.
speaking of discomfort, i am suddenly not in the mood to write. a salute to the in-general-wrong vibe that has been bugging me all week. but hey, maybe i’ll come back! it’s very up and down around here lately. but definitely fun, nonetheless

i look ahead.

but before i do, i consider the definitions of “look” and “ahead”
in fact, i start considering the definitions in general. i look at a term and define it, with the greatest of ease. it just happens. things are defined in my universe, for better or worse. look at the definitions, they are all there, waiting to be defined, waiting for validation. and no matter what i define, i end up at the beginning again, a little wiser, with a little less time. back at square one, with a moment or two to define my situation.
i wish there was something definite here, something to define on my terms, but there can’t be, unless i make it so.
so i do.
and the life i live comes back, rushing at me, a million miles an hour. faster than i can define, because it happens in an instant. all of the sudden, i am travelling at that speed. life, the universe, and everything, travelling at a rate i define. something wondrous happened for me to deserve this, all of this.
so what else can i do? sing a little, dance a little, proclaim all that is glorious simply be being. somehow, it is all defined in this moment.
i look back, i look ahead.
then i check my definitions.

what a weird couple of weeks. i feel like it’s all been kinda building up to riding my bike to portland this weekend, but that’s just kinda been the focal point of “shit that’s gonna get done” list. it gets like this in the summer. one weekend to the next, gettin‘ shit done.

so reflect a little, as otherwise this time will just get filed under the “blur” folder that occupies much of my recall.

hmmmm, when i think about it here though, i’m kinda digging the blur. it’s a good time of year to just hang out and let the mind simmer for a bit, being summertime and all. kids get school off for the summer. now that i am a productive member of society, i get to work every week of the year, with the occasional week long vacation as reward.

so my summer’s a blur, what of it? i’m doing what i want pretty much when i want, and the weather is accommodating. it might be allergy medicine (a new addition to daily pill popping) but everything feels good. i’ve been hiking, to shows, with time to hang out in the sun. i get to take an extended weekend so i can ride my bike to portland over two days, with my brother, no less. for right now, i’m living the life i want, as was planned at some point earlier on, i’m guessing.

a life acceptable to myself and others. a life of luxury. yes!

ben! online proposition! non-craig-list-style! does that mean what i think it means? geting sidetracked!

watch Cowboy Bebop, and when the time is right post some form of “review” on the review tab. i’m gonna watch them all japanese with subtitles and post whenever my fancy strikes me, hopefully.
but the possibilities! tenchi! initial D! chobits! azumanga daioh! samurai champloo! actually, i insist on azumanga daioh, but other that that, anything! cowboy bebop first, of course, but then the sky’s the limit! exclamation point! yeah!
you know you want to!

so much going on!

c’mon ya’ll, get live get down, the supa-fly trio is in yo town. that would be true if i was lightheaded, and a supa-fly trio. but i only front. it takes way too much focus to be a supa-fly-trio….way too much. i can only handle so much. and yet….
we got so much soul, that it don’t get old, just better with time, move steady and slow.
and that’s how i roll, jump on it. whole house freeze!
sigh…i guess that is how i roll…but i got a smile on my face…happy?
do you love life, unconditionally?
yeah! why else leave it sitting on the back burner,but in an attempt to leave it in the background. i guess things happen with a push of things to the forefront, but at the same time no less important. just floating in the realm of exisitance…so unconditionally…could you love life?…unconditionally?
i suppose the fact that i can so unabashedly point in any dirction must point towards something in my personality. something that i can sit back and absorb…how else am i supposed to love unconditionally? the fact that my consciousness tells me that i can only love life in this way if i am that exception of musical consciousness that plays along with a tune i can play along with and whistle?
i think i agree, because i can go along with things so well now, seemlessly. i mean, it’s music, it’s almost impossible to disagree. if you just go along with it, there can be no dissonance, just moments of pronounced resonance.
that’s the idea anyways. find moments of key exchange…major to minor or vice versa within an eighth note, finding a major moment in a minor exchange….sorry about that one, but the idea is to find a harmony. which looks easy on the surface, but is an an amazing investment. amazing only in the fact that when you find that harmony, you find way more than you were looking for.
but breathe in, look around. conclusions drawn through a musical filter.
really, was there some other random moment of life you were looking for?
considering the complexity and the implications, it’s amazingly easy to love life unconditionally, if you want to do so.
crazy, huh?