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June 28, 2019
217.8 lbs
217.8 lbs
June 28, 2019 542 Beacon, NY
June 28, 2019 504 Beacon, NY
June 28, 2019 491 Beacon, NY
7:50 AM - Bigmouth Coffee Roasters
… slow walk down Main this morning, pleasant temp… debates last night, stayed awake this time, Kamala Harris looked good, Butigige too, but he is white male, off the list unless there are only men in the race… want to see Kamala and Elizabeth Warren toe to toe, compare, contrast… Joe Biden did not impress, seemed hesitant, befuddled… Bernie Sanders better, but still white, male, i am all about the women… what to do about Mitch McConnel, more evil than Trump… offered my top three candidates on FB, Harris, Warren, Gillibrand, all women, women should run the show for a while, men have behaved badly… “All this is subversive to civilization: for civilization is built on hierarchy and specialization. A ruling class, to survive, must propose a Law: a law to work must have a hook into the social psyche—and the most effective way to achieve this is to make people doubt their natural worth and instincts, especially sexual. To make “human nature” suspect is also to make Nature—the wilderness—the adversary. Hence the ecological crisis of today.”*… i wonder how any society could organized itself to maintain a pervasive attitude of respect towards all beings and things and minimize violation, conceding action is not possible without violation, when action is required, how is it undertaken, with respect, some primitive societies appear to have understood this…
*Earth House Hold, Gary Snyder
June 27, 2019
218.4 lbs
218.4 lbs
June 27, 2019 471 Beacon, NY
June 27, 2019 468 Beacon, NY
June 27, 2019 455 Beacon, NY
8:06 AM - Ella’s Bellas
… an exchange about religion with S this morning, the good and bad of it, S arguing religion always bad, i argue, on the ground, in the midst of impoverishment, it can be uplifting, in the midst of affluence, which it organizes to protect, not so much… i argue we believe in scientific method and reasoning based on logical deduction, which are methods and, for most of us, beliefs that have made both good and bad possible, have arguably been more destructive than religion, none of us navigates solely on empirical evidence, we accept and have faith in the conclusions of others, which is magical thinking too, why is it better than religion… haven’t heard back from S on this but T gets my broader point… most (all) of us navigate with primal instinct… what promotes the goodness of people… whatever mitigates the primal… buddhism perhaps, education, travel, experience of other cultures, not having to worry about necessities, not being oppressed, a system that doesn’t get its energy from big differentials in power, wealth, basics taken care of, free to amass more, but taxed heavily… i wonder about psychologically profiling those who run for higher office, whether certain profiles could be kept from having power, higher office purely service to the people, everyone required to do it… reading about Jainism, reputedly the most peaceful religion on earth, non-theistic, non-violence, non-attachment, no, or few possessions…
June 26, 2019
219.0 lbs
219.0 lbs
June 26, 2019 057 Beacon, NY
June 26, 2019 038 Beacon, NY
June 26, 2019 037 Beacon, NY
9:03 AM - Bigmouth Coffee Roasters
… i am dismayed, 3 lbs of weight gain, overnight, water… a long walk this morning, photograph the sculptures, Beacon 3d, i have my super wide angle lens on the Nikon… Earth House Hold, GS arguing a coming freeing up of society, which has not come even close to happening, matrilineal family organization, looser rules on interaction of the sexes, we are either on the brink or taking some giant steps backward, I can envision the Handmaid’s Tale playing out… i posted some writing yesterday which mentions D, i don’t think he will ever see it but if he does he will be angry and i will shrug, not really talking about him, talking about me and how i feel, if he doesn’t like it he should learn to treat me better, then i might at least have positive things to say… a very pretty young woman comes walking back, she seems to be working here, short skirt, t-shirt, hair up in a bun, she says “Audrey i found it,” a ring for a machine of some sort, Audrey is the name of the new barista that used to work at the natural market across the street… i keep thinking i want to teach myself to meditate but i am so bad at it, what is that about, my mind very restless, all the time…
June 25, 2019
216.2 lbs
216.2 lbs
June 25, 2019 444 Beacon, NY
June 25, 2019 439 Beacon, NY
June 25, 2019 433 Beacon, NY
4:01 PM - Bigmouth Coffee Roasters
… “is that you Joe,” says a man standing in the shade in the park, he sounds impaired, stroke, low iq, hard to know from this brief encounter, he is older, walks tentatively, he apologizes when i tell him i am not Joe, i tell him it's ok, he is missing half his teeth, he seems to be part of a group of elderly men brought to the park by a young woman, all seem impaired in some way, there but for the grace of whatever powers may be, go i…
8:30 AM - Bigmouth Coffee Roasters
… cloudy, some rain… feeling good, weight is down to a decades low, yay me, keep up the good work, health will get, already is, better… edited and posted more wedding phots, a little annoyed at the way facebook does things… heavy rain on the roof of the building, love the sound, rain stick large scale, the floods are coming, glad i got here when i did… H seeming to be in constant complaint mode, in a constant state of agitation, i would like to make her happier, that isn’t entirely up to me, she should stop feeding her mind with so much negative stuff, news, horrifying book and miniseries on Chernobyl disaster, interesting, even riveting, but still, too much of her intake is like this it seems to me… last night, tv going loudly after midnight, i check on her, i think she may have fallen asleep, no she was reading, i asked her to turn the tv down and went back to bed… “whatever you meet unexpectedly, join with meditation,” so counsels The Compassion Book, Tonglen practice, one is to meet the unexpected, good or bad, with a meditative mind, allow the empty space created by the unexpected to remain as long as possible, absorb the pain of a bad situation and wish others to be without such pain, breathe out the joy of unexpected good and wish the same for others, in this way patience and non aggression is practiced, i wonder briefly if it would be possible to require Tonglen training for everyone, i know it's not… Earth House Hold, Gary Snyder’s travels through India with Alan Ginsberg, others, seeking Buddhist enlightenment, Snyder’s prescription for the world, matrilineal societies, open marriages, communism and meditation for all… i agree with the author’s views on capitalism, a disaster for the planet, standards of living may be improving now, hard to see how that can continue… also, men mostly responsible for fucking things up, especially white men, matrilineal makes sense to me, i believe women will be better behaved, they can give birth, they have less to prove to the world… thinking about C’s wedding, perfect representation of what has been the ideal union norm, woman cleaves to man, honors and obeys, man respects woman, treats her well, not good enough, women should be coequal, man and woman, or man and man, or woman and woman, in good communist fashion, pitches in according to their talents and capabilities… the only scenario under which i think capitalism has a chance to be remotely good is if the way is being cleared for a new kind of intelligence, and i think it needs to happen according to the halonal structure described by Ken Wilbur, that is humanity and all living creatures have an essential role to play in this next level, which could not exist without them, but the understanding of the next level is not theirs, but that of an alternative intelligence made possible by technology…
June 24, 2016
217.4 lbs
217.4 lbs
June 24, 2019 362 Beacon, NY
June 24, 2019 315 Beacon, NY
7:45 AM - Bigmouth Coffee Roasters
… another glorious day, three in a row… a bunch of weeding yesterday, garden overrun, two weeks of weed neglect and boom, weeds are like that, aggressive, relentless, everywhere at once, overwhelming, i wonder why nobody ever named a sports team “The Weeds,” weeds have just about every characteristic a team of athletes is supposed to have… the wedding photos are flowing in, need to process mine… my weight a broken record lately, at least it is a broken record below 220 lbs, good reading on my BP this morning, 114/74 68 bpm, before taking meds for the day… feeling overwhelmed by the photo processing and posting to be done… went to bed at 8:30 last night, was tired, H doesn’t like it when i go to bed so early but hell, at least i had most of my sleep in when the smoke/co detector went off at 4AM, we all bolted out of bed, no sign of anything amiss, maybe a ghost in the machine…
June 23, 2019
217.4 lbs
217.4 lbs
June 23, 2019 289 Beacon, NY
June 23, 2019 264 Beacon, NY
8:17 AM - Bigmouth Coffee Roasters
… C is Mrs. C now… i am exhausted, trying to understand why, the best i can come up with is the psychic stress of being social for an extended period of time, not that much physical activity, very little alcohol, slept well, just emotionally drained… barista music is annoying this morning, dance music, not right for Sunday… first pass through wedding photographs, some good ones, a little frustrated that i didn’t have a flash, i bought one that doesn’t work, something wrong with either flash or camera hoping it is not the camera… have to work in the yard today, main chore, pulling nails out of the kitchen demolition debris so i can take it off to dump… also weed pulling… feeling frustrated with my photo vision, not getting good art shots, but then, those happen intermittently anyway… beautiful day as predicted… reading Earth House Hold, reading about enlightenment, what it is, emersion of light in darkness, such that neither light nor darkness are apparent, the yin and yang so thoroughly combined that there is no yin or yang or self or other, all flows together, time ceases to flow, there being no manifestations for the clock to measure seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, years, the death of a dharma master marked as the moment of subsumption in darkness, and that is just what it seems to me, the dissolution of light in physical form into the darkness from which all things well up… we are so busy marking off the time, so busy looking forward to what is to be, so busy looking backward to what has been, so busy the immediate now moment is lost, except looking back and looking forward are the now moments of a restless mind…