I’m standing on a precipice, yearning to leap.

Finding humor in the revelation that I have never possessed enough patience to proceed at a natural pace.

Every living cell within me evokes exigency, as if each is independently aware of its impending demise.

How can I not be so infinitely primed for love under such circumstances?

What is happiness to you....?

This is a message I received from a friend who has been traveling all over Asia for the past few months:

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  I made it back alive and thanks for the love on the pictures (yours are amazing as well). I really wanted to thank you for taking the time to send me a message almost a year and a half ago (its pasted below). When I look back at where I was last spring all I can think about is how confusing everything seemed to me. I had a lot of ideas about different direction I could head but I really had no clue what made me happy.

  
  

  The last nine months changed my perspective on many things. It changed what I treasured and what I laughed at. It freed me from a lot of innate obligations that were vicariously placed on me by others. It was a time of reflection, love, and meditation and like any fufiling meditation it both cleared and filled my mind.

  
  

  When I got your email last year I was very set on accepting a job that I had just been offered and taking the first steps down a path that in hindsight was really more of a treadmill. After reading what you wrote to me I began to reconsider my decision and a one year latter I couldn't picture being happier with what I've done.

  
  

  I hope you're doing well out east and that we can catch up soon!

  
  

  
  

  The message I sent him:

  
  

  I don't remember what you majored in (sports medicine?) what are your plans? I know mad people ask you that now that youre graduating and they want to hear something mature and adult-like but not me! and im slightly concerned about this "assuming im employed" business, you should give yourself at least this summer to explore and/or learn whatever crazy random thing you have always wanted to and definitely get your mind together

  im sorry to say that people get sucked into the routine of work and 2 days on the weekend to plop down and watch their tvs with a thousand channels

  i love my job and its most definitely unconventional but i swear i go through these periods where im filled with despair, and i think to myself: how do people do this? how do they work these jobs with only 2 weeks of vacation a year and feel like no matter what happens after their death, that they did everything they could to make the most of their time on earth? how the hell will I ever go everywhere and cram as many languages and cultures into my brain with only 14 days A YEAR?! dont we work so we can live and not the other way around?

  i go back and forth between the idea that we exist to reproduce, thus ensuring a part of us continues through the ages, (which is not as cold and harsh as it seems, the natural world is mysterious and spectacular) and the idea that the mere fact that consciousness within us exists means there is something far greater and far beyond everything we see around us

  but whichever is leading in my mind that week it doesnt matter, it means this very second is the most valuable thing there is

  we begin to forget and ignore that because the structure of our society can mislead us into thinking we need to do or possess certain things when we dont,

  I hope your state of mind. being happy on feeling peace, takes precedence over all else because really thats all you have

  (im not saying you dont need some semblance of stability......or do you?)

  
  

  anyway, i can tell you with certainty that if I die as I type this I will die knowing that I lived my life (up to this moment at least) as fully and happily as I could, with an open heart and an open mind

  I hope you can say the same, or at least strive to, because in all of my adventures and drug-led spiritual inquiries that is all that matters in the end

  
  

  take care, and please smile and laugh a lot and make fun of how absurd we are, grown-ups are so serious all the time i swear!

Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged....

I have almost fully embraced the uncertainty of enjoying the presence of an individual who remains a stranger in all but one sphere of interaction, and perhaps most harrowing: actually conveying this to the person both by word and deed…allowing him to survey with great clarity everything that arises within me when we are in the midst of sharing closeness. It is incredibly liberating to be honest in this way. And one can truly rest in this honesty and allow it to heal, and finding that it cultivates the strength to continue to allow oneself to be seen.

It is quite comical to reflect on my previous patterns of thought and emotion and subsequent behavior. How much mental anguish I had subjected myself to; how much suffering I had constructed under the auspices of analysis.

For now, I feel an underlying sense of equanimity when I ponder our situation, which brings me great happiness. At last, the flow without the ebb.

The Ascent

I have had a breakthrough...in the sense that a cascade of insights has truly motivated real action, not simply generated curious longing.

I have found that I can have a calmer outlook on things and critique and evaluate my stream of thoughts from a neutral and dispassionate perspective, with surprising consistency.

This could be attributed both to conscious mental work and a normalization of what I believe to be monthly fluctuations of hormones that tend to turn into week-long episodes.

I do find that I start to get anxious or more impatient various times throughout the day and I almost let these moments trigger action. Because I had grown so accustomed to being at the whims of these moods and their prodding, I would fail to prevent them from instigating behavior which I wished to avoid completely (when thinking rationally).

It takes willpower, rigorous repetition, coolness, relaxed logic and a bit of distraction in order to stop streams of thought from becoming uncontrollable and taking root in emotions.

It is easy to get hopelessly lost in these flare-ups that occur when mere musings progress into “facts” and attach themselves to explosive and vulnerable emotions.

It appears to be an uphill battle, constantly at war with my own mind.

the battle rages on...

He is an intoxicating mix of passion and masculinity that lingers on the brink of aggressiveness, at once both frightening in its unpredictable volatility and deliciously arousing in the submission it commands.

Yet, I could start a collection of vacuous men with fit bodies...the truly worthy endeavor comes in seeking one as equally, if not more, introspective and insatiably inquisitive as myself...which is becoming an increasingly difficult, if not impossible prospect.

They seem to be rare indeed, but I suppose nothing worthwhile is ever easily obtained.

Noam Chomsky debates Michel Foucault

"In the intellectual domain one is faced with the uncertainties that you pose. Our concept of human nature is limited, partial, socially conditioned, constrained by our own character defects, and the limitations of the intellectual culture in which we exist, yet at the same time it is of critical importance that we have some direction, that we know what impossible goals we’re trying to achieve if we hope to achieve some of the possible goals, we have to be bold enough to speculate and create social theories on the basis of partial knowledge while remaining open to the possiblity that in some respects we are way off the mark."

before any action or thought initiates, a collection of neurons in the brain fire...

Last night amidst stoned deliberations, I started to expand my understanding of the meaning I am searching for. It started with the question of free will, if we are not free to make our own choices, if we are being governed at an undetectable level, who or what is doing the governing? It was this question that led to an analysis of our components, starting externally and ultimately leading to infinitely smaller elements, which in turn lead to infinitely larger possibilities, reaching the endless expanse of space. As everything gives way to everything else, in an intricate sequence, one starts to see not exactly the “triviality” of human existence, but its representation in the totality of the chain, its miniscule role, its lack of true reality, arguably illusive. Although it is vital it is only so because of the sum of its parts, it is neither less nor more important than everything else alongside it.