C a r o l y n ' s D i a r y
diary.carolyn.org
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vIRTUALLY yOURS:
mY
cOGNITIVE
aND
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| be warned: this is my diary... clb | page 50 | |||
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C a r o l y n ' s D i a r y
diary.carolyn.org
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vIRTUALLY yOURS:
mY
cOGNITIVE
aND
... Today |
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| be warned: this is my diary... clb | page 50 | |||
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Sick today still. had a cold for a few days.
Thinking a lot...
Trust is for con artists. Clear and spelled out terms are for those who intend to do what they say. I'll stick with this new opiniono to see where it leads.
There's just too much about each person that we can never know, or that we put aside for the good stuff.
And yet there are wonderful people out there. tough dance.
We did it. At least 2 diarists got together ftf this weekend, me and Cara and her wonderful friend.
More later.
Later...
Tears leaking while I argue loudly that the things I'm doing now will change everything. But we like everything... it shouldn't go away. But these things will bring change
And summer weather is starting reminding me of what it was like before -- warm and friendly, and open. Sitting outside sipping coffees as the wind blows traffic by. Talking about life, and making plans. Standing by the lake designing the future. Watching the world from the outside, wondering how to get in.
And now we're inside looking still further in, into inner circles, and successful archives of power. And even further still.
And my tears of sentimentality leak onto the white tablecloth. I know moving forward requires that teh future be different from the past. And I love the past. Perhaps the good things can travel along too.
And Kat is actually Ryan. And Cara loves her life -- her face lights up and beams of innocent love radiate into her surroundings. And I just sip my coffee and say "but you love your life". What more could there be? And I say follow your dreams. And for a few hours I forget the dream bandits on the king's highway robbing gold.
And now it's Monday instead, and I wonder about getting patents, and about what is really to be gained in growth no matter what. When do we say that's enough increasing the value because it can be done. Will I sa it next time? Not now though.
When all is said and done, will what I do count to me? I sure hope so. Dream bandits come and go. My integrity will stay.
Carolyns Diary - By Angela Pogue
What a laugh! Isn't this exciting. Someone else's diary and I get to write on a few pages. Rather like colouring on someone else's colouring book. Perhaps I'll take a big fat crayon and scribble all over the place. Ha! Something I haven't thought about doing in ages. Good ol' Crayola 64. Well, it is beautiful in London. Trees are blooming. My seedlings are growing and stretching in their little incubator.
Future bonsai trees. A christmas gift! I run upstairs every evening and peek into their little world. See if they are growing straight or if they are bending to one side. I hear (my)Richard saying 'Another one has sprouted' and I run upstairs with such joy and energy to see it. I've seen seeds before. I probibly kill several little seedlings on my morning park walks with the dogs. But these I have taken on. I have decided to protect. Their world is complete in the 6"x12" plastic dome. Simple world. Such beauty and warmth in something so simple.
And soon they will grow and I will go scissor happy and chop them up. Watch (my)Richard's horror as a once bushy green shrub becomes drastically bare. Wrap wire around them and manipulate them into shape.
Creating my vision of what will make them each beautiful. Cut their roots and put them in confining pots. Let them join my collection of others. And hope they will survive for me to do it all over again! In the plant world, this is art. Expand the ideas to other things... and someone will be phoning the police soon! Or so I would hope.
Reality snaps back from my ethical thoughts about being a tree abuser and I wonder - the horizon of ones world. How far does it go. A call to a friend. Elections in the states. He has lost all perspective with the urgency of it all and is seeking a reality adjustment. Carolyn. I see her focus on her company affairs. I wonder when will she look up and discover a simple world for her laughter. And I remember I told myself not to long ago, there is more than this. There is life beyond the gravity of ones own current happenings. Beyond the headlight of immediacy. What is so blindingly important now will at some stage float off in the wind of tomorrows thoughts... discarded. Good things to come. That is what matters. There is more to it all than this. Focus there. Simplier life with less complications bending my limbs in twisted shapes, the heaviness causing them to droop down. Perhaps desirable in a bonsai.
Not in me. Big fat crayons... scribbling... definately my immediate future. Especially after my recent gift from wonderful C-Slime (ha ha, now everyone knows I call you that!). Playful journals that have wonderful ideas like writing love letters on duvet covers with markers... And of course I only had washable markers. It bled into one big colourful mess. Oh well.
What a delightful pleasure! Thank you Carolyn!
What a lot of stuff the world is full of. I asked Angela why it is this way, and she told me that you can't have the front without the back. Heh.
Alright. Suppose that is true. It's not, but just pretend. It's not true precisely because its just a metaphor for something. And it'll apply to some things and not others. So rpretend its true about living in the world.
Do bad things always have to happen? Couldn't we relax into a more comforting and fun place. All of us? I'd give up competing if evryone else would! Doesn't help much though if only I do it.
Reality check. So fine. I just need a vacation. Haven't had one in a year. Fine. Simple. Just do it. Blah blah. Yeah.
Surrounded by motion full of change. And here I want a vacation. But I have to keep up, get ahead. Take a breath and look around. Conflicting.
There's a resolution out there somewhere. I'll figure it out.
Happy happy joy joy, or something like that.
Ephemeral waves of emotion surround everythin I see and hear today. Almost in a daze, I read email and answer phone calls. I talk to each person looking to accomplish something good for them, for me, for my companies. And suddenly at 7pm, I ran out. There were no more messages, and the west coast call didn't make it in east coast time. I left the office.
Small notice of the buildings, memories embedded for everyone to share. Feeling the sense of old city in the modern world, just because I've lived here for so long now,perhaps longer than anywhere previously.
Little slivers of feeling and thought, puncturing the emotional water swells, no tidal waves today. The museum, the planetarium, government buildings, buildings of clients, the buildings I own, later notions of the stories that are our lives.
Meandering into a sense of history. Do we really have any? Will we notice our lives long after we are no longer there to proclaim them? Can we just slough off life like an old skin, and walk away? Is that what a vacation is? Or a change in circumstance?
I cook rice for dinner, and my cats a tuna. And later a dish of hagen daaz for all of us. Whisker linking. Incense burning. And the darkened sky. And I am still his brown eyed girl. And somewhere he watches me knowing that we never met. pkd.
waves and slivers and emacs and history telling tales about us all. quietly. we find that sot in ourselves that fits into that spot we find int eh world, and then we are happy. where little cats purr easily and drops of rain smile on the window sill and the sparrows find me in the sky in the dark and sing prettily. and history does not matter. the stories become fantasy tales, mythic and heroic. the cats still eat tuna and i still eat rice.
perhaps there is more to living a life than doing the stuff of the day. i've always thought so. perhaps there is. perhaps the daily detailing is good for something more than creating something external. i felt wizened today going home, coming home, int eh cab. i could in that moment have faced anything for all my fears had fled. i had permission, with my new barbarella poster decorating my office door, permission to be me. my dream, whatever it is, hidden from me though it is, was free.
something always stops me from finishing here. what will it be? the rice is ready. and saliva dictates.
Quite the headache this morning. I suspect its due to the hamburger I had for dinner last night -- vegetarian for over two years and then a burger. I haven't had a headache since I stopped eating meat. Could be correlated, and i sure will act as if it is. Once my head feels alright.
I'll have some coffee and cereal, think simple and soothing thoughts, and maybe later I'll be a bit better.
I've been planning on moving FSC to a bigger space finally. It's been 4 years since we bought and moved in to the FSC Building. And we've outgrown it. Temporarily, we'll take over one remaining part of the building leaving only the retail spaces to other tenants. I'm looking for something alrge and airy, with lots of smaller offices for management and something really nice for our developers and network security teams. We'll want to stay in Toronto though. Even so, the move will be in teh fall, and currently we're simply out of space. We're growing faster than ever. And we've landed three new serious accounts, and a dozen exicting smaller ones, and even several dot com developments.
So we'll take on a bigger space, one that should suffice for a year or two hopefully. The FSC Building has been terrific. We've been able to grow there constantly, and I hope we'll find the perfect place that that will allow us to do something similar.
My headache is lifting slightly. Coffee helps. Dead cows don't.
Several thoughts come to mind.
We're so biological... chemical response systems. More to it though as we can think clearly at times. Nice, that. I feel more chemical than physical these days. Not exactly gaseous though, just reactive. Beyond silicon and yet before radiuum. Certainly I should feel carbonish, and yet there's just more going on than straight organics would allow for. Rules and patterns, games and hydroscopic tensions.
Games. Let's go there for a sec. Rules and end goals, win conditions and perhaps lose conditions. And success is a process verb in society (says Richard dully). Games rarely have process win conditions... one can be winning and still lose. Perhaps a game without win/lose conditions as absolutes -- process winning. Like real life in which we use wealth and status as process measures.
Maybe bathing is the answer. Hot solutions of microflamboyant scents to lounge in. No... sterilizing environments is counter productive. I really cannot beleive that my brain thinks this way. It's like tying knots in a lace doily. Tiny and graceful knots, strong and unimpeachable. And the resultant patterns -- beautiful swans of physical poetry.
But what on earth does this have to to do with that? lace and games. lace has a completion state although adding more delicacy and complexity endlessly would nake less fractally more beautiful. It need not end. What is the game then? Tying symmetrically, and evenly. Using the purest most wonderful threads. Iconizing our history and stories in knotted wisdom. Making doilies to sit under the coffee mugs of the world. Strategies? Peace? Acheivement? Expression? Poise? Speed. Artistic merit. Usefulness.
Nesses.
ciau
later...
I'm tired out... long day at the office. And an office arty which was kinda of fun actually. I didn't used to enjoy them at all. Now though things are more balanced. i like that. They're a lot more balanced.
Saw a dynamic woman become quite quiet and very different with in front of her new beau. Curious how we do that. I wonder if I change? Of course i do, tailoered to each situation. And here I am going out for the evening too. Different world.
Its cool here in the apartment. I feel like a stunned carrot. Just staring... nothing left to output after talking and carrying on. Steve was right that I energize from smaller pesonal moments, and not the big social ones. Even thugh I'm very good at them. I watch people doing their things and doisg what they want to do. We're an amazing species to really carry off all this social complexity.
I could use a nap.
And clearly I wish this headache would go away eventually. Its still there. Here.
Started Toronto Linux Chix for fun and itnerest, and launched our website this past weekend. WNED, a station out of Buffalo, interviewed me about being a Linux Chix. Curious world.
And what...
My life is very partitioned currently. Friends, business, acquaintences, and stuff I do, all are in their own separate worlds. It feels like being mad. Having been mad in the past though, this makes more sense, even with the isolation and lonliness. The feeling of being dreadfully alone, without another to share all with, is perhaps the hardest part.
I had the opportunity, I was asked professionally, to break into a national corporation's head office to attempt to acquire computer access. Through white lies, a short skirt, a fake clipboard, and lots of quick thinking, the penetration went successfully -- for us, that is, not for the client. I ended up with the gravest feeling of lonliness I had ever felt. For close to a day, I had systemaitcally lied about who I was, and what i was doing. The people were friendly and nice and helpful.
They held doors open, and gave me high access passwords becuase I smiled at them. All the time, I knew I would be taking down their names and using them as examples for their departments. Although i knew none of them would personally suffer in any way, I did know they'd feel both excited and embarrassed at getting caught doing these things they weren't supposed to.
Take for instance the nice gentleman who held a door open for me to go through. He was being polite and friendly, helping a new face out, and most likely being a tad interetd in teh short skirt. Did he do anything at all worng? He did act against company policy, a policy that could have been strictly enforced with a hardware soltuion. The policy needn't have relied onthis gentleman breaching his sense of chivalry by dropping a door in my face.
I thanked him and chatted about being one of the new employees at the company. I was lying. i ended up with his password too. I fact through his computer, I ended up with a clue that would later get me into the comuter room in teh IT department -- where no authorized personnel are ever allowed.
I lied all day. At the end, I'd accomplshed the goals I'd set at the start, namely gaining access to high level systems.
I lied all day. I felt a member of the team there, a fake one. i wanted to go around and apologize to each person I'd lied to. I wanted to let them know that I had lied for professional reasons. I wanted absolution. I wanted to be honest and let everyone know that I'm not really a sociopath. :) Only a professional dong her job. I wanted to feel honest again.
The isolation from the truth hurt a lot. And today, witht eh partitions shoring up my friendships, I feel like I'm lying by ommision thoroughly.
I wonder if the business world ever gets cozier.
I'll be in California on Monday and Tuesday soaking up sun and alliances. T8ime to break out the sun tan lotiona nd the bikini! I can't wait to be that warm. Oh, and meeting people.
My clocks will self-correct while I'm away... since i never fixed them the last time daylight savings interrupted my life.
I had the most interesting chat last night after speaking to the University of Toronto's I-Business Strategy class. The class leader was involved in several interesting Internet business things including working with financial teams. My career in business is shifting quickly to focus on financial issues too. Suddenly I'm a student again, learning and gathering know-how. Fearless me.
The vision of reality changes, while the nature of the molecules holding us together stays the same. Small changes will someday erupt in that fabric. I wonder what those will feel like?
Gittery, chattery changes everywhere.
Long trip to California with little sleep. The place is filled with high tech people, engineers and marketers. It was eye opening, like being back at university.
I've always been slightly turned off by get rich quick schemes. Now more so than ever with the dot com craze. I like places and companies and products that are real, that offer real value, and that others can make a positive contribution in their lives with. The dot coms don't offer this precisely because they cannot show a longer life plan. They pop up in the field of wild flowers to shine brightly for awhile. Afterwards, we look around for the stability and reliability we've come to expect in a business, to no avail.
Its not just happening in California though. I've worked with quite a number of people who also share this get rich quick with a great idea philosophy. I'd like to see more than a neat idea and a solid business plan. I'd like to see real substance behind the promises and a plan to become a real and reliable service or source. I've built my company that way, to be robust. If that is worth something, it is in the longer term.
Forever striving to be wonderful inside. Had a discussion yesterday about what it is to be an adult. Finally after a lot of work on the inside, tearing about assumptions adopted for lack of alternatives, questioning after what a better way could be, trying out so many different ways of being, finally, evetually, you let go of the neurosis and accidental personality configurations, and become an adult. This is not an objective perspective nor is it always a responsible position. It is though a confirmation that reality is the way it is, whatever that is. An acknowledgement that we have an initial state to work from, and that the world does as well. Idealism, dreams, hope, these are all used to lead and guide a path from reality into the future, slowly progressing into the actualization of that dream-state, a fantasy come true.
I've always held that our dreams come true. If we dream incoherently, this too shall come to be. if we dream pure and simple, perhaps without much extension from we we start, then thsi will happen. if we let loose to dream big dreams with pathways narrowly coarsing the what is with the what could be, then perhaps, in a while, reality will alter its social constructed bits to allow us the freedom and hope we want now.
Perhaps. What a hopeful veiwpoint. I wonder sometimes what my dreams are. I've carried out all of my earlier dreams. Do I cascade teh results into bigger, grander, or perhaps more subtle versions of my old dreams? Do I instead carry my senses into new dreams, chosen arbitrarily or by others, or by the deeper life-well inside me? Will new dreams percolate? Mine are very abstract and take a long time to want, and a long time to achieve. Perhaps I shall dream of simpler things. But I doubt this. i love the challenge of the grande and near-impossible.
And I'm hungry so I should eat and get on to the job at hand.
Soap opera aside.
There are so many things happening in the world these days. We can tie into so many of them through the Internet, and choose what to focus on. I follow international and ecomm business news, dyslexia issues, technical news and releases, all the jokes that circulate between friends, mailing list management concerns, and new software. I could follow anything. Sometimes, I do wander around looking at other things, usually based on references others' give me. How do we choose?
How do we choose the paths we take in life? Some happen to us, while others have to be pursued. And yet others take careful cultivation. This week it has been NetHack. Richard installed the latest pure version of nethack for me, and I've been playing quite a lot. There's nothing like an old ascii d&d game to get me lost in my imagination. No sound, graphics, or forced plot to distract my mind from wandering around. I don't even feel like trying to win the game. That takes care. I'm having more fun just wandering around learning about the new types of monsters and onjects added in to the game. i skimmed the guidebook and chuckled when i saw tht Eric Raymond had written the original help docs for the game. I wonder if he stills plays. As I said, the world is so full of things these days.
Lately I've been feeling a lot better, much better than I have in years. Everything is functioning wonderfully, and I have room to explore newer and different business ideas. I'm finally back where I belong, creating new things for others to play wtih. Everyone should be in their position of strength. It feels wonderful.
Funny though that I spent all day yesterday with the worst cramps I've had in years. I couldn't sleep all night, and I couldn't read. i just lay there thinking about things. Overall, I'm smiling and laughing at everything. Tough and gruff stuff that I have to is almost artifical since I feel so good for the first time in years. Continual good feelings are remarkable. I want to get myself over the top of feeling good though. There's a point where I start to radiate confidence for others to share in. I'd like to get there again. It's outstanding. I think the last time I was there was just before I started writing the diary. I went to school in the US and met people and had a great time. We started FSC mostly because I had the enthusiasm to take risks and field the results. And I'm there again. Almost, another few months.
Had breakfast with Brett this morning. He was bopping around on ICQ wondering why he was awake. So I invited him out. We have such fun talking everything over. It's nice to have friends.
My birthday last week. Mostly quiet. The staff surprised me while i was on the phone with a client with a birthday cake. Very sweet.
I've spent the last week working hard and socializing a lot. I wonder that this is life. It evaporates quicly in this mode. Lots of things to look after, and then lots of things to do in some weird attempt to join others in their relaxation patterns. I am sure it is good for me, and yet i love integrating all these things together more. Future planning involves more than just social occasions.
Keeping people included. I've gone over the edge by my old standards. I must simply hope that each of those people also has a busy life. That'll buffer the need for my time, and keep everything at a good level of quality control.
I've noticed though that I enjoy most socializing with others who have the same sort of upwardly mobile velocity that I do. They are going through things that we can discuss and I too gain soemthing from. Not just more of the been there and done that syndrome.
So that's the stuff in my head. That and work details. Who am I this week? And why? And should I continue in this mode? Extra hapiness vibes circulate my body and I use them to be faster and more effective. ought I too? Or should I meditate myself into slow oblivion? Heh. As if it worked that way. Or should i join some wacky religion and decide to be societally nuts for awhile? I could jump off the deep end for entertainment value, or perhaps for the sake of my soul.
Reaching what I've always considered to be the halfway mark in my life (statistically), I'm wondering at the pace of life now. And the sense that I sorta know most about this American lifstyle now. Challenges to me are the bigger money bigger status things. its not that i want more of either in any deep or real way. Its that the games playedhere are ones I haven't played. So I'm playing them now too, slowly lerning the assumptions and the rules aand the daily rituals. I come away feeling hyper and sometimes mean. I represent organizations and corporations, and try to also represent the people. Its the people who matter, not the fake entities we build to play bigger games with.
Why do I do it? Because its there. Same old question and answer. There are only two responses I've seen out there... it feels good, its there. I don't want to pursue the feel good options directly. i beleive that a deviation around to alternate goals that accidently leave me feeling good is more effective at following both. [And i feel funny using "following" instead of pursuing]. Effective maintenance of my mind, my life, my body and the relationships around that mnake life worth living.
Well that was a meander into nothin much. Much llike my present life style -- which i am enjoying. Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
A quiet Sunday afternoon at home, resting, reading, surfing. A needed break from all the things I've been doing.
I'm trying to unhype myself. The trip to California several weeks ago put me into overdrive when I got back. Playing catch-up, and handling a lot of things I don't normally.
I guess I'm a bit tired this week. Today though ...
There is so much going on,a dn the trick is to find one's balance in the stream. Rocks that wobble can still be good stepping stones, and there are others large enough to have a picnic on. Still others float a little ways in the current. So I'm picnicing right now. And managing to hold my breath a little while the leaves open in the sunshine. Quietly wondering for awhle.
I was hoping that I could rant here. But there really isn't anything to rant about. Rest and freindship and quiet soothing melodies that will help.
So little to life when I stop to think about it. I cannot ingest every person's worries and soothe them although I try to. I'll do something else now instead.
MayDay. Pigeons on the balcony. Rainy skies. Transcendance. A little coffee. Same day again. How will I make it differ for me? We live each day waving flags of who we are about almost in order to ensure that everyone note down the rules. how will I be treated? As or better than I was yesterday. Basic rule around here. But why should this happen? Obvious answers yet again. There are pressures within our societal capsule that ensure a hunger for progress, superficial improvement, enlightenment. And we wonder away from internal satiation and contentment.
It must be a trip to embrace the clouds and grass blades and small ant hills, and to see God in each creation. There are wings above us holding onto the breezes. What will I say next?
Does everyone present a layer of artifice? We really don't need to. And yet I find that I am a politician in the true sense finally -- able to carve carefully sculpted alternatives from once set of facts. Even sparrows know better. Where is the sincerity that some person wrote to me about this morning? Do I state facts of the matter here? No. Could I? The balancing act of my life would narrow -- prviacy would alter. People would know of other people transversely. My friends would expose me. So unlike my life of old. So unlike the incredible exposures i allowed. People are less than trustworthy about my personal welfare. You've got to love lawyers though - most of them realize that facts ought to percolate only where useful.
Do mine?
FACT: If I speak about my personal life, my social status will alter.
FACT: I like my social status.
CONCLUSION: I do not speak about my social / personal life.
FACT: I do not like secrecy, and I do not enjoy my personal silence.
EXAMPLE: I love gossiping and sharing stories and analyses about other people with people. However, I do not do this at work because I occupy a special position - I hire and fire people. I do not want to negatively influence anyone's performance through gossiping. It would be irresponsible.
OBSERVATION: I am left out of most things due to my serious nature combined with my lack of gossiping (my favourite activity).
CONCLUSION: Play elsewhere.
EXAMPLE: Playing with Rebecca at the senator last month. Partially performing a mind fuck, and partially enjoying the intimacy. Following through later with all the gossip. Simple fun. Not something to do at work though.
FACT: It's 8 am and I need to head in to the office -- the old office.
Thanks Berj for the kick in the butt. They help me so!
Sincerely, Carolyn.
Thoughts from this side of reality. Constant value judgement leaning toward originality and creativity, and away from conforming for the sake of personal gain. And yet the question arises as to when I've crossed that border sufficiently to have nothing left, or at least accessible, to feed and foster creativity. Coudl that have already happened? Certianly my intelligence is channeled constructively again, and I can feel it surging around solving big and small problems, and finding patterns where there ought to be none -- human foot prints in our reality space.
And I wait to ask the universe a question: WHY? My human answer of "because" really is just a pragmatic resoltuion to being alive with a sense of life. "Why not?" is the how person's answer, simple straight forward, and yet turning the question itself on its head. "Why ask why?" Because language's grammatical strucutre allows us to phrase the question, although any metaphorical reference to actual meaning is simply a confusion -- Ludwig Wittgenstien. Okay. That's practical ... disallow the question. Or perhaps like me we'll simply rephrase it..
Anynow the point is that i can sit here generating six thousand excuses, rationalizations, arguments for and against, etc. about "WHY?". I ought not to d it, since I do find the quetion useful in its asking.
As so: why now. what of today? and tomorrow? why do we continue to push ahead? Where does ambition come from? And why am i even slightly suceptible to it? am I? where are the trees and breezes and little black ants lingering in the sand. what of the organic mass residing on the planet. is it really mostly insects? shouldn't we learn to eat them then?
And i meander into world angst. and out again.
surreal plot lines holding together the weft and warp of what we think of as reality. is it only grammatical tidness that holds our shared visions together? or sirens calling in the mist t us each night as we close our eyes?
take a step back.
pause.
breathe deeply in, out, in, hold... out.
look at what your eyes are already seeing. look at the difference. frame yourself as a 16th century painting hack... notice within the frame which colours you'd need to crush in the pestal this evening. geometries define the space and yet you are too early to understand isometric perspective drawing. distort in your century's fashion. and choose oils. gilded carved frame. and hang on the wall. what you were seeing, and what you looked at, and if perchance you wandered mentally, what you interpreted as well -- the human value of the excercise.
ciau
Conversations ... On ethics.. what is right to do? How do I decide each thing? Only with principles used as guidelines for consistency and later for explanation if needed. And I know this already. Each though comes into conflict in me as I weigh decisions for the greater good that weigh against individuals. isn't it interesting though that I do not find conflicts betweent eh greater good and my own interests... but that is because I simply work towars the greater good in general, and firmly believe that this will be good for me also. Perhaps this is what allows me to have principles and a concern for ethics in the first place.
How do others live day to day without this?
Can I walk this path? That is a challenge that is my life.
Today I awakened in a sense of dazedness. So many thoughts to juggle like the columns in accounts balancing. Rows and columns with different results as the ratios and raw data inputs are varied. Facts elude in sum total, and I guess instead to fill in gaps. How do we prophecy the future if not by stating loudly what it will be. We make these bold proclamations and hold our breath as actions go forth to create the opportunities like marching toothpicks evincing a warriors' dance. I read small bits of fortune into predictions. I initiate actions that lead where I think we all should go. Arrogantly holding forth my opinion as able and worthy to creae a good future for me and all. And then the ethical dilemma's sprout up to test endurance and fortitude. Specs in the paint covering our shared world view, more like tiny threads which we can tug to unravel bad and weave in new good. A new sort of warp and weft will make our future hold together differently -- tautologically. And then opportunity, again arising, let's us gather momentum to pursue the dream.
Ambitions ..
Where is the permanent happines binding to my soul? Wilted flowers re-spring letting sunlight awaken me too.
Variations ..
I'm dating a guy in an unspoken manner. I haven't told most of who I know because I do not want to upset the delicate balance that form the carefully sequestered parts of my life. Gone, long ago, is the open technology style of my life. Not so much secrets as unshared confidences. And I miss the old ways. And I do not miss the tragic collapsing of tenuous trust.
I am wiser, and more careful. I am more alone than ever before. I am more successful than ever before. I have nothing to lose. I hold forth my values quietly now. I seek actions only in external interactions, and have little to nothing to contribute in converstaion any longer. For this peace of mind, I am very alone.
No longer a princess of desire, and no longer an uncontrolled force of nature, I am older, in a beautiful sense less natural. The layers of bullshit that appear on my face, still too demonstrative, are all that give away my principles. This too will pass as i learn to cause my wishes to occur without using metaphysical explanation.
I am not grateful for this change, and will always wonder if my old route could have succeeded. It did take me here though. Perhaps that is evidence enough.
What justifies those without a soul though? I should stay farther away from them since I already know the answer to that question - it is their fear.
Mine too shall pass.
The world alays has a surprise or two waiting for me. It's like I have this daily karmic quota of good and bad stuff balancing each other. We don't seem to "get ahead" but rather to change state. Is an electron better off in a higher energy orbit? Or a lower one. people ought to learn to value the combinations and to know which they prefer. I know whcih I prefer... in fact its a tight fibrillation. let off a photon, sparkle breifly, relax for awhile and build up energy once again until some event impacts popping me back to the higher state. And then for awhile frenetic output,a dn a beautiful photon emerges.
Gee... an allegoric metaphor.
Hmmm... there's more to it. My life does improve over time in many ways. Its more that I learn each day about people and the nature o society and how things happen. Learning is hard to do, but really fun in teh end every time.. most of the time.
These days I burst with things I don't talk about here. I suspect noone knows all of them except me. I wonder how many others live in a tightly segregated knowledge space.
I can still talk about my own mental spaces though mostly... somewhere.
I'm going to work on exposing the secrets again. Time to unravel everything.
Everyday a little piece of life ticks by. What should I do with each day so that I like the sum total? Or is each day's quality intrinsically important on its own? Perhaps there should be a few valued sums, accomplishments.
I look back on accomplishments. Some of them don't add to my life, while others do. Some provide a source of contrast that just hurts. Others bring back warm memories. Some inspire me.
I have trouble evaluating my own accomplishments though. What do I want to pursue next? I'm in a holding pattern in many ways. Frankly its not a holding pattern though... more like being at peace with the is. More like feeling that a time of quiet would be nice unless the stimulation were to arise from truly interesting times.
Could I possibly suck extreme pleasure from each moment, a draculaic visionary?
That was a long week. I carried with me the sense that I had written here only yesterday, and yet it has been over a week. Indeed a long week.
I made a few hard decisions this week. I hope they will turn out for the best. The clash of beliefs and ethics and values continues in the world, and i am certainly committed to my set.
Right now though, almost 10pm on a holiday weekend Sunday, I am alone. There is something in me which has retreated -- a bit of warmth or energy, a sense of contribution. I had one of those flashes yesterday. I realizedthat the wonderfulness of the world that I keep expecting to find, comes from inside if at all. Friends and fun emerge from the inner strength and beauty and the contributions that arise. Glowing sparkling essence is for me by me because of who I am, or at least who I let myself be.
I've never let myself be a truly happy person. But I have let myself be everything else that I am. Reflections on those values should have led to a less conservative life than the one I now lead. And yet the few examples of happy people I know, really long term satisfied, are this conservative.
Angela wrote to say she was a little surprised tha all the settlingdown she is doing is not running from something, but rather creating a stable warm place of safety from whcih to enjoy her life positively. Not running away at all. Quite a beautiful an accurate thought. I too want that sense of security. I forget as usual things that others don't remind me of.
Lying in the leaves in the middle of Mississauga.
Seeing Gladiator 3 times.
Playing with cats for hours on end and still feeling I let them down.
Eating Caprese salads in every country in the world.
My stories. The reasons for everythng about me.
Warm hands running over my body, loosing my hair. Sex. Wanting to talk even more, forever, growing the idea space into a landscape of life.
The ocean shore with pounding salty waves and a hot sun.
Fear.
Remembering all the edges of fractal lace.
That was today.
Perhaps I'm from space. Just went to open this page to write, and realized that yesterday I had written in teh backup file instead of the live copy. I'd also read the previous entry, and then actively commented on how long it had been since I had written -- and how that length of time seemed wrong. Well -- it was wrong. Haha. I really was spaced.
So now that I've sorted out the facts from the fiction, what the hell is happening with me? There are these thoughts that travel in my head and heart frequently.
Is this a story?
May2200
Leaves greenly opening aginst the darkening sky. Almost sunset, and I am still wandering the streets looking. Some things never change.
You can wish forever for that last kiss, a goodbye wave, the warmth and security of a life worth living with him. You can wander the streets wishing, begging forgiveness. Wishing you'd become someone else.
I long to find him again but he wasn't real. I changed to fit the forces of society instead of staying boldly me. Now I wander the streets.
A plot should unfold here. Details of today or perhaps a yesterday to entice you into sympathy with me. But I don't think you would end up feeling sympathy for someone who could ahve had anything, and chose not much, on purpose. We don't look at the trials others face too closely. We judge only by the acheivements and the potential acheivements in this new millenium.
The drawn horror faces deeply into each fold in the news paper. Every person is striving to become that billionaire beauty. As am I. Funnily i do better than most, better than almost anyone on the planet. But I miss my soul. It never was a kiss or a shared embrace in my bed that held my heart. Perhpas that is why I still do not pursue those really.
I look up at the leaves. June bugs eerily flying about, clumsy monsters that Dagney used to eat as they hatched. Sounds of motorcycles and people playing in spring winds. Structured unfurling of life evolving ever more slowly into further complexities. A delicately pink flower petal dropping already, and smears of pollen on the sidewalk.
Do you know that I sit back most days and nights alone to think about whether life, mine, is worth bothering with? I used to wonder if there was a purpose to it. I know now that there is not. For many years, before the years of pain, that was alright. After going through character building times though, and knowing that they will recur in new guises later, I don't know that bothering will be worth it.
The sparkling dazzling wonderousness of the famous figures on a stage where I had hoped to be still bedazzle me. Even tears don't fall now as I know that I will not become a aprt of that greater story. There are too many vastly small concerns that I will instead gather around me as a protective fear-coating.
The truth of me is tht I needed great people around me too. I have failed at bravely staying near them.
The truth is that I've been swept away in life. I always wondered if I would. Whe i was a kid, i was outside of the causal happenings of the is.
I wondered about this, worried, thought and created whole causal theories, though not based on facts as it turned out. Later I added facts back in to the analysis as a good starting point, and built a new theory, thanks to Peter and a Chicago bus station. "They are all acting normal."
I'm sure I cahttered somewhere here about that bus station. God knows I have no idea where to find the story so here goes.
I took a train that was eventually to reach Urbana-Champagne in Illinois. I was off spontaneously to meet Michael Hart in person after setting up a mirror site exchange between Project Gutenberg and the IPPE (wow the site is still there!). Well I took the train from Toronto to UC. It was really cold, and there was a winter ice storm. The train to Chicago took 14 hours longer than it was supposed to. And it was cold.
When we got to the station, I'd missed the connecting train by half a day. I decided to refund my ticket, and catch a bus the rest of the way.
Walking through Chicago for the first time in your in the winter late at night, between the train and bus stations is scary. By the time I settled in to wait for around 10 hours or so, I was really spooked.
I didn't have any American cash, and didn't have a means of changing Canadian cash into something spendable. It was night. And there I was in teh bus station with too much luggage, no money, no food, and a lot of people.
Strangers.
And I was scared. I was cold and hungry. I think I did have a few bucks left from buying the bus ticket. The peopl were entirely scary though. I thought they were going to beat me up, or kidnap me, or something. I had no idea what to do...
SO I called Peter long distance collect. I woke him up. He laughed at me. He said to spend the remaining money I had on a most ffod it would get -- coffee and a sandwich -- and to get some sleep.
He said that people are people everywhere. I told him he was wrong, that these were dangerous people. He said they were in the bus station waiting for buses just like me. That they were the same (sort of) people who were there every night, and that they would do the same thing, namely wait. I still didn't buy it... How could all these people from all over the US decide to do the same thing night after night -- they were different people each time.
He said that they were all acting normal, that I should assume this. So I did. I changed my panicky assumption that they were strange and scary random number generators. Instead I mumbled to myself that they were all acting normal. Then I actually looked at the people.
Many were sitting with luggage as scared as I had been. A few were persons wandered in off the street to warm up with a coffee or a coke before getting back to begging or busking or clubbing. But there were a lot of clean cut, nicely clothed farm boy and girl types too. Too many in fact. And they were acting weird, talking to each other too often as if they knew each other. Talking to other people, and getting too close to other people, and to me.
So I added my assumption over their behaviour too, and finally asked on of them. And I found the source of the werid vibe that had freaked me out initially.
These clean cut overly nice people were not quite pod people but close. 20,000 christian missionaries were meeting in Urbana-Champagne for the weekend. they were converging using every form of transportation available, and many like me, were running very late. 20,000 christian missionaries. I'd never met one in person before. Honestly, i didn't think such people existed. Really overly friendly and helpful, so much so that I was instantly suspicious. And they were scared too of travelling and of the bus station. There were a couple hundred in that station that night, strangers to each other, trying to make each other feel more at home.
Me too I guess once i figured it out.
You're all acting normal. Hahaha.
What makes me feel the way I want to?
Today, this morning, 7am, I feel at peace. 3 weeks ago I quit smoking. I suspect that I've finally forgiven Richard. I suspect that anyway. Maybe I can feel again now.
The window is open beside me, and the day is sunny and georgous, what I've been waiting for for quite a awhile. I know what I'll be doing with Moxie and with each other things I've been involved with.
The breeze reminds of of sneaking into wave pool parks with Peter back in Kitchener. We really didn't know the first time we walked right in that an honour system enforced with invisible hand stamps was in place. We walked in found paradise. We played all day in the sun, in the water, waves, and rides. We even wondered how anyone could afford to run the whole thing for free. Inner tubes on the waves, and water slides, and big ice cream cones. Renting surf boards for pretend.
I needed the childlike escapes then. Peter invented them for us both.
The traffic sounds remind me of Venezuela, the big city there. Waking up every day to roosters crowing. Always crowing.
My head is bursting with good memories. I want to have fun. I can feel it again. Forgiveness helps. I'll never forget though.
I need those escapes now too, and haven't had them for years. This morning, I'm smiling though. Something is different. Maybe it isn't just the absence of smoking. Is hate a more powerful addiction then nicotine?
New York on the weekend. Meeting Mark and Bonnie and Jim and Kevin and a hundred other people. I'm missing that place already. I thin I'll switch from California dreamin to NY dreamin.
I'm drifting through self-esteem ups and downs. It's an experience I'd prefer to avoid completely, but it's also part of the "chemical soup" of life, as I've been told. Yeah.
Who am I after all? Am I able to meet my responsbilities? I'm sure going through the motions, but the return isn't what I want it to be. So what's up? Is the return actually an illusion? Have I misread things? Yup. :) Good to know though so that I can alter course a tad now.
So who the hell am I? What radical doubt for a person to undergo. Really ought to be trundling along in the day to day stuff like everyone else. Metahpysical angst is old news. Isn't it?
So what is the deal? Focus on me... stop looking for external gratification. Perhaps that smoking thing was good for me in many ways. But that too is an excuse. I have to tighten up the mental screws -- discipline will lead to a stronger sense of who I am. It'll help create order and rhythm and coherence inside me. I want it to lead to relaxed happy too. Missing that currently.
Also finally putting on weight. It's about time, but it drives my self-esteem around the bend. makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong -- our society is wacky. It's good for me to maintain a healthy weight, and I fell way below it a couple years ago. Now I'm balancing out again, and I feel bad about it. Yikes. So I'll work on that one too... Well I'm lying. Fine. Round and round.
What is right in this world?
Pourquois.
Watery echoes of self-esteem crashing against shallow shorelines. A hand held out from the future beckoning from a vessel afloat and sunny. Fictionless perception. Inaccurate, drug-induced, malicious.
Greener vision could sustain every every leaf and twig and smile with a will, strong and centered, calm, fair, wise, and active. And where smaller thoughts mildew, also green, they are adopted into a patterned enjoyment of the waters.
For now, only suffering holds my hand. Perhaps my nature itself, and me as cheerleader, cannot truly vary from this offer of company. Perhaps all efforts to embrace a better life are as Sysiphus would perceive them, endless duty without reason or success. Perhaps.
And perhaps I quit smoking a month ago, only to get side-swiped by PMS yesterday, my emotions our of control, my sense of worthiness dulled, the struggle given up out of fear that all that is good would stay away, far away.
Cancel the feeling that we are special. Cancelled, mine, years ago by a friend who a golden tongue. Cancelled yet more recently my self-confidence by this same friend. Cancel the friendship. Explore into the pressured depths the need to have friends. Cancel my memory. God, please let me have one. The smallest details vanish away as fast as I make them my own. A catalyst for surfing information instead of depth charge learning. Nowhere to trust and rely on me. Even my decisions vary from day to day, the power tomake them not sufficient without recording them. Where is the discipline provided by remembering? Why am I able to be in this position? Should I know my place more effectively and stay in it, even though for awhile I can sparkle in more? Why can I not trust others to join me in the sparkle and take over where their strengths lie, in the remembering?
Remember.
Transparency -- in the lessons earned.
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f.i.n.a.l.e |
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All non-daughter writings of Carolyn's Diary are copyright © Carolyn L Burke, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 and may not be copied without permission except for non-commercial gain. See what your lawyers can't make of that.
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