Self-made Hells and Other Stories

Locked inside by self exile.

Soft outside fumbling flesh, 

heart disturbed by obsess...

Obese thumb fumble FALTERED

discussing disgust and discipline disfunction. 

Can I find a better way to reflect on my summer of funk behavior;

A curious bliss of consumption and nest bonding,

showered by moving cumulus clouding.

Am I moving or spinning as an unfettered bit?

Power drilling to dead-enders...

All hail Contemptuous reflectors on my Harley handbasket...

cruising to my home-made hell.

Father to Father, farther and farther

I am warmly impressed by this mythified portrayal of a saintly monk, written and read by Tony Hendra. Unfortunately this author's daughter's 'accusation' of incest-molestation, puts a damper on my enthusiasm (discussed in detail in Jessica Hendra's HOW TO COOK YOUR DAUGHTER)... So much the cliche of our times, revelations of tainted ecclesiastics, 'Is anything sacred?' The dark depth of the soul... rings out poorly, from my cracked bell of new-found atheism. All too often this summer have I tasted bitterness, when waking from my extended nightmares and tainted dreams.

My observation, this clipped-wings summer, has been layered and valuable. I am deeply pleased to have finally a chance to be with my children. We finally fortified conventional family quality-time, lost during their Junior and Senior High School years... dealing with the long distance of their international school, with hobbled home-stays and youthful misadventures. It is true, our living on university teacher-time, we did have holidays. Yet, the sweet daily contact of normalcy eluded us... at that very intensified time, when we were all desperately mentally 'accommodating' their mother's suicide. 

At least now we have the luxury of youthful purposelessness... something I had as a young buck in the wilds of summer Adirondacks. A time when all dad's worked back on Long Island, and most moms hid in screened-in cabins, as their youngsters ran and swam in near nudity, full voracity, and unbound puberty. My children's life has been tainted with the distorted luxuries of bi-culturals, slivered between uncharted domestic explorations and barely plausible plans of home life. All doing our best, as it can be said, over and over again.

Hotsy Totsy

A rotund but demean figure from Long Island. Once hotsy-totsy New York artist on pilgrimage to Zen, but now a subservient figurine on the trophy mantle of time. How to salvage an aging vulgar carcass, revitalizing a zombie into a tomorrow of vital todays?　

Sunset on a sizzling Nihon

I listen to Christopher Hitchens' "The Portable Atheist"  though I wish this recording had been read by the author. His biting wit and sarcastic Cambridge lilt compliments his enthusiastic embittered atheism. I love the depth and breath of his criticism and find him an angel of rational argumentation, an artist of divisiveness. I envy the voluminous tomes of quotable details he carries on his shoulders... And find the perfect tone of the audio artist that reads his text, Nicholas Ball, a misguided use of narrative perfection. Hitchens is best read by Hitchens.

Dame if Hitchens isn't the kind of mental athlete I wish I were. Instead I am a cerebral hooligan, a vandal spraying verbiage on dirty walls, to impress the street urchins I run with, a suburban ghetto of wannabes. A couch potato cliche of armchair quarterbacking ego-grandized causes, in a game that doesn't matter.

Nobody should care what I think, and when they do, I loath my unpracticed goal attempts at conceptual clarity. If I were captain I'd bench my mouth. Fortunately, athleticism is magically attuned to evolutionary theory. I fade now as I speak, a dinosaur of impractical ego dimensions.

Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights (1939) reminds of the romantic values that cast the shape of our present. I hide in the air-conditioned cocoon, of computer, oral gratitudes, and the delusional state of constant news.

In news today, via Fareed Zakaria and Riz Khan, I am presented the economic reality, seasoned with the moral tale 'to be thankful for still owning my own home, and having a job.' Our international statistical reality is the USA, despite all its present hand-ringing, is still chief dog, among the mongrel leaders of Japan, India, and China, and I, having never appropriately established myself within the American dream, live in limbo under the Sword of Damocles. 

For Cicero this legend suggested that virtue is sufficient for living a happy life. "Does not Dionysius seem to have made it sufficiently clear that there can be nothing happy for the person, over whom some fear always looms?" Yet in my case, fear laughs as I cower. Fear of ill-health and inevitable death, a coward left unarmed, on the gates of my own persistence. My own insistence that this is who I am.

Begotten in the Wilderness

   Abd-ru-shin (Oskar Ernst Bernhardt) 

creator of the Grail Message.

"Things Fall Apart" the Nigerian classic by Chinua Achebe, has consumed my day. The heat is unbearable and I hide, chasing thoughts on the internet. The perpetual oil spills of Nigeria, highlighted by the BP oil sill in the Caribbean, lead me to better understand first of the geography of Nigeria, then the politics, then theology (discovering The Grail Movement in the process), and eventually to downloading Peter Francis James' narration of an African long-lasting best seller. I slip and slide through correspondence, and have solidly become a prisoner of my internet connection.  Only the kitchen can temporarily distract me from my zombie belligerence to my sublimation to a childhood addiction TV.

I fantasize the greatness of evolving a personal philosophical outlook, and loom over the diverse genius who have created their own grounded outlook... thus my interest and recent investigation in the Grail Movement, my old friend the Hare Krishna mantra, and Jodo-Shin-shu's Shinran (founder of the Pure Land sect of Japanese Buddhism).

Hare Krishna Mantra in Devanagar

I believe it will all end up as a video podcast, though I fear my shadow side dominating my expression and weighing down my communication with too much angst, spoiling the soup I hope to savor in my later years.

Second Generation 'Henro'

My son, Zen, begins his pilgrimage today, to the 88 temples of Shikoku... a 'henro' like his father 25 years earlier. Zen's mother also had walked the 'henro michi' in her early thirties before meeting me, in her transition. Like many pilgrims 'on the cusp of change' a rite of passage, a superb opportunity to reflect, while rediscovering the kindness of strangers and the natural beauty abundant in Shikoku... the trail beckons.

Reiko had met and fell in love with a Buddhist priest in that journey. A priest whose mother, a typical temple parental oligarchy, rejected her as a suitable match ...and now, nearly 30 years later, our son, at 18, will bring some of her ashes, to sprinkle on each of the eighty-eight. Perhaps a piece of her will find the peace which eluded her in life.

Zen is a declared atheist, yet, being of Japanese soil, he understands the power of simple ritual, reflection, and form. He will take on the challenge, and allow life to be created around him, bringing his own dignity and effort into the mix. The dogma of religion and philosophy will scurry from behind, trying to keep up with his youthful vitality and stubborn perseverance.

I will be here, on our family mountain-top homestead, with his sister Kai. Kai will soon be 21 and also finds herself in transition. Confronted by the exorbitant cost of American private universities, we as a family have had to reevaluate our options. Study 'kanji' (advance level Japanese writing) here in Japan, apply to more affordable US schools, study in the Philippines where an education is still reasonable, or to find a job... all options I would personally enjoy for myself and excitedly support for her...

Yet none has yet to light a flaming inferno under her heat-resistant derrière. Instead, over a low flame of discontent, she simmers in indecision, a slow burn of despair for her and consternation for her father. Only time will tell what path awaits us all.

I, too, live along the way and wonder when I will step again. As an American, I know the merit of the open road and the desolate chill of a man with no sense of home. I waver between clinging to the earth of domesticated normalcy here in Japan and stepping out into the abyss of brave options... between university fail-safe and life free-fall.

Pain of Parenting

Because my children are, by far, my greatest source of fulfillment, they in turn can leave me emotionally drained. My children now live in the angst of transition, no longer kids, not quite autonomous adults. I am deeply invested in their next choices, and so feel stymied by their naiveté, and frustrated by their frustrations. The irony does not escape me. It is not difficult for me to empathize, to remember my variation of adolescent trauma, passion, and anguish. And so I feel their pain, compounded by a parent's concern.

I am brutally not naive. In fact, I am tiredly predictable in their eyes. I swing between wanting to take to wing for myself, leaving them on the branch leaning forward toward their own flight lesson or concocting some impractical tandem, tied to them as they jump. I do not have the resources to have us all in flight at the same time, as I have no financial net to catch missteps and aerobatic miscalculations. Somehow we all three need to be separate stars in flight simultaneously... the choreographic nightmare that haunts me today.

If we fall, we will fall hard. Street wisdom states 'them is the breaks' an inevitability in our 'school of hard knocks'... Yet as a single parent, I am both psychologically, nurturing mother and pragmatically pestering father. How does one play 'Good and Bad cop' simultaneously? "Nudge them out of the nest with one big push" comes one order from the left brain, "But are they ready?" squeals the right... "But how else will they know" recants Dad-side, "Can we afford to take that chance" Mom-me meekly counters. And so the sleepless night, of one head with two voices, languishing long and unresolved.

Apparently we all need to be brave, witness the limitations, and relish the challenge. A bit too flowery for someone who approaches sixty with such sweaty trepidation.

Authentic Spring

A righteous spring morning, affirming the ambitious push of my sprouts in the potted plants of my roadside garden. My walk and talk mornings with Arthur have dramatically improved my stamina. A dark mind set lingers, the futility and inevitability of my gradual demise into 'older still' has been mean.　Just too much has failed, too little manifested in full flower. How much I would appreciate a refresh, a raising from the tomb of a savior.

Being lost in researching album covers, for my massive iTunes music library, has allowed me to mentally dance through my music history. This followed my collectors lust of downloaded movies, again revisiting a history of personal images shared with film buffs everywhere. I feel grateful to the passion of strangers made accessible via the net. An intimidating army of minds and manic behavior allowing sojourns from this desktop.

Guilt Ridden Paradise

A large butterfly flickered outside my window. This is the first day of Autumn and quite beautiful. I reluctantly left my house and drove to a friend's coffee shop in town, but, finding he had yet to open, I could not wait 15 minutes. I returned back here to my idyllic place of residence. I am certain no present existing image of heaven, be it Christian, Islamic, or Buddhistic could ever work for me. I need stimulation and heaven is just too perfect.
My present dilemma is:
I need to leave this complacent safety zone and find 'my thing'.
Something that would draw out all my creative juices... and allow me to again feel fully engaged.

Mass Consumption

When did I become such a rabid consumer? Had I always been one or was there some paradigm shift in my concept of happiness? One sign marking this transition is my migration from action to reticent inaction. There was a time when the balance of my life was such that I would take whatever asset I could accumulate and immediately use it to make art, travel, and simultaneously enter a new life style. This was a precarious time, living on the edge between immediate actualization and desperation.

This was not a world for raising children or deep reflection, this was a time for virile efficiency, a time where things got done because I had clear choices. As I shifted from glorious and pragmatic irresponsibility to that of husband, father, teacher, the mud rose around my ankles. Pleasure was from that which padded my life, that bulge of fat, technological toys, affectations of power, a cosmetic shield of intellectual prowess, the stink of wasted produce on an inappreciative audience. So much tossed into massive waste bins. Mismanaged opportunity due mostly to a lack of focus, a lack of discipline, a lack of eventuality.

We spent the summer tearing away layers of excess and yet still I see it everywhere, A shameful residue of artifacts in every corner, demanding to be dusted or discarded. And beyond this? An important part of my vision is blocked by the heap. My heart coated when it should be let to float up, freed from these long years of accumulation.

In God I Speak

Today I ordered a newly published book "The Atheist's Way: Living Well Without Gods" by Eric Maisel. My life is filled now with cross-referencing writings on new theistic perspectives and that of the doubters. On audio this past week I enjoyed 'Life of Pi,' 'The Joy of Living (Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche),' 'Summer's Path'... an endless stream of rationalists, attempting to bring sense to the mystical under footing of modern living.

At present I would need to accept Eric Maisel's point, we need to stop the paradigm of looking for 'the meaning of life' and move forward to creating meaning from where we are. While it has always been my quest to find a father figure to bounce off of... Some hero to follow in luscious abandonment, surrendering responsibility to a wise paternal prerequisite. To my big daddy guru, who I am free to reject at will, while rationalizing great strides forward into sensual abandonment and or intellectual irresponsibility... with the tried and true psychological device of 'God knows and I trust'.

Oh faith, glorious faith in absolutes... holy books, charismatic leaders, political parties, corporate institutions, for God and Country. Too bad this is the generation of Myth Busters... a news media bent on undermining all our false idols, while subliminally casting doubt even on our own cynicism... a steady diet of expose and big-eyed puppy dog theism. We Americans, noted for our Christian fundamentalism underpinning our crusty cynical humor, what a study in schizophrenic double-speak.

So, in honesty, I embrace a New Age-fudge of semantic play, that old God, as male-dominatrix (Old Testament Bully) with a counter-ego of the new Sweet'N-Low Jesus, just doesn't play well in my fantastical-Sedona. So I bite the bullet and drink the current Kool-aid of some Super-consciousness, just beyond third plate, somewhere near the out-of-bounds pole.

I know my definition of God could not stand the smell-test of my favorite sceptic podcasts, nor satisfy the faith-based directives of the average American, yet that is where I stand. Daddy God remains the issues for psychiatric digression, while Mother Mantra-hum lies impotent on the cutting floor of hard-nosed dialectics. Have pity on my lost soul or celebrate my triumphant autonomy, either way my back hurts and I feel incomplete.

The Pain and Glory of Post Election

Chalmers Johnson created a gruesome trilogy finishing with "Nemesis." His books, documenting in part the tragedy of the Bush years, are a brutal reminder of what many now will begin to forget... how very much was destroyed in my native nation America, and most pointedly in Iraq, these last eight years. As a healing pilgrimage I will drive tomorrow through the autumn forests of Kyoto prefecture to the small village of Obama, and bask in the pop naivete of my Japan. Last Sunday I had thrown a Obama party and in tearful optimism celebrated with an international gathering of friends and bar patrons the great election of 2008. My drive tomorrow will be one more salute to our bubbling optimism that has laid dormant for far too long. We here and eleswhere in the expat community have not been this happy for a very long time, and for those of us, who faced race riots in our youth and years of animosity and fear, these are again hopeful times.

Real Times as Times Change

I listen to an audio book version of 50+ by Bill Novelli with Boe Workman. The author was affiliated with AARP, formerly the American Association of Retired Persons, one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the United States. I and all my fellow Baby Boomers are now this demographic. Despite critique from their competitors '60 plus Association', a group probably to the right of AARP and one I am not truly qualified at 57, the "World's Largest Circulation Magazine" The Magazine AARP encourages me to reflect more deeply on my present prospects and so is helpful in my present angst about the financial crisis.

How much I long for change... not only in the present political balance, but more importantly on a fundamental personal front, but not one from outside by the tyranny of financial ruin and loss of health, but one built on solid choices and personal integrity.

I punish myself with critical self-critique allowing my anxious thoughts to circle the wagon without my firing a shot in defense.

I take small baby steps when the goals worthy of a life need giant leaps and bounds. Tomorrow I will begin the day early walking in exercise with a young friend, mosey over to work at the start of a new season, and later eat sushi with a partner. All the while the thoughts circling, like fiendish tweety birds around "putty tat" Sylvester's head.

Which and other questions

In June Japan, there is a rainy season, prior to a rather oppressively humid summer. In between the downpours can be blissful cool clouds or hilariously sunny days. We teachers scurry, entangling our students in assignments and final tests. No one rests easy. For me, it is a horror of anniversaries, mixed emotion events scattered over a life time. If I were proceeding at full potential, perhaps I would not have this backlog of chores. Perhaps, it is easier to focus on my shortcomings and confess than actually do what I must. Perhaps there are no perhaps, just procrastination.

Parental Angst

Everyone has heard of the mind-buck of being the parent of teens. Just before it happens there is hardly a foreshadow, in fact one can hardly imagine it... Yet it very well could happen, and in some cases linger a life time.





If I had an answer I would be writing it here.

Bliss Time

Mornings are my bliss time. I lull myself to sleep with profound, though demanding, theological text and audio files. In the morning I feel refreshed after the initial angst of remembering the nights, dueling in dream-mares... That surreal evening of half wakefulness inside images of no clear message, yet brooding emotions.

In the morning breakfast is always welcome, despite its simplicity. In the morning dressing is a fresh start, and a chance to create a color theme for the day. In the morning I can enjoy a sparkling podcast and feel the message. I am an information junky and my AM fix feels the most invigorating.

Today I will rendezvous with a friend. These interludes pull me through the energy drop as I teach. A drop due to the nemesis of a pathology, insisting on improvisation without a full armory of weapons. There is in my methodology a belief in student-centered pedagogy, yet the demands of this wish would mean far more attention to detail, to distinguish one student, one class, one university in the mental mix of my day.

My mind is as a dinosaur, as student 'need and opinion' is processed, there is a time lapse, between the experience and its processing. I miss diagnosing one student's need into the face of another, a jumble of emotional impressions and pedagogical solutions.

For years I have developed elaborate systems of administration. Lists and teacher diaries, attempts at identifying needs and directing lessons. These experiments in analysis and solution stuff my draws and filing systems. Is there a final solution? Or is it simply a state of endless anxiety... a painful process, chasing the needs of the classroom with my dwindling human resource of energy and mental alertness.

Back to the firing line... aligning my sites and practicing my marksmanship.

Brutal Mood Shifts and Burns

Hail a frequent disposition, a curdled yoghurt dripping from an antiquated musical metaphor. Thank God a spell check follows me, an obliging carrier of stimulants. I felt sad despite euphoric quality time with my son, disappointed at my loss of control... of what? What exactly more do I want as my realm? A garden that grows as my own... what for? Kids who live somehow from my clues... how absurd! I have my wards, mounting the hill, ready to take on all my canons and artillery precautions. I have never been ready for any day. There has not been a day done very well for a very long time. I want to shuffle and redeal. To call out to a mother who has been dead since before death even was an issue. Bristling, again I am over stuffed. But what for? Certainly not satiated satisfaction! I have lost walks of dimension, meals of gratification, sex of any depth... fat beyond recognition of anything worthy of the price of admissions.

Mentalstration

Bloated... excessive lunch and attempted gardening tasks. Silence in retreat. I switch on my last listed podcast to make noise as I type. This strange insular relationship with digital space. Politics, philosophies, technological news. Building what?

When a man reaches his 50s does he have a way to fabricate a future? If he is a single dad, has an established career, owns his own home and all the middle-class assumed assets from blender to hedge cutter... how best to allow alternative paths to enter in to the mix?

How best to be, that is the question for men of my age.

Chains on Thoughts

Tad Perry has written, and provides on the internet, his "Quick and Dirty Guide to Japanese." I had printed this out, some time ago, and from time to time I give it a read. He has made an honest effort of sincerely developing a sequential and somewhat logical series of instructions.

If one were to make an effort, and persevere beyond a week or two, one might begin to grasp the monumental challenge of this second language, Nihon-go. For someone like myself, steeped in this second language up to my 'life in Japan' neck, any learning would help.

The reason I have brought this up is, all tasks, like losing weight, learning a second language, creating a new dynamic lifestyle, etc. feel monumental. All are theoretically attainable, yet all are monumental.

In my daily ruminations I love to imagine ambitious projects that will have two or more goals and lead me on to a long held objective. A Manga book on Japanese grammar, a videocast of film clips of life in Japan, ESL Video podcasting, some physical challenge that will also assure weight loss, are just some of the examples that dance through my head quite regularly.

This is a pattern of 'programing my life' with a great adventure and challenge, a methodology that has worked in the past. My walking the streets of Manhattan, My Japanese pilgrimage, My many art projects, becoming a parent, are all examples in which I have succeeded in achieving several goals simultaneously.

But something has changed at this stage in my life. It feels less and less likely that I can muster the enthusiasm. I am locked in stage one, planning. This may be due in part to the complexity of parenting. Maintaining the 'normalcy' of a household lends itself to stagnation and procrastination. I tend not to want to rock the boat. And too, there seems to be a still strong after-taste of my wife's suicide, that fundamental earthquake of the soul, which says, not all change is good.

I suppose too, there have been a long series of smaller revolutions in my life, long trips and experiments in alternative communities, which did not initiate the personal transformation I had imagined. There is a certain level of 'stick-in-the-mud-ism' in my life, that is both reassuring and frustratingly anchoring.

I would not mind the anchor, if I were more confident in this angst-filled pot I stew in. I am endlessly disquieted by voices of discontent, yet stifled from affirmative action. In sociopolitical parlance, I am on the welfare ticket of a decent job and so stymied from self-initiative. I lack strong enough motivation to jump to the next level.

I am in my own way. I am fat off the system while feeling the victim of my own inaction. A victim of my own smaller successes, I feel I am missing the full glory. I do not snap to attention when a sweet narrative prescribes a pragmatic solution.

Instead I languish in lazy distractions until time to act has past. I no longer trust my inner drill Sargent, nor the cajoling mother of compassion with her platter of promising sensuous delights. I belly up and whin like a 300 pound only-clild. Why can't I have everything without the added effort, without the risk, without the investment? Don't you just hate brats like that!

And so I sit in my soiled nappies wondering why I find myself so unappealing. I would need to be conscientious, to be ambitious in my goals, to model the behavior I prefer to preach. And... inevitably... be willing to risk and invest, to sacrifice some of this security I cling to.

To qualify as a grown-up, I will need to climb over the comforting confines of my crib, and venture out beyond the kitchen, into the land of suits and ties, sweat and toil, responsibility and commitment... Gulp!

Peering through the bars of this self inflicted wallowing, I see spring through a distant window. I somehow still trust myself, as I stack my toys against the sides in order to lift my chubby leg over the polished pine boarders of my creaking crib. This nerd might be ready to abandon the solace of this Blog infested computer for the scented air of actual life.

This fat kid is heading for the front door and won't stop until he is neck deep in the baptismal waters. The image is quintessentially planted in the fertile fields of imagination, next step is over the wall to freedom... Beyond the abstract to applied resolution. Glory hallelujah! He is arisen from the dead!