9 Months

It's been nine months...nine months since he left me, left us, left everything behind. It isn't helpful for me to speculate and to ask myself why. Though it happens. It happens when I lay wide awake in the darkness of my room and my mind starts to scream, WHY, WHY, WHY.

The Ghost of Rockschool - Belle and Sebastian

It happens when I slip in my meditation and think that I don't need it. But if I don't do it. If I don't stay focused on centering myself in the present and the now. The voices come back. The sadness comes back. The questions come back. I start asking myself if I let him down. What could I have done to have saved him from his darkness. It is very easy for me to put the face on and be the Lance that everybody expects me to be. I have grown used to it.

The Wrong Girl - Belle and Sebastian

But, there are times when I am not sure who or what the real Lance is. You would think that I could have figured that out by now. Perhaps I will one day. I am honestly not sure if I need too. Though it would be nice if I could find a way to use my tiresome existential angst to pay the bills. But then I suppose I would not fit the profile of a tortured artist. Am I am artist? I do not know.

Hand in Glove - The Smiths

Does having a blog make me an artist? Or am I thinking far to highly of myself. I suppose either is possible. Is it fear that stops me from fully embracing my writing? Maybe it is my laziness. I just do not know. That seems to me to be the constant in all of my writing. I do not know and it drives me nuts to not know. Why is that so important to me?

Atomic - Sleeper

There are plenty of people who do not know and they seem to be just fine. Or perhaps they do not feel the need to blurt everything out here on the computer screen so that everyone can read it. Again, I do not know. The only thing that I can say for sure is that I do not like taking pills to help myself sleep. I do not like how it makes me feel the day after.

Hotel Song - Regina Spektor

Once again though. The writing has helped me. The writing has gotten things out that were swirling around in my brain. In some way the writing has saved me. It always has. It always has when I allow myself to do it. When I give myself in to the thoughts that are flowing through me and I write them down without a filter. That is the time when it saves me. The words have to get out. Sometimes I can tell that is going on when I am giving someone a free lecture at the coffeehouse and I can see their eyes glazing over. I wonder is this more for me benefit or theirs. I suspect that it is for mine. But I would like to think that it is for them.

Satellite of Love - Lou Reed

I miss you Eric. I miss hanging out with you. I miss playing disc golf with you. I miss going to concerts. I miss watching soccer. I miss eating scotch eggs. I miss drinking with you. I miss arguing about movies. Sometimes I hate you for leaving me and making me feel this way. I remember watching you ride away in that VW Van with Casey and surprising myself with my tears. I remember how happy and excited I was when you came rolling back down the street.

Perfect Day - Lou Reed

I MISS YOU AND YOU ARE NEVER COMING BACK AND IT FUCKING SUCKS. It just fucking sucks. There is no other way for me to say it. There is no way to sugarcoat it.

Camera Obscura - Nico

Tuesday...

I am honestly not sure what to write about today. Lately I have been watching the first season of the HBO show "The Newsroom". The show was created by Aaron Sorkin and I find his work very interesting. It is hard for me to quantify it, because while I often find his public persona to be very smug and really just pretty annoying in general, his writing on his shows often touch a chord with me and often it is a very emotional chord. I really do love things that can have that affect on me. I honestly do not care if that effect is good or bad but there needs to be something, otherwise why bother with it. What is the point of watching a show or listening to music or reading a book if there is not some sort of visceral reaction to it?

Lou Reed - Perfect Day

Isn't that the point? Why spend the time with it if there is not some sort of connection? If I wanted to spend my time on something and not have nay kind of emotional response to what I am spending time with I would have a job. It is plenty easy to shut the emotions off and zombie your way through the work day, but honestly, that seems like no way to live and life is hard enough as far as I am concerned if I am going to go through it in a dull zombie state.

Devo - Gut Feeling

Some would argue that emotions are neither good nor bad that they just exist and that we have no control over them. I would agree with that to a point. But I think a life without emotion is no kind of life for me. Sure if the emotion that I am feeling is me walking around in a rage all of the time that is going to be a problem. But, that isn't the kind of emotion that I am talking about. To be sure there are times when I will watch something or read something and I am left angry or enraged though I do not feel rage all that often. I am more likely to feel sadly angry more then anything else as far as emotions in the anger spectrum go.

Brian Eno - Deep Blue Day

I know that there are people who fear feeling emotions because they feel like they are out of control but I think the quickest way to get back in control is to feel that emotion and to ride it through. It may be hard to do for some but to sit down and write it out can be so beneficial. I know that this blog is that for me, there are times as I am writing that I am taken to a pretty dark places but as I write I am walking through those places and I am emerging from that journey in a better place then I was when I started it. As far as I am concerned, if I had never started the journey I would have just sat in it and wallowed in that dark place. The only way for me to get through it is to face it head on and honestly and authentically experience it.

David Bowie - Fame

The reality is that while whatever event I am feeling emotional about is not going to change, I am going to change as I travel through that experience. It feels callous for me to say, but what's done is done and nothing I can do can change that. But what I can change is my response to that event for good or bad. That is the one thing that I may have some sort of control over. I am not claiming that it will be easy or pleasant because it will not be and odd are that it will not be short. I know that for me it has not been and I have no idea when this whole experience is going to be over. Or honestly if it will ever be.

David Bowie - Ashes to Ashes

And part of that process is for me to sit and stare off into space as I try desperately to put the words together on the page to make some sort of sense out of what I am feeling. Or why I am feeling what I am feeling when the SORROW overtakes me. There often seems to be no rhyme or reason for when it happens. Oh sure, there is always the original reason. But there are times when I am not even thinking about the original reason when it happens. Last week I was driving to a friends house for a birthday event and the tears and near panic started to flow. I settled down by the time I had arrived at my location but near as I could tell there was nothing that had triggered the initial emotional response.

The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground

In some ways that is the most frustrating thing for me. I find it frustrating because I have always been so in touch with my emotions and to not know exactly why I am weeping or what caused the weeping is extremely annoying and my response has now shifted somewhat to a near panic attack at times and that is a brand new experience for me. So I can find it almost fascinating as I sit outside my body as some sort of glorious third person Buddha and watch myself experience these things. It isn't a pleasant experience at all. But it is also my reality right now and I am not going to deny it or to deny myself this experience. I just can't.

What does detachment mean?

I am not a Buddhist, I have never claimed to be one. What I am is more of a seeker with interest in all kinds of things both philosophical and political. Sometimes these things cross over each other and other times they do not. I was raised in a Protestant Christian home and while my beliefs still tend to be in that direction I am sure that a good portion of what I do and think is not typical of what I think of as the usual Protestant. I also am well aware that my thoughts on religious and political issues are just as biased as other people and  while I like to think that I can be logical and practical about things I am sure that I have emotional blind spots like everyone else does. That is just called being human. I just want to make that clear. I do not have all the answers and I am not claiming too.

Oh! You Pretty Things - David Bowie

I would say that my basic belief system has undergone a wholesale seachange in the last five years or so, probably closer to the last three years. This started for me post my divorce. The upheaval from that led to me seriously looking for some level of peace and calm in my life. Some safe harbor from the storm of emotion that was spinning all around me. I was not getting this from my Protestant Christian life. I am not attacking that. I am just acknowledging that it was not helping me. I would also venture to say that my problems were probably more with the structure of church as an institution then it was with the idea of a personal level of faith.

Perfect Day - Lou Reed

So in that regard I do not think my faith has changed but I think that my idea of "worship" or "Church" has changed and I am finding the majority of peace and calm in the daily deep breathing and meditation that I do. But while I have enjoyed those things and I feel that they have been very beneficial in helping me achieve daily peace of mind. I read something today that I am having a hard time processing in terms of how I look to live my life and how I want to be thought of and how I want other people to think of me. The thought is below.

"There is nothing lacking in you, and you yourself are no different from the Buddha.  There is no way of achieving Buddhahood other then letting your mind be free to itself. You should not contemplate nor should you purify your mind. Let there be no craving and hatred, and have no anxiety or fear. Be boundless and absolutely free from all conditions. Be free to go in any direction you like. Do not act to do good, nor to pursue evil. Whether you walk or stay, sit or lie down, and whatever you see happen to you, all are the wonderful activity of the Great Enlightened One. It is all joy, free from anxiety-it is called Buddha" 

                    --- FA-Jung, The St Francis of Zen (594 - 657)

Southhampton Dock - Roger Waters


That whole idea leaves me so torn. The main part is that because I want to do good. I like to be good to people and I like for them to be good to me. So what does that mean for how I live my life if I stop doing that? Do I just start aimlessly floating? I do not think so but I feel like I am not grasping something. It feels like I am on the verge of clarity but it is floating just beyond my reach and Zen being what it is if I strive for it I will surely be unable to grasp it. I realize that clarity and understanding must come to me on my own but what that paragraph is asking of me seems impossible. My end desire is to achieve total calm but the cost of total calm is complete detachment from everything I care about then why would I want to do that?

Modern Love - David Bowie

Music

Music sometimes or I should say often says more than I can say and in a more eloquent manner. So here is some music for you.

Choose Life?

"Choose Life.(Seems pretty simple) Choose a job.(I am looking) Choose a career.(I have no idea what a career means) Choose a family.(I feel like I am doing pretty good there) Choose a fucking big television,(Have one) choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers.(Have some) Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance.(None of the above) Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments.(Gone now) Choose a starter home.(Gone as well) Choose your friends.(Done) Choose leisurewear and matching luggage.(I like the idea) Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics.(Nope) Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning.(Pretty much every Sunday) Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth.(Try to not but it happens) Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves.(No kids, will die with my cats) Choose your future.(No idea) Choose life… But why would I want to do a thing like that?(Who decides what life is best) I chose not to choose life.(There was a time) I chose somethin’ else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?"(Not heroin, maybe books and video games, a little booze)

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh (Modified by Lance)






Who doesn't need an escape now and then from the mundane?