Word of the day: Prescience.

The pain of knowing, and the bliss of ignorance

To know beforehand is all she knew. She knew since she was little that she knows more than others. Images, flickering in her mind, swirling and floating in luminous swirls of technicolor, giving her a view of less than a millisecond into what others would find out much later. Simultaneously, it felt like she had static in her brain at all times, a rushing sound of grey and black, difficult to get in tune.

She had prescience others could only dream of. Little did people know the horror that came with it. The agony of knowing pain would come, the pain of knowing and waiting for it patiently, silently. Because the problem was, even if she spoke of what she saw, warned of what would happen, most people thought she was either joking or insane, and the thing she spoke of would not come to happen the way she had seen – rather it would adapt. People’s fate would stay the same, but the event would change.

Most vividly was the stabbing vision and realization that her mother would die before her eyes, shortly before her college graduation. And she could do nothing to save her. Because it was her destiny.

It was June, hot and humid. Temperatures were reaching scorching, inhumane levels. As if a little joke from the Devil himself, the AC had broken the day numbers had reached new record levels. And now her brother and her sat wiping sweat beads off their face at the kitchen table, gasping for relief from the impotent wind wisping in from the fan they placed in front of the window. The fridge shut with a gasp, wanting desperately to contain its cool air. Her mom came over with a jug of orange juice and poured the refrigerated liquid into their glasses. It was breakfast time. Although unbearable, all she cared about was spending the little time she had with her mother and brother – her family, her little island of love, which would soon be overwhelmed by a wave of tragedy, accompanied by wet, bulging tears and hot, red eyes. A pain that would stab her and her brother into the heart, into a living death, into catatonic shock so great it threatened to kill their will for life.

And all she could do was watch her mother, puttering about as usual, blissfully unaware. As she should be.

Late night thoughts.

We are literally our ancestors. Made and created from their cells (splitting), growing for 9 months inside our mothers. We are a part of our mothers, our grandmothers, our great grandmothers cells and whatever you would call the woman 30,000 years back and more, who is the reason you are alive for the short span of time you have on this planet. We are also our father, our grandfather, and the man from 100,000 years back who decided to mate with a woman. You are both feminine and masculine – father and mother. And someday, hopefully, you will combine cells with a man’s and create a new cell formation – new life. Precious, previous life.

You know why I thought of this? Because I think a lot of us on earth are riddled with the question of why – why do we exist, what is the point, the purpose of my life? And because we don’t have a conclusive answer, I think I try to capture this floating, existential anxiety, which looms quietly beneath the surface during most activities I do, feeling dreadfully lonely when confronted with undistracted solitude or even surrounded by people in a crowded room, creeping up late at night… I try to anchor this feeling in something I can ‘control’ – for me it is my weight and the internet, gaining too much, eating too much, consuming too much – a welcome distraction I can burrow my anxiety into and have it be the reason for the dread I feel. Perhaps.

19.06.2022. Sunday. Word of the day: Emancipation.

Trying to make sense of a line of thought here:

Fighting for your freedom.

A slave is not a slave as long as he is free in his heart and mind.

Nature emancipates man. Technology enslaves him.

Find the courage to fight the demon that settles itself ever so quietly onto your soul and drags you slowly into uncertainty, doubt, despair, depression, even death.

Trust to let go. Trust that nature seeks entropy and regeneration if it is let to be. Without influence of man (not all bad, of course), nature will always regenerate.

The delusion of man’s ego, that he has the power to influence the body (think medicine), nature (think climate change) and life (politics) has brought us to a point of blurred lines; we know not evil when we see it, nor what is truly good.

Tools for distinguishing such borders, which come deep from within the spirit, have become distant.

For something to come from the spirit, which is so inherent to the human being, you need to let it be, as nature is, to let it go and seek order – NOT control, measure and structure. Which is all we do nowadays it seems, according to my experience at least.

To truly let go (of control) and to let your body and being seek order/entropy is something unmechanical, which is why I think we have little knowledge or experience of doing so nowadays. Because this world, at least in western society, has replaced the spirit and belief of nature’s ability to seek order if given the time, with mechanization of processes we observe with our five senses. And we violently try to interfer with the natural processes, where sometimes we don’t need to or shouldn’t. Like science – science has become our new belief and religion. But how can we do so if our five senses are likely extremely limiting. All you have to do is look at certain animals who experience the five senses completely differently (so senses are subjective), and let alone the fact that new ‘scientific’ revelations replace old ones in time – but until it does we believe it is true what is currently seen as scientific evidence… “believe the science”, “it is irrefutable evidence”.

(I think I am saying so with the thought of atheism, and just because you can’t prove something ‘exists’, it can’t be true or real. But what is real; what is reality really? – don’t all living and non-living beings, and whatever is beyond our galaxy(!!!?) have their own?)

All you need to do is spend some time as a scientist or PhD researcher or something the like, to know how construed and biased the publishing process is – to know that despite scientific evidence ‘being our truth’, the truth often gets lost in the midst of agendas, popularity and pressure to fulfill societal requirements to be ‘succesful’ and ackowledged in the academic and scientific realm, to continue publishing… truth.

I’m not sure if what I say is true, but that is my impression – that there is a misalignement in our (western, at least) society of honoring the mechanical, ‘logical evidence’ and a demonization of the spiritual, or at least neglection and distrust towards it.

It’s understandable to some extent, especially with a lot of the woo-woo, cult-y new age stuff – which leads towards a general misapprehension towards words like “evil” and “good”. It leads to shutting down the contemplation of what those words truly mean. Because if you start thinking about it, reading the Bible even, it gives you the tools and structural system to distinguish certain things happening in the world – especially the evil which nowadays materializes itself into a certain floating anxiety which people felt more than ever during the pandemic, latching itself onto things that simulate control to gain stabilization; because floating anxiety lets people be susceptible and suggestionable (eager for stability and sense) especially towards evil – things not in their best interest, things which SEEM good but in actuallity cause harm – when people don’t have the tools to quickly discern what is evil and good. When people don’t trust in nature and spirit and time for healing anymore. And I think I can say this as a person with certain compromises towards their body. It actually is the reason why I started thinking about this in the first place.

I think the way I am trying to express what I mean isn’t coming across as I would like.

I think the general idea and point I am trying to make sense of myself is that there is something flipped upside down nowadays, where the good is seen as bad and the bad as good – and the problem being that a lot of people are shut off to contemplating that perhaps the reality they think to be true is not, in some areas of life, because they CLING onto the truth they’ve been told.

Because if they have to face the fact that their life has been a lie, that they have been lied to, that they have lied to themselves, the pain will be too great. And the potential pain is so great that our body, our nervous system, thinks it will die if it faces it.

Coginitive dissonance is one of the hardest things to get over. To “wake up”. Isn’t that what the Matrix is about? Isn’t this where mid-life crises come from?

The problem is that we cling so hard that our mind is like a rubber band which snaps with emotional rage against ideas which might threaten this reality. It doesn’t matter if the idea is wrong or right, the principable is: deny, deny, deny – one narrative only – destroy everything else. No openness, no curiostiy, no suggestion, a closed off ego.

I might be 100% wrong, maybe just 60%, maybe 20% of what I say has truth to it.

I wonder what you think – that’s the point.

Mabye I am wrong.

I want to refine my thoughts.

Do you?

Word of the day: Ephemeral.

A thick, coagulating sliver of blood led through blades of grass, cutting the green with its red, thick ooze. Footsteps followed its trail, heavy and determined. Their pace was hasty, eager to get to the source. Then they stopped. The track had led her to what she sought; a body, bloody, stabbed, dead. She had merely looked upon the scene for 2 seconds. That was all she needed to see to know that the act itself could not have lasted more than 30 seconds, a fact that made its ephemeral nature all the more poignant. Violent, crazy stabs across the chest, splatters of blood and wounds disfigured a woman’s chest. Her otherwise unadorned skin had become pale and translucent, her hair flowing from her head like a blonde halo. Limbs lay splayed in every direction. Except her hand. Her right hand was different. Officer Granger edged forward and put her sleeve over her nose, unable to help her nose scrunching at the putrid smell creeping into her senses. What she saw was a pointed index finger, stained by blood, chunks of muck under her fingernails. She followed the pointed finger’s direction like a compass needle and met the brutal sight of dying woman’s last attempt to avenge her sad fate in this field. In the dirt between the grass was muddled mud, and somewhere in-between a pattern could be made out.

Love

Deep grooves made out Lov but the e was barely comprehensible. The strange thing was that the woman’s finger lay next to the e, as if setting up for another letter. She couldn’t finish. Did she mean to write an r? Was it her Lover? Who was this woman? Who could have loved her so coldly as to take her life in such a malicious way?

Officer Granger stepped back and turned. Little figures in white bodysuits appeared in the distance. Their faces unidentifiable behind equally white face masks. With black, hard suitcases in hand, they walked towards the scene across the vast field spread all around them. Eery, Granger thought. It looked as out of a Sci-Fi movie. An orange hue settled over the scene. The sky was red and pink from the sun streaming through the clouds, slowly rising from behind the horizon. She remembered her father’s saying ,“Red sky in the morning, shepherd’s warning”. He was a sailor and knew what the colors in the sky meant. Rain was moving in. The field could use it. Much of the green grass had been parched to an inch of its life, creating giant patches of dried, beige straw. Death. Summer had been particularly unforgiving this time around. The little alien men finally approached. Their hazmat suits rustled as they came to a stop. Through the narrow slit behind their masks peered eyes in horror at what lay before them. A body so still, so delicate, disturbed in its peace by bloodied wounds, dried, encrusted. An expression of pain and long gone tears captured by its catatonic state. Who would help her?

Feiertag.

Was feiern wir?

Ich bin so verwöhnt. Tag, Nacht, Tag, Nacht. Woche um Woche. Die Zeit vergeht und plötzlich ist es Feiertag. Die Sonne scheint, Kinder spielen, Ihre Stimmen hallen an den Häuserwänden hoch durch mein Fenster. Es ist leicht sich zu verlieren in der Schuld, nicht genug zu machen, zu sein. Das Glücksgefühl eines Erfolgs – zum Beispiel, das Ergebnis zu bekommen einer bestandene Klausur – dauert bei mir jedenfalls höchstens einen Tag an. Bei mir war dieses Erlebnis nähmlich vor 2 Tagen. Doch hat das Schlafmänchen jeglichen bestätigten Selbstwert über Nacht in seinen Sack gepackt und ist dammit davon gelaufen. Denn nun ist mein Dopamin(?), Glückgefühlhormon(?) wieder zur Baseline gesunken, und dippt auch immer mal wieder seine Zehen etwas tiefer als diese Grenze. Ins tiefe, dunkle Wasser wo die Gedanken lauern welche von Zweifel nur so durchtränkt sind. Selbszweifel ist das schlimmste. Aber es wird auch besser mit der Zeit. Ich habe das Gefühl manchmal muss man einfach warten bis man 26 ist, dann 27, dann 30, dann 35, etc. Irgendwie legen sich bei jedem Altersprung bestimmte Hebel für Erkenntnisse im Hirn um, die nur durch das älter werden hervorgerufen werden. Deshalb, Geduld…? Genieß den Feiertag. Es gibt die nicht zu oft. Grübeln kannst du auch Morgen.

I like being alone.

i like being alone

apart from the masses

far from the clones

but sometimes i wonder

what if somewhere out there

maybe 3 out of 10 people spend just as much time in a day as i do to ponder

(so what does that make me? part of an invisible mass? a clone in solitude?)

its simply the fact

that we as a people, us recluse

would rather spend time in our minds, inside, than out back

with others conversing

exchanging and bonding

a task that for us sorts seems oh so daunting

it’s not that i don’t like people

every day i wish to jump over my own shadow and meet more

but instead i am by myself

fearful but also free

in my mind which under crowds would feel as if in captivity

people are hard to decipher

just as i am for myself

this conflict often threatens to drive me into a spiral of insantiy

so imagine the strain to decode a stranger

if i can’t even figure out my own brain

maybe i’m being melodramatic

i tend to do that a lot

why can’t i just be a sociable robot

compute, program on, off into the world i go

no other code than to socialize all night long

010101, easy, no error code

I am Mr. Sociable Man.

what do you want from me?

i can do anything you need

even sing you a song

as long as you promise to make me feel like i belong

I’ve made 2 decisions based on bravery in my life, the rest out of fear.

She shrinks back in her chair. Shoulders are hiked up to her ears, chest compressed, buttocks clenched, fists tight, sweat beads crystallizing.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, she thinks.

Her mind is a cluster of incoherent panic. A suffocating cloud of mush, free of logical, calm reasonable thought. But somehow she derives one plan of action from it all; escape.

It consumes her. Trapped in this tiny room, filled with people, all in their 20’s, chattering away, socializing, free to be as people in their 20’s should be.

It’s 25°C outside. Humid, putrid, stagnant air seeps about. It sits there like a weighted blanket.

Why does nobody notice?

She recoils further into her seat, nostrils flared, covering her nose and mouth with one arm while the other hugs her midriff. Soon she would be part of the chair. An immobile object, free of thought, feelings, being obligated to interact with sociable living beings.

“Rachel, you’re up,” a voice calls from the void beyond her mind.

It’s her teacher.

FUCK.

She racks her brain for immediate possibilities of evasion, but her body does otherwise. It stands up. Pushing the chair back, she steps forward. Tap, tap, tap. Eyes peer at her, gliding along with and clinging to her every move as paintings do no matter what angle you observe them from. She’s at the front. Faces, neutral, hard to interpet, gaze back.

“Uh, uhm,” she stutters. Perspiration soaks her pits. The hairs stand up on the nape of her neck. She feels like she is breathing soup.

“Welcome to my presentation,” she follows up shakily. “Today we will be discussing the penis length of Koala’s.”

Eyes stare. Robot faces. Devoid of life. Silence.

“So, this is an important topic because my dad had a Koala who he bred but had to stop doing so because his penis started reverting into itself. So yes, there is such a thing as too much sex. If you’re a Koala. Anyway,” Rachel falters.

The teacher is also quiet. A robot. A machine.

Hastily she scans the people in the room and shifts her eyes from one to the next. Fear grabs her once more. She has now summited a mountain of anxiety and panic so tremendous, the danger of falling off its pinnacle caused her to suddenly explode into a sprint out the door. Gone. Rachel was gone.

“What was that?” one of her classmates asked confused.

“I don’t know,” the teacher responded just as perplexed.

“She probably had to poop, if you know what I mean,” another chuckled.

Rachel did indeed have to poop. Poop out fear.

How fast our moods can change in one day.

@noon today:

empty empty feeling

never enough never satisfied

gaping chasm of black

scared, hiding, running

when will it be enough?

a life worth living

is it meant to be like this

i’m constantly on alert

ready to run back into temporary bliss

occasional flare ups of confidence come through

but just as fast as they come do they dissapear too

anguish, tension, total despair

for a life so cushy

you sure have a knack for the melodramatic flair

@evening today:

i am back

despite indigestion and an attack of sweat and heat

and my mood is better also

birds are chirping and chattering

it’s 8:30 p.m. and still light out

streams of clouds seperate an orange colored horizon settling down

approaching dusk while above the white dusty border a baby blue sky sets the mood for this mellow spring evening

cool air replaces the humid, stagnant heat of the afternoon

cars purr past in the distant

it is quiet, there is quiet.

the day is ambling to its end

life is settling

Today’s writing prompt: A written walk down my street to my favorite place through the eyes of Susan.

The front door clicks into its lock behind me. I look up into the sky. My eyes are met with striking light, causing me to squint; a blue canvas, dotted with white, powdery clouds. I step forward from beneath our front doors canopy and suddenly feel the sunrays blast their heat onto my pale, English skin. I am roasting, but with joy. Spring is here. New life. I take out my sunglasses and put them on, unable to hide my grin.

“Good mornin’ , Susan! Lovely day, in’t it? Off to the shops, are ya? Will ye be so kind and bring us back a pint of milk, love?”

No mistaking that voice, I thought. I strain to keep my grin and face the source; my neighbor, Mrs. Wesley. She shades her eyes with her hand and holds a rake in the other. The sun has little mercy, and reveals sagging skin and wrinkles all over her body, pasty as mine, granted, covered by an unflattering bunch of fabric resembling a potato sack. Age hadn’t been kind to her.

“Will do, Mrs. Wesley,” I reply and quickly turn before she can respond.

Off I was. I open my green iron gate and carefully shut it behind me. It squeaked as I did so. Pink petals cover the walkway before me. The street looks like a blush carpet. A few years ago, the community decided to plant multiple cherry trees alongside both sides of our avenue. Now they blossom anew each Spring and signify the arrival of the new Season. I pass six houses, decorated with various dabs of yellow and specks of reds, greens and even blues. Our street takes pride in its beauty. Perhaps some would consture it as somewhat stuffy and bourgeois. I love it. It brings joy and life to otherwise grey days, rainy and cold. Bees hum between the flowers. Birds chirp in between rustling green leaves of the tall, lively trees. A resident across the street starts his lawnmower, looks up and gives a nod. I nod back. Everything is vibrant, life bustling all around me.

I arrive at the end of our road and stop at the crossway. The local grocers, owned by an elder man called Mr. Fritz, is on the other side; a corner shop with delicate frames painted white. The brittle top coat is already flaking slightly. In front stand displays of fruit and vegetables in wooden baskets, given shade by a large awning with white and yellow stripes. In the window I can see Mr. Fritz faff about, sorting various things. He looks up and sees me. I wave. He smiles and waves back. The light turns green and I cross to my favorite place on earth: “The corner shop from HELL”, painted in large, bold, red letters across the upper pane below the awning. Mr. Fritz stares. I stare. I stop in front of him. He gives me his hand. I say: “Do you have the goat for my ritual?”

Wenn Bodybuilder philosophieren.

Darunter befinden sich Muskeln, unter diesem Hautlappen, dachte sie und starrte bedacht auf Ihren Oberschenkel der aktuell überkreuzt auf dem anderen ruhte. Es war Schlafenszeit, aber Ihr Körper war noch warm und durchblutet von der vorherigen Auslastung, die nun aber auch schon einige Stunden zurück lag. Sie hatte vor kurzem Muskel Training begonnen. Vor einigen Minuten stand sie auch noch vor dem Spiegel und bewunderte überrascht die Definition in Ihren Beinen die sich hautpsächlich bemerkbar machte durch den herankriechenden Muskelkater. Das störte sie jedoch nicht. Der Fettlappen konnte warten. Viel fasziniernder war die Tatsache dass sich plötzlich Ihre Gliedmaßen wie ein kontrolliertes Mechanik Werkzeug bewegen ließen. Unter Anspannung des rechten Beins fühlte sich Ihr Quad – ein neuer Begriff für Ihre frisch erblühende Pumper Karriere – wie ein Stein harter Brocken an. Es ließ sich dabei einfach so heben. Bei 90 Grad angewinkelt, lenkte sie es Richtung Schreibtisch und versuchte Ihren Fuß darauf abzustellen. Dazu hob sie Ihr Bein noch weiter an, angespannt, aber kontrolliert, und winkelte es so dass es die benötigte höhe erreichte und sein Ziel fand. Unglaublich, dachte sie. Und ich habe gerade erst angefangen… ist das Normal solche Kontrolle der Muskeln zu haben? Habe ich das mein ganzes Leben verpasst? Fühlen sich alle Menschen so?

Kein erschlaffen, kein Krampf. Das Bein tat sie zurück in seine Ausgangs Position. Dann legte sie sich in ihr Bett und nahm den Laptop auf den Schoß. Sie überkreuzte Ihre Beine. Dabei fiel der Blick auf das obere. Noch nie gab sie Ihrem Bein solche aufdringliche, durchdachte Aufmerksamkeit. Fleisch, Knochen, Muskelfasern. Zellen! Moleküle! Atome! Gedanklich durchdrang sie das Bein, Schicht für Schicht, bis sie fast ein Nervenzusammenbruch bekam weil die Frage über den Sinn des Lebens sie wie ein Dolch mit Augen aus diesem endlos ziehenden Schwarzen Loch von Fragen anstarrte.

Wie sehr wir schlafwandeln. Jeden Tag. Wir funktionieren. Die Zellen atmen weiter, verstoffwechseln (fast) jeden Müll denen wir ihnen liefern. Wir sind Maschinen. Wahre Wunderwerke. Jedoch Maschinen die zeitglich so zerbrechlich sind. In einem Moment, in einer Sekunde kann alles hinüber sein. Ein Organ gibt auf, wir verletzen uns, unsere Seele gibt Ihren Geist auf. Wie kann das Leben so Robust und zeitgleich so Zart sein. Wir zerbrechen beim Muskelaufbau regelrecht die Fasern um neues, besseres zu erschaffen, zu bauen. Ist das so? Ich möge mich täuschen.

Ist das was Pumper jeden und den ganzen Tag nachsinnen?

Das Geheimnis des Bodybuilders. Ein Body built für was genau? Deren jede Zelle muss ein Geheimnis, eine Weisheit enthalten. Vielleicht, wenn man nah genug lauscht, hört man die Antwort. Die Antwort auf die Frage: “Was ist der Sinn des Lebens?”