Breadcrumbs

 

Breadcrumbs 

 

 

 2023

 

 

 I am an outcome of the social-spiritual revolution of the 1960’s and 70’s.

A peasant’s eldest wandering the zenith of post-World War II United States of America,

Passing on thoughts, conclusions, opinions, judgments, about what I witnessed, and the parr I played.

That it has not developed its own legs, either proves I am wrong, or that the human species,

Is incapable of getting past its unfathomable arrogance or its insatiable avarice.

There is also great likelihood there is just too much to wade through,

Or that many just do not care to bother or care about it all.

Is there any doubt why I sit at the absurdist bar?

 

* * * *

My level of intrigue is far less, has always been far less, than many.

There is nothing I cannot walk away from if my whole world crashed and burned.

All I do is sit in coffee shops, write bullshit that very few people read, shop for supplies as needed,

See Mom and Sister once a week, and spend a couple hours most days in the club pool.

I am all but done with this cosmos, and this cosmos is all but done with me.

One of these days, I will be gone, and very few will even notice.

The universe has managed to ignore me while living;

It will even far less hard after I am gone.

 

* * * *

It was worth giving this body of work away no-charge.

Throwing it out there the willy-nilly way these digitalized times allowed.

No fame, no fortune, no control, no publishers, no followers, no travels, no speeches, no signings.

And only a modicum of vain notions with which to inwardly contend.

A strategy that saved all kinds of bother.

 

* * * *

All these years of scribbling have been both entertaining and wearisome,

In a sideways-topsy-turvy-inside-out-backwards sort of way.

Weave it all into some kind of enlightening story?

What, pray tell, would be the point?

It is done well enough for the rare few.

Think of all the videos I could have made.

Think of the following I might have cult-ivated.

I thank the gods for my insignificance, as should you.

I cannot imagine wanting or needing widespread approbation.

This garden orb does not require any more irrationality, any more absurdity.

You can thank or curse or ignore your Self, any time, any place.

You are, every moment, creator-preserver-destroyer.

You thank me when you discern your Self.

 

* * * *

What is a philosopher?

Cynic, skeptic, doubter, misanthropist, scoffer, doubter, pessimist,

Questioner, disparager, detractor, malcontent, loner, recluse, dilletante.

As pointless as pointless can be; the final chapter existence offers, to be sure.

 

* * * *

Have put this work out into the world in as many diverse channels as current technologies allow.

Nobody owns it, nobody controls it; everyone must discern the truth all on their own.

And all those who see, fairly quickly, without fanfare, know each other.

It is a very subtle, very quiet, very grass roots revolution.

No priesthood, no organization, no dogma.

Just a clear, rational view.

 

* * * *

A Self-imposed assignment; one in which I do not write what was done today, but what was thought.

An aphoristic journal-chronical-diary-memoir-bulletin-log-dossier-scrapbook-commentary-thesis-hobby.

 

As Thucydides Athenian historian and general (c. 460 – c. 400 BC) wrote:

My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the needs of an immediate public,

but was done to last forever.

 

Yaj Ekim: Define forever.

 

* * * *

This guy would never lay any claim to being totally sane or rational or brilliant or anything perfect.

This mortal body, this mind, this imaginary moi, is as flawed and misguided and absurd,

And treacherous and hypocritical and irrational and judgmental and laughable,

And clumsy and frenetic and impulsive and irritable and divisive,

And narcissistic and hedonistic and greedy and vain,

And as inevitably mortal decline-and-fall as any other monkey-mind two-legged, 

That has ever wandered every-which-way-to-and-fro across this dream-soaked dusty orb.

The perfection, all are, is not that which can be seen or heard or smelled or tasted or felt or thought.

 

* * * *

Why do I even bother scribbling all this?

I really do not much care for what the human paradigm has become,

Or the future to which it is inescapably, accelerating exponentially, every kaleidoscoping moment.

A vision so dark, so dismal, so painful, that the imminent extinction,

Cannot make its way hither soon enough.

 

* * * *

The post-WWII Boomer generation that I was born into, was set up by the idealistic winds of our youth,

To believe humankind could be, could do, something Darwin 101 assures us is impossible.

What I tell any who still harbor that delusional notion, any who still believe,

Us capable of overriding the natural selection that whittled us, for even a few minutes,

Is that you can take the monkey out of the jungle, but you cannot take the jungle out of the monkey.

 

* * * *

Aphorisms are born of a knack for putting things succinctly.

 

* * * *

If I was ever to start over – somehow be reborn, either male or female – I would just skip it all,

With the opposite sex, or my own, or whatever other genders might come into play.

Way too much bother, and adventures I need never experience again.

 

* * * *

Alone at last.

 

* * * *

Fortunately, power and fame and fortune have evaded me.

Vulnerability, anonymity, austerity, and the mindfulness they engender,

Are a great gift in this insane asylum, this théâtre absurde.

 

* * * *

The jury is still out, whether passing it around randomly for free, has been the best strategy.

 

* * * *

What a remarkable thing it has been, to witness the rise and decline of this blip of a nation-state,

And likely to have traversed through the apex of what human civilization has had to offer, as well.

 

* * * *

Somebody had to scribe this, and it just sorta dumped itself into this lap.

If asked, would I do it again, I would say, with a shrug of these graying shoulders,

“What more could I possibly set down, without repeating myself more than I already have?”

This thought-filled theme park is for any and all, who discern within it, whatever they are looking for;

Whatever they might need, in the dystopian future that is so unescapably rushing at them.

 

* * * *

My faith is strong and sure and steadfast, for all times.

It is a faith that does not require the idolatry of form or thought.

It is a faith, so clear, that one must die to little self, to see it all, for what it is.

And from that faith, I leave You the distillation, of all this mind has ever thought and done.

Do with it what you will, or will not.

 

* * * *

How often what you are reading, is the morphed version of the original thought.

The original having been lost in the abyss of the churning mind,

In the time it took to reach for pen and paper,

Or as it was being scribbled.

Imagine this mind as one of those Magic Eight Balls;

Thoughts floating into view, floating out of view, sometimes retrievable, most often not.

 

* * * *

Yet another weary moment flowers, through the endless projection of vanity.

 

* * * *

If these writings, these reflections, have merit, they will endure; if not, oh well, so it goes.

It has been enough to observe whether the quantum théâtre absurde of dreamtime,

Was as up to the mark set by all the self-promotion, by all the propaganda,

History has fed the masses as they chewed away on their mother.

My bet is that we will decline and fall, as all things ever do,

And all our creations, all our treasures, all our glories,

Will dissolve with the last whimper of imagination.

And the quantum abyss will not even shed a tear.

Nor I collect my winnings; for which I do despair.

 

* * * *

The absence of motive has been a deciding-defining force of its own.

 

* * * *

I, Awareness.

Awareness field.

Awareness infinity.

Awareness freedom.

Awareness tranquility.

Awareness indelibility.

Awareness sovereignty.

Awareness absoluteness.

Awareness indivisibility.

Awareness timelessness.

Awareness singularity.

Awareness totality.

Awareness truth.

Awareness joy.

I, Awareness.

 

* * * * 

I may not have had a choice in being born,

But I can certainly have hand in how it ends,

If the Reaper does not beat me to the punch.

 

* * * *

Looking to be a footnote in the history of mystery books.

 

* * * *

How random a process this work has been; boggling to have been witness to it all.

 

* * * *

Of those whose minds and hair are graying, we have all seen better daze.

 

* * * *

Waking up to yet another dreamy day,

Trapped in a body racked with one bother or another,

The mind willy-nilly between agony and ecstasy, exasperation and rapture.

Curious how thought can play the gamut between amusing and tiring from one moment to the next.

What ceaselessly pointless vainglorious absurdity, this much ado about nothing.

The appeal of ever returning to this manifest dreamtime,

Has pretty much run its course.

 

* * * *

Did I finally find my calling, or was it just waiting for me to arrive?

 

* * * *

Am I mad, or are you just deaf and blind?

 

* * * *

Waiting for the Reaper; may have to go find him.

 

* * * *

You know it is esoteric when you can barely give it away.

 

* * * *

I do not need anything from you.

I offer you these insights free of all claims.

I do not hunger for your treasures, or your approval.

I do not aspire to ever meet you, or hear your imaginary story.

You are free to go your own way, find your own way,

 And do with these thoughts, whatever you will.

 

* * * *

Just a clarification that some titles are original works, and some are selections from the originals.

Please note, dear reader, that nothing is complete, nothing is finished, until the last wheezing breath.

And that the most recent, most accurate edits, will be the PDF versions uploaded to the website.

 

-----

 

These are the original works:

 

The Stillness Before Time,

Reflections From a Fellow Sojourner

 

Including:

Of the Human Journey

Got God?

Ten Reflections

 

The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim

 

The Breadcrumbs Compendium

Bits and Pieces From a Dream of Time

 

Breadcrumbs 2015

Breadcrumbs 2018

Breadcrumbs 2019

Breadcrumbs 2020

Breadcrumbs 2021

Breadcrumbs 2022

Breadcrumbs 2023 & Beyond

 

The Return to Wonder

Field Notes from the Unknown

 

Sketches of the Once Upon a Time

A Few Epiphanies and Other Hallmark Moments

 

A Short List of Books for the Up and Coming

Some Written Works That May Help Get the Young Up to Speed

 

The Corollaries of Yaj Ekim

 

The Standard Ripostes

The Scribe’s Go-to Responses to This and That in the Day-To-Day

 

Definitions

An Incomplete Selection of Contemplative Definitions

 

Conversations

A Variety of Letters, Emails, Texts, & Sundry Odd 'n Ends

 

My (Not Quite) Haiku

 

Once Upon a Christmas

 

Titles, Titles & More Titles

 

Even More

 

Ditties From the Bluegrass Fire

 

Spam Responses (a.k.a., WTF Is This Shit!?)

 

-----

 

The titles below are selections drawn from the original works above, based on the premise of the title.

Several will very likely still be ‘under construction’ if the Reaper arrives ahead of sketch.

So … anyone who might be motivated, is welcome to fill in any-and-all gaps,

Being as mindful as possible, to hold fast to the given formatting.

There may or may not be someone to answer inquiries,

At the mjholshouser@gmail.com address.

 

Michael’s Rabbit Hole

A Selection of Breadcrumbs & Other Aphorisms

 

The Call of the Eternal

A Conversation With My Self

 

Imagination: The Great Usurper

 

Lost in Translation

The Human Paradigm’s Linguistic Muddle

 

The Gordian Knot of Ethical Thinking

 

Jesus … on Prophets

What Any Seer Likely Faces Returning to the Cave of Origin

 

Aftershocks

~ Autumn 2024 ~

 

Of Meaning and Purpose

Ponderings About the Futility of It All

 

Mystery, Mystery & More Mystery

 

Imagination, Imagination & More Imagination

 

Doubt, Doubt & More Doubt

 

Science, Science & More Science

 

History, History & More History

 

Patterns, Patterns & More Patterns

 

Reincarnation, Reincarnation & More Reincarnation

 

To Be or Not to Be


The Mystery of the Mystery
 

Who Was the First?

 
The Real is Discovering 

 

59 Moments to The Way It Is (And Is Not)

 

Of the Human Journey

Along with Got God? And Ten Reflections

 

Standouts From “The Return to Wonder” Edit

Selections From the First Sixteen Chapters

 

* * * *

All the copyrights to this collection of titles are a cultural formality,

Which need mean nothing to whatever the future of this scarred garden’s dreamtime has in store.

Do with these many ponderings, these many ramblings, whatever you will,

Or ignore them entirely, and likely be no less happy for it.

 

* * * *

No one is ever going to read all this yada yada babble besides me,

Few are ever going to really even begin to grasp, all that I have offered the world.

So, the question becomes, whether or not, it is a good idea for anyone to even dip more than a tippy-toe.

But, if there ever is enough interest for there to be group discussions on this body of work,

Be sure no one is in charge, as anything more than a mild facilitating role.

Circular seating, all at the same eye-level, is recommended.

No proselytization, no dogma, no bullshit.

Read it as clearly as possible.

Stay as clear as possible.

It is not about the scribe.

It is a discussion, not a sermon.

And do not hesitate just to sit in silence.

It is, after all is said and done, a solitary journey.

 

* * * *

No, this existence has not been all about talking and writing all this babble.

There were many mornings sipping bean at coffee shops, and nights curled up with popcorn and Netflix,

And wanders here and there, witnessing, exploring, participating, in oh-so-many ways.

Wisdom is far more than sitting on a zafu, staring at a blank wall,

Though that may well be a hearty slice of it,

And ultimately, all of it.

 

* * * *

Rich man's life on a dime, is how this life has spun.

Why go to all that work, when the pearl was there for the taking.

Of course, being content to merely be, remaining single, never going into debt,

And being happy to sleep on a couch, or in a van, were key enablers in my unplanned epoch.

All the monotony it would have taken to become rich and famous and powerful,

Would have been far too toxic, far too boring, for this plebeian spirit.

Far more interesting to swing from adventure to adventure.

To let the mystery set this destiny’s mortal course.

And somehow, it has reached this moment,

This keyboard, this cup of coffee.

How could I not be content?

 

* * * *

If you truly believe I am saying, there is not a supreme deity, think again.

If you believe I am saying, there is a supreme deity, think again.

Back and forth that whirling dervish as you are inclined.

But the truth is, I do not know, nor do I care.

I Am … What more need be said?

The moment is all.

 

* * * *

No, I am not tossing out history.

I am simply pointing out that it is an imaginary invention,

To which we have tethered ourselves to such a fisted-hand-in-the-coconut degree,

That it is driving our kind, and a fair number of our fellow earthlings, and perhaps Gaia, towards oblivion,

Or certainly a far different garden than the one from which we spawned.

 

* * * *

Has this lifetime of philosophizing, in any way,

Transformed the patterning of this temporal mind-body?

Not that I have, in any way, any shape, any form, ever once witnessed.

Destiny is destiny, fate is fate, fortune is fortune, upshot is upshot, kismet is kismet,

No matter how it is chiseled in stone in the sands of time.

 

* * * *

Although I have enjoyed so many things in this span of dreamtime,

All I ever really ‘wanted’ to do was be a forklift driver.

The spatial flowing of it, drew the farm boy.

On a forklift, in the field stations I in youth worked,

I was a fighter pilot, flying solo all about the asphalt jungles,

On which my iron horse and I, rallied about, putting order to daily chaos.

Such was my satisfaction, that I once even used vacation time at Creative Alternatives,

To work the peak of a walnut season at Ron Martella’s huller on Tully Road in hometown Hughson.

 Ten-hour days in California Great Central Valley’s late summer often very warm weather.

Every moment absolutely, priceless, in the very-very right-here-right-now of it.

The hardest part was in those rare moments when it slowed down.

And even then, there was always something to do.

 

* * * *

I am a revolution unto my Self.

 

* * * *

Alas that I have so often been unkind, even cruel, to far too many; where is that rewind button?

 

* * * *

Peter Pan couldn't do it any better.

 

* * * *

Michael’s been a very bad boy, again this year; that makes 70 lumps of coal in his collection.

 

* * * *

I fell into it, or it into me, I am not sure.

 

* * * *

Done run out of mood for scribbling away this day.

 

* * * *

I have explored many boundaries, and have found them all wanting.

 

* * * *

Giving voice to the obvious.

 

* * * *

A player, alone, on an unheralded stage.

 

* * * *

This long and winding work is dedicated,

To the mystics at large, the mystiques en liberté,

For whom Self is all; for whom one is all, and all are one.

 

* * * *

Understanding irony and paradox, and having a talent for it, is on every philosopher's resume.

 

* * * *

In creating this Sisyphean opus, mustered from a hard-earned frame of reference,

Every aphorism is given equal attention; each, gold-standard handcrafted,

To be read by somebody, someday, maybe, though probably not.

Don Quixote battling windmills is a fitting metaphor.

 

* * * *

It never occurred to me to want to be rich, so I lived rich, instead.

 

* * * *

I pipe dream this largely aphoristic body of work will someday be known,

And my name on some marquee, these thoughts the focus of symposiums across the world,

 But let’s face it, folks, with all the babbleon that’s already out there,

That just ain’t ever never going to happen.

So it goes.

 

* * * *

To my grave, anonymous, and not unhappy about it.

 

* * * *

A nonprofit prophet, I am, I am.

 

* * * *

This is my song of God.

Have done just about all that can be done,

To quietly, discreetly, below-the-radar,

Without making it about me, share it.

Whatever comes of it, is up to You.

 

* * * *

I thank the gods every day for being born in the Rome of current times.

And also to have been born a peasant, free of the weight of political and religious dogma.

With enough of an education, enough of a frame of reference, enough of a mind-body, enough of a spirit,

To rationally observe the human paradigm play out, through many lenses, its endless absurdities.

 

* * * *

What a bore I am.

 

* * * *

Everything in this opus to the mystery is subject to editing,

Which generally means to a better rendering,

At least in the editor’s eye.

 

* * * *

Only slightly heavier than I was the day before.

 

* * * *

I keep getting enticed back; what a fucking loser, and a hypocrite, an added bonus.

 

* * * *

I do not envy the young.

 

* * * *

Which yesterday is today, I cannot remember.

 

* * * *

Who else but scholars addicted to symposium fare,

Are even going to think about reading all this babbleo?

And that supposes it will ever even breach the Ivory Tower.

 

* * * *

Regarding whether or not there is some deity or deities on high,

I do not think there is, but do not know there is not.

Ergo, agnostic is the least tawdry label.

 

* * * *

If I was the fire-and-brimstone God that Christians have chosen to follow and worship,

My hellhole would be a large amphitheater where all those who had been hurt or wronged,

Would be allowed to mete out their revenge upon those who had harmed or wronged them.

Every torture apparatus ever concocted in the history of humankind would be available,

For all the victims to exact any agony, as many ways, as many times, as they liked.

Everyone, the victims, and all their family and friends, would have their turn.

And those confined to this hellish fate, would suffer eternal damnation,

For as long as all the victims, and their family and friends, chose.

And God and Jesus and Satan would be sitting in the stands,

Cheering them on, laughing at every agonizing scream.

There are many dark characters throughout history,

Who are still tied down to their ice-hot slabs,

Crowds deaf to their pleas for mercy.

And all available to the roaring masses,

On an assortment of pay-per-view channels.

 

* * * *

Awakening was what this mind was programmed to achieve,

And to then babble to himself for the rest of this existence.

 

* * * *

The politics of dealing with followers, why would I do that to my Self?

 

* * * *

And so begins another day of slogging through dreamtime.

 

* * * *

What an insatiably voracious fiend I am for commas.

 

* * * *

I anticipate this life work long since dead on the vine, and me never known enough to be forgotten.

The enjoyment of having been called to churn out this plethora of babble-on,

Has, believe it or not, been satisfaction enough.

What is power, what is fame, what is fortune, to contentment?

 

* * * *

To intelligence, to wisdom, to compassion, to serenity, to mystery, I bow.

 

* * * *

Hallucinogens have certainly played a significant role in my exploratory existence.

They have no doubt played a huge function in the evolution of our species,

And it may well be their reintroduction into diets across the world,

May well be the only way the future will abide the tatters time has allotted.

 

* * * *

Nothing I need to do, no one I need to see, nothing I need to be.

 

* * * *

Have run into far too many human beings,

Who are smarter, more skillful, more adept, in many ways,

To assert I am in any way superior to anyone.

 

* * * *

And from the humble beginnings of infancy, of childhood, of adolescence,

I wandered into the everyday jungle, the world of perception,

And unleashed the unutterable abyss so few discern.

The eternal life to which all are entitled.

 

* * * *

I have never had a passionate need to challenge, to conquer, to win at all costs.

I can compete, and generally perform tolerably well in many arenas,

But I do not blubber if someone has got the better of me.

What need have I to prove anything to anyone?

Win some, lose some, win more later.

And someday, oblivion.

So it goes.

 

* * * *

At this 2023 writing, I have never created a video or voice recording,

So, if there ever is anything posted, it will be AI doing its chatbot thing.

 

* * * *

This has been a most interesting, very free, very freeing, existence to play out.

 

* * * *

Nothing to do, and all day to do it.

 

* * * *

Not desperate to wake up tomorrow.

 

* * * *

The whole thing just makes me laugh.

 

* * * *

An honest an account as this mind can muster; zen-ish without the zen.

 

* * * *

Once again, the AMA has failed me.

 

* * * *

Somebody else can have that record.

 

* * * *

The iceberg has already ripped through the underbelly,

And most everybody is still carousing on like there is no tomorrow.

I do not lose sleep over it; I have lived through the apex of the human paradigm,

And will be dust-worthy long-gone by the time the human debacle has sunk to its lowest depths.

 

* * * *

There is nothing herein that has not been said or written,

In some other space, some other time, some other culture, some other language,

But to have it all under one roof, in the lingua franca of these times, this mind; well, how lucky is that?

Best leave all your paltry all-that-glitters-is-not-gold gorp at the door.

This rabbit hole will not abide it.

 

* * * *

I often long for Old School.

It has been entertaining, it has been enlightening,

But I am so weary of this world, this species, and its race to extinction.

 

* * * *

I am very okay on settling with the inevitable on my own terms.

 

* * * *

Rich man’s monk-ish life.

 

* * * *

I imagine every variety of possibility, and have no certainty of any.

 

* * * *

My art, such as it is.

 

* * * *

I am not saying there is not a God, or that aliens are not all around us; it is just nothing I have seen.

That we exist is an unutterable mystery that makes anything possible, but until I witness it for myself,

Or see proof that scientific method can verify, why should I waste time speculating or pondering hearsay? Long ago, I a few times wandered hills in the starlight offering myself up for abduction,

And here I remain, a true don’t-know-don’t-care, bona fide agnostic.

At least it is from-the-keyboard-pulpit honest.

 

* * * *

I am the world, and the world is Me.

 

* * * *

Oblivion is no worry to me.

 

* * * *

True-believing anything has never been my thing.

 

* * * *

How lucky I am not to be you.

 

* * * *

In order to keep me on board, in order to keep me participating in this droning earthly game,

Imagination has enticed me, allowed me free rein, with an endless stream of thoughts, to stay in her fold.

Don Miguel Ruiz’s Mitote – the chaos of 1,000 voices all trying to talk at once in the mind –

Returns to tabula rasa when knowledge of the world, within and without, is stilled.

Simply a matter of setting down the garden fruit plucked so long ago.

 

* * * *

How many cushions will that derrière someday cover in these our gluttonous times?

 

* * * *

A little taste is gist enough.

 

* * * *

Arrogance is its own bliss.

 

* * * *

Get behind me, you children of one book.

 

* * * *

One life was one more than I ever needed.

 

* * * *

Am I going to wait for the Reaper, or go out and meet him?

 

* * * *

Oblivion is alright by me.

 

* * * *

This opus will never be, what I would have it be, had I the time to set it right.

 

* * * *

Do not make your problem my problem.

 

* * * *

Have lived in twenty-five-ish rentals, plus a handful of housesitting gigs,

Plus who knows how many floors and couches and beds and tents and vans and motor homes.

Home is wherever this noggin rests, and I have always slept untroubled.

Must be some gypsy blood in there, somewhere.

 

* * * *

How fortunate for the world that I do not enact all the thoughts that spin through this mind.

 

* * * *

I have many fathers, many brothers.

All the teachers, all the thespians, all the comedians.

All the men, of every character, in whose presence I have ever been;

They have all contributed to who imagination pretends to be,

In this absurd dreamtime born of sensory illusion.

In reality, I am but absolute awareness,

Austere, free, immaculate.

 

* * * *

My Mother

 

If I have not said or implied it elsewhere,

In this thirty-years-plus philosophical walkabout,

It should well be counted a good destiny’s good fortune,

To have been given a mother, such as I have had.

So calm, so rational, so intelligent, so good.

A modest, humble-to-the roots woman,

Of whom Buddha would be in awe.

Beverly Jean Kurtz-Holshouser,

Is her name, born September 4, 1929.

In this worldly mind’s quantum dreamtime,

She, such an unfathomable part, has performed.

She is the source, the seed, the blessing,

For this scribe’s life work and play.

 

Her loving son, Michael Jay

 

* * * *

What happens after death? … Don’t know … Don’t care.

Didn’t ask to be here, ain’t prayin’ to be stayin’.

Seen and done enough to be ready,

For some eternal rest in the land of oblivion.

 

* * * *

Am I a spy for Self, or a counter-spy for imagination? Or both?

 

* * * *

So many things to do, and only a few I want to.

 

* * * *

I am a liar, I am a cheat, I am a thief, and I plot murder and mayhem daily,

And sometimes, when the mood strikes, I even go rogue and dip into hypocrisy.

 

* * * *

I am a liar, I am a cheat, I am a thief, and I plot murder and mayhem daily,

And let us not leave out all the hypocrisy that dallies between the cracks.

 

* * * *

Confessions of a criminal mind.

 

* * * *

I am supposed to think all kinds of things are important,

That I do not have to even pretend are important anymore.

 

* * * *

Nothing to hope for.

 

* * * *

Another ass spreading across the couch.

 

* * * *

Just because I can splice in a comma, should I? Oh, what is this insatiable lust for commas?

Or are they just a gentle pause I would give, were I oral before some forum, articulating live?

Alas for all those I might have as acolytes, were I sitting on some give-into-vanity golden throne,

Other than the random spontaneity of coffee shops and other wanders,

No in-person public forums for this alone guy.

 

* * * *

Who is this creature imagination ever brings forth?

 

* * * *

My teaching requires You, a grass root, to carry it forth.

 

* * * *

Why would I ever muzzle this keyboard to assuage political correctness?

 

* * * *

I am Gaia’s scribe.

 

* * * *

And to think I could have spent all this time serenely staring at a wall.

 

* * * *

I, Quantum.

Quantum field.

Quantum infinity.

Quantum freedom.

Quantum tranquility.

Quantum indelibility.

Quantum sovereignty.

Quantum absoluteness.

Quantum indivisibility.

Quantum timelessness.

Quantum singularity.

Quantum totality.

Quantum truth.

Quantum joy.

I, Quantum.

 

* * * *

There ain't nothing I cannot walk away from.

 

* * * *

A work still looking for an audience.

 

* * * * 

There is very little about growing old that I find at all enticing.

 

* * * *

How do I perceive what I say is true? Because I would not elsewise say it.

 

* * * *

Another camera-ready aphorism,

Forever lost, or morphed into something else,

By the rambling mind, uncontrollably streaming out of reach.

 

* * * *

If I signed up for this existence,

I must have been very drunk or stoned,

Or filled with an incredibly boundless naïveté,

That the illusion has distilled into a resolute cynicism.

 

* * * *

Might have been a great pharaoh, if I had, had the stomach for corruption and political subterfuge.

 

* * * *

I’m in and out because somebody had to write it.

 

* * * *

Oh joy, another day of monkey-mind absurdity.

 

* * * *

In another moment, these writings would have had time to percolate, to distill,

Into a recognized work, that might have been influential in the play of human affairs.

But now, now time is no longer a luxury, and good intentions fall upon deaf ears, blind eyes.

What author can ever know, how his life work will ripple through time, how his snowflake will roll.

 

* * * *

I ask My Self this all the time.

 

* * * *

Every aphorism is complete, unless I happen back upon it, and refine it this way or that.

 

* * * *

Nationalism is just tribalism on a bigger scale, and I have no need for either.

 

* * * *

Anybody who follows me is an imbecile.

I only do friends and acquaintances.

And adversaries, as they happen.

 

* * * *

The phone has come close to being off the hook, so I must be on to something.

 

* * * *

Have always been partial to oblivion.

 

* * * *

If I needed anything, I would already have it.

 

* * * *

And unassigned mission, complete enough to serve its intent, if any subscribers come along.

 

* * * *

I am my own muse.

 

* * * *

A long and winding musing for the rest of times, and without doubt, not the only one.

There are who knows how many, who endure the anguish of Mother Gaia,

Who feel unutterably powerless against the insatiable predator,

That dominates this no-holds-barred monkey mind.

And all they can do is build a soapbox,

And preach to the choir.

 

* * * *

No aphorism is sacred; all are subject to editing.

 

* * * *

I have given you everything this mind has to give, for you to do with whatever you please.

My only entreaty, my only admonition, is that you waylay any absurdity as much as possible.

 

* * * *

Was that tonight or last night? I cannot remember.

 

* * * *

Written babble is all you are going to get out of me.

Videos and cult bullshit are just not going to happen.

 

* * * *

Ikkyū! Would that I had read you early on.

 

* * * *

Celibacy just sort of happened,

Once women became way too much work,

Once the benefit-cost ratio became an irrational choice.

 

* * * *

If I was a truly serious seer, none of this would have been written.

 

* * * *

Pretty well everything-ed out.

 

* * * *

Continued writing, long after all that was needed, was written and done.

Why?

Because there was nothing that garnered as much interest,

Long enough to not find the time to fiddle-faddle,

With all the thoughts that kept coming.

It was all that imagination had left in its arsenal.

 

* * * *

The spontaneity of a word-churning mind.

 

* * * *

What the fuck is an expert?

 

* * * *

Why do I keep trying to convince you of that which is obvious?

 

* * * *

I know what I am saying, I know what I am writing, but what you are cogitating, is anybody’s guess.

 

* * * *

Other than fill in some of the time, this whole babbleon has been absolutely pointless.

 

* * * *

Why do I torture my Self so?

 

* * * *

Never much cared what I did, as long as it was interesting.

 

* * * *

You can discern how low a man’s penis brain has taken him,

When you see him walking her rat dog, all alone,

On a predawn, cold Sunday morning.

 

* * * *

Never met anyone I wanted to come home to every night.

 

* * * *

More sound advice, likely unheard.

 

* * * *

Written on the off chance that You might someday read it.

 

* * * *

Awareness is my deity, and quantum nature its expression.

 

* * * *

Let the one-percenters and their minions have their moment in the sun.

Let them spend their daze, churning madly, to keep their worlds afloat.

They make my world, my dance, possible; and much, much freer for it.

 

* * * *

Should be done well enough by now.

 

* * * *

What would being a leader offer me?

Politicking, meetings, decisions, speeches, inspections, 

Dinners, ceremonies, parades, limelight, lawsuits, publicity, et cetera ad infinitum.

I loathe them all; tedium, uniformity, repetitiveness, beyond all bounds.

You can find me alone in my cave, if you can find the cave.

 

* * * *

About writing, my father once advised setting aside drafts, to be read over time, several times.

 

* * * *

Of an egalitarian set.

 

* * * *

You are all academy award winners in my epic production.

 

* * * *

I am whatever you think I am; you are whatever I think you are.

 

* * * *

All the solitude,

All the wandering,

All the observing,

All the schooling,

All the walking,

All the running,

All the swimming,

All the driving,

All the people,

All the friends,

All the acquaintances,

All the adversaries,

All the possessions,

All the food,

All the drink,

All the alcohol,

All the drugs,

All the women,

All the dancing,

All the sexuality,

All the parties,

All the coffee shops,

All the book stores,

All the bars,

All the movies,

All the books,

All the music,

All the learning,

All the travel,

All the medication,

All the surgery,

All the massage,

All the acupuncture,

All the chiropractic,

All the camping,

All the hitchhiking,

All the geographies,

All the writing,

All the work,

All the skills,

All the photography,

All the technology,

All the algorithms,

All the vehicles,

All the sailing,

All the biking,

All the hiking,

All the board games,

All the card games

All the dice games,

All the gambling,

All the forklifting,

All the drawing,

All the string figures,

All the drafting,

All the layout,

All the publishing,

All the shooting,

All the archery,

All the swordplay,

All the football,

All the sports,

All the animals,

All the waking,

All the sleeping,

All the pleasure,

All the pain,

All the passion,

All the freedom,

All the meditation,

All the contemplation,

All the sights and sounds and tastes and smells and sensations,

How can all my ancestors, combined,

Have done all I have done?

 

* * * *

The money is rolling in … to someone else’s till.

 

* * * *

Oh joy, something else I don't need, something else I won't ever use.

 

* * * *

Toying with oblivion, before oblivion toys with me.

 

* * * *

Fucking suits.

 

* * * *

So many things I might have done differently, were there a rewind button.

 

* * * *

What a lot of work I make for myself every time the editor steps in.

 

* * * *

Whether I am a philosopher or prophet or heretic,

Is for the future-past of history to decide,

Or ignore entirely, for that matter.

 

* * * *

Give me common sense and wisdom over trivial pursuit any day of the week.

 

* * * *

The only thing that will shut off this dittyfest is a helium hood or bullet through the ear.

 

* * * *

No argument I am as whacko as anybody I decry.

 

* * * *

This work is unconditionally free.

No obligation, monetary or otherwise.

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

 

* * * *

If you think this is sacrilegious, you should see what I threw away.

 

* * * *

Another toxic persona in the wake, thank the gods.

 

* * * *

If I must be saved, let it be from absurdity.

 

* * * *

I leave it to you to decide who-what-where-when-why-how I am, at least some of the time.

 

* * * *

Think of me as “The Emperor New Clothes” kid.

 

* * * *

This is as earnest a work as this nature-nurture frame of reference can offer,

For whatever dystopian nightmare is coming at this once-upon-a-time immaculate garden.

If you can find something that suits the times better, sally forth,

But not into more absurdity, please.

 

* * * *

To have had all these thoughts, spontaneously stream into this mind,

Has been both blessing and curse, both agony and ecstasy, both profound and absurd.

Michelangelo had his stone; Mozart, his music; Picasso, his paintings; Napoleon, his canons; I, my words.

Callings are like that.

 

* * * *

When I think of the dystopian future, I think of packs of feral rat-dogs.

 

* * * *

If I was in charge,

There would be easy-access-no-cost-no-questions-asked suicide clinics,

Throughout the land.

 

* * * *

My genetic material was not willful enough to bind me into plebeian-householder fare.

 

* * * *

Nothing like starting the day with a good ponder with a stranger.

 

* * * *

The pitter-patter of a mind gone rogue, loyal to all and none.

 

* * * *

The tortoise, unleashed.

 

* * * *

No worries, another ditty will pop in soon enough.

They just keep coming, until death do I part, I imagine.

 

* * * *

To be divinely free requires great diligence, great attention, great earnestness,

Which this genomic strain, does not always possess as fully as this body of work might imply.

I do, with great regret, confess my mortal weakness for the whimsies of every variety of imaginary notion.

They draw me willy-nilly, this way and that, that way and this, same as everyone else.

And it does not matter even one iota, for to have even seen it even once,

Is like touching the soul of realization, that you are the One.

If that does not humble you, what, pray tell, will?

 

* * * *

Wise guy, wise man.

 

* * * *

Rest assured, I may be a Mad Hatter,

But not mad enough to do an ear slice ‘n dice a la Van Gogh.

Though I may pass a bullet through it at some point, just to be done with the absurdity.

 

* * * *

Another perfect crime, the one no one ever even knows happened.

 

* * * *

This getting old has gotten way old.

 

* * * *

A never-finished work that will never be read.

 

* * * *

No doubt, many of my observations about science,

Could be greatly modified by many with much more edification,

But such is the so-it-goes song and dance you get with a plebeian education,

And a lack of interest in knowing more than the gist I seek, from most things Wikipedia.

 

* * * *

Stupid fucking monkeys.

 

* * * *

I was commissioned by eternity to scribe it, not sell it; take it or leave it, no matter to me.

 

* * * *

Alas for fame that I relish anonymity.

Alas for greed that I have more than enough.

Alas for power that I allow all to go their own way.

Alas for vanity that I know it not real.

Eternity is subject to none.

Awareness is all.

 

* * * *

Have written off the human species as anything I would ever do to my Self again.

Why I keep talking and writing and uploading all this babble-babble is the mystery.

 

* * * *

A man on a mission, she said; blame all the windmills, I answered.

 

* * * *

Breadcrumbs is what is called ‘breaking the fourth wall’ in the movies.

 

* * * *

Amazing what churns about in this wee little monkey-mind brain.

 

* * * *

I am indeed as vain as any I might point my finger at.

 

* * * *

Yet another new testament destined to be ignored and forgotten.

 

* * * *

Please forgive the digression, again.

 

* * * *

Remember, all these thoughts, are the timelessly time-bound You, pointing to the timeless You.

 

* * * *

Another day behind the curtain, jousting quantum fairy dust.

 

* * * *

All these ditties are imagination's unwarranted diligence,

In keeping me from actually doing the Cheshire.

Yes, there is indeed a level of irony at play.

Freedom calls, but no need to dash to the exit.

Give imagination its due in the thrill of the chase.

The Reaper will be arriving with Charon soon enough.

The abyss has a tendency to always be ready for new arrivals.

 

See!? It’s doing it again! Make it stop, Mommy! Make it stop! Please!

 

* * * *

Is there anything more absurd, than zoom meetings,

With everyone staring into their screens the entire meeting?

Hardly anyone looking into the camera, but through sheer act of will.

Once upon a time, I was obliged by kin to participate in one,

And rest assured, it will never ever happen again,

In this, nor any other horror story.

 

* * * *

How do you fuck a mermaid, anyway? Assuming she wanted to, of course.

 

* * * *

My crimes against humanity, the whole world, for that matter, are many and not far between.

 

* * * *

The trick is not to get anyone so upset they want to chop off my head or burn me to death.

 

* * * *

Even the tiniest of thoughts,

Has a way of morphing into something all heady and useless,

By way of this mind.

 

* * * *

Me likes ze commas – they are a sweet pause in this mind – and insert them whenever, wherever me can.

 

* * * *

Don’t believe a word I say.

 

* * * *

Let me think of a counter to that.

 

* * * *

Jesus-fucking-Christ, how the fuck did that happen!?

 

* * * *

The histories of the world have generally not been at all tolerant of such revolutionary thoughts as these.

How I have not been silenced, tortured, even executed, is indeed more than a little astounding,

And most certainly, very much due to the and time and place into which I was raised.

You can be very sure I would have long ago suffered a very agonizing death,

In more than a few geographies across this dreamtime illusion.

 

* * * *

Why would I, how could I, ever play your version,

Of what a prophet or mystic or saint or sage or fool, should be?

Thank the gods I was not born to become a myth, or even worse yet, a legend.

Or, maybe the other way round, in some sort of about way.

 

* * * *

Another lost-in-mind-having-fun ditty, oh well, so it went.

 

* * * *

What a relief it will to be done with this world, with the human species, and all its absurdities.

 

* * * *

Yup, he’s a strange one, that Michael.

Nice guy, talks a lot a sense, until he doesn’t.

That’s usually when we edge away.

 

* * * *

Knowing the details of the many horrors ahead does not matter; the gist is all that is required.

The future is screwed in so many ways, and I do not care about an overlong life.

I will endure it, suffer it, as long as things are reasonably tolerable,

And then bye-bye, ta-ta-forever, best wishes to all.

 

* * * *

Oopsie, darn, forgot again, that is not the way the game is played, rewind.

 

* * * *

To aspire to greatness in the eyes of fools, what need have I for that?

 

* * * *

Makes no sense, whatsoever, unless you are the tribeless irony-paradox sort.

 

* * * *

Yup, my kind of ditty.

 

* * * *

They keep coming, and I keep scribbling them down.

What else have I got going besides movies and the gym?

As pointless a life as can be imagined in this pointless arena.

All for a time that will far more than likely never come,

In our arrogant little playhouse of consciousness.

 

* * * *

This mind does see with such clarity, prior to all this imagination.

 

* * * *

Getting my Self all confused again.

 

* * * *

Now I am ready, finally.

 

* * * *

Right here, right now, this very one-and-only timeless moment … Eternity … Bam!

 

* * * *

What could be more timeless than now?

 

* * * *

Self is all.

 

* * * *

An esoteric muddle, indeed.

 

* * * *

Not hungry anymore; not sure I ever was, in the more-is-never-enough sense.

 

* * * *

Might have to start carrying a gun with one bullet, in case I am not close enough to ground zero.

 

* * * *

Ready to tap out any time.

 

* * * *

Write all this off to Self-therapy.

 

* * * *

God, but I am a bad speller; thank the gods for spellcheck! And grammarcheck, and the thesaurus, too!

 

* * * *

What belief system is required to be my Self?

 

* * * *

What would all my fellow dead poets think of this long and winding ponder?

 

* * * *

What belief system is required to be my Self?

 

* * * *

Getting dusty.

 

* * * *

Contemplation is thinking about doing it; meditation is doing it.

 

* * * *

What better timeless than now?

 

* * * *

And the hero suits up for another quest.

 

* * * *

Why go on more than a side stage to yammer at people who likely will never hear You anyway?

 

* * * *

Realized soon out of college that I did not care enough,

Did not want enough, to struggle my way up some absurd food chain.

Instead, I became a gypsy, a jack of many skillsets, with an aptitude for adventure.

 

* * * *

Have had a lot of fun with Facebook, but now it is mainly a scrapbook with links to all writings and posts.

No problems, so far. And at this writing, I do not care. There is nothing I could not live without.

The powers that be could put me behind bars, or against a wall, and I would abide it.

Death is just not waking up one morning or another, preferably with as little pain as possible.

 

* * * *

I do not think any pandemic is going to wipe out every human.

Nuclear holocaust, or some sort of calamitous climate collapse, get my treasure.

Which means the human paradigm may work its way back to stone-age living well down whatever road.

The world will grow very large and anonymous, and every geography will have its own curtain call.

And the curtain does not come down until the fat lady sings. if there are any fat people by then.

 

* * * *

Am so done with this world, with the human paradigm, and all its unutterable absurdity and horror.

 

* * * *

Would go back to the relative innocence and solitude of old school without a second thought.

 

* * * *

Took half a lifetime to find my calling, and it does not make a cent; in fact, I pay out to do it.

 

* * * *

Another flurry of thoughts bursts into dreamtime.

 

* * * *

Might have written about that, too; readership being what it is, no one will ever know.

 

* * * *

Imagine this work, a sand painting, waiting for the wind, or a broom.

 

* * * *

What a frightful bore I have become.

 

* * * *

Imagination allows me to point out all its dirty little secrets,

Because it knows a gnat can do it little bother, much less any real harm.

There is no reason for it to fear the truth, to dread we will wake up.

It owns the human paradigm, and there is absolutely nothing,

Anyone can do to stop the inevitable decline and fall.

The Tralfamadorians are nodding their heads,

As I wander down the ‘so it goes’ isle.

 

* * * *

What am I trying to prove, you ask? Well, the point of futility, I answer.

 

* * * *

Planting seeds wherever I go; the birds right behind.

 

* * * *

It will not be at all easy to run across the confession in all this wordplay,

For all the offenses, all the misdeeds, all the crimes and misdemeanors, I have committed.

Yes, I could easily have been incarcerated, many times, maybe even a death sentence were I to stretch it.

I have nothing to conceal from strangers I will far more than likely never meet.

I was born a human being, same as everyone else.

And I survived, and had a pretty-decent show, for relatively little cost.

 

* * * *

Thoughts such as these, require the percolation of time, to see if they have merit.

Sigh, that I will never know their impact or evaporation in the landfill of imagination.

 

* * * *

The amusement, the satisfaction, the enjoyment, of Self-reflection, is an ever-present preoccupation.

 

* * * *

Well, if I am crazy, at least it is in good company.

 

* * * *

All I remember is drops sizzling, and the preacher stepping back.

 

* * * *

Know that I did my best, I gave my all, you are welcome.

 

* * * *

Just sowing more seeds of absurdity with which the future will perhaps be forced to contend.

 

* * * *

Sure, somebody else probably could  have written it better,

But nobody else was willing to do it for nothing,

And had the frame of reference required.

 

* * * *

My religion, if it must be called that, is embracing all that is, all that is not – the mystery – of which I am.

 

* * * *

Well, I have obviously imagined someone someday read this.

 

* * * *

Life or death, every moment a decision.

Another day; let the countdown continue.

 

* * * *

It is a sleeping world that allowed me to awaken, and leave this work for those who feel the call.

 

* * * *

My little pissing contest with the illusion.

 

* * * *

To be so consumed by this little pastime, this little hobby,

Glaringly shows how meaningless this absurdity has become.

 

* * * *

Each aphorism as precise, as my ability with language and the technology available, can make them.

 

* * * *

The noncommittal look, pans across yet another public square.

 

* * * *

Another day serving the mystery as best as vanity allows.

 

* * * *

Another day; let the countdown continue.

 

* * * *

A conversation with my Self.

 

* * * *

To continue writing and editing this overworked work, is about as absurd as it gets.

 

* * * *

So endlessly replete with:

 

Gobbledygook

Jargon

Gibberish

Drivel

Waffle

Bunkum

Rubbish

Bunk

Claptrap

Poppycock

Balderdash

Mumbo Jumbo

 

As to be an insufferable boor.

 

* * * *

Would this have been written even if there was never to be an audience?

I have pretty much always been a Self-actualized character.

So the answer to that is maybe-probably yes.

So many other creative projects have already found their way

Into burning pits or landfills or boxes, unwitnessed by any other in this existence.

Current times have allowed it to be tossed every willy-nilly way, for it to find its own wheels, or not.

 

* * * *

The biggest reason I retired as early as the times allowed, is that I was tired of being tired.

The joy of napping whenever the zzz’s called, has been my greatest gift to myself.

A dog's life, or a cat’s, or any other domesticated creature, is the life for me.

 

* * * *

Momma raised a fool, and a wise man, or an asshole, you decide.

 

* * * *

Think of it as a sketch book or an instrument, that you are drawn to strum until the end of your time.

 

* * * *

So, where did curiosity lead me this time?

 

* * * *

This opus must find its own wheels; and whether it does or not, is nothing I can ever more than wonder.

No farmer can do more than abide the whimsies of Mother Nature to see the results of his labor.

No skin off my nose, what may or may not become, of all that has been set into digital.

My prize is having the good fortune to transcribe and edit it all, who know how many times.

The amusement, the satisfaction, the enjoyment, of Self-reflection, is an ever-present preoccupation.

 

* * * *

Yes, I do enjoy hearing my Self talk; who does not?

 

* * * *

My fun was writing it; what comes of it will sound pretty empty from the grave.

 

* * * *

As narcissistic and hedonistic and foolish as everyone else; maybe-likely even more so.

 

* * * *

What will come of all this? Well, nothing, of course, and what do I care?

 

* * * *

The gist is all I need about anything anymore.

 

* * * *

A philosopher few ever heard of died today.

 

* * * *

It may be twisted, but this wordplay is what I almost daily embrace,

Because it beckons me so; for what, if anything, I know not, nor do I really care.

It is what it is, and I am more than a little content, to have been the instrument of its creation.

 

* * * *

The task was to scribe this using current means;

To quietly disseminate it in Johnny Appleseed fashion.

For those who serendipitously find themselves in its possession,

To serendipitously pass it on to others, who might discern it for what it is,

And thereby perhaps pass it on and on and on and on as the moment ever morphs forth.

Hopefully, without the fingerprints of the revolutionary, the world could-never-will-never-shall-never,

More than vaguely imagine, as it has every other bygone willy-nilly visionary-slash-sage,

Leading-pushing-driving the human paradigm toward its certain extinction.

Quantum-absolutely no different than any microbial organism;

Our wandering meander through all things imaginary,

Through all things narcissistic-hedonistic,

Is but a twinkling in eternity,

The ineffable void,

Now.

 

* * * *

Where is the yoke in these writings? Where is the burden?

What yoke can the clarity of rationality ever create,

But a mindfulness to not accept any pretense,

At least as far as the ultimate truth goes.

We all have to survive, to abide, in some how, in some way.

The one-percenters have always set the tone, to which all below yield or perish,

But you need not give the insatiable beast more than the token morsels of vanity and greed it demands.

Play their theater, endure your stage, with whatever serenity and harmony you can muster,

In whatever dreamtime this ever-kaleidoscoping quantum garden manifests.

 

* * * *

So much to do, and will, so often on holiday.

 

* * * *

I know when that aphorism is done,

And it is with a little blip of satisfaction,

That I attentively move on to the next moment.

 

* * * *

I am indeed, much less responsible, much less sensible, than these writngs might otherwise indicate.

 

* * * *

All this is written because it is how imagination entices me into giving it the wheel.

All this is perused because it is how imagination entices you into giving it the wheel.

 

* * * *

How does all this get composed?

Because I pay attention, I inquire, I ponder,

And I bother to scribble down whatever comes to mind.

This existence has forged me into a philosopher at the wannabe level,

And no one else was available for long hours and no reward.

No doubt Nietzsche could articulate it more adeptly,

But we all know where his tale of woe ended.

Mine will hopefully dodge such a fate.

 

* * * *

It was Roland who most greatly sparked this wanderer’s penchant for wandering.

Through him: coffee shops, writing, driving, meandering countless heres and theres.

And you, the reader, if you have found this, are now privy to another souvenir of trivia.

 

* * * *

Regarding being a neanderthal of the species,

I am happily wiring-challenged and tone deaf and pedestrian,

When it comes to all the emotional absurdities that plague the sugar and spice set.

There is absolutely nothing that would draw me be reborn a woman.

If there is more than this one existence, please, God, no.

That would be pitiless, above and beyond,

What I well know you capable.

 

* * * *

How about I tell you what I really think?

 

* * * *

Did not think the world needed another round of groupthink absurdity,

So I have left the dreamtime with way too many words,

But at least without a cultish following.

Makes all my nonsense much easier to ignore.

 

* * * *

Just sharing.

 

* * * *

Apologies to so many, for so many things I would do or say so differently,

Were there a rewind button somewhere in this dreamtime,

To which we have all been abandoned.

 

* * * *

Alas, the shoals of aging are closer and closer between; I doubt I will long abide them.

 

* * * *

The most I might hope for is to be the subject of some obscure symposium well past any meaning.

 

* * * *

Never had a money problem with women, because I never had all that much.

If they were with me, it because they liked me, and maybe even wanted my child.

How I evaded that domesticated fate, is a story to which there are many missing pages.

 

* * * *

Feel free to ignore my cynicism.

 

* * * *

Who does not occasionally feel the tinge of sorrow?

 

* * * *

Thank you, Jesus, for another day of having to put up with the curse you probably never intended.

 

* * * *

Yet another stay-at-home, coffee drinking, word-playing, movie-watching, aqua-chi-ing day.

 

* * * *

‘Tis clever enough for esoteric consumption.

 

* * * *

Apologies for not always being consistent with capitalization and all its merry friends.

What can you expect from a country hick who wandered into the world with very little clue?

 

* * * *

All set for the rest of time.

 

* * * *

Okay, call me cynical; free to ignore me.

 

* * * *

For the last edit, look to the pdf’s, not the blogs.

 

* * * *

I am about me; you need not be about me.

 

* * * *

Use the punctuation to read it as I might say it.

 

* * * *

Chances are good, that even if I do not like you,

I will let you live, unless you force the issue, that is.

 

* * * *

How drained, how exhausted, how jaded, I so often feel, by the human paradigm,

And this so-called civilized world, we have all together, in absurdity and ignorance, fashioned.

Even if I had the capacity, the power, to somehow forestall the inevitable collapse,

I might well, instead, pull out a fiddle, and wander the fiery ruins alone.

Wait, is that not what I am, for all practical purposes, doing?

 

 

2024

 

As of August 1st

 


How is it that so many seers of this infinite, indifferent mystery,

Generate so much absurdity, that morphs into so much painful misery?

How much better for the all, it might be, to stay silent, to say little or nothing.

Daito Kokushi, fourteenth century Japanese Zen master of the Rinzai school, wrote:

“Wishing to entice the blind, The Buddha has playfully let words escape his golden mouth.

Heaven and earth are ever since filled with entangling briars.”

Hopefully, these way too many cogitations,

Will find their way to oblivion,

Before wreaking too much mayhem.

 

* * * *

Really not even worth bothering about.

 

* * * *

I suppose I could be wrong about this, but I do not see how.

 

* * * *

What flower believes it will live forever?

 

* * * *

If you are looking for some deific character, ignore the man behind this curtain.

 

* * * *

Looking like my two cents is not worth very much.

 

* * * *

Yes, this is will probably be lost, as well, and it won’t even require a fire, given its digital nature.

 

* * * *

Drifting in bliss.

 

* * * *

What can I say, this babble-on is how this mind works.

 

* * * *

You disrespect me, I disrespect you, so much for that relationship.

 

* * * *

It's a third-tier ‘other-things’ kind of day.

 

* * * *

Got nothing better to do.

 

* * * *

An affinity for oblivion.

 

* * * *

There is something about an aphorism that catches a truth as no story can.

 

* * * *

The human species has been interesting, but is it really worth preserving?

 

* * * *

I am more than a little weary of this human paradigm,

And doubt I will be making any big effort to fend off the Reaper,

When this mind-body gets too bothersome to get through the given day.

 

* * * *

 

Doubt not that there would be more than a few,

Who would gladly slit my throat, or burn me alive at the stake,

For all the blasphemy, all the sacrilege, all the irreverence, I have said and written.

How fortunate I am to have been born in one of the freest times and places history has ever sanctioned.

But, as Jack Palance famously uttered in the movie, City Slickers, “The day ain’t over.”

 

* * * *

This could only be written by someone who had nothing better to do.

 

* * * *

All human beings are, is protoplasm playing out the delusionary pretenses of imagination.

That imagination has allowed me, and many others throughout the illusion of space and time,

The Self-deception, that we might somehow challenge its reign over this monkey-mind paradigm.

 

* * * *

This is how the English language uses me to hammer at its forge.

 

* * * *

Thing management.

 

* * * *

The only place I might lead you is to your doorstep.

Keep your treasure, hold the applause, rotsa ruck.

 

 

Obviously, my report to High Command will be recommending extinction.

 

* * * *

It would be a bottle of Jack Daniels,

And a two-pound box of See’s Candy,

Most every day, if my tongue had more say.

 

* * * *

It’s the monkey in me, sorry.

 

* * * *

The fire in this belly was more a candle in the wind.

 

* * * *

Oh boy, a new pile.

 

* * * *

The goal of any author is to plant something in other minds that will not be easily forgotten.

Who knows how many works are in used book stores and landfills,

And internet websites and burn piles,

And ancient libraries long ago fallen into ruin,

That never or barely even got a chance to be remembered.

 

* * * *

What more is there to say? And yet I yabber on.

 

* * * *

I came, I saw, I listened, I tasted, I smelled, I touched, I departed.

 

* * * *

Didn’t see that one coming.

 

* * * *

Experiences and things were always more interesting than a pile of gold.

 

* * * *

Haven’t quite figured out that one, Ollie.

 

* * * *

Yet another day of shaking the Magic Eight Ball to see what pithy notions float into mind.

 

* * * *

Yet another collector’s item.

 

* * * *

How many times has that been?

 

* * * *

Dying on the vine, pretending I am wine; though more likely a drying raisin.

 

* * * *

Had a thing for things this round; it was a way of tasting the illusion.

But it would likely be a zafu and bowl and wall, were there to be another.

 

* * * *

Evolution of The Stillness Before Time

 

A timeline of phases in this little raison d'être project that began in 1989.

 

Ojai

 

Teaching at Oak Grove School in Ojai, California

Head and neck injury at Carpinteria State Beach on school fieldtrip

Psilocybin mushrooms & ecstasy

Nisargadatta’s “I Am That”

The first index cards, tossed after Lena’s comment

 

Chico

 

A box of spiral-bound notebooks

Access to a desktop computer at Chico Hedway

Dean Evans and two art shows

A book agent who had me put together The Stillness Before Time

Including: Of the Human Journey, Got God?, Ten Reflections, Books, Movies

Kinko’s and who knows how many spiral-bound copies out the back door

 

Arcata

 

More spiral-bound notebooks

CLAD certificate program at Humboldt State

First Apple PowerBook 5300 laptop

HTML programming class

Creation of The Stillness Before Time website

 

Turlock

 

Switch to index cards

Creative Alternatives and transfer of website

Five generations of Apple MacBook laptops through the years

Several attempts to publish, with support from Dawn Eden Fletcher and Ram Dass

The Return to Wonder

Matrix algorithm experiment

Google Blogger

Facebook

Twitter

The Ponderings of Yaj Ekim

Breadcrumbs series

Lulu Press

Retirement from Creative Alternatives

Transfer of website to Network Solutions

Evolution of website

A variety of offshoot titles

Sivana East

Instagram

Transfer of website to Skystra

Switch from index cards to smart phone texting

Editing of Stillness, Ponderings, Return to Wonder

The quest for a legacy caretaker


* * * *

Have written far, far more than few will ever begin to read,

But the thoughts keep bubbling into mind, and I enjoyed playing with them.

However, from here on out, other than the occasional newbie, it is mostly editing old babble,

That has not seen the light of mind since it was written in the first post-1989 decade or so.

 

* * * *

Were I to do some rewinding in this since-1989 brainchild, section titles might instead be:

Leftovers, Aftershocks; Breadcrumbs, Leftovers; and Soundbites, perhaps Breadcrumbs.

Or perhaps: Leftovers, Breadcrumbs; Soundbites, Leftovers, Breadcrumbs, Aftershocks.

But, as Jack Palance famously uttered in the movie, City Slickers, “The day ain’t over.”

 

* * * *

An errant sojourner’s soliloquy on a mystery beyond all pales.

 

* * * *

It was fun to write; what matter if it is never read.

 

* * * *

Oh my god, another small seed of a possible project, turns into a Banyan tree.

 

* * * *

You objectify me; why not I, you?

 

* * * *

This is an entirely original work … The Song of Michael

 

* * * *

Makes your head hurt.

 

* * * *

If that doesn’t make your head hurt.

 

* * * *

Whether or not all this time and effort will endure, depends entirely on those who save it and pass it on.

 

* * * *

If anyone out there has too many screws loose enough,

To imagine I am some sort of Jesus, or any other such balderdash,

Let us go find a swimming pool, and watch me take the first step, and drown.

Or let us kill him, let hm rot in a hot cave for a few days, and see if I can bring him back.

 

* * * *

From birth to death, the unborn-undying awareness that I am,

Is solitary witness to an ever-kaleidoscoping, mystery-ridden dreamtime.

There is nothing I need do, nothing I can do, but whatever the given moment beckons,

From the patterning of the mind-body, in which I am cloaked,

Upon the stage, which I impromptu play.

 

* * * *

Am I not something of an anarchist, taking on consciousness, taking on imagination,

With aphorisms the weapon, with which the dreamtime has equipped me.

Taking aim at intellects scouted in any given daily walkabout.

A reasonable pastime, for which I am well-suited.

A Johnny Appleseed strategy at the helm.

What future awakening they might inspire, if any,

Is well beyond this narrative, and well beyond any concern.

It is but the vanity, for which I have been, through happenstance, fated.

A mind-body, programmed by the given nature-nurture, with a truth-seeking inclination.

 

* * * *

If I must scratch, if I must claw, my way into and up the Ivory Tower of Philosophy,

May everything, I have ever written, ever said, ever done, ever anything, rest in peace.

 

* * * *

Things Which Mr. Just-in-Case Collects

 

Guns & Ammunition

Archery Equipment

Swords, Knives, Spears

Sundry Other Weapons

Martial Arts gear

Tools and Hardware

Chess & Other Strategy Games

Philosophy books

Military books

Weaponry books

History books

Political Science books

Science books

English language books

Spanish language books

Business books

Quote books

Gaming books

Health books

Cooking books

Exercise books

Resource books

Miscellaneous books

Exercise Gear

Kitchen paraphernalia

Coffee-making paraphernalia

The Great Courses DVD’s

Movie & Television DVD’s

Music CD’s

Camping gear

Office supplies

Hats

Dust collectors

Bags of every variety

Alcohol and Drugs

 Informational websites

Blog posts

Facebook posts

Interesting article links

Non-followers

 

A material Peter Pan, to be sure.

 

* * * *

Why should I read yours if you will not read mine.

 

* * * *

Might change some of the book titles,

Were there a rewind button in the house,

But too much bother at this writing,

And am frankly not sure what to.

 

* * * *

Constructive criticism is not always welcome.

 

* * * *

I am actor; hear the snore.

 

* * * *

Just another day, hierophanting the obvious, that the blind may see, and the deaf, hear.

 

* * * *

I played out the idea of so many things, I no longer needed to do anything, but enjoy reflecting on it all.

 

* * * *

I can only offer what I have to offer.

 

* * * *

A fountain of nonduality.

 

* * * *

Why pay you, for what I can just as easily, and better, do myself?

 

* * * *

A one-man revolution.

 

* * * *

Die, mother fucker! Die!

 

* * * *

How many adventures might I have wandered?

How many movies might I have watched?

How many books might I have read?

Had I not taken on this aphoristic chore.

Yeesch and by golly, the things fate endures.

 

* * * *

Did nothing again today.

 

* * * *

This work could probably be edited for another entire lifetime,

And all the grammatical errors and change-ups, not be flushed out.

 

* * * *

Did enough of that to get my pain's worth.

 

* * * *

Got the call, took the hook, and am still on the line.

 

* * * *

It could be years after the initial casting, that many of these ditties are finally complete.

 

* * * *

You may think I am an idiot, but I know you are.

 

* * * *

My gift to the dystopian future-slash-debacle, that I envision, with a shudder.

Do with it whatever you will; do with it whatever you can.

Sadly, better you than me, is all I gotta say.

Stay strong; rotsa ruck.

 

* * * *

If it is your calling to wake up to your Self, great; if not, no worries, carry on.

Somebody gotta keep the Ponzi Scheme up and running, for whatever I got left.

 

* * * *

You just threatened to send me to Hell, for not believing in your absurd bullshit, thanks.

Yup, yup, yup, we sure know what kind of supreme-deity horror show you would paint.

 

* * * *

I am my version of normal.

 

* * * *

Do with it whatever you will; do with it whatever you can.

 

* * * *

Sadly, better you than me, is all I gotta say.

 

* * * *

Why do I appear to be so pessimistic?

First and foremost, I am obviously weary of the human paradigm.

And then there is waking up day after day, to all the injuries I have sustained in this span of seventy years.

There is nothing left that I need to do or see or be in this sorry-ass play of consciousness.

Why would I not be happy if the Reaper showed up anytime right now?

 

* * * *

Stay strong, rotsa ruck.

 

* * * *

I can hardly give it away; how would I sell it?

 

* * * *

Sitting here, sitting there, sitting who knows where, waiting for the guillotine to fall.

 

* * * *

Another memory I have already forgotten.

 

* * * *

I should be reviled for taking away your pacifier.

 

* * * *

I generally serve all as the moment calls,

But sometimes you just gotta take little breaks.

Besides which, this asylum is far too broken to save it.

 

* * * *

My gift to the dystopian future-slash-debacle, that I envision, with a shudder.

 

* * * *

Bokononism: A religion built on lies and absurdity and irony.

Finally, a no-card-no-dogma-no-congregation faith, I can go for.

 


 

scratches made in a black, gummy impasto

[o]ne of the oldest games there is.

It means whatever it means.

'See the cat? […] See the cradle?'

 

~ Newt Hoenikker ~

 

Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?"
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.

 

~ Bokonon ~

 

Cat’s Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut


* * * *

Do not feel like you must spend a lot of time deciphering all these thoughts.

Have used my website and Facebook and Blogger and other online tools and toys,

As scrapbooks to record all the wanders and thoughts, and other creations and memories.

Way too much, for anyone with anything better to do, with any sort of life, to even bother about.

 

* * * *

Have always had a relativistic aptitude for relishing process.

For accepting things as they are, for accepting things as they come.

Perhaps because I was raised in a rural setting, in tune with nature’s fluidity.

Came from modest roots that never really expected or wanted that much out of life.

Tried to fan the fire in the belly as a business major out of college, but the spark never took.

The path of least resistance blew into my sail, and here I am, pondering the show.

Attentively writing down the so-many thoughts that bubble into mind.

 

* * * *

I seem to have been chosen by the Fates to pen this aphoristic work.

And without thought, without hesitation, I accepted the task.

And have kaleidoscoped this imaginary dreamtime,

Ever soaking up, the reference to scribe it.

This vocation, is a very ubiquitous,

Long ‘n wearing ‘n slogging,

Ever-on-and-on-and-on, 

Nature-nurtured,

Very laid-back,

Damn the torpedoes,

Full speed ahead, approach.

All just to fathom the mystery in all.

 

* * * *

Have had more than plethora of adventures.

Plenty of fine dining and sundry other.

Much easier to stay home anymore.

Have far more things than I need, debt-free.

Contentment is the brass ring, and it is on the mantle.

 

* * * *

This is this lifetime’s contribution to the human paradigm.

Take it or leave it; please try not to hurt or kill anyone over it.

Please do not make it into some creed, it was never meant to be.

You can thank me, or scourge me, as befits the endgame’s narration.

 

* * * *

Tread carefully, lest the seeds of dogma sprout, from this austere message you convey.

 

* * * *

Got a good roll out of my little window of illusion.

And what happens after I am departed, after I am ashes and dust,

Is nothing I can do anything about, any more than I could while in the flesh.

 

* * * *

Too much bother, keeping this imaginary character playing the game, to go on stage to do any others.

 

* * * *

What a rebel I am, passing out, freely, such eternally subversive craft.

 

* * * *

All the mistakes, all the blunders, that I have many times made! How is it, that I am still alive?

How is it, that none seem to have had raison d'être enough, to pursue revenge?

To walk freely, without dread of the knife twisting in the back,

Is surely the triumph of any wily chameleon.

 

* * * *

How I wish I could tell the younger self, to slow down or hold off, on some of the choices he was making.

 

* * * *

This work is a very ubiquitous, long and wearing, trudging, ever-on-and-on-and-on, campaign.

 

* * * *

What a shame, this offering, shall probably be lost, before it was ever, for-all-practical-purposes, found.

 

* * * *

Of course, I will eat you if there is no chicken in the fridge, my love,

And I will remember you all that much more affectionately,

For your contribution to my continued existence.

My love, indeed, knows no bounds.


* * * *

How it all seems to moi, is what these many thoughts, these many titles, are about.

Whether or not, they are anything the dreamtime’s future, will be in any way interested,

Is nothing this mind’s vanity, can more than pipe-smoking speculate, in its dystopian musings.

 

* * * *

Yes, I want her child, too.

Tasty on the spit; tasty in the soup; tasty, scrambled; tasty, raw; tasty, screaming.

Crunchy-chewy-gooey, seasoned to perfection, or not.

Mmmm-mmmm, good.

 

* * * *

Old age is a very large collection of pleasurable and painful – and increasingly vague – memories. 

 

* * * *

Why write this?

Why put all this out there?

Just the fate, that calls, the only answer.

To be a Basho of aphoristic nihilism, feels about right.

 

* * * *

There are a great number of these aphorisms that have run their own way down the neural matrix.

And not serendipitously been – captured, hijacked, liberated – by this daily-declining elderly scribe.

 

* * * *

The sands of time have no memory.

 

* * * *

Nothing is real to me.

 

* * * *

Wandering to and from on the spectrum of irony and paradox.

 

* * * *

You thank me by being your true Self.

 

* * * *

This voice in this head; it just will not stop sharing its vision.

 

* * * *

Broke every rule, the dreamtime could come up with.

 

* * * *

Nobody will ever read everything I have written, much less comprehend all it took to get it to them.

 

* * * *

I have done my best with this work,

To leave something that is as great a vision,

As this mind-body and linguistic aptitude can muster.

As great a revelation as technology and times for a time allow.

Attempting in so many ways to fashion it nondualistically all-inclusive.

Something that will worm its way through the harsh age ahead,

Into a more rational, equitable, notion of humankind,

And its relationship with the natural world,

And the mystery that is source to all.

And to always try to remember,

That it is not at all about,

The little me who put it into play.

Rather, the big me, who is the You in all.

 

Best wishes, rotsa ruck, and apologies for the world we left You.


* * * *