i seek nothing

Seek Nothing

I seek nothing.

I am as light and free as a butterfly…

… After I climb out of the bottom of the psychic well.

What I’m Reading:

“… 3. Creative people combine playfulness and discipline, or responsibility and irresponsibility …

… 10. Creative people’s openness and sensitivity often exposes them to suffering and pain, yet also to a great deal of enjoyment.”

— Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi / “10 paradoxical traits of creative people”

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legs like pistons

The Journey (Tanka)

I mounted my bike.
I pedaled all through the night.
Legs like pistons pumped.
I arrived where I began.
Journey is destination.

What I’m Reading:

“… if discontent is your disease, travel is medicine. It resensitizes. It opens you up to see outside the patterns you follow. Because new places require new learning.”

— Jedediah Jenkins / To Shake the Sleeping Self: A Journey from Oregon to Patagonia, and a Quest for a Life with No Regret

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the finer points

Of Straitjacketism

You know, I won’t start out to tell you of my straitjacket, or of my third grade “yes-man” personality, or of St. Ignatius’s embrasure or the irony of his naps on the crenellations.

No, I’ll tell you of how I shed the straitjacket and erased myself completely. I’ll tell you how I create and live in the midst of the desktop. And apropos of a trampled mentality, here is a found novelette about wallpapers:

You believe
The Catawampus

In rivalry seals,
In opiates, openings and closings,

In wallpapers to protect Up With People.
The jubilee no longer as important

As the directive.
We build tubs,

We fall apart, Inside this temporary
Hubcap. Imperatives, heavy as stage props,

His Kantian sad sweep — An issue
Without brig-malfunctions in

This milieu—despoils
My fair inclinations.

Truly… a tale told by an idiot signyfing the finer points of the need for staitjacketism.

What I’m Reading:

“I am a lazy bum as well like everyone else, but I do travel on foot when there is something of existential importance. Then I will do it on foot.”

— Werner Herzog / “I Rant Against The Jungle: Werner Herzog Interviewed” / The Quietus

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heels like hammers

I Heard

I heard a Colombian river was full of cocaine hippos.

I heard we’ve passed 7 of the 9 thresholds that make earth habitable for human life.

I heard hard times are coming.

I heard we can lose ourselves in augmented reality instead.

I heard the clunking of skulls into a multi-tiered pyramid.

I heard the cuckoo’s call before the theft of the thrush’s eggs.

I heard your footfalls as you left.

Your heels like hammers clacking into the haze.

What I’m Reading:

“Many years ago, I decided that instead of spending my life making a living, I wanted to make living my life.”

— Mark Boyle / The Way Home

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travel on foot

The Best Stuff I Read This Week

“The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot.”

— Werner Herzog / “I Rant Against The Jungle: Werner Herzog Interviewed” / The Quietus


“where there once was prairie / a few remaining fireflies abstract / themselves / over roads and concrete paths / prairie wants to stretch full out again and sigh—“

— Camille T. Dungy / “let grow more winter fat / wine-cup / western wild rose”


“Never did I think so much, exist so vividly, and experience so much, never have I been so much myself—if I may use that expression as in the journeys I have taken alone and on foot. There is something about walking which stimulates and enlivens my thoughts. When I stay in one place I can hardly think at all; my body has to be on the move to set my mind going.”

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau / Confessions


“The universe is filled with Nothing, it is the Yawning Black Void. Systems of the Milky Ways have condensed into Un-stars. Utter blissfulness is spreading, and out of utter blissfulness now springs Absurdity. This is the situation.”

— Werner Herzog / Of Walking In Ice


“The problem of the twenty-first century remains the color line. Yes, we are mired in overlapping societal struggles and challenges. But white supremacy and its many manifestations—some of them sly and cloaked, some of them clear as a Confederate flag flown by marauders in the US Capitol—has been a fundamental problem for every generation in this country since Black people first came to this land.”

— Elizabeth Alexander / The Trayvon Generation


“… we have an inherent urge to wander that we seldom think about but that we are reminded of every time we follow a path.”

— Torbjørn Ekelund / In Praise of Paths


“Why is walking so full of woe? Since no one else encourages me, I encourage myself.”

— Werner Herzog / Of Walking In Ice

What I’m Listening To:

“Pilgrim out of mind, out of depths
Depths does not exist
Hittie man emerges, from sands
(Sands)”

— The Fall / “Hittite Man”

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can’t escape yourself

badlands

a liminal state
both the simplicity and the purpose
you can’t escape yourself

What I’m Reading:

“The reason I’m an artist is because it’s a place where you can be totally free.”

— May Stevens / My Mothers

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in my neighborhood pt. 32

What I’m Reading:

“You pass a lot of discarded trash as you walk.”

— Werner Herzog / Of Walking In Ice

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will to sieve

Low Bar Calisthenics

I’ve set the new low bar, taking left turn after left turn. I’m walking circular—or in squares, I should say.

I should say I hope this makes sense (but know fully well it won’t). I should say these are the reasons to be cheerful—but I spout only maxims and aphorisms (all of them meaningless [truly so]).

I’m now thinking in brackets (within parentheses) with long tangential digressions outside of any transitive laws. I’m cooling in increments of Celsius in a Fahrenheit culture.

My chia seeds have become chia pets. I’m now a colander and I’ve lost the will to sieve.

Look it up and see for yourself.

What I’m Reading:

“History hangs inside me, like a dependent clause.”

— Fanny Choi / “Time-Sensitive”

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rasp for air

Perdo’s Pox (redux)

Night falls—

A black feather,
A white hair,
A brittle bone,
A rasp for air—

The moon unmoored.

What I’m Reading:

“The wind worries the woods outside. This morning Night was drowned on cold gray waves.”

— Werner Herzog / Of Walking In Ice

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fail better again

change

denuded ideas in chopped
ready to go-mix sources
of wisdom set one
against the other:
change

u
try
so hard
but u can’t
u won’t but
u try again and again
u fail better again and again

What I’m Reading:

“A train stopped on the plain / Deaf stars sleep / in every puddle / And the water trembles”

— Vicente Huidobro / “Hours”

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