"What demon possessed me that I behaved so well."

 

"Thoreau found alienation oddly liberating" is a proposition of the biography by Walls.

I am fairly alienated. I've washed up in middle to late middle life with a daughter to take care, difficulty finding work, and my partner left me, and it's not easy dating really poor. I've also been fairly attractive, I realize that now, and a tubby middle aged man, isn't quite as lucky. I feel pretty authentic and true to my ideals, I express my truth, but it got me fired after 3 days in one job I had, and quickly a new girlfriend dumped me.

My friend copies my blog posts into ChatGPT and then regurgitates it back to me in poetry, playing with the various options. It's kind of funny but weird, and he didn't tell me, I had to guess, which was difficult because I didn't want to offend him if he really wrote them. He says that's the modern issue, you don't want to accuse people. He's retired and does edibles, and plays with ChatGPT. Sends me videos of him dancing on the beach. He's the one I've done so much backpacking, canoeing and camping. 

I've been thinking a lot about how with no clear thing, pleasure becomes the guiding principle. The problem is aiming for pleasure, is that often unpleasurable sections create pleasure. Pleasure is the result of something but when you target it, it evaporates quite a lot. Pleasure is derived also from pain in a yin and yang of life. I took a class on Taoism and really enjoy it, but think it's shamanism, there is no creed really, though there is some metaphysical palaver. Shamanism is great because you can develop your own truths, and you can reject all the other truths society tries to put onto you. I think Hinduism is so large there is room for shamanism, so you can get J. Krishnamurti quotes like this: "It is a waste of energy when we try to conform to a pattern. To conserve energy, we must be aware of how we dissipate energy." There's a Hindu ashram in Encinitas where my friend lives. He uses the bathroom on long runs.

Part of the eruption of joy watching soccer is built on boring hours of passing the ball around, the fight for possession. Part of the joy of opera is long endless arias that don't strike you. Part of the joy of jazz is after hours of garbled near chaos, there's some clarity, a riff that does make sense. He does take breaks from edibles and runs, which is something we also used to do together. We would run to Coney Island, jump in the ocean, and eat a hotdog and take the subway back. Talking running is great, and we would have great conversations. He calls me when he's on a run and sometimes I go for a walk to talk to him. He helps me relate to my ex who is angry and difficult in my experience of her, and has legitimate grievances. I'm sure it's all my fault, is a kind of mantra that doesn't help.

"What demon possessed me that I behaved so well." When you reject behaving well, it's hard to fold back into society. I do quite enjoy solitude, so I'm OK with being alone a lot in a crowded city. I'm friendly and would talk to anyone. Spending hours in the park watching my daughter, I get bored and just talk to everyone. I live in an immigrant neighborhood, and I really love learning about all over the world. I read about China, Ukraine and Latin America. I recently met a fellow who was the son of a Iranian diplomat, and stayed. He opened for Ramones and Iggy Pop, but his band broke up on the brink of a record contract. He sells rugs now. He went to Billy Joel's house, to install some rugs.

I really enjoy being thrifty. Being poor is a good way to reduce your carbon footprint. I see myself as a bachelor for the rest of my life. I love nature, and thinking and writing. Thoreau had the women in his life to take care of him, and he would go wandering and exploring and rough it.

Thoreau didn't have high quality spiritual practitioners to distinguish between the various traditions of the east, and might have seen them all of one. I'm not sure if he had the keys to unlock Buddhism the way I did. 

I don't like the Beat writers now, they're almost as bad writers as Transcendentalists, but they too hard a kind of spirit to them that I appreciate, and I enjoy the drama of the literary scene. 

Willow lake is my Walden pond. I meditate, but it's overgrown now, and the bugs get to me. They're building a drainage down there, and there are surveyors there every day, with ribbons on trees, I hope they don't cut them down. Cutting down trees really hurts me, I love trees so much.

Yesterday when I took these photos, I was thinking about mental formations. One of the instructions in anapanasati is to calm mental formations. I really like to excite my mental formations. Sitting so many years in meditation digs out these insights, there's always a counter force to every aspect of the path. 

I've been to Walden pond. Next time I go, if I go again, I'll do some hikes now that I know more about them.

I'm in the Walden section of the biography of Thoreau. 

No More Daylight Savings Hike

From Drop Box

I went on an 8 hour hike on the weekend with daylight savings time ending. I went with Cliff, Amy and Cori. We left at 5:30am, which was really 4:30 to my body. Got up even earlier. We drove up to Breakneck Ridge outside Cold Spring New York, a favorite of ours. It was an overcast day. It rained a little when we started, but it didn't the rest of the day.

From Drop Box

From Drop Box

Breakneck Ridge is a steep start, and I became quadzilla to get up it. Before we knew it we were at the flags.

From Drop Box

You can see Cold Spring on the left side of the Hudson, and farther down on the right is West Point. Before Cold Spring is Mount Taurus.

We didn't go up Mt. Taurus. One time Cliff and I went on a mongo hike, up Breakneck, up Mt. Taurus, and all the way to the lookout tower. Today we just went to Sunset Point. If I can find the story I wrote about that I'll post it here.

I had a bit of a panic attack when I slipped a little near the plunging cliff you climb around, where supposedly cows used to fall off and how the ridge got it's name. I had to sit down for a minute. I quoted the movie Withnail and I, "my heart is beating like a fucked clock!" I think that's the quote. I'm not going to fact check that. It's something like that.

Cliff knows me all the way back to my first wife, who hipped me to Withnail and I. Cliff is the one who first brought me up here. I've been hiking up here a million times and I love it. I've been alone and with many friends. I've done it all seasons, in all kinds of weather.

We forged ahead with large birds of prey gliding on the updraft. I like the bit where we get to three pine trees and it's a scramble up a steep rock that's largely unbroken. It's fun to climb up that when it's snowy. I've done this hike a few times in the snow.

From Drop Box

Looking down on the valley, between Mt. Taurus and Breakneck Ridge, I imagined it was made by Manjurshri's sword.



I was feeling like telling tales, myths, but Amy looked at me like I was a little kooky.

Then there's up and down along the ridge. After a bunch of that I felt a little tired. I wondered if we would get to Sunset Point.

From Drop Box

We crossed some snow. We finally arrived at the platform that marks the "Sunset Point". It was too windy to eat the excellent feta and asparagus sandwiches so we took shelter off the platform. We would have lingered, but the wind was cold, so we turned back.

You could see the Beacon Bridge along this ridge.

From Drop Box

The unknown ridge that led to Sugar Loaf warmed up and we ended up napping beneath this tree. Refreshed we set off the for the end of the hike.

From Drop Box

We soldiered on to Sugar Loaf, and down. It got crowded at Sugar Loaf. Of course one person was surprised while urinating in the great outdoors, but for the most part it wasn't too busy on the trails. It can get a bit crowded at times, but the further you go the less people you see. And the earlier you hit, the better.

From Drop Box

I was pretty tired at the end and we had a lovely meal in Cold Spring afterwards. You can read my review on Yelp.