"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.