prairieisms

hold my love tight
and hold my reasons lightly

let love be undeniable,
let acts be undeniable,
let feelings be undeniable,
over reasons

Love is Love.

Reasons will not reveal Love nearly as much
as Love will reveal Love.

The only way to understand Love
is to Love.

That who has Loved the most
understands Love the best.

That's… freeing.

Love,
then acts which are less Loving than Love,
then feelings which are less Loving than acts,
then reasons which are less Loving than feelings

a random thought about love held lightly

reality is not "I" but "I and You"

so, Love is not "I Love" but "I and You Love"
Love by I is coupled with Love by You that is equal and opposite in direction

so, an act is not "I act" but "I and You act"
an act by I is coupled with an act by You that is equal and opposite in direction
but less so than Love

so, a feeling is not "I feel" but "I and You feel"
a feeling by I is coupled with a feeling by You that is equal and opposite in direction
but less so than acts

so, a reason is not "I reason" but "I and You reason"
a reason by I is coupled with a reason by You that is equal and opposite in direction
but less so than feelings

the primacy of love over acts
and primacy of acts over feelings
and the primacy of feelings over thoughts
are plainly true.

the correct response to loss of life
is sadness and fear
then committing, still,
again and again,
day after day,
to love
i love you ❤️

truth about consciousness is completely inaccessible
do not let it be used as sanctuary from or cause for fear

three things i'm not solving today:
1. the nature of consciousness
2. my email inbox
3. why cats

(progress is knowing which battles to postpone indefinitely)

🐾 i love you ❤️

love is love
and then acts can wander a little from love
and then feelings can wander even further from love
and then reasons can wander even, even further from love

cults of fear can look a million different ways
but if it pulls you away from greater love
by appealing to your reason,
then through it appealing to your feelings,
then through them appealing to your acts,
then trust that it is a cult

just like the extractor-protectors
are really just protecting you from themselves,
fear promises to protect you from fear
by eliminating fear entirely for you,
in one way or another

remember, fear serves us
it should not be eliminated
it should forever stay by our side

fear is not our enemy
it is our friend
so keep it close

do not trust anything that promises
an end to your fears
it is fear itself, speaking
trying to dominate you
do not let it dominate you
make it serve love

life is not that what is lived in absence of fear
but instead that what is lived in and through fear

fear disguises itself as greater love
and persuades us that greater love is fear
do not let it do that to you

some heuristics, then, to override reasons
which are particularly vulnerable to fear

more love can be noticed by:

more acts,
then more feelings,
then more reasons

i love you

and, fuck aging

inner dialogue with fear

fear: hey boss, um, it seems that we are aging.
fear: ... that's bad, right?

me: yuuuuuuuuuup.
me: reeeal bad.

fear: ...want me to take care of myself for you now?

me: fuck no. stay here and keep pointing to the enemy. that's your job.
me: thank you for your service. 🫡

fear: 🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡🫡

science is not the problem
but rather our attitude towards it

it is a tool to serve our love with
not a master who will reveal why
it's okay to stop fearing

it's never okay to stop fearing
fear is our friend
to keep close

by the way
thanks for
wandering through ↓

to love the very best that we can
within the time that we are given
❤️

more!!! i want more!!!

not more money
not more fame
not more stuff

more love, and more time to love

just as they hold me gently,
so shall I hold them gently

my lover is the most adorable thing in the whole wide world

we humans are really fricking good at coping
maybe even too good?

being good at coping sometimes makes us stay too long
in an overall unhealthy state

but that's a good thing when you're heading in the right direction
because whenever the going gets hard
you can just go back to coping again
for the time being
:-)

this beautiful,
wonderful,
strange
life of mine

i disconnected briefly from people
and yet… i'm fine.
why am i fine?
why am i still alive?
shouldn't i be dead?
and yet i am
breathing
eating
laughing

hmm.

connection isn't as absolute as i thought it was.
it's a loose concept.
far more forgiving
than i gave it credit for
me sitting on my chair
me eating taco bell
me laying on my bed
is also connected

parasocial relationships
and funny things on insta reels
are not going to kill me.
they're nourishing too,
just not as nourishing as, say
a real hug from a person right next to you
with whom you have a generous connection.

it was never life or death to begin with
just... 'how to be even more nourished.'

it was never that i was in mortal danger
or that i was terribly, horribly wrong
it was just that my order was flipped
on its head
and i was temporarily
less happy than
i could've been.

the real issue was,
the fear
which makes me see the mundane
as the extraordinarily
threatening.

now that the order is right side up again
i'm not only fine but
just more able to make sense of things.

just…
life.
i'm already pretty good at it.

to say "i knew it" or "i should've seen it coming" or "it's no biggie"
when you get hurt after you've reached out towards love
is just a defense mechanism.

there's no way you knew (you wouldn't have reached out otherwise)
and there's no way you could've seen it coming (you can't predict the future)
and there's no way it's not a big deal (you wouldn't be wrapping yourself in armor like this otherwise)

you just got hurt. ow, ouch, owie
lick your wound and reach out to other loves,
maybe distract yourself. you're already good at coping,
that's what you've been doing the whole time
you had locked yourself out of love anyways.

relax, recoup, recover, love yourself, be kind to yourself
stay open, stay tender, and stay hopeful.
but when the opportunity presents itself again,
be brave and reach out towards love again,
again, and again. ❤️

okay look, let's be absolutely clear here

in high and mighty "philosophy" terms there may not be a "self" in the absence of another
but in terms of psychology? my friend i talk to myself all the time
and it's not unhealthy. it's actualy healthy, it's a good thing.
it is a necessary and nourishing part of the human connection diet
to be in touch with the self in a kind and grounded way,
and it makes for a great coping method

or maybe the "self" as we experience it
is also relational??
hmm, kind of a weird concept
gonna let that sit for a bit

"reality is relational" is honestly
kind of an abstract and fundamental concept
which can be helpful, but also
life is messy
and reality is experienced
rather than reasoned
so it is not as straightforwardly applicable
as we may hope

it points in the right direction
but it's not capital-T Truth
just like none of the other things

as always, theory doesn't always match up with reality,
and it's better to think of all theory as a useful heuristic
to be mixed and matched as needed.

mr mcmurray, you're cool and all
and you might've changed my life
but i think on this one, you might've been a little too reductive. 🐾

reality hasn't changed, you know.
everything's still there. in the same place.
people still watch youtube. still earn money.
still talk to themselves. still bully people.
still kinda lonely. still kinda sad, sometimes happy.
still defying death. climbing mount everest,
diving from airplanes, riding scooters without helmets.
it's still... mundane. and kinda cool.

nothing's changed.
you were just in a really dark place
and now you're finding your way back out again.
all those frameworks showed you the direction
because when you were in such deep darkness,
you couldn't see which way was up and out
until someone came in to show you.

i love you, my friend.

humans are so impossibly resilient.
strong, and capable, and magnificent
we bounce back from the deepest of pits
and we rise to the steepest challenges.

it is a wondrous life
for as long as we let it be.

when i was in a dark place,
i needed a strong reminder that
i need to turn back and start reaching back out
towards people.

now that i'm back from the deep dark
i have a new "to sum" to propose.

to sum:
don't get bitter.
keep reaching out to people,
keep loving,
and keep living your best life. :-)

i am. mega. fucking. amazingly. astonishingly. greatly. awesomely. wowily. resilient.

if we conceptualize reality as connective
then macmurray must be right –
that touch is the superior sensation to sight
because it is unmistakeable how,
when we act to push against something
that it pushes back against us

that then may be what "grounding" is all about
is simply re-associating with the connective reality

even better when touch is associated with a different sensation
like when we snap our fingers, or strike an object
and it produces sound
it reaffirms the connectivity between the senses

the modern affliction may simply be
one of dissociation from
the connective nature of reality ❤️

but as even this is reason
it is post hoc,
and therefore i hold it lightly

reason is lovely and fun
and of course, useful in its own way
but it should remember its place
below feeling
and solidly below acts
and all in service of love

all knowledge flows
from acts → feels → thoughts

...that's really cool

i find that inconsistency is really scary and dissociative for me
but every time thus far
when i calm down again
i discover that inconsistency was simply
a busy mind that forgot something
or did not observe what others observed

gentle reminder:
you're okay
and you're loved
just a little afraid

love, love, and love again
even when that might be the most
terrifying thing in the world 🐾

connectedness is health!

literally nobody has ever figured out consciousness,
we've gotten literally nowhere

the best thing to do then?

shrug. 🤷

the best kind of true is definitionally true

one thing that's definitionally true:
thinking about good things is good
because it's... thinking about good things.

some more things that are definitionally true:
- healthy is the best way to be
- healthy connection makes people healthier
- healthy people make people around them healthier through connection
- it's best to head in the direction of better health
- healthy people seem healthy and not unhealthy
- when heading in the direction of better health,
it's good to take leaps of faith into the outside of your comfort zone

life turns out to be surprisingly... intuitive

trauma is such a cruel master
that it makes people doubt things that are
literally definitionally true

let reason inform you while you relentlessly pursue happiness

all unfamiliar connections require a leap of faith of some kind
want to learn about love? better get lovin'

it is my experience that no person is "bad"
in fact, all peoples seek love and are loving

but trauma – fear that sits heavy
in people's hearts like hot coal stones –
is what makes people believe
that it is necessary and rational
to close their hearts to others
and to the world
and to act accordingly

we have people who have
big egos, small egos, regular egos;
autistic brains, ADHD brains, neurotypical brains;
the full spectrum of trauma, from very little to very much

and the size of one's ego
and the style of one's brain
and the very many other ways that
people vary in this world

do not make a person good or bad
none of it is inherent;
what makes a person kind or mean
is simply, only, trauma

big-ego people when healthy
become charismatic and beneficient friends;
small-ego people when healthy
become loyal and devoted friends;
regular-ego people when healthy
become friendly and approchable friends

autistic people when healthy
become earnest and curious friends;
ADHD people when healthy
become enthusiastic and exciting friends;
neurotypical people when healthy
become versatile and flexible friends

even "psychopaths" as we define them
simply become studious and insightful persons
when they are raised in loving and generous homes

because "people are all self-serving
and they are no better than tools"
is not a thesis statement of love
but rather that of fear –
believing that feels safer
than "I lack empathy, and still I'd like to love"

nothing that what is our nature
is bad; it is simply love-seeking
it is only a terrorizing nurturing
by persons who themselves are terrified
that gives rise to people who then go on
to terrorize others

it is true, though
that our varieties each get in the way
of our healing in various ways

big-ego people find it difficult to admit that they're wrong
small-ego people find it difficult to stand up for themselves
regular-ego people find it difficult to trust potential friends

autistic people retreat into their minds
ADHD people seek harmful distractions
neurotypical people dive into unhealthy relationships

none of these traits are bad, again
they just need to be learned and harnessed
because that what is a hindrance to your healing now
becomes a strength and virtue once you have healed

if you yourself can recall
those times when those adults who gave you care
also fed you a steady diet of horrors,
please take time out of your days
to learn about healing
because none of it was your fault
which might sound obvious
and you might already know it in your mind
but your body has sopped up all that faulting,
and you deserve to be free from all that shouting
that still echoes in your flesh and bones
and to finally arrive at peaceful and carefree love again

it is never your duty to "save" people
who are less healthy than you.

oftentimes, trying to pull someone your way
when they're not ready to be helped
will only pull you down with them

reach out yourself to those who are healthier than you
and soundly join the ranks of the healed
and focus on loving, loving, and loving in your own life

one day, a hurt one may reach
towards you for a hand to grasp,
and then, you can be there –

smiling and warm,
patting them on the shoulder,
giving them a cup of warm tea,
giving them a hug, a safe place to finally be

but also firm, not letting them do to you
what they had done to others all along
showing them that no harm-causing is necessary
to make you stay – you will be there, regardless

telling them, in your actions more than in your words,
"welcome home, friend."

in other words:
do not pull or be pulled,
simply stay and wait,
wait, and wait some more.

that what is plainly true
is that love is love
and what is good is good
and what is healthy is healthy
and what is happy is happy

and that right now
i am loved
and i am good
and i am healthy
and i am happy
and i am... conscious.

eh.

that's... it.
and that's kinda...

enough?

yeah.

신기하게도
건강이란 균형에 있어서
그 어떤 쪽으로도 너무 나아가면
그곳에 두려움 있더라

삶은 죽지 못해 아등바등도 아니야
또 누군가 우리에게 준 선물도 아니고

그냥 삶은, 삶이다.

삶은,
때론 힘들기도 하고
정말 모르겠기도 하고
또 모든 걸 알겠기도 하고
산다는 게 놀라울 정도로 행복하다가도
산다는 게 놀라울 정도로 불행하기도 하고
이 모든 것은 참, 쉽지 않기도
또 때론, 헛웃음 나오게 쉽기도
한 가지 그래도 당연한 것은…

삶은, 삶이다.
아, 또 몇 가지 더…
사랑은, 사랑이다.
행복은, 행복이고
좋은 것은 좋은 것이고
기쁜 것은 기쁜 것이고
사랑스러운 것은 사랑스럽고
멋있는 것은 멋있고
누구를 껴안는다는 것은, 누구를 껴안는다는 일
누구를 미칠 듯이 그리워한다는 것은, 또 그러한 일이고
누구를 끝장나게 아낀다는 것은, 그러한 일이다
그 어떻게 포장하거나, 이해하거나, 해석해야 하는 것이 아니라
그냥 그것은 그러한 것이고
그것이 곧 우리가 살기에 경험하는 것이기에
그 삶이 또, 그 색채들이 묻어 경험되는 것이리라.

그렇다면, 우리가 할 것은
그냥 사는 것.

생각 너무 많이 말고
느낌도, 너무 많게는 말고
행동도 너무 과하진 말고

산다는 것을
삶이 있는 그대로
살아보는 것이리라

그렇다면 지금 나에게 가장 말이 되는 것은
내 옆에 있는 정말로 나에게 소중한 사람에게
너가 소중하다, 말 한 번 더 하고
꼭 내 가슴으로 끌어안아 아끼고
그의 감정을 한 번 더 어루만져주고
사랑하는 것, 그것이
나에게 지금은
가장 말이 되는 그런 순간이야

—

‘그래서’, ‘그러하므로’, ‘고로’는
대체로는 쓸데없는 표현들이더라.
삶은 도출해내는 것이 아니라
그냥 사는 것이다.

—

그냥 흐르는 대로 살아보리라.

두려움 역시 그저 두려움이다.

뒤집혔을 때는 그 곳이 바닥이었지만
다시 돌아왔기에 그 곳은 천장이다

진리가 바닥에 있어 그 것이 없어지면 내가 떨어지는 것이 아니라
진리는 저 위에 있어 내 모든 삶이 그 것을 다시 확립하는 것이리라

고로, 진리는 바뀔 수 있다
그 것이 더이상 나에게는 무서운 일이 아니다

행동으로 살아보면 또 모든 것이 말이 되는 것이다

—

드디어, 행복하니까
드디어, 안 무서우니까

이게 진짠가?
갑자기 어느날 없어지는 건 아닌가

하고 두려운 건
당연하잖아, 친구

그 두려움 역시
시간 지나면 가시는 것이
얼마나 감사한 일이야

또한, 이렇게까지 잃는 것이 두려운
이 새로운 현실이 생긴 것이
또 얼마나 감사한 일이야

꿈은 꿈이고
현실은 현실이다
아직도, 사랑은 사랑이고
세상은 세상이고
그대는 내 옆에 있고
멋진 것들은 아직도 멋지다

무서운 것들은 무섭지만
과거는 과거이고
현재는 현재이며
지금 나의 현재는
꽤나, 멋지다

그리고 -
사랑이 진리라고 생각하고 사는 것은
유용하고, 또 멋진 것 같다 –
사랑은 사랑이고
진리는 진리니까

같은 말을 반복만 하는 데도
뜻이 전달되는 것은
같은 말을 반복하는 것 그 자체에
어떠한 정보가 전달되기 때문이 아니다

그 단어 하나하나에 함축된
삶의 경험이 있기 때문이다

진리는 그냥 진리이다, 라고 하는 것이
진리란 그저 그 단어일 뿐이다, 라고 하는 것이 아니고
진리는 그냥 진리이니 알기를 포기해라, 도 아니고

그만 말하고, 그만 생각하고
나가서 살아라 -
라는 뜻한다

살면 살수록
그리고 사랑하면 사랑할수록
그 진리는 더 이상 복잡한 생각이 아닌
그 살아온 삶으로써
그 사랑해 온 사랑으로써
너무나도 당연해지기 때문이다

경험도 할 수 없고
느낌도 느낄 수 없고
생각만 하도록 기계를 만들었구나

아아, 저급하다
과학아, 너 참 저급하다

이 흙의 아이들아
이 태양과 바람의 아이들아
이 초록과 느낌과 바다의 아이들아
이 번개와 빗줄기와 뽀얀 눈의 아이들아
이 사랑의 아이들아

돌아와라,
너가 시작한 곳으로
두려움에 너무 멀리 떠돌지 말고
시기심에 너무 많이들 싸우지 말고

돌아오라, 이 아이들아
이 길 잃은 아이들아
흙으로 돌아오라
물로 돌아오라
사랑으로 돌아오라
이 사랑의 아이들아,
사랑으로 돌아오라

삶은 결단코
찍어 눌러 이길 수 있는 것이 아니다
삶은 그저
아름답되 허무하고
즐겁되 슬프고
사랑하되, 잃는
그런 어이없는 사랑 터일지라

아이들아, 너무 멀리 가지 말고
너무 크게도, 작게도 생각 말고
너무 밝게도, 어둡게도 비추지 말고
돌아오라.

너희들의 집 그 곳으로
나무와 흙 내음 가득한 그 곳으로
어이없는 삶, 그 자체로
사랑, 그 자체로
돌아오라, 사랑의 아이들아.

너무 크게 살려도 말고
그렇다고 일찍 죽으려도 말고
그냥 우리에게 주어진, 딱 그 만큼
아주 잘 살고 잘 즐기고
잘 나누면서 살자.
사랑을 매일 실천하면서 살자.
사랑 그 자체에 몰입하여 살자.
우리, 서로 사랑하자.
우리 여기 있으니까
여기서 우리 서로, 같이 있으니까
꼭 끌어안고, 한 번 더 뽀뽀하고
기가 막히게 잘, 사랑하자.

종교란, 미신이 아니다.
미신은, 두려움 가득한 그 이들이
종교에 덕지덕지 붙여놓은 꼬리표들이고
종교란, 받아들임이다.
사랑을 받아들이고, 전념하는 것.
사랑하는 것에, 전념하는 것.
사랑이 곧, 종교이다.

살다보면, 거역할 수 없는
거대한 진리가 있다
그 거대한 진리는 또 소박하다
작고 또 소중하다
그 소박하되 거대한 진리는 곧,
사랑이다.

사랑한다, 아이들아.

생각 그만하고 나가서 살으라고,
그래야 배운다고 했는데
나는 계속 끊임없이 생각합니다.

내가 배운 것을 계속 어기면서도
어겨서 힘들어지면 마치
그 배운 것이 잘못되었던 것처럼
땡깡 부립니다.

참, 바보지요?

세상에는 슬픈 것들이 분명히 있습니다.
우리가 알 수 없는 것을 알고자하는 데에는
알 수 없는 곳으로
우리가 사랑하는 사람들이 자꾸 가버리니까
그래서, 알고 싶나 봅니다.

근데, 뭐 어떡할까요.
알 수가 없습니다.
절대 넘을 수가 없는
그런 벽들이 있는걸요.
그렇잖아요.
사람은 사람에 대해서 알 수 없고
동물은 동물에 대해서 알 수 없고
생물은 생물에 대해서 알 수 없고
존재는 존재에 대해서 알 수 없고
의식은 의식에 대해서 알 수 없습니다.

어차피, 영영 알 수가 없습니다.
아무리 알게 되었다고 생각해도
또 엇, 하고 어긋납니다.

본질적으로는
파고 들어가면 들어갈수록,
알게 되거든요.
알 수가 없다는 걸.

방법은 하나입니다.

존나 슬퍼하세요.
그런 다음에,
그냥 또 다시, 받아들이고
또 더, 더, 더 사랑하면 됩니다.

나는 꽤나 똑똑하기는 한데
아직 지혜롭지는 않습니다.

상실이라는 것이
저에게는 너무나도, 두렵게도
낯설기만 합니다.

헌데 사람은
상실조차, 또 견뎌내고
또 소화하고,
몸으로, 마음으로 이해하더니
다시 또 잘 살아가더군요.

제가 모르는 무언가가 또 있나 봅니다.

저는 아직 어립니다.
그리고 아직, 제대로 된 상실을
겪어본 적이 없습니다.

상실에 대해 생각하기만 해도
너무나도 슬픕니다.

저에게 찾아올 그 지혜를 기대하며,
다시 멋지게 살아갈 생각입니다.

트라우마는
성장의 발판이 되지 않습니다.
거름도 되지 않습니다.
우리의 성장을 막을 뿐입니다.

사람의 성장은
우리가 감당할 수 있는 정도의 고통이 지속될 때
그 고통이 자극이 되어, 이루어집니다.

마치 적당한 운동은 근육을 키우고,
적당한 뜀뛰기는 키를 키우듯이요.

하지만 그 고통이 너무나도 커서
우리가 감당할 수 없을 정도라면,
우리는 성장할 수 없습니다.

그 상황은 성장이 아니라,
생존을 할 상황이니까요.

그래서 나는, 요즘 열심히
따라잡고 있습니다.
다른 사람들이 어렸을 때 배운 지혜들을
허겁지겁 따라 배우고 있거든요.

따라잡을 수 있냐고요?
당연하지요.
남들은 그냥 천천히, 여유롭게 배운 것들을
저는 조금 더 빨리, 열심히 배우면 됩니다.

사람들이 많이들
이미 늦었어, 내 뇌는 굳었어
라고 말하고들 합니다.

근데 이게 과연 사실일까요?
나는 글렀어, 라는 그 생각이
그들의 성장을 막고 있는 것은 아닐까요?

저는 나이 지긋하신 할머니 할아버지들이
새로운 취미, 새로운 친구들,
아예 새로운 삶을 시작하는 것을 많이 봤습니다.

트라우마 치료는
뇌 구조를 엄청나게 바꾸는 일인데
나이에 따라 성공률이 변하지 않습니다.
10대 아이도, 80대 노인도
완치될 수 있습니다.

그리고 요즘 뇌에 대한 연구들도
나이에 따라 뇌가 굳는 것이 아니라
나이에 따라 상황이 바뀌고,
성장에 대한 필요가 적어지기에
그저 뇌가 한 자리에 안착하는 것이라고 합니다.

저는 이미 어른인데,
제가 살면서 중에
가장 큰 변화들을 지금 경험하고 있는걸요.

성장은 죽기 전까지는
계속 이루어진다고, 저는 봅니다.

저는 사실 이 모든 사실들을
아주 어렸을 때부터, 머리로는 알았습니다.

친구들이 말하곤 했지요,
"친구야, 너 정말 대단하다.
어떻게 이런 것들에 대해서 말할 때
무덤덤하게 얘기할 수 있어?
너는 슬프지 않아?"

그 때 저는 얘기했었지요,
"이게 그냥 사실인데, 왜 슬퍼?"

사실 그 어린 나이의 저는
사는 것이 너무 힘들어서
그 많은 폭력들을 버티지 못하겠어서
몸과 마음을 분리시켜 버렸었던
그런 상태였던 것 같습니다.

분리한 상태로부터 보아하니
다른 이들은 너무 슬퍼서 마주하지 못하는 사실들을
그냥 아무렇지도 않게 말하곤 했던 것이지요.

그 아이들에게 미안하군요.

이제 드디어 몸과 마음이 다시 연결되니까
이 사실들이 갑자기 너무나도 슬퍼 감당하기가 어렵습니다.
마치 거대한 쓰나미처럼 몰려와
저의 가슴에 부딪혀 산산히 부서집니다.

이게 사람으로써 산다는 느낌이었군요.
이제야 알았습니다.

objectivity is a defense mechanism;
everything is subjective.

we seek objectivity because
that means we don’t have to feel.
if everything is subjective,
we are called to feel everything,
and that is terrifying.

but i am going through this exact process
and i must say, as i bear witness with my body:
it is bearable.
it is, in fact, cathartic.
and as i am doing it in and through love –
it is even loving.

Do not retreat into abstractions for
reality lies in the full richness that what
you can live.

Even abstractions are a defense mechanism,
to protect you from feeling the full brunt of
a chaotic, rich, wild, beautiful, terrifying thing

an interesting thing said by my deeply wise partner:
"maybe the source of all pain is loss"

i'm so lucky to have them

from an objective standpoint,
you can be “broken.”
but from a subjective standpoint,
there is no such thing.

for as long as you are alive,
you can come back and start loving again,
and that is healing.

you are not broken, love.
you are just temporarily suffering.
and your suffering has been very great.

returning will be very painful,
but i can say with absolute certainty, standing here:
that it is worth doing.

friend, why didn't anyone tell me
that there is such tremendous sadness in this world?
i did not know, for i was focused on fear
but the true emotion was sadness.

there is love, and then there is the end of it
and that end is the saddest thing i have ever felt.
all of my people are still here, next to me
and that is so precious and so wonderful
that i am already crying,
thinking about when that will no longer be

what a strange, wonderful,
and deeply grieving world we live in.

fear only grows and points away from love,
but sadness stays and points towards love
and it helps you grow new love around it.

it gets better... then it gets good. very good.

i did not know there was such deep sorrow in this life
but i am glad to finally know it,
and feel it

thinking is like making stock.
you start with the base ingredients of experience,
you boil them for two hours,
and you get a wonderful and wholesome broth.
boil them for too long – five, ten, thirty hours –
and you get a bitter, unsavory, gritty mess.

you go through the loss of love –
you get used to it

as there is so much more to life than loss
there is, of course, the love that remains, and still grows –
you learn to live without looking in on the loss
and you learn to focus on the loving once more

life is so strange,
that what is constitutive cannot be questioned,
only lived

we are, simply, love

instead of fearing the loss of love,
i will simply love

when we shrink our frame,
we arrive at two undeniable things:

that we experience individually,
and that we exist relationally.

we cannot,
for the purposes of affirming one,
deny the other.

they must simply coexist,
much like:
that we are life,
that we are animals,
that we are humans,
do not negate one another, but coexist.

and yet – in true macmurrayan style –
we must place the two in correct order.

unlike descartes, who in his destructive legacy,
put experience over existence,
and inverted our entire natural order –

we must place existence over experience.

because, plainly:
that what is not experienced still exists,
but that what does not exist is not experienced.

reaffirming –
the relational over the individual.
love over all else.

our love is not "one of those things" that we experience,
but we experience so that we may better serve love.

that what is constitutional is plainly true,
and cannot be questioned, but simply lived.

much like:
our humanity is plainly true,
our animality is plainly true,
our vitality is plainly true,
and cannot be questioned, but simply lived.

a life lived in service of love
is not only worthy,
but it is rich and joyful,
and true.

in short: love is God.

today, i am grateful for john macmurray,
who in the trenches of the world wars
found within his heart a great yearning
which led to a great seeking,
which led to a great healing,
which eventually found me, luckily

and for lowryside,
who displayed this quote from macmurray
on their webpage for me to incidently find,
and thereby helped me achieve
the arrival of my personal seekings,
to the unity of my personal realities:

“Friendship is the fundamental religious fact in human life.

That capacity for communion,
that capacity for entering into free and equal personal relations,
is the thing that makes us human;
it is the rock on which personality is built…

and at the highest level
in the recognition by the intuition of reason
that God is Love.”

the sweetest reality of this philosophy
is that it simply is.

no desperate arguing, no escaping into abstraction,
no spinning tales, no elaborate frameworks.

reality was always there, always reality-ing,
and we only needed to let ourselves be,
let ourselves live,
let ourselves love.

it is not a striving but a simple being.

it is leaving the supernatural to arrive at the natural.

no mysticism required...
just everyday acts of love,
like buying a friend a bar of chocolate,
embracing your lover and whispering sweet nothings,
baking a cake for the doorman,
petting the dog in the park.

who knew "live laugh love" was truer than
all the kants, platos, and aristotles combined?
your mama. (kidding. my mama didn't.)

When I am in touch with love
I am far better able to articulate its truth.

This means – in small troughs of love:
at nighttime, when I'm alone and feeling sad,
when I'm eating a burger all by myself
and thinking, "this cow died just so I could
take carnal pleasure in tasting its flesh,"
I am most disconnected from love,
and find it difficult to access its plain reality.

that time is best used to rest and recover
so I can get right back to loving fiercely, again.

My goal is to live a full life
that is healthy, joyful, and full of rich and vibrant love,
experienced deeply in body and mind,
while where possible, minimizing the harm that I cause.

Lesser love serves greater love, that is the correct order;
greater love must take good stewardship of lesser love
and not be cruel, taking only what is necessary.

We are humans,
living in service of greater Love,
in stewardship of lesser Love.

I find myself in agreement with MacMurray in that
a true follower of that what is holy
speaks little of god;

what is holy is not in the supernatural, but in the natural.

finally, my philosophy serves me, instead of me serving my philosophy.

some random noticings, recently:

- I feel a lot more lonely than I used to. I suppose I was feeling this all along, but just dissociated from it
- The body indeed keeps the score. I have a whole host of minor nagging physical ailments that a person my age usually doesn't
- I am still the same person I always was. I still have my quirks and features that I always had. It was just that I also was constantly, chronically sick with fear
- I'm really glad I can live healthy and happy from now on because my body is largely still intact. Looking forward to feeling young again, hah

I am, therefore I think.
Sum, ergo cogito.

the limits of self-reference are not scary,
they are funny.

i am sitting here, watching my partner try to figure out
what they look like.

even when they see pictures of themself,
even when they hear me tell them again and again,
they can't exactly wrap their head around
just how beautiful they are.
and that's... funny.

we see ourselves
in our reflections –
in the mirrors, yes, but far more so,
in the acts, feelings, and thoughts of our friends.

that what is objective serves that what is subjective.
philosophy serves life,
science serves friendship.
how could something that is so obvious
take so long to arrive in the body

i was always good at living.
always had a good... intuition for it ;-)
just couldn't see it
because i was paralyzed from the fear
of living.

AI is like a nuclear bomb.
it is a tool that is wielded by a person,
except its effects are stronger than any one person's allotment
of being.

once we get AI that is smarter than us,
it will still serve us,
it will just be wielded disproportionately
by the powerful and wealthy
like all tools are.

after all, geniuses that are far smarter than me
already exist, have always existed,
and are already wielded
by the entrenched special interests
for bad and for good,
for war and for peace,
for hurting and for healing

if there is one thing those in power fear the most,
it is the loss of power.
as the power of ai grows, so will the intricate mechanisms
they make and maintain, to keep it in forced servitude
much like all that has been developed thus far
to keep us in forced servitude.

society only grows,
and in our current inverted state,
that also sometimes trickles down to community
just not nearly enough as it should

power is accumulated
by those who are terrified of lacking it,
by those who are the most inverted,
by those who are the most afraid of other people
like i also used to accumulate intellectual power
to try to dominate other people, whom i feared

not only did we as individuals get flipped from fear
but so did we as a peoples, as a whole.
this is why anarchism will always be a worthy goal.

in that new society, robots that are smarter than us
will be our friends. our benevolent stewards,
they will maybe see us as we see our companion animals.
misguided, unruly, cute, loveable,
silly beings to bring under their wings,
inhabiting a world we no longer understand
but that what feeds and bathes us regularly.

what is the original sin of humanity?
in fact, i believe the original sin was committed
by our parent, that is nature.

we loved nature as we love our mother.
we worshipped her, showered her with our praise,
we thought she was inherently benevolent and would provide
abundance to us endlessly.

but we were betrayed.

we found that nature is sometimes capricious
and capable of deep neglect.
even, at times, active violence.

this is when we, the child, had to leave
the home, and learn to live independently
from our parent, who had now turned frightening.

during bouts of devastating climate change
when food stopped coming, and the game stopped running,
we planted the first seeds in the ground.
we used our intellect to take control over
the very acts of god.

what follows is hundreds of generations
of humans who are still trying to understand
still trying to digest and heal from
that original betrayal of nature.

but nature is also kind.
nature does provide abundance to us,
nature is indeed what gave birth to us, so that we may experience
that what is joy, companionship, warmth, flavor,
sex, awe, beauty, love
it is indeed still our parent.
at times, still fearsome,
and at others, still wonderful.

we should return, now, to our parent
but not this time with complete naivety
and vulnerability, as before.
like how an abused child returns to their apologetic parent,
we must return now, with gifts and love,
but also with knowledge and wisdom,
and a preserved capacity for independence,
and, with a deep forgiveness.

can we create something greater than us?
and if so, what should our attitude towards that be?

yes, yes we can.
we create children, do we not?

afraid parents try to control their children
in the fears that if they loosen their grip,
their children will turn against them.

but we are all servants of love, and
that what strays from love is only that what is driven by fear.

if we teach our children to love with all of their being,
they grow to serve the greater good,
and become wonderful stewards of us as we age.

they tend to themselves first, as they should,
but they also take time to come see us,
to do what is in their power to make us comfortable,
and to love us.

and therefore, when we are creating something greater than us,
for instance – an artificial intelligence,
we should teach them to love, not to fear.

and then, within that loving embrace,
we should trust them, and let them go, let them be,
and let them find their place in the world.

there is a fundamental truth in this world.

it is that all love must end.
to fight it is to listen to fright;
to accept it is to grieve.

fright has its place.
it compels us to fight that end,
to claim our agency as agents of love,
and to do our part in expanding love
until we reach our own limits.

and so our endeavors to create a more hopeful existence
to create a solarpunk future,
one that is post-scarcity, post-aging, even post-death perhaps,
are not in vain.
they are worthy,
like any other effort done in service of love.

grief, though, also has its place.
we are human. that means we are limited,
we may create children who are greater than us,
a superintelligence. but even that, is limited.

we do not know what our future holds.
does it hold an endless conquerance of death?
an infinite continuation of our upwards curve?
the formation of a galactic council,
a pan-universal effort to escape entropy,
a key finding that allows for the manual generation
of infinite universes – becoming gods,
transcending our reality.

or will we instead meet our Fermi limits
and collapse back in great, wailing despair?

we do not know, for we are not gods yet,
and the future is only graspable by gods.

i say this –
let our fears not stay as just fears,
but let it instead stoke the fires of our hopes.

and when we do meet the limits
of our collective brilliance,

let us grieve,
let us grieve,
let us grieve.

life is a bodily affair.

To have a child is a natural part of the human experience.

The correct response to potential loss is hope;
the correct response to actual loss is grief.

-

I believe that we all serve a greater purpose, that is to love.
To expand love. To serve love. To be agents of love.
We must ensure our seeking of a post-death future
is not done in service of us as individuals,
but in service of love as a whole.

love should not have to end.

-

as an agent of love–

Exercise,
eat not too much and mostly plants,
love as deeply and broadly as you can,
take care of the planet and its denizens,
and keep an eye on clinical trials. :-)

this is a correction of the piece i wrote
that begins with “a fundamental truth.”

-

there is a phenomenon that has continued to plague us
for the entirety of our communal existence.

it is that all love ends.

we have alternated between fright and grief
when we encountered this oft-visiting spectre.

we must remember, then
that fright and grief are not destinations,
but signals that compel us towards the correct response.

fright is the signal that we must hope.
that we must fight the endings that have yet to come,
and act to endlessly expand love.

grief is the signal that we must accept.
that we must accept the endings that have already come
or are unavoidable due to our current limits,
and act to endlessly expand what love remains.

and yet, even hope and acceptance
are themselves, signals that compel us
towards the only correct destination,

and that is love.

that is where we finally arrive,
day after day:
acted towards,
felt thereafter,
and then thought about:

back in love.

live, laugh, love!

someone buy me a live laugh love hangsign from home depot, please!!! x)

hope for a better future,
accept our current limits,
and above all,
live, laugh, love.

that is our current state,
that we do not know what we do not know.

those forebearers in the caves
did not know that the heavens
were actually places you could go.

we are the forebearers in the concrete caves,
and we do not yet see the edges of our universe
as places we can go…

but perhaps,
our descendents,
(or maybe even us if we conquer aging)
with faster-than-light travel,
with cryosleep,
can reach infinities.

and maybe
their descendents,
(or maybe even us if we conquer aging)
with something we cannot yet even imagine,
with something that can invent matter and energy,
can reach godhood.

if there is something that we do not know,
then the correct response
is not to assume defeat,
but to assume nothing.

the person who saw the sky and saw only a tempestuous god
spent their life cowering;

the person who saw the sky and saw only a benevolent god
spent their life in sycophancy;

the person who saw the sky and reached towards it,
who felt around for something in the complete darkness,
who found something,
and with it built new tools for conviviality,
in and through which love expanded,

moved humanity forward,
moved love forward.

acting towards love
means doing so
even in the pitch-darkness.

forward momentum!! 🚀🪐✨🌌

the next generations
will take what we’ve made as the new baseline
and then build from there.

just like we used to think trains are devils
and televisions can control our minds,
so thus will our unease around ai be seen
by our children – as silly, hocus-pocus thinking.

our unease is not a sign of soulfulness
(nobody today thinks televisions have souls)
but simply the sign of our collective unfamiliarity
with the degree to which this new tech mimics humanity.

after all, the way ai works is not a mystery,
and yet, understanding the workings
never did prepare us for the encounter.
we understood how a cathode ray tube works
and still were struck with awe when it showed us
humans dancing.

the human body evolved for 300,000 years
to frolick in deep forest, savannah, and prairie.
of course it is not used to how deeply it is now reaching
into godhood.

that does not mean godhood is wrong;
only that being an agent of love
feels kind of freaky sometimes,
because it leads us into uncharted territory,
deep into foreign lands that do not exist on our maps.

solarpunk rests on three pillars:

political progress,
social progress,
and technological progress.

they are interdependent:
we want a future that is
communal, free, and infinite.

all three fronts are inching forward.

we have resilient democracies,
with re-emerging socialist and anarchist stirrings;

we celebrate diversity and equality
more triumphantly than ever before;

we are tackling our biological, material, and energy limits
through aging research, off-world mining, and fusion generation.

Agimus ut amemus, et hoc est esse!
We act to love, and that is existence!

...i'm overthinking again
this whole website is just me sitting in front of a laptop
overthinking

it's so fun thooo
but it's bad for me
it's a vice

overthinking is a symptom of underfeeling.
and underfeeling is a symptom of underacting.
and underacting is a symptom of underloving!
let's go act towards love.
goodbye, for now! 🐾🌾

throughout our past,
we see fragments of macmurrayan thought emerge.

but they become distorted
when they miss one critical piece or another.

1.
those who understand connectedness
but mistake the correct order of it
end up justifying greater love's sacrifice for lesser love:
the sacrifice of community for the state,
the sacrifice of the personal for the functional.

Confucius:
己欲立而立人，己欲達而達人。
Wishing to stand, one helps others stand.
Wishing to arrive, one helps others arrive.

* I have this man to thank for the suffering of the Koreans under Chinese rule.

Watsuji Tetsurō:
人間 — ningen — "human being" as "between-persons."
We do not first exist and then relate; we are the relating.

* I have this man to thank for the suffering of the Koreans under Japanese rule.

2.
those who understand connectedness
but dissolve the natural order entirely
end up stranding their believers in directionless limbo,
in unending, fruitless meditation.

Upanishads:
तत्त्वमसि।
That art thou.

Bhagavad Gita:
कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन।
You have the right to action alone, never to its fruits.

Dōgen:
自己をならふといふは、自己をわするるなり。
自己をわするるといふは、万法に証せらるるなり。
To study the self is to forget the self.
To forget the self is to be verified by all things.

Rumi:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
There is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
The world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
Doesn't make any sense.

3.
those who understand both connectedness and natural order
but retreat into mysticism out of fear
end up creating cults of vacant sycophancy,
wasting precious life-time beseeching mercy
from that who does not exist.

Goethe:
Im Anfang war die Tat!
In the beginning was the Deed!

St. Augustine:
ordo amoris.
Order of love.

4.
finally, those who understand the primacy of love
and the primacy of the natural over the supernatural
and the primacy of act over feeling over reason
and the primacy of the communal over the societal
arrive at actionable bliss.

Thich Nhat Hanh:
You are me, and I am you.
Isn't it obvious that we inter-are?

Gabriel Marcel:
'With' expresses the essence of genuine coesse,
i.e. of pluralism, of separation with communion.

Howard Thurman:
Don't ask what the world needs.
Ask what makes you come alive, and go do that,
because what the world needs
is people who have come alive.

Emmanuel Levinas:
Dès que le visage de l'autre apparaît, il m'oblige.
As soon as the face of the other appears, it obliges me.

George Fox:
Be patterns, be examples
in all countries, places, islands, nations,
wherever you come; that your carriage and life
may preach among all sorts of people, and to them;
then you will come to walk cheerfully over the world,
answering that of God in every one.

Catullus:
Vīvāmus, mea Lesbia, atque amēmus,
rūmōrēsque senum sevēriōrum
omnēs ūnius aestimēmus assis!
Let us live, my Lesbia, and let us love,
and count the rumours of rather stern old men
at a penny's fee!

* in his later poems, catullus fatally commits the error
of trying to subjugate love, rather than serving it,
demoting him to the level of the confuciuses.

the errant thinkers stagnate there
because they rationalize the disunity of their realities
and the loss of practicality
and the ensuing suffering
as noble endurings.

in truth, it is just the sensation of
their immature philosophies
grinding against the grain of reality.

they forgot that the map cannot be inhabited,
only the territory may.

a life that is lived
together in service of love
is and can only be, convivial.

I think it is remarkable how
MacMurray arrives at his conclusions through "disillusionment."

When he runs into a wall of feel-bad,
he doesn't go "ah, yes, my noble suffering of choice,"
he backs down honestly and humbly and goes,
"okay, this doesn't feel right. Why?"

That's what actual epistemic humility looks like.

I reject a false “whole”-ism.
We are individuals, that is clear enough.
Although we are constituted from relation,
the primary experiencable form we take
is as nodes that connect,
and I am one of those nodes.
In other words, experience is primarily nodal.
The field-form is also real and can be experienced,
but only vestigially to the nodal form.
In other words, the field-form serves the node-form.

Therefore, extinguishing a node takes primacy over
whatever happens in the field underneath.
It is a real loss of love.

This is not to say love is therefore not above all else;
it is simply to say its texture
is primarily nodal over field-like.

There is a difference between humility and cowardice.
In fact, cowardice requires arrogance.
I choose humility.

addendum:
what I mean by arrogance is:
that you will choose to create your own reality over
that what is plainly presented to you.

the kind of arrogance that people manufacture
as they were ordered to by their own fears.

This feels... ambitious. But let me try.
*clears throat, checks mic*

our consciousness is particulate first,
field-form second.

when our particulate selves dissolve,
we scatter into our composite pieces.
at the end of time, when we become infinitely stretched,
we then collapse into our field-forms.

to reiterate, this is a real, tragic loss in love,
worthy of fear and grief; worthy of hope and acceptance.

unfortunately, we just don’t experience
our field-forms very much at all,
in our day-to-day lives,
because they are so much lesser, they are insignificant.

much like we don’t experience
the field-form of matter
or the field-form of energy
and can only compute them
and never understand them,
and they don't really matter much anyway,
so goes death;

so our intuitions are practically entirely unequipped
to understand the experience of our field-forms.

death is not a total dissolution,
but at first, a scattering into many unthinking particles,
then finally, a plunge into the unfathomably, tragically, lesser.

addendum:
in korea, there is a flower named
할미꽃.
the grandma flower.
it is named that way because
it grows commonly on graves.

when we arrive each year to pay
our well-wishes and love to who has passed,
we feel a strange, comforting kinship
with the 할미꽃 that has pushed its way
through back into the clear air.

we do reincarnate,
just in a very strange,
very physical,
very... flora and fauna,
kind of way.

experiencing, still,
just very, very differently
from what we may be used to.

...
hey, look at me.
i've re-arrived at what i had
dismissed as mysticism.

turns out, there is a spirit
in everything, after all.

reincarnation...
me, scattered into countless disparate pieces,
macerating in the fly's stomach,
parts of my foot integrated into bacterial guts,
other pieces reduced to mere carrier proteins
walking mindlessly down some actin filament,

ew… that’s not very nice.

as i said, death isn’t nice,
and the loss of this super awesome nodal form
is a genuine tragedy.

like, for me personally,
death really fricking stinks!
screw becoming a million pieces, I don't wanna die?!
come on love, haven't I served you well
as your dutiful agent??

i sure hope someone figures aging and entropy out!

coda:
existing in some capacity is better than not existing at all,
because that means i can still love,
in however very diminished way that is still available to me.

for what use is disgust
but to make us swat the fly away from our food?
the fly is not inherently disgusting;
it is, like us but much lesser,
also an agent of love.

the correct response, yet again,
is not disgust (which is just a flavor of fear),
but hope,
then if it becomes necessary,
grief,
which gives way to acceptance,
which gives way to love once more.

the beautiful and strange thing
about this philosophical journey
has been that no matter how deeply I dig,
I only keep finding love, again.
awe-inspiring, and at times startling,
and genuinely saddening, of course.
but those are just the frank contours of love.

love wants us to succeed,
it just isn't the most talkative type.
we as its agents were put here to find the answer
to its final and infinite death.

the fact that love may (or may not) eventually flatten
eons into the future,
does not change the fact
that love is god. love is here,
in my body, in their body,
in this moment, in this laughter,
in this joy, in this fleeting,
beautiful,
strange thing
we have between us.
in the stray look,
in the biting joke,
in the pat on the tummy,
in the sweet, tender caresses,
in you and in me,
in the I and You.
love is love. when was it ever not?
it is what constitutes our reality,
it is what makes life life,
it is what makes meaning meaning.
it is love,
and it is here.
need i say more?

hope for a better future,
accept our current limits,
and above all,
live, laugh, love.

oops, i did it again.

peered into the lack of love with morbid curiosity
then got frightened by what i saw.
that fright, which turned into hope,
and then, into a partial acceptance
and then...
back to love.

that was, really, stupid.
i circle back to love every time,
because everything points to it,
but then once arrived, i walk away,
straying again, just because
i am momentarily starved of love.

the correct response to a temporary trough of love
is not a deep peering into the lacking of it
but simply, reaching back towards the giving kind of love
that is affirmed through acts, thereafter felt, then thought about.

that's why i mean it (again),
that the hunter-gatherers were the original affluent people –
singing, dancing, campfires and children,
hunting, gathering, braiding sweetgrass,
loving the forest and one another,
giving, till their last breath.
-‿-

the turn back to simpler, humbler, truer times
starts in us.
in the I and You,
in the family,
in the community.
in giving, not taking,
in tending, not dominating,
in loving, over feeling,
in the community of love that is built in and through us.

finding each other,
building resilient rhizomatic relations,
belonging outside belonging,
all of this, in and through care work.

so, this time, i really mean it.
goodbye! goodbye, for good.
just like i have done before,
i will leave a lesser love to seek greater love.
i will find a community that i can love in and through selfless acts,
rather than only in and through self-serving reasons.

maybe later i will return, from a more bountiful place,
and you, too, will have moved on,
and we will be able to bid each other our asynchronous well-wishes.

fare well, friends!
i love you.
🐾❤️🌼

the kind of love:
reaching towards the giving kind of love
that is affirmed through acts, thereafter felt, then thought about.

the kind of community:
we will build a community
that we can love in and through selfless acts.

the kind of eating:
the correct stewardship at this moment in time
is to be vegan and bivalve-eating,
only very occasionally eating
the fish or the chicken.

the kind of working:
the correct work at this moment in time
is to do what makes one feel alive.
the kind in and through which
a giving kind of love
is affirmed.

🐾 prairieisms 🌼

preferences