It's All Write

[mandyjw]

5 hours ago, Myioko said:

SWEET holy Jesus, oh my god, it does feel nice

I know, isn't is AMAZING? You were raised Mormon, right? The level of funny I find blasphemous Jesus jokes now is over the top, I wonder if it will wear away at some point. I used to honestly get really offended. Still considering a dashboard Jesus. 

5 hours ago, Myioko said:

like today I was cleaning a messy room and running errands (and the cherry on top of my day was that I came home to see that my house plant died, RIP Neville...) 

Sorry  I love that you had a houseplant named Neville, that's the perfect houseplant name if I ever heard one. 

Yeah, I totally feel the overwhelm of "all the things". I found short breaks of meditation helpful because it seemed to help drop the resistance without finding a distraction to ignore the tasks and mess that pulls me in TOO long and makes it worse, instead it helps set me back on track. 

 

[Myioko]

14 hours ago, mandyjw said:

You were raised Mormon, right? The level of funny I find blasphemous Jesus jokes now is over the top, I wonder if it will wear away at some point.

Yeah. I still don't feel fluent at all in swearing! Besides the really common ones occasionally. Sometimes I'll put them in and awkward part of a sentence, or feel self conscious while saying it, or I'll make up really random words to go along with them. 

14 hours ago, mandyjw said:

Yeah, I totally feel the overwhelm of "all the things". I found short breaks of meditation helpful because it seemed to help drop the resistance without finding a distraction to ignore the tasks and mess

I've found that similarly helps too, if I'm feeling mindful enough on a particular day. I'm not in the habit of meditation yet, but my go-to is short walks. Or was, since the weather has been inconveniently hot in the past month or two...so meditation it should be I guess.

 

[mandyjw]

7 hours ago, Myioko said:

Yeah. I still don't feel fluent at all in swearing! Besides the really common ones occasionally. Sometimes I'll put them in and awkward part of a sentence, or feel self conscious while saying it, or I'll make up really random words to go along with them. 

I got a lot of practice with swearing early on, even though we got indocrinated as kids, my Dad was already really frustrated with Christianity, and was a blue collar worker. So a lot of my religious knowledge came from him explained in truck driver language.  Never God's name in vain kind of stuff though. Partly because of this I really don't feel as if I was actually indocrinated, I feel as if I chose those beliefs and perspectives myself. But anyway, a lot of my Christian friends who were raised with more structure and rules than me had that with swearing, my husband still does not swear, ever, ever. My other close friend only started swearing in her late 20's. 

7 hours ago, Myioko said:

I've found that similarly helps too, if I'm feeling mindful enough on a particular day. I'm not in the habit of meditation yet, but my go-to is short walks. Or was, since the weather has been inconveniently hot in the past month or two...so meditation it should be I guess.

 Sometimes I have an aversion to sitting with good posture so I just lay down and focus on my breath for a few minutes. Amazing how quickly revitalizing it is.

Edited July 17, 2021 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

I don't know what my intention for writing this is, but my dog is always taking my daughter's stuffed animals. It's amazing the mad bird dog skills he has even though we don't hunt. They are trained not to harm the bird, and he does this with my daughter's stuffed animals. He will steal them and terrorize her and me wanting us to chase him and try to take it, and he holds them so firmly yet gingerly in his mouth, his lips curls up and wrinkle out the sides and he'll stare at you with these intense devilish eyes and it's just the most adorable thing. 

I'm not fast enough to keep up with you, Awareness. I'm dragging behind, like a water-skier who fell on their ass and is just waiting it out for the boat to stop. 

"Get out ahead of it." -AH

ahead of what? 

My daughter lost my "good" pair of old glasses. I'm wearing the very old pair now that falls off when I bend over sometimes. I've said "Don't do that, stop doing that for like the last 10 things that have come out of my mouth." What DO I want?

I want to drop the effort. 

effort (n.)

late 15c., "laborious attempt, strenuous exertion," from French effort, from Old French esforz "force, impetuosity, strength, power," verbal noun from esforcier "force out, exert oneself," from Vulgar Latin *exfortiare "to show strength" (source of Italian sforza), from Latin ex "out" (see ex-) + Latin fortis "strong" (see fort).

Effort is working against yourself, using your own strength against itself. 

You built this fantastic fort and you got trapped inside so you're trying to break down the walls, but the door is open, there is no door. Blah blah deep spiritual insight. 

Ok 10 things I appreciate about the complete disaster before my eyes.

You mean this journal entry? 

No I mean behind my head, I'm using the mom eyes in back of the head to see how messy the house is behind me.

The "mom eyes" might be your problem. 

I'm practicing gratitude and now my higher italicized self is picking out faults? 

That's what you just recently gave us permission and even asked us to do. Whose faults are they? 

1. I appreciate the fact that if I have the urge to comb my hair there are two hairbrushes and a comb in easy reach all scattered on the floor. 

Was that appreciating? 

Shut up.

2. I think you're right, this gratitude practice is utter bullshit. I'm already grateful. 

Was that appreciating?

YES, YES I can't help it, I appreciate nothing to the very depths of my being! 

Oh, I started this out by truly appreciating something. I wrote that yesterday morning not this morning. It was the appreciating of an obnoxious perhaps undesirable habit in a creature I adore.

This reminds me, when I relate to people, I often play in and pretend that I think things are obnoxious when really I love them. I love the way the dog's little smile looks when he steals my daughter's favorite teddy bear. I'm afraid if I really let them know how I feel, they won't understand me. It's almost like how everyone gets excited when something happens in a small town, even if it's bad, an accident, forest fire, everyone hides their excitement, but not very well. 

Maybe I actually love the complete mess and chaos. Yeah, I do. Somehow I got so busy pretending I was neat and tidy, and non-chaotic, that I convinced myself! 

convince (v.)

1520s, "to overcome in argument," from Latin convincere "to overcome decisively," from assimilated form of com-, here perhaps an intensive prefix (see com-), + vincere "to conquer" (from nasalized form of PIE root *weik- (3) "to fight, conquer"). Meaning "to firmly persuade or satisfy by argument or evidence" is from c. 1600. Related: Convinced; convincing; convincingly.

Again, like effort, a fight against oneself. 

Ok, so yesterday I had a massage, and ended up examining a pattern of wanting to "hold it together" for the sake of others, and a memory come up and an emotional release. In 3-5 grade I had this teacher and she was so mean and strict. Yet also very intelligent and very willing to correct you. However, she had a complete aversion to messes, especially biological ones. "I don't DO puke." she would say. One day on the morning of our BIG presentations, I was sick. Mom didn't believe me, she thought I was avoiding the presentation. I didn't want people to think this, so it made it even worse, but I was actually sick. Teacher didn't believe me. Eventually, I threw up, in her personal desk trashcan if I remember correctly. I was sicker than I'd ever been for an entire week.

This feeling/repression followed me my whole life. Class trip to the city, stomach feeling horrible from stress and weird food. Feeling like I was going to throw up on city streets, seeing the largest city I'd ever seen for the first time, trying to avoid this desperately. This is the last place I can and want to throw up, in front of everyone, inconveniencing everyone. 

Pattern followed, I got what I didn't want. The Catz deli nervous breakdown or whatever the label is, the only breakdown I've ever had in the most populous, crowded place I've ever been in. 

If I built my ef-fort well, how come I think I have so much influence on other people's ef-forts and that they have it on mine? Is the suffering actually an intuition that the ef-fort walls are made of façade? No, the suffering is the avoidance of the intuition, the suffering is the ef-fort, the only ef-fort. 

"My inability to digest this (the beliefs that build walls that were passed down to me ala fucked up telephone game) is my personal failing."

I don't eat bananas because I can't digest them without getting horrible stomach aches. But I will eat metaphorical bananas knowingly to be polite. 

polite (adj.)

late 14c., "polished, burnished" (mid-13c. as a surname), from Latin politus "refined, elegant, accomplished," literally "polished," past participle of polire "to polish, to make smooth" (see polish (v.)).

"You can't polish a turd." - Geoffrey Stokes

I don't like the term monkey mind, but I get an image of a monkey eating bananas to make people happy and then throwing polished turds at  the same people through the bars of its cage. 

The telephone game may seem to be a collective one, but in reality, it's your own thoughts and your openness to receive them. True empowerment is realizing that those walls you so carefully built aren't there and pure reception is also pure rejection. 

 

Edited July 18, 2021 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

The walls we want to get rid of are the very thing we're trying to defend. 

delivery

devilry

delivery (n.)

early 15c., "act of setting free from bondage," also "action of handing over to another," from Anglo-French delivrée, noun use of fem. past participle of Old French delivrer (see deliver). Sense of "childbirth, giving forth of offspring" is by 1570s; that of "manner of utterance or enunciation" is from 1660s. Of a blow, throw of a ball, etc., "act of sending or putting forth," from 1702. The hospital's childbirth delivery room is attested by 1849 (in early use often in a German context, translating Kreisszimmer).

devil (n.)

Old English deofol "a devil, a subordinate evil spirit afflicting humans;" also, in Christian theology, "the Devil, a powerful spirit of evil otherwise known as Satan," from Late Latin diabolus (also the source of Italian diavolo, French diable, Spanish diablo; German Teufel is Old High German tiufal, from Latin via Gothic diabaulus).

The Late Latin word is from Ecclesiastical Greek diabolos, which in Jewish and Christian use was "the Devil, Satan," and which in general use meant "accuser, slanderer" (thus it was a scriptural loan-translation of Hebrew satan; see Satan). It is an agent noun from Greek diaballein "to slander, attack," literally "to throw across," from dia "across, through" (see dia-) + ballein "to throw" (from PIE root *gwele- "to throw, reach").

devil/lived

deliver, de liver 

Can't accept what you never rejected. 

 

[mandyjw]

I've been thinking about homosexuality lately. Specifically the cliche magic of male homosexual, female heterosexual friendship because of the complete lack of distrust and tensions there. It's like it satisfies a polarity without the tension that says a polarity needs to be satisfied. However, minus the separate self, all friendships have this same potential or better. 

 And also more importantly, the aspect of having pride for your partner and not ashamed because other people don't get your relationship. I think this applies to us all. I especially have tried to evaluate my relationship as if I'm an outsider looking in. What the hell? 

Essentially if we accept that other's don't accept, we take it to mean that there's something wrong with us. 

 

 

Finding myself thoroughly enjoying people for who they are more and more and it is strangely healing. 

complacent (adj.)

1650s, "pleasing," from Latin complacentem (nominative complacens) "very pleasing," present participle of complacere "be very pleasing" (see complacence). Meaning "pleased with oneself, self-satisfied" is from 1767. Sense of "civil, kindly, disposed to give pleasure" is from 1790. Related: Complacently.

Oh dear Lord. 

[mandyjw]

 

 

[mandyjw]

I read this on Marie Kondo's page. "With three young kids and busy schedules, eating as a family can be challenging – but it’s always rewarding. Before eating, we set an intention to enjoy the meal and express gratitude for the person who prepared it – and for the food itself."

I guess that "FOR THE LAST TIME, come to the table and eat your mac n cheese you ungrateful little..." isn't quite the desired way to go about things. 

I always thought the solution to what I wanted was to work harder, or be more focused to force the external situation into place.

Now I realize, it's completely an inner state that allows things to line up. 

 

 

[mandyjw]

@Preety_India  Thank you! 

[mandyjw]

Oh. my. god. So much.

How could you have the power to mesmerize and heal others but not yourself? 

Is there self/others?

No.

Awake people stick out like sore thumbs, not always in the best of ways.

Are there awake people? Do things stick out/ exist on their own, or is what is meant by that Awareness of, attraction of, focus of? 

I notice it.

Rapunzel. As soon as I went back to the cemetery the second time and found the grave I was looking for, everything seemed to flow, I started communicating with (appreciating) the place. I found a geocache accidently in the huge tree I was called towards immediately, and then the Rapunzel painted rock. It was almost as if I had been searching so long and suddenly, all of a sudden finding, finding, finding. Then MORE finding, finding, finding the rest of the day. 

There is ONLY finding, finding, finding. There is no search/find. Ask and it is given. Nothing is lost.

Adopted by the evil stepmom, the princess is locked up because she is taken from her real birthright, she thinks herself to be a separate self. I do feel locked up.

"FOMO creates FOMO. You're only missing out when you think of the possibility you COULD miss out, exactly because, you can't. 

 

 

[mandyjw]

I feel like Ren in that clip, and Ariel is my muse. I can't kiss her (write/create) because I'm afraid I'll suffer by comparison. 

Whose comparison, in comparison to what? 

[mandyjw]

Suffer BY comparison. 

OMG. I'm so dumb. 

Compared to who? 

"How did you know?
It's what I've always wanted
Could never have too many of these
Will you quit kicking me under the table?
I'm trying, will somebody make her shut up about it?
Can we settle down, please?

It's what...
I think...
Bite tongue, deep breaths
It's what...
I think..."

 

What's this someday shit? 

I might just fall off the face of the Earth. I already live on the edge of it. The Earth doesn't have a face, I do. it's a nice story, isn't it? It's what I've always wanted. The desire had to be prior to the knowledge of it. And the knowledge of it, is the realization , the reality of it. 

What am I writing? What am I creating? I live in a fantasy land, will someone wake me up? I'm sleeping beauty, waiting for a Prince, and I can't find him because I am he. Fantasy isn't the problem I thought it would be. I thought I was cheating my own enlightenment. 

What's this someday shit? 

NO FUCKING WAY! Cabin on the ocean for $10 a night. Everything is working out for me. Where did the expression "no way" come from by the way? Where did the expression by the way come from, by the way? Way, road, or path. It's just along the road, by the way. No way. 

[mandyjw]

Repression is nothing like "what people think" it is at all. In fact it's really based in just that, a care of what other people think, forgetting that fear of people's thoughts is one's own self-judgement, self shaming. Also intertwined with a strange sort of disconnection with what they really want or like. It could be putting on a show for someone, acting very sexual or putting on a show for someone that you aren't sexual depending on what you think people expect or want so you can feel ok and normal yourself. But there is no normal, the show is only for you, so that means if you're too focused on pleasing others at the expense of not listening to your own desires you aren't in touch with what you want. Sometimes repression is created when you authentically aren't interested in something but think you have to be to be cool or alright. Or sometimes it's as you'd think, a denial of a desire. Sometimes the desire evolves and we don't interpret it right but have to allow it before it can really be clarified. All desires eventually merge into the same source. All desire is a desire to feel. Actually, feel. A desire is itself a feeling for a feeling, so if you deny the desire, the thoughtform it takes, you deny the feeling as well. And if you indulge the desire, you deny the feeling. This makes it impossible to point to. Freedom of desire is the closest you can get. You can interpret it as freedom TO desire, or freedom from desire, but it means both, and neither. 

Edited July 27, 2021 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

Yuck. I have a 1000 things I really ought to do. Lots that I want to do even. 

Apparently enlightenment isn't gonna save the world or make the world into a paradise if enough "other people" get enlightened. Apparently I just love assholes and forgot and that's paradise. Apparently. This is disappointing and also a huge relief. God doesn't even have an asshole, because there is no God. Thank God. 

Geez, freedom is such a fucking inconvenience.  Sounds like an extreme form of complaining but of course freedom is a limitation. If there's a desire to exist, there's a desire to exit. We don't talk about such things because, young ears. Ears so young they haven't even yet heard that they are. Desire to exist as thought is a fear/knowledge of death, desire to exist is prior to the thought.  

Unconditionally loved and safe from death but not from having to have company over an hour from now when the house is a total wreck? 

I am unconditionally entitled. I am so entitled, I don't even have a title. Untitled to love. 

That's a title. 

 

[mandyjw]

Ha HA they showed up early before I could even sweep my pile of dirt and random stuff the dog chewed into the dustpan. 

Ugh. Ugh. Thank you source for bringing up all my biases and fears. I'm not 100% ok with my kids being in the care of someone with lots of piercings, tattoos and a name that means "ill omened". I can't tell if I really like her or just don't trust her.  Well played. I'm not sure where I'm going with this but I know it's all write. 

I might get drawn in, like a cartoon character. I might fall under your spell, but please don't misspell me. I'm the seduced, I'm the seductress, the magician and the magic. I'm the reviled, and the reveling. I'm the revealed and the revealer. You can't face yourself. I'm the white rabbit, I'll lead you to all the places you desire to be the most, to all the places that terrify you, and you'll never take a single step. 

"People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time. If the children had ever thought so, they were cured of it now. For when they tried to look at Aslan's face they just caught a glimpse of the golden mane and the great, royal, solemn, overwhelming eyes; and then they found they couldn't look at him and went all trembly."  - CS Lewis

Edited July 27, 2021 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

Is this some sort of deception, the goosebumps, just sort of swimming around is this cold intoxicating, revitalizing but relaxing lake of inspiration? Am I fooling myself? It takes intelligence to fool someone knowingly, and it takes even greater intelligence to be the one who is fooled. 

Where does this stuff come from? 

Intelligence eats itself up. Identification eats itself up, it kills itself. All death is suicide. All birth is... 

What are you doing? You can't dispel me. You can't misspell be. That was supposed to be me. I misspelled. 

Something feels off, something feels so deep, so real, and yet I feel bothered by it. It feels indigestible, it seems as if I must avoid it. And the only avoidance of feeling is through though, a thought of what that feeling must be. 

I don't want Nissargadatta to be right and Osho to be right too. These teachers are eating themselves up like a snake eating its own tail.

They're both dead. 

So am I. 

Oh you're so fucking dramatic. 

It's all write. 

[mandyjw]

Why do I feel such loss and grief? Cutting away and letting go what doesn't serve isn't a loss. Why did I think it was? 

Maybe I should go shopping, that will help. No.

Why are men so sensible and stable? Why do I have to be so silly and all over the place? 

Awareness is neither of those things or both. 

Let's pretend. 

Let's pre-tend. 

late Middle English: from Latin praetendere ‘stretch forth, claim’, from prae ‘before’ + tendere ‘stretch’. The adjective dates from the early 20th century.

Nice, it's stretching, tendere again, like the rubber band video I made. Tension, attention. 

Pre-tend. Prior to. Prior to stretching. 

Prior to shooting myself in the fucking eye with a rubber band?

Why can't I be respectable? Men seem respectable. They aren't respectable, they just don't fucking care, they are pre-tending. 

Let's play house. Let's play Earth. Let's play. Well, I'm not having fun anymore. It must be your fault. I wanted to entertain you so bad, I wanted to make you happy, I wanted you locked on me, addicted, hypnotized by my charm. I wanted this because that's how I'm entertained. My pleasure is pleasing you. We're stuck at a standstill, you don't make me happy because I don't make you happy. It must be me. I must be sick, I must be wrong, I must be bad, for coming to play this game, only because it turned out like this. I must be a child, there must be something grown up, something useful I could do instead of this pretending. I cannot go forward without going back. I haven't been pre-tending myself. 

 

 

[mandyjw]

13 minutes ago, mandyjw said:

Pre-tend. Prior to. Prior to stretching. 

Funny that birth is a literal stretch, and we call what opens up the door to life a contraction. 

contraction late Middle English: via Old French from Latin contractio(n- ), from contrahere ‘draw together’ (see contract).

4 hours ago, mandyjw said:

I might get drawn in, like a cartoon character. I might fall under your spell, but please don't misspell me.

Drawn in. 

Closer.

Closer.

Shut the door again, I'll feel cut off and I'll accuse you of being the closer. 

contraction (n.)

early 15c., contraccioun, "action of making a contract" (especially of marriage), a sense now obsolete; also "action of reducing, abridging, or shortening," from Old French contraction (13c.) or directly from Latin contractionem (nominative contractio) "a drawing together, an abridging, shortening, a shortening in pronunciation," noun of action from past-participle stem of contrahere "to draw several objects together; draw in, shorten, lessen, abridge," metaphorically "make a bargain, make an agreement," from assimilated form of com "with, together" (see con-) + trahere "to draw" (see tract (n.1)). Related: Contractional.

Meaning "action of becoming shorter or smaller through the drawing together of the parts" is from 1580s. Meaning "action of acquiring (a disease) is from 1680s. Grammatical sense of "a shortening of a word or syllable in pronunciation or writing" is from 1706; meaning "a contracted word or words" is from 1755. Contractions of the uterus in labor of childbirth attested from 1962.

 

 

Edited July 27, 2021 by mandyjw

[mandyjw]

I'll never find you, Mr. Write. 

 

[mandyjw]

My daughter can't find Mr. Snuggles the bear, and she's screaming her f-ing head off. Apparently he is a bear with a star on his foot. 20 minutes later than I said I would be.

Freshman year, we had a writer's contest. My husband won, I got some sort of honorable mention. He wrote an alternate version of his life. He got meningitis when he was a year old and was supposed to be dead, and then if not dead, supposed to be disabled. According to his parents, it was an incredible thing. He lived and was sent home and they had no idea what sort of issues and malfunctions he'd have. He had some lasting effects, just an elbow that wouldn't extend fully, ever, even with surgery, and a shortened finger that sent me into a fit of (somewhat guilty) giggles whenever he tried to make a gun with his right hand.

In the story he wrote about that possibility that he had been disabled, I guess because the dead possibility wasn't interesting enough to write about. I started writing notes to him around this time, and it awoke and inspired something in me. I didn't realize that in my trying to convince and pour out passion in a note to change him that I was changing myself. 

He's dead.

How did I not see this before, he is Mr. Write and he's dead. 

How DO you write about that? 

Boy, this death, sex and birth carousel is making me queasy. 

Boy. 

I never really loved my Grandmother until she was gone. Everything before was just practice. A strange sense of entitlement.

8 hours ago, mandyjw said:

I am unconditionally entitled. I am so entitled, I don't even have a title. Untitled to love. 

It was a gift, and a shame. 

"Die before you die."

The way this pertains to others, the process of love is a process of grief and letting go without action. 

In order to truly love him, I have to realize that he is no object of my affection. 

The impulse to leave him, the awful thought that I'd be free if he were gone, all a twisted sense of love, I couldn't see clearly. 

Oh you're so fucking dramatic Mandy.

It's all write.