This is a picture I drew during a particularly idealistic phase. I like the feeling of innocence it portrays. She is one of my many personas. The girl-child. Then there are the more hardcore ones, the destructive Kali personalites...

The way I see it, we are all composed of different personas, which we use like tools. Every time I react I am following a particular script which is familiar to a particular persona. As long as I am aware of this I can choose how I react, thus changing the reaction into an action, which is then free of any conceptual persona or personality attachments.

This action is as close to the real me as I can get. And the personas serve a purpose. I think it was St Paul who said "I am all things to all people"; meaning that when he was with the Greeks, he was a Greek, When he has with the Romans, he was a Roman. That way whoever he was keeping company with could feel relaxed and able to relate. So my personas allow me to work with other people in a manner which they find comfortable. This however is not the most relaxing thing for me, because using a tool requires effort, and that is why I generally avoid people.

I think this is a really apt comment. It probably isn't my place to bitch about the Bush administration, seeing as I'm not a US citizen, but this sort of mentality was rife in South Africa during the apartheid years so I know how damaging it is.

I really wouldn't want to be Bush right now. He's looking very uncomfortable these days, and who can blame him? It must be incredibly difficult being the president of the current world superpower. In the eyes of the world he can't do anything right...

What's even more worrying is America's move towards religious conservatism. Here in the 3rd world we usually follow the US trends like geeky younger siblings following a way cool big brother. Hopefully in this case we will retain our senses...

I finished my painting! This is a snapshot I took of it last night, I haven't trimmed it or anything, so I hope you can make it out. I was stuck for a while, that always happens to me. I start painting with some much confidence, then the closer I get to finishing it the more finicky I get, the more anal I get...until I remember that I'm supposed to let it all hang out if I want to make real art, so then I finish with a flash of spontaneous inspiration. Gotta love the process...

some people

Especially in the business world, some people just lose all their integrity. My significant other runs an IT business, and they have been contracting for an American start-up, doing software development. Anyway, these US guys have been having difficulty securing their next round of funding, so they cut us off.No warning, no notice, no more development team...We had to fire all the coders who had put so much time and effort into the product. Horrible. That's life I guess. the worst part though is that now the US team contacts Ant and tells him they kinda still need his skills, and would he mind working for them on a more ad hoc basis. So what they are doing is asking him to carry on with the initial contract, and screw all the guys who have just lost their jobs due to illegal negation of said contract. I mean really! I guess that's business for you...

The underlying flavour of the day is something that seems to change at whim, no choice of mine. I walk the same path, pass the same things on the way, but depending on the flavour, everything is different. The flowers I passed yesterday made me smile, today they make me frown. How can I know what flavour I will wake up to? Some days are so pleasing, full, rich, satifying. And then... well then the next day comes and the glamour is gone, like a cheap magic trick, yesterday's jewels so many plastic baubles winking in the sun.

And somewhere beyond all these ups and downs I glimpse the Idyll, the purely objective reality which I flavour with my emotions. I wrote a song once which went like this

What is this?
Desire so hard, unsatisfied,
heart wrenching bliss,
all the highs of the holy coaster ride

I play with pain in a million ways
to satisfy my need for the feelings
feeling good becomes a matter of love and hate
while all the give and take of emotion
is making me dizzy

- Once this whole file-sharing thing becomes easier to navigate, I'll put my music up here on my blog. Doesn't sound the same without the tune...

Needless to say, my quest for the Real real continues.

life...

Life, the Universe and Everything... (all Douglas Adams fans - smile!) round and round and round we go. Today is a day for quoting poetry, normal talk will just not do.

"Up so floating many bells down"
(e.e.cummings - delight in the liberation of words.)

A storm thundered today and the rain fell heavy. Beautiful.

(My painting is going through a really intense stage, i won't be posting updates until I am more rooted in the new direction it has taken.)

as freedom is a breakfastfood
or truth can live with right or wrong
or molehills are from mountains made
- long enough and just so long
will being pay the rent of seem
and genius please the talentgang
and water most encourage flame

e.e.cummings

hunger

Sometimes I am absolutely derailed by a huge and awesome hunger, a deep deep down craving. For what? Well, everything. It's as if to balance out the Everything there's also this No-thing inside me which is a black hole. I used drugs to try and fill it, I ran after men and sex to fill it, cried to daddy, cried to God.

But nothing sates it for long. Not for long. Because it's an existential hunger. It is the balance of the feast of life, the yin for life's yang. And somewhere between fullness and starvation we live our lives.

So I decided to climb off the wheel of life and death, and get some perspective on the whole darn thing. Zazen rocks.

I have the most hectic dreamtimes. It takes me so long to make the transition to waking. It's like my head stays in dreamtime way longer than it should. And then I carry the dream feelings with me into the daylight and it can be pretty disorientating. Sometimes the dreams are beautiful ways of helping me to understand my constraints, and sometimes they are just a jumble of unresolved emotion. Those one are the difficult ones.

I haven't lucid dreamed for ages now. I wonder why. I can't figure out what triggers my lucid dreaming. I know that there are many practises which gives one more control, but I have always just ended up there spontaneously. (for those of you who are unsure what a 'lucid dream' is, it's a state of consciousness where you 'wake up' in the middle of a dream, and realise that you are dreaming, and can therefore manifest whatever you want) Can be fun.

I'm attempting a whole handful of projects at the moment. It's great being able to switch depending on where the inspiration lies. I'm kinda off my painting at the moment, nearly ready to carry on but not quite...Today I started painting a piece of fabric that will eventually be a throw for my bed (i hope) and then there's the music.

I got a keyboard for my birthday. It's so humbling to start with a new instrument. I've been playing guitar for years, and composing has been relatively easy for me. But composing on the keyboard leaves me back at square one! Everything I play sounds so infantile! That's where practice comes in I guess. Life is so grand, there is always something new to learn. I belive that's what keeps people young, the process of learning. People who are aquiring new skills or knowledge out of an honest desire to learn are infused with a vitality that brings a sparkle to their eyes. May I never forget how to learn.