tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20575719168311240812024-03-13T02:34:27.099-05:00Why, What Were You Thinking?Let's put our cards on the table.Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.comBlogger103125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-69912428600926222672021-11-10T07:27:00.004-06:002021-11-10T07:27:53.691-06:00<p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><b>A Letter On Behalf of Justice For Adnan Syed</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span style="font-size: 12px;">Sent to Maryland State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby on 11.10.21</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Dear State’s Attorney Mosby And All Who Might Also Read This,</span></p><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I am writing to you as a concerned citizen on the matter of the current incarceration of Adnan Masud Syed, an inmate at the North Branch Correctional Institute in Cumberland, Maryland. If you are unaware of Mr. Syed’s situation, he was convicted in 1999 as a minor (17 years old at the time) and yet was tried as an adult (the first of many procedural/institutional errors), and found guilty of the murder of Hae Min Lee, his ex-girlfriend, who had been missing for nearly 5 weeks prior to being found in Leakin Park. </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Mr. Syed has been the subject of multiple documentaries, podcasts, and books, not to mention countless blogs and articles, all detailing exorbitant evidence proving or pointing to his innocence in this crime. </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">There is overwhelming evidence that directly impeaches the state’s case against Mr. Syed, and yet he remains in prison. Myself and many, many others perceive this man to have been the unfortunate victim of a perfect storm of procedural, prosecutorial, forensic, and legal errors, mishandling, neglect, violations, and misconduct, which then unfortunately created the grounds for denial of his appeals. This is a man whose experience, in my opinion, demonstrates nearly perfectly the flaws in the justice system and how it unfortunately folds in on itself and denies, rather than promotes, justice. I am confident that when you examine the evidence and educate yourself on this case, you will come to the same conclusion. </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">To name just a few examples: untested DNA evidence that could exonerate him and find the killer of this young woman (Hae Min Lee); police misconduct on the part of the officers who have disobeyed procedure on multiple other cases; prosecutorial Brady violations; and grossly ineffective representation of counsel in his first and second trials by the same defense attorney on his behalf. That last one alone - ineffective representation of counsel - directly caused or contributed to his later denials of appeals to various courts. He is servicing a life sentence plus 30 years for a crime based on what was effectively a Magic Bullet theory posited by the state, based on now-agreed-upon faulty cell phone tower evidence. The State of Maryland has, it seems, insisted upon spending over something close to $1.5million in the incarceration and court costs alone for a man who so clearly did not commit this crime, leading me to believe that the state itself doesn’t act in self-interest, if we’re looking at this squarely; and I know you are a woman who is insistent upon justice and you deserve to correct injustices like Mr. Syed’s in order to recalibrate and rightly orient the direction of your great state.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">The real killer of Hae Min Lee is still at large. The state’s continued refusal to reexamine Mr. Syed’s case and clear his name is tantamount, logically, to an insistence that Hae Min Lee’s killer roam free. </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I urge you as State’s Attorney to please consider my request and examine the evidence that so clearly exonerates Mr. Syed in this case. He has appealed to every court in the state, and based on the numerous technicalities built into the system, he has either been denied an overturn of his conviction, or been denied the chance for a new trial. This seems to represent a deeply illogical and irrational “motive” on the part of the State of Maryland to keep this man incarcerated. Mr. Syed, like many others, appears, in my eyes, to have fallen between roughly every crack in the system over the course of not only the onset of the investigation into Hae Min Lee’s death, but in the procedures of the “justice” system, as well - and I use quotes for that word not out of disrespect but because he has actually been denied a new trial and an overturn of his conviction based on “failing to meet the terms/grounds for justice”. Mrs. Mosby, I respectfully inquire how the institutions set up by the state of Maryland could claim to seek and protect this concept, justice, and yet leave no room for the actual facts in and about this case that so clearly point to his innocence and to the guilt of another yet unknown/unascertained party. </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">I urge you once again to please examine this man’s case and see for yourself how he has fallen into the eye of the storm of injustice in essentially every crucial phase of his proceeding through the legal system. When it comes to justice, what aspect isn’t crucial?</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Thank you for your time and consideration.</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Respectfully, </div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">Jessica Aimee Cakuls,</div><div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">A concerned global citizen who resides in Illinois. </div>Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-68951277445372696642017-07-18T00:08:00.000-05:002017-07-18T00:08:21.935-05:00Angelina Jolie and Why I Am The Most Beautiful Girl In The WorldI'm the most beautiful girl in the universe, and I'll tell you why this is: because I do not need any other female to agree with me. I know where the center of the universe is. It's me. And in fact, I want every other female to feel this exact same way *about herself*. I am the most exquisite girl because my features... are mine. <div>
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If you're female - whatever that term means to you - you need, I cannot advocate this enough, you need to stop worshipping other females and worship yourself. It's your only job. Its the only fucking job you were given to do. </div>
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I'm the most beautiful girl in the whole dang universe because I'm Jessie. Because there's no other Jessie and there never will be. You couldn't be if you tried. And I couldn't be any of you if I tried, and in fact, trying is what causes it - beauty - to leave. </div>
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The man that I'm with is going to think and feel this with every fiber of his being, and he's going to know it this as Fundamental Truth, or he's not going to be with me. He can say it as often as he actually feels it and it hits him. Some men look at other women, and some men talk about wanting other women, and some women may find this acceptable, but in my kingdom, this is grounds for death. (XD) There is one king and her name is Me. : ) If you are a female and you are looking for this truth, may you find it *NOW*. </div>
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You do not see rightly if you are female and do not worship at the altar of yourself. </div>
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And if you do not see rightly, you will always be chasing what is actually right in your own heart and coming out of your own face: your soul. </div>
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Are you in your body yet? Get there. Be where you already reside.</div>
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That's it, if you have any questions on how to do this, you know where to find me. </div>
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Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-66729634104212516932013-04-13T13:01:00.001-05:002013-04-13T13:03:59.286-05:00The Case For Nail Art<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9YxjDbV3JfNr5JyNJq3jb_M9XObIbi7xGyIpUmByn0pjYFhF6A2m6y4CvVBnnz1GvEtL5xIUHbZW6JopPISKgdirhMx1j5x51_uXNSOJDDcGRuP3zkrF5HMgvcczbcqdhWLNeUh95H-Yb/s1600/LilaFowlerAndTheLavenderFantasia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="271" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9YxjDbV3JfNr5JyNJq3jb_M9XObIbi7xGyIpUmByn0pjYFhF6A2m6y4CvVBnnz1GvEtL5xIUHbZW6JopPISKgdirhMx1j5x51_uXNSOJDDcGRuP3zkrF5HMgvcczbcqdhWLNeUh95H-Yb/s320/LilaFowlerAndTheLavenderFantasia.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I am an artist. <br />
I have an ability to express the way I see the world. <br />
I am also a scientist, and my study is life. <br />
As an artist, I am unique: I am able to express how and what I see, and I am also able to explain why I see it the way I do through reason and logic. <br />
As a woman, I enjoy the transformation made possible through cosmetics and aesthetics. But I am a force of nature; I don't present myself as a space to be filled. I present myself as a set of ideas pre-formed but also capable of expanding and growing.<br />
There is this perception of cosmetics, in Western and potentially other cultures, that their use and their end should be as a type of lightly decorated canvas. In other words, a blank space with a pretty frame. Makeup shouldn't be "too heavy"; "it should 'look natural'"; any additional materials - acrylics on the nails, or extensions for the hair - are, depending on your career or geographical proximity to New York or Los Angeles, vulgar or insane NOT to use. <i>Whether or not it's been thought through,</i> this is a direct extension of the idea that <i>femininity is supposed to be a presentation of a space to be filled.</i> That it should be an aesthetically pleasing void to be occupied and filled. Let's just say it, it's supposed to be a pretty pussy. <br />
Cosmetics are supposed to enhance that space, or frame. If you, as a woman, present your space as not a space, but as a preconceived (pun, intended) idea, or a force not open for negotiation, then your use of cosmetics is vulgar. <br />
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Well, I paint. <br />
I realized that a very limited audience would ever be exposed to my ideas and feelings and sensations about life, as I put them to canvas. <br />
I'd always admired, immediately, the airbrushed images I'd seen predominantly on nails of African-American women. It's bold as fuck. And often really cool and beautiful. <br />
One day after painting, I saw paint residue on the blank canvas of my red acrylic nails. I kept it. I thought it'd make for a really awesome set of paintings, actually, if I blew up the images on my nails to a 3'x5' canvas in real paint. <br />
So I took a risk and started experimenting in nail art. It would be an approximation of a painting, that I would love to see on my wall, only on my nails. All ten of them. And sometimes on my toes, too. That way, I could present, without carrying around an inconvenient and enormous canvas, the artist I am, simply by handing someone my credit card, or holding a glass of wine, or sitting with my legs crossed and arms resting on my knees. <br />
My nails are, more often than not, filled. They are a force of nature. They say a lot, and they are purposely without a lot of room for someone else to imprint their thoughts or ideas on top of them. I don't have light, almost imperceptibly pink polish on short nails going forth into the world. I have a lot of design, color, shape, and striking imagery going forth into the world. I stand for a lot of things. As a woman, this makes me a Goddess. It makes me a warrior. It makes me, in many, *many* ways, more of "a man" than a lot of men I do and do not know. That. is. BEAUTIFUL. <br />
And if I feel like wearing make-up normally seen on men at 3am in nightclubs, during the day, just to go get groceries, then I do it. I don't think twice about it. (Or if I do think twice, I still do it.) I am not here to be filled, except during the act of actual intercourse, and only then if I so choose, and irrespective of the gender of my partner/s. I am not a walking orgasm for anyone to possibly arrive upon. I am a full and complete human being, divine in nature, and that means I am complete and yet I am also room to grow. - Please note that I did not say that I <i><b>have</b></i> room to grow. I <i><b>am</b></i> room to grow.<br />
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I am fine with you calling my nails, my makeup, or my hair color vulgar, tacky, ghetto, ugly, or anything else that I would not describe it as being. I am fine with it, because, your declarations and judgments of my beauty and expression are an indication of your acceptance of ideas and values that you have not thought through. Because if you had, and if you had thought it right through to the end of its logical extension, you'd arrive at the same thing I did: truth. And I accept a lot without thinking it through. This is how we avoid going completely mental. I am totally okay with you judging me, because, you arbitrarily chose not to think this through, so that your brain did not explode (figuratively speaking) from trying to conquer all realities. I do not take it personally. I am happy that you are exercising grace and generosity towards yourself, and patience for yourself, to permit your life to be easier. I do the same. <br />
But I will absolutely continue to exercise my right to nail art. Nail polish and nail decals <i><b>are</b></i> a human right. They are the logical, physical manifestation of the thought, the idea, the value, that self-expression, or if you will, <i><b>talking</b></i>, is a human right. In the same way that clean drinking and bathing water, medicine, political expression, and peace are also human rights. I will continue to exercise my right to nail art, my neutral-to-wild choices for hair color, and my two-hour-plus eye makeup sessions. <br />
But I will now end this essay, because my nail polish is starting to literally get typed off. And vanity trumps all things.Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-50108035600934753672011-05-04T09:53:00.130-05:002011-07-10T20:19:10.906-05:00Guinness Is Calling You<div>There was not a space for you before you arrived here at birth. </div><br />You broke your way through.<br /><br />There was some flesh and some desire, and then there was you, and you could not be stopped.<br /><br />This: (Life:) Is not what I thought it was.<br /><br />I do not know what I thought it was. I had an empty head and I died to defend that emptiness.<br /><br />Life is a current to join. Literally. Like, current of a river. Like, the measurement of nowness. Like, the utility of money. Like, electricity.<br /><br />That current, that time, that river, is the only safety possible, only, you don’t know this, because your idea of what is "safe" is premised on total bullshit. <div><br /></div><div>It's bullshit because you are one blueprint that never existed before, and will never exist again, and you the blueprint are even shifting as you're reading this word, and it doesn't matter how well you describe the temple you're building, or who you describe it to. They will never be able to advise you better than the architect within you, and because they are not you, and they are not going to live in your temple, there are no stakes in it for them that are as immediate as they are for you, and that immediate hunger, that fire, the one pushing each of your cells a little further each and every chance you get? That pushing and that reaching IS your data, IS your information, IS your wisdom, IS your map, IS your application, IS your advice. It's the only good advice. </div><div>Your desire is your advice. </div><div><div><br />You think that by trying to avoid the commitment and taking the half-step, by somewhat considering it, so that you could then go back on it, you are being safe. It's not even that this makes you wrong. You're not even dead-wrong. You're just dead. </div><br />All half measures are your downfall. Your best 99% is your most successful fucking failure. Here's why. <div><br /></div><div>To be in something, to have your body present, and to have your mind somewhere else, or nowhere else the whole time, is the sin. To not take full advantage of the goldmine that is all around you, all the time, is what will kill you later, when you see what you missed. The fact that there was a cliff, and that you didn't take a running leap off that cliff is what will kill you in the end. You will not have saved yourself by loitering on the ledge and complimenting the view and looking down at that drop and coining a multitude of positive affirmations and witty aphorisms. Aphorisms don't mean shit if you don't cash them and jump into the abyss. It doesn't mean you need to drive 80mph into a wall. It does mean when you've jumped off one cliff, build your wings on the way down and sail over to the next one. Don't crash to the ground. But if you did, good job! - Now walk it off. Walk it off. Walk it off. And walk it off a bit more. If you find yourself back at that same cliff - which, if you fell, and walked it off, you can count on doing - if you find yourself back at that same cliff, then remember the feeling of your footing right before you fell. And please know that that cliff is now also completely different, and you can't even approach it with the lessons you learned on the last one. Know why? It's not a cliff, it's actually a raging river. Good luck to you! So now, grappling hooks and shoes don't mean shit. You need a paddle and padding and a life vest and a boat to boot and guess what else? Physics tells you that stationary molecules are different from molecules in motion so even your sense of physics is fucked here too. So good luck to you! Maybe tattoo it somewhere on your arm or somewhere visible on your person that there's a lesson at hand here and though the goal is the same, and your instincts will be the same, the important thing is to HOLD THE FUCK ON and to KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON. </div><div><br /></div><div>You have to assume like the biggest asshole in the world that the river loves you even though it SEEMS like its going to kill you, IS trying to kill you, ONLY wants to de-limb and de-capitate you. You need to believe that its very roughness, its very turbulence, and its very deadliness is how it shows its love to YOU, you who are the goal, you who are the diamond floating along this little lazy river known as a raging rapid, you, the diamond, who somehow gets polished while you're being flung against rock break and broken log alike. You're going to be loved very, VERY hard. Mop up those wounds, splint the shit that broke, and say "Oh wow. That was, VERY, VERY kind of you, River, I appreciate your tenderness and that was quite a blow to the head just now and yeah, it appears that there's a branch with leaves lodged through my heart but no, it's not a big deal. What are you doing tomorrow, River, will you be raging again? Cuz I'd like to make this exclusive." Whatever you do, don't abandon ship. Or walk away from the cliff. Or jump out of the plane. All the cliches are true. Try not to make them come true.<br /><br /></div><div>You can only recognize actual safety in hindsight, and it’s not even a measure of precaution, or the hand you won because something did or didn’t happen that you did or didn’t value. Safety is, Here's a river. The river is not you. But because you're in the river, you need to be the River. Assimilate your ass to that river. </div><div><br /></div><div>Safety has nothing to do with somehow knowing a possible outcome and trying to control your way through to that desired outcome. It's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, when he steps out into thin air and suddenly there is a path to God being built right under his feet. That path, that IS God, will be built right under your next step, by virtue of you taking that step. The path doesn't get built before you take the step. Know why? Because you create physics. You create a vacuum with your desire and your action. That step into thin air IS God. I'm not even sure yet what that means or what it looks like, but we've all taken such a step, we're rewarded when we do, and we'll all need to take them again. We feel it when we do it and we'll get more and more comfortable with being that uncomfortable. Uncomfortable is God. May we all have the strength to trust Out of Thin Air.<br /><br />If you think safety is to be had by refraining, or by hesitating, or by dragging your feet, or by half-committing, as if showing up halfway somehow means you can both ‘be there’ and 'not be there at all', then you are dead wrong. You're wrong because a) physics doesn't permit such a possibility and 2) neither does logic and c) neither does anything that runs this whole video game called Life. That line in the sand that says "no, not past this point" is the way you learn. And you can't learn if you don't cut off one thing from everything else. Somehow you can only grow by cutting. </div><div><br /></div><div>You also don't know happiness. </div><div><br /></div><div>Your half-measures are the greatest roadblock to your happiness. In fact, you may as well call "trying", "misery." It's the half-dedication, the "I'll say I'll do it but I really don't give a shit" that will make you want to off yourself. Know thyself? Yes. Whatever it is that the you in you really wants, fucking listen, and fucking go get it. Stop thinking about it. And you'll know what it is you want because you won't be able to leave yourself alone about it. This is God talking to you, even if it seems not-God. Get over it. You're wrong. Being wrong is sexy. Try to be wrong more often.<br /><br />Because you are alive, there is a thread of possibility that extends into infinity. You travel this little silver spider-thin thread of an assumption that is life that is a mind that is a path, and you can bulldoze it or tip-toe or doggy-paddle your way through, but it actually keeps moving, or really, the current around you keeps moving, even when you try to wrangle back that current - which you cannot possibly do, which is really just you fooling yourself into thinking that you could possibly wrangle it, or that there's even a thing that is that current that you could understand enough to try but still not be able to put your hands around. Do you think this sounds negative? Cause I sure do, I think this sucks. But I also know that this is the only way you build positivity. The world is entirely distraction so what is pure and vital is rare and quiet. If you accept those limits, then you can build off those limits. And guess what? - Without limits, nothing has a value. So then there's not only no way to be positive, but there's nothing that's negative, either.<br /><br />You carve out tangents to that path and none of it, not the tangents and not the original recipe, is a pre-set design. </div><div>You are both a particle and a wave. </div><div>You function in two parts. </div><div>And on that note, you are also a tone. </div><div>You are a moment of music in a greater piece.<br />You are your own score to be conducted.<br />You rise to the crest of the wave because you are alive and then you become part of the part of water that may not be noticed because it is there to support the parts that are supposed to be noticed next. </div><div>No one else sounds or smells or tastes like you.<br />You are not pre-set.<br />You are not pre-designed.<br />You have a quality and a sound that is all your own and you cannot avoid it even though you try so hard to mute it out or don’t try at all. </div><div>When you try to mute yourself, all you get is distorted sound. </div><div>When you try to mute yourself, you get a flat note.</div><div>Your sound cannot be extinguished.</div><div>There's no way to mute yourself. </div><div>There's no way to not have a tone.</div><div>There's only a way to make a sound you don't like listening to. </div><div>And how can you be the wrong note if YOU're the note? </div><div>"How can I be the wrong Alice if this is MY dream?"</div><div><br /></div><div>You are in need of everything that is always being offered to you, and guess what? </div><div>We all need, you, too.<br />We need you to show up and to unselfconsciously, enthusiastically, throw yourself at us, balls-to-the-wall, and at what you do, too. Mostly, at us.<br />What you choose is fine as long as you engage with both hands rather than hold back. </div><div>Don’t you know the world needs you? </div><div>Don't you understand how vital you are to life?<div>There’s a need for you, and for you to throw yourself into us, because of the fact that you’ve thought about it enough to take one step forward. </div><div>There's a need for you because that thing was sparkling enough for you to even think about it, to even venture an "Ok."</div><div><br />If you’re here, if you’ve arrived, and if you’ve been invited, then you’re needed. </div><div>Did you think that this was a luxury? </div><div>That there's empty space to satisfy nothing?<br />If you’re here, then there’s a space waiting for you over there, and there is where you're next.<br />You've lived so long saying “yes” and meaning maybe.<br />This has caused you more pain and anguish than diving headfirst into a shallow pool, which would have been better than hesitating and circling for a century on the edge.<br />It may be that it's too much to make your own choices.<br />The pressure and the uncertainty of not having direction or solid ground?<br />The suffocating anxiety that feels like white noise surrounding your head and eyes, because you are not being told what to do, and you desperately need to be told?<br />It induces paralysis. </div><div>What if there is no right or wrong choice? </div><div>Are you okay with that? </div><div>Are you okay with your decision being the only thing that makes it right? </div><div>That it’s right because you choose it?<br /><div><br />So you looked at all of this.</div>You looked at what you wanted, and didn’t get, and what you should have done but didn’t, and you looked at how you hurt him, but he moved on, only you never could. </div><div>And then you did it again to someone else. </div><div>And then, you did it again to someone else. </div><div><br /></div><div>How it killed you that you cost this to yourself, and how every cell in your body, on your face, in your heart, has been affected and there is absolutely no going back.</div><div><br /></div><div>What good is there in a life lived unconditionally, where anything is permissible? </div><div>Where you set your whole heart upon something, or someone, and you don't get what you want?</div><div>Is it enough to be alive and to have all else unwanted, satiated and met, and the one thing you're reaching for, you do not get? </div><div>All else filled in the universe, and the one thing lacking, that means most, and this is somehow supposed to be okay, the not-getting? </div><div>Fuck that. </div><div>It's about possession, plain and simple. </div><div>It is both possession, and possession with a light guardian's hand. A custodianship. </div><div>But's the getting that means anything.</div><div><br />So I said,<br />Fuck this.<br />Fuck all of this,<br />and fuck you too, God. Fuck you for all this desire.</div><div><br /></div><div>And that felt like shit. And I wanted to off myself whenever I hated God, and I hated God all the time.</div><div>And it had to stop, because it's me or my belief, and somehow, we'd become mutually exclusive. </div><div><br /></div><div>If I could verbalize it about God, then I was wrong about God. And it suddenly felt good to shut up about God. </div><div>So I had to happily accept that I didn't know, and wasn't right, and was actually happily wrong - Thank God - about God.</div><div><br /></div><div>I walked down the hallway and stared down the devil, and I said,</div><div>I understand you. And it's okay. Because I know you're not here to hurt me.</div><div><br /></div><div><div>I looked at the sins I thought I'd pay for, and how at times in life, I had so little consciousness and gravity in my own head that the only way I can explain my behavior – even though I “knew” what I was doing - is that something was leading me and my life around on a string and it was a thread extending into infinity, tied to an infinite number of others, and ultimately I had no control.</div><div><br /></div>I looked at what we know of the universe, the grand scope of Life that we can maybe guess that we know. I looked at the stars that are born and burn out, at the non-negotiable need we will always have for food and water, at the preference for paper towels versus cloth towels, and for this paper towel versus another, at the desire for digital versus analog, the compulsion towards the 87th pair of $160 jeans, the kid starving in the apartment on that side of town that you'll never see, at the bodies thrown in mass graves in at least 37 different countries at any given moment, at the militia-led mass rapes and murders, at the director in a townhouse in New York filming 67 takes of that couple walking down a staircase until he gets it just right, at the girl who just gave that guy oral sex because she felt she'd be doing something wrong if she didn’t, and it's all a lot of different hands flitting about in a frenzy, fussing over different objects and colors and yet it's all the same, and it's all riding on the same feelings.<br /><br />I looked at the duck whose mate was just run over in the street and who stands there, still, among the racing cars on either side that could also end him at any given moment, and he stands there, standing against every one of his instincts. He doesn't know what happened to his mate, but he knows something has gone wrong.</div><div><br /></div><div>And I heard about the family of ducks in the hotel in Nashville, who ride an elevator twice a day, chaperoned by a nice bellhop, to soak in a fountain, and then back up the elevator at night to sleep on a nice rooftop.<br /><br />I looked at how I didn’t respond to his last email before he took his life.<br /><br />I looked at how I would try to save it, and the trying is precisely what would cause it to fail.<br /><br />I looked at how I didn't try, didn't even think about it, never once cared, and it would come to me like it was born in my hand. And how once I looked and then started walking towards it, it crashed and burned. </div><div><br /></div><div>I looked at how I may be the magnifying glass to my own excruciating scorching sun, and I'm singeing ants every step of my way, wherever I turn my gaze.<br /><p>And I was left with: None of it matters.</p><p>If all is forgiven in the end, and then if it’s not, and then if there is something vague and nebulous and ethereal with spirit, and then if there is nothing, and then if we are only biology with something brightly firing in our brains, and then if there is nothing beyond the something, and then if there is something when there could be nothing, and then if we are reborn, and then if we repeat the same life over and over, and then if we have a chance to not repeat but we slip into whats comfortable and could, but do not, avoid repeating it, and then if she was a big deal in another life, and then if I can never change my neural pattern pathways, and then if this was destined, and then if there could be no other way, and then if there was supposed to be another way and I couldn’t cut it, and then if the angels were calling my name the whole time but I got the signals crossed, and then if the devil were only inside of me, and then if I were Jesus but never believed it and I lost it for all of us, and then if He actually <em>was</em> just a human being, and then if God isn’t even something that talks to us, and then if we never see each other again after we die, and then if I pray silently but God respects the privacy of my mind and doesn't listen to any of it, and then if all of my prayers are wrong and selfish anyways, and then if we aren’t even real, or aren't actually seeing each other now, and then if there’s an infinite number of me and you, and an infinite number of possible worlds, and then if I’m in the version where I’ll never be happy in love, and then if my thoughts reach a critical mass that cause your actions, and then if you were born with a stronger will than mine and I can't do anything about it, and then if each of us has created all of us, then,</p>Then, I thought, as I curled my hair in my stark white bathroom, and (empty) put on my lip gloss, switching tops and (empty) checking my hair in the mirror again, getting ready to go out, and feeling (empty) any and all possible meaning to my life receding back just like the tide (empty) right before a tsunami hits,<br /><br />Then, If I’m going to get old, and all of this will fade, and something that is not me will take my place, and nothing I can contribute will ever cause a tidal change to the world, and I’m too scared and so without hope to even try,<br /><br />then what do you do, if you choose to stay here, in your life, on earth, and live it out?<br /><br />What do you do?<br /><br />You do what you want, at every given moment that you possibly can.<br /><br />You do what you want desperately to do, but are afraid to do for fear of repercussion.<br /><br /><div>You do what you have been taught not to do but have always wanted to do, always sensed is just plain fine and rational to do, that you don't even consider doing anymore, somehow, or, ever. </div><br />You do what you've just accepted, earlier, as wrong or bad, but that, upon reflection, is actually normal, healthy, or at the very least, typical. You get the tattoo, and you sleep with the guy for only one night, and you adopt the baby on your own, and you quit the job, and you move, penniless, to New York, and you get the other tattoo, and you submit the headshot, and you ask out the girl, and you write that one verse of a song that you’re afraid your band mates will ridicule you for, and you don’t apply the sunblock because you actually don’t care about skin cancer, and you call in sick, and you dye it blonde, and you say “I’m not coming” to your dad, and you buy the fully-loaded model, and you move to the farm in Pennsylvania, and you order it with whipped cream.<br /><br />You take out the loan on the assumption that you’re going to be around tomorrow to pay it off. </div><div><br /></div><div>And each morning you awake, in the same spot, in the same body, and it's yours. </div><div>It's yours. </div><div><br /></div><div>And it's all, all a loan that will be called at any second, but you have to buy the fact that it's an endless trust fund.<br /><br /><br /></div></div></div>Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-8298194759477680782011-01-29T22:30:00.015-06:002011-01-29T23:57:32.169-06:00"That confirms it, then."("<em>can't believe I got so far with a head so empty</em>...")<br /><br />I've permitted myself such not-greatness.<br /><br />When an education in the classics was standard, generations and masses of people did great things, thought, felt, believed great things. <br /><br />Where did that go?<br /><br />If you permit randomness, you will express randomness. If you permit greatness, you'll express greatness. There can be no other way. What goes in, must come out, and you cannot make something from nothing. And all other applicable cliches (read: truths) that apply....<br /><br />This is what stands for all the rage, the frustration. <br />I haven't had the hardness I required, so I became hard on myself. No matter what, it was supposed to be there. Whether they extolled it or whether I inculcated it, it was meant to exist, irrespective of author, irrespective of agent. It was supposed to exist in the air, between me and them, and because they couldn't give it, I introduced it. And I think I still need much, much more.<br /><br />His dignity is what compels me most. For all the wealth of pain, abuse, embarassment, and agony, there was an impenetrable core that carried through, with enough exuberance to permit a full life, to permit tenderness and dedication and commitment. That's what grounds you, that's what permits compassion, permits loyalty, permits servitude, promotes leadership. This is what causes you to triumph. The worst thing you can do is spare someone of these challenges. These, coupled with the legacy that is an education, are the soil filled with the most nutrients. Look at the alternative. <br /><br />Compassion is what permits instant wealth of intelligence, when there may be none in exercise. You go from human and finite to Godly and Infinite in one choice. One.choice.<br /><br />The world, Life, God, is not standing there, chaperoning your choices. Life looks to you <em>as</em> God, as the ultimate arbiter, as the ultimate Executive Decision, and there is no veto. None. Not regarding the decisions that matter the very most. It all, all of it, stands aside and actually says "You're right." Life is a Yes Man. So you better watch.your.fucking.ass. You better have a great cabinet at your disposal. You better have the most trusted advisors who will say when they disagree, and you better get over yourself and fuckinglisten. Because no one else is guarding what you permit. So be very.very.fucking.careful when handing out those permits.<br /><br />His face was pink, and dewy, but you only noticed this once they opened the door and you could see that it was raining. Then his face came into focus and it had meaning. The one said "The Duke is terribly busy." The other opened the door, and what was meant was, "You are to leave." The rain was falling hard just outside that opened door.<br />--I wanted to caress his drooping face; because what else could my role, towards him, be? And I wouldn't even know how to do that. <br />I failed at that. I failed at my role.<br /> But I was supposed to fail at that. <br /><br />It's very comfortable to me. The linens. The shined shoes. The hairpins. The jewelry. The starch. The stiffness. The propriety. The decorum. The distance. The maintenance of that distance, because what underlies that distance, is the overwhelmingness, the feelings of it all, the bravery, the dignity, the sadness, the concern, the etiquette, the divinity, the legacy, the heritage, the pride, the servitude, the faith, the leadership. Service requires servants. There is no other way. I am fond of these things I've seen. <br /><br />The grandness of that entrance hall made me want to break down and cry. When I visit it, I'll be sure to go alone so that no one causes me to compromise my time there, to be spent staring up at the ceilings, for hours, for certain.<br /><br />"It's supposed to be this way."<br />The guy coughing to the left of me. My mom kicking my heel accidentally as she shifts in her seat. The guy who asked us, as I knew he would, 'could you please move down a seat, if you don't mind?' which caused me to have to look away from the screen just as the back-ground info was up. It was all supposed to be this way. This is what gives me comfort and peace, no matter how frustrating, no matter how annoying, no matter how rage-inducing, no matter how sad. "It is all supposed to be this way". Because, were I to think otherwise, is an agony - given all the possibilities of what could have been - it's an agony that I can no longer afford to feel. <br /><br />So this is why arrogance is, shall we say, suggested against? Why humility and tolerance are advocated. Why patience is proposed, but why gentle encouragement, accountability, especially, are emphasized. "To live in expectancy, not expectation."<br /><br />The truth is that I'd been looking for any excuse to leave it. To leave all of it, all of this, behind. Any chance I get, I may still take. <br /><br />How far off is that? Not far off. <br /><br />It's not too far, it's not so impossible, it's not so improbable. I guess this means, I'm still looking to be saved. From....? And how? And by whom? And how good, honestly, would that be? How wise would it really be? Are we so weak that we cannot help but to beg for salvation from our own choices? <br /><br />Or is it just me?<br /><br />I learned the absolute worst lessons from him. It's as though I shook off anything that was good - what would that have been again, anyway? - and absorbed only the worst. I cannot afford to soak up like that anymore, from any of them. The next one has to be a fucking maverick at life. It's just too expensive otherwise. <br /><br />That's why the Year. "It has to start somewhere. It has to start some time. What better place than here? What better time than now?" It's to be prepared. It's to know the only thing that matters, until I find something new that can matter on top of that. <br /><br />"I would stand in line for this...it's always good in life, for this...."Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-78544826592947576682011-01-25T18:37:00.000-06:002011-01-25T22:33:15.382-06:00How-To Remember You Are a Human BeingIf we didn't laugh, where would we all be?<br />Joan Rivers<br /><br /><br />So it's funny.<br /><br />It's funny as hell:<br /><br />"So, what I'm basically asking is, Would your life be better off without me in it?"<br /><br />"...(two days later).....Yes."<br /><br />"<strong><em>WHAT?! </em></strong><br /><br /><strong><em>WHAT</em>?!</strong> I didn't mean that! I take it back, here'swhyIloveyouandhere'swhyIcan'tlivewithoutyouImeanitallreallyquicklynow!"<br /><br />"...But I think we should see other people.<br /><br />"OHMYGODthenhere'swhereIdidyouwrongitwasallmyfaultI'lltakealltheblame!!It'scalledanAmendstheydotheseinAAwhichbythewayI'vestartedattendingeventhoughIcompletelydonothaveadrinkingproblembutI'llstilltakethe blamefor<em><strong>EVERYTHING</strong></em>!!!!!!............<br /><br />...............<br /><br />...............(two hours later).................<br /><br />---How do you feel now? --You want to come back, right? You got that 8-page email I sent, right? And that letter in the mail you got that too right? How do you feel about it all? Want to talk about it?"<br /><br />"....(silence...three-month-long silence and counting...and I'll be counting forever....so I've stopped counting....)...."<br /><br /><br />So, it's funny.<br /><br />It's <em>actually</em> funny.<br /><br />Because if it's not, then I'd have to kill myself.<br /><br />(I think I may still have to leave town though)<br /><br /><br />It said,<br />"love what is to come by loving what has come before", which I was able to do for about a month. ("No matter how far we've fallen, our experience will still prove to be beneficial to others." --- Excuse me, but why the FUCK DO I HAVE TO FAIL SO THAT SOMEONE ELSE CAN STILL NOT LISTEN TO ME AND FUCK THEIR SITUATION UP AND THEN NO MATTER WHAT I'M STILL WITHOUT THAT WHICH I JUST FUCKING WANT? Why the fuck can't I just win at this, Goddamnit!?!....WHEWdeepbreathsdeepbreathsSerenityPrayerAAmeetingsprayingonmykneeswhewaddanothermeetingoreightfor goodmeasure....) and then something switched. Because when I was praying "Your Will, God, not mine," I felt the most intense and constant sadness. My conscience was flooded with grief and guilt, and even when I was able to calm my mind about it all, the grief was so full up in my stomach that I didn't have space for food, so I dropped 15 pounds in two weeks.<br /><br />At work, at times, it got to be so much, barely even thinking about it, that I would be choking back tears, suddenly, in the middle of phone calls. I'd have to get up from my desk and go to the bathroom to get on my knees to pray to relieve it. Or take a walk outside. Or take a walk outside and sit on these church steps and pray and then still go to the bathroom to get on my knees to pray. And there was temporary relief, but not enough. Because I still thought that he was right about it all. And that was destroying me. I had to switch things in my mind, or else literally, I may as well have jumped off the fucking roof. Why? Because what kind of organism deserves to believe that their existence is a fucking mistake? and that everything in their head is evil? (Fuck you.) When that relationship ended, I felt like a murderer. I had to remind myself "you're not a murderer. and even if you've committed fucking genocide, you hold your head high."<br /><br />So even if I'd had to completely adjust my morality and reality, then fuck it - I'm cutting the cord to what came before. Because I can't live a life in which the greatest sadnesses in my life are due to some major error in my very being.<br />Fuck it, and fuck you.<br />Cut the cord. <br /><br />Here's a little tip from me to you:<br />Creative Destruction.<br />Aka, Not knowing how to get the fuck out of a situation without bombing it and burning it all down to ashes around me. <br />So, creative destruction. Let the forest burn so that the next one has a chance to grow.<br />Here's to the next one and knowing how to say "No, I disagree. Get away from me" sooner rather than fire-ier.<br /><br />I didn't know how to not judge myself. I saw "him" as "Him". And it was either, Him, with that capitol H, and I die, or Me, with a capitol "M-E" and I live. So I feel alive, and I move forward, but it feels like there's a price, like something got lost in the process. I could be wrong about how I went about this; I may have skipped over the grief. ("she skipped over her grief, and she tapped into her pain.")<br /><br />But then that begs the question: Who is in charge of how sad I am and for how long? Someone or something other than me? I wondered if the point of all the sadness, the constant feeling of it, was to prevent rage later on. ---WHOOPS!!----(loading shotgun)<br /><br />He is, no matter what anyone says, and no matter what I experienced of him, an inherently valuable human being. I can say this honestly, from a very neutral standpoint. I've always had the ability to do this, to suspend self in order to understand the value in another, and yes, that's a pat on the fucking back about it. But to do this after a break-up? Youmustbefuckingkidding. Commence Wiki-hows: How To Get Over A Break-Up. ("write out a list - and don't be forgiving! - about why it is for the best that you are no longer together, and why it could never have worked.") Wiki-how: How To Get Closure. Wiki-how: How To Overcome Depression. How To Overcome Serious Regret. How To Forgive Yourself. How To Get a Guy To Like You. ----Whoops! -- How'd that one get in there? (delete delete)<br /><br />It is possible to see myself without blame, without all the guilt I've taken on from this thing, so unnecessarily so. We were two separate people, and we were too separate people, and these things often just don't work, and neither one should ultimately take it personally. I'm just a human being. He's just a human being. These things sometimes just don't work.<br /><br />When I asked him, while we were still dating, if he still talks to his exes, he said yes, but just for casual stuff, birthdays and such on Facebook. It was only after we broke up that I actually checked out pictures of his ex-es. ("....uh,....<em>really?</em>.... and, you, pursued, and then, dated, me?....<br /><br />...Why?")<br /><br />I said,<br />"I don't; I don't talk to any of my exes.<br />Too volatile."<br /><br />And that's the end.<br /><br /><br />The majority of the gold from this situation, as it now stands, is in my head. There was a gold-mine of information, revelation, and beauty to be gleaned from this, and the reason why is entirely because I am a great thinker about things. This stands as fact, and yes, I perceive this to be humility on my part, as long as you define humility as "a healthy awareness of one's divinity."<br /><br />I had a dream once in which I was a clone, in direct competition, in a very small bio dome, with other clones. We had to climb huge blue structures, and the goal, the meaning, was to get to the top. When I did, I was pushing off other girls, to their death. I have moments every so often in life, in which I feel like that dream's horror is a reality. And it's not even in moments of competition; that sensation will arrive at what seems like an un-related time; thinking about a nail polish color; thinking about a better notebook to buy. That's the last feeling I want, and yet, at many times, I have the thought "I want to be the best."<br />But not at the expense of anyone else.<br /><br />The converse of this, is that a few years ago, the only thing I wanted to do was to sacrifice. I wanted to be the one to take the hit, I wanted to be the one to suffer so that no one else would have to. I don't know if that was me at my most intelligent, or me at my least healthy. I don't know that I'll ever "receive" a definite answer ("there are no answers. there are only choices.") And that not knowing, is what scares me the most: that my choices in life will not be judged until it's too late. Or that they won't be judged at all, which is perhaps more unnerving.<br /><br />---this is what terrifies me: that I'm so broken down, that my doubts, my absolute disbelief that I'll ever, ever get what I want - that in fact, by proxy, I cannot help but to view life as something where I'll never get the very things I want most --- that this belief, which shows itself at the core every time I think something good (and thus, untrue) is headed my way, is going to drive me to the breaking point... or to something else, like...compromise... or mediocrity...or safety, in some things that are not at all what I find meaningful or the ultimate. "when happiness shows up, give it a comfortable seat" but I doubt that these things are real...I doubt so resolutely when it even appears that I could have something beautiful, that when that thing doesn't materialize, the pressure on me, that I've broken it, with my very thoughts, with my very beliefs, my negative beliefs, my doubts is....crushing. that I'm the one bringing about my own hell, and there's no one and no thing that can stop me. this is killing me. (I cannot exit my own mind) ---- (i am having to re-define heaven and hell and frankly this is too much fucking pressure for one small cell)<br /><br />and I think of April of 2007.<br />my apartment on Dearborn.<br />being in my bathroom, having thought about Jesus, thinking only about Jesus, at that time, as I had been doing for months, weeks, hours, minutes, all the time. thinking about how unfair it would be that those who didn't decide to accept Him were condemned to hell. and I thought, "then, if they can't go to Heaven, then I'll suffer in hell with them."<br /><br />and the tide that rushed in....<br /><br />the emotional high that I rode, from that moment.....<br /><br />I don't know if it was God or the devil that was standing up and applauding me harder.... but I heard that applause, I felt that ovation, as if the entirety of the universe, all angels, God, Jesus, everyone I'd been thinking of for months, were cheering for me.<br /><br />and four years later, I am washed up on the beach of that decision.<br /><br />because if it's all only what we believe, then what did I just lock myself into? to whom did I just give my soul?<br /><br />(when their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone<br />they shall have stars at elbow and foot<br />though they go mad they shall be sane.<br />Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again<br />though lovers be lost, love shall not<br />and death shall have no dominion. dylan thomas)<br /><br />(what will purify this from me? can this be undone? do I want it to be, ultimately? ---is this a sacrifice that actually exists? and if so, is there a relief from it at some point? what did I commit myself to....)<br /><br />"the only sin is to act against yourself...."<br /><br />("oh sinnerman, where you gonna run to.... where you gonna run to.... the rock cried out 'I can't hide you'....")<br /><br />My wishes, when I'd blow out candles, would literally be "May everyone around me find happiness in love, even if it means I can't."<br />I'm tired of wishing for this--- know why? Because it's still in anyone else's hands to fuck up their situation. My stepping out of line makes no difference for anyone else's happiness.<br /><br />I don't know that I fully "feel" or "think" that I deserve the things I want. But I do recognize that the time to stop feeling and thinking this way, is now. I don't know how you undo this kind of damage that exists in your mind. Exorcism? (I'm not kidding.) Retreats to Buddhist sanctuaries? Extended stays on ashrams? Working at orphanages? Readings and meditations on the Guru Gita? How does it get to this point, where you disbelieve you deserve what you want, when you want wonderful, beautiful things? And if that's not the question that matters, then what is the answer to the one that does matter:<br />how do I undo this?<br /><br /><br />I was riding it so well for a while. It was prayer in the morning, prayer in the evening, it was a conscience during the day that I reclaimed because it had absolutely been lost; because when I'd been dating him and I disagreed, I'd stay silent, and I'd let down those gate-posts in my mind. So when he left, he took <em>everything</em> with him. <em><strong>everything</strong></em>. I'd compromised, in the worst sense, my values. I didn't realize, until after my mind was gone, that my values <em><strong>are</strong></em> my mind. Each man being a philosopher, a custodian of a specific, valuable set of distinctions and judgments that actually ARE our membrane, and given that we have skins that separate us from each other, the letting down of those judgments? for the wrong people? fucking.disastrous. guaranteed disastrous. Sanity is the holding up of those judgments. If I burn those gates, those judgments, then the flood comes, and when the reason for that burning leaves, then everything that was protected by those gates, goes with it. I know this for a fact. ("fire and water damage? we've changed our policy limits on those...") It's the worst possible way to be burned, and the guarantee is that you will always be burned. Personal philosophy is such a...nebulous thing. Perhaps I need to sit down and write it all out: "I do not agree with x. I think that y is a bad thing. Z is permissible but only under these circumstances." Because when I said "well.....ok..." to all of those, cart-blanche, I both knew what it was to love without judgment, and I lost my mind. Those are two sides of the same coin. I ceased to be an individual, and I was nothing that could recognize nor be recognized. <br /><br />I wonder, often, what that means for me, for the future.<br />It feels like an eternity, each day, to be so hyper-aware of time, and to recognize that I may not be ready for anything remotely like that, for a very, very long time. ---I cannot fathom that it's been only three months since this happened - haven't at least 6 years passed? - why does my face still look young... ---<br /><br />In the past, I didn't think about it: if something ended, that was fine, and I lived my life day to day and the time flew by and I had fun and it was onto the next thing.<br /><br />But lately it's like a mania... I wonder if declaring a desire for family and kids has placed this unnecessary pressure on myself. Now there's a (time)bomb and it's ticking like a motherfucker. It has to have, because before, when I never thought about those things with agenda, when I hadn't said 'yes' to those things, no deadline existed. And now I feel like I'm going to die, at least once a day, I will do something with absolutely no.possible.fucking.link.to.mortality (like adding a song to my 'favorites' on fucking Youtube, and literally, my reaction is "oh, now that I'm compiling the music I like, I'm going to die tomorrow.") , so the heat is on. Literally.<br /><br />So, I've released myself from it. I can't take the fucking pressure.<br />All it took was an afternoon at a diner, and I happened to be seated near a table of kids, and I thought "My God, that is NOT what I want." At least not any time soon. (Of course I say that, but with the right person, this could all be thrown out the window and I could want to get pregnant <em>likethat</em>.) It all seems to revolve around a person. On my own? As my own free agent? No. Last thing I want. <br /><br /><br /><p>I don't know how to wrap this up cleanly, so.....</p><p>this is How To: Be a Human Being. </p><p>"Welcome, Jessica."</p><p>(Are you sure you want to continue?)<br /></p>Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-30511346804462531192010-12-30T23:04:00.003-06:002010-12-30T23:20:52.791-06:00Much(it's all coming back to me)<br /><br />to know that you can be aloof, and say, and do some things, and not need affirmation or confirmation because you know exactly who you are, and people cleave to you, and praise you, and affirm you, precisely because you do not need it.<br /><br />" '...this is all you got? what's it going to be like when we're married?' " he said, and I howled with laughter. <br /><br />"they'd rather believe that they did something wrong, to deserve this abuse, then to consider that their parent didn't love them." (and I cried)<br /><br />"this is what you do, at the end of a long day, you come to sit at a cafe, outside, and it's like a game, between who watches and who is being watched."<br /><br />"I'm alright<br />I won't be sorry<br />but it's true<br />and when I'm gone<br />you'll realize<br />that I'm the best thing<br />to happen to you"<br /><br />I didn't think I could feel this good. This is what has been missing all along? -- Then, that first night, when I left and described it as ________, what I was describing was me, that night, in that moment, that series of moments. Throwing up all my junk at this person. -- which is what I had done to him. (think of all the things I am leaving out by writing this instead of those)<br /><br />I didn't think I could feel this good. So this is what it feels like.Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-18716757265125687612010-12-15T09:26:00.002-06:002010-12-15T09:28:44.759-06:00Who are you?Your fear is because you don't know who you are. So, who are you?<br /><br />1. I am a thinker.<br />2. I am a writer.<br />3. I search for the truth.<br />4. I want to do what is right.<br />5. I love beauty.<br />6. I love kindness.<br />7. I love art.<br />8. I love books.<br />9. I love learning.<br />10. I love poetry.<br />11. I love laughter.<br />12. I love travelling.<br />13. I love music.<br />14. I love painting.<br />15. I love movies.<br />16. I love fashion.<br />17. I love political philosophy.<br />18. I love Jesus.<br />19. I love Alexander the Great: strength, courage, fearlessness, character, principles, skill, tenacity, determination, leadership, unification/assimilation of ideas/cultures, i.e., what connects us is what counts; not what divides us or separates us.<br />20. I love being an artist. It's who I am.<br />21. I love strength.<br />22. I love standing for something.<br />23. I love taking something negative and reframing it so that the beauty underneath is what shines through, and is the thing that is taken away.<br />24. I love animals.<br />25. I love affection.<br />26. I love forgiveness.<br />27. I love orgasms.<br />28. I love good food.<br />29. I love good wine.<br />30. I love passion.<br />31. I love who I am.<br />32. I love choosing to love someone.<br />33. I love smelling amazing.<br />34. I love being clean.<br />35. I love being outside.<br />36. I love inspiration.<br />37. I love helping people who genuinely need it.<br />38. I love spiritual connections.<br />39. I love honesty when it is intended for good.<br />40. I love silence, at the right times.<br />41. I love talking in bed at night.<br />42. I love revelations about who I am.<br />43. I love spiritual insight.<br />44. I love when God reveals to me some aspect of the nature of existence.<br />45. I love purpose.<br />46. I love dedication.<br />47. I love conviction, for positive purpose.<br />48. I love education.<br />49. I love caffeine.<br />50. I love cleanliness.Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-54552259610162011992010-12-10T18:31:00.007-06:002010-12-12T13:11:42.726-06:00Go Forth1. "From the moment I fell down that rabbit hole I've been told who I must be. I've been shrunk, stretched, scratched, and stuffed into a teapot. I've been accused of being Alice and of not being Alice but this is MY dream and I'LL decide where it goes from here."<br /><br />"If you diverge from the path - "<br /><br />"I MAKE the path."<br /><br /><br />2. "Have I gone mad?"<br /><br />"I'm afraid so. You're entirely bonkers. But I shall tell you a secret. All the best people are."<br /><br /><br />Something very exciting inspired me today at work.<br /><br />Months ago, during the previews for a film at a theater, I saw an ad for a Levi's commercial for <a href="http://15104.cc/braddock/"><span style="color:#ff0000;">Braddock, Pennysylvania</span></a>. It was immensely compelling to me, for a variety of reasons.<br /><br />All my life, I've tried to understand the big questions: who are we? why are we here? what is the nature of existence?<br /><br />As I grew older, and was exposed to different ways of thinking, coupled with certain threads of discovery and wonder that I'd appreciated since childhood, I started to think in these terms: is it possible we are divine? that, there's no set reality, now nor in the afterlife? that it's all what we believe? well, how do you develop the best beliefs? what makes us happy, and how is this tied into our belief system? can we liberate ourselves from a certain locked reality? what are the consequences of doing this? and how do you reconcile our divinity to our humanity? how do you meet heaven with earth?<br /><br />For so long - still, now - I have searched for the meaning of life.<br /><br /><br />I've discovered, Don't complicate it. Don't ruin it by overthinking. Do what makes you happy. Address needs. Know whom to admire. Know yourself. Get rid of what doesn't work. Don't let anyone fuck with your happiness.<br /><br /><br />I was raised Jewish. There's a very critical concept in Judaism called Tikkun. It means, correction, or really, "the repairing of the world." That there is work to be done in our lives, not because it is Biblical law, but because it prevents social chaos. We have to work to restore order.<br /><br /><br />I've always been resistant to work. Homework. Chores. Schoolwork. Actual work, like, at jobs. I can do it when I have to, or when there's a purpose, but just to do it? Or because someone asked? No. My rebelliousness, my disobedience, my refusal to be disciplined has destroyed me. I couldn't be broken, I couldn't do the job. And I wonder why I am where I am, with the little education I have, with the little money I make, and why I can't do pull-ups. Well, I haven't put in the work. And it's always what has actually made me the most happy. My mom always said it was true, and she's been right: hard work is what makes you happy.<br /><br /><br />I fell in love with Jesus in my twenties. From an intellectual perspective, and from a human perspective, it was especially for these reasons: that he believed in equality for men and women. That he believed in sacrifice. That He represents what we possibly, probably are: Divine. That we are God(s), come to earth. That we have incredible powers that we need only open our eyes, to see. That we must protect our thoughts, because those are what define and cause everything else. That when he said "I am the Truth, the Light and the Way," what He meant was, "View yourself as I view MYSELF." Whoever has the innate capacity to say "I Am" - which is anything that exists - is God. Is also the child of God. Is immortal and protected, and is created to be good, and cannot be destroyed. That there are ways to undo pain and loss and destruction.<br /><br /><br />I recently went through a hard break-up because I was not taking care of myself, and had not addressed some very serious needs that I'd been avoiding for years. I was always trying, and failing, at doing it on my own. I had been so afraid, ever since I'd first heard the concept, of "giving myself over to God", because it seemed to me like handing over your brain and your soul to something that I knew literally, nothing of. Something about it frightened me in the same way that a person who knows they're sick, is afraid of going to the doctor; where awareness is more frightening than the disease itself. But as years have passed, and I've seen first-hand my poor choices, and how much I've defeated my own happiness, and how much my mind, upon overthinking, and obsessing, has gotten in the way of my actions, of doing the things that will bring me happiness, I've had to admit that it was mostly God who was bringing me anything good, and it was mostly me who was chasing down all the wrong things and destroying what God gifted to me. It got so bad, because of this break-up, that I hit the lowest point that I'd been, since two years ago when a loved one passed away. I found myself crying, again, uncontrollably, and saying to God, "I give up."<br /><br /><br />I had put all my eggs in one basket of a chance for happiness, and had no idea I was doing so. And I realized, not for the first time, that one person's attention was not enough to satisfy this huge void inside of me. I have come to accept the fact that I need to spread the wealth in order to survive and more importantly, thrive. Direct it at a variety of things and places and people, because otherwise, I destroy what I love. The energy I'm capable of directing at one person is so intense, that no human being could handle it. No one should - because if they could, it would mean they're as broken as me. And I get frustrated, and so angry, when I direct it at someone who IS healthy enough to be able to say "this is too much for me." So, I can no longer afford to do this, because, I am what I love. And if I love you and hurt you, then I've hurt myself.<br /><br />So what did I pray for, only days ago? The chance to work, to rebuild, to direct my energies towards something that needs it, instead of trying to create a need, in an unhealthy way, in someone. I want to go where the best parts of myself could be wanted, and maybe even needed.<br /><br /><br />Seemingly off-topic, but is not:<br />I knew very little about Alexander the Great until a few years ago, when he crept up on me by way of a variety of different influences. I'd heard of him when I was younger, and never learned enough to be impressed to learn more. Why was he suddenly so compelling to me, later in life? Because he believed he was half God. And as my cousin once explained, when we were discussing how thought affects action, "He thought he was a God, so he acted like a God." I immersed myself in learning about him. I became enamored with one particular story of how Alexander tamed a particularly striking but stubborn stallion, whom no one else could tame. Alexander's unique insight - demonstrated in seed form at the age of 12 - was that there was a reason this horse was so unmanageable: he was afraid of his own shadow. Alexander turns the stallion towards the sun so that he cannot see his shadow, and is able to soothe him enough to climb up. He rides him straight across the fields to the awe of all the grown men around him, and when he returns to the cheering crowd, his father, King Phillip, rejoices to Alexander, "My son, ask for yourself a new kingdom, for that which I leave is too small for you." Alexander goes on to conquer the known world. And imagine that, when he was a boy, he had once complained to a friend, "My father has done everything! There is no frontier left for me to conquer."<br /><br /><br />Seemingly off-topic, but is not:<br />About two years ago, I was at another particularly dark point, when I began painting, out of "nowhere." It was completely cathartic, and nothing, literally, nothing made me feel as good, then to decide on certain colors, and to pick out a canvas, and get to work, and see what unfolds; because though I start off with one thing in mind, it ends up somewhere else, and it works. One day I was thinking about painting, feeling a desire for more, and I let my mind wander to the furthest reaches of what would be possible for my art; the biggest declaration, the loudest expression. Using a brush? Not enough. Throwing paint at the canvas? Close, but not enough room to do this in any given house. I wanted to shoot the canvas with paint, essentially, and literally capture what comes out through the other side. What I imagined, required a building that would have to be an abandoned warehouse. But, a) where would I find such a building? and b) how on earth could I afford it?<br /><br />For months I've been thinking of how it might be, to get to some place, maybe in Pennsylvania or someplace in the east, and work on a farm, maybe move in with a family, and learn discipline. To really work. To start over, to learn how to plant, to learn how to grow, to wake up every day, and to go outside, and to put in effort. To push myself, and to know that at the end of the day, I gave it my all. I look at my life and my clothes and toiletries and cell phone and I think of red tape and bureaucracy and taxes and paperwork and I just want to escape to something very, very simple. Very fundamental. Very literal. Where I plant a seed, literally, and I lead a sibling life to that seed, as we grow. Where I learn what it means to build, rather than to destroy. Something outdoors. When I went camping two months ago, I found myself incredibly comfortable with the removal of all the comforts of modern life. I came home and stood in front of the bathroom mirror, and put my hands on the edge of the sink, and I didn't accept any of it. I was still in the woods, surrounded by an open sky, trees, leaves, and the smell of fire.<br /><br />At my job, lately, there hasn't been as much work to do.<br />But there has been much mention of Pennsylvania because of the formation of a state licensure board, which is a big deal in the industry in which I work. Things hit a critical mass for me today, for these reasons: 1. there's a space, because there isn't much work to do, and 2. I had a desire - a space - to learn about something, to immerse my mind in something, because the thing that I've been so consumed with, is no longer occupying so much of my mind. I got a call from someone in Pennsylvania and it suddenly occured to me. I remembered the Braddock ad for Levi's, and how incredibly meaningful it was to me. And because Pennsylvania, for me, reached a frenzy, I decided to engage. And I researched it. And while I'm researching Braddock - literally, there's a picture of the mayor of Braddock, standing in an enormous, paint-peeled abandoned warehouse - my management team comes around with Christmas gifts for us. My office manager hands me a gold box with a red ribbon, from a place called Leonidas. I open it and I see four chocolates. And the one that immediately catches my eye, because I am so familiar with the outline, is the one engraved with the profile of Alexander the Great.<br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YyvOGKu6ds"><span style="color:#6600cc;">"Maybe the world breaks on purpose, so that we have work to do." </span></a><br /><br />There are people in all parts of the country headed to Braddock to focus on the things they enjoy, because they can purchase homes for dirt cheap and get enormous spaces and can do a different type of work. The mayor of Braddock is intent on ushering in a renaissance for the town and is drawing those specifically from the arts and green technology communities, because the potential - the space - is there. He has personally purchased abandoned warehouses and renovated them into residential lofts. He's housed at-risk teenagers there, who are too old for the foster care system. Artists have come to share studios and there's an organic farm that's being cultivated to feed the community.<br /><br />Here is a man who sees beauty in something broken, because he sees, not what is, but what could be.<br /><br />"We were taught how the pioneers went into the west.<br />They opened their eyes, and saw how things could be.<br />People think there aren't frontiers anymore. They can't see that frontiers are all around us."Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-37538109787530242402010-12-09T21:15:00.004-06:002010-12-09T23:45:07.859-06:00Oraculum1. I believe that the description has stopped, and the prescription has come.<br /><br />2. I did this once before; and I believe it's here again, for a reason. I'm going to fall back out of the marching line, and I'm going to sneak off into the woods, to find what is true, privately. And if it is what I think it is, then I'm going to share it.<br /><br />3. If the dream became a nightmare, then the only thing to do, is to choose myself into another part of the dream. It's not over, you know.<br /><br />3.5 I once wrote some instruction for myself, because it had been on my mind for so long, because I hated getting out of bed in the morning, because I had no purpose, "Find something, anything that makes me jump out of bed in the morning, ravenous, to chase down that thing, and make it mine." I'm now writing this as a sober reminder, after having ravenously chased down one thing, that it can never again be something that has free will. My sights have to be set on something that is nebulous, dynamic; interwoven; not constituted from one part or piece. This thing I chase, it can be something like a career, or a mission. Maybe in the future, it'll be my kids...only, I won't be ravenous to get them into existence. I'll permit it, I'll be willing, rather than willful. I'll just be... excited, to wake up, to serve them, to just have them be my joy. There isn't anything else that they should be. The thing that makes you jump out of bed? It shouldn't be anything else, except that which makes you just. plain. happy. And if you can't have what makes you happy, then be happy to have been blessed with a duty.<br /><br />1.5 The reason why it cannot be a person? Because that's called stalking.<br /><br />2. I had stopped feeling. It had been that way for a long time. I don't know when the feeling stopped, when the void began. My feelings came back to me this time, recently, as if from out of my body, out of my soul, like a cloud, like a fog. This is what enveloped me. I know this, because, when things ended, those feelings that were just hovering outside of me, suddenly rushed into the vacuum inside of me, and hit me like a bomb in the stomach. This is how I got the feelings back: through pain. Did I do this to myself, to get myself to feel again? Maybe. Was it a blessing in disguise? Maybe. Do I feel again? I feel pain, yes. I feel exuberance at times, yes. I feel guilt at times, yes. I seem to have found my conscience again. I know happiness is on its way, and by that, I mean strength. I think this is what was meant by "give myself over to the care and will of God."<br /><br />3. I recognize that this is also why I write, here. Why there's not really a curtain that I've been made aware of, as it pertains to my thoughts. No human man can handle this. I know this, because I'd consistently chosen all the ones that I thought were deep enough, broad enough, dynamic enough, intelligent enough, philosophical enough. None can encompass all of it. That's okay. God didn't intend me, in this specific respect, for one person. God intended me for all who care to hear it. Instead of whispering down one well, I will speak clearly into the universe, and hope some light reaches the farthest, darkest parts of an ever-expanding space.<br /><br />4. And I believe it is humility - which is a healthy awareness of my divinity - that permits me to make that statement.<br /><br />5. I perceive that if you can be completely open and candid with someone up front, then your relationship cannot get much deeper. You've "put your sins before you" and you are loved instantly, unconditionally. Imagine that. Instead of hiding, you've turned yourself inside out. You've become a sun extending light outward, instead of a black hole, always wondering why it's never, ever enough. The choice is ours. Imagine that.<br /><br />6. I know its right, and good, because I will think it, and something in my environment in that exact moment will reflect exactly what's on my mind. Miracles are instantaneous. God is faster than thought. This is how I know.<br /><br />7. The cracks run deep. They may never be totally healed, but I am going to do what I can, until I am able to do better, until I am able to do better than that, until I am able to do my best. I believe that scar tissue can be reversed. I have to. Entirely. I believe God can do that.<br /><br />8. "Did you have bad dreams again?"<br />"Only one. It's always the same, since I can remember. Do you think that's normal? Don't most people have different dreams?"<br /><br />9. "It's all happening so quickly. I think I...I need a moment."<br /><br />9.5 I wake up in the morning, and I drink a potion out of a small bottle, and I fancy myself, for an instant, a bit like Alice. I am then able to see things differently. Then I get on my knees, and remind myself, to God, that I am out of control in God's absence. And that I'm going to let God take care of me, and do for myself what I cannot do on my own. When I fail to make this pledge in the morning, then I've chosen to not be human.<br /><br />10. "She's the right one. I'm certain of it."<br /><br />10.5 "How can I be the wrong Alice when this is MY dream? I ought to know who I am."<br />"Yes, you OUGHT, you stupid girl."<br /><br />10.75 "It's only a dream. Nothing can hurt me. You can't hurt me. You can't hurt me."<br /><br />11. I denied my existence, my humanity, for decades. 3 to be exact. Then I chose, one day. I said, "I want to be human." This permits me to say "I want children," and what I mean by that, is, "It's okay by me, that one day I'll die."<br /><br />12. I understood why he didn't want his daughter around. It's because he thought he was poison. It had nothing to do with the schooling in this country or any other excuse he could have argued. It had to do with him being terrified of passing on whatever he perceived as his illness, to something that didn't deserve it. This is what sickness teaches you: that you're incurable and that you deserve to be all alone. You'll know you're in the presence of illness when there's no hope to be found, and all you want to do is isolate. That's not God talking to you. That's something else. It's a black hole. It's called <em>shame</em>. It is only by drawing that line in the sand, that you declare "I have a chance. There IS room for me to grow. I AM forgiven, I DO deserve love, I CAN love." Anything that tells you otherwise, is a lie and must leave at once. This is where greatest joy is highest truth.<br /><br />12.5 "You were much more...muchier. You've lost your muchness. In <em>there</em>... something's missing."<br /><br />13. Humans used to live in peril. There used to be so much more danger. We are overwhelmingly a lot more lucky, a lot more has been established, rules and institutions and laws and such, that have been put into place and into practice, that permits us to walk about safely. And yet, we imagine such dangers. We imagine such adventures, and such perils. But we imagine great beauty, and tenderness, and fantasy, as well. What does this mean? That what we need, we create.Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-81400518514704040202010-12-09T13:07:00.007-06:002010-12-09T14:33:21.798-06:00The Pure That's Left1. I'm trying to see things from your point of view. And then I'm trying to view things from a better version of my own point of view. You know what I'm left with? A gold mine. You can't take any more credit for this than I can, because we were born to do this. Our actions were present at our birth. Every single one of us. We were all seeds, growing together, and all the grounds and nutrients and rains and sunshine and storms and even animal urine, everything that is happening was meant to happen, meant to influence. There were indications along the way, and we chose to see what we wanted, and to ignore what we wanted. I don't want to ignore any more. I choose to see.<br /><br />3. We're no longer looking together. And that's totally fine.<br /><br />4. It's funny to me that guys I've dated previously, actually provided more warning for me about their successors, than the successors themselves. They weren't aware that they were doing this. I am grateful for this. After it's all been burned away, this is the pure that remains.<br /><br />5. I've been wrong before. I'm going to be wrong again. I'm grateful. Because if I were always right.... man, that would be a BAAADDDDD thing.<br /><br />6. The rubber bands are headed in the right direction.<br /><br />7. We are attracted to people and to things. If we don't think about why, and we then we keep coming up against the same problems. Thinking. Thinking and reflecting, critically. I need to learn more about how to do this well. I'm sick of not learning the same lessons, so, I'm drawing the line in the sand.<br /><br />8. We honor ourselves and others when we practice what we know is true. When we discard it, everyone suffers a huge, huge pain in the ass. <br /><br />9. But... God is great because Life takes that pain in the ass, and creates a hemorrhoid cream, that requires a plant, and employees, to gain wages, manufacturing that cream. So, there, hemorrhoids. BOOM. Done. Talk about making lemonade out of assholes.<br /><br />10. It was fun, actually, for a little while. Because I don't do drugs, and because I love to distort my consciousness, getting the world to revolve completely around you, though no small feat, was a really cool way to view things for a bit. I reached heights and depths that... no average human, I think, would be willing to spend their time and energy on. It's obvious to me, from this, that a) I actually have happiness to spare, because I'm so ready to take on, temporarily, a lot of sadness and pain, as if it's like, extra dishes to wash or books to carry, and b) I obviously have a lot of fight in me. Maybe I wasn't too far off on that whole joining the Marines thing....<br /><br />11. I appreciate your presence in my life for what it was. But to be honest, I brought this on myself. You didn't ask for any of this; I obviously knew, deep down, that I needed to walk this path. You were an innocent bystander, so, I'm glad that you've been able to walk away from this pretty unscathed. It's better that you had such a low tolerance, otherwise, this might have affected you negatively. But back to me. (haha). I am glad you were persistent. I am glad that I caved and decided to take you up. God was eagerly rubbing his hands together at that point, saying "okay, I think she's ready to be honest with herself. I think she's ready to be cool."<br /><br />12. I think this really was all about the fact that I need a better job.Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-59413427643089951312010-12-08T21:56:00.003-06:002010-12-08T22:06:04.277-06:00I need a title1. "Phew. --For a minute there, I lost myself."<br /><br />2. The truth? The truth is, it has to revolve around me. <br /><br />3. Sink or swim. You judge yourself on how you're swimming? You're going to fucking drown. Just. fucking. swim.<br /><br />4. "Are you a man or are you a bag of sand?"<br /><br />5. We'll never know, and that's the fucking point. <br /><br />6. God is a huge child with the most established sense of humor in the universe. S/he doesn't want to be found, but s/he wants to be sought, and wants us to do this with all our might. S/he hides in tall grasses and leaps out at us from our conscience. When you think you have your hand on it ---<br /><br />7. What were we talking about?<br /><br />8. You need something soft from one side and something hard from the other side. If you have too much of either, you get crushed or you don't form. It's a fine balance, but, tell me, who has ever perfectly achieved that balance? <br /><br />9. God would answer, "Everyone, and no one. Now let's go play outside."<br /><br />10. It's time to put this to bed.Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-78107832484408846492010-12-02T16:02:00.010-06:002010-12-02T22:29:46.928-06:00It's a Dull Knife, But It's Still a Knife.1. I'm doing all of this because I want the thing that I want.... and, I'm not getting it. I'm sorry, but what is the point, if there's no reward? Fucking goal-oriented - this is bullshit.<br /><br />2. I'm still trying to control the situation, and I can tell, because I keep shrugging off suggestions from people around me. I hear people say "Sanity is my higher power." "Sobriety is my higher power." "Rationality is my higher power." "The people in these rooms are my higher power." Well, here's the problem I'm having: I once said "I must be God, some form of God, because, every event in my life, originated from a thought or a desire I've had. I don't remember creating the universe, so, I'm not taking credit for that. But I felt a desire to do _____, and then, I did ______. Did I start my own life? I honestly don't know the answer to that question. Have I caused much of my own happiness? And misery? Yes, yes. Have I said 'I want this' and gotten it? Yes. Maybe this is just life, just being human. Maybe being human is something more than we think. Do you see the problem here? Where is the floor upon which I rest my feet? There is none. The only things that ground me lately are the prayer 'Your will, not mine', and a tiny, weighted statue of a Hindu monk, in Lotus position, holding a cup of water in his hands, his eyes closed. It's heavy. And I carry it around because it's my totem, like from Inception. The weight of it, reminds me to keep my feet on the ground. But it also reminds me that if I'm not able to go through the particular doorway that I had thought I could, then, there's still good reasons to continue down this road, of trying to maybe not make sense of it all, but, at least, to get out of my own way. I don't know anymore. I'm in a sandstorm of my thoughts and beliefs and they're all blinding me, and one prayer and one little statue - I'm apparently now an idolator, too - are what are grounding me to Earth, like a wire.<br /><br />3. As I'm writing the paragraph above, a woman calls my work and her name is spelled "Jain", which, I find interesting, and which I know is a form of Hinduism. I look up Jainism on Wikipedia: Jainism is a form of Hinduism that opposes violence. I read further: "According to <a title="Advaita Vedanta" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advaita_Vedanta">Advaita Vedanta</a>, the attainment of liberation coincides with the the realization of the <a class="mw-redirect" title="Atman (Hinduism)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atman_(Hinduism)">Atman</a> (one's personal soul) that it is identical with the <a title="Brahman" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman">Brahman</a>, the source of all spiritual and phenomenal existence." Hm. / see what I mean?<br /><br />4. I don't know if focusing, or not focusing, brings something to fruition. And I can't help but to think of it, all. the. time. I try to get it out of my head, and I can't. You're in there, whether I like it or not. And mostly it's guilt, but it's also a lot of memories.... but it's fading. There's no you, to reiterate yourself to me, and, I hate that. I search for you, and I cannot find you, and my world is very, very dry, and I've stopped looking in what I know are empty wells, trying to find the water that I thought you were. This feels like a curse.<div><br /></div><div>5. The truth is, even if you came back, it wouldn't matter. I have no self-respect. Literally, none. I laid aside every single one of my standards by the end. There was no barometer by which to even calculate meaning, between you and I. Not at the beginning, and absolutely not at the end. The only thing that I can count for truth are, were, my motivations, about which I came clean, and which, I now regret sending you. Why? Because you didn't ask. </div><div><br /></div><div>6. The truth is, even if you came back, it wouldn't matter, because I don't know what health looks like. I don't know what a normal life, or a normal relationship, with health, with love, with communication - i.e., talking, in bed, at night - with boundaries, looks like. I don't. This is why I am, or someone else is, always frustrated, and whoever isn't, is clearly taking advantage, or being taken advantage of, by the other. </div><div><br /></div><div>7. The truth is, family doesn't leave. And if they do, you can tell that they're family, because even when they're away, they're always right there. </div><div><br /></div><div>8. The truth is, I have never, literally, never known what I was doing - I only acted like I did. I saw people in life, or on tv, going to stores and kissing faces and reading books and laying down silverware, and I imitated it, without having any knowledge of the meaning, or the content, or the motivation behind it. It was like trampling through a movie set and thinking what I did had any impact, at all. If I did know what I was doing, that has surely been turned upside down and inside out. If you think I'm being dramatic, a) fuck you, and b) find a way inside my head, and you'll be begging for a gun. </div><div><br /></div><div>9. I was right about how I saw the movie. If I keep reaching out to you, all I'm doing is standing there, staring at my crushed, amputated arm, crying over the fact that I had to cut it off, crying over the fact that I wish it were still on my body, crying over the fact that the rock had ever crushed it, begging it to come back, pleading with it, trying to reason with it, trying to distort reality just to convince it to move, as if it could be convinced, as if it could be moved. All this trying, and crying, when I was the one to cut it off. I didn't know the tendons I was capable of snapping. You can't reason with a rock, you can't out-argue a rock. It operates on nothing except it's own gravity. Well, me and the rock? We fell together. In a sense, we both chose to get stuck. Instead of crying over the fact that I freed myself, what I need to be doing, is thanking fucking God that I had the balls to cut myself free, and then to be cut free, because at this point, it doesn't matter how it happened, just that it happened. What I need to be doing, instead of standing there, begging the rock to move itself out of its very settled position between a wall and my amputated hand, is to get the fuck out of here as soon as I can and remember that I was lucky enough to have the luxury of cutting off a limb to save my life.</div><div><br /></div><div>10. I was right about how I saw the movie. There's a reality that I'm going to bring to life, and every. single. thing. I can see, for miles, for years ahead, in every single direction, no matter how much I think I could outsmart it, everything in life says that there's no fucking way that what's inside my heart, what I am seeing with a different set of eyes, could ever, ever come to pass. Reality is that there is a prison, and I am inside that prison, and I've got to be both the attorney fighting that sentence, and the convict dutifully carrying out this sentence, until I learn to not only believe in my innocence, but to be smart enough, savvy enough, educated enough, and determined enough to either fight my way out, or to break my way out. </div><div><br /></div><div>11. They should have let me date as a kid. Sex, love, hormones, drugs, all of it is simply as prevalent as air. Any parent who thinks otherwise is living in a fucking fantasy world. If they had let me date, let me have boys around when I was young, this wouldn't have happened. I wouldn't be writing this, right now. By trying to protect, they were hurting. I'd be doing something incredibly different and you probably wouldn't know who I am, and my focus would be on so, so much else. But I am here, because things went the way they did. Because I wasn't taught, because people were afraid, and thought it better to deny the inevitable, i.e., reality, than to invite it in, learn about it, model a behavior towards it, show the love and understanding of it, decrease the fear of it, increase the education of it, and thus, establish the power OVER it, so that it wouldn't have overpowered ME. Because I wasn't taught. I was totally, unashamedly, unprotected. They may as well have thrown me to the fucking wolves. For that, everyone before me, before them, I suppose, is to blame. But that doesn't do shit for my situation. So what do I have to do? I have to be parent, child, and adult processing all this, to myself. I deserve the fucking Nobel for this shit. And yes, fuck you, I am going to take a self-righteous attitude about it. But I'm going to do it. Fuck you and fuck me if either of us thinks that I can't change. I'm not here to prove either of us right. </div><div><br /></div><div>12. The dog days are over, and if they're not, I'm not stopping until they're fucking chased away with fire and knives. </div><div><br /></div><div>13. Give me truth or give me death. </div><div><br /></div><div>14. I know exactly how I lost my conscience, and I know exactly why this led to me losing my mind. I know that I'm not out of the woods yet. But bit by bit, row by row, .....</div><div><br /></div><div>15. I never wanted them, I never wanted it. When you came along, these ideas wrapped themselves around me so slowly, so gracefully, I didn't even notice. And then when I did notice, I burned it all down. Why? Because of everything above this line on this page. I felt a pang in my stomach a few minutes ago and I imagined it was you reading this, and taking it personally, and being hurt by it, by me, again. I don't know what's more sad - that you were hurt by me, and I could feel it, or that I imagined this, and you haven't even read this, at all. </div><div><br /></div><div>16. If I can't find purpose enough in myself, and I destroyed the chance of finding purpose in you, then I find purpose in those who don't yet exist. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-5133073834052464832010-11-29T22:26:00.005-06:002010-11-29T23:20:16.361-06:00untitled1. If you look for it, you're going to find it. Even if it's not there.<div><br /></div><div>2. I have a hard time setting books on the floor. </div><div><br /></div><div>3. Gravitation, electromagnetism, weak interaction and strong interaction are our primary Commitments to God that we'll stick around to learn some lessons on Earth. The Four Agreements are the best way to operate given those initial Commitments. Funny how there are four, and Four. I'm not dumb, you know. </div><div><br /></div><div>4. If you bring it up, they'll follow it up. We're all the leader in every given circumstance. Why?</div><div><br /></div><div>5. Because of the Principle of Certainty. Nietzsche was wrong; it's not the Will to Power, because it's not necessarily about domination for the sake of domination. Most of the time, someone's desire, or their happiness, is the strongest thing for miles, and when we see certainty with such weight to it, we latch onto and agree to that, unless ours is stronger. The bitch of it is, when you don't realize that you're not having the fun you're supposed to be having.</div><div><br /></div><div>6. Playboy Philosopher Bunny. Not King. </div><div><br /></div><div>7. Forgiveness is, "I see how you went wrong. I know you didn't know what you were doing. I disagree with what you did, and I can stand here, next to you, and be with you, even while I disagree with you. I don't have to leave." But sometimes, you have to leave. We're human, we can only take so much. </div><div><br /></div><div>8. It's a tough thing, realizing you're Ray Porter, when you're so used to being the Mirabelle. </div><div><br /></div><div>9. Walking in Faith, not in sight. </div><div><br /></div><div>10. If you're being honest, then all of it is Church. The most attractive thing is to be able to say "I'm broken in half for these reasons" because if you're not aware, then you're not conscious. </div><div><br /></div><div>11. Beauty is humility, hope, and faith, even if you're not sure what you're hoping for. It's the perfect triangle. It's the strongest bond. Why? Because it permits all things to be possible. It's by saying "I KNOW" that you lose out on vast quantities and qualities of life. </div><div><br /></div><div>12. </div>Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-62220922180690139522010-11-26T19:51:00.005-06:002010-11-26T22:09:58.870-06:00Keep The Talent HappyI don't know what to do.<br /><br />I could actually feel, at the most intense moments, when I was most conscious of the loss of you, and of my hand in that loss, and my guilt over it, of destroying my own happiness, that with every word I wrote to you, trying to get you back, I was pushing you further away. My desire felt like one edge of the sword, and your best interest felt like the other. I can no longer believe that this is true. I want to be on your side.<br /><br />It's been weeks, and I still wake up every morning, and you are the first thing on my mind. The next thing I think is, "where are you?"<br /><br />My day is a multi-dimensional graph, with every possible truth value representing a line, and every day, I hit every single point on that graph, sometimes twice or three times. Every point, every intersection is a set of possibilities: that you still care, that you still want to be with me, but that you cannot because you have been hurt by me too much. That you care, but that I caused too much damage, but that in a few months, it could happen for us again. That you don't care now, but that you did, but you cannot now. That you cared, but because I couldn't see it, there is no chance for the future. That I was totally alone in all of this. That I was not alone in all of this, but because I couldn't appreciate you the way you deserved, because you are a gem, you must move forward, without me. That even though I apologized, you still cannot go forward. That you can go forward, but because I haven't tried enough, you are, every day, moving away from me. That if I leave it all alone, it'll come back. That if I don't fight for you, I'll lose you forever. That if I leave it all alone, it'll come back. That if I don't fight for you, and tell you I was wrong and you were right, I'll lose you forever. That if I leave it all alone, it'll come back.<br /><br />I read something by Dostoevksy once: "What is hell? The inability to love." He's right. But I've also come to realize that Hell is actually just uncertainty. It's not having a grounding point, a foundation, against which to measure all other things. I'm not asking for sympathy. I'm asking to be saved. I don't know what to measure anything against, and because I've trusted myself for so long, it's unbelievably uncomfortable to rely on God to do what is right. It lasts a few minutes, and then I forget it all, reality comes in and argues against me. I write out a few ideas that I have to MAKE true, that I have to MAKE a reality out of, because if I don't, then I've got nothing.<br /><br />1. Miracles are happening all the time, all around me.<br />2. I am the miracle, and I am taking place right now.<br />3. God is in control. Do you think God is worried? Then why are you?<br />4. Anything is possible.<br /><br />The thing I love most about you is the line you draw in the sand. But I cannot stomach the idea that I'm forever on the wrong side of that line. And I don't know what to do about that. I only know how to fight in one way: by taking action, with words. By arguing for what is right, against what was wrong.<br /><br />"I love you... my responsibility has found a place beside you." This is what you are to me. This is what you represent. You are the call to Jesus, if you will. You are the rock against which I've come to measure pretty much everything; and you've done this, without trying. This is you, naturally. For months, I've been arguing against it, against this possibility, that one person could refute so much of everything I've thought, my whole life, and represents everything I've hoped for, my whole life; everything I've denied, and everything I've secretly hoped is true. I pushed it all away, I pushed you away, and I know now, what a mistake it was, to fight against my own happiness. Life doesn't like it. My life doesn't like it, without you.<br /><br />"My responsibility has found a place beside you".<br /><br />And now,<br /><br />"Put your little hand in mine..."<br /><br />It's not too late to change your mind.Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-56865312201229203802010-11-15T22:53:00.004-06:002010-11-15T23:13:57.972-06:00It's Time.<div><br /></div><div>This is the only thing I know how to do. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's been a week of non-stop nausea. I'm sure I've lost weight and for once I don't care. </div><div><br /></div><div>When I'm slow, and deliberate, I can say the truth. This is the version of me that I respect; this is the girl that I've wanted to be, the girl inside of me that stands for something even more solid and profound than my mind ever could recognize. This is the one you cannot fuck with. This is the girl you should fear. She's been a long time in the making. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's something even better than I could have imagined. I don't think it's too late. I think it's right on time, it had to be now, it had to happen this way or it would maybe never happen at all... this is the storybook of my life, this is where the roller-coaster hit the top and it's all downhill from here, nausea included. This is where the wings are built, they are built on the way down. This is how you fly: not by leaping up and soaring, but by cliff-jumping. </div><div><br /></div><div>I keep saying "your will, not mine. your will, your peace, your security, not mine." I'm not sure any of what I do now, since such prayers, is right. I don't know that it aligns. All I know is that it's not going to be perfect; it can never be perfect. I'll fight the best way I know how, and if there's no one else out on that field, then I'll go home. And I'll also learn how to not fight those closest to me. </div><div><br /></div><div>It's what I've suspected, forever: that if it's comfortable, it'll do you in. "I encourage you to sit with what's uncomfortable," she said. Only I couldn't listen. This is a new kind of learning. Or really, this is learning, for the first time. </div><div><br /></div><div>You could still ignore me. </div><div><br /></div><div>You could still shut me out. That's that, then, I suppose. I had to try. I had to tell you that you were not alone, that you were there the whole time, that I was the one who couldn't see. I was too afraid. It's a radical way to look at things, but then again, what in life is not radical? What is it that doesn't deserve a miracle? The problem is when you're too stuck in your pain to realize that you've been forgiven all along. Vision, I am relearning. I don't think it's too late, I think it's right on time. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-14865341177976751842010-09-06T21:44:00.003-05:002010-09-06T22:15:45.141-05:00outside the pen((((..."love, don't cry"...)))<div><br /></div><div>if i face myself, as another, </div><div>it is even more an animal </div><div>outside of the pen</div><div><br /></div><div>if i make myself proud about you, </div><div>you could move away from me. </div><div>the difference is i don't know. </div><div>(hush </div><div>because i'm too scared to ask)))))))). </div><div><br /></div><div>i'm too smart for this, in life: </div><div>i have only learned a love </div><div>the way i am to you...</div><div>pay no attention </div><div>how you are to me </div><div>this is inconstant </div><div>it's not a tongue i understand</div><div>if you go because of me, </div><div>then do i suffer, so that </div><div>you are well enough to stay? </div><div>(((((knowing full well you are </div><div>one thing i do not get</div><div>and i get that i do not know)))</div><div><br /></div><div>this is the sadness, always</div><div><br /></div><div>and if it is not there,</div><div>i will force it in </div><div>where the skin is not broke</div><div><br /></div><div>can you topple that? </div><div><br /></div><div>i cannot lead</div><div><br /></div><div>i can't even </div><div><br /></div><div>this </div><div>sentence</div><div><br /></div><div>I have learned </div><div>by the leaving of you</div><div>that it is to,</div><div>in your absence</div><div>find the point</div><div>in a sea of softness</div><div>and weak</div><div>(there can be no point found)>>>>></div><div><br /></div><div>i have evaporated</div><div>every new event </div><div>registering </div><div>blows the dust of me </div><div>off the table</div><div><br /></div><div>i didn't feel the sadness with you</div><div>this is why i think </div><div>you'll stay</div><div><br /></div><div>(forgive me</div><div>this is a day</div><div>too cut </div><div>around the edges</div><div>and too many shards</div><div>smashed together </div><div>in one match-box</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-65333563043875784192010-08-02T21:20:00.004-05:002010-08-02T21:31:14.345-05:00<div><br /></div><div>I hesitate to write this. </div><div><br /></div><div>When I tried it, I didn't think the aftermath would extend long, and far and low through days like a rope through frames in the water, like the thickest black branch with the bushiest, most deafening leaves that would just embracccceeeee me for hours, and hours, leaving the most sultry gashes on my face and arms and brain where the opening of skin to red flesh below is just fine please....</div><div><br /></div><div>it punched a hole right through me</div><div><br /></div><div>(if you stare hard enough</div><div>if you just pass your eyes over me</div><div>you can tell</div><div>can't you see it under my eyes?</div><div>it's dark and full like a pond</div><div>you could go swimming under my eyes</div><div>)</div><div><br /></div><div>didn't you know? weren't you in my brain when I was over there? </div><div><br /></div><div>or did you think we are separate?</div><div><br /></div><div>I am in you, and you are in me</div><div><br /></div><div>This is why your touch creates the desire on my skin</div><div>this is why you manifest from out of </div><div><br /></div><div>every time we meet </div><div>and you touch my skin, </div><div>my skin awakens and remembers</div><div>'yes, we were in want of this finger here, and that tongue there'</div><div>and your hands, in my hair, </div><div>are in their proper place</div><div><br /></div><div>i come alive under your hands</div><div><br /></div><div>you blow the breath into me </div><div><br /></div><div>this is what i didn't know i didn't know</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-44828856198992885202010-07-18T02:04:00.002-05:002010-07-18T02:25:36.876-05:00Life Came Upon Me All At Once<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">I’ve been feeling like I’m going to die tomorrow. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Like there are goodbyes that I need to say, and that every sadness and regret I’ve been able to absorb and excrete has somehow found its way back to the front of my mind, at least everything that was painful enough to register, hard, in the first place. </p><p class="MsoNormal">It came upon me today all the once that I will be getting older, and that I am merely one small wave, one particle, that has a shimmering moment at the peak of the crest.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Lila, who just got married, will be having babies soon.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Lila will cease to exist one day, and it occurred to me that this could happen before me, and that I would know her children in her unfortunate absence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And this is how things go; and there would be our generation, Lila’s and mine, and then there would be our children’s generation, and they would have their own immediacy, just like us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And we would give way to them, because this is what we do; this is how we secure future.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Because we do not live indefinitely.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It feels like a tragedy, to think of not having the kids and the family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I believe I dreamt about this, a forecast of that possible world, where I lived, in solitude, in Canada, and I was a lesbian and I was an academic and I was terribly, interminably, alone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It came upon me all at once today, and it flooded me until I was drowning, with no life raft of my own convictions, of standing strong and happy in choices I didn’t even have the chance to make yet, that were preliminary choices.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was drowning, and it came upon me all at once.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">To never have been anything that I’ve been proud of.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To never have set a direction for myself, and stayed it, because the most important thing would be my mind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What is the point of a mind that perceives and desires, if you just lay down and agree with whatever random soil you have been nurtured by?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I thought we were seeds that could get up and walk over to the next best ground.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It was when I got off the bus and happened to look to my right that, afterwards, I was clear.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To stop something.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To break up what is painful to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Not to them, to me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They wanted each other to have someone to abuse them, and to be a victim to that abuse.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They were comrades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He had her by the neck, pinned down, bent over at the waist, and she was grabbing the stroller handles with both hands.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But she was angry when he was arrested.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She was incensed and she attempted to fight back with the police to protect him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They were on each others’ sides by the time it was all over and done with.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>They needed each other, to fill in the razor shard-fingers of their missingness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>You can only complete violence with violence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I stopped what was profane to me, and what was comfortable to them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">It was a mess before I stopped it, but it was clear after I stopped it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I wasn’t the first watching them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But I was the first to intercede.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The other guy, who had been watching, waiting for it to escalate, wasn’t the first to break it up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He thinks he was.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was the one who walked right up and yelled Hey! What is wrong! And then the other guy came in.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was the first one to act.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I was the one to dictate Stay here and watch them as I went in to get the cop. This is what makes me feel good.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I did it with my own raised voice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And then it was clear to me, when Annie was pregnant in the car, driving me, the peace to end all mispeaces this whole morning and afternoon. She reminded me of something I never had, but that everyone knows before they are born, and forgets before they forget.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That it’s going to be okay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That as long as we hit the dead end, we’ll be okay.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That sometimes you can only learn as much as you can handle, and then you have to close the book.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>That you can sleep now, at least for now, because in a little bit, you won’t be able to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> B</span>ut it’s still nothing about to worry.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For all the waves and motion and flooding this morning, with no anchor, with no life raft, with no explanation of how it’s actually going to work out, with only a drowning in worry and in language about babies and family that I can’t understand, for all of this that came upon me at once, she cleared away.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I was reminded that even though I never had this, I’ve always been an owner of it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I never didn’t have access to it.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>She must have just woken up from a nap, because her closeness to God filled the whole car, and I breathed one round and was convinced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’d just broken through something that was profane, and I was ready to go swimming.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I couldn’t be the rock star because I doubt all the things that make me rocket forward into space.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">If there’s discipline to be learned, where do I go to learn it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Must I cut myself off from everyone and everything that pulls me in and apart?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Where do I go to become the person I keep aborting?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-5168660585778128772010-07-05T21:55:00.003-05:002010-07-05T22:08:05.572-05:00expense<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal">I fired God and myself, hired. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">What I can’t do is stay when it’s pointless.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The work itself is tolerable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The stress?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I like it, I like knowing that it makes me stronger.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The frantic pace?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Fine, it pushes me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> I thrive on it, actually; for the first time, I look forward to going to work, because I am needed there. </span>But what I can’t handle is knowing that I’m doing the same shit as everyone else, and because of legalistic bullshit, I don’t get the same treatment as everyone else.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This is what pulls me down off the deep end.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> This is what causes me to say fuck it and just stay home. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">We need to have other things to talk about.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Think about it:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If I have absolutely no fucking way of commenting or contributing to the stuff you’re saying, except to say, over and fucking needle-in-the-eye-disdainfully-over again, “Oh, that’s so great!”/”That’s awesome!”/”Oh, wow!” then please, do us both a favor and get a diary.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I don’t care that it’s the happiest thing that’s happened to you recently.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>I love you, but I don’t.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>When you talk, talk to me, not at me, about things that I can contribute to, otherwise what am I to you?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Seriously, think about it – what does that make me if you just spew out shit that I can’t contribute to?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Don’t for one fucking second think that thinking out loud in my presence is anything I remotely give a fuck about, or want to know.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’d rather run alongside the car, than be in it with you, if you can’t act smart enough to know that a conversation means engaging on a thing that two people can relate to.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What kind of life did you grow up with, if you want to throw shit my way, and don’t want my interaction?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>And yes, please, speak the fuck up if I pull this shit on you.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But we both know I don’t.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I can do this if you could love me, but if you can’t or won’t date me, in front of other people, then go away.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I can’t believe how fucking poor technology is.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Really, for where the Minoans were, in terms of technological developments and advances, and we don’t even have 100% effective birth control?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> Where's all the tech that blends thought with fiber-optic cable at the flick of a neuron switch? Get with it, dude - if I can think of this shit, then what are you working on, and why the fuck hasn't it hit the gen pop by now?</span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">You need to get over yourself, and chill the fuck out, immediately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Immediately.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Basically, if you’re feeling that need, that compulsion to say it?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Do us both a severe favor and fucking don’t. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Life as it is, is something I can't take. It's so fucking boring. It's been done. It's being done, all the time. Do I sound like an addict? Fine. I'll take it. What I can't handle is the mundane. This is why I get that people plow out on weeknights, on every weeknight, so that they're hung-over the next day. Those people, while potentially alcoholics, are also warriors. I get needing something to struggle through. Where's the Colosseum here? Nowhere. Where are the spectators? There are none. The walk through the fire goes on in and of ourselves, only, what's the point, if no one else is watching, and saluting? It's not enough to know that it's hard because we realize that others are doing it, which makes us totally unspecial. We want the competition, and we want the recognition. Modern life? Fuck you, you've taken it all away. There's no way we're happier, fundamentally, without a struggle. No. Fucking. Way. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Nietzsche was dead wrong. It's not a contest of will. It's a fucking charisma contest. And we're all leaders, and all followers. </p> <!--EndFragment-->Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-47069558795703538632010-05-09T18:13:00.001-05:002010-05-09T18:19:26.765-05:00This Is To Mother...<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9P9kf4QZ2E"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#3366FF;">You. </span></a>Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-7721435181682864192010-02-08T21:19:00.004-06:002010-02-08T22:09:57.354-06:00Gratitude and Prayer List (in no order of importance)<div><br /></div><div>1. I am grateful for the chance to come home to my mom and my sister and my two dogs and relax with them. </div><div><br /></div><div>2. I am grateful for peace of mind about him, and for all the negative thoughts, and the fury and the anger of last night, that filled me to the point of bursting, to have abated, after I prayed about it, and upon waking up this morning. </div><div><br /></div><div>3. I'm grateful to have woken up in a good mood this morning. </div><div><br /></div><div>4. I'm grateful that I found the building quickly, and that even though a voice was telling me to turn the other way, and that it was behind me, I kept walking forward and didn't even realize that I was headed in the right direction.</div><div><br /></div><div>5. I am grateful for possible new beginnings. </div><div><br /></div><div>6. I am grateful for good feelings and good vibes from new people and new places. </div><div><br /></div><div>7. I am grateful that typing this out on a computer makes me think about the actual feeling of gratitude a bit more. </div><div><br /></div><div>8. I am grateful for my sponsor. </div><div><br /></div><div>9. I am grateful for my dogs, and for how cute and sweet and soft they are, and how excited they always are to see me, and how that love will never, ever go away.</div><div><br /></div><div>10. I am grateful for my apartment but sometimes I am even more grateful to come to my mom's house. </div><div><br /></div><div>11. I am grateful that he maybe read some of my last notes, and that he had had enough, and shut me off. I think that's a healthy thing to do, in light of my words. I would probably do the same.</div><div><br /></div><div>12. So I am grateful to see that I cause a reaction in the world, be it for good or bad, though in this case, it was bad. </div><div><br /></div><div>13. I am grateful for my friends: Aneeta, Meta, Lila, Mara, the list goes on and on....</div><div><br /></div><div>14. I am grateful that my mom and Mara said "You have a different look about you, like, that you're not....so....I don't know...angry, or hard on yourself." So I'm glad that that could be seen on my face. </div><div><br /></div><div>15. I am grateful that peace does not have to come at the expense of inaction, but is further fostered by acting well. </div><div><br /></div><div>16. I am grateful that there are good feelings about him, in proportion to the good thoughts I think and the good feelings I have about myself, because for a long time, they all seemed incompatible. </div><div><br /></div><div>17. I pray that one day soon he and I can reconcile. I'm not asking to reunite, but just to have each other in our lives, actively, and have forgiveness. </div><div><br /></div><div>18. I am grateful for my hair straightener. </div><div><br /></div><div>19. I am grateful for clean clothes this morning. </div><div><br /></div><div>20. I am grateful for the clarity and good decision-making skills that come with recognizing that I have certain needs that are very basic, and that I hurt myself if I neglect or ignore those.</div><div><br /></div><div>21. I am grateful that today was a good day, and that this doesn't mean that I will die tonight, but that I will wake up tomorrow, and have another chance to do good, right things. I know it will be a different day than today, but I can also make it a different kind of a good day. </div><div><br /></div><div>22. I pray for his forgiveness, that I hurt him. </div><div><br /></div><div>23. I pray for direction in life. I don't want to just float around. I want to have a target of which I am proud, so that I can be an arrow towards that target, and just fly like the wind. </div><div><br /></div><div>24. I am grateful to know what is important enough to focus on, and</div><div><br /></div><div>25. I pray to grow in awareness of those important things. </div><div><br /></div><div>26. I am grateful for to-do lists. </div><div><br /></div><div>27. I am grateful for my phone, but more than that, I am grateful that at times, I can turn the ringer off, and put it down.</div><div><br /></div><div>28. I pray for his forgiveness.</div><div><br /></div><div>29. I pray that I get my act together in terms of my health plan.</div><div><br /></div><div>30. I am grateful for that sandwich from Lil' Guys. </div><div><br /></div><div>31. I am grateful that though I was anxious about coming home, I told myself that I could just relax with it, and remember myself and the peace of today, and that I'd be able to be immune from it.</div><div><br /></div><div>32. I am grateful that this worked, and that I have a hand in controlling my anxiety, to some degree.</div><div><br /></div><div>33. I hope that I grow in this ability.</div><div><br /></div><div>34. I am grateful that everything I wanted to bring fit in one huge bag. </div><div><br /></div><div>35. I am grateful for a cab driver that was so chatty and animated that it made me think that if law of attraction is true, then I must be growing in health, to attract a cab driver like that, which is a great thing. </div><div><br /></div><div>36. I pray for him. </div><div><br /></div><div>37. I am grateful that I no longer think of R---, and that when I do, I am able to put his behavior in perspective.</div><div><br /></div><div>38. I pray to be able to understand why I couldn't reconcile showing affection to her with having feelings for him. </div><div><br /></div><div>39. I am grateful for the peace of mind that comes with feeling good about my life.</div><div><br /></div><div>40. I am grateful for medication, and for an increase in medication. </div><div><br /></div><div>41. I am grateful for people around me who are rooting for me. </div><div><br /></div><div>42. I pray that feeling good doesn't mean complacency, or indolence. </div><div><br /></div><div>43. I pray that I never have again have to go too far in order to know how far is too far. </div><div><br /></div><div>44. I am grateful to understand the damage done when I don't express myself consistently, regardless of how the other person might react to it. </div><div><br /></div><div>45. But even more than that, I am grateful to know that when something doesn't feel right, that I have a responsibility to move away from it, if I can't change it. </div><div><br /></div><div>46. I am grateful for the Serenity Prayer. </div><div><br /></div><div>47. I am grateful to know the amount of rage that I am capable of, and to let it out in a healthier, less-public way, next time.</div><div><br /></div><div>48. I am grateful to understand, again, that when I lash out and hurt someone, I hurt myself, as well. I'd be willing to bet that I hurt myself more, actually. </div><div><br /></div><div>49. I am grateful for attitude. </div><div><br /></div><div>50. I am grateful to get tired. </div><div><br /></div><div>51. I pray for more awareness of what I can change and what I cannot change. </div><div><br /></div><div>52. I am grateful that I get to use good bath products tomorrow. </div><div><br /></div><div>53. I am grateful for financial assistance from my mom. </div><div><br /></div><div>54. I am grateful for repercussions. </div><div><br /></div><div>55. I am grateful to hear my mom laugh. </div><div><br /></div><div>56. I am grateful for her support and for her patience. </div><div><br /></div><div>57. I am grateful for a really special meeting tonight. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-16385382933429913992010-02-03T20:09:00.004-06:002010-02-03T20:55:35.450-06:00I'm Gonna Make You CryWARNING: This piece contains adult themes, such as crying and masturbating. (Adults with the emotional age of) Children who have been allowed to participate in adult relationships are advised to see this, and we don't give a fuck if it's with or without an adult present, although we would suggest it so that someone can explain to you what is going on. <div><br /></div><div>I'm gonna make you cry.</div><div>I'm gonna make you cry and cry and cry and cry and cry and cry and cry some more.</div><div>I'm gonna make you cry, </div><div>and the next time you see my ass, you're gonna cry.</div><div>You're gonna wish you were going home with me and you're gonna wish you could get laid by me and you're going to wish that you could wake up to my sweet sleeping face and you're gonna wish that you could see my face again after that but you won't and you can't. </div><div>And you're gonna cry. </div><div>You're gonna cry about it. </div><div>You're gonna cry and cry and cry and cry and cry and cry and cry and cry and cry until you run out of tears, </div><div>and then God is gonna find one more drop of water in your body and bring it up to your face, and then you are gonna cry some more. </div><div>You're gonna cry and cry and cry and cry and God is gonna suggest that you go get some Gatorade to replenish yourself and while you're at Walgreens you're gonna be so glad that you got out of the house, and that you got some fresh air, and you're gonna feel so proud for being so strong, but guess what as soon as you drink that orange Gatorade you're gonna cry some more, because even biology is on my side with this one and you're gonna cry and cry and cry and cry and cry and cry and cry yourself to sleep and when you wake up you're gonna squeeze out some morning tears while you're thinking about me while you're laying there on your back, and you're gonna cry some sad baby crocodile tears, and while you're drinking your coffee, you may be able to hold back the tears, but guess what?</div><div>As soon as you get in the shower, you're gonna cry. </div><div>You're gonna feel the water on your face and it's gonna feel like your own hot tears and it's gonna remind you of crying and then you're gonna cry.</div><div>And then you're gonna cry some more. </div><div>And then you're gonna cry while you masturbate. You're gonna cry, while you masturbate, about me, in the shower. And you're going to think about how hot I am, and how you're never gonna find another girl like me, and how I was the best thing to ever happen to you, and how you can't get me back, and how you couldn't keep me, and how you're gonna be like this for a long, long, long time, and you're gonna masturbate about me, and while you're masturbating about me in the shower, you're gonna cry. </div><div>And guess what? </div><div>God wants you to cry. </div><div>God wants you to cry big, fat, juicy, salty-ass crocodile-ass tears because you were baaaaaaaaaadddd. You were soooo baaaaaaaaaddddd. You were so bad that you are gonna cry for 10 days straight and you are gonna lose 8 pounds from all the water weight going straight to your eyes and God's gonna clap his hands while He smokes a cigar in Heaven while you cry and cry and cry yourself to sleep. </div><div>You're gonna get out of the shower and you're gonna dry your face and you're gonna dry your tears that are mixed with shower-water and you're gonna feel good for about 47 seconds and then as soon as you brush your teeth and your face scrunches up into something like Cry Face, you're gonna cry some more, because it's gonna feel <i>s</i><i>o good</i>. </div><div>You're gonna cry about me as you brush your teeth. </div><div>You are gonna taste salty tears slip into your mouth and you're gonna taste the salt and the mint and you're gonna like it and you're gonna feel like a better person for crying, for crying into your mouth, into your toothpaste mouth, because it feels so good for you to cry, it feels so good for you to let it all out, let out all the stuff that you could never show and never feel and you're gonna feel like a really good guy. </div><div>But you're still gonna cry. </div><div>You're gonna cry. </div><div>I'm gonna make you cry. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-18281986296964005402010-01-30T00:47:00.002-06:002010-01-30T01:08:03.481-06:00Summit of what<div><br /></div><div>This is nausea.</div><div><br /></div><div>I prayed for clarity, and this is what arrives. Panic. Regret. Alarm. Sadness. Despair. </div><div><br /></div><div>And a raw, uncooked, unaided climb up the mountain face to try to reach the summit. </div><div><br /></div><div>The summit of what?</div><div><br /></div><div>What is there a top of? It never ends, until it ends. </div><div><br /></div><div>"Tidal waves don't beg forgiveness..."</div>Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2057571916831124081.post-14691597928921174642010-01-28T21:57:00.007-06:002010-01-28T23:21:11.635-06:00cakewalk.<div><br /></div><div>The door didn't give, initially.</div><div>I pushed against it and was instantly terrified that I would find her, crumpled on the floor. </div><div>This is what I've come to expect, on instinct.</div><div>To find a body, somewhere, when it doesn't seem to go right. </div><div>Which means that you have made it into my blood. </div><div> </div><div>As I returned to bed last night, it hit me. </div><div>This is what I was spared.</div><div> </div><div><div>Your dad took the hit for me on finding your body. </div><div>Because we ended, your father now has an image burned in his memory that would have otherwise been mine. </div><div>Had we stayed together - if things had gone the way I'd planned, and we'd been married - that would have been me. </div><div>And that's something I'm not sure I'd ever have been able to recover from. </div><div>Finding you, seeing you would have fortified the guilt, would have magnified it into something undeniable, irrefutable, inescapable to my mind. </div><div>It would have been the image. </div><div>That's what would have sealed me off. </div><div>It would have been me taking your limp body in my arms, and holding you, and crying over you, to no effect. </div><div>I was saved. </div><div>I was saved from hell in California by your death.</div><div>I was saved from an even greater grief when you left me, a year before. </div><div>The first loss of you was a great pain, but your death was the greatest pain. </div><div>And yet you saved me from something even worse. </div><div>And for that, for the gauntlet you have put me through, I must stop, and say thank you. </div><div><br /></div></div><div>The priest had said, "Remember these stages of grief; the shock, the despair, the anger, the tears. Think about them as you're processing them, and write them down, so that <i>when it happens again, </i>you can be prepared." </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic; ">When it happens again...</span></div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Your death is the benchmark against which all other pains will be measured. </span></i></div><div>Not this pain from that, and not that pain from this. </div><div>Not the loss of him, not the death of her, not the end of yet another, not the disappointment from yet another failed relationship... </div><div>It hurts, and I hate to think of those around me hurting, but I don't hurt as much, after you.</div><div>It is all a grazing.</div><div>A glimmer.</div><div>A deflection off the surface of my chest that doesn't get absorbed, except in the rare moments when it does, and then I am sick with grief. </div><div>And even then, it is a pin-drop in the deafening sound of your absence. </div><div><div>(But I'm also not asking for a challenge.) </div></div><div>For that, I must say thank you. </div><div>If I can survive your death, then everything else is a cakewalk. </div><div><br /></div><div>She passed away this morning. </div><div>I'm concerned for my mom, and her pain hurts me, but the fact of it doesn't hurt. </div><div><br /></div><div>Everything else compared to you is a cakewalk. </div><div><br /></div>Jessica Cakulshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10709265726719802480noreply@blogger.com1