I sat in silence,

pondering implications of the fact that there is no me. Amidst this contemplation of emptiness and not being, my stomach growled audibly - I found no retort.

Enough about me.

Have you reserved a readied judgment of someone who you found irksome in some way too elusive to warrant immediacy of its issuance - someone who may have failed to elicit apparency of the same impression in others? Have you heard tell of this peculiar one's misdeed, and found yourself smug in your intuitive allotment of suspicion? When you learn afterward that the account was false, that the anomaly was exonerated, what might be your reaction? Would you cast into doubt all such judgments?

I habitually chose to become angry at this entirely self-contained assault and rebuff. How dare reality defy my expectations of it, what I had determined it would be?

I strive now to judge nothing, or to realize that all judgment amounts to nothing.

Don't thank me;

thank my country.
Don't thank my country;
thank humanity.
Don't thank humanity;
thank the earth.
Don't thank the earth;
thank evolution.
Don't thank evolution;
thank the sun.
Don't thank the sun;
thank our galaxy.
Don't thank our galaxy;
thank the universe.
Don't thank the universe;
thank dimensionality.
Don't thank dimensionality;
thank nothing for everything.


For starting it all, for ending it all, for providing the flesh of all that lies between.


Don't hate me;
...

Forgiveness loves hate.

I have come to see that I have had much more of a hand in the unhappiness I've endured in life than I realized in the midst of all of the good intentions that brought it about. I must, at last, forgive myself.

Can souls traverse their lenses?

Can the Self be conveyed? Can the soul climb out of its windows? I feel as if I can.

It's love - I am possessed by a desire, a draw which owns the needle of my compass.

Love will be necessary for me to grow infinitely farther; it is the capacity for the infinite by mutually sustained reflection of selves - the two become the inverse halves of one, all of existence within all of existence.

"And two become one."

The object of one's love is one's choice. One chooses whether to control that choice.

I love everything.

Still, I feel as if there is a reflection of me missing. I am, and want only to be myself; I am aware of the insubstantiality of external forces - and I want to be owned by the one of them that is able to match me.

To Björk:

It's not your voice that I hear in your music, it's you.

And it's me.

Thanks.

You're welcome.

I prefer it here.

I exist within a realm for which there exists no precedent or determinable format by which to convey the nature of (including, palpably, one societal); this applies to both the plane I have realized and to the effect that it has had on me - clarification of the latter often escapes even words, rendering me incapable of assessing myself as I am otherwise able. The only way I imagine communication regarding this state to be plausible is through indirectly addressing it - by illuminating its "context" as directly as possible.

Re: Sunday -- (E-Mail)

I recall that what I did was to take that ever-present sense of loneliness - the one that continually grew if I focused on it - and determined its inverse, and turned it into that. Instead of being lonely because I was by myself, I saw my unallocated love pour out onto everything that shares my existence. It's wonderful, and I still have to remember to be this rather than return to the gloom that has been my familiar abode over the last decade and more - a depression that became a safe place to be, something that I was loathe to relinquish - and continue to fend off.

This is a quote from a typewriter journal entry that I found and posted it to my blog, journal year unknown:
"I think this is harder to describe because, at least as much as it is a new feeling (or mood or mindset; it is the state of my mind and soul), it is the tangible void of something old and familiar, the absence of something that had a stranglehold on me and constricted tightly around the organ in me that feels happiness and contentment."

Stirring.

To be enlightened, know that you are enlightened.
To be enlightened, know that you are not enlightened.

I could have woken up as Buddha, but I chose to wake up as myself - I do not know why.
God does.

I'm reading through my years-old letters.

[OMITTED: A bunch of stuff I quoted from a previous message written to me.]

AAAaaaahahahahaha. That's the funniest goddamned joke I've told in years.

My humor might be a little off. I [insert myriad plausible excuses here, but know - in spite of my best efforts to rebuff its significance - that I really do think it's funny, and wish I didn't give such a shit that you might that I type all of this shit in here and realize a singularly and extemporaneously honest moment within my e-mailing experience. I don't know why I always sought your approval - it was reflexive, and I was hurt like a child when you (or any male I looked up to - "respected" wasn't enough) was disappointed in me.]. Wow. I can grow just typing to you, without sending this or anything.

I didn't intend to bring you with me on this therapeutic outing, nor did I request you come along - and I appreciate it.











Lata

(heh)




========================================================
[And the follow-up, begun an hour later]
========================================================



It's now that I get the real opportunity to explore myself - the previous message having been a spur-of-the moment thing, within the last minute, instantaneously, I was overcome by a sense of dire regret. I was appalled by the emotion as soon as I identified it, and my abrupt analysis pinpointed some of my current boundaries - now I know where to apply pressure. I have found a flaw.

I can say that because I have determined what I desire my perspective - inclusive of character, personality, beliefs, spirituality - to be. Until I began typing that sentence, my fingers stumbling, unresponsive under the weight of the realization that they were involved in granting, I did not know what it was that I wanted - I knew what I wanted, but I did not know that it was what I wanted. I visualized what I felt, and it was so simple - I see a dome, of a consistency I can't describe but would say is smooth, with a mist over it; the dome stretches at too abrupt an angle to be seen for more than a few strides, or maybe eternity - I have no concept of my own size and stride, only my experience of the place; still, I sense forever behind that translucent veil as much as I sense the edge.

Does it get better than that? Honestly, please. I'd say "for my writing," or "in my style," but I operate from within my own perspective and see brilliance - though [I doubt] it may change momentarily, I am possessed by a surety of purity now.

I'm sure I meant to type something else. Ah, yes:
The "open plain" la-dee-dah wouldn't be worth jack shit without its collaborative explanation, which is this: I sense the plain, somehow see and feel it. I purely sense it; it is a meditative plain that is sustained in spite of my focusing on writing this. While replaying my reaction (like TiVo, man), I sensed something jagged outside of the area immediately around me concurrently with the "what the fuck did I just do" moment. It was a a momentarily intense awareness of - followed by a residual awareness of - a distant location, tangible within which were the features of this flaw, this jagged outcropping of the same substance that makes up the plain, it seems. I haven't figured out how to get rid of it yet, but I think I just have to stay near it, and it will dissolve. I sense that that is the truth, as I know it is the truth, just as I know that all I have to do is think of its features and I am next to it, and that, if I want it to leave, I must hold myself there in awareness of it, in spite of my protest. Can it really be that simple?

Awesomeness.

I enjoy these, as they are as much my creation as they are that of some dimensionally greater being.
...
I believe I've conveyed to you before that I believe that awareness as we humanly define it is the frontier between the "third" and "fourth" dimensions? I think our lives would look like trees within the fourth dimension, too - as we would see the work of some second-dimensional consciousness (as I think awareness is the frontier between all dimensions) within a plant.

Typewriter Journal from Year Unknown (Holy shit, this guy could write.)

[PRE-Typewriter Journal: What the hell has the world come to? I am authoring this post wearing, begrudgingly acknowledging its convenient, cozy warmth, of all things - a Snuggie. What has happened? Only these prerequisites were met: 1) The home in which I reside was constructed with french doors which feature an extreme heat gain and heat loss through each day and night; 2) I stationed my desktop computer near the aforementioned doors; 3) Four Snuggies were shipped, errantly, to me (it remains inexplicable how my name was applied to what was my grandmother's order; it arrived at her home around Christmas time, and was held, unopened, and sent to me). /PRE-Typewriter Journal]


Other than leaving this place a better world for its current and future occupants and/or preparing myself for death, I see no point in my being here. I am deeply curious as to what the best thing for me to do to better this world is. I'm not all too concerned with the answer, though, or seeking it. My first priority is finding my path, and all that includes (namely resisting distraction in whatever form it comes in, as I have allowed my self to be distracted much lately, nearly to a point where all of my recent progress was forgotten). I don't know whether a pure, constant distraction-free life is something that I am capable of leading, though. I'm certain that, if it felt right and I felt whole in doing it, I could; I'm worried that I may not want to, though. I'm sure it will come in time. I can't expect to re-make myself in a day, or a year.

What I have been feeling more and more frequently lately is interesting, and it fills me with hope. I feel what I can only describe as an anticipation of, or the precursor to contentedness. I am calm. I am not so dissatisfied with my life or the prospects for my future, even when taking into account that they may not change all that much. I hope also, but do not worry (my mood does not allow for it; I mean I am unable to worry - for now), that this soothed state is temporary, like the euphoria of my infrequent manic spells. Somehow, I know it isn't, despite the haunting thought that life has taught me differently of such positive things.

I think this is harder to describe because, at least as much as it is a new feeling (or mood or mindset; it is the state of my mind and soul), it is the tangible void of something old and familiar, the absence of something that had a stranglehold on me and constricted tightly around the organ in me that feels happiness and contentment.

Who will know?

This is me,
behind the sea,
the eyes
you do not see,

the depth you cannot fathom,
the burden you can not bear -
sustaining understanding
of an instance so rare.

Chagrin.
To have found what was sought,
and for it not to be
the she
I'd expected.

Now pregnant with knowing, I
determinedly await her arrival.
Please,
meet me here in this void,
on this canvas of creation.

Admittedly, there may be no she;
still, that is the allure she has for me.

I prefer and have forgotten the way I phrased this while driving.

My frantic labors have been towards crafting a net with which to capture the knowledge that no net can capture the knowledge that I seek.

Just what the fuck am I doing?

Would I be a liar to answer that?

Nothing is the core.

The moment the light dimmed after all the brightness of the convergence of all of my awareness, I met the girl I'd spent that last moment of my time saving from the abrupt fate I experienced in exchange. She thanked me for the many years of a beautiful life that followed. All of time passed in the moment I died. Here I am, again. All aboard; hurry in peace.

now here this

"Bleary-eyed, I realize a place where all of existence serves as each of the lazy diodes on a tired streaming digital banner, plodding along its message and failing to allure in this ocean of holographic marvels.
I saw myself walk by it all too many times to count.
I don't remember ever seeing anything else."


I share the same telephone with one million other people and a bunch of inbound callers all expecting a particular person to answer.

fKALOL -- (E-Mail 2)

Hi Edward :)

It was nice finding your reply~and much better than the one-and-done sentences so many people reply with. I know what you mean about the singularity and loneliness that go with not fitting into the "norm" of society. I have the feeling that people like you, me, my one other friend that is so philosophical are on the fringes of society. We are out there, but to let the world know of our different ways of thinking, of viewing life is scary. Most people are in the comfort zone of every day living, and to leave that~to move into different planes of thought and dimension~freaks them out. Of course *finding* the people like us is another matter. I bumped across my other friend through a penpals site~and found yours on CL.

I noticed on your blog that you're in ########## :) We lived there from ####-####. It was nicer then than now (from what a friend tells me), ####### really exploded the population. I took ballroom dancing lessons while we were there (#############), and those lessons are perhaps some of my most warm (yet painful) memories.

[[I really am all sorts of things and constantly changing, except for that thing that never changes, the moment that is me. I become it every now and then, when I reach my center..]]

This is very true of myself. The moment that is me~my center~is still reaching out, one tentative finger at a time, exploring. It has been...shall we say, dormant~for nearly half my life. Now that I'm awake and I'm getting more comfortable being the real me and it's exhilarating. I'm not going anywhere, feel free to take your thoughts wherever they lead you~I'll be able to follow and maybe perchance, take you on some new dimensions you have yet to consider. Certainly happy to give it a go! :)

[[No string of communication begun within this series of attempts has lasted; I think people might sense too much of something that makes them uncomfortable within what it is that I am seeking - I think that I am seeking to tear down the walls which are the foundation of this structure of accepted common perspective. I don't even know whether I should; but I can, and I am, and I am what I am.]]

It does no good to fit into society's mold. I've tried, it only leads to the unrest of the soul and discord. I have also discovered (at least with CL) that most of the readers are out for things to satisfy the basic carnal/basic (food, sex) needs of humans. To find someone cerebral (let alone well written!) is a rare jewel among the rocks, so I treasure such when I find it.

[[I think I function as a normal enough guy. Most people seem to think I have a great sense of humor, am very compassionate and well-mannered, and am not "weird." ]]

*laughs* Define weird! To be honest, I think the whole general world-as-we-live-it is weird! It's very rare that people discover who they truly are, rare they seek to touch the center of themselves. When they do~as you have, as I have~it adds color, dimension, and lights.

[[ I think that what they see and like is crafted, live, by that mechanism I developed and allowed to do the work of socializing for me for so very long. I think that the fact that any person is yet to delve into what I truly am fuels an elusive sense of indignation in me.]]

Survival. Fitting in. A sense of needing to belong, yet totally alone within. All to familiar. Yes, the indignation is there, and anger. That I've essentially slept through the first half of my life and that now I'm fast fully awakening, there are so many hurdles to cross.

[[Doesn't anyone want to know?]]

I do, and look forward to learning more :)

Till next time,

[Caretaker]

=======================================================

Dear Dear,
Weeeeeeeeeeeeee!
What I read reassured me to the degree that I was confident enough to deign to acknowledge the tip of the iceberg that is my ecstatic acceptance of the blanketing comfort that I sensed growing as I read your response. I'm reeling, and might reply in a manner more austere at a later time - though, I do recall never liking the austere, it having never appealed to my artistic interpretation of reality. I am relieved to hear your understanding ringing in my mind as I decipher the meaning of your words and find them to be a portrayal of this same landscape which I so recently found, and found to be desolate and lonely. What you are reading is the gift of that realization, this harmony of mine with existence.
I wrote this, among other things, with my antique typewriter (recently recovered from ####### after an arduous three-day driving marathon, partnered with my older brother whom I had not interacted with at any length for nearly a decade - all of that just to convey a brief description one of the ripples resounding out from my center and creating the context, the periphery of that particular memory [how do we ever hope for language to convey enough of us for anyone to begin to understand who we are? Heck; just read what I wrote, and I guess this is something I'm currently "stuck" on in this never-ending journey of self-exploration]).

Bleary-eyed, I realize a place where all of existence serves as each of the lazy diodes on a cheesy streaming digital banner some two decades old, plodding along its message and failing to allure in this ocean of holographic marvels.
I saw myself walk by it all too many times to count.
I don't remember ever seeing anything else.

I added those last two lines just now, but I think it's a bit of what I wanted to capture earlier but failed to. I said before, I am so many things. This is what I am now. Thank you for saying "I'm not going anywhere, feel free to take your thoughts wherever they lead you." In this pursuit, I knew that there could be no compromise. This has been my manner of operation in this experiment: after having sufficiently mapped (by my judgment of how much of a bridle I would be willing to place on my happily nimble thoughts) a stable portion of my brain for my companion, I spoke just what I was. I know that my perspective is absolutely limited to what I perceive, but I observe that "most" of the fewer than a dozen people I interacted with disengaged at the same time, or a short while after the time that I gauged they each would become uncomfortable with the depth of the thoughts I was attempting to engage their minds with. They seemed to forget about that fully functional and outstandingly capable social interface with which they so eagerly became familiar, that facet which they might refer to as my personality. What is required of me to sustain interaction with this common world, is insignificant within the plane of my conscious. Suspended in my ennui I analyze and deduce from my distilled perspective so easily what seems to confound these people who I was one of so short a time ago, and I believe that "most" people are not ready to digest what it is that I so hanker to discuss. Regardless of whether I believed a person who I was fond of speaking to had a broad enough perspective to process what I was conveying, I conveyed it - for I know my perspective to be limited, and I could be wrong either way. I cannot hobble myself any longer; sure, I can, but I choose not to, and I am what I choose to be. I keep coming back to that, and it makes sense, but I am having trouble accepting it.
This was great fun to write. I was on a playground again - maybe what we feel like a child while performing is our calling. Meh. I will apply the same buffer (allowance for oblivious misinterpretation, though I think it should be univerally applied) to your writing as I understand may be necessary with mine. I don't know how much of a "warm-up" period, if any, anyone might require to understand me, but know that I am a liquid sphere of honesty - throw any thought into me, and it will be affected by the physics of what is me and you will hear its *poiks* and *blubs* and see the ripples it creates just as fully as I can convey them - just how I perceive everything and its journey through me. It is all I am able to do while remaining sure that I am placing one foot in front of the other in this trek of trust in this knowledge I am imbued with and that it does indeed lead me to that great home which I sense looming out in time.
Recall what I said before about appreciating what it is that pours through me and "onto paper" as much as any other person might. I enjoy writing it, too. Man, I really enjoy writing.


Ever Fond and Newly Calm,
Edward

===================================================

Now, because the cost is naught and I want to cover what you conveyed in your response in a studious manner, I will author a studious reply. This is me returning with the broom and dustpan to dutifully clean up the debris I imagine having left behind while smashing through the wall into this plane of consciousness. I know I don't know a thing outside of me and cannot accurately predict which of the myriad possible reactions that may have been yours, but enjoy the stage and props that I paint for you as I present what I intend to in the manner that I usually do. I was moving so quickly that everything along the way was a bit of a blur. I find that this expansion of my consciousness is constant, as long as I am constantly capable of maintaining my awareness of it. Shut up, man. It's an exponential progression of the breadth of thought that I constantly experience when focusing on any one thing; my mind tries to put into words the Truth that I am aware of, and the language falls short. It is only that "narrator" I'd referenced before in responses to others that was able to bridle me - by bottle-necking me with his clumsy, ungainly words and rendering me convinced of his necessity. I have only just realized that I am capable of choosing to be aware. Hmm. I wonder if this is temporary - my "peak experience" lasted a couple of weeks; that was wonderful. I also just realized that I wouldn't enjoy this in the same way if I relinquished this limited perspective of mine from which I appreciate that greater one. I'll try to tame my verbosity if you like, but I hope that I am correct in sensing that you will enjoy it. After all, it probably takes more than ten times as long to type as it does to read it.

Activate the Studious:

I live in #########; my good friend lives in ##########, and you are correct - things are uglier there thanks to the population incursion following #######. I really would like to learn to dance with confidence; I count it as another language.

"It does no good to fit into society's mold. I've tried, it only leads to the unrest of the soul and discord." Aye. Aye. I found that I not only contorted in order to prevent myself from spilling out of the cramped mould, I built the mould from what I perceived its plans to be, written in space and my imagination.


Hesitant Due to the Familiar and Apprehension-Inspiring Result of Sending So Very Much at One Time but Trusting It'll All End Well,
Edward


p.s. For fun and its pertinence to your comments and my views regarding the nature of most people's pursuits on CL, I include my first local post:



Brilliant and stuff. Seeking friend first. Must love discourse. - 26
Reply to: pers-1051039557@craigslist.org
Date: 2009-02-25, 11:32PM CST


I've a brilliant mind. I am not argumentative. I am passionately fond of deep, stimulating, enlightening conversation. Sports, politics, and the details concerning most institutions of man do not readily make, for my tastes, good conversation. I am: passionate, honorable, honest, principled, noble, empathetic. I did not pick those adjectives lightly; I mean that each is fundamental to what I am. I am not missing any of the attributes that I believe make a good person. I know that good and bad are based entirely upon perspective. I am often perceived to be overwhelmingly forthcoming. I think autonomously - I define myself and the nature of the world I perceive. The values that I wrought, embrace, and uphold resemble those that are labeled Christian and Buddhist. I consider things as separate wholes. I haven't had sex in about a year, or a stimulating conversation in about a month. I would currently rather have a good conversation than good sex. I'm very, very old for my age. I am, at times, very young for my age. I benefit greatly from meditation. I enjoy long, comfortable silences.

I am single. I have two daughters, ages four and a half and two and a half. My priorities and lifestyle are unconventional.

Regarding my face and body, on a scale from one to ten, I am between a one and a ten. I really would rather that it not matter all that much to you.

I want you to be a stellar conversationalist, an idealist, a hopeful romantic, constantly curious, someone who makes up her own mind. If you're a male, or know one who fits that description, please know or convey that I am a heterosexual male who would be thrilled to converse.

I'm open-minded. Very. I love each person. I prefer to come to understand rather than to judge. I think that, at the center, we are all the same.

I am an open book. I have no "deepest, darkest secrets;" they may be deep, but I'll shine a light down the well and describe each object at the bottom, relating the story of how each one fell down if a person has the desire and time to listen.

If I did not include some information you would like, please ask me. I guarantee my answer will be honest.

Alright, I'm open-minded enough to accept persons with superficial compulsions, and want to convey to whoever cares that my fitness level is (I think) better than average (one hundred and eighty pounds at five nine and a half) and think that I'm attractive. I only began to realize that I am pulchritudinous within the last couple of years, and often wonder whether I would rather be physically unattractive. My partners (not all that many) have consistently, greatly enjoyed love-making; that, or they have been consistently, greatly gifted at misleading me. I do not say this in order to add to my appeal - I'm not up for casual sex, even after getting to know someone, and it's not something I intend to share with anyone I am not in love with at the time.

I have no expectations. I know that I could fall in love in an instant, and out of it as quickly; it could just as easily take the rest of my life, or last for it. Whatever is will be because of what it is, not because of what I planned for it to be. That applies universally.

If there's a gap in some area of my self-description that is important to you, don't go assuming it's empty. I find it easier to answer questions that are asked rather than try to give the answer to none.

Any mistakes might indicate that I got tired of proof-reading this (something I do compulsively when typing) rather than my lack of the kickass languageosity that I been requesting you possess.

This was my attempt at a short post.

Whatever you do, find peace.

Nature of Truth

I believe that we exist in reality where every possible reason for something is its reason, and we choose which to believe. I believe that the only discord arises through misconception and lies. We can only be what it is that we are, not what we perceive another's perception of us to be. The common reality IS our reality, each of our realities.

Gotta cross this frontier I've found.

Perched upon a ledge only felt,
facing vastness sought or created
- can't remember which.

Am I?
Was here?
Who cares?

fKALOL -- (E-Mail response to London CL v.2)

Hi :)

I scudded over to your blog after finding your post on the London craigslist, and thoroughly enjoyed it (and yes, understood it as well). After looking at CL ads (mainly for a touch of inane humor at the lack of English/writing ability so common these days) in my area, I looked in the London ads (I have a fondness for Brits) and there found your posting.

Over the years, I have met one other person who takes philosophy and writing to a degree that I find challenging. I'm a writer/poet myself, and am always looking for new ideas, new ways to bend and stretch my thoughts outside the box. Perhaps this is because of my own multi-faceted own existence, changing colors as a chameleon, blending to fit my surrounds, taking on the skin of the roles I have to play on a day to day basis. I would like nothing more than to stay up till wee hours talking through ideas and possibilities.

[[You have not thought through the patterns whose contemplation is necessary to autonomously realize the truths that these entities you reference are conveying. You call these things "FACTS", yet that is a rented title, owned by people you choose to let determine your beliefs for you. Never once have you focused on the most basic knowledge that you possess, then progressed forward to explain the true nature of the existence of your most enigmatic observations. These things I will do. These things I am doing. These things I have done.]]

This part I found particularly striking. It has only been in the last few years that I have started focusing on my innermost Self, separate from those who (through their own belief in doing what is "right" and "good." As I have come to know my Self separate from who I thought and believed I was for the first half of my existence, I have gained in courage to actually live out the things I will do. The choices I am making and doing now. The results of my choices then.

There is much more to write and discuss, I would very much enjoy exchanging messages that do exactly that. More? As in real-life contemplations of our own very small part of this galaxy and Universe we move in? Perhaps so. It will happen (or not) because of our choices then, now and what we wrote yesterday.

Take care, Caretaker


============================================================

Howdy,
And thank you for your response; I want to know that there are people out there that are like me - not solely because of my sense of singularity and the loneliness that accompanies it, but because I would like the human population as a whole much less if it had yet to craft and sustain a significant number of persons like myself.
Though this message will be short (the internet was disconnected until just a few minutes ago, and I've some of those persistent errands to run - can't necessity just realize that I don't care for it, and let me float about bodiless and contemplating as I am impatient to do [despite my disapproval of my submission to impatience and learned impulses]?) I look forward to discussing anything with anyone who is capable of comprehending and appreciating my blog. I am still figuring out what it is that I "should" set forth in my universal introduction of myself to a peer, as I only now am able to utilize the distance of perspective granted me by time passed in order to determine what it is that remains relatively constant about me; now, though, I want to convey that I do not perceive what I am to be a perch of any height, great or small, and I wish to convey that I am not prideful of "my" writing or other products that seem to be mine. I am grateful that existence allows for the positioning of words and their meanings in such a manner as to convey what it is that I attempt to convey with my writing. I think I will continue to direct others to fkalol in order to allow them to assess me and their ability to perceive me accurately - if someone comprehends my blog, I believe that they will be capable of accompanying me on this journey through self and understanding of existence.
I really am all sorts of things and constantly changing, except for that thing that never changes, the moment that is me. I become it every now and then, when I reach my center. You are the only response to my London posting thus far. No string of communication begun within this series of attempts has lasted; I think people might sense too much of something that makes them uncomfortable within what it is that I am seeking - I think that I am seeking to tear down the walls which are the foundation of this structure of accepted common perspective. I don't even know whether I should; but I can, and I am, and I am what I am.
Oddly enough, I think I function as a normal enough guy. Most people seem to think I have a great sense of humor, am very compassionate and well-mannered, and am not "weird." I think that what they see and like is crafted, live, by that mechanism I developed and allowed to do the work of socializing for me for so very long. I think that the fact that any person is yet to delve into what I truly am fuels an elusive sense of indignation in me. Doesn't anyone want to know?


More Later (I Hope),
Edward

Another CL post, attempting to lure in the determinedly unsuspecting and the brilliant few. (v.2)

Autonomous, enlightened, once-passionate, adolescent geriatric. - 26 (#########, ## 08Mar2009):

---

Reply to: mailto:pers-44s9p-1066461376@craigslist.org
Date: 2009-03-09, 2:53AM GMT


I've so much to write, but not a single question to respond to. I'm looking for deeply intellectually stimulating conversation. I seek someone whose mind is capable of being honed to such a flawless edge as to render ineffective my ability to evaluate the level of perfection of their prose. My chosen passion is language; I believe it to contain the broadest spectrum of possibilities. I seek someone who shares, or would like to share, my passion. The blog contains an account, of sorts, of what I am.

I have found the following to be consistent in accounts that I have given of myself over time: I prize honesty over any attribute other than integrity - believing the two to be mutually requisite. I do not take credit for what I am capable of - nor do I believe that my perspective is more correct than that of another, only mine rather than that of another. Until a person chooses to be something else, they remain the product of their experiences, rather than self-determined, self-actualized; only I am accountable for what I am.

I'm having trouble summing me up. Just read the web log if you like tapestries of words woven by some guy who thinks highly of the quality of the product of his meticulous parlance, and in its integrity, a flow of thoughts - words parting my mind while capturing thoughts as droplets refracting the sun's rays upon springing from a fountain.


fkalol dot blogspot dot com

Re: As the sun sets heavily...

Dear [Sagacious],
I believe that there is no line except the one that exists within our selves. Each instance is experienced from different perspectives, and right and wrong is determined by conscience (true desire), and the relative importance and urgency of each factor affecting the choice being made about them (though I would say "by them," as I believe all of our choices are already made, based on who we are, which is who we choose to be). I believe that there is a "gray area" when a life is threatened, and one life or the other would be taken; though I believe this gray is made up of the absolute black or absolute white which exists in each separate situation. In each case, it is the nature of the choice makes it right or wrong - intention determines its purity or evil, love or hate.
What we are taught to this day, that first lie, the "original sin," what is accepted (to my knowledge) universally amongst nations and sects, is that my proximity to a life is believed to be the determinant of its importance to me - the closer a relationship I have to this person, the greater lengths I can go to to defend them, with my choices guarded by this bond - nothing more than my selfish desire to choose that the life I am most familiar with is more valuable than one unfamiliar to me. What I know is that, if it truly IS me that chooses who I am, then this proximity should matter not; my substance should be determined by what it is, my own gravity, not that of others. Only I can feel where my true center exists; only I can determine what the right choice is for me to make.
And the last bit of the paradoxes constituting the paradoxical whole: I think that this accepting the predetermined necessity of the approbation of society grants us a false comfort in having our decision made for us by the image of society that we create for ourselves. It is an unnecessary excuse - an apology for being what it is that we are, and the donning of the garments and upholding of the flags and standards of an oppressive entity that does not exist outside of our imaginations.
And I am having trouble thinking in a straight line, or capturing my thoughts with the usual quality of my locution in tact. My head begins to spin with the infinite complexity woven from that one simplicity and my perception of it - just like observed physical existence and the progression of dimensions from a "point," something that is nothing more than a moment. It gets pretty bright up there sometimes.
Once again, no proofread. Okay, no second or third proofread, one of those - I skim my work as I write, which I allow is proofreading - but the connotation with which I use the word "proofread" is to, upon completion of an entire draft, undertake re-reading with the intent to discover and correct mistakes. That's how I'd phrase it, anyway.


Glad to Have Been Found Familiar in Soul,
Edward

Why do I maintain this profile? -- (Facebook Post from 23FEB2009)

A comment on my status note - the question in this post's title:
=====================================================

Probably some desperate need for personal expression. I'm guessing the profile isn't helping that. How could it? Perhaps you should start writing (Get it? Writing? Man, I'm awesome at enforcing resolutions.) notes instead of making insignificant changes to a profile that no one bothers to acknowledge as meaningful. (I can't say the notes will convey any more importance though.)


My response to the comment:
=========================

I do feel an intense need to foster a more widespread awareness of the nature of my inner workings; I hope such exposure might evoke something more meaningful in the midst of this. I habitually bare myself in text form, and am met with an apparent indifference. I care much about much - little of which corresponds with what I perceive others' cares to be - at least those cares that I witness openly conveyed. I produce some beautiful things; my goal is not to garner praise or recognition - I want others to have the opportunity to enjoy and to appreciate what they see, regardless of its author, and I wish to see others and their work in the same way. I hunger for the result of others' braving sincerity.

I've refrained from writing notes solely because to do so would be an admission to myself that drawing attention to myself is, in fact, what I am attempting to do.

I desire to witness the birth and evolution of a lasting social phenomenon that provokes interaction more meaningful than the daily charade that I observe and take part in. I hope that people would benefit from being able to compare their insides to others'. I don't think that I'm alone in feeling out of place, limited by propriety to mechanical interaction with others. If I'm not alone, I do this also for those who wish as I do. I don't think that all others should feel the same; I just suspect that some do, and that they are silent as well.

I would rather be impacted negatively by this self-exposure than to continue wondering, without acting, whether or not people care. I want to know whether I'm imagining what I perceive, a widespread adherence to a self-creating "norm," and the disregard for much of what I hold dearest.

I'm not possessed of delusions of grandeur, or of a worth greater than that of any other. I don't think people do or should value my opinion over theirs or that of others. I doubt that this note or those that may follow it will have an impact on what it is that I am attempting to change any greater than that of a fly on the windshield of a city bus or the thoughts of the passengers oblivious to the impact - and I don't know whether it should. I do see a depressing lack of something that I would like to see more of, something that requires so little to flourish. I do want to find more of what I sense to be profound. I don't know how else to go about finding it.

I'm an "open book."
Anyone, I'll answer anything.
What's it cost?

Now if I could just fucking feel it.
Why do I not feel alive when I am not in love?

I did it for quite some time there. I was connected to absolutely everything. I peaked and sustained that level of awareness for weeks on end. This, too, is something beautiful that I am fond of recalling; I love bathing in those memories. So, am I looking for my drug? Do I seek someone to make it easier for me to reach the place that I am capable of residing within, at my leisure, when I master my mind? Would I feel that I was using her?

Is my claim to honesty just an excuse? Honesty comes easily to me - I feel no pain. Then, I do. I remember eons spent plummeting to the never-arriving bottom of an immense well of despair. Maybe it is that nothing else I might suffer could approach what I inflicted on myself. Am I seeking someone to bridge these two sides of me? Someone whose continuity of perception would allow me to see myself as I appear to them, a whole picture. I think that's it. I think it's a lot of things.

In realizing what I am,

I am free to be what it is that is me. I feel no longer that my mind must remain vigilant, shackled with its duty to ever-persist in divining what is most correct.

Nothing is correct. Everything is correct.

I believe my perspective to be no more correct than any other; I believe that this is the most correct perspective of all. This must be right - the only absolutes I have discovered are each a paradox.

I said that "I seem to be nothing unless I'm reacting to something." I later added what I realized had to co-exist: "I seem to be everything unless I'm reacting to something." I am helpless to narrow my perspective. I can respond to specific stimuli, but in the absence of proximity-inspired bias, I care for each thing as much as another, and it leaves me feeling as if I care for nothing. I care about everything.

"proximity-inspired bias" sounds a whole lot like gravity. I know that the same pattern governs all aspects of existence. Yay for an easy correlation.

Just looking for intelligent conversation -- (E-mail)

[A response to the e-mail quoted in this post.]


Dear Edward,

Oh how your reply made my mind and heart sing. It's so exhilarating and enthralling to meet someone who has the capability to write. It also gives me joy to know you are curious about the human condition. Observing others is a favorite past time of mine, particularly while traveling. I admit to reading memoirs voraciously, though some may be considered less than intelligent.

Please tell me, who are some of your favorite authors? I personally love J.D. Salinger, William Blake (poet I know), Garrison Keillor, Alan Moore, Erma Bombeck (who never ceases to make me laugh), Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Chretien De Troyes, and Clive Barker. I read constantly and in the future hope to be a librarian. [Once], I worked at the [library] and would often hide in the shelves upstairs and read while I was supposed to be putting away books.

[omitted segment]

Please, share more about you. What makes your heart soar? What do you want to be when you grow up? Where is home for you?

Sincerely and utterly intrigued,
[Sagacious]


=============================================================
[Sagacious],
The first sentence had the same effect on me as that which was expressed by it. It is exactly that sort of abandon which fosters and sustains this rare sense of childish freedom while frolicking through the mental landscapes I share in conversation.
I will note some dissimilarities between us: I possess no "higher" education; I graduated from a Catholic high school and received technical vocational training during my service in the Navy; I have settled in several, distant locations throughout the United States, but would not consider myself to be "travelled", much less "well travelled" - I have yet to leave this country. Since childhood, my imagination was the stage for my experiences, the canvas for the emotional portraits I painted and interacted with. Within the last year, I cleared the forest that I referenced in a years-old poem of mine - I'll paraphrase it "I sowed and nurtured this forest as it grew up around me, hiding from my view the world that I now so desperately seek."
It has been too long since I read frequently and well. "The Watchmen" is the last title I read; I was impressed. Before that was Orhan Pamuk, "My Name is Red" and "Snow;" Neil Gaiman, "American Gods;" William Goldman, "The Princess Bride," Dave Eggers, "You Shall Know Our Velocity!" and Tom McArthy with "Remainder." My favorite movies to date are "The Fountain" and "Adaptation."
Until recently, I found it odd that I have read as little as I have. I am sure that I've read a great deal more than the average American, but much less than I know my intellectual friends to have done. Rather than viewing this relatively meager exposure to published knowledge as a shortcoming, I take pride in and am granted confidence by the fact that I have forged my own understanding of what is. When I reached the climax of the urgency of my questioning of life and "it all," I meditated and sought out the most basic, irrefutable knowledge that I possess; upon finding it, I built and exposed with it a progressively complex understanding of the nature of existence and the relationships of its elements, including Creation and dimensionality, gravity and time, consciousness, morality and evolution, and perspective, and perspective, and perspective. I am granted a powerful sense of comfort by a discovery that I made since, one that I find it necessary to remain aware of while interacting in this sea of others: I am fallible. Knowing this, I seek to understand others rather than to judge or "correct;" I find that this mindset feels most natural.
I feel that only recently have I become balanced enough to read, to draw what I am able from others' portrayals. I intend to read the many books which I possess and have left unread. I intend to continue seeking until I find my true purpose in life. I would like to write; though a career in writing, as any other transition I might make, is not likely to provide me with an income comparable to that of my current employ. I would also like to act in meaningful movies, to be tapped as a creative source for television and movie plot and character creation and development, to be asked to interpret and predict the behavior of "psychopaths" - more than anything, I want to be a superhero and a much-needed fountain of philosophical simplicity. I expect never to be, and remain impatient to witness the change that I persistently sense is necessary despite my acknowledgment that my perspective is limited, infinitesimal in the midst of it all. I'm driven to a fate I have yet to identify. I would also be satisfied to stay this or some equally mundane course and patiently live out my life, rendering what good I can until its end.
More than anything, I want to be understood.

Drowsy Enough to Entertain Doubts Regarding My Ability to Continue Writing Coherently and Quite Contrite for this Asinine Sign-Off,
Edward

Howdy (from somewhere a bit closer than "across the pond") -- (E-mail)

Judge me not by my corny subject line. I'm usually capable of crafting worse than that. I'm tired, as my unwelcome wakefulness is abating, and I feel my cognitive function slowing - I am rarely direct in my speech, concentrating more on the periphery of my concept of something and hoping that my counterpart to form their own impression of the body of the idea; I'm verbose, and - as has become cliche within my self-description over the last few months, that being the only aspect of the phrase and its applicability to me that I dislike - "I'm overwhelmingly forthcoming." When I began that sentence, I meant only to convey that I judge myself not fit to aptly respond to what it was that I so enjoyed about your post... I just caught myself drifting off while staring at the subject line for several seconds before jarring myself back into awareness.

If I may borrow your words:
"I think that the written word is the perfect avenue for self-expression and am interested to meet those with an affinity for its flavor."


And I mean each word that you said - all jest aside.


I'm in #########, ##, and would love to couch surf to Austin some time in the next several years. I thought it'd be clever to jump the gun on that one.


I am confident in my ability to entertain you with this our language. I hope you are able to do the same for me; I greatly enjoy refreshingly eloquent encounters.

IAmYouAreMe

To Joh -- (E-mail)

I value the qualities of a person much more than those of their vessel. I am not my body. I know a brilliant man, a dear friend of mine, who is paralyzed from the pectorals down. He is no cripple.

================================================================

I deem that the most important thing to know about me as I am now is that, for the last year or so, I have been consciously discovering and re-defining who I am, my perspective, and my understanding of the nature of existence. I began soon after I returned to #########; I halted the momentum that had been driving me for more than a decade, and I found myself and have been evolving since. I often feel out of place amongst others because of the broadness and openness of my perspective and my ability and desire to express it. When I hear a person relating how angry they are at something, or speaking in a derogatorily judgmental manner of another, I find myself unable to empathize. As empathetic as I am, I find that I do not understand cruelty or indifference. It baffled me as a child, as well.

I am, absolutely, an open book. I guard my words for the sake of others, depending on the situation, but there is nothing that I am aware of having an unwillingness to discuss. When interacting with someone, I want, above all, for them to know just who I am without lies or pretense.

A Response to Me Post -- (E-mail)

Dear Random Gentleman with the Intriguing Post,

To be frank, I normally read the craigslist personals at night just for fun, and I rarely find anything of substance. However, your entry truly caught my eye. Also on an honest note, I must divulge that I am happily in a relationship, but I would love to have intelligent conversation. It's a hard commodity to locate.

I'm deeply interested in talking about matters of faith and religion. Additionally, I love talking about literature, ethics, and all manners of topics. Thus far, I've led an interesting life through various jobs and friendships and often just like to share beliefs and personal experiences.

If you're still interested, feel free to contact me at this email. I would love just to have to have someone to talk to here, as the aforementioned relationship is long distance, and I'm often in ######### by myself.

Take care and have a relaxing Sunday.

Sincerely,
A random lady who is exceedingly curious


===========================================================


My Dear Randomly Sagacious Muse Whose Display of the Self-Similar and thus Familiar Products of Her Own Nimble Mind Didst Render Me Immediately Fond of Their Conceiver,
I feel, now, less alone.
Infrequently, I experience something after which the dapper narrator of my life - that nearly ever-present voice monologuing inside of my skull, constantly vying for and mostly winning my attention from the experience of life itself - is left, ever so briefly, speechless. This time, I resorted to a tellingly trite summation: "Awesome."
I don't wish to convey that I am a lonely soul - though I am, at times, as I am a bit of everything, at times.
You may apply the majority of your message to me: I read much of CL for entertainment, as I am ever curious about the human condition and the broadening of my perspective by the consideration of others'; I am also - and "deeply" is the word I most often use - interested in discussing the topics you mentioned, including, especially, the "and all manner of topics;" I enjoy the experience of coming to know a person, I find it more rewarding than any other that I can readily call to mind - and I am patient for times at which I am delighted to realize that I have found someone who is capable of understanding me.

With Pretty Fond Regards,
Edward

p.s. I convey that my chosen style of locution rarely has occasion to demonstrate this level of poise, and that, though I usually tailor my manner of speech to best suit what I understand to be the nature of the audience, I rarely have occasion to stretch myself. I look forward eagerly to refreshing parley.

Self-sustained unacceptability.

I know myself to be the bastard creation of, among other things, what I knew and what I was told, and remain unable to accept the unity of those halves - a condition self-sustaining, as would be its inverse. What choice can I make to become something else? I strive now to maintain my connection to this place where I am at peace, my state of balance, my absolute state. I am both, now; stating this makes it so. I shall see if it lasts.