Art, Zen, Summer

I wrote nothing in July. Nothing, the entire month, or nothing substantial enough or fresh enough to merit a new document. Unbelievable! Where has my head been!

I'm thinking now about attempting to publish a book of poetry instead of a sort of silly, contrived book of nonfiction. I've had trouble getting back to writing that matters because I've been really afraid that it doesn't, that verbal expression just can't convey truth. But lately I've been thinking that perhaps, like other art forms, when it is used as a tool, not to abstract but to better convey a reality, differently than language is ordinarily used, maybe the interest or the art is in that specific disconnect, that is what makes it worthwhile. Anyone?

Anyway, I've had this thought about moving back to poetry because I don't think a how-to book on road trips focused on college students really does anyone any good. For one, it simply continues to benefit those whose means already allow them great privilege. Two, it in reality continues to pollute the publishing marketplace with yet another sort of useless book only produced for profit. It bothers me that in reading Michael Larsen's How to Write a Book Proposal, everything seems very focused on making an agent or publisher believe whatever it is you're interested in producing is going to yield a large profit. I suppose this is just the reality of the situation today, but it doesn't really seem to be doing anyone anywhere any real good, authentic good.


Ava and I went to the Zen Center this morning for their beginning meditation instruction. It was cold. As optimistic as I'd been about practicing, I'm not positive it's for me. I thought the whole point was the cessation of hte importance of ego, but I felt as if some of the tradition was steeped in it. In the past, as all tradition is. Rememberance. Maybe I'm being too sensitive; I felt it was a somewhat fast, impersonal and jarring introduction on the whole, crowded. Actually, come to think of it, that may be a symptom of trying to attend a workshop based in one of the countries most famous Zen centers, yea? Maybe that was more it.

Anyhow, I've got to attempt to figure out what it is I'm going to do next summer, whether it be staying in the states to write a book of some sort of leaving to do a service project somewhere. Perhaps both? Which sounds nice but, you know, totally unlikely.

Money and Investing

I wish I knew something, anything about investing. It seems like the sort of thing my obsessive type-A personality would take a liking to, you know, needing to learn everything about it, but it just seems too huge, too big to learn enough about to be anything close to profitable. Everytime I start trying to learn about investing I get confused and all wrapped up in the variables, not to mention the unfamiliar jargon.

The first personal finance website to ever be a real help to me was The Motley Fools. Following that I got really into savings, acquiring first a credit union savings account, then moving on to an ING Direct savings account (the rates of which were recently bumped up to 3.15%). I also locked myself into two relatively low-yielding CD's through the same company, which was a poor move.

I just wish I knew more. I suppose everyone does. But I wish I knew enough to invest in actual companies, not just some Momma Mutual Funds.

Anyway. So that I can track my net worth all the way up until the time I'm a billionaire, I've found Yodlee.com, a site to which you give all of your different accounts so that it can track them daily and tell you precisely how much money you have, how much money you are spending, and how much money you owe. Fantastic! There is no better, more efficient way to be obsessive compulsive -- other than keeping a blog, that is.

Yoga Sutras

Just finished reading The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. They are amazingly similar in philosophy to Buddhism (and Neale Donald Walsh's conversations, though this fact is less remarkable). Though the sutras were written after early Buddhist writings (including the eight-fold path, four noble truths, etc) I don't believe that means they were a major influence, simply that both have accessed the same root wisdom through similar means. Which is heartening since the more I read Buddhist philosophy and attempt to physicalize it, the more it seems to make a lot of sense.

This afternoon I did an exercise I found in a book on Reiki and I was stunned to find results actually manifest, which makes me all the more excited for the course I'm taking next weekend. This Saturday I'm hoping to work up the energy to attend the San Francisco Zen Center's 8:45am Zazen Meditation instruction. But following a longer day of work on Friday than usual and my generally unrestful sleep lately, things may not go as planned.

Walking

My problem with suburbia is the only privacy that is to be had is behind the four walls of these grandoise, impersonal houses whose character, supposedly individualized by floor plans and wall placement, is really imperceptible. I took a walk today, through the soccer fields towards the levee which I thought was a movement towards and hopefully into some semblance of nature. Instead the view was completely clouded by these compartmental box bouses on the horizon, all of which could not be even wholly considered because of a leaf blower disturbing any quiet which might have been had. I felt like a fraud. Or part of the collective fraudulence. Has it always been that way? People everywhere? I feel like maybe when we moved here the houses along the other edge of the bay weren't around yet, Redwood Shores hadn't been built yet. Maybe at some point people came here because it felt close to nature. Maybe.

Angering me even more was the barely perceptible noise and sensation of the squeaking of my rubber flip-flops which I felt more than even its annoyance accused me of being an intricate piece of the problem.

Climate Change Inevitable

From Earth Blog:

"While climate change is indeed inevitable, the question is whether it will be deadly or manageable is far from resolved. As the science underlying climate change has become indisputable, it is fascinating to witness the new weak rationales of those unwilling to tackle the difficult task of placing modern society on an energy diet. These obstructionists have gone from saying climate change is not happening, to saying it is but we just need to adapt. But with the possibility that climate changes could be much more extreme than ecosystems can handle, this may be deadly to human civilizations. Yes climate change is inevitable, yes we need to adapt, but this does not alleviate the need to embrace ambitious energy conservation, emissions cuts and renewable energy subsidies to ensure the inevitable change falls within the range that is survivable."

Italy

Two months from today.