Farm 0531

May 31st, Chimayo, NM:

This was a work day. I woke up at 5:56AM, expecting to be visited by Mario at 8AM. Unhurried shower, breathing, and oatmeal breakfast followed, along with Yogi mint tea. Mario arrived soon after, he found some work gloves for me, then we rode in a truck to Adán's dad's house. Ted, as he introduced himself, seemed hearty and welcoming. He talked to me about the layout of the land and the farms, then continued to tell me about te history of the area's land ownership, since the "mercedes" from Spain, until when the Federal government took major pieces of the land as natural reserve. All the while I paid attention, while looking at Mario through my eyes' corners, wondering if I could be of help as he took a chainsaw and a gasoline tank out of the truck.

Soon after we were told what the task was: cut down several trees to prevent them from casting their shade on the nearby chile crops. I hadn't quite grasped the concept until Mario gave me ear mufflers, turned the chainsaw on, and began to saw through the first tree trunk. He gave me the task of picking up fallen leafy remains, and putting them in a nearby empty area off the road.

It wasn't pleasant. The trees, handsome, green, and in seeming perfect health, gave no apparent reason to be sawed down. They rose tall and lean, their bright green banners waving in the wind. But down they came, one after another, and I dutifully took the leafy remains and dropped it into what became a surprisingly large pile of branches. All the while I paid my respects (in my mind) to the dying limbs, feeling as if I were carrying freshly made cadavers. I felt a simpler and less drastic solution was possible to light the chile crops adequately, but I said little, as I know little of this context I'm in.

When we finished, I walked around the property to take a look around. Small cacti and taller thorny bushes abounded in the area, and I got several thorns inserted into my skin when I walked into one inadvertently. I was happy to see they came out easily after pulling, despite them piercing deep.

The dusty, light brown path took me to a small summit, with a field of small cacti over it whole. I could not have stopped on the field without stepping directly on the thorny plants. The view from that spot was magnificent, though, off in the distance, flat and angled rises layered in light reddish brown decked the horizon with uniform splendour, clearly marked by its sharp contrast with the cloudless morning-sky blue directly above it. Then I walked back to the truck, and we drove back. Mario declared lunchtime, dropped me off at my cabin, then left to eat.

I fried two farm eggs and reused the mint tea bag from the morning for lunch. The eggs' yolks were bright orange upon cracking, and the resulting fry had an intense yellow golden color. Their flavor was rich, and the mint tea itself was not too weak. After washing the dishes and some purposeful breathing, Mario knocked on my door.

The afternoon's task was to dig a hole, 2 feet deep, in which a wooden post was to be interred, then serve as support for a new metal gate. First we removed the covering rocks, then he marked the area for the hole, and we began digging. One pricked the earth with a long, heavy metallic bar, to loosen it up, then the other shoveled or dug a layer of earth with shovel or "digger", a heavy metallic instrument that scooped up the earth vertically. We chatted about our latin origins and different words and accents between regions as we dug away.

Once the hole was dug (more due to Mario than to my sincere efforts), we drove out to pick up the wooden post. Six feet nine inches long, about a foot wide and three fourths deep, solid wood, that thing was HEAVY. I could not stand to lift it in front of me, so we placed it on our shoulders. Once on the truck, we drove back and slid it down into the fresh cavity. Then Adán came by just as we were holding the post up, and overrode his father's directions to cover it up with earth by cementing it down instead. He then left with his family to celebrate Ashley's (his girlfriend's) birthday, and we pulled up a cement mixer to do the job. Carlos, a nearby worker making wooden doors, helped us hook it up to power, and I got water for the cement mix from the nearby "acequia". I saw Mario shovel sand, rocks, and cement alternately into the mixer as it dutifully turned and homogenized the gray blend.

A few cartfuls of cement mix and a cleanup of the cement implements later, we all sat down under the wooden shed, at Carlos' invitation, to partake of some spicy Rancheritos chips, drink a soda, and talk about the weekend, immigration statuses, families, and other such topics. Mario then gave me a small tour of the farm. He showed me how to turn the drip irrigation on, how and where to collect eggs and feed the animals, and gave me his phone number in case I needed anything. I thanked him for everything during that day, put in and marked 30 eggs in the egg fridge notebook, and came back to my cabin for a shower, a frozen spinach+peas dinner (after cooking them, of course), some breathing, and an early sleep.

PIT-ABQ

May 30th, Chimayo, NM
Ayer volé de Pittsburgh a Albuquerque, con parada en Chicago por dos horas, y en Denver solo mientras reemplazaban pasajeros. No dormí la noche anterior, después de hablar unas cuantas horas con Laura en la velada del martes 28. Hablamos en amistad sobre mi intención e desconexión, mientras yo evitaba entrar a más detalles más allá e mis motivos y mis métodos. Mi destino, mis intereses, y cualesquiera otros detalles se mantuvieron dentro de mi ser que esperaba un d´â más para brotar. Nos despedimos con varios abrazos profundos de cariño intenso. Y aunque su piel era blanda y su cuerpo cálido, percibí en mi solo sentimientos de cariño y bienestar hacia ella.

El día siguiente dormí al viajar. Dormí en el bus, el 28x, mientras me llevaba al aeropuerto. Dormí en la puerta de abordaje hasta que casi todos los pasajeros habían abordado. Dormí en el vuelo a Chicago, y dormí en la puerta de abordaje, sentado semi-incómodo sobre dos sillones verdes, mis piernas bajo un pasabrazo negro.

El vuelo entre Chicago y Denver me vio despierto. Aunque tal vez hubiese dormido una porción si me hubiese sentado en otra compañía, o solo, pedí el asiento de en medio entre un hombre y su hijo, a la ventana. Apenas me senté y vi al ninõ viéndome, él me pregunté: "What's your name?" Pleasantly surprised at his straightforwardness, I introduced myself, and learned that his name was Zach. Three to four lines later between me and both Zach and his father, he stated, with a realized certainty, as if he had just concluded: " You speak Spanish!" I laughed in surprise and said:

- "Yes, I do! How did you know that?"
- "I dunno", shrugging his shoulders.

And a few seconds later:

- "Seriously, how did you know that I speak Spanish?"
- "Because I'm so smart"

My mind later arrived at the most probable conclusion that he inferred my Spanish from y name, my appearance, and/or from an accented work or two I could've said before. But whether it was that, or a deeper perception of his unjaded being, I agreed with his response.

El avión tardó más de lo usual para partir, y Zach y yo hablamos mientras esperábamos. Hablamos sobre las maletas que varios hombres ponían en el avión bajo la ventana, le expliqué el significado de "luggage", y nos llegamos a conocer un poco más. Su padre parecía aliviado al ser relevado de su tarea de entretener a su hijo, aunque también preocupado de que las inquisiciones y soltaduras de Zach para conmigo fueran a ofenderme de laguna manera. Intenté tranquilizar al padre mostrándome completamente abierto con Zach, mientras él me quitaba los lentes de la cara, tecleaba en mi laptop como si fuera un piano, y luego en el aire, mientras metía su dedo en mi jugo de manzana repetidamente para probarlo, una vez le había gustado.

Pasé mis dos horas en el avión con Zach y con su padre muy entretenido. Su padre y yo hablamos sobre su profesión (Food Engineering) y mi educación (Machine Learning), y con Zach hablamos de temas tan diversos e indefinidos que casi no los recuerdo. Hablamos de mapas, Six Flags, nubes, y otras cosas. Lo vi intentando hacer un avión de papel con el menú, pero lo detuve, y le ofrecí doblar una mariposa con una hoja de papel de mi cuaderno. No pareció muy interesado, pero aún así, pedí prestado el teléfono con WiFi de us padre, y junto a Zach, seguí las instrucciones de un video de YouTube para formar la mariposa. Al verla completa. Zach apenas la tocó, tomó el teléfono de us padre, y le preguntó como escribir "Sponge Bob". Reí ante su indiferencia, pero su padre dijo que la hermana de Zach era fan de origami, y me preguntó si estaría bien darle la mariposa. Asentí con gusto, y noté como ella extendió la mano con interés al recibir la mariposa.

Otros diálogos durante el avión:

- "Are you three?"
- "No, I'm four. Why would you think that I'm three?"
- "I don't know. When's your birthday?"
- "August 28th"
- Dad laughs. "What? December 9!", emphasizing the correction.

- "So your son seems very outgoing and energetic"
- "Oh yeah! I'm only 40, and... do you see these gray hairs?", pointing at his 1/4 gray hair. "That's all because of him"

Zach and family deplaned in Denver after a quick but meaningful goodbye and good luck. I then moved to the front row (with the most leg space), saw a few passengers board the plane, and woke up as we landed in Albuquerque.

Irini and I recognized each other's questioning looks as I exited the security area. We hugged and talked in Spanish until we reached the baggage area, where we sat down and talked about personal interests, beyond the initial travel chit-chat we'd just exchanged.

- "Y qué haces tú aquí en Albuquerque?"
- "Pues yo trabajo en el Centro Cultural Hispano"
- "Ah bueno, ?y cómo qué te interesa?"
- "Pues yo estoy interesada en saber sobre las cosas más allá de la pasa... en lo que permanece"
- "!Ah!", dije curiosamente.
- "Sí, porque todo pasa. Las personas, los países, las relaciones, todo pasa... pero ?qué permanece?"
- "Me parece que tu dirección es espiritual"
- "Sí", asentó con acuerdo calmado.

Me llevó directo a su casa, donde me ofreció gazpacho (sopa fría de vegetales, rico) y algo de tomar. Le pedía gua. Me mostró a su cuarto, donde yo dormiría, y hablamos unos veinte minutos hasta que fue a recoger a sus hijos, y yo quedé solo en su casa. Abrí mi computadora, y le escribí un email tendido a Echo Ping.

Cuando regresé, la acompañaban Zen y Amadeus, de 8 y 4 años, sonrientes y curiosamente cautelosos apenas los primeras diez segundos después de verme. Luego, parecían haber entrado a su modo natural y jovial, y querían mostrarme y explicarme, al igual que a sus padres, lo que hicieron en el colegio y lo que sabían sobre dinosaurios, lagartos y cocodrilos. Luego salimos al patio trasero, cubierto con piedras lisas para caminar, y piedrín rojizo sobre el resto, recordándome a un jardín Zen. Tenía también una hamaca y un sillón, y nos sentamos en el sillón para seguir platicando.

Hablamos un poco sobre CouchSurfing y sobre drogas, y luego me relató una experiencia fantástica con una droga experimental, que la llevó a percibir la Unidad absoluta, más allá de la mente, repleta de existencia y de alegría, y en la cual todas las preguntas provenientes de su mente, inclusive aquellas sobre la Unidad, se disolvían por completo. Me explicó su entendimiento de la Unidad, la vida y la mente, y percibí en ella un sentimiento pleno de certeza y serenidad.

"It is closer than your breath", she said.

The children's father, Sasha, arrived soon later, and we got to talking. Apparently, Guatemala had a significant role in Sasha and Irini meeting. They met through his brother, who Irini met while staying in Guatemala. Also inclined to spiritual interests, he also seemed a serene and internally happy person.

After Quinoa, hummus, veggies, and crackers dinner, I bid good evening and went into my room. There I found Echo online, and we talked about possibilities, plans, and some people for up to three hours. As my very last remaining contact from before, I took care to keep a meaningful connection (to take my decisions around her with strong intention)

The next morning, I awoke to Irini washing dishes, dancing with her children, and planning her day. I also noticed little rainbow stripes moving across the kitchen, projections from a small rotating crystal on the window I only noticed until later. The previous day, Zen had already told me the difference between a crocodile and an alligator, evoked the sound of a baby alligator, and shown me two Godzilla TV shows. This morning he told me facts about the Komodo dragon, and ascertained that even an astronaut suit would not be an effective defense against the fierce Komodo dragon.

After displaying my gratitude for her hospitality and eating some cereal with Rice milk, she showed me her shed, where I put in two of my three backpacks. Then she left his house with Zen. A little later, Sasha's mother arrived to pick up Amadeus. I felt in her the same heartfelt smiles and hospitality as in my hosts, though perhaps with more prominent energy. The dogs in her car, even, seemed excited and happy to meet me.

I stayed with Sasha for a while as he waited to go to work. We talked also about peace, want, happiness, and Life, and I felt we understood each other. Then we said goodbye, he gave me directions to the Old Town plaza and attractions, then a chapstick, and I began walking.

Caminé varias cuadras hacia el centro de Old Town, concibiendo mi estado en ese momento. Estaba viajando en Albuquerque, sin residencia propia, con una sola mochila (y una bolsa con extras que no cupieron). Caminaba porque así yo lo decidía, sin un destino fijo inmediato, más que cada paso siguiente. Me puse a sentir cada paso que tomaba, cada árbol que saludaba, cada pájaro que cantaba, como lo que era y solamente. No medía mis pasos por su distancia, sino los sentía como mi propia acción, única entre las miles.

Pensé en mi respirar no como un recurso necesario para continuar caminando con eficiencia, sino com un placer que mis pulmones me otorgaban. Así intencioné, y así caminé, al menos los primeros trayectos.

Pronto llegué a una plaza tras un parqueo, y al ver un reloj de sol, de inmediato me acerqué, e intenté leer la hora. Pero la sombra no se marcaba sobre el reloj - por alguna razón ese lado de la escultura de bronce estaba uniformemente ensombrecido. Pero en la placa del reloj leí el poema que escribí hace 9 páginas, y me senté para ponderar y memorizar los pocos versos. Me parecieron trascendentes, apropiados, y un maravilloso encuentro en mi caminata "inaugural".

Luego caminé por un parque, las casas que creo componen a "Old Town", un parque de un museo, con muchas esculturas de bronce, muchas (y las más detalladas) esculpidas por la misma escultora, nacida hace 85 años. Entré a una iglesia, luego al encontrar Central Ave, caminé por ella a través de downtown, hasta llegar a Maple St.

I knew I'd find the street while walking in this direction, and I turned left on the familiar uphill I walked so few times before. Her same car was still right in front. I checked the mailbox... Scorcia. Yes, she was here alright. But in accordance with my disconnection, I walked off to the university. There, I found a flat stone next to eh frontal Lobo sculpture, and ate the remains of the Quinoa, and the hard-boiled egg Irini had given me. I felt satiated after chewing and swallowing my food with strong intention.

I walked off to the rest of the campus on bare feet, attempting to acclimate them to a fairly gentle sunny ground, and after I felt my tennis shoes press on my feet somewhat tightly.Although I felt a burning sting several times as I walked between car shadow oasis(es?/i?) through a parking lot, my feet found no hindrance beyond the concrete heat.

I found her building and stepped in through unlocked doors. I went up the stairs and looked for her name through the faculty's and researchers' names, to no avail. I did find a lobby in the department of Foreign Languages, with shelved walls filled with books of French and German poetry and the like. It seemed like a good place to spend a longer, less constrained time in.

When I came back out, the heat stings in my feet still hurt slightly, so I put my shoes back on. I was wandering next to a fountain, when I saw, far off, a girl with tight denim shorts, grey shirt, and a mode of walking that reminded me of hers. After hesitating for two seconds, I walked at firm pace in her direction. She turned left to enter a building still about forty steps ahead, so when I entered the building, she was gone from sight. I wandered inside for a few minutes, searching for the tight denim shorts, but nothing. So I looked at the prices on a coffee shop. Right after that, the denim shorts walked past to my left, her face just barely visible. I followed her again until she turned her face just enough. It wasn't her. I went back inside, bought an oatmeal, then found a shaded bench in a corner to eat my oatmeal on.

Not two minutes later, a girl on a bike rides past me. "Carmella!" Nothing. "Carmella!", and she turned back. Much excitement, hugging, surprise, and catching-up followed. She became the second contact from before still in touch with me, then she left to do "some things".

Sentí que no me expliqué propiamente cuando hablamos, así que después de mi oatmeal, y de ver a un skater saltar 10-12 gradas repetidamente, siempre rotando al caer, caminé de regreso a Maple Ave, listo para sacar una hoja de papel y escribir una nota de aprecio. Pero al pasar por us asa decidí mejor no hacerlo, y seguí caminando. Pero veinte pasos después, a la par de un station wagon blanco, había una mujer que comenzó a saludarme. La saludé de regreso, mientras me id cuenta que era la mamá de Carmella! Nos abrazamos con gusto, me dijo que le gustaba mi pelo largo, y me invitó a entrar con Carmella, con quien estaban desalojando su apartamento. En ese momento también mi teléfono sonó, y acordé estar en University y Central en 30 minutos.

Carmella me vio entrar a su apartamento con una expresión entre sorpresa y confusión. Sentí bochorno por poder parecer estar siguiéndola, y dije "I swear, I didn't mean to come in, she found me", pointing at Marie. They were packing kitchen appliances, utensils, and clothes, and I felt awkwardly useless, wanting to either help or make a good conversation. But I didn't know enough to help, and they seemed busy enough to be chit-chatting, so I stood in a non-obstrusive corner until time has passed and I said goodbye to walk to my meeting intersection. Hearty hugs followed, and Adán picked me up at UNM.

He drove straight north to Santa Fe and his farm. We conversed all the way about many things: our backgrounds, our interests, and the land. He said a drought seemed impending this year, and he showed me dust rising up from the desert plains, with no moisture to keep it down. When I saw a sign that said "Los Alamos" and mentioned it was beautiful, I didn't expect his response. As a nuclear weapons/research facility, Los Alamos enjoys peace, abundance, and government support, he said. But he also called it a brain-drain, the golden handcuffs, the place that employs servants from down in the valley for the nitty-gritty and dangerous tasks. And the servants often need to be there before dawn, so in the mornings you see huge lines of cars going up that mountain. They get good money, but they are sworn to secrecy, and they have to work long hours. But without it, the whole valley would go dead. I realized I now knew people both who lived in Los Alamos, and who did not like those who lived there. The dynamics are probably more complicated than only that.

Upon reaching the farm, Adán introduced me to his family - sister, girlfriend, son, 2 cats, 2 dogs, and mother. Close-knit familial and relaxed, his family seemed to lead a good life together. He then showed me the crops, the acequias, and he showed me the weeds I would be pulling out from beside the crops. Asparagus, beans, broccoli, peas, carrots, kale, chard, corn, chile, among others, were the crops he showed me. We also went and saw his ~70 chickens and ~10 sheep, and his main worker Mario, his wife, and his children. He also showed me his cabin, and all the details inside (5/31). "It is cozy and self-sufficient", was one of my first thoughts. It has a stove, an oven, kitchen sink, coffee maker, refrigerator, pots and pans, dishes and cutlery, toaster oven, and staple foods like oats, beans, lentils, and rice. I also learned what staple foods meant. The bedroom has a large dresser, and a double bunk bed, a pretty well-equipped bathroom is in the back, and I have the entire cabin to myself for now. I felt quite satisfied with it.

(06/01):
Me dejó acomodarme en mi cabaña, y se fue a dormir a su hijo Félix. Con emoción de novedad, saqué mi ropa de mi mochila, y la guardé en las gavetas disponibles con organización impromptu. Saqué mi toalla, cepillo, desodorante, rasuradoras, hamper, cuaderno, y me desvestí para bañarme. Al salir del baño, tomé mi cuaderno y lapicero, y me dispuse a escribir mis rebosantes recuerdos de los dos días recientes. Siento que la energía expresada al final de la entrada es menor a la mostrada al inicio, pero pocas veces había escrito así de largo y seguido. Adán apareció pronto después (tocó a la puerta), y me habló sobre otros detalles de la granja, como los vecinos, el protocolo de saludo a distancia, su itinerario para los siguientes días, y las tareas que estimaba que haríamos estos días. Luego se despidió, me mostró el saludo local (hand slap + fist bump), y se fue. Seguí escribiendo hasta cuando sentí cómodo (hace párrafo y medio), y me fui a dormir.

Sundial poem

The shadow of my finger cast

divides the future from the past.

Before it stands the unborn hour,

in darkness

and beyond thy power.

Behind its unreturning line

the vanished hour

no longer thine.

One hour alone is in thy hand;

the now

on which the shadow stands.

Found in Old Town Albuquerque Plaza

Social

These days I look up at any crowded area, and rarely is the crowd not involved in interacting with their electronic device (I am right now). I see people Facebooking, messaging, emailing, watching movies, listening to music (consuming media), and I'm even almost relieved at an actual phone call. It is overwhelming, and I've already found myself involved in just this behavior. Anxious, of I don't know what, of missing the events of this instant, of not knowing what everyone else does. What's fresh? What's funny now? Maybe the new funny is hilarious, why would I miss it if I can avoid it? "I need to know this, I need to talk to him, to watch that, to use our time to keep up with the events of my friends and the world".

The anxiety is real, the need is not. Highly varying per age range, social status, and life habits, of course, but as a guy with tech-oriented education, who has seen the progression of these habits sprout and spread since such predecessors as ICQ, and a set of quirks I sometimes describe as light OCD, I've felt this anxiety grow with the spread of connections available, which I used to strongly support. When I got my first blackberry smartphone, I was quick to install and login to all messaging applications I was signed up for, and I remember labeling myself "Forever Online".

Two laptops, three smartphones, and five years later, my attitude towards perpetual connectivity has changed. After the first few months with my blackberry, I realized that e-messaging my friends didn't make us connect much more, nor did it allow us to hang out more often. In fact, it seemed to me that I myself was too busy talking with everyone at once, finding someone to connect with, caught up in the e-fever, that I found no time to choose a single person from my hundreds of e-friends from my dozen e-circles to talk to personally, or even by phone. And though my ability to express myself through short text strings developed nicely, my face-to-face skills withered.

I didn't realize it at the time, but in hindsight, my social strategy could hardly work out well to develop a fruitful, social circle for me. Everyone else out there either already had satisfying personal relationships or they didn't. If they did, they either weren't online at all, or wouldn't be interested in connecting with anyone else on such a narrow channel as text. And if they were also needy like me, they'd probably have a similar strategy to mine - every green ball beside a name was an opportunity for connection, an invitation for a "hey", and before they knew it, they were handling six different contexts through six different text rectangles, each of which was either also playing social butterfly, or was getting annoyed at how unattentive this e-person was.

It did happen though, that a real connection would sometime spark through the texts, and I'd spend hours on end talking to this person (most often female) on the other side of the rectangle, and each day anxiously waiting for the next time we had hours on end to talk. As probabilities would have it, though, the other side of the rectangle was also often on the other side of the world. Even if it were only on the other side of the state, a busy schedule from either party was enough to disallow meeting face-to-face. And while I did find a few precious real gem friends scattered throughout the online social network, I found the effort-to-connection ratio much too high.

I feel I've tangented off the topic a lot. In short, I don't see online social connectivity as a tool for social-savviness and popularity anymore. I don't think being able to choose to talk to a friend through either Email or Whatsapp or Facebook or Skype or text message or phone call helps me tell a friend what I want to any better. I think it does make me have to figure out and remember which of these channels are preferable/available/speedier for each of my contacts, and for those who handle all channels continually, it makes little difference. I think it can create excuses for sneaky recipients who do not want to deal with some message just yet.

• "Which report that's due when? What message? Oh, a TEXT message? Sorry, I didn't have my phone with me!"
• "You sent it on Skype? Man, I rarely log in there anymore!"
• "Why wasn't I at which meeting? Oh I'm so sorry, my Google Calendar somehow didn't sync with my phone!"

I've said these lines sometimes.

As the magic of instantaneous communication became commonplace and it pervaded my every day, I found some of these channels transforming from perpetual opportunities into perpetual burdens. Gradually, I began to think of that smooth slate in my pocket less by what I could do with it, and more by how cumbersome it was to tell it what I wanted, by the duties it gave me of charging it and of being within earshot (almost like a baby), by the pressing, if ever-so-slight attention (receptiveness) I owed it in case of anyone texting or calling me at ANY time, and by the constant 1900MHz keep-alive signal it radiated directly into my pelvis. As you can gather, I've become less inclined to acquire the best and latest communication technology.

Actually, it was through this process that I was better able to discern some dynamics of social phenomena from the pre-Internet epochs. (Granted, the Internet is older than I am, but at least the first half of my social life occurred in pre-Internet style; cellphones and ICQ became moneyed novelties smack in the middle of my adolescence). The duties to our social circles were not born from the Internet. We've had them for ages for sure, and I know I've had them for the entirety of my social life. A connection, any connection with a person, determines part of your social graph (these days easily visualizable in most social network analysis papers), and it projects forces upon your life. Whether attractive, repulsive, supportive, or awkward, the sum of these forces influence what you do, what you think, and what you feel. They project upon you ideas and values, opinions of people or political parties or car brands or TV series. Whether as means or ends, these connections are both bridges to new landings and the bars of our own cages. Through them we can slide in Life, day by day, stage by stage, into new friends and lovers, new jobs, new skills, hobbies, new places and perspectives in Life.

They also constrain our paths. Some may disagree, but I stand by it. How can the same connections both open up possibilities and disallow them? I might want to be more precise. They pave some of our paths while they hinder others. These forces are not absolute, but their "softness" can achieve marvelous solidity. Think about it. You have your own system of ideas and values. Do you like surrounding yourself with people who think in the same terms, many of them who think in similar ways? It's natural to do so. We tend to do what we are and become what we do, and people is a LARGE portion of what we do. Everytime we talk or we write, we do so to people (and now sometimes automated systems). Almost everything you do at the job will affect other people (excluding perhaps TPS reports and such). Your colleagues will understand what you do, and value similar output and skills. Your friends will talk with you about topics of common interest. Your enemies and rivals will disagree on common topics, or compete for common goals. Your awkward connections will share with you that unspoken moment through the quick searching-eye-contact/optional-tiny-smile/off-glance combo too familiar to some of us. You share SOMETHING with EACH of your connections, from the street you grew up on to your shared love of psychedelic-country classical violin remixes to the seat you shared on the train, and changing any of these parts of yourself risks cutting some of your social ties. Oh no.

Now, I speak only from personal experience (and what else), but I imagine this effect is similar in most socially able people. Yes, some people define their identity more independently from their social connections than others, but aside from true hermits and particularly quaint individuals, few people can truly claim to be unconstrained by their social life.

Not that they'd want to. These "constraints" come together with flavors and diversions that the vast many of us would find Life Vulcan-dry without (Not a Star-Trek fan, but I just watched the last movie (in 3D!)). Then why am I bringing it up? Because as I said, I've gradually thought of my social connectivity less in terms of opportunities and more in terms of hindrances. I've realized that the upkeep required to maintain the meaningful portion of my 680+ Facebook friends up to date in my mind is more than I care to invest anymore, and even with the smaller subset that I am particularly fond of - I realized that the parts of myself that I share with them, fairly deep values, have become immutable, and not because I would not or could not change them, but because of those invisible bonds that have grown so close to me and around me. But they are not truly part of me. And I realized then that I have rarely, if ever, truly known the "full and real" me.

I know myself as when I am around people, and as when I do things around other people. I have alone times, but rarely can I plan and imagine without considering my connections, my friends, or my family. My social graph itself is but an emergent effect from the seed that was my birth, my family, and the state of the world at the time. Yes, there is something in me that drives me beyond all that, that chooses what I do and what I say and what I like, but I don't know it. I can trace many values and ideas of mine back to someone that introduced them to me. Would they be mine now if they had not? Was my acceptance of them among others meaningful? How can I know?

I'm not sure. But when I think of myself within my social graph, I see my connections as sticky trails of green gum that I can't unstick from, whichever side I pull onto, and I see myself like a fly in the middle of a green spider web. And my area of the web is not particularly dreary - it's actually a nice convenient area. But I have an urge to know the "full and real" me, and I've realized the near-impossibility of doing this while still connected to my web. Hence, I've decided to prune my social connections and reboot my social life. My intention? To explore myself, beyond my connections. I hope that a sufficient amount of solitude and personal search, uninfluenced by the "shoulds", "likes", "wants", "rights/wrongs", "carefuls", "clichés", "tackys", "ewws", and other such idiosyncracies from other people, will help me do this.

As social graph experts would know better though, local social graphs are notoriously well-connected, and social triangles abound. I estimate my adjacent social graph consists of no more than five (meaningful) disconnected subsets, so cutting off a connection necessitates cutting off a myriad others. This is why I'm not disconnecting only from a subset of people, but from all connections I have. How can one truly cut off, in a time of such constant and instant connectivity? Well, I'm giving up my email, my phone, and all social networks (at least for a while). Basically, social suicide. But I prefer the term social coma. Hardly likely will I meet one of my few thousand direct connections while somewhere I don't know I know anyone from, but I gather that eventually the Poisson (or nostalgia) will catch up. But I won't pose estimates for these.

Anyway, that's why and that's what. Yes, I've heard likenesses to "Into the Wild", Steve Jobs, and Buddha already. No, I haven't read their books or seen their movies. I did read the story of Prince Siddhartha from a comic book when I was a kid.

Boomerang Sky

Out on my way west, I was gifted the view of a sunset over the plain. I woke up from an unsteady nap on my way to Chicago somewhere in west Ohio. Out the window at my right, at the perfect angle for me to see, was a setting sun, about 15 degrees above the horizon. My first thought was that of time - if we're moving west so that we're almost at Central Time, and considering it's early summer, what time might it be? I estimated 9PM EST, and kept looking. It was a complex, beautiful view, with long, smooth extenses of clouds across my whole vision angle, orderly square grids of grey, puffy backlit cloud balls, and sporadic loner clouds of many shapes, sizes, and densities. A tame white-yellow, sunlight barely began to refract through the horizon.

I saw grey clouds with the shape of a wide double-sided comb, and I focused on its shape, taking special emphasis on the shadows cast on its long teeth. I drew the shadows with a make-believe pencil on the pretend paper lay flat on the solid plastic table in front of me. How complex to draw a cloud to likeness, I thought - a volatile shape with innumerable wrinkles, and contrasts ranging from subtlest to drastic. I imagine the shapes they adopt fall into one of a small set of categories to the experienced drawer (not furniture), though.

Part of the sight's beauty was its expanse. The view was not limited to the sun's vicinity - several clouds that began there west stretched out to the east/north-east, and they joined two by two into smooth arcs, giving the impression of giant stationary Star-Trek-logo shaped skyships placidly resting in the sky. Or some immense futuristic evolved flying whale. A few strange ones seemed smaller and closer, faced the west instead, were stacked in a neat horizontal fashion, and each dragged a long smoky trail from their lower ends, which gave me the image of a pack of sky sea-horses heading east. Upon longer examination, I thought of them as a stack of side-flipped 2's, parading towards the east with heads held high.

I wondered at the making of these boomerang clouds, and I hypothesized a central stronger-current/higher-pressure system that pushed nice, puffy, ovoid-like clouds through the center, creating direction-aligned boomerangs following the wind. I could see smaller (looking) boomerangs that started and ended near the sun's direction, now colored a light yellow from above and gray below. Further east, boomerang clouds seemed longer and brighter - still painted a white hue. The position of all these clouds seemed impervious to the 70mph bus speed I rode at, so I wondered about the actual size of the things. I imagined that the similarly-pointy Star Destroyers, even the Executor, would be dwarfed in comparison.

When I turned my sight to the sun again, its colors had changed again - now a soft peach color closest to the horizon, yellow at low cloud level, and a faint hue of green above. A deeper twilight blue surrounded this colorful centerpiece, and it intensified the farther high and away from the sun I looked. And then I looked for the boomerangs, and I couldn't find them. Puzzled by the disappearance of such huge items, I turned back west to see two white straight trails of airplane smoke - the first underlining the sun going east, and the other bounding it to the west at an ~80 degree angle with the first. Their simultaneous extension out into the sky brought to my mind geometry exercises involving angles. The sky would make a great geometry canvas. The second trail suddenly turned to the east just before leaving my vision angle through the window, and curiously, flew parallel to the upper border of the bus window. The result was a remarkably fitting thin white inner frame for my scenery; a curious coincidence, and a nice touch to the already spectacular view.

The boomerang clouds reappeared soon enough, and I realized what had happened. They just changed appearance when the sun hit them directly from the side instead of from above, and if they were there, I could not recognize them. Now they were gray on top and lit on the bottom, and now I knew them again. The sun now touched the horizon, and its surrounding round space was lit red like a furnace, bright yellow farther away, and several farm houses on the way put in my mind a 19th-century warm hearth inside each one.

Street Shower

I was walking southward on Craig St, past Bayard onto Fifth, when I noticed the sky filling up with thick, dark, gray clouds, and I smelled coming rain. It was so clear - I felt the air become damp and fresh, and I saw the light weaken as the sun was suddenly covered. At that instant I saw a quick streak of white and translucid fall to my right, fast and straight, a raindrop. Ten seconds later, I found myself surrounded by an army of these lines, and felt the water come into my hair, through my shirt, and onto my skin, as the widespread impact of rain on city let out its pleasant sizzling noise. A few Pittsburgh city workers on the sidewalk paid no heed to the rain, as they all wore yellow body raincoats while they worked on some metallic platform on the street.

I shrugged my shoulders by instinct and pushed the button to request a pedestrian crossing. As I began walking on the intersection, the rain suddenly became thicker and louder, making a more solid case for itself, as if we had not heard it well the first time. Already wet, I calmly crossed the intersection diagonally and refused to find shelter under the bank parking lot until I turned left directly towards my front door.

Even indoors, I heard the sounds of rain loud and inviting, and I took off all my clothes. I put on my swim shorts and a white shirt, took my keys with me, and walked out, barefoot and excited. I left my shirt at the door to avoid wetting it completely, then out I went.

I walked eastwards on Henry St, expecting the least amount of people there. Once outside I felt the rain fall heavy on me, but with nothing on me supposed to remain dry, I opened up my body and invited the rain to fall and slide on my skin. It felt fantastic. Rain falling everywhere on my hair, my face, back and arms, to feel it sprinkle on my ankles, to feel it running past my feet that I submerged in the impromptu sidewalk rivers, reliving childhood moments when my feet had been soled with tiny rubber boots, and when siblings all together ran across one street and another, looking for the longest streams to follow, finding small sticks and letting them float down as river boats, and looking for the deepest potholes to get the loudest noise, the biggest splash, and the most attention out of.

Today I calmly walked into deep streams and ponds, I followed a few leaves down the street slope, and showered in the copious rain output from a nearby building pipe. I washed my face and felt my wet hair fall on my shoulders, enjoying every step of the way. Once the heavy rain had subsided into a steady trickle, I walked back inside and dried myself off with a towel. And then I made some mashed potatoes and ate them with corn tortillas from Aldi that I don't believe I'll be buying again.

I felt bliss as I walked out under the loud rain today. I am uncertain whether the bliss I felt all throughout was due to the raw feelings of the rain's gentle strikes and its flow over my body, and of splashing and wet feet and the sound of rain all around me, or whether I felt happiness in allowing myself to do so, knowing not only that I can do it, but that this simple, joyful act is now part of my entelechy. Both are fine.

Oakland Rain

Yesterday afternon, as I was just about to begin coursing the online drawing tutorial that I found, I looked outside my window, and I saw these straight, shiny rays of water coming down from the sky. It was raining despite the muggy sunshine, and I got the urge to go outside and feel the water on my skin. I put on a pair of shorts and my favorite white shirt, went down the stairs and out the door.

The first thing I noticed was the smell of the air - deep and rich, the smell of the first water drops on earth. It smelled of moist grass, dripping leaves of deep green, and of an invisible layer of brown mist rising from the earth, thankful for the rain. I looked up at the sun through the shiny white clouds, hoping to discern the spectrum colors; instead I saw clear and sunny rain.

I breathed in deep as I walked down Craig St, because through each inbreath I felt all those smells tingling and awakening me inside, as if my lungs were being cleaned with the musky, mint-like aroma. The smell felt deeper when I passed the sidewalk trees, neatly centered on their square patches of earth, so I decided to go to where the smell would be strongest - the grassy area next to Heinz Chapel. I turned right on Winthrop and walked on, filling my lungs and syncing my breaths with the earth patches on the sidewalk.

The rain stopped as I walked, as if it carefully rationed the freshness for the day. But one block ahead, I saw a stream of water drops still falling onto the sidewalk corner. I looked up, and I saw the drops fall off a small building pipe on the fifth floor, late remnants of the recent falls. The drops fell one by one in neat sparkly spheres, and they seemed to almost glide down when approaching the ground, their acceleration cut short by the dense, humid air.

Looking up, I let one fall into my mouth. I realized that it was not that hard to achieve, and I caught a later one too. Happily engaged in a new game, I remained on that corner, catching water drops with my tongue, nose, face, and hands until the drops shrunk to a breeze-like size, harder to see, and much farther-flying due to wind. Each drop in my mouth was a success, each drop on my face was a refreshing delight, and watching the little pearl-like spheres fly their way down like excited fairies was a novel picture to me. I made a mental note to come to this place after later rainfalls, and resumed my walk to Heinz Chapel.

Once there, I anxiously sniffed the plants and the ground, but the smell had already diluted into the blank air. The trace of grassy mint was there if I brought my nose close to the earth, but the full and rich smell had passed. I walked into the park and sat on the grass between three trees. I could smell grass, earth, and trees, but the smell was a dry one - I could tell that the trees above had roofed the earth below, and I was sitting on a patch of grass almost untouched by the rain.

So I moved to an open space of grass, and lay down, face to the sky. The sun was clouded but visible, the sky was covered with stark grey clouds, a few hints of blue streaks sneaking between their silver linings. As I watched them, the clouds gently but surely floated on towards the East, bringing heavier clouds that hid the sun's circle for a good ten minutes.

I turned my head to the left, and I saw Heinz Chapel, that peaky monument to gray symmetry and beauty. Thinking ahead onto my drawing, I looked at the building and focused on its noteworthy traits - proportions, levels, colors, ornamentation details. I then turned my head right and up - the Cathedral of Learning stood up tall, 42 stories of massive, piles of rock stacked over piles of rocks, a monument to size and to persistence. Near the top of the building, a lone bird took off from the ledge and glided around the building, visibly sensing and catching the wind currents, toying with them. He slowed down as he flew south, then the wind stopped him so that he remained still in midair, wings wide open, in dynamic equilibrium between the windforce and whatever magic his graceful body allowed him to exert. Then he dodged off and rounded the cathedral on the west side, catching a wind current on his way. He smoothly speeded from a standstill to slingshot speed, riding the windwave out to well on the other side with barely a wingflap. Something about the bird's manner told me he was gliding out of pleasure, as he orbited back south and repeated his ride. One, two, five, eight times he flew around and around, flapping his way into the strong south currents, then turning right and speeding north in his rapid, eccentric orbit around the building. At some point he decided to break his orbit and ride the current further out north, seemingly satisfied with cathedral windsurfing for the moment, ready to find other things to do.

I turned to the sky; darker clouds had blocked out the sun's shape entirely. I thought of rain but it didn't come, and I just looked at the steady migration of the clouds out west, with no more destination than the path itself. Even with the grass on the back of my head, the smell of wet earth was not rich anymore, and for a moment I imagined a few drops falling again and that brown mist feeding into my lungs. Lighter clouds came later on, and the sun gradually appeared: a steady hazy white patch between the clouds, slowly brighter and rounder, until a definite circle contrasted between the gray clouds, as if waking up from his nap, ready to again oversee the forces and motions of the sky. A band of birds just like the first one flew to the cathedral from the north, flapping their wings. Then a lone one flew in the same direction but farther up and out, and I had the feeling that this last one was the first glider I saw.

Then after tinkering with thoughts of bugs in my hair and the persistence of this peaceful scene in my mind, I stood up and walked back to my apartment. I noticed the shape of a pine-like shrub beside Mellon College, and I saw a clear fractal in the thinner, greener leaves. A green, leafy, pointy bud of a certain length - split it in half from its tip, and from its insides let children buds grow, each of the same length or shorter. Either one, two, or three buds grow from their parent and rise up, often farther up to continue the fractal pattern. If two or three grow high, these branch out in different directions. And voilà, a pine-like shrub. After this consideration, I walked the last three blocks back home.

I'm glad I walked out when I saw the rain fall.

Art Night

At last week's Pillow Project Art Night:

Art when I'm supposed to? Isn't that what I want to avoid? Art when it's wanted, in contrast to when it's expected. Not sure if I want… I'd rather observe.

...

I see people. Absorbed, self-absorbed, inter-absorbed, somehow occupied. I see myself thus too. Is any of us open? Can we be fully open, available, free from the constant nag of occupation? Does being necessitate acting? Can't we *just* be? BE.

...

Art because one must?

No such thing.

Art can only be wanted.

Do i want to art?

Yes.

What do I want to art?

What comes to will, to be.

...

And during the show, while three couples simply looked and hugged at their partners for at least 20 minutes:

Stasis for emphasis.

Absurdism

Absurdism in pop culture seeks to have grown a very large amount these past few years, and I think it is due to the breadth and detail of information available to such a large part of the population now. Far away ideas are not wispy myths and unreachable wonders anymore. So many people now can ask for an instruction manual, a book, a story, a piece of music, a video of the life of complete strangers, many unabashed and desirous to be seen worldwide, others inadvertent projections. But so many of them have something different to say or to show, thus so many have so very few, if any, myths left in their lives. People's capacity to know more and to extrapolate from what they perceive has augmented n-fold, and new generations face a far different scenario from what older ones did. One where they know other cultures quite up close, often personally, and the barriers between cultures are gradually dissolving due to the contents on either side osmosing through in the form of information.

Why does Absurdism rise then? One cause I think about is a common ground for humor. Humor is often set on the topics of the little known, as it exploits the common stereotypes of foreign peoples and cultures, in the lack of further information exaggerates them, and produces humorous, if quite unreal, stories. But when unknown cultures diminish to the wealth of information, and the reality of the once-possibly-funny stereotypes is brought to front in full detail and crudeness, reality manages to straighten its humor until it simply becomes fact.

But people will continue being humorous, and seek to make fun of things in Life. But which common topic can all people find universally funny, regardless of their geographic, social, or economic status? One which none of them has experienced personally: the impossible. Hence, Absurdism rises.

Absurdism manages to circumvent several traditional caveats on humor. Making fun of other people can seem offensive, and be called racist, sexist, etc. And once it is so called and the description is widespread, both the humor's and the humorist's reputations can swiftly plummet into public disgrace. With information moving as fast as it does these days, humorists have more of a motivation to keep away from risque topics. Many humorists today still manage to exploit cultural topics and be successful, however, so cultural topics have not been discarded. But those who fall into disgrace can be discarded from the reputable community, and might find it difficult to recover trust. It makes sense then, that so many more humorists today use Absurdism as their principal style.

Self-deprecating humor is another one readily allowed by most communities, as long as it is elegant and not excessive. Trivialism is another recently augmented branch of humor. It might seem that comedians are running out of topics when they decide to talk about pillows, night tables, juice flavors, and tedious conversations. But I think that they are exploiting a recent asset in society: a more standard mode of living. Delving deep and haphazardly into the personal life of a random individual is more certain to strike a chord with another such person because these days they are more likely to share activities, problems, small joys, anecdotes, mood fluctuations, and social interactions than in the past, either recent or far. A side effect of a more standard society is that people's lives are less variant and more predictable between each other. And pointing out that often-ignored property of our lives is a kind of self-deprecation, not for a culture but for each individual out there. And as individuals rarely have complex allegiances like cultures and governments do, this kind of humor will most often also be well accepted by the public.

Fizzing silence

A sort of fizzing silence
Invades my being today
I want to want, but what I find
In me is guilty peace.

Brought by expectation, perhaps,
The pressure of enjoying looms
As my host drives us back up north
And I wonder about my role

But no, I take no role as such..
I'll take the role I feel, as much
As heart and desire feel today
And now they feel like coasting
Down the winds of my world
Because I am at peace.

UT Females

I've found a seeming paradise
Right back in Austin TX
Where Sun shines warm, the air breathes calm,
And love gleams clear from them
The pretty ones, the female kind,
Who choose who they choose to ensnare
Into their lovely bout.

Sometimes when I see them
And a mutual smile ensues
I get confused on how to follow
Without it seeming like wild pursuit
I sometimes wish they'd say hi back
And came interested to be
Further informed on me and eager
To let me know of them.

I have one here right now with me
Well, or beside, the pool.
Let's see if one quick one two three
Of words might smiles produce.

Five secs too late, the female sprung
Fore I could chant my words
Time's often short, and I guess they think
Slow males make lousy company.

I want to talk to one of them
To find a random friend
With much to talk and hints of like
Enough to go to bed.

Both us, of course, in one alone,
It is full love I seek.
Though if that lacks, and half-love's there
To it I won't be meek.

Come to me, girls, or I to you
But guide me with your signs.
Your looks, your smiles, your twinkling eyes,
So I'll know when to pursue.

And then we'll *stroll*, in day or night
Along sweet, colored paths.

Person

Why aren't you open to options, person?
You opposite side of our conversation,
you character adjunct to my epic,
you exciting novelty that offers
support, company, friendship, in theory?
why won't you connect to me further?

Our energy flows, our tastes click,
my child waves to yours,
hey! I like you! Wanna be friends? Wanna hang out?
Wanna share time? Wanna check out my projects?
I'll check out yours! What moves you? What soothes you? What drives you? Wind? Clothes? Achievement? Grace? Humor? Status? Flowers? Cats? Snow? Travel? Colors? Fire? Rhythm? Show me! What are you, really? What stories can you tell me? What stories can we make together? Let's live the dream, then dream more Life... and then some more, and let's make it! Let's change it!

I wonder how much of it do you feel also. Do you want it also? The same? Only some? Not at all? How can we ever know, if the real desires we keep to ourselves... always? Polite assumptions, extreme fear of disrupting that which we don't own nor control. Lifelong habits of only seeing, not touching, much less taking. Too many property-imposed boundaries, those crushing barriers our cramped, scared society has raised us to be numb to. How many of those barriers limit our steps, our path, our mind at every single second? How different would Life be, were it not bounded by our numb fears at every step of the way?

And because the currents in my Life I've brewed and designed through the years seem like such an inconvenience to break... but no, that's not the strongest reason. That is that I assume you value your own currents much more than I do, and would not let them go for just, for only me. For seemingly pedestrian, lackluster me. Why would I be a better option than your well-known currents? What can I guarantee that would improve your current state, your stable, sufficient contentedness? Nothing. But that exactly is what I can guarantee. The opposite. If that. Join me in Life?

But I guess I assume that this unreciprocated feeling would damage the polite trust created, and then distance between us would ensue. And I guess I'm so more used to luke-warm friendships that at least spark memories in my imagination, than risk this likeable person not liking me.

But upon further thought, a friendship that is deathly injured by truth might not be worth fearing to lose. I've known many wonderful people, and I ascertain there are many more of those. Many others to share truth with... why stop to wait to never say the confession one fears, refuses to say, and that only incrusts deeper into one's prison of secrets with time? Say truth. Act truth. Be truth.

Teeter

I daydream of self-discovery, of pure, fluid self-expression, of the romantic through the prosaic, of a colorful, magical life.

But what I want is truth. To know what is... no... to feel what is. Whatever that is. And I find myself inspired by this aim.

I guess paraepinephrin* hits later, though, and I sense my lofty individualism rather lonely. And then I stand again at the crossroads... seek others, or seek myself? And the fear of a mistaken permanent decision threatens to find me later a regretful man, life spark spent, habits and rules too deeply anchored... either way. And I ponder...

And then I remember familiar words from not two weeks ago. "One, two, three, whoops! You missed a step! You did? I kid. None can direct your heartbeat's tunes, nor tell what is your due"

And after realizing how that applies to me, I feel better.

*Update: I remember learning in high school that "paraepinephrin" was some kind of hormone that countered the effects of epinephrin on the body. Google and Wikipedia disagree, though.