Dialectical Monism

Dialectical Monism

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I’ve talked on here about the concept of bad faith and the need for one to be authentic to ourselves. Half that battle is knowing who we are and what we want because those things are moving targets. The dissonance between those two realms of the inner and outer is what leads to unhappiness and un-fulfillment. Yet none of us are automatons with singular wants and needs, we are tapestries of desires and we twist and fold in on ourselves in a myriad of ways. Yet to simplify this paradox we abstract these internal battles into two opposing forces. All decisions can be broken down into a series of two choices: yes or no. This is at the heart of how we think, so it is no wonder that when creating computers we have embedded them with this sacred knowledge of yes or no, 1 or 0. Two opposing forces that build into a unified self.

Sometimes I feel my two selves at war, and the battlefield is my mind and body. Yet aren’t we always in constant battle with ourselves? There is the push and pull of time in every situation. If our decisions are the fundamental exercise of our existence and we cannot remain in a state of non-existence then time is both the cause of our existence and the measure against which we exist. The existential relief that comes from having chosen lasts only as long as the next choice remains looming in the distance. Putting off that next decision is at the heart of the human condition. It is the agony of consequence that keeps us in a state of complacency, an inactive participant in our daily lives. Yet if our biological imperative is to survive, then to live is to wage battle with ourselves over and over until we perish.

Under the tongue root

a fight most dread,

and another raging

behind in the head

These are the lyrics of Duel Of The Fates (before they got loosely translated into sanskrit), it’s a snippet from Cad Goddeu (The Battle of the Trees). The lines refer to the fight amongst a tree yet it applies to us as well. The roles we embody with our words may be in opposition to the self in our minds. The act of decision can sometimes feel like a violent rejection of one role or fate over the other. The song plays during a battle as the two greatest opposing forces in the Star Wars Universe battle to lay claim to Anakin’s future. Light vs Dark, Yin vs Yang, and yet ultimately unification through balance.

Last weekend I tried to do a bike ride that I objectively failed at. Having planned it very poorly I ran out of water on a hot day and turned back having done only about half of what I set out to do. The heat was exhausting and every second I was on the bike was a decision point to continue riding or to stop. The mounting pain, onset of heat exhaustion and mechanical troubles that I was facing were forcing me to keep deciding to continue as opposed to the state I wish to be in which is passive activity, the role of cycling. Yet is willpower more like a status check that may or may not fail you depending on the severity of the decision or like a reserve that whittles away little by little as you are forced to take action over and over? To be an athlete you must be able to tolerate pain, that is the nature of strength and growth. The athlete in me told me to keep pushing forward, yet the pragmatist repeatedly questioned why I was pushing to the brink of suffering. So who is my true self? In that moment the pain, doubt, and realization built to a crescendo and I knew then I was cycling in bad faith. Eventually I chose to stop and turn around. This is a microcosm of the decision points we face in life yet it illustrates the profound effects the simplest ones can have. To wit, having invested in my identity as a cyclist I feel like I have failed myself yet undoubtedly I made the right choice that day lest I ended up on the side of the road with heat stroke. Who we are is a conjunction of the forces that shape us and it’s important that our identity and our confidence must come from different sources.

There will always be me and the shadow of me, the me I aspire to be. There will be times when they are in opposition and times when they are in agreement, they both may grow or diminish but through constant reflection and interrogation they should always remain in balance.

District Of Columbia

District Of Columbia

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At 3:30 am June 22nd 2022 I awoke to the booming sound of thunder rattling my windows and lightning illuminating my room. At first I thought it was a car exhaust, a firework, or a gunshot which are all known culprits for waking me up in the small hours of the morning. But as I heard the rolling boom fade away I realized it was a natural occurrence. There is much fun made of us southern Californians and our over-reaction to real weather. Believe me when I say though that thunder and lightning of all things is so, so rare. Even more rare for me was the proximity of it, it felt like there were explosions just outside my window. I silently cursed to myself because of all the nights this night I was trying to get as much sleep as possible because I had a flight to catch at 7:50 am. The jolt, along with the adrenaline that came with it virtually guaranteed I would no longer be sleeping that morning. I didn’t know it but the thunderstorms would follow me all the way to my destination: Washington DC, and even further to Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia on the second leg of my journey. Although the thought crossed my mind I chose not to dwell on this fitful start as an omen of what would come and before I knew it I was touching down on federal land.

From the national portrait gallery

Columbia is a personification of the United States because we love anthropomorphizing things, and it lets us assign optimistic traits to ourselves. Yet Columbia is named after Columbus who as modern revisionist history points out was more akin to the Americas’ first slave master than hero. Washington is a founding father and the first president of these United States, and perhaps most curiously…a Virginian. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Mason and Patrick Henry were also Virginians and together they formed some revolutionary heavy hitters. They helped write the documents we still refer back to almost 250 years later. So I say it’s curious because not 85 years after declaring independence from Britain, Virginia declared independence from the United States along with the rest of the confederate states. It would seem that slavery was too precious to their economy to get rid of even though most of the rest of the world had outlawed it already. Economic concerns trumping humanistic decisions are a recurring theme in our nation’s history. We refer to ourselves as a democratic republic but our system of government might better be called Capitalism. If the government is a political machine running the nation then money is the lubricant, the fuel, and its necessity is the guiding force behind the whole apparatus.

Looking through our nation’s history in DC presents a problem, the danger of storytelling. Even here on this post I present to you my opinions, mixed with some factual evidence, laid out in a way that accentuates the jaded, pessimistic, yet still prone to inspiration mind behind these words. There are around 74 museums in the capital, they stand majestically side to side with a who’s who of massive federal agencies. Walking through some of them I found it interesting to see descriptions of Benjamin Franklin with addendums of how he used slaves make his inventions, or descriptions of how many slaves each founding father owned underneath their portrait. It would seem that we are at last trying to hold a mirror up to the story of our national identity. For how long though was all this subtext and context missing, left buried under the rug in order to present a satisfying tale of tenacity and doggedness against the tyranny of King George. I’m an avid visitor of museums and I like to do a depth first dive into the exhibits which often means I leave the museum unfinished as I’m forced out by docents. The museums in DC were vast, varied, and detailed and yet for all that has been written about history what has been left out?

Lincoln’s Death Hat

I sat in the very theatre that Abraham Lincoln was in when he was shot to death by John Wilkes Booth. Exclaiming “Sic Semper Tyrannis” he ran from the stage where now a ranger was telling us about his fate. The latin phrase was a reference to the murder of Ceasar and it also appears on the seal of Virginia. Presumably Booth believed Lincoln was a tyrant, abusing his war time powers against the confederacy. Yet how could Lincoln abuse his power against the states that had seceded from under his rule? Even though the Confederacy lost it hasn’t stopped them from unloading a slew of pro-confederate propaganda immediately after the war to this very day. The Lost Cause is an attempt to couch what was a pro-slavery war in romantic ideals and heroic deeds. I visited Richmond Virginia, the capital of the confederacy on the last bit of my trip and couldn’t believe our bloodiest conflict erupted basically between two capitals barely more than 100 miles apart. Statues of Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis were barely taken down two years ago. Only recently has the nation started to take an active part in rejecting the siren song of a feel-good story. How long will we keep it up and how far will our memory go, after all when I visit statues of Alexander The Great I don’t think of the man, I think of the god, and his list of accomplishments and atrocities float through my conscious mind with ease and without emotional burden.

The memorial to the Korean War haunts me still

The history of our nation and of the world is riddled with bloodshed, revolution, and turmoil. The many monuments devoted to the countless wars since our nation’s conception make that obvious. On the third day of my trip the supreme court struck down Roe V. Wade and protests erupted immediately on site. The only way to get lasting, real change in the US is through tireless coordination and effort, by constitutional design. I can’t help but think though that as a democracy, a crowd of protesters is inherent with the threat of violence against elected officials. After all if there is a disconnect in what the people say and what those in power do then the system has failed and what’s the ultimate and final way to take back the power? How long can we build towards our idea of a utopia before it all bubbles over again and we are forced to regenerate the only way we know how?

You Suffer

You Suffer

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English philosophers, scholars, and musicians Napalm Death have continuously pushed forward the discourse surrounding the atrophy of the mind living in service of multinational corporations. Their debut album Scum harbors intense dissections of amoral corruption, guilt via complacency, mass media control, and the exchange and origin of power. I want to focus in on one song in particular though, the voluminous epic You Suffer.

Make sure you carve out a healthy amount of time for this one

Clocking in at 1.316 seconds, the song is pregnant with existential quandary. Let’s break the song apart into its different dimensions by starting with the lyrics:

You suffer, but why?

The first half of the song sets the stage and forcefully reminds the listener that they suffer. The key to interpreting this part is of course knowing of suffering. Napalm Death cleverly removes the glut of having to explain the concept by assuming the listener has indeed suffered and continues to suffer. This assumption condenses what would otherwise weigh down an already lengthy song into abstract layers that maximize the use of its time. The words have been carefully chosen to make their thesis clear. The listener is forced to either reject or accept the hypothesis that they suffer. If accepted then they will have fallen into the trap made clear in the second half of the song. If rejected then the listener has been at least forced to self-reflect on why they think they don’t suffer. The emphasis is because inevitably one comes to the conclusion that even if they are not currently in the throes of pain and hardship, they have known it in some form or the other. Again, because of the carefully chosen language, tense is irrelevant. In a general sense humans suffer, and being directly addressed by the song brings forth memories of personal suffering whether it be physical, mental, or existential.

The second half of the song presents the listener with the central dramatic question, “but why?“. The guerrilla transition from exposition to challenge only serves to increase the impact of the lyrics. The listener is indeed in the middle of recounting the times they have suffered, or accepting that they are currently suffering when they are sonically assaulted by the tour de force second half of the song. Napalm Death makes the listener reconcile their personal pain with causes of it. On the surface it’s a simple question but the effect is that it shifts the thoughts from external evaluation of the self into the inner evaluation of the self. The band knowingly posits the question that will lead the listener on a bread crumb trail to self realization. Whether the addressee wants to or not they will come out on the other side of this experience having gained knowledge of themselves positive or negative. Rather than providing an answer, the band provides fertile ground for self examination, especially via the instrumentation which I will cover next.

Through a clever grindcore vocal technique of combining words, Napalm Death manages to condense the exaggerated 5 syllables of the lyrics into a more respectable 4 syllables. In doing so they allow the rest of the band members ample time to explore the sonic dimensions of suffering. The drummer, bassist, and guitarist first choose to use their respective instruments to imbue the words of the vocalist with weight and gravity by timing their notes to the cadence of the lyrics. This extra punctuation disarms the listener having a counterintutive effect of narrowing their focus on the words by removing any nondiegetic noise. Finally near the end of the song as the final words have been spoken the guitarist performs a virtuoso solo that dovetails into a final sustained note. This note provides the listener with a sort of mutable vessel on which they can fill with the answer to the question asked by the song. This liminal space between the lyrics and the song’s conclusion is inhabited fully by the catharsis of the listener.

Like the philosophers of old Napalm Death have tricked their listeners into interrogating the nature of not only suffering but their own suffering. Furthermore by providing no answer but instead a space for a response they make sure the addressee takes ownership of it, there can be no deflection. So what is your answer? I think at the root of the matter there is but one: “because I choose to”. Yet reading or hearing these words is not enough for understanding, they must come from within, from your being. Then and only then will the journey to apotheosis start.

Victory In The Valley

Victory In The Valley

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I blew past my previous max distance by a resounding 24 miles. The total elevation ended up coming up just under 5500′ which is about 500 merciful feet less than the route was described. Still it’s the most I’ve climbed on one of these long rides. I completed the route one hour and a half before the cutoff. Looking back on the ride itself, my previous post sounds childish (maybe it did anyways) with how strongly I managed to finish. Yet even the night before I was still in the throes of anxiety…

I rolled up to the Simi Valley Hotel I was staying at with Daniel around 5pm. I was immediately beset by concern because they had multiple “No bicycles permitted in building” signs plastered all over the entrances and windows. I wondered how this could have been such a recurring problem that it warranted such aggressive signage. I imagined Simi Valley being swarmed by flocks of cyclists at hotels but I never saw a single other one besides Daniel and the rest of the randonneurs I was heading out with. One thing bicycling has reinforced in me is that sometimes it’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission, I believe they call this exercising your privilege. If you’re in a shady neighborhood you grab your bike and walk right into the store; If you’re at red light with a weight sensor and no cars for miles then you just roll on; if you feel unsafe on the shoulder of a road you just take up the whole lane instead. I gathered my nerves and walked right in with my bicycle already mentally preparing my defense: “Your website never said no bikes allowed”. The lobby was completely empty, I leaned my bike out of sight of the reception, checked in, and went to my room after the worker walked to the back room.

…

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Things That Scare Me

Things That Scare Me

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I was listening to Jonny Greenwood’s latest score and I am ashamed to admit that often times I am moved by the music, having never watched the film. I definitely intend to watch Spencer, but my opportunity to see it in theatres was lost amongst the shuffle of life. I’ll report back here once I do but until then this piece highlights something I want to call a beautiful dread. I lack the knowledge of musical theory to really describe it but there is the challenge and response at the beginning, followed by an unceasingly ascending fugue that is anchored by some devastatingly minor chords. He is channeling J.S. Bach at his most contrapuntal here, which in the film is no doubt a reference to the baroque excess of the royal lineage, but for the person sitting here listening to it without knowledge of its origins it fills me with a promise of greatness and an anxiety of failure. The fugue is especially suited for this because it’s layering of melodic lines represents the many pressures, demands, and thoughts circling through my head at these times of fear. Yet undeniably, on the whole, it’s a beautiful, fragile piece and although there is an undercurrent of anguish it strives upward and onward like many dancers who do not notice they are inching towards a great precipice as they are too preoccupied with their partners.

But the song alone is not responsible for my current malaise. This Sunday I’m doing a brevet, a 200km bicycle ride, I’m afraid of: 124 miles and 6000 feet of elevation which for me is no walk in the park. If it goes well it will be both the highest elevation and the furthest distance I have ever covered in a single ride. I have 13 hours on this earth to finish, which may very well be a lot until you realize I practice the way of the tortoise when it comes to these large efforts. Yet why am I afraid? Not finishing a bicycle ride will hardly be the worst thing to ever happen to me. It is my soul that would suffer, the bitter defeat of not achieving my goal, however small, is a blow to my ego and confidence. I have employed every trick in the book to rationalize away this fear:

“I’ve done 100 miles what’s 24 more?”

“I’ve done 5400 feet of climbing in 70 miles, 6000 spread out over 124 miles that’s easy.”

“My friend Daniel is doing 370 miles that day, he is surely better than me but even I can keep up on his last 124 miles can’t I?”

“Worse comes to worse I can just stop and quit, it’s my choice. I can get picked up.”

“If I feel like I wont finish I can cut the route short, I am the master of my own destiny after all.”

“Even if I don’t finish maybe I will still have gone further than ever before.”

This is my personal fugue, playing endlessly in my head leading up to the ride this Sunday. There is the anticipation of pain, but also the sweet dreams of victory. Will I come back here next week hence and regale you with the tale of my adventure, mission accomplished? Or will I publish a post about Icarus and how he journeyed too close to the sun? This is what Kierkegaard refers to as Anxiety, the dizziness of freedom, for after all as much as I like to hand off the responsibility of being on this ride (“I paid $20, I have to do it now”) it is my choice alone to put myself through this gauntlet, a test of my mental and physical fortitude. Taking that responsibility is unmasking my true being and rejecting the many excuses and opportunities to exit it that my inauthentic self whispers to me is part of the challenge. So there we have it: challenge, response, and now the perpetual silent second before the journey.

Roles And Bad Faith

Roles And Bad Faith

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I watched Michael Mann’s Thief yesterday about, you guessed it, a thief. He’s the best thief, but he’s trying to get out of the business. You see this archetypal film a lot, “The best at x because it’s all they’ve ever known, but the consequences are catching up”. Compare this to another archetypal plot: “They’re the best at x but no one will give them a chance to prove themselves”. Of course there is the Hong Kong Kung Fu twist on this: “They have the potential to be the best at x but they need a master to help them achieve it”. It’s all influenced by the other now but this was a highlight between traditional Western and Eastern thought. Look at the cowboy films from the 60s, these badass men just drifted in from who knows where and they were masters of their art, fully formed from the womb no doubt. In the West we want to believe we can become masters using only extreme American gumption, and the tools at our disposal. In the East one can only achieve their true potential by acknowledging and listening to the wisdom of their elders. Like I mentioned though the two schools have mixed, at least in film (Think Kill Bill). James Caan’s thief did have a master in the form of a character played by Willie Nelson.

So what is it about these people that are the best at what they do that makes for a fascinating watch? All of our human existence is a struggle to learn and I think sometimes we want to fantasize about what happens when we get to the end. To use a concrete example, I’ve been cycling two years now and yeah I’d want to watch a film about the best cyclist (sit down Lance Fakestrong), what does that look like? What kind of super human feats could they accomplish? I know that objectively there is an actual best cyclist out there in the world since that’s how sports are structured, but give me a mythical, fictionalized one that I can aspire to, that will never break, disappoint or otherwise let me down. I think we all inhabit various roles every day of our lives, and there is satisfaction that comes from the being the best at it. Yet none of these roles are truly us.

To use an example from Jean-Paul Sartre that I just read about, say I am a waiter and I’m the best waiter gliding around a restaurant, taking orders, never forgetting a single item, never dropping a plate or delivering food late and charming all the patrons meanwhile. The totality of my being and energy in this moment is devoted to being an absolute badass waiter. Sartre describes this as living in bad faith with yourself because by inhabiting a role so perfectly you are undoubtedly pushing down the part of your consciousness that makes you a real person. So why do we do it? It feels good to perform. If we imagine an action as a series of miniature goals and targets then in a way every person on earth is an athlete and their sport is living. For example, as a waiter I know I have to take the orders of customers in the order that they arrived: that’s goal #1. I need to jot down or memorize the order correctly including customizations: goal #2. I need to deliver these orders to the kitchen on time: goal #3. These micro goals go on and on and achieving each one will produce some measure of satisfaction.

Another reason why we like to exist in bad faith is because it can be a form of meditation where we stop thinking of the pressures and anxieties that are outside of our control. It’s essentially a relief to inhabit some perfect (or perfect adjacent) version of ourselves that does not have to deal with pressures of true existence if even for a short while. It’s not a cure for our existentialist ailment of course, as our true authentic selves need to reassert eventually. Existing in a role for too long provides diminishing returns and if we lose sight of the compass that is our real being then we grow stale in the roles we have chosen for ourselves. This is the great wheel of life that capitalism (for one) has sunk its teeth into. Our jobs are defined by roles, and we are provided targets and goals for these roles. Corporations know that positive feedback titillates us, and providing a great amount of work for us to accomplish will keep us working by sheer force of existential dread. Yet even if we like our jobs, we are existing in bad faith because we ignore the multi-facetedness of our life. What’s more, existing in a role takes away our ability to choose, technically we are “deciding” to go to work every day, but ask yourself if you really are or if you feel forced to via the pressures surrounding you and then you’ll know that you’re living in bad faith. “But that’s what the weekend is for” I hear you corporate shills saying. Our lives should be lived in accomplishments, feats, decisions, and changes not in two days out of the week.

Everything Is Jazz

Everything Is Jazz

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Yesterday I rode 100 miles on my bicycle, a concept that is still kind of mind blowing to me as even the thought of driving 100 miles fills me with exhaustion. From my Palm Springs Century post it’s clear though that 100 miles isn’t some monolithic suffer fest like you would imagine cycling 100 miles at a gym is. It really becomes a series of adventures, compromises, and improvisations. I think it’s that excitement that keeps the ride feeling fresh and vital the whole way through. This time I wont exhaustively cover the music through the ride because even though I was listening to some, since I was cycling through Los Angeles my mind was distracted by the sights of the city, and by trying to stay alive despite some drivers’ insistence otherwise.

Churro maple glaze

The century ride started as a great romp up the all the strand beaches and since I was riding mostly solo I could stop and take in views but more importantly stop for donuts. I had a deadline of 11 am to get to the arts district so I cut across Santa Monica, down the exposition bike path which runs parallel to the expo line, and finally down Venice boulevard straight into downtown. Just barely made it on time since I can’t play fast and loose with the traffic lights while riding alone, the ones in downtown especially took foooorever. Made it to Detroit Vesey’s (an awesome new cycling cafe at the arts district) just barely in time for the Heavy Pedal group ride that was rolling out.

They had posted the route in the weeks previous and it was going to be a ride up Elysian Park as an appetizer climb before hitting Griffith Park and climbing up to the observatory and back to the cafe for a raffle. What I didn’t know was that they had made the decision to do the route in reverse and hit Griffith first and I didn’t realize it until about 20 minutes in. Thankfully I made the start of the ride or I would have been severely lost, but Daniel was trying to catch up with us and I voice texted him the change in route lest he be lost forever too. He eventually caught with us up the climb to Griffith which I was impressed by because I would have given up and gone back. The group ride wasn’t slow either, I was struggling to keep up on the flats and once we hit the observatory climb I abandoned all hope of staying with the group. I went at a snail’s pace, I think the previous 60 miles, the heat, and the extra effort I had just made brought my energy levels way down.

Eventually Daniel who had long since caught and passed me told me that the group was waiting, and I did put in some extra effort because I didn’t want to be THAT guy who held everyone up even though I totally did anyways. I was the last person to get to the top and the group rolled out to take a photo in front of the Hollywood sign. Since it was hot and the group (me) was lagging it they decided to just ride straight back to the cafe which was a blessing since I wasn’t looking forward to the second climb.

Back at the restaurant we hade some delicious latkes, coffees, cookies, and I even had a mocktail that scratched that itch for a refreshing mid-ride drink. I ended up winning two prize bags in the raffle easily worth over $150 and I only bought $40 worth of tickets so it was money well spent. Finally it was time to head home for the last 24 miles of my century.

I took it real easy on the LA river path going back to Long Beach since the pains of a century had begun to set in: saddle soreness, back pain, toe pain (this one is the bottleneck for me right now, can get painful enough that I have to stop and take off the shoes for a bit sometimes). I realized as I got closer to home that I was going to fall 2 miles short of 100 since I didn’t do the climb up Elysian. Part of me didn’t care and wanted it to be over, the other part of me wanted to finish what I fucking started. The latter me won and I flew past the exit to my home and down to the beach path for some bonus miles. What I totally forgot was that the shoreline area had been inundated by tourists going to the Grand Prix, and an entire swath of the path was closed to foot and bicycle traffic. I got to a chain link fence and was told I needed to go back the way I came. Instead of going all the way back up to river path to the previous exit I rode up the wrong way on the Queens Way Bridge then flipped a U turn back into downtown and finally, mercifully back home.

I had a tight timeline since I was trying to make a concert at 7pm. Except as I found out when I got there the concert was actually at 8 pm. So I went to get a coffee and wait. I was watching Big Band of Brothers, a big band tribute to the Allman Brothers Band which sounds crazy but inevitably makes perfect sense. I sat in the theatre and watched this 13 piece band rip through some ABB classics with saxophone, trumpet, and trombone solos standing in for Dickey Betts and Duane Allman. The 100 miles still felt fresh and my legs were feeling a dull throbbing pain, I should have been home resting, but I absolutely wanted to see this band. This milieu I was in had me reflecting on the nature of Jazz. I was an Allman Brothers fan long before I was a jazz fan but now it seems inevitable that I would come around to it. The Allman Brothers band live was an amazing experience, the songs are never played the same way. You have all these musicians on stage who play off each other, off the energy in the room that night, or just trying something new that day. This southern classic rock jam band is really just a jazz band. I read a description of a 30 minute version of Whipping Post once where the band had shifted past the first couple verse and choruses and into a primordial ooze of instrumentation, a space where the band was still playing but where direction the song could go in was infinite, it was the nameless miasma before the universe is created. Then suddenly there’s a big bang and the song takes real shape again with every musician suddenly knowing exactly what their role in this new world is. That’s fucking jazz! So it’s inevitable that I would one day grow to love it, and also inevitable the Allman Brothers would be transcribed so well into it.

This form of improvisation is what sets this genre apart from every other music on the planet, what’s more it’s uniquely American. To me jazz shows are electric, energetic, and always unique. Something which unfortunately is not true for all the concerts I go to, thinking of Slayer and Megadeth who play through their songs with precision and clockwork just as they are on the albums, but it’s okay I love them for other reasons I’m sure I’ll get to on here some day.

This interplay between conflict, resolution, solos, improvisation, payoff: it was just like my ride that day. This dance between obstacles, setbacks, shortcuts, serendipitous rewards: that’s fucking Jazz! It’s alive and ever changing, exciting and new every time, no matter how many miles I ride.

Fleeting

Fleeting

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I feel like it was five weeks ago that I was graduating college, elated, thinking I had my whole life ahead of me to make my mark upon it. It’s been almost 10 years since that and life continues to evaporate on sight. Where does it all go? Is it pooled up somewhere beneath the floorboards of my home waiting to be discovered? It’s 80% air and 20% chips. The more life I try to have, the faster it goes. Time dilation is a hell of a drug. Yet my purse holds but a meager three decades of life whereas others have lost more than that on a bet.

At a child’s birthday party last weekend I was acutely aware of the whole spectrum of current human existence. I’ll chalk it up to the first big event of the kind that I’ve been to since the great stop-gap of covid 19 but I could see the generational lines in the sand. The baby boomers were sitting, observing, and vibing with the kids, generation x was taking a chill pill and laying back as their children took on the duties of the party, the millennials were hurriedly looking after their kids and frantically making sure the festivities took place as planned, generation z was talking about the latest music and sitting in a corner laughing at tik toks, and the children…running around with boundless energy, ready to replace all of us.

I was there with my baby brothers who my father decided to have later in life. So I got a taste of what some of my friends are going through right now having to manage two walking, talkings ids. There was an octogenarian acquaintance of mine who I touched base with briefly since we hadn’t spoken in a long time and as we watched my little brothers marvel at the animals in the petting zoo he wasted no time delivering straight cold hard truths to me in only the way a man whose shed all pretense can. He told me how all the friends he went to high school with were dying, “that’s just the age I’m at.” I thought how crazy and distant that sounds, all my high school friends are buying homes, getting married and having kids. Yet I remember how quickly the last 10 years have flown by. When I was 15 I thought living on my own seemed almost impossible and here I am in the third decade of life in the blink of an eye spinning the plates of self-sustenance. All of a sudden it seems like getting to 80 and watching the world crumble around me doesn’t seem so far away. What’s the lesson here? Be present, self-reflect as much as you can, the saying goes that you don’t know you’re living in the good times until they are over but that sounds to me like that person never stopped for a beat to evaluate their happiness. Better yet, assume it’s always the good times and don’t ever stop making them so.

Benedictus

Benedictus

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At a bar last night some poor woman had the misfortune of asking me what I was currently reading and I proceeded to vomit half-formed ideas on existentialism, freedom, authenticity, and self-discovery at her. Today I realized I desperately needed an outlet lest the flood gates be open upon more unsuspecting bar patrons. Sometimes I loathe the question “what is it about”. Can you truly summarize such a dense work of prose in a sentence or two? (Spielberg would say yes) Yet as humans we are constantly compacting, contextualizing, and abstracting vast amounts of information. Not only that but it is the foundation of the creative process to absorb and produce. So, as my platform, this blog shall serve as the repository for all further fruits of my creative digestive track.

I have about two dozen half written drafts of posts I was inspired to write but subsequently got cold on. In fact I have about a dozen of them that have the preceding sentence written into them, as if such a sentiment holds the key to actually, finally publishing one of these damned things. But so help me God this is the one that will make it through because I’m deciding to keep these short and sweet. My problem previously has been to try and write thematically cohesive, well thought out essays (or stories) but really my mind has never worked that way. So today I am presenting my thoughts just as I currently have had them today.

I mention God because he is on my mind. And I mention he because he is the patriarch of the church as was made clear by the Great Mass I witnessed today. Mozart’s other great unfinished work was performed handsomely by the LA Philharmonic at the illustrious Walt Disney Concert Hall. As usual I was the only one there wearing a Sleep hoodie and a t-shirt and below the median age of 50. I’m trying to make classical concerts metal again but I’m fighting a losing battle I fear. The LA Phil was kind enough to display lyrics of the translated Latin up on the wooden beams behind the orchestra. For something that sounds so divine the lyrics are so boring. Oscillating between “we worship you great father” and “we thank you for your glory”. That’s not to say the music was boring though, quite the opposite, it feels rapturous to sit in that theatre and listen to the rich sound of the orchestra delivering some of Mozart’s most inspired writing. I could not help but wonder how he wrote something that could make me feel as if I believed in a divine being without actually doing so. To me, belief in God was never even a consideration so although I grew up Catholic, I wouldn’t call myself a lapsed catholic, I simply never was one. Which brings me to my other rumination of the day, that I am nothing.

The concept of nothingness as it relates to existentialism is a void to which all meaning can be ascribed to. Simply put (from a simple understanding I’ll admit) it means absolute freedom, infinite possibility because nothing has no attachments, duties, wants or needs. We are born nothing and we die nothing. Which sounds nihilistic but in fact is rife with excitement and opportunity…and anxiety. I sat at a coffee shop today to try and parse through this concept and after the last bit of caffeine ran its course I decided a bar was more suitable for the punk rock philosophers of the 1900s. A single beer can go a long way towards helping you understand the concepts of Being and Not-Being, nothingness, and time. So I was swimming in this philosophical milieu as I watched, experienced, the LA Phil play Mozart’s exaltation towards his heavenly father. If we are nothing, walking voids then naturally we try to fill that by collecting identities, roles, occupations, ideas. It would appear to me that God, the church, and any religion is the ultimate answer to that void, certainly the easiest to adopt since the processes and mechanisms have all been laid out for you by generations preceding. I can’t help but admire the creative work of geniuses that are moved by a singular focus and devotion to religion. Having that clear of a purpose is work in and of itself, but it’s not for me.

Imagine Mozart in 1782 composing a tribute to God, hoping his audience would worship in unison with his music reaching a height that neither would on their own. Enter me in 2022 using the performance as a springboard to ponder the absence of God and my ability to free myself from religious attachments whilst experiencing second hand spirituality. I’ll admit that this sort of intellectual hijacking is always a delicious treat when I am present of mind to notice it.

100 Miles Through The Palm Desert

100 Miles Through The Palm Desert

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A Mostly Musical Journey

About to take off at the start line with RCC

Inspired by my triathlete friend Daniel’s Blog where he recounts his big events I’ve decided to write down significant rides on my own though not always through an athletic looking glass. The germination of this particular post stems from a conversation we had the night before the Tour De Palm Springs between Daniel, our friend Sergio (who we recently viciously kidnapped into the world of cycling) and I. The question of what we actually do for multiple hours on a bicycle on these 100 mile rides came up. Obviously we pedal, yes, but our minds are left trapped on this one way train for hours on end. If you stick with a group or are of a friendly disposition then conversations are easy enough to have and those are great to pass the time but if you have a hard time keeping up with groups…let’s say…particularly on climbs or long but gradual inclines like me or if you just prefer riding alone then what do you do?

Daniel and Sergio both agreed that listening to audio books and podcasts is the way to go. I agreed, that’s definitely a great way to live out your masochist fantasies on a bike. Okay I’m being sarcastic, they enjoy this and maybe consider it even more of a “productive” endeavor, a synergy between mind and body where the body is working and the mind is learning. I understand the impulse, it’s the same feeling I get when I used to drive across LA for work, may as well knock out a book or learn some new shit while stuck in traffic, right? May as well learn the secret art of the law of attraction while pedaling for 6 hours straight too then yeah? Hell nah.

I listen to music, it’s a ride enhancer for me. It scoops me out of the lows and it makes the highs higher. My bicycle ride becomes art, a film in my head. Oftentimes the combination of my struggle, the vistas, and the music combine together to form some sort of alchemical concoction greater than the sum of its parts and later on that’s what I remember the most, not the suffering but the grandiose canvas of emotions I felt. I tried to jot down some quick notes to prompt my recounting of the ride so get ready for a deep dive into the intersection between music scores, soundtracks and cycling that you never asked for.

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