becomes a post

there's an angry pain in my foot. it's boiling.

this is the only reason i write. it's the reason i write right now. it's the reason i write in general. anger. and pain.

i'm blown away by the realization that that was the reason that i used to read. to escape from anger and pain. sometimes, i'd escape from immediate anger, just minutes from an argument. or other times from the indirect pain of boredom and lonesomeness of sitting home after school with nothing to do.

but also, i'm a pretty casual, relaxed person. i could sit with minimal stimulation for hours. during these times my mind coasts, joining my body. i don't feel like writing at these times. but if i'm angry...

i feel like my mind has been taught best under stress. last second essays or important arguments with family members. so it's also only natural that if i'm angry, i'm more willing and able to write. things are overflowing, feelings are, so i write to give them weight, to make them real, which is all they want, and so they subside, and become not real any longer.

now i feel better, and there is no reason to write any more.

much better.

oh, and the pain in my foot is real, but isn't why i was writing. i was writing because of how rude my indifference can be to a customer after contrasting it with my unexpected kindness to them yesterday.

i enjoyed this chapter

Desert Divers, Lindqvist, about his favorite author, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

22

What fascinated me as a boy when I read those books was their belief that the airman was a new kind of man.

A person taking off from the ground also elevated himself above the trivialities of life in to a new understanding, created by the particular experiences modern technology made possible.

The airman was not yet a captain in the routine trade between tax-free shops of the world's cities. Like the astronaut now, the airman was the most modern man of his day, a representative of the future on a temporary stopover in what was soon to be the past.

That gave him tremendous authority, which Saint-Ex used to ask yet again the great questions.


What is man? What are we for?

Man makes himself, he said.

We aren't born man, we become that.

We become that through solidarity with each other.

We become that by taking responsibility.

I loved his gravity when he said such things, quite shamlessly, with the same endless trust in his reader as the airman had in the empty air.

In that solemnity, he was so close to me, I could lean forward and touch him.

He taught me to demand of a writer not just excitement and adventure, but also knowledge, seriousness and presence.

Presence most of all.

If the writer is not there himself in his writing, how can he demand that you should be?


then i found this quote here

"If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea."

the recent skoal tabacco ad: sensitive isn't crying at the movies. it's knowing a bass is nibbling on a jig 15 feet down.

so there, an appeal to a real man. but more specifically a man that chews snuff and goes fishing. stereotypically, a white man. i recently heard complaints that mcdonalds was appealing to low-income black families by adopting their street/casual talk ads like (as pointed out now that i remember these specifics, by maddox, the guy with the best page in the universe or something like that) not using caps, and contracting words, such as "i'm lovin' it!" etc. just realized that everyone that sells something bad for you (or sells anything in general, obviously) is going to target those who buy it most, and therefore those who suffer from it most.

anyway.

a quick realization. so, bush says things like God is on our side and that God wanted him to be president. i just realized that i never, for once, actually thought that he believed what he was saying. i guess i just assumed he was saying it for political reasons or something. if i actually take what he says at face value, and don't try to find hidden possibilities that would give him more credit than he deserves, then, well..


alright.. my morning's 7am wakeup call is akin to a 4 or 5am awakening to you who aren't completely adjusted to getting up at 10 like me. what did i do with all that extra free time? just simply watch the old testament set identical groundworks for eventual late 19th century colonialization, and further, give historical and religious credence to God-leads-the-way aggressive American bravado. and all these BC exterminations re-enacted with 'convincing gravity' as "only the History Channel can."

from abraham to moses to joshua, gideon, debra, king saul through david, the isrealites followed God's plan to enter Canaan, exterminate all breathing creatures, and make the place their own.

the differences: the isrealites were not a rich nation sitting pretty already, like the dutch, portuguese, etc. and were not out-arming their opponents by centuries of technology, like spaniards cannonning indians from their boats. these old testament warriors were out-classed in almost every major skrimish and relied on tactics and strategy. also, another difference, and i don't know what's worse* but the extermination of men, women and children with intentions to settle and conquer a more resourse-rich area was done because religion told the isrealites it was ok and because science told the imperialist powers it was ok. sure, the isrealites weren't already one of the world's strongest nations, but they however had been existing well enough at what the bible calls a desert oasis south of the mountains of canaan for more than 40 years during which time they grew and trained their army.

so those are those connections. and then the idea that those stories set the stage for the holy book that our president abides by, you might think that we've made very little progress, and you might think you know why.


*i feel science in the short run but religion in the long run. science seems like it has the flexibility to learn from its mistakes. but in the short run, relegating another people to lesser based on accepted 'fact' rather than accepted religion seems worse. maybe just because we're used to religion being more prone to passing out prejudices.

but i'm not (redubbed edition! making use of Clicknathan's Confusion Eliminating Syntax System: a Brilliant Miscellaneous Notion)

Today made the high honor roll by being the nicest day of the year, what with the upward-looking View of criss-crossing Black wires swaying Against a solid Blue sky when i was parked waiting like at the beach the way the Sun was, patient and bold, at the intersection to work. plus how there is hardly a tree without all its leaves now and the way that Jet so clearly Glinted towards the sun like a Smoke-Trailed arrow as i watched from below my moon-roof at 70 mph on an empty long straight stretch of highway downhill, or rather down mountain.

hmm, i've been drinking and smoking (read: Smoking). i've Stopped weightlifting for the time-being and basketball all-outs have been cut to almost less than once a week. yet, i feel very Well. stretching Seems to be the cure-all. and even that's been shaved down to about half as much as a few weeks Ago. i Think i should be worried. ...

what's this?

(imagine some kind of circus-y banjo-y song)

man, i'm all messed up.

i'm at work.

are those fucking gross skinny cats from heathcliff supposed to represent people on fucking acid?

like, i swear, i think i just freaked this guy out by talking to him all weird and acting all spacey. i can't get out of awkward situations like usual. like, that guy. i was walking back to help out some other guy who i was trying help before the phone rang. this transition too was awkward. i'd start answering the phone while still trying to give this guy a general idea of where this buffet was. basically it was just confusion. then, after the phone call, i tried walking back, as i was saying, to help the guy, when the guy i was first talking about came into the store. the old guy, that i was walking back to help, noticed me coming back to him and turned to accept my help. but i greeted the guy coming in, in an incorrect fashion. in a way that led him to asking for my help immediately. my thoughts were, hmm, i should be helping the other guy, but i'm fucked up and couldn't figure out how to explain that. and so i went with the flow and thought, well, maybe i can help this guy that just came in quickly. but then the guy started asking in depth questions, and then he misunderstood me about something about corner cabinets or curios, and then i jerkedly explained to him that i'm sorry, but i was helping this other gentleman before you came in, or something rediculous like that. the guy left seconds later.

haha

and then this phone call. it was some kind of fact checking agency for businesses or something. they acted like the kind of people you would just hang up on, but they weren't. she wanted to confirm our business's name, but i kept just thinking how much i wanted to hang up on her and not deal with anything. she repeated the spelling of our store like 5 times and i kept acting confused, which i kind of was, and then the old guy from the last story came up to buy something. so i wanted to explain to the lady on the phone that i was busy and had a customer, but all that kept coming out of my mouth was 'you're going to have to get back to me' i said it at least three times in a weird, business-voice tone, that didn't make any sense in the situation. and she was like, telling me that it would only take a minute, but then i just fucking hung up, and started an odd interaction with the old guy, who can't hear well at all, and i could never figure out how loud i needed to talk for him to hear me, and i kept altering my volume in wide ranges to where people around the store probably thought i was fucking nuts

and holy shit.......

space cowboy
someone called the store here a minute ago. some

quickly, before i forget

i fucking hate that lady that comes on after a person's personal cellphone answering message. she says things like 'to leave a callback number' and 'to page this person' and 'press 5 for more options'

sometimes she says more things, sometimes less. i'm sitting here all ready to jump into what i was going to say and, bam, she comes on. i have to restrain. but then, bam, she skips the '5 for more options' part and i'm caught off-guard, etc.

i hate her

it should be a law that people have to take her off

....

Sven Lindqvist

BENCH PRESS

Chapter 56

Having power means having power over reality. At first, that simply makes it more real. Reality is concentrated in the compression chamber of power.

But it doesn't last. With the next strike, reality is thinned down by the presence of power. It is sucked out of the power space and a vacuum is created, to be filled with thephantoms that grow out of power, bewildering it.

Power not only forces, but is itself forced. Soon it is no longer forced by reality, but by the phantoms. Then power misses the reality it has lost and sets out to look for it. It calls reality's name with increasing desperation.

In the final stages the phantoms act of their own accord. Very occasionally, a rattling sound is heard, like an empty seed husk. It is the rattle of the last, stunted remains of reality in the emptiness of the power brain.

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hello. power is born of repetitions. not just in the weight room. take conversation and social interaction. at first, as a child, there is fear. there is the unknown way to act. reality is strong but you run from its face.

when you find patterns and repetition you also slowly find power. you can stand listening to someone and look around you at reality feeling aware and strong and confident. there's nothing this person can say that you don't have a response for. there's no fear, and reality grows more real.

in time, your power becomes more interesting than reality. reality may start to fade then but not to your dismay. your power is interesting. but then, more time, and you find the limits of your power. especially limiting because reality has become repetition. you've limited yourself for the sake of power. you want to experience reality but you can't get out of your ego, your habit of repetitive responses. you don't want to sacrafice the power that you strained so hard to get. that you needed to ease your fear when you were young so that you could experience reality more fully. but you must give up power this time to again experience what you desire.

full reality may be like something you can only glimpse in passing. a parade, full of flowerful floats and decorated marching soldiers, the arrival of which you've had marked on the calander for months, and that you can now see coming from miles away, that comes and is powerful and beautiful, but then fades away down the street. you must wait for it to come again. but that's only a partial parallel, because to experience what you want to experience in reality, you must give back what you needed to obtain to experience it. the power was a tool you needed to aquire to get to your desires, but it should not be mistaken for what you desired, and so you must give it back and show that you are still clear-headed and right enough to realize what you really want and how to get what you want. you must reach back to your childhood fear if you want to see reality again, in the power that you want it to be.

so is this why he says the below? or does he return to the well because he is so full of power now that he wants to go back and conquer his fears?


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Chapter 49

I was born at the bottom of a well. I screamed in vain to make myself heard. I spent my whole childhood trying to climb out. When I had finally succeeded and was grown up, why would I voluntarily go back down?


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it was interesting to find out that his book exterminate all the brutes actually began as the last chapter of this book bench press. and also, the other book i've ordered from him, desert divers, it turns out began as the final chapter of exterminate all the brutes.

it seems that at 53, when i think was when he took up body building (confusingly i had thought he said 35 earlier in the book), childhood dreams of the sahara that had been previously locked up, slipped out of his subconscious. he says his will was so preoccupied with strenous exertion that he'd see visions of forgotten memories.

lindqvist had been to nearly every other desert in his lifetime, but had, at 53, never made it to the sahara. the desert of his dreams. the largest desert in the world. the hottest desert in the world. his last trip through a desert put such a strain on his failing body that he felt that he made it across 'by the skin of his teeth.' weight lifting gave him back his ability and desire, and thus the creation of the three books.




in an amazing coincindence the day before bench press arrived in the mail, i rented Sahara, a movie about adventure. and not just your big-whoop new york city/tokyo/brokeback mountain location adventures. but an adventure in a new place. a novel location. a previously unexplored avenue where an adventure movie could be filmed. in short, an adventure that's destination is that place where not even george lucas could imagine to locate one - the desert! starring weightlifter extraordinaire, mathew mcconaughy, former tom cruise lover, penelope cruz, and funny man steve zahn.

wow, what a coincidence. the desert. and not just your run of the mill fear and loathing las vegas desert. but one in africa. the sahara. i mean, who remembers all those movies that also took place there? obviously not anyone involved in making that poster. i should make a movie and tag the poster with the caption: "space! where no movie has ever gone before!" or maybe: "a movie that takes on a subject never before explored on the big screen. a movie about love." anyway, i don't know where i'm going with all this. it wasn't a bad movie until the end. i can't watch the end of action movies anymore. just can't. fall asleep or fast forward through almost all of them now. sahara. king kong. the punisher. collateral. and possibly on and on.

so, the end.