“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”

I'm paraphrasing or quoting Helen Keller, who said "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure". It seemed inspiring when I was 29 in need of support for creating drama in my life, fairly new at being clean and totally (as now) incapable of having a cognizant direction in life outside of work, paying bills, writing and entertaining my own madness. As I said to a dear friend recently "I'm not wealthy enough to be eccentric" Today I'm happy to be somewhat balance in awe and horror of life. I look at the world and see that my life is a bowl of cherries compared to the average Joe in China or Somalia, astounded that people would bother to sully their hands, much less risk prison to make 2 grand shipping rifles (AK47s) to that country under UN arms embargo. I think the US and Mexico need to be under an arms embargo, unfortunately the constitution and the dominant corporate powers disagree.

I'm becoming more and more disappointed with Obama, more because of my own understanding of who he is (a successful politician) rather than what he does (lie and kill). It's his job, he applied for it and apparently he got it fair and square. The fact that lying and killing (unjustified murder) is part of the job, is apparently not in and of itself, "Newsworthy" as we are suffering a Truth in reporting & media crisis along with all the "crisis" going on in the world. The fact that the FCC gives licenses for free to huge corporations still somehow does not seem to make it possible to have a decent functioning media reporting honest disturbing news. This being a very rough quote of John Madison said "It is the job of a free press to disseminate divisive ideas and issues from the margins to the center" little did I realize that he meant that literally as free postage and distribution for newspapers was the standard in this country for the first hundred years (when we had a vibrant and meaningful media) and that the us post office was the largest sector of government employment. Nope, no money for it. Pepsi is not advertising during the superbowl, the money is better spent of face book (which burns coal, another reason to un friend face book)

"Offensive and Hateful" is how our U.S. President replies to a person saying "I do not pass judgment, But don't you think the time has come for a fact finding commission" Regarding the events of 9 /11. I think that's pretty wild, I'd say the guy touched a nerve, and I'm glad he did. I don't know why, but when it comes to second rate despots, Ahmadinejad is right up there with Obama as a despot. He's not killing as many people, He does not have as many people in prisons, he's less popular, which is saying something, but he's still capable of pointing out glaring truths or at least raising disturbing questions that the mainstream media and all serious american politicians are afraid of. He likely stole and election, but hey, our own war mongering Presidents are well known to do the same. Iran is an interesting conundrum for the world: for in Iran, we see ourselves, imperfect, ugly and yet not without style, inspiration and guts. The fact that Israel is constantly on the brink of starting nuclear WW3 over Iran having the bomb is classic Jewish angst at reality. I'm fairly certain there are quite a few nuclear weapons in the Middle East and not all of them in Iran or Israel. The fact is Ahmadinejad does not really care about the Palestinians anymore than Obama shows the two have far more in common than they have to argue about. We really need to find a way to get over this little impasse. America is already on the brink of bankruptcy and martial law, the last thing we need is another front in a field of disastrous wars. I could go on but this is more than enough for a Sunday night. And i think the point (one of them) that America and Iran has significant similarity, has been made, however imperfectly, not a bad post for what started out as a personal whine.

Even rest is work if you let yourself write

So maybe I'm not as depressed as I think or imagine myself to be. I got up today on time, after sleeping poorly, because I had a Dr.s appointment and want to maintain my prescriptions for the medications that help make my life manageable. While I criticize myself, and life, for it's addictions ,I'm grateful that these medications are legal and have a minimal (yet significant) side affects on my life. I enjoy being able to moderate my drug use and even manage to quit smoking and drinking when I'm clear on the costs and seeing that i have a choice of how to live these last few or many years of my life. I drift off or "wake up" as happens, take a day or two off work, and come and go, pretty much as I please. What good fortune amidst suffering!

While I don't write much anymore, it's not because I'm not thinking, I'm just not believing my thoughts as much. I'm still angry and depressed at times, or at myself and the world. I take it far to seriously: Convinced that humanity is a blight on the planet when left to it's own devices. We seem to tend toward greed, violence and overpopulation without comprehension of how this makes all our own lives less pleasurable. I'm both frustrated with humanity and totally heartbroken and joyful when I see a child and the love, wonder and beauty that each individual is. . . I wonder if staph cells see each other as beautiful?

It's both an ironic and serious question. Ironic because I realize that it's highly unlikely that staph cells have self awareness and because the same can be said about humans and myself. . . While I like to think of myself as "aware & awake" it's clear that I drift off too sleep with consistent regularity. This is both true figuratively and latterly. I can drift off into puttering around the house quite easily and enjoyably, generally cleaning, throwing stuff away etc. only to find that hours have went by and I've not "accomplished" much or "done anything" with my day.

It's interesting today is a bit overcast and cloudy and I'm likely to not go to work (Its 2 PM) and yet I'm still fairly happy and content.

I don't feel much has changed around our "relationship" only that I have become more and more willing and able to accept it as it is (somewhat shallow and distant) yet satisfying in the appearance and reality of our mutual familiarity and comfort with each other. While I believe she is not deeply "attached" to me, she does display much discomfort and un ease with my personal pain or depression and as such is totally averse to my discussion of suicide or wanting not to "be" here yet either way, I have learned not to express or elocute such feeling directly too, or with, her.

"My" depression or suicidality is gradually declining as I see my own aging happening before my eyes. As my own presence is becoming a clearly transient experience, there is less and less need to end my life prematurely. I trust that I will and can manage to live out my days in some semblance of peace and acceptance and gratitude for the minimal suffering that I actually experience. As I listen and ponder the Buddhist teachings of Chogyam Trungpa and Pemma Chodron I accept and appreciate my life and situation more and more. As well as I see that my own personal "need" for the therapeutic process is less acute than a year or two ago. I'm reluctant to pursue another relationship, at this time. I do have the appointments and will go again this week, but I'm tempted to try to see if switching to every other week or once a month is a realistic option. It's partially the timing and partially the fact that while I'm depressed and semi-suicidal, it is profoundly situational in cause and shape. While I recognize that I'm both more and less likely to commit suicide the need for discussion and help around the issue seems less of an issue. Maybe I don't want to talk about it because I feel like talking about it exacerbates the situation and again, on the other hand talking about it seems to concertize the fantasy and desire from an intangible into a reality.

It's imperative to recognize, both for myself, and for anyone who ever reads these long rambling missives, to know how deeply I love life. How grateful I am for the blue of the sky, the sunlight on the fence, the knowledge that this whole mad wild insane world is out there running around defying death and life, as I sit and ruminate, love and suffer and genuinely appreciate some tiny slice of humanity.

I know that my life is actually very small. That while I have traveled a bit, I have always held back, even in my madness and exuberance, there has been some holding back and some withdrawal from fully engaging in life.

I don't know when I started, If I had to guess, id say when we left Wisconsin, or the year before, when whatever happened is lost to that child that was robbed of something called hope or desire to aspire.

Aspiration has always been difficult for me. Perhaps the last one I truly had was to die or to "fail" and that was when I was 12 or 13. And I guess I did in so many tragic ways. I really started to fail. I got hurt, almost blinded in my left eye, and something changed after that even though I never could say why. Yet even though I knowingly denied whatever grandeur or fame life might have held, I could not destroy the actual joy of love and the gnosis of life.

My life is like that, a long series of wounds and failures compensated by success or grace.

I have been showered with the love of so many beautiful human beings, and I must say that I know that it is love, not the need that is the gift. For too often it is our need and fears that drive, dispose of and destroy our dreams of love from ever reaching fruition.

I don't know what I'm saying, but I trust you know that you have received it.

I just know.