Some advice from Benjamin Franklin

“The great secret of succeeding in conversation is to admire little, to hear much; always to distrust our own reason, and sometimes that of our friends; never to pretend to wit, but to make that of others appear as much as possibly we can; to hearken.”

Fauxku, from my life

What is Wrong With Today
My pants won’t stay up.
My hair is a crown of fuzz.
My eggs are lonely.

Right Now
I am so fertile
I could impregnate myself
With a single sperm.

It’s Not Fun Anymore
Why table for one?
OK, I can be picky.
Still, no one’s offered.

Grumblekins
I start to wonder:
Why is everyone so awkward?
Or is it just me?

Small talk is over
And didn’t go very well.
Can I just kiss you?

Also Grumblkins
I’m filled with longing.
It’s not directed toward God.
I’ll try to shift it?

 This task seems daunting.
And not that interesting.
But it’s in the Book.

Back to work

i, most appropriately, spent the bulk of my formative years exploring myself, making revisions, corrections, edits, deletions, and redrafts until i came up with a product that i felt good about, that other people seemed to appreciate and that fell as closely in line with the values i pulled from my Faith as i could manage and still be someone i could recognize.  i’ve become pretty comfortable with my nature over the years between then and now and i have thought it proper that i should be satisfied with who i am and what i might become out of that.

But now i seem to be growing restless again.  i suspect i may have become too comfortable with the flaws that really matter while still stifled with insecurity about the ones that really don’t.  I’m getting the feeling it may be time to start exploring again.  To look more closely at some fundamental aspects of my character and determine whether they are really worth keeping, how fundamental they really are, and how they help or hinder me in achieving the actual purpose of my life.

How much of what i do and who i “am”, i wonder, was grown out of a desire to be loved by other people and what might change if i grew now out of a knowledge that i was created from God’s love and that i serve better by loving than by being loved?  Perhaps i can remember or learn anew what it is to love without inhibition.  What is it that has me so reluctant to do things i don’t want to do that i will wast myself inventing ways to want to do what needs to be done instead of just doing it?  Why is it so difficult to feel confident without feeling superior and what happens if i direct my self-image toward humility instead of security?  Why do i have to know why i do things to not do them anymore?  What if i really learn to burn with love for all who cross my path, to put my neighbor and all his kin before myself, and, scariest and most perplexing of all, submit to the negation of the Self that i spent so many years identifying and refining?  What if i really, truly trust in God, without a back-up plan?  i think these possibilities need to be explored.

To sum up, it’s clearly time for me to start trying hard again.  It’s been long enough that i’ve been practicing self-acceptance.  i’m not really the one who needs to be accepting me when it comes right down to it.  Not my job to judge.  It’s time, i think, for a little honest reflection, some selfless service, some non-me-centered exploration of…myself.  i don’t really know how that works, but i’m pretty sure i’ve never really tried it before.  Not for any useful amount of time, anyway.  Maybe with practice i can not slip into obsessing over my own development and keep focused on the grand scheme.  i hear that one thing to do might be to focus on the qualities of God, maybe without focusing on how i do or do not manifest them.  i don’t know if that makes them mystically manifest in oneself or what, but it feels like it might be the thing to do.  Less worry about whether people think i’m neat and more commitment to what is true and real and valuable to the human soul.  Some investigation into my personal mindset will surely be required, but ultimatley, i think fewer “I” statements is what’s called for now.  I don’t really know yet what to replace “I” with, but maybe that’s a good first thing to explore.  i’m not sure that it’s so important to start any particular place.  It’s just time to get back to work.

That ain’t right.

I’ve been writing a lot of email replies lately and then deleting them before I send them.  For all the witty retorts and humorously critical remarks that come to my head, I just am not finding many that are actually going to contribute anything to the well-being of the people receiving them and I just can’t bring myself to propagate so constantly this mindset that finds its comedy in highlighting other people’s shortcomings.  Now, I would like very much like to give myself some kind of pat on the moral back for exercising this restraint, but I can’t help but note that I do still, more often than not, find all too entertaining the failure of others to think along logical lines.  Specifically, my logical lines.  Can’t really be proud of that.  I mean, yeah it’s good for someone not to kick the dog.  But what do we think of someone who’s inclined to kick a dog in the first place?  And then what if the dog is a person instead?  Can I get a round of “That ain’t right.”?  But they say the first step to sobriety is acknowledging that you have a problem.  So here I am.  Step 1?  My name is Abi and I am a barely-mitigated, unbecomingly critical snob. 

Who has Step 2?

long time

Yeah, it’s been a long time. One would hope such a long sabbatical would end in some revolutionary insight, but no.  i just felt bad for taking up cyber space without using it.  Go figure.  Unfortunately (or fortunately in the big run) i doubt that i’ll be writing much for a while.  It’s not like before when i didn’t have any thoughts.  i just don’t really feel a particular need to express myself.  i’m having my conversations and that’s feeling pretty sufficient.  i’m doing a lot of the learning things and not so much of the talking thing.  i think it’s good. It’s possible that i may replace my thoughts about the world with fiction in this space.  i’ve never had much success writing fiction, but i think it would be a worthwhile exercise, so i’m going to try if i can get a chance. 

Which brings me to the news in my life.  Most everyone knows this already, but i thought it only resonable to state in my online record of self that i’m staying here in Haifa for 2.5 years longer than originally expected.  So that’ll be until December 2011.  It feels the same.  Just less uncertain.  And now that i’m a little more permanent here, i have a little more work and i’m happy to spend my time doing that.  All in all life is exactly what i would hope for itto be right now.  Though it would be nice if a husband loomed on the horizon.  For now i’ll go get a hamburger.  Laters.

The City of Love and Rapture

When once the seeker hath ascended unto this station, he will enter the City of Love and Rapture, whereupon the winds of love will blow and the breezes of rapture will waft.

It would seem that in my tumble through the darkness of delusion, i have finally managed to find God’s love – for me, for Him.  And now i am agonizingly aware of my insurmountable unworthiness of my Beloved.  i am in a panic trying to learn as immediately as my egregiously limited faculties will allow how to love Him right – to do at least the best i actually can- and at every moment i fail, my heart stops and i tremble in fear that it will be too late, that i won’t pick up both feet in time and He will surrender me back to myself.

Now he laugheth, now he weepeth sore; now he reposeth in peace, now he trembleth in fear.

My heart breaks  every  day.
I cannot find a place to hide it.
The pieces…every side always so exposed and raw.
Every new sensation so dangerously potentially errant.

Can i trust my Lover to keep me?  When i so grievously fail to keep Him every day?

How do they do this?  How do the good people do this?  For a lifetime?  For eternity? How?

Bruised but not quite broken

I just got my ass kicked by idol fancy and vain imagination in the strangest reaction to a mediocre work of fiction i have ever experienced or witnessed. That’s what i get for putting moderation out on its haunches. Over the last few days i listened to a four-book series in its entirety – 2 days, 17 hours, 14 minutes, and 33 seconds worth of fiction in a 96 hour period. Probably because this particular series plays so directly to my most relied upon and, as it turns out, most cherished alternate universe fantasies – fantasies i have harbored for almost half my life - i let myself get bizarrely entangled in the characters’ relationship and so attached to the family in the story that when it ended i actually felt like someone had died, fighting back tears all day yesterday as though i was being separated from people that i loved and wanted to spend so much more time with and, freakier – like i was ending a relationship with someone who took up my whole heart.

The whole experience was, at least, tempered by the constant reminder of my logic that none of these things i was so pained to part with had actually existed in my life to begin with and the accompanying embarrassment at the violent emotional reaction i was having to losing something someone else imagined. What i realized fairly quickly, though, is that what was really there for me was the pain of letting go of fantasies and imaginings for my own life that could transform in my heart to hopes and wishes when i at the end of my patience with this world, of surrendering things i have so strongly desired, of tearing from my heart my fantastic imaginary future, and more than anything of cutting and sealing off my escape routes.

If i were to describe with any amount of detail what sorts of things i tore from my heart while i sat sobbing for the last 45 minutes, it would be a lot easier, i think , for you to imagine what i mean. But then i would be mortified instead of just really embarrassed and you would all know that not-so-deep inside i’m really still 15 years old. No kidding. But as it stands, you have no proof. Be assured these are not the sort of healthy dreams for the future – graduate school, publication, family life – that we all need to keep moving forward. These are those things that, while innocent enough, cloud one’s ability to accurately assess reality, always holding it to standard that does not and needs not exist.

As i write this i can feel myself craving those fantasies again and i very much feel like an addict who just entered rehab. i, my friends, am a fiction junkie. It even took an overdose to get me here. I have acknowledged now that i can’t go on living my life as though this other life i’ve imagined is a practicable plan B.  Or that any alternate life i imagine is a practicable plan B.  There’s just this and i have to be ok with that. 

So we’re going to see how i cope with a week quit cold turkey. No fiction, no movies, no daydreams, no stories. One week solidly in reality. I am actually, genuinely very nervous. Not quite wracked with anxiety, but seriously on edge. Maybe if, in this vulnerable state, i start to read holy, healthy things my dependency will shift. Maybe i will start to see more fully my reality, not distracted by imaginary options and impossible wishes.  Then i can – slowly and with great moderation – reintroduce certain types of fiction to my life, though i’m not sure i’ll ever be able to safely revisit the books that were my downfall. I’m about to cry again thinking i might not. And i’m having to fight so hard to keep from drifting back to their memory. This is really kind of sick.  And so absurdly difficult.  It’s hard to believe i’m a normal person.

Note: An interesting observation – after listening to more than 65 hours of the same author, i note that the style that appears in this entry mimics the voice of the novels. So don’t blame me. It would seem that i am a style mimic. Does that count as a superpower? Wait. Don’t answer that. Damn.

What is pretty for?

In the context of the material world being a facsimile of the spiritual world

The worlds of God are in perfect harmony and correspondence one with another. Each world in this limitless universe is, as it were, a mirror reflecting the history and nature of all the rest. The physical universe is, likewise, in perfect correspondence with the spiritual or divine realm. The world of matter is an outer expression or facsimile of the inner kingdom of spirit. The world of minds corresponds with the world of hearts.

(Abdu’l-Baha, The Promulgation of Universal Peace, p. 270)

i find myself wondering – what is the function of beauty?  Especially, to what degree and in what way does what we as a humanity find beautiful reflect the progress of our development? What does it tell us about our spiritual senses?  How precise is this correspondence?  Does the reflection of beauty in the physical world correlate to some specific or non-specific quality in the spiritual world?  Or is this correlation only there to let us understand the virtue of attraction to beauty, to give us a metaphor for the natural attraction our souls have to the Ancient Beauty?  Does the manifestation of that virtue apply only to spiritual beauty, or is it also somehow a sign of spiritual advancement to be attracted to the flower or the fine art or the genetic masterpiece?  As the increased mixing of races leads to more and more beautiful human beings, is there something to be understood from that about the unity of mankind?  It certainly says something that beauty plays such an important role in the evaluation of things created by artists and that that creation seems to be one of the closest things to revelation a mere mortal might experience.  Can evaluating what we are attracted to and where we see beauty give us clues as to how our own spiritual development is coming along?  Would an effort to consciously reshape one’s conception of beauty have a correlative effect on one’s soul?  As an aspect of material existence that causes so much consternation and confusion, i’d sure be interestedto know- what is it for?

Oh! You came back!

That was very generous of you.  i would’ve assumed i was dead.  Or had developed some sort of adversarial relationship with the technologies.  Not so! Since you’re here after all this time, i’ll have to assume you’re one of those people that loves me and so i will tell you some things that might interest you (read: things about me).

i love everything these days.  Except the things i will never love because they are evil – like cockroaches and morning.  i won’t list the things that i love because i already told you it’s everything.  But there are a few things that are standing out as bringing extra joy into my anyways stellar life.  These include God, loved ones, and Japan.  The first two i think are self-explanatory.  That’s right.  That means i’m not going to explain why they are bringing extra joy.  Though i may later explain how they are doing so.  But probably not.  However, i do recognize that the mention of Japan out of all the countries and other things in the world, many of which i have a much closer relationship with, may merit some elucidation.

It’s not true that i love Japan more than other places.  [editor's note: this initially read "i can't say that...". It seems worth noting that 'i can't say' and 'it's not true' are apparently synonymous in my mind] i’ve never been there and don’t know much about it.  However, it is without doubt the entity (aside from God and friends – did i mention that both of these are the same thing as love, which is the very best thing in the worlds?) lately bringing me the most joy.  This joy first came in the form of a teenager drama called Hana Yori Dango, with which many of you have since, in some cases forcibly, become familiar.  i could go on a bit about how this silly little show opened the dusty windows of my heart and let the air in so my friends and God could breathe there again.  But instead i’m just going to skip ahead to jpop, which adorns the halls of jdorama (both of which terms can be found in the most recent edition of the Oxford English Dictionary) with catchy happy and earnest emotional tunes.  You may listen to a sampling of these here.   You may also partake in a variety of jdorama here, but a note of caution:  a certain mindset must be present in a viewer for such things to be healthy and uplifting instead of murdering your soul.  i suspect these are the only two possible outcomes of this activity, so proceed, if you will, with care.  Through these media, i have discovered that i love Japanese language and am now learning it like someone else might learn an instrument.  All i want to do (besides my work and loving God and my friends) is practice Japanese.  And eat cabbage.  But that’s maybe something for another post.  So you see?  Japan has provided THREE things that bring great joy to my life.  Plus a fourth that i should really be more ashamed of.

i think that’s enough for now.  However, if i get my act together about it, posts and comments from yours truly will also be appearing at the Changing Times blog at semi-regular intervals.

i wrote a bit of prose before

It’s almost poetry, which makes me uncomfortable because, in my experience, poetry has to be very well crafted to be respectable and i’m not at all confident that mine is, but i likes the words and so i’m putting them down. Here.

i wonder sometimes if my prayers are getting through while my doubt is the wall they bounce back from. Maybe it’s the delivery…or maybe i’m just checking the wrong mailbox for reply. Are they missing an address or in the wrong shaped envelope? i know the words are right because He chose them. i think they’re flying off to nowhere and landing on my back. Or God’s writing on them “return to sender.” But that’s not it, is it? I mean, my prayers are surely being answered. i just don’t understand how i’m meant to address them or how much postage i need so they’re going out in carefully decorated envelopes with no means of delivery…And i wish i could just use the phone.

This conundrum is one that pops up for me periodically. Usually when i am left to myself and begin to ponder too deeply the nature of things i cannot possibly comprehend. At the moment, it is not in the least a concern, but i am sure that again in the future it will haunt my senses and i shall despair until i again surrender to my ignorance.