52/365

as a kid
he’d get lost
in atlases
almanacs
record books
and books about space.

there was little time
for fiction
when surrounded by
such fanatical facts.

he could tell you:
your weight on mercury
or that a year on mars was 1.88 earth years
or that venus is the hottest planet in the solar system
or that jupiter has more than double the mass of all the other planets combined
or that saturn has more moons than any other planet
or that together the planets make up 0.14% of the solar systems mass,
99% of which is the gas giants

he watched:
et
close encounters
communion
star trek
star wars
the last star fighter
enemy mine
aliens

there was a hopefulness
just beyond his reach
in all that space.
a magnitude
that made his lonely childhood
days spent in mostly solitude  
feel more meaningful
or insignificant

he cold never tell
which he felt
or why.

We Are Winning: Alone

I put some weight on my right ankle today and I have been able to walk about a little without my crutches. This feels like a miracle seeing that a few days ago, I couldn’t even think about adding any pressure to it.


I watched The Raiders win their ninth game of the season. It was closer than I would have liked in the end, but it was a W and I still can’t believe the season we are having. I can’t remember a time, ever in my life, when watching the Raiders has ever been so satisfying. We are good. We are winning and people are talking about how good we are and how we are winning. 9-2!


I got a bit of work done. I realized that I have a lot of marking to do. Marking I had forgotten about. Marking that would make sense for me to start doing tomorrow as I lay around in bed. Suddenly the rest that was so boring, feels so far away.


I had two extended naps today and I ate pizza in bed for lunch. A few Bojack Horseman episodes rounded out the digital portion of my day. I’m out of pills, which doesn’t really matter because I am not sure they were actually doing anything.


I feel like I am disappearing here piece-by-piece, breath by breath. Not to be hyperbolic, but I haven’t seen another person in almost a week and the extrovert in me misses your attention. The occasionally private message is nice, but I am learning to manage the loneliness of recovery. I can’t help but think about Jason’s strength over the last twenty years. He, unlike me, doesn’t want or need this attention, but I owe him a line: You are the strongest person I have ever known in my life. I have seen and felt your strength and admire it beyond anything a simple word like love can ever capture. Thank you for guiding me through my life with your strength.


I’m reading the Bruce Springsteen bio because Chris insisted that I read it and I am loving it. I am listening to Nebraska as I type these words and excited to learn more about an artist I know little about.


The political world is so absurd these days that it is hard to take seriously, but I read articles today about the plans for the federal government jobs and it is clear that things are about to get very grim for these United States. I just hope that you people living there, can survive these next four years and begin to rebuild the shit show that is coming. I am too tired right now to address this issue and the work required at the moment, but it is on my mind and I hope to get to it soon enough.


We are a few days away from the end of yet another year and December has never been an easy time for me. Excited that as it approaches, I feel like I am on an upward swing.


Looking forward to getting rid of this mustache. This year it has been a mark of sadness and I won’t even be at school on the last day of celebration. Just a quiet shave and goodbye.


Tomorrow is another day and I look forward to seeing where it takes us all. I miss you all. Today was the 333rd day of the year by the way.

Scabs and Brusies

Listening to Leonard Cohen’s The Stranger Song from the Isle of Wright show in 1970, missing my guitar, nearing midnight in a hotel room in Jakarta, thankful for each word that soothes the gaping wounds, the blood drying up and clotting into convenient scabs, hiding the bruises caused by this collective anger; the tears have dried up leaving empty pockets of sarcasm and mean comments about things I don’t understand over wine and cocktail parties.


The simple rippling strings of his guitar and that monk-like voice the only thing that makes sense in this tired loneliness. His poetry like comfortable prayers reminding me not to worry so much.


I’ve always been this melodramatic, so please don’t say that I’ve changed. It’s all theatrics these words and these moods:


Please understand, I never had a secret chart
to get me to the heart of this
or any other matter
When he talks like this
you don't know what he's after…


I gave a talk today. People said they liked it. That’s always nice. It felt repetitive and incoherent to me, but what I do know- I only saw it from the inside out. We talked about the necessity of non-fiction and critical thinking for a healthy democracy, which all felt pretty timely.


"I really like reading your writing."


The only words I have ever wanted to hear.


I met new people I respected. I drank wine. We ate pizza. I am grateful for my blessings and now I will sleep.

Bad Teeth

My teeth are killing me. They really hurt and have been hurting all day. My sinuses are not great either, and I suspect that the two are connected. It’s like a low-grade constant throbbing ache. All my top teeth, or at lest the ones in the back and up by my ears.


The Advisory Summit was good today despite my lethargy and pain. Nadine, Duff and I are having some great conversations about what our mentor program could or should look like. Getting some good ideas by looking at what other schools are doing. Lot’s to think and talk about when we get back.


My afternoon was not glamorous by any means, but exactly what I needed- Had a few beers at the after summit social. Came back to my room and laid in bed watching the entire two hour Democratic Debate. Rustled up enough energy to walk across the street for a falafel sandwich, some fries, a 7-up and three Krispie Kreme donuts. Yes, I know those are not vegan.


I watched Room after inhaling all the food, and then watched Samantha Bee and Amy Schumer on youtube. While being able to rest has been nice, it is lonely in this room and I am ready to come home. Being alone for this long really makes me appreciate my family.


Now it is time for sleep.

A Lie and A Scam

I’ve never lived alone.

Never in my life have I had my “own” place. As a kid, I obviously lived with my family till I was eighteen at which point I moved to San Diego and shared a room with some dude named Josh in the dorms for a semester. Then I was back in San Rafael where I shared an apartment with Anthony on Fourth street. From there we moved to 1576 with Ant, Josh and Einar​. Then a few trips down to San Diego ago in houses with Jeff​, Gabe​, and Jason​. A trip back to Novato- 760 something- with Ant and Jason where I didn’t even have a room. I had a double bed in the living room. We planned to build a paper mache dome bubble over my space, but that never materialised. That house was actually more about decay than construction.

Eventually Anthony and I moved to San Francisco and our place on Haight Street. From there to the ghetto pad on Natoma alley South of Market with Justin​, Ant and Chris​. That didn’t last too long, and I was in the studio in the Tenderloin in the sunlight studio on Jones street with Cortney​.

After that off to Mozambique in training with twenty other people and then…..actually there were a few months when I lived in Qussico that I had my own place. Sure I had no furniture, water, electricity, or friends and it rained everyday I was there, but it was my own space. Then Mairin moved in and from there we moved to NYC with Ari and the rest is history.

I am not sure I could handle being alone. I think I could romanticise the solitude- imagine a tortured artist man cave with vinyl records, full ash trays and Bukowski books. Some kind of recording space and stacks of books, but the reality of the loneliness would be soul crushing for me.

We watched How To Be Single, an average romantic comedy about being alone and single or in a relationship. It got me thinking about the places I have lived and the people who inhabited those spaces with me. It made me grateful for you all. No matter how introverted I sometimes feel, I know that I love the idea of having a full home with a family and people I can talk to and argue with and share with and eat with and fall asleep next to and love and be loved by.

…

Sometimes out of nowhere I think- what if everyone who I think likes me, actually hates me? What if the self I have created and believe to be my true self is actually an obnoxious asshole that people just tolerate? What if when I am not around people talk about how they are glad I am not around? What if I am not invited to things because people prefer not to have me around? What if I spend so much time alone, not out of choice, but because people choose to leave me out?

What if the likes don’t really mean like?

What if I’ve never gotten it right, just a series of almosts or way offs. Pretend smiles and false friendships. Surface loves and cordial smiles. Professionalisms but never friendships. Sometimes out of nowhere I think…and then just like that it passes.

…

We talked about mindfulness today during mentor class. I don’t like that the term has become so cliche and jargon-y. It feels like everyone is talking about it these days, so did we. But it was nice. I shared my experiences with mediation- talked about how hard it is for me to mediate, but I also explained how and why I appreciate it. I told them about my mom living at Tassajara and training to be a Zen priest. I felt pride sharing her story. My students looked at and listened to me thoughtfully. I turned the lights low and we did some deep breathing. We sat in silence and they looked calm and serene and peaceful and attentive for a few minutes. I book talked Peace is Everystep and one of my quieter girls checked it out and said she wants to give it a try.

I hope she finds some wisdom in it.

Students learn when we share what we know and love with them as authentically as we can. 

Everything else is a lie and scam.

Certain Levels

There's a certain level of loneliness that will never go away. That's okay. Get to know it. It will be all you have when you leave this world. Shouldn't make you sad. Rejoice in it. It is where you were born. It is the source of your voice....

I Need You. You See. To See Me

I spend a lot of time online. Anyone reading this post who knows me, and is on the receiving end of my firehose of content is probably shaking his or her head and saying no shit Jabiz! This is a confession of sorts, and attempt to curate what I  have been thinking. I have been thinking  a lot about my time, my needs, my connections, my networks, my friends, and so on ad infinitum. Let’s just say that I have been thinking. A lot.

I have never in my life been more “connected” than right now. I could riddle this post with a barrage of hyperlinks denoting the many pies into which my fingers are currently poked. I could send you, dear reader, on a scavenger hunt of content that I have created or am in the process of creating. Links to  posts, tweets, applications exalting the wonder of technology and connection, but as I sit here on my sofa with the nasally seductive voice of Colin Meloy crooning me into a state of comfortable obscurity, I'm left with one question- why do I feel so empty and alone? Isn't this global connectivity supposed to alleviate my solitude? Shouldn't my sharing bring me closer to you?

Is all of this narrating, curating, and sharing of my ideas, my mind, and my identity worthwhile? Is it making me happy? Is it having any effect on anything or anyone? This is not a post fishing for encouragement. Trust me I am okay in that department. I just wanted to breath some life into my doubts and see if they will swim.

There isn’t a single impetus for this sudden bout with languor; my life has always been a roller coaster of euphoria and ennui, and after a pretty steady run this train is now coasting through a low dark tunnel right now and demanding some attention. Fear not, I am used to this pendualm and am becomeing adept and dealing with it. Just watch, I bet I will be elated by the end of this post.

I cannot ignore the effects however of two documents that came into my life today. The first was this extraordinary article called, Five Emotions Invented By The Internet. This dark, I think satirical, but incredibly well-written treatise on Internet addiction jarred my thinking by holding a mirror up to some of my most obvious but best concealed anxieties about the effects of the digital age on my psyche. To read the post is to think that someone gathered my most embarrassing pettiness and pathetic need for connection and regurgitated it in perfect form for all to see. I should be thrilled to know that I am not alone in my pathetic isolation, but somehow realizing that others behave this way and that perhaps we are communally dealing with this issue of loneliness, because what other word could there be for it, saddened me even more.

Before I continue let me quote at length:

The state of being ‘installed’ at a computer or laptop for an extended period of time without purpose, characterized by a blurry, formless anxiety undercut with something hard like desperation. During this time the individual will have several windows open, generally several browser ‘tabs,’ a Microsoft Word document in some state of incompletion, the individual’s own Facebook page as well as that of another randomly-selected individual who may or may not be on the ‘friends’ list, 2-5 Gchat conversations that are no longer immediately active, possibly iTunes and a ‘client’ for Twitter. The individual will switch between the open applications/tabs in a fashion that appears organized but is functionally aimless, will return to reading some kind of ‘blog post’ in one browser tab and become distracted at the third paragraph for the third time before switching to the Gmail inbox and refreshing it again.

The behavior equates to mindlessly refreshing and ‘lozenging’ the same sources of information repeatedly. While performing this behavior the individual feels a sense of numb depersonalization, being calmly and pragmatically aware that they have no identifiable need to be at the computer nor are they gleaning any practical use from it at that moment, and the individual may feel vaguely uncomfortable or ashamed about this awareness in concert with the fact that they continue to perform the idle ‘refreshing’ behavior. They may feel increasingly anxious and needful, similar to the sensation of having an itch that needs scratching or a thirst that needs quenching, all while feeling as though they are calm or slightly bored.

I sadly now admit that I end nearly every night in this state. Sure I can justify my behavior by highlighting the mountains of meaningful content I create, but inevitably before I go to bed every night I install myself one last time to see what is shakin’ out there. I need you. You see. To see me. And I don't want that feeling anymore. I feel terrible about it every night, and after reading the article above,  I feel worse. I am a grown adult, so I have some control over this feeling of scouring an empty web looking for nourishment, but what of our students?

I am making a vow, that after my “work” online is finished, I will sign out and do something else. This could be time I could be reading or mediating. I could play some guitar, draw, perhaps bake a cake, anything but clicking through tabs like a hypnotized autistic chimp looking for...?  Don’t get me wrong I am not bothered by the amount of time I spend on the computer when I am writing blog posts, working on my book, listening to music, photography, or even engaged in valuable networking on Twitter and other online spaces. I enjoy sifting through my RSS and commenting on blogs etc…it is that last thirty minutes or so before I go to bed when all is said and done and I am still installed.

I am rambling now, but once again my textual confession has helped me cleanse. I will write more about the second reason I have been flying at half-mast today in subsequent posts. (Hint great new book.)

In an effort to end on a positive note, let me share this little gem as well:

The internet is at least partly us; we write it as well as read it, perform for it as well as watch it, create it as well as consume it. Watching TV is a solitary activity that feels like a communal one, while the Internet is a communal experience masquerading as solitude.

Maybe everything I said is wrong. Who knows? All I know is that issues of solitude, community connections, and identity are all confusing in the digital age.  We are all figuring it out together. I know that personally I must be aware of who I am and how I deal with my own reality and then, and only then can I deal with how it orbits around yours.

What do you think? How do you deal with you Internet Emotional issues? When is it all too much? I know balance is the key, but that cannot be the only answer to our every problem, if it were you think we would have solved our neuroses years ago.