Grammar

Talking-to: "You spanked mah pigs, boy, and nows yer gonna get a talking-to like you wouldn't believe."
Talking-tos: "Those pigs all need talking-tos, if you ask me."
Talking-to's: "Those are Grandpa Talking-to's pigs boy,"
Talkings-to: "and its talkings-to, not talking-tos."
Its:  "no pa, the American Heritage Dictionary says its talking-tos.  Also, you mean it's, not its, it's means it is, its is a possessive pronoun"

(pig shit fight ensues)



[this is what happens sometimes when I try to learn grammar.]

late night thoughts, a priceless secret

I just want to say something briefly, but I don't know what.

there are some fucked up things with ultra orthodox religions. deep suppression, a lack of joy in life and compassion and love for diversity.

there are some fucked up things with our atheistic, hedonistic cultures: emptiness and substance abuse, over sexualizing and and consuming and obsessing about how we look and what we have.

I can't abide by either viewpoint, since they are both obviously and monstrously against life and against love, truth, and joy.

is seems like I have to walk a line that is ridiculed by both: I am ridiculed my modern society for my 'goodness,' for my vehement morality and striving for god. I a scorned by religion because of my lack of conformity, lack of blind belief and distaste in telling other people what to do.

It seems I must be so moral that normal people think me a religious zealot and so self referral that religions consider me a heretic.

And of course, I always fall short of my ideals, so I may also appear a hypocrite.

This is all solved in one simple directive:

Don't bother with what other people think.

That solves all those problems, and all I'm left with is the main one, the founder of this blog; loneliness.

The title of this blog is, "it's easy being alone." and that is the answer to this emotional knot. It actually is easy being alone. What causes the problems is the struggling and trying to resist what so obviously is my reality: I am alone. Allowing that to be requires trust and requires letting go.

Surrender.

This is and has been my theme, perhaps for the year. But lets just call it letting go, or being in flow, for now. simpler, evocative terms. Accurate terms. What I am aiming for is a letting go and trusting. Like that exercise where you close your eyes and fall back and your partner catches you. Except my partner is Life, and I am constantly in a state of falling backwards, and life is constantly in a state of catching me, without stopping the falling. The image I have to go with this is standing on top of one of those bars that gymnasts use to do all sorts of tricks on. I'm balancing on top of one, and then I let myself go, falling backwards, and rather than falling down, I fall around the pole, feet remaining in contact, body falling around and around. Like being in orbit around a tiny planet.

As spiritual seekers, we are always waiting for something to change. But the only way we get what we want is when we start from right now, accepting what's happening now, realizing that this is what we've been asking for, all along. nothing more need be added, nothing need change. simply a shift in perspective, and realizing that this same ol' reality we've always been experiencing is good enough.

This is one of the great secrets of old. You could write a best seller and get rich and famous and have countless spin off's and marketing gimmicks, off of the one phrase I'm about to tell you. You could find it all over the world, in the minds and writings of the most enlightened, wise happy people in the world. This secret is worth more than any amount of money.

And I'm not going to charge a dime. Never will. Because my reward is simply having it myself, and understanding it. Because you can hear it a million times, but until you understand it, viscerally, from deep contemplation and from personal experience, it will be as useless to you as if you didn't know it.

Just saying, putting this concept to use is time very well spent. But I can't spend it for you. Unpack it.

here it is:

"In contentment is found life's greatest happiness."

If you want to do something you love but can't get yourself to:

I've finally started hanging out with one of the members of my primitive skills apprenticeship. It is great fun and I am finally doing all the stuff I was picturing myself doing out here, but haven't actually been doing, the last few months.

This is the absolute diamond key: friends.

or community. whatever you want to call it. Someone else, who also likes doing what you like doing, and getting together. Some of the time we are doing cools stuff, some of the time we are talking and laughing, usually both. But that is a huge, huge lesson I have just learned.

What I was trying to do was: I was trying to find a way to get myself to do it, alone. But the doesn't fucking work. Not at all.

But this different approach, this works like magic, this works in a very familiar way. And yes, it means I'm dependent on someone, not necessarily in specific, but with some specifications, that is, they like the same things I do.

I think this is/was a case of trying to run before you learn to crawl. I was trying to be independently motivated before even learning how to be dependently motivated. Doing what you love at school is the easiest step, but then, once your not paying someone for it, the next step is doing something you love, with a friend.

LISTEN TO ME HERE PEOPLE. YOU WHO HAVE TROUBLE MOTIVATING YOURSELF TO DO WHAT YOU LOVE TO DO, THIS INFORMATION IS FOR YOU.

It certainly is for me. I suppose I'll have to test it, to see if it continues to work, but as far as I can tell, it will continue to work as long as we continue to meet. Fuck all the self-help books trying to teach you how to be proactive. I tried them and they gave mediocre results at best. Find a friend to share your passion, and meet and do it. That actually works. Also, I suppose, having a good teacher is really nice and useful for moving forward with whatever your doing. But for the times when you don't have a teacher, have a friend.

We've done more stuff in the last two weekends than I've probably done in the whole of the rest of my time here, in terms of working on primitive skills outside of class. This weekend, we went out and harvested coltsfoot and baked it with asparagus and squash and made pasta with nettle tomato sauce. I finished making my own hand forged --and painstakingly sharpened from dime thickness. believe me, this takes a loooooooong time-- knife.

I fletched an arrow, I learned a new form of reverse wrap, I learned new plants and tracking (because my friend is quite a bit more experienced than me) and I'm going to be starting a garden out back. I finished my bow string, I finished my probably twenty meters of cordage, I learned how to carve a notch for hand-drill with a rock, rather than a knife.

And I joked and laughed and forgot for a short time how damn much I miss home.

There's more, but it's hard to talk about. Little and big wonders of nature we saw in our hikes and expeditions.