I want to believe I need to return to some of the things I used to do, but I’m running into some deep-seated ambivalence that is nearly impossible to define. Being home is different, meals are different, shopping is different, traveling is different, most everything seems different. I went to the dentist this morning; that was different. Being here at my favorite coffee shop, other than the masks, is possibly not different enough. I’m feeling as though I’m trying to shove something I used to know into the present by being in the familiar.

As I searched for an environment conducive to writing creatively, it dawned on me somewhere along the way that, no matter where I ended up, I was still with myself and that just because my location changed, the inside of my mind hadn’t. Of course, I can trick myself when out in the world, as writing about a place creates in me an illusion of something else influencing me, but it’s still my filter from whatever inner dialog I’m working with. Maybe the inspiration when visiting a cathedral, a canyon, a forest, an ocean, or a monument is that I have a moment of focus without the trappings of the familiar, but how this works in allowing me to convey anything of interest must fall back on what I bring to the exercise.

So, when I’m struggling to find words and ideas that paint a picture of where I think I’d like to be, I try to figure out what might be the impediment. Here at the coffee shop I’ve visited countless other times, it could be that I cannot return to the familiar. It might be that I’m struggling with only 3 of us ten people wearing masks in this small environment. Or could it be writer’s block? I’m gonna say that I seriously doubt it is the latter because when I give myself the challenge to capture something of my thoughts, I’m usually pretty good at noting something just as I’m doing this very moment. But this is not what I want to write about, or so I think.

Well then, what do I want when I go out to write? I want the same thing all writers who sit down to write are looking to do: I want to discover. Maybe what I’m trying to explore cannot be found in the past, and this particular place represents a time in my life when things were seen differently. Like so many other aspects of life that required adjustments as I’ve grown older, is my ability to discover being stymied by the overly familiar?

The dawn is familiar; my wife is too. I know our apartment quite well and many items in our diet, and yet these things do not represent the same kind of conflict. Let’s look at that as the dawn is always different; it’s forever shifting with the play of clouds and hues delighting my senses every time I witness it. My wife is like the dawn over the ocean, never quite the same with her fluctuating interests; subtle changes are found in her smile, and she possesses a horizon I find to be infinite, at least in its potential. Our apartment is some ways, like the Grand Canyon; depending on where you look, you might find something you’ve never seen before. Not to imply disorder and chaos, though there is an element of that, between our evolving hobbies the view has the potential to show us new things, just as searching for new foods brings us into different ethnic culinary adventures.

Is the larger problem then that I have a low tolerance for the familiar? Has it always been this way? The quick answer is certainly a resounding yes. The common and familiar is the fodder for the masses gorged on the cultural gruel of conformity, and I’ve known this for a very long time. But today is different, as though the plague has cut the final thread between me and the blind, obedient herd that best represents the status quo.

In this sense, I feel that I’ve been shoved deeper into a nomadic intellectual existence. Where our ancestors were on the constant search for that which sustained life, I require the sustenance of that which sustains the imagination. In an age where the hunt for food and shelter has been mitigated for those with access to adequate capital, and my preoccupation with media and entertainment is either gone or in hibernation, I’m now on the lookout for horizons that illuminate where humanity is headed.

Star Trek’s intro spoke of space as the final frontier; I would reboot that into “awareness is the real final frontier.” Knowledge of hyperbolic absurdity found in entertainers and politicians hardly suffices to satisfy the deeper quest of humans to find meaning, even if the unsophisticated might believe differently. This pattern recognition machine of senses evolved in the form of memories and imagination, offering people the opportunity to discover things such as art, music, technology, and the mind to examine the hows and whys of what it all means. Yet we squander our most valuable resource, time, on the petty and believe in convenient expediencies in order to not challenge our nature to change.

Just how much of the familiar is really your friend?

Why do I feel so disconnected from this old routine of taking up a spot in a coffee shop and turning on the word spigot? Maybe my mask is interfering with the neural pathway that allows thoughts to form and find an uninterrupted flow to my fingers. This being Thursday and the 4th day of a 5-day fast, maybe starvation is having an impact as it’s typically been this day that is the foggiest. Or could the entire planet experiencing this collective moment of uncertainty be a contributing factor? On one hand, I can almost see 22-year-old John floundering in what is the meaning of everything, but that version of me I thought was mostly out of sight. One might then suggest this is my long overdue midlife crisis, but I’d argue that that is like thinking I might enter a second puberty. I’m not worried about my own value in this world but have this nagging feeling that something is amiss, and this return to what had been normal is some strange facade that isn’t real.

Beyond the veil of delusion is our new normal that’s not been defined yet as it’s still rapidly or maybe glacially evolving. Thrusting myself forward, I’m out here grasping at any emergent signs I might gather in order to interpret if an order of things is observable. Tentative and uncertain is how I see much of this current situation, while the holdouts from the previous age are determined to march forward as though nothing has changed. Maybe they have it figured out somehow?

So now what? I don’t know, I just don’t know. I’ll continue sitting here in the clouds, pondering these bigger questions.

Earlier this month, I wrote a blog entry insisting it was not about existentialism, and it wasn’t, but today, maybe this one will be just about that, and maybe it won’t. I’m bored. From out of this moment in boredom (which I think I’ve alluded to being impervious to on many other occasions during these missives) I reluctantly concede that I’m experiencing the uncertainty of what to do. For six months, one week, and four days since our pandemic sequestering, I’ve been pretty good about remaining engaged or at least distracted. Today, I’m overly aware that I don’t feel like doing anything that could be done while here at home, nor do I want to venture out to find distraction there.

Yesterday, my awareness of not enjoying our place became writ large across my happiness as with Caroline at work. I was liberated to do as I please, but I found myself lost. While this past month saw us venturing out to break the long chain of self-isolation, I’m not exactly comfortable among those people who cavalierly toss reasonable health practices away in order to prove some nebulous point about raw belligerent power and a kind of masculinity arising out of our obsession with dystopian fatalism. So, though I’d like to embark on a new journey into putting these past six months behind me and exploring some new routines, I’m reluctant to be among the masses who are acting purely in their own selfish interests as opposed to empathizing with the well-being of the American community at large.

For 17 years, Caroline and I have comfortably lived in a single room, a single large open space in the form of a loft. We cherish our time together when we can be at home together, which up until March this year felt rare. If we weren’t traveling on a weekend, Caroline might be at a guild meeting or a fiber workshop. During the week, I might be at one of a few dozen locations writing, people-watching, eating, walking, or otherwise spending time away from home. When we got home, there were things to do that we’d been away from all day. When self-isolation began, our dreams of spending more time together came true. In the back of our minds, we already knew from previous experience in the late 1980s that mixing work and living in one small space is not the best idea, but a global pandemic that was forcing everyone to stop in place gave impetus to embrace the quarantine and go with the flow. So, staying at home became an extended road trip; it was camping in place and a golden opportunity to indulge our desires to spend more time together.

Now, don’t think this is heading to a lament of over-exposure between Caroline and me, as that’s the farthest thing from my truth, but after six months, our hamster wheel is closing in. I also know that this is temporary, and maybe as soon as tomorrow, my brain will return to celebrating this opportunity, but right now, I’m at a loss and uninspired. Of course, there’s also the overwhelming nonsense of the game of intruding politics that seems to aim at dominating a large part of people’s lives who pay attention to current events. This is pure unadulterated gaslighting that my own stupid compulsion to witness the trainwreck keeps bringing me back to, so too many days arrive with no small amount of dread. The point here is that I have to tiptoe around online activities as I risk catching a hint of the “Outrage du jour” from a media that is desperate to hook me into a device to nail my attention for the sake of impressions and ad dollars. So maybe if I focus on writing, I can escape what I don’t want to see and instead bring my mind into compliance with an imagination that will whisk me away from boredom.

Instead, I go around in circles searching for a muse to guide me while not really looking for that inspiration but telling myself the bologna that I really want to escape this entropy. I know I’ll have a butterbrot because today is German Butterbrot Day, where the world joins in to celebrate this uniquely Teutonic pleasure of greasing your bread with a smear of butter and calling it dinner. Well, that didn’t get it; I’m not any more motivated than before besides wanting a second go-round of yummy rye bread with butter. Yeah, eating is a good distraction; maybe I need to find where on Earth people are celebrating Donut Day today.

But I called this blog entry Cascading Existentialism and not Eating To Pacify Moodiness, so just what is it that feels so out of control? The polarized American people, our politics, healthcare, education, and our concern about the environment are the major bones of contention, but racism, intolerance, poverty, and violence play large roles too. I know I cannot change even a small part of the 330 million of us who live in the United States. I cannot influence our political parties or the media that sensationalizes everything it features: healthcare is a $3.6 trillion industry that has no regard for those it serves, education panders to the lowest common denominator, guaranteeing fodder for prisons, low-pay jobs, and an absent electorate, while we flaunt international convention about safeguarding air and water quality for the sake of profits. Racism is tolerated, while intolerance of religions, sexual orientation, cultural background, and general diversity from the status quo is promulgated as anti-American. Poverty is a consequence of all of this, with violence the natural outcome of people without an ability to surmount the structural bias against those a society would like to keep outside the gate.

Hey John, how does any of that affect your day-to-day existence? Awareness is the fodder of the imagination, and if you are an artist, you should look upon the subject you intend to capture in images, or you should acquaint yourself with the various sounds and aural structures of music should you aspire to be a musician. Yet I am a human desiring to be just that, and so the condition of our society screams at me to be recognized as though I might find an inkling of how to depict a proper reflection or maybe an antidote to the wanton mayhem that institutional stupidity is wreaking upon us. Well, that’s a pretty large burden you are trying to shoulder. But I know there is no way for me to bear the gravity of such outrage, so I try in little ways to exorcise the demons of awareness through the cathartic exercise of writing, learning, exploring, and eating. It must be time for another butterbrot.

One-hundred ninety-seven days since I last took up a seat here at King Coffee and sat in public while in Phoenix. Sure, we recently ventured out of the city, but our locations were chosen for the lack of population density to minimize coming into contact with others. It was strange as my first hour being back was spent among many a familiar face curious as to how I’d been. After socializing more than I have in six months, I’m here at my computer drawing a blank as though talking with others drained my head.

Where is my focus? Maybe it’s lost in the background music I’m no longer accustomed to listening to. Is it the people-watching that I’ve grown rusty with? When I go to the store, I don’t really want to see anyone, and what I do look for are people without masks so I can move out of their way. I’d like to consider blaming this brain funk on that I’m wondering about what I might have for lunch, but that’s not really it either.

Then there’s the question of why I am out here anyway. Well, on Tuesday Caroline visited her office and enjoyed her time interacting with the boss so much that she decided that she’d start going in on a regular basis on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I wasn’t ready to go back to an empty home as I knew that routine, and at a point, I felt too isolated. That really drives home how difficult these past six months must have been for so many people who are alone.

With only 265 words written in the nearly four hours I’ve been sitting here because, of course, other conversations took place, I’m now seriously hungry and will have to accept that something insightful or even interesting is not going to flow out of me. Look at today’s photo, and you might recognize the recursive nature of what I put together; in some way, it’s a reflection of my mind falling back into itself in wondering, just what the heck did I think I’d accomplish here?

I come to you out of the mountains. I walk across the desert and arrive at the note of the piano. From out of your history, I’ve tried to find what you cannot comprehend, what you refuse to seek. I’ve seen the beauty your eyes deny you. The waters that flow through those of us who live, are frozen in you. Distilled from the chaos of existence is a peace that, even after lifetimes of searching, may never be found, but I have captured glimpses of the exquisite, and while all are not of the beauty you might expect, such is the nature of existence.

Who I am is of no consequence to you as you don’t want or need to know me, but you will have to acquaint yourself because the story that will be told is essential for you to continue to walk into life.

Some will encounter the bearers of knowledge, the mountains of intellect where depths of wisdom stretch to the bottom of the sea, and yet all that is worthy of knowing floats on a feather and is lighter than the wing of the butterfly. You see, the complex is within everything, but the secret is that none of that matters as long as the order of things is what it should be. Here is the inherent problem as you read this: you do not understand your place among the possibilities. You require a guide. I may be that, but I may also be other things.

Who emerges from within? We were born into our skin, and that external person is the reflection of those who brought us into life, but the internal version is or can be an evolving cascade of dynamics most will never see or have the opportunity to glimpse. A minute, an hour, a day, a year, nor a lifetime may be adequate to know even one’s self. How unfortunate for those who’ll never experience the tiniest fractions of their or anyone else’s internal universe.

Why are you not your own Paris, Roman Empire, Disneyland, Grand Canyon, or Einstein? Napoleon was shaped by experience and his perception of how he desired to interpret history. He manifested his place in history because he could. You must ask yourself, do you bring anything forward in the endeavor to define who you are, or do you allow the antics of the petty found in media and gossip to be the sole shapers of who you will be?

Begin to realize that nothing of an immense nature is the catalyst for change. Though wars, storms, floods, and various other catastrophes can radically alter lives, it is the tiny unseen bits that are the real agents of change. As the pen hits the paper and the first drops of ink spill onto its surface, only your mind has an idea of what direction the hand will take as a letter or image begins to take shape. Should a speck of ink grow on the page to become a letter, will the solitary character emerge as a part of a word that begins the sentence that alters the course of history?

Back in 1938, Germany annexed the Sudentenland in the Czech Republic – nobody in the West batted an eye. By August of the following year, Hitler and Stalin signed a mutual non-aggression pact, but somewhere along the timeline, with pen in hand, Hitler might have written, “Soon, we invade Poland.” This is the power of language, the sign, the symbol, and messaging. Maybe this is also why many of us are ill-equipped when it comes to the mastery of skills regarding communication and our ability to think and reflect. We affect change when we commit to sharing our inner dialog in a manner that others can respond to when we are not physically present.

The key to being effective in a conveyance is allowing your expression to remain after you have gone elsewhere. From the song to the canvas, from architecture to books, it is when we can allow ourselves to benefit from that which has been shared that we’ll reap the greatest reward. Conversely, when we are vulnerable due to fear, we are most at risk of others using the signs, symbols, language, song, and facilities to marshal our dark instincts to inflict damage upon those we perceive to threaten us.

Maybe one goal we could explore is to find some understanding of what moves us between fear and tranquility. Does the megalomaniac arise out of difficult times to exploit our sense of vulnerability, followed by the compassionate and reasonable to soothe our frayed senses? What, then signifies the conditions we allow ourselves to be exploited? Is the grievance between ideologies adequate for some of our lives to be sacrificed for the machinations of the king acting out his inner turmoil?

History suggests that we accept this as witnessing the drama of the other person’s unfolding story as a surrogate experience for those not equipped to discover and express themselves.

Our willful acceptance of intellectual mediocrity bordering on the stupid is a recipe for our nearly blind obedience to a system that benefits the few by harnessing the greatest number of dumb mules.

I understand that the majority cannot see their own subservience due in large part to inflated self-worth due to their allegiance to country, flag, cross, and various other ideologies they earn praise for from those they aspire to be like. But this ride into exploiting a meek ego by a ruthless ruling class is no accident; it is an accepted and long-conditioned situation that maintains a status quo that is quite comfortable for those steeped in its luxury.

A solitary note from an instrument is not the embodiment of a musical narrative. The succession of notes with the accompaniment of other voices is where the magic of the song takes shape. The symphony of the self should be constructed with similar consideration. To accept ourselves as a shrill, out-of-tune string instrument is an affront to our potential to produce beautiful melodies.

Is a solitary leaf a tree? We intuitively understand that life is made of ensembles; the dog is not its tail, and we are not monosyllabic utterances of the troglodyte. So what turn is necessary for us to wake from the slumber of a lethargic existence resigned to living on the margin of something human only in name?

Like a watch showing us the seconds ticking by, we need a constant reminder asking us if we are truly doing the best we can instead of repeating a hollow and meaningless mantra of fake success in a feeble attempt to reassure ourselves and those who offer sympathetic ears that we are doing the best we can when deep down we know that’s not the truth. Few really try their best, and we intuitively know it, but if we admit it, we ourselves might need to strive harder instead of constantly rewarding ourselves with indulgences. We need a personal reformation where the individual breaks with these indulgences just as the church attempted to do 500 years ago. When you stop to think about it, not much has changed in these many hundreds of years, or at least that’s what my eyes believe they see.

Put your intentions into writing. Just take hold of a pen and a sheet of paper and see where your hand and mind take you. Write a letter to yourself of your expectations and where you think you’ll be intellectually in 10, 15, or 25 years from now. Then, ask yourself, are you walking into a vibrant life or crawling away from the ugly shadow of a person you barely know? If you never awaken to clean away the cobwebs from your mind and vision, you, too, will be nothing more than a decaying wooden figure forgotten to history. It’s time for humanity to leave the village and occupy the halls of knowledge so we might collectively peer into the unknown universe right before us.