Diary entry: First Day in Bangkok: Will I ever get laid again?

I have to confess, though I had tried not to let Bangkok's reputation for 'sex tourism' affect me, I must have felt on some level that sex would immediately be in the offing as soon as I arrived.

It started off well: I made friends with a lovely Brazilain woman (blonde hair blue eyes) on the bus into town. (She had made the decision to come to Bangkok the day before -- she had tired of travelling in India after three months!) But at the bus-stop she dissapeared. It is amazing sometimes how quickly I can connect with someone, and how easily I an let go afterwards (she is rapidly growing faint, a small 30 minute memory amongst the millions in a lifetime).

It would be so easy, and so tempting, to blame this desire I'm feeling on the atmosphere of Bangkok: so vital and fecund (green, lush, fleshy leaved trees and ferns dripping rain); shacks crammed between modern high rise buildings; colourful clothes flap in every window and on every balcony. All this, in my fevered mind, evidence of a million sex acts occuring at every moment. Needless to say, though you are probably bored with my prurience, I have spent the day with dilated pupils (perhaps I can blame this on the incredible variety of street market goods).

Now that I'm here though, the thought of actually having sex with someone more interested in my money is somewhat repulsive. Too cold by far. Poor poor me.

The reason I don’t like music

Well, now that I’ve got your attention, I do like music, but sometimes in can seem truly tyrannical! It can really command your emotions and feelings. I guess the point is that you choose what music you want to listen to, but sometimes you have no choice: if you go to a club your mind is bombarded with some other person’s madness! And the other problem I have with it is its sheer importance to people. It becomes something of a religion to them. But doesn’t this show a lack of something? Climbers do this too. Elevate the sport to an importance I don’t think it deserves. For example, a climbing gym manager once told me that his wife knows that climbing comes first; if she asked him to quit climbing he would divorce her in a second. Something seems wrong with this picture. And then when, inevitably, they become injured, such unhappiness... But maybe I’m wrong: perhaps I don’t live with enough passion. And maybe music is religion: if we are, in the end, just vibrating particles, as is music (isn’t it?).

meditation and awareness

A major precept of vipassana meditation is the need for increased awareness: specifically, a movement from gross awareness to subtle awareness. It is truly a wonderful thing, this refinement of sense. Often I will try to practice it in every area of my life: I try to really taste food, really hear music, climb with complete awareness of the subtle shifts of weight, really look at a scene around me, etc At other times, I have much less awareness. What changes? One main thing: the level of mental noise (as the saying goes: the moon only appears when the water is still). And the mental noise is directly related to the level of self-obsession (thank-you Kev for reminding me of this). You would think that this increased awareness would come with the price of increased attachment. I don’t think this is the case. For example, if you have truly appreciated the taste of your first piece of chocolate, what need is there for a repetition? Does that sound right?

What else affects your awareness? Drugs, stress, addiction, tiredness (a useful list to make perhaps?)

Do you think what you think?

I came accross a wonderful book today. Such a good idea. It's called, Do you think what you think? by Julian Baggini and Jeremy Strangroom. The book consists of a series of tests to show up 'tensions' in your beliefs. It's really fascinating. So for example in the first test two of the questions are: Do you believe that the human life should be protected at any cost? And, do you believe that the goverment should increase taxes substantially in order to save lives in third world countries? If you answer 'yes' and then 'no' there is an obvious tension, or outright contradiction, in the way you think. Fascinating..

trying to be honest

It seems to me that writing your thoughts and feelings into a blog has the potential for both religuishing your sense of self -- specifically, how you create a certain persona in your life -- and for the creation of a new, possibly very false, sense of self. For, who is ever completely honest when in the public view; and, if you can be honest, what possibilities does this hold? What freedom can it help engender? But, if you use your blog to say, 'this is me, aren't I so incredibly wonderful', won't this lead to arrogance? After all, I can edit this blog to death, giving a very false sense of my own eloquence. And in life I really don't talk as I write. Well, this is the challenge. Only just pushing your abilities, so that you stay in touch with the reality (goodness, anyone {no-one yet! hehehe} who reads this blog will get sick of this word) of who you are... And, as some author said (sorry, I'm teribble at remembering these things), 'he is fascinated with what he feels he cannot say.' So lets try this...

Today I get lift into town with a respectable looking truck driver (er, yes, he really was). And what a strange character. He had this way of stroking his face continually, as if stressed (I have the neurosis that I cause this reaction in people with my ego escaping its bounds). So, the conversation moves to Thailand where I'm heading soon. It turns out that he went there years ago. The conversation (as verbatim as possible):

Trucker: I went to Thailand once. Never get a taxi. Fucking crazy. Buy a car. With a hooter. Fucking dogs and chickens all over the road.

Me: Oh, thanks.

Trucker: [no lead in] we are sitting having breakfast and he takes out his dick and they start fucking. Fucking breakfast show. [no expression]

Me: Really.

Trucker: [no lead in] and you put your tip on top of a pointed bottle on the bar. She comes over and bends down and picks it up [with her vagina], moves to the next one and picks it up too. Doesn't drop any.

Me: Wow (or something similiar)

The converstaion turns. Obviously he takes my wonder as meaning I share all his views. But how could any hot blooded male not be impressed by this example of female dexterity.

Trucker: These fucking kaffirs; what do they do (gesturing to the side of the road)? How do they get the money to be so fat? You see it as you come through Africa. From Malawi they start getting fatter! And in South Africa, woomf (spreads his arms wide indicating fat)! Fat!
-------

Strange that I can detest his views but enjoy the conversation. I don't feel strong anger at his racism. Maybe I sense that it has causes other than hatred (does it make it better?). Or, that it is not very deep. Or, I am making excuses for not having the courage to speak against it.

Well thats me for the moment.

Paul

Turn from the past : look to the future with joyful abandon…

So, in a few days time I leave for Thailand. A strange feeling: the knowledge that everything will soon be different. Yet you do not know exactly how. You have ideas and plans: a teaching post, beaches, women (you hope vainly). Yet, more than usual there is just a big blank where you suppose the future to be. So, if as Satre thought, ‘that positing nothings’ (the ability to make predictions and plan for the future) is key to human superiority of other animals, then what does this make me? I am unable to plan long-term; I have always been unable to look too far into the future. So maybe this is a challenge? The challenge to dream a future. But in many ways this is the beauty of travel. Why plan a trip to the smallest detail? Doesn’t this contract life to your own small-minded controlling ideas? Why not be open to caprice? And, in the final analysis, you have no control. The only thing I believe you have control over, or can learn to have control over, is your own reactions. If you are wealthy, your wealth can disappear in moment of world crisis; if you are beautiful, this will inevitably give way to wrinkles (and, very easily, bitterness). So the art, as some sage said (no reference, sorry) is to turn around and face the future, as opposed to watching the past stream away from you. How is this reconciled? --

Do not become attached to the past; be prepared, with an open mind and a open heart to all the future may bring, with the knowledge that how you react now, will affect how and who you become in the future. Facing the future is about fearlessness (for, knowing the inherent unpredictability of reality, your fear will be completely disabling). And courage will be easier with a high degree of self-understanding, so that whatever is happening externally, at least you have a sense of the continuity of self and its change and development. Well, Lets see if this is warbling rhetoric or if fear will again continue to influence my life…

Yours

Paul

Who am I?

This blog is created to showcase my writing skills (like many millions with similar vague pretensions); and to use as a CV reference perhaps. I also have the idea that a blog can be created which when you look at you will immediately find something worthwhile, and hopefully, thought provoking. So I would like to cut down on superfluous stuff as much as possible. I think I’ve already fallen into this trap so I will try to stop now… because you probably don’t want to know how I broke up with my girlfriend yesterday… oops, sorry, starting now...

Hmm, but maybe you want to know something about who I am and what my interests are. So I South African, living with my parents… I am a completely unambitious person -- at least in the usual sense. I would like to believe that my ambitions lie in the development of self. But perhaps this is just a convenient excuse. My sport of choice is rock-climbing, and I love it to bits. I have in the past suffered from severe fatigue and insomnia and was diagnosed as having CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome). It would be true to say that this has been the single biggest influence on my life. And has brought me much self-awareness. To counter the sickness I have had to listen extremely carefully to my body and its needs. It has also been a very isolating disease (who was it that said something like ‘all sickness creates loneliness?). And one that people find it difficult to understand or accept. And I don’t fully accept it myself. Anyway, that brings me to my other main interest: Buddhism (and meditation). Buddhism has given me a wonderful framework for understanding reality and meditation (www.dhamma.org) has brought me peace and relief from many CFS symptoms. I hope you won’t get the wrong idea. Though I hold many Buddhist beliefs I try not to believe anything I can’t verify through the observation of reality.

Okay, so that is me. And starting from now (hehe) less of me, and more quality writing (I hope!) Perhaps this could help guide me:

A writer

‘Interesting, but futile,’ said his diary,

Where day by day his movements were recorded

And nothing but his loves received inquiry;

He knew, of course, no actions were rewarded,

There were no prizes: though the eye could see

Wide beauty in a motion or a pause,

It need expect no lasting salary

Beyond the bowels’ momentary applause.

He lived for years and never was surprised:

A member of his foolish, lying race

Explained away their vices: realized

It was a gift that he possessed alone:

To look the world directly in the face;

The face he did not see to be his own.

Phillip Larkin (collected poems)

Teleological fallacy. Purposes and causes

People often think of problems in terms of its purpose instead of its cause. It seems to me one way of avoiding facing the real cause of a problem. And is probably also a deluded view of reality. And the oldest one of all is the deity excuse: 'we suffer for something greater than ourselves' (to get to heaven maybe). Unhappiness is a re-action to circumstances we experiance now, or have experianced in the past.

Re-evaluation. Buddhist perspectives

The re-evaluation of the weak and the re-evaluation of the strong.

Here, as I see it, are two major possible motivations for beginning a Buddhist path:

One is the result of ‘weakness’. This is the person who cannot achieve (some desire) in an area of his life. Buddhism (his interpretation of Buddhism) offers this person a re-evaluation of the desire. For example, if he cannot find a partner he interprets Buddhist thought as meaning this end has no value and is only destructive in its effects. This re-evaluation then makes it much easier to live alone, without the benefit of a partner. Typically, if he is ‘weak’ in other areas of his life, then he will carry through this ‘understanding’, deciding , for example, that wealth and possessions are, in themselves, of no value.

The other motivation is the result of ‘strength’. This person achieves everything he wants in his life. He is attractive and successful – seemingly satisfying his every want. He then experiences the result of this sort of living. He becomes attached to his possessions and his desires escalate from constant arousal. He then realizes that his ‘strength’ does not bring him happiness. He may start to value the ‘simple life’, and also, again, to decide that wealth and possessions are, in themselves, of no value. This person may become a ‘spiritual materialist’ – a person who collects ‘spiritual literature’, looking for a way to escape his misery; but, unprepared to give up his possessions, he believes spiritual unhappiness is impossible for him.

It is important to realize though, that Buddhism, as I interpret it, understands the mental states of craving and aversion as causing unhappiness, and not the object of desire itself. Buddhism offers a ‘middle path’ and doesn't propose ascetic living (except perhaps only temporarily, as a aid to meditation and to help understand the nature of suffering). It may also be useful to know where you fit in. Most likely you experience a combination of these two ‘causes’ of misery – sometimes achieving what you want, and sometimes not achieving what you want. It is useful to remember that the goal of dhammic living is equanimity in the face of the ups and downs of life – staying unattached to the results of success and not generating craving towards that which you can’t have.

And perhaps if your motivation is continually based on this type of delusion, the delusion that unhappiness consists in external things rather than internal mental states, you will compromise the goal of your meditation: you experience a craving to escape the objects of desire instead of working towards experiencing equanimity towards them.

Short Story: eight hours

He decided that eight hours was enough; after that he would shoot himself. Jacob lived by himself on a farm in the Northern Cape - dry and vast, the landscape appeared lifeless, though the ground concealed bulbs, which would bloom magnificently after rain. Usually, when a migraine started, he would identify with the flowers - how, though he was now immobile and in buried in his pain, he would rise again gracefully - and in this fantasy he would wait out the suffering. Lately however, after his wife left him for the vibrancy of life in Cape Town, he began increasingly to wonder why he should bother, especially since the handgun in the safe promised such obvious relief. Setting a time limit to the pain gave him a perverse mental strength, and he visualized, in detail, getting up from the bed, walking to the safe, taking out the gun and putting it to his head. Specifically, he imagined the final moments: the coolness of the metal, the roughness of the grip in his hand; the shattering sound; the delicious release of pressure.

To Jacob, the pain seemed unending; his entire being fought the pain in his head. For minutes that felt like hours, he sweated, curled up like a foetus. The problem he realized, was that his mind was drawn, almost masochistically, to the pain - what he felt he was fighting was the nature of his own mind. His carefully constructed visualization helped, his brain would divert for short stretches. At other times he tried a different approach and concentrated on the pain itself: with an effort of will he would try to locate its source, and sometimes the pain would differentiate into spots of greater and lesser pressure - he felt if he could 'figure it out' it would cease, but the pain would soon overwhelm him.

Later in the afternoon, unaware of the shadows lengthening outside, or the geese scratching expectantly nearby, or even to the slight chill entering the air, he thought again of suicide: he thought of a picture he had seen of a monk sitting cross-legged and serene, while his whole body is set aflame (as a protest against the occupation of Tibet). In that picture he believed he could see clearly that suffering was directly related to ego: the monk's mental skills at handling pain, a result of his humility, self-sacrifice and non-attachment. How different his suicide would be! He thought of the character in the novel Steppenwolf, by Herman Hesse, who, obsessively mired in his own thoughts, also sets a limit to his suffering, deciding his life should end at a certain age. He thought of the suicide in Paul Theroux's novel, Chicago Loop, the character gradually destroying his own ideal life. How perfect that both novels circle around a single self-obsessive character ignoring, fearing, or shutting out other people, except those who serve their desires.

As the eighth hour drew closer, he again focused in on the pain. Once more the pain differentiated into variable spots. He concentrated harder and detected a slight pulse to the areas of pain, which in the negative awareness of his aversion, he had been oblivious to. Once again, his concentration wavered, but seeing the slight differences gave him a hope for a final difference to come: it suggested to him that the pain would eventually end. He gave up his thoughts on suicide and soon, with the migraine gone and with even the memory of the pain fading, he arose from his bed. Walking outside in the approaching twilight, the world seemed refreshed; the air felt liquid, velvet and cool on his skin; the sun was half-concealed and the moon, already visible, was just about full. He lay in the dust - a grain of sand in an immensity of sky - and made plans for the future: huge, beautiful, expansive, wonderfully conceited, plans, for the future.

Sneer

Her sneer is a returned smile,
it's always wanting the best
but recieving the worst
the desire for perfection
in a forever imperfect world
deceived affection deceived
a taste and a distaste,
love and beauty believed
change seen but not really known
a necessary reliance;
a misconception of all that is real.