Saturday, March 11, 2006

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS circa 1978

Sitting out on the sand, it`s late, lubricated courage smokes me to aloneness. Glances back, continually, ah the lights are still there, I got to make sure this is only a temporary suspension, like from school when you got caught smoking during lunch, not with everybody, they`re still eating, but by yourself in back of the gym. Course you don`t have any lunch, that`s why you`re alone [but you never demanded to have lunch or money]. But it`s easier to stay with the idea that you don`t have any lunch [that`s good for sustenance].

Anyway, there I am glancing around, calming down [at least a little] and sneaking a glance at the ocean, and eternity. Christ, I have the same questions now as I did when I was 10, looking at the clouds in wonder, and running away by looking at the forms clouds take [Wow, that`s a bear!]. Really, to bear or not to bear, that is the question. Even now, the bear is form, this time book learning. {I`ve read a lot of books, I got arsenals of word-shot, tons of thought-shit.] Even now I gotta shudder when the ocean and stars jump inside me, instead of staying outside where the books say they should be.

It`s really fascinating. How active our minds are. Usually, I guess, we just accept its workings. How the "now" is constantly impinged upon. Obsessive behavior is just selectively ordering our thoughts, as is depression [and the rest]. The basic mechanism is part of being a human being. Freud`s 'free association' technique is based on man`s Kantian ability [need?] to have the past and some interpretation of the future impinge on us constantly. All our defenses are there, to in some way structure this plethora of information constantly causing waves on the surface of consciousness [the Now!].

People are like bodies of water. Although the undercurrent is accepted, we try not to think about it. It`s only when it`s reflected in waves, on the surface, that we must pay attention to it.


This post was written by me one year after finishing Grad school. Its original inspiration was probably reading Kerouac`s "Big Sur". The posting of it is due to 2 writers, Aynetal and Jod[i]. Both of them have recently posted "stream of consciousness" writing that have deeply effected me. Thank you, Ayn and Jodi, for your courage.

V