Blue Saturday

Yes, yes, this is exactly it, and this is the same thing that I was getting out of that big book of Alchemy that I read last year.

The idea of the Holy Grail as a spiritual journey, a quest in which the journey (and the things on which you learn while on it) is the destination, and the Grail is knowledge of yourself and your connection to the world around you.

Versus the idea of a lump of magic gold to be attained by applying the right methods - with the corresponding bizarre belief that a lump of gold will somehow make you happy?

Neither ~mystic spirituality~ nor ~science~ are bad things in and of themselves and both have their places, but ~mystic spirituality~ dressed up as ~science~ is the absolute worst and most dangerous thing in the entire world. That is where the evil lies. (Is this the meaning of "weightless semiotics"?)

i can't answer that last bit, i feel like weightless semiotics wd be the kind of hall of mirrors of signification that we were talking about re: Baudrillard and images on the Image Band thread. whereas weighted semiotics wd imply a hierarchical dualism where the signs point at real things which are by their nature more important than the signs.

whereas really, things are also signs and the hall of mirrors isn't an illusion as such, because the mirrors are real and the reflections are real and your reflections on the reflections are real and it wd be presumptuous to assign a preference for one over the other because they all exist in some perceptual sense, and are part of the field of your experience

reduce everything to PROCESS RULES PRODUCT DROOLS tbh

mysticism always seems best at trickster/disruptive to me, or aware of its own contingency or limits - i feel like it's prone to being (o god deep breath for this one) instrumentalised (by management, marketing etc) because of its loose connection to general conditions of community life now, or praxis, or similar + maybe its ethical ends are less implicit, or more disconnectable than we'd hope.

that disconnectability is probably an important distinction between mysticism and religion tho - the former isn't telling you how you ought to live, it's offering (possibly fictitious) maps of (possibly fictitious) places to visit

it feels more of a leap to transform "thou shalt not steal" into business speak than it does to use the Tao te ching

yes - i see that - I'd have fuzzily optimistically hoped that there's something in mysticism that comes out in action as 'be excellent to each other', not 'fulfil yourself and fuck em all', but I don't think that's so. I guess that's ok – good in fact – if the 'fuck em all' is a contingent/fictitious space we can look at, acknowledge - but yeah it leaves it prone to 7 Secrets to Success of the Shaman in a Business Suit.

haha I know these are fish-in-a-barrel books but...

Hi NV! The email wasn't an actual useful task, it was a diary-like catharsis of bad thoughts which were in my head and which are now in an unsaved Notepad document, never to be sent unless I have a severe lapse of judgement (which I may).

Doing my laundry and making small rearrangements of the sea of mess in my room, which I like to class as productive tasks even though the former gets done every weekend and the latter has made no visible difference as yet.

btw I love the mythic quests of mystic self-improvement vibe itt too, just have nothing to contribute (and I totally mean to read the Image Band thread one day but that's a lot of posts and I don't quite have the energy yet)

OMG, "7 Secrets Of Shamanic Success in The Semiotics of Suits" this is too too much, I love you guys, NV and woof you are the best!

x-post <3 to you, Spacecadet, you are also the best, and "writing emails never to be sent" can be really important emotional work, actually.

a recent phd graduate from my philosophy programme has gone on to be a kind of corporate astrologer for hire, seems to be making a living from it too. i'm not sure if it's less or more creepy than his previous cult leader guise.

(I also don't know why I am hung up on "Weightless semiotics" so much but it is just one line from a lyric which is going round and round and round in my head like a weathercock in this wind, not like a stuck musically earworm or even an OCD earworm, but more like an important message from my subconscious that it is trying to get through to me.

Signs pointing at other signs, and signs pointing at things is an interesting idea, and we end up back up at the hyperreal again (cue the Shamen track...)

This whole "process rules, product drools" thing is something I argue back and forth endlessly with my shrink when she tells me to stop moaning and go and sell coffee mugs with house drawings on them instead of databases bcz I will be so much happier or whatever, but it's like... The process is what is interesting, the work of art is some husk that's left over so why should I try to sell that, don't be silly, it'd be like selling fingernail clippings. Dumb, I know.

Disconnection from ethical ends is what's also *good* about mysticism as opposed to religion, because so much of capital-R Religion just gets co-opted to propping up the status quo "Natural Order Of Things (TM)" rather than lessons of "be excellent unto one another" or "thou shalt not steal." The disconnect is important when Religion becomes just another corporate business concerned with propping up power. (Which you can use "Science!" for propping up existing power just as easily.)

yeah. mysticism as map (in a Deleuze/Guattarian sense) is more hopeful than religion as tracing

Just have to say, CD2 of the Shamen's Hits+Mixes is absolutely amazing. Such a trip down memory lane, all of the remixed grouped thematically ("Alternative" -> "House" -> "Acid" -> "Drum'n'Bass") and mixed like a DJ set. Oh, the nostalgia. I feel like I'm the dancefloor at the QE2 without leaving my bed.

I want 2 dance

Was at mates' gig last night & had to dance for vid shoot but in that stilted TOTP2 swaying way, was not allowed 2 wile out in trademark fashion. Will dance in my head on train mereckons

-

Jesus, Nostalgia is a powerful drug.

I fell into a real hole of it last night. Shouldn't have got out those old records. Shouldn't have googled photos of the ~legendary drinking dens~ I used to habitually haunt back in the 90s. It's funny how memory plays tricks on you, that places I think of in my mind as powerful, evocative of nights of mischief and ruin, and then I see a photo of them, 20 years later, shot during the daytime, and I think... "that's *it*?" (But I guess the smallness and the apparent unassumingness of them was part of the appeal.) Memories flood back with the music. But then I fell into the old trap of romanticising the epic drunkenness and feats of drink/drug bravado. It has such a pull, this kind of "wow, what japes" in my memory (and I very nearly started typing out some "wot-ho, what japes!" anecdotes on another thread before stopping myself) but when I start thinking about what actually *happened*. And just started thinking "Jesus fucking christ, what an *asshole* I was." Yet so many people around me encouraged me because of how amusing, how legendary, how ker-azy it all was. (Or, worst of all, because they liked the English accent that came out when I was so fucking wrecked I no longer had control of my actions.) And like a fuck-up, I believed it.

And for the first time in my life, I'm looking at that period with this double lens. Of yes, nostalgia is a powerful drug, and thinking, not about the dirt, the vomit, the times I got mugged or assaulted or did serious fucked up shit, but about how impossibly glamourous we thought it all was. But suddenly realising, no, I am fucking lucky to have got out of that alive (lots of people I knew then, aren't) and how badly I screwed up again and again.

But it's hard to pull yourself out of the nostalgia trap when you have *nothing* in your present life.

I barely drink any more, so I no longer have that social lubricant any more (because "ker-azy" is a cute look at 25; it's insane at 40) and I feel kinda jealous of people who stopped drinking through AA and all that, and actually have a support network around them of chums and buddies around them to replace drinking buddies. Without alcohol, I'm terrified of everything.

I get like this when it's been, like, 4 days since I had a conversation with a flesh and bloody human being. When I've slipped so deep into nostalgia I can no longer see the real world around me. But what real world is there to see? Nostalgia is a powerful drug; was it really worth swapping those other drugs for this one?

i have to live with the part of me that wants to just keep partying forever. and by partying i don't mean a very glamorous thing - just the life of pubs in daylight, the clique of sodden émigrés from the "real" world or the work world or the mundane or whatever we choose to call it, the steady reimmersion into intoxication that puts you at one with everybody then without warning cuts you off from everybody, the way time works when you're drinking or taking whatever else comes to hand.

(this is a different social space. men can do this easily, walk into the men's world of the single pub drinker. women find this harder for all sorts of reasons, which is why you rarely see women drinking alone in public.)

i also have to live with the part of me that knows the price of that life, knows that it's unsustainable or refuses to pay the cost of it - which is everything, really. i have to live with the part of me that's got nothing more positive to offer than staying alive by staying sober, that organizes my shit on a mostly day to day basis, that sees my own fears in everybody else even tho they're probably not there.

i had to choose the latter because in the end i wanted to be around for my family. but as far as i can tell both are equally valid choices. maybe the reasons for choosing one and not the other don't bear too much scrutiny.

I guess this is one of those things where I never felt "like a woman" and I always felt "like a man" because I was the kind of person that was fine with drinking alone. Partly it was the heady glow of alcohol, and partly it was a drink-fuelled ability to walk into any situation and make friends with anyone (how could I do that then? why can I not do that now? oh yeah, bouze) Partly because drunks are weirdly antisocial yet herdlike creatures who prize the familiarity of a known space, where everybody knows your name and I always went to the same places.

They always say that "drinking alone" is supposed to be the problem. Nope. It's drinking with other people who are also scared of drinking alone which is the real insidious beast.

I don't feel like I'm in any danger of falling back into that lifestyle. Drinking at my age is ugly and unglamourous. But I am in danger of romanticising that lifestyle so heavily that I fall into a hole of nostalgia so deep I cannot climb out. Living in the past is harder to quit than bad Trucker Speed. I cannot keep my head out of the Infernal World of memory mixed with imagination and romanticisation. But it's powerful because there isn't really anything to pull myself out of that space for.

i don't think i have much of a support network around me but it's mostly of my own choosing, and most of my friends drink and i don't want them to take responsibility for deciding what i do or don't do.

nostalgia is a hell of a drug, but tbf mine usually gets tempered with the same things you've said - what an idiot i was

I should stop listening to old records, maybe.

working out what to live for is the killer, of course, once you've asked yourself that question.

my preliminary guesses are: some kind of creative activity; the possibility (however faint) of some future loving connection with somebody; continuing my vision quest for the hell of it; fear of the alternative

i think BB there is a time to swim guiltlessly in nostalgia and a time to GET OUT OF THE POOL AND DRY YOUR HAIR and only ourselves can be the real judge of that

not making assumptions about people's hairedness, let's just say "dry whatever bits need drying"

I found my "reason to live for" when I was 15 and locked up in the loony hutch. Some local theatre class at a community college decided it would be an awesome idea to put on their dress rehearsal of a musical at our loony bin ("let's do the show right here!") It was Fame. I was a 15 year old in a Sid Vicious shirt. I *HATED* it. But I looked at those fuckers on that stage singing that stupid "I'm gonna live forever, I'm gonna learn how to fly... HIGH!" bullshit, and I thought "if they can get to do this, with that crap, there is a place for me to do my crap." My parents had to get a special dispensation from my shrink to bring in a guitar, just in case I hung myself with the strings or something, but when they put a guitar in my hands, I came *alive* again, and I found a reason to go on living.

Without that, I got nothing.

^^^this of course, is a lie, and one of the biggest thoughtworms I have spent LOLtherapy deconstructing.

Future loving connection: LOL this is a joke to me. I've never found it in the past, why would I find it in the future? Who wants a crazy mixed up boy-girl whose idea of foreplay is wearing waistcoats and watching videos of Image Bands? Well, some people, in the past, but either I had the wrong genitals or they did. This is a pipe dream. I need bouze to overcome the revulsion of mine own body enough to have sex, and bouze is a no go. So not gonna happen.

Fear of the alternative: DING DING DING DING DING DING correct answer buzzer.

I don't know if this is swim guiltlessly in nostalgia time or if it's GET OUT OF THE POOL AND DRY YOUR HAIR time. (That is a great metaphor, BTW.) I think it is "see some people in the real world" time but my few friends are busy, busy, busy and I am so terrible at contacting people and saying "I know I suck and am hard fucking work but can I have an hour or two of your time?"

There was a ~Makerhood~ thing in Streatham last night, and I should really have gone, and talked to people about opportunities and how to print tea towels and fridge magnets, but I didn't find out about it until this morning when it was all over.

Anyway, I fucking hate the ~MAKER~ cult and all its artisanal bullshit, I mean, fuck capital A Art too but fuck ~MAKERS~ even more ugh ugh ugh and the talk was on "how to keep your creativity flowing" which is such bull bull bull crap. I do not need talks on how to ~keep your creativity flowing~ I need talks on how to get your ~creativity~ to STFU and go the fuck to sleep because it is 2am and I need to do stuff tomorrow. When's *that* talk on, huh. Blech.

i guess all that stuff is just other people's way of dealing with the pointlessness, to a large extent. it's still bollocks, obv.

True. On both points.

Today's salient lyric is "timeless like a broken watch" but I don't need to deconstruct that like "weightless semiotics"; I just know.

<mumbling>This is apropos, I just realized last night that since quitting drinking, I've been going back and listening to old high school favorites nightly. Maybe I'm subconsciously trying to recapture some electric feeling that is shared by booze and melodic/anthemic rock.
One big realization I have come to is that my alcohol intake was a surrogate for meaningful activity/interaction.. or more precisely the cravings for booze were just masking/distorting my cravings for satisfaction/peace/happiness.. So yeah, the power of the social aspect of AA/etc is something I didn't fully comprehend until recently.. it's as if there's a lot of material/baggage that the booze suppressed for years and you need some kind of social lattice to grab on to so the torrent of thoughts/emotions don't overwhelm..
Good thoughts, both yall.

and to you too. sometimes i get impatient that all that stuff that booze was a surrogate for hasn't come flooding in. but it takes plenty of time to rewire your brain when you've spent so long scrambling it. any social networks that help you unscramble are well worth exploring ime.

On iPhone so quick but <3 & good feels to you both. I hear ya.

But hear this: that which is difficult
preserves democracy; you pay respect
to the intelligence of the citizen.
Basics are not condescension. Some
tyrants are great patrons. Let us observe
this and pass on. Certain directives
parody at your own risk.

Y O Y can't I explain in adequate terms why I find the whole ~makerhood~ thing so revolting to my LOLtherapist?

COMMODIFY YOUR AUTHENTIC SELF. With this $50 t-shirt from B----- M-------.

I don't think that melodic high school rock anthems have any inherent connection to booze but I do know that music you listened to a *lot* while boozing takes on the emotional charge of booze and can remind you of those highs. Music is the only emotional experience that has ever been real to me.

B----- M-------

Boston Market?

~Soft Grunge~ fashion house that lifted one of my designs and whacked it on a t-shirt retailing for $50 a couple of years ago? Guess that's passed out of ILX vernacular now. :-/

I was kidding. I remember the incident, even though I honestly don't know the name of the offending company.

I don't actually think it was a faux "home cooking" suburban restaurant chain.

Oh, OK - sorry! I'm just being ditzy and stupid tonight!

(I don't even know what Boston Market is; I assumed it was something to do with Faneuil Hall?)

http://blacksportsonline.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Boston-Market.jpg

Just when I'm thinking that LOLtherapy has stopped working and isn't doing any good, I find myself able to step back and say "I do not have to fight this fight" and RMDE and not jump in. And it feels like a weird exercise of masculinity to be aware that I could win that fight, but still choose not get in the fight.

There's a part of me that wants to protest it's not ~FAIR!!!~ and other people don't have to hold their tongues. But I guess I never really know how much other people do?

Feeling really rather manic is still feeling good at the moment, even though it is like walking around with all emotions set on FULL. Music has such an amazing emotional resonance when I'm like this, it feels like every song is aimed directly at me. Morrison's, bizarrely, was playing I Feel Love when I walked in, and floating round the vegetable aisles feeling ecstatic. Then they played some fantastic 80s ska (they really are ramping up the nostalgia) - one of you would probably know what it was, early 80s, 2-Tone, boy-girl vocals... But it was just like: This! Is the Greatest! Thing! and now I want to bounce around the flat to ska all afternoon just feeding off the energy because fast music is like rocket fuel for me right now. But Spotify no work on my decrepit laptop.

i spent the morning with my eyes shut being guided around outside in the sunshine and it was pretty nice tbh

The fuck did ye find some sunshine

England is stealing all the sunshine away from teh Celts again. Deal with it. :-P

it's a pretty nice day here - getting cloudier, but nice dramatic clouds and blustery not freezing wind and lots of intermittent sunshine

I got hailed on this morning yis shites

Why does it always hail on you. Is it because you lied when you were 17?

Hail hail the celts are here, surely

If you're Irish come into the parlour (because it's hailing outside)