how do you conceptualize your mind?... do you see it as a house with hallways and doorways, doors and windows that can open and close, walls that divide and sometimes prevent you from getting through to something you knows is on the other side?... or do you see your mind differently (if you've give this thought any though at all)... do you see it as outer space, perhaps, with stars and planets and objects that may be called thoughts moving through the space with some patterns... or perhaps there's no patterns, but space filled with bubbles randomly moving to and fro... are there winds in your mind moving thoughts around, or does the physical universe as we know it have nothing to do with the way your thought process works?...

is the mind in the brain or is the brain the same thing as the mind?...

in any case, the brain is made of matter and matter, as far as we know right now, follows some physical principles that chemistry does it's best to explain, but can we visualize thought as a physical entity, a chemical, simply because it is through chemical reactions that thoughts appear to be processed and moved around in our brains?... but what gives the chemicals specific thought properties?... what makes one chemical carry your thought, the way you perceive something, and the same chemical carry my thought even though it may a be very different thought/perception?... what actually forms, physically in our brains, when we form an opinion?...

and when we have a thought, an idea for something we want to do or write when we have time, what happens to that idea if we forget, if we lose it somewhere between the time it came to us and the time we are ready to do it or write it down?...

so anyway... I had two thoughts earlier, they felt like great thoughts, like the first step toward a stream of consciousness that would be at least one long entry and possible two different entries... and those thoughts seem to have disappeared into the ether of my consciousness... now my mind does not seem to work as many others say their mind works in this situation...

I do feel part of my mind shutting down, depressed, bummed over losing those two thoughts and wanting to dive under the covers and throw some sort of pity party that leaves my head devoid of any thought except how empty it is in there and what an uncreative stupid twit I've become...

I suppose that might be writer's block...

but there's still a buzz of pondering going on in other parts of my mind (and the peanut gallery is almost always throwing a party back there) so I just continue letting words form and tapping keys and whatever happens happens...

perhaps it is the perspective I bring to the act of writing that keeps a writer's block from forming too solidly around my mind... I write to release thought, not to create anything... and while part of me (not just ego) would like to think my writing has worth (ego, of course, being insatiable and ginourmous, firmly believes that the world will not just be a better place for my being in it, but that I single handedly will save the human race by writing the words that raise conscious awareness to a sufficient level of collective enlightenment that everyone will see through the follies of insecurity and fear and actually share the world, live in peace, and love each other... but then, ego is a dreamer), I (whatever part of me is most grounded in this written reality and can be called writer) come to the writing process without concern for value or product...

or making any sense at all, for that matter...

so the words flow and if they happen to find something that makes sense to me, great... and if they happen to come together to form cohesive thoughts that make some sort of point you can relate to, great... but if all that happens when I spend some time tapping the keys is that some random letters appear on the screen and they make absolutely no sense to anyone, well, I suppose I might consider that a waste of time...

hmmmm, that isn't a very optimistic point to make, is it?...

well, there's a very optimistic point somewhere in this fractured stream of consciousness and perhaps you've already gotten to it and perhaps it will come up again later in the flow of words... if it does, please let me know...

ah, but I suppose I was supposed to exclaim c'est la vie as a cavalier conclusion to the method to my madness (the writing process I described as mine just a minute or few ago), to simply say who cares what appears after I tap the keys, it is philosophically moot, relativism in essence, if not form... Kierkegaard meets Nietzsche and produces a Warhol, or something to that effect...

maybe Beckett's Godot meets Orwell's Big Brother and they sit on a bench discussing whether they should wait for someone else or just get on with whatever it was they forgot they were going to do...

or is that what blogging is all about?...

hey, I'm just the writer, don't ask me to explain what all the words mean... that's your job, dear reader, to find the meaning you can find in the words... from the Bible to the Koran to the Talmud to the Kabala to the comic books and fortune cookie messages, the words exist for you, precious reader... see how important you are?... yes you, self-empowered reader, decide the fate of everything you read...

and if you think what I do here with words is worth your time, then you will try to make time to return and I shall dance with glee for I love to imagine that what I do here with words is worth your time and that you might return to read some more...

and if you think I blow your mind, well, I can pretend I have such power, but it's really you (shhh, don't tell my ego)... you are the one finding whatever meaning there might be in these words... and if your head hurts, well, I hope you find some literary aspirin somewhere along the way (hey, if words can be a headache, why not an aspirin to?)...

heck, if I knew just how to convince you to let go of the fears that hold you down, I'd come right over and do it... if I knew how to help you find your security, your strength, your confidence, your goodness, your sense of humor � you � I'd do whatever it took to help you get there... if I could somehow show you that there's no reason for greed or envy or jealousy or wishing harm to anyone and that investing your energy in any negative thoughts or feelings only brings you down and diminishes all the good things about you, I would...

is it really as simple as where we invest our energy (thought and feeling, spirit and physical deeds)?...

yes, I believe it is...

empower negativity and you diminish your security, your strength, your confidence, your goodness, your sense of humor � you diminish you... empower fear and you blind yourself to so many things that you see only part of what is going on around you and therefore create, in your mind, reason to fear... empower insecurity and limit your conscious awareness so much that you can justify greed, envy, jealousy, and even harming others...

empower your love and you open your eyes to the wonder you can be...

it is that simple... anything is possible... and there will always be those afraid to see that who will tell you, even demand you believe, that this or that is impossible... control fire?... the world, round?... diseases, cured?... humans fly?... man on the moon?... telephones, televisions, teleconferences, computers, cyberspace?... all these thoughts and things were deemed impossible by everyone, by the collective consciousness of humanity, once...

and as you read these words wherever you are, people sit in their distant homes on all parts of this globe discussing and debating life and human possibilities (and impossibilities) in internet chat rooms...

but far be it for me to tell you or anyone what is or is not possible or, for that matter, what is right or wrong... I am mostly an observer of this experience we call life in recent years and ultimately, in this life, I am just another traveler on the road to kingdom come or wherever (and the smoke witch says wazoo... and the Z-man says doonae... and I'll just go on using my noodle to think up possibilities that everyone will call impossible cuz that's fun, so help me FSM)...

google, wazoo, doonae, noodle, spaghetti, ahhhh...

I love language...

and pasta too...

we may never actually get to the point of this entry, but then, that may be the point of this entry, that there is no getting to the point of anything, that it's got to be the going, not the getting there, that's good (take the Greyhound... cha) cuz life's a journey, not a destination (and it's amazing, dontcha know)... and you've got the power (take action, Jackson) to make it real, to make it any way you want it to be... so what did you do today?...

did you leave the house?... if you did, did you pass up any opportunity to help someone, to share a smile?... do you think there were none?... do you go through your day like a horse running a race with blinders on, already fixed in your expectations and outcomes, just following the track around to the finish line as fast as you can?... or did you approach every moment with your eyes wide open as a child experiencing something brand new, open to all the possibilities?...

and tomorrow, what will you do tomorrow?...

and right now, I am writing these words... and in your right now, you are reading these words... and all that they might mean is for you to decide for yourself...

as for me, I haven't read them yet...

if that sounds odd, well, that's the way it is for me as a writer-person... I am not always consciously understanding all I am writing... as I began this entry I was pondering two thoughts I had earlier that I somehow lost track of on the way to the now at the keyboard...

and I did what I always do, I let the words flow out on my mind and into my fingers (which may have minds of their own based on some of the stuff I've written, but then, what are words in a writer's hands if not metaphors and magpies)...

and this entry is the result...

the previous few entries (meaning the three between this one and the yesterday's birthday entry) were not the result, but were put together from stuff in the scribble files and, I suppose, represent different types of thought processes (and the entries each might produce) that flow through my head...

whatever is happening between my ears, above my shoulders, under my hairs, it produces words and more words, enough words to create at least an entry a day (even at these rather long-winded standards I've set here behind the candoor)... and sometimes cohesion comes and sometimes the words seem to dissipate or ... what is it that gas does in the vacuum of space - disintegrate, perhaps...

so here we have this entry born of two thoughts... two thoughts earlier, they might have produced a very different entry... two thoughts that may have disintegrated in the vacuum of my mind...

I do not think I rediscovered those two thoughts I lost somewhere in my head... hopefully they'll pop back up in some future entry...

or even a past one J

. o O ( NOTES ARE THE NEW HAPPY PILL ) O o .
(just let me know you were here)