obstacle rays
who do i write for anymore…. i’ve lost track….?
its hot its cold
its raining
i feel a great despondency come down
big things little things obvious things subtle things
when youre outta whack youre outta whack
i cant get in alignment
i am cursed i am blessed
but the 2 things keep racing apart
pulling me apart
is this what they refer to as catharsis…?
the only problem in my life is people
remove the people and ive got a clean run
but everything becomes an obstacle
like when you run up a seesaw
and suddenly you start running down instead
i say the universe is a joker and the jokes on us
again i am reminded of jonah and the whale
i am running running running away from something
and something else (god?) doesnt want me to run away…
but then i dont know where i am running away from…..
you will recall jonah the prophet was sent to nineveh
to rail against its wickedness
jehovah was none too impressed with the general carry-on there
he sends his man jonah in to read the king of niv the riot act
but jonah just wants a quiet life
fuck i dont wanna go to nineveh…
he groans in aramaic (or whatever it was)
so the disobedient fellow jumps on board a ship bound for joppa
tho he already knew in his heart of hearts escape was not possible
you cannot escape fate destiny god or things of this elusive but powerful nature
somewhere inside me i am aware of what it is
but i cant put my finger on it
however nothing will be smooth until i get it right
so we imagine our jonah on that boat to joppa
his head and heart arguing
just like mine which argue constantly
you see somehow out of this i pull a lotta stuff
but its tiring and there must be other ways
jonah however was in union with jehovah
he was yoked up as they might say in yoga
he knew what he had to do
but it was a rotten job
imagine some wild lawless godless city in the desert
what kind of reception would a guy like him get there….?
“listen you lot …no more sinning……..ok….?!”
who wants that gig…..?
in some foreign town , a kinda forerunner to babylon
he was sposed to tell the king off…imagine that….!
anyway for a few miles maybe the voyage was pleasant
but there were some nasty dark clouds gathering on the horizon
i wonder if he twigged straight away…
did he think …nah…….its just a storm….its nothin’ to do with me…
and when the first raindrop hit his face did he then realise….?
as the storm got worse n worse
he began to tell the sailors it was all his fault
they should throw him overboard
well the sailors werent all bad in those days
at first they didnt want to chuck him off their boat
they musta thought jonah had some real delusions of grandeur
eventually tho when it got really rough
when the next wave might sink the boat
they hurled the hapless prophet into the brine
oh such release
drowning in cold clear water
they say after you have accepted it it is quite a rapture
(but how can you believe what anybody says about things like that…?)
anyway i guess jonah hoped he’d drown and enter some blissful nonexistence
somewhere where no one was looking for him
expecting him to do this n that…..
jesus nineveh must have been quite the place
this cat jonah would really rather not go there
and just when he’s ready to inhale that water and let go
well you all know as well as i do
a great fish swallowed him whole
a severely unpleasant experience one would imagine
deep in some stinking aquatic belly
avoiding the digestive juices etc
you see how much easier it would have been to just have gone?
anyway nevermind all that
the lesson is you cant go against the grain
like a huge edifice with one brick in the wrong place could easily topple
but i am human and more so than most (whatever that means)
the angers that inflame me glow and crackle awaiting reignition
i swell up in pointless burning heat
i cool down in a pile of ash
then chuck me off the boat i dont know where i’m going
which god wants me to do what
or am i confused ….no divine errand i must run…..?
did anybody command me to write songs n make people happy?
i dunno …i waver between wild atheistic doubt and moments of theistic glory
or plonked down in the middle heeding every voice but not getting anywhere
well thats the price you pay i guess for tuning in
some times you get every station and you cant tell them apart
are any of those voices more substantial
than some bruised little ego or id whimpering and fuming
in the safe blackness of my mind…?
this my friends is called existential angst
sartre wrote about it in nausea
have any of ya read that book…..?
I’d say stick with Theistic Glory. And yes it’s called existential angst. The cure is finding meaning in your suffering and in making lots of art, and having fun with your friends. I’m gonna think on that Jonah thing.
Wow ….Sara…
change the words ‘art’ to war
and ‘fun’ to nothing,
And a great sentence you created has taken on quite a dramic change.
Words, not bombs, can be the greatest weapons of mass instruction, opposes, I mean destruction.
Daz
Haha yeah remove the people and you have no problems! My life is a lot less complicated since I have done this and rely mainly on family, books and tele for entertainment. Jonah and the Whale? pft. You are only having us on xxx
Nice little story, right let’s get back to reality
your burden….by dint of god
becomes transmogrified into our delight.
….and i love ya and bless ya for that.
have a nice day kilbs,
it can’t rain all the time eh?
bests,
andy.
Yes, in French or was it L’enfance d’un chef? Anyway, reading it in French was nauseatingly difficult. I might try it in English, but then … whatever.
I’m having a day off from my existential angst but if I read Sartre again (long time ago now) I am sure my being would wake to the pain very quickly…
You can’t permanently resolve the tension while you are functionally alive but maybe that’s the point, to find a way to live with it, to accept that it is what it is, make room for it to exist instead of wishing it gone – make some space without judgment, unhand it. Unhand it. And stop trying to control everything, stop trying to stifle the process you don’t understand, make room for the unknown.
With acceptance comes expansion – can’t remember who said that?
When I feel my version of what you describe I feel claustrophobic and crave more space, in my mind, my heart, all around me. But I always forget that when I allow space for the conflict and confusion to be there inside me then I feel bigger instead of smaller and I am given more space…
Maybe an alchemist, an epiphany, or an explosive revelation will arrive if the tension heats up enough.
Maybe things need to change in your life – it can be simple but brutal sometimes.
Maybe you need to create the life you want instead of damning the life you have. Maybe you need some vision for something better, to plant some seeds for something better.
You have to decide what you want. Oh it all sounds so easy in words.
I think I’m talking to myself…
I do like it that you are more fucked up than me – it is comforting and real in the nicest way. I can’t find much that is authentic at the moment… maybe that’s why I am here.
Maybe we all have become to restless with the slow melodic nature of the world around us. We used tomarvel at its ‘speed’ – now it feels like apathy has become the norm and it is the great obstacle in many of our paths. We require the need for the pieces to fit together in such a manner that the simplistic nature that we see life in, is actual so complicated for others. And now the complications have spilled over and we find ourselves drifting along with the wake that is /has become apathetic in replace of simplicity. Its not complications that trouble us, we attack obstacles with forthwith splendor- NO…its those who move, act/react in such a way that pressures us with more burdens.
Life was actual meant to be simplier than this- its people who have chosen to complicate it. Why??? Hell if I know- maybe its because it gives them all a purpose: to sit in the way, the way of progress and completion.
Az
Dazza
Always iz
Or hell…maybe its the telly you seem to be ‘peering out from inside’ in todays pic. Maybe we long for a 2 dimensional world and this 3D universe is all to all- consuming, all surrounding all it becomes to difficult to breathe…as if we feel we are being smothered.
Darrin
>who do i write for anymore…. i’ve lost track….?
me, for one! jeez, what else would i read every morning. surely not the fucking Times of Malta!
yeah, read Nausea when i was living in tokyo. and camus and a bunch of other existential stuff. i like that sorta thing.
Once you move into your new home, settle down, everything will become clear and you’ll feel happier…right?
As written and evolved -
Abstract Observation 020212
If you sat there and thought you could
stop the war- you must confess
This is not the solution – just part of
the mess
Where are the leaders of this – the atomic age?
for them its just another working day
I cannot see the sunset and the rivers have
all run up dry
Its not beliefs that separates us – than why?
Why must they enforce instead of
learning to compromise.
Now you are alone – standing holding the
trigger
as the man next to you now has become the beggar
Something is not right- it has gone completely wrong
please don’t act falsely and hurt the innocent ones
You said you all came to gather in the name of Martin
in the name of peace
But why must you stand in a mask- with potential
victims at your knees
This cannot be as you were told it to be
This cannot be as you were showed it
to be.
Can anyone demonstrate peacefully ?
Dazza
I’d stick with atheistic doubt, but call it skepticism.
Make your own destiny.
“he only problem in my life is people
remove the people and ive got a clean run”
i can most definitely relate, kilbs……
I’ve only read bits and pieces of Sartre in your garden variety existentialist anthologies, but he was searching just like you are and who knows what answer he arrived at when it came to the end? And is there just one answer? I hope not! Atheistic, theistic, they’re all just human constructs I suppose. I expect a person can have glimpses of the truth as you do when you talk about getting every station and not being able to tell them apart, but some people don’t open themselves up enough to get any stations at all, so you’re on the right path at least….wherever it’s leading to and who knows where that is! I’ve always been attracted by Buddhism because they seem to be the most honest out of any human religions/philosophies. They don’t admit to having all the answers. My fave Buddhist author Zen Master Seung Sahn would always tell his students to go back to the place they were before thought – “only don’t know” is what he would say. It’s similar to the Sanskrit prajna which is before thinking. But even reading these things and contemplating them is still thinking…but it does seem like it’s probably closer to the truth than other religions.
yes, steve, we read, m’man. including some of yours.
we also love your music. please bring it all to the States this year.
music was meant to be played – live – just ask bob.
all best
WP
The exact name is Jean-Paul Sartre, who wrote “La Nausée” (nausea).
I feel closer to “Journey to the end of the night” by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, much darker in his conception of the world, but you must have read it already.
Books and poetry help to feel alive, as music, painting, arts and sometimes even … people do.
search within
derangement of senses is it worth the cost,
the swing of the pendulum
but the Way off is in the middle
get to the middle by practicing awareness,
meditation, mantras, death of egos, alchemy/white tantra etc
may youre head and heart hear
dont look back in anger
dont look forward in fear
wishing you much strength
to tread thru the dread my dear
~~~
maybe that city of nineveh is symbolic of our own internal world
maybe the divine task we all have is to try to awaken?
especially this year
It’s all too easy to ignore the signs
but how do we know if
we’re reading them right?
yea, it’s a gutteral thing something
you can intellectualize
or put into words even because language will fail
you every time…
but does that mean you don’t keep trying?
what was the jonah gig all about really?
was he running away or towards
his fate?
is there any difference?
i don’t know but i will pose the question…
but,
this i do know my friend, you
who are mutable in your fixedness
have much the same quandary as those mutable
in their mutability…
save one exception…
name that idea, ring the bell and you win a prize…
the questions are all there…
except the moment the universe now as you are now as it is forever now as you are wholly perfect
you will climb from that
belly of that fish
my friend
unscathed and reborn….
thank you mark
where is my hard copy of the tb tarot tho
eagerly awaiting it!
(and hopefully this year see it on sale…..it looks amazing on screen!!)
i have not read the book but the drowning ..less Rapture ,more release ,from the horror of the cicumstance ..
Welcome to Earth….here we are, and there we go again…..unio mystica, unio mystica…..
Andrew I have ‘bookmarked’ your blog. Looks fascinating. Linda
I thought it was called “REMINDLESSNESS”
and you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be
even though the people around you show their inconsistencies
the very fact that you keep persevering is a noble trait
it’s an example for many far away and those on the streets
of your own town where you see the victories and even the defeats
but you carry on and hearken unto the Spirits and your own dictates
as you paint melodic images and make music with tangible beats
thus said the alien traveler unto him beneath the deep blue sea
thank you
As a youth I once took a day’s sick leave from work after reading Nausea. True. And I’ve never looked at the ocean in quite the same way again.
v
yeah nausea can make you sick!
Au contraire, La Cause des Femmes par Gisele Halimi, c’etait si facile
cant understand spanish…..
“Put ur head into my hands,
we’ll make them go away…”
who do i write for anymore…. i’ve lost track….?
I thought you always wrote for you
those of us lucky enough to hear your words and music is a bonus
I think you have attracted many like minded souls that share your vision of this world and how we try to live in it.
Dont remove the people, you need them and they you. Though I feel your pain. Wife, Kids, boss, clients, employees always pulling on me and in every direction.
I dont know if we ever get it right, but damn am I working at everyday, some days better than other. We all go through it, your music helps me through. I hope in some small way we get you through or if there is something we can do please ask.
Unlike Jonah you are needed in your world and in ours, so no jumping overboard for you. There has to be a way for you to master both and at the same time so you can enjoy both.
I just read an older interview of yours yesterday and it was similar to what you are talking about here, its strange how something I read about you is in your thoughts today.
Here is an exceprt:
Perhaps coincidentally, and perhaps not, there’s song on the album called “Disappointment.”
SK: Yes, there is. Strangely enough, a lot of Americans would find it hard to understand when I would say this, but my specialty is writing songs about disappointment and disillusionment. Not depressive subjects; not the sorts of things that make you go cut your veins open. Not stuff about the devil, and killing your mother and father. More about that idea John Lennon flirted with, that feeling of – how I’ve often felt – being slightly estranged from this world, of suddenly finding myself alone somewhere. And it’s not entirely unpleasant.
I’m walking along the beach on my own, my woman’s left me and things are looking bad. It’s a grey afternoon and it’s just starting to rain. But I also find some incredible comfort in it. It’s very hard to put your finger on it, but that’s the songs that I write. That’s where I connect with the world, trying to describe these mixed emotions. I don’t write songs about being righteously happy; I don’t write songs about being furiously angry, and I don’t write songs about being manically depressed. I write songs about very, very subtle things.
That is one thing about Gold Afternoon Fix; it did have some subtle emotions on there. A song like “City,” when it’s over, it’s like, was the guy happy about all that or was he kind of detached? Like John Lennon in “Strawberry Fields Forever.” At the end of the whole song, you get this feeling of incredible, weary detachment.
This is what I have always loved about your music and why I keep tunning in for the last 24 years and will continue until I stop listening.
____________________________________________________________________________
So I guess you write for you, for me and all of those that feel this way and it helps me to tune out the noise of everyday life.
Take Care,
Jason
jason i thank you for your encouragement!
i hope i can go on delivering what it is you need
sk
Great comment Jason-
One of the very best iv read in years
Darrin
who do you write for? ninevah, except now its called nazi-land = “can’t do that” “have to do this” etc. . and you say “fuck no!” in the words of a prophet and poet (a proph/oet) decrying the gods of modern man – materialism and ignorance
thank you
thats a nice way to put it!
sk
I know everyone is different and sees things differently, but to me it isn’t a matter of getting it right and then everything will be smooth sailing. Life is messy and complicated. It’s not possible to settle the vast majority of problems or conflicts so everyone is 100% happy — it’s always a matter of give and take.
Jonah’s dilemma was actually pretty straightforward (although thoroughly unpleasant) — he was given a task and he knew exactly what he was supposed to do. Everything we do affects others. Often there is no solution that doesn’t hurt. You have a ton of stress and stressors in your life, most require solutions which are neither easy nor pain free. I believe there are no perfect answers…you can only do your best at the time. It can be difficult, painful and not rewarding at all, but it has to be done, and I believe you are doing it.
And for that eekie not only loves you, but likes and respects you as well. Hang in there…it will get better.
love comin’ back atcha eek
havent read satre but martin buber always inspires me in moments of angst…namaste
The Jonah story, to the author of “Gawain and the Green Knight” and “Pearl”:
http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/55.html
Please don’t give up on the Ninevites. They may not always like what you have to say, but perhaps they want you around more than you realize. You know you are loved here in the virtual city.
Sending good thoughts…
L.
its hard to understand all that old english tho if youre not some prof
I know, sorry. I couldn’t find a translation online.
welcome to my life Steve just like jonah in the belly of the whale. i tried to run but was dragged back kicking and screaming knowing I had no choice but to do the will of God knowing that there will be a better outcome for all. or should i be saying thank you to your life that you invited me into to? God only knows! cause I sure don’t. I hang onto the promises of Isaiah to keep me going and focussed.
so there’s a full moon this year for my birthday(Aug 31), how bout we get this party started sooner than later
lol
To my Buddhist mind, Existentialism and all of philosophy are attempts to squeeze into rational dimensions knowledge that ultimately cannot be understood rationally. This is why every philosophy is only a partial fit and comes and goes like fashion. It impacts culture, but nothing deeper. And like all culture, it is ultimately disposable. It can create a lot of confusion and cloud the ability to touch reality. There is only the moment. There’s nothing else. I try to live that, but often I get distracted and fall into destructive patterns. When I do manage to come alive in the moment, though, it’s really blissful. I don’t think existential angst is possible when you’re alive in the moment.
I think Jonah worried about things beyond his control. He doubted his God-given talents and got swallowed up, literally, by his doubts. In the end, though, he did succeed in getting the Ninevites to pay attention to him. (Although I suspect this had a lot to do with the fact that he smelled like whale vomit.) Moral of the story: things have a way of working out.
i like the way you think other sk
lots of sailing as a child, giving lots (!!!!)/too much time perhaps once you’d run out of reading materials to listen to what is heard through the wind/ocean w/out other distractions, I’d imagine the sirens my father and his friends would tell me stories of/I read about, listening to the whole world from their waters and then they’d distort/translate what they hear into their own songs, echoing back verses to explore as they’re calling out for more. All of it: vibration/energy… white light when perfect… shared into the universe as someone dreams/writes/sculpts/creates music, etc/catches at least part of what comes back to them. even though originated w/in goofy daydreams of a nine/ten-year old after weeks on the water, to remember now what was imagined back then still doesn’t seem completely impossible.
nicely written
Life is up and down but I don’t have to tell you that , you wake up in the morning and you never know how the day will turn out. Sometimes it’s like , well , I didn’t see that coming ! If I had a dollar for everyone one out there that disappointed me or let me down or just messed with me , you know where I am going with that one. So , you think of the good , funny , the what the ? things that happen along the way or the flipside the this the other side of the coin and you write about it . Your life is changing and there are new happenings about to begin , now there’s a song . Do what makes you happy Steve and really sometimes it works and sometimes it’s shite but it’s you , there is song in there somewhere I just know it.
who do you write for?
people like me who love reading your musings…..
xxxxxoooooo