An Evolving Disciple

I just got back from 2 weeks of not being in Ithaca... it was beautiful and refreshing. I got to see a lot of good friends that I wish I could take back with me, some of whom I hadn't seen in 4 years. I did a lot of deep thinking and close talking, and a bit of drinking and spending. And I engaged in a timeless ritual embraced by women of all creeds, ethnicities and values... to show I've changed (and gotten over a man): I've chopped off my hair and gotten a lot of new clothes. It feels good. There's much in my head to transcribe of the particular thoughts and conversations I've had in the last 2 weeks... a lot I really want and need to write out. For now, here's a poem I wrote a couple days in when I was making up for lost REM sleep: A Recurring Dream: I don't know where were going but you're driving me home I know all these roads all too many and you're taking too long for I feel the ending and I missed the start but you take the long way and I kno...

NOTE/DISCLAIMER - I PURGED THIS POST OF MORE PERSONAL DETAILS. THIS IS JUST THE END. It's weird how the people who make you the happiest are often the same ones who make you the saddest. I still feel sad but not conflicted, I feel even more lonely and I imagine that will get worse. But I feel at peace, very much at peace. Some of you have been telling me to do this for a while... My friend Jesse told me: “You know this is kinda cheesy Orri, but when I get said I imagine myself on a boat where all my sadness and misery is on an island behind me. And I keep putting myself there, in that boat, as it slowly becomes smaller and smaller on the Horizon” “But where are you going when you move away from it?” I asked. I've always been uncomfortable not having a path towards a future goal, even to the expense of the present. “I don't know. We never know. But that's what makes life so interesting”

For most of my life, when I was presented with anything fearful or unpleasant, I would usually just stare it down. Things only really were hurtful or negative on the first pass, but not so much on the second thought, the third remembrance... and after a while, it would be nothing at all. I hadn't read Dune at that point, but I recognized one of the mantras in it later in life when I did read it. “I will let the fear path through me, and in the end only I will remain...” Yes. All fears were worth facing then, and I felt confident in taking them down. At some point in my adult life this strategy began to fail me. About a year ago, I found fears that could not be faced down. I found problems that upon analysis, bore no resolution.... philosophically, emotionally... I was changing. I always considered myself, and have been considered strong to fault. I became weak in a lot of ways upon finding these limits. I became restless... distractable, emotional... at odds in general. For the fir...

There's a story by Ursula Leguin called "The Ones who walk away from Olemas": http://www.miafarrow.org/omelas.html The story outlines her thoughts based on this study by William James: Or if the hypothesis were offered us of a world in which Messer's. Fourier's and Bellamy's and Morris's utopias should all be outdone, and millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far‑off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torture, what except a specifical and independent sort of emotion can it be which would make us immediately feel, even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain? I've reread this story a couple of times lately. I read it first in high school.... and it really hit home with me. It described a Utopian society that somehow maintains it's perfection through the su...

Busy as hell here, thus not posting. And when I do post, I should be working... but often enough I can't get into gear. So, what's new: Done with the NSF grant, and I want to be my advisor when I grow up. He was editing with me until 15 minutes before the grant deadline because I'm a procrastinating bitch. Prelims and essays for profs which are smarter than God: I can really imagine one prof explaining to God why he doesn't exist and getting him to back down. Research hasn't been happening much, not so much due to me but due to equipment malfunctioning. Etc - I've been too busy to notice I don't have much of a social life or an artistic venue. Or maybe I just stopped caring. I've looked into dating people, but thus far... no one really gets my attention, when I do have time to talk to them. A lot of people at Cornell are very career focused... the first year of grad school especially demands I be a bit selfish with my time. Most people are as busy as I a...

(NOTE - I MODIFIED THIS POEM 11/13/07) Damn creative urges. Maybe once I post this bit of poetry I'll be able to concentrate on the other kind of nerdy writing. Unfortunately it definitely calls on different parts of me to write about experiencing episodic memories and writing about the science behind them. Life is good, Although I'm not as hardworking/motivated as I feel should be. But here's a poem I've been toying with on and off for the last couple weeks: Walking Home. The wind was cool I breathed you in, You felt cold but the sun shined when I loved From Halloween to Christmas memories shine In lights outside and heat within And you were there to share it I ran away, you found me out And made me a believer What we sought was simple, It was who we were apart. I just kept walking with you. From Halloween to Christmas Through falling leaves and wood smoke Lights upon the snow… It’s so strange… How you had fought for this Squandered your words On my understanding You m...

The problem with trying to read without listening to music is there is too much to think about, and when the words aren’t as clear and interesting and fascinating as the other things cluttering my head… I find myself distracted. Right now I’m reading up on the neuroscience of vision… or trying to. Thoughts of Myanmar, of service work I wish I had time for, of needing pizza and beer with friends who no longer live in state, of men in general sucking… of death (not mine… a friend’s boyfriend). Mostly thoughts stemming from that suicide really… of empathizing for the people involved, of being mad of the people not capable of empathizing with someone who the world crushed like only reality can… Grr. People are bastards… And somehow it’s always the ones who pride themselves on their empathy or morality that end up being not so empathetic or moral. I need to hang out with more people who introduce themselves as hell-bound in a handbasket-style bastards. But I really do believe it’s takes som...

"Answer" -Sarah Maclachlan I will be the answer At the end of the line I will be there for you While you take the time In the burning of uncertainty I will be your solid ground I will hold the balance If you can't look down Cast me gently Into morning For the night has been unkind Take me to a Place so holy That I can wash this from my mind The memory of choosing not to fight If it takes my whole life I won't break, I won't bend It will all be worth it Worth it in the end 'Cause I can only tell you what I know That I need you in my life When the stars have all burned out You'll still be burning so bright Cast me gently Into morning For the night has been unkind

A friend (Lauren) is doing a project in which she is collecting people's personal definitions of utopia and home. Here's is what I passed on to her: Utopia - an impossible dream worth chasing. Home - (A bit of freewriting on this subject a year or so old) - It was good to be home. It felt great to be going somewhere with you: to be together with a single destination in mind. It wouldn't matter where we went or where stopped along the way... You were the one I wanted by me when I wanted to get away from everyone else, and when I couldn't bear to be alone.

A bit of free-writing: It takes hold of me most often as my days close down and I begin the long walk home. I do most of my best thinking while walking, at least about these sorts of things. Perhaps it's just the Fall, although it's been there before in the summertime, but not as strong. A context with less interference: Ithaca in Autumn at sunset, and the beauty of it runs me down very quickly. It fails to take hold when there are people around me, but when they go it takes me back... to the point where I no longer seek to surround myself with other people, least of all people who don't feel like home. I guess that's what it like, I feel like I'm locked out of home with curtains drawn. There are people inside, but they can't hear me, and they don't have a sense that I am missing, and try as I might I can't open the door or find my way back. It's not my home anymore perhaps... but it's all I ever had. I feel like I've found a secret beautiful...

This was a letter I got from the Democratic Courage organization on my campus. I'll be fasting with them on Sept 4, and I think I'll personally extend it a day or two (I committed to a 2 day fast). Here it is, if anyone wants to join me and sign up: Dear Christina, Will you join me in a fast to stop global warming this September 4th? Click on the link below to sign up, or paste it into your web browser. http://www.climateemergency.org/joomla/index.php?option=com_attend_events&task=view&id=3&Itemid=194 I'm increasingly convinced that polite letter writing and lobbying alone won't cut it when it comes to tackling the global climate crisis. My own experience, as well as several recent studies, shows that politicians only take the kind of dramatic action to address this crisis when there are people putting themselves on the line for change. It's been true from the Boston Tea Party to Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Now it's time for us to incr...

So a church emailed me today to try to recruit me to their numbers... It's a church label that I used to sometimes attend in Ann Arbor, and it was good for a church... but still church. They'd focus on service to the community and talk about christian ethics in terms of simplicity and global warming rather than regurgitated and bland self-help book stuff or doctrine thats bland at best and wrong at worst. It did get bland sometimes... it was still church. I like spiritual communities, and occasionally one can find one within a church. I'd meet a few people I can relate to, who react to events that move beyond chance the way I do, and who have similar morals for similar reasons. But most of the time I find people who remind me of the same dangerous and hateful things I was raised with... which did more damage than good to a lot of people around me. I'm still trying to figure out if there's a better way to find a spiritual community. I definitely feel now, that Christ...

Today's Mantras: I don't believe in accidents, in that I don't necessarily believe in coincidences on a cosmic level. The only accidents are the ones we make ourselves. I don't believe in guilt, or regret, unless I hurt someone other than myself. Mistake is just a more negative way to say lesson. I don't believe in mistakes, except for the ones we need to make, certainly not when we are aware we need to to make them. Sometimes the jump is worth the fall, and I really can't live without that feeling.

I'm camped out by the river where only I might know to go and no one else can find it 'cept the ones I've never told you can't take back whats given let it fall back, stay or flow The river's always been here so what if water comes and goes? And I can wait and sit here for a moment, for a while But only if you let it out may air you'd breathe be mine

Ithaca is a very emotive and moody woman... but that's why I love her. On the walk up the gorge trail every day there are little change and new surprises, the water rushing over the gorge rises and falls, it's misty or clear, and people leaves stacks of stones all over the place merely to show they were there. Sometime a pile of flower will be in the middle of the water for you to question it's existence, sometimes a painted rock. Sometimes people are meditating in the overhangs by a waterfall, sometimes a (cute) guy is sitting reading a book on a rock in the middle of the river. Once I saw some young lovers sleeping in under the waterfall, holding each other... not caring a bit that the world could see them where they were, mainly because where they were was beautiful. I love Ithaca. And the gorge trail is just as beautiful at 4 AM... I'll miss it in the winter time. An awesome windstorm hit the other day, pulling tiles off rooftops, blowing branches off trees and beg...

Below is Chapter 21 from the Little Prince: one of the best children books, and best books ever. It was then that the fox appeared. "Good morning," said the fox. "Good morning," the little prince responded politely, although when he turned around he saw nothing. "I am right here," the voice said, "under the apple tree." "Who are you?" asked the little prince, and added, "You are very pretty to look at." "I am a fox," the fox said. "Come and play with me," proposed the little prince. "I am so unhappy." "I cannot play with you," the fox said. "I am not tamed." "Ah! Please excuse me," said the little prince. But, after some thought, he added: "What does that mean--'tame'?" "You do not live here," said the fox. "What is it that you are looking for?" "I am looking for men," said the little prince. "What does that mean--...

This post contained personal stuff, and has moved on to a better place... a farm in the country, if you will.

(The beginning of this post has been moved elsewhere due to personal-ness.) But here's my mottoes of the day or week to keep my head straight. Some of these are old, half of these are new... but all of them are things I'm currently trying to live by. 1. People do their best even when it's not good enough. Let it be. 2. Never label anyone less than human... or anything more. 3. To call someone a fool is to prove you don't understand. 4. Never forget, and always forgive. 5. There's a difference between being sorry, and being different. 6. Better to strive for no one and be surprised than lower your standards. 7. People make mistakes, They have accidents... But there is no such thing as a coincidence. 8. The meeting of two individuals is like the meeting of two chemical substances. If there is any reaction, both are transformed - Carl Jung

Whatever the male equivalent of a damsel of distress is... that's what I'm a sucker for. I just am. In other news, I've given up on a password-protected post. I'm just too damn lazy. But being that most of the weird privatish stuff (most, not all) is over and done and easy to digest, I'll start posting again soon. But for today, I'll continue to be a workaholic.

I'll do a real post later, but quick update: 1. It's a freaking soap opera out here at Cornell in the Department... My ex broke up with his gf and she was actually the first person I ended up hanging out with. She believes Mark cheated on her with one of his best friends... my friend Tali... and has shared those suspicions with other people in the department. (I'm completely convinced there isn't anything behind them). And then I show up... which means I need to be that much more careful around everyone in this love triangle... or should i say "hate triangle"? Tali would you be ok if I referred to it as an "issues triangle"? Anyways, I discovered the best way to avoid weird social situations with people at school is to spend lots of time at school. Thus far it's worked wonders. That and a solid buzz of adrenaline and anxiety does wonders for weight loss. javascript:void(0) Publish Post 2. I FREAKIN' love my job... I have a labcoat now, which...

As a few of you know, I have a second blog on which I put things either a) just for myself (writing i don't want all over the internet) or b) too personal for this, my general blog linked to myspace. I've come to the conclusion that there is a lot I want to talk about with people via digital communication in this fashion... Personal things I don't necessarily want anyone browsing on myspace to find or any random people I'll meet through Cornell. Chances are, if you are reading this... I do trust you, but you aren't the only people who can find me via myspace. There are more casual friends who WILL find me through myspace and I'll want to update on my life... but as I go to a town where my closest friends are not necessarily within the town, I might want to do something blog-format for the scattered inner-circle. So, if you are a friend who is a regular blog reader who wants to read my writing about things such as a) spirituality and b) my emotional and personal ...

So the procrastination ended to day when I found out that my thesis needs to be in within the next 2 weeks to the honors college or bad things happen... which means I need a solid copy sent to the honors department head and my advisor in the next couple days... (preferably tomorrow) which means my original plans of coming back in the Fall to defend and working on the second and third draft over the summer are shot (I heard originally that as long as my thesis was in before I walked this wasn't a problem, and I walk in December since there's no summer ceremony.) Well I was wrong... My dad gets in town tomorrow night, there's a going away party for me then... Wed I show my dad around a bit and load the van, and by Thurs night I'll be in Ithaca again... Friday I'll be meeting my grad advisor.... So what work needs to be done needs to be done tonight... as does studying for my stats final. So yes... time to pull out the caffeine pills and make miracles happen.

I did a bit of free-writing about some things awaiting me in Ithaca, much of which is a little too personal for this blog, and these excerpts are borderline. But most of you who understand it I trust it with, so here it is: I could easily forget it all, to pretend you are just like any of the rest, until it really is so. But in those other cases, the good could be more easily sifted from the bad, the gifts were a bit more mutual and eternal and the misunderstandings could eventually be nothing more. But the weight of what you did leave me with is much heavier, and the memories would eat me away from the inside even if I did not rehearse them consciously. In the perfect world, I'd still retain you, I'd still cherish you... and nothing but the physical would have to change. But the physical and broken promises is all you left me with, giving me a a bittersweet aversion and attraction to all similar emotions that can come afterwards for others.... for you were a wonderful ...

It’s been a while since I posted, yet there have been about 4 different half-baked ideas of things worth writing about in my head… so I’ll just try to distill them all in a couple short posts over the next couple days. I remember when Roberto first moved into the house he is moving out of this weekend. He looked out the window of a room I once rented when I first moved to Michigan, the room he was now moving into. He looked out the window amid a conversation: “Hey Orriana” “What?” “You ever climb on the roof?” I looked out… the roof did just our just under my window and lead to the side… “No” “Well why the hell not?!” Months later (when it had warmed up a bit) Roberto and his girlfriend Lauren were packing up his things and I was downstairs, having moved back into the house myself in May. By this point, Roberto was effectively already living with Lauren... but kept himself from moving his things an hour away until mid-June. I was in the middle of something at this point, though I...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47EBLD-ISyc

Sometimes I feel very sharklike, in that I need to keep moving at all times in order to stay (in this case psychologically) alive. When I have little to do, I desire to do little: when I have much to do, that's when I find the desires to do things more meaningful with the time I have less of, or I find myself looking more closely at my life. So yes... two days ago I was up at 5, then I went to school went to the lab and at 7:30 PM started painting the interior of a house until 6:30 AM. I took a 90 minute nap before returning to school, and after I left the lab that night I went painting again. It's 3:30 AM and I'm physically exhausted. But mentally, I'm needing to for a long hard jog. Within these two days with a 90 minute nap between, I talked to a girl who had went through a very similar breakup to my painful one in September (unapologetic ownership of ex-girlfriend porn and all!). Only she broke up with her ex in the last 2 days... so a lot of the negative feeling...

As a kid I saw an episode of Rocky and Bulwinkle where Bulwinkle becomes a famous artist by whitewashing canvases. I thought of that when I came across a dappled white canvas in an art museum last weekend: different shades of white mind you, but white. By the side of that painting was a paragraph on the artist’s inspiration, which read something like “I was walking down the hallway one time when I realized I didn’t understand myself walking down the hallway. It made me realize how little we truly do not understand the world around us”. I’d agree that people do not understand the simpler things they do, and increased awareness of one’s self and surroundings is meaningful… but how is that message communicated through dappled shades of white? Other than perhaps a Rorschach-style interpretation where I present my own interpretation into ambiguous stimuli, this painting has no meaning. It isn’t even beautiful…. Art is a controversial term, and I’m sure even artists argue about its definitio...

Tali sent me a few papers on the scientific basis of religious experiences... This was my reply, which will be similar to any other conversations I have with people who don't believe in spirituality who read my last post, so hence I'm posting my reply: "Thanks I'll read through them =) I have a feeling though that like any good scientific paper, they will attempt to explain spirituality it terms of only naturalistic variables... and well they should, for thats what science is. I don't like it when science tries to do anything but. However, I don't believe science can really explain it... If it were hallucinations or the product of an overactive imagination, I wouldn't expect to at times predict the future, or meet people who know minute details about my life when I never met them... or who can relate to me the intimate details of a dream I have or the characters within it - (like the red haired asian chic in leather armor and a sword... seeing me and starti...

On the Path Again: There’s nothing so freeing as having everything you need to survive on your back, in such a way as it’s comfortable to walk. I need no car, no house… no purse nor anything else in my hands. All I have is the path before me, and a fork in a road. I take the path that looks better, for whatever implicit reason I don’t know. I have never been here before, and aside from finding my way back sometime in the next couple days I don’t think I plan to be again. The farther I am from civilization right now, the better: I need to be alone. Yet all at the same time I feel a sense of belonging that I haven’t felt in quite some time before this point… and in other ways, I know exactly where I’m going, and I know exactly why. I walk for an hour or so, trying a couple different deer paths off of the main track looking for clearing big enough to place my tent. Eventually I find one where I feel I should, and with it comes a fallen tree for a chair and another with a tree nearby pe...

This is following up on my last post... a bit of freewriting I wrote almost a month ago... It's still just as valid now as it was then. And now I officially and truly promise not to post about unrequited love... Really... When it's too late to jump from a higher place. He would say something vague, feeling I'd catch the meaning and miss the motive. Beyond those words he'd feel very misunderstood. I would feel the same. We would stare at each other between quiet moments of down at our feet. We would change the subject, and find a deep breath was all it took to bring it back again. He'd want to tell me he's not really the sum of his actions – least of all the most recent, which were rather impressive. “I'm just a guy”. He'd want to say... “You'd always see more than that, or you'd always see less.” He'd expect me to be disappointed. He'd expect me to disappoint him. He would not really expect I could get past his guarded facade any faster t...

“Hey Colin…” I said “Huh?” he replied turning the music down a bit. I was sitting on the couch; Colin was behind me in his office chair on the computer. This was yet another day when I stopped by to grab dinner and/or watch a quick episode of anime. I should be studying… I should be doing a lot of things… But… “I want to go home…” “Then go.” Colin interjected. “… but I’m not sure where home is. You ever feel like that?” Colin thought for a second. “Yeah… I have” and beyond that there wasn’t much to say. A few minutes later I packed my stuff up and went back to my apartment… but not home. The smoky, dirty living room of this shared duplex with the ubiquitous soap opera on TV certainly wasn’t refreshing to me. It was heavy, distracting… empty. It’s true that most often when I was around at night, my housemates would be up later… and sardonic laughter would carry from bitter conversations through the thin wall of my room, and I’d be forced to take in every callous word. They’d talk...