I sit for a spell on the rocks at Donner Summit, CA, Tahoe National Forest, August 2002 December 2002 Cabin Diary |
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9 December 2002 -- The posturings of a fugitive
Sitting in the armchair before the open hearth of the fireplace after having taken a trip to the outhouse through crunching snow, I still have on some of my outdoor wear, perhaps in the notion that something will "fail" up here at the Cabin tonight. What a scenario that would be, as the incredibly-biting cold fills the corners that usually have some utility for living, leaving me to hole up in my sleeping bag, covered with my down comforter on the bunk. It does not take much to lose out when it's like this. That sky tonight was the classic tableau of winter's presentation; hard, exact and in control. Perhaps I'll have to re-work the set-up in here for better fuel efficiency, with the stove in the center, where the dining area is now. It would only take a few carpenters and sheet-metal workers.
But I have what I have for now. This little space of somewhat-cluttered wooden floor has a somber form of chill all its own, despite the "dead air" space between it and the "borrowed" patch of earth that was my original intention for a dwelling's foundation. The fire has a fine and comforting continuity from this vantage point, and I almost feel like I'm missing an episode in some dire soap opera when I have to leave its audience. The lighting now is dim, of course, from the kerosene lanterns, and the imperfect draw of the chimney inevitably results in that "smoky" atmosphere that bespeaks a primitive enclosure. It is the high adventure of the kid and his "fort", a theme I return to time and time again. It is the fantasy of doing bold, "adult" things, but absent the horrid baggage that actually goes with being an adult. It is warm enough here, but then look at the size of this fire! Technology could certainly improve some things around here, only brute force from the standpoint of ignorance has a nice edge of "defiance" to it.
Building up the interior against the unforgiving brutality of a cold night in "meteorological winter" is one of those masterful joys that comes from this maintenance of a "living image" in the imagination. The hard part, of course, is settling as a man properly should into such a zone, without self-reference destroying the effect. "Just drop it," I tell myself, "and everything will be all right". Oh, but now is not the time to feel desperate; indeed, "'tis the season to be jolly". It is a strange embodiment, this modern-day Scrooge I've become, for the child within (and here, fully expressed) should ordinarily love the season of Advent and the making of preparation. Something vile has entered the mixture, depriving it of the character of whimsy that always used to go with this "most wonderful time of the year". No man can be a part of Christmas when he is but one man; he must busy himself with attention to all of the others. But then I've pretty well had to concede that this is a year-round imperative, and man should not be so base as to need this ridiculous "revival" at the time of the Winter Solstice.
Is darkness and cold so fearful to the mammalian class that a defensive, rather than acquiescent, pose be the required response, an artifact of the days before domestication? I'd suppose I've become some sort of "feral beast" in my isolation, with this structure as the adaptation that wile has wrought. Oh, yes, it is an "altered state"; a grand regression, where ontogeny runs wild in its recapitulation of philogeny. To crawl down that new crevice and see if a true cave exists, one where I can hold out with flame, food and clothing, though harshness is the realm of prevalence; that is the idea of having one's separate space. The Cabin holds me, at the top of this snow-choked hollow, and I am curiously insulated, in the larger sense of that word. The man that is an island still has regular ties of communication to the mainland. I think to this tenuous tether and wonder if it could ever break. "No," I say to myself in reassuring tones, "the reality back there will take me in and beat me as it will, for it is, after all, the base-level 'reality' that is always the default".
The fire burns on, and I am sustained. Perhaps I'll go raid the pantry soon, for some of that fine fireside chow that a man can eat directly from the package. Is this the kind of place a person would really be able to stand, if he had to "winter" in the style of Lewis and Clark on the opposite shore? I should like to think of a stouter structure for that, perhaps built of true chinked logs and with a proper cedar shake roof, only I have what I do, out of some lingering guilt that I need "curb appeal" when I arrive on the broken gravel surface beyond the entrance to the clearing, where the highlands begin. Maybe this building really is a "flimsy" thing, and I am somehow looking to be shuttled back to the collective, where the hassle is certain but then so is the fellowship. I guess these "holidays" are the kind of jolt a sensible-yet-daring soul requires within the yearly cycle, so as to make the circle from self to community complete. How did we ever get this way, anyway? In any event, they preach their grand gospel of peace, and I could use a good dose of that, right about now.
"Bo"
16 December 2002 -- The problem of satisfaction
The sun is brightly out for my visit today, and while it isn't warm enough to melt a lot of snow, it does add quite a bit of comfort in the living room, through the large front windows. Indeed, the scene when I gaze upon the clearing is a "dazzling" one, of the kind I can imagine augmenting the directly-incident radiation of the sun itself. Still, I can see the branches in the closer trees as they react to the wind, and I know it's no time for being idly about out there. I am finding a particular comfort in the silence today, since the "season to be jolly" also seems to be one for being unusually gregarious and raucous as well. If I am fortunate, I'll capitalize on the coziness established between the hearth and the solar load, and thereby lull myself into one of those finer intervals of rest like I'm always craving. Gone are the times for optimistic and multiply-enjoined attempts at merry-making. The single somber path is instead the best venue for a day well spent, once the rest of the distractions are properly categorized into their usually-lacking places.
For now I'll just stretch out on the overstuffed sofa, with a certain tacit appreciation that I am not hit as hard by the cold as I could be at this time. I suppose I feel just a little bit "empty" when I strike such a pose, but it has such an intrinsically-low profile that I can often stay with it for long runs before goring someone's ox by mistake. This time, and this condition, by definition, are "enough". It can be difficult to embody something like that, when those who profit by a man's "changing" begin their pitch as to just why change is the only way to be. Oh, but I have to take pre-emptive action, for those assorted branches of outcome at the deeper plies of the game just add up to too much trouble. Indeed, and I have to take his action, and not his, for he has been enough at the vanguard of prediction to get to me first with the news. Still, I should think the bulk of the fault is my own, for being cajoled by that corps of charlatans-in-part. I must lament a world where no one thinks that ordinary and unbiased fact is a commodity with a real margin of profit. No, they all need to be desperate, so as to be heard, and heard loudest.
It is quiet up here, though. I let my weight sink to an incrementally-finer arrangement in the upholstery and sigh the usual sigh that says I have no next move; the opposing side will have to wait for me to run out some time on the clock. It would seem that the persuasive commentator cannot, by definition, lead such a life--he must always be at the culmination of some great stunt or coup, with a string of recent predecessor victories to lend corroboration to the one currently in the #1 position. This is no vain caricature, either, for such a man never lets himself descend from that wonderfully-gilded state. It is as if he knows some sort of mystical and serendipitous synergy, for I cannot just string a bunch of kicks together and be lifted like that. I realize that I'm about to fall for the notion of subjective reality, when I am tempted to think that they simply "see" more things as reaffirmingly-good than I do; that a poor view upon the world is, after all, the mere product of viewpoint. Oh, you Bozoes in the Sky, how good it must all be, up there at effortless altitude by dint of your miraculously-brokered buoyancy.
No, I'm under a different set of laws, which I suppose is a perversion of the kind of government that most states will at least acknowledge, if not practice on a daily basis. Yes, I know, "life isn't fair", despite the times I hear you beat your breast and pledge allegiance to universal suffrage and empowerment. No, you are not really "hypocrites", you wondrous champions, for yours is a genuinely-blessed condition, and not a disparaging deception intended for selfish ends. At least we seem to agree on the two dimensions of "up" and "down", and through certain implications, "better" and "worse". The problem is more one of setting acceptable thresholds, those places where the condition of "enough" is met. Given the struggle that is built in to reaching the higher realms, I am forced to place severe limitations on what I'll finally settle for in that regard, since the course otherwise is a vanity in stress. Of course, so long as I'm alive, it will never quite descend to "zero", for even a good many inanimate objects still have their aggregate motion in absolute temperature. Dear emptiness; how sweet is your promise of stability, but how hard is its defense and practice in an upwardly-oriented world!
I'm sure to have met many folks' standards of being "enough", but then I am not them. Do I cast my own self into dishonesty, each time I condemn my current practice as foolhardy and unrealistic? What man can aspire, but then not also admit his own inadequacy and acceptance of what is less? This is what it is, to be unsure in one's own self. We must be talking about some sort of scale of conviction, whereby a higher value means better living, no matter what the relevant subject matter conditions. I doubt I would do well, were I given some power to set my own standards as to sufficiency. I would simply shut off the engine of aspiration while I'm in one of my typical nether-regions, then let the machine stand in profound non-functional status. The arbitration of this quantity called "satisfaction" would seem to be one of those human qualities that has a quasi-independent "life of its own", just like the chaotic trajectory of moods. Woe be to the ones who attempt to control this central factor of motivation, except to the extent that their motives have the canonical membership in the overall environment that is the "advance of human-kind".
Yes, it's cold out today, but it could be a lot colder in here.
"Bo"
21 December 2002 -- These curious communities
The almanac tells me that the Winter Solstice will take place at 0114 UT tonight, something that seems more significant than ever this year. One might think I'd really want to opt for the aboriginal celebration of almighty relent, in the annual cycle that has made it so cold here at the Cabin. I find myself spending more time by the fireplace and hearth on nights like this, and not just for the obvious reason of obtaining heat. I seem to think of my fire as establishing the metes and bounds of my own personal "manifestation", though I know that any inspiration worth having under such facilitation is rightfully the property of "man" as a whole. Yes, it is ferociously dark out there, only I will carry this bit of light and combustive process through to the next round, when I will need to continue my efforts at personal preservation. The Solstice, I guess, is like one of those geographic "point of interest" markers, posted as is possible along the broad sweep of Earth's orbit. The vehicle never has a real response to this reality, for the helio-center is always easy to find, and only certain "passengers" are temporarily deprived of its comfort.
One Earth, I suppose, is a decent enough theme, in this radically fractured community of the "greatest ape". Since they form their bands, and these bands are banded into super-bands where possible, I should think that my own single-member cooperative should relate in some way to the mob to which I owe so much service. I continue to curl up by my fire, confident in the notion that enclosures and set-brackets are there among men, so as to denote the practical and philosophical limits of larger assimilation. It is always a failure, when an exclusory definition produces a cordon around a faction. It is a denial of the larger unity that is a property of every participant in living. Built in to these corporate entities is a charter demanding allegiance to something less than the "whole". I see that the hour and minute of Solstice are passing at this time. We are once again redeemed from the encroaching darkness. There is no avoiding that "we". I count as personal failure that I cannot elevate my perspective to see that long-touted set of benefits that come from being a member. Yes, I know I'm a human being. But do I have to go to the business meetings and activities of that fraternal order?
I guess I just never had the opportunity to be "turned on". I think back to those giddy high school youths, especially in the bacchanalian throes of the senior year, and they were fine examples of discernment, principle and identity, even at that age. Have I really been assigned some sort of sclerotic barrier in my make-up; one that only sees continuity in the space I have designated as "my own"? I should have been better at it, around the time when the young are best suited for idealistic adventure. Perhaps we're all "defective" in our power to be joined, only some go a whole lot higher before the climb wears them out. Is it not enough, I ask, that I contemplate my membership by default as a specimen of my species? What is missing, when this fundamental identity is so easy to recognize but so hard to use in a meaningful and productive way? This, I should think, is like some sort of mathematical identity--man of worldly origin and flesh-bound presentation will have to hold large groups of andermenschen, or others, to be distinct from their collective super-organism. The group, whose leaders are well-versed experts in the forming of grand coalitions, knows what to reject and what to keep, in a procedure of unfortunate-but-necessary screening and filtering. It's "us or not us", so much as I feel that it's "me or not me".
The barrier of separation I'm seeing here is by its nature repugnant, unethical and unholy, yet the fragmentation goes on, precisely because of weakness and lack for something "better". Are we really all supposed to "get along"? I don't get a whole lot of opportunity to try some of the "better" practices out when I'm sitting here at the end of the long, snow-covered dirt track. I should really be uncomfortable, when I see such autonomy in something so insignificantly small as my own process of existence. At least it "works" well enough to allow me to be alone for extensive periods. Thus do I indulge the habit that seems so desirable to the instantiated being--the affirmation of the individual "self". The others can do this too, perhaps on account of the same underlying "weakness" that keeps us from perfect pan-globalism. I have the image of some enormous extrusion press, from which a homogeneous and continuous precursor mixture is driven through the die and later severed into the individual item of commerce. In our coming to be, there is some unseen worker who directs this cutting, for the mixture and the extrusion depend upon the ultimate utility of the finished example.
Yes, my limits are strong at this point, though I still know of the work left to do outside of that barrier. It is a form of "Cabin arrest" from which I am granted furloughs by the higher echelons that need me. I sit by this fire, wondering when my erratic internal process will forsake me, and thus prompt those frantic attempts to maintain continuity. Am I "glad" and "festive", now that I've made it into another set of seasons? It certainly didn't feel as if I'd crossed a boundary there. Instead, there is a landscape of my own making that poses the real difficulties. The larger matters, such as the cold and the snow, are universal constraints, but internal to myself, I am left to myself to find a way forward. There is but one direction through time, and this unity is worthy of a certain primeval respect. The mechanism of time is so well integrated into the operational framework that it is even more reliable than death itself, which is after all a mere property and result of that onward motion.
I don't know; I could sure be doing a lot more, but I must be true to what I am and what I have.
"Bo"
29 December 2002 -- In pursuit of what is high
I have found myself walking about the Cabin in a style some folks might call "pacing", wondering what comfort from undeniable truth I might derive on this cold afternoon and evening, spent at altitude. I came past the village on the way up, and there was hardly the same quantity of snow left there. It is indeed a far-reaching "injection of a man" to pull one's vehicle off the basically-paved 2-lane Route 735, onto the unremarkable entrance to "my" establishment. Those are some really serious miles to traverse, riding up that river, and the effect of isolation is complete, once I've entered the Cabin compound. It is here, this place, where I now have finally seated myself in front of the open hearth and the fire. Really, this little shack can get unbelievably cold, even with a fire in place, so should a chill come over me, I will have no choice but to be there or next to the stove. Realizing the heat I'm also deriving from that cast-iron appliance, I go to make sure there's enough wood loaded inside the heavy firebox door. I suppose it was worth putting in all that fiberglass batting when this building went up, though I know the typical solution in the middle of readily used timber is a log structure. I guess I always pictured the Cabin in terms of an urban dwelling, almost to the point of having drywall instead of the pine panelling.
Yes, it is hard to discern just what I want as an "effect", during the time I'm tending the flames that make this indoor life halfway livable. I should have gone to survivalist training before setting all of this up; they know how to make the most from the least. The Cabin as it is is something more like a kid's treehouse, whose creature comforts are largely forsaken in the interest of adventure. To be sure, it's the "camping" atmosphere that builds excitement in this quiet set of nooks and crannies. I do hold out, through everything that comes along, though the "mission" is never well-defined. I should think I'm catering to some sort of "child" that lives within, for it is only among their ranks that a person can get jollies from repeated sessions in the same daring hideout. I must concoct some sort of "forbidden" course of events for this evening, so as to prove that I'm old enough to flout authority, if I have not indeed become authority myself. Most of the activities of dissent don't do much for me, however--the real fun is simply to drop down, to a fancifully-sweet condition of passive internal merriment. In a word, I'm after something like a "fix", but without all the strings that go along with real self-medication. I should be enough of a conjurer at this point to lower myself to the blessed passageway entrance, the portal within this austere room where I embark on a further leg of the journey.
What am I hoping to see, hear, remember, or do in this silly exercise, anyway? I am involved in the "selfish" pursuit of time that is laced with contentment. An interval with the proper attributes is one of the gifts that mortals have been given. Life that is properly enjoyed will always be studded with those golden, exquisite times, when all is right and nothing needs to change. This is the place of final rest; the world of satisfaction. I'm always thinking that I have to "think myself" there, as if I really had that power. It may or may not "make it" all the way this evening. Trying to direct one's own mind is to be given charge of some stubborn creature, of donkey-like ancestry. It is a sad thought, this one of fighting myself to gain ground and hold destinations. All I know is that the hidden place is worth the trouble, when it is finally reached. I keep thinking I can propel myself into this personal pleasure dome, given the sensory deprivation of my 440 square foot base of operations. I just throw myself into the box and expect things to materialize and become relevant. This, I have seen, is often too much to expect from a mind as capricious as my own. As I sit in the armchair before the open fire, I keep looking for the beckon of the muse, who announces at last that my number has come. It is dark in here, of course, with the kerosene lanterns for light, only it takes being shut off from the light before one can appreciate other more precious lights that are normally obscured by the dictates of one's overwhelming light of day.
It is a sad outcome, yes, when nothing really comes along. I know that zero is but a stop on the real number line, and that its expression, too, has plenty of meaning. Too bad the mind cannot operate fully enough at its worn-out nadir to appreciate the character and identity of even that state. I go to check on the stove, where I toss in another split log, purchased from the fellow in the village who brings me my supply for the season. The kitchen seems to be about the warmest place to be now, so I slide the armchair to the left, so as to more fully embrace what combustion has to offer. Any thought or condition has its validity, and who am I to place the various labels that I do on them? My historical record contains a huge waste-pile of discarded opportunity, generally evaluated and exposed at the time as pure "fluff". But there are citizens in the at-large population that thrive on such provisions as that. Would that I could graft some of this uninspiring debris onto those truly appreciative souls, the ones who see avenues of value radiate outward from any place designated as central. Whenever I am there, I am looking to the ground, since vision in the lateral directions is pretty well filtered by a well-honed procedure of cynical review, at-length disparagement, and final dismissal. Why can't I see my own situation as one that would be taken, and at a good price, by the ones who live at the door of descent; the repository of affliction.
So I most likely have joy. I can't say that "I got joy", for that implies implementation. I sit here, listening to the snapping wood, and I continue trying the few tired leads I have on getting this game going. With a level of basic vitality to my life, I should be making some remarkable journeys from starting points such as this. It is in the realm of possibility, and when fate is properly satisfied, then so am I. We're talking about a pseudo-random variable here, with this discussion of fate and fortune. Of course, to fix one's eyes on the portals of the properly configured is to abandon a useful share of the self-defense that seems appropriate when authority itself looks to be the malefactor. Will I wander fancifully about, after I finally get invited in to one of those sweetly-pampering establishments? Admission to gratuitously euphoric scenarios is not a cost-effective solution to seek, yet they post their billboards in the finest of shameful commercial practice. "Come in, and pull yourself up a chair"...well, I'm not as playful as he was, back in the 1980s. No, my adventures are of the daring, implicitly illicit kind. I rarely reach a useful envelopment into the richness of the plural world; my "shell" is plain to see. I guess the good times take me, shell and all. It is a little scary to think that I'm doing all of this from a relatively-stable position, something that contains its own yet-to-be-seen reward.
I've still not gotten into anything "good" from this time here. It's time to lower my standards and take what I have.
"Bo"
Ahead to January 2003