The IWALLK Essays - 6. Post Surgical Blah

Some of what I'm dealing with is an almost absolute disinterest in everything. I KNOW that the world is falling apart and I care less than I ever have—though my supposed intention (mission?) is to turn it around. I have less faith, less optimism, less hope than any other time in my life. And it isn't even depression. I just simply don't care.

My struggle is trying to find out whether I SHOULD care and who obligates that "should" aspect of caring? I'm tired of human obligations and expectations. They are hollow and meaningless to me now. I went to what (in essays to follow) will be called "the Faraway Place" during surgery. It was a place where I could choose to come back here or not—but it certainly was NOT heaven. 

When your chest is ripped open and your heart is exposed to needles and grafting, it isn't a big leap to then realize that shutting off the entire system is not only possible, but perhaps, wise. I chose very specifically NOT to die. I don't give two shits whether anyone believes that or not. 

Still, here I sit in the fetid, festering swill of a world that manifests as a sleeping human, cartoon reality, by comparison. I'm trying to motivate myself, while simultaneously wondering why. The mostly unconscious child-men and child-women I see out in public each day don't care at all that everything is circling the drain. 

They do stuff just to do it and be seen as doing it. They follow unreasonable, stupid, habit-slavery, and believe that wishful thinking and faith in human-made and human-maintained religions, or science will do all their spiritual and intellectual heavy lifting for them. “Smarter people (who, in reality, are simply RICHER people)” will surely tell them how to live their lives. No need to think for themselves. 

Shit, thinking would require waking up. It is a world where Facebook memes are used as philosophical guideposts...THIS after a thousand years of hard-won thinking on the part of a tiny minority have carried all human thought through the mists of ignorance and oppression. All forgotten now. 

No. I don't have hope anymore. However, I DO feel a higher obligation. It is one that I agreed to in that Faraway Place. And, whether it is a moral failing or a psychological rationalization wrought by the actuality of coming back and walking around this putrid kingdom of human failure... I have no other reason to be here, but to TRY to find a purpose for myself before I die for real in ten years. 

In the spring of 2020 I will have decided where I'm going and what I'm doing. Until then, I apologize for bumming anyone out.

The IWALLK Essays - 5. Why the Ghost Returned to the Machine

I've been studying up on the psychological shit that happens after open heart surgery. What I'm going through is subtle, in a way, but bizarre in many more ways. Latest stats indicate that 20-40% of people recovering during this kind of post surgical experience face anxiety, and/or depression, and/or fragile emotional states and/or dementia. I apparently am one of them. But I hope this essay causes folks to think before cutting a pigeon hole for me to stick my head into. 

There are a MILLION different post surgical experiences out there, recorded in great detail. Some match mine. Some have only certain aspects that match mine, and others just don't, and I wonder about the fitness of the minds of those folks before they even got heart disease. Anyhow...

So far, in the statistical medical research of post surgery like mine, it appears that changes in so-called "personality" seem to be either temporary or non-existent. But there are other explanations for behavior and “feelings” that skip over personality and go straight to emotional and chemical changes that have largely left the personality in tact, while also leaving the FEELINGS in tatters. (Please recall that "personality" is probably the most vague concept in all of psychology, besides the presence - or not - of a non-material mind {consciousness/soul}, separate from the brain.)

The first factor that seems to determine whether someone faces psychological difficulties is the pre-surgery state of mind. In this regard, I am an outlier. As is written in great detail here at my Facebook profile page (scroll down and see for yourself), I was feeling quite good about everything right before the surgery. Never had I felt such love and support from both my family AND friends, but also I felt as though I had wrapped up my life and tied it with a little golden bow—thence, ready to literally die and move on into the Golden Light. It would only take one cut in the wrong direction. No surgeon is perfect! I was NOT depressed, probably for the first significant amount of time since my childhood! Up to that point, I had never been a happy person. I'm a damn good faker though. As a child I had a smile that could melt the Washington off a quarter. But I have flirted with suicide and enjoyed suicidal ideation for all of my adult life. I've pretty much hated myself and felt that the Universe would be far better without me in it, every single day, since about my 8th birthday. This should not shock anyone who really knows me or has read my "stuff." And if it does I can't blame you. Wishful thinking is not a crime on your part.

But before the surgery, I was so sure that I was going to die (and would probably be in the process of dying on this very day, without surgery), that I was almost giddy about it! 

I was primed and ready to go. I know what's on the other side. I was more than happy to die now. My whole life seemed designed to make sense because of it. And, I've been waiting for my life to add up to something...well, something more than nothing. This was my opportunity to make the story into...a legend. People didn't respect all that I had done. But you can be goddamn fucking sure that people DO respect a martyr. It's the oldest game for being part of history since there have been games, or history. Just ask Jesus, Gandhi, or John Lennon. 

This seemed like my big chance to be free. And, as you will someday learn, I WAS freed from a terrible choice I made over 30 years ago, but even that profound spiritual liberation just pales compared to the general feeling of disappointment for not either reaching the Mansion Worlds of Light, or fading into the blackness of nothingness; both of which I was well-prepared for by the time tunnel vision was pulling me out of myself in the operating room.

I am pretty sure that waking up with a breathing tube in my deflated lungs, a catheter up my dick and a balloon in my sore bladder, an IV in my neck, my arm AND my wrist (just in case), a wired up breast bone that had been sawed in half (can you smell the spattering heated blood from the saw?), and a pacemaker sewed onto the skin of my belly, delivering painful electrical pulses into my poor, worn-out heart (none of this - by the way - was explained to me before surgery) was a pretty sharp reminder that I was back in the shitty human world of whales choking on plastic and reality TV presidents! There's no hell greater in its brutality and excruciation than this world. I know that for an absolute certainty now. 

The fading vestiges of my experiences in the place where my soul went during surgery were so poisoned and debauched by the extreme discomfort of the breathing tube once consciousness was returning that it ruined a once in a life/death-time experience. The medical staff refused to remove the tube as I begged and gestured to do so. I could have told my sister who watched all of this, about the vision of that Place that faded away as I was forced to pull myself back into the “machine” of my animal body. 

My life as a “whatever I am,” was coming back like a rerun of the worst Friends episode you've seen a hundred times and hate the station for replaying. And, there was a stupefying, yet sickening, satisfaction to the “been there and done that already” reality that was bringing me back here to do that shit all over again, in front of a bunch of people who are barely half awake and don't give two fucks about my existential crises, here, now that I'm back back in hell. So I thought.

Through the false lens of Hydromorphone, Oxycodone, and Lorazepam, I had a brief couple days of optimism. But the tired out blabbing of people who have never experienced what I was going through, telling me to “breath in through the nose and out through the mouth” whenever I literally screamed because couldn't lie in a bed to sleep, nor wipe my ass without feeling like my ribcage was being slowly ripped apart and wired back together over and over again, was supposed to comfort and calm me? All it did was remind me that I am ultimately just a heart-broken, tear-stained, worn out, piece of Universal detritus who couldn't even die successfully! Fuck, can't I do anything right?

Okay, that was perhaps unnecessarily intense. But that is the point I'm trying to make. The intensity of all regret, pain and suffering, is couched next to a man who has been given the miracle of a “second chance” (honestly, it was my forth chance) to fulfill a life self-designed before I was ever even a twinkle in either of my parents' eyes.

I know now (basically) what happened while I was away from my body. Besides being liberated from a deal with the devil, I knew that I was lying to myself before surgery. I knew somehow that I would survive, but was hoping not to. And, before any of you think I was just trying to “escape the realities of the human condition,” let me point out, that I deserved it. I've paid my fucking dues and a little bit extra for a bunch of other people too. 

I AGREED to come back. It is my fault that I am alive. It is the reciprocal event to the fact that it is/was my fault that I almost died! Do you see? It changes one of the stupidest and redundant sayings of my father into something amazingly profound: “The job isn't done until it's done.” I am the living metaphor for that statement.

And, as I heal my body for the next ten years or less (that's the statistical period before I begin to have problems again), I'll tell it far and wide... I was alive as a child, wanted to die as an adult, almost made it there, but was talked into being spiritually responsible for myself, and now I'm back. In the process my soul migrated a little more toward the outside. While, the Spark is much deeper within me, much more fundamentally controlling my thoughts than ever before.

Yet, with all of this complaining, I still can't escape the Truth: It was me all along! I planned it all out before the earth was even formed--as we have all done with our lives. Should I be so surprised that the day has finally come to publicly reflect on that—to finally grow up? I am back in order to finish my self-assignment. Pretty simple concept! I couldn't kill myself, since my Universe IS myself.

There is nothing else more important for ME to do. I want to spend the rest of my days here talking to you about why we are ALL here. 

But I will tell you, to each of your individual souls... WE are ONE thing. You are not separate from my story. The wet eyes that gaze upon this very sentence – YOUR eyes – are meant to see through mine and you are meant to express yourself through the typing of my fingertips. It is the end of history. And you can judge me by my experience all you want. But afterward all that, I am not here for you and never have been. Don't you see how you have been me? I am your mirror. And no intelligent person walks FORWARD using only a mirror. 

It is OUR story now. When I finally allow myself to find Paradise—the Center of Infinity, it will be with your hand in mine.

The IWALLK Essays - 4. The Pain Buffet

When you walk through the door you may be impressed and depressed by its high costs. The variety of excruciation offered can be staggering, and the chef never ceases to serve up surprises for you by adding new and creative recipes; some, you may need to Google in order to truly appreciate. But it's all there for you! It's “all you can take” at the Pain Buffet!

And, if you're me (or a million other people) and you need adequate pain relief for a temporary amount of time, you may find yourself spending most of that time seated there. Even if, on the other hand, your pain is chronic and not temporary, you will probably similarly be forced to endure spending much of your life there going up for seconds, thirds, fourths...

Metaphors aside, pain is a natural part of life. Here in the material world accidents happen--imperfection rules. Human animals have adapted naturally to a world where broken bones and bloody wounds catch us when we least expect them. But we usually heal. We don't always stay pretty as we accumulate the scars of space and time, but we do nearly always keep soldiering on, wiser than before. 

Pain is the hardest aspect to come to terms with though, because it always sucks. And the sucking is not just electro chemical signals registering physical discomfort in the brain. The much more painful aspect of pain is not what happens in the brain, it is what happens in the mind, not helped by the policies of a primitive society. 

For me, this is why not having adequate amounts of serious pain medication – specifically opioids – can be so unhealthy. Without enough of this kind of medication, stress increases, clenching unnecessarily tightens vulnerable muscles and tendons, and the normal resumption of daily activities can be unreasonably delayed. While waiting for my new Primary Physician some weeks ago I caught sight of a brochure that I didn't want to see. The gist of its message was that just about anything (acupressure and music therapy have been suggested) would be used now at the Internal Medicine section of Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington, in lieu of opioids for moderate to sever pain management. This isn't based on logic or historical wisdom, but rather on the recent media-enhanced, trendiness of the anti-opioid hysteria that is sweeping the nation. 

Big Pharma companies like Johnson and Johnson pushed doctors to over prescribe these medications. Then there was an inevitable reversion to the street use of dangerous and unregulated black market narcotics after these prescriptions ran out. The recent introduction of extremely powerful analogues, turning common heroin into unstable admixtures which include fentanyl and its sister analgesics, like carfentanil, have turned the needle into a loaded gun ready for Russian roulette. But, we must bear in mind that it is not the drugs, but rather the socially retarded policies around them, that are causing overdose deaths to rise dramatically. In 2017, 47,000 Americans died as a result of opioid overdoses—an incredible 9.6% increase from the year before. 

Yet, cooler minds are examining the situation and coming up with a more truthful assessment. According to a recent Peter Wall (no relation) Institute of Advanced Studies (University of British Columbia) lecture called, “Drug Use for Grown Ups,” given by Carl Hart – a neuropsychopharmacologist and distinguished Columbia University (New York City, NY) professor – over 90% of people who use drugs classically thought of as “addictive” or “hard drugs” never experience uncontrollable dependence upon these substances. The hype about the danger posed by “drugs” (the inaccurate catchall phrase) to the general population is entirely based upon propaganda. Many other thinking people are beginning to realize how unreasonable drug policy has been, especially since the advent of cannabis law reform and the coming days of probable federal legalization. Fear based prohibition has of course also been reinforced by the ignorant hyper-moralization of religious groups, racist politics of elected leaders and the erroneous emphasis on law enforcement over medical treatment.

It is this last category – emphasis on law enforcement over medical treatment – that limited the amount of necessary pain medication I myself received after my quadruple bypass surgery. In that kind of surgical procedure the sternum is sawed in half and cracked apart to access the heart. 

The post surgical pain of the healing process after the rib cage is wired back together is (as you might imagine) nearly intolerable at first, slowly diminishing over about a six week period. In the hospital I asked for something stronger than oxycodone (one or two 5 mg tabs, every four to six hours), because it just didn't touch the pain. They were required by law to do a Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) background and criminal search on me before bumping the class of meds up to hydromorphone (aka Dilaudid, one to two 2 mg tabs, every four hours). This helped tremendously. Although I had to deal with a slightly more fuzzy head, I was able to get my mind off the pain enough to think about other things.

I was only in the hospital for four days including the day of surgery. They try to get patients out into the big ole world again as soon as possible—which is very reasonable and a good policy. Unfortunately not much thought was given to tapering the pain medication. So I went from 6 to 10 hydromorphone a day in the hospital, back to a prescription for 24 oxycodone tabs to take home, meaning I was rescheduled to take only 1 to 2 tabs every six hours—a significant reduction in efficacy by lessening the type of medication, and increasing the hours in between taking it. 

This was a huge jump and fired back up the amount of daily pain again to the point where I was not able to sleep well or think about anything else. I felt I had to skip doses at certain times of the day in order to hoard enough for night use. This was a ridiculously unnecessary subjugation, and limited the use of the oxycodone to a maximum of six days (out of a six WEEK recovery). 

When I was running low and still experiencing the same amount of pain, I called my surgeon's nurse and basically begged for a refill. After 10 minutes of groveling, she relented and approved a second refill. Of course, that was to last only another 6 days—maximum. During that time I was practically overdosing on acetaminophen (aka Tylenol), using 1000 milligrams every 4 to 6 hours, trying in vain to replace some of my doses of oxycodone, so that I could reserve them for extra painful episodes. When I got close to the end of my refill, I was suffering tremendously still, mostly at night (lying on my side in bed was an exercise in teeth clenching torment). Mercifully, I was also prescribed Lorazepam (a benzodiazapine 0.5 mg, for anxiety and to help with sleep). This made things a little bit easier to handle, in that I would be able to eventually fall asleep, but in the morning would be suffering intensely from lying in one position all night.

Although tolerance is a problem when someone is trying to get extra relief over the prescribed amount, ironically, NOT using enough medication can weaken even the normal dose. Opioids must also be “stacked.” In other words, it takes a pill or two for the body to recognize the efficacy of normal use when doses are skipped. If you cut it down to nothing, where you had formerly taken a dose, then take only one pill, it does not have the same power as the continued use on a regular schedule. This can be a maddening cycle of inadequacy.

When I had tapered down to taking one oxcodone a day, trying to deal with almost the same amount of pain as I had after surgery (made worse by a cough), I decided to try getting something else from the surgeon's nurse. It was on a weekend and the physician on call was much more amenable to helping me out. He offered Tramadol (thirty 50 mg tabs, a synthetic and weaker narcotic to be taken 1 to two times every six hours). And, I continued using up to 6,000 mgs of acetaminophen per day, despite the danger of liver damage. Thankfully, by this time (the third week at home) normal daily pain had lessened quite a bit. The difference of having the Tramadol, where I had been stretching out the oxycone was very effective and helped tremendously at first. I had used Tramadol in the past and not gained much pain relief. But now it seemed to be doing the trick. 

I discovered that a recurring cough was due to a psychological response to being around a person I have a difficult time dealing with. When this person was around, my blood pressure also ran dangerously high and I experienced profuse sweating. Although the stress of dealing with this person had been recognizable before surgery, now, the psychosomatic response was much stronger. I don't know why, but apparently the phenomenon of anxiety, re-manifested as physical discomfort, is common after heart surgery for some people. Just a new thing to have to deal with. To rationally continue my treatment of normal chest pain and escape the deleterious psychosomatic effects of this other issue, I have simply been trying to avoid interacting with the person as much as possible while I heal up. I think I will be able to overcome the physical reactions more easily once the sternum is fully healed. At least then, developing the psychosomatic cough won't ALSO be an exercise in physical agony. 

As with most things, overcoming all of this is simply a matter of time. In IWALLK terms it is just another “long distance walk.” I endure it until I get to my destination. While time may “heal all wounds” conscious effort is the true key to controlling pain in all of its manifestations. As I said earlier, it is the mind that ultimately takes control. Only the mind can find the hallway to the shining Exit at the Pain Buffet. I am so thankful to only be stopping by there for appetizers this week; just passing through on my way to a new life. 

Knowing now the full extent of the struggle for finding relief, I have a fresh appreciation for the struggles of the chronically pain-afflicted. I genuinely pray for them and feel for them. I can truly say that what is left of my heart breaks for those who are trapped among the cold, rotting service trays, dirty dishes, unfair policies, and darkened tables of the Pain Buffet. 

When all substances are finally decriminalized and/or legalized, the taxes on their sales are redirected toward the treatment of abuse disorder for the rare 10% who need it, and rationality breaks through the prejudicial and purposefully blinding policies of pandering politicians – handing back the control of health decisions to patients and doctors and away from subsidy-seeking law enforcement agencies – not only will individuals find the relief they need, but society itself will be freed from an ignorance that has only served to unnecessarily amplify its own problems. I would love to live long enough to see a closed sign in the window of the Pain Buffet. But it will take more than the detailed recounting of my story. It will take YOUR acceptance and efforts too. 

Together we can close the place down for good!

The IWALLK Essays - 3. Continuously Found

I wanted to let folks know about an interesting aspect of post general anesthetic surgery. I write this now, recalling events from over a week ago.

After I woke up on Friday of last week (10/4), the day after surgery, I began to experience a normal amount of temporary, post-surgical dementia (e.g. short term and verbal memory lapses—like forgetting the name of objects; drifting into thoughts rather than finishing sentences, etc.). Even now this fog is still tapering off, and it's taking a bit longer than I'd anticipated.

Most unexpected was the loss of emotional control. I'd get easily over-frustrated with my inability to remember, but I would also weep openly when being moved by any reminders of the profundity of my new circumstances—that is, getting a second chance at life and what that might truly mean, after the weeks leading up to the surgery. Before surgery I was realistically preparing for the end, accepting that my dreams for later life were to be thrown away in preparation for death. 

Even under normal circumstances it is admittedly difficult for me to discern emotional reactions from emotional over-reactions. (It is sad perhaps that a grown man must use mental issues to equivocate his behavior or admit to actually reacting to deep emotional states while the people around him remain numbed by the habit of insensitivity, but whatever, bub!)

Overall, the situation for me has ranged from being very humorous to being a real drag on my organizational skills. Incidentally, for this reason, I apologize for missing or not replying to the messages, emails, comments at Facebook and the questions you might have been asking. Do please know that the good vibes and healing energy you have expressed have been fully appreciated and have helped me tremendously!

You probably know me by now and have seen how everything that happens can become an opportunity for an impromptu scientific examination? Well, in an attempt to study the post surgical phenomenon while in this unique state, I've discovered that my clarity of thought before speaking (and/or while writing), is much more acute than normal. Nice as this should presumably be, my thoughts aren't effective unless they can be properly expressed. 

It's kind of like the balance between the *origination* of ideas vs their *expression* is significantly eschew. The process is normally more like a seesaw, with the former on one side and the latter on the other, moving up and down to pump out something meaningful. In this case, the former is accumulating data, while the latter is acting like a bottleneck, building up inexpressible thoughts that weigh down the system.

People have asked me online if I wanted help, how I'm doing, when they should stop by, etc. And I can't keep up right now—though I love all the attention! (I was telling someone—can't quite remember whom right now, ha! that I'm going to miss being unhealthy due to all the special attention I've received.)

On the second day after being discharged from the hospital I walked to a new restaurant with my mom. I was in pretty rough shape still, being unable to drive there. Together, Mom and I planned to take buses and walk where we needed to go around town. It was a throwback to a couple years earlier when I set about trying to train her in the South Portland and Portland bus systems before I moved up to my land in Farmington.

As we sat across from each other, each munching on a veggie spring roll and sipping soda, we commiserated on what it was like to forget things so easily and to feel like the world was always looking askance at us; the forgetful—the challenged thinkers.

I have often reminded my mom about things, but now she seemed to be the one in control. This was her world and I was but a transient visitor. Looking into her deep brown eyes, I asked, “Is this what it feels like?”

And, instead of saying, “What?,” she was right beside me on that thought train, nodding. I told her it seemed like a dark place. She suggested, “It is like being far away from everyone, right after the sun goes down; like you're lost in the woods and all you can really see are the tiny lights of civilization flickering on the horizon...” I smiled at her and then she smiled at me.

I said, “Yes, I know what that feels like in real life too. I've been in the middle of nowhere more times than I count! I was fortunate to be able to walk to the horizon each morning though. Not being able to do that is more like being trapped.” The connection of understandable symbolic imagery mixed with my actual physical experience, and knowing what my mom must feel each day, made my eyes well up a bit.

Then she said, “Lately, that's where I am all the time. At least right now we can be lost together.”

On my phone I struggled to find the correct part of the South Portland transit website in order to download PDF's for the Bus 24A, Bus 24B, and Bus 21 schedules. I couldn't focus very well and kept slipping under the mental ice of uncertainty and confusion, thence being pulled along under its surface by my own overriding mental currents. 

If we could arrange to catch a bus out here on the edge of South Portland, we could surely find our way downtown and be able to walk around Mill Creek Park. If I could only move through the fresh autumn air, maybe I could also stay above the mental ice. I was also in a sea of pain and I could not ignore it. Overthinking always makes pain worse, and vice versa.

I was having what felt like a bad trip, like I used to in the old school days. For me, the worst LSD moments of my youth were due to the futile chasing of thoughts over the horizon and the inability to retain short term objectives while being swept along by the ever-arising novelty of newly generated ideas, all produced by the drug experience. In this case, there were no drugs involved. Still, the more I sought to grasp onto the edges of certainty, the more psychic ground broke out from below my feet. And – at least out in public – I was there to watch over my mom! Until I could pull my shit together the safest plan was to simply sit and talk.

Yet time moved on, as it does, and the tangled vines of my indecision eventually showed a hint of loosening up. At some point during my Google searches, I clicked on the correct link and the bus schedule PDFs started to slowly download themselves. When they were ready to view, I discovered that the 24A would be passing right by us to the bus stop located just in front of Amato's in only 20 minutes. We finished our sodas and took what seemed like the enormous risk of leaving our safe place.

But it's a good thing we did! The fresh air instantly revived my pedestrian inclinations and my instincts for negotiating the streets around me popped back in, like a head's up display. What I'd needed all along was simply to walk—a lesson I should have remembered from the bad trip days. If you're stuck in a loop, a mental trap, or an unmovable sense of hesitation, just stand up and walk! It clears the senses, feeds you oxygen, points you in at least some sort of direction! Strange that I should so easily forget my most fundamental rule. 

The walking that saved me from drug hells of high school also (as we know) saved me from the social hell of hypocrisy while my Journeys across America were taking place. 

That's when it turned into “wallking.” Now that I have been given a new life, naturally, its most fundamental tenets should continue to include the option (or the requirement?) of wallking.

We caught the bus and joyfully rolled down Broadway until we reached the South Portland Transit Center. There, we stepped off and found our way to Mill Creek Park. The sun was low, with golden rays fanning out over a dark strip of clouds that were parked on the horizon like a big grey wall. Florescent oranges, reds and yellows gently swayed in leafy waves across the beautiful trees all around the lily pond. I took my mom's hand and we slowly made our way past sleepy ducks, moving along upon the pathway of a new personal freedom. 

Being lost is so much easier if I hold the steady hand of someone who loves me. Come to think of it, as long as we're together, we are never lost at all... We are continuously found... Love is the only destination that is available everywhere.

The IWALLK Essays - 2. Upon the Eve of Uncertainty

I was born three months, three weeks, and three days after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., on a hot Sunday in July of 1968.

My very earliest memory is of standing in my parents' bedroom while they slept and watching the sun come up over the trees across the driveway. Apparently, I had gotten out of my little bed on my own. I probably had done it a bunch of times before around that age of five, but this time there was something special about this morning—special enough to allow its memory to last right up to this day. I literally heard the melody for “Down by the Station” dance in the air around my parents' room as the Yarmouth train whistle tooted in the distance. The magic mind of a child.

From then on, the noises of my small town became the soundtrack of my childhood. Each night there was the far away but constant moaning cry of the highway. Even in the 1970's that road was turning into a major artery, running through the town, and along with the cargo trains, it supplied us, and the whole DownEast coast of Maine north of us, with everything that kept the state growing into the mature and important New England hub it is today.

These memories from childhood are centermost in my mind as I pass through the contorting hours of an evening that feels like my own personal Gethsemane, here emotionally naked and figuratively lying prostrate on the ground; before the hardest thing I have ever faced takes place. 

Nursery rhymes fill my mind. Then I hear the whispers of past girlfriends; the singing of past bandmates; the joys of parties and festivals; the solemn goodbyes to departed friends; the long lasting heartbreaks along with the fleeting echoes of brief triumphs... 

Here with my eyes closed, they all pass through me like a parade crossing over from another street that came from nowhere and is headed back there. 

In my heart I ride my bike again around the innocent streets of my old neighborhood, buy candy at Frosty's, explore the intricate tidal marshes and sweet-smelling wood trails of the Bayview Street peninsula. My young heart is still there, somewhere inside my old one. 

In the last few weeks I have been learning to separate myself from the world that I've so blithely taken for granted and wallked so far across. I have instead become more aware of the epochs and phenomena involved within the ages that passed by our solar system long before there was an earth or any kind of life crawling out of its protected, warm, shallow-water bays. These ancient images (which have nothing to do with any kind of reincarnation) are brought forth and donated to my consciousness by the generosity (or perhaps charity?) of the Spark at this time—like a gift, from the places and times from whence it once participated. They are far too foggy for me to clearly observe and far too complex for my simple human mind to comprehend, yet. Still, I sit as a witness, awed by Universe events more profound than any that have ever taken place on this planet, as if preparing...for something...just to come. 

The Spark (which is NOT God, nor is it a person, but rather a perfect entity that wants desperately to spiritually fuse with its human host—me, thereby attaining personhood, and by reciprocation, share all of its past eternal experience) tells me that it had already experienced the full lifetimes of several material, human-animal beings on other worlds well-before it's indwelling of my mind. Perhaps it arrived during that first bright morning memory, as I stood by my snoring parents, announced by a train whistle. 

The Sparks – for each of us possesses one – plan out our lives for us long before we are born. They trace our genealogy and well-understand our ancestral lines, as their someday-hosts. They encompass the masterful calculus of all of our possible, but somewhat limited, future, free-will decisions—good and evil. Although they have probably never been on this particular world before, they descend into our minds, holding the vast knowledge about all past eternity. They do not make mistakes. That is up to us.

For the many of us who – through spiritual insight – have been shown these kinds of things about ourselves in one way or another (no matter what terminology we might use to describe it), the temptation is to assume that the Spark looks out at the world through our eyes. 

But a bit of further contemplation eventually reveals that it is the opposite way around. ALL that we see in the world around us is the mixed presentational melody of our personal Spark as we see through it, combined with the Sparks of the people who participate in our life songs, and completed by the collective consciousness of the grand symphony of all other minds (human and otherwise) in our world—from the insects, even up through the countless orders of non-material and spirit beings who share our Cosmos. There is no other outside world. It is ONE thing.

The most surprising thing I have glimpsed of late (something I never suspected until being so close to the potential reality of my own death), is that – in cooperation with the Spark's original plans for me – I have literally co-created this world, with the Spark. Not just my world, but THE world—even all the starry realms above and around the world. For, I am already fused with the Spark somewhere in the future. I am remembering myself as an earthling. Funny huh?

Amazingly, each of us has done this, and is doing this right now for ourselves! Our lives are just as happy, desperate, painful, and hopeful as we personally need them to be, in order to achieve oneness with our Sparks. 

I have found that so many of the things I prayed for as a child have happened in the world (despite the apparently very recent global setbacks that are currently driving us all crazy), besides just having them happen in my personal life. There are SO many, in fact, that I can no longer write them off as a coincidence. Yes, the influence of other minds has made an effect as well, and the over-mind of collective consciousness has laid down the parameters that my single will, alone, cannot override, it will take all of our efforts. Yet, this is MY world and YOURS, created by consciously or unconsciously aligning our Wills with the Spark's plan for human evolution. And now I have verified it (at least for myself) within the future memory of my own Soul.

Somehow, the Spark (with my own superconscious agreement) ordered up a life that was to be so challenging and difficult as to forge a hardened spiritual steel, enduring enough to build an indestructible and eternal self-identity (my Soul). 

I barely made it through to the halfway mark of the standard human lifetime and now have the wonderful gift of anticipating the clearest of points; one where I might actually be liberated from the animal flesh I have used as a life vehicle. In this way, I am confident that I have built a Soul that will be able to survive as a non-material, solid energy manifestation, fully prepared for a new existence and all the adventures that will entail.

Some folks cannot stand the idea that there are ever-higher levels of adventure above this one, and I can honestly relate. They will say that I'm wrong and there is no new beginning. And, that is okay! I am not sure what this limitation means for them—from the perspective of the cosmology I have described above. However, thankfully, it is not for me to say, nor to judge, in the same way that I must avoid the temptation of finding their premature judgement of my belief system to be brutish and primitive. 

We must all make leaps of faith. Everlasting ascension and experiential perfection is one leap. And materialist humanism is another leap. There is no difference in the act of leaping, only in the destination it leads to.

If there is no overlying meaning to our living existence, then it seems to me that there is nothing frightening at all about the sweet, brown, if suffocating, peace of death and thence dying nonexistence. It is simply the allowance for ZERO. Materialism is a real comfort for millions of people in the drowsy, lowering of the light at the end of the life movie—satisfying and perfect, I suppose, in its own way.

When I become New and prove to myself that the future was meant to include me, will you join me there? Could it be here on earth? Could it be as a team in the next existence? I genuinely think it is a simple yes or no decision. Maybe you can see from my experience just how necessary YOU are to OUR New beginning? Maybe not.

I'm done writing the song of life on this very night. And I have finally come to peace with its imperfections. Only the time lag makes me like Schrodinger's cat, a super-positional, quantum waveform in space time—both alive and dead in your future observation of me by late tomorrow afternoon. 

I choose to believe that because I can surmise such a situation at all—knowing full well that time is an illusion, I WILL indeed live, whether you continue to see me here or not.

So, it is with exceeding happiness and confidence that I attempt to heal this broken heart! 

I do very much surrender myself entirely to my destiny whatever it may be, and submit my Soul to the final Will of the Infinite Parents who once cast the Sparks out into the darkness of experiential time and space. 

One of those Sparks now has my eternal promise to merge with it and become a New Being. I will also complete the promise I made to my friends here.

I will wear my Soul on the outside. 

And if it is okay with the Creator to wake up back in the flesh, it will be as a new kind man, one who has been allowed to reenter the world with a final and sanctioned mission.

Then, I believe, something separate but very special, will soon arrive to help us wake up our whole world...

* * * * * * *

LOVE is the Light of the Spark

The IWALLK Essays - 1. Strange Simplicity

I once heard that heroin addiction mercifully reduces the complexities of the modern world for the user. It focuses a person's attention on one thing. It can actually be a type of freedom--at least freedom from everything else... The further one falls into its grasp, the more one realizes just how many other things aren't necessary as long as this one need is met each day.

It is said that the addicted one is lazy and can't hold down a job. But that's not true at all! One sometimes has to make a significant amount of money each day in order to support the habit, whether that be a legal job, or begging, borrowing, or stealing. Any of those things can be a "job."

It is too bad that his or her needs have been so misplaced. Yet, it does show just how financially ambitious a person can be when they really need something. Strangely, it also shows what the (unfortunate, in this case) simplification of life can do for a person. And truthfully, it just is what it is. We are where we are--each of us. And each person is different of course. Some addicted folks manage to live relatively "normal" lives even into old age. As we've seen more frequently lately, other people cannot find their way out and risk their lives every day on an ever-shortening, one way road. It does not help that the presence of super-powerful substances like fentanyl and carfentanil are mixed into what is supposed to be heroin, making every dose unpredictably deadly, due to very real risk of overdose. This is a situation that would be cured by the regulatory forces of legalization. but that's a digression for another essay.

Unfortunately, this kind of simplicity also rules the lives of people who have no say in the matter. Disability can do this too. Someone paralyzed from the waist down and restricted to a wheelchair can never walk up a flight of stairs. And therefore, any more complex lifestyle that includes the use of regular stairways is not part of his or her life. Without assigning moral value to the inherited or learned limitations each of us have in life, often times the simplicity of a situation can be the only relief.

I myself am feeling the restrictions of my own developing disability. I've learned that without a major medical intervention, my life is going to become involuntarily simpler and simpler--meaning my choices are going to become more and more limited. Each day I get out of bed with a million things I want to do, but then I remember to go slow or pay the price. It isn't an option anymore. Sometimes, I get discouraged and just sit, thinking about how I can more efficiently accomplish what I don't have the energy to accomplish, and then the day is gone.

My situation is kind of like an inverted version of the addicted life. I am addicted to my projects, but this one medical thing is forcing me to simplify not only my daily plans, but also to anticipate a more realistic next five years' worth of effort toward what have been my personal life goals. We all have something to limit us. This is my limitation.

This awkward situation is made doubly so, due to the philosophy I have developed about applying the ideals of comfortably downsizing for financial stability in order to afford sustaining myself by my creative efforts alone. I am SO close to achieving this for myself, that I even dream of setting up ways to help other conscientious objectors to conventionality in their own fight for freedom, maybe allowing many others to find a lifestyle that even sustains happiness.

In other words, it seems like cheating for me to drive, when I found that walking was the ultimate means of personal transportation. But I have no choice at all anymore. In a terrible irony for me personally, walking (the thing I love the most and has been so healthy for me--the center upon which this very blog is built) is the hardest thing for me to do now.

I have to participate in a frightening health care system that I find over respected, overpaid, impersonal and accounting for more covered-up and willfully ignored error than any other comparable for-profit industry. This is after my years of railing about how many ways I can't trust the system. Now I have to literally trust the rest of my life to it. And, there will be more errors.

Overcoming the feeling of hypocrisy for abandoning such publicly espoused ideals has been one of my greatest challenges lately. Why can't it be okay to retire from walking, by driving, in the same way I retired from being houseless by building a home? Why can't I simply accept that the requirement of being poked and prodded by clinicians I can hardly trust is most important if I want to still do things that are relevant in the world and or instructive for myself and others?

As I am finally back in the medical system for the first time in two years, I suppose that shows my mind is made up, whether I am admitting it or not. I'm participating in the American Game involuntary now, even as I know for a fact is destroying many aspects of life on earth has to be my fate.

I am proud of the years (fully accounted for here at this blog) that I walked away from reasonless conventionality and needless materialism. My sometimes radical and risky exploits in wallking around the nation were to prove that the world is not as we have been told it is. I literally saw my the increasing complexity of our country from the outside and told you all about it from a simpler viewpoint. Many times a day my mind is distracted by a scene or image from the days of those Journeys. To be able to go to hundreds of different areas of the country in my own mind now and relive the adventure, is one of my greatest gifts.

This summer was going to be an opportunity to expand the development of my property. But instead, my focus is pretty much entirely upon reinforcing my shelter; turning it into a house and preparing for next winter. And, the ironies continue to arise. Where I walked in and out of my land to the main road last winter in snow shoes, even when painful--the simplest means of travel, I must now find a different way. So, I bought a Jeep to be my glorified wheelchair. The only logical thing left to do is have a cheap snowmobile next winter that I can drive out to the edge of the seasonally-impassable private road, where I will park my Jeep. Then I'll take the Jeep where I need to go and return to the parking spot for a snowmobile ride back to my house. This all costs money and I am becoming less able to earn a living.

I am doing everything I can to arrange funds, including applying to Social Security for disability. I think I can eventually pull it all together, so that I am at least able to survive materially. If I am able to find a procedure that improves my heart function, I will immediately return to my more lofty goals, which include creating a way for at-risk people to be set up with simple, turnkey homes, as I am doing for myself.

The development of SoftAcres (my land) - with it's comfortable cabin (coming soon), plenty of power with no electric bill (as it is now), plenty of water with no water bill (as it is now), no-waste sewage (as it is now), then with the addition of an organic garden and solar heated radiant flooring - is the prototype for these turnkey homes, what I am calling, "Homes for Good." No lifestyle I know of which still allows for complete personal freedom could be simpler than an ecologically friendly, no-rent nor mortgage, free powered, free watered, free heated, place to begin a new life...or end an old one.

My success will prove the efficacy of the concept. My situation even now already does prove that it is possible for a houseless person to find a home and live so reasonably and sustainably. With a very small carbon footprint, existing in tune with nature and so inexpensively allows a person to work at whatever he or she wants to makes this simple life as idyllic as any life can be. In fact, it even shows how a physically disabled person – like myself - can live an independent life.

Simplicity can be strange. It can be the only thing that works sometimes. Or, it can be the last resort. My hope though, is that someday people will make it their first choice.

Life at SoftAcres 06/21/19 - A Solstice Summary

By summer solstice, life at SoftAcres was becoming the psycho-spiritual sanctuary it had been for the last summer seasons--but even moreso. This next year - from August 2019 to July 2020 - will be the last year of my mortgage. It is almost unbelievable to me, that my plan to eliminate as many monthly expenses as possible is working, while continuing to live a relatively comfortable and aptly appointed (meaning, that I enjoy having the utilities that most Americans have) existence. On July 21, 2020, I will have no rent or mortgage, no water bill and no electric bill. Can you, reading this, imagine what savings are possible when these expenses are eliminated? 

As of yesterday, it was reported on NPR that 45 million Americans are "rent burdened," meaning they spend over 50% of their household income on rent (personal financial counselors instead suggest it should be no more than 30% of household income). This is especially true for Millenials, the poor, the elderly, and minimum wage workers--some are burdened even when both parents are working fulltime and parttime jobs!  There are many complex reasons for this rent burden. 

Gentrification has become the major issue in many cities. Often, San Francisco is held up as the symbol for how gentrification has been pushing even the middle class out. Yet, this same process has been unfolding even in my own state of Maine. Housing in Cumberland County in particular is being bought up, where the lower income people are being evicted or otherwise forced out of even the most modest rental spaces, which are then re-rented to higher earning families...

Portland, Maine, the "other" Portland, is a desirable city to live in if you don't mind the chilly winters. It shows up on a lot of lists: Most Livable Cities, Hippest Cities, Healthiest Cities, Foodie-est Cities, etc. And that makes it a desirable location for the well-to-do to relocate. The problem is that there is only a limited housing stock to accommodate the incoming hordes of affluent people seeking to live in the attractive oceanside city. The result is that newcomers battle longtime residents for housing, and housing costs go up. Among the largest 100 metropolitan areas, Portland, Maine had the second largest rise in rental rates in the U.S. Rents rose 17.4%, the median rent in Portland rising to $1582, more than much larger Philadelphia and Chicago. With many hundreds of new families relocating to the city every year, a housing shortage has worsened, and the rent increases have driven the working class out of town in droves. Portland’s vacancy rate is near zero. Meanwhile shelters for the homeless are overflowing with citizens unable to compete with newcomers who consider the $1600 rents cheap by their former standards. The city has been struggling to come up with workable options to increase affordable housing without impacting Portland’s “livability.” Meanwhile, as rents have increased 40% in the past five years, Mayor Ethan Strimling has acknowledged that there was a $500 gap between what people make in Portland and what they can afford to pay for housing.

[Salon.com]

We should consider all the above while acknowledging that more people are choosing to rent, rather than be bound to a traditional mortgage. When I was a child it was still possible to pay off a mortgage before retirement. By the time I graduated from college in the mid 1990's, unsecured credit was being thrown at everyone and their pet! The economy changed from a capital based system to an entirely debt based state by the banks. People were getting second mortgages, equity loans, and maxing out credit cards. America was awash in personal debt by the turn of the century. 

I often asked myself how I would ever live a financially stable life without selling my soul to an employer, losing my personal freedom to obligations to banks, and/or feeling the hypocrisy of working for an industry (ironically, the financial industry itself) whose behavior and policies I didn't ethically or morally agree with. It was the American Game, and I grew to despise it. The answer I came up with and developed to this point had quitting that Game as a first step, and then replacing it as a personal, and spiritual goal. This blog records that entire process.

My motivation was ultimately an artistic one...or, more appropriately, a musical one. Just before leaving my synthetic, yet socially expected lifestyle, I realized that writing and recording music was the thing I had always wanted since I was a child. I believed that my music was more important to me than any other work I could do. It may or may not have been a perfect strategy (i.e. putting my music on hold entirely, by quitting the conventionality that was then seriously affecting my health), but in less than ten years I was at least able to find a place where musical creativity could begin again. Now as long as I can establish the positive habits needed to resurrect my art--my craft, my music (an already-30 year parttime career). I may actually achieve what I set out to do in 2011.

In a practical sense, let me state very strongly--and more succinctly, what the whole point has been...

In 2011 I was dying physically, emotionally and spiritually by trying to live up to the conventional standards of friends, family and the flawed American society I felt enslaved to. I made the will choice to dump it all, long enough to remake my individual material life, so that I might afford to write and create perpetually until my death or old age--whichever came first. For me, this required leaving my music on the sidelines. During this last decade, I felt that I needed to choose to ignore my musical creativity in order to reestablish it someday as my primary activity again, or it (music) would distract me and I would never build a solid foundation to properly support it. This in-between time included all of the cross country Journeying described in the archives of this blog. It has been artistically frustrating, often sad, and a voluntarily risky endeavor. The risk was that I might be tempted to give up music entirely. Now that the goal of creating again is within sight--due to the development of of a truly affordable life, I feel the attraction of future melodies and harmonies pulling me back to my musical love.

* * *

As the days grew toward the longest sunlight hours, I focused on continuing to construct a more stable shelter, maybe one that will eventually become my first official house. I had finally gotten MaineCare (Maine's Medicare expansion program), and for the first time since moving to Farmington, I was able to actually have affordable healthcare. I even had an eye exam and have nice new eyeglasses. Naturally, making up for living with untreated heart disease and other conditions, suddenly took up quite a bit of my daytime hours...and still does. But it was/is all for the best--even with a certain amount of permanent damage seemingly required, as I may talk about in the next post.

Because my physiological energy has been about 50% as compared to last year, there has been a limit on property development. I was and still am happy if I get two basic goals achieved each day, here on the land.

I'd toyed with the idea of using stone in my construction, so I'm fooling around, just to learn and practice some masonry. First, was to collect and pile up enough stones to cover the front of the sunroom, so that I know how many will be needed when I get ready to use concrete...  

Last year's simple setup for rain harvesting was still perfectly effective. And I was once again able to collect ~20 gallons of water per 1/2" of rainfall. After experimenting with various water use systems and filtering (as seen in last year's posts), I've settled on a temporary water use model...

KINDS OF WATER

1. Filtered Rainwater - This is harvested as clean, fresh, 1x filtered rainwater. It is used for bathing, washing dishes, and when needed, potable for boiling, cooking or coffee. It is drinkable in an emergency--preferably going through 1 or more filtering (using activated charcoal if possible), but not preferred for drinking. It is stored in a 20 gallon tank.

2. Unfiltered Rainwater - This is harvested as fresh, unfiltered rainwater. It may contain insects and plant material. It is used for watering and combining with fertilizer to feed consumable plants. It could theoretically be filtered and used like number 1 above. It is stored in a 55 gallon barrel, and then transferred to smaller containers as necessary.

3. Drinking water - For now, this can be purchased or filled at a pump station, which is then added to a small inside tank. While the average person uses about 5 gallons per day of household water for washing and other needs, actual drinking water amounts are very small, by comparison. I myself literally drink less than half a gallon a day of plain water or mixed as lemonade. A person with an EBT card and the transportation required to move moderate amounts spring water, is all set with about $0.50 worth per day. Again, in an emergency (or, someday, as my final setup will include), one need not even buy any water, as long as a good reliable household filtering system is in place to clean harvested water.

4. Greywater - All used water (after washing or bathing) is collected as non potable and non drinkable water. It is used to add moisture to the compost (assuming one uses environmentally safe cleaning products and soap), and/or is used to water trees and other plants on the property. If there is excess greywater, it is channeled to a leach field about 40 feet down the eastern edge of the property... 

The two rain harvesters; each with approximately 50 sf of collection area.

On the top shelf is number 2 water--unfiltered.

One the second shelf is where number 3 water--drinking/spring water is stored.

Also note that I have a great workbench now (tarp covered table), which

doubles as a storage area container with space underneath.

The added sunroom has been a real antidote to the dreariness of the winter-past. It is screened in now on the front and side, with opaque white vinyl walls and door. The room is a huge improvement from last year's leaky outdoor kitchen area...

Sera - "Ahpla"

Sera - "Ateb"

I was fortunate to find a brand new propane double burner cook stove at Reny's. 

Outside, we can now see the addition of a door!

And, with the new doorknob, I can finally be "indoors" on my own land! Ha!

On these warm sunny days the sky never fails to deliver a beautiful and unique sunset each evening, beyond the fields and behind the mountains. This one was especially red...

The sun turned Golden Hour into Copper Hour

I just set up my lights around the perimeter of the inside of the shelter. I love to see the colors interact with each other and how they glow behind the different materials...

Thank you so much for reading and keeping up with these posts! If you enjoy watching this project develop and can afford to contribute a little, please consider buying a book or making a donation through PayPal by choosing your option at the top of the page! 

L O V E

Life at SoftAcres 06/14/19 - Slow Progress is Good Progress

The leaves had filled in nearly all the space that cut the border between my land and the open field to the west. This meant a great reduction in heavy wind gusts that wracked the shelter over the winter. The trees also made for beautiful daily filtering of the sunset... 

The sunroom was coming together. Construction was pretty straightforward and simplistic...

I'd decided to take a break from eating beef, pork, and chicken. I was sick of them. It isn't a "diet," but it does have some foundation in both health and philosophy. Several times I've tried to be fully vegetarian, but gave up--usually, because I was unable to buy food and needed to eat anything I could. Meat is simply the cheapest and most efficient source of nutrients. In the month I was at the cabin I overate. Where I had only been eating one to two moderate meals per day, in April I was eating three large meals a day! And, bear in mind that I was no longer walking into town and back each day either. After gaining about 25 pounds, I decided to experiment with a mostly vegetable, fish and dairy sources of protein. If for nothing more, than just variety. But there is more. There is evidence that the iron in red meat can actually make a person even hungrier. I was wondering why I would crave more food, even after a large steak. I'd been having red meat several times a week for years. I also know that meat production is one of the largest greenhouse gas releasers. Why not take a break. I needed to eat only once a day again, but this time with as much of a non meat regiment as possible.

I've always loved meat alternatives, so it was fun to find as many kinds as I could. My favorite thing is super firm tofu. I press it and fry it up, add it to Asian stir fries and Indian curry dishes, and even marinate it in teriyaki sauce then make sandwiches with swiss cheese and sprouts with mayonnaise on whole grain bread. Veggie burgers are good too. I like "Crumbles" (which are like ground burger)...

Angel hair pasta, with veggie crumbles, with live forevers and pesto, on swiss cheese.

And here's a funny thing. I found an old blank 1996 appointment book and checked, and YES!, the days just happen to match 2019! Ha!

I also found the first tick I'd seen in two years, on me...

The next day I was determined to organize my herbs and screen in the windows of the sunroom...

It will be nice to have all the herbs right in the summer kitchen.

Store bought celery hearts that I rooted after eating the big pieces.

Basil.

Sage.

Parsley.

Tarragon.

Cilantro.

Mint.

Live forevers.

Clover.

Violate leaves.

Chives.

The Queens.

The Totem Pole.

Honoring my old cat, Buddy.

Queenfood.

Later in the day I went out to Walmart and bought some screen, then finished screening in the sunroom, and putting up other plastic...

Strange that I already felt used to the set up that was just now forming around me. It was - as many things lately have been - like a memory coming in from the future... Somehow I have lived all of this before...