these are personal essays written after the publication of the novel The Nights for Agapanthus. www.agapanthus.4t.com

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I have been thinking much lately about individual responsibility. How much we are responsible for in our our actions, and how factors such as our genetic make-up, our early training and traumas, as well as current pressures, cause us to act as we do.
posted by Kenneth James at 1:45 PM [edit]

Things I wish I hadn't done

Anyway, as I said in a recent chapter, I find myself now in a situation in which all of the things I had tried so hard to obtain in my life, and did obtain to some degree in some measure, are threatened. What were those things, and which are most threatened? The whole basket of things that I obtained follows: namely a professional career, money, security, a place in society, a knowledgeable stance in regard to the issues that move, shape, and direct our society, knowledge of myself, and confidence in myself as a talented marketing strategist, creative director, and conceptual artist, photographer, and filmmaker, and a comfortable relationship with and ability to satisfy my needs for excitement and sensuality, usually expressed in athletic activities like swimming nude, skiing and sailing, and in dancing, listening to music, watching ballet, cooking, eating, drinking wine, and having sex. This is a quick list, but you get the point.

What is threatened now is more or less everything to do with society, or with other people. The skills are not threatened, but the ability to practice those skills, take those stances and enjoy those activities, as my career has ground to a halt, and even worse, every shred of money that I had squirreled away has disappeared through the profligacy, abysmal stupidity, blind selfishness or sheer avariciousness of two women, my now ex-wife and my girlfriend/fiancee. Yes, of course, with friends like these….

Now, this thought brings up another topic, namely, that of control. Should I have taken more control in my relationship with these women? My overall experience is that even the most primitive of people, or possibly I should say, particularly these, are sensitive to being dictated to. So am I. I don't think anybody likes it, except soldiers and football players and dedicated followers, which leaves out the two women and a host of colleagues, to which this paragraph pertains. It might be preferable in fact to only involve oneself in or to create situations in which one does not have to exercise undo controlling behaviors in order to obtain the desired results. This is within my realm of experience. I have seen and participated in efficient, easily manoeuvrable social organizations.

Is this clear? Namely, when you find yourself having to become strident, screechy voiced or overly demanding in order to obtain results within social mechanisms, such as relationships, marriages, companies, or even sailing teams, one must realize that one is on the wrong team. Let this team go its way, depart company, and go on to another, a better, a more suitable team.

That my wife was completely ignorant of the workings of personal finance, or of contemporary mainstream client relationships, due to her prior immersion in either crime families or departments of state within the US government, which amounts to the same thing, was not my problem originally. However, once I recognized this situation it created a rather largish issue impinging on emotional, social and intellectual spheres, not to say financial for me.

These tangled issues went something like this: either I can treat my wife as though she is socially and intellectually retarded, and acknowledging this, completely ignore any input she has regarding any issue of substance in our lives, or I can try to work around her difficult if not impossible demands, and otherwise, treat her as peer, an adult companion, the helpmeet of Biblical lore I hoped I was marrying, and indeed she was competent in many, many areas, just not the more essential practical ones mentioned above.

I chose the later course of peer to peer, not being willing to either create greater hostility through demeaning behavior on my part, or to continue living with someone whom I was treating like a child. Of course, the consequences, however preferable in the short-term, were disastrous socially and financially and emotionally in the long term, as I was systematically stripped of every shred material belonging that I had, either through her continued profligacy and selfishness, or through the actions of her criminally inclined family.

So, should I have in fact taken more control, or should I simply have "opted out." More and more I am thinking that one of these courses would have been preferable to the ones I chose. I recall in particular l a dinner meeting I had with a youngish female colleague on my staff. She was upset and complained that I was a martinet, a dictator, a non-collaborative setter of goals who charged ahead, threatening to fire those either incapable of or unwilling to follow with adroit rapdity. I replied that given the intense competition in the international advertising agency scene, that I was just trying to keep our agency at top par, and to keep as many people employed as possible, without having to resort to layoffs.

When she excused herself to go to the ladies room, a somewhat older man at another table came over to me, and said, "I overheard your conversation, and if I may comment, I was in Korea, and you were just buried under the biggest pile of feminist crap I have ever heard in my life." Well, I am not sure he had got the point either, but there, in his comments, you see the extent of the dichotomy we face in attempting to find the useful mean. In retrospect, I think, rather than trying for another 18 months very unhappily to work with this woman and her like-minded colleagues, I should have looked for another job, thus freeing myself from demoralizng performance reviews that stated that I was "almost military in my expectations of other staff members," and that I " was not working with our people." Both statements may have been true, but I am not apologetic, and I would have been fired by these critical upper managers if the performance I achieved from "our staff" had been any less.

The Bible says, to paraphrase, "Don't be in contractual relationships with people who don't believe as you do," and I think this is good advice. The "working around" option that I have tried to employ for some many years, I think is fundamentally flawed. Though I have been able to get a few more cylinders engaged, I think my efforts would have been more efficient, my life happier, and the subsequent disasters less hazardous if I had simply opted out when I found myself faced with under- or non-achievers, or in company with those whose goals and priorities were significantly different than my own. The 12 step-programs and some hip yogic philosophers say it slightly differently, and again to paraphrase, "You can neither change another person, nor live their life for them, so stop trying! Let them be themselves, and you be yourself, and if there is a large area of shared interest within this formula, great, if not, split."

Shakespeare's play "Julius Cesar" begins with a scene of two people drowning together in a river, the one trying to save the other. This is taken as an omen against becoming involved in overwhelming situations. A successful director of avant garde films advised not working with people less intelligent than you are, for they will misunderstand, mistrust and despise you. The late radical psychologist Fritz Perls said it this way, "I am not in this world to listen to your constant yammering. If you and I can find common ground, and discover things we enjoy together, great. If not, see you later!"

While the wisdom of these statements was always fairly clear to me on the surface, in my present situation, it is almost luminescent, if not prescient. So, for my part, I wish I hadn't hung around trying to make the best out of doomed, significantly flawed, or less than great situations. We all know that feeling of being in a situation where the people and events suit us well. Why do we settle for less? Why did I? Fear of the alternatives or of the consequences of leaving? Or perhaps, even more unfortunately, those of us who suffered from varying degrees of abusive, non-supportive, or dysfunctional family upbringings or schools, often find the less than ideal situation cozy, because it is so familiar. We do not seek the better because the uncomfortable actually suits us. Feels more comfortable than daring to change. Feels safer, perhaps, than speaking out, striking back, doing something else. Alas.

posted by Kenneth James at 2:04 AM [edit]

Choices, Inactions, Sloppiness, and Wounds

I am contemplating a major piece of artwork, major in that it will be fairly large, and major in that it will be confrontational. Perhaps too confrontational to hang in my own home, where it's message will be seen, as it is partly intended, to be an accusation. I am feeling less mellow than when I wrote www.agapanthus.4t.com

But, more to the point, is confrontation a bad, an immoral, or a sleazy thing? Is confrontation, is hostility, is the recognition of injury or of injustice wrong, too controversial, or unworthy of a person of spiritual leanings? I ask this not because all of the spiritual leaders we have today seem to shy away from what I would call worldly, real, meaningful, or political concerns. They voice concern over tame issues, prayer in schools, or the death penalty, that affect few people in significant ways. And they shy away from damning the Russian involvement in Chechnya, or from criticising indifference toward global warming, the lack of global universal education and the wholesale slaughter of animals and the natural environment.

So here, I, a teacher of the path to spiritual enlightenment, of spiritual truths, of mind body integration, not only contemplate but plan, and design a confrontational art work to expose, to bring to the light, to cause discussion and recognition of, in my own home of perceived injustices. Of injustices perceived my me, to have been committed against me.

It is not so much the issue that Selene, the perpetrator in this case, is more loving, kinder, and more sympathetic than were in many respects the other lovers, wives, girlfriends I have lived with. That is and was my problem

Nor that I am shackled into this relationship for the purpose of feeling loved and wanted. That I might perhaps be better off alone, is uncertain, but that she and I would both be better off more independent of each other is sure. As would most other people in general for this is the real difficulty

Being dependent as we are on each other, and also being interdependent keeps us bound together. While at core, we are all alone in spirit, and can only find our true selves in a state of solitary mediation, whether that is a moment of reverie when listening to music, watching a film or meditating, or watching the sun set over the surface of a lake. Even when dancing with a loved one, or in a loving embrace, or in the act of love itself, though the moment is enhanced by the presence of the other, our reverie in that moment is our own.

This giving up of freedom for other things, other perceived receipts, is awkward, demeaning and humiliating to me at this time. Who I ask understands or appreciates me, other than indeed myself at this moment. No one. And the answer is perhaps the same for everyone on the face of the earth, and yet we pretend to ourselves that we are the center of the world to other people. That we are best friends, spouse, girlfriend, colleague, when in fact all this matters hardly at all.

We scrape and bow to gain favor, and we shed any trace of dignity.

Further, most of what we have done in our brief lives has been wrong. This is a major breakthrough of awareness, and I am not trying to or even suggesting that we be depressed or guilty about this. Maybe it is even liberating to realize it. But it is true, is it not? Get over trying to show how all your decisions fit nicely into one smooth tangent fitting into another. In all probability your life has been one of total chaos and it will certainly end that way, despite your, my or anyone else's attempts to candy coat it. We will either die gasping horribly for breath, shaking violently in paroxysms of a stroke, in anguishing pain from a heart attack, in excruciating aching and weakness caused by cancer, or in some milder delirious state caused by drugs to ameliorate these other conditions.

Again, I am not trying to be depressing. I am just trying to step up to the plate of reality in what I see as a world in which fewer of us are at all able to admit to, acknowledge, recognise or distinguish anything resembling the truth of our own lives.

And basically the problem is one of culture. A culture of denial. The woman who cries all the way home from being drunkenly mauled by a so-called lover she spent Saturday night in a bar with, who mistreats and despises her, is a victim of her own inability to extract herself from the cultural shrouds she has encased herself in. Within which she feels strangled, but unwilling to escape. (http://issestars.diaryland.com) We are all, or many of us, like this. No?

So, Selene's having spent some several months of living expenses, paying for an apartment in Rome, in which we no longer live, was to me the dropping of several thousands of dollars into the toilette bowl of oblivion. She poured my lifeblood there so that we now cannot afford to go back and close up the house, and we are financially strapped, unable to pay but a few weeks more rent here. There are a large number of our things, my things, which we will never see again because we cannot afford now to go to Rome to get them, and would not be allowed to, in anycase, without paying the rent.

So I am designing a painting of me lying naked on the filthy floor of the world, my legs straddling a toilette bowl, while floating above me, a blond-haired angel casts thousands of dollars into the toilette, whilst I groan, dying in weakening agony. Written on the toilette are the words "for Roma," so Selene will know for sure that I am referring to her spending all that money for an apartment in which we no longer lived, no longer lived for 15 months, in fact, no longer lived for $6,400 worth of rent and facilities payments. Enough money to keep us safe and sound, dry and secure here in France for another six and a half months, while we try to get the design business up and running, while we take a few days off in summer to go swimming. But these are options no more.

Maybe I would not feel so badly if there was a good excuse for having wasted all this money, but if there is, I do not know it and she has not communicated it to me. That she delayed her planned trip to close up the house on several occasions because she wanted to see her other boyfriends here or there during that month is not so much irritating, as it is now, in the face of the wastage, an outrage.

Another complicating factor in all of this, my intuition, the voice, said not to contradict Selene's instincts in all this, and to remain silent, so I did, though when I brought it up in September she cried and told me to back off, and when I brought it up in January, she said she was going back to Rome in a few days. That was six months ago, $2,700 ago. So, my own intuition is complicit in all of this, since I did bite my tongue for much of the last 15, and certainly for the last five months.

And who knows, maybe there is some ameliorating factor here, a blessing, a miracle, a painting to be discovered that will be worth thousands, which if events hadn't transpired exactly as they did, would not have been available. Who knows? Maybe I will be rejoicing instead of seething and mourning.

But for the moment, I am almost completely without money, due to the inactions of another. Precious money, whose preciousness I did not appreciate with such intensity earlier. So here is already one benefit. I doubt that after this minute, I will ever again be also frivolous about money.

And as I write this I think of my wife, who took all the money I could give her, and then her family took more, and in her divorce settlement, she took every last cent that was not already here in Europe with me and Selene. And I writhe in anger and I spit venom in vehement despising of her and her family that this has happened to me, and I want to write her letters full of hatred, full of thoughts of the most violent and bloody revenge.

All of these are about the absence now of the precious money whose energy had the power of life to lift me from here, take me to the beach and let me swim in the sea, rent a piano, have my teeth cleaned. So I am also filled with thoughts about all the money I wasted at various times in my life, taking both success, and nice, expensive things or rare moments for granted, and with thoughts about the bad decisions, wrong steps I made, that have inexorably led me here. So I will perhaps write another chapter or two about these two areas, of self-injury, which together explain why my once full bank account is now empty. I lie, instead, on my back, staring up at the ceiling of a public urinal, dying, while my blood pours into the toilette.

Some would say I went too far, what do you think? If I were to scream with my next to last breath, at these two women, "You stupid fucking bitch" Is that too much to pass the lips of a holy man? Is that an ungenerous attitude or stance?

But since people respond much more to love, I do not scream this at Selene, who stands looking sweet, attractive and forlorn, barefooted as she does the dishes, I cooked the dinner, F.Y.I., and I feel genuinely sorry for her sadness, and attracted to her, and loving towards her, though my own injury is still at the front of my mind, and in my heart, as a sadness, a sense that I am wounded.

I am calm now. I am no longer angry. Grant me a moment of peace in my last few seconds of life. The cool of the bathroom floor feels good against my back. I am beginning to black out and to embrace my demise calmly, reverently here on this altar.

Bordeaux, June 14, 2001

posted by Kenneth James at 7:56 PM [edit]

Culmination, decision day

Can we assume that if you see a beautiful picture, even a scene in a film, perhaps of a beautiful landscape, by a lake, a river, or a beautiful beach, that the people in this picture are relatively happy, that they are not fretting with the anxiety that someone on an assembly line, or someone caught in traffic, or riding an empty subway train at night, or arguing with their spouse in a really dirty apartment, might be fretting with? Does that seem like a natural and realistic assumption? Does it? It does to me.

Yet, just minutes ago, I was on the banks of the Garonne River, in one of the most beautiful parks in the world, the air cool and still, the sun hot, people lying in the lovely lush lawns, tree limbs bending over to the water, and I was in a state of almost complete mental and emotional hysteria, and physical tension. I was distraught, beside myself and ready to do violence, or if not, certainly ready to contempalte it. Is this because I live on the Garonne, see it everyday, and its wondrous beauty no longer has the capacity to calm me? Anyway, it was a beautiful scene, and I was completely upset, though I admit I was restored partly by being out there, absorbing its beauty, and by ruminating on my anxieties.

I know what happiness is, maybe for the first time in my life. I used to grit my teeth and slog through the newest difficulty, hoping to get through it to the endurable, tolerable existence that I had known before. I was going from known status of okness to known status of okness. But I was not really holding out for joy, or anything like it, because I didn't know it. Perhaps, I was seeking a kind of fulfilment, an imagined level of activity and compatibility that seemed enticing. A new girlfriend, a new job, a good feeling about myself. Close to happiness perhaps.

But now what I seek is palpable, I can feel it, I know it, and I will know it if and when I see it again. I am seeking days lying on the rocks in the Aegean, listening to the lapping waters, swimming in the cool blue seas, drying in the sun on the rocks. Playing with my cats in the garden, eating simple dinners outdoors. Walking to the market. Reading, writing, and possibly taking the bus to Athens to do business. Maybe this is too specific an image.

Let's just say, I would like a beautiful room, a wonderfully responsive piano, and a deep water beach, warm air, and days of swimming, and eating good food without the anxiety, anger, frustration, humiliation and self doubt that grips me now.

The cottage in Rome. My intuition said not to hassle Selene, and I didn't, but now, at this moment, it looks like we are out thousands of dollars, which costs us all kinds of freedom and choice, plus all the belongings in the cottage, a great handsome suit, my best pair of dress shoes, a leather jacket, all my notebooks, some great CDs and a stereo, not that all this has that much monetary value, but why, if I am not to return to Rome now, did I spend all this money, or sit by while Selene spent it, to have not the things, not the cottage, and no money. If there is sense to my intuition telling me to keep silent, it is not evident at this moment.

Right now, I would rather that I had said "Go to Rome immediately, get everything, and close up the house." About 15 months ago. So, why am I here in this state of agony instead, having listened to my intuition. I would rather have the money or the ability to go to Italy right now. As it stands, I can't even go to the beach here, so broke am I.

So, in addition to being frustrated, upset, disappointed in my current state, there is this whole other thing about following my intuition. So many things come up here today in no particular order, all equally important to the heart and mind, about hearing, listening to, and following the guidance of my intuition.

Don't go to Bordeaux -- this is related to the whole issue of following my intuition, the voice, very carefully, which I have been resentfully not doing completely of late. I came to Bordeaux out of a sense of frustration about what else to do, having heard very strongly for three or four months, "Don't go to Bordeaux, don't live at Allen's apartment for the summer." I know I have mentioned this elsewhere, somewhere, but then of course, off we did set, having left La Rochelle, having decided to live there, having fallen in love with it, we got on the train, and a disastrous train ride it was, and the apartment was locked, the neighbor away, though it all eventually worked out nicely. The point, rather than more or less steadfastly NOT going to Bordeaux, and not going to stay with Allen, we, I, did.
The zen/yogic life -- ok this too, is a biggie. The above entry by the way also refers to those times when I do not follow clear advice from the voice, and when I try to push the voice to give advice that it is not ready to give. And these times tend to occur when I am hung over, or not living the zen life style. E.g., sick. Having had too much non-macrobiotic animal fat, cheese, meat, butter, or perhaps, chocolate the day before. Like last night, going to Allen's after a faintish but also clearish, "don't," because Selene wanted to. And though it did produce an offer to stay at his apt again for the summer, when he goes away, and even into the fall, it also produced some weird events, his putting the dresser out into the street, sort of showing off his new wealth, and even the offer to stay, not without a bit of probably well meant advice, all of which was extremely depressing to both of us. So, given the choice, again, I think I would not go.
My health -- again, related, my health is now in a state of extreme decline, to which I am partially blaming il vocce for not permitting me to go swimming last summer after we got here, and for advocating not going back to Rome for the summer. How can Rome be worse economically than here? Anyway, what with the humidity down here on the river, and admittedly my smoking, now given up again forever, and all the hangovers from all the partying this winter, my health suffered from my not doing my exercises and from my not running, and then the colds, partly brought on by the partying, and then of course, the last and almost fatal blow, the allergic asthma. And though rain or shine, I ate fairly macro, and I walked about ten miles a week, the robustness of my swimmers' body health suffered. So will I jog? Will I start running? Will I go swimming this summer? And if so, where?
This has all been so exhausting that I cannot continue, and will have to continue later, in another chapter.

posted by Kenneth James at 8:02 PM [edit]

Intentions to accommodate the self's needs

It is my intention to find a way to make a living. Possibly less important is how I got to this place, where I am out of money. Yes, I can point to a number of short term factors, most of which are not mentioned in the prior bok, Nights of Agapanthus, http://www.agapanthus.4t.com 1) In the divorce settlement, Alexsaundra took all the money I had saved, which I didn't defend against since I didn't have any money, and didn't want to go into debt or to be a party to this unjust proceeding. This is a story in itself. 2) Selene spent about four or five months rent and living expenses by NOT concluding the arrangements in Roma, paying rent on an apartment where we didn't live. 3) I had anticipated that with the design capabilities we have, professional look, excellent features, avant garde approach, number of people with connections and friends we are meeting that someone would want a web site between last August and now, about ten months come to think of it. But not a single cent. 4) I thought that the clients we had relationships with at that time, would pay their bills, and probably ask for more services. Not a cent. 5) I thought that maybe I would sell a few paintings, and fortunately, I did sell one, for full price. However.

So, if I had known that I would be here, I would have behaved differently, possibly. Though I kept mentioning to Selene to go clear up the Italian situation, and she reacted angrily that I was pushing her, and though I mentioned it at least once every month, --? -- would I have done anything differently in this area??? One issue here was that starting in February, my intuition said not to mention this anymore, so I kept pretty low key, though I did mention it about once a month.

I also thought, this is 6) With all of the various web promotions we were doing, have done, and had planned to do, that our sites would get continuing streams of traffic, and that some of these people, one out of the now more than three hundred, would want a web site, buy a painting, something. No!

Another aspect to this, in addition to second guessing myself, is that I am scared. Maybe more on this later.

Somewhere in here is all the partying, and the sex with others fiasco, which definitely cut a wide swath through my life, all the partying, the writing about sexual liberation, the trying to pick up and date other women here in Bordeaux, in Normandie. So, this was confusing. Though now as it sinks in, it is sobering. Here we have to mention Deek, Le Petite Bateau, and all that, Bernice, Fantoufe, Annabelle. Oh boy, and all the late nights and revelling here, which I honestly thought were leading to meeting people, and there was much of that, and also many hangovers, and eventually no new business, no money from that route, just a lot of web design freebies for artists, and getting to know a lot of people, and getting also to know myself better, who I am and what I really want.

Yes, I love to go out and party and dance, and flirt. I love it as much as any one can ever have loved it. Maybe that is my legacy! I have loved partying, flirting, dancing, trying to get women to sleep with me. Online, inperson, at restaurants, in bars, on the street, in gallery openings, I love cruising, the chat up, getting phone numbers, putting my arm around her, kissing her in the street. I love it.

But it, this lifestyle, has seemed not to contribute to the business aspect of things, and in reality, didn't turn up a lot of real friends or intimacy, and even backfired a bit at times, I think. Possibly Claude and Bridget were turned off when they got the report from their friends that we had tried to pick up at the boat show, and maybe also, Vincent at the Petite Bateau, and of course, the whole Fantoufe fiasco with his brother the restuaranteur, even if that was just a one time fiasco with people we will never see again, it was a bring me down.

I have written about this before recently, and will write more probably. It is evolving and I am learning from it, from my return semi full time to the partying lifestyle that characterised my time in Normandie and now here, about a year and a half, maybe starting in fact, in Roma with Bettina, to whom I should definitely write.

So, the lessons learned are fairly obvious to me, though may sound not very interesting to you. First, I learned finally, now, as stated above, that the pressures on me to pursue this kind of lifestyle were pretty strong, and though I have regretted, doubted, criticized, and second-guessed this lifestyle, now I can finally abandon the regrets, and say, despite all the hang-overs and the other things I might have done instead that this was me, that I wanted to pursue social activity in a party environment, and that I found cocktail parties, bars, gallery openings, and beach parties more interesting than chatting with someone at a macrobiotic dinner or at a booth at a trade show, all things considered. I wanted to boogie!!! I was cruising. I wanted to find attractive women to chat up, to dance with, to affiliate with, to sleep with, and all the excitement that goes with finding someone compatible.

Secondly, the sex with others thing with Selene was a huge pressure on me, and though I feel the pressure less now, it was a bit crushing, and I turned to cigarettes for a temporary rage suppression devise recently, just as I had in my twenties. I would never have thought I would go back to smoking.

So, third, is that smoking, even if everyone you know is smoking, and even if you feel that you have got to smoke, is a no-no, for all the reasons we all know. A related fourth, drinking too much, staying up too late, again, no-no, same reasons. I thought I was well past these lessons, but no. The reasons they kept coming up through my thirties and forties, not to mention in my evr-lovin' twenties, is that I wasn't past them. Further, that in alcohol and tobacco and that ambience, I was looking for music and the forbidden sex, which seemed to lurk hidden within. Not necessarily, but it is confusing, when you and everyone else has 3-4 beers in them and are all swaying, rockin' and clicking your fingers to Purple Haze or Honky Tonk Woman.

Fifth, this is the really big one, however excited by the momentary rush of having someone interested in you, keep your cool, and possibly let it pass, but definitely keep your cool. For me this is key because I get so excited and crazy and run around and laugh and joke, and the next day, they say I was too crazy. Ok. So, it is almost like I need to do the things I really want to do and hope that in so doing I will find people, events, entertainments, and sex, and stop looking already. Just do what is so exciting, as in sailing, travelling, swimming, painting, business, or even dancing, or whatever. But sort of leave the looking itself aside. As hard as that is to do.

(Rereading this, returning to the earlier question, is this the path to money as well? Forget about it?)

This is sort of obvious, but I spell it out because at the earlier period of my life, when the party lifestyle seemed to threaten my ability to pursue a career, I had demeaned it and regretted it, casting it into a kind of black sheep of the family role, something I was ashamed of, denied, and wanted to go away. This denial had obvious side-effects, and back firings, usually in the form of the frustrated party animal breaking loose at a few inconvenient times. So the struggle in this regard, which has been successful, has been to give the party animal free reign until he could calm down, find his head, and proceed somewhat constructively. Since I am the party animal.

See, it worked. As I write this, I feel like I never want to go to another party. But that is not the goal, the goal is to find accommodation, satisfaction, release for the needs that grip me, move me, excite me, are me. And part of finding that accommodation is to be able to live more or less comfortably in society, which requires money, which even given all my hard work and meagerish pay over the years, even I had taken too much for granted.









posted by Kenneth James at 10:28 PM [edit]

Revising, regretting and remorse

I have already somewhere here described some of the foolish behaviours I engaged in due to the euphoria I anticipated as a result of the libertine, sex with others, open marriage lifestyle, all the benefits of which proved utterly illusory, intangible and disastrous, more or less as I had predicted all along, when the idea was first proposed to me. See www.agapanthus.4t.com for more details. So the last six years have been for me, in business and in my personal life, a relearning of old lessons.

The most simple and basic of these is something like: "I have been around the block enough to know what will work and what will not work, and going along with someone who is advocating something that will not work under the banner of "new, improved, or different" leads only back to square one. As I more or less knew it would all along, so take charge of your life! Don't say yes when you feel no, and don't expect someone else's belief in a chimera to prove magical. And by all means, don't go along with it!"

Something like that.

As for the one benefit of the open marriage lifestyle, I have a complete disrespect at present for the traditonal marriage concept, and for everything related to it, including being true or faithful to someone you don't love anymore, and to being held in some kind of sexual slavery or purdah for the sake of the conscience of society or for the sake of the self-respect of some other person with whom you aren't having sex anymore. So that alone was a benefit worth all the pain and suffering, embarrassment and humiliation.

But as for the actual bedding of women, joyful sex, freedom, energy, feeling better, and more liberated, it was illusive. People in general are suspicious and insecure, as I said elsewhere. If you find anyone who wants to have sex with you or is in love with you, my advice is to take advantage of it, unless they are completely looney, which is pretty likely, because the rarity of someone nice opening themselves to a sexual experience is extreme.

By implication, the other thing I have learned is that the surest way to ensure that something or someone will not pan out, will not work out, is to extend yourself toward that person or event. Like reaching for a bird in a tree. If the bird wants to eat out of your hand, it will. Gently open your hand, show it to be full of seed. If the bird is hungry, it will come. Otherwise, forget it. Like in tai chi, keep your balance.

Speaking of tai chi, this extended cold, flu, hayfever, asthama and other ailments of late have really cut into my practise of this sacred art, and I long to return to it full time, as in Bretagne and Greece.

I am visualizing being at peace, in a dynamic peace, a year from now (not having committed suicide when the money runs out as part of me longs to do) dressed in my black tai chi suit, fit, strong, tough, and in a better situation vis a vis things like aerobic exercise and the damp cold of life here on the Garonne River.

So, I made a total ass of myself with my euphoria about being both in a relationship and being able to date openly. I over-extended myself, I had a few dates, slept with a few women, caroused way too hard, and basically learned a lot. I wish I had not needed to learn this lesson and that I had played the piano instead. Maybe that will come, too. The piano.

And as I said a couple of times before, I long for blue, warmish water to swim in. As in now. It is summer.

4 June 2001

Bordeaux







posted by Kenneth James at 11:12 PM [edit]

Self worth, doubles, nightmares and life goals

Do you ever wake up and think your life is a nightmare? Or wake from a nightmare, glad to find yourself in your own bed? Or wake from a dream, saddened to find yourself awake, so beautiful was the red-headed lover you had just met and bedded in the nether worlds? Or find yourself in reality, standing beside a large palm tree on a shady beach, where the waves are crashing, the breeze, is gentle, and everything, including your health, state of mind and financial situation seems fine?

Such is my life, and it puts me to think of doubles, of contrary forces within myself. Of yins and yangs. Of perceived goods and bads. The Hindu truth that everything is an illusion, seems more true today than yesterday, and at times, I can see the energy fields around me shimmering, even on dark cloudy evenings.

So, last night as I lay dreaming about how to do web pages for everyone I meet, I also dreamt intermittently about falling in love with, making love with, and offending the red-headed woman and the brunette (these women were so attractive to me, so perfect for me, each of them, interesting and cosmopolitan, smart and aware, tall and slender, my heart ached to be close to both of them, and they seemed in love with me!), they were equally offended and upset with me, and the colleagues at work told me to just calm down, I was also aware, more so when I awoke, that my dreams were me talking to myself, that I am not wholly integrated, that there were parts of me that could learn from other parts of me. That I was the red-head and the brunette, and me and my colleagues, and my ex-wife's boyfriend of whom I was jealous. All me, all at odds.


posted by Kenneth James at 10:18 PM [edit]