I think maybe it's not just that meaning is relative but that relative meaning can be ascribed in any amount at whatever level of life's magnification you're zoomed in on. So if it's a child's birth or the opening of a can of soda, a feeling of value can be experienced, savored, noted, soliloquized, whatever, if conditions are right for that. This impression was strong under psychedelics, if not very admirable, when I would say, believe sincerely that the opening screen of Zelda where you name your character, was some sort of universal cipher, or when I was worse than absent from a baby shower for my son, because I was engrossed in the idea of emotions being a physical thing... I could go on... So the sensitivity to meaning was maybe turned up a bit high, but still I find it comforting when struggling to feel much of anything, that those impressions can indeed be felt within any moment, any object, any incident. And the non-specificity of the catalysts, rather than leading me to nihilism, suggests to me that the universe can in fact be the scent of bitter almonds, or whatever poetic/mundane/astronomical thing.

My sister and I have bonded over running. She's a real runner and I'm someone in his thirties who is acknowledging that he's been overweight for a decade and needs to move more. She asks me often if I like running, I think hoping that my answer will change. This morning, the answer was something like 'I'm starting to, yeah'

She got a look that was far more wistful than she usually allows herself, and said 'I've always liked it. Do you ever feel like running really really far? Like, running while the sky changes over you, day to night?'

I don't believe in records any more. The vinyl, music-playing variety. I can see that they work, and I have read the explanations of why they work, but I do not believe that they should work. And probably I'd feel the same way about electricity or most things that Edison dabbled in, but I'm more comfortable expressing heresy in the audio realm. I don't care how elaborate those squiggles are on that live Don McLean album, they should not be able to make a sound wave at all recognizable as originating from lungs, a mouth, a wood guitar, a harmonica. And having decided this, I wonder what else we have agreed to overlook and accept as real, in this group hallucination. And do I care? Should I care? Should I tell someone? Do they already know?

Love Language

And now conspiratorial
Seems every word we share,
Words which from any other
Would elicit 'I Don't Care.'

Seen objectively I think I, and probably you, have arrived. We are actually living the dream. By which I mean, if Anthony Bourdain had done an episode about my town, and had come to my home for a meal, I would get that feeling when I watched my scene that I get every time I watch him interact with anyone: basically, that the simple and complex rhythms, culture, and desires of any individual are beautiful and do not require anything else to make them perfect or whole. They're complete and interesting and worthy of love.

Jon Bentley is A thirty one year old father of three, who spends his time working with families wracked by mental illness, and shares his own experiences with substance abuse and depression to offer hope and insight to them. He loves the ocean and would love to move closer to one, but money has always been tight, and his son lives nearby and moving away from him is just not something that's gonna happen. When the kids are grown though, he and his partner Ally talk of living in an RV and criss-crossing the country ad infinitum, or buying a little land in Argentina, where he can make his music and she can grow organic vegetables, herbs, and whatever else she desires. Jon's father is a teacher and poet and his mother is a meditation instructor, democrat, and Mormon. Jon joins her for meditation twice a week before hitting the gym, and he and his father have been sharing their writings for decades. Today Ally has made us her grandmother's pumpkin soup, cooked inside of the actual pumpkin....

Now seen subjectively, it's more of a: bored, annoyed, horny, ashamed, hungry, too full, try to be mindful, reading, stupid boss, lazy co-workers, oh that was a good thought I should write it down, why are the people closer to us, harder to understand and be patient with? Is that because we ourselves are our biggest mystery and that mystery dissipates the further away people are from us emotionally? Hungry, tired, push the kids more, be more understanding with the kids, be nicer, be more assertive, think less, ashamed....

Yeah, not a perfect analogy, cause Anthony had that way of speaking to our time that highlighted lovable things and there's something to be said for looking for the beauty in everything, but yes that's not really objective. But if we wanna open that can of worms, how could anything be objective after being filtered through a brain grown from certain genes, but not others, fed with certain beliefs, but not others, colored with certain experiences but not others etc etc.... and if true objectivity is a meaningless phrase, perhaps I will choose a new view for myself. And it might sound like a tweaked Golden Rule. Think of yourself as you like to think of strangers, or something like that.

Once when coming down from an overdose and sitting with my mother in the ER, she said something about 'of course you can choose what to to believe, Jon'. She was referring to religion and I thought this cynical at the time. I thought, you know, that for belief to be real you can't choose it. And as far as that sort of belief goes, I've never gotten much farther than ' the universe knows what it's doing and things will be all right.' But if you swap out the idea of 'truth' and replace it with 'helpfulness', I can get behind that, Ma.

Hours and days and years playing with a yo yo and hacky-sack, and still I believed that a high could last, that there's something to achieve, that new energy can be created, that hedonic adaptation need not apply to me, and also, thinking that without this belief, the game would not be worth playing!

So this inflation of bigger, more, higher, louder, which as a novelty was all right, but which also was inherently numbing and degrading and destructive and made me forget that the whole thing that excited and energized me in the first place was the SUBTLETY. the nonchalance. The humble condescension of sharing your bit of mastery of the given (and embraced) parameters, ostensibly reluctant while subconsciously exultant

The parched glissando of moonglow.