Notes to Myself

All my life, I have made it complicated, but it is so simple. I love when I love. And when I love, I am myself.

If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing, then the desire is not to write

I don't need a "reason" to be happy. I don't have to consult the future to know how happy I feel now.

I'm convinced that this anxiety running through my life is the tension between what I "should be" and what i am. My anxiety doesn't come from thinking about the future but from wanting to control it. It seems to begin whenever I smuggle into my mind an expectation about how I or others should be. It is the tension between my desire to control the world and the recognition that I can't. "I will be what I will be" - where is the anxiety in that ? Anxiety is the recognition that I might not reach the rung on the opinion ladder I have just set for my self. I fear death most when I am about to exceed what I believe others think of me; then death threatens to cut me off from myself, because "myself" is not yet.

Don't strive for love, be it.

Now that I know that I am no wiser than anyone else, does this wisdom make me wiser?

It's not that we fear the place of darkness, but that we don't think we are worth the effort to find the place of light.

What an absurd amount of energy I have been wasting all my life trying to find out how things 'really are', when all the time they weren't.

I talk because I feel, and I talk to you because I want you to know how I feel.

Today I don't want to live for, I want to live.

There is a part of me that wants to write, a part that wants to theorize, a part that wants to sculpt, a part that wants to teach... To force myself into a single role, to decide to be just on thing in life, would kill off large parts of me.

Perfectionism is a slow death....If everything were to turn out just as I would want it, just as I would plan, I would never experience anything new. My life would be an endless repetition of stale successes. When I make a mistake I experience something unexpected.

What I must do is die now. I must accept the justice of death and the injustice of life. I have lived a good life - longer than many, better than most. Tony died when he was twenty. I have had thirty-two years. I couldn't ask for another day. What did I do to deserve birth? It was a gift. I am me - that is a miracle. I had no right to a single hour. And yet I have had thirty-two years. Few can choose when they will die. I choose to accept death now. As of this moment I give up my "right" to live.

What I want are words that reflect my heart, not my cleverness.

Next time I will ..." "From now on I will ..." - What makes me think I am wiser today than I will be tomorrow?

You say you just want to be my friend. I know that you mean you want to relate to my mind but not my body. I can understand that and will not ask you to relate to me in a way that you don't want to, or talk to me about subjects you find uncomfortable. But likewise I refuse to castrate myself for you by pretending not to have the feelings I have. If you want me as your friend you will have to accept my penis along with me.

Selfishness is neither good nor bad—it depends on the way we are selfish as to whether it nourishes or injures.

Boredom or discontent is useful to me when I acknowledge it and see clearly my assumption that there's something else I would rather be doing. In this way boredom can act as an invitation to freedom by opening me to new options and thoughts. For example, if I can't change the activity, can I look at it more honestly?

I sometimes wonder if the "dead" are not more present, more comfort, more here than most of the living.

The tools of the mind can be wrongly used, but the mind possesses no wrong tools.

The number of things just outside the perimeter of my financial reach remains constant no matter how much my financial condition improves. With each increase in my income a new perimeter forms and I experience the same relative sense of lack.

To err is human- I'm uncomfortable around gods.

I also sense that I am misusing the idea of being real whenever I discover myself anxiously weight my words and actions, that is, whenever I am being careful to be "real". When I do this I am only playing a new role - the role of the "real person". Calculation does not enter into being real. Concerns with appearances does not enter into it. Being real is more of a process of letting go then it is the effort of becoming. I don't really have to become me, although at times it feels this way - I am already me. And that is both the easiest and the hardest thing for me to realise.

Do I avoid looking a stranger in the eyes because I don't want to make him uncomfortable, or do I turn my eyes so he can't look into me?

If the desire to write is not accompanied by actual writing then the desire is not to write.

When I get to where I can enjoy just lying on the rug picking up lint balls, I will no longer be too ambitious.

It’s not that we fear the place of darkness but that we don’t think we are worth the effort to find the place of light.

perfectionism is a slow death. if everything were to turn out just like i would want it to, just like i would plan for it to, then i would never experience anything new; my life would be an endless repetition of stale successes. when i make a mistake i experience something unexpected.... when i have listened to my mistakes i have grown.