We don't need to go back and analyze our past to heal; we are always given the perfect situations and people in the now with which we can work through the same long-standing blocks. This is the absolute beauty and perfection of the now. Any one of us at any time can, with heartfelt willingness, heal past pain through present relationships.

"We are alone here, it is just me."

"I don't want to be rewarded for being awesome."

"I have to...."

"I just want to live."

"OK."

"Maybe I do. I just want to no more of what it is."

What I thoughtfully give to things is enough

William wants comfort.

"I went  to the Meatloaf Bakery."

"Do they serve meatloaf there?

"Yes they do."

"OK."

"I got served a meatloaf that was sort of spicy."

"OK."

"I'm desiring something else in this world."

"What? You mean the meatloaf? I add hollandaise sauce to everything maybe that..."

"No. I'm not finding the same comfort in the usual desires anymore."

"OK."

"This worlds desires have changed their gravity in my mind. I've discovered that I am stringing together a different kind of consistency. I am not looking for the temporary respite of the desire trench I keep throwing myself in when my life stops by.  I've always jumped in couched myself between pleasure and fear. I've decided to string together a different consistency. Take a risk for once. See what all the fuss is about. I don't want this manufactured comfort that last a few hours, or just through the weekend..."

"You're not stringing..."

"I'm not comfortable here."

"OK."

"I don't feel comfortable. I can't get comfortable doing what you do."

"Stringing this consistency of comfortable desires..."

"You're listening right?"

"Yes."

"I just want to stay up. OK? I just want to stay up. I'm tired. I want a sustained comfort. I want a comfort that hooks a ride with infinity."

"You want a lot."

"I do. And I 'm going to stay up here and see if it gives me just that."

"I have a taste for meal loaf now."

Do you want to understand or do you want peace?

What do I want to be in life? Here I assume a reason for living that is separate from life. So many now believe their life is headed toward some grand finale. But maybe we are not moving in a direction any more than the world is. The belief that the events of my life are supposed to 'add up' cause me to justify my past actions and plan against the future. The reason I don't want to drive, wait in line, run errands for others, is that i think I know what my destiny looks like. This trivial activity is therefore a waste of time because it doesn't contribute to the important work I must do before I die.



The way for me to live is to have no way. My only habit should be to have none. Because I did it this way before is not sufficient reason to do it this way today.


I can have a self or I can have consistent behavior. I cannot have both.


































--Hugh Prather

Your messages soothe me and interest me infinitely, particularly since you seem to be saying very honestly and possibly even clearly some things that I just cannot understand. Re-reading them is like confronting a branch of advanced calculus that I am just incapable of grasping, with the individual figures perfectly clear to me, but the way that they combine to prove anything or amount to anything completely inaccessible.












Some Special Limits
More Challenging Limits
Absolute Convergence
Conditional Convergence
Differentiation and Continuity
Global Extrema
Critical Points
More Problems on the Derivative
More on the Area Problem
Integration by Parts
Integration of Rational Functions
Substitution
Problems on Techniques of Integration
Power Series

William doesn't subscribe to that.

"If I am looking for a new career. If I am looking to be involved with someone, or move to another house, or country. I have to look at it the same way as if I was going to the store to buy cereal."

"Don't start with me."

"I have to."

"Start with me?"

"No. I have to look at it this way. You want to know why?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"No."

"OK."

"I have to do this. It's the only thing I haven't tried."

"I don't understand."

"If I take something so fucking serious in my life, and I bring my heart rate down. I calm myself down when faced with for instance moving. I have to move. Its unexpected. Out of nowhere. I can't afford it. I don't know whats going to happen until the day gets closer. If I accept this experience, as if I am in a grocery store trying to buy cereal. Trying to decide once its upon me, it will be a success."

"No."

"What?"

"Sounds insane."

"Yes. But the shit is the same."

"No it's not. It has more ramifications."

"It does. I won't disagree with you. I'm just saying my approach has to be the same."

"What?"

"I'm just saying my approach has to be the same. If I want to get what I need to get from that experience. If I want to keep my heart rate down. Have peace and quiet.

"Life is about stamping out fires and trying to have a good time in between."

"Is that what you subscribe to?"

"Yes."

"Perfect."

"The truth bludgeons."

"Is that how my sandwich entered into the world?"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Are you going to do all of the talking?"

"No. Of course not. Why would I do that?"

She gave me every last bit of information. Everything that she own of herself in this world. All of of it. She didn't believe it anymore. She woke up to realize, it didn't convey anything about her. But it was where all the covet lied. Harboring stretched itself out in her life, making her obese in thought. Cramming anxiety down through her central nervous system. 

It was my vulnerability, yes. My vulnerability demanded hers. It insisted, holding vice-gripes. But I didn't realize it. I kept smiling. I had no idea how this experience.....this one, would blanket and extort the truth out of her. Out of both of us. 

But she was more than ready. I open the door, but her bags have been packed for years. She was ready.

"Their relationship consisted in discussion if it existed."



































Thom Gunn

William wants to slow the running down.

"I'm just saying."

"What?"

"Huh?"

"Something degrades."

"Degrades?"

"Well. Something happens. Something loosens itself, and then it moves."

"It always seem to move somewhere else. Listen. It is like wall paper peeling from the top and falling at the same time....all around the room. Your running to push it back up. Your trying."

"I don't like wallpaper."

"Listen, OK? I'm just saying. It is trying to peel down and you have to let it. You have to let it peel down to reveal something else. Something more solid in yourself. Something more sustaining."

"OK."

"It's going to do it anyway. Relationships do that to you. They help you erode something. Something useless to you that you were trying to keep up, keep your back up against, you know? You are shoring that old self up.

"You think?"

"You have to let yourself be revealed. I can't tell you why at this point. Other than slowing the running down for a moment. I guess the point is to slow your running."

"I like to use paint."

"Yeah I know."

At home he stood facing east and stared down out of the window of his apartment. A slow commercial train casually rolled by. It’s rumbling  sound vibrated the building, and he lost himself in its rolling march. He tried to be sad. He tried to be miserable, but again found a resilience to question, and then he found it giving way to a desire to surrender. He was being pushed down. His actions were forcibly being chloroformed. It was all because he saw how predictable his life had become, how unbelievable asinine it had come to. It was all leading to a constant state of instability. Suspended there. Not quite destroying him, but just dangling him through its fissures and pulling him back up just to do it again. He wanted to know. 

He nosed around enough to stumble into understanding this great farce. The contents of his life, everything that made up the story was a conglomerate of bad consistencies and finally a sever devoid of interpretation.  Just like this train that was  rolling along, it was a  hard formidable band of nothing. His only revelation? Was that this all belong to him. It was his for however long he needed to be delivered from it. It didn’t belong to his friends or it wouldn’t be something that he could use to make these latest developments go away. His interpretation was only going to be in how to see it all and not in what actions to take. His action only created more bad, only more arresting. What does is it mean? Hugh would ask. He would stand there and only ask what does it all mean, but he would try again to just stop himself there. Right there.

They're still places in us.

Today he has made his mistake. He wanted to know something else. And he was willing to stop the future for the now questions. He wanted to know what was going on. He was yearning for something else. It started out innocently enough. It started out in religion. It started moving to philosophy. It always remained an intellectual discourse. It always remained intelligent and sophisticated. That is where the trap was. The conversations. Somewhere in the words. Maddie was at the wrong place at the wrong time. She had a fixed idea on coming over, and now she sat looking at him. She smiled again. This time more open and inviting. She glanced at the clock on the microwave in the kitchen, and wondered if the evening was a complete loss.  Straight into an embankment it felt like it was going. A tree stopping it on the other side. Her kids were with their dad. If nothing happened tonight she would have to try again in two weeks.

Conversation and sex with Hugh had gone on for about 5 months. She was attracted to it, he was attracted to it. He slept with one other woman and she knew it and it didn’t get in the way. She had her own episodes, but it wasn’t just this combination that Hugh had, it was something about that which held her close. It was magical in the way he expressed himself or spoke passionately about only the things that mattered. Again she kept her luggage packed, again she used sex to feel, but the relationship was meaningful. Today, tomorrow or next week it didn’t need explanations. But for Hugh it had become something else. He couldn’t stop his gut from hurting and he had to sit down. The conversations weren't the destination for him anymore. He needed more of a commitment. To what? He had no clue.

“Look I’m not looking to get married.”

“I can’t even tell you my blood type.”

He sat next to her and began talking like he normally does. He explained himself as for a minute he was losing his mind. Whatever he was on to he wanted to lose it for the evening. She kissed him and then he stood up. She grabbed his hand he guided her to the bedroom.