Dear Alicia, I think of you more often than I write. As you know by now, your friendship means a lot to me and I hope to god that our lack of correspondence is not a sign of deteriorating friendship, but a sign of growing up. Two old lovers can sit on a park bench and not say a word to each other, yet be totally blessed out and in love. As our friendship matures, our need to stay superficially connected (physically, or on the surface) dwindles and we instead float in the ocean of understanding, the ocean of being that is always connected, and in love, and in Friendship. I tell myself this, hoping you feel the same way. When I think about you, I feel happy. When I see you or talk to you , it’s really like no time has passed. Maybe that’s what “soul mates” are. Since supposedly the “soul” doesn’t exist in time or space, neither time nor space effects it. Therefore soul mates don’t really miss each other very much, since they are always connected beyond space and time, and they definitely don't grasp or try to possess. However don’t tell that to someone who romanticize the “soul mate” idea, though. It’s a nice dream, even if “body mate” or “mind mate” would be a better term for what they are dreaming about. Artistic update: I have been painting baby portraits on commission (which I started doing in college, as you know) and have also been having many inspiring visions (and photographs) I plan to translate into paint. I want to finally do a series (like Brawley told me to do) of 15 or so small square wood panels, (20 cm squared), landscapes and portraits of sacred objects, and then show those around Japan. Framing is going to be a BITCH!! I guess I will make my own, even though every time I do that I swear to god I will never do it again, it’s such a pain. . But buying frames is about 100$ a pop, and with 15 paintings…well, yeah, that’s impossible. I need a workshop. Anyway, I saw the new Darren Aronofski film, the Wrestler, and was deeply moved. He has a way of uncovering depth in his characters. It's a kind of realism that makes me feel sick…but also transformed. Have you seen it? Did you see The Fountain? That movie also blew me away. I’m also watching 24, Lost, and Heroes. It’s a waste of time, I know, but it’s so exciting to get into those dramas. It’s culture? It’s Spirit as mass culture? Film and television, as art, utilizes music, theater, composition, and writing, after all. However, this season of 24 is lame so far. Why am I still watching that propaganda? The first season was really good though! It began and ended like no other show ever…shocking. Did you see it? I’ve stopped my sitting meditation practice for the moment (well, that’s not true. I sit sometimes for a few minutes in the morning and evenings, but not the 30 minutes to an hour sit I used to do.) This is probably correlated with my new desire to watch TV. Am I turning into a lazy asshole? Ever since I got back from visiting America this Christmas I have found a new desire to participate in anything anyone invites me to do. Consequently, this weekend I have to sing “Home on the Range” and “Kojo no Tsuki,” a very traditional Japanese song to some old ladies at a house concert. “Lets make a foreigner sing one of our traditional songs!” was the kind of idea I think the nice old ladies had in mind. And for sure, I will be entertaining. Luckily, I love learning new songs, and this one, Kojo no tsuki, is GORGIOUSE, and full of beautiful Japanese. “The color or frost” (“shimo no iro”) is one of the lines. Yum. I’m still reading Shantaram, as well as Migyure Rinpoche’s The Joy of Living. I’m also still studying Ken Wilber and really enjoy listening to lectures on his Integral Naked. One recently with Warren Ferrell called “Does Feminism discriminate against men” was mind-blowing. It’s about men’s studies, and how there isn’t any, and about why men commit suicide more often than women, like a thousand times more when they get old, and how that is a sign of powerlessness. Both gender rolls take power away from the individual,. And they also talk about the invisible power that women have, etc..it’s really fascinating.…I’ll post a summery. Also, John Ince and his talk/book about genitalphobia called “the Politics of Lust” is mind-opening. Have you read Grace and Grit yet? I hope you do. It’s my favorite book. I like TED talks a lot too. Do you know about TED? If not, you should totally check that shit out. Well, that’s all for now. Thanks for the email. In love, David Attached is a review of Buddhism I recently wrote (with Wilber in mind) for an English journal. You might like them.
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"When I was young, I found out that the big toe always ends up making a hole in a sock. So I stopped wearing socks."--EINSTEIN
Even on the most solemn occasions I got away without wearing socks and hid that lack of civilisation in high boots.--EINSTEIN
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David, I could hardly wait to finish reading your email to respond to the ideas therein. I feel precisely the same way you do about soul mates--timeless/distanceless--and, I am unspeakably grateful that I know so many! I consider you, Chris, Bozhena, Erin, Katy, Julie, some past lovers, and a few others to be my soul mates for the exact reasons you list. I've been reading some queer kinship theory and forming my own ideas about the queer kinship I have constructed for myself (composed of these soul mates). How do my soul mates and I find one another and remain so connected, despite various obstacles (distance, money, work, time, etc.)? Do I keep my mind and heart open to these people because I feel some sort of lack/deficiency in my own, heterosexistly, Euro-centrically, Patriarchically structured kinship (biological racism, linear and monogomous family trees of nuclear families, blank spaces, incorrect names, shameful silences, etc.)? Really, "how" doesn't matter. I remember writing to Bozhena not too long ago that I consider her to be my kin, and that what I mean by "kin" is that my identity, the way I know myself, is inextricably bound up with her. If I were to write a definition of "Alicia Marie Cox," much of that definition would include information about her: memories of our time together, lessons learned from her, skills she's taught me, all the love and joy she has imparted into my life that largely inform my present personality. I haven't seen Bozhena in person since . . . I don't remember. It was probably when she came to Kansas City in the early summer of 2007? 2006? I remember going to a bar with her, Josh, and Danny. When I see Bozhena next (hopefully in Tucson, Az next month!), I know it will be as if no time passed. Really, "how" doesn't matter. Some people live their entire lives from birth to death, never knowing even one such soul mate. There are a lot of things I do not have, but I have gratitude. I wish you could visit me in California! I am moving into a 3-bedroom house this Friday with two of my homeboys, Pete and James. Pete is a cabinet maker, and he is stoked because our new house has a large, detached garage in the back. It already has a work bench and shelves, and he is going to turn it into his workshop for making cabinets and repairing surf boards. James is an electrician by trade, but he's generally a handy guy. He can build picture frames. I bought a HUGE photograph of two elephants hugging with their trunks from a local artist who took a series of photos in Kenya. James is going to build a frame for it. James can also make those big things painters mount canvases onto--I can't remember the name. Come to think of it, Pete can make frames, too. You know, I think of you pretty much every day. I have hung up a bunch of your painting postcards on the wall above my desk in my office at school. Most of them are of trees, and I've also hung photographs of Lawrence, KS trees, California beaches trees, etc. It's really a beautiful collage. I have not seen any of the films or TV shows you mentioned. My schoolwork and teaching/grading keeps me so busy that I have to be SUPER selective about what I watch. I tend to work even when I'm resting--that's how I can tell that I LOVE what I do. I've been incubating ideas about Indian humor, which is most often ironic and therefore difficult to read by outsiders who are unfamiliar with the community's vernacular. I watch a lot of comedy: Stephen Colbert is my absolute favorite. He is our moment's ultimate trickster figure! masquerading as that which is the opposite of the messages his guests and jokes end up comically and ironically conveying to his knowing and enlightened audience. I have never learned so much from TV as I learn from his show and the National Geographic channel. I used ot watch the History channel, but it is often disappointingly propagandistic and biased--not so smart. Anyway, The Colbert Report is now online on his website, colbertnation.com. I mean, EVERY SHOW EVER RECORDED is available there in its entirety. He's brilliant. I plan to integrate my most recent favorite episode into my teaching lessons next week: the episode in which Colbert interviews an archaeological oceanographer. http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/218488/february-10-2009/robert-ballard I feel so free, David, even in the midst of such tyrrany of the majority. Knowledge--the gaining, having, sharing, increasing of it--inspires hope and can be emancipating. I think sharing knowlege is the way I can give love to the most amount of people, and I love teaching. I'm so glad you watch the popular American shows! Do a lot of people in Japan watch them? They do, indeed, reveal the present zeitgeist. I'm glad you read them and can teach me about them. You're definitely not turning into a lazy asshole; you're taking care of yourself. It's only human to seek knowledge (such as the cultural knowledge TV creates/reports), especially that of your "home land." I'm glad you're singing! You have a beautiful voice. Your audience is in for a treat! Speaking of Ken Wilbur, I was recently enlightened by an interview I heard on NPR's website. It put a lot of things into perspective for me. No one's beliefs are less or more true than his; just less mature (evolutionarily). I found myself wondering what Richard Dawkins' response would be. I sent his latest, The God Delusion, to Chris not too long ago. Have you read it? I only finished half of it before my school quarter began! I wonder, how old is that lecture about Feminism discriminating against men? Its arguments are pretty dated. I used to be super resistant to Feminism because I though the exact same things, but the most contemporary feminist scholarship is integrating with Queer Theory. Yes, feminist scholars now recognize social constraints, imperatives that train men to be masculine--which end up doing violence to gay men and various emasculated minorities. I read a lot about these issues in my program at school. Statistically, men don't ATTEMPT suicide more often than women do--they just SUCCEED more often; women's attempts are often tellingly infantalized by others as "cries for help," like slitting wrists, taking pills, jumping from heights, etc., that might do damage but are not always fatal. Men, on the other hand, are more likely--indeed, more able--to procure guns and shoot themselves in the head.
Well, I love you. And, I can't wait to read your attachments. Peace! Alicia
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
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