JOURNAL ARCHIVES BIOGRAPHY LINKS PHOTOGRAPHY POETRY
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On November 13, 1999 I wrote an entry that describes what writing and publishing a journal means to me. Over the last seven years, since I wrote that piece, my experiences have become both increasingly harsh and uplifting. My personal environment, outside the home, has become more superficial, exploitative and a lot less tolerant. The world outside my immediate experience remains frighteningly chaotic and violent, with major events such as 9/11. Most of my direct experiences with the outside world, at this point in my life, take place at work. I go to work each day. Each day I am subjected to the raw emotions of extremely unhappy people. I listen to people who shout their frustration and anger at strangers on the telephone. I am “lead” by ambitious men with limited power, and women wanting a share of what little power there is. They are people who seem to measure success by level of exploitation, and freedom to express their own unprocessed and unrecognized emotional drives freely to those unable to move out of their range. Attila and I spend time with my healthy reactions, my rage, my disgust and my despair. Time is spent as I verbalize the poison; extract the demons from my inner being. Verbalization takes the form of description, and attempts to devise survival strategies, none of which work in an exploitative environment. It also takes the form of irrationally formed fantasies, where what goes around actually comes around, and a just and loving universe enacts vengeance. The process dominates what little time Attila and I have away from our places of employment. The process exhausts me; it exhausts Attila. Attila suggested reading Ghandi's writing, and perhaps I will find inspiration there. Simultaneously, I am uplifted by brief exposures to beautiful people. My definition of a beautiful person is very simple, those who respect themselves first, and others to the greatest degree that they can. Their life giving energy moves through the universe, invisible to the superficial, nourishing to the conscious. Although my present work environment provides me with little exposure to beautiful people, they do occasionally pass through the corporate doors. Primarily though, I find solace in loved ones, new and old friends, both living and dead, music and the written word. Where I work, and the people I sit with in that rectangular box, are beyond my control. The emotions generated by constant exposure to an exploitative environment are beyond my control. What I can control is what I think of it all; that is what I write here. In 1999 I wrote: I still beleive it. |
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