Wednesday, Covid 19, Burnaby, Blue Sky

The virus doesn’t like the sun.  It’s a thing of the darkness. Something evil moves among us.  Calling the old and sick home.  I read the religious are the greatest gambling men and women. They bet their lives on a loving God.  I’ve done that. In exchange I’ve had confusion and questioning and depth of experience I can only imagine goes with asking the question, “why”.  

I loved the book “Man’s Search for Meaning”.

Down’s Syndrome, is a mental deficit that is associated with low IQ, love of singing, love of food, and love of sex.  They get angry very quickly but don’t hold resentments.  To the external observer they seem supremely happy. They’re very sensitive.

The smartest computer ever to exist in the world, in that great classic, Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, greets people, saying, “Hi I’m so depressed.”

I wonder what this life is for? Is it a product of reincarnation.  Must I love to escape the illusion of existence to return to the womb of God, that great ocean of God? Am I in the battle field of forces of good and evil and if I am a ‘good’ and ‘king’  person I will be rewarded in a positive afterlife.

If I live life according to the mainstream distillation of tradition and culture, and science and religion,  I can reasonably expect to have some reward in this life.

I want health and wealth.  I like things in moderation. I’ve seen that I can only drive one vehicle at one time and the more I own the more it owns me. The issue is pleasure.  What value and risk to a blow out binge at the smorgasbord, an extraordinary night of orgy, an unforgettable drunken tour of the bars with a group of mad cap friends, the savouring of a long love, deep friendships or superficial encounters, reading a deep book or a passing article, tenting or building a major hotel or palace.  

I’ve lived my life daily speaking to God.  I’ve always felt the relationship was like car rides with my parents.  Roller coaster rides. Not an intimate friend or love. I envy the nuns who so love Jesus they become his Bride and we imagine their ‘song of songs’ experience has the erotic elements that tintillate the soft porn favoured by women versus the hard porn favoured by men.  Is religion masculine? And spirituality feminine?  

Does God really care if I masturbate?  If I am obese,  is it health matter that reduces little more than short term pleasure,versus long term life. Do I want to be here for a long time or a good time?

Each of these equations and so many more physiologically , psychologically , and spiritually,  is a juggling act with a sweet spot. That’s the essence of happiness. That sweet spot.  I’ve been in that ‘flow’ that has been called ‘synchroncity’, spiritually alive, feeling that I am ‘doing right’, that I am apart o the team, that I’m in the centre of the centre. If it were a hockey game I’ve had that sense of being on the ice in the flashing sticks and skates, and then I’ve had the sense of being on the bench.

Aging is more about being on the bench.

Sexually I remember wanting to literally copulate with a beautiful woman I just met.  I’ve not felt that for a man. Yet I loved my lesbian friend saying, the ‘penis is a very lovely tool, unfortunately it’s attached to a man’.  I’ve been fascinated with my own penis , and with vaginas and with penis.  I’ve clinically studies thousands of genitalia , but viewed them as through a microscope.

Sensuality and sexuality don’t reside in the superficial but in the inner feeling and the mind. It’s the mind that creates the erotic, adding a touch of taboo to the ‘beast with two backs’.  Yet neurologically we see the pleasure centre and addiction and orgasm all tied to the location called the Amygdalla.

I can live a life of ‘quiet desperation’, safe, in control, important, pompous, serious, authoritative, in the political groove, but not in the spiritual sweet place. The spiritual sweet place is in the dance with the amygdalla.

Love and fear. That’s the basis of all emotions.  Love, fear and the other, if we wish to avoid reductionism to the binary and stay Trinidadian.

Into all this we plug a virus.  A Covid 19. I woke up this morning thankful to be alive. I was aware of my body and my actions. I am going through daily routines carefully with awareness of the space I’m in , this world, no longer, safe. Everything has a newness and an impermanence, I have been forced out of routines. I’m relating differently. I do enjoy my alimentary system. I miss the hugs and cuddling. Gilbert my dog is doing his best to fill the void. But I miss my lover, and my friends,and the community,and the illusion of safety. I miss the routines.

I’m concluding that this forced isolation will make us all a whole lot more appreciative of others.  There’s just so far that masturbation can do for one. Cogito ergo sum. The element of surprise is missing. I can meditate and sing and chant alone but again the fling isn’t there. Theres certainly a depth of this relationship I have with God, my friend, confidant and lover, but I’m still drawn to Facebook.  I miss the exotic smiling face of a beautiful friend. I am truly blessed to know so many people of such depth and experience.  

I will get on with this day and long for the end of this isolation. It was the same with my 25 days alone at sea. I really did love the experience but it was sheer heaven to smell the Hawaiian islands, eventually make land, then meet people and, once again find myself, always quite surprisingly in the arms of the lover, naked and not quite sure how that happened. Somehow,  that’s poetry.