Journal052007 Harold Kruger
Monday 21st July 2007
I have just copied what I think are my important files to my new USB key. Then I tidied up the desktop and changed things around. Perhaps I should have done this first. Then I created this document and put the previous document into another folder, i.e. Journal042007 into Red Scarf. Then I returned here and began writing this paragraph.
Today I also created the document called Zero07 in which I began writing in a poetic or lyrical kind of style. Perhaps I can start to write poetry again. And yet I should try to put my previous poetry, which exists only as a hard copy, onto the computer. Some may only now exist on the Darsana tapes.
My day began in a negative way but I set myself to doing my activities; the Yoga salute to the sun, the meditation, the pushups and my other tasks, to have a shave and a shower, to post the burnt CDs to Rosie and to do some shopping at Castle Plaza while avoiding the Tavern. The only thing I have not done yet is jumping, and I will do that now, before I start the next paragraph.
Now I have done my jumping. This is a new document, so I will firstly assume that you exist, as the reader, and that you may not have read the previous journal or any of my other writing. I start a new document partly at random and partly because I want to turn over a new leaf. I used to be a regular drinker at the Tavern. I stopped going there but then I bought casks of wine to drink at home and had a terrible struggle trying to control or not control my consumption.
Therefore this is a new phase. I recently when three days without any alcohol. The other day I bought a bottle of Lambrusco and shared it with Roberto so I only had about two glasses. Today looks like another day of control. I have not had any yet and might have nothing or just a couple of glasses when I visit Mum and Chloe this evening. I want to control the wine rather than have the demon drink in control of me. My drugs will become coffee and writing. I will use the writing to control the coffee, and the writing will hardly be controlled at all. I think now that I can write as much as I want.
For all I know writing is the worst possible addiction to have, but how could I know that? Writing has mostly seemed a positive feature of my life. So far I have written a fair amount, not only on the computer but in notebooks by hand. At the moment I have four books that I write or draw in although for these last few days I have been working on two notebooks in particular. One is a journal notebook with red and black hard covers written by Harold Anton Kruger, and the other is the current black book, mostly written by the Rashalika identity, who is related to the Demonlord Cult and addictions as well as religion. Yet I was the only member of my own religions. BirdE was only a nominal member. He only signed up to smoke my cannabis, and never really was a practitioner, being too much of an individual in his own right to be a follower of me and my strange cults.
I think I am mostly recovered from the Cults and over that phase, but Rashalika reminds me that I would not have begun a book in his name if I could escape so easily. To be pedantic about it the book in his name is actually another notebook called Rashalika’s Book of Red Shadows, and the current black book was originally started by a scribe on the planet Duscavin called Dragon Eschatalog. Rashalika just took over that book and began to write in it when I was struggling with the demon drink.
Yet I could struggle now and in the future. I needed some willpower to turn right and not left when I walked out of Foodland. No, I mean left and not right. Oh dear.
The phone rings, interrupting the previous paragraph. As I pick up I remind myself to be nice, even if it is some kind of salesperson.
“Hello, Harold speaking.”
There is a lot of static. The guy has a strange accent. “The reason for my call is that you will soon be getting a mobile phone.”
“NO WAY!”
“I’m sorry, sir?”
“No thank-you, I don’t want a mobile phone.”
I still have a phobia of mobiles, even though some modern technology has caught up with me and I do now have a USB key. The salesman says goodbye.
The time is 4:30 and light has begun to fade from the sky so the room is getting dim. Wolis said he is loosing powers of vision, but he spends more time than I do gazing at computer screens. By the way, Wolis is my Brother and Rosie is my sister.
I try to ignore an urge to have another coffee. By now I don’t often appreciate the taste and without my other drugs I tend to over-indulge, not sleep and so on.
I have just written a short entry in Rashalika’s book that more technically is referred to as the current black book. If I call it Rashalika’s Book in here you will know what I mean, yet this is part of my devious plan to increase the level of confusion as there is a strange system of referencing between my various books and documents.
In one way I devalue this kind of writing because I would rather be writing great fiction or Science Fantasy. Yet I can like some of the writing that I come up with in these journal-like books. Here is an example lifted from the current black book;
Then I heard a cufuffle of writing activity and I rushed to the bathroom where one of my books was fluttering around against the walls and windows. Littlemouse caught the book and growled with clenched jaws. Princess Kitty asked me for a pen. I opened the white cat’s jaws with a key to the inner self and the book flapped back and forth against the ceiling of the control room until it found the open doorway and escaped.
Go ahead and find fault with this passage. I don’t care, I think it is closer to the quality writing that I aim to produce, though here too I must be careful to moderate and great ambitions and just aim to produce some interesting writing, which I can do, even if it is not exactly Stephen King or Michael Cunningham.
The time is about five to five and I have been typing quite fast for me. I can’t do fast touch typing or anything like that so to some it would be slow indeed. I have to tell myself this does not matter. I have a great struggle with ideals, ambitions and a grandiose self-image. Since I moved to this smaller unit I have tried to shrink to more human proportions, more reasonable, non-ambitious, content with a modest and humble life. I wonder if it is going to work. It is a continual struggle.
I intend to be Harold and not Rashalika or any other characters that I have dreamed up. I am in what I call the red Guru seat, which is an old reddish office chair at the computer table. There are other chairs with names and two unnamed chairs that we can work on in the future. Behind me is the chair of Good Depression. Littlemouse, the fluffy white cat is in it now. Facing my right side is the chair of happy fear, and as usual Quoll the mottled, short-haired cat is sleeping there. The other armchair is outside and I have been calling it the sun chair, which it can be in the mornings and midday, but there is often cloud this winter and by about 2PM the sun is behind a tree and then the angle is too low after that, so perhaps the chair needs a new name. I can call it the chair of dizzy stability or something.
It has gone 5PM and I’m going to make a coffee.
Thursday 26th July
I thought my monitor was broken but it was just one of the connecting cables at the back that had come loose, probably helped by a cat. I have reconnected the cable.
I was going to start transcribing my previous poetry from the only extant hard copy to PC. I may start any time now but I am reading about dust.
I started transcribing my previous poetry. I can spread this task out over many weeks and perhaps months by doing one poem per day. Today I transcribed Instant Noodles. For some reason this work strikes me as an onerous task when it should be fairly easy.
Now that the red and black book is finished I have been writing in the current black book. Actually I have dozens of notebooks which are black, which were current at some point. I even leave blank space for the future, for when I read it again in a few years time and want to add something.
According to my (previous?) high standards these are minimal days of low achievement. It is my task to work on the philosophy of appreciating small achievements and lowering the standards. Actually I always do more than nothing. I do reading (The Secret Life of Dust), I do writing. I do my four activities and I have done some poem transcribing. I must sort of work to convince myself that this is sufficient for a day, that I need not expect more of myself.
Yet part of myself thinks I should be doing more. I should be doing a real something, like working on a really good novel or getting a job. But Rashalika says that this is not the path to happiness. I’d be happier to be fully appreciating whatever I do and whatever happens, even if really minimal or subtle. In fact I am writing right now, and this is a valid something. Why should I be so driven?
Part of me feels older now, as if in this new unit on Angus Avenue I have gone into semi-retirement. Behind me are plenty of achievements. I can be happy with a minimal production, and in fact my production is more than minimal anyway. I am doing plenty.
Part of me feels happy to have yet another leisurely day at home, as if I usually work hard or am supposed to. This is one of the issues, the work ethic that informs me that I am supposed to be hard at work. I want to challenge this ethic. I don’t have to work any harder than I am already, and in fact it would be OK to work a good deal less.
I have a habit of not counting the work I do anyway. Just because I find it easy and convenient to write these journals does not mean that it is not work. It is work, and in any case, Harold, you don’t really have to work.
Part of me thinks I must work and I should work, yet what I do does not count as work, so I’m lazy. I really want to challenge this. I am working and I can work if I want to but I don’t really have to.
I don’t have to work. I don’t have to work. I can repeat this to myself as a mantra. Is it true? Can it become true? And, most importantly, will it work?
The old woman from unit 6 returns home carrying a plastic bag. I wonder where she went. She moves very slowly. He grandson often comes around to help her. I do wonder about that little black dog. She released it this morning and it ran off. I’d only ever seen her two other dogs.
I think of going to the newly opened Deli. Vietnamese people have now got the lease so it is not a standard Deli. It is not open Sundays.
Friday 27th July
Today I went to the tavern, mostly because I thought I should go there once a week. Curiously I didn’t fully want to. It was good for the while that I was tipsy, but I didn’t feel that good once I got home.
Today I mostly read books. I finished the secret life of dust and started on Samurai William. I found it hard to do my daily activities, but I have done them, and the transcribing of some lyrics, but I have not touched my guitar. Nor have I done much writing.
Saturday 28th of July
I have been writing in the current black book about my situation. The idea is that I am challenging my great worldly ambitions, my high ideals and expectations. The idea is that I am cultivating my appreciation of a modest life and not looking for fame or great changes in lifestyle.
Rashalika says that I still want to perform again one day at the Grace Emily even if I have been sporadic in guitar practice, and he says I meditate daily because I have the great ambition of enlightenment.
Well if I do secretly or at some level cling to the great ambitions, another part of me does not want to. I want to aspire to no more than the continuation of my current lifestyle. It is in the light of failing the great ambitions that I lapse into depression. I think that if I can challenge the great expectations I can have a modest and happy life. I don’t need fame. I don’t need a job. I don’t need more money. I don’t need a girlfriend or partner. Some of these may be nice, and I can think that I want them, but I don’t mean to appreciate my current life less in the wanting of them.
This was what I called acceptance when I came to that realization and wrote a page about it, although when I think about it now it seems to be more about appreciation, the appreciation of a good life that I now have. I live on a pension and I can gradually save money. I have fee time for my writing, reading, meditation and so on. I have few external stresses. I am learning to live without drugs and excessive alcohol.
On that note I point out that I did not really enjoy the aftermath of my Tavern visit yesterday, and I don’t see why I have to go there even once a week if I don’t really like it.
You know I often have the strange feeling that if I’m not famous in my lifetime then I might be after I am dead, and I get the strange idea that my writings and other creations will be the subject of intense study and indeed super-forensic analysis in the future. That’s why I do a lot of cross referencing in my various books and record the time so often and things like that. Part of me thinks it will somehow be important, in ways I can only guess at, in the future.
Now I want to challenge that strange notion. It’s only an extension of my bloated sense of importance, and in a big way I loose faith in the big projects of the ego. That’s the whole point of appreciating a modest life and not aspiring to much more. All I’m aiming to do is more of the same. More reading, more writing and so on. It need not be significant to anyone but myself. It need not lead anywhere new or different. I could still be doing similar things 30 or 40 years from now in the same unit. I may have different cats by then, or only one cat. I don’t really need three cats, after all.
I have just re-read this document from the beginning. It seems to repeat similar themes, but this is alright. This is just one of my journals. I am writing it because I like to write and I am addicted to writing. I can break the habit of writing when I read instead, but actually I think I still do a little writing somewhere, even on the most reading-intensive of days.
In this document I will soon come to days when the writing must be sort of forced, since then I think that I have nothing to write about. There is always something to write about. Harold and Rashalika had a debate about this in the hand written books.
Now Rashalika thinks that Harold has an exceptional range of talents and it would be in the interests of spiritual and personal growth to develop and promote these, to be a performer with song and dance, to publish books and teach new martial arts.
Harold thinks there is not much in it. There are plenty of multi-talented people in the world. The fate of just one of these people hardly matters in the broad scheme of things. Anyway, we can compromise. My ambition for fame will be to perform again at open mic venues such as the Grace Emily and Higher Ground. I won’t care about any more fame and advancement beyond that, even if Ian Foxy wants to put me on channel 31 and thinks I’m going to be famous. Well, well, all fame is relative, and I don’t especially want or need any more of it. Plenty of famous people end up wishing that they could be unknown again, so I don’t intend to put any more effort into becoming famous or anything like that.
Nor am I in a hurry to perform again, since mostly I feel out of my music phase and I rapidly forget my guitar songs and what skill I have. Wen I get around to practicing again and the time is ripe (perhaps in the summer) I can try again. Yet I don’t want this to be terribly important. It does not matter if I never perform again. The holograph of my life is recorded already in the subconscious, on the fabric of reality. That’s plenty for one lifetime. I don’t need paid gigs or recording contracts or anything else like that. They will remain as possibilities. A stronger possibility is that I now go into a kind of retirement phase and just learn to enjoy a simple and modest lifestyle.
In the future I could write more of the fiction that I seem to value above other writing. Fine if I do, but here again I want to control the ambition. I don’t have to come up with a brilliant new book any time soon. Now it’s OK to repeat these themes in this writing, since writing down the dispute to troubling thoughts and rigid beliefs is a part of CBT work. It helps if I write in this moderating way and burn these ideas into my brain. This will be my simple life philosophy. No, I don’t have to come up with a radical and fantastic new philosophy. That would be nice, but it is not essential at all, nor is it likely.
Here is reality; I’m writing on PC. Simple and ordinary as my activities go and the essence of all I really need. If the machine fails I can grab a physical notebook. The content of the writing does not matter so much. The act of writing is what is happening and what all writers do.
I have to watch my mind. It usually comes up with the ambitions and possibilities that are currently beyond me, leading me to think that I might be happier by attaining some far flung goal. I challenge this. I can be happy with the here and now, just appreciating what I have and what I do. I can repeat this theme in my writing as many times as I want to, since my purpose is to give me a here and now activity and put my moderating philosophy into practice. The other results and future possibilities may exist, but the main focus should not be there, it should be here. Here and now, in July 2007, in the present whatever the date is, whether I have a date or not.
4:30 PM. I have put the rice and vegetables to cook in the rice cooker. I have a cup of vanilla green tea. I have washed some underwear and socks by hand. These three haves put me in the realms of plenty. I even think of practicing guitar. Not much is happening and not much has to happen. It looks like another alcohol-free day and what’s more I don’t miss it. Some days Roberto will invite me to drink red wine, but this is not so often so as to be a problem and I don’t have to accept.
The rice cooker steams and rattles in the kitchen. I think of meditating again. My morning meditation was short and not too successful, yet I don’t have to judge these things. It does not really matter. I want to focus broadly, if that makes any sense, focus on the aims of my current life philosophy.
Rashalika thinks about positive change and growth, since my current vision tends to be small and narrow. I worry about this a little, yet I can’t be doing too much worse than I have done in the past, if we are to compare these things. I could certainly be doing a lot less.
I think of events that were crushing to my self-image and ego. Just as well. I can agree with Castaneda that self importance needs to be reduced. Yet I’m not trying to be a sorcerer or anything. For me that’s just another conceit. I think of that Buddhist paper on the medium sized ego – not too big but not as small as a wound, either. The middle way. Many things that I think of and remember all mull around in my noodle.
The rice cooker clicks it’s switch. The rattle of escaping steam stops. Light is fading from the sky as I write. I like writing, that’s reason enough to write. I think of turning on the radio. It has been silent during my reading and writing times.
I think of medium sized goals or small ones. Transcribing my poetry and lyrics to PC. Organizing my writings and so on in COW, my brother’s website. Things of this nature. I have done some of the transcribing already, made a start on that project. It is the kind of goal I can achieve. All of my goals can be of this nature.
The time is virtually five o’clock. I might eat some dinner.
9:42 PM. I was writing in my current black book when I came up with a book project. There are three empty shelves in the Cult of Time bookcase, and I thought of buying many books in advance. I could have a Book book with an index-like role, and I could number all the books and do something strange and different in these books. To start with I could write my diary with one page of each different book. Then I could have a system of cross-referencing or something. I could buy up different kinds of books, but I want to do the third shelf with hard cover books that have no spiral binding, which I now find inferior.
Of course the whole idea of the book project is rather obscure in the sense that I have no idea what the big idea is . . . I’m only doing it to have a project, for something a bit strange and different. I thought I could spend the next few years filling the Cult of Time bookcase with my notebooks. The book project is fairly similar to other things I have done in coloured books and so on, but more ambitious, since I could buy 30 or 40 empty books in advance.
I could do things with future fictitious diaries, pretending events in the life of the Emperor of the Moon or something like that. Actually I have no idea at the moment. I am just thinking of the various possibilities. I could have a book devoted to Rashalika and do it properly. That project broke down with the current black book just because Harold finished the red and black book and just wrote Harold material in the existing notebook. If I had plenty of empty notebooks in advance this could have been avoided.
The time is 10:03 and I am up unusually late tonight. I think of doing some similar book project on the computer. But I have no bright ideas for this PC project, so I am not going to plan anything at this stage, not even a book dedicated to Rashalika which would be simple enough to arrange.
What I do plan is to buy the empty notebooks. I can imagine getting a range of different styles of book that have the requisite covers. Then, depending on the selection I can plan some organizational details in the Book book. One thing I might have to do is copy the entry from the current black book which itself is banned from the project because it has spiral binding. Yet the entry is seminal, since, like this entry, it details the conception of the whole book project. Thus it should be written into one of the first books in the series. Then we need a book for Rashalika, and of course a Book book or two. That would be four books to start with, and I’m aiming to fill the entire third shelf with empty books as soon as I can.
I am feeling quite sleepy so I might head for bed and consider the book project tomorrow.
Sunday 29th of July 2007
I was on my way to Castle Plaza. I was going to do some food shopping and look for notebooks. Then I realized it was Sunday morning. The Shopping center does not open early on Sundays. Not until 11, I think. So I turned around and went for a different walk, down Harris street and up Diane street. There was some sunshine. Now I think that I might go to Dave’s after all, but I’m going to walk. For some reason or no reason at all I don’t want to ride my bike. Recently I have been walking to Castle Plaza for shopping.
If I walk to Dave’s then it will take longer, so I’m going to leave at 10:30. I can wear my white hat that I wear in the chair of dizzy stability. I have been thinking of the book project. I may not fill the third shelf with empty books, I will just buy a number of them, seeing what is available at the two nearby newsagents and probably buying all they have of the small hard cover notebooks. Now it is time to walk.
Monday 30th July
Now I have too many journals and notebooks. I bought a red pen and started the gray notebook as Rashalika. I have written so many entries in different books today that I feel stumped to come here and try again.
I was lying down, still recovering from the long walk yesterday. Roberto knocked on the door again, and again I refused wine. I brushed my teeth, shaved and had a shower. Five o’clock. Half an hour till I walk to Mum’s.
Thursday 2nd of August 12AM
I have just transcribed a poem called Mahatma Khan, and I’ve done shopping, yoga and meditation. The meditation improved my mood. I sat for half an hour and got into something close to the crystal body sensation. I worked on the Book Book yesterday and the day before, and plan to do a bit more today. The books are in the second shelf of the dragon bookcase in my bedroom. They are all out of sequence and some go back to 1995. Some of the old books are highly negative and depressing.
I have been writing in the green journal. I sometimes worry that my life is not ambitious enough, that I am setting myself up for a boring existence. At other times I will challenge this notion. I am not bored very often. To have too much ambition is an invitation for depression. Most of my life I have expected too much of myself and just let myself down, even though my achievements are substantial enough.
Anyway, I feel like I’m in something of a hibernation or retirement. My ambitions will be scaled down to what is possible and realistic. I will write the Book Book. I will transcribe my old poetry. I will eventually fill the third shelf of the Cult of Time Bookcase with my journals and notebooks. The red and black book has started the project. I have plenty of time to do these things. There is no rush. Also I plan to maintain my four daily activities, and in the future go to yoga classes again and perform again at the Grace Emily. This is all ambitious enough. I don’t need to demand more of myself.
Hey! It’s raining. Lucky I did the shopping in the morning. The angle of the rain is virtually tangential. I’m going to watch it.
After the rain the sun shone so I sat outside in the chair of dizzy stability and wrote in my green journal. When cloud obscured the sun I came inside. The soup was bubbling. I worked on the Book Book.
Sometimes I get the feeling that I still lack a distinct purpose. I write these books but I can’t think of an ultimate purpose for it all. In a way I think it should be self-fulfilling, that I only write for the sake of the writing in the present, but I still have the lingering notion of a greater purpose.
I think of life as a journey to death, yet mostly I also believe in an afterlife, so that death won’t be a true ending for me and I have to keep going. Why am I going anywhere? My current lifestyle does not seem to be going anywhere, I could argue, and I don’t really have a purpose.
I think of this as I write and feel sort of jaded or something. When I thin of a lack of purpose I go on to think of a lack of meaning. One day this will just be another journal document in a folder, or a hard copy somewhere, but it might not mean anything else. It might never be read and the text may as well be utterly scrambled because the meaning and purpose are lost, so all this can mean is “That text in the book”. This is a theme I regularly contemplate in my writings. Contentless text for the sake of art or something.
So I keep writing, sure. I start this new paragraph and know I mean something. Yet all is fringed with a sense of unreality. Is this just Rashalika’s lucid dream? The idea makes more sense to me when I grope for ultimate meanings and purposes. Of course it might not be Rashalika. My higher self could have a different name or identity, yet who ever I am I now use the convention of referring to that higher self as Rashalika. When I really wake up I might recognize the difference. If I never wake up it will be just as well. Oblivion-style death has certain attractions.
I suppose I am in a morbid frame of mind. But what I read in compiling the Book Book makes me think I was more negative and scrambled in the past. Perhaps that, too, is a delusion, because I’m thinking there is no real progress or improvement as such, just changes along the road to nowhere.
Rashalika thinks that this is a significant dream and it was worth being Harold. I can’t agree with Rashalika, although I’m now in the red guru seat. The time is 3:16PM. How many pushups can I do now? 27. This is less than yesterday, but better than nothing.
Am I better than nothing? Today I don’t know. I can reflect on both good and evil in my past, and try to judge myself. I feel a kind of neutral equality, as if the good exactly balances the evil. Then this is the middle way, and there’s no point in struggling to be much better or worse since in the long run everything comes to a neutral equality like this and there’s no meaning in judgement or progress.
Perhaps tomorrow I will believe more in my good or more in my evil. I might think purpose and meaning exist, and be progressing from somewhere to somewhere else. But not today. I’m just being neutral about it all.
I want today to be alcohol free because I had wine these last two days. Roberto is unpredictable but he might knock on the door and offer me wine today, though I have a feeling he will not. Anyway, at the moment I want to refuse.
So what I do is write another line of text. Perhaps it’s time I had a coffee and did some more reading of Samurai William.
5:09 PM
after reading I felt stifled so I went for a walk. I found a park nearby that I’d never seen before. There was a couple on the swings. My mood dropped. I feel pointless and aimless. I can’t be bothered with any mood-improving strategies now. In a way I feel I have exhausted their potential already. Perhaps I’m on the verge of a mid-life crisis or whatever.
I tend to think this is about my future, which I see as narrow, cloystered and modest. It’s just a way of getting from here to death with minimal further trouble. I don’t have much sense of fun or adventure any more. The antics I used to get into strike me now as foolish and immature. Dark gloominess seems to suit me. Life has become dull and I know I am making it dull. I don’t go for the new and interesting or any more challenges. I feel challenged enough just to get through another day.
The most of what I do reduces to activities, and then one activity should be as good as another, thus I could just write any nonsense or copy what I’ve done before …well, don’t I do this in my transcribing work?
And then I try to picture it, living here day after day in a similar way for another 30 or 40 years. It almost encourages me to suicide. I mean just what is the point? Mostly I’m just living to survive. I’m not interested in living any more. I know the kind of thing that happens, and so what? So what?
Now I’ll have to do something with this morbid philosophy I suppose. Wearily I set myself to challenge the negative thoughts. Ho hum. So what? Well you know there’s always some bad days and bad times. You know that things are not always negative. Sometimes you are really happy just with your little life in your little unit, modest, narrow or whatever.
I think of getting my data of rated moods from my black record diary and finding my average mood. Will it be neutral or more positive than negative? It may depend on my sample selection. Anyway, I’m not going to bother to do this.
Then I played some of my guitar songs and I feel a bit better. Perhaps I should try to perform again and make a plan for next Monnight or something like that. Anyway, I tell myself that I have achieved a lot of activities today, and to complete them I now do my jumping with silly affirmations.
There, I have done my jumping, and I want to impress upon myself that today was very successful. I have done all four set activities, plus the guitar, transcribing, book book, reading and writing. These are all of the activities I have going. I also did shopping and went for another walk. This may not seem like much to you but if I place stress on the achievements then my mood can be improved, and now I think it’s a good idea to work on improving my mood since I wrote a gloomy passage and doubted the strategies of improvement.
Perhaps low mood will always be there for me as a life challenge. In some ways it’s a familiar addiction I virtually enjoy, and I don’t think that it must always be avoided and countered at any cost. I mean a bit of low mood is acceptable, I just have to watch that it does not spiral out of control down into depression. Also I have to be careful because I was low when I decided to buy that bottle of lexia, so the low mood can aggravate my drinking habit.
I think about things that I don’t write about, but if I don’t go into all the detail then perhaps I can write about it. I hear that Dani is coming to Adelaide in September and I've had a range of reactions to the news. Will she want to talk to me after all these years of silence? Do I want to talk to her. Mostly I think she stopped writing as a delayed reaction to the bad things that happened in the past. Now I feel guilty and I don’t know what I can do about it. I can’t change the past now and I don’t know what she thinks or feels so I suspect the worse. Perhaps she just wants to disown me as a brother as much as possible. Perhaps she will avoid communication in September anyway. In a way that would now suit me and I’ve thought of refusing to see her even if she wants to talk. The silence has been hurtful enough.
I suppose there are a lot of issues I could write about here, but I hesitate to admit and discuss the bad things. In one way it comes back to my other issues ---expecting of myself a perfection beyond the human level, or what is very rare and difficult for most humans. Perhaps most people have done bad things that induce guilt and shame, and I know there are plenty of people who have done worse than me. Maybe it is not good to get into judgement and comparisons. Sometimes I just want to be more forgiving of myself and others, since most people are human and I should consider myself human I suppose.
All kinds of thoughts stream through my mind. I don’t know what to write next, since there’s a decision as to which train of thought to follow. I’m in a large station with many trains. I don’t want to follow any train of thought. I don’t want to reveal too much. Does it matter what I want? I think of evils in my past. I think of the strange self-images I have struggled to construct and maintain. I doubt myself and all I think that I know. How can I be sure?
Do I react badly to my minimal life because I deny the big ambitions? Is it a mistake to try and reduce or forget them? My self image was damaged by tragic events. Do I wrong myself by trying to hide away here? Well the self image was gross and egotistical. I’m not that significant, why should I try to be?
My eyes grow tired and the red guru seat is hard. I think I will stop writing soon and listen to the radio. Blues Power is in half an hour. Yet I think it is good to have done this writing today, and part of me just wants to keep writing, as if I’m headed for some great answer or conclusion.
Friday 3rd of August
I have been writing in red in the green journal because my new black pen ran out. I forced myself to transcribe another poem despite the dispute I wrote that I didn’t really have to do transcribing work. I still have trouble in giving myself strict rules and struggling to follow them. I can discuss it forever but I don’t know what is best. Should I try to avoid rules and the judge in myself? I want to tone down the high expectations. Then I think well just the four set activities and one poem a day is not much to expect. I should be able to do that. But I hate living under my rules, besides the activities are a growing list, and others I do are not even counted on the list when they should be, like all the writing that I do. Now there’s also guitar practice.
Should I do my jumping activity? I seem to have pulled a muscle in my lower back. Anyway, I don’t like to play guitar out of obedience to a rule, that seems to smother the spontaneous quality. The strange thing is that I’ve never made a rule to write, yet I do more writing than anything. I just want to write. The problem is I don’t seem to just want to play guitar yet if I don’t practice I soon loose my limited skills and forget my own songs even though I’ve played them thousands of times already and can be bored with them. So perhaps the discipline does not go astray.
6:02 PM I played 4 guitar songs and then did my jumping. I heated solid soup and have a coffee. Radio Adelaide is on. I don’t really know what I want to write about. Now I’ve done all my activities, so I should feel good about that. I don’t feel that good, if this matters. I change my jade Sarolda ring from the pinky of Myron to the pinky of Rashalika. In my handwritten books I have become Rashalika because my black pen ran out and I wrote in red. I don’t seem any different, so perhaps it has no meaning or significance. I don’t know why I can’t just stick to being Harold.
Well, being Harold is not exactly a bowl of cherries. The radio talks about political things that I know nothing about and have no interest in. I sometimes really wonder who I am and what I’m doing here. Sometimes it just makes no sense to me and does not add up, though I am not good at adding or any arithmetic. I appear to be writing. But I don’t know what I write or why. In some big and vague way it makes no sense to me. Perhaps I have too much freedom and not enough in the way of clear instructions, as if I can’t decide what to do with my life and expect more input from reality.
Yet I doubt this reflects anything I really think or mean, it only reflects a rather dull and pointless mood. I suppose so. Or whatever. But I do sort of wonder what I’m doing on this Earth or whatever it is. I feel sort of lost and directionless, so I just stay here and do my writing. The radio is distracting.
I wish I were inspired to write fiction or poetry. But I can’t force that, and it is difficult to be creative on medication. My community treatment order should run out soon, or could have finished already, so I will try to live unmedicated and see what happens.
I can hear the rain starting to fall, but it does not last long.
Saturday 4th August
I found this black pen in my pencil case and decided to be Harold again. Or that is what I planned to write in my green journal but instead I wrote it on the PC. Wolis rang early, yet I have done the 4 activities. I could do some transcribing around now. We are going to see Harry Potter.
Monday 6th August
I have decided not to write an entry today, which is why this writing does not exist. The reasons are twofold. For one I have been in a bit of a low mood, and for two I have absolutely nothing to write about.
I have done some work on the book book but not yet recorded this in my diary. I have been writing in the green journal and reading Samurai William. I have done a little yoga and meditation, and have done 20 pushups which is on the low side for me. The pushup count often reflects my mood more than physical strength, I have found, but it is not a direct correlation. On Saturday Wolis asked how my pushups were going. I said “Up and down”. He found this funny. Actually I was in a good mood on Saturday. I bought a bottle of wine on Sunday and my mood was very good until I felt bad afterwards and it has remained low for this morning.
I have no idea at all how I feel right now. I don’t believe in mood or in my capacity to feel it. I could be an android for all I know. The time is 3:30. My lower back is sort of stiff on the right side and I could not bend far at all to touch my toes (which I cannot touch any more). I have not done any poetry transcribing today, or not yet, and no jumping or guitar. I don’t think I can stick to the ideal of doing them every day. I rebel against the part of me that makes strict rules, but at least I do some of them.
Even if I could feel mood I don’t find it significant. I should not be writing about how I feel. For one thing I don’t really feel and for another it is not at all important how I think I feel.
Princess kitty is out the front. I see her through the low window. I look around in a distracted way and I feel happy that this writing does not really exist. I have just noticed that the toolbar calls this page 15, so this could actually be the number of pages in this document for all I know. I wonder how many pages I will write by the end of the document. I might make yet another cup of coffee. Wait here.
I return with a cup of weak vanilla green tea. I should probably do some transcribing now that I’m in the red Guru seat. There’s a resistance in myself and I tell Harold he does not have to do it. The idea of a list of activities is just that I do some of them and have some activity. Well this writing is an activity even if it does not exist. Anyway, if I want to I can write that it does exist. The time is almost 4:00 PM. This gives me an hour and a half before I go to Mother’s. I might try meditation again.
I did some meditation and then transcribed another poem. I almost did more but remind myself this is a long-term project and I must stretch it out, aiming to do just one poem a day. Some days I do nothing. Other days I have done two. My hard copy is called a quaint selection of lyrics and poems, so officially all the lyrics have to go in my lyrics folder. The book book has revealed other notebooks containing old lyrics but I don’t jet know if I want to copy all the ones I can find or not. Many I have never used because I don’t find them that good. In fact none of my lyrics or poems strike me as that good. Rosie thought they were good and used other colourful adjectives.
Now the time is five. This means only half an hour more at home before I start walking. I could write more in here for part of that time and more in another book such as the green journal that I am writing with a red pen. He thinks it means that I’m Rashalika. I generally assume that I am Harold, but I could be wrong. The USB key is on the table, clipped to an old bus ticket that has probably been used on the tram. It was used as a bookmark in The Secret Life of Dust. A book owned by Wolis, who goes by tram every week day to his job working on the website of a company. I asked him about it because I only remembered the old job. He does not write journals like this. He does not do any yoga or meditation. He is usually happier than me. Every so often I feel envious of Wolis. His life is so much smoother and easier than mine. He is much richer than me and has been Happily together with Clare for many years in a relationship that seems happy and stable. He has two sons called Joshua and Nathan who are growing up very fast from my perspective now. I believe Wolis has a large collection of photographs of clouds on his computer.
Rosie is my older sister who lives in Tasmania. She is worried about being too short and seems to be very extroverted and dramatic to compensate the sense of feeling small. I am now very fond of Rosie and we get on well, yet being in Tasmania I only see her once in a blue moon. We have been exchanging E-mail since her recent visit. I might check my E-mail again any day now.
Dani is my younger sister who has not responded to letters for several years now. There are disturbing incidents from the past so I assume this is why I am in her black books, though with just a total lack of communication I don’t really know. She has a little boy called Taren.
Rosie has four children; Chloe, Ali, Miranda and Sophie. She is married to Jonathan who I don’t get on with well.
Tuesday 7th of August
I have just transcribed another poem and come here to write a short entry. I’ve just had two glasses of Cabernet Merlot with Roberto and I’m planning to go to an AJA meeting tonight. The rice cooker just went click. Today started not so good and I wrote in my green journal and did some copying between this and the current black book.
I’ve eaten some dinner and managed 21 pushups. The time is 4:55 PM. Soon I will go to the train station. My appearance is on the wild side since my hair is quite long and I’m not shaving.
Wednesday 9th August.
Last night I walked into that café and stood there a little while. Then I walked out and got a taxi home. Apparently I didn’t want to be there.
Today I felt anti-activity to start with. BirdE rang and talked for about an hour and a half or even two hours. Then I went shopping. Then I was writing that I had nothing to write in the green journal. Then I did yoga, meditation, guitar songs, more writing and then work on the book book. I have just transcribed a poem then I came here. It is now about 4:15 PM.
If I do pushups and jumping I will have completed the recent activity list. I don’t want to have a list. I don’t know if writing is on the list or not but I usually do writing anyway, by default. I have begun writing the word writing into my black record diary. There were exactly 40 books on the second shelf of the dragon bookcase. I finished the book book that far, but there are more of my books on the shelf above.
I should check my E-mail. Rosie might have replied by now.
Friday 10th August.
My user name is Drishnu but I assume that I’m really Harold. I have struggled to write in the green journal today, often feeling that almost nothing is happening today and that I have nothing to write. At such times I can get into copying, which goes like tennis back and forth between two books. Sometimes more. Despite resistance to activities I have done most of them today. Most recently I practiced guitar, but I have not yet done any book book or transcribed a poem.
BirdE visited me last evening. He gave me a cone and raved intelligently for several hours. I had been drinking wine. When BirdE talks like that I can feel stupid by comparison. He manages quite an amazing perspective or project and I can’t explain what he means or be sure I understand him. He slips effortlessly from pure comprehension to utter nonsense until I think there is no difference. It can all return to monkey lunchbox.
For my mission today I have so far avoided buying another bottle of wine (I went shopping). If Roberto invites me to drink today then it could be soon, since the time is nearly 4 PM, and he usually will knock on my door around this time when he does invite me. If not I will have an alcohol free day. I can hear his smoke alarm now, which goes off almost daily when he does cooking. I suggested he ring maintenance because it is too sensitive, but I don’t think he gets around to ringing them.
I think I will now transcribe a poem.
I did that then wrote in a slightly poetic style in the zero07 document. It’s about surviving in a bubble of safety hemmed in by fears, another day another day, and things like that. I don’t feel very poetic and soon return to this journal.
I am bored so I am going to copy the results of other copying work that I find in Rashalika’s gray notebook.
Tuesday August 7 2012
I have been working on copies, so I copy the copy-work from another time into this book.
Today I am not going to write in this book, thus artificially bring it into line with my entry for yesterday.
“I copied that paragraph from the current black book, struggling to make my writing somehow more interesting.”
Then I copied this other paragraph from the green journal to see if I can’t get some confusion happening, and plan to copy this paragraph into the green journal.
“I wrote another paragraph that was not in itself interesting, but since I planned to copy it into the current black book it is capable of reproduction.”
This page was only in Rashalika’s notebook because I copied it from another book, either the green journal or the current black book. I don’t find it very interesting at all and it is only a bit confusing if we try to unravel exactly what was copied from where into where, since I copy back and forth several times.
The only reason for doing any of this copy work is just wanting to write something and yet running out of ideas, thus just to write for the sake of writing. Perhaps to keep my writing art pure I should only write for the sake of writing and nothing else, or I could write a special book to that effect.
I think of writing such a goal in Rashalika’s gray notebook
10th August
I have no inspiration and so I write in this book. My plan is to write only for the sake of writing, with no other purpose, as my form of pure art. And I intend to fail. And I intend to copy this paragraph into journal052007.doc.
There, I have made a start on this new project. Now the idea is, like some previous books I have written, that I go to write in it for a specific purpose, like being in a low mood or in this case having no inspiration to write. I’m sure I did that in a purple book or some other colour in the past, so I know it can encourage me to write in the gray notebook.
Thus by writing more about this situation I have worked today on this entry and got some substantial material produced or written down, and this is clearly one of my goals.
A dialog box keeps popping up to distract me, saying something about updates when I’m not even on line. It wants to restart the computer.
11th August.
The phone rings twice and stops before I can pick up. I wonder. I’d just been to Castle Plaza to buy new trousers. I saw Stacey working at the lotteries kiosk. I waved to her, she said hello, but I didn’t stop to talk. Perhaps I should have. She did not seem that busy. I wonder how she likes her new job. I have not tried ringing her for a while --- I let it slide as with most of my social contacts. It was like a part of my hibernation. Her phone is usually turned off and she does not return calls.
Today is mostly devoted to reading Specimen Days (again). I don’t like the swearing language in it. But swearing has become so common and the dialogue has to be authentic. I’d never attempt that kind of writing, although the book is in some way an inspiration.
Tuesday 14th August
If you ask me this is Monnight, yet it’s 2 in the Morning. I have been planning my suicide and writing the philosophy of happiness. I found the combination morbidly funny and have swung from a low mood to a high one. I was pretty miserable most of Monday and I began thinking of suicide tonight instead of sleeping. Then to be realistic I thought I wanted to finish off a few projects and save up enough to cover the funeral. Then I got out of bed, made sandwiches and coffee and began work on the philosophy of happiness. I found the preface very funny and was soon in a good mood.
I wrote some section headings and the first paragraph of each one.
It’s like caught up in the work of depression there is simply no energy to spare for CBT or the vain imagining that anything could help.
I should remember to write that in. I mean I claim that I’m not using the methods or attaining happiness myself. Anyway I’ve had two cups of coffee and I yawn so I might rest in bed for a bit.
Eventually he slept. Then the Harold woke after 10, recorded a mood of 6, did over 30 pushups and began writing in his notebooks and journals. He was getting to the end of the green journal, and then in the current black book he suddenly started writing of his disturbing issues directly, as if he had a therapist to talk to. As if he could break out of what he called the kosher trivia of his recent style where he struggles to write but does not want to admit anything that really needs to be written about.
In fact I hesitate to mention the issues in here. You know I have many regrets and I keep making mistakes, as if I expect myself to be perfect. I’m not going to explain. Rashalika can be super-human. Harold struggled to be so, in his own little way.
Mouse!
No, he didn’t mean that, the intangent meaning of Mousey. Because I could not compete. No I didn’t write this in his other book and I’m not altogether intending to make sense. He was complaining that his writing was scattered.
Look, just have some activities and meditation. Writing is an activity, OK? Don’t keep giving me the high demands. He needs some relaxation. They were just different perspectives. The whole thing got a bit scrambled, like in the third person. He planned a trip to Castle Plaza. Stacey might be at work in the lotteries kiosk. Ambivalent feelings. Several perspectives. That I’d write of myself in the third person or whatever, I mean really whatever.
OK, so if I’m hurt by Dani’s silence then we are just more even, since I hurt her so much in the past.
And if I stop Karate and take up Yoga this is just a change I can make, for whatever reason, and I don’t need to be greatly justified or defend a position, even though I don’t trust me much on this issue.
And if I can decide what I want to do with music then It’s just whatever works out. Why force myself to practice if I just don’t enjoy playing my old songs? The voice says it’s to give your music to others and here the argument can start again.
Anyway, the various issues can be active somewhere but give me a break. If I don’t like or respect the Harold, well, Rashalika does, so we want to give me a break from heavy mental pressures, to not dwell and stress so much since I do feel pretty good today. I plan to have a shower and go to castle Plaza. I don’t want any alcohol. I regretted the bottle I drank on Sunday. I wish I never got back to the point of wanting to drink again
Friday 17th August
I decided to write an entry here today although absolutely nothing is happening. I went shopping then I sat in the chair of good depression doing nothing. I could see that patch of sky and the clouds went through various changes. I did not feel like writing in the red journal. I did not do any activities, although I might do these later. For some reason I just don’t want to do much at all, although I suppose I am now writing this entry. I wrote an email to Rosie yesterday. I have stopped taking my anti-psychotic medication. I might return to my chair now and do nothing or write in the red journal. I might do some push-ups.
I didn’t tell you. I met Stacey at the lotteries kiosk on Tuesday. She suggested we meet and have a drink on Wednesday, but I didn’t see her there at 2:30 on Wednesday, and she wasn’t in the Tavern. I drank five glasses of lambrusco in a bad mood. I think she will be at the kiosk on Monday so I can find out what happened. I could have been about a minute late. I tend to think about these events a lot because not much else is happening.
Wednesday 22nd August
I was unable to sleep and got up. I wrote and printed some of my strange fiction. I tried to print all the PC journals of this year. Some suffered deletion and some have been broken and only partly recovered. I’d like to drink coffee but it’s 12:18 at night. I might go back to bed soon.
Wolis arrived at 6:20 and we took princess kitty to the vet. The girl at the vet rang to say they think Princess Kitty is pregnant. I thought it was only Quoll.
I have been doing a lot of reading these days. I finished Angels and Demons and started Discovery. I might read what now remains of my earlier journals now in hard copy of 2007.
Friday 24th August.
I feel as if I am going into a kind of semi retirement, although in several ways my life is really no different. I do writing. But in a very actual way I am transcribing the pale green book, editing as I go. And I work on the Jesporic document, which you could call a kind of nonsense. Every term must get the red underline. Well, Rashalika only gets through because he is in lower case.
Lets hope this does not make too much sense. As a kind of conceptual purity. Oh he means Jesporic. How long will I keep working on it? I have written in the red journal. I start too many documents that I never finish. One day I will compile a book of all the unfinished documents. I have written some of these ideas in the red journal. I loose track. I have not transcribed a poem for some time. Princess kitty is returned with a bald tummy and stitches.
Now I seem to be writing my more normal journal. After this entry I plan to lie in bed. I have not yet done my push-ups or meditation. Sometimes I think I cannot sustain the practice, that I will soon give up. Yet so far I have been fairly consistent. And, somehow, I keep working on a range of writing projects. What more will I do today? Will it really matter? There is a tomorrow.
Saturday 25th August
My mood itself is OK but I have a morose attitude. I’ve been working on jesporic and thinking just a way to get me through the day, to get this life over with. I bought another bottle of lexia today. I had one yesterday. I should do my push-ups before I start drinking.
The wine had a minimal effect because of the chicken I ate. I have been on COW. I went to Jalantra, found a house with a bookcase, read and added to the journal that is there (called book) and eventually found how to put books from my system into the bookcase on COW. I could not call them books so I started calling them the abbreviated titles. Then I stopped abbreviating, and used the complete titles without spaces. I transferred all the books of Science Fantasy Bible of the Demonlords, and the Darsan (That goes unidentified as such since I just name the four books of the collection).
Princess Kitty has been curled up right near the mouse so it has been difficult to work. I’ve had coffee and I feel very awake. It is almost 9 PM. I sent an email to rosie and deleted 3 pages of spam. Wolis was on COW but he didn’t respond to me. I’m in the red guru seat, have been for a while and it’s getting hard so I might stop writing.
Monday 27th August
I have written in several journals today. I made a lot of new ones in COW, going into a series of computers in computers and writing two jesporic documents as well as the journals, in the computers in the computer. Today is warm and windy and I began in a bad mood but I have improved.
Tuesday 28th August
I met Stacey at the kiosk when I went to Castle Plaza. She said she had gone to the tavern on Wednesday when I didn’t see her. She suggested today at 2:30. I ate at Charlie Chan and went home. I wrote in the red journal, which I have been doing a lot of. Then I returned to castle plaza. I didn’t see her at the kiosk and she wasn’t in the tavern at 2:30 but she came later after I thought she wasn’t going to make it. She talked to Ruth and other people at the tavern that she knows. She told me she works a lot of hours. At the lotteries kiosk on Tuesdays and at a gift shop somewhere and at the other gift shop where she is some kind of sub-manager. She gets the same thing as me, hibernating in the winter and doesn’t feel like doing things until the weather is warmer.
I told her about my cat situation and the impending kittens. She said she had three cats, and she used to have another kitten but she’s moved house and her new place is near a main road and the kitten was interested in climbing the trees on the other side of the road. It got run over. Stacey was really upset.
She still has three cats since she’s looking after Michael’s Siamese, which wants affection all the time and is not like a cat. It’s a species apart and more like a dog. Michael’s business went bankrupt, and perhaps it was him who wanted reconciliation. I’m not sure. Stacey was talking to Ruth. Someone wanted reconciliation but she was not going to tell him the steps and what he had to do for that.
Ruth talked about Jessica who wants a baby brother and now has a toy baby. Ruth does not want more children. Stacey said she had her childern five years apart, one is 18 (Mishka?) and one is twelve. Mishka was there with her boyfriend and stormed out to her room because Stacey asked her to put back the furniture that she’d moved around.
Stacey didn’t want to drink. She said she drinks rum at home to get drunk (Bacardi?). I told her about my writing projects, such as Jesporic. She thought it was worth doing, that someone should do it or something like that. She got some mints from the gaming room. A call came on her phone. It was a private number so she ignores it. I can see what happens to my calls.
I told Stacey about what I’m doing on COW with computers in computers. She thought it was interesting and thinks it goes around and around. There is certainly a certain circularity, although technically I was going down in a straight line.
Stacey was tired and she had to pick someone up, but she asked to see me again next Tuesday. This could be a weekly event. I agreed, and I felt good that she wanted to see me again. It has been a very long term series of events that led to this, and I hope to keep meeting her many times to come, at least I think I do at this stage. In one way I wonder at her motives. She seemed more comfortable talking to the other bar staff than talking to me. Perhaps she was shy to talk to me, who knows? But she must like me if she wants to meet me there again.
I stayed on and kept drinking. I think I had five but I can’t clearly recall. Then I came home and began writing of the events in here. Then the phone rang. It was someone called Tim. Oh dear, this is my replacement Karen. He fumbled his words as if phoning me was some great challenge. He’s just talked to Trent. I spoke in a fast, efficient way, just to be different. I wanted a karen. But if I see Stacey once a week I might not need a Karen. Well it is one of THOSE things, and I don’t especially want a stammering Tim but he will have to do. I might get some manuscripts bound. Perhaps he can drop me off at Yoga.
Anyway, I’m far more interested in Stacey. I could have something more to write about next week and you know I’m thinking more in terms of long term scenarios so she could be my friend for a long time and eventually something more or who knows.
Trent dropped off the medication. He said Tim is really called Tien but his surname is Mitchell so he might not be Chinese. In time I will be transferred to the community care team rather than MACS and I heard Dr Warhurst has left. Large cogs that slowly turn around.
Now I think of writing in my red journal, though I might just repeat some of the information I wrote in here.
Wednesday the 29th August.
You could call today a completely normal recent day. I have written in the red journal. I have gone to the Harold desktop and done some work on Jesporic and the pale green book. All of my writing is a kind of pointless task just to keep me occupied. There is no reason to do any of it. For the pale green book I copy a handwritten book that is full of bogus information about imaginary space geography. Jesporic is ironically meaningless, of course and is almost a parody of writing itself. The red journal is a lot of writing mostly about the fact that there is nothing to write about.
Then I come to this writing. Not much better, is it? Well who is to be the judge of that? Now I could be a sane person who just does some writing or I could be completely mad. These things seem relative.
Thusday the 300th August 1961
I just got up and decided I would try to create a Jesporic environment in COW. I mean you go into the word and it says;
You are in a Jasporic . You can see a gwemdesh, a lastinbrolt, a destic, a mobatta and a clozu,. These could in tern lead to other domains all with Jesporic terms so in fact you don’t know where you are or what you can see.
I have just copied and pasted this journal from the drishnu desktop on my system. Quoll has just given birth to a kitten. It was born at 10 AM as I was. I can't even remember my birth. It was in 1962.