Neutral Jing

What has been on my mind lately? I've become so distanced from the process of writing...I used to have such a reign of what my mind was processing from day to day, recording, remembering. But now, on the brink of this trip, I feel like I have been exercising the privileges of being social, blowing off my own creative work in an effort to spend time with people before leaving them for an indeterminate portion of time. I'm having thoughts, certainly, but somehow they become shattered by the frantic schedule I'm keeping...not having a good sit to sift through them, they become so pummeled by the constant flood of sensations that they are unrecognizable when I come back around to thinking about them, and I forget where I might have left off. What I was headed toward. What emotions I was spun up in when I first pioneered them. Without vigilance regarding these things, it becomes very difficult to trace a thread throughout one's thoughts...to keep a procession, instead of slipping in rank. I follow my thoughts from A to G, but then distance myself from them for a time. When I come back to them, I have a vague semblance of what G might have entailed, but it loses all context and meaning if I don't have the foundations of E and F still firm underneath it. Thus I regress back beyond the last achievement, resting perhaps at C, and must push forth again towards the distances. In the meantime, though, all my motivations have changed, and the G which I may reach is distinctly different from the G which I previously excavated. A troubling business, this 'thought'.

Overall, I'm pleased with how whimsical the world and my mind are when they orbit one another. Things come up which I could not have foreseen; any moment can occasion an explosion of personality or philosophy. It is bothersome, however, to acknowledge that I have no idea what a particular trigger might be or look like. There are such moments when I am caught up in a social circle, and something strikes offhanded, some flash or coincidence on my peripheral vision. I thoughtlessly acknowledge it, but being social requires a constant 'group' presence, a mask, and in pursuit of this I abandon the distinct subjectivity of such glimmers. I may club and drag them back to my tribe, but in doing so I alter them differently than if I were to be alone observing them...I turn them on their head for comedic effect, I dilute them for the masses and exploit some simplicity of what might have been a great concept had I pursued it on my own or in the company of genuine discourse. Occasionally I feel the charlatanry of this process, and I feel somewhat shamed, diminished by it.

Lately I have been running in packs. This is an oddity for me...I'm used to being around a single other person, or perhaps two. The dynamics of these situations are notably dintinct...the broachable topics being drastically different in varying degrees of severity. With a lone companion, one can talk about anything one wants...still the topic will find itself fair game. It may be shot down, evaded for the purposes of comfort, but it will at least find attention and acknowledgment. I miss having an intelligent girlfriend. It's too hard to bring such things up in group discussion, or especially in party-scenarios where one must constantly keep pace with the fluid dance of many partners, many conversations which ideally should be so simple (yet clever!) that others can easily drift in and out of them at their moment's pleasure. I've never been tops at this simplistic cleverness. I am somewhat in awe of those who are~ I lack those razor-sharp, caustic, fervent tendencies...I gravitate, generate, slowly roll into presence like a timpani. I'm beginning to think it has to do with different dispersals of energy...separate and chosen (if unconsciously) types of expression. I am learning from these quick-witted types; I can switch this on if I need to. It feels inauthentic, to me, and I doubt that I could keep it up for long stretches....this conversational sprint. But it is there, a tool at my disposal, and I notice how it alters situations, how it commands. I feel the heat and the power of this clearly incendiary technique. I could not burn like this for long - my hourglass turns - I require respite, shelter. I am mostly sorcerer, but augmented with warrior tendencies at my reserve.