Goodbye Toby

Toby Jones died last week. It was the first time that someone outside of my family died that I knew reasonably well. Toby was truly a character. He was really funny, eccentric and very nice. The first time I got to know him was in Middle School, in Mr. Harriman's class. He actually had the audacity to ask Mr. Harriman if that smell permeating the pod area was pot smoke. It was so funny because we were in 8th grade and that was a big deal. I have a shitload of pictures from the 8th grade dance with Toby and Eric...and those resurfaced when I fell in love with Eric.

Also, Toby and I and Drew had Ecology together with Mr. Umbarger, which was a really fucked up class. Mr. Umbarger was kind of a blunt, old pervert, and he was the first real teacher who cussed. Cussing in those days consisted of "Ass" and "Son of a Bitch," not "Fucking fuck fuck" and "Smegma". Anyway, that class was fucking hilarius. We had it with the jocks and I remember Colt Sanchez saying "The mountains of Florida." Also, I remember Toby molesting Drew's legs.

Toby was really funny and very weird. He had a dark side, but for the most part he didn't have a mean bone in his body. The last time I saw him was over Spring Break at Alice in Wonderland. He told me that he was a lift operator in Telluride and I was like "We should get baked." He gave me his number....

Bittersweet. He had an enlarged heart and so it was only a matter of time. It really sucks that everyone was like intitially "O.D." or whatever. Obviously Toby lived life to the fullest, and at leas the got to spend the last time in his life in the beautiful mountains.

I'm going to his funeral tomorrow, and I know I am going to ball.

Om Tare Tu Tare Tura So ha

the dutch gave me a tip; it's going strait into the green fund

One day

Two blow outs. Flat tires.

:(

My alignment is so fucked from my retarded accident from last week. I am so glad I didn't write about that, I was planning on and then I was just too tired. In light of recent events concerning Toby, that event was hardly worth mentioning.

I was very very lucky though, all times when my tires went flat. It happened at exactly the right times. Some tourists from Reno gave me a ride back down from work, and on the way there was a motorcycle accident and this guy had a broken clavicle. People get injured and die everyday. Every minute is a precious gift. Because I'm a young person, I think of things as being guaranteed: I will live long enough to reach old age. Nothing is guaranteed.

It is in this fashion that I understand that I need to be more patient and aware. I got so used to things being so good, that I forgot that sometimes things aren't perfect. I got comfortable around the comfort, and then when it stopped I got all bitchy. This last week has just been shit piled on top of shit, and it really sucks when good people die. Life is not worth wasting bitching about some future fulfillment that is being kept off limits. Time eventually ends up on itself, and to want it to finish faster (no matter what the circumstances) is like burning both ends of the gift.

Stress is irrelevant in this scheme.

I wrote this last night, after writing a sad letter to Clair, and being generally mopey...

Dear Friend,

I am dying to meet you again. I don’t know how much longer I can hold it. It’s more than suspense, it is Hitchcock on acid and speed.

I have no direction. I thought that when the summer came the warm weather would inspire me and I would teach myself great things, and mysticize about great visions. The nature part has been excellent, but the ego is becoming more of a problem. I thought that it was abdicated; but when exterminated, these things have a funny way of popping back into your life again louder than ever. To be at the highest heights of thought, to be circulating in the most abstract (and yet most real) of realms, that was the best. Now I find myself slipping because everything is so banal. There is no more truth, there are no more questions. Everything is a malign and petty answer. Very concise and never entertaining. The malaise has set in, and it makes me wonder what India, and majik even did.

Rock and roll idols never die. I guess in that respect you are a rock and roll star. You motivated me stronger and quicker than anyone has, and to be around you was a deep joy, a blessing. Meditative and clear I was, and when left to my own devices I came up with very strange webs of interconnected variables. Everything fit in it’s proper place, and even though it was fucked up, it made sense. There are always antecedents, “necessary and sufficient conditions”. Science + people = finally figuring out human behavior, the most twisted and darkest art of all. I think perhaps that’s why it’s most intriguing to me. To study why and how people commit acts of great evil and great good is perhaps one of the most breathtaking adventures to take. Every step of the wheel is some turn, some gripping horror, some act of great kindness, back and forth again on the pendulum. There are always questions and they never end. This last year, I was not only conscious of myself and my thoughts, but I became more conscious of the living breathing world as a whole and all of the people in it. If I was having a shitty day or something happened, I would always reflect on the scale of suffering of the entirety of human existence, which sounds really bad, but it really helps you become more mature and less self-absorbed.

People don’t really get it when I talk about you, just how cool you really are. I wish William was still around because he really dug you. But he, like everyone else left. I will leave too, and when I do there will be thousands of tears in my eyes, and I honestly don’t care - I will hug you. You mean so much to me and given me so much, I don’t know if I could ever repay you. I used to think that she was the shit and she was it....but really she was the appetizer! If anything, she sent me in the right direction. She got me thinking....but you got me REELing. I was supposed to meet her so I could meet you.

Being at home has turned me into a self-absorbed monster. When I’m at work I don’t think but when I’m at home I’m just so...wa....and I’m just calculating. I get super bitchy and critical. I need to learn how to be pleasant when things aren’t perfect. This will be the hardest challenge of all...KILL YOUR IDOLS said Dylan. I need to live in the now.

Love,
Amy

say me, Jamie

There is something about it...

The metaphor goes like this: there are two parts of you now. There’s the old you, and then there is the new you that has evolved since college. The new you realizes the limitless possibilities, the search for wisdom, the unending mystery and ecstasy of the spiritual journey. The old you is the same; the same things people expect of you, the same situations, the same patterns. The disconnect is apparent: you are not the old you at all, but people are still treating you as if you haven’t changed. The new part of you struggles daily because it can’t be satisfied by the way things used to be. It craves wisdom, experience, and deep contemplation. When going through the motions, it seems that the old you is the one that people interact with, but the new you is screaming all the time. The old you only exists in time and circumstance, and propagating the lie is becoming harder and harder everyday.

...I think you thrive off of new experiences.


I think I do too.

Faster = Bigger

I do have to admit, when I'm working, I see people from everywhere. I see people from Europe, from Asia, and from pretty much everywhere in the U.S. Somedays my friends you might be at the right place at the wrong time (pretty kickin Dr. John tune if I do say so myself.)

Today was that day.

I had a complexetely chillax day. I gave two tours and both went really well (the first one was amazing)

Then I went to Spruce Tree House to finish my shift. It was like ten minutes till I had to leave, and I was encountering a lot of English ppl and I wanted to talk to them more, and then these really fucked up British people showed up. I don't even know how to describe them. The man was really fucked up -- the women were actually normal. He actually reminded me of a pirate of of Pirates of Carribean, but probably weirder. Whatever, then the funny shit starts to happen.

At the end of the day was this old man and this young like latin guy or something. He was probably 25 - so nothing like a pederast, but the guy that was with him was really old. He had a video camera. The British were betwixt all of this, mind you. So I look at the guy and the young guy and I say "They are lovers - look at the way that guy is standing." Then the young guy was singing on an ipod. Then the old guy was like "bleh bleh bleh Music video" and I was like "Whoa, I have really good gaydar today" and then before I'm leaving the trail, the young guy is taking off his shirt, and the old man is like taking a video of him. Reminding you again --- this is Spruce Tree House people, not The Hefty Pole. As I'm leaving down the trail, I can hear the young guy bursting into song....I can seriously hear him screaming. It was almost like broadway or something. That was probably one of the trippiest things to happen at work yet. I didn't see the young guy dancing or anything, but I'm sure he was...because he was alive with song. Latin gay guy dancing in Spruce Tree House with his shirt off. Ha ha ha -- finally I have something to match Baley's fucked up Animas people.


I am honestly finally approaching the barrier between hating work and loving accepting work. No, I love work. It's just there is so much of it all the time, that I realize how lazy and pointless I was. Now I am just like a creepy machine...who puts in labor and gets money. I like being outside and seeing fucked up familes all day is fun. It's just I'm not really used to it especially. I'm becoming an ego less shell - for better or for worse. Lucky in the sky with diamonds around the end of school, and the weird effect of work is having it on me. When I'm immersed in nature and routine I kind of slip into the background..and then when I'm not doing anything, I'm still kind of spacy. Not like I'm emotionless or empty...just not so self-aware. More aware of the true self, and not so much addictive thinking. Whatever the case, I am kind of shutting my brain down in a sense, because I'm not really learning anything new, it's more like a self discovery or a non-self discovery. I figure when school starts, that's when I'll get in my element and think a lot more about complex stuff. It's not that I'm not complex anymore - it's just that at the end of the day I am exhausted physically and it is really hard to think a lot when you are tired all the time. Jesus a moth just flew into my face.

WHEN YOU COME TO COLORADO, MOUNTAIN LIONS EAT YOUR FACE. Watch out.

I've come to understand that Colorado is a very unique and wonderful place. To leave it will be very very painful...to be torn away from all the beauty and openness. It's a very special western state. Western colorado is like one of the last of the rugged isolated places. Being in such open territory has a surprisingly insular effect...I found that when I was a child, nature was the best thing around and it was the only thing around so I just got really into it. So many people do, and way more than I do. In today's day and age, with the way populations and pollution and climate change is going, this maybe the last time in history where things are truly, utterly wild. That being said there has been no other time in the history of man worth relishing than this moment, because the sacredness of nature just continuing as it always had has now been comprimised. Through our manipulation of the environment through industry and mass production, we have outdone ourselves to the point of absurdity. I think we need to get back to what is more natural in our spirits. Because without nature we are nothing - we may think that we are better, but with that justification might come our end. I hate to get all apocylptic and doomy, but I don't know if I think that everything is going in an okay direction. Technological innovation is now exponential...human progress has been pretty much exponential. With so much expansion might the balloon burst?

Tyler's class helped so much with demonstrations. One time he was doing an demonstration with a balloon and was trying to blow it up and it wouldn't and it would get big and then pop out into like a flacid penis and then he started talking about hard ons and fucking --- but it was really like inneundo, so it was really funny. One time he was talking about rough, angry sex. And then in lab he was talking to one of my friends, and she was like talking about light: "Faster = Bigger" and he was like "Not in my experience."That man changed my life. I was 19 and he really freaked me out.

Also, I have realized that I am so young in everything. I have already had my first real international experience, my first internship, my first crazy job. Some people my age weld steel, fight in iraq and have babies, but I'm doing weird shit that is slightly professional. It's funny because I am not a professional person at all. So this is really hard for me to pretend to be the man. And Calvin Paul might be going to Iraq. His Dad was at work the other day and said that. Decisions, enactments, policy sends people to kill and be killed. People receive the outputs.

I want to sleep outside tonight.

3 Ages of Man

Live a little
be a gypsy,
get around

:) get your feet up off the ground

how can things be so heavy - en
and be so hell

inside my find i’ve found heaven
all around the world are hells

to perpetuate my heaven to the outside, i will need to change as a person. i will have to put myself on hold for years and push to find that common ground, that electricity, vibrance, and oh other known as love. I want to see it all and hold it all in my hand, conquer nothing but breathing.

i think there have been three golden ages in man

1. ‘traditional’ society - people just trying to survive, eat, live, copulate, and master the elements....

2. modern society - people finally having the intelligence to master their elements, to consort peoples and materials to their whim and will - democracy/representative governments/economic systems --- these are all the appropriate evolutionary constructs that support the environment already established

(modern society ---- leads to greed, unimaginable greed, envy, excess....which in turn is blind and self consuming..

just look at the u.s. today

the amount of ignorance, insolence and vulgarity is disgusting, i don’t even dare touch it.

because the fact exists that today while you fueled up your s.u.v. and wasted water, and wasted food and wasted energy --- so many people died because they didn’t have what you had...


the problem of distribution.)

if
modern society is just pushing outward, and everyone wants everyone else to feel comfortable, and have the kind of fucked up consumer life that everyone has....its just not sustainable

people try to export free markets and political systems that ‘work’....what they don’t realize -(consciously or unconsciously) is that the more you try to pull people in, they will in turn become your competitors. as cool as it is

that you pay them nothing
for their beautiful beaches and drinks
----globalizations price will come back to you - the world’s just gone too BIG

the fact of the matter is is that people want to live, and they want to grow....and so you have just unleashed the end of the world

famine, plagues, war, death



3. ‘postmodern’ society --- whatever the fuck that is

if people will just become a - ware of the kind of pandora’s box we have opened....it’s funny, because every time I talk to kids about starvation or collapse, they act as though that could never happen and that everything will be perfect for their entire lives. I JUST WANT TO CRY... because it’s happening, now, it’s been happening.... so much death and destruction

But here you go - you have the most progressive society in the world one hand you have the good ol us, with freedom, happiness, land, liberation...but does that come out of nowhere? what is it built upon? IS IT ITS OWN UTOPIA?

and so postmodern society must reconcile itself with traditional and modern society --- if the postmodern era kids can further share the wealth instead of concentrating it deeply....

if we can get over our basic monkey instincts --- oooo ooo aaa aaa - kill eachother, this is mine, i want more.....

if we could just get to that next step in the evolutionary ladder ----- we could save ourselves. only then and that way do I see our generation saving our species. we will save it by clean energy, and renunciation of so much of our possessions, and maybe we will return to a greater educational awareness. we can do it now....

or we can wait for greater destruction to occur, and then we will have to come up from under it all or be eradicated

At no other point in our species history have we been so connected, well versed, well educated

and at the same time

we are so alone, so unversed, so uneducated

we are trapped in our playthings and our dreams of ourselves

we are a surreal encounter ----


so completely breathtakingly beautiful --- the amount of ideas that have been able to circulate, free, unencumbered.
all the while --- being
so completely disgusting - fat, too tanned, too blonde, too self consumed’


i can see why lenin was revolted by the masses...yet at the same time, we are all one and live from one another

i welcome my society to start not benefiting, not growing, not flourishing
I want kids i know to loose money, lose it all fast, because it’s going to end up consuming you ----

and that’s what people don’t realize,
is that it’s just gotten so big.

I welcome economic hardship, because maybe people will start thinking about where their food is coming from....and maybe they will start thinking about other people that can’t eat....and maybe then the world can be saved. but it can only be saved

by self sacrifice
putting the ego to bay, at his own camp, and saying “Hey - I know that you are there, but I can resist you...I’ve got to help someone out.”

MAITREYA when maitreya comes ---

"will lose their doubts, and the torrents of their cravings will be cut off: free from all misery they will manage to cross the ocean of becoming; and, as a result of Maitreya's teachings, they will lead a holy life. No longer will they regard anything as their own, they will have no possession, no gold or silver, no home, no relatives! But they will lead the holy life of chastity under Maitreya's guidance. They will have torn the net of the passions, they will manage to enter into trances, and theirs will be an abundance of joy and happiness, for they will lead a holy life under Maitreya's guidance."

well it's a five o'clock world when the whistle blows...

Update: Retard...I was so blazed the other night and my brother was screaming at video games like he often does. His computer is fried, so to threaten him to shut up I told him I was putting a password on my computer. I used a legendary phrase, but used uppercase letters and numbers. The next day I completely forgot what it was, and everything I tried failed. I couldn't get in, and the apple site said I would have to delete my hard drive :( So today after work, I was determined to "crack the code". I went through about 80 - 100 different combinations before I found the magic one! Determination can go a long way to that fantastic, orgasmic moment of relief.


Well Obama won. I'm just very glad that this is all over, because now it's going to go in one direction against the people that will lose . And I'll be 21 and I will get so wasted and I will dance around half-naked.



I have been working for about a week solid now. It's really not as hard as I thought it would be. The key issues I have are with my uniform. I'm such a slob and it shows at this job. I never wear my hat (we always have to wear a hat outside), my shoes are never shiny and my name tag is conspicuously absent. I've decided that if I ever work for the government for reals, that it's going to have to be on my terms, and I'm going to have to be able to deal with the rules and regulations. Actually, working at this job makes me want to be a chillax professor that much more. Reyes wears like the same shirt everyday, is late, and says fuck all the time and no one cares. When you have these like government restrictions, it is very easy to slip up if you are some dumb 20 year old kid.

Not to say that I hate this job: I love it. I love the park. There is a special kind of energy that flows all around Mesa Verde. It's like leaving another world, even though you are right next to the Cortex of hell. I don't know if it's the spirits of the people still there, or just merging with nature, but I honestly feel high when I'm there. If I'm negative about some aspect or something, it just all melts away by the end of the day. There are so many wild animals that roam around, the wildflowers are everywhere, and the canyons are ridiculous. It's quiet (for the most part) and I get to drive around a lot listening to the radio, which is fun.

I also enjoy talking to people, who are from all over the U.S. and the world. The Europeans have definitely invaded. When I was in NYC a few weeks ago, I realized that there were more Europeans there than when I went in 2003. At the park they come in bus loads, taking advantage of our worthless money. It's sad -- but cool at the same time. They are usually insanely polite and really interesting to talk to. I just feel bad that in my tours I am throwing in so much slang that they don't even know what I'm saying. As for the Americans - most of them are cool, but some of them are just annoying. The annoying part about this job is that I hear the same questions over and over again...but over time I have learned so much about different places, events, jobs, etc just from talking people. It's very nice because you are kind of like in a petry dish full of people and they are all just random and have different experiences. So I'm spending the last summer in Cortez with no one from Cortez -- and that's okay with me.

Some memorable experiences as of late:

-Yesterday I was taking a Long House tour, and a beautiful lizard jumped out right in front of us on the trail and sat next to the trail while everyone walked by it. It was one of the most amazing animals I ever saw:

The Eastern Collard Lizard

- Two people I worked with made me realize that I will never work for the CIA

- People laugh when you talk about heart attacks, death, drunks, "fewked up", etc...but not anything else

-Gay and or/Italians laugh at me

-This little boy today seriously asked the most awkward question I have ever been asked. I was telling everyone about the features of the Kiva, and some of the beliefs of the Hopi/Puebloans. The little boy asked "Well why would they believe something that was not true?" I began to laugh nervously, and I think I said "OOOOO" and everyone else around me (about 40 people) were way freaked out to. I handled it as best I could, and the summation was "It's very rude to tell other people that their beliefs aren't true." But I was really sucky at explaining myself because I was just so off guard by that question.

-Shake and bake is not as cool as it sounds

-I love Wetherill Mesa ( - cougars, bobcats)