posted October 30, 1999 02:43 AM            

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Hey, Johnny7:

Thanks for the 'cool name' although I really think yours' better. Good to hear about your lady and the TPB. Great if she reads, enjoys it and ask for more comics. Which does not mean she will become any sort of Invisible, but then again....

I guess it was Peter Milligan who wrote on his introduction to 'Shade' run on Vertigo (maybe issue# 33) that we sometimes have to get rid of stuff to *really* move on. Just hope you haven't taken off some passer by's scalp. Take care.

posted November 22, 1999 12:19 AM            

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In 1995 I was in Bristol and I went to a Morrissey gig on a pill.

I think I achieved some sort of closure that night.

posted December 02, 1999 07:15 PM            

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"Don't forget the songs/that made you cry/and the ones that saved your life..." sure, but in the end we all have to turn it around, go see Morrissey in his bath chair with the blankets up around his neck, kiss him on the forehead and then push him down the hill and into the lake.

I've been studying shamanism lately and at the same time my life was turning to shit... then I read this one book, "The Shaman's Body", and I figured it out:

The pain, anguish, despair are normal. That's part of your soul dying, man. Luckily it's a part you won't miss--the part that thinks people can actually be happier if they behave themselves and stop seeking.

Happiness isn't a warm bed you can climb into, it's a questing beast you have to chase ALL THE FREAKING LIVELONG DAY. Which may sound unbearable--in the midst of clinical depression (which I've been through) it sounds totally impossible--but in the end it's much, much better because you apreciate what you catch and eat more than what you buy wrapped in cellophane at the grocery store. (Of course, I'm a vegetarian, but what the hell).

The pain spurs you on. It gives you a reason to become invisible. For that reason it's desirable.

One of Naraoia's three pillars of wisdom: "You'll always find what you're looking for--because by the time you reach it, it will have changed."

Hope that helps--I just reread it and it sounds a little brutal. But then all good things are savage, in their way.

posted December 02, 1999 08:13 PM            

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Naraoia: (these names just keep getting better!) Thanks for the thoughts. They are a little harsh, but completely accurate.

It's been two months since I started this thread, and I'm astounded that it still breathes. It has definitely helped me... my "return to Invisibleness" is looking more and more permanent.

Thanks be to all...

posted December 04, 1999 06:57 PM            

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Loz: not at all. The things that we want change as we mature and learn about reality--do you still want the same toys, to date the same people, to work the same job you wanted when you were ten? Do you feel like less of a person because your tastes have changed? Do you feel you're missing out on what you really wanted all along, just because you're no longer interested in scoring tickets to a New Kids on the Block concert? (sorry--without better information on your childhood dreams and desires I have to improvise). The road takes you where you're supposed to go, not where your momentary desires hoped for. In the end, you'll want what you get--that's the point of getting what you wanted.

My, don't I sound clever? 8-)

posted December 04, 1999 07:04 PM            

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Oh, and Johnny7: love your name too. Keep the faith, man--very glad to hear you're coming home again. For all the harsh stuff I said, it does get easier--and life becomes a lot more fun. You know what I did the other day? I ate an apple. I hadn't bitten into one of the damn things in years--ate them in pies, drank their juice, but never actually picked one up and just chomped it. At first it was annoying--the juice got all over me and I felt sticky and disgusting. Then I chomped again--and I remember the point WAS to get sticky and disgusting. It became this amazingly sensual experience and I started giggling (no drugs at all--I was walking to work at the time, sober as a judge in detox). It was so much fun--like being a kid again, no, not like that, like finally waking up. Like taking a big bite out of the world. Tasty.

This is the way invisibles eat apples--all the time.

posted December 11, 1999 05:29 AM            

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Here's a cheering thought: I just saw Fight Club. Driving home, flashing back on the car crash scene, I realized that no one on this board would know if I died.
I'd just stop posting.
For all I know, one of us may have died already.

This is shaping up for one hell of weekend, I can tell.

posted December 11, 1999 08:59 AM            

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Is there no electronic equivalent of uncollected milk bottles on pensioners doorsteps to make us suspect someone's died?

Everyone on this board has pseudo-personalities anyway so is it possible to separate the death of a personality from actual physical death.

And didn't we ritually sacrifice one Joe Annis not long ago? I don't remember any tears over that one.

posted December 11, 1999 09:12 AM            

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Actually I was redeemed at the final stage. No thanks to Grant however.

I do find the word redemption interesting. As in 'These vouchers can be redeemed through any of our branches..'

Does god operate a gift shop?

posted December 11, 1999 06:34 PM            

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Loz: Yes, I suppose, in a purely technical sense, yes, you wouldn't get it. But I stand by my wisdom! It's the search that defines what you're looking for, not the half-formed notion of what it is you keep in your head.

I'm such a bad dog. Somebody bat me across the nose with a roll of newspaper.

Please?

posted December 12, 1999 06:44 AM            

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A true initiation never ends, right? All life is suffering, if at first you don't succeed, teach an old dog new tricks. Something like that, right? My first conception of the understanding of the great secret of the universe was that it was a joke, one that we all knew, but was funny each time you heard it. The snake biting it's tail, Uroboros. Never ending, like a really comfy spot on your bed in the morning((afternoon)).

I was watching AMERICAN HISTORY X, because after fight club, I'm such the ed norton guy, and someone said I might like it, and it got me thinking, yeah, you're on the side of life, or your on the side of death. Or wait, this weird sexy vampire demon chick on this one episode of millenium put it so well: You're either living or you're dying. Living is doing what you want to do, and dying is everything else. People can change in an instant. Even if they don't believe they really change who they are, they can change what they do, how they look, how they act, it's just as good. It's all about perception, right? And death, well, and death just means change, right? Or was that the hanged man? Ah hell, I gotta stop getting my tarot done when I'm drunk.

posted December 12, 1999 08:06 PM            

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Zephir: Death is Change, the Hanging Man is Sacrifice.

Living is doing what you want... hmm, hate to be the voice of reason here but if what you want is self-destructive... well, then? Living means finding a path you can stick with, a path that makes you feel more intensely, makes you want to be doing whatever you happen to be doing anyway. "Desire", i.e., what you want, can be a prison if you desire the unattainable (as most of us do), and can keep you from living. I'm not trying to get zen here, really I'm not, but the path is the important thing, learning to walk it correctly, that's my idea of being alive. Happiness is about enjoying the path--enjoying the fact that your feet hurt, to stretch a metaphor.