What am I writing about this time? I don't know anymore.

I was going to write a little bit about tonight's Shambhala class -- what I perceived as one of the most profound and enjoyable in memory, both the meditation (for me), the teacher's talk, and the discussion afterwards. The official topic was "The Pursuit of Happiness." The teacher began by reading a relevant section from the Declaration of Independence, and followed by speaking of many profound things. Meditation and how it relates, our society, etc etc etc.

Right now, I honestly do not remember most of what was said. This is because -- while I listened intently to many sentences, and spaced out during a few others -- I made almost no attempt to organize or categorize any of it for later retrieval. Focusing on the sensations brought about each parcel of thought, the facial expressions of the teacher while she uttered them, and then processing my own reactions consumed most of my being. Therefore, I am largely unable to recall -- much less write about -- "what was said". A living dream state of the mind.

I do have some memory, however, especially of tiny bits of the discussion that happened after the main talk. Ironically, this might be because I was paying less attention, at least in a certain sense. It's hard to explain. Anyway, there were some words about compassion, 9/11, the Israelies and Palestinians, and other world issues, plus tons of other stuff (Specific quote: "Are there any Israeli Buddhists, and if so, how do they relate to the Palistinians(sic?)? Are they able to feel compassion for them?" Nobody seemed to know an answer. The teacher herself said, "I don't know.")

...

I realize that in my complete avoidance of web content consumption, including any content that might have been posted by others on this web site, I am becoming completely out of touch with my readership. bitscape.org has ceased to become a two-way communication medium. It has now turned into a broadcast channel. I broadcast. You read, if you're there. Or if you aren't I don't know the difference. You might have posted a comment, or you might not have. Either way, I know nothing of it.

At the same time, I have generally been avoiding any information that comes from other media sources, both mainstream and alternative. I have not watched television. I have not looked at a newspaper. I have not seen google news since many days ago. I have not heard KGNU or Democracy Now. I have not read alternet, nor have I looked at crashwatch.

I don't know how the economy is doing. I usually at least pay some vague degree of attention to the dow jones, but not today, or yesterday, or the day before. Is the recovery in full swing, or are we sliding back into recession? Don't tell me. I don't want to know.

Based on the postal mail that was delivered to my door, it appears that the credit card companies are more desperate than ever to loan me money; loans with 0% APR for periods of time that continue to grow. I think one of them said No Interest Until November of 2005? I ripped it up and threw it away. I didn't care.

Meanwhile, credit card companies with whom I have an established business relationship continue to send me unrequested "checks" -- some of them with pre-printed amounts so large that it makes me wonder if inflation has suddenly gone through the roof or something. But on the few rare occassions when I have bought stuff lately, inflation doesn't seem too bad. Like I said, I don't know how the economy is doing.

Wait a second, maybe I do.

Today, when I briefly talked to my dad, he told me that after working a full weekend, this afternoon he would be going to some distant town to work several more days. He said newspaper sales have been pretty lousy, but he hopes they'll be picking up soon. That breaks my heart. He should be retired. If there were any justice in the world...

I asked if he needed any help with the rent. Thanks to my recent semi-employment, and improved thriftiness, I now not only have all my debts paid off, but there is a nice little pile of money sitting in the bank, earning interest at a ridiculously low rate. I had planned to be saving it for my mythical road trip, but I must finally come to acknowledge what has been nipping at the back of my consciousness for way too long:

This isn't fair. I have been acting in a manner that is so irresponsible and ungrateful that it causes a destructive self-hatred to brew within me.

My parents paying rent. Me sitting around. Surfing the web. Sleeping a lot. Watching cable occassionally. Writing little bits of code for Scott every now and then. The big pieces of code have become such a tangled, fucked up, festering mess that I am ashamed to admit that I wrote most of it. To top it off, last week, I threw all concerns about everything and everyone to the wind, and went off to have loads of fun at the so-called Anarchist Social Retreat.

This, while my dad worked long days trying to sell stupid newspapers, Scott fielded the seemingly ever-growing pile of customer emergencies by himself, and my mom... well, I don't know as much about what my mom has been up to. Most of the time, she seems somewhat happy when I see her. She likes the fact that she's online, and can send email. Whatever. She still pays all the rent for the apartment in which my bed is located.

None of this is fair. I have hated myself so much that I have been driven into deep bouts of depression, while attempting to deny that this is what is going on. Thus, I have found myself desperate to try and find ways to "drop out" of the whole fucking mess. Toss my miserable fucking world away, and never see it again. Even if I die in the process, it might be better that way. At least for me, and maybe others too. This is what I wanted to do. To certain extent, I still do.

But today, rather than guilt myself to death, which is what I have been doing for weeks, months... is it years now? Shit. Years. Rather than guilt myself to death, I tried to make a small move to help. Just a gentle, small one.

I asked my dad if he needed any help with rent. I told him that I do have some money, and since my computer has been sitting at his place, it would be fair for me to be paying at least something.

He said, "No, I don't need help with the rent right now." Then, a moment later.

"It would be good if you could keep paying for half of the Internet connection, but don't worry about it until the first of the month."

The first of WHAT month? (Not spoken, but thought.)

I went back to gnucash. My memory was correct. The check I had made out to him at the beginning of July hadn't been cashed/deposited until the middle of August. Apparently, after I gave the check to him, it had ended up under some pile of stuff, but he eventually did rediscover it and asked me if it would still be ok to deposit it? I replied that of course it would be fine.

But I still hadn't written him a check for August. And now he was telling me to "wait until the first of the month"; I didn't need to pay him ahead of time. Ahead of time? I was BEHIND. I hadn't paid him at all during the month of August. He had cashed the July check in August, but I still owed him.

I calmly pointed this out, wrote him a check, and he said, "Oh ok. Thank you."

Why does my dad cheat himself like this? WHY? I know I'm not the only person he does this with. He short changes himself with other people too. And repeatedly keeps falling for the same repackaged scams, get rich quick schemes, and other nonsense, until it has consumed whatever little money he does have. Then he goes back to working the newspaper, and I know he hates doing that. (And don't tell me THEY aren't crooked -- at least in an ethical sense. I worked there for a month myself. I know. My dad had also quit shortly after because he saw the way they were treating me, and hated it. But now he's back there again.)

I cannot abide this situation. No child should be asked to raise his own parents, while at the same time they continue to provide and support him well into adulthood. My brother did the right thing in getting out of town. But if I do the same, how will they survive?

I'm not talking about survival in a physical sense. I know why they keep me around. They, in a way, depend on me. Emotionally. I think that both my dad and my mom tend to be very lonely people. I sort of keep them company.

Though I semi-consciously figured this out long ago, I was reminded of it again today when my mom got home from work. I had just taken a shower (the first shower I had taken since I left to go to the retreat). My mom was happy to see that I was home, and asked how "camping" had been. I said that I had had a fun time. After all, this was the truth.

When I proceeded to continue with my plan, and wheeled my bike out so I could venture back over to dad's, she said, "You leaving already again?quot; She appeared to be sad. I had just arrived, and now I was going out again.

I noted her sadness, but even if I hadn't been on my way to finally try and find the courage to suck it up and put in a 20 minute workday, so as to keep Scott's highest paying client from becoming highly annoyed, I wouldn't have wanted to stay.

My mom... I know I shouldn't be saying this in a million years, but here it goes. It's borderline incestuous. Not in any sort of physical sense, but emotionally. To be trying to cling to me, almost as if I were her boyfriend or something.

AAAAAAAGGGGGG!!!

There. I said it. Or, rather, I wrote it.

No, it's really not that bad. I want to put it in milder, simpler terms. Ever since I lost the ability to support myself financially, I have been depending on my parents for shelter, as well as a few other so-called "basic necessities" of life. They have been depending on me for emotional companionship. Or something like that.

In any case, I am sick and tired of these roles. I am sick and tired of my suffering. In the pursuit of happiness, I intend to eject myself from this situation pronto. I realize that this will create some discomfort. I also realize that what I am doing is selfish, and thus -- as was discussed in the class tonight -- will likely create more suffering.

I am ready to suffer. Brutally. Horribly. In whatever manner I must. I will suffer. So will my mom and dad. I'm going to try to make it as easy and painless for them as possible. Silently, but surely, I am going to extract myself from their grip.

Tomorrow, I will be moving my computer into another physical location. We might call it "sweatshop x13."

I'm going to be mercilessly, brutally honest again. I'm sick of Scott's business plans. I hate them. I want them all to just go away, but they won't.

Nevertheless, over the past few months, Scott's business has afforded me many niceties which continue to enhance my life. Argo has been restored with a faster processor, more memory, a huge hard drive, etc etc. I have a bike which I bought new, and I love to ride it around town. (If only I had formed a few more connections earlier on, I probably could have gotten myself a super-nice used bike for less money without having to support slave labor in China. But I did what I did with my privilege, and I'm not going to punish myself even though I may deserve it.)

Thus, depsite my ever-growing loathing of the project, and my newfound ability to just leap the fuck away and survive somehow, I am going to stick around and help make the "launch" happen. Like the boy at the piano recital in the Harbinger newspaper, I have been failing again, and again, and again. And I keep trying to succeed, and every time I try even harder, I fail, and I fail, and I fail.

With the record I am building up, this "launch" is likely to be the worst dot com bust in recorded history. Let's just see if we can fail one more time.

I have already informed scott personally that there is a relatively strong chance that, despite how wonderful he is, I probably won't be working for him too much longer. It's not a definite thing though. Just a likely one.

Now it is past midnight. I said I would be in at "around 9" tomorrow, which gives me at least a little bit of wiggle room. Between now and then, I need to make room in my car for a computer, monitor, and other related goodies. I need to shut down Argo, load her up, and drive to fucking Yale.

Now I feel more tired than ever. It couldn't have anything to do with the way I drove into Boulder from Wal Mart sometime between 4 and 5am last night, could it?

Yes people, I am a living train wreck. And I just keep getting worse and worse. That is why I meditate. To experience the train wreck in all its glory.

Now for the gambling. I have one psychological quarter to throw into the machine tonight. After this rambling runs its course into hell and beyond, I will use it. I will use the quarter to gamble with my mental stability, threatening to tear down and unravel every Wall that has ever been built inside my soul. Then new walls can be made, and those must also be torn down.

The bleeding hearts and artists make their stand.

Or something like that.

Ick. My mind is spent. This self-imposed sweatshop stuff scheduled for tomorrow is going to be FUN!

My God. My mind feels like it's phasing out into another dimension. And I didn't even get to the part about the police cars outside tonight. Just parked there. In the parking lot, outside my dad's apartment building. They're gone now, but they were here earlier. After seeing those two men -- who might have been counter-terrorism agents -- just sitting in their car all day watching us from across the street, one can start to fall prey to paranoid delusions.

But logic combined with instinct helped me. These were just local police, putting their cars out there to try and make some of the residents feel safer. Apparently, it was working, because I noticed several of the people -- the nice ones that inspired the Neighborly Abode's name -- were standing outside talking casually. If I see a woman who happens to be in a racial minority outside having fun talking to her friends while the police cars sit there, I don't think they're going to be out to do raids or other nastiness. Put the paranoia away. It doesn't do us much good. Actually, a little smart paranoia can be ok, but just be cool with it.

Eek, I'm losing my ability to compose intelligent sentences. I still haven't spent my quarter.

Stop this writing. It's becoming an addiction. Keeping me away from the reality I need to live in. The other one. NOW, BEFORE I LOSE MY MIND!

Please?