The mind really is a breezeway. 

There’s a Boiler Room set I watched on YouTube with the most eclectic mix of all time–it was ¥ØU$UK€ ¥UK1MAT$U, go watch it. And listen. More specifically, there was a video I watched after the set that appeared on my YouTube feed, compiling clips from the actual mix into a two-minute mashup, with some title pointing out that he played pretty much anything. One of the comments said that he used to be a construction worker who discovered he had brain cancer, and thus decided to pursue his dream of becoming a DJ. Which explains the scar on his head. 

Three Tuesdays ago, I went to a zen meditation study group at San Antonio’s Zen Center, and the topic of the study session was doubt. The monk there was talking about getting a gym membership, and he was worried that he’d appear odd at the gym, being a monk. However, he discovered that people were actually really nice to him. So I’ve been thinking about doubt as a paralyzing factor lately.

Now, as an aside, using ChatGPT in life feels like cheating. Maybe because everything was so hard before. Either way, every time I use it, even when I’m supposed to, like for work, I feel like I’m doing something wrong. It’s what using the dishwasher feels like sometimes. Maybe it’s what people used to feel like when washing machines were invented. It is just ingrained in us that doing something has to be hard to be right? And if so, why? Did photography feel that way to artists? Is it why we used to believe there was no art in photography? Why we believe there is no art in LLMs now? And how long does it take for the culture to change?

Additionally–I’ve been thinking about set and setting, beyond just the conditions for psychoactive substance ingestion. I’ve also been thinking about them in reference to the use of any substance, or just generally as harbingers of emotion. And how important they are, in combination. Birthday parties, tea parties. It’s like in this book that I started reading a while ago, which talked about certain French people drinking tea. And then certain other French people drinking tea. And how the ones who drank tea, culturally, as children, experienced more brain activity–I think dopamine release–than those who didn’t. The power of set and setting.

The other day, as I was going to my watercolor class, the guy in the car next to me was driving while playing the maracas.

Yesterday, I had a lot of anxiety. I took one of my boyfriend’s anxiety pills and the difference it made, I could almost taste in my mouth. It was a complete shift in body and mind. I nearly wanted to take a nap in the bath. That also felt like cheating–at life. As ifI should do the hard thing and bear the anxiety, rather than take a pill for it. Is that wrong, too? But of course, I know the ideas of “right” and “wrong” are relational, and ultimately not real. At best, “right” and “wrong” are cause and effect, action and consequence. Does taking an anxiety pill somehow prevent me from eventually reaching enlightenment, if that’s a goal I want to have? I know I must sit in my discomfort, but can I just…not, sometimes?

I also watched a movie–a documentary–on the kid reincarnation of an important Buddhist lama, the Rinpoche. He was a kid, and he would run around with other kid monks. I haven’t finished it yet–it’s called Becoming Who I Was.

And continued–I’ve also been reading this book by this guy, from the US, called Zen Beyond Mindfulness. Within the breakdown of Buddhist concepts, he talks about something that I’ve been thinking about a lot–feeling not like yourself in specific moments. Of course, in Buddhism, there is no “self,” but he’s talking about the ego, or not the ego. Like when you experience road rage, that’s still you (or not you), obviously. Or when you act “out of character,” that’s still you (or not you). 

Zen Buddhism is almost very close to atheism, in a sense. There is a sense that you don’t want to be caught in delusion–in fact that’s the very point of it. But atheism is full of its own delusions, I’m guessing. Or precepts, or principles. I guess “concepts” is what I’m trying to get at.

Are you ever overcome with grief at the sense of time passing?

The most important thing to do is to start.

I’ve been thinking of my favorite pieces of media: like Walk Through Walls by Marina Abramovic, like Perfect Days, that wonderful movie. 

I was at a bar but I decided not to drink. Somehow, I still felt social–nearly like I was drunk. Is there a name for that effect? Or am I just typically klutzy? Is that set and setting? Is it a placebo? Like when people unknowingly drink non-alcoholic beers and still act drunk?

The San Francisco mayoral replicant test. Look into it, if you have a moment.

And of course, the mind is a breezeway.