Messages

That is one awesome cowboy! Great work!

Excellent observations. I'm not a huge fan of social media in general. I have a facebook account but I don't really use it for much other than keeping additional tabs on my aging mother. I used to enjoy rss feeds until they started going the way of the dodo, and I do generally lament content algorithms that think they know me better than I know myself.

I'll be the first to admit I'm not the most talkative in message board environments, but I've always enjoyed them in large because of the open dynamics they can and should allow. This board is one of the very few I still visit, and it's easily the best by leaps and bounds.

Thank you to the mods/hosts and community for making this place what it is.

Looking forward to more, regardless of when.

Thank you to past-Cain and present-Doc for that Gendlin quote. It arrived at an opportune time for me. Happy Friday, y'all.

Time to add "cult leader" to my resume, I guess.

The socks with sandals are pure joy. Great work as usual!

Cram took the words right out of my mouth, and then elaborated on them and constructed them into a far more cogent presentation.

Good grief. Your Trejo is a masterpiece. One of my favorites so far. Astoundingly good work on that one, P3nT! You're an inspiration.

Sounds nice.

What's a "true Erisian avatar" like? How is it different from a false Erisian avatar? How is it different from a regular human body/mind complex?

RIP Buster. So sorry to hear it, Trix.

11/12/05 (Dream journal)

Three nights ago I dream:

The house is medium-small, with a largish, rustic backyard.  It could be the Crawford's place from my childhood; it's that style of house, I think, in the middle of nowhere.  Separated.  Apart.  Alone.  Haunted.  I live there (I am not myself; I am another body with another mind).  I am young, but old enough to be afraid.  It is my home; I cannot afford to lose my senses to terror, but I am unsettled, constantly.

The tire swing sways back and forth in the front yard (which is scattered with old pieces of junk), despite the lack of wind.  The yard feels the safest.  I sit on the porch steps and watch the swing warily.  It stops swinging, and its stillness strikes me with more dread than its unexplained movement.

I sit with my back to the house, not because I am comfortable with it behind me, but because I am too afraid to turn and face it.  But it is my home.  Where else can I go?

Inside: cold, dead, gray infants lie in baskets.  Faceless prepubescents drag themselves naked across the hardwood floors by their fingernails.  I cannot ignore their tortured, silent sprawl.

Through the living room window, I see the lawn chair in the front yard hovering in midair.  It is raised and lowered by an unseen hand, refusing to touch its legs to the ground as a normal chair should.

I close my eyes and try to keep the insanity from prying its way through.  As usual, unseen terrors prove more potent than seen ones.

When I open my eyes again, I am a fully grown man.  It is my first time returning to the house in years.  The exterior is rotting; the once-white paint is now speckled with black and gray, like an ancient photograph.  It is a corpse that has refused to stop twitching for years and years.  The trees in the yard are all dead, too, but the tire swing still sweeps back and forth casually, like a whisper.

I am surprised to find my mother still living there (she is not my actual mother, of course, but my dream character's mother.  A redheaded, thinly drawn, weary woman with sleep-hungry, hope-devoid eyes).  I ask her why.  Why she never left when the rest of us, my brothers and sister and I, left long ago.  Her answer is a defeated glance at the house.  "It's my home," she says, much in the same way an alcoholic might grudgingly admit: "It's my addiction."

She opens the front door for me.  "Things are worse," she says.  "The rooms change sizes."  The air feels different inside.  It's like stepping into a greenhouse; there's a distinct and tangible change.  I feel as though I've stepped into another dimension.  I take a deep breath and suck in what tastes like my childhood.  I inhale dread.

It's like being crushed, stepping into the old kitchen.  The linoleum floor is slippery.  Grime lines the sinkboard.  The world outside the window is blurry.

I enter the living room, whose walls are stretching and reforming.  The room grows to nearly twice its size when I enter it.  All the chairs in the room are facing each other in a tight circle in what would be the center of the room if it would only stay one size.  I smell blood.

The connecting hallway is dark.  I don't remember it being carpeted.  For some reason, narrow hallways never feel safe to me.  I can feel the walls touching me, even though they're not.

There is a large figure standing in the shadows of the next room.  From the slivers of light hitting it I can tell that it's a scabby creature, a putrid demon covered in puke and lacerations.  It's grinning at me, welcoming me into the darkness, with the fat expression of satisfied buffet-diner patron.  I stand in the doorway hesitantly, with the darkness before me.  The hallway behind me.   The living room expanding and restricting like my beating heart.  The slithering kitchen.  The swinging tire.  Nowhere to go.  It is my home.

Excellent Yoda! I don't think I would have even noticed the eyelashes if you hadn't mentioned them. They don't draw attention to themselves; they look nice and "organic" to the character. Well done!

Kevin Smith is a national treasure, imho. Glad he beat the reaper this time!

At risk of being redundant, thank you again for this thread and for sharing your Gurdjieffian experiences with us!

In 7th grade, my class was required to work in groups to construct a Rube Golderg that represented the fall of the Roman Empire. That was a nice, creative assignment and a good memory.