Dustin LindenSmith

“Well look at every drama you’ve ever seen. The main character, who represents you and me and everyone, runs around like a chicken with its head cut off. He is confused and in the dark. Those who are in a position to sit back and witness the drama objectively can see that he’s just an actor on the stage and that none of the drama is real. But for entertainment’s sake, he and the witnesses can pretend it’s real. Both, in fact, can get so absorbed in the role that they take it to be the real for a time.

“But even amidst all of the drama, a time comes, that moment in the play when even the actor finds out the truth. It is called the peripetia in drama—that moment in the play or the movie when the lead actor finds out that everything he thought to be true is really false; when he sees that he was being misled at every turn; when those he thought he could trust the most, and who thought they were telling him the truth, were also wrong.

“It’s the moment of freedom that comes when one finds out that everything he ever thought or believed or held sacred (or thought worth fighting for) was a lie. The freedom comes when he gives up all of the concepts he bought into, drops his head in relief and amazement, shakes his head back and forth, wonders for a moment at how he had bought into all their crap, smiles at how easily he was duped, watches how all of the rest of the play unfolds automatically until its end, and leaves the stage after saying to himself, ‘Well, sonofabitch. I’ll be damned.’ And then he laughs. He laughs at it all. And then he’s done with it, once and for all.”

Had I been satisfied with one memoir, it'd have been all
right. But I was infested with the memoir bug. I wrote
memoir, after memoir, each one more bizarre than the
previous one. And to my children's dismay, they all were
best sellers. And now, their friends stared at them with
knowing smiles.

So, I can't really blame them for doing what they did.
They found a judge to declare me mad. Now, in my cell,
I'm deprived of paper, or laptop. But the memoir bug
has not died. I'm thinking about writing a new memoir
on these bare walls. One in which neither I, nor they
were ever born.

But I'm having a little trouble finding anything to write
regarding such life.

(x-posted to nonduality)

The first Thursday of last July, Jack Robinson received a diagnosis of terminal cancer. After collapsing at work and being taken to hospital, a large mass of abnormal lymphatic tissue had been discovered at the back of his throat. It was identified as a rare and deadly form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma called NK-cell, nasal type. It was in its advanced stages, and he was told not to expect to survive longer than several weeks, or perhaps a few months.

No fully effective means of treatment had yet been found for this rare lymphoma sub-type; especially for one which had reached such a late stage. However, in the odd path of progression that some cancers take, Jack was not yet acutely ill. And so it was that he was released from the hospital the next day with an appointment to see his new cancer specialist the following week.

Less than a day after getting home from the hospital, Jack made up his mind to kill his boss, Janet Akerley.

Hip-Hop music represents all three modes of experiencing the All. An MC’s lyrical arrangement is largely based on analogy, metaphor, and simile where the content of the song is relayed as a connection to other things, events, places, people, or modes of thought. This helps a listener associate with the MC through things that take place in their life, but in a way that is relevant enough to see the association in their own lives.

from this post, authored by Justin Miles

Now (May 2005)

There is a general sense or quality that might be described as 'settled well-being', 'relaxed, rounded content', and 'assuredness' that tends to be present often. There is some social awkwardness to do with seeing the misconceived premises on which so much common conversation is based, and not feeling able or willing (sometimes) to participate in this, play along with this. There is awareness of a number of uncomfortable emotional and behavioural tendencies that are hangovers from false beliefs of the past - mild shyness, for example. There is also a current uncomfortable heightened sensitivity to the illusion of social power-relations - I mean the endless instances of casting and being cast in different roles, in different narratives, with all the limitations, imprisonments and frustrations of this. There is an impassioned yet calm concern with dissipating dreamy beliefs about being a limited person, revealing this liberation that is, in order that there be more happiness, understanding and constructive, intelligent operating within the appearance of life. This is not, however, anything to do with nonduality; nothing has anything to do with nondualty; this is purely what might be cautiously called something like 'a particular response to a particular caring human emotion here'. There is a tendency to 'go with' a certain 'ease' or 'softness' or 'suppleness' that is felt, in terms of 'decision-making'. Currently, there is a strong, clear sense of 'how my time is to be spent now and during the next few months', though equally there is a readiness, a receptivity, for other possibilities, other projects. There is the writing of a novel involved in exploration of intimacy as the crudest, fuzziest dualistic perception, which is partly a function of a desire to express nonduality outside of the established "nondualistic community". Several other reasonably clearly envisioned writing projects are also lining up. However, like I say, I am wide open to and indeed keen to be involved in anything and everything to do with this. If there is interest, if there are requests, it is highly likely that this expression will present itself orally, possibly (and possibly not) sometime soon.