The only news: Deer Park Monastery has confirmed: I go there on 1/9! Nothing else I feel like writing at the moment. Below are parts of _the brothers K_ I typed in.
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"Even though sin and injustice and temptation are all around us, we know that there is on this earth a holy man, a saint who is just and knows the truth, and this means that truth and justice have not vanished from the earth and so will come to us too and rule over all the world, as has been promised."
[TNH helps me feel this way]
"A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself as well as for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal, in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying--lying to others and to yourself."
[don't know if I'm lying to self or just unsure what truth might be/ how to live it. . .]
"And if you think I look cheerful, nothing you say could give me more pleasure. For human beings were created to be happy, and those who are perfectly happy are entitled to say to themselves: 'I have carried out God's will on this earth.' The righteous, the saints, the holy martyrs--they were all happy people."
"By acts of love. Try to love your neighbors, love them actively and unceasingly. And as you learn to love them more and more, you will be more and more convinced of the existence of God and of the immortality of your soul. And if you achieve complete self-abnegation in your love for your fellow man, you will certainly gain faith, and then there will be no room in your soul for any doubt whatsoever. This has been tested. This is the true way."
[how serious is Dostoyevsky (through this character)? We know he's a trickster]
"all your good intentions will remain mere daydreams, and your whole life will slip by like a shadow."
"A true act of love, unlike imaginary love, is hard and forbidding."
"His face took on a grave and solemn expression, and this somehow made him look positively evil."
"Despise Grushenka? No, my friend, Dmitry doesn't despise her. How can he, when he obviously prefers her to the woman he's promised to marry?"
[her name I found amusing]
"Aloysha 'touched his very heart by being there, seeing everything, condemning nothing.' Moreover, Aloysha offered his father something that he had never had before--a complete absence of contempt for him. Indeed, Aloysha treated him with invariable kindness and a completely genuine and sincere affection, which Karamazov little deserved."
[could I do this for my friend? For myself?]
"Nevertheless, from the beginning of their married life, she had given in completely to his wishes and she respected him for his moral superiority."
[I have a sense of what that moral superiority might be like. I feel more like the wife--perhaps I'm 'more intelligent' but would defer to moral superiority if I knew it, found it, and could get self to defer. . . but that may not make sense.]
"As a matter of fact, Aloysha was convinced that there was not a man in the whole world who would wish to offend him or, for that matter, who could offend him. He had accepted that once and for all as a self-evident truth, and so he had no misgivings now on his way to his father's house."
"So he went the back way, ignoring the streets, following deserted paths, climbing over fences, walking across other people's yards, but since he was well known and liked in town no one objected--people simply waved at him."
"But falling in love with someone doesn't mean loving that person. It's possible to fall in love and to hate at the same time--I want you to remember that."
[hating what a slave one is? One's dependence?]
[I'm aware there was an odd note in my last post: "the drama with L is probably not over yet. . .": not exactly a reverent tone. . . It seems I take nothing truly seriously? Even when I was remorseful about that email I sent I was laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole thing? So, true reverence, and true love. . . I found you in music, in singing, in childhood love. . . What does it take to feel and sustain awe. . . My life here is quite petty. Rather different in the isolation of the mountains? Well, will keep this question in mind.]
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I'm at L's apt this afternoon. Deposited checks from CC work: +$450. Sounds different here. The howls of the Verizon sign dancer (see photos) can be heard from here. He has amazing energy (howls last 10 - 15 - 18 seconds at a time?). An interesting example of commercial public 'art'. And he's out there for hours with all the cars and their fumes (If he did not have the sign the police would take him away? They handcuffed a jesus guy out there one night, but he had a megaphone). Wind chimes, metal, wood. Engines at the intersection of College & El Cajon. Sun filters through window shades, tattered venetian blinds. The walls, two an almost neon green, two a slightly greener green. Ceiling white. My feet on the couch, back on a rug on a wood floor, head on two pillows, the instrument, the one I'm using, between me and the south-facing windows. An oblong mirror on the green wall above my feet reflects white ceiling. I visited a different dumpster today. May do the long walk this evening. Has been a while. Did not lift today and not really the day before. Dad arrives. Wrote Jasmine. Email-introduced her to Mike, another Portland friend from here.
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Peace & creative love,
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