Coffee

He looked around and saw with eyes that had not opened but for this morning. What guides a man when he listened to nobody and when he doubts himself? The eyes took in a shop, smoky from the roasting in its stern, active from the life that packed its walls, enjoying cups of its labor. The mug in front of the eyes was vivid. Not because it was sunny outside to contrast the last seven days, but because the eyes let the color be color. There was nothing else to see, but it revealed what lay in front of him, steaming and awaiting lips.

A window to his side revealed the dirty side of a second building, this one containing nothing worth gathering among to relax. Its constituents were invisible save for some fishing paraphernalia hung in its glass. The eyes did not mind that the model ship and waning orange floats suggested nothing certainly. It saw that though it was separated by property lines and multiple physical boundaries to the body, it was still part of his shop. As was the ocean to his other side, cold blues thrashing about along the shore, endlessly dangerous to all man’s efforts upon it. Every other soul in the shop was a stranger but he was glad they were there to mind themselves. Their being there gave him something that he could not have given himself. These were the company of this life and without them this life would be different.

But different is not so bad. Once difference can be appreciated as simply the product of alternative circumstance there is something about what is left, felt in panorama, the whole scope of the experience received, that makes it real. Men nearby spoke in confident tones on things they had only read and heard, worried to them by other men who lived and died as fast as they. The eyes listened to how their throats shook the air that gave them the oxygen to be so afraid, saw how the wood chairs supported their tired frames without them having asked politely beforehand, and wondered: Why does this give the experience a warm depth? Why don’t they feel it too?

What guides a man when he listened to nobody, and when he doubts even himself? What remains interested? The answer is written nowhere, in any stone that could forbid scripture by any who could be wrong or lie. None exist who could even mark such a stone. But the eyes wondered if it isn't the same thing that allows man to continue with or without his awareness, perfect knowledge, ideal action, or confidence, and sipped. Today was a wonderful surprise.

I've made it to Portland

I need to go do Laundry.

Quick summary of my thoughts:

I might be a wildland firefighter for the winter.
I've drank too much coffee today.
I need to go do laundry.
I like the book I'm writing. It feels really natural.
Portland isn't as cool as Seattle.
I take pride in my dental hygiene.
I'm glad I finally backed up all those images and sound files.
Its OK I still don't have my voice back.
Time to slow this down.
The leaves started changing really fast.

Here's an album of images and words.

You can read it or go mow the lawn or read about Persia or whatever i'm not going to stop you.

Who Titles Posts After Leaving Mt. Rainier Anymore

I'm somewhere in the state of Washington. Just got off Mt. Rainier (really its' ankles though). I met some really cool people while I was in northern Seattle, at Discovery Park. They asked me a good question and took some pictures and it turns out they (Krista and kin) are doing a really cool project called The Peace Wire. Krista asks a stranger what they believe peace to be each day and records their answer while taking good pictures. I'm the September 6th (Day 249) post - check it all out at The Peace Wire (Facebook) and give it a thumbs up, or at thepeacewire.com. Thanks for your time Krista, it was really cool meeting all of you!

I realize I have taken pictures. Found them on my phone, yes I did. Someone must be awfully upset that I got them and not they. I have heard heavy water helps you cope with loss but I cannot determine whose pictures these are to suggest they eat six each day for eight days daily with water once annually for one year. All of this can be found online. The pictures specifically can be found approximately here                         .

I took no videos. Couldn't find any.

On a less serious note I had the first and best Pho of my entire lifetime last night. Seriously, delicious. I have decided that if I lose my hands I will just start an authentic Pho kitchen. I'll call it Yum Yum Pho King Palace.

I have begun the ritual sacrifice of panini in an attempt to dispel this cough from my body forever. It is working.

Aloha St. and Dexter Ave N.

Hello again.

Its the Sun.

Glad to see we both made it.

Again.

What are you doing today?

Oh.

Cool.

Why?

I've seen every one of you live and die. Your parents and their parents and their parent's parents. I watched them spend their entire lives looking for something that they got sometimes. But what you have in your head to get is not what you would get, if you ever got it. Its just what you have in your head. Its like hearing someone tell you about a TV show and then actually watching it. 

Anyways I hope you like what you're doing with your life. You're totally going to die. What you do today, and what you did yesterday, is the substance of your entire life. Tomorrow hasn't come and your life isn't about the things you never got around to do. What you do each day is what your life is. Just be sure to enjoy that. Everything else is a TV show someone described to you halfway. They might not even have seen it themselves. 

You should go actually watch it before you can't and try to be happy because that's what your parents and their parent's and their friend's parents' parents all actually wanted. Maybe you just need to try something differently. You know, put some real effort into it, an uncomfortable or nontraditional amount. Maybe someone told you about a really bad episode and you're just afraid to watch it now. But anyways I have some life to support I've got to go. You are wearing too much sunscreen by the way

Forever Yours,

Sol

Finding Water

I'm in Seattle. I'll stay a bit.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)

I have barely read the article. I have been considering flow for a long time. Yesterday I defined the keys for myself. If not the keys, then the keys to the keys.

 A present-minded willingness and confidence to create.

Present-minded to recognize that it is only now that anything that can happen, happens. I wish I could make you deeply understand how important this is to the human mind with regards to making any product. Until you intentionally cultivate this focus (unless you're still under the age of 6 or perhaps 10) you are always thinking by default. While you are thinking, you are not taking part in the world as it turns beneath your feet. You are talking with your projections and expectations as you think, all being a part of the mind that entertains them. While you're thinking you're playing with yourself. You are not focused on the resources you have in the real world, only imaginary ones. You have to give the moment your full attention, and then oddly enough, you lose it. Worrying or thinking robs your mind of precious mental space, space you are not willing to lose, space that cannot be lost.

Willingness because you recognize you haven't yet ever heard what you're about to create. So you're willing to hear something new. Willing to create something original. Something you couldn't have imagined you being capable of creating. Saying to yourself: "I couldn't do that" means you are staunching a small but important part of your psyche that would have otherwise allowed you to see what you're capable of, regardless of what you think that may be. That is to also say, "regardless of what others think that may be." You are more than your thoughts, more than what you think you are. So much more than what other people would allow you. Be willing to discover this. It also helps abate the surprise reaction from hearing something awesome, and stumbling. Be willing to express, discover, create. Be willing to make mistakes. Be willing to try again. Be willing to try it from a new angle. Be willing to push yourself. You cannot know what you need to do - be willing to receive it.

Confidence: Recognizing that you are not only capable, but also that anything that could stop you is now entirely in your hands. And you refuse to let anything stop you. Other brains can only speak, speaking as brains that haven't the slightest understanding of what you are. You are not here to show them, nor would their irrefutable praise to your glory help you in the slightest, so all insecurity (worrying for what you are relative to others) or pride becomes as useless as cash money to garden plants.You were always and still are the only brain that can actually stop you. And we all can do this very well. Confidence is caring not for what others think (they that can only judge), enjoying what you are so much that you are excited to experience it, and knowing:

That the world bends for the mind that would shape it.

In your willpower's absence, the world keeps turning. But if you actually put yourself out there? Yes, its unusual, foreign, uncertain but - The world responds. It bends to you. You bend to it. You aren't separate from the world. In a way you are still only changing yourself. But if you don't put it out there, create it, it will never be created. So your confidence is somehow a refusal to not try, to kill it before it could grow.

I'm going to go play my guitar. This is what I actually got from the article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autotelic
For those that still worry, I hope that helps you understand this better.
Greetings from a pretty city.

Glacier(s) and Kin

What's suppositivatorial my friend candidates. I have now left Glacier National Park and departed from my Kin therein. Did I tell you that we would be there? They flew in and I met them from Canada - oh, now it's coming back, I should also tell you about the glacier I walked on because that was one of the coolest things I've ever done with this body and consciousness.

So I drove from Yellowstone up through Calgary, Banff and then to the Columbia Ice Field to walk on a glacier (5 hour guided tour). I had a short time in both those cities, Walmarts allow overnighting in Canada too for the most part so I only had to book a hostel in Banff, which was cool. Beauty in the rock behemoths. Wild. Because the mountains up there don't resemble the mountains down here (that I've seen). The Rockies-Eh had massive foundations and craggy danger peaks, but a lot of flat-tops too. Hard to put into words. Honestly though I just don't want to right now. Here's some pictures. 

And a video I made in the Canadian Rockies. This was after the Glacier.

The Glacier was nuts. Nuts. Capital Nuts. I'm going to walk a true Ice Field before I die ideally - the glacier was a starting taste and now I want the full course. Check out the pictures, there will be professional descriptions to identify the natural features and emotions it inspired.

Then I left. Short stint at the US Border Patrol which [opinion redacted], made me want to turn the fuck around and [opinion redacted] and shit.  But I got through because I'm a citizen of the United States of America. That's the secret. 

And met me Kin in Glacier National Park! We got to catch up, I showed them my CarV, we ate food and drank drinks and shared good time. We enjoyed a really awesome park, I liked the forests the best there of those that I've been to so far (excepting Redwoods in California) but it is a shame the glaciers are retreating as fast as they are. There's no chance there will be any glaciers to speak of in a decade or two in the park. We saw three black bears, a moose, a bald eagle, some ground squirrels, and some mountain goats that defy conventional possibility. I don't have pictures of them because they were too far away, too high up on a sheer arete, chilling like they had lawn chairs.

And I have since said farewell to my Kin and departed for Seattle. It's time to start playing on the corners, Songalong style. Tell me what you want to hear and I will give you more than you bargained for (not you.). Except i'm losing my voice from this fucking cough I picked up somewhere a week ago. Its ONLY A COUGH. And it has disabled me. At least it isn't throat Giardia. or real Giardia. 

So i'll spend some time researching WWOOF's to volunteer on and see what I can see around here until i'm feeling well enough to Songalong. Righteous. I take what I am given. In the meantime I still have fingers. Time to fing.