Big City, Twilight State

The Big City

Part 18 of 28

Let’s establish a hypothetical situation. You’ve read this far enduring my many pleas for caution; I’m on my knees, listen to me now. Be cautious not to make the same mistakes I made and move to the Big City. My situation was very specific, I didn’t do anything rashly. The city fathers of my little town wanted me out. They led me to the city limits by gunpoint. They were vigilant, blocking every path back. Grandma’s house went down the drain after a few years of bad income and brutal weather. She herself was deceased, old and dead, her eyes wouldn’t open, her heart was shot. It barely worked when she was alive, imagine the rot after her passing...

Yes, it’s true -- setting aside her carcass -- weather can really take a toll on a house. You start thinking, How can I ever overcome these terrible conditions and feel better? What can I do to change my pathetic circumstances? A guy could, of course, learn building skills. Which is hard and not as foolproof as they think. Or I could've changed my outlook on things, mind over matter. No matter how things rot away to nothing, it doesn't have to affect you quite as much. My path was to train my mind to go into what is called The Twilight State. Crossing your eyes, locking your arms at the chest, nodding quickly, and briefly holding your breath. Goodbye cruel world, hello Twilight State!

However -- and this is important, the basic key to failure -- not everyone takes to alt consciousness quite as easily. And the techniques, like most secret techniques, come with strict rules about sharing them. That's an ironclad thing a guy vows to uphold. I took that vow. But, you know, what the hell… They didn't give me a choice, so to hell with them.

I will say, though, that everything here is “For Entertainment Purposes Only,” and any materializing and de-materializing that may happen around or to you is at your own risk. If you become a vapor and evaporate before your time, I cannot be held responsible. This is precisely the point where a friend of mine, Maha Raymond, gave up the ghost in the Himalayas and became an immortal. To give you some idea of such an achievement, it’s like winning a third place ribbon when showing cattle. It’s huge.

And with that, with only two more days of semi-strenuous practice -- grunting is encouraged -- you may encounter the deadliest, most dangerous passages. If that happens, the directions are essentially, “Feel your way.” Anyone incapable of feeling their way is immediately terminated, which is always hard for loved ones. The few who manage to feel their way -- and I saw a family of 12 halfwits make it so don’t tell me it can’t be done -- are deemed immortal with all the advantages pertaining thereunto, including gold merit badges up the yin yang and a ceremonial kiss from the only blonde in them thar hills.

But remember this truth: Mountains aren’t just there, they grow incrementally through extremely slow tectonic movement. Similarly, we advance quickly to the heights, by leaps and bounds, so be patient, stick with it because it’s definitely worth it. Breathe in, breathe out, let it happen. And there you have it, the Twilight State is now yours, and now you can spend the rest of your life mastering it.

For mastery, your purpose must be righteous. Your purpose cannot be to enter the Twilight State willy-nilly or for trivial purposes. If it’s not something righteous and something massive -- a purpose for the ages -- then most of your hopes, however sincere, will be for naught. You seriously need a righteous purpose. One such purpose, completely good, is merely because you moved to the Big City and need something more to help you cope. You’ve heard of the devil? The devil is a metaphor for Big City life, so it takes something bigger and bigger yet to transcend such an obstacle. Try your damnedest, on your word of honor, and see how it goes.

Chugga-Chugga Motion

 

Part 14 of 30

Self-Abuse September

I’ve had a few newbies-to-the-nasty reading my posts this month, which I hadn’t expected, and a few of them made inquiries about basic techniques. I thought nature covered most of that, but then remembered, yes, a little initiation goes a long way toward one’s outcome. And not everyone has first cousins close at hand or near them.

So let's get down! I’ve always said it’s in the grip. But how many ways can you insist it’s all in the grip while avoiding the gripes of those who needlessly insist on details? I’ll just repeat what I heard long ago: If you’re right-handed, hold your hand in front of your face. Make an O with your thumb and first finger. Hold that up like you’re a pirate looking through a telescope. Survey your immediate surroundings, be on the lookout for landlubbers, hornswogglers, sightings of booty and cutlasses. In other words, parents and responsible adults who don’t approve of sex. OK, that’s good. If you’re left-handed, I have no idea, but I would suggest the opposite.

OK, maties, the coast is definitely clear, and you’re very sure, so drop your five finger discount to One Tree Island -- the happy native awaits his coming -- and embrace him in camaraderie -- less daintily and more insistent than if adults are near -- and see that he comes to life before he dies. And think, you’ve been a handful all your life, you just never knew that night after night you were tucking in a monster that at long last would manifest himself and his evil ways. This is nothing to rue, for good fortune is now at hand and before you know it you’ll be celebrating skyrockets in flight.

Shh, I thought I heard someone pull in the driveway. Gotta check, just the mailman turning around. You have to look out for everyone, certainly anyone who'd blabber everything in addition to censorious adults, who think it’s their life's mission to be killjoys. So I can’t run over everything in detail now. You have to feel your way through this.

But we do have time to review: 1) Grab a handful; 2) Be familiar with the different names of the apparatus, dick, etc. 3) Picture something that’s especially pleasurable to you. This doesn’t have to be body parts and actions of others, dirty words, etc., but you’ll completely fail if it’s not. 4) Go to town. 5) Be prepared for a distinguished aftermath, the arching fireworks of life. Tissue is preferable, although if you’re planning test tube babies now or in the future, any standard test tubes -- not recycled -- will do. Any other details you’re not certain of, again, just feel your way.

Credo: Strip 'Em Down

No. 9 of 30 - Guidance Counselor series

I don’t know if people hear the same things we used to hear, more or less on a daily basis, that you’re a cog, a gear, or screw somewhere in the ultimate works of society. The days I’m recalling were well before they encouraged big aspirations in every kid. Essentially they helped you focus on your little place as a responsible nut or bolt in the overall works.

I say I don’t know, but on reflection, it appears certain, at least on the surface, that a lot of that has gone by the wayside. In the post-WWII period it was one way, settling into your position, whether by social planning, a divine purpose, or just your natural responsiveness to the obvious underlying drive. The same thought went into the cookie cutter houses they came up with, in haste, in getting society back on a peacetime footing.

Not to be too sociological, there seems to be a natural progression from the helter skelter scene of wartime to fitting into definite channels for peacetime. But they never actually said any of this. So if you’re a kid, you think they’re just against you personally. When it’s really only a macro sense of things and getting you situated in your little slot. And anyone who doesn’t fit precisely, now now now, is like a spare part to be cast aside.

And I suppose, naturally, some of those drives went into giving us a generation of guidance counselors straight from the bowels of hell. There they were, fermenting in the bowels of hell -- like other bowels but smellier -- not even fully aware themselves of the infernal basis of their hellish drives, every bit the same cogs in an unforgiving machine that they expected us to be, working it point by point, sending you up the chute of happiness or driving you down down down like the worm you were. Or pond scum, which to me is nastier than worms. And we grew up afraid of pond scum, not knowing we shared certain sociological qualities with those denizens of the shallow.

So here we have the guidance counselors of that day, assembling in rigid lines, themselves parts in the system, and being sent like demons to their bitter work, marking the quick and privileged for their destiny, then the rest of us to a dim purgatory of fruitless existence. Without even the mercy we might grant worms, the mercy we show when we poke air-holes in their little cup or container.

Is it too harsh to suggest that the Guidance Counselor Credo was “Strip ‘em down, sell them into servitude, etc.”? It’s right up there with Death Row, of course, with the 13 last steps to the gallows and a priest muttering words of comfort, more or less for himself, before they release the trapdoor. It’s a terrible credo, yes, but 100% accurate. And if the guidance counselor worked overtime, the percentage went up several additional points.

Join Me for Paranoia Week

I'm inviting you to join me here for "Paranoia Week," June 2 through June 8. I know you'll like it, if you like the thought of a guy on the wrong side of "forces" that may or may not exist. Even now, I'm feeling jittery thinking of it. Saying, as I just did, the forces may not exist means only one thing, I'm a goner. I'm nervous about the descent, let alone the myriad terrors I know are there.

Speaking of the descent, that's what I'll be doing tomorrow, so I won't be here June 1. I'll be going down into a full-bore paranoid fit, which takes a lot of stewing, mixing it just right, and letting it work. Only one day, you say? Yes. Like you, I've heard of many other "Paranoia Week" bloggers who've stewed for an entire year or more. They go the last mile -- sweat lodges, hot compresses, new age music, reverse yoga, etc. -- and what they come up with is quality. But I don't personally have that much time to waste, and, again, with just a day, I guarantee results.

Like I said, I'm getting jittery just thinking about it. There's a lot of annoyances on the way down, the inner sounds (and pain) of things snapping and sparking, almost like we're some kind of machine. Next, there's a vast silence, as aspects of the Self are being disconnected, in particular your thoughts talking you out of it. Then a comforting grayness, stretches of grayness. You can be quickly lulled into a dangerous complacency here. You need to keep an eye on the edges, looking toward your ears, to not slip off the edges, like on a slick highway. At the edges are chthonic aspects of the personality that, given a chance, would bite your head off.

I'm recalling the last time I passed that way. How well I remember these heavy mildewed curtains from old vaudeville stage shows. Past lives that think they're here and now. Queer performers line the hallways, stagehands fluff sandbags, electricians man quaint old light fixtures. A lot of the snapping, the electrical phenomena, is from them. The performers look extremely dangerous. Their fingernails are extremely long, and their throats are stretched beyond normal, as they try to keep in voice, expecting any moment to go on stage. They don't know it's been close to a century. If they actually sung it'd come out screeching.

There's another place along the way, a place to mention. It's a place of utter bleakness, darkness. But tied to a post there is a donkey I call Desi. He's a cool donkey, the nicest creature you meet in the land of paranoia. The rest -- I can't get into the rest -- the Hall of Unwashed Broken Mirrors, the Pavilion of Things Found in Sofas Personified, the Cavalcade of Good Monks Gone Bad, whatever. It's all evil. The only good I've run into is Desi the Donkey and the spirit of St. Rita of Cascia, the saint with the big scar on her forehead. This wonderful Bride of Christ reaches out to me, and I realize her precious message, treasuring it in my heart: Paranoia is good for your pores.

Oh, no, I'm having second thoughts! I shouldn't do this! I know I'm going to look like hell when this is over, good pores or not, and much of that remains forever. I'm 61 and look 80, thanks to this. Now, if I live, I'll come out looking like a maniac, and older. I'll have someone else's heavy clothes on, some monk I'll spoil. I might have those horrible looking woolen half-gloves, with my fingers sticking out. When they see me -- people -- they'll see a maniac, and even though I'll cry out, hoarsely, "This isn't really me!  This isn't me!" no one will listen. Who would listen to a battered, torn, worn-out, and haggard, dragged out, dragged down, buffeted, beaten, and bruised maniac?

But here's my vow -- which I hope I can keep, because if I can't, my soul is lost! -- I vow this will be the best "Paranoia Week" ever. Ever.