Today is day nine. I shall pour myself some Houjicha - another reminder of Japan. I mentioned Japan the other day not only because Christopher is there but because to me it is a vague concept. Yes, it is a concrete land-mass, but the reality of actually being there is just an abstraction. This points back towards my resolve to not make plans that are, as it were, etched upon the surface of my skull, or upon the surface of anyone’s skull, for that matter. Leaving future ideas abstract creates multitudinous agreeable future senderos.
The idea is coupled closely with my rejection of expectations. To have absolute goals is to create narrow roadways into the future. If deviated from, the results is a sort of emotional devastation. This devastation can be so powerful that it becomes a stasis of disillusionment throughout a gelatinous chunk of time. Time ultimately spent mourning something that never existed in the first place except in one’s mind: said expectations. This is a condition I seek to avoid. I also encourage anyone reading this to also seek to avoid it, which means not placing one’s goals in the terms of the exceedingly specific. Keep the future vague. Don’t let the haze clear completely until arrival.
Rejection of expectations also serves to create life satisfaction on shorter time scales. Don’t approach a film or a book with a portion (or all!) of the expected story already scribed in one’s mind. Don’t listen to a piece of music while thinking intently on how it evolves or devolves from other music by the same or similar artist(s) or weighed by bias from its presentation. Don’t impose whole or part of a theatrical experience from one’s past or even from one’s imagination onto a situation one is involved in later in the day or later in the week or even later in the present epoch.
The uncertainly of existence is one of the only constants. Imposing strict guidelines onto the haze approaching from the opposite direction of time’s arrow does nothing but invite disappointment.
