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A Century Is Nothing A Century Is Nothing
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Subject to Change Subject to Change
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Entries in Cambodia (281)

Wednesday
Jul212010

Random Connections

Greetings,

After living in a small sleepy little southern Cambodian river town for four point five months doing my work, I've shifted my base to another small, yet slightly larger, little northern river town in the now a days.

It feels good to be exploring new geography, engaging the senses, observing energies. I found a room in a rural area outside of town in a family compound along the brown river. Go with the flow. It's the perfect zen zone for gardening and writing. Playing in dirt and rearranging sentences.

No internet. This means fewer entries for now. My focus is on more extensive creative work. It reminds me of living in remote Spanish mountains immediately after 9.11 while working on the literary memoir. Writng every morning and climbing in the Sierra Grazalema mountains every afternoon. Balance. 

There, I'd jump on a local bus into Ronda at random to see electronic communications, blog and post images. Here, I really wanted to get a big black Hummer with tinted windows so my neighbors would be impressed, shocked and amazed by my ostentatious lifestyle, however, I will frugally settle for a small black bike with a bell, basket and generator light. Low tech, efficient and fun. Traveling at the speed of a single rotation.

You are a fluke of the universe. Take advantage of it. Being disconnected from the distraction of the web is a cosmic comic blessing. 

Metta.

  

 

 

Monday
Jul192010

Update Makeup

Greetings,

Welcome to another edition of This Is Your Little Life. Your little life is taking on pernicious perceptual potential poetic personifications without a preamble. To amble to ramble and gamble enjoying risks with enormous ramifications. Waking up is a risk. Paying attention requires risk analysis and consequences. 

A stranger arrives in town. He wanders around with optical tools.

 

When in doubt, update your life. Put on makeup. Change your appearance. Get a new identity theory. Reinvent a corner cooking operation billowing smoke from cracked charcoal chips harvested from old trees near a woman sawing ice with a rusty see-saw as children play. Numerous forlorn stressed out drivers in huge SUV's negotiate narrow provincial streets singing their Status. Beep-beep.

The Asian Children's Driving School is open for business. Son, his father said, Someday all this will be yours. Gee, dad you're the greatest. Let's go for a spin around the block, down life's little highway and out into the lush expansive rural countryside filled with amazing green rice paddies, our essential food source. Ok, son, Let's roll. Batteries not included.

The smiling boy walks into his future. He works for a collection agency called Consume and Waste and Recycle. He found a life instruction book and put it in his bag. His bodyguard is a girlie-boy. Not too shy to try with tolerance, gratitude, dignity and self respect.

Somewhere in Cambodia a boy is carrying the world on his back.

Metta.

Tuesday
Jul132010

Kill the dog

Greetings,

In Baghdad, Iraq they sent out dog killer squads. They liquidated 58,000 stray dogs in three months. Point and shoot.

This morning before 6:00 a.m. in a small sleep southern Cambodian river town the frustrated alpha simian male next door to a guesthouse finally had enough of his barking mongrel, one of many roaming yapping and screwing in the street.

His wife was sweeping (a national sport) around tables and chairs in an open covered room of computers where students visit in the afternoon to connect. The dog was a nuisance, like her kids and husband. The dog ran around yapping, causing her and her husband anxiety. Rising anger exploded when her Tarzan grabbed a big stick and started beating the dog.

It didn't take a humane society expert to know by the sound of the beating and canine screaming that the dog was doomed. This orchestra of rising screams, fear, panic, anguish, and whimpering rose, climaxed and dropped dead.

Neighbors ignored the reality. His wife swept. Life is short, nasty and brutal. The law of the jungle.

Neighbor dogs, sensing death, howled in their chorus as orange and black butterflies danced at dawn.

Metta.

 

Sunday
Jul112010

Mind at large

Greetings,

Your filters are up-to-date. What's a filter?

Filters are variables. Human brains have diverse filters. Give us an example. Humans evolved to survive. They were the prey. Life is short, nasty and brutal. Nature is kind and cruel. A paradox. A contradiction.

Human brains filter or eliminate non-essential sense data. Keep it simple stupid. KISS. 

Flight or fight central nervous system filters operating with naturally produced chemicals and produce reactions. Do I stay or do I go (fight or flight) is a basic immediate automatic response when a human faces what they perceive to be a potential life threatening situation. Do I run? Hide? Find a weapon? Create a diversion? Signal for help? Attack? Develop patience? Laugh because it's fucking hysterical? 

It's simple. Humans make it complex. There's a difference between complex and complicated but we won't get into the semantics now.

Metta.

Saturday
Jul102010

smell

Greetings,

I love the smell of Cambodian garbage and rubbish in the morning. It is a sweet sick smell.

Did you know the nose has trillions of sensors? It's one of the most highly developed human senses. This delicious aroma wafts through the air on ballet slippers. Why do you love the smell of garbage and rubbish in the morning? It reminds me of human consumption and dancing dervishes in Konya. Where is Konya? It is in Turkey. Turkey is a tomato based culture with a long history between east and west. Sniff.

Really? How is it possible to live between east and west? Well, they have an Asian side and a European side, like a double edged sword. One edge of said sword is fired to a fine point in Asia with Chinese propaganda tools. The other side of said sword is forged near Greece by Amazonian warrior women. 

They wear sunglasses and ride around in horse drawn carts finding tomatoes, natural gas (a buy product of consumption) expired optical dioramas and an emotionally withdrawn fictitious computer hacker named Salander in Sweden.

Can you show us the connection between: the smell of garbage in Cambodia, Konya, Turkey, a computer hacker and one breasted Amazonian warrior women? The mathematical uncertainty principle is an equation.

Metta.