I've got CHEESE; you? From 28 September 2001 (Somethings never change)

Anger is a destructive force. But there are other equally destructive forces out there. Only, they are silent. They lurk in the depth of human hearts and tear their hosts quietly apart.

I would like to turn my face to the sun. The gentle wind of goodness feels pleasant on the face. Close your eyes, imagine nothing. Keep nothing in you heart. How nice the wind, the warmth of constant being. The sun is always the sun, despite labels, worship, or where we turn our faces. Let this basic being fill you. There is no anger here. Even its furious gases have no fury.

Make no claims. Claims chain the heart and mar the effort. How freely we move over the surface. Life is littered with failures. Failures only exist in a realm of claims. I am. I am and will always be. What is death to me?

If I do not fill myself, I will be filled. Who am I to judge what best would fit in me? Wait, it will come. The colors of the sunset are astonishing without mental prelude. I need not think how I will be when. Stand with the wind of purity caressing your face. How clean the smell.

I wait for hours, wait expecting something. I expect love from my marriage. I expect happiness from my children. But when there is no love, no happiness, what is left? The bitter shell of expectation, failure's enduring monument. Failures follow me everywhere, so much fails to amount to anything.

If I could catch the wind, if I could tame the wind, what then? I am happy when I see the trees bend. I am happy when I feel the cold cut into my face and hear the whistle through the streets. I expect nothing from the wind. I only watch its effect, feel its almost unreal kiss upon my face.

We are all wind. There's a ceaseless wind within the shiest person. Day is cluttered with innuendo, shutting of curtains. I say, I am too short, my belly too big, my head too bald. And oh, it will get balder. Yes, I say this. I shut the curtains on who I am and create expectation of a taller, thinner, hairier man. I am filled with what is not and happiness cannot enter.

Where does happiness come from? Does it come from the heart on the run when the stars align and the wind blows right? Is it contained in the flavor of delicious food? In the smile of a friend, the caress of a lover? Where is happiness, for all make me happy.

The best cooked meal is dust to my unhappy heart. The stark beauty of clouds on a sunny day are gray and foreboding when bitterness takes root.

Last week, I walked through the yellowing birches of Sipoo. The moss was so green. Orange, white, brown mushrooms vividly contrasted with its virulent green. I began that day seeing the leaves descent into Winter. I only recall the moss and mushrooms. How thoroughly our expectations can be washed away. How suddenly our folly is made pure. But we must see it, we must let in the purifying waters.

Anger flashes, despair suffocates. How many burdens we must shed. Why do we cling to our small selves? We aren't much, are we? My body, my conscious being are all I seem to have. But even that is tenuous. I can't stop the anger from bubbling up. I can't stave off the despair of failure, the fear of things beyond my control. I control so very little.

A man drives his fine car to work, fills the day with decisions and actions that affect him, but he does not pay attention. He cancelled his last vacation because the company was so close to a sale, he had to be there to nail it down. He did not miss the vacation. There would be time for that when he retired. Work was what he did. He had to be the best. Drank good wine and ate good food, but he did not notice. He used to drop the names of bottles he'd drunk like little signs of miracle. And there were worshippers enough to flatter him.

A man prays all day. He hopes Jesus will save him from the bitterness of death. He doesn't know what death is. He fears it. He is a good man. Charity falls from him like pleasant rain. The world exists for him as a charity ward. A place where evil rules, where poor sinners enjoy their lusts and sadly fail to see their imminent end. As if there were no beauty but God's airy mansions.

Both are waiting for something that may never be. The husks of their dreams are ripe.

Where is happiness' source? I taste it, I feel it, I see it. But it is nothing in itself. Things are independent of vague noises like happiness, sorrow. A pear is just a pear. Hard and ripening, ripe and succulent, overripe and rotting, the pear is. Values attached to a thing are meaningless, are the interaction between two objects, are context, are produced by a myriad different influences.

A child was eating peaches when the news reached her, her father dead in a car accident. The pluck in her heart resonated in her body. Pain everywhere, the taste of peaches in her mouth. Perhaps she didn't know what it meant, death, a father gone. Perhaps she forgets she was eating a peach that day or ever ate peaches. Perhaps she never touches a peach again and says to others, "I have never liked peaches."

How can we find all the answers. Why even look?

Love. What is love? Does it live inside us? Is it swimming in the mythy Ether, finer than we can conceive? Is this thing, too, a reaction, a by-product of interaction?