Food From a Hungry Ghost

None of this works when it’s a performance. Faith is only as real as it is secret.

Breathe [Pink Floyd] directly into Hey [Pixies]

I’m never sure what I want to bake.

Lately I’ve been losing the will to do it. I’ll see something, plan to do it, and then collapse against what feels like inertia. I wonder if this is grief or depression or fear of failure, fear of not being special anymore? I don’t understand how I could have come this far only to feel exhausted at a moment when I had hoped to be energized into the working world. My world has been slowly collapsing, as I have drifted from a system of believing that I want to feed people to a state of feeling like wondering if these people are worthy of the food that’s being made for them. This state is a trap, and an effective one. It doesn’t just grip me, it poisons me and makes it hard to move enough to get clear of it.

I think I hoped to write here this morning to give my future self something of as much value as what I’ve found previously written here. I don’t know if that’s how this is going to work out. I’m not sure if I’ll want to remember times like now. Maybe these times are more valuable when they are remembered. I’m on the cusp of finishing something, and that’s a big change for me. A project being seen to completion. I am uncertain of what comes next. A part of me feels driven to own a business – make a push for ethical ownership and prop up a business with my own product. Another part of me demands that I push for something less local. Still another part of me feels unworthy of any of it… exhausted and terrified, convinced I’ve cut every corner I could only to cheapen my knowledge and standing. I am still very sad about losing Penny. I am enjoying what time I have with Ulster, taking him on frequent morning adventures. I feel terrified of connecting with anyone because I feel like a loose fucking puppy with every new person I meet: willing to love them if they just don’t beat me when I piss on the carpet. I am ashamed or angered by different parts of my family. I don’t know why but I continue to live so that I can feel the pin prick of shame poking me in the ass, guilting me into some kind of action or another.

It leads to a very busy, unfulfilled, insecure state of mind.

The above quote (from Tao #2) was a line that stood out to me while reading this morning. In the weeks ahead, as I face a considerable test of everything I’ve studied over the past 2 years, I hope that the rest of that poem may serve as a kind of guide, or guardrail for me. And even though I am angry with the way people have treated each other in the past year, I hope I will feel honored to feed them, with the hope that their full bellies will open their hearts to each other.