The Number Three, Vulnerability & The End of the Mother of Suffering

"All the gods, all the heavens, all the hells,

are within you."

- Joseph Campbell -

I stopped 'clapping' mosquitoes. It seemed strange to be stopping things from doing what they were designed to do. It seemed even stranger to decide I had the right to. Headphones in, one foot in front of the other, let the rain come down. The cats were waiting for me when I got back. Perhaps they'd seen her leave too. Sip a coffee, dream of the fire of a cigarette, smile when you start acknowledging the distractions. Keep adding on the easy fixes until you're almost somebody else. Sit with the many sides of yourself; try not to jump. Try not to look around at other things. A bikini clad blonde walks past the window in the direction of the pool. It's been fifteen hours since you last had sex. Sit still. There is time for everything, but all of it will either mean or amount to nothing until you have taken time for yourself. 

Simply put, from my viewpoint, when events 'break' a person -that is, to say, they leave forward-movement impeding scars- that individual is much more likely inclined to pursue a sense of immortality. One would and will also say that the individual is more likely to recoil from anything that might resemble vulnerability. As ever, life carries a twist and the truest sense of immortality comes from the willingness to be vulnerable, and the attempt to find invulnerability is a sure way to unknowingly encroach upon your own breaking point. The last time I wrote anything down was a propaganda piece on stroking cats so pardon me if I'm 'un petit peu de la wordy cunt.' Basically, in attempting to protect oneself from the emotional onslaught of living (actual, present as fuck living) one has to bring upon the slow painful death of handing themselves over to fear. The best and crudest example I can give -fed to me by too many recent conversations- is that in creating a defense against emotional entwinement with another the 'empty fuck' asks the body to become a vessel and when you ask the body to become a vessel, and little more, for too long the soul that occupies it is going to start making a song and dance of things, reminding you of what emptiness (vessel-likeness) actually feels like. Simpler yet; in attempting to avoid being punched in the face one will eventually become consciously overwhelmed by the fear of being punched in the face. In allowing oneself to be punched in the face, one can get quite good at being punched in the face. 

The cats, however...  I had been discussing 'letting life happen' with Christian. To cease the concept of 'control' -the mistake. To allow the muscles to relax under the pressure of a massage instead of tensing them in a vain act of self defense -like that, but with life. The air cools and the rain comes down and everything behind my face is warm. The other night I had been sitting here on the balcony with a beer, a cigarette and the beautiful women of the past. Deep breaths, in and out; a happy kind of tearful with the cats brushing up against my legs, avoiding the rain. They would usually 'meow' for attention, but that evening they moved around silently as if they could sense I was busy with something. A word of advice: Never be too busy to stroke a cat. If the opportunity to stroke a cat presents itself, always stroke the cat.

The sweet cigarette smoke moves in and out of us. With it, I become transfixed on watching people watching people. How much do they see and how much are they looking for? Someone I recognize walks past the bar I'm in and raises an arm and a smile of her own. The familiar pangs of needing to move and of staying too still, finally dusted off with standing up once it is too late. I think of the cats. Us damn stoopid humans; dead to our instincts; alone with our thoughts. My smile retracts to somewhere else for another time. A table of four discuss tattoos, I become conscious of my disliking of the music in my right ear; of loneliness and of treading a path which I occasionally wonder whether or not it is my own. I sit down away from all of this and one of the cats jumps up on my lap. It lays down immediately and begins purring. If the opportunity to stroke a cat presents itself, always stroke a cat. The purring vibrates through me and it is no longer important who I might be. I am just a man stroking a cat and that is the everything and absolute nothing that is needed to be alive in the moment in which I am just a man stroking a cat. 

If I could only communicate my absolute surrender to the mosquito and save it flying around so spasmodically in some vain attempt at a diversion tactic... I have been staying at a place you may or may not be familiar with called 'Tiger.' For those of you out of the loop; the gentler portion of my readers, it is a Muay Thai and Mixed Martial Arts training camp in Phuket, Thailand, and has been my home for thirty days as of tomorrow. As a form of mental and physical exercise I have been getting punched in the body and face, learning how to better my punching of the body and face and rolling around on the floor so as to improve my ability to manipulate another human being's limbs and blood supply to the brain should I ever need to do so in the future. I also came here, albeit inadvertently, to watch my ego suffer and die. Having done this, and having taken some time to reflect on the less bearable qualities of personas that I have crossed paths with, I would strongly advise investing in finding yourself somewhere where you can observe your own ego suffering and then dying. 

In one hour I will do a final check of my rucksack and leave this room to begin my journey back to the UK -a place I no longer call home. I will quickly swim in the pool and soak up the last of the Thai sun. Where and who I am has stilled itself for now. I am no longer a son because I have no parents. I have no one in my life who I look up to and so I wear the responsibility of becoming someone who can be looked up to. Here, I have felt entirely defenseless; weak and hopeless, but it has been at the other end of those moments, when I have survived, that I have come face to face with strength. I hold my head up, smile at the people smiling around me, say thank you to those who have crossed my path, take a vow to treat the world with respect, but to never waver to those lacking in it and walk outside. This is another ending. I breathe in and out. There is just one last thing left to do...

Sit down and stroke the cat.