So Adam and Cedar spent a good portion of last night geeking out hardcore on hacktest.com. They spent several hours playing it's unique brand of treasure hunting. Shawn had coffee after missing his planned attending of a volunteer meeting for the Portland film festival. We made lentil soup after discovering we had a large overstock of lentils at the house. While Adam and Cedar were geeking out I went in my room and lit some incense I got in India. This is the result hope you enjoy.
haunting India
I'm not sure what it is, but my mind is calling me back to India.
There were so many things that were so difficult there and maybe time gilds all memories with false gold, but I miss it. There was something so vital about being there. It makes me understand the thrill that pioneers must have felt.
Even as I sit here, smelling the incense I brought back, the ghosts are here. Rickshaws, mad filled buses, bustling train station, and whiskey on Diwali all dance through my head, like those sugar plums in that Christmas story.
I have so many stories from that place a dozen I've told and so many more that I haven't. It is so much more then all those stories. It is so much more than I can even grasp at remembering. Even the slivers of moments that I have captured in this odd little basket in my head are so sublime.
India is madness incredible beautiful madness. It is the kind of madness that the western world has striven to hide beneath the layers and layers of paints and civic order. It is the madness at the root of all humanity and being there reveals it. It reveals it in you and in everything you know. This is the vitality that has driven humanity so far.
The Persian ruler Xerxes believed that an empire must expand or die. I was thinking about this related to the American empire and I was struck with the realization of why so many things seem really futile here. We are already such a large part of the world any gain by any of us is dwarfed by the massiveness of our social influence. We are like a huge worm and any growth is so tiny compared to the rest of the bulk.
India is growing like a vacant lot left to overgrow in the urban summer sun. It is a vibrant patch of jungle writhing through concrete and steel tearing apart the ancient foundations of the modern order. Everything grows out of everything else. Even the chaotic lives of the slums seem to bear some fruit. There are so many people living a way that most of us have forgotten. The pride and cruelty of working long hard days just to sleep on the street and to send a little money back to your family.
This is what is most difficult and most beautiful to see in India. This life all around so much you can't escape it and you start to understand all the glitz and glam in our society. The neon lights and banner ads and twittering are all these empty little shadows reflected on a cave wall. An allegory of false truths is what takes up so much of our time. After being there even for a month I find myself seeing things here as hollow. Convenient simple non confrontational existence. It seems turned down and tuned out compared to the reality, overwhelming as it was, you felt when you were there.
I truly miss INCREDIBLE INDIA. I'm not planning on going back anytime very soon, but I do want to go back. It's eastern beauty calls to you like a siren. The madness is like an infection it gets under your skin and you need it in your life. It's that old crazy girlfriend you had such a great time with. You know in some ways she's bad for you, but you always sort of want to see her again anyway. The US is my faithful girl, the girl I go steady with, the girl in beach boys songs. She will always be there calm and quiet. She may not always be what I want but she will always feel like home.
Every so often I just feel the need for life in my life. Every time my thoughts bring me back. The sounds, the staring, the struggle and the truth of India are there with me again. Someday, I'll go back and if you can you should go back for me and tell her I miss her.
