My affair with siddhartha

i read herman hesse's siddhartha the summer after 8th grade... right after discovering that reading could actually be an enjoyable experience. i had finished kafka's metamorphosis earlier in the year, and, having loved every second of it (i've probably read that novella over a hundred times now), a teacher mentioned i might like hesse's take on spirituality.

so i gave it a read.

and i loved it.

there are many reasons why, but first and foremost, it was different. it promoted oneness with the universe -- this big, giant, intangibly tangible thing that i couldn't even begin to wrap my thoughts around -- and it taught the virtues of simplicity, of being "good". being alive.

those are virtues that i hold onto today. i've mentioned it several times, but there is no need for an invisible sky daddy (no matter what name one might assign him, or her, or them) to embody this philosophy.

all one needs to do is be aware. be aware of his surroundings. listen. follow the golden rule.

it really is that simple. no need for blowing people up 'cuz they don't agree with you. no need in forcing one's highfalutin beliefs on others by sanctions or force.

no need to stick one's nose into my business.

i treat others the way i want to be treated. is it really too much to ask others to do the same?

(image via skull swap)

Finally took a penny

was at the convenience store and bought a banana. indian dude says, "dat will be one dollar one cent, please."

i have a $20 and a $1. that's it. so i panicked... THEN i saw the penny dish there... ya know, the one you put your unwanted pennies in.

i took one. handed it and the $1 bill to the man and walked out.

and as i walked down the cold, broad street, i realized: that was the first time in my entire fucking life that i've taken a penny out of the dish. first time. ever.

i'd put countless pennies in and never taken one out.

now i'm takin' them motherfuckers out every chance i get.

Trying to figure out kafka

okay. part of me thinks i 'get it'. all of the crazy shit that franz kafka says in his "zurau aphorisms", yeah... i get it.

but do i?

i think i'd be pretty naive to think there's only one interpretation.

here's a fav of mine:

The German word sein signifies both "to be there" and "to belong to Him."

'cuz if you're there, you belong to him. ahem, your Him.

whatevs.

it's bullshit.

and kafka knew it. that's why he wrote it down. not 'cuz he got it then feared it.

that would ruin my whole perception of knowing... everything.

Finding faith in kafka

"As Gregor Samsa awoke from unsettling dreams one morning, he found himself transformed in his bed into a monstrous vermin."

i gotta say, franz kafka is one of my favorite writers of all time... and the above passage might be the best opening line in any work of fiction i've ever read. for whenever i'm down, feelin' blue, or just not havin' a good day, i can turn to the works of kafka (mostly extrapolations of his very own life) and realize i'm not nearly as fucked up as i  once thought i was.

from what i can tell, kafka was a closet atheist. one couldn't be open about it back then like you can today. he seemed to use the language of the church to point out its downfalls while still maintaining some semblance of piety... to look good, y'know.

of course, i'm just guessing on this... maybe he was one of the crazies... but in the meantime, i will continue to find some morbid sense of atheistic peace in his writings.

if nothing else, the dude had balls. he wrote an entire novella about life in america having never been to america and his manuscript is so full of holes that any person who had ever been to america would immediately know he was absolutely full of shit.

but he didn't care.

and i respect that.