June 30, 2026

When money and success and just getting by doesn’t take up so much space in my mind, what is there? A void, to start. A gap. I’m a spiritual guy, but I’m not really pointing towards enlightenment in a dedicated way. When I’m overly saturating myself with entertaining distractions, I vaguely long for more spiritual connection. But really I do the same handful of actions that I’ve been doing for years, more or less. Taking care of the tasks that come to me, napping, getting lusty, updating things, clearing out my to-do list, having sex, reading, sports, listening to people talk, doing therapy. But listing it doesn’t capture it. Poems. Shopping. Feeling sad sometimes, or worried, or angry. But that’s any person, we all have the human emotions.

I need to buy more short socks.¹

Writing, I come back to writing regularly, it’s definitely part of my spiritual and emotional practice, whether it’s journaling, poems, a story, a marketing dispatch, an email to a client who tells me she’s leaving. But when I’m not writing for publication or for other people’s eyes, it’s just for me, to try to understand myself. To discover myself. To find truth? Is that right?

Trying to understand myself. Looking at myself. Who is me? Who am I? Labeling characteristics, trying to understand why I am how I am, my strengths, my limitations, wanting to feel better about myself when I feel confused, scared, sad, ashamed.

I am ashamed of myself. I feel shame. The shame includes the story that I am not good enough. Good enough for what? Good enough to succeed. Good enough with money. Good enough for my wife. Good enough at my job to be able to help people. Good enough to exist. Good enough to be allowed to enjoy my life. Shame creates some self-description that I am flawed, limited, deficient, inherently not good enough or capable enough or skilled enough (not enough in all the ways that matter), attractive enough, smart enough, talented enough, disciplined enough. That I’m just lucky, and just holding on for a while, and not capable of improving my situation, and not able to accept myself the way that I am, and that this inherent deficiency is going to be a major problem for me, it’s going to ruin my marriage and my living situation and I’m going to be stuck and alone living in an ugly, smelly home, where I don’t know how to take care of things well and I don’t have the resources because I’ve wasted them, and I have no will to improve or grow or go get out into the world and gather resources. And even if I can overcome all that, I won’t actually enjoy myself, I’ll just be able to be ok enough, not actually thrive or feel joy or peace. Just enough to scrape by, and it will be my fault, because of me, because I had all the cards I could want to make things succeed, my looks and inherited wealth and education and charm, but I’ll waste all those and live a small, stupid life, because I’m actually a bit stupid and dull and depressed, and don’t know how to be with people or have any degree of resilience, because my character is flawed and I’m lazy and lusty and a piece of shit, and greedy, and nobody realizes it because I smile and am friendly, and it’s a thin mask.²

Ok, so that’s one core belief, or some shadow material lurking that I need to continue to grapple with. And very 2 on the Enneagram. Shame. But I need to fill out the picture too, because that isn’t my only core belief.

I also believe that I’m special, that I’m spiritual, that my motivations are pure, that I’m simple, that I’m confident, that I can manifest things, that manifestation is real, and that I’m tapped into spiritual principles, that life is interesting, that I’m part of doing a grand experiment just by living, that I don’t need to force things, that I take advantage of opportunities, that I don’t believe all the things that some people take for granted. That I am in touch with myself in some real way, that it’s often quiet in there, that I am a mix of a monk who likes to fuck and a simple scraggly poet who drifts here and there, and a mid-level administrator who handles piles of bureaucratic paperwork deftly, but mechanically, because that’s what I do to get paid, but also because there are diamonds buried in all that muck, and you get to know how these systems operate, their logic, their idiosyncrasies.

I’m quiet, I like doing things by myself, but to be around people sometimes, especially in a coffee shop, or moving through the world, not trapped in a conversation that I can’t easily leave, like how it is with my parents. But I also then wonder, is there something about me that people don’t like, that people don’t relate to? Are my feelings distant, or shut off? I’m hyper-logical, so I see things a lot through the lens of principles, maybe it takes me away from a lot of my direct emotional experience. This may be why I like to write, to draw myself back towards my heart, through my words.

So, I don’t know if I’m really on the path of direct enlightenment. But I’m not just on the path of sensual pleasure and worldly existence either. Kind of in-between, or one foot in both.³

I’m obsessed with self-identity. Frequently, my primary tensions and concerns are in how my thoughts about myself match or are different than how I see myself show up in the world. If it differs from my story, I’m upset. Or, if my story of myself gets real negative, obviously that is a direct pathway to despair.

I don’t think Katherine perceives me this way, because when I say something to that effect, she says it’s not how she experiences me. Sometimes that is very reassuring, other times I wonder if she doesn’t know me as well as I’d like, or if I’m hiding out, or if she isn’t interested in that layer of things.

I’m consistently ambivalent, with moments of clarity and conviction. But I can’t get myself to move if I don’t feel it, and I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, sometimes I feel stuck by it, but other times I can kind of break through, though it feels very effortful. I’m constantly evaluating.

I don’t know if all this writing is strictly true, but it points in an accurate direction. I’m experimental and conventional.

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

– Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself”

It sounds nice when Walt says it, sounds profound. Doesn’t feel that way internally. I keep trying to get consistent, congruent, coherent, but each partial definition excludes another side of me, and that isn’t fully capturing my experience of myself.

The immediacy of awareness.

– a guy in the cafe

I tend to just write down what I see and hear and some feather of emotion, that adds up to the atmosphere I perceive. Is that playing it safe? Or deeply meditative? Both perhaps, or depends. Why do I try so hard to put it in one category or another? Wanting to either settle in with it (because I’ve tagged it as good) or convince myself to change course (because I’ve tagged it as bad). So silly. And you can never fully pin something in one category or other, especially when speaking generally.

What if I admit that I don’t know? That I can’t use my knowledge to create safety, to locate myself. What if I don’t know where I am? What if I am lost? Then what, is that so bad? If I let myself get lost, then the emotions pop up more loudly. Fear, sadness, acceptance, joy. The cycling through of them is intense. Just stay with it, be with it. You don’t need to know the next move ahead of time.

June 30, 2026

The Throat Chakra

The heart chakra lets people just “be,” instead of “achieve.” The throat is not just about trying to be heard but being able to hear other people (including yourself). When the throat chakra is blocked you might find it hard to HEAR what other people or your intuition is trying to say.

Checklist for the throat chakra

• Are you able to express your truth, to speak up?
• Can you communicate clearly (verbal or non-verbal, external or internal)?
• How is your connection with the etheric realm, the spirit and intuitive abilities?
• Are you willing to create, to manifest ideas into reality?
• Do you know your purpose?
• How is your sense of timing?

Affirmations for the throat chakra

• I can communicate clearly.
• I speak my truth freely, openly, honestly.
• I am accountable for expressing myself clearly and truthfully.
• My honesty attracts honesty.
• By voicing my desires, I am able to receive.

July 1, 2026

I’m back at the coffee shop, with no work that needs doing. I could be at home, getting ready for our trip out to Katherine’s parents’ house for the next few days, but I’m not ready to switch into that mode, and I’m sure we’ll take care of all the things that need caring for, the dog food and the straps for the paddle board, the baby clothes and the food from the fridge and watering the plants and, and, and. It’s always a lot of gear, no matter if we’re leaving for half a day or a full week, and it always works out, whether or not we optimize every moment. It’s more a question of attitude for me.

When I feel like I’m grinding, I get dry and pissy, everything feels like a chore and nonstop, like all day long is just cleaning and organizing and finding items in the basement that we haven’t used since we moved in. Plus I haven’t showered in a few days.

We have a ‘heat dome’ hitting today, with temperatures skyrocketing up into the upper 90s, and they say it will feel hotter. That’s why we’re heading out of town, just 45-minutes away, near the water, where it will be 10 degrees cooler, and we’ll have a change of scenery. We’ll stay through July 4th, to try to mitigate our dog Amelia’s anxiety at all the fireworks.

I’ve been writing consistently over the past week. There just isn’t that much to do to grow my practice – not nothing, I could be reaching out to the therapists Archie told me about, or update my directory profiles – but nothing obvious. My initial nerves – failure, shame, restless – have settled enough for me to be able to settle in to write. At the very least, I can make use of this time, which isn’t always there. There were plenty of days before that were stacked back-to-back all week long, plus chores and outings and baby responsibilities, so if I relax enough about my performance and earnings, I can acknowledge that I really like this pace of life, though I’m not always sure that it’s ok, that it will be enough, that I’m not missing some big piece that I should be doing instead of what I’m doing, instead of what I’m drawn to do.⁴

I feel some pull between “doing what I think I’m supposed to do” (earning money, house chores, taking care of baby) and “what I do when I have no obligations” (writing, wandering around, reading, creative projects? napping, meditating,). I have it mentally set up as the first one is my role, and how I earn my place in the human community, especially in my household, with my wife and family, but broader than that too, it’s how my family-of-origin will evaluate how I’m doing and if I’m trustworthy, i.e. if they approve. The second is selfish, self-centered, about my wants and needs and intuition, focused primarily on being self-directed, not caring as much about my perceived impact on others or how they think of me. It’s not as if I ignore others in this state, though sometimes I do. It’s just that I’m at the center of my world, rather than seeing my ability to give to others as the locus of the value I provide and the way that I belong.

One is social contract. One is me in the world, me exploring Self. Me tinkering, not having to be efficient, me learning or letting go or indulging. When I lean heavily into social contract, I get flat, resentful, tired, irritable. When I lean into Self, I get inspired, rejuvenated, insightful, but also more messily emotional, depressed, sad, listless, the underlying self-doubt and shame and limitations showing up much more clearly than when I’m in chore mode, which is functional, linear, requirement-based. I know what I need to do, it’s not as personal or choice driven. When I have choice, sometimes I choose deep tranquility, sometimes lust or distraction or just being silly or even more obsessive than when I’m in task mode.

Writing is like tuning myself. I can write the layers off. Much of it is repetitive, is thematically consistent over long periods of time. There’s nothing to break through, only an ongoing exploration. I’m not writing for publication – though technically I may publish this on a personal website – but for self-exploration. For self-discovery.

I don’t write poems on computers
I write them by pen
on paper I buy
for finding out things about my mind
that I knew but didn’t see
for symmetry and exploration