Chapter 5: Data Points of Past

One can dig one's past and run empirical tests to objectively determine where one was at a given moment in life. That is, one can find rational data points that evidence one's modus operandi and one's routine precisely preceding an existential breaking point. See actions precisely preceding one of those monumental moments when we have the audacity to claim: "that moment or that event changed me."

When I seek these data points, I first look at past financial statements and see trends in spending. These indicate choices made and form of living. I then opt to open past journals. These indicate state of mind and form of feeling. These tests often reveal me as an unaware and stupidly ignorant being. A being living without knowing what destiny has in store for it.

I am now reliving that past. I am now running those empirical tests and looking at what happened during the six months preceding that morning of December 23rd.

Six months before my grandmother's passing, I had arrived back to my homeland from the United States. While all the lovely achalasia events occurred in the background, I was focused on one mission. That was: experimenting, first hand, an intellectual "construct" I picked up in a book I read during my transition away from New York.

I am prone to ADD so it is rare that I pick such a thing from reading. I am active. And need to "produce." The trading floor and New York aggravated this condition. If I did Yoga, it was to work out. If I read a book, it had to have a finite purpose. Learn Portuguese? Okay, read. Learn about a new market? Okay, read. Travelling to a new country? Okay, read! So it was rare that I would engage in reading as a hobby or for pleasure. There was no time.

However, a bomb had landed on my hands years ago. It was a package that Lady Y had given me in lieu of my 25th birthday. I recall the moment perfectly. She looked beautiful. In a black designer dress. Picked up from the hip joints in Nolita. The music blasted away in my 14th floor Tribeca apartment. Friends, artists, bankers, lovers, frolicked in corridors and the tiny kitchen. All sipped drinks away in the vast balcony. While the party rocked, Lady Y brought me aside, and said: "these are for you. X, let these bring you all I have to say to you, happy birthday! These are for your own time. For your own silence. Enjoy the ride."

At 8:00am in the morning when the majority of guests had left, I brought her into my room. I kissed her. I looked into her eyes. I thanked her. The muggy June New York summer heat came through the window. We heard the chanting to memory ballads from drunken guests partying away in the balcony. Cars sped away in the West Side highway. The Hudson river flowed through it all. I proceeded to open the package in front of her. "The Razor's Edge", "Fountainhead", "Demian", "And thus spoke Zaratustra" and "Liquidation" were in paperback and hard cover. They starred at me. Lady Y did too. I thought, Lady Y is my life. These are to become ceremonial objects to me. I need to save them for the right moment. I need to dedicate them the time that these authors dedicated in writing them. The time she dedicated to pick them and dedicate them to this moment. All of this meant falling further in love with Lady Y. It meant marrying her, instantly, without her knowing, of course. It meant I would finally understand how she felt about me. What she thought I needed to hear from her but she had not said out loud. She is such an important being in my existence.

The party ended. The books remained. Work started on Monday. The trading floor waited. The books, did as well. And they waited for 24 months for me to open them. When I left Goldman Sachs, it was the first piece of reading I picked up. Time. Time. Time. I finally had time.

Thus, the ceremonies began. I gulped " The Razors Edge" in a weekend. Away at a beach I imagined the story parallels and the main character and I fused. I thought myself living in a similar world. Colonial America was modern China. A vast land awaiting for exploration. I was to become a new coloniser of that world post my Masters. I was to lead my career to this vast land and economy. I was to grow in this unique moment in the history of the world as this economy transformed. I worked on my Masters applications, I was inspired.

Applications submitted and then, Herman Hesse, Demian, came. Second is always best. He emerged onto my hands in a flight that took me back to my homeland. In the very critical logistical movement of me leaving that island of Manhattan that housed me, bred me, and gave me birth again. As the pages turned, my mind and spirit shook. Is it possible that I am writing this? Is it possible that Hesse knows me? I shut the book down. It had to be re-started. Man, I had a bomb in my hands. And I sought a bomb. I sought lightning. I sought some awakening and this very book seemed to be it.

So I installed myself back in the homeland. And started painting. Canvases. I often escaped the city to the country house my parents had built over a span of 13 years. This house was their fifth child. It was brought up with love, room by room, terrazes, porsches of perfection, all built through stages. I loved it like a sibling. When I abandoned my cup of tea and my easel, it was to read Demian. I paused to delight, at every page, delight turn it. And I would hide myself. at the age of 27 mind you [how embarrassing] somewhere in the gardens, which our entire family planted over a span of 20 years. This place was paradise. It was fitting for the purpose of reading this book. To unearthing this bomb. Because reading Demian felt as though my own self had been transported to childhood and puberty. It felt as though it was me who started narrating a story without from within. This house evoked precisely that: childhood.

On page 101, it finally arrived. It said:

"I do not consider myself less ignorant than most people. I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teachings my blood whispers to me. My story is not a pleasant one; it is neither sweet nor harmonious, as invented stories are; it has the taste of nonsense and chaos, of madness and dreams — like the lives of all men who stop deceiving themselves. Each man's life represents the road toward himself, and attempt at such a road, the intimation of a path. No man has ever been entirely and completely himself. Yet each one strives to become that — one in an awkward, the other in a more intelligent way, each as best he can."

My mandate was clear: to attempt. I gave myself instructions: from now and until you leave for your Masters, you are to apply ourself to one thing only, with full rigour, to live this "construct" thoroughly, daily. The concept landed on me like a bomb. It dropped within and like a mushroom of vapour that spread across my mind and spirit. It is precisely this idea of "walking the path to self." As an unfulfilled destiny. As the ultimate and only goal that fuelled me. Powerful as living hell.

And I remembered. This was a construct that was introduced to me by lady Y. And I remain eternally grateful. Little did she know, her gift would single handedly change many parameters, standards. And, at embark onto an entirely new journey in life.

And so, there I was. In my homeland, criss-crossing it, painting it, when Hesse slowly started finding its way into me. Soon after he told me this, I see myself picking up a pen on a grand balcony, with the Andes mountains around, and jotting down random thoughts.

"What the world needs now is love sweet love. NOPE! What I NEED NOW is love sweet love. What a couple months. Feel myself dislocated in body, mind, clothes, organs, pieces all over. All around and arming together. This shattering seems to be uncontrollable. I grow again, put together, organically. No one, not me, affects this process. More than once things have felt out of hand. Happening one after another all because of exogenous events. Maybe not. Maybe not with words. Across me, shaken it all up at no command. Dreaming of another place seems uncalled for. We can all be free. Maybe not with words. Maybe with looks. Minding the gap of the ocean, wandering, wondering too. Who do I listen to? Should I? And how? We all have "a thing" Where is the one I look for? We can all be fee! I really don't mind the gap. We got to choose. I got to wish. Not command. I just don't know right now what to remember. There is so much room right now to continue. Just one space. After another. Enough space to discover. Discover with all. With it all."

And I stand back. And just wonder: what!? This is no clear conclusion nor data point.

Fittingly, the Chinese Medicine man asked me [without knowing this was happening] to jot down a transcript of my dreams so we would unearth all the stones of my mind. And look at all sources to find the genesis of the discomfort and blockage. And so, I wrote, "Curating my Dreams." Unsorted bullets came up:

- Introduction: Recently, the pattern of my dreams has been affected. Rest is superficial. The level of activity is constant and feels revolutionary. It is not evolutionary. It is chaotic. And anarchic.

- Bullet 1: I cannot remember what I dream in detail. I cannot recall specific images. I have not trained my mind or applied it for such a thing. The volume and range of possible revelations and my incapacity to want to face them is limiting my success.

- Bullet 2: My dreams occur in all kinds of places. I can see corn fields filled with water and a dear friend pulling rabbits under her crotch and throwing them back into the water. I walk across high mountain ranges covered with green grass, urban plazas spread below. In these places are people who normally have a human defined form. In this sense, my dreams are "rational." I am not inventing beings or shapes for people from fantasy. I dream, instead, with people and events that are quite literate, yet off tempo, and off place. The irrationality lays in the actual succession of events.

- Bullet 3: The most common place are situations that are actually taking place in my life but need some sort of resolution. When I dream like this, I cannot remember having a voice. I do not recall speaking. It is more as though I am looking at myself from a telecopy or looking glass. In this sense, I do see a pattern. And that is that my dreams evoke irrational outcomes of the pending.

- Bullet 4: I have not seen a manageable metaphysical construct in my dreams. Where my destiny is manifested. Rather, I dream of situations are actual, real, sober, and from present tense.

- Bullet 5: My dreams seem to often revolve around love or lack of it. The latter is more prevalent. The lack of intimate relationships is a grave conscious issue I face and seems to persuade me to limit myself to not look for love freely. It comes from an early age and instead I seem to be a private being in this aspect. It is an auto-impossed celibate in all that has to do with my personal life. Frequently, therefore, in my dreams come with moments from past encounters that were random. I cannot recall the dialogue in those interactions.

- Bullet 6: I am not clear if this is about seeking or searching. Or if these conversations derive from something profound and existential or sexual and carnal and silent. It is not recognisable to me. The detail. It cannot be extracted. But it is palpable in its repetition that there is a void.

- Bullet 7: Since I returned to Ecuador, the actual physical position in which I sleep has also changed. I wake up always, in one of three positions. First, facing the mattress, with my arms completely asleep, dead almost, trapped under my torso. Second, with my face facing the mattress but this time instead with my hands linked tightly under my forehead, almost is protecting it. And lastly, and this is the highlight of my nights, I have woken up kneeling, in ninja pose, ready for combat. Obviously I wake up, and think, "you are ridiculous" why are you kneeling in your sleep." I sense there is trouble breathing properly. I am not resting. My stomach is also constantly burning and I feel choked. It is often a combination of these factors that wake me up at night. I think the combat positions owe to being pointed with a gun and have my skull open by thieves. And the protective forehead owes to the falling of two metal shelves on my face while I slept due to my obstinate need to place my entire college career, in shapes of books and binders, on these shelfs which were loosely nailed to the wall atop my bed.

- Conclusion: The abrupt adjustment to my dreaming activity started since I returned to Ecuador. Since I started giving myself the opportunity to walk the path to my own "normality" and not operate under a routine that was so intense as my prior eras. I realize that I see myself jumping from mountain to mountain.

I work with images of complex pasts that I am not willing to share. I convince myself that these are un-important data points for my doctor. And for me. I decide not to show him the notes. I break the notion of the pattern and instead think of these as isolated events. It is clear, in the back of my mind, that I am searching, for something, that I often face an abysm, literal or constructed. And that I often want to help. Others. Not me.

I keep the note to myself. I do not share. I go back to the path. Solitary exploration. Off I go. Again. To myself.

These data points become un-analyzable often. They are not good. But, then, my diary, five days prior to my grandmother's passing, finally reveals a testimony that is one workable data point. It went:

I was told while experiencing a grave cough and penetrable fever, recently, by a friend, who I found late in life, that my astral life prescribes a new era in life. The judgment or prescription does not seem all too wrong. In this moment of my life, now that I prefer to wrap up the year 2009, my 27 years mid-point, I feel something is about to change.

There is nothing other than the sense of self-expansion. An expansion that is more complex than all superficiality put together. All of it. Than all the walking on surfaces. Now, something has attached itself to a degree of profoundness. And the cost has been charged. The price paid. Emotional and rational recognitions.

There is no more other than put a list together, and to deal, to deal, with what is left pending. It all has to be resolved, concluded, closed. Simple but will be extensive labor. I am in profound concsiousness of my soul's void. And I am not victim outwardly. But internally, crippled. Wake up. You been sleeping.

Already there are so many urgencies and suddenly flowing, like an aimless river, is not an option. There are urgent priorities. Time is indeed happening. Time already has happened. I ought to become more punctual, more directed, more intentional. Yet, directed where? To houses with white fences? To spacial moments of out of body trips? To global office interiors where I can reach impact? Where?

What to do?
How to get there? How to get it?
How many scales?
To what platform?
Reason or soul?
Is there a meeting point?
Permit revelations?
Create revelations?
Who should be filtered?
Continuous solitude?
Dreams of self-delivery?
Is self-delivery possible?
To whom?
How?
With whom?
Ego or happy life?
Is there a difference?

I should resist answering each of these question at some point. These are weaknesses. I should rather explore with a clean soul, clear, and thinking soul. Capable of hikling, traversing. exploring with an open front. Tender eyes open to light. And thespirit smiling only due to the possibility of living. This is enough.

It is that this stage has been about solstices and silent rewards that are difficult to place. Existing from a point so contracted yet vast, existing with the gusto for privacy and the freaking choosing. With masochism for subtle trues that do not shine when exposed. Negating the impossible overreaction and instead choose for decisions that seem to no longer be as strategic and tactical as they truly are.

Listening to myself saying this is almost as terrible as feeling it. There is a point where the strategy-zing has to end. Its presence is necessary for now but it must end. Or it will end my life. Its worth is not up for debate. And it is pertinent to acknowledge that this respond to the public persona created.

Feelings one cannot organise. Feelings one shan't not prioritise. Feelings are not to be controlled.

Feelings are reventing. Exploiting. In millions of centesimal seconds. And that is precisely when a fury appears and why this whole astrological change is needed and makes sense. Because too much time has been lost. Too much strategy has been delivered.

So, now, constructive, X, mister constructive you are to be. To look for that point of awakening and self-realization. To find the point of fury and not let it dawn again. Discover again the tranquility that is absolute and focuses in one and no one other than one. Only then are you there.To give yourself capably, fully. All point to become visible and all option to exist. To live light. Unchained. Complete. Ready for any event to come. For any moment. For any viscicitude. Then you can list whatever you want to list. For now, the list is clear. What really is happening is pending."

I finally, unaware, have a data point. I did not acknowledge it. My grandmother died. Chamomile had spread across the skies. I realised, though, my path had not been walked and experienced. It was a mental construct. Nothing else. I decided, quietly, I am to leave in the New Year to go off to the depths of the ocean and see it for myself, to the depths of India and survive it for myself, to the depths of China and learn it for myself, to the depths of Brazil and penetrate it for myself. And that was resolved.

My grandmother's passing felt as a tragedy. She was ready to leave. I knew she kept herself alive for us. But one is never prepared for death. Death lingers but attacks. It waits. And always, attacks. Death attacks. Death attacks.