THE QUIET MULE COMPANION:

I wake up at 4 am from a dream. My bladder is filled slightly and my mouth is parched. I summon myself from the bed and walk through the hallway to the bathroom, flip on the disorienting light and piss and think "I am pissing." Then I hit the knob with my knuckle and wash my hands. Before I leave the bathroom I make a stupid face at myself in the mirror.

I stumble around into the kitchen and press the "light" button on the remote. The flickering lamp illuminates completely and I grab the glass cup on the table. I fill the glass halfway and drink. I think "I am drinking."

Two years ago I stumbled on an essay about how to become more aware of your activities during the day. Basically, it said that you think of the verb that describes the action you are carrying out. So when you wipe your hands you say to yourself, "Wiping," and when you wipe your ass you also say, "Wiping." So you become aware of your present place and present action in the universe.

I engaged in a similar activity by thinking to myself, "I am pissing." When I returned to bed, many thoughts began to rush to my head and prevent me from resting gently on my pillow and falling asleep. Yesterday I had researched and printed out the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism, and had been reading it over and over and contemplating it in my head.

These ruminations combined with the awareness exercises at 4 in the morning thrust me into some feelings of spiritual emptiness. I began to think about how there is "no separate self" and that "all things are impermanent" and started to feel some serious feelings of meaninglessness and subtle depression. And I tried evaluating these statements against my observations, and confirmed to my thinking mind, yes, these thoughts do not make up anyone, and yes, the world of no self is the only world that makes any plausible sense.

 So what is there if there is no self? Just the realization that perception is an illusion, and the continuation of the flux of the body. Out of which the question develops, is anything worth it? Saving the world from the soybean? Eating organic? Meditating? Trying to get laid? Doing anything?

I also began to think about how I once read a Buddhist master warn that there are a lot of ways to bring you into nothingness, but there are no ways to get out of it. The goal of Buddhism seems thus to be about realizing the illusion of selfish reality, but still retaining some semblance of a self in order to continue existing without (a.) festering in your own piss and semen until you starve to death, or (b.) being an emotionless zombie that takes no part in the joy of the world.

So, in the dead of night, not being able to fall asleep, I got up, baked an apple, ate it, and decided that I would give up serious spiritual pursuit until I was 25. Apparently in yogic tradition that's the age when the majority of your practice switches from physical exercises to breathing ones. Sounds good to me.

-Peter

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My favorite movie is Grease 2.

Why, you ask?

Well, when I was little, my parents plopped me down in front of the television during a free HBO weekend. As fate would have it, Grease 2 was one of the movies that played several times during that weekend. After it was over, I remember getting up from it in a daze and my family commenting on how much I liked it. They said I enjoyed watching “the kids” sing and dance and they were right. The music was rock and roll, in that Broadway style, and the dancing was incredible. I didn’t understand the plot and wouldn’t for many years to come. However, Grease 2 left an indelible imprint on my psyche.

I don’t think my parents understood the impact watching a sequel would have on my development or on my taste in movies for years to come but I can certainly look back on it now and realize how it affected me.

To begin, Grease 2 is a “bad” movie. People I’ve met who actually like it are few and far between. But, at 3 years old, I didn’t know that the movie was the bastard cousin of a wildly successful movie based off a Broadway show. I didn’t even know what a Broadway show was; I just thought it was fun. As I grew older, I couldn’t understand why people scoffed at the mention of its name, even though I have never been a fan of sequels, other than this one.

That’s because Grease 2 held its ground for me as a movie in its own right; I didn’t actually watch the movie Grease until middle school. The sequel holds 3 dimensional characters, plot devices (though ridiculous and fantastical) that didn’t make viewing the first movie necessary to understand the second, and even though characters from the first movie appear in Grease 2 and act accordingly, if the audience is unaware of Danny and Sandy, they really don’t know the difference.

Over the years, Grease 2 came to hold deeper meaning in my life. I bought a copy of it from the video store when I was in 5th or 6th grade for some birthday. After that, it became the movie I turned to when I sick and stayed home from school. I learned all the words to most of the songs and the inflections to the way lines were said. I held onto my VHS tape for a very long time and even bought a cigarette holder to put in my mouth, like the character of Sharon, to emulate her, as I grew older.

For a very long time now, I have wanted to write a dissertation on Grease 2. I feel this need to express myself about this movie for several reasons. First, because I think it would be interesting to see just how deep the well goes with me. There are many things I have to comment about on this movie. Seeing as how I consider myself an expert on it, I would think that I should get my thoughts down, for prosperities sake. Second, I think it’s kind of funny to write a dissertation on something so banal in the sense of the world in general. To have something so grand attributed to it says a lot about my personality and sense of humor.

Finally, the reason I feel so compelled to write this work is that maybe after I write it, I can finally move on from it. I can get over the fact that I loved a really shitty movie for so many years and that I still love the song “Cool Rider.” Join me, won’t you?

-Nicole

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It is funny that even among the people who do not watch TV, who believe it to be a waste of time, there are those who are mesmerized by the entertainment they have viewed in the past.  This goes for me as well.  The vast majority of friendships in my life had not so much to do with a bonding over experiences, but with bonding over entertainment.  I get this from my parents. It is a very odd thing to watch 50 year olds in the middle of a conversation with you one second, then bring it to a halt and run to their television like children. 

Peter and I joke around about how we still remember scenes from mom’s favorite soap opera “One Life to Live.”  A bad man named Todd was murdered (for those who are curious, Todd was apparently in hiding and is still on the show). We also remember that a boy was stuck in a well.  It is sad that I have no fond memories of spending time with my parents, but I sure do have vivid ones of their favorite TV programs.  I would viciously attack, say, "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," unaware that it was because I bonded with entertainment instead of family.  I identified with the Late Show with Conan O’Brian instead of my father. 

Speaking of The Tonight Show, the real bad guy in all of this is Letterman.  Cheating on your wife is much worse than Jay Leno being a jerk.  NBC execs have done more reprehensible things than kicking Conan out as well.  O’Brien’s version of The Tonight Show had the same nonexistent range as Leno except aimed at a younger audience.  There was nothing new going on, Twitter Tracker?  Sure, the actual Conan and Letterman sometimes pop up to speak from the heart.  Those few minutes though are hardly worth the hours of stale monologues, dull interviews, and repetitive bits.  Turning the TV off will always be more rewarding.  Except Conan’s last episode, that was cool.  Will he learn from all of this?  God only knows.  Let us pray that he does, or we will have another great depression on our hands.

 The moral of this post is to join me in burying the Todds and Irishmen exalted by unrelenting colored dots.  Cling to your neighbor and support them, not a dahm coco, come on.

-Chris

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I don't like restaurants. The whole situation of me paying someone to make me food has become more unattractive to me as I grew older. I already have no involvement in its growth, production, and distribution, and eating out destroys my last strand of consumer control: preparation. On top of that I have to pay extra money to have it prepared and presented to me in a pleasing manner.

I was particularly depressed one recent afternoon, because my high hopes of taking a year off of college, volunteer farming, and then applying as a state resident in some arbitrary western state had fallen apart. The night before, I had found out after a few hours of research that residency applications are designed so that a person looking to move there solely to go to college wouldn't get reduced tuition. So sitting with my family in the artificially cordial environment of a restaurant in downtown East Stroudsburg added another blow to my already defeated mindset. I felt like I had been slapped in the face by the cosmos. The great mother was telling me: "You will never be able to grow your own food; getting sushi in New York City after a day of film theory classes will be your source of adventure for four years.

Fortunately, the restaurant we were eating at was my favorite in the East Stroudsburg area.  I had eaten hamburgers there many a time, and when I was less jaded in my youth I looked forward to a classic meal in that pretty little restaurant on Main Street.

As my mom and my grandma talked about how light Chris' beard-hairs were, I kept to myself and stared at the blank page of my notebook. I wouldn't have said a word, if it wasn't for the social obligation I had to say a quick "Thanks" as the waitress put down my utensils. I had to tell her my order as well. My immature silence would be made meaningless by the necessity of choosing a meal, I lamented to myself.

"I'll have...the Asian Salmon Salad."

She confirmed my order and everyone elses, and then I was free to drift back into quiet anger. Writing in my notebook was the obvious excuse to ignore the kin seated around me, so I freed the pen from the spiral and wrote.

As I described my situation to the diary, I began to loosen up a little bit. I didn't really describe it; I didn't even really have the energy to write complete sentences. But I wrote words that had some connection to what I was feeling, and that was enough. Just writing was sufficient to help me relax, even if I didn't make coherent ideas with the pencil. And, yes, an epiphany developed inside my head the more I wrote. "Petey was a surprise baby," Grandma says. My discovery began to stream onto the page:

"When you feel the pain, write it out. Write it out on paper. Coherence."  

"I'll never forget the day. You called me on the phone and said, ma, sit down," Grandma said. I had figured it out. I needed to write something every day. The emptiness was revealed.

Writing in my life is the difference between stagnation and progress. After I made this discovery, living in New York City for four years did not seem so bad. I'd just bring a notepad on the subway. When the train finally stops, I'll step out of the car with a novel at my side.  

-Peter

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A few days ago, I stumbled upon an old article on the internet that I had read two years earlier on proper breathing, speaking, and vocalizing techniques. It was written in the early 1900's, and the guy writing it was very big on etiquette and correct grammar, but the article contains some useful information on natural breathing. He begins by stating that nine out of ten people breath incorrectly, and focus their breathing on narrow portions of their chest. The author then explains how to do it correctly. First, you fill up the entire capacity of the lungs from the abdomen up, then slowly, powerfully exhale out of the mouth, deflating the abdomen.

I had long abandoned this method of breathing due to headaches, but decided to try again. I also read from a book (Science of Breath) on how to implement the "three locks" with natural breathing, an energy-creating method called the "yogi breath." For the past three days, I have implemented the breathing technique in my daily routine, and as a result I was able to slow down, feel more energized and confident.

However, when dabbling in any spiritual practice without a guide or community, it is important not to get carried away. As I began to discover, natural deep breathing is addictive, and I had a hard time stopping myself from focusing on my breath.Torn between wanting to breathe correctly and feel good and the necessity of doing things in the real world, I ended up persisting with a half-aware, faltering deep breath while I carried out tasks. This lead to a sort of anxious feeling that if I stopped deep-breathing, I would subtly fall into ignorance and depression.

I attempted to deal with this dilemma somewhat by accomplishing everything I needed to do during the day very slowly, with constant pauses for focused breaths. This helped, and I felt relaxed, but at one point I found myself in a scary place. It was while I was eating kefir and carrots, slowly and with deliberate pauses, that I felt as if I was on the brink of reaching some uncertain nothingness. This uncertainty was accompanied by vague feelings of rage and hatred. It was obvious that I was about to enter some deep, repressed part of the soul, so after testing the waters a bit more and still feeling the same uncertainty, I attempted to shallow my breathing and return to the normal unawareness of daily living. Humming to myself helped it go away. Come on, take another little piece of my heart now, baby.

I have come away from this experience with the realization that moderation is necessary, even if it feels good and healthy and spiritual. It is important to retain at least a little of your humanity, unless you really know what you're doing. And I am certain I don't. I often feel cold air traveling up my throat, and that is probably a mysterious side effect of misguided spiritual practice.

Retaining humanity in this age can mean a lot of different things. Knowing that you will always be at least a little bit fucked and/or depressed is part of this. I ran outside after the weird experience, and this helped me remember my humanness and imperfection. fter all, spiritual masters don't run. They walk, very slowly.

-Peter

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