earlier today i experienced an intense crystalline co-mingling of two very interrelated thinkings:
thinking 1: i can never trust anyone around me. i am letting go, REALLY ACTUALLY of the belief that any other person can ever ever ever "be there" in the format that i desire for the length of time that i desire forever 100% perfect there FOR ME like i want. no one in the room around me will be there forever, no one knows me, no one can know me, no one can be trusted, all these people will go away, i may not be special, they may not even truly care for me in the divine way i require of them for ALL TIME.

thinking 2: with thinking 1 in mind, i can now be truly free to trust this moment. and i don't have to worry about everything i have to do keep everyone near. and if i know all that, all of thinking 1, i am so free and i am STILL OKAY, look, I AM A-OKAY. so what the fuck do i possibly do now.

today, every single person who was ever an intense solid safety net for me was in one house together. they were all there. they were all there and i looked upon them all and they are all so incredibly fallible (i am sorry, you know what i mean, you just are, because you are people). and i am still okay. and they are all still there.

and, i have no experience with what it means to have known so many people for so long, and with what might happen when you do know people for so long. but it looks to me like we all just got over it. all that shit from before that seemed really fucking important? we just got over it. or maybe it was all in my head ALL ALONG.

people, i leave for India for a month on wednesday morning. i am currently packing up my bag. work is mostly completed, i have just a bit left to do tomorrow, and one or two more little errands to run.

about two weeks ago i decided to quit drinking coffee. my reasoning was that i didn't want to be going through caffiene withdrawals in India. when i say this to people they say "oh well they have coffee there come on," and yes, i know they have coffee and chai in India, but i really didn't want to be having to find it before i could function on any given day.

day three was the worst, because not only was i having the depression and foggy headache, but i had gotten my innoculations for my trip the day before and they'd given me low level fever and illness. so i laid in bed unable to even have tea (which i'd been having to soften the blow) and sweated for like 10 hours and slept and was miserable.

after that, it was really interesting. it's hard to know how to describe where i've been emotionally over the past few years, but it's relevant to understanding what happened when i took coffee away. i have written some of my state over the past years or so here, mostly when upset, in brief little blips, but this journal has had less continuity than ever before, so i'm not sure if it would help even if you'd been reading... but, basically i have been pretty stressed out and anxious.

eventually, spurred by my own misery and oliver's inquisitiveness (and dubiousness) about my ways, i looked into myself and i did different kinds of therapy but mostly i just considered and watched everything and i discovered that (for me) the ANXIETY is mask, and the thing it masks is depression. it's very terrible to have anxiety has your protection from depression and protection from the sense of being overwhelmed by the path you've chosen, because anxiety in itself is depressing and overwhelming.

i'm not suggesting that drinking coffee is what caused this anxiety, not at all really, because i know that anxiety is something that is part of me, but drinking coffee, and the habits of my life which involved the coffee (as in, anxious overworking while jacked on coffee), really contributed to this state of frothy workaholic that i've found myself in. it's like it's been unfolding, and some part of me -- i want to believe it's the part that is my essence or true self -- has been watching that stressed out person unfold and been so so confused and bewildered.

( which isn't to say that everything has been TERRIBLE recently, because it hasn't been, and that is actually part of the problem, because it's way easier to change when everything is TERRIBLE and UNTENABLE as opposed to just stressful in a way relating to attempted accomplishments. )

anyway, i could have just said, the wonderful thing about removing caffeinated anxiety from myself is that i can just tolerate myself now. i'm not so fucking awesome, i'm not like, soooo happy, i am still experiencing a lot of the questioning and nagging self confidence probs and the low level hum of feeling like maybe i fucked up real bad, but i am able to just be with that and watch it. where as before, i was having that, and then anxioushead was like STOP IT, STOP, STOP IT, QUIT, YOU CAN'T FEEL BAD, YOU CAN'T BE BAD, YOU CANNOT, WHY, WHY IS IT THIS WAY, WHY, YOU MUST STOP. with that distracting dialogue and struggle removed from the picture, i am just here with myself, and there is more space to just accept where i am, and to let some part of myself watch the rest of it. and that is what meditation is, but, it's also one way to help yourself get through or over something. because if you are struggling and kicking and freaking out with your mind against something, it doesn't help. you have to make room for it to pass. i am pretty sure.

and, i have felt peaceful, and, the world is a less fraught place, and things are not perfect and i have some concerns but everything seems much less life or death. and, i am just sick of being so stressed out, and i know i get less done when i worry so much, and i know it is damaging to my body and to my heart.

i'm just kind of trying to catch you up to today.

i'm going to india with xep, and rob, and gage, and weeb, and richard and nancy. richard and nancy are professors at UCSD and they have both been to india quite a few times, so they are old hands and they are kindly kindly guiding the rest of us. i get into delhi on thursday at 8:30pm, we stay one night in delhi, then the next day we are on the train to varanasi where we'll be for at least a week. i THINK that after varanasi it will be time to head back north toward the himalayas and dharamsala/mcleod ganj, but it is as yet undetermined. i never thought i would go to india. i am going because xep asked me and it seemed like a once in a lifetime opportunity to go to india with close old friends and with people who have been before. and because... i can lay my eyes on the ganges. and hopefully the himalayas. and because it's been years since i went on a vacation by myself, and almost all the vacations i have been on have involved me working for some portion of them. :( except burning man.

ok enough. i will try to update from india.

hello, i am updating from an internet stand outside the hotel haifa in varanasi. this stand is basically a tiny room with a roll up door and a row of 5 very very old computers. this keyboard is quite a challenge so please forgive any typos.

i'm afraid that the intensity of my initial reaction to india has worn off just enough that i might not be able to describe it very well here. basically i was repulsed! ha ha. richard and nancy met me at the airport in delhi and i think i've never been happier to see anyone in my life. to get out of the delhi airport you have to find your people in a SEA of hollering indians.. i was so exhausted and richard and nancy basically just told me what to do, to get rupees and get a sim card for my cellphone (which i'd had unlocked before i left the US) in the airport. then we got in a cab they had waiting, but we'd been blocked in by some kind of range rover that two guys PUSHED out of the way for us.

we spent the first night in delhi in a rather nice hotel, but the ride to the hotel went through some slum areas and i don't think i closed my mouth for the entire drive. it was night when i arrived, and i saw rickshaw drivers sleeping on the side of the road in cots or simply on their ricshaws. we saw a bus full of pilgrims, which had a tiny car driving behind it playing music.

the next day we had to check out and were due to get on the train to varanasi. after we left our luggage at the hotel we ended up taking delhi's rather nice metro system (looks a lot like bart) to the university area to try to find breakfast, whcih was somewhat fruitless so we went back to the hotel and ate breakfast there. it was very interesting to see the indian university students, who were mostly wearing western clothes!

after breakfast i had my introduction to the true unimaginable filth and chaos of india, as we went into old delhi's chadni chowk marketplace area. there is no way to describe. half dead dogs and goats are in the street everywhere, people are yelling, there is the most insane chaotic swerving traffic of bicycle rickshaws, auto rickshaws, cars, regular bicycles, men pushing carts laden with cargo, and more. it takes ALL your energy to walk down the street as it seems danger in the form of some vehicle or another is coming at you from all sides. in addition to this people are spitting red spit from some kind of tobacco like thing they chew, and it's on EVERYTHING, and there are piles of trash on the ground, and it smells so strongly of all of this and all the food cooking everywhere... and the shops are often down these tiny tiny alleys no bigger than hallways, and it's blazingly hot and humid such that sweat is pouring off every part of you. and there are a lot of people laying on every surface, some of them poor and covered in flies. and there are open grates where people piss and the piss just flows out into an open gutter thing.

needless to say this was a shock. my brain was processing it alright, actually, but my biology was overwhelmed. i mean, you go into an environment like that and every cell in your body tells you that you are in danger. i basically spent the first couple of days just nauseated from the overwhelming filth and heat.

but i have discovered that not all of india is like old delhi and that is very very good.

after this chaos we took a rickshaw to the largest mosque in india, whose name escapes me at the moment, and sat so peacefully under it's cloth shade structures.

...and the train was so perfect. the train STATION was more of that overwhelmingness of filth but also incredible. and the train was cozy and safe with my own berth and chai in the morning from the chai wallah. and dawn breaking on the train and looking outthe window and life going by, innumerable rice patties and cows and falling down buildings and people doing their morning washing.

..and arriving in varanasi and taing the auto rickshaw into traffic even MORE chaotic than delhi... because you add in COWS and people seem even more willing to swerve into oncoming traffic to get around obstacles.

we are staying at a scholars hostel in varanasi called amar bhavan. it's not luxurious, in fact, after a train ride when you're so hot and just want to pee, it seemed definitely untenable, but as i have acclimated to the heat i have appreciated its beauty... it has open grates to the sky and open grates in the floor so when it rains the rain just falls right through. and there is an indian cook named shanti who makes everyone homemade indian lunch every day. my room is on the roof.. it opens onto a courtyard.. but i have been sleeping the common room, a space filled with cushions and pillows, because the power often goes out and my room fan won't work at night. also my room is ner the street so i haven't been able to sleep over the sound of every imaginable animal (cats, dogs, cows,water buffalo, goats, monkeys) braying and fighting over the sound of the rickshaw bells and horns. butthe common room is a pretty wonderful place to sleep and in the morning when i bathe in the dark steamy bathroom the sound of indian radio comes in through the window and i think, yes, ok, i am here.

a lot else has happened but i am tired of explaining at this level of detail. i have seen the ganges and was rather unmoved as i was at a place of feeling really overwhelmed by the filth and heat. i have not seen a burning ghat yet but i think i will try to do that before i go. we have eaten a lot of amazing food, especially at keshari restarant (which is near godaulia crossing if any travelers find this and want to eat there). i hope to eat a lot more amazing food, like in an hour when shanti serves lunch!! so far my belly has been pretty alright. i am making myself be extra vigilant,and, i am taking it easy so as not to get run down and unhappy, which has definitelyhappened.

this place is really intense and my feelings aboutit change every hour.

anyway we will be in varanasi till ag 3, then i think we will go to bodh gaya for the night, then i think gage and weeb and i might split off from the grop and head toward the himalayas since the others are interested to go toward rajasthan and the desert.

i am emailing every day almost so send me email if you want!

ok bye.