Feeling Fashed

1^st June 2013

Sitting waiting to depart Granada, the train shall soon approach to Sevilla. Probably no choice but to spend the night there before heading on to Algeciras.

I wonder at everyone around me, they all seem distinct yet similar, and when I stare for too long I start to see their faces become familiar. Never when I stare directly though.

“She works hard for the money, so you better treat her right.”

I find myself swaying to the music, and as I write, I feel the urge to stop and glance around me. It's after seven, and the early evening Sun makes the city seem sleepy – an illusion, for this is when the dedicated start to rise and enjoy life.

Feeling similar, I nevertheless seem unable to shake THEM off, the “social workers” and “civil engineers” and others who in another author's words “promise forever but never deliver” . I believe that author confronted most of his demons as well. “Demons to some, angels to others”?

It is not perspective that identifies this time, but intent.

My problem seems to be that they are all trying to help me, sometimes literally pushing / pulling me in a certain direction.

The problem arises as I have known that direction well, and have visited those lands. They provide a little, but do not quench fully, not like the direction I would like personally to choose does.

Judging myself, my appearance, scent and aura seem repellent. Bloodstained filthy trousers, a cut on my nose, black nails, accumulated dust from the mountains and dirt from the streets layers over my body.

Contemplating for a minute, I realise that the person who can support me at this stage , while at the same time being open enough for me to do the same to them would be special indeed. Support wise, a shower would be a nice start.

I resolve that this is all part of the purpose, and my dharma is set, the samsara rebalanced once more to keep everyone else happy in life. Divine suffering seems attractive indeed, for infernal suffering seems pointless. Maybe I will get the second half of the point of suffering in the stage between death and rebirth.

The barista tells me the train is three or four hours, plenty of time to dream soon. There the battle for my soul recommences and it is with great difficulty that I can even begin to see the sides at that level, for how can a form be either good or evil?

At most, only certain attributes of said form can be either True or False, yet even falsehoods can be beneficiary, and it is with great trepidation that I try to refine. For to refine another, is to refine my Self, should such a thing even exist. Enough for now, the train approaches.

I think I should write more about the voices. Sometimes male, sometimes female, it is hard to differentiate and even harder to react correctly. For to respond to one voice insulting my mother would provoke understandable anger to someone asking me how my day has been for example. Maybe there is no choice after all for some things? Or should I simply reply “Yes, yes.” in the previous example, saying nothing of merit and being grey to both?

Realising that the words I pick up are only part of the message, with the direction I am facing and point to affects what I receive, I still feel reversed from everyone else.

9:03, seven stops to Sevilla.

Seeing both, I see the misunderstanding from each side, yet am powerless to point out universally the falsity, and therefore cannot alter the Destiny/Maktub mapped out for me.

Both parties within me have known for some time what danger lies ahead. So I decide to stop trying to change and instead prepare for the mammoth task on the horizon. Knowing the plan is just that, so I turn my thoughts to the other species that live amongst us.

Change only happens globally when all agree. Apparently when ten per cent believe something, the idea takes root and spreads to the rest of the population, truth-hood of no concern.

Is it wrong / false to eat meat?

I still weigh up the variables in MY mind. For I see death as no problem for any creature, only the method with which it is brought about. If we remove needless suffering, the animal would have no idea when it is to die, and could lead a happy half-life.

Hmm...half-life...the term seems almost ironic now. For we have already domesticated and removed most instinct for herd animals to survive in the wild, so it would either take a very long time for these animals to evolve back / devolve to their normal state, or genetic modification.

Which brings rise to another problem: What need would the rest of the human population have with such animals if their products are no longer used? We do not value them correctly, and it is rare to see a sheep or a pig as a household pet, rarer still to see families that breed them, and farmers (under enforced vegetarianism) would cultivate their fields for other purposes.

The same can be said for the non-domesticated ones too, for as Zoos pass into privatised hands, would only the 'cute' and 'adorable' animals survive, as they would attract the most customers?

I think back over the nature documentaries that have been made over the years and struggle to remember one dedicated to the wood louse or whelk.

Some people are interesting enough to care for animals beyond their physical appearance, and it might be that a few of these “lesser species” (what a horrible term) may survive in glass tanks, biospheres, their species preserved, albeit out of their natural habitat. Maybe we will build another Ark, with which to escape the planet, with two of each kind of animal on the spaceship, or their genetic blueprints.

22:54

After being thrown off the train at the influentially named San Francisco de Loja, I walked from the station to some nearby rocks overlooking the town. Finding a small cave, I ventured inside, finding first a football (which I returned to the surface), and a briefcase.

Prising it open, the Zelda chest music playing in my head, my eyes were greeted with. . . emptiness! Save for compartment's for a mechanic's tools, it's durability was balanced against the size of my existing bag and I left it next to the ball – I can find someone's drug stash another day.

Went to a bar and had a small beer, then went to El Alamo nearby. After my previous thoughts of an omnivorous lifestyle, I decided to live on the edge and order a cheese and bacon sandwich. The waiter brings out mayo with it, which I apply and I ask for some olive oil. Humiliatingly I forgot the name for both olives, and oil. The owner smiles and offers me first some olives, then the olive oil, which I smother liberally over the bread. I take the olives and return the condiments, then eat, pondering the ethics of my actions, for I was neither desperate or without choice, yet chose to eat THE FORBIDDEN MEAT duh duh duh.

It tastes like cooked ham. I shall have a cigarette and think, try to see why pig in particular should be abhorrent to Judaism and Islam. Reckon I should start there before addressing meat in general again.

I honestly believe it is nothing more than a leftover remnant from a time when cooking pig was particularly unsafe, and we were advised against eating it with sound purpose. However, times have changed and the fact that the pig is covered in it's own excrement at times signifies nothing – for do we not clean all animal thoroughly before eating them?

That question satisfied to myself, why did God never state not to eat animals in general? Or perhaps s/he did. Thou shalt not kill seems pretty straight-forward, though if we include animals in general than we should also not kill the trees and plants around us, for are they not alive too, and therefore chopping down a tree would be killing it?

As usual I can see only the white and black, off or on, kill or no kill. I think I shall have to try the no kill route. For while I am tempted by the taste of human flesh, which the “on” of “kill” would permit, it seems wrong to me. So I shall live off only fruit, nuts, and dairy products, which while taken from a life form ala fruit, it does not kill it, the fruit regrows, the cow provides more milk. Funnily, vegetarians would be commiting murder in this sense, as when a vegetable is plucked it's roots are taken with it, and another life form must be replanted. Double irony! Maybe God really does have a sense of humour that I'm starting to get.

00:44 July 2^nd, San Francisco De Loja