Mark Edward • Words

Hugo

Thu, 30 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Decades ago, it was common for tech magazines to include free CDs loaded with free apps or games. One such CD—if I remember correctly—had fifty games, both demos and shareware (several from Apogee). One of these was Hugo 3: Jungle of Doom.

This may have been my introduction into text-parser puzzle games. Though I never played either of the first two games, it appeared they were self-contained episodes.

Soft-locking was, unfortunately, very easy. Players could lose if they missed inspecting the right detail or grabbing the right items at the precise moment. One example happens at the very beginning of the game. Some items were nearly impossible to find without a blind guess, and some puzzles required vocabulary most young gamers probably lacked at the time.

Custom Fonts in Home Assistant

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

One problem I have with Home Assistant is that, as wildly versatile and powerful it can be, it has a very steep learning curve for people who are not already expert programmers. I dabble in web coding, and I consider myself perhaps more naturally inclined to understanding certain technology compared to the average person, but when it comes to things like HA, I am heavily dependent on written guides before I can continue on my own.

Games

Sat, 18 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In the last few months, I have played (or replayed) a few video games that are new, or new to me.

GRIS is a light platformer puzzle game about processing grief, with beautiful watercolor graphics and an ethereal score. The game is not very long, allowing the player to easily replay to find small details they may have missed.

Sea of Stars is a throwback to JRPGs from the 90s and early 2000s. The gameplay and graphics are heavily reminiscent of Chrono Trigger, while some elements borrow from the likes of Super Mario RPG. The story, to me, felt tonally similar to Golden Sun. The music, which also made me think of Golden Sun in certain places, features Yasunori Mitsuda as a guest composer, who did the score for Chrono Trigger. Despite these influences, the game never felt derivative or unoriginal.

Mulholland Drive

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I finally pushed through my motivational block to watch another movie I haven’t seen yet, and settled on Mulholland Drive.

I deeply enjoy long, slow movies (e.g. Blade Runner 2049, Contact, The Lord of the Rings extended edition), and I like weird movies that require viewers to really pay attention to subtext (Under the Silver Lake, Beau Is Afraid).

Mulholland Drive might be right past the edge of either of those categories for me. It is so slow, so needlessly obtuse, that I had to take a break multiple times to reset my focus.

Automations

Sun, 12 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I have had Home Assistant running for about eight months now. The process of setting devices up required a lot of learning, and I have found that I vastly prefer Zigbee devices instead of Matter. Assuming I understand each type of device correctly as I have experimented with them:

Zigbee is a method for devices to connect over a wireless protocol, separate from the more recognized Wifi or Bluetooth. The user begins with a Zigbee hub, which the first bunch of devices will connect to. As more devices are added, those which are too far from the hub will instead connect to other Zigbee devices, which strengthens the stability and range of the home's entire Zigbee network. Because the Zigbee network runs adjacent to Wifi, it doesn't clutter up the user's home internet, nor compromise its security.

Broken Windows

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I am at the beginning of moving away from Windows, which I ancitipate will be a slow process.

Most computer users are familiar with two operating systems for home computers. The first, iOS, is owned by Apple and is generally perceived as a simpler, cleaner operating system. It is also seen as tightly controlled by Apple. It is also considered, by its critics, as artificially expensive, a status symbol which is deliberately made not to play kindly with other major tech companies. The second OS is Windows, owned by Microsoft. For decades Windows was used by the vast majority of consumers. It had more apps, more games, and more choices of hardware.

The Relentless Thought

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Someone I had been close to for about fifteen years developed a habit of mocking my opinions on virtually everything we chatted about. Even when they directly asked to hear my thoughts, whatever I had to say would be immediately followed by an uninterruptible stream of condescension. My list of topics to avoid when around this person grew longer, until it reached the point I felt there was no topic I could safely engage with beyond polite small talk. They went on to bluntly criticize me for not being a deep enough conversationalist. We now rarely talk.

Freaky Tales

Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I went back to a movie I first watched several months ago. Freaky Tales is an anthology film set in 1987 Oakland. It comprises four ‘chapters’, largely separate but for brief moments when their characters pass by one other, influencing the other stories.

The first is about a punk scene being assaulted by Nazi skinheads. The second, a pair of young women hoping to break into the world of underground hip hop. The third, a criminal enforcer renting a movie with his wife. And finally, a professional basketball player facing down some personal tragedy.

Within Two Days

Sun, 22 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In the middle of the night early Monday, I woke up sweating. The house was nearing 80° F, but the air conditioning hadn’t kicked on yet. We installed a new thermostat in November, but it being about 2 AM, lighting and exhaustion limited my options to investigate. I had the HVAC run its fan, and turned on all the ceiling fans overnight to keep things tolerable. Monday and Tuesday had work and other obligations, but fortunately the temperature came down by the first afternoon, so I was free to delay immediately fixing it for the moment.

A Day of Small Things

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Spring break, fake Christmas, snowstorm, wedding ceremony.

4 American Cynic / Retrofuturism / VHS Collection

Primal Planet

Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I recently found a game called Primal Planet. This is a ‘metroidvania’, a sidescrolling platformer game which focuses on action and puzzles while exploring and backtracking through a world. The player takes the role of a caveman, accompanied by his partner and child (controlled by the computer) and a young Sinosauropteryx (controlled by the computer or a second player).

This small family must survive the threats of predator dinosaurs and other, more menacing enemies, as they search for a new home. At the beginning of the game, the caveman is separated from his partner and child, and must reunite with them and find a new, safe place to live. Overall, the game is not terribly long, taking roughly ten hours to complete.

Cataclysmic

Mon, 02 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I recently replayed both Fallout: New Vegas and Horizon: Zero Dawn, and have moved on to Fallout 4 (and the second season of the TV series) and Horizon: Forbidden West. Both franchises are open-world games—with special focus on the American southwest—set in a time long after all civilization was undone. Despite this commonality, they are on opposite ends of the cynicism/idealism spectrum.

Fallout is a pitch-black satire of American culture. Its world is fundamentally broken, and all attempts to restart civilization for a better, brighter future are doomed to inevitably fail. The world will keep breaking.

A Day of Small Things

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

New couch, new curtains, new piano.

3 Yer Busy Little Beehive / Haunted Horse: Songs of Love, Defiance & Delusion / Neon Horse

Synchrony

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

For the first time, all of my (remaining) websites are using the same design.

3 Evolutional / 3.0 / Big Data

Deletion

Wed, 11 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I have a handful of websites for my different hobbies and interests. One was for reviewing movies, and another for writing about biblical academics.

In the last year, my desire to watch movies sharply dropped. The friends I used to watch with found other things they would prefer to do. We used to vote on a movie to screen, heckle or enjoy it, then talk about it afterward. Our collective review would go onto the website the following week. We would also chat about films we had watched between group screenings. That abruptly slowed about two years ago, and stopped altogether a year after that. Now, whenever I hope to sit down to watch something new, I can’t force myself to hit play on anything. I tried to revitalize my interest a few months ago by giving the website a major design update. Nothing. Without a group, my enjoyment evaporated. In the last year, I only watched about three new films, plus a few extra from decades past. There is no reason to keep the website when nothing is being written for it.

Other Days

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The persistent notion I can never seem to shake off is that I am desperately homesick, but for a home I don’t know.

This hiraeth really is hard to explain, even to myself. It’s not a rational thought.

Sometimes (especially when listening to music with the right atmosphere) it’s like I’m right on the verge of finding/remembering that world/home. Maybe it’s a when instead of a where. Or an if rather than a was.

Ex-Cathedra

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We got a row of four theater-type seats for our home movie room. Just when they crossed the point of No Returns, it settled in that they were not as comfortable as I had first thought. The initial excitement—and probably also some sunk cost fallacy—convinced me they were fantastic.

Over time I realized that I was just too tall to sit in them without getting regular back pain. I took to preferring the floor. The daydream of getting more, making a second row, for regular movie screenings with friends also evaporated.

Venn Diagram

Tue, 03 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The job I have is really hard some days. A total mental (and sometimes physical) wipeout by the time I get home. But I also really enjoy it, and I love my coworkers.

2 Whoo! Alright Yeah… Uh Huh / Pieces of the People We Love / The Rapture

The Black Monolith of Fez

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The puzzle game Fez was first released in 2012. The player character exists in a two-dimensional world, but when he is gifted the titular fez hat, he is able to rotate through the third dimension to access hidden paths. In doing so, he collects three-dimensional objects.

Many of the puzzles are quite difficult, but invariably can be solved by astute players who carefully observe the details of the game and think outside the box. Some of the puzzles require tapping controls in the right sequence, making the hidden objects materialize for collection. However, since the game was released nearly fourteen years ago, one puzzle was never solved. Players were only able to collect the final object through brute force. They figured out the correct button sequence to tap in, but no one has ever been able to find the in-game process for finding the solution. After enough time passed, players accepted that the solution was simply absent from the game. The brute-force ‘solution’ was the solution.

Thomas

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

One of my current hobby projects is that I am throwing together a volume on the Gospel of Thomas, which I will have printed.

Thomas, despite its brevity, is much more interesting to me than the New Testament gospels.

The volume will contain the gospel in Coptic, Greek, and English, with a short appendix of comments.

The work has been slow—begun nearly two years ago—but is nearly complete. Maybe one day I will finish it.

Fragmentation

Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Something I struggle with is fragmenting based on the people I am with.

Every person has a variety of interests and opinions and stories within them. Depending on whose company they are in, the person will express those parts at different volumes.

My love of movies, sharing useless trivia, my religious and spiritual exploration, my art and design criticism, my perpetual fight with depression, the fun I have baking for others, smart jokes, stupid jokes, sarcastic jokes, life disappointments, my social/political despair, geeking out over tech, my LEGO collection, internal philosophical debates over the food industry, the deep hurt I feel over age-long friendships randomly and suddenly ending, my musical tastes, worry/knowledge that I’m not a good enough partner or parent or family member or friend or coworker…

Highlander

Wed, 28 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I am a fan of the original Highlander film, but I accept that it has many, many flaws. When it comes to movie remakes, Hollywood should restrict themselves only to remakes/reboots of movies which had great potential but had poor execution (many years later, preferably; take time to figure out what went wrong before, other than just ‘box office disappointment’).

In 2022, I wrote a review for Highlander, which concluded:

Changing Matter

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Matter devices I currently have are three Tapo wall adapters. These require the Tapo cloud-based app to run, which defeats the purpose of them running on Matter, and subverts my goal of getting devices which run purely locally.

But I did manage to figure out a workaround.

Connect to the plug with the Tapo app.
Remove plug from the Tapo app.
Factory reset the plug.
Connect to the plug with the Home Assistant app.
Wait a long time for the ‘checking network availability’ (or whatever the exact wording was) prompt to finish up.
The plug will eventually connect directly to Home Assistant’s Matter integration.
Uninstall the Tapo app.

5 Hell Yes / Guero / Beck

Eye of God

Tue, 20 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A new photo released from NASA today of the Helix Nebula.

The ‘near-infrared’ image

highlights comet-like knots, fierce stellar winds, and layers of gas shed off by a dying star interacting with its surrounding environment.

I will give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no hand has touched, and what has not arisen in the human mind.

4 Ghosts / Velocifero / Ladytron

Book

Sun, 18 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This month I’ve added to my library:

Resistance, Rebellion, and Death, by Albert Camus, translated by Justin O’Brien
On Happiness, by Epicurus
Tao Te Ching: The Way to Goodness and Power, by Lao Tzu, translated by James Trapp
Three Zen Sutras: The Heart Sutra, The Diamond Sutra, and The Platform Sutra, translated by Red Pine
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki

I am also re-reading:

The Universe in Verse: 15 Portals to Wonder Through Science & Poetry, by Maria Popova

4 A Song From a Window / Sambandh / Ratvader

Switch Off

Sat, 17 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A couple of movies I’ve seen for the first time recently (i.e. in the last few years) are Adaptation. and American Fiction. They have very different literal narratives, but they share several similarities on a metanarrative level.

Each film centers around an anxious, embittered writer who struggles to create a story which appeals to a mass audience. Should the writer remain committed to his convictions that storytelling is an art which should be approached with care and respect, but the majority of books and films are pure lowest common denominator? Or are their standards just set impossibly high, used as an excuse for their lack of success in finding an audience?

Zune Lost

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

I have insisted for nearly two decades that the Zune was an incredible line of devices. The brand’s potential was squandered by executive mismanagement: a combination of a botched launch, a forced rivalry between music departments within Microsoft, a weak marketing campaign, and failing to support/continue the brand as a competitor to the iPod Touch and iPhone before Android filled the gap.

When the original device released, it was a chunky block of plastic with an ugly desktop companion that was a thinly reskinned version of Windows Media Player. But within a few years, Zune had one of the earliest and best online music subscription services, and the Zune HD’s interface was vastly superior to Apple’s equivalent music devices in both aesthetic and function.

Fantastic Four Plagiarism

Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In the 90s, a studio which owned the film rights to the Fantastic Four rushed a movie through production with a sub-million dollar budget. It never released in any official form, but bootlegs circulated. We’re talking about a very obscure movie seen by only a tiny, niche community for decades.

As far as I know, other than whoever animated the CGI, I may be the first person to have noticed this movie flatout stole a scene from a 1941 Superman animated serial film, which I happened to watch on VHS as a kid.

What Is Matter

Thu, 08 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

After about four months of switching to a smarthome system—Home Assistant—run from a tiny computer in my basement instead of from a tech giant on the cloud, I still feel only vaguely familiar with the different wireless protocols available.

(The majority of people who ask for help on Reddit are ridiculed by self-important tools just for trying to learn something for which the documentation is so scant and/or overly technical. I haven’t even tried to interact with that cesspool after how I’ve observed the way they treat newcomers to the hobby.)

Contrary to the Shoemaker

Mon, 05 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

NASA released the following photo and information today.

This image shows the location of Cloud-9, which is 14 million light-years from Earth. […] The dashed circle marks the peak of radio emission, which is where researchers focused their search for stars. […] Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys shows that, in reality, the failed galaxy contains no stars.

I am reminded of what the Winnower asked.

Think about it. Do you mourn the uncreated? Do you grieve for those who were never born in a nation that never developed around an ideology no one ever imagined on a continent that never formed? No!

Yeah huh. My immediate response to reading the page from NASA was a sort of mourning for the unrealized possibilities of vast civilizations on other worlds. Strangers never to be met nor to exist and what a loss that is.

From Scratch

Sat, 03 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The adage is that, if a service online is free, then the reality is that you, the end user, are either the target (for ads) or the product (by being tracked across the internet and your data profile being sold) or both. About a year ago, after becoming increasingly frustrated with this erosion of digital privacy and the deliberate worsening of popular services to help enrich the already-obscenely wealthy, I decided to cut as many digital cords as I could. Especially to get away from AI. A sort of do-over.

Thoughts for Himself

Fri, 02 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Even before my trust in the general premise of Christianity waned and disappeared, I had a general inclination for Stoicism, in its practice of self-disciplined calmness when facing difficult, uncomfortable, or tragic moments in life.

Stoicism says that the source of higher reasoning is a benevolent divine entity—the Logos—which permeates the whole cosmos. In this, all things are bound by Fate, so the best a person can do is live an ethical life: doing good, and accepting that things are outside of their control. On the surface the praxis was appealing, but my perspective has shifted in recent years toward interpreting the emphasis on submission to ‘Fate’ as a means to discourage challenging power structures which keep emperors above slaves. Stoicism as a social system discourages upsetting the status quo.

Retroactivity

Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We’re going to go back in time and pretend this thing always existed.

4 Rust and Steel / Flowers / Durand Jones & The Indications

The End

Mon, 08 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

For the stars of the skies and their constellations will not give their light. The sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.

9 Creation is bound up

Adam’s Ghosts

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Our name is Adam and our heart dried,

as we prayed for this, our day of hate,

that we may have release from this shame.

We beckon him, please, to close his eyes,

so we may loosen this polished,

this lightning steel from our right side.

And with pin, and with empty chamber,

our murderer faced his own graceless fate,

and died with these haunted ghosts of mine.

Adrift

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Just as the ocean throes

start to leave me cold,

pulled to sea alone,

with no way home,

daybreak cracks

and light comes back.

A sigh of relief,

of release,

as the glow, the heat,

drives away the crushing deep.

Still…

I need a sign, a dream,

something to see,

to make me believe,

this was meant for me.

Akatastasia

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Recent eternities have comprised the ontological struggle between Ares and athanatistic Akhlys, her forms myriad, her weapons subtle.

Atlantis

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Staring up

across empty moments,

he sees light chasing away darkness,

a meaningless, futile

shadowplay.

Attire

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Crash

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

My dim eyes

look to the listless clouds,

waiting for someone to come and crash

into this downcast faith

and save me.

Crossing

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The bridge is wooden, risking rot. He wanders across in fading, fogthick twilight. Alone, chilled from his head to his heart to his bones, mist pressing down. He’s taken this path nightly and he doesn’t know any safer. The lamps along the bridge are distant, their glow lost beneath the heavy shroud. In the dimming grey around him, wordless orators begin their call, convincing in their atavistic authority. He looks down into the waters, holding the clinging twin gaze of doubt and dread.

Dark Era

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

War and Light,

a base pair dyad

dancing upward together.

The catastrophe will come,

all things peaceful and dark.

Catastrophe,

and still they remain,

their love in diaspora.

Depths

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Behind the depths of limitless seas,

the sun is still and small.

I tread under the weight of endless rain,

cold light sinking behind the earthen edge.

The waters swallow me

entirely.

Don’t Look Back

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Do you ever wonder if
you hadn’t gone minimalist
in those moments you’ve missed?
The chances now gone.
The doors locked,
the shades drawn.
That other life, you’re convinced—
it must’ve been such bliss.

Or maybe it rolls into a hurricane,
the wind sharp and flaying,
sea foam spraying,
an endless hiss
rising from an eternal infernal abyss.
In those moments instead of risk,
you chose silence.

Maybe you need this.

Drop

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

I step on in to their shindig of cataclysmic sin,

bloody din quickened under whining sirens.

Stifled shouts fry and flash infinite in the fission,

splitting atoms from their sceptres as I topple titans.

Eschaton

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Errant hopes undone.

Melancholy rending.

Daytime blessings.

Evening falls sudden.

Terrible coming darkness.

Sages exposed the risk.

Oracles warned of this.

Heat first burns farthest.

Galaxies erupt with violence.

Unfastened stars winding.

Outside all is blinding.

Yet another ghostly silence.

Fading Light

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Black swirls white.

Day gives way to night.

Heavy eyes

Stop.

Drop.

Lose their sight.

Talk to shades.

Words and friends terribly vague.

Getting late.

Time to wake.

Falling

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The air whips.

It cuffs around my wrists.

I can only enjoy these blue skies,

because I know the ground

will kill me.

Friends

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Floppy Parts

renderorange

Inspiration

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Absurdism

Everything Everywhere All at Once

Epicureanism

Judaism

Qoheleṯ

Mazdaism

Stoicism

Thoughts for Himself

Symmetry

Unveiling
Sekhmet Hunts the Dying Gnosis: A Computation

Taoism

Tao Te Ching

Yahwism

Zen

Jacobian

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hypocrites.

You hoarders of riches.

As you sit comfortable and warm,

the poor sleep in the trash,

shivering.

Logopyros

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

The beast crawled up from the sea,

writhing, unbleeding,

a serpentine thing of fevered dreams.

One man’s words echo,

ringing,

his hush a crushing guillotine to the baneful machine.

Merkavah

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

From black clouds,

his bow lets lightning flash,

in cacophony of wind and flame.

Burning throne heats august

northern storms.

Poetry

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Pseudalcyon

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

You pass by

downtown highrise apartments

under an amaranthine sky.

Warm streetlight nostalgia

washes over concrete

as you drift together.

Hands intertwined

and eyes alive,

wasting time

to slow the night.

This ancient memory melts

into a melancholic sunrise.

You were never there,

but you miss it,

and want to return

return

return—

Shortly Before Dawn

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Snowflakes fall across our eyes,

stardust against the moonless sky.

This vaporous night, earth clutching high.

Fervor at my side, so kind.

Twin homespun trains drifting light.

Nine brisk butterflies land so precise.

Six or Seven

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Six or seven drinks.

That’s enough, I think,

to sink into a hard sleep

before I even reach the sheets.

Heavy, numb feet

take me through scenes

that fold and crease

together like reams of paper

twisted at the seams.

Things I forgot still cling,

like streetlight memories

playing on repeat,

never to cease

or let me have peace.

There must be some retreat,

a Lethean cheat

to break out of sync,

Sunrise

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Dusk came at seven.

It seemed a deep thing,

brazen gold fires burning

under scarlet heavens.

(I stood in wonder, starlit,

knowing you saw it too.)

We waited out the night,

constellations dimmer,

the cold of onset winter

siphoning their light.

(Our desperate breaths

pained for the morning.)

Daylight soon danced

over your face, aflame,

dawn leading the way

from our bitter past.

(You managed to survive

Symmetry

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Fundament

All that exists is an expression of the interaction of two opposing principles.

The reduction to necessities.
The order achieved in simplicity.
What does exist, must.

The exploration of possibilities.
The chaos emergent in complexity.
What could exist, may.

Coercion vs Imagination
Taking vs Giving
Now vs Then
Yin vs Yang

Impermanent

Possibilities are eliminated. What could exist is reduced into what does exist. Only what is able to withstand this unending interaction will continue to exist.

Therion

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

That thing

climbed from the sulfuric deep,

atop its mountain of crushed up dreams,

blackened ash devoured by glinting teeth.

Bones whipped by flinted wire retreat

into unlit crypts, hiding from its eldritch heat,

its terrors that make ghosts of concrete speak:

‘No one asked for this. Please slay this beast.’

Traveler

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Glowing super bright,

all the broken pieces are

moving in new ways.

Unfundament

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Roiling ink

aimlessly drifts above.

Falling under the inchoate sea,

a lost neuronaut drowns,

uninspired.

Voyage

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Adrift, bereft,

a stellar rock

eternally falling

into the seething void,

blind and many-voiced,

summoning that mantra

from thallasic memory:

‘εγω ειμι ουτις’.

Waiting

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Patiently,

with my hand extended,

stars collapsed under the weight of time.

Forgotten bones reaching

turned to dust.

Witless

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

No
clever
kenning
can veil
a worthless
wordsmith.

Yet Again

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Oh please, why can’t I wake?

I run tremble shiver shake,

no escape from this cruel dreaming.

My heart is seizing

in its bleeding reflection

upon that fleeting feeling

of treasured time, thrown aside.

Were we really once friends?

Was that a truth you bent

and twisted to your whim,

or was it a lie

to get under my skin

with the cold knife

of dread and din?

You got what you wanted in the end

Zen

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

One Reality

Existence is a process. All things are made of the same particles, constantly changing, rearranging, and interdependent. There is no eternal distinction of any one thing from another.

Two Perspectives

Absolute. Nature of existence is objective.
Relative. Experience of existence is subjective.

Three Marks

Impermanence. Existence is not eternal and unchanging.
Insubstantiality. The self is not eternal and unchanging.
Suffering. Sources of joy, happiness, and pleasure are not eternal and unchanging.

Four Truths

Suffering. Discontentment which results from desire.
Desire. Attachment to what is impermanent and insubstantial.
Cessation. Suffering can end when desire is released.
Path. Release comes by accepting the absolute nature of existence.

Five Precepts

Do not kill.
Do not steal.
Do not abuse sexuality.
Do not lie.
Do not become intoxicated.

Six Perfections

Generosity. Willing to give without expectation.
Discipline. Abstaining from harmful actions.
Patience. Remaining calm and tolerant.
Resolve. Enduring through discouragement and distractions.
Meditation. Contemplating what is beyond the self.
Wisdom. Discernment of all the above.

Zen

Practice of zazen. Study of sutras.