Shift Hold Stay Show

A multitude of things to report on; it is unlikely that I know where to begin. My first week in a new city is behind me. There are many things that have grabbed me in the past week, one thing is to the matter of human nature, which I have my observance and my clairvoyance to blame for. Watching the humans of New York City is a sensory playground for an anthropologist and a newcomer like myself. Half the time I have the sensation that I am in the savannas of central east Africa, stationed by the watering hole. Here it is just before dusk as the sun's hottest rays leave the grounds cool enough for the lions to begin their hunt. The meat is everywhere. Some meat is branded; some meat invisible; some meat is human; some humans of New York are attacking themselves.

I can't say that the spectrum of human voraciousness doesn't intrigue me or have a place in my nature. What humans do when buzzing together with industry is fascinating. In this city basic survival is driving one wagon and surplus thriving is driving another, while entertainment and fantasy circulates the two wagons into the same current. No matter which wagon you play on your hunger rolls the wheels forward. To this I am just another participant; a huger of my own brought me here, of course. I want apart of the wagon and apart of the current too. Still, hunger for what is the current debate, which is held inside my lust for life. What is my place in the great circle of life and prosperity? Where am I fit to feed? What human of New York am I?

While here in New York City, whilst not knee deep in a consistent feeding frenzy I took some minutes out to listen to diary notes I recorded while I lived in Brazil. My fist reaction was how well rested and spiritual I sounded preaching my "wisdoms" and "poetics" into the recorder. I sound like I figured out how to reach nirvana or something, like I had reached it a few times and was coming down from the tops of the Himalayas just to share the teachings with the villagers. That is how I felt those days in brazil; As a spiritual seeker should feel: unassuming, sure, placid. Well, If that is how it was, I can announce with absolute certainty that I am in quite another place altogether: self-important, unsure, flustered. I can assume then that in life one is never exactly moving backwards or forwards in a liner progression. I may as well say I regressed since the Brazil days, going from sure to unsure, from spirit to human. However, I am going with the notion that one is neither here nor there. Maybe we are all pin balling from space to space, from identity to identity, from bliss to piss, and there is no reason to get too attached to one state or another. Cheers to internal synthesizing and non-linear, multi-faceted being! (Guess it's sort of what rapper Ludicrous was saying when he rapped, "A lady in the streets, and a freak in the sheets". Not so ludicrous now is it!)  

I suppose If I am to be a successful human of New York, no matter who that human might be, life here is going to require of me to actualize my most dynamic, authentic self(s) and bare all of my self(s) as the times call. Being a human of New York of anywhere is being a human who knows when to shift shape, when to hold shape, and when to show.

This goes for people successful at Poker who understand exactly when to shift chips, when to hold chips, and when to show their cards. Another shifty maverick is Superman who for example is both Clark Kent and Superman, who shifts between his identities as needed. His greatest struggle being not with his enemies, against which he is always victorious in the end, but against himself; How, when, and to whom can he reveal his duel identities?

My greatest struggle right now is understanding my potential and capitalizing on my talents and strengths in the "world at large", which is code for self-actualization, which is code for "I think this is a human-life-long-struggle thing, so get used to it, kid". If for humans games and life is about strategies and choices, what are mine? What have my choices been in past, and what can I predict and intend for in future? How, with what, and with whom will I carve into something, crash into something, dive into something wonderful. So that I can say I was here. So that I can realize myself again and again each day of my life. Here we all are; holding onto a dream, a human, a chip, a cape, a hunger, a tiny box in a sea of boxes, a whole self in a sea of selves.