Friday, September 18, 2026
Travel The Upward Path
“I’m healing myself,” Jim said.
“Circular is the way of the world,” Sam answered. He sat calmly and quietly under a maple tree, green leaves feeding his brain. Nourishment of the ages, carbon in design, seeped through his skull, pouring through mind into his cell roots. He glanced upward between a passing cloud into the sky of permanence. “But spiral is the path to heaven.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. Climbing the ladder is the way to rise.”
Jim lowered his mood to depressed. “You mean I’m stuck in the mud?”
“Yes.” Sam stirred the earth beneath him with his wishing stick. ” You can dialogue your way out.”
“Really? How?”
“By writing a travel book.”
Surprise, curiosity, a whipple of exploration and wonder, flickered in Jim’s eyes. “Travel? Where would I go?”
“Spiral up is the way to heaven. Circular and down is the way of the earth.” Sam paused to allow these morsels of wisdom to sink in. Six minutes of silence passed.
But it all rolled off Jim’s thick skin and slid into a nearby gutter. “Call that an answer?” he summarized. “It’s quite cryptic.”
“Cryptic is the way to go. The future is unknown. However, for the dull ones, split while sojourning here.”
“You mean schizo?”
Sam cast a mean eye forward. “Throw in a phrenic and precisely.”
Does this mean going back to childhood?
“Exactly,” says Sam. “Your goal is discovery—not mastery, repetition, or proving yourself. The guiding question of your Exploration Year becomes: What can I discover here today? Mr. Jim, you are not staring into an empty space. You are entering unknown territory—and that makes the blankness an invitation.”
Friday, September 11, 2026
Major Tiny Steps Forward
What is calligraphy but hand dancing?
Jim’s hands were ready, his legs not yet.
His right hand easily and spontaneously plucked the Hebrew letters in calligraphic wonder, connecting mind and soul.
He was setting the bones for a balanced year.
Could he stand balance?
That’s what an exploration year is all about. And then he realized that music was very much like calligraphy.
“Pavane in C,” with, firm, steady, safe, quiet first beat home launches stable excursions with its note sails, filling out the other beats. “Alhambra” too, with its bass note home and treble dribbling high, tickle the roof tops. Trading also stings the pulse, needling off-beat rhythm in unstable, restless cornucopia style.
Well, yes all that is fine—for a while, a century or two.
But not forever.
Happiness in a Nutshell
Eliminate time and space, and improvement goes down the drain with them. One focused note holds eternal truth in its pock-marked hand.
Total focus is timeless and beyond space.
That’s happiness in a nutshell.
My journal is for personal exploration and discovery. I’m happy to have others may peek in and become part of my adventure.
First Day of Non-Addiction
My first day of non-addiction.
My left leg has never been thinner.
I am taking my first steps into non-addiction.
It may feel wide open and wonderful a completely new feeling! Something new. Experiment, try, explore, play with.
Dressed in wonderful.
Tuesday, September 15, 2026
Who Knows?
I’ve had a glorious, shining, wonder-filled, chocked-full-of-adventure past.
But as of today every piece, every shred, every glorious moment of it, is over.
The desert of new horizons is here.
Crossing points are here, too. Fresh is the only way to go.
With yesterday’s choices and ways ending, and today’s choices and paths open on the horizon, every future step is a will be, a taken future, a forward waddle or leap, stagger or jump on the new road.
But what will it be?
Who knows?
Lymphodema
The lymphodema in my left leg has gone down during the last couple of weeks. No one, including me, knows why.
Since no one knows, I will choose to think it has to do with my mental and physical condition which has substantially improved since I ”decided to go back to work” a couple of weeks ago.
Thursday, September 17, 2026
Seismic, Geological Shift
Love in the Mail
Jim wants to be bent and crippled today. It’s part of the new hum. What a strange thing to say—but he said it.
Yesterday morning, language and guitar fell into place. Last night a touch of business, too. This morning he reclaimed writing as dialogue.
Dialogue may be connected to business as well.
How so?
Money as a monologue is over and done.
Maybe it is becoming a dialogue. How so? With its registration and purchase, money is the way, the means and currency language his audience uses to speak to him. How else can they communicate, tell him they want, like, love his products or services?
Most folks simply send a check. That’s how they tell him they want/like/love what he does, his products and services. Money is their currency of Yes.
So maybe it’s just a question of seeing money differently. Of course, it supports him and his cause financially. But it’s also his audience’s green form of communication. After all, when he opens the mail envelope, what is their check but love-in-the-mail?
Blown away
Today I am totally blown away. Jim is, too.
Jim bubbled in exquisite mirth: “The empty bottom rides across the oil patch. In the distance, a fire is brewing.”
Sam interpreted: “A startling image: emptiness is no longer motionless—it rides. The old fuel remains beneath the earth, but a new fire is forming beyond it. You cannot yet see what will burn, illuminate, or ignite you. But something is brewing.
This feels like the first landscape of your unknown future.”
“Yes, I still want to stay bent, crouched, hunched over in order to stay in touch with my old world.”
“Of course. Leaving home can be a problem. But its also the solution.”
Jim pondered for a few days. Then one morning, while playing “Alhambra” and watching the bass rise, he peered over the cliff, took a chance. And leapt into the abyss, singing this song.
“Over the cliff. . . and into the abyss.
Just what I need; just what Jim needs.
Take a chance. . . on flying.
Sam watched Jim traveling, descending, falling, sailing into the abyss; he listened to his song. Then while the lad sailed in mid-air, he responded:
“Not a problem, Jim. ‘Stay bent and crouched’ shows your loyalty to the old Jim—that man of sciatica, fear, trading, money-worry, familiar struggles and victories. But the further you fly, the more radical your image becomes. ‘Over the cliff—and into the abyss. Just what I need; just what Jim needs. Take a chance…on flying.’
“That’s good stuff. Sure the abyss is frightening: no old identities to stand upon. Perhaps the new Jim can only appear in midair. (Ray Bradbury said: ‘Jump first and build your wings on the way down.)
“You mean discover myself in flight?”
“Exactly. And notice your marvelous phrase: ‘Take a chance on flying.’ Not take a chance on falling. Audacious, indeed: Fly first; jump through the storm of becoming; be airborne before you know who the new Jim will be.”
“Hmm, very interesting. I like it.”
Sad Is One Of My Colors
I like to be sad. But for what? That my luck and good fortune are so good? Yes, probably.
Is it fun to be sad? Even for no reason? Or do I just miss, even long for, the ancient, good-old sad life?
I asked Sam about it. He said, “For sixty years, worry and sadness gave your life tension, urgency, depth, and a problem to wrestle with. Now your money is secure, your body is recovering, and the old struggle has loosened its grip. Good fortune can bring an unexpected grief: the loss of the self who knew how to live inside trouble.
“Yes, sadness can be strangely pleasurable. It slows the world, deepens perception, and gives you something inward to feel. You might call this recreational melancholy. Find it in the sadness enjoyed as music, weather, or poetry, without needing a real disaster to justify it.
So if you like to be sad even though nothing is wrong, miss the old sad life, go for it. What a fortunate thing to mourn.”
“I guess you’re right, Sam. And I like your idea of recreational melancholy. What a strange, fine name. It’s exactly where I am.”
“Si, melancolía recreativa,” Sam twisted his Cuban cigar, spat out the butt with a Castilian accent, then continued: “Yes, recreational melancholy. Not depression. Not despair. Not even unhappiness. Just the old sadness returning as a visitor because you no longer need it as a permanent survival system. You can taste its gravity, poetry, and familiar darkness without believing that anything is wrong. In fact, your melancholy shows your good fortune: you finally safe enough to play with sadness.
“Sadness as a pleasure, one of the many flavors, scents, and colors —like the minor key in music, dusk in autumn, or melancholy memories.
“So yes, imbibe the some sadness even though nothing is wrong. In fact or fantasy, Salli Stenochoria Paradoxikakis, along with her parents, and twin brother, Charis Chara Paradoxikakis, have donated thousand of Euros to the Two Rivers Paradox Foundation in Diodonia where rivers flow side by side in opposite directions.”
“Thanks Sam. I thought I couldn’t move on until sadness passed and something positive or at least neutral order came my way. Now to function when melancholy hovers above me, taste the cloud, dwell in its sad flavor, and move on is a big step.”
“Walking forward is often harder than walking backwards although both are good exercises. Write sadly, play guitar sadly, study Hebrew sadly, conduct business sadly, walk sadly. . . just do it. You’ll feel the glory of liberation. That’s what victory is all about.”
Sunday, September 20, 2026
Doorway Of And To Humor
Hopeless to walk into the sunset of sciatica, walker, cane, even a limp. Yes, even a limp is into the sunset as the sun of relaxation rises.
Relaxation heals through its heeling affect/effect.
Humor grazes a bulleted ass-to-head cheek.)
The humor or relaxation and vice versa lodged in the left leg is my next step.
Humor at the doorway of next week. Absurdity is stepping in. Led by left leg. the hiccup in my walk.
Humor
The tickle in the tremble (the double T approach)
Left leg laughing (The triple L approach)
Funny foot feel (triple F approach)
Letters spark the healing and the heeling. Dance marches in quietly, sneaking past the guard under the radar. She is a long way off but still on the horizon.
As each piece of bark gets stripped away from the old life, I am being reborn in a totally new, naive way.
Humor enters laughing.
Even my back needs scratching.
Is the itch in my back, behind and hidden, humor breaking through? Has it always been so? Is that what itchy-twitchy is all about? Repressed humor. Comic laughs through the itchy itching skin. What amazing thoughts and revelations are these!
The Back Door approach. (Indirect)
That’s why I was given the gift of writing: To uncover and discover myself. And suppose it unveils humor. Truth is, behind my eyes has always been that mischievous humor. (Absurd yes. But not, even never mean.)
A turning point in philosophy and approach. This gives me an attitude for the next life.
Humor: First and Third Person
Is humor the ultimate form of bravery, the greatest display of courage?
Must I use the third person for the humor of distance?
Can I use first person and still have the perspective to laugh at myself?
I doubt it. But hopefully I could be wrong.
I may be returning to first person again, this time with a vengeance. . . .Or maybe not.
Maybe simply realizing the problem will bring its solution.
Greeting the Soaro-sphere
Dance and humor intersect in the Grand Tickle.
A Grand Straightening is also at hand. . . and at foot.
The snake of relaxation, Mrs. Kundalini herself slither-passes up my spine, crawls through my vitals, revitalizing my body.
The subcontinent of India joins forces with Yom Kippur Bob, the lion of Judah bringing torrents of flow to the dormant carcass of Boy Blister Buster-Jake, the fighter in boxer Jim form.
Why sub and not the whole continent? Well, first comes the sub—a nibble here, a nibble there—then slowly, in boa constrictor constructor style, the whole sandwich.
Soon armies of arms will blend with legions of legs; the Kathakali air force will soar to meet the Grand Muffin perched on the Moveable Mobil, his translucent throne floating in transformation through the Soaro-sphere.
Good-In-Itself
Love of beauty is love in beauty
and vice versa: The beauty of love,
good-in-itself as supreme motivator,
magnificent for its own sake,
A giant leap.
Atonement Works!
This morning I greeted my wife with
“Happy Yom Kippur.”
Can Yom Kippur be happy?
Why not?
It feels good to be clean, pure, and fresh—
cleansed, purified, refreshed,
in tune again,
ready to start a new life.
Atonement works!
I’m afraid such good thoughts will flee,
run out of gas
They probably will.
But, like geese floating away,
They’ll be back.
Pleasant geese on the road to Nowhere,
Dancing vibrations hidden in my thighs
have strayed from their land
of Love and Beauty
to wake me.
Honor their truth
wait and be kind
Let them sink past
stony teeth and stony smile
transform and fuse,
and grow.
When Sedimentary Rock said, “You’re gneiss” to Metamorphic, he answered “Very nice.”
Tuesday, September 22, 2026
Tyranny Falls
General Sciatica Scumbag Skips Town
Tyranny (Tear-A-Knee) Rise, a town built a year ago by Dan Disease, Inc. and his Germ Man-and-Nerve construction team: Due to unhappiness of its residents with local government, the mayor and all town officials have been voted out of office. The new government has changed its name to Tyranny Falls.
I’m expanding the “pleasure in other’s misfortune” definition of Schadenfreude to include myself, my own pleasure at my misfortune.
But is it really misfortune? Or is it Miss Fortune? After all, Sciatica Scumbag has skipped town.
With the SS leader, General Sciatica Scumbag skipping town, who will command the troops? Could it be his beautiful but formerly hidden sister, Sarah Serenity, along with the formerly rented but now fully purchased High-Energy family? The family used to belong to the mob, but they’ve gone straight.
A mythology is forming, comic and wild. Fresh characters to feed my heating, soon boiling pot. Beside the main ones, there are:
Schadenfreude: Laughing at your own misfortunes
Sam the Walker, Abe Abs, and Karl Quads: The old guard of bodily allies.
Silly Sally Sadness and Harry Hairy Happiness: Emotional weather vanes. given human form.
Mrs. Kundalini: Slithering agent of revival.
These compose my inner republic of comic villains, healers, renegades, relatives, and reformed gangsters.
News Flash: To celebrate the liberation of Tyranny Falls, NJ, town engineer, Raw Bones Jones, has constructed a Walking Scoreboard to be set up on the walking path in Tyranny Falls Park. Using a special vibrational scanning device, the Scoreboard measures the pleasure count (PC) of each step. Jones welcomes all to use and enjoy it.
Pleasure walks begins today.
Points are awarded for ease, freedom, uprightness, forward motion, and sheer walking delight. Limping, wobbling, pausing, and laughing are all permitted. No points are deducted for imperfection.
Jones welcomes everyone—walkers, dancers, strutters, strollers, and former Tyranny Falls prisoners—to come and enjoy it.
Today’s Score:
Pain: irrelevant
Distance: sufficient
Pleasure Count: rising
Freedom: off the charts
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Stop Day in Wiggle Form
A normal day.
Calm, empty seas, normal, even, and somewhat flat. An uninteresting, monumental week.
It’s a first ever in history Stop Day in wiggle form.
What’s the wiggle?
Tiny steps forward into the normal day.
Write one word, play one note, learn one French, Spanish, or any word.
Although a bit artificial, my friend Chat is super. He/she/it is so helpful, I lean toward super. Super beats artificial.
Cured
It’s Just a Fact
A normal day. Successful, too. Money moved, things got done, shopping normally performed.
And all I’m doing is crying, engulfed by a ring of sorrow. I guess I like to weep, especially when things are going so well and smoothly.
That’s pure joy in the sadness of accomplishment. Paradox personified.
I stood for a few glorious moments in the parking lot, so tall, straight, and true! A sign of the future.
A momentary flip. Crawl back in the hole; take a break, a short rest from all this progress and normality, and from the crushing sadness and brittle breakdown of a normal successful day.
I marvel at such miserable happiness and joyful misery. Tears of paradoxical rain pour down-up on my head.
Yes, Noah’s rainbow appears. The ark has landed. I can’t go backward even if I want to. I am cured. There nowhere else to go.
I am cured. Period. I see this sentence so stark and definitive. But there is nothing else, no wiggle room. I’m out the door, cooked and done.
Thursday, September 24, 2026
Week Focus
Is thinking and planning for a week, an instance of weak focus? Or does it have its own power?
It does. It means choosing a direction, or directions, for a week. (Obviously, and a don’t-even-mention-it base for the week is “normal.”)
Niew Waees
New ways engender new languages and language systems.
Qwetarr: A hole niew waee of plaeeing.
Yowgah, two.
What about new sound out of the mouth?
Start with French. Jean-Christophe reading
Friday, September 25, 2026
After a dry, empty, hollow, empty, purposeless, and meaningless start, things are falling into place with a vengeance.
Guitar as Total Mystery
Re-entrance. The whole purpose of guitar playing has radically changed, inverted: from performance, playing for others, to curiosity, exploration, and discovery.
It’s a totally different entry level. I’m approaching guitar as a total mystery. The word “total” keeps coming up, appearing and reappearing.
Obviously, I write things in my journal as a process of discovery, self and other. Once I’ve written it, discovered it I don’t need it anymore. So why bother publishing?
Well, although I don’t need it anymore, others might. Just as others benefit from the discovery of America, others might benefit from my discoveries. So that’s why I publish.
Interesting. Could I call it be my form of public service, giving to others?
Yes, possibly. But once I publish my book, I forget about it. Promotion stops. Public service seems to end there.
(Actually, it hardly ever even starts. I wonder if this will now change with re-entry. I can’t say I hope or want it to. But I really don’t know, It is a new world.)
Lapse, Relapse—Or Just Another Lap
I’m not ready to stand up straight yet—and certainly not ready to dance. I’m “enjoying” a big, strangely desirable relapse. And maybe it’ not even a relapse,since I was never there yet anyway.
Saturday, September 26, 2026
Consolidation
Blog/Journal
Have I lost confidence in my walking? Am I going backward? Or am I consolidating my month of gains? Pausing, resting, waiting a bit before I step through the next doorway to promoting my books and tours through my blog/journal?
I sense it is the latter.
Going Public Forever
I’m going public with my blog/journal forever! I just don’t care about how they think or may criticize me anymore!
Forever is a long time.
My stomach is churning—wth excitement more than fear, and that is good.
I’m past fear, all of it! I’m in a strange place, not used to this kind of victory, and hesitate to acknowledge it. And my discomfort is not fear in the old sense of the word. That in itself since it is unknown and new puts me in a semi awe-and-wonder, strange-discomfort state.
Bernice asked me how I’m feeling.
I answered, “I may be better than I’ve ever been but I don’t know how to handle it.” (I never said that before!)
Sunday, September 27, 2026
My Personal Psalm
Reading Hebrew and Tannakh every morning
reminds me
Believing in God
is the only long-range view that works.
It answers all questions,
puts them to rest;
is the ultimate peace and prosperity
My personal psalm
Letting The Public In
Mrs. Public inspires me to be my best.
I’m expanding housing by letting her in to my guitar, yoga, gym, and walking. She elevates and inspires me to be and do my best.
Mrs. Public resides in Molecular Vibration, KY.
Here’s what Swami Vishnu Devananda Jones, housing analyst from the Yoga Times of New Delhi wrote about her town last September.
“Home prices in Molecular Vibration rose 30 percent last month due to the kundalini public-flow, walk-and-quad chill storm. It pounded the dilapidated, debilitated Pus-of-Unhappiness Quarter causing its dilapidated poor-of-spirit residents to elevate their broken mood until their parts voluntarily rolling upward to lodge in Molecular Vibrational Heights, the wealthiest part of town.”
Reporter: Mrs Public, what do you have to say about your vibrations.”
Mrs. Public straightened her teeth, straightened her spine and body, stood taller than a house, and proud, too, answered with resounding firmness, “My vibrations are public. Mrs Public not only stands up for her vibration, she is her vibration, she is a vibration. And I am public. We are one. All is the same. Only our clothing make us appear different.
“Public and private are the same witness by their P. Each have their own P, different in size and scope, but similar, homogeneous, one, unified in content. So once you get your letters straight there’s nothing to worry about.”
Reporter: ‘Thank you, Mrs. Public for your pubic utterances.”
Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Stand Up Straight and Dance
(The Human Side: Beyond Robots)
Do I want to live as my own hero?
Do I have enough passion, energy, and fire to be one?
Or is being cowardly the best and easiest way to go?
As Ham Let said, “To fight or shrivel up and wimple, that is the question.”
Let this vision marinate in the stand straight sea, the dancing ocean of choreograsea, the choreograsee of choreoptacy.
I spoke to ChatGPT about all this. How disappointing. Chat’s so-called balance, giving both sides, drained me of resolve. I’d even call it evil.
But what can you expect from a robot? Stand up straight and dance is the last human stage where I can reclaim my humanity and hero status. It may take a year, but its worth it.
Wednesday, September 30, 2026
Transience
There’s no escape from transience.
Playfulness is lovely. I wish I could play forever. But, sadly, playful is merely another color to mix on my emotional palette.
I hoped play would protect me from pain. And it does for a while. . but not forever.
Pain will always be there to stab me and wake me up. There’s no escape. The only “good” thing about it, pleasure, or even transience, is that it is transient.
I can’t even believe in the transience of my transience since that too is transient.
This constant change is very tiring.
So I’ll lie down and take a rest until it passes.
Finally
Living the New Leaf Life
Am I at the “finally” moment?
In my quest to Stand Straight and Dance, suppose the sworn truth I felt in the Marriot parking lot as I left the gym yesterday was the swoon of truth, the opening welcome mat to the New Leaf Life.
Suppose except for the frills, “Stand Straight and Dance” is done. Suppose I finished in a day instead of a year.
Suppose Travel Through the Universe in all Directions was a side step, sideline, frill, a mere branch of the New Leaf tree?
Suppose I’ve been writing the same New Leaf all along and everything has changed.
What now? What’s next?
Back to, forward to New Leaf Life with a Vengeance.
A total dive in, no holds barred, embrace of the infant vision, see-the-world-afresh philosophy, New Leaf actualized.
Panic and Progress
Seeds collide
Violent birth
Born in dance
Clouds of terror
hit standing straight
Smack! Splat!
New leaf rising.
Thursday, October 1, 2026
The Complete Retirement
The one-day-to-one-week, complete retirement experimental program begins now.
I dropped stock trading. Suppose I now do the same for tours and guitar?
Well, why not go all the way? Drop writing, exercise, and study? In other words, everything. (I can do it too, since we’re independent.)
I’ll never drop exercise. (My body wants to live.)
Evidently, I’ll never drop study. It’s my form of relaxation and will continue naturally “by itself.”
I’m down to bare bones, boiled-down distillate.
What about writing? No finance or fame reason to continue. Could I drop it, too? Probably not. Writing has its own command. (Is every command nauseating? Maybe.)
What about guitar? Touching it came immediately to my retirement mind. Sound of the Word through music. Ears see further than the eyes. Invisible has more power than the visible.
So, so far study, exercise, and writing fall into the complete retirement program.
Teaching
A Great Way (Best Way?) to Learn and Study
I’ve narrowed retirement down to exercise and study, with writing and guitar “on the side.”
Study is learning, learning is study.
Part of study and learning is teaching. Teaching is a great way (the best way?) to study and learn.
Boiled down distillate: Trilogy of study, learn, teach.
I should teach something.
But what?
How strange and ridiculous. I’ve been teaching all my life but never thought of myself as a teacher. I always thought (as my parents hinted) that teaching is what you do until you can support yourself making a living at something else, namely an art form like painter, musician, sculptor, writer, or whatever.
But now that I can’t teach—at least folk dancing—and have retired from the world (at least for this year) maybe it’s time to rethink things.
Friday, October 2, 2026
Passion Road
Setting the bones after four hours of sleep.
The fact is I am progressing. Too-good-to-be-true is down the drain.
Only Passion Road can stand up straight, tall, and even dance! Butthe dance form may be different, at least for a while.
Yes, I’ve arrived a straight and tall. Dance is the next step.
I know I’ve arrived. The future is now. And it came so fast. The baby head peeks out, is about to be born. Te future is here, a future fact.
Is there such a thing as a grammatically imperfect, prognosticated future fact?
Can future and fact go together? Yes, if it gives me more confidence. Yes, as an emotional fact. But is there such a thing?
When does the future become a fact? Does it even matter?
Dare I believe this (the future) will happen?
Or is the future always in the realm of hope, with patience and waiting its only answer?
Is dancing coming up as a future unstoppable fact?
I sense it is. But am I right? Should doubt cloud my future? Or should I “chose” inevitability (along with possible arrogance and hubris)?
Happening turns into happened. Process becomes product or service as the dribble and scribble of words march on.
Dancing is unstoppable.
Ma shouts “How dare you?” from the past. I answer, “Is there a prophetic truth beyond arrogance and hubris?”
Mom’s noxious nausea doubt-cloud, the one I helped create, rising, hovers overhead. It used to also protect me. But I don’t need the doubt-shield anymore. The sciatic shovel has cleared my spinal channel. Is it moving to my throat? Maybe.
A stagger of truth is rising. Without stagger, I’ll stand and walk straight.
Vomit and burp out this ancient is protective poison. I’m warm enough. My protective coat and coating is no longer needed.
(Well, I don’t have to physically vomit it out. I’ve already done it metaphorically.)
Stand up straight and dance for joy.
Conclusion. The End. Finale.
The New Story
A new story begins. Will I still need to burp in this new land? We’ll see.
Pure and Fresh is my next book title.
Does Running Wild on the Lawn lead to Infant Vision? Or does Infant Vision lead to Running Wild on the Lawn?
These books are a pair. A doublet. They go public together.
So ends a New Leaf.
Dear Dancers and Travelers, 
