crucial

New York City. Nobody says anything on the subway, nobody looks up. Some guy comes through selling chocolates from a cart--he politely murmurs 'kit kats, snickers, almond joy...' I want to start telling him all this crazy shit: "in India the train gets invaded at every station by people selling everything. They sing: 'chai-uh chai-uh chai-uh' 'kohii chai-uh kohii chai-uh' 'mumbly mumbly mumbly mumbly...' pakodas, samosas, omlette sandwich, vada, idli. Kids come through and sweep the floor and harass us for rupees. You can't even stand up because there are 10 or 20 guys going up and down the aisles of every car on the train yelling (even if you were asleep). One time I was hungry and all of a sudden this guy appeared out of nowhere with banana leaves filled with biryani. The train was going at least 40 miles an hour--he couldn't have jumped on, could he?--at least 10 feet to the next car; he had to have climbed over the roof and swung in to the car like a superhero."

Its hard, honestly. In typing that I just felt a little sob. Something just got pulled out, removed. The pulsating energy is gone and very quickly I forget the annoyances, I forget that I really wanted to get back. I forget how much I needed conversations in unbroken English.

New York has been fun these past few days. Real music ! Seeing everybody. Lots of opportunities here, most of us don't take advantage of them as much as we should. The streets are so clean, the shops are so obviously well built, Manhattan is just dripping with money, and Chinatown is so hygenic ! Look at this: the guy is using tongs ! $2 for a little pad of paper ? $17 for a 10 pack of razor cartridges ?? $750 for rent ????

Manhattan is like one big building, one concrete appliance to which they are constantly adding appendages. Not much dirt or soil anywhere, so the street doesn't get that dirty. It hums constantly; they are drilling all the time like dwarves; my tinntinitus tinnitus is screaming all of a sudden. When deep in meditation I noticed it a lot, then it went away totally as I relaxed more and more.

There's a weird psychic invasion here: all these thoughts are drifting through the city like oil spills and our consciousnesses float helplessly into this murk. Well there's a lot more to think about now, and a lot more happens in a day. I really noticed that if I had several days of non-activity the mind settles down more and more and more. Eventually its just light breezes, small bits of leaves floating on the surface. Here you always need your umbrella.

That's why everybody is walking around with their head down, tucked into a tight scurry. Avoiding those gales of thoughts and energy, trying to keep their self safe and separate. Also because they have Important Things to Do. That's why they moved here from whatever little town they came from (like Minneapolis). They'd scurried about as much as they could so they had to come here to really scurry properly.

So this is stress testing: if you can relax here, you can relax anywhere. Not that India was relaxing; actually its really annoying much of the time (and incredibly amusing) but I was more relaxed than I have ever been in my life, but we go there to relax so we are going to relax. I would always see these solitary people in restaraunts eating slowly, meditatively, and damn seriously, looking almost morbid. I would smile to myself and think "Well they haven't quite got a hold of inner peace, they look uneasy, but at least they are looking for it, so they'll find something."

I didn't buy enough shit. The guys that sell the shit were too annoying, I got jaded. I should have bought underwear, more incense (12Rs there is $2.75 here for same brand), more little statues, more tacky jewelery, tea. Do most of your buying after a week or two, after you have your legs, before you get jaded.

Most people return to India, we still have unfinished business.