Weakness is another word for incompleteness. But I like incompleteness better because it doesn’t carry as strong of an emotional charge, and therefore allows you to actually see where you are incomplete and actively change it. I played a game of left-handed pool last night with a long-time pool friend of mine in town visiting. It felt totally natural. The other day I accidentally told someone I was left-handed, when I meant just the opposite. I have been eating mostly bananas, apples and hummus and feel great because of it. Slamming a whole box of detox tea for a few days was also wonderful. The only thing strange about playing left hand pool was that I wasn’t as able to keep my stroke straight and smooth as I am when I play righty. But my mental acuity was much better. And my emotional resistance to failure was dropped down to zero. That is the single-most important thing I have gotten from my extremely simple exercises I have been following this past week: conscious pain. Somebody said something about that being tied to Gurdjieff. They called it conscious suffering though. I changed it to pain, because that domain name was available and can now be drafted into my online chess game against the algorithms of internet profit and pattern manipulation.

Conscious pain is a really big deal though. Possibly the most important thing I have ever learned “esoterically” and it’s so goddamned simple. Intentionally probe areas of fear and weakness and do it constructively. Create little projects for yourself.

To recap, my experiments have consisted solely of the following:

1. Write for about an hour a day left-handed (I am right-handed)
2. Rotate Baoding balls in both hands in both directions many times throughout the day
3. Focus on improving spinal alignment while walking
4. Chop out most sugar (don’t need to be a total Nazi about it) and all alcohol

And that’s all strictly physical. From those four things alone, after a week I feel like a total powerhouse. My mind is clear. My emotions are operating with increasingly levels of harmony and I can communicate them more effectively and fairly. My energy level is high. My dynamo is turned on, to quote an old co-worker. Then I have the mental discipline levels which correlate to the above and open up and colonize spaces within them:

1. Play chess throughout the day, both online and in person. Be prepared to lose every single game. Simply keep going until you expose yourself to all the patterns and begin to be able to manipulate, feedback into the loop.
2. Relate symbolism of chess to Tarot and esoteric Western religious stuff
3. Study closely the Four Gospels.
4. Use the Four Gospels as a template for re-writing “the musical” (This is the left-hand writing I’ve been doing

And that’s it. It’s so insanely simple. And it’s *not* ideological or religious in the least. There is certainly a methodology and a philosophy behind it, but there’s nothing to “believe.” It’s simply what works best: best possible. And I am actively engaged in taking these exercises to the next level so that they become even more physical and more concrete and can be more effectively bridged into other areas of my life. These include: boxing, and carving boxes. Boxing and boxing. Giving tangible containers to energetic patterns. But it’s more than that.

I’ve been learning a lot about how the brain or mind works as well from this. As I have opened up sensitivity in formerly dormant sections of my hands, my brain has quickly come alive to match. In fact, it seems as though how the brain functions is that it tries to maintain some kind of state of isomorphism with the body. That is, it neurally reflects all possible sensations within the body. If you gain access to or control over those sensations, you gain access to or control over heretofore hidden parts of the mind. It is INCREDIBLY simple and totally repeatable. It’s the root of yoga, from what I can tell.

Did I already write about how all joints are balls? How even if they’re technically a “hinge” they still have a spherical frame of movement? Goddamned important for figuring out your proper body alignment. Just try moving parts of your body. Pick a point in your hand. Hold it out to your side or in front of you and rotate that point in space. Don’t focus on your joints. Focus on rotating points in space and your joints will flow like spherical water around it. Works well for chronic pain, like carpal tunnel, etc. Because most chronic pain is caused - it seems - from holding joints too stiffly to one realm of movement and ignoring their spherical nature. Ball joints.

Anyway I have to go start my day. I have now a lot of work to do in order to keep up with all the tasks and exercises I have given myself. Nevermind that I need to go buy copies of the Art of War and the Book of Five Rings, as well as possibly the Four Agreements, by Ruiz.

Oh, add to that list that I am also going to start memorizing epic poetry in an effort to increase controllable surface area in my brain. And remind me to come back and expound on fat people and the experiential importance of surface area!