Within the microcosm of life comes countless deaths all buried in the purgatory of mind. However, the demise of things remains incomplete, for when death comes rebirth.  Clean slates or in the form of chance.  It is the individual need dictating the life span: "How long can you live this way?"  Slowly exhausting the need to dream with even less tolerance for disappointment.  Chaos in apathy.  The serenity of acceptance (or are you faking it?) vs. an extreme distaste for the unacceptable.  So what?  Just don't give a fuck.  Existence is for self...and the meaning of life?...Living.  The answer in the question flusters even the greatest MENSA minds.  Conceive living as suitable to satisfy as many wants less those compromising need.  Life on life's terms...I've died a lot.  Enough to conclude only the release of the twisted comfort in morbidity allowed exposure of more...

And in each death more shall be revealed.  In final farewells I leave with my answers.  For the entire picture witnessed by the unexpecting creator, designer and artist comes confusion of understanding.  A certain unrest is born of utter simplicity.  Everything done; everything learned.  Death the final moment for the artist to know these truths presented to minds escaping the oblivion of experience...Only within the moment of death is life complete...Until then live beyond the need for explanation...How do you explain something with no experience.  I've searched for answers; yet, nobody here can predict what I will know.  Safety only in the understanding of inevitable discovery...

My questions shall remain unanswered until the predetermined end unveils answers among the death and rebirth of my lives.  Expecting reactions of perfectionism, I may need a moment to inspect the depths of my remaining desires...than looking at all "I am" and confidently moving on...

Leaving birth, life, death (beyond lies further unknown) behind with the understanding: "I WAS"- and that's it for life...Thank you; time to know death...

Perhaps the door to further existence opens to those understanding the discovery- the almost inconceivable simplicity of being...

Be warned now, my dear, regret may leave resistance to see all.  For the same fears that keep you holding on may alter your view and leave a distorted picture...

When you die- What do you fear greater? The Unknown you are soon to know or the unknown you leave behind?  Each step of the way not allowing deaths before regret replaces temptation; hindering the answers to your questions.  Regret the main distraction when defining who "I am", and may leave an unparalleled impression of who "I was".  A soul left to the What If?'s aroused in the desperate realm of unanswered questions...

An incomplete death; leaving more than one question behind of who you may have been if you would have just been...

At one point we all were (birth); then we is (life); then we was (death)...

As we is (point of transition) to dimensions unknown where my sole requirement remains being as "I be"- while we still discover the question of continuous being...or do we retire into a world of was...?

Endless lessons remain untaught...

Lesson of importance in order to free room to understand what you will learn upon the existence of every experience- YOU KNOW NOTHING!  With no past "be"-ing, not a fucking one of you left to create an "I am".  Innocence will be of no use to you from now on.  The waste of time hiding behind the comfort of undisturbed socially acceptable ignorance.  Absorbing the delicate decisions involved when beginning to discover the options provided; thus the question of "Who are you?"  Still, I DON'T KNOW! (Ask again upon my introduction to death when my definition concludes beyond life's capabilities...)

And death not ends it for the irony of so leaves no mercy on a being prepared for more while cased in a shell not created for immortality...Rather, upon dying, freedom of the human limitations are lifted.  Leaving behind the pure essence of self.  Weightless I remain beyond the horizons of time and space in a vast nothingness personified by human memory.  Existing to create a definition of self and upon completion I cease to be?- Maybe it is all part of some sick fucking joke to burden humans with imagination and reason leaving with no punch line...

Death hides in pure divinity leaving the possibility (most probable) of nothing beyond the further dreams of continuance resting quietly among fears that in the between of here and there, my anticipated definition reveals: I simply was...

This was a paper I wrote for class over two years ago...I was having a *moment*...and after writing it, I decided to name my company Ordered Chaos...

Language is limiting and confining.  This is no shocker.  We need to define things in order to make sense of them.  In a definition, or label, there is comfort in knowing your "position" in relation to the "others".  It has been argued that the human psyche needs these labels to make sense of the world around them.  However, that seems nonsensical to my personal psyche.  Labels are in and of themselves more confusing due to the inherent abstraction and contradictions they manifest.  Now, what if there were no "others"?  No light and dark / good vs. bad dichotomy where the balance of right vs. wrong lies on any sort of continuum.  After all isn't darkness not the opposite of light, but simply the absence of it?  Labeling seems to function for those needing to advocate for rights when already labeled by some outside societal force.  But internally, a lack of definition seems to make more sense...as human beings, shouldn't we be focused more on who "I be?" rather than the who "I am"?  I'll let you be, you let me be...seems to make more sense to me, for who "I be" is dynamic and varies moment to moment, context to context.  To declare an "I am" creates a "...and you are?" that allows for categories, labeling and stigmatization to exist.  So for those who believe that it appears "natural" for people to want to label...how about "human BE-ing" for a try?  Define yourself without words and the need for labels seem completely self defeating (in my little experience of being, anyhow...)  If someone needs to define me to strengthen their own comfort zone, so be it...If minds are private, aren't we just possibly a bunch of decoys anyway?...if I cannot define me in the realm of "I am", there are no words outside of "being" to penetrate my existence...So in trying to make sense of things with labels creates an ironic sort of inner chaos, for in trying to make sense of the world around us there is only the illusion of me and you, and in their nature illusions are non-existent.  So, rather than giving a person a sense of definition or a "sense of self" that humans seem to "need", we are only living in an isolating illusion...and loneliness seems more detrimental to the human psyche than living an "indefinable" existence.  It seems internally contradictory that something so accepted as the ideas of needing labels as an implicit way to make the world "ordered" to the psyche, in fact causes more mental confusion that it is trying to prevent...Irony is "good and evil in sequence", isn't it?...Realizing the confinement of human language as an abstract human creation actually allows me to simply exist in a world full of what I consider "ordered chaos", no possibility for sequencing, and just a little less fooled by the illusions labels create.  I feel a greater sense of self just by the awareness of the illusion that keeps us from what I believe is a much more necessary component for making sense of the world and living in the moment...My psyche is much more content when I am allowed to dance like no one is watching, and knowing if they are, I don't really give a shit...That's their illusion, not mine.  And in this world of labels, I can just BE in my ever unfolding world of beautiful, simple, ordered chaos, where loneliness is given no power, for I and we and us is really the same thing and there is no one to truly watch me dance, just someone falling for the decoy and forgetting that minds are private...in order to make sense of things, the truth becomes destroyed by assumptions and judgment...and that seems fairly self defeating.  The "other" created is simply a diversion from what I believe is a more accurate sense of self, but I can see the function for those needing to define ones self...However, I have to say, I don't and probably never will understand how that seems more comforting to the human psyche, but I am okay with that...and it is fine here living in my own world for they know me here...and loneliness becomes another human condition to label...Blah, Blah, Blah...And so end this contemplation that humans "need" anything but the room to simply exist.

true Love...

this little death
i saw offered
in your eyes...

are these seemingly
not the same?...

kill me.

searching for
yet fearing the
face of eternity...

i do not
understand you.

bearing this 
angelic heart...broken

like the mirror.
shattered glass...

tears run
rivers
into the sea.

until all that
remains
is neither
you
nor
me...

blessed be...

for flowers die
alive...
murdered by
sun shine.

we should only be
so lucky.

i just read this paper in front of about 100 psychology undergraduates at UCLA in my culture and mental health class...what an honor to be able to share with them...

         There are often times when culture is not only revealed to us in interpersonal experiences, but also in encountering larger mindsets and the resulting institutions of a particular culture.  In our American psychiatric culture, the DSM has been considered the most useful tool in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders.  The DSM reduces all individuals to labels given based on observable behaviors, practically ignoring completely the internal processes happening within the individual that requires understanding and usually some interpretation.  We see this even when trying to understand individuals in their cultural contexts and how difficult it is to really grasp this with our DSM based diagnostic system.  This is typical of the Western mindset desiring rational scientific explanations for most everything we can observe.

            My experience with Western psychiatry was one of helplessness and hopelessness.  At a very young age, I began showing signs of mental disturbances.  It was not until the age of 18 that I began to require some serious help.  Naturally, I turned to the psychological professionals provided to me through my health care provider.  I was diagnosed with both depression and attention deficit disorder and medicated accordingly.  For the next eight years, I was on over 50 different types of psychotropic medication.  I also attribute this to the booming Western pharmaceutical industry and the capitalistic mechanisms perpetuating this epidemic. It was the type of situation that no Western doctor was equipped to understand and I was what became "quite the complicated case".  It was seemingly an open and shut chemical imbalance situation.  I had no severe or even minor trauma growing up other than questioning at a young age the "meaning of life".  In a way, I was existentially tortured and my mind just would not shut off and this resulted in behaving in very reckless and practically psychotic manner.  The doctors began to suggest electroshock therapy.  I just could not function.

            Then, upon one reckless night, I sustained a head injury where within one week, my entire life changed.  It absolutely defied any Western explanation.  I suppose the only way it can be explained behaviorally was similar to those who have encountered a near death experience.  I relate to this, in retrospect after doing some of my own research in fields such as transpersonal psychology.  There was nothing romantic like "seeing the Light" or anything like that, but within one week, I quit school, quit my marriage, quit therapy and quit medication.  I knew I would be just fine.  I experienced an inner peace that with Eastern influenced practices such as meditation and yoga, I am able to maintain.

            Just like Western culture reflects in their approach to medicine, the nature of the Spirit is rarely, if ever, taken into consideration when examining an individuals psyche.  This is interesting as "psyche" translates as "soul".  Nowhere in the DSM, the "bible of psychology" does "existentially tortured" appear.  It simply lists behaviors and symptoms and tries to reduce the individual into some category.  Now, I understand this to be quite effective and enough of a treatment for most, but this was definitely not my experience. What was at stake for me was not only my mental health, but the desire to live life, to do anything else besides "kill time".  It was not until I had this trans-rational experience that recovery became possible. 

            In addition to the Westernized professionals, I too was immersed in the Western mindset and was waiting for the magic pill.  I too had bought into the "instant fix" idea that is associated with the American way.  It is what the doctors told me.  It was in their books.  I trusted my doctors and I trusted their books.  Unfortunately, these both fell short when really trying to understand the internal nature of my individual psyche and the complicated inner mechanisms of the mind.  The mainstream Western perspective on psychology was too reductionistic to handle a basic spiritual longing that other cultures acknowledge and address. 

            It is my hope that eventually, Western views on psychology will expand to include the broad spectrum of potential internal experiences one may encounter for the rich entirety of human potential extends so much further that what is currently acknowledged by the DSM.