If future history is not to be just one damned thing after another in space, then what we really have to do is in some way overcome this linear experience of time that makes all existence a quest for something that will never be found.And philosophies such as Zen seem to hint that this is possible.

When I think back on it, I have a sense of relaxation, as if in the seventies no one had to try to be anyone other than who they were. I'm sure that's not really true, but that's how I remember it, and I suppose it might be relatively true.

I do have a muse. I am not sure how to describe her. She can be very elusive. She was born in England but has Mediterranean ancestry.

I don't believe in sexual love.

It would be hard to say that exactly, but antinatalism is a reality in my life, not just an interesting idea. I can feel it in the chilled and weary marrow of my bones.

I seemed to recall some words from an old Zen master, something like, "My Zen cuts down mountains." My rejection of Buddhism was a cutting down of mountains; that is precisely how it felt to me.

If you look at the ox-herding pictures - specifically the newer set of ten pictures rather than the older set of eight - you see that after the blank circle of the void, the cycle comes back to a river flowing by the roots of a tree (both strong symbols of nature, the life-force, the unconscious) and to the wanderer returning to the market place, which is the realm of human society and activity.