Coffee Shop Kids

From The Vaults: August 2015

Do you ever sit at a coffee shop and just dig the people…? Or maybe a train or bus station- an airport. Anywhere, really. People are so interesting and important.  To my left at this coffee shop in Palo Alto I have two old men playing Scrabble, to my right a middle aged couple, most likely early forties… It's a Sunday in Mid August, talks are of the coming school year, kids, work, etc. It's so simple and beautiful. I used to- and still do from time to time- ponder the infinite eternities of Mind and the cosmos and "what IT all means," but, too much of that will drive you crazy. I've recently become aware of the importance to balance those mind explorations with the simple appreciation of the people on this planet and subtleties all around that make life so gently graceful. People all trying themselves to grow and raise kids, and pass on genes and make love and find security and live fully and make some meaning of it. The couple are out to Brunch, I cannot tell whether they are in love but they are happy now. Together in each other's company enjoying a nice meal, on a beautiful central coast of California afternoon- in this moment.  It can all be so simple. 

     The men playing Scrabble seem retired and are just meeting up to talk about their lives and their kids and all the experiences they've had throughout their most likely about 65 years on this planet. THINK about that. They were 21 in 1971, approximately, the beginning of the fall off of the 60s movement (politics and war, civil rights, sexual, artistic, and of course the drugs), but which became here- in Palo Alto- the beginning of the countercultural technology movement. What does today look like through their eyes? They have seen and lived and experienced the complete metamorphosis of culture and society. In 1971 you had to find a telephone which you may or may not have owned to meet up with some friends. Now we send a text at light speed. Think about that. Think about the complete sprouting of a bud they've seen. Personal computers didn't exist yet. What I'm doing right now had to be done on a typewriter and published through some type of newspaper, magazine, or some type of print press, and was only accessible to the local area. Dig that; we are so fortunate to be growing up and young in the time we are in. I have said to a friend once that the work They've been doing since the 60s was, has been, and is still being designed for us, right now, the Millennial generation. For some reason it just makes sense to us and we know how to use it. 

     But this post isn't suppose to be about the whole quantum age thesis, I have plenty of that coming. This post is about people. Who I just found out now are all from Jersey like me. The guys to my left- is from Hackensack, and the man in the couple to my right- from Edison. Wow. Small world. See what you won't know until you start interacting and talking, and digging, and being spontaneous and opening up to people and the world. One of the guys to my right asked if I was going to Stanford, I said no, UC Santa Cruz, he said he'd rather be going to Santa Cruz. I dig that. I'll leave it there. 

     We're all on our own journey just trying to make something of it, hopefully trying to learn and grow and have experiences that we remember and take for lasting. One day at a time. One breath at a time.

Ian Vincenzo Crispi

That Feeling…

From the Vaults: August 2015

I'm at a bar wrapping up my evening, making notes in my journal trying to think of what to write about and reading Kerouac's Dharma Bums; when I saw a highlight of some baseball player hitting a home run and winning the game and getting dunked with the water and all the fans cheering their loudest and all his teammates coming to slap his back and hug him and I thought.... What a feeling. WHAT A FEELING

I mean, that's the feeling we live for right. To have people appreciate us, and make us feel important. It doesn't have to be a game winning home run, maybe your boss congradulates you for that decision you made that saved the company money, time, or energy. Maybe it's your grad professor announcing to the class your observation and how it was one that they themselves had not noticed. Maybe it's when you come back to the tonic and finish that beautiful sonata. Or blow the trumpet high into the upper ranges and every soul in the place feels your heart reaching for the stars. Maybe it's just someone answering your text, tweet or phone call. 

When someone makes you feel important you get a rush through your body, you know, that subtle little tingle... (Most likely a release of dopamine).

As humans living in this crazy, chaotic, fast paced 21st century, when someone makes you feel important it becomes a reminder that someone is paying attention, in the midst of their own chaotic, busy life, they paid attention... To you- and let you know it.

As far as performers; they work so hard for that moment, that moment when they hit the home run, catch the touch down with the toes in, hit the soprano note, complete the set; they give their minds, bodies and souls for us, and so when we respond with that cheer, that energy; that rippling effect through the nervous system that sticks the hairs up, is what we live for. 

Ya know...

Ian Vincenzo Crispi

Love…?

   From the Vaults: February, 2015

I think a lot, about… Love, intimacy and relationships.  It is a greater phenomena for me personally, than consciousness itself.  Love is undoubtably, just as mysterious as the thought of consciousness. Who can really put their finger on it. I sure as cannot. What makes us attracted to one another? Is it looks, is it tastes, is it smells, is it conversations, compatibility, is it character? Is there really a thing as "Love at first sight?"  Do parents who spend most of their time arguing really love each other? Do parents who spend more time focussed on their work, or worse, drugs and alcohol, love their children? What is this concept of Love anyway… Honestly where did it even come from? We use language as a tool to try to help us better understand the way we feel inside, or what we are thinking, thus logically someone must have been feeling a certain way that they could find no other way to describe than with those letters, L, O, V, E… Yet english wasn't even the first language… so what was the way to describe Love in cuneiform? Can there be multiple different forms of Love?
    Yes, I would think so. Here's why: I believe the "Love" we refer to when thinking about intimate others and relationships, is absolutely a different kind of "Love" than say, the fact that we might love riding our bikes long distances in the early mornings or, we might Love creating music, art, or poetry. However is that the same type of "Love" we refer to when we express it to someone we are in a relationship with…? Of course there has to be different kinds of Love. Your mother's love, isn't the same type of love you have with your spouse.
    Thus we understand that Love can mean two (or more) different things depending on context. (I guess like most concepts). We also know that Love can drive us "mad", whatever that means. If Love is this thing that we don't quite understand and can drive us to the point of insanity, then why are so many of us so concerned with it… The deeper question may be that, if Love is so unknown, and yet we seek it anyway, then there must be an unknown part of ourselves which we are trying to understand, and fulfill. Dale Carnegie writes that about 95% of us, make our choices, take actions, make decisions based on the simple fact that we have a desire to feel important. This makes a lot of sense, everyone wants to, quite possibly needs to, and should, feel important. I mean when one loses all sense of feeling any importance at all, what's the point right? That's when we hear bad news. We seek Love because it makes us feel important.
    But is that enough? Can it just be resolved there? What happens when the Love becomes a Pain, a tragedy. Divorce rates are higher than half of all marriages in the U.S. today, which leads to the question: does Love last? Can intimate relationships stay creative, energetic, romantic, and fun? Or do we become comfortable in our routines with the other person? One of the great tragedies of the Human Condition is that no matter how hard you ever try, you will not be able to Know what I am thinking, and like wise, I will never be able to Know what exactly it is that you are thinking or feeling. How do we ever come to make relationships work? How can we understand the other person enough to predict what they will want and then act on this prediction to keep them falling "in love with us" over and over again. Keeping the relationship "fresh" is without question one of the most difficult tasks. When one comes from a broken relationship the question becomes, "was I a Love child, or just a sex child?" How often is sex confused as love, and love confused as sex?
    That feeling of one's heart dropping into their stomach, shock waves of bio-electric current rattled through the nervous system, Love moves us. However painful, however mysterious and awe provoking, without it life would be bland, tasteless and melancholy. When we're in Love it is the Highest of all Highs, even if we eventually have to come down and suffer the withdrawals.

Ian Vincenzo Crispi