Shuffle Synchronicities: Volume 2 - #386
"The Wind" by Yusuf / Cat Stevens - 01/01/23
"The Wind" by Yusuf / Cat Stevens
This song was shuffled to on Thursday morning
While dreaming
Upon waking, it was sung
And then searched for on Spotify
The lyrics were read:
I listen to the wind
To the wind of my soul
Where I'll end up
Well I think only God really knows
The person who dream-shuffled to this song had spent almost 2 weeks with family
On Christmas night a few days before, we went to see the Broadway adaptation of the film Almost Famous.
It was a bit of perhaps a new Christmas tradition
Broadway and Italian in NYC
Instead of movie and Chinese anywhere else
Really fun and well-acted and well-choreographed and well-written and well, well-everything show
The moment where Cameron Crowe’s character has his story blocked by the band/Rolling Stone
He tells his mom he’s a failure as a music journalist
She’s overprotectively happy for a moment
But then said no joke/no lie: ‘Carl Jung said there is no good or bad luck, only meaningful synchronicities’
Someone next to me who had been cheering the Frances McDormand-like mom on the whole night elbowed me
We laughed
Though there may have been failure as a screenwriter (for now) and the music writing published here is nothing like the journalism and criticism Cameron Crowe and Lester Bangs and Jann Wenner might have practiced or recognized
There’s a lot to be proud of what the Shuffle Synchronicites Substack has been & become & isbecoming
And even more importantly the evolution of the ego co-producing it
One of the 4 books brought to read on this 2-week trip was no joke/no lie
Which was finally read on the flight back from NYC
The knowledge gained from it will be put toward the channel/thread of posts about How To Develop Our Own Shufflemancy Practice 🔮🫵😚
Which was promised in the about section
And will be coming soon
Another no joke/no lie regarding the above?
There were plans for when certain people died and were buried in a NYC cemetery me and other people would come there once a year no matter where we lived and after dinner and a Broadway show paid by a small fund by these certain people we would visit them at their graves and tell them all about it
It seems at least one of them won’t be buried in NYC after all
But there was much gratitude for the inspiring and sustaining memory shared with another one of them instead…😉
Back to Yusuf / Cat Stevens
A year ago on 12/31/21, there was a post about the song:
“Captain Jack” by Billy Joel
In which was written:
It’s about how Joel observed that upper-middle-class suburban young men, like himself/myself, sometimes waste their potential by escaping through alcohol, drugs, and masturbation.
Saturday night, and you're still hanging around
You're tired of living in your one horse townYour sister's gone out, she's on a date
And you just sit at home and masturbateBut Captain Jack will get you high tonight
And take you to your special island
Captain Jack will get you by tonight
Just a little push, and you'll be smilingThe chorus about “Captain Jack” is not about the alcohol but instead a dealer Billy Joel observed suburban kids going to buy heroin from in the New York City area.
The next verse is about the suburban anti-hero taking a holiday, but finding nowhere ‘cool’ to go.
And then he finds out that his father has committed suicide.
They just found your father
In the swimming pool
And you guess you won't be goin' back to school
AnymoreThis brings him back to more Captain Jack.
He then plays his music and smokes his pot and hooks up with a girlfriend in a parking lot, but aches for what went wrong in his life.
Joel concludes the story with perhaps a suicide of his own via the heroin.
Well, now Captain Jack
Could make you die tonight
Just a little push, and you'll be smilingLike I said, pretty bleak!
I think, though, what’s it doing from a memoir synchronicity perspective, for me today at least, is helping me take stock of my life since my father committed suicide himself and my whole life changed.
Since then, I no longer drink alcohol or caffeine.
I no longer imbibe drugs like cannabis, not even just a little CBD.
But I do still eat a lot of fancy food ;)
I divorced.
And I masturbate more now, LOL.
To summarize the above, while at the end of 2021, this ego who co-produces this had quit alcohol, caffeine, and cannabis
It was still eating tons of unhealthy food, not really dating, and masturbating instead to pornography…a lot more than ever before…
What’s funny is that without knowing it then
The key to the former was the latter and vice versa
Meaning:
When I decided to quit masturbating to pornography
The unseen benefit was
My desire for unhealthy food also fell away
Now the first part wasn’t easy
Quitting pornography was supposed to be three days like this:
It was more like three weeks of this:
But after that was over
And I continued to not just not watch pornography
But also to not orgasm
(And to do extra sessions with a therapist about the root of sexual addictions and traumas)
All of the esoteric results that research into voluntary celibacy (volcel? lol) had promised
Or at least most of it
Did come true…!!!
More energy
More motivation
More attraction from
And to
Others
Self-esteem
Sublimation of that drive into:
Exercise
Creativity
Goal-directed
Productive
Behavior
Self-love
Shamelessness
12-year-old boy sensitivity
Withing actual 38-year-old maturity
Courtship
Women as people
Not sex objects
I know, right?!
The list could go on…
But among the most surprising parts was something that was not on the list
Which was that
The less dopamine in my brain, which had been overflooded from, you know, seeking and easily getting (or tricking myself into thinking I had gotten) sex with whomever whenever for as long as I wanted
The new status-quo led to less desire for other forms of easy dopamine
Fast food
Which was another sort of addiction
Fried food
another
Red meat
another
Candy, chocolate, processed foods…
All these things that also felt insurmountable to ever quit
Fell away
In the form of a conversion
Like my first metanoia
In 2019
In the sense, that will power wasn’t needed
In fact, the will for healthier choices only grew instead
And has been sustained for about 9 months now
Weight has gone from 218 pounds
to 168
And now lower still
164 post-holiday trip
But who’s counting lol
I've sat upon the setting sun
But never, never, never, never
I never wanted water once
No never, never, never
That’s not to say
Even though I never did have orgasms with myself
And never want to again with only myself
That I was or am against them with others
That element of celibacy wasn’t the goal
Even if it was what happened for all of 2021
But
That work of purification
Of rooting out what I didn’t want
Started to turn into imagining what I might want instead
Of possibilities
While on the trip, this article was read for the first time from The New Yorker
As what the writer Emily Witt wrote was read:
Over and over in my adult life, despite being an introvert with a preference for monogamy, I have found myself in situations where I’ve had total sexual freedom. The older I’ve got, the more I’ve understood how often sexual freedom imposes itself on people who don’t seek it out—no marriage contract, religion, posture of tradition, or abortion ban will protect a person from having to contend with the sexual possibilities of the present. (Even the spectrum of modern celibacy—incels, volcels, femcels—can be understood, at least in part, as a reaction to so much freedom.) A fulfilling sexual life and the search for a relationship could proceed along distinct paths, even if both tend to be grouped under the nebulous umbrella of “dating.” Because a romantic rejection could mess up your brain chemistry for months, it’s helped, when deciding with whom to spend time, to know in advance which lane you were in, and what was reasonable to expect from another person. Feeld was the first app I’d used that expressly differentiated the search for erotic friendship from the search for romantic partnership. It was also unique in that it did not advertise this search in the language and imagery of cis-male fantasies of no-strings-attached sex. Its culture indicated some understanding of the precautions and reassurances that the rest of us might need.
The app was joined
and connections started to be made
Vulnerable conversations
Real connection
Deep sharing
Fun banter
Sexuality has started to re-awaken
No orgasms still with myself
Nor with another person
But after a romantic night of voice memos with one person who has also been celibate for 10 months
This song was shuffled to:
“Livin’ My Truth” by Kid Cudi
There’s been a plan with another to FaceTime about a Tantric practice
And most significantly
Hours of sexting with a different person that mixed the sacred with the profane
On the day of New Year’s Eve while receiving energetic body work
Thoughts came to mind of:
How we were taught meaningless sex was any sex that wasn’t permanent
But what was the difference?
I wanted only meaningful sex
Instead of meaningless sex
But permanent sexual relationships can sometimes be more meaningless than impermanent ones
And impermanent sexual relationships, even with frequencies of one instance, can be as meaningful or more
Or as Yusuf / Cat may have sung:
I listen to my words
But they fall far below
I let my music take me
Where my heart wants to go
Other thoughts:
Options will be many, choose what’s right
For you and them
You will know
Don’t choose what’s not for you
That is force
What’s for you
Might be what you might not have expected
Or might not be what others expect of you
But that’s OK
I've swam upon the devil's lake
But never, never, never, never
I'll never make the same mistake
No never, never, never
Give pleasure to others
Don’t only self-serve
That can also mean…
Be an exhibitionist
Share your pleasure with others
Write about it here
Express joy
Enthusiasm
For all of life
Including sex
The exhibition is not only self-serving
It’s also so others know they can have more of what feels good to them too
An idea came to mind
From before
To edit a book called
The Best American Sexting
Because texting is an art form
Dorothy Parker and the wits of The Algonquin Roundtable who started The New Yorker are now millions of group texts and always have been
Also, bad sex writing with too much of the male gaze
Trying to imagine both sides of a sexual situation
Isn’t possible
When both people involved in the acts
Are co-creating the art of the moment together
Live
Spontaneously
Or at least that’s the conceit
So the plan was to leave you with highlights from the first submission to The Best American Sexting
Hoping to take further submissions soon
But then there was another Shuffle
“Outstanding” by SahBabii, 21 Savage
Which no joke/no lie has these lyrics:
Boy, yeah, I'm so fancy
Fuckin' these hoes, outlandish
I need a ho like Randy
LOL
Also, it was then remembered that the person I sexted with for hours, the song shuffled to with them was:
“Forever” by Justin Bieber, Post Malone, Clever
With lyrics:
Could you be here with me forever, ever, ever?
Would you be here with me forever, ever, ever?
Waking up all alone ain't better, better, better
Every time I go the wrong way you turn me back around
So, yes, I’ll admit, the paradox is there
It’s not so simple
This might not always be the way for me
Though
Perhaps the achieving of an old or a new forever
Comes with a journey of embracing some impermanents
The roguish 21 Savage and the romantic Bieber live inside me
Perhaps many or all of us
I guess
We’ll have to see what feels right
As it happens
Right now it still feels right to leave you with some of The Best American Sexting…
NOTE 1: The following is explicit LOL so now would be the time to close it if you don’t want to experience that…
NOTE 2: Though if you do like it, it continues after the jump by clicking ‘view entire message’
NOTE 3: And most importantly, CONSENT was given to publish this!!!
Do not ask me who it is, I will only ever say: A subby angel witch from outer space…🧎♀️😇 🧙♀️ from 🚀
Enjoy…………..
If you’re still reading …
Just shuffled got no joke/no lie:
“BALLSKIN” by MF DOOM
The slang suggest it was the guy in the glasses
Who came to help the people with they minds and they asses
You set tripping, get a grip like SpaldingThese walls is thin, feel genuine ballskin
She’s reading it now…
A couple hours after midnight now on 01/01/23
To approve it before publishing
While waiting
There’s a shuffle
No joke/no lie:
“Fellowship” (Remix) by serpentwithfeet, Ambre, Alex Isley
I got something to share with you, oh, oh-oh
Memories still fade, never a dull moment with you
I can call on you if all else fails
In your closet when there's nothing to wear, oh, oh
Now that we're in twenty somethings
Gotta cherish every moment when I can anymore (Anymore)
Anymore (Anymore)
My friends, my friends
I'm thankful for the love I share with my friends (My friends)
My friends (My friends), our friends (My friends)
I'm thankful for the love I share with my friends (My friends)…
Maybe it's the blessing of my thirties
I'm spending less time worrying and more time recounting the love
More time recounting the love (Love, love, love)…
Gratitude, truly grateful for you (Grateful for you)
The warmest smile when you meet me (Meet me)
Kindest words when you greet me (Greet me)
I hope you know (You know, you know)
Life is so much sweeter with you
Don't you ever forget my dear…
My friends (My friends), my friends (My friends)
I'm thankful for the love I share with my friends
My friends (My friends), my friends (My friends)
I'm thankful for the love I share with my friends, my f-
This one goes out to the friends
This one goes out to the friends
By after noon today, she has read and enjoyed and approved it for publication
I open up my computer and the last song that was playing on shuffle before we stopped texting at 4:43 am was…
No joke/no lie…
Like always ;)
“A Meaningful Moment Through A Meaning(less) Process” by Stars of Lid
Happy New Year!