When I was running the SF Marathon, by mile 20 I already saw myself crossing the finish line before it happened. The way I took off my running shoes, the way I inclined my head to accept my medal, it happened precisely the way I imagined. I knew for certain that Omar Almatov is someone who completes his first marathon on the 27th day of the summer month of Yuli. It was written this way by God.

But despite knowing this all to be true, despite knowing I was guided by providence, in those last 6 miles my toes were weeping, my body cried for carbs, and every step felt heavier than the last. I knew exactly who I was, what I was capable of, what I was destined for, what God wrote for me, and yet I haven’t lived it.

By mile 21 I found myself at a fork between continuing to run or misaligning with my destiny. In fact, there was actually no fork at all. To stop was clearly a disservice to myself, a disservice to God, a blasphemy, a cowardly act of self-harm. But to continue running was certainly no trivial matter.

You’d think to live in alignment with yourself is implicitly elegant. A synchronous union of body, mind, and soul. An efficiency of movement that can only come from a calm self-assurance. But I know when I finished that race I was desperate and graceless, and with even higher certainty, I know that before I set off it was already written for me.

Reflecting on that day made me think about the other races in my life. Seeing my steps so vividly in the future. Mouthing the words of tomorrow as I fall asleep in bed. Having such a vivid picture of who I am. Knowing all this doesn’t make living it any less exhausting. It is exhausting to act out my curiosity, my hard work, my love for my brother, my love for my friends. It is exhausting to build my hearth and home. It is exhausting to act out this uncompromising belief in myself. It is exhausting to try and show up excellent every single day. I am so extremely tired. My body starves for carbs, my toes are weeping, and every step feels heavier than the last, but I know now that this is not a sign of misdirection but simply the price you pay for right alignment.

enough! we must find new vibrations to agitate the intellectual atmosphere. the old vibrations have dampened. i’ll speak no more of the matters of the heart!

no more i say! no more speaking of the matters of the heart, of happiness, or joy, or personal fulfillment, or any bourgeois ideals for that matter.

i’ll speak only of the heavy brick i lay.

i’ll speak only of the coals i mine and the poisonous dust that fills my lungs from digging.

enough! no more matters of the heart.

the only vibrations that will agitate the intellectual atmosphere will be from the contact of the heavy bricks i lay with the hard concrete foundation of where the skyscraper will be erected.

i’ve signed a treaty with obstinance, the ugly sister of the mule, now i implore you, speak no more of the matters of the heart!

most possess infinitudes. i? quite the opposite! the single-faceted man. day by day i lay my heavy brick, each equivalent in weight to the mass of the whole world, one at a time, steadily erecting the skyscraper. what a simple man i am!

have i fooled you for a second? me? the brick layer? shall i take off this rugged jacket and the carpenter pant in the pockets of which i find the loose finger of its previous owner? the only brick that has come in contact with my uncalloused five-fingered hands is the exposed brick of the yuppy coffee shop where i sip my coffee, each cup, in fact, equivalent in cost to what the real brick layer earns per hour.

i’ll speak no more of matters of the heart, and since another man’s brown hands lay brick to erect the skysraper that i’ll reside in, i shall speak no more on any matters.

when i go out to eat i like to sit by the window.

i used to say i like to “people-watch”. inspect their outfits. analyze their gait. when couples walk by, to pay close attention to whose body pulls closer and whose strays away.

to prove to myself and others that i am in fact the observer, the master of the universe, God almighty, i’d come up with plausible-sounding, pre-fabricated, lazy claims like “you’d be surprised, but couples very rarely walk in equilibrium”.

but as time ploughs deeper furrows over my brow, and my hubris decomposes into fertilizer, and as through those furrows, nourished by the nitrogen from the fertilizer, grow fruits of wisdom and self-definition, so do i grow the courage to say with certainty that i sit by the window because i myself like to be on display.

everyone come see the omar exhibition!

look how he bows his head over his bowl the way a pig feeds from its trough! watch those black pebble eyes gaze through the window! those empty, thoughtless, hopeless, haggard eyes! the way a pig gazes through the wired fencing that constrains it! watch how he plunges his body in the cold pacific ocean to relieve himself of the cruel summer heat and the bloodsucking fleas the way a pig wallows in the mud! watch how freely he gives his blood and flesh and meat to the eternally starving human, his lover, the way a pig gives its blood and flesh and meat to its butcher!

come see this spectacle! buy your tickets now! come get your piece of pigmar! pigmar! pigmar! oink! oink! oink! screeee!!!! sreeeee!!!! i come in teacup variants as well! i come wild and hairy like a boar. plump and fat like an industrial piggy. i am human-engineered perfection! take me! take one! no! two! a gift! for friends and family! crush me with your teeth! excreet me through your anus! breed me over and over again!

“So how is it out there?”

Oh it’s desolate. Atomized. Cleaned up and neatly organized. Like a freshly watered potus hanging from the ceiling of a bourgeois middle class apartment.

My warm socks oppress me, the sweet smell of incense cedar makes me nauseous, and this soft king size bed makes my back hurt.

Time with friends is only a temporary remedy like drugs and alcohol. Drugs and alcohol only a temporary remedy in place of stepping out to breathe. Because how can I step outside in this weather? This temperate San Francisco weather? Everyday is like the Truman show. The schizophrenic’s nightmare. Sister wouldn’t even last a day out here.

Oh mother what good does it do that I survived if survival means dying slowly in this miserable ease? What good does it do that I survived, if I’m now so weak that the weightlessness of this cosmic irony on my shoulders is making me bleed?

Maybe Esther should’ve just opened that bell jar? Maybe all Harry Haller needed was to learn how to dance? But I’ll tell you I’ve danced and all I got was strange looks and loud whispers from people who must know something I don’t about how to be.

There I go again talking to ghosts.

I’m in my childhood room where I go again talking to ghosts.

I saw this at work today.

So does this mean I should text them?

Apparently not.

The brand Kari-Out was founded by Paul Epstein (unrelated to the infamous Epstein) and has been the premier food packaging company for the past 60 years, helping deliver food safely and reliably to millions. They care about sustainability and have fair labor practices. They’re also innovators in the field having just released the very first certified compostable sauce packet. This takeout box predates me and will likely out live me. Thousands tossing around in little doordash courier boxes each moment. My office orders food daily in fact.

Very unsatisfying I know. Signs are only as real as we make them to be. Reality is often boring. The classic pitfall of the yearner or shall I say schizophrenic. The more I think, the less I do, the less I do, the more miserable I become, the more miserable I become, the more I long for fake moments. It’s manufactured serendipity. Touched up and color-graded in post. Don’t get fooled by the dunya, by the klishta, or anything else of that sort. Stay true and stay real young poet. Say how about you go meditate?

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

In. Out. In. Out.

How sweet is it that a breath in is always followed by a breath out — the original monogamists. From a babies first gasp, to the child’s last laugh, the body’s last breath in is always followed by a breath out. The eye is first closed and then she meets open. Close. Open. Close. Open. And then one day they part. Maybe I’m heart broken because blinking and breathing makes me emotional.

Oh right so where was I?

So then is it a sign?

Apparently not.

Most likely someone just really really really wanted Chinese food.

A quick update: a few days later I saw this take out box from a different packaging company get delivered. Now what the hell does this mean?

In the Kazakh language, the words for “I love you” translate to “I see you clearly”. Not felt at first sight. Not felt at all. It’s active. Proactive. A verb by default — a process. When you are experiencing love you say “мен сені сүйемін”. So am I? College kids read books trying to figure out what’s all about love, but it doesn’t ring a bell — hooked and fixated on the potential of connection. For most Kazakh children, it comes as natural as speech and as sight.

Rilke says young poets should not write about love however, so I shall not be tempted, but oh God I think I’ve been far from home for too long, my mother’s been dead for too long, wrong have I been for forgetting my tongue. Somewhere whilst watching the white man’s spectacle, I have lost hold of my spectacles, and the phone screen made my vision too blurry.

Hurry! I shall not fall to assimilation. The Kazakh nomad is now mad. The colonized intellectual is fed up with abstraction, throws away the books the distract him, puts down fork and knife to break bread with his hands.

I will jog my memory, practice my speak, learn again how to see the seasons. I see yellow, red, and orange, forage, streaks of pink and purple, hopeful because the sun said she’ll be back again. The blue or green sky bid farewell as well. Blue or green because for my ancestors it was all that is heavenly — the life giving Sun’s gifts to this Earth. Gifts that weren’t earned, but received unconditionally. The trees, leaves, and sky all blue are to be, that hundred dollar bill is neither definitionally.

“Is”, “was”, “has been”, “will”, there’s no tenses in the Kazakh language only whats completed, ongoing, or habitual. A ritual. No “have done”s or “should do”s the world’s a fleeting moment cherish the beauty that surrounds you. Through you grew me too, used to be I and you together. Not forever however. And that is okay because I have learned again to see the seasons. To see the features, changing reasons only deepen not weaken my light. I see you clearly and dearly, sincerely, and queerly it’s as natural for me as my speech and my sight. Мен сені жақсы көремін.

Through ills and uphills, fears, thick and thins, and standstills, by God or free will — Мен сені жақсы көремін.

I had an interesting interaction with my coworker.

The contention was that I viewed each person as a separate instance. Initialized with some set of parameters, predetermined before we were even constructed. But Hermann Hesse, Ursula Le Guin, Orestes, they see things differently. For them, the entirety of life exists in one instance that self determines. Each one of us can be each one of us, and each one of us can be and is special.

This framework isn’t natural for me. An autoimmune disorder that manifests into guilt and self loathing, a constant discomfort and unease, but I think I may have found a remedy. I know now that Iblis and Allah, man, woman, darkness and light, the flying fish, the crawling bug, the garden, the steppenwolf, Pablo Neruda’s cat, the tiny manila mango and the tree all reside inside of me.

I am an egg, a carrier bag full of latent possibilities and contradictions, a fellow human, an individual, unique and one and the same all at the same time.

If I were to die, I’d want it to be by bullets and lead. Maybe a car crash. By an unexpected stab to the gut in a street brawl. I want my body to rebel. Fight for its breath before it sinks in the river. I want my bones broken. Skin bruised. I want my teeth shattered and my limbs torn apart. I want it violent like a weep of a child whose mother just died.

Not by imaginary ghosts made from sticks and cotton balls — that would be humiliating.

“How to Love a Cat” by Javier Salvago

To love people the way one loves a cat:

With their temperament and their independence,

Without trying to tame them,

Without trying to change them,

Letting them approach whenever they wish,

Finding happiness in their happiness.

From “Ode to the Cat” by Pablo Neruda

Man wants to be fish or fowl, the snake would like to have wings the dog is a disoriented lion, the engineer would like to be a poet,

The fly studies to be a swift,

The poet tries to imitate the fly,

But the cat only wants to be a cat and any cat is a cat,

From his whiskers to his tail,

From his hopeful vision of a rat to the real thing,

From the night to his golden eyes.

It will probably be her. She doesn’t know it yet, but it will probably be her. I don’t even know her birthday or her favorite color or what’s her favorite dessert. I don’t even know her name. Does she have siblings? Older or younger or both? What’s her biggest fear? I don’t know for sure, but it will probably be her.

No matter how much I’ve sinned the night before, Gods gracious arms stretch through the cobwebs of my dusty windows to wave me good morning.

A new crush! We’ll read each other poems. When will it be time to grow up? The answer is never.

Body altercations, body manipulations, new piercing, a tattoo appointed.

We must keep moving our bodies and exercising our minds because in times of uncertainty without hope we are lost!

Coarse sand exfoliating feet, scrubbing away the dead base that I stand on. A new me sets foot on the earth. Maybe this is what baptism feels like.

At the beach I find myself staring at butts and bulges, wide shoulders, thick backs, strong bodies, bodies that break waves not let the waves break them. Wet bottoms hugging their bottoms make these features especially prominent.

Androgynous friends step aside to smoke cigarettes. I’m pretending to read a book by the ocean. With such strong bodies that withstand the waves of the ocean, how are we still so insecure?

Listening to the glistening shimmering ocean whispering secrets only the sun understands. They must be laughing at us. I can’t say I didn’t enjoy myself either.

Apparently the average baseball player has 20/12 vision. That’s right, 20/20 isn’t perfect, just the expected visual acuity of a normal human being at 20 feet.

What’s even more interesting is that elite athletes seem to have this ability to fixate on a target for milliseconds, sometimes seconds, longer than the average person before executing an action — what is called the “quiet eye”.

There is something empowering about this. To entertain the idea that maybe we’re only milliseconds of focus away from shooting like Steph Curry or swinging the bat like Ohtani (Of course complemented by hard work and dedication).

And perhaps this applies to other matters. Matters of personal fulfillment. Perhaps matters of the heart. How many soulmates have we missed because of blurry vision and a scattered mind? How many times have we missed the moon when it was right there above us? How different would the world be if we perceived her through the quiet eye?

I’ve kintsugied my heart. It can hold tea once again. With notes of orange peel, barley, pepper, and a hint of ginger - what you call an oakland blend.

What tea fills your cup? And if its full like mine, should we try to meet again? To burn our lips, or break our cups, to have just one more day when warmth is precious before abundance comes with spring?

Did you know Osamu Dazai, the renowned Japanese novelist, has attempted joint suicide 3 times?

Once his partner died and he survived. Once they both survived. After their final attempt their bodies were found in a river.

It’s speculated that before his death Dazai suddenly “felt an obsession with life”.

What was that sudden obsession? The body and soul’s final act of love? Or a violent divorce? The body breaking silence? The body’s cries because his lover has moved on and all that’s left is to rot in the dirt?

If by some miracle Dazai happened to survive that fatal river, if the soul answered, saw those cries and stayed, would that moment fade? Would he go jumping for a 4th, 5th, 6th time?

I think probably.

I said:

Oh God!

Tell me why let the heart beat if it beats me to a pulp?

If it punches like a madman at a bus stop in Oakland

When it bobs and weaves like a boxer in the ring, evading those same ones who it beats for.

And God replied:

Say this once.

And now say this twice.

Something only happens once… Until it happens twice.

You WILL love again young poet.

And then I thought:

But to fall in love once and for all

That is what you call a miracle.

Most men pray for miracles.

But I am afraid God may have blessed me already.

• Source: Count Kagura ^^ Incredible piece of art. Interactive fiction is such a interesting medium.