A 12 Steps 9th Step Reflection - What am I supposed to do when people simply can’t be honest with themselves?

 Being a situational minority, [living in South Los Angeles] myself - “visually” (although only “somewhat;” I do sometimes get myself casually mistaken for being Hispanic), I get a lot of flack. 

It’s the kind of thing that would have potentially framed our collective and generalized minds, for having been part of the dragnet downward spiral that so many of us face, for having this faulty, anti-social, mistaken, misfortunate, misgiven, mistreated, maladapted, disregarded, or sometimes, we were simply just the one picked out to be bullied upon, for a long stretch of life. Many of us, in the smallest demographics, here - the 1-4%ers; the silent intelligent minds, the secretive genius, the condescending outperformer, or some sort of spiritual misfit, perhaps. 

As the fungus, for the sake of wood rot - in healing the stuff of nature that consumes us, as the tree of life, perhaps, that we, as intelligent humans are, we tend to a greater sustainability, for having made the sacrifice that signifies and represents our material loss in life - for nature to persist.

I was some sort of combination of these things, to varying degrees. My teachers might commonly have characterized me as an “A” grade mind, but a “B” grade achiever. It would be quite ostensible, as such. I was hit, as a child, and treated cruelly, at times, by my parent authority nurturing environment. Although I was young, I knew, intelligently well enough, that I was being mistreated, and that there was an unreasonable expectation of that I ought have not violated whatever boundary it was that I had pushed too far on, in acting out, or whatever the case might have been. That was back when I was around age 6, or so, when I started to come to understand that I was being held hostage, of sorts, and that life is a cruel endeavor, at times. My happiness and enjoyment was ephemeral, and sadness came as a much more common and ostensible expectation of myself

Now, at age 39, I do broadly superficial gestures towards a mindset of reserved superiority, should that card need to be pulled, in order to one-up myself, in a situation, whereas I’m narcissistic, at times, and I feel that simply accommodating others I come across, superficially and casual that it may be, I do have a somewhat limited basis and “license,” as it were - to engage with, and exchange acquaintanceship with, as far as how I might ever (or, actually) expect to get to know a great many more individuals in the localities in which I frequent. On some level, the diversity of Los Angeles, and surrounding areas, is a beautiful thing - we get a small taste of it, here and there, as children - some of us had interaction-based socialization profiles, some of us had cultural endowments, of our learning and travel experience, in our youthful developing years, and others - well, to be honest, I somewhat simply don’t quite know. There’s not much in terms of disclosure, when it came to so many people. It was bwammo; butt shittle, for sure, and bwopp dick? Plik plok. 

That’s essentially how I do some people. What else am I supposed to do? They seem to realize it, and they truly just go for it, in this slight game of alluding to a secretive shame of non-disclosure of what’s humble and slight about us; each unto ourselves, but as for myself, I feel as though I’m simply capable, in being an honest person, whereas I seem to attract a lot of pent up frustration and aggression towards me, as well as to my personal belongings, possessions, art work - even my right of way and freedom of volition, out in public. Ought I mix it up, a bit more, and get out of town, for that it’s slight localities that I frequent? I’m trying to do something with these pigeons and sparrows, though. I feel that that’s the crux of what separates and distinguishes me from these “others,” casually “majority” that they might be, for as ephemeral and unsustained that it might be, when it comes down to constancy, faith in, and loyalty to a purpose - it’s sometimes that it is quite obvious that people had been talking about me, in some group or networked small and trivial collective or establishment of people - on the other hand, I have the largest demographic of spiritually faithful compatriots that I might believe exists, for being a Christian man; perhaps here and there I entertain discovering various nuances of the faith, and demonizations, but these are simple numbers and statistics that we had all grown up with. 

Somewhere along the way, young people had decided that popular beliefs and establishments were disdainful, and averse to the common man’s wellbeing, whereas true wellness was largely characterized as a shameful “hurt” area; it hurt to have affections for others, to achieve, in the face of others who had not serendipitously found good fortune, well enough for everyone’s attention spans (how commonly does serendipity happen?). People who had achieved some good or gainful new establishment, as for their own take - were seen as the rightfully scapegoated ones. That’s how I feel, in any case. It happens to women, of a certain sort, all the time, and who likes to be incorrect, or improper? It’s a humbling thing, for many - discovering the consequence of “God’s” purpose and judgment in our lives, yet I hear confessionals all the time, and I have my own notions as to how and why these sorts of interrogative processes come to be characterized and fixed in to the mind of an unwell and unstable psychological archetype - ephemeral that it may be, it does happen quite commonly, for the great many amongst the few of us, that there are, in some instances. 

The truth is most commonly a great and celebrated thing; it’s a thing of joy, good humor, and elation - good people can’t imagine something so awful and horrid, such that it ought not have been done. At what point does the unrelenting bold one simply cease to persist in asserting dominance over differences between themselves, and a great many others? People have access to richly developed minds and intelligence forms of much of history and establishment that has been recorded in some form, whether it be visual, artistic, literary, or of the other ways and means in which we communicate and confer symbolism and meanings unto others. 

A Data Science Statistical Anecdote Moment on the Degree of Influence Misinformation Wields on People.

 I get all sorts of conflicting intelligence, as I traverse the “remote sensing” (or, Scientology “Space Drama) ego trips, currently ascending in to the “cult leader” realm, as a mock-up egoiste-epatant:

The importance of expressing affections, in order to attain fulfillment of our needs.

 I've arrived here late: 6:45 p.m., here, just outside of the Civic Center Metropolitan district of Downtown L.A., by the 23rd St. | Orthopaedic Institute Metro Expo Line Station. I'd been hoping to get here, even days sooner, in order to check up on the USC dumpster pigeons flock, at the parking lot, nearby Popeye's Chicken, located at the corner of Adams and Figueroa. 

The pigeons usually hang out, as a large flock, lined up at the edge of the back of the buildings.

Today, it was a scant crowd, with some pigeons scattered about, on the street lighting poles, and here and there. Not much. 

Regardless of that I had missed their standard day's hang out, which peaks in the late morning, perhaps, through early afternoon (I had slept in until 2:30 p.m., today; I was quite exhausted, apparently, from having arrived home, last night, around 1:30 p.m.). My Google Maps location tracking timeline says that I walked 52 miles yesterday: obviously not possibly true, and I didn't go to Arcadia; I'm not sure why or how that was put in to the timeline. 

I tossed the birds some old soggy sandwich, broken in to pieces, that I had procured, along my journeys from the the previous days. The birds were not quite actively attentive to me, and for the sake of that food had arrived for them, although I did get some reciprocation out of a few of them, after a few moments had passed. 

The moment had reminded me of the figurative meanings behind feeding the birds: seeking a "some day (to come)" affection, out of the flocks of pigeons, given years of care and dedication having been offered to them, and hoping for this long-standing task to effect a semi-domesticated manner and characteristic about the flocks, around town, and hopefully, some day, the birds will be hand-tame, out in public. It's a parable about the importance of loving and kind affections, in a sense. We all long to be with our life partner, and to establish a family around the ideas, based on the American Dream, although, as the images of the pigeons, here, in this case, show; we are not always successful at attaining our ends, means, and goals, in life, despite trying. 

In the end, I managed to get the pigeons' attention, and they did a roundabout whole-flock flight, for show. This behavioral pattern is to signal birds perching nearby of that resources had arrived, in order for the rest of the birds to eat. It's a pro-sociable figurative gesture; the rest of the birds are similarly seeking food, yet they would perhaps be missing out on the meal otherwise, whereas they are of intrinsic value to the entire flock, given that they're scouting out resources, just as similarly as they are, in this chosen source spot, for food; behind the building. It's a naturally-derived behavioral more, of worthy ethics about it. The human-relevant moral of this event is that we ought to have an ambient ethical threshold of consideration and manners towards others; it's the natural order, and sustainable life's path to follow. 

After some time, other birds had arrived, and they didn't seem all that hungry, for today. At least there's food sitting out, and tomorrow will be another day. 

The At-Home Parfumerie - How to mix like a semi-pro.

 After procuring a shelf-rack, or so, of fragrance ingredients of your choice and specialty, it’s time to employ “interval-mixing” in to the creative and manufacturing process.

The iPigeon.institute slight return shelf rack of perfumer’s ingredients, essential oils, and aroma molecules.

Making a simple “natural” smelling fragrance is not difficult - just purchase expensive and high-quality ingredients. But, in order to attain the scent profile of a higher-end cologne for men, for example, it requires some ingenuity in the logistics of “what’s going on | in” the fragrance. 

My mixing palette | my working process. I tried out what I would call “interval mixing,” which capitalizes on the notions of the deeper underlying chemistry behind the individual ingredients.

On one hand, the fragrance ought never quite completely fall out, from the bottom, itself, in to a poor-smelling thing. If you’d done this, don’t dump it - it’s largely against the law, internationally, and it’s poor morals. Instead, just save the fragmented artifact of manufacture, as a token partial that could be returned to, that might slightly fulfill some future need, even it it’s just drops of the stuff.

On my most current excursion and creation, however, I managed to deftly control the flow of creating a fragrance, with a collection number of ingredients totaling about 100, or so, give or take, without having created a poor-smelling product, which had been how many of my attempts to create a distinctly masculine-smelling fragrance product had turned out. I’d been getting some tips, through nightly searches about the facets and characteristics of ingredients, their expected percentage fill, of the entirety of a composition (fragrance or parfum base - which, in and of itself, take up perhaps 15-30% of the bottle, and the rest is water and alcohol (40-50%) and perhaps the rest of the fill is made up of quick notes, nuances, clean-ups, and touch-ups with essential oils, terpenes, crystals, musks, colors, etc.).

I wanted to do a men’s fragrance that was light-feeling, syrupy sweet, yet rich in savory background, such as that it would entice the olfactory sense’s relationship with the visceral and primal urges of hunger, upon encountering it. Easily gourmand, yet imagining a rich and eloquent debouter of enterprise and establishment to follow - picture a starving population, for example; yet many people refuse to eat, when offered food, or when found asking for charity. What could spark and inspire their neglected self-care better than a timely happenstance passersby encounter, on the street? What better disposition could there be, alongside the context being well-fed, in the American way? (or French, in nature, as I sometimes refer to). 

The secret to my creative process, in this instance, was to come up with a decent enough floral base - I chose Narcissus, in this instance, with 3-4 or so full and generous squirts from the dropper, although just 1, to begin with, in a pool of perfumer’s alcohol, in the bottle. 

Then I started to work my way around the fragrance’s underlying inspiration, which would be a light, crisp, and refreshing citrus assertion, for which I used some terpene ingredients, such as Limonene D. There was kumquat oil, as well. After this stage, I went back to tradition and rounded off the composition, as it was, with Lavandin Grosso. Then I grabbed my powders and crystals, to musky up the scent, and ground it, with concentrated force. I employed Ambroxan to ground out this first stage. 

The next phase I went in to was to add the primary natural characteristics that would shape the quality facets and natural appeal factor of the fragrance, using primarily essential oils, at this stage. I used Ginger CO2 (don’t ever get a ginger that’s not at least a CO2 extraction - my lesson learned), myrrh oil, tonka bean absolute (lots), jasmine tea perfume extract, citron oil, ylang ylang, cedarwood (atlas), and teak (just a little). Here, in this stage, I found that I wasn’t ruining the fragrance, by this point, so I decided to test out employing my crystals, which smell good, in and of themselves, but I’d read up on their common usage recommendations in a fragrance composition, and it’s typically at the 1%, or 0.1% or less. I have Exaltone, by Firmenich, and Ambrocenide, by Symrise, which I used, in this stage. 

Then, my inner animal 🦔 perhaps, started to perk up, and I thought about the ingredients, and their place in fragrance-making, which is largely based on descriptions of the properties, chemical name, and organoleptic properties of the material. I thought about ketones, which I’d read, are sometimes characterizable as metabolite products of the body. (Wikipedia). Oh, yeah. And just prior, I’d put some stuff in to the mix, like anisaldehyde and oud base, one of which had been touted as “the smell of the bathroom, toilet included” sort of thing. I figured, “well, these things have some basis in how they are created, as by-products of microbial, fungal, or plant life (even animals, in the past mostly), 

but, continuing forward, though, given that the ingredients had an appeal, on top of that I was creating this composition, as my main aspiration, and meanwhile, the fragrance base hadn’t turned bad on me, just yet, I figured that it was time for me to try and encapsulate the essence as it was, in this stage, so I added some musk ketone powder, for the sake of the fact that it (ketones) affect biological processes; I imagined that the oud base, or the dimethyl anthranilate, or pyralone (it was all of these, perhaps, in the end, to be honest; a modest amount of each of them) - these components, and the bacterial sorts of processes of interaction, reaction, or metabolism, of the energy products available, based on the richness of the ingredients, in and of themselves, much different, and more natural-smelling, since I was employing essential oils, mostly, at this stage, (some farnesol, also), and I’d formerly tried to employ these ingredients, of the [toilette] - means to an end (like, eau de toilette), and the mixture would end up getting worse and worse, the more I added to it, from here. 

Now, I didn’t actually add orange flower absolute, but I did do an ad-hoc Schiffs base, although I added the hydroxycitronellol in an equal amount to the iso butyl quinoline (pyralone), because I wanted to emphasize the citrusy character of the composition, and because the source and main composition was so rich in material, to begin with. All in all, at this phase, I threw in a small (mini) scoop spoon’s worth of musk ketone, in to the mix, because I figured that the ketone element, added in to the composition, would detract any ongoing (and eventual) free-radical occurrences from proliferating, and, in turn, I end up with a garbage composition. The musk ketones would keep the developing energetic processes distracted, and meanwhile, I have the buffer of these expensive crystals as the basis of what the mixture [could] eventually smell like, if needed; although it still hadn’t turned bad on me, which is important. 

Then I threw in some Iso E Super, after gently gyroscope-rotating the mixture around, and making sure that the crystals became well-incorporated in to the existing mix - 

Oh yeah! I forgot, at first, I started out with some very primary facet components of many to any type of fragrance composition - rose petals, jasmine sambac absolute, neroli oil, from Morocco, (at some point, in the composition; perhaps later on), and santalol, in modest amounts, each of them, yet somewhat only at the time being, of how small my beginnings were, in creating this mixture, and these ingredients, for having been expensive. (They still are expensive, for that matter, yet they’re quite essential in a fragrance composition, for how the smell’s purpose and character become modulated in to a new olfactory experience, at the command of the hand of the perfumer.

Some small vials of expensive essential oils and rich absolutes.

Having taken on this new, and progressively (intervals-bounded) methodology in manufacturing a fragrance composition, which I’d found somewhat difficult to do, for men’s sorts of fragrances, in the past, I now felt more at ease, in applying more ingredients, such as gurjun balsam, rhodinol, lauryl acetate C-12, para cresyl isobutyrate, nectaryl (to peach sweeten things up), beeswax absolute (for even more, and long-lasting sweetness), as well as two scoops of ethyl vanillin (with the small flat scoop).

Every invested gourmand would understand, as well, the fascinating combination and compelling novel effect (which I called “mooshy-moo”) that black pepper oil has upon a richly-established vanilla, as the “latest thing.” It’s a quite comforting and warming sensory experience. 

I didn’t want to leave any trails unmapped, so to speak. In intervals, I had planned to do the dump of crystals, such as Nerolin bromelia, as last-stand additions to the mix, yet I ended up tossing some in, a bit before I finished, since the perfumer’s alcohol works fast, yet I gyroscope-rotate the mixture, at this stage, to speed the musk ketone reactions up.

Then I thought, 

Hey, I have some celery ketone, as well! How about that, for the gourmand floral fragrant citrus (petitgrain got it’s own intervallic development ketone-assisted cycle in on it).

That’s about all, for now. 

Except for the onion skeet skeet - just 4 drops, (not of pure onion oil - significantly diluted, a few drops to 2 or so fl. oz.) - for the acrylates (thanks, Calvin Klein, for that tip off [context]).

Oh, yeah, there was Cetalox, as well. Benzyl Benzoate, and I topped off the composition, once I was fairly satisfied with it, with benzyl alcohol, to have a solvent base to incorporate the insoluble oils and water (also added at the end) together in to a miscible solution. I put some Yellow (Lake) and Basic Fuschia (2 drops), for color. There was trans-2 decanol, a tiny bit of humulene, and several drops of cinnamon bark oil. I put a drop of Geosmin into it, as well.

A mid-week's N.A. 9th Step Meeting - Making amends to others (in the age of the Internet).

 As I'm tasked with the prospect of otherwise getting off of a misdemeanor drug possession charge, for smoking a cigarette, as it began, out in Hermosa Beach, I have to somehow make time and set aside a place for a series of N.A. meetings. Here, in this meeting, I'm focusing on the 9th Step.

I'm confronted with the notion of that I had done wrong to someone, while I was on the job, and installing software, back in the day. I had a rich amount of socialization and opportunities abound, during that time, and although my offenses were just several, in general (aside from overt drug use, being late commonly, that sort of thing), there were some offenses that I had not made amends for, which are brought up for my consideration, here and there. I think that this is the last one. 

I had made a crude joke, as a stalking victim, myself, asking the guy if he usually has this much traffic going about outside his place. It was a total pokemon joke, and I was abusing privileged information. Aside from that, the emotional maturity of it mirrored my preteen years, when I had bullied a guy about his racial heritage, while I had partially similar heritage, myself. It was a completely indulgent and thoughtless thing, where I caught myself susceptible to suggestibility. Being suggestible is most commonly a route in to becoming someone, embodying a persona, if you would, whom we would not choose to, at some point. "For seeking, I find; eventually, as it goes." I've found seeking to be a finder's proposition, but a person pays the price of being a curious pigeon. 

That being said, I enjoy treating the seekers with what they search for, if they happen to be humble and present in God's good graces, such that the birds around town are, for food's sake. 

In this day and age, we have the opportunity to do proper and equitable amends unto others, through means such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or perhaps some other means, such as a Google search. Just try it, and it'll free you, and the one you had harmed: message them, and make amends. I'd done it for all others I'd offended most surely, except for this one guy, I had done this one slight towards, for novel amusement, as a hapless schizophrenic, and I believe I was homeless, as well. 

My apologies. It was a thoughtless and mentally ill thing of me to do. I've had the problem of doing impulsively thoughtless things to others, here and there, as a childhood problem. I'm not quite sure why I felt compelled to say such a thing, when I was fraught with some sort of similar situation, on my own part. 

The iPigeon.institute logo, and some 2020-2021 Pandemic Era Masks, as artifacts of the iPigeon.institute slight home exhibition of art and cultural effects.