Roast Beast

He broke away from them, from all of them. The reasons were unknown to them, but he knew best. It was in the depths of the mild winter that it became apparent that all of the life that he thought he'd known was nothing but a waste. He was alone, it seemed everyone in his life meant little to him anymore, and nothing in life seemed to matter greatly other than finishing up school, regardless of what anyone else thought or said, that was one thing which was going to come to fruition.

It was on December 24th, Christmas Eve 2006 that he made the final breaks with family and friends. A bag packed and the car gassed it was time to leave the small town forever and to never look back. No glances over shoulders, or furtive wondering over the reflections in rearview mirrors, leaving was imminent and ever-present. Lunch had gone poorly, in fact, the whole holiday season had gone terribly. The people who he thought he knew, turned out to be strangers. The sense of self which had been built into him through his 34 years had been shattered by a few months worth of disappointments and a few moments of confrontation. Suddenly; there at rock-bottom, new life and light began to burn.

Ramblin around

Does anyone else wonder sometimes, What am I doing here? I get the feeling, quite often that there's something I should be doing; like the nagging feeling that you're forgetting something when you're leaving the house. Or maybe that's just me.
I get those feelings like I'm forgetting something pretty often, and usually it's because I have I find out later when I figure out what it is that I've forgotten. It's usually something as silly as my cup of coffee in the morning or a piece of mail. Although, where does that 'nagging feeling' come from? Is it rooted deeply in this treadmill existence that we're all living? Are we such creatures of habit that any change in our surroundings confuses us?

Things happen in all our lives which upset the norm, and this is usually a great thing for growth. Whether or not we know it, there's some force driving all of our lives. Call it God, call it Universe, call it whatever but whether or not we've got free-will, there's too much that you can pick up if you just tune into what the Universe has to say for there not to be something out there, somewhere else.

Simple Things

Sometimes, I get the impression that as a race we spend a lot of time deceiving ourselves into believing things. Whether it's something about who we think we are or what we believe, we all spend time telling ourselves things to find some meager piece of mind to get us through the day. It's really an exercise in futility and it doesn't do anything except upset the rest of the people in our lives which are affected by the fantasies which we construct to make ourselves feel better about who we think we are.

I'm tired of being an ant and going through the motions of living with my head down. I don't know about the rest of you out there, but isn't it about time to open up to the rest of what there is on this planet outside of yourself? I spend a lot of time observing other people, and I have to say most everyone seems to be so into themselves and unconscious of anyone around them.

Try this out, next time you're standing in line at the grocery store, department store, market, or whatever. Take a few moments to watch how people interact with the cashier. Only a few will converse with them, a select few will show genuine interest in them as more than a money changer. Then when it's your turn, strike up a conversation, smile at them, show some genuine interest in their situation. It's a simple thing.

Who Knows, maybe there isn't....

Lately, odd forces have been at work in me, propelling me towards action. We look so often in our lives for moments of inaction, for 'down-time' those few stolen moments that we choose to share with our solitary selves. But, then at other times...there are moments when the Universe tells us we must seek the opposite. We are driven to seek out something other than ourself. Something which is a compliment to who we perceive ourselves to be.

Tomorrow, I have to take care of some personal business which has been a detriment to what Maslow would call my 'self-actualization'. This is a situation which has been on-going for over a year now and it's really been something which has given me a signifcant amount of pause in descisions which I've made or directions I've chosen to go. But, now that I'm staring it in the face, I'm forced to wonder why I've allowed this thing to hold me back in such a way?
The importance which I personally placed upon this event, this problem in my own life has ruled me, and I've allowed it to unable to do anything other than to wait.

Now, that I've waited all this time, I'm still grappling with the feeling of dread which comes with finally meeting the situation face to face. I know that I'm going to be fine no matter what happens with the situation, I know that after a few more hours of waiting that this too will pass much the same as anything else we face in our daily existence. But, this has been such a detrimental thing to me over the past year and a half that I've grown to put such limitations on myself and to cease the seeking which I'd previously been a part of.

I think that in the larger picture, that we choose to put the brakes on our own lives from time to time. It's a necessity, we have to pause to take stock of things, sometimes, those brakes that we choose are our own, and sometimes it's the Universe which determines that we need to look around and see where we are in our lives.


Who knows? Maybe there isn't a vein of stars calling out my name..
No glow, up above our heads..
Nothing there to see you down on your knees..

I like to think that there's something up there, something outside ourselves that we spend time in communication with. A force, whether it's God, the Universe, Jesus, Buddah, Confucius, Mohammed, Allah, or some other Diety which I've neglected to name that each of us communicates with for our direction. Perhaps it's just some higher part of ourselves, maybe the Superego, our center of reason that we ask for how to handle the hurdles in our lives from when we see them approaching to the moment when we finally must lift our leg and surpass them.

The big analogy.

The yin/yang is a familiar Chinese symbol. I thought of it today when I saw an artist rendition of a black hole which some astronomers believe to exist at the center of many galaxies, our own included. The yin/yang essentially means that when a force reaches it's greatest intensity, it's zenith, that it already contains the seed of it's opposite. What if, these black holes at the center of galaxies are the embodiment of that familiar symbol. A universe filled with matter imploding upon itself in a hole of imperceptibility.
If it does absorb all light, energy, matter, and all of the things which our human intellect can perceive of, then where does that indestructible and interchangeable mass and energy dissipate to? Does it pass to another state of dualism hinted at in the yin/yang, being and nothingness? The Universe and not the Universe?
We're a dualistic being, our minds ponder, reality/dreams; light/dark; good/evil; male/female; life/death and millions of other analgous concepts. We build religions around these same concepts as they rule the living of our lives. The image of the black hole today brought those questions above to my mind based on the same concept of the Yin/Yang.

A funny thing happened on the way

A funny thing happened to me recently, I replaced my car. Perhaps that doesn't sound all that 'funny', but I'm not referring to comical. You see, I had been driving a car with no air conditioning in the hottest part of the year, tires which were about to blow, an appetite for oil unsurpassed, and generally just a piece of crap. I bought that car for $400 dollars when I filed for bankruptcy, and I drove it for over a year. Before that, the car was languishing in the country. It belonged to a young couple in a lesser developed part of the area. Needless to say, it was in disrepair when I got it and disrepair when I got rid of it.
Anyway, I was plotting how to replace the crumbling silver 1990 Mazda-MX6, the life waning from it daily. But yet, up until now, for over a year that piece of shit car got me back and forth to work and even some play. The day before I found what I would late call my new car, I'd received the 'blank check' which would free me from one situation and bind me into a financial commitment. Mind you, after driving that car for all of that time, I was ready to do something to get out of it.

So, I'm leaving for work and I've got all my stuff. I notice I've laid out the 'blank check' and I get it, except I can't get it and I drop it. This plays out a few more moments until I finally grab it. Well after I get in my car and down the road, I notice that it's acting really bad. It's making a new chugging noise that I'd not heard it making before, so I pull over and give it some oil. I get back in, and finally after getting further down the road I realize that my car isn't going to make it. So, at that moment I decide to turn around.

The place where I turned around was at the bottom of a long incline, and to cut this short, my car didn't make it up the hill. I coasted over into the median and came to a stop there on the incline up the hill. Luckily, there was a turn out not too far down from where I stopped at. I coasted down the median backward and into the turn out and came to a nice stop facing in sort of a more right direction.

All the while, there I am with my car that I'm trying to get rid of, that I hate, and it dies within walking distance of the dealerships.

It makes me wonder if that chain of events would have played out this way if I hadn't taken the financing packet with me. Would the car have died anyway?

I'm actually glad that it did, and I'm glad things happened the way that they did.

What if?

If the spaces between all of our electrons quarks and muons are composed of an infinite amount of space...then our crux in the cosmos is the frontline of destructions between matter and energy. Each and every action has an equal and opposite reaction, the correlations throughout all our perceptive abilities supports this, but can we extend it to the unseen world around us in each of our moments of waking. All of the negative reactions you have to the world, sooner or later have their equal and opposite positive reaction.
Our conscious is a product of the destruction and emergence of energies, a static flux where there is a constant flow of equal and opposite energies, a nexus where there is a neutral chage, a singular non-polar gateway between.

What if we are the singular, organic cellular part of a large living organism. The Universe, God, Allah, Buddah, Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva, are particles of that, organic thought processes of some larger consciousness. I know, that's been explored through science fiction films as a hackeneyed theme, but what if?

i hope that someone gets my

Just start writing, eventually someone will read it. Maybe the right person will read it, the audience of your communication. Perhaps, it's someone far away that you're in love with. Maybe, by chance she'll see and understand that all those moments stolen actually were building a bond that trancended distances and time. Perhaps, that person feels those same feelings and perhaps they're thinking the same things at the moment you're writing your rant.

I wish I were somewhere in a calm place, near...dear. Breathe, inhale slowly, and taste the moment. Across the gulf, your wild hair hanging about in rivulets, those dark pools lose me within. These moments, stolen as they are leave more fulfillment and lasting joy. We ride those winds and wild waves, across the rift of wires and the electronic chasm, the tremors of life, swimming in the sea, staring into the sands and shorelines....floating in the fields high above the treelines. I laugh with you in silence, as the sun casts a glimmer upon the depths of darkened pools, and then memories..

I awoke, and thought for a moment.

But, it was just a dream.

Still, the night travels remained through the waking day.

Blank

The blank page offers us opportunities to clear out some of the cobwebs which have found their way into the corners of our minds, draped across the panes of our views, and crowded over the unentered passageways of our thoughts. i

Just a blip..

Wouldn't it be remarkable to have spent your entire life in anonymity where no one ever knew your name publicly until you've passed on. Then, upon your passing anyone who drives by the funeral home sees your name there in flashing ten-inch tall letters. For a brief moment, drivers would read your name and wonder about you, who you were, what accomplishments you made in your lifetime, did you have friends, family, were you loved, what you did while you were here. Then, as quickly as your name faded in a blink of electricity the drivers musings would turn to their own safety, their own lives, loves, happinesses, and heartaches. As the last spark of electricity faded from the bulbs that illumined your notoriety for that moment, suddenly you'd be forgotten by people who never knew you.
In this life we're given a few chances to make good on living, much of it happens in fits and starts after a fashion. Though, eventually many of us get something going for ourselves that puts food in our bellies, a roof over our heads, a companion that gives us joy, and maybe some affiliations that provide a modicum of identidy to our meager turnings. Yet, what of those multitudes out there who are living this life in complete anonymity. Those millions of unknowns who if only a moment flash onto our radar and then, disappear

Chatroom B.S. 101

Sometimes, I really question the values that many people wandering the planet these days embrace. You can get a strong sense of large swaths of the population if you spend any time in a chatroom. Granted there are a lot of great people that frequent them, but the freaks and wastes seem to be outnumbering those people lately. Perhaps, it's just me.
I just wonder sometimes, how people who come into a chatroom and deride the other people in there with racial slurs, curses, and hateful comments would actually conduct themselves that way in a public forum. Would the same sexual innuendo, racial hatred, homophobia, misogyny, harassment, and general baser conduct played out in chatrooms fly the same in the real world? If people want to get in a public forum and act this way, why not actually do it then, in the real world? Why bother hiding their true faces behind a flat screen and a 12pt bold font? Might it be that they're afraid to get out there in the world and really let the objects of their angst know how they really feel? Are they afraid that they may be pummeled, drug behind speeding automobiles, or hung from trees if they really began spouting off their vehement hateful remarks in mixed company in the real world?
Then, why do it online? Cowardice, or boredom.

You'd think that as a group of people, that we'd spend all that time trying to figure things out. But, all that energy is wasted on completely useless things. And yet, still it goes on and on.

Oh well....if you can't beat them, join them nicely.

Just another brick.

This world is made of walls, and each of us are but a brick within it. Yes, I was listening to Pink Floyd...get off my back already will ya?
What I wanted to say was that, whatever wall it is, everyone makes up an integral part of it. It might be a wall of solitude, a wall of silence, or a wall of joy...but everyone's got a part to play in this movie show, day in and day out.
I'm not sure what wall I'm a brick in yet. I'm still trying to find that cobble hole where I fit into, especially lately. I think i'm just laying there waiting for someone to pick me up and throw me through a window with a message tied around my waist. Maybe I don't fit into a wall, Maybe I'm one of those bricks that's a part of one of those sidewalk sculptures or a simple cobblestone whose getting run over every day by a train.
I guess all of us need to find where we fit in this crazy mixed up world.

Random

We can never truly know what it's like inside someone else's skin. We can sympathize, empathize, proselytize, and pretend to be wise about the subject all we desire, but it's an impossibility to truly know what another person is thinking or feeling.

Just a random thought at nearly 5 A.M.

Reasons, Causes, Effects, and Affects

In life we're forced to make choices and live with those consequences. Some of them follow us throughout our lives, and in our moments of solitude they come back to us and we revisit our actions. Did I do the right thing? Why didn't I do this? I could have done that, or this, or the other. Well, we do those things that we do in our lives for reasons that aren't readily known to us at the time. Later, the purposes become clear when we get to where we're going.
Some of our mistakes or bad momentary choices can put us on the path to our greatest of joys. I've made a few bad choices in my life, just like anyone else on this planet. But, I can't really say that I truly regret those choices. Had I not made some of them, there's a strong possibility that I would have never started this blog and I wouldn't be talking to you right now. I'd never have gone on to produce some of the work that I've done as a part of my courses at Art Institute, or written some of the things that I've written in the past. I might never have met some of the people which I've met and come to count as friends if not for some of those choices that I made.
Life truly, is what you make of it. If you make a mess of it in the meantime, it'll work out in the long run. It might not be clear to you now, but in time...as you're walking through that darkest forest...eventually you'll find that sunny clearing where you'll be able to get your bearings and choose another path into a more gorgeous part of the forest.
It's been a strange trip for me. I've made a lot of bad choices in the past, but they've gotten me to a point, and brought me along the path that I needed to be on. I'm sure that those same things that you've done will do the same for you.

Sooner, or later.....you'll see.

Defeating the Distances

What connects people across the great divides? Technologies have given us the power to 'defeat the distances' between worlds and hearts. While our bundles of wires and glass windows on the world aren't a substitute for the closeness of a warm embrace, the warmth comes from our knowledge that out there, at the other end of a phone line, a keyboard, a screen, or microphone cable is a good friend, a companion, a family member, or some as yet unknown love which will one day walk with us through grassy fields.
Life, and living truly is what we choose to make of it. We can be happy or sad about our situations of distance, but we shouldn't ever give up that one day, all we've hoped for, all our dreams will come true. For, if we stop dreaming a part of our soul will die, you never give up chasing after what you're dreaming of in this life.

Many have thrown their arms into the air, and given up in fear of succeeding at finally capturing the butterfly which eludes them in their waking life. For any of our hopes and desires to be made real in this world, we have to take those risks needed to make them come about. Little that is great in life, is easy to accomplish. Whether it's a job, a love, a life, a career, a relationship, or climbing a mountain. We have to find those parts of ourselves, which are holding us back from our ultimate realities, deal with them on a firsthand basis, conquer them, and make our dreams a reality.

The distances which divide us, are small when we consider the gulf which dwells within ourselves at times.

Harmonies and dissonance

The great dualities of human existence govern our lives every day. We're born alone, and effectively we die alone. Is there a god, is
there not a god. We love, we hate, we're cold, we're hot, and the list goes on and on. Our nature is a dual nature. Within each of us, there are polar extremes to our existence. We are body, and spirit. We are mind, and heart. It's enescapable. The greatest trial of our lives is to find a balance between these two extremes of our conscious states. Finding this middle ground, and living within it, is something which mankind has sought from the first moments of sentience.
So, why is it when someone says that they've lost the love of their life can they not right themselves quickly? Would they be so distraught if they had lost the hate of their lives? Would they feel so empty if they could never experience true cold in their lives? Why is it that love has such the effect upon human beings that it is the penultimate governance of our consciousness? Is it that love is the most imporant part of us? Is our nature made for love, is it built from love, so much so that we are drawn to seek it in other beings?
I was recently in a chatroom where there was someone there who had lost the love of their life. You could hear the pain and sorrow in their voice, in the words that they spoke of this person. Is this how we combat those primordial feelings of being born alone, that we seek out the perfect compliment to our lives in the embodiment of another human being to fight off the fears of ever having to face that terror and loneliness again?
In our world, we are closer together than we have ever been as a race. We are connected in ways that we have never been. It's likely that at some point in the future we will be connected ever closer to one another as a race, will this need for companionship continue to rule our lives in that time when we can feel and touch from across the wide sea? My guess is yes, it's deep in our nature to seek out the comfort of another warm body on cold nights.

Ceasing Inactions

We spend a lot of time stopping ourselves. Censoring our own actions for the good of others, or for the self-satisfaction of saving ourselves from feeling like a fool for some reason or other. I think that's it's past time that everyone just puts their guards down and finally admits to the world, how they really feel about things. I don't mean that there should be some outpouring of built up angst, who would want that? That stuff is better held back for the sake of everyone, especially the self. Those negative feelings are probably best not expressed, maybe I'm just dancing around something that I don't want to admit. Maybe it's something that I've felt for a couple of years about someone and I don't want to tell her. Even though, I've this feeling that tugs at me, and calls to me that she feels something too. So, why not just go for broke, just put it all out there and say hey! Well, it's just not that easy when you've managed to build a great friendship with a person. You have to take things carefully, managing each of the progressions with all the intent of a four-star general.
But, that's not really living is it? Isn't life supposed to be a spontaneous thing which happens in those moments between our breaths? Are we supposed to take the 'bull' by the horns and go for broke in each moment that we're given to live on this rock?
I suppose that with everything, there is a medium which we have to be painfully aware of. Our mediums are different, because our grounds are so different. The levels we choose for ourselves are so different that the levels which we meet with others upon, but life is short. If we don't go for the things we want from life, then it could pass us by.
That would be sad wouldn't it, if our greatest opportunities just passed by us. Those great loves, the successes which we would miss, the parts of the world which we would miss seeing, and the people who would forever remain only a thought across the miles.
This is not the time for introspective meandering, this is finally the time for action. No more handwringing and soft-stepping, we must make our own destinies, fulfil our own dreams, and blaze our own trails. Our leaders have forsaken us for currency, so should we forsake them for our own currents.

'Tis time to paddle against the current.
We shall lay in might stores for the coming storm.
Our grainaries shall burst under their own weight
and our bellies shall be full with the zest we find in our lives.
This is our season to shine, and we shall be the brightest of stars

This is truly the time to put aside all our longings, all our shortcomings, and all of our self-pronounced doubts. We are at the crux of a mighty war for our very souls, and it is truly the domain of each of us that we take the charge to treat one another with the dignity which we so desperately desire for ourselves.

Your body like a searchlight
my poverty revealed,
I would like to try your charity
until you cry, "Now you must try my greed."
And everything depends upon
how near you sleep to me

---Leonard Cohen "Take this longing"