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"

Golden Rules

Why is it that human relationships are such a jumble? Is it that there's just some humongous obstacle between each of us? I have to say, my set of relationships haven't been that bad, at least when I've been lucky enough to find rational people to have relationships/friendships with. Why can't people just follow that golden rule?

Do unto others, as you'd have them do unto you.

That pretty well sums up the entire scope of a perfect utopian existence. Why's it so hard to follow that simple rule? Why can't everyone simply just stop and say, 'Wait a minute, if I act this way then I'm giving this person to act that way towards me.' It seems like such a simple act, like a logical progression to relating to anyone else on this planet. Yet, every day we are faced with the same set of bullshit from the other people in our lives where this simple axiom isn't follwed.

Sure, each of us, likely don't follow the rule to the letter either. But, we know we should. Or do we?

Would it be such a trial to live our daily lives in reciprocation for the kindnesses which were enacted upon us, as well as the evils? After all, the inverse of the axiom is true.

You are free to do unto others, as they have done unto you.

It has to be, the original rule, while the spirit of it likely communicates to us that we should be just and kind to others still grants the opposite within it.

I guess, if you take the golden rule and the laws of karmic retribution together as a belief system, then you're likely to do okay in this world.

Do unto others, as they do unto you, but beware. Your actions will come back to you tenfold.

Said another way, If you make an ass out of your neighbor, it's likely you'll be the one eating hay for the rest of your life.

Time, Time, Time

Why am I not sleeping?

Lately, the days haven't been composed of enough time. 2005 has been like a vapor. It hardly seems to have begun and now we are at the end of it. Perhaps time is accelerating, or my perception of it is growing, or maybe it's decreasing.

Is it that as we age our ability to sense time changes?



Rusted brandy in a diamond glass
everything is made from dreams
time is made from honey slow and sweet
only the fools know what it means
temptation, temptation, temptation

Jokes stored in jars

The funny things in life are best hinted at. At times, they are painfully obvious and it takes a great strength of will to avoid pointing them out to a potential victim. At others, depending on the situation it's perfectly fine to plunge that razor witticism directly into an unsuspecting neck. Those situations are myriad and they depend upon the involved parties. You have to admit though, it does take a strength of will to pass on one of those instances and put it away for the future. To simply bide your time until the proper moment comes along to spring it once more. By then, you've evolved the perfect delivery and point of entry to deliver it in the harshest way. Or, you'll choose to laugh about it to yourself for a while and treasure that little snippet for yourself. You sort of just put it up on a shelf, in a little jar in your mind. Sometimes taking it down and opening up the jar, smelling it to see if it's still fresh, then recapping it, and placing it back on the shelf.

A few cryptic words of advice for anyone thinking about it, acting acting like it, considering it, desiring it, planning it, scheming on it, or plotting to get married.

First, what's the big hurry?

Second, if you're going to do it don't go about telling your former spouses. Just do it, why do they really need to know, or why do they even care?

Third, don't go about telling your former spouses after you've told them once before and it didn't happen.

So, let's recap.

If you have the opportunity to say something hurtful to someone, sometimes you should do it, other times you shouldn't.

After someone divorces you, they probably did it for a good reason and don't really care if you are getting married again. The fact is, they are probably hoping you will so that you'll have better things to do than take all your angst out on them. Further, you should learn your lesson after the first time you tell them that you are about to marry someone and it doesn't happen. If you don't learn that lesson, you're bound to be the butt of countless jokes stored in jars on shelves for many years.

You might not get laughed at to your face, but there will likely be a lot of laughter and pity behind your back.

Nation of Idiots

We are a nation of slathering masses salivating at the moment when the delicacies of capitalism are revealed to us. We lose simple coordination if we don't get the products we need, soiling our clothing and our floors.
Advertisers paint the people in commercials to be stumbling and bumbling dolts. Consider the current commercial for the return of the McRib sandwich. The commercial is centered in a dry cleaner where a long line of customers are continuing to arrive with shirts and blouses stained with McRib sauce. The commercial cautions us to leave our good shirts at home. Are we really this moronic and incapable of having a meal without spilling or dripping foodstuffs upon our clothing? McDonald's marketing would like us to think that we are. I wonder, of you out there, how many fit into this psychographic niche. These fast food diners who can't seem to avoid staining their clothing.
Another good example is the campaign from Hardee's(Carl's Famous Star in the west.
Their campaign claims, 'Without us, some guys would starve.' Now, I've eaten at Hardee's on several occasions, but I don't feel like I would starve without them. I'm a guy and I'm perfectly capable of seeing to my needs for sustenance without the need of driving to their restaurant. A prime example of their target audience is depicted in the commercial that features an early morning thirtysomething who has foolishly allowed his coffeemaker to run over into the floor. The voiceover is painting a picture of his ability(and other of these guys who would perish) get a promotion, juggle three girlfriends, etc, but this 'breakfast' it's mystical and there's no way that one of these guys can actually manage to feed himself in the morning.

Are we really this nation of idiots?

And where is our portion control gene?

Perception

When we peel back the thin gossamer of our perceptions, what is it that we see there staring back at us? What is truth? Is the truth what we can see? Is it what we can touch, smell, or hear? Is it just that the truth, the reality is what is happening between our ears, inside the synaptic junctions flashing at light speed in our brains as we struggle to understand.
I think that I've hit bottom sometimes, and I feel that I can't string a few words together to describe a feeling or a thought. I write something most every day, whether it's a scribble in a notebook, a post in a blog, or something for my courses. But the words which I can attach to things, they seem to be coming slower lately, more labored, and perhaps with more difficulty. Perhaps it's the onset of old age at 33, or maybe it's an excessive imbibe of alcohol from time to time, who knows...it could be some bad hamburger, the ozone, the cleaners, or any environmental, physical, psychosomatic factor. All I know is that there are spaces, where the efforts to describe a thought, or a feeling, are growing more difficult. My perceptions of life, perhaps, are changing.
I think that at times, I try to stop thinking, to dwell in an empty-ignorant haze, just so I don't have to deal with some events which surround me. Maybe it's time to come back and pour all of that crap out. Maybe I should pull back the thick layer of gauze that I've covered over my perceptions of late, step back out of the shadows, and let the sun warm my face again.

Right Brain

Happiness is the qualification of your efforts by the right side of your brain.

Maybe I've been thinking about the dual nature of humanity lately. There's a creative side and an analytical side, so why wouldn't our greatest moments of happiness come from those moments when both sides of our brain are in complete agreement?

Left Brain

Where the heck does the day go? There you are working away on something, totally absorbed in it, and then suddenly it's 10 pm. Isn't the conscious mind a remarkable thing? How our perceptions fool us with linear time; making one moment of dread last forever as bliss passes in a wink.
I guess that's what is meant by, ignorance is bliss. Whether it's the ignorance that comes from being absorbed in the moment, or the ignorance born from unknowing. When the trappings of our analytical mind are prevented from intrusion upon coloring our realities we are left to our creative interpretations of what we see before us. How the sun sets in the evening, how the daisies grow in summer, and how the birds fly south in the winter. The mundane becomes remarkable without the harshness of reason.
The absence of creative spark, of inspiration, and joy leaves us longing. Inside of everyone there is a piece of the universe that is connected on some level to a world which is much larger than we can ever know. Those gossamer threads that run between hearts, connecting the far away together, and the close even closer; find purchase in words. Those threads are woven into tapestries, invisible, only to the unseeking. Those who never seek, shall never find, their anylitical minds forever dominating their view with shades of black and white.

Spiders on a Screen

I wonder what it's like sometimes to be a spider perched on the screen of a porch and suddenly you're brutally flipped away from an unknown force into a somewhat familiar environment of grass. It must be a sudden shock for that moment of time, though to the spider who likely doesn't have the same concept of time it must be an eternity to be falling toward the ground and to suddely be buffeted by blades of grass. I suppose that those same things happen to us in our own lives. We fall into our own complacency with how our lives are, the routines of our daily lives and then from nowhere a force comes into our perceptions and hurls us headlong into a new perception. At that moment we're given the choice to seek out new paths, new routes to success, new modes of being, and new horizons...or we can simply die there in the grass.
Yes, I've changed the perceptions of a few spiders in my time. It's a hobby of mine. When I see them on my screen porch, like a mischevious child I decide that I'm going to flip them off the screen. It's the closest that I come to affecting the lives of any other beings on this planet in the short term at least. I suppose you can make a correlation between the parent/child role also. Will you be a parent who supports the child like the blades of grass, or that which flips your child maliciously from the screen which they've climbed for so long to reach a perch upon? But, deeper still...there are other correlations which can be made. God, The Universe, The Prime Mover, Shiva, Allah, Buddah, or whatever you call the Supreme Being is essentially that same sort of mindset which I've expressed here.
We climb all our lives to reach a zenith, a precipice where we can look over into the abyss and see what we've been striving for our entire lives. When, at the moment of our greatest revery, after we've stalked our prey for so long, in a moment...everything changes and we're forced to start anew. It could be a death, the destruction of our homes, a divorce, a marriage, or some other major change in our own specific paradigms. Regardless, it happens to everyone, shall we just give up and die there in the grass...or seek out other screens, other points of superiority, and other vistas for our dreaming?