Kung Fu Part 2

The battle had been raging for some time now. The warriors had adopted the form of the humans who now inhabited a part of the universe. It was a courtesy to the people, a consolation for their unanswered questions and prayers.
The evil brother was striking critical blows to the good brother. The path was becoming rocky and hard to see. More mountains began to sprout up in the land of the infinite and the battle was fought from mountain to mountain. The good brother had no hope of winning. He decided to try to limp to a truce.
The truce was successfully negotiated with the evil brother winning the ability to answer prayers and the good brother winning the burden of watching all. The good brother would fight the evil brother and, as these wars between clans go, nothing really changed aside from some glimmers of hope for the Yah-wei clan. Complete victory can only come to the evil brother as he has strategically placed himself on the top of the great, first mountain. The good brother resides at the bottom where he can only be seen if one truly wishes to see Him.

Kung Fu

A young warrior of the Yah-wei clan walked the lonely road to the singular mount. When he first came here it was when everything started. The clan began so that he could be a part of it. It's members were his friends. The mount was their stronghold and his home. The path led to the mount in both ways and the path existed because there must be a trial. The warrior had no name because he was the first. He would name his clan members when he felt they needed them. Names serve only to distinguish and he did not need to be distinguished as his fighting did that for him.
From the mount, the warrior could see all. He could see nothing. Nothing except evil caused by the warrior's brother. This warrior had no name because he was known. They both had a quest and it relied on the other's. Their quest was the same and it would cause the destruction of the other. The warrior of the Yah-wei clan knew what he must do and felt nothing towards it. Only one of the two brothers could truly exist. They had never fought before and had always been fighting. Their fight would only happen once and would continue forever. The effects would be felt for eternity as defined by the universal time.   The warriors were in no hurry.
Once in the mount the Yah-wei warrior decided to give the fight its purpose. His brother recognized this and together they started the process of the worlds. This would be the domain of the victor and it could only exist because of the Two. The Two together were the only perfect being to ever exist, and by virtue of this there has always been perfection. The fight for infinity depended on these two warriors.

The evil brother struck first as he leveled the mountain of the Yah-wei clan. The warriors of equally pure intentions faced off on the path.

Heaven is a place where nothing ever happens

Thinking about the afterlife is initially the most horrifying and sad thing that a human can do. Our primal fears of the unknown that can't be rationalized in any way are presented to us in death. I try to get past this by thinking optimistically about death. We know so little that there are seemingly infinite possibilities for the infinite. The probable explanation of nothingness can be seen as a good thing in that it is motivation to live life to the fullest. But boy do I hope there is a heaven like in the Bible. I don't believe it but it would sure be swell. It makes no fucking sense, but the absurd is a simple explanation for the unexplainable. I guess what I really hope is freedom from the burden of only living once. I am scared that I will be dissatisfied with myself for the life I have lived. Reincarnation would be excellent even if there is no release from the world because I would still get to live life. Heavenly perfection is the highest that I can hope for. If it exists I don't have to worry about praying to get in because everyone gets in. God can not exist with Satan in the same universe. Good either triumphs Evil or vice-versa. If there are supreme beings then there is only one and it is either Good or Evil.
Here's what heaven is like if it exists: No one cares about anything. Everyone is free from everything we perceive as humans. We can't be humans in heaven because the human form is dispensable. The soul enters eternity and becomes a perfect member of the infinite in the universe. I can't imagine what this is like, but it must be perceived as something to my soul because it is reality. This isn't boring because time causes boredom and time does not exist. This perfection, this completeness, is what God has and is. There is nothing like this in the physical world.
Of course none of this matters because we definitely go nowhere when we die. Our minds, which are so lauded for their ability to reason everything out, are not so special. We simply are able to understand exactly what is placed in front of us. If there is no proof to a statement then the statement does not exist. What is the human brain aside from a highly advanced computer? Emotions can be explained in the context of evolution, desire to exist, and fear of loss of existence. The idea that humans are special and have a place in the universe above that of a dung beetle is the pure invention of the human mind which is not something outside of the physical world. Minds can change; brains can be crushed like any physical object. Our incredible tools of simple logic are not exempt from the harsh realities of the physical world, the finite. Evolution may end at humans, but if it doesn't thought processes can not ever transcend the physical world. The spiritual realm is not for humans to know in this state. Nirvana is nothing more than acceptance and a sense of place. I hope to find it someday, but I doubt it will make me any more alive once my body decays than a frantic, confused man, lost in the world. Heaven would be nice, and I can't definitively deny it, but I will not waste any time working towards it in any way outside of metaphor.

New Year's Resolutions

Yeah I guess I'll try to keep these.

1. Write more. In every way I can.

• Expand all of my genuinely good ideas for essays or anything into actual pieces
• Try my hand at poetry.
• Write more of "Uncle Dad."
• Write a short story over the summer or at least when I have time.

2. Keep reading philosophically important works. Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Dostoyevsky, etc.

3. Stop wasting time instead of doing what I actually want to do.

4. Only do things that I can rationalize as not wasting time. (kinda like 3 but still)

5. Be careful with my sense of humor, only making jokes that are actually funny/learn what is funny definitively

6. Don't become my father. I have to cut that shit out right now.

7. Work on my relationship with my father.

Yes Steve I stole a couple of yours

Dreams are free

I am riding in a car with a kid I know from school. His most distinguished feature is that he is Russian and because I know this I'm not surprised by the old men sitting in the front seats squabbling in a foreign tongue. As we drive away from my school into a town that looks nothing like Chicago I see a man yelling at a hot dog stand in which no one is working at the moment. The man, all too passionate about encased meat product, pulls out a tommy gun from his trench coat. I look back in horror at the man taking out his consumer rage on the uninhabited stand. I see that the man is charging in the direction of the car. The street has lost its false sense of security and everyone starts running around with no knowledge of how inefficient they are. If everyone acted calmer under duress tragedies would be downgraded to events. I wish that society hadn't ever happened. That the freeways would go away and be replaced by rolling plains. Simplistic life is not something I can really find anymore. Living outside of society is not a lifestyle my mind or body are conditioned for. Societal comforts are now necessary to me and I can't think of a greater tragedy to my being.
Scene change: Chicago, United Center plaza. The Bulls are waiting to play a game, but have scampered out into the common area to be scared with the rest of us. But who is that in Joakim Noah's jersey? It's another one of my classmates! He's tall but not quite as tall as Joakim. He laughs with me, just as surprised that he is the starting center for the Bulls as I am. The gunman has made his way to the United Center along with me and all hell breaks loose around me and my classmate. We can't get over how funny it all is. Situational comedy can't be beat when it's shared. It's so great to be able to laugh at ourselves. The gunman isn't done. As long as he has ammunition he'll keep going.

Feeling Shitty

My life is not hard. I have no great challenges to overcome and yet I feel shitty sometimes. As I am generally happy, I don't have to feel this way a lot and I overcome it quickly because I'm smart enough to see how meaningless my problems are. But I still hate it.
Feeling loved is the best feeling in the world, making feeling unloved, hated, the worst. I know I'm not really alone in the world, but I feel pretty fucking alone in my own home. Knowing my dad is proud of me is one of the best kinds of love, and its because of this that knowing he doesn't know who I really am feels so bad. Most kids whose parents don't know them haven't let them in. Haven't tried to let their parents understand them. In these cases it's a problem on both sides. I've tried every day of my life to get my dad to be my best friend. I've really tried to forge a great relationship with him. Rejection hurts like nothing else and the worst kind is ignorant rejection. I'm the ignorant one because I keep trying and can't see that I just don't belong.

Faith

It is simultaneously easy and impossible to believe in God. The thinking human realizes the physical impossibility of God's existence outside of the universe, in a place where He could have created our universe. But that same human must see the necessary existence of some force to create the universe we exist in. No real thing can come from true nothingness. Our physical reality is like a dream without God as an explanation. Dreams don't have beginnings, rather they are movies which we are viewing already in progress. No matter how early we can go with scientific exploration, something had to have always existed and this could have been physical matter, but the chain of events that followed the initial existence of the first physical particle was set in motion by some outside force and God, in some form, is that outside force.

Faith is a crutch that verifies existence and makes existence easier to bear. Faith can shoulder our everyday burdens. Faith is tested in death, the death of others, of those close to us. Faith makes death bearable for those who have it because it lets the cliche "They are in a better place with God" apply. This is delusion. This belief that God wants to have our loved ones with Him falls apart in the fact that dying people cry. God's will can not override that of man.
The belief that death is the end of all life and that the universe does not care may not be delusional, but is far less happy and can not really be the philosophy of a happy person. Many people say they believe this, say they understand the indifference of the universe and the triviality of live. Those who deny meaning to life are dissatisfied with their own.
Those people who choose not to explain their life in the context of God and accept life as it is and do not fear it enough to place themselves in one of the two extremes are the ideal. Faith in its ideal form simply accepts life with the hope that there is a plan for life set in motion by God. The confident, unafraid life is spent in the same way, only the hope comes from within.
Life in the context of God is not wrong. Life becoming God and blindly praying that God will change your life for the better is the problem of faith. Theistic existentialism.

Sorry for the shitty haikus

The syllables were all over the place. If the haikus come again they will be correct. I have to count on my fingers and I feel stupid but feeling stupid is better than non-haiku haikus!

Haikus because of friend

Nature Without Man
Once a field now a highway
how did this happen?



Is love the only thing
For me to feel anymore?
Fear is just as real


God's love for mankind
Is an indifferent one. Unknown
to his followers


I want a mountain
to call my home as I wilt
from my body into it

From Dust to dust we
return but never know from where
that dust came or why


These secrets will not tell
me their mysteries and they
may never be known


Murder is a choice
but death is a given. Still the
mailman delivers

Christmas Eve Tradition

Every Christmas Eve is the same. The morning is spent feverishly cleaning my house with my parents. My sister smartly hides in her room avoiding my father's inefficient cleaning routine. My dad mops the whole first floor, exhuming our mop for the first and last time of the year. I vacuum the living room and move the furniture out of my dad's way. I dust the shelves and entertainment center, only to have them re-dusted by my father after a reprimanding about my lack of dusting prowess. The morning is cleaning, more cleaning, and a few small arguments to get them out of mine and my father's system for the evening. No Christmas Eve has passed without at least a minor fight between me and my dad. Usually it relates to my unwillingness to participate in the cleaning festivities. I am expected to gladly appreciate my role as vacuumer/furniture-mover.
Christmas is tradition and if a Christmas passed without the regular rhythms it would feel wrong. A sans-conflict Christmas would be missing something, like Easter without church or Halloween without gluttony.
The afternoon is down-time and cooking for my parents. My sister comes out of her room for the first time all day to help my mom bake. My father tries to make himself busy, by which I mean make up jobs for me to do. "Buddy, can you do me a huge favor?" My dad pleads; a strategy of getting me to do chores that has led to my being unwilling to do them. "Yeah sure, what?" I say in a tone that I wish would convey "Of course I will, I'm your son. Just tell me what to do." My dad now can go one of two ways in the conversation. He can fight me on my tone or he can thank me profusely and tell me what the menial chore is. This parenting strategy has not had the desired effect that my dad thought it would. A strong parent that tells their child to do chores, lays down the law, expects things of their son from a young age, will have fewer conflicts later on. I see my friend's father and the way his system works. When my friend's dad wants a chore done by my friend it gets done with minimal grumbling and I think that I would have responded well to this. Childhoods would benefit from do-overs and parental evaluations.

Tradition is comforting to people. We are always searching for the best, easiest, truest way to live our lives and traditions are maintained because they are exactly that: best, easy, true.

Merry Christmas everyone/anyone

Something I Learned Today...

... Never look straight in the sun's face.


Christianity calls it faith, meaning faith in God. Faith is no different that realistic optimism. The blind optimist is deluded by life, so says Kierkegaard. The pessimist does not enjoy life and pities himself. The man who sees life as it is and has faith that his life is not a challenge without a purpose, a test with no right answer, or a meaningless march to an empty void, is a happy man. The flowing river has purpose in itself and the river does not hope to move faster to get to the dam  quicker. The river does not fear the dam or the ocean as opportunity and death are both to be feared, and thusly should be welcomed. Our fate is not predetermined, but there are paths we choose for ourselves. Along the way there will be setbacks and there will be excellent moments of joy and clarity. This belief in the essential meaning in life is my Faith. The belief that life is meaningful and my actions are meaningful and I can enjoy the journey to the unknown if I know that I am on that journey. Every hiking, journey film is about the journey not the goal. I apologize for the cliche, by the way. And for the accidental rhyme.

My life is important because it IS. That which exists has purpose, essence, in what happens to it and/or what it does. As a human I define my life's meaning through what I do and who I am. My individual purpose is more important than God's plans for me, which, by the way, I think he has misplaced.

I believe the universe has a plan for me, but the details are minimal. The plan is an abstract drawing that  is simply a sketch of a man.

Christmas time is here

My New Year's resolution is to chill the fuck out. Life comes easy to me and it should considering my living situation: parents still together, great high school, middle class economic security/false hope. I make life harder for myself by trying too hard. There is a classic comparison of life to a river that applies as well to my life as anyone else's. The problems in my life are caused when I try to swim with the river faster than the river flows. This leads to thrashing about unproductively in the stream. I need to learn how to float and kick to keep myself comfortably afloat.
My teachers have called me precocious in the past and that assessment is flawed. I am eager, but not just to ask questions and to know more, but to have things happening. Action movies are exciting because they imply a different universe in which things are always happening. My love for film has made it all too easy for me to compare my life to a film and from this I try to build on every situation. If jokes are being made I want to make life a comedy and keep the laughs rolling even louder than the last laugh. Every emotion is heightened when I'm committed to being active in any situation. I need to find the middle ground between this overactive emotion and the resigned absentee existence.
No Minutemen quote today...
School is out and now I'm off to a productive break of sitting directly on my ass. Happy caroling

The doctor is in

"Are you with me Dr. Wu? Or are you really just a shadow of the man that I once knew?"
The Minutemen is the greatest band of all time. They bring punk rock to a higher state of consciousness in terms of musicality and lyrical truth. Any band like Minor Threat can be great and meaningful in its own way as long as it has something to say, but those bands are nowhere near the Minutemen's level of musical prowess. Mike Watt is the greatest bassist ever. D. Boon can shred with anyone and he can write gorgeous hooks to rival any classic guitarist. George Hurley is a fucking monster drummer. D. and Mike just wrote down their rants and put them to insanely awesome grooves.
Listen to "Love Dance" and tell me that these guys aren't the best musicians in any punk band of the 80's and then they have the raw emotion of a Minor Threat or a Black Flag, but they put can put that emotion to poetry. The Minutemen saved me from the pleasant, but shallow pool of punk rock. I was fished out of the pool by "History Lesson-- Part II." Punk rock changed my life too.

This is a new blog. I don't think anyone will read this except my friends and that's cool. Who do I want to hear me except my friends?

I hate Bret Easton Ellis for writing "American Psycho" so damn early in his life. That prick gets to do whatever the fuck he wants now that he wrote an admittedly incredible book. My societal anxiety, fear of the unknown, fear of not having security in life, fear of a lack of direction, fear of the job market, fear that I'm wrong about God, fear that the world will stop spinning at a polar shift and we'll all fly into space to be literally swallowed by the universe, fear that I am inadequate, are allayed in my dreams by the possibility that I'll write an "American Psycho."

"How can I believe in books when my heart lies to me? I'm full of shit!"- "Self-Referenced" off of "Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat"
I don't trust myself to do what is best for me. I usually go with my gut, but my gut has trained itself in a way that makes my gut upset later. I don't like my instincts.
I don't trust my own beliefs because the asshole who starts my rants usually disagrees with the relatively eloquent rational thinker who finishes them.

What the fuck am I going to do with my life? I hope I fall ass-backwards into a job so that I can realize how disgustingly boring the world is before I become a nomad. Steinbeck's "Travels with Charley" is every confused person's dream. I wish it was that easy to abandon my desire for a family, a simple life, in favor of a life for the people of the world. I think I can have both. I plan on doing what will make me happy for as long as possible.