The Canadian whistling champion

His father has pushed him too far
His brutal father
At the state fair
in his pink suit
Against the shouts of his
i can't
All for the crowd
i won't
All for the blue ribbon
this is the end
He made him
in his pink suit
Whistle a tune
From a nonexistent soundtrack
To an unfinished movie adapted from
a meaningless life.
He whistles no more
His head caved in
Smashed against a wall
his own doing
Him
The Canadian whistling champion

Justice

My idea of justice is righting of a wrong. Justice is an ethical view of the world defined in the individual. Therefore, my ethical view of the world is defined by an individual. I did not learn right and wrong from myself. Right and wrong is a perverse euphemsism for self improvement. We act selfishly literally all the time. Every single act in our lives is done to make us feel good in some way. Humans are beings blessed with the torture of emotion and sensitivity. Love is the only gray area. It appears to transcend and is as far for conscious selfishness as any act can be when one does something for the express purpose of advancement of love. But is it not comforting? Is comfort not preferrable to discomfort? Does this not indicate an imperative for the individual to maintain love?
Justice in the sense of punishment for a crime does make us feel better. Revenge is an electric feeling that imbibes our mind in a sense of morality. We cheer for the hero to kill the villian, not reform him, nor understand him. For allegory's sake, we love old western tales of good vs. evil. A problem arises when the sense of stark contrasts between misunderstood polarities permeates the social justice sphere. When the law acts with the brash confidence of a gunslinger, the victim is society's moral core.
"A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser." Poe said it. This is true punishment for a sick mind. Someone incapable of reform, a method we rarely try nowadays, should be taken out of society. A sick mind is confused and when alone it can sort through the confusion. It is a sad fate. Pity the psychopath, but understand him-- at least to the point of discovery of an impossibly depraved mental state.

I love America

I am blessed to be an American. I live in a nation where an identity crisis is expected. The transition from boy to man is not complete without a questioning of everything one believes. I don't know what makes me an American, and in that way I become an American. A nation of the individual, that is America. I feel no great ties to this nation because my love for it comes in the acceptance of its values. Yes, the individual. Yes, the good of the many. Yes, the power to decide. These truths I hold self-evident. This love is latent, but there. I love this country. What could be better? A lack of opportunity? An inability to change my standing? God is on our side here.
America is the greatest country on Earth because we give everyone the idea of the possibility to fix its incredibly fucked-up problems.

accidental symbolism

The inertia of opportunity
Left hanging by the possibilities
Screaming at a wall of love for anything I do
Feel the warmth of coddling
By the work of those before me
Make it easy
Make me complacent
Give me an obstacle
Overcome the odds, encumbered American
But the fallacies
the lies of our problems
the lies inherent
the lies surmountable, but daunting nonetheless
So leave me be familial love
My parents' work
My middle-class mindset
Lies of affluence, lies of promise, lies of problems
We pick and choose our problems because we subsist, but never thrive
Thrive we do not
But we still think we should
So the pain comes
Objects in motion tend to stay
In
Motion
But objects sitting still in a pool of tepid water
Will never know

Self-love

Love yourself, my boy. It'll all be better if you take yourself as righteous. Stop the questioning, stop the worry, do what you want. Examine the past if you must, but dwell not in the shadows. Rather see the sun in front of you. When you look at the shadow, you turn your back to the sun, the opportunity, the classic metaphor. Know that the shadow exists, but do not measure it's contours or look for shading. The shadow is uniform, it is pain. The sun is uniform and it is happiness. Don't Icarize yourself, for you need not get any closer. The presence alone matters.

Brave the complexity

"Yes you may have everything you ever wanted. Here it is."
He lays it all out in fron tof me. The house, the cars, the wife, the kids, the damnation, the boredom, the perfection, the partnership, the degree, the finish, the end, the security, the fear of not knowing fear, the pain, the joy, the blissful ignorance.
"Who are you?"
"I'm a metaphor for your ambition. Or lack thereof depending on your economic standing. Tell me, are you disinclined to work for what you want? Do you even know what you want? Hint: that is a trick question."
"I'm confused. I work for what I want right now. Everything else I just figure will come at some point."
"Very good!" He takes boredom and damnation off the table.
"And I guess that once I find something I'm passionate about i'll go for it."
"Great!" He takes blissful ignorance off the table.
"And I... I'm not sure what..." I trail off.
"Excellent!"
He takes it all away. He tells me to leave and I do. He tells me to walk home on a different path than I did last time. I take my first steps and remember that I did this last time. I take steps in the other direction and feel the pit of my stomach well up in disagreement. I push through and turn right ending up on the same street as last time. I make my way home trying to change things, but every street looks the same. He told me to do it and I did it. I still ended up at home. My mom still badgers me about college. I still say I'm not sure. Nothing is more clear. Only my ambition dwindles. The more anyone tells me, the less I want to have a reason to be told. Brave the comlexity.

Slow build

Ground up. Build me prairie style then put the extra levels. Make me well-covered, well-read, well-deceived.
We see the big city as a big place where God is a little closer. A suburb can go on forever. It can be fine, bland, perfect.
I've built the foundation for my building. I even have materials, too many in fact. The construction workers are all looking at women.
Let my eyes wander and they'll fall on the path of least resistance. the path I was born on, kept in, and buried under.
It's a slow build back, up, and into. Into the fray, the beautiful mass of uncertainty that swallows me up and kills me.
I hope I come out so I can know that the stomach acid has done its job. I will be produced by a change of environment. Raw materials are nothing from something when you put them next to each other. Creating nothing.

Deeper

Taking it deeper
My ambition
Trenches
Inside the warzone
Too cliche.

Let it be said for me, by me, about me
That it came easy.
It was laid out in front
But ambition takes the brunt
Of the suburban mindset blow.

American simplicity of decisions
Makes thought an escape
From routine for the man who has stopped trying
Ambition dwindles when thought is secondary
The self first
But the mind last.

Title: Not doing shit

I've been here for a long time
I've been here for a while
I've heard what your lips had to say
I've smiled to see you smile

I'm tired and I'm wasted
I don't like this, not one bit
I'm spending time,
Not doing shit

Title: Entworth Chamberbunk

Title: I'm addicted to Jesus

I'm addicted to Jesus    
I've been mainlining christ
I can't stop my hands shaking
Holy poltergeist

Can't stop the holy spirit
My mind's speaking in tongues
Can't love God if you don't fear it
You pray until you're done

We're snorting, smoking, shooting up,
The savior to our brains
You can't say that you've had enough
With those crosses in your veins

Do it because my daddy does
It makes us feel real close
Stand where the holy father was
The hill where Jesus rose

I dress up nice on Sundays
So they'll give me my fix
You'll always have a fun day
With lord Jesus in the mix

I feel like
I've been dead for days
My face hurts
I sure could use a shave
We're all falling
Forward to our graves
But no one understands
The lord's mysterious ways

I'm addicted to Jesus
I've been mainlining christ
I can't stop my hands shaking
Holy poltergeist

We're snorting, smoking, shooting up,
The savior to our brains
You can't say that you've had enough
With those crosses in your veins

Title: Blame Capital

Idealist impulses
The american condition
third party failures
offshoot my tradition

Find socialism in my dreams
Find the right in my left brain
Logic falls behind the times
As capital shapes our lives

Wish human nature wasn't a part
Perfect beings never would start
With a plan born to fail
All hail all hail

Leave behind parental influence
But never abandon roots
The startup candidate is dead
On a spit place my head

Leave it be and let it die
Keep looking for the pie in the sky
American pie
American pie

So i don't forget

A E D, A E D, A E C, A E D For all verses and choruses

Part where it goes "God didn't help his son": A B G

In song form

Jesus in puberty
Oh lord, he was lonely.
finding himself
No holy father's help.
Oh Jesus was all alone.

He found himself one night lying in bed
When one of the local girls popped naked in his head.
Jesus felt a strange sensation and knew not what to do
Oh Jesus I'm glad I'm not you.

Jesus in puberty
How could it be?
The lord of all humanity
thinking immorally?
Oh Jesus it shouldn't be.

Jesus began to change soon, his body and his mind.
The instincts of man, about which he was soon to find.
A boy divided against himself cannot stand
and Jesus was conflicted, both God and man.

God didn't help his son
Fatherly advice he gave him none.
And Joseph didn't help his kid
So in the temples Jesus hid.

No one demands morality from the savior
so how can Jesus ask about normal behavior?
We tortured the poor guy left him only asking why
Why  have you abandoned me?

Jesus in puberty
why have you abandoned me?
My god, my god
I know you're busy
But I'm in trouble with myself dealing with celebrity.
What's happening to me?

What I thought about during church today

The Bible glosses over many parts of the story of the universe. I can't blame the author because he set out on a journey, the weight of which Tolkien would crumple underneath. When a book begins at the ultimate beginning, the details will be slipshod, few and far between, and controversial. I question the author's choice to include so many specific guidelines for life in such detail apparently at the expense of indulging the reader in the exploits of pubescent Jesus. We have almost no stories of the rebel Jesus as he comes into his own as a man. Jesus' morality is unquestionable as his source of knowledge comes direct from the top, but how did Jesus handle those all too human problems of late childhood? Did the lord suffer from the lonely embarrassment of nocturnal emissions? It must be assumed that neither Mary nor Joseph told Jesus to watch out for the corrupting thoughts of young men that turn innocence to doubts and curiosity into regrets. No one would expect Jesus to succumb to anything in the sordid realm of dewy sexuality so the great Teacher was without a sex-ed teacher.

If the assumption is made that Jesus did have the unfortunate circumstantial disadvantages of puberty foisted upon him by his human half, how could the teenage savior have survived? I believe that there were many private shouts of the Lord's dying words in the prison cot on which Jesus slept in his adolescence. God's celebrity no doubt got in the way of his ability to care for his own holy and spirit, but if there was a time when a father needed to support his child it was then. 

Perhaps God doubted himself. His ability to empathize with his boy could not come from personal experience. Jesus was in the unfortunate position of not having a mentor for his human impulses and an overbearing dictator of a mentor for his holy obligations.

Morality always comes in demands and never as a trend. Jesus was not an emotional man, contrary to what his Hollywood Superstar counterpart would have us believe. The ability to stand trial before God for one's sins can never deter one from sinning, as fear tactics cannot lead to a healthy denial but rather a puritanical duality manifested in fits of emotion. God may have successfully fixed the human problem of sinning for a time with the shock and terror campaign, but when he saw the human race slipping and decided to send his little boy down to teach us all the way of rectitude he couldn't have foreseen the result. The message of forgiveness has allowed us to doubt God's power. A sinner cannot learn from a lack of consequences and the only one who must feel those consequences is the sinner himself. Where forgiveness is a given, sin will follow. Does the murderer forgive himself immediately as God claims to do? No man can live with sin on his conscience unless he has rationalized the sin down to a bastardized category of veniality. Morality is defined within. Once the wicked beast of sin is petted and coddled it will eat away at that morality like smoke in the lungs.

Coincidences

The windshield wipers are unable to do their job now as the rain crashes down. God just had his heart broken.
"Looks like it'll keep going."
"Damn straight."
Either one of us could have said either sentence. Damn straight. That sounds more like him than me, but who knows. The rain has a way of bringing me down that nothing else can do. The rain was my first reasoning behind solipsism. In the movies the weather reflects the characters' mood. Some people like the rain. Some use it as a place in which to sing. But for me, the rain can never be happy. Do I listen to sad music because I'm sad or is the latter a result of the former?
He opens up a beer, which I don't like particularly, considering he's my navigation. But he sees the futility of navigation in this weather. My headlights can only protect me from oncoming cars, which is a small favor I guess. Thanks God. I know he's watching.
"Hey do you ever think that coincidences are more than just coincidences?"
It's unclear who said that. Is it coincidental that I was just thinking that? Have I slipped into thinking about a cul-de-sac question? The answer is yes.
"Yeah I think that," I say out loud just to be sure.
"Like sometimes I'll be walking down the street and the song I'm listening to will say a word and then the word will be somewhere. Like a song says 'change' and then a homeless guy happens right in front of me."
"Damn straight."
"But we can't prove it and that's what's the worst. Lightning never--" We see a bolt of lightning appear on cue. We laugh and the beer ensures us of the triviality of the occurrence.

I get back in the car after getting gas and I smell like fish. The car smells like fish, too. His gaze hasn't torn from the rain outside. The windshield no longer looks like rain is pelting it but more like a bucket of water is being poured over it. Every ad for the best windshield wipers flashes through my mind. Nothing could fix this.
I sit in my seat and place my hands at 9 and 3. I turn to him and he turns to me and smiles warmly, a sudden change.
"Shall we?"
"Yeah let's find a place to crash."
"Is it the morning?"
"I can't remember, but I'm tired. There should be a hotel somewhere around here," Like either of us can even tell what state we're in. We can't even remember how long we've been driving.
I turn the key and make the executive decision to take the next exit and find a major road and look for a motel. The first room I find will be the one I take.
A woman knocks me out of my concentration with a rap on my window.
"Yes'm?"
"Do you know where I can find a hotel?"
I laugh to myself until I realize that this woman is out of my stream of consciousness and is struggling to understand the coincidental humor.
"No. No I don't ma'am. You're welcome to try my strategy of finding an exit and going in one direction until one presents itself. It usually works."
"You're not much help, but thanks."
"Goodnight."
I drive until I hit an exit. Taking the exit overly brazenly I drive through multiple yellow lines. I can't see the barrels that tell idiots like me to jerk the wheel until they've served their purpose. I wonder how present foreshadowing is in life or if that's only in movies and books.
"Hey do you think that God is pulling us around like puppets?"
He is awfully talkative tonight. Thought tends to come like an avalanche, spurred on my a shout and building to a merely shifted conclusion. Snow only moves in an avalanche and nothing ahead of it is ever revealed.
"Yes I do think that sometimes. When things fit too well I think that."
"Hmm. Sometimes I wish it was like that. Here's a hotel."
I pull into the parking lot. I step out of the car to feel the rain on my face because that's what Gene Kelly did in "Singin' in the Rain." I smile because it feels right in a very forced way. A sense of accomplishment comes over me. The feeling of a job well-done, a purpose fulfilled, envelopes me. I walk into the hotel and a thoroughly unattractive woman stands at the counter. She walks away frustrated.
"No rooms left? Where am I supposed to go? There isn't another hotel for miles!"
What luck that I found it at least! I can keep driving, I think.
I walk back outside and my car has disappeared. I guess He took it. Everything falls apart on me. The hotel crumbles behind me and the rain turns into a shower-head stream only for me. I feel like a cartoon character having a bad day. Lightning strikes the ground in front of me and a bush burns brightly in its wake.
"Hello God."
"Hello my son! How are you?"
"Pretty good. I was right, wasn't I?"
"Yes. You were! Way to go, my son! Let's go spend eternity together!"
I think about my math teacher in high school trying to explain what infinity meant. I remember hating that lesson. The hotel returns. The rain drizzles now. My car has returned and He is sitting in the passenger seat opening a bottle of whiskey. I might as well go out now, I think.
"Hand me that bottle," I say as I turn the key.
"Damn straight."

What do they know about love?

I was looking at my life and found
that it's full of opinions burdened unto me.
By my father and my father's father and our past
not my present.
Symbol for our thoughts: the blank-faced stare of the train passenger.
Stare into nothingness, other people, whose minds are filled with nothingness.
When meaning is defined recursively by meaninglessness
we have ideas foisted upon us
and they aren't real.
I'm fucking overwhelmed!

I take issue with calling it a sign of hope
As dwindling hope cannot be hopeful.
"Full" cannot be diminishing unless the expectations are.
I hunger for the time when rebellion was cool.
i want to be too cool for school.
i hunger for a hunger to be aroused in me that forces its way to a boil and blows the top off everything
But the pot is firmly placed on the back burner of a fast food chain.

What do they know about love?
Are my emotions transcending all?
Have I found the bridge over the drivel of everyday banality?
i feel it when I'm with her and when I'm away I long for it, but my logic tells me that love is simpler than complexities of emotions make it out to be.
It is simply a lust, a drive, driven by the evolutionary need to procreate with a partner that will be amply suited to oneself to help rear a successful procreation.
Science makes everything sound painful
but love is more to me and her
because we know where science has no evidence.
we know that science can't understand love because even the people in love can't.
We know why love exists, but nothing can make sense of that something beyond the lust, the drive, the evolutionary need.
Much like the soul's all-encompassing mystery, we can't know the answers until we know where it starts and love does not start in one moment.
thought starts in one place, but branches in all directions.
Love is the opposite of thought

Mom

"Son, why won't you accept Jesus into your heart?"
"Mom, I do accept Jesus' teachings I just don't go to church because I don't like--"
"Son, God will accept you back. It's not too late!"
"Not for me at least." I mumble.
When I started listening to rock music my mom started listening to Christian rock. When I came into her house today the song "Jesus is Just Alright With Me" was playing. I love this song, but not for itself. I used to sing this song in the halls in high school. It has a damn good groove and the man can sing, but I love the song because of the reaction it elicited. No one ever joined in or reacted in a way that indicated that I wasn't acting like a raving maniac by rubbing my religion in everyone with the power of hearing's faces.
"Son, one day you'll understand that your mom was right. I hope that day is soon."
My mother wears a rosary like a necklace now. Even I know that this is wrong. Rosaries are private prayer tools, not accessories that flaunt a person's apparently constant readiness to burst into prayer. I would respect someone that filled with the spirit of anything to the point where they would spontaneously break into fits of it.
"Mom?"
"Yes son?"
"What's for dinner?" I say into my hands. I'm sitting with both fists clenched, pressing my knuckles together. All I want is to be with the mother I knew before she caught religion, the mother I knew before my father left. Losing passion has a funny way of forcing people into things. My mother's passion was not loving my father, but hating him. All emotions are defined recursively.
My mother sighs. "Meatloaf, your favorite."
"Excellent. I'm starving."
My mother is wearied after her spiel about the Lord. She has given up for the night.

We sit down at the dinner table and say grace because I don't fight tradition. The meatloaf is excellent as always. I take the heels of the loaf because they're burned a little more and the crispiness helps me forget that I'm eating meat shaped like bread. It's tasty anyway, but molded meat will always be dubious to me.
"How is your work going?"
"Well, I'm starting to find a little following."
"People like what you write?"
I sigh at this passive aggression. "Yes mother people enjoy the words I write."
We sit in silence for a while.
"Have you talked to your father lately?" My mother asks because she has nothing else to inquire about.
"I talked to him yesterday." I say to my meatloaf not wanting to see her reaction.
"Oh." My mother says to her meatloaf.
After a while she breaks the discomfort with "You know you look so much like him."
"Mom I told you I don't like when you compare us." I say, slightly more agitated than I want, which only reminds me of his temper.
"I'm sorry. It's just surprising is all."
"Mom please. I don't want to talk about it." My fists are firmly holding my silverware and my voice is annunciating like his used to. I hate how right she is. I hate that I learned to hate this way from him.

Later we sit and watch television and my mother knits. Presumably another blanket for the homeless shelter. When people get as into religion as she is they do the good and suffer the bad, the pain of the filler in their heads. Wheel of Fortune is on and Vanna is as ageless as ever.
"Mom am I like dad?" I want her to say no.
"Well, you are in many ways. Sometimes you sound just like him and sometimes you sound like the opposite of him." She says to her yarn.
"Mom i don't want to be dad. Why do people become their parents?" I say, wondering aloud
"I don't know, son." my mother says sighing.
"I feel like I can't have any original thoughts because I think like him. I talk like him. I guess only the people that are complete departures from their parents are original."
"Oh that's what I wanted to tell you!" She has perked up. "Your sister has decided to join my prayer group! Isn't that lovely? You know there are lots of pretty girls that come to these." She is getting into another angle of her pitch.
"Mom wasn't your mother an old religious nut too?"
She slaps me hard and her face has hardened. The stare of a nun is broken by the sobs of an old woman who is confused. I hold her when she falls into my arms. I tell her that it's okay and everything is fine. She says she still loves Jesus, but she's just so sad and nothing is helping. I tell her that she is bored, she needs something to do.
"I could start playing tennis again. They have leagues for old ladies like me. I could get my friends to join too."
"There you go mom! That sounds great. I have to get on now. I love you." I kiss her and go to the door.
"Son? Will I see you at mass tomorrow morning?" She asks me hopefully.
I decide to give it another try.
"Sure, mom. I'll be there."
She's happy and I'm dreading the next morning. Every kind of change comes with some fear though. Hell, maybe I'll start believing.
As I walk out I'm engulfed in the shadow of my mother's house. I look to her window and see her praying at her window. I won't be attending mass tomorrow.

Basement

He sits in his basement plucking away at a guitar, running the few scales he has memorized and banging out a few chords progressions he may or may not have thought of. Everything gets terribly derivative for him. He recognizes that a chord progression is the same in two songs he loves. "Harmony in My Head" is the same as "Champs." Every song he hears in his head is actually another song. what sets them apart, all songs from one another, is the lyrics or the fancy musical stuff put over the bare bones. Well, the musical stuff hasn't come yet and it's progress is dubious. The lyrics are his in to the music business. Yeah, a rock star, yeah, a hardcore punk guy, yeah, a genius like D. Boon, his idol.

He's smart enough to write right? Where does intelligence siphon into creativity? No one taught him that and no one will. If the public school system was ever lacking, it was in the department of not telling kids: "Here's where we stop helping." No matter how gradually kids are weened off the tit of book-learning, the realization will always hit like an atom bomb developed for use in WWII, Nagasaki, Japan, death, dying, sadness. Every kid hears it in high school that tests won't mean anything in the real world, but they matter right now. Grades will not exist in the workplace outside of employer evaluations, which will come down to the existence of a workplace for the employee. How can he benefit from having good grades? It's not hard for him, nothing challenges him in the physical process of getting good grades. He realizes that his priorities are not thought about in a realm outside of school, but rather that he, in fact, has no priorities. School is a bodily function. It is a routine that he fulfills like the smoker who reaches for packs of cigarettes instinctively. Without school where will he end up? Well that's what college is for. College will solve all his problems.

His sister, his father, his mother, and anyone else he knows who knows about it figured out somewhat what they want to do with their lives for the limbo after college. There is an intense apprehension about self-discovery. The most freeing sensations are always the scariest. Understanding where his basic wants, hopes, dreams fall in the chasm of his personality scares him so much he considers giving in an becoming an engineer as his family, math aptitude, and comfort-drunk attitude beg of him. An engineer is a fine job, he knows, but it doesn't interest him. The desire to learn is defined not by it's converse as happiness is. The desire to do something, to be involved, is more than, is above, is beyond, those simplistic impulses of happiness or love. The ubiquitous examples of those corrupted by the education system that get funneled into careers they know everything about and derive no pleasure or intrigue from are there for him to see. He does not want to be like them.

So he sits in his basement and thinks. About things. About life, existence, religion, philosophy, and he stares at the computer screen and he learns chords and he plays songs and he laughs at his mother's silly sense of humor and he feels wasted. He thought he would be more than this. Everyone tells him he is and he tells himself he is too, but if pain is like a gas, then self-pity is like mercury. He allows every form of self-esteem to be corrupted by the bacteria of his own hatred for himself and no amount of positive feedback can make him forget the ennui of stupidity he blurts out. Metacognition is his shovel and he digs his hole farther down into the depths of inactivity. He is afraid to fail and afraid to succeed because no matter how either comes, it will never feel right.

Titles are overrated

Hate flows through me live a white water river and my thoughts are agitatedly complaining about getting wet. A thorough and building anger has been rising in me for some time. I don't feel it building towards anything. My mind is an empty lot waiting to be filled. My dreams are renters promising a long term commitment but nothing can occupy this space for very long. I'm waiting for that swanky cafe to come in and attract just the right kind of people.
I'm not a good allegory for anything, not a symbol, not a metaphor. My thoughts are allusions to those thoughts regurgitated to me. The cycle continues. The original thinkers had the only truth and it was simple. Evolutionary desire to expand and expound has created differences. Human being hate each other for the system we perpetuate by trying. Effort to differentiate breeds contempt because we seek the path of least resistance be it race, creed, or religion. The religious schisms make me laugh because if any of these people knew their own message as well as those who wrote it did, and what brilliant writers they were, then the similarities would manifest themselves in an epiphany of clarity. No religion that survives truly preaches hate. People preach hate through preaching difference.
Assimilation is not possible now because we have decided as a race to avoid accepting everyone as is. Somewhere along the course of history the executive decision to perpetuate the denial of obvious truths about similarities between all people was made.
And yet I am filled with rage. In stories, movies, etc. this anger comes out in some form or another. I'm waiting.
The rising tide, the overflowing dam, the busting pipes, the tipping canoe, the capsized boat, the sunken oar, the feared great deep, the stream empties into the gulf and the gulf empties into the ocean and the ocean is all one being with nothingness in between. Is there a metaphor to be found? The fish don't know and neither do I.
There is a fear beyond the unknown like a sick game show that forces choices that only lead to more choices and the house always wins. That fear is the non-resolution of the unknown. It is because of this fear that we don't think we just expect. We don't reason, we just search and when we can't search, we give up, and when we realize that we've given up we search again only to find that there was nothing to be found. Some times we find a small prize. Some times a contestant wins a good amount of cash. But very few win the million. Those lucky few. Who are they? Where are the happy people who have solved it, life's material concerns. Are they happier than me? Is that not a greater fear, relative happiness? Happiness is only real when shared because what we really want is euphoria. Euphoria is escape and escape has driven the two biggest science projects of civilization: the plane and space exploration. We don't want to know what's out there, we want to go out there. Happiness is defined in sadness, black in white, and escape in hate of stagnation. I'm a stagnant puddle and no one is going to throw a stone in me to cause a ripple. I can ripple myself, but perhaps if I look further into the pond, I'll see the bottom, clear as Walden pond.

Double Nickels

I have been listening to a podcast about Double Nickels on the Dime and I thought I'd write about why it's my favorite album and one of the most formative pieces of art I been exposed to.


I think that any change in a person comes from something being awakened in them and more often than not people need this to be done to them, shaken awake. Punk rock changed my life, changed how I thought, changed how I felt about my angst. Angst is the most popular buzzword of punk rock and it is the jumping off point for any punk rocker. Angst is the beginning of a process, a growing up process. It  evolves into plain old anger and when that anger is pointed a boy becomes a man. I became a man when I heard Double Nickels.
It was the summer going into my sophomore year of high school and I can't even remember what swill I listened to, but it wasn't much of anything. I think it was mainly Arcade Fire and TV on the Radio and I loved them and some of that has stuck through, but I no longer call that poetry. Pop is too easy and cleanliness is not godliness when it comes to music. I can dig easy listening and I can dig simple beauty and it's good in small doses, like a friend you share a few things with, like friends from your high school football team. They'll never be your best friends, but they have value. Punk is your best friend, your lover, your friend that you can talk to because he talks to you.
My sister gave me a CD of hardcore punk bands and this was spurred by my telling her how much I loved Dinosaur Jr's "You're Living All Over Me" She told me a little bit about each band on the CD and gave me a book about some of the bands. Black Flag, Minor Threat, Negative Approach, Descendents, and a few others that were less important to me upon listening. One band I had an immediate prejudice against was the Minutemen because I had one album of theirs and it was 40 some songs. That was just plain intimidating. I remember the day I sat down and made myself listen to at least half of it. I ended up listening to all of it.
I had already listened to Minor Threat and Black Flag and loved it. The raw aggression spoke to me because I was a fucking teenager hating the fucking world because fuck everything. I still love this music because now it passes my Minutemen test. The Minutemen were artists and punk rockers. They are all my favorite musicians now and D. and Mike are the best songwriters I've ever listened to.
I read the one chapter in the book my sister gave me about the Minutemen (the book was "Our Band Could Be Your Life"). I learned that all the men in the band were history buffs, argued about everything, and were philosophers in the most real-world sense of the word. They were the man I wanted to be, wished I was. Reading on, I learned that they felt like I did about the world: that it was unfair, confusing, and that hope was dubious at best. They made something out of themselves, so maybe I could to. They were poets that put their thoughts to music, which is the beauty of any writing.
The Minutemen became my measuring stick for punk music. It has to be artistic, it has to be musical, it has to be true.
When I stopped listening to Double Nickels for the first time I had to go talk to my sister.
"It's completely different, Em. It's not like anything else on the CD. It's my favorite."
We just sat there saying the only thing you can say when love is shared: "Yeah man I know." Poets can describe this love and poets can make you feel this love. The Minutemen didn't write about love, but they helped me understand it. Punk rock changed my life for the better and made me see that it's okay to hate the world, but if you're not more than that then you're a childish angst-filled boy. I feel like a man when I listen to Double Nickels, but I'm filled with boyish excitement.
"The people will survive. In their environment." The environment may suck, hell it always will, but we'll survive. The Minutemen help me survive.

Marines vs. Nature Conservancy

No one really enjoys seeing the green peace or Save the Whales people on the sidewalk. It's not fun to get stopped by them, but it's their job and unfortunately their job entails a fair amount of pestering. I learned from my mom how to deal with them in the most polite way possible. If I have time to talk to them and they remain polite and amiable then I will give them my attention. The same rule applies with telemarketers and my mother's politeness has been tested at great lengths by these impatient sharks. Having worked as a telemarketer for a short time, my mom can empathize with these short-pitch salespeople.
Today I was walking through Lincoln Square and an agent from the Nature Conservancy talked to me. I'd never heard of this group, but their name was rather explanatory.
"Can I talk to you about saving the environment?" said the very cold, very cheery representative.
I had time, I'm just walking around on a Saturday, which makes me realize how much thought these people put into when and where they pitch to the public, so I am further inclined to listen to this person's spiel. I almost never give to these organizations because I don't have money to throw at these problems, but, following my mother's example, I listen to them.
"I appreciate what you guys do, but I just can't contribute right now, but you're definitely a cause I support and I'll help when I can; I'm sorry." Every time I say this I genuinely feel bad that I can't contribute, but at least I listened.
I went into a book store and got a couple books I was looking for. The old man that runs the cozy little place is beginning to show his age. In what may be a morbid thought, I imagine him dying in the store after an avalanche of books cover him. If he has to die, I hope he can become one with his store and his books.
Walking back the way I came, on the other side of the street now, I see another agent for the Nature Conservancy. I don't want to tell him that I already denied someone else, but I would have if he talked to me. Preparing myself for another round of charity guilt, I see a man angrily, busily, waving off the Nature Conservancy.
"No, no, join the marines." The man said as he scowled away. I was thoroughly confused. Join the marines? The agent of the Conservancy looked just as confused as me as he slowly turned to the man whose shoulders were hunched over with years of marine advocacy.
I doubt I will ever understand the man's logic behind his suggestion to the agent. "No I don't give a damn about the environment and neither should you. I'll tell you what you should care about: the marines. Enroll now!" I may have been witness to a sort of turf war between pitchmen.
This man must have been thinking at that moment that the marines had a serious problem in volunteers. He would have ordered the next big man he saw to do the same. The conservancy guy was a big man and the marine man was frustrated that the world was allowing such natural fighting talent to go to waste. Perhaps this thinking prompted his anger.
What confused me the most was that this was not a suggestion that solved the problem that the conservancy wanted to combat. He didn't say "No, no, go plant a tree." or "Go recycle something." or any variation of a backhanded "What are you REALLY helping?"
The world is just too angry right now. Too ready to snap, we never listen. I guess that's why the Marines might be an answer; they have missions and they exist in a structured environment where anger can help. I don't look down on the Marines, but this anger at the surface, anger at the world, must stop. The Marines can coexist with the Nature Conservancy.

thinking about Church

My mind is the furthest it can be from God right now. Mass tends to have that effect on me. I remember when I was young asking my mom how you win at volleyball during the Our Father.
Children usually go to the basement for the kids' version of "the stories," as my mom called them and still does when she gets self-conscious about their worth. The messages of the Bible are dumbed down so much that most kids don't really understand them beyond the 21st century mentality of good guys vs. bad guys. Jesus and his buddies are good guys and Satan and his evil friend are bad guys. Tax collectors are bad guys too, but we still have to love them. Whenever a catechist tried to explain the story of Jesus forgiving the tax collector  it's an uncomfortable session. "But the mean man wanted the people's money?" says one precocious child, voicing everyone else's thoughts.
"But Jesus did a good thing by telling him that he wasn't a bad man. Do you understand?" said the woefully provincially informed teacher.
Really the children are confused by the concept of taxation along with Jesus' apparently contrarian attitude. I noticed early on in my religious education that Jesus tends to side against the majority. The concept of loving major-league sinners more than those who are just venial sinners was always a major sticking point for me. Why would I love a murderer more than someone who occasionally swears, but usually is pretty nice? The point was that we have to find the good in all people and now that I understand that, I am able to see the hypocrisy inherent in it (see: gays, blacks, people who eat shrimp). The more one thinks about Catholicism, the more one realizes how badly it has ruined itself. The more people interpret Jesus' teachings, the more unjustly they live their lives. What is to be learned from Jesus is basic and can be applied by his greatest commandment: love all things as yourself. Trying to glean more from the kindergarten ethics that are in the Bible can only lead to assumptions about human nature and the nature of existence. Jesus' teachings do not intend to give us these assumptions and the Old Testament's "stories" (the word applies here) simply provide a backdrop for the parable of Jesus.
The child-like ease of right and wrong, good vs. evil, is the reason Mass is boring. Only those who have lost it focus intensely on every word of the Lord; and, of them, few realize how simple it really is.

The homily of today is the great tragedy of Catholic mass. Too often is the homily a pulpit for fire and brimstone tirades about the world, all-too passionately spat by disgruntled men who have drowned their doubts in the river Jordan. The homily is meant to divulge the word of God to the unstudied listeners of the congregation. Few priests even understand their own job. They are meant to serve as a direct connection between the parishioners and God, not as an interpreter of perfect scripture. When a priest makes an argument based in the Bible, he is lost. (I would say "he or she" but that is inexplicably, unfortunately, inaccurate) When a priest uses the Bible as evidence for a grander point outside of it, he is lost. The Bible's word is supposed to be perfect and, in many parables, its lessons are. The homily should be simplistic. The priest should simply rife through the diction and exhume the pure lessons. His bias should not play a role because the only bias of a pastor should be a holy one. Or am I assuming that all pastors are good men, and that is too much to assume?

Feeling like I might be dying

Standing on the train, the feeling overcomes me and I have to sit down on my backpack and coat. I took my coat off because I was too hot even though it's barely above freezing outside. The train is packed with people so maybe that's why I'm warm, but it's not the kind of warm I feel in the middle of summer, when it's so humid that your skin feels like a damp towel. No, this is the all-over, uncomfortable heat that comes from illness. I feel like shit, but I can't and won't ask for a seat because on either side of me there are old men sitting in single seats and they have earned those most coveted thrones somehow.
As I walk home I throw up. I'm standing by the side of the road, kneeling eventually, spilling my guts out on the sad excuse for city beautification that houses those upright twigs we call trees. No one stops their car, many pass, to see if I'm okay. What would they stop for? I imagine that a relatively large and fit-looking young man ruining a patch of grass by drowning it in bile is something worth checking out. No one wants to see that. That's disgusting. I like to think that if the passers-by were me, I would have stopped to check up on the lunch-loser.
But I probably wouldn't have.
Once, while walking to the train, I saw a classmate of mine, a girl whom I almost never talked to but recognized from physics, walking in front of me suddenly drop to her knees and put her face in her hands. When I got to her on the sidewalk I touched her shoulder and asked "Are you okay?" and smiled my best grandma smile, sweet and understanding. She nodded and wiped her eyes and I walked on, satisfied with this quick response that somehow nullified the equal quickness of her emotion. If she had been throwing up would I have stopped? Instead of a smile and a hopefully comforting encounter, a horrified glance and an unsympathetic quickening in my step would have transpired, most likely.
I'm getting over my sickness mostly now and the main instrument to my recovery has been the busying of my mind. What an act of kindness does, like laughter, is denote the lack of a threat. When someone makes the world seem kind, sympathetic, optimistic, then pain fades to the background. When the world keeps passing by, pain stays put.

Madness

The kind of day that makes me believe in God. We turn to the Lord in times of fear, in times of desperation, when we have no answers. God is making this happen. God is telling everyone to belittle me. God is making me speak in tongues, unintelligible and unintelligent to anyone but me. Doubt crushes thought, but Belief blinds it. God did not make me an asshole today. I just was an asshole today. God did not make me easy to hate. I just am. I hate myself for being easy to hate, but I know I don't have to be this way. But still the thought, the inkling, the instinct?, that God made it this way. I am His puppet and his puppetry is a continuous, caustic show. God's sense of humor is wickedly timed. He couldn't make every day this bad or we'd catch on. He made us smart enough to believe in Him, after all. We understand His impact fully, for he is all holy, hallelujah. Yet here I go again, bitter at no one, bitter at Him. It is me, they were my choices, I am the jerk, the one who must answer. God answers to no one because He likes to taunt us. Like a fisherman teases fish, He teases men with delusions of morality and rectitude, but every once in a while He brings us crashing back down to the sad truth of our, my, meaningless soul. Belittlement is God's favorite source of humor, and consequently it is Man's favorite, too. God and Man are one and the same because the former is a projection of the latter in all moments when Man is unacceptable. Only a power outside of human potential could be so amazing and so awful. The disciples spoke in tongues and called it a miracle, but the miracle was that people listened and understood. This is not a miracle because madness can be shared and is best when shared. Madness has evolved to be directed collectively at one, the loser, the asshole. I was the one today, but the subject of the madness is not without fault. The single individual is the Creator of the madness. We pray to God to forgive our sins, but the sins continue because of this prayer. The Creator reciprocates the madness, the ridicule, by not understanding it. Fear dissipates with understanding and madness dissipates with acceptance. It is my fault, my most grievous fault.

Diner

"Yes, hi, I'll have the Alexander burger with the cream of chicken soup, thanks." I smile at the waitress because I know I'm bad at ordering. Dishes spill out of me and I say everything I can to avoid any questions about what I ordered. I exhale when she walks away, knowing that I have successfully requested food without sputtering and going to the unfortunate default "Uh yeah I'm ready, sorry. I'll have the... Just the cheeseburger, thanks." I always get a burger at diners, but when I know the name of the burger I feel less boring. Besides I don't like diners because of the burgers or the soup that comes with it. I like diners because of what is happening in the booth next to me. I'm seeing a play later tonight and it's fitting that my evening should start with an intense session of eavesdropping.
"I couldn't go to New York without getting you something. And I figured, that's a useful gift!"
"Oh wow! Cool! Hey thanks!" The smaller man is unwrapping his gift, which might be a bookmark, but I'm not sure. It has a tassel and it looks like it unwinds somehow. He seems to know and that's good enough for the gift-giver, the bigger man. The big guy is in an expensive-looking suit and he looks like he could be my optometrist's son with his big nose and ears and caring, low-set brow. His friendship with the small, high-school-English-teacher-type man seems strange based on appearances and this is part of why I'm intrigued by their conversation. As I sit sipping my coffee, staring out onto Clark Street through the window, my ears are fixated on the men's conversation.
"So while I was there I was putting my weapons on the stone bench thing there and he comes over and we're talking and I step away and I see him rearranging my katana and I was just like 'Hey! What the hell are you doing? You never touch another man's weapon!'" The bigger man said, looking to his friend for understanding. The disbelief was reciprocated with a chuckle into his hand and a shake of his head.
"Wow." The small man said in genuine amazement.
"You're telling me!" The bigger man said, satisfied by his friend's empathy.
Then something happened that took me completely by surprise. I had accepted that the bigger man probably taught martial arts or at least did something with swords (I knew what a katana was thanks to Mortal Kombat), but I figured his knowledge couldn't possibly delve into, say, the native tongue of the sword masters of the world, the Japanese. The two men began conversing in Japanese like immigrants who return to their native tongues in times of great emotion.
Before returning to English for my listening pleasure, the smaller man pulled out a notebook and said "Show me what you mean." The bigger man drew something on the pad and I caught a glimpse of it as he pointed to a drawing of two swords with different ends. One, referred to as a bo-ken I think, had a flat end and the other, called a bo-shen I think I heard, had an end resembling a more traditional sword to me. This drawing apparently made everything clear to the small man as he relaxed and they both returned to English.
My food came and until I was done I was hearing the conversation only in little snippets. I decided that the bigger man was a traveling sword master that competed in some way. The smaller man traveled far less I believe and may not compete, but certainly knows his Kendo (I picked up on this term repeatedly). Both men were married and this appeared to be a boys' night out situation. They repeatedly referred to their wives ("We can go with the girls").
The bigger man handed his friend a book called "This Is Kendo" towards the end of my meal. They both poured over it like kids over a comic book.
"See him? With the wooden leg? That's the guy!" Bigger man.
"No! Really? You met him?"
"Oh yeah. Wow look at his Jodan (fighting style?). I only hope my Jodan is half as... intense as his."
"No kidding."
The conversation went to family from there. The bigger man's family actually. The smaller man was a great listener. The bigger man was eager to be heard, really heard. We all want someone to share our passion with.
As their check came the bigger man asked if his friend had any place to be.
"No not really, no. You?"
"No I don't have to be anywhere until tomorrow afternoon. We can stay here until then. They'll serve us breakfast." The bigger man said, smiling. Both of them seemed almost sad that it was only a joke, that they couldn't stay there.
When they got up to leave the bigger man demonstrated one of his points from previously in the conversation. "Oh I see. Yeah okay got it." Said the smaller man genuinely enlightened.
The smaller man sang in Japanese as they walked out of the diner and his friend joined him.

Every man struggles for his individuality

Everyone knows that people are influenced by their environment. I laugh out loud at dumb puns because my mom does. I bad at understanding criticism because my dad is. I have a childish, repetitive sense of humor because my dad does. I don't know when to stop because I don't like to stop, because my dad doesn't. I am already my dad. My path in life has already set me on a course to morphing into my dad completely. Right now I'm more considerate than him, I have a better capacity for empathy, and I can actually break myself from my immature humor, unlike him. But I'm seeing a trend in all men I meet. Everyone hates the idea of becoming their dad because continued exposure breeds hatred. Every and any bad trait of one's father will be magnified to a proportion that eclipses any good trait that one's father may have. I believe that this hatred actually breeds the metamorphosis wherein the ignorant son assumes the personality of the father. The more a son tries to break away from his father, the more this disdain builds within him, the more likely he is to fall into the nuanced aspects of the father's personality that have become a part of his general mindset. Growing up with the father, the son learns everything from him. The son can't tear down this foundation of his personality structure. The son grows to dislike the father's personality because of the father's actions and therein lies an important distinction. The son separates actions from the personality that causes them. When the son hates the father for what he does, without understanding why, has fallen into the trap, the cycle. I hate it when my dad doesn't stop talking to himself, to no one. My dad can spout gibberish for hours and entertain himself to no end. I understand this. He has nothing better to do with his mouth at that moment than make sound and he never had the fascination with his own voice beaten out of him. When I catch myself doing this when I'm around people, the weight of my impending change hits me. I have to make the distinction clear to myself that I am with people. My dad no longer cares about this distinction.
I can't escape the shadow of my father's personality, but I can become a better version of him. The path to a better life never passes through hate. Hate is a place where men linger. Understanding is the goal, and it will be returned with Love.

The river

I have meandered along through a forest for an hour or so and that seemed like enough time to find a good place so I went down to the river. I am here to find myself, I kept thinking. I am going to learn everything, I kept hoping. I will feel so incredible when I'm enlightened, I kept dreaming.
I sit now at the side of the river. My legs are crossed, my arms hang over my knees, in what seems like a comfortable enough position. Step one is completed. Step two begins now: I have to clear my mind. I have to focus on clearing my mind. Focus. Focus on the river. Focus on the continuous movement, the non-stop flow of life, uninterrupted, unending. Focus on that rock, the bug on that rock, look at it go! Rock to rock it flies! Where are you going little bug?
I have broken focus and realize that I can't trust my eyes. I close them and think only of darkness. Darkness is nothingness, right? But darkness is easily filled in the sunlit corners of my mind. I open my eyes again and focus on my legs. My legs don't change and I don't move them. Yes, I've found it. I have completed the first part of step two: focus. Now the mind-clearing will come easily.

After an hour, I had to check, I am feeling agitated. My mind has been hard to focus. I don't know if it is possible now that I've listened to so much music in my life. My mind will always be filled with music and this does not lend itself to focus, which is necessary for enlightenment. Life is purpose-driven, but the purpose in my life is to be able to let nature direct my purpose. I must clear my mind first.
I return to staring at my legs. Hairy, with a scar on my leg from the neighbor's fence when I was in grade school. I see a tick appear from the underside of my calf and my focus is lost to nature once again. I spring up and smack the tick away. Sprinting out of the area, I get a rush. Exuberant, I run to where I know a waterfall is and strip down to my underwear as I get to the rock. My smile slowly dims to a dull glow, the excitement dwindling. I realize that I am terrified of the water. Well, more specifically, the rocks that are hidden by the water. I can't jump in right now, I don't know the water. I'll do this later.
I walk on down the path, regaining my focus. Feeling encouraged, I walk to the edge of the river and close my eyes and nothingness rushes into my mind. The glorious moments in which I think nothing yield splendid clarity. I feel that I am listening to nature perfectly, like in all the books I've read. I fall asleep.

I wake up with a pain in my back because I slept wrong. I get up to stretch and I can't think about anything aside from the pain surging through my back. I wish I had a bed, but I have denied myself all homely comforts. I am not stupid, I know the way to town easily. This wasn't supposed to be about pain at all. I want to swim. I make my way to the waterfall area and, as I walk, my back feels better. I swim near the rock, the jumping-off point, and I realize that it is safe. I scale the rock to get to a safe jumping place. I realize that I'm smiling and this thought breaks up my thoughtless trek. I stare down at the water and my fear is gone because I know what I am looking at and it is only water. I jump!

I come up smiling and no thoughts go through my head as I float down the river for a while until I'm stopped by a rock. At this point, I walk down the river, the water flowing gently around my calves, accepting my ripples lovingly.

driving

"Oh come on, man. Seriously?"
We all hate getting cut off. That's not uncommon or anything. I have a serious problem with people changing lanes on the highway without signaling. It's not hard. It's not even a complete flick of the risk. It almost doesn't qualify as a movement and yet people refuse to do it time and time again. I can't understand it at all. For fear of being a hypocrite, I always signal. I am in love with my signals.
Right now I am the picture of anger. I am seething with rage, all of it being taken out on my steering wheel. The veins on my hand are clearly visible. My eyes have shaken themselves out of their road daze and firmly locked onto the silhouette of the asshole driver who so grievously wronged me. I need to see this guy's face.

My drive has gained direction because of this guy. I was just driving to get away from my house. I couldn't stay there any more; I'm not appreciated there. But the road appreciates me because I drive it well. I am the dream driver. I have perfect etiquette and avoid the pitfall of so many cautious drivers: going too slow. I am perfect, I've never been in an accident, my record is clean, god I love driving.
But this guy... This guy ruined my drive. I need to see what happens to him, where he's going. Where do assholes go during the day? Starbucks? Wal-Mart? Where? Assholes are always going somewhere. Somewhere very Important.

I cackle at the Asshole as he gets cut off himself. And the guy who cut the Asshole off just swerved back into his old lane! That's justice if I've ever seen it: a pointless cut-off. Alright I've had my justice sense fulfilled and I'm sure I've made my family worry enough. I happily signal to get into the far lane so I can take the next exit to turn around. Then the Asshole gets cut-off a second time by the other cut-off guy and this time its not a clean cut-off. Both cars spin towards my lane, without signaling, and end up on the grass past the shoulder. I go past this scene, maintaining my speed, and glance towards the two cars. The damage should be pretty hard to pay for. That's unfortunate.
I get off at the next exit and stop at a Starbucks before heading home. There's nothing like warm coffee near the end of the day.

Atlas in not a god

I've trained my entire life to be the man I am today. Ironically, people look down on me, a giant, towering above everyone. I am the World's Strongest Man and that means very little. The world has changed so much that my title means something only to those who are giants like me. I'm an American, a corn-fed Iowa boy that was raised to lift heavy stuff and throw it. Now I'm the best in the world at it and no one cares. I should be asked to lift cars for a national TV audience, but instead pretty-boy quarterbacks are getting to talk to Leno and Letterman. I could snap any of those guys in half. When did the measure of a man become something other than his strength?
I understand that no one thinks a hulk can be a normal person, but my wife will attest to my kind, giving spirit. I'm not a gentle giant because once you make a living getting angry at inanimate objects your gentleness quotient is reduced significantly. But I help people with my money and I'm a good father. I'm off steroids now, and that's only made me a happier person, signaling the downturn of my career, unfortunately. Steroids were an unfortunate necessity. No one can look at a human giant and think: I completely understand how that could happen by virtue of hard work. Everyone jumps straight to: Well, yeah, SURE, if I was that big I could pull a 17,000 pound truck too. No you couldn't, Normal Human. I worked my way to my title and no one can take that from me so the least you can do is respect me.
I can't live any other way than the way I live now. I have to train, I have to keep competing. My title is the most important thing in the world. When I'm too old to keep it up I won't have anything left. My work is my life and no one respects it. My own country doesn't know who I am. When I walk down the street my name doesn't come to anyone's mind. To you all I am is: Holy-Shit-He's-Big. Your fear makes me feel small, impossibly small. I wouldn't hurt you, you're a person. Call it escapism if you want, but my strength is who I am and no one cares! I... I need to train. Things are simpler in training. I'm the strongest man in the world. I'm a god. Are gods alone because of fear or because no one can relate to them? My son will understand me; he loves me. He already loves training and he has his father's work ethic.

Sunshine

Blonde people are separate from the rest of us because they inherently are shinier. They glimmer just a bit more than anyone else. Or they look sickly and perverted. Today I saw a man of the sickly sort. His blonde hair was the same color as his skin, creating an optical illusion of texture. He did the very common frustrated-person act of putting his face in his hands and slowly unmasking it, dragging his hands up his face and pushing his hair back. What he revealed when his hands left his face was a huge grin. He laughed to himself in a very nervous way, but too loud to be truly ashamed of it. He laughed like a man who sees a poodle on its hind legs at a funeral. He seemed very concerned with the fact that he was wrong to laugh, but dammit that was funny.
Intrigued by this blonde humorist, I let my eyes scan down to his feet, at which three (three!) jugs of Sunny D sat. Sunny D is a deliciously artificial orange juice drink that is a favorite among mothers that want to have it both ways nutritionally for their kids, taste and health! Sunny D represents a perceived compromise that really only serves one side, the taste side. Sunshine Man, as my mind dubbed him, was clearly in for an exciting night. That is, if he could make it home. With no evidence that I could see that Sunshine had any reason to worry for his safety, he incessantly jerked his head around whenever he laughed. The meaning of the laugh changed immediately. My original thought that he just had a great joke with himself was replaced by the belief that he had in fact stolen the Sunny D and was amused by his lawlessness.
Here is how he must have done it. The Sunny D was is bags from what might have been Jewel or Dominick's or something so he couldn't have just taken them. And these were three full-sized bags of Sunny D so sneaking under his coat was out of the question. Even if they had fit, no one would have believed that this sickly blonde skeleton would have the beer belly equivalent to that much artificial orange juice. So Sunshine brought bags with him, put the D in the bags and pretended to be with someone in the self-checkout aisle and got his bags past the checkout that way. He then proceeded out the door with a grin on his face. That grin had since evolved to the laugh I was watching.
Sunshine looked very happy to me. I can't say I condone his stealing of Sunny D, but it satisfied a craving for him. He just wanted some orange juice, but paying for it, well that wouldn't be exciting. Judging by the shockingly pale pallor of his skin, Sunshine could use some excitement outside of the house. His anxiety and fear would dissipate as soon as he got a taste of that sweet sunshine. Artificial, but what's wrong with reveling in the artificial? Sunshine looked happy and his story made my train ride much more interesting. God bless you, Sunshine.

Daddy Dear

My father. A man of words, not English ones, but words nonetheless. Words convey meaning and the meaning conveyed by most of my father's words is loneliness, dementia, bipolar disorder, insanity perhaps. My father makes sound incessantly. It's always interesting when you get a glimpse into the life of what a person is like when they are home alone and my father is always alone in his mind. The physical reality of other people around him is only acknowledged when he has something to rant about. The perceived lack of understanding from the cardboard cut-outs that are other people always prompts my father to get angry at the world. This is one of the unfortunate traits I have inherited from my dad. The inability to change your mood, and thereby your reactions, is not a natural one for humans. Frankl said that man can adapt to anything and can change his attitude when he wants. My father and I cannot do this. I don't know if this is behavioral or genetic, but I hope I find out before I have kids so I can prevent the spread of this disorder.
Talking to oneself when one is alone is very common. I do it, everyone does it. But my dad, I'm sure, could have conversations with himself. He makes sound constantly as I've already said and when he finds a sound he likes he asks himself "What?" in a high-pitched voice that starts the outer-inner dialogue.
"I don't know what that was."
-- Sound!--
"There it was again! What is that?"
And this goes on for at least half an hour. That time limit is not my father's but my family's. Around that point we say "Alright that's enough with the sound!" which is met with "Gee I'm sorry." Most people have only said "Gee, I'm sorry." in a mock sadness. My father means it. This phrase and its variants come in three stages and all three stages are not always attained. First is the facetious uttering which can be followed in one of two ways by my father. He can say nothing and let it go, which is best. Or he can say "Sorry I'm so fucking annoying." which we(my family) respond to with "Oh come on." My father then will either let it go, are you noticing a trend?, or continue into the second stage: "Well, really." followed by sulking. The sulking can be followed with another "come on dad." from me and/or my family or with more ignoring. This brings me to the third stage: Admittance of his joking nature (all along!) or continued sulking for at least one hour. The choice between the two comes at the prompting response from me and/or my family: "You were just making noise!" My father will then say "Yeah I know." and let it go, once again, or say "Well, still." and sulk. This is followed by a re-forming of the Red Sea between my father's consciousness, opinions, emotions, and me and my family.

Give Africa My Mushrooms

I have wanted to be an astronaut since I found out what they did. Astronauts are the only people that have seen the world from outside of it. Perspective is completely different for spacemen. They think about their world knowing how small it really is. I am sheltered beyond my own belief, when I think about it. How can I be so lucky to live so luxuriously? I have never missed a meal in my life, at least not for want of food. Like far too many children who haven't learned yet, I pushed my plate away because of "texture issues." I still do this. I still take mushrooms out of food and scrape them onto my dad's plate knowing full-well how absolutely stupid it is to do this in the mindset that if my dad didn't eat them, I would throw them away. If the mushrooms cannot be rationalized as food for another, they will not be eaten by me. Because of texture issues. Two people in the world can understand how stupid that is, really: the hungry (those who are or have been) and astronauts who have seen earth from space. Astronauts can't see individual people. If I looked at earth from space, I wouldn't see anyone or anything I really knew, only the planet itself. But there are places on that planet that I know have it better than others. If I look at North America, the U.S.A specifically, and then look at Africa, the middle of Africa, where almost no one eats three meals a day and if they do, those three meals wouldn't satisfy an American for breakfast, I will understand the disparity. I need perspective, I need to understand these problems, at the very least.
Understanding the world outside of it after having experienced that world is the only way to fully know it, to have perfect perspective. I cannot understand the Holocaust ever, but I can learn about it and always be open to hearing about it because it was one of the worst things that has ever happened and if we can't understand it, we have to be able to learn about it as much as we can. We are all insignificant and some people are suffering or have suffered and those people are no more insignificant than the bratty American child pushing brussel sprouts away from his mouth. God has abandoned all of us because we are our own God and always have been. We need to act on His values of compassion because love is the only way we can understand truly. An astronaut has to love earth before he leaves it, and only then will he understand it.

Existential crisis

It happened without my even knowing it. My sister said to me on my birthday this year that my 17th year of life would be a year of figuring stuff out. She said that she learned a lot about herself without even knowing it. I was going through a minor bout with the undefeated boxer known as Death. He is 100 trillion and 0 with every fight ending in a knockout. But Death likes to taunt his doomed sparring partners. He makes is think about him. He presents himself to us in the world by showing us him impact. One win for Death has a ripple effect. Fear of the notorious fighter shouldn't come early in life. Our formative years really ought not be burdened by the contemplation of the ultimate end. But I got myself into thinking about Death and I came out of this round ahead.
It started thinking about God. I have been slowly, piece by piece, come to the realization that I am alone in the world, that my actions have no backup in the absolute, the infinite, the Lord. Coming with this is the understanding that this life is my only one. I am afraid of death because I don't want to have wasted my life by anyone's measure. The understanding that I am my own judge is only slightly more comforting. But like any clutch athlete, this realization that I am always in the spotlight, that I have to hit my shots, is inspiring. After this realization, I understood that my life, while singular, is not doomed to death. It is a slow march, but it is a parade. Like a New Orleans funeral, there is an element of celebration that must be, well, celebrated. I have known for some time now that life is meant for living. "Get busy living or get busy dying."- The movie "Shawshank Redemption"
I can say this as many times as I want, but only recently have I understood it and felt it. I am freed by my self-reliance, my loneliness. It is the most terrifying thing and also the greatest, to paraphrase Kiekegaard. How wonderful it is to live free of the dictation of an almighty source! To live only for love! To embrace love and not question it ad nauseum! Love is life, and unfortunately God is no longer love. I wish he was, but one who lets their wishes consumes them can never recognize those being fulfilled.

School

The school system does an awfully good job at convincing us that our thoughts are unimportant, unwanted, and should therefore be unheard. No teacher I have ever had has ever said this, but the inherent structure of a classroom implies this. The students are there to learn from the teacher. Yes. But where along the line did the meaning of learn change to be synonymous with "hear." The difference is key.
In 8th grade I challenged my teacher's opinion about "Too Kill a Mockingbird." I don't remember what I was saying and I was probably wrong, the young contrarian in me silently creeping out. I voiced my question, really an assertion phrased as a question, and a girl with whom I had never, and haven't since, held a conversation yelled out loud without looking at me: "Will you just shut up?! No one cares what you think!" I responded incorrectly. I was quiet for a week. Never talking and, for the first time in a long time, pouting angrily. I was silently cursing this girl for making me doubt myself. She hadn't really made me doubt my opinion, but the validity of my voice. The saddest thing that can happen to a person is to not overcome this doubt. Thankfully, I have a short memory and quickly moved past this asinine outburst.
In freshman year, I had a teacher who promoted class discussion and would condescend to me just the right amount. Freshmen should be condescended to. They are bratty and are, without knowing it, choosing a path for their intellectual future and condescension is a test. This teacher didn't let me ramble on and ruin his class, but he let me talk. And I kept talking and he never stopped me and in fact engaged me, no matter how many times he had to say "Yes, but you're missing the point." He didn't say this in a way that was trying to stop me from purposefully misunderstanding what he said, but rather to encourage my thought, but in the correct direction until I came to the forks in the road at which I could argue without missing the point.
The most common smart-ass comment that can be uttered in a math class is "When are we ever going to use this?" and there is a right way and a wrong way to ask it. By right and wrong I mean one person asks for a real-world application and one asks just to be a dick. The difference is in who the asker looks at after they ask their question. If the person looks around for confirmation that yes, great, you are in fact an asshole, making our teacher think then they are the less intelligent of the two people exemplified above. The other person asks to find out. I asked my teacher the other day in Calculus, the most famous in the category of "useless math" classes, what we would use a certain lesson for and she said "The next section." and moved on. I asked her in the next section what we would use this for and she said "Well it is one person's job in a construction business to calculate this. These calculations are very important for buildings as you can see by the answer to this problem. The margin of error is very low and the measurements must be within a certain percent of a number and this person does these calculations. You understand?" I really like this teacher now. She honestly answered me and proved that calculus is not useless.
Also recently, a girl in my calculus class did something that shocked me. She asked the same question I did: "When are we going to use this?" or some variation of it to the same effect. My teacher, bless her, was ready to answer either of the alternatives she raised: "Real-world or just within the section?"
"Oh just within the section." was the girl's response. My teacher answered her question and I was wondering if I had ever heard that question asked for that purpose. I hadn't and I realized something about school in that moment. This girl, and so many like her, had been conditioned that asking questions should confine to the lesson. The person who asks that question for a laugh, to be a smart-ass, has the same problem because they feel that the lesson actually is important but probably don't get it and want confirmation that it "is stupid, pointless, etc."
I am an active member of my classroom because I don't know another way to learn, really. I have avoided the societal conditioning to damn questions somehow. Perhaps by virtue of my big voice and my early realization that I could loudly talk over people to make points heard I came to know this. One way or another, I react negatively to the groans that come whenever I ask the teacher a question that challenges their recitation. So fuck your groans you robots. Go find something out instead of hearing what is droned into your skull and choking out your human urge to question it. The death of the urge to inquire is the death of the spirit.

contrasting viewpoints

"The middling sort reads my poems and proclaims them deep.
Only the enlightened masters read my poems and laugh."
- Han Shan

Life is humorous! Life is full of joy that can and will be broken down so that we can find it again. Humans are born optimistic, thinking that the world is theirs for the taking. We all have a path that we follow, perhaps not conscious of the fact that we are on a path at all. Our path will inevitably come to some amount of struggle that becomes our burden. Life is burdensome, but the burden can be enjoyed! The burden must be turned into an ordeal. The word "burden" implies an encumbrance, something that bothers us and only holds us back. "Ordeal" carries the challenge of a mountain with the implications of reward. Optimism has been besmirched by today's world by being characterized by delusion and blindness. The real sense of optimism is not simplistic faith, but a belief that good things happen and can be made to happen. The silly mantra "There is a reason for everything" comes from the idea of God's plan for people. Taken away from the context of a supreme power this mantra is a beneficial way of looking at the world. Every ordeal can have a lesson in it if one wishes to find it. In this way the world is inherently good. The world can be learned from so that happiness can possibly be found.



The world is inherently evil. Happy moments are simply brief respites from the unending parade of pain and death. Love forms for the express purpose to end, it seems. We are built up by our hopes and dreams to be torn down by other people's vices. As we curse the world for damning our existence we are unknowingly damning someone else's existence. If there is a man who has not negatively impacted a single life then he has impacted none and is solitary. Does that man find happiness? He has no pain to compare it to. Knowledge of one brings about the other.

I choose to live life for the good. I am fully aware of hate and evil and I hate the world for apparently being inveterate in these. BUT! Do good things not happen to me? Can I not find solace in simple details in my life or that life in itself? Those who seek the good while acknowledging its unlikelihood are as optimistic as those who refuse to admit the world has evil present in it. Wanting good and wanting life to be positive is optimism at its truest. The world is not complicated when it is broken down. We have made it more complicated as people, but there remain basic values in life. Fear, love, happiness, hatred will always be present in humans. Both ends of the emotional spectrum can be attained and while love is harder to come by, is it nonetheless possible?

"You know what an optimist is? They are someone who thinks: 'Hey maybe something nice will happen."- Louis CK

What is wrong with that Louis? Everyone wants that nice thing but not everyone looks for it. If we look for good and deny hate then love will find us. Simplify the world and it is easier to stay a living member of it.

poems?

Social anxiety is in me
Jobs won't be gotten or wanted but had by chance and stuck with by fear
Is fear what I really want to dominate my life?
Fear is good
Fear is healthy
But fear can blind
Fear of the unknown
Fear of what I really want
Fear of the two combining


God is love and love is hard to come by but God is easy to find?
No, God is not easy but love is and the two can become easy by virtue of the other
But hating for want of the one is more absent of either


I miss the Cold Mountain
Master Han Shan I wish I was you
I wish I could be you, know your ways beyond the words
I need a river, a mountain, the metaphor to be found
The world is hard to see through
The veil
I am the bride left at the alter by God
wondering why?

Turtle Man

Today on a train platform a man walked past me looking like he had just shared an inside joke with himself. This man looked as much like a turtle as is humanly possible. He even had a green coat and a hat with a tiled pattern on it, which was also green. I like seeing happy people because they stick out of the nondescript crowd of sad delusion that is our populace. I didn't like what came next, however. Turtle Man smelled his finger and giggled. His bubbly joy came out of his mouth in the exact pitch of a preteen girl's voice with such an anachronistic accuracy that I was no longer glad that this man was happy. No one should smile after smelling their finger. In no circumstance does the smell of a body part warrant a giggle and especially not the finger.
I went quickly through the psychological phases of "something-weird-seen-on CTA." First comes shock, second comes horror, and third comes bewildered amusement. The fourth stage, and this may only apply to me, is following. I watch Turtle Man for the rest of my journey. Turtle Man is an avid reader judging by his countenance hunched over in his seat over a book, the title of which eluded me apparently because it would be so interesting, telling me even more about the enigmatic reptile.
He wore overhead headphones but apparently only as decoration because he never changed what he was listening to or indicated any rhythm pumping through him. His feet never tapped and his head never bobbed. He wore dark, gray jeans that had gotten significant amounts of usage over the years. He was an incredibly focused man and the jeans said much about this trait. I can't envision him working at anything perceived to be higher than manual labor, but his countenance seemed fit for it.
The saddest moment in train-passenger-watching is when the watched one has to leave. Turtle Man got up with a jolt and his face completely changed for the better. His focus broken, his mind wandered immediately to his inside joke with himself. His small smile returned to his face, and as much as I wished for it, he did not smell his finger just to remind him of that small but hilarious joke.
I hate when people watch me on the train because it makes me uncomfortable. The eyes of a stranger are always harsher than those of a friend. I wonder why it always seems that more people are watching when I already feel awkward. Is it because I am aware of some noteworthy and regrettable characteristic I have and would be embarrassed? Or is it simply that everyone watches and I don't notice it when I'm comfortable? Turtles have no reason to worry about what others say about them. How could someone hate a turtle without feeling ridiculous? Turtles have their own way of dealing with the world, with anxiety, with threats. The inside of the shell must be a nice home and not because it's particularly comfortable physically. It is freedom within the self. God Bless Turtle Man for having his own joke.

Cult Part 1

A man walks through a crowd of people lying on the ground. The people have freed themselves. The man has convinced them that this path was the right one. He could not do it himself. He hates himself for this. His own quest was too hard to complete. He is hopeful and yet doubtful that most of his followers successfully completed what he couldn't. He walks around them placing single rose petals on each of their foreheads as a sign of completion. Ceremony is so often just that, he thought, but I hope it will be real this time. This was his fifth ceremony of the year.

He sits alone in his motel room staring at the wall, thinking over the events of the day. He cups his chin in his hands and bites the nails, a bad habit he hasn't shaken since childhood. He tries to remember if his mother bit her nails, or was it his father? No, his sister had. Considering she was his best friend, the habit made sense.

He packs his suitcase like he does every night, not out of fear, but in preparedness. He looks at his wallet. His driver's license picture is always good for a laugh. He remembers when he looked the way he does in the picture. He ponders how it is possible that he has had his life figured out so many times and every time feels the most correct it has ever been. He can't help but think about this with an air of pity and nostalgia, thinking of his youth as a time of frivolous innocence to be fondly recalled. He had to get some sleep so he went to bed at nine, giving him a maximum amount of time to get tired enough to pass out into a confused sleep. He was told by his wife that he talked in his sleep and it was often very funny. She was never angry to be awoken by his arguments with no one. She tried to follow his line of logic in his impassioned pleadings against his subconscious.

His driver's license read Marshall Jones.

He felt rested when he woke up and went outside and felt rejuvenated. The scum of the earth hadn't raped his naivete yet. That would come later. He had to move, to run, everyday because it was a routine. He had forced himself into this routine and in would be unhealthy to break out of it. While he ran, he thought and this hurt him. He hated the way he thought, wished it was simpler, wished he didn't believe what he believed. If children could control their influences humans would be a more perfect society, albeit a more homogenous one. But he was born without the ability to do this so he saw everything as it was and hated the world. He was set on a path he never thought he could deviate from.

How could he see it any differently? He believed, he had faith, that he was right. But the burden of the prophet is heavy.

God

I only believe in God because of the way I was brought up. God was a given and now I doubt His existence at all but my life still exists in His framework. This is a mold I can't escape. I don't believe God can or wants to help people, but my belief that there is a God is so ingrained into my consciousness that I still turn to prayer in times of fear. My anger at the world is a deep-seated rage towards God for abandoning us people. I hate that I think this way. My faith has been wavering as long as I've been a thinking person, but it can't waver itself out the rut of basic faith. My experience with the church has not led me to any hate of organized religion, but I can see the evils inherent in it. The sad attempts to separate doctrine from metaphor are the silent admission of fault by the deluded church. Why has God abandoned us?
I know how simply logical it is to believe that God does not exist, that God is a crutch invented by man to grant him salvation from inadequacy, but it is hard to separate the world from its perceived creator. I can't help but explain my existence on this planet with the existence of that highest of powers, God. And because I believe he has this power I naturally take the short movement to believing in his power to grant my every holy wish. The selfish nature of prayer is only really appreciated when we are scared that our life is changing drastically for the worse. I imagine that prayer came before the conscious admittance of a higher power. The first man to be wronged by his environment, to die by simple cause of nature, must have asked why. Why did he have to die this way? Humans know that they came into this world naturally and this line of natural introduction to life must have started somewhere. Science has made it easy to eliminate this belief of a higher power through exploration, but the basic assumption of man is that of God. And the feeling of awe at God is met directly with the natural reaction of betrayal. Therein lies a paradox. Man thinks himself high enough to demand from God. Man controls his life in every moment except fear. God was borne of fear and human fear has yet to be eliminated. Until we learn to control fear and conquer it God will always be a backdrop to our lives. I am scared of death so I hope for heavenly salvation. Some hope for a do-over in the form of reincarnation. The process of reincarnation can not be separated from a higher power either as this process of the soul is not completely in the physical world. There is no higher power than Man outside of Man, but fear comes from within and is only manifested outwardly.
God, I ask you please to end the questioning. I ask this out of a simpler fear that I will never have the answers I seek. Are You so selfish that you will refuse me this? You want faith, but faith is a passion that I will not engage in unless it is reciprocated. Prove something to me and I will believe in you. Until then I am my own God. Fuck Your way Yahweh.