Regularly Scheduled Interruption

This is product placement, fair and square. We interrupt this regularly scheduled TV show to introduce to you a radio program. We’re merely here for a couple hours of your time while we (the broadcasters) try to decide which television program is best suited for your entertainment. Whoa, whoa, put down your remote, we’re not going anywhere. You see, we’ve been tapping into your electronical devices you seem so inclined to have your attention attached. Don’t think about telling your friends about this either though, they’ll never believe you. And trust us, being locked up when you’re not crazy makes you seem even crazier with all the hollering and claiming that you’re not crazy because crazy people think their sane, right?

Yes, you are one of a select few, from birth, who have the privilege of being a part of the largest social experiment so congratulations! Seems we’ve had a bit of a glitch in the system that needed to be remedied so keep baring with us for the moment. Lets give you some updates while we work on the problem:

Yesterday the weather outside changed from a balmy 72 degrees to a frigid 36 in a matter of minutes. We’d like to apologize for that. One of our scientists, who will not be named (Jonathan) “cough”, excuse me, decided to test your ability to adapt to rapidly changing weather. In light of this we’ve relocated a few of you to warmer climates. Papers should be hitting your mailbox in about a week.

Pay no attention to the noises that come off your window at night. Our cameras are merely scuttling for a better view through your closed blinds. Trust us, you’re better off not looking out at them. The anxiety will most likely kill you and that’s a mess we really don’t want to clean up. Also, the all night construction at Walgreen’s is really construction at Walgreen’s. If you see anything suspicious just keep it to yourself. Remember our talk about being committed?

Ah, for the next half hour there will be a break in this conversation so that we may bring you some philosophical musings.

Have you ever wondered about moments like deja vu? That’s only one part of the system we’ve never installed. Pesky consciousness always trying to break through. One day we’ll have microchips implanted in you. Back on topic, whether you believe it or not, you are dead and have been dead for some time. Therefore those moments of deja vu are in reality you realizing that you’re just reliving your life constantly. Well, reliving your life while we tweak it and and study it so we can be prepared for our next round of subjects…Next we…

Hey! Hey! That’s not philosophy like we talked about! Get the fuck off that microph..give it to…someone cut the damned feed for a moment! *static*

Ahem, our apologies for that. Pay no attention to what you heard. Plus we’ve sent our Mind Chasers out to help clear this all up. You have to be careful of Mind Chasers. They’re a little jumpy and sometimes the only way they deal with their jobs is playing Mind Eraser. If anyone ever asks you to play Mind Eraser, just say no.  Also, if you dye your hair red, God takes your soul from you so never, ever become a ginger. If you’re born that way, our apologies but The Lady cursed your family at some point.

For those of you with cats for “pets”, they’re not really your pets. Actually cats are born caretakers, your caretakers. That’s why you can feel their disapproving looks when you’re doing something wrong because you are doing something wrong. For the rest of you, well, you have been gifted a caretaker cat. Therefore, pay no attention to any scratching noises coming from inside the walls and in the attic, they’re merely checking up on you. Those stray cats…they all love you.

Ah, I see the they have calibrated the television set correctly to the programming best suited for your individual needs. In the event of another such occurrence we will be pleasantly pleased to keep you company. They also tell us that the Mind Chasers should be arriving shortly at your convenience. Remember, don’t play Mind Eraser…

On Language and Stories

Sometimes I’m not always great with words. At times I find myself fumbling for the correct words to use or other times I find myself effortlessly using words that I had forgotten were part of my vocabulary. It’s something about words though, there’s something about a well crafted story or speech or even a movie script that comes to life. It’s the way we can use words to shape our culture, identities and ideas. There are Inuit people who have over ten different words for the word snow. The word snow! The kind of snow, the texture, all of that and I think, “wow, if only English had that immensity to it.” The funny thing is that we do. How many different words do you know to describe the act of being wet? Soaked, drenched, wet, dripping, etc. Language, and the way we use it to craft is as beautiful as it is amazing.

Maybe that’s what I’ve always liked the idea of being a writer because then I could craft in my own way. Things aren’t always entirely unique but the ability to craft and mold an idea into something written is a wonderful labor in and of itself. My communication professor always described humans as “homonarons”, meaning we exist through stories whether written down or delivered verbally and I’ve always found that mesmerizing and untouchable in a way. It makes me wonder about the way we form concepts and ideas using words as well as warning and wonder that is our greatest achievement as a species is our ability to communicate like that. Sometimes people form fucking memories that didn’t exist because of the ability one has for storytelling, or at least they get you to that place where you can swear up and down you’ve been there before.

The only downside I see at times is the words we create and use that seem to butcher language. Bae is one of those words or YOLO. I never understood how we can take words and minimize them until I looked at how we’re diminishing the stories when not spoken. We live in 140 characters more and more and we try to make things faster. I’ve heard bae is an acronym but still, why? To me calling a significant other bae is a slap in the face and to me weakens the feeling of those peoples relationship. Use baby, babe, honey, my dear, love, anything but bae, even if it’s something ridiculous it’s always going to be better than bae. We’ve been gifted with a irritatingly complex language at times and other languages have words that far surpass the English language in terms of depth and beauty and ease of usage. So why should we start to butcher any language? I’m not sure I remember the complete wording but my girlfriend summed it up nicely by saying that this is the language she speaks so why should we be messing it up. And it’s true, why should we?

Give me stories, give me words, give me depth and rhythm. There’s a hell of a lot of stuff out there even if a lot of times now our stories steal themes because the hero story is instilled in our psyche. Have you ever read an essayist? It’s gorgeous the way you can suck someone in writing about what you’d think would be nothing and then having it just expounded upon to a level you never thought about. One thing that comes to mind is from Rebecca Stolnit about how blue represents traveling and the journey, how we’re always following the blue of life. It takes me to my writing about deserts and road trips and how the heat and openness of the desert represents travel and driving with nothing but the windows down and the country opened up. It’s like as I’m slowly reading Lolita when I have the time and the way that Nabokov writes is so much different because it’s almost poetic in its delivery. Stories, man, stories. Language, stories, words, it’s all quite lovely and I feel odd that I can expound on that but I like to do so.

It reminds me of something I wrote years ago and now I realize even then how much stories resonate with me and have long held my imagination captivated. I always thought it would be awesome if at the end of everything I had the ability to gather everything, every story, movie, thought someone had, thing they saw, like if our eyes recorded our lives. If I could have all of that and then one more lifetime to go through all of it. I’d love to create a grand epic from the beginning of the universe to the end of it and find a way to capture all those moments and put them together in a way that you watch this movie and see, well you see everything. Somehow I could capture all of the emotions, thoughts, things we see, all together in this film so we don’t just understand what it is to be human and ourselves, but we understand what it’s like to be everyone and to be made up of the universe. That what happened in the beginning is happening now and will be happening if any of this ever ends. When I think on that I get excited and sad at the same time because I know it’s not possible but can you imagine the stories one could tell or just the story you could tell? If there’s one thing we must never lose it’s our stories in whatever way we present them though if possible make sure there’s a way to have it in ones hands. That saddest day in respect to this that I can imagine is when we lose books (if we ever do) in a physical form. Language, man, language.

Pathless Woods

There’s an odd feeling when standing under the beating sun on an immensely hot day in a dry country. You find yourself irritated at times but at others pleasantly delighted in the sensation. A much better feeling than being drenched in what one would assume was a torrential downpour in wetter climates. THere’s also a magnificant feeling when you’re out nowhere looking at steepes and mesas or just the low hills that one finds in the desert regions. When the sun hits the perfect spot and coats your surroundings in red you can’t but help to delve quietly into your own head and wonder about the countless ages and people whose eyes and existences have touched what you’re seeing. It’s what I would assume Thoreau felt when he would took himself to Walden. It also conjures up Native American pow wow’s I have witnessed and taken part in as well as other ceremonies as such.

Always the introspection but also the comedy as well. The comedy of being separated from people by 30 feet and getting a kick from watching their fire flare up as more palm leaves were added on to keep them warm as they held a nightlong vigil. The comedy of watching chipmunks attempt to steal food out of our packs while our scoutmaster was lying there with a blow knee but cursing them and scaring them with pebbles and uttering how he wish he could smoke again. Or as we finish going through level 1 rapids, we watch in amusement as one of our buddies is tackled out of the boat by one of our guides after he made a wise-crack about her earlier on. All in good fun but all in areas and moments where introspection and light-heartedness collided.

It’s a feeling with awe and acceptance of being close to home when you throw your pack on your back and start trekking even though at times you’re going to hate everything but the beauty witnessed blows away the awe you felt at the beginning. All in the aesthetics and beauty of light playing with nature or light playing in forgotten small towns or loud roaring cities. Our feelings stir in the aesthetics. It is a philosophical ideology but it’s also psychological in the way it stirs a mix of appreciation for your smallness as well as a drawing of the strings of a more primal self that we shrug off, sometimes for lifetimes.

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods…

Ghost Gardens

The nakedness of the city was probably the most fantastic part of it. The big empty buildings holding onto whatever quiet dignity they have left as the environment starts to reclaim its original birthplace. In other corners of the city buildings were crumbling down in a solemn fashion that the extreme quiet only can bring about. The remains of the life that once lived and existed in a city slowly receeding into the past. A naked city still full of life but slowly dying every second. The post-apocalyptic life came calling much sooner except it forgot the apocalypse and just became post-infastructure in a sense. Just like the great marvels of the old world having arrived much sooner than anyone ever expected. Each step is a moment where the whiff of the decaying structures makes your head spin as your body tries to make sense with if it had ever existed in that place before.

Oddly enough, I found myself walking into one of these collapsing giants of yesteryear that still had power running through it. It was strange to find a place so lit in the forgotten corner of this city. As night crept on and I stumbled amongst the rubble I found myself staring through a hole in the roof of a pavillion off of one of the floors. I watched as the water sprinkled down amongst the holes in the fabric and mingle with the bare lightbulbs still hanging, flickering from time to time. That incandescent color now lost in today’s world mixing with the sprinkle of rain cause a quiet longing for a past or some fleeting feeling of understand and belonging to this one moment in time.

I walked out to the pavillion and looked around. I felt the rain start to soak my hood but did not get wet. As I stared across the ruins, I could see a few miles away the lights of the city. In the in-between rand lights from those hanging on or from squatters settling in spread out across the blank and empty darkness. Away in the city people were still living but were they thriving? As merely a tourist I could only stare out and contemplate this fall from grace and the reclaiming of the wild by the wild. Down below I could hear the cars arriving for the show and the dj’s rolling their equipment in to the rooms we would fill with electronic beats, wild lights and crazed dancers. A new jazz, so to speak, making you wonder if Fitzgerald would be partaking if he were born in this time for like the 20’s a new dawn was upon the world but instead of ubridled optimism, this was an escape from the mingling attitudes of existing.

The loudness and life of tonight in the midst of an aging building and dying streets; a perfect metaphor for the places that our generation could be at if states were changed but a tad. The difference being this time we are aware of the possibilities that lay before us so we partake of this excess as a way to say, “for another day.” The question that would not be asked nor answered being if there would be our fall from grace or would we weather the storms in our own spirited and undefeated way. So I stared back out and smiled while I pondered these thoughts with my cigarette glinting in the darkness for anyone who looked up, almost like a beacon for all those who wanted to and would come.

Rocking the Vote Through Abstinence

In one of my favorite stand-up bits, George Carlin expounds on the reasons why he does not vote. It is a unique perspective besides the, “I didn’t like any of the candidates.” In his crude and honest way he gave more than just that answer when no one could give one quite like that. Today we come to the midterm elections in the United States with groups and Facebook statuses claiming that we have no right to complain if we don’t vote. My father likes to tell me that sometimes you have to pick the lesser of two evils. That begs the question then of, “Well isn’t that still voting for evil?”

Personally, I feel strongly that consciously not voting is just as meaningful as those that “throw away” their votes for one of the two major parties. As Carlin put, “shit in and shit out.”, and it’s quite true to me. Lord Acton states, “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely”. Do we have absolute power in the United States government? No, but it certainly is a hell of a lot more powerful than what it was ever meant to be. And as Carlin put, each rotation of politicians for the most part is just part of the same system of shit that leads to pork barrel spending, lobbyists and broken promises; not always broken promises on their account but because of the ruling majority in the House and Senate. Either way, as long as the same parties consistently hold ground then why truly waste a vote?

The other problem with voting, especially this year, stem from narrowed views on political problems. In the state of Texas for instance we have a major race between Wendy Davis and Greg Abbott. Do you want to know what I know about these two candidates? Well, I know that Davis is pro-choice and thus pro-women while Abbott is pro-life and therefore anti-women. Which brings up how shitty our system is that because you believe one thing you’re automatically hating on another group. Anyways, what else can I tell you about these two? Enough, because I read their platforms but for the every day voter I have a sneaking suspicion that the abortion debate is the extent of their understanding (A few friends on Facebook have proven this to me). So why are you voting then?!

Let me explain, there are four types of people in the United States when it comes to politics: Informed voters, uninformed voters, apathetic abstainers and informed abstainers. Informed voters have researched the candidates and understand who they’re voting for whether Republican, Democrat, Libertarian or whatever. Uninformed voters are those that look at one aspect and vote. Examples are the people who say vote for Wendy because she’s pro-women or those who say vote Abbott because he cares about babies or a lot of people who voted because Obama was black or promised universal healthcare (the last has been a huge kick in the teeth for these voters). Apathetic abstainers are the ones who either don’t care or don’t think anyone cares about them so why vote or even pay attention. Informed abstainers have researched the candidates and decided that they can’t vote for any of them or because they don’t believe in voting for the lesser of two evils.

Now, I have been told repeatedly that I have no right to complain if I do not vote. The problem with this logic can be found here in a very crass way by the late, great George Carlin:

 

Why are we so concerned with people complaining? If we’re going to follow this logic then the only people who have no right to complain after election day are apathetic abstainers and uninformed voters. Then again, this goes down to a Freedom of Speech idea because how dare you say that people can’t complain if they don’t vote. They’re exercising their right by not voting!  Everyone has the right to complain and to be angry whether they voted or not. Voting is one of the most fundamental rights we have so why should I take that lightly and vote for people that I don’t identify with? It’s all well and good but did anyone notice the articles about the celebrities from Rock the Vote who didn’t, um, well, rock the vote?

I’m sorry to break it to you but you can waste your vote if you vote. Want to know what’s better than voting? Being involved, actually researching candidates not sound bites, and actually making a difference. I’d rather live in a country where people are actively involved in their government and not voting than what we do now where we get excited around election time and care about things, but then the rest of the time we complain and aren’t involved. Don’t tell me I can’t complain and don’t tell me I’m not informed because I’m not voting, that’s the biggest lie you’ve been sold.

I’ll leave you with this: “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” – Thoreau

Memories as Matter as Memories in Jeans and a Grey Sueded Jersey

Cracker Jacks and faux wood grained dining room tables lined the small hallway of my first place of residence after my moving out. In the years that have passed since then I can only recall the remarkable whereabouts of my own internal clock as it pointed me down some poignant corridor of which I was unaware. In the midst of the moving out I had forgotten to pick up childhood memories which were later decimated in a fire that torched the home. It was within the sentimentality of these items being reduced to ash and the memories of them that I final could ponder the meanings.

It also gave way for me to ponder the fear that one day my mental capabilities would fail me and I would be forever grasping at straws to remember everything that drove the feelings for these items. In that midst I became lost into the smell of these items. Never, even then, could I recall vivid memories but only memories of sleeping or playing with the items as well as the way they smelled. It’s like the times you step into an old house and you reel for a second once a smell hits your nose. It’s a feeling like you know this place and its secrets when in reality it’s just your mind recognizing the smell and trying to place it with preexisting memories while observing the place you’re in.

That reeling has always been my favorite part of my memories, like that house held some long lost secrets of which I could not remember. As if I had existed in this place before yet unable to remember because who I was when these secrets unfolded only echoes inside of me, a faint trace of a former life. Not a reincarnation if you will but a memory residing in my makeup of atoms and quarks and stardust.

Now there has never actually existed this hallway lined with Cracker Jacks and fake wood tables, nor has any of my childhood items been destroyed in a fire. Hell, I’ve recently moved back home after an unsuccessful excursion to Tampa; though I miss the town and my friends there and want to go back. I also am not quite sure where I stand on this idea of memory residing in our makeup though in a reincarnation sort of way. I do however wonder about that reeling feeling because it almost feels like I’m reaching some understanding of the place before it is snookered away by the mystery of the senses mingling. To me it feels akin Poe saying that, “All experience, in matters of philosophical discovery, teaches us that, in such discovery, it is the unforeseen upon which we must calculate most largely.” and Solnit’s response that what Poe is saying is that one must, “…recognize the role of the unforeseen, of keeping your balance amid surprises, of collaborating with chance, of recognizing that there are some essential mysteries in the world and thereby a limit to calculation, to plan, to control.” When that spin hits it’s our being keeping balance between echoes of memory with the present load on the senses. It’s our being saying, “Hey, I remember something or was it a dream?”

It is a most wondrous pondering to think of the Conservation of Mass in correlation with our existence especially in terms of our memories. Is it possible that our memories aren’t just the essence of our being but somehow tied into our lives? There has to be something more than just wires in the brain getting crisscrossed with when we entering places and the smells hit our nose to cause us to whirl. According to Henri Bergson there are two types of memory with one being habitual memory and the other true memory. The habitual memory is memory that is repetitively assigned a place in our minds while true memory are what we consider the memory of past events. This true memory has no actual place, it’s that spirit or our essence. I need to actually check out the book which I shall after I finish the three I have by Solnit.

I’m not sure where I’ll come out after these readings but I still just have this feeling in my gut that the mystery of memory will never be completely solved. It has been a philosophical question for time out of mind to what are memories really are. Selectionism seems to believe the same as Bergson and for expansion on this whole question will lead me to academic research. Still, I can’t get that feeling out of my mind every time I come upon a place that I’ve never been before.

Maybe someday I’ll walk into a room and it’ll be a hallway lined with empty boxes of Cracker Jacks or faux wood tables or maybe not. Imagination is a wild and crazy beast that we’ve lost touch with. Someday we might prove that these true memories have no actual bases in reality; which will be quite saddening. I like to think though that there’s something much more going on, more convoluted that we can imagine for if it’s possible as in Eternal Sunshine to delete select memories then they can’t be separate from us…at least I don’t think so.

Cramping the Agenda: Organizing for A Viable Third-Party

Lets take a little break from the musings of everyday philosophy and look into the spectrum of political philosophy. Russell Brand has his book out called Revolution calling for a revolution to overcome the political ideologies already in place. He claims it’s a revolution for the downtrodden and those under the oppressive thumb of corrupt government institutions. I, for one, will admit to a gross understatement by the news about the way our governments have been bought and sold for pork spending and handouts, but there needs to be a better solution. While I have not read the book, I feel that Brand is missing the idea of starting small. I agree, we need a revolution, but we must start it in our own communities and countries first. I think I may have an interesting plan for us…

Last night while sitting at my local bar watching all the movements around me as I took pulls from my cigarette I was overcome with an idea to rectify the two-party system that has mangled our government. According to Thomas Jefferson, “Every constitution, then, and every law, natural expires at the end of nineteen years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right.” Now, at this point that is not what I’m suggesting though that thought process makes sense. Imagine the delegations coming out if every 19 years this whole fucking country was retooled? Oh the chaos and discussions that would be coming around. We may never even reach agreements but it would be something, something amazing!

What I am proposing is an organization in the vein of Rock the Vote except without the bullshit swing of ideology hidden beneath the “unbiased” intentions. We would create an organization that I will fully admit is biased. However, my bias is toward either creating a new and viable third party or prop up the Libertarian party. The point of this organization at the beginning is to make it possible for a third party to have an actual voice and movement. To say to our politicians that we’re done being bought and sold so they can make their dime. By doing this it’ll show the people that we can have more than the same shit in and shit out that our country likes to propagate. Later on the organization will either continue backing the new or Libertarian party (whichever happens) or it’ll be dedicated to helping other third parties become viable so that they can compete on a local and national level, add to the discussion and create a multi-party system.

I don’t want to rewrite the Constitution, yet, that is, but what I want to do is take back the country for the populace. We would start by reaching out to those of us who refuse to vote or apathetic to vote. We reach to those who don’t think they’ll voice will be heard or refuse to buy into a two party system. We reach out to the LGBT, to the jaded minorities (and the jaded of the majority!), to the tattoo and pierced culture and all the rest of us that fell between the cracks of our political system. Lets be honest, no one is speaking for us. This isn’t about rich white men anymore controlling the country as we like to cry out. What this is, is about a generation in a boat with one paddle going in circles. A generation lost in the wilderness who are too afraid to admit they’re lost and embrace it. We’re facing the unknown on a political, economical and philosophical scale and we need a revolution where we embrace this unknown and dance with its mysteries.

That is what I want this organization to be because the only way to fix our system besides completely dismantling it or hoping someone will stand up to change it, is to get a third-party that represents the people more than the elekey running the place right now. If the organization is to back up the Libertarian party then it’ll be to reach out to the apathetic, downtrodden and forgotten by the other two parties. It’ll be to push for a true audit of the Fed and bring back the fervor that Ron Paul brought to the scene. If it becomes one where we create our own third party then I want fully transparent research into the issues and polling information so that as we figure out our stances, everyone will be informed.

It’s time for a political movement where we stop propping up governments and spreading Democracy and fix ourselves first. It’s time to bring home our troops from bullshit engagements with the goals of “keeping our interests safe”. We need to heed the words of Washington again and steer clear of “entangling alliances”. We need this movement to light a nation to change. We need real conversation about what to do with healthcare because our system now is hurting us worse than the previous one. We need to recognize everyone’s right to be married and then take the government out of the marriage game. Will the new party do this? I’d like it to but it’s starting goal is to get the conversation going and bring out those shunned by the major political parties.

We’re fed up with being lied to, jerked around and we need a strong and viable third-party. That’s where this organization will come in. Lets change the game and then maybe later on we can discuss Jefferson’s plan. We need to stop blaming rich white men because that’s a stupid fallback of those that would rather twiddle their thumbs than actually do something. We want real change, not this bullshit change we choked down and I think an organization like this can do it. What do we have to lose?

An Exercise in Rambling Exploration

Sometimes I wonder about random things as I sit here at night listening to music or pondering whatever my mind churned up. One delicacy on which I dine run on the questions of evil, not the problems but questions because I’m a little rusty on my philosophies. Questions that want to know if there really is true evil since even Hitler thought he was doing what was right. Is evil an objective concept or is another part of perception? And if that’s the case then where do we move on from there? Because who really said that life is sacred besides some religious texts. Even some pagans sacrificed people though it was usually an honor and there was still some semblance of respect for life. As a professor once told me, there are little t and capital t truths, the objective and subjective but where’s the full blown proof that even that isn’t just some objective/subjective bullshit?

But then again, where do we start selling out in the day and age. Back at home after living in Tampa and exploring various aspects of myself I find that I’m not done exploring or enjoying the experiences that took place while there. So I battle these churning seas within the vastness of my existence. Our generation has been called a lot of things but no one has ever been able to hit it on the head when we’re desperate for some definition of ourselves. Student loans, political and economic unrest and upheavel, killer viruses and parents basements. We used to discuss our dreams, now we’re discussing our dreams on a budget. If this is growing up then I’m never going to be for it. My heart isn’t is it. These loans, 30 thousand or so, are hanging over my head like finding a job that affords the ability to not be forever defined by debt. It’s a serious delimma that I don’t think most people have seriously tried to face. Where do we go from here if my generation keeps rowing with one oar? Mass suicides as people realize the American dream has become a facade? Will there be a final rebellion of fed-up adults ready to reset the mess we’re in? The only thing that I fear is that no one is thinking any of this and it’s just wheels on the bus going round and round and round until we’re nauseous without realizing why.

This all is incoherent rambling of a restless mind so any continuity might not be availiable.

Signed,

the author

Other pieces abound that I came up with while running tonight and playing the themes of Wicked over in my head. One would expect that to be situated up above but it turned into thoughts about dreams and sleep. After getting back from Tampa I had an awful time getting to sleep. I assume now because I was going out far too much after months of sun, adventures and no alcohol to keep me grounded. It was also to sort of avoid a deep distance that has come between me and one of my best friends but it only brought that out subconsciously. I’ll take the levels of pain in our separation or “weirdness” as we call it that come and go. Makes you wonder about the true state of sobriety in the world. Are we ever really sober? Whether it’s substances we’re addicted to or technology, I wonder, with the definition of addiction, if we’re not all addicts. What is sobriety?! But I made a massive digression…

When we sleep, what if we’re not going off into some world of dreams but what if our being (not our existence) but our being slips out and mingles somewhere with others that are asleep. They say when we sleep that even if we don’t recognize the people in our dreams that they’re someone we’ve seen in our day to day life. Imagine if dreams are just this big room where our beings mingle and tell stories of other lives or dimensions and that becomes our dreams. Then we’re mingling with people we don’t know and the larger the story being told the more of them are in the dream yet each one is telling a different story at the same time so it’s a fucking hodgepodge of stories flying around and mingling together. None of that’s what happens but the concept is a fun play for my imagination. If that was the way of our dreams they could be like monkey typing Shakespeare and so one day they all combine at one time and our dreams are just one giant dream existing all at once.

Finally, as most of my numerous musings like to follow we end on thoughts of love and the works. I’ve been meaning to write an entire blog devoted to love. What we don’t realize that healthy relationships aren’t just pure emotion or lofty passions but also the ability to communicate. We have to realize that you don’t have to sacrifice ourselves for love as women who have gotten out of abusive relationships will tell you. They thought it was love so they sacrified and took the abuse because they loved him and clearly that’s not the way of things. It’s a heart/mind thing, not full one or the other. I may not agree with everything but if I fall in love with how your mind works and how you make me feel then you better believe it’s not just that butterfly feeling crap we’ve been fed is the way to know we’re in love.

Speaking of being in love, our society has dictated that girls just want those three little words. Well I say, fuck that. Why the hell are we still teaching this idea? I love a lot of people, men and women, but I’ve only been in love a couple times in my life and I think that’s a lot more than “I love you” has ever meant. I love you shouldn’t be those words that start the next step in the process. I’m sparse in saying I love someone because I used to live by the code that I don’t love unless I really care for someone. I’m still working on my own personal philosphy so a full blog on that will explore this more. The bottom line is we’ve all had relationships where we love someone but our deepest relationships are the ones where we can look at the person and say, “I’m in love with you.” I think it’s time society updated our definition of how we show our yearnings for someone in the way we use our words. Throw out those three little words and lets make this meaningful again and start saying those five little words. Losing a best friend can be just as bad if not worse than a break-up with someone you’re in love with but it’s pretty fucking close. I have never felt as crushed as when true heartbreak has taken hold.

Maybe we’re existing in a state of anomie and don’t realize it?

signed,

Fyodor Camus

Deserts and Roadtrips: Musings for My Generation

Have you ever stood in the middle of a desert? Just stood in the middle of the desert with the sun beating down on you. It may be intensly hot or that warming kind of heat that doesn’t blister you, just kind of gently blinds your eyes. There’s something about the desert in a romantic sort of way but more in the way how it’s so goddamn empty. An emptiness that your heart could expand into infinitely along with your thoughts. I’ve ridden in cars with my head out the window and the wind whipping through my hair but never an open topped car. Life is a lot like that. It’s driving wit the top down in the midst of the blinding sun where the burn of the sun is the pain and retribution for living our lives. The wind is the the exhilaration of actually living our lives while the road, well, the road is life as we barrel down it whether we realize the speed in which we’re traveling.

The desert is the roadtrip of our imagination. We might not see it that way but between here and there, there is a fucking desert in the in-between. Whether it’s a spiritual or mental desert or an actual desert, there is always a desert on each jaunt across some part of the world. It’s never about the desert for me even though that’s a great place for a spiritual rendezvous, it’s always about the ride, the drive, the trip that I fly down, especially on a warm and sunny day. Then there are those days when the sun is gone and it’s cold or it’s raining but even then, there’s that desert in your midst and my god, is it gorgeous to be in it.

Wanderlust, my darling, you and writing are my favorite intangible loves of my life. Music goes in there too. I can’t touch you, though I can feel you move through me. So then we beg to ask, is our quest. Through all the delusionary hubbub there’s something out there. The problem is not that you don’t know what it is but when whatever it is sits on the tip of your tongue and mind that you know you can grasp, but you just can’t quite get what it is you must grasp. A beautiful analogy for all the world and one that should be listened to and meditated on by my generation. We’re at least defined by our experiences and how we handle life as it comes our way. There’s other things too like personality and all but even that has its hand guided by experiences to an extent, but that’s for another discussion.

So, roadtrip and trek through the desert anyone?

Tales of Mere Existence

Ran into this poem earlier today. Kinda reminds me of an offshoot of Howl.

Going Gonzo, Sorta

Because of the noise the geniuses are all dead.

What they lacked in numbers they built by

way of character and modeling clay.

In disappointment I drove down my favorite backroad,

stopped the car and sat on my hood for a day.

After each draw of the cigarette I stared into the

sky listening to the music pumping into the space.

As the night gently passed I laid back to watch the

stars dance, whether it as my imagination,

the heat of the day or something else entirely.

Back into the city I did head, looking toward the coast

and the long legs of the women that passed by.

Like movements of a symphony I traveled about

in a manic attack, screaming at the passing egos

and hanging onto those that came at me.

All the mad ones were waiting there for me as

the geniuses had waited for us…

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