Archive for October, 2007
Moving Universes With My Mind
My entire life I have been cursed with a recurring dream. This particular phantasm is unbound by the rules that govern its more traditional ilk, haunting me both while I sleep and during the mundane activities of my everyday life. I cannot escape it. Or more precisely, I cannot escape her.
In this dream time does not exist. I find myself Primordial Man, walking unabashed by my own nakedness. Wandering through the flora and fauna of Eden and believing to be the only Soul in existence. And there she is…like a fleeting vision. A wisp of golden brown hair melts into the colors of paradise. And then I blink, the longest of blinks, and find myself a man of Renaissance, in the most precarious of civilizations. I have just gained my bearings when that lustrous hair catches the corner of my eye. I turn to see her and for the first time, perhaps the first time in ages, our eyes meet. I cannot match the intensity of her gaze and my eyes force themselves shut. When I finally gain the courage to open them, it is not her I find, but the dank loneliness of an immigrant tenement. I am disgusting. Judging by my clothes it must be the late 1800s…I attempt to speak and find a tongue I never knew existed. Beautiful words pour forth and for the most intriguing of reasons I understand them…is it Russian? Ukrainian? What is this magnificent disaster spewing from my mouth..? And there she is. Combing her hair, that long sweet hair. She smiles and for the first time I refuse to let her out of my sight. I nearly have to hold my eyes lips open. I am overcome. I ask her name…I think. She pulls me to her with those deep and soulful eyes. I approach her clumsily and she pulls my ear close to her mouth, telling me to close my eyes. I comply so eagerly that the darkness cannot come fast enough, and just like that she is gone, again. This entire universe is gone, and I wake within my bed here and now, in this universe of universes.
A sweat has crept through my skin, a fever of love and lust has stricken my body. Looking to the empty space in my bed I dream of her filling it. Her milky back to me, and that hair…golden brown draped upon her naked shoulders…resting, for nothing in the world come harm her here. I would die to defend her, the woman who’s name I’ll never know. I close my eyes and find myself in Eden again, ripped from this universe and cast into the Great Blunder of our humanity. I am Adam Kadmon, and she will be my Eve. I wander a short eternity and find myself alone, until the sounds of silence draw me away. This harp of wind carries me, closer and closer to her…I just know. And sitting upon a rock, amidst God’s first pond, she sits…innocent and nude, glorious and free. I dive into the water and swim, so furious as if my very life depended upon it…crashing through the water only to find myself in a bath tub, with lukewarm filth all around me. Is this now? Am I home?
No. I am…And on and on and on…
This endless dream; this wondrous illusion. The pursuit of you, whomever you may be. My love knows no bounds, it does not matter, it does not change…only the era. Yes, I may have moved universes with my mind, but in the most truthful of ways, I was always moving them for her.
Maybe one day…I’ll learn her name…and we can lay without words, without clothes, without care…safe and warm, together.
I Shall Meet My Maker…
I have been thinking a lot about my life right now and I have reached the most clear of conclusions: I am being punished.
And rightfully so. Caffeine and nicotine. Words that define my existence. Infidelity, lechery, and hedonism…more words to describe this empty soul. My life is a substance abuse. It is a complete abuse of moral fiber and the mandates of my God. He is showing me the power of Karma and the consequences of dereliction.
I have not been to church since I moved to Austin. I have consumed so much and given so very little back. To the core of humanity I am a parasite, taking and taking without regard to anything else. I feel dirty and pathetic, empty and alone. Oh, there has been love-making, but no love…there has been joy, but no jubilation. I am paying for my sins.
Tomorrow I will attempt to right the ship, as I have so many, many times before. And more of my life may slip away…I do not know. I believe in free will, but I also believe in divine order…which is preeminent? Right now I feel like the most insignificant creation on Earth and bow completely before my Master’s will, or is it whim?
Yet, in this hollow shell of a life I find quiet…and peace. For I know that I will soon meet my maker and repay Him in kind. Forty ounces and a nine millimeter. Truth at the speed of sound. No, I’m not going to kill myself…He’ll have to do that for me.
And then…
The Lacrimation of My Soul
For the first time in years…I feel the need to cry.
I found out this morning that for the second time in my short life I’ve been the victim of identity theft. And as the person on the other end of the phone read legal scripts and followed company compliance with the same coldness that I do vis-a-vis matters of credit and fortune…my body attempted to break down. I shivered and felt my eyes wet…a lump formed in my stomach and fear grasped my throat, silencing words I’d die to shout.
But I resisted. I resist now. Since I’ve moved away from the pine encompassed paradise of far east Texas and into the jaws of adulthood, my life has been unforgiving. I have been robbed, vandalized, harassed by would-be protectors, and now…my name and livelihood jeopardized.
It is at these moments I actually feel weak. And I want to cry. The ushering in of this fall did not only bring with it crisp air and muted sunshine, but a gloom that I cannot escape, infecting my life…
But I resist. I will resist forever…
Relinquish Your Pain Unto Me
Download Link Kajiura Yuki - Sakura
I want you to try something for me. At the top of this entry there is a song, a special and wondrous song. Listen to this song and close your eyes, letting go of everything within your mind. Block out the bills, the pain, the loss, and the worries of the world beyond. Turn it up so loud that the music is the only thing you can sense. Let it inundate your entire being–become one with the sounds.
Within these ivories and strings there lies a message so spectacular that I cannot begin to describe it in words. I want you to think of the good in this world, of babies being born, and smiles, and the unconquerable human spirit. Of hope and promise and the power you possess….breathe deeply and feel your Soul reverberate within your body.
If you would just close your eyes with me and believe in something bigger for the next two minutes and six seconds. Relinquish your pain, let it go…and for the briefest of moments…you will be set free…
The Shepherd and the Destroyer
Download Link Kajiura Yuki - U-DO~Febronia
My friend sent me a message the other day. She discovered a bit of text that she believed to define me, and I must say that after reading it I do so wholeheartedly agree. Her message contained the words of Bertrand Russell and they could very easily have been mine own. He wrote:
Three passions have governed my life:
The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
And unbearable pity for the suffering of humankind.Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of people.
I have wished to know why the stars shine.Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart
Of children in famine, of victims tortured
And of old people left helpless.I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.This has been my life; I found it worth living.
Within his words you will find the great force that propels me, as well as the burden which drags me down. I am constantly seeking, constantly wading through the nonsense of this world in order to find the Answer which will save us from ourselves. Love and knowledge are the chains that attach me to the expanse of my brethren: known, unknown, past, and future–it does not matter. I want to help, so deeply and so purely that it creates a suffering I’m sure few could understand. But Bertrand Russell did. And his words added to the popular sentience, to the general lexicon of human suffering.
This magnificent dichotomy of me. This blessed curse of love and hate. It has created within me dual desires, which result similarly but are diametrically opposed. The perfect archetypes of my solution to the suffering, for I am both the Shepherd and the Destroyer. I want to deliver you from pain. I want to take away your misery and elevate you to the highest level of existence. I want us to rejoin God together. I want to end the temporal joys of the material, and the hopeless empty hearts of the flesh. I want to end it all. Yes, the Shepherd and the Destroyer. I am both.
The Shepherd in me desires for nothing less than the power of The Christ. To stand before man King of all Creation and soothe him. The Shepherd within me longs to end the source of our discontent, our very humanity, by taking both the righteous and the wicked to be one with whatever God they choose. I imagine a blinding white light emanating from me, the source of Salvation, and encompassing the entire universe. It is so bright that your very concept of time and space becomes blurred, there is nothing but you…and the light. And it becomes quiet, still…for the first time in your life you are not hungry, or tired, or anguished. Complete serenity. This is God. This is peace. An ocean of consciousness spanning endlessly and you are both everywhere and nowhere. Everyone else is amongst you, within you, and there is Peace.
It is sweet, isn’t it? Desiring the power to push humanity into a plane unbound by flesh. But I am so powerless. I am simply a man; a dot on the evolutionary scale, an infinitesimal blip upon the universe. And powerlessness leads to fear and anger and hate. And hate begets a more feasible plan to end human suffering. The ultimate suffering to end all suffering. Yes, if I cannot deliver you from pain then I will inflict one final pain; one cacophony of misery that this world has never experienced. A jarring and terrifying hurt to end all hurt.
For I am also the Destroyer. The dark knight of both Plague and Salvation. If I cannot elevate our existence, I will end it. And by ending it I will save it. There will be no more jealousy or desire, no famine or genocide. There will be a final judgment and the verdict is the great destruction. Yes, I am powerless to save humanity, but the more tangible, the more human solution, is to end it.
The Shepherd and the Destroyer. Leading the flock or annihilating it. Both result in the same thing, but the execution of which are so different. Do the ends justify the means? Does morality become blurred if the desired goal is righteous? Am I righteous…or simply evil?
I wonder if Bertrand Russell felt as I do? If he desired to save you from the bonds of flesh and rejoin with God, and then his powerlessness consumed him and the only verdict was vengeance? Did he feel my pain? Did he understand me as completely as I hope..?
Love, knowledge, suffering. This is my life. This is my curse. I lack power; I lack the Answer. And I may die doing nothing more to help, and this is what I fear the most.
White Hot Hate, Love Italy
I was accosted by police tonight.
I’m so angry…so incredibly angry, and yet I feel nothing. As if I was upon the Beach of Nothingness–white sands and an ocean infinite. Just me and white sands.
I’m seething. The more I think about it, the more angry I become and the deeper a rage I experience. And yet, I feel nothing.
What was my crime? Playing acoustic music at a stop light too loud. It was so loud that the three other people in the car and I were enjoying random small talk at normal speech volume. It was so incredibly offensive as to warrant two police cars to pull me over and assault my eyes with their flashlights and my reason with their demagoguery.
A hate so pure…
Oh, and by the way…I’m not white, I’m italian, fucker.
Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying
Download Link Thomas Newman - Shawshank Redemption
Life won’t wait. It never does. Just yesterday I strolled into Round Rock One on Dell Way and began my first career, my first venture into what has been popularly dubbed “adulthood.”
I wore khakis, crisp and clean, a collared shirt and wing tips–my new tattoo hidden beneath layers of cotton in fear of occupational repercussion. Naivete in its purest form. I did not know exactly what to expect…the whole situation was so new and overwhelming. After the obligatory herding and the makings of I.D.’s they sent us into a large room with a horseshoe of tables. This would be the first battlefield of my career–sitting amongst future friends and competition.
And life won’t wait. Have I really been there three months?
Yet, this entry isn’t about my job. I can reach deeper into my past and scrape memories of Friday Night Lights and first loves and humbly arrive at the same thought: Where does it all go? I am the amalgamation of a million moments and a million more still to come. The past blends together forming the sea of my persona and the future…so ambiguous and daunting…is slowly melting away. Time is expiring. I am expiring. There isn’t much future left.
My father and I were talking once in only the way a father and son can…sitting outside looking upon the great fields beyond our home. Maybe there was beer, maybe a cigarette…I do not remember. But I do remember our words. We talked about life and how fast we lose it, about regret and anticipation, and the nature of our short-lived existence. The whole scene could have been lifted from an American novel. His message was clear and concise: He told me to live. Just to live. It seems so simple, but he meant so much more.
In those few words he told me to love, to hate, to fear, to conquer…to be free, to resist, to help, to cherish, to…to…to… His words are eternal and infinite, although sadly we are not.
I used to be so self-centered, and in many ways I still am. My vehement individualism bred contempt and anguish…and fear. I viewed everything as a threat. Paranoia is the theme. But at some arbitrary point I grew. I grew out of the shell of my own universe and began to simply live. I guess this is a human story. I know my time is short and I have committed so many sins thus far…against my Creator, against my enemies, and sadly against those I care about most. Redemption is a wonderful thing. And it is everywhere. I’ve realized how fleeting it all is, and how trite and pointless life can be spent being anything but happy and fulfilled. Life won’t wait, believe me. The words of my father now echo in everything I do: just live.
Get busy living or get busy dying…That’s god damn right.
On the Nature of Freedom…
Words mean different things to different people. I had always understood this maxim, but it was not until one of my history professors spoke to our class on the true nature of words that I fully grasped the concept. We, of all things, were discussing a rough draft of my paper for our senior project, and my peers had a myriad of things to say. Some thought I spoke too strongly, some simply did not understand, and others were disgusted or inspired.
Dr. Barringer (the greatest of mentors and educators) walked to the chalk board and drew a Latin Cross. He asked the class what that meant to us. Without hesitation we each announced how the image made us feel: christianity, Jesus Christ, salvation, sacrifice, and on and on… He then wrote the word Christianity next to his drawing and inquired again in the same fashion: Jesus Christ, salvation, grace, Heaven, and on and on…
He then went into a brief description of his antics. Dr. Barringer told us that there is no difference between the image of the Latin Cross and the word Christianity. Both are symbols which evoke feeling and emotion, carry weight and prejudice, are filtered through a plethora of biases and predetermined opinion. He explained that great history writers understand symbols and use them to create emotion and tone without expressing clear moral judgment. The exercise was the greatest gift I have ever received, and I am forever indebted to him for that, as well as his many other beautiful teaching moments.
We speak a language, with shared meanings and understood usages. However, the words themselves are our own. Everything we say is our unique expression of thoughts, with values assigned, and our audience hears not only these words, but the echoes of their own values within them.
Nothing I can say can change this. Yet, I want to discuss a word. A single beautiful word, and what it means to me. Because if you understand what this word means to me, then perhaps you can understand that much more about me, and hopefully discover something about yourself. That word–the greatest of words– is freedom. It is a word that possesses within it a rich history, mired in war and peace, in abuse and demagoguery. Yet, it may be the most important word we could ever utter.
I view the word freedom as a state of being. Imagine water. It can exist within a number of states: liquid, solid, and vapor. Yet, it is always water–always comprised of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen. Freedom is ubiquitous. It is everywhere; the only universal truth of our existence. Unchangeable. We are each born into a complete state of freedom. With the taking of our first breath, we do not only inhale the elements of our universe, but the mists of an undeniable force that nurtures and empowers us. You are man, and you are free.
But after the glorious first taste of God’s greatest creation, we are shackled. It is so unfair. Our access to our own freedom is sadly a matter of geographical consequence. An innocent born in the sands of Iran, or the mountains of the United States do not share equally in their freedom. This introduces the concepts of liberty and tyranny–words, symbols which represent to what degree we enjoy the one magnificent truth. I imagine liberty and tyranny as two opposing points on a continuum, which spans the infinity of freedom. Wherever you live, whichever state and in whatever capacity, dictates how free you truly are.
In this construct, freedom is eternal and an absolute condition of the human existence. However, other humans contain and control you–cutting you in varying degrees from the only thing you are given.
As in all things, characters–symbols–aid in understanding. Take the character of Evey in the film V for Vendetta and this bit of dialog:
V: Listen to me, Evey. This may be the most important moment of your life. Commit to it. They took your parents from you. They took your brother from you. They put you in a cell and took everything they could take except your life. And you believed that was all there was, didn’t you? The only thing you had left was your life, but it wasn’t, was it? You found something else. In that cell you found something that mattered more to you than life. It was when they threatened to kill you unless you gave them what they wanted… you told them you’d rather die. You faced your death, Evey. You were calm. You were still.
For those who have not seen the movie, you should immediately. Although this line was taken out of context, you do not need to have seen the rest to understand how this relates to our discussion. Evey, a woman who had lost everything dear to her at the hands of a tyrannical government, was willing to die because she found something greater than her own life. What she found was the freedom of individuality and existence. They put her in a cell and tortured her; they attempted to solicit her submission and coerce her conformity–and she refused. That is why freedom is the only universal truth; the ubiquitous and undeniable force of our humanity. Because no matter what they did to her, they could not take away her mind and her will. Yes, they contained and controlled her, but within her mind she was always free. Tyranny is a condition. Freedom is a truth. Conditions can change. Truth does not.
In the movie V also states that “fairness, justice, and freedom are more than words, they are perspectives.” Do not accept a degree of liberty or an expansion of tyranny as an uncontrollable force. Adjust your understanding; recreate your perspectives. You are free. You always have been. Let go of hate and attempt to love your fellow man. Because together you both breathed the same first wondrous breath, and together you were both enslaved.
Words are relative, but truth is not. Believe.
A Revolution of Hope
Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.
I don’t like to grand stand or make rallies. But this video struck me deeply. Donate…if you believe in change, in peace, in liberty, and most importantly in yourself.
The American Gifts of Fire and Ice
“One pack of Camel Turkish Silver, please…”
It’s become as common as the sunrise, such a trite and uninspiring statement. My daily habit. Lighting fires and inhaling the smoke. I’ve been wondering a lot about why exactly I started smoking–mostly over the cool warmth of irish whiskey on the rocks. That’s it, isn’t it? Fire and ice. Right hand burning; left freezing…double fisting my own demise.
On a deep level I wonder if I’m purposely killing myself. A subconscious desire to end it all, manifesting in the cacophony of packing cigarettes and lighter hinges. Wouldn’t it be fantastic…the mind recognizing its own agony and slowly poisoning its fleshly vessel? Or is it clearly conscious…which would only add to this tragic comedy. Am I trying to kill myself?
At its most basic level, the answer is yes. What other end do these activities ultimately yield? Its beyond conscious. I know exactly what is happening to my body, but I light up regardless, then wash it down with ice-chilled jet fuel. I used to destroy my father’s cigarettes. I hated him for smoking. Raised on the evils of tobacco and drugs in government schools, I viewed his habit as a betrayal.
And again, like so many other things, I am my father’s son.
Do I want to die? Yes. But not tomorrow. And that’s why I can continue to brandish the forces of fire and ice. Right hand burning; left hand freezing. I want to live a long and wonderful life, with friends and family–a wife and children if god wills. But for right now, right here, I make the conscious decision to jeopardize all of that, because its intangible…its a gamble.
And what are we if not gamblers? It’s the American way, burning hot in our blood like a freshly lit cherry. This is the West–the great frontier. Where Indians threaten and wilderness reigns. Yea, I’m a twenty-first century cowboy. I just don’t wear a damn ten-gallon hat.
Or at least that’s what I’m going to keep telling myself…