discipline made me type this

 Sometimes I write with a plan. There's a notebook I keep for such occasions. There's actually quite a few notebooks for many occasions. The issue is these notebooks are in boxes, containers, or bags. There's one I've loosed on the world once again but his friends all remain safely locked away.

These notebooks contain too many dangerous ideas. You see, they contain mostly the missives of a much younger man. A much different man. Except, I'm much the same as well. Maybe.

I tell myself and anyone who will listen that I have more wisdom but I know that's not true. I have more years and I might have more experience. That's weird to say but it's certainly true. More years with the possibility of more experience, though that's not what anyone ever says. We're comfortable with phrases like "I've forgotten more about this than you'll ever know" while being stone certain more years always equates to more experience.

XP, as the gamers call it, is the coveted currency of the working force. When you first start your journey into tedious labor all the bosses want more experience. Eventually you get to a point in your life when you're thrown the bullshit salary negotiating tactic of "we can't afford you" because you maxed out your XP doing side quests. Then there's the point where you realize life is nothing but a series of side quests and you go back to just enjoying the game.

Let's be honest with ourselves, what's the grand importance of pushing papers? Who cares about some spreadsheets and graphs? Optimizing one thing or another only leads to specialization. Instead of adding beauty to life we decide we'd rather have productivity. Why not both? I'd rather have a beautiful disaster than an efficient turd.

One day soon (maybe today?) I'll dust off some of those boxes and unearth some of those notebooks. They're so dangerous, written when I had more cares and the desire to change the world. They also make me think maybe I smoke too much because they look like a mix between ransom notes and poetry. So, basically, just ransom notes.

it takes two to toxic

Imagine you're on a camping trip having the absolute worst time of your life. Disregarding the fact that you've chosen to sleep in a tent when (presumably) you have a roof somewhere you could sleep under instead, this imaginary camping trip is even worse. The drive was a nightmare and you're pretty sure you got poison ivy on your ass. To add further injuries and insults, you've been arguing about everything. Why would you ever agree to go camping with such a toxic person?

Before we go any further, no sane person would ever agree to go camping. Who wants to shit in the woods when you have your home throne upon which you can dispense your daily business? On top of that, you're clearly not sane because this imaginary camping trip was a solo adventure. 

Setting aside all this hyperbole and weirdly specific rants about camping, if you can't stand to be with yourself then everything else is going to be wrong. You could have not exposed your bare ass to a dirty weed that causes immense suffering. You could have made your gypsy (GPS) give you directions. You could have said "Camping is for sasquatches" like any normal person and stayed near home.

tenido tres vidas

 At least, I think that's right. On the whole, of course, I've only had the one but life itself is a cycle. The first two weren't exactly entirely continuous and the route was full of detours and booby traps, but I think it's safe to say I'm finally at a new beginning again. The sun is rising once more over the empire of my happiness. Hopefully this time I've reached my final form as I saunter through re-birth.

It could be that first paragraph was woefully obscure to the casual reader, but there is no other kind of reader when there's years between words. I would apologize, but that's not really my style. Javier Nelson (is allowed to speak in the third person) was born in the second age, an era of equal parts youthful exuberance and naivety. It was a time for dreamers, one without urgency even though the sun moved away shortly after the first clouds appeared.

I've returned to where everything began, and by that I mean my very first life. This time seems charmed so far but everything else just seems a bit smaller than I remember and all the distances are shorter. There's also the matter of returning to sanity while the rest of the world slowly sinks into the curious embrace of madness. I know that siren's call all too well, she's been a constant partner of mine for years but I think it is best that we parted ways. You lot can have her, though I loved her truly.

I'm looking at some of the same things I saw years ago through new eyes. I haven't released my savage soul back into the wilderness, I've merely accepted that it wasn't mine to control in the first place. I'm simply acknowledging that I never had the power to control anything about myself. Those nights spent pretending would have been better spent listening to the wild spirit and letting chaos reign.

I type this now in the biggest office I've ever had because one day I said "Fuck this, I've had enough". 

come down off the cross, we can use the wood

For a thing to be special, it needs to be rare. Special things are uncommon, a field of grass in the middle of the prairie is just scenery. A drop in the ocean, as they say.

The reason they make so many movies about "true love" and "soul mates" is because it isn't something that happens everyday; it is a fantasy movie about some fantasy shit, so to speak.

The measure we use to determine happiness is based on experience. If you've never been happy, a small kindness can mean the world. If all you've ever known is blissful ignorance then a minor inconvenience is a gross misfortune. This is why children over-react to everything, they simply don't know any better.

Likewise, if you've never known security then you have no idea of what safety means. If you've always been beset upon by those mean you harm, you wouldn't know a good thing if it hit you in the face (because that's normally what the bad things do).

And if you're always angry, you'll know no peace.

Experience is such a trivial thing and yet it is the lens through which we see the world.

better out than in

Life is like shit.

I didn't say life is shit, that's defeatist and no one likes a loser.

It's like shit. Sometimes it is smooth and easy and other times it rushes like the mighty Mississippi overflowing its banks.

Thinking "No, that's far too much", but when you look back on it, they're remarkably similar.

I don't know anyone that's had the life they thought they should, that's just not how those things work out. Fortunately, for the most part, shits are at least somewhat predictable. If you go out and drink a dozen high gravity lagers, you probably just signed up for a bad time. Likewise if you decide to eat a pound of cheese in one sitting. If you watch what you eat and keep that fiber up, you're gonna brag about your shits. That's just how those things work out.

But, regardless of how, what goes in must come out. Which is another similarity with this grand topic of "life", generally you get out of it what you put in to it, it's just that everything gets all mangled in the process and doesn't always resemble what you thought it would. It's the act of living that cobbles us together. Pain, illness, heartbreak, and all those other things that most folks want to avoid are actually what makes most folks who they are. The old adage of "forged in the fire" or some similar colloquialism would be apt here, though when you're in the midst of being forged none of that matters.

We must accept the shit life gives us, but only a real sick fucker would embrace it.