Notes on the Bible (Gen 1-3) Creation

 In an attempt to keep my recent focus on stories, I've decided to do a critical reading of the Bible. As the best selling book of all time, it ought to have some pretty good stories. This endeavor will lead me into some shit, I'm sure.

 Wisdom is knowing which decisions to avoid. However, being a curious kind of guy, I often make the dubious choice. My attention will be briefly caught by some will-o-wisp of thought until I find myself alone with unfamiliar surroundings. This may be one of those times, but I have notes so it won't be so terrible as all that.

Anyways, if you're interested, I'm operating out of The New American Bible. I found it in a box amongst old pictures and religious documents from my youth. I am going to begin in the beginning, the book of Genesis (no relation to the band, as far as I know).

I can't think of a worse way to start a story than "First Story of Creation". I'm already wondering why we can't just get one story, so before we're even into any story there's mixed messages and confusion. This is a very old book, so perhaps this method of telling tales was more valid when people had more time. They needed extra exposition because they literally did have all night.

what's your story?

Stories evolve. Not just in the sense that while you're engaged in a dynamic story it seems to come alive, but in the sense that the types of stories we engage in evolve. 

In the beginning, there were simply "comedies" and "tragedies". However, that's not even true though because there have also always been expository tales with no point (news stories, basically, or historical records). History has always been my bailiwick.  That which has come before and catalogued in a more or less straightforward method, is still a story. It's a history, but it's still some kind of tale. The scope for what I consider a "story" is pretty wide.

There are nearly unlimited types of stories and they take shape on many mediums. As a youth, my pap would tell me stories before bed. They were the absolute worst kind: "remember when" stories when my pap would just tell me something he remembered. The main characters in his tales were always him and my uncle Sonny and there was never a point to any of them and they all struggled with a coherent plot, but I loved them, regardless. I was just a child and my experience of good stories was slim at the time. This is the same reason children can tolerate page-turners about dogs running and children playing. 

 

truth to power is spiritual wealth

Thousands of years ago there was this Chinese farmer named Sai Weng and one day he lost his horse. There are tons of translations of his story but the key points are always basically the same:

A farmer and his son had a beloved stallion who helped the family earn a living. One day, the horse ran away and their neighbors exclaimed, “Your horse ran away, what terrible luck!”. The farmer replied, ‘Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see’.

A few days later, the horse returned home, leading a few wild mares back to the farm as well. The neighbors shouted out, “Your horse has returned, and brought several horses home with him. What great luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”

Later that week, the farmer’s son was trying to break one of the mares and she threw him to the ground, breaking his leg. The villagers cried, “Your son broke his leg, what terrible luck!” The farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”

A few weeks later, soldiers from the national army marched through town, recruiting all the able-bodied boys for the army. They did not take the farmer’s son, still recovering from his injury. Friends shouted, “Your boy is spared, what tremendous luck!” To which the farmer replied, “Maybe so, maybe not. We’ll see.”

This thing could go on longer than the story of that absurd woman who ate a spider and followed it up with a zoo. There are so many translations of this story because it is pretty easy to understand. You can change a lot of the details but the meaning will remain the same: never listen to other people. 

wake up and choose violence

 Life is a series of events and if they're connected in any meaningful way, it was not intentional.

An immutable reality of nature is being dynamic. There's nothing alive that stands completely still. Mimes and trees may give this idea a significant challenge but it ought to be easily overcome because mimes are bullshit and the wind is a thing. 

Change is the only constant, but that's not actually all the way true because of maths and stuff, right? Well, fuck math, first of all. Secondly, there's a difference between theoretical truths and truths on the ground. A theoretical truth is something like "the United States has a market economy, freedom of the press, and is democratic" whereas the truth on the ground is "the United States practices corporate welfare, the press is the propaganda arm of said corporations, and your votes don't mean shit because  those same moneyed interests will control either choice you make in the voting booth"

a collection of quotes

This happens from time to time, I've decided. 

"The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing." - Blaise Pascal

"How aloof and uninterested a parental figure must usually have been for someone to grow up deeply charming." ~ "Reputation is a bit like a table: one or two marks and everyone notices, a whole host of scratches and it all blends in"  - Alain De Botton

"The classical virtues are all decision making heuristics to make one optimize for the long term rather than the short term." - Nakal Ravikant

 "If the meek ever inherit the earth, the strong will take it away from them." - Gustav Hasford

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd." - Voltaire

existentialist superhero

 Long ago, when I first started out on this odd journey of mine, I was a fool. I still am, but in different ways. I hope they're better ways, but probably not. Forward movement doesn't always mean progression though if you have an earnest desire for improvement, maybe it'll help. 

This initial, specific foolishness was at the beginning of my journey into "knowledge for the sake of knowledge", better known as part time trivia wizard or full-time learner. Imagine a wild eyed young man with unruly hair. He's a heavy set heavy smoker and he's pretty aggressive. I thought I was normal at the time, but I've since learned a lot of my behaviors were (and are) nowhere near normal. Hindsight has also taught me that I wasn't seeking much actual education in the same sense as most folks. That's why I skipped the boring classes and just showed up for tests. I didn't mind learning what I was supposed to be learning, but it wasn't engaging so it wasn't worth my time. Perhaps it should have been, but I had other priorities. 

One such engaging pursuit at the time was philosophy. It's still engaging now, but it's not quite so new and fresh these days. I discovered all kinds of things to occupy my thoughts and ultimately help find myself. I thought "existentialism is cool" and I decided that I wanted to be an existentialist superhero. It's basically just this idea that brutal honesty would be the only way to cultivate the life you'd like to lead. As it turns out, an existentialist superhero is just an asshole.

constraints of concerns

 Lately, I've been putting these down like a bed ridden octogenarian with osteoporosis playing whack a mole at the local arcade. With hands like butter, fresh from the freezer, I strike true but few. I'd like to say I've been excessively busy living life to the fullest, but it's just been more of the same. Or has it?

Does it matter? I've struggled with the concept of anti-progress in the past, even wrote about it a few months ago here. Movement solely with the purpose of movement, eventually being forced to make actual progress at some point but essentially wasting time in the here and now. 

And wasting time is the worst thing there is, right? Well, that was a bit rhetorical, or at least a little more complicated than I used to think.

 

too political

 New year, new you? New year's discussions typically take place closer to the beginning of the new year but, which? There are many ethnic and antiquated calendar options that mark the beginning of some new time period or another. So, let's just say that this here is inspired by one of those and not another personal lap around the sun.

 

 

What follows below the break is a rant.

empty your cup so that it may be filled

"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." - Mike Tyson

Life is always fast and dynamic and likes to come at you like a starving rat that smells the hunk of cheese you carry around in your pocket. Why you carry this cheese is anyone's guess but the rats in life always smell it out and get feral upon your approach. Also, a different way to express this sentiment is echoed by another famous fighter.

"Why do individuals depend on thousands of years of propaganda? They may preach 'softness' as the ideal to 'firmness', but when 'what is' hits, what happens? Ideals, principles, the 'what should be' leads to hypocrisy." - Bruce Lee

It isn't just about taking one on the chin. It's about everything. Preconceptions can make for an awkward conversation or they can kill you. If you meet a burly fellow in a back alley and he decides to come at you for that fat stack of cheese in your pocket, what are you going to do? If you meet some fine filly you found online and she turns out to be la Llorona reincarnated, tossing some cheese at her won't do you much good. And who thinks to bring ghost repellent for coffee?

the absolute state of things

 Try as I might, I can't seem to get many words down when they're not about myself. It's some type of narcissism, I'm sure, but it's not harmful just yet so I'll lean into it at least this one more time. However, the re-tooling has begun (hence my weeks-long hiatus) and I'm trying to focus on the production of quality words for everyone to read, not just those seeking something. I've started far more posts than I've finished lately and it is what it is, I'm not here to judge myself ... today. Below is the music video du jour in case you just wanted to skip right there and then the musings will commence after the break.

 

emotional calculus

 Much like houseplants, people need just a few things to live. Air, water, sunlight, dirt, etc. The necessities of life are those that are needed for continued survival. Seems pretty obvious, but a lot of stuff around here does at first. After water and oxygen, humans' immediate and constant needs are met. Food is necessary but it's not an immediate concern and I think there are plenty of benefits to fasting periodically. 

We eventually need to eat, but the human body is capable of going without food for a long time. The problem with this scenario is that it's unpleasant. If we only have our needs met, that's a bleak and dreary existence. That's a survival scenario and it sounds shitty so I'd recommend also including some of our desires into your everyday equation as well. The things we want can bring quality to simply surviving.

I could sleep outside and eat food I find in the woods, like some kind of man-bear or bear-man, foraging for food and just seeing what shakes loose. Maybe steal some honey and picnic baskets, who knows? Then sleep in a cave or somewhere. Maybe get a fire going and start the next day doing the same thing and then eventually just sleep through the winter. Now that I describe it like that, seems kind of desirable but that's not what I mean by needs and wants. 

Humans are kind of unique in the animal world because we can actually convince ourselves that some wants are actually needs and operate with additional survival requirements. It's truly amazing what humans are capable of sometimes. This can manifest itself in extreme acts of willpower and personal strength. It can also describe a child throwing a tantrum at the supermarket because they can't have some candy they desire. The problem with this ability is when we have to decide what's needed and what's simply wanted.

who took the time and where did they take it?

 I don't watch a lot of television. You probably hear that a lot from folks that seem altogether too well informed about stuff that's on television. Except, what the fuck is even on television anymore? I'm typing this right now on a television so maybe I do watch a lot. There's computers on televisions and television shows on computers, or in my case, on a computer on a television. Sometimes there's a stream, other times a torrent. At least for me, when it comes to what I consider "television", I mean any video media that's not music. 

Hey wait, what about the youtubes anyways? I included one here with almost every post this past month, so I obviously watch them and they're kinda like television. Mostly though, I just look up the song I want to include and watch it when I include it. They used to be on MTV, VH1, BET, CMT, etc, which would definitely be something I'd avoid, but mostly due to the commercials. However, in the modern era, all you have to worry about is ads on youtube but I use AdNauseum and I haven't seen an unwanted commercial in ages. I also remember random streaming services pulling bullshit where they'd make you watch commercials before you could continue viewing the show. 

Now that I've established I'm a bit too well informed about this stuff to not watch it, I'll admit that I actually quit... for the most part. I still torrent and download stuff. It's old fashioned these days but I also have some private streams (not an onlyfans, you degenerate) to watch for when company comes over or if there's a pay per view that needs viewed without paying, and those are kind of modern. It's always fascinating to me to see how people set up their "home theaters" because of all the choices available now. Do they have a simple wireless "dongle" like Roku or Amazon's fire stick thing? Or do they make things overly complicated and try and run a media server on Frankenstein's monster's local network with regular cable intermingled?

Dropping the television, or watching far less, came along with my excess exercise and personal paradigm shift. If you have less time to watch something, you will generally watch less of that something. You can't make more time in the day but you can cut out other stuff. I did not choose to save watching television, so it died a bit for me. I was one of those people that would put something on to have in the background while I did whatever it is that I did around my old apartment. Mostly drink, smoke, and play. I guess, but I still do two of those three things with a lot of regularity now, I just don't keep something on the television just because anymore. It always seemed like I was accomplishing more with my time because I was also "catching up on the latest shows" but in reality, I was just fucking around and not doing anything worthwhile. It was a distraction and I'm glad I cut back so much I guess is what I was trying to say. However, I gotta talk about Loki.

do something even if it's wrong

 When you're in motion, it always seems like you're doing something. Movement is certainly something, but I'm referring to the idea that in order to achieve something we must do something. I suppose another word for it could be productivity. In a modern capitalist society, productivity is king and when we're not being productive, it's almost like we're being anti-social.

Another thing to consider with this is how productive we're being. There's a really ugly tree in the yard and the reason it's so hideous is because of neglect and what looks like bad luck. Imagine if the charlie brown christmas tree were cared for and given a chance to grow healthy for about five years. The dead branches were kept trimmed and someone cared about it. Then it fell back into disrepair for a decade or more. Now this damn tree is back on its bad luck streak and looks like a sack of turds with some gnarled branches and an angry outlook on life. How should I approach this problem?

I can try and bring it back to life. The poor thing has spent more years without someone to care for it than it has with someone, and that someone is me and maybe he's gonna be resentful because I left. Ornery and disagreeable, what if he just needs put down? By that, I mean cut down and burned to light his own funeral pyre. 

As a youth, I remember playing release in this field but it was so much bigger. Where this tree stands now used to be a row of much larger pines that would dwarf this sickly abomination and he's probably twenty years old and no small stick in the ground. Maybe I just remember them being bigger as well, but I know they were better looking. The thing that made them objectively more handsome was actually the fireflies.

Fireflies don't care for a lone disaster in the middle of a field. They live in the woods, and when there was a line of trees where this loner now stands, they crossed the upper half of the field to get to the trees. In the middle of summer, on warm summer nights we'd run through a line of well maintained trees into a field of lights. Beyond that, on nights where it was just right, you could see the forest in almost total darkness. There were so many fireflies firing off everywhere they illuminated everything enough to take your breath away. 

You never realize how much life there is in the world until you see the pieces of the whole. At night, here when I was young, there were maybe millions of tiny pieces lighting up the whole of the forest. I can see them now when I go out at night, but it's not the same because of this damn tree. Rather, the lack of his ancestors. He was planted there after the others were cut down and it's a perfect example of doing something that was wrong.

selfishness gone awry

Sometimes when you're feeling down, the universe provides you with all the uplifting positive energy you could ever need. It has also been known to provide phenomenal amounts of negative energy as well, but in my mind, energy is energy and it doesn't matter where it comes from so long as it fuels the machine. To think of it another way, insults and compliments are both forms of observation. Someone notices something about you and remarks upon it in a positive or negative way. Since it isn't an actual charge, who determines that value?

I write like a "selfishly driven, narcissistic, overly sensitive woman, who has been hurt a lot" and I couldn't be happier. That's one hell of an observation and what different does it make how it was intended to be received? It's energy of exactly the type I need for this here digital endeavor. After all, I'm certainly selfishly driven. I've never shied away from that label because whenever I can wear it proudly, it's a nice fit. When it's a bit shameful is when it's offensive. 

Selfishness is a necessary survival trait, obviously, you need to consume enough energy to survive another day. That energy needs to come from somewhere. Ultimately, all energy on earth comes from the sun but the only truly selfless entities in the chain are plants. They absorb the freely given sunlight and carbon dioxide and turn it into stored energy in their leaves and roots. Along come the animals that consume these living creatures in order to survive. Then come other animals that consume those and so on and the life cycle is interesting and all but not the topic of today. Every thinking creature exists at the expense of others. A little bit of selfishness is necessary, a lot of selfishness can be a bad thing. 

It's like anything else in life, moderation is key. However, experience and Oscar Wilde have taught me that "nothing succeeds like excess." Like the raptors in the original Jurassic Park documentary, you gotta know your boundaries. If you never test your boundaries, how are you going to know them? Can you know yourself adequately enough without knowing your true limitations?

truth to power

 The phrase "speak truth to power" originated in 1955. It was about pacifism and love. The root of the saying comes from the heart. "Our truth is an ancient one: that love endures and overcomes; that hatred destroys; that what is obtained by love is retained, but what is obtained by hatred proves a burden." It is also from the Quakers and their horse and carriage riding friends, the Amish/Mennonites. Speak Truth to Power: A Quaker Search for an Alternative to Violence written by the American Friends Service Committee. 

The notion of speaking truth to power has far outgrown the humble roots it has in pacifism and blossomed into something more. I guess I refer more to the phrase, because the idea of speaking truth to the powerful is timeless. It's inherently human to question and challenge and fight. The irony that the phrase comes from an argument for pacifism is not lost on me, so I'm all right with continuing its use. Life is a struggle and at some point we all have to fight for something. I understand the desire to be peaceful but, a peaceful man can still avoid conflict while not being a pacifist. I'm somewhat peaceful now and it was a struggle to get here so I can respect pacifists even if I don't understand them.

Ghandi, MLK, Mandela, Tutu, and the actual Dalai Lama are all included in the introduction to the Wikipedia article. Obviously, these people would have still done what they did had the phrase "speak truth to power" not existed. The declaration of independence was a wordy way of telling the King of England, one of the most powerful at the time, to "kiss our ass" and there have been plenty of other instances across our history where truth comes at the powerful pretty fast. The ides of March is remembered because of the swiftness with which the Roman senate needed to speak truth to Julius Caesar. The "shot heard round the world" took out Archduke Franz Ferdinand to kick off the first world war. These are violent acts and while speech is not actually violent, I know some folks have felt violated after speaking with me. I know because they've told me so, and then cried, as if physically hurt. That acid tongued killer's instinct with words is what has cost me a lot over the years, but it's exactly what should be aimed at the powerful. It took me a while to realize it, but words can hurt other people though they may roll off me like water.

on loss and love

 Family. We all have one, or had one. I don't think there's been any successful test tube babies gestated fully outside of a human but who the fuck even knows anymore? Human parentage can be a bit ambiguous with science playing a large part. If two genetic parents provide their samples, or whatever, and they're mixed up and added together in a lab. I imagine there would be vigorous shaking involved followed by a turkey baster of some sort? I'm no scientist so I can't be sure. Well, however it is done, if they do this thing, who are the parents? If you're genetically from two parents but you gestated in another, which is your mother/father? Does it actually matter?

This isn't a science post and it's not even going to be about the other kind of jeans. This is going to be one of those personal posts, where I just kind of type for a while and see what shakes loose. As opposed to the ones where I have a general idea (or singular topic) and just kind of type for a while and see what shakes loose. These types of posts here actually take some thought, not now though. Earlier today, or I guess it would be two days ago now. I decided it was time to talk about this stuff with myself and with whoever is reading this. 

About a month or so ago I started writing again. There are loads of reasons and I've gotten into some of them already in that time period but one of them is this notion that I carry a weight. It's akin to guilt but a lot lighter, like a Halloween prop ball and chain. My actual guilt, the things I feel most sincerely about, I've never spoken of here and I still debate whether or not I want to re-live them, again. Maybe I will, maybe I won't. This will be about some of the stuff that makes my weight lighter or heavier, to me.

archaeology adjacent

 I remember one time, years ago when I was smoking a bit more weed than usual and had a somewhat steady supply of shrooms, I convinced myself that the lost city of Shangri-La was real and could be found if sufficient research was given to the subject. I spent a few weeks or months in the pursuit and eventually gave up because the internet doesn't have nearly enough information and I wasn't about to fly somewhere to be swindled by some counterfeit monks. 

The whole thing left me with a bit of a sour taste for a while as far as cryptic lost locations go, then I'm pretty sure I got real into Lost and my interest was renewed with my palette cleansed. The focus shifted towards more reasonable lost locales such as Atlantis or Mu. Most folks may have heard of Atlantis because I think they filmed the Justice League documentaries partially in the actual city, but I doubt many have heard of the lost continent of Mu in the Pacific.

It's easier to lose an island or a city than an entire continent, so I'd personally like to try some of the drugs the folks who lost a continent were using. That's some super charged ayahuasca they were brewing, and they probably lost the recipe too, considering the continent. There's actually loads of people clamoring about a large landmass or something of the sort in the Pacific. It would explain (to them): lemurs, snake people, snake people and Maya hybrid languages, Egypt, Greece, India, Burma, the civilizations of South America, shape shifting humans, rosicrucianism, and the Turks, among others I'd assume. This is all stuff I read in that Mu article. Different folks think those things and peoples and cultures came from Mu, the lost continent in the Pacific that may have been up to 50 million square miles.

Mu is pseudoarchaeological, in the sense that it hasn't been proven to exist. I have absolutely no idea, personally, whether it does or not. I'm going to make some jokes about it here for a while and then conclude with something I think is insightful and hopefully you will too.

joe exotic tried that same shit

I had a run in today with a bolshevik sissy, Nikolai Bukharin. Well, I guess I kind of did and I only think he's a sissy because I'm searching for context as to why I'd write his name down in a notebook years ago. He was a typical bolshevik of his time: he rode the popular wave of snitching on his comrades until he didn't have anyone left to snitch on. Then, of course, conspiracies started to swirl about him which eventually led to his imprisonment and execution.

I'm trivializing the era of upheaval in Russia from the 1917 revolution to the great purges under Stalin in the 30s. It reads a lot like a soap opera and there's some serious thinkers thrown in the mix. I'm only saying Bukharin was a sissy because he wrote letters begging a paranoid autocratic lunatic (Uncle Joe Stalin) to spare his life. It's like asking an ice cube not to be cold and then becoming increasingly crazy as it refuses to cooperate. Anyways, I got caught up in reading a series of essays Bukharin wrote to Vladimir Lenin who was kind of like the first head crazy in charge over there after the dust settled and he was one of the least crazy of the time. It's interesting and there's some stuff I need to finish reading before I can explain to myself why his name is written in a notebook of mine. 

Anyways, I took a break from that bullshit and decided to do a softball post about Viracocha, the Incan creator god. Or, kind of. "Viracocha created the universe, sun, moon, and stars, time (by commanding the sun to move over the sky) and civilization itself. Viracocha was worshipped as god of the sun and of storms. He was represented as wearing the sun for a crown, with thunderbolts in his hands, and tears descending from his eyes as rain. In accord with the Inca cosmogony, Viracocha may be assimilated to Saturn, the "old god", the maker of time or "deus faber" (god maker), corresponding to the visible planet with the longest revolution around the sun." 

I'm gonna quote again from the Wikipedia after the page break but it's only partially because I said this was a softball post. And also, sometimes softballs can be hard, like when you take one to your soft... spot. I think it's important that I present the summary unedited because I want to explore some of the similarities between other gods and the like. Not in an entirely Joseph Campbell kind of way, but somewhat, enough for me to include this sentence with that link. There are similarities between creation myths but it's pretty clear that there needs to be because we all observe what seems to be the same reality that supposedly needed created at some point. Personally, I think the issue is beyond our scope, which is just a polite way of saying it doesn't matter.

conundrums of conscience

 One of the recurring themes here lately, due to events inside and outside my control, is thoughts. I guess I'm a fairly thoughtful person, but mostly because I think a lot and not because I am very considerate of other people. I can be, and I think that can be maddening to some folks who deal with me on a daily basis. I just often get preoccupied with other thoughts and kind of forget where I am, get lost in the moment, maybe? Space out, more likely.

I often find myself in peculiar situations because not only do I think a lot, I tend to think out loud as I do. When my cats are my sole audience it's just a crazy man in the garage, but when there's other people around and I do this, it can be very distracting to their thoughts. Or so I'd imagine, but that's a big part of why I think out loud. I want to elicit other's thoughts about whatever it is that is occupying mine. It's always nice to have a second opinion on things but it can probably be quite a distraction. I think it's overall a better situation to drag random strangers into your love life than to just stand there and stare at clouds for a while as you deliberate silently. 

I'm sure there's a happy medium somewhere, but sometimes there are thoughts so persistent and pressing that you just have to deal with them immediately. The alternative, keeping them down and unthought, is appalling. It's also a recipe for madness because those thoughts eventually need to come out and if not now, they might at some other less opportune moment. I'm aware not everyone is quite as impulsive as I am with my thoughts, but they're not quite as impulsive with their emotions either. 

Antonio Damasio is a Portuguese professor mostly responsible for coming up with the "somatic marker hypothesis" which is basically a theory that says our cognitive and emotional processes are impossibly intertwined. When we make decisions, we like to think that this is just a thought process. We think about the pros and the cons and then make a decision accordingly. Sometimes though, the decision is just a bit too hard. There's maybe a few too many variables and we leave it up to chance or talk it out with someone and come up with a decision, or sometimes we make no decision which is itself a decision, I think there was a Rush song about it, in fact. These have consequences and those shape our future decision making because they elicit emotions the next time you have a similar conundrum of conscience and can't decide. If you flip a coin for a hard decision and it works every time, does it actually work every time or do you just feel good about the consequences of a difficult decision?

broken down thoughts

 I picked up an old notebook this evening and paged through it for some mild amusement. That wasn't my initial intent but it was still nice. Who doesn't like to laugh at themselves? Those people are too serious and are undoubtedly unhappy. If that's the life you'd like to lead, go on with your bad self. I just don't have any time for those folks. I really like to laugh at myself, in case you couldn't tell. You're always with you and if you can make yourself laugh, well then you can literally laugh whenever you want. Ignore the fact that people think you're crazy and that's a recipe for a happy life. 

When I read a lot, obviously, I have less time to write. At the same time, my mind starts to fill up with thoughts. I try and get these down while I remember them and turn them into something worthwhile in the form of missives and mysterious one liners. Reading through them is like looking at an electron. One minute you have a good idea of what you're looking at but can't tell where it's coming from and the next you understand it but you can't quite make out what it is. 

The beginning is as good a place to start as any, and the first fella up to the plate is Joseph Campbell. I assume I meant The Hero with a Thousand Faces, or at least the general ideas held therein. There's other stuff he wrote or was involved with but I know I was not reading any of his stuff when I wrote that down. That's kind of how he rolls. Joseph Campbell, or his ideas, tend to pop up anywhere or everywhere. Basically, it's the death and rebirth with knowledge cycle that a lot of myths tend to include. The very first time I came across this guy was in an Intro to Western Civilization or some such class way back in freshman year. That's literally half a life ago now, or very nearly. Unless you think I'm younger, then I obviously went to school early and especially didn't repeat preschool because I refused to socialize. 

So it was my main Sumerian homeboy, Enkidu, that made me realize a lot of these old thyme-y myths were a little bit similar. Gilgamesh, Enkidu's other homeboy, gets in trouble and there's a bunch of shit that goes down but basically Enkidu dies and comes back with all kinds of cool trivia. Except it's like "hero receives aid from supernatural" and all kinds of stuff I'll get into shortly. I actually summarized it the other day quoting Kurt Vonnegut: "Somebody gets into trouble, then gets out of it again. People love that story. They never get tired of it."

mea culpa

 I started reading again this week. It'd been at least a year since the last time I read something substantial. It seems so unimportant these days because we all read so much online, but reading memes and headlines means nothing. It's a passing idea and even when you get into something longer and more substantial, it's still only a little bit of curated information. This thing I do here seems longer on average than most of what I find elsewhere. It makes sense to get your information as quickly as possible so as to move on to the next whatever. However, it does something weird to my brain. Television has a similar effect, only horrifically worse. 

Our brain is a muscle, right? Or something. A cursory glance at the human brain wikipedia entry leads me to believe that it's made of white and grey matter which don't sound like muscle tissue but I think the analogy here is still apt. I refer not to the actual physical brain itself being a muscle, but to the act of using it to promote strength. The more you use any "muscle," the stronger it will get. Neuroplasticity, or something like that, is the brain's ability to "get stronger," in this scenario. It's important to explore the nuances of any topic for "mental strength" here, but when it comes to reading, I just pick up a book and it's a handheld nuanced story to occupy my thoughts for a time. 

Obviously, sometimes they're terrible and I want to throw it out or burn it or something equally dramatic. I don't, usually, but occasionally I do. It's harder to burn books when they're e-books but it's still possible. This particular book was all right. It was Kurt Vonnegut's Sucker's Portfolio, and it was just all right. That's not really important to me. I've read plenty of terrible books for different reasons and this was probably the worst reason I've ever had. Obviously, it was the realization of how long it'd been since I'd last read anything real. And if you check that out, it'll only take a few hours for the whole thing even if you don't read very fast, which is something I noticed had slowed since last year for me. I'm not sure if you'd call a collection of short stories something substantial but it was enough to get me started again. I tried to kill so many brain cells over the last two decades that it's well past time I try and grow some back.

The last year, if you've been following along here at all, has been a kind of busy one. At least in the sense that I've been working on myself and my health and everything. Cleaning out my spiritual closet, so to speak. It's like one of those Narnia closets where it's way bigger and there's all kinds of shit on the inside that shouldn't be there. In fact, it's a lot like a magical realm, but it's all blood magic and dark rituals. It's been a battle and the struggle has been very real, especially lately. I've been fighting real and imagined monsters and I didn't have the time to read, or the inclination. I've picked up other hobbies like starting fires and lock-picking, but I never circled back to the one thing that truly started everything about me... reading.

la corona

 I never really talked about the corona. I probably never will get into it like I should, because it was just too fascinating. There was too much shit to get into and I think it's too fresh now anyways to give it a good analysis, a real thorough examination or whatever. Any time you apply pressure, interesting things happen. The corona was a legitimate experiment to me due to all of the interesting and unexpected things that happened. I spent most of the time getting in great shape, physically. Now that it's over I still need to get some mental things in order, though I definitely worked on that too it faltered on me recently so I know I still have work remaining.

 I think I had a natural reaction to the events of the last year or so. Not that other people's reactions are unnatural, but they kind of are... you'll see. The biggest change is that I no longer watch the news. At all, as in follow or pay attention or any of that. There's this whole issue I have with the media dating back to ... well, always. I'm a student of history and the media will always be fucked. It can't be beneficial in the way it ought to because of nuance. If you had the whole hour to tell one story, maybe you could make it work. When you try and share complex issues to the masses in 5 second blurbs, you're gonna fail. That's idiotic to even attempt, unless you don't really give a shit about sharing stories or "news" but instead want to sell stuff. 

The news, and I mean all news media: internet, print, television, even the stuff you find online, is disingenuous, at best. It plays into this voyeuristic thing humans have where we want to know, but we don't want to spend the time actually doing the learning. Give me the info quick and I'll move on is what we want but what we need is to sit down and dissect something to truly understand it. I don't know how to fix news media other than making it inaccessible to the masses by mandating long-form publications. Think like Ken Burns documentary style, or at minimum those NPR and PBS style interviews. I actually think Joe Rogan does an excellent job of this but it's not because he's particularly bright, but he can be insightful and he's curious and he's chosen the best medium: ask some questions and it takes as long as it takes, for the most part. 

Lack of nuance is also what's wrong with the political process, and democracy. Depth of nuance is what makes the world outside of all that stuff so worthwhile. It's complicated and interesting and infinitely fascinating. Every single person you will ever meet has a whole story you'll never have enough time to hear because we only have so much time. I'm pretty sure there's a German word for that time of thinking but it's a bit late to be doing research. 

I'm not trying to say we shouldn't be informed but that other shit is going to keep happening whether we know about it or not. Circling back to the corona thing, at the beginning I was following with interest this story about a virus in China and everything. I was on it, I was also on alcohol. I had a steady, free supply of it and I was going hard. That's my default speed: full tilt like a Peterbilt. When it's good, it's the best. But when it's bad...

Then, I had a moment of clarity and I said fuck it. I turned it all inwards (slowly, not overnight) and went hard on fixing myself. I just had a strong urge to insert a sentence here stating more or less that my old lifestyle was acceptable though not for me, that's not true. We should be healthy, and I'm here to help anyone that wants to be healthier. I still have some questionable health habits (e-cigarettes and loads of milk shakes) but I use skim milk now so it really is a brand new day and if I help you, you'll help me learn more about the human condition. After all, that's what's most fascinating of all.

Anyway, I then spent the rest of the time slowly turning even weirder than I was before, weirder and much stronger. I did not expect to get this strong. I knew what I was doing because see above about my constant erection for nuance and I'd done this before. Getting my life together was actually harder the second time because I didn't really want to, I even debated suicide a few times. And with any good story, the darkest part comes right before the brightest: that obviously didn't happen and I went HAM this winter. I was out in the dark putting in work. I was out in the cold getting larger than life. Now I feel like I just need to adjust my eyes to the light of day and see what shakes loose.

The corona virus made me so sick I had to get healthier than I've ever been. It was a metaphorical sickness but the result was real and now I've got my mojo back. So, thank you corona virus? For that, but for all the other stuff? That wasn't so great. 

 I'll post something more coherent soon, but this was fine for now. It's late and I've things to do when the sun comes back up. I'll include a media element here for the corona. 

artful dodgery

 It's something inherently obvious when you watch interactions, but you have to pay close attention. Of course, I refer here to the way people ought to handle insults. I sling these types of things around like I'm a lunch lady and it's all you can eat pizza day so it's hard for me to miss but it may be something those of us less insulting than I may have trouble investigating. 

When you're insulted you can react in different ways. You can take the insult personally and get offended that someone would ever make such a comment about how your ass looks in that sundress. It's 2021 and I'm allowed to wear what I'd like. If someone thinks I have a fat ass in my sundress, then I'm gonna shake that fat ass. Preferably in their face, because they're obviously admiring it enough to comment. I'm such a nice guy I wouldn't even charge my admirer for the booty shakes. Maybe you can see what I did there?

The other way to handle insults is the only rational way, in my opinion. Anytime anyone makes a constructive comment (insult) about me, I lean into it. Someone says I'm stupid? I ask them to teach me how to read because it's hard for me to admit that to a lot of folks. Someone says I'm incompetent? I'm the most incompetent person that's ever existed and it's actually my first day this week I had my shit together enough to even make it here and I definitely wouldn't trust me to fix whatever it is you want fixed. 

This is the one thing those LARPers that call themselves improv groups have right: "yes, and". They do that thing where they agree to whatever they're pretending about and then try and come up with something to add to the bullshit on stage. This type of bullshit has no place on stage, firstly. If you're going to put on a production, put on a production. Don't invite people to your stage to watch you fuck around with your idiot friends. Sit down with those idiot friends before the audience gets there and think of something worthwhile to perform. Secondly, what a bunch of degenerate assholes, they're worse than vegans and hate being called LARPers because it stands for live action role playing and that behavior is significantly different from live action role playing on a stage because of reasons.

like a hurt woman

 I guess that kind of sounds accurate, right? I "sound like a woman who's been hurt a lot", but don't we all from time to time anyways? I think a better way to describe this emotional roller coaster I unleash every couple days is "working through some shit", clearly. In my mind, that's just been these past few weeks because of what I assume is the universe's way of making me do some kind of penance for the misdeeds I've unleashed upon it. At some point in the somewhat near future, I will return to the monsters series, but for now I think it's best I keep it light.

When I stop and think about a woman who has been hurt, it's not an insult. Everyone hurts sometimes and some of us hurt all the time. The woman aspect doesn't bother me either because I've always thought my words were aggressive and too masculine for the average person. Injurious insults and colorful compliments are commonplace here, though I suppose those are as gender-less as any other words. It's 2021 and gendered thinking is out the door. Unless, of course, your language has gendered words, like a lot of languages other than English. This is basically like a whole other post, but I sometimes wonder what the gender discussion is over other languages with gendered words and professions and such. It sounds way too nuanced to come up in many mainstream locations but I expect there are some wonderful words to read on this subject somewhere on the internet, hopefully here on the internet soon.  

It's complimentary, in a way. If true, that is. I'm conveying emotions, though they may be too much and the words used to describe this thing here, this confessional corner/diary/creative outlet thing... This thing where I send people when I want them to know me better... This thing that scares people away, lures them in, or most often just confuses... This thing where I "sound like a hurt woman", has a long history. If it were a human, it'd be in high school? Maybe it's older, but it was definitely held back for attendance and behavior issues. There's a ton of shit to unpack here on this thing and here I will attempt to do so, and briefly, since it's nearly 2AM and I've things to do when the sun comes up. 

life comes at you fast

 We all have days or weeks where we're not ourselves, not fully anyways. Of course I'm me, who else would I be? But sometimes, every once in a while, things get a little out of hand and you can't be the fullest you that you want to be. At least, not to the rest of the world. When the universe kicks me in my dick, I normally get a little introspective and try and see how I can maybe do better the next time she pulls back for a field goal attempt between my uprights.

Sometimes, no matter how you look at it, you can't do any better. That's because the universe wants to humble you. You get thrown such a wild pitch that you're just in awe of how beautifully strange things can become. Then you realize you shouldn't mix baseball and cosmic metaphors because your message becomes muddied. Then you just keep plodding on because it'll probably work out in the end.

Which is exactly what you have to do when you're left with your mouth hanging open from the shock of how little the universe cares about you. Winston Churchill said "If you're going through hell, keep going" or something like that and it's pretty apt for what I'm talking about here. Imagine going to a restaurant you think is like any other, they will have food of some kind and drinks, probably. There will be some shit on the walls, there will most likely be some kind of dress code for the staff, and you'll shove the slop down your throat and have a great time. That's what you think you're getting, but then the luscious hostess pulls aside a curtain behind which is the most delectable buffet you've ever seen. You'd heard tales of such grand places but never thought they existed. 

You have the time of your life and you feast upon the bounty of the harvest. You're drunk with hedonistic pleasure as you fall peacefully asleep dreaming of another trip to this paradise. But it's gone, shattered. Maybe it was an illusion? Maybe I'm just being overly dramatic. Probably both? Somehow, that makes sense. Somehow, I keep going.

so it goes

 Her name was Estrella and she danced to the tune of the universe. That sounds dramatic but it's about as accurate a summary as we need for this type of story. You see, Estrella wasn't a dancer and she wasn't some type of sorceress. She was just a woman, but that's definitely trivializing things too much. 

Estrella had all the womanly qualities you'd expect in someone worth telling a story about: fair hair and soft skin with a graceful elegance. Her eyes could launch a thousand ships if she were born in another age. They were piercing, yet gentle and the corners crinkled with every pleasant thought. When you looked in them, you were lost. Only for a moment though, as time seemed to stand still and a warm embrace wrapped around you, encompassing you but tantalizing you at the same time with youthful playfulness. Mystery and magic lurked around every corner if you imagined seeing the world through such wondrous orbs. 

Her lips were divinely inspired models of cherubic delights. They enticed and allured with their beauty but the words that issued forth over their rippled crests were like music. The kind of music that you hear when a thunderstorm beckons on the horizon. It snaps you to attention so you can listen to every word. The angelic lilt accompanied the inquisitive voice and you found yourself lost in a siren's call of ideas and emotions the likes of which you've never known before or since. 

Estrella's dance was the most magical of all. It happened like a bolt of lightning and the effect was much the same. Watching her wiggle to some tune you weren't sure you were even hearing had a hair raising effect. It wasn't scary but it was filled with anticipation, like when you're about to do something exciting and you've been waiting for years for that moment. She exuded hope through every pore and you could almost smell it over her own intoxicating scents. She smelled sweet and floral and earthy like walking through the woods after a late spring rain. 

Such a cosmic being couldn't stay long, after all. Estrella wasn't meant for this monstrous world. Such magnificence can't spend much time with monstrosities or it will eventually be tainted. She's gone now, but the question remains: was she even real?

free form sunday morning

 I have a few ideas of some stuff to write but they're still underdeveloped. If this is the first thing you've ever read here, that might sound normal. If this is not, you're well aware I rarely have a developed plan or any kind of plan. I just sort of start with an idea and see what happens. Today, I have no starter idea, I just felt like I needed to write something. I'm not quite ready to dive deeper into my memories to get down any more about monsters and I don't feel right discussing fitness when I skipped my Sunday morning run. 

Everyone has off days and everyone should take days off. I get at least one relaxation/recreation day per week and I think it's important for overall health. On days like today anything is possible. There are trees to cut, bridges to burn, and minds to mend. Or something like that. A day off from worries can be a day on to heavy exercise, or it can be a quiet day with a book. I think the point of mine is to have some sort of improvement, no matter how small. I remember every once in a great while I used to spend the entire day sleeping. I would hydrate and use the bathroom as needed but otherwise just sleep. An entire day of fasting, quiet meditation, and rest. 

Maybe it's a bit indulgent to take a day every week for yourself. Obviously, you can't always take it entirely alone but you can schedule things or say no to trivial nonsense to allow yourself a day where you spend it in pursuits that make you feel better. You don't have brunch if you don't want. Say you can't go, don't be specific, and sit at home and type up some bullshit on the internet instead.

be like water

 One of the many ongoing themes here is philosophy. Philosophia is Greek for love of wisdom. In this pursuit I think we should find ourselves at all times, but this here will probably be enough for today. There's branches of "Philosophy" that are interesting and pertinent to today, but not necessary to discuss one of my personal buddhas: Bruce Lee. Some things I say here could have lead the initiated to the conclusion that I think Bruce Lee was everything we should try and emulate, which is kind of interesting considering what he had to say on the matter: "We have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate. We cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything that has its roots in us. The most poignant sense of insecurity comes from standing alone; we are not alone when we imitate. It is thus with most of us! We are what other people say we are. We know ourselves chiefly by hearsay." Simply put, standing on the shoulders of giants means you're not alone.

Solitude is a place I've come to know intimately. I think it is actually the only place where you can get any real self reflection done. You can quiet out the other voices, silence the weariness in your soul, and focus on learning yourself. Socrates, another philosopher, said "the unexamined life is not worth living." He's right but it's also impossible not to examine your life from time to time. It's learning and almost everyone is capable of growth, it's whether we do it or not that makes the difference. 

This type of growth is inevitable but if we embrace it, truly magical things can happen. Everyone's journey is unique and as far as I can tell, everyone's journey is uniquely fascinating. What we need to do in an ideal scenario is to stand on those shoulders to get us to the next plateau where there's firm ground in which to set our own roots. Using the wisdom of the past to guide our minds and hands towards the future is what I so eloquently stated in another post was (paraphrasing) "old fucks that were only half full of shit arguing with each other and occasionally finding a nugget of truth." 

In order to receive any of this wisdom, we need to be receptive and open to the journey. I can remember plenty of times where I've known better and did the "wrong" thing anyways. It's maybe a bit of insanity, but it's inherently human. We try and we fail and we fail some more until we eventually figure it out. Every once in a while someone slips in a pile of shit and comes out smelling like roses, metaphorically, but human history is mostly a series of failures marked periodically by some great success. Someone wrote about this stuff, I want to say Malcolm Gladwell in Tipping Point but I don't think that work encompasses what I'm talking about here. Human successes are paradigm shifts in collective thinking and action, human failures are everyday occurrences. 

heart of darkness

 Once in a while we fall in love. It can be for a moment or a millennium. Maybe you've fallen head over heels in an instant or it could be that it took years to develop the rock solid understanding that is your love. Some folks have never known love's sweet embrace while others abuse it like a drug.

What you do with your love is your own business. You can give it away daily or keep it forever.  What I do with people's love is, I guess now, everyone's business. With this pretty beginning, you may have already guessed this is going to be an ugly story. I like to mix it up instead of mirror things. I suppose the way I look at things at times is as if through a distorted lens, but I'll get into that another time.

Think of that which you love. That's a weakness, it's a vulnerable spot. If someone were to take it away, you'd be hurt. You might be devastated. You might even laugh because it's so absurdly painful. When you love another that is capable of love, you expect some love in return. Not always, though.

familiarity breeds like a rabbit

 Comfort. Familiarity is almost the definition of comfort for a lot of people. That which is familiar isn't necessarily comfortable all the time, but there's something in our minds that just likes the routine. Some dark recess of our older brain that still wants the routine all the time because that's the easiest way to survive. Familiarity becomes part of our habits and ultimately, part of ourselves.

Stuck in a rut. Think out of the box. New experiences. Et cetera and so on. 

We acknowledge our routines and suggest to each other that sometimes all you need is a break from the ordinary to cure what ails you. That can be true, but it's more like lip balm when you should actually just drink more water. It's a shortcut method of fixing the problems in our lives. In fact, getting away from your problems or drinking your time away to forget about them for a few weeks or months at a time is no way to actually deal with them.

Familiarity also breeds contempt. If that which with you are familiar is no good, you will eventually suffer. We can take a break or a day off or go on a month long cruise but if the issue isn't resolved when we get back, the cycle repeats. Getting away can be a kind of drug and it's definitely intoxicating at times to see new things and explore but it has to be for the exploration and novelty itself. If you run from your battles they will only return, or worse, pursue you into the places where you wish to hide from their baleful gaze. 

The one thing you need to deal with the problems of familiarity is courage and they're at odds with one another and always will be. Courage and strength are needed to conquer the insidious evils of settling.

This was short. Maybe it was sweet. Here's a youtube, for certain.

an ode to grey

 In my initial thoughts for this post I wanted to just share some current music. Like a memorial day musical round up, but then I realized that no one gives a shit about that anymore with recommended songs and computer generated suggestions. Then again, how much of that is actual bullshit? Slop in some stuff the rubes will enjoy but then put in those guerilla marketed songs and try and get you hooked? I have no idea, just like I said I basically have no notion of what I'm going to do here now that this music idea got bunked up. This is obviously going to stay meta, well more meta than usual because I need to do this from time to time. 

I started writing words on paper a long time ago. It was before I even owned a computer to type anything so I had notebooks. I filled them up, passed them around, and lost them all. I enjoyed sharing words that made people laugh. It was similar to real life but more scripted even though my editing style has always been the same: none, just this weird self-referential parenthetical foot-note thing I do, circle back to stuff but only after I've kept going longer than I should. It's not "writing" so much as it's some type of free form, half speech, half editable words that I just leave. Like those last few sentences, what in the high holy fuck are they? Sometimes I use a comma because I pause to smoke. 

If I want to call anything I've ever done "writing" then I need an actual editing phase. I did that once or twice, but it's a pain in the ass and this suffices as the therapeutic activity that I think it initially desired. That's what confession is supposed to do for us and that's what I've used this medium for, almost solely. I get out my darkness here so that it doesn't infect the other parts of my life. Maybe in those times of high quantity, it's an indication of an increase in darkness. Which would thereby imply a decrease in the light? 

in-tense(ts)

 A lifetime or two ago, much like any young man, I used to aspire to philosophical ideals. I thought that there was wisdom in the words of the old ones, maybe? I was old enough to realize most of the older ones in my life up to that time were at least 95% full of shit so I had to search elsewhere. Maybe, those timeless classics could tell me some tale. The really old ones: the cynics, the stoics, and the candlestick makers.

It was an opportune time for such searching as I was in college and had ample books to read and an open schedule to fill. I chose my classes in school more for interesting topics and afternoon openings than any kind of academic plan. At some point later in life I realized that philosophy professors did mostly the same kind of scheduling so there were few personality conflicts and consequently, I attended a lot of those classes. 

I really enjoyed that semester. All of my classes were in the building directly across the street from my dormitory and none of them started before noon. It was the perfect setup to drink as much as I wanted, every night! And yet, I didn't. I drank alcohol, I just didn't give in to the excesses. Maybe because I realized I'd made the perfect setup for functional alcoholism and I didn't like what I'd done or maybe because I was actually enjoying myself. Either way, looking back now, it was objectively the best time I had for the whole five years.

My most favorite and objectively the most righteous of the old ones was Diogenes. He was the guy that listened to Plato describe a man one day as a featherless biped and thought it was so fucking stupid he plucked the feathers off a chicken, came back and in front of a crowd of Plato's peers shouted "BEHOLD! A MAN!" Accounts of the event conflict but I imagine he then looked disapprovingly at Plato and just shook his head. Personally, I would have aggressively added "You're so fucking stupid" before walking out, but that's just like some kind of weird power move thing I do sometimes.

ex post muerte

 The relationships we have are often very strange. If you spend a lot of time with any creature, the two of you get weird to the rest of the world. It just happens. Familiarity, to a certain degree, is the amount of weirdness you have with another living being. Couples or friends in pairs or more get more familiar with each other as they get weirder and more indecipherable to the outside world. This kind of mystery is part of the allure of intimacy.

Tragedy or times of great stress can cause these bonds to deepen or shatter. When you put any relationship into the crucible of stress, you can pull out something more beautiful than before, something broken, or something horribly disfigured. Although, since beauty is in the eyes of who holds it, maybe those horribly disfigured relationships are more beautiful. 

Regardless of whether you like it or not, close relationships always have inside jokes, running gags, nightly routines, and morning rituals. Stuff that makes them less comprehensible to the rest of the world, or weird, in a way. Those odd things are the first that you miss when you lose someone. You can't go to sleep properly if you don't say goodnight to the person you lost. You hear something they'd really love and you want to share it but they're gone. When you first wake up and your feet hit the floor in the morning and your hand misses that furry head that's always there to greet you for a morning refill of their food bowl. You always used to rub their belly or they'd yell. This could be a person or a cat, you decide, but I'm thinking now of my cat that decided to go for a waltz the other day. He didn't tell anyone where he was going and he's not answering his cell phone.

Of course I have a special bond with my pets. It's not because I'm an animal lover. I guess I kind of am, but sometimes they're just so adorable who can resist their charms? I was certainly never a cat person, though. I was allergic to all manner of things in another life: cats, dogs, grass, outside maybe. I was a pretty sneeze-y teen but cats seemed to keep me sneezing even into my later years. 

So it was, a few years ago, when I found myself in a position where I had to decide the fate of a pair of kittens. I took them, clearly, or I wouldn't be typing this now but I was duped into it with alcohol, sex, and pussy pics. Obviously, the pictures were of the kittens and they were simply two of the most adorable balls of fur I'd seen since the night before.

hot in hell

I struggled with what to share for part two of this series of misdeeds and malevolence. I want to kind of increase the heat so that this stays fresh and interesting instead of dark and weird. I also have to balance my natural desire to go full throttle and just start listing atrocious things I've done with my need to craft a compelling narrative. Though I hope I'll be the only one to ever read this, I will still read this. Choosing this story was a difficult decision to make. I thought about it all day and finally settled on something pretty tame, considering some of the other heinous shit I've gotten into.

Like a lot of the more evil shit I've done in my life, this took place during the halcyon days of my drinking youth. I think I'm using that correctly, it was a golden age for degeneracy and turning into a demon. These were still the days when I had brief moments where I knew how far down the dark path I'd gone. 

It was just one of those moments that makes this story so special. I don't remember all the details, though I'm sure if I dwelt on the memory I could fill them in. That's kind of my thing these days: not dwelling too long on the past. Let the memories in, and then let them go. Enjoy them while they last and make the best of what you can. 

It was definitely summer time, right here in the beautiful 'Burgh. I was out for a night on the town. As usual at the time, I did some drinking before I did my drinking. Most nights I either stopped at a bar on the way home from work for happy hour or had people over for "shots and shouts" which is the name I made up for my favorite game of drinking and yelling out the window at people passing. Almost all of the games I played at the time involved drinking. Then there were times like these where I made up a game to explain some of my drinking.

This night did not start out well. I had too many drinks in the afternoon and not enough food during the day. So a trick I liked to do in order to continue drinking in times like that was to go and eat the biggest meal I could handle. I was "incidentally bulking" at the time so this was a lot that night. One of the details I recall vividly was that I ate at least two (probably three, possibly four) gyros. They were delicious and only cost five dollars. When you live three blocks from two gyro shops, you tend to get a lot of gyros. 

After I gained my equilibrium back, I met some friends for some more drinking. The night waned, I made a new friend at the bar, and she and I went to her place. The details here aren't very important and I don't remember too many because I'd been drinking for half the day at that point.

This night, my new friend was really enjoying herself. I however, was unable to really give my all for the performance because I felt nauseous. I started out great and was having a grand time but I think the exertion stirred something in my innards because the nausea was quick and strong. I told my friend I had to take a bathroom break and I wanted to get some water then I'd be right back for round two, well, to finish my first round at least.

As soon as I was in the hallway I ran to the bathroom. Except I went in the wrong direction and had to turn around and run back down the hallway to actually get to the bathroom. Once inside, I hit the light switch and went to drink some water to try and calm my stomach. It didn't work at all. I immediately had to vomit and it went everywhere. 

I was standing over the sink so some of it got in the sink and I was able to rinse that (very poorly). A great deal of it got on the mirror and between chunks of tomato and gyro meat I could see that some of it got on me as well. I looked down and I had vomit splatter all over my chest and boxers. I looked around and saw that nearly the entire bathroom was covered to some degree in bits of digested meat and bread and pieces of lettuce and it was enough to make me gag. 

I threw up again, but this time while aimed at the toilet. Except, I was standing upright and not expecting it so I vomited all over the toilet, toilet paper, and some type of big candle on the back of the toilet. It was on the walls, on the sink, in the sink, on the toilet, in the toilet. I even got a good bit of spray on the shower curtain which saved the shower from my angry spew. 

I did what I thought was a smart idea at the time and took off my shorts and turned on the shower. I didn't have a bag so my boxers were being donated to my new friend's bathroom garbage (which was also covered in a healthy amount of vomit splatter). I rinsed myself off in the shower, gargled some mouthwash and had one of those moments as I looked at myself one more time in the vomit covered mirror. What in the fuck was I doing with my life? How do I get myself in these situations? Am I a bad man? It was only a brief reverie before I headed back to my friend's room, naked.

I was somewhat sobered up at that point considering the fact that I just re-enacted that Exorcist scene in the bathroom. I finished with my friend and immediately left. There was no chance I was staying longer than I had to in case someone else used the bathroom. It seemed like she might have roommates but they clearly weren't home because someone should have asked about the vomit noises and shower running at 2AM. Maybe that was normal for these folks but I never found out because I left. I left because I might be a monster. Maybe.

i'm not the devil?

 Recently, I had the opportunity to have a heart to heart with a meth addict I know. We traded stories about some of the terrible things we've done to other people. At the end of our conversation, he called me a monster and said I might be the devil.

We spoke some more on the subject and neither of us could really decide. You see, I used to be quite a handful in my younger days. I was dredging up some of these less rosy colored memories the other day and I had to take a break because I realized just how many people I've done some type of injustice to in the past. It's staggering to think of how many people I've fucked over in one way or another.

I've decided to share some of those memories here and now. I'll see how it goes but I'm hoping for some type of cathartic effect, I guess? Maybe I'm just a guilty soul with a lot to confess and no one to confess to unless you count priests who might try and molest me after? Will this do anyone any good other than myself? No, of course not. I hope the people in the stories I include here never read them because they might realize the cartoon like proportions of my callousness. 

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".