A Year Later

the light of your eyes
in the sky reprise

when I looked at the moon
in the frozen still air
feeling the lungs compressed
against the gentle shock
I fell into the moment
grasping points of stars
captured in the halo

when I remember love
it never hits me
in the past tense

it swells back in quiet moments
when the sky is rich
with an indefatigable reverie
of the meta-narrative
we have built ourselves within

a year ago I fell alive into a deep well
filled with the primordial swirls
of where things come from

I was alluvial
dredged on the rich sediment
feeling warmed by life yet lived
in utero thick fluid flowing
black back-lit light

the moon's radiation on the surface
penetrated down to the bubbling sinter

two glowing eyes like Saturn's rings
eclipsed the moment and receded

in the last light of your eyes
an endless celestial reprise

I imagine myself old. No longer attractive by modern terms, with my thinning greyish-white hair, and an increasingly weathered face. Once athletic and fast and powerful, I am slower, less coordinated, and have less energy. And I don't know whether to imagine myself alone or not.

Is it better that way?

I'm reaching... away from our house I've been living in. Away from this town I grew up in. Away from the security of routine.

Why is it after failed relationships so many people want to know if they were really loved?

Anyone can be manipulated into trying not to hurt someone's feelings. Anyone can lie to themself to feel better about their own choices.

The path toward living in good faith is a path of darkness. The putrid night and the sweltering heaves of morning.

It isn't so much that people want to be good. No. People just don't want to be bad. To be known as bad.

It takes a rare leap to go beyond this fear of being known to actively shaping your life in pursuit of the good.

Let's be honest for just a second: I want to impress everyone. Everyone. I want them to see something in me that makes them notice.

I think this desire is natural, but there are also natural limits. Let it be on its merits. Let it be real.

Maybe I'm different than others because I really wish to be impressed by everyone I meet. Impress me. Seriously, impress me with something real. Don't try to impress me... just do it.

A human being reaching his or her potential is a beautiful inspiring thing. Not the Hollywood story, I don't need the part about falling down and getting back up. I don't need the dog fighting, the drugs, the negligent homocide, the adultery, the wide-stances, or any of that. Redemption is misunderstood in our society. People like redemption too much. Too often we root for the abusers, the narcissists, and the ambivolent. We like the drama, we like the debate.

I struggle emoting my feelings, but I can write them in stark contrast. Despite this, without a doubt I know that I can love with all my being. And I'm certain I can be loved as readily. It doesn't even frighten me.

Love is easy. Impressing me is easy. Forgiving faults is easy. But living...

So when I'm old, and my talents and abilities are fading... what will be left of me and left for me? Do other people my age ask this question?

I'm quite hung-up on the idea of fatherhood, because I would love to have my own kid yet none of the conditions of my life are suited for it (let alone being single). You can't draw up a plan for fatherhood, like getting a new job, or moving to a new city. It doesn't work like that unless you're a heartless machine that would settle for anyone to mother your child. Who would settle for anyone to stick it through with you for the next several decades of your life (at least)...

How can I think of children now? More than anything I just want a woman's arms, and her soft voice to talk to in the dark hours of the night.

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for:

having my health
having a supportive family
having an awesome, loving dog
having supportive friends
my sports teams having good seasons
music
literature
and many other things

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

I love the sound of rain at night.

Taking Myself Too Seriously

I'd like to spend some time talking about the other end of the spectrum. While I believe that we live in a responsibility-adversant, hedonistic, consumer culture, there are also limits one should put on one's self in the realm of taking one's self too seriously. While I feel a renewed need to take myself seriously in regards to my passions and moving forward in life, there are things I need to be wary of:

1) Being judgemental: While I have a path for myself that requires a sort of focus and attention to detail that will be very difficult, time-consuming, and make it very difficult to have a "normal" social life (as if I ever had one, let's be honest), I need to be careful not to be judgemental of other people that have lifestyles radically different from my own. First, it is important to understand the attitudes and behaviors are largely shaped by larger cultural cues, and for everyone that is engaged in activities that I dislike or aren't interested in myself, there are many factors that push people toward those things. In the past few years I have come a long way in looking toward macro cause-and-effect patterns, and I need to remind myself that nothing happens in a vacuum.

2) Being overly self-absorbed: This is tough to balance. I understand that my interests that drive my passions are viewed as esoteric to most people. I need to remind myself that my interests are mine, and while they may consume me and give me fire to get through my days, they are not everyone's and nor should they be. I need to remember to pay heed to my passions, and to also step outside of my realm frequently for perspective, creating and maintaining relationships, and to keep some spontaneity in my life.

3) Speaking over people's heads: Every profession has its lingo. I just spent a day with my aunt's husband who constantly feels a need to share how smart he is by talking about things he feels he knows more about than other people. I need to be able to function around other people without showing off, speaking to them in a way that makes them feel ignorant or spoken down to, and I need to be able to speak about things outside of my expertise comfortably without trying to redirect it toward my expertise. Take what others say for what it is worth, and always try to find some value in it.

4) Being sanctimonious: When people try arguing with me and I vehemently disagree with them, I need to be able to accept it and move on.

5) Accepting set-backs: There are going to be times when my motivation will decrease, my creativity will wane, or I'll find difficult obstacles in my path. I need to be able to accept set-backs, be ok with not reaching my goals as quickly as I'd like if I do what's in my power to get to them, and move forward from whatever situation is at hand. I need to see the opportunity in everything, even the set-backs.

If I can do these things, I think I will be able to reach a good balance in my life.

Exactly Ten Years Ago

I was in a high school assembly for a Thanksgiving celebration before our 4-day weekend. Members of the football team put on a very racist skit depicting Indians and pilgrims, with the endorsement of our school. I was sickened. I yelled out that it was racist, but other people were laughing or cheering as they finished their skit with a McDonald's eating contest and I was ignored. It is interesting how we remember moments like this, and how they stay so vivid in our minds all these years later.

Thoughts for those who read my blog

As far as I know, I don't have any regular readers. I have several posts that get more hits than others, and I want to say a few things about this.

I have had a lot of hits for people searching for the phrase "Living with someone who has mental illness" linking to this post. For those of you who are suffering or struggling with this yourself, I wish the best for you. In that post I outlined for myself how I felt about my particular situation and the lessons I learned for myself. In general, there are things I want to say to all of you out there that are dealing with your own situations:

1) If you are feeling trapped and unable to think clearly, then find time for yourself and get some space. Give yourself an opportunity to see the situation from new eyes. If you are being treated as though you are not allowed to have any space, privacy, or your own internal world then you would do best to get out, and get out quickly.

2) Make a judgement about how you are affecting the situation that you are in. Are you enabling the behaviors that are bothering you? Are you sincerely helping the person that you are with? Are you taking care of yourself and getting your needs met while trying to help the person you are with? What is your role, and what is the role of the person you're dealing with?

3) If you're in a situation where you can't leave (for instance, taking care of your mother), then reach out to people. The last thing you need is to be isolated. There is lots of compassion out there in the world for people that try to do the right thing.

For the many of you that google that phrase "living with someone's mental illness" and find me, I'm sorry that I'm probably not going to be much help. My heart goes out to all of you that are at your ropes end and searching the internet for some clue about what to do next is a last recourse for yourself. If anything, if you feel like talking, I'll listen, and I'm sure others will too. Therapists are usually a good way to go, but also feel free to post (anonymously, if you want) anything here if you just want to get things off your chest.


Now, the for the other big search terms related to Simplexity, Cell Tech, algae, and everything related to that (linked to this post and this post): I suggest you just don't buy that crap. You'd be wasting your money on something that isn't going to help, potentially is dangerous, and you'd be rewarding dishonest people that are manipulating desperate people for a living. I'm sorry for you guys as well that you feel that need to do whatever you can to help your kids, or whoever else and don't want to use drugs or tried and found it didn't work. I hope those posts are doing a service for you to realize why you shouldn't waste your money supporting those scam artists.


It seems that people come to my site looking for answers and help more than anything else, and I do hope I provide something for you that are searching. Mostly, my poetry and philosophical and cultural/political musing are ignored and never read, which disappoints me because those writings are much more important to me (and often, better written, in my opinion). But that is the nature of the internet, and I've grown comfortable with the realization that my writings are seldom read and not well marketed. Perhaps in the future, I'll revisit my poems and writings and do more with them... in the meantime, let them sit out in the open gathering dust until someone else stumbles upon them and finds something they like. I imagine it like The Neverending Story with some exciting connection bursting off the (electronic) page.