It's always bothered me that we are damn near required to stand up and pledge allegiance to a government which is widely known and mocked for its corruption. Also, that most kids start pledging allegiance before they even know what either of those words mean. So, I'll start this post off with those definitions, as they most relate here.
Pledging, to pledge:
a token, sign, or earnest of something else; the state of being held as a security or guaranty; a binding promise or agreement to do or forbear
Allegiance:
the obligation of a feudal vassal to his liege lord; the fidelity owed by a subject or citizen to a sovereign or government; devotion or loyalty to a person, group, or cause
So basically, you swear loyalty to this flag; to the American Republic, our government; to the idea of one nation, under God, indivisible, which claims "liberty and justice for all." I call bullshit on plenty of that. First off, our government is about as corrupt as they come, right about now. Second of all, liberty and justice-- for all? Tell me how many people pay taxes in this country. Yeah, a lot of them. But think about how many politicians have been caught without paying taxes that the rest of us constantly struggle under, and tell me that's fair. Tell me it's fair that the people who have the most to give away are the ones who get away with the most. Tell me it's fair, with a straight face, that if Congress signs a conscription act, seventeen-year-old kids who can't vote, drink, or call themselves adults, can get sent off to kill or be killed. Liberty? Justice?
Plus, I don't even know how solid I am with this nation at all anymore. So today, I wrote this.
I do not pledge allegiance to this nation which stands by and does nothing in the face of genocide. I do not pledge allegiance to this republic which would see men imprisoned for feeding the hungry. I do not pledge allegiance to this flag which so many believe entitles its bearers to the life which we deny others, based on their language or where they were born. I pledge my life to the starving, the dying, the poor, and the downtrodden across the world; and to a world without poverty, hunger, genocide, I pledge allegiance.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
Light beneath our masks
So, on trust and relationships, and the most basic thing connecting the two that I can think of—this begins with an anecdote, as do many such ideas. You see, today, I was talking to my friend and boss—and my other boss. I had a pocketful of pens, which had been my reason for going out, and my friend was ‘breaking them in,’ because he is a bit of an artist and, like many creative-minded people, cannot resist an assortment of artistic tools. And they are pretty nice pens, and there were a few different colors. Anyway, the conversation went in a few different directions, and stuff, and the manager wound up making some snide side comment about my friend having too much power over me.
So I was thinking about it. This conversation doesn't have too much to do with the post, but it has enough to get me thinking--and it sparked this chain of thought that I’ve had in the back of my mind for years.
All relationships—at least, all positive relationships—are founded on trust. You cannot be friends with someone without granting them a measure of trust. As your friendship grows and you grow closer, the measure of trust grows as well. Obviously, this is just as important with romantic relationships as it is with platonic, but I don’t think it’s more important with either, just as both are necessary. (Our society tends to place romantic relationships on a much higher level, concerning importance, than any platonic relationships, and this bothers me. But that’s another topic for another day.) But anyway, the point is that in order to have a relationship with someone, you must trust them, with something. To have a closer relationship with someone, you trust them with more.
As a friend grows closer, especially when you’re growing up together—but any age, really—you begin to tell them more. At first, it’s only small things. Common interests, hobbies, small things you share with many people. Then, as you find them worthy of this trust and you begin to care more for them, the relationship grows. You begin to talk about deeper things, things important to you—things that matter, things that you care about. They do the same, and the trust and bond grow stronger. As the friendship grows, so does the trust between you.
Here’s the tricky part. Trust grants power. When someone learns something about you, it grants them a measure of power over you. In my mind, this makes the point of trust even stronger, more fundamentally important. It is the trust you grant in people. When you tell your friend about that new crush you have on him or her, you’re not only trusting that they won’t tell anyone, but you’re trusting them with a measure of power over you. This is the key to my revelation: The more people know about you, the more power they have over you. Every piece of information about yourself, no matter how trivial, is a chink in your mask, something that makes you vulnerable. Friends can use this against you. They won’t, because you are friends—likely as not, you have that same power. But it’s not an alliance; it’s not about keeping the secrets, maintaining the friendship, because you have an edge on each other. That’s what makes it friendship. You trust them not to hurt you with the power you grant them. The more you trust them, the more power they have over you. But you don’t care, because you care about them, and you know that they are worthy of your trust.
The above conversation excerpt isn’t really an example of this theme. It’s just the spark that led to this train of thought. But it still stands. The more you trust someone—for instance, trusting a friend’s word without question—the more power they have over you. That’s a scary thought, if you think about it. Think how many friends you have whose word you trust. Every friend, every loved one, ever person who you’ve given access to the person behind your mask, has a measure of power over you, has a way to hurt you.
Then think about why you gave them that power, whether or not you meant to. The deeper example, the more true example, for me, is something that happened a while ago. Someone surprised me online with this quote: “And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head” And didn’t tell me who they were. We talked for a long time, about society, the wilderness, the way civilization has turned its back on the reality of life, etc.
Through that one conversation, without even knowing who he was, I gave him more power over me than many of my friends have. But sometimes, it’s necessary, to drop the mask as far as you can and bare your open, beating heart to the winds of the world, and the searing life around you.
I’ll close with this, my most well-worn quote, from C. S. Lewis, which sums this up pretty well.
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
So I was thinking about it. This conversation doesn't have too much to do with the post, but it has enough to get me thinking--and it sparked this chain of thought that I’ve had in the back of my mind for years.
All relationships—at least, all positive relationships—are founded on trust. You cannot be friends with someone without granting them a measure of trust. As your friendship grows and you grow closer, the measure of trust grows as well. Obviously, this is just as important with romantic relationships as it is with platonic, but I don’t think it’s more important with either, just as both are necessary. (Our society tends to place romantic relationships on a much higher level, concerning importance, than any platonic relationships, and this bothers me. But that’s another topic for another day.) But anyway, the point is that in order to have a relationship with someone, you must trust them, with something. To have a closer relationship with someone, you trust them with more.
As a friend grows closer, especially when you’re growing up together—but any age, really—you begin to tell them more. At first, it’s only small things. Common interests, hobbies, small things you share with many people. Then, as you find them worthy of this trust and you begin to care more for them, the relationship grows. You begin to talk about deeper things, things important to you—things that matter, things that you care about. They do the same, and the trust and bond grow stronger. As the friendship grows, so does the trust between you.
Here’s the tricky part. Trust grants power. When someone learns something about you, it grants them a measure of power over you. In my mind, this makes the point of trust even stronger, more fundamentally important. It is the trust you grant in people. When you tell your friend about that new crush you have on him or her, you’re not only trusting that they won’t tell anyone, but you’re trusting them with a measure of power over you. This is the key to my revelation: The more people know about you, the more power they have over you. Every piece of information about yourself, no matter how trivial, is a chink in your mask, something that makes you vulnerable. Friends can use this against you. They won’t, because you are friends—likely as not, you have that same power. But it’s not an alliance; it’s not about keeping the secrets, maintaining the friendship, because you have an edge on each other. That’s what makes it friendship. You trust them not to hurt you with the power you grant them. The more you trust them, the more power they have over you. But you don’t care, because you care about them, and you know that they are worthy of your trust.
The above conversation excerpt isn’t really an example of this theme. It’s just the spark that led to this train of thought. But it still stands. The more you trust someone—for instance, trusting a friend’s word without question—the more power they have over you. That’s a scary thought, if you think about it. Think how many friends you have whose word you trust. Every friend, every loved one, ever person who you’ve given access to the person behind your mask, has a measure of power over you, has a way to hurt you.
Then think about why you gave them that power, whether or not you meant to. The deeper example, the more true example, for me, is something that happened a while ago. Someone surprised me online with this quote: “And I also know how important it is in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong, to measure yourself at least once, to find yourself at least once in the most ancient of human conditions, facing blind, deaf stone alone, with nothing to help you but your own hands and your own head” And didn’t tell me who they were. We talked for a long time, about society, the wilderness, the way civilization has turned its back on the reality of life, etc.
Through that one conversation, without even knowing who he was, I gave him more power over me than many of my friends have. But sometimes, it’s necessary, to drop the mask as far as you can and bare your open, beating heart to the winds of the world, and the searing life around you.
I’ll close with this, my most well-worn quote, from C. S. Lewis, which sums this up pretty well.
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.”
Friday, February 13, 2009
A philosophy, shaken
If anarchy doesn't work, and all systems of government are inevitably, irretrievably correupt, what options are left? It's always the idealists who wind up with their hands covered in innocent blood, in the end. Why is it that the only alternative to simply accepting a system so corrupt that we can do nothing to stop genocide, poverty, oppression... is rebellion-- and subsequently, violence, chaos, bloodshed...
Why must corruption and chaos be the only options? It defies logic, reason, human nature.
...maybe not. As it is, I don't think I can believe in pure anarchy. But what does that leave me with? Power corrupts. All governments must distribute power. The absence of government breeds chaos. And someone rises to the void, and the cycle begins again. So...
So we are forced to accept the rule of a clearly corrupt government? We swallow their lies, because the truth is open chaos -- riots, murder, rape, "shoot anyone you don't recognize after dark."
The fact is, you have to consider the past, and in the end, as much as it pains me to admit it, anarchy... doesn't work. All you really have to do is look at the French Revolution(s). When nobody's in charge, people jump for leads and leaderships, and it turns into "follow whoever is least likely to get you killed." And then you wind up even worse off then you were before, with more corrupt leaders, no equality save the equality of weapon availability, and so on.
What, then, do you do? Accept the rule of oil-tongued liars? Because they all are, every last one of those men behind the podiums, with their smooth words caressing the microphone and their eyes promising a better world, and their hearts lusting for power. (Anyone, I think, who wants power over an entire nation, is not to be trusted.)
That, or revolution, with the idea that it's possible to have a system that is not corrupt, and then bloodshed, and chaos, and war; it is the idealists who wind up with the most blood on their hands, in the end.
What is the answer to the problems we create by being human? When it's all said and done, what can you do but live your life, do what you can to fix what is in your reach... and leave the rest to the terribly naive, intoxicating, unshakeable belief that more people than not, in this world, are decent human beings-- and the conclusion that follows, that everyone in power, therefore, cannot be a powerhungry monster. Someone has to be out there trying to fix this.
And then there's the inescapable truth, that I am one eighteen-year-old punk in a world full to the brim of shouting voices, and therefore, in the end, none of this really matters because there is absolutely nothing I can do in the slightest about any of it.
Why must corruption and chaos be the only options? It defies logic, reason, human nature.
...maybe not. As it is, I don't think I can believe in pure anarchy. But what does that leave me with? Power corrupts. All governments must distribute power. The absence of government breeds chaos. And someone rises to the void, and the cycle begins again. So...
So we are forced to accept the rule of a clearly corrupt government? We swallow their lies, because the truth is open chaos -- riots, murder, rape, "shoot anyone you don't recognize after dark."
The fact is, you have to consider the past, and in the end, as much as it pains me to admit it, anarchy... doesn't work. All you really have to do is look at the French Revolution(s). When nobody's in charge, people jump for leads and leaderships, and it turns into "follow whoever is least likely to get you killed." And then you wind up even worse off then you were before, with more corrupt leaders, no equality save the equality of weapon availability, and so on.
What, then, do you do? Accept the rule of oil-tongued liars? Because they all are, every last one of those men behind the podiums, with their smooth words caressing the microphone and their eyes promising a better world, and their hearts lusting for power. (Anyone, I think, who wants power over an entire nation, is not to be trusted.)
That, or revolution, with the idea that it's possible to have a system that is not corrupt, and then bloodshed, and chaos, and war; it is the idealists who wind up with the most blood on their hands, in the end.
What is the answer to the problems we create by being human? When it's all said and done, what can you do but live your life, do what you can to fix what is in your reach... and leave the rest to the terribly naive, intoxicating, unshakeable belief that more people than not, in this world, are decent human beings-- and the conclusion that follows, that everyone in power, therefore, cannot be a powerhungry monster. Someone has to be out there trying to fix this.
And then there's the inescapable truth, that I am one eighteen-year-old punk in a world full to the brim of shouting voices, and therefore, in the end, none of this really matters because there is absolutely nothing I can do in the slightest about any of it.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
An Introduction
It occurred to me today that I could use this laptop, now it’s mine, to store all the information about Mohan and his world and Drake and whatnot that I have, and record more! It will be amazing. I will start to write little excerpts from his life as they come to me, too. But in the meantime I should introduce this mysterious friend of mine, and his world.
Mohan is about nine feet tall, and covered in light brown fur, very sleek (most of the time). He has a tail, about ¾ as long as the rest of his spine, the last few inches of which widen and flatten, resembling a hand made up of palm, but a little more flexible. His spine is a little more flexible than a human’s, possibly because it’s so long, but also because that’s how his species is designed. His arms are three-segmented, or nearly so—from the shoulder, they have an upper arm/bicep segment, proportionally the size of ours, and then a forearm, a little bit longer proportionally than ours, and then their wrists are little under one foot in length, and very flexible, almost tail-like until they turn into hands. Their hands only have four fingers, two with three joints, and two with two joints like ours, but they are in pairs of both, on either side of the palm, positioned a bit like ours but opposing each other.
Their heads are slightly more elongated, their foreheads a little more sloping back, their cheekbones a little higher, and their chins a little more pointed, most of the time. Their ears hang down almost to the base of the skull, and are shaped a little like elongated dogs’ ears. Their noses are very complex, consisting of tendrils which can be wriggled a bit, each of which has its own nostril. Their sense of smell isn’t as strong as a dog’s, but it’s as sophisticated—they can learn and identify more smells than we can, but are only a little better at picking them up. The nose design, I think, is less about smell, more about breathing. Their eyes are a little wider, the irises a bit larger and the pupils more narrow. They wear the fur on top of their heads longer, like we do; it resembles hair, a bit.
I think the gravity on their world is a little less than ours, which is why they’re so tall. A lot of things there are elongated.
Anyway, Mohan’s my friend; he found my mind more than a year ago when I was thinking about starting a comic strip entitled “Space Pirates!” The idea was a bust, mainly because one of the characters eased his way into my mind, showed me his name, and told me to write a story about his world instead. I obliged. I guess the ‘pirates’ thing is what attracted him. See, he left home to be a pirate with his cousin Drake, but the bloody life was too much for him, and he deserted after a dispute with the first mate, who was an exceedingly bloodthirsty jerk. My job is to write on his adventures, but the problem is that the nature of his world is just so that first, I have to figure out a way to tell that without… well, without too much of an infodump. I wonder, sometimes, if this is what happened to Professor Tolkien. Did something from that world just take root in his mind and demand to be written, and the stories followed? That’s what it seems like, only with him it was the language. And he was a much better writer than I am. Hopefully, I will do my friend’s tale justice, when someday I write it all down. In the meantime, he and Drake contact me through the haze of Risperidone when they can, giving me maps and charts and cultural notes and customs and traditions and religions.
They’re living at a house of their cousin’s (their family is a very extended clan from the mountains, so they’ve got a lot of cousins. They were raised together, they’re like brothers) now, and somehow that helps them contact me; I guess there’s a fair bit of arcane paraphernalia lying around for the use. Somehow, a few of the kittens that live there got through, too, but the Risperidone put a stop to that. I kind of miss them sometimes, but they’re probably big by now, anyway. I have a drawing of the house somewhere, and a bit of a map… kind of. It’s a little muddled, because I think it breaks the rules of physics in a few places.
Is this all real? I don’t know. Part of me wants so badly to believe it is, and part of me says that’s ridiculous, but the larger part of me says it doesn’t matter, in a way. I mean, it does. But not very much. The part that counts is the story, right? Mohan wants me to tell the story. Drake wants me to know the world. (Drake also wants me to learn the language, but I’m pretty certain that it can’t be fully communicated by the human tongue—we communicate by thoughts. I think our thoughts go through in pure thought form, and our respective brains translate them as best we can.)
Someday, I will do both.
Mohan is about nine feet tall, and covered in light brown fur, very sleek (most of the time). He has a tail, about ¾ as long as the rest of his spine, the last few inches of which widen and flatten, resembling a hand made up of palm, but a little more flexible. His spine is a little more flexible than a human’s, possibly because it’s so long, but also because that’s how his species is designed. His arms are three-segmented, or nearly so—from the shoulder, they have an upper arm/bicep segment, proportionally the size of ours, and then a forearm, a little bit longer proportionally than ours, and then their wrists are little under one foot in length, and very flexible, almost tail-like until they turn into hands. Their hands only have four fingers, two with three joints, and two with two joints like ours, but they are in pairs of both, on either side of the palm, positioned a bit like ours but opposing each other.
Their heads are slightly more elongated, their foreheads a little more sloping back, their cheekbones a little higher, and their chins a little more pointed, most of the time. Their ears hang down almost to the base of the skull, and are shaped a little like elongated dogs’ ears. Their noses are very complex, consisting of tendrils which can be wriggled a bit, each of which has its own nostril. Their sense of smell isn’t as strong as a dog’s, but it’s as sophisticated—they can learn and identify more smells than we can, but are only a little better at picking them up. The nose design, I think, is less about smell, more about breathing. Their eyes are a little wider, the irises a bit larger and the pupils more narrow. They wear the fur on top of their heads longer, like we do; it resembles hair, a bit.
I think the gravity on their world is a little less than ours, which is why they’re so tall. A lot of things there are elongated.
Anyway, Mohan’s my friend; he found my mind more than a year ago when I was thinking about starting a comic strip entitled “Space Pirates!” The idea was a bust, mainly because one of the characters eased his way into my mind, showed me his name, and told me to write a story about his world instead. I obliged. I guess the ‘pirates’ thing is what attracted him. See, he left home to be a pirate with his cousin Drake, but the bloody life was too much for him, and he deserted after a dispute with the first mate, who was an exceedingly bloodthirsty jerk. My job is to write on his adventures, but the problem is that the nature of his world is just so that first, I have to figure out a way to tell that without… well, without too much of an infodump. I wonder, sometimes, if this is what happened to Professor Tolkien. Did something from that world just take root in his mind and demand to be written, and the stories followed? That’s what it seems like, only with him it was the language. And he was a much better writer than I am. Hopefully, I will do my friend’s tale justice, when someday I write it all down. In the meantime, he and Drake contact me through the haze of Risperidone when they can, giving me maps and charts and cultural notes and customs and traditions and religions.
They’re living at a house of their cousin’s (their family is a very extended clan from the mountains, so they’ve got a lot of cousins. They were raised together, they’re like brothers) now, and somehow that helps them contact me; I guess there’s a fair bit of arcane paraphernalia lying around for the use. Somehow, a few of the kittens that live there got through, too, but the Risperidone put a stop to that. I kind of miss them sometimes, but they’re probably big by now, anyway. I have a drawing of the house somewhere, and a bit of a map… kind of. It’s a little muddled, because I think it breaks the rules of physics in a few places.
Is this all real? I don’t know. Part of me wants so badly to believe it is, and part of me says that’s ridiculous, but the larger part of me says it doesn’t matter, in a way. I mean, it does. But not very much. The part that counts is the story, right? Mohan wants me to tell the story. Drake wants me to know the world. (Drake also wants me to learn the language, but I’m pretty certain that it can’t be fully communicated by the human tongue—we communicate by thoughts. I think our thoughts go through in pure thought form, and our respective brains translate them as best we can.)
Someday, I will do both.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
But hopefully I'm not really a witch
You know, if I ever found myself being accused of a witch, I think I would wait for a moment when I was alone, probably on Death Row, and sing either Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah—and the whole thing, too, every single verse he wrote—or, or possibly and, U2’s Yahweh. They would both fit, though Hallelujah has a certain hopelessness to it… well, not a hopelessness. A futility. Like Johnny Cash singing Hurt, kind of, he’s run his course, “did my best – it wasn’t much,” and now it’s done, and what can you do but sing? Yahweh is more along the lines of “I walked this road, I know it was the wrong one, please show me where to go from here, I’m lost and all I can see is You now, and I’m scared but still full of love.” …or something.
Anyway. With any luck I’ll never be accused of witchcraft, which is just as well because my voice rather sucks. With any luck, I’ll figure out just what it is I want to do, pretty soon. I don’t have the drive or the inspiration that I used to. It’s strange, it seems almost like my heart has closed itself. I can’t touch that part of me, the deep well of something resembling sadness, something touching pain, and something a bit like ecstasy. It was where I reached for words, for the flow behind the words, and sometimes it gave me tears. Now I laugh, and laugh, and laugh, and the worse life gets the harder that laughter comes, the more it hurts, the more I need it. Like someone replaced a drug I needed with some other drug that I’m now addicted to.
The thing is, now I’ve got no direction. I don’t need a career, I don’t need money, I don’t need a nice home and a car. I did fairly well without them for a fair portion of my life, ne? But I do need a direction. I want to just take to the road, live every Anarchist’s dream and one of mine—spend the rest of my life in a cabin in the woods with no one bothering me ever (maybe decades later someone will find it and be really, really confused), or bike around the continent until I find a place to rest. But I also want to help people, in a major way; I also want to write, and to express in words what this life has taught me, because I need to; I also want to sing, but that’s something I can do anyway from a bike. It’s not easy, or at least not as easy as singing normally, but I can and have done it, for miles at a time. Gives your lungs quite the stretch.
And then there’s the song “Lemon,” also by U2. This song makes more sense if you know the back-story, but it’s beautiful even if you don’t. The first time I heard it, it touched my heartstrings in that way that only Bono really can—I mean the rest of the band too, but it’s his lyrics, the rawness beneath the words, kind of, and his voice singing them—and I nearly cried. Maybe I did. I don’t remember now. I remember the video, Mr. MacPhisto, the devil in a rock-star with a microphone, clinging to that last strand of humanity, he doesn’t know why anymore, drifting from the shore… I don’t know how to put it into words. Maybe only Bono can. Maybe death is an easier loss than insanity.
Remind me never to have a family.
Anyway. With any luck I’ll never be accused of witchcraft, which is just as well because my voice rather sucks. With any luck, I’ll figure out just what it is I want to do, pretty soon. I don’t have the drive or the inspiration that I used to. It’s strange, it seems almost like my heart has closed itself. I can’t touch that part of me, the deep well of something resembling sadness, something touching pain, and something a bit like ecstasy. It was where I reached for words, for the flow behind the words, and sometimes it gave me tears. Now I laugh, and laugh, and laugh, and the worse life gets the harder that laughter comes, the more it hurts, the more I need it. Like someone replaced a drug I needed with some other drug that I’m now addicted to.
The thing is, now I’ve got no direction. I don’t need a career, I don’t need money, I don’t need a nice home and a car. I did fairly well without them for a fair portion of my life, ne? But I do need a direction. I want to just take to the road, live every Anarchist’s dream and one of mine—spend the rest of my life in a cabin in the woods with no one bothering me ever (maybe decades later someone will find it and be really, really confused), or bike around the continent until I find a place to rest. But I also want to help people, in a major way; I also want to write, and to express in words what this life has taught me, because I need to; I also want to sing, but that’s something I can do anyway from a bike. It’s not easy, or at least not as easy as singing normally, but I can and have done it, for miles at a time. Gives your lungs quite the stretch.
And then there’s the song “Lemon,” also by U2. This song makes more sense if you know the back-story, but it’s beautiful even if you don’t. The first time I heard it, it touched my heartstrings in that way that only Bono really can—I mean the rest of the band too, but it’s his lyrics, the rawness beneath the words, kind of, and his voice singing them—and I nearly cried. Maybe I did. I don’t remember now. I remember the video, Mr. MacPhisto, the devil in a rock-star with a microphone, clinging to that last strand of humanity, he doesn’t know why anymore, drifting from the shore… I don’t know how to put it into words. Maybe only Bono can. Maybe death is an easier loss than insanity.
Remind me never to have a family.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Time takes the toll of unwanted bruises on my pride.
So it’s late, too late, and it’s cold, and I’m shaking a little and so, so tired. The day plays over, scene by scene, in my head, what I remember of it. I wish I’d stayed in the mood I started the walk in, cheerful and invincible. Things dragged me down, as they always do—the tension that one out of three doesn’t feel, that helps, the lazy feeling pulls a little more gently, and next thing I’m wondering where my energy went. It’s just the way it is; I wish I had the energy to study for the Spanish exam tomorrow, but such is life. I will not force myself, possibly because I know that won’t end well. I might go through the English texts, but something tells me that the only way I can prepare for that exam is to pray for a miracle. English, of all things! So pathetic, so terrible, I should not be stressing over this.
But anyway the music plays, and it kneads the snarling masses of confusion in my head, leaving me with some kind of calm. My sister claims that I look high when I sing, in too good of a mood. Maybe I am, somehow. Maybe it’s enough, maybe it isn’t. I know there’s no options, sometimes—oh, how I envy the irresponsible in life. I mean, it’s not like I’m the best or the worst or what have you; I am very, very bad at being responsible most of the time, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have responsibilities, ones that I can’t shirk or drop or ignore. I wish I could be cool, relax, forget about it, have a few drinks and maybe a joint or two and let it all go. I wish I could just hang out, chill, have fun. But as hard as I’m laughing, there’s always a hard weight in the back of my mind; as much as I’m willing to let go, I can’t.
It’s why I’ve never punched a few people out, for things they’ve said to or about me; I’ve never gone to a party and gotten wasted; I’ve never hung out and gotten stoned. I can’t. I can’t afford to let go of this weight, it’s what ties me down, it’s what keeps me from falling out of this life. It’s made of a few different things; my past, the guilt that I shouldn’t really even have at this point, my family, things that I shouldn’t worry about anymore or at all, and constant worry about the future. The only place I’ve ever been able to let go is out, far away from this whole world, in the world I know best, between tree trunks and cliffs and mountainsides, and the sky that you can’t see from the streets.
[Who knows? Maybe I’m really not crazy. Maybe it’s all a lie, maybe I’m perfectly fine, but whether it’s real or not doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.]
What I really need is to get away. Not to Sacramento, to an unnamed forest somewhere far enough out that no one will bother looking for me. I’m so fucking sick of this whole thing! I’m sick of politics, I’m sick of anger, I’m sick of guilt! Why am I always so damned guilty about everything? I swear, I can’t fucking say a word about half the shit I want to because I’m afraid to hurt somebody’s fucking feelings, and then to the people I actually give a damn about, I don’t watch my mouth. I’m so sick of laughing when I want to curl up and get away, I’m so sick of wanting to curl up and get away! I’m sick of dealing with four hours of stress and friction in order to live half an hour of laughter. I’m sick of not having the words when I need them, and then they swirl around in my head and when I try to say what I mean, it’s the wrong words and nothing even makes sense.
I want to go somewhere where life is living, where I get by on doing what I need to make the day. I want to go somewhere where it doesn't matter what you think, what he said, what she did, why it's harder today than it was yesterday. I need to work with my hands, to throw half a day's worth of back-breaking labor and see not a paycheck, but something that I needed, a shelter, another wall on my cabin, enough firewood to get me through a few more weeks. I want to go somewhere where life is for the living, not for looking how you're supposed to look.
But anyway the music plays, and it kneads the snarling masses of confusion in my head, leaving me with some kind of calm. My sister claims that I look high when I sing, in too good of a mood. Maybe I am, somehow. Maybe it’s enough, maybe it isn’t. I know there’s no options, sometimes—oh, how I envy the irresponsible in life. I mean, it’s not like I’m the best or the worst or what have you; I am very, very bad at being responsible most of the time, but that doesn’t change the fact that I have responsibilities, ones that I can’t shirk or drop or ignore. I wish I could be cool, relax, forget about it, have a few drinks and maybe a joint or two and let it all go. I wish I could just hang out, chill, have fun. But as hard as I’m laughing, there’s always a hard weight in the back of my mind; as much as I’m willing to let go, I can’t.
It’s why I’ve never punched a few people out, for things they’ve said to or about me; I’ve never gone to a party and gotten wasted; I’ve never hung out and gotten stoned. I can’t. I can’t afford to let go of this weight, it’s what ties me down, it’s what keeps me from falling out of this life. It’s made of a few different things; my past, the guilt that I shouldn’t really even have at this point, my family, things that I shouldn’t worry about anymore or at all, and constant worry about the future. The only place I’ve ever been able to let go is out, far away from this whole world, in the world I know best, between tree trunks and cliffs and mountainsides, and the sky that you can’t see from the streets.
[Who knows? Maybe I’m really not crazy. Maybe it’s all a lie, maybe I’m perfectly fine, but whether it’s real or not doesn’t make it any easier to deal with.]
What I really need is to get away. Not to Sacramento, to an unnamed forest somewhere far enough out that no one will bother looking for me. I’m so fucking sick of this whole thing! I’m sick of politics, I’m sick of anger, I’m sick of guilt! Why am I always so damned guilty about everything? I swear, I can’t fucking say a word about half the shit I want to because I’m afraid to hurt somebody’s fucking feelings, and then to the people I actually give a damn about, I don’t watch my mouth. I’m so sick of laughing when I want to curl up and get away, I’m so sick of wanting to curl up and get away! I’m sick of dealing with four hours of stress and friction in order to live half an hour of laughter. I’m sick of not having the words when I need them, and then they swirl around in my head and when I try to say what I mean, it’s the wrong words and nothing even makes sense.
I want to go somewhere where life is living, where I get by on doing what I need to make the day. I want to go somewhere where it doesn't matter what you think, what he said, what she did, why it's harder today than it was yesterday. I need to work with my hands, to throw half a day's worth of back-breaking labor and see not a paycheck, but something that I needed, a shelter, another wall on my cabin, enough firewood to get me through a few more weeks. I want to go somewhere where life is for the living, not for looking how you're supposed to look.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Shadows in my brain, part two.
It’s dark, and I’m thinking nightmares under the covers, nightmares that spring unbidden to my mind, and nightmares that I brought upon myself, one way or another. It’s too warm, too dark, I’m suffocating—I was never, am not, afraid of the dark. At least, not any more than I am of the light, and what does it matter when they’re invisible? Shadows, strangling, shoving, grabbing, terrified I shrink and shrink, but it’s never far enough. Imagination is a terrible, terrible thing. When you say imagination, unless it’s in a very specific context, people think of rainbows and butterflies and castles in the air. No one thinks about the writers who came up with horror films, or the kids who grew up reading The Brothers Grimm and Jack Chick. I’m not kidding, and I’m not exaggerating—if anything, I’m not talking big enough, because I… because the nightmares don’t go away if you talk about them, and the worst feeling isn’t fear, it’s guilt, and because I thought maybe I couldn’t lose my soul, maybe I could, because Hell hath no fury like the demons your mind puts together. They’re not always big and scary, except when they are. They’re sly, and slinking, and they don’t bother trying to scare you, they tell you what they want you to hear, which is what a part of you wants to hear, and they screw with your dreams, and your daydreams aren’t gold-edged affairs with that cute boy from whatever. They’re shadowy, and dark, and you’re alone in the dark and so, so vulnerable, and you’re not alone.
This is the part that really sucks, the part I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, the part that follows me through my dreams and nightmares and my waking days. And it doesn’t go away with medication. The medication helps, makes the nightmares less tangible, and light becomes my friend a little more, but they don’t go away.
Picture this. You’re curled up in a dark room, nondescript if it was light, probably, facing the wall because the shadows behind you might be taking shape. There are cold fingers stroking your back, like the epitome of a shadow on Midwinter’s night. You’re shivering uncontrollably, cold, so cold; you don’t feel it in your real body, because the part of you that’s real is toasty warm and suffocating, but most of you is cold, shaking. And you hate being cold, you’re never cold. The shadow is whispering now, things you don’t want to hear, don’t want to believe, things about yourself that may or may not be true, and you’re trying to tune it out but every time you close your eyes it’s the same thing.
It gets worse. There’s a part of your mind that is feeding off of this, not enjoying, per se, but… craving. And if you shut it off for long enough, it seeps through in your subconscious, and you dream things worse, and worse, and worse. When I was a little kid, I made a dreamcatcher with a circle of wood, and feathers I’d found in the land behind our house, and some twine, and it used to work, for a long time. But only for the nightmares. Things still happened when I was daydreaming, things still happened, if I let them.
Picture this. You’re standing in a corridor, awake and laughing, and suddenly behind the friend you’re talking to, there’s an immense, terrible shadow of something. You know what it is, but at least it’s not just the shadow—there’s a shape there, looming, for a split second everything blurs and melts in your vision and the one clear thing is a monstrous dragon. It looks at you, and then the moment passes, but you can feel it watching you now, and when the day is finally over, you find yourself racing, running as hard as you can through the park because it is Right Behind You, and no matter how fast you run, it always will be, and you’re terrified but you can’t turn around, because then it will be right On you. So you run, and run, and eventually force yourself to walk, and walk, and force yourself to stop thinking about it (impossible, of course), and you can’t see the shadow in the dark but you know it’s there, even if it’s not real, and that night, after you’ve gotten home and huddled down in the dark, you dream about it. And again, and again, and again, for weeks afterwards there’s a dragon chasing you through your dreams.
I hate dragons. Hate them, hate them, and if I ever write a novel with a dragon in it, the dragon will be the monster that chased me for so damn long I was afraid to sleep, not some pansy feathered lizard with telepathy and magic sparkles.
So anyway. “What’s it like being in your mind?” Now you know. This is how I write, this is where my words come from, they are forcibly wrenched from a mouth by the shadows behind it. And I laugh, when the imaginary cobra rears out of the pile of grain at my head, because I know it’s not real, because after spending the night hiding from my dreams, the blood that splatters across my mind’s eye, the explosions around my imaginary mind, are almost a breath of fresh air. Not quite, but you get the point.
I don’t want to post this, but it doesn’t feel right posting the other one, the happier bits of my brain, and leaving this out. So, yeah.
This is the part that really sucks, the part I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, the part that follows me through my dreams and nightmares and my waking days. And it doesn’t go away with medication. The medication helps, makes the nightmares less tangible, and light becomes my friend a little more, but they don’t go away.
Picture this. You’re curled up in a dark room, nondescript if it was light, probably, facing the wall because the shadows behind you might be taking shape. There are cold fingers stroking your back, like the epitome of a shadow on Midwinter’s night. You’re shivering uncontrollably, cold, so cold; you don’t feel it in your real body, because the part of you that’s real is toasty warm and suffocating, but most of you is cold, shaking. And you hate being cold, you’re never cold. The shadow is whispering now, things you don’t want to hear, don’t want to believe, things about yourself that may or may not be true, and you’re trying to tune it out but every time you close your eyes it’s the same thing.
It gets worse. There’s a part of your mind that is feeding off of this, not enjoying, per se, but… craving. And if you shut it off for long enough, it seeps through in your subconscious, and you dream things worse, and worse, and worse. When I was a little kid, I made a dreamcatcher with a circle of wood, and feathers I’d found in the land behind our house, and some twine, and it used to work, for a long time. But only for the nightmares. Things still happened when I was daydreaming, things still happened, if I let them.
Picture this. You’re standing in a corridor, awake and laughing, and suddenly behind the friend you’re talking to, there’s an immense, terrible shadow of something. You know what it is, but at least it’s not just the shadow—there’s a shape there, looming, for a split second everything blurs and melts in your vision and the one clear thing is a monstrous dragon. It looks at you, and then the moment passes, but you can feel it watching you now, and when the day is finally over, you find yourself racing, running as hard as you can through the park because it is Right Behind You, and no matter how fast you run, it always will be, and you’re terrified but you can’t turn around, because then it will be right On you. So you run, and run, and eventually force yourself to walk, and walk, and force yourself to stop thinking about it (impossible, of course), and you can’t see the shadow in the dark but you know it’s there, even if it’s not real, and that night, after you’ve gotten home and huddled down in the dark, you dream about it. And again, and again, and again, for weeks afterwards there’s a dragon chasing you through your dreams.
I hate dragons. Hate them, hate them, and if I ever write a novel with a dragon in it, the dragon will be the monster that chased me for so damn long I was afraid to sleep, not some pansy feathered lizard with telepathy and magic sparkles.
So anyway. “What’s it like being in your mind?” Now you know. This is how I write, this is where my words come from, they are forcibly wrenched from a mouth by the shadows behind it. And I laugh, when the imaginary cobra rears out of the pile of grain at my head, because I know it’s not real, because after spending the night hiding from my dreams, the blood that splatters across my mind’s eye, the explosions around my imaginary mind, are almost a breath of fresh air. Not quite, but you get the point.
I don’t want to post this, but it doesn’t feel right posting the other one, the happier bits of my brain, and leaving this out. So, yeah.
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