On Organization

When one is a crazy disorganized person, such as I am, it can make it hard to keep track of things like tags on blog posts, and my tags are usually named with a trace of whimsy, which makes it easier for me to keep track but keeps the whole 'thrown-together-with-some-leaves-and-a-few-strips-of-duct-tape' feeling, which is about as true to life as it gets, for me. Anyway! Here I present an explanation of my tags/labels so far, for the purposes of keeping track.

awesome dudes
Just what it says on the tin! This tag means that somewhere in the post, I am talking about awesome dudes, whether they be good friends, people who I look up to, or just generally awesome dudes. Although 'dude' is often a male term, it need not always be so, and that's not how I use it-- I greet just about everyone with "'Sup, dude!" So.

battling insanity
Again, pretty self-explanatory. I'll tag stuff with this when I'm talking about the twisted, broken bits of my mind, whether they be pretty and shimmery on the light, or whether I just slipped and cut my finger on one. Metaphorical writing aside, makes sense, ne?

becoming harlequin
This is for when I talk about masks-- whether it be masks that everyone adopts to everyone, or a mask I've put on for some theatre, to play a character or the like, or whether I'm talking about being trapped in my own identity.

the core and chord
Also known as the connection, the call, the caper... a tag designed to refer to the weakness of most sentient beings, whether platonic, amorous, charitable, erotic... basically, love.

dreams
I'll use this tag for dreams I've -had-, and I mean stuff like subconscious-- like the dreams you have asleep, for me sometimes awake.

dreams for real
This tag is for dreams in the sense of long-term goals, longings, things I want to do someday. The "for real" refers to the use of dreams as they apply to real life, which is what separates it from the "dreams" tag, which has a strained connection at best to the real world.

futility at best
Just what it looks like; this tag is about struggles that are futile, struggles against my own mind, against the world, things I've tried knowing that they won't get me anywhere. It can be something as insignificant as trying to repair a broken tool that I know is beyond help, or as personal as trying to force myself into another identity.

indie soul
This is a new tag, it refers to independence, the stage of my life coming on fast that I've had one foot in for a while, it means that whole Being On My Own horizon, with all its ups and downs.

internet
I might get rid of this tag, actually; it refers to the internet, which seems redundant on a blog.

life as it seems
Much like the "dreams" tag, this refers to life with slightly metaphysical connotations; life as perceived, life that isn't necessarily completely real, just because I don't always trust my senses, or my brain. It wouldn't be confusing, except...

life at the moment
This tag is different from the "life as it seems" tag in that it has more to do with life as I'm living it, the more physical, solid details of life, whether that be eventual goals of college, eating more healthfood, or monetary worries. Sometimes the two overlap, but they do have distinct meanings.

dust on glass
This tag refers to memories, of childhood, of another time, of things that may or may not have ever happened, things that I've buried in closets, and when you dig them out, there's gray and dulling layers of time over what once shone in the sunlight. Memories are tricky things.

music to listen
Exactly what it sounds like. This is music that I listen to, as opposed to...

music to play
Which is music that I play, be it on French horn, guitar, drumsticks, or vocal experiment. Again, these can overlap, but they're pretty different.

mirrorbox flies
Named from two off-kilter references to the same thing, this tag refers to the Zoo, the Goggles, the Tube, the alternate reality that is so much easier to believe in than our own. Basically, when I cave and talk about TV, this is what I shall call it.

politickin
BAH. I wish I could delete this, but it is important, it is something I will talk about in the future, and it's something I should have a filter for. So yeah, political nonsense and the like.

rebellion is now
This is like the 'politickin' tag, minus the politics. It's the changes I want, the acts I'll follow, how my code of belief and my core of morals/ethics/whatever apply to the world at large.

school
A prison now, maybe not so much in the next stage, but yeah. This is just what it looks like, too.

skin on bones
A tag referencing the real, physical body which I somewhat reluctantly inhabit.

the friends inside
For that other part of my brain which isn't necessarily me.

walkin' shoes
I love to walk, which is fortunate because I have no transportation besides biking. Once I fix the flat tire on my bike, though, biking stories will also go under this tag; this is just about... well, non-car transportation, where my feet are taking me and what skies I've been falling under.

webcomics
Another one I might delete, unless I wind up writing my own webcomic at some point.

what is inspired
Stuff like stream of consciousness, things that are more about the craft than the actual words behind it, or vice versa-- basically, me being all artsy and stuff.

Yahweh
No whimsy here; no whimsy possible, no subterfuge or lacy trimmings possible or necessary, in the end.

The Flip Side of Freedom

The funny thing is that to most people, this is the regular side of things—the panic, the scary feeling in the pit of your stomach, that What If I Don’t Make It feeling, is the flip side. And I guess it is to me, too, because I was excited for this time for years before I was afraid of it. Kind of like an iceberg, in the distance—you see it far away, and it’s so pretty and so cool and you just want to explore it. As you get closer, you start to realize how big it is, and then you look down and realize that it’s even bigger, under the surface, and you wonder what, exactly, you’re in for, here. And then, if you’re like me, you panic, but that current that you were so glad for, before, carrying you in, is now even stronger, and you’re stuck. And, if you have good friends to talk to, then you start to realize that it’s a really good thing the iceberg is so big, because that gives you way more space to explore.

Of course, that’s all writing from the viewpoint of a young seal or something. If you’re approaching an iceberg in a large ship, well, you’re screwed. But it’s probably way more fun to live life as a Weddell Seal or something, than aboard a ship. When have you ever seen a seal acting all depressed? Nah, seals know what life’s about—like otters. I bet you’ve never seen a depressed otter, either. Man, those things know how to live. Floating around on their backs all the time, rolling around in the surf, barking up a storm… man, otters know what it’s all about. I wish I was an otter.

But hey, not being small and furry and able to swim like a fish and still breathe free air doesn’t mean I can’t have fun with my life. It really is just… a whole world out there, waiting to be explored, waiting—I can do anything. Anything! What can’t I do? Well, I can’t fly. I can’t turn into an otter, I can’t do magic. But outside of that… I could do anything! I could spend the rest of my life as a starving artist on the streets of New Haven! I could start growing a garden, a little bit at a time, selling whatever I could, and eventually wind up with my own farm. I could spend my life stealing apples from orchards at night and selling them on the black apple market! I could START the black market for apples! If there isn’t one already.

In all seriousness, though, there’s a lot out there, and I think I’ll be just fine in the end. My biggest fear is that I’ll get caught up into some rhythm, some cycle that I don’t like, or don’t agree with, and wind up doing that for the rest of my life. The daily grind—I don’t want to trap myself in something that’s going to grind my life down on me. My second biggest fear is that I’ll start living with money as an end, rather than a means. I already have to check myself on that thought process—it’s part of what attracted me to anarchy. If I could live without money for the rest of my life… I mean, I can. But I don’t know if that lifestyle is for me. I do know that I will not find happiness if I start thinking like a businessman, which is why I freaked out when my friend started talking about opening a business. If I had the option to make it as a business owner, eventually owning this huge company, this corporation, I would… probably turn it down. I hope I’d turn it down. That life is too easy—no matter how difficult it is to do the business thing or whatever, I would fall into it, the material comfort, the lifestyle, and I’m terrified I wouldn’t be able to let that go. I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want material comforts, I want a challenge. I want to live, I want to breathe air untainted by perfumes or chemicals or burning flesh, I want every day to push myself to the limit, body and soul, I want to sing my heart out, I want to fast in the desert, I want to live. Spending my days in an office on a tower, no matter how luxurious and big, and my nights in a luxurious apartment, with whatever material things I wanted at my beck and call, is not, in my opinion, living. It’s existence, yes, it’s technically being alive, but… it’s a life that I think epitomizes the verse “Gain the whole world and lose your own soul.”

So that’s what I’m afraid of, in a nutshell. I’m afraid of falling into the trap of a pattern; I’m afraid of becoming fat and happy; I’m afraid of not living a life that will fill my soul, or a life that fills my body, and not my soul. I’d rather die tomorrow than wind up in that board meeting thirty years from now.

But, what I’d forgotten is that I have that choice. No one’s really pressuring me into anything (unless you count a serious pressure from friends to do something that will make me happy), it’s not like I’m already on that path. I just have to… live. Which I will be more than happy to do.

Freedom is a scary thing

I don’t know what I want to do with my life anymore. I’m starting to wonder if I ever did, if I wasn’t just fooling myself. I know that the only place I feel at peace is away from the world, but in this world that doesn’t mean too much. The more I try to figure things out, the less things seem to make any sense. I know I don’t really want to live anymore—not under this world’s rules. But what choice do I have? I’m a sorry excuse for an anarchist; I’m just kidding myself there, too. In the end, I really have no idea whatsoever.

No wonder kids my age make such easy targets for cults, the army, whatever. We literally have no idea what the hell to do with ourselves—we have all this youth, this energy, our passion hasn’t been killed off by the grind yet, and people are constantly telling us to use it, because it won’t last, etc. But we still aren’t set in our identities yet, we still don’t know. I don’t know ANYTHING. All this fire in my soul has no outlet—it’s just burning me, right now, consuming me from the inside out.

That, and every time I turn around, someone’s trying to push some huge choice on me. “Do you like going to school—would you rather spend every day working in a factory for sixteen hours?” I did not realize those were my only choices. “Work hard in school, or you’ll wind up breaking your back struggling for a living for the rest of your life!” Of course, that’s what you’ll do anyway, this just gives you more choice in how. And then there’s living on the fringe, refusing that whole ‘work for a living’ lifestyle. Which, in the end, is just as much of a prison, and it doesn’t last indefinitely anyway.

I don’t want to live like this. Part of me really wishes I could die before I get into college, so I don’t have to make these choices. Then I realize that that would mean that this would have been my whole life—misery, basically, with little cracks of light showing through here and there. If I don’t get out of this house, I’ll wish I died the day I was born.

So that leaves me right back where I started from, with a day of freedom looming over my head, but no idea what to do with it when it gets here. I have no plan, I have no idea, I’m left clinging to this island of stability that I’ve been trying to get off of since I was dumped here. I should just abandon myself to the current, I guess, and let life take me where it will, but that’s not an easy thing to comprehend. What, just let go? Let go of this life… it’s what I have to do, I guess. If I don’t have a plan now, I’ll just… figure something out. Take things day by day, I guess.

The thing is, no matter how hard I try to think rationally, there’s this seed of panic in me that will not go away, and it’s a pretty scary thing. The rational thing to do, or at least the emotionally rational thing, or at least the thing I would normally do, is talk to someone older and wiser, who’s been here, and ask for help. But I know what they’ll say, I think. Maybe not, but for the most part “Yeah, no one really knows what they want to do at your age.” Most kids switch majors halfway through—I used to have the statistic, but I no longer remember it. “Just take things one step at a time; you’ll be alright.” Depending on who I talk to, I’ll get variations of that, along with different advice and ideas and whatnot. My dad might be upset with me, he doesn’t know how much time I’ve wasted in school, and his reaction would be the most surprised, but he’d wind up saying the same thing.

And, once more, right back where I started from. Stuck in a panic, about to be set adrift, with no idea whatsoever what I’m going to do with my life.

A Narrow Escape

Pretty much every attribute, physical behavior, and aspect of my identity has been commented on by those around me, at this point in my life. I’m serious here—people have been commenting for years, on little abnormalities they notice. My smile, my laugh, my eyes, my walk, my run (this was not to my face, and I did not find out for months afterward—but still), my manner of speech and the things I talked about, my tone of voice, my thought patterns, whenever they showed, my habit of walking at night, my taste in food, my hair, my clothing, my whistle, the way I hold my head—literally, everything. And, for a long time, I tried to fix that. I tried to hide whatever seemed abnormal, I tried to fit the standard, I tried, really hard, to fit in. I changed my laugh, I smiled as naturally as I thought I could, I only talked about what I thought other people would care about, I didn’t share my thoughts most of the time, for fear I’d scare people away, I seared my tongue with heated metal to keep myself from whistling. I tried to retrofit my personality, my identity, into a society that ultimately had refused me entry.

It didn’t work. To some extent, I gained a little more access to people, people talked to me more, but it didn’t last. In some ways, the harder I tried to be normal, the worse of a fit I was; in some ways, I simply couldn’t do it. This was also around the time of life that schizophrenia began to appear in my mind, so that didn’t help. But most of all, the effort it took to hide whatever wasn’t fitting in about myself was just too much—it hurt, in different ways, and I was lonelier behind my mask than I had been when people scorned my true face. I couldn’t do it. But I tried, for probably a year, maybe a year and a half, before that became apparent, and I gave up.

Now, this fringe life is hardly easy. I’m lonely, sometimes, when people avoid me or treat me as though I wasn’t really… the same. Which, I guess, I’m not. But honestly, I prefer this isolation, with a few close friends who accept me, to being widely accepted for trying to be someone I’m not. It gets lonely, yes, but like I said, the loneliness from forcing myself into a mold I did not fit was far, far worse.

Thus, this is what I chose. I chose to allow myself to grow into this person, this fidgety, manically grinning kid who wanders around at night, who carries a fist-sized rock in one pocket, whose smile creeps out so many. I get lonely sometimes; sometimes I really wish I had someone who understood this, someone who would talk to me, someone who would love me despite—or, more accurately, because of— the crazy, stupid, twisted parts of me—even the parts that I still hide. But the thing is, I have a few friends who understand, who accept and love me for who I am, and idealistic or not, there’s still a part of me that holds out hope that someday, someone else will do the same.

Anyway, it’s still better—perhaps because nothing could possibly be worse—than trying to go through life with my identity tucked safely behind a mask of normalcy, slowly atrophying, leaving me no more than the empty shell that I once pretended to be.

We write to fill the holes in our lives
thus, I write of peace
of love
of faith, hope,
that which has forsaken my heart
and when I write what I know, it scares
because what I know
is lunacy

Counter-Pledge

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.

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.”