The New and Imporved

We can make him stronger...faster....better.

Well, it's been awhile since I've written anything here, and rightly so. I've been busy as fuck lately, keeping myself as physically active as possible, running and going to the gym at least once a day, and twice when I can. Now, granted...usually my "blogging" time would be in the wee hours of the morning...but ever since exercising constantly, I actually feel tired BEFORE 1 in the morning. One day in June I actually fell asleep before 11...which is probably a first since....ohhh, grade 10 maybe? I actually forgot how good a feeling it was...to actually be tired at the end of the day, I mean...and not force yourself to go to bed just because no other living thing is up and you probably should.

And that's just one of the perks...I feel great. Physically and mentally. I'm shedding off the excess pounds from winter AND from the last year and a half of taking metabolism-slowing, motivation-killing 'medication'. Well, I shouldn't say shedding pounds as much as shedding fat...because I actually weigh the same...but am noticibly thinner, and am actually starting to get back my six-pack stomach from around the first year of universtiy, when I was somewhere between 'ridiculously thin' and 'emaciated'...except now I'm neither.

I feel stronger than I've ever been in my life, and only afer 3 weeks, I'm making great progress at the gym. I'm also starting to get back into my rabid interest of martial arts...reading of them voraciously, practicing technique, doing heavy-bag work, and working on my flexibilty daily. If I had a quarter for everytime someone at the gym asked me who I boxed for or what club I was in after seeing me on the heavy bag, I'd have...well, uh...6 quarters...but it still feels great, considering I guess it means I actually still know what I'm doing,(or at least look like it haha) even though I haven't actually boxed in a club since grade 4.

Also, on the mental side of self-improvement...I'm doing a little studying on speed-reading...and the whole thing is really facinating. I actually had my doubts, seeing that this particular book I simply downloaded off Imesh, but just after about half-way thru it, and doing a few exercises, I'm able to read about 5 times as fast as I was before...and actually have BETTER retention of what I've read. It's a really facinating read, even if you have no real interest in speed-reading, yourself...talking about how the way we learned to read (phoenetically) is good initially, but now holds us back, since most people as a result actually have a voice in their head that sounds out the words as they read them, whereas the human mind can think and process information many many times faster than one can speak. One exercise (this is just a little one) is to practice counting in your head while you're reading, thereby eliminating that inner-voice dictating the words to you, and allowing your mind to process the information closer to the speed of thought, rather than the almost infinitely slower speed of language. Even after doing this a few times, I found drastic improvement.
I dunno...I, myself find it pretty interesting...and it really makes me wonder what other things we as a race are doing that are holding us back from what we could possibly be.

And, finally...everything is done with the armed forces...now, it's just a matter of waiting to hear back from them, though I'm not sure when that will be. So, in the meantime, I'm going down to Halifax to stay with a friend of mine who is just moving there in mid July, and we're going job hunting together, and if I find a job and everything goes as planned, I'm moving in with my friend Kim if we can find a decent place...which I imagine we can.

That's about all I got for now. Hopefully the next one will come in less than a month...for Bryan's sake.
(I gotta say...I've never been called an 'unblogging fuck' before haha)
Adios.


(and yes, I am aware I mispelled 'improved')

The Missing Card

Feeling kinda down, today.
And, honestly, I feel like I have no real right to ever be down.
I mean, I came into this game with a hand a lot of people can only wish for.
I was born to a great family, that love me with all they have. I was born healthy and lively, save for asthsma, which I outgrew years ago. I was born in Canada...Definitely one of the more well-off countries in the world, and I'll most likely never have to worry about wide-spread war, famine or disease in my lifetime. I've got decent genes...Not too tall, not to short (well, maybe a little) not stupid, 20/16 vision, not bad-looking, and get along well with most people. (I mean, I'm no 'Prince Charming', for sure...But overall, not too bad a guy, I'd like to think.)

So, I have absolutely no right to ever complain.
And yet, it seems I've been doing it more and more as of late.

Lately, I've just found myself waiting...like, waiting for one card to be dealt that will complete my hand. Everyone else, they get their cards dealt, and they put hands together over time, and they cash them in, getting their earnings...and all the while I just sit there waiting...passing up each card as it comes, waiting for that one card that will form the hand I want...that will unleash all I have to offer to the world, all this potential I feel expanding, yet growing stagnant inside of me, in the best possible way. (yes, I know that's not how poker works...but that aside, it's a decent analogy...shut up.)

There are other times I consider just dropping out of the game all together.

Ummm...hmmm....that probably gives the wrong impression...I don't mean dropping out of the game as in "dropping out of the game'...I mean it as in abandoning all the values that are forced upon us in this society, that take the place of ones of a higher, more authentic nature...forget about "cashing in"...just step up from the table, throw my cards down and hit the road. Take a couple of the survival books I've been reading religiously, a few supplies and just hike as far south as I can.

Am I the only person since Jack Kerouac who has considered this?
Things today...they're too...safe...too secure. As long as we are willing to be obedient to someone else, we will always have things handed to us...sure, maybe not as many things as we want...but definitely enough to survive...and therein lies the problem...
I think people, because of the ease of living today (I say ease of living as in literal 'ease of living'...staying alive...I know alot of people are pretty hard up for things, and supporting their families the way they would like, but I mean literally 'keeping ones self alive'...and even homeless people won't starve to death.)we've grown to take survival...indeed, life itself, forgranted. Gone are the days when we would have to hunt and scavenge for food, outwitting the wild, enduring nature, and competing with others for the very right to live long enough to even pass on our genes.
Now...now we live in a place where we are pretty much guaranteed survival in comparison. We work a job for someone else...we earn our money...we go down to the grocery store and buy what we need to live. This probably seems all well and good at first...but then, the human animal...with survival now childs play far under our belt...we begin to look for somethin more...something else to fulfill us, and that missing sense of accomplishment some of us have. Simply surviving, since it's been broken down into nothing more than overcoming minor obstacles at our place of work that leave us (or at least, me) unfulfilled, and going to the grocery store and picking up a pre-butchered, grease-soaked chicken, doesn't give us that 'rush', that sense of accomplishment and overcoming of adversity, and even death itself, that makes being alive worthwhile. (Unless, of course...the chicken in question comes alive and engages us in mortal combat in our kitchen...but that's only happened to me once.)Sure...there is adversity in our lives today...but nothing near as primal...as visceral...as downright raw as struggling just to last another day. And maybe for some people, that can cut it. Maybe for some people, it doesn't.

But people, we're a tricky species. We're adaptive...and being so, many of us have ways of coping;
Some people try to amass wealth and material possessions, actually building stockpiles of 'survival', and pitting it in competition with other's possessions.
Others join the military or some other fighting force, maybe even become criminal, hoping for excitement...hoping for the actual chance to experience life at it most threatened and fullest state. On the edge.
Still others pay good money to do extreme things like sky-diving, rock-climbing or bungee jumping to create the illusion of an imminent death, and then stare it in the face...

...and, of course, some people don't know how the fuck to deal with it at all...living their lives day-to-day with the nagging feeling that there's a piece of the puzzle they're just not seeing. Or more accurately, maybe buried underneath a bunch of pieces that don't even fit anywhere.

It's not too hard to guess where I fit in.
(though I have tried skydiving, and MAN...what a fucking rush...don't pass up the chance to go if you ever get it).

I mean, it just seems strange to me. Is it really necessary for us to extinguish the very flame of life...what it means to actually fight to be alive...in order to satisfy our fear of being burned?

Who knows what I'll do.
Maybe I'll hold out for that one card I need...that one Jack to make that Royal Flush.
Maybe I'll fold this hand after years of holding out for that one card, and just leave it all behind...Experience what it really feels like to be alive; to hold, even for one fleeting moment, everything dear and sacred...to be overwhelmed with the visceral significance that comes hand-in-hand with absolute necessity.

I mean, why not? A royal flush missing a Jack...well, it's just an Ace-high, at best.

Just another great quote from Waking Life, that I feel relates to my previous post;

"Alex: You can't fight city hall. Death and taxes. Don't talk about politics or religion. This is all the equivalent of enemy propaganda rolling across the picket line. Lay down G.I.! Lay down G.I.! We saw it all through the 20th century, and now, in the 21st century, it's time to stand up and realize that we should not allow ourselves to be crammed into this rat maze. We should not submit to de-humanization. I don't know about you, but I'm concerned with what's happening in this world. I'm concerned with the structure. I'm concerned with the systems of control: those that control my life, and those that seek to control it even more. I want freedom, that's what I want! And that's what you should want! It's up to each and every one of us to turn loose and just suck up the greed, the hatred, the envy, and yes, the insecurities, because that is the central mode of control; Make us feel pathetic, small, so we'll willingly give up our sovereignty, our liberty, our destiny. We have got to realize that we're being conditioned on a mass scale. Start challenging this corporate slave-state. The 21st century is going to be a new century, not the century of slavery, not the century of lies and issues of no significance, and classism and statism, and all the rest of the modes of control. It's going to be the age of humankind standing up for something pure, and something right. What a bunch of garbage: liberal, democrat, conservative, republican. It's all there to control you! Two sides of the same coin. Two management teams bidding for control, the CEO job, of Slavery Inc.! The truth is out there in front of you, but they lay out this buffet of lies. I'm sick of it and I'm not going to take a bite out of it, do you got me?! Resistance is not futile, we're gonna win this thing, humankind is too good, we're not a bunch of under-achievers! We're gonna stand up, and we're gonna be human beings. We're going to get fired up about the real things, the things that matter: creativity and the dynamic human spirit that refuses to submit. Well, that's it, that's all I got to say. The ball's in your court."

If you want to read more quotes from the movie, go here...it has every single conversation in the film...which makes it a great reference...even for those who've watched the movie...since, in dialogue, it's all so much to take in at once.

A question of questions

How do you do it?

How do you work 20-40 hours at some boring, menial-task job without slowly committing some sort of drawn-out mental suicide?
Don’t misunderstand…this isn’t some sort of sarcastic passive/aggressive insult to all of you out there struggling to get by…this an honest to god question…one I need to have answered, either by someone else, or by something that just one day switches on inside my head.
There’s just something about them that just…it just kills me. It’s not even anything specific…nothing I can put my finger on, anyway. Maybe the job hierarchy?...the feeling that your doing menial shitty work that you hate, along with many other people to simply to make someone higher up than you a little bit richer? Maybe just the fact that it almost seems that we sell our lives away? Jesus, it’s got to be something. I try to see it as an experience, not a task…but it never seems to work. I mean, I do these jobs, and every hour I stand there I feel a small piece of my just wilt away, like a petal of a dying flower, turning black and slowly drifting to the ground, serving as a grim reminder to the ones left of what awaits them.
Maybe that’s the trick…finding something that kills you, and doing it well enough and fast enough so that when you come out of it, there’s still something left…something more than just a bare, defeated stem of what you once were.

It just…it doesn’t seem right…and, I know a lot of things aren’t right in the world, and we have to learn to accept them and live with them…so why can’t I just fucking accept it?
For fuck sakes, we’re animals! Just animals…no better, and I’d like to think no worse…but why do we have to complicate things so much…We were meant to live, for US…WE were meant to experience this life and take everything we can out of it with all the time we have…really squeeze everything out of it… Observe, experience, learn, interact, enjoy…just…be. Live… Not work shitty jobs for the rest of our lives doing mind-numbing, soul-crushing tasks, making insane amounts of money for people we’ll never even see, or even speak to or communicate with at all, while we earn enough money to reproduce and raise more of our species that will most likely end up in the same rutt, try to buy more meaningless stuff than the guy nextdoor, with enough left over to live our true dreams and true values vicariously through Hollywood and/or drink ourselves stupid on the weekends to forget what a raw fucking deal we’ve gotten. Whenever I’m working somewhere, I feel that…always there, like sharp burr…I feel like I’m selling my time…selling my life…and it makes me feel so utterly cheap. But the way things are, we HAVE to do it…we have no choice in the matter whatsoever…and that just gets to me all the more.

Please tell me that I’m not the only person that this seems so wrong to.
I mean, if everyone else can do it, I can, too, right? Shouldn’t I? Why do I feel like this? I mean, this isn’t just not liking something…I’ve not liked things before (still do, actually), but I’ve still tolerated/done/accepted them…why can’t I do the same for this…is my mind that wind (that’s ‘spose to be ‘weak’, yet my fingers typed wind, for some reason, which I found interesting)…my spirits that easily crushed? Man…Tell me I’m not crazy.

Or…no…please do. Please tell me that I’m crazy, that I’m wrong…tell me that the world is completely fine, all of it’s people living completely fulfilled lives…that’s so much less depressing than the alternative, since I’m the only one who has to deal with me being crazy. I mean, save for maybe a few big burly guys with high-pressure hoses in white clothes, of course.

{sigh}

There’s a line from this movie, Waking Life, that I’m reminded of. I can’t remember the exact words used, and I don’t have the movie anymore, so I’ll recite it to the best of my recollection;
“I had a friend once who told me that the worst mistake that you can make is to think that you are alive, when really you're asleep in life's waiting room. The trick is to combine your waking, rational abilities with the infinite possibilities of your dreams, because if you can do that, you can do anything. Did you ever have a job that you hated, worked really hard at? Long, hard day at work, finally you get to go home, get in bed, close your eyes....and immediately you wake up and realize that the whole day at work had been a dream.
It's bad enough that you sell your waking life for minimum wage, but now they get your dreams for free.”

There has to be a better way…a way to balance things out…invert this “quality of life pyramid” that has the many working so tirelessly for the few…
But that’s where I’m lost…somewhere in the dark, tormenting space between knowing that things shouldn’t be like this…and the ignorance regarding a better answer…a better way. And every smile I have to fake for every costumer over-stepping their bounds…every hour I have to push me aside and become something I’m not…every time I have to silence my mind of all of the wonderful and creative thought flowing through it to do something a chimp could do…every time someone higher up tells me to do something to contribute to nothing more than the financial gain and greed for the higher-ups…

Everytime, that dark space just comes alive, like some sort of cruel shadow, and keeps tearing away at me, piece by piece.

Fuck, I need a drink…

Wise in the acceptance of ignorance

A whiteman and an American Indian are sitting alone around the campfire, discussing many things, mostly of which, the difference between their two cultures. The white man believe his culture to be superior to the native's, and he soon comes up with an idea to illustrate his point. He grabs a stick, lying beside the fire, and starts to draw in the dirt. He draws two circles...one small one, and one bigger one encompassing the smaller one and more. He then points to the small circle, and says "This is what the red man knows"...then directs his stick to the larger circle and says, with a smug grin "this is what the whiteman knows."
The Indian is for the most part unphased by this display...and sits calmly looking at the two circles for a few moments. He then stands up slowly, and gestures for the stick, which the white man gives to him. He then starts to draw from the bottom of the other two circles, and walks around the campfire, dragging the stick behind him all the while. He then gets back to where he started, the result being a huge circle encompassing the fire, the two men, and the other two circles, dwarfing them all. He then points to what he has drawn with the end of the stick, and says in a solemn voice, "This is what white man and redman don't know"

God damn, I love that story.
The moral being, as I see it anyway, is that the only difference between a wise man and a fool, is that the fool thinks himself to be a wise man, while the wise man knows himself to be a fool.

My Religion

I worship the sun…the sun is my god.
It asks no favors, no money… gives no oppressive rules and ways of living that would sell short this wonderful experience of life we get to feel. It doesn’t judge you on color or gender or financial status or religion, or on the mistakes you’ve made and will make…or judge period. It doesn’t change it’s rules or views several times over the course of millenea to fit with and strengthen it’s influence of the current society {ahem...cough cough christianity cough}. It doesn’t reward…it doesn’t punish…neither loves nor hates. It just gives…and without it’s giving, nothing would live here. Period.

And it feels good to lie under, to boot. (Which is alot more than I can say for a 400kg Buddha statue...{cracks neck} ...worst sleep of my life)

If all that’s not anything to be thankful for, I don’t know what is.

An Instrumental with words

I’ve reached the limit of what my words can tell
Of what they could ever express
This expression filled with emptiness
Without the music

It’s all in the rhythm
It’s all in the sound
The rhymes just hollow road-maps
To a soul that’s never been trapped, before
…But I can’t read them anymore

It's all in the sound
The music
That's what holds
the meaning I seek right now
Somehow

The words I thought I’d always know
And the meanings lay there shattered on the floor
This is where the words would go
If I still believed they mattered, anymore

The day Fate missed the bus...

I guess I've always been kind of a fatalist.
That's fatalist, as in, one who leaves things to fate...not something to do with death or killing or anything (though, I do dabble in these areas as well). In this case, I guess it would be more accurately deemed a 'semi-fatalist' in that if I woke up in a house on fire, I wouldn't shrug and go back to sleep, lazily muttering "c'est la vie". It's all a matter of degree...but let's not get into semantics.

As one would imagine, it complicates matters further to say that I'm not exactly sure if I even believe in fate. Especially since, as most of you who know me know, my "beliefs" change alot, and are never set in stone...I guess that would make them, more accurately, a series of "assumptions". (there I go with the semantics, again).

I guess the most accurate thing to say is that I believe that there could be fate, but if there is, it's probably no where near as simple as, say, a shitty movie about the girl next door and the asshole she's dating, would lead you to believe. You know, not just Choice A, or Choice B, etc. I imagine this amazingly complex interwoven tangle of strands...Spiraling together like some sort of chaotic and multi-dimensional rope...Spanning not only our lifetimes...But other peoples lifetimes, all intertwined....Even spanning past simple lifetimes and beyond...To whatever happens after this...And whatever happens after that.
You know... Nothing we can really 'picture' with our spatially confined 3-D thinking mind... The closest thing you could imagine would probably be the inner structure and 'workings' of a rope spread apart...If painted by Salvatore Dali... Then stared at diligently for several hours ...After taking several potent hits of LSD...And maybe following a brief lecture on Quantum physics. Yeah...Pretty out there.

But yeah...Back to being a 'fatalist'. It's occurred to me that for most of my life, I've believed in fate. Not for any particular reason...I mean, fate never came down and shown me 'The Way' with iridescence lights, made me miss some event that would have otherwise been my doom, swooped out of the sky with a cape and saved me from being hit by a train (at least I don't think that was him), or anything like that...No. I put my faith in Fate simply because...Well, to put it bluntly...I was lazy. I would passively go about things, let whatever happened happen and except it for what it is/was/going to be. I always waited for Fate to do the work..work that I most likely should have been doing.
The irony here, is that now...now I'm so desperately trying to get out of this rut...get out of this town...to find some sort of direction...and I don't even know where to start. I mean, I have started...I've started several times now...But it doesn't feel like it at all. Everything keeps changing, or going wrong, or falling through. It's like all my life I've been letting Fate carry all the heavy loads, and now he's not here for some strange reason (though he never was all that punctual), and my legs, which were just strong enough to carry who I was, never got the exercise to grow strong enough to carry the person that I'm now becoming.

Come to think of it...Maybe he was always right on time, after all....



Ya know...I don't even know where I'm gone with this. This is just something that my head started playing with as I drove around aimlessly in my car with my hand outstretched out the window, teasing the wind...As if hoping to be able to pluck some sort of answers out of the air rushing by. Huh...I guess it's the wind that does the teasing, come to think of it.
Maybe I was meant to sit here and just wonder. Maybe I was meant to write this, tonight? Maybe I was suppose go on this pointless ramble... And maybe someone is suppose to read it and actually get something useful out of it? A lesson, perhaps? Maybe this will somehow be passed along, or inspire someone to do the same...And then that will inspire someone else, and so on and so on...In the end, adding just a little more creativity and beauty to a world in need of so much more of it?
Maybe I'm a fool for even thinking any of these things?

Maybe I ask too many god-damn questions...

Don't act broken, even when you're broken...

Well, wow...yeah...I'm updating...though I wonder who's still actually checking back at this point...

I don't really know why I haven't updated in so long. It’s not that I haven’t really been writing…I’ve been writing a whole lot, actually.
I guess maybe I’ve just lacked the motivation to make my writing understandable to anyone but me, as that usually takes alittle more thought and effort
For example;

Severed under the sky
Brain as translator
At some point, things have to stop happening for a reason and just happen
Salty hotdogs?

Tesla?

That....that makes sense to me, and spawns forth numerous ideas and paragraphs from my head, which I always tell myself I'll write down in more comprehensible terms....ehhh, I'll do it tomorrow. Tomorrow being, whenever the hell I feel like it. (and yeah, I might have just thrown that 'salty hotdogs' thing in there for shits and giggles...or at least either/or.)

I guess the main reason for starting back up would be tonight. A slight need to vent and analyze myself a little further rose from the deep portions of the ocean that is my psyche, riding up from the depths on bubbles of "mystery despair".
....ummmm....yeah....I guess I could explain it better....

...it's just that sometimes i have these kinda..."attacks"...i spose. The odd thing is, they completely envelope me in this terribly intense depression, but never last for more than a couple hours.
But for those hours...I dunno...It's like a bulk sale for psychopathic maladies. Everything must go. Sometimes more than once.
And in these hours, everything that's wrong with my life...everything that's rotten and screwed up in this world, and every drop of callousness, indifference, greed and selfishness in other people hits me, all at one time, coupled with this insidious feeling of un-relenting alienation and isolation, all crumpled together in this period of intense unpleasantness. And then…as the unpleasantness latches hold, and starts to drag me into it’s infinitely deep temporary ocean….I desperately look for someone…something, anything to hold on to…anything at all…any source of comfort I can see…and this frantic splashing does nothing but drive all those things away…
A cry for help, refusal to accept it, and a warning for others to stay away, all rolled into one.
Sure, it’s probably childish…it’s probably immature…
But what would you do when you started to sink?

I just...
...I feel like I’m missing so much
Like everyone else out there is engaged in a wanton orgy of alcohol, sex, friends, music and fun, yet for some reason, I just can’t seem to get there…I guess either mentally or physically or socially…
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had fair amounts of all of those things…but a lot of it just leaves me feeling hollow…at least partially…like there’s part of me that just can’t be filled by hedonistic tendencies…most likely waiting for some special person I can see something beautiful in. Ugh...and that feels so god-damn cliche I think I just might be sick...
I’d like to think that for every other year I go desperately lonely and un-fulfilled, another amazing feature gets added to my yet-to-be significant other. This amazing person, completely beautiful, inside and out that I have yet to meet, or at least realize. Say, 1 year; amazing intellect and deepness. 2 years; unwavering kindness. 3 years; perfect eyes. 4 years; a huge set of….well…and you get the idea from there…

Lol…there I go...so damn predictable…always with the awkwardly timed humor, sloppily thrown in; a tangled net to save me just before getting to the brink of tears…
(Yeah, that’s right, I’m a guy, and I can actually cry. K, I’m gonna deviate a little bit here; I’m sick of fucking insecure assholes feeling that they have to so feebly grasp on to masculinity by wrapping themselves in bullshit stereotypical (not to mention unhealthy) behavior. Grow up…my balls are just as big as yours, if not a good deal bigger, fucking cowards.
No, really...you wanna fight?! I’ll kick your ass! OOOOO!! OOOOOO ! OOOOOOOOO!!!{jumps up and down, pounds chest}.
Ignorant fucks.)

…and what a defense mechanism it is…always served me so well. (Humor, I mean…not that pounding chest thing…though that has gotten me out of a few rough situations…)
…but that net… it gets more and more frayed every time…I’m starting to wonder how many people it even fools anymore, anyway…

No…I guess saying that isn’t fair…because, over the years…it’s safe to say, that most of the time, when I don’t feel like this…the sense of humor…the apparent ability to find something worth laughing at in anything…it’s genuine. I guess it kind of evolved from that odd awkward, shaky word thrown in after a hurtful moment, that drew odd looks and cocked eyebrows, to an almost creative way of making people laugh on a regular basis…
…Well, ok… I still get the cocked eyebrow thing, sometimes. (see?)

When you think about it, I guess life has a funny way of giving you what you end up with, sometimes.
And that…the apparent pre-meditated masterpiece formed amongst a jumble of things gone so apparently wrong…that’s what keeps me going.

"To paint a beautiful picture, sometimes you've got to use some pretty dark colors"