I'm a mean man

It seems that I have upset somebody close to me by betraying his trust. Or, at least that's what I assume the issue is. From what I can tell through my rather limited experience, whenever spending time with somebody for long enough, indiscretions will invariably happen. These are often easily brushed aside into a corner to be forgotten. Yet eventually these images congeal to create a smoldering heap. Given sufficient time, the stench will become hard to ignore. You will see this compost and learn to hate it. Then you may place it upon the mantle of the person you once adored and view them for the filth they are. Or are covered with.

Is this person really that different then they ever were? Not likely, but do you even care?

When this person who has existed is compared to a blank slate, all that can be seen is the flaws that time has marked them with. The amount of filth that you have helped craft laid upon their veneer. A hideous reflection of scars and, more importantly, the picture of yourself seen through their eyes.

But your eyes also convey the same unhappiness. You've said with your whole being that which is most harmful to an individual. "I see you, I've known you, and now I don't want to anymore."

Look what both of you have done.

Urgh

I just saw myself through someone else's eyes. This is always an interesting experience and occasionally a sobering one. Recently a friend of mine analyzed me with such fervor that it deeply offended me as a person. He said that I must be insecure because of my constant attempts to be in control.

This was related to improvisational comedy and attempting to lead groups. I don't know, I've been put in leadership positions an increasingly large amount of the time in my life. When I am adamant about something, I am sometimes frustrated by others not sharing the same zest. I can't expect to change people, but I do try my hardest to include everyone and push the ideas of all of my friends. Though I have never attempted to bring someone into a situation I thought would be inconsistent with their goals or desires. I try to build relationships and want to be seen as a peer that helps to keep the dream possible. Though every attempt to which I do it seems to be easy to ridicule.

Also, I was strictly criticized for my artistic ability and what is seen as a lack of effort on my part. This dissidence is odd, as I am trying to lead a group, all the while jeopardizing their work through my inability to consistently offer quality goods. Remedial lectures by respected peers and mentors, when occurring in a consistent order, can lead to self doubt about personal ability. This, compiled with a not completely unfounded protest to my personality, is very disappointing. I've never meant to hurt or stifle anybody, and finding out that I am doing exactly that fills me with a deep dissatisfaction.

*sigh* I do my best.

may I point out!

a bunch of the stuff I have written is hypocritical

What is sucsess?

So we are all attempting to succeed. What does that mean? Do we want to be rich, happy, the best, loved?

Yeah, actually we probably want to be all of those things. Unfortunately, all of those objectives work against each other. With the exception of being rich. Which is just hard to do but likely not worth it.

I would like to be famous and loved, but there will always be greener fields. There will always be someone instantly better at something that I have tried years to master. My happiness will fade, love will too. There is not one thing I can hold onto and take solace of as being my own. I am, ultimately, the master of nothing.

This is a hard turd to swallow. I don't even fully believe it. Even though I know it's true. This world is full of sorrow. We are born into a world that we must leave, we bring nothing in at our birth and carry nothing with us beyond our death. the accomplishments of my life amount to nothing more that a hill of mud. I might have a really big hill, but its effing mud so its going to erode back into the puddle it came from. Somebody will come along and make a new hill, maybe even directly on top of mine. Not knowing that I had lived, or carrying that I have died.

So why try. All glory/love/happiness is fleeting. Why have a moral code in a world that doesn't demand it and is impartial to its existence. The irrationality is the part that is utterly beautiful in the matter. The fact that the pursuit of any internal strata of goals is so unnecessary and loosely encouraged just lends to its aura. Through applying it maybe others will feel that there burdens are less heavy, and everyone can partake in the ruse that is immortality. Maybe better described as eternity. We live to help ourselves and others feel the rapture at the success. Making that mud hill as high as you can. Its still pretty cool to make a really big hill of mud.

but that is all it's made of. And there's a bigger mud hill across the swamp

Because Why Shouldn't I...

Talk about Michael Jackson too.

All I have to say is that the way you treat a person and talk about them when they are alive should not change when they die. I certainly think Michael Jackson would have benefited with this outpouring of generous wishes when he was alive. However, everyone would rather appreciate him when hes dead... when everyone else on earth has also decided to respect him. This form of praise carries no form of self sacrifice and is not for the departed, its for you alone. So that you can keep up the delusion of charity and take part in the misery of others.

This is of course not in reference to everyone, but it defiantly is aimed towards most people.

This Doesn't Make Sense

I walked up the hill and gazed down at the archaeological site. Through the rubble and the distance I could see the oddly dilapidated home my family was staying at. Did I get up here with a car that I jumped in the video game grand theft auto?

This was a dream

Being nerveous sucks

You better believe it title!

Why is it that something I've practiced for so long is still so difficult, and why don't I feel like I've gotten that much better? I guess we are all worried about whether we can be one of the successful ones in our field and not retreat back to the mediocrity from once we came.

Also, in a realm where confidence is what sustains and makes excellent work, why is it so hard to maintain that confidence? Logically it is preferred, but I guess our emotions seldom are in line with logic.

Down the Barrel

I have a friend who was recently robbed at gun point. She was approached by a gang who demanded all of her belongings and expelled her from her car with malice. As she slowly drifted away, they screeched off with her universe in tow.

She was victimized, distraught, and humiliated.

what is the response to a pack of wolves? do you foolhardily stare down your enemy? forsake your life for pride? Do you allow the ravishing of your possessions and mind? Leaving you with powerless fear. A stain on your innocence.

If we look to our prophets, we find that the godly reaction would be to openly embrace your assailants with love and smile widely toward the dark of death. A difficult response to choose.

The fight between our pagan desire to fight and our civilized tendency to rationally coalesce. Must we transcend our pride and even our desire to live to see tomorrow? Do we Gandalf that shit with a little bit of "You shall not pass!"

I'll think about it. If you know the answer let me in on it.

Its true!

I love all of these things.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/

Ultimate Dinner Date

Guest list:

Carl Sagan

Joseph Campbell

Noam Chomsky

Stephen Colbert

We would go to a nice place, probably in something Like a Jeep Grand Cherokee. I would be appointed the prominent position at the table so if I wanted to talk I would not be immediately overshadowed. And we would end with a sundae with 5 spoons.

yea!

Heaven and Hell

they'll tell you black is really white, the moon is just the sun at night, and when you walk in gold halls, you get to keep the gold that falls

Up, Up and Hoorey!

So you should go see Up. It just happens to be a fantastic movie about growing old and loosing your dreams, but for kids!

The characters are fantastic, its extremely funny and full of beautiful symbolism. Then again, Pixar works on their movies for something like 5 years a piece, so everything they create tends to be one of the best movies you'll ever see.

Stop reading this and go watch Up. Unless you've already seen it, in which case isn't it great.

How to kill the pain

The world we live in is constructed around our lives. The adornments of the house are beautiful, artistically swirled vases with purple flowers, the aroma of oranges wafts through the vast arabesque hallways. Each room is vividly colored, different furniture decorating each. As we move through our lives, we forget the rooms that used to be so sweet, our past times and our refuges. Their chairs and cushions are left to gather cobwebs in darkness, to be reentered later on the search for lost keys. 

Some rooms you have never been in, mostly because you are afraid to enter them. Or you have stood at the threshold briefly but retreated when a light switch could not be found. There are no windows in this house; or rather you cannot see what is outside. Objects just seem to appear, possibly from the attic, yet many more are misplaced and lost over time. You stand in this house, wondering why you are currently alone. You remember that this house has entertained; people have entered and spent marvelous times with you, some staying for months on end. Reflecting, you realize that these people are not with you now, nor were they really with you then. Has anyone ever been with you? Possibly they are in another room, gathering cobwebs with the cushions. 

Yet this house is built on paper. You miss a step one day. Then the paper breaks and your universe begins to fall in around you. Collapsing into the void that your foot tore, or was torn for you, or was it already there? All the rooms that you counted on are being destroyed, the half remembered residents of rooms long forgotten collapse into this expanding abyss. Eventually you are sucked in too. As hell swallows you, you look up to see this house you lived in for so long. It is so small from underneath that it’s hard to decipher from the emptiness around it. It is constructed of rotting wood and rusty nails. It's missing a wall! How did anyone live in that house?

As you descend the sorrow swallows you, you are being squeezed everywhere and it is hard to breathe. The shattered reminisce of the house lose their beauty. The vase can be seen falling beside you. It is not so beautiful any more, it is gray and all the flowers have wilted. Perhaps that vase never had bright purple flowers... The only thing that you are positive about is that you’ll never know. You loose site of everything as your eyes eventually become enveloped in nothingness. 

The house is gone now and you are still falling... wait, no you’re not. You’re standing in another room, of the same house, or a similar one. In this room there is just a wooden bar stool. After a short time you sit on it, and ponder how you got there, or if you’re even still alive. There are voices in the room across the hall; they beckon you over to come join the party. You enter bring up the recent destruction of your life. You ask if this has happened to anyone else.

The whole room smells of oranges. But now, somehow, they seem bitter.

Emotional Roller Coaster

Previously just an improv game.

No more!

with one easy divorce and a shortage of money, you too can experience the excruciating pain of your parents suing each other. Now, your saying, surely these two adults won't jockey for you to pick a side, thereby destroying any stability within your psyche. Yet I can assure you that they will! 

As a bonus, you will get a complementary fear of physical and emotional intimacy with the opposite sex!

Talk about a bargain!

Plastic Surgery has come a LONG way

Say hello to the first recipient of skin grafting, Walter Yeo:

The after picture may look like something out of the twilight zone. But the before picture may be the scariest thing I will ever see... Plus he smiles in the after picture

Cheese!

George Widener

About George Widener

I had been hiking the Appalachian trail for 3 or 4 days with three good friends of mine. We ended that evening at a larger then unusually wooden shelter and camp site. When we arrived there was already a man sitting there by himself. That man was George Widener. He broke the ice of our relationship by explaining to each of us all of the things that had happened on our birthdays throughout history. George was somewhat socially awkward, yet was enthralling with all of his esoteric knowledge. He handed us a wrinkled piece of paper with his biography that had a section ripped out of it. 

George can see special patterns throughout time and has created magic calenders that aresimilar to cosmic sudoku's. He completely blew my mind and has recently created some amazing works of art. All of his stories throughout the evening were extremely existential and inspiring. Though his mannerism were not as common or deliberate as a normal person, his stories and conversations made any social oddities regardless. 

When we had returned from our trip, we investigated George's biography. George has Asperger syndrome and is a highly functioning autistic. I wish I knew him better and would love to get my hands on some of his awesome art work.

Nothing Like Capitalism

I don't think there is anything more American then the Idea of Diet Coke Plus. For all of us unhealthy ass holes that want to get healthy, all the while maintaining our state of unhealthy assholeness. 

Those who enjoy the splendid taste and refreshing burst of vitamins and minerals delivered from a Diet Coke Plus not only get the benefit of great flavor, they also get the good fortune of living in a world of retartdeness that makes Narnia look plausable.

Unia? Dreams darkness

I have had the CD UNIA by Sonata Artica for a while now, and it still gives me the same feeling that I got when I first listened to it.

 

Unia reminds me of being in an autumn field. A dark clouded noon with a chilly breeze. In this field, I am standing in a room of a house long abandoned. The walls are covered with dark maroon wallpaper, worn all over and beginning to tear. No direct light enters the room, only the visibility allowed by the grace of the air. There is a rocking chair by the wall made out of white painted oak and a baby's cradle in the corner. Cobwebs connect both to the wall. Dust covers the room like a light snow. There is a painting on the wall, a black and white photo with a rustic ornate frame. There is a blond haired woman with gentle features and a hooknose. Her face is slender and young, yet her dress is a relic. Expounding designs typical to an 18th century ball gown... but the meaning of her dress has faded long ago. She is holding her daughter and gazing out of the picture with an emotionless gaze.

 

I am standing in the middle of this room. My eye focused on a random section of the wall below the picture. It is a place that I have left long ago, and yet never forgotten. I feel bittersweet nostalgia. Yet though this place belongs to me and is my memory, I don't fit here... In fact, I never have. I am alone in this room and there is never going to be a way to get out. I am an owl in an sewer. My thoughts cannot escape this place, as I am trapped within this room. Though I am trapped, I am not afraid. I am accepting. I am filthy. Yet I am real.

 

Anyway… This uncomfortable feeling always revisits me when listening to this CD, thus I think its good.

Did you know...

When I get really nervous, I get an uncontrollable hiccup fit? I certainly wasn't aware, but last night and this morning I couldn't stop hiccuping because of my stress about getting a paper turned in on time. It actually got to the point were I became nauseous from all the diaphragm contractions.

This may be the pussiest response to stress that anyone has ever had.

why am I sad?

I recently did not succeed at something. I was not initially upset, I saw it coming, yet for some reason it started to bother me later. I believe that the reason for this was from the response I got from people when I informed them of my failure. Not that my friends treated me poorly, because they actually treated me quite well. Something one certainly hopes for in friends. They treated me rather warmly, as they accept my failure and they addressed we in a way that said "I still want me to be your friend."

I'm not sure how this makes me feel. These people act with the best of intentions, yet through their treatment of me, I see myself through their eyes. What makes it a problem is that their image of me does not fit with my own. I can internally justify my problems and build up my self esteem through my dirty little personality tricks I'm not going to teach you. However, when looking through their eyes I see myself as less of an island and more of an impressionable, and somewhat pitiful case.

The worst part is, I constructed the me that's in my head. So, is that self an ideal and elaborate illusion that I have fooled myself into believing? Or is the pity I receive merely misplaced by well intentioned people? I am rather certain that the answer is a mixture of the both.

Bamabii's response:

Stop trying to pretend you are introspective. Your just sad you failed and are trying to justify it with the little bit you remember from Psychology class.

My Response:

yeah. I guess the most important takeaway from this is that I have problems with my Self esteem and need consistent reasurment of how good I am.

Bamabii's response:

You slept through the majority of Psychology class.

My Response:

Fine, I'm just a sad panda :(