The Basics - Part 1: The Whirlpool

The Whirlpool

The goal and intention of the posts that follow is to break down the basics that I learned as a child. I am passionate about current events unfolding throughout our country. I will not, however, mention them here. Most of the tenets I am about to espouse fly out the window when I speak of these events. There are plenty of people spouting their opinions, as if they were informed, already. Social media has changed the game folks. It has given each of us the power to put have our opinions out there for all to see. It has also stripped us of the filters made up by the basics I am about to discuss. The purpose of the posts is to remind them, and me, that sometimes it is better to think before you act. Sometimes restraint can form a more powerful opinion than rage.

We, as a country, are currently engulfed in a whirlpool of our own making. Daily, we swim with its tide—increasing its speed and ferocity—and rush towards its doom. Most of us have a vague sense that we are caught up in it. Some of us have turned, halfheartedly, in an attempt to slow it. Still fewer have even grabbed the side of the pool and attempted to get out. The ones that do are overpowered by the force of the thing. The current sweeps them away—their good intentions and screams of hopelessness all drowned by inertia and apathy

We, as a people, are sick and tired. The whirlpool has drained us of our humanity and hope. Not one of us is thinking with a clear head. Not one of us well enough to stop the tide.

I always revert to something I learned early in my sales career during times of trouble—when things don't seem to be working out the way they should, the first thing you need to do is go back to basics. It is that thought that inspired this series of essays.


I—we—need to go back to basics. We need raise to ourselves up as a people and take a long, hard, look at the basics we have abandoned. It is in those basics that we find unity and fellowship, strength and security, love and respect. We have come so far as a county—made leaps and bounds with regards to equal rights for all men and women. No, we are not perfect—we were on the right path though. I beg of us all to turn and face this vicious tide that binds us. Leap from the pool and back onto the path. Do not let those past struggles be in vain. Do not watch our countries future—our children’s future—become tattered, torn, and sucked into the depths of that limitless pool. Shirk the narrow constrains of white and black, red and blue, right and wrong. Stop the madness, go back to the basics our parents taught us, and teach them to our children.

We, as a people, are strong and resilient. The whirlpool can be stopped. All of us can work together. All of us can stop the tide.

The Basics is a series and I will be posting every couple of days over the next two weeks so please stay tuned and leave your comments below.

Dave


Check out The Basics - Part 2: With Respect

My Confession

Every once in a great while, the truth comes upon you. There is one person that gave me the strength to write this...I will best her with my lightsaber on St. Kitts one day!....

Every once in awhile a moment or a situation comes along that walks right up to us, punches us in the stomach, and whispers in our ear "time to look in the mirror" while we are doubled over in pain.

I've had a few of those lately, and since the only way I seem know how to view myself honestly is through my writing, this will be my mirror check.

If you are still reading this after the first couple of lines chances are these truths about me have affected you. I need to get this out. If I die tomorrow I don't want anything left on the table.

My mind never stops. Little things to most are mountains of thought after rehashed thought to me. It never stops and, in the end, it always ends up hurting those of you who I care about the most. I've often wondered if it was some type of chemical imbalance, or mental deficiency. I've sought treatment for depression and anxiety. I've tried all manner of remedies...and still, I will not change.

It boils down to two things I suppose.

First and foremost, I have an incessant need to be the good guy and find a way to have everyone like me. Years ago a good friend of mine used to call me 'The Mayor'. He said that all I really wanted was to be liked by everyone. He said he admired that about me because it always assured that I was trying to do the right thing by everyone. He also said that doing the right thing by everyone was a near impossibility, and that, in the end, I would be the one who suffered for it. It was one of the truest things ever said to me...and still, I will not change.

I wear my heart, bloody and bruised, openly and without shame, on my proverbial sleeve. I don't know how not to care. I don't know how not to get involved. I don't know how to put the breaks on my emotions and I most certainly have no stop valve when it comes to pouring my heart and soul into those I love. It's just not the way I'm wired and it has affected everyone I know, both positively and negatively over the years. The truth is that if I love you I love you. I can't stop it any more than I could stop breathing. I wouldn't stop it even if i could. It has brought me to the brink of true happiness once and down to the depths of loneliness on more occasions than I care to recount...and still, I will not change. That brings us to issue number three...

For all my desire to make people happy and do the right thing by them I am selfish beyond compare. If I TRULY love you I give you all. I'm all in and in it for the long hall and in it to win it and every other cliche you can possibly think of all wrapped up in one emotionally exhausted ball of 'whatever you need, whenever you need it." That IS how I'm wired. That is the way I approach my relationships with the ones I love. It is also what i would give anything to have in return. Sadly, and all to often, my timing is completely off, my selfish need to be loved is to intense, and I have pushed the people I want most to be near off in another direction entirely...and still, I will not change.

So now all of these things make up my psyche. All of these things make up me. I want so badly to help people and be liked and push people towards their dreams and help them succeed. I am hopelessly infatuated with the moments in life that change us forever...the ones that lift our spirits towards the heavens, as well as the ones that dash our hopes on the wall of our own discontent. I feel the need to facilitate these moments, to write about these moments...to live, love, and laugh through these moments and, when necessary, to bleed through these moments. I am a drama king because that is how I am wired. Nothing ever was, or ever will be, small to me. I torture myself with all of this because, somewhere in the deepest recesses of my mind, I feel that is what I deserve. In moments like these I throw myself into my work and my writing to hide from the pain. In those moments of hiding I am always at my best. I do the best work. I write the most compelling stories. I affect the most people positively because I have finally succeeded in alienating the people I love the most enough to be forced to focus on everyone but myself. All of this, and still I will not change.

All of this and I can still only be who I am. I've driven my daughter 2600 miles away from me and decimated countless relationships including one that had the potential to make everything and everyone in my life finally make sense. I've done all of this in the name of 'love' and 'doing the right thing' and 'making everyone happy' and, perhaps most importantly, because I don't have that stop valve that everyone else seems to that allows them to deal with situations rationally rather than with their bruised and bloody heart.

I don't write this to garner sympathy. I don't want you to feel sorry for me. Trust me, I don't deserve it. 

I write this because I needed to confess. I needed to look in the mirror and judge myself. I've been judged by others. I've been called a fool. I've been called a softy. I've been called a bleeding heart. And, perhaps worst of all, I've been called a nice guy. It's that last one that gets thrown in my face every time someone wants to politely call me a sucker. 

Well here's the truth and my judgment upon myself. I am ALL of these things. I am all of them and so much more. I act this way because it is who I am. I want to help people. I want people to like me. I want to write great and terrible stories. I want to help EVERY SINGLE person I meet succeed and be well. I want to be a father to my daughter and I want to be a father to more children, wether they are mine or strays that need a home. I want to find someone who can deal without the stop valve and has a broken stop valve of their own...someone who wants all of these things and is ok with the fact that once I start I can't and won't stop until I've spent my last day on this planet giving them every ounce of me. This is who I am and I apologize to the ones I hurt, but I cannot apologize for who I am.

With all of this comes the biggest rub. Everyone who would care enough about me to read this has told me all of these things, in one way or another, before. You have told me I'm to nice. Told me I think to much. Told me I over think to much. Told me I don't know when to quit. Told me I don't know when to shut up. Told me I loved the wrong person. Told me I made the wrong decision. You've all told me this would all come back to bite me and it has, repeatedly. And, when it's all said and done, these faults that you have all pointed out in attempts to help me or love me are the very same faults that allow you to dismiss me when Ive overstayed my welcome

And now for the biggest fault of all. For all of this honesty and for every bit of truth of me that I have tried to convey, in the end I am nothing but a liar. I am a liar because tomorrow if we meet in the street and you ask me how I am or if I'm alright...I'll look you straight in the eyes and tell you that I am fine and that everything is alright. I'll do this because I want you to be happy. I'll do this because I dont want you to feel sorry for me because then I would be less in your eyes. Ill do this because you are one of the people I love and I'm to selfish to admit that maybe you don't feel the same, and to hurt to admit  that I'm angry and feel swept aside.

Now for the good part. Now for the reason that, after all of this, I can not change.

I think it was George Bernard Shaw who said:

"I want to be all used up when I die."

Well I want more than that. I want to be decimated. I want to be liquified. I want my broken stop valve to pour what is left of me into my grave. I want to go into whatever comes next knowing with all my broken and bruised heart that I gave everything to every person I had the good fortune of meeting and that I left ABSOLUTELY NOTHING unsaid. I want to know that every chance I had at love I took and made my best effort to be everything those people might have needed DESPITE all of my shortcomings and that, hopefully, the disfunctionality that was me maybe allowed you all to appreciate the real, and right, thing when you found it.

It's been a long time since I rock and rolled...

"It's been a long time since I rock' n rolled..."

So I've been gone for awhile.

I've been the very opposite of "in the moment", or "living life to its fullest", or even "here".

I have not written.

I have not commented.

I have not even remotely connected to what is going on around me.

I have found plenty of ways to fall short of myself, and to fail the people closest to me.

I have plummeted down the rabbit hole and, though I was keenly aware of its presence before me, I promise I did not jump willingly.

I lost my balance...as most of us do.

I am still reeling, and I have questions...

Do you recall the last time you fell?

Do you remember the choked silence before the impact?

Does the desire to scream, and the inability to do so, haunt you long after the dull thud of your free will on that cold, unforgiving, floor?

Do you understand that none of this matters?

Do you possess the strength to say yes to the previous statement?

Do you wield the courage to embrace the weakness I've shown without judgment?

I've written this garbage in a moment of weakness...do you have the compassion to understand that, and speak positively below?

Quote Note Of The Day 02/21/2010

“Discontent is the first necessity of progress.” ~ Thomas Alva Edison 

Oh how true?  Revolutionary ideas do not leap from the minds of the well sated.  They vomit forth from the malnourished hearts of those left behind...those left to starve!

There is no reason to go to the grocer when the pantry is full.

Sitting here trying to sleep...figured i'd give mobile posting a try.
This may sound dumb, but i cannot figure out how to capitalize anything other than the first letter of the sentence on this phone.
I just realized i am a small fish. A small fish has two goals in life. The first is to find enough food to grow to become a big fish. The second is to avoid being eaten in order to become a big fish.
In other words...SURVIVE TO BECOME A BIG FISH!
...Oh, there's the capitals!

What Is eyeofh?

eyeofh is both a concept, and a cause.  Such duality relegates true definition to the eye of the beholder.  In other words - YOU are eyeofh!


The concept is ridiculously simple.  
The Eye Of Horus sees all.
The "Artist" attempts to see all.
eyeofh was borne out of one artists attempt to illuminate what he has seen, smashing headlong into the dreaded realm of choosing a username!
And so, eyeofh was borne.
I know.
It sounds silly!
What comes next, however, is what it is really all about...


...The cause is where YOU come in.
eyeofh.com operates under the premise that there is no greater purpose for a piece of art than to provoke thought.  The only way a thought can be provoked is if it reaches someone other than its intended audience.  The person walking around there own home will only see what they have seen everyday previous to this one.  Dare them to spend the night in the haunted house if you want change their perspective.


So eyeofh will, ultimately, be a dare.  
A dare for the audience.
A dare for the artist.
A dare for us all to come together in the name of challenging each other to see what may come of inspired, cooperative vision!


These are the humble beginnings.  
The Goal is anything but.
The internet has allowed artists of all kinds to get there work in front of more people than they had ever before dreamed of.  
And yet, It is still a daunting task for most of us to even think about attempting to break into the "Mainstream".  In todays economy the "starving artist" has even fewer options as far as where to gain sustenance.  
eyeofh.com will seek to remedy that.
We want to create a community site whereby artists and fans can congregate to inspire each other.
There will be no fee's...only benefits!


The rest is truly up to you.  
We start humbly with huge aspirations.
As the site begins to evolve it will be up to both the artist and the audience members to seek a common vision.
The best way to get started is to check out this link for information on the InspireArt Of The Week.  It is the simplest way we could think to start this off...

Time To Testify

The world is BROKEN! 


There is not a single leader in the world today that is doing the right thing.  People thought Obama would be the savior of our ravaged hopes and dreams...HE IS NOT!


It is time for each and every one of us to stand up and be counted no matter what side of the proverbial fence we call home. 


IT IS TIME TO BURN THE FENCE TO THE GROUND!

The Future Past

I wrote this poem when I was in college about fifteen years ago:

The Future

Sycophant…

The elementary,

Rudimentary,

Rip-ass riding,

Honor fucking,

Mega-ton rolling,

Unstoppable,

God damned,

Train of desire…

Coming soon to an America near you!

That was the first time I put my frustrations into words.  Those frustrations were born of the very thing that is tearing this great country apart as we speak.  Humble gratitude for all of the great luxuries we enjoy as Americans has all but disappeared.  We have allowed our desire for what we 'think' we deserve to molest our instinct to 'work' for what we need.  You can blame capitalism if you would like, but capitalism is a means to an end...socialistic reliance on entitlement  is an end to the means.  It is high time we all drew our hands back to our side--pulled the hammer from its hook--and got back to the business of 'working' towards a better country!

No Filter

The beauty of being here, now, is that I have finaly learned to remove all of the filters.  There is no need.  My goal is to antagonize and to goad myself, and others, into questioning everything.  There are no right and wrong in such a scenario...there are only questions and answers.  

Filters inhibit the questioning process and, thereby, dilute the answers.  If your filter is set to never offend anyone than you will never ask an offensive question.  What if that question must be asked?  What if it was a medical emergency and their very life depended on it?  You would be obligated to ask, would you not?  That is the position we must put ourselves in know.  Questions must be asked of myself, and of others.  This beautiful world we live in is syphilitic and all of humanity is to afraid of offending one another to ask from which whore the mental paralysis may have been contracted.

The filthy sluts of our human condition surround us daily...squeezing their fetted milk into the open wound of our spiritual evolution.  And we--like witless babes--succor at the teet of our own--imagined--needs.  Baseless assumptions of what we deserve to have degrade our integrity daily and, all the while, we empower the institutions of religion and politics to rape the truth.

A mental filter is designed for the sole purpose of shielding a truth from its own reflection.  We must begin to remove those filters and strive for the truth no matter what may come to light.  We must question ourselves and the way we view our interaction with one another.  We must shatter the black and white filter through which we gaze and allow the darkness and the light to work together to illuminate the truth.

Evolution Of A Silly Idea

"I was drinkin' last night with a biker, and he showed me a picture of you. He said pal get to know her. You'll like her...and it seemed it was the least I could do." ~ Grateful Dead

Well there was no biker--and no picture--but I was definitely drinking, and feeling like I wanted to do something new.

Everything has felt right lately. I find that does not happen all that often so--when it does--I try my best to ride the tide. The creative impulses that used to control my life have reamerged since I began writing again. That is actually an understatement.

My brain will not rest would be the more accurate statement. Morning, noon, and night seem to have merged into one, long, bright, beautiful day! It is exausting, to be sure, and yet more rewarding than I remember.

So after my friends left I got down to the business of finishing off my last glass of Captain. I sat down to the computer and began looking for an article my brother had written earlier in the day. I was really excited that he had started doing something like that because it gave us something new in common, and that is such a rare occurance with someone that you have known their entire life. That started me thinking about something he had said to me--actually asked me would be more on point--a few days ago. He asked me if I still had the drawings that I had done in high school.

I had done a series of drawings that are rather hard to categorize. They were all centered around gore and irony. What they were is really besides the point though. The point is that--after all these years--my brother still remembered them in detail. So I started digging through my box of stuff and--lo and behold--there they were. Not the greatest drawings in the world to be sure, but there is something to them...something catchy.

And that is how the idea began. I want to play around with these pictures and fine tune them. Then I want to put them on fabric and start my own line of tee shirts. It might sound silly, but I can only assume that if you have stuck around this post this long, you have, at least, a little bit of tolerance for silly. And, at the end of the day, silly sometimes gives birth to something worth while...if only a smile!

The Assumption Of Control

This essay begins like a weak mans cop-out. Stick with it though...it has a point!

One of the foremost problems facing the spiritual evolution of humanity—as we know it—is the assumption of control.

By this I am referring to the control that we all believe to be within our grasp over anything other than the most mundane of life’s attributes. You have control over what you decide to wear when you wake every day; and where you go once you have donned those clothes that you have deemed fit. Control is exercised when you decide what, when, and how much to eat. All of the elemental factors of life—that compose what is recognized by the rest of the world as your outward personality—are within your control.. That, however, is the extent of it.

Each and every one of us was put upon this earth, at this time, and in the exact geological location in which we presently find ourselves, as a means to an end. We are here to fulfill something that—no matter our inability to either relate to, or fathom—simply must, and will, transpire despite all our indignantly egotistic attempts to make it otherwise.

No matter how small and insignificant you may, or may not, feel at any given moment on any given day; and no matter on what side of the proverbial fence of good and evil you may believe that you have chosen to call your home; existence is moving in the direction that it has since the beginning of what we—as humans—call time, and there is nothing that either you, or I, or God can do to stop it.

And that is why the assumption of control is so damaging. It expands our field of perception beyond what is actually needed in order that we might fulfill our place in the scheme of things. When you believe that you can do anything that you put your mind to distraction becomes your drug of choice. But if you believe that all you need to do is written inside the annals of your mind and—through constant prayer and meditation—seek the answers inside yourself, the answer will surely make itself apparent and distraction will cease to exist.

I am not, by any means, trying to make a case for anyone to simply give up on their dreams and accept any unhappy situation that they may presently find themselves in… …Quite the opposite, in fact. What I am saying is that you should dream as much—and as often as you possibly can—with the intent of being the best that you can possibly be; allow all things that come your way to assume the form of options. Anything—event the most repugnant of ideas—should be given a forum within your mind if only for the purpose of being eliminated as a possibility. Never dismiss anything without at least giving it a second thought.

The universe has an order, and in that order there will be those of us who end up performing roles that we never—in our wildest imagination—could have seen ourselves playing. That is the beauty of life, and a good source of the pain in this world derives itself from humanities egotistical assumption that it is otherwise.

If you spend your days and nights lamenting a dream that you thought would come true, it is sure that that day will never dawn.

But if, instead, you take all things as they come, and make of them what you can, the day when your original dream sees its fruition may yet be at hand.

Existence abhors being bound! To wake up in the morning and say that this is what I want to be and there is nothing that can convince me otherwise is to limit yourself to the cage of your own ego. If you free yourself up by accepting the cards that are dealt, there two, and only two, way in which the game can end. Either you move from point to point—with good intentions, and good faith—until one day, when you are least expecting it, that dream—for which you have yearned for what seems an eternity—presents itself in all the splendors of the universe. Or—proceeding with that same intention and faith—you stumble upon what was meant to be yours to begin with and, in that moment, realize that your dream was simply the cosmic carrot that lead you to where you needed to be…truly happy!

My Involvment In "Climate Gate"

That's right!

You heard it here first!

It was all me! Well, and you also. You helped you bastard!



"Climate Gate" is one of two things depending on which side of the political spectrum you happen to dwell.

To the right it is a rally cry. It is the very large, very hairy, fly in the liberal tea. They are loving it...no doubt about that.

To the left it is the perfect opportunity to flip the switch. It is there turn to aim the barrel and fire off the moniker of "Conspiracy theorist" at all of there nemesis across the aisle. Those dirty republicans must have set it up. "The emails this," "the scientists that".

Meanwhile, the real truth is obscured. The real truth is that you, and I, and all of the other people on this planet are getting fucked! That's right! Fucked!

Is global warming occuring? Yes! But it is not the only thing that is going on. While parts of the earth are growing increasingly, and abnormaly, warmer; other areas are recording record lows. Maybe we should stop focussing on who is right and who is wrong, and focus on the facts.

Here are the two facts that both sides need to digest. The right needs to drop the argument that humanity is not affecting the environment. Every organism, no matter how simple, that has ever dwelled on this planet has affected the environment. That is the way of things and it is a FACT. I don't care if every scientist on the planet stood up in unison tommorow at noon and, with one bellowing voice, declared that they had proven that humanity was not the cause of global warming! That still does not change the fact that it would be better for me, and my children, if we reduced the amount of shit that we spew into the air we breath.

That FACT also has affect on the argument from the left. Every organism, every species, since the dawn of time has "affected" the environment of the earth. Granted, some have affected it more than others. Some affects are laugable and some more dire as can be seen here in this report from ABC News.

That brings me to fact number two...the burden of the left is that the earth has been going through drastic changes since its formation. That is undeniable. That is FACT. So why would we forget about that now. Why would we discount it and put all our eggs in one basket so to speak. Humanity is but a link in the chain and to ignore that WILL have the same disasterous consequences as a cancer patient being treated for one type of cancer, but never screened for any others.

You see the two opposing sides are both feeding on the fears of the people they are sworn to protect. Make no mistake, it is all a power grab and nothing more.

And that brings me to the title of the post. I am to blame for the current mess we find ourselves, as are you. Too much time has been spent picking sides and calling names. Precious time has been lost because "we the people" did not have the courage to stand up to our leaders and demand common sense and civility.

Fuck the left, and fuck the right!

Fuck the tree huggers, and fuck the tree cutters!

Fuck everyone who has ever had enough combined ignorance and arogance to jump into a forum and say that they KNOW exactly what is going on with this planet. Your arrogance will not kill us all, but it will damn sure leave us with precious little time to seek alternatives. You can scream as loud as you want that our actions are not having an adverse affect. That is not valid and you are an idiot. You can rant all you need to about the poles shifting solely becuase I refuse to ride a bike to work. The stupidity of that train of thought is matched only by the idiocy of the previous example.

Get off of your high horses people and start taking responsibilty for the direction this new world leadership is taking us. Demand COMMON SENSE for your children's sake and stop allowing the smoke screens of "Climate Gate" and "Man Made Global Warming" and all of the other nifty little bumper sticker slogans that are bandied about these days to obscure the real facts that need to be dealt with.

Let the games begin...

Rage And Solemnity

Image via Wikipedia

Rage And Solemnity

This is a short essay on the power of words.

            There are two conditions, and two only, that lend a sense of power to any written or spoken word.

            The first of these is the most obvious.  No word—no matter how it is used or in what context it may appear—has any claim to power without an audience before which to perform.  It is with this in mind that I say to you that never was there a word, either spoken or written, that does not possess all of the power of all of the words that were ever scrawled upon the pages of time.  For even these words—which are written to play for an audience consisting of one—do indeed have an audience.  The fact that they may never be seen by anyone other than me only serves to intensify their power.  Could there exist a more intimate literary connection than the one between an author, the one, and only fan the he writes for?

            Of course, this is a mere self indulgent fantasy—to believe that I could eve4r be happy with the thought that no one, other than myself, will ever read these words is an out and out lie—and yet here and now,, while it is just me, myself, and my words wrestling around in a room together, there seems no greater splendor than to follow their lead and see where they take me.

The second condition serves to stipulate the actual degree of power too which these words may attain in the annals of time and space.  This condition is a mental connection that is forged between the intended audience and the words being used.  It is, perhaps, the more important of the two in that it is not a pre-existing, built-in, facet such as is the first condition. 

The simplest form of this connection is the particular literary taste possessed by every individual.  If you, the reader, have a natural predilection for a good spy novel—and would prefer to skip all other literary fare altogether—than the words of someone such as Stephen King or Edgar Allen Poe would hold little or no special value in your mind.  It is to the fan of the macabre and malevolent that these two men speak.  This is the most basic form of human interaction with the things we call ‘words’.  It is simplistic in its ability to focus in on only those types of word that, when arranged correctly, dance the way we would like them to in our minds eye.  Some people like to read about marriage—some about murder.  It is all a matter of taste.

The next level of ‘word connection’ is a great deal more personal, and yet a grater majority of the human race experiences it.  In fact, all of us feel it very deeply.  It follows no rules, and no medium confines it.  There is no condition of length or content and it may range from the most benevolently beneficial to the most detrimentally damaging evocation of ideas under the sun.  it is both the truth and the lie and the gray area that we all—regardless of whether or not our sense of righteous materialism will allow us to admit it—know to be the shadow that will forever obscure the actual realization of either.  It is what happens when one man says or writes something that another man can simply not agree with or when that same man spews forth a waterfall of words that bring the whole world together—if only for that one, all to brief, all to infrequent, moment in time.

It is Martin Luther King telling us about a dream that he has, and Adolph Hitler unleashing a raging torrent of madly inspiring words that would plunge the world directly into his own hellish nightmare.  It is all of these words—leaping from the tongues of saints and lunatics alike—rushing from mouth to ear—from heart to soul—with the intensity of life itself—that, for better or for worse, make us human.  These words play to an audience otherwise known as humanity; there connection with that audience—and, therefore, the reason that they hold so much power—is that they crawl inside the very soul of our minds and make us think.

The final level is so ambiguous that even the most powerful words ever uttered can only dream of the day when they will be of use in describing, to human ears, what that connection is.  And therein lays the absurdity of it all.

It is in the rage and solemnity of the poets of all ages that we come closest to seeing the true meaning and power of words.  For—even as the final drop of their blood splatters upon the page before them—they are the only ones that truly realize what words are.  They know that all of these little symbols that we call letters are forming tiny little blood clots of their soul on that page and that—when all is said and done—the images formed are nothing more than larger symbols built from small.  The meanings that we have attached to these words I order that we might make sense of all the things that we perceive around us are but pale veils with which to shield our frail minds from the truth of what is actually there.  That is the true beauty of the poets and the reason why nine out of ten people either do not understand—or thumb their nose at with no intention of ever trying to understand—the world of poetry.  They will not accept the fact that words can mean more than what they actually spell out on the page…

A Thought On Religion: Part 2

I was on a roll. My arrogance and attitude only grew with the next writing: Let me begin, right off the proverbial bat, with what I consider to be the major impediment in this day, days past, and what I consider to be a good part of the foreseeable future, to all development (spiritual, intellectueal, moral, etc.) and necesssary eveolution of the world as we know it. This wall--this immoveable, overbearing, life destroying obstruction to change--is the church. Or, to be fair, all organized religion, as it exists today. I firmly believe that any group or organization that claims to be in possession of the one and only way to God can be no less than the one and only path away from that entity which they profess to love so much.

A Thought On Religion: Part 1

Before I continue there are a few things I need to tell you. I absolutely believe in God. I have a less than favorable attitude towards any, and all, organized religions. I have tempered my feelings towards the church over the years and will explain how, and why, in future posts. The bottom line, however, is that some of you will never get there. What you are about to read was written years ago whilst in the midst of...oh lets call it a journey of self discovery. There were very few answers to the myriad of questions bombarding my mind at that time. So I began to read. Day and night I poured through volumes of religious texts, history books, and classic literature. I read everything I could possibly get my hands on, and the more I read, the angrier I became. Even to this day, the reasons for my anger are very hard to explain. Suffice it to say that some of what had brought me to my boiling point began to leak into my writings. The following excerpts are from that time. I am putting them here in the hopes that I can finally put a clear cut narration to the evolution of my feelings about organized religion. I must say, however, if you are either easily offended, or cannot handle any opinion contrary to the beliefs which you hold dear, you should not, under any circumstance read any further... God did not create right and wrong, he created all!

America The Gullible

How long do you think it will be before you all wake up. I would have bet it would have been by now...and would have been severely wrong! We fancy ourselves forward thinkers, and we fancy ourselves guardians of the good.  In the end we are but dupes for the power-mad...both sides devouring each other for their entertainment. Common sense is DEAD! On one side you have people who are willing to abandon basic civil liberties in the name of protecting freedom. On the other side you have people who are willing to abandon the human races basic instinct to fend, and prosper, for itself, for the instinct of the parasite--to feed off of the nutrients of others. Don't tell me this is not the case.  Do not tell me that the war on terror did not provide the impetus for one of the largest expansions of government ever.  Do not tell me that the current administration is not riding the coattails of that fear directly towards a socialist state.  If you do not see the correlation, and the conspiracy (yes I said it) then you are blind. I have felt like a lunatic trapped in my own delusions for the past ten years.  I have sensed a weakness in our spirit, and witnessed a breaking of our resolve.  We have been divided.  WE HAVE BEEN CONQUERED!!! Do you want to know the difference between the flaccid laughing-stock that we call the U.S., and the  world leader that we called the United States Of America? The difference is quite simply "Excuses"! We make excuses for everything now.  There is no such thing as True Evil.  There is always a reason why someone murdered 200,000 people.  We can be outraged enough to sign petition's until the cow's come home, but if we go to do something about it we are no better than the people who perpetrated the crime in the first place. I say to America re-fucking-lax.  The shortest path between two points is a straight line right? If you sway to far to the right the path is sure to be to narrow.  To far to the left and the path disappears altogether.  We are under attack by our own government.  I beg you to look at history and find the truth in this statement.  In particular research the rise of the Nazi Party.  Find out how they came to power.  Realize that Hitler was "voted" in. Before you get in a tizzy...I am not comparing the current adminstration to that of the Nazi Party.  Nor am I comparing Obama to Hitler.  I will leave those ridiculous associations for the media.  What I am doing is comparing the current climate, and sense of desperation, of America to that of pre-Nazi Germany. We are ripe for the picking my friends...PLEASE OPEN YOUR EYES!!!

Nothing Sacred

Call it a rant.
Call it a mission statement.
Call it whatever the fuck you want to...this is my approach from here on out!
Nothing Sacred

I discovered my love of writing in the fifth grade. My teacher gave us an assignment to create a book from start to finish--story, art, and binding. The only stipulation was that it had to be funny.

My first awkward story was called THE COFFIN SQUAD. It was—if I remember correctly—a silly little piece about two Italian brothers who came to America with the dream of starting a coffin business that they could use to help their friends in the mob. You can imagine that—while my classmates thoroughly enjoyed it—I found out quite quickly how much commotion saying the wrong thing to the right people can cause. It was not intentional, but the effect was the same as if it had been.

For years, I continued to write. Everything that grew from my imagination drew some type of negative attention. The truth is that, at first, I was not doing it on purpose. My writing has always been offbeat. I have always had an affinity for the shadowy side of the human condition. I meandered, however, from that first stereotypical endeavor through a series of mediocre short stories and essays. There was no real style. No real substance. No real heart to speak of...just words and situations thrown out onto the page.

High school found me still without focus. I enjoyed writing, and yet it began to feel as if it was just something I did to bolster my grades. It was the one thing I was good at and—even at my least enthusiastic—I could always put enough quality on the page to please a high school English teacher. However, with nothing substantive to speak of, this collection of mediocrities failed to impress even myself.

At some point, someone realized that I was bored. My grades were slipping in areas that I used to navigate with my eyes closed. A move to AP Math and English classes was the prescribed remedy. It worked!

I was given an assignment that had something to do with the holidays. If I remember correctly, it was to come up with a new twist on your favorite holiday. I blended Christmas and Halloween—five years before THE NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS—into a delightfully evil little funfest--that not only skewered two of my favorite holidays, but also managed to question the existence of God! The Teacher loved it and that felt good. Half of the class, however, was appalled, and that felt even better!

From there all bets were off. I started to push the envelope as much as possible. As much as I liked the good reactions I received, I always found the negative ones to be more honest. It is always easy for a friend to tell you that your story is good. That is usually an emotionless transaction though. Occasionally someone will show genuine excitement for the words on the page. However, for the most part, "Great Story" means that they either did not read it, or worse—they totally missed the point.

The opposite reaction is filled with life. If they are angry, or disturbed, or sad, or confused then they are thinking. They are connecting with the words on a level beyond the meaning of those actual words. They are involved enough to react and that is what I have been striving to achieve since the moment that fact dawned on me.

The point is that people do not have to agree with, or even like the things that I--or anyone else, for that matter--write. If it strikes a nerve; if it draws a tear; if it causes the mind to shudder than it has done its job. I want people, above all else, to think! Think about things that the hustle and bustle of our ordinary lives keeps hidden behind the veil that separates the mundane from the truth...

The truth is that we do not look into the shadows because we are afraid that what we find there might upset the status quo. Or, even worse, that what lurks in those shadows might be just a little to close to who we truly are. God forbid we have an 'abnormal' thought. God forbid we question authority. God forbid we tackle the hard issues. God forbid we stand up and fight! All of these things would discomfort us. All of these things might flash us a glimpse of the wizard behind the veil.

I want to shatter what we call reality. I want to draw the veil and peer into the darkness. I want to open the soft underbelly of our psyches from navel to neck and see what falls out!

When I was fourteen, I wrote a short essay/poem on abortion. It has offended nearly everyone I have ever shown it to. It appears on hubpages now as GENERATION NEXT. I hate that story for being misunderstood, but I love it because I now it touches a nerve.

Now here is the important part. Shock value in and of itself is meaningless. Anybody can find a way to offend. You can skim the internet right now and find millions of examples of heartless exercises in hatred and anger. That does no good.

I see writing as the conquering of a great beast. A beast with no heart is easily slain. It is loosely connected bits of flesh and bone and—while it may strike terror in the heart of the first soul it comes upon—someone with even the mildest will to live will quickly dispatch it. However, if you give that beast a heart and a purpose it becomes something altogether different. Even a hint that this beast has any type of emotional ties to the real world will give a victim pause. Did it have a family? What brought it to this lowly state? Is there a possibility of redemption? Can the beast be saved? These questions can only exist if there is heart!

In my darkest hour, and on the bleakest note, there is always heart, and love. Shock alone can neither raise a question, nor change a mind. If your path lies along the darker corridors of this great existence you must love that very existence enough to cut it wide open, and trust it enough to know that is stronger than any, save a few, on this earth have ever given it credit for.

About seven years ago, I lost that trust. Fear and doubt crowded my mind. I was terrified that if I kept going the way I was—and writing the things that I did—I would lose some of the people I loved. The ideas piled up in my mind and created a great depression. I grew resentful towards those people whose love I was trying to hold onto. No one—with the exception of my wife—had read anything I had written since GENERATION NEXT. Until, that is, about four weeks ago when the damn broke.

I do not know what brought me out of it but I simply had to write. For the first time in my life, I truly do not care what anybody thinks. My friends and family love me and this is what I need to do.

For anyone who is kind enough to spare their precious time and read this—or anything else I have written for that matter—please understand one thing that I believe to the very core of my being: NOTHING IS SACRED!

That is the point of all of this. The stimulation of new thought and the desire to evolve spiritually are the most important endeavors a human can undertake. I do not care what anyone says—that growth can be achieved only after one’s demons have been confronted. There is no nice way to go about confronting the darkness. It must be confronted steadfastly and without remorse. It must be loved until it is light.

I will not be held down. I will do everything in my power shove you—kicking and screaming if need be—out of your comfortable little hiding spot. It is okay if you hate me for doing it. I hate the dentist for the pain he inflicts. However, when the Novocain wears off and the wound heals I am better off than when I stepped into his office.

I do this because I love to write. I do this because I love to make people think. I do this because I have demons of my own to face down. I do this because, above all, I love humanity, and the chance to be a part of it!