Sunday, January 27, 2013

Mis(sion)Guided



"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men." - Martin Luther King Jr.

This quote has been circulating quite a bit recently. That fact annoys me. Blarghblarghblargh. People simply yet absolutely love to make false positives about things that aren't even moderately modifiable. These self-righteous, overly pious, uninformed decision makers really unnerve me to the essence of my core.

Take for example, the quote at the opening. Let's not pretend that men haven't always been misguided. Let's pretend that Science is even relevant to bring into this conversation. Let's pretend that this wasn't something to do with Religion. Let's pretend that these statements even make sense beyond being construed as gibberish. I mean, it certainly "sounds" pretty but what does it truly mean? Well, we can take a look to History for an indicator of what is inaccurate about that statement in question.

Prior to C.E or A.D. times, there was the B.C., where religion makes its first appearance. Science definitely didn't outrun our "spiritual" power back then. Let's jump to the Crusades and then to the Middle & Dark ages; science didn't outrun our spirituality then neither. Let's jump to the slavery & colonization periods; science didn't outrun our spirituality then neither. We can jump forward all we like but we're only going to hit Jim Crow, political assassinations, world banks, and new wars fabricated over profit but let's blame Science? No.

The truth is, instead of cultivating a sufficient comprehension of spirituality, people dismiss what it is as religion. The two are often conflated into one meaning. Our spiritual power was far outrun by the time we crafted usage of the flame. Our scientific power has long since outrun humanity's sense of spiritual being. Even mentioning that quote is akin to kissing every Whites man's sphincter with the blackest portion of lip. It pisses me off. But who gets the point? Who is reading between the lines?

The Chinese monks do some incredibly amazing things with the human body. Sharp objects that cannot penetrate, moving their "whatever" through their environments. If that's spirituality, then we couldn't hope to improve it in the world we've built up around us. The to worlds are mutually exclusive. Even that suggest the quote is improperly worded. Whatevs. I'm totes cool.

We've had misguided men the entire time we've inhabited this planet. That won't change. We kill off those that suggest we live in peace. We praise those that desire to wage war but this man felt the need to blame science? And my purpose isn't even so much to defend science as it is to defend logical perpetuation. It is patently false to create straw men so that others may more properly cope with life. Sure, grease the wheels to make them glide more easily. Sure, use whatever means necessary. But thinking this country had a choice in the direction we went was foolish. 

Men are misguided for a number of reasons. The most notable of all of those reasons is simply jealousy. The desire to so strongly be someone else or gain what they possess. It is the disgusting little voice claiming that what you are, as you are now, is in no way, shape or form, sufficient to be in the coming moments. The real crime is in how popular that saying has risen to be without the ones who use it having even an the slightest inclination that their usage and intended usage, is so far off the mark that they may as well babble in tongues; it's the only way they'd make any sense at all.


Saturday, January 26, 2013

The Facts

Whenever you start off on a mission to bring to light the parts of your personality that most people don't pick up on, the beginning can be confusing. I never know where to start. I pick what I figure is the best introduction and hurl it at my listener. Today, I want to be brutally honest. I care how people see me but I would rather not live based on a lie - even if it is a partial misrepresentation. I've learned how extremely detrimental the little inaccuracies can grow to be. Each partial truth is a seed of destruction. I do not feel any particular way about the words connotations. I use the words in a descriptive sense, not an emotional sense.

A few years back, I was in a dying relationship with a woman I thought could house my every desire. She felt like she couldn't. And, as we began to unravel, anybody with half a wit could tell she was pulling away from me based on her concept of our compatibility. I was deeply hurt by it and didn't understand. She wanted to go teach in another place and she asked for my help. I knew that it would be the end of us; I knew that she would love it and want to stay longer than the six months we agreed upon. After she left, we grew apart. She tried less and less to stay in contact with me. And before long, I just felt absolutely alone. And after we got to a point that we talked only to keep from "feeling" lonely, I happened upon what I thought was the perfect love. It had the voice, the qualities, the education, the talent...everything was there. And before I knew it, I had moved from one woman to the next. I felt a little confused about it. I'm not the type to jump from one relationship into the next. After a tremendous amount of internal dialog, I came to the conclusion that I needed to explore this new love. I became enveloped by every part of it. We struggled like I've never known. Compromise was hard on both ends. There were many times that seemed like it would be the end of everything. Ultimately, things got going steady and I was happy just for the opportunity to struggle together. But no sooner than it began, did it end. I couldn't believe that the entire mission fell apart off a few confused feelings.

Well, I drew back. Began to lick my wounds. Tried to heal in a meaningful way. And having grown from the emotional volcano I was just a short 50 months ago to this lake of acceptance I am now, the process was easily more palatable than I ever expected.


(I don't know for sure that there is another person but I definitely don't want to take my pain to anybody else to deal. I've dealt with the pain another has caused and it takes a ton of energy to get around. I did what many cannot or will not do. I helped to heal a broken heart. I painstakingly put the pieces together shard by shard. And I'd do it again. I'd do it because that's who I am.I was not a little man but I could have been a great deal more understanding. I used force when I should have used charm; paid a bit too much attention to detail and not enough attention to emotion. I don't believe that I did anything that would be considered "dominating". How we see things will always vary greatly.)

That's the background.

(Author's note: Originally penned 11/25/2012)

I care what you think of me

Sitting here, thinking about what we call love. Think about the next level of comprehension. Understand that love breaks down into many other aspects that we wouldn't typically, call love. For instance, there is consideration, appreciation, nurturing, protection, encouragement...etc. And that continues to branch out into all these other verbs/nouns. Some people try to cut corners and just claim that their understanding of love is, God is love. That is the cheap, discount store explanation. That's equivalent  to saying "everything is everything". It is, of course, but it also ain't.

There comes a point when things need to be separated and specified as a something particular.

How much love would you give to a person you don't know much about or feel that you cannot trust? It's hard to trust that which you do not know. It is hard to love that which you do not trust. It is hard to nurture someone you could fear. This is why it is important that my character speaks for itself; why it is important that you think of me in positive regards................I've been typing this for two hours. In those two hours I've written well over 3,000 words and erased them and written more.  I do not have anything to type up...but the internal dialog considering the act of typing is better than the silence or the music or the thinking about a certain someone with a certain set of eyes. Pirates of the Caribbean, Captain Jack Sparrow's ship.

Text offers a certain flexibility that I appreciate. It is convenient.

Wake up. Eat. Work out. Read. Get that paper. Make them moves. Plant seeds for the future. Pay my dues. Love on my family. Spread out to my friends.

Just now, as the music started just now, I felt a certain kind of clean that I haven't felt in a very long time. I realize that I no longer need to carry that load I was carrying. Those memories can all fall away.

(Author's note: Originally penned 11/23/2012)

Friday, January 25, 2013

I do not like titles

One day, I was minding my business but being the typical me. And.....

If you haven't met me, I am a very light hearted and awkwardly goofy person. I don't see any reason for life to be so serious but I often rub people the wrong way with my senses of levity. I don't really try to do things in a manner that will get me painted as a certain type of person; I merely do what I think is both "best" as well as "safe". As far as my social persona, I am very vanilla.

At a certain time in my life when I was my most insecure, I did not feel insecure at all. The curiosity crept 'pon me as a shadow would, slowly stealing the warmth of my smiling face. The issue? I began to question intellect and what others had for intellect. Like I could have been missing so much and was barely keeping my head above water. Kind of like when a member of the opposite sex refers to you as sexy /handsome/beautiful. We tend to take those sorts of things with a grain of salt. I'd get  compliments of my intellect or knack for comprehension but it did not seem significant. I had to map out every move. If I didn't, I was much more likely to fail. However, when I could see it, beginning to end, I was able to make a seamless transition to success at any area of complication. This was the biggest hole in my "armor"/confidence. Others either already knew or didn't need what I needed. Like a virus, those relational aspects exploded outwardly, infecting other areas of perception. That light heartedness of mine really became essential to my overcoming that adversity for, if I were a pride driven man, I would have devolved into a beast of burden for the dollar. Experience would have won the battle to obtain my soul; I would have lost the "Sagey" part of me to the old timey mysticisms of religion. The aphorisms...the blind faiths...the whole of everything I avoid on a daily.

Instead of re-working this "first person heavy" effort, I'll simply attempt to change styles mid effort.

So, back to how this began. It was on the days, when most dutifully tending to the worries & cares for the day that life was interrupted by desire and confusion. Where the mettle of a man is tested to the limits of his cravings. Where new p**** decided to jump into the fray and try implement a "weight loss plan". It has been said that some people lose hundreds of pounds in a single moment on certain days. Where applicable, some of these weight loss measures are perfectly enacted. Other cases may be a bit more fraudulent.

Of the two incidents up for discussion today, one happened on the internet and the other happened live in full effect. They will be referred to as one incident that occurred on one day and in the form of poetry. In the real world, these events happened a year and a half apart.



"Encroaching on the sense of security,
the new day pushes the darkness
to the edge of perception;
rolling backwards,
the darkness reveals a yet to bloom flower;
the desire to pluck it grows,
best presenting itself as truth;
convicted to wait,honesty wrapped within self servile justification;
excuses to cushion the unavoidable fall.

Her lioness tears reek of loneliness;
inspiring lust;
reaching for the sacred place;
placing her softened kiss about the neck.
the power of resistance was taken,
taken & diminished by warm, wet softness.

Failures bloom,
baring weakness via vaulted fears.
alas, nobody hears them
wailing with opera dramatics.
Carmen, ripping the faithful
from the arms of the simple;
ruthlessly selfish.

Nobody hears the trouble
for, in recognizing the turbulence,
the focus jukes to jink,
leaving barren lands devoid;
abandoning the midnight lilies
freshly emerged from the fog
for another to pick."

Ironic.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Scented Candles

Walking into different rooms of a house, you'll notice that each room has a slightly different smell because of the furnishing, clothing and other materials left to reside in the empty spaces. I like candles. There will be candles that give off strong scents and others that are barely noticeable even when lit. Of course, I reflected on that. I thought, "they way I think is like those lightly scented candles." I'm always thinking but rarely with a concerted effort. It feels like I never think. But, that seems like an inane statement coming from reading what I transcribe to these interweb pages from the walls of my mind. There has to be thought. It just doesn't have any feeling to it. There is no pain. There is no conflict. Everything glides into place. Well, things like the Rubik's Cube are just like walking in darkness. Despite my effort on those sorts of puzzles, I am not interested in them in the least. It's boringly benign to me. I really wanted to solve it because I haven't solved it before. And I feel as if I truly tried. I simply saw no purpose and maintained my effort on desire for the accomplishment. After a week of handling it for about 30 minutes a day, I began putting it down for 3 & 4 days at a time and only playing with it for 10 minutes or so. I had gotten a great deal better at lining everything up except the last part and I was too uninspired to learn the algorithm. Before I knew it, I was still trying to solve it but I had stopped touching it. Perhaps, it was too hard for me. Maybe, I'm just not IQ heavy enough to complete deeply complicated sequences.

I look at music similarly. I love the melodic harmonies that instruments can be manipulated to create. I find these things captivating with "thought" yet, I cannot be troubled with the dedication or discipline to stick to it. It was a similar story with Japanese. My recall was excellent. My production was commendable. Japanese always remarked at how well pronounced my Japanese was. I just rested on those laurels as well. But this internal voice...it stopped being so loud a long time ago. It began whispering to me a long time ago. And my being a very passive person, I believe, is a major part of that. Passive people tend to think more and listen more. Conflict avoidance. As far as thinking goes, I should be a professional thinker up until this point. As far as doing goes...well...I've just described how I cannot seem to do...well...anything.

This has lead me into a world of frustration and again, I get visions of the scented candles. How subtle the scent can linger over a perception is similar to how frustration can linger over my mood and drip by drop, fill up my reservoir until I no longer can withstand the confusion. And by some measure, I believe that too, to be thought. And it has become weird, to a point where I think physically. I think by doing. My mother has done this her entire life. She thinks by doing so much that I doubt she does by thinking. Again, is this consideration actual thought or simply memories. Do memories qualify as thought? I'm not asking for literal definitions...I'm asking for functional definitions. You know, the type that change given the scenario or the background information. However, you choose to see it.

Where I am now; what I think I need to do; which direction I'm going in....it all has changed with my recent loss. I really lost myself in the pursuit. I cannot tell you how deeply I'd have been gone. I was ruined. I was shamed. I was mortally wounded. I was dying rapidly. And, believe it or not, I wasn't going to say a word about it. But life is so very mysterious. I had a friendship that was  blossoming in a very "lightly scented candle" kind of way. With that friendship, my life will forever be changed. It was the miraculous timing of it all. I don't know if I'm rehashing and rediscovering something that I've known the entire time. After last night, running and playing with my puppy, I found that this "pearl" meant so much more to me than I could have realized in the moment. Impeccable timing. I think, that'll follow me around for a while but I also cannot tell because it's like one of those scented candles, ya know the lightly scented ones.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Personal Health

How can personal health not be the most important focus when living? Every single thing you care about is subjected to that fact. Without you, the things you care about now are no longer cared about. At least, by any perspective you can relate to. There is no guarantee that any other soul on this planet can care about what you care about the way you do; to the extent which you care. 

I have a very intriguing approach to how I keep myself healthy. I keep every person who is not dedicated to me at an arms reach. People who are dedicated are allowed to be ever present in my thoughts. They are allowed to be free in how we interact. Those who require the freedom to roam about my consciousness must get purged. That's just the way it is with me and how I see my inner oasis. I will withstand and sustain unreasonable torment for the ones I care about. I will not do that for people who refuse to dedicate. It's cool. We can be friends. We can be fairly intimate. But you will be rebuffed & admonished freely; constantly. It's not that you are being punished or anything as I simply have not grown enough to disregard what I see as deleterious mental constructs/thoughts/tendencies. Call it controlling. Call it whatever you like. Just handle your business as I handle mine. No hard feelings. I'm keeping it really simple. 

Other people have ways of being fake about what they see or want. Some misrepresent their beliefs or passions. That does not bother me. Barely anything does. What does bother me the most? I'll share. I am most bothered by myself. I accept responsibility for all that falls in my path. I made choices. Consequences happened. When I allow myself to be sold a dream or rused into a false sense of confidence, that's me. I earned that blame. I am sovereign. I am in full agency. I am an individual. I am responsible. I allow what happens in my world. As we all do. 

What I'm doing may not make a hell of a lot of sense to most people. My entire life people have struggled to understand me. When I was a young child, Whites assumed I was speaking gibberish and it would confuse and piss me off. In my adolescence, I was disregarded as foolish and out of touch. Much of that persisted through my twenties. It was a slow burn to find my way to full agency and acceptance. What malarkey is it that we acknowledge the magnitude of our existence; the magnitude of our insignificance; the magnitude of death; the magnitude of chance & yet we deny ourselves any responsibility of it at all. The human ego is a weak, frail and fragile beast who only wages supreme dominance in the dark corners of our consciousness'. 

Be not afraid, be not drawn low, be not defeated by acceptance. It just your perspective that needs to be updated. You don't need to reach for something greater than yourself. Think to the sociopathic nuts that run business on wallstreet. Think about the people that do evil and manage to escape capture. Nothing to do with Karma. Karma only matters as a cape for your imaginary super hero. But I guess my beliefs lean more toward the magic that humans tend to use than the superstition they claim to believe in. Ye, I do hold to some mysticisms but not as such a rehearsed machination as most would assigned to their religions or spiritualities. I'm not talking shit. I'm sharing my truth. Don't like it but want to read it? You have my thanks and appreciation. But I hate to inform you that my belief gravitates towards fallibility and infallibility is all of which I just mentioned(as per religion & spirituality). Some may talk to ghost- I don't so I don't know about it. Some may talk to God - I don't so I don't know about it. I also refuse to place my belief in a system that lacks transparency on a very serious level. The only flaw to my belief is that it can be proven invalid. That is my preference for fallibility. Agency & Acceptance.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Magic, back for the first time.

My initial effort of speaking about the magic of words, I focused on the idea that people naturally exploit the magic of words to either disguise themselves or to produce a desirable effect. And while I still hold those ideas to be relevant, it has come time to expand the dialog just a bit for the timeline of my mental evolution.

Since a year and a month ago, I had been privileged enough to see people who abused the idea of magical words and others who abused others with magical words. Whether it was a souring relationship or a misleading interest, there was no sign that men or women were any better at it than the other; there was no sign that this was anything but immaturity. And sometimes, the magical words came from the individual who invoked a tragedy on themselves. Without knowing the magic word to positively shift the energy, there is mostly nothing that can be legally done to help them break their 'own' magic spell. It would take a powerful Wizard or Witch to invoke a desire greater than spiritually diminishing one's self. It would take the proper words.

Some words mean so much to some of us that very little can deter the results of certain spells. The "magic" phrase that destroys our focus on logic and automatically places us into a closed loop of reasoning. Good or bad, we shut out the light of weighing & measuring the symbolic language for a heavily weighted heuristic approach. These types of situations are when you are talking to a bitter woman and you mention men. That bitter woman will automatically go into a loop on how horrible "all" men are. Or when you talk to a poor child about newly advertised toys that their parents could never afford. These magic terms aren't necessarily general or specific. The magic words are like everything else in life and sometimes the special to "unlocking" the magical phrase requires research. It takes a special kind of person to catch things without a significant amount of background information.

Don't fret if you don't have that mysterious knack for being able to use magic words to such a degree that people lay themselves in harms way for you. It can be learned. Once you learn it, you can hone it with practice. Once you perfect it you can share it with others. Once you share it with others you can realize more about it.

If you ever wondered how thoughts spread like wild fire or contagious disease? Ever wondered how a crappy entertainer rose to popularity despite the lacking quality in their product? If it ain't magic, then I don't know what it could be. But, that's for you to decide. It is your life after all. Cut a swathe through your path toward paradise. I'm trying to do it with magic.