A Forgery in Darkness

12:00am: Like You Already

So this is version two, entitled "A Forgery in Darkness," replacing the previous structure, "A Scoundrel's Inn." The actual time of conception for this is 22:19 CST, December 7, 2006; but the date given here is the estimated time of death, yes death, most likely when I officially complete my three years of collegiate education.

The following verse is a simple opener to the theme of what is to come; take it as you wish. It's an untitled piece (the title of this entry has nothing to do with the poem directly), which means its not  poem per se, in that it expresses a clear idea in an elegant manner. Rather, it's more of a poetic drabble, a lyrical bunch of lines that maybe in another world, is ordinary conversation.

So, without further pause....

Once hid optimism within those words,
of bleak and gray, and dying things,
and booming shouts that might be heard,
the march to crown a king,
but though this purpose is removed,
and no lifeline thrown to any crying child,
the vigor within burns anew,
this time let the gods stay a while,
a loud enough voice might be ignored,
these words will set a world ablaze,
should be known what’s in store,
so let an arm be raised,
and salute the flare in the sky,
that no one else can see
sweeping down, in a dive,
as if life’s a lead.

1:22pm: Natural Affinity

            Today I heard that Britney Spears had shaven her head; it was plastered on the front page of CNN, a strange picture of a fallen angel. Reportedly, she had wanted the eyes of the world off of her, and I wondered why, they were on her in the first place, as mine were not.

            Sure, she was, or had been, a singer. But was that due justification for the adoration of millions? Music. That which, implied by Shakespeare, was the food of love, by Tolstoy, as the shorthand of emotion, music which took our innermost feelings and wove them seamlessly through the air, tangible as a maiden’s lips: music, surely worth it?

            While still in our callow age, some of us developed a liking for baseball, and some fewer found an overarching potential for it, and went on to become stars. And yet, what is to be admired so much? There are no death-defying leaps as there are in basketball, no monstrous tackles as in football. There are no amazing physical acts which are inherently glorified by mankind since the days of loincloth hunting and naked Olympics. Mostly, one is rewarded for good hand-eye coordination, to throw a ball to the right spot quickly, and to hit that same ball. To think, such glory for this! The need for the same traits may as well be found in a good game of lacrosse, and yet, skill in that would get one nowhere as far. And what differs the two? A natural inclination, nothing more. A choice. The endless swirl of life, self, and all things that makes us all unique. The same reason roses are favorite to some while lilacs to others; why manifold colors of autumn enchant some, and the glistening white of winter delights others. That, nothing more, is why some like baseball and others like lacrosse; and yet, the experts of the former reap fame and fortune, and those of the latter do not.

            When I was in 6^th grade, the hot new fad was the gameboy game Pokemon. It was all the rage; kids played it at all during lunch, and discussed it in every other class. I didn’t like the game very much, and didn’t have a gameboy, so I wasn’t as popular: it was really that simple. But looking back, everyone went along with it, even those who didn’t like it. And those who did, who innately loved the concepts and the game, grew more skilled and expert much more rapidly, and so they showed their gaudy creatures and perfect games during lunch, basking in the admiration peers. For those who didn’t take such a natural liking, well, though they played they did not progress so, and thus weren’t revered. And for a good part of that year, one’s number of friends was directly proportional to one’s skill at Pokemon. Then later Digimon came out, and some started playing that. But it was never as popular a fad as its predecessor, and its supporters never enjoyed the same benefits. And that was just the way it was.

            So let us return then, to music. Surely, a musician deserves such worship, does she not? But then, how so more than an artist, who places our dreams before our eyes; or the writer, who spins the tales we all long to tell? Why then, are singers divine while artists are writers merely mortal?

The truth is, mere whim. There lies no inherent bias in humanity to say that the musician is nobler than the artist, the athlete more admirable than the soldier. To confirm, one simply needs look back through history. For there was a time when the artists like Michelangelo and Brunelleschi cast dwarfing shadows over the musicians and singers. Times when great soldiers like Caesar watched athletes brawl as slaves in the Forum. Times when a culture obsessed with theater treated the actors of The Tempest, and The Jew of Malta, as unimportant props in the telling of a tale.

            The point, then? For those more cynically inclined, allow for an optimistic assumption, for a somber conclusion will nevertheless be reached. Let us suppose then, that despite claws of blood and environment, there is always a chance for one to shape who (s)he is, at least in part. The each person on the earth is allowed the opportunity to find the things (s)he views as most beautiful and exhilarating – his or her natural inclination; the things in which (s)he will excel in most easily. The capricious world, however, is never so kind; and for all the wondrous interests and talents of humans, a paltry some are rewarded, and fewer still are rewarded well.

            For you see, it’s a crapshoot in the end, and yet gambling is a sin.

            And for all the things one is better than someone else at, wonder, what’s that worth?

11:14am: Elevation Theory

How does one get knocked down? A crushing blow to the head, and devastating punch to the gut, and heart-wrenching fist through the soul, or, as I so eloquently put it once during a high school math class, a harpoon through the crotch.

            The bigger they are, the harder they fall- except maybe not. Big people are enviable, they have lots to shield them if they fall, the proverbial layer of fat. Big people, whether big-sized, big-hearted, or big-fisted with gold coins, fall pretty easily but land fairly gently. It seems that it is the other way around, the harder they are, the bigger they fall, or the bigger the explosive impact upon landing. So watch out for hardness, for stubbornness, whether it is in mind, heart or body.

            Better to be bound for a fall than to have already suffered it.

            Obvious. All life is a series of falls, a series of eternally gettin’ knocked down. The obvious goal then, is to minimize the times you get knocked down, and that is best be done by avoiding it for as long as possible each time it happens. But then the uninformed scholar is sure to present the counter-argument: you get knocked down so that you can get back up, and it doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down.

            Of course it matters!

Some people live their lives by the phrase, “get knocked down, and get right up again.” They swear by it, and fail by it. You know, when you get knocked down, you never want to stay down and mope, because you hear all these terrible stories about people who let one mistake ruin their lives, because they couldn’t cope. So you say to yourself, “I got to get right back up!” And so you jump, leap back up, because there’s no way you’re going to let yourself end up permanently down. You get up so fast you’re just in time to get run over, or you get up and jump so far you go straight off a cliff. You see, you think by getting up instantly you’re not letting getting knocked down get to you; but it is, it’s blinded you, made you do things irrationally; made you chase a dream you never wanted in the first place. Here’s what I’ve learned, from experience no doubt; getting knocked down is just like eating bad beef; it doesn’t teach you never to eat beef again, or to carry out some sort of fifty-year vendetta against butchers, it teaches you to watch what you eat.

 

Here’s a novel idea. When you get knocked down, stay down for a minute, purely on your own volition, and look around, since from there it’s another perspective. How can one understand what ground zero is like if he or she only looks in from the top down? Besides, there is always merit in looking from rock bottom. What better place to get a perfectly objective view of things then from a point where you have nothing to lose, when you are free from emotional and mental inhibitions. Then, once you determine when’s the best time and where’s the best place to, you get back up. 

                But this isn’t some piece of motivational advice, nor message, nor creed. There’s an assumed silver lining to the preceding clouds, isn’t there? That there’s somewhere great to get up to; and is there? Maybe, but maybe not. Maybe sometimes the fall is so hard that getting up at all is impossible, or far more likely, a stupid choice. Maybe the fall is too large. And then everything still applies, but does while stripped of mirth, of optimism. Surely you’d still want to look around, get you bearings, understand the situation, and not make a rash decision: either to try to leap back up or to stay down so quickly. Because, sometimes if you stay down perfectly still without moving, you sink. Maybe your best choice is to move into a sitting position, or to go halfway up, supported by one leg or hand- but let’s forget about that for now, and just assume there’s room to stand.

7:44pm: Opening Scene of the Macabre

            A turkey is walking in the forest, and a fat man in a red suit is hunting it.

            Oh, apologies, that wasn’t supposed to be funny, so here are the details: the fat man runs up, grabs the turkey in the neck and snaps it three-hundred and sixty degrees; then for good measure he sets the bird on the ground and takes careful aim to blow a hole in the fat bird’s gut, scoops out the innards and devours the whole thing on the spot, belching loudly upon completion.

            That, is what is happening.

            Perhaps it is new, or just wasn’t perceived before this year. Of course, everyone has heard the story before, that Christmas is a mixed blessing, fusing together commerce and community, spending time with spending money. And only the most cynical, shattered person would be as petty as to dismiss something in its entirety for merely having a flaw, albeit a major one. For surely glad tidings and a congregation of smiles for the plenty can still be obtained from celebrating the holiday which, when it comes, the few, as in store owners and businesses, really go mad with joy.

            So what’s the problem now? Christmas is becoming larger than life.

            It’s not so good to think that something tainted and not wholly pure is becoming the central focus of the universe; and that slowly, creeping along like a glacier, it’s covering the world with its façade of sweetly sickness.

            It’s part of the unwritten canon of celebration that Christmas is the granddaddy holiday of them all, spanning from December to February, being truncated thus only because of other holidays jealously guarding their rights, Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day. Or, not so much anymore; this year in particular, the fat man let his lard hang out, and boy, the turkey took a hit.

Everywhere, Christmas lights are being put up on Thanksgiving Day.

Everywhere, Christmas trees are lining the streets, gaudy decorations are glittering in every public place, and jolly music is playing out- in shops and supermarkets during the time normally reserved for Thanksgiving dinner. Christmas already has devoured one holiday wholly: New Year’s; Thanksgiving is next.

            And you had better believe that it originates from the people who represent the ‘spirit of Christmas’ the least, or most, depending on how cynical you wish to be. A few scattered Thanksgiving disrespecters putting up lights early aren’t going to change the general atmosphere and attitudes given to the whole season. It’s the big-time corporations looking to cash in all the more, who play the booming Christmas medleys just a bit earlier, bust out the gigantic tree clothed in ostentatious lighting a day earlier, and hold that monstrous, all-day long marathon in the main streets of major cities, with scores of men and women dressed in red and green, just a tad prior than usual- it’s on Thanksgiving Day.

            But isn’t that good? Isn’t it good that the holiday spirit engulfs more? Surely we need it more, don’t we? What with terrorism running rampant, domestic economic problems, and even Mother Nature taking a shot at us with vicious hurricanes, don’t we need it? No. We don’t. It’s not the answer; it’s a band-aid, or rather, more like a heavy does of morphine.

            Christmas has its merits, and plenty of them, enough to be big, very big. But not larger than life big, and that’s what it’s threatening to become. It has to be celebrated properly, knowing that it’s forever bound with a taint of commercialism. And therefore it must be celebrated with care, passion, and caution; lose the latter, and well, you might as well put a giant dollar sign on your back; that’s what the businesses would prefer. It’s in their best interest to abolish Thanksgiving and extend the sales season; it’s in their best interest to hold bigger and better parades; it’s in their best interest to milk you dry; so that’s what their doing.  

            And don’t be stupid and say you don’t care, because it’s going to matter. Christmas parades on national television are going to have an effect, and already it starts. Thanksgiving has no space anymore, no perch, even this year more and more individuals were putting up lights on Thanksgiving Day. You can go about saying you’ll retain your behavior but things will no doubt change. Individuals can be steadfast after a period of time, but nations are impressionable, very impressionable. And such an encroachment is going to permeate deeply into daily lives of each and every person in this country. And when a nation is subscribing to the belief that something tainted with corporate glee is larger than life itself, the culture and the mores of the time are going to shift unfavorably for both zealous and apathetic alike. Rather than being a great event which comes along in stride, and within limits, now the giant known as Christmas is striving to be the great event, that not merely comes, but storms into the year, an event which we humble subjects must spend days preparing for and months thinking of.

All Hail Saint Nick, the Conqueror of Seasons!

Sic Semper Tyrannis.

12:21am: A Valentine's Day Ending
That's all folks.

Sorry, the Inn is now closed, for reasons still unknown.

Nothing's really changed in my life, no earth-shaking event has jarred me from some peaceful delusion I never knew I was residing in. Be assured, nothing major "happened" to me. I just know that it's time to stop posting online. It's nothing melodramatic, no overly done laying down of the pen or whatnot, just a simple farewell to this site, for a reasonable amount of time at least.

Whoever the audience is, or were, or might be, I hope you've taken something away from what I've written. Honestly, even if I know you personally, I don't particularly care if you enjoyed reading them or not. That was never the reason I posted them here. I write what I do because I think it's meaningful to myself, but I make public certain things because I think they might be in some way useful to other people. I'm not yet cynical enough, nor arrogant enough to think that helping others out, or revealing another perspective, is a waste of my time. There are very few things which I've posted that I fully even believe in myself; rather, they resemble an assorted collection of my doubts, fears, beliefs, and hopes about our world today and society at large. I'll leave it up to each of you individually to determine just what is what, both for me and for you.

But a farewell without some other point to address is a poor farewell indeed. So on Valentine's Day, let me address all the hopeless romantics out there; or just those who unwillingly been pierced by cupid's arrows. It seems that lately a lot of people I know are in perhaps the worst sort of agony...

I've never be hopelessly in love before. Maybe I'm too close-offed as a person, and I don't let it happen; you know, crush it underfoot before it becomes something out of control. Maybe, but that's not the point, which is that unreturned love and yearning does sometimes feel like it's the end of the world, and that it's not being overly dramatic to wallow in despair.

Here. A poem, about being crushed:

“Death of A Valentine”

Can you hear the sound of a single heart-breaking?

it has a prelude,
Torn and Tattered:
that debilitating side of silence,
that mourns when shattered,

come certain solitude,
accompanied by a shaking,
somewhere angels huddle distressed, quaking…

can it be healed?

maybe when the bleeding is ended,
the heart might be sealed,
and then mended;

you wonder,
can it possibly be worth it?
Outside comforts could never do more—
then merely scratch the surface, 
for what purpose?

Can you see the tears of a single-soul crying?

Inside, the heart is dying,
and no second coming bears glad tidings,
What hope remains, once this poem is done?
for all, perhaps a midnight sun,
for this though, perhaps there is none.

Sometimes there are no happy endings, and it's a crime to pretend there is. There's no reason to hide against the truth, or try to act happy when you have every reason to be sad. The point is, sometimes things suck, and suck really badly. It's a necessary price to bear for simply being human. To everyone reading this who's mourning over a love that never was, or a love that never would be, or for anyone still waiting, with each day an agony, for that perfect soulmate, all I can say is that this is simply the way things are, and have always been. There's no reason to sugarcoat anything, not everyone gets a happy ending, and one of the things I fear in this life is that I don't myself. But as a whole, love is something strange enough, irrational enough to make life worth living, worth agonizing over, in the face of the many, many reasons not to care or bother. Who knows what will happen? But at least whatever happens, it'll matter.

My love to the world.

12:17am: Leaves in the Clutches of Cruel Winter Winds
The average reader will take 3 minutes and 12 seconds to read this.

In that time, on average, 307.4 people globally have died.

In light of that, here I am, typing on my computer, munching on potato chips, listening to some fine music when half of the people on this planet are living off less than two dollars a day.

Yet the thing is, to all the people reading this, wealthy and relatively secure, you’re lucky in comparison, but you aren’t lucky overall, because the deck’s stacked against everyone alike. Simple example: if true love exists, then there is one and exactly one person on this planet you hope to find. 1 in 6 billion isn’t good odds; and when you generously account for age, gender and other distinctions, you might be lucky enough to get odds of 1 in a million. Then continue to be nice, and give yourself fifty years to find that person; then you must meet 55 new people a day to keep pace. And that’s assuming you can instantly recognize the person on sight. And that’s based on the wondrous assumption that love conquers all, like death, poverty, and insanity. Sweet.

You see, no matter how lucky someone might seem to be, don’t forget that he or she is an underdog in the end; the more luck you begin with, the higher the bar is for you to make it, and quite simply, if human will, intelligence, and random luck weren’t involved, that person would fail every time, not just most times. Heck, humanity as a whole is an underdog, put on a foreign planet with no inherent sense of meaning. What are the odds that in the grand scheme of things, the human race amounts to something? Well, drawing from the examples of the dinosaurs, my guess is about 10 trillion to one.

Some free advice: Live life one way and live your life another. Now pause, and read that again. You’re not going to get an explanation, because honestly, I’m not sure what it means myself, just that it’s right.

There’s always going to be something better; but that’s the point, you don’t get that. You get randomness, and the world has a funny way of making randomness into crappiness.

Whether you like it or not, you’re woven into the world, not just dropped onto it. So then you’re faced with a choice, try to separate yourself from things, run away from what you have and gaze longingly at what others have, or understand that whatever this thing you’re a part of might have been before your arrival, now its your family, your school, your country, your community, and by the mere fact that you are in it makes it in a sense great; and you’re going to fight for it, and if you don’t, then however lackluster it appears is however lackluster you are.

You don’t have to act; after all, look before you leap. But you better care, because if you don’t care, then no one really cares. And if someone does, then you’re wasting his or her time, and time is the stream of life.

No matter what you do, do it with pride, and do it with the understanding that the chances are its not going to mean anything, that contemporaries will likely forget, and historians will likely ignore. You’re an underdog, your own spirit and pride is what keeps you going. And remember that everyone else is an underdog also, just that some of them maintain elaborate facades to hide it; and others wear the scars of past mistakes on their shoulders. But in the end, although some are more so than others, don’t forget that we’re all underdogs and big underdogs, so let’s cut each other a break. And that doesn’t just mean leaving each other alone; it means to talk, to urge, to console, to understand. Think over it. Sleep on it. Dream about it.

In parting, some speculation of statistics:

Chance that a random person I know reads this article: 7 to 1
Chance that a reader truly understands this article: 12 to 1
Chance that a reader cares: 4 to 1
Chance that a reader actually cares enough to talk to me about it: 25 to 1

This piece of writing, it’s an underdog, just like me; and I’m mighty proud of it. Take it for what you may.

3:36am: The Identity Matrix
Change is the first solution for the cautious.

It’s so easy to say, ‘you’ve changed,’ evolved, or grown. Because whether we realize it or not, it’s easy because it implies a hidden meaning; something we take for granted when we say it, something which in retrospect, is by no means a certainty: the fact that something existed in the first place. Even if we perceive the change to be negative, it still comforts us to know that at least for two periods of time, we had fashioned for ourselves identities.

You see, it’s so easy to think you have an identity, to be defined; but that assumption just leads to security, a blending in to your surroundings, until you are merely an extension of them, and you have no identity. What does it mean to truly have an identity? It’s hard to know for certain, hard to place into words, if it is even possible. But to a certain degree, it involves a sense of self-consideration, a pausing to do something to mark yourself as uniquely your own. It’s a habit, a picture, a sound, a smell, which had nothing to do with anything else except that you simply wanted it to be, to have, to hold, to exist; so that it might define you. It’s something, anything, even the most absurdly stupid thing, which you might look back on and say, “When I was little I liked to pretend there were animal Olympics in the world and I would imagine that it happened in my closet.” Something that despite relating to common themes that a million people experienced, was still in a sense uniquely you, for its absurdity in one particular area, from which you could define and derive your identity. Something which you might often never know you’re missing.

Take a childhood; it resembles a patched roof really. So often parts are cut off completely, without regard, without consideration. A month or two in another country, a few years before moving to your current location; we’re too young to truly bond during our childhood! All that’s there is some seedling, which if given time, would burgeon into a mighty tree, with roots deeply entrenched. But in its present state, it’s weak, flimsy, and easily shattered, and so it is. Without a lifeline, you’re thrown into this jungle you can see, can feel, can taste, touch and smell, can even identify, but cannot comprehend. You become stuck within a game you never knew existed, and are unwittingly bound to its rules. It can happen at any time, adultstoo often fall victim to it when they make their first forage into the unwelcoming world. They eat, they work incessantly, they struggle, and they live, and bleed away their glory days through sweat. And when they look back, they think to themselves, “I was a workaholic; someone who worked all day and ate poorly and went to bed each night exhausted.” But that person doesn’t understand, he wasn’t someone at all, he was no one. He might as well have not existed, for what fashions his identity? Nothing; no memories, no perks, no unique experiences to call his own, just someone on a worn down road walking with new shoes, and no one looking at his feet.

It’s so easy to not-exist, and when confronted by it, to answer that you’ve changed. No. You haven’t changed, you’ve become, or perhaps, you still haven’t become and are still bereft identity. It’s easy for children too, to go through every guided motion, and when they try to look back, they can’t remember a thing about who they were; they remember what school they went to, who they sat next to, the times their parents took them to the park, even perhaps who they had a silly crush on; but of themselves, they are lacking, of everything and anything. They can remember stupid habits that might have been uncommon, but nothing self-identifying; no words, no pictures, no ideas that were brought to be simply out of desire.

It’s not something to get back, to magically identify and then grab onto. It’s something which no matter how hard you try to grasp, it eludes you, for it isn’t truly there. For it's akin to some heavenly song you’ve lost the melody of; some beautiful verse you lost the words to; some glorious sunrise you’ve lost the colors of; and some love you’ve lost the name of. But if you try, if you understand and realize its importance, and stretch for it, despite your fears and doubts, then you might remember the reverence you felt when you heard that song; the exuberance you felt when you spoke those words; the wonder you felt when you saw that sunrise; and the tenderness you felt when you spoke the name. And if Fortune persists in presenting you a face of scorn, and even this is taken away, then at least you can remember that these things existed; regardless of whether they were once yours; and that perhaps, they will illuminate for you a blazing trail into the heavens, and perhaps beyond.

2:11am: A Negative Proposition

Bleed; because pain is master to pleasure,
Brainwash; because faith is master to pain,
and so, let faith be shattered by truth,
and so, let truth be corrupted by lies,
Consider; some semblance of falsehood reveals more possibilities,
and possibility is master to all.

Consider:

1. Inherence is a myth.
2. Certainty is a delusion.
3. Therefore, ‘certain’ implies the ‘closest to certainty.’
4. Absolute faith is absolute folly.
5. Selective absolutism is strength.
6. A “dream” can be used as an expression for un-real, un-true, un-certain, un-known, un-knowing.
7. Perception is the best of the imperfect substitutes for reality.
8. Life is the ultimate semblance of certainty.
9. Therefore, creation or abolition of life represents certain action.
10. Therefore, sex/death represents certain effects.
11. Love/hate is an intellectual belief.
12. Humanity is temporary.
13. Over the course of history, all humanity will be reduced to nothingness by history.
14. History is an expression of time itself and is infinite.
15. Mankind compared to the individual is a universe; compared to infinity they are both nothing.
16. Time is the final consciousness.
17. To exist is to slave to Time.
18. Time is all aspects of events, happenings, beings, not-beings.
19. Time cannot be altered; yet its flow can be diverted.
20. Meaning is a tremor in time.
21. Without meaning life is nothingness.
22. From nothingness pleasure and pain are still derived.
23. Meaning is sought and needed by few.
24. Meaning as an individual is transcendence of race.
25. Extinction yields more than creation; for extinction erases all possibilities, creation produces them; meaning is not known until the created commit such acts, whereas meaning must be assumed from the prevention of those acts by the extinct.
26. Killing of Man.
27. Killing of God.
28. Meaning as a race.
29. Killing of Time.

6:53pm: The Scientist (A Second Chapter Short Story)

The scientist’s name was Bartholomew Phillip-Louis Chantal, although that title really only manifested itself in written documents. His mother was one of those insecure social-climbers who always tried to somehow connect their family to really important people. As such, she adorned him with the middle name Phillip-Louis, claiming that he was somehow related to both of the great kings, being purposely vague (there were several kings in history named Louis, several others named Philippe, and still others named Louis-Philippe). His father had decided to name him after his favorite football player from the Green Bay Packers, Bart Starr.

            The scientist though, for it really was impossibly awkward to be referred to by his given name, had taken a nickname that stuck in the minds of everyone who he revealed it to: Gale.

            He had fashioned the name for himself at the tender age of three, and so great were his mental abilities that he remembered clearly the lazy summer afternoon when he had brainstormed his favored sobriquet. There was a great deal more history and intrigue to his name, but that would be a story told more appropriately at another time. So for now, the man will be referred to simply as the scientist, a name which he liked to be called by almost as much as Gale.

            He found the formality of such a name to be hilarious; after all, it sounded so high-and-mighty, like he was some eminent, tremendously distinguished man who couldn’t be bothered for even the briefest of moments. It never failed to amuse him anew when some cautious, green intern approached him warily and addressed him simply as “scientist.” He would execute a sharp about-face, hair spinning in an intimidating manner, and snap back in a fashionably disdainful tone, “intern,” which more often than not, positively terrified the young trainee. The first time his antics had thrown a young girl into tears, it took him aback, and he had hastily decided to call her by her real name, lest she completely break down right in his office. “Low self-esteem,” he had remembered thinking later, “maybe I should slip her a few pills.” The next time a particularly skittish intern approached him, he had considered addressing him by his name to avoid the potential calamitous events, but in the end decided against it, believing that the amusement he garnered each time from the other’s discomfort to be too valuable to discard. Sometimes, his mischief did really aversely affect a particularly nervous trainee, but the scientist regarded it as merely collateral damage; the agency always assured him that those who broke down never received permanent positions anyway.

             You see, the scientist was imbued with a peculiar trait, given to him by his creator, whoever that may be. He had the uncanny knack for placing individuals into the exact situations in which they were most ill-equipped to handle. It really was up in the air whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, as it tended to lead to disaster, but after all, he really was only exposing how pitiful other people truly were. His creator had dubbed him as “The Debunker,” and had originally toyed with the idea of giving him some sort of high-powered ray-gun used to zap people into their worst fears, but then decided against it, deeming that an unknowingly manifesting ability would be more amusing.

            When he first landed his modified jet back down in his home country, unceremoniously screeching to a halt in a national park (he had run out of fuel), this particular ability had manifested itself quickly. Although the proper government authorities were present to speed him away, the vulture-like press crews had descended upon him instantly, raining down an unholy barrage of questions. The scientist, in exasperation, had grabbed a random bystander- who really had only been there for a quiet evening stroll to wash away the misery he felt after his girlfriend had dumped him- and shoved him in front of the hordes of cameras and microphones, yelling, “This, this is the man you want! A mere teen, he rescued me from the enemy and repaired the airplane, then flew us back to safety all by himself even while burdened by an old geezer like me!”

            The teen, who already had suffered an emotional roller-coaster that night, could only manage a few frazzled but time-tested phrases including: “um, yeah,” and “sure,” in the face of the seemingly never-ending torrent of questions and lights that assailed him. He actually was in nice attire, having planned an important date with his previous sweetheart earlier, and could have passed for a soldier in civilian clothing. Plus he was handsome, and distraught, his visage perfect for a front-page photo. The press gobbled it up.

            The scientist, grateful at having avoided the hawkish attention of the ravenous crowds, wearily ducked into a limousine provided by the government officials, which promptly sped away. Accepting a nice cup of hot chocolate, his favorite drink, he sighed contentedly, pleased with himself at how he had skillfully handled a potentially inauspicious situation.

            Unfortunately, the young teen, whose name isn’t important, was the unsuspecting scientist’s latest victim. Had the scientist known of his own strange ability, he would have undoubtedly made it into a statistics project for his own amusement, calculating the strength of the adverse effects he had on people. What had happened with the soldier in the other plane on the way back, well that had been nasty, definitely up in the ninetieth percentile. And the way he made all those young interns uncomfortable, well, those incidents would most likely only rank into the fortieth percentile.

            Let’s just say his creator knew that what he did to the poor boy in the park was in the ninety-seventh percentile.

It was a pity that the scientist never bothered to read the mainstream newspapers, for the next day’s headline read:

 

THE AMAZING SOLDIER WHO COULD! – FLY BACK, SAVE AN OLD MAN, AND BE MODEST WHILE AT IT!  

 

In a few weeks:

 

THE AMAZING SOLDIER TO STAR IN NEXT FEATURE MOVIE FILM!

 

In a few months:

 

THE AMAZING MOVIE STAR SOLDIER SPURNS OLD SWEETHART, MARRIES FELLOW MOVIE SUPERSTAR ACTRESS!

 

In a few years:

 

THE AMAZING MOVIE STAR SOLDIER FALLS! – DRUGS, ADULTERY, AND POSSIBLE HOMOSEXUALITY?

 

In a few more:

 

THE ONCE AMAZING MOVIE STAR SOLDIER – R.I. P. DIED IN THE LIMELIGHT, SUICIDE DRUG OVERDOSE!

 

            If the scientist had read the papers at any of those times, which he never did, he might had recognized the young teen whom he had bestowed stardom on, and might have followed the story throughout the years, and might have felt remorse. But certainly, it would have been cruel to inflict more misery onto the troubled man after his unfortunate episode involving the young soldier; after all, it was his upgraded plane which gave the young soldier that tragic arrogance that led to his demise. Therefore, on the next day, as the scientist was walking into his office for the first time in many months, the paper was the last thing on his mind as he glanced at the big sign which adorned his desk and smiled. The sign read:

 

“No intern is to ever, ever, address me by my name or by ‘sir’, on penalty of instant dismissal.”

 

            His smile broke into a bigger grin when he thought of how no one, for some odd reason, had ever thought to call him “mister.”  

5:51pm: An Interim
    "Such words and dreams are oft alike,
    that if left alone, would never leave the mind,
    And as such thus they have no leash,
    and so are chromatic, adorned with demon's teeth.
    But if best unread, and quis scribet, bis legit,
    then it is perhaps that we all forget it,
    Or else what crimes unto myself,
    would that this be all I felt,
    when walking or not- in,
    to this place, this bastion this inn;
    would that I knew when I did aspire,
    nor if I leave myself to retire,
    but if these words do provoke and daunt,
    then pause and reflect, upon whose haunt?"

Can anyone decode the poem? And if you can, what is the answer?

4:54pm: Generation "I"

Fuck.

That word shouldn’t shock anyone, although I rarely use it in speech. It shouldn’t astound, or appall. All it can do is merely hope to spark some sort of fleeting interest, or else melt away into a drab background.

How did it become like this? When did the base, the revolting, become part of us, of our generation, of our culture. When did we stop being children, hanging on every word from our elders, so concerned with straying that we walked the narrow path so tightly? When, why, did we, why did I, lose that reverence I held for certain things sacred?

We live at dizzying speeds, nosebleed heights. There is no time. No time for morals, no time for values to stick and last. Today, a teen’s moral system has degenerated. It is a tool, it is a condom; something to be trotted out in certain times and then thrown away after being used and soiled. Oh, and it is something that is easy to acquire again, good as new.

The days of the taboo have left this world, have left each individual mind. We are disillusioned before we realize it. Exposed to things hideous before we are even old enough to make sense of them. We become attuned. We expect terrible things to happen, we shrug them off, we are taught from birth how recognize, how to cope with the terrible things that happen on an everyday basis. There is nothing left that we are afraid to mention, no words we are afraid to speak. There is nothing left in this world that we shy away from not because it may be discovered but because to us it is so revolting that to even come in contact, to even contemplate would sicken us, would necessitate in us an uncontrollable urge to purify ourselves.

Somewhere along the line our species as a whole was broken, perhaps in the horrific wars, or perhaps the constant assault of disease. Or perhaps it is happening even now, with this generation, my generation, so confused and afraid.

I am not a genuinely kind person. I doubt many my age are. I doubt many are truly sorry for the turmoil endured by so many others on a daily basis. I don’t watch a news report detailing a tragic death and feel remorse. I don’t feel pain. I don’t feel sympathy. I tell myself that I should, I will myself to do so. I watch the entire program even though I have no interest. But I do so in guilt, guilt that I don’t care. I donate to charities not because I care, not because I think it matters, but because my rational mind says it’s the good thing to do; it tells me that my contribution will make someone happy, but I don’t care if it does, it affects me not. We all do it. We all do good deeds because we don’t want to face the ugly reality: that we have been thrown into a cesspool of pain, of suffering, where every second of every day we are in some way bleeding, that our compassion has leaked away. That we insulate ourselves subconsciously.

We are a defeated youth. A new generation already resigned to walking a path that if not already traveled will have been already laid out. We are uncaring. I am uncaring. Our convictions are weak, susceptible to change, what we cling to so tightly we let slip away without too great a struggle. We expect loss.

In the great mass, there remain stars whose brightness have not been diminished, but they are few, and likely deflected; afraid that to shine too bright will be to invite approaching darkness and stifling blankets. They are tainted and tempered, no less great than the pure, bright shining stars whose light history has cherished; but different, hardened, full of grief. As a whole, we, I, you are alone even while so many share in your condition. This is a generation of indifference; indifferent to life, indifferent to death.

10:36pm: Suspended Animation

Friendship is a strange thing, without form or structure, something akin to chaos. It’s like a rushing river, some places it’s forceful, and others it’s soft and soothing. And invariably, somewhere along its path there will be a dam, whether we know it or not, somewhere there will be a closing off, or at least a narrowing, so that only a trickle leaks out.

Who are our best friends? Not those who look like us, not those who think like us, not those we love like us. Friendship is a fluke, an afterthought of Fortune, a carefree wave from her hand. That which we treasure most is something which she so simply tosses out. Something that just falls into our lap, and it is nothing spectacular, but we reach for it in a desperate frenzy to cope with our weakness, our defenselessness. Friendship is most strong when we are weak, when we are defenseless, so we grasp for security, to obtain belonging, to know that someone, for some reason other than blood, values us.

Its origins are artificial, and its nurturing bastardized. Why do we bare our souls to strangers? Because we as a whole are so frightened, and we wonder, and we hope, that others are too. And so we meet; for no other reason than mere chance, chance that we have been placed in the same place in the same time. And then we bond; for no other reason than weakness, weakness that prevents us from leaving familiar places and familiar people.

And invariably, we grow stronger, more resilient, more determined. And that once roaring river recedes, in some much, in others little. We become too strong for friends, too busy, too ready to change and reshape our surroundings upon a moment’s notice. We move too fast for friends. We are already loved, already wanted, already secure that we see no reason to reach out. The heart doesn’t open, the river doesn’t flow in full force, and there cannot be, and we don’t want there to be, any new bonds as strong as old.

Yet so quickly does that old sparkle dull; from the moment you move away the memories sag, they weigh heavily, they lose their wondrous vibrancy. Something is lost instantly, and it’s felt upon the very first reunion, no matter how soon it may be. Gone is the complacency, the stupid laughter, the wasteful banter. Instead there is an urgency, a call to make that short time count, even though what once made that time great was knowing that it would not fleet away so quickly.

Old friends are like training wheels. They brace you, they save you, but in time they fade and are cast aside. They scream out in the background, but cannot be heard over the roar of the present, the allure of such giants, of love, of fortune, of the world. Friendship, as a whole is outgrown; in time it no longer governs so much of life; it huddles in a little corner, called out on occasion but otherwise swept up and put away, like little children’s toys.

What can we do? Walk along the banks of that river, start from the delta, start from the place where new water passes. Act to keep it open, follow it to let things develop, but remember that some day it will close, and that is okay. Know that someday it will be okay that cherishing the few is more important than giving chance to the many.

Then leave the delta, walk upstream a bit more, walk along familiar paths and note that the footsteps, the imprints of others, have most certainly faded. What pitiable creatures are we. Can we do anything against the dull grinding of time? Of course we can. We can shout, we can scream sharply, and let our voice reverberate, against the trees and the clouds. And we can mark; we can carve, with irretraceable words, into rough barks and sheltered hearts. Yet isn’t it pathetic, to believe that our efforts won’t in vain? From the beginning, we are destined to falter, doomed to fail. But we can try, we can try if only to prolong. For if all things are transient, and every sparkle must pass, then why not make it linger, why not make it last?

2:35am: Drugs

Anything wondrous must be in some way crude, some way crass. Some way tempered so that baser eyes may gaze upon it without going insane. Consider for a moment, if the sun did not blind, did not hurt the eyes with imperfect light. Would we, the glory-seeking and pleasure indulging species, be able, after gazing up longingly, to tear ourselves away from such brilliance? Or would we stand entranced, our minds riveted on such splendor, even while our muscles flagged, our hearts decayed, and our bodies slipped into such a devastating stupor?

The more beautiful the rose, the sharper the thorn. The sharper is the sting that must be inflicted, to rip asunder the mind from such a delicate happiness. A happiness that is so threatening and inviting. A happiness so insidious and so entrapping that we are terrified to embrace it, for once we step into those waters we drown. We drown because in order to truly espouse that waiting joy we must submerge ourselves in it, and surrender to it. We open our minds, our souls, to possibilities so extreme that they terrify us. Some people do so, and are never seen again. Who knows if they found that sunken pearl tucked away so deep? Warily, others skirt the edges of the water, and when one cool splash wets them, they run screaming from the beach. And then and there they know, they can never dive within, and they wonder. What could, what might, what would have been?

Some things in this world are too beautiful, too grand, too splendid to hold and grasp; so we inject in them some scar, some mark, some discoloration. We look upon the most fantastic of paintings, with colors overwhelming with expression and think, “Oh. But that’s only a dressed-up copy of another work.” and “Oh, there’s a small smudge, a poor stroke in the corner.” And we delude ourselves so that we can turn away from the painting. And then we experience the most honey-dappled day, when the sun and the sky, the wind and the earth conspire to capture Utopia for a day. But then we say, “Oh, soon it will rain, and I have many things to do anyway.” And so we trick ourselves into leaving. And then we find the most wonderful person, whose mere presence brings untold joy. But then we say, “That person is not perfect for me.” And you find every little flaw, even though to you they mean nothing, and you use them as an excuse not to pursue so ardently, without abandon. And then when that love slips away you say, “It was for the best.”

And so we hide, we hide from dreams. Because in dreams we are sluggish, idle, lovesick like faeries. In dreams we are ethereal, unknowing and uncertain. And so we run to familiar reality frantically, and think, “Better to prattle on aimlessly in the light than to die unseen in the shadows.” And so we do.

So consider, what if all these inhibitions were removed? What if we were free, from ourselves, free to pursue our wildest dreams and confront our worst nightmares? What if we were free from worry, free to sail off into the sunset without thought? What if we were? How, how might we be? And how, how might we go about being?