The Power of Love

"The power of love is a curious thing."

Yes, that is from Huey Lewis & The News. Go ahead and try and say they're not a great band, I'll wait while your feeble assertions crumble in your mind before making it out your mouth. I'm kidding, but seriously it's a great song from a great band. But, that's not really what I wanted to talk about today.

I've taken some time off, probably too much time. I tended to do most of my recent writing in one specific location, which I was absent from between semesters, which allowed me to drift away from blogging for a bit, chain of excuses, etc etc. Recently I've been trying to come up with a worthwhile topic to return with, and I think it came to me throughout the week. So here we go.

It occurred to me, slowly over the course of many years and a fair bit of casual observation that we, on this planet, are not necessarily set up for success. This isn't really a shocking revelation, inequity is everywhere and you have to be a particular kind of blind or stubborn not to see it. But I'm not talking right now about genetic, socioeconomic, gender, or whatever other types of inequities that may come to the mind of you, the reader. I'm talking about perhaps something a bit more devious, a lot more pervasive, and something that I think is uniquely achievable as far as it is obtainable by everyone. I'm talking about Love, and what seems to be the long-standing quiet conspiracy to get rid of it.

Bear with me a bit here, I'll try to outline a general example of what I mean, inspired by my own experiences, and let you ponder on it yourself to see if you can find your own examples. From early on, as children, a large percentage of us (us being humanity) are born and raised into loving environments. Our parents and immediate family members love us, we're taught to say it, embrace it, express it, live it, be it. This continues for several years and we develop rapidly. We start expanding our social interactions, most notably in school, and then something starts to change. As small children it's totally ok to love all your friends, even if they're the same genders, because we're young and apparently don't know any better (or do we?). As we get older and are subjected to more "societalization"  our instincts to love and in turn be loved are purposefully diminished. Eventually, it's not ok for boys to love boys, it's still ok for girls to love girls, but there's a line there too. Love becomes something we say less and less, hear about less and less, and starts to become more defined and relegated to special circumstances.

Eventually it's presented to us as something special, which up to this point it has still been for us. But this sort of special is rare, hard to hang on to, potentially hurtful, exceptionally valuable, and not a guarantee beyond immediate family. Again, when we were young, it was omnipresent with no restrictions. So now we adapt to this new limiting concept. Right about when we could start questioning this new definition along comes the mass media in the forms of books, songs and movies that inundate our childhood experience. We all have the Disney movies we love, the books we grew up reading, the songs from our childhoods. We can still quote them, recall how they made us feel. Think about this, and I agree it's a bit of a stretch, but in Beauty and the Beast, did you ever stop to look at how Gaston really does care for Belle? He probably experienced at some point a legitimate form of positive affection for her. At some point he clearly loses the ability to articulate himself correctly, not that Belle seems particularly receptive or empathetic towards him. She's clearly had her idea of love reinforced by...the books she reads! This gets her believing that love is this special abstract thing reserved for rare opportunity when a soul mate finally presents itself to live happily ever after with. Maybe if she would have been a bit more loving towards Gaston he wouldn't have felt the need to go out of his way to murder something he didn't understand?  Instead, we're presented with a story of how one selfish, self-entitled, evil man is turned into a beast for his crimes but is redeemed by learning to love and connect in a positive, full-being way with another human being, Belle. Belle, the same woman who despite all her charm, wonder and splendor somehow can't go out of her way to try and understand a very similar sort of man who happens to live in the village that she's from? That guy's beyond redemption, but the 'Prince' isn't? That hardly seems fair, just, or reasonable, doesn't it? Don't get me wrong, I still like the movie, "Kill the Beast" is a badass song, but I just thing that perhaps it lacks a bit in teaching tolerance and understanding.

But this leads me to my point, that our media influences cement in the idea that love is a selective emotion, not our base emotion. And please don't misunderstand me, I don't mean base to be somehow belittling or debasing. It's our basic emotion, our first, our primary, our root, the emotion from which all positive emotions can spring. So now we're nearly grown up and we're moving through life with a selective form of love, boxed and packaged and waiting for someone to come by to meet certain pre-set, reinforced criteria in order to receive our Love. What's the overall effect of this? We isolate ourselves from each other. Without being able to live and fully feel our core emotion, Love, we cannot fully interact with our surroundings or each other. We are taught to create a specific division between ourselves, and we're taught to believe it's for our own good. We maintain the illusion through our fantasies, fueled by the stories that entertain us and the songs we listen to. We even get to a point where we actually begin to fear Love; fear the pain it could bring to our lives, the burden it can be if we don't want it, fear the risks of the emotion more than we hope for its rewards. That's no way to live, and we can see daily the Hell it has wrought.

Our world exists in perpetual dissonance, in disunity. And this is where I begin to see the scheme of the nefarious plot. As long as we don't love each other, it's that much easier to hate each other. Hate and other similar emotions we can feel all the time (they're completely socially acceptable after all), because in the absence of Love it is easier to feel negative emotions. Our being abhors voids, we seem to seek to fill any emptiness with something. I believe our inclination is to find a positive filler to replace the emptiness in our lives, but our natural inclination has been subjected to societal reconstruction. We now actively seek negatives to fill the holes left by our self-removed positives. The long-term effect is that we live in a world where we are selectively isolated from 99.99% of the population, even though we have so much more in common than we probably could invent as differences. That was step one of the evil plot, maybe I'll elaborate on the next one another time.

Love is more than just a feeling for us, it's a state of being. I myself really only came back to this positive state, this existence of Love, in the last few years. I went through intense feelings of isolation and eventually got myself diagnosed with depression. But depression isn't a diagnosis, it's a symptom, isn't it? Depression is a state caused by something else, it indicates a deficiency somewhere in our lives. Mine was love. Early on, teenage angst and hormones had me longing to find that one special person to make all my pain disappear. In the course of waiting for that person, I turned away from others I "obviously didn't love or even like that much" (despite being awesome, caring people in their own right), further growing a gap between me and others. When I eventually found that special someone, it eventually fell apart and the pain of that loss overcame the ability to feel the positive, feel Love. I then spent years being a pissy young 20's who pursued less than pure interactions and purposefully avoided feeling anything positive or meaningful, anything that connected me with the soul of the person. That left me miserable too.

Eventually, as I began exploring these pangs of doubt and these questions I continued to have, began embracing my natural empathic abilities that I was going to great lengths to ignore, I began to undo my societal programming. I began to see the world differently, and I embraced that change and began looking for more answers. Mind you, I was still pissy, but now in my mid 20's. That negative quality about me couldn't go away on its own, it was too fused with my being to be removed. I needed the security it provided  too much and too often. But, one day, a miracle happened that I didn't quite fully grasp until recently. I met someone who changed my life, and has continued to do so since that first day. I felt a feeling, a strong and positive pull towards her and instead of ignoring it or attempting to redefine it or put it in this category or that, I went for it, purely and wholeheartedly. I still wasn't capable of living in love fully, I hadn't made it yet, I couldn't do it on my own. But my recent epiphany is that without her, I could never have made the transition to the more luminous me that I am today at all. The love she provided gave me what I needed to facilitate the change. For years I've attributed my success to me and what I've done, and I'd never stopped to see that without a strong base, Love, any structure I raised would crumble. She provided me with that base while I changed, and now that I have, we can continue to grow together. But now, I feel like a near fully functional person, and now I am capable of helping others make the transition as well.

Love isn't supposed to be a rarity. It's supposed to be all around us. We're all looking for it, though maybe we're afraid of admitting that. But if we're afraid of Love it's because we were taught to fear it, taught to misunderstand it. We need to start changing, we need to risk letting ourselves feel the most positive of emotions for the most complete of strangers, because in a world where the predominant emotion is Love, Humanity will flourish. And we all need to flourish.

-M

Gratitude and Reflections, My 28 Years

So today is my birthday. Rather than ramble on about some topic or another, I'd like to take the time to express my feelings about my time here on this wonderful planet surrounded by so many wonderful people, places, things, and experiences. As you can tell, this is probably going to be a sappy post, but that's fine. You don't have to read it!! Or you can, that's fine too.

So, as the title states, I'm 28 as of today. For years now, I've given little concern to age and the whole getting older thing. I keep trying to stay filled with child-like wonderment, because that's just more fun. And I have completely accepted the attitude that age is simply a number indicating that you haven't died yet, so really it's a positive thing, not a countdown. It helps when you're planning on living to 300 as well, which I of course will do, because it just illustrates how much time I really have left to do great things. Previously, birthdays were the times I looked back and judged what I did or didn't do correctly. I've stopped that. Today is a day to be appreciative for the experience, for the good and great things, not a time to look back and piss and moan over my failings. Because there are no true failures so long as you're willing to keep trying, keep striving to do and be better...which I am doing.

I started my celebratory activities the way I always do, I stay up to 1:44 am, my actual birth time, and attempt to see my meteor shower. Every year, the Earth passes through a dust cloud that provides the Geminid meteor shower, my very own celestial heraldry of my birth. This year, oddly enough, there is reported to be a second, new meteor shower, link here: Meteor Shower! At the moment the clock rolls over, I quietly pray my thankfulness to Whoever might be listening, and re-new my promise to keep trying to do better, to do right, and to reiterate my overall appreciation for the last year and everything I experienced. Then I wait for the inevitably phone call from my mother, because I know she's going to wake up from a dead sleep to call me. Last night was a text, which is fine, I know how busy she is.

Last week, the Blood Center contacted me trying to get me in for a donation, and today was the first available day I had for them, so I went and did just that. Apparently a lot of people donate on their birthdays; like, that's a thing. I just might make that a tradition for me as well. Afterwards, with everyone in school or working, I didn't have anything planned. Thankfully, my sister, who works nights, called and offered to take me out for lunch, which I happily accepted. Free food, right? When we were done, we got some stuff for hanging out later with my family, took the dog for a walk, and now I'm just sitting, taking in the day and the last year.

A lot happened this year, nothing I will waste time going into detail of, but suffice it to say that it was eventful. I don't look back and see wasted or missed opportunities, I see happy memories or chances for improvement. What I really appreciate about today is my gazing toward the future, that's what gets me really excited. I understand New Years, maybe not the need to get hammered in order to celebrate an artificial calendar reset, but the idea of putting a pin in something and saying "Ok, time for the next one!" I do that more with my birthday though, as its significance is just a little grander and more personal for me. Obviously, right? Today,  I get excited for what I get to do in the next year, what plans I can try to enact, where I'll get to go, who I'll get to meet, the relationships I'll build, the ones I have that I'll continue to strengthen, that sort of stuff.

I'm of course, on a personal level, very excited for what happens in the next week or so. I know this 2012 stuff isn't a heralding of the end times, but I think that something significant will happen nonetheless, because people believe something will happen. With strong belief can come hope, and from hope we can learn happiness, from happiness we will give and receive love. My first hope for this new year of mine is Ascended Super Powers. Failing to get those, I'll do everything I can as plain old ordinary (but just as wonderful, special, unique and worthwhile!) me to try and make this a better place for everyone, short and long-term (maybe if I behave myself I'll get my Super Powers next year!). I'm going to go enjoy the rest of my day, maybe waste some hours with video games or eat and drink way too many calories. But all the while, I'll appreciate every second!

-M

Growth and the Duality of the Soul

I've had this topic mulling around in my head for a few days now. At present, I'm in too good of a mood to want to write about it, but I'd like to anyway. Also, I'm feeling very drained of energy. Maybe it's because it's dark and grey out, or too quiet here at home. I heard something neat today that said this general lethargy is expected as we near the great shift, our motivation gets sapped because we start losing our connections to the illusory world. I never quite understood calling it an "illusion." Seems pretty real to me, why can't it just be a particular facet of existence, not the whole story but a legitimate part? It doesn't have to be fake, just not the entire story.

Anyway, to the topic. Friday was an interesting day for me. I'd rather break it down piece by piece, rather than give a general big picture and then go back in a dissect. So to start, I had school in the morning, which was fine. I was excited and ready to learn, and I enjoyed nearly the entire 2 hours. Sometime during the second hour, I got a text from a friend asking me a particular question. It was nerd hobby related, but I knew upon reading the question where the conversation would go and where my feelings would be at the end of it. See, the question was about a particular artistic hobby I have that I apply to RPG games, not important but it gives some background. I was being asked where I find the pieces I paint, how I go about it, and I gave the full and complete answer without hesitation, knowing full well I was being left out of what it was for. And that hurt, being excluded from something but asked how to go about it. I forgave the slight without mentioning it, that wasn't hard, I didn't want it to affect a friendship or ruin my day. But I knew that I must address the feelings I knew were there waiting for me, the darkness the hurt gave rise to. So, I told myself to wait until class was over, and then I'd work through it. When it was up, I quietly apologized to existence, said that I'd be stepping out for a few minutes to process some negative emotions that I didn't want to taint my surroundings, bubbled up and shuffled through my iPod for the music I knew would process me right through the feelings from anger to rage to sorrow to sadness to calm to peace to happiness.

Everything went as I suspected it would, I went through each stage or emotion and gave it its due time and appreciation, and then moved on, like I was sitting in a small boat riding down a stream. I got particularly tickled when I started jumping the gun right back to happiness, it seems that I just can't stay upset anymore. It felt like I had cocooned myself up inside a black bubble, but no matter how I tried there was no stopping light from cracking in a filling me back up with love. Which is great, I truly appreciate it. But the thing I wanted to process through, maybe find feedback on sometime, is this:
 We're encouraged to grow and develop in love. Growing implies an increase in size or capacity, and developing usually refers to refining a particular something to make it better. So as we expand our being to incorporate and handle more positive energy, more love, does our soul expand permanently, increasing its capacity for everything? By this, I mean, if we were to lose our love and happiness, would the space be refilled with equal amounts of darkness or negative emotions?
Is this a risk we run when attempting to move forward to our next state of being, we increase our capacity for all things, including negatives? My worry of sorts, or more appropriately my concern, is that as we become more does our responsibility become equally greater?

I've always seen this personal transition as not solely a journey of self-realization, but also something that bore a tremendous amount of weight. I was endeavoring to change myself into something better, but though I would be the primary beneficiary, I still saw the transition as a worthwhile way to help others. A sort of 'this is what I did and how? If you're interested, I can help you do it too' thing. As we change, it is our responsibility to aid others in their attempts to change. With that in mind, I grew a little apprehensive at the ever growing depths of the disdain and malice that can arise in me. And that's what worries me. It feels like my capacity for hate is matching my capacity for love, step for step. Though I exist in love nearly all of the time, I'm worried about where I'd go if that switch was flipped and I could no longer feel love. I know the general idea is a bit irrational, but it remains nonetheless.

I wonder about an enlightened dark person, if such a thing could exist. A being in pure, absolute harmony with its nature, which just happened to totally fear/hatred based. Something that existed perfectly in balance with nothingness or death. If you get the chance, track down the film "Beyond the Black Rainbow." I saw it a few months ago at a film festival with my brother and cousin. In it were all my fears of enlightenment, about how the process once began will run its course to the end, change a person permanently, and not necessarily for the better.About how there are no shortcuts worth taking and that a soul unprepared cannot endure the transition. The old 'stare into the abyss long enough it stares back into you' routine. It raised my concerns that the bad aspects of myself, the blemishes on my soul, won't be wiped away when I move forward but be reinforced or amplified, become more pronounced or harder to overcome.

I've been very hesitant to finish or post this entry, because of fear. Fear or what people may think or say, how I'll be judged. But, as I reflect on it, on this whole post and my apprehension of it, I can feel my doubts slowly melting away. I know, as a flawed being, that I cannot be truly perfect. What speaks most of my character, the strength of my soul, is not the absence of flaws or negative traits, but how I endeavor to overcome them. The desire to do good, even though I'm aware of the alternatives, and the choice to continuously strive to make the right decisions and do the best I can for me and others makes me who I am. This determination, perseverance, light...these are the things I will exemplify, whenever I move forward.

-M

Free Your Ambitious Mind

It's times like these I wish I had a real following, because as much as I use this outlet as a place to vent out my thoughts on various topics, I'd love for it to be a forum for the creation of positive discussion. Ah well, maybe one day.

I've been trying to wrap my head around something new lately and I don't believe I'm doing very well with it. The idea is, as stated in today's title, freeing myself from my ambitious mind. I think I'm struggling with it conceptually as well as practically. How do we free ourselves of ambition and continue to do anything? Does the definition of ambition here carry with it an alternate definition? Well, I guess let's start by looking it up!

am-bi-tious  [am-bish-uhs]
adjective
1. having ambition; eagerly desirous of achieving or obtaining success, power, wealth, a specific goal, etc.
2. showing or caused by ambition.
3. strongly desirous; eager.
4. requiring exceptional effort, ability, etc.

Well, in parts of #1 and all of #3, we can see the negatives created by ambition. Maybe that's the twist my head isn't getting around, that perhaps ambition as a concept has been usurped by more materialistic or impure goals. This one will be particularly difficult for me, and I imagine will continue to be this way, because I simply can't see how you get rid of your goals and not simply turn into a lump on the couch...yet!

Well, let's try and see if we can't get around this. If ambition is the root of our motivation, our desire to obtain X, ambition cannot truly be bad for us, because through our ambition we can further realize our true selves. We frame our being by what we set out to do. So maybe, the error isn't in having ambition, but defining ourselves in the successful pursuit of that ambition? Perhaps our motivations for ambition, the underlying 'why we want what we want' also creates disharmony. I've written on achievement before and about how crucial I feel it is for the human experience. But there, like here, I believe the harm comes not from the act but the intent and value. 

To elaborate, perhaps it is the reasons why we attempt to better ourselves that corrupt our path. If we set out to get a well-paying job in order to have money so that we can make our lives more comfortable, that would be fine. Our being is enhanced by the effort and our lives made better by the fruits of our labor. We only consider what is best for ourselves, and we define what is comfortable, and what we do with that comfort is up to our own discretion. Now, if we set out for the same job in order to have the same money so that we can flaunt our comfortable lifestyle in the faces of others, we've strayed from the path. Now our focus isn't on achieving for the benefits to ourselves, but the benefit to ourselves is viewed in the light of how it grieves someone else. And maybe that's the root of this "Ambitious Mind" that requires freedom from. Ambition is a self-motivated and self-realized beast, sure other people can comment on how accomplished you are or are not, but it should boil down to you. Your ambitions should be your own, and the goals of those ambitions should equally pertain to you.

Each day we need to strive to set out and accomplish what we feel is important to ourselves, and each day we should weigh the success of our endeavors by our own standards, not those imposed by society at large or even close friends and family. Freedom from ambition may actually become freedom from the fear of failure then, and this freedom from fear of failure will allow us greater personal growth. Each day we can look at what was done, not what is left undone or yet to be started. Focus on the steps taken, not on the steps left ahead of us. This fear, this apprehension, attached with ambition, that ambition is something that needs to be proved to and validated by everyone else is what we really need to free ourselves from. There is no true failure to a spirit willing to continue through all opposition, the only failure comes from deciding to give up before we have decided for ourselves that it is the right time to stop.

I think I may be getting a decent grip on this now that I've laid it out in front of me. It's funny how this, like several articles and books I've read, have all started blurring into the same general concept: freedom from fear, live in love. I've also found myself giggling at just how many times I read those same lines in all these different pieces in the voice of Yoda, (Fear is the path to the darkside. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering..) I love Star Wars too, as an aside from this discussion. Just know, while looking up the quote to make sure I got it right, I found this as well:

 "Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is the Force, and a powerful ally it is. Life creates it, makes it grow. Its energy surrounds us and binds us. Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter. You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship." 

which of course is another matter entirely, but again resonates strongly with the things I believe to be true now. Anyway, it is this fear which pollutes us in a very real sense. Fear leads our bodies to stress, an intangible monster of our own imagination which creates literal, physiological response in our bodies. These stress reactions create a bodily state that is more susceptible to negative thoughts because it alters the very chemical states of our brains and bodies. Each successive stress reaction makes the next one that much more likely, and that much more pronounced. Our bodies begin to swim in these chemicals which keep us in this depressed state. Our bodies wear out, our psyche is strained, we get sick and the cycle further propagates.

Fear is our true enemy here, the root of our problems. Only through Love can we overcome fear, but sadly in this world, in our societies, Love is not the thing it should be. We treat Love as a precious commodity (which it is), something so rare it may never be obtained by some of us (which it is not!!). We attribute Love to being attached to material expression to further cheapen its immense, soulful quality. We are taught that you can only Love so many people in so many specific ways. We are cultured away from Love, but everyday we're reminded of what we should fear. To keep the quote train going: 

"If you're free you'll never see the walls, 

If your head is clear you'll never free fall, 

If you're right you'll never fear the wrong, 

If your head is high you'll never fear at all."  

Exploder by Audioslave

We are taught to limit things: to limit ourselves and our relationships; to limit what we feel and why we feel it. We are taught that the very best thing we can experience, the absolute best of Humanity, Love, is something rare. Love is as omnipresent as the air we breathe, as the water in our bodies. It starts with loving yourself, knowing yourself. Through that we can love and know each other. In this state of being, we no longer have to worry about overcoming ambition, fear, hate, greed, envy, whatever...we'll have already freed ourselves from these things.

-M

P.S. I apologize for the formatting errors throughout, I can't seem to copy and paste into this without it screwing everything up. 

Pre-Holiday Enthusiasm

I know it's a little early to already be looking at Christmas (especially when my birthday's in 3 weeks!), but lights and trees are starting to go up, and it's got me thinking about the month of December and how much I enjoy it. Now, I know there's plenty to not like in December, for instance it's cold. I happen to like the cold, and I hope constantly to have snow for both my birthday and for Christmas. Maybe snow's not your thing, if so I hope you live somewhere warm, because I'm focusing my will on bringing the thunder....err...snowstorm...for both of those days. Maybe you're not a fan of Christmas, I can understand that too, even if I don't share your sentiments. It can be a sort of polarizing holiday, and I think we as a society have very obviously strayed away from the intent. But, honestly, where has this society not strayed away from the original intent?

This post is mostly inspired by the song "Oh Holy Night." I love this Christmas song, it's my hands-down favorite. Why? It makes me cry. It wasn't always the case, I can think of songs I've liked more as a child or young adult, and I remember my pissy adolescent phase when nothing was cool, but now this song is the only reason I'll turn off the iPod and surf the radio waves during December. What does it for, every time, is when the song hits the "Fall on your knees" part. I think I get it now, that pure adoration the song is actually talking about (or what I think I it is), the Love of God made obvious and manifest here on Earth. I won't bother re-posting the lyrics, I trust people to be able to Google search on your own. But now, I don't hear a propaganda song for the Christian faith or some hokey old-timey song, I hear how the Divine, in whatever form you want to believe in It, deliberately sends us inspiration and love and support. You may not always see it, but it's always coming. I think this song reminds me of that; that there can be huge pushes where tons of positive energy descends from upon high and that there's the constant, stead-stream of it flowing through the fabric of this reality. So now, every time I hear that song, I tear up because I can feel that love, I know that love.

I normally have trouble with the whole "on your knees" submission part of anything. I frequently get in discussions with my dad about elements of Catholicism like this; the general idea of submission to the Will of God. I'm a free will sort of guy, I feel that the journey is meaningless without the ability to choose our own adventure. It's like the idea of being forced to do a good deed; if you're forced, was it actually a good deed? Was your soul improved by the undertaking if it wasn't your decision to do good? I touch on this topic a lot, how important self-determination is to me, and I believe to all of us. I have a friend in philosophy who likes to try to rain on every parade he can find that introduced some genetics/neuroscience combination studies which are leaning towards a new school of thought uncovered by experimentation. They're concluding that all of us, from our appearance to our brain chemistry, is pre-determined by our genes.None of this is new, and it's all mostly correct. However! They're beginning to conclude, in essence, that the way we're wired, determined by our genes, given at random from our parents, dictates how we will react to every situation. So, our genes tell us how we will decide, there is no thinking or evaluating choices, we're built to make "X decision" every time "Y choice" is presented. I think that's a load of deterministic horse shit.

Human consciousness seems to be constantly played down and explained away. I've even heard quotes from Steven Hawking implying that we're nothing more than biological robots. Not me sir, not me. I may have a body, a physical form to interact with this environment, but the 'Me' that's most real, (the True Self, Soul, the eternal and never-ending part that inhabits this temporary vessel) is not bound by genetics, the laws of science or society, and will not have my sovereign right to choose taken away from me. But this song, this line about 'falling on your knees' isn't a submission to me, and maybe that's the hiccup I've always had with 'submitting to the Will of God.' Here, the knees part refers to an overwhelmed person, humbly showing his/her appreciation for the miracle they are witnessing. The falling is a relief, an overjoy, not a subservient act. Well, not in my opinion at least. And maybe that's what submitting to the Will of God really is too, giving one's self over to the joy and appreciation, letting that love fill you and letting that be what you reflect: the very best of things.

I still have no desire to tow the line for Earthly organizations, churches, gov'ts, etc...but I'm certainly ok giving myself over to the very best ideals and values of existence. This holiday season, I intend on keeping that as my focus. Christmas has always been a winter festival of warmth and light to me, a time when even in the beginning of the cold season (here in the northern hemisphere) and in the midst of all the hibernating life and darkness, that all this light and warmth is still present and will always come back. This year, I want to be that light and warmth, beaming out to people through the haze of materialism, consumerism and other misguided distractions. This year, maybe instead of giving gifts of things to people (which I'll still do anyway, because it's fun) I'll try my hardest to instead show my unending gratitude for the best gifts I've ever received: existence, love, happiness, companionship. Maybe, in showing that gleeful gratitude, by becoming a Christmas tree of a person, "serenely beaming" (pretty, inviting lights and a fresh pine scent), I can inspire other people to do the same. And maybe this year we can all give the gift of appreciation back to our Source and to each other, and that same overwhelming, knee-buckling joy can be all of ours.

-M

Consciousness Shiftiness

It's been an interesting month since my last post. A lots happened, a giant superstorm (which I'll touch on quickly), the Presidential race and all the tension that comes of that, Halloween parties, homework assignments, transitioning into a new job, etc etc. So I've been justifiably busy for once.

I'm going to ramble today. My mind isn't distracted, but it is sort of pulling in several directions. Thankfully, they're all positive.

The bit on the storm I want to talk about is what I was able to witness, here in Wisconsin, half a country away from the event. I find most of my writing time here at school between classes, and I sit in the same spot I've always sat here in the library: 2nd floor, children's section, right in front of the humongous windows facing east. I can see Lake Michigan from here, as well as get a fantastic view of the surrounding area. I love it. But, on the particular day of Sandy's pre-impact, on that Monday, I could see, from where I was sitting, just how far the clouds of that system reached. I spent the whole of my break starring at the clouds, the high clouds moving north, the low clouds circulating south. This is, of course, very odd since all clouds have a west-to-east progression here. This isn't a big deal, but I was just overwhelmed by what I saw and wanted to comment.

So we keep ticking towards the 12/21/2012 date, and I find myself having to talk about it. I've always, always, always, felt like there was something on the horizon, something big and important, and because of its impending huge mysteriousness I've always felt very comfortable just taking my time and not being too concerned with some things around me. Everything felt temporary I suppose, like no matter what I did or what I built it wouldn't matter eventually because of "X." I don't think the world's going to end in a little over a month. I'm not sure I ever did. But, I am certain that something is going to happen that day. I know I'm opening myself up here to eat a big pile of crow if nothing happens, but I believe that the "thing" will be so subtle as to appear to have not happened. I feel different, and I keep feeling different as time goes on.

I don't feel older or more run down (though I am out of shape, and that needs to be resolved [and it is]),I feel more energized and excited for the future. I'm less scared of things and I'm slowly but surely losing my ability to actually stress about most aspects of life. My outlook keeps improving, my calmness is becoming my pronounced state-of-being, and I can feel my empathy expanding. It's hard to describe the over-whelming sense of happiness I can sustain, on demand, on a regular basis. I feel like all of this is the ramp up I've always been expecting, the transition that was going to have to take place before 'the Big Shift' coming at the end of the year.

Lately though, and this may only be the case for me, but I feel that the more I try to learn, absorb, or create to get me more towards my personal goal of ascension/transcendence/enlightenment/oneness/whatever, the more I feel a separation growing between me and the people around me. It's not the I feel that love diminishes or that I can't understand what they think or feel, but more of a (and this well make me sound conceited or egotistical, which I am, but I have no idea how to phrase it correctly without getting the point across) parent or wizened old adult interacting with children or less wizened persons. I feel like I get it, and they don't get it, yet. But I also feel like I've always been the person who would have to go forward and pave the way for others, so I'm comfortable with the temporary division.

My fears of the loss of attachment are fading away daily, melting like spring-time snow before the great revival of life that comes after winter. Everything, and I mean everything, is starting to feel divine, inspired, like a mechanism that is working exactly as it's supposed to. Looking around, you could say that the world looks bleak and growing more hopeless daily. But that's not what I see anymore; I see the potential to do great things, to make big and positive differences in both small and large scales, to do better and be better and to transition the world towards something better than it ever could have believed possible. Because I feel that the unbelievable is coming, it's unavoidable, and it'll be noticeable.

-M

Trials and Tribulations

I know I haven't written in a long while, but I have a decent excuse. My laptop was stolen in April, and that sort of ruined my ability to put things on the internet from the comfort of my own, private haven of web access. And it sort of put me in a...less than constructively creative place. I was happy with my initial reaction to the situation, calm acceptance of the loss of something material that I didn't really need, and I hoped that whoever took it found it to be useful in achieving whatever they achieved. Then I sat and stewed on it and dealt with insurance companies and, well, I became less positive. Anyway, that's not the direction I wanted to take today.

It's election season again in the United States, and that means all of media is awash with negativity and dishonesty. This isn't something new, but I feel that despite how obviously crazy political issues make us, we've actually done nothing to alleviate the problem. I can't help but feel that politics has been constructed to do just that. There's a difference, in my opinion, between governing and politics. To govern, one attempts to make the best, most correct decision possible by considering all the facts and outcomes, short and long-term. A person who governs is going to be constantly burdened by the responsibility of managing the collective lives of so many, ensuring that all of their rights are maintained and protected from any threat. Politics seems to be a game of squabbling and bickering for trivial matters in order to control the bigger ones. It appears that the end result to someone playing politics is to continue to be relevant in the game, to maintain their political power. It's an exercise in inciting tribal mindsets and fueling unsophisticated, illogical decision making in the people you hope will lease to you their authority in decision making. Because, honestly, if you take our system to what it was meant to be, you and I simply allow someone to represent us in these policy making debates; we grant our sovereign right to choose to someone else to do it for us because we are supposed to be confident in this person's ability to choose the way we would. This is never the case, as most people in power make decisions that will allow them to stay in power. And truly, do we want someone governing us who is more concerned with keeping the job from term to term or do we want someone who will make the best decisions and try to avoid getting re-elected. Do you trust the person who wants power and is willing to do the job more than the person who is capable of doing the job but would prefer not to?

I guess where I'm going with this is...well, here: that we allow ourselves to be too easily consumed by 'the show' and don't focus on 'the substance' of the argument. It's not that I'm not in favor of passionate debate, but that I feel that in a debate, you can't allow yourself to be swept up in the mood being created. You have to stay focused and grounded in your principle beliefs and make decisions calmly. We know that people make rash decisions when placed in excited states, but we disregard this information and carry on repeating the same impassioned mistakes. With each venomous comment we spew at the perceived opposition, we continue to polarize and separate ourselves from one another. And it's here, attempting to exist in this perpetual disunity, that we cannot succeed. People see each other as this thing, or that thing, a fan of this team or a fan of that team, and somehow, in these perceptions and constant categorizing, we lose track of the 'person' that is that person. We lose track of our similarities, our unity. Once we're scattered and feeling on edge because we know there are groups of people out there just waiting to 'get' the group of people we belong to, we fall into a sort of suggestion-able mindset. Because we're so worried about not letting that group out-do our group, we give away our sovereign right to decide to people we don't truly trust because we believe these champions will protect our group from those other groups. We allow these champions to suggest things to us: how to live, what's important, what's not, where to shop, what's in, what we need, what we don't need, etc. We stop being 'me' to better fit into the image of 'we' that is provided for us, and we get so concerned with belonging with these groups we put ourselves in that we lose sight of what's actually important to us.

My hope, and not just for the election season but for...ever I suppose, is that we as a people begin to undo the subtle and insidious manipulations we've endured for our lifetimes. That people start finding the 'me' of themselves more important than the 'we' and begin to develop that identity as the most comfortable one for them. Here, in this place of quite, comfortable confidence in oneself, we can begin to look to at others, but through the paradigm switched question of "how is that person there like me?" Most of all, I'd like a society that practices awareness of its surroundings, one that's not willing to let itself be led along blindly to whatever outcome someone else has chosen for it. A society that observes and thinks critically and contemplates not just the immediate but the long-term, a society that endeavors to build and achieve collectively and individually, instead of one so intent on squandering and consuming without a notion to the consequences. We have it in us to be better, to be great as 'me' and as 'we'. Each of us just has to make that decision, 2012.

-M

The Self-Centered Vs The Self-Interested

Well, I took a few days off and now I've gotten myself back to writing. Had to find some positive, mood-enhancing music to get moving, but I'm moving and my brain's falling into flow, so I think I can make a very strong attempt at making today a very strong, positive day. I said in the last post that I wanted to talk about selfishness and, specifically, how I didn't see it as a unequivocal "bad thing" for people to be. I've given some time and effort over to figuring out how exactly I want to do that, and to be honest I struggled a bit. Still am. I feel the resistance of the Collective Unconscious before even starting, the push back of minds not even presented with my argument. And maybe that's part of the problem. We're all so looked into our ideas of how things are and what they are and how they work and blah blah blah that we're completely hostile to the implication that maybe something we've always frowned on isn't actually something worth frowning at. It's funny that being wrong is easier to be than to admit to being wrong. The "wrong-ness" doesn't change, but owning your own "wrong-ness" in front of others just bums us out so much that we avoid it as often as possible, probably whether we realize it or not. Makes you wonder how we can ever hope to apologize or forgive in a culture unwilling to accept a fault or mistake for what it is. Because how can you learn from something and hope to avoid it if you continue to delude yourself about its very nature? Something to think about, huh? Anyway, not today's point. Selfishness!

In order to start this discussion I think I need to talk about where I got the idea originally. I've always been accused of being selfish and/or self-centered. It bugged me for a long time, but into my mid 20's I took a look at it and heard the criticism people were giving me and came to a conclusion. I really am selfish. It was part of my personality, an integral component of the flawed nature through which I experience existence. Despite thinking heavily about others: their wants, needs, etc., I still acted mostly in accordance with what worked out best for me. I didn't do it out of malice or cruelty, it just sort of happened without much conscious awareness. I did have what I'd consider brief, shining moments where I self-sacrificed for someone else, but on the whole M was concerned with M, and that was that. When I did do things I didn't really want to do, I did it to avoid being hassled. But, looking at that now, the not wanting to be hassled was all about me too. When I was realizing all of this, how evil I was at the core of me, I was ill-prepared to handle the revelation. I was in a poor state emotionally and mentally, and in that environment of confusion I floundered and made no growth or progress towards harmony. Later that same year, I picked up Atlas Shrugged, because I had heard it was just one of those books everyone had to read. So I began that colossal undertaking of a book. I liked it, despite some of the points and details which I didn't quite enjoy, the overall experience was quite amazing. It also proved very pertinent as we were just starting into the economic crisis and I still find myself a bit taken a back with how well that book compares to events occurring today. But that's not the focus of today. Atlas Shrugged was the first time I was presented with the idea that good, worthwhile people can be selfish and it wasn't a bad thing. 

The notion for me was revolutionary. The idea that something like the black mark on my soul of being self-centered could in fact be completely acceptable was liberating. So I explored the idea and embraced the philosophy fully. I think about me first, the rest of you second, and I am not ashamed of that. Now, there are a few short-comings of the way it was presented in the book, for example it assumed that it would work mostly in a situation where everyone was super motivated and worked to their full potential all the time. This meant that no one really helped each other, everyone worked for their own good and since everyone was doing it all at the same time, everyone technically benefited. I'm not sure that's a feasible idea, but it's a good goal to aspire to. All of humanity working to the fullness of their potential, transferring all their energy from that place of inspiration into this place we call existence? Sounds great, something to strive for. Anyway, in my life the philosophy of acknowledged self-interest worked in some peculiar ways. I made no attempt to hide the fact that I wasn't going to do anything socially that didn't interest me, and in response I got to do a lot of things I wanted to do far more often than most people. I justified it easily enough, people wouldn't cater to me if they didn't want me there, so their wants are taken care of.

Eventually I fell in love and had to attempt my new perspective in a new situation. I had to understand what love really is, what it can be, and how it changes your thought processes. To me, love is that thing which motivates you to work towards the good of others. Love makes you want what's best for someone else. However, you still get a lot out of it, not the least most notable, the warm and fuzzy feeling of being happy. But love's a contradiction to my philosophy. How can I be focused purely on self-interest if I'm interested in what's best for someone else, even at my own expense? It's here that I think I made my next, big epiphany. Love, in all its glory and splendor, cannot truly be appreciated by someone who isn't thinking about themselves. Hear me out, I promise it sort of makes sense. No one goes into a (healthy) relationship solely to make someone else happy. Your motivation is never "I want to give that person everything and not even get the satisfaction of enjoying it in the slightest!" That doesn't make any sense. You go into it because you want to. You want to be with that someone, you want to make that someone happy, you want to make them smile, you want to give them all sorts of good things, you want to sleep with them....all of it....for YOU! You are the central figure in all of YOUR thinking. Your consciousness is the first stop on your trip of interacting with existence. Love happens to be the emotion, the value, the intangible, un-quantifiable greatness to life that factors into how you view things that makes you want to think of others just as much as you think of yourself.

But the catch here for me is always the you...or the me, in my case. I labor under the belief that all of this is meaningless without the Self. The Self is the thing that lets us relate to all of this, decides what to place value on and what to enjoy, determines our direction and dreams, the Self makes us ourselves. It's like that old saying that you have to learn to love yourself before you can love someone else. I think that may be entirely correct. You'll never find happiness anywhere in life if you're constantly avoiding the things you, yourself, want. You'll never understand love if you can't love the single most important person to your life, you. You have to be the start of all change, the prime motivator in every action you take. At the core of everything, you are you. It's all about you. And I think too many people are afraid to admit that. You can't live your live for someone else, it's not actually possible. In all things experienced, they're all experienced through the Self, the you. We're all beings of Self, I'm not afraid to believe that.

So how, then, do we relate to others you may ask? Through love. Like I mentioned early, love is that thing which allows us to raise the value of other people to near equal heights of ourselves. If you're having difficult with the idea, try this: think of someone/something you love more than anyone else in the world and then try and think of someone/something else that will love your subject as much an in the same particular way as you would. Can another truly treat this object of your affection the same precious way you do? Can it ever be the same? Can that object of your interest ever be truly happy without you?! Let's not get too dramatic. But, as an personal example, I want to have kids some day. I want to have kids because I want to have kids. I already love them, without even knowing them, and I know I will try my hardest, every single fucking day to ensure they continue to have a positive experience with life. But, I want those things. I want to be able to give those things. I want children not for the sake of my children, but for the sake of completing my life, my experience, for the sake of growing my own soul with love. 

So, we're all wicked, selfish people who only want want want for ourselves?! Well, maybe some of us. Here's where I draw the distinction with some clever (or not so clever) word choices: self-centered and self-interested. A Self-centered person only thinks of himself/herself, only wants what's best for himself/herself, and does all of this because of their inability to empathize with other people, to feel a true sense of what love is. A Self-Interested person thinks mostly of herself/himself, wants what's best for herself/himself and those closest to her/him, and understands and empathizes with people in a larger sense due to her/his ability to empathize and having a good handle on what love means and what it can do. I know this comes off a little self-aggrandizing, but I think the distinction really boils down to an inherent ignorance or lack of ignorance. Those ignorant of others will continue to think only of themselves. Those who make strides to truly empathize and understand others remove themselves from that ignorance. Because, despite being creatures of Self, how miserable would it be to be all by ourselves? We're a collection of self-minded beings attempting to coexist in the same space, simultaneously toiling for the good of ourselves and those closest to us. 

The goal, for me at least, is to eventually not be a being of Self, but to be a Self-less being. Selfless is an interesting term when you think about it. We're all inspired to be selfless people because it's such a great thing to be. But look at it, posted down below there. Not bad, but when you get a chance, look up the definitions of "Self" and then "Less." Those two words should not combine to form so glorious an altruistic ideal as "selfless." I don't want to have little or no concern for myself, because without me I have nothing, because if I didn't exist, I would be nothing. I'm an ascension minded person, I've always been intrigued with the idea and am still trying to puzzle ouf my own journey through the needle's eye into a state of higher consciousness and energy. I kept hearing, over and over again, that eventually I'd have to give up the self in order to accomplish that. Believing what I do now about my Self, it certainly seems like a weighty sacrifice, one that would truly en-lighten me. But for now, I'm going to think about myself and the good I want to bring into the world for my own sake before I have to give up entirely those things that matter to me.
Self.less

adjective

having little or no concern for oneself, especially with regard tofame, position, money, etc.; unselfish.

Aspiring to Achieve

I've been wanting to return to the world of public journal writing for some time now. I just haven't provided myself with the time and motivation. I love distractions, their sweet siren song always draws me in and away from doing anything that seems the least bit constructive or productive. And that's what I'd like to focus on today: Achievement. It's a simple thing that I believe we've allowed to be degraded (by way of things like your "video game achievements" which really just state "spent time wasting time") and vilified. Society can be a bit perverse in how we acknowledge achievement. We can casually discount and forget the tremendous amount of effort it takes for a single parent to raise a child, going so far as to imply that it's abusive to raise a child with only one parent. Or we can hand out prestigious awards to people who have good ideas before they even attempt to implement them, and eventually that person turns out to be someone who stands opposed to all the good ideas they claimed to have.

Achievement is one of the supreme values or the human existence, the idea that your thoughts and actions made manifest in this world something of lasting and distinct significance to someone. Usually yourself, but others can also be included in the value assessment of the achievement's worth. To aspire to achieve is to put your Will to work in the direction of effecting change in the world. Though, I believe some aspirations can be focused in negative directions, I'm going to avoid talking about those for the sake of keeping the overall energy of this post positive.

Before I ramble further, I want to touch on Will, and why I insist on capitalizing it in this post. It's not the name of a person in this case, but to show due respect and reverence to the focused energy of human consciousness and decisiveness. I think many of us forget that Free Will, besides being an amazing gift (if that's your belief), also affords us with an astounding level of personal power. This power is not merely over ourselves, our own mental states and the states of our lives and choices and their resulting consequences, but power over other people as well. We choose how we will be, every single moment of every single day. Many people might argue that external factors and circumstances play significant roles in altering or limiting our choices, but ultimately the responsibility of who we will be, moment by moment, in response to every one of our experiences falls to ourselves. And that should be purely empowering and inspiring to all of us, and certainly a huge relief. Because, when it comes down to it, we decide how we want to be. We can choose, all the time, every time, to be happy. Peace over stress and anxiety, love over fear and anger, every time. Will is that exactly that, us imposing ourselves on and in existence. When we stand up and identify "This perspective/consciousness/personality/person/whatever, chooses to think, experience, act, react, and live in this way" we assert the power our "us-ness" into the fabric of reality. We write our own stories in a sense. Our Will is our pen, flowing across paper to bring our ideas forward into permanence, into being.

Achievement, therefore, is one of the most crucial aspects of the human experience. A life without it, or a life that cannot see where it had achieved, is doomed to feel unfulfilled and invalidated. What's the point of a life of no consequence? There is none. It's like being a rock: present but not moving, not changing, not experiencing, not alive. Now, I do not believe for a second that any life is absent achievement or meaning. All life, by sole virtue of being, is sacred and awe-inspiring (in this author's opinion). But how can those with  a temporarily limited capacity for positive thinking (because we can all change our perspective to one of a positive nature, given time and effort) find achievement for themselves? Simply by changing their perspective, starting small, and having the motivation to be patient with the experience.

As I mentioned earlier, achievement is purely subjective. What one heralds as the greatest thing for mankind since the discovery of fire another would call only the best thing since sliced bread. We have to start in our own perceptions of ourselves and what we do to see what we accomplish. We start small, with something as ordinary as a list of daily chores or errands. All of them, things to accomplish. Once accomplished, we have achieved. And from the most humble of beginnings we find ourselves on the road to something greater. The old adage of having to learn to walk before you can run holds true. Those who desire to do great things must first learn to excel at the little things and to take true pride in those things. Pride has been labeled as a dirty word for far too long. But, being so strongly associated with the Seven Deadly Sins, its no wonder. For too long humankind has fallen victim to problems with group think, and though in some instances it's not necessarily a bad thing, in far too many instances it can be a horrible thing.

Pride is a bad thing if it leads someone to arrogance. But those two things are different states of being. Pride is truly knowing and acknowledging one's strengths, virtues, talents, and whatever other positive things one perceives them-self to have. Arrogance is the belief that one's strengths, virtues, talents and whatever else are better than they truly are and insisting it's that way oneself and to others. All too often pride is associated with negatives, a proud person is stubborn or cannot see their shortcomings. It gets associated with super villains and evil characters from fiction, like when Grand Moff Tarkin refuses to evacuate the Death Star in their "moment of triumph" just as a precaution. But that wasn't pride, that was arrogance. And arrogance is always associated with a disassociation from reality. It's ok to be proud of yourself, of what you can do, of what you have done. No one can tell you otherwise, and if they try then you shouldn't listen. As long as you can say, after honest self-reflection, that what you perceive about yourself is true, have at it. But, if you haven't taken the time to examine, or insist on something that might not be true, you've begun down the slippery slope. And that's the true horror of arrogance, that lack of connection to reality allows for more of the same, disconnected thinking and warped perceptions. Eventually, if you lose sight of who you really are, who will be left to tell you what you want or what will make you fulfilled?

Pride and humility go hand-in-hand, like two sides of the same coin. You must know what you do well to understand that what you do well is not everything. And in knowing that you cannot do everything well, you find humility. You find honesty with yourself, and that's an important thing to have. Strengths and weakness come and go. At one time I could run miles, do the splits, and break boards with the greatest of ease. I'm proud of those facts, but I humbly acknowledge I can't do those things right now. But that does not have to so forever. I can begin the long road of being able to run miles again, practice the splits, and hone my latent black belt-ness right back to the bane of wooden planks' existence.

I know that in my life I'd like to achieve. Though I'd love to get all sorts of accolades and acknowledgement from my fellow human beings, I want to achieve for me and only for me (but I wouldn't mind if other people reaped benefits from my achievement). Though it's a bit of a selfish attitude, I don't believe selfishness is a bad thing (that'll be another post). I feel it's important to do things for your own reasons, because doing things for other people may not yield the net positive you were hoping for. Writing this post today is an achievement for me. I found the time, made use of it, and did something I had wanted to do. Points for me. I can smile and say "I achieved something for myself today, and I'm proud of it." With a little focus and self-discipline, in the next few days I'll write something else, and then I will have achieved a measure of growing consistency with my posts. And thus, from the most humble of goals in the simplest of activities, I'll begin to Will my reality into one akin to a perpetual achievement machine, always moving forward to produce positive outcomes in my existence so that I can find happiness everyday in everything I do.

-M

Nowhere Fast...

Today may have been one of the worst days of my life. I've had shitty days before, that's nothing new. But today...today was something worse. Far worse. This week I was introduced to the Myth of Sisyphus, a paper by Albert Camus. I have to wonder why it was brought up, because knowing that the person who brought it up knows me very well, he would know that that saying I seem 'unusually depressed' followed by 'that reminds me of this essay...' would only inspire me to hunt for the piece myself and read it. Apparently Kindle hasn't deemed it worthy of its vast library, so I'll buy the real thing tomorrow or the next day. In any case, I am now generally aware of the theme of the paper. It's one I've been struggling with for almost a year now.

Nearly a year ago I found myself peering into the metaphysical unknown and came across "the Abyss." It was something dark and terrible, an inevitability of existence which even though I had some notion of its being there, I never went looking for it, never gazed down deep into it for any length of time. To quote Nietzsche "And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." And that's what it did. I lost a lot of optimism, too much of my hope that things will turn out alright. It's probably where my bleak perspective on everything lately finds its origins. In that cavernous nothingness that all existence is doomed to, the bleak fact of our universe. Everything will eventually be nothing. It's a truth of the universe, it's slowly slipping into entropy. Eventually everything will become so distant and so cold that everything will stop, and that'll be the end and there's no way to avoid it. Camus's work, though I can't imagine it speaks specifically to the science of the universe, presents a similar conclusions. Eventually we realize that it's all meaningless, and any meaning we find in life we have put there ourselves. We can make leaps here at our cliff's edge. We can leap off, call it like it appears, and commit suicide. But those aren't the only leaps we can make. We can make leaps of science or leaps of faith, and put meaning into the hope that one of those two things will provide purpose and fulfillment in an existence which doesn't have either. I myself have always been guilty of making these leaps, more the leaps of faith than science, but admittedly I do both. These things provide hope to what would seem like an otherwise hopeless situation. But science works in the hope that man will use knowledge appropriately and justly. But if there's no universal truth or standard, who defines what that is? Put God into the mix and we have our outside perspective of morality, our universal truth, but then science becomes a bit meaningless as all falls short to the power of God and man's dominion over existence is a bit cheapened.

At this point, a fourth option is presented for how to deal with this realization. Instead of leaping off the cliff, or leaping away from it with faith in God or faith in the potential of man, a person can turn away from the nothingness and walk back to the world everyone else lives in, bringing the horror of the abyss back with him. This may be hard to comprehend, thankfully media has given a great example in the case of the Joker from The Dark Knight. The Joker was free, completely and utterly. But he was so because of his unique perspective, one which I'm not even going to try to put into words. I feel like I have the potential to become that sort of person, slowly but surely. Someone who doesn't simply have anything good to say, but someone who presents the cryptic truth in a way that it can't be avoided. I feel like my propensity for honest evaluation of what I perceive and my ability to see insightfully into people will be perverted to undo them at their very cores. Frankly the idea terrifies me as it exhilarates me.

Today was terrible not because I saw farther into the Abyss or because something otherwise awful happened. Today was terrible because I think for the first time in a long time I looked in hard enough and saw myself for what I really am; a failure. One could reason and logic that I've accomplished many things throughout my life, that I've made a difference and that I've meant many things to many people. One could say I've seen great things, thought interesting thoughts, loved, laughed, lived, etc etc ad infinitum and ad nauseam. But really, anything someone could tell me all comes down to me and how I accept or reject it. I know that here and now, my very nearly 26 years on this planet have been squandered. I've done next to nothing with my time that was worth it. For all my intelligence, wit, and charm I've produced no results that I can say are either lasting or worthwhile. I'm unhappy at the deepest level with who I am and what I haven't done, what I've never made myself do. I'm adept at putting off, at making excuses, and finding other things to distract me. I'm adept at ruining my life. I could never be fully conscious of how many ways I've endeavored to degrade my experience on this planet, how hard I've worked to sell myself short. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then the road to unsatisfactory existence is littered with shortcuts.

I'm angry at myself for making me so miserable. I know how I've done it, my inability to decide any course of action leaves me doing nothing at all. Doing nothing has produced splendid results. So splendid that contemplating a slow fade into nothingness is now more preferable to me then spending another day languishing for a chance to ruin any opportunity that I come by.....

But, today, when I felt myself literally shaking at my frustrations, ready to scream and lash out one violent, final time to bring some sort of meaning in how I chose to end things, it all faded away, like it always has before when I've grown desperate to the point where I no longer feel human. You may not be traditionally religious or spiritual, but I can tell you at moments like this I'm aware that no force on Earth can so simply and so effortlessly erase the poisoning emotions from my being like they have been erased in times like today. When all that darkness and misery and horror fades away, I remember...

I believe in man's capacity for the infinite. I believe in man's power to choose and to create and to will into existence that which he desires to exist. I believe that who or what I am today isn't what I have to be tomorrow. I believe that we define ourselves not simply by where we finish, but how we worked to get there. I desire purpose for my life, so I'm going to go make it. I want to accomplish on a daily basis, so I will find ways to triumph on a daily basis. I want to be happy, to cherish what experience I get to have and the people with which I get to experience it. I want to never feel so desperate again and I know, for that, I will have to believe that nothing is ever so desperate. Hope remains for those willing to fight to keep it. The universe may one day slowly fade to darkness, but I intend on recapturing the light of my existence and I intend for its brilliance to be blinding.

-M

P.S. Camus presents a fifth option wherein one stays at the cliff, acknowledging the absurdity of it all and being content with it, finding happiness in its lack of meaning. That feels like giving up to me, so I chose not to present it.

The Slippery Slope

Well I'm not surprised that I took months to come back and start writing again. It's not that I forgot to do it or that I didn't have something to write about. It's more that I didn't want to. I kind of feel like I live my life under an all pervasive motivation dampening field. No matter how many good ideas I have for my time or what my state of mind is, I almost always resort to doing nothing. Has my subconscious manifested it's belief that all life is futile during my waking hours?! No, I doubt it. I'm sure my subconscious self has at some point deduced that life as it is seems to be stacked against the living, but I'm well aware of the potential for accomplishment and fulfillment, which means so is subconscious me. And, since we're still here and my dreams aren't dark or depressing (oddly enough) I can only conclude that both of 'us' have decided to keep on truckin'.

Getting back on track and to the point; I'm lazy. My guess is that I'm aware that I can continuously use the excuse that I've never tried that hard at anything so I really haven't failed at anything. It's a bad attitude to have for sure, and I know it. I'm trying, day by day, to get myself back in order. I feel like I've fallen, or that I never began at a standing position, and I need to right myself, get back on my metaphorical feet. I earned my black belt in Tae Kwon Do years ago now. Our school motto, when translated states: "Fall seven times, stand 8." Unless you're dense you get the meaning, persevere no matter what. What I'm doing now clearly isn't working for me, what I need to do is the question.

I have a plan of sorts of how to utilize my boundless free time and my decaying intellect and innate talents/skill sets. Expected items of the plan include working out more for the myriad positive outcomes it produces and reading stimulating books and articles to prevent the entropic decline of my brain processing power(I'm aware that "entropic" may not be the best descriptor for the decline of my brain power, but the steady march of existence per the thermodynamic mechanism of entropy intrigues me). Some unusual things I'm planning on doing, depending on your perspective, revolve around the idea of personal improvement in both useful and completely inane avenues of human existence. I'd like to learn things ranging from magic card tricks to hands-free cartwheels. Everything and anything is game, because I'm working under the assumption that any gained knowledge or learned skill is valuable intrinsically and therefore going to help to construct a better me. Also, this foolishness will help me use my time in a fashion that isn't so wasteful, because even if the thing I'm attempting to learn seems to lack an avenue of practical application, I'm at least learning something, using my cognitive powers of understanding and adaptation.

So that's the idea, the general framework for the "General Personal Enhancement Program." There is a "Specific Purpose Personal Enhancement Program" as well but that's got some time to go before implementation and has some kinks and quirks to work out. You may or may not have read the titles and interpreted an odd pang of mis-use with the word enhancement. Improvement seemed like a more contemporary and universal word to use in lieu of 'enhancement' but I'd like to think that there's no way to really improve on the human condition of existence. It's my belief we're filled with infinite potential for all things, good and bad. How we undertake to realize that potential defines our character and how we broaden our ability to experience our infinite nature is how we enhance our experience. So, enhancement. Hope today's post left you with more questions than answers, maybe it'll draw you back.

-M

"No New Posts!"

Well here we go, the first fateful step in the world of online blogging. I truly enjoy the fact that I can vent in a private, personal forum that may or may not reach multiple people.... Actually the idea is a bit strange to me. I get the idea of searching for personal connection by airing personal thoughts in a public forum, but really how personal can you get when you know other people might read your crazy? With that 'line' in my head I'll endeavor to be open and honest without much that can be perceived as inflammatory.

I think I'll start my first entry with a quick explanation of the title (not that it isn't particularly self-explanatory). The title I had for quite awhile and I can really relate to it. Everything I put here will lean towards the abstract nonsense that fills my head on the days when the demands on my brain activity are so sparse that it can wander to fantastical places. My mal-adjustments are probably similar in some respects to many other people's, but in so many ways as they may be similar I get the feeling that there are twice as many ways in which they're unique. I don't think I fit, like somewhere along the assembly line I got fitted with octagonal pegs in a world of square pegs and round holes. Malcontent has to be my favorite part of the title. The word wasn't new to me when I read it in a book about Alexander the Great, but it's use in labeling a particular group of his oldest and most skilled Macedonian troops resonated with me. Here were the people who left with him and his dreams of conquest when he first stepped forth from Greece, and they had had enough of it. To stop their infectious bad attitude from polluting the ever expanding grand campaign, they were put to death. Their lives were taken for seeing the truth behind their leader, that somewhere along the way he had lost his grip on on reality and was now fueling his ego with a quest for glory he could never obtain. Alexander grew selfish and those who called him such were dishonored for realizing that fact.

I don't have anything in particular to write today. I simply started so that I can say I started and from here can begin with real purpose. I hope to update and add regularly and I plan on draining some of the darker and stranger places of my mind to fill this bucket of whatever-you-will-call-it that will become this blog. Who knows, maybe I'll add a video portion too?

-M