If you're looking for guarantees, then this life is not the place for you. Please move along.
If you feel like you have only been alive for 20 minutes, as opposed to 20 years, then you might be one of us.
If you have dreams (both asleep and waking) that are indistinguishable in your mind from true memories but for your own conscious knowledge that the true memories actually occurred - you might be one of us.
If sleep leaves you tired, feeling displaced, unrefreshed, and whispering in your head as to the reality of the place you have awoken in - then you might be one of us.
If a life of doing things you do not care about for the better portion of your days seems insanely depressing, you might be one of us.
If your eyes are continually drawn to the sky, as if reading cosmic headlines, you might be one of us.
If when you try you only find failure, but when you do not try you find success, you might be one of us.
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Humans are Squirrels?
On a pleasant spring morning, Floyd walked onto his back porch and found that a significant section of backyard had collapsed in on itself and revealed a seemingly endless gaping maw.
On a pleasant spring morning, Darren walked onto his back porch and found a cruise-ship sized dumpster occupying what had once been the field behind his house.
On a pleasant spring morning, Abigail walked onto her back porch and decided that it really had all been a dream.
On a pleasant spring morning, Tony walked onto his back porch and initiated a series of events leading to the demise of several (far less interesting) alternate Earth's in various alternate universes.
The sad thing about an alien invasion or other such events indicative of mankind's destruction - people would bring their XBoxes and jewelry with them as they tried to run away from the giant hovering vacuum-like machines being used to wipe us out. If you do manage to get away from the highly skilled and experienced operators of these massive killing dynamos, do you really think it will matter how classy you look with your diamond necklace and $3000 watch? And will there be power available to play video games? If humanity has just been exterminated and those left are hiding in piles of rubble and sharing terrorist caves, do you really think you're going to feel up to playing Assassin's Creed?
But fear not. It's unlikely that aliens will be destroying our civilization anytime soon. At least not in our lifetime. Isn't that the benchmark that makes it okay for horrific things to occur somewhere else down the timeline? The sun will expand and consume the earth -- a galactically nearby supernova will irradiate the earth --- comets --- meteors --- intergalactic ballistic missiles gone astray thanks to incompetent outsourced alien computer technicians --- not to worry, it all won't happen for thousands of years! Oh, well then....who wants to go ride bikes? No worries here!
Even if aliens DID decide to wipe us out, it's unlikely that their actual goal would be to kill us humans off. Why do creatures conquer other creatures and take their space? To have that space for themselves. When we decide to turn a patch of forest into parking garages, banks, and churches we don't storm menacingly through the trees slaying squirrels and badgers. We matter-of-factly knock down the trees, bulldoze the hills, and furrow our brows occasionally at the furry stream of four-legged refugees that seem to be yelling and looting each other's nests. So, if the aliens came here it's doubtful they would come equipped with special human-deatomizing lasers or vacuum machines or other such weaponry ideal for dispatching homo sapiens. If aliens are anything like us, then they have a compulsive need to build banks and churches on every corner (if they're from rural or Southern areas of the alien homeworld) and if they are city dwellers - parking garages and fast-food restaurants. They would probably just ignore us (like a bunch of squirrels) as we shriek, flee, and rob each other as they placidly bulldoze our homes and chop down our skyscrapers. Then we'd watch from the hills as they take their 10AM break and talk about alien NASCAR races while eating alien oatmeal cream pies. We probably wouldn't concern them in the least. Or maybe a few of them might fling their empty Alien-Coke cans at us. Or they might even find us cute and fuzzy. Like squirrels.
On a pleasant spring morning, Darren walked onto his back porch and found a cruise-ship sized dumpster occupying what had once been the field behind his house.
On a pleasant spring morning, Abigail walked onto her back porch and decided that it really had all been a dream.
On a pleasant spring morning, Tony walked onto his back porch and initiated a series of events leading to the demise of several (far less interesting) alternate Earth's in various alternate universes.
The sad thing about an alien invasion or other such events indicative of mankind's destruction - people would bring their XBoxes and jewelry with them as they tried to run away from the giant hovering vacuum-like machines being used to wipe us out. If you do manage to get away from the highly skilled and experienced operators of these massive killing dynamos, do you really think it will matter how classy you look with your diamond necklace and $3000 watch? And will there be power available to play video games? If humanity has just been exterminated and those left are hiding in piles of rubble and sharing terrorist caves, do you really think you're going to feel up to playing Assassin's Creed?
But fear not. It's unlikely that aliens will be destroying our civilization anytime soon. At least not in our lifetime. Isn't that the benchmark that makes it okay for horrific things to occur somewhere else down the timeline? The sun will expand and consume the earth -- a galactically nearby supernova will irradiate the earth --- comets --- meteors --- intergalactic ballistic missiles gone astray thanks to incompetent outsourced alien computer technicians --- not to worry, it all won't happen for thousands of years! Oh, well then....who wants to go ride bikes? No worries here!
Even if aliens DID decide to wipe us out, it's unlikely that their actual goal would be to kill us humans off. Why do creatures conquer other creatures and take their space? To have that space for themselves. When we decide to turn a patch of forest into parking garages, banks, and churches we don't storm menacingly through the trees slaying squirrels and badgers. We matter-of-factly knock down the trees, bulldoze the hills, and furrow our brows occasionally at the furry stream of four-legged refugees that seem to be yelling and looting each other's nests. So, if the aliens came here it's doubtful they would come equipped with special human-deatomizing lasers or vacuum machines or other such weaponry ideal for dispatching homo sapiens. If aliens are anything like us, then they have a compulsive need to build banks and churches on every corner (if they're from rural or Southern areas of the alien homeworld) and if they are city dwellers - parking garages and fast-food restaurants. They would probably just ignore us (like a bunch of squirrels) as we shriek, flee, and rob each other as they placidly bulldoze our homes and chop down our skyscrapers. Then we'd watch from the hills as they take their 10AM break and talk about alien NASCAR races while eating alien oatmeal cream pies. We probably wouldn't concern them in the least. Or maybe a few of them might fling their empty Alien-Coke cans at us. Or they might even find us cute and fuzzy. Like squirrels.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
The Bones of You
Awoke in a strange place. The placement here feels random. No real reason for me to appear here. Just random. But I'm here. On this barren hilltop. With my bones in the ground below my feet. Yet the same bones are still there under my skin. Strange that I know this. It looks cold here. But I'm quite comfortable. I must be dead.
Ah, now I recognize this feeling. When I was young I routinely had these moments where I realized that I was alive. Usually they happened on their own, but sometimes I could cause them to occur. I would look at my hands. And the autopilot that we all have running in our heads would switch off. A shocking panic would flood through me. Those are MY hands. I am living right now. Everything I do or think is actually happening. Then I would take even further steps back from myself. In a few moments this shock will fade, as I can already feel it doing, and then I'll be returned to the numbness of living. I have to remember that I am alive and that everything matters. These are MY HANDS. It was a startling moment whenever it found me. I tried explaining it to others, but they didn't seem to understand. I guess the rhythm of life lulls us to sleep so well that most of the time we are just flying along on autopilot. We go through life without even being aware of it. I'm not sure if that's because we are doing something wrong or if that's just the nature of being human. Those moments do not come as often as the years grow. It's frightening to realize you're alive and that most of the time you've forgotten that fact. It's almost like actually being able to feel God watching you. This isn't a game. This isn't a movie. This isn't just the daily routine. I'm not watching this -- I'm LIVING it!
So, the hilltop. Dead but not dead. That feeling I used to get when I'd look at my hands: Now I feel it constantly.
Ah, now I recognize this feeling. When I was young I routinely had these moments where I realized that I was alive. Usually they happened on their own, but sometimes I could cause them to occur. I would look at my hands. And the autopilot that we all have running in our heads would switch off. A shocking panic would flood through me. Those are MY hands. I am living right now. Everything I do or think is actually happening. Then I would take even further steps back from myself. In a few moments this shock will fade, as I can already feel it doing, and then I'll be returned to the numbness of living. I have to remember that I am alive and that everything matters. These are MY HANDS. It was a startling moment whenever it found me. I tried explaining it to others, but they didn't seem to understand. I guess the rhythm of life lulls us to sleep so well that most of the time we are just flying along on autopilot. We go through life without even being aware of it. I'm not sure if that's because we are doing something wrong or if that's just the nature of being human. Those moments do not come as often as the years grow. It's frightening to realize you're alive and that most of the time you've forgotten that fact. It's almost like actually being able to feel God watching you. This isn't a game. This isn't a movie. This isn't just the daily routine. I'm not watching this -- I'm LIVING it!
So, the hilltop. Dead but not dead. That feeling I used to get when I'd look at my hands: Now I feel it constantly.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Sunday Morning Improv
Yielding
So this is how it ends
When the sky turns green and gold
Let this go
Enough already
Just roll over
Show the sun your soft spot
Unflinching
Villages in the grass beside your eyes
Gravity holds them, too
More Than Just Inner Peace
Once upon a time I had a happy marriage
Snide remarks spoke of medical assistance
forming the bridge
My creative side and I, so merry and free
Instant responses
Oh the flow
Direct synaptic connections and understandings
With a pipeline to our emotional core
Erupting on cue,
with the ease of a dorm room
It frothed forth faster than I could fill the lines
Easy men, we may have to actually try some day
We revolved so well together
No trying required
No barriers
Just the sweet flow of crude ideas
thinking faster than writing
fully lubricated
manifesting satisfaction of one self
One vision at a time
But we grew apart
Something changed
Walls between us
Now we talk through mediators
Cranial correspondents
The kids don't recognize us without drinks in our hands
Casting bitter glances, with gooey loved filled longing centers
Oh to have that back again!
With all that we've learned in our own time apart
We'd be beautiful together
More than just little eruptions
and thick flowing crude
We'd be hydrogen and continental shiftings
Mass climate change with laughing glaciers
Sadistic trees, taking it all back, storming the cities
with sentient clouds, giving press conferences
revealing their cumulus intellects
and time-free moments in the sun
strikingly similar to the first view you receive in heaven
and a way to reach it in your dreams
And oh no, what's this
I cannot even finish this without
Static and distraction
So this is how it ends
When the sky turns green and gold
Let this go
Enough already
Just roll over
Show the sun your soft spot
Unflinching
Villages in the grass beside your eyes
Gravity holds them, too
More Than Just Inner Peace
Once upon a time I had a happy marriage
Snide remarks spoke of medical assistance
forming the bridge
My creative side and I, so merry and free
Instant responses
Oh the flow
Direct synaptic connections and understandings
With a pipeline to our emotional core
Erupting on cue,
with the ease of a dorm room
It frothed forth faster than I could fill the lines
Easy men, we may have to actually try some day
We revolved so well together
No trying required
No barriers
Just the sweet flow of crude ideas
thinking faster than writing
fully lubricated
manifesting satisfaction of one self
One vision at a time
But we grew apart
Something changed
Walls between us
Now we talk through mediators
Cranial correspondents
The kids don't recognize us without drinks in our hands
Casting bitter glances, with gooey loved filled longing centers
Oh to have that back again!
With all that we've learned in our own time apart
We'd be beautiful together
More than just little eruptions
and thick flowing crude
We'd be hydrogen and continental shiftings
Mass climate change with laughing glaciers
Sadistic trees, taking it all back, storming the cities
with sentient clouds, giving press conferences
revealing their cumulus intellects
and time-free moments in the sun
strikingly similar to the first view you receive in heaven
and a way to reach it in your dreams
And oh no, what's this
I cannot even finish this without
Static and distraction
Friday, April 18, 2008
Mad World
I've become utterly intimidated by this blog. I can still post freely on my myspace blog, but here...it's like I'm Hitler and I'm on stage trying to entertain an audience of allied soldiers. Nothing's going to work.
It's been a couple weeks since I tried to write on here, but school has been battering me around. I had a moment today...I was making up an exam I had missed while in the hospital with a viral infection last month. I had to take the test in what was essentially a hallway right outside a couple of offices. In one office my professor chatted with a student about video games. In the other, another prof who apparently heads the department or serves on some nonsensical bureaucratic committee feverishly held a phone conversation. They were discussing the third paragraph in some official letter that had to do with policy regarding the termination of professors. The way he kept going on and on about how the paragraph "just wasn't right" in such a loud and irritating tone made concentrating quite difficult. Not to mention the pertinent debate going on in the other room about Assassin's Creed and whether the combat style is too disorienting. The Paragraph Professor annoyed me the most. And distracted me to no end. Needless to say, I didn't do very well on the exam. But then I had that moment when I realized the folly of so much of society's existence. This guy's life has come down to sitting in an office and having stressful phone conversations about some words in an insignificant letter? So much of what everyone is this world HAS to do in order to "earn a living" is just preposterous. What's worse is the way so many get wrapped up in what they're doing and fall victim to the fallacy that it is worth stress and precious time. Holden Caulfield must be weeping in a beer somewhere. In today's world you're almost required to become a "phoney." (be someone or something you are not) And I include in that, spending your time, life, and energy on things that mean very little to you personally. Reports? Sales figures? Mission Statements? Resumes? When did the world become all about being fake and "selling yourself," "putting forth an image," and ultimately filling each day with nonsense?
I know some of your out there will read this and perhaps agree with the sentiment, but then that adult in you will kick in and you'll give me a pat on the head before telling me how not everyone can just pursue their passions in life -- that all those things (reports, committees, charts, company policies, etc) are all important. It's like we all fall asleep and forget that we each only have a limited time on this planet. Why must we WASTE it worrying over complete bullshit that deep down we really don't care about? Honestly -- what's more important to you: the stuff you do all day at work, what you learn in school -- or your family, your friends, art, music, books, nature, holidays, etc????? I realize we have to have jobs in order to survive, but how do so many seem to just accept it and disconnect from the inner self and it's longings? How do people go through each day CARING about the nonsense they have to do? When time is so short and life so tenable -- how can you sit in a dreary office all day freaking out over some damn paragraph in a letter and NOT be severely upset about the fact that that is what your life has come to? I don't understand the mechanics behind it. How do you will yourself to forget what you really care about and instead do all that other garbage?
I don't know....I just don't know where or how I'm meant to fit into this world. Unless it involves something I genuinely care about or am interested in, I just don't see how I can do the same thing day after day.
It's been a couple weeks since I tried to write on here, but school has been battering me around. I had a moment today...I was making up an exam I had missed while in the hospital with a viral infection last month. I had to take the test in what was essentially a hallway right outside a couple of offices. In one office my professor chatted with a student about video games. In the other, another prof who apparently heads the department or serves on some nonsensical bureaucratic committee feverishly held a phone conversation. They were discussing the third paragraph in some official letter that had to do with policy regarding the termination of professors. The way he kept going on and on about how the paragraph "just wasn't right" in such a loud and irritating tone made concentrating quite difficult. Not to mention the pertinent debate going on in the other room about Assassin's Creed and whether the combat style is too disorienting. The Paragraph Professor annoyed me the most. And distracted me to no end. Needless to say, I didn't do very well on the exam. But then I had that moment when I realized the folly of so much of society's existence. This guy's life has come down to sitting in an office and having stressful phone conversations about some words in an insignificant letter? So much of what everyone is this world HAS to do in order to "earn a living" is just preposterous. What's worse is the way so many get wrapped up in what they're doing and fall victim to the fallacy that it is worth stress and precious time. Holden Caulfield must be weeping in a beer somewhere. In today's world you're almost required to become a "phoney." (be someone or something you are not) And I include in that, spending your time, life, and energy on things that mean very little to you personally. Reports? Sales figures? Mission Statements? Resumes? When did the world become all about being fake and "selling yourself," "putting forth an image," and ultimately filling each day with nonsense?
I know some of your out there will read this and perhaps agree with the sentiment, but then that adult in you will kick in and you'll give me a pat on the head before telling me how not everyone can just pursue their passions in life -- that all those things (reports, committees, charts, company policies, etc) are all important. It's like we all fall asleep and forget that we each only have a limited time on this planet. Why must we WASTE it worrying over complete bullshit that deep down we really don't care about? Honestly -- what's more important to you: the stuff you do all day at work, what you learn in school -- or your family, your friends, art, music, books, nature, holidays, etc????? I realize we have to have jobs in order to survive, but how do so many seem to just accept it and disconnect from the inner self and it's longings? How do people go through each day CARING about the nonsense they have to do? When time is so short and life so tenable -- how can you sit in a dreary office all day freaking out over some damn paragraph in a letter and NOT be severely upset about the fact that that is what your life has come to? I don't understand the mechanics behind it. How do you will yourself to forget what you really care about and instead do all that other garbage?
I don't know....I just don't know where or how I'm meant to fit into this world. Unless it involves something I genuinely care about or am interested in, I just don't see how I can do the same thing day after day.
Friday, April 4, 2008
McCready Speaks
Good old McCready here. Our dear friend Richard has been ignoring me lately. But it's not his fault. He has that ADD. His brain never met a distracting thought it didn't like.
But you know, I've been thinking about it. It's possible that his problem with distraction and focusing is not simply of natural origin. At first I found this world of yours rather limited and overflowing with sleepwalking dead. But there is something else going on here. It's very hidden. Whoever is keeping it hidden has done a fair job of it, too. There are more like our friend Richard out there. Perhaps even some of you share his...condition. Have trouble sleeping? Strange, detailed dreams? Awake exhausted and aching? Have trouble fitting into the machine of society? Notice things that most do not? Feel like parts of your brain have been blocked off? That your mind is a swirling tornado of thoughts, feelings, and ideas? Oh yes, there are more of you out there. What a sight when all of your heads finally clear and you start rearranging this little world. Not that it matters to me, I have other places to be. But traveling was never a skill of mine.
Anyhow, maybe one of these "drug companies" (I still can't get over that one!) will accidentally manufacture a pill that can illuminate your clouded minds. Or maybe you'll stumble your way through the dark and into the light all on your own. (There's much more personal self-satisfaction if you do it yourself.) Goodbye for now, my friends. Look for me in your dreams, I do love to lurk.
But you know, I've been thinking about it. It's possible that his problem with distraction and focusing is not simply of natural origin. At first I found this world of yours rather limited and overflowing with sleepwalking dead. But there is something else going on here. It's very hidden. Whoever is keeping it hidden has done a fair job of it, too. There are more like our friend Richard out there. Perhaps even some of you share his...condition. Have trouble sleeping? Strange, detailed dreams? Awake exhausted and aching? Have trouble fitting into the machine of society? Notice things that most do not? Feel like parts of your brain have been blocked off? That your mind is a swirling tornado of thoughts, feelings, and ideas? Oh yes, there are more of you out there. What a sight when all of your heads finally clear and you start rearranging this little world. Not that it matters to me, I have other places to be. But traveling was never a skill of mine.
Anyhow, maybe one of these "drug companies" (I still can't get over that one!) will accidentally manufacture a pill that can illuminate your clouded minds. Or maybe you'll stumble your way through the dark and into the light all on your own. (There's much more personal self-satisfaction if you do it yourself.) Goodbye for now, my friends. Look for me in your dreams, I do love to lurk.
Posting for Posting's Sake
After spring break, all my writing attempts got pushed to the back of the mental workshop. I'm also finding it harder and harder to blog on here and on myspace. Like now there's pressure or something. So, this morning I'm posting for the sake of posting. I have to keep doing this or I'll slip back into apathy.
I've also been pondering a different story idea than the whole McCready thing. (naturally) It involves the world being decimated by a virus or chemical warfare. Seemingly everyone is dead and gone. But there's a lone survivor who doesn't quite recall who is he or what has happened. I think he knows his name and has a scattering of memories, but the problem is more that everything is just garbled in his head. He wakes up on a island in the Pacific - maybe near Australia or New Zealand. Much to his surprise, the ones who find him and wake him up are not other survivors, but are actually robots. Some of them look just like humans, but he can tell a difference. They take him back to civilization where he discovers that there are millions of these robots and that they're essentially cleaning up and rebuilding from the destruction. They hold him in some sort of reverence since he is the first living human they've found. Almost like how we would treat the last remaining member of an animal species.
Anyway, that's the new thing bouncing around in my head. I drive around town and imagine no humans. Or maybe robots driving around trying to continue the illusion of society for the lone survivor's mental well-being.
I've also been pondering a different story idea than the whole McCready thing. (naturally) It involves the world being decimated by a virus or chemical warfare. Seemingly everyone is dead and gone. But there's a lone survivor who doesn't quite recall who is he or what has happened. I think he knows his name and has a scattering of memories, but the problem is more that everything is just garbled in his head. He wakes up on a island in the Pacific - maybe near Australia or New Zealand. Much to his surprise, the ones who find him and wake him up are not other survivors, but are actually robots. Some of them look just like humans, but he can tell a difference. They take him back to civilization where he discovers that there are millions of these robots and that they're essentially cleaning up and rebuilding from the destruction. They hold him in some sort of reverence since he is the first living human they've found. Almost like how we would treat the last remaining member of an animal species.
Anyway, that's the new thing bouncing around in my head. I drive around town and imagine no humans. Or maybe robots driving around trying to continue the illusion of society for the lone survivor's mental well-being.
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