[743] Principled Act

I try to explain “calmly and logically” the many things that go right in my life constantly. Where this habit becomes insufficient is in actual moments of dread or despair. When you just recite the lines or go through the kind of “I need to get this out of the way so I can get to the bitching part” motions, you don't feel what you need in those shitty moments to bring you back to anything.

I tried to do a little more affirmation and testimony in my last blog. I had a series of “it's okay” sentiments about my behavior and feelings. Because while I tend to feel the responsibility for “everything,” rarely do I ever let the positivity take me over as much as the paralyzing terribleness. Like, I think it's okay to wish for things you don't think are going to happen. I think it's okay to feel bad when people you care or cared about no longer do for you. I think it's okay to remind yourself that when you've done things in earnest affection and effort, no matter how many people will throw that back in your face or find something to resent you over, the positivity came from you.

I forget that about myself. I'm the positive force. I do things. I create change, and conversation, and blogs. I learn and explore. I make jokes. I do the tasks I don't want to as extreme and earnestly as I do the tasks I do. I don't get off on hurting people. I don't have some secret demon lurking to be exposed about my being or thought process. I tell you where, when, and why. I'll apologize when I'm sorry, and I'll work as quickly as I can to attempt to make things right.

These aren't just good things about me, they are excessively good things. I cherish those things about myself because I meet damn near everyone who is nothing like that. What good does it do me to constantly references a “capacity” and “awareness” to do shitty things all the time when that's not who I am, it's just what I know? Those awarenesses push me further into wanting to transcend any and every excuse to ever be shitty. It's like yelling at someone once in years and beating them up about it after every disagreement for the next 20. One time, my grandma hit me. Not hard, and I was going out of my way to be a dick. What kind of psycho would I be to reference that instance as meaningful insight into who she was or how she treated us?

This is at the heart of the sickness in how we talk about each other, especially when distance has been put between us. A fuck up or behavior quirk no longer looks like one color on the whole group painting. It's this thing people have been dying to rant about for forever! But you can't know that about someone who's comfortable being dishonest with you. You get pivotal times in your relationship that really do expose true colors. My true colors, good and bad, are easily anticipated, and manifest in stupid things said or done while drinking. Prolonged intentional maliciousness? No. Incidental inappropriate misplaced and immature? Absolutely. I don't know what the number of those you get a year is, but under 5 seems a fair allotment I'd be willing to grant every individual.

My current goals are still to what? Create places for people to live free to cheap. Become self-sustainable. I dream about being able to swoop in and fix some problem because I've been able to generate more money than I could ever use. That's significantly more who I am than drunken overt or inappropriate flirt. If we went by the numbers, I'm mostly a composite of television shows and food. This is lost on me, and lost in our dramatic depictions of each other and what we project of our hopes and admonishments onto people.

When I think about what I miss about the past, be it in partying or relationships, it's the chance to let the not depressed and whining on the couch person win. It's the idea of having people to look out for and provide. I'm a total Italian grandma cliché.

It's hard to hold the idea that someone “was never much of an individual in the first place” in so many words, and then think your life would be so much better if they could just come to some realization about where you were coming from or what you meant to them. People need to feel things on their own, or as I'm growing more and more fond of saying, you don't exist. If they don't exist, you can't, by definition. If they're merely the collection of stress, judgments, and gossip, that's the filter all of your efforts and all of your words are reduced to. Think then, someone like me, who relishes the thought of holding your words up to the mirror and pointing out how they don't make sense, I'm an engine for literally making those who are unwilling to do the work of becoming coherent crazy.

You can't “love” someone if you can't figure your own shit out. That's an easy thing for this insecure and ridiculous world to try and exploit like ravenous vampires. Every layer of society is saturated with the mythology of love. Why? It feels like this unobtainable mode of being, literally inspired and embodied by ethereal sky daddies. And we pretend there's enough songs or relationships or random acts of kindness that are going to get us all there. No one wants to admit that, just like anything worth having, if you want to get to love, you have to do the work. You have to understand what's being communicated and how. You have to suffer through understanding way more than you bargained for, and you have to cope with holding more in you than you'll ever be able to see reciprocated.

I breathe a sigh of relief when I think about how I'm not angry at the people who are angry at me. I couldn't do it. I couldn't hate myself as much as I'm capable of, and then take on the work of pretending I can think that much of you personally. I can poke and joke at an avatar or memory of you, but your disregard of me is not me hoping it stays that way. I'm almost positive if I make too much money one day, I'll invite everyone who's never wanted anything to do with me to a party. Half because I miss them, half to rub it in their faces. And no, I don't think being petty is the same thing as being mean or getting off on hurting people.

I've never been a person that wants to run from the issue. I don't know how it hasn't dawned on the people who disassociate, but I'm arguably the biggest “feeler” there is. This is me coping. This is me training. This is me fighting my beating chest and dropping stomach. I had lovey dovey professions about a girl in high school, I got jealous when my friends started dating people even when we were never together but to hang and fool around. I think it's okay to not feel purely elated when you see a picture of someone you spent a huge portion of your life with and invested in emotionally on the arm of someone else. It's like what I've previously said of jealousy. You don't have to fly off the handle and turn crazy, it just means you give a damn. Your memories and feelings that have shaped and continue to shape you matter. It means I'm not an evil bastard who would sacrifice those I claim to care about to my selfish designs on their being. This seems like a wildly important thing to know about yourself.

So, “haters,” and “critics” and those who are primed and willing to think every worst thing about me from a line, or an opinion, or some deep-seeded place that's been waiting for an excuse, I don't hate you back. I've worked myself to a place that tries to be stronger than that. I'm still willing to talk. I'm still wiling to try and make it better. You're still invited to share in my excess. I take my pain and turn it into shit like this. I look for roads back to relative stability. It's never been easy, and it breaks my heart every time something I care about dies. But everything dies. I'm not living as a killer.

[369] No I Love You More

How many times have I said “I don't believe in love?” I want to explain further why, and what it would look and sound like if I did.

I like stories. It helps if the characters are compelling or there is an honesty to the infinite nuance that's spoken to. I love stories. They allow you to live as many lives as you have the time to empathize with. Maybe you can't be a superhero. Maybe we're not quite to a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Maybe you'll never face the impossible circumstances of characters you hold most dear. But you get a chance to explore. You get to ask yourself questions and test your ideas. You get to reflect and grow right along with something that's sharing your head space.

I first stopped believing in love when it seemed unfairly difficult to maintain. Maybe too many relationships where one person loves, the other person likes, but dammed if they don't share the language. It becomes a balancing act. One leveraging their version of love against the other's. If you could either keep up your end of the “bargain” or keep your other in the dark long enough, you got to hold onto it until something worth the dramatic episode to follow was introduced to the situation. I would ask, why does love seem so much like a hostage crisis?

I, also first, stopped believing in love because of the infinite amount of things that were justified in its name. Do you know why you're willing to play the game depicted above? Because you love them. Maybe it's your god doing all sorts of contradictory and crazy shit because of love. Maybe insecure is simply too long of a word, so you simply love the idea that the person you hold most dear can't talk to or spend time with people under which you feel threatened. And dammit! You love them so much back that you're willing to sever ties and redefine your life indefinitely.

The further you investigate the word, the further you spiral into the abyss. For some people it means “absolute faith” in that you don't even eye fuck the girl you walk past on the street without some severe consequences. For some, it's this playful notion of togetherness. As long as they mostly inhabit your space most of the time, why, you couldn't think of a more loving gesture. It's like calling every color green. The most intense and painful experience or the lightest self-assured expression between any two things all become some expression of love.

And in its convoluted all-encompassing descriptions is where people find their deepest clarity! Of course it's all the pain you feel. Of course it's moments of doubt. Of course it's weathering the storm of two personalities trying to resolve around a common center. Of course it's the rush of emotions that keep you paralyzed yet invigorated. Of course it's the quiet contentedness and constant hug even when you're trying to feel your loneliest. Of course it's wanting more for another person than you could want for yourself. Of course it's impossible to put into mere words.

If only you could be made to realize just how Of Course! It's all of these things; the moment you allow yourself the truth of that fact, oh how your life gains a new and worthwhile purpose!

Call me autistic, but I don't get it. It's painful to think about. Not because it's some hard problem with an answer. Because it's a million roads to nowhere. It's self-congratulations. It's as easy or as difficult as you want it to be. Therefore, I think it holds no dignity, and only the most insidious kind of circumstantial descriptive honesty.

I make pains to depict it like I do above and not focus on “the brain chemicals.” I don't out of hand discount feelings or rushes of endorphins or general good feelings from being around good people and influences. I think if you boil love down to the very fact that your body reacts to the outside world, you're missing all the screwy things people actively choose to do with it.

But what if I were to believe in love? Maybe I don't want to say it. Or if I say it, feel hopeless and like a liar. Am I to put “cold hard [robot]-type facts and numbers” to it? Is it love after 2 years, 55 dinners, and 3 or more talks about children? Hardly.

As with the heart of most things, to me, it's in the details. If I was going to believe in love, it would look like a promise. No, not to someone about how you're going to feel in the future you have no grasp of. It would be to yourself. It would be a standard that only you could choose and only you could hold yourself accountable to. Tell me a million times you love me, I'll never get the message. If I promise myself I'll try to recognize when I think you mean it, now we've something to work with.

To me, love would resemble “the ease by which you hold a standard.” Take Kristen. Find 1 thing horribly objectionable and “unloveable” about Kristen. If you don't know or care who she is, pick your favorite kind of anything. Now tell me why it sucks. Can't? Won't? Don't want to think about it? Well, now you're getting an idea of the kind of people I want in my circle. Now you know how I can find myself with an inflated ego. It's never been hard to consider her, talk to her, think about or care about her. She's there whether I want her to be or not. Who she is isn't what I think about her, it's just what I can recognize. What I think she tells herself, about herself, or why she likes me, I believe.

To me, love looks like recognition. You hear things like “you can't choose who you love” which just seems like you should get your eyes checked. You can only see what you allow yourself to. You can only appreciate that which you have a capacity and willingness to open yourself up for. Why do I see so many people “falling in love” or it depicted in 99% of anything media related? There's a lot of kids recognizing kids. A lot of guilt recognizing guilt. A lot of insecurity and fear and willful ignorance that feels right at home in its partners arms. You carry the characters' plight.

I feel like when you choose, no not simply “a person,” but choose to hold dear, values and ideas and hard fought conceptions of yourself, your place, and who gets to share your podium, you start flirting with the ground floor of what my idea of love would look like. Love is allowed to act in spite of your worst demons. Love gets to always stand up as something you may not be doing right, but insists on reminding you of how you could be doing it better. More true to yourself. More respectful of what you see from the people around you.

The process, the “work,” comes before you step out into the world. Before you're capable of carrying out your version of The Notebook. Time is not a test, it's a testament. You don't get to one day “shut off” and “forget” why you loved something or someone. You never really buy the story of “moving on.” You may be able to calm your body or distract your mind. You didn't change the person. What you saw or what you felt can't be undone.

Now, love looks like coping. Or if you're dedicated and not just special, accepting or learning from. It's knowing that using the ever-fleeting word to speak to what you believe is so concrete inevitably bites you. It means carrying the weight of recognition. Taking what you thought you knew and watching it move in ways you couldn't anticipate, can't deal with, don't want, won't hear of. It's a faint pulse that accompanies your heart.

Love is the idea, that were you to believe in love, you always know what you should do, what you want to say, or where you want to go. You don't use it. You live it. You prove it. You just hope someone gets what you're doing.

[287] Drunk Mind Sober Heart

Haha if you haven’t read my last blog, please do. It probably presents my drunken mind state better than this one will manage to lol.

So I talk, a lot. I say completely (better word that inordinate which was here) things that probably make you question what the ever loving fuck could be going on in my head. Totally understandable. I find that the more you allow me to talk though, the easier it is to grasp what the fuck’s up.

Patterns. (for all you avid followers). They are something I will never escape. We’re all “locked in” so to speak, to how “life” is supposed to play out. For example, when I tell one of my damn good looking friends that literally every person they talk to at the bar is trying to sleep with them. I’d be genuinely surprised if upon an interview someone I brought that shit to said, “Nah, that hot ass chica ain’t really what I’m feeling.”

To me, this speaks to something important. I know I’m all hell bent on taking the excitement and surprise out of things…but really. Personally, it doesn’t really matter if I’m feeling a girl or not. If she isn’t feeling the same way back, you’re basically a rapist if anything happens. Yes, I totally understand that many people are comfortable being rapists in this scenario, but I mean, really that’s not the take home message.

I suppose I’m bored with fake people and games. My conception of reality allots for an ever growing amount of possibilities. This means, I’m literally, never worried about your judgment. I mean, isn’t that straight disrespectful? Shouldn’t I qualify your humanity to the same extent that I see mine? And yet, the fact is, I don’t. Deal with that shit, right?

But to allay worries that I’m ever upepth my own asseth, I pursue these blogs.

Why is it so hard for people to just lay out “Hey, I’m attracted to you” or “Hey, it’d be nice to fuck around?” This is such a recurring thing I’m just so elated I have genuine excitement to digress upon it endlessly. It’s what makes me to so…careless...in my handlings of things.

I just simply can’t respect being an uppity pretentious cunt about things. Your pussy isn’t magic. (Laughing too incredibly hard right now)

Try being a person. Try developing a personality. Try being responsible and accountable to someone. You know why love is a joke to me? Love is a process. Love is a game. If you choose to disavow the rules, it’s open season. You wanna pretend you know the game and it’s niggas like me who are going to shit on you for days. It’s just so impossibly stupid, kinda fun from time to time, but fucking impossibly stupid.

Look out for my sincere assessments. That shit’s gonna fuck you up. I mean, unless you a bitch.

[282] Stupid Lucky

Sometimes I look at my life and say I’m too lucky. I think the real problem is any time I look at it and not feeling that initially. Don’t get me wrong, for the most part I absolutely do, but sometimes it just sinks in deeper than I know what to do with.

I’m stupid lucky. Everything about my circumstance is a gift. I don’t really think I know what it means to not feel indebted at this point. I don’t know if I’m ever allowed to shut up about my friends. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to convey the impact you have on my life. I’m a mere reflection of the company I keep. I truly don’t know who I am without the context of you.

I know people who are willing to be honest to the point of alienating themselves. I know people who are willing to give all of themselves to a moment without a second thought. I know the value of honesty when people are willing to be open with me about some shit going on in their life. I get to take any and all strife from my life and reduce it to a spec under the overall plan of the future I envision for me and my friends.

The last three or so days has just laid this down hard. I’m spending my time with the most amazing people I could possibly know. I don’t know how I deserve it. I don’t know why I’m allowed to have such positive thoughts about us or the future. I don’t really understand what I’m supposed to do with such circumstances.

I love you all and I don’t even believe in the word love.

[162] Meager Understanding

This is my umpteenth profession for having lost faith, hope, or reason for humanity. The difference being that I want to practice just how ruthless and heartless I can be in my attempts to cheat, lie, and use people for my own gain. I've done the honesty thing and it's left me on an island. It's left me ranting alone on blogs and circumstances that get me by, but are by no means sustainable. I seek to talk out explicitly why I would venture down such a road so as to show that it is not made in haste and with the naiveté of first love.

I should start with the main reason, which for lack of a litany of better words, must be referred to as love. I am currently, and probably will always be in love. I only say this because I can't help it otherwise. It influences my physiology, how I treat other people, and my thoughts. I've tried, relatively successfully to suppress it, put it out of my mind, and behave as if this were not the case. I am aware that how you behave on the outside is what reflects on the inside, so that is precisely what I did. In the midst of this game within myself, I started dating Steev. Steev not being a retarded and well-rehearsed int he practice of reading people and discerning emotional states brings up those opportunities to be annoyingly honest about oneself and circumstances. This I feel is both a good and bad thing. On the one hand, there is someone out there besides Byron who "gets it" and doesn't need me to fill in too many blanks where her powers have shown to be dead wrong. On the other hand, it completely fucks with my practice of the game. One could call it a bad decision on my part by involving her with this in the first place.

Either way, Steev has helped show me why I can't believe in that mystical, beyond understanding version of love so highly touted amongst the religious and the desperate. She says she loves me, but I don't believe it even remotely touches what I went through with Nikki. It can't. Steev had already adopted this sense of understanding and methodology before she encountered me, she has the built in fail safe and future outlook. I denied myself those faculties because of how immature and all-encompassing I allowed my thoughts to become. Despite my sincere desperation and feelings, I was/am still marginalized, or at least it feels this way, in Nikki's eyes. Despite I'm sure Steev's sincere feelings, I still feel like I marginalize her and she understands that I either don't love, or don't love even remotely in the same way or extent, the way I professed to Nikki.

What this all tells me is that love most compelling comes from your point of most desperation. The more you can make yourself feel bad about yourself or the person your after, the easier and environment for your feelings to manifest and swell. I start with the initial shock of her sleeping on me during bus rides. This opens the door to my thoughts that by some chance in hell this girl I've secretly thought was beyond gorgeous and special might have shown a hint that she likes me back. This pours over into other events and interactions that hint even more. You move into the realm of Internet conversations where one needn't be as shy about what they say. Then more bus rides, more flirting, more conversations, all dragging out for years. All giving me time to feel more and more desperate, turn to religion that gives you even more excuses to look down about yourself. But instead of it making me want to love god, it stokes the coals of the feelings I had for her. All I wanted to do was things to make her happy, ever making myself disappear into the background. And what does that say about that kind of love? That this engagement of what should be the mutual engagement and expression towards each other is now some glorified idol worship where neither side may ever see the true colors of the other?

Another thing even more intriguing are books like The Rules of Seduction and The 48 Laws of Power. The very fact that there are recipes of behavior that can trigger another person to fall for you should speak enough to this point. And looking back, whether she was aware of it or not, the way Nikki and I behaved towards each other was perfect for ensuring that such a fate would befall me.

I don't believe Steev's life was far removed from the pattern of desperation to light at the end of the tunnel either. Family life that pisses her off, immature and retarded boyfriends in the past, and zero opportunity to even talk to someone that exhibited her level of understanding would push her to grasp and love someone who vehemently behaves in revulsion to that. This coupled with a despotic outlook on lie, diminished self-esteem, and nagging reminders of betrayal could make someone like me seem like quite the lovable godsend. When it comes down to it though, Steev isn't the one I have these feelings for. She isn't the one I dreamed about, made myself sick over, and developed this kind of history with. She was the first in line of the girls I thought I'd be able to have a good time with on my new path to change the boredom of last year and, for whatever reason, we're both acting to make it stick. Neither of us is ignorant to those reasons, but I'm not sure we've found any real justification for them.

Dammit, I wanted to talk myself into reasons to cheat, lie, and use, but I've become too entrenched, or better said, good at, being just honest enough to cloak what I'm really doing, and yet still get what I wanted. I get to keep stories straight and practice weaving circles. I suppose there's no reason this can't be used for the secondary purpose of being more comfortable with become disenfranchised by the ideas infused with these feelings. One more go to finally push the whole load over the edge and into the deep end.

Steev's idea to try and hook me up with Nikki is so peculiar to me. If Nikki really liked Donnie, the last thing in the world I would do is try to pawn her off on him "for the sake of her happiness." Of course, I'm not abusive or a psycho so perhaps that's a skewed analogy, but either way. I'd always believe there was something more I could do to repair or cultivate in response to what was lacking. If it had to fail then so be it, but I wouldn't work to diminish my chances. There are generally good and bad reasons that people should be together, and this mere cloak of feelings and dreams does not constitute anything more than feelings or dreams. This theoretical happiness and fulfillment I might get from finally being with her is one thing, but who's to say how long the "magic" would last and whether or not we really have the frameworks for understanding each other? I guess that's the only real question I would want answered. That fleeting chance or try. Meh, if it happens. We can't even really talk, that should be enough to say it would be doomed to fail.

[161] Plausible Deniability

I'm not happy right now. I am happy most of the time. I don't think Steev and I will be able to reach any "fundamental understanding." She takes things out of context, makes associations where none exist, and is, as most women, too emotional for a discussion that can go anywhere. I'm tired of fighting, and am more convinced that the things I like are not balanced against the things I emphatically hate. She said I was just like Nikki. When I've spent my life after my feelings for Nikki developing and learning to fix all the things I saw wrong in how Nikki and I interacted, I can't think of a bigger slap in the face. So this moment we are pretending like we didn't talk and things didn't get heavy. It doesn't matter to her that I've been honest, it doesn't matter to her that I've tried to fix the things she's, after much begrudging to do so, finally told me about. She doesn't appreciate nor understand me, and she doesn't want to. She thinks I am incapable of understanding when I'm wrong. She thinks it is impossible for anything to change, let alone me. She doesn't accept me in the only way I care to be accepted. I don't want a "go through the motions" relationship. I don't want to be around someone for too long because, here she's right, they will get boring and no longer feel like they are worth it. She's willing to lie to me "for my sake." She's willing to leave stones unturned. I don't want to be pitied, excused, or subdued. I don't appreciate someone attacking me out of fear for expressing themselves. She needs to grow the balls in this situation and just break up with me if I'm "not playful enough," "not affectionate enough," or can't figure out "what you do and don't say to your girlfriend." It isn't worth losing a friend for the sake of putting on the facade of a relationship. She told me "I appreciate the time I have" in reference to us. She feels betrayed, used, silenced, and maybe even manipulated by the things I say and how I express myself. It isn't that I can't change. It is that I refuse to change. I outright refuse to dramatically alter why and how I do things when the person I would be doing it for doesn't care or is unable to understand why I do them. The way I live my life works because it leads me to understanding. Whether that understanding always leads to "perfect happiness" or "the best" way of interacting with someone or not, does not make it any less valuable a tool to work with. If I don't understand, I don't even open the door that will lead me to happiness.

She's given up on happiness and wants to get it by subverting me. By trying to "train" me or suppress herself in ways that will "make me happiest" she hopes I'll start behaving in the right ways to translate "yes, I care for you too," "yes, I acknowledge you," and "I love you." She thinks I don't understand love. She thinks I handled what I called love horribly. If love means indulging her on her sycophantic fantasy then I can tell you I don't want it nor think it love. If love means taking down a fact sheet that may or may not coincide with the ebbs and flows of her feelings, then acting according, then it is not what I want nor what I call love. She does not have a grander perspective. When she tries it depresses her and makes her lose hope. Why have a better perspective when you can resort to ridicule? She thinks that because I understand this and speak of this understanding that I am the same as those I empathize with. I can't be someone's happiness when they refuse to acknowledge what about them could possibly make me happy in return. It can't only be me dignifying. When it comes down to it I could never do it in the way that really matters. In the way that can drive a life. In a way that can heal.

If every talk leaves things unsettled, if every comment feels like a punch to the gut, if every action is just a reaction of us trying to play to this notion of happy, then how can even call that friendship, let alone a relationship or love? If she wants to act like she gets it, then she needs to take the good with the bad. She needs to be humble about her understanding, and be open to, at the very fucking least, refraining from shutting off and blotting out a conversation. I can't wake up next to someone who went to bed with a secret that could blow up into a book of accusations by morning. I can't fall into the moment of a kiss with someone who's using it to shut me up. I can't hug someone who only hugs back convincingly enough to finally make it to the door.

Girls don't refrain from making jokes about guy's cock size. When they do refrain, it isn't from some notion of respect for guys despite a seemingly endless wave of belittling and sexist comments towards women. Respect, just like everything else, comes from understanding. You don't respect a guy because you don't understand them. You don't care to understand them because you're too busy sorting them into groups, trying to train them, and pointing out all the reasons they make you lose hope and happiness. Because it is all their fault. Even when I try to take the blame for something I did, it doesn't matter, so why bother saying anything anymore? Why pretend like doing the mature thing matters to her. Why allow myself to look bad when it just gives her another chance to make a caricature of me?

I like her for the things that make her, her. She is pained by the things that make me, me. It doesn't make sense for us to be together. It isn't honest for me to be in a one sided relationship. She allegedly feels for me how I felt for Nikki. I don't buy it. I also don't like how she acts just like I did in letting her feelings allow her to stay on a path that is nothing but heartache. This can be a second example of when I open up, I get nothing but scorn in return. I get ridiculed, misunderstood and am just not getting it. I won't be forced to care and I can't be guilt tripped into feelings. And if it even matters, everyone of her speculative guesses about my past or upbringing were dead wrong, and yet I bet it felt like she was donning some grand revelation upon me. Every time we talk it's like a mini episode of this effect. No, this I can't, don't want, and shouldn't bother to deal with.   

[135] Too Personal For You

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 at 8:00am

Where to begin?

What am I scared of in life? I don't want to hurt the wrong people. I view overwhelming or misunderstood emotions as the predecessor to the majority of reasons I hate people. Hence, I keep mine in check if not actively suppress and downplay any “significance” they may hold. I refuse to let them take me with reckless abandon, one, because of how badly it went in the past, and two, because I view the vast majority of my decisions come from a very empty place. This makes those decisions capable of being anything, which in turn makes me feel free, which finally allows me to manifest my glint of happiness in this dark, cold world. The overwhelming bad in people, that I do in fact see, comes off as ridicule and belligerence from me because there isn't an ounce of respect for the people I'm addressing. I say and feel like I'm a terrible person because I've thought about what I can do, I'm convinced I could go through with whatever it is, and I don't think I'll have much feeling about it either way. To me, I think “normal” people are usually set off by some good feeling they can justify or reinforce with some good act. I'm the opposite. I just do, then try to decide if there is something good to see in what happened or is happening.

I think I'm in love. That is, I think I'm smitten by the idea of limbo and wavering endlessly in cloud of gray. Most of you know I hate plans and hate to be categorized. What do I do when I meet someone who makes it their task to meticulously think out every potential scenario, assign you your motivation, and paint a grandiose picture of what front your portraying? Well, aside from Byron, but he's on my team. It isn't even the ability to relate or articulate the failings or reasons for a position, it's you both knowing that “something more” that most deeper conversations are laden with. The moment my body started feeling the bit of weight in the air is the moment she called the reason my arm moved the way it did. We both know what kind of people we can be/are, and I don't think either of us wants to feel the blunt of the worst case scenario.

With Nikki it was easy. I thought about her all the time, I got energy just thinking about doing things for her, my heart and stomach ached, I stayed up all night, and hell, I even turned to a god. Was I hurt so bad that now it's practically impossible for me to reach that state of raw emotion again? When I think about what I believe will make me happy in dealing with “real” people, this girl is the epitome. I don't have to struggle to talk to her, I don't feel uncomfortable being honest, every “part” ::coughs:: is in working order, and I will be able to gain further insight into myself by simply being around her. So tell me, why is the overabundance of feeling and will matched to the girl I do guard myself from and haven't had very deep conversations with, and my vast sea of emptiness allows me to recognize the amazing person I've met, but remain essentially stoic?

I don't care if I hurt myself. I can handle and live with the idea that I did something so stupid that all it affected was me. I really do not want to hurt her. I don't want feelings to get confused. I don't want to develop feelings out of pity or empathy. I don't want to do something overtly stupid and self-fulfilling for the sole reason of expressing to her just how “not whatever” she said I really am. Maybe it is a naïve assumption, but I sincerely hope to have the kind of “relationship” we have now, without the drama that feelings bring. If I take Byron as an example, we're cool as can be, think at the same level, understand the same things, and I know I will never have to worry about some homo passion that would consume either of us into fucking up the kind of friendship we have. I think a handful of reasons are making things potentially much more complicated, not least because she's a girl.

Fuck me. Aren't feelings supposed to grow over time as your relationship with someone becomes better informed and mature? If this is true then I'm only setting myself up for disaster. Fuck me again. Aren't I looking for real people, expressing real emotion, and real ideas that are supposed to magically connect us in a way that transcends carnal pleasures and naïve emotion? What the fuck is wrong with me when I've found one and there are no fireworks? I refuse to make a game out of people I consider to be worth it. I don't know how to avoid the game without feeling like I'm playing with something the whole time. Not playing her. I just envisioned a tightrope walker, exciting, but I don't want anyone to die. Is that not just the risk you entail when you choose to live your life in this manner? Always aware, but never letting you down. It's a much easier practice when the stakes involve people you pity or disregard.

I just don't want her to get hurt because I'm “good at what I do” or happy as this current manifestation of “Nick.” Whatever that means. I think perhaps deeper is that I'm disappointed by myself being unable to feel, in a greater extent, for someone I so easily identify with. Idea, this is an indicator of how I feel about myself? Completely removed from her, I judge myself a certain way, recognize it, yet mirror my feelings about myself, the perpetual “meh”ness, onto her. I mean, this wouldn't be unfair or dishonest if it was the case, and it doesn't feel like a position gone too awry. I still have to worry about whether my mannerisms and behavior are coming from “developed feelings,” or because it's fun to watch them work as expected, or because I'm actually just sincere and there is no act. My only real criterion for making sure I'm not full of shit is other people perceiving my actions as confirmation of what I tried to make them appreciate in words.

In any event, I will continue to just go with the flow as it were, and keep in the moment. I don't really know how this will come off, but it isn't at all from some place of desperation or worry. I just think there many aspects to this situation that need to be thought about, even if it may just be simple.

1 comment

Updated about a month ago

Billy Bowman (Bloomington, IN) wroteat 5:45pm on September 24th, 2008 A glimpse into a part of you i was beginning to think might actually not exist.. A fantastic idea on the part of your emotions, they can cause such havoc. I generally keep hold of mine pretty tight, but don't hold my temper well. As far as you not being able to reach such raw emotion, I'd bet anything it's due to how completely you have distanced yourself from, and controlled your emotions that results in you not really being able to simply 'feel'. I'm not sure how much sense that makes.. it made more sense before I wrote it. If you two as on the level as it certainly seems, i think it will be hard for drama to develop, and harder for you to hurt her. Though, like you mentioned, feeling have a funny way of causing drama. Can't really comment on your true motivations and where your behavior is coming from, though it appears genuine to me. I don't think you have anything to worry about.

[85] Weezer Song Title Goes Here

Thursday, April 24, 2008 at 5:29am


I am a terrible person and I’d like to explain why. I have zero faith in humanity. I was recently discussing people with my friend Mr. Bowman. It was a perfect setting for the searing pain I feel contemplating the human condition to really make itself known. There is something fundamentally wrong about the way we rationalize. Let me take the well known mantra:

“I’ll believe what I believe, you believe what you believe, as long as no one is getting hurt, who cares.”

I think this is a terrible way to live, yet there are very few people who would not look at this sentence like it is just as obvious as eating. People either fail to realize or simply ignore that mere beliefs influence everything, absolutely everything, we do. Harm can be accounted for in more ways than someone getting shot at or beaten. What I believe, is Nick. You can judge my actions, but you’ll never know where they were coming from.(And how many would argue that’s all that matters?) For the sake of stifling civil unrest, I behave in a way that keeps the peace and gets me by, at least.

The great, and yet extremely problematic thing, is that I’m totally aware of why and what I’m doing all the time. I know my motivation, I know that most people will not receive the things I say the way I meant to convey them, I know just how little I care about humanity when I think about the way they say they are thinking about things. It really and truly depresses me. I see no hope for us. I’m waiting for either the atmosphere to shrivel up, a nuke to get dropped, or random unaccounted for asteroid to finally just get it all over with.

Does it hurt our society to go into wars talking about liberation and civil rights when the people we’re fighting have been entrenched in civil war for hundreds of years over what land is entitled to them by God? Yes. Does it hurt our world economy to have nearly a billion people think you are an infidel and should be killed? No shit. Does it hurt our country to have a president who believe the soldiers he’s sacrificing are just going to heaven anyway, and maybe, just maybe, if he pushes the red button he’ll entice the rapture? You see where I’m going with this. People are harming themselves in more places than they can even care to think about when they believe some invisible Deity is talking to them.

Not only that, but I’m going to take from Sartre and say that when someone makes a choice they are choosing for all people. This means that every time you decide to do something “good” or “bad,” you're essentially waving a flag of acceptance for anybody else to do the same thing as you. With this in mind, I cannot ever think we’ll be able to appreciate our position in time, our opportunity to learn and be something great, as long as people are investing their mental faculties stressing over why God doesn’t seem to be showing them as many “signs” as he did last week.

I hate Dinesh D’Souza. Dinesh frequently debates the so called “new atheists” and belligerently stumbles over critiques of their books. He is a perfect example of how years of training, bad rationalization, and terrible logic can be molded into a very pretty, if you're uninformed, monologue of exasperated equivocation and avoidance of questions. What kills me the most is that as “smart” as he is in trying to protect his faith, he runs into the blatant wall of denying and misrepresenting evidence that any idiot I’m usually in correspondence with doles out of hand. I absolutely hate it.

The easiest way to explain this is when someone tells me “Evolution can’t explain the origin of life.” If you don’t know at least three reasons immediately regarding the ridiculousness of that statement, then you are partially part of the reason I am so distressed. I’m trailing a bit, but back to why I’m a terrible person. I’d snipe Dinesh. I think his ideas are ridiculous, better, I know they are ridiculous and not just because my heart beats faster and my stomach turns in knots the louder I say it. I wouldn’t care about his family. I wouldn’t care if he looked like a martyr for his beliefs. I sincerely hate harmful persistent ignorance to such a degree that I would be completely indifferent to wiping him off the planet.

I know a lot of people with some really shitty lives. They may take solace in thinking that their god loves them, will always protect them, has a plan, can show signs, talks to them, can make them happy after they die (which they frequently want to do), but that does not mean that staying infinitely resigned to that idea is good for them or is providing anything beyond placebo happiness. I have one friend who’s crazy busy all the time, has a pretty asshole family, so what’s she do? Get’s back with her completely dick of a boyfriend who was, no doubt, influenced by the devil previously which totally explains why he treated her like shit in the past.

What’s so great about situations like these is that those people we call friends, you know, the ones who are supposed to help you not make really shitty decisions and give help and support when things are going bad. Those friends are on their knees right next to her, squeezing their eyes real tight and raising their arms waiting for God to take the mean words from her dad’s mouth and waiting for God to stand up to her boyfriend. When I have to watch people I really care about roast themselves over a fire, go ahead and blame me for being an asshole. There is no hope.

It’s stories like that and people like Dinesh that make me not believe in love. It’s too perfect of an ideal. It’s where the idea of God fails miserably time and time again. Too many people are slaves to their emotions and when they want to call one of those love, they simply add the Nth degree to whatever action they feel best displays that love. There is no perfect ideal, one super truth for you to espouse. Why would you think so? Love thy neighbor? My old one took golf clubs to the side of my house. Love they enemies? Yes hold up paper heart cutouts when they “follow us over here” when we pull out of Iraq. Love your family? My mom is a psycho, my friends’ mom’s are even worse. There comes a point where you either suffer endlessly for this notion of love or you do whatever you can to get yourself out of a really shitty situation.

Jesus died because he loves you? What good is a sacrifice if it comes back to life? Not just that, it can even fly up into the clouds. For too long I thought that people died, couldn’t fly, and couldn’t be put on death row for practicing witchcraft in the 21st century, but then I’m told of the West Memphis Three who were tried for a murder that they didn’t do, sentenced on theological grounds, and imprisoned. Right before that I’m sure one of those nice town folk would tell me about this flying invisible man who, let’s never forget bears a striking resemblance to so many gods of antiquity, takes my sins his father lets me have away, and super evil demon beasts are making me beat off and praise stem cells.

I don’t make up how shitty life can be. I’ve tried for too damn long to be super positive and remain “faithful” that ultimately the truth will set us free and win out. The only enjoyment I get anymore is ridiculing things I feel I can no longer change. I can’t refrain from being condescending when I’m in some “heated debate” over the validity of Intelligent Design. I always sound like a belligerent asshole when I say fuck every other word or have that look of “you’ve got to be kidding me” when I hear someone who needs to debate between his love of drugs and love for his girlfriend.

I have to say things for what they are. I’m compelled by the overwhelming sickness I feel trying to cover up the absurdities of some peoples’ positions regarding life. The problem is that I care, I really care about what you believe, and I can’t go off into the darkness and pretend like I’m comfortable when people happily spread damaging ideas that ultimately come back and affect my well-being. In my self-centeredness I seek to influence those around me for the “better.” Not the best and certainly not the perfect truth, just the better. Hell, how about the “stable.”

I was going to stop writing and try to just wait it out, see if I could just be me and let sleeping dogs lie, and I’m simply incapable. When someone tells me something they can’t prove, I want them to know they can’t prove it, let that sink in, understand how damaging that should feel, then re-evaluate why they said it. I want people to be as maddeningly conscious as I feel I am. And I hate to think that they really are. If it turned out that everyone really, like really, understood what was going on, totally got the gist of every argument, was truly informed and still decided to carry on like there wasn’t a problem, then I might as well drag a razor down the river. I’m banking on that not being the case.


5 comments


Updated about 7 months ago


Billy Bowman (Bloomington, IN) wroteat 10:39am on April 24th, 2008

I'm glad I'm such a thought provoking person, i suppose.
Report - Delete



Nick P. wroteat 1:07pm on April 24th, 2008

You steal all your power from those damn cats.
Delete


Billy Bowman (Bloomington, IN) wroteat 1:35pm on April 24th, 2008

haha.. must be... you know you can't resist their cuteness!
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Byron R. Turner II (McKendree) wroteat 3:06pm on April 24th, 2008

I find it hilarious that you have Dinish D'Souza as much as I do. I recently met him and went to a lecture by him this past month. He's a fucking idiot.
Report - Delete




Nick P. wroteat 4:35pm on April 24th, 2008

I honestly can't listen to him speak without imagining me endless beating on him with a baseball bat trying to cut off some tangent of logical excrement.

[47] To Be Title Later (Maybe Not)

Preface

If there is only one thing you should know about me its that I think, a lot. I reached a boiling point in my head and one rant blog is no longer sufficient in the effort to keep me sane. I've read about all arguments that attempt to argue for proof of God. I hear about the different weird and negative relationships people are in. Lately I've been trying to talk to as many people as I can to gain more perspective as I keep finding out you can never know too much about a subject. When I talk on these subjects, and too the people, I'm almost terribly blunt and feel as though they think I'm missing some dire point they're trying to make by my short and sweet answers. I assure you that is not the case and in writing this all out, hopefully I will be able to draw the proper analogies and tie in all the ramblings of my mind into a better foundation of understanding. I will try to provide as many links (which probably won't yet exist at the time your reading this) to the different books or videos I reference because they will always be a lot more descriptive and provide the exact source of what made me think or say something the way I did. I'm working on getting mp3's of any book I mention and am soon going to buy everything I've read if you are interested in borrowing. The library works too. The parts of this, I'll call it an essay, I imagine can be read separately. The parts on religion are designed to show why I think and say the things I do. They are not an attack at belief, in a sense, but an attempt to simply raise consciousness about issues you've maybe never thought about. The relationship part is more than likely going to be a reiteration of blogs I wrote years ago, but more encompassing and detailed. I want to discuss and revise my thinking constantly. This will forever be a work in progress and if you find anything you want to add or argue I will gladly indulge you. I only ask that you read with an open and focused mind so this becomes something positive and helpful and not demonized to fight about.

Definitions

One of the major reasons for discourse amongst the people I talk to and I are the varying definitions of certain key words. I want to clear this up in the beginning as we can go nowhere if we're not even speaking the same language.

Interpret: an explanation of something that is not immediately obvious.

Over and over I hear about how people are supposed to interpret the bible and I can't help getting overly frustrated. When you interpret something its automatically changed. The second you take in any piece of information your mind twists it into whatever best fits what you've encountered in the past. Ten million people interpreting one book and not getting the same answers is such staggering proof of this fact I don't know how people ignore the inconsistencies of people calling themselves part of the same religion.

Faith: complete confidence in a person or plan

This is something that is not up for question. If you ever go "o but wait" in your mind in regards to any subject you automatically do not have perfect faith in that subject. This can be a dangerous thing if taken too far, for example, does anyone remember September 11^th? When I talk of faith, I talk of something that is inherent and too often irrational that we devised to better soften the blows of things we fear or don't understand. Whether you have faith in your relationship or faith in God there is part of you that is relying on nothing but a strong inner conviction that does not require empirical proof nor is up for discussion.

Fact: An indisputable truth. (Update 7/8/2018): A better definition is "anything that can be proven or disproven."

This means that simply calling something a fact does not give it the characteristics as such. When I give a fact its from a well documented subject or respected person of the field. The idea corroborates with others in the field and cannot be refuted simply because you don't think its true.

Belief:  This means that an individual is convinced of the truth of a statement or allegation.

I'm always reminded of this idea, "Just because you are convinced that something is true does not make its so, it is merely convincing." I am on constant guard when it comes to what I actually believe because it matters to me what I tell people truthfully. As a subscribing member to the human race I find that it is easy to be wrong about a multitude of things when you go in looking for information on the preconception that your already in the know. This is why I hate it when people tell me "Well you believe what you believe and I'll believe what I believe, and we'll leave it at that." If you can't even begin to convey to me what you believe how can I go away secure in thought that you even know what you believe?

Hope: A desire for something to happen, while expecting or being confident that it will come true.

It is important to note the difference between hope and faith here. Hope is the stage we are constantly in. Faith is entirely mind encompassing. You hope your relationship gets better. You hope for good health and a good life. It allows you to take in the evidence and persevere down a given path, while faith can completely cloud and lock in an ideal.

Freedom: The power to act or speak or think without externally imposed restraints.

I made this one last because I want to make a special point about it. One thing I consistently hear is that God gave man free will. I so 100% completely disagree with that statement and I will tell you explicitly why. Reread the definition of freedom. In the religious realm you are not free to disbelieve. If you disbelieve, the externally imposed restraint that sends you to burn in hell kicks in. According to their view, even if your not playing within their rules your subject to be punished by their God. There is absolutely nothing free about this. There is no real choice that exists with such a view. You can be a motor-cross athlete and attempt a double back flip or not ever try. Yes, you may be judged  as a pussy, bad ass, cool, reckless, etc…with either choice, but those judgments can be accepted just as freely as they can be rejected. The "freedom of choice" in religion is a not so elaborate mask put on in the face of analysis that never dug deep enough.

Logical Fallacies

If your going to discuss/argue I believe you should at least learn about the different fallacies you may or may not have been imposing to justify your position. Another reason I get discouraged from talking to people is that they start with a glaring gap in logic and then digress their position from that point. If I can find a the video again there is a quick run through of 22 fallacies that are the main proponents to such arguments. There is also a list in "Why People Believe Weird Things" by Michael Shermer that you can get from the library. The different ways people try to convince me of their thinking generally circle around these ideas:

Anecdotes: You tell a story that seems to support your view. 1 story or 10 stories don't matter if they can't be tested and confirmed by anyone but you.

Burden of Proof: If you can't disprove God then he must exist. Unfortunately the job lies with the person making the claim. I don't personally say God doesn't exist because I believe it's a retarded concept to argue about. If you affirm that he does, its your job to prove it. In the same respect if I say something I will gladly offer the proof and source of my assertion.

After the Fact Reasoning: In short, superstition. Because one thing happened then something else must have been the reason. "Correlation does not mean causation." When you want something to be the reason so badly, then to you, that something will become the reason. Your mind is set to make you happy, if only eventually. If you can't guard against yourself you fall prey to yourself.

Representativeness: As Aristotle said, "the sum of the coincidences equals certainty" again taken from Shermer's book it's the idea that we forget the shortcomings and remember the meaningful times. It's the automatic rationalization you adhere to when your truly uncertain but don't want to give up hope.

Unexplained is Not Inexplicable: "I have some event in my life that I can't think about in any other way so it must be God." This one bothers me the most. I don't care to argue people's personal lives. I can't change you, and would die trying. Your life, as depressingly compelling as it may seem, could always be worse and probably has many unrealized reasons for your behavior in certain situations. This doesn't even need to apply, though it has been tried, when you speak of what God didn't allow in your life. If you want a competition to see who can write about all the times God didn't allow you to die you'd have to factor in all the meteors that don't crash on your house, cars you didn't hit on the way home, and shanks you missed out on walking a city street.

How to Think About Evolution and Natural Selection

Your teachers taught it. You hear about it on the news when a discrepancy with a creationist arises. You can either accept or deny it. I was once told by one of my Christian friends that she believed in "parts" of evolution and when I inquired as to which ones she said "well I don't believe we came from monkeys." This tells me that adequate truths about the theory are not being sufficiently circulated to the mass populous. The b/s arguments that there are massive gaps in the fossil record and no proof that humans came from something lower are disproved in 15 seconds with a  google search. I have the sites saved in my favorites if you don't care to investigate on your own. I also have the names of books that are even better documented and referenced. There was no "chance" in any part of evolution other than random mutations. And when I say mutations I don't mean some grotesque monster that you'd see in some science fiction novel. Only different changes in cells that account for slight variations. The mountains of evidence in favor of the theory will not be summed up here. I only offer an invitation to get informed before you position an argument on something you only think you know about.

Observable "Human" Nature

We think we are the most important. We don't bother to worry about the billions of galaxies in a multi-verse where billions of other life bearing planets may exist. We are trained to think that the things people do are so beyond different and special than what animals do its just "obvious" that someone created us. I find it very interesting then to learn about the behaviors of apes and especially a species of bird. You might already expect to hear that certain primates care for their young, cooperate to achieve goals, compete for status, and so on so forth. I read about a type of bird, I believe in "The God Delusion," that goes so far as to do good deeds like feed others young and take the dangerous lookout positions at night to make a name for themselves. Birds. Our time honored values of being brave and honorable, trusting and loving, are exhibited in birds with egos. You need to get over yourself. Its not defeatist or nihilistic to see and say things for what they really are. We are products of a process who's only goal is survival. The very fact that we are here means that we are the best suited so far for the current situation. Your kids will be a little better off, their kids too, and so on. (Un)fortunately we have become so advanced that we can avoid or negate the regular natural occurrences that would usually weed out the weaklings. It is your selfish genes that want to stay alive that cause over population and starvation. You can stop wondering why God isn't answering their prayers to be fed.

Religious Moderation

 If you don't kill the heretic for talking bad about your God then you are practicing religious moderation. I wanted to get the definition of interpretation out of the way to help explain the problem religious moderation has on the world. In a discussion with a religious friend I asked who's job it was to tell the guy that shot the abortion doctor that his interpretation was wrong. Which religious group is going to confront the people who hold up the signs saying "God hates fags?" The fact, simple and observable fact, of the matter is that people pick and choose which verses are most perfect in forwarding their personal ideas. The next guy that shoots a homo and holds up Leviticus 20:13 can't really be told he misinterpreted can he? Its right there, word for word, the perfect inspired Word of God. "If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives." If your reading this you've probably never killed a homo. No "sane" person of faith ever has. The problem arises when an atheist or agnostic tries to point out that this guys mind was warped by faithful conviction and the religious moderates say back off, let him believe what he wants to believe. If the religious person tries to confront those people their arguing the God of the bible against the God of the bible. Try and work out the conflicting rationalizations then. When you choose the parts to praise and parts to ignore your obviously working on some other authority than God's. If you "just don't agree" or "think I'm just not getting it" try owning a slave and using the bible to back you up.

Empathy

Say you just got out of a bad relationship. Your heartbroken, can't see straight, and the world just doesn't seem to make sense. Millions of questions are darting around your head and before you even utter a word your friend comes along and says " I know how you feel." More often then not, you don't believe them, or you can't trust that they do because their not the same sex, or haven't been in the same type of relationship. Now there are good and bad things involved with taking this viewpoint. Well from what I can tell, mostly bad, the only real good point you can be sure of is that they haven't lived your life or dated that guy. Other than that, the depression, anger, hopefulness, lust, fear, confusion, or love that you may think you've felt they can empathize. When I talk to someone I hate to think that just because I haven't been in long term relationships they believe I have no idea what I'm talking about.

            Feelings are compelling. You'll get over them. When you think that life would not be the same, or that your still going to be emotionally attached your only worrying yourself about something your not experiencing. Yes, there will probably be residual feelings. Yes, people deserve chances and problems should be talked or worked out. The facts will always stare coldly in the face of overwhelming and conflicting feelings. You can make every excuse and I'm going to show them on this nice diagram . You go up and down while reading across. Whether this is the exact format of what happened in your relationship or not it's what can happen when you can't handle the little problems early. It doesn't matter how nice you are or how great you think him to be. The problems are problems. Complaining and hoping will never make them better. You either suffer in a relationship where you constantly rationalize everything he does and justify your feelings towards it or you break it off. Go back to being friends, see what it feels like to talk and exist with out "relationship tension" clouding your heart. You can either be a victim of the line, waver in and out of it, or avoid it all together, but it takes action not excuses. 

   Love: The Games We Play / The Abuse of the Word

O how to begin? Love bothers me. It's the strongest drug with no law against it. You get taken in by its soothing aroma one minute and find yourself cutting in spite of it the next. People live and die by it, yet they are also brash enough to play with it.

If I think about times I would consider myself "in love" once would be with my stuffed animals as a little kid, and the second would be with a girl who didn't love back ;). There's, I dunno, 20 or so depressed and confused blogs about the ordeal. I don't talk much about myself if this is the first time you hear any of this. I call these times love because of the thoughts and feelings I have/had when I reflect on them. With the stuffed animals, when I really put myself back into my kid mind, as my mom cut open and pulled the stuffing from one of my bears in retribution for breaking a glass or something of hers I never felt anything more painful. Anyone who says you don't get emotionally attached to your toys is full of shit. Mind you, I'm a smart, mean, and inventive kid. Imagine the types of terrible thoughts I was concocting in a moment of such anguish.  No I'm not looking for a pity party or for you to tell me my mom was a little confused on how to handle children, I'm well aware. The point is that no matter how young or old you are, "experienced" in the ways of pain and confusion, there's someone out there that knows how terribly hopeless you can feel.

            That's probably not good enough for you so I'll go on about the later situation. Now I'm overly critical when it comes to girls. I can find any flaw and blow it up and automatically turn a girl from cute and agreeable to merely "doable." So imagine my surprise when someone comes along that I can't find anything wrong with. Not only that she's more than I ever thought I could imagine. All of a sudden my usual selfish thoughts are replaced by nothing but hopes, dreams, and aspirations that concern her. I'm not gonna lie, I got borderline nuts and sincerely tried to make it all go away in the name of calm, cool, and rational Nick, and it just wasn't happening. All the questions, all the rationalizations, all the hopes and dream, frustration and bullshit that unfolded is in those blogs. I know how confused you can get, I know how hard it is to listen to the real world, I know what it feels like to be the only one that "knows" while everyone else is just missing it. You don't have to be in that persons relationship to empathize and understand their situation. The facts remained. I got over it and myself. I learned to keep my faith in understanding and the statute of love separate from my hopes that it would be with any specified person. It was a hard ass lesson to learn and fuck me if I can't convey how shitty it can get when you become good at making excuses.

 (line not able to be shown on myspace) like you've read this far newayz

Religion of Love

It's what the 9/11 bombers joined. It what I, to a lesser extent, joined. Its what we all hope to be apart of and not manipulated and hurt by. The perverted con artist with his stunning good looks and stylish ways thinks he invented it. The teenager thinks they can handle it. The confessed believer thinks they understand it. I find it the ultimate oxymoron that people join a religion for love, always looking from the outside in, instead of taking a bit of advice from the Buddhists who believe change comes from within. Its in this area, all the talk about how much, in fact the infinite, amount of love Jesus has for you that I think religion commits its greatest sin.

            What could be more worthwhile and compelling than the love of an infinite God? How can one be so vain as to worry about a petty life issue when all their time and attention needs to be focused on a confessed jealous God? The idea that this ultimate love from God is more important than life itself is what helped drive me insane when I tried to become Christian in pursuit of it. Granted, you would probably say I was doing it for the girl or for any number of wrong reasons, but I can only tell you that while it may have started out as such, I worked at making that not so, and not surprisingly still to no avail. When I think about the different stories I've heard in some "Christian" relationships I'm amazed that I ever thought it was something to aspire to.

            I'd never have expected things like, slapping, talking down to, mentally abusing, threats, and orders to come out of a "Christian" towards his so-called loved one. What I find more disturbing than that is the reasoning the girls use to stay in the relationship. If that buffer line touched on anything you've ever said or felt in a relationship, elevate and tie in all the good things with God and the demonize bad things with the Devil. The battle is no longer felt like its in your control. You have this never ending thirst for this everlasting love that, excuse me, exists only in your mind, and you pray and cry for answers that just never seem to appear because its all part of a plan that your not supposed to, nor can begin to, understand. You no longer believe in yourself. You believe in the belief. Without it your more than lost, your nothing. Your hope springs eternal for a new life of soldier with slave duties. But of course, you can throw it all away right? You have a choice to think about other "non-Christian" girls and be adulterous. You can get your groove on as many times as you want for as long as you live, and you'll only have to go to hell as payback. And God said unto man "Love Me or else, make your choice."

How to Think

No one teaches you how. They try to tell you how but ultimately we assume that because we are, hopefully, we are doing it correctly. Moreover, we couldn't function as our selves if we didn't assume we were thinking correctly. Unfortunately, your brain has side streets and trap doors where your thoughts can fall which effectively change your perception without you ever needing to be aware they exist. Preconceived notions are some of the biggest things affecting how you rationally think. When you adopt or credo or set of beliefs they act as a speed bump for everything you ever see, hear, or do. Take on that bump long enough and you think its simply "you." If I was religious I would probably also take offense to a book entitled "god is not Great" how religion poisons everything. At the same time my offense doesn't change any of the words that could have a significant impact on my thoughts. I wouldn't even touch the book because I "know" it has nothing to do with anything I care about because I only care about God. While its obvious the book is going to have different opinions it also address many if all of the questions your faithful leaders are discussing behind closed doors. Not to take any light off of the history behind the different religions it describes.

 Do I know for sure that I know exactly the perfect way to think all the time? No. Do I think the way I think is credible and can be explained in hopes of other people adopting certain ideas to help themselves? Yes. When you think too much your bound to find a way that is able to put all your thoughts and life experiences, past and present, and keep them in context with respect to a range of perceptions. In other words you can become passionate and not irrational. Your maybe the old guy that the kids come buy and ask for insight and advice from.

            When you think, you have to consider what type of information your getting from what source. Can it trusted and tested? You have to think about what instances in your own life may influence your first reaction or thought to the idea well before you verbally announce them. Anyone who's stopped themselves from saying "A black guy robbed them? Of course" knows how to avoid their "brought up in a racist home" bump. You have to re-evaluate what you call "you." If you can't establish your views, opinions, and even confusions, your playing a whole new dogmatic game.

I Don't Know

For whatever reason these seem to be the hardest words to fully embrace by anyone. There's nothing wrong with them. They are inevitable with the endless questions we humans are capable of asking. By understanding that you don't know, you can begin to question the reasons you don't know. It is unfortunate that while every religion knows everything they still don't know how to admit when they're wrong. I don't trust people with all the answers because they're people with all the answers. Do I know the be all end all of your relationships with God or some significant other? Of course not. Do I know what I can see, hear, and learn about? More than anything else I could claim to know. I don't want you to think, and you don't, that I know it all. But I know a lot, and so do you. The world is a sea of information that grows exponentially every second magnifying and converging on a point that may never have an end. You're the only one who can break the wall of excuses and fear in you mind.