Monthly Archives: October 2012

Muse

Whoa nelly, stop the presses. This is a bunch of writing in a small frame of time, especially for my present-self. It’s because I’m trying to flex those muscles again, get them pumped. I keep coming back here with massive intentions, with my muse screaming at me to get something down while the feeling of wanting to create is fresh on my mind. It really is strange to think of some muse, but it’s there. There are times I couldn’t force myself to write the smallest tid-bit of stupid, but that feeling creeps in, and everything I write out is pure gold. I come here though, so there’s little self-editing, and zero research, making it beyond easy to sit down and hammer out some non-sense.

What do you dictate of me, oh muse? Bring something out of the inky-black depths of my sub-conscious? Perhaps reflect on something of great importance I hadn’t considered until this moment? Or maybe just vomit all over the keyboard and get it out with all of the concern laid on catharsis and none on editing?

It’s weird because the pull is very real, that pull to write. I’ve been too tired and exhausted recently to do anything, but now here I am, hammering it out. There is no immediate need, no immediate idea, just a need to type something out. Tonight, this is what I will get from my muse. There’s excitement though, because I feel there is so much to type about, so much to write and put into words. I know it’s all about beer, too. That is what I am going to write about, that is what i will draw inspiration and joy out of.

I know this is what  my muse (and gumption) will start pointing towards. My work and passion are starting to come out of the woodwork and fuse together into something I can tame and master.

Or maybe not. Maybe I just need to be able to unleash them and deal with the consequences later. Really, if I could predict my muse, I’d be rich.

Have Nots

To be perfectly honest, I view myself as a have. I have every possible thing I could ever want or need at my fingertips. Sacrifice consists of having my wife dropping me off at work because my car’s busted. Or moving in with my parents because we can’t afford to live in the city. Or not being to be able to fit in breakfast before a long work day because I decided to sleep in a little.

There’s a multitude of other first-world problems I could throw in here, but it would end up sounding as preachy as it already does. This is my luxury though, my time for reflection. I can always bring down the sledge hammer of perspective with off-the-cuff statements like “I wonder how many people died of starvation in Africa today” or ” I wonder how much suffering occurs around the globe due to America”. A bunch of other high-horse-jaded-yet-privileged things pop into my mind, but just feel cliched beyond anything I can possibly come to terms with.

I can keep going in this loop, this endless cycle, but I feel I can at least throw a few of these cliches out there. At the very least I can look back on writing like this with shame and awe of how out of touch I was and still very well could be. Gotta keep an open mind, right? I just feel so out of touch with writing like this, because I can sit back and re-read it and already see the inherent hypocrisy, the conflict of ideas. It might be because I can’t structure an argument properly, but there’s the reason I come here. Hash it out and try and make a modicum of sense. Structure takes thought.

It doesn’t take thought though, because I already have everything I need right here. Everything. Yet I project into the future a better future with what I could have by effort expended now, ideas and work applied to this future self. Things could be so much better than they are now, if only I applied myself more. That idea right there is at the heart of a maddening paradox. Do more to achieve more, if you don’t want to achieve less. Or something like that, I sense over-simplification.

Deep down I think that this is all the rantings of an over-privileged straight white male, clearly sitting in the societal elite by default. So in protest  I rail against it and try and earn it, through merit.  I try and establish a yardstick of accomplishment, but end up not really caring about it because it’s only measured against my projected ideas and self. It’s subjective.

I try and have-not as much as I can because I don’t feel I deserve what I have, which is also completely subjective. I only know that for me it’s much easier to tell myself I don’t deserve things, it seems more fitting.

The kicker is that I have it though, and I get to decide with what to do with it.

I take a deep breath, exhale, and quiet the chatter. The best I feel I can do is listen and keep and open mind.

My open mind tells me to live in the present, and be eternally grateful.

The Heist

I had to come here because I just had a musical moment unlike any other I’ve had in my life. Dramatic, I know.

Macklemore and Ryan Lewis just released their first full-length album to what already sounds like crazytown. #1 on Itunes? From Seattle? Did that just happen?

So I listened to the new album, and was immediately getting goosebumps and out-of-control emotional. A quarter of the songs on this guy are songs that I have seen live which adds a ludicrous amount of backstory, because I lived them and am now finally getting to hear these songs in the context of an album. Which for me, is an amazing insight into the rest of the album at the same time.

The thing is, this is one of the first times in a long long time that I have been able to be completely un-objective about a piece of art, especially a musical one. There’s just too much history and I could give less of a shit about being critical in any shape or fashion. This album is good and I really only care about one other person’s opinion in the matter and for once, I feel I have seen enough to reach a completely biased conclusion because I say so. The fact that this is small-potatoes compared to many problems in and around my life is not lost on me, it just feels good to take something subjective and create a tailor-made objective reality.

I like the  really happy one where my wife and I dance and scream like idiots in the middle of neumos, completely surrendered to the moment and having the time of our lives.

Positive Force

Editor’s note: I totally started this one months ago, and just came back with a gusto to write something. Glad I gave myself the opportunity to polish this turd, it was pretty ranty before. Now it’s been gussied up and is just mildly ranty.

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Here I sit, existing and typing. Existing in a life that I might as well think of as my choosing. Why not? All I can do is exert some action, and let it run. Newton’s second law of thermodynamics tells me that this energy is going to push something somewhere and add to entropy.

On this entropic quest, I am what I am. The more I try and break it down into something that I have control over, the less I’m in control. I stare at this paradox and swing from end to end, trying to determine something subjectively good out of it. Good for me, of course. What else would make it good?

I look around me and all I see is ego. It isn’t really that much of a surprise though, why shouldn’t there be? What else is there to do but express your preference to an indifferent universe? It only makes sense to have a preference, something you would prefer to do given the multitude of choices. So the question is, how to frame said preferences if apathy lies at the root of it all.

I impose importance to the things that I choose, and then….stupid. It doesn’t matter how much I try and self-deprecate, or self-glorify, it all smacks of stupid if I sit here and pick it apart. I guess I’m looking for something right in the middle between awareness and its implications. I’m absolutely sure I can’t put it into words, but here we go.

In the end, ego rules the day. It’s the force I feel I rail against more than any other idea in my life. That idea of self-importance really just gets to me. As a conscious being , the logical next step in any situation is to think of myself as important. It’s just as easy to pull back and look from a distance though, gazing from a detached perspective. Detached-me really has it figured out, riding a wave of zen out to destinations unknown, and loving it. In the meantime,  real-me sits and grapples with trivial things and remains relevant due to the immediacy of its nature. Everything always seems so important with a view from the top.

Despite this immense privilege, I feel it around me, what I perceive to be negative energy. I swim through it dealing in the way I feel is positive. No real reason,  just because. It’s very self-serving and a fine demonstration of delusional thinking to outside observers. It’s just too easy to think without being aware of every angle of that thought, leaving so many gaps and blind spots. Typing it out is one step, at least I don’t have to worry about the thought police (cue the ominous music)…or do I? Nope, probably have to worry if it’s just existential bullshit.

That inherent bullshit just screams at me though, I have no idea why I don’t completely submit and embrace the cynical bastard I am. I have every resource at my disposal to do so. It comes back to the laziness idea, in the end it’s just too much work. Change is exhausting and hard, and my infinitely complex and multi-faceted self reels at the possible outcomes.

Something about my being won’t let the idea (and the feeling, more importantly) of empathy go. Just thinking about it now, it makes total sense. Somehow, my ego feeds my empathy. It seems completely counter-intuitive, but it rings true when I type it. I take all my self-importance, and temper it with a healthy dose of laziness. Apparently, I have decided whatever I’m doing now is the easiest thing to do.

Until more information crops of, of course. Then one more arm can be added to the fractal, and I can continue down the spiral with greater efficiency.

Cheers, you cynical bastard.