Just so that you can read it...

When the private world becomes public,

And secrets are told to strangers,

We are liberated.

 

Our bite of the apple, our addictions, are the opiate of the populace,

Our delusions, Our world,

That has been taken apart,

Is left with pieces no one knows what to do with.

 

We chase, run, the human psyche is a wonderful, confusing thing,

Flummoxed like walking through Sanskrit,

An aviary of societal norms,

Where we feel the acrimony of being too scared to create,

Yet feel the vicarious thrill of our neighbour shuddering and snuffling from

A night of running red lights and white lines

 

Our litany of complaints will never be heard,

Everything is transient, everything is unfulfilled,

You are your bemusement, you just are.

 

BUT! Dreaming ties us together,

Underneath this encumbrance of dissatisfaction and a life

That has turned into a worthless fiasco,

You are infinitesimal to the world,

But what you should do,

Is journey,

Drive,

Sink,

Dive,

And let your confusions guide you through the journeying,

I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

 

I have a dream,

That nothing is as perfect as you think it can ever be,

But I am complacent. 

Fireworks

This one's going to be a really short post. I just wanted to get something off my chest. Nothing too platitudinous I hope.

I look around and see everyone in society, hurrying, chasing one thing after another, just to chase another thing once they realise it's not worth it. I look around and see everyone in society not standing up for what they believe in. It's smart to play the game wisely, but is it smart to sacrifice your entire belief? The human psyche is a wonderful, confusing thing. More confusing than walking through Sanskrit.

I had a moment of epiphany recently. I haven't the foggiest idea of when this was. But, although it's no big deal, and I'm surprised it has such an effect on me, something about it seemed so true, yet so confusing. Life's been pretty busy, but pretty boring. These are the things that arouse me.

Aren't we all just killing the future to preserve the present?

It's open to interpretation. What do you think? Yes, you, you fuck.

And lastly, if you're reading this. You're just a subject of a worldwide experiment. What you think is the world is just an artificial stage, constructed with actors who play the roles of everybody in your shit life. The weather is fake. Your house is fake. Your parent's aren't real. The landscape is one helluva well designed set. Think Truman Show. What do you know?

You know this; I'm a fucking talented and gifted actor, and I'm pretending to be writing a meaningful blog that in some way affects you. And everything around you is just another stupid moment you're trying to make last forever. So, yes, I agree, definitely...fuck your life.

I still haven't discovered what to do after the pose...

So earlier on, we had a pretty lengthy discussion about the supposedly democratic test the United States offers for all students, who supposedly have an equal opportunity of getting into American colleges. It's not just because I didn't get a great score, but that I saw something so true...an incontrovertible truth...about today's society, and saw myself looking down a vista which I'm sure Malcolm Gladwell took a peek at too. Leaders all over the world struggle to make the world a better place...everyday people all strive for world peace, anything, to make their lives better, those around them better. But. You're looking in the wrong fucking direction you stupid dumb fuck. 

The answer? We need to create a society that truly provides an equal opportunity for all. A chance for everybody to be able to take part in whatever we do. I know that's been said a million times before, and that's why I'm starting to feel pretty useless, pretty nihilistic. But what we really need to do, is replace those people who got to where they were because of lucky chances, fortunate places of birth...the ones we deem "fortunate" who aren't really fortunate, but are just goddamn lucky son of a bitches. The whimsical conveniences that have dictated success needs to be eradicated, and in its place, a euphorically equal society. 

Also google: Tom Hanks

The problem is, how? I'm confused. Hence the play on Oscar Wilde's quote, "The first duty in life is to assume a pose. What the second is, no one has yet discovered." 

I have this (most probably shared) theory that we all have a little bit of everything within us. We're all nihilists, realists, optimists, existentialists, idealists - no matter how much they conflict with each other. When I look around me every day and feel a moment of jamais vu I realise that the very laws that keep us from chaos, are the actual ones actually causing it. Like so many great thinkers in the past centuries have realised is that being trapped within the condemnation of boredom is what chaos is engendered from. Without turmoil, there will never be peace. If things don't break, things won't get any better. Within this aviary of societal norms we're restricted to, and the seconds of jamais vu I feel everyday, I look into the faces of these people who've conformed to the disease of consumerism (including myself and therefore my self-loathing), and realise that nobody knows who they are. Not you, not me, not a single fucking body has found their true identity. 

Also google: cynicism

You bunch of fucking schleppers haven't an idea who you are! Selby Jr. said it right! You haven't got a clue! Don't borrow my identity! Don't borrow his identity! Stop running around thinking you know who you are! Stop running around searching for one! Eighty years of life will equal demise if you spend the whole time thinking you need to define yourself! You are the answer. Stop looking. The nihilist is you. The existentialist is you. God is you. The higher being is you. You have now become the center of your own universe. Please proceed. 

As always. "You have a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they an buy what they don't really need. We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have spiritual depression." 

An absolute classic. That's Chuck Palahniuk in a nutshell. Oh, and I think I've found what will ultimately be my Nirvana. To one day feel like I'm "too weird to live, too rare to die". Sounds good? Thought so. 

Boom, crash, the world is ending. Have I contradicted myself? 

A slow disintegration...

I don't know why you're reading this. I don't know why anybody does...well, to be true, no one really does anyways. I think this is my first post during the daytime...but whatever the time and day, whatever the weather, whatever the setting, it doesn't really matter...there's always something there that sparks a train of imagination. Writing this felt apt anyways, because when I think to myself what was in store for me in the direction that I never took, I'm in a period of my life where I still feel like I have the time to run right back and take a few steps in that direction too, just to get a glimpse of what I missed out on. Those are the kinda paths you want to be able to take again. Not a lot of people get to say that.

When you're feeling ill sometimes, you don't think straight. You tell yourself, "I'm never doing [insert something] ever again, look, I'm sick again!" When I'm ill, and maybe this is completely dramatized...I tend to feel like my life is just getting pushed one step further towards my untimely death, that I've just opened a door towards a dying direction, but that I only took the first few steps, and then I regained my sanity and my health and turned right back. These are the kinda paths you don't want to be taking every so often. But eventually someday, hopefully later than sooner, I'll be revisiting this old road, and maybe one day I won't be so fortunate as to be able to walk back.

Our lives are defined by the opportunities we take, and the opportunities we don't. Where we ultimately end up...the road that we ultimately travel upon...it's molded from the doors we open and the doors we turn our backs on. For every other person, there's a different secret to life, a different elixir that makes people feel like their lives are worth living - now that's optimism. I personally believe that before all that can happen, you have to come to terms with understanding something...that the world's just a lot of dust and crap meddled together, and that in the end, it all means nothing. And that's a slice of cynicism for you. No, maybe not cynicism. It's just, a 'core' understanding of what we're surrounded by. How do you so much call this an existence when we don't even have the time to enjoy personal pleasures. That every second wasted cost you something. Won't people ever come to understand that that second wasn't 'wasted'? But maybe that's what the problem is...look around you, everyone thinks they have a purpose. But you have to stop existing...and really start living. Don't listen to me. In fact, don't even take a word I write as anything important, and as anything that can help you in your life. Find it yourself. Write your own.

On a final note...love those around you. Your parents - it's never too late to re-take a path and mend a relationship with them, or just to simply appreciate their company. After all, it was them who brought you in to this world, like it or not. There'll come a time when they take that not-so-friendly road mentioned earlier...the least you could do is be with them before that door opens...and when it does, stand by them for it too.

And again, another reminder to enjoy the good and simple things in life. Sit in the sun and read. Lose yourself in the pages, and stop trying to search for an answer...life comes instruction free.

"No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength."

Until next time...adieu.

Ephemeral

Within under twelve hours, the key to my future begins. Well, that's what the majority of the world would say. I'd like to think that it wasn't. I'd like to think that it's just a beginning to a path that I'm going to take, and that no matter how I take my first step, it's going to be a damn worthwhile road anyways. Everything seems like a bonus when you come to terms with really knowing death, and really knowing failure.

I don't like it when people try to tell me how I should act. I respect your wisdom and I respect your experiences, but they differ to mine. The whole beauty of life is that I get to unravel it slowly by myself, one day at a time, and when I encounter an experience remotely similar to yours, I'll let you know how my actions fared. The world has to understand that I'm always going to be confused. That is the only single thing in my life that isn't ephemeral. We try so hard to plan everything, try to be ready for every little thing that's going to come our way, and when you think you succeed at that, but you're still unhappy, it shows something isn't right. There's a road of gold ahead of you, a pathway that loiters with surprises. There are situations that you would not in a million years be able to foresee, and you shouldn't be afraid of it, because that is the beauty of life. I know when people say 'beauty of life' this and 'beauty of life' that, it seems like a load of bullshit that is nothing but truism, but to be honest, the element of surprise is where everything is. Mystery is what engendered everything in life...the very philanthropic religions we live by came from the very idea of mystery and surprise, and eventually, the pursuit of it. All I want to say is, stop trying to be in control. Let the small fragments of your life come together bit by bit, and in the meantime, be happy you're still alive to witness it all.

I thought to myself a little bit, and the answer to this, I still haven't been able to quite grasp. Maybe you could help? Is it better to continue fighting the current, even when that water is what helps keep you alive? Or should you just let the current take you along, even though you are dissatisfied? Or maybe, should you swim with the current on the surface, but underneath it, slowly dig your way against it, even if the hole you make takes all the water away?

Ignore the world. Ignore the ignorance. Pick your road, and keep moving.

Don't look for the answers somewhere else...they're on your road...you'll see them right where you are along the way.

On a final note...for those whose supposed futures also lie in the early hours of the morrow, I wish you luck. If you somehow feel like you're going to fail, remember this Kerouac quote. He is a true genius.

“...colleges being nothing but grooming schools for the middleclass non-identity which usually finds its perfect expression on the outskirts of the campus in rows of well-to-do houses with lawns and television sets is each living room with everybody looking at the same thing and thinking the same thing at the same time while the Japhies of the world go prowling in the wilderness...”

“My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.”

As you probably have noticed, I'm a huge fan of Kerouac. To me, he's a demagogue. He probably never realised that the things he wrote are to me, didactic. Maybe it's just a phase I'm going through, maybe it's not. Maybe I'll eventually find out, maybe I won't.

Before I begin, hats off to all the Americans out there, whether you be a Democrat or a Republican, on Obama's inauguration as the 44th President of the United States, and the first African-American president, too. It's change. It's proof that anybody, anyone, can make a difference. If the largest most globally dominating country in the world can make such a big transition, so can you. His speech, in ways more than one, instilled optimism into me. I know many have criticised, analysed, commented and what not on his speech, so, I won't say much. The delivery of the speech was fucking excellent. Full of promises, ideals, and advocated not what the government itself can do, but what the people of the country can do to achieve greatness. The message of going back to your roots, treating people in a disciplined manner, and noticing the suffering that occurs around us. There was something about the manner in which the speech was delivered that injected hope into me, despite the fact that I'm not even American, and because of that, Obama, I salute you.

Okay, so fuck, that's that done. Back to the mundane subject of my daily life. I think that SATs are a stepping stone for every aspiring teenager; the single test that enables you to get into the college of your choice and pursue your dreams. However, there's something that bugs me about it. America is so keen on producing and promoting the freedom of thought, and the freedom to express and follow your dreams, that the test seems to foil this whole idea. Life isn't about multiple choices. Yes, we make choices everyday that ultimately put us in different places, make us end up somewhere different. It's so fucking black and white though. Does academic excellence really determine your worth? I realise that every step I make now alters where I end up. But you know what? Fuck where I end up. Fuck where I end. Fuck where I begin. The one thing that matters to me, is what I see along the way. The path is what matters. People in this society only care where you end up...but no one cares how you actually got there. We spend so much time thinking about the end that we forget that the true meaning of experiences and life lays exactly on that path we took!

You are not your SAT score. You are not the college you get into. You are your confusions. You are your dreams. The only thing to witness all of this is the empty sky that looms above us...and that is the only thing that will not judge us. Dare to follow that dream. Dare to live everyday to the hilt. Dare to lose control over everything you were tentative about. And remember...remind yourself about the good and simple things in life, whatever they may be to you...it's good for the soul.

“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”

I just realised everything I tried to say could've been said in these more-than-condign 16 words. That's why Kerouac is a legend, and I'm not. Ah wells, fuck it.

I'm a realist...but wait, I'm an idealist too.

Do you ever get that feeling when you look at the people around you, and wonder what the fuck they want from life? What do they see in this existence that I don't? What do I see in this existence that they don't? Then you ask yourself, what do I want to be? What can I be? I read some Dr. Phil-esque self-help book the other day, Its Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want To Be, and I just thought to myself...does trying hard always mean you reach your goals? Society teaches you that when you lose things in life, you're supposed to get your shit together and bounce back up. At times you feel like yeah, I can do that...and others, you just feel like you can't bounce back...but you 'need' to, because you exist in this world for a greater good...supposedly. I must admit though...I want to give up a lot of the time, but there's still something that I've been programmed to do - fear failure, and at the end of the day, it manages to keep me going. I just wished that I was like some people, the ones who have nothing, want nothing, and are free to be.

Anyways...back to the title of the post. I was pondering over these two isms today, and I couldn't really distinguish myself as either one. Do I aim high and not reach? Or do I aim average and reach it? Do I prefer being good, or just reasonable? When am I optimistic, when am I pessimistic? Is it better to realise that "only from destruction can we be resurrected"? So, idealism, for you philistines out there, is basically to aim for perfection, and envisioning your actions in an ideal way. I personally think its great...but it defeats the fact that imperfections is what makes us difference, and is something that separates each individual. We make mistakes as humans, that's what we do. I realise that when I act in an idealist way, my dreams often get fucked over, and my attempts often end in failure, or less than I had hoped to achieve.

Realism, however...is pretty romantic. It's living pragmatically...seeing the truth in its most pure and literal form. To accept life the way it is, and favour the practicalities that come with it. But as good as this sounds...I must admit, the realist me seems to lament at the fact that I'm cutting short on the potential on humanity by aiming for mediocrity. Just because I'm not perfect, doesn't mean that I shouldn't try, or that I'm not capable of reaching excellence every so often.

Many times over my life, I've felt fucking fucked. My greatest apologies for the use of profanity, it's been a grim day. Still doesn't stop me. Anyways...back to getting fucked over and over again. It seems like when I reach for the stars, I fall short and feel like all I've managed to get to is the little bit of mist lingering by the trees. I feel perhaps lost in my dreams...I forget the real world around me, and I create this imaginary bubble around me where I feel like I'm invincible...an out-of-touch aura one might say. But you know what? I don't want to fucking be grounded to reality, or follow "hope for the best prepare for the worst". Which fucker came up with that anyways? I don't want to aim lower than what I think I can reach...my whole life I've been craving for assurance, and I feel like I've really missed out on the true enjoyment of where life is - that everything lies in mystery, and there's only so much you can be sure of.

Justice vs grace. The final showdown. Who wins? We all have the potential to be good. Why aren't we? Why are there those who will never change? What is the correct solution?

My take? You'll never really know the answer until all the little fragments of your scrappy life come together...and maybe they never even will. But until then, look around you. Everything that surrounds our daily lives is a fuel for inspiration, driving us to find an answer, because the way I see it, the day the world ends is the day we find a solution (makes doomsday a little more interesting doesn't it?). The day when everything finally comes together and adheres, and poof, the world goes back to the way it was before existence...and perhaps the cycle begins again. Maybe I'll be like Kerouac some day...go to bed obscure, wake up famous. Who's to say? I know though, I'm going to take my time, pull all the pieces together, and hopefully I'll be able to see the world a little differently, a little better...after all, walking on water wasn't built in a day.

When you have the love for something...maybe life itself, eventually you'll succeed. Find your passion, make it your life, persevere, and success is there. Like the great Kerouac said..."anybody can make Paris holy, but I can make Topeka holy." Can you?