Self Sellers

The concept that one can purchase pleasure is perhaps the oldest con known to man. The vender of pleasure promises that which he cannot possibly give, and that which he does give is more like to a drug for the enslavement of the masses than a thing of enjoyment. Millions of people go out and try desperately to drown out their own minds with the loudest music and the strongest drinks. They are told that everything is fine, and the world is alright. There is nothing wrong with them and they just need to relax and enjoy themselves. A little pleasure will make them feel better. It will alleviate the doubts and questions that fill their minds.
And so we distract ourselves with the most meaningless things and activities that have nothing to profit anyone, this is what we sell as pleasure. This is the existence we choose, but it doesn't have to be.
I challenge you, and your friends, and myself to this, create pleasure with love and with true actions based in reality. For there is nothing wrong with pleasure, if we control it. If we are aware of ourselves, but if we are merely trying to distract our thoughts, then indeed, it is one of the greatest evils.

Stoned Time

    [A few months ago I was sitting alone in an IHOP at midnight or one in the morning, then I wrote the following (albeit slightly edited). After this experience it is my suspicion that a person can't know who they are until they are sitting by themselves in a booth at midnight with a drink, a pen, and a notebook.]

    To look back or to reflect. We all rummage through those old cabinets of memories from time to time. Oddly enough, It's 'time to time' that makes up memories. Well... time provides a consistent (time is not consistent *nods to Einstein* but that's not important for this) scale by which we can measure memories.
    Tonight I am rummaging, I am looking back on my life. Honestly It's the only thing on which I can look back. Tonight I establish a marker, not a milestone. No, that is for measuring miles...distance. Rather, tonight I set upright in my memory a... sort of memorystone.... a timestone. Yes, I think I will call it a timestone. Tonight, I graduate.
    From what? To where? Why now? What do I mean graduate? Tonight was the end of high school. Actually the graduation ceremony was two weeks ago. My senior theatre production was one week ago. This afternoon was my last speech and debate performance; but that's not the reason tonight is the timestone. I'm not getting a break from school work. I'm going straight into summer school and then college work. I will see my friends again. I'm not moving out for another month or two. Why do I place the timestone tonight?
    Tonight I actually feel slight remorse, that all of this is ending. It's not much, nothing more than a slight pause for most people, but for me... it's strange. For me, it is the point of graduation. Now, right now, right here, I remember and I feel. It's so strange. It's so new. I think this is what attachment feels like. I have only felt this once perhaps twice before. My best friend, I feel attached to her; but I decided to do it as well. I decided that I would be a friend to her before I felt it. So do I go back to here? Do I keep attached or do I let it go as most things require? Am I attached to these people? "I don't know. I don't understand. Leave me alone!" (very few people in this world would understand that quote, don't worry if you didn't)
    Is this what love grows to feel like? I do love these people. I care about their well being. I help them as I can. I do all that I think love would do. Yes, yes I love these people, and that love may fade with time but I will try to remember this and then I will feel and I will try to love them again.

    [Perhaps I shouldn't write after being awake for two days straight, while getting ready for a several hour long performance. I don't even know what I was trying to say when I wrote this. If you didn't understand any of this then, I leave you with a song. Extra points to the person who knows the song just by reading the lyrics.]

Where do we go from here?
Where do we go from here?
The battle's done and we kind-of won,
so we sound our victory cheer.
Where do we go from here?
Why is the path unclear?
When we know home is near.
Understand we'll go hand in hand,
But we'll walk alone in fear. (Tell me)
Where do we go from here?
When does the end appear?
When do the trumpets cheer?
The curtain's closed on a kiss,
God knows we can tell the end is near.
Where do we go from here?
Where do we go from here?
Where do we go from here?

Historical Tournaments

    These past few months have been rather busy, but things are starting to wind down now. For example I just went to my last debate tournament of the season. As tradition with my club on the last night we all went out to a specific restaurant before the final placement announcements. I'm usually a quiet person. I don't tend to talk unless there is good reason. I always try to have something worth hearing before I speak. Well anyway, during dinner the conversation degraded to talking about Nazi Germany and about how one of the club members had German ancestry. It quickly became 'ha ha my grandfather killed your grandfather...' ect. Which nearly everyone thought was funny. I see this as terribly foolish. Not only is it degrading to those men and women who fought and died so these...kids could have the freedom they take for granted; it also devalues human life. They were casting history into the dirt of meaninglessness. Now I care about these things enough to not do it myself but I don't think it's my place to tell them not to. I certainly might ask, 'please don't talk about this', but I won't tell them not to do it.
    One particular mindset of mine came into action during this conversation. I consider any woman near me to also be 'under my protection' unless there is another person to whom that responsibility falls. Please understand this is not because I consider women to be weak. On the contrary I consider them to be remarkably strong and I have such a respect for them, I consider their well being to be important. I try to be chivalrous, out of respect. I try to be a knight in my own time as much as I can.
    You may be seeing how these two things coincide. During the conversation the young lady sitting across from me expressed that she was not comfortable laughing at those things. She said she didn't think it was right and asked to change the topic. I still haven't said anything in this conversation and that's not unusual for me; but, two of the guys start pressing the lady trying to get her to laugh, going on and on. I have a problem with that. I have a problem with anyone who purposefully tries to get someone to violate their own conscious. These guys thought it was funny to get her to do something which she said she didn't want to do because she thought it was wrong. Then I said one thing. It was a question. 'Why do you derive pleasure from causing her to do something, she has expressed interest not to do?'
    It never ceases to amaze me just how many people listen to you when you only speak once every five or ten minutes. Well they never answered my question, the topic of conversation changed quickly; one of the other ladies didn't smile for the rest of dinner; and I moved over a seat and engaged in a productive conversation.
    Often I start these posts with a quote. Today I am going to leave you with a few quotes of my own, "To trip a man solely because he is walking, that is malice." I cry out to you... "Beware! For evil does not lunge upon a man in full form. It creeps, taking but one little concession at a time."
    On the way back from that tournament I wrote this "In order to cause a generation to forget those lessons learned from history, one need only to talk about that history in a light, jovial, and careless manner." Heed the lessons learned from our ancestors in the past. Open the history books. Read them aloud in the streets if need be. Let us never laugh in the face of evil, for if we ever think we are that far above it....we are terribly mistaken. Let us never be kicked by the ass twice.

Story of Clarity?

     A flash, a moment, the point where his thoughts proceeded faster than time itself. Call it imagination or premonition, does it really matter the name? In one second he saw something which could be; in that second he saw with, both absolute clarity and deepest haze.
     While on the phone the young woman asks him, "Could you grab my bags for me". He nods with his usual lack of expression, she walks in the hotel still talking to whoever was on the phone. He follows, she turns toward the elevator. The suit and skirt outline her figure as the heals provide height and sway. He stops for a moment seeing nothing else. Then the image strikes him of a loveless marriage, little more than a partnership. She knows he is reliable. He knows her talents and abilities. He sees many nights in hotels on her necessary business. He sees a large house that's empty, certainly not a home. He sees people he doesn't know, who know more than himself. He sees a sad ending, an early brokenness. And just like that he returns. He feels as if he was gone for years but she is only a few more steps ahead of him. He remembers to exhale, then walks on.
     So here this story told to me, is again told to you, as our existences intersect before we walk on.

Today's Change

     This is who I am...today. Do not be fooled; we are creations who change. Even now I drift from what I have been to what I will become. Though I am caught in a strong current, it is ever changing with me as I change. This is but a temporary house and place to stay for a night, or a year; but I will continue away from here eventually. At the end of this river is the place when the current ends and I can place my feet on solid ground. At the end of this journey is the place I can truly call home. At the end of this sojourn is the place of true peace and joy. There lies rest for the weary, love for the forgotten, and a home for the restless. This is but a lull in the current, and a pause in my thoughts. Come journey with me if but for a short time. We will teach each other of who we have been and we will become together.

School Confidence

    Milton once claimed "Confidence imparts a wondrous inspiration to its possessor.--It bears him on in security, either to meet no danger, or to find matter of glorious trial." Confidence here I remind you is not to be miss-defined as arrogance. Confidence is indeed something that must be built, and a long term project it is. I do not mean an empty hollow confidence which is merely a facade. I am referring to knowing that you can trust yourself, that in a tight situation you have the ability to overcome it, no matter what it may be.
    In my classes which started recently, I was quickly reminded of of how little true confidence there is in these students. They go about perfectly fine in their own small world with their own small friends. I'm talking about high school students who look well enough at a quick glance. Really, they are talking to each other and getting average grades and paying average attention to the teacher, but is that true confidence? I see a lack to critical thinking and logic. They are like walking computers programed with specific responses to specific questions so they can pass the standardized problems in life. Every once in a while I see one of them faced with and problem outside their small comfort zone, and just like a PC (sorry I couldn't resist my inner nerd) they crash. They crash back onto their parents or a teacher to bail them out and solve whatever it was. Now I'm not knocking reasonable help. God knows we need it from time to time and there are several students I've notice with good self-confidence.
    I was blessed with parents, and a father specifically who laid the foundations of analytical thinking and troubleshooting in me at a young age. He gave me problems to solve and taught me to think in a very real and applicable way. The experiences that he gave me, the experiences that he allowed me to acquire are an integral part of my self-confidence. Sure I failed, rather often. I made a fool out of my self once or twice, but less of a fool than the kid next to me, who didn't try at all, probably looks today. I am confident that I will fail sometimes. I am confident that even if I fail I will learn from my mistakes. I am confident that the reward is worth the risk.
    Dad here's to you. Thanks for all the experiences and pushes you gave me. I can figure out what's wrong with that engine and fix it, just as easily as I can talk to my state representative. I can design a small website, just as easily as I can write poetry. I can learn my way around a sound system from scratch, just as easily as I can cook a sage apple stir-fry from scratch. Because you taught me how to have confidence, I can do all these things and more. You showed me how to learn something I didn't know. Thank you.

Motherly Advice

    The well known President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln once said, "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." The less known President, John Quincy Adams, had stated earlier, "All that I am my mother made me." Now I'm not going to address how I believe that there should be a stronger fatherly influence especially in today's American culture where most children grow up without a father figure at all.
    I want to mention something I have noticed especially in the home-schooling (That is, the child's parents, mostly mothers, teach them at home or in small classes together with other home-schoolers. Usually based in Judeo-Christian morals and beliefs.) community near me. I'm certainly not sexist in the usual sense of the word. I do, however, believe that men and women have equal yet different roles. I see that the seventeen, eighteen, year old seniors are not what I would hope they would be. I would hope that I could say, 'Look at this next generation of men and women, they are ready to change the world.' instead I look and think to myself (for a large part), 'Another bunch of boys and girls, when will they grow up?' I observe that perhaps moms, you should let your kids grow up. If your son misplaced his cell phone, don't crawl around on your hands and knees looking for it while he just stands there. Mothers, maybe, your job isn't to take care of your children at this age. It might be to raise them up to be men and women. You might have to let them make some mistakes. Moms don't answer questions directed at your kids, if your "kids" are capable of doing so on their own.
    John Stuart Mill once said "Men are men before they are lawyers, or physicians, or merchants, or manufacturers; and if you make them capable and sensible men, they will make themselves capable and sensible lawyers or physicians." Mothers, love your sons, give them that advice about the weather and how he might need a jacket, but in the end try to raise them to be capable and sensible.
    I would like to praise all the mother's out there. The work you do to raise your children is incredibly difficult. I am not trying to belittle you or what you do, just suggesting a possible way to improve. My mother needed incredible patience and perseverance with me (can't you tell), so here's thanks to you mom.
    What do you most appreciate about your mother?