Elitist Idiot

MOVING DAY!

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Wed, 13 May 2009 20:58:00 +0000

This is just a quick post to point my readers to the shiny new home of my blog, which can henceforth be found amongst the musings at Elitist Idiots (that's www.elitistidiots.com). Look for posts with my "name" (xarexerax) as the author, and there I am!

Elitist Idiots is a collaborative project that I've been working with for some time, but haven't had much to show for it yet. This move was delayed in the meantime while we, as a group, found some direction, settled on a style, and otherwise learned to cooperate with one another towards a unified idea.

I encourage you to check out the other content there as well. There may not be a whole lot right now, but there's things in the pipeline that we're excited about. Keep an eye on us.

Senseless Promotion

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Tue, 12 May 2009 16:18:00 +0000

Recently a group of my associates and myself stumbled upon a musician by the name of Doctor Steel. I say musician because that seems to be the primary output of the amusing little image/world he's created for himself; beyond the music, there's an entire culture supporting this "mad scientist" vision of world domination, complete with "Ask Dr. Steel" clips, full-length Public Service Announcement styled videos supporting creativity and imagination, and a bevy of other things, all devoted to touting this "future world emperor" and his proposed "Utopian Playand".

Now, I'm not one for getting caught up in off-color hype and dedicating my life to someone else for the sheer joy of signing off and doing whatever this person tells me to just because I've stumbled on them through this lovely internet that we've got going, but whatever this crazy is cooking in his head is pretty cool, actually. His plan for the future -- once he takes over the world, of course -- is a world where the primary concern of its citizens is fun. He encourages people to do whatever they want, to think for themselves, to chase their uncatchable dreams and seek the pleasures of their true desires rather than being tied to the monotony of a daily grind dedicated solely to the accumulation of what small measure of wealth we can obtain. His message, while tinged through the lenses of a self-purported madman, is one of simplicity and the ability to enjoy life, to see through the eyes of a child. And why shouldn't we? Why would we devote ourselves to pursuits that we don't enjoy?

Now, there's still a sense of rationality here. I know that, for reasons beyond what I care to delve into, I can't just cast aside all sense of responsibility and just strip down for a lark in a meadow or something like that. I can't just flee the sense of taking care of the things I need to tend to, but at the same time, to be wholly consumed by existence for the sake of existence is just as bad; while we must cater to the needs and wants of ourselves and those we love, to replace our former childlike appreciation for the beauty in the world with a dull resignation to the encroaching banality of corporate life is surely a mistake. And with that in mind, I've taken up the banner of promoting Doctor Steel through the community surrounding his intoxicating madness, the Army of Toy Soldiers.

And why am I blathering about all of this here? Because I want to spread the word. I'm not really sure whether I'd want to see Doctor Steel, whoever he may have once been, take over the world, but I can certainly agree with a community that's dedicated to setting aside any differences and objections, putting away the miserable ruts of life and hatred spawned from so many other subgroups of humanity these days to get together as humans, as people joined in a single cause: to enjoy themselves and the world we share. So many things I've seen are focused on some kind of negative or holier-than-thou precept, from religious or political institutions to street gangs and back-alley drug rings, we as humans so often attach ourselves to this sense that we're not just different, but we're better for it. It's present in the "God Hates Fags" protestors of Westboro Baptist right on down through the pro-gay alliance, PETA, executive boardrooms, dusty poker dens; pretty much anywhere that people gather with likeminded individuals, we find ourselves separating "us" from "them" not in a way that acknowledges the shared trait of "human" but focuses on the unique constrictions that make us smarter, more free, more tolerant. Don't even get me started on the "more tolerant" types. I could ramble for days on the inconsistencies of those abusive arguments and the precepts which they bear with such zealous fervor that I'm just waiting for the powderkeg to really burst.

This, though, seems something different. Of course there's a mindset that goes into it, but one of the most celebrated aspects is the diversity of the community itself. It seems to attract all sorts, reaches all ages, transcends all sense of demographic as regularly defined by Nielsen ratings and advertising moguls the world over. Out of this, too, there grows an expanding sense of community; discussions of politics and spirituality are not wholly inclusive, such as they are with groups drawn from such pools, but at the same time, they're not considered wholly tabboo as would be expected in many non-affiliated groups. They are openly and freely discussed, and from what I've seen, all the unique worldviews are welcomed openly and met with interest and comparison of ideas and ideologies rather than hate, debate, or the classic "you're wrong because I'm right and we can't both be right" mentality that so often spoils efforts to explore this aspect of our communal humanity and the myriad vestiges of faiths and concepts old and new. And it accomplishes all of this, of course, while encouraging each of its members to think, to be creative and intelligent, to be expressive and imaginative, to be open-minded and to freely indulge in the pleasures of life, whether with hedonistic vigor or quiet appreciation of the whole of our percieved universe.

On that note, I encourage you all to check out the music and artistic musings of Doctor Steel. Any search engine should be able to bring you to his website; it's a veritable cornucopia of strange artisitc expressions. You may like it, you may hate it, you may be wholly indifferent; what matters is that you give it a try, that you open yourself to the possibilities of life -- and whether you feel like swearing digital loyalty to some would-be world emperor or not, I certainly encourage you all to find new and innovative ways to truly get the best of your lives in, and to deeply and truly and with reckless abandon have fun and don't give in for anything.

To a Utopian Playland!

Sacrifice

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Fri, 08 May 2009 17:42:00 +0000

My last few posts here have been centered on addiction, on the feelings associated with engaging in some often self-destructive habit that feeds our own internal desire to cling to the familiar and explore the limits of desire, whether through indulgence or mere habitual acceptance to partake in a given vice. But what of the other side of that, of the drive that made me forego my usual comfort-zone addictions and delve into the realm of withdrawals?

Generally this severance is taken as part of a ritual of some sort, be it social, religious, or entirely personal; there are those who fast, or remove from themselves some other thing which causes them this suffering, in the hopes that this purity of body will bring to them an expanded consciousness or further their spiritual development; Christianity -- and Catholicism in particular -- has the annual deprivation rite of Lent, where one cuts unnecessary aspects of one's life to attain a clearer understanding of the concepts of resisting temptation and to represent the fasting Jesus undertook before being tempted by Satan in the desert. Then we have the social aspect, the rehabilitation clinics and 12-step programs to help people "get on the wagon" and find themselves in a state that's more socially "appropriate" so that they can continue to succeed, to be role models, to recapture the public's affections after a stormy fall from grace at the hands of heroin, cocaine, or alcohol.

And why? What sense of this makes us feel as if this improves us as people? Is it that we feel that through intentional suffering, we steel ourselves against the inevitable sting of temptations that we must resist for their own sake? A human is only as strong as they will themselves to be, after all, so these trappings of tradition and ritual can certainly serve to bolster the mind that would otherwise falter, can bring one to a sense of self-satisfaction and purify the guilt that society so often heaps upon the addicted, no matter their affliction; we seek to prove to ourselves and to the world that we truly can "quit any time we want" and then, having made our point by lasting the 40 days of Lent, the 6 months to get that next tag, the first few weeks of intense withdrawals to be overcome, we allow ourselves the victory relapse of diving full-bore back into our own vexations and cravings; a congratulatory leap from the wagon to the watering hole, followed by the same repeating cycle of self-induced guilt forged from the taboos of sociopolitical ethos and group morality until we are driven again to seek the succor from our own imagined hell through the dedication to some other program, some other ritual of salvation through starvation of our basest desires.

I think that through this dedication to deprivation, we learn to see ourselves through limits rather than shortcomings; in addiction, in trying through futility to break such, we see only our failures and pitfalls. Through superceding that with some overdriven dedication to the removal of that aspect, we gain a control over ourselves and our existences; we shift or view not to that which holds us back, but that which we push against to become something greater either in our mind's eye or in the public's distorted sense of super-ego and semireligious group morality. This more positive spin on existing struggles brings us the hope and necessary strength to overcome our other weaknesses, to improve the force of our will that we might grow and mature and blossom into something more than what we were; through divesting ourselves of these fractuous clingings-on to unnecessary aspects of our lives, we find that we have strength beyond our own measure.

And so, fight on! If you find yourself addicted to something, remove it; not forever, not to prove to society that you can kick it to the curb, but to prove to yourself that you ARE capable of what you set your mind to. This is not a test, this is not a challenge; this is a suggestion to grow in yourself and expand your own mind through the dedication to yourself and your own life. Accept or deny it as you will.

Addictions and More

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Fri, 01 May 2009 22:16:00 +0000

First, a quick note. There's now a PayPal Donate button located on the right side of this here thing. If any of you can spare anything, from $5 to $500, that would help myself and the love of my life come up with the last bit of cash to finalize everything we need for our upcoming wedding, I would be eternally grateful. Seriously, anything that can be given would help a great deal. I hate asking for handouts, but there are some times in life when it cannot seem to be avoided, as much as I would love to find another way.

Now, on to business. Through this blog and some Facebook posts, a number of people have been tracking the progess of my week without caffeine. Overall, the experiment has been mostly one in self-flagellation; between the intermittent headaches, the horrible leg cramps, and being excessively tired, I have little to show for it than a stubborn resolve to stick to my guns and teeth that are probably whiter than they've been in years by the grace of not being stained by a constant flow of coffee and tea.

What it has given in benefit, though, is a dose of perspective and plenty of food for thought in the realm of addiction, withdrawals, and the whole "doing without" aspect of life. I think that it's really shown me, both through my own actions and in things going on around me, that people really can become addicted to anything. Work, school, friends, family, drugs, emotions, the whole range of things with which we're capable of interacting becomes a minefield of potential additictions when the collective human inclination to attach ourselves to that which we enjoy kicks in. We embrace those things in life which give us pleasure, and this becomes a form of avarice through our desire for more of that selfsame pleasure; we are driven to seek out the things that we enjoy, even if those things may be obviously self-destructive or detrimental. Look at the case of the smoker, such as myself, who knows the risks and dangers of engaging in the activity and says that they are going to, or are trying to, quit, but just need that one more cigarette to help them calm down, they've had a stressful day at work, and I just can't sleep when I'm feeling jittery like this, and well, now it's morning and I don't want to face the day without this anchor that helps me wake up, or take a break from the day while toiling away at work -- the cycle is nearly endless.

Look, too, to the abusive relationships of the world, to the people who cling to their non-lover despite the clear and undeniable acts of violence or hate, of sheer uncontrollable rage; oh, that's just how he is, he doesn't mean to hurt me -- excuses formed to keep ourselves from having to face the reality of cutting ourselves away from what we know and, for strange reasons, find comfort in. Change is a scary thing, even when that change is for the better; thus, we allow the addiction to take hold, we become enslaved to our own perception of what we need, what we want, what we idealize about the things we have, flatly ignoring the blaring klaxons screaming at us to wake up and see the light and break ourselves from our own self-terminating tendencies. We begrudgingly light another cigarette, tell the nurse that we fell down the stairs, pull the tourniquet tight so we can get a good shot at that vein and find some relief in our death-obsessive desires, all the while knowing that any moment could be our last because we've chosen to hold to the objects, sensations, emotions that we know and understand, the comfortable realm of the already-experienced, daring not to tread into the dark waters of help and healing.

And why? Is it just fear? Is there no reason besides a deep-seated desire to avoid the unknown that makes us keep our shackles even though we hold the keys? The ache in my legs right now says, "Not at all". It's not just that we can't overcome some sense of paranoia that wells up from looking into the darkness; it's that we know that unfamiliar ground can be painful. The abusive boyfriend may leave bruises, but those fade faster than emotional scars. The cigarettes may cause cancer, but that's in the future, far off from the cravings and the mood swings in today's attempt to kick the habit. We stick to what we know not only because we find comfort in it, but because we know that out there, in the world away from where we are, there's a lurking pain just waiting for us to leap willingly into its grasp, stalking us at every turn and waiting for the slip where we finally decide to plunge into the darkness from whence it can strike; and once it has struck, we find ourselves yearning for the relief that only those very same corrosive habits can offer; the succor of a well-known hurt, of a masochistic indulgence that we've already embraced.

As this week draws to a close and I wait to re-embrace my own vice, I will muse on the idea of cutting oneself off from addiction and the various rites and rituals there entwined; more next week on the subject, once I'm caffeinated and have had more time to reflect on all of this. Suffice it to say that this has been a very interesting and surprisingly thought-provoking experiment on my part, and I'm excited to use the lessons therein.

Decaffeination, Day 3

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 00:57:00 +0000

As I said, I'm making this post to chronicle the effects of cutting off my normally high caffeine intake. So far, the results of the experiment are ... unpleasant at best. The headaches come and go, but the key annoyance today has been an excrutiatingly painful bout of muscle tension in my legs. It feels like I went on a five-mile uphill run or something; it's off-and-on throughout the day, but stretching and other such things seem not to help at all. Going for my daily walk made it worse. Such are the pains of ignoring one's addictions, I suppose.

I'll have a much lengthier and more thought-provoking post Friday. For now, a quick update on where the experiment has landed me. Enjoy my misery for the time being.

(Experi)Mental Divergence

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 00:49:00 +0000

For those of you who don't know me, I'm an avid coffee drinker. Tea, too. I used to drink lots of sodas, energy drinks, and other sugar-caffeine concoctions, but at this point, I'm mostly down to the two main vices: straight black coffee (4-6 cups per day) and iced tea with a hint of lemon, no sugar (2-4 20oz. glasses per day). On a whim, though, today I've decided to launch an experiment. A test of my willpower, and a measurement of my ability to function without the benefits (and drawbacks) of caffeine in my system at all times, with more along the way as the day goes on.

Today is day one. I promised some folks that I'd try to post the results of my first day; so, without further ado ...

I notice first and foremost that I make more typoes that I have to correct as I go along. My fingers are slower to react, my brain just a little bit more behind itself, making it more difficult to get everything down the way I'd like it. Not too impairing, really, but a little annoying. I also feel pretty tired, but I suppose that's how you're supposed to feel after 10 hours at the office. On the whole, my body feels pretty good; to replace my normal coffee-and-tea regimen, I've been drinking water all day, and I expect this is going to help clean me out a bit, get my body more "in tune" with the way that it's supposed to be according to nature and/or hippies, whichever is more correct. While my mind is a bit dulled, it's also pretty focused; I'm finding it easier to focus on a single task, though more difficult to process that task efficiently. Overall effect on my efficiency in regards to work is minimal to nonpresent. More on that as the week drags on.

So, why would I put this up here, post about how I'm cutting some certain beverages from my life for a short period? Because I use this digital soapbox as a means to chronicle my endeavors, as discussed before, and to push myself to do it. I don't care if anyone's reading this, the fact is that the chance that there are people who might be means that I've got some obligation, self-invented though it may be, to stick to my game plan, if only so that I can accurately and truthfully report the results to whoever might be interested. Most people who know me haven't seen me after I've gone a week -- or, in many cases, even a day -- without caffeine. It's an exploration of myself in a way that is generally unseen and unknowable even to me.

The other reason is that because this record of my thoughts and journies is, in fact, another similar test. I've historically been a pretty closed-down person, keeping most things to myself and sharing only when I felt it was truly necessary. Now, though, it seems that more and more people expect, or desire, me to share more, to put thoughts into words, to put words into blogs, to put blogs into cyberspace, and so on. It's not just me, either; it's a whole global cultural revolution. Watching the page-view analysis of these few pages over the course of the last several months has been an interesting look into just how that works. The way that I "advertise" my blog is purely social; I don't pay for endorsements or advertisements, I just spread the word to my family, my friends, my coworkers, and urge them to do the same. The more I push that, the more I see an increased number of viewers; I know I've gone well above the relatively small number that I first informed about my encroaching endeavor to write.

So, experiments in mind, we travel into a new week. I will chronicle the progress of my decaffeination as they arise, probably two more posts this week to analyze and finally form some conclusions before diving back into the energetic (and delicious) pool of caffeinated beverages.

I'm thirsty already.

Expiration and Inspiration

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 18:16:00 +0000

Sometimes, the most cathartic events can be the most unassuming everyday occurences.

I use this blog as a means to forge some silent legacy of myself, I think, and yet deny such accusations when pressed, because it seems to me an act of vanity; that said, I think it's time I admit to myself than even vanity is not, within its own confines, an evil thing -- my most recent recurrent revelation was the ageless bit of wisdom, "All things in moderation". This does not apply only to vices based in tangible things, nor in indulgences of those things which are supposed to be good, but it is meant to be truly all-encompassing. A bit of vanity, after all, merely manifests as an unshakable self-confidence without the requisite venomous pride so often attributed to those who truly see an inflated version of themselves infused with a greatness not truly their own.

And so, this purification of the concept of vanity as a deserved self-assurance brings me to a new pathway, one by which I can approach my corner of internet pseudofame with a renewed -- or perhaps wholly new -- sense of purpose and a dedication to the words that I choose and the people to whom I expose them. Whether I ever intend it or not, people will read the things that I write, and they will take from them lessons that are partially of my contrivance and largely of their own interpretation and manifest these subliminal lessons into their lives; I may as well admit that to myself, and to those who allow my attempts at self-expression to imprint a view upon their minds, that I may truly understand myself in the (likely misguided) hope that in so doing, I can agree to do my part in the mutual production that is our world, whatever kind of bit part it may be. Perhaps I'll cameo in the afterlife as well.

What gets me, then, is that I feel as if I have more concrete responsibility to write things that may be meaningful; that I must explore the boundaries of my own psyche to encourage thought and action in my readers -- wherein lies the pitfall of playing to one's audience, selecting a specific group, subgroup, or individual and attempting to tailor my voice to suit their needs, which I certainly wish to avoid. That said, the most important thing that I can offer to any man (or, for you equality-preaching types, woman) is the capacity to drive thought and through that thought drive action and through that action drive growth; personal development, revelation, the hunger to be something greater -- or to realize the greatness of what one has already become, to explore the limits of the human experience and drink from the well of shared-mind life.

Everyone has problems, has issues, has barriers which prevent their further evolution along their own mental landscape. This is the force which drives our struggles, and struggle is the only means by which we can seek to better ourselves. So, to best serve the greatest number of persons with my words (and/or supposed wisdom), the only thing I can hope to do is to analyse my own struggles and, from the lessons and growth I achieve, spread seeds of insight that can, on their own and in due time, find places to root and thereby drive a greater global consciousness.

Too often of late it seems to me that the primary reaction to tragedy, to struggle, is escapism; to avoid those issues which make us uncomfortable. This is the most toxic attitude present in humans today -- that we feel that if we shirk our problems for a long enough expanse, they will dissolve or self-correct, and we will have been able to achieve some sense of satisfactory growth through the simple act of having seen the troubles, rather than having faced them. We feel that by turning to things which alleviate our pains, we solve the things that harm us; too often, though, we turn to things even more harming to our minds and bodies to achieve these things, and we grab onto habits which, in their own time, will become the demons we must face if we expect to experience any sense of growth or personal revelation, or they become that which robs us of our life -- metaphorically at best, but often literally. The struggle, then, comes full circle; that all things must be in moderation. If you push too hard against all troubles, you will be broken; nobody is capable of taking on the world in a single battle. At the same time, to avoid the conflict altogether prevents the ability of one to ever achieve a greater self. And so we go on, escaping some battles, fighting others, and generally swinging blind on the battlefield of our existence.

What is most important to remember in this is that a battle need not be won in order for it to have been well-fought. Even the greatest among humans has had moments of defeat; it is what we do with that defeat which defines our legacy.

Conformist Nonconformity

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:40:00 +0000

"Well, why do you go out of your way to look like a bum?

Wouldn't it be more of an act of rebellion if you didn't spend so much time buying blue hair dye and going out to get punky clothes? It seems so petty. You wanna be an individual, right? You look like you're wearing a uniform. You look like a punk."

-- "Brandy", SLC Punk!

The above quote, I think, defines the very reason I've failed to ever truly identify with any subsect of society; there are so many subcultures, each concerned only with their capacity to differentiate between themselves and "those people" (whoever "they" may be) that we forget that to seek individualism requires an effort of the mind, of a free-thinking self embodied not within a certain fashion, a certain musical taste, a certain communal passtime. We become so very caught up with making sure that we're not something we wouldn't want to be that we forget what it is we do want to be; we cast aside the true flavor of ourselves, replacing it with shock-value driven adherence to something that marks us as being something else -- forgoing any sense of satisfaction that should be gained from that same self-expression. We engage ourselves in efforts to identify with a group of people that we feel are, on some level, like us, either physically, emotionally, mentally, or through whatever shared trait we can cling onto in the hopes that we're not alone in the world, in the universe, that we have this connection with people as forged through the chains that bind each of us to our own personal indulgences.

The most famous expression of this desperate irony comes in the phrase, "I want to be different, just like everyone else" -- something I first encountered in the 1990s when the cynical mood of the grunge era took hold. This became a motif amongst those disenfranchised youths who sought to leave their mark not on the world, but on themselves; they recognized the futility of the other subcultures around them adopting their own uniform, and they developed a uniform of their own based on noncompliance with the existing templates; in so doing, though, they found themselves trapped by the same lack of identity-crisis as all the rest, and this seemingly-inescapable truth brought with it the ennui that has afflicted the formative years of each subsequent class of fresh young faces waiting to find their place in the not-so-hallowed halls of our education system, spurring the resurgence in more recent days of the shock-heavy, overdone uniforms of the new social strata -- the neo-punk, the emo, the nerdcore, etc -- now reliant upon not a sense of individualism, but an intense dedication to the masses, to the culture with which one finds oneself identifying.

Each generation of humans (okay, I'll admit it, I'm mostly talking Americans here) seems to identify itself most strongly by adopting something which defines itself as separate from the generation before it; that is, rather than adopting a unique culture to themselves, they attempt to focus on forming a counter-culture, a contrast to the existing structure meant to stand stark against that structure so as to grasp at a lack of structure entirely; this is evidenced in the Mods of the late 1950s-1960s, the Hippies of the 60s and 70s, the punks of the 80s, and so on; each seeking to find a self-expression through being an entity wholly separate from that which came before it. Even so, these subcultures often find themselves fight for -- or against -- the same ideals as their predecessors, in some grand attempt to overthrow the same system that seemed to oppress the younger years of their forefathers who sought to rebel against their parents, and so on.

Thus, we become an entire culture devoted to nothing more than embracing the taboos of our forebears, eventually assimilating those taboos into the same corporate structure so that we can have the capacity to build a legacy of this "new ideal", bringing about an oppressive structure which will, of course, be the bane of our own progeny as they grow into a world where the system keeps them from expressing themselves as individuals by clinging to outdated mores and archaic customs built on the refusal to succumb to the wisdom of our fathers.

But what else is there? Our only method of distinguishing ourselves is to reject the identities which came before us; we find ourselves becoming that same thing we fought to reject, all the while failing to recognize that at the very core, this system can be nothing but self-replicating. The entire culture of counterculture relies on the principle of breaking new ground when comapred against existent models. We attempt to hash out new ideas by breaking apart ideas that were present before any of us, before any of our progenitors, before any of their parents even knew what ideas could come to be in any given direction, but we can only find frame of reference in the systems that we seek to overthrow; is this cycle the only way we have of experiencing any form of individuality and uniqueness in the world? If the advent of any new era is only capable of rising from the ashes of the prior era, then how could we ever hope to become something other than the same socioeconomic phoenix rebirthed through our own desire to self-terminate, rebuild, and then preserve? We, today, are the suicide of the hippies; not the death of them, but the voluntary compliance of their ideals to the realities of our culturo-economic significance, adherence to which constitutes our only known means of survival.

How long before we can truly find a new way to exist, to survive, to thrive?

Caged By Freedom

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:15:00 +0000

I've been thinking a lot lately about the apparent oppressive nature of the professional and educational systems here in the U.S. -- namely, the seemingly cyclical nature of the beast as a whole. In order to get a good job, you need a good education; a good education costs exponentially greater amounts of money than a basic one, so you need a good job in order to pay off the loans you'll inevitably incur while pursuing the degree necessary to get the job you want, so that when you've got that "dream job" of yours, you eventually find yourself slave-bound in service to it so as to ensure your capacity to keep paying off those debts for which you toiled to ensure that you'd be able to get the job you wanted.

Whirlwind much?

Point is, I thought for a while now that I was frustrated by the system; namely, by the fact that my present work schedule (and freely-available cash) pretty much prohibit my returning to school to pursue my major of choice and thereby use a degree in said major to attain my dream job. Duly angered by this fact, I railed against the unfairness and imbalance inherent to the system itself, and struggled against the rather constricting bonds that keep me where I am now, doing what I am now for the company presently paying me to do it. In the last few days, though, I've had a revelation -- and it seems that it's the more widespread toxin reaching its tendrils into the daily lives of more people around me than I realized; it's less about the fact that we cannot freely pursue whatever it is that is our heart's desire, it's that the daily grind of our existence, working to pay the bills to keep the house that's close to work to save on gas for the car we're still paying off with the money earned from the job we wish we could leave for something else, that we've forgotten how to have those dreams, those ideals to which we might attempt to aspire, the majors for which we'd vie in the ivied halls of our university of choice had we the time and money to pursue them.

It's a special kind of ennui that slowly strangles the life out of our former aspirations as we are faced with ever-present reality, a volatile economy, a backlash of time wasted in youth which, in retrospect, made for a great party but isn't anything to scrapbook about for the grandkids. We lose ourselves in keeping up with the present so much so that we forget to consider the future beyond a financial singularity and a hope that we'll be able to retire comfortably after the soulsuckers presently enslaving our listless spirits have drained us to the point that there's nothing left to take; that's not to say that one can't enjoy being in such a job -- hell, I'm pretty fond of the company I work for, but it's certainly not where I, as a child, envisioned myself being at this point.

And that's the real core of it all; we've resigned ourselves to what must be done rather than what should be done, what could be done, what we'd like to have done -- we allow our dreams to fall dormant as we strive to make sure that someday we can hope to have "more realistic dreams" and set "achievable goals" for ourselves.

Well, you know what? F**k "achievable goals".

I want to see a people willing to reach for the stars and fail. I want to see the world ready to leap for the unattainable, full of youthful vigor and that starry-eyed wonder that made us want to be astronauts, or firemen, or NFL superstars, or glam-rock megahits, or whatever it was we once dared to believe we could be. I want to see people who know and understand the consequences for making stupid mistakes, but who make them anyhow. I want to see optimism return to a world at a time where being optimistic is just plain crazy, because that's exactly the kind of world that needs it the most.

I may not be a beacon in the night, a light to guide souls to their destiny, but I can sure as hell climb up on a roof and set myself ablaze, becoming a beacon to someone, if only for that brief moment before the searing flames consume my flesh and my ashes spread to the wind. And isn't that enough?

It damn well should be.

An Open Letter to My Audience

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:18:00 +0000

So much for complaining about only posting here once per month; seems I've gone and missed March entirely. For those loyal few who rely on my wit and wisdom to get them through the dull repetition of month after month turning into year -- either I'm sorry, or you really need a new hobby. I'm not that great an entertainer.

I have, at various points in my life, been told I should write a book. I've even toyed with the idea, thought about some concepts, and drew up a basic plot for a novel when I was in High School; of course, it was the kind of cardboard plot a high schooler came up with, so the idea died quickly even in my own mind, but that's really a diversion from the point. I've only ever seriously considered a nonfiction book, a treatise of sorts on life, the universe, and trite repetitions of phrases from better authors than myself (oh, and everything) -- that is, a philosophical examination of my own worldview, and an exposition from that launching point that would, in essence, seek to capture the depths of my own unique perspective, that which makes my worldview my own.

"So," you might find yourself wondering if you're the sort of person that reads the kinds of things that I write (and I know you are!), "Why haven't you written this book?" Well, dear readers, the answer to that one is simple -- it'd be self-defeating.

See, the most crucial element to my philosophy -- if you can call it that -- is one of personal reflection and revelation; that is, that each person should be permitted the opportunity to realize their own wordlview based on a series of experiences they have on their own time. Now, while the world at large seeks to manipulate the worldview of all those within it through religion, cults, political doctrines, social engineering, all of that can still collide into a very interesting and unique personal experience that is free of the limitations of each of those influences, capable of existing in a way that others who share common traits to any given slice of the pie of one's mind would find wholly incongruous and incapable of being (see the case of Ann Holmes Redding, my newest hero). So, the pull of these multitude of forces finds itself limited by the ingenuity of mankind, and we find new ways to adapt even the most ancient of credoes, further exploring and embracing a singularity that exists within each individual mind -- reflected, though it may be, through the lens of the experience and ideas of others.

So, then, I take this optimism, and it leads me here, to my small corner of the internet; to a place where I can leave my imprint, spread my message, provoke thoughts that I feel are worth thinking. This, though, treads close to breaching my own professed tenet; that I should permit those around me to think for themselves -- and that's why I don't write a book. Here, in cyberspace, I can talk about things abstractly; I can frame my phrases in the form of a question, and I can encourage exactly the kind of thought that I'm wishing would be more prevalent in our society. Within the context of a book, though, the ideas become something concrete, some evidence that carries beyond the text itself -- and it solidifies, it becomes something not fluid or changing, and it is in this loss of adaptability that something can transform; the ideas are no longer mine, as they are outside of my own control, and at this point the shift from "loyal readers" to "obsessive fans" can take control of something, twist it, turn it into something that would destroy the purpose of my writing a book in the first place; after all, there is always a point at which "provoking thought" can turn to "replacing thought" and the last thing I need to see in this world is a large group of people who think like I do.

So, in short, I don't write a book because I'm afraid it would get popular -- or, even worse, that its popularity would not strike until after my death, when I am sure to have no recourse for preventing the perversion of its texts. It's probably insanely pretentious to think that the eventuality of such is even possible, but if there's anything that I've learned through my time in fancying myself a freelance philosopher, it's that people will buy into anything if they're given the proper opportunity, and we can never predict the potency of large groups of stupid people being easily manipulated or fed manufactured lines devised from a source that never intended to bestow such gravity on the minds of its participants. I can't, for even a moment, think that my own view of the world is so pure and wonderful that any other should hold it -- rather the opposite, in fact! -- but the simplest way to consider it is that whether or not it should be considered such, it could be.

So, then, why this rambling rant on why I don't pen my philosophy? Because I'm resolved. I'm resolved to write more here, more than once a month (or, uh, none-ce?), and that means I'm going to have to get into subject matter that's normally reserved for my own innermind, the place where I consider with depth the things that I observe in the world around me, my interpretations thereof -- it is where I melt the sand that becomes the glass to forge the lens through which everything I see is distorted. And so this post is a warning, a promise, a request; I will do what I can to continue to provide content which makes people think. What I ask in return is simply that you do me the honour of thinking.

On that note, one last bit of advice: If ever you find yourself agreeing with everything I say, then please, change your mind.

Cathartistic Talent

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 22:22:00 +0000

I had a discussion with some associates of mine today about "what is art" and other such examinations; the conversation basically achieved nothing, but it got me thinking, and thinking is the fuel for ... well, whatever it is I'm doing here, which is pretty firmly established as not being art, whatever one's definition of art may be.

I'm not going to wax poetic on the meaning of art, or what makes something "art" versus "a waste of canvas" or whatever else. My thoughts on the matter aren't really relevant to anyone, since I'm not an artist or an overpaid art critic or a magazine columnist upon whom the world waits with baited breath to know the next genius splatterpainting themselves across the landscape of Our Great Nation. I'm an essayist, a socio-generic commentator, an examiner of the finer points of our own faltering ridiculousness, and I maintain that essays are not a form of art, even if they are a form of expression. My ever-so-mediocre talents don't permit me the narcissism of calling myself an artist, nor does my feeble witlessness echo with the tides of time like a significant zeitgeist burned into the collective memory of those that were there.

Now, this causes me to wonder, to really think on what it is I'm doing by chroncling my relatively unwarranted discourse on the meaning of life, the universe, and nothing in particular. I muse for the sake of musing, I think, but to what end? I'm told there are a handful of people who, for reasons beyond my ken, trudge through the mire of my twisted linguistic ambulation; it's possible, perhaps, that some unfortunate soul from among their number does so from their own perverted masochistic desire rather than the sense of obligation impressed upon my friends and family to whom I've passed the notion that I write at all anymore. So, perhaps I'm writing for them, whoever they may be; perhaps I'm trying to provoke thought in some individual somewhere who might take that thought and, like so many before them, turn that thought to action, and forge a brighter new tomorrow by way of inspiration gleaned from betwixt the rubble of my mental landscape.

I used to think I wrote to chronicle things, to leave evidence that I had once existed and known myself to think on things that I considered relevant or important; this, though, is too arrogant -- and I'd be claiming credit, whatever the case, if that was my end. I'm rather distinctly trying to separate the identity of my physical self from that of my online presence, and here, I'm just spouting ideas for the sake of it, spreading my own personal brand of propaganda, the end result of which I couldn't possibly imagine. Long story short, I'm pretty sure I'm not in this for the fame and glory. Because essayists are so often lauded with praise and seared into the public memory to be regarded as heroes for generations to come.

Am I right?

So, that leads me to a conclusion that there is no conclusion. There is no real reason that I scribble my brainwaves across the digital framework of our greatest achievement and biggest failure, the internet. It's without form or function that I give gravity to my own meandering internal monologue, breathing to life some swan-song of far-from-epic neural activity and hoping to cast some gimpse of that which I might lean on to define myself as an entity separate from any potential audience, some vain hope that someday, long after my passing, the thoughts I've collected into my fluctuating journal of the mundane will blossom into the brain of a worthwhile philosopher and bring about something -- even if it's only a thought, in passing, a mirrored glimpse of that which sparked my own lack of creativity, furthering the chain of human-to-human conceptualization which breeds the creative necessity of life.

Long Since Coming

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:36:00 +0000

I'd like to take a moment to reflect on change, leadership, and the common misconception that Barack Obama is either a messiah or the devil himself.

A lot of people have been pretty miffed about the way that America has been run for the last eight years; in case my previous postings aren't indicative, I'm among that number myself. A lot of us have been waiting for a change, for things to be different, for a fresh new face to lead us forward and help fix up a lot of problems which may or may not have been the fault of the previous administration; some which have existed since before anyone involved in that administration had power, some of which are relatively new. Now, last week, Barack Obama, the selected representative for this change, was sworn in (twice, even), and we can get down to business, right?

Maybe.

People seem to think that because he's President, Mr. Obama will be able to make good on a number of promises that he made while vying for office; things like tax reductions, stimulus packages, economic relief, advances in medical science, reduction in torture propogated by a nation that doesn't torture -- a lot of good stuff, really, when you get into the heart of it. He's even started his term by taking some strides towards these things -- but that's all he's able to do. I don't know why people think that the federal budget is at the hands of the Preisdent, or why they'd buy into the idea that he can personally reduce their income taxes, or that he's capable of the broad-swept changes that we need, that he promised, that are arenas far beyond the control of his office and those of his fellow administrative folk.

Sure, he's got a congress built on his own party's backs, but even there -- well, partisanship isn't the only name of the game, and he's ruffled a lot of feathers amongst his fellow Democrats as well as Republicans with some of his plans for change; that's going to make it difficult to achieve what he told us would be done as if by magic, and we lapped it up -- the messianic revival of the voting populace flocking to this newfound truth-bringer who shall bear down with light upon the darkness spread by every other politician before him.

Oh, wait. There's a precedent there, isn't there? That every president, every politician, every single man to wield national power in the history of the United States, if not the world, has always lied. They've always failed to deliver on promises made, they've spread untruths, fallen victim to corruption, felt the sting of scandal or flaunted the influence of their position for their own personal gain. Without fail, each of our leaders has faltered, has slipped, has said or done unsavory things better swept under a rug and forgotten. Of course, with the digital age booming, you can bet your life savings -- if you still have any, that is -- that no scandal, no word, no slip of the tongue will exist in obscurity for more than five seconds before it's screaming across the internet by way of mobile-upload Twitter-screeching, Facebook status-updating, MySpace bulletin-shoving instant-gratification superculture.

I'll say what nearly everyone who's being vocal anymore seems afraid to say: I cannot wait for Obama to fail. I am literally abuzz with anticipation for the first blown-out-of-proportion report of possible scandal, of campaign promises crumbling, of our ever-so-exalted perfect leader as he stumbles, falls, and fails to rebound with the same elastic infallibility afforded him during the course of his bid for the office he now holds. It will bring a great and solid joy to my heart the first time that his imperfectness is shoved into the noses of holier-than-thou Leftists who bestow such accolades as are due a God unto this man, and they are forced to remember that, at the end of the day, he is only human. And a politician, at that. No savior shall hail from their number in my day -- of that I am absolutely certain.

That said, I hope that he doesn't. I hope, for all our sakes, that he's somehow able to work the miracles he's foretold, to push his agenda with dogged and unwavering perserverance, to strike at the corruption, inconsistency, and incompetence that plagues our nation, our government, our world. I would like nothing more than to see him pull it off, blaze into the global stage full of this promise and bearing an olive branch that none refuse. It would be the most fantastic thing I've ever known to see this happen.

But, I'm certainly not holding my breath. So, here's to hope, and keep those bomb shelters stocked in the meantime. You did all build those these last few years, right? Right. I thought so.

Rite of Way

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 18:11:00 +0000

I've only got one chance at this, so I'm taking it now; it's nearly a new year, and I can't very well just let that slip by without my acknowledging it.

Rites and rituals all around this time of year, after all. It seems that everyone has their vision of the perfect holiday season -- a white Christmas, a warm fireplace, a creamy hot chocolate on a crisp winter night. Gathering with family, or with friends, or curling up alone and dwelling on the events that have gone before us, and those which lay ahead. A quiet contemplation or a raucous year-end bash blasting music until dawn.

Each of these is a personal journey, and one into which we invite our loved ones, our friends, our colleagues. We all form our own ideal, and attempt to achieve that alongside those with whom our ideals may clash, may coincide, may be alien to. Rites and rituals, storied traditions and emergent trends, and always a call to the past with each frosted breath curling foglike into the air. We seek to embrace the future, ever hoping that it will outshine the past, never mindful of the fact that we perform these rotes in cyclical repetition, always thinking that this time, it has to make things better, make things bigger, make things greater than they have been. We always seem to hold to the childlike faith that "someday" is better than "today" and that when the clock strikes 12 and a new year unfurls in moments, hours, breaths ... that the change must be for the better, that we can leave behind each unpleasant memory and unwanted regret, and that we cast aside all that which has passed in favor of a new, improved existence.

Rites and rituals, whether we come together as a group and celebrate the successes of a year well spent, or stare coldly into the stars above alone and pondering the breadth of our own mental landscape as we feel the spinning of the wheel bringing us back around for another try, another turn at making the most of our 365-day lifespan. We turn our eyes to the heavens, or to the TVs blaring garish throngs of screaming revelers waiting for a ball that dropped two, three hours hence, to displays around the globe of partiers rushing headlong into the unknown, we turn our eyes to the faces of our families both here and gone, to eyes that once held that same youthful exuberance, to eyes which strain against the growing time-worn wisdom, to eyes which flare and sparkle and burn for something better, for something forgotten, for something not yet known.

It is not often that, through our disparate cultures, we approach an event as a planet, as a race of people rather than people of different races. This moment, this crease in time, transcends our nations and our religions, upends our fractuous desire for unique identity for a moment to connect with all around us, to bring together neighbors and friends and strangers and enemies and everything in between, shedding our petty disputes if only for the few weighted moments that it takes to say, "Happy new year".

Rites, rituals, rememberance; 2008 draws itself closed to the tides of time, and a new dawn bears down upon us. Let us hold to the hope that it will be a better one, and let us, in our own ways, live our prayer to see a brighter tomorrow.

Crisis of Culture

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:30:00 +0000

It's election day, and that means -- free Starbucks' coffee, status-symbol stickers to venerate the brave souls that waited in line, and staying up late to watch pundits argue about whether or not any given state can be considered "called" for one candidate or the other, flipping channels on occasion to see the blue and red switch up in the so-called "swing states" and other locations throughout the country get reassigned like a game of Risk gone awry.

Of course, it also means that by the end of the day, we'll likely have a good guess, at least, as to who our next President will be. While I'm not an active participant in the system -- at least, not this time around -- that's still a pretty big deal, and I can't really deny it. What this election really represents, though, is a division in the country that no President, past or future, is capable of reconciling. We're a nation divided, full of different opinions and wholescale fundamental disagreements that drive us apart from each other more than the Rocky Mountains or the World Series ever could. And you know what?

That's awesome.

I'm glad that I live in a country where people can disagree with me. I'm glad that I live in a country where people can hate me for thinking the way that I do. I'm particularly glad that I live in a country large enough to keep some open space between them and myself on the whole. That's what freedom is, what democracy is -- it's the ability of the people of one nation to unite, divided, against themselves in generally nonviolent war, a war waged with sandwich boards and televised promotions of pet causes. A war that burns in the heart of every American, legal or illegal, voter or non-voter, partisan party-man or split-the-middle independent.

A nation espousing a singular ideal is, in my opinion, fascist. That's the embodiment of everything that we should abhor, at least so long as it wears the guise of choice, and which has no place within a country such as our own. While I don't feel strongly enough this time 'round to vote for one candidate or the other, the fact that I could -- or that I could cast a vote for some crazy third-party whackjob that hasn't a snowball's chance in Hell -- is a wonderful thing. The fact that people get angry when I tell them I don't vote is even better. I encourage everyone that can to get out, vote, make your voice heard, all that fancy junk. Me? I'll keep to myself, thanks, until an option I like pops up. I'm not holding my breath.

I'm sure I've got more to say, but I can't think of it right now. It's not as if anyone reads this, anyhow, so I'm just expressing my own opinion recursively to myself. Not much to get excited about there, I suppose.

Until next time, dear reader! (Yeah, that's me, what now?)

Gladiators

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:55:00 +0000

I'll preface this by saying the following as bluntly as possible: I hate election years. I hate the bipartisal system. I am not a supporter of John McCain or Sarah Palin; I am not a supporter of Barack Obama or Joe Biden. I do not support some left-field party hoping to "break ground" and be the first real threat from a new ticket. I'm not Green, Libertarian, or Prohobitionist. I'm an American, and nothing more.

I really hate election years. They bring out the worst in absolutely everyone; suddenly, mudslinging is the new black, and everyone's a Paris-bound fashion mogul. I'm bombarded from all sides with tales of how Candidate X wants to tax the poor but Candidate Y wants to give them handouts and dive national debt. Debates fling across networks, campaign advertisements plague every channel, every lawn, every news article. Everything -- even new scientific research -- comes with a left- or right-wing pundit heralding the advancement of the human race or the degradation of its morals. There's not a single American news report, nor news report about America, that doesn't include a political sideline, footnote, or other jab; anything left untouched by the writers and editors is quickly picked up as a banner by one camp of commentors or another, and soon, it's as if any given website is the central hub for pre-election coverage of the rampant hatred seething under the skin of every principled American.

The real kicker, I think, is that everyone thinks they have an obligation to vote. An obligation to support one of the major tickets. An obligation to empower a half-formed opinion bolstered by party lines, colorful speeches, and media-frenzies based on half-truths (Palin book banning) or association (Rev. Wright) -- things with no real relevance to the task at hand. I challenge this obligation by choosing not to vote; this isn't a refusal or decision to not voice an opinion by any means. Voting is a process by which any given individual pledges their support for another individual based on their personal feelings about any of a number of various factors -- some people vote "party line", some vote because they believe in one candidate or the other, some vote along the "lesser of two evils" line, and some for reasons that I don't know or don't care to list here. Those are all well and good for those people, but I feel that it's just as valid an option to refuse to vote if there are no candidates on the ballot that I can support in good faith. It's like the conscientious objector for the new age, and damned if it doesn't carry a similar stigma.

The real thing that gets me irked, though, is just the increased level of aggravation, of spite, of spitting venom at one another. Everyone gets caught up in their own digs, in their own pseudoreligious fervor for their Chosen One to Whom All Truth Shall Bow, and we spark intense, raging arguments and fights with one another on things that are entirely unrelated! There's just such an overflow of sheer irritation with the Other Side that people are testy about any subject, and are willing to preach their platform on it, going so far as to sever ties that have outlasted several similar elections before. We forego the notion that we are all Americans, and we become only Liberals or Conservatives, drawing battle lines as clear as we did in 1861 with the onset of our nation's civil war. It's as if we forget that after the election, we're going to be forced to continue living with the folks that we've so strongly opposed in the weeks and months leading up to that magical date.

As for me? I'm not voting in this election, nor do I plan to in any election hence. Call me when one of the parties finally admits their facist regime and is ready to make it happen.

Drifting

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 19:04:00 +0000

Life comes at you fast, and if you fail to keep up, then the road is going to rise to meet your face before you even realise that your gravity is off. You have to keep on running despite any hurdle that throws itself in front of you, or you're never going to make it to the next one; even when you fall, you must do so with enough forward momentum that you can continue, uninterrupted, to the next event unfolding before you. There's no pause, no stop, no time for a Slo-Mo replay examination of your latest success or failure. This is the big leagues of universal participation and everything is on the line with each move you make; chances are, just by taking the time to read this paragraph, you've missed something that could have been vitally more important than doing so. Of course, reading this could also be the single most important thing you've ever done, or will ever do. Gotta take chances, I guess, if you're looking to find prizes at the end of the tunnel where the light fades off into the blackness of the unknown, sometimes referred to as 'tomorrow' or, stranger yet, as 'yesterday'.

I've been out of sorts lately. Work has been unkind, and life is curving like an acid-dosed python in a wind tunnel full of rat scent. Twists upon turns upon coils of what looked to be circles but in the end are only spirals further into some depth yet unfathomed by Man. Sleep is lost as the hours fade into days taking up the weeks that build and build and build to join up to some cataclysm that looms. I think maybe it'd be nice if the apocalypse happened, if only because then the chaos that is my head might splash out across the CNN website with vivid color and broadcast with unique theme music that captures the sense of not knowing what's going on. For all the uncertainty about the future, we still seem so focused on it. Projections, predictions, prophecies all, like oracular divestitures of ages long since passed and soon to come again.

This, too, shall pass.

All things must end. All ends must have a means. All means must have purpose.

When life is turned for the worst, it is important to remember that no matter how terrible, how depressive, how distraught, it will end. It will change. Things will be different.

When life is bursting with greatness, it is important to remember that no matter how wonderful, how elating, how fantastic, it will end. It will change. Things will be different.

The only cosmic truth is that there is no truth to the cosmos. Science disproves itself on a nigh-daily basis now, refuting the foolish predispositions and conclusions of great thinkers of the past. How much further before they all realize that no constant needs to remain? Seekers will always seek, and will never find, for that is not their purpose. Anything collected on the path of the Seeker is not a truth, but an evident footprint from where the truth may have stepped while sprinting headlong into wherever it's hiding now. Ask the quantum-theorists. They ought to know where it's gone by the time I've finished wondering if I should even bother asking.

I guess what I'm saying is that I know there are no answers, only questions. But this, too, shall pass! While answers may not exist, the simple fact of shifting truth must dictate to itself that eventually, the eventuality of events will evince the evident evidence of itself. I can't even make sense of it myself, but I can't imagine it any other way.

I think I'm just confused and confounded by the way that the path interacts with the traveller, inexorably editing the predestination percieved by the one who does the travelling, thus changing the place being travelled to. What we expect is not what we recieve. What we recieve is what we should have expected. We've been through it all before, but refuse to learn anything new about the processes that dictate the facts of the case. It's all laid out, cut and dry, but the jury is refusing to cease deliberations, and I'm pretty sure the judge paid the bailiff to block the defendant's entry to the room.

Damnit

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:19:00 +0000

This once-a-month posting thing has got to go. I've been trying to hard at other things to even remember that I need to write from time to time to anchor myself to sanity; coping mechanisms have been one of the things I've spent a lot of time thinking about lately, and frankly, there's a lot to be said for having those things to which one turns when the weight of the world itself seems too much. With so many terrible things being splayed out across the globe and transmitted to us direct by satellite in High-Definition, it's easy to be overwhelmed, to find oneself lacking in means of dealing with the harshness of reality.

And so we cope. We drink, we gossip, we catch up on celebrity dirt. We write, we read, we go for long walks on the beach. We listen to music too loud, play sports with our friends, slice our flesh with razors; we cry, we laugh, we crack jokes that we secretly revile for their content. All told, everyone comes out equal in the end, and we're all just trying to make it through the day; the most confident man is still inspired only by his drive to succeed, and the loneliest still held together by the hobbies that fill his time to keep his brain from realising that it isn't pleased to be where it is.

What's curious to me is the variety of ways that people describe their coping mechanisms. Some people say that they just do what comes naturally; others fret over whether what they're doing is avoidance of issues. Some pursue their interests out of a stated goal to be healthy, or wealthy, or happy, while some prefer to maintain that they're only interested in making it through another day by whatever means necessary. We rationalize and analyze and break everything into neat little segments to make them easier to mentally digest; we all offer our own take on the things that we do, and we all have our own way of brushing off the descriptions that others use ("He says he just does that for fun, but it's obvious he's just trying to keep his mind off of what happened...") -- we invent labels for the actions and intentions of ourselves and others, because they're more easily tied down than the people themselves.

Actions can't lie; they can't be made to be false, even when the motives behind them are false or they are being done for reasons explained only in untruths, even when one is doing things that they would rather not be doing for whatever reason -- such as fitting in, or seeming calm, or just keeping up appearances -- the action itself is a pure thing, a thing which cannot by its own nature decieve. Whatever the reasons, whatever the justification, whatever the consequence, the action simply is. It displays itself without remorse and breaks the mold of simplicity in so doing; whenever one does something, that something becomes an expression of the self, which reveals some part of oneself. That facet may be conceived through falsity, but the action remains the same, and continues to remain the same, to carry the same result within its own confines; the difference is in how the world reacts to the actor.

So it is with coping with reality, for, like action, reality itself is intrinsically unable to lie. While I know from experience that my brain can lie to me about what is real (dreams, imagined sights in the corner of one's eye), reality itself is not the one at fault. What exists is what exists, depsite our best efforts to cloud our perception thereof, to make of any situation what we wish, to see only what we want to see and damn the rest. We lie to ourselves about reality and actions both, as a coping mechanism I think, because we need to be able to bring the whole affair that is what we experience into a cohesive focus, into a picture that is painted by our minds for our own eyes. To see the world as another sees it for even an instant could break even the most steeled mind.

How many times do we rewrite the past to arrive at a present that we can accept?

Digital Wanderlust

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 20:07:00 +0000

It's, again, been a while since I had anything to say here, really. In the meantime, there's been birthday parties, housecleaning, and the Governator has started to ban trans fats from restaurants in California; some fires are still burning, but the sky is blue again for the first time in months (well, okay, it was a bit blue before, but now it's blue like it ought to be). Quitting smoking is not going well, starting a game up is going better than expected, and somewhere between all of these things, I'm slowly but surely being promoted at work, to a position that ought to pay more and certainly carries more things to handle while I'm doing it.

The simple fact of the matter is, I've gotta get myself fired up in order to say anything interesting, and that just hasn't been happening lately; at least, not in a way that's productive to comming up with cutting criticisms and witty insights into the world at large. I've been too self-focused, to internal, to let fly a rant, rave, or other diatribe about the state of the nation or the nation's states or whatever else might be stately or national. I'm waiting to see what the Beijing Olympics will bring -- not for the sports, mind you, but for the politics -- and until then, the Bush-bashing and political back-and-forth of an election year has really grown tiresome, leaving me more than just a little bit jaded about that whole set of affairs; national politics, it seems, quickly becomes short-term repetition of long-term ideologies played out over the last few decades but with nothing new to contribute to the conversation.

I think the real issue is that for me, it's all starting to come together. My family is growing together and doing well, the promotion has me less than concerned about the current state of the economy at most times, and generally, all the things that I would normally use to fuel my fire just seem trivial against the fact that, despite current apparent trends, I've got myself pretty much together and success is starting to form around me. It's like I've been paying off my karmic debt, and the office just realized that my last statement was overbilled; a cosmic tax refund for the terminally involved. They say that good things come to those who wait, but also that you reap what you sow -- that always seemed somewhat contradictory to me, as one seems to be rather passive (waiting) and the other rather active (sowing). Now, though I think I'm starting to see that these two images are one and the same; after all, one cannot harvest a field as soon as the seed is laid -- it must take time to grow, to be nurtured, to become that which it was intended to be harvested as, and one must remember to tend to the field rather than simply marching on and sowing something else in the next acre-block over -- that's the waiting for good things part, I suppose.

I've planted a lot of seeds in the past several months. I feel good knowing that it's harvest time right now; planting season will come again soon, though, and things will be tough, as they always have been through the history of humanity. I'm not about to say I think I've won at the game of life, or even declare a small victory for myself in any grander scheme; I will, however, say that I'm glad to have the life that I presently do, and I can hardly wait to see what's around the next corner.

Sanitized for Your Perversion

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 16:13:00 +0000

Last night, I watched a zombie flick; this, in itself, isn't too much of a shocker. We watch these with some kind of regularity, ranging from the terrible B-movie "is that guy supposed to be dead?" variety on up through the multi-million dollar major studio productions. This one, strangely, managed to tread the line; the real curiosity, though, was the morality of the tale itself. The point of the movie, aside from the standard-issue scares about people who should be dead deciding not to be, seemed to center around the effects of mass-media, desensitization of the viewer and the cameraman, and whether or not humans are, on the whole, worth saving in the event of, say, zombocalypse (zombie-centric apocalyptic scenario); there was also a heavy lean on not believing what the media sells as fact -- news reports and whatnot -- and the power of the internet to spread the "truth" of matters as seen by the eyes and camera lenses of those who are there.

I'm not a film reviewer, critic, or what have you. I'm not going to get into whether I thought it was a good movie for whatever reason; I'll even leave it up to you to find out what it was, if you're so compelled. I will say this, though; for better or worse, it got me thinking some, and that's an uncommon thing in movies these days. It really is an interesting phenomenon, to consider all of the regulations and social standards that we try to force across the board when it comes to our prepackaged news lunches and low-quality frozen dinners a la CNN, and then consider the pomp-and-circumstance that they use to "gussy up" the gems of what they bill as "real, raw" reporting, even though it still, at times, seems staged and so very plasticized. From there, we move on to the shock value that's capitalized online; the personal videos that people upload of some of the most horrific things that they can find, and the humor of the dregs of these here tubes that feeds on, and breeds, a sense of contempt and hatred for humanity as a whole, while exposing within it the very things which might make it contemptable and propagating the sense of superiority that comes from revelling in filth.

It's hard to measure the psychological impact of some things. Are we more prone to file away the things we see as less than appalling if we've been exposed to more gore-fests Hollywood productions? Does the fiction we indulge in, at whatever age, set the measuring stick for how we judge the reality we're exposed to later, or are we simply becoming more accustomed to the general attitude that "people die, things break, get over it" that seems so pervasive in the modern world, where we dehumanize everything, separate the essense of "us" and "them" so as to cope with the fact that we know that these things are happening, and that we seem helpless to change the fact that the world is a dark place at times? We cling to hopes and fantasies that force these realities from our mind, even as we admit knowledge of them plainly, and see their images plastered across our televisions nightly, in news reports of how many have died, in staged celebrity appearances telling us we can make a difference for pennies a day, in fiction and in reality, in our humor and in our tragedy; they all begin to whirl in to one entity, until we start to lose focus regarding the truly appropriate emotional response -- as long as it's not happening to us, it seems, we fail to connect with a reason to care.

Even in that, though, theres's a full examination to be done. Are we losing this connection with humanity because we so often see these things put into the wrong context, or is there something else at work here? It could be that the images simply begin to lose meaning as we see more and more of the horrific nature of the planet; perhaps the desensitization isn't a result of the images themselves, but an internal trigger meant to defend us from the surge of emotion that our brains would otherwise unleash; we lose that response not because we fail to care, but because our brain is not willing to allow such a powerful thing to overtake it based on the digital images of halfway around the globe, and so it tries to convince us that it's alright, that these things are normal or acceptable, that so long as there's nothing we can do, there's no sense in worrying about what is happening. So long as these carefully-crafted personalities are presenting the information with their flashy graphics and dramatic theme music, there's a sense of sensationalism that seems to equate what we're seeing with what registers, to the brain, as something aside from what is real; we candy-coat the blood and ichor so as to remove from it that sense of revulsion, making the whole thing easier to mentally digest -- for better or for worse.

In the end, I suppose there's too many variables in play; the fact remains, however, that we seem to use these vehicles to distance ourselves from our fellow man, while at the same time seeing that when these things hit home, the sense of community is nearly automatic. While we can easily endure to view the suffering of others, when our home is wounded, we bind together like so many blood cells pushing to heal the hurt; there's a sense of what we refer to as humanity when our own peace is destabilized. There will never be anything produced for television or internet broadcast which can capture the raw essence of what is experienced firsthand; and that, I think, is the true shortcoming of these media -- that no camera can capture the reeling mind, that no lens can reflect the soul of those in torment; images are easily processed, filed neatly away in lip-service categories -- but the scene of such things as we have already been made accustomed to is wholly a new experience when the filter of camera crews and streaming data is removed, and we're plugged straightway in to the dirt of the world.

Catastrophic Awareness

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:33:00 +0000

The world is crumbling around our ears. Earthquakes, floods, and other disasters change the landscape like some mutating beast shaking the scars from its back. I can't help but wax poetic on the iconic metaphor in my area recently as raging wildfires screamed across the hillsides until the inferno licked at the foot of Paradise, CA. Over 23,000 acres devoured by the flames in a few short days as the acrid stench of smoke settled over the valley; I have family who was evacuated, though I believe they returned without a hitch once the blaze was contained. Some say that the end of the world is upon us, that the apocalypse is nigh; some say that we are entering a new age, where nothing will be as it has been, and the world as we know it will fade into distant memory against the troubles -- or the pleasures -- of a new global destiny.

Of course, some also say that they're the incarnation of a god, and build cults who, in blind faith, kill themselves to ride a comet to Heaven. I guess it's hit-and-miss, these things that some say.

For my part, I don't believe that the world is ending. Changing, yes, but that's nothing new; this planet has never known anything that was not flux -- the preconception that anything is eternal is a fallacy. Even a ballad of this change, 'Dust in the Wind', fails to recognize this, claiming that "Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and sky" -- these, too, shall come to pass, for nothing can be eternal when entropy is the order of the day and chaos springs from the wells of universal truth. Of course, ordered chaos it may be, and it could be our limited scope of realization which causes us to percieve some shift in things that we deem as important, ever forgetting that, in the grand scheme, even the solar system which houses the planet upon which we build our cities to surround our homes that we huddle in for safety is insignificant. We claim that catastrophe befall us, and yet, we have never even seen the thread of the tapestry that is The All. We have never known God, or whatever the nearest approximation to that being would be when translated from the breadth of our ability to know such entities, and we have never once gazed upon the merest reflection of a shadow of Truth.

That's why I can't believe that the world is ending. Simply put, I see limitless potential in humanity as a whole; unrealized, largely, to be sure, but it is there, and it screams through our own ignorance and incompetence in the most bizarre ways. I cannot accept that this potential will not be realized before its time is up; or rather, I believe that the end of our time will coincide with the actualization of this very essence, with the ascension of our own ability to perceive ourselves as we truly exist in relation to the Great Unknown. The depth of all mysteries must come to pass, and in that knowledge we shall find not doom, but something which we might now, in false assumption, consider to be doom, for surely it shall be the collapse of all we are able to consider in the Here And Now. Knowledge will be our end, and our beginning, for once the full potential is known, it cannot be said that anything can stop us.

And so, even as the Earth itself struggles to dispel our curse upon its flesh, even as we enter into petty wars and global conflicts, even as everything seems to hurl, crashing against the never, reckless abandonment sure to destroy all that we are and have been, I say that this cataclysm is not our end, but our beginning; we are legion, for our numbers are many, and our will can not be denied.

Sputtering

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 15:54:00 +0000

It's difficult for me to fuel a rage at the world sometimes. It's not that there are not things which outrage me; every day, I find new things to inspire my spite for certain aspects of our world. However, at the same time, I find that I see so much around me that is wonderful, so much that is alright with the world that we live in. Somewhere, a voice inside myself tells me that all of the injustices I see are still peanuts compared to the injustices which have come before my time, to the crimes of global scale which predated my awareness.

Even as our economy falters and slips into god knows where, even as wars rage and starving peoples cry out for help, even as nature itself lashes out against humanity, relentless and unprejudiced, I find that I cannot hold anything but appreciation for the times in which I am, and for the life which I have been given the opportunity to enjoy. Even as I see friendships waning into nothing, even as I hear tales of abuse and ignorance, I can only be awed by the fierce manner in which these things occur; the sheer force of life that is required even in moments of destruction.

It is easy to be angry at the world, to be angry at life, at yourself. It is easy to breed contempt or jealousy or that seething, searing hatred by which we seek to elevate ourselves above the things to which we bear witness. It's a simple thing to click on the evening news and find new, scathing things to rail against to burn a fire against the rages of what is not fair and just and true. It is as nothing to let grow within oneself a fear or an aversion; to pour our own derisive comments out against the swelling tide of that which we percieve as wrong with the world. Mankind seems geared to creating this sort of emotional shell; we separate ourselves from those things which we despise by fostering that dark energy, we focus ourselves on being known to feel a certain way about certain things -- our social identity is almost never known by our actions, but by our words, and whichever of these is true, I think it is most interesting that we are not known by what we agree with, by what we believe to be the honest manner in which the world should turn, but that we identify ourselves by our anger, by those things which we would wish to be furthest from. Activism, political rallies, blogs -- we focus ourselves on making it loud and clear that there are things which we see as being incorrect, we exemplify the very things we wish to change, often in the name of social awareness and decrying the despots and infuriating realities that they envision upon the land.

This is not conviction. This is not belief. This is not virtue.

And so, even while I weather the storm which we all must face, even as the harsh existence of starship Earth tears at us, I say, we should stand not for what we refuse to believe in, not to bring to light those ugly things which we cannot abide, but to appreciate the things for which we live; we should forego our anger, at times, and breathe joy and appreciation for the very soul of ourselves and pierce light against a darkness not by bearing the darkness down with fury, but by embracing any glint of light that can be seen, by showing that no level of fear will be allowed to destroy the good in the world, that we, as people, are still capable of knowing that, while our situation grows dim, it will never be black, and we will never falter.

Spiral Culture

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:49:00 +0000

Recently, while I was at the local drug store acquiring some prescriptions, I saw a woman walk up to the pharmacy counter, and begin speaking with the pharmasist. I'm not normally one for prying into things that are, to be sure, not any of my own business, but the manner in which this particular individual conducted herself was, to be blunt, rather attention-getting. She appeared to be somewhere in her 50s or older; it was tough to tell, partly because it was obvious from various pock-marks, skin discoloration, and general demeanor that she was what folks around here call a "tweaker" -- a methamphetamine user. She was at this particular pharmacy seeking to find refills for a series of potent painkillers -- Soma, Oxycontin, Norco, to name a few of the ones she rattled off -- which she's been prescribed.

Now, don't get me wrong. If someone is in pain, and they've got coverage, they should be able to get pain medications. However, I could tell from the course of the conversation several key facts. First, this was not the first pharmacy she'd been to seeking to acquire these refills; that's a red light in my book, simply because I figure if anyone has turned her down, it's for a reason (perhaps one beyond the fact that the refills weren't yet due -- another revelation she was happy to admit). Secondly, she's been using a collection of more and more potent painkilling pills for quite some time, and is accustomed to "pharm-shopping" to get what it is she's after. Third, she was getting all of these things through some sort of state or federal medical coverage -- that is, the taxpayers of California, or of the U.S. in general, are paying for this woman's continued consumption of these powerful -- and expensive -- drugs.

Living in a place dubbed the "meth capital of the West" by some, I'm more than familiar with the effects that methamphetamine can have on a person. These include joint and bone troubles, shooting pain through the veins, and other, more serious, medical conditions, many of which are extremely painful; a pain that can only be silenced through intensive drugging and, shockingly, discontinuing the use of meth altogether so that the problems don't persist once the drugs have run their course. Otherwise, all that ends up happening is an increased tolerance to the prescriptions that are handed you, and an increased level of pain as the twisted wreckage of your body tears itself apart -- literally -- from the inside, trying to expel from itself the lethal poison that keeps it standing upright despite itself.

If she'd been on private, or work-offered, insurance coverage, I wouldn't really see an issue here; she's paying, one way or another, for the whole of what's happening. But she wasn't. She was getting these benefits, these drugs, at the expense of the population, whose money also goes to fund the war on drugs, the anti-meth task force that the local law enforcement has set up. You'd think that if she has to go through the rigors of getting these benefits -- it's not easy! -- that somewhere along the line, one of the dozens of government agents she'd have to speak with over the months, years, or decades would think, "Hey, maybe this lady is using illegal drugs!"

I'm not saying that suspicion alone is enough to toss someone out on their ass when they're trying to get the help that they need; that's ridiculous, and prone to endemic systematic flaws throughout. However, would it be so difficult to, say, administer a simple urine- or folicle-based drug test to people applying for some sort of government aid? By supplying people like this anonymous woman with coverage, we're wasting taxpayer money, while at the same time encouraging them to pile on the prescriptions, often just as (if not more) addicting than the illegal substances they're already using, thereby compounding the problem in over itself and bringing the whole affair to a screaming speed-race to see who can get higher faster cheaper longer and ride the intoxicating wave of tax dollars put to work to keep all the wheels spinning, and these lives collapse underneath the weight of their own desire to keep on going further, getting more, expanding upon increased drug tolerance with voracious desire, pharmacy-hopping to get their next fix to even the keel that was tipped off-balance by their existing addiction-condition.

Why isn't this being done? Why aren't there regulations that keep this from happening? Simple -- because as long as people like this woman fuel the pseudoeconomy of both the medical companies and the government agencies pouring the dollars of hard-working Americans into the collective coffers of greed. Keep the wheels spinning, no matter what the cost; keep the people so full of painkillers that they can't feel themselves dying, can't feel the strain on their own bodies, their own societies, their own cultures. Keep the wheels spinning, no matter what the cost; keep the money flowing so far and fast that it can't be tracked, and proselytize your supposed efforts to squelch illegal drug use, even as you ensure that those who come clean from things such as meth are forced to feed a new, more powerful, addiction inspired by the professionals to whom they turn when there's nowhere else to look for some kind of comfort. Keep the wheels spinning, no matter what the cost.

How long can any institution fuel itself on the fumes of a faltering base? How long can an entity consume before there's nothing left?

Keep the wheels spinning, no matter what the cost ...

Contentment

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Thu, 22 May 2008 15:29:00 +0000

I've heard that the best things in life are free. For the life of me, I can't rightly figure how this has been decided; nothing, truly, is free -- monetary cost is only one consideration which, for many Americans, sits at the forefront of all other components of existence, fuelling the need to enrich their lives through a cycle of purchase and consumption, purchase and consumption, purchase and conundrum.

The best things in life are free of direct monetary subsistence; those things which truly mean something to us are much greater than the slips of paper and metal scraps that seem so important by their form and purpose; intent is the only thing which creates a value system around these units of exchange -- the sole bestower of worth is perception, and insofar as we percieve objects or experiences to be valuable, so they are, if only to ourselves. When you take into account the multitude of intent and perception all bent towards believing in the value of a certain anything -- in this instance, money -- then it becomes more valuable in a societal sense than anything else; consentual reality is a self-correcting system, wherein that which the masses deem as most important to the masses becomes most important to individuals seeking to acquire greatness above the masses; the real goal, I think, is to make a name for yourself through establishing greatness by excelling at the things valued by society until you've reached the point where your own preferences -- the things that you, personally, value -- can be brought to the front and inserted into the consensus; that is to say, although society will only recognize those who achieve their definition of value, the definition of value is easy to change once one has established a mastery of the existing infrastructure.

This is why our celebrities are wealthy, and why they proselytize their pet causes. World hunger, global warming, foreign wars; these become the flagship causes of a population enamored with a god-king of the silver screen who speaks to his people and commands respect be shown for these efforts. Most people refuse to create their own sense of worth; they follow the trends, the latest new hot thing being touted by the emergent American Idol champion or whichever female celeb is willing to strip her clothes and let her airbrushed, ever-so-perfect looking flesh advertise a cause; this is the new disease of a nation which denies its own responsibility to itself through vicariously existing as the select few elite, the banner-waving people who were willing to adhere to their own structure of worth -- to a point -- and now champion their endeavors with zeal and gusto, like only a true dreamchaser could do.

We seek to find solace in something. Those who are leaders among us imagined a goal, or saw something which they felt was desirable, and they achieved it; the dejected hordes who have surrendered their thoughts to these avatars of nationalism seek that same fulfillment of desire through accomplishing tasks on behalf of the Ba'alesque beings that straddle the sky from their glass and steel towers; we serve their causes so as to feel that same sense of worth, as if we have done something, and it mattered -- a legacy can be built on nothing more than charity if the spin is right and the cause is popular.

When you chase a dream, are you certain it is your own?

Inspired Lyrics

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Tue, 13 May 2008 15:47:00 +0000

A second of reflection can take you to the moon; The slightest hesitation can bring you down in flames.
- Covenant, "Call the Ships to Port"

None can change in me these things that I believe, but I don't know what happens now; I am too scared to close my eyes.
- VNV Nation, "Legion"

None of us will go unscathed by private battles we have braved.
- Assemblage 23, "Anthem"

--------------------------

I think that blog posts centered around repeating the words of others have little to no value; even so, I feel compelled to do this, not because I cannot find words to echo these same emotional imprints, these imperatives, but because I feel I honor the intent of that poetry by allowing it to breathe in places where it normally would not.

I've selected each of these in particular for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, probably, is the fact that I've been inundating myself with these artists, and similar, over the past couple of weeks. My musical taste travels in waves, and I'm on this kind of kick right now; it's also serving as a replacement for the philosophical conversations I haven't been having, something which I examine perhaps more carefully than I would otherwise so as to engage my mind in something more thought-provoking than data entry and video games.

Second, though, these choices all share a common thread above and beyond the simple musical cohesion that brings them together; they speak of hope, and of fear, and of how we strive to make ourselves more than what we have been in the interest of achieving those hopes and dreams despite the fears and the wounds which we inevitably bear coming through those things which force us to hesitate, to consider, to imagine the possibilities of what may come should things all fall apart.

But there's another sense, and I think it's more important; the push that, while we fear, we should not hesitate. While consideration, of course, is a part of everything we do in life, I find that the things which are the most monumental, which are the most life-altering for better or for worse, are those things for which we allow ourselves to cast aside the depth of our trepidation and plunge whole-heart into the abyss, praying for the best and realizing that we don't care if it kills us, because the other side of the darkness holds so much more brilliance. It is those moments in which we allow ourselves to be more than Man, to transcend the shackles which hold us to life as we know it, and thrust the very essence of our being against the ocean of chance, struggling even as we let our bodies falter and the tides of time and fate swallow our reality.

When was the last time that your dream became yourself?

Missin' Formation?

xarexerax@gmail.com (Chaz) — Thu, 08 May 2008 15:48:00 +0000

Thinking about the various concepts I've tried to address in the last couple of posts has got me, well, thinking. Why aren't these the sorts of things that I ever hear people discussing? Why is it that I never find myself debating the truths of life, the philosophical ramifications of our ideas and ideals, the metaphysical exploration that validates our sense of self against a waning interest in the soul and its final resting place?

Religion, philosophy, and the pursuit of higher thought used to be at the core of many a conversation, not just for me, but for many men in ages past; where has that gone? These days, the theme of everything I see is things which don't seem to matter, the trivia of life; we're more concerned about the soles of Lindsay Lohan's shoes than about the souls -- or lack thereof -- within us all. Religious debate is all but out the window as everyone is so certain that they've figured it out for themselves, and they wouldn't want to risk alienation or controversy by attempting to convince others that they're right; those few who still hold to the idea of pushing their ideology on the masses are the likes of Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist "fundamentalists" regarded as freaks, bigots, and the target of ridicule, derision, and the savage vile attack of those who think differently; now, I'll be the first to admit that I disagree with every bit of dreck I've heard attributed to Mr. Phelps and his church, but they do, if nothing else, seem to have something that I see as lacking in almost everyone else around me: conviction. The strength (or stupidity) to stand before the world and scream their beliefs as long and loud as they can through megaphones of hate.

I'm not defending what they say, to be sure, but I'll damn well defend their right to say it, and I'll applaud their sheer indomitable ability to weather the storm of retributive mudslinging sent (rightly) back at them; even those who loathe everything they say and do can grasp that this unique group of people is willing to get themselves out there and, through their own actions, spur thought and debate. I've seen their methods and messages decried by people who, nominally, agree with some of the concepts that they're pushing -- this, to me, is the spirit of debate in its finest form, the naked sense of human belief laid bare before the masses in such a way as to open the heart of the matter, unrepentant about the bruises that they leave on the souls of those who are the targets of their vicious campaigns.

We're all so concerned with popularity, with being liked and accepted, with appealing to a broad audience, with not hurting the feelings of our friends, with being politically correct that even the counter-culture refuses to pander to the hurtful means of being open, forceful, and thought-provoking with their message for fear that some portion of the populous who would never be swayed might use those words as fuel for messages that argue against the points being made on hippie-held signs on the roadsides of San Francisco and the beaches of Cuba. Where's the sense of real discussion, the meat of what it is that makes us able to form these opinions? When did the point of debate become trying to sway the sheepish masses to agreeing with you? From what I recall, the real reason that such forums were held in ages past was not to convince the public that you were in the right (or the left), but to elicit the thought, to force people to use their own minds and examine the cases and come to their own decisions.

I don't care if you, the reader, agree with anything I say. That's not the point. I'm here to say what I feel like saying, without apology, because it will make you think. Because whether you like what I've got to say or not, you come through the experience of examining these words with a clear sense in your mind of whether I'm a genius or a lunatic. To me, I'm both, and neither. If everyone agreed with the way that I see the world, then it wouldn't be an interesting place. Conflict breeds strength, disparity breeds community; differing opinions, moreso than necessity, are the mother of invention -- that's why the production machines run doubletime during wartime, after all! Of course, violence stems from such fundamental disagreements, but that's the human condition as well; we must be willing to accept the consequences of what we say, and that's what I think the real thing that drives us to idle conversation and careful tiptoes around meaty subjects is -- fear. We're afraid of being rejected, of being ridiculed, of being harmed. We're afraid that our worldview will clash with others, and that we're putting ourselves at undue risk by truly speaking our minds.

If we wouldn't take a bullet to defend what we believe, then do we truly believe anything at all?