Here I am, sad and alone
Here I am, hopeless and miserable
Here I am, looking through old photos and crying at sunsets
Here I am, playing guitar and singing to make the pain go away
Here I am, writing stories to fill the holes in my life
And even though it hurts, even though I could do better
I will never apologize.
Here I am, smiling at the rain
Here I am, falling in love with everyone I see
Here I am, wearing a trench coat and drawing on walls
Here I am, laughing as loud as I can until I cry my fucking eyes out
Here I am, running circles around my problems
And even though I’m scared, even though I can’t look
I will never compromise.
Do you approve of the way I live my life?
Should I change my process and become as miserable as you?
I’m sick of this silly human dogma
So what if I’m opinionated? So what if I’m sad?
So what if I don’t want to waste my life working a shitty job
Or fucking a girlfriend I don’t love?
So what if I don’t do drugs or live on my cell phone
Or look at my feet as I walk?
I’ve already wasted too much of my life staring at the floor
From now on I’m looking straight ahead
And you can bet I’ll look you in the eyes when I see you
And I’ll smile like I’ve known you all my life
So what if it makes you feel uncomfortable?
This life is too short to judge every book just by its cover
Too short to believe what you know is truth
Too short ignore any sign of life
Too short to waste being anyone but who you are.
Here I am, to my friends and my family
Here I am, to the people I know and the people I don’t
Here I am, to every kid who put on a mask
Here I am, to God and Buddha and Elvis Presley
Here I am, a flawed, broken, depressive, fulfilled, jubilant individual
And even though it could be easier, it could never be better
And even though the sun’s shining now, it’ll rain tomorrow
And I’ll never stop smiling.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
An Existentialist Work In Progress
I have the power to change the world.
You might be saying to yourself, “Oh, this guy’s off his rocker. He must be mad.” I can’t blame you for your incredulity, I would feel much the same were I thrust before this document and forced to suspend my disbelief for such a pretensious claim. But I can unequivocally state, both from personal experience and from outside evidence, that my words are the truth.
Somewhere in the blackness of space there rests a seed. It cannot be seen, nor touched, nor measured, but it exists all the same. It floats through the vast nothing, passing stars and moons and gas giants and black holes with narry a shift from its drift. As a thing, it has no consciousness, nor can it decide what to and not to do, and one day it thinks to itself, I will find. What a curious thought is this, with such interesting implications. Find what, or whom? And spoken with such certainty, without hesitation. Why should this be any thing’s first thought, let alone of a thing which cannot be found? Perhaps it is merely endemic of matter, be it a rock or a seed or a man, to want the very thing it can never have. Or perhaps it is merely that as a drifting bit of star stuff, it requires a goal to keep away the demons? Even a goal unattainable is a goal, and for a thing which is not tethered to mortality such as we, perhaps an endless quest is the only kind worth having?
There, did you see? For a moment, you were with that seed, drifting in space, thinking these thoughts and dreaming these dreams. All because I thought it, dreamed it, wrote it down for all to see. Do you believe me?
Perhaps you’re thinking to yourself that you were tricked by abstraction. Fair enough. I have been down that road myself. You see, I once had a horse, a mare, and she was the most beautiful creature. Brown fur, soft above her powerful muscles, mane like a wildfire. Eyes that did not look past you but at you, through you. She carried herself with a sly elegance, she had a stride that spoke of untold confidence. She smelled of wildflowers in the spring, of hay and storms on the horizon. I knew her as though she were like me, as though she were not an animal but a person, who whispered to me all my secrets, who knew me as I wished I could know myself. I’ve come to believe that all these features, all these aspects of her that I believed were facts, were merely projections of all the things I wanted to see in her. I found this out when one day, I gave her an apple as I always did, and she bit me –not by accident but with every intention of doing me harm.
It’s a strange thing, being observed. On the quantum level it’s fascinating. Possibility collapses into reality based on the placement of a lens. Where does that leave us?
You might be saying to yourself, “Oh, this guy’s off his rocker. He must be mad.” I can’t blame you for your incredulity, I would feel much the same were I thrust before this document and forced to suspend my disbelief for such a pretensious claim. But I can unequivocally state, both from personal experience and from outside evidence, that my words are the truth.
Somewhere in the blackness of space there rests a seed. It cannot be seen, nor touched, nor measured, but it exists all the same. It floats through the vast nothing, passing stars and moons and gas giants and black holes with narry a shift from its drift. As a thing, it has no consciousness, nor can it decide what to and not to do, and one day it thinks to itself, I will find. What a curious thought is this, with such interesting implications. Find what, or whom? And spoken with such certainty, without hesitation. Why should this be any thing’s first thought, let alone of a thing which cannot be found? Perhaps it is merely endemic of matter, be it a rock or a seed or a man, to want the very thing it can never have. Or perhaps it is merely that as a drifting bit of star stuff, it requires a goal to keep away the demons? Even a goal unattainable is a goal, and for a thing which is not tethered to mortality such as we, perhaps an endless quest is the only kind worth having?
There, did you see? For a moment, you were with that seed, drifting in space, thinking these thoughts and dreaming these dreams. All because I thought it, dreamed it, wrote it down for all to see. Do you believe me?
Perhaps you’re thinking to yourself that you were tricked by abstraction. Fair enough. I have been down that road myself. You see, I once had a horse, a mare, and she was the most beautiful creature. Brown fur, soft above her powerful muscles, mane like a wildfire. Eyes that did not look past you but at you, through you. She carried herself with a sly elegance, she had a stride that spoke of untold confidence. She smelled of wildflowers in the spring, of hay and storms on the horizon. I knew her as though she were like me, as though she were not an animal but a person, who whispered to me all my secrets, who knew me as I wished I could know myself. I’ve come to believe that all these features, all these aspects of her that I believed were facts, were merely projections of all the things I wanted to see in her. I found this out when one day, I gave her an apple as I always did, and she bit me –not by accident but with every intention of doing me harm.
It’s a strange thing, being observed. On the quantum level it’s fascinating. Possibility collapses into reality based on the placement of a lens. Where does that leave us?
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