Feminism and Masculism

This is a short response I wrote for school in response to Gloria Steinem's article, "The Good News Is: These Are Not the Best Years of Your Life".

I thought that Steinem’s essay was very well written and that she has many good points. The article made clear the reasons for college being the worst time for a woman to be truly radical or revolutionary, and why the middle age is where the real feminist activism comes out. It pointed out many of the flaws of our current male-dominated society, and the effects those have on women.

However, reading the article made me think about the role that men have in the sexual power struggles that are a central form of conflict in our society. The standard feminist ideals center on overthrowing the males that control the culture, and making the roles that both sexes play anew, and ending discrimination and differentiation between the two sets of roles. I believe that this total overthrowing by women is not necessary. While, yes, our cultural attitudes need to be fixed, they should not be fixed through force by the ones being victimized. This continues the cycle of victim rising up against victimizer, and continuing the power struggle. There is nothing wrong with one group having more power than the other; the problem comes in when the one group uses that power to force the other group to submit. The problems between the sexes are caused by male ignorance, incorrect ideas about women, and a huge lack of respect for women. The ideal method of fixing our culture’s problems lies not in having women rise up and overthrow the male dictators; instead it is in having the “dictators” realize the role they are playing, and step down from it to choose equality and respect. If men could be made to realize the way they are trained to think, and choose to think otherwise, most of our problems could probably be fixed within a generation or two. I realize this may not be the likeliest possibility, but I feel it is an ideal worth shooting for. In a sense, reading Steinem’s article on feminism and radicalism has made me into what could very well be considered a radical masculinist.

I'm content and fully accepting of my mortality and the possibility of death. I'm also only sixteen.

How does that work?

Should it?

For those of you that don't know, David Foster Wallace, one of the most talented writers and thinkers in the history of everything and a personal hero of mine, killed himself last Friday at the age of 46. I'm not really sure yet how I feel about everything.

Father's Day '08

We visited my grandpa in his nursing home today for Father's Day, and I was left alone with him for a few minutes while my dad went to go find my mom and sisters. My grandpa has had several strokes, and finds things like talking and remembering who people are difficult. I normally just sit off in the corner; I don't know what to say to him. But we had a brief conversation this time:

Me: "Hi grandpa."

Grandpa: "Yeah!"

Me: "Happy Father's Day!"

Grandpa: "Who are you?"

Me: "I'm Walter, Mark's son." *gestures down the hall toward where my dad went*

Grandpa: "Oh, okay." *smiles slightly*

He was looking directly into my eyes throughout all of this. It was unusual, I had not actually spoken to him and made direct eye contact for probably a year or more. From the look in his eyes, I could tell he was trying to place me. Or maybe he knew who I was, and was just...I don't know. I cannot guess at what he was thinking.

It occurred to me later that he had, in a way, returned to being a baby. He is no longer capable of feeding himself, dressing himself, even going to the bathroom by himself.

I'm sorry we never really got a chance to get to know each other, Grandpa. Happy Father's Day, though.

To: The Global Artistic Community. RE: You.

Please stop. Please. You are killing me with your art and your self expression and your plumbing of feelings and your search for meaning and truth. Please stop it.

It hurts. I am an artist too, and what you do- it attracts me. I cannot help myself, I cannot turn away, I have to look and gaze and experience what you have done. And it hurts me. On the inside I am blind, confused, sore, raw, and I cannot confront what is there without flinching.

Please stop. If you are really the loving, feeling community you are..you will heal me. Or give me time to heal. You will put down your pens and your pencils and keyboards, your cameras and your paintbrushes. You will let me scab, and heal, and grow a new self. And then I shall be ready for your introspection and your feelings and your pretensions and your elegant language, and I will be able to approach it and join in and be able to wring meaning out of it, and we shall all be the greater for it.

But.

You will not stop.

The world is a machine, a corporate process that consumes, changes, recycles, spits out. everything. nothing left untouched. And you, you artists, you feelers, you introspective thinkers; you are part of this machine. No individual can make a change on you, unless it is a streamlining of the industrial process by which you operate. And, above all else, no individual can make you stop. It is as if I had opened up my window, stuck my head outside, and yelled, "Please World! Stop your orbit of the sun! Stop your rotation! Slow down, be still, if only for a few moments that I may catch my breath!"

That will not happen. It can not happen. But it is what I need.

But, it must be confronted, just because you need something to happen is no guarantee or reason for its happening. Or even the possibility of its happening.

"This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.."
- I Cannot Remember Who Wrote This

"Everything I make is trite, and cheap, and a waste of paint, of tape, of time."
- Bright Eyes, Waste Of Paint

"If I were to write something that truly captured all that I think and feel about the world, it would probably be in all capitals, one word, probably not one you'd find in dictionaries, something along the lines of, EEEEEEEEEEERRRRYYYAAAAAAFEABHCDAKBJNAEAEGOGAEHUAGOHU!!!"
- Walter Mongin, To: The Global Artistic Community. RE: You.

How about Sand?

The Lord (of the manor, not to imply blasphemy) said Let There Be Light
but the power was out and the lamp didn't turn on
so He (again, implying nothing bad) walked through His dark bedroom
past a lover that may or may not have been his wife
who might or might not have been his long lost 5th cousin
And stumbled into a nightstand bumping his head on a dresser
Trembling, reaching for a switch to illuminate his mistakes
He found it wasn't there in the form he anticipated, left bare by
an Incompetent Electrician, well, not really incompetent, just distracted
Mostly by the imminent birth of his first born (hopefully, for him) son
But partly by his struggle with debt due to a lack of luck
And anyway, maybe he couldn't be blamed for leaving the switch off and the bare wires exposed
Although, to be 100% honest, that doesn't change the fact that His Lordship's body completed the circuit

Which was more than a tad depressing, seeing as he had a tee-time scheduled for only 45 minutes into that strange and mysterious, abstract length of time known among the majority of the population of Earth as The Future.

Unfortunately, this is an obviously fictitious amalgam of poetry and prose, made so obvious by the rather silly fact
That the absence of electric current in The Lord's was established way back in line two.

To be 100% honest for the second time though, this conclusion was brought about by the author resuming work on this poetryose a decent length of time after he left off of it, and without fully reading through the original part.

His Authorship was always a rather silly fellow, and careless in his work.
Well, not completely careless, he fancied himself a tireless admirer of rhythm and rhyme
But also somewhat of a devotee to those Free Verse poets who mercilessly chop and amputate poetry
To stay fresh and new (though coincidentally making themselves stinking with the scent of ink-blood)

But yes, anyway, the most Glorious-ish Author of this semi-Brave attempt at literature (no, dangit, poetry, wait, is that literature? does that count?) thinks himself to be an O-Kay poet
Be that as it may, he probably still has a higher opinion of himself than is prudent
Or perhaps not, considering his long-standing self-esteem and self-mocking issues

Although, really who gives a crap?
/psychobabble = end/


[The Author would like to here insert an announcement; he will in the future be labeling his non-poetry attempts at writing with the label "Prose" due to the fact that "Essay" is not always fulfilling his needs, seeing as his writing has been changed by some of his reading of late, owing an especially large debt to the author of Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, whose name currently escapes *this* author. Ah well. Good sir (I'm pretty sure) I credit you.]

Photo Albums have it right.

Where on earth (or off it) did innocence go? What happened? When did this life appear?

I can remember back before evil and sin tainted every moment of my life. Back when the plants were greener, everyone was friendly, and there was nothing bad in the world. Back before there was politics, and people being cruel and hating people they'd never met in their lives. Before we destroyed each other incessantly and did unimaginable things to innocents. Before there was a world built up around sex, and sex itself was just a concept. When no one swore, and hearts hadn't begun to harden.

What happened to those days? They seem to have disappeared entirely, beyond any chance of returning.

Do you remember them too? Do you remember the tickle of the wet grass on your arms and your cheeks as you lay on the lawn with your best friend in the whole wide world? The running in and out of everyone's house as you pleased; the lemonade and the homemade cookies..? What about summer storms where the sky filled with white clouds, which then turned grey, and then darker, darker, darker until they were black, and finally exploded out, flooding the street and soaking everything. Did you run out and play in the rain? Did you burst out of the house in bare feet and no coat, or did your mother make you dress up in boots, rubber jacket, and then handed you an umbrella as you left the house? Or maybe you just sat in the living room, watching the storm through open windows, deeply drawing in the fresh, wet air. And the 4th of July! All the families in the neighborhood gathering on the one streetcorner, the mothers sitting on lawn chairs with the littlest babies on their laps, and everyone else running around waving sparklers, while the fathers placed a firework safely in the middle of the street, calmly lit it, and then dashed back for cover as fast as they could. Whenever one of the firecrackers that flashed the bright white light and screamed went off, everyone would wince and put their hands over their ears. There were popscicles enough for everyone, and it would go on until the policeman drove through and told us we weren't allowed to light fireworks here. Then one or two of the braver dads would light a few more, and then it was off to bed. And in the fall all the trees were more beautiful than any painting, and there were huge piles of leaves in every yard. And in the winter it snowed a huge amount, and you would run out in blizzards for snowball fights and cave building.

What happened?

When did the world get this much colder, this much more complex? It went from your grandma's house with cookies and milk to your grandma's house where you argue about things with your relatives. Why did this happen? When did growing up mean getting burnt out?

Eden and Us

Earlier this night I took my dog for a run/walk. We ran for a while, then turned around and walked home. As it was already a warm night, I was fairly hot and sweaty when we got back home. I opened up the gate into the backyard, and we walked around the perimeter. When we got to the other side of the house, I stopped for a moment at the fan for the air conditioner. I put my head over it and let it blow warm air into my face for a few moments. Then, looking around, I took off my shirt and hopped up onto the air conditioner. It was a beautiful night, and the stars were shining brightly compared to what they usually are in the city. I let the air play around me, drying and wiping away the sweat and easing my tiredness.

I think this is something everyone can relate to. Some deep part of them is still lonely for Eden, for a world free from harm, where it's possible to walk naked without either emotional or physical protection or armor, and still be unhurt. Just imagine it...a place where it was possible to live the world with all of your senses and all of your emotions. No car exhaust or concrete to numb the senses, no hate or hostility to numb the emotions. Being free to live in the moment, to experience and taste everything without fear of making a mistake and venturing where you should not go. Is this what we gave up for the knowledge of good and evil? Did we really sacrifice Eden for the chance to make it on our own, to make our own mistakes?

If we are God's children, was that our teenage years? Or were they even only the pre-teen rumblings, the beginnings of testings of authority? Perhaps that was even as little as the crawling of a one year old where its parent had firmly told it "No, Do Not Go There".

The quest for maturity is not meaningless. If the human race does not grow, flourish and mature as individuals, how can it as a whole? Are we really trying to be the best we can be, or are we content with being slightly better than we strictly need to be? Somehow, a global collapse into anarchy and indulgence instantly appears repugnant. On the other hand, it is barely possible to visualize a world that thinks clearly, without infighting and hostility. Still...one of these must be a goal to aim for, and it only remains up to each person to decide which they will personally try to attain.

Will You Come To My Funeral? (or) Are You My Friend?

Are you my friend? Are you really?

If I was lonely and bored, would you be willing to drop what you're doing and have me over? Even if you were tired, with a killer headache? Would you be okay if I saw you in a public place and snuck up behind you and gave you a big hug? Even if you were with a bunch of people I'd never met? Could you spend an hour on the phone with me and not get bored and try to ditch me? Even if I'm dead tired and lacking in all coherence? Would you lend me $10 and just let the debt slide? Even if it was for some completely useless crap from a garage sale? Would you volunteer with me for whatever, just so I'd have a friendly face to be around? Would you give me the keys to your house? Turn me away if I turned up smashed on your doorstep, or let me in and give me a place to sleep? Be there at any time to talk or just listen, whenever my heart happens to pick up another scratch or ding? Would you come to my funeral? Would you speak at it? Would you come to my wedding? Would you get plastered and slur funny comments into the video camera for us to laugh over years later? Would you consent to be my designated driver, even for the most boring and embarrassing high school reunion ever? Would you go on a cross country trip with me if I called you the day I was leaving? Would you walk to my house to lend me an umbrella during a thunderstorm if I had an errand to do, and my own umbrella was lost? Would you give me your jacket if you saw me shivering, even if it was 5 degrees below freezing and all you had on underneath was a t-shirt and jeans? Would you tell me that you're my best friend, and mean every word of it?

Am I your friend? Really?

I'd be willing to have you over, even if I was in the grip of The World's Worst Migraine. I'd hug you back, even if I was having lunch with my bosses. I'd listen to every sleep deprived word of your raving, and only laugh with you, not at you. I'd give you 2o bucks if I had them, just to help you satisfy one of your whims you ran into at an antique shop. I'd help you clean streets, even if you were just doing it as part of your community service time. I'd give you keys to my house, and the keys to my car if you wanted them. I'd give you a place to sleep, and a meal in the morning no matter what your condition, any time you showed up at my door. I'd try my best to fix every dent your heart gets hit with, no matter when you need me to help. I'd go to your funeral, and if I wasn't crying too hard, I'd get up and lie about how you had no faults whatsoever, and tell the truth about how my life was better every single minute since the moment I met you. I'd go to your wedding, drink champagne by the quart and slur my goodwishes into the video camera, for you to treasure for years to come. I'd be your designated driver even if we were going to a party at the house of a master brewer. If you called me 15 minutes before you were leaving to cross the country, I'd throw together a packback full of clothes and get someone to watch the house and be ready to go before you came to pick me up. I'd take the city bus during a hurricane if you needed someone to go out and get you groceries. And, when I'd show up soaking with a bag of cereal, fruit, beef jerky and milk outside your door, I wouldn't let a word of complaint pass my lips. I'd give you my jacket even if we were boarding a plane in Alaska in winter, if you were cold. Do I really need to tell you that you're my best friend? You're my best friend.

On Sadness (or) *tear tear*

Here's a question I just have to ask; what makes things sad? I mean, not just "oh, that sucks" type sad, but like, the deep, personal type of sadness. When you're touched so deeply, in a place where your normal life never comes close to reaching, that even if what touched you is happy or good, you still become sad. It's like at the core of each of our beings is a bundle of sadness, and we don't even know it's there. But anyway, really, What makes things sad?
There are some things that will touch people repeatedly or with the same or similar reaction. Some songs will do it, (for me it's Hallelujah by Rufus Wainwright) and other times it is a certain poem, or movie sequence, or picture, or something else entirely. It just has to be something that reminds us that we are alive, life is filled with pain, to feel it is normal, to not ever cry from the sheer agony of being alive is insanity, and most importantly, Love Hurts, because what we are at the core of our beings is love and sadness. When we are reached, touched deeply by something, tears (a basic signal of sadness/strong emotion) are almost always a part of the experience.
But, again, what makes things touch so many different people? There must be some kind of equal imprint upon us all, to make the same song, or poem or painting or whatever it may be have such a strong effect on thousands of us humans. I think that one of the basic ways of defining humanity must be the effect of Art. Even if computers were capable of making advanced, autonomous decisions, they wouldn't be human if they didn't cry at the sound of heartbreak, in fact, to truely be human, you must be moved. There is evidence that poetry is a natural, instinctual form of art, and this must be true. No matter how scientifically advanced a civilization is, if they are not moved by emotion at the core of their beings, they are not humanity.

That Summer Feeling (or) Sunshine, Memories and etc.

Tonight I'm getting that summer feeling. I carried my laptop outside to write, and I don't regret it. I didn't listen to any music, I turned the sound off on my comp. I just sat in the dark and typed. Without any movement, all my aches and pains from the day stood out. Without me making any sound, everything, from birds saying goodnight, to windows opening, to neighbors talking three doors down, everything stood out. There's a heavenly breeze; scented with all kinds of flowers. The temperature is just right; not too warm, not too cold, just a tiny bit cool.

And this is making me get my summer feeling. It's where I feel like I should just break free, go walking and visit my friends, even though it's late at night. I want to just forget about troubles and responsibilities, and live life happily. And carefree.

Maybe that'll happen someday, but not tonight. I have to get to bed. There's lots of work that still needs to be done, and I need my sleep.

I'm Reading About The After-Life, When I Should Be Working On This One

Shouldn't I know by now that poems are just a headless hammer?
A failed and broken cure for growing older?
All they're good for is showing everyone the way the poets are
Even my best rhymes can't cover it up
Can't cover it up
But I still say
Give me two more weeks and ten Saturday's
And I swear I'll make everything feel ok
I think you're showing me open doors
But the key is still in the lock, and I have no idea if they're open-ended...

On a summer day, you and me
Making our own paradise
But not the one that really matters
I smile when I think of my accidental genius
And frown at all my goodly contrived mistakes
I'm trying to cast off the skeletons on my back
Just remember to remind me why we came before the last song plays

...

Well, that was a nice poem. I think that it's funny, how often I write. I hear lots of good things about my work, but...Sometimes to me it seems like I'm just massproducing sentiment. Is it still meaningful if there's a million other near-copies of the work? Is it still possible to be original, in a world like the one we have today, where the Internet spreads everything out over the entire Earth? Can people still come up with some sacred scrap of cleverness? Am I being original, or just lying in a new way? I don't know. I just don't know. And I don't think I'm anywhere near to figuring it out. So until I do, or don't, I'll just sit here, typing on my keyboard, cranking out hopes, dreams, and words that other people don't have the strength or natural wit to speak.

I still have far to go...I haven't published anything yet. I'm sitting here in my tiny, rented room in the metropolis of the Blagosphere. And what am I doing? Whispering to the world. I really should try to get some of this between the covers of a book. There's far more out there then just a network of blogs....maybe I should try aiming for success in the real world, the one where you live and die. Well, dear audience, back to the play...

...

Is my heart a little more than you bargined for?
I can tell you wanted a cat, but you got a lion
You're taking yourself down, and dragging everyone with you on your way up
There's a loaded gun in the closet, and the crowd in the theater says
"Don't pull it, don't pull it"
Well, you make another notch in the wall to tell the time
But it's seven o'clock according to your watch
If almost none of my metaphors and witticisms make sense
I guess, incoherently enough, I'm still making myself known
Even if it's only through mystery, like why I'm listening to the same song
Three times in the half hour

On Success (or) Under Failure

The success that some people strive for is very different from what others long for. Same for failure. For some people success is a momentary feeling that everything is all-right, everything is ok for the moment. For others success is growing old and being able to care for their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren while living comfortably. How do they achieve their seperate ideals? Some can succeed by doing as little as picking out the perfect music to cure their bad or restless mood. Others find success by closing huge business deals. Giving hugs completes other people, while some get that good feeling by punishing bad guys. Shouting out with expression, (i.e. poetry, music) and getting a positive response works very well too. <;) Loving a person, helping them feel good. All of these things can help people get on top of success.

Failure. Something I'm in a good mood, and so don't really want to write about. Let's just say that it's when you've regressed on the path towards what you want. Or when you set your expectations so low that you don't need to work to get to them.

Well, I'll write more later. I'm off to go succeed.

To The Love (or) To The Pain

One of the most momentous things a person ever does is admit to another person that he or she loves the person. But here's the thing; the person usually doesn't know what the heck they're talking about. They know how the feeling of infatuation works, but they don't know squat about love.

In the famous novel The Princess Bride, a key character is obsessed with pain. He believes that it is the focal point of life. And I think there's something to that viewpoint. Although, in a slightly different manner than the Count suggested.

Love is about pain. Love is not about giving gifts and writting sappy poetry and such. It's about pain. About taking the pain that's going to hit your lover. You take off your coat in cold weather, simply so she can have another layer on. You freeze completely, but she stays nice and warm. There's some pain there, especially as your extremeities thaw. Love is also about holding her hands to warm them up. Love is intercepting all the vitriol that others may spit, and hiding it all. Love is taking not one, not two, not three or four or five bullets, but all the bullets that could ever made in the world. Love is about being a human shield for every kind of pain that you block from your lover. Love is all about pain.

Think about it. The greatest expressions of love are not things such as Valentine's Day activities, or jewelry. The greatest expressions of love all have to do with pain. Not meaninglessly hurting yourself; that doesn't show loving suffering, only foolishness and lack of self respect. No, love is about being a sponge, and soaking up all the pain you can from your lover's life. You probably cannot take it all away; but you can try. If you want to show someone you love them and care about them, share yourself. Share their pain, and if you can, take it away from them. Be a comfort, a sense of security. Be willing to stand a lonely guard, and stay on watch for bumps and puddles in the road. Smooth the bumps down with your hands, and lie down in the puddles to soak them up. Be a bridge over every ravine you can stretch across. This is what you must do if you want to show true love. Warm her hands, do every kindness you can think of. Suffer for your love, not meaninglessly, but with strength and purpose. This is a greater, more tender symbol of love than even the most beautiful ring, or the most elaborate evening out. Nothing can compare to placing yourself in the path of the flames, and protecting your love from the heat and fire. While these poetic metaphors may be hard to understand, I am trying my best to say something simple. If you strive to the true love, you strive to the true, good pain.

On Valentine's Day And Some Other Things

Well, this year's V-Day has come and gone. And yet again, it's left a strange aftertaste in it's wake. Like eating chocolate right after brushing your teeth. For some people, Valentine's Day is about chocolate. Having it given to you, and eating it. For those people, V-Day is great. For others, V-Day is about arguing with your lover over what to wear and if you'll make the reservation, and who's fault it will be if you don't, and etc. For some lucky couples, it's about a perfect day together. And for many people, it's about being alone. The whole mystique that has sprung up around it makes it something it's not. Valentine's Day is not the day when every one's romances go right. Or even go. For many, it just shows them what they don't have. They don't have someone who will take off their coat in frigid air and let them wear it. They don't have someone who will pay for lunch without being asked. They don't have someone to sit next to, someone who will warm their hands underneath the table. A person who will do all the driving, a person who cares enough to pick each flower individually. Someone who is willing to slow dance to whatever music his or her love likes, be it classical, rap, punk, alternative, pop or anything else. They don't have someone. However, Valentine's Day need not be miserable. You can go eat lunch with a friend, to celebrate being "single and loving it". Those can lead pretty quickly to something no one was expecting. <;) But really, Valentine's Day isn't what most people think it is. It isn't about being a lovestruck fool for a day. Or a lonely possible-lover forever. It's about becoming a lovestruck fool. It's about changing your mood, and making every day sunny. It's about becoming a lovestruck fool, and simply maintaining it if you already are one. It's not about the chocolate, or the fancy dinners, or making out with your girlfriend. It's about the love. The LOVE. The L-O-V-E! It's about falling in love all over again, and doing it every moment of every day. It's about making it past the commercialization, and just feeling the... Well, you know what it's about. <;)

On Politics, or, You #$%3ing %#$^ $#$%%$^!

Ah, politics. Something that deeply divides the nation. And all nations. And the world. Why is this, you may ask? Well, I might have found the answer. People are thick headed jerks. I know some perfectly nice people, who, if politics is talked about around them, will immediatly turn into the most venomous, disgusting show of intolerance. They refuse to behave civilized about it. If you're going to be a jerk, don't talk about it. Sounds easy, right? Ha ha ha. Not so. Usually, the worse a person is, the more he or she will be attracted to it! But here's a good rule of thumb for gauging people's political hatred level. If they start talking about politics without anyone bringing it up, and their talking about it is very snooty and down-putting to their opposition, quickly tie him or her down, gag the person, and run away as fast as you can. Nothing good can come from these people. The problem with politics is that the majority of people do not realize that the people with whom they differ in politics have legit reasons for their views. Different reason than you have, correct, but legit all the same. Because they don't get this, Democrats are accepting and tolerant of everyone except those who have even a vaguely conservative attitude, and Republicans see themselves as protectors of all that is Good, American, and Holy. If you never hear me talking serious politics to anyone, don't be surprised. I don't want to force anyone to publicly declare themselves an ass. So, just remember that. The person on the other side of the table isn't Satan. He or she is someone just like you, only a different shade of red or blue.

C.D.

I have some news. Most of my posts have been "lovesickyish" ones. Due to recent life changes, my focus has shifted off of these matters, and more to the goal of totally dominating life. I've vowed not to let love, hate or friendship drag me down. Why should you let love for a person grab you and smash you into the gutter? Love can ruin your life. And why should you let someone's hate of you push you down? You have no reason to just lie down; stand strong and don't fall. And I'm not willing to sacrifice my health, happiness and future for the sake of sinking down to share a friend's misery. Instead this is what I plan to do. I'm focusing on achieving the best life I can, and I'm not giving it up if the person I choose to get ensnared in love with is on a lower level of life. Instead, the only option is for me to help her up. If someone hates me; well, nuts to them. They can't bring me down, so it's like they don't even exist. And I won't go down for friends; I can only lift them up. My philosophy towards life can be summed up in two little words: carpe diem. Latin words, both of them. Seize the day. Grab it, and never let it go. If you're not daring, if you don't let everyone know what you think of them, if you don't stretch the limits of the life cut out for you, you might end up with an ok life. An average one. Nothing special. Just like you. Ok. Average. Not special. People who are beyond what you think possible for them didn't get that way by being passive. C.D. and not compact disc. Carpe Diem, seize the day, or else you'll never be the way you want to. Burn those words into your brain. Sear them on the surface of your gray thinking matter. You only have the rest of your life, so hurry up and get living! Always stay the way you were, only a little better than you were. Remember; C.D.

I Know, or, Golden Deal

Think of your friends. I know you have them; everyone has friends, and no one is completely immune to the friendly bug. Now, do you have a friend with a golden deal on life? You know, someone who everything seems to right for. Like the world finds some compassion in its heart, and grants them happiness. They have their own little troubles, but they are not affected by them. They stay rays of sunshine, letting their friends and family be rewarded by their presence. These Golden Dealers are not egocentric, nor are they nasty. They are, on the contrary, unusually nice. People love to know them. But there is one funny thing about them: They are never Golden Dealers to themselves. They may recognize that they are lucky or blessed, but they don't see themselves as having a Golden Deal on life.

I know what it's like, knowing a Golden Dealer. I also know what it's like to have a bronze deal on life. But I can use alchemy, and turn my bronze to gold. If you want to too, all you have to do is become perfectly content with your life. That's both easier and harder than it sounds. Most of your life might be easy to accept, but there is bound to be something you'll have to work on. Or maybe not. You might have perfect contentment on Earth right in front of you. If you do, you are lucky. You are a veritable leprechaun, that's how lucky you are. But for all the Golden Dealers, stay sunny, and spread your sunshine around to make the world a better place. And for all you people down in the dirt; I know how you feel, and if you dig a little, you might find gold.

Dead Poets Society

Last night I watched the movie "The Dead Poets Society" for the first time. Amazing. It is a very powerful movie. It didn't carry a message that was super clear, that anyone who just happened to watch the movie could see. The message required you to discover what it was, and you can only do that if you tap into the poet inside you. It's there, you just have to find it.

One of the messages in the movie is the fact that almost all men and boys have poets inside them. It's just that the poet usually gets pushed away. But he is there. Men make themselves into something other than what they should be. They should be poets, lovers, dreamers and romantics. They should look beyond their physical selves and appreciate the creative genius inside themselves. Inside each teenage boy, fueled by passion and every other emotion it's possible to have, lurks a maker of worlds, a charmer of women, a painter of beautiful paintings. Someone who dreams, and carries those dreams into the "real" world. Inside the boy who runs by himself on the football field; he has one of the most influential novels ever written, a bible of emotional rather than spiritual revelations. The middle aged man who works hard every day to support his family; he holds poems inside that could bring he and his wife back to the days when they were young and courted by the schoolyard wall. Why does this happen? This wasting of talent for the sake of "being a man." Wouldn't a real man be tapping into the revelations inside him? Or would he blindly turn away from that to a dumb, silent reactionary world? Why? Why do they sacrifice their poets for the chance to be a crude brute?

Would The Man In The Back Please Stand Up, or, Yo, What's Up?

Ever notice how there are always people in the back? At anything from, say, a rock concert to a seminar on how to chop wood, there is always a back row. Same thing with peace and equality. Everyone is not on the same level. In a world where everything is happy and peaceful, and everyone is equally important and given the same rights, there will always be a secret percent of the population that will be downtrodden and controlled. It's human nature: you stand taller if you're standing on someone else. Slavery and servitude will never be gone, but they can be pushed away for while. Have you ever cried yourself to sleep over the condition of the world? Well, stop it. What does the world care for a single person's tears. They are non existent. A better way to spend your time would be to try and change the world. But the inertia of Homo Sapiens is impressive. A better strategy for changing it would be walking along with it in a slight curve, rather than trying to make it go backwards. A slight curve will bring you where you want to be sooner or later. But back to the man in the back. He's sitting there, listening to the music and learning how to chop wood. He wants to be in the limelight, but, he's at the back. No chance for him to be in front. When suddenly he sees the rockstar/lumberjack gesture at him, and seems to hear him say "Hey, man in the back! Get up here!" He slowly trods up to the stage and climbs on. And he can't believe it when the rockerjack says to him, "So, what's up?"

The Ever-successful Enterprizes Of The Enemies Of Edna, or, Life Sunny Side Up

In leading your life, you occasionally make mistakes. Like every other minute, for example. The mistake that is easiest to make on a blog is, NOT SHOWING THE REAL YOU! I yelled that just to show how important it is. When you record your personality onto another medium besides your mind, you invariably focus on one aspect of it. Most often you dwell on the negative. Many people use blogs to unburden themselves of bad things that happened to them during that day. Feeling satesfied with that, they don't bother to record their happy moments. That can mislead people to a dangerous extent. If you have a "miserable" blog, be sure to include some of the happy things in your life, so then you will save the rest of us some worry. Hm, I feel a poem coming on

Life in real life is a mixture most lovely
Full of sunshine, rainy days and alliteration
But on the internet it becomes a tragic play
That threatens to end itself each day
To paint a clearer picture
Erase some of the blur
Make your sunshine brighter on your blog
Ensure that the rainclouds don't wallow like hogs
That wasn't a good rhyme, but look I'm not sad!
I can transpose it all, the good and the bad