Good Person

I've been doing a great deal of thinking lately. I know, I know, big surprise. But I've come to some conclusions. Though I don't think I'll be able to explain why it is that they make me uncomfortable.

But I'm a good person. Perhaps even a great one.

In a quantifiable way. I've been devoting my life to the special educational needs of the children most in need. I actively seek to alleviate pain where I can. I go out of my way to see the best in people. To look to their virtues instead of writing them off for their flaws. And when I am able, I offer as much as I can to help those that need of it.

A friend of mine called me a "Paladin" the other night.

I wanted to argue. I wanted to say "No. Fuck that. I'm a creature of Chaos." But even as I said it, I knew he was right. If ever there was anyone who understood Chaos... it was this friend. I see the purest beauty of the chaotic universe. I have traveled with Kali and stared into the depth of the Void. I know and appreciate chaos in a way that very few others do... but at the end of the day. I'm good.

Everything I do is divided between betterment of my myself, the people around me, and society as a whole. Under the strictest definition of good... yeah. I'm pretty damn good. But I think the thing that makes me hesitate is the assumption that if I'm "good" then I have to do things like follow the rules and be polite.

And well... I'm not okay with that. I mean, I'm personable. I have tact. I'm moderately unlikely to start eating the faces of the dinner guests. But polite is not a game I'm willing to play. If I don't see the value in something, or simply just don't want to do it... I won't. I'll say I'm sorry and many times will actually mean it, but at the end of the day I don't like that game.

It's why I profoundly bristle when I'm called "Nice". It's why in a majority of contexts I think nice is a dirty word. Far more offense to me than something as innocuous as the fuck word.

And another thing is that I pride myself with the pursuit of strength. I find it one of the more important things to consider when I make any decision. "Will this make me stronger?" But I have the hardest time doing so if it preys on other people. Or... if it preys on the weak pointlessly. That's a better way to put it. I think that may be the crux of the issue that makes me a good person.

I cannot stand pointless suffering. I hate to look at it, deal with it, and be around it. It offends some deep and angry part within me. I have suffered in my life and I have always tried to use that suffering as a form of transformational energy. I don't suffer to suffer and I don't inflict pain for no purpose.

There are many days when I look around and see that existence is fundamentally without meaning.

But because it means nothing, it means we have to work that much harder to create our own. Which I guess...

Makes me a good person.

Parasite

I am a parasite.

I don't say this in some analysis of the relationship between mankind and the world, or as a means of dredging counterarguments from those that read this. I say it because as I look at the evidence with an open mind, I find it to be undeniable. I am a parasitic organism.

How can I say this? Well I can't live on my own. I've lived on my own or mostly on my own before and it's weeks or at the very most months before it all falls apart.

I'm riddled with physical and mental issues. Many of which without medication my capacity to function within modern society would boil down to nothing. I have ADD, trace amounts of OCD, Seasonal affectation disorder, diabetes, gout, allergies, and what is effectively arthritis. At 29 that's quite the laundry list of disfunction. If it weren't for my parents putting up with me as long as they have I don't know where I would be and if honestly I would be alive. I owe them a greater debt than I think I will ever be able to repay. I love them dearly and wish that I could do more. And I try to do more though it doesn't always look like it.

I am at my most fundamental a broken thing. Flawed is perhaps the better word, but I prefer the images the broken conjures. It lets me pretend that may someday be something with the power to fix me. But that's really just hopeful jibberish. The only way forward is to continue forward. One awkward and painful step at a time.

Now, for those of you positive thinkers who merely think that it's a matter of thinking the right way, "happiness is a choice" and all that bollocks. Please remember that I know this. It's not some mystical secret that will open my heart to the universe. I remember the secrets I'm told. And as secrets go, this is a bit of rubbish.

You haven't been inside my mind.

Imagine standing at the center of a storm. One large enough to have an eye. The kind of huge angry storm that casts princes to their destinies and tears away at mountains like onion paper. Great clouds lashed into a frenzy by the lightning lash of an angry god.

That's what it's like at it's worst. It's a storm to be endured. When it's gentle I can find means of tricking it. Of directing it. But it's not easy, and it's not always worth the cost to command it. But it's this aspect of my mind that makes me a parasite. I need others to help me sort it through. To fight it and live my life.

A parasite by it's fundamental nature is incomplete. They lack something. A potential to protect themselves. The ability to gather their own energy. A great bleeding hole in their heart that forever bleeds but refuses to let you die. These are what make a parasite. A lacking.

So they latch onto something else. Some other creature that can fulfill that lack. If they're kind and considerate they find a way to give something back. They achieve symbiosis. The mitochondria in our cells. The bacteria in our guts. They're mooches. They're leaching off the things that we have that they don't. But they help us out along the way.

Don't take me wrong. This writing is done with a full understanding of my positive traits. I'm painfully aware of them. I'm not fishing for people to tell me what a "Great Guy" I am or shower me with hugs and well wishes. In all reality that would further aggravate the problem. Because there are far too many times when it really doesn't matter what's good about me. That gaping hole filled with illness and madness...

It's always still there.

Tripping me.
Tearing at me.
Defining me.

And letting me drink of the truth in the bitter cup.

I am a parasite. And I'm sorry for that.

Passivity

I spend a great deal of time watching people. And more than just watching and judging I devote a lot of time to trying to understand. Understanding is the thing I value the most in myself. I say this because I on occasion realize that some trait of humanity infuriates me to the point of grumbling psychosis.

Now before I begin I will say that I consider my actions carefully. I plan things out in exhausting detail. Which given that fact the subject of this post may seem odd. Because I personally find "Passive" to be one of the most unforgivable character traits a person can have. There are few faster ways for me to think ill of you. Now this wasn't always the case and honestly it's really only come to the surface recently. And I'll be the first to say that there I have been times when I was as guilty of this sin as anyone.

Did you catch that? I called it a sin. Because that's what it is. For those of you who ascribe to such thing, it's even one of the big ones.

Sloth.

It's sloth. Not one of the "oh you touched yourself say some Hail Marys sins" but the proper will stab you in a back alley monoliths of ill behavior they craft circles of Hell in service of. It's one of the two sins that so completely plague the righteous. The one that you embrace so completely in your attempts to avoid the others. There are oh so many sayings about the dangers of being passive. "All it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." When faced with adversity, when placed before what you want you don't stand idly by and "hope for the best". Or worse expect your knight in shining armor to rush forth and save you from the harsh world.

Come here my friend. Sit next to me for this bit. Because it's an ugly ugly truth I need to tell you.

There are no shining knights, and those that pretend to be... aren't doing you any favors. Because they're robbing you of the chance to help yourself. Now, I'm not saying that there's shame in asking for help when you need it. Because there is none. And there is a lot of suffering in the world that pours from the grim temple of absolute self-reliance. Accepting help can take more courage than facing the problem alone. But the problem with the passive, is that they expect the help. And many times, they even demand it.

And this expectation leads us into the other sin that conquers the pious. This expectation becomes a breeding ground for entitlement. Because you have lived your life assuming you deserve it, you demand it from the world. And so it is that Sloth opens the doors to Pride.

Now if you sit there without ever looking into your own worth. In your passivity you assume it. I'm as guilty of this as anyone. It's easy to look from the inside and say "hey I'm awesome, everybody should jump to help me out. I deserve your love because I want it." But that's not how this world works. It's a thousand times better to try and fail than to never have attempted.

Now, everyone who's reading this likely has a system of beliefs where a sacrifice was made. Prometheus tied to the stone with his liver being torn out day after day. Jesus nailed to the cross for the sins of the masses. The heart of the star where your innumerable particles were forged in ages before time as we knew it. These are the costs of your life, your salvation, and knowledge. When you passively wait instead of grasping the reins of your own life, you dishonor the memory of those sacrifices.

Maybe it doesn't bother you. And maybe there's no shame in it.

But for me? I want to live with a fire in my belly and the wind in my lungs. I want to tear into the mountains and strive for the stars. I want to guide the broken and create new ways for people to see the world. I want to LIVE.

And I can't do that and stay passive.

A Poem

I want to write you a poem.

One that's full of magic.

One that takes your breath away.

One that steals a few joyous tears from your eyes.

I want to conjure words.

Beautiful words that you will hold in your heart forever.

Words that will twist and wrap you in a net of emotion.

The word that say how I feel about you.

Your smile forever seared into the twitching meat at my core.

Your hair like ivy kissed with autumn's gold

Eyes like fresh turned soil that glitter with the most impish of innocence.

The honeyed liquor that is your scent.

Because it's always you.

Since the moment I met you.

When I knew that I would love you.

Fiercely. Painfully. And without end.

And so we do this little dance.

A dance of poems and stories.

Of furtive glances and lingering hugs.

Two steps forward and one step back.

Secrets and mistakes nothing more than movements.

As we stumble

Laugh.

And cry to music that we can't hear.

My Mermaid.

My Princess.

My Lovelorn Paladin.

My private hope that fairy tales can come true.

I wanted to write you a poem.

But all that came out were words.  

Marriage

So something happened. The Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, and sent Proposition 8 back to the lower courts to be struck down. Many people look at these as amazingly good things.

I'm generally inclined to agree but honestly I have a bit of mixed feelings about all of this. They're mixed not because I'm opposed because there is not a single argument I've heard against it that holds much water. Though at the same time, from the other side aside from the "fairness under the law" line of reasoning there's nothing much on that side either.

Now before you start burning me alive in rainbow fire allow me to explain. Your feelings don't dictate the logic of an argument. You're in the right. It's a simple matter of equality under the law. There's no compelling reasons to prevent it. But the amount of "victory for love" that's being claimed is not quite what has been actually achieved. But it's not my place to dictate to you your feelings.

When I started writing this I was potentially going to go through the reasons why marriage is an outdated institution, why I don't see the point, and so on and so forth. In fact just a few years ago I would have opened up a can of highly processed arguments about the lack of purpose it serves in the modern world. That was the plan. But as I started writing and thinking about marriage... well there's something there. Some thing in the midst of all the emotional leftovers from a hundred years and the promises made by cartoon princesses.

It's a powerful thing. This idea. Two people mystically and legally bound together. I can understand the appeal. For a very long time it was something that I desperately wanted. Still do if I'm entirely honest. I mean I'm not holding out much hope for it because of my habit of infuriating horror movie style gypsy women, but there's a part of me that still wants it. A part of me that buys into the illusion.

And it is. An illusion. There's a lot of folk here in Utah, particularly the younger set, who believe that getting married will magically fix the relationship. And they think that because they've been told in so many different ways. In the movies, from their friends, from their churches. They believe in the illusion so much that when it doesn't live up to it, they feel betrayed. And they get divorced. Because the illusion is so much better than the reality.

But there are some, some noble few who look at it not as the goal or the reward, but as the beginning of the game itself. The Golden Standard of our true love idealic marriage is not the way it is, it's the way it can be. Two souls working towards building a life together. That's something that I can support. Now with more that that I could see some complications but more power to them for trying.

I'm not as opposed to the concept I was even a few years ago.

And that sort of surprised me. Because in some ways I feel much farther from it.

Creation

When I was little I would sometimes think, "What if I was God?"

I grew up in a mormon household and given the nature of the doctrine it was something that crossed my mind a fair bit. What would I do if I have divine powers? How much would I change? Would there be magic? Would there be weasels running about in watermelon yachts? (I was a weird little kid)

It was one of the reasons I stayed mormon for as long as I did. The idea that someday I would get access to that manner of power was deeply enticing and many days was the only reason I got through Sunday school. In fact I remember doing a great deal of my writing and reading during the various meetings we would go to. I was not a very good mormon. Which in retrospect made me about on par with everybody else there.

But that idea of creating my own world. Of having the power to shape and manipulate it's growth and look, always always stuck with me. It's the one real pang of regret that I feel about leaving the faith. Well that and being effectively shunted out of the dating pool. But another day on that topic.

I wanted to be God. So I started writing. And I keep writing. Always less then I feel I should but more than some of my other friends who call themselves writers. I write and I seek to understand. The fastest way to understand the world is to try and recreate it. In creating you find all of the reasons and underlying logic of why things are the way they are. If you write for long enough you'll start to see the patterns. Though the best part for me is changing the rules then seeing what happens from there.

And so that's what I did. I've created a fantasy world. I've been working on it for years and years. I've had many friends come in and help with it. So many talented people have been working to make my little world it's own thing. I appreciate them more than I can say because in many ways the world of Desylinn is what I would create if I was God. I mean the king of the Gods is even loosely based off of me.

It gives me some small comfort. To wield the power of creation and destruction. It's one of the high points of my life. 

Endings

Look up to the sky. And look to the stars.

Each one is a beautiful bright point in a sky otherwise appearing black and lifeless. Each one is like our sun. Trapped forever in the battle between nuclear flame pushing outwards and the unimaginable intense gravity of the core. It is a conflict that we can only understand through metaphor and story because the sheer scope of these forces are things we could never hope to effect.

But despite the fact that these forces are so grand and intense they could make the gods themselves quake in fear there is a point we tiny mortals have in common with them.

They end.

The nuclear fire will die out and the gravity will tear the star apart. The star will die. Its corpse will be torn to innumerable pieces and scattered to the void...

Endings are always hard on some level. It's a shift from things we know to things we don't. Some deal with it well. Even crave the shifting nature of the world. Change is the only unchanging thing. And despite my chaotic nature I'm not one that tends to deal well with change. And recently I've had a lot of it hit me.

I've left a place I loved. The first job that I ever looked forward to going to. One where I felt like I had a true (if hesitant) place. But funding is tight and as a diabetic with mental health challenges, I need full time resources and insurance. Sad as it is I've had to depart from that place.

The other thing ending was the marvelous play I was a part of. That one was expected. It is the nature of the thing. Like beautiful drawings left to the sand, such is the way of theater. At it's best it is a profound thing and the only living art, because it exists solely in the moment it is happening. It is never like it was before or will be again. Theater exists within the unique magic of a moment. And it is remembered not replayed.

So that second end is perhaps a prettier thing.

But it doesn't make it any easier to let it go. So I look to the stars for guidance. Because it is in the crucible of a dying sun that the manifold particles of our creation come into being. All of life exists because of the end of a stars life cycle.

When everything feels like it's exploding, ending, and dying around you; remember that once it cools you'll have the stardust required to fashion your new world. Create something new.

It's all just stardust anyway. 

Outside

I've been in a play recently. It is far and away the the best comedic piece I've been in, and arguably one of the most rewarding theatre experiences I've yet had. I can't understate that. It has been amazing and I wouldn't change it for the world. However, I can't really say it's been entirely easy. The Director expects the best out of us and is unwilling to let us look bad. It's been a rough but I walked out the other side far better for the experience. And frankly it's not that point that I want to talk about.

I have only rarely felt like more of an outsider than I had with this group. It's not that I've been made to feel unwelcome, and in fact a few genuine efforts to include me have been made. They just haven't bridged that gap. I've tried as well, and through a few points of resonance have been found I remain looking in more than being a part.

It's nobody's fault really. I would work with any of these people again without any hesitation at all. And given the opportunity I would gladly break bread or drink wine with them all. They're fantastic and interesting people. Which is perhaps why my feelings are so mixed. I don't belong there. But would like to.

When I first got cast in this production, I felt that it was going to be something special. Like the first scent of rain on the wind I could feel it's importance in an almost palpable manner. In the days before our first rehearsal I even had a significant and intense dream regarding one of my cast mates, a person I had seen but had never met. For me, meeting this group had a strange electricity in the air. An electricity that at times became a wall. Less magnetic and more the balance created by gravitational events.

I'm used to feeling like an outsider. It's pretty much my natural state. So much so that when I find a group that accepts me without hesitation my first reactions are confusion followed by suspicion. It's not because of a lack of confidence. It simply stems from a full awareness of who I am. I'm a strange guy. I give odd impressions. I'm personable, but that's in spite of my persona not because of it. At least not initially. I'm an outsider.

It is the price of being a shaman. And also the price of being an artist. You stand outside of the world because it gives us the best view of how things really are. It's the lot of chosen. It's the price I've paid.

Sometimes it just takes you by surprise, when you get what you pay for.

Perceptions

As much as this is a blog, as you gentle reader are in fact reading it, this is much more a journal. Not of the various details of my day to day life, as that would be quite boring and make me sound even more self-absorbed than I fear this blog already makes me, but of my thoughts, and sometimes even my feelings. Feelings which despite my best efforts, I still have. Ones that sincerely seem to cause more problems than they solve in my life. But this isn't about my one man war against my own capacity to feel things. No. This is about perception. And how it can vary so wildly from reality.

I have, it has been argued, an over concern with romantic entanglement. I am coming to terms with that. But in that coming to terms with it, it has lead me to a point of interest. Depending on which side of thing you are seeing, your belief in what it is will wildly vary.

There's an old story. The one about four (or three or five depending on the telling) blind men and an elephant. Each man comes at the creature from a different angle and finds different things. The one touching the leg declares it a tree. The one touching the side declares it an albeit fleshy wall. The tail is a rope and the truck is a snake. It's a really good little story to illustrate how our perspectives can shape perceptions and therefore our assumptions.

Now I strive to understand. As I talked about in my post on Entireties. I strive to understand everything and that includes myself. So when somebody tells me something about me that I hadn't considered, or looks at my actions through a lens I hadn't I take it all the more seriously. Because to know yourself and your own limitations and perspectives is to be able to make yourself the best person you can possibly be.

This whole line of reasoning came up when somebody told me that I came off as desperate. Linking back to the over concern with romantic entanglement. That I was showing "interest" in so many people that it never allowed any of them to feel special. And so saying it out loud was cheapening it, and making me seem to want it enough that it was creepy.

I can't deny it. One of the things that I want more than anything else is a good match with a romantic partner. And someday, I can't emphasize this enough, Someday, to be a father. And there's a certain amount of hunger associated with the idea. But at least in my mind this talk of desperation doesn't fill mesh with the reality.

On paper it must be right. By the standards of the community I should be desperate. I should be shaking down trees trying to find a "bride" and "mother for my childrens". I'm a white male living in his parents basement who plays Dungeons and Dragons regularly and watches cartoons. I've not travelled out side of the country except once for about an hour going into Mexico. I'm prone to powerful (sometimes nonsensical) attractions and gains a beautifully bittersweet joy around children. These could all add up to a compelling argument for desperation.

But I don't think of myself or in fact feel desperate. My seeing everyone as special is in fact an honest and sincere attempt at trying to see the good and unique datapoints within everyone I met. I want to get to know everyone (or at least most people) well enough to say that I truly know them. Well enough that I could not be surprised by their actions. Having a basic understanding of the fundamentals of character.  If you couple this with my current inability to be anything but awkward around persons I find attractive and yes... I can see where the perception comes from.

And eventually I hope to change it. But that's probably going to take counseling and a serious rebuilding of my confidence. Because there's just enough truth in these perceptions that means it's something I need to work on.

Or at the very lest something to consider in my next character rebuild.

Attraction

This is something that should always be simple, but never really is. At least in my experience. I've always had difficultly when dealing with attraction. When I was younger I had a severe phobia of girls. I was socially awkward and possessed of a really powerful desire for romantic entanglement. For some reason as a child I put a great deal of emotional and psychological importance with the idea of romantic entanglement.

I went over my thoughts (and various pains) regarding Love months ago, but attraction is something different. To put it in it's most primal phrasing this is a matter of lust. The quick and powerful magnetic draw to another person.

It's something that is so much more then just visual aesthetics. A pretty face or shapely form can draw the eye but attraction taps into something chemical, something profound and sometimes nonsensical. They creep into your thoughts without rhyme or reason and despite your most valiant efforts they build a little home there. Their scent burns itself into your mind and because a new and exciting mode of thought. There is a potential for anything to happen with that kind of strong attraction.

Usually anyway. If that magnetism is mutual, it becomes something profound and magical. It's those first amazing steps towards something truly special. Or sometimes it will remain a delicate and delightful fantasy. Something to play the what if game too.

Now I'm fully aware that this next bit is going to self-indulgent. But it's a personal blog. So what the hell else were you expecting?

I meet people sometimes. Lady people. And when I'm near them I feel an electricity that I can't fully describe. They tiptoe across my thoughts enough that I feel the need to fight against it. Because I'm aware of how it can look. I've spent much of my life being a little off, a little weird. And that puts people on edge. Unless there is a significant reason to overlook that or somebody they trust to vouch for me, I seem to give off the "lock you in the basement vibe". I don't mean to or try to, but there it is.

I've always said that I have a fungal charm. It takes time for my worth and charms to come out. But in our microwave, youtube world that's not really enough. We dont' trust people and the only ones who are generally willing to trust that sort of primal attraction are those that are a little off, or a little scary.

Which leaves me waving my "freak flag" as it were. Though I'd rather is just have a little bit of reciprocation. I just want to be comfortable with myself and that seems to me that I'm not freaky enough for the freaks but so far from the passable that I'm pretty well blown off by both sides. Leaves me in the horrible postion of striving for or pining after folk that have no interest, or being pursued by those that I don't really feel anything significant for.

It's not a pleasant place, I wish I could change it. But to tie it back to my earlier ramblings it's a chemical process. A point of biology that can't really be easily modified. But such is the way of life is it not? Magnets and chemicals... and trying to fill in the blanks with whatever psychological fixes we can find.

Puppets of Meat and Bone chasing forever after the scents of our desires.

Grace

There is a concept in Christianity, "being saved by grace". It's one of the more important tenets of the worship of Christ, and as such I find it odd that it seems to be a point of such division amongst the various sects. Some believe that grace and grace alone will save you. Others that it's a combination of good works and grace.

Those two ideas seem to be at rather constant odds with each other. I'll admit I don't fully understand why. Doing good works seems like a generally benevolent thing to do. But I have on many occasions heard proclaimed Christians damn near arguing against them. Once good works are mentioned they start in with a lecture about Ephesians 2:8-9 "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast." It even sounds sort of straightforward (in this translation at the very least). God has saved you so you give him the credit. There is no "be a good person" loophole into paradise. Now that being said you'll hear a lot from Christians saying that this doesn't mean you shouldn't do good works. It just means that you should give God all the credit for it.

To look at a different model, I remember the metaphor I was told to explain this to me when I was young Mormon. Good works are the ladder that will get you closer to God. But in the end it doesn't matter how high you get on the ladder, only that you try to get as high as you can, because Christ's sacrifice will take up all the slack. I honestly see it as a good compromise between the idea of buying your way into Heaven by not being a dick whilst still throwing all the credit to the Homie on High.

The real problem I have, is not how it's explained or justified, but with the very idea of Grace itself. Or at the very least the current understanding of the concept. I'll be the first to admit, it's a concept that has been brewing and mutating for thousands of years at this point. I'm certain it meant something completely different when it was first conceived then what it is now.

Now, I understand its appeal. I really do. No matter what you do, or how horrible you are, there is hope. You can bath in the blood of the Lamb and be made clean again. You will be rewarded for your belief in him and the glory that you direct towards Him. There's a clean comfort in this. Particularly for those that assume that the natural state of mankind is abomination.

The base assumption of Grace is that only a God could care about helping others without trolling for glory. And even then, that's sort of the point, to give the glory to God and not hog it for yourself.

And that's something that always bothered me. I mean I understand how dangerous unchecked Pride can be, and that seems to be what this is trying to stop, but what you're doing in reaction is something that passively encourages the worst kind of spiritual, ethical, and philosophic laziness. It leaves your entire fate in somebody else's hands. There's a freedom in that I have to admit. The freedom from responsibility.

And that's the crux of the matter for me. Being saved by grace implies a lack of responsibility for your actions. That is the whole point of Christ's sacrifice isn't it? That we can be terrible people and still find glory through him, through repentance or truly taking him into our hearts. Now with repentance there's less issue for me. Because at the very least you're doing something. There's an aspect of admitting you have done wrong, and trying to make amends.

But that's not what I see as much from the diehard "saved by Grace" adherents. Jesus (Joshua) took on their sins with his great gift. And now that they have taken Him into their heart, or been baptize in His name they are somehow no longer burdened by their actions. They can punt off the guilt over what they did onto someone else.

I mean no offense as I go over this. I'm just trying to understand why it just smells so deeply wrong to me, and it always has. I was taught to only do that which I could be proud of, and to try and make amends where I could. But regardless it was for me to take responsibility for my own actions. Be they good, evil, neutral, nonsensical, they are MY actions.

And if I wasn't going to fully accept the consequences, why in the seven hells did I do them?

Practice

I'm writing to keep in practice, not because I have anything of worth to say. It's something to do. It's something that's hard to do, keeping in practice. Particularly when I find myself running around so often. Between my work with Clockwork Chaos Publishing my play with Meat and Potato Theatre I'm really quite exhausted and busy. Add to that my complicated emotional state and the loss of my job and well... I'm surprised I honestly get anything done at all.

But you sort of half too. Writers write. It's sort of inherent to the nature of the word itself. So I'm trying to keep it up. Throw a few hundred words onto the internet when I can find a few moments. Because it's something to do. Keeps the machinery of authorship moving. So that hopefully when I actually have something worth saying that I'll be able to slide it quickly instead of hammering on the inside of my skull till the broken bits falls out.

That is apparently what's happening today.

The shards of thoughts and feelings spilling out because I'm hammering away. I find myself being overly honest lately. It seems to be causing more problems than I currently am able to deal with. Though I avoid dishonesty in all but the most necessary of circumstances there comes a point when you're too honest. When you're honest to the point of straining or outright destroying important relationships. Regardless of wether they should be that important.

But I'm stumbling far too close to things I'm not ready to talk about. Things better left unsaid.

So there it is for the day.

Entirety

I don't tend to see things the way most people do. I don't mean to say this as a way of pointing out that I'm a special snowflake. It's simply a matter of observation. I sincerely don't see things the same way as others do. I think perhaps it has to do with the way I think and the amount of data I absorb.

Every word spoken to me. Every detail of everything around me. Every fact is absorbed, catalogued, and sorted in some bizarre alchemical process within the confines of my skull. It's as exhausting a process as it sounds. If I don't make time alone, time where I just sit and think, I start to get sick. But this isn't about that. It's about the way I see things, and perhaps a little bit about the way I think.

I think in entireties. I don't break things into components. Everything I learn is taken into consideration. Nothing is discarded. Everything is connected to everything is. There is no such thing as extraneous information to me. It may not be immediately relevant but information is always important.

When I look at something, anything really, all that it is crosses my mind. I look at a person, any person, and I see vibrations beyond number forming particles forming atoms forming chemicals forming proteins forming cells forming tissue forming organs forming a creature with roots tracing back through millions of years of history to a wad of amino acids in the time before there was time. And from there it stretches back to the death of a thousand thousand stars whose blood and bone dance in the subtle dance of the cosmos.

And when I look at that person at that moment I can see the echoes of who they are, what choices they have made. I can smell the touch of all those they've loved and hated, every bit of pain, or significant pleasure. And more than that I can see the hundredfold paths that stretch before them.

It's not seeing the future. In the same way that looking at a seed and imagining the tree it will become is not seeing the future. It's more about extrapolating. It's an act of studied imagination not divination. Though sometimes I can look into the eyes of a person I have known and see who they can become. I can see the hundred different potentials that they carry within them. The different people that they can become. Sometimes I can even watch as their choices strip away some of those potentials. Things beyond their control. Different points of data that they didn't assume were important.

But all data is important.

I know this, I understand it in my bones. I understand it to the point that it looks and feels like madness. Everything interconnects. We are all unique manifestations of particles and circumstances. We are snowflakes both by our nature and our place in space and time. But we are all connected to each other. In more ways then our minds will ever be able to fully comprehend.

Not that it's ever stopped me from trying.

Teaching

(Or: Why I'm not sure I want to be a teacher)

For years now I've wanted to work with children. The first job I got with an elementary school, I couldn't wait to make it to work. It was an amazing, life changing experience. I worked with people who truly cared about the well being of the children under their care. What amazing people.

Then I got a different job. And I started to see things. Things mandated by the state and the district. Things that people who have never been the leader in the classroom thought were really good ideas. Easily qualifiable measures of effectiveness.

The only problem being, in the land of learning there are no easily qualifiable measures. What works for one child will not work for another. Each person is unique with unique learning needs, and despite what some seem to think children are the same in that regard. Each one has it's own needs, interests, and desires and the trick of educating them is to use those as the template to create a way for them to learn.

That's not what we're doing though.

We're hammering test after test to see where they are and then punishing the teachers and the school for not doing well enough. Never thinking that stripping the resources from a place that's doing poorly isn't the way to make it do better. We're treating our schools like factories that we can keep track of the  "quality standards". But it's not like they're human beings...

I'm going to say something that I probably shouldn't. America (and Utah in particular) really doesn't give two shits about children.

We don't.

Because as soon as they're born we think it's somebody else's problem. We refuse to treat teachers like they're trained professionals. They may as well be teenage babysitters for all the respect they're given. We treat education like it's a poorly run factory that's supposed to churn out citizens, and then we are completely surprised when that doesn't work.

I mean this is America right? The corporate model and treating everything as a for profit is the way of things right? It's the best way because of the grim "Invisible Hand" of the all powerful market.

But children are not a profitable industry. Not in the way that we think of things being profitable. And they really shouldn't be. There should be no profit in education aside from the growth in a society that comes from an educated populace. We all benefit from education, just nobody can make a clear dollar out of that. Long term strategies are always destroyed by short term thinking.

A lot of people across the state and even across the country are right in the middle of High Stake Testing. Tests that are meant to show a students progress according to the "common curriculum". These test will determine if some people lose their jobs.

That's why all of these cheating scandals come to light. Because this situation has completely incentivized cheating. If I'm going to be treated as a lying cheater who lies and cheats why the hell shouldn't I just actually commit the crime I'm assumed of?

I don't condone the behavior, far from it in fact, but I can completely understand why.  In what other profession is it okay for you to lose your job over something you have very little control over? It seems that folks tend to get up in arms over stuff like that. But not in education. Here we're already a bunch of "lazy lying cheaters", who need to clearly told every possible way we can cheat so we don't do it. Because our jobs are on the line, and so help you if that student wasn't paying attention or had a bad day, or you couldn't get through to them due to deep seated personal conflicts, or you had a rough year... YOU are responsible and should have taught HARDER. And don't you dare think of cheating to save your job, insurance, and the funding to your school... because "cheating is wrong".

Why is education different? Why don't they rise up and try to make a change? Become more than glorified test dispensing babysitters? The answer is actually really simple. For the really good teachers, the higher ups have leverage.

Really good teachers care about children.

They want what's best for the children that they've grown to love and care for. They want to see them succeed and so they put up with all the rough parts of the job. They love their students with the kind of transformational love that seeks to make them better people. To make them stronger, smarter, healthier citizens not just of their city but of the world.

Yes, we get to teach, and teaching can be the most rewarding job there ever will be... But everything has it's limits. The poor pay, the disrespect, those could be overlooked by the truly dedicated to helping students. But now... they're starting to strip us of the power to teacher.

The world is changing, and the way we educate has to change with it. The future isn't more tests. It's more critical thinking. In the united states almost everyone has easy (or easyish) access to the internet. And through the internet you have access to the entirely of accumulated human knowledge. Memorizing the facts of which President died when is irrelevant when you can google it from your smartphone faster than you can remember it.

This means we need to change the focus. We need to step away from the easily testable bullshit that clogs up our time to ACTUALLY learn things. Important things like critical thinking, logic, compromise, and skills that will be useful in the outside world.

I want to be a teacher, perhaps more then I want almost anything. I want to help guide the most at risk, flawed, and broken little creatures in the world so that they can reach their fullest potential. I think it's the greatest gift that I can give to the world outside of arguably my writing. But even I, with a true passion for the profession and deep desire to teach and help children, am starting to seriously reconsider my options. There's got to be a better way...

I just wish I could see it.

Beauty

I was recently cast in a play. A play that I am quite excited to be a part of. An ever so slightly absurdist farce version of Macbeth. The cast is pretty fantastic and I sincerely look forward to working with them. And as several of my friends have pointed out, many of these women I'll be working with are quite pleasing to the eye.

I've come to the conclusion that I really don't give a shit.

At this point in my life a pretty smile, face, or pleasantly shaped body has as much interest as gardening or dancing. Which is to say, I can see the appeal but don't really care. The shape of their silhouette has the same weight as the shape of their elbow. Their face with the back of their hand.

I've lost interest. Physical beauty bores me at the moment. Attraction seems tiring. My default reaction is to set to "oh. well. That's nice I suppose. Can you step out of my way? You're blocking the door. I have things to accomplish."

Which I'm fully aware sounds very mean. And perhaps a little sexist. But it's pretty much the way it is. I've chased after pretty faces for so very long. All it's done is left me feeling rejected and alone. Now that has very little to do with my ideas on beauty I just need to explain why I don't care about pretty girls as much. Why "there will be beautiful women there" is not in any way a selling point to me anymore. There was a point not too long ago where I would start to get angry about it. Angry at myself for my desires. Angry for wanting what I couldn't have. But that just got too tiring to be worth it.

Now they're just another person. Which has me less worried about sexism. Sometimes it's still hard. There is a part of me that still wants that happily ever after dream I foolishly feel entitled too. But that part seems to hold less and less weight. I've become less concerned with beauty. Less concerned with finding somebody special. Not because I want it any less, but because I don't have the time to waste on it anymore.

As a poet, a writer, and an actor, beauty is not something I can simply deny in my life. It's pursuit is the only true one. It's just that sometimes in chasing the distilled beauty in art, we are forced to face the ugliness in our own lives.

Unique

I was having a conversation with a person I know. It was about writing for one of my existing projects. And in the process of the conversation he asked me what was unique about the world. I wasn't entirely sure what he wanted so I named some things and in the process he blew me off. "Elemental", "Extraplanar", and "Elves" were all words he had heard before. So obviously there was no way it was as "unique" as the novel he was working on so he didn't have interest in helping.

As I tip toe around outside of the Theatre and artistic communities this kind of conversation with a pretensions bag full of windy air is not unusual. In fact it could almost be argued as the norm. There are a number of people, particularly those that think they have a little talent, that are convinced that new and unique are the epitome of good works. If it has been done before then it horrid and must be cast aside.

These people are full of shit.

Or more specifically they are completely missing the point. A point about art. There is a lot of unique art out there. However most of what could be called unique is in fact... bad. "Unique" many times is used when there's nothing else good to say.

Don't try to be original. Just write a damn story, draw a picture, write a song, make a sculture.

What's been done was done for a reason. If a thousand people have done the same thing there's a point to it. Don't reject something just because it's been done before. Because at that point you are as defined by the cliche as they are. You're just exploring the negative space around it.

If you look at fantasy and say "Well there's a lot of elves running around so I'm going to replace the elves with donkey men who breath sand instead of air." What you've created is certainly unique. It's also completely bizarre and doesn't sound terribly interesting.

Well to most folk. I'm suddenly on the Sand Donkey as a concept side. But I have a deep and abiding love of the bizarre and the nonsensical. My personal tastes are perhaps undermining my point.

The better route as I see it, is to embrace the preconceptions. Understand completely what people are going to expect, and then start tweaking things. That's generally what I think. Just try and make it interesting. Make some choices and then run with the logic of it.

The trick is not to create something new. "New" is almost invariably either confusing or boring. Newness for the sake of newness is a waste of energy. And it's a waste of talent. Art feeds on art. Don't try and create from scratch, find something similar and take it in a new direction. Push the boundaries. That is where you'll find REAL innovation. It's not outside the box, it's at the edges of it.

Progress

Dove recently released an ad. More specifically they released an attempt at a viral video where they performed an experiment to compare people's self-conceptions with the perceptions of others. I have to say, I was moved. The amount of dimorphic adjustments the people did to their faces was fascinating. The emphasis that they put on what they saw as negative traits made the pictures show up radically different.

That is apparently not what some people took from that. They saw it as overly condoning of the modern "unnatural" standard of beauty. They saw it as racist. As unfair to the people who looked like the "negative" reflections. They saw it as the patriarchy once again laying the hammer on the Female of the species because it was saying in clear implications that a woman has no other value then in the prettiness of her face. We are all beautiful and to try and put any standards of what beauty is is a crime against mankind. How dare you! How dare you try and pass this off as anything but another attempt of the Culture to keep us down!

That's not directly what I saw, but it is an extrapolation of the feelings I gathered from behind the words. Is it fair? Probably not, but I'm writing on the internet so I don't need to be fair.

What I saw was an attempt at making people look at how they see themselves against what others see them as. The whole Dove Real Beauty marketing scheme is try and expand our cultural definition of beauty. Some say or at least it seems to me that they're saying that we shouldn't have one. We're all beautiful.

Only we're not.

There are beautiful people. And there are ugly ones. And it generally has nothing to do with what their meat looks like. We're not all beautiful. I know. I've met a number of truly foully ugly people. Some of them even were physically unattractive. But I'm wandering from the point I want to make.

Expanding the standards of beauty is the best step towards making this whole situation better. Because it's a baby step. Being overly angry about this step not going far enough is like screaming at a 2nd grader cause they can't do their taxes. You can read? You can add and subtract? That's all you need right there.

I'm not implying that you don't have a right to your anger, because you do. But I think there are better uses then casting down the folks that are trying to meet in the middle. We're all human. We make mistakes and large groups of us are all the more likely too. Human beings are prone to messing up, of making terrible choices and standing by them far after they make any sense too. And once more I'm not trying to disagree, you make some really solid points. However the amount of weight you are putting on this I'm not sure is there.

It was a meme.

And generally had a better message than most of the ones I've seen. It was at least aiming at positive, even if it wasn't a perfect representation.

And regardless, I think you're beautiful.

Unless you're an asshole.

Mental Chaos

As some of you may have noticed, I'm something of a chaotic individual. Chaotic but really quite predictable once you get to know me. However I have been told on many different occasions and with many different combinations of words that this chaos is of my own make. That I can control. Which of course leaves the unspoken implication that it is entirely my choice and that if I was merely, diligent/good/willful enough that this chaos in my life would magically disappear.

"You could be a gentleman if you just chose to."
"You are in control of your life. It's just the way you're looking at."
"You control the chaos man. The only roadblock to your success is you."

You know what are also roadblocks? Actual roadblocks.

There are a thousand quotes likes this. Pretty words about the limitations being only in the mind. Which is an attitude that I can really get behind. However, I think it's much more complicated than that. I'd perhaps reword it like this, "Limits are in your mind, and sometimes in your circumstances."

In order to understand my resistance towards towards what others would simply call self control you must first understand the three components to my nature. Because it is in maintaining the balance of these three that all my actions are explained. It also helps to explain by what I mean when I say things like being a force of nature, and of not always having choice in my actions. Because I firmly believe that you always have a choice. However, there comes a point when the consequences mean there is only one right choice.

I have dubbed these three components, The Magical Child, The Wise Man, and the Beast of Salt and Fire. Now there may actually be more but for the purposes of understanding my choices towards barbarism and chaos they are the most significant.

The Magical Child, is the part of me that tends to most commonly endear me to strangers. It's the fun part. The clever oversimplifications, the pithy comments, the exuberance around new experiences. This is what the magical child does. In many ways it's the part of me that makes me charming, and makes me easy to love.

The Wise Man, is sort of self explanatory, it's my wisdom beyond my years. My understand and my capacity to understand. Any person I met within a little while of knowing them I can tell almost exactly why they are loved and why they are hated. It's the the drive to understand and know the great secrets. Both of the universe and in the heart of the person I'm talking to.

Then there is the Beast of Salt and Fire. Most of those that I have been intimately linked to I have talked to about this aspect. It is what drives me towards destructive behavior. Rarely self-destructive, and never cruel as far as I can help it. I have little tolerance for cruelty. And I would not call myself a sadist, however there is a true simple and transcendant joy I find in destruction. Watching peoples preconceptions burn away with a well placed joke or an astute observation is a pleasure unlike any other. Building up the block tower simply for the pure happiness it brings with it's fall... That is the Beast. There was a time when I feared it. When I would fight against it and lead myself down darker paths.

Because you see, the real problem with all this is that each of these is a part of me, and in trying to find a balance in those three sides almost all of my actions are predefined. I have on many occasions talked about my seeming lack of choice in certain matters. And yes, I could choose to ignore them. I could shunt the negative parts of me to the side and not give them food to grow on. I could. Because I have. And that's when I learned something. That's when I found the secret.

My life was defined by the battle with myself. The Beast in particular as it was all that I hated about myself, but it happened with all three on different occasions. I fought with John Belliston so hard and so long. Then something would break. Because despite what many teach there is a limit to will, as there is a limit to your physical strength. And then I would do something I would regret.

So I looked at my options. Did I continue on fighting and striving a battle against myself? Have it sap me of strength and define me as person? Or did I seek to find a balance?

I have strayed quite far from where this post began, but I feel that this is something that needs to be said. You cannot fathom what it is like to have to fight me for every action. My mind is as much a battlefield as anything else, and my option was to be consumed by the Chaos... or make it into my ally.

I suspect you can guess what I chose.

Transition

I did something the other day. Something that is a huge step. Something that I've been planning on doing for years now but finally did.

I sent a letter. More specifically an email. I sent this simple form letter of an email to the Membership Records department of the LDS Church and asked that my name be removed from the records. It's been a long time coming. I've known that I wanted since about half way through college. I've sat and thought through all the potential issues that will likely come up. All the consequences that could feasibly effect me. The only thing that has stopped me has been the potential for family backlash. 

Not from my immediate family mind you. They've been exceptionally supportive. My father's slow shift to agnosticism coupled with my mothers embrace of a sectarian humanitarian mystic philosophy makes it easier for me. On top of that they have really gone out of their way to let me be my own man. And that is perhaps the single thing am I am the most thankful for. My brothers are in the same boat though arguable less further down the river than me, so nether of them will blame me. In fact I can't think of a single person that knows me that would give me any significant guff over it. 

So why did I wait so very long? Because of how it would effect my family.

I realize that this probably doesn't make much sense. However it has to be know that my mother's father is a sadist. I mean this not to defame his character but in order to explain my reasoning. My grandfather delights in belittling and making himself seem better then other people. As he got older he moved further and further into the fringes of conspiracy and insanity because the feeling that he knew something that others were just too blind to see.

It's not something that most people who knew him would catch on to. He is arguable the most charming man I have ever known. And it's perhaps his influence that has lead me to never assume that being charming makes you a good person. On many personal occasions I'd had discussion about my thoughts dreams and interests and he would simply, but brutally, dash them to bits if they weren't what he wanted or expected. Though he only rarely showed it, there was a delight he took in making people uncomfortable, in making them feel smaller then him. Though I don't think he inflicted physical pain all that often, he certainly delighted in emotional pain. It's the only way I can explain his behavior, and more importantly the distinct uncomfort I have felt around him for years.

Because I did not fully understand the process that I was instigating with my letter I held back. I worried that my grandparents would be told and that my grandfather would use it as ammunition to emotionally damage my mother. I could honestly care less if he broached the subject with me. I am firm in my convictions and have given more thought to my leaving then many give to their conversions and almost all give to their remaining. There is no reasoning, guilt, or leverage used against me that will affect me.

But he wouldn't target me. He'd use it against my mother, and there are few things in this world that more infuriate me then other people be held responsible for my actions, and the other way round. Do NOT blame me for what somebody else did to you.

Hell those lines of logic is why every time somebody talks about the Jews killing Jesus I want to punch them in their mouths. Roman hammers, roman nails, on Roman orders... but it was the Jews. But that is a post for another day.

But anyway, I talked to my mother about it and she gave me the go ahead. So I did.

And that's what I have to say today. 

The Mimic's Dilemma

When a mimic defines itself as being a mimic, when their identity is fully tied up in they're ability to mimic, who do they become with nobody else is around?

Who is a man made of mirrors when there's naught to reflect?

It's a question that I have asked myself a thousand times. Perhaps even more than that. It's become a sort of personal short hand for me. For a particular kind fo confusion and headache I get after getting to know new people. I can't really explain adequately, but I shall attempt to explain it.

I forget who I am sometimes. It's not amnesia or any issues of memory. The facts of my existence are never effected. My love of cartoons and dungeons and dragons. The love of my parents. The memoires of my childhood. My anger and passion. My history. These never leave me. I never doubt them. The forgetting isn't a madness dying me the details. It's something else.

When I met a person I seek to understand them. I try on every possible level to know the person before me. From what I can see, and what they open up to me about I extrapolate the entirety of their being. Each person I have know and who has opened themselves up to me on whatever level has left a template of their entirety within me. Once you have begun to let me get to know you there is very little if anything you could do that would surprise me. It all becomes a matter of cycling the details of the matter through the template I've created.

Oh? You've decided to take up painting? How lovely. I'm surprised you didn't before.

Now it's not a perfect process. Obviously. Otherwise it would be a superpower. It's limited by the data available, both that which I directly acquire or intuitively construct. However, what I learn about people, they're strengths, weaknesses, virtues, vice, and spiritual gifts, they all effect me.

Each of these templates exist within me. And in many ways who I am is a compilation of the best traits of these templates. Who I am changes depending on who I am around.

That's something that's true for everyone though. We each wear masks. And we have different masks for different situations. The only way I'm different is that my masks go so much deeper. My internal structure shifts to maximize the efficiency of those I am around. I do more then play a role, in some ways I become a different person.

And what I've dubbed the mimic's dilemma, is when in that restructuring I forget which configuration is the real me.

Maybe there is no real me. And when there's no one there to mimic I'm just a blank mirror.

Or maybe I think too much.

Hope

The burning flame. The Cockroach eternal. The bubbling cauldron that strips the flesh from despair and cooks it into the grim broth that nourishes the spirit long after all other sources have failed. Beyond logic, beyond reason, beyond resources, hope will keep us going.

At it's best is the beacon of light against a dark and terrible world. At it's worst it is the twisted carrot that drives us deeper into madness. It lets us wallow and gives us an excuse for not moving forward. Because many times reality cannot live up to the glorious creations of the mind that our hope empowers us to strive for. We say we're waiting, that we're just looking for the right time. And sometimes it's true.

But sometimes it's cause we're too afraid of it not coming to pass. Sometimes it's because we don't want to deal with the grim reality that dances a tango of razors across our fragile dreams. Dreams are a comfort that we have some small control over. And hope is what gives them power.

When we are in our darkest times it's the hope for the better that can pull us out of the hole and back into the light. But the comfort we find in hope can just so easily turn toxic, created unrealistic expectations and lead us down the path to ruin.

I say all this because I'm prone to the worst kind of hope. The pillar of Promethian fire that promises to transform the world into something new and profound. But like all fire, if I rely on it too much, or if I don't tend it the right way, I'll get burned. Or even worse... I'll lose it.

I hate hope. I have spilled more tears and screamed more silent screams in the name of hope then I have anything else. A lot of that I fully acknowledge is due to what I'm usually hopeful about.

I hope to be loved, in the same way that I love.

I hope to have a family to call my own, and not one that I borrow for a few precious moments before reality slams down hard.

I hope to be successful, and to not have to devote my life to worrying about where the next scrap of green paper is coming from.

Though there is a hope that I hold so dearly that I cannot pry it from my heart. Its tendrils travel so deep that to pry it away is to sacrifice my life itself. It's one that I know many others also feel but this is one that truly defines me. What I want more than anything, what I hope for with the intensity of a starving child...

Is to belong.

Not to just be accepted. Not to just be tolerated. But to be able to throw ALL that I am into a community that needs and wants me there. A place where I can wear all the masks I have without worry about the consequences.

Sadly I don't think that place exists. But like every other fool looking up at the stars... I'll just keep hoping.

Equality

If you couldn't have guessed, this one is about the gay marriage.

I recently discovered that I am in fact quite passionate about this issue. It took me entirely be surprise. And the catalyst for this sudden burning passion is the arguments against it. Or to put it much more accurately, the complete lack of arguments against it. There is no compelling case against it. There is no logic that can be backed by anything quantifiable.

There is no research to support the idea that gays marrying will do anything more than having an increase in married gays. There is nothing wrong with having more committed relationships. There is nothing wrong with having children raised by homosexual couples. As long as they create a stable living arrangement for the children to live within who give two flying shits about the manner in which their genitals interlock.

There are some accurate statements. Same sex couples do not produce babies. That is a point we will concede. But you know what the one thing that we have in a comfortable excess? Children without stable homes. Hundreds of thousands of children are without caretakers. They sit and wait for there to be more loving, stable homes that do not come. If we can do anything to give them homes that will love them, we as moral and ethical people should do whatever it takes to let these children have homes with the resources to care for them.

There are no accidental or unwanted children when you can't have your own. That's one of those safe guards put into the system itself. They won't allow just anyone to adopt. Which makes it a much better safeguard against bad situations than heterosexual couples as far as I'm concerned.

The one that is used the most these days, is the religious argument. Which when you're talking about a legal and civil matter is utterly meaningless. Your God has no place in the formation of laws. My Gods have no place in the creation of laws. They can inspire us and give us small guidance and comfort but law should be based in what's best for the most number of people, while avoiding tyranny both of the majority and the tyrant. They shouldn't be based on rules and moral systems for a completely different world.

The world lives and changes. We recognize that there are different rules for our children than there were for our parents. It is a completely different world out there. If your God created the universe then he would have to understand that. And hell Mormonism even admits that with the idea of a living prophet. But those that currently hold that seat are from a completely different world than the one we live in and should have no more say in this then their individual vote.

Now, what I'm about to say will offend, and at this point, I don't care. If your God created the universe and all that inhabit it. That means that he made people predisposed to same sex attraction and all of the physical and genetic markers that that would entail. So following this logic, God would know you're gay. He made you. If He's all knowing then he's aware of your preference. He gave that gift. And He believes that sex outside of marriage is the most horrible of sins.

So he has created a class of people who he has knowingly and willingly damned. Because that attraction is innate to them, and they have no means of fulfilling it without falling to sin. I can think of fewer more painful hells than being trapped in an endless battle with your own flesh. That may just be me, but that doesn't sound like the actions of a kind deity.

The argument against gay marriage is at best a handle with no sword. It's comfortable to the hand and the scabbard is pretty to look upon, but once it's drawn out there's nothing to it. It's myth and bluster.

And I deal in myth, bluster, and the grand shell game of the Gods. So don't pretend you can fool me.

Conformity

When asked about my thoughts on this subject I suspect that most who know me would probably guess my reaction as being somewhere between "Violently Opposed" and "I will eat your face-meat infidel". And that probably would not have been far from the truth a few years ago. I would not have made some of the life choices I have made if I wasn't opposed to fitting in for the sake of fitting in. The idea of conforming was anathema to me. I would be who I chose to be no matter what the consequences and that freedom was more important than thing else.

Then I started working in an Elementary School. And my thoughts are now... quite different. Now I'm not saying I'm going to shave and start going to church or any of that particular brand of madness. But that being said, a certain amount of conformity is required to keep society together.

Or to put it in a better light, one of the most important things anyone can learn is how to work within a system. Which is a very important survival skill. If you can't work within a system you've shot yourself in the foot. The trick is and I realize it's not an easy one, is you need to learn to keep your individuality whilst still working within the system. For me and I would say a lot of the teachers I know and work with it's about teaching the children to find that balance. Be true to who you are... just don't be a dick about it. And screeching about how "My unique flower of a child will only be stifled by your oppressive Third Grade class with your tyrannical recess schedule and maths"does nothing to either help your child learn how to exist in the world, or give us as teachers the resources to help them grow.

And here's an astounding fact that so many seem to just not understand. Most if not all teachers I've met really want to help kids. Why the hell else would we get into a field where we're both poorly paid and treated like you're some sort of demon?

Teachers are being held entirely culpable for the actions and choices of their students with no wiggle room. And with the constant testing and hammering with "testable" skills the job itself is not what it was even ten to fifteen years ago. Everybody is looking for easy answers to the learning problem.
And they're aren't any. You can't teach a whole bunch of unique individuals using the same methods.

However uniformity of instruction is a simple fact of the lack of resources. Schools can't make the changes that would ACTUALLY help kids become educated. Across the board they don't have the resources. Because as a culture we don't care about our kids educations. Though we care a great deal about appearing like we do. So we can have all the frosting on our cake but nothing of substance.

Conformity isn't something horrible. It's not the death knell for all peoples. Being a part of a community requires a certain amount of conforming to their standards. You have to work within the confines of the system presented.

That's not the death of creativity and free will. It's what it takes for a safe and happy community. And the real trick, is to find a group where conforming isn't problematic. Cause everyone is going to conform. Or to phrase it another way, we have to compromise in order to not be an asshole. Cause the guy coloring penises on the walls in crayon at the restaurant is "just being a free spirit". And we need to teach our children an idea best phrased by a conman upon being told that a game was crooked, "Yeah, but it's the only game in town!"

Maybe we need to change the game. But at the end of the day, that's just agreeing on new rules for the players to conform to. You gotta keep playing. Otherwise you'll just be one of those assholes drawing penises on the wall and screaming about be "stiffled".

And I think the world already has enough dicks. 

Totem

Everyone has a totem. They have at least one animal spirit that they identify with. I generally try and avoid these kinds of generalities but this one... this one has some weight to it. 

Each totemic relationship is different. For some it will never be anything more then "hey that animal is pretty cool". For others, myself included, they are a way of understand our deeper selves. The savage parts of us, the animal parts of us. Due to that deeper more primal connection that they represent they can act as guides to a greater understanding of our place in the world. 

This is something that transcends religion. That transcends philosophy and guides us to greater understanding. Because your Totem (and you may have many) doesn't care what you believe. They aren't from the realm of Gods, but of spirits. Which are echoes of the waking world. You don't worship a totem, though there are some that do. You don't pray to them, though I just did. You don't say what your totem is.

They find you. They come to you because of who you are. Because of the vibrations they sense in you. If you have ever looked into the eyes of a beast and saw yourself look back, you have had a taste of your totemic connection.

For some they feel this connection and it changes there lives. Some cannot bear the thought of harming a beast once they have seen themselves within it. They turn from flesh, they can't stand the weight of the lives that have touched them.

For others, like me, it changes you completely and makes you reverent of the flesh you devour. But doesn't stop you from doing it. My five more prevalent totems, are Bear, Shark, Crab, Raven, and Buffalo. For some people who know me those five will make perfect sense. But they're there. I can feel them, I can imagine how it would feel to live in their skin with the ease of putting on a different pair of clothes. These are a part of me.

And despite whatever you man believe or not. I can see them as a part of you. And if I'm honest, they're part of why I love you.

I've been in a dark place in the last few weeks. I've felt lost, hopeless, and completely unwanted. I've not been able to find any reason to keep going. Not anything bad enough to do anything stupid, but enough to not see the point of moving forward.

And so I looked to my totems. Those spirit guides to the deeper parts of my hypothetical soul. And swimming out of the depths came Shark. He showed me the path. Through him I found the point when there is no point.

Brother shark

I pray to you

Bless me with 

Your Strength

Your Focus

Your Surety 

Help me to swim on

When I know not why

Help me to know the right moment

By the blood in the water

Help me to embrace my nature

And strive for your perfection

Teach me once again

That there is no shame

In just swimming

In just killing

In just eating

In just surviving

That sometimes there is nothing worth more

Then moving forward

Because stopping means death

Sickness

I have diabetes. Because I'm American, and it's in the vogue right now. One must always keep up with the fashions of the time. It's a very serious disease and one that I was exceptional about for a long time, but have gotten much worse about in the last few weeks. Last night I was quite sweet and if it hadn't been for an intuitive voice (thank you Goblins) telling me that the ice cream was a bad idea, I may have eaten myself into a coma last night.

Now there's an insidious quality to diabetes. Because as your blood gets more candylike one of the symptoms is depression. And as you get depressed you're more likely to try and go for stuff that bad for your diabetes. It becomes a lot easier to not care about taking care of yourself.

That's been one of my problems for years. I guess it's a lesson I am still learning. Taking care of myself. It's just that there's so much to be done. So many places to be, people to care about, words to write! I burn myself out because I just keep charging forward. I am apparently attempting to brute force my way though most things. The problem that I have somedays, today in particular,  it's very hard to find a reason to take care of myself.

What I do is I endure. I endure until the pain is greater then my capacity to handle it. Because of that? I have grown to have a huge capacity to endure pain. Physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, it's all there. I don't revel in it. I don't embrace it. I accept it as a fact of the thing and move forward. I can't say it's made me happy. But it has made me strong. And at the end of the day you've got to have at least one or the other. If you can't find or make happiness, then strive towards strength. You may not be happy but at least you will be strong. So I'll wrap myself in strength.

Though sometimes, even my strength fails. And when it does I fall. I wallow for a time in the pain and bitter madness that bubbles just below the surface. I'll hate and I'll rage and prod painfully at the rotten hole that grows in that wad of flesh that once held love. I'll drain the poison in time. Hell, I may even clean it out. And I'll go back to that beautifully empty state. With any luck.

Until then... I'll find something to rage against. Even if it's only myself. Hope? It turns to poison far to quickly for me. It's far too easily mistaken for false hope. Love? The kind of love that wakes me in the night with it's terrible lack? That... I'm not sure if it even exists. If it was all a fever dream made of false hope and wishful thinking. Disney promises of princesses and paladins making deep pus filled wounds on a mad man's mind. Empty tears and hollow promises. Drink deep of the bitter cup presented. Mix it with what little honey I can find and choke down the dread mixture. Learn to appreciate it. Find the balance to make it all worth it. Strive not for that which I can't have. Let go the echoes of yesterday that haunt me still. Will always haunt me.

So I write. I drain the poison from my body in the hopes that I can keep moving another day. That I can no more be drained by yesterday's wounds and tomorrow's unfulfilled promises.

But I shall strive on. Grow strong. Fight. For what? I don't know anymore. For the sake of fighting I suppose. But when you have no good reasons anyone will do. And I suppose it's a little better then doing it to spite those creatures that turned me away. Down that path lies no real joy. Only further spreading of pain. And the part of me that still loves them would not see them harmed.

I think that talking about this is helping. Embracing the apathy. Though I have many friends and family who love me dearly. It's the wrong kind of love for what I need. But I can't find that. So I'll strive on without it. Cause fuck it. What else is there to do?

Mr. Rogers

I'm taking a break from my usual format. Because today is the birthday of the late Fred Rogers. One of the best human beings to have lived. I honestly have more respect for Mr. Rogers than I do for Jesus, cause he never yelled at a fig tree (at least as far as I've read). He was a paragon of all that was good in humanity and devoted his entire life to not only educating children, but to making them feel like they were worth something. There are entire generations of adults now who know the warm sound of his sincere greeting. He gave a gift to millions of children. He gave them an adult, a man, who cared about them.

I don't say that Mr. Rogers is why I got into education. Though I'm sure there are many many people who can say that. He was a part of my childhood, I watched a great deal of his show when I was younger, but I wouldn't say he was a foundation of who I am. I remember looking forward to my sick days when I was little cause I could watch all the educational TV I wanted. (Also some of the daytime talk shows, cause I liked looking at the women on them). But I always was glad to watch Mr. Rogers. There was something magical about the way that he would listen to children.

And that is almost more important that caring about them. If you take the time to listen to a child. To hear their stories and words, you've given them something truly amazing. And that's the true beauty of what he did and what he gave to so many. He made everyone who listened to him feel like they heard and cared for. And that's truly something.

Unnatural

This is a word that always bothers me. From the very first time I heard it. Because it's something that I still can't understand. Natural and Supernatural. Those are pretty straight forward. Natural is things that exist in nature. Where as supernatural are things that cannot exist within the rules of the natural world. These ideas make sense.

So what makes something unnatural? It seems to be a moniker used exclusively for the creations of man. Which makes me wonder if a building is unnatural, what about a termite mound? At what point of advanced tool usage does it move from "wonder of the natural world" to "unnatural abomination"?

This word infuriates me because it ties to two other ideas that I think are some of the most dangerously backward thinking around. One, that human kind is not a part of nature, and two that scientific advances are somehow wrong or not to be trusted innately.

This idea that some things are unnatural handcuffs a lot of truly fascinating advances that could change the world. Genetic engineering, cybernetics, artificial intelligence, plastics, all these and however many others have the potential to create a world the likes of which we can never have dreamed about. But we fight against them. Cause it's "unnatural".

And that "unnatural is bad" thinking has people going so far as to casting aside modern medical advances in favor of returning to middle age witchery. I'm not opposed to the idea of looking to old techniques or natural plants for ideas to improve the health of those suffering. I'm not opposed to it because that's what medicine IS. Using any means necessary to heal the sick and end human suffering. Pushing the boundaries and finding the best possible ways. Not being content with the same old anything.

But I'm travelling away from my original point. In order for something to be Un Nature, it has to by the way the words work, be impossible to do within nature. If I made a device that turned earth into water, that would be arguably unnatural. But even then if I can pull it off given the physical laws of the universe then how is it Un Nature? HOW!?

I can't really say why this is that this just riles me up so much but it really does. Human beings are a part of nature. To paraphrase a quote from our dear departed Prophet of Atheism George Carlin, maybe the answer to our ultimate ego centric question "why are we here?" is "Plastic... asshole". Who are we to say what is or isn't "natural"?

Synthetic and organic aren't mortal enemies locked in a war for the souls of mankind. Human hands and minds are no less natural then any other thing on the face of creation. The things we create are an extension of that. Something Unnatural would have to be something truly disgusting, something truly alien, something that our minds cannot or will not fathom because it should not be.

It's not something that we make that makes us uncomfortable.

Theatre

It's interesting that I've waiting this long to write about the stage. Because it is in many ways the closest that many of my dear friends have to a religion. They don't believe in the existence of gods, but devote themselves entirely to the service of Apollo and Dionysius.

Theatre is a religion. One in which I am a Christmas and Easter member.

I love theatre I really do. There is nothing like the thrill of being on the stage or seeing your words come to life. Theatre is unique amongst the arts in that it is truly alive. Dance is about the artistry of the moment and showing the beauty of the human form. Film is dead. It's amazing but it will be the same time every time.

But Theatre? Our great Mistress and drug of choice? That is something else entirely. Proper theatre isn't an art. It's not something that you watch. True theatre, GOOD theatre forces you to be a part of it. It looks at the subtle tubes of energy that connect all living things together and blows them open with emotional cherry bombs. Good theatre is not about enjoying what you're looking at. It's about feeling something. Even if it's just revulsion at the horror you're seeing. If you aren't feeling then it's not Theatre. It's skitwork. Hell it could still even be entertainment. But what makes it something special is the connection with the audience. That's what theatre is. Connecting with an audience.

Theatre is ancient. Older then the Gods themselves. The first stories told over a campfire were the first theatre. The sperm and egg of story and storyteller gestating for countless ages. As much as there have been many gods professing dominion over it, there is no God of Theatre.

Theatre is the womb from which Gods emerge.

Religion is the script.
The Church is the stage.
The Clergy is our actors.
And the believers are the audience. The ones there to be swept away in whatever story is presented.

That's the power of Theatre. It transcends the art of it and becomes something sacred. It is an altar where all can sit and eat of the apple of knowledge. Where we can feel vicerally the connection we have to other human beings. The web of humanity becomes thick and tangles itself into an experience like none other. Good theatre breaks us from our perspectives and forces us to look upon the world through eyes that are not ours.

Now if could be said that that's true of all art. And it probably is. But the thing is, art is dead. A sculpture will last a thousand years and only decay. Theatre is alive. It truly exists in that very moment and then it gone. You can watch a recording of a play a thousand times and it will never have the same magic as when you are sitting there breathing the air of the artists as they create it. The very moment it exists is it's destruction. It's a path to transcendance that goes beyond all others.

But also musicals... so maybe I'm full of crap.

Obscenity

I am about to address one of my most significant pet peeves.

If you have ever chastised someone for swearing, and then said "frickin' A" you are a hypocrite and worthy of every last vitriolic drop of my ire. I know that I live in Utah and it's the sort of thing that happens so often that it's an intergal part of the culture. It's one of those funny stereotypes that even those being stereotyped find amusing. And by the various patchwork gods I hold dear, it pisses me right the hell off. The reason is simple.

Words.
Are.
Words.

They do not change from "cursed" words to "holy" words. If, as many of the people who use the fake swears claim, they served no purposed in the language they wouldn't exist anymore. Language is a living thing. It's a technology that changes and adapts to different times and cultural needs. If we didn't need it the oh so beloved and despised "fuck" word wouldn't be at the very least five hundred years old.

But what purpose does it serve aside from a means of offending people? I'm glad you asked hypothetical Straw Man I have created for the sake of this self debate. And I really hope that you find your brain someday.

What obscenities do, is they accentuate and amplify other words. They create a clear vocal punctuation mark. "Yeah" vs "Fuck Yeah".

They can also modify expressions in a surprising subtle way. "The dog is in the kitchen again." vs "The goddamn dog is in the kitchen again." By adding that single word the emotional vibrations of the words become very different and very clear.

Now, in my defense of potty talk, please do not assume that I'm saying I should be able to say whatever I want to whoever I want without consequences. As much as I come off as chaotic and glorify barbarism I have never once told my grandmother to fuck off, called anyone a cunt in church, or unleashed a tirade of racial slurs at one of my teachers. I don't believe that words are innately good or bad, however you have to remember the most important rule of theater, and by extension the most important rule of life.

Know your audience.

My stubborn contempt for the Victorians and Edwardians will never make me say that curse words are only for the lowborn or that there are always better ways to put something. I completely disagree. Sometimes a fucknugget is a fucknugget and it's the best choice. I will concede that there are always DIFFERENT ways to put something. Ones that may or may not hold the weight that you expect to get. And that will entirely change depending on who your talking to.

If I tell one of my friends to fuck off it can mean any of a dozen things because it's a part of out mutual language amongst each other. If I say the same thing to my Grandmother? It pretty much has only one terrible meaning. I'm going to talk differently with a group of Victorian ladies over tea then I am with a bunch of bikers over a beer. Your audience changes everything.

If you are robbing yourself of the beautiful mess that is our language just because those words are "lowbrow" then you're robbing yourself of so many wonderful and sometimes horrible experiences.

And you, Hypothetical Straw Man you have acknowledged the importance of swearing by your substitutions in the language. Like vegetarians who create so many different kinds of fake meats to replace it. They are acknowledging the importance by replacing the hole it creates. Not only are swearing, but you're doing it with kiddish gibberish words to make yourself feel better.

So, Straw Man don't you dare have the audacity to think that you can control what I say. Words are my life. They are my truest love, my dearest children, and my dark and terrible Mistress. Never for a fucking second think that you can tell me which words are good, bad, or proper. They are my trade. They are the blood that pumps through me. I will use them however I want.

However I'll offer you a trade. You don't curse, and I won't curse. I figure it's a fair trade. Cause I promise you. I find your "freaking A" so much more offensive then you find my "fucking ass".

Artistry

I am a Heavy Metal Holy Man, a gentleman barbarian, a clockwork pudding, and a madman. But beyond those and in fact because of them, I am an artist. It took me a great many years to accept that label because quite frankly I always associated artists with the visual arts. Film and paint, that sort of thing. But as time went on I began to think of it in an entirely different way.

I began to think of art not as a what was created, but as a level of quality and mastery, and one of the philosophies that shape the work. There are Artists, and there are Mechanics. Those that understands things intuitively and those that understand things logically and apply it to their work. Now, everybody uses a mix of logic and intuition but it's the fastest way to explain the difference.

One of the first things that lead me down this line of reasoning, was something my mother would always say. When talking about Doctor's she'd talk about the difference between Healers (those that are willing to think outside the box) and Mechanics (those that see it as a machine that needs to be fixed). Now I took that idea and basically applied it to everyone.

The guys just doing their job? Those are the Mechanics. Now there's a bit of confusion once you're dealing with actual Mechanics but you see some artistry amongst them as well. Those that design or those that are willing to find new and interesting ways to do something.

Because that's one of the main points of what makes an Artist. They're willing to try and push themselves, and once they reach the end of the form, they keep pushing. They seek to change the form itself into order to improve it. They create a dynamic relationship between themselves, their work, and the world. So it's entirely possible to be an artist even if you aren't devoting yourself to art. Just like you can be a serviceable mechanic within the arts.

This went in a different direction then I had originally intended. It'd sat down with the intention of writing a small but blatant plug for my newest venture Clockwork Chaos Publishing. But I got sidetracked. I was going to write about looking into that blog will begin to show you what the world would like like if I was god. But you get my philosophical leanings instead. Who knows? Maybe you'll get that blog I wanted to post later. But not today.

Gods

I hear the songs of the old gods.
The dead ones that live as scraps of memory.

The ones that cannot be heard over the songs and cries of our new gods. Deseret gods stretched thin as paint across the face of the earth. Gods of whirling metal and electric light who do not even know that they are gods. Things as terrible and transcendant as we can imagine. For that is where they live. Where they are born.

The universe was not crafted by a divine hand. I don't believe in an all powerful creator who crafted the universe. I don't believe in this because it's far too easy. It doesn't require enough imagination. The idea that we exist as a tangles of energy and force from an explosion beyond imagining is so much more beautiful.

We exist because we exist. We have no place in the grand scheme of the universe, because there is no grand scheme. There is only what we create for ourselves, and what we create for our children.

And that's what the gods are. They are constructs of energy and understanding that we created. We made the gods in our image. They affect things by shifting energies. And it only works if we believe in it.

I figure it's the same way that effects on a quantum level change when you observe them. Human observation changes the nature of the thing. It's why I haven't tried to give a scientific defense. I don't think that I could prove it. And I fully acknowledge I just might be crazy.

But I listen to the songs of the old gods.
The ones that sing in my blood and my mind.