In Difference

I raised my head. Her posture and expression made it clear to me that she had grown tired of being the anterior of my witticisms. So I smirked.

"There's only the feeble gray of civilization. The most intense, whether dark or light, are thrown out, above and below respectively."

"True, but the sand on the seashore does not favor those who are drowned most regularly by the tide." My eyebrows met, discussed her proposition, and promptly dismissed it.

"Segregation occurs by bits, by leaps, by the nation. There is no time or calculation, it is over before you can even consider its existence. It is" I emphasized, "completely natural."

Clearly she was fed up.

"I have nothing to say." She stared back at me, her eyes folding back over to the glazed expression she wore so often, the thin patina of disinterest. God, she knew just how to get under my skin.

"Well there's nothing more to talk about then is there?"

"Not really."

"Can you even call this a conversation?" I said nothing. The wine had turned sour in taste and stodgy in texture.

The Future Responds

Hey man, relax.

You've got it all wrong, but I can't tell you what you've got wrong - you'll figure that out on your own. Just hang in there.

I wish I could say it gets better, but it really doesn't. There'll be plenty of peaks and valleys. That's the point - not all this "having" crap. You don't own anything in life: life owns you. You're born and you die, everything in between is parenthetical.

Don't get all upset about it though. Life is still precious, and you probably don't realize how much of it you're going to miss out on. You never cried enough, never loved enough, never bothered to be vulnerable because you were afraid. Let me tell you, fear is way worse than pain. Pain ends, but fear builds on itself until it has constructed an awesome clockwork apparition that knows no empathy. Pain simply is, but fear is malicious. Don't let it infect you, or you'll lose so much in life that you might as well not have lived at all.

Texting the Future

Hey.

I guess I think that you know what you're doing, where you're going. Maybe you already know and you just refuse to tell me. That's fine. It would be hard anyway.

I don't expect much I guess. Security. Love. Pain. Heartbreak. It's all the same to me. I guess I kind of do know the future already. I just wish I could know exactly what I need to do to get there.

I know what you're thinking. "You don't have to do anything to get to the future, it plods steadily towards you regardless of your attempts to thwart or hasten it." You're only half right. Maybe what the future looks like to you is different. After all, you're already there. Me, I'm still stuck in the past, trying to push through the muck to get to where you are.

I'm so envious of you. You've got everything that I want and don't know how to get. I dunno, maybe that's the point. Maybe I won't ever have everything I want, so I've got to grab what I can get. Maybe having isn't as important as trying.

The Science of Sex

Love and sex.

Let me talk about the Heisenberg uncertainty principle for a moment.

Heh, not.

Love and sex.

Sure, you can separate the two. Love without sex is platonic – sex without love is demonic, and if you’re really desperate you’ll end up histrionic. Heh.

Love and sex.

They belong with each other. They resonate on the same frequency. Sure you can pull them apart, like turning water into hydrogen and oxygen. Just don’t light a match in blind passion, because if you do...

The whole thing will blow up in your face.

What does a glass priest do?
He composes an ode to fragility.

What does an iron soldier do?
He learns to love with his weapon.

And what will become of me?
For I am a glass heart trapped in an iron body . . .

Emotional Control or Confusion

Okay.

If I see you and we talk, but I go away feeling disheartened because our conversation isn’t quite what I expected, who is in the wrong? Are my standards too high? Are my parameters too narrow? Perhaps my preconceptions aren’t as perceptive as they are pricey. Maybe the cost of fitting into my mold is uniqueness in any form other than the brand that I’ve created.

Here’s a better question: how do I relax? How do I convince myself that this life is but a dream when its concerns shine with a patina of importance? It’s a lot harder to think rationally when your stomach is all tied up in knots, or when your heart is palpitating, or when your every sense is trained on one thing around all which all else revolves. At what point will I become capable of feeling at ease in my ignorance?

When the most basic tenets of your ego’s dogma fold in on themselves as stubborn petals and refuse to show their true colors, what do you rely on? If not others, for others are as fickle as you, then who? What is the consistency of life? Where does ultimate truth lie? I long for an idea that possesses such gravity that I am, willing or not, drawn into its orbit.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man Is Crazy

“Poor child.” The words echoed, dusty, resurrected from distant memory. “Born with hypersensitivia. How sad that we have discovered only now, when it is too late to really treat.”

“Now now” a calm male voice chimed in. “He can still live a normal, active life, as long as his hallucinations do not interfere with his ability to think and reason. For now, have him take these.”

“Will they prevent the hallucinations entirely?”

“I cannot make any guarantees; however, they should keep him from slipping too deep.” A brief pause. “Let me know if his condition worsens after puberty. For now, this is all we can do.”

Adam remembered the first time they appeared. At first it was subtle. Suddenly, heavy and light textures would mix into his perception, as if his very brain was betraying him. The experience was indescribable – like the warm touch of carpet, with different striations and details that would slowly become more and more apparent. They seemed friendly and inviting, but he was told not to embrace the hallucinations. Your eyes, they said – there is something wrong with your eyes.

It didn’t feel wrong, Adam thought. But then, it never did. Insanity, that is. They say that those who are insane can never admit it. That’s why he took the pills. They kept the visions away. His hands moved to the bottle in his hand, thumb roving over the patterns engraved in the side. Still, that was before, when he was a child. Today he was alone. Today he would not take them. He had to know.

Had to know if he was crazy.

First there were the withdrawals. He tossed and turned in bed, the covers thrown back with the force of his gestures. His hand hit the nightstand, and he cried out in pain. It was many hours before he could sleep, and even then it was a cold, nightmarish sleep, full of strange dreams. He dreamt of cold concrete, of a ramp that he could never quite reach the top of. In his dream, he felt the hallucinations begin to come, and the top of the ramp was suddenly perceivable, almost as if he could feel it before he was there. He woke with a fury, sitting upright with such vigor that his heart pounded with adrenaline.

What had woken him was incredible. The strange feelings that he had once experienced as a child had returned, strong as ever. It was as if he had suddenly sprouted thousands of extra hands, and they were all roving over every object in the room simultaneously. Still, the sensation was nothing like touch. He couldn’t tell the temperature of the nightstand, nor the texture of the walls, but he knew they were there. He knew where everything was. He took a step forward, cane in hand. Then another, and another. He marched through the doorway out into the kitchen, still invigorated with his experience. Wishing to try this new ability, he kicked the doorpedal and, surprised by the sudden intensity of the day, screamed.

Even as the heat from the day flooded in, Adam’s whole body shuddered with fear. The hallucinations had suddenly ten thousand times more vivid, and he felt as though his mind was being inundated by a smooth, constant stream of sound, like a high note on a clarinet being played for an impossibly long time. The strange feeling did not subside, but slowly he felt the notes disassemble themselves. Like the harmonies of some great magnum opus, different parts of the sensation separated and made plain their differences. He knocked against the door, and obediently it swung open further, granting him a plane of vision that was totally incomprehensible.

It was reckless, he knew, but Adam detached the cane from his wrist entirely and threw it aside. Somehow, he thought, I don’t think I’ll need it. It was with a great, joyous cry that he flew down the ramp into the street, probing in any and every direction with his newfound sense. No one was around, and who could blame them? Only the bravest of athletes would get up this early in the day cycle, when the heat was at its strongest. With the ululation of a madman, Adam shuffled back and forth, picking his feet up more than he had ever dared before. Recklessly he began to walk. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed, eventually moving so fast that only one foot was on the ground at a time. With the wind rushing past his ears, he cried out one last time.

“I CAN SEE!”

What is the difference between the student and the teacher?

Both must occupy the same space, at the same time. While the teacher grades the students, the students work for the teacher. In other words, both must put effort into the relationship. Both, optimally, are focused on self-education. In short, the defining lines that distinguish the difference between the teacher and the student are blurry and vague, unclear social guidelines for academia. In truth, a student is a teacher, and a teacher a student, for both ought to further themselves in this regard. Truly the sharing of knowledge knows no superior, for all who seek it will find it within their grasp, and in this way be filled with the never-ending hunger to know more.

$epulcher

I cannot bear to suffer this question anymore. My life rotates and simultaneously revolves frenetically around a single point: money. This is, in a word, ridiculous. Let me put forth some of those things which plague me most frequently:

May I have an education?
Money.

May I focus on furthering my artistic ability?
Money.

May I travel where I wish?
Money.

May I devote my time to ministering to others?
Money.

There is no bitterness, there is no hate, there is no pride, there is no willful ignorance, there is no tyrant that avoids money - all these things embrace it; indeed, these things are only a small sample, for money permeates our culture as a cloud of dust permeates the asthmatic's lungs. It stifles creativity, rewards the vapid, and promotes laziness in the well-to-do. What lazy man is motivated to work because of money? No one fails to nap for want of money, for laziness cannot be cured by any external medicine, only by a change of heart.

Still, the world would not survive without money, for humankind is greedy, and loves to possess without standards. Truly, what is possessed is not as important to the greedy as the quantity and quality of one's possessions.

I curse money and all that it stands for, for though money has done me many a favor, it has done me disservice many times over.

Another dreary day to add to my cyclical life; even so, life itself only a part of many larger cycles. Why is it that the stars can always be seen, but never touched? Must I really become an astronaut to live in the space that I can picture so vividly? What are the circumstances that would end my affliction? How hard must I yearn before I have the will to succeed? I must take initiative!

Nevermind.

Technique and Composition in Music

That I might satisfy some unrest amongst my peers, what follows is the difference between technical ability and compositional ability in music, and how they interact with one another.

Technical ability is one’s ability to play different notes, rhythms, and other musical devices with ease, fluidity and accuracy. Technical skills are acquired primarily through the practice of etudes, scales, and rhythmic exercises designed to improve one’s playing ability. Examples of technical abilities include playing a series of notes quickly, learning to stretch one’s hand to attain certain tones, building up wrist strength to perform one-handed drum rolls, etc.

Compositional ability is when a musician understands either by theory or by intuition how to assemble tones and rhythms into a pleasing sequence. Composition is not limited by technical ability, in that a composer may imagine that which he cannot play - it is limited only by imagination.

These two facets of music are virtually unlimited, but must be combined to achieve any sort of recognition. Technical ability alone is soul-less, whereas composition is meaningless without the means to play it. Even if one possesses only one, and makes use of another’s skill, the best musicians make use of both to the best of their ability, and work very hard to increase that ability.

Rules

Life is full of rules . . .

Some are created by powers beyond our control . . .

Some are created by those above us . . .

Some are created by our peers . . .

In our desperate attempt to abandon these rules . . .

We end up creating more . . .

So the real question is not "will you follow the rules?"

The real question is: which rules will you follow?

Solar Flare

As fiery as the newest of virgin mornings, he unhinges his wings in the greatest of furies, for only the man of the sun may conquer the darkness. Certainly he lives with limitations, like the magnificent beast that watches his every move, or the black, winged creatures that clutch at his feet. Indeed, it is the shadows that, in his incandescence, he creates that will be his undoing, someday, at some indiscernible point in the kaleidescope of uncertainties that haunts his future. Still, for this moment he is alive, and in his youth there is nothing that can contain him.

His eulogy is silence.

So It Begins

Well, here I am. I am suspended over the chasm that divides apathy and intensity. I am caught up. I am being processed in a whirlwind of confusing emotions and logical paths that twine to and fro and twixt one another in the maze of psychological mess. In other words I have no idea what conclusions I have come to.

Every once in a while I need to descend into self-induced doubt concerning what I've seen, heard, and believed. It makes it all more real to me when I emerge finally, triumphant in my realization of some truth. But today I am fractured. Today my doubt threatens to break me.

I cannot lean one way or another, lest I lose my body to flames, lest I fall into a chasm of indeterminate size. I am torn. It is not always like this, but today I cannot yet fall into the ways of one belief or another. I cannot yet choose one structured mode of logic o'er another.

It is the way of things, that I should consider, reconsider, hypothesize, create, destroy - over and over again. It is the way I was made, the way I was born, even borne, and it is the way I will die. So I pray to any power that may be -

Please, I beg of you, do not judge me for thinking, for if thought, if reason, if searching for ultimate truth is sin, I want no part of you.

Be Adult About It

Adulthood is not age induced.

Adulthood is not based on one's demeanor.

Adulthood is not your diction.

Adulthood is not a thought process.

Adulthood is not when you provide for yourself.

Adulthood is not being mature.

Adulthood is not when you're accepted by other adults.

Adulthood is not _____ because . . .

Adulthood is a myth.

Photographic Memory

Sometimes I find myself absently flipping through photos of myself for a great length of time. Many perceive this activity as one inspired by misplaced pride. I wish I could agree, but sometimes I have to see myself through another lens, either mechanical or otherwise, if only to keep in touch with myself.

Maybe it sounds strange, but perspective is crucial to my existence. I feel as though, given enough time to mull and muse, I could lose feeling in this extremity of the soul that we call the body. The emotional jetlag of being yanked from my mental wanderings back to my physical location is made less potent by not feeling at all. In this, I am failing, for I cannot find a way to feel and think simultaneously, so firm are the ways in which I explore my world.

Let me encourage you to not only ponder, but experience. Think and feel together, that you may encounter the fullness of life and not live in death of the soul; for spiritual death is the truest.

Advertising Takes Precedence Over Common Sense

Today I saw this on the back of a truck:

"My USA supports our troops whenever we go, no aid or comfort to the enemy (No Way)."

Are they implying that popping open the back of a truck belonging to another trucking company would yield hostile Arabs lounging in jacuzzi sipping fruity drinks?

I think in life it’s important that, every once in a while, we put on the high beams and watch the night light up like we’re on a roller-coaster through the New York skyline.

The Conductor

He who demands quality will receive quality.

He who demands participation will receive participation.

Therefore . . .

Do not be so arrogant as to presume that you will sacrifice nothing and gain everything.