stop

we are right
they are fools

we are intellectuals
they are fools

we are free
they are fools

we are the anti
they are fools

we are informed
they are ignorant fools

we are clever
they are fools

we are the periphery
they are fools

we are the glorified minority
they are the fools

we are better
they are fools

we are fools
we are fools
we are fools

predicament of stagnant and oppressive air patterns

i'm watching the ceiling fan blades chase infinity.
my mind runs after them
and my old friend jack white reads to me from a book.
but i'm not listening. not really.
tuesdays were never the days on which wars end anyway.
i have a heart condition.

the ceiling fan is being very still.
my face is sweating.
i can't think of anything but urethane.
i dreamed my hair was silver but my face was a baby's.
and all along i thought i would be sick soon
so i put on the red mocassins instead.
and turned on the box fan.

Metaphor from Music

This is lame and completely non-poetic. But I don’t care. It relates to what I’ve been experiencing.

Usually when I listen to an album for the first time I choose a random song based on the title and listen to it.

Most of the time I hate the song.

But I know that by choosing a random song completely out of order, I’ve ruined it for myself. It’s my fault I don’t like it.

So usually I’ll continue to preview the songs based on interesting titles until I find something I like. Then I’ll probably listen to that song over and over until I recognize the lyrics, and then I’ll find one I like almost as much and do the same thing, and then I start to like the songs that come on right after my most favorites because I get used to them starting up right after the best ones. Then, eventually, I like most of the songs on the album, and by now I’m convinced I really do like the band, so I begin listening to all of the tracks in a certain order, and maybe even by the time it’s all finished I listen to all of the tracks in their right order.

And this is when I really start to appreciate the story the album tells as a whole. The songs are pieces of a larger work of art. They each have a flavor that compliments or contrasts with the others to make the bigger picture. And if it really is a good album, each does not and can not reach its full potential without the others. It only makes the most sense in its original context. There may even be songs on the album I don’t like at all by themselves, but when I understand them in the context, in the flow of the story, I begin to see that they are necessary. That although they are unpleasant for a time, they are necessary to the bigger picture and someday in the future will probably bring me great joy. I end up loving the songs I once hated because I become clued in to the masterful artwork behind them. I start recognizing the genius. But only in context.

And then I can start to appreciate the richness of variety and the depth of the ups and downs. Every song is different. And it fits differently into every album. They can never be swapped or copied. They capture and describe and express totally uniquely.

Anyway, I’m sure you get the point by now. It’s a lot like life.

It always sounds so cheesy when people tell you that the hard times are there for a reason, that you’ll understand why later.

But I think it really goes even deeper than that. I think the hard moments, days, months, years become indispensible parts of who we are. They aren’t some mass produced item sprinkled in various amounts throughout everyone’s lives the way that a lot of people make them sound—generic, straight off the assembly line. Every person has their own unique set. In fact, they can’t even really be pulled out of the bigger story at all and make any kind of sense. Each is different. And each of us is who we are because of them.

Our souls bear the signature marks—or scars—of our stories and even those hellish moments are beautiful, deep, rich parts of the story. It helps me to look back on those times or even to be in the middle of them and think of them as just what they are—hard times.

I don’t have to make excuses for them or live in them. I can simply see them as they are, appreciate them, avoid dwelling on them, and live each time as it comes because it all makes the final work of art more human.

Rest Your Head

"You could tell me what you’re really after
Then, baby, just rest your head
Just rest your head
Now, now, now
Just rest your head
C’mon, c’mon, c’mon, just rest your head
Just rest your head
Just rest your head."

--The Good Life

ignorance, bliss

joy equals pain.
and i am painfully unafraid.
and wisdom is folly to the one who watches his own heart break because he saw it long before it had a chance to die and stood ready to watch it anyway.
and he who lives the truth can never stand to live another way, but living true will kill him too.
it is no small thing to bear, the truth.
and sitting here just now, i feel the burden and my breath is hard to draw.
the one who knows. she knows more than she should ever want to know.

always detesting ignorance.

and always restless because she will never have it nor the peace it brings.

grown-up

Everyone around me has matured
Into mediocrity
Stiff
And static
We shall not decay, no, we shall turn into stone
It’s a high price to pay for an unholy security
A cheap exchange
A cowardly forfeit
It’s an ankle-deep façade, but you live too close to the surface to see it
And Oh! Guard it fiercely, Dear, for Truth seeks to devour the god of your lies.

mail-order reality comes crashing down

i think my worst fault is all the idealizing i do.
people
places
times.
especially people. i take the outline of an individual and color in the rest from some place in my mind. i take a persons existence in the real world and rework it in my head until they are a character in the ongoing fiction that exists really only in my mind. they become an idea.
an idea only.
so that im not sure i ever really know anyone at all.
i know the made-up person, but not the one outside of myself.
maybe i do this because i want to know them. i want to know them intimately enough to imagine their thoughts and feelings in my own head. but then the real person and i never get along quite like we did when they were merely imagined.
maybe i do it because i do not want to know them at all. i want to know them only as an extension of myself.
the truth is rarely ever what you would think it would be or like it to be.
im not sure what to make of such a habit. it seems to spring from some sort of preoccupation with illusion and self. which makes me a little more hesitant to diverge the information.
but then whats the point in hiding, as so many of us do, our failures. they are more real than many of our supposed virtues im sure.
anyway, i wonder if any of us really live in a world that is not in some way colored by our own imaginations. maybe we cant agree because we dont see the same things at all.
somehow i hope this isnt the case. its an awfully lonely case if it is true.