Bigger /// Smaller

Our life is composed of things getting bigger and smaller. Both Physically, and psychologically.

You're cruising down the road with the violet ribbons sunset streaking across the horizon. A car appears a half a mile down the road, and slowly creeps into your sight, getting larger by the second. The front tire blows out of that car, and they begin to swerve. Panic slaps you on the back of the neck with a cold, sweaty hand.

Within seconds, the car that was just before only a black ant on the sunset is now tearing into the front of your car with no remorse, no pity. You struggle to grasp your thumb around the 9 key on your phone before the ocean of blackout surrounds you.

When you wake up, you're in a bed. There are tubes taped to your arms and chest, and you are angry. You are angry, or what you think is angry, you can not really grasp what's going on. You jerk awake to find what used to be your dashboard wrapped around you. Your legs will not move, no matter how much you try. And you try, you try the hardest you've ever tried. Red and white lights surround your vision, and unintelligible yells are heard outside.

Why does everything seem so distant? Why do your hands not want to cooperate? Why can you see out of the left side of your face?

....

In the next proceeding days, your funeral is not unlike any other that's ever been had. There are tears, there is blame, and there is regret. You, my friend, are getting smaller now.

You will never quite go away, but you will drift down the road.But your loved ones will always see you, because the world is flat.

....

It is impossible to predict what tomorrow will hold. Do not wait for it, and do not travel down a road that's already been built. If you build your own road, one that you travel alone, you're much less likely to get in a car crash.

The Path An Animal Takes

Giving a name to an animal only gives you a word to cry out when it escapes you. The animal does not know it's name.

 When you really look at it, everything you make a person out to be doesn't matter. They're going to be who they want to be no matter what. When they stray from the path you want them to follow, the harmony that you felt with them, that "name" you gave them or those things you projected onto them are going to be the only thing you have left to scream at.

And as your screams echo back to you as questions, you will know...Somewhere along the line that you have fallen down. 

To what degree to we beat ourselves up with our one good arm?

That one good arm, as the other one is left stretching out away from you trying to get a firm grasp around the animal as it runs down the street towards what it believes is more exciting.

With one arm in the past, and one in the future, where does that leave you? I believe that many people walk in the present, with the past and the future on either side of them.

With noises, and flashes and bangs and bams, and brims, and beezles coming at either side of you from these rifts you make in your imagination it's not wonder why you're all caught up in anxiety.

It's important, I think, to first realize that you cannot move forward with your eyes caught in the rear view mirror. That also means that your past must be, with complete absolution, behind you. With your future on the horizon directly ahead of you and not slowing you down to look be drawn into it every waking moment, you have no choice but you walk forward.

It's also worth noting that everyone's future, Mine and Your's and Their's and Her's, all belong in a reachable place. No dream is too extraordinary, and placing your future among the clouds is going to lead you off a cliff.

Back to that animal you had with you...

Eventually, it's going to come back. They always do.

Each case is individually unique, and I can't tell you what to do with yours as I've done with mine. What I can say, though, is that the whole "Follow your heart" thing is only half right. Emotions play a ridiculously large role in what we think and how we treat others, even those we think we're done with. Keep your head in the game though, because you've spent far too much time closing off your old rifts to open another one.

That Crack In The Windshield

We, humans, are bound to stupidity like a mountain is bound to being immovable. It is written into our daily life. It is what kind of stupid, what flavor of ignorance we follow, that defines who we are.

If you are stupid academically, if you have failing grades or don't exert yourself in classes...people will judge you. They will assume you are immature. You're a damn fool for not trying, not lining up the way they do and writing note for note what "X" is.

If you are stupid with talking, your folks might cast you out. They'll become angry that you don't talk to them, confused as to why you're always sleeping, and hoping you're okay. The friends you have will wonder about you most days. They'll try to incite some sort of spark in you to get you to speak up or talk about how you're feeling. They'll want to know if you're okay..

If you are stupid with sex, you will be in a world of hurt. Sex is an integral part of our being. It's the reason we exist. If you think of it like some sort of game, and play around with the fire it creates between you two....you will be hurt. There are those out there that use sex as a form of part-time entertainment. Going woman to woman, man to man, looking for a thrill. To each his own, ultimately it doesn't affect me. Though, I might question how genuine of a friend that same person is going to be with me. Are they just going to use me for a thrill? Sexual misconduct can be the bird that lands on the car, precariously teetering on the cliffside. It can be the difference between a girl with a couple of male friends, and an attention whore. It can be the difference between lifelong partners and tyrant baboons screaming at each other over missed child support and visitation rights. Treat it like it is, a skeleton key. A key that can open many, many doors. Study the doors, and where they're going to take you.

If you are stupid in love, then you could be blissfully ignorant. Both of you could be that way, and as time goes on there will be many bridges you will cross. Not many of those bridges will be stable. Hopefully, with effort, you won't remain stupid in love. You will grow, and you will become a better partner. This is all assuming that you were brought up well, that you don't have any baggage already dragging you down. As you grow, you will watch them grow too. As they grow, ignorance may give way to regret.

Regret for not saying those things you should have. Regret for not holding her when you had the chance. Regret for not asking what's wrong.

Regret will give way to pain. There are many ways to deal with pain, some are healthier than others. If love is a 4 lane highway, that spans your entire lifetime, she and yourself are two cars. You're both travelling the same speed, going in the same direction, and at first...both of you hope to the same destination. At first, you're both racing to the destination, bolting forward. Both of your cars are shiny, they haven't seen much road and you only see the good parts of your partner. The further you develop, you both gain and miss opportunities. A shinier car rolls by, or a bump in the road comes up that shakes the hell out of you and her. In time, you two find it hard to see what you once saw in each other. With so much dirt on your tires, and that crack in the windshield, it's hard to even see good in yourself...let alone her.

This is where many people have difficulty. To deal with this pain, you can either stop completely, break apart and move into those two adjacent lanes next to yourselves, or continue together on the road. Any way you travel, you're still travelling, and the destination is still there. If your destination was a happy future, its still there. Many people will simply choose to break up at this point and try to start fresh. The pain, the dirt, the crack...they're still there. But maybe if you try hard, the next car won't see them.

You can't remain happy without taking a few rest stops. Clean a car, but don't clean your own. Clean each others cars.

It's one thing to say to yourself that you are stronger than this, that you can be beautiful again, to try and motivate yourself.

It's another thing entirely to hear it from someone else.

Inhumanity

The human eye can be a locked door to so many things. There are thousands of emotions in the spectrum that we can feel. Day by day, we learn to hide those emotions behind a facade of "I'm okay". Why? I've been lied to and stepped on, all the while being shown the welcoming smile of someone who I wouldn't suspect otherwise. Maybe I'm naive.

Some people, most people, believe that as humans we are free. Great as that may sound, I would argue that we are not free. Most of us would say that because we're on the top of the evolutionary system, because we have our cell phones and our airplanes, we don't answer to a master, and we are free.

Humans do have a master, fear. I use that in a very broad sense of the word. When you won't go out in public because you don't like how other people will judge you, you are answering to a master. When you won't stop on the side of the road for a broken down car because "someone else will stop", you're answering to a master.

I try every day to help someone, in some way, because I want to break away from that stagnant chain everyone is being tethered to. I want to be different, and not how a 14-year old might want to be "unique". I want to be kind. That's one thing I haven't been for most of my life, Kind.

For the first six years, I was stupid. I was fearful. I was happy. For the next five after that, I was growing, learning, feeding. When I became a teenager, I became something new....resentful. Resentful of a society that had once had so much shine to it. Now that I understood how things worked, that shine had traveled. 

As I tumbled through High School, much like a ball might tumble down a set of stairs, I started making and losing connections all over the place. People I disliked started to grow on me, and friends I'd had since I was Stupid were now all but gone. I was crawling out of ignorance, hoping to find something a little warmer. Ive never liked cold weather..

I'd say wanting to be kind is inhuman. We may think ourselves advanced, evolved, and above all other species, but...we really aren't. We're still driven by emotion, no matter what toys we surround our time with. We hate, we lust, we hurt, and we act upon all of those things most of the time without thinking. It takes practice to think with logic.

I wouldn't say I'm the shining example of what someone should be. Quite the opposite, actually. I'm still growing, at least...I hope so. Idolizing someone, or making yourself out to be someone that isn't you will do more harm than good. There's a hundred percent chance that person is still growing just like you, and until someone dies, they aren't above you in any way. When someone passes away, they might leave a legacy. Follow their good intentions....not their emotion driven actions.

A person might act upon their "faith". Faith is a funny emotion. It's part compassion, part ignorance, and part greed. There are many theistic people who are really great, compassionate individuals. There are also many of those who are not. I'd like for everyone, theist or otherwise, to be able to act on what helps those around them. Rather that, than acting on what it says to do in whatever "holy scripture" you might follow.

When you follow a religion, you're intentions might be good. You might think you're genuinely helping someone when in reality, you're alienating them because of their beliefs. If you want to worship a dogma, I won't stop you. However, it would be great if you could follow it with perspective. Know what's right, and what's wrong, without having to consult your religion.

-On this day, a baby solemnly crawled from the room with the voice.-

You know that time, the time where it's 4 A.M., you're laying in bed, and an idea burrows into your noggin and refuses to go away until you write it down?

That idea seems pretty self entitled, it's really got an ego problem.


 I guess you can say I'm the paparazzi of my own ideas. My camera is somewhat dismal though, and doesn't always work the way I want it to. Sometimes when I take the picture of that idea as it's fleeting across the parking lot to drive away, I get a picture of a cloud or a bright light instead. Maybe my lens needs cleaning.