For Brian...

Something on my blog.

Global Cooling

Fall colors, smells, and temperature; all bring back a rush of memories of things that once were, or perhaps never were. Hopes, dreams, and new beginnings like the frost settling atop dried fallen leaves. Apprehension of what lies ahead, termpered by the devout knowledge that warm sunshine and happier times follow, like they have every year before.

And what then, when those times don't come? The snow continues to fall, the ice thickens and cracks under its own weight, the sun never returns like it once did to warm the earth and bring color and smell and touch back to life. Cut grass on a warm summer night, sweat evaporating from skin as the moon cools the air; things never to again be known except in memories.

So what then, again, when those times don't come, when the realization dawns that the Ice Age is, once again, upon us? And never again in our lifetime will the hot breath of the sun touch skin, instead it will always be tempered by the cold winter air...

Look ahead, and soldier on, then, as always, for life is what we make it. It is said that there are plenty of pleasures to be found in the coldest depths of winter. One just has to know where to look, and to recognize them when they are found.

A memory, after all, is just hope focused on the past...

A New Leaf

What you are reading now, dear reader, was originally started as a rant blog. It has been a place for me to bitch about the things that pissed me off. I had another blog at the time that I started this one, in another life. In it I wrote about things that were wonderful, things that were beautiful, things that made my heart sing. That seems like such a long time ago. And I won't update that one ever again, because I have moved on from that part of my life, whether I wanted to or not.

Not that things don't feel the same way now, in fact anymore they seem more so, it's just that at the time things seemed perfect, and wonderful. All the time. Now, so much more so, but in a different, less poetic way.

When I posted things that were bitchy to that blog, it began to feel wrong to me. At some point, it began to feel as though those things didn't belong in my life, or at least in the same place organizationally as the things that were wonderful. So Federal Pound me in the Ass Prison was born for me to unleash my rants to.

What I've realized since then is that those things, the things I would ranted about, those things are as intertwined with life as cancer is with breathing. As accidents are with motorcycle riding. As infidelity is with love.

And tonight I've come full circle, and I no longer think of this as my rant blog, but as my blog blog. The place where I dump out my mental shits for you, dear reader, to read. In WeB log form.

That's not to say, for sure, that life is a big pile of shit. Far from it, in fact. Life is good, I've realized, despite the fact that we shit every day. I've had this realization before, in so many ways, and maybe that's the meaning of life. To keep rediscovering the meaning of life. Whether you want to or not.

I just don't want to feel anymore when I want to write something for the Internet to read, that it has to be a rant. I want to post things that make me happy too. I want to post beauty, and wonderfulness, as well as shit, because those things are as much a part of life as shit is.

Just like herpes is a part of sex. Just like road rage is a part of driving. Just like bad salmon is a part of visiting Hong Kong.

So this blog is, I have decided tonight, where I will post anything that I want to put out there in the universe, good or bad. I will post anything that is happening to me in life. Not just the bad shits, the ones that make your legs quiver and your nose pucker. also the good ones, that slide out in seconds and feel not unlike an orgasm when they deliver.

This, dear reader, is where I will share all of myself with the world, or at least the parts of me I want to share with those few of you out there who choose to visit this small piece of the Internet.

I don't know shit. And I think that's clear by the things that I post. So I'm not going to write anymore about just shit, you're going to get it all.

So enjoy, or don't, I don't care. As I said once before, in another world, this is for me.

And it's all of me, both good and bad.

Self-preservation

People don't always do what's best for them. I get that. Hell many times we don't even know what's best for us. I get that too. Life is complicated. People are complicated. Needs and desires are complicated. All too often, they conflict.

You may wake up to the alarm clock one morning and just not feel like going to work. But you do anyway, because you know that the bed you are lying in, the roof over your head, the coffe and bagel waiting for you at Dunkin Donuts - all of those things are funded by said job.

Some days maybe you give in to the immediate need to stay in bed and ignore the long term needs of having a home and food and warmth and security. That's OK, from time to time, because this world is run by humans who all understand that some days we just can't cut it, some days we have to give in to immediate concerns and can't deal with the bigger picture. So we build some allowances into our daily life. People created sick days because they understand that sometimes we have to stay home because we're sick or just sick of work. Friends understand if we don't call them back for a few days because we've got stuff going on.

But some people just don't get it. Some people don't understand that they get a few allowances built in to the Grand Scheme of Things, and take full advantage of what they've been given until the system barfs them out like yesterday's trash.

The rest of us all know that we're going to have to get up tomorrow if we don't get up today, or we'll lose our job. That we'll have to make time to make that call eventually or we'll lose that friend. And we do it. We drag our asses out of bed even though the next day we don't feel like going to work any more than the day before, and we make that call even if we don't have time to properly chat like we'd like to.

And life goes on. It goes the way we ultimately want it to, even if that day we might not be able to see the big picture all too clearly.

What I personally fail to understand is what makes a person sacrifice or even just risk losing those things that they really do want for themselves for something else that they can't seem to give up - even if it doesn't fit into the plan. Their plan. The one they came up with for themselves.

The only way of looking at it that makes any sense to me is that some people have addictions to self-destructive behavior. I get that someone could be so addicted to things that are bad for them because somehow their brain has twisted up reality to make those bad things feel better than the good things. Feel more right. Feel more justified in some way, perhaps a way that those of us who enjoy good things happening to us don't feel.

Just like someone who falls deeper and deeper into a drug habit and eventually misses work one too many times and loses their job, psycho-addicts are constantly fighting their urges to fall back into bad lifestyle choices, bad relationships, bad decisions. Even if doing so risks everything good they have made and been given in their lives - the good lifestyle choices, the good relationships, and the good decisions.

And this is entirely selfish, in a way that only those who study psychology might truly understand. These people convince themselves that what they are doing is right for them, that they are following their hearts.

What they are really doing is running away from healing. From kicking the habit.

I get that - to an extent. I like to get drunk from time to time. But I don't do it if it's going to prevent me from getting to work on time, or at work, for that matter. I don't drink if it's going to cause me to lose my license, my home, or my life.

I get that. I get how it works.

It's sad and a bit pathetic to see people who don't understand how it works, who are unable to let go of their hurt and truly enjoy life, and it's even more pathetic when they claim to be happy being miserable, to deserve what they have, blaming others who try to help them by saying that those people don't understand them.

I can quit any time, they say. I LIKE getting fucked up, they insist. I like being miserable, they claim.

The truth is that you can understand these people, even deeply and soulfully, and still walk away because they can't kick their habits. Because they WON'T kick their habtis.

It is possible to realize that there is nothing you can do to help them, just like there is nothing you can do to help a dog with rabies without getting bit yourself unless you're a professional. Trying to stick around and help someone fix themselves when they don't really believe that they are broken is just an excersise in futility. Interventions never work, they just breed resentment and solidify selfish justifications for bad behavior. I've learned this the hard way, more times than is probably healthy. I've learned that you can't help someone who won't let themselves truly believe that they need to be helped, no matter how wonderful or patient or giving you are.

All we can do in this world is make sure that we get up each morning and get to work, whether we feel like it or not, because that is how we'll feed our bellies and, eventually, our souls. Inner peace requires an environment of tranquility, comfort, and security to be properly nurtured. That's the first step. Once you achieve that, if you accept that the turmoil inside of you is your soul's reaction to shitty things that have happened to you in your past, you can move past those things and finally have the same peace inside that you've surrounded yourself with on the outside.

If you can't realize and own that, then no amount of external peace, security, and support is going to help you.

So don't even try to give those things to these people once you recognize who they are, because it's not going to help. No matter how much you want it to.

Some people have too much hurt, too much pride, and too much of an overwhelming addiction to see that what plagues them comes from inside. I don't know this personally, but I can only guess that maybe when there is so much turmoil inside that you can't sleep, can't eat, and don't know how to relate to healthy people - having quiet, a bounty of food, and unending love just makes that turmoil overwhelmingly loud and unbearable. Kind of like turning down the stereo so you can finally hear your thoughts - which is scary if your thoughts are a mess.

These people can help others, they can allow others to help them, but until they help themselves nothing is ever really going to change. Those that can't see that are doomed to feel as though the odds are stacked against them until they figure out that they are the ones holding all of their own cards. They can complain all they want that they are stuck in their position because The Man is holding them down, they can blame everyone else for not doing enough to help them, but that's the first sign that they don't know that only they can help themselves.

The truth is that all people are good and caring to a point - and we all have different breaking points - but sadly there are times when we have to just let go, no matter how hard it is, and walk away from someone who keeps beating their own head against the wall. Put your arm between their head and the wall and it will help them to an extent, but dammit, you're going to hurt your arm.

And those of us who have done that in the past, we hope against all hope that someday these other people realize that they are the ones hurting themselves, and everyone else in their lives, with their own self-destructive behavior.

And we hope, for their sake, that when they realize this there is someone around who cares as much about them as we did to help pull themselves up, dust themselves off, and start healing. Because that's what life is really all about: being there for someone when they need you - and are able to receive what you want to give them.

What life is NOT about is helping someone who is just going to find other ways to hurt themselves. And you. And everyone else around them...

"The deeper you get, the farther you fall down
The closer I get, the more you dissolve

You're lost inside, your pale addictions
Bury you, with the demons in the ash

Can't heal you, don't want to
cause you can't save your-fuckin'-self
Can't heal you, don't need to
cause you won't save yourself

You are the one who made the decision
stuck in a prison, shattered and broken
I am the one who, expected to heal you, save you from drowning in your endless nightmare
Blessed be, the disillusioned
The banished misfit and the cursed hollow son

Can't heal you, I don't want to
cause you can't save yourself
Can't help you, don't need to
cause you won't save yourself

We're taught to perish but fade away
Become the haunted and die as slaves

Can't heal you, I don't want to
cause you can't save yourself
Can't help you, don't need to
cause you won't save yourself
Can't heal you, don't want to
cause you can't save your-fuckin'-self
Can't heal you, don't need to
cause you won't save yourself"

- 5 Finger Death Punch