Strong?

So you've all seen this right? If you're not in America, welcome to out politics. Beautiful because we can say pretty much anything, and even lampoon it- -at least to a greater degree than most countries (or is that just what we're fed to believe here...?). Sad, because we're speaking about everything that doesn't matter and the idea of service is lost in a sea of vapid and feigned concern.

So if you haven't watch, this.

Then I find this as a response on line.

Today, or yesterday, I was swimming around thoughts about how the internet is one of the newest, and also last places that we can exchange ideas so amazingly and so freely. It's like how the idea of Humanism in the 15th and 16th centuries got such a boom by the advent of Guttenburg's printing press. It's like that, on steroids that take steroids themselves.

Materialistic Malaise

New Homes

I live here now.

On Time

I don't know why I write less here. I used to love it, oh man I LOVED it. I used to have plans for what to write. Didn't even know if people would read them, but loved it. "Last Years Ghosts" is done, what a romp out that was. I say that because the new album is coming near completion. I may even add another song, but I think by March certainly I can have it up on iTunes, Amazon, Google music, etc. Plus of course the physical copies.

The muses don't change. They've been at this since antiquity--do I really expect them to make room for someone else to take their role? "I can't say that I loved you, but I miss you everyday." I can't imagine the hours that went into this site, life was different then. Like Bob Dylan plays when I think back to times gone by, when Ghosts walked around in flesh and blood, "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now."

I wonder if my three or four dead friends think of me, if I am a ghost they fondly recall only the romance of? Is it that I, romantic first before anything, meet only the practical? Or that if I was to meet the romantic, it sparks my own practicality? It seems that the issue is boundaries. Oh psychology, will you try and ruin all mystery?

They hang up over me, sometimes walking besides me. Nearly everything relates back to them some how--'they' being those gone. I want to love those who are alive, like those who are dead to me. I have a great opportunity in the set of friends I have now. They are incredible revisions of the previous stories. Two men, one woman. To stand them near one another, two groups of three, would be wild to witness. Oh, how different these two groups are. I suppose I needed different teachers, a new environment. It's moving, without moving. Instead of Nashville, Pittsburgh, instead of the priesthood, the secular life as a doctor of theology. Instead of a writer, a nurse.

It's amazing, to list out--the former having across the board what I've romanticized prior to meeting them, the latter, everything that allows me the room to grow into my own being. The roles I play are different, but it's also where I've come from, I used to be "so much older then, I'm younger than that now," remember; I am less sure of things, and the things I'm sure of, I'm certain that it's okay to be sure of.

For instance: I have an account, as do you, and we are both unaware of how much has been put into that account for us. All we know is that it is being transacted from constantly and that we have no way to hoard it's contents or to make more of it; we don't even control the rate at which it's being transacted from! The only choice we have is how to spend it. Obviously, I'm talking about time here.

I'm sure of time, rather, that my time, my lifespan, my waking life, is finite. The year 2064 is the year of my death if I live to 80 (though I'm going to live to be 102). That's real. That's a real year, and somewhere in that year, the date and time of my last breath may exist; barring of course, the sword that forever hangs at my neck from a spiders thread, falls to cut my account even shorter--but that's exactly it--I have no clue how much is in this account!

I've already decided I will most likely not deplete it all at one time, but I also don't want to waste what I have. As such, I've become hyper selective about how I spend these funds, and work towards having ever more freedom in dictating how I spend this resource.

The twenty minutes I typed this? Done, spent. I now have twenty less minutes to live the rest of my life. Everything is evaluated from this baseline. At least for now. I am a restless sort, not quick to settle into comfort and say, "This is enough." I'm pleased with what I have, so everything is 'enough' in that sense, I've seen children mistreated due to birth, watched starvation first hand and been helpless to affect it--everything is 'enough' (on that note btw, click this link, THIS ONE)

So I suppose a half hour is enough time, I'd say well spent. I have a renewed appreciation for change (a lesson I think is wise to embrace and re-embrace again and again), a renewed thankfulness for my work, for my freedom within what can feel confining, for the players in my life who help me accept what love may look like outside of my own biased, self-protecting construct, for my fingers, my synapses, etc. etc. etc. lots of things, man, my heart, my name.

Thanks for transacting from your account to spend freely here. I hope it was well spent. See you before the sword falls perhaps.

Threats of Love / The Manipulation of Infatuation.

It's slowly starting to creep in. The old wisps of black smoke, curling in and around me; such a seductive ghost. She holds my attention till she can crawl into my nostrils and flood my bloodstream, blot out my vision and show me what she wants me to see clearly. Oh darling, where have you been. I want to ravage her -- hand me the knife; to tear you apart and weep passionately for months. This old smoke, this old dragon, you old flame. My curling mouth says she's getting in, my quickening breath is almost a pant. I remember, I remember. Who is she? One who doesn't exist. Did she ever exist - but for living eternally? This smoke, this seductress, this woman, this sorceress, divining lunacy. How many expressions will you impel? Grabbing hold at the base of my skull, shaking free exaltation like gushing bile? Oh but it's so sweet. Sickening me, infiltrating my veins, tearing up my insides; you push me till I bleed out art. My ribs are cracked from heaving mercilessly, she loves hating the power she has inside me.

I'm only in your memory, and if you try and blot me out, even if you succeed -- I will always remember.

I met a young woman whose body was burning.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son ? / And what did you hear, my darling young one ?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin'/ I heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world
I heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin' / I heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin'
I heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin' / Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley / And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard / And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

-B. Dylan

Maybe I'm not Listening.

My Master, my Slave.

My fear wards over me, threatening me with a lifetime of regrets and unhappiness if I do not live in my dreams--which is to say, even in pursuit of them. This life is my slave till it takes from me all it gives.

"Bad! Bad! What? Is he not going - backwards?' - Yes! But you ill understand him if you complain about it. He goes backwards as everyone goes backwards who wants to take a big jump"

- Nietzsche, Beyond Good & Evil

The Mad Ones

iThankyou

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

- Steve Jobs