Tribute to MLK Jr.

I wrote this weeks in advance with the intentions of posting it on January 15th, because January 15 happens to be a very important day. Of course, I misplaced the notebook and only found it today, but late is better than never. Here are some words I wrote in commemoration of the late Martin Luther King Jr. who happened to be born on the same day as myself.

I believe that my beliefs don't matter. I believe that everyone should be allowed to be themselves, and I believe that the natural progression of life will eventually sort it's way out.

Until that time comes, I believe it is our responsibility as humans to be honest, respectful, and to own up to our actions. I believe it is our duty, as human beings, living upon Earth, to take responsibility, to stand up, and to become stronger, kinder, people.

I believe that we must help our neighbors, be them friends or enemies, selflessly. I believe that if we are to survive we must learn tolerance. Tolerance of all things, not just color or sexual preference. Tolerance of life.

I believe that we have all forgotten of what it means to be tolerant of life. Throw away your debit and credits, step outside. Take off those expensive sneakers and step out onto the ground. Walk barefoot down the driveway to an empty mailbox, or is it one filled with empty bills, because we all know real mail stopped coming long ago.

It hurts. That's life. Feel the stones beneath your feet. Feel your feet strengthen beneath the weight of your body. That's life too. Get out and get in it and live.

I believe we have been living dead in this life for far too long and now it is time to grow.

-That's my thoughts.
AiG

"Make yourself as small as possible. Then grow." -Anonymous

World Aflame

"They have to go and save themselves," said Charlemagne Ulrick, a dentist in Port-au-Prince in the aftermath of Haiti's devastating quake. "I don't know when they're coming back." He was referring to his children, after he sent them off to a different part of the country, in hopes of survival.

His words should weigh heavily upon all our hearts. After all, isn't it true that we all have to go and save ourselves? Can we really sit around and expect someone else to come our way and solve our problems? Of course not.

Sure, some people can help, but in the end, whether we succeed or fail all depends on one thing and one thing only--ourselves. We are all guilty of carrying this mentality. It is exactly why we are all so self-centered and the world is as bad as it is today.

We've all been burned so many times by everyone around us, or we've been brainwashed into that not-good-enough attitude that we've grown up being bombarded with by the media and the government. We have been taught, or convinced, that no one in the world can help us except ourselves.

Why else is there so much violence and rioting in the wake of any natural disaster? Disasters are just that--disastrous--and they come in all shapes and sizes. When they strike people suffer, and when people suffer they are at their worst. It is that single idea that no one can help me but me that drives us all to madness.

It's really damn sad. What happened to mankind as a whole that we've ceased to see the entire world around us and started seeing the world as a simple extension of ourselves? Why can't we get passed our egotistical way of thinking? Or has it always been in our nature to center life upon ourselves?

I have no answers, but kudos to those that are lifting their hands to help, even if they are turning blind eyes to all the suffering going on around us every day. Kudos to those that give back to the world where and what they can. Never mind that what one person can give may completely dwarf someone else's lesser contribution. Let's all look to Haiti right now, because, obviously their problems are a lot worse then everyone else's and it is easier to lend a hand to someone that is not your neighbor.

Broken

Is it true we're all just damaged goods? Pushed aside and swept away. Show me your scars and I'll tell you all about mine. Laughing hysterically at the pain. Thinking god, just delete, just delete this. Delete everything. Erase, backspace, try again. Start over. There is no starting over. Broken and bound and determined to exist when all there is to gain is failure. Where has my mind gone? I don't even know. My focus has gone to shit. I think the infection has set into my brain. The poison spreads unchecked and everything it all decays.

Bringing in the New Year: How to fail at life with Facebook and other Cosmic Ironies

My brain's a little fuzzy, so I'll try hard to keep this sensible and brief. So I've been getting a lot of questions as to why I deleted my Facebook profile lately. The answer to that is simple.

I'm an idiot. As such, I sometimes do really stupid things. Deleting Facebook wouldn't have been one of them, had I understood Facebook's crazy Terms of Service before attempting to do so.

No, it was what I did before deleting Facebook that was stupid, and for that I'm sorry. It's why November was erased, for all the good of doing it, and if you don't know what I'm talking about it is better off that way.

So I thought I could delete Facebook and start another profile that would be more relevant to my writing company, but apparently, that's not how things work with Facebook. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how things do work for that government run site, but I'm not trying too terribly hard, because Facebook, as personal as it was, was turning me into an obsessive, crazy person.

So as it stands, no Facebook. Maybe later. Maybe not.

Now with that out of the way, let me tell you about how I was fully prepared to start this New Year off right, and how it got twisted all around.

For the last several days before the year ended, I was really trying hard to get back to my roots. I had taken to walking barefoot just about every where I went, including a four hour hike around downtown Fort Lauderdale, just because I could.

Yes, it sounds stupid, but believe it or not, my feet felt great. I started walking over gravel and glass. I started using a trashcan as target practice and taught myself how to throw rocks and macadamia nuts by holding them between my toes. My aim was getting pretty good. I was gearing myself up for 4 mile daily runs.

On January 1st my cat ran away and got himself thoroughly stuck in a palm tree, wedged between the fronds. With some help of a neighbor and his ladder, I climbed up and saved him. He clawed me up and ran away again. I guess there should have been a lesson in that somewhere.

A couple days later, I had shoes on and was walking to the store less than a block from my house. I stepped off the sidewalk to give a bicycler more room and was instantly mugged by twelve inches of angry wood chip.

I never even saw it coming. The damn thing stabbed right into my foot right above my shoe and punctured through to bone. So much for bare feet and running. I can no longer put any weight on my right heel. According to the hospital I'm at "severely high risk" of getting a bone infection. Well, I can still walk on my toes, and I have a cane.

There's probably a lot of lessons that could be pulled out of this story. Like, don't try to save a cat because he will just maul you, and remember bicyclers should be on the street so make them yield to pedestrians. Maybe we could simplify that. Don't do anything for anyone, because it's just going to get you fucked up.

No, I don't actually mean that, but there is some beautiful irony in the whole situation. I think what really should be learned from this is that we should pay attention to our surroundings, and stop acting like we are the only people alive on this planet.

I guess all I'm saying is things don't go according to plan and life is full of setbacks. Well, I for one aim to be back wandering downtown barefoot and flinging rocks just as soon as I am able. Oh, and I'll be running too. Unless maybe, I lose my foot...

Keep ya posted.
AiGe

You can delete November, but you can't delete the program.

I was having a rare conversation once with a good friend. It was the kind of rare conversation that only comes around a couple times more often than Hailey's comet. I was actually talking about myself.

We were talking about how when I was young I used to be a clown, always ready to say what I thought and more energy than I knew what to do with. While on the subject my friend asked what happened that made me change from being that boy.

I answered her succinctly. "I was brainwashed."

I like telling that story, because the irony of it is what's so damn funny these days. Especially for a meat package like myself. Just one more walking meal among another hundred million, or however the hell many of us there are these days.

You see, all us Synthetics have it rough like that. We've all been brainwashed. We've been brainwashed since day one of our creation into thinking we're real. The growing and cultivating process is just added layers of brainwashing. We're told all the little things we do matter, as our friends get eaten around us.

We are brainwashed into thinking life still exists, but it doesnt. The program is there, in the back of our sentience for anyone with the consciousness to look. We're all just food for the flesh eaters. Synthetically grown as a last ditch effort to keep the zombies occupied while life attempted to exist.

It didn't. There's a subsidized file where the last living human saved his good bye to the universe and died. It was dated with a date now rendered irrelevant with the passing of society. You see nothing mattered. The machines will always just keep making more of us machines and the living dead will keep on being dead. Being dead and eating us. Time doesn't hold any relevance in a society of nothing but robots and the dead.

So maybe now you understand the irony when I tell you I changed because I was brainwashed. We've all been brainwashed for such a long time. We're really just complex functions within even more complex functions playing out in an endless loop, all trying to distract us from the fact that we are nothing but food.

Science: proving that forgetting is healthy.

I read a very interesting article over on Beach Front News written by Boomer.


"...That tendency to go blank about who-I-said-what-to might actually be evidence of a healthy memory at work. There’s evidence that when we reset a password or memorize a new phone number for a friend, the brain actively suppresses the out-of-date information. Because the old digits are competing with the new ones for memory space, the memory ‘deletes’ the potentially conflicting info. And retold stories aren’t always socially embarrassing or redundant. Repeated often enough, they become ritual, and, over time, oral history, Dr. Gobie says. It is also interesting to note that people with the most to gain – or lose – in terms of whom hears what (lobbyists, attorneys, salespeople) will often use the name of the person they are speaking with as a reminder: “Did I mention, Tom, the free emergency roadside assistance package?” While it could be could considered flattery, it could also be a means of tracking where information is going..." Beach Front News "Why We Forget What We say and to Whom"

The article brought up a lot of questions for me.

It almost sounded like "science" is now saying they think that forgetting is healthy. Or are they brainwashing us to tell us to do more drugs? Or am I just paranoid?

I don't know about the rest of that, but I do think if brains that habitually forget their short term memory are considered healthy, we must now be saying the brains that remember those details are unhealthy?

I wonder if they considered photographic memories in their studies? Perhaps, people that do not reset their memories, the way this article describes, forget other details that most everyone else remembers?

Is that where the idea of eccentricity comes from?
Einstein couldn't remember to tie his shoes. I can't remember my own Mother's Birthday. Maybe those are signs of an unhealthy brain?

Either, way, I'd love to see more research by the "professionals" on this one. I know I personally could really stand a memory wipe.

Whine, Peace, and Commiserating: Another Holiday Tale

So, it's been a year of change, adaptation, and growing. I figured I better end it fittingly and set the stage for the direction in which I want to grow. I've been doing that, awkwardly, and struggling, I assure you, but results are still results, even when you can't recognize them from what you had planned. Everyone knows nothing ever works out how you want it too. How could it, possibly? Yet there's still beauty in it. Sometime you just have to get dirty to see it.

Christmas was amazing. Thanks to everyone who was a part of it. We'll do it again in the near future and my condolences to those that couldn't make it, another time mayhaps.

For now, I'm taking off and enjoying the rest of the holidays as I've discovered computers make me crazy. Be back later.

AiG