Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger

As another grueling weekend of investigative journalism comes to a close, I have compiled a short list of some of the things that I've learned from it.

1) Life is very, very weird.

2) When dealing with Life nothing ever works out the way you want it to.

3) Life has, by far, the best sneak attack out of everyone I know.

Cheers to that Life.

I'll keep working on that hook.

See ya later in the week.

Oh yeah, and 4) Deadmau5 is pretty awesome.

Procrastinating Today

So I took this interesting, little test just now and since I'm bored and procrastinating, I figured I'd post the results. If anyone else wants to take and share your results with me please do.

Your result for The Quick & Painless ENNEAGRAM Test...

6 - the Questioner

Thanks for taking the test !

you chose CY - your Enneagram type is SIX (aka "The Loyalist").

"I am affectionate and skeptical"

Questioners are responsible, trustworthy, and value loyalty to family, friends, groups, and causes. Their personalities range broadly from reserved and timid to outspoken and confrontative.

How to Get Along with Me

• Be direct and clear.

• Listen to me carefully.

• Don't judge me for my anxiety.

• Work things through with me.

• Reassure me that everything is OK between us.

• Laugh and make jokes with me.

• Gently push me toward new experiences.

• Try not to overreact to my overreacting.

What I Like About Being a SIX

• being committed and faithful to family and friends

• being responsible and hardworking

• being compassionate toward others

• having intellect and wit

• being a nonconformist

• confronting danger bravely

• being direct and assertive

What's Hard About Being a SIX

• the constant push and pull involved in trying to make up my mind

• procrastinating because of fear of failure; having little confidence in myself

• fearing being abandoned or taken advantage of

• exhausting myself by worrying and scanning for danger

• wishing I had a rule book at work so I could do everything right

• being too critical of myself when I haven't lived up to my expectations

SIXes as Children Often

• are friendly, likable, and dependable, and/or sarcastic, bossy, and stubborn

• are anxious and hypervigilant; anticipate danger

• form a team of "us against them" with a best friend or parent

• look to groups or authorities to protect them and/or question authority and rebel

• are neglected or abused, come from unpredictable or alcoholic families, and/or take on the fearfulness of an overly anxious parent

SIXes as Parents

• are often loving, nurturing, and have a strong sense of duty

• are sometimes reluctant to give their children independence

• worry more than most that their children will get hurt

• sometimes have trouble saying no and setting boundaries

Renee Baron & Elizabeth Wagele, The Enneagram Made Easy. Discover the 9 Types of People.

Harper: San Francisco, 1994, 161 pages

You liked the test? so S P R E A D I T ! tell everyone!!!

(copypaste the HTML-code from below to your profile or blog!)

please, leave a comment HERE

you wanna know MORE? so check out, what Wikipedia says about your type... ...even more you'll find in Google

_____________________

You are not completely happy with the result?!

You chose CY. Use the BACK-button on your browser see the other options!

Take The Quick & Painless ENNEAGRAM Test at OkCupid

A Message for the Stars

I might have failed at everything, but at least I know I tried. I've only ever known how to be myself and staring at you shining in the midnight sky with all that space around you reminds me of how insignificant I really am. Is it any wonder that the harder I reached for you the dimmer your glow became? Was it a passing cloud? Was it because your light had actually gone out years ago, but only now is it reaching me-in my time, in this place? I have reached as far as I possibly could, but still never came close to closing this distance between us. I would leave my arm extended for all eternity if it were possible, but such idealistic thinking is pointless. I have stood still and stretched and you have looked back at me and faded. It is a bittersweet conclusion, but as I turn away I know in my heart that it is you who has really lost. Stars are dead before they are even seen.

Searching for Pluto (part 2)

So, this is the second installation in the untitled story I started back on Nov. 4th, that some of you expressed interest in continuing to read. I have to apologize, because, I had written up a lot more than this shortly after that date, but due to a freak computer accident lost a whole lot of pages of writing.

I'm tentatively changing the name from Untitled to Searching for Pluto so that it's easier to search if you want to go back and read part one. I'm also posting this draft as is on the first write up and completely unedited, because, well, I'm lazy and don't feel like editing. Er, rather, I'm going to do all my edits when the stories finished.
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Nothing in life ever works out the way you want it to. Not even a fucking bus ride. It was every bit as terrible as I expected it to be, even if it was a helluva lot shorter than what I paid for.
Things would have been okay had they let me smoke, but apparently us cigarette addicts don’t have any rights. Never mind that the cigarette would have helped quell the nausea from the way the bus sloshed my brain back and forth.
So I sat in my seat sipping on my handle feeling outrageously sick for the beginning of the ride. It didn’t take too long before the bus’s bouncing made me vomit. Pity, that I was half asleep in my seat when it happened.
I stumbled my way to the little bathroom in the rear of the bus emptying the contents of my stomach the entire time. Inside, I tried my best to clean myself up, but it was pretty difficult considering the bus obviously wasn’t going to stop bouncing me around.
I think at some point I must have decided to sit down, because the next thing I remember is the bus driving kicking me and telling me we were at a rest stop and I had to get off. Cigarette. I breathed a sigh of relief at the realization and made my way to my feet, muttering my thanks.
Outside the air was frigid, but I didn’t care, I fumbled in my pockets till I found the two items I was seeking and plopped down onto the nearest bench. I put the cigarettes to my lips and struck the flame, breathing in. Thank god tobacco tastes better than vomit.
I drank the last few swigs from my handle and promptly blacked out. When I came to, the first thing I noticed was that someone had placed my guitar beside me on the bench. My first instinct was to check it, even though I knew I was the only one with the lock. It wasn’t until after I had the case open and assured myself it was still there that I realized my bus was nowhere to be seen.
I could go on and tell you about the hours I wasted on the phone bitching to the bus company, or the security guard that kept trying to chase me off, but it I won’t bore you. Let’s just say it sucked. Apparently the fact the bus left without me was entirely my own fault and there was nothing they would do for me. No refund, no other bus. I was stranded in some freezing, bumble-fuck country out in the middle of nowhere.
I pulled my sweatshirt tighter around me, shouldered my guitar, and left the watchful gaze of the security guard behind as I trudged my way out from the rest stop area and onto the highway.
The wind was bitter, and I realized then that I had just traded my entire life for a handle of booze and a carton of cigarettes and I didn’t even know where the hell I was. I sighed, and tried not to think about how cold my feet felt.
Fortunately, I still knew where I had to go. I still knew where she went even if it was starting to look further and further away then Pluto. Even if I didn’t know how I was going to get there, I still knew that I was going. At least it wouldn’t be so cold.

Motivationally Speaking

This is my call out to all the world's positive people: Where are you? Come out. I want to surround myself amongst every single one of you and let your leaves intermingle mine. I want to become the branches that support you. I want your flesh to be at one within me, to transform our joined skin into the bark, so that we can all become the trunk that supports us. I want to direct my energies to lifting you up and in turn be lifted in kind to higher levels of being. I am sick of the weight of carrying the burden, of always trying to push those up that always want to hold me down. So positive people step forward, and turn your leaves towards the sun. The time for self hate and cowering blind is over. Step into the light and embrace. Embrace me. Embrace yourselves. Let us all carry the weight together with our tap roots sunk firm and deep beneath the earth so that when the wind blows, we all sway.
-fin

Ladies and Gentlemen, I do believe that this now officially concludes our brief experiment with Raw: an ongoing work of ...art? Yes, I know, shocking. Especially because in the end Raw failed entirely to be anything resembling what I had intended.

Raw wasn't a complete failure, it gave me two very different and solid ideas for short stories I may or may not work on at some point. It also gave me countless ideas for poetry and lyrics, that again, maybe someday I'll go back to.

Truth be told after a week of nonstop writing, and the last two days spent simply combing over the pages and pages of abstract thought, I finally was able to make sense of some things. Not everything. I've still got a million questions, many of which make me lose sleep at night, but a small gain is still a gain.

For now, I think this piece is a perfect and fitting conclusion for this experiment, and I hope you all find it the same. I'm going to leave you all with this very beautiful quote I was lucky enough to be shown, because it fits:
"Make yourself as small as possible. Then grow."
-Unknown Source

Saul Williams Quote.

"...And it is my compassion for all who suffer, whether under suppressive rule or the silent rule of tradition and militant sheepishness, those who feel powerless in the face of change, who wish things would be different but have no idea how to go at it alone; those who feel alone, who feel compelled to “think different” beyond the trademark of their times, who only need a single spark to be the light that outshines history, those who dare not be shrouded by religious mystery; it is because of my belief in the power of art to act like a B vitamin: flush the system and dislodge the fat and disease from the tissue surrounding the heart and brain; because I want my shot at the virus, and because I think apathy is a plague and want to rid the slow of progress from it’s time-consuming glitches…."



Read the whole thing on Saul William's myspace. http://bulletins.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=bulletin.read&authorID=13395348&messageID=6603923180

Concluding Raw

So there is definitely more than enough brainstormed material in the last several days work. I promised a part 2 to brainstorming, but it isn't coming. I had planned to conclude the brainstorming on Dec 1st but instead I took the day off to try and live a healthier life. By Dec 2, I had already moved on from the brainstorming.

The good news is is that I was able to sift through all of the raw thought fragments and I came up with two different story ideas from all the chaos and an indeterminable number of potential songs and/or poems.

So here's the new plan, I'm going to focus on one of the story ideas, but I'm not sure which yet. I'm going to spend the next several days working up intros for both, then I'll post them, and then maybe you can tell me which one you want me to write, we can all vote on it or something, and maybe I'll listen.