Engaged

So after some time of kicking around the back to blogging thing I've gotten to the point were I have to say I'm going to blog. I like to write it makes me happy. I got into writing a journal when I was 16 and I have kept one in one form or another since then. I've lost some, I've burned some, some are just mental notes or thoughts on scraps of paper here and there. I like it, it allows me to say what I feel in the now and it may not be what anyone else thinks or feels but it's me doing me. I can't help or change if anyone who reads this walks away with something different from what I got from the process but if it helps them great, if it doesn't, all I can say is it's more for me but in an unselfish way. If that makes sense.


As to the title no I'm not engaged to anyone ... as the guide says on the cover DON'T PANIC! It's a command as well or a verb to signify the start of something. I start stop start stop etc.... all the time doing various things. So I guess it is the start or restart of the blogging but it's more than that too.

We get caught up in boxes of things or places and get lost in the process of, rather than getting lost in the moment of things. As I was doing a doodle today of stick figures in peril I started putting them into boxes, each box had a specific snippet of life inside. Only one second in the life of the stick person. The entertained, the sad moment, the happy one, the death scene, etc.

We some times get caught in that box where the embarrassing thing has happened, the depressing thing or other event. We can't destroy the boxes but we can escape them so I started putting stick figures in the process of leaving their boxes. One on a zip line, another with a chainsaw, my creative little escapes from the things that are anchoring me here inside my boxes.

I read somewhere that the only prison that can ever hold a person is the one where you control their mind. So many times I do find myself imprisoned by the controls society defines or in the boxes if you will, some of them are built by me. Others that we are bombarded by from every direction and we all start doing the Stepford walk and talk. "It's a rattrap Judy and We've been caught" ** I'm caught too probably more often than some but being aware of the trap is part of the solution the other part is doing.

So to steal a line from the movie platoon, I'm not sure if it was in the book as well, "free the mind and the ass will follow". Know you are not trapped and you won't be. You may not always be able to do the things you want when you want but you can do them. And in the between times let your mind wander a bit, day dream for a few minutes. Look off into space and go somewhere.

You are where your mind is and you can still be anchored to reality and start cutting escape holes and digging tunnels out of the boxes then the next thing you know it's not so bad. Try to get back to the place where playing with the box was as much or more fun than the toy that came inside. I know not a very capitalistic thing to say but that's the point redefine success and happiness in your own terms rather than someone else's. You'll find you are better off for it and if someone says I don't know why you do that, say because it makes me happy. If they don't get it they aren't going to and if they try to change you or say it's dumb they haven't found a way to be happy that goes out side the boxes or they just can't see your path from their box.

Anyway, that's my chainsaw through the wall of the box it may make sense to you or not. It makes sense to me.




** Lyric from the song "Rattrap" by The Boomtown Rats

To blog or not to blog?

While I may from time to time come up with a witty thing to title pages to my blog I am not Bill.

To blog or not to blog that is the question, whether it be nobler to suffer... yeah I'm not going to steal the whole thing and besides I think I got it wrong after the bit everyone knows.

I ask because eventually people will start reading and then no matter what your intent as the writer is the intent that matters is that which is read. So do I say I don't care if people misread me or do I just keep a paper journal and deal with that if and when anyone reads them. Most likely the paper one I keep won't be read until I'm dead and maybe not even then.

Sort of related to the legacy thing. What do we leave behind? what mark do we leave on the world. I'm not sure I will leave any other then my children and if they have grand children.

I'm not really bothered by that though mainly because I won't be around for it and the I'm all right with that too. I guess the whole thing I have the problem with is the whole how to fill the space between now and when I'm dead.

Yeah that's the big struggle for everyone. How to fill the space between. Well I'll let you know if I have any thoughts on that.

Legacy

I was thinking about that whole existential dilemma, life is meaningless and death is inevitable. Meaning nothing we do no matter how significant will protect us from our eventual demise. We attempt ways to cheat death and find immortality but all our efforts fail and we all fall

I was wondering that is all seems rather depressing but why? I think if you accept that you will die and no matter what you do will change that it is a bit more freeing.

What legacy will any of us leave and for myself I was wondering two or three generations down the road will there be any evidence that I lived at all other than perhaps genetic material passed down to my great, great grandchildren who may or may not know I've even lived.

Sunday

Weekend productivity.

Well I wouldn't say I was uber productive or even a bit productive.

Perhaps a we bit productive.

I did find out something about myself and I'm happy and not so happy about what I have discovered. No I will not go into more detail. No don't even ask. No this isn't a ploy to get any one to ask.

I did however already decide on a way to deal with that and I will say I don't have the same profile but I do belive the same things.

In the shower I had an awakening moment too. That one is personal and I can't share.

I'm going to watch a movie now and I'll try to be more exciting later and more informative as well.

Simplicity

Keeping things simple isn't as simple as it seems. Well I'm sure it is if you are socialized to keep things simple. However if you are not socialized that way and the society around you says the way to measure success is to have stuff. Then by not having stuff aren't you making a statement against society.

Anyway I need to simplify things

I also notice that hate spreads much faster than love

I sort of missed my point

So I’ve missed my point, which based on my past writing in other blogs is something I do rather a lot. Jumbled ideas.

So I had several things floating in my head yesterday. One I don’t like people, Two I was tired of hearing about everyone complain about how they weren’t keeping their resolutions, three I need to stop swearing in some settings, four we are indeed heading to hell in a hand basket which was more related to not liking people and five that when does being snarky just become being a disagreeable person.

I think I need to clarify the snarky to disagreeable thing. I guess when you are jobless and snarky no matter what age you are it’s not a good thing. So teens without the job or more to the point the real means to support yourself out of your parent’s home, it is disagreeable and at times rude. So Dane Cook can be snarky you pay him to be, you being snarky to your math teacher is a bad idea.

If you are an unemployed adult with the ability to work and don’t because you don’t want to work you loose the right to be snarky.

With that out of the way, the issue of people. I like people, well some people. As most of you I don’t know a significant amount of the population and can’t say if they are worthy of distain or not. If they are driving in front of me 20 miles an hour slower than the posted limit on dry roads then I don’t like you very much and I am most likely giving you the finger under the sight line of other motorists and muttering swear words under my breath. See they do have place in society. Then I remember that I should be calmer and I breathe and just pray for you to turn to go in a different direction than I am going.

However I am not liking people a lot recently. I know this is because of my job. I get to deal with people who should not be doing the things they are doing. Mostly they know better but they just don’t care. You know if you don’t want kids, don’t fuck. If you want to fuck and don’t want kids use birth control. If you get knocked up and don’t want the kids there are solutions to that. I’m not going to advocate any one over another. My choice is mine and yours is yours. You are free to do which ever you want. Then you can sleep until noon and as long as you can pay your rent or find someone willing to let you lay in their bed and not pay bills then so be it.

The last paragraph leads nicely to my next point when is snarky just disagreeable. I will concede that maybe some of the aforementioned people have some redeeming qualities and don’t need to be shoot on sight but mainly I’m not liking them. But does my saying they are lazy, bottom feeding scum make me a disagreeable person or can my flip comments be seen as snarky rants because I do try to help them even if my heart isn’t in it for them. I’m not a bleeding heart liberal but I’m not a board up my butt conservative either. Mostly these slack ass people do know better but only just. We would have called them JEEP’s in the military Just Educated Enough to Pass. That doesn’t make for very good citizens. It doesn’t make for a very good work force, it doesn’t make for a very good society and the list goes on and on. That’s why I’m not conservative you can’t expect to have a strong society if you don’t invest in the society and by that I mean the people. However, there comes a point where you do know right from wrong and need to be held accountable for your actions. Not everyone is as mentally ill as the APA or counseling association would like to think they are so the can send billable hours to insurance companies or Medicaid. Anyway there is a middle path in there.

That is only part of dislike of people, our own lack of care and greed. Greed is why we driving our selves to the brink of destruction. You don’t need to have 2000 percent profit on everything you sell. Some things sure why not if you can get it, fine but come on people not everything we do is worth 900.00 an hour.

Then the resolutions don’t make them if you don’t intend to keep them and if you don’t keep them I don’t want to hear about it. And I’m not trying to stop cussing as part of a resolution I’m just not trying to swear in certain settings. Which has made me question if I’m snarky or am I a disagreeable person? I think I’m snarky but the use of swears I think at times just makes me seem disagreeable and the use of absolute terms in things too because not all of any person is bad and not all of any person is redeeming.

I’m just me

Have a great day and play nice in the neighborhood,

Ciao,

invisible don aka King of Bastards
(bumper stickers available on request)

Resolution-less

Resolution-less

Really what is the point of making a resolution? Most of us are not resolute in anything we say we are going to do. We are a nation of slackers, malcontents and then scratch our heads or more correctly our bloating stomachs or widening sitting muscles and wonder why is it that the rest of the world is passing us by and leaving our high school shenanigans and policies behind.

So if you are reading this why not dash over to the dictionary. You know that dusty book of words under the leg of your table keeping it balanced. Yeah get about a half dozen of your cosmos or gamer guides and replace them for the dictionary and look up resolute. I’ll wait.

I’m trying not to swear as much, not that I don’t think “swears” have there place in our language I believe that they do, however like the green wax isn’t currently acceptable. Am I resolute in this no because I don’t believe that the stick wearing up tight people are correct about certain words self censoring to please others – which I hate myself for but it allows me to keep things I do like. Sell out …perhaps … pragmatic is more to the point. But really my point is that while many of you may be contemplating your failure to keep your resolutions made all of a week ago, most likely in the haste of a drunken stupor … don’t feel so badly you weren’t all that resolute about the change anyway because if you were, your starting point wouldn’t have been January 1 following a night of binge drinking it would have been the first time you told yourself that what you were doing was a problem

I’ve been resolute in one resolution thus far. Not to make resolutions any more. I’ve been resolute in that now for well over 10 years.