Honest thought and analysis on a variety of subjects, often spiced with humor
(About an 8 minute read)
I think the best way to begin a discussion of how small town reputations work is by talking about Glen.
Glen shocked me that day I discovered he was an adamant creationist, but in hindsight I should have seen it coming, for evolution contradicted his faith. In my shock I thought a few things I regret now. Notions about him that lacked understanding and kindness, and that were absurdly false and misleading.
(About a 3 minute read)
There are so many toxic people and places on the net — villainous people who will jump you, not for money, but out of gratuitous outrage, or for some ideology they’re too dull to know better than to swallow whole.
Bloggers have it best. Almost no trolls. Every blog comes with a ban button, you see, in order to put the kids to bed so that the adults can have a conversation.
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If humans had better foresight, there just would not be a whole lot of men who fail to ever ask out that woman. You know, that woman they’re going to keenly regret never having made an effort for, never having courted at all — regret in about twenty years.
(About a 3 minute read)
It seems to be an exceptionally well recognized fact — albeit still very much a curious one — that most teens and adults have built psychological walls around themselves.
Growing up, I thought that was such a common thing for older people to do that I recall thinking walling yourself off was the mark of an adult — was what distinguished an adult from a child just as much as their size. And — in a way — maybe that really is true.
What do most of us think of our walls?
(About a 6 minute read)
I will be among the last people on earth to become an ascetic. The idea of rejecting pleasure — all pleasure — for any reason gut-punches me. It’s alien, it’s unnecessary, it’s outrageous.
Or at least that’s what my instincts tell me. Whatever the reason, I simply wasn’t born to be an ascetic. Not my path at all. Someone else may “get” asceticism, benefit from it, but not me.
So it might seem curious to some of you that I have gone a full two years in my life without even once laughing out loud. Not once in two years.
Continue reading “Pleasure is Like a Fire: It Warms You or it Burns”
(About a 4 minute read)
I have been thinking lately that, if we wish to live our lives to their fullest — that is, if we wish to flourish — then we will keep in touch with both the good and the bad in us, with both our light and our dark sides.
I’m not an avid fan of the notion — most famously expressed in Star Wars — that the two are separate discrete things, or that they can be split apart in any meaningful way. However, it seems we are under considerable societal pressure to believe just that: That we not only can but ought to feed and nourish our good side, while starving out bad side.
But is that wise?
(About a 1 minute read)
It’s wonderful to be yourself.
It’s a release to be true —
A little short of finding god,
Which is almost as good as the smell
Of leather and of rain.
You feel your powers growing
As your talents fully express,
Burst the concrete
You laid above them
And leaf out for the light
of fun.
Yeah, you still must care
Socially, environmentally,
And all. You cannot murder,
You cannot rape, you cannot rob.
But putting bummers aside,
You can thrive, you can flourish,
You can live.
Often we don’t know how
Because we try to compromise
In order to please the bosses,
The spouses, the partners,
The families, the friends,
The peers, the public,
The leaders, the fools,
The dogs, the cats,
The rabbits, the mice,
And our barnyard lovers
Who once were our only
True fated friends.
It never ends until the day,
Which always comes a bit late,
When our love transcends
Both our fears and desires,
Reaches that mass that must
Now kindle into fire.
That’s when the walls
We made out of standards
We purchased from others
And hopes we could conform
Shudder and shake and shatter,
And we’re reborn.
(About a 2 minute read)
TRIGGER WARNING: Childhood sexual abuse.
How many ways
Can you fuck up a child
That will fuck
Her up for life?
I’ve seen your work.
You’re a sick fuck
And a craftsman alright.
Emily, Diane,
Paula, and Tomoko,
Others I knew less well,
Were all turned
On your lathe
And to your standards.
She lacks boundaries now.
Knows every innuendo
In the English language,
Sticks her hands
Down boy’s pants,
Jumps from bed to bed,
Slow dances with your leg
Between her thighs
At too young an age,
Trying to make sense
Of what all you did before
You tossed her naked
In the finished bin.
She talks in even, objective tones
About her profane second birth
About the things you did
To shape the life she now has.
She grew up
Through the cracks
Though you pave over her.
But her roots are shallow,
Her leaves small and gnawed,
Stems short and thin.
Still she keeps coming back.
You’ve got to hand it to her:
Still she keeps coming back
Whenever someone cuts her,
Wacks her down again
People say, “You’re a slut”,
Not knowing it’s you
Who was first a slut to her,
You who turned her one.
People say, “Why the anger?”.
People say, “Why the hate?”,
And “Stop teasing me, bitch.”
They don’t know and I doubt
Even you know all that you did.
Sometimes you turn them worse
Than you usually do:
Volcanic tempers and abusers
Themselves.
You can still love her
Like that — it’s not like
She’s nothing more than her abuse.
But you must leave her anyway.
It’s either you or her
In the end.
You crucified me too.
Thrust your lance in my heart
I’ve paid in blood and in tears
For her that I loved.
You fuck with a child,
You fuck her friends too,
You fuck her lovers hard,
You fuck everyone who
Will ever love her,
Everyone who will ever
Come close enough to care,
Close enough to know
The machine marks
For what they are.
You’re the weed man,
The wacker, the monster
And the centurion all.
Your the prince of darkness
That’s darker than black.
No matter how fine the suits
That you wear, no matter how many
Cars that you race, no matter how many
Bibles that you own,
You’re a pig.
I won’t tell you what I’d do,
If I got my hands on you —
Even you would not believe it,
Even you would be unprepared.
You’d never die under my hands.
I’d never let you die.
