Psychiatrists tell us that, of all the human needs, the need for safety is the greatest. It is the need that concerns us before worry about anything else. Without safety, they say, we can not be happy, fulfilled or content.
As we travel through life, we are moving without the benefit of signs, maps or a guide. Like wonderers lost in a giant wood, we know where the paths are, the directions they head and, perhaps, where we want to go, but we know nothing about where the paths may lead or how long they will carry us.
You see them everywhere you go. The people that blaze through four way stops, the jerks that cut in line at the movie theater, the morons that intentionally take up two parking spaces at the mall and the fools who thrash around their lives without a care for what impact they might have on others.
As human beings, when we fall into love, we search endlessly for symbols of it. We turn to the time-honored traditions thereof, roses, diamonds, candies and cards in an endless bid to find something, anything, that can fully express what we feel. We hope that, even if but for a fleeting moment, that something we hold can express what tomes of poetry and years and millenia of modern romance has never been able to touch.
There are times when the world is just too much. When fate, fortune and the will of man all turn against us and the deck is simply stacked too deep for us to come out ahead. These are times when a stiff upper lip and a drive to push on simply aren’t enough. These are times of desperation, of hopelessness and of isolation.
When does life happen? When do we go from merely surviving to living? At what point or points do we go from being just cogs inside a machine or people just waiting for something better and become truly alive?
Envy is a dangerous emotion, it is a cancer to society and, sadly, a natural part of human nature. It causes us to look at the accomplishments and possessions of our fellow man and react not with awe or esteem, but hatred and discontent.
There’s an old saying that states if one person’s rights and freedoms are trampled with impunity, then no one’s rights are safe. If we, as a society, stand idly by and let freedoms be desecrated, then we’re all just standing in line to have our rights revoked next. In such a land, no man is truly free, instead, we’re all just living off of borrowed time.
None of us are born with an identity. Though our born and bred genetic code goes on to define a great deal of who we are, our coding means nothing without the experiences we go through and the things we witness.
Finding a home is a lot like finding love. Many people search for it their entire lives only to never truly taste it. Often, people look for it in the wrong places at the wrong times, mistaking it for something more trivial or giving it up when they find it. In many ways, finding a home is a love, only that, instead of finding the connection in a person, one finds it in a place.
A code, in the moral sense of the word, is a simple thing. It’s a series of laws and rules written by human beings to set down a series of beliefs, a pattern of conduct or a collection of ideals. It is as tangible as the paper it’s written on and it’s easy to read, understand and, supposedly, follow. It’s as real and as solid as the people who believe in it.
There comes a time in all of our lives when we need to go away, when we need to leave behind where we are, who we are and what we are in order to find some perspective on our lives.
The very nature of life is that of struggle. From the moment we take our first breath until the day we take our last, our lives are locked in a series of constant and ongoing battles, battles against ourselves, the world and even each other.
When we look at the evil deeds of other men, we work hard to distance ourselves from them. The most vile and evil individuals in our history lose their humanity, at least in our eyes, and become monsters, demons or worse.
Everywhere we look, we see badges. We’re surrounded by them, bombarded by them and entranced by them. They’re a part of our lives, almost from day one and they remain as such until the day we die.
No matter where we are or what time of the day or night it is, we are never truly alone. Deep within ourselves exists an alternate version of who we are, a twisted mirror image if you will, that reflects our very nature, all the while standing as a virtual polar opposite for the way the world sees us day in and day out.
The most vicious force of time is how it wears down all of the things it touches. Time, in its purest form, is the only thing that can turn mountains into dust, empires into shadows and human lives into distant reflections.
I come from a long line of teachers. Both of my parents are currently teachers, at least part time, one of my grandmothers and both of my aunts were teachers until they retired and my family tree, on both sides, is littered with teachers of all varieties as far back as I can trace them.
The need to help others, in my experience, is one of the greatest weaknesses a person can have. Though posessing it is seen as a good thing and earns one the laurels of being noble or saintly, it’s a bitter curse that follows those who posses it, often clean to their grave.
Blame is probably one of the dirtiest words in the English language. Everyone looks for it, everyone takes it and everyone deals with it, but no one likes to talk about it. Even though we’re a world of people pointing fingers, our mouths are silent even as our fingers are outstretched.
We all have weaknesses, we all have flaws in our character and in our person that prevents us from achieving the impossible goal of perfection. It’s in the nature of being human and they’re a part of what make us unique.
If there’s one thing my recent adventures have taught me, it’s that there’s no room for doubt when you’re taking action.
No matter where you go, no matter what you do and no matter who you meet, everyone is talking about their rights, perceived, real or desired. Everybody is talking about what they’re entitled to, or at least what they feel they’re entitled to, and they ramble on, seemingly endlessly, about it.
I’ve never desired followers. If anything, I’ve only wanted to create leaders, to imbue individuals with the power and ideas to take control of their lives, change their destinies and, perhaps, change the world.
I hear it all the time on the news and on the talk shows. Where are all the heroes? Where are all of the role models? Where are the people for our sons and daughters to look up to? Where are the people that the rest of the world can strive to be like?
There are those among us who are born with a gift, a gift that lets them see the world in the way few mortals ever could, in a way that eyes alone can never begin to comprehend. These people, these few but proud people, take a look at our world and see not the mass of humanity and objects that exist, but what can exist. They don’t see what is, but rather, they see what could be.
What is it about the written word that draws us to it? What is it that makes so many of us, myself included, dedicate our entire lives to understanding it, to honing it, to refining it like never before. Why is it that, no matter how hard we try, there’s just something magical about seeing things in black and white that we can never capture when just talking or even watching.
As human beings, we’re born with two pieces of knowledge that no other animal on the planet possesses, that we are going to die at some point and that our lives are supposed to fill some kind of higher purpose.
Sometimes in life we find ourselves so busy with our day-to-day existences that we, as people, forget what the larger picture is really about. We get so enwrapped in getting by and surviving that we forget the reasons we fight so hard to stay alive and we lose sight of the things, the countless, wondrous things, that make life on this planet more than just tolerable, but enjoyable.
The mind is a weapon. Like any weapon known to man, with great skill, training and preparation it can be a formidable tool of attack or defense, an invaluable ally in times of conflict. However, also like any other weapon, the mind can be used against its holder and instead of becoming a tool of defense and protection, it becomes a tool of self-destruction and self-devastation.
We all claim to love freedom. When carried on the lips of the patriotic, the democratic and the lovers of liberty, freedom is the greatest thing on the planet. It is the alpha and the omega of the human existence and pinnacle of human achievement. To many, it’s the only thing worth fighting and dying for and to countless others living without it, it’s the only thing worth hoping for.
Everyone seems to wonder why artists of all types always seem to be a little bit out there, a little bit crazy or a little bit beyond the fringe of society. Artists, writers and musicians have a long track record of mental disease, drug/alcohol abuse and other self-destructive behavior. No matter how magnificent or profound their works seem to be, artists themselves seemed to be doomed to lives of misery, insanity and slow destruction.
Many years ago, on the day of atonement, towns would hold ceremonies in which they would place all of their sins into a single goat and then cast it out in the desert, presumably to die of thirst or starvation, in order to purge themselves of their own misdeeds and guilt. While the whole town celebrated being lifted of the burden of sin, one poor goat, which was chosen because he was “without blemish,” was forced to die a slow, miserable death in the hot desert just beyond the town’s borders.
It’s on the lips of the heartbroken and downtrodden, it’s in the poetry of the cheated-on and the abandoned and it’s in the hearts of the abused an trampled, those four little words, “Love is a lie!”
They say that man is a creature of two worlds, the world of the living and the world of the dreaming. In the world of the living, we are all simply people, people roaming the planet doing jobs, paying bills and living our lives. In the world of dreams, we are all writers and musicians who create art, write masterful stories of fantasy and though we may be victims of nightmares at times, we are still able to express ourselves and enjoy ourselves with a kind of child-like freedom never to be found in the waking.
I have a news headline for you: We’re all dead.
For many of us, when we find happiness, we are quick to learn that in society there is a hierarchy of happiness, an arbitrary order that places some forms of self-fulfillment as being greater than others. Where the world calls one kind of happiness “real” or “perfect” it calls another “hollow” or “empty” as if to say that a person riding high on one type of wave is not as truly happy as the man standing next to him, riding a separate, but higher, one.
When whoever uttered the words, “We always hurt the ones we love,” spoke that truism, they probably had no idea exactly how right they were and continue to be.
Questions will always be more powerful than statements. Questions will always linger longer than declarations. But most importantly, questions will always change the world long after their answers have been forgotten.
The quickest road to mediocrity is to quit dreaming. Because the moment you stop dreaming is the moment you stop reaching for something more, the moment you stop growing and the moment you stop excelling.
Time never stops, it never slows down, it never takes a breath. Life goes on. Just because we’re fond of sayings like “The day the earth stood still” or “Time froze for a second” doesn’t mean they’re true.
Have you ever imagined that there was another world just beyond your doorstep. Another universe just outside our own. A place where what we now consider impossible becomes possible, a place where what is now just fantasy becomes reality?
Nothing that I have done up to now has brought me any closer to discovering what I want out of life, much less any closer to achieving it. I can’t begin to count the days I’ve spent wondering the desert of human existence monitoring my happiness and trying to figure out what brought me joy and what brought me pain.
Sometimes I forget why I bother existing in this world. When I look around me, I see nothing but sheep being led to the slaughter, souls being destroyed by vicious shepherds and enough suffering to fill a million masochistic novels.
As I stare over the plain of humanity, I see a populace filled to the brim with idiots, buffoons and sheep. There is no safe haven for people like me, no place to go to get away from the idiocy of the planet. Every restaurant it seems is filled with morons, every movie theater littered with cretins and every place where humans are allowed to walk, there are jerks.
There was a time in which men wore suits of metal to protect themselves when going into battle. At another point, various cultures in Africa fought their battles in the nude seeking a more divine form of protection.
In much the same way we as people protect ourselves against the slings and arrows of the outside world. Some of us raise great walls within our minds and hope to hole ourselves up in solitude and denial. Others, throw open wide the gates to their heart and let the world do what it will hoping that everything will equal nothing.
I don’t know what it is that draws me to the night. All I know is that my soul seems to come alive when the sun goes down and my mind opens up the most during the blackest of nights.
We live in a commercial world my friends. We’re told what’s valuable, like we don’t know what’s important. Like children we can no longer tell what’s necessary and what’s just nice to have. Needs are now created and seldom met, because a met need doesn’t sell a product.
“You don’t need to do that, what you have is good enough,” they say. I disagree. Our society is all about the bare minimum, just getting by. I, on the other hand, am about excelling, going one step further and ignoring the when it’s time to stop.
In the three and a half years I have been running this site, I have done a lot of hypothesizing about the untimely deaths of many men and women: the cause, apathy.
