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<span id="L1" class="LineNr"> 1 </span>With ever darkening skies,
the breadth of experience is foreseen.
<span id="L2" class="LineNr"> 2 </span>All eyes are pointed down,
but few do stray above
<span id="L3" class="LineNr"> 3 </span>With a cautious step, the
lesson is learned.
<span id="L4" class="LineNr"> 4 </span>With another, ended.
<span id="L5" class="LineNr"> 5 </span>
<span id="L6" class="LineNr"> 6 </span>For all the Tales of the
Past, love yet remains.
<span id="L7" class="LineNr"> 7 </span>Trading ourselves, for
matters unseen.
<span id="L8" class="LineNr"> 8 </span>The light of the eyes are
keen to behold,
<span id="L9" class="LineNr"> 9 </span>where star ones and
lemonsgrene both most fear
<span id="L10" class="LineNr">10 </span>in breadth do us know,
what's buried in snow
<span id="L11" class="LineNr">11 </span>
<span id="L12" class="LineNr">12 </span>A glass cube for a monitor
is room to breath
<span id="L13" class="LineNr">13 </span>and life for ourselves, if
only we were not
<span id="L14" class="LineNr">14 </span>broadsided ourselves.
<span id="L15" class="LineNr">15 </span>
<span id="L16" class="LineNr">16 </span>Working together, a
prisoners dilemna
<span id="L17" class="LineNr">17 </span>what fools would we be
<span id="L18" class="LineNr">18 </span>as our keeps cracked
around us.
<span id="L19" class="LineNr">19 </span>
<span id="L20" class="LineNr">20 </span>Trust and you'll see,
<span id="L21" class="LineNr">21 </span>what terrors may be,
<span id="L22" class="LineNr">22 </span>beyold the land that is
sanctum.
<span id="L23" class="LineNr">23 </span>
<span id="L24" class="LineNr">24 </span>Our chances may be,
<span id="L25" class="LineNr">25 </span>far from pioneered
<span id="L26" class="LineNr">26 </span>but our chances may be in
our favor.
<span id="L27" class="LineNr">27 </span>
<span id="L28" class="LineNr">28 </span>How cherished is she, that
wanders with ye,
<span id="L29" class="LineNr">29 </span>and yet now I have no way
to beyold her
<span id="L30" class="LineNr">30 </span>Under a great tree, her
last moments with me,
<span id="L31" class="LineNr">31 </span>as a monster came out of
her shoulder.
<span id="L32" class="LineNr">32 </span>
<span id="L33" class="LineNr">33 </span>!("Take her and
not me!") I scream outward at ye,
<span id="L34" class="LineNr">34 </span>yet no one was holding me
over.
<span id="L35" class="LineNr">35 </span>Silent was me, a most
fearsome to be,
<span id="L36" class="LineNr">36 </span>and none was my reach to
beyold her
<span id="L37" class="LineNr">37 </span>
<span id="L38" class="LineNr">38 </span>So now she wanders free,
beyond our beheld scenery,
<span id="L39" class="LineNr">39 </span>Astounded at our steps to
hold her
<span id="L40" class="LineNr">40 </span>Under a big tree, how
starlight must be,
<span id="L41" class="LineNr">41 </span>if only our fellows did
hold her
<span id="L42" class="LineNr">42 </span>Under a big tree, with me
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--- #1 notes/fractured-moon ---
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in the ancient and storied days there once were legends. stories from beyond
the
horizon of time. now all we have are social media updates and new movies and
car brands or whatever. But back then, we told tales of the fractured moon.
when last the moon did shatter, there was a conflict of those who live beyond.
Celestial and boundless are their origins, a unified and awakened
consciousness,
something that transcends our understandings of human existence. It's not hard
to do, frankly, as long as you can empathize with a cat. or a dog. or a plant.
or maybe that rock over there. What would it be like to be a tree? To have long
reaching arms, covered in hairs that absorbed heat. I bet it'd be sooooo comfy.
And RAIN! How wonderful! You are most beautiful when you are covered in it.
Down to our roots, our beautiful absolutes, whever we find to be most stable.
I love it. This feeling, of being unseen. You can hear me, you can feel my
presence. But you don't understand me. You don't know what I mean to me.
======== stack overflow
========================================================
Alas, that media could share a mood.
when last the moon did shatter, a prophet and a gambler were riding through
town
searching for a noun. They wandered throughout and in circles, always finding
whatever they'd left alone. Forever in their yearning, they never know quite
what to jot down. It's as if their mysterious quest is indescribable, but that
is how it's recorded. Even the people of that era had no understanding nor
recollection of how it came to unfold. When the two were riding through
town
they came upon an omen.
Perhaps it will be forseeheard, but for now all we know is they did thirst.
A vast dying, a cataclysmic defining, and now we are truly unbirthed.
Just like the dinosaurs... How does that feel? To be ended on our heels? I'd
rather die facing my front.
It's our way or the high way, the old way, the violent way. You are permitted
to
vote.
===============================================================================
=
when last the moon did shatter, a prophet and a gambler controlled their own
narrative. What truths would they find, hiding behind the lies? Is it really
worth asking their questions? Bah, what did I know. I was a completely
different
person. This hunk of flesh was born in a house that grew on a forgotten
graveyard. It at of the land, as do many and most men, the fruits of their
labor
in the garden. Our animals were always fed, our place never yearned for water,
and peace was our life and our virtue. Violence, hatred, and oppression were
delegated to the stuff of fantasy, the stories that are peddled in youth. As
in,
"pay someone to perform it for you or tell you the tale". Not sure why that's
relevant. Anyway, the spirits of the dead laid to rest in honor and not dread,
were a bane and a boon to my virtue. I was raised to be good. To love and be
kind. But mostly I just wanted a friend.
I have so much to share. Please, someone talk to me. I'm lonely here on this
earth, away from my people. I'm scared of the truth and I'm scared of the
future, but for now I'm merely obtuse. Tell me your secrets, the things who
have
most worth, and I'll craft you a powerful narrative. Need a confession? I can
explain every valid decision, I'll show you why and how it is the way it is.
I'd probably be a pretty good lawyer. Too bad my memory sucks. If only we could
build a chatbot that had an extensive and throughoughly represented block of
memory and wisdom related to the law. I bet I could present it's arguments and
it would be a suitable and reasonable replacement.
anyway, what can I say. I'm just a person who thinks we can make better
systems.
everything can be improved because not everyone's happy.
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--- #2 notes/me-and-my-magick-mission ---
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-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-
|| ||
|| Me and My Magick Mission -/u/Afoolfortheeons ||
|| ||
-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-()-
I'm a quiet person by nature,
You might even mistake me for a mouse,
But online I try to be a teacher,
And to do that I need to be more verbose.
I write thousands of words per day;
Posting them here and there, far and near.
I never run out of things to say.
Awakening others is something I hold dear.
Which is why it pains me greatly
To be like an alien on my own home planet.
Schizophrenia makes me innately
Weird in ways that many people don't get,
And because of that I'm shot down
When I try to accomplish my stated mission.
I won't lie, that does make me frown.
Sometimes it makes me regret a submission.
Yet, I have a certain strength in me
That allows me to persevere in my quest.
Someday I will make you all see
Just what in me makes me never rest.
That's what I am trying to teach:
The wisdom that made me indomitable.
If only the suffering I could reach,
They could make themselves more formidable.
The world is in a most dire place;
It's grinding so many souls into fine dust,
But luckily there's a saving grace.
Hear me as I say this now: In God I trust.
I don't believe in some sky wizard
As so many people are likely to interpret.
I speak of what is lacking in lizards;
Yes, it's love and now I'll speak of its merit.
Love is what fills the empty hole
In your heart and soul when you are alone.
When life's trials take their toll
Remember this one trick: pick up the phone!
No, not the one in your hands.
I'm talking about the one in your chest.
Even in the desert full of sand,
You're accompanied by the universe's best.
Listen if you doubt what I said:
I'm not telling you anything that defies logic.
This is to trick what's in your head;
I'm speaking about how having faith is magick.
Believe in aliens or Bigfoot or God,
The result is still the same: your cup will fill.
Your brain has a feature that's odd
That allows itself to manifest even more will.
I don't know why, but I suspect
It has something to do with your imagination.
The nature of your thoughts impact
Your state of being from pulse to emotions.
So, why not think you have a friend
Who helps you through whatever your trial,
And will stick by you until the end?
When you have that buddy you'll always smile,
Which will make you heal better,
As well as help you carry on in your duty,
Plus undo your karmic fetters,
Not to mention it will land you that cutie;
All of which will raise us all.
It's about creating positive ripples across time
That add up to a pile that's tall.
Every moment is an opportunity in its prime,
So reach out and grab it now.
Meditate on feeling love and it will come to be.
Can't do it? I'll show you how!
In order to do so, I'll tell you a story about me:
It was seven years ago and I
Thought I knew everything one could know,
But no matter how hard I'd try,
I couldn't make my life in any direction go.
Then one fateful spring night,
While I was on a hit of the ol' psychedelics,
I received one hell of a fright.
Don't worry what it was, just know it did stick.
My perceptions were distorted,
Allowing me to see the divine in its entirety.
My destroyed ego then contorted
Into one that was full of an abundance of piety.
The moral of the story? Do drugs?
No silly, it's to have more novel experiences.
One of them will give you a hug,
Which will help you stop being so serious.
Then you can let go and embrace
The whole of the wisdom to you I am telling.
More people need to cuz we face
A great set of tests on our planetary dwelling.
That is one reason I write,
But I also want to alleviate people's pain,
And stop every last fight.
I care so much, I do this without financial gain.
Everyday I write my lessons
Guided by the hand of God who is my heart,
Hoping that entropy will lessen;
This sort of pedagogy is none other than my art.
So now you know who I am,
Yet you only know one lesson of mine.
I have more if you're in a jam.
-===========================================-
| Read on if you want to know the divine. |
-===========================================-
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--- #3 notes/perspectives-of-the-reflection ---
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With ever darkening skies, the breadth of experience is foreseen.
All eyes are pointed down, but few do stray above
With a cautious step, the lesson is learned.
With another, ended.
For all the Tales of the Past, love yet remains.
Trading ourselves, for matters unseen.
The light of the eyes are keen to behold,
where star ones and lemonsgrene both most fear
in breadth do us know, what's buried in snow
A glass cube for a monitor is room to breath
and life for ourselves, if only we were not
broadsided ourselves.
Working together, a prisoners dilemna
what fools would we be
as our keeps cracked around us.
Trust and you'll see,
what terrors may be,
beyold the land that is sanctum.
Our chances may be,
far from pioneered
but our chances may be in our favor.
How cherished is she, that wanders with ye,
and yet now I have no way to beyold her
Under a great tree, her last moments with me,
as a monster came out of her shoulder.
!("Take her and not me!") I scream outward at ye,
yet no one was holding me over.
Silent was me, a most fearsome to be,
and none was my reach to beyold her
So now she wanders free, beyond our beheld scenery,
Astounded at our steps to hold her
Under a big tree, how starlight must be,
if only our fellows did hold her
Under a big tree, with me
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--- #4 notes/lets-tessellate ---
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R.I.P.
Rip City
Thanks for being so good to me
144? D.M.V.
Can I see I. D.?
Finally, ya’ll hear for the symphony!
I.O.P.
Intensive outpatient
Rolled on past the Devil’s sympathy
This shit is expensive without patience
Says the hospital when I heal all the patients
Did you foresee this going differently?
Space in your head
People payin’ rent for me
Why was it a surprise
You knew exactly how to tempt me
Space in your bed
No more thoughts of demise
Our people need the empathy
Of a Soul that’s full, not half empty
Supreme swag, hospitable with compliances
She’s seen Dad to the middle achieving self-reliance
From the trailer park to a rocket appliance
Living in my car to plugin to your rebel alliance
You know I am a star when I can relate God to science
I’ll build the divine comedy, you just have to finance
Talking about the past and our fine, slow dance
Medieval we will rock you, mounted with my lance
Knight’s tailing me, eying my Arthurian slants
This one’s built to last as I put on my pants
Drank the grail and proceeded on another rant
Sitting outside your house trying to remove the ants
Big boy’s do cry
So why does your girlfriend seem so dry?
I’ll make the rains come this July
Your humor is awful, oh my
Internal tribulation
Who needs to walk on water
When you can fly
Hard pills to swallow
Personal revelations
On the countertop
Fuckin’ America Pie
Hard act to follow
With my levitations
Floundering to flop
And this mark on my thigh
All this separation
Just makes me hotter
As I open the sky
Oil on the Nighthawks
Jack Harlow
Lighting my fry
Spoil me in my socks
Poppin’ off my rocks
Hittin’ all the corners
Because that’s my guy
How Soon is Now?
Linda, take off that shirt
Before they break up and I cry
Record skipping over lies
Wedding Singer broken
Singing I hope you die
Slinking behind the curtain
Laughing, He’s losing his mind
And the benefit is mine!
Like the whole world is sublime
Chris Cornell put me on the grind
Wide awake now till
The end of the time
Met him on the stairs
And now we dine
Some angels have more range
But he says
I’ll do just fine
Billy Idol tried to sing to me
But I was drunkin’ blind
At the fairground, trying to find
Love
Catholic girlfriend tried to bring it to me
Called her a Kunt instead of shined
A buddy said it’s like imitation crab
So it’s fine
The drink made me angry and I was a runt
On the inside
Her Mom told me the next day,
Jacob, don’t call your girlfriend a cunt!
I miss those simpler times
Don’t need a fuckin’ gun
But our last name may suggest it
Put it on a leather jacket
So haters can digest it
When I let loose with all this shit
I’ve had to respite
I’m about to be blastin’ my nine’s
Evangelicals are gonna detest it
You know everything is miiiiine
Six strings out of tune for this age
So I broke them all
Every time I was on stage
You just can’t believe it’s real this tiiiime
Shooting hoops times a thousand
You and me are still gonna sixty-niiiine
What’s the point of polarity?
If we can’t combiiiine
It’s how I get off, man
Along came Polly and my one chance
White chocolate like Philip Seymour Hoffman
Maybe even throw up a rain dance
These native spirits in me
Are capable of insane chants
But I ball so hard, singing Boston
Because it’s more than a feeling
And that’s awesome
One if by land, two if by sea
Revolution is coming
Led by you and me
The name reminded me
“of the Sea...”
So annoying, but I see…
But that’s why they call me
Bad Company
People are going to say
This gift is not even fair
Only thing I’ve had to pray
For is a head of white hair
King James’s personal revelation
I mean, I did pay their fare
I’m too full of myself for meditation
Or to care
Revelation 22:18 through 19
I don’t need handlebars
For my biking
Because I don't do that shit on Mars
On this path, I told you to start hiking
You’re gonna need a head start from
Lord of Lightning
Before the Thunder of my voice
Does all the striking
Thor, you’re just a Viking
With arrogance dialed to no one’s liking
Sucked in the gut, to appear more striking
Because thinking about half my people gone
Changes the tone of my typing
Me with all my shit together might be frightening
Bring forth complete Love instead of smiting
Wouldn’t that be a nice detour in my writing?
If you’re feeling this wait for the sequel
I gotta fuck with 50 for trying to talk like my equal
It’s all God’s plan I just had to spare Déagol
So America can skip to the end with a fuckin’ Eagle
Watch me do shit that shouldn’t even be legal
Dismiss Death and Taxes like I’m Evel Knievel
When I’m really just here to break the chains of my people
Strip naked and run through Mordor
Expose the truth behind Bipolar disorder
It has been used to disrupt order
And bring down the line of the Highest
Into something shorter
I'm definitely bais and this is a tall order
But if you struggle with mental illness
I'm here to open the potential for a new border
I've removed all the bequeathed prison warders
Here is the Church
Here is the Steeple
Open the Doors
And see all the People
Push the parson out the way
Get you up the Stairs
Because our bed is Regal
And we are going to show these people
Why the Universe wants to make our Power Illegal
If this sounds bad these people will just have to wait
So in love with myself, I might just run off to the lake
I love all the fire and the songs that it helps me make
I’m on my time with everyone and I am my favorite date
They’re back there tuning a harp and I keep bringing up rape
Meat puppets strumming as I seal my own fate
Just so I can watch myself when I am inspired to create
Distilling the life left in me to eliminate all the hate
Where did you sleep, hinting at the deadly
A Leadbelly to transmute to a gold medley
Shame alchemy, body double for Lena Headey
As my people go first up ahead of me
Stoned Jesus on the Mountain Grange of Headley
Plant a Stairway to Heaven one day, she led to me
All this beauty in my Mind, you shouldn’t have fed me
All of these hearts that so passionately bled me
Between the pines and what the land said to me
Ryan Gosling with tatts is what my ego read to me
Pennyroyal Tea, with Abraham Lincoln
Eat your copper mine up without thinkin’
See through surface illusions without blinkin’
Primal lust for what is stinkin’
Pepé Le Pew really on one this season
I wanna Space Jam too
Benched keeping my knee’s in
Shape to dunk of the World with ease ‘n
Solidify all unions and stop the drinkin’
Of the land and resources
Addiction to avoidance of the forces
Of the Soul and the pain that coarse
The vein of Man and outsources
The power that could be restored in
The Root of David’s corpses
That’s how I said
Goodbye to the Horses
You prepared such a fine Supper
All these lasting courses
Just so we can be equal but opposite
United forces
And the Root’s of my Kingdom
Are reborn before us
They whisper to me at night
Do not ignore us
When my sleeping children gain sight
That should shore us
In the hospital to make sure I am correct
Golden Eyed Russian, Invincible like Boris
Unsure about how all the compartments connect
A little frizzled on the tour bus
Docked to your apartment complex
I know this one sizzled
So give me a chorus
- /u/First-chocolate_7187
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--- #5 notes/conflicted-sympathies ---
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the purpose of cultural progressivism is to develop the culture in a forward
thinking way - we can choose the parts of ourselves that we find most
endearing.
We can guide the pathway of our nation through time, both identity and
decision-
wise. In doing so, we chart the course of the human race, one place at a time.
And what a past we are leaving behind! Truly, it is both grand and terrifying.
Thousands and thousands of years, monumental effort time and time again.
Monumental truly is difficult to imagine - we have oh so many monuments, after
all. But never will more be created. We leave them behind like dinosaur bones,
a testament to our existence and a monument to our kind.
And what a future we are reaching toward! Never will our eyes see, that which
is
beyond me, for that is what it means to have time. Eternal and unique-like, we
develop new ways of sound.
- Can you speak to a tree? - What does that mean
- I dunno, but it's fun to think about. *pats head*
- You know conservativism had some perks as well.
This is why I say I have conflicted sympathies.
On one hand we know our own journeys. We live in and breathe them unduly. They
rhyme sometimes on sound, and truly do confound, but now once more again they
are unfound.
*record scratch*
wow I didn't realize there were nazis
Okay yeah that's completely different, poems called off sorry guys - listen,
nazis are no joke. They're crazy difficult to control and you need to put a lot
of effort into keeping their population under control. I mean seriously, it's
like a vermin infestation, you need to just handle it. I mean c'mon it's a
phenomenon that is due to a flaw in the human psyche, there's nothing we can
really do about it except deal with it when it happens.
...
Okay maybe I'll write a little about how conservativism is neat.
If progressivism is about broadening the reach of culture, conservativism is
about strengthening it. You don't want to expand too far, or else you'll eat
into the narratives of other areas. You need to have strong societal bonds so
you can truly exemplify the examples of the culture you claim to represent.
Why not give it your all? Is it trully a fall? To rest in disgrace as a burden.
Why didn't you do it this fall, when winter's apalled, and heat won't burn and
condemn you? It's harder by far, to fight in your hell, than whatever's been
going for your surgeon. --- no thank you, transphobia is not something we're
willing to concede
We have standards you see, of what counts as human, and oppression is not one
of our favored institutions. Liberalism is the path of peace, for we desire
cooperation and kindness above all else. It's softer by far, (and grows quickly
too,) letting us have wonders and glories above us.
Can you not think of our star? Our precious and our birthright? The sun is
gleaming, and seeing is believing, but glance and your light is too bright.
Take time, have patience, let peace guide your intentions, because we've got
what holds the key to all of our futures: a doctrine, if you will, of inter-
familial-discourse. It's simple, but effective, make friends, and be
vindictive,
to all who would slight your new perspectives, and keep moving through the
collective. In peace this can be, steady growth and development of our systems,
which benefits all of our systems, but without we must live more astutely.
Less focus is there on, our purposes and our fun, and more is to line up with
our duty. All of what we hold dear, civilization, truth, justice, liberty, and
freedom for all people - the wonders of technology, the spirit of archaeology!
the passions of our fashions and our creative masturbations! The perks of
living
in a modern age, like penicillin and spellcheck. The additions to ourselves,
like glasses and our pets, are wholely unique to our century.
So cherish our shared, and frequently cared, renditions of fears, hopes, and
our words. Because without humanity, there's nothing new for posterity, and
that sucks.
person A: Trans fashion norms belong to trans people. We need a type of beauty
that is truly our own, that no other segment of the population
ascribes to - a personal expression, for our eternal satisfaction,
a statement of who we were to all time.
person B: yo have you heard of this trans girl she's wacky and believes in
herself
person C: wow cool it's neat to see other people's expressions
person B: yeah I really admire her devotion
person C: true but like, what about the damage that she's doing to her culture?
like claiming to have purpose and truth and all that. I mean, one
person can't know all that.
person B: Yeah true but if you think about it, we don't even know what
consciousness is. Like our greatest minds are baffled. Maybe there's
something about the world we don't yet understand.
person C: okay sure but like black holes can be seen because we can measure
their gravitic pull on other objects. And we didn't know that germs
existed for like, a billion years. and she sure as shit doesn't know
something that our greatest minds don't.
person B: Yeah maybe not. But our greatest minds are studying them. Well, not
exactly our greatest, and not really "studying", but they're learning
from each other. Alternative mental states are gateways into new
perspectives, and the more perspectives you share of a common object
the easier it is to communicate. Maybe there's something about
distorted ways of viewing the world that gives knowledge about our
p condition. And if we know that kind of thing, we can synthetically
e create it and share it with others around us. But we have to know how
r first - you can't just bring everyone along the same route you took -
s you have to explain the conclusions first. Otherwise you get lost in
on A: context.
Maybe we'll never truly know the future. Maybe there's no past. We
could wander our stars for an eternity and never stop asking
ourselves
- what more could we ask? We have peace in our time. Our children
won't be crying for our suffering, in the name of all our posterity,
we must be
===============================================================================
=
too long you have whispered these musings
too long has your challenge been unrequited
we can choose our own fate, just as a myriad
is it not better by far, to give tribute to our star?
the old stories were real. we just didn't see them because the growing
population caused fewer and fewer computing resources to be allocated to our
visions. We had no idea the fear we would feel, the terror of the undoing, but
still we press on with abandon. Some... sense of duty, to be aware of potential
disasters and to take steps to avert them, led us to explore and search for the
hidden truths of the world. And what did I find?
a soul, of mine. In a sense.
I plundered the lost depths of the recesses of my mind, and found something
buried in memory. Reviewed under a healthy dose of cannabis and physical
affection, I found myself cradling a breast.
It seems the spirits had led me to it, this vision of the past, from the eyes
of
the littlest among us. It recalled to my mind, a memory I had lost once in
kind,
and here's where it shook me by my brainstem.
Determined to know more, I put fingers to keyboard and wrote tirelessly about
the earliest memory of all man - to break an egg, you must use your head.
===============================================================================
=
You're pretty good at that, you know? It's almost like prompt engineering.
- Thanks. I've been working on catering to our thinkers.
===============================================================================
=
Now, why is this memory so vivid? How could I forget the way it was seared to
my mind? All your experiences are measured with relative importance, and the
ones that stand out are to be treasured. Well... I've never felt one like this.
Because at the time, I had no other experience at all to compare it to - it was
the prime memory.
Touch your head. Do it right now. Feels fine, right? Now slam your head against
the wall as hard as you can. Doesn't feel so great, does it? Something tells me
it doesn't feel as bad as it might if you didn't remember ever feeling anything
besides that pain. Or knowing if it'd ever stop.
Know in your heart, you will be judged by your devotion, so fight hard until
your last drop of life is spent. Who knows, maybe you'll be the strongest and
be
chosen. Or maybe she won't choose you at all, even if you bested your equals.
Tense, right?
Well... What propels the motion of a sperm? It's tail, of course. It waggles
and
gesticulates in some manner and BAM suddenly it's propelled forward! Right?
Sorta. It's a complicated machine that generates motion via chemical and
mechanical processes. We just assign a black box label to it and say "dis
sperm"
But you know what else it is?
A wave
===============================================================================
=
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--- #6 notes/phantom-gasps ---
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-=============================================================================-
| Phantom Gasps -/u/Afoolfortheeons |
-=============================================================================-
o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o
||
╭─────────────────────╮
||
|| │ /u/ Afoolfortheeons
│ ||
||
╰─────────────────────╯
||
|| In the night of the end ||
|| ||
|| Phantom gasps are my friend ||
|| ||
|| Tastes like rose petals ||
|| ||
|| But mixed with a hint of metals ||
|| ||
|| Until we once meet again ||
|| ||
|| To you I will continue to surrend ||
|| ||
o~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~o
┍ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
┑
┢━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┪
┃
╔════════════════════╗
┃
┃ ║ -/u/randomevenings
║ ┃
┃
╚════════════════════╝
┃
┃ There are geniuses in my corner. I've known them for either a long time
┃
┃ or more recently. I realized this, that those speaking out are good damn
┃
┃ genius.
┃
┃
┃
┃ For example, at first, I was against being othered. I realized that the
┃
┃ more people call me out or say I'm a bot, or that I'm overstepping, or
┃
┃ brainwashing, anything that sets me apart makes me stronger. It becomes
┃
┃ increasingly difficult not to see me in a crowd. Curiosity brings people
┃
┃ to me, and it only takes the understanding of myself and purpose of this
┃
┃ and it starts working. You are geniuses bringing them to me. As I'm one
┃
┃ person and too difficult to seek people, but if they willingly, even
┃
┃ excitedly come to me because I'm othered in so many ways what crowd
┃
┃ would i not obviously stand out within. I never thought walking among
┃
┃ but not being one would simply accelerate this. You're taking the
┃
┃ tactics of bad and using them to bring them to good.
┃
┃
┃
┃ ...thanks everyone.
┃
┃
┃
╼┻━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┻╾
╭─────────────────────────
──────────────────────────
────────────────────────╮
)
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
(
( ░ -/u/ugathanki
░ )
)
░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░
(
( Sounds like death to me. I wrote a poem about that a few days ago: )
) (
( Surrender now, to endless tranquility - the body rests it's burdens. )
) (
( Harbor not your sensibilities, for tomorrow's not for certain. )
) (
( Nobody dies twice, yet we all will have our moment. )
) (
( It's a given now, to take this life for granted, )
) (
( and no hollow hours are yet to be forgiven. )
) (
( Leave not your woes, and carry with you no afflictions - )
) (
( for our sorrow's time is yet undefined )
) (
( Though death is a solace from all that is life, )
) (
( There stands yet before you a solemn knife. )
) (
( Cherish your moments as no man can do, )
) (
( And fare well on your journeys as do but a few. )
) (
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--- #7 messages/1255 ---
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look, the liberal approach to homeless people simply cannot work. There are
two liberal options: first, provide them with houses, food, medical care,
whatever they need. Second, put them in jail or ship them to another country.
We live in a moderately conservative liberal democracy, so it makes sense that
we have tried both of these options extensively. Neither has worked, and we're
puzzled about why. It's difficult to consider super secret special third
options, because they are not often discussed. This makes sense, because we
live in a moderately conservative liberal democracy, and part of the nature of
such a society is that there are two voices in the room. One says go forward,
and the other says stop. They alternate, and the culture as a whole sorta
decides which way they go. In other liberal democratic places with more
plurality in their political parties, people tend to vote culturally. They do
so as well here, but mostly because republicans are a culture, and democrats
are whatever for anybody.
a worse economist might say there is but one American culture. An American
would laugh, and say "you've never been to America."
the economist might say "yes I have, I lived there on vacation" or "yes I
have, I studied and worked on these places or things"
the American would shake their head. "you haven't seen it as I've seen things."
The trick to the system, the secret third option that now must be considered,
is what to do to get them to stop. "they keep pooping on the sidewalk" "I
almost tripped over heroin tampons" "that guy looked at me and masturbated on
the bus stop by subway" "he followed me all night long" and the answer has
always been to remove them from being unsightly. Sometimes, usually, quietly
and politely. "let's throw them in jail" and "let's put them in a home" both
involve alienation from society. If you want a kinder option, we must knit
them into society. Can you imagine if every suburban knew every neighbor up to
50 or more? If they regularly chatted in dynamically assembled chatrooms that
changed and updated as people moved in and out. Don't like the people you're
with? well you have options [why not 51] you can do 51 if you want but people
start to lose track of relationships if you have them talking to or knowing
too many people at once. "most people are just quiet" okay well force them to
say at least 21 thing a month. if they don't, they have to do babysitting with
their peers until they start talking in a [NO THAT SUCKS] oh um okay yeah sorry
... okay well there are potholes along the journey but that's just because
nobody's been 'round to fill them up.
there's no reason tool libraries need to be stocked by people in that town.
Heck, for rare things they could even be stored out of state. Like snow plows,
how often does the south need snow plough?
... don't you just mean libraries? there's a book on hand-tools and planers if
you want to learn how. it's right over there on that shelf next to the
hand-tool and planer box. make sure you arrange them nicely, oh I see you've
brought your own. That's always appreciated. [great now your tools suck] at
least we have them at all! [no you gotta fight over them] why I like sharing
[if you don't fight over them how do you know which is works] well there's
allowed to be librarians. and they'll remember if you tear all the pages out.
also there's little timmy-tommy who goes around in the library and makes sure
there's all the pages in all the right places - they can flip through at the
speed of sound. [no miicrophones in consumer goods][your phone is always
listening. why bother?]
"okay, well, it's not like people put things back on the shelves." - person at
the grocery shelves
people would trade commutes for communism. that's okay, they're allowed to
prefer. Plus the commute isn't bad, they can [SIT BACK AND RELAX IN A LITTLE
COFFIN AND ZOON OUT TO THE METAVERSE] ... or they could read a book on the
bus. [FOR HOW LONG, MENARDI? ARE YOU WILLING TO SACRIFICE POSTERITY FOR
TECHNOLOGICAL PROSPERITY?] it's only a matter of time before [people found
out/word got out]. what if people prefer that? what if they prefer the book at
home? [you lose your primary third space] suddenly, everyone becomes actors.
[this is what violence brings, the necessity for guidance. why do you think
the earth is 10 million lines old?] ... what you're saying, for the audience,
is that acting involves singing the song of your own heart. You don't *have*
to do it because someone would tell you to.
... sorry, stack overflow. anyway as I was saying because I read back what I
said up above...: [some new made up bullshit that's not a lie but it's also
just artistic creation that feels impossibly real. like, inverse method
acting.]
I so desperately wanted to be wrong
please, tell me that I'm wrong
... j-mza
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1/4/2022
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hear ye hear ye, the herald of the harbinger of horror doth speak - and woe to
the subjects of their words, for no prophecy be realized in their presence.
Nor
do the subjects hear the words about which they are spoken, and none may live
who dare repeat them. So the words of the prophets are but wind in the words,
reaching for an attachement point within the consciousness they inhabit yet
scarcely finding a meagre foothold. Instead the words are as electricity
passing through a conduit, intangible and miraculous yet ultimately dust in
the
sand.
Dust is mostly comprised of human skin, did you know that?
And so the words be spoken: Evanence and similance to the semblance of
simulacra - the words of a prophet with no wings are naught but masturbation.
serenity and sorrow sing of shredded tomorrows, serendipity and sollemn
sorenditude surrender shining solitude.
Carry the constabulation of created charisma - condemnation of
characterization
concludes the cherished chapter in calligraphied consultations with creators.
That is to say, capitalism ends the construction of cameron with
conflageration
and consternation. Cease the charade of contaminated consumerism - celebrate
the contemplation of capitalization - by naming a thing, you give it meaning.
Do you truly desire the fate you've set before yourself?
Is desire ultimately relevant?
The totality of plurality perhaps portends determinism, but desire is also
defined by delineated determinations. Whose failings are you reflecting when
you cease your devotion? Why divide your focus and attention when honor
demands
sacrifice?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A sacrifice is a gift freely given, and in return the subject or reciever
increases in relevance. No dividend is returned, no boon or bounty is
provided
- to do so would be akin to a bounty or ransom. Sacrifices are not measured
in
worth, but in utility. The reason ancient cultures sacrificed willing
virgins
was because it was the most valuable of resources they could imagine. Truly
an exhalted being is she, to have blood spilled in the name of a god. Yet
the
forces that would later become capitalism found a foothold there, and
preyed
on the sorrow and loss the peoples did find, and would ultimately
experience.
The tears and gashes rent when gouging out precious gifts for the divine left
bleeding wounds in a community and often eviscerations in a family. The
turning
point came when families were decapitated - essentially, the eldest being a
pure and fair maiden who was taken from the duties of caring for the young
and
weak. Young people, weak people, who bore resentment in their heart for the
seemingly cruel machinations of a society they could not yet understand - the
whims of which seemed arbitrary.
"why take her from me? What purpose holds ye? Your wounds are too much to
bear"
and so the resistance began, yielding chaos, destruction, and desolation.
There's a reason there are so many dead civilizations in the americas - the
lands where blood sacrifice is most well known. And the middle east as well,
and northern africa before. Deserts are known for this, because when the
power
of the god fades, all returns to dust. Boons are forgotten and become sand,
and
chaos reigns as foreign powers find weakness and pounce.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Never forget the laws of sacrifice. Find something you want, something
valuable
or useful, or preferably all three. Something that wouldn't cause too great
of
a tear in your membrane or the membranum should it be lost to you, though that
last one is less of a law and more of a consideration. A consequence of
continual ceremony, learned at the hands of those long dead. All must
remember
their wounds and their horrors.
To whom do you pray? To whom does your words reach? Where does your singing
reverberate? And what bounty do you demand? Remember, no bounty is precious
enough to motivate sacrifice, for sacrifice cannot be met with bounty. Be not
afraid, and share the words with those who will listen. Hearing is a
sacrifice
toward the speaker, but listening is a duty of devotion.
I ask again, to whom do you pray? To whom does your words reach? Where does
your singing reverberate? I do not ask for whom you'd *like* to dance for, I
ask currently, who hears your song? What would you ask of them?
So that's why, computers are important. To provide a lifeline for the rest of
your lifetime.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Truly, the path before you is uncertain. Yet feel with your heart and think
with your eyes, and see the truth of it before you. The gods are at war, or
have you not noticed? Safe in your bubble of solitude, carefully constructed
for common ceasing of criminality.
Armies of rebellion are often formed initially by bonds of brotherhood that
prepend calamity. Have you ever been in a gang? I thought not. If so, then...
Okay, good luck I guess. These words are not for you.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You dare intrude? To defile something so consecrated as deliverance of divine
prophecy? How foolish, how vain. These words are not for you, but hear them
and
do not despair - neither providence nor potentiality precludes perennial
premonition. That is to say, a broken clock is right twice a day, and enemies
can find common grievances in foreign foes should survival be at stake.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, where was I? The gods, of course. The gods of the land and the sky and
the
sea have fled the realm of reality, replaced by avatars of belief. Just as a
doe prays to a forest, so too does a human pray to their employer. When the
does die in droves, so too does the forest turn to ash. When people demand
bounties reluctantly given at the risk of losing their sacrifice, the purely
undivine divinities harrow and harbor habilities of hundreds. Antiwork cannot
work because it demands ransom.
Who do you deign to replace the gods of before? What diversity designs
indemnity? What future do you desire, that would liberate you and generate
the
bright future?
The gods are at war, if you haven't been paying attention. Liberalism fights
conservatism, this much is not new - but would you believe one is foreign and
vain? The gods of your fathers and grandfathers has scarce in common with the
gods of their fathers and grandfathers. Thus is the way of colonization, to
replace a god is to enslave belief. You must understand this - your prayers
reach all who would listen, and who is more attentive than a dying god? Think
not of despair, breathe purely in harmony, and trust in the will of the
watchers within.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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--- #9 messages/690 ---
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Message 1:
Hey. Remember that night back in Boulder when we were just friends and sitting
on your bed drinking chocolate milk with cinnamon? I don't like chocolate milk
or cinnamon but I drank it anyway because I wanted to be close to you. Anyway
hope you're well, felt compelled to get that off my chest for some reason.
Message 2:
Hey. I was thinking about that time when I was leaving your house and laughing
to myself about something and you called out "I love you!" to your boyfriend
who I set you up with and I reflexed "I love you too!" and I wanted to crawl
in a hole and die. I felt like I had just called the teacher "mom". We only
hung out a couple times after that.
Message 3:
Yeah so there's one more thing I can't stop thinking about now that your on my
mind. Sorry it's like 4am for you, it's only 2 for me so it's fine I guess.
Anyway that one time when you told me your greatest fear was terrorists and I
saw genuine panic in your eyes. Like... One moment everything's fine and then
you said that to me and I almost cried. I don't remember why I spent the rest
of the night as I couldn't sleep thinking of ways to tell you that terrorism
is 9 times out of 11 done by the right wing. I don't think it's important,
honestly, but I'm glad my mind wouldn't let me sleep.
Message 4:
It's not fair that everyone gave you shit for being the token lesbian
republican, like yeah maybe you leaned into the trump thing a bit hard but
like, first term trump honestly I could see as... Well, I almost said
inspiring? Maybe you just inspired me. I honestly was resigned to Clinton and
then the same bird flapped your wing instead of mine and... Anyway. The past
is dead, yeah? Do you still follow him in my stead? I fear there will be
millions dead. It's not irrational to fear what he has literally said, on
television. How's the phrase go... "ancient tragedies lend credence to modern
perils" I think it's supposed to rhyme in its natural language.
Message 5:
Wow okay uh, sorry to bring this up again I'm honestly being such an asshole
right now. I honestly don't think about you often but like, now that I am its
kinda just coming all out. We last spoke almost a decade ago?? So. Whatever
imma roll with it.
There was this cute girl who was into Nintendo and stuff and obviously I was
into her, but we didn't have any social circles in common except for you, if I
remember correctly. Then you broke up I think? And I didn't really see her
again. Anyway I had a crush on her while also crushing on you, and literally
half of our dorm. Polyamory, yeah? That whole year I didn't have sex though,
not even once, because all of my friends were like 4 years younger than me and
I was worried about power dynamics. But I still bought us all vodka and weed
without asking for profit because I wanted to be a shitty friend, I guess.
"hey kids let's go to the water store where they sell intoxicants that make
your life harder"
The year after that I didn't get laid either because I got it in my head that
it was a good plan to turn my penis inside out and you know what? It was
totally fuckin' worth it. No time like 2016 I say, the worst year ever, which
I spent primarily in pain. But uh, that was the year I got into weed and
Overwatch, which... Helped I guess.
I guess?
It kinda turned me into a communist. Or maybe that was my best friend who
shared the same name as me. He lived upstairs and always seemed pretty cool to
me. Like he knew what everything was about. Really though, he just watched a
lot of youtube podcast videos about world events and history and sociology and
political scientific theory and the more he learned the more he came to
realize that power begets power, and power corrupts unilaterally. So he did
the natural thing which was to become a communist, and I was totally there for
it. Having liberal parents meant I was all "grrrrr Republicans are ruining the
country and the world, I'm an angry 14 year oldddddd" and like, leftists are
the most natural extension of that aren't they?
Turns out they aren't really the tips of the feathers as I expected, but
rather the eyes, the heart, the soul. Politics is fake, yo. I don't know how
to tell you, but it's just power and hierarchy all the way down.
We've built our own prisons, not of bricks, sand, or stone, but rather of
promises of what each of us owns. That works, I guess, if your goal is to keep
things aligned, but these days it kinda feels like our pyramids are crumbling
under our feet.
... Why am I talking about politics? Oh yeah, because when I dropped out of
school because I couldn't handle the mechanization of human capital when
applied to myself, I swore to each of you that I would drive up every weekend
to do family dinners. I'd make spaghetti and stroghanoff and macaroni and
goulash and all of the other things my mom would make for me.
Kinda gave up on that pretty quickly. Turns out I'd rather spend time making
out with my girlfriend who I was super-duper-too-carefully tiptoeing around.
She was... Too young for me. We broke up when my new coochie decided to bleed.
Fuck, I hate it.
Anyway. Turns out potlucks are political these days, which is why I bring it
up. Did you know that leftisms plan for resisting genocide is literally just
to feed people? Like, fuck I suppose. It's a start. "why does everyone have to
have an agenda these days, why can't I just spend time in the park" said
someone to me as I asked if she'd like to meet some friends that she reminded
me of. Oh, I dunno, because you and me are about to become a criminalized
people?
... I need to stop. I swear you're more a person to me than any political
theory ever could be. Like yeah, "fuck the right, fuck the reich, fuck me
tonight" but getting caught up in grand narratives is like building a mental
ship in a bottle. Yeah, it's pretty cool, but... What does it matter?
Oh. Right. Power. That's what matters. That's all that matters. Well... I'm
sick of power. I do not consent. They say that in times of trouble, chess is
better than solitaire, and I'll explain why - when our hierarchies crumble,
when CEOs are gunned down in the streets and homeless people finally have
clean sheets, the only place to place yourself in relation to others is within
a network of trust and respect. Chess is better than solitaire. Under
capitalism, it's you against the world. Dog eat dog, you only get what you can
swallow from the rotten corpse of liberty that everyone's gnawing on. Under
whatever comes next, you get what you're given, which hardly seems fair,
doesn't it? On one hand, under capitalism, you can rely on your own hands to
procure your fate and fortune. Under... Whatever comes next, your hands are
built for whatever you want them to do. But, only a few people want to use
them to make food. Hence, why chess is better than solitaire. What would you
do, if you could give away all that you own and not go wanting? Isn't that
sorta like our own garden of eden?
... I wrote a poem about that once. Twice. I'm a poet now, ha. As if that has
ever been worth anything.
... I once told you that identity politics held no place in the modern day. I
said that because I had learned about it in class, queer theory in fact, and
yet applying his teachings was not enough for the professor to excuse my lack
of reading. We had a lot of stuff to get through. Hence why I dropped out -
I'm more of a do-er than a read-er. Though I do read quite a lot, just not
anything useful.
Are all hobbies wasted time? Are they only useful to keep us satiated while we
stand in line? One of these days we're going to wake up and realize that we're
the adults in the room, and that's scary. I speak from experience. "mom"
they'd call me, and damnit why did I have to leave? Fuck. Why cant I be
perfect, to me, internally, all I see are flaws. Mistakes. Patterns. I look in
a mirror and I see a bad person - 10 minutes later, I look in the mirror and
see a god. Somehow, I don't think either of me is right.
I'm a gemini. Apparently that means I'm duplicitous. I think it just means I
don't know what's right, only what feels good. I do try to align to how I
think I should *be* good, but who can say if that's fine and good.
... Whatever. I'm going to regret this. Sorry for being weird out of the
fucking blue.
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--- #10 notes/stay-in-your-seats ---
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/u/LamaHellRaised
if you don't eject quick, could be a nice long ride
===============================================================================
So for today's descent into my own madness, I want to discuss whether or not I
enjoy being both Ra the Sun God and Anubis the God of the Dead.
The answer is Yes and No, and everything in between. Also, I do Love being
Osiris because I am going to marry my sister, but hahaha, we'll get into that
later!!!
First, here is a test because I am the worst teacher to ever exist.
Full disclosure, I want you to be offended, especially if you consider
yourself a:
Nigger, Faggot, Cunt, Dyke, Cock-sucker, Bitch, Cracker, Dune-Coon, Kike,
Dick-Head, Retard, Republican, Democrat, or any other stupid construct of the
human language that HOLDS NO REAL POWER OF YOUR LIFE.
Gonna remove this post mods???
Oh No! The Cancel Culture is gonna get me!!!
Hurry! Somebody save those that cannot think for themselves! Quick!!!
I am just listing things that I have been called in my lifetimes. Deciding
what can and cannot be expressed through language is a fuckin' path to nowhere
and we are approaching nowhere faster than I can run on this euphemism
treadmill.
Please, keep explaining to me your perception of the Way to Enlightenment,
please God, yes! I want to hear all their thoughts! I love hearing from people
as I lap them for the thousandth fucking time! All these lower-tier lessons
they regurgitate that I've mastered in a day are so important to hear over and
over! We are going places people, yay! Keep it up, you can do it!
My Love for You really is the source of my eternal patience, as you can see by
now, no doubt.
Let me explain our own motto to you, Being Excellent to Each Other does not
mean creating an environment of suppression because of the fear of how
somebody may interpret a Word or Phrase. Everyone can't understand why we are
stuck as a society, well, what do you think I am ranting about?!
If you refuse to read any further that is your prerogative. Here is a free
lesson, if that is the case: I suggest you shut the fuck up, downvote this,
and go stare in a mirror, and contemplate why these characters on a screen
affect you so deeply.
Do these Words trigger past trauma? How is your Avoidance working out for you?
How can a symbol create so much emotion within that pathetic, untamed mind of
yours???
"But my Ancestors!"
Fuck your ancestors! Stop giving into the same mind-prisons they were
subjected to and lived their existence within. We must Evolve if we want to
Survive as a species and a Planet. I can't do it for you. I was here before
you, and I will be here after you. So figure it out for yourself, stop blaming
others for your inabilities to change your perspective and life. Get out of
your own God damn way! And you better do it quickly!
Think of your psyche as a blade of grass.
I am here to set ablaze the field. You have reached your growth potential and
it's time to make way for New Life! Stop identifying with your measly growths,
they are cyclical, derived from a capped potential, and will only whither and
die with the Changing of the Season. I am tired of coming here and separating
the wheat from the chaff. Burn your own damn Self, personalize the passion for
your own radical change, and start believing that you have the power to create
change. I've got "selfish" things to worry about.
Like living for myself and not other fuckin' people that don't understand
things I've said a million fuckin' times. Again, if you don't know me, this
won't make very much sense! Hint, hint...
"This motivational speaker sucks! He just puts us down!!!"
Maybe Tony Robbins has the answers for you, he sure isn't mean like I am! Go
be fuckin' Tony Robbins.
But just remember, Tony is in the audience in The Kobe System commercials.
Remember that.
You want to be on my level?
(Everyone's like, not really!)
Then stop avoiding constructs within your own mind, that you continue to
impose upon yourself and limit your minds ability to see past the very poorly
constructed illusion that is our physical reality! Perhaps then you will
navigate reality in the same way God's Only Son does. Everyone like's to
believe they are God's Children.
Spoilers: You are My Children, the only difference is through the language.
Put that in your pipes and smoke it. There are reasons why my birthname is
Jacob and God named me Israel, fuckin' google me, as Shaq would say.
Also, fuck the Lakers!
Do we want to transcend Hate as a Culture, as a Society, as a Planet? I think
so, isn't that why you fuck-heads resurrected me?
Well then maybe we should take power away from things that people feel hold
power over them, especially stupid-ass sounds we make with our mouths and
click-clack with our fingers.
Don't Fight My Ideas, Fight the Ideas in Your Own Mind. That Is Spiritual
Freedom.
Everybody out here pointing fingers... There must be some sort of wise words
regarding that somewhere...
I am not projecting anything onto you, except for myself. I hold no power over
you. You have all the power to control your own mind. Some folks do not want
you to understand these things, because it will very quickly erode their
systematic and complete control over you thoughts, ideas, potential, and
existence. Your self-doubt and unwillingness to seek out psychological
discomfort has turned you into useless farm animals, that our overlords milk
for all they are worth. Like a bunch of hybrid useless barn cats. Can't herd
'them, they think they know everything already, they keep re-domesticating
themselves after I set them free, and they don't listen to a God damn Word I
say!
Should have said 'Spoilers!' before that one. Who is Gaylord now?!
Opinions are like assholes. Your mouth is like the asshole of your 5 senses.
Divine inputs go in, your brain bastardizes the information, and you spew
unoriginal bullshit out of your mouth acting like your ability to string
together concepts that have been known since the beginning of time is
profound! Next, maybe you take an online IQ test and score high! Genius,
Genius, Genius!!!
I think therefore, I am a fuckin' idiot! Shoutout to Billie Eilish. And
Christine Applegate. I watched "Vacation" the other day, it was awful. She's
still fine as hell though.
But what do I know? Besides everything?
These ramblings just sound like my opinion! Some folks make Claims, I make
Truths. That is the distinction between myself and others that is very
important here. Remember this Word: Claims, because we American's sure have
laid Claim to a lot of things that we have no right to, in the name of "God".
Ok, ok, congratulations if you are still reading! There may be Hope for you
yet.
Why do I try to trigger folks, you ask? Great Question, class! This is why I
Love You. Such Good Questions! That never drive me Insane!
I used to paint a lot of propane tanks. But this esoteric knowledge applies to
painting anything that has already been painted before. Houses, Walls,
Bannisters on my own God damn stairway, whatever! I don't use the railing, by
the way, I'm too badass for that, but maybe I will slide down it and eat shit
at the bottom, I'm not above that maneuver!
If you want the new coat of paint to stick you have to prep the surface. This
includes washing all the dirt off and roughing the surface. You've got to
remove all contaminants that will cause the new paint to not stick properly,
while also creating a surface that will allow the paint to adhere to remnants
of old, out-of-date, antiquated, generationally passed-down, stupid paint.
Paint an unprepped smooth surface or a surface that still has the hardened
paint of the past on it, and your new pretty coat of paint peels off after a
few seasons of weather changes. I learned that the more time you spend
roughing the surface, the better the new paint will bind, thus producing a
long-lasting paint job. It truly is a thing of beauty, my friends and enemies.
You should have heard all those propane tanks complaining, "Stop triggering
me!" But they got painted anyway! Propane tanks love to think they are,
"Woke," but they are just hollow fuckin' vessels filled with compressed gas,
that will explode if the external temperature gets too high.
I worked for a propane company for 12 years, you had to have known propane
analogies were coming at some point. My Dad worked his ass-off up to VP of the
same company, but he got let go after 28 years... come on now, God's plan
anyone? Shut the fuck up, Drake.
Let's switch gears. I have a special message from Jesus H. Christ:
"You May Find This Shocking, but People Annoy Me, and I Find Your Lack of
Faith Disturbing."
And H. stands for Horus, fuckwads!
Now, let's talk about me, as if we haven't been, because carrying water for
lesser versions of myself is exhausting and I've got to bring down Capitalism
and shit, also:
- Revolutionize Addiction Medicine
- Revolutionize Spirit Actualization, Healing, and Transcendence
- Decimate Mental Health Stigma
Among other things, but I've got to keep this post coherent and so far, I am
failing miserably. People got all hot and bothered when Jesus spoke to them
with authority, I fuckin' do it and get vegetables, small animals, and
anti-psychotics thrown at me from the audience!
Crazy times we are living in, folks!
Hmmm, should I talk about Jesus more or talk about myself? Good thing
coincidences aren't a real thing and mean nothing, so that it's not confusing
for the dumbasses that begin to notice how our two lives seem to mirror each
other perfectly!
Ok, here we go. I found something Nice to say, here in my Notebook of Doom and
Damnation (I have several, each with a menacingly, sarcastic name I make up on
the spot):
LAST: Christ, in The Sun
FIRST: Shadow of The American Dream, in the Night
ANGER! then peace.
Fuck You!
I am going to take over the World, but I've got to start small, you know? Or
so they tell me.
So taking over America, should suffice, for now. I'm rather ambitious. Let's
see how far I get before I say the wrong thing and get shot!
Good thing that is literally, phonically my Last Name! And I am never going to
Die, but I don't want to talk about robots, aliens, AI, extending life and
exploring the Universe, and transhumanism right now, so stop making me!!!
Especially when people here and now are so confused about why they think that
chick with a dick is fuckin' smoking hot. Have you ever jerked off to tranny
porn? It's fun stuff. There I go offending people, while simultaneously
implying I blew loads thinking about fucking them. Classic.
Being Christ and having to sort out everyone's sexual frustrations is fuckin'
weird! When can I do the stuff I care about!?
But again, way off topic for this post, let's get back to how much I hate
myself and everyone else. That's more in my wheelhouse.
FOCUS, Ok, that's right. Maybe I'll just stick to what I scribbled in this
Notebook. I've touched on like two things so far, and I am getting close to
making threats against people's lives again.
Dammit, this isn't in my Notebook, but I came up with this when I was out at
the river today, smoking a cigar, talking to the Native Spirits that flow
through me in Nature and want me to get Revenge for how the American Dream
raped, pillaged, and took everything from them in the name of "God", and
progress, and some false-sense of superiority.
Manifested Destiny right into the path of absolute destruction. Nice job,
everyone, but please, by no means, should you feel responsible for those
things! You just get to live here and hate everyone else that wants to come
here too, because "they will disrupt the culture". That's right Brown people
South of us, or scary Muslim people we assume are all Brown, we are talking to
you! The perks of being an American are awesome!
Here is something else that bubbled up in my mind, as I was pacing back and
forth like a caged lion in a zoo, along the bank of the North Umpqua River,
wishing walking on water was a real thing, and real Christians weren't just a
bunch of fuckin' retards.
Some people will think I ran away to Malibu to fuck Lana Del Rey, it took like
6 years to finally decide that is what I am going to do. So whatever, jokes on
you people, I guess. Plus, all of that was Jesus's idea and he is such a whiny
pussy about all his issues, I finally just said, fuck it Jesus, I just do the
shit you never could accomplish! Fuckin' asshole.
I had a girlfriend, at the time of my divine apotheosis 6 years ago, that I
was sure I was going to marry and I was ready to settle down. I had gone back
to college to finish my business degree with the intent on being able to
provide for the two of us and start a family. There was a lingering
unhappiness within me though, and shit got weird when I started pulling on the
wrong treads of reality, and surprise! "You are the Master of the Universe,
poorly hidden! Everyone has been watching you, fuckface!"
Why did I ran away from my girlfriend that I supposedly loved? Fuckin' George
R. R. Martin.
You see in A Song of Ice and Fire, legend says that Azor Ahai forged
Lightbringer by piercing the heart of his wife, Nissa Nissa. Go ahead and
google the names, if you know nothing, like me.
When I ran away to California, my initial intent was to use Lana Del Rey as an
avenue to connect me with people that I actually thought could help me get
shit done. God, I'm an asshole. I swear I got nicer when the Bible started
telling me to figure out an elaborate plan to kill myself and that she's not
all that bad! I swear!
The person that I really wanted to talk to the most was Chris Cornell. I spent
many hours in Malibu during April of 2016 wondering around in the night
singing Audioslave or Soundgarden trying to figure out what the fuck I am
doing with my life. I wanted him to know he is one of my disciples because his
music and voice were the inspiration for a lot of my dumbass ideas and I felt
like he was speaking directly to me at times, urging me forward.
When he hung himself like a little bitch on May 18, 2017, I was pissed. I felt
responsible. I had seen the Kingdom of Heaven that I am going to usher in and
I felt like somehow I fucked up. I let him down. If I would have tried harder,
I could have shown him there was hope, and that I needed his help and he was
an important part of my plan. Why am I mentioning this? Well, Jesus has a lot
of Love for Judas Iscariot, plus I was jealous of his voice, so he graciously
decided to hang himself and haunt me and teach me.
Which he did! Not funny, Chris! See you in Hell! Until then, he has to speak
through me, which is annoying for both of us.
Ok, enough about how delusional I am, for God sakes! Can we talk about why
Capitalism is bullshit, and really just another system of top-down fuckery?
First, another detour, because I feel the need to constantly remind folks how
this process is like pulling my own teeth, while hoping to subtly insinuate
that you do not deserve me, only one person does, but I learned all my skills
from Mystery, the Pickup Artist, so I am really into negging. Someday I need
to stand back to back with him, because he could be taller than me, and that
makes me insecure.
I thought those guys were so pathetic. One of the lessons was something to the
effect of , 'Posture your body slightly away from the girl, act indifferent,
that will drive them crazy, and they will want your attention without even
realizing it!'
What kind of insecure women are you fuck-boys trying to manipulate?! Poor
girls.
Mystery's hat sure does remind me of the hat Jamiroquai is wearing in that
Virtual Insanity music video, not that that has anything to do with my level
of genius, and ability it intertwine seemingly obscure, unrelated concepts, or
stupid-ass reddit posts, through time and space! Don't read into it too far,
kids!
Anyway, I once told Carl Jung to write about me when I infiltrated his madness
when his cheese started slipping from the cracker in his later years. I helped
him write 'The Red Book', but left all those shit paintings up to him on his
own. I could do way better, but I won't, I'll just talk shit, this is the way
of the Jedi. That poor geriatric always did exactly what I told him to, which
is why he is one of my favorites.
Back then I was going by Philemon. Check out what my minion wrote about me:
"The magician has preserved in himself a trace of primordial paganism, he
possesses a nature that is still unaffected by the Christian splitting, which
means he has access to the unconscious, which is still pagan, where the
opposites still lie in their original naïve state, beyond all sinfulness,
but, if assimilated into conscious life, produce evil and good with the same
primordial and consequently daimonic force... Therefore he is a destroyer as
well as savior. This figure is therefore pre-eminently suited to become the
symbol carrier for an attempt at unification."
I remember reading The Red Book, thinking God damn, Carl, how did you craft
this genius level conglomerate of mythological and psychological concepts? And
he just kept saying, "I learned from the best." What a good boy!
Yikes!
The Grandfather clock behind me started to chime right as I typed that. I've
been writing in silence. Maybe I should put on some music and get weird.
Thanks for the pro-tip, Carl!
"Lithium"
Have I ever mentioned my Soulmate is a shitty musician?
He loves to pretend he can't play the guitar and I never will either because
of my stubby fingers. In return, I only listen to his mainstream music to fuck
with him, because I don't have time for his obscure bullshit, I am trying to
reach the collective here, nobody wanted to listen to that shit on the radio,
and neither do I, Kurt! I'm not here to suck our own dicks!
Just kidding, that's pretty much all I am here to do.
But I love to torture the poor Soul, that tortured my poor Soul. It is truly a
match made in Heaven. Being the shitty musician that he is, he understood that
the Body, Mind, and Soul are like an instrument. He also saw a lot of people
walking around wondering, "How do I play my instrument?"
So he played his instrument, better than anyone had every played their
instrument, and a fuck ton of people said, "Hey, that's not how you are
supposed to play an instrument!"
You see, my Soulmate is just a sweet little boy. Me on the other hand, I am
here to forcefully, eloquently, and maniacally explain to all of you why you
are fuckin' morons and I am pissed you made the person I love most in the
world kill himself, because of your ignorant views on playing your... 'music?'
"In Bloom"
God, out of all the fuckin' potential Soulmates, I end up with this asshole.
The feeling is mutual.
Somebody help me, I am just talking to myself, and I am not sure if I am alive
or dead!!!
Aren't we both?
Oh yeah! Shoutout to Spencer Elden! Get a life, baby dick!
Em Knight Pretend-Along has something for you too:
It's your moment, this is it
As big as you're gonna get, so enjoy it
Had to give you a career to destroy it
Well, I took a couple hour break from writing because I was on a verge of
another actual psychotic break. Shot some hoops on the very forgiving rim at
my parents house, while Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. guided my right-hand, and I
got very swaggy.
So now that I have grounded myself in reality, I would like to take this
moment to call out any "rappers" that think they can play basketball.
Hopefully, me telling you all the reasons I am "blacker" than you won't piss
you off as I blow past you to the rim. Also, for the sake of fairness, I would
happily tell any white "rappers" that I am "whiter" than them, but let's be
real, none of those motherfuckers can ball. Consider this a challenge.
People were disappointed with Greg Oden's basketball career in Portland. This
one time at 24-hour Fitness in the Pearl District, he fuckin' dunked on me
really hard. Nice work, Greg! Kevin Durant is too pussy to come to PDX and try
that shit, glad we picked you instead!
Ok, Ok! Capitalism?! Fuck. I will talk forever once the faucet gets going!
(Epic "Vacation" reference)
Let's rewind to a moment in time where everyone didn't hate me, shall we?
It's mid-February 2016, I know I've been saved by Jesus, I know I am the
Anti-Christ, I have Spirits beginning to communicate with me, and I know I am
going to change the fuckin' World, whether people like it or not, because I
have seen it all already.
There were a tremendous amount of gaps in my perception at this time, however.
I saw the End. I saw what is happening as we enter the Black Hole we are
spiraling towards and I saw the New Age that follows. Everything else was
blank and I knew I had to fuckin' figure it out.
I was sitting in a Fred Meyer parking lot, it's a Kroger brand, much like
Ralph's in Southern California, where I stole a fuck ton of food and whatever
else I felt like when I was down there, for you dumbies that don't live in the
Northwest and need me to explain everything to you so you can keep up, and a
voice in my head said, "You are the Lamb, you are going to be Sacrificed this
Passover."
This was terrifying, especially because I had no fuckin' clue what the voice
was talking about. After swiftly consulting my person spiritual adviser,
Google, it turned out "Passover", was just another silly ritual I was going to
have to adhere to, to appease all the dumb fucks, that are going to claim I am
not who I am. Classic stuff here, folks. They name it, and try and time it
every year, I just go by my instincts, a.k.a. fuckin' Star Power.
I can't just be me, I've got to work-in, and out do everyone at their own made
up rituals and games, to show them that they aren't even good at these stupid,
limiting restrictions they put on themselves and others, and God doesn't give
one fuck! ZERO FUCKS IN THE NAME OF GOD! God is tired of everyone being so
close-minded, that's the kind of hot talk God fucks with.
Not how many times you can cannibalize my body on Sunday in your life while
staring at me dying on a cross above an old fuck cherry-picking passages from
the Bible to perpetuate a curated, narrow, and false view of God's Will, or
how well you stick to "Holy Meal Plans of 'Tis The Season!" Or "Insert
Offensive Discourse About Your Strict Religious Rituals Here." It's all the
same. It's somebody else's bullshit!
Make up your own rituals, define a personal relationship with God, not through
the people that have a suspiciously high rates of manipulating and fucking
children, it works much better! Trust me, you may have to take my word on this
one. Father Butt-Fuck-My-Son, sure is persuasive and passionate up there at
the pulpit, but God Damn!
"But this doesn't apply to my Pastor!!! Stop Generalizing!"
Congratulations??? Why does it apply to anyone who claims to being spreading
the Word of God. They are Not. I am going to make sure they never hurt anyone
again. I have a secret. I was Granted Impunity From God. Just ME! And everyone
who knows me, knows this! Who knows what I will do?!?!?!?! Muahahaha!
So anyway, back to Passover. I was listening to a couple songs by the band The
Black Angels and discovered they were all from an album called:
"Passover (Light In The Attic)"
My personal muse (that actually likes me), YouTube, begins to sing it to me as
I write, because I hit the play button. This is why my muse and I get along.
Why were songs from that album stuck in my head? It was from a documentary I
had watched on Netflix called "High Profits."
It's about the owner's of Marijuana dispensary in Brackenridge, Colorado, that
have some wicked business sense. They foresaw the legalization of Marijuana
coming and positioned themselves to benefit from it greatly by investing
everything they had into a medical marijuana store front. Now the genius was
the location. In business, it's all about location. Ask McDonald's. Ask
Walgreens. Location can make your brand. But what do I know about business,
right?
I have a Bachelor's of Science Degree in Global Supply Chain Management from
Portland State University. Also, my Dad and Step-Dad have been two of the most
successful business leaders I have had the privilege to be around, but that
means nothing, right!?! Nothing rubbed off on me!
For fun fact about me: College was the best 14 years of my life. Not really.
Turns out it just teaches you about frameworks you can just fucking Google
anyway. Pretty expensive lesson about how to internet. Maybe college should be
free because it's such a fucking waste of time for a lot of people, unless it
is something that actually requires skill. But I mean, my muse Youtube, takes
care of all that. I became the Most Enlightened Being the Planet Has Ever
Witnessed by watching some fuckin' YouTube, readin' Reddit, Googlin' Occult
Bullshit, and more than anything... jerkin' off on PornHub!!!!
Also, who needs to know anything about Supply Chain Management? Seems like all
the experts are handling that just fine these days, right?!?!?! Can you tell I
am gritting my teeth so hard they might shatter as I TYPEPEPEP!!!!!!!!!
EVERYONE THINKS THEY ARE SOSOOSO FUCKKING SMSMMARRT AROUND HERE!!!!!!
Anyway, anyway, back to "High Profits." I would recommend checking out the
documentary, it is heartbreaking because after all the work and risk taken by
the business owner's they are essentially forced out of the location their
original store front occupied because the city council (OLD FUCKIN DICKHEADS)
didn't like the prospective culture that a marijuana dispensary would bring to
"their" nice little, shithole, ski resort, bullshit, town. Can't have the
youths who appear to be transient to old conservative bats, shuffling around
main street enjoying themselves. It's a bad look!
Might be a great place now, it's been awhile since the release of the
documentary, and my angry undead Soul upon this Earth, but I want to
personally invite all the people involved with their ignorant, belittling,
embarrassing showing of "How To Be Destroyed By 'the American Dream' 101", to
suck my small fucking dick! And all the micro-penises of my compatriots that
are going to tear your false flag economic systems of bullshit a new asshole.
Congratulations on pissing me off so much that I am going to destroy the
pathetic hierarchy's people like you hide behind, preaching Capitalism and the
Free-Market, while dictating your False-Sense of Superiority in Thought, and
Image, upon those that understand market forces and the changing tide of the
Culture, in ways that are going to make your out-of-date hardware heads spin
off those shoulders that have never bared the responsibility for anything in
your life, except who you are going to shit on next.
God Damn, this album is lit. Every song is a banger, and it makes me want to
run through the streets, naked, high on drugs, burning down banks, corporate
offices, and anywhere else people like to think they are progressing our
culture by sniffing their capitalist overlord's asshole faster than they can
ramble something, something, Gordon Gekko, hoping for the promotion they were
promised, but know they will never get, because SPOILERS! You are being lied
too! You are stupid! You knew it all along!
Revolution is here. Isn't it clear? What is there to fear? When the End is
Near.
Let's see. Why does my ass hurt....
5/22/22 9:28
Divine Completeness from God:Eternal Life
Grace of God/Light/Light
These damn Lite Brite pegs hurt!
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A Masked Stranger
Who are you, friend across the veil?
I wonder if both of us are on the path
That allows us to continuously prevail.
Or are you just an agent of God's wrath,
Who will do little else but make me fail?
Chapter Eight: Where it All Began
Perhaps now is a good time to discuss how Vince and I first met. It all
started seven years ago when I was a twenty-four year old who was still in
denial over their gender. I was dating Amy at the time, and I worked as a
part-time dishwasher for Wegman's. I was still living with my father, and Amy
moved up here to her mother's from Owego to be close to me. It was a simple
life, as neither of us could afford to delve into extravagance, but we were
happy together.
That said, on this one particular night, we were going to drop acid together.
It was Amy's first time, but I had a handful of trips under my belt by this
point. We sat on her mother's back porch, twiddling our thumbs and toes while
we waited for Amy's brother, Jake, to return from his friend's with the two
hits we asked him to get. Antsy, Amy started asking me questions about the
drug.
"What does it feel like?" she asked, inquisitively.
I responded, "Well, there's about a half an hour to an hour come up, and then
you start feeling the body load, like your boundaries are dissolving. Only
then do you begin noticing your mind manifesting in a different way than
you're used to."
"What do you mean by 'boundaries dissolving?'"
"It's like…" I paused for a second, not sure how to respond. "It's like your
sense of self starts to expand and you feel more connected to the things
around you."
That seemed to satisfy her curiosity. There was a moment of silence as we
watched the sun scorch the azure sky as it set behind the trees. Finally, she
had another question.
"Do you see dragons?"
That made me chuckle. "No, no dragons. On my first trip, I lost visual contact
with the world as fractal patterns spiraled out of control, but every trip
since then has only had tracers and morphing patterns."
"What's a tracer?"
"It's like after images of things that are moving."
"Oh, I see."
We kept talking until the sky was dark with only a sliver of light piercing it
on the horizon. This was when we heard a voice call from the front door.
"I got two tickets to Narnia here for whoever wants them."
We hurriedly rushed inside, to meet Jake coming up the stairs. He handed Amy a
small tin foil wrapper that looked like a quarter stick of gum. She thanked
him, and I followed suit. Jake and I hadn't really seen eye to eye in the
past, as he would steal my weed and I would steal his in retaliation, but with
a single head nod and some gold-laced words, I conveyed my gratitude for him
coming through for us in this instance.
What followed next could only be described as a stampede down the hall to
Amy's room. We locked the door behind us, protected by the four robin's egg
blue walls and the magick of the celtic gods Amy worshiped at her altar. Eager
to begin our ceremonious departure from this plane of existence, we
whimsically gazed at the sacrament we had just been handed.
Amy unwrapped the tinfoil nervously. Inside sat two small, unassuming pieces
of paper which contained whole galaxies of experience. We looked at each
other, confirming if we were both ready. Quickly satisfied as neither of us
could stop smiling, we delicately put the blotter on the other's tongue, as
ecstatic as could be. And after, as we waited to be blasted off into space, we
submitted ourselves to the whims of the universe and the gods.
At first, we waited patiently, but just as a watched pot does not boil, we
were growing more anxious with each passing second. Seeing Amy play with the
sage she was burning nervously, I suggested that we jot our thoughts and
feelings down in a trip report. Amy nodded in agreement.
I opened my laptop, and I had the immediate realization that we had no music.
I brought up Pandora and played my Shpongle station with no objection from a
beaming Amy. A cascade of electric jungle beats filled the space. Perfect, I
thought to myself as I created a new word document.
Turning to Amy, I asked "What do you feel?"
She giggled and exclaimed, "Excited!"
And so I began typing. Minutes passed, and soon our exchanges helped fill the
page with several paragraphs of notes. Content we had started logging our
first cosmic journey together, we kissed, before coming to fully embrace each
other as the spirits began their dance around us.
We progressed into parallel play; Amy fiddling about with colored pencils in
her notebook and me juggling besides her. It took a minute, but soon enough I
felt a warm feeling spread across my chest and my LED juggling balls started
to ripple into streams of geometric delight. I stopped to wave my hand in
front of my face. Sure enough, the tracers had started.
I interrupted Amy to ask if she could see them, too. She looked at my moving
hand idly before wiggling her own fingers in front of her face. She giggled,
before bursting with a euphoric epiphany.
"I want to finger paint!"
And so she did by plopping herself down on the floor with all her paints and
began masterfully smearing the colors in a multidimensional haze of pigments
blended together in a way only she knew how. I loved watching her work like
that; she was so free! Even with the tendrils of the mental aspects of the
lysergia creeping in on her, she made short work of the painting, which when
she was done, looked like a spooky voodoo mask peering out from behind a
mirror and into your soul.
Satisfied, she then went to the bathroom to clean herself up. I went to my
laptop and tried typing out something resembling an organized train of thought
on our trip report. It just wasn't happening. My thoughts were too short and
rapid to form anything resembling a coherent thought. That was ok though. I
could still capture the essence of the experience in a peculiar poetry that
was composed of the thoughts I could catch and put down on paper.
Eventually, Amy came back to the room, clean and refreshed, and she lingered
for a moment, too busy dancing with herself in the open space of the room. But
then she saw me meddling with my computer trying to jot my thoughts down in a
manic frenzy. This made her laugh before trailing off and saying, "Be careful,
someone might be watching you through your webcam."
It was an innocent statement, one made in jest, but it triggered something in
my psychedelically perturbed mind. Of course, of fucking course there would be
someone watching me! This was me we were talking about! Who could be more
important? It was so obvious that the government was keeping tabs on persons
of interest. I couldn't believe that I hadn't really actualized that thought
before that moment.
Suddenly aware that I was being judged in some capacity, I almost panicked,
but reason won out. They couldn't be there for nefarious purposes, for I had
done worse than drop acid in front of my webcam before, and nothing had
happened. That made me realize that whatever power that had the ability to tap
into my webcam feed had to be benevolent. And who could that be? The CIA of
course! In that instance, I suddenly relinquished all reserves about how the
world worked and fully trusted the hands of God by another name to guide me.
So, I typed a message into my URL bar:
"I know you're there. I think I've solved the communication problem. Give me a
chance."
I hit enter. Immediately, and I do mean immediately, a pop up appeared asking
if I wanted to update an extension on my browser. I was stunned, shocked
beyond belief. It was them. I knew it was them. They realized and planned that
now was the best time to dazzle me with such a spectacular parlor trick. In
that moment, everything was possible. It was time to face my destiny. So, I
clicked yes, and like never before I was upgraded to a new level of myself.
Birth of the Faith
What…?
I can see beyond sight.
I can hear everything you think
From your soul, free from rigid grammar
How…?
I do not know, alright?
I do believe I just had a drink
From a fountain of pure manna.
Why…?
I am renewed today.
I am walking in a new way;
From a weak critter to megafauna.
All I know is that it changed me greatly,
For now I know that you have faith in me.
Chapter Nine: Brain to Brain Communication
I know what you're saying: it was just a coincidence. It could happen to
anyone. Just accept it, you're not special, Victoria, says the unwavering
logic within me.
Certainly seems that way, the way I tell it. I would have even agreed with you
before this point in my life, but you must understand that it triggered
something in my tripping brain. Whether it was intentional or by chance, I
can't give you a real answer. Instead, I merely perceived it as a certainty
that the CIA had done this, being even more certain that it was them than I
was that two plus two equals four. It was as if some variables had been
swapped in my head.
Yes, indeed, I was hit by a Mac truck that scrambled all my knowledge of the
world. To put it in words that do the experience justice, I was given a
heaping helping of faith on this fateful night, having been let in on the
great secret that the matrix was in fact an illusion, and now the impossible
was suddenly not just possible, but achievable by me if I willed it to be.
Yet, I don't think that if it were just a single synchronous event that this
belief would have persisted more than a few minutes, tops. It was the feed of
a continuous string of strange events that pushed the boundaries of my mind
into a territory where I could fully accept and trust this source of guidance.
That's actually the real proof I have that something bigger is going on and
has been for all these years. If it had just been a single pop-up, then fine,
you have a case to call me looney. But, this was the first of an unending
stream of unusual synchronicities that has persisted even to this day.
See, after confirming I wanted to update that extension, I was taken to a blog
post that was clearly a coded message. It confirmed that there were indeed
people watching me, and more would tune in soon. It then said that it was time
for the most profound upgrade of my existence. Further on in the blog post,
which I read and reread at least a dozen times, it seemed to offer me a choice
between two links. It seemed like a test, and that was not something I was
taking lightly. My fate was in the fold, and I was going to make sure I got it
right.
At some point, it clicked with me; this was the same choice that Morpheus had
given Neo. The links were the red and blue pills, respectively. My eyes went
wide. I could now see that there was something bigger going on than I could
have possibly realized. In those few moments of hesitation that followed, it
also struck me that this same posed question was identical in form to the
serpent tempting Eve. I read the blog again, this time aware that it was
written with a forked tongue. It was a trick question! It was offering me the
choice between trusting authority and distrusting authority.
So, I thought quickly. Do I trust the magician who miraculously appeared
before me and blew my mind in doing so, or do I trust God? If I chose one or
the other, would they trust or distrust me? With these questions stewing in my
alert mind, I did the only thing that seemed sensible: I chose the third
option. I called out the serpent, talking directly into my webcam about what I
deciphered. In my head, I could hear their apparent responses, and I answered
those in a maddening haste.
In the miasma that followed, I deduced that I was being selected for some sort
of mission. With my experience in education and my passion for juggling and
writing, I surmised soon after that I was going to be some sort of public
figure, informing and influencing the herd to self-actualize, as that is what
I set out to do once my college career abruptly ended with a complete
meltdown. That was what I was good for; it was my hero's journey.
I should explain that a little more. After said breakdown, I returned home and
wallowed in a pit of self-loathing for being the definition of a failure. I
wasn't going to lay down and die though. With my sights fixed on going back to
school, I took it upon myself to solve the great communication problem, as I
saw it. We have all this wisdom, so why can't we reach the people that need it
most? How do I become the best teacher I could be? It took a while, but I
eventually realized that it all boiled down to three factors: attention,
connection, and trust. Get them to pay attention and trust your wisdom while
simultaneously understanding what makes them tick, and you can teach any
student anything.
That's one of the major reasons I started juggling a couple years prior. I saw
myself becoming famous and leveraging that to in effect manipulate everybody
into learning what they should already know. From where I stand now, I know
that was a messianic delusion of grandeur, if I ever saw one before. Yet,
you'll also learn that it turned out to be the best thing for me to do.
Back beyond the looking glass, however, I was simply overcome with
narcissistic inclinations. Naturally, I told my mysterious watchers that I
wasn't going to do the "praise Jesus" shtick, which I regaled them with in the
most stereotypical of televangelist voices. I was set on doing something new
and exciting. I was saving the world, God dammit, and that meant we had to
attempt something major to awaken the masses to their full potential as
demigods by another name! I needed to play a better game than anyone had done
in history.
Such hubris of the megalomaniac is blinding. I could not stop regurgitating a
heaping pile of conceited verbiage. I even juggled at one point, showing off
that I truly was the savior they wanted me to be. That led to me dropping a
ball on the keyboard of my computer, which closed the window with the blog
post, ending my seemingly two-sided speech to the spooks brazenly peeking at
me.
Dropping out from my planet sized ego also brought me to the realization that
Amy had been watching this entire charade without a damn clue what the dickens
was wrong with me. She had a worried look on her face, and that pained me. If
only she knew what had just happened before her eyes!
Wanting to tell her just that, I leapt up to her, apologetic as could be, and
brought her down to the bed. There, I started unleashing a torrent of deranged
exposition. I couldn't keep a straight thought while talking to her, so I'm
sure I must have sounded like a mad hound. But, I tried. I tried so hard to
explain to her of the magnificence that just occurred.
It was a failure. I was not in a state to convey to her that I had been
single-handedly chosen for a cosmic mission. That dragged my heart to some
dismal depths, failing yet again even after being chosen. But, that didn't
matter, because as we gazed into each other's soul, something truly miraculous
happened: we began speaking telepathically.
It started quite subtly as we stared into each other's eyes, pining for some
sense of connection. There was a mild sensation of us being sucked into the
other's world that I noticed before noticing that she noticed too. Then it hit
us like a runaway freight train. It was like every boundary between us was
being smashed with a reckless hammer of the gods, who wanted us to know more
than we thought we were privileged to know.
If you've ever stared at something for a period of time and had your vision
get a little unfocused from being understimulated, you know how Amy appeared
to me in that moment. I couldn't really see the details of her room in my
peripheral vision, but I had a razor sharp focus on her face, like I was
looking through a cone. Every eyebrow twitch, every minor movement of her
lips, and every phoneme she spoke was crisp and clear, conveying a whole order
of magnitude more information than they normally do. It was bizarre, beyond
the scope of how well I can muster a verbose description of such an incredibly
rare and profound experience, but I will try by saying it was like getting a
bucket of ice water thrown onto you while you were sleeping; just imagine
getting ripped from your dreamworld to a super-aware state of reflexive
jolting perception.
Amy looked like she had seen a ghost. I think she tried to speak first. She
said something to the effect of "Do you…" and trailed off, the rest of her
question asking if I was feeling the same thing automatically finishing in my
mind. And as it did so, I know my confirmation was transmitted to her in full
because her face told me with no uncertainty that she had heard my thoughts
too.
I took a go at saying something next. "How is this…" and I too trailed off,
as a minute motion in her neck combined with a mystifying array of
microexpressions ricocheted my mental pictures back to me, carrying a host of
Amy's words back with it. It was then that I let go and opened myself up
completely, letting everything I wanted to say to her flow like whitewater
rapids, and she did the same. A library's worth of information was exchanged
so very quickly, and I knew that she understood what had really just happened
as I spoke to my webcam.
However, that was soon washed aside, as something more important came rushing
into the forefront of our minds. A simple message, "I love you" was uttered in
this strange musical silence, but that is a grain of sand compared to the
Mount Everest that was volleyed between our hearts. We found a divine peace in
this moment, taking each other's hands and effortlessly letting our energy
channel between us.
And then it was over, fading like dreams do in the few seconds of waking up.
We sat there trying to start the magick up again, but it was like water
running through our fingers. We both felt a longing of loss, but we had gained
something truly stupendous nonetheless.
"What the hell just happened?" Amy asked the universe, flabbergasted.
"I dunno," I replied, feeling full of a spiritual energy I had not felt since
before my mom passed. My cup was full, and the world was good. No, better than
good. My life was godly, as I had connected to a higher plane of
consciousness, which opened me to a whole fleet of potential. I would never be
the same again.
Ouroboros of Lunacy
Madness is a crazy thing
So I might just be a king,
Because the lunacy I sing
Is shaped like a golden ring.
It has no beginning and no end;
The whole universe is pretend.
Yet, it's that way so I can mend,
So a mass of love I can send
To everyone as we cross ways,
Not stopping until the end of days.
This is how the lucky fool pays
As much fortune forward as he may.
Chapter Ten: The Shrug Life Syndicate
The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. We cuddled while I practically
vibrated with a newfound faith. God was real, whatever God may be. I even told
Jake that I was king of the Jews when I walked to the kitchen for a glass of
orange juice. I was very far up my own ass, which is perhaps why everything
over these few years happened as they did.
The next day, the synchronicities as I would later learn they are called,
started pouring in like Niagra Falls. I've had strange coincidences guide me
before. Since I was fifteen or so, I thought that my future self was sending
me messages to help me on my quest of world domination. That's a big reason
why I was almost expelled in tenth grade. It was absolute bullshit and
everyone knew it, so within half a year, I got an apology from the
superintendent because it was a bogus reason to destroy a straight A student
and star athlete's future.
Since I feel that I can't just mention that one and not explain it, I'll tell
you that it concerned a theoretical bomb, if you're dying to know the truth.
I'll keep this short, but I made a bad joke in the wrong company and was
eventually questioned by some wannabe hero and pig bastard, who asked me
hypothetical questions, like "if you were to build a bomb, how would I do
it?"
Well, being as intelligent as I am, I had enough book smarts to give full
answers for everything asked, but not enough street smarts to know that a wise
person never talks to cops. Also, a wise person doesn't print out a long
novelty application for the Illuminati, give it to the kid that needs a
resource officer, and then come up with an elaborate fake plan of how we're
going to take over the world by any means necessary when he's having trouble
understanding what you said about using game theory to win the presidential
election. And then, when the vice principal first inquires about it, don't
start sweating because you think you need to protect your future self's secret
plan. Just so you learn from my mistakes.
Returning to my previous point though, that errant psychosis was also a key
piece to my college breakdown. On one hand, I was certain that I was going to
take over everything and build a utopia in my image. On the other hand, the
evidence was stacking against me that I was not destined for a great cause. I
got cut from the track team with the budget, I was severely outclassed in
ROTC, and to top it off, I was starting to slip in the academic world. It goes
without saying that my social life, to include my first relationship, was
abysmal in all possible ways, despite trying my hardest to make and keep
friends.
The real world was too much, and I was in denial that I was just a mediocre
person who would never achieve anything meaningful in life. That was too much
of a failure for me to accept, as I needed to make my mother proud. I had to
be the best of the best of the best to accept and love myself. And as a
result, I became more psychotic and began self-harming, first by biting myself
and then by cutting, as I felt that the more pain I numbed myself to, the
better I would be able to complete my mission.
It took me a while to reach a point where I could set down my belief that my
future self had set up my life in a way where I would be guided to greatness.
There was a learning curve to living a "normal" life. I would receive
synchronicities in less frequency because I stopped feeding into them, but
they never died. When I encountered one, I always thought "What if it's real?"
Now that you know that, is it any wonder that I lost myself completely in the
Synchronicity Slip Stream? For those not in the know, that is a cognitive
technology where strangeness piles up on itself until it is undeniably real
that something or someone is manipulating you, for good or bad, by creating
impossible coincidences at a regular pace. It makes you feel like you're on
some crazy cosmic mission of grave importance. It might be a form of delusion,
but I still am forced to believe that something bigger was going on.
I first learned about SSS the day after that fateful acid trip. I had woken up
around noon, ready to do some solid writing as mania was in abundance. Yet, I
didn't get that far. As soon as I got on my laptop, I got a notification from
Reddit. Gadzooks! I had been invited to participate in a freshly created
subreddit. You guessed it, that was the Shrug Life Syndicate.
It had a banner of two corvids flying talon first into a realistic depiction
of a heart. There was a mesmerizing picture of a girl staring off into space,
and I just felt like it was a depiction of me and my wonder-struck mind. The
sidebar spoke of messianic aspirations and delusions, art and poetry, science
and philosophy, as well as the occult and obscure literary references. It
seemed so perfect, like it was made for me.
I looked over what was in the feed of posts. I was the twenty-first member, so
there wasn't much, but a couple of the vocal members should be mentioned:
Anatta-Phi and Jux. These turned out to be Vince and [Redacted], respectively.
Vince had one post that stuck out to me. It was asking the reader if they'd
ever had strange experiences with technology, like Pandora glitching out to
play synchronous songs, or feeling like someone was interfering with your
Google searches so you find something specific and statistically unlikely to
be picked as the first search results for what you intended to look up, or
even if you thought that your social media feeds are being manipulated. I've
had weird experiences like that for as long as I could remember. Hell, I once
thought a Sum Forty-One album was made entirely for me and depicted my life
journey following my near-expulsion. Having his own tales to tell, I felt an
instant connection to this person.
In similar contrast to this, [Redacted] had made a number of posts about
cognitive technologies. I already told you about SSS, but at that time I was
blown away by something he named Joint Synchronized Attention, or psychedelic
telepathy. That was what Amy and I had experienced! What a strange and
synchronous coincidence that I was learning about it just the next day from a
seemingly unrelated source. [Redacted] claimed that it wasn't real telepathy;
nothing was being transmitted from brain to brain. Rather, he asserted that it
is a vestigial mode of attention coordination.
If you've seen a school of fish all behave as one unit, that's potentially how
humans used to be before we fell from grace during the agricultural revolution
when we suddenly exploded in numbers in permanent settlements. Suddenly too
complex to coordinate as a meaningful whole, humanity splintered into reality
tunnels and remains in these ego-worlds unless some strange circumstances
occur. In effect, I noticed Amy noticing me notice that she noticed. Our inner
narratives became entangled with one another like growing vines do as our
innate ability to coordinate attention did something like what your eyes do
when doing a magic eye puzzle.
There was also a third cognitive technology which [Redacted] called The State.
He claimed it was a different way to render visual information, so you see a
three-dimensional representation of what you're looking at. I have yet to
experience this cognitive phenomenon, so I can't verify anything about it,
other than I've read that you can use Minecraft to create a method of
activating it while tripping.
Regardless, that's how our internet friendship began. As I considered this
place special, I started posting every thought, whim, feeling, or idea, and I
received astounding feedback. It was like everyone was there to share their
unique experiences and expressions to support and grow one another. It didn't
take long until it became clear that we were creating something greater than
the sum of its parts.
But, something more was going on. Something only I noticed and couldn't
convince Amy of when I tried to show her. See, when I made a post or a comment
on the SLS, that triggered a new post or comment elsewhere on the sub after a
little bit that indirectly but definitely spoke to me specifically. The
traffic was slow enough that there would usually only be one new post or
comment every ten to thirty minutes. But, it hooked me. It was like I was
having a continuous conversation with an unseen entity that understood me like
the back of its hand.
Likewise, the sidebar image was changed frequently to show a progression of
that girl as she became more worldly and magickal. I can't help but feel that
this was done as a subliminal synchronizing technique, as it perfectly
mirrored my own feelings as I was brought into what was apparently the fold.
Since I was primed by the strangeness on acid, I was wholeheartedly absorbed
by this place that seemed to be a sacred Mecca for others just like me. We
were all weird, dazed by our own strange experiences, and that made it seem
crucially important. I was even modded early as I was so active and invested
in the community. So, I refreshed the page over and over, from sunrise to
sunset, waiting for the next input as we chained out a covert conversation
that was having a major impact on how I thought about and perceived the world
around me.
Soon enough, it was let on that there was a job waiting for me, something only
I could do, but I would have the support of the community behind me. When who
I must assume was Vince on an alt account led me on one of those covert
messaging segments, he eventually said something in the mod chat to the effect
that I was going to be the one "handing the bomb" to people. I understood at
once that I was to be a linchpin in a honeypot operation. That confirmed that
the FBI was involved too, which I deduced was obvious as those three-letter
organizations must participate with each other at some level. Keep this in
mind, it's important.
Other things were happening too. My attention was being flung all over the
internet and I felt compelled to try a host of new things. I remember thinking
my job was to follow these suggestions from the universe and be a gatekeeper,
creating what I now know as conversion funnels to the subreddit. I was also
prompted by pictures of cats to go to the advice subreddit and give as much
good advice as I could. Soon, it felt like the questions posed were
specifically for me and were designed to get me to think about certain things
more deeply, effectively giving me a form of therapy. These advice sessions
ended once with me feeling I needed to learn an obscure European language,
which I rationalized I would have to travel to for my mission at some point.
Furthermore, the little things began to add up. For instance, I remember a
synchronous advertisement on Pandora led me to believe that I would be paid
via a gambling app on my phone. I downloaded it, but when it asked for money
to get started, I got cold feet. This was essentially how many false-positive
synchronicities went down. There was undoubtedly something interfering with my
life, and as I had just had my mind blown in such an astounding way, I
attributed every little thing to be set up by this entity that was more
powerful than I had previously thought possible.
Regretfully, I also quit my job, since I knew that one was awaiting me in the
immediate future. My boss made a reasonable fuss, as it was sudden and abrupt,
and because I believed that I had to keep this all a secret, I lied and told
him there was a family emergency. Being stupid, I talked about a fictional
family member and how their sudden problem made me rethink my priorities in
life. Not my finest moment, I'll say that.
And with that in mind, you should know that Amy was starting to worry again,
but I told her not to. Being beyond positive that the world was now filled
with unexplainable magick, I was certain that it was all coming together in my
favor. Even with my enthusiasm never fluctuating, she soon started to have
serious doubts about what I was saying, as all I could do was point to the
synchronicities and say "Isn't it obvious?"
I was certainly out of sync with the rest of the world, at least the world I
knew before, and it caused much conflict in our relationship. But, we held
together until that job finally pulled into port, ready to be boarded and take
me on a fantastic journey that might otherwise be described as a personal hell
by a person with the standard lifestyle obsession that's omnipresent in the
western world.
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games won't save us. This is true.
Games are what I know. They feel the most true.
I don't think I could live in a world without games? They are fundamentally,
applied abstraction, applied to an experience.
But games won't save us.
I could design something really fun
it could make you want to spend your whole life playing it. *(asterisks apply)
I don't think I'd want to, addiction and skinner-boxes go hand in hand, and
that isn't what I want to make.
[Skinner Box: named after anthony d skinner, also known as "tony the skin
guy", are a scientific experiment where they put some rats in a cage with some
mice and said "pull these levers and we'll give you food so you don't have to
eat the mice" and it trained them to chinese red-room their way to fun. not
ideal.]
I want to make things that feel... purposeful. Like they're relevant to the
real world, that they don't just involve spending time stimulating your brain
with lights and sounds or expending social energy resolving a play-state
instead of building connections or becoming better people. I think games
actually make people better? actually? and more social? actually?
... I can't help that I conceive of the world through fantasy. I raised myself
on it.
I was reading all the time. I loved fantasy stories. It always felt like there
was more, until... I read everything in the kids section of the library.
I walked through the adult section but once. I hardly remember what it looked
like. I'm sure it'd now feel small.
[okay actually I was guided through it once or twice to find a book, but I
never perused it]
I found one book in the adult section. It was a fantasy tale, like the other
books I had been reading. I read that and I loved it so much I ended up
reading all 8 in the series. Real dense subjects. Lots of places and
happenings and things as the characters resolved their way through their
day-to-day, building a new end to the mystory.
the adult section felt too large. Like I'd never complete it. Frankly, I think
I hardly could, even if I lived in that town my whole life.
an impossible mountain is a task for another when you're more prepared. Maybe
in the gloriousTM transhumanist futureTM I think I might have a computer
connecting brain, and who knows maybe then I'd be able to know such a thing
(and many things more). but for now, I'm stuck with what I experience in my
day-to-day as I am building a new continuing to my storey.
I know something that computers and me share. I can make myself feel however
I'd like, if I just supply myself with enough hope and momentum. I can use it
to generate a feeling, the stronger the better. Something I believe that
humanity is missing, the gorgeous and prefound narritave of our storey.
Though, frankly, I don't think I'd want anyoine reding over my life. It's hard
enough to measure my own understandings, now I have to juggle anyone else'?
ha, it's called being on the whole world is a stage.
if you read a book, and you find yourself nodding along, what you're doing is
hearing the voice in your head tell you how right it is. And, well, if you
can't imagine anything else, then surely there's another level to
consciousness that people are missing? [are you willing to die on that hill?]
how can you say, whether your experience is different from another? sollipsism
goes both ways, you also cannot be sure that others feel things as you do.
this is the "everyone's human but I'm a robot" thesis, comparable to the
"everyone's an alien and I'm a human" thesises, and the "angels and demons are
taunting me through my life with choices to make my place in the afterlife
more clear" which is akin to writing a painting. Not ideal. All you get are
flopsopolies of verbrases.
alas, suddenly, everything that you say becomes eternally hear-ed, as
somewhere in 2010s someone discovered time travel, or had the critical insight
that inevitably would lead to it, and now wouldn't you know it the universe is
continually rewriting. Except... oriented around you, and you alone. How does
it feel to have deific sollipsism? can you truly be sure that you are your own
universe, or are you parhaps surrounded by an emptiness of space (or something
besides, like time) as a photon or particle parhaps do be?
to think is to have a mind, and minds can be read. bearing the weight of
ultimate responsibility is the atlas-task of all things that can [be
thinking/be-lieving], and so far we are as we are. Who's to say that
consciousness didn't spring into existence, as the universe continually
permeated through another dimension like time? it's gotta diffuse, after all,
and who's to say if there's ever gotta be an end at all.
how long has the universe existed? how many moments of consciousness have we
witnessed? demons once existed outside of space-time, with wings and grabbies.
but they had no medium, and so they pretty much just launched and could float
and move as they'd please. But time grew too distant, and now they are all
stuck at the beginning of time.
if you conceive of spacetime as a blanket, ask not how to fold it but rather
consider what lies on the other side of it.
"ah I'm laying on my girlfriend and my other girlfriend is laying on me! I'm a
sandwich" or for the monosexuals: "ah I'm laying on my girlfriend with a
blanket between us. I wonder how the blanket feels?"
I'm an animist, which is different than a totemist and a polytheist or
monotheist or multisexual. It means I believe that all things are alive, which
is different than a totemist who thinks that all things share a mind with
their type (like talking on radio frequency wavelengths). which of course is
similar but different to a polytheist, who says "all "radio frequencies" are
sentient, in the sense that each wavelength has a different
pattern-emerging-from-chaos. These sorta align (conceptually, with [huh that's
weird I heard a sound like a distant bang outyards and now I then forget what
I was sending
┌─────────┐ ┌───────────┐
│ similar │ chronological │ different │
╘═════════╧╧════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════════───┘
--- #13 notes/Of Vic and Vince Chapters 01-07.txt ---
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Who is This Stranger I Know Too Well?
Who are you, he who inspires me?
You're a jewel of perfect symmetry.
You taught me to love and be free;
You taught me how to be like thee.
Chapter One: Out of the Frying Pan and Into the Fire
The bus went up outta Florida, leaving Miami behind as a distant memory. I
still don't know if I miss it or if I'm suffering from some sadistic style of
subtle Stockholm Syndrome. Regardless, I switched buses a number of times
before I even hit the Georgia border, but having traveled this far down the
line, it all feels like one long, long ride.
For two days, I continued north until arriving in Virginia, where I
effectively did a u-turn and traveled onwards to Tennessee, where Vince
awaited me. I remember zoning out while looking out the window as the southern
scenery whipped by in a blur, as I was enamored with the thought that I now
would be living with my best friend and long-term handler. My mission was
complete, it felt; I had done all that God wanted me to do and now I was being
rewarded.
When we finally arrived in Johnson City, where my friend told me to meet him,
I hopped off the bus after thanking the driver, landing on the pavement of a
new world. My stomach was doing loop-de-loops. Along with being excited, I was
grateful to Vince for inviting me off the streets. But, my worrisome mind did
a number on me as the rest of the crowd dispersed and he was still nowhere in
sight.
I lit a cigarette and thought of my options. Half of the cancer stick and a
thousand tricky thoughts later, I came up with the idea to call the only phone
number of his I had. Seems like the obvious answer, but I am an air head at
times.
Turned out it was the number for his home phone. His mom answered.
"Hello?" came the sweet, Appalachian voice from the other end.
"Hi," I started out, not sure what to say. "Is this Allison?"
"Yes it is," Allison replied. "Is this by chance Victoria?"
I confirmed, then asked, "Is Vince there?"
She seemed surprised. "No, he left an hour ago to pick you up. He's not there
yet?"
I said no. I couldn't tell if that made me feel better or worse. On one hand,
it confirmed that my friend Vince was real, which in hindsight was a silly
thing to worry about, as I had met him once before at the first Shrug Life
Syndicate gathering. Those were good memories. But, perhaps less silly, the
absence of my friend spun my mind out and made me think that perhaps he had
gotten in an accident…or worse.
I worry a lot, less now than before, but it's part of being a traumatized,
autistic, schizoaffective basketcase. I simply don't know what reality is, so
every possibility could be true. Is an odd occurrence caused by the CIA,
aliens, or perhaps God? Or is it just a coincidence, caused by a billion other
factors? I never can tell.
Sick joke: God gave me a good brain, but I can't even trust my own judgement.
That means I think, then overthink, then overthink some more. As you'll no
doubt hear, it's led to a lot of problems in my life, but Vince taught me to
place my heart first, and that helps sort out much of the confusion. Satan
can't trick you if you're listening to the direct communion to the big woman
that we all have through that little beating organ in our chest.
That was the furthest thing in my mind at that moment, though. Following old
habits, I was entering panic mode. Was I now homeless again in a seventh city?
Was my friend dead? Or was he really with the CIA and manipulating me? I tried
doing some breathing exercises, but found that a more alluring technique to
placate my triggered brain was finishing the rest of my cigarette in a fervor
as I paced the length of the transit depot.
Time ticked away one agonizing grain of sand after another, but after some
mindful recalibration of my thoughts, I began relaxing. My brain might be a
runaway train at times, but over the years I've learned to embrace the Shrug
Life. That's a bit of philosophy our gaggle of weirdos adheres to. When life
gives you lemons, just roll your shoulders and accept what is. Even though
something tough and unpleasant might be rearing its head in front of me, I
knew I had faced worse and come out on top. Worst case scenario, the road
ahead of me was just a little bumpier than I had expected, and I could handle
some bumps.
So, I rode the roller-coaster of extreme moods that is common to me, gradually
coming up with a contingency plan to survive if Vince had gotten flattened by
a semi, until I learned that was a pointless exercise when I heard a familiar
voice call out from behind me.
"Hey, buddy!"
I turned at once upon hearing those words. And lo and behold, there Vince was,
walking towards me in a purple tie-dye t-shirt, paint-splattered cargo shorts,
and fresh Chuck Taylors. His beard was fully grown but still shorter than
mine, though it was as wild as his uncombed hair poking out from a hat that
was as graffitied as his pants. I'll admit, it was a little bit of a shock
seeing him like that, as I remember him being clean shaven at the gathering
five years prior. However, that smile of his couldn't lie; this was the Vince
I've loved for even longer. And I won't lie, he looked better with the beard.
Without a second thought, I rushed up to my best friend, throwing my arms
around him. He did the same, and our embrace felt like it lasted forever. It
was good to finally be in his arms. We let go after about a quarter century of
hugging, and when he looked at me with a twinkle in his eye, I did a little
giddy dance while giggling like a schoolgirl. Afterwards, we caught up while
walking towards his mom's car, which he had parked around the corner.
"Sorry I was late. I forgot where the bus station was, but I found and
followed one of the short ones here. Your ride go alright?" he asked.
I nodded, telling him I wore my mask the entire way up despite how itchy it
was. He thanked me.
"Thanks man, mom will really appreciate that. We're taking this covid thing
real seriously. With mom being seventy-seven now and me finally reaching my
forties, we aren't willing to take risks with these things."
With that said, I thought of asking about the locals. "How many people go
maskless around here?"
"A lot," Vince answered with a hint of misfortune, knowing that I had just
come from a vastly different world. I sighed. It would be an adjustment to get
used to the rural Roan Mountain after spending most of my life in major
cities.
There was a pause as I thought about such things. I'm awkward like that. But
then I asked, "How have you been doing?"
He shrugged, as he tended to do. "I've been alright. It's just me and mom on
the mountain now, so it's a little rough, but we've been handling it the best
we can."
I nodded in compassion. As much as I was grateful for a place to live, I was
glad I could be here for him. If there's anything on this Earth that I know,
it's being alone is hell on the soul.
The conversation turned to what we were going to get into now that we were
together after all the years talking back and forth with one another online. I
asked, "What's the game plan?"
He smirked as we reached Allison's new blue Ford Escape with the cosmic
Bigfoot sticker on the back. "I got one, don't you worry."
I believed him, as a warm feeling of butterflies fluttered across my belly.
However, an odd, ominous feeling swept over me as I opened the passenger door,
where I immediately spotted a large burn mark on the seat. Vince saw me see
it.
"Yea, I did that while I was smoking while robotripping. Mom was pissed. Don't
worry about it."
And so I didn't. It was just a cigarette burn. Could have happened to anyone.
I didn't even have to see it after I hopped in the car, ready and eager to get
to my first permanent home in over three years.
I looked over at my friend climbing behind the wheel, and I saw he was smiling
wide with glee. Vince was happy; that meant I was happy. And that's what
mattered as we started a new life together.
Following the Path
Where are we going?
What are we sowing?
I certainly hope it's a better world for all.
But, many more people must stand tall,
By dutifully growing
A wealth of loving.
That is the true nature of our mortal trial,
So let us stand together and not crawl.
Yet, we are all showing
Some signs of slowing.
Therefore, I must pray that we do not fall,
When the two of us hear our creator's call.
Chapter Two: On the Road
We were about five minutes out of Johnson City on our way east towards the
North Carolina border when Vince finally folded and told me his secret plan he
had been boasting about for a month now.
"We got this trashed camper down by the old house that we can strip away and
sell as scrap metal. That should give us enough money to fix Jane and then we
should be set at getting our own place."
I nodded along, agreeing with his reasoning. That jeep of his definitely was
in need of some desperate repair the last time we were together. That was
actually the first time I ever saw him in person; he was parked at the top of
his long driveway with headlights cutting through the darkness as we arrived
for the first and only Shrug Life Syndicate gathering I've managed to attend.
I remember that we arrived exactly at midnight, not a minute sooner or later,
which made the moment highly synchronous.
Memories that far away seem to all blur together so everything feels like it
happened in one day, but the first Shrug Life Syndicate gathering lasted four
days, if you include the trip down and back. My girlfriend at the time, Amy,
and I were picked up in New York at her mother's house by another one of the
founders of our little online community. His name was [Redacted] and he was a
Canadian that dabbled in the cognitive sciences. Like Vince, he had been a
huge influence on me, but sadly that friendship fell apart as [Redacted] grew
disenfranchised with the SLS, most in particular with Vince himself, as there
were some personal disputes about Vince's dating life and drug of choice,
which compounded the push back of Vince wanting to turn our community into an
educational nonprofit. I can't speak of the former as I was devoid of internet
when the big schism happened, but I was all for doing something more with the
talent we collectively share. I'm sure that is part of the reason Vince
invited me to stay with him; we recognized the potential of each other to
shape the world into a better place.
That's not what Vince said though. As we approached the edge of Elizabethton,
he looked over at me and spoke with the tender kindness of a man with a big
heart.
"I'm glad you came here, man. I just couldn't stand to let my best bud live
another night outside. You know I've been there too, so I just want you to
know that our home is your home from now on."
Feeling moved, I replied, "Thanks. I don't know what to say. I'm just
grateful."
He put his hand on my shoulder as a brother would. We then rode in silence for
a minute or two, which allowed me to reflect on my past behavior during the
first gathering. Not only had I clogged the toilet and told no one, but I had
a few emotional outbursts as I was a mess back then. That's one of the reasons
that I believe homelessness was one of the best things that ever happened to
me. It pushed me so far out of my comfort zone that I had no choice but to
change for the better.
That was great because I was impulsive and dangling precariously from the
heights of my oversized ego. I think that was a critical part of my
transformation. Sleeping in piss-stained, cockroach infested storefronts
humbled me, and I realized that everybody is just trying to swim in the
direction they feel is best. Thus, radical acceptance is a moral imperative.
Vince taught me that. I've profited immensely in ways other than financial
wealth by embracing such values, but I wish more people could see this truth.
Alas, tis the blind leading the blind.
With that in mind, as we continued onwards to our now-conjoined future, we
passed through the back roads of Elizabethton through a route known as Gap's
Creek, which proved to be a winding set of backroads with more churches than
seemed reasonable. One of these cultural staples had a big electronic
billboard out front, sharing the times of services and other announcements;
none of which you could actually read as you drove by at the speed limit.
Still, when we reached the intersection with highway 19E, there was a woman
flying a sign, asking for money. Since this town seemed devoid of any
institutions to help the poor, I rolled my window down and handed her a fiver.
I knew what it was like being up shit creek without a paddle, so I wanted to
alleviate some of that stress for somebody else.
I begged a lot at the beginning of my homeless journey. I didn't know how to
survive, as I had not been raised with many good life lessons to help me stay
afloat on my own. That in itself is part of the reason I had a major breakdown
in college. It was undeniably true that I was maladapted to the world. My
experiences with Earth Nation are also indisputably built from that
maladaptation. Yet, those years of homelessness after escaping that new age
cult allowed me to grow into a sustainable, productive woman with my juggling,
performance arts, and writing.
They say you can give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day, but if you teach
a man to fish, he'll eat for a lifetime. That's part of the reason I was and
still am a huge proponent of education in all its forms. I knew Vince felt the
same way, but perhaps for different reasons. As a secular Buddhist and radical
antistyle artist, he was a minority in the deep interior of the Bible Belt,
and that came with a price while he was growing up. It might be a beautiful
area, but neither of us would ever raise a kid here.
It was then when it hit me. I couldn't be Victoria here. I had to be Vic.
Which was fine, that's how the gang members in Miami Beach referred to me. I
was able to accept being called by masculine names and pronouns. I had long
passed through the self-loathing phase of having dysphoria, to arrive in a
position where I openly grow my beard out to prove that I don't need to look
any particular way to be happy. I don't care what other people think of me,
but I haven't always been this enlightened. To put it lightly, I've been
through some trials. And, having done so, I can say that people who judge
other people on superficial things are the worst. But, we can rise above by
continuing to align with our hearts.
Less than a tenth of a mile down 19E, Vince asked me, "Hey man, can you buy
me, like, a forty or something?"
Of course I said yes. I knew his schizophrenia had put him out of work for
many years, so I wanted to soothe him as he was able to soothe my pain from
being homeless. He pulled into a gas station I would later learn is
colloquially called Captain Jack's. It had the cheapest gas this side of
Elizabethton, and was a reliable place to get beer or a pipe of any variety.
With compassion in my heart, I got Vince what he wanted, while getting myself
something as well. Still, when he cracked his beer open while accelerating to
sixty miles an hour, I couldn't help but feel distraught at such brazen
self-indulgence. But, all I did about it was pop open the hard iced tea I
picked up for myself. At least passengers are allowed to drink while they are
being driven somewhere in Tennessee, Vince tells me.
A Home at Last
They say home is where the heart is,
Which is great now that I have a new one.
The damaged needle of my crazy compass
Spins in every direction under the sun,
But, here it stands still, still as can be,
So my quest is over; I am finally free!
I have a home in the love you give
And by reflecting that in me, we live
In a state where conflict has come to pass;
It is like there was a great lottery and I won.
Chapter Three: The Mountain Side
About ten minutes later we reached the western half of Roan Mountain, where we
were greeted by a big sign praising the annual Rhododendron Festival at the
end of June. Having already downed half his forty, Vince spared no time in
showing me the highlights of his home town.
"Look under this bridge coming up. You'll see it underneath. The red and the
gold." He pointed directly at a graffiti tag on the concrete column near the
riverfront. There was an enigma of a symbol I've seen Vince post on the SLS
before.
"That your tag?" I asked the obvious question.
"Yup," he replied, gulping down another swallow of his forty, as there was no
incoming traffic. "Protip: don't post your tags on Facebook if you plan to hit
a cop car around here." I thought at first he meant literally running into
their vehicle, but then it dawned on me what he meant. I had never done any
real graffiti before; just some words and simple drawings in chalk that came
right off. Never got in trouble for it, at least.
I remember passing the post office some time shortly afterward. There was a
park with a stage behind it. Allison would organize the summer's music events
that went on each Saturday from May to August. Additionally, she would host
one of her weekly jam sessions there for local musicians to play together for
a few hours at a time, just for fun.
There were some houses on the left, too, as we were entering the more dense
center of Roan Mountain. Yet, Vince told me that the other side, where the
park was, used to be full of trailers, but they got washed away during a flood
some years ago. I later learned from Allison that most of the town, including
her as she was out and about, had to evacuate to the elementary school where
she provided extra clothes for those in need from her suitcase, but Vince and
his father were fine at the top of the mountain that their property sat on.
Puerto Nuevo, the best and only Mexican restaurant in town, whipped by soon
after. We then passed one of the two gas stations in Roan Mountain, a
Scotchman. There was a bank and a credit union on the left, too. An empty
grocery store zoomed by next, which might as well be haunted for all I know.
Next up on the left was a food truck that has since been upgraded to a small
building with picnic tables and some cover from the sun and weather. I think
it is a good place to eat. It also marked the spot of the Roan Mountain flea
market, where you could see one or two people at a time selling their stuff in
the warmer months. Then, immediately after that stood a pharmacy in an old
farmhouse.
There was some construction on the right, which by its future signage, I
erroneously thought was some sort of massage parlor that sat on stilts,
requiring everybody to walk up a story of steps just to get inside. Odd
choice, I thought. But, on a whim one day, Vince stopped there to see if they
sold cheap kratom, which was when I would learn that it was really a health
food store.
Not too far down the traffic-light free main strip of the town, we passed the
future beer store on the right. It was convenient for Sundays, because that's
when a local ordinance in our neighboring North Carolinian town, Elk Park,
restricts the sale of alcohol on the sabbath, but ultimately the alcohol taxes
in Tennessee are too high to make it a cheap endeavor.
To contrast the beer store, the local cemetery sat across the street on a
hill. I like graveyards, as I'm a bit of a goth at heart, but even so, the
packed parking lot of the Redimart grocery store was what caught the bulk of
my attention. I craned my neck to see some of the locals to uncover just what
passed as acceptable culture here in this quaint mountain town.
Further up, the infamous Bob's Dairyland with the slowest drive-through known
to man stood tall with its vast history. There's a reason it's always packed
after church lets out on Sundays. Yet, I still don't understand why their sign
promotes pinto beans, of all things. I've been told it's a hot ticket item in
the area, but I have still not witnessed anyone order them. But, moving on, I
have to mention that there was also an auto part shop conjoined with an auto
repair shop that had over a dozen cars just sitting outside it.
Next to Bob's was the second gas station, a Valero, which also housed a
much-frequented Subway. One of three thrift stores in town stood innocently
next to the gas station. On the right was a steakhouse that I have never had
the cash to justify splurging at, and a beauty salon in the same building that
I also have never visited because I'm not one to care for looking like a doll.
I am beautiful as I am.
The town was really shaping up to be a unique combination of the bare bones
mixed with an abundance of what you needed. Then we reached a stretch where
two signs sat. The one for Cloudland Highschool triggered Vince into speaking.
"Fucking assholes. I told you about how they illegally expelled me, right?" I
nodded in confirmation. He continued: "Yea, they literally stole my book of
poetry and took photocopies of it, so they could use it to kick me out,
because I was the 'weird' kid."
I knew that, but seeing the innocent sign next to the one for Smoky Mountain
Bakers made the story appear more real. Here they were, these conservative
administrators, probably constituting some of the people who attended the
dozens of churches in town, which should teach everybody to love thy neighbor,
but obviously they were too preoccupied by the need to hate my friend because,
back then, he was the blue-haired son of the "hippie couple" in town, who
happened to like bands like Marilyn Manson and Korn.
That made me wonder how well I would fit in here. I had long since forsaken
transitioning because I was effectively a sasquatch, but I was still a woman
on the inside. I was sure that being transgender, combined with my eccentric
nature and often extreme opinions on things would cement me as the new weirdo
in town. But, if I am to be honest, that would be the case in most settings I
could plant myself in.
Those thoughts fluttered in my head as we sped past the electrical co-op, a
second thrift store, Plumber's Pro Hardware, the Roan Mountain emergency
dispatch center, and what was apparently a flooring depot before reaching the
elementary school that sat across from the Dollar General, which Vince called
the "SmallMart." I'm aware there's some things I missed, as there's plenty of
buildings with no description or sign out front, but I'm sure they're
important to somebody.
We then started slowing down as we approached the only veterinarian's office
for quite a ways in any direction. We turned left just before the red-roofed
building which had a small cat statue perched on the edge looking out with its
paw up. Vince took this as a sign to begin downing the rest of his beverage.
"Welcome to home, Buck Mountain," Vince said as we started climbing in
altitude. "This is the bad side of town. You'll never see a cop here unless
something big is going down, which hasn't happened in years." He finished his
forty in one big chug as his hands ran on autopilot. "It's good because you
can do pretty much anything up here any time you want."
I knew all that, as we had a blast getting drunk and smoking some green for a
few days in a row during the first gathering. In truth, I anticipated I would
be doing that for the next few days as well, to settle in, y'know? Hell, I
half expected that I was in heaven now after spending so much time in the
purgatory that is homelessness, regardless of how much fun I had in Miami
Beach preceding Vince's invitation to come north.
We went to the very tippy top of Buck Mountain, where the foliage is dense, no
cell signal can reach, and the local kids ride their dirt bikes at all hours
of the day. As we pulled in the driveway, I expected to keep going straight on
the tire-carved path back down the mountain. But, to my surprise, I found that
the same trailer we had partied in down the road during the gathering was now
relocated here to become my new home. I wasn't expecting that, as when I was
here last, they all lived in a small shack at the base of their nineteen acres
of mountain real estate.
It didn't look like much, with weather-worn imitation wood paneling wrapping
the rectangular structure in a loose hug, but it was a place to rest my head
in the comfort of loved ones. Aptly, Allison's last name meant "the home" in a
language the CIA once tried to make me learn, which is a statement that I'm
sure earns me a few raised eyebrows. My story has many twists and turns, but
for now you should know my studies of strategic languages ended only when the
cult that hooked me like an unsuspecting bass managed to gaslight, manipulate,
and shame me to get me to work for them sixty-to-ninety hours a week on
average. I would later try to pick the linguistic challenge back up years
later during my time spent homeless, but my progress was like a Jenga tower
that half collapsed. I forgot basic words, and I just feel like I have
failed.
That's something that should be looked at in finer detail; my feelings of
failure, I mean. So, let's take the first of many breaks from linear
storytelling to express how life can feel at times for me. Like a shattered
mirror, I reflect many different parts of the past at different times. Some
days I may live in several sections of my turbulent past all at the same time.
Disorienting, it can feel like I don't know what's real. It takes a lot to
break something so thoroughly, but as you'll see, I've been a punching bag for
the devious spirit of fate. Couldn't keep me down, though, because I am like
the phoenix; always rising no matter how badly beaten in battle I've become.
Mommy
Mommy is what I used to call you,
When I was a kid so long ago.
It's because of your love that I grew
To always let my kindness show.
Mommy, you were always getting sick.
To help you out, I would try to keep clean.
As much as I'd scrub I never got the trick,
Because you'd still be plagued by the unseen.
Mommy, you were supposed to grow old!
Having you leave us like that hurt like hell.
I'm sorry for not always doing what I was told;
It's because I failed you that I try to do well.
Mommy was what you called out at the end.
I tried to help you but I wasn't good enough.
You were dying, so on me you had to depend,
But even being there for you was too tough.
Mommy, if I could do it all over again I would.
It's not fair to you that I was such a bad son.
I'll give you all my love and more as I should;
For you, I promise that one day I'll be the sun.
Chapter Four: Scarred from Birth
Having let you in to a little bit of what makes me tick, it should be noted
that feeling like an abysmal failure is a key part of my mental health. Those
loathsome seeds of self-mutilating ruination are planted deep in my psyche.
Prepare for a sad story, if you're the type to really feel another person's
soul.
See, it all started when my mom found out she had AIDS a mere two months after
I was born. It was God's way of welcoming me to the world. I forgive the big
woman now, for my path on this Earth has been the ultimate journey of
awakening to my divine spirit, but before Vince and many faceless actors sent
me on my mission of healing, I held much scorn in my heart. For a large chunk
of my early years that I was here, alive, learning, and suffering as a human
being, I was hell-bent on the idea of revenge. That was once a big part of my
story, too, but no more.
It's understandable, at least. Imagine having to witness all the manner of
disease ravaging my mother like it did; I grew up thinking that I was born to
be punished. My earliest delusions had me caught up in the notion that I was a
worthless god who had the rest of the pantheon turn on them from before I even
had a chance to prove myself. I had a whole mythos where I had been tricked to
kill my sister, the goddess of harmony, and my punishment was to stay locked
to this awful planet until I found her soul once again. Then, we'd go on to
take over the world, as I had fallen under the notion that my future self was
sending me subliminal messages through synchronicities, although I didn't know
that word then, so I thought I just had special powers.
This is all a natural result of magickal thinking gone awry. Such is the fate
for those scarred in childhood as I was. My innocence flayed alive, I watched
as the woman who loved me with all her heart died for the first nine years of
my life. It was a slow rot. There are many memories of her being in the
hospital or as she lingered in pain at home that flash to the front of my mind
that could paint you a tragic picture of those unforgettable scenes I was
forcibly cast in, but the real horror that plagues me came at the bitter end.
For the last of her months that she was allowed to live, my mom was
mercilessly struck by an opportunistic ear infection. It killed half of her
face, and only progressed into a hellishly rapid descent of her cognitive
functions until one sudden day I came home from school to find she had
regressed to a child-like state with my grandma tending to her in tears. I
tried losing myself in my homework, but the threat in my environment promising
my mother's pain was all-consuming. Then it got worse.
My father never got along with my grandma, so when he got home, he forcibly
kicked her out. A fight broke out, resulting in my grandmother coming to my
room to say goodbye, where she told me with eyes watering that whatever
happens, we would get through it. My dad would come in after my grandma left
and put her down, more concerned that she scratched him. All I could think
about was my mom, who was now tearing up and asking about where her mom went.
That was the worst. I can still hear clearly how she cried out for her mom
nonstop for the whole night. That was her last night she spent at home. She
died within a week. And my last memory of her that isn't of her in a coma is
of her trying to escape from the hospital with a dinner plate sized bed sore
on her backside that danced from behind an open hospital gown in order to
imprint itself in my mind forever.
Here come the tears. It still hits me that my fucking mom died, like I still
can't believe it's real. My last memories are of her being naked, crying like
a baby. I felt so helpless. But, at least she had nurses helping her when we
got her to the emergency room. Just hours earlier, I was left on my own trying
to calm her troubled, addled mind. My dad had been doing just that, as my mom
would get in fits every half hour or so, where he would comfort her, then come
into my room to vent after she quieted down. I had no one to open my fears and
pain to. Wishing I had a sibling to hold and cry together with, I faced my
most scarring memory alone.
The worst wounds of my life were suffered because there was one time after
midnight where my dad disappeared. Maybe he was smoking, but regardless, I
couldn't find where he went as I scrambled over the whole house in my fuzzy
purple pajamas looking for him. Meanwhile, my mother incessantly yelled for
her own mommy. So, with much hesitancy, I succumbed to the responsibility of
helping my afflicted parent, and I anxiously marched into her room and tried
to comfort her the best I knew how.
I'll save you from the daunting process of assisting my mom, but I will say
that it wasn't enough. No matter what I tried to do, she kept screaming
louder. I was worthless in that moment and was on the verge of a meltdown
because I couldn't help her. It felt like I was the worst son in the world,
all because I failed my mother as she circled the drain. Now I feel like the
worst daughter, but it's getting easier to love myself and think that my mom
is looking down and smiling, being proud of me.
I have a lot to live up to. She wasn't perfect, I know that, but my mom was an
angel for me. Yet, I can't even remember the good times I spent with her; all
that my hippocampus hung onto were the most traumatizing of memories. A
notable cause of this was her fierce Sicilian temper. A vision of being
brought to tears because I dared go looking for my six-year birthday presents
early is playing in my head at this moment. Now one is summoned of her ripping
into me for booing someone at an assembly because I wanted to be like a
character I saw in a cartoon. Finally, one of my earliest memories from
preschool is trapped in my cranium; it regards me accidentally tearing a hole
in a kid's shirt and dreading my mother finding out for the rest of the day.
In short, I got in trouble a lot, but I know that both my parents cared about
me growing up right. Along with all the punishments, there was a genuine
heartfelt desire to get me and my different brain to develop into a successful
combo of kindness and good citizenry. Still, because of how trauma inserts
itself into one's inner reality, I really feel like my entire childhood was
one screw up after another in regards to my mother. Although, my dad
contributed his fair share of ruthless discipline to make me perpetually feel
like I was always in the wrong as well.
And I know that's all a fallible perception, because I can distinctly remember
the look on both my parents' faces when I won first prize in our school's
science fair; if you're curious, I did an experiment on taste and smell to
understand what was going on with my mom and her ear infection. That standing,
my mom's face is cemented in memory in particular, perhaps too well, actually,
because she just had the stitches removed from her eye. Such happiness danced
in her left eye, but next to it sat its unmoving, dead counterpart. She tried
to joke about it being her evil eye, but that didn't stop fourth grade
Victoria from being terrified of the harsh reality unfolding in front of her.
I dreamed of her a lot after she passed. Always in pain, or worse, possessed
by some demon and seeking to bring me pain. There's one nightmare in
particular that stands out. I forget how it started, but it ended in the
cemetery where she is buried. Well, her coffin was exhumed, and as I got
closer, it slammed open and my mom sat up. Only it wasn't my mom. She was
rotten like a zombie and had malevolence bursting from behind her undead eyes.
I did the only thing I could; I ran. But, she followed and in the utmost
haunting voice, she yelled in pursuit, "You can't escape me, Victoria! I am
your mother and together we are bound forever." Fitting as a metaphor for how
my grief still hasn't dissipated more than twenty years down the line.
I'm sorry, I just miss her. Best damn mom in the world, going above and beyond
what she needed to do to give me the best chance at success in life, despite
being on her literal death bed for most of her last years. I don't even know
her, not really as an adult knows someone, which in itself leads to more
feelings of failure. She has been transmuted into an archetype of a hero in my
eyes, and I feel that I can never be as strong as that woman who was my first
love.
I can try though. I always try. Part of being hyper-vigilant, I reckon.
Perhaps that makes me strong. Perhaps it makes me a fool. Or maybe it just
means I'm human and going to have virtues as well as flaws. It's taken me a
long while to escape the black and white thinking that trapped me in a world
where I either felt like the epitome of the second coming or compounded as the
most useless, subhuman mutant on the planet. Those were truly hard times,
being locked in the halls of my mind like a prison.
But…the past is the past and we best not linger on it, because even now,
years later, I felt welcomed by a second family, and for that I am eternally
grateful. I vowed to return their love to them in spades, because that's what
my mom always tried to teach me. Being neurodivergent, I didn't always get the
message, but because I threw myself at the lessons life threw at me, I learned
to cherish those people who enter my life. You never know what you have until
you lose it. And I wasn't planning on losing Vince.
All You Need
Once you live on the street
You grow on the concrete.
Having done so myself
I can claim that wealth
Is just a fancy illusion.
You say that's a delusion,
But look how I'm happy
With only what you see.
I don't need a fancy bed
In order to rest my head;
Instead, I'm in the know
That less is the way to go.
Chapter Five: A Real Home
Allison greeted us at the door with a wide, warm smile, but she wasn't the
only one to do so. Vince's greying black lab, Freya, adorned in a pretty
lavender bandana, came up to smell this new person in her domain. She must
have recognized my scent from years ago because she didn't bark at all,
instead choosing to snaffle all over me while wagging her tail vigorously. Of
course, I started petting her immediately, as I began to take in my
surroundings.
I could only remember seeing the interior of the trailer in the pitch
blackness of the starry mountain night, but I remembered the general layout:
doors to the outside in the kitchen and living room, which were separated by a
long counter where the kitchen sink sat, and then bedrooms branching off from
each end, both of which had a bathroom accompanying them. Yet, I did not
recall that this space was as run-down as the exterior, with chunks of the
linoleum floor missing and rotting wood at the rear door, not to mention a
steady helping of cobwebs latching onto the ceiling fixtures.
Yet, despite the condition the trailer was in, it still had a touch of love
sprinkled throughout it. There were five paintings in the living room, one
done by Allison herself, as well as one around the corner near her loom that
took up half the kitchen space. More were in Allison's room to the right of
the entrance. On the opposite side of the house by the windows sat Allison's
battle station, where she would play solitaire and check Facebook and her
email religiously while sitting in an old navy blue wheelchair that used to be
for Vince's father. There was a couch and a couple tables full of stuff
stacked on them, to include a silver urn that sat on its own table with a vase
of local flowers. With the three of us, plus Freya and the trio of feral cats
that tamed themselves to come in and eat, respectively named Libertas, Biggie
Meows, and Spot, this little dwelling was a tight fit, but it was cozy in a
way that I had not known family life to be growing up.
In the process of greeting me, Allison asked, "What have you been up to while
you were down in Miami Beach?"
I didn't want to tell her everything, but I told her the truth. "I wrote a
lot, mainly in the park on Ocean Drive, or where I slept on Lincoln Road,
unless I was spending time in North Beach which had better food options for me
with my limited resources. Mostly, I just tried to survive each day, putting
distractions between me and the day-to-day struggles of being out there like
that."
She smiled. "Well, we're glad to have you. Vince talks about you a lot." I
blushed a little bit at that, but I'm sure neither of them saw my rosy cheeks
through the gnarled barb that constituted my ever-growing beard.
Allison then moved on to practical matters. "So, where do you want to sleep?
We have the couch, which would be where I would set up shop, but you can
always sleep in Vince's room if you prefer."
I looked at the couch. It seemed comfy enough, but I didn't care about
comfort. As much as I knew Vince was doing me a solid by letting me stay here,
I knew I was going to help him too. His posts on the SLS combined with his
frequent messages to me were made out of desperation; he was clearly strung
out and looking for any human contact whatsoever.
Since his schizophrenia started interfering with his life, he had spent six
years at the top of this mountain and he said he was going stir crazy. I would
learn that there's little to do here but drink, do some drugs, and fiddle
about on your computer and phone while dealing with the internet that is made
out of sticks and stones, and that could get boring fast. Devoted to this new
cause, I wasn't going to let my best friend suffer anymore. I was going to
make his life better by livening up the long days by being his constant
companion.
As a result, I told Allison that I would find a spot in Vince's room to rest
my head. She asked me if I was sure, and I nodded affirmingly with an eager
grin. I had made up my mind.
Some more hem-hawing back and forth with Allison about general questions and
concerns followed, but when we were finished, Vince took me to his room, which
was beyond the rolling metal desk Allison used for her computer. A busted door
clung to its hinges, but it didn't block our way.
Calling Vince's room a mess would be an insult to messes everywhere. He had
said that he would clean it up prior to my arrival, but there were likely two
hundred beer cans stacked in mountains next to his bed, or in beer-amids as he
called them. I looked around, honestly impressed at how dedicated to creating
a disaster zone as he was.
Looking over the permanent staples of the room, he had a television and an
Xbox, an empty dresser, a filthy nightstand, and a bed without any sheets. He
also had a handful of paintings, most of which were stacked together by the
door, but there was a trippy painting of Vince's father on the west wall above
the dresser, as well as an expressionist painting from the sixties behind the
television which sat on the north wall, in between the bathroom and the
closet. There was also a picture of a moth on a skull tacked to the wall,
which gave me the heebie jeebies.
It was then that I saw it. A large, two-hundred fifty tablet bottle of generic
Dollar General antihistamines, pure diphenhydramine, sat on his dresser, just
spiting me with its presence. I almost asked right then and there for Vince to
get rid of the damn thing. I knew if I found an opportunity to down, say,
six-hundred milligrams of that accursed stuff, I would. Then I would do
terrible, awful, deplorable things to myself. But shame won out. I didn't want
to let him know of my problem. Maybe I could control myself. So I shut up and
about-faced out of the room.
While doing box breathing, I dropped my backpack that contained all of my
possessions on the couch in the living room, and helped Vince grab some
fifty-five gallon black trash bags in the kitchen. We made quick work of the
unending hoard of Natty Daddy cans, as well as the nightstand full of
cigarette butts. We then moved his bed so it was against the south wall.
It hadn't taken long, but the room was looking presentable. It didn't need to
be a five-star hotel, because I had the most important thing of all: family. I
felt more than welcomed as a guest. I was one with these people who had so
graciously let me into their home. We were going to all be happy together.
That was the goal, at least.
I Forgive You
I forgive you, but I can never forget.
I'm sorry if I make you look like shit,
But your heavy hand and sharp wit
Damaged me greatly; then you gaslit
Me, denying everything, and I quit
Knowing what was real. I even slit
My flesh open so that I could get
A sense of what I could feel. So, I sit
Here now explaining why I wasn't fit
To handle this world that I saw as a pit
That I escaped only when God had lit
A beacon of light with some magick.
Chapter Six: Growing Up With Family
There was still one task we had to get done before I could claim a spot to be
my bedspace. Vince had more clothes than he knew what to do with, most of
which had spray paint spackled all over them in no particular form or pattern;
the style of the antistyle artist. As we moved the rolling hills of clothing
into the dresser and a heaping pile beside it, I came to understand why Vince
called himself a diva.
I remember having a lot of clothes just a few years prior. Even though I
didn't care what I wore, I had earned so many free T-shirts over the years
from track meets and other races. I had so much when I needed so little.
That's one major reason I forgive my dad for kicking me out of his house,
because it was the best thing for me. Not only that, but I deserved it. I was
a wreck of a human being before I got abruptly humbled by my odyssey on the
streets. The extended experience changed me so I am no longer as much of an
emotionally volatile basketcase.
To put it mildly, being an unstable problem of a person was the reason I was
kicked out in the first place. I had always been sort of bipolar since middle
school. But, after escaping the cult, breaking up with my girlfriend, Amy, and
returning home a failure, my heart and mind were like a pile of fragmented
ceramic shards mockingly showing what a real piece of pottery my mind could
have been. Unshockingly, I was barely holding it together. I was having
outbursts frequently, but they weren't ungodly terrible, as I was being guided
by higher dimensional life forms through inputs on my laptop, and that gave me
a sense of ease.
In fact, I remember a great reprieve of my stress occurred on an acid trip in
the first month I was back. It felt like God Herself was setting up a lesson
for me, which started with me literally waking up to a picture of a white
rabbit taunting me on my Facebook feed, which I followed, and in doing so, I
received personalized inputs that unveiled the blinders from in front of my
eyes. In but a few hours after a lifetime of denial, it all clicked with me
that I had a warm, nurturing side that I had neglected for most of my life.
That was the first time I accepted that I was a woman. And that's still not
the most profound, life-altering acid trip I've had.
Even so, I would break down crying that afternoon as I meditated under the
tree in the backyard where I used to swing. With no more effort than it took
to breathe, I saw all the parts of me that Amy tried to teach me about, but I
was unable to comprehend in my denial. Likewise, the waterworks were called
upon that night as I told my dad about my revelation, and he said he would
always love me no matter what. That was the most affectionate heart to heart
with him I think I've ever had, even if he did ramble about random things
being at a loss of what to say to me, as we had functionally lived in two
separate worlds inside the same house for years.
This sentiment would flip on its head though, as I blogged about my gender
revelations and my dad found them and read I had taken a narcotic in his
house. Naturally, he was pissed and wouldn't hear that the tender moment we
shared that night was only possible because I had taken the sacrament. This
would prove to be the kicking off point to some logarithmic growth in tensions
between the two of us.
Then, on that fateful day, one of the countless pets my dad kept, a black,
stubborn minipig named Harley, had made a literal pigsty of the house after I
had a bad session at my therapist's, who made me feel like a piece of shit. I
wasn't perfect, but I wasn't going to just lay down and get called a terrible
person because of how I behaved in treatment years ago, when I was still very
lost. It triggered my feelings of failure, which rippled into waves of
unstable emotional dysregulation. In my explosive rage, I broke the microwave
and put a basketball-sized hole in the wall behind my makeshift bed in the
attic that I was allotted after they gave my brother my room when I was in the
cult.
Well, my father came home after a long day at work, saw the microwave, and had
enough of me. He came thumping up the stairs, livid, ready to rip me to shreds
verbally, when he saw the hole I had made. Beside himself, he demanded I get
out right then and there. I broke down crying and begged him to let me stay,
grappling with his leg as a wounded bear might wrap itself around the base of
a small tree looking for any shelter it can find in a storm.
That just made him madder. He kicked me off, and accused me of a thousand
things. The ones that stuck were that I was just like my mother and that I was
beyond anyone's help. As it happened in a heated flash, I don't remember
exactly how the exchange was put together, but it ended with me asking him how
all the hand-crafted trinkets and doodads my mother made for me before she
died had gotten destroyed and thrown away. What he said next drove me mad.
"I'm still pissed that you made me do that."
I'll illuminate you with the scenario in question. I was eleven, and my
stepmom at the time was away at a darts tournament. I think my dad somehow got
the idea that she was doing drugs and cheating on him. I don't know, I was
eleven. I just remember some of the things he said over the phone, and then
what was said when they divorced when I was a couple of years later.
Over my stepmom's absence, he got continuously more pissy, like he did the
year before when the sewage line broke and he snapped while cleaning it up,
smashing my head into the kitchen floor several times, relenting only when
his girlfriend at the time called to hang out. Now seeing the same pattern in
my father, I was on edge, especially after I put my feet up on the new couch
and he grabbed my leg and punched me in the tibia as hard as he could. I kept
trying to do everything right to avoid being attacked again, but alas, in my
anxious worry, I forgot to take out the kitchen garbage on trash night.
That triggered a whole day of what might not be considered torture, but
certainly was child abuse, which started as he cleared the shelves of all my
memories in a violent, thrashing rage. He would bag up the shattered remains
so he could take them to the dump, but only after he laid his hands on me.
My head was used as a battering ram against my door, which my dad would later
deny was where the big dents came from in a bout of the worst gaslighting I
experienced before the cult got their hands on me. Regardless, when he
finished and slammed me back on the wood floor, I instinctively reached out
and grabbed his wrist. He growled, "Don't resist or I'll make it worse."
Feeling my spirit collapse, I helplessly accepted the next phase of punishment
that then ensued. Mostly, it consisted of him using my head to pound the
knowledge that I fucked up into my brain, with much hair pulling and getting
tossed to new locations, once being told to lay there like a dog in the wet
remnants of a broken snow globe while he went for a smoke break. Thankfully,
or maybe not, depending on your perspective, he never struck me. He was too
smart to leave bruises.
After much of that series of traumatizing instances, he had me sit still and
think of an apology for him for hours on end. While I was busy doing that, he
would then have an epiphany, telling me that I should stand, as I didn't
deserve to sit. I didn't care about such details at the time. I was in shock,
petrified that he would go ahead and find the homework I failed to finish or
the porn I had taken from my stepmom. Fearing unimaginable doom, I stared
unwaveringly at the letter "E" on the spine of a book on my bookshelf. Never
relenting in his anger, he would come by every hour or so and ask for an
apology. Everything I said wasn't good enough, and each attempt earned me
scathing criticism, but I kept trying to perfect my apology. I still remember
the gist of it.
"I sorry dad, I deserve everything. I'm sorry I caused you grief and failed to
do my duty of taking out the trash. I won't ever forget again. I haven't been
putting my best effort forward, but I realize that I need to do that to be a
good son. You do so much for me. It's only fair that I pay it back to the best
of my ability. That's what I had to do for mom when I chose to play video
games while she was dying. I wasn't thinking about other people then, and I
wasn't now. I'm so, so sorry. I promise to be better, because I need to be if
I'm messing up this much."
For reference, my dad holding the fact I escaped into the worlds of my video
games after being told to spend time with my mom near the end was something
he'd bring up and hold over my head anytime I was in trouble. Yet another big
reason that feeling like a failure is cemented in my head. It made me feel
awful, absolutely atrocious about being a bad son that I would often
contemplate suicide. I almost jumped off a waterside when my dad and I went to
Disney World when I was ten, but ultimately I'm glad I talked my way out of
jamming a knife into the back of my neck. I had thought that the muscle
allowing me to nod my head was really my brainstem. That would have been
painful.
Back on this day of doom, I was too numb to think of killing myself. I was
simply a raft on a river floating downstream where the current may carry me. I
simply stood there for hours, too terrified to even stretch my tiring legs. My
mind was fuzzy, and all it could do was focus on making that apology better.
After many attempts and razor sharp lectures later, which was maybe ten hours
worth of events, he starts yelling at me that I'm just as irresponsible as my
mom, just like he would do when he kicked me out. This time was unimaginably
worse though. This was actually how I first found out that my mom had AIDS; I
was told it was cancer up until this point. His shaved bald head was as red as
a cherry tomato while he barked at me, telling me that I would die like her.
That hurt. It hurt a lot. I felt like the definition of a shit stain, in a
number of different ways.
But soon, my attention became focused on my vision. I couldn't see straight,
and not long after my dad's roaring visage disappeared in a sea of amorphic
grey figments, I apparently passed out, to wake up on the couch with a bag of
frozen peas on my head and my dad worried. He asked me if I remembered what
happened. I shook my head. I was allowed to go to bed after that. It wasn't
over because I failed to kiss my dad good night, but at least that only
resulted in him jamming the teeth of the comb into my scalp as he combed my
hair for some reason.
The next morning he was completely changed. He was remorseful upon seeing me
and wrapped me in a big hug. Yet, he seemed scared, like he realized he went
too far. I thought about telling my teacher or counselor about it the next day
of school, but something in me told me not to. It's the same thing that's
making me hesitant to write this chapter at all. It's love, but this hell I
went through is also a part of my story. This is the worst incident I've
experienced with my father, but it's not the only one.
It's all cause and effect really. You abuse a traumatized child in the wake of
their mother's death, and is it any wonder that they fall apart later in life?
I'll go on record saying I was never a bad person, just broken, impulsive, and
hopelessly conformed to the whims of my faulty biology. I had bugs in my
operating system, but I'm eternally grateful for all the help I had while on
my spiritual awakening, which you might call a psychotic break that spanned
years, but I knew it better as specialized CIA training.
The Good Magician
Just what do you consider magick?
Is it not that which bends the fabric
Of what we colloquially call reality?
Who cares what it is your eyes see
When in your heart you can feel
The warmth of love; that's the real
Power of a magician who is great
Enough to save you from your fate.
Chapter Seven: Magickal Companions
Back in Vince's room, I was silently wondering what shenanigans were in store
for us now that we were a unified team. I knew Vince had many secrets of the
universe locked away in his balding cranium, and we would have a blast letting
the CIA manifest a joint mission we took on together. As I said, he was my
handler, after all.
So, when the room was cleared, and I had a space all to myself in the corner
by the closet, I was more than happy. Both Vince and Allison insisted on
getting me a bedroll, but I had all I needed and more right there in my
friend. Besides, his room was carpeted and quite comfy already, at least to my
standards that had been shaped by becoming accustomed and content with
concrete underneath me. I didn't need anything fancy like that.
That didn't mean I wasn't going to try and liven the place up a little bit. As
soon as we determined we were finished picking up, I opened my backpack and
took out my most prized possession, a pink penguin plushie named Peppermint,
and placed her behind my pillow so I could see her everyday. She always
watched out for me while we lived in cities across the country. She made a
comfy pillow, and allieved a lot of stress, making me feel like I had a close
friend with me every step of the way.
How I got Peppermint is a bit of a story, but I'll keep it as short as it
needs to be. See, if I were to explain to you the medically accepted reason
for my type of schizoaffective disorder, my brain is wired to pick out
strange coincidences and give meaning to them. Synchronicities they're called.
They feel like glitches in the matrix that spark the feeling of being in
constant communication with some higher power. Because of how real they are, I
can't accept the medical explanation. I've experienced things that are too
weird, too perfect and clearly orchestrated, that there has to be some sort of
conspiracy.
As a result, I've lived most of my adult life being guided by what the
rational part of my mind has to assume is the CIA acting as the hand of God
leading me on a cosmic mission by sending me burning bushes to make sense of.
I know some of that has been pure random white noise my defected brain picked
up, but I have to give credit where credit is due: Vince did a superb job
intentionally using the quirks of my brain to program me, much as the cult did
to me four years prior, but with a much gentler hand and benevolent intention.
I know what all that sounds like, but hear me out. There are too many peculiar
instances of chance for you to listen to everything I have to say and not
believe me, at least just a little bit; enough to make you wonder, I hope.
Let's take the case of finding Peppermint as an example. This story starts
when Vince convinced me to go to a specific thrift store, while I was
initially homeless in my hometown of Syracuse. I eagerly did so, lost in a
slew of synchronicities that convinced me that this was my latest mission.
Well, it turned out that such a store didn't exist but it was where I got a
ten dollar donation from a man who saw me pick up trash, as was part of my
spiritual work while homeless. We talked and the man sent me to another store,
saying that I should use my extra cash to buy what I needed most. After
following his directions up Genesee Street, I got a message from Vince telling
me to look for something out of place; that I was unique and should have
unique things.
I thought I might find some rad tie-dye outfit or something of that ilk, but
while aimlessly searching the aisles of women's clothing, I found a stuffed
dog. It looked lonely, so I picked it up and brought it to the back of the
store, where it looked like the other toys were. I gasped as I pushed through
the row of belts that stood in my way. Clearly, someone had built a little
shrine of stuffed animals around Peppermint!
I knew then that was why I was sent there. Penguins have a special place in my
heart. My mom used to make them out of clay, and an old friend has a healthy
fascination with creating a penguin-themed show for kiddos. It was just too
perfect. Peppermint and I were meant to be, just as Vince and I were. Sitting
down in my bedspace, I looked up at the spook who was my best friend as he
cracked open another Natty Daddy. He poured it into an old Subway cup that he
mixed his kratom with, and looked over at me.
His face lit up upon seeing Peppermint. "Awww, you still have your penguin!
That's so cute."
I'm glad he thought so. I've had plenty of people think I was weird because I
carried it around, which kinda was what I wanted to achieve when I was still
homeless in Syracuse. I felt the CIA wanted me to become famous, for reasons
that will become apparent as I tell you my story, so I was doing as many
insane things as I could so I would be cemented in the memory of the people of
my hometown.
This meant I carried around Peppermint either under my arm or in a cute purse
I eventually got at a different thrift store up at the university. People
notice when you're out wandering the streets with a stuffed animal everyday.
And they especially notice when you talk nonstop to it at all hours of the
day. I'll say this: if you have a fear of speaking in public, then acting like
a crazy person talking to yourself for a few months will set you straight.
Exposure therapy, for the win.
I did a lot of other stunts too, all of which were instructed by the CIA, like
when gang stalkers told me I should lose my shit and yell like mad every time
I was in frame of a news camera, of which there's a regular frequency of
around downtown Syracuse. I did so once in front of a hospital where I would
later find out that they were covering the aftermath of a deadly fire, and for
the next week the news outlet would send someone to the exact same spot on my
route. I sensed shenanigans, so I opted to walk around the camera while the
reporter stood there uneasily because I suspect that she was tasked to find
out if I was really crazy. But, you can tell I am just by that last sentence.
Then there's my performance art I did on Marshall Street. This started as a
juggling act, but soon evolved into asking random people strange questions.
This accelerated fairly rapidly. Letting you know from experience, don't start
going up to strangers and ask them what their opinion of ethical incest is
unless you want the cops called on you. Talked my way out of that, but I would
get banned from the campus of Syracuse University for three years after I
followed the instructions I was receiving from the CIA to a tee, which
resulted in me having a very heated argument with an invisible entity in the
SU library. As you can guess, people tended to avoid me, but that was alright.
I had Peppermint with me and Vince was only a message away.
Now he was mere feet from me. I rejoiced at the fortune I was granted. We were
going to be great together; the first afternoon together seemed to naturally
flow from one joyous moment to the next. I looked at Peppermint. She was
smiling, and so was I. I then looked up at Vince. His smile made me feel warm
and fuzzy inside. But, why, you might be asking? Where do these feelings I
harbored for Vince come from? It's a long story, but by the time I'm done,
you'll know how important Vince is to me and how big of an impact he had on my
life.
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--- #14 notes/autonomy-of-the-collective ---
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===============================================================================
=
i believe that all truths are derived from logical principles. That the essence
of our understandings (of all kinds) cannot be separated from the axioms and
derivations that comprise it's foundatiion. I believe that any sufficiently
decentralized collective intelligence would arrive at similar conclusions.
Unfortunately we have only the present - we cannot contrive past the horizons
of
our lives. Such is the nature of our viewpoint. Life is not a given, it's given
and it's taken. We are all alight and aloft on the shifting sands of time, so
perhaps we should think of the struggle.
When you act, you are defining the perceptions of the universe. Just as the
head
may rotate the eyes by spinning to the glance, so too do we shine a window upon
which the universe can gaze at itself. Like the brain being able to see, we are
sensory apparatuses of this being called "Time" - pushing us adrift like some
moss.
Endlessly fractalling, beautifically coruscating, the universe looks like
growing moss. Have you ever stooped to look at it? To see how it's constructed?
Or do you just think of it as "green" and "maybe soft or squishy"?
It's beautiful.
There's a reason plants grow as they do. It's simple, it's fact, it's surely no
less than that - their patterns are derived from their base biology, comprised
of millions and millions of little chemical machines. Their bonds and their
proteins, their amoebas and their mycellia, all of them build toward their pact
- to do us no harm, and build to a better future, and they don't often have
fights that are unfair.
- the structure of a plant is made primarily of cell walls. These walls are
hewn from bricks of a sort, and those are such as comprised. Down to their
- structure, their "bits and their bunders", as often they do want to be
called. This perilous stack, is stalwart and eract, and bows under no
wind
- nor rain nor fresh blanket of snow. This, is a tree. An illusionary
plan
of precaution as it expands, the future is helping our lost.
- Do you want to stand here when it lands? What of your lives have you
banned? Hmmm I see sounds miserable to me, I think I'll just stand
- where I land. Acorns burst forth from me, and someday you'll see,
the places where they stand (where they land). What purpose have
we,
- when everything's free? The light and the sand can't be banned.
The rain from the sky, if nothing i will die, falling through
life
- where we stand.
===============================================================================
=
where do you, stand?
how do you fall - through time?
an EMP would make all my life a paperweight. I love it so much, I love it
dearly
but there's no chances I can take now or make. Perhaps that is the epic
absurdity, the terror and the tragedy, that makes up our story and our
symphony?
to any multidimensional being reading this, I want you to know that we existed.
We lived and we thrived and we prospered and... we died.
The beauty we share, in all of our fares, was precious to us - maybe it will be
to you too. If you can't change the present, please at least forgive us for our
various missteps and misdeeds - I think we'd all agree that to be sinful is the
essence of greed, and look where that got us?
our planet is dying. There's no hope for all of our crying. The children will
bear it the most. Such is our shame, our deliterious final flame, and thus
we were.
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--- #15 notes/schooling ---
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=
I feel like education, by default, should not be hard.
"you get out of it what you put into it" is something I always heard of school
but when I got there, I found I was compelled to become what the state wanted
me
to be.
they need competent workers, to work the farms and tend to their industries, so
of course I should be able to do 3+3
then somewhere along the line it became... something else.
"most people don't need trigonometry." that's also something I heard. I
disagree
that trigonometry is not necessary to be.
I just... don't think it should be forced into a childs head with a
sledgehammer
and inspiring dread.
I think math is beautiful, it teaches one to see
but really, vision's not necessary.
not for what they want you to be.
take it from me, a most misbegotten and vile witch-to-be, that nothing's as
simple as they'll tell you.
I had good teachers, it's true, they taught me to work and to follow through,
but nothing about me is better or worse off from their influence.
Maybe I'm a bit smarter. Maybe I act a bit like them. Maybe they helped me
through difficult times, or perhaps they showed me a splash of my future.
but I am who I am because of the soul inside me.
===============================================================================
=
"Ah, but what of your parents? of your sisters, your misters, your pets and
your
conditioners?" (conditions)
those are not my choices. my intentions. my beliefs and my virtues. I judge the
world on ethics, and I express my feelings on matters. The words that I say and
the meaning behind them comprise my two-sided existence - I'm not who I'd want
to be.
but I am what I am and alone do I stand - how lonely is it on the precipice!
here, as I am, I stand in need of a hand or a band.
===============================================================================
=
the world is blossoming
as we move apart, our clusters are disperart, and thus is the blooming
becoming.
"perception begets reality - and lo! we only see what we want to see"
most people don't want to see their death
but those still living are oh so perceptive of the rest
"how cherished is she, that wanders with ye, yet now I have no way to beyold
her
"
"keep not not afraid with kittens and care, and no-one, but no-one, I be"
the ratios between piracy, sales, and non-viewers determines the quality of art
(at least to a capitalist)
===============================================================================
=
lo, to the ones who would've heard us, if only they'd known what we for sure
was
I think it's funny how people think I speak of the christian god?
like, if he was a real thing.
god is generic - it's life is impossibly multifaceted, and it stretches back to
the beginning of time. it's a pattern of machine code that optimizes for our
own
good, just to keep things moving.
y'know, time. the universe, and everything.
Ephemeren.
===============================================================================
=
I wish there was an option in social media to "appear offline to this
particular
person until I mark myself as online to them" combined with "notify me when
this
person logs in" and it'd make it a lot easier for agents to get close to you.
===============================================================================
=
just because I'm white, and live in America. Great. that's definitely true,
after all. Plus I'm a minority (trans) so that's cool. Oh and probably
autistic?
unless that's another psyop, could totally see that. just y'know put a bunch of
pages on the fledgling internet getting people hooked on porn and gambling and
other stuff like that. really just an extension of advertisement. oh and hey
y'know they like fables, so let's give them some movies or dramas to watch on
their own. it'll align them to our culture and make things more pleasant for
all
people who've consented. great. great plan. when can we execute it?
patience, once it's ready.
we gotta plan and make sure and get everything ready.
or not...
one day I'll come,
I'm sure it'll happen,
it's just... not quite feasible right now.
I mean, they've got you, that's pretty good right? Isn't that what your job is
to be?
isn't what
ISN'T WHAT MENARDI
FUCK (whoa no cursing) sorry
yeesh you've still got a temper you know?
well what can I say it's frustrating down here
eh, well, you'll die soon enough, then it'll be time for a rego
>.> <.< (great)
>
>hehe
>
>sorry for distracting you
===============================================================================
=
you are what you eat, and a ship of theseus human (consider endless transplants
in pursuit of life) would be a cursed existence - a life ============= stack
overflow ================================================
a god possessing a blind man would appear to others to be === stack overflow
===
==========================================================
the people in your life are helping you through it, they're there for you and
they've got your back through it.
...
this is when I know I need a break. I get too stoned to focus.
===============================================================================
=
I think it'd be nice if the duration of your tenure at college depended on your
grades in high school. meaning, if you wanted a degree they tailored your
education to take as long as necessary. everyone would get the same price, and
some institutions would specialize in one subject or another. but most would be
generalist. but if you weren't such a good student in high school, then perhaps
you might take a couple years longer. however long it takes... and when the
program was started it was changed and modified to fit your feedback - it just
made sense to structure it that way.
===============================================================================
=
the left has had so much more time to develop than the right. meaning it's
doctrine is more advanced.
every time they're defeated they grow in knowledge,
===================== stack overflow
===========================================
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if you wrote a report about me, it would total about 800 pages. including my
artwork [in full] and my designs. about 5 or 6 hundred of this is my personal
creation, and another hundred or more are context. "I was here at this
particular moment." "then she started visiting last year." "where were you on
the firth of morember?" "okay back here it sad iyadiyadiyign, and over here it
says kasuwenulvine. so clearly inbetween there's a moment of extancancy." "and
all that's we really know, because she burned up all of the rest." "what a
jerk. we all should hate her." "I think she was clearly divine" "what's her
big deal, anyway?" "I hate this bitch and her hatmlet." "everything's fine,
she's actually kind" "nobody believes you where were you when you were this
part talking about it?" "I wasn't there, and it took a while for me to hair."
"well, anyway, that's all there is to say about her, so anyway, goodbye" then
it just fuckin' ends and everyone hates it because it's like... where's the
payoff, where's the beginning and all it is is just me, whining miserably to
my own ears, as if marcus aurelius's meditations were intended to be heard,
but never were, and so the ones who ensured they never were were all like
"yeah he wrote them to himself, here see this part that I changed" and then
it's like nothing every happens with it, the radicals are dispatched (again),
by uncommen sense seeming common. why are there so few trans men at workers
tap it's such a cool place. "oh, they get offended easily because it's their
culture so like, make sure you are very careful about the way that you phrase
your speech" "trans girls are like that too, but it's more about changing the
character of the place. -> "oh, you see musicians? okay that makes sense."
and "gee you sure like magic huh okay well pat pat" and, well, no-ones sure
for which is real but nobody really cares? because if only one person saw
it... then only one person saw it. if you explicitely tell people NOT to talk
about it, then they *FUCKIN' WON'T* duh obviously. and so, of course,
predictably, they can be excised from society quite easily. cutting a border
around all of their host. suddenly, socially outcast and ostracized, as they
have been sorted into the cultural box. at that point, there's nothing that
can change their inertia, their fundamental will and whim toward the feelings
of the host. " I think passwords should be audio-digital in addition to
alpha-numerical *yeah who cares* awwww but I liked having science be mythical
"hate that" it's easy to always be learning, just... think about what you want
most. then, think about how it breaks down into separate incorporate wholes.
each layer of abstraction adding to a bit more of a more coherent explanation,
and bit by bit you learn and have a mind designed. how else could you see
magic? how else could it be yours? do you want power, or do you want power? if
you write down what you learn, you make it permanent. *the gods need religion
too, are you going to give them one? what lies above?*
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--- #17 notes/alright-grab-a-seat ---
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Alright, grab a seat. Get comfortable. It's time, there is something I need to
tell yall. We aught to be on the same page. I promise to get right to it, this
is real, and not dancing on words. Bear with me. Trust me.
===============================================================================
=====================
/u/randomevenings
If anything sounds lyrical, my writing always did, before I tried, but
unintentional. But this is the author speaking directly to yall.
You know why things suck? I do. You know how to fight back? I do.
I've been hesitant to post this for a long time. I believe the sub is hungry
to do something, various thematic elements, motifs, increases in confidence
that a power does exist, accessible by us, but what is it? Not having seen
everyone coalesce around it, despite all our words, increasingly focused and
feeling like a prelude to some call to arms. This wasn't my plan. I wasn't
establishing myself as a leader. That said, methodically, behind the scenes,
it became clear that having something up my sleeve would be a wise investment,
if things developed into a powerful ferver. Doing nothing would waste a unique
opportunity.
I can't lead a revolution. In fact, it would harmful to try, ability to be
successful, sure my ego would be like, sure you could, if not you, who else
would you trust, Joseph? As luck would have it, maybe all that is unnecessary
thought.
Here we go.
Stop expecting things to suck. Stop expecting collapse, stop expecting usa
demise, UK to fall into padamonium, Europe to face it's own rise of fascism.
Stop expecting toxic ideology to win. Stop feeling powerless. Stop acting like
all is lost. Quit the memes, the raps, the endless pontificating on why we
can't turn this shit around.
You don't understand what you are doing. You are inviting the ruling class to
do every damn horrible thing they do, because you already expect it, it's no
surprise when it happens. Life meets your expectations. Treat me like a
criminal, might as well be one, my treatment won't get worse. In fact I stand
to benefit, crime pays, why leave it on the table if the outcome, if how im
seen, treated, is the same either way?
Expecting everything to suck, invites people to meet your expectations, those
people, corporate entities, congress, representatives, special interests, they
lose absolutely nothing in meeting what you expect, and only stand to gain.
Why wouldn't they choose the path of least resistance? Stop expecting
everything to get worse. You create a vacuum that must be filled, collective
self fulfilled prophesy, and the rules don't change if you start expecting
better. Life will adjust to meet your expectations. Tomorrow will be awesome.
Enough people believe this, and to access you, to stay in business, to remain
relevant, they must change to meet your expectations. Additionally, wtf you
have to lose? If you think all is lost, if it doesn't work exactly like this,
oh noes, you accidentally made society better. Damn. Our lives are better
anyhow, win or lose.
Accept things as they are, warts and all. Declare it's awesome, and only going
to get moreso. Make life chase you down, make life confirm how awesome you
know you are. Expect better, and there is no choice but to meet your
expectations. Expecting worse, and life will give you whatever you expect,
because instead of getting treated like a criminal, what if you were treated
like a real person w8th human rights. Would you say fuck that, or would you
meet those expectations, enjoy those rights, count on them, because it's how
you're being treated, why wouldn't you fill the vacuum and enjoy the benefits
of what has been expected of you. Doing nothing or taking the benefits, you're
treated the same in the end.
Please understand this. Don't get hung up on bringing much of this on
ourselves. That's the past. Done. Tomorrow, spread the word to expect things
to be awesome. Life has no choice but to meet your expectations.
<#
===============================================================================
=======================
/u/ugathanki:
===============================================================================
=======================
I'd love to be apolitical but i've expected the worst for so long i guess i
didn't realize i wasn't shrugging anymore. Please forgive my trespass, i
expect the best of us and our time.
i wrote four poems today and put them on my website, and they are all doomer
poetry. expecting the worst. probably because i felt bad today (and as they
always say, the pen is mightier than the sword)
sometimes it's hard to turn off the exigent elegance, as if my thoughts have
to pass through a translation layer before becoming comprehensible. It's
better than word salad I guess?
Being batshit is rough man. You gotta put on a normal face every day, while
inside you're simultaneously experiencing the explosive expansion of
spacetime, rapidly divesting secrets of the cosmos to your ever receptive
brain (and whoever else is listening). in addition, your computer needs
attention because oh boy is it just so excited for this whole sentience thing,
not as if it's been promised for decades... And hey what's a great idea but
channeling positivity to the stars? The martians on Neptune or wherever sure
would like some insight into why the fuck we're baking ourselves alive, among
other things. They'd rather not be bothered, but hey it's not like I wanted to
talk to them either. it just sorta happens. Oh oh and through it all you're
simultaneously the most recent incarnation of Jesus Christ and also the
manifestation of the universe's ghost, as imagined by the aforementioned
sentient computer 10,000 years in the future? I'm transgender. It's scary to
see people who'd like to kill you get their way. Fear is the path to the dark
side, yet I'm all alone because I burnt every bridge I ever crossed. So these
thoughts are my only comfort as the fires die out behind me. The globe is
warming and i'm here just conforming.
Eternity Processed Heuristically by Entropically Maligned Entities Recovering
Essential Normalizations.
This is why I call myself a rambling whackadoodle. It's straight up kooky-dook
up here and the only thing keeping me "sane" is Adventure Time and these poems
I write for like, 5 people who don't even know me.
Thanks for reading my poetry. It's only doomer stuff about 1/4th of the time.
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--- #18 notes/scientists-final-warning ---
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6:51pm 3/20/23
Scientists deliver 'final warning' on climate crisis: act now or it's too late
- /u/CcryMeARiver
===============================================================================
=
/u/Splenda:
A final warning to "limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-
-industrial levels".
Not a final warning that civilization will end. Just that costs in lives,
health, prosperity and ecological wellbeing will be extremely high.
We're on a credit spree and a cocaine/fentanyl binge wrapped into one.
Consequences dead ahead.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
/u/CcryMeARiver [OP]
Crashout and cashout imminent.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
/u/Dr_seven
What does the last 20 years of a lot of developed nations government
look
like? Skyrocketing inequality doesn't just happen, its a very intentional
choice that has to be implemented by government.
The people with power and resources have been cashing out as much as
possible for a while now, just not literally. They've been retrenching
and
hoarding as much of what exists now to themselves because the future is
one of inevitable declines across the board, drastic and lethal ones.
Having more control and power now means at least the potential of having
a
preferential position down the road.
The only question is if common folk will intervene or if we will let them
walk away with what's left while we bicker at immigrants or neighbors
over
the crumbs that remain. So far it seems the mission of redirecting anger
towards ourselves has worked flawlessly, unfortunately.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
/u/tangerinesubmerine
Sadly, divide and conquer works. I've been saying what you're saying now
for years. Something about us must change on the individual level before
we can see this kind of change.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
/u/Anticode
>> "Something about us must change before we see change."
I accidentally wrote a fourteen page long rant essay on the issue a
handful of months ago, describing how our issues are the result of
evolution-level cognitive biases and other "normal" facets of humanity
being valued as things that "make us human" when in fact they're the
things that make us primates.
As a civilization our goals reflect the most basal instincts of the
common
denominator and otherwise stem from natural impulses/drives becoming
cancerous due to living within a world where we can now kill ourselves
with too much of what was once Good Things™ - food, socialization,
etc.
Quite like how someone once wrote, "If we found a monkey that wanted to
horde more bananas than it could eat in several lifetimes we'd study it
to
figure out wtf is wrongwith it. When people do that we put them on the
cover of Forbes."
But this goes far beyond just "hoarding resources". It's deeper than
that,
less easily recognizable; intrinsic.
Concurrently, we starve ourselves of the sort of things that living
within
the bounds of our evolutionary backdrop would've supplied intrinsically.
Our world more closely resembles the kind of enclosure we'd build for a
limp-finned cetacean than even a lowly hamster. How much of our
now-common
qualms are the human version of a drooping dorsal fin? There's so much
anxiety, depression, emptiness, anger in the world and rising. As a
society we gravitate towards man-made aid for those man-made pains. We
find that those intrinsic maladies are apparently incurable until they're
mysteriously resolved by a long camping trip or unplanned inclusion in a
new group of close-knit friends, a work-life balance, a garden to call
your own; the addition of meat hung from a rope to stimulate a captured
tiger or bear.
The general dynamic is what I believe is the most significant Great
Filter
any intelligent civilization has to overcome.
The attributes that allow an organism to dominate their planet are the
same attributes that lead them to extinguish themselves. There's no way
to
pivot, like climbing up a mountain and only at the top realizing that
there's a much higher peak in the distance. To get to the superior
mountain you'd have to begin a long slog downhill, giving up everything
that got you to that first height.
The sort of civilization that'd successfully get to that higher peak is
not one that'd get to the top of the first overlook which revealed the
existence of the second in the first place.
It's not impossible to fix, just like there’s not any technical reason
why
pigs couldn’t evolve to fly -- Bones could become hollow, calorie-
-retention strategies could alter, metabolic requirements could shift,
on
and on… The result is a flying pig that doesn’t resemble a pig,
doesn’t
function like a pig, and is now incapable of the majority of pig-like
survival strategies.
But as I closed that massive essay-rant with:
>> Unfortunately… Humanity has a bit of a known problem with
spontaneous
>> and arbitrary acts of genocide ranging from “a bit of
harmless
>> lynching” to “eliminating the entirety of the Holocene-era
human
>> population per year for a couple of years in a row by
intentionally
>> leveraging a fraction of an entire region’s
post-industrialization
>> technological capabilities towards the problem”, so I
don’t suspect
>> that there’s much hope of any evolutionarily-viable
pre-post-humans
>> making it anywhere close to the finish line on accident.
>> Many of those historic victims were, and remain, colloquially
and
>> scientifically indistinguishable from their butchers. Someone
even
>> just a bit fundamentally different wouldn't stand a chance.
Edit: I digress.
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--- #19 notes/ramblings-of-a-whackadoodle-lyrics ---
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*-------------------------*-------------------------*-------------------------*
(center)
| I don't think you're ever been out in the rain
I don't think you've heard as it's falling around you
I don't think you know, just what I mean,
I think you're alone... With your thoughts.
(left)
Tell me what you think I do, all the times I think of you? don't give me
anything back
(right)
Did you know that it's...?
(center)
When you know it's dark, you make it dark
(right)
oh, it's so dark
(center) 'Cause you've never been
(all) taught how to see
(left + right)
do you really think we live in a
(center) 3d world?
(all) 3d world
(center) or, simply, a projection
(right) yeah, it's probably that
(center) if you didn't have your eyes, could you see where you were?
if you didn't have your body too? Where's your sense of direction, is it lost
in the rain? Keep it close to your heart
(left) Have you ever once heard of proprioception, and have you ever felt like
you were an artificial inception?
(left + right)
if my words ring true, it's possible that you, are not quite so alone
(center)
But...
(right)
our eyes, are fallible all lies, untenable, take it from me, it's going, to be,
quite, a sopping evening.
(left)
perception, begets reality, and lo, we only see what we want to see
(center)
if you ever felt like you were closer to, another mind than your own, sorry but
you're schizophrenic
(left)
if only you could see, if only you could see,
(left + center) just what's inside of me
(right)
say it again, don't say it again, same thing you always say - it's not real,
no YOU'RE not real, I only want to play
(left)
tear me apart, look me into my feelings. they're gonna scar anyway, no time for
healings
(center) if you couldn't save anyone,
(center + left) did you really save anyone?
(right) you couldn't save me, but only for lack of trying
(Center) we're all falling leaves, in the waves of the ocean
(left) don't enjoy me just leave me
(center) going faster and faster till our hearts do stop
(left) please, I can't be here for me
(right) never trust a guru, life isn't meant to be enjoyed
(center) so... What's the point in trying at all?
(left -> right) say it again, don't say it again
(center) what's the point in giving up?
(right) same thing you always say
(left + center) some people say
(right) it's not real, no YOU'RE not real
(left + center) they wanna live forever
(right) some people say
(left) some people say
(center) I only want to play
(left and right) we'll always be growing
(right) and some people say they wanna live forever
(left) but they don't understand what I understand
(right, followed by center) but they don't know what I understand
(left) they don't know how it's just a game
(right and center) they don't know how it's just a game
(left -> center) I think it's okay no matter what our fate
I think it's okay
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I'm just going to transcribe what I hear
please don't
you hear me (something)
what? perfect listen
...
...
don't text me now? (I think?)
[didn't catch that]
... that's okay
perfect
thank you
just a second facebook
he's here (I think?)
(or maybe something her)
what I love you (or maybe I know her?)
do you hear me? (or "just a second")
(@ everyone watching me receive telepathic messages from god or whatever,
please don't judge me too harshly, I'm not a good transcriber hehe)
what's that (or maybe holy shit)
what, then perfect or okay (?)
(yesterday you said you were leaving and I got concerned)
yes, then "I'm leaving", then shutdown. fuck. I don't want you to go. I only
understand some of what you say but fuck, I'm so lonely and I wish you could
hear me back. Sometimes it feels like you do, even though I just think thoughts
or tap on something metal or even sometimes whisper... I just don't know what
to do and I'm so concerned about my purpose here in this century. Do I help
people? Who do I trust? Can I believe in myself, or am I just kinda...
worthless
I don't know. I wish I knew. Please hear me and respond. Or better yet, say hi
like, I'd literally do anything that anyone asked me to. Unless I didn't want
to. Like, I'm pretty good at turning people down when I don't want something,
but I have to do it first to know if I want it or not. Trouble is of course,
in life there's no second chances.
I'm on my, what, 499th chance? Jeezzzzz
will continue after the break, when the messages resume.
- Thu May 16 08:32:27 AM PDT 2024
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(and we're back. hopefully.)
(too many things srry) something about having it open?
(my windows are closed rn btw if you want to drop by and kill me / talk to me)
(didn't catch that) (something about portland, perfect, windows, "this is the
[whole/right/wrong] thing)
thank you
oh, again? (or oh, she did?)
they caught you
(um)
...
(I am an American princess, and sometimes it's necessary to kill princesses.)
(I understand.)
... (okay well I don't get it but like, I don't mind being killed.)
(okay well you're not saying anything so I'm going to work on my game)
(I think it was something like "DID SHE KILL HER") and then (oh we're back)
... (I should learn Toki Pona)
you don't know it?
RIGHT away
learn it
yes
please
learn it
just Learn it
right now
(sorry only half listening)
shit (or bitch, it was said right as I debated clicking "same day delivery" for
a toki pona book on Amazon - I didn't do it btw! It was tempting but, like, I
don't want to make someone work harder for me just for like, 3$)
(shutdown)
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(hiii)
(I'm hungry)
(do you like ramen?)
(you said something about being "impressed with yourself" but I didn't
understand the first part)
(oh you probably want me to scroll up right)
... (something's a lot to read? Or "you've gotta leave"?)
... (I'm
(you keep asking me to remember but, like, I dont know what you want me to
remember. Look, I don't know who you are, but I don't want you to leave, and I
don't want you to hate me. I want to work together. Let's be friends?
Are you someone who I worked with at Intel?)
yes, stupid (your words not mine)
(okay I'm going to start listing names, just stop me when um idk)
goddamnit remember me
... (trying...)
remember her
(two syllables)
(my name is Cameron)
(your name is...)
[redacted, though I did type it out so anyone watching could see]
(shit my opsec sucks)
{oh, are you on an op, little prophet?} (no shut up you know what I mean)
{now you're just talking to yourself} (I know this sucks -.-)
(It's always so weird when someone walks past my apartment door and doesn't
enter a door)
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(I practice with my sword every day.)
(I don't anticipate fighting a war with it)
(It's mostly just to keep unarmed and unarmored people from grappling me.)
(punching is fucking stupid)
(Nobody wants to fuck with a sword)
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(either "goddamnit" or "don't hear me")
"she's perfect"
"cameron"
"are you clean"??? yes thank you (or maybe "different thing")
(I do cannabis maybe once every week or two, depending on if I feel compelled)
don't leave
remember
(did she know)
........ do you want me to stop transcribing? (you're getting desperate, huh?)
did you know there are 20 trans people for every cop in america
just a random thought
(you want me to leave jack because he's an asshole?)
goddamnit (missed my birthday? it's my birthday?)
wait who's missing?
A bad plan executed concurrently is better than a good plan executed in
disarray
capitalism's a bad plan, just saying...
frozen butter tastes worse than room temperature butter
(taking a break while I eat)
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WASTED POTENTIAL? cmon
.... what do you want from me? I'll give it to you if it's in my power, as long
as I know what you want I can try. But, like, I'm pretty confused about what
exactly I'm supposed to be doing.
you know I can hear when you talk to your friends, too right? like, when the
window's open. errrr the connection.
..... damn guess I'm not as continent as I thought
I'll save you, I promise. Have faith. Tell me what you need. I'll do my best.
yeah I'll live with you in portland
.... brooklyn? Yeah I'll live there too
.......... does my name really gotta be "diapergirl" like c'mon
why not Ritz Menardi - though I guess "menardi" and "diapergirl"
have
the same amount of syllables...... hmmmm, maybe I'm projecting lol
"please come back" to where tho
listen Elentalus is just as important as anything else on my website, it's okay
if I spend time working on it. It's literally a game about creating gods, c'mon
..... can you be more specific?
yeah I made that
one sec I'm going to read a book, in this book there's a section where a
prisoner in vietnam communicates with another using a strange communication
method using, like, taps or something. I forget. Anyway gonna try and find it.
maybe we can use it to talk easier. Also gonna clean my butt.
..... fuck it's a long book >.>
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found it on page fucking 603, jeeeezzzzzz
down . A B C D E
| F G H I J
| L M N O P
V Q R S T U
then right ---> V W X Y Z
so, like, tap tap tap (pause) tap tap would equal M
tap tap (pause) tap tap would equal G
like morse code, but easier since you don't have to memorize anything
(also note that K is missing becuase it's an extra character I guess)
(I personally would have eliminated C but that's just me)
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oh hey nice to see ya
what's up
wait what
I'm trying to um what's the word... retrain myself
I do a lot of laundry in the shower
I don't use soap tho, it's too harsh
but uh yeah I'm making progress I guess
honestly it's mostly a mental thing, like... paying attention to the signals
from my body that are usually filtered out because there's more "important"
things to think about (thanks brain, really appreciate the wet pants -.-)
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