A Final Beginning

Turn to the monitor.

Keep your back straight and eyes affixed.

Reattach your fingers to the keys, don't let them wander.

Focus.

Words contain meaning, alter perspective and change the world. Our history of literature is the gospel of our race; an endless stream of stories that may illustrate the heart behind our great adventure.

The drums were/are my father's domain. Dance, my mother's. Each art of expression had its beats and pauses. Each was a language to demonstrate meaning and could alter perspective. And if they were not aimed at changing the world entirely, the would have nevertheless influenced worlds within. I am a child of this legacy.

I have a discipline to master. Something that I hope will allow a cascade of disciplines to be mastered; forming perhaps a Russian doll of ability that that the spirit will utilize to affect personal change.

In the next month, year, or in this lifetime at least, I must prove to myself that nothing I've come with has been worth forfeiting to leisure and reluctance . . .

We are either purveyors of ideology and religions of practice (through structures like nobility, greed, abuse, humility, fear and love). Or we are consumers of them, perpetuating their relevance through our own digestion of the experience. We are either creating the world in the image we see fit, or creating it in the image someone else see's fit. Our duty is to choose.

Within my country, America, there are opportunities and evils. There are great magics and institutions and heroes and great chaos as well. The dance is mindless it seems sometimes, the truth of virtues never quite expressed but always behind our decisions and motives. Never something that can't be forgotten behind good gossip, a good movie, video game or a chance to shop or feed on something exclusive and delicate; like a gourmet hamburger or a stranger.

I'm 27 now. I can't do this forever. At some point my soul has to stretch and take hold and be allowed its way, away from distraction, toward sacrifice and the true rewards forged in the industry of man. What intelligence can their be if it is not demonstrated in the evolution of status and in the rising of the environment around the source? How can I be happy when I'm unemployed, along with my mom and my girl, with a desire to write but not the will? How can I claim to exist if my actions afford no consequence in the walls of my tiny apartment, not built for me but good enough for now and eternity apparently?

It is time to heal the faith in me. There is no great obstacle except every moment of indecision that I may own in between the acts of saving my meaning. The point is: the moment is precious, every one contains a chance to uphold responsibility and running from it has created a great many lies that are no longer worthy of maintaining.

Vibrancy comes from conviction.

I can't see myself conducting the same diatribe every day. Although, it's been three months. But tonight . . . is Wednesday night. : )

I won't explain the relevance because it'll just boil down to the usual motif of depressing with just enough hope to keep the whip writhing.

But I will exclaim my brilliant undertaking to limit thought. And when I'm late for the world I can look down and marvel at the peace gravity brings. And my stomach folds in upon itself I can be there then and say at least I've got this great thing to do.

Faith is a Muscle

There is little that can be done completely alone. Even independent endeavors require, often times, an inspiration from the outside . . . or the inside if not directly born from the ego. My next supposition is broad enough that it may include a fair amount of people unfairly, but I feel that as a man I've inherited a distinct attraction to the concept of destiny. What I've found is that the road to its appreciation is littered with thousands of immediate experiences. The ambition to make life mean something greater is what helps me to recognize such a destiny looming like the sun, off in a great cosmic distance. And perhaps like the manifestation of man's next great evolution, I imagine traveling amongst the stars one day. There is a threat of being passive within all of us when the goal is so great that all motion stops and instead we contemplate the surrounding.

For years others have told me to set definable goals along the path. I have tried with ill results. My definable goals number in the dozens and time seems to move quickly enough to choke my appreciation of this process not realizing that being industrious is not a habit one just equips without earning it. I've spent time in between inspirations suffering from distraction, engaging in things irrelevant, enjoying the peace of not dealing with the responsibility of my acumen. I do analyze and attempt to live consciously all through my rebellion of the same purpose I search for, hoping that instead I'll be carried off in some current of serendipity and be all of a sudden inclined to work. Not realistic. And the fatalistic reality of a world without effort settles like a haze before the sunlight of vision.

Why? Because the ability to do; one man's capability requires a proof of concept. Each moment being a new one, the proof is like fuel. It needs to be consistent. Setup a goal, knock it down. Setup a goal, complete it and utilize the momentum. Setup a goal and let others see you accomplish. Setup a goal and finish it at. all. costs.

Faith is a muscle and although most people attribute faith to the gods or faith in one self as an act without proof, I believe faith comes from testing your strength and proving your increasing worth with knowledge, experience and wisdom. Faith will evolve in the trial as you understand your mastery and your influence through it.

I am trying again to live anew and exercise this emotional muscle, increase its power of influence and move beyond the state of today into the world of my future, a journey I have yet to uphold with little more than worry and forced indifference.

As you can see there is faith invested in a process of debilitation. I know what holds me back and it disheartens me. If I proceed through it, then the concept is broken and a new one replaces it. Do not lament the battles to come, appreciate the true enemy for it affords you the greatest measure of gain.

A Resignation to Conquest

War is fundamental to the romance man is dependent on. Conflict makes us real. We make new conflicts endlessley. It's how we ease the longing of being incomplete. And then we build fears to keep us from greatness. The consequences of this paradox speak out to our future as a species.

Man overcomes fear and achieves greatness, for better or worse.

The demands will only increase less the guilt of actions not taken drown us. There are few excuses anymore where the answers emerge in the nature of challenges, in the sentiment of our favorite songs, in the movement of those we idolize or lust for.

Our resistance is the evidence of a looming greatness. And we must follow the dark road, the narrow straits, the perilous path through shifting mountains and restless caverns. The stride is truer in the flames of adversity. There is no greater focus than one achieved on the plains to perdition.

Scary thoughts.

Many of us know the battle of helms deep. I forget how the words rang. Peter Jackson brought rain and mud and hundreds of wavering souls grimacing beneath waning light and a thunderous approach. I had goosebumps. Being run through with a blade was the last thing on my mind. Being a part of history, even an imaginary one, was a thrill more complete than the love of a female, unless that female throws her lot in with a destiny engineering your arrival.

Imagination has taken a bold move. Replicating the fantasies that would normally stir us to mischief, adventure, or conquest has created a shadow request for some inevitable calamity...at least for myself. How can a man live and not wish to be tested? Whether or not he learns where and when to test himself and in which manner is the bigger issue.

My cousin and I beat Uncharted 2 for the Playstation 3. The behind-the-scenes unlockable videos showed the efforts of an industrious team in conquest of the imagination. They were surely successful. There work resulted in a great adventure...a great advent. Not the game per-se.

The Great Advent won't be a great answer. It will be a great problem. And that will bring us together and to the next stage. We will face our fear together and over come or succumb and that's it. This process is repeated in every life from the earliest moments, either directly or indirectly. The only thing that tempers the future of some great eclipse is the effort of leaders who have overcome their inertia, to change the formula, to spread their energy among those prepared for guidance. Guidance will take us away from the longing, at least I believe it will. It should help.

Thus my emphasis on family. Thus my emphasis on a proper union. Thus my emphasis on personal growth. My perfect world, lol. But this doesn't mean I'm going to be a gentleman all of a sudden, they don't get a whole lot of play. Conquest requires resistance in order to be considered conquest. Look for resistance. Let it shape you.

God is Consequence

It is the omniscient ruler and receiver of all efforts. It has always existed and will so in the end. There is nothing more real and tangible than Consequence. There is nothing worth fearing and worshiping more than this lord of Justice. Consequence does not play sides. It is the proof of humanity's greatness. It is the weight in our concerns and the validation in our nightmares. There would be much to say for the benevolence of consequence if it were not so utterly felt in acts of attrition. The players busy building worlds are not the ones defending them. There are few defenders not solely concerned with their own survival. Consequence is the pyre's light. We are the logs, snuffed out into the ether.

I was on the JFK tram at the minute check-in closed. The next flight is 6 hours later. I'm at the airport thinking about why I'm so lax on life. Being on time everywhere must be great...but so is watching all the women that have come to the airport dressed for the warm weather.

I'll read, write, more likely than not play a skirmish in Starcraft II. Attempt to do some work and imagine that I really am capable of understanding how many tiers there are to self-mastery. You can control your actions and be someplace late because you prefer not to be agitated and then control your emotions so as not to stress the extra expense and idle time. I'm totally misusing these talents but it does confirm one thing: most people not even thinking along these lines have way more power than they care to recognize in the future of mankind. It's passive vs. passion out there and passive has a better long game.

Sticky Eyelids

No, not like that.

Several hours past bedtime, you may encounter a weird calm translated between your body and mind. Aside from fuzzy dry-eye I mean, if you're creative, if your pulled for reasons beyond your understanding, and if you're determined to believe that the fantasy of destiny is more than just a childhood wish. I get this way when I perform manual labor, or finally find the rhythm I was looking for in a school-paper, poem, stretch of fiction I was wrapping myself around all day while doing a million daily things. Usually I go to sleep before giving it a chance. I've been doing that for several years; betraying myself.

For all I know I may be writing now not to seem like the desperate schmuck throwing my guts to the wall to see what sticks (I entered info on Mike's [Michael Roderick's] tribe list with little to show for years of interest in production-value story-telling). I haven't been back to volition in a while, I miss it always though.

A friend of mind called today. We caught up. He's unemployed too, but he's bored for being in between semesters and taking Jujitsu for the last two months around 5 nights a week. I gotta admit, I'm jealous of his compulsion. I'm full of it . . . this inertia. My last semester was two semesters ago when my skull folded in like a wad of play-dough between a full-time job, my first film production class at Brooklyn college and business marketing at Phoenix U. There was a lot of resistance, the F.U. kind then. I'm recalcitrant. I think since the 4th grade.

I can't explain the downward spiral, it was subtle but my balls are somewhere out there now, rattling in the subconscious undercurrent of everything I love and hate about this world, having a great time without me and when I think about reclaiming them, it seems it'll be for a price paid by more than a few loved ones. That kind of change is spooky when everyone thought you were part of the furniture. Roland Deschain was given a similar prophesy on his own choices/sacrifices. I've been hearing songs all day easing the reality in past all the fear.

I'm 27, I've got to do something. I've got to get back to me. I've got to write write write write write write write write write write write write write write write write write write write write write write

On taking an interest.

It looks like I was born with some smug apparel. I'm entertaining the idea that the reason I don't harvest respect for details is because it's someone else's details. Very little surprises or bothers me. I mostly contend with guilt when it comes to others and that's about as far as it goes.

I appreciate people as forces of nature, but not their baggage, or experiences or egos. I appreciate their living, I tolerate their character. We flip-flop between creation and destruction and get in our own way. So I don't pay attention to architecture, or all the names of the actors of the stories I can't remember fully, or how liquor is created. I don't pay attention to details, just smells, and smiles and starlight. I'm actually too reserved to be a hippy and too lazy to be conservative. I care about something but I can't name it for you, I feel passionate about mystery.

My original pangs left me believin I didn't belong, then I wanted to conquer the world as a way of making me fit here. Now I recognize bullshit when it stretches too long. I marvel at it, as if there's some gem held within that will make me see clearer. But there is no preparation for being proactive, just insanity and narcissism and belligerence.

Bah, it's late and I'm in a storm I don't quite understand. I am my own lighthouse always and this is a hint of madness with drooping eyes and a sagging frontal lobe sloshed in the mess of purposeful action. I have things to do and I'd rather exhaust my faculties figuring nothing out. This is distinctly have-not in have-town, wining for the fulfillment that comes from manual labor and prideful service meanwhile disdaining the luxury I so love to rest upon. Keyword: ungrateful, drinking cooled coffee, relentlessly figuring out how to pull a fast one on myself.