Update:

As most of you have been reading I've been kinda off my game for about the last month. A lot has been going on and I think some things settled in late. But for the most part my health has meant no sleep which means I'm slowly losing my mind. Well I'm hoping with my big test tomorrow at the doctor this week will be a reprieve and I will be back to my snarky sarcastic self here. Love you all even if lately it has been hard to tell.

J...

Rantings for Rantings Sake...

So Henry Miller and I were separated at birth I'm convinced. There is the natural draw to cynicism that I think comes with a good amount of living in this world and also educating yourself about its operations. Certain things are just destined to create a certain air of disdain for your fellow man. I know I'm there on almost a daily basis. The evil that men do and the depths of vileness they are capable of can only make me arrive at one point of belief: everyone is out for their own. It is a mantra I've been struggling not to live by. Trying to understand love and compassion was once a draw so great that I thought it would indeed be my life's work. What reality tells me though is this is a waste of my time and that I should just do whatever I want with the few decent people I have in my life to find some semblance of "happiness". I'm here to say I think true happiness is a lie reserved only for greeting cards and The Foundation for a Better Tomorrow.

Is it any wonder we are a nation of gluttens feeling free to suckle at the sacred cow of fast food and prescription medication? It is these mini vacations from reality that are the only things that maintain a calm exterior. It is a fuck, a smoke, a snort, a devouring that has become the one place "joy" can consistently be found and it is tenuous at best. I really believe this is why we have a flawed system that no one is willing to work to improve, an economic epidemic that could be solved soundly if the rich would be willing to let loose their coffers, and a health epidemic that doesn't just touch us physically but mentally and spiritually as well. Welcome to the zombie apocalypse: population everyone.

We had one of our many debates at home last night and I will be the first to admit that most of my arguments require huge jumps in logic but that is what you get when you have someone who is passionate to the point of nothing being too sacred to trample. I clearly stated that I've given up on humanity and that the only answer I can accept at this point is if you have proven you are incapable of handling power you have been given then it should be taken from you, by force if needed. This includes wealth...a primary focus of most of my arguments lately.

You see I ride the bus system to and from work every day here in Bend. I've seen the faces of the services workers that pump your gas, clean your motel rooms, and flip your burgers. I've also seen the faces of those that refuse to live this life and instead have taken upon themselves to choose the street, drugs, and a bottle as their only solution. These souls content to bob and weave the complex structures of chaos and technology we call the modern world in a stupor of chemical haze. These rank and file individuals that don't see jail as a punishment but as three hots and a cot. This is a life relegated to those that never had choices in education, healthcare, or a number of other things that the privileged and wealthy take for granted around the world.

Talking with some friends the other day I think I've boiled down the need to something that is simple: we all just want to be contented. I was reminded of a time in another life for me when I could just go to the store when I needed something and not worry about how I was going to afford it. As I sit here in tremendous pain I can't help but think of countries around the world where this is not acceptable as they feel a responsibility to maintain a quality of life in hopes that they will get many returns within community. Sitting here and reading these last few sentences it all makes such sense. So why is it that not everyone can grasp this?

The most absurd thing in all of this is the people that do struggle are also ones I've heard so many times espouse ideas of earned wealth and status when all they are really doing is regurgitating the propaganda of the Global media machine and its controlled lobotomy of an entire species. It is the middle class that is now the new endangered species though I would probably say it is already dead. Meanwhile big corporate think tanks are contented high in their towers just maintaining a way of life with a wink and a nod.

To me it is amazing listening to people and what they get outraged about. When a child is murdered people clearly call for vengence yet when there is a potential death of a culture, of a social psyche is slowly killed through attrition we hold interest for the briefest of times before moving on the the next "national tragedy". Naturally cries of socialism (I've which I've been informed I'm more of a selective socialist) fall deafly on my ears as I embrace this flawed system as the only true way of living.

Whatever may come of this...and most of this might just come from a mind addled by physical pain...this is things as things are. Be well those of you carbon-based life forms I actually call friends...

J...

Breathe

Just started a new book: Pandora's Seed. OUTSTANDING!!! Nothing makes me happier than reading about how civilization is destroying humanity. Maybe I'm a little cynical right now.

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I'm sitting here in frustration again. I'm continually thinking of what I can do to change things because frankly I just feel I'm not doing enough. Living within the church culture for as long as I did it is easy to just throw your hands to the sky and accept this defeatest "all is in God's hands" attitude but prescribe more to the "God helps those who help themselves" mentality.

This current BP situation and the judge that broke Obama's freeze on all drilling in the Gulf just has me about as angry as can be. It is funny listening to O'Reilly taking the devil's advocate role lately on his show in hopes he can relate to his mostly undereducated viewership. Even in this he takes the standard stance of violence while you can hear under his breath that he is being disingenuous. His statements of the execs being put before a firing squad is clearly very tongue in cheek. The whole thing seems rather an act whether it be politicians or pundits...just grandstanding with a crowd they clearly can't relate to but oh do they ever try.

I'm fighting taking a stance of violence. Violence is where I jump to too often and it definitely proves I'm not too far from this Neandrathal mentality that I preach so often against. As well read as I am you can't change the nature/nurture creation that I am often times so I end up fighting the very passions the reside inside. And it is so hard to fight. There is so much to be angry about, and so much of that anger leads to a typical white male reaction of something must die.

I was reading recently a story about an incident that amounted to India's 9/11. Afghan terrorists took over two of their premiere hotels, killing 169 people. The rage that came from this could easily have led to a long and messy battle on what is already shaky ground between Indians and Arab nations. Instead they decided to use this momentum to rise up as a nation and become stronger. Use this sadness and anger to become a stronger unit. I think we can learn a lot from this lesson. Despite the broken knuckle that will always remind me of 9/11 (I punched a wall and broke my hand that day) I preached stop and think. Somehow I lost this somewhere along the way.

Peace and peaceful thoughts don't make us weak. It is the exact opposite. It takes much more strength to make the right decision than the immediate one. We are a country of immediate decisions. Every news network is screaming to the rafters that Obama isn't acting quick enough to get this oil spill under control. A person cuts us off in traffic and we are quick to start yelling and administer a healthy dose of the finger. I've rambled here a lot but the realization I've came to is we can do something. We can stop and think. Healthy protest isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you have the time or money to make a difference then do it instead of just talking about it (this is as much for me as my readers). And remember...we don't have to rush to opinion and anger. A good opinion is built on slow meticulous thought and rage is rarely righteous.

Thanks all and breathe...take the time to reflect and develop opinions.

J...

Leaving

Sounds like I may be leaving soon again. Some of you know about my other employment during the summer. Others of you don't and if you want to know bad enough send me a personal mail and I'll be glad to discuss it. The point being I'm going to be gone. No new comics. No bbqs. No movie nights or gaming or chatting. When I leave I'm off the grid and out of sight and mind from all my friends and family. This time could be as much as 4 months!!!

I'm a little apprehensive this time. I have a great job here in town that while it is an internship if I could find a way to make the money I would make at my summer job and enough extra to move into my own place then I would be staying. But there is another caviate to the plan...I do love getting to spend time with some family that growing up I never got to see. They are really great people and are a hell of a lot of fun. I've missed them for sure and this being what I believe to be my last year I'm hoping that I won't lose touch.

So pray for my safety this year. Pray for financial blessing and safe travels there and back. Pray that I find a place to store my stuff as I have very little but what little I do have it kinda a must to keep. Most of all, just good thoughts and well wishes will be appreciated. I do love the work. I love the people I do it for. But I miss you all so much when I'm gone. Will be thinking of you all kindly while I'm on the road.

One Love

J...

Trying Again...

Trying again

I've struck out

And can't win

The door is closed

The game is done

And never giving up

Was my cardinal sin

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So here I am...sick again but going to work. Eating a bagel no less which I'm sure is a bad idea. I'm a so tired of living life sickness to sickness.

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I'm directionless. Sailing the seas, bobbing to and fro has become a way of life for me with nothing being certain and the only thing being certain is that I'm breathing. Maybe that is enough. I can't think it is. Always life has felt like a draw to more. This year I've focused on surrounding myself with the minutia of craziness going on in the world around me. A greater understanding of things like poverty, financial issues, and the true impact of a "me first" culture. All this has managed to do is to bring into question the one thing I was sure of: my faith.

I suppose in the greater scheme of things it will come back but when you can quantify and regulate each "miracle" down to a number things seem a little more cut black and white. In that coldness you wonder to you embrace a cold reality yourself finding things like relationships and sexuality becoming nothing more than a means to perform a function. These things are broken down to exchanges of ideas and bodily fluids. Ideas exchanged much like computers filling out ever vast storages to brimming with knowledge that does little more than inflate. DNA exchanges that mean little more than the propagation of the species, the race, a credo, and a family unit.

So cold hard steel is where I'm at. I'm hoping it isn't where I'll stay. There is compassion in this heart that screams out just thinking about that idea but the voice gets quieter as the days go on. And before my Christian friends start in...no...church is not the answer. Church got me here. I pray when I deem necessary but even that feels like little more than ritual. And this could all be the result of too little sleep and too much fever for my own damn good. :)

J...

Tough Road for Many

I'm saddened by and amazed at life right now. All at the same time I'm inundated with emotions. Sadness can be easily qualified and quantified. The suicide bombing this week by a young man barely old enough to understand the ideology he was standing for blew himself up in a wedding, a usual cause for joy and celebration, killing 40. Then this morning I'm watching the news to find out there is was a man I had seen several times around that committed suicide on the bus route I ride every day. I can't begin to explain why either of these are hitting me like they are, but I just know that I can't help but feel there is something inheritly wrong with who we are as humanity when these kinds of things become blurbs in our community and when children become instruments for hate.

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Amazed: I don't want to say too much more than I'm curious. Finding some things in places that would have been the last for me to look. It is in times like these that a smile comes to my face knowing that there are still things out there that quiet a chaotic heart. As most of you who know me know I'm just getting past a recent death in my life that hit me hard. It through off all my schedule, my life, and really derailed everything I was working to. But in came this shining beacon and no matter how you define it, it has been something I needed and something now expected. My face hurts almost every day because of this...well...lets be honest here...person. This she. Amazed: the gifts that God gives come from the most unlikely of places I suppose. I guess I should know that at this point.

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Off to work a couple more projects. Updates and hopefully links to all the work I've been doing soon. It is some incredible stuff and between that and some amazing bosses that remind me of my value daily I can say that no matter what the world is bringing I'm doing well. Life is not the mess it appears...okay...slightly. :)

J...