It was around this time I had a conversation with the father of a good friend of mine about the possibility of world peace. At the time, my understanding of the idea of world peace was as vague as the average hippie’s and just as idealistic. “Yes, I’m joining the Navy for money for college. No, I don’t think what we’re doing in the Middle East is the best thing towards peace as I don’t think you can force peace with violence. No, I don’t think withdrawing completely and immediately would be a good idea either. I’m going to save the world. That is all.” That was the extent of my reasoning. Then I shipped out, and found out just how easy it was for me to get bogged down in the trivialness of being on the bottom of the totem.

You see, back when our Navy was young and Naval officers won Glory on the field of battle as well as the field of honor (Dueling: they would take a few paces away from each other, turn around, and shoot once. They would do this until one of them was either dead or was incapable of continuing due to bodily injuries sustained.) Enlisted members, midshipmen, carpenters, et cetera, were usually criminals. The menial labor was considered punishment for crimes. The captains usually ran tight ships, and punishment for negligence came in the form of extreme humiliation and public whipping.

Today’s Navy has taken away the whip and overall has become much softer and gives much better treatment in comparison to the treatment given those criminals at sea, but in my opinion, the honor that is derived from carrying out my cleaning duties and sitting here is about as glorious as being a janitor for the CIA. It is not enough to merely be a part of a “Global Force for Good.” I have opinions, and one of those opinions is that anyone who has opinions about anything, whether it involves something at home or something outside of our country, should do something about them. Don’t complain about society or the whales or your state’s governor or the deficiency of our school systems unless you aim to do something about it. I want to be more than the man who sits at home watching TV with a beer in hand who complains about “The Man.”

Granted, in the scheme of things I have nothing to complain about. For my first orders I was stationed in Italy. I upheld some of the oldest traditions in the Navy, older than even the field of honor. I’m not ashamed that I volunteered my fridge to be brought downstairs at cook outs to keep everyone’s alcohol cold. I was there when the fourth deck of BEQ 1 in Capodichino saw its last party, before everyone was moved off base to minimize the intense awesomeness that our parties endeavored. I’m proud of the endless pubcrawls in Rome and Florence and that I held my alcohol with the best of Americans, and British, and Aussies. Suffice it to say I won’t miss those days. I was dying to live; desperate for the feeling of being alive even at the expense of my own clarity. It was the Josef Green at the time. This is the Josef Green of this time.

I joined the Navy due to lack of direction and lack of money. I often lost sight of my goals, in truth because I had none less vague than wanting to feel alive and not wanting to find myself on my death bed regretting my life. If you utilize the military for this purpose, it is up to you to define how it turns out for you and whether it enables you to find direction and meaning or if it just postpones the inevitability of the moment when you have to make a decision about life and find yourself still at a loss for sure footing. It is easy for someone such as me to forget that the present moment, no matter how dull, is paving the way for a moment in the future in which true happiness is accomplished through achievement. My best friend, Silviu, understood this way before I have and in that regard, I envy him. This moment must be integrated into the strategy towards that moment in the future.

What is my strategy, you ask? Well, as it should, it involves my son. People ask me what I plan on leaving for my son. Do you think someone such as me looks forward to leaving nothing so much as my battered leather jacket or a little money for him to piss away? I arrived at the conclusion a long time ago that once a person is gone, stuff doesn’t mean much, not even their body. Memories mean everything. Ideas mean everything. Empowerment means everything. I want to leave wonderful memories for my son. I want to leave a better world for my son. I want to leave pride for my son. I want to be the rocket that shuttles his own into space and slingshots it towards the stars.

Doing this requires involvement and love, sure, but also something else. It involves a test. Let my life become the testament of my results of that test. Let the test measure me against the dauntless men of genius and action that moved the world on their shoulders. Men like William Eaton who led 1000 ragtag men including American marines, Turks, Arabs, and Bedouins- most of which threatened desertion countless times- across the desert from Egypt to Tripoli (and in less than 40 years, mind you, Moses would have been dumbfounded), with the force of American Naval power deserting him, and brought the tyrant Bashaw, the scourge of Europe, upon whose shores laid the mangled, rotting corpses of exhausted Christian slaves, ultimately to his knees. Even when Eaton finally reached Tripoli, his motley crew was outnumbered 10 to 1. It was his truly indomitable spirit that demanded order through impossible chaos and saw Thomas Jefferson’s intentions through to the end.

You and I complain and quibble over mundane trivialities in the 21st century and begrudge anything uncomfortable because we lack the motivation of honorable purpose. We lack that focusing drive towards greatness. We become too preoccupied with the mud pies of instant gratification. Happiness through achievement does not come without sacrifice or exertion of energy. Even Will Smith’s character in “The Pursuit of Happiness” knew that. And World Peace? Anyone who thinks world peace will come without violence is naïve. Due to the intrinsically varying nature of humanity, there will always be a group of people whose foundation of perception involves not the sanctity of life but in its stead the persuasion of their own agenda through force and violence. Humanity has not progressed in such a way that this fact will change in my lifetime and as long as it is a fact of life, pursuing peace and pursuing safety means being capable of defending ourselves from injustice as well as defending those who cannot defend themselves. That said, do we have the resources and money to fight everyone else’s battles? Not by any stretch of the imagination. As long as there are people who wish for violence, our military branches will always have an honorable purpose, but it will not be the method in which I pursue my purpose. I prefer a more direct road, a road more inviting for my strengths, talents, and passions.

This concludes the rambling, digressing, but well intentioned train of thought of this blog as I make my way from active duty enlisted sailor and into the next phase of my adventure: Fatherhood and beyond.

The steamy water does not succeed in blasting my eyes comfortably open. They’re still painful slits as I dry off and put my clothes on. My mental voice gains confidence, but it is a bitter confidence. A resigned confidence. The Sun is not up yet, but it will be, and so must I.  That is where my confidence ends. It seems so little ground in comparison to it’s lofty goals of becoming the Josef Green that my friends and family love the most. But it is ground I’ve gained, and I methodically accept it and continue forward.

Despair makes itself cozy. Despair is everywhere my confidence is not and as I push my breakfast around in my tray it makes use of its mirthless cackle. I ignore it. I’m trying to gain my momentum now. I show up to work, not ready, unenthusiastic, but there. My actions must endure when everything else in me fails.  I’m rolling my boulder up my hill. Hours go by and I’m still struggling with my boulder. But my voice is louder now. Its edges are defined. It is a little more interactive in my surroundings. When I’m being spoken to, I’m no longer pulling levers and throwing switches in the most detached responses imaginable. Not as much at any rate. I’m fighting for my speech to be me talking to you and not just myself standing by and casually watching me perfunctorily respond to you, them, or whomever.

I fight to connect and submerge myself into my life. I am doing all I can to plug into the story that is exclusively my own. And then, after many imperceptible victories over despair and most of the 12 hour work day, I reach my mountaintop. My voice is the nuclear fusion of the Sun. And with that voice, comes a need. This need has been with me ever since I first learned how to read. It was the motivation that drove my ridiculous scientific disasters as a youngster, had me trying to run for class president at an elementary school I had attended for only a month, and had me trying to convince my high school friends to sell plasma so we could raise enough money to attend DEFCON in Las Vegas.

This need is driven by a fear. I am sure this fear wasn’t the root cause of the need, but as surely as I sit here typing, that single fear has developed. Subsequently I am driven to use the most accessible tools at my disposal to describe it. A rule we all learned in elementary school was that it isn’t adequate to define a word while using it in its definition. You can use the word in a sentence to derive its connotations and meaning, but in a simple definition, you must use completely different words. What about ideas about which it is impossible to convey their full gravity by using words alone at all? I would that my life becomes a legacy that defined an idea that could otherwise not be conveyed. I would that I base my life on truth, and not confuse opinions with truth. But what I fear most in this life is reaching my death bed having actively engaged in this world to the extent of a mere ripple. I have my voice back. I am awake. I am alive. The ocean and I are alike in our perpetual motion. I will be a tsunami. My raison d’être becomes my journey towards maximizing my life’s affect on the world. Anything less is not enough.

Of course, I am not a tsunami. I am not an indomitable force of nature. I am not Batman. I am a human. I make mistakes. Some of my actions affect others in ways I will never know. Not all those ways will be good. This is the fact of life; that action and reaction is chaotic because each of us can only control and be aware of so much in our surroundings. Many turn to religion for guidance and for wellness. Knowing that there’s someone out there who has everything in control would be a great feeling because I know that I certainly don’t. But it is not a truth. It is an opinion-based perception that is made tangible ONLY by faith. In no way is it made tangible by reality.

With this knowledge I choose to be free of the guidance as well as the opinion-based perception. I cannot accept the opinion-based perception, and when it comes down to religion, it really is all or nothing.  But for so long I had this idea that perhaps there was a subconscious part of me that was in touch with my road on a deeper level. I felt as if I could never regret any of my actions. That perhaps having an awesome life of a man of action would come effortlessly to me. I became too proud in what I was good at and forgot just how imperfect I am. My friends back in Tucson loved the Joe Green that was imperfect, who was always talking about being a ninja, who had horrible pick up lines. But in every aspect that could be observed, I was more imperfect than any of them. Even now, they are better people than me. I am loud about my good intentions, but they are doing more with their lives.  For me to achieve my dreams, more effort is required of me. It is time I accept that.

Upon accepting this, I realize I need a code. Without a code I’m going to end up as another statistic, continuing cycles of suffering. I would rather end my life this instant than to live with the fact that I continue cycles of suffering. I need to deliberately choose my behavioral vectors. I need to think through, in detail, my own road, to create the schema of guidance that is suited to my responsibilities as well as my mental and spiritual needs. Spiritually speaking, I must pursue my legacy. Responsibility-wise, I must work in ways that maximize production and results. A world merely comprised of starving artists and hipsters is not substantial enough. I need to give back to the world.  I need to find opportunities for activism and develop my will towards leadership. I need to earn for myself and my family. I need to supply the passion and stability for Jennifer, my son, and I to be a smooth and loving unit- truly a Ka-Tet. I need to become both an intellectual and a man of action (if there is a difference between the two. I’m not entirely sure there is…) in every aspect of who I am.  I need to create in myself a bulwark against my old foe, despair. And finally, I need to never disclose that code I create. It will be for me and me alone.

With this need comes awareness. The sanctity of life is at stake in the Gaza Strip. In Lebanon. In Iraq. In Afghanistan. In  Libya. In Darfur. In Somalia. In China. In Portugal. In Japan. In Indonesia. In North Korea. In the Indian Ocean. In Brazil. In Egypt. In Bahrain. In the countless women and children being trafficked across the globe. On the Ivory Coast. In America. Just as I can see through the outrageous propaganda the Tulsa Public School System is putting out to make their School consolidation sound like anything other than a desperate move to cut funding on education in the area, I can see through the Republican and Tea Party masquerades, through their explicit demands and their implicit power plays. There is too much politics in American Politics-across the board- and not rational, educated calculation. On so many levels, in so many ways, this world needs concise, inspiring action. And I know that as one person I can only do so much, so I look to the peers of my country, America, I look at all the young and able bodies full of vitality and potential, and see…

People arguing over the simplest things. People watching Jersey Shore on TV. People concerned about no more than their favorite fashion, sports team, bands, or political flavor. People looking at all our problems and saying, “It’s out of our hands! God will provide!” Or they spew out conspiracy theories and over a few beers complain about how powerless they are and how little their needs are met by what is supposed to be the greatest and most democratic, “For the People” country in the World. If they even get that far.

Chuck Palahniuk had it right:

“The sound shivers through the walls, through the table, through the window frame, and into my finger. These distraction-oholics. These focus-ophobics. Old George Orwell got it backward. Big Brother isn’t watching. He’s singing and dancing. He’s pulling rabbits out of a hat. Big Brother’s holding your attention every moment you’re awake. He’s making sure you’re always distracted. He’s making sure you’re fully absorbed… and this being fed, it’s worse than being watched. With the world always filling you, no one has to worry about what’s in your mind. With everyone’s imagination atrophied, no one will ever be a threat to the world.”

Mental baby food. That’s all we have appetites for, generally. It isn’t enough for me.

Because I am awake. I am making my code. I am imperfect, but I can see the world as it could be in my dreams. I can remember the dreams of my youth. I aim to do something about it.

But my nuclear fusion is too bright when night approaches. I push myself to the raggedy edge of my limits at the weight room to experience the euphoric high of physical exhaustion. I take a shower before slowly, awkwardly, climbing into my rack and closing my eyes. Then I spend hours just laying there, my thoughts too loud for me to sleep. If I’ve picked up a particularly good book, like that Harry Dresden novel I was reading last month, I’ll lay there, deliberately, desperately, lapping up the words. Desperately defiant of the time ticking away. In moments like those I have to make myself truly appreciate the pleasure of well-written words, of the escalating excitement of the storyline. I pause frequently to tell myself that it will be worth being extra exhausted in the morning, because there’s nothing I will be looking forward to this morning than another Monday, in a half a year full of Mondays, and my struggle just to once again wake up.

That’s all I’ve got.

When I was a young boy, I went with my family to hear a well established evangelist named Mario Murillo. I also wanted to become an evangelist someday which motivated me to memorized much of the bible. Whenever we would play those bible games in Sunday School like “find the verse first and read it out loud” I would always win. I considered myself a badass for Jesus. This particular night as i listened to Murillo preach, I drew a picture of him. I basically drew a stick figure on fire, standing on fire, on a page full of fire. I explained to my mom that it symbolized how on fire for God he was. Thinking back on it now, I realize it looked more like a stick figure in Hell. I’m operating on different premises now, but it is no wonder they wouldn’t let me give him the picture I drew.

Somewhere in The Holy Bible, written by the hand of God who’s ways and logic are incomprehensible to us (he does, however, exhibit standard human emotions such as jealousy and anger) it says that a person cannot serve two masters. People who read this tend to think of the cursory interpretations. Much like an obedient dog would confuse the commands of two owners whistling for him to run towards them both simultaneously, they count the road of following Christian precepts as one master and then categorize all the other ways under “The Way of the World” and consider it the other, lesser master.  This thought has of course been fully developed and exhausted. The way in which the two masters verse is more true is in regards to one’s Premises. You cannot serve two counteracting premises. The single most affective contradiction on Earth occurs when one person expects someone else’s premises to be the same as their own. The second contradiction occurs when a person does not live according to the premises they claim to accept. Of course before I can begin a discussion about Premises, which is by nature logical, we have to accept that which is logical, if only for a moment.

What are things that make us human? Consciousness, for one. Then the ability to consciously interact with our environment. Then the value judgments we create in order to give reason to our madness of being alive. Then, because by our very nature, we push the limits of our potential, we create systems that will make our lives easier by working with each other. Born at different time periods, John the baptist would have nothing more noble to look forward to upon reaching manhood than planting his crops(which is by the way extremely noble), then going off to the crusades to fight evil(which is extremely ignoble), and finally becoming the Commander in Chief of the Free World.(which has it’s perks, I must admit, but I don’t find any more noble than being a really good farmer and providing for one’s family.) In terms of religion, thousands of years before Judaism there were shamans on every land mass on Earth. In Japan, Shintoism was teaching people the reverence of life. Objectively, the stories that are associated with a belief system are unimportant. It is the affect the beliefs have on the individual and the motives it gives the individual to be alive and interact with his fellow man. It is the values a person derives from the beliefs that makes the belief itself seem necessary.

Psalm 119:

You’re blessed when you stay on course,

walking steadily on the road revealed by God.

You’re blessed when you follow his directions,

doing your best to find him.

That’s right—you don’t go off on your own;

you walk straight along the road he set.

You, God, prescribed the right way to live;

now you expect us to live it.

Oh, that my steps might be steady,

keeping to the course you set;

Then I’d never have any regrets

in comparing my life with your counsel.

I thank you for speaking straight from your heart;

I learn the pattern of your righteous ways.

I’m going to do what you tell me to do…

That being said, the motives for individual values must be fully internal. It has to be a choice. Otherwise, the contradiction of detaching from your premises occurs. Allow me to take this time to explain the premise of faith and how it differs from my own and why, by right of being alive, I would be living a lie to operate by it.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. That’s somewhere in the King James version, word for word. In other words, faith is the evidence for things not tangible. By faith, everything not provable by science is provable. The flying spaghetti Monster came down from the heavens and with a noodley appendage  touched the Planet Earth and bequeathed life to it. It doesn’t take faith to know the chair I sat on this morning that felt sturdy then will not break when I sit on it now. It doesn’t take faith to know my mom and dad are alive and well. It doesn’t take faith to know your husband or wife loves you. It does take faith to make a gamble on a better job, but even that is within the realm of one’s ability to rely on their own two hands. It is still the interaction of humanity and part of the process of being alive. Faith requires a disconnection between mind and body. You enter a realm where reason and logic are inadequate. Faith requires that the value judgments operate from the fact that the body is evil and reason is obsolete. We are unable to understand The Almighty. We don’t need to use reason to walk when the path is already paved for us by someone whom we will never have a chance of comprehending. This life is, after all, just a shadow of the life to come when we die. However, when one detaches themselves from their ability to reason, they open themselves up to the perils of arriving at monstrous conclusions.

The Garden of Eden, ten thousand years ago. Adam and Eve were created as blank slates, as robots, without the ability to have value judgments, and were told not to eat fruit of two trees. One was eternal life and the other was the knowledge of good and evil. God told them that they would die. I don’t need to point out that if they ate from a tree of eternal life, they couldn’t die unless God killed them. A serpent spoke to them and told them they wouldn’t die if they ate from the tree. Without the knowledge of good and evil, there is no right and wrong, no obedience and disobedience, no sin. Thus the action of eating the fruit was not sin, but it is Considered sin, because the story is a symbol of homo sapiens becoming humans with the power to have values, to create, to achieve, to be beings for themselves in a world full of animals. The good and right aspect of mankind becomes evil by faith. Love becomes charity as it is required to be unconditional and eternal.

On the other end of the see-saw is the Premise of Public Opinion. These are the people who aren’t religious but take life for granted, or go to Church on Sundays because they’ve always done it and to not go to church would be like allowing someone to disrespect their mother. I think of popular music being predominantly about money, dancing, and infatuation. These sorts of people take everything at the cursory level. Their motives are whatever they were taught to be as children or whatever they feel like letting them be now that they are older and have control of their lives, but without putting thought into it other than thinking “I want.” and “I need.” For these people, what they refer to as love is the most prominent instant gratification.

There is a third Premise, scribbled on a tattered notebook in a box of my old junk. I wrote on it before I shipped out for the Navy. My motives for joining were simple and the fact that I share the same motives with many others is unimportant. I had a purpose beyond the Navy and for a time after the Navy. The light at the end of the tunnel was a quasar and I felt as if I had the keys to the kingdom. Even now I look forward to pursuing journalism, which is the single most important pillar of democracy. Then I shipped out, and it’s already been three years. Three years of limbo. Three years of putting my premise on pause, trying to be content with the Navy’s hurry up and wait policy. You see, the Navy doesn’t pay you for your accomplishments as much as your time. These four years  I haven’t just been working a job you can come home from. That annoying thing I have about bring work home with me? These four years are the job. A job that hurts my brain. A job in which in the ways I value, I am motionless. I have traveled all over the world and I’m rarely able to sleep in and yet I’m standing still. Moss grows fat on me. Stagnation causes the inevitability of decay, slowly at first then rapidly.

My premise is the love the life. There is nothing more sacred than Life itself. There is no greater cause worth fighting over. Faith is about death, and those bending over backwards for public opinion aren’t fully alive either, but I want to be alive. This is the one life I have and I could want nothing more. All values must be based on that premise. Right must be towards life and Wrong must be the other things. Love must be given towards the deserved and towards the values I hold sacred. Sexual intercourse not be evil, but right, accepting that the love of life means the love of self and the love of pleasure, appreciating every moment and a display of love towards the partner and of that partner’s values. Arguing about simple miscommunication isn’t a display of reverence towards life. How on earth have I allowed myself to decay, acknowledging the road, but losing sight of it’s purpose? I refuse the burden of original sin. My worship is towards life and my catalyst is my mind. The ability to reason is our most sacred ability. Logic is not subjective. Granted, common sense isn’t common, because each person’s common sense is subjective to their backgrounds, but Logic reigns supreme. There are no contradictions. As Ayn Rand would say, if there seems to be a contradiction, check your premises.

I have been living a lie only discernible through my attitude towards my actions and even some of my actions because I had lost sight of my purpose and of my premise. My motivation to be alive has subsequently been dying. To live other than one’s values is a lie. To force one’s values on another or allow another’s values to be forced on one’s self is a lie. In Italy, the rate of decay is faster than the rate of workers rebuilding the inhabited structures. They end up compromising little by little. On the outside, the buildings are no longer kept up very often but the interior is still decent. Then the appliances start breaking and they hang their laundry out on the balconies. Next thing you know, the filth accumulating on the streets where the gypsies dig out of trash that’s everywhere will come bulldozing its way inside their homes and they’ll lock themselves in their bedrooms and wonder what went wrong. And here, Mumford and Sons will sing Little Lion Man, just for me as I suffer from leprosy of the mind.

Not this time. Not ever. I’m calculating the rate of restoration…

When I was a kid, I was a loser.  So far, as I’ve bulldozed into adulthood, I have had this idea that I could save the world and be a tangible, intimate, force for good.  I wanted to succeed where I felt religion has failed. Religion hasn’t failed at everything. It provides a positive culture suitable to help communities thrive and it provides that motivation for the positivity that is needed in people to help each other along their roads to happiness, but not much else. The intimacy of religion is really the intimacy of it’s followers.  I know that people can do good all by themselves, without needing ulterior motivation, supernatural or otherwise,  and I think that while it doesn’t necessarily speak against the character of someone who is religious, it speaks more for the character of the non-religious when they do.

I believed that I could succeed in the entire world where ideas that have evolved and been built up over thousands of years have not.   Recently I realized that it is not possible. Some of you might think it is common sense, that we are mere mortals and that very few make it to celebrity status and even they succeed only in being worshiped. We all wake up on one side of the bed, or the other. We all have to take care of our bodies or else we’ll crumble, ashes to ashes, sooner than later. We all do the things we do in pursuit of happiness.  We all die. It seems I was born with a thick head.

We fight each other over our opinions of the truth as if truth is something magical and attainable only by not connecting the dots. Truth doesn’t care if you kill yourself for it and anything suggesting there is something more important that life is not worth wasting breath on.  As a teenager I started questioning my own beliefs.  I noticed that people who question their beliefs tend to not look too far from their comfort zone. They’ll question themselves but hope like hell they’re right because if they aren’t, that usually means that neither were their parents or all the people they respect and admire.  I was already uncomfortable. I was weird. Internally I had the pain and confusion of a thousand frustrated gorillas who had just been scalped, shaved, and starved for three weeks. I imagine scalping hurts, starving isn’t healthy and no one has ever seen a shaved gorilla and lived to tell about it.  I was lost and all the things that usually help people get their bearings just bought me more time.

I am a sinusoidal wave. Sometimes I have the energy of a koala bear on crack and the confidence of Harrison Ford.  Other times I feel like sometime during the night I died and my body didn’t get the memo in the morning. Sometimes I can party for two weeks straight, but that’s my limit. I can’t have too much fun or I run the risk of  getting too serious. It’s not a question of deserving having a good time or not. I’m scared to death of wasting my life in pleasure when there are less fortunate people born into the mud pits of oppression. On the other hand, If I’m too serious for too long, I become isolated in a tower of my own design. As I live and breathe, I desperately create and modify my understanding of what it means to be human and truly alive so that perhaps at the end of the day I’ll be satisfied with myself.

I’ve accepted I am a mere mortal. It’s about time, right?  I can’t save the world. We must all do for ourselves and each other. My arms can only hold so many. I can make my life the catalyst for only so many, and when I am out of sight, I am out of mind.  Space creates the distance and time does all the rest. I have finally decided the point for my life, and I’m hoping it’s more realistic than previously. I pray these goals sufficient; that despite the most generous triumphs or even the most embarrassing blunders I will commit in my life, whatever my position on philosophic, religious, or political ideas, etc. happen to be at any given moment, wherever I happen to be, whether I settle down in one town someday or not, I will love those dear to me with all that I am and hands won’t ignore the universe that exists beyond my immediate world, so long as the neurons in my brain still retain their spark. This is my point. This is my road to happiness.

I was in Tucson, and I couldn’t have asked for more during my time there. I kidnapped Vanda, crashed a vegan tea party, crashed a music festival and city fair with my goofy monkey costume… but  one jam and one ghost punch after the entire torrent of  great times with great people I was alone again at four in the morning in an airport. I was up in the air once again, but I don’t consider my home in an airport or some fancy hotel. My home is in the hearts of awesome people. For a moment I couldn’t see that, but it may have set the tone in my mind for a major part of the trip to Tulsa.

I bought my sister a violin and showed up on my mother’s porch and when she opened the door she screamed like a banchee. I took that scream for her being happy, since, in context, she was also squeezing me and crying. Maybe that moment made the entire trip worth it, if those most blissful moments somehow weren’t.  But that moment soon ended as well.

Sometimes other people can be Hell. Sometimes other people are the highest heaven. Sometimes the lack of people is Hell. and those moments weigh heavier in our hearts than all the blissful times combined. Despite the truth that soon my ship will set sail and this time I don’t know when I’ll be back again, I remember the anticipation I felt as I shoved the hat on my head to keep the wind from blowing it off in Matt’s car as we sang “Within a mile of home,” I remember the joy I felt when I toy my old friends from middle and high school that I loved them with all my heart, I remember being a ghost puncher outside Elcon Mall, I remember watching flight of the conchords, I remember jamming, and I remember stumbling back from those bars shoulders locked with those of Silviu’s and Dawn’s.

I remember when I became desperate, like one who’s afraid to die because he’s never lived, and I realized I had never lived in the sense that is most important to me. The right buttons were pushed, the right synapses were sent electrical signals to, and the next thing you know my heart is dragging out the old fifties vinyl records, popping corks on wine bottles and lining itself with their fragrances. This is my mental instability, my tormenting replay, that I place all my bets on moonbeams and when I wake up and realize that reality doesn’t coincide with my dreamworld, I go into the wilderness to gather my wits again, trying to tear myself apart and become someone, while mostly the same, is something better. I try, at least.  I dream again. It is what I do.

Take notice that I’m not making effort to be superfluous. I’m not trying to use culture to sing for me like the scenesters with their beards and the emo kids and their tight clothes and music, or the screamo variety who swear their music represents something meaningful. Hey, if it means something to them then I suppose it does. But I don’t sing the song of a particular culture. I use culture to sing my own song.

This is who I am right now. but not who I may be tomorrow. I judge no one but myself and accept no one else’s interpretation of my own convictions, save for the fact that I accept they have convictions and that they are valid for themselves in their own lives. However, to be fair, I don’t take constructive criticism lightly.

I am unable to quiet my gratitude to you all, my closest friends and family. Your lives and love are the inspiration and strength that keeps me going. It is with the highest esteem and honor that I can call myself your friend and most humble servant.

Look now at the boy. See him well, I beg, now that he is slightly older, a mere pile of unhealthy, balancing bones, emotions going wild as he’s constantly caught in the crossfire of this new marriage between his mom and a bastard. To trudge through a chaotic existence and mistake shallow and superfluous beliefs for truth is one of the worst ways a person can live. To exist merely to make money to continue existing is another, and money is something they lack, but not something that has of yet become so that it sways this boy’s heart. He is desperate to believe that the things of this world are fake and unimportant compared to some bright and shiny spiritual one. So says the man who doesn’t deserve to be called a man, who can’t hold down a job for more than a few months, but whom the boy, the StickWonder, calls father for the next couple of years.

Fake father is raising his voice at Manic Mother, and she’s changing her’s to match. They’re eating at a Mom ‘n’ Pop trucker diner, which is just about as romantic as their marriage gets. Stickwonder is playing at bliss, admiring the peppers in the soup until he can’t take it any more, never mind that father’s not kicking her this time, and asks to go to the bathroom. He always asked, even when at home. “May I go? May I do normal things that people shouldn’t ask permission to do? I’m no longer the defiant boy who resisted the Castor Oil and the belt unless I can’t control myself and incur beatings that help take the ‘devil’ out of me that I oh so willingly seem to let in if I really do deserve them so often. ‘Hey mister Devil, you look a mite cold out there. That just won’t do! Come in so I can incur my Fake Fathers wrath and by the way, would you like a spot of tea?’”

He locks himself away in a stall, but not too long, takes time to admire the artwork to get his mind off of things. “Bango Skank was here.” He finally gets out, goes through the motions and washes his hands. The mirror shows him that tears have formed in his eyes and that dam either needed to break or fix itself quick. He’s about to wipe them away when he notices someone at one of the urinals and something in his brain becomes distracted. The man is wearing jeans and a black leather jacket. The back of his long, crazy hair looks familiar and if not familiar, has a mystifying effect on StickWonder anyways. The man in the black jacket finishes his business and turns around to face the sink’s mirror. Paralysis numbs Stick’s mind and motor functions and he doesn’t know why. Old Leather Jacket stands there with his scared face and piercing hazel eyes that seem as if they could extend their awareness over the entire universe  and only smiles. Is there sympathy in that smile? Pity, perhaps? They stand there in limbo for a moment. Stick wants to think he is staring at his father and knows in his heart of hearts he isn’t but what his heart of hearts tells him doesn’t make any sense. Old Leather then begins to speak.

“Cry if you must, for this is your song for a while, and one that will have profound impact on who you choose NOT to become, but this will not be your song forever. There are other worlds than these, aye and roads, and yours has just begun. You will be a late bloomer. Gods know we aren’t the clear image of Alpha male masculinity, but your passion will prevail. You will be alone near all of your life, and lonely, but rest assured that someday you will be loved yes and you will love. Just don’t expect to assume your understanding of love to coincide with everyone else’s or even your idea of it now! Don’t begrudge the pain from your mistakes or try to shift them on someone else. You are set apart, not for some spiritual work because a book said you are, but a greater and real work, because you’ve chosen it. You are part of the Ka-tet of 11. You will be a gunslinger of peace. Let the knowledge of your adventure to come and your accomplishments carry you forward, past the chaos and the pain, and be mindful of what you consider to be true.”

Stick finally manages up enough wits to ask a single question. He wants this apparition to confirm or deny what he feels in his heart. “Who are you?”

Old Leather replies, “I am the wind. I entreat to no God. My allegiance is to my Road and to Life and I wouldn’t pray to either. One day you will realize that everything you do is for our road. You will have a hard time trying to be who you think you want to be for your feet will find their course, one way or another. Once you’ve made that realization, you won’t cry off that road, no matter what. To follow that road is more than being a rolling stone, for naught else they do but roll until they lose their meaning. It is more than traveling the world over, though you will I can guarantee you. It is both fate and your own definition of the world, and you’ve defined it since birth.”

“You are…me?” Stick’s mind was trying to balance something that didn’t seem to want to be balanced.

“I won’t expect you to remember what I’ve said, or even our encounter- only the feel- for this might be the difference between a life or death in your future, though not of yours so much as the siblings you don’t yet have and haven’t yet had to take care of. It will be many years until they will know you and at least as many before you know yourself. Fate is a wheel and it turns and turns, but it does not control all, as your ‘Bamma’ rightly knows. She who has been able to find you despite the fact that your pitiful excuse of a family moves at least once a year. She who hears your cries even from millions of miles away. She is in your ka-tet, a while longer. When you realize the importance of the number 11, she will have long reached the clearing at the end of her path, but not without first giving you the tools whereby to carry on. One day you will see that 11 is not always fate, but bourne of our real love, as well. But now I must go, for the double back of our time has grown thin. Live with love. Long days and pleasant nights, well, maybe not yet, but soon.”

Old Leather raised his fist to his forehead, winked, then vanished.

Stick blinked a few times and looked around, dazed as his mind tried to grasp what he had just experienced, but his brain held no answers, and soon he would forget the words told to him. His mind had long practiced the art of forgetting and now that there was something felt he needed to remember, he couldn’t. Except when he walked back to the table and there was momentary silence something in the back of his heart began to hope.

There were still years between this encounter and the year he moved back to the city of his birth to be given the keys to his future, begin the slow walk towards the understanding of real love, and witness the death of his beloved “Bamma” whom he so named that fateful day that marked the beginning of the Early years when he had a Sarah Conner mother. They were in between years in which he practiced the art of forgetting spoken words, which he would later come to regret, and the art of memorizing written word, which he’d later come to lose. But all in good time. Later, he would dream the dreams that weren’t dreams, gaze upon the piercing bombardier eyes and the Sun metaphors and the out-of-body experiences and fail to pin their proper meaning until even years after they ended. But for now, he would endure the pain of violent chaos and hope if he ever made it out alive, that the force of discord didn’t wear him down that he couldn’t heal. He would go into the woods in these in between years with his beaver stick and his fishing pole and explore as Huck Finn, the wonders of Narnia, Middle Earth, In-World, and all the wonderous places he would lose himself in while reading. He practiced walking, for it was something he would need to do well for the rest of his life, if he was to save this world.