The Long Road Home

Impulse coerces me to my bed tonight, alone, except for my laptop which is only running a word document that I intend to post as my next blog. There are currently about one and a half sentences to this blog, and a title- so-far. Now there are at least two sentences, and this is all that I am sure of. I’ve noticed that I tend to talk about the same things using more or less the same words, my ideas prove as innovative as the mass produced trash cluttering this rotting town that closes in on this small, fenced in property we call an American Navy base. Despite the countless things I could sit here and think up as to why I wish I was anywhere other than right here, I’m feeling my way towards contentment in my room, walls lined with books and superhero posters, and an extra-large Christmas tree in the corner that shall claim that corner until I leave here. But all of this is the setting; this isn’t a blog to relay my current standing in life or what I think of the 12 hour watch I just finished. It’s time to tear my attention from the bush, or the beating around of it for that matter.

Tonight I want to talk about passion. I want to talk about color. I want to talk about beauty, of revelations and quasars; tonight I want to finally end the redundancy of my blogs by expressing, once and for all, my deepest philosophy, or the kaleidoscope through which I peer out into the world and come away from it with some purpose or design or fundamental need, or to expose the meaning I have placed on the universe I’ve observed and then deliver something that would make Shakespeare quiver in his legendary boots. Unfortunately, I doubt I’m ready to attain such a goal in one night, let alone this night. So please excuse a very toned down version of the final product. Mind you, I don’t even know the words I am about to type next, so it’s like all my blogs, except more so, somehow.

I’ve very thoroughly expressed my discontentment with living a mundane life. Sometimes I feel you could duck tape a blow- up doll of me to a remote controlled car and get as much meaningful things accomplished as I do with my days. I’m not ok with that. For some reason the meaning that the billions of people in this world are satisfied with doesn’t cut it for me. Perhaps I’m just the product of the schools of thought of my time, except Big Brother failed at keeping me distracted and I started thinking too much. According to Chuck Palahniuk, Big Brother’s idea of successful control is the mom who’s late for work, and driving her kids (who are babbling about the latest fashion they saw on TV.) to school while eating a bacon and egg McMuffin and putting on makeup and changing the radio station and then realizing the “car wash people” screwed with the side mirrors of her minivan again. If you are constantly being bombarded with distractions, is it possible to even think freely? Luckily (unfortunately) for me, I have the attention span of a fat boy in a cake factory. I get distracted from the distractions and end up thinking too much about the big picture. Perhaps I went too far.

Christianity speaks of our three dimensional world of flesh and bone as being temporary and even sinful- something of no value whatsoever. I grew up with this idea being pounded into my head and then other ideas started seeping their way in like “free thought” and “taking nothing for granted” until I reach a point where I succeeded in having no earthly agenda as well as taking nothing for granted. However, it is impossible to truly take nothing in this life for granted and have faith. Unfortunately for religion, faith is its very basis. Without faith, no religion on earth could possibly hold very much water, if any at all. I’m not saying that science holds all the truths of the universe (though even at this moment there is a giant underground laboratory conducting research on what scientists today know as the “GOD PARTICLE”- No Joke! ) This is, however, what I consider to be an important step in my reasoning.

From those ideas I wind up alienated from the rest of the human world, not in a physical sense (Thank God its not totally in the physical sense, anyway.) but in a sense that if I haven’t accepted the meaning the world has spun so hurriedly on. Nearly every moment of every day I acknowledge the fact that if my life were to continue at the exact routine it is in, for the rest of my life, my life would not be worth my living it. Simultaneously, nearly every moment- except for when I first wake up. Then I’m just a zombie and can’t wrap my head around anything being worth anything except maybe rolling over- my mind contains some level of passion, some meditation on a heroic moment or deed or idea, or possibly a story that I could write into existence. My mind spins, trying to find the turning point on which my life will pivot from mundane and lifeless to something that truly breathes hope into others.

Some girls need their chick flicks. Some guys need their explosive adventures. Sometimes I can relate to both. My need, however, falls somewhere in the middle ground, closer to the adventure side, but not cut off from the girl side that I can’t hear her voice. Violence for violence’s sake doesn’t do it for me, but neither does the perfect love story where everything is cliché, suave, and perfect. It’s when the man knows he’s weak, knows he’s imperfect, and knows that there may be a hair’s breadth between where he’s standing and the fiery swamp pits of hell, but he has one goal in mind and that goal isn’t just to settle, be another grain of sand on the beach that is moved about by the tide of life, but rather he makes up his mind and his heart to struggle- struggle until blood oozes from his pores as he peers out from between the sweat-glued hair on his face, and when he finally rights the wrong or achieves the unachievable, in his final half-ounce of energy, he shouts the name of the woman he loves, shouts it out- ignoring the whole world that is his audience- and in shouting, calls to her. In shouting he makes her and the universe know that he loves her, that he would give what little life was left in him to express that love. In shouting he calls to her to come to him, because he needs her more than anything in existence. Ok maybe that was just in Rocky, and it’s not even my favorite movie. I think of movies like the lion king, the Dark Knight, Terry Goodkind books, the philosophy of Albert Camus…and I begin to ask myself just what is it I see in those stories and ideas.

It is one of the last things in this world that is pure. It is something noble, like a good king, who, when he rides among his loyal subjects and fearless soldiers a-like, they see the tenderness in his gaze and he sees their backs straighten, and brave shouts exemplifying that they are proud to have such a noble and gracious commander. It is the pureness of a child that stubbornly resists the shame of the world even when that child has grown old and smiles down lovingly at his grandchildren. It is the son who is raised to be like his dad, who did everything in his power to make the world a better place. It is something of heroes and of people who live on well after their body is laid under the ground because their presence and their actions spoke for themselves. It is when I think of these things that I realize why I can’t seem to find contentment in this life. The reason is because this world- my world- holds none of those things.

This world holds none of those things. I see the world and myself in that world, and don’t see people taking pride in purity or taking pride in leading noble and charitable lives. I see men selling women of the night, I see boys getting into drugs. I see girls dressing like sluts and going to bed with boys who don’t love them. I see people raping, stealing, cheating, fornicating, or even just submitting to road rage. I see the victims of the deliberately ignorant, of the insolent; I see the prey of the stupid. Whatever drives people today, none of it has to do with purity and living noble lives. It is a darkness. It is a dying of the light. It is a droning until the color that lit up a child’s dreams becomes nothing more than a grayed out routine that we all succumb to sooner or later. It is world full of lonely, broken, and hurting people who don’t know how to fix themselves, or heal their wounds, or straighten their backs, or how to even fight being alone, and are pushed too fast in this digital age, through the bottleneck of life, to realize the life beneath their skin that longs to be free. Tonight sings the same sad song that I sang two years ago, except with what feels like a lifespan more of experience to prove I was right.

Though of course this is only my perception and the meaning I have given what I see. Perhaps I’ve been getting too many nightmares and am no longer able to discern between the real world and the world that haunts me when I close my eyes. Whatever the case, it is not enough for me, so I will do everything in my power to inject light into this world. I will be hope for others. Sometimes it’s not much and I fall into ruts frequently but here and now I make a vow that I will take whatever strength I can muster and make that strength a shelter for others. I will define my actions so that when I’m gone from here, it will have been worth my stay, worth the energy this body consumed to sustain itself. I swear this in honor of every human that has lived on this planet and believed in a better tomorrow. Someday I’m going to save the world, so help me God.

Who’s with me?

My Protagonist (part 3 of 500) *very rough draft*

Sitting in the Forest of Dreams, the Elder sat with his young apprentice, teaching him the ways of Light. They had sat on their mound in silence all day every day for the past 5 years. They sat, legs crossed, back straight, head held aloft and eyes gazing softly forward, never moving their mouths; stone statues in the oldest forest of their small world. The Tribe of Yondliar never used vocal communication because they had always gotten along quite efficiently with thought-speech. This particular young apprentice had been raised with the burden that he would one day lead his tribe, when it was time for the current elder to pass his dimming torch to a younger fire, so he sat on the soft mound of clay, every day, his mind devouring the memories and lessons that accumulated from the thousands of years his people had lived.

There were many perks of thought-speech. The fact that the members of this tribe operated in one cognitive collective did not strip away their grasp or need of individuation. Thought was merely their medium of communication. They freely opened their hearts and minds to each other because they simply had nothing to hide. Their land was theirs collectively, their pride was theirs collectively, and their future was theirs collectively. The individual talents and points of view were honored and included in their everyday routine.

For hundreds of years the tribe of Yondliar existed on their small planet that orbited its much brighter and slightly bluer sun, taking their part in a harmonious food chain. Their children would play in the fields overlooked by the elderly, who sat outside their thatch-roofed, stonewall dwellings, gently dozing off in intricately carved, wooden rocking chairs. The women raised their children and maintained the homes of their able-bodied men who brought home their food. They were hunter-gatherers as well as farmers in their own right. However, their only claim to the title hunter was that they hunted the vicious demon cats that preyed on the horned grazers.

If left unchecked, the population of demon cats would exponentially flourish and overrun the world of Yondliar and its simple wonder would be transformed into a dark pock-marked tomb. The young men of Yondliar had developed their aptitude at hunting and were arguably the fiercest warriors among all the civilizations they had encountered in the Universe. Yet their self control was no small matter.

In selfless gratitude the horned grazers, they protected would often offer the milk they produced to the tribal people, who accepted the gifts kindly but made sure to never exploit the opportunity. The peaceful villagers’ own numbers also did not expound as they saw to it that they consciously maintained the balance of their world. For every person that died, there was a child born, and no more. No Yondlian had twins. There had never come a time, and there would probably never be a time, at least that’s what they would have you believe.

Over time, the evolution of the tribal philosophy spawned the idea of progress. Their progress didn’t evolve around a will to power. The sun didn’t rise the following day on giant skyscrapers full of small men hiding behind big words and big guns, or fast cars and quick lays. They constructed no tower of Babel in a vain attempt to reach the heavens, which was fortunate, because no hand of God subsequently reached from that heaven to smite them with confusion. Their road didn’t take them to a time where one could be rubbed a wrong way or see nothing beyond one’s own demand for revenge or need to hold a grudge. Their progress was didn’t stray from goodwill and was purely that of the mind.

The people of Yondlier quickly realized that their mental capacities were not restricted to processing corporeal data and communicating with each other. They recognized they were the audience and well as performers of their own play, and began to look beyond themselves. When observance of their world was no longer enough, they reached their consciousness out into the universe. It was sometime afterwards that Yondlier discovered life. To their horror, however, it wasn’t life they observed in the hearts and minds and actions of their much larger counterpart as it spun, third rock from their star, but death- death and a darkness that consumed like wildfire.

At first the peaceful tribal people felt obligated to assist. Years came and went as they poured their hearts out, trying to reach these barbarians who saw only with their eyes and whose communication and imagination were so limited to the darkened spheres of their suffocating social paradigm. Reaching no solution, they gave up their relentless ventures and decided it would be best to let them be. This is where the secret lies, the action of a collective race that lived with its heart, a deliberate reaction that would have dragged them into the magnetic pull of that strange other-world had they not pulled free and determined to forget an important chapter of their journey. They hadn’t learned yet of the cleverness of darkness, or how greedy were the winds of time.

The Elder and his son sat in transcendent reverence of the universe as they communed in the forest of dreams, but this day would be different. The wind blew hard through the trees this day as the changing of the leaves meant the warm period was at an end and all creatures would need to find a place to keep warm soon. Already animals had been storing their food and growing heavier furs and returning to their caves or deepest tunnels under the ground.

Simultaneously the minds of the two Yondlians were aware of the strong breeze as well as the aging of stars and the movement of comets. It was then a particular gust of wind picked up the leaves in their line of sight and shaped them into a loose ball before setting them back with two unique leaves on top. Never before had a Yondlian beheld a pure black leaf or a pure white leaf, let alone side by side.

Immediately the elder stiffened, eyes suddenly merely focused , and glimpses of a past long forgotten swelled up in the youngster’s mind, glimpses of a twin brother he never knew, glimpse of a dark world he’d never known, glimpses of a future- his future- that clung for dear life to the raggedy edge of oblivion. The elder’s mind urgently spoke to the young man beside him.

The rightful heir was returning, and a darkness was on his heels, the only hope for the universe and possibly its greatest doom.

My Protagonist (part two of five hundred)

The night greeted him tangled in sheets and the warm body of his lover. Sweat still clung to the saltiness of their skin as dreams tried to close in on his not-quite-closed eyes that peered up at the ceiling, but they weren’t looking at the ceiling, or the dreams that were trying to continue the passionate love-making he had finished just moments before. Their breathing slowed in unison as her head is rested on his chest, eyes closed, smiling softly, unaware that they- and the world- had only two weeks left of the lives they knew. He knew, of course, and he was worried. Her lips moved slowly, almost imperceptibly, as she softly whispered “Keep us safe, Love.” And he knew, either by some fantastic dream or the urgency that had permeated his passion that night that she knew something was up, and she trusted him. She trusted him because she loved him. She trusted him because who else was there?

In the distance a wolf howled at the moon. A gentle breeze played through the trees for just a moment. Somewhere in the universe a star was dying, but it wasn’t a natural death. Stars come and go all the time, over the course of the lifespan of the Universe. This star was not supposed to be dead for a million more years. What exactly was causing it? Could he alter the course of events so drastically as to prevent the death of the Sun? The sandman was playing re-runs. There was that same cliff in all of his dreams for a week, and the evil that threatened everything he held dear.

“Can’t sleep?”

It was a voice, but not a human voice, and not a voice that could be heard by ears at all, really. He had grown accustomed to the words that resonated in his head as if waterfalls could speak human words. He knew he wasn’t crazy because he’d long since known the truth of things, and while the woman in his arms would never hear it, he knew it was very much real.

“Can’t sleep?” It repeated, a little more defined this time. Even angels don’t like to be ignored.

“Can’t you talk to the sandman for me? I’m getting tired of his lack of innovation. If he won’t give me more to go by there really isn’t much point throwing the same thing at me every night for the past week. I know what I need to do, it’s just a matter of understanding how.”

“You know as well as I that your Mr. Sandman has no hand in the matter, and as for understanding how you must proceed, it is up to you and how far you are willing to go.”

He turned his head to gaze at the love of his life. He reflected on how he met her in the least predictable of ways, and all the memories they had shared since; he was undeniably proud at how through their journey together their love had done nothing but exponentially explode. He kissed her forehead and half asleep she responded with a gentle half-smile, at peace and without a care in the world.

Turning his mind again to his old companion and comrade at arms, who had been with him in his search for truth from the beginning, who had taught him of the order that exists beyond the three dimensions, and who had told him of the coming dangers and how the future of humanity rested on his shoulders and his alone.

“I will do whatever it takes to defend this world, for my future wife’s sake, for my future children’s sake. Nothing that stands in my way will prevail, even if I must give my life.”

“Remember those words carefully. Promises have a way of catching up to you, Hero. In any case, there is much we both must do in the morning. Get some rest.”

“Yeah, and don’t let the sun come up without me.”

“I never do.”

Moments later, he was back on the cliff, while the rain tore away his dark cloak, revealing his lean figure beneath a white T-shirt and boot-cut jeans, except this time a face hovered before him. It was the face of the deceiver, ready to destroy the last thing that stood between it and its prey.

“What do you wish to accomplish here?” It cackled into the wind. “You are just one man, one human man, with all of your primitive weaknesses. Surely you of all humans won’t deny how weak and pitiful you are. You are powerless to stop us. Just one of my soldiers could destroy you, body and soul, and you- you sit here on this cliff holding onto some kind of fool’s hope that you can save a people who have given themselves completely to my devices. I hear them already welcoming my arrival, don’t you? They see their existence for what it truly is- short, parasitic, and unnecessary. Their fate is sealed, Wanderer, and there is nothing left for you to do but die.”

“You have no authority over me,” He replied calmly, “I am a human, yes, but that means I am also condemned to freedom. I am free to pursue whatever I desire, and my only desire is to protect the ones I love, and protect their own freedom. Right now that means destroying you, and that is exactly what I will do, at all costs.”

“You say you’ve the power to exercise freedom of choice, eh?” His laughter chilled the wind and the rain turned into tiny shreds of ice that dug into his skin and chilled his bones. “Is that the only hope you can muster? Is that the only spark in that false fire in your eyes? Then I will present to you your options; you can either die now where you sit or you can die in the onslaught to come, but mark my words, Wanderer, you will death will come speedily and after accomplishing nothing!”

The fiend’s laugh echoed into the never-ending night as the wind thundered against the cliff and ice hardened until there was nothing before him but a dark fury of sleet and an even darker threat of failure. His mind pushed deep inside the warmth of his chest and tried to take comfort in the fire of his soul, but all he could see was darkness. The ethereal edges of his mind, windblown and weary, began to crack as he spiraled deeper …deeper…

Suddenly a strong, giant hand reached into the darkness and closed about his person. It pulled him back onto the ledge where he sat. Yes, he was not entirely alone. He had promised to do anything, even if it meant death. His gaze was directed at a darkness his vision could no longer pierce. Anything. A second hadn’t passed before he was on his feet. He had jumped. Now he was flying towards his enemy in righteous anger when something in him shuddered, freezing time and space and inhibiting his movements. He looked up to see the giant he had called his friend for so long, his sword unsheathed.

“You SWUNG at me!” He shouted incredulously.

“You don’t know what you’re doing, do you, Hero?” Its eyes were piercing, blue as sapphire. Its beard seemed to have grown since the conception of time itself. Its large golden and white attire covered its massive frame that hovered in the air; a floating, flaming skyscraper. Once again he heard the familiar Niagara Falls voice in his head, but his stubbornness overcame his awe.

“What? I’m doing everything in my power.”

“No you’re not; you’re running blind to your death. Do you learn anything?”

“What would you have me do? I’m nearly out of time!”

“See that city over there?” It pointed at a city of lights he hadn’t noticed before. “You need to go there. The sun is rising without you.”

“Oh yeah…”

My Protagonist

The wind howled like a thousand haunted wolves and whipped through the branches of time in this starless, rainy night. It had been raining for seven days- seven days water poured from the sky and seeped into the soggy soil below. The Earth swallowed every bit of it as if trying to flush out the darkness of its memories, trying to wash away its constantly morphing surface that writhed and slithered like a serpent. In the very last place on her crust that man had not changed, on a cliff that jutted from the ground and tongued upwards, trying to curve past the billows of thunder and fire that besieged her, sat a cloaked figure. His grey cloak was being ripped apart by the fury of winds and rain unseen since the Great Flood, but still he sat there, motionless, as if he were merely a phantom spectator of the world of the living and it’s disasters could not reach him. A sudden gust of wind burst from below his rocky spire and edged its way around the cliff to where he sat, blowing his hood back to reveal his stony features. If one were to behold him at that moment, they would not believe he could have been from this world, born of normal citizens and had traveled a normal road for quite some time.

The scars and lines in his face gave the appearance that he was chiseled from stone. His dark hair was just long enough to dance wildly with the wind. Not long ago he had been young. His face was merely that of boyish curiosity and amusement. How could he have known that the road he had chosen would take him through time past the metaphysical and supernatural and straight to what could very well be the last day of human life? He had merely found himself alone all those years ago, and wanted nothing more than to find happiness, find completeness, find truth. He had found truth, and that truth was of grave, seemingly hyperbolic importance. He had subsequently battled demons, his and others, demons of many realms and many descriptions, and all of his battles led him here, to this cliff and to the end of the world. He realized there was nothing he could have done to stop it.

His hazel eyes burned with the passion of a thousand suns that veiled an exquisite quandary as he surveyed the storm and the things riding on the dark. It was far too dark for the untrained eye to see even their hand, but he had trained himself for a while- enough, hopefully. He saw it as it began to take shape in the darkness of clouds not from this world. Millions of figures were tumbling in chaotic madness, eager to impart their unified hatred on the earth, eager to do what they felt should have been done in the beginning, when their God has banished them and made a pact with his less evolved creation, giving them freedom- a deal. He would never again flood the earth if they would only…..

Seven days. That’s all it took. Seven days ago he had been a young man- a boy even, the boy who would be free, the outsider, and his impossible love for one girl. Seven days ago the Earth still spun on its tilted axis, just doing the best it could. That was all over now. For seven days the Earth had stood still, while darkness gathered on one side, and the council of the last living humans gathered under the waning heat of the other. For seven days the earth bled lava and fire, destroying everything in its path and turning men’s dreams into dust. For seven days the leaders of men had discussed what had to be done- what could possibly be done- to continue their race before the complete destruction of the world as well as their sun, which for seven days had been getting dimmer and dimmer until it seemed that at any moment it could go out like a light bulb.

But even those truths paled in comparison to the evil that gathered in the darkness that lay before this man on the cliff. He knew the truth of what was going on, and also that it was only he that stood between humanity and oblivion. He thought of all the people whose lives he had promised to protect thus far, and how they had been trampled down by his enemy, he had been helpless then. There was but one promise left unbroken, and that was to the love of his life. He would not fail again. Not now. Not ever, even if he had to travel past the end of the Earth. Something told him just that was probably going to happen sooner than later.

He quickly got to his feet and for a moment the slender outline of his body was defined by his wind-blown cloak.  He was no berserker from the Norse legends of old. His appearance was not formidable. If the world could have voted for a hero, he would not have been in the top hundred. His shoulders were not so broad and his neck was not a tree trunk. He was, after all, only a musician, a philosopher, a warrior-poet. Then he stumbled upon a truth that forced his hand to learn war. He knew change was inevitable and frequent, but hadn’t expected it to be so devastating. Even the girl he loved disowned him when she’d seen the look in his eyes in the unfortunate attack that had ushered in the ensuing madness. She seemed more afraid of the look in his eyes as he rushed to defend her than the demon that appeared out of nowhere…

Past is past, and promises are promises. A piercing wail sounded off in the distance before him. He reminded himself that one day he would prevail, one day he would rid the world of this evil, and his love would never have a reason to fear him again. He stepped to the edge of the high cliff, inhaled, and jumped off. Faster and faster he fell, falling faster than the rain, faster than the wind, falling falling- and suddenly he burst forward, with unseen wings, hurtling towards his enemy in righteous anger.

And that’s where my story begins.

Water through the Gate of No-Gate

(collected posts from my existentialism class)

“I watched the Forbidden Kingdom for the first time last night. I know, i know, I should’ve been on here, racking my brain, trying to think of something to write. Or maybe I should have been watching the forbidden Kingdom.
I was thinking about Kung Fu and the Tao. For about the fifty bamillionth time I watched as they compared how we should approach life to water. For the first time ever I truly understood it. Before last night I figured they were always talking about movement. Your punches and fighting bodily movement should be flowing like water and then you’ll be able to punch holes through brick walls and kick guns out of bad guys’ hands. Groovy. Last night I looked at the water as they described it and i was like “ooooohhhhhh. They’re talking about no-self.” When I was a junior in highschool I thought I was thinking something noone had thought before. I was going to reason the world’s problems away over the course of one summer. I tried to tackle the “what/who am I” question. I was like, if you took away my arms and legs and ears, I would still be me. Broke it down until there was nothing. I was like, wait, then there’s nothing. Not me, Not anybody else. I decided I was all of those things. Then I got distracted, big time, and gave up on the idea altogether. So Apparently it was nothing new or radical at all, in fact people had known it for thousands and thousands of years. I can know for certain the things that I’m not, and statements of what i’m not are true now and have the possibility of always being not true. However, things that are true now cannot be certain they will be true forever, in fact everything that has a beginning has an end. But something that has no beginning has no end.

Now as for the other ideas, it makes perfect sense that we are beings for ourselves in the world and we are intimately and intricately enmeshed with the world, our consciousness gives us dominance over the world via our intended meanings and such.

anyways, I gotta run these checks for this equipment. I’m slacking at work…… ”

“We all agree in this day and age that killing is a-moral.
We have only one exception-Self defense. In war, we claim our justification to kill is self-defense. Big deal. We look down on our hippie counterparts who say things like “NO MORE WAR” or “GO PEACE, LOVE, and UNDERSTANDING” because we beleive that killing others in the name of our country and the moral principles we beleive our country fights for is noble. Their sacrifice seems mocked by long-haired kids who both refuse to make such sacrifices and at the same time contend that their sacrifices are unnessecary. Like the samurai.
In V for vendetta, the main dude, V was fighting for something. It was a mixture of both agressive vengeance and overcoming a dictatorship that inhibited beauty of self-expression. I personally beleive that an individual cannot be truly alive without asserting some form of self-expression into their world. I don’t hesitate to drop whatever i’m doing to play my violin with anyone i meet if they can play acoustic guitar. Spontaneous improvisationed communication needing no sort of words or vocal grunts…
We watch fight club and say it’s a good movie, but keep it far separated from any cause for actual behavior by the time the credits roll.
We demand the death of someone who killed an old lady or young girl because we feel they deserved to live the rest of their days….
where was I going with this?
I’m sorry. ”

“I agree with all of you guys sofar. reading your posts on this has helped me grasped a better understanding of existentialism even. Mersault did indeed live in bad faith. But something about him….I can identify with. Is it Nihilism? I would hate to think i’m a nihilist. I feel like the same thing I can relate to is the same thing I relate to in the person of Holden Caulifield. Both were ridiculously alienated from the world. Perhaps it is just a fear that I’m not actually in control of my life and that any second now it will go speeding off into the vast comsos like an exploding super rocket ship that was headed for the moon. It’s not that I’m an amoral person, not in the slightest, my favorite book is “Batman and philosophy:the dark knight of the soul” for crying out loud.
But this is the difference: I’m not just taking a course for college, this isn’t just some interesting sounding class that I decided to take, mersault isn’t just a character in a book that some random writer created; this is my life, I am a living, walking, breathing kid who is trying to make the jump, trying to make the connection, and I read about this connection by a man named Camus, and I hope for this connection but it hasn’t quite clicked yet. I understand that the universe is meaningless, and I understand that if you live in bad faith you will quickly find yourself in a state of alienation and unaliveness, however for the past several years i have tried my hardest to actively engage in my life and for the past several years I’ve made some of the craziest memories and yet for the past several years it hasn’t been enough, I haven’t done enough, I haven’t engaged enough, I am still alienated. Yes, I am the being for myself that makes choices that affect my future, but I’m still the observer that gets dragged like a chariot by time. I have a family and many friends but i’m still very, very alone. The fact still remains that when I die, the meaning I put into my life is still going to end. I rage against oblivion and the reactions i receive from friends is sort of like “ok, joe, you’re a got-my-head-in-the-clouds, wannabe-world-healer, aaand you’re going nowhere.” Granted i’m in italy and they’re still back home, but when it comes down to it, it’s all the same, really. Sorry, This wasn’t really here or there. ”

“”Because I choose to.”

I tried writing a really long post for this yesterday but by the time I clicked “submit” it had logged me off, and deleted what I’d spent hours writing, so I decided I wait until today to try again. So I’m sorry, but this time it probably won’t be as “good.”

Ever since my grandma passed away the day before my sophomore year of high school, I’ve drifted through various degrees of Holden Caulfield rejection to trying to fight off invisible demons when I felt like I was slipping into Mersaultian alienation to Yossarian absurdity. Even these days, when I’m alone, I’ll walk out the door of my room at night, gaze at the moon and just wander the base, or in broad daylight pondering how it wouldn’t matter if I were to keep wandering the base or sit down on a bench I’ve never sat on before. Then I’ll either fall into this huge contemplative rut or I’ll snap back and carry on with my day or night. The same thing makes it impossible to stay on base for too long, and I have to plan road trips or anything that could get me away from WORK. The same thing haunts me and is why I hate being alone. I’m always much more comfortable when someone is there to hold my hand or my heart in theirs. From the time I was in middle school until the moment I was shipping out for boot camp, I was so worried that I’d waste the time I had here because I am very aware that once we use time, we never get it back. But now I realize it’s not always where you are or what the situation you’re in that matters but how you react to it and whether you coast along like in the movie “Wanted” (which is a complete Hollywood rip-off of my own ideas, but I can’t prove it haha) Or you passionately connect to each moment.

My sister turns 13 tomorrow. A year ago I asked her what the purpose of life was and she said “Me, Myself, and I.” I guess according to existentialism she was very right Even though she enjoys writing, the thing that keeps her from it is that she feels her ideas and stories pale in comparison to the collective world.

But this is where I can finally understand the whole picture and make that final leap into the true existential mindset. In our higher intellect, we’ve asked the question “WHY?!” and once we asked “Why do we live?” we suddenly need an answer, sort of like that atomic super state in quantum mechanics. It’s in position A and B at once until we look at it except now it’s looking back at us, giving us the bird. How cordial.

So since we’ve decided we need a purpose, we make purposes. We are the creators of the system. And now we are governed by the system. It’s like in those stories where the hero and the villain seem to decide they are each other’s arch nemeses. Next thing you know, no matter what they try to do, their “Fates” are intertwined, no matter what sort of life Peter Pan tries to follow on Earth, Hook tracks him down and steals his kids and calls for the final ultimate showdown between GOOD AND EVIL.

Agent Smith and Neo.

“hear that, Neo? it is the sound of inevitability”

Humanity and Meaning.

The difference is that instead of humans fighting meaning itself, we fight for meaning.

We navigate our Pequods looking for ol’ boy Moby and Free Willy and all we find are sea stars and jellyfish. “ooh, these are pretty, good enough for me, eh?” We settle. But maybe Moby doesn’t really exist, after all, but either way, only humans require meaning, and so we make it happen. We pin meaning on everything we see, we pin meaning on our behavior, things called “motives.” There must be motives for everything someone does. My spontaneity leaves people speechless and thinking that I’m off my rocker sometimes. Why did you do this or this, Joe? Because I choose to. Why is it that when I pursue girls, they tend to ask, “Why me?” Get over yourself, girl, it’s because you’re pretty, I don’t think you’re one dimensional paper doll, and because I choose to. I think I can love you. I want to be alive with you. If that’s not good enough, I’m sorry.

At the same time I’m all about actively engaging in one’s life and being passionate about things. I don’t mean live for the butterflies in your stomach. I’m just saying we should be real, (I’m rambling, I’m sorry, due to an allergic reaction I’m having from eating mangos, I’m on Benadryl and I’m doing pushups every 5 minutes to stay awake at work right now.)
I’ve experienced the plane feeling too. Ever since I was about 8. The time before that I was about 4 and only remember crying because my ears hurt. Looking out the window at ant cars really put things into a perspective.

But the most important thing is that I’ve finally made that next step from viewing everything from alienation and meaninglessness to understanding that we are the source of meaning. Because nothing needs meaning except for humans. We created the need for it. We tried to find solutions ever since the questions. Working from this viewpoint, nothing is absurd, only our attempts to control it. It’s like trying to name the wind. Or is it?

That’s all I’ve got.

I think. ”

“*1. In your own words, explain the basic concept of Existentialist Ethics.

I guess in Existentialism, it’s all about living the authentic life, not living in Bad faith. When talking about pure existentialism, the idea itself has nothing to do with other ideas, like Christianity and religion and such, all those things are they’re own squares in hopscotch. I can stand on the Christian square and the Existentialism square because I have two feet. But there’s this big line of chalk that separates them. With Christianity comes the rules and ethics passed down from the man upstairs, but the whole system is in that other square. So I’ll stand on one leg and try to feel my way around this existential ethic concept.

In 8th grade, my history teacher told us many times that our rights end where the next person’s rights begin in America. Without stumbling all over the beatitudes and golden rule, I’ll try to squeeze that into the existential frame. The primary goal in Existentialism is to not live in bad faith. If we are all condemned to this absolute freedom and are all responsible for every choice we make, and all know the best choices we should make for every outcome (I doubt that because I know without a doubt that hindsight bias is prevalent in my life- there are just some things we don’t know!) But we are all free-thinking and acting and such beings, for us to impose the things in our own minds over others is bad faith, but it’s also imposing on their bubble space or their “rights space.”

Another thing is that what’s best for oneself is if people are treating them well, so if you live by a code to treat others well and get along with them, either it heightens the chances of them treating you good as well or they could follow a similar code in which they’re nice to everyone including you. It’s a nice idea on paper, and one day people might get tired of their petty little war games and try it, or not, we could all be dead in 50 years or less. We have the freedom to decide where we want to go from here.

There was the part that mentioned reaching some enlightened level that doesn’t care about what people think about them and such. We do away with vanity and have “A complete indifference to what people say.” W eliminate apathy and a desire to be liked.

That whole shpeal is all warm and fuzzy, and to an extent great. But how can we have a complete indifference to what people say if we are supposed to be existing in a world full of people being free and when we only realize the full extent of our freedom in connection with those free beings and the whole commitment thing?

I guess the code of the existential samurai is to be real. Face the music, every single day, face everything. Don’t let yourself become trapped and bogged down with a cow-eyed tunnel vision mindset. Didn’t the last pope say he could handle everything in his life because he could handle anything that was temporary?

*2. Give your critical assessment of the claim that Existentialism culminates in a system of Ethics.

I had to look up the word “Culminates.”
Well, it’s hard to extract existentialism from the body of “Ethics” because I can’t really pin any actually unethical or a-moral label on it by any means. That’s obviously because aside from coupling it with an ethical idea, it’s merely a perspective, and any way you look at it, it’s nothing more than a framework that you can look through to view the world in what I consider to be the most reasonable of frameworks I know of at the moment. But obviously, those Gurus in ivory towers don’t spend their lives making their brains hurt to work against some sort of progress. Surely they aren’t saying, “hmm, How can I make the world a worse place than it is by making up complicated ideas.” So I group the evolution of ethics with human progress. And we act on this framework, and we act with behavioral vectors we know as morals and ethics, So it’s sort of like a Marvel Team-up. Existentialism is the perspective of the future and the system of ethics is how we’re going to implement it.

I guess.

3. Present a characterization of Existentialist Ethics in practice

Ooooh. It’s movie time. In Wanted, with Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie, the second to last scene is the scene on the estate of the league of assassins. The main kid just realized he shot his dad, and that the whole idea the league is based on is phony. So he goes back to kick everyone’s butt because it’s a movie and those kind of scenes make for good action sequences. Anyway, He’s in the library, and he’s killed all these people, and now he’s surrounded by bad guys, and they’re all pointing their guns at him, and Morgan Freeman walks in and tells everyone what’s up. “I found your name and your name and your name…”
And finally Freeman tells them to kill the kid and keep doing what they’re doing. Oh wait.
Ok Lets imagine all those people in the room with the kid don’t have guns.
And neither does Freeman, he just sort of walked in at a bad time.
And the kid tells everyone what’s up. “All of your names were spun on the wheel of fate that somehow decides who needs to be killed.”
And let’s imagine he throws his gun to Angelina Jolie
And he’s like “You make the choice! Not me, who’s dad you trained to kill. Not Morgan over there, who’s been running this whole mob business. Just You.”
Would that work?”

Bad Dog

Squinting lids open and light fights its way to my dilated pupils. I must have blanked out for a moment from a routine beating. I can’t seem to remember what it was I did wrong, but if it is as serious as the faces of my owners, I might need to start looking for a new home. Their mouths are moving, taut with anger and impatience, but I cannot hear a thing. Have I gone deaf? I try to move from my fetal sprawl but even that sends pain shivering up my spine. My gaze lags around the room, spinning-but not as fast as my head is turning, as if I was a drunk, bumbling from a tavern in the early hours. Something just doesn’t fit, but all I can seem to understand is that I must be one bad dog.

I heard them shout an order my way and point. I immediately envision my dog house, poorly built, and walls of thin particle board stapled together to block a little of the winter winds but not much else. It is only after I pick my pathetic carcass up that I see them pointing to a door that doesn’t lead outside. Have my masters found a spark of grace that they would let me spend the night in their own household? I imagined my tongue lolling out of a sloppy dog smile as I tried to saunter in the ordered direction as noiselessly as possible; my simple mind was warmed at this new fortune.

In the back of that simple mind a feeble voice called out. I wasn’t sure if was even there. I had just passed the table my owners eat at and the small TV they sit in front of. I thought of how important such an object must be, to be able to sit there, never moving, and yet command so much attention from my owners, constantly talking to them, without them ever saying a word. I wondered if I should try such a tactic, if when they ordered me about, I should sit next to the TV; a stone statue next to a god. Who was I to ponder such things? Surely I would be seen as the disobedient pup who tried to ignore the orders of those appointed over me. Besides, any dialogue I could try to muster out would be unintelligible to my masters. My language, my mind, my existence, is primitive and substandard to theirs.

I called myself a pup. Was I? Surely I was not a middle aged runt, or a withering elder with whitening hair and creaking joints. Surely my masters would not beat me so if they didn’t know I could handle it. I must still be a pup, for though my ribs show and I lack the sparkle of eye that comes with healthy pups, I can heal from their hard teachings. I must still be a pup if I hurt them so often to give them no choice but to beat me so much. Surely when I’m older I will understand. They’ve told me time and again that it hurts them more than it hurts me. What sort of monster am I, then, to hurt them twofold, first in the mistake and second in their need to reprimand me? Perhaps I should run away.

I’ve walked through the door. I realize I’m standing on two feet, which is peculiar for any dog, to do for any extent other than to play with their masters. Perhaps I should run away and join the circus. Surely I could make children smile as they see me prance around on my two hind legs, without making mistakes that would hurt the humans I love. We dogs are man’s best friend, and if I’ve failed at that, what else have I got going for me?

That voice is back, a little stronger now. I scratch behind my ear and try to scratch the voice from the back of my head but it’s no use. There is no looking away now. I have to face whatever it is that’s cornering me. I’m used to being cornered. My owners find me there or order me there or chase me until I end up there, to deliver whatever punishment I deserve this time. Just as every time before every time, and every time, I never remember what it was I did. I try to keep my head down, try to carry out their wishes-though never fast enough, I- read my bible and pray as consistently as they say I should, but they always end up finding me possessed. They always end up finding the devil on my shoulder and are always ready to beat him out of me, to save my soul from the fires of hell.

Then I realize that voice I was trying to avoid was my own. I am a boy, a human boy, and sometimes hell is other people.