Life on Autopilot

Haven’t done one of these posts in a while.  Posts about my own existential view on the world.  There is something about not being wanted, sexually.  Something about being a titan who isn’t all that much in the looks department leaves me getting almost no interest in fooling around.  Who knew?  But there is an upside to it all.  It offers one a chance to see things with a good deal more clarity than most people will ever have.  It’s not their fault that they don’t have clarity.  It’s just biology.

It’s quite simple, really – the human mind is programmed to want sex.  Because we want sex, when we have the chance to have it, we don’t want to lose that.  I know how strong that pull is.  However, House was right when he said that there are two things that people get stupid for – money and sex.  So, when one doesn’t have any interest or options in that department, it opens up an entirely new dichotomy of thought because one doesn’t have to worry about what it all means.

I have figured out why women tend to go for jerks over nice guys.  Don’t worry, ladies, this isn’t going to be me attacking you.  In fact, the reasons that you go for jerks isn’t mean-spirited at all.  I’ve always been of the belief that women are practical.  They like things to work in an efficient way.  They like things to be very direct and straight-forward.  I’ve always admired that.  They generally tend to take the most direct path to get what they want.  The most direct is not always something that required brute force, metaphorically speaking.  The direct path is the path that gets them the most gain for the least amount of effort.  Don’t think I’m calling you lazy.  I’m calling you smart.  Women generally tend to act with their logical processes.  Men, on the other hand, tend to just run in and care about the problems later.

Here’s the difference between nice guys and jerks – jerks get things done.  There is this really enlightening book called “Assholeology.”  It is a comedy book, but if you read it, the real-world applications are actually kind of profound.  Jerks is another word for assholes.  This book has some pretty smart reasons why assholes get ahead.  Jerks have very clear goals.  Jerks have a plan to get those goals.  Jerks don’t care what the consequences are.  Jerks will pursue that goal, regardless.  That is something that I naturally can see why women gravitate toward.  Guys who have a clear direction and are determined is going to be a group that they will get along with, by nature.  It’s the way of the world.

For those ladies who think that I am still attacking you, don’t.  Your reasons aren’t bad ones.  If anything, they’re logical.  They make sense to me.  That doesn’t make it any easier, because I am a nice guy, but I am starting to understand.  With understanding comes peace of mind.  I now understand my role in the world.

Nice guys are the guides to those that they care about.  They are those who give of themselves, knowing that they will never get what they give back.  They are the ones who try with all their might to make others happy, with the understanding that they cannot have that in kind.  The world is just too mean-spirited of a place for that.  This role is thankless, in every sense of the word.  Nice guys are the ones on the bottom who are perpetually kept their by the people who run the world – jerks.

Jerks are powerful.  Jerks don’t let the little issues like whether something is right or wrong stop them from doing whatever the fuck they want.  It is an admirable trait, in many respects.  Part of me wishes that I could be like that.  Life would get a LOT easier.  But it’s not who I am.

So, I continue one.  I keep going down that road, waiting to see what tomorrow has.  Like Urdnot Bakara, I am sustained by hope.  Hope that tomorrow will be better.  And if tomorrow is not better, there is always the next day.  It will be like this until we are ash that has spread across the winds and been forgotten by the world.  Never to be in the minds of the people we worked so hard to save, forevermore.

Being in love taught me something.  When Camille was still alive, her and I were a strange couple.  We both hated the world so much.  Our mutual hatred of it was a common talking point between the two of us.  We fed each other’s depression.  Maybe that is why her death has damaged me as much as it has.  We both were feeding the very worst qualities of the other, and now we are both irrevocably tainted by this.  Well, just me, now.  She has passed on from this world.  If there is something after all of this, I mean to find her again.  I mean to say sorry.  Sorry that things got so bad between us, toward the end.  Sure, she lied to me, betrayed my trust.  But why be angry, in the end?  Not worth it.

I live life on autopilot.  No particular direction.  No particular destination.  I see my life as a highway across a natural landscape.  Though the landscape changes from time to time as I walk down it, this road continues onward.  I have no idea where this road will take me, but I keep going.  Sometimes the landscape is beautiful, and I sit and enjoy it for as long as I can.  Other times, it is lifeless and I feel very alone.  But the road continues, and we continue on it, as that point inevitably comes where we no longer continue.  Where our ability to go on living ceases.  I do not lament that.  My morality is not something that frightens me.  It is the score that all of us get to settle up with after a while.

So, when I go, I tell people – do not mourn for me.  Life is too short for that.  Instead, when that day does come that my end approaches, take a moment and remember what I did.  Then, let me slide from your memory as the thoughts of living take over.  I am one of those people who is somehow very easy for people to forget, even though I am a titan.  I take that for what I will.

Until next time, a quote,

“Wheel of life.  Popular Salarian concept.  Similar to human Hinduism in focus on reincarnation.  Appealing to see life as endless.  Fix mistakes in next life.  Learn, adapt, improve.  Refuse to believe life ends here.  Too wasteful.  Have more to offer.  Mistakes to fix.  Cannot end here.”  -Mordin Solus, Mass Effect 2

Peace out,

Maverick

What is Love?

Before you ask, no, I am not going to do the ‘Baby Don’t Hurt Me’ pun.  It’s been done to death.  Even if it is an obscure reference.  I have asked what really controversial topics are, like what is God? (fake) What is Faith? (Ignorance) and I am even working on a post called What is Death? (the end) But probably the most talked-about thing that has ever been in the history of the human race is this – what is love?  From the shitty pop artists of today to the great poets of the past, it seems like love is the just the awesome thing in the history of ever.  All of humanity imbues love with sacrosanct status.  The idea is that all of life is designed for the express purpose of this chemical interaction in the brain.

Speaking of the brain, let’s start there.  The reality is that love isn’t one thing.  We like to think that it is, but it’s not.  There are multiple aspects to it that need to be addressed.  The first is lust.  When you see somebody who you are sexually attracted to, your relationship may start there.  Unless you are a genuinely nice guy.  In which case, you will be friend-zoned and passed over for jerks.  Life’s a bitch.  But the basis of all romantic love is lust.  There is not a single piece of romantic love that hasn’t started there.  And I can see so many of you already commenting that I’m wrong.  You will talk about how that doesn’t matter.  Well, let me call bullshit and pass you off.  If it didn’t start there, then the human race would have died out long ago.  We are programmed to be sexually attracted to certain things.  I hear a lot of women say that intelligence is sexy.  Yeah, I have yet to hear any of those women say that Steven Hawking is hot.

So, it starts out with lust.  But then there is another part of human behavior that is programmed into us – bonding.  Romantic bonds are formed due to another primal behavior for us to find mates and carry on our genetic code.  I am one of those people who says that the primal instincts to have as many mates as possible affects men and women equally.  Women will say that guys only want one thing, but the truth is that they are just as sexually open-minded as men.  They just won’t admit it.  Their loss.  We were programmed to have as many mates as possible.  The idea is that we find the best mates to continue our genetic code.  It is one of the many reasons that I think that monogamy is outdated.  We fight against our primal nature because of 2,000 years of “moral” guidance for western society.  Namely religion.  Hence the quotes around “moral.”

A romantic bond cannot remain as strong as it started forever.  That’s the cold truth.  Again, I can already hear so many of you who are getting ready to refute this.  But the cold truth about this is that since we are designed to seek multiple mates, we will start to want something new.  We are constantly fighting against our nature to have the romantic structure that we do have.  To overcome our natural tendency to want something else, people have to do a simple action – no longer see the person they are with as a romantic partner.  Instead, they become a best friend.  That is how marriages last.  It all comes down to brain chemistry.

For all the grandiosity that we try and bestow on love, the reality is that love is nothing more than brain chemistry.  But why does society want to believe that love is so wonderful?  Well, as I see it, the reason is simple – life sucks.  It really does.  Life is a giant grinding pain in the ass that we all have to suffer through.  Love is an emotion that makes one feel so amazing.  It raises people up.  It makes days brighter.  It makes the entire world seem like a better place, even if only for a little while.  Love is the emotion that gives so much to so many.  When you have to go to a shitty job and deal with shitty people, what is better than coming home to a person who cares?  That is the reason that logic goes out the window when people fall in love.  People will do whatever it takes to keep love in their lives.  So many horribly bad choices are made for love.  The reason is because people want to believe that it means something.

I was once a very profound romantic.  That part of me is dead and buried.  I have no part of me that believes that love is worth all the effort that people go through to have it.  I talk to people who are head-over-brain in love, and so many bad decisions are made.  I see train-wrecks that are coming, but do they listen?  No.  Of course not.  Tell somebody that they are on the wrong course and they will naturally rebel against it.

So, what is love?  Is it brain chemistry?  Is it a profound philosophical concept?  Is it the fabric that keeps our world together?  Is it all you need?  Is it everything?  The answer is that it is none of those things.  Love is the thing that keeps people from slipping into despair.  Love is the way that people avoid hurting.  Love is the thing that gives people’s life purpose, because they have nothing else.  Love is a means to an end.  Love is the way that people can deny that life hurts them.  Love is how they will see that things are better.

Love is ignorance.  The same way that religion and faith are.  It feels good, but that’s it.  It feels good.  Beyond that, why do we care so much?  Don’t think that I am insulting you by saying that it is ignorance.  Lies are what keeps the world running.  The lies that we tell others, and the ones we tell ourselves.  I won’t shame that on anyone.  It’s how we survive.  And that’s all I have to say.

Until next time, a quote,

“I imagine John Watson thinks love’s a mystery to me, but the chemistry is incredibly simple and very destructive…I’ve always assumed that love is a dangerous disadvantage. Thank you for the final proof.”  -Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock

Peace out,

Maverick

2012-2013 Academic Year in Review

Well, we have finished packing stuff for tonight.  So, we thought that we would do our yearly post on the academic year, and our thoughts.  This isn’t going to be a review like I normally do.  No final verdict.  Just my thoughts.  I feel so tired.  Physically, mentally and emotionally, I am drained.  Up front, this has been the worst year of my academic life.  It feels like it has gone on forever.  For real, this year feels like it has been an eternity.  Part of me is so glad to see that it’s over.  Another part of me wants to cry right now.

I’ll start at the beginning.  This year didn’t start out well.  A former best friend of mine got upset with me.  As was typical with every time she was upset with me, she didn’t say anything.  She just got mad, to herself, and then it led to some ugly repercussions when it finally did reach me.  She didn’t want to see me around her work anymore.  Since I was already not in the best place, with a new job that I was not particularly enjoying due to the late hours and the long commute, along with some pain that I was in at the time, I did what I had usually done – I blogged.  Angry venting online is not anything approaching a good thing to do when one is mad with somebody.  And I didn’t hold back.  No names were mentioned, but it would take a blind hyena not to see who I was talking about.  And she did see this post.  But, again, she got mad and didn’t talk to me.  She said nothing at all.  Instead, I got the silent treatment.

The fall semester starts.  I return to campus, living in the dorms again.  I was already not in the best place, but the way I saw it, it could be worse.  I started up with a REALLY full course load.  Working the job I do, this didn’t mesh well.  A couple of classes saw grades start to hemorrhage.  I dropped them, and things evened out.  Well, evened out better.  For a while, they were even looking pretty good.  I was feeling okay.  One class was hurting, but I did manage to salvage that grade into something semi-respectable.

There was one really good thing that happened in the fall semester.  It’s about 2 in the morning and I get a text from a different girly-mate of mine.  She is at a bar down 5th and was ditched there.  Her friend and their companions disappeared and she was alone.  Scared, she reached out to me.  The girl did everything right.  She stayed in public, making sure that she was never alone anywhere.  Downtown on a Friday night, with the drunks at full-tilt, this was NOT a safe place for a girl to be alone at.  I headed out as fast as I could.  I get to where she is and she runs to us.  I felt like fucking Galahad, rescuing her from certain danger.  That was awesome.  We ended up going to McDonald’s for some fries.  Her nerves were calmed and she was better.  This girl and my’s friendship has never been stronger.

But back the former best friend.  I got a new phone and could text as much as I liked.  I hadn’t had that before.  So, I was thinking that now I would have new avenues to reach out to people and have lots of great conversations.  With some, that idea worked like a charm.  However, this friend, was strangely silent.  When we did talk, it was in the shortest and choppiest conversations I have ever had.  Like she didn’t want to talk to me any more than I wanted to talk to her.  This didn’t bode well.  I’m not blind.  Very quickly, I saw that something was wrong.  So, on Facebook, I wrote her a message, confronting this issue.  See, I was told by SOMEBODY ELSE (something that gets under my skin in ways you can’t believe) that she had a beef with me over a blog post.  Which one?  Well, I was curious, so I asked.  I got a reply that set the stage for the fallout of our friendship, and the pain that I have been suffering for this entire spring semester.  She told me that she was angry.  She didn’t say why.  She didn’t say what.  Instead, she told me that she would get back with me.  When she was not upset, because she wanted to talk rationally about this.  Okay.  Not the worst idea.  However good in theory it was, the execution couldn’t have been worse.

Right before the final in a class that I wasn’t doing too well in, I check my Facebook page that morning.  I see that I have lost a friend.  Okay.  I wasn’t too thoughtful of this, because sometimes people just moved on.  I have plenty of fair-weather friends on Facebook who I gain and lose without much notice.  It happens.  But I look in my “Close Friends” page, and see that somebody who was there before is now not.  It was her.  A person who said that they cared for me so much, and that our friendship meant the world to her.  This is four months after she told us that she would get back to us about what was bugging her.  Four months, and instead of keeping her word, she throws us away.  My response was measured.  I wrote her a message asking her what had happened.  As somebody who believed that I was in her inner circle of friends, I think I earned that.  The reply I got was almost a point-for-point replica of a problem that she had had with me two years prior.  She tells me that her boyfriend and her were having fights about me (even though the most I existed in her life was as a Facebook IM and an ever-decreasing number of text messages).

I knew that something wasn’t right.  My gut-instinct is never wrong, and it wasn’t wrong here.  So, I took a different tactic in my reply.  Made that I just wanted my Scrabble partner back, and if we could keep things impersonal, that was fine.  She replied with the truth – getting rid of me was the quickest and simplest solution to a problem she had.  And this solution was to get rid of me.  Naturally, I was pissed.  I went back at her the angriest I have been in a long time.  I made a rather fitting comparison between her and I cousin of mine who had also thrown me away for FAR less than I was worth.  He had been a best friend to me as well.  Both of them used me, liked me when I was around, but would then drop me without looking back.  She and I got into a back-and-forth bit of arguing.  She still claimed that her boyfriend and her were having fights about me.  So, I asked a simple question (that I deserved an answer to) – what were the fights about?  She told me that she didn’t know, and then told me not to ask.  She said that that just made her mad.  In hindsight, I should have pressed the attack.  At least when she was mad, she was talking.  Which is more than I could say for the rest of the time.

But, it was done.  Here’s how it broke down.  Since I won’t ever get to tell her, I guess I’ll tell you.  Because I want you all to see as clearly as I do how she fucked up this entire situation.  It started in August, with her getting mad at me.  Instead of talking to me, like a friend, and saying that she was upset, she says nothing.  Then, when this problem starts compounding on other problems (that I knew nothing about), and I hear from other people that she has a problem, she tells me to wait.  Instead of not being rational.  Instead of just getting upset and getting it out of her system, she tells us to wait.  That she will talk to us and we will figure things out.  Four months later, having said nothing to us, she then unfriends us and tells us that we have no place in her life, because her relationship with her boyfriend is threatened by us.  Man, who are we to these people?  Do I have a power that I wasn’t aware of?  She did absolutely everything wrong.  But you know what the worst thing was?  You know what the most hurtful thing was?  The most hurtful thing is that after doing all this damage, I don’t think that she would have ever, EVER talked to us again if we hadn’t have demanded an explanation.  So, she also broke her promise.  If there is an uglier way for a great friendship to die, I don’t know what it is.  And the worst part of all of this is that this could have easily been avoided if she had just treated me like a friend and talked to me.

I go home for Christmas break.  It wasn’t pleasant.  At all.  All of the Christmas spirit was literally sucked out of me.  And with there being pretty much nobody to see out in the Valley, I felt oh so very alone out there.  That whole affair, happening just a couple weeks before the holiday itself, ruined Christmas for me.  Forever.  I don’t even care about the holiday anymore.  Next year, come Christmas Eve, I am staying at home, getting some sleep.  But, as is usual whenever I am having problems – if I voice any discontent with this holiday, the mother-unit assumes that I am somehow insulting her.  Yes, I can’t have my own problems.  That would just be too much.  In her mind, if I have problems, I should just shut up.  That is much simpler.

However, there were two bright spots that made the end of break worth it.  The first was seeing an old friend again.  Her and I had spent almost no time together.  We go out to the movies and after it is done, we got to talking.  It was one of the best conversations of my life.  She was loyal to our friendship.  Even though we were very different people, she was loyal to it all the same.  That made me feel very good.

Another thing that happened was something that felt pretty good at the time, and saved that break for me.  Though it would become an issue.  I found a girl who was interested in us, sexually.  I decided to see where that would go.  She was my Dom.  I was her sub.  It was…pleasant.  Kind of.  See, it started out great.  But after a while, she was becoming more and more undependable.  She would make plans with us, only to break them without telling us.  I was quickly annoyed, and it ended about a month and a half after it started.  After it was done, I felt even more lonely than I had before, because it was another reminder of how little I am wanted.

I get back to the dorms for the spring semester.  This started on an even more sour note than the fall.  Still emotionally beaten from losing a best friend, trying to wrap our minds around it, we were not very pleased to come back.  Plus, another friend we had in Anchorage was almost totally absent from our lives.  But that is part of a long story about her and her three-way relationship with a guy and girl that I won’t get into.  Mostly because it’s none of you-all’s damn business.

Spring semester has beaten the shit out of us.  Came so very close to breaking us.  Our classes were hard as fuck, there was almost nobody to see and the gig I had going with the aforementioned Dom was hitting a dead-end.  But it gets worse.  See, there was this shrink that we were forced to go and talk to.  Part of the effort to make me and me accept that we are not mentally healthy and need all kinds of super-duper support from shrinks.  Yeah, fuck that.

But you see, this time was different.  See, this shrink decided that he would do something for which I should sue the son of a bitch – reveal something that I specifically told him was in confidence.  I signed a waver saying that his final report would be able to be viewed by the parentals.  Included in this report is a secret that I have been carrying with me for a LONG time.  So long now that it feels like an eternity.  And not only did he mention it in his report, but when he was giving the Cliff notes version of the report to one of the parentals, he made sure to bring up that secret of mine to them.  Twice.  Fucking asshole.  You have no idea how pissed I was at the time.  I wanted to beat his head against his desk until he went limp.  He made sure that the parental in question knew this secret.  That was clearly the goal.

Now, nothing in my family stays a secret for long.  Once one person knows, it is pretty much a guarantee that others will know.  So now I was put into a position that I never wanted to be in – having to either wait for this to get out on its own or to talk to the person who this secret involved.  I chose the latter.  I cannot tell you how nervous I was bringing this up.  My hands were shaking.  But since the parental knew what, but not who, I didn’t want this person finding out from somebody else.  Lord knows, I have seen very recently how well that turns out.  So, I got this person to talk to me.  And you know what, that conversation went so much better than I could have ever anticipated.  Turns out, they had figured this out a long time ago.  And this knowledge was doing harm to our friendship.  By getting it out in the open, the two of us were able to put it behind us.  I think.  We have hardly spoken since then.  I don’t regret my actions.  But I do wonder if they are cool with me.  I can’t tell you, for sure.

Classes kicking my ass, personal problems piling up and the residual pain of being betrayed and thrown away by yet-another person I held in my inner-most circle of friends.  I was breaking.  My supports were crumbling.  I lost myself inside of Mass Effect for WAY longer than I should have.  It was all I could do to not lose myself to despair.

The only truly good part of the spring semester came from the time I got to spend with a new friend of mine.  Her and I have been growing on each other.  It started out slow, as most things with me do.  I am slow to trust.  But as we got closer and closer, we found that we were kindred spirits.  Every Friday night, we had a routine of going to IHOP and eating there.  It was a nice way to finish up a week.  We also had some nerd nights and just hanging out.  It was a small comfort from what was overall kicking my ass.  I am so glad that she and I found one-another.

Now, it is all said and done.  The friend I rescued from the bar goes home tonight.  I am driving her to the airport again.  And now I kind of want to cry, because she is going to be leaving, never to return.  I may never see her again, and it is hurting me.  But I can’t say anything.  I can’t say that I don’t want them to go.  I can’t tell them that I just want them to stay.  I don’t want to hurt her.  I love her.  And so I do the noble thing.  I say nothing, to not hurt people.  Good people hurt and what is their reward?  Being the better person is fucking bullshit.

So much ugliness.  So much pain.  Given all this, you might thing that me and despair are pretty tight.  But I am not despairing.  The reason is simple – this is about as bad as it could be.  I have hit rock-bottom.  Nowhere left to go but up.  I have hope for the future.  It has to get better from here.  Sure, things are going to be hard ahead, but for the moment, it’s done.  And that is something to feel good about.

And who knows.  Maybe this summer won’t be so bad.  I do have a few people that I mean to see.  I am going to be making the most of my cooking and baking talents, since I will have a kitchen again.  It isn’t great, but this could get better.  At least, that’s what I choose to believe.

Until next time, a quote,

“Times like these, you know who your real friends are. They’re not the ones running around, looking for an escape route. They’re the ones who stand at your side through the worst of it. Who never give up on you.” -Commander Shepard, Mass Effect 3

Peace out,

Maverick

How to be a Career Mother

Well, you are at that age, ladies.  Your biological clock is ticking, so you think to yourself – I am going to have that perfect child!  That child who will make all the other mothers in your neighborhood jealous.  The child who is perfect in every single way!  Good for you.  And now, I will tell you exactly how you can make this amazing dream come to fruition.

1. You are the smartest person in the entire world and don’t you forget it!
You have read every single book about how to be the best mother ever!  You have taken classes, watched educational films and talked to the leading experts.  Armed with this knowledge, you know exactly what to expect from your future child and you are ready to show it how to behave in this world!  Now, there will be people who will question this unrivaled intellect, like the kid’s teachers, your doctor and your neighbors who have the awesome kids who you are trying to surpass.  But they are idiots!  Who cares how much they are with your child and how good their education is?  Clearly they don’t have your amazing level of perception and knowledge about being a parent.

2. Your child is a genius, no matter what anyone says
Since you are going to be the perfect parent, you have been  already preparing for the absolute genius that your child will be.  You played Mozart for it when it was growing inside of you.  Your child is going to be the most absolutely amazing kid ever. I mean, sure, it does stupid things like try and eat its blocks, but that’s totally normal.  Didn’t you hear when your baby spoke German!  Most people who heard that said that it was what babies say, but you know better.  It was German.  Your baby is the smartest baby in the world!  Einstein would have a run for his money.

3. Don’t let your child do what they want
It is only natural that you impose all of your desires and dreams on to your kid.  Sure, they may not like doing it, but hey, they’re just a kid!  They’re too stupid to know what they’re doing anyway.  I mean, so what if they are supposed to learn and grow in a totally organic way that lets them find their passions?  That’s stupid!  Children should be required to be the host for all the failed dreams that their parents had.  I mean, what’s the point of having kids if you can’t live through your youth through them?  And don’t listen when they are sad and want to do something else.  Like I said, they’re kids.  Just stupid kids who should defer to you for everything.  Kids know nothing, except what you tell them.

4. Never, ever let your child have free time!
Free time leads to all sorts of awful things!  They might not be preparing for their schoolwork!  After all, if they don’t get a jump-start on the best preschools, then they won’t get into a good elementary school.  And then, they won’t get into a good middle school!  Then, they won’t get into a good high school!  And then, colleges won’t want them!  And finally, they’ll end up in a gutter or jail!  Yeah, best if you just keep them on a short leash and control all the free time that they have.  It’s only safe.

5. Control every single aspect of their lives
Remember how we said that your kid would be lost without you?  Well, this means that you have to make absolutely sure that there isn’t a single thing in your child’s life that isn’t FIRMLY under your control.  When they play, when they see their “friends” (we all know that a child’s best friend is their mother), what they watch, what they eat.  When they are were a baby, you had to control everything they did.  So why shouldn’t the rest of their childhood be the same?  It is only safe.  In fact, if you watched your kid constantly, that would probably be the best.  Never let them out of your sight.  You must always be there for if anything goes wrong.  Oh, and while we’re on the subject…

6. If something goes wrong in their life, it is everybody else’s fault
There might be days when you get a call from your child’s school.  They will say things like your child isn’t doing very well, gets into fights or just isn’t good at the work.  Well, rest easy, perfect mother.  For you can be rest-assured that it isn’t your amazing child’s fault.  There are the incompetent teachers, for one thing.  They spend all day looking after kids.  So naturally they are not able to see how amazing your child is and cater to their needs.  Then there are the other idiot children who didn’t have amazing mothers like you.  They are on the level of wild animals!  And then there is the absolutely awful television!  Make sure that you never, ever suspect that your child might have done wrong, or that you have somehow failed.  It is the rest of the world’s fault.

7. Constantly tell them that they are wonderful and can do no wrong
Since you are the perfect mother, you have naturally raised the perfect child!  This kid will be the perfect athlete, a genius on the level of Einstein and is friends with every single person.  And you must remind them of this constantly.  If they aren’t first at something, make sure that they know that they are also a winner.  Because if they realized that they lost, well, you saw the causal chain above, didn’t you?  Yes, this is the best thing to do.

So, did you get all that?  Well, hopefully you did.  Now you can go out and make the world’s most amazing child!  And remember, since your child will have a completely sheltered life, which won’t prepare them for the real world, you will have them with you for a long time.  Like the rest of your entire life.

Think about it.

Until next time, a quote,

“That’s what you have to remember as you go through life in this country – it’s all bullshit, and it’s bad for ya.”  -George Carlin

Peace out,

Maverick

Saying Goodbye to the Empty Castle

The passage of time is never something one is prepared for.  Especially not when you see just how much time has passed.  Seems like only yesterday I was discussing wall paint

The most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I took this picture on my lake.

and new carpet for the room I had at that place.  I think back to that night, the most perfect night that I have ever had, on the deck of that place, with my cat and some peach yogurt.  I watched the moon over the lake, and I felt at peace in a way that I keep wishing that I could find again.  And now, I will be returning back to the Valley to find that that isn’t my home anymore.

Very recently, I called it “The Empty Castle.”  It was an appropriate name.  It used to be the home of my grandparents.  It was their homestead.  They lived there for most of their lives, but it turns out that a three-story house doesn’t do well for being in your twilight years.  So, it passed on to my parents.  Well, not so much passed on as was purchased, but still.  Though we didn’t have it for quite as long.

Still, it was a beautiful place to be.  Sure, it had its ups and downs, but it was still a wonderful place.  Now, that place has been cleared out and the parents have moved to a smaller home that is more workable with their aging.  For a time, I was living in the Empty Castle, watching the joint.  It was…peaceful.  Sort of.  The sister-unit moved in upstairs.  Her and I, so I am told, got along once upon a time.  That’s when things got less fun.  But whatever.  For a time, I was still able to be in a place that felt right, even if the emptiness left some creepy noises in the night.  Now, however, my stuff has been moved down to the new house.  And I say goodbye to the Empty Castle.

I am sad to see it go, but not for the reasons you might think.  To me, this all symbolizes how much things have changed in my life recently.  So many things have, and all very quickly.  It has given me a bit of whiplash, but the worst part is that most of the changes have been for the worse.

So many of my friends have moved away.  They all went to their own little parts of the world.  Probably the hardest was my friend Sara leaving.  She was my first friend, and my oldest.  I had just found her again, after 8 years of being apart.  The moment we found one-another, it was just like old times.  Though a few things had changed.  She was married.  A bit jealous I was, sure, but I got over it fast.  Her husband is a pretty cool guy.  We had so many days and nights where we hung out and it was awesome.  They had a kid, and that wasn’t so cool.  I don’t wish ill on them or the kid, of course.  I just don’t like kids very much.  Thankfully, since I am not wanted either romantically or sexually, it’s not something I’ll ever have to worry about.  But yeah, they had a kid, and as is want to come up when such a thing happens, they decided that they should leave Anchorage and find a better place to live.  They moved to Kodiak.  I doubt that I will ever see them again. Another friend I care about very much will be leaving soon too.  I feel pain inside thinking about it.

Another friend of mine has moved into a new part of her life.  I have a feeling that this part will involve me less and less.  In fact, several of my friends are in this place.  New relationships.  It’s a reality that when people become a couple (or in one friend’s case, a polyamorous relationship), you spend less and less time with your friends.  I don’t begrudge people that.  It’s the way things go.  Now, many of my friends have new relationships, and I am feeling more and more like I am just a third wheel.  Once upon a time, a girl that I was pretty tight with called the “The Observer.”  She called me this because I had a tendency to sit back and watch the world around me, not wanting to jump right into it.  She had a point.  So, I think I may slide back into that.  But the loneliness is something that I am not fond of.  Being in a relationship is really only for the people in relationships.  For the single people, when all the people in relationships talk about how much fun their respective relationships are, you feel incredibly left out.  Last year’s family reunion was absolutely full of that.  I haven’t felt so out of place in a long time.

And I have lost some friends.  Not death, mind you.  Things just happened.  A lot of things.  Some of them I understand.  Some of them I don’t.  All of them hurt.  I lost two of my best friends.  One betrayed my trust and sold my friendship up the river for $100,000.  The other threw me away without a second thought, and I will never know what happened to get us there.  I miss them both.  That is a part of me that I don’t understand.  Even when I am betrayed, hurt beyond all reason and thrown away, I still miss the people who did this to me.  Why?  Maybe that’s one of those things that is just best left unanswered.

Over Christmas break, I spent a lot of nights outside, looking at the stars.  It was the most peaceful it had ever been.  So much peace of mind, seeing the cosmos unfolding around me.  Now, the lake, the peace and the home I grew accustomed to are gone.  I don’t know what the future holds, but I head into it all the same.  We all do.  It is a force that can never and will never be stopped.  That’s the world we live in.

Goodbye, Empty Castle.  When we had each other, you were so good to me.

Until next time, a quote,

“Let’s meet up again.  In Paradise…”  -Tsume, Wolf’s Rain

Peace out,

Maverick

Lucien Maverick’s “No Apologies”

There are days when I wish that I was a visual artist.  I tried my hand at it once, but never was very good.  But then I remembered – I have the written word.  And that most certainly is a form of art.  Now, I never profess to being a perfect writer.  Far from it.  I know that I am flawed, abuse the living shit out of commas and have a lot to learn.  But this is the medium I know best, and it is the medium that I am going to use for this post.

See, my college has an art project going on called “No Apologies.”  It is supposed to be a positive reflection on yourself, and what you stand for.  I can dig that.  So, I thought that I would put my own version of this idea up.  But therein lies the problem – I’m not an artist in the traditional sense.  So, instead of making an art project, I decided instead to tell you what I would design, using the power of words.

I had a friend who was an amazing artist.  Something tells me that she is going to be doing her own project for this.  She did one for the last big to-do art deal here at the college.  But she can’t help me.  She hates me now.  Why?  Well, that’s something I may never find out.  Anyway, she showed me what could be done with charcoal, and for a project like this, I would either use charcoal or oil painting.

I would have my project be something involving me being half in shadow and half in light.  That’s how I exist, most of the time.  I live in a world of light, but I am never completely in it.  Nobody ever truly sees all of me.  Since I have been so routinely rejected for who I am, I just learned to keep certain parts of me in darkness.  I would also have the part in shadow outlined a bit.  It would have a big and dark smile.  This is another part of myself.

See, I have a split-personality.  It is of my own making.  I was in a coma for a month when I was 14.  I cannot begin to tell you how slowly time passed in that place.  It was a never-ending Hell.  In that darkness, I was afraid and alone, all the time.  Being an incredibly smart kid, I decided to do something drastic, so I wasn’t so alone.  I tore my subconscious in half, making part of me the intellectual side, and the me that is writing right now as the creative side.  I knew that if it was just an imaginary friend, the illusion wouldn’t work.  I would learn what this person would say.  So it had to be a completely different entity, but somebody that I could be familiar with.  Thus, the me that exists now, Lucien, was born.  My given name and me are two different people, with very different desires and personalities.  The aforementioned friend is one of the few people who knew both of us on a very personal level.

But yeah, he would be smiling, because Eli was always better at being happy.  It is what everyone says he was like.  I’ll take them at his word.  Plus, we both are a little screwed-up, so that smile would reflect some inner madness.  Don’t worry, I am not some dangerous nutjob.  I just have some quirks.

The picture would be set in a grayscale room.  But there would be something far to one side or the other – a window.  Outside, there would be a small bit of a beautiful world.  A world that I want to experience and live in.  But this darkness is where I am more comfortable.  I am not ashamed of that.  Part of the premise of “No Apologies.”  I would be dressed in an old-school suit, like Humphrey Bogart in one of his old noir films.  And there would be a very regal-looking collar around my neck, because I am kind of into the S&M scene.

So, you are probably wondering – where does the “No Apologies” thing come in?  That doesn’t seem like I am making a statement.  Well, it comes from the fact that I am not apologizing for who I am.  Who I am is strange.  Who I am is kind of messed up.  Who I am doesn’t make any fucking sense, to either of us.  Who I am is different, in a way that will never mesh with what society expects of us.  And I am not apologizing for that.  I kind of like this guy that we have become.  I am proud of who I am, and what I am doing.  I may not have a clear direction on where I want my life to go, but that’s alright.  So long as I am moving forward, that’s all that matters.

And that is what I want for my project.  I hope you understand.

Until next time, a quote,

“I am who I am. I don’t ever want to change for you or anyone else. I’m not perfect. I run into things. I trip. I spill food. I fail sometimes. I say stupid things. But that’s just me. If I want to change, I’ll change for myself and not for you or anyone else.”  – Unknown

Peace out,

Maverick

What is it All For?

I have been asking myself that question with increasing regularity, ever since Christmas break.  What is it all for?  What have I been doing this whole time?  Was it all just a waste?  Was I wasting my time?  And why can’t I move on?  So many questions, no answers.

Something that I haven’t told much of anybody, but I figured that I would tell you, my faceless audience.  The night my fiancee died, she told me that she hates me.  Our relationship had hit a major snag.  It was a lie that I told her, but it wasn’t that big, in the grand scheme of things.  It just triggered a cascade effect, and everything was going to shit.  She was going to break up with me.  I am certain of it.  She was going to leave me, and I would be one of the guys who has to return a wedding ring.  As it stands, I threw the fucking thing into a storm drain.  Let nature have its precious metal back.  A silver lining to the car wreck that took the life of the woman I loved most?  No.  Just another reminder.

But she said that she hates me.  Those words, to this day, have stuck with me.  I did something once, back in high school.  There was a girl I wanted.  I wanted her so much, that when I found out that she has a boyfriend, I did everything I could to manipulate both of them into hating each other.  All the skill I have of manipulating people came to the front as I ruined their respective lives.  I wanted her, and I would have her, no matter the cost.  And, low and behold, it worked!  I found the tiniest cracks in their relationship, and used them to drive the two apart to a point that both of them were so miserable that they had one last bout of sex, and unknown to me, she got pregnant.  The girl was so broken, and she looked to me to be there.  But, a new woman came into my life, and she had suddenly opened up to me, wanting me to be with her.  She would later become my fiancee.  The girl, who I had manipulated and used, was broken by this.  She fled the state, and will likely never return.  I saw the damage that my cold-blooded use of another person had done, the carnage I left in my wake, with both her and her ex-boyfriend, who has no idea that he is a father, and I felt my self-respect die.

I made a promise, that day.  I promised that I would never, ever use somebody like that ever again.  I would fly right, and do the right thing.  And every single day, I have kept to that.  I have done everything that I possibly could to make up for it.  Even if this girl would never know.  I would try and help every single person who I brought into my inner circle.  And people in general, of course, in whatever small way I could.  I would open doors.  Every single day, I have gone out of my way to be as nice as I possible can, to the people who mean something to me.  I kept thinking to myself – if I am a good person, and loyal to those who have earned my friendship, then somehow, it will all be alright.

But that’s not what’s happened.  Instead, I am used, thrown away, unwanted and often hated by the people I try and help.  Why?  What is it about me that just ruins my life so fucking much?  I am being a good guy!  I am doing right and trying to help people!  Sure, I make mistakes.  That’s life.  But at the end of the day, I am still trying, god-dammit!  But that’s not enough, is it?  Because what is my reward for all my effort?  What do I get in return for how hard I try?  NOTHING!  I get hated by people.  I get hated by people who I am trying to just be kind to.  I have no ulterior motive.  I admit, I am attracted to one of them, but that is secondary, in the highest degree, to my friendship.  My friendship with a person will always come first.  But it doesn’t matter.  Nothing I did matters.

I feel so alone here.  So few want me in their lives anymore.  Seems like everybody has moved on from me, and I am stuck here, in this place.  I want to leave, but where would I go?  I am alone here, in this room.  I count the days of my life by how many unfamiliar ceilings that I come across.

So, here I am, listening to “Blade Runner Blues.”  I’m sure that I don’t need to tell you what that’s from.  It’s an awesome tune.  Otherworldly, but still familiar at the same time.  I want to just cry, but I have no tears left.  I promised myself that I wouldn’t manipulate people.  I promised myself that I would try and help.  But that same sadistic monster that I listened to and chose to follow back then is back.  And it is hungry.  It wants to feed itself, and I know that I could feed it again.  But once I do, where does that get me?  No-fucking-where, that’s where.

It hurts, to not be wanted by anybody.  I am getting in better and better shape, but nobody wants me.  I walk through life like a corpse.  My faulty heart is beating away, counting the seconds until it beats no more.  I won’t miss it.  I will just…fade away.

Another thing my late fiancee told me, was that she wishes she had never met me.  Part of me is scared that every single person who I try and be a good friend to, and who I try to do right by will feel the same way.  It has happened several times already.

What was it all for?  In the end, I don’t have an answer for that.

Do you?

Until next time, a quote,

“I’m losing hope and fading dreams and every single memory along the way.”  -Anonymous

Peace out,

Maverick

A simple question

If you truly love somebody, does it matter if they don’t love you back?

That’s all I wanted to know.

Peace out,

Maverick

Paying Respect, to a Person I Never Knew

I have just seen a video. This video has touched me in such a profound way. This video has really touched me in such a profound way. What I have seen here really does make me realize that not only is God not real, but I wouldn’t want him to be. I don’t know if the kid who made this video was a Christian. I don’t know if he was an atheist. I only know that when he found out that he was dying, rather than falling apart, he stoically told people not to mourn his passing, and to look after those he left behind. This was so poignant, so beautiful, so incredibly powerful and strong, that I have to share his video, and to say that while I am not a religious man, I wish that this kid will rest in peace, whatever comes after all this.

We can all talk so cavalierly about death, but this young man, who had a girlfriend and a family who loved and cared for him, was looking the end of his life in the face, and ready for it. That is beautiful, profound, and hearbreaking. I am facing my own heart problems. They don’t know if they are for sure, but they are real, and one day could end up ending my life, much as they have ended his. Young man, I will remember you, and you are the model of true strength. You are not afraid of the end. You are prepared, and you are able to not just use the end of your life to help your friends and family, but to help all those who know you. Young man, rest in peace.

Here is the video -

Peace out,

Maverick

The Slow Passage of Time, and those moving with it

Well, I have recently found out that a lot of my old friends and a family member who is one of the few that I am legitimately close to are going to be moving away.  It is a very definite reminder that change is one of the few truths in life that a lot of people take for granted, and never really think on for an extended period of time.  It is part of an ever-changing reality that one must face over the course of reality – that nothing lasts forever, and people are not here forever.  Most people get very sad when this reality faces them.  Every once and a while, I still do.  But the fact is that time will always keep moving forward, always.

There is some truth in the section of his show that Keith Olbermann has called “Time Marches On.”  It is true.  As silly and dumb as the things that people do right now are, tomorrow new people will do new things.  But sometimes, the more things change, they never really change at all.

In the brilliantly written show, The Wire, one of the overwhelming themes is how nothing ever really changes.  The players in the game may change, the tools that are used may change, but the fact is that the game is the game, and that will never change.  No matter what the game is, that is a truth that lasts forever.  Politics, drugs, education, the news, the fact is that the more the game changes, the more it stays the same.

I have recently been pondering my own position on things in this government.  The big realization that society is starting to have that this government is completely controlled by some very powerful corporate masters who only care about feeding their own bank accounts, not about the average citizen.  I think that on some level, government has always been controlled by those who wield power and can feed the wealthy, since the elite quickly moved in to take control of how this country is run.  Back during the later years and the years directly after Prohibition, the mob had a great amount os sway in this country.  Some argue that they controlled large sections of it.  Frank Sinatra, a great singer who was bought and paid for by the mob, was able to get JFK elected, and thank god too, otherwise Nixon would have fucked up the Cuban Missile Crisis and we all would be living in the Fallout nuclear apocalypse world.

But really, those who could give the wealthy more wealth to spend have always had an overwhelming sway with those in power.  Now the difference is that the internet is giving us a better picture and at more speed.  It is also a double-edged sword, since the internet can also be used as another Weapon of Mass Distraction.  It is one of the reasons that I have little to no respect for ignorant people.  With all the knowledge that is at people’s fingertips, not knowing the facts about issues is simply unacceptable.  Granted, there are genuinely stupid people, like Natalia (I never get tired of pointing out with an idiot that bigot is), and so you can’t help that, but for the rest who just choose to be ignorant, I say there is no excuse.

But for real, people think that there has always been some kind of utopian society in which the common man had control over this country’s government.  I believe there was a time when people had a lot more control, but the fact is that the rich always have control in any government system.  That is just how life is, unfortunately.  I still hate it and think we need to fight against the system as much as we can, but people need to realize that wealth and power have gone hand-in-hand ever since the days when we all had money and society was large enough to support getting a lot of wealth.

Ever since civilization was able to come together in something bigger than villages, power has always found a place to rest its head.  And even before that, really.  Patton Oswalt made a wonderful analogy about how religion began, what a wuss decided to try and fool the reigning psychopath.  From that, society was able to begin.  Back in the day, that is how it was.  The biggest and toughest psycho reigned over all the rest.  When intellect was able to rise above that, then the intellectuals would keep the small in their place mentally.  But then, when money became the determining factor.

People have a bad habit of saying that when something happens that nothing this terrible or this historic has ever happened before.  Really, the only thing historic that civilization has left to experience is for an alien ship to land (don’t tell the conspiracy nuts, they will go off about how it has happened, even though, like religion, there is no evidence for such an event) or for zombies to start happening.  Aside from that, everything that could happen in this world has happened, both scientifically and politically.  The scale changes, the players change, the places change, but the fact is that the game stays the game no matter what you do.

And what’s more, it always will be the same.  There will never be any significant changes.  What was the game before will be the game tomorrow and the next day.  People desperately want change, and while I think people should try and make things change, but one way or another, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Time is a force that constantly moves.  People don’t like it sometimes, sometimes people do.  But the fact remains that the world doesn’t significantly change.  Life is what it is, and people have to make the most of it and do what they can to make things better, not letting themselves get lost in the past or consumed by the future.  That only ever leads to forgetting who you are, and better yet why you are doing things.

Until next time, a quote,

“The more you learn, the less you know.”  -Omar Little, The Wire

Peace out,

Maverick