The world is a very big place. And now we have have 7 billion of us, occupying the same space. How we will all find our place in this world? Assuming that there is a place for each of us.
And to think it all came from a dense mass of energy and light that could fit neatly in a matchbox and into your pocket. Then the big bang, the universe was set in motion.
When I think about the days anymore, they seem to just come and pass without much to them. I start on Monday, and close my eyes and it's now next Monday. Sitting on the train, staring into expressionless faces and the sleepyheads trying to squeeze in one more hour of rest before a long day. For instance, the janitor who cleans the bathroom in the office has no sign of youth or life left in him. In passing, you can't see his pupils. You have to stand right in front of him, at face level, to look into his soul. And even then, there's hardly any spark left in his old bones. So he stands there and waits for everyone to finish shitting. Then he gets to work.
This is what I think about when I'm asked by a potential employer: "Where do you see yourself in five years?"
In five years, I see myself as an old man, standing around a bathroom with a mop. With how fast time has been going lately, five years may as well be 50 years. I think that for many of us, our place in the world is not a geographical one. It's a state of resignation, or as the dictionary defines:
Unresisting acceptance of something as inescapable; submission
Some birds travel across continents to escape the winter air and others stand around garbage fires and furnace exhaust vents.
The world really is a beautiful place, and remains a beautiful place for many. But it's also an absurd one. And absurdity is a human creation. Integrating into the absurdity is when the last skin of youth begins to shed. Time also passes by much quicker, and so we don't view weeks or months or seasons as really as significant or important as they once were. It'll probably be months from now until I even consider trying to do anything creative again. I find a lot of comfort in knowing that I'm a piece of the universe, and that I am created from it. But I also find some comfort in knowing that I will have come and passed, and it'll only be a fraction of a millisecond as far as the universe is concern. I'm not sure how to answer the question "Where do you see yourself in five years?"
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
I didn't like to eat beans. I was 5 years old and had just gotten a hair cut. My dad told me that if I didn't eat my beans then my hair wouldn't grow back. So I sat there, with my big boy spoon, and shoveled cold, canned chili beans into my mouth and rather disdainfully chewed them up into a mush of brown goo, which as I had learned, was the only way that my hair would keep growing.
I also hated spinach. My parents would buy the frozen kind, and dish it out on my plate, in which it looked like lost limbs of the creature from the black lagoon. It was stringy, and icky and I didn't like to eat it. My dad made me sit at the dinner table until I finished eating the pile of nasty dark green bile. It felt like I was sitting there for days, under a dining room light, interrogated - no, rather, tortured by the vegetable that had once been frozen and likely depleted of nutrients.
I guess a lot of people believe that carrots are good for your eyes, and that fish is "brain food". I've never really ate that well, and as an adult, I guess I don't have a good grasp on how to cook or how to eat a "balanced diet". We ate frozen spinach, and asparagus out of the can - the kind that is mushy and clammy tasting, and drank Sunny Delight - as it was our replacement for vitamin C. My dad made up his own "benefits" of eating these foods, so we/I ate it.
I used to sleep on top of my bed, without using any blankets. I often went to bed fully dressed from the previous day - shoes, socks and all. I played in the sandbox a lot in kindergarten and first grade so when I'd go to bed fully clothed, sand would be deposited in my bed sheets (and lots of it). It never got too cold in Aiken, but my parents didn't like that I wouldn't sleep under the blankets. So my dad told me that if I slept with the blanket up to my shoulders, the monsters wouldn't be able to get me. Before this, I had no idea that I was allowing myself to be susceptible to any monster attacks. I didn't sleep very well, for a week or two after being told this, but I certainly slept under my blankets, and with them up to my neck (if not covering my eyes).
I had a bad habit of brushing my teeth, and then never putting the cap back on the toothpaste. I was told that if I didn't put the cap back on, then roaches would crawl inside.
My sister had a gold fish, and it lasted a long time. It probably lived for a year, maybe two. She had had one before, but it died fairly quickly, so my dad got her another one. I forget what the name of it was... I think it may have been Lucy? One day, the goldfish was gone. We asked my dad what happened to the goldfish, and where she went. He told us that the goldfish got sick, and that he had to take her to the hospital. We were quite concerned that the goldfish was sick, and worried quite a lot about it. Every other day, then eventually once a week, and maybe even a couple of months later, we'd still ask about the goldfish and how she was doing. My dad would tell us over and over that she was still in the hospital...
I asked my grandfather how to tell the difference between a boy dog and a girl dog. He responded - Stick your finger in its heiny, and pull your finger out and smell it. If your finger smelled good, then the dog was a girl. If it smelled bad, then the dog was a boy. (note: I never tried this clearly scientific method of finding the gender of pooches)
On my sixth birthday, I learned that the world as I knew it, would end one day. It was a Sunday, and it was my birthday - the most exciting day of the year besides Christmas. My mom brought me to my Sunday School class, I was wearing my nice red Izod (Lacoste) polo matched with khakis. As soon as I was seated, I got out to to tell my Sunday school teacher that it was my birthday. I may have told her several times in a row until she acknowledged it and congratulated me. It was a pretty big deal, being six years old that is.
We talked about space, and the solar system. We talked about Pluto and the Sun. My Sunday school teacher told us that one day the sun would expand, and get so big that it would eat Mercury. Then, it would expand and get even larger and eat Venus. This was strange to me, I had no idea why the sun would want to eat other planets. She then told us that the sun would keep getting bigger and eventually consume the earth. All would be lost, and the earth would never be replaced. I had never really thought about mortality too much, besides seeing bad guys getting killed in the action movies my dad would watch. I knew people, and plants and bugs died, but I never thought that the earth would die. Eventually, she said, the sun would keep expanding and eat all of the planets, and then the sun would explode and die. For some reason, I guess I felt that souls were somehow still attached or connected somehow to their buried bodies on earth after you've died and gone to heaven. So I asked her what would happen to all the bodies of people who've been buried. She said that all the bodies of people would be gone, and that people would no longer reproduce.
For weeks, I had dreams about the sun expanding, and destroying a beautiful world, the world that I loved. And I thought about my family disappearing and never being able to reconnect with them. When the earth is destroyed, not only will people, places, objects, and animals be destroyed, but also any trace that these things and people had ever existed. I thought about myself a lot, and although she told me it would be millions of years in the future, I thought about my material possessions and my body, deep underground in a casket being incinerated and reclaimed by the fiery appetite of the sun. I'm not sure if I ever found resolve, but I think I learned how to make the dreams go away, and I'd replace the thought of the earth being destroyed with happier thoughts.
15 years later, scientists have concluded that Pluto does not fit the accepted scientific description/categorization of a planet. However, it will be destroyed by the sun one day like the rest of the planets and spinach and beans and monsters.
I also hated spinach. My parents would buy the frozen kind, and dish it out on my plate, in which it looked like lost limbs of the creature from the black lagoon. It was stringy, and icky and I didn't like to eat it. My dad made me sit at the dinner table until I finished eating the pile of nasty dark green bile. It felt like I was sitting there for days, under a dining room light, interrogated - no, rather, tortured by the vegetable that had once been frozen and likely depleted of nutrients.
I guess a lot of people believe that carrots are good for your eyes, and that fish is "brain food". I've never really ate that well, and as an adult, I guess I don't have a good grasp on how to cook or how to eat a "balanced diet". We ate frozen spinach, and asparagus out of the can - the kind that is mushy and clammy tasting, and drank Sunny Delight - as it was our replacement for vitamin C. My dad made up his own "benefits" of eating these foods, so we/I ate it.
I used to sleep on top of my bed, without using any blankets. I often went to bed fully dressed from the previous day - shoes, socks and all. I played in the sandbox a lot in kindergarten and first grade so when I'd go to bed fully clothed, sand would be deposited in my bed sheets (and lots of it). It never got too cold in Aiken, but my parents didn't like that I wouldn't sleep under the blankets. So my dad told me that if I slept with the blanket up to my shoulders, the monsters wouldn't be able to get me. Before this, I had no idea that I was allowing myself to be susceptible to any monster attacks. I didn't sleep very well, for a week or two after being told this, but I certainly slept under my blankets, and with them up to my neck (if not covering my eyes).
I had a bad habit of brushing my teeth, and then never putting the cap back on the toothpaste. I was told that if I didn't put the cap back on, then roaches would crawl inside.
My sister had a gold fish, and it lasted a long time. It probably lived for a year, maybe two. She had had one before, but it died fairly quickly, so my dad got her another one. I forget what the name of it was... I think it may have been Lucy? One day, the goldfish was gone. We asked my dad what happened to the goldfish, and where she went. He told us that the goldfish got sick, and that he had to take her to the hospital. We were quite concerned that the goldfish was sick, and worried quite a lot about it. Every other day, then eventually once a week, and maybe even a couple of months later, we'd still ask about the goldfish and how she was doing. My dad would tell us over and over that she was still in the hospital...
I asked my grandfather how to tell the difference between a boy dog and a girl dog. He responded - Stick your finger in its heiny, and pull your finger out and smell it. If your finger smelled good, then the dog was a girl. If it smelled bad, then the dog was a boy. (note: I never tried this clearly scientific method of finding the gender of pooches)
On my sixth birthday, I learned that the world as I knew it, would end one day. It was a Sunday, and it was my birthday - the most exciting day of the year besides Christmas. My mom brought me to my Sunday School class, I was wearing my nice red Izod (Lacoste) polo matched with khakis. As soon as I was seated, I got out to to tell my Sunday school teacher that it was my birthday. I may have told her several times in a row until she acknowledged it and congratulated me. It was a pretty big deal, being six years old that is.
We talked about space, and the solar system. We talked about Pluto and the Sun. My Sunday school teacher told us that one day the sun would expand, and get so big that it would eat Mercury. Then, it would expand and get even larger and eat Venus. This was strange to me, I had no idea why the sun would want to eat other planets. She then told us that the sun would keep getting bigger and eventually consume the earth. All would be lost, and the earth would never be replaced. I had never really thought about mortality too much, besides seeing bad guys getting killed in the action movies my dad would watch. I knew people, and plants and bugs died, but I never thought that the earth would die. Eventually, she said, the sun would keep expanding and eat all of the planets, and then the sun would explode and die. For some reason, I guess I felt that souls were somehow still attached or connected somehow to their buried bodies on earth after you've died and gone to heaven. So I asked her what would happen to all the bodies of people who've been buried. She said that all the bodies of people would be gone, and that people would no longer reproduce.
For weeks, I had dreams about the sun expanding, and destroying a beautiful world, the world that I loved. And I thought about my family disappearing and never being able to reconnect with them. When the earth is destroyed, not only will people, places, objects, and animals be destroyed, but also any trace that these things and people had ever existed. I thought about myself a lot, and although she told me it would be millions of years in the future, I thought about my material possessions and my body, deep underground in a casket being incinerated and reclaimed by the fiery appetite of the sun. I'm not sure if I ever found resolve, but I think I learned how to make the dreams go away, and I'd replace the thought of the earth being destroyed with happier thoughts.
15 years later, scientists have concluded that Pluto does not fit the accepted scientific description/categorization of a planet. However, it will be destroyed by the sun one day like the rest of the planets and spinach and beans and monsters.
Monday, January 3, 2011
on flying in dreams
I originally wrote this sometime in mid October, 2010. It's now Jan. 3rd, 2011 and almost 4:00am. I have work tomorrow and haven't slept...
Today, I thought about how amazing I feel when I'm in a dream flying. The deepest sleep, completely incapacitated to the point of euphoria. When I wake up, a deep feeling of disappointment and resentment sets in, for I'd rather be flying through the Alps instead of running a dull razor blade against my face. Scrape, scratch, cut - shit. Oh well. After a few snooze buttons, I begin to forget about the specific details of the dream, the who/what/where, and ultimately it fades altogether. Sometimes the soundtrack can stick around for a few minutes, but that fades out into the sound of water moving through the shower head and over my ears.
Dreams are fleeting. It's like opening the back of a camera, exposing the film to the sunlight. 24 exposures, from various places and times, with different people immediately erased. Or, it's like taking a powerful magnet and placing it up against a computer's hard drive. Except, the dream does have a tendency to leave little traces. Have you ever done that thing where you thought you had called someone the night before, and when you ask the other person they have no recollection of it ever happening? "Oh yeah, I guess it was a dream..." And generally, it is the mundane that can be difficult to differentiate, because you're never like, "Hey dad, remember that one time where we were floating in a hot air balloon over Albuquerque and we jumped out and started flying around?" Yeah, or like when you had that dream when your car or dog had a conversation with you in a human dialect. Mine was wearing a floral shirt. "Greetings from Hawaii!" he said as we Skyped.
Oh yeah, I didn't iron any of my shirts. Do you think anyone will notice? Eh, I'll just wear it. Hmm, I haven't dry cleaned my pants in 4 months, are they starting to stink? *sniff* *sniff* Hmm, yeah they do smell a little bit. I wonder if anyone has noticed. Oh crap, I left food and drink on my desk over the weekend. Eh, it's ok, I'll just get in extra early so that no one will notice. And they'll say, "See, that guy is ready to get his week started, see how eager he is to get back to work?"
"Hey, how was your weekend?"
"Relaxing. And yours?"
"Yeah, Great. Watched the Bears."
"Oh cool, did they win?"
"No."
"Oh.."
"Well.."
"Well, see ya later"
"Yeah, you too. Have a good one"
"Hey, how's it going? Have a nice weekend?"
"Yeah, got to fly in a hot air balloon"
"Really?! Wow! That is so cool!"
"Yeah, it was great."
"Where did you fly it?"
"It was over the moon. Passed a couple deep canyons and saw the lunar lander. It was fantastic. Then we flew over Rio and saw Christ the Redeemer, and then over towards Berlin and watched all the people tear down the wall. And then we landed and a man handed me a sledge hammer and I made a huge hole in the wall. People started crawling through the hole and brought beer with them. We celebrated all night and sang songs. After saying goodbye, we climbed back into the balloon and flew home. I tied it down to a tree in my backyard, but when I was leaving the house this morning for work, it was gone!I think someone stole it..."
"Uhmm.. ok.. see you later"
"You too,. bye."
A social commentary on narcissism would be like the worst dream ever. Because it would be about how much people hate having to act a certain way at work but just do it anyway. "Once I get inside the system then I can actually change it."
Bah, in your dreams. You won't be anything more than a car salesman.
What's wrong with that?
Nothing,. nothing at all,. Did I say there was anything wrong with being a car salesman?
No, but you seemed to imply it.
Hm, yeah, no, I'm sorry, you may just be making that up.
Oh, ok, sure thing Narcissus.
What do you think Socrates dreamt about? Probably pretty trippy shit. Or how about Marcus Aurelius? Virtue 24/7? How about Glenn Beck? Christmas? Santa? American Spirit? Lucky Strikes and gin? (or whiskey?)
My next door neighbor, whom I am not obliged to describe in detail for fear of jeopardizing his livelihood, works at the Pentagon. He has a security clearance, a motorcycle, and a bag of weed in his garage. I'll go over and get high with him and talk about youth and young manhood. I'd say it's a pretty "real" American experience. Sometimes, I'll come back and listen to cumbia. There's never enough beer in this house. There's plenty of expensive organic vegetables rotting in the refrigerator though. Off to the worms they go.
Today, I thought about how amazing I feel when I'm in a dream flying. The deepest sleep, completely incapacitated to the point of euphoria. When I wake up, a deep feeling of disappointment and resentment sets in, for I'd rather be flying through the Alps instead of running a dull razor blade against my face. Scrape, scratch, cut - shit. Oh well. After a few snooze buttons, I begin to forget about the specific details of the dream, the who/what/where, and ultimately it fades altogether. Sometimes the soundtrack can stick around for a few minutes, but that fades out into the sound of water moving through the shower head and over my ears.
Dreams are fleeting. It's like opening the back of a camera, exposing the film to the sunlight. 24 exposures, from various places and times, with different people immediately erased. Or, it's like taking a powerful magnet and placing it up against a computer's hard drive. Except, the dream does have a tendency to leave little traces. Have you ever done that thing where you thought you had called someone the night before, and when you ask the other person they have no recollection of it ever happening? "Oh yeah, I guess it was a dream..." And generally, it is the mundane that can be difficult to differentiate, because you're never like, "Hey dad, remember that one time where we were floating in a hot air balloon over Albuquerque and we jumped out and started flying around?" Yeah, or like when you had that dream when your car or dog had a conversation with you in a human dialect. Mine was wearing a floral shirt. "Greetings from Hawaii!" he said as we Skyped.
Oh yeah, I didn't iron any of my shirts. Do you think anyone will notice? Eh, I'll just wear it. Hmm, I haven't dry cleaned my pants in 4 months, are they starting to stink? *sniff* *sniff* Hmm, yeah they do smell a little bit. I wonder if anyone has noticed. Oh crap, I left food and drink on my desk over the weekend. Eh, it's ok, I'll just get in extra early so that no one will notice. And they'll say, "See, that guy is ready to get his week started, see how eager he is to get back to work?"
"Hey, how was your weekend?"
"Relaxing. And yours?"
"Yeah, Great. Watched the Bears."
"Oh cool, did they win?"
"No."
"Oh.."
"Well.."
"Well, see ya later"
"Yeah, you too. Have a good one"
"Hey, how's it going? Have a nice weekend?"
"Yeah, got to fly in a hot air balloon"
"Really?! Wow! That is so cool!"
"Yeah, it was great."
"Where did you fly it?"
"It was over the moon. Passed a couple deep canyons and saw the lunar lander. It was fantastic. Then we flew over Rio and saw Christ the Redeemer, and then over towards Berlin and watched all the people tear down the wall. And then we landed and a man handed me a sledge hammer and I made a huge hole in the wall. People started crawling through the hole and brought beer with them. We celebrated all night and sang songs. After saying goodbye, we climbed back into the balloon and flew home. I tied it down to a tree in my backyard, but when I was leaving the house this morning for work, it was gone!I think someone stole it..."
"Uhmm.. ok.. see you later"
"You too,. bye."
A social commentary on narcissism would be like the worst dream ever. Because it would be about how much people hate having to act a certain way at work but just do it anyway. "Once I get inside the system then I can actually change it."
Bah, in your dreams. You won't be anything more than a car salesman.
What's wrong with that?
Nothing,. nothing at all,. Did I say there was anything wrong with being a car salesman?
No, but you seemed to imply it.
Hm, yeah, no, I'm sorry, you may just be making that up.
Oh, ok, sure thing Narcissus.
What do you think Socrates dreamt about? Probably pretty trippy shit. Or how about Marcus Aurelius? Virtue 24/7? How about Glenn Beck? Christmas? Santa? American Spirit? Lucky Strikes and gin? (or whiskey?)
My next door neighbor, whom I am not obliged to describe in detail for fear of jeopardizing his livelihood, works at the Pentagon. He has a security clearance, a motorcycle, and a bag of weed in his garage. I'll go over and get high with him and talk about youth and young manhood. I'd say it's a pretty "real" American experience. Sometimes, I'll come back and listen to cumbia. There's never enough beer in this house. There's plenty of expensive organic vegetables rotting in the refrigerator though. Off to the worms they go.