Extra Part

I dreamed a colourful wonderful dream,
I breathed in a harsh and hot bowl of steam,
I watched the future, become the past,
And I wished and wondered,
Why the things I love, couldn't last.

I can imagine a New World Order.
I can imagine an Earth without borders.
I can imagine ideals made real and true.
But I could never imagine a world without you.

All I can do is slowly and surely breath.
While inside me all my organs twist and seethe.
The white cold fire of the disc in the sky at night,
melts me, weirds me, with it's soft luna light,

But then, freedom, to run through the trees.
The longing for savagery, like endless scarlet seas.
The taste of the world, cut out of heaven's breast.
It could stretch on forever, north, south, east and west.

But when the sun that hurts me so sore,
That works it's way in through every pore,
When it rises like clock-work, I look down at red stains,
And feel the guilt crush me like rocks, again and again...

Where could you have gone? Why would you leave me?
Like a limb ripped from an amputee,
Stumps remain to fumble and swear.
Annoying, useless and beyond repair.

There is nothing I can do you could not twice,
Who would have two when one could suffice?
An extra part from the great machine,
Obsolete, unfitting, and better left unseen.

Reasonable Reasons

It's funny what people find valuable. The way we mimic the people who we find to be unique or interesting. We copy traits and ideas when we form our identities.

I found sometimes people mimicking me. It annoys me, but not because I feel stolen from as much as I feel that people have not used the very tool I did that caused me to make the action in the first place.

Most people find it alarming that someone would carry a knife. Perhaps they fear the potential for a weapon in such an object. I find that the practical upshots of someone, who is otherwise not greatly physically strong, to carry a pocket knife for practical reasons is not only reasonable but intelligent.

Reason is what should drive actions. The use of our reason, our thought, our logic, rather than blind acceptance, mimicry or prejudice. I try always to apply reason.

I have never wanted to defy authority, but experiment with possibilities. I often times I do things because I see no reason not to. And I don't think the God that gave me this brain would judge me for using it in that way.

I sometimes do things that are different to the way others do them. I could pretend that I am just like everyone else, in many respects I am, but I am still different, as are we all from one another, perhaps paradoxically also making me the same. I do things, I feel, always because it has been grounded in some good reason.

I can't be anyone but myself. Even if I changed my appearance and behaviour I would still be myself. Those that dislike it can continue to do so, but until they provide independent reason, and make independent action, just as I have, I refuse to take their judgement seriously.


I expect no less of you than what I have myself done.

Loneliness In Accomplishment

Repetition of ideas shows how people think. And an often repeated idea is one of 'the loner' the person who does everything by his or herself. You know, the genius who figured out how to make the light bulb all on his own, or the writer who was also an artist and a leader, the actor who always performed their own stunts. Oftentimes these things are exaggerated, not just by the performer of the actions, but everyone else too. We all want to see a person who needs no one else to do amazing things.

I think to a degree we all crave loneliness in our accomplishment. Some might think that this because we don't want to share, that we are selfish. But I think it is a preservation technique. After all, life is essentially just learning things. No one wants to have to learn how to do something with a friend, and then learn how to to do it again, alone. Better to learn how to do it alone to begin with. Because despite the fact that your friend might be there to help you for a while, it is the very nature of our lives that we become separate. Cooperation is hard. But it is key to the strength of our species.

Green Light.

At night time in my house, when my mother is asleep, I turn off all the lights. It's to save power, and to let the house know that it needs to rest.

A while ago, the bulb in my room's ceiling light failed. But the glass of the bulb just sort of fell out, and the metal part stayed jammed in there. I should really get a man in to fix it, but my room is just so messy (I can't get in most of the time, let alone a stranger) and I keep forgetting. Lazy boy.

It's fine though, because I have a bedside lamp that sheds enough light to illuminate my whole room. Or, at least, I did. It failed too recently. Not the bulb, that's fluorescent and it lasts for ten years, but the wiring in the lamp itself.

After coming back into my room in the early hours of the morning, having gone to the kitchen for a glass of water, everything was dark. I didn't want to bump into anything. My laptop computer has a little LED on it, that tells me it's charging when it is orange, and green when it is done. Pretty nifty. I could see only that, resting on my bed amidst the blackness.

So I stepped towards it, and bashed my leg on something hard and sharp, and stepped back again to feel my leg. I had cut it open on the corner a random piece of furniture. I stepped in a different direction and felt the crack of glass, and I felt my foot, yes, it too was bleeding. I tried again, but my knee clicked and the cap popped out. (I have terrible knees). So I sat down on the floor swearing quietly. I kept on looking at that little green LED glowing steadily all on it's own. I thought to myself "If I just keep looking at that little light, my night vison might get better, and I might be able to see where I'm going." 

So I stood there. Looking at the speck. Waiting and waiting.

However, I hadn't plugged the cord in very well. And after a few minutes, it succumbed to gravity, and fell out. 

And the little green light winked into nothing. 

So I sat there in the dark of my room. It wasn't unpleasant exactly. It wasn't really anything. I'm not afraid of the dark like I was when I was a small child. But there was nothing else to do. So, I did nothing. 

Well, I did one thing. I waited for the sun to rise. 

The Prince And His Wretch.

One day, as I walked along an old dirt road, I saw a man.

He was as tall as he was beautiful. Beneath his high and intelligent brow his eyes shone with a calm, steady blue light, and his smile was one of utmost purity. His blonde hair which fell to his shoulders was tossed in the gentle breeze. As I saw the long and confident stride he took, it struck me that everything about him bespoke, goodness, beauty, strength and intellect. He wore clean simple clothes (a shirt, bluejeans and shoes of an unremarkable make) but on him they were transformed into the garments of a prince. 

In his slender clever fingers, he held a chain. 

And that chain chain trailed after him, and up, and onto a collar. 

And the collar was around the neck of a person, or perhaps a creature. It was shrunken and pathetic. In its small, bald, stupid head two eyes that might have been dull river stones stared out and a small toothless mouth whimpered constantly in pain. The reason for the whimpering may have been that its skin was covered in pustules and boils and warts. The limbs of the creature were little more than appendageless stumps which it dragged in the dust in a disturbing series of struggles to propel itself forward. It too wore clothes of a sort, rags that might once have been fine, but were unrecognisable in their torn, dirty state. 

I greeted the man, and asked him why it might be that such a respectable man as he would have such a loathsome abomination along with him in his travels. 

"Oh, and well you might wonder why I bring this with me," he replied, "But he is my brother."

I recoiled, and though I wished to save the good man's honor, I still could not help but say that I found it hard to believe that anyone, even one such as he, would have it in his heart to love this vile degenerate, brother or not, enough to have it with him.

He laughed at this. An honest sound it was. As clear as an unmuddied lake, as clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. It soothed my very soul to hear it.

"Love?" He said, "Oh no no. I bring him with me always because I hate him. I always need to know that he is still wretched, still in pain, and always still alive to feel the wretched, painful existence that is his own."

I Am Not My Bones.

My skin keeps the rain off,
It keeps the rain off me.
Because I am not my skin.

My arms protect me from the world,
they fend off the devil.
Because I am not my arms.

My legs hold me off the ground,
they take me far and wide.
Because I am not my legs.

My heart pumps my blood,
it pumps blood into me.
Because I am not my heart.

My mind solves problems that face me,
it finds the solutions.
Because I am not my mind.

I am not my skin, muscles, blood and fingers,
I am not my eyes, teeth, tongue and hair,
I am not my bones.

I am none of these things. You can throw them away.
At the end of the day.

But I'll still be there.


Won't I?

Does The Why Matter If The What Is Good?

Governments, organisations, agencies and individuals are motivated by a lot of different things. Sometimes, it's love. Or desire. Or greed. Or pride. Or anger. Or hate. Or guilt. Or sadness. Or fear. Or a mixture of these and many others.

People do things. 

A woman works hard. Without her, no one will feed her children.

Is that love, or fear, or guilt?

A man fights fires for a living. He does this because his daughter dies in a house fire that he accidentally started. 

Is that hate? Or anger? Or love? 

A blind man, a writer, invents a system of reading for blind people, called braille. He wants everyone to be able to read.

Is that desire? Or pride? Or envy? 

A Church incites a holy war. They want the infidel to know their God, and not to see their people become corrupted by this new religion.

Is that hate? Or fear? Or love?

The purpose of doing something for many people is often lost in the emotion of doing so. A politician may want to change the world. She may even do so. But the fact remains: She gets out of bed every morning because she loves the thrill of power. 

Emotion as a motivator is strong. In fact, it really is the only thing that motivates us as creatures. We still do good things. But they can be motivated by the most horrific emotions.

That begs the question: Does it matter what motivates us? Obviously it matters if our emotions impair our judgement and we change from doing goo to bad. But if they do not, and we continue to act for God when the devil drives us, does it really matter?

I don’t think so. I think that all that matters is what we do. Not why we do something.

The idea that bad thoughts could be used as a motive for good might be unsettling for some, but I find it gives me hope. That even the worst of us can look beyond their base nature, and do things not because they feel the need, but because they can see they are right or wrong. And that they can use whatever it is that drives them to do great and wonderful things.