If you are a person, you have probably been afraid of death at some point.
It's strange to me that a creature could have this happen to them. Elephants, whales, lizards, and a whole host of other creatures apart from us morn the loss of a friend. But none do it for as long or as elaborately.
Then again, who knows, really, what it is an elephant thinks about behind its tired grey skin and its tired grey eyes? Maybe they morn for their whole lives. Those lives generally last longer than ours. Around ninety years. Maybe they, too, fear some reaper that will come for all in the end.
I'm not trying to be that annoying life insurance salesman. I'm just thinking about the oddness of life insurance. These are my three favorite quotes about death:
"Death is likely the single best invention of life,"
- Steve Jobs
"I am become death; destroyer of worlds,"
- J. Robert Oppenheimer (Who was himself quoting the religious text "The Bhagavad Gita")
"Death is the great democracy,"
- Neil Gaiman
You can look up those men's quotes in google if you are more interested in their context.
But, I will say this. The first is about the inevitability and frightening aspect of death, yet its use and necessity to life and change. The second is about the power of death, and the fear that comes with that power. And the third is about living amongst death, knowing it is always there, and feeling no apprehension about it.
Life, not death, is the greatest, most terrible adventure. Maybe when I become old I will lose my iron hate for the way things must die or change. In life, no matter how wretched, there are so very many possibilities. In death there are none, always. And I intend to change a few more times before I stop changing forever.
Do you? Well, intend or not, you will. Fear that. Not your mortality.
Will you look back on your life, and find that the past is a foreign land?
"All that happened in another country and besides, the wench is dead."
- Christopher Marlowe
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Monday, June 11, 2012
The Fearful Me
There is a season for everything. A time to build and a time to tear down, sort of thing.
There are times to be fearless, to see nothing in the earth that could harm you. There are times to be fearful, but brave and steadfast against them.
But now, here, seems as good a time as any to feel afraid, not that I have a choice. Not that I like it. I don't.
Little strange fears flutter through me. Some of them don't make sense. Others are as clear and true as anything I've seen when walking in the world. They brush the murky depths of me, and wake deeper fears, long thought forgotten by me, that stir, and rear their awful heads again to torment me.
I'm afraid of many things. Physical things, injury, ravaging illness, savage animals, the violence of people against me. Mental things, madness, the uncertainty of mortality, abandonment, embarrassment, loneliness, poverty. Other things, harder to easily define, or even describe: dark feelings, sudden stares from strangers, the coldness in blackness, that which is unknown, the knowledge that changes you forever, innocence drifting away and the puppet-master pulling strings.
As always, I have no weapons in my fantasies, sometimes I cannot even run, or close my eyes. Only watch, while I am maimed, slain, broken, beaten, humiliated, mutilated, isolated and segregated. Over. And over. And over.
I understand that fear has a purpose: This, you must avoid. Fear is a warning.
But this torture I impose on myself, when I lie here, what use is it? What point is there to this? Why can't I stop?
When I sleep my dreams reflect my conscious thoughts. Weird nameless terror chases me, and I wake up as restless as I was when I laid down my head.
Fear is so close, always. Everyday The people love could be destroyed in freak accidents, every day I could be diagnosed with a disfiguring cancer, everyday could bring some new horror, ready to tear away everything I have.
There is nothing so weak, I think, than a creature imprisoned by it's own self. I think that is what I have become.
I have tactics for fighting the things that go wrong with me, adapt and so on. Cope and keep going. But there is no defense against this ever-ready paranoia. None at all.
There are times to be fearless, to see nothing in the earth that could harm you. There are times to be fearful, but brave and steadfast against them.
But now, here, seems as good a time as any to feel afraid, not that I have a choice. Not that I like it. I don't.
Little strange fears flutter through me. Some of them don't make sense. Others are as clear and true as anything I've seen when walking in the world. They brush the murky depths of me, and wake deeper fears, long thought forgotten by me, that stir, and rear their awful heads again to torment me.
I'm afraid of many things. Physical things, injury, ravaging illness, savage animals, the violence of people against me. Mental things, madness, the uncertainty of mortality, abandonment, embarrassment, loneliness, poverty. Other things, harder to easily define, or even describe: dark feelings, sudden stares from strangers, the coldness in blackness, that which is unknown, the knowledge that changes you forever, innocence drifting away and the puppet-master pulling strings.
As always, I have no weapons in my fantasies, sometimes I cannot even run, or close my eyes. Only watch, while I am maimed, slain, broken, beaten, humiliated, mutilated, isolated and segregated. Over. And over. And over.
I understand that fear has a purpose: This, you must avoid. Fear is a warning.
But this torture I impose on myself, when I lie here, what use is it? What point is there to this? Why can't I stop?
When I sleep my dreams reflect my conscious thoughts. Weird nameless terror chases me, and I wake up as restless as I was when I laid down my head.
Fear is so close, always. Everyday The people love could be destroyed in freak accidents, every day I could be diagnosed with a disfiguring cancer, everyday could bring some new horror, ready to tear away everything I have.
There is nothing so weak, I think, than a creature imprisoned by it's own self. I think that is what I have become.
I have tactics for fighting the things that go wrong with me, adapt and so on. Cope and keep going. But there is no defense against this ever-ready paranoia. None at all.
No Regrets
Regret is an emotion, it means: If I had the knowledge that I now have, and if I lived my life again, I would live it differently.
Many people claim, "No regrets,". I imagine they must be horribly uncreative. If I could have my time again, I would change so much.
I would kiss people I didn't, invest where I would gain most, learn what would be most useful, encourage where I insulted, and live where I lazed.
How can you say you regret nothing?
Many people claim, "No regrets,". I imagine they must be horribly uncreative. If I could have my time again, I would change so much.
I would kiss people I didn't, invest where I would gain most, learn what would be most useful, encourage where I insulted, and live where I lazed.
How can you say you regret nothing?
Friday, June 8, 2012
Stars
Turn away your head.
As the world falls down around you.
As the ice bergs melt.
As your brother's children starve.
As the cancer grows.
As the tigers dwindle.
As your bank account empties.
As your lover drifts away.
As your life grows more meaningless.
Turn away your head.
And watch the sunrise.
After all, the sky is too dark to see the stars anymore.
As the world falls down around you.
As the ice bergs melt.
As your brother's children starve.
As the cancer grows.
As the tigers dwindle.
As your bank account empties.
As your lover drifts away.
As your life grows more meaningless.
Turn away your head.
And watch the sunrise.
After all, the sky is too dark to see the stars anymore.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Che
You often see Che Guevara's face on things.
Whatever else he was, Che was a rare man. As an author, renowned intellectual, physician, charismatic public speaker, consummate strategist and diplomat, he was certainly very skilled. But rarer than this was that he was truly a man who believed in things with an incredible passion.
I am a supporter of democracy. And as Che Guevara was a, more the, communist and Marxist, I don't believe he was right. I think communism is a poor system of government, too easily manipulated by strong leaders, as was the case in Che's Cuba.
But to say that he was a terrorist? No. I don't think that's true. He believed in his kind of freedom. Not my kind. To say that he was evil because of that is unfair.
That his face has become one of the most reproduced image in the western world would undoubtably break his heart. But that is what it has become.
He was executed at age thirty nine. His last words were as defiant as his whole life.
'Shoot coward. You are only going to kill a man.'
As human as they come, but as powerful as the human spirit is, it is broken with the human flesh.
I like Che, like many before me, not for what he believed in, but for the tenacious will that he believed in it with.
Whatever else he was, Che was a rare man. As an author, renowned intellectual, physician, charismatic public speaker, consummate strategist and diplomat, he was certainly very skilled. But rarer than this was that he was truly a man who believed in things with an incredible passion.
I am a supporter of democracy. And as Che Guevara was a, more the, communist and Marxist, I don't believe he was right. I think communism is a poor system of government, too easily manipulated by strong leaders, as was the case in Che's Cuba.
But to say that he was a terrorist? No. I don't think that's true. He believed in his kind of freedom. Not my kind. To say that he was evil because of that is unfair.
That his face has become one of the most reproduced image in the western world would undoubtably break his heart. But that is what it has become.
He was executed at age thirty nine. His last words were as defiant as his whole life.
'Shoot coward. You are only going to kill a man.'
As human as they come, but as powerful as the human spirit is, it is broken with the human flesh.
I like Che, like many before me, not for what he believed in, but for the tenacious will that he believed in it with.
Cooling heart.
This earth has a heart.
This core stays apart.
Hot and red, round, soft and gold.
Deep far down, a billion years old.
This core stays apart.
The earth's breathing heart.
Sailing away on a cold river of souls.
A mother screams for her lost foals.
A maddened grieved mother cries,
As again and again her child dies.
What is it you do command?
What thoughts do you will?
On what land do you stand?
Is it fertile? Is it kind and still?
All what you have, all you gave,
All you left to come and save,
You can't glimmer, or touch?
Find the depths, and fear to clutch.
Dead lights! Morbidity surrounds.
Like strung up hopes, dancing clowns.
This core stays apart.
This cooling heart.
This core stays apart.
Hot and red, round, soft and gold.
Deep far down, a billion years old.
This core stays apart.
The earth's breathing heart.
Sailing away on a cold river of souls.
A mother screams for her lost foals.
A maddened grieved mother cries,
As again and again her child dies.
What is it you do command?
What thoughts do you will?
On what land do you stand?
Is it fertile? Is it kind and still?
All what you have, all you gave,
All you left to come and save,
You can't glimmer, or touch?
Find the depths, and fear to clutch.
Dead lights! Morbidity surrounds.
Like strung up hopes, dancing clowns.
This core stays apart.
This cooling heart.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Mass Storage
This is my 32 Gigabyte usb drive. It's very small, many people mistake it for being a remote mouse port thing, for a wireless computer mouse. And just so you know, if you put a book in a text file, a whole book, it will take up about a megabyte of space.
For those of you who are blissfully unaware of what that means, which I hope is few, there are (roughly, not exactly) 1000 megabytes in a gigabyte. So, in my little drive, Most of which is taken up by the metal port, there is room for thirty two thousand books. I'd consider that to be a pretty decent sized library.
In that little tiny thing.
I'm impressed.
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