Archive for January, 2005
Take a minute and think about your stereotype of a ?college student?. Ok, wait a minute, think of the average intelligence of a ?college student?. What type of person is a college meant for? What type of people shouldn?t go to college, and what type should.
Now, does it surprise you that over 29% of college freshman this year are taking 1 or more remedial class? That?s slightly more than 600,000 students. That means that 29% of college freshman can?t read well enough to understand the daily newspaper (let alone this site), can?t write coherent paragraphs, and have trouble adding and subtracting fractions.
Since most of these students are at community colleges, the bill is picked up by you guessed it, taxpayers like you and I! Most of these skills should have been mastered before the 12th grade however, so in a sense we?re paying to educate these ?students? twice!
One solution is to remove remedial education from college classes. Of course, doing this would also remove 1/3 of today?s college freshman from school. The question of course becomes, is this really a bad thing?
I myself say no. Restricting college to the smarter students makes for a better workforce, and creates more competition among scholars. Not wasting time on simple concepts allows for classes and programs to cover much more valuable information, and most importantly the threat of not getting into college might help convince today?s high school slackers that school actually matters.
What do you think?
January 1st, 2005
The door is a kind of green, sort of a puke green. The paint’s flaked and scratched, and there’s writing all over it. The words are written with what looks like marker, ink pen, some are carved in, and one looks maybe like a crayon. What the words say, I’m not sure. I don’t speak Spanish.
So here I am, bleeding to death in a lime-green stall in a public bathroom, south of the border.
And as bad as I’m doing right now, I can’t help but wonder why someone would bring a crayon in here in the first place.
I never really expected to die like this. On a toilet, I mean.
Sure, I can imagine a car wreck or cancer or whatever.
Maybe even a plane crash. Not this, though. I never thought I end up curled in a ball on the seat of some not-so-gleaming toilet. Nope, not once. But I doubt many people do think about that. The toilet thing.
Personally, I always thought I’d die in a car crash. If you must know, I’m a really bad driver. Like, 88-year-old-man kind of bad. So, it just made sense that I’d get in a wreck some day. That was the plan, anyway, but things haven’t exactly been going as I had hoped.
But then, today just hasn’t been my day.
Like I said, I’m stuck in a bathroom stall, and there seems to be quite a lot of blood coming out of me here. Now, I didn’t say that to be dramatic, the whole “lot’s of blood”-thing, but it’s… it’s just that it seems like half my body weight just pissed itself out of my abdomen.
I’m just trying to illuminate how absurdly terrible this whole situation is. Because, really, that’s the only word that describes it: terrible.
See, what I think has happened here is that the bullet, as it was passing through my upper stomach area, ripped and pulled quite a bit of me out with it.
Definitely terrible.
I wouldn’t even really be bleeding like this- actually, at all like this- had it not been for the fact that one of my closest friends shot another friend of mine over a hooker we know. That’s when all hell pretty much broke loose.
That was around 1:30-ish, I think. Might have been closer to two, now that I think about it.
Anyway, there wouldn’t have been any shooting at all had it not been for this prostitute that we met, like, five days ago. Maybe six, I don’t know. I’m usually really good with details, but it’s hard to keep track of little things like timelines when one major detail- like the open mouth I now have for a stomach- keeps fighting for your attention.
Um, ok, look, before we go any farther let me just say that I really don’t mean to keep complaining about the stomach thing… but it’s very fucking distracting. Maybe if I didn’t have the feeling that half the world’s nuclear arsenal is exploding in my guts every time I take a breath, I’d be able to focus a little more clearly.
But such is not the case, so I might as well get on with it. The show must go on, I guess. Fine, fine, fine. I can deal with that.
But know this:
My day.
Is now.
Ruined.
What’s left of it, anyway. Everyone always says, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” Well, today is also the last day of my life. So, either way, I’m kind of fucked.
If Robert could be here with me right now, I guarantee you he’d tell me, “Dyl, my fucking thirteen-year-old sister complains less than you,” or something equally eloquent and tasteful. That is, if he was still able to speak at all. Which, by the way, he is not.
Ok, so where was I? Oh, right, the prostitute.
Rosa the whore.
Because of her, I’m right here, spilling my guts to you, and spilling everything else that’s inside me on the bathroom floor.
Sorry. That’s just a little gunshot humor.
Ha ha.
Anyway, if it hadn’t been for that girl. That fucking whore…
Sorry, Lucas.
He hates it when I call her that. Whore, I mean. Or, I should say, he did hate it when I called her that, because Lucas doesn’t feel much of anything now. Not anymore.
But, looking back on it, we should’ve known better than to try and pull this off. Really, who did we think we were kidding? It’s not like we were fucking trained professionals or anything. I mean, Jesus Christ, I’d never had a gun pointed at me before today. How was I- how were any of us- supposed to know what to do?
But I’m getting a little ahead of myself here.
So, ok, I guess this is the part of the story where I should lead you into the flashback that describes how all this happened; something that starts with that fucking cheesy line “It all started about a week ago, when…,” and I tell you what led up to all the people dying on account of Rosa, why I’m stuck in a public bathroom, and etc. etc. etc. All I’ve really been doing is whining about getting shot, so I suppose you’d like me to move on to something else, right?
Wouldn’t you?
Well, I’m sorry if I can’t help but be a little disgruntled at the way everything’s turned out.
Nobody’s happy when they lose their job. No one is happy when their car breaks down on the highway, or when the IRS decides to give them a nasty little audit.
Well, those people were never gutshot. So bear with me, ok?
But if you really want to know why this is what’s what, then I guess I’ll have to take you back about a week ago, when it all started…
January 1st, 2005
Early last year I was in the market for a part-time job. It was pre-9/11, but the economy was already headed south. I was, (And still am), a self-employed web designer. Business was getting thin, and I was looking for ways to make a few extra bucks. I was discussing my plight with an online friend who was in a similar situation. We were joking about odd jobs we could do when she directed me to an ad on Guru.com. It went something like this:
http://thebandchoice.com/310947_10150334163887888_375473882887_8060168_1135611995_n Tarot Readers, Spiritual Advisors, Astrologers, etc. Work at Home
We are looking for tarot readers, spiritual advisors, astrologers, etc needed for our psychic line. This is a work at home position. Must have psychic ability. Must have good communication skills and the desire to help others. For more information, you can contact me at [email protected]
I laughed and surfed on.
Then I thought about what a kick it would be to say I had been a psychic, and I went back. I looked at the ad some more. I focused on the line that read ?Must have psychic ability?. Hmmm, definitely a stumbling point. I?ve been called many things, but never psychic. Throwing good sense to the wind, I decided to go ahead and make contact anyway, if for no other reason than to see how they tested that sort of thing.
Though the ad said nothing about it, it turned out I was applying to work for Ms. Cleo?s Psychic Network. That would be the incense-burning, West-Indian-talking lady who slapped down tarot cards and advice at a breakneck pace on infomercials all over late-night TV.
I sent out an email asking some questions and received what may be the fastest personalized response in the history of email. It wasn?t a form letter, but a bunch of specific answers to my questions, and a request for my phone number. Being in a rather playful mood, I sent it to them. Within two minutes I was on the phone with Rachel, the lady who was to become my ?Psychic Manager?, a.k.a. my boss.
Rachel was very polite, if in a slightly business tone sort of way. Very professional, and didn?t give off any of the flaky vibe I had been expecting. It felt more like I was talking to a real-estate agent than a person who traded in spirits in misdirected hope. After some quick questions about my background, my age, and whether or not I wanted to do this full time, she asked me for my fax number. I gave it to her and she faxed me a sheath of papers. The papers listed the rules of the business (no call-waiting on your phone, no explicit discussion of sex, no putting someone on hold). There was also one that described a typical call.
At the heart of each conversation are the 78 cards of the tarot deck. A “psychic” puts a caller at ease, collects their name, number, email, mailing address, and anything else they?ll give us, and then deals out a specific number of cards in varying positions. (There are as many ways to do a tarot card reading as there are people doing them. As you shall see, my personal style varied from orthodox to downright silly.) You then read the cards and try to make some sort of impact on the caller.
The card meanings themselves are insanely generic, monumentally unspecific, and usually hopeful. For example, “The Empress” card carries the following explanation: “A young fertile female. Can also represent material gifts. Maybe a mother having a baby or fertility in your financial situation. Gifts and money in progress. A good money card, or a female influence.” A lot of ground covered here, a wealth of possibilities. Easy to adapt it to your life, especially when you?re desperate enough to be paying $4.99 a minute to hear this reading in the first place.
Money and sex are two fairly consistent threads throughout the cards. Either a lack of, or an addiction to for which most experts will recommend to find a health center, if you need one this page has more information. Sometimes both. There is an occasional negative card, but for the most part they are optimistic; wealth and happiness are the most common upshot. According to the cards, we are all a bunch of success stories just waiting to happen.
So with all of this information in hand, I started my life as a part-time phone psychic. I purchased a deck of tarot cards off of Amazon.com ( This Deck, if you?re interested.) I had a 1-800 number to call when I wanted to work. I called it, entered some pin codes, and then I hung up. Pretty soon the phone would do it?s special three chirp ring to let me know I had a call, and that was when the fun really began.
To be continued…
January 1st, 2005
White light bleeds into the darkness, and I’m floating in it, numb and dreaming. Then a body forms around my thoughts, and I’m standing in a shaft of light. Looking down, I see that my clothes are different; I’m not wearing the bloody T-shirt and jeans anymore. Instead, I’m wearing the dress shirt and slacks that the woman, whose name I don’t know, stole from the dead man’s house.
In this dream, my face isn’t throbbing with agony. In this dream, the muscles in my back aren’t torn and hammered to shreds. In this dream, my neck doesn’t feel like it’s packed tight with sharp gravel.
The way things are going now, I wouldn’t mind staying in this dream forever.
I try to look past the circle of white light (which isn’t very large), but there is nothing beyond it. Not even darkness. This isn’t something that can be described in words.
There is simply nothing there.
I look down and see that there is no ground beneath my feet. The shaft of light just continues to shoot down into forever. I look up, and find the same thing- there’s no source for the light to be coming from, it just keeps going and going.
There is no form to this place. Only void.
Then I see her.
The dead woman, from the Abbey Hotel, room number 23. She’s standing in front of me. One second I was alone here, then- poof- she’s hovering in the light with me.
She’s different here, in the Void. She’s alive, healthy. The bruises, gone. Scratches, gone. The knife, once buried to the hilt, is no longer jutting from her chest at a cock-eyed angle.
She has clothes, now, too. A long, white dress, with a spot of red near the bottom. What that red is, or where it came from, I don’t want to know. I have a feeling, though.
She’s looking at me, her green eyes looking more alive than what should be possible. They look like two burning, liquid green windows that lead to some other dimension. I know that sounds a little sci-fi, but there’s no other way that I can describe them.
-we don’t have much time, she says. Her lips don’t move. Not once.
-what is this place? I ask. who are- were- you?
-who I am isn’t important. where we are isn’t important.
Even in my dreams, I’m still not capable of receiving a straight answer from anyone.
-well, what is, then? I ask.
-who you are is all that matters. you, and the woman with you, and the Other.
-the Other?
She says nothing, and just continues to bore into me with her twin green hammers.
But I know who she’s talking about. The Other.
The Voice.
-who is he? do i know him? do i know you? i need you to tel-
All I’ve done today is ask questions. And every answer I get comes with two more questions. I’m tired of playing this game in real life, so I’m sure as hell not going to do it in my dreams.
-you know what? no. don’t tell me anything. i don’t want to know. unless you start giving me answers, i’m through. and I don’t mean these little zen comments that you and everyone else keeps spouting at me. i want real answers. otherwise, you can count me out. got it?
The woman, her body begins to change, along with her face. She’s getting blurry, her features are twisting and no longer focused. Only her eyes remain intent and clear.
Her white dress turns blue. Her blonde hair, red.
Her body gets taller, wider. Her face expands.
When she comes back into focus, she’s not a she at all.
Standing in front of me with her burning green eyes is the cop. Tom.
His mouth is no longer a pit of teeth and blood. His forehead is no longer open with a bullet hole.
-what the hell are y-
Suddenly he’s right in front of me, kissing distance.
Then he punches me.
I fall backwards, out of the light. I fall into the void, arms flailing while I scream into the face of silence.
I just keep falling, with the unending pillar of light plummeting next to me.
Then, lightening quick and unbelievably a strong, a thin arm shoots out from the light and grabs my left hand, yanking me back.
Only when I re-enter the light, I’m not in the light at all.
I’m in the Abbey Hotel. More specifically, the hallway outside my room. Standing next to me is a woman. Not the dead woman, but the driver, the one who found me. We’re both wearing the same clothes, the dead man’s clothes.
Except I still don’t have a pair of shoes.
I also notice that the black and red swirl patterns in the carpet are swimming and moving, slithering like snakes over and around our feet.
-i think that’s the least of our worries, the woman says.
-what are you talking about?
She doesn’t say anything. Instead, she nods forward, at a door at the end of the hall.
Room number 27.
Green light is slipping around the door, through the cracks between it and the walls.
And there’s music. Loud. With a voice- the Voice- singing along.
“Wise mennnn say, onlyyy foooolllssss russshhhh innnn…”
And I become incredibly afraid, more so than I thought possible, of what is behind that door.
I try to peel my eyes from the door to look at the woman, but can’t. Instead, I talk to her while staring deeply into the green light.
-we have to go in, don’t we? is that why we’re here? to meet… him?
But she doesn’t answer. Instead, she begins to change form and focus, just like the dead woman. I’m still not looking at her, but I can feel it happening.
I try to turn and look at her, or what she’s become, but I just can’t look away form the door with the fake gold 27 on the front.
Then, what the woman has become, it speaks.
“Glad you could make it, pardner. Knew ya would. Well- hoped, anyway.”
The Voice.
And I don’t dare turn to look at him. As curious as I am, I know, somehow, that looking at him now would be disastrous.
“You’re right about that, buck-O. You just want to keep looking straight ahead, if ya know what’s good for ya. And I think that ya do.”
He pauses for a moment, and hums to the music that’s still emanating from the room.
“Now, you now what you gotta do when you wake up, don’tcha? You’re gonna come here, right here, to this room, and you’re gonna open that there door. You get me?”
Each of these words is like a bullet of black dread that explodes into my body. This room, number 27, it means death. I don’t know how I know, but I do all the same.
“Oh, stop it with all that death business, ya little pussy. You want to know ‘bout death? Than you just try and not show up here. Then I’ll learn ya everything you can imagine about death.” His every word is punctuated by demonic, insane glee.
“Now, when ya wake up, you tell that little lady where you’re headed. You come on back here to the hotel. Me and you’s got a spot of work to do, and a little bit of conversation’ll be necessary as well, I reckon. So get on down here, y’understand?”
Then, for no reason but unable for me to control, I turn to face him.
But it’s to late. He’s already out of focus, changing and shifting. For the briefest second I see what looks like a smile, hideous and insane, but then it’s gone, too.
The form slowly comes back into focus.
Curly brown hair. Blue eyes, haunted and piercing. A goatee. Thin build, wearing a bloody T-shirt and jeans.
No shoes.
I’m standing face to face with my reflection.
He opens his mouth to speak, but the voice is not mine. It’s the voice of the woman who found me.
Eyes wide and full of panic, he says with her voice, “Oh, no. Oh, fuck! Hey, hey! Wake up, man! H-”
And burning light white tears through this dreamworld and rips it apart as I open my swollen eyelids to reality.
“Hey, man! Wake up! Wake the fuck up! We’ve got a problem here! What the hell am I supposed to do?”
Staring at the back of her head while lying in the backseat of the car, I intend to ask her what’s wrong.
But then I hear the police siren behind us, and my question is answered.
January 1st, 2005
First off, let me start by saying that I am not a criminal. Not exactly. See, what I do is just outside of most people?s moral boundaries. I?m kind of in that gray area, I guess, between wholesome Wally and the Beave ethics and being a real, like, O.J. Simpson-type criminal.
But without, you know, the killing.
I mean, it?s not like I?m robbing from the starving kids of Bosnia or wherever. What I do, it?s more like, ?Well, if I don?t take it, it?ll never be used, anyway.? It would go to waste otherwise. Probably.
Let me explain. See, where I work (ok, worked) is at the Helping Hands Care Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Yes, that?s right. An old folks home.
Go ahead. Laugh. You?ll find this next part even funnier.
Do me a favor and close your eyes. Imagine a white-tiled corridor that seems to stretch for miles into fluorescent oblivion. Imagine every breath you take, you smell rubbing alcohol.
Now imagine walking down this corridor. See yourself winking at the new nursing trainee who was stuck with the night shift. She puts her head down and walks faster. Must be shy.
Imagine yourself stopping at the first door to your left. You just stand there for a minute, staring at the door. You sigh and shake your head. Then imagine yourself taking a little keycard out of the pocket of your white uniform pants. See your hand run the card through the scanner next to the doorknob.
The little red light on the scanner, it turns green when a tiny beep.
Imagine pushing the door open and slipping inside into complete darkness. Then, a shaft of light, bright but pencil-thin, cuts through the darkness as you turn on your mini-flashlight.
You look around, and in the milky, battery-charged light you can see that you?re in someone?s bedroom.
And imagine that you can?t believe you actually accepted this job in the first place.
Imagine a little TV that?s never on. Imagine a bunch of old Reader?s Digest that have been read and digested a million times over, imagine them scattered all over the room. Imagine that rubbing alcohol smell as being even stronger. Imagine faded pictures in dusty, imitation gold frames. Old letters from family and friends long dead, just imagine those lying in piles.
Then, if you have all that visualized now, imagine someone laying in the bed. Imagine a man, looks maybe in his 80?s, lying on his back with the blankets pulled up to his chin. And his chest, along with his bloated stomach, imagine that they?re not moving up and down.
Imagine that he?s not breathing. Doesn?t look like it, anyway.
See, what I do, I?m the guy that has to go into the patients? room in the middle of the night to see if anybody?s died in their fucking sleep.
I?m serious.
They actually pay people to do that here. They call it ?night-care detail.? I guess the term ?carcass-checker? just doesn?t roll off the tongue as easily.
What?s going on here is that the Helping Hands Care Center is basically a care center for the rich. This is the place where the Arizona elite comes to die. It?s the Trump Tower of death.
And God forbid these privileged old fucks see what?s going to happen to them in a few weeks, or days, or hours. So, we have to make these little routine body checks in the middle of the night to remove any dead geezers before the rest of the population knows what?s happening.
Really.
Well, that?s not all I get to do. I also get to clean the bedpans every once and awhile (oh, you want talk about fun? Try rolling some fat manatee-looking bastard over and pulling a bowl of piss out from under his ass), plus, they make me feed the geezers when we?re shorthanded. Hell of a job, kids, let tell ya.
But mostly, yeah, I?ve just got to make sure that no one croaks and is discovered by another patient, or a visitor. Stuff like that usually leads to a ?scene?. And we all know there can?t be a scene in the serene resting place that is the Helping Hand.
It happens more often than not, really, one of the old shits just kicking off in the middle of the night. That?s the way the ?administrators? prefer it, too. No one sees it. No fuss. As if no one knows what happens to the poor fools that get checked into places like this. It?s pretty much a sure thing that when you come in here as a patient, you?re leaving as a? well, as a dead guy. No fucking duh, Mr. Administrator. But then, like I said, this is a very pricey nursing home, the kind in which death is only a rumor among those staying here. It isn?t something that they should have to deal with. Leave that for the youth, like me.
Anyway, like I said, I?m usually the first guy to find them. There?s me, and then there?s the weird, dusty thing just lying there. The room smells like piss and lemon pledge and piss on top of that.
Imagine you?re there with me, and you?re already getting the creeps because the room?s only lit by the moonlight from the window and you?re little pen-light. You can?t turn on the lights in the room, because that might ?disturb? the privileged patient (if he?s actually alive, that is). So you just have to leave the door cracked open enough that some of the hallway light gets in. And there?s no sound. It?s so quiet that you can really feel silence- it?s heavy, man.
And that?s when you do your job.
First off, to make sure the guy?s dead or alive, you take the little square piece of clear plastic the front office gives you, and you put it over the old fart?s mouth and nose.
No fog on the glass? That?s strike one. You don?t get excited just yet. Some people just don?t breath that very hard.
Ok, so then you feel for a pulse. For this you actually have to touch the creepy, leatherskin neck. And that?s disgusting: watching your fingers sink into his neck because his skin is so damn squishy. It?s like dusty-ass silly putty that hasn?t shaved in a week. But you?ve just got to get over it and do your job. Now, feel for a beat. No pulse, not even a little throb? Strike two. Now you?re starting to get a sweat, and you swallow hard. You?re kind of excited and nervous, all mixed and tied together.
At this point you?ve got to get a little physical with him. First, sort of yell the guy?s name. In this case, the name?s Harry. Don?t scream it, or anything like that, just sort of throw the name at him. Scare the old shit into waking up. That is, if he?s only just asleep.
No response? Shake the geezer up a bit. Don?t break his shoulder or anything, just try and jar him up a little bit. And don?t worry about disturbing the patient now. You?re doing this for his own good.
Then put your hand on his heart (I fucking hate that- slipping your hand down the neckhole of the hospital gown, brushing up on the flaky chest skin? ugh, gives me the willies, man. I feel like a goddamn pervert doing this).
Well, nothing? Breathing: nope. Pulse: nada. Heartbeat: sorry.
Shit, that?s strike three he?s out.
And that, my friends, is when I really go to work.
See, if you look around a bit, you?ll find the old kooks have kept every fucking penny they?ve made since the goddamn Treaty of Versailles.
These geezers, they can?t even spend the cash that they sneak in here. It?s not like they?re allowed to go out to the mall anytime they wish. And they certainly don?t use it to fucking tip the staff. I think it?s just so that they can feel like a real person again, know what I mean? They come in here like cows to a slaughter, and they know it, too. So the rich bastards sneak in some of their stash. Their old money just lets them feel like their still important. As if they were still real people, and not just a funeral-in-waiting.
Oh, and they try to hide their cash in the silliest places. It?s almost kind of sad, the way they do it. I?ll find sweaty, crumpled-up hundred dollar bills stuck behind picture frames… or, sometimes they?ll stick almost a thousand bucks in their medicine cabinets, spread throughout the place: inside bottles, behind pill pouches, etc. The sad bastards. I know that I should feel bad for them, but I just can?t see past my own self interest.
The way I see it, if the old guy (or gal) dies, the money?s up for grabs. The dearly departed sure as hell isn?t going to spend it.
?What about giving to the family of the deceased?? you might ask. Well, in my opinion, they don?t deserve a fucking cent. If they?re going to cart off their own goddamn parents to a linoleum-lined hellhole like this, they don?t deserve a damn dime. Fuck ?em.
So that leaves yours truly. This way, at least, the money will be used and appreciated. Yeah, it?s illegal… but it?s not like I?m killing anybody or anything. So relax.
Anyway, this old bastard ends up with over four thousand bucks hidden in his room. Now that?s a pretty large score, a good one. Usually I?ll find around two or two and a half, so four large is very nice, indeed.
And now it?s time to make my exit.
So I?m walking to the door, ready to go alert the main desk for this wing that a patient has croaked, when I start thinking, which usually leads to either trouble or profit of some kind. I found most of this money in the medicine cabinet. The medicine cabinet?
?medicine cabinet?.
?MEDICINE cabinet?.
?MEDICINE?
MEDICINE
And I get a little idea.
Ok, this guy in particular had quite a few little pill bottles in his cabinet. All sorts of stuff: he?s got stuff to knock you to sleep at night, stuff to keep you up all day (I mean stuff to keep you awake, not to keep you ?up?, like your dick), stuff to speed your heart rate up and back down again? We?re talking some heavy pharmaceuticals here, people. And it?s about this time I start to realize I?ve only been taking advantage of about only half this little job of mine. Sure, the money I?ve been taking in (actually, taking out) has been good (especially tonight), but the drug market?s a whole other deal altogether. I could be selling this stuff on the street, just repackage it and call some of it speed, some of it E, you get the picture. And it?s a high-priced, very well paying picture. Because the junkies will buy anything (and pay anything) if you tell them they?ll get off on what you?re selling. Anything to take their mind off of right now.
And if that would make me a quote-unquote ?drug dealer?, well so be it. It?s not as if my moral standing has been at attention, lately.
So I figure, what the fuck? And go for the medicine cabinet.
I?m grabbing all the bottles I can, shoving them into my pockets. Just grabbing and shoving. Grabbing and shoving. Why the nursing home let?s the patients keep all their medicine with them in their own room, I?ll never know. You?d think the dumb old fucks would end up OD?n on this shit. But then, the patients get what they want at the Helping Hand. Their money buys a lot of favors around here.
I was thinking about this for a minute, and that?s about when the lights come on. And, unfortunately for me, there?s no goddamn door separating the personal bathroom from the bedroom.
Who the fuck makes a fucking bathroom without a fucking door on it? Son of a motherfuckign BITCH PIECE OF FUCKIN SH-
?Oh, Harry, baby, I?ve been wanting you all week??
Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, God, no.
I turn around and there?s this mummified old witch standing there, taking those little old lady baby steps toward the bed, a disgusting grin painted with red lipstick on her nasty, liver-spotted face.
?Mmmmmm?. Harry, baby?.?
Not only is this really bad for me, it?s really, really fucking sick, too. This dumb old bat has been riding the old bastard that died tonight. Harry. And she?s back for another romp. Well, she?s in for a jolt, but probably not the kind she was hoping for.
?Harry? Harry??
And even though I know I?m fucked, the first thing I?m thinking of is not to run, but instead, I?m wondering how the hell these old fogies can even find each other good looking, let alone fucking sexually attractive.
But I come to my senses and flick my flashlight off, but by then it?s too late. I?ve got a handful of pill bottles in one hand, along with a few at my feet and some poking out the tops of my pockets, and the old bitch sees me in the corner of her bloodshot eye and turns to look.
ohshitshitshitshitshit
First, she just jumps, like, a mile and sucks in air real loud
nononononofuckinrunrobertyoustupidgreedyfuckerawshitthiscouldbefuckinbad
and her eyes are as big as baseballs and she can see I?m taking the drugs and
don?tpanicdon?tpanicjustactcoolactcooldon?tpanicdon?tpanicohfuckinshitdon?tPANIC
even though I?ve got on my white orderly uniform, the fact that I?m cramming a fucking
handful of loverboy?s drugs down my pants, along with the fact that her boyfriend?s not moving at all and his mouth is drooping wide open, could cause her to lose it.
I take a step forward and try to say something, but all she let?s me get out is, ?Uhhh, ma?am, this isn?t what it looks li-?
don?tscreamdon?tscreampleasedon?tscreamdon?tyoufuckinscream
And then she screams.
fuckfuckfuckyou?regointoprisonprisonyou?regointofuckinprisonawshitfuckingprison
All I know is I?m not going to a prison for this job, no sir. Not for taking some money that wouldn?t be spent, anyway, and a few upper-class pharmaceuticals.
And so I run the hell out of there.
January 1st, 2005
Great, so here we are again, awake and aware. Existing again thanks to one of a variety of electronic or biological alarm clocks we sat the night before we collapsed on our shitty spring mattresses, thanks to one of the following conditions: tiredness, boredom, concussion, or inebriation.
And it hurts so goddamn much to stretch your pathetic excuse of a body. It hurts so much to lift your head to focus on the nearest digital representation of time, silently freak out and scramble from under your cum-stained sheets and throw on yesterday?s clothes and stumble out into the gray, bitter morning only to see the glowing toothpaste ad on your bus ride as it zooms off without you to your place of emotional internment: your job.
Book store, record store, caf?, telemarketing agency, the GAP, Bed Bath & Beyond, bank clerk, whatever the hell it is you do. It sucks, whatever it is. That?s for damn sure. It sucks. It sucks a whole fucking lot. Not like you could have an interesting job like? oh, I dunno. Mortician. There, that?s an interesting job. Get to mess around with corpses all day long; work with the dead, the only people in the world who have any idea if there?s an afterlife. Special folk, the dead. And just think, when you go to a singles bar you can wear a big fucking trench coat and a top hat, leer at the closest big-titted co-ed princess and say, ?I am a mortician.? Shit, she?d be all over you. Fuck yeah. Morticians rock.
But I digress! You are not a mortician. You?re some minimum wage fuckjob with greasy skin and a broken dream, driven to work to keep yourself from going truly batshit and hungry. Oh sure, the management might toss an extra quarter in your salary to keep you satiated, but does that really get you anywhere faster? Does it justify sleeping with the roaches? Does it give you wings, a ripped stomach, a golden tan, and a chariot in which to sodomize your celebrity of choice? Does it? Huh?
Feh. Hope you like ramen, kid, because other than Easy Mac your dining choices are fucked. But you knew this already. You know that the only thing different in your daily grind is chicken, vegetable, or beef. Some fucking good your extra quarter does. Whee, a new TV! Now you can listen to the shitty state of the universe in stereo. Today, people died and our economy is going to shit. Next up, a comedy with a queer. Oh, the hijinks!
Anything?s more interesting than your life. How many bathmats did you sell today? Who cares! In the end, you just stuck another $20 in some rich cocksucker?s wallet which he might use to light one of his Fat Alberts if he doesn?t wipe his ass with it first. Good job! Meanwhile, you and your quarter rot in your shitty apartment, waiting for the next big thing.
And what is it? What?s this great big fucking Thing we?re all looking forward to? What exactly was the bonus we were promised when our mother drunkenly shit us out of her gaping glory hole? What tricked you into becoming a mindless zombie and stop worrying about what?s going to happen when you die of a stroke in the depressing home your ungrateful spawn shoved you in when you started being just a little bit more trouble than you?re worth?
I sure as shit don?t know. I don?t know why I?m fine with being in college without the guarantee of getting a degree let alone a job I?ll enjoy. I could be the greatest Political Sciences major in the universe, 4.0 with the dean?s cock in my ass and straight, white teeth and still end up trying to sell cappa-whatever-the-hell to the poseurs in a Starbucks. No pledge of security! No assurance of happiness! No promise of spending my early adulthood cutting the heads of nether-demons and saving the fucking princess. Where?s my goddamn Seven-foot Sword and Sawed-off Shotgun Voucher?
Nope, not here. Not under the couch or my disgusting stomach flabs. Is it in the new Nickleback CD? Waitaminute, perhaps it?s in the latest Star Wars film. Whoops, not there either. Perhaps I dropped it in Hot Topic next to those cool spiked collars? Where is my validation? Where is my guaranteed uniqueness? I guess I better buy some of this stuff to help me find it. Good thing you got that extra quarter, chump. Buy some more shit.
What what what you can?t afford to buy your name? Not enough scratch to purchase a disposable soul? Well then, I guess it?s time to go back to work. Don?t worry, save up a few paychecks and then you can buy that anti-social, hate everyone, scare soccer moms black tee shirt. Only twenty dollars! That?s right, we?re selling uniqueness at the cost of your originality! And who wants that?
And when you buy that shirt we guarantee you?ll be better. Your dick will swell in size and everyone will love you. You?ll be better, faster, harder, stronger. You?ll be justified. You will be so fucking cool that everything you touch turns to gold. We promise this. That?s why it costs twenty dollars. Hey, uniqueness ain?t cheap, kid.
So don?t just stand there on the street watching the bus roar off. Pick up your feet and run, god dammit! Run! Go! Your validation as a human being depends on that next paycheck! Don?t worry about that big Thing. It?s so far off; who has time to worry about it? Just be sure to come back for your shirt at the end of the month. We?ll keep one in stock, just for you.
January 1st, 2005
You?ve all seen the TV ads for new clothing with ?stain defender? right? Ever wonder how it works? It?s simple: Nanotechnology. Let me explain, as it?s crucial to the rest of this post (and the rest of our future).
If you didn?t pay much attention in science, nano- means small. Very small. In fact one nanometer is really 1 billionth of a meter. That?s a 1/1,000,000,000 if you write it out. For you chemists out there, that?s exactly the width of 5 carbon atoms.
Ok, so what we?re really talking about are things called ?nanotubes?. Basically they?re tube like carbon molecules. So small, however that it would take about 50,000 of them side by side to match the thickness of one human hair. What?s so special about these you might ask? Well for starters, not only are they thousands of times stronger than steel, but if kept straight they conduct electricity better than any conductor currently in industrial use. Twist it a bit and you?ve just made a transistor. Likewise, a nanotube can be made into any electronic device you can imagine.
Compared to silicon, nanotubes are only 1 atom thick, yet hundreds of times more durable than a silicon chip. They can handle heat better too, so making 3D components is no problem at all. Essentially then, nanotechnology is nothing more than using nanotubes to create ?computers?.
What?s better, the possibility exists for these little ?machines? to be programmed to manipulate their environment. This means we can make ?tiny machines? that create other ?tiny machines?. Better yet, and essential to the rest of this article, we can build ?tiny machines? cable of using materials in their environment to build replicas of themselves. Since it takes millions and billions of research dollars to build one ?nanobot?, this is a very important discovery. We just need to build one, and have it build the rest. Talk about cost-effective!
I was reading on Fark.com about how the US army is developing tanks that can repair their own paint jobs. ( Link Here ).
But why stop there?
Why not build an entire car out of nanotubes? It?ll be a lot stronger than any material they currently use making it much safer and greatly increasing crash test ratings.
Plus, a car made entirely out of nanotubes would only weigh about 50lbs.
You?d never have to worry about your paint getting scratched, it?d have the power to repair itself immediately. You?d never need new tires either as they could just use carbon atoms from the ground to replace their tread.
Got a dent? No problem, your car will be able to repair itself instantly. Don?t like color of the interior or the paint? No problem, it can change, without any outside effort. Driving your convertible with the top down and it starts raining? No problem, your car will simply just ?grow? a top to cover you.
As for the car?s internal computer, we mentioned before how they can be made into machines and programmed, so there?s no need for a separate computer. Your car?s brains would be spread out evenly throughout it?s body.
As for fuel? Forget it. The entire surface of your car (being made of nanotubes) would be one large solar panel.
What?s even better? It won?t cost you nearly as much either. Since your car will basically ?build itself? it can be built right there in the dealership while you wait, to your specifications. If you?re not happy with the result, it can change, right in front of you.
Granted, we?re still a couple decades away, but won?t the future be cool?
January 1st, 2005
It was cold, disagreeable night. The sky was grudgingly turning from bruised purple to black, with pricks of light showing their faces and the waning moon spilling onto the frozen sidewalk. Naturally, I was waiting. Standing about without a coat on, my hat held behind my back like a shameful secret. I waggled it by it?s brim, shuffling my legs in the thin shelter the Dockers provided. A lamppost winked on and I looked about as the campus buildings began their nightshifts. I dragged a foot over a patch of frozen soil and sighed.
?Hey faggot.?
Lindsey approached me in what she must have thought was a provocative manner, but it looked like her hips were out of control. Regardless, the bitch was a knockout, again, as she always was and probably still is. She was wearing a little black dress, except that it was red and had some yellow Russian character on the chest, right between her perky little tits. Open-toed sandals, of course. Why she was trying to show as much skin as she could in this unforgiving weather was beyond me, but my un-milked libido was grateful for her choice of attire.
?Ah, ma petite bichette, you look?? I stalled, eyeing her until she showed some sort of concern, and then I answered, ?like shit. That?s the best you could do for me??
?Fuck you.? She playfully slapped me and hooked an arm around one of mine. ?Let?s get going, I?m freezing. Where am I taking you for dinner tonight??
?What?s good? Italian? Seafood? Hard cocks?? She snorted and gave a tug, causing me to stumble.
?Italian. But not Zio?s. Too greasy.?
?There?s a family-owned in the Birchwood Center. My cousin?s said good things.?
?Sounds good.? She buries her face in my neck for a moment. ?I didn?t realize they were selling dog shit cologne now.?
She digs a clusterfuck of keys out of her plastic purse and uses the remote to unlock her gray Mazda. The interior lit up and showed a tomb of sun bleached stuffed animals and fast food sacks. She leans over to the passenger seat and throws a pile of law books into the back and scrapes crumbs into the quagmire of carpeting on the car?s floor. I open the door and the seatbelt whines as it retracts.
?Charming.? I ease my big self into the chair and a stagnant aroma fills my nose, one that?s probably all too familiar to Lindsey.
The car chugs to life and we pull out of the student parking lot, lights on and 103.5 KJAR playing some fucking insipid rap. I lean back and pull my hat onto my head.
?What?s up with you and that hat? You?re always wearing it.?
I shrug. ?Just like it.? It was a woven straw cap, much like a beret. I saw it in Dillard?s and bought it on a whim, never thinking it would become a part of my wardrobe. Now I can?t bear to look at myself without the damn thing. ?Does it look stupid??
She shrugs. ?No. Doesn?t bother me.?
We pull into Birchwood Center and manage to get a spot right in front of Fonzelle?s. The wait isn?t long and we?re seated at a table in the back of the smoking section, of which Lindsey makes use.
She lights a GPC and crosses a shaved leg, kicking it as she reads the wine list. ?Acting class was such bullshit today. Woodland paired me up with Aaron.?
?That slug with the glasses??
?Yes, him.? She holds her arms out and sways side to side. ?Jee ja joh ja na na. Fucking Jabba the Hutt, I swear.? Drag, exhale. ?He followed me everywhere in class. I went to the bathroom for twenty minutes and he was waiting on me. Waiting. Jesus Christ, fuckers like him, they just?? She puts a hand to her forehead. Oh, such pain. Such ennui. Poor you.
?I?d say the porkster?s grown sweet on you.? I grinned as I snatched the wine list from her and winced at the prices. This week?s allowance isn?t going to last me long.
?God, I don?t even want to consider the idea of him liking me.?
?He?s jacking off right now. Right this second. He?s lying in his broken, sagging bed with his noodle dick in his beefy paw, rubbing one off on you.?
She kicks me and snubs her cigarette out. ?Probably right. Fucking fatass? Christ, you?d think they?d get a clue and run their ass around the block.?
I look up at her. A waiter comes by and pours us some water; we both order whatever?s the special and two glasses of chardonnay. I let a moment pass.
?So what makes me different??
?Hmm?? She sucks in an ice cube as she sips.
I gesture to myself. ?I ain?t exactly slim and trim myself, you know. I?m not as bad as Aaron but fuck knows, I could be in better shape.?
?I?m doing it for the money, Icon. I have absolutely no romantic interest in you at all and I plan to kill you as soon as we?re married and get a life insurance plan.?
?Joke?s on you, shit ain?t happening without a prenup.?
She winces as she hears the word. ?Ooh, bad word, bad word.? She smiles. ?I dunno. You?re smart, for one. You?re not an idiot.?
?Well, I try.?
?I mean, you understand yourself. You know you?re not perfect, that you?re a horrifically flawed human being with a million and one neuroses. You?re true to yourself and you?re creative. You can impress people without buying something. You?re original. You?ve got a soul.? She plucks a fresh cigarette from her purse and lights it. ?Plus, you can say something to be without spraying spit and crumbs all over my face.?
?Don?t put it past me,? I say as the waiter returns with two plates of shrimp linguini with mussels and the chardonnay. She smokes as she eats, which I find to be disgusting.
After a moment I get a brilliant fucking idea and push my plate to the center of the table. I waggle a finger at Lindsey and put the end of a noodle in my mouth. She sighs and forks up the other end. We work our way up and kiss, smearing olive oil over our lips.
***
?It wasn?t worth $58.34.? As usual, I?m bitching about the money as we exit.
Lindsey?s on her fourth cigarette. She?s looking at a group of kids hanging out in front of a Git n? Go. ?I wonder if they have any ?cid??
?Wouldn?t doubt it.? I dig out my wallet again and count twenty-eight dollars. Shit, Dad gave me a hundred yesterday; told him it would last me all month.
?Give me a twenty.? She turns to me, palm up.
?Fuck you. I paid for dinner.?
?Jesus Icon, I?ll pay you back when we get back to campus.?
I groan and fork over a Jefferson. She walks up and babbles to the stoners, and for a moment, I realize how fucking ugly she is. How skinny and flax her body is, how robotic her moves were. How purposefully girly she was. What a fucking Barbie. As soon as she comes back, though, she?s beautiful again; boner-inspiring material. She holds up a little vial and grins.
?Gonna get fucked up tonight. Ever done LSD??
?No.?
?Do you have an eyedropper back at your dorm??
For some fucking bizarre reason, ?Yes, I do.?
***
I?m lying on her bed, atop some ancient Beauty and the Beast bed sheets, watching Lindsey cautiously prepare the eyedropper. Her dorm was much smaller than mine, but in far better condition. Unlike her car, the place was as clean as a hospital. She was walking around in stockings now, wiggling her toes in the confines of the webby stuff.
?It?s going to sting like fuck.? She holds up the eyedropper to the fluorescent lighting and shakes it, trying to get the air bubbles out. I shift at the mention of pain.
?Wonderful.?
She moves over me and holds the dropper as far away from me as she possibly can. ?Are you ready to leave the earth, Icon??
I held silent for a moment, but I wasn?t considering if I was ready or not. For that moment, under a halo of clean buzzing light, Lindsey had attained that sensual appeal that drove me to her in the first place. As porcelain as a doll. As forbidden as an angel.
I held two thumbs out. ?Fire me up, baby.?
An inconspicuous glob erupts from the reservoir and flies down towards me like a manic bomber, it?s target my left eye.
WHAM
?Shhhhit!? Like an idiot I hunch and roll to one side, trying to nurse my eye.
Lindsey pushes me back over. ?Stop being a fucker and open your other eye!?
Two ruby-red finger nails peel open my right eyelids and she squirts another drop into it. I grunt in pain and roll over, burying my face in the musky, soft pillow.
?Shit.? Through bleary eyes I see Lindsey administering herself the drug, her cat-like face scrunching. ?How long does it take for this to get going.?
?Few seconds.? She sits down and puts her hands to her face, and I sit up. A silence passes and I look at her, and her at me.
And then it starts.
My forehead explodes and the room becomes a panorama of color and lights. Carbon copies of her stuffed bear collection collect in my eyes as I frantically flick them about, trying to find stasis in the sudden hurricane of sensory overload. My eyes become very, very warm.
I find myself wanting to stand, to move about. Lindsey laughs and lies back on her bed, kicking up her legs.
I pick up a book of Magic Eyes and open it up, the epileptic patterns morphing and rolling over each other.
?Wow.?
Lindsey leans over to a nightstand and fumbles with a CD player. Some generic guitar rock begins playing. I don?t know what it?s called but I?m sure I?ve heard on the radio five billion times already.
I close the book and walk over to her. ?This is my favorite song.?
?Oh my God, I know.? She sits up and hugs me, burying her face in my stomach. Standing up she takes her hands in mine and begins trying to waltz with me, but I stumble and all I can see are huge blots of color. We dance ourselves into a corner and she leans on me, giggling.
?Ohhh shit.? She reaches over and takes one of her stuffed bears, slumping to the floor. She rubs it?s plastic black eyes with thumbs and looks at her reflection in them, breathing quietly.
I manage to move myself across the maze of light and sound over to her window. God, the night. It?s as though the universe fell from it?s moorings and landed on the campus below. The lampposts were the stars, they Meyers Library fountain the moon, the trees were distant galaxies and the people below were aliens. I opened the window and leaned out, briefly considering riding the vapor trails my eyes left but thought better of it.
There?s a fire escape out there. I swing a leg out and Lindsey turns.
?Hey.? She drops the bear and turns herself onto the floor. ?What?s up??
?Going outside. Wanna come??
She nods and crawls across the floor to me and I help her out.
***
We?re leaning on each other on the rooftop?s edge, sitting on her massive roommate?s coat. Lindsey?s shoved her stocking feet under my ass to keep them from freezing. There?s a breeze and leaves from years gone past dance across the gravelly rooftop. We?ve spent the last hour talking about how can birds fly, each of us offering our own theories.
I look up at the night sky for the 8302nd time and watch another star fall from it?s place like a raindrop, disappearing in the black morass. I felt so goddamn numb, and not because it was ungodly cold. Lindsey nudges me.
?So? so what do you think it?s like?? She?s tearing up a business card into perfect little squares. ?To fly.?
I watch a leaf fly past my face, tracing the foggy patterns it leaves. ?It?s wonderful, I?m sure.? A silence passes. ?If you could fly, everyone would love you.?
Lindsey opens her palm and lets the breeze take the business card turned confetti. ?Where would you fly??
I don?t hesitate to answer. ?The moon.?
?Why the moon?? She laughs. ?I mean? what?s there??
?I dunno. That?s why I want to go there.?
Lindsey nudges me again. ?Fly to the moon, Icon. Fly away to the moon. Fly, fly, fly.?
I stand and hold my arms out. ?Zooooom!?
?What kind of bird are you??
?A crow.?
?A crow? you don?t look like a crow.? Lindsey giggles and stands next to me and holds her arms out as well. ?Caw caw!?
I lean over and bump my nose on her bare shoulder. ?Caw!?
?Caw caw!? She replies. ?We?re two giant crows in Springfield, Missouri on a dorm rooftop, tripping on acid and flying to the moon. Caw!? She nudges me again, causing me to lose balance for a moment. The ground begins to escalate but I lean back.
I let my happiness get the better of me and I shove her, hard. ?Caw,? I said, as she stumbled two steps and over the edge.
As she tumbled, she laughed. Her arms windmilled as she fell, and for a moment I reach beyond the trip and to her, fear cutting the numbing joy in my head. I lean over the edge to watch her descent to grace.
She smiled as she fell, reaching for the illusions she saw. It was all happening in slow motion, and as she fell past a lamppost, I swear to this day she bore wings, luminescent wings of dreams, and became so beautiful that I could never consider her something as base and inferior as a human ever again.
She hit the sidewalk laughing and smiling. Her pale body bounced once and knocked the life out. Her limbs fell limp, stiff in seemingly preset joints. A splotch of blood jumped from her mouth and sank into the sidewalk. Her eyes became glassy; dead yet alive. And she was still smiling. God above, she was still smiling.
I had just watched her as she went from human, to angel, to doll.
The reality of this didn?t hit me until I heard some girl shriek in terror. I sat up and looked at the sky again, searching for, what, an answer? Lindsey? A way out?
I don?t know. I don?t know what I was looking for but the final star in the sky fell away, and there was nothing to see but the nothing. And it terrifies me. There?s nothing left in the sky.
There?s nothing left in my life.
There was a crowd gathering around Lindsey now, and a few accusatory stares were finding my face. For a moment I think they too are looking at the starless sky, but I now know they were glaring at my drug-addled face.
I run to the fire escape and begin clambering down.
I?ve got to get out of here.
January 1st, 2005
I just watched Moulin Rouge and can I just say that it is one of the worst films I have ever seen. Although I am surprised that we do not see more Hollywood films based on the concept of “all we need is love” I am still shocked when they rely on the concept of love to hide the obvious flaws of the main characters.
Okay, a bit of background: the Good Guy, Christian, is in love with the Heroine, Satine. The bad guy, The Duke is also in love with her. Towards the end of the film we see that Satine pretends to not love Christian (to stop him getting killed) and Christian has to bear the heartbreak of a girl who pretended to love him. We feel a massive amount of sorrow for Christian, who is under the impression that Satine was never in love with him, and was just toying with him. What a horrible thing to feel – that a girl only pretended to be in love with him.
Hello? Did we miss something here? The same fucking thing happened to the Duke earlier in the film. He was in love with Satine and she pretended to be in love with him back so that they could steal his money. And suddenly he’s the bad guy? Why?
Yes, he did try to buy her instead of falling in love that traditional way (through song apparently) but then again she is a whore, and she was there to be bought. And besides, even though she was completely in love with Christian, and could never go through with sleeping with The Duke, she still had no problems whatsoever with taking his money.
I guess it is all to do with what traits the characters posses. We all knew that The Duke was evil as soon as we realised he was rich and ugly. Christian, on the other hand, had the virtues of being talented and good looking, signifying to us straight away that he is the hero that can do no wrong.
January 1st, 2005
the following was sent in by ScrewTape
Which are you?
In the process of a random online conversation last night, through myriad paths of drug induced discourse (yes folks, boredom is a drug) I happened to be drawn into a discussion that forced me to articulate something that I?ve long felt but never really put words to. Although no great treatise on the human condition, I did feel it was interesting enough to warrant a bit of spit n? polish and possibly the attention of others. Now, to be quite honest I?m not exactly sure how the topic was broached but basically it came down to what I feel is a major separation in our species. Specifically what it is that makes us all human but only some of us people. Before we go into it any further I?ll go ahead and tell you that for most of you, when I say person or people you?re hearing something different than what I mean. So bear with me if it?s a bit confusing in the beginning, we?re going to try and remedy that.
I feel that the difference between a human and a person is a step in evolution. Although some might argue it?s spiritual (and it very well may be) I like to think of it as an evolution of the mind. A step forward in mentality. Essentially it breaks down into this. We?re all born as animals, that is the first thing we are and the first thing we will always be. This, to me, is a human. An animal and nothing more. As an animal we are gifted with a set of senses and for this discussion we?ll only take into consideration the five that are universally accepted. Sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste. In no particular order. Now through these senses we have the ability to perceive our world and gather together a great tome of vast and nearly inexhaustible knowledge. This I believe, is where the split has its roots.
As our personal lexicon of knowledge increases we begin putting together pieces here and there, building scales and forming patterns. The ever changing scales and patterns we create are then used to measure ourselves and the world we inhabit. This is how we grow (mentally) and the standard by which we judge maturity. Many believe, myself among them, that it is the application of this knowledge that is acquired and tempered through experience that constitutes wisdom. Wisdom being nothing more than a deeper and more thorough understanding of what it is that we perceive as humans. To carry that a step further, maturity (the level of our mental growth) is roughly equivalent to the amount of wisdom we possess as individuals. Still with me?
So then, imagine humanity on a sliding scale of mental evolution. Those at the top being the most wise (enlightened) and those at the bottom the least (unenlightened) and in between, scattered throughout this amazing panorama of humanity, we have all manner of folks in various stages of wisdom/maturity. This is where the split becomes apparent. As we watch, a small number of those visible in our microcosm move up, a few move down, but the great majority sits nearly immobile. Stagnant. So we have three distinct and separate groups. Ones evolving (rising, moving forward, advancing), some devolving (sinking, retrograde motion, retreating), and then the largest group of all barely moving in any direction, mostly just being (hovering, standing, shiftless). In seeing this we can venture to say that in real-time the greatest indication of which group someone belongs to is their behavior. The ability, or more often willingness, to re-prioritize their instinctual impulses of want/need and weigh more complex matters into their decision making thought processes. Ergo, those who are more enlightened tend to be less likely to fall prey to the petty emotional (animalistic) indulgences such as greed, jealously, and hatred that we, as humans, still practice almost religiously on a daily basis. This is truly what separates mankind. The rift between being a human, and being a person.
And that?s it, how I view the sad predicament of my fellow humans. It isn?t anything new, I?m sure it?s been said many times before in much more eloquent ways but up until this evening I?ve never taken the time personally to really dissect it and study what I believe. Now, I?m not claiming to be right, I?m intelligent enough to understand that right and wrong are mostly perceptual and I?m in no position to judge the merit of either. This is merely meant to be a statement of what I believe to be the reason for many of our differences and the problems that arise thereof. As animals we are truly magnificent specimens. Creatures worthy of praise in our ability to not only adapt and survive, but to flourish under any conditions. However, as enlightened beings, as people, we still leave much to be desired.
January 1st, 2005
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