End Of This World

Well something had to change today.  I think I'm done here.

This blog is proof of the Allegory of the Cave.  Here I am, talking to shadows, waiting for them to respond.  Not with words, for shadows cannot speak, but with movements and gestures.  Every now and then words bounce off the walls these shadows are cast upon, and it sounds like a new truth, new advice to follow.  But we are all just shadows, us viewers of this blogspace.  The real people are out there, outside the cave.  If you asked me anytime before today I would have said that these are the real people, that this is the real me.  These words sent and received are reality, not what everyone else sees.  Even when I step outside the cave, while my eyes work just fine, I don't recognize you or I as human.  No, I can't see that you and I are just human.  We laugh, we try, we fail, we succeed, we deceive, we despair, we hunger, we sloth.  All the humans are outside doing things, but I'm in this cave talking to shadows.

Six years ago, I had my second surgery and I told myself that one day a day of great change would come about, and I would no longer need to write my notes from the underground.  I really didn't think it would take six years.  Somewhere in that time my ladder became my tomb and I was encapsulated by my notes, suffocated by these words.  But a few moments, a few people, a few desires, kisses and yes even a few words have set me free and given me the will to climb free.  So now I will.

This blog retires today.  It will merge into my Google+ account and my job is to make sure that it represents the man on the outside of the cave.  The introspection is superfluous now, we've reached atomic levels.  Let the physicists ponder our strings, my eyes are set towards the celestial fabric that binds us all.  I will share only this journey.  Let my quiet cave thoughts remain only in those caves where I once dwell; where no other man dear journey.

The world did end today, my world.  It was already ending but today I have to be at peace with it.  Next year I turn 30.  Next year I publish my first work for sale, next year (hopefully) I'm back in school, next year I move out, next year I complete my true sales training, next year I actually put myself first.  It's a new era for me; I won't be who I am. It's time to put my adolescence behind me.  There's no rum left to drink.

Thanks Yvonne for introducing me to this world.  Thanks to the yous who know who you are, for visiting me in the dark places where only the truly loving and caring would venture.  

Also thanks to all the randoms worldwide who have visited this page over time.

Furthermore dem neva ask yet.

How are you feeling? Asked dishonestly more often than from genuine desire.

What has changed? What hasn't? Is it safe for me? Why not?  Do you have an answer for me? When will you? How dare you?  Why did you?  Those are the real questions.

You should. You shouldn't. You don't really. Get over it. Stop thinking. Do more. Care less. Want more. Stop asking: Answers waiting for me.

I used to close my eyes and imagine someone who had questions for me, not about me. I'm a cat who couldn't care much for curiosity.  You'll know enough about me when I'm famous anyhow.

I'm here worked up about how I have affected them. Are they as worried about how they've affected me? Am I? Thick skin gets me through these winters but man I want to enjoy next summer.

Who cares enough to ask me something for my benefit?

"None ah dem nah see we pain, furthermore dem neva ask yet. Silence ah di baddest weapon so you know wha mi do, mi talk less."

Surrealist

Realists, cowards and theives yee lot.

Too afraid to dream of the things that aren't so you bore me with details about what is. Describing to me what you know about this red aluminum can on the table between us. Telling me what this can does to the environment, to our bodies, to our economy and others. So many words about nothing at all, trying to prove to yourself that you are awake by refusing to dream.  You're just so afraid of being wrong even once, you don't see the value of 100 hunches.

Here's a fable, once upon a time a man dreamed that there was more to this than just that. He thought, beyond our eyes is a world that connects us all in a way we just can't yet see. You realists laughed and fed yourselves with cold words.  Now you warm your food with his rays of light. He found a world past our eyes and you still can't see it. You have no time for new dreams so you microwave your stale food and stale ideas and get on your way. Out the door like a thief and you have indeed stolen. Because what you forget is all of your realism is nothing more than the theft of the dreams of wiser men.

I hereby withdraw my membership to realism - I am henceforth a surrealist.

Writer's unblock

"You're still provin' m'boy. Don't see it yet? You tryna tell the wise they aint. You tryna tell the ignant they is!  Who gon' wanna read that?"

Then it hit me, it finally pierced through. Found out the hard way why I couldn't think of more words worth writing. See I didn't have writer's block, I had sunblock on them words. Couldn't let the light touch them so all the words were dull and pasty.

See good writing is about keepin' things in transit. A good book always moves you one way or another, from there to here or here to there. You either didn't know and now you do, wasn't sure and now you are, or you were dead set in belief and now you have newborn questions, was bored to bits but now you're up all night with wonder.  A good book keeps the people in transit, but what I was saying was like a depot; words sold for free by the side of the road. Best damn words this side of the river, but they're so heavy you can't lug'em with you on your travels. Yea those words were anchored, to truth at least, but still killing the transit. 

Time now for dancing words, words that bust a move.

On the outside

Looking in. Wondering what's going on. What are they all saying without me there. Woulsn't matter; if I came back into their lives the conversation would stop. Party done, captain serious has arrived. Why is he always so serious anyway? He's funny but no fun. He's smart, but I don't need to be corrected. What use is he?

Out here my fist is buried in pudding. I've pulled out of my past lives in every form and proven the universal truth; I've achieved nothing. I am where I was. In debt, alone, confused, injured, hobbling, overweight, tired and deflated.  When you're still deflated after all this huffing and puffing you have to wonder if there is a hole in me. Where are my gaps, from which end of me does my hapiness escape?  My head has the most holes, that has to be the source of the problem. Pretty flowers taken in by the nose; sad resentment out through the mouth. And all the while gestures of love and affection passing from ear to ear. My head needs fixing, some patching up.

Attack the head and the body will fall they say. I hope so.

Fat and losing weight

My new boss gave us a hard rundown today before sending out a nasty email about our call metrics being too low. I couldn't have been happier to be the new kid. As he used extremely professional corporate management tactics to motivate us to do better he gave us advice which I decided to use and misuse.

He's right, exteremely right about the fact that things could be worse then cold calling and there are worse jobs out there from a cost benefit perspective than ours. Coming from one myself I fully understood him. The key in life to being successful isn't understanding good advice, but living good advice. Wisdom and knowledge are just ways of knowing good advice from bad. So I've decided to use it:  Every half day before lunch and before I leave for the day I will take a moment to myself to remind myself something along the lines of, "This morning, I didn't have to clean, install or fix a toilet, because that is not my job, and.for this.I am thankful."  I will do this exactly 1000 times, because I believe there are 1000 jobs worse than mine. 500 workdays later I will demand and deserve a raise or promotion. 

Nobody else in the office will do this. Nobody else I know will do this. We should, but we never do. I started to realize the truth. Most of us are not truly working. We are cashing out on our lotteries. We sell things we don't spend the time to truly understand, we meet deadlines just on time or late. We love leaving the office early for a pint and telling our friends how France has it better with shorter work weeks. I looked at my training material, which up until now has been a pain to read because I too wish to cash in on the lottery. I know work - I have cleaned shit, serviced washrooms, unloaded trucks, worked the night shift, carried 2 jobs, pulled all-nighters, stood serving customers until my foot swelled, unpacked deep freezers, built inventory departments, fought with my manager, fought with my employees, made less money per hour than the price of transportation, quit and been laid off, and that's just a brief history. I know work, very well, but I am guilty of not working. Because I too want to do the least possible for the maximum amount of money. That is not work, that is a lottery. Work is when you build a nest, and the larger a nest you build, the more confortable it will be for your love to lay eggs. Work is when you circle and prospect for hours, waiting, anticipating, for that moment when you pounce! With all of your might and ability you cease the moment and capture your prey. Work is when you want to do more, not less. Work is when you make your own mark on the world as a result of your abundance of action. Work is when you sweat because your body needs to cool down because your heart is beating. Work is when you will your heart to beat faster, everything else is rest.  When you work, you don't despair about your job versus someone else's job, because when you work you finalky realize who else is working and who is not. When you work you appreciate everyone else who is working and you approach the only distinction in the character of man. When this happens, you learn to love all the work that is being done for you, everywhere.

Up until now I've done these things in doses, but I haven't woken up wanting to do this any more than I have today. It doesn't just apply to my j-o-b, it applies to everything. I already described how I will use my boss' advice, but importantly is how I plan to misuse it. I stayed late in the office today because I realized that my whole life I have been gobbling down on information and chewing on inlt the way I chew on entertainment. I let it come to me and whatever lands in my mouth and tastes like important logic I swallow it. Everything else; crumbs on my face. But I haven't worked for knowledge for so long. It's been so long since I set out with an agenda to find out those things I've been curious about and pained myself to understand them so deeply that they become a working part of me. So I can use them, like energy, and instead of sitting here fat with knowledge, I can live a robust life of action. I put out an action plan of everything I need to know and complete to near perfection for 2013. For the next year I have very little time for entertainment - my ankles are killing me, I can't afford to put on any more weight.

Second Course

The tastiest appetizer, wants wrapped in shoulds. I've feasted. I don't even know what they taste like separately. I haven't wanted anything without thinking that it should be what I want.

But then, I chew on either my desire or beliefs so much that I'm only left with a feeling of obligation or purposeless desire. I hate the taste of wanting something that doesn't seem right or having something that doesn't feel right.

A matter of taste is all this is, look at the others. They never think twice, never. Why must I? Oh right, I think more deeply, I question more.  When they like me they note that I'm so deep, I have so many answers. They love the result and hate the process.

With whom shall I proceed to the entré?

Dear Diary: Letting Go

Today I went to the plantation
To read
Pslams and Proverbs
For the last day approaches

I sat there with my glass of wine
Soaking it in
Honouring today
For tomorrow cannot be a continuation

Hours later I walked over to the book store
As always
Looking to see what I would find
Nothing this time, what despair

Philosophy, Poetry, Science
All now in the back corner
Replaced by self-help and manga
The world is moving away from here

I could give up, I could give in
But this was affirmation
I used to walk its aisles to build myself
From now on I live only to destroy it

The world is moving as you wish
Only when you stand still do you forget
Still waters are best worshipped
By the eyes of a labourer

It is time now
Not to go, but to change
If you don't understand why
You don't understand me

This too will change
My words' humble abode
They too now must toil
Digging beneath man's surface

No more resting here
Drinking jamaican rum
Trying to grow without scrutiny
And thus failing to grow

This blog is not a blog
Never was it
Nor shall it continue to pretend
It is a mere diary

Visit it from time to time
If you wish for a lens
To the ongoing subtext
Of actions you may have missed

Today I'm letting go
Of a lot of pain
And a lot of love
Given to me and by me

The hardest part of letting go
Is the letting
Most of it is already gone
So I close my eyes

To the man who wished to convince
Conjure, persuade and prove
Here in this abode
I will now only describe

So you have no questions to ask
If you see me
Here will be the things you don't know
Out there are the things I don't know

Thanks for reading
What once was a blog
Hope you enjoy
My subtle life's diary.

Smoked Meat (unfinished draft)

It came to me one afternoon at the kitchen table with my parents.
-Smoked meat
-The harvest
-Savouring food as one savours the spring
-Why I dont appreciate my food. I insulate myself from the toil it take to prepare it. Afterall that is wyy I bought it fast. 
So why buy food you like to not even savour it to its fullest?
I shave it down my mouth, so I can only taste its sweetness, not its richness. That I might come to realize how good it tastes without reflecting  on why.  Just good and more good, while it's still hot, before it melts, before it gets hard..

fables 1 (unfinished draft)

Student to Sensai
"Where can I find?
Sensai finds it
Something more outlandish
Something outlandish and magical
Student asks sensai, "Sensai where do you find such things?
It's about time one of you asked.  For countless days you ask me to bring you wonders, wonders of the mind and of the heart.  Yet it takes you this long to wonder from where your mind and hearts desires reside?  Each day you see me dart off in the sake diection, surely to return with that for which you have beckoned, and yet who among you would follow my path?  You would rather satisfy your own life's quest at my pace than each of yours?"
He paused his rhetoric only to continue more mildly "It is not your fault, it has become your nature.  From youth we elders have trained you to drink only what we have poured.  We teach you to drink from the cup instead of directly from the well.  We teach you to drink when we feel it is time but not to drink when you thirst.  You know not how to thirst for water, if you knew how to thirst for water you would know what it is to thirst for life.  When life trickles through your fingers because you do not have any means to grasp it forever, so you drink it with passion, lapping up every drop.  When you have sucked each finger dry you spot some on the ground and you still thirst for life, only then will you bend your knees in true faith, giving yourself to the land with your very lips.  Only then will you pray for rain clouds instead of complaining that too much rain has come down against you.  These lessons you cannot learn from a cup.

My baby (unfinished draft)

easy easy
im here
have i not fed you,
have i fed you too much
do you want to play
do you miss your dada
hope you do
are you frightened
or do you need to sleep

Happy in twos

Paint happy with two colours
Blue and green

Hear happy with two notes
C and G

Pick happy with two directions
Up and left

Choose happy with two people
Me and God

Find happy with two traits
Imperfection and humour

Deliver happy with two gifts
Hands and mouth

..

Spot happy in two animals
Dolphin and snake

See happy in two places
Beach and pitch

Smell happy in two scents
Bread and hair

Touch happy in two textures
Water and cashmere

Sing happy in two languages
Spanish and Mandarin

Describe happy in two words
Today and tomorrow