Rantings of a Mad Man Part XXII: My Game

Looking back at the last couple of months, clearly I have been out of my groove. It's time to get back on my game with Rantings of a Mad Man Part XXII...

1. Guantanamo Bay spits in the face of the American forefathers. Almost literally too.

In 1775, John Adams represented in court those British soldiers who had fired on American colonists (albeit accidentally), an event which would later be called the Boston Massacre. Why did he do this? He did this because he believed that to create, nay to earn, the right to have the freedoms that we desire, that we must uphold those same freedoms regardless of the instance. John Adams represented the British soldiers because he wanted to make an example to show the colonists how Americans will treat others.

So, onto Guantanamo Bay, a place where the American government today holds people without trial, without evidence, and for undetermined amounts of time simply because of a baseless fear that they might not like us enough to want to kill us. Ironically, doing so causes more people to dislike us and more people to want to kill us. Go figure.

Regardless however, such actions fly in the face of the founders of this nation and are reprehensible at best and hypocrisy regardless.

2. Leftists who have come off their Obama-high. Seriously people, did you honestly expect that the day he took office the sun would rise in the west, the waters would recede, and the world would be born anew? And, then you have the gall to say that he has in some way failed you. In actuality, you had seen what you wanted to see from him. You fooled yourselves into believing that the world would automatically be fixed at noon on January 20th. Some of you bought the lines that the DNC fed right and independent voters. He is a politician and thus must work within politics to be successful. Don't get me wrong, he will benefit this nation. But, the goals you have set for him are so lofty I'm amazed that you could even believe them in the first place. The idea that one person will end racism is foolish. The idea that one person could repair our legacy in the world is idiotic. The idea that one person could end majority politics that run back through the Reagan Administration immediately is absurd. You've set the bar too high and when it isn't met you lose all faith. The fact is that some things have changed immediately. Theory mostly. Actions will be taken based on those theories. Only once those actions have been taken will change be made. You sit there and scorn the theory and whine about how nothing has changed yet. Give it time. Bush, inept as he was, couldn't destroy this country in a day, so too neither can Obama rebuild it in one.

3. The global warming argument. Yes, that's right everyone, I'm going to rant about global warming people. Don't worry though, it's not that I disagree with you per say. I don't. And I certainly don't agree with the opposing argument, that man cannot affect change in the environment. We see this every day. Pollution of air, water, and land, nuclear waste, CO2 emissions, destruction of the rain forests, soil erosion, depletion of the Midwestern water table, and so on. We do change the environment for the worse. This is what we should be focusing on. We should stop bull shitting ourselves that we give a damn about the environment. Most people don't, at least in that form. People care about a good place to live and a long and healthy life. If you want to affect change, even if you do truly care about the environment, the only way to get the masses to follow in suit is to relate it to them. The majority of Americans don't have a vested interest in polar bears or mountain lions. They just don't. But they do have an interest in having a clean place to live. They are interested in safe food for their children. They are interested in seeing their own lifestyles continue. Farmers want good soil. City dwellers want clean air and less traffic. Suburbia would rather businesses move into empty buildings instead of leaving them abandoned to build new ones. These are the changes we must affect. It isn't about an abstract idea called global warming or the temperature rising 2 degrees over the past 100 years or the sea levels rising possibly at some unknown point in the future. It's about showing people how their lives can be made better, easier, and healthier by responsibly working with the environment instead of recklessly working against it.

4. 25 Things About Me- It is a sad descriptor of American society today that the only way we can become close to other people is based on the free release of tidbits of ourselves in a sterile and safe place. It is to socialization as masturbation is to sex. Fun and helpful, yes, but not everything. 25 Things About Me is proof that we are truly an anti-social society. That and txting.

5. 25 Things about Me- because I never claimed to be apart from the pack on this one...

1. I am gay.
2. I am an atheist.
3. I like blonds mostly.
4. Nearly ever person I've been attracted to in the past 2 years were Sagittarius's. Strange but true.
5. I'm fairly certain that the mattress I sleep on at home was the one I was conceived on.
6. Number 5 doesn't bother me.
7. I'm very anti-social. Mostly because I've lost faith in man's ability to be intelligent.
   
8. I see connections were others see difference. I can be a peacemaker or a problem causer at the same time.
9. My favorite color is green.
10. My eyes phase between green, yellow, and blue. Only one half an eye at a time.
11. For a thin person, I love food.
12. I am a pessimistic optimist. I believe true love is possible, just not likely to be found.
13. I hate fish. People say that it's an acquired taste. I don't think I should have to acquire a taste.
14. I don't drink.
15. I don't smoke anything.
16. I do still have a good time.
17. Smoking is very unbecoming and unattractive. Honestly, what reason could you have for actively killing yourself?
    
18. I think that the vast majority of people would be happy to let others think for them. I am one of those thinkers.
19. I am a very strong writer who can't find the time to write.
20. I've felt physical pain that made me beg for death.
21. I love the beach and I love being outdoors on a warm day.
22. I don't like loud people. There should always be room in companionship for silence.
23. I love poker and can be very good at it if I don't over think.
24. I am not a stereotype; I follow my own path.
25. I would like to meet you. I'd like to meet everyone once. Whether I'd like to meet you again will be determined by how you act.
    

In You I See Me

Sit here and feel like shit. They say that the world doesn't revolve around you. But when you're sitting alone how can't it? The world revolves around you. It turns because of how you feel it feels because of how your mood turns even if only in your own eyes. Sitting alone you are the world to yourself and the world is you. Everything good and everything bad sits plainly beside you, floating in and out of thought. Regret conquers rejoice. Rejection conquers relief. Remorse conquers even the most stalwart and resolute of good intentions.

You sit and dwell and don't like what you see. The times you've bent and broken to life, to people, to your own doubts and fears. You don't like what you feel and you don't know how to fix it. You sit alone.

I've seen it, if once then a thousand times. You sit and dwell and the world closes in. No light in your day, no stars in your night, just grey. A great mass of swirling grey that pulls you and tugs you and fills you to the brim. It consumes you and turns you into something less than you. You are hopeless and forgotten and while your days do not end your part in them does. You walk but do not move. You see but do not look. You've become something you're not. Nothing.

Days pass, and nights pass too and nothingness fills you. Everything passes you by and everyone without even a glance. Your days are not numbered, not over, but they might as well be. The clutches of hopelessness and fear grasp about your neck, they sicken you with their touch, they pull you down into them regardless of how hard you fight. They are your end if only an end did come.

Days upend and nights fill with tumult. You don't know where you are. What you are. You don't know where to begin. You are not yourself. You don't know who stares back at you in your reflection. You are so fake you are an affront to fakeness. The world says be yourself and then tells you that what you are is evil or wrong. Be yourself so long as yourself is what we are.

But let me tell you this, a certainty that I know: That you are not alone. We are never alone. We are the same you and I. Two halves to a disjointed whole. I've seen what you've seen. I've been what you've been. I've felt what you have felt. I know what it's like to see the world through the lens of a camera, from the outside looking in, forever unable to impact it or to immerse in it. Know that it passes. Know that you will, if you try, be the person, the exact person, that you so want to be.

The road is difficult and many fall along the way. But together, all of us, we can make it. Together we will be free.

It's Been A While

I know it's been a while since my last post. This semester has turned out to be busier than I had anticipated. Much busier. For instance. I teach at a local high school from 7:30am to 2:00pm 5 days a week. Then, on Mondays I go to work from 4:30pm until 10:30pm. On Tuesdays and Thursdays I have a class at 2:30pm and on Thursdays I have a second class at 5:00pm. I tutor at another local high school on Wednesdays at 2:40pm until 5:30pm! On Fridays I work the same as Mondays. On Saturdays I work then too. Sunday I have to do everything that isn't done for the next week, including all work for my two classes and all work corrected or created for teaching. Fun huh.

Beats the hell out of me when I'm going get to have any fun again. Probably never. At least that's how it looks now. If I even get dinner with friends anymore, that's pushing it. I'm the bad guy because of it too. I'm the bad guy because I have so much to do that I'm being apparently very anti-social and very rushed. I'm the bad guy because I'm focused on helping my students pass instead of getting out early. Clearly I'm the bad guy.

So it's not my idea of a great time or whatever, but it isn't my fault either. I can only do my best. And sometimes, unfortunately, it isn't good enough for some. I know that I have to find a way to smooth out the wrinkles of this semester. It's tricky, but I am trying.

Clarence Thomas is Awake at the Inauguration

From this photo...