Tomes · of · Fate

Like when I said I'd never come back here and post again. Unfortunately for LiveJournal, whenever a fleeting thought comes, I've no where else to put it.

I don't think I'm concerned anymore, about who reads what I write here. I like to think my friends use this as a way to get a better look inside my head, but, either way, I don't mind. It sucks though, because I am at a spot in my life, where I've turned my back on Emo-ish tenancies, so finding a proper outlet for thought is harder than it used to be.

The reason I bring up that stuff about learning who I am and all... it's because deep down I wonder how many people think of me the way I think of myself. To me, I've always been a philosophical person, a hopeless romantic, and a wandering storyteller. I doubt many people see me as any of the three.

Right now the reason I'm musing over this nonsense, is because it occurs to me, that there's someone who I wish would get to know me better. Someone who could look past the sort of social stereotype I feel I've fallen into.

Allow me a moment, to plagiarize Frank Miller, in a metaphor about my life.

Time and time again, I've cast out the dice, and never once have they rolled up positive. For a while, I stopped rolling the dice, I quit playing the game, but the longer I refused, the more I realized I was getting no where.

Then one day I woke up, and found out that not playing the game means I'll never win, and remembered what it was like to try. To hope for that magical number. Now I once again roll the dice, but it is not fear that grips me, only a heightened sense of things.

Ok, so there wasn't much of a quote from 300 there, so bite me.

I'm reminded suddenly of every moment in my life up to this point. They say your life can suddenly... flash before your eyes, but, it's different. It's rather like a slow montage over a period of time.

Déjà vu, if you'll allow me the indulgence. Moments from the past that are actually visions of the future. It's hard to let go of the past. But when the day does come, it's sudden, jarring. You suddenly feel no more reason to hold on, objects within your grasp devoid of value, worthless trinkets doing nothing for you.

I'm ready to let go.

Fate, it's always been a sticky situation. Love, even worse. I'm not normal, I'm convinced. Normal people think love is some rare, arcane thing. I don't.

I don't think I've ever been in love, but I have loved. There is a distinct difference in the wording. I'm suddenly, shockingly so, reminded of those who I do love, and the reasons why.

The Woman Who Gave Me Life, The Woman Who Taught Me How to Live, The Girl Who Gave Me Hope, The Girl Who Helped Me Learn to Stand, and The Girl Who Saved Me.

Throughout my life, I've idolized these women. The first two are my mother and grandmother, who I blame (chidingly) for everything I am today. They gave me Tabula Rasa, and the others filled in the rest, or, at least helped me out of writer's block.

When I was younger, I didn't realize what love really was. I'll admit to having crushes on all three of the girls who have contributed to my life. I think it's only human nature, to some degree. For whatever reason, all three of those doors are closed.

I used to be angry, at fate... a selfish notion that I was getting an unfair deal. I realize now it was nothing I could ever have changed. For the first time in my life, I'm comfortable with that. Who knows where we will be in ten years? Twenty? Waiting for a door to open is a waste of time, and effort. I'll keep living my life, but I'll never forget they exist, I'll never write them off.

You see, it's the difference between being in love with someone, and loving them for granting you a kindness they never even realized. I won't forget, it's my lot in life not to. One day I'll find the person who really will work with me, and we'll have something special, but until that day comes... I'm not going to wait.

I do feel remiss though, without mentioning The Girl Who Tried to Kill Me. I wouldn't feel right, not giving her some measure of gratitude. She taught me how strong I really am, she showed me I could be free. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. For that, I truly am grateful.

I don't know how much more I'll update this. I really think I reached a new place in my life, spiritually. I think I have my answer. It wasn't what I was looking for, but I've learned to stop looking for impossible answers.

Thank you, all four of you. I think it's time I made good on some long overdue promises.

~ The Boy Who Loves

PS: Life isn't perfect. It's a beautiful, glorious mess. The point is to take what you can from it, and savor it. There is no right way to do something, only the way to do something right.

One year ago today, I made myself two promises. One year later, and I've broken them both.

Here's to next year. Yes, I know I'm being Emo. I'll appreciate being allowed a penchant of hypocrisy.

Sometimes I find it difficult to think of where I've been and where I'm going. I'm often crippled with an overwhelming desire to punch myself thusly in the face when I realize what I've let happen.

"What can change the nature of a man?"

It's a good question, and I'll thank the makers of Planescape: Torment (one of the greatest role-playing games of all time) for posing it to me.

In the game, of course, you're presented with several dozen answers. Love, Fear, Guilt, etc. etc. I've yet to actually figure out what Ravel (the NPC who asks it) considers the right answer.

But I don't care. I know the right answer. It's on the list they give too, and I selected it. And when that NPC asked me if I was sure, I said, "Damn straight, bitch." which cumulated in some curb-stomping of the ugly ole Night Hag.

The answer is "Regret."

Don't let it fool you, the nature of a man is rather unwavering. Humans are vastly too stupid to experience proper Operant Conditioning. Where as a dog that is beaten repeatedly for performing a task in a specific way, will correct his ways until he finds a manner in which he is not beaten, humans wont. Humans don't conform. You might think they do, and, by God, they'll pretend to, but in the end, we'll just end up doing whatever the hell we want to do.

A lot of people, when faced with that Conditioning Factor, find a way around it. Yes, instead of laying down like a dog and taking it, Humans actively pursue the same target with different means, no matter how the fuck much we get shocked for touching the outlet. It's our nature, and nothing changes that.

Expect, regret. Regret is the purest form of intelligence. Because, regret, in essence, is a feeling a person gets in regard to his own life. So many times, we refuse to see the error in our ways, because we see our methods as perfect, infallible. Regret is different though, we know we fucked up, and that's why we feel regret.

It's beauty in its truest form. A weapon for man to take up and bare against his own stupidity. To change his nature a man must realize his own, inherent failings. He must accept that he is flawed, and has failed. He must then go on in spite of it, but instead of approaching the same, impossible task like a true idiot, he must find something else of equal but different value to pursue, else he'll end up stuck in the same rut for the entirety of his life, until he finally realizes his own lack of control over the cosmos, and kills himself.

Yes, friends, there is but one answer to life's question. Live or die. It's that simple. If you're not going to be a proper human and learn to grow, then end it quick, it's more merciful than sticking true to that rut.

This Saturday it will have been one year since the last time I made a foolish, empty mistake. I do not regret having made the mistake, because inherently, regret has forced me to grow. I do ultimately, however, regret having not had the foresight to save myself time and effort. This mistake was unforgivable, and yet I did it twice this year, and only once the previous, and again, once before that.

Four times in three years. That's not me ignoring Operant Conditioning, that's just me being a fucking idiot.

I will not make that mistake again.

I will not.

I swear it.

Spider-man is evil. He is a remorseless murderer, hiding behind the thin justification of heroism and justice.

And why, you ask, is one of the most well-known superheroes of all time, evil? Simple. Though I have to be really nerdy to make my point, so here goes...

In the original Maximum Carnage arc, the super-villain Carnage is introduced. Carnage is psychopathic mass-murderer known as Cletus Kasady, who inherited the super powers of an alien symbiote that split from the more mainstream villain, Venom.

Nerd explanation out of the way, the events are as follows. Carnage breaks out of jail, using his powers to murder all of the guards in the prison, and several innocent bystanders. All of these people have families, all of these people are fathers, and mothers, and daughters, and sons. He is evil, but that's a universally excepted concept.

And so is Spider-Man.

Because, at several times throughout the story arc, the choice is placed forward, "Kill Carnage, or he will break free and do it again." And, on each occasion that Spider-Man has to let another hero, or villain, kill him, he stops them. He stops them, and Carnage runs off in the meanwhile, and he murders people, more innocents, random people on the street, anyone.

Spider-Man claims piety, but, from the way I see it, he has just become as guilty of the crimes he could have stopped. That blood is on his hands.


And, no, this doesn't have much to do with anything, but I've been defending the way I think and feel a lot lately, and, well, I think this summarizes things pretty well. Inaction validates and vindicates the heinous crimes it is towards. Letting evil go unchecked, allows it to hurt others, and those sins become yours.

And yes, Jon, she's evil.

I need to know if my friends understand that viewpoint, and respect me for it. Thank you for your time.

- Josh

We've lost a great sage.

I feel great.

Every minute of every day these last few have just been... amazing. Though I fear and fret, I demolish in my Japanese class. Though I'm afraid of these SATs and GEDs, I hold nothing but confidence in their execution.

In the last nine years, I've felt buried at times, beneath my problems. I feel like I've finally managed to catch my breath, and it's unbelievable. I'm reading... a lot. A new book I'm halfway through in a day. My previous record was a week, and that book was two-hundred pages shorter than this one.

I'm writing too! Last weekend I managed nearly ten-thousand words! I haven't sustained a word count that high since NaNoWriMo! I can't believe how great this feels.

These past three days I've woken up, on my own. Usually the morning is comprised of rituals that involve my mother yelling at me until I finally manage to get out of bed, of which I'm plagued by fatigue for the rest of the day. Now, everything has changed.

I blame a lot of this on the exercise. I've maintained a complete regiment for almost two weeks now. That's longer than anything I've done in over two years. I blame a lot of it on motivation too. For the first time I'm feeling in control of who I am, and how it reflects on others. I think a lot of things have contributed to this... and it was finally time.

Philosophical Rant:

Why do I feel like I reached the apex? The moment when my live was going to either be salvaged or teeter over the brink. I have a lot to thank my friends for, for motivating me, either consciously, or otherwise. I never knew one conversation over diner could do so much.

I feel like I can breath. I feel happy. So happy. I guess there's still a part of me, deep down, that's terrified right now. Terrified I'll crash, because nothing has ever lasted long before.

But I have to ignore that. Everyone has self-doubt. Everyone. The difference is, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm sick of being in the dark.


Thank you all, for reading my nonsense, and for being there for me. It's time I made good on a couple promises.

You know how some people are afraid of the dark? You know it's not really the dark you're afraid of. It's what's hiding in the dark, and what the darkness represents to us, as a race of night-blind individuals.


I'm not afraid, of not having a girlfriend. It's an incredibly narrow-minded view to believe that out of the countless billions and billions of people out there in the world, I'll never be able to meet one that I can have a successful relationship with. Even speaking as cynically as I possibly can, it still could happen. But then again, that really isn't what's bothering me... is it?


Just like the darkness, my true fear lurks within the first.


I'm afraid of being alone. And not just your typical, no one is with me, alone, but a more, all-encompassing loneliness. Example?


All my life I've never been... "That guy," I've never gotten extremely lucky, or noticed. People tend to treat me like an addendum, and for some reason I can't shake the feeling that I'm... "Just Josh." That rather dismissive, offhandedly approach everyone gives me.


I know there are a lot of people that care about me, and I know that I have friends, but... No one every seeks me out. No one comes to me. I usually feel like an afterthought, an addition. Never a factor, never the center.


A friend, quite recently made reference to his writing partner. And it struck an odd cord. People... they have these other people, these special people... call them "Best Friends," call them, "Cool Dudes," but they're these people that others depend upon and think highly of. They share a bond of respect and admiration, and even though they may not outwardly show it, intimacy.


I never really had that. I never really had anything brush below the surface. When I was younger, or in school, I might have been able to achieve something, but now, people as a whole are extremely anti-social. People are narrow-minded. Men even more so, seem unable to show emotion, mostly even unable to carry a serious conversation.


That's why I want a woman. And not just any woman, I want to find "The Woman," the woman I'll spend the rest of my life with. Why? Because, if I ever end up with a woman, dating or married, if you will, she would have to be one of these people. She would have to be someone I could share every aspect of who I am with. I don't need superficial crap, or other miscellany, I don't need bullshit, folks, I need a partner, a companion.


Why does it need to happen soon? Why am I unable to let things happen as they will? Because I want to share the upcoming moments of my life with someone. I want a writing partner, I want someone to play video games with, tabletop, to geek out with, and spend exuberant amounts of time getting close to.


I want complete emotional and mental intimacy. My mind is a scary place, and I want to let someone inside, to help me fight away the darkness. I want a shoulder, and in turn, I want to be a shoulder, a warrior, a champion for someone else. I want someone I can care about completely, and love unconditionally.




Poetry!


__________________________________________


They say that life is a game of chances,
Played out on the whims of hapless romances,
With men the pawns and women the queens,
While the kings move unseen.


Looking at this world through a shard of crystal,
I can see a sight that's quite nearly mystical.


A world of light and dark, with a thousand of shades of gray,
Filled with a million voices too afraid to confess what it is they mean to say.


Songbirds die while mothers weep,
Bemoaning with a lament, the dirge forever unsung,
Leaving us to wonder if what we'd sow is what we'd reap,
But when the dawn breaks we find what merit truly shapes a man, and who remains undone.


In this world I still can see,
Thousands of futures never meant to be,
Lives of happiness and of worth,
Buried forever--underlying wit and mirth.


And it's in this moment I've replayed,
I glimpse a past and yet a future too,
A place I've gone and could have stayed,
Empty and devoid now, inside of you.


More now a man than a common mistake,
Could this be the cruelty of fate?
To see the image and know it's fake?


Why is it easy to hold tight the things that have come and gone,
And hard the same to reach for the things we've yet to know?
Moments arrive so fast yet they don't last long,
While we remain to fix what cannot grow.


I think it's an irrevocable part of the human condition,
To fail in spite of glory,
Forced to face our own views on this life of perdition.


Now I see a different vision,
Build with wood and brick and seats of green,
Detailed from my past with the greatest precision.


I hope that when the light goes up and the curtain is drawn,
That you're standing there without that face on,
Complete and whole and perfect too,
Just in time to take that bow, long past due.


I'll be there one last time,
To watch you when you truly can't not shine,
Then I'll leave and until it's over, and he is truly dead,
I'll be waiting for something else instead.


When I say “Goodbye,”
I will never cry,
To mourn something lost,
Comes with it's own cost.


On the horizon still,
I see it coming from just over the next hill,
My ship! My ship! Glorious as it be,
Sailed into port and waiting just for me.
__________________________________________



Gilgamesh eat your fucking heart out.


Comment, or die.

Humans, us, all people, and all things. Does anything really matter? Hundreds of millions of stars and billions and billions of lightyears makes it hard for one to believe we are truly alone on this little blue planet.

But then what? Magic doesn't exist, aliens haven't invaded our planet, people aren't special, and a single person can never change anything. A very wise person once said, "The definition of a Hero is someone who gets other people killed." Why is this true? Why do we as humans idealize fiction and literature, but balk at the very idea these things could be possible?

If I'm waxing too heavily philosophical, than I blame Heroes, after all, I wanted to do an intro that made me sound like Mohinder.

But it's true all the same. I am a creative person. In my head there are worlds beyond this one, and occasionally I find myself believing too deeply in the possibility that one of these could exist. I'm sane enough to know it is not true, but I'm crazy enough to still wish it were. Unable to grow up from Fantasies.

Nothing in life thus far has worked to perpetuate this theory, yet still it persists. My idyllic life has been torn apart so many times. I have been forced against my will, to except that things simply... can't work like they do in movies, yet still I hope for it. I identify with women so much, I've become pray to Fairy Tales. Little girls can grow up hoping for Prince Charming, but boys are supposed to forget about all that. We're supposed to grow up, get a job, and vote Republican, because that's the way the system wants us to work.

I guess it's time I stopped believing in them as well. Because although it may be possible to have a Story Book Ending, it doesn't get thrust upon you. In fact, nothing in life gets thrust upon you. In movies, and books, it does, but that's more due to an uncreative plot device meant to establish story and build character.

Fate, is what we get, when we do nothing. When we refuse to step up, and take what we can. Fate is the end, bleak and miserable, when we die alone and confused, or end up trapped, helpless. Women who stay with abusive men. People who stay stuck in dead-end jobs when they have so much more potential in life. People who refuse to see what's standing right in front of them, and keep chasing after the sun.

Destiny, is what we get, when we do something. When we step up, and we take what is ours. Destiny is the road we can travel, should we choose it, it is a metaphor for every good thing that could possibly happen to us in our life. We can move it, we can shape it, we can control it. Destiny is not something to wait for, it is something to be achieved. Great men do great things, mediocre men, do mediocre things. There has never been an epic movie told about mediocre men, no fable or tale sung.

I think I understand now, though I've claimed that a thousand times before. I think I know what I have to do, but I don't know if I can. Standing to reach this goal has... been difficult. I've done it alone, but that's given me nothing. I don't know who I'll be in ten years, or twenty. I don't even know who I'll be in eight months, or tomorrow morning, when I wake up from another Lucid Dream I can't control.

I know there's too much magic in this world to let go of hope. Every single person who makes a difference, even if the number is small, is enough to fester that hope. Every cop kept awake at night by nightmares, every mother who fears for her children, every boy who cannot control what he dreams of.

Now this may sound incredibly corny, but I have been watching Heroes a lot this past week, and it's gotten me to thinking. I believe in a lot of things, I believe that in our lifetime we are going to see changes... dramatic changes to how we act, and who we are. Thirty years ago, the world was not instantly connected by a mysterious force that binds together screens and keyboards across the planet. Who's to say what will be here in ten? In twenty?

I've already laid out a theory for enhancing human reflexes, and scientists are well beyond me, even as far as regrowing tissue and allowing us to live for hundreds of years. But what if something already exists? What if there is something, though small, that is already here?

I believe in the supernatural, because I've seen Ghosts. I believe in magic, because I've had dreams, bizarre, strange dreams, and I've placed meaning to them, and they've changed who I am.

If we all do have the potential, than I think my power is empathy. I feel people, I always have. I believe I can do this, because it's gotten me into trouble before. Maybe I'm delusional, but I believe I can sense how people are feeling intuitively, I can read through lines and know. There are no specifics, there is no science, but it's paid off for me more times than I care to count. Why else do people seek me out? Why does this keep happening to me?

Then there's my bane. The Internet. It really fucks up any innate sense I have. Because, the movements, the subtle reactions, the twitch in the eye, the curve of the lip, any indicator that I use, is fake, manufactured by my brain, fictional... fantasy. Every time I go online, I make up things as I go along, I have to, to fill in the blanks that only I can see. It makes sense, in a really weird, strange way.

Eh, I probably sound crazy, but I don't care. Anyone who knows me should know me well enough to know I already believe in this stuff. I've gotten into arguments because I rely heavily on intuition and not evidence.

If any of this makes sense to anyone, let me know. If you think I'm just rambling... well... I probably am. But if this makes sense to anyone, than maybe... maybe I'm not...

Maybe.