Apathy Is A Cold Body...
We all live our lives day to day, some days good, some days bad. We all have a future (in some form or fashion), we all have a present, and we all have a past.
The future, we cannot see, as we are finite beings, and despite out best efforts to envision our path, our individual paths are beset with trials and travails with may indeed, as we perceive it, divert us onto another path. The semantics of whether we were truly 'diverted' onto 'another path' notwithstanding.
Our present is just that... our present. We as human beings can lump some range of time/space that both previously and in the immediate surrounds us as our present. Yet, truly, we see time ultimately as past and present. Two microseconds ago, however indistinguishable from our conscious it is, is past. Two microseconds from now, however minute, is future. One of the very few certainties in life is that future is uncertain, and will with rapidity (is that even a word?) become a past-tense occurance. The future is not set. The previous five words? The past. And lets face it, in a world were we are consumed with ourselves enough to log our very thoughts onto a seemingly infinite forum for potentially all to see, every letter we type is filled with memories overlapping memories of the past.
(But in reality just a choice few... I will pass on going into the oxymoron that is posting personal thoughts on the Internet while at the same time decrying the death of privacy... O Brave New World, full of Doublethink!)
No doubt you noticed the title of this blog. It is a song from the album 'You Come Before You' by Poison The Well. That album was more than likely their commercial peak, and the video, at least where I was when it was broadcast (more on that later), was all over the place. They toured with Denali and Deftones that very year, and if memory serves me correctly, the year afterward.
And herein lies the main crux of my blog... Time. Specifically, era's in a person's life. That era was 2003/2004 for me. What was more than likely the happiest time of my life, and I was too angry to realize it. Oh, the dichotomy that is my life. I initially attempted to write all the good things that happened in that era, and realized it was far too long. So, as best I can, the Cliff's Note's:
-I was in college, and my grades were excellent.
-For the first time in my life, I was almost physically attractive: I had lost over 100 lbs due to working out.
-My father and I were on spectacular terms. In fact, for the first, and up until this point only time in my existence, my Dad was closer to me than my Mother.
-I was fueled by anger, and angry at everything. At first, this seems foolish to put here, but somewhat sadly, anger fuels my most intense successes. As the anger in my life cooled, so did my success. Moreover, anger... it doesn't make me happy, but there's a feeling I get when truly angry that gives me strength, courage, drive, clarity, and contentment that, and I admit this to my shame, even the Good Lord doesn't give me. Anger, truly, is my drug, and it's something I truly both fear AND desire, in the truest senses of the words, as I absolutely know the destructive power they carry to both myself and those I don't want to destroy, but yet, to those I do, or to the things inside I do, they are the ULTIMATE euphoria, something no drug, drink, or woman has EVER been able to match... crushing an enemy, real or imagined, is the ULTIMATE HIGH, and nothing can touch it.
So, as I hear this song, my mind immediately drifts back to this timeframe in my life. I keep telling myself this place, Virginia, is where I want to be, but in truth? It's the timeframe. And no doubt, going back to Virginia... hell, going back to LYNCHBURG? Now? Jesus. It'd be the worst thing in the world... seeing my world, so long forgotten... I'd be a ghost there, just as I am when I walk into Chili's now... those who do know me look at me as a relic, a footnote of a time passed like the historical markers you see when you enter some small town, or drive on the Interstate or something. I'd go back there, and as I've already been told, it'd be so changed that I'd probably actually throw up from disappointment. Those who do would no doubt do the same from seeing me. It is a time encapsulated, a season. It had it's beginning and end, and just now have I realized that it ended, and moreover, I ended it. I chose, albeit intoxicated, to leave that place. I had a 50/50 shot, and I chose the side of the coin that brought me where I am today. Don't take that to be victimization on my part... I, yes, I flipped the coin. I gambled, and I lost. So, the 'present'? It's the bed I made for myself. I accept that. But I am not above giving vent to my frustration: I made the poor choices I made, true, but woe, told though I might have been, I never foresaw the extreme grind it would take to rebuild a better bed. And please don't mistake venting and honesty for weakness and pithy... I FULLY intend to rebuild a more choice bed, indeed a better one.
I must simply acknowledge though, that life? Many parts of life are indeed out of our hands. And there is a Lord in Heaven, and He foresees all, and has ordained all. Praised be Him. In saying that, we do have choice, and free will, and as I was told once by an old woman, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"
There has been two points in my life where I thought Providence provided an upswing: the Summer of 2006, and the last half of 2008. Tragedies struck in both, however: My brother died in one, and Howard Lee Kasten in the second. Had it not been for the first, who knows what would've happened? If not for Lee, and his vitriol, I would never have left Florida for Idaho; I would've stayed at Chili's, and probably been a manager or a lead by now, knowing my work ethic and how respected I was at that point. I left because of my utter disgust of the fact that, despite my best efforts for peace, one man desired war, and when war was brought to him, and failure and shame engulfed him after defeat, he by cowardice managed to ruin what was a dream scenario. And admitting my own guilt, when I initially came down to Florida in 2007, I was adamant I was only here temporarily, and was going to vacate with extreme prejudice when I had the means, and was going back 'home', to Virginia, not realizing I was not wanting to go back to a place, but an era. Around October, a realization came to me that, indeed, I was in another 'good' era. But as my grandfather once said, the world is full of little kings, and Lee was a little, petty king. And a sad reality of life is that a little king can crush and impede with as much impunity as a real king. How many times has your boss made you leave your job, especially a job that really wasn't that bad, maybe even pretty cool? That's a little king's rule.
So I left for Idaho, then Maryland, briefly here, but got suckered into coming back to Maryland. And in returning here...
It's said that darkness makes one appreciate light, even in the shade. True ugliness makes one appreciate beauty, even if it's more plain. No, the situation I find myself in is FAR less than ideal, but... given the alternatives, I could do worse, MUCH worse, and thank the Lord above for what I have...
And God willing, an 'era' of Good shall be granted to me yet again...
The future, we cannot see, as we are finite beings, and despite out best efforts to envision our path, our individual paths are beset with trials and travails with may indeed, as we perceive it, divert us onto another path. The semantics of whether we were truly 'diverted' onto 'another path' notwithstanding.
Our present is just that... our present. We as human beings can lump some range of time/space that both previously and in the immediate surrounds us as our present. Yet, truly, we see time ultimately as past and present. Two microseconds ago, however indistinguishable from our conscious it is, is past. Two microseconds from now, however minute, is future. One of the very few certainties in life is that future is uncertain, and will with rapidity (is that even a word?) become a past-tense occurance. The future is not set. The previous five words? The past. And lets face it, in a world were we are consumed with ourselves enough to log our very thoughts onto a seemingly infinite forum for potentially all to see, every letter we type is filled with memories overlapping memories of the past.
(But in reality just a choice few... I will pass on going into the oxymoron that is posting personal thoughts on the Internet while at the same time decrying the death of privacy... O Brave New World, full of Doublethink!)
No doubt you noticed the title of this blog. It is a song from the album 'You Come Before You' by Poison The Well. That album was more than likely their commercial peak, and the video, at least where I was when it was broadcast (more on that later), was all over the place. They toured with Denali and Deftones that very year, and if memory serves me correctly, the year afterward.
And herein lies the main crux of my blog... Time. Specifically, era's in a person's life. That era was 2003/2004 for me. What was more than likely the happiest time of my life, and I was too angry to realize it. Oh, the dichotomy that is my life. I initially attempted to write all the good things that happened in that era, and realized it was far too long. So, as best I can, the Cliff's Note's:
-I was in college, and my grades were excellent.
-For the first time in my life, I was almost physically attractive: I had lost over 100 lbs due to working out.
-My father and I were on spectacular terms. In fact, for the first, and up until this point only time in my existence, my Dad was closer to me than my Mother.
-I was fueled by anger, and angry at everything. At first, this seems foolish to put here, but somewhat sadly, anger fuels my most intense successes. As the anger in my life cooled, so did my success. Moreover, anger... it doesn't make me happy, but there's a feeling I get when truly angry that gives me strength, courage, drive, clarity, and contentment that, and I admit this to my shame, even the Good Lord doesn't give me. Anger, truly, is my drug, and it's something I truly both fear AND desire, in the truest senses of the words, as I absolutely know the destructive power they carry to both myself and those I don't want to destroy, but yet, to those I do, or to the things inside I do, they are the ULTIMATE euphoria, something no drug, drink, or woman has EVER been able to match... crushing an enemy, real or imagined, is the ULTIMATE HIGH, and nothing can touch it.
So, as I hear this song, my mind immediately drifts back to this timeframe in my life. I keep telling myself this place, Virginia, is where I want to be, but in truth? It's the timeframe. And no doubt, going back to Virginia... hell, going back to LYNCHBURG? Now? Jesus. It'd be the worst thing in the world... seeing my world, so long forgotten... I'd be a ghost there, just as I am when I walk into Chili's now... those who do know me look at me as a relic, a footnote of a time passed like the historical markers you see when you enter some small town, or drive on the Interstate or something. I'd go back there, and as I've already been told, it'd be so changed that I'd probably actually throw up from disappointment. Those who do would no doubt do the same from seeing me. It is a time encapsulated, a season. It had it's beginning and end, and just now have I realized that it ended, and moreover, I ended it. I chose, albeit intoxicated, to leave that place. I had a 50/50 shot, and I chose the side of the coin that brought me where I am today. Don't take that to be victimization on my part... I, yes, I flipped the coin. I gambled, and I lost. So, the 'present'? It's the bed I made for myself. I accept that. But I am not above giving vent to my frustration: I made the poor choices I made, true, but woe, told though I might have been, I never foresaw the extreme grind it would take to rebuild a better bed. And please don't mistake venting and honesty for weakness and pithy... I FULLY intend to rebuild a more choice bed, indeed a better one.
I must simply acknowledge though, that life? Many parts of life are indeed out of our hands. And there is a Lord in Heaven, and He foresees all, and has ordained all. Praised be Him. In saying that, we do have choice, and free will, and as I was told once by an old woman, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure"
There has been two points in my life where I thought Providence provided an upswing: the Summer of 2006, and the last half of 2008. Tragedies struck in both, however: My brother died in one, and Howard Lee Kasten in the second. Had it not been for the first, who knows what would've happened? If not for Lee, and his vitriol, I would never have left Florida for Idaho; I would've stayed at Chili's, and probably been a manager or a lead by now, knowing my work ethic and how respected I was at that point. I left because of my utter disgust of the fact that, despite my best efforts for peace, one man desired war, and when war was brought to him, and failure and shame engulfed him after defeat, he by cowardice managed to ruin what was a dream scenario. And admitting my own guilt, when I initially came down to Florida in 2007, I was adamant I was only here temporarily, and was going to vacate with extreme prejudice when I had the means, and was going back 'home', to Virginia, not realizing I was not wanting to go back to a place, but an era. Around October, a realization came to me that, indeed, I was in another 'good' era. But as my grandfather once said, the world is full of little kings, and Lee was a little, petty king. And a sad reality of life is that a little king can crush and impede with as much impunity as a real king. How many times has your boss made you leave your job, especially a job that really wasn't that bad, maybe even pretty cool? That's a little king's rule.
So I left for Idaho, then Maryland, briefly here, but got suckered into coming back to Maryland. And in returning here...
It's said that darkness makes one appreciate light, even in the shade. True ugliness makes one appreciate beauty, even if it's more plain. No, the situation I find myself in is FAR less than ideal, but... given the alternatives, I could do worse, MUCH worse, and thank the Lord above for what I have...
And God willing, an 'era' of Good shall be granted to me yet again...