Lately I’ve been in this state of despair.  I’ve tried really hard to make something happen, to the point that everything is feeling forced.  It’s numbing, really.

I can’t seem to bring myself to care about much of anything.  Are there successful people out there that don’t care about anything?  I need to hear a success story so that I don’t just slump over, drink to excess, and play video games for the rest of my life.  I’m not depressed (I’m actually in what I would consider a good mood), I just lack motivation to do anything.  I’m just a few classes away from graduating and I don’t care to go.  There’s no light at the end of that tunnel.  I’ll just be looking down the barrel of another 6 years to get the next 2 years worth of degree.  There’s no writing ideas that really have me tickled.  There’s no music happening right now.  I look forward to Battlefield 3 and a good glass of wine all day.

So I’m giving it to God, so to speak.  I’m going to sit back and let the music come to me.  I’m going to wait until my story calls.  In the meantime, I suppose I will finish my degree and patiently await the impending break through - or breakdown.  

At this point, I’ll embrace either one.

Chuck Palahniuk shaved his head once.  He said it was a way of throwing himself away after completing a book.  A couple of the fringe benefits of doing this were “you can roll down the window in your car because the wind isn’t gonna fuck up your hair,” and “you don’t worry about looking good, because you know you always look terrible.”

This is a perfect example of how I view life.

People these days are so concerned with health and diet, weight loss and exercise - and it kind of makes me sad.  Everyone runs around like mice in a maze trying to become stronger, slimmer, faster, better.  Fuck that.  I’m sure you’re no stranger to the social standards that we face every day.  I can’t help but to think that it’s a complete and utter waste of time.  Don’t get me wrong, if you want to quit smoking - quit.  If you want to loose weight - loose it.  If you want to spend a huge chunk of your day calculating caloric intake - have a blast: just make sure you are doing it for the right reasons.  If quitting smoking is consuming your every thought, then ask yourself this:  Am I going to live longer for this, or am I just adding years to my life?  If your waking thoughts are of the energy bar you get for breakfast and the protein shake you get for lunch followed by the very well balanced meal consisting of very little starch and no msg’s - are you living?  I love the old saying, “the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.”  A lengthy and dull life doesn’t seem all that rewarding if you ask me.

So don’t judge people because they drink, smoke, do drugs, have wild sex, or otherwise live in a way that is contradictory to what you and society deems “acceptable.”  Instead, embrace these people for their merit and their flaws. Because of them, you don’t have to walk a similar road to see the results.  You get to learn at very little to no cost.  I would say “so long as no one gets hurt” but let’s face it - people get hurt.  I’ve been hurt, you’ve been hurt - it’s life.  With pain comes lesson.  

What is life, if not a series of lessons?

So I say live with your flaws - at least the wind won’t fuck up your hair.

themostdistantstar:

( I want to preface this by saying I am not a scientist at all. I really just read interesting wiki articles and watch interesting programs about space and science…so, yeah, forgive anything that is blatantly ignorant and correct at will)

Lisa and I were just talking about this the other night…

Where the matter originated from is anyone’s guess. My guess is a petri dish on some kids desk in science class.
I don’t know, but if I had to respond with something I would say that white and black holes only exist in the past and future as we know it. Our perception of time isn’t necessarily correct in that regard. Perhaps time isn’t akin to a ray that extends in one direction, but more like a line segment that we travel back and forth on. So our future is really someone else’s past and vice versa. If the universe collapses back into the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, like in school when we first learned about the Big Bang and how eventually it would all go backwards, then OUR white hole will burst out the other side and create someone else’s black hole. I don’t think time is cyclical, but more like a bead on a string being teetered back and forth.
As far as the repetition of events - I don’t think so. The outer-most stars in our galaxy are moving away from us at speeds respective to their distance (stars 3x away are moving 3x faster, 5x farther 5x faster) so I think that not all of the matter that came out of our Big Bang will get sucked back into the super massive black hole at the center of OUR galaxy. Some of it will travel, according to the law of inertia, to other galaxies and get sucked into THEIR black holes. I think this is why quasars occur. More matter is being introduced into the black hole than it has capacity for, because it didn’t originate from it but rather other white hole explosions.
SO
If the newly created galaxies contain new matter - new planets, stars, etc. will be formed in this new galaxy causing life in the new galaxy to be altered from life in the current one.
That’s what I think about it.
And I have no idea what I’m talking about.

One of the cruelest things about life is being able to see some things only in retrospect.  It’s amazing to think about how many fleeting moments occur that have the ability to alter a life completely.  

It almost seems a waste of time to keep your eyes forward.  How many of those fleeting moments are missed simply because you weren’t looking in the right direction?  With eyes constantly to the future, it seems that it would be impossible to catch one of those moments before it passed.  I’m reminded of that old windows screen saver: the one with all the stars passing by.

So instead of looking forward, maybe we should watch where we walk.

Blink and you miss a beat - keep one of your eyes open at all times.

Carpe motherfucking Diem.

I think I heard somewhere that they are referring to this generation as the “whatever” generation.  I think they are right.  You can look back decades and see dramatic changes in the status quo.  In this country alone, entire worldviews seemed to change every 10 years.  Lately, however, it seems that we are pretty stagnant.  Are we becoming a society of indifference?  Are we truly the “whatever” generation?

The retirement age is climbing every year.  I read that it is going to continue to climb until it reaches 67 for people born after 1960.  Now, all government fiscal issues aside, I think that the implications of this coincide with the idea that we are, in fact, the “whatever” generation.  The only result of increasing the retirement age is going to be a more steadfast and prudent pursuit of money.  The need for money.  The love of money.  I think we all know what the love of money, when properly rooted, sprouts forth.  

Another great example of our generation’s indifference was the 9-11 issue.  For such a brief moment, this country was united.  We all looked up from “America’s Top Model” and “American Idol” (which ironically enough are suitably titled - as things like these shows are beginning to depict what America is all about) long enough to say “Wait… what happened? Bombs? Who hit us? Yeah?! Well FUCK THOSE GUYS LET’S GO KILL EM!”  We (quite blindly) rallied behind rage and hatred and a president who struggled over the English language.  Not a week later, we were all back to normal - not batting an eye toward what was really happening.  Who cares, right?

I can only hope that we are in a bubble right now.  One that is growing more and more each year - each day - and that eventually that bubble will burst, giving us the generational revolution that so many generations before us have had, and that we deserve.  

I pray I am there to see it.

"Being an artist doesn’t take much, just everything you got. Which means, of course, that as the process is giving you life, it is also bringing you closer to death. But it’s no big deal. They are one and the same and cannot be avoided or denied. So when I totally embrace this process, this life/death, and abandon myself to it, I transcend all this giberish and hang out with the gods. It seems to me that that is worth the price of admission."

— Hubert Selby Jr.

I just found out that there’s a word for it: cynicism.  

It’s lovely how the King’s English always seems to find a way to sum it up for us.  A whole lifetime of being battered and broken, pushed and shoved, tossed and turned - all wrapped into a neat little package: cynicism.

I, much like Webster, like to wrap things up into neat little packages - or at least a package of some sort.  It’s easier to sort through it all that way.  Call it lazy if you will, but I like to think of it as “economy of thought.”  When I say that all people - friends, family, lovers, strangers - are parasitic in nature and that the idea of the “friend” is a commonly misunderstood term… I mean it.  Think about it.  Why does that guy hang out with you on the weekends?  Would he, had he something better to do that didn’t involve you?  Why does your girlfriend love you?  Would she, had she received the same treatment from someone else?  We all want something, and the difference between being selfish and being a friend is the level of subterfuge.  The extent of need.  Some of us just need company.  Some of us need ideas to pirate.  Some of us need a good fuck.  Some of us need money.  Some of us need security.  Some just need a warm body.

And don’t think for one second that I’m taking the moral high ground.  ALL people are parasitic in nature.  As I sit here writing, I’m hoping that you’re reading.  That, in and of itself, is gratifying.  That is my reward.  That is how I use you, and that is why I could be your friend.  I’m not asking for money, sex, love, or companionship - just a little of your time.

And everyone loves a friend who gives and asks for little in return.  I provide perspective.  I can only assume that you provide the time.

I hate you all.  But I need you more than you could ever know.

Thanks for reading.

“Why do you love her?”

You know, there really are several reasons beyond the fact that she is amazingly sexy even when she doesn’t know how to be.  Although, that is a big one.  A very big one.  But what really tickles me to death is when she remembers the inconsequential shit that I say.  I’ve been on the stage.  I’ve had women approach me.  I’ve had people buy me drinks.  I’ve been given tons of free drugs.  Signed autographs.  

But does this truly make me special?  Not really.  To these people, I’m just the entertainment for the night.  The guy they want to get in good with so that they can say “I knew that guy.”  The guy they take pictures with.  They party with.  The guy that they tag in the photo on facebook so that everyone knows that they were there that night.  The very second that I’m not providing them with entertainment - I become inconsequential.  These people care nothing for me.

But she does.

She calls to tell me that she got air freshener for the house.  The great part about it is that she lets me know what it smells like.  She is fast to tell me that she “didn’t get the febreeze kind because you said the smell makes you think of dirtiness.”  

Did I say that?  Apparently so.  How she thinks that I’m important enough to remember the inconsequential shit I say out of the blue and with little thought is beyond me.

I know her very well.  But I’ll never know the depths of that woman.

Hand in Hand

Found in “Essays & Criticism”

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A Day In the Life

Found in “Essays & Criticism”

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