Life: As it really is...

I could not get to sleep. Every fifteen minutes, I turned my head to look at that glowing red light from my clock. 5:24. So I turn, finding a more comfortable position, put my head in between the two pillows on my bed. I stare out the window of my room, this big wide window almost the size of the entire wall. And outside the curtain portal hangs the eternal rescients of the moon.

Beep. Beep. Beeeep! The alarm has been ringing for five minutes now. I am perfectly capable, and sufficiently awake, to rise and dim the day this morning. I do not, and instead lay under the sheets, just thinking thoughts... mostly to myself. I had that dream again, torn away from her, that girl that always haunts my dreams. She appears to me in different forms, but one things is always the same: Her eyes. They are slender and almond, with deep brown pupils, almost a solid color, and they are calm and angry at the same time, burning with an intensity that I see--each and every time I look in the mirror.

The Anima of my soul? Perhaps. But now is not the time for profundity. I stretch arms and stand up, get dressed, brush my teeth, slap on the ol' jock strap, eat breakfast, get my wallet. That damned alarm can fucking turn itself off. I get to the university, thinking only of the Programming project I was supposed to have completed by my first class this morning.

It seemed such a simple plan, I admit. Unsatisfied with a data structure that records data as one structure of students, followed by an array of quizzes, I decided to change things up a bit. I reversed the array structure and placed the entire data structure inside one compound structure, instead of having to normal ones. After all, what's life without getting hopelessly over your head the day before the deadline?

I finished the project 23 minutes before my class. To be honest, I had help from the professor, otherwise I would never have succeded. But also to be honest, at the moment the teacher had nothing to do with it. Only genius: my genius. That kind of thinking is crucial to prevent bruised egos, to nurture self-confidence and haughty arrogance, which is my own repenting, in away.

I am to write an essay, indeed: with the contents being the word that describes this city: Madness. I shall stand above the tide for as long as I can, holding on to my breath and my sanity. And then, I shall dive head first, becoming as mad as the rest of them. Maybe I am mad right now? Certainly, this sounds perfectly like the rantings of the criminally insane. But it is proof that I am not crazy when I am perfectly aware of just how crazy I sound.

I forgot my laptop in Dr. Mustain's office. The funny thing was, she found me as I stepped out of the elevator on the second floor, which was strange because I had stepped into the elevator first, had seen her on the fourth floor as the metal doors closed. Perhaps I was hallucinating.

Well, this rant is almost over, the tide turned down for another day. I am sitting in Japanese 1013, with a freind of mine talking about lines of code. Mediocre: as the word of today should rightly be.

Cookies and Silk

I hate you.


Seems like such a trivial phrase, I hate you. Nowadays, we as americans hate everything. That computer not working? I fucking hate that fucking computer!

Really, it's not worth getting worked up over. Just make sure that the people or things you hate are worth hating. That way, when you die an old saggy maid, you'll have the fortunate aspect of knowing they were not forgiven. Forgiveness may be overrated, but it's either you forgive your mother for squeezing you out of that blessed place and into this hell, or you die and nobodies forgiven. But if you're dead, then count your lucky stars.

And mistletoe is among us. *sigh*...

A choice of two worldviews

Two worldviews. Both--are equally valid, and are ripe for the picking. Allow me to explain.

As a child, I quickly outgrew my peers in intellect. I am not bragging, or making waves, but just repeating what people told me. Personally, I can not remember much before third grade, and yet my third grade teacher, of which I had had a good relationship with, was much astonished by my nervous angst.

Raised a cradle catholic, I have always wanted to know the key to salvation. I figured there must have been something I could do, something to prove to myself a sense of finality and transcendence. A funny thing, I shake my head and chuckle as I sit here writing this: I never once thought about love as a means of transcendence. I guess I never will.

So. I stand at a crossroads. Fast forward eighteen years, and I am a staunch athiest, a cynic who possesses, who knows very well the keys of hate. I am familiar with the hate of the world. Today, gang violence is responsible for more deaths than actual genocide. Tribal savages, all of them. And the cultured and cultivated sit in their computer rooms late at night, downloading porn and masturbating. Women eat, grow fat under fast food signs like Mcdonald's, and we can't even fish in our lakes without catching one with an extra fin.

Like I said, I stand at a crossroads. I have grown up in excess and waste, and I have to admit, I find it liberating. I find it as relaxing and numbing as smoking pot. The myriads of images slide past my eyes, dancing figures that glow neon hue. Humanity as a soulless society--as greedy, corrupt, and unchaste: I find it entertaining. I find myself at home here as I realize that maybe this new world is the key to greatness. As long as we spend our hate wisely, we can be the third reich.

It's like a completely new void, with completely new concepts coming out, and I stand at the edge, wondering If I should take the plunge. Something else, however, tugs at me. If I turn around, I will find another void, one who's essence is much more peaceful. Imagine the yogis of india. The Tibetan Llamas. These wise men are relics from the past, who have supposedly achieved human perfection, and the end to suffering.

Before I take suffering as the new happiness, I wonder. Wasn't the cessation of suffering the goal, the true goal, the end of it all as a sweet sweet release? Why have I turned my back on peace, tranquility, for the ceaseless chaos of angst? Why?

You see, there are two worldviews that we as humans stand between. The first worldview sees endless strife and struggle as a pointless illusion. It is ignorance that keeps us bound to pain. And as long as we grasp for money and sex and drugs and porn, we will never be happy.

But there is another worldview, and unlike the heaven/hell dichotomy, it is not so clear which worldview we should prefer. indeed, we can choose to see this strife, this struggle, as a type of game. It is glory we seek, and suffering is the road to awe. Kill millions, to erect a mighty cathedral across the stars. Kill billions, to find oneself sitting among that throne. Kill god, and replace him as the spawn of the devil himself.

We can choose, we can. We can choose to be everything humanity is: evil and good struggling forever in a glorious battle. There is nothing wrong with that! Humanity is both evil and good, and to create civilization is to be the result of billions of years of evolution, of struggle, of trying to survive.

Or... we can choose to find tranquility: A boring break from the norm this is not human at all. There is no human instinct towards cessation, of which this worldview represents perfectly. And yet, to achieve, through endless practice, that peaceful renunciation of both good and evil, and to take instead nondual tao certainly is atractive. We could transcend humanity. Escape the universe. Become buddha.

No choice is better than the other, in this case, as I have found. Be power, or be cessation. Which is it? I stand between two voids, of completely different origin, and stand between the twin peaks of sorrow as joy, and no sorrow at all. Only joy. What, oh what, will I choose?

I woke up earlier than usual this morning; just lay there underneath the covers. Just above me the chill of the air was floating: I could feel it brushing past my cheek. I realize the power has gone off. ugh. But I get up, even though I have no classes till 3:00 pm. As I stretch my arms, goosebumps ripple over my chest, my shoulders and arms, my legs.
This is the first time I drive with the windows rolled up, it seems the a/c was broken all this time, and the fresh air running by my face helped cool me off. Not today. Even the birds seem sluggish, chirping out of tune as I walk up to my car. Oh well. I look forward to sitting in the comfy warm of the Uministry at the university.
And yet, after plenty of minutes of sitting down at the Uministry tables, listening to some ambient ooh-eeeh-ooh on my computer, Frank calls me in to his office. I've been going to the Uministry since two weeks into the fall semester. Laughing with my classmates, interacting with them, making friends. And yet, even for my particular viewpoints, I thought I had a lot of friends at the umin.
I was wrong. Not too wrong, though. I'm sure they meant the best of intentions, but the kinds of friends that don't have guts; the guts to tell a guy when he's doing something upsetting. It kind of hurts. It stings just right under my chin when Frank tells me to just tone it down a bit, to maybe take a break from this place. And couldn't I do something else for a while?
Yeah, sure frank. Damn, I'm the kind of guy that is 100% dense. I'm loud and passionate, I guess, maybe a bit too much. Yeah, I'll take it easy for a while.
I leave his office and hoist my bookbag onto my shoulder. For the past semester, I've been walking everywhere around campus, and St. Mary's isn't a big school, but the exercise has produced some stretch marks around my chest. It hasn't helped my gut, but my gut isn't that big, so I'm not worried. I guess It's been some time since I've walked across campus. It seems they don't want me here. So I apologized to Rebecca and left.
What to do now, I wonder? Fishing my cell phone out of my pocket, I cursed a bit; it had been on the web browser, the piece of trash. My cell phone bill's gonna go up. It was 12:31, and still I have no class.
Sarah showed up today, though, unusually early for when we get together, which is about 1:00 or so. It was nice, sitting in the back of the University Center with her. We talked, and we always have the most interesting conversations, like about how solitary guys make interesting partners(solitary girls, in my case). Discussed past loves, and relationships and how she needs to meet more girlfriends.(the friendly kind) Hmm... Maybe I need to get a girlfriend. Forget it, I need to talk about more manly things. Except in this case, "manly" pertains to abstract philosophical treatises and computer programming. Not many men know of such things. But geeks--know plenty.
Talking, talking, there's plenty everwhere. But the call to action remains void. Strange... that reads like a good thing.

Short and Loud

Short and loud, I hold on the edge of the universe. Ramses, the clown.

A Spectrum of Rape

The first time I masturbated, it was late at night, and I did not feel sure of whether I had actually done it or not. No fantasies, no porn, just me whacking of in the dead of night. I felt a strange sensation, reverberating from my crotch upwards to my stomach, but it was hardly pleasurable. In fact, that first time the sensation I felt was more painful and sickening than anything else, almost like an upset stomach. Was this really masturbation?

Little boys masturbate by the time they hit fourth grade, or fifth, if they are late bloomers, nowadays. I was a really late bloomer, and didn't do the deed until I was in sixth grade. Still, after a few whack jobs the pleasure of choking the chicken dies down. That's where porn comes in. Porn objectifies women, treats them like sexual objects, which is the perfect method to keep the pleasure level in the green. Submission, bondage, xxx, the hardcore stuff is nothing more than fodder for keeping masturbation a quickie, so the young man can turn his attention to other things and not be bothered by all those sluts in the movies.

Some people have objections to porn, saying it is evil, and wrong, and sick. No qualms there. women in porn are shamelessly mistreated, but they are well paid, so that makes up for it. Besides, those same people make the mistake of thinking humanity good and right and healthy. Bullshit. Sex is an act of pleasure, and like any act of pleasure, needs to get interesting or it gets boring. The intimacy of sex just gets in the way, when a man really needs some fucking so he can get back to better, more important things.

And then. I browsed the web, looking for hentai of a particular sort. A manga of mine, which has a good story and intersting characters, I thought, might be interesting to see as a hentai doujinshii. And so I put it in to Ask.com: "'Hikaru No Go' Hentai".

I found two short mangas. The first had Nase in lustful union with tsubaki: a daring submission peice where nase willingly does all sorts of raunchy acts. That's interesting, I think, considering Tsubaki and Nase's relationship in the actual manga.

Well, I had the misfortune of clicking upon the second doujinshii, which showed akari fujisaki being fucked by Kaga and Kimihiro Tutsui. Before I continue, let me say this: In all hentai there is an unspoken rule, assumption, which no one dares to challenge. The girls in the sex dungeons and bondage, somehow someway actual get some sense of pleasure from the sickening anal beads and tentacles coming all over their face. They do. The girls experience discomfort, they experience pain, but the pain is always slightly orgasmic to them; they like it.

Akari fujisaki did not like it. Label me an otaku if you must, but I know akari almost as well as a real person, and in the manga she does have a small crush on a boy her age named Hikaru Shindo. Akari is trusting, kind, and innocent. When Kaga and Tutsui come in to the room, she has no idea of their intentions, in fact, she sets up to gobans like she usually does, ready to play a game. Suddenly, the two of them grab her. She cries out in suprise as they strip off her clothes and procceed to fuck her every nook and cranny. OK, this is usually what happens in hentai, but there were two scenes in this that changed all that. When kaga comes all over her face, Akari pulls away, feeling the sticky goo with her fingers, and pulls the cum in front of her eyes. As she stares, an expression comes over her face; it slowly dawns that she is just an object of these two boys desires. She is just a slut.

And then, when the two boys have their way with her, they leave her, slumped down by the wall. Her clothes are ripped and torn and her body is covered with warm cum, all over her face and pussy and chest. She doesn't get up. She doesn't pick up her torn clothes. She just sits there, and stares off into the distance.

Now tell me, my good self: If sex is just a whack job, a fucking of women and merging of fluids, and damn the intimacy to hell, then why do I suddenly feel this cold chill down my spine, and suddenly care so much?

I feel more affected by that hentai than anything else, so that the question remains. Is sex something that should be entertaining and pleasurable? Maybe fantasy is better than regular sex. It certainly beats just fucking a girl that just lays there. But maybe, just maybe, a true loving relationship is one without sex at all.

The Ultimate Challenge

I sit in a rather comfortable chair, doing nothing but aimlessly stare at the arcade across the room in the back. I'm not in my girlfriends sex dungeon. Although, an arcade would suit that place rather well. No, I am staring at the tall arcade boxes in the UC. The look lonely. Flashing graphics, they call out for attention. Sadly, only I notice; the other students sit in the front of the tv.

There are four arcade boxes, starting from the left: Soul Caliber II, that fifteen minute whore. I rode her for about that much. On the other side, in the corner with peeling paint, Cruis'n World jumps for joy, happy to be noticed.

I don't go to her though, and she quickly offs herself. Go figure. Actually, there are many forgotten yet good arcade games still to be played. All of them are shooting games, such as Sharpshooter, House of The Dead, Time Crisis, Jedi Stuff. Those games are hard, though I'm sure Daniel could finish them.

I've only played the sharpshooter in the UC. Its a target shooting game with certain themes behind the targets and different ways to score points. Simple enough. So I plug a few quarters in a begin blasting away. Soon enough, a small crowd of students gathers round, looking at the fake blood splatter across the screen. No words are exchanged, except for my incessant screaming the words: "DIE DIE DIE DIE..." I lose on the ultimate challenge, however. Some dude laughs.

"You suck. Ain't got skills, DAYUMM!" The braggart laughs and puts some quarters into the machine. "Here, I'll help you, baby." My gaze slides from his needle nose and beady eyes, as well as his fat jowls, to the bright pink gun I hold in my hand. Then back to him. I whack him on the back of his head. The crowd is stunned into silence.

"You can tell the administrator about this, or you can go watch tv." They watch tv.

Don't Become a mechanic

I drive a 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass Cierra, painted all black and with half the rust colered lights is pieces. Where did I find such a fine antique? Not important, but I shall share what happened over the previous two weeks, as much as the memory pains me.

I totaled it.

I actually didn't. Go figure. I drove my little sister to the church, and while on the road was hit by a large metallic--something. I didn't see what it was, but a loud screeching filled the air, followed by waves of vibrations and the sound of gnashing metal teeth. And then--silence.

I figured it wasn't too serious. After picking up my little sister from the church, I headed over to Daniel's house with a plate of barbequed ribs and smoked chicken, hot from the grill. As to be expected from a thirteen year-old kid with a new copy of halo 3, I then procedded to struggle aimlessly against the tides of thirteen headshots, five bum-fucks, and twelve times of shooting myelf in the foot. Damn.

True, Daniel was awesome. He was the master master chief, easily popping off aliens from the side of his vision. Amazing how kids these days are so prepared to kill. Do videogames increase the child's ability to kill? Only if they're drunk. Video games allow children and, namely, the rest of humanity, to drink from the sweet sweet cup of desensitization. But to make them kill? It hardly would hamper their judgement, so they probably wouldn't go around town shooting at people for the fun of it. They get that kind of fun in the video game. Besides, there's no challenge shooting cops anymore. On the contrary, if the child wishes to kill someone in real life, there is probably a real grudge against said person. Then again, said person was probably asking for it and was dumb enough to loan the child 50 bucks for a "water pistol".

It hardly matters. There are over 500,000 convicts in the United States Penal System, obviously locking up one more juvenile delinquent is not rooting out the real cause of the problem. That would probably make for a good post someday.

So a few days later I start hearing noises from my vehicle. A slow popping sound, followed by various snapping and hinging, reaches my ears. Obviously just background noise. I keep driving. Soon the passenger side sounds like metal mario getting his head bashed in by megadeth. I get scared, and pull into a gas station to check the oil. Oil's good.

So I pull back home, an HOUR drive from the university, and just as I pull into my driveway, the axle snaps off. Clean. So I took my little sister to church one day and brought her home, went over to Daniel's pad and had a few beers. Chomped down on some really good roast barbeque, and now I get to play greasemonkey. Best national pizza month, ever.

Sleep and Waking Up

I woke up early this morning. Difficult to wake up, when an entire day is staring me down; the only thing we want at such times is more minutes of sleep. I believe americans achieve 5 hours of sleep a night, on average. Most of us are dead tired when awaking, but getting up early, we certainly achieve some measure of competency.

Naps during the day, like cool, refreshing water, splashed against our face. It helps improve function, reduces the risk of heart disease, makes the sleeper calmer as well. It is strange, however, that we americans get less sleep, and yet waking up earlier often proves to energize instead of drain.

I do not mean that all people need to sleep less. Oversleeping has a marked effect on us, causing sluggishness, lost productivity, irritability. Getting not enough sleep, without siestas can cause the same reaction. We must get our sleep, but waking up early has it's advantages. I woke up early this morning. A grump. Yet I rose all the same, and as I walked out the door, hair neatly combed, my dirt-colored windbreaker sheilding my chest, I look up and see a sea of stars.

Driving to school, I get to hear the early morning show, and I fiddle the nob, turn the volume up. I eat a good, mexican breakfast. It helps.

And then, there are our dreams. We have dreams. Hardly think to wonder what they mean. Just dreams. And yet, the head of reasons to not get up is because we are rudely interrupted, not from our sleep, but from running fictive in our head. It is strange, that we always want to complete our dreams, but if we were to sleep longer, they still do not end.

Frued believed dreams were the unconcious way of telling us about our sexually repressed desires. Our incestuous motives and our wildest fantasies to ever come out of the bedroom. I do not agree, but with the idea that dreams are our own private musings, the minds resting and thinking things that we could never come up with while awake. Pay attention to your dreams, if not because they can be helpful, then simply because they are wonderful remnants of fatastic sides to ourselves, and our fascination with them can last a lifetime.

Ruled by Fear

The early days. The first british settlers landed in North America at plymouth rock; they built a settlement not to different from that of communist china. They might not have said it, but the collective was correct, and the collective was god.

But for the early pilgrims, the defining force behind their settlement and courage--was fear. Stranded in a new land, the natives were sons of the devil. The pilgrims were upon a holy hill, set up for all the world to see, and their failure was eminent unless they relied upon god to defeat the devil and his minions.

Look at the American Revolution. The British were the enemy. Look at world war I & II, and you shall see that we as americans were terrified of the Nazis. The Red Scare, as well.

It seems america can not function without an enemy to fight, and someone to fear and hate. Our entire history, after all has been structured after fighting our enemies. But what of other countries? Is it normal to fear, to hate, in order to unify a nation?

More importantly, we are running out of people to fear. Cocooned as we are on our own continent, it is not easy for anyone to invade or attack us. And if anyone did, they would swiftly be destroyed. In truth, terrorism is blown out of proportion, for the chances of another 9/11, statistically, never had any merit in the first place. The chances of having two, are less than miniscule. We would do better to ignore any Al Qaida organization and focus on outreach programs, donating support, encouraging democracy.

But will Al Qaida only grow stronger? It is doubtful. The truth is, Al Qaida is exactly similar to the united states; it is an organization that needs to hate somone, anyone, in order to stay unified, and if an enemy is no longer in sight, Al Qaida will quickly fall apart.

The same thing will happen with the United States.

Summation of Contemporary Times

The post-modern society is a hodge-podge of new ideas mixed with old. Our current situation denotes a completely different one from one thousand years ago, when the world was agrarian and farmers held the key to survival.

But now? Radical fundamentalism is clashing with Western Empicalism, and the whole world is gettting ready for the next transition of mankind. Even so, that is not what this post shall be about. Instead, we ask questions to understand ourselves. We ask questions to understand just how we got here, and only then can we know where we are headed.

* * *

It started with the industrial revolution. The enlightenment was a time of rational discourse and questioning new boundaries, where the majority of europeans completely rejected the church. Advances in mathematics arose. This was also around the time of the beginning of the American Colonies. The first types of industry were sowing houses, where women would work for hours at looms, creating cloth to sell and feed their family. The trick happened when the principles of motion were better understood. Thanks to Isaac Newton, we were able to harvest rivers and waterfalls. And we did.

The british created the first mechanized factories, powered by waterfalls which turned the large wheel out front. Suddenly, the amount of cloth the british were able to produce fell into the hundreds of tons. The cloth industry became highly profitable. The idea was sown, that machines could do our work much faster and more efficiently than we could.

The creation of semi-modern cloth mills was the key to the industrial revolution. But it wasn't the start of it. Miles away in france, enlightenment era thinkers were contemplating a new kind resource management, the likes of which the world had never seen. Laissez faire. At the time, many of the most important thinkers in france believed that resources had to be controlled from the top down. That was the way it had been for centuries, via the fuedal structure. Everything in the land belonged to the King, who was responsible for the well-being of his people.

There was a small minority, however, of emerging middle class. Around this time, the first modern businessmen began to appear, along with the mathematics to make it possible: accounting. They were dismissed as anomalies in the system. They would not last long, just a passing phenomenon.

Times changed however. The industrial revolution created such an abundance of resources that the emerging businessmen leaped at the chance. Entrepreuners, they became rich. It did not take long, but the industrial revolution was the start of modern commerce and trade, of which the massive amounts of wealth have been developed in countries that have become industrialized.

* * *

Along with capitalism, however, came socialism, the child of Karl Marx. Karl marx reviewed Capitalism and came to the conclusion that it abused and exploited the lower classes. This was because in previous fuedalism, class was extremely important. Marx looked at capitalism from the tints of feudalism, which was why he came to the conclusion of class struggle and such.

But capitalism is not like feudalism, and while there will always be the poor, it effectively erases class differences. The class barriers become much more fluid, and thus the poor may rise and the rich may fall. Socialism and Capitalism grew in influence, the two competing ideologies of the modern world.

* * *

World War II: Hitler had a vision of a new world order, ruled by the strong, where the weak did not exist. In theory, if there could be such a world, it undoubtedly would be atractive to the strong. In the 1940's, a war which ravaged all of Europe took place. And it ended with the unveiling of the most destructive weapon ever constructed. Now, the stakes are high, we possess the ability to end life on this planet. The world is a very dangerous place.

* * *

So what is the viewpoint of today's world? In the previous centuries, the western world achieved dominance, and know the asian countries, the countries that have been shit on all this time, want a slice of the pie. Some countries, like china, have decided that the way to gain respect in the international scene in to become an economic power. Others, like Iran, have chosen military strength.

In truth, however, the western countries have already given up war. There will never be another war between two industrialized nations again. This poses a problem for countries like Iran.

* * *

We also live in an age of Religious Fundamentalism vs. Athiestic thought. For the past centuries, there has been an uneasy tension between religion and science, and soon it will break out into all scale war. Pick a side, because one of them has to come out on top.

The Vindictive Few

Small communities breed hatred; the vindictive few boil with resentment, and they plan. I speak of school shootings. A few weeks ago, National Public Radio aired a program analyzing the subject and the factors that create them.

It is true, one of the professors says, they happen in small suburban schools. The shooting is usually publicized in some way, and the shooter is almost always condemned by the majority of society.

The shooter is usually lonely, as was the case with virginia tech. He sits in the back of the school with his lunch strung over his arm, and his ratty torn jacket strewn over his shoulder. He sits on the curb, staring at the brick wall in front of him with intent eyes--and slowly places food in his mouth. After classes he goes back to his dorm and locks the door.

The shooter is always ostracised. He trips, faceplanting on cold tile. They laugh, strutting in polo shirts. The other kids carry on with their lives, ignorant of him. When he's not bullied, he is ignored. Still, regardless of the callousness of cliques and high school culture, he would never think of joining the crowd.

And as he puts the gun to her head, as she kneels at his feet. He asks her, in an almost calm sort of voice, "Do you believe in god?"

There is no God.

* * *

Just think, imagine if you will, how delicious their deaths are. And remember that it feels good to kill, when you are vindictive.

Setting stuff up.

My avatar. You know me by this, because I say so.

Fuck You.

A liberal's voice. Not to be persuaded, to find open minds, to exchange ideas, and to create new realities by one's own responsibilities.