Choice

A friend of mine (who is ethereal to me now) used to argue with me about whether or not people have free will.  I always said they did, he always said they didn’t.  Because people are amalgamations of probability, not possibility, every action could be construed as having no other choice but to happen.  I largely agree with that, but I want to tell myself that I always have a choice.

I spend an inordinate amount of time doing nothing.  If I spent even a tenth of it doing anything productive, I would have another completed album.  I’d have a written novel.  I’d have my projects completed.  I wouldn’t feel so pointless all the time.

So, resolving to spend at least an hour every day on something constructive, whether it’s writing, composing or programming… if I can at least stick to that, maybe I will have something finished in the next 6 months.

We’ll see…

I think more people are upset that they will never be able to go and see a space shuttle launch than there are people who are upset at the demise of the space program, and its implications for America vs. the rest of the world.  More people talk about Transformers 3 and the new (and last) Harry Potter movie than anything of import.  And when they do talk about something important, they always have an uneducated, idiotic angle given to them by some propaganda machine.

The founding fathers didn’t necessarily believe in a purely democratic institution.  They believed in representative democracy more, because we are supposed to pick the most educated among us to make the important decisions.  But now all they do is pick whoever has the most money to spend convincing them that they are the most educated in whatever bland, bigoted emotional intelligence that is supposed to lead them to the “right” conclusions.  The People elect the representatives they deserve.  Short-sightedness and sociopathic apathy is something that can be hidden with money, buzz-words and political manipulation.

If someone isn’t actively supporting policies that are against their own interests, they are usually supporting policies that are just as immoral for different reasons.  Even if a citizen can think critically about issues and come to a decent conclusion, they usually have to choose between options that are, if not diametrically opposed to what they think, are subtly misleading in ways that render the entire argument void.

If America crumbles in the next hundred years, will there really be another empire to take its place that will be more egalitarian?  I don’t think an empire can exist without being immoral in glaring ways, but even if a moral superpower dominated the world, is that by definition excluding any sense of real Human justice?

The problem with Human thinking isn’t that its fundamentally flawed and corrupt; its problem lies in the fact that it can have bred out of it any kind of real positive flow.

Suffer in Truth

For at least five years, I have been repressing.  And containing.  And forgetting.  And avoiding.  And denying.  Everyone I’ve ever known, I have given a good justification to cut me off.  To hate me.  Some haven’t.  Some have.  Most have.

I don’t feel reality in the same way anymore.  There is always a layer of self-imposed disinterest.  There is always an escape plan, or an emergency evacuation button hidden somewhere.  I have always pressed it just at the right moment to hurt the people involved, and alienate them as much as possible.  But after all this time, It’s as if I don’t really take it seriously anymore.  I feel like I should have moved on long ago.  It’s always there, though.  Waiting for me to acknowledge it.

Every relationship ends with someone casting me in their mold, and me rejecting that idea in the least diplomatic way possible, because almost nothing offends me more, in the larger picture.  I have lived with pain that a lot of people could never imagine, with conceptualizations of the world that most can’t understand.  The majority of people are “The Sheep”, and they symbolize, “The Sheep”, in my thoughts.  That is all that they will ever be to me.

One thing I have always known is that if I could somehow bring myself down to the level of the deimos, I would find that generic, watered-down happiness that most people find at some point.  And I have tried.  But either that happiness doesn’t make me the least bit happy, or I am failing at emulating it.  I only know that empty depth that comes with understanding the very bottom of human nature, or loss and pointlessness.

Just as I am trying to find that one guitar riff that inspires me and carries me through recording another album, so am I waiting to be inspired to find some path towards happiness.  But, I know it’s not there.  It never is.  Somewhere, in the recesses of myself, I know that I will always be alone, and the scariest part of aging is slowly accepting that.

The words I chant when I am at my lowest are slowly becoming reality.

“I am going to die alone.”
”I will die alone.”