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DasEinsame
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Name: Barton
Gender: Male
Interests: Thinking, reading, writing, guitaring, and music in general.
Expertise: I can cook a mean omelette.
Occupation: Research and development
Message: message me
Member Since:
2/4/2003
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| You always know that autumn is coming, even with summer at its fullest bloom and everything growing. Flowers are transposed withering and dead; green leaves dim to cracking brown at the end of your nose; walks through the bright grass crowd you with images of deepening snow and there's that little, gnawing fear that though every year it returns, next year it might just not.
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| I admit that I have in me a deep rebellious streak; I say deep for several reasons; I cannot rid myself of it, it has been instrumental in the formation of who I am, and it is not readily visible. This has brought me more inner struggles than resolutions, often leaving me in a less sure state than I was before, yet I believe that I am better for the battles, "experienced" as it were. And still this continues. I fear I will never be rid of them, which nicely displays my contradictory nature, for I live for the conflicts, and yet I writhe in them.
Fate, destiny, predestination, Wyrd, "His plan for your life", call it what you will, but all these names are dealing with the same notion: that you are not in control of your life. Or to put it more pleasantly, everything happens for a reason. I am of the strong belief that things simply happen as a result of the way they are organised, and all those notions are more or less circular logic--since things happen, for good or ill, and we adapt to them, we assume that since we were able to adapt to those circumstance they were meant to happen to us, or, that since we made a sound decision and things turned out for the best, that decision was meant to be made. I also feel that in consigning our lives to Fate, or the "Divine Will", or Karma or what have you, we are eluding responsibility for our actions.
However, I am beginning to fear that this vehement belief on my part is a fruit of my rebellious streak. I am simply stuffing cotton in my ears and saying "No, no, no I am in control, I am in contro-ol" because I don't like the idea of not directing my own life. This would seem irrational, and it would be, except that I have experienced an absurd amount of seemly coincidences and have relegated them to just that. But I can't shake off the feeling that all these things--a whim decision, a fortunate canceling, a strange feeling that led me in a certain direction--were simply coincidences, considering their outcome, which could not have happened otherwise.
People derive a sense of peace from consigning themselves to fate, "Everything will work out as it should", and they continue on, happily, and if they begin to worry, simply repeat their mantra. I can get no such peace from my view of things. If it is as I think, I must live my life like a jazz pianist, constantly improvising but slowly becoming more and more confident in my extemporaneous steps, until you wouldn't know I was making it up as I went. However, that could be just as much an illusion as I believe fate to be, and instead of Jazz, I am playing Baroque.
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| I don't know how many of you watch the morning news,
but if you do, you can back me up here. Now, I am no news hound, but my
parents have a habit of turning on and tuning the television to the
morning news, every morning. So amongst the rushing about in
preparation of the day we have the cryer of bad news babbling away in
the background. One should never start the day upbeat. At any rate,
since the beginning of this year, there has been an extremely
repetitive tune to the morning news. In fact I do not think they have
missed a day yet. This tune is that of shootings, stabbings, or any
other sort of pasttime that results in death one way or another.
I do believe that the criminals of Philadelphia have
made a new year's resolution, jointly, to imbue the city's name with an
unbearable amount of irony. To do this they have adopted the motto: "A
murder a day keeps the po-lice away" and it seems to work, because it
appears to me that the cops only ever get there after
the fact, and do little else but say "We are investigating this
currently..." probably meaning the interesting shape of the hole in the
poor victim's skull or the pretty red patterns on the wall. Now I am
not condemning policemen as a whole, a good friend of mine is fast
becoming one, and Lord, if he gets loose in Philadelphia the news would
be much more entertaining. "To date there have been 18 criminals
found with a .44 Magnum bullet hole in them. Also they have all had
perplexed looks on their faces. A film expert has been quoted as saying
'They were most likely wondering how he had managed to keep in mind
that he had fired 5 shots, and not 6.' Next up, updates on the doings
of the evil George Bush. Did I say evil? I meant...well I meant evil.
He eats babies! Ones out the womb already, of course! He's a
filthy RACIST! I saw him give a mean look to a black man! I did! And
just listen to his accent! You have to be a racist if you're a Texan!
[a bystander walks up] 'Umm, don't you think you are being a just a
little bia'...We Apologize For the Technical Difficulties. There Is No
Left-Wing Bias. We Repeat, There is No Left-Wing Bias. Please Stay
Tuned and Listen to Crappy Jazz."
Though, what makes my day more than inept cops
are the "Friends and Neighbors" interviewed. For some reason
newscasters think that the validity of opinion increases with
proximity. If that were so, Philadelphia lives up to it's grandiose
name, in fact the city as a whole should be canonised. Such an honour
is due to a city in which every person, at least the martyred ones,
were "as nice a person as you could meet" or "a sweet, caring, loving
mother. Never said a mean word to anyone." and in which the average
citizen is a public avenger, clearly defining the murder at hand as
"Unfortunate" and venemously scolding the criminal, saying he should
"feel awful about it". Also, every citizen and public servant seems to
have the handy-dandy quick fix right at hand. I mean it is so obviously
the solution to the city's crime problem, in fact all problems in
general, that only a complete idiot would not immediately join in the
clamour in making it the law. So I give it to you, the panacea of all
crime as we know it--Stricter Hand Gun laws. Because we all know that
hand guns are intrinsically evil, and upon contact, fills even the
docile, altruistic, socially conscious, old-lady helping inner-city
gang member with bad, bad thoughts about mean things.
Anyhow, the moral of this story is: Philadelphia
criminals are having a field day. And the news media never tires of
reporting the figures. In fact, I think they would feel their scummy
existences invalidated if they ever had a day in which no-one was shot or
maimed or raped or something. Nothing like putting those who feed on
human waste and misery on Television eight times a day, every day to talk about it. God
forbid we, the public with the inaliable right to know people's
business, not get our addiction fed. The nerve of people, keeping a
hunting accident from us for a full 24 hours!
Imagine what could have been done with all that time. I mean, in that time we
could have fabricated at least 4 more false assumptions and sold them
as fact. They set us a back a day, and for that we will never forgive
them.
I was wrong to say that the news keeps you from
starting your day upbeat, I have at least one good, strong belly-laugh
every morning.
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| Aw, crud. Not now. Please not now.
Can't I simply be a nice, friendly young man for once? Please?
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| V
"Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prockly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency and the existence
Between the essence and the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper."
-T.S.
Eliot
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