'Not Giving a Fuck is Awesome!'

Monday, January 30, 2012
What new thing did you begin this past weekend?

What new thing?  I don’t think anything new.  I think it has been the same old same old, but maybe that’s entirely wrong.  The problem:  people care too much.  I am becoming more and more consumed with the “Who gives a fuck?” mentality.  Not in a self destructive way (mostly) but in an open attempt to regain something of myself I might have lost, because in the end, if you really believe we only have one life?  I mean…fuck it, right?  Who was it…Janis Joplin that said something like, “You’ve got to be true to yourself, because in the end your self is all you’ve got.”  I think somewhere down my road I haven’t been true to myself.  I think that’s why I’m tortured, unless I’m just destined to be forever tortured.  A tortured, tormented, twisted mind.  Yep.  That’s me, alright. 

Trudge trudge trudge.  I try to walk through quick sand but it brings me down.  I try to push my way past things, see the forest through the trees.  What new thing did I begin?  NOT CARING if I am crazy.  Actually, yes – sort of.  I’ve tried loosening my hold on caring.  Multiple epiphanies really get me off daily, but I had this one the one day…man.  It was a doozy.  And it was a long, hard one.  A light switch.  An acceptance.  A realization.

I might be crazy – but is that such a bad thing?  I’m trying to “cure” myself?  I’m trying to be “normal”? What is normal? Overrated people, trying to be different.  A group of people too scared to be themselves?  I’ve always been pressured to do this, because I think I was convinced it was wrong.  Oh, you know, everything, my way of thinking, acting, seeing, being.  But is it?  Wrong.  What is that even?  Can’t define it, can you?  Because it’s all subjective.  Life is subjective.  And life is unpredictable.  We try to make sense of things and have this little line we follow and a path and all this shit, but what is it in the end?  Monotony.  Droning monotony.  A droning monotony of an existence?   There’s my Miss Anthrope.   I’ve missed you. (self hug)  Why do I remember having thoughts about the monotony of life around the age of 12?  I mean, I thought kids were supposed to be happy go lucky and there I was concerned about the cold war and worrying that life was just a meaningless string of bullshit and lies.  I guess I’ve always been misanthropic.  I guess I’ve always been tortured.  I guess this is who I am? 

I was talking to my friend at the bar the other day and we were discussing life and its bittersweetness at one point.  Everything is like that, it seems; bitter and sweet, simultaneously.  And if you think about it, it really makes sense.  Yin and Yang.  Good and bad.  Positive and negative.  The whole of life is the good and the bad, the Yin and the Yang.  You can’t have the Bitter without the Sweet or the Sweet without the Bitter? 

I think most of man’s spiritual dilemma can be traced back to the fact that we struggle with control issues.  Our mind is programmed to create order out of chaos.  When you really get down to the heart of it, nothing in this world makes sense, so we seek it.  We seek things that make sense to us, that have some order.  But we want to control the order.  We can’t accept that maybe we don’t have control over everything?  It’s just that losing control is such a scary thing, isn’t it?  But recently I have come to terms with the fact that there are just simply some things we can not control.  I can control my actions and responses to things, but I can’t control these things in and unto themselves.  I can control my actions, I am told I can even control my thoughts maybe (let me know!)??, but I can’t control my emotions or my feelings.  (Or can I?)  I can only ride the waves.  I can only control the surf, control the direction of my effort.  You can’t change these waves, you can only ride them.    

I digress.  My point, if I had one, would be – I can’t be myself without accepting the crazy and riding the crazy wave.  I’m soul surfing some gnarly waves of psycho.  If my mind was given to me by whatever gave it to me, and I’m meant to give it to something – to give it back, to complete the circuit.  My soul is just trying to complete the circuit.  So I’ll just give in - and go with the flow.  And when you do that, what’s to be, they say will be.  Maybe we aren’t really in control anyway?  Who gives a fuck who is steering?  We’re just back seat driving off the cliff...

[This title was taken from the Jon Lajoie video "Not Giving a Fuck."  If you haven't seen that one, I highly suggest YTing it.]

Masked But Unanimous

Masks.  Everybody wears them, but do we all understand them?  Yes and no.  Let me explain.  I was pondering this tonight while rocking my little girl to sleep.  I suppose this is a theme that often resurfaces in my stream of thought, and it was a really good visual tonight.  My daughter hates going to sleep and sometimes the act of initiating it can be pretty difficult, although tonight she was reasonably tired.  Even though sleep wasn’t far away, she still put up her fight.  She pulls at herself fighting sleep.  She pulls at her hair; pulls at her face; pulls at her ears.  She actually pulls at her own face as if she is unaware that it belongs to her sometimes.  Like it’s not even a part of her, that face.  That’s not where she lies.  She lies within.  

I just thought that this was odd because it is a metaphor of sorts, a huge symbol.  Can it be both?  Sure.  We all have a mask, but we get lost in it and sometimes it is hard to tell where the mask ends and we begin.  But there are really multiple selves within this main Self we are striving to understand, aren’t there?  Many many many selves.  Or is it just one?  One Self.  One mask.  We really are all the same damn thing anyway, so if the point is “One Love” and all that rot, why is there such a split in the human psyche?  What’s my point again?  The mask.  

The mask is often viewed as separate of the Self, or authentic self, I guess.  But if all things are connected in the great things, then aren’t they really the same thing?  Our mask is really part of who we are.  It is included in the Self, because the Self encompasses all things.  Every part of us.  It’s the only place all of these pieces can come together and make sense; order in chaos.  

It’s not the fact that we have a mask.  It’s the fact that we fail to understand this mask.  The mask is in its creation an entity unto itself.  We become our masks and in a way our masks become us.  Only sometimes it is as though we are peering out through the eye holes and all the while we are completely unaware as to what the mask looks like to the people peering at our eyes beneath it. 

Love is a Lesson Learned

Tuesday, January 17, 2011
Tell us about your first teacher who was important to you.

Although there were a few teachers in my schooling that really affected me, I think my first real teacher was my grandmother.  She was a hell of a woman.  So much so that it is almost blaspheme even speaking of her using fowl language.  I think that she would be honored that I am categorizing her as a teacher in my life.  She was many things, mostly a wife, mother, grandmother and a house wife but she was also so much more – so inspirational.  She taught me so much and is still in death.  She really had a true teacher spirit.  She probably would have been immensely happy to have been a teacher, but she wasn’t able to even finish high school because she ended up being the one to stay home to take care of her dying mother.  Her husband and her children, she said, was her vocation.  That was an understatement. 

My grandmother’s teaching spirit came through in mostly everything that she did.  She really put her heart into what she did.  She was a loving and devoted wife, an amazing mother to 9 kids, and a grandmother to all of us (there are tons).  I can’t even fathom how she made us all feel so loved?  I can’t understand it, actually.  It still astounds me today.  But that was one of her greatest lessons.  She really was one of the biggest sources of light in my life. She is one of the few people that made me feel good about myself, made me feel special and absolutely made me feel loved.  She taught me how to love.  

When she died I knew that I was losing an incredible source of energy and love.  I knew that I would never be able to tap into that like I did when she was alive, and it was horrible.  It wasn’t like I visited my grandmother everyday or anything (which is ridiculous considering the distance) but I did visit her periodically and see her a lot during my life.  Her influence to the time actually spent with me ratio is astounding.  I used to call her "Mommy-Grandma" when I was a little girl.  This started because I actually would call her Mommy and then catch and correct myself.  It's just one of those things, but I think it is one of those "you're Freudian slip is showing" things.  It speaks volumes about me.  To this day I will also sometimes slip up and refer to her as "Mom."  I learned after her death from one of my aunts how honored she was that I possibly would have thought of her that way.  I was honored to be able to feel that way; to have her influence as a child.  

She continues to be a huge influence in my life and I think about her almost daily.  I still look to her to guide me.  You would swear that the woman was in my head.  Other than the lesson in love, my grandmother's other gift to me was the lesson of faith.  Faith and love - they sort of go hand in hand, don't they?  Although I was sat by my gram a lot while I was little, I didn't live with her.  I've got other structures in my head making up my perspective.  A lot of other things control my brain, but I think her loving lessons really formed most of the positive framework of my mind and I don’t think I would have been able to survive without that love.

Unfinished Projections

Friday, January 27, 2012
How do you feel about unfinished projects?

Terrible. 

I Break in Routine

Obsession.  What is it?  Who knows, I’m too obsessed to look it up.   I’m having a moment so just bare with me. 

I know my mind is artsy fartsy and out there, but I’m just a normal person… I suppose my spirit is that of a writer though and that makes me a little looney sometimes.  I think too much.  I think all the time.  It doesn’t stop.  I think my husband can actually shut his mind of (half the time when I talk to him I wonder if that is what he has done! Ha.) But what a luxury, right?  Seriously!  Obsession!  Why is my mind such a baby that needs catered to with the correct stimulation?  

I am catering to my daughter on a daily basis, and I’m struggling to fulfill her daily wants and give her stimulation, while at the same time craving and wanting my own stimulation.  I have come to realize that it comes in multiple forms.  Right now I am obsessed with a break from routine, yet I continually fail to establish a routine for myself.  I’m still following the pattern.  It’s just nothing is precise.  There’s the understatement of the century.

Untitled: Something I Don't Remember Writing

In the kitchen they saw us kissing,

Our hair whirled ‘round our heads,

Like the wind was mingling with us,

And mixing our souls as we touched.

I laughed and you smiled at nothing.

I noted how often you spoke.

I missed your hands being around me.

I missed our hearts both beating broke. 

A nod of the head in your direction.

A frown smiling back at me still.

I mourn our times never aligned.

I burn for you and always will. 

[January 15, 2012]

Change, Confusion and Time

So, Change comes busting down my door recently with his buddy Confusion.

I’d been seeing him lately everywhere I go, but I thought it was an illusion.

They got me up against the wall; block my face with my hands.

They beat me bad, and then play nice, but they get me in the guts.

Man, it was fucking nuts.

Well, Change says, “Why don’t we go see what Time is doing?”

Confusion got a puzzled look on his face, like it would be an intrusion.

Time’s wasting away, sitting in the dark.

Looking for a light, searching for a spark.

Confusion trips through Time’s door, and he folds over on himself.

Shoulda watched where he was going, ol’ Time’s not in the greatest health.

“Shut the door!” Time says, dusting himself off.

“Rent’s due.  Chaos is coming, and he’ll be shittin’ rocks.” 

[February 7, 2011]