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Ahh. My last sanctuary from the hell that is reality, my venting grounds, my impenetrable fortress... my web site. I've been in a whirlwind of something hard to describe with words, its like a void. I've been caught up in nothingness, something that I've always hated and tried to avoid... but alas I too got sucked into it. Its been work and school and work and school constantly since September and my neglect for what I truly love to do is something that I frown upon when I sit here now. After missing an entire week (yes, 5 full days) of school and three days of work at KMart I'm finally finding the time to sit here and let a few things out. I've always thought the best place to start with things like this are the begininng but for the sake of getting something down right now I'm going in reverse.
About thirty minutes ago I got off of the telephone and after working out some kinks in life I decided a shower was the order of the day after an eight hour day at KMart. Showers... ahh... they're a truly beautiful thing, so relaxing, its just the time to let go. Some take their showers in a fleury of morning confusion but I am rarely so thoughtless. I choose to take my shower in the evening, slightly before I decide to retire to my quarters, to truly savor the warmth and relaxtion of water running over your body but tonight my bliss was destroyed. It seems like my relaxation was not meant to be from the start because as I walked into the bathroom I started to get stuff ready. It was pretty routine, turn the knobs, get the temperature perfect, grab a towel and wash cloth, make sure there is shampoo and soap at the ready.... STOP RIGHT THERE. Shampoo and soap, oh how I loathe them at this point. Nothing in recent time has found the way to piss me off more than shampoo and soap manufacturers creating these "unisex hygenical" products. Hell I don't even know if "hygenical" is a word but I'm so angry about this I don't really care. The thing that gets me about these "unisex" products is how they're not even close to unisex. They're so far from unisex that I would rather wash with charcoal and lighter fluid in a sauna than use the damn things. I see the soap sitting there and what automatically struck me as strange was the light red, closely resembling pink hue of the bar. Normally our soap is white, or green or something slightly more masculine than... pink. Upon recognition of this I smelled the soap and lo and behold my fears were confirmed as rose petals and perfume and all that shit filled my nostrils. No offense, the smell of a woman is great, just not on a man and especially not me. I just hate how corporations (not just soap and shampoo companies) are trying to make everything single, nothing has separation anymore. They're all about conforming because they're the supplier, and we (the brain washed consumers)
*** Disclaimer *** The purpose of this particular "essay" (if you can call it that) is not to offend anyone, but to voice my opinions on the controversial topic of religion. The views expressed past here are not of any specific faction because, I don't belong to any... when it comes to religion, I am an "island unto myself." I hope that anyone reading this does not get the wrong idea because it can obviously be misconstrued with ease...
I come to you now in foreign territory--"behind enemy lines," if you will. This foreign territory that I speak of, being a world dominated by feuding religious factions. As a person who has NEVER (unless you count the one year period when I attended Youth Group), been a practicing religious follower some may consider my views ignorant, unfounded, and down right rude. My lack of caring what "religious people" think stems directly from their own arrogant, holier-than-thou (and I use that term lightly) attitudes. What most people who practice a religion generally think is that their religion is "right" in the grand scheme of things. By "right" I mean that they think their beliefs represent what the word of their "God" is trying to convey; but with so many different points of view who really knows what is right and (to a lot of religious leaders) WHO is wrong. One of the main messages of any holy book is always contorted by this ethnocentric attitude, that message being that of loving your fellow human being regardless of religious affiliation, skin color, ethnicity, background or any other variable that is thrown in. The Christians think the Jews are wrong because they have a different view of Jesus' role in the bible; the Catholics and Protestants (both sects of Christianity) are killing each other everyday in Ireland over fundamental differences in their practices; and the Jews, Catholics, and Protestants all feel the Hindus and Buddhists are wrong because they support polytheism. With so much finger pointing and "he said, she said" going on its impossible for anyone to figure this mess out. How can so much hate stem from something as positive as religion is supposed to be is a question that seems like it will be forever unanswered.
After-Life-A-Palooza Now, while I have had no experience with polytheistic religions, I do have limited experience with Christianity. My main problem with Christians is their idea to save everybody they can before they die. While the Jehovah's Witnesses are praying their butts off to one of the select few to make it past the big gate in the sky, the Christians are trying to invite every last soul to a big "After-Life-A-Palooza." Why don't they just let people live their lives the way they feel is right, rather than trying to play the hero for everyone in sight. Most of the people trying to "convert" me are people I'd rather not spend eternity with (save a select few). The Christians also always make you feel bad, they ask you with this mask of sincerity to enjoy some get-together with "little to no religious undertone" but you always know you're gonna end up with your eyes closed, hands in the air, and balls in your throat trying not to laugh at the pansy music. I hate the fact that they use loopholes in their own system to try and sway people to their side, all they are doing is lying, lying like a boatload of hypocrites. Quite frankly, I'd rather watch some football on Sunday rather than listen to some asshole preach a message and then later on that night rape some little kid from his ministry. People like that should be beaten to death with three foot long batteries.... the hypocrisy in some religions just never surprises me anymore. The heights to which followers go is insane.....
A Moral Code in Every Garage, Common Sense in Every Pot
One thing I absolutely cannot argue with about the Bible is that it sets up a pretty good moral code, but the fact that so many people butcher it pretty much nullifies it. If someone read the Bible like they read some great American literature and analyze it that way, rather than in a worshipping manor, maybe someone would realize what is really behind it all. Religions have been taking the same book and interpretting it in so many different ways that nobody realizes what it really says anymore because they are more concerned with defending what they believe, or more likely, what they've been TAUGHT to believe. Parents who throw their children into a religion and let them become brainwashed from the day they're old enough to hear Biblical stories are the type of people who have no sense. Don't you people have faith that maybe, JUST MAYBE, your children will be able to figure some of this stuff out for themselves? No, that would be impossible, that would be WAY TOO MUCH like what they teach us at school..... you know how overrated analyzing and comprehending something is, right? WRONG! Why do you people think that almost all of high school English is the analyzation of literature? IT IS A BASIC LIFE SKILL TO BE ABLE TO ANALYZE SOMETHING YOU READ! I just don't see why so many people need a book to tell them something that I could tell them in a small conversation. If people could follow a basic moral code and use a little bit of common sense, life would be less complicated. Take away religion right now, make it nonexistent.... see how many world problems just dissaopeared? Slightly less than amazing, right? I didn't think so, even though someone reading this is one of those brainwashed children I spoke of, they still have the lingering questions in their heads.... they question their religion just as much as I question ALL religion but they don't have the guts to come forward because of the nonsensical "fear of God" embedded into their brains. I live my life by a moral code that I believe in, a pretty damn good one in my opinion, and I'm a perfectly good person. Nobody in their right mind would tell you I'm a terrible person unless they had some religious vendetta againts me. But even though I'm a perfectly normal, perfectly MORAL person, since I don't believe in the existence of a God or Satan, a Heaven or Hell, and divinity of ANY sort I'm labeled as "the bad guy." Maybe these religious types should do some role reversal, refocus their scopes to see internally, then you'll find the real "bad guys," the people who can't even think for themselves....
***Again, I hope I didn't offend anyone when I wrote this, but I realize that would be impossible. I just have my opinions, and while I respect the opinions of others, I don't expect that anyone who disagrees will respect mine. If anyone has a problem with this, please consult me about it rather than talking to everyone else about ME.... You can contact me at therick05@aol.com***
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3/17/04
Regret. To live in regret is to take everything that life should be and crush it into absolute nothingness. This one simple thing that every human being tries to avoid seems more prominent than anything. Maybe iif man had never taken the steps in technology and communication, life would be held at simpler standards. What I mean when I say simpler is that maybe we would live on instinct rather than relying on logic and reason. The only result of "perfect logic" (in my experiences) has been nothing but regret.
Thought + Logic = Regret
Thought + Reason = Regret
Thought + Thinking = Regret
Thought + Instinct = ?Wild Card?
What these equations represent are my personal experiences. Logic and reason tend to lead to regret. Rather than listen to what I know and taking a chance I analyze and eventually destroy. The destruction that takes place is the utter killing of hope in my life. Any hope that first struck my brain cells hwen a thought appeared is mangled by logic and reason. Would I be happier at a lover level of comprehension of life? Would I, such as some caveman at the dawn of man, rely on instinct rather than the logicand reason that has been fed to the most impressionable minds through out our entire live? I cant even guess or even fathom my life if I relied supremely on intuition. Every decision that has ever been made in my life has the possibility of being changed. Would I choose a route of fun and partying over work and making myself a "better person?" For the same reasons that life would be better, it would be worse. Why do I even keep writing when I should have stopped before I started? Stupid reason and logic that literally cause me to lose sleep at night. Laying awake with tunes blaring through these damned headphones I contemplate life and when I try to write these thoughts they never seem as realistic once the ink ruins the paper. Sometimes I try to meditate through the suble humming of traffic outside and the louder furnace, hoping that maybe I can dissapear to somewhere where everything IS clear. Do I make the most of my high school life or do I stand by and take the safe route, letting life pass me by. We hear so much about the longing of people to return to high school, but why? To me, it has been nothing great so far. But I guess it is what I make it.....
12/9/02 High School, the two words that are the bane of my existence anymore. I thought in middle school that High School would be the best years of my life, and when I'm 40 if I do think they are I will realize what a piss poor thing that life is. Don't get me wrong, its not like I hate getting up in the morning to go, or hate doing the homework, or hate the social events, its just the whole high school atmosphere. Its like showing up to a party uninvited, everyone realizes that you're there but thats the extent of it, you're just there. Thats me, I'm just there with a select group of friends but to the rest of this little sub-culture I'm just a face. Hell I'd rather be a really long number that noone could remember rather than a face that noone can remember, numbers are sweet (I'm a 10029511592001 kinda guy myself). But the bottom line of high school is really this, selling out. High School is like a huge body with hormones running wild and more often than not you sell out your best friend since third grade for some chick that you've known for eight seconds and - - at the moment- - forget her name. Why do we do this? Why do we give up everything for somebody? I can't explain it, I've done it. I dated a girl for three months and she was my life for three months, I woulnd't change a thing about it except the fact that the few times that I talked to my friends and not her during this three month period all I talked about was her. Why do we as teenagers have this undying infatuation for the opposite sex? What if we didn't have hormones? That'd be some weird stuff, a bunch of people running around pretending they're attracted to each other because "thats how its supposed to be" but really they aren't because there isnt diddly squat going on in their body. Maybe there is no such thing as love, I've thought I was in love many a time but how am I supposed to know if I ever was. One thing that I will NEVER understand is how love is supposedly forever but it always comes to an abrupt stop. You can date somebody for like two years and everyday exchange "I Love Yous" but then on your two year and third month anniversary just stop, its weird to me. Thats why I don't believe in love anymore, maybe its an all a government ploy so that we reproduce enough people to one day fight in a "holy war", wouldn't that be badass? Love was always a government thing so that one day humans could fight a long the side of the heavens against the incomparable destruciton of hell. Just makes me wanna laugh to myself, so today I leave you with this thought. . . if love is real than what is love? A state of being? A feeling? Chemical Inbalance at a point in time? I'd take the latter of the three, love and your body and high school are all the same thing, hormones running wild. . . damn the government. . .
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Maybe I'm preaching, maybe not but this is one of those things that truly pisses me off. When I hear somebody say "life sucks" I literally want to put them through a table or something. Life sucks because you let life suck, noone puts a gun to your head and says that life is gonna suck for you now and forever, you control your destiny. I encountered this today from somebody pretty close to me. It makes me more sad than angry to hear it from a dear friend, I mean these are the people close to me and they think that their life is so horrible because they aren't good at this or have trouble with that. It makes me sad because I know how it feels because I too was just like that, I thought life sucked harder than a hoover on my living room carpet and followed that to a T. One day I realized it just wasn't worth it, why sit around and say that my life sucks because I'm having trouble with something, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. So I did, I started to work harder and stuff started to come around for me. Even today I find myself saying sometimes that it sucks but then I try and turn it around. I try and put this through the thickening skull of my peers but noone seems to listen, don't they realize that the phrase "life sucks" is a sign of depression and many people end up turning to drugs and alcohol because "life sucks?" Why would you just help their cause?
This brings me to another classic rant of mine.... we are classified as an unhealthy society yet it is perfectly legal to promote cigarettes and alcohol, two things that are proven to lead to cancer... something isn't quite right there. They already tried prohibition in the early 1900's and we all know how that turned out but they should atleast be able to put some limitations on consumption of alcohol. My idea would be to issue actual government cards that are scanned everytime you purchase a type of alcohol and to set maybe a two purchase limit on people. But then again we have our people who are all game for freedom, to them I say this.... there is no such thing is freedom. True freedom is being able to go in your backyard, lie in the grass, and stare at the clouds without worrying about some neo-terrorist running back there with a bomb strapped to his back. What I'm getting at is freedom is safety and safety can only be achieved by giving up some freedoms. What is freedom really without safety anyways? Without this safety any jerk over seas or even right here on the homefront can start his own little rebel group that eventually takes over our whole country and strips us of any freedoms we already have, look what Hitler did. A man saw things he didn't like and did something about it, don't think there aren't other Hitlers out there! I can just picture how many neo-Nazis we have in our precious democracy, it kind of makes me sick. Back on Hitler, this guy was able to speak to the people because he knew what the people wanted to hear. He was able to gain followers because he otherwise sucked up to them. If you butter up a woman enough shes gonna start to believe what your saying (to all of the women reading this do not take offense to this, I mean this as a double standard on women to men also) just like Hitler did with all his "aryan race" bullshit. Just imagine if someone like Martin Luther King Jr. who could touch so many peoples hearts through words was a twisted mofo like Hitler, we might not even be here today. Its like... watching X-Files with no lights on... scary stuff...
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5-7-03 A Contemplation On My Life (inspired by a conversation at the library)
Today, for about the one-millionth time in my life, I asked myself the question that haunts every teenager at one time or another. . . "why?" It all sounds kind of general but I guess I can elaborate for the sake of my audience. Why do I do what I do? Why do I feel the way I feel? Why has "life" dealt me this hand? I just want answers to these questions, nothing more--nothing less. The best place to start is at the beginning, which would be the library. Today (May 7, 11 days before my 16th birthday) I took the small trip from my school to the library just down the road, the library is pretty nice with a cafe and a pretty wide selection of books (Unless you're looking for 18th Century French Literature) and fairly nice employees but I usually just go there to chill, which is great. Today it was a group of three when the question that I write about now came about, I was sitting at the table going through some random book that I picked up off of a shelf and I said something a long the lines of "Did you ever have this happen to you... everything just kind of slows down, like you're watching a movie in slow motion" and one of the particpants of our eliquent conversation replied quickly in the affirmative and then we got into just laying around outside and she mentioned asking herself that very question--thus spawning tonights writing sample. I've asked myself "Why?" times before but never when I was on a level of comprehension of what life really is as where I am at now... so "Why?" is a great question at this point. I go to school everyday (I do now atleast) and work pretty hard to get where I'm going but what for? Does it really matter what we do with our lives if it all ends in about seventy to seventy-five years, we don't even live through a full millenium. Seventy years isn't anything when you really think about how old civilization is, why should be bother with the stuff that we do (working hard and what not) when all that life really is is a series of events leading up to death. I could imagine caring if we were immortal or something, then it would make sense to make something out of yourself because you have to live with it, but us silly mortals haven't got to worry about anything, just what happens when we're dead and our taxes.... damn, its kind of depressing. Some argue that it is because we should "make the most out of our time here on Earth", well my "List of Things I Want To Do Before I Die" doesn't consist of taking English 10 Honors for nine months or mowing the lawn, it has things that I might actually want to live for. Somehow we, as an evolutionarily shallow species, have grown attached to accomplishments and the reasoning that what you make of yourself is what you make of your life... that statement is pure crap! Sure, I would love to succeed as much as the next guy but what I don't get is what is the point of doing so if its only gonna last for like 30 years, considering we don't really get to finish off our big achievments until our mid-30s and then we retire.... big deal. Well I've run out of ideas for this because of the squeaking/whining/screeching that is my family speaking to me. You should have seen it, I was typin and drummin on the desk, I was truly "in the zone" as they say. Well I hope I can elaborate some more later on for you guys.... the few... the proud.... the followers of my site!
