When the news dies

What happens when the news dies? Then do we ask questions? Do we just take it or brush it off as some biased outlook. What happens when that goes away…when the world grows back larger? I know its hard to imagine, with the way the world is. But we are fortunate. When something aweful happens, we hear about it within the hour. We follow the search team. From our sofa we watch the world. Actually we watch it falling apart. We dont even know our neighbors birthday, but we know the license plate of a killer, along with whatever information we could ever want. They say the world is getting smaller. I say it is getting more shallow. 

eternity

I do not understand the reason we find it necessary to put the “an” in front of eternity. I find it very hard to believe there is another one someone could be referencing, or one coming. There is no such thing as spending two eternities so why have a plural form? annoying- yes. Am I picky- absolutely

The cacoon and the mask

I believe we are faceless beings. More like cacoons, genetically filled with certain ideals and abilities. Worthless really. It is like having a book that no one reads, filled with answers to the most important questions of life. In psycology, I was simply asked what makes us human. And he ranted and gave his own approach but what I saw was a little more personal. Humans have no instincts he preached. I believe it, without a mother a baby would be helpless. Without some other connection to people, a human is not human at all. And with time will probably no longer be living. Morbid sounding, I know. But we are not born into a world completely alone. We are born with others. Well, I was. Our environment shapes a mask that we wear that is a vigorous attempt to let which is in- out. Some are better masks than others. Some so thin, they are bland and vulnerable. Some so thick, (i would find this to be the majority), that its easy to forget or even lose what is inside. I see this through experience more than anything. I have preached that a person can not change who they are. They can not change this cacoon. With every person, friend, girlfriend I have dug. I digg for the inside of who they are. I have to see how much they are holding back. It is inate in me to read people. I would say I do it freakishly well. Like a book I would say. I can see thoughts entering, and see through their mask when it slowly is accepted through that cacoon. Time is a molder. It is the grand sculptor, changing masks ever so subtly or so abruptly that its hard to see down to where people start from. What do they hold at their core? People can not and do not change who they are. I find it most interesting to see some of my friends from highschool come from college and act as if life has been shoved into their heads. It took 12 years for them to get comfortable with who they are and to find that perfect mask to accentuate every detail of themselves,  and in a mere short time period all of which was certain is now in question. The mask is sweating it is so fresh and with little form or efficiency. I since have stopped talking to them, and it would be a lie if I said it was not due to this. But I still talk to a few, mostly two. They came back and expected just as I had. What beautiful masks they wear.

The Lady by the Window

I could not explain why she did as she did but everyday at 11:00 margaret would come and sit in that chair facing the window. She carried no books, no paper, not even a pen. She never moved and i was often led to believe she had fallen asleep with her eyes open. Doing this in a library irritated me. Why could she not do this at home. With all the resources a person could possibly need at their fingertips, she used nothing as I slaved away studying and reading. Why? I would ask. What is she thinking about? As days would pass I began to stop asking myself and started guessing at the answer. She was much to old to be waiting for her husband or even a son to come home from a war. She was too well kept to be homeless. Maybe she was a writer waiting for her inspiration.  She might have some deadly Illness and she stared out of a window, using the library as a waiting room to join the ones that had to leave her behind. Day by day would pass and with each one a more time consuming elusive story would be created. Maybe she was a fugative, tired of living as someone else. It started to consume more and more of my two hour time block of study time until I came to the library for the sole purpose of investigating the life of the lady at the window.

I woke up this morning with a purpose. I too would pull up a chair and do nothing but stare next to Margaret. Much  to my dismay, when I arrived; she did not. She was no where to be found. Like a fire, my imagination was engulfed with scenarios. They found her. And with that thought, I sat in Margaret’s chair facing the window. To this moment I can not tell you what was outside that window. The window frame acted as a television of my imagination. For the entire two hours, my mind dumped itself out to the window. It was captivating like no book, and emotionally connectable unlike any movie I had ever seen. My alarm went off, bringing me back to that chair in the library facing the window. I understood exactly why margaret sat here. We spend our lives taking in the world around us, but spend very little time giving it back.

This is my testament to the lady at the window, who I named Margaret, because she changed me without speaking to me. I actually hardly saw her face. But in her lied a lesson that she could not keep to herself. I once week sit in that same place just to give back. I have yet to see her since, but whether realizing it or not, served a purpose that was greater than anything she could have read or seen in that library. 

down

Im not down in the dumps,

Its just where you like to be caught.

I am not falling to the ground

With your tears you have made me walk

No  room to  fly,

To live or die.

Just down.

I am not ignoring reality,

You just blind me with the truth

How you can make me perfectly miserable

And perfectly happy too

And to be honest,

I dont know what to do,

I find that the closer i get,

The further I get from you.

Im not trying to walk away,

Im not trying to leave.

But it feels that when I hold you close

You are pushing me away

Im not going to stand and wait,

But I can not leave.

I am trapped in my own life

as if it were my destiny or fate

These words may cut where it hurts,

But I would not know when

Most of the words that I have spoken

 Were everything but heard 

Wouldnt it be better if you could taste it,A feeling so real but impossible to face it,Wont you fight it off with me tonight,Drown its persuasive, misleading light. Because I am who I amnot what you see,Burdened by my weighted pastThat brings me to my knees. Ive had my fill of broken words,Truths buried because we know reality 

There are a few moments the world stands still, when it looks back at you and asks if you are even paying attention. We get tiny glimpses of a perfect set of circumstances where things just fall into place. Amazing still to me is  how we never really get the whole picture. I look back  at my past and am amazed at how well it fit together. But in the moment I was clueless. Then there are the moments where the world is at a dead sprint, as if to force us to get up and catch where we are supposed to be. I find that most people are in the latter. Last night i sat on my back porch with nothing but a bean bag chair and just laid there and tried to think about nothing. I think I am almost ashamed that it took me about 45 minutes to get that point where my mind was blank, anxiously trying to wander. And then I let it. I thought about everything from how cool velcro is to how significantly insignificant we are. The world is all about perspective. You can chose to be blind and wander hopefully where u need to be, or you can lay back and take in what is there. I would suggest the latter.

Brett Dennen – Ain’t No Reason

There ain’t no reason things are this wayIt’s how they always been and they intend to stayI can’t explain why we live this way, We do it everyday.Preachers on the podium speaking of saintsProphets on the sidewalk begging for changeOld ladies laughing from the fire escape, cursing my nameI got a basket full of lemons and they all taste the sameA window and a pigeon with a broken wingYou can spend you whole life working for something, Just to have it taken awayPeople walk around pushing back their debtsWearing pay checks like necklaces and braceletsTalking ’bout nothing, not thinking ’bout deathEvery little heartbeat, every little breathPeople walk a tight rope on a razor’s edgeCarrying their hurt and hatred and weaponsIt could be a bomb, or a bullet, or a penOr a thought, or a word, or a sentenceThere ain’t no reason things are this wayIt’s how they always been and they intend to stayI don’t know why I say the things that I say,But I say them anywayBut love will come set me freeLove will come set me free, I do believeLove will come set me free, I know it willLove will come set my free, yes.Prison walls still standing tallSome things never change at allKeep on building prisons, gonna fill them allKeep building bombs, gonna drop them allWorking young fingers bare to the boneBreaking your back, make you sell your soulLike a lung is filled with coal, suffocating slowThe wind blows wild and I may moveBut politicians lie and I am not fooledYou don’t need no reason or a three piece suit, to argue the truthThe air on my skin and the world under my toesSlavery is stitched into the fabric of my clothesChaos and commotion wherever I goLove, I try to followLove will come set me freeLove will come set me free, I do believeLove will come set me free, I know it willLove will come set my free, yes.There ain’t no reason things are this wayIt’s how they always been and they intend to stayI can’t explain why we live this way,We do it everyday.