Eternal Burning of an Unquiet Mind

faster

2005-03-31T22:16:00.000+10:00

this happened faster than I would have predicted, new domain, new site, new blog!!

flickeringcolours.com

flickeringcolours.com/wordpress/

naturally this is but a work in progress. something that will never really finish, but the interface isn't even remotely happy yet. We'll get there.

moving

2005-03-31T21:14:00.000+10:00

hey boys and girls. I'm moving. Yeah it's been fun, but in 2 months I've already had my fill of downtime on this particular brand of blog. So over the next week or so I'll be setting up a shiny new blog on my own webserver, and trasporting all the stuff from here to there. So... don't expect any new entries here for ... ever. But I will post a new URL here and spread it 'round to you guys on your blogs.

a change of pace

2005-03-25T22:59:00.000+11:00

Just for something completely different, this is is the latest passage I've written as part of the story/book which I am currently working on. So far it's little more than a vague idea, and a handful of characters who I'm seeking to define quite individually, before the plot leads them to encounter each other. So here I am attempting to really get inside the head of this particular character who I identify with a lot right now. I might post more of this sort of thing as it develops. Perhaps I'll even create a seperate blog for this project. That would be interesting!

The sweat cooling his skin was just beginning to dry when the euphoria faded. Like the heat their passion created, the satisfaction too waned. He lay on his back, covered only by a thin sheet which now clung to his clammy skin wretchedly. Jasper stared at the ceiling, waiting for what he knew would come.

Just as it always did, for so many years now. And every time, the pattern repeated. Despair welled up within him like a corporeal thing. It grew first in the pit of his stomach, where its icy fingers shrank his loins and chilled his heart. Motionless, helpless, Jasper felt it rise into his chest. Then through his arms, stealing whatever strength he had left.

Finally, with a tiny shudder, despair reached into his mind. Memories flooded back, of the woman who did not lay beside him now. To a time when he was not a slave to his addictions. To a time, the thought bitterly, when I was a man. Now, just a husk. The culmination of events long since past, animated now only be the memory of emotion, those old passions. Those memories that drove him like a marionette towards revenge. That was all he could remember wanting; to destroy the man who’d destroyed him.

Tears etched silent lines down the sides of his rough face. So helpless. Unable to move on. Always forced to drown out the memories between the legs of whores. Wandering homeless. Fleeing. Forever running from what happened years ago, and never finding the time to create anything new. What am I doing? he pleaded silently.

If only she weren’t gone, he though. Just as he did everytime he tried to forget her.

And just as predictably, a wash of hot anger suddenly poured through his limbs. Searing energy spread through his body, and Jasper could not help but sit upright. His breathing had quickened to pace with his thoughts. Weak! he shouted in silence. Frustration filled his consciousness, and drove him to his feet. No longer would he lay here, wallowing. Now was the time to break the cycle, the thought as he rose and dressed in the near-black night. This is the last time I find myself here, he swore, as he stalked out of the in, leaving his forgotten consort well behind.

Moments later, he had mounted Siren, and shot out of the gates of Port Ryal, vowing to never again touch the tainted skin of a whore, to forsake his weakness. Just as he did every time before.

unbridled

2005-03-22T00:10:00.000+11:00

fuck you, whorish scum who so easily turned your back on me. Now living a lie that you so happily provoke from others who should not have to lie to you. The cloak of weakness that you wear is either so light you feel as if you're free, or so heavy you cannot cast it aside. I don't understand you, so I don't know which it is.

I used to think that you were more. Now I realize that you are what you have become. Your own blood forsakes you. They have lost you. You have lost yourself--if in fact you were ever found. Now that I even wonder. Was I just so easy? Was it all just a matter of convenience? The one you are with now is. He will not tell you the hard things. You like it that way, pretender. You are a great pretender, one who can pretend to be happy with yourself when you are naught but the coincidence of other people who drag you along in their wake. They don't know you. They know themselves. You are a mirror for them. Flat. Cold. Asking nothing of them, as little as you ask yourself, you cause not a ripple on the surface of the world.

Even the your own bearer sought my aid in the begining. Now she turns on me, while asking me to help her lie to you because you are incapable of bearing the truth. She is as afraid of you as you are. Be something. What you are now is nothing. It is default. It is fear. It makes me sick, and I resent that. Even now I want you to heal. I resent disappointment. Maybe You're better off this way, but I am not.

Wake up and face the real fucking world, you deluded infant. You have to work at it. You have to make choices. It's hard. Deal with it.

1352

2005-03-19T23:11:00.000+11:00

stop. scroll down and read 'the problems with jack sparrow' before reading this, please. it is just a courtesy to me

Jax turns around and stares straight down the barrel of a new mode of being. His thumb rests softly on the trigger, and in this moment, he pauses to reflect. It seems tragic that only weeks after he has been freed to walk upon the surface of this world, he already contemplates this metallic solution.

Have I really been coping with the changes in life that have come my way--or have I been hiding in the impervious bravado of a personna that was never going to work? I really don't know at the moment. I think I may have been wrong about things I have asserted, and lived by, for quite some time, thought. I am not sure where this will lead, or even where this writing might end, but I will be honest and hopefully learn something.

I've said before that unwavering determination to be as true to one's own character is an absolute virtue. That to compromise the way you conduct yourself for the sake of appearances is folly. In this, I think I may have erred. I also think that if I can come to terms with that mistake, and make some reparations for it, I may find many of my general problems somewhat lessened.

I found myself only two nights ago in a social circumstance with which I am very unfamiliar, and as it turns out, extremely ill-equipped to partake in. In this situation, I was surrounded by a group much more familiar with each other than with me. I was the odd one out. My only tie to this group was my close friendship with one of their number. So, I had sort of a probational welcome pass to join their table.

Unfortunately, I have never practiced my probational welcome pass code of conduct. So on that night, I behaved very much as I do when I am surrounded by my own close group of friends (nevermind how that group is utterly consigned to the past). Mostly, the average reader of this passage would immediately identify my actions there as quite foolish. But I am the one who refuses to adjust my behaviour for anyone, remember?

This does not work. By the end of the night, arguments were white-hot, and I wonder now how far away the fist-fight was.

Let me examine 'this' for a moment, hopefully from a different angle this time--retrospectively! I had been granted provisional access to a social circle that is not my own. I am not an important or influential member of this group. My thoughts, character, past... they are all irrelevant to the present state of that group. The only reason I am there, the only relevance I have, is on the recommendation of a good friend of mine. She used her own influence to barter me a seat at the table. And what do I do?

I blow in like a storm of self-righteous opinion and self-proclaimed, self-justified infallibility. Self-ish. I think not of the feelings of the others whose space I am sharing. I show them not the least whit of respect in their own house. Nor am I thinking of my guardian, who's reputation has gotten me in tonight. Her, I don't think of at all, other than how she is my friend, and not one of these people. All that occupies my mind is my own good time. So, I steal packs of cigarettes (only to return them) and deliver a jab at filthy habits. Unfortunately in this group where smokers outnumber non-smokers to the ratio of everyone : me the humour (and the parentheses) is lost. There is a taboo of sorts against the swiping of fags in this place, and Jax is but one man, against the many. Here, it is just not funny.

The comfort, the relaxation of those around me escapes my notice in my desperate attempt to be myself. More important is my own ability to do and say whatever I feel, than the ability of those who have extended an invitation to enjoy their own night. And the result of this is that in being myself, I become an insufferable asshole.

An embarassing, insufferable asshole. With every misplaced jibe and every thoughtless swipe, the group would be thinking "And she is friends with this guy?" Or at least, that's how she'd imagine their thoughts. She also has enough real compassion for me that she feels embarassed for me rather than for herself, even if I don't feel the humiliation. The fact that I don't probably makes what she feels even more intense.

I wonder how or if or when I will be able to tell her this--but I feel bad for what I did. I've come to see that I insulted everyone involved that night. Her, her friends, and myself. She will cope with the insult I gave to her. Our relationship is strong enough to repel that sort of accident, because she knows I am trying. But I also disserved her friends, who are strangers to me, and have no reason to give me the benefit of any doubts. Besides that, first impressions . . . I wonder what impact I may have on their regard for her. Probably not very much, because she is far better at winning the respect of others than I am. She will know what to do to make them feel better. And that will lead them to respect her anew.

But that is not the point. This whole episode is a matter of very basic principle. The very basic notion of compassion and empathy. The principle of at least trying to do what would make someone else happy, even if it means compromising just a little--or sometimes a lot--of your own pleasures for the time being. In making that sacrifice, I am allowing someone else just a little more happiness--and is that not pleasant for me? It is if I respect the other as an individual. It is if I realize too that I am enjoying the greater pleasures of socializing in return for the filter I apply to my behaviour.

Between these two benefites, I'd like to learn to believe that the compromise is worth it.

Now having re-read what I've just written, the overall message I hear from myself is that I am now at a time in my life where I simply need to grow a bit, in order to move onwards. I find that acting the way I did among my group of friends that I myself long since identified as defunct does not work. Sitting here now, I can't imagine why that surprises me. I was what . . . 18 when I established myself in that group, and now none of them remain, why am I different? How could I alone not change? How could I expect that? Why would I want it? Okay, enough rhetorical questions.

What does admitting that I can't always be Jax Parrow actually cost me? It costs me the ability to say that I will never compromise myself for anyone's sake. But where was that declaration getting me? Callow and vain, fixed like a fossil - That's been me. Too goddamn stubborn to go with the flow of life.

The time really has come for that to change. When my illuminated guardian pours it all out to me in emotional torrents, I know I'm in dire straits. And looking at this trade I am proposing; to swap selfish pride and insecure vanity for compassion, the abilities to gain respect and to make people a bit happier in daily life . . . I would be a fool not to accept.

So Jax lays down the revolver, and gives it a wry smile. But also, he takes off his hat and garish coat, in favour of a more understated black jacket. His other affects he places in the wardrobe, safe and readily accessible, but put away nonetheless.

This is going to be tricky. And terrifying, and uncomfortable, no doubt. But she says that it's worth it. And I trust her.

big trouble

2005-03-19T22:38:00.000+11:00

you all, whoever you may be, are all in very big trouble. I am currently working on an entry that so far stands at roughly twice the length of that which directly precedes this little note.

It is imperetive that these two pieces be read in order. So please, read the problems with jack sparrow, so the entry which will eventually follow this one will make sense.

the problems with jack sparrow

2005-03-18T21:59:00.000+11:00

There are two problems with Jack Sparrow. Firstly, he is a character in a story, and not a real person--not a particularly relevant role model. This is most important, and yet I have overlooked that just for fun. However, the second problem I had pointed out to me by someone whose advice I cannot help but trust, shortly after I very quietly admitted it to myself. Taking Jack as more than an imaginary figure, taking him at some weird sort of face-value: he is alone.

He is alone. Even in the imaginary world in which he exists, he doesn't fit in. Not only a pirate--an outlaw from political society--he has no friends, no lover, no one at all. Emulating him is to become a social outcast.

I am too much. People can't handle my core being. Most of them will never, ever understand me. I have known this for a long time. Up to now, I have dealt with this by raising a metaphorical middle finger and sauntering onwards. Recently, however, I have been sauntering more and more alone. I become isolated. From time to time, when I am not isolated, hostilities break out and the reasons for that solitude become clearer.

I am too much. I threaten, or confuse, or offend people--simply by being me. Apparently most of the world does not have the capacity to appreciate or even accept the sort of self-confidant person I am. My core being simply overwhelms them. It is difficult for me to explain in any greater detail what exactly offends these people, because they never quite tell me. They call me arrogant, rude, or resort to racist stereotypes about cocky Americans, but never get farther than that.

Quite honestly, I do not understand this! I wonder if that honesty too is offensive. That is the best I have figured out thus far, is that my honesty somehow appals the average Joe. Seems that I am too unfiltered, unmasked, to be tolerable.

I am not a rude person by my standards. I do not openly ridicule people's thoughts or beliefs, if I ever do feel strongly against them, I will say so in private, and avoid whatever topic or the person entirely if I have to. I might question them. I might express my own preference for the way I think (often that is the case) but I don't try very often or very hard to change people (not anymore anyway). I take them or I leave them. Problem is, I've been leaving a lot of people.

The Light told me last night a lot about this. She also told me that were were just friends, albeit far closer friends than one might expect. That is evidenced by how she spoke to me. She, nearly in tears once or twice, told me of how she is a different person with me and her one other best friend, than she is with anyone else. That almost always, she is filtering herself. Almost always reserved, held in check. Because mostly, people can't handle her. I asked her if it was worth it--and in a cinematic moment of a rainstorm and cigarette smoke she replied: Yes.

It is worth compromising a little with society in order to participate in the game. I argued, and she counter-argued vehemantly. Her powers of unreahersed verbal expression are unparalleled. Compromising to become something more accepted, something more normal is not giving up who you are underneath, she said. It is simply accepting the fact that certain situations call for certain behavioral patterns. Society weighs more than any one person. Even Jack Sparrow.

Even he, for all his romance, charisma, bravado and all the other qualities I idealize, cannot force his way into society on his own terms. Even he is made to live on the outskirts as an outcast--reviled, hunted, and alone.

So we are just friends, she and I, but with a compassion (love?) the likes of which I have never ever seen before, she spoke to me last night. She does not want me to be the one that can only participate in society as an entertaining distraction for the masses--to only be experienced in ninety minute intervals, safely contained within a silver screen. Removed. Alone.

She grouped me with herself as someone who must filter themselves in order to function in real life. And with difficulty sometimes. Painfully sometimes. But it is worth it, she said. It is worth it. I cannot quiet believe this yet... but as I said before, I can't bring myself to not trust her. She has already done more for me than any other individual I have ever met. I have never been less disappointed with romantic rejection before, because even as she drew a very careful line between us, she drew me into a very meaningful relationship the value of which I probably have yet to comprehend.

So. Making concessions of personality in order to function in society. Conceding some of my sharper edges, so the dullards around me aren't offended by my bite. Can I do that without feeling emphatic haughtiness the whole time? Can I possibly transform my condescending contempt and pity into compassion, or empathy? Not tonight I can't. But we'll take it one step at a time.

I am feeling somewhat illuminated, and disillusioned quite simultaneously.

memories smell like potatoes

2005-03-17T17:19:00.000+11:00

Its funny how things can look remarkably unchanged, but feel so impossibly different.

Smelling of hot ozone, the tarnished silver serpent snakes its way towards the city. The passenger is suspended in a sort of half-conciousness as the world rushes past, between his immobile form and the heavy grey sky. The sleeper and the sky: mirrors of the same on this day.

His mind sighs as the inexorable rush of nostalgia finally penetrates his half-hearted resistance. Today will be the first day Adam walks this familiar path since Eden burned. Invariably the memories return. The way he sat motionless with his back aching, just to keep her wrapped in his arms. The prodigous but perfect silence between them; the space so close that communication would not tolerate sound. The rocking jolts of the train that seemed so comfortable when shared.

Doors hissed and whistles screamed. At this moment the soundtrack changes. "Their song" was, macabre as it may have been, a tragic reflection on a dead love. Love is an act of blood and I'm bleeding, pool in the shape of a heart. The platform across the tracks that had been their evening haunt was not only desolate but barricaded. And the air still smells of potatoes.

As it did almost every day the walked the rueful backstreets of an inner city suburb best avoided by all but its inhabitants and the diplomatically immune students who traversed it daily. Conflicted, he paced. Inside his aural cocoon the feelings conjured by the song tug him in one direction. The ghost pains of fingers no longer his to hold. The heat from defiant flames he's been fanning for weeks now. Each step resonates different to the one before. And the air still smells of potatoes.

So he steps for the first time out of the past an into the present, without the fture walking beside him. Alone he walks, surrounded by hundreds from whom he feels no longer distinct. That which had always provided him with security and identity served no longer.

So he feels himself melting into a new world, seeing those around himself in an entirely new light. Equals. Even more than equals, somehow the same. Without the shield of commitment to segregate himself, he feels closer to those around him. They become as much a part of him as he is of them. They now all share the potential for relating to him which was barred to them before. Somehow becoming part of the crowd, but not lost in it. As different as it all seems, the coffee still tastes the same, and the air still smells of potoatoes.

And finally, he realizes; her absence is irrelevant. What matters now is his own reinvented presence.

anticipated ambuscade

2005-03-13T23:00:00.000+11:00

"Give people the chance to surprise you"

This mantra bestowed upon me by the one who has seen me through the darkest hours of my life I have in fact embraced. Presently, a minute explosion of curious debauchery questions whether my benefactor kept a copy of this maxim for herself.

I have emerged as an unquestionably stronger person subsequent to this ordeal. Does that, I wonder, surprise her?

I find myself insatiably drawn towards her. I always have, but more so now. Does that, I wonder, surprise her?

I come to realize that my attraction could be a highly banal transferral of dependance--and thus refuse to act on it directly. Does that, I wonder, surprise her?

I feel an incipient devoir to abandon that over-analysis--to throw caution to the wind, as it were--and do what I feel so emphatically. Does that, I wonder, surprise her?

pins and needles

2005-03-13T20:00:00.000+11:00

The ground has come to solidify beneath my feet. My lightest and darkest emotions now hold no mysteries, nor any surprise of intensity. I begin not to fear those feelings. But I am not content.

My gaze has turned outward somewhat more quickly than I would have envisioned. That being said, I can no longer even remember what--if anything--I had envisioned. That fact perhaps is what I have yet to accept: that I did not envision anything. Perhaps my instinct to live preoccupied with the future has been enough quelled that I am no longer subject to its constant prediction, that what has come to pass here has caught me somewhat off guard.

But not so off-guard, because while I was not expecting to find it quite this way, 'this' is very much what I was looking for. Realizing that, I falter. Am I seeing what is here, or do I construe it mentally so that it fits my deeper desires? I want to be all right on my own--but more, I want to feel love.

I assert that love is faith. Love cannot exist without belief, and will exist so long there is but belief. Nothing can prove love, only that faith in the feeling. My faith led me through pain only recently, but belief is stronger than pain. Belief in myself, and belief in love as a concept. Love needn't be attached to any particular person, or time, or place. It is an aspect of me, and changes as I change.
Do I take the leap of faith and believe again?

Reticence is not my forte, but neither is self-inflicted agony. Only I can assure myself that I am in love, or not, and my lingering doubt here proves that I am not. That said I am in something. There is something very strong happening here--of that there is no question. That I am unable to label it with a title like love does not lessen this feeling, this experience, for either of us. I can't afford to lose sight of what is happening in this moment because I am fixated on some future possibility. Or too preoccupied with attempting to label the feeling that I dissect it into non-existance. That would be a tragic injustice to what we have together already. I have done that once in my life already, and refuse to repeat the mistake.

I already love her for making me feel again. Stagnant memories begin to wash away as this new experience unfolds day by day. I will never have a second love over again--no more than a first--so if that is what this will become, let me move through all the stages of this rapture and never forget their unique perfection. If this is not the immature stage of romantic love, then it remains uniquely perfect to no lesser degree.

Here I continue to fathom the unfathomable. But at least now I am smiling.

you disappoint me

2005-03-11T10:50:00.000+11:00

there was a time,
I wanted to find
what occurred behind
your fallen angel eyes

apparently nothing
so cold and catatonic
you disappoint me
maybe you're better off this...

my antithesis, by
choice and not nature
my perfect enemy, why
can't you face me?
you could have been more
can't you turn and face me?

your mind - lost
and I walk away
you disappointed me
maybe you're better off this
way
cause I don't want to feel this
overwhelming hostility
and I
I see through it all
I see through you
and now I walk away
and now I snip away this
umbelical residue is
keeping me from killing you

you fucking disappoint me

a momentary whiff of something unfamiliar

2005-03-08T22:56:00.000+11:00

I wrote this on the train ride home, last night, the 7th of March, in a notebook. I now transcribe it here.

Content. Satisfaction spreads through me like a foreign but undeniably comforting aroma. The unfamiliarity is bred from the source of this satisfaction. I have spent a long time lusting after one thing, and to find myself fulfilled so deeply by something rather different is pleasantly surprising.

I spent the better part of today with the Light. I bathed in her warm glow for a couple of hours at uni, then through a pair of movies. We talked. Then we sat in the night discussing the faliure of George Lucas and the emergence of television as the preeminant medium for literary exploration. After that, we listened to Tori Amos in her car for another half hour. (not Tori's car...)

I can honestly say that I did want just a little more, but only wanted that a little. I feel like myself with her. Not like I lack something. She makes me smile without trying, and has yet to disappoint me. Could that really be because I don't expect anything of her in particular? I don't have any standards for her to live up to, that I am aware of, so she can simply be herself. And I would accept her as such... as she does me, I think. That was of course her advice in the first place.

Does she spend nine hours with just anyone on a whim? Did she really 'just not want' to attend her engagement tonight; or did she--just as I did--get a better offer? What is she thinking now? I wonder... and smile.

one step

2005-03-06T20:45:00.000+11:00

One step ahead of me she walks, as she has so many days before, oblivious. My own private avatar who has come to personally offer me salvation. She is both the test and the prize in this contest of confidence. A corporeal manifestation before me of the myriad permutations of reality unlocked by courage.

Each day she is there, as regular as coffee spoons. And each day I wallow in foolish hesitation. My silence is prodigous, but dwarfed by the desire that burns within. Such a foolish behaviour, to experience more the imagined scenarios, at the expense of reality. I am living life an actor in my cranial theatre, and find it flavourless... touchless... without depth or meaning. But a director of imagined plays I remain, paralyzed by my own fantasy.

I feel the risk in gambling my theoretical possibilities against the reality which would follow on a REAL action, and it immobilises me. Foolish. Would not the reality be better than the simulacrum? And should reality follow a different course--I would even then have the fantasy. In that case, I would at least know I wasn't missing out on the reality by hiding behind the dream.

It is not better to imagine success without the attempt, than to fail in reality. That leaves me always one step behind.

a literary libido

2005-03-04T22:33:00.000+11:00

He has sat, eyeing the pen and paper for almost two hours as evening progressed into night. The day was long, and the writer feels the urge. Briefly, his muse was with him, that siren, his tormenter, but she has slipped back below the surface of his soul.

Left him quietly this time, without violence, without the expected taunts and mockery. Tonight he is left, euphoric and bewildered. Bemused.

Here, here is that scribe's afterglow, yet the pen has remained flaccid. There was no literary ejaculation to trigger, or at least herald, the onset of the moist, oozing calm.

Briefly, the muse held him in emotional bondage, but today, he simply bade her leave, and she was gone. Demused. His growing power is thrilling, but terrifying in its implications.

Has he the power to create without the abuse? Tortured expression has always been his mainstay, but now he wonders. What does writing look like when the euphoria is at the beginning?

Without his muse to fuck with his head, does this become naught but mental masterbation?

Why do I ask so many questions

emotion sickness

2005-02-25T20:32:00.000+11:00

The subtle tingling of restlessness is growing louder. My emotions grow dissatisfied with fading memories. Their intensity is lack-lustre, yet there is naught to replace what has gone. They groan with anticipation of a new source of vitality, a new target for their glorious fury. They hunger.

My psyche is weary from sustaining these painful memories, which as yet still reign most powerful amongst my thoughts. Without a new creschendo to drown out the echoes of the past, I am forced to relive the memories. And so I drift. Through these listless moments, daily, waiting for a change. Waiting for a new cataclysm to shift the balance of emotive power.

I crave a new spark....a whisper of romance, a whiff of ordinary, inconsequential fun, anything. I need a tiny spike to pierce this veil of history which stifles me.

And I yet wonder... have I not found it?

Atomic Humanity

2005-02-22T21:48:00.000+11:00

I am not satisfied with the post I made about friendship below, it is confusing. So I will now attempt to explore more clearly my ideas on that sort of subject.

As humans... we have the distinct ability to control ourselves. We can dictate to an enormous extent the kind of being we are--or to elect not to dictate it. That too is a choice. Anyway. To me, a human should be like an atom. A hard, solid nucleus with little electrons buzzing around it. But we have the choice... to be a complete atom, or merely an electron.

Atoms have a nucleus. That nucleus cannot change, without significantly altering the make-up of that atom. An atom's substance changes with the alteration of it's nucleus. Electrons orbiting around the atom have a degree of influence over the atom, but do not dictate it's essence. Generally, the type of atom you are will dictate the kind of electrons you can attract and maintain. Your nucleus is the core of you. It is what defines you as a person. For me, it is my creativity-musically, artistically, and yes textually! I am an emotional atom, that is part of my make-up. My emotions are raw, honest, though heavily (over-?)analyzed. I am ambitious, but lazy if I'm not careful. I am a sexual creature, I do and will for the foreseeable future be one of those that really enjoys sex, and all the trappings that go with it. I value depth of character, I demand it in fact from myself and others.

But that's just me.

There are people without a nucleus. They are just electrons that bounce from atom to atom. What is the use in that? To be pulled one place, and then another, like a wayward meteor destined to one day crash into something larger... Electrons cannot stand on their own. Atoms can-if they have to. When atoms run into each other... they connect. Sometimes the connections are good, sometimes bad, but you can't connect an electron to an atom and get something more. Combining atoms creates something new. And should the two atoms have a compatible nucleus... they meld and become one. From two equal parts the whole is made.

Desperate Attraction?

2005-02-22T19:22:00.000+11:00

Why am I finding every girl I talk to scintillatingly attractive? Am I desperate?

I've always enjoyed talking to females more than males. It's a fact. I thought I had figured out why, a while ago. I believed that I was in some way obsessed with sex, the potential for sex, and so I always took more from even the most plutonic relationship I had with a girl, because potentially, she could be closer to me than I could be to a man. (let's just assume I wont' be having sex with a man, shall we?) I'm not sure if that my explanation is true, but at the moment, sex buzzes in my head like a hornet whilst speaking to any girl I find remotely physically attractive.

However, I still feel genuinely more compatible with most girls/women I meet, than with men. I don't know why that is. But as of late, I am finding it... both extremely enjoyable, but also a little troubling, that I am envisioning virtually ever female I have more than 3 minutes of conversation with as a potential lover/girlfriend/partner/casual fuck. I mean, I'm revelling in the sociability of it all, but it's somewhat distressing that I may in fact be incapable of regarding a woman as anything other than a potential partner.

What the hell is going on here?? Is it really just what people call 'rebound' ? My inexperience is blinding in this regard. I'm truly a baby in some ways. An infant in some aspects of life.

...and that's ok

2005-02-22T19:19:00.000+11:00

I find that I hate who she is, and still loving who I thought she could be. I would have (I was) stuck out the parts that weren't too satisfying, in order to get to a point that I Thought would be worthwhile. People will say that is not love...and you know what? They're right. I don't love her anymore. I love someone else. Someone I thought she could become, but she hasn't. So I don't love her, and that's ok.

The Power of Friendship

2005-02-21T17:14:00.000+11:00

Friendship is a funny thing. I've seen it tremendously over-valued by some... and terribly under-valued by me.

The over-value is relying on your friends to make you who you are. Or allowing that to be the case. You should know yourself better than you know your friends. If people are your friends simply because you know them, this is not enough. There must be something that passes between you, something common. Time and space aren't enough. To accept everything a friend does, to never question it or openly defy their assertions ever and never is not friendship, that is slavery. If you Can't let go of a person because they are your friend, no matter what they've done, you are enslaved to them and their life, rather than in control of your own.

To under-value friends though, was my crime. I found myself seeking to fulfill my every desire through one person, my lover. I demanded everything I needed from her, and of course, she came up lacking. No one person can give any other person everything they will ever need. This has been a hard thing for me to learn. I blinded myself to what friends can provide in that process--and have missed out on opprotunities for experiences that I don't even know about.

Friends can give you stability and strength. They can be a set of checks and balances on yourself. If you are feeling lost, if you need to centre yourself, take a look at your friends. They will tell you a lot about yourself, just by being who they are. "Surround yourself with people you want to be like" is not really advice, it's the way the world works. You WILL be surrounded by people who you are like. If you take control of the process, then you'll be able to guide the selection, but if not, you'll be surrounded by people who are similarly directionless. People with direction, with self-control, do not mingle well with those who drift.

Never sell your friends short. They may be able to provide you with something that you don't even know that you need. It is not an easy balance to strike, between relying on your friends for what they can provide; and only allowing them to push you to an appropriate extent. Passionate, romantic love is one thing. The love of a friend is totally different. Maybe not better, but perhaps more essential for living.

I find myself now shifting my own set of friends. I've had to, due to recent circumstances, losing the one I relied on for so much cost me dearly. But now... I have found maybe something better this time. I have friends who inspire me. And that is a beautiful thing.

the Decision Diamond: Default Choices

2005-02-20T20:46:00.000+11:00

"we always have a choice. and only the brave embrace this truth"

Apparently, I am not the only one who has had this realization recently. Again, I shall tell a story.

She is a smart young girl, one of those who's too intelligent for her own good. One who was always able to get by, and even excel, without effort. Without work. Without sacrifice. So, on she marched. Through her school years, she drifted through like a hang-glider. Never pushing, but never failing. She grows older.

At the age when most are decided what they will do with their lives, she refuses. She falters, though she doesn't realize it. Aloud she says, "I would be more upset by missing the opprotunity to do something..." yet, for that, she refuses to commit to anything. She fears that something else will elude her so morbidly, that she can't decide what to reach out for. So in the end, she remains motionless, paralyzed by indecision. Aloud she says she likes living 'randomly'. But truly, life is never random. She has made the choice to not stand on her own feet, but allow her parents to hold her up. She hasn't made the choice, the commitment to care for herself, to give herself the power to live how she wants. She can't take the responsibility. So in her life, she lives through other people--people who have made choices--whose momentum sweeps her along.

There are always choices. That is both good and bad. You never have to do 1 thing, but you always have to do Something. No amount of denial will dissuade life's steady progress. At any given time, one will find oneself in a place of one's own making. Responsibility must be assumed, and at times, admitted. But with that responsibility comes power. With acceptance of the accountability to your own actions, comes the ability to examine those actions before they occur, and choose the course. Once claimed, no one has the strength to wrest that control away from you. Once the control over life has been assumed, the events of that life will rarely be unexpected, unexplained, and will always satisfy their architect: you.

transparency

2005-02-20T02:04:00.000+11:00

being transparent I heard today described as a fault. A major flaw in fact, that she constantly berates herself for possessing. She cannot lie to save herself, but perhaps to save others some pain.

To me... there is no flaw here but pessimism. An assumption of guilt where there is none to be laid. For that I will absolve her by saying here that transparency is honesty. Everyday I battle with the world which tries to force me to obfuscate my being, to disguise myself in something bland. Everyday I see people who have already done so, and have become lost within the non-descript folds of their grey robes.

She has in her the innate aversion to dishonesty and artifice which so many couldn't exercise if they tried. In a world full of featureless grey mist, she is a beacon. To actively try to quelch that glorious triumph... to be ashamed of the defiance of the norm of personal shame is anethema to me. To be uncompromisingly true to oneself is the greatest achievement anyone can hope for. To exist in a world of lies and fallacy as your true self is all we can hope to do. Don't ever intimate that living truthfully as yourself is a weakness. You are your greatest strength.

of Angels and Demons

2005-02-19T20:45:00.000+11:00

She stands before my mind's eye as a pillar of strength. An altar unto herself, defying the world to touch her, but accepting its attempts. Defiant acceptance: invincibility. She revels in herself, and knows the contrast of others. A fire in her burns so brightly it is the brilliance of galaxies.

Yet in her world of perfect stasis, she is alone. Her pillar is solitary, her altar lonesome. She has said as much to me, which proves the truth to be tenfold. Not by herself, but indeed alone, with others in whom she could confide; yet she has done so in me barely half a year's time later. Does the angel extend her hand in askance to the demon clawing his way to the light?

Can I be her equal, who am so doubtful? Have I strength enough even to counter her? Fearlessly she advances in herself, but patterned and predicted. In her freedom she has trapped herself. Can I break my own bonds and shatter hers with them? Do I claim my own wings by leaping from the precipice? Will my flame ignite by touching hers?

Scenes From a Memory

2005-02-18T22:14:00.000+11:00

He barely supresses the trembling of his hand, as he extends his fingers through the shadowy space between them. The candlelight stretches the silhouette of those fingers fantastically across the wall.

The softly reflective curve of her smooth shoulder awaits the caress of his delicate fingertips. The space between them narrows, but does not yet close. He holds his fingers just above her skin. His hand glides across her shoulder, following the line of her collarbone, and down, cupping above her breast, but always only a breath's width above.

He imagines he can feel the heat of her skin permeating the air that his hand passes through. His breath is sharper now, controlled like an athelete's, as he guides his hand across the glorious flat expanse of her stomach. The blood sings through his veins like voltage through copper. He flexes his hand into a claw, and she gasps, feeling what has not yet touched her.

She stares at his face as his hand drifts lower, tracing lines of energy that exist above the curves of her flesh. She is held motionless by his will, the depths of her eyes and the frozen curl of her lips screaming the contradiction of simultaneous anticipation and ecstacy. His hand floats above her, and her body responds as if he is already inside, drawing her mind into the imagination of the act.

His hand drifts then up her body, dipping around her side, tracing the contour of her form. He reaches her arm and extends his ever-teasing hand over her outstretched arm, slowly. When finally his hand settles above hers, and their eyes meet......

Schism - Do the Pieces Fit?

2005-02-18T11:38:00.000+11:00

this jumbled convoluted mass of morphemes... mots aux moment, le mot du jour... running into each other in my head is not letting me focus. I am at war with myself, stalemated tonight.

"I", that little part of me that speaks, the one who can form words and logic and rationalize the world is surrounded by the other "me" who is all emotion, feeling, and Fire. The rational I is losing his foothold, though. The issue that arises is that the emotional Me is confused. Where logic and rationality remain reletively static throughout many situations (in times when "I" am able to actually be rational and not emotional) the emotional "Me" changes all the goddamn time.

For one brief moment my emotional side let me feel what it would be like if I didn't care about Tanya. Let me see what it might be like if I were to encounter her again, and I didn't cringe in fear or pain. Enter Rational Me, who must examine and analyze everything into shards of experience, smashing the whole into something... something unreal. But then all the feelings come back. As I walk through the simulacrum of my mind's world, I awaken the other emotions, I feel jealousy, weakness, fear and doubt.

Does anyone know if the rational I and the emotional Me can co-exist? I have yet to find a balance. This concerns me, because a Jax divided against himself cannot stand, one might say. Will I ever get to a point where I'd be comfortable with "Fuck it!" and just kissing her--before I actually do it?

I can feel that. I can feel it in me, that I'd be finally taking the reins again if I were to do it that way. Is it worth the risk though? Can I jeapordize what we have now, in seeking something more? And having said that... she probably knows how I'm feeling already anyway so this wouldn't surprise her after all. The emotional Me is dying to hold her. The rational I am terrified of losing her friendship. I don't know who is going to win this struggle.

Forget Me

2005-02-18T04:23:00.000+11:00

Forget me soon, I hope you do
You've not the strength to remember
The things you said and said to you
For while we were together.

I don't really believe the she's 'dealt' with what we were, could have been, what I wanted us to be. She doesn't understand it, I think, she doesn't appreciate it. Where the pain she caused me was the catalyst for me to understand love and myself, I do not believe she has had that awakening even still. Even after a nervous breakdown and three weeks in a mental facility, I do not believe she has grown out of childhood.

She's too scared. She never would commit to anything for fear of missing out on something else, however trivial or vital those things might be. Jobs, university, me... even her band which was the one thing I thought she was passionate about. I never saw her practicing--or playing for the simple joy of playing--on her own, not like I do. I have trouble comprehending that sort of mentality, honestly. Seems to me that she can't comprehend my way either, which leads me to believe she really has no idea what she's done to me--for me.

But I have very gradually stopped caring. I can't make her feel the way I felt, or the way I feel now! She may never feel it. She may be too frightened of her own emotions to ever let them run deeper than the skin. I sympathize with that to a degree: our emotions are terrifying. But they are what make us human.

For me I've taken what I can. I have the ultimate power to decide what my memory will be of this girl, this relationship. I feel no guilt, no regret, just a sense of nostalgic longing, now. I will cherish the feeling she gave me because during the time we were together, I felt happy, powerful. Now that we're apart I feel far stronger.

Running with the Fire Theme...

2005-02-17T17:41:00.000+11:00

Something’s happened I never thought would

I’ve lost you and I think it’s for good

Or maybe bad, I can’t quite tell

It’s too damn hot in my little hell

Although those fires purify me

And although I know what I can see

That doesn’t help me asking

If you ever really loved me

Was I fooling myself the whole time?

In my tangled state of mind,

I can’t really be quite sure

That what I felt was ever pure

I thought I felt fiery love inside

But take away the midnight ride

And angry lust rears its head

And takes love’s place in our bed

Tanya

2005-02-17T17:37:00.000+11:00

She was both my first, and my last (I think). She was my first girl, my first love, my first sexual partner. A lot of firsts we shared together in fact. She took from me the physical innocence that every boy strives to lose, and also the emotional innocence that we are all destined to.

Being in a relationship whole-heartedly when you are young is a dangerous, yet ultimately inevitable thing. You can't help but be whole-hearted when you have yet to be hurt. But you can't love properly until you know what pain is. Through the pain I experienced at the end of last year, I have come to know myself far better than I did before. In this way, I now understand--to some extent--the necessity of keeping yourself a little bit protected from the reality other people. Only after you learn to protect yourself from the ones that might hurt you can you truly comprehend what it is to actually let someone in, past those defenses, to voluntarily give them the opprotunity to hurt you. Essentially, you can't intentionaly trust someone with your emotions, until you do it inadvertantly and have someone crush you.

I loved her. I loved her blindly, stupidly, totally, and selfishly. I can see a lot of flaws in that love now. And I'm slowly beginning to realize that no love will ever be perfect. In the immortal words of Eddie Murphy we all have to 'find someone just as fucked up as you and get married.' And it's true.

Either way. This had to be put on the table so anyone who reads this might have a point of reference.

We were together for 3 years and 4 months. Long time. You grow fairly dependant on someone in that time, if you aren't totally independant by nature. I did, anyway. We did a lot together, planned a lot. I did, anyway. When it came time to start executing those plans though, she bolted. Couldn't handle the steps I was taking, she wanted something totally different afterall. Which I guess is the way these things go. I thank her now, though I still almost hate her, for opening my eyes. I'm a far stronger person today than I was 6 months ago. And I'm in a better place than I was then, despite being here on my own.

It's my own place, that I have built and furnished with my own things. I live here. I exist here... I AM this place. Its a place I can invite others into now. I can share bits of it, without having to modify it too much. If they don't like my decor, they can leave, and I don't lose one of my walls when they go. With Tanya, I lost my very foundation. Live and learn people, that's all you can do.

I can't leave it sounding like all I remember is the end. I had fun. I had a LOT of fun with that girl. We connected pretty deeply, there was the potential there for some long-lasting intimacy , but it didn't quite fire. Neither of us were properly equipped to actually make that sort of bond at that stage in our lives. But while we were together, we had fun. I believe she thought she loved me as much as I thought I loved her, and I don't begrudge any of it. I certainly felt loved. Most of the time. Even now I miss her company, but I think that if she, exactly the way she was (and not how she is now) would leave me unsatisfied still. I've grown, I've changed, for the better in my eyes. She has changed too, but I'm not sure its a healthy progression.

P.S. I hesitated at first to use her real name... but then had two thoughts: Firstly, it is Highly unlikely that she or anyone who knows her particularly well will ever read this blog. Secondly: I do not feel I should hide from her the way I have, and do, feel about her and what happened between us. And it's not as if there is only one Tanya in the world.

The Writer who Doesn't Write

2005-02-17T16:21:00.000+11:00

I've often fancied myself a bit of a writer. For years now, I have included that in my 'personal interests' on the many forms we all fill out in our daily lives... yet, I haven't actually finished a piece of writing in a good long time (or a bad long time depending on your perspective), and so no one gets to see it.

Why I feel I must share my writing with others in order to trust its validity remains a mystery at this point. That said, I do feel drawn to do so. I was inspired recently by reading the outpouring of another blogger, the first time I've actually been touched, impressed, and actually intrigued by a blog so far. She showed me what a writer does. A writer writes. It doesn't matter what you write so long as you write it. So here I am--tapping away.

Now... I realize I run the risk of disappearing amid the millions of angst-ridden bloggers here. Eternal Burning... yes, cliche, but I have always described myself that way, and have never been afraid of melodrama. Unquiet Mind? well this will be a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury... how can one expect such from any quiet mind? But perhaps I will touch just one or two people one day with some particular phrase or sentiment, and maybe really rock someone to their core, the way my inspiration did me.

I don't know, I can be a regular guy sometimes. Most of the time I am pretty regular, or at least I act it. I have to. It's so tiring to try and express myself in daily life the way I actually feel, AND deal with the consequences rendered by those who aren't prepared to handle me that way. Yet for all that, I have come to the decision that I will not allow my flame to be smothered any longer. Not totally. A rebirth of sorts occurred for me around New Year's 2005. Its been a rough time for me, these past few months, and I will probably slam this blog with a lot of back-tales for a little while. But we'll see. I make no promises, other than to be me.