Physics

Stand up and embrace the world as it exists in front of you. Embrace the very passion that is the grand unification theory of Einstein contemporaries. Oh life, oh rub of life, step through the veiled friction that is breath, and inhale deeply from the pool of humanity that stretches out before us across the vast fields. No more shall you hide in shame and some self loathing hierocracy that will haunt your days and plague your nights. Oh, green fields of grass and leaves forever reaching for the sunshine that comes and goes along its path around the earth. Forget the torrent of carpe diem, step free of the saints of the church, leave our days alone, forget the glory of the sun, and instead embrace life, embrace passion, embrace our very being, reveal within our own humanity, find enjoyment in our blood, leave the crutches of the church, the counselors of the drugs, to other lesser people and step free of the constraints imposed on us by the world from which we demand so much from and from which demands so much from us. Fight against the dying of the light, just rage.

Lay down the powers of persuasion at your command and fight hard against the dying of the light, aim low among the stars and fly on towards the morning. Let go of the allusions that plague our daily life and embrace the uncertainty that is the very nature of the universe that we grow through and in.

Oh me, oh life, oh for the stars that have stared right back down upon me and others like me. For every time that god has looked in envy at my pain and my exuberance. It is time to take a new stock on my position. It is unfortunate that I need these monthly reminders of priorities, that my own compass has a built in error that continues to allow me to drift hard with the current that I must fight. I write down so much more than others will ever see so that I might be reminded of the pains and pleasures felt at any given moment. A constant reminder I have found is necessary to ensure that time does not shade over and cover the very problems that you faced before. It is amazing that the fourth dimension can solve almost anything if you allow it to work its magic long enough

Oh, me, oh life. These are the words of the immortal author who through diction painted a world that is too real, so solid and stable for anyone who has tried to live within its confines. Who subjugated themselves to the laws of the universe.

Another...

Death… a word of finality a word, of the highest divinity. I have written many times of such events, some sad, some heroic, but all righteous, or as righteous as my beliefs will justify. Last Sunday a friend of mine died, suddenly, yet not so unexpectedly. Most days the death of a friend will remind me of my own mortality, of my own choices that I have made in relation to my occupation and life.

Not this time, this particular friend did not travel to foreign lands to do his countries bidding, he truly owned his own soul, and he would bear no cross for others. He was an artist and an admirer of life. He strived daily to show the world its own true colors trough various mediums. From repainting the industrial brick walls of the Chicago inner city to his prints of his city in reflection, that now hang in galleries across the country. Always outwardly he tried to make the world see its own beauty, and improve it, to leave the world more beautiful than he and others had found it. Always outward he faced hiding the ugliness that he found in his own internal struggle.
He fought longer and harder than I ever have. From my personal battles to those in uniform, together were nothing in comparison to the wars that he waged, in both difficulty and duration. This Sunday he finally lost his fight, years of battle, where ground is lost and gained in feet and yards. A difficult reminder of my own days, charging trenches next to him, and fighting against the same daemons.

It is amazing the same survivors guilt that I felt when returning from oversees I have felt with much more intensity with his death. A week ago today my friend killed himself in an act of desperation, the final white flag and surrender to an enemy that would take no prisoners. Such shame, such shame, for him, for me, his family and mostly for his fiancée that must finally learn that he could never truly love her no matter how much he wanted to, he was still trying to maintain his love of himself. Such shame. So much shame that I have trouble talking about his death, that my coworkers and current friends would despise him for his loss, and curse his name. They will call him weak; say that he was undeserving of this life. They will judge from a position that they should not be able to. The ministers will cry pity for a soul they cannot save, and condemn him to worlds of fire and torture. They will ridicule his decision, they will laugh at his final actions and claim good riddance and congratulate him on a job well done in his final act. They will say he was undeserving of this life.

Those people never faced his daemons; they never fought the same battles that he did. They will say that if he didn’t want to live then let him go. They will degrade his existence to something far less than human. Ironic that the strong automatically assume they are deserving and they may critic and enforce our worlds standards of perfections; and yet, have such little compassion for those that have too much love, and feel too deeply.

Those people never met my friend, never stood beside him and saw the world in the colors and designs has he did. None were there when he reached out to their gods for sanction and salvations, none of those people saw the greatness he was and the greatness he was going to become. Many a days I spent traveling with him. Numerous adventures that we shared, great fortunes were made and lost in minutes of our time together. I remember to this day me looking at him in the face and telling him that where I was going he could not come with me. That I had won my battles and I was off to see the world. I told him that I would come back, that he would never fight alone, that his existence was significant enough to the world. Well I never came back. I sailed the islands with a new found freedom and then raced off to fight for others…

Eulogy for Polo

I thought it would be different now; I thought it wouldn’t hurt as much. Half way around the globe men and women are pursuing our nations national interests, and implementing policy with a rifle. They are tired, worn, and most would rather be here; yet with a consistency that should make you cry, they will never leave, or quite. They are tough in ways that most will never truly understand.

Many psychologists would agree that distance and time can fix most things, as well as lessen the impact of almost any event. Last night, this abstract idea that I had held as fact, came crashing down around me. On a rooftop that overlooked most of downtown DC, two blocks from the Verizon center. I was having beers and bullshiting with the low-end political aids that scurry around the real administrators in the Old Executive Office Building, though most would just say they work at the White House. The irony was absolutely complete when my phone rang during a heated conversation of how much it would cost to build more F-22 or fund a new infantry battalion. How is anyone supposed to be prepared when the real cost is measured and paid.

My roommate called and my phone started up the annoying Gnarls Barkley song. Answering, I immediately started to tell him what the plan was for the next couple hours. When I was done speaking there was an awkward pause, nothing more, followed by “Polo is dead,” two breaths, “he was killed by an IED.”

The world stopped moving, people stopped talking, all actions and senses ceased. No more words were exchanged on the phone, just silence. The phone was still open and on when I stood up and walked away from the party on the rooftop. No one looked at me, no one noticed. The shock wears off much quicker than you want. In fact, I found myself trying to hold onto the void that shock can create; knowing that this is so much better than what comes next. My pace picks up as I move faster and faster across the roof and down a hallway of wooden fences towards a door. I do not know why I am headed this way but I need to leave. The anger builds with the pace and I am not sure why pain and anger come together but I do know that both demand that every part of my body feel the same pain in proportion to the rest. So I strike out at the wall, punching and punching. I kick in a portion of the wooden fence and slam the beer bottle that was still in my hands to the ground. Now I can feel the pain in my hand, the throb of the forming bruise, the emotional fury subsides and I regain composure now that I can feel the physical pain. As if the physical can and should overshadow the emotional screams that rushed through me.

I returned to the party, only partially aware at the stairs of confusion as I reached for ice to sooth my hand. My friend asked “what happened to your hand?” and in the only way I know how to deal with the absurdity of the situation, “It picked a fight that it couldn’t win with a brick wall, stupid eh?” As I wrapped the ice around my hand I went and found another beer, and rejoined the group, forcing myself into some pattern of normalcy before I could break away and be alone, as I wanted.

Polo, there can be no lasting tribute for you. A man, a child, a friend, an atheist Chaplin of the highest order. How do I write of a man that knew more about life than I do. How do I say some words that he would have accepted as just and honest, how do I make reconciliation with a man who was my better. There are no words, nor diction that can tell you of this boy-man. Life is meant to be tasted and enjoyed the invigoration of the living, this will be Polo’s testament, he truly drank from the well of life, where I, and most are but merely spectators of this cosmic play. The verse he added was much too short. The streets of paradise are lined with his friends, whom all remember the smile and charity of Polo.

May you rest in peace, we are coming, please wait for us, we will be along shortly, my friend.

Cold Morning

Again I find myself alone, watching the falling snow from my window. With out even the capability to reach and touch it, hold hit, and feel it melt against my skin. I open the window, and stand bare before the cool sharp breeze that breaks through the stale air of the room. I am alone. John Dunn wrote clearly what he thought but his logic was fowled by the irresistible flaw of some divine connection. Oh, I believe, the connection ever so much as he does, yet mine is dramatically less personal. You can be separate from the whole, look at my shining example. Everything that I have touched has slipped past my grasp and has moved on. There are no consolation letters written for those who just cannot seem to grasp what is out in front of them. This feeble and flawed desire to see what is next, what is greener, and constant need to push harder and harder against life. I have pushed and pushed, and I see myself in others that have pushed their youth into old age. They survived a self-imposed harshness leaving either a bitter broken man hunched under the weight of his own failings, or the wise, experienced character that everyone looks too with interest and intrigue. Yet, I see it, beneath the surface, that the very man that all others marvel at goes home and is alone. He has earned his place by pushing hard against life to come out the other side with the most incredible stories. The most wondrous adventures. How many stories will I collect until I realize that the answers I have found are to the wrong questions. How many lives must I lead before I find the one that can fulfill me as a person. I see what I will become, and yet part of me respects who they are. Part of me desires to be that person. Is this an enjoyment of self punishment or just the enjoyment of the idea, and the rest is just self fulfillment. The clock rolls to four A.M. and I am up in front of a computer in contemplation. Do not be confused, I am not saying that life is easier for everyone else, in fact most days others would look to me and say that I moved more gracefully through the day than others. That I have experienced less friction. What they don’t recognize is the direction of the grain that they are moving with. That the friction that kills lays on another level. Oh, if I could just name the rub. So this morning I press my hands against the chill glass and give my heart to those who have lived.

Frustration (January 2006)

The perfection of man is there in our hands yet we refuse to see it. We are blind to the basic necessities of life. There is no great flaw there is only great regret in not understanding that even if there was a great and powerful being, a god, then why would he give us a goal so far above possibility that we never even come close. No, that is not the case, he showed us with examples that you can be flawed and yet perfect our definition of perfect is skewed by years of fundamental misunderstandings contrived and pushed on us like some drug to keep us in subjection to those who would have you beg for your very existence. They themselves unable to embody their own principles, they relentless refuse to give up their moral high ground under the false pretenses that their understanding of the universe is infinitely more clear than yours. This my friends is the same line of thought that the heroin dealer peddles to his clients. The greatness of humanity is not found in god, yet the opposite is more to be true and that god is found in the greatness of humanity. The highest ideal is that of Man, for in our short and frail existence all the possibilities exist for one to raise themselves to the highest ideal, to perfection. Perfection needs a new definition, it should not be based on a two thousand year old model that tried to show us that it is not the high priest who have dedicated their whole lives and all of their existence to the perfection of gods laws as written in the Torah, for they are not good enough, yet they are the best that society had to offer. So clearly we are so far removed from perfection that hope only lies in the begging of forgiveness, this is the same fucked up view peddled on all of us in society that refuse to take our own actions into our own hands and claim ownership and responsibility for choices that are made. Yet we forget to see that where the same man that destroyed the temple alters went to a fisherman and said you are perfect the way you are, travel and spread my message. He said the weak will inherit the earth. These are the statements of a man trying hard to redefine perfection. That is because perfection can be found in the man and not the ideals, in his actions, not his words, and we should embrace once again the greatness of our ownership of the kingdom of heaven in Humanity.