Essay: Understanding What is Real

What is real?

The perception, given the individual involved, of a thing which ends up in shapes, forms, and mannerisms dictated by the viewer; having little to do with what is really in existence; mainly because nature does not care about our five senses.

There are many arguments  about reality that are hard to understand. 

If a tree falls in the middle of a forest, without having the  aid of the human ear to transform the environmental input into what we know as sound, does it make any noise?

Is it plausible to believe that space is soundless? Would it be a fair assessment to say that human senses are what give our surroundings all meaning.

For instance, let’s take the quietly falling tree, let’s further say that it does not make a sound, for this analogy’s sake. If you are of the idea that the tree does not make a sound, partly because you were born deaf, can you then describe for us what happens if you are standing 1 centimeter away from where it falls? Do you feel the motion of the tree before your face, the wind that it carries as its force pushes the mammoth through the air and into its resting place. When it lands 1 centimeter from your feet, does your body not feel the reverberations of the tumultuous landing as the earth tremors with the sudden force of the weight now encumbering it? Furthermore, is there were a team of scientists studying the tree, with sensors that detect noises by the trees and other things, even though they are miles away with no ears in the near vicinity to receive the feedback of the tree… would they hear it fall?

Perhaps that is too hard to understand. Let us then look at another issue, that of sight. Simply put, what we see is not what is there. Imagine that a line measured ten feet in length. Now, I take a picture of the line, print the picture on a household printer, and showed you the picture. Then, I’d ask you how long the line is. Well, the width of the paper is eight inches, the line is all the way to the left and right margins, say one inch less for each margin (8”-1”-1”= 6”) so the line must be six inches. I’d agree if I didn’t know the line were a different length and that the picture is not to scale. The same happens with light, the visible spectrum if you will. What is visible exists, but the fact that we can only see a fraction of it, a portion, leaves us with the equivalent of that line in the printed paper.  We can only see so much within the light spectrum visible to us, kind of like looking at that picture, we only know what we are presented, but what lies beyond what we see, is so much more complex. That is to say, if we were able to see with any and all portions of the light spectrum, what color would an otherwise red rose would be? Would it be the same color in the morning as it is at night, above and under water, or in other circumstances? That question is better posed like this: If you observe what you perceive to be a red rose under sunlight, but in the laboratory observed it under a different light source, would the color be the same? This article speaks of the matter better than I can.

The same occurs with taste, touch, and smell. There is so much that some would say we take for granted, but reality is that: what our reality is. We must understand that those differences exist in order to better form ideas and concepts that will help us understand, manage, and ultimately live fruitful lives. It is not enough to say or think sulfur is odorless, because when associated with other elements the properties become, let’s say stinky. 

What does this all  mean to the individual you/me? Nothing. Just because sulfuric acid rain on venus is much more of a redundant thing more than a danger, does not mean it affects us directly. Yet, the knowledge can help us in many different ways. As such, reality on Venus is very different than reality on Earth. Why? Rain on Earth means you get wet, whereas rain on Venus means there will be more clouds later. Yet again, that knowledge is paramount in helping us with our own problems as said in the article in this link:

...some sulfuric acid droplets evaporate at altitudes higher than previously thought and 

raises serious questions about proposals to inject sulfur dioxide -- which deflects sunlight

 -- into Earth's atmosphere to combat global warming….

Some knowledge, however trivial, gives humanity insight not into the unknown, but into how to better understand not just our environment, but through the study  of other things, we also learn much about ourselves. 

To that end, what is reality then? What is real here, is real because all of the evidence says it currently is so. To exist, is to be able to through a scientific exploration reach a conclusion on any of many angles surrounding any one thing; thus we are surrounded by reality as much as we are astounded by it. Because there is life on the planet, and because most living things have perception of one form or sort, it is plausible to say that not only does the tree make noise as it falls, while it is falling, when it lands, and through the echo after, but also that through other things in its environment like plants, insects, etcetera, it may do much more than just exert sound. The richness of the planet is in the brain we use to contrast every one the things we are provided with. Is it bad that I feel and because of it create ideas on what I have felt? Is it good that because I see something I attest to the prevalence of it? Can one truly be neutral in an ever changing world where science continues to show us just how little we have always known?

I reason that happiness as the ultimate goal in life is in part touched by the observations we make, how we perceive each and every occurrence, the ability to say that an object on a piece of paper is what color or length, the lively smell of an angry skunk, and the truths we learn about ourselves and surroundings with every turn of the scientific endeavor. Yet, as with wars, famine, hunger, and sickness, this too will probably be everlasting. That is, nature is absolute, reality is absolute, and the human concepts of each are an ever-evolving theoretical framework for understanding what is real.

Essay: Without Opinion

Opinion is the absence of intellectual resolve.

Opinion as a concept is the validation of unproven statements that are merely presented from the qualms of insecurity to bring an argument to an immediate end, rather than to reach an acceptable solution or agreement.

Opinion as a concept allows the individual to state fallacies, present as evidence that which has no basis in reality, but only in their brain.

An opinion like a theory or secular perspective can be used to proliferate ideas in an attempt to make them more mainstream without the use of science, academia, or other methods of validation. This is usually done when thinking as the ultimate goal is eradicated by means of stating whatever comes to thought, rather than using any thought process that may arrive at a more real, factual, or established truth, norm, canon, or alike end.

Truth is not only the established norm, but also, the norm that is established elsewhere unequivocally and incontrovertibly as real as the former in the place where it is held. A way to see this is by looking into the statement when in Rome one must do as the Romans. The reason for this is rather simplistic and barren of thought, it is meant to dictate that while you are free to think, reason, contemplate, and etcetera, that has nothing to do with reality, law, or what is permissible/acceptable where you are or are headed; thus doing as those already there is the best way in which to participate, be of use and meaning, and more importantly not get in the way of all others. The act of thinking is never revoked from the individual because it is widely held that from ideas come the things that are today the reality we dwell on. However, the vetting process for those exists for many reasons -all as valid as the next. 

Opinion -in my regard- as held today in the United States is nothing more than a means to say “I am right” without any proof. That is to say, because I say the river can flow upside down and upstream, it means that the river will respect that view merely because it has been stated; making it not an opinion but a fable, a tale, at best an orator’s means to describe possibility. In the past we have been very careful to separate reason from thought because reason is used to persecute secularly those who oppose the canon, or used to bomb a country full of people that have absolutely no idea why they are being bombed, and today’s best when reason is used to play a real-life video game flying drones over an area where the game-master decides the fate of those targets on the ground and thus annihilates them without any real sane way to separate the reality-that-is from the reality-portrayed on a screen (the game-master’s screen). Yes, to say those are examples of reason are somewhat farfetched, and yet no more so than those who plainly discuss the validity of a point merely because it is opinion. So, I ask, if the game-master in the middle of a game-cession states that reality is now what he says, because it is their opinion, does that mean that the opinion must be accepted as some form of valid interpretation of reality? What does it mean exactly? The approach being taken is one where the person is neither right or wrong, which in essence gives the illusion that being right is in fact an option for a game-cession depting flying dragons as both flying mounts, and beasts of war.

While regarding one of the definitions of opinion, which clearly states that it is not necessarily based on fact or knowledge, I couldn’t help but think about everyone who does not use that part of the definition as a basis for their statements, but merely the beginning part only which marks that being said as a view of judgement formed about something. Things taken out of context are so incredibly interesting and efficient to those who do it and furthermore those who like what they see and promulgate the opinion as a statement of fact, because someone else has already used it. I then bring to you the same beautiful argument already in existence, that of Bertrand Russell’s Teapot theory. In essence, just because you say something that to you makes all the sense in the world, does not mean a thing, that is highly watered down, but it serves its purpose. The argument for opinion is one that I hope ends soon.

Today, there are those of the opinion that the Earth is flat. 

Today, there are those of the opinion that the Earth is 6,000 years old.

Today, there are those of the opinion that an older race of space faring beings created humanity.

And there are many, many more like the above three.

To you, I say this, if you believe your opinion is valid, then those three presented above are no more false than yours. That is to say, you believe in one form, way, or another, that they are right, as you are right. The more you posit that something is true, the harder it gets to get proof for it. Mainly, because there is a world of knowledge out there to sort through from those in academic positions whose hypothesis about something have been very similar to yours, but have actually found through actual methods of proving validity that they are indeed wrong.

Taking a stand for something you believe in is good and even a right to most individual persons, but the reason(s) behind why you took the stand must be firm in reality, and reality is vivisected by the opinions of what has not been proven, accepted, learned/taught, and formalized. 

No, you are not entitled to your opinion in the sense that opinion is used today. You are entitled to think, to learn, and arguably to live… but in any society when you try to impose your thoughts into reality, it generally ends up getting people in all kinds of trouble. One person’s opinion was that people who looked different could not be held in the same regard as themselves, those persons cannot by any measure be equal they argued. Without proof, without fact, and without any form of decency they enacted their will (opinion) unto others and were careful to remove dissent from their numbers to continue their practice(s). That is opinion. Yet, here we are discussing it.

By now, you should note that I have presented an argument based on stated and still-being-argued theories that allow the brain to go on a journey of understanding more than there is in our small worlds/brains, which in turn through opinion, which we are trying to pull over everyone else’s eyes are being pushed as a personal fact. I’d like to leave you with this, is it my opinion that through the betterment of the self an individual may reach a level where their ideas can be proliferated by means of further research, but never as a stated fact until due certainty -available proven knowledge- has been cross-referenced in the matter. For what am I if not my ideas, and what are those ideas without opinion?

Accountability factor

We cannot escape. Adulthood is an eerie place where accountability is king followed by a myriad of effects that all succumb to its master.

Success cannot be achieved without accountability. 

Dreams, heights, and horizons are outside our reach when not accountable.

The prevailing tenet in the world of fear is unaccountability. The obsessive compulsive cannot be accountable to oneself were it not for the ability to be accountable for the excessive perfection of that which surrounds them, regardless of place. The clinically depressed person(s) is cornered by the earnest feeling of failure that comes from having failed to be accountable usually in an insurmountable amount of ways. The psychopath is concerned in no small way by the desire to affect, through conviction convince those around that they are normal -for in their brains they in fact are-, and finally by the accountability professed upon them allowing them to become phantoms in the world of others; hence bringing opportunity to act! Finally, the normal individual must eat, and to get food must work, or beg, or convince, all of which require a type of accountability, because if the beggar looks like a junkie, in sight of the giver they are not responsible for themselves and thus cannot be accountable for any sum of money; negating the fact that whether through high or food the person, yes person, may die either way; that view of being unable to be accountable is enough to create barriers. This in turn takes us to the next problem. 

Accountability is a facade. For a family with means of any sort, whether in high society or the place known as the ghetto, accountability starts early. Get dressed for school. If this then that which may result in being late and that cannot be had! Any which way we dissect the matter boils down to a problem of accountability that is as invisible as it is complex, as vast as it is incomprehensible, and yet as required as life itself. Where I fail, we fail, and where we fail, the error is not where accountability fails, but where what we don’t know is made apparent.

To drive one must know the rules or laws of the car, where the brake and accelerator are, which way to turn the wheel, and etcetera. The idea is not to be a good driver, nor is it to be a good steward while performing, but to get from point A to point B for accountability’s sake and not your own. If you need to eat, or someone you care for, you must enter the vehicle and not just reach the destination, but also return hence needing to be accountable at every step. An accident means you or the person will not eat, possibly losing the only means to get to the food, and ultimately failing to achieve that which was necessary for life itself… sustenance. 

The problem of accountability is how invisible it is, yet how much it asserts itself into our every action, the limitless bound it encompasses, and the foul ways in which it punishes failure. Any person whom has looked into madness, a place I call the past, knows that failure equates to the inability to achieve. However, it is so unlikely that we have failed to achieve only to ourselves. The things we know are paramount to success as they allow for the performance of any action(s) with finesse, rigor, and consequently meet to some degree that line that either we or those we care for set generally called the accountability factor.

What you mean to me

Life is a strange thing. 

For all the hate I harbor in my heart’s hearth, life itself, I cannot understand the irony that is the love I have for my wife and son. 

Yes, I too have heard that you cannot love someone else should you not love yourself. That argument implies that one must first understand by one’s own experience what it is they wish to do in order to be able to do it. I don’t disagree. However, it is not uncommon for people to breathe, blink every few seconds, or think, and if you ask them how they do it, they’ll probably give you a look of astonishment and say something along the lines of: “well heck, I don’t know!” That is because some things are inherent and not necessarily learned through practice or doing.

I can say that attraction may have been a part of it. Seeing her in her own environment, being funny and without filter, exciting, and loud, all of which I was not accustomed to was an immediate attraction. Interestingly, the story of how we finally came to be was a bit of a mess. I dated her boss for a bit, but somehow through it all we continued to flirt with each other in one form or another. Shortly thereafter, we attended her best friend’s wedding and could not keep our eyes from one another, hiding under our breathe the desire to be with one another. 

Finally we ended up, under the stars one night, our own fairy tale if you will, lying on our backs on an empty road, her body on the ground opposite of mine with our arms under our heads supporting each other, heads side by side, staring upwards towards the starry field above us atop that high mountain where we parked; no clouds in sight, just our breaths, and quickened hearts beating as we just hoped to be with one another. To my surprise, and much to her plan, we did not kiss that night. I was a bit dismayed that my charms did not work on this wild stallion, but what I didn’t know was that love lurked, even then, behind our every stare. 

Later we took a long trip. Living in Puerto Rico at the time, the tiny island that was our home, we went to some town to pick up mattresses, then decided to take the long way back home, and used that time to talk. We told one another so many truths we wouldn’t have told anyone else. We found it easy to confide in one another even then, even before there was a relationship. We had our hard times too. I, a young man with many piercings and an affinity for the dark to include witchcraft, satanism, death metal, and many other things, seemed to find appropriate the misfortunes I had encountered in life up to that point. Some of those misfortunes included in no certain order, being raped, being abused physically and mentally while seeing the same being done to my family members, seeing the effects of alcohol and the possibility of its addiction first hand from my father, almost dying from an asthma attack, almost dying from driving recklessly and putting those in the car with me in peril of the same, running away from home, suffering from depression and migraines from early teenagehood, and so much more... all those truths bare and without cushion shared with this person I liked, all while knowing just how much I liked her and wanted to be with her; a small fear of rejection I will never forget with every muttered word.

Funny remembering my first experience with her now deceased father… a short man with glasses, sweaty from the humidity of most nights in the island and the hot apartment in which he lived. This apartment, a place that seemed run down, with trash from wall-to-wall I dare say, totally unkempt both home and self. This man looked me up and down, my long hair, my many piercings -eyebrows, ears from top to bottom, and tongue-, my black clothes, and my cocky stature, my tattoos, and by my side his daughter… yeah, I admit, today I look back and see with much clarity exactly what the man saw. But that night, I felt judged, betrayed by reason, for I knew what to expect before arriving, the same treatment and look I got from everyone else, disdain and disgust! 

There was a moment when my spouse took me to her best friend’s home, a person I’d never met before. It was a birthday celebration if I recall correctly, and during it, with a clown in attendance doing something or other with the children, having left the microphone unattended, there in front of all those strangers I took to the microphone to profess my love to my then girlfriend… a notion that did not go unnoticed. Another occasion that merits mention was a morning like many we had in her apartment, she was taking a shower, and fully dressed, with my high boots, long jeans, and tight shirt, just opened the curtain, went inside the tub, and just gave her a hug. I just held her for a moment, both getting wet under the soft falling water of the shower over us both….

I love my wife. When we moved in together for the first time, we were living with friends in an apartment close to the university. We had many fun times there, her with her best friend, and I getting to know her friends which were a lot more sane than my own. Shortly thereafter we decided to move to the United States where I had lived years before and perhaps start our life there. We arrived to Florida in December of 1999 and by February 2000 we were married, only 6 months after having met one another. 

A short time after, in August of the same year, I joined the United States Army. By this point in my life I had known love, had been betrayed, saw life and many of its aspects from the very streets where many a tale of horror is born. I myself was almost shot on the face on those streets by an angry and jealous boyfriend whose girlfriend I had kissed… but that is a story perhaps for another time. I knew life, and life was not kind. All I had learned in my 23 years of life was that betrayal was common, lies as oxygen were both as needed in order to live as food or water, treating your loved ones with disregard, disrespect, and hatred was normal, and obviously much more; very few good lessons had stuck with me. It was only 3 years back that my father had told me on a moment when I was being thrown out unto the street by the people I was living with at the time, that not only did my father not want to see me on his death bed, but that to him, as he liked saying: “you are as good to me as a zero to the left”, and claimed that I no longer was his son. Religion and the god of the Christianity had let me down, no other god under the heavens or soil had ever responded to me, and tragedy ruled my life in all aspects.

At Florida, we went out very often my spouse and I. We took pictures frequently, and loved going to the movies and being next to each other very much. One day after a movie we decided to walk home, a long walk indeed, perhaps 45 minutes or longer. We talked about so many things. We discussed where to live, why, what state, what jobs we’d enjoy, what things we liked, what we would do if we ever won the lottery -even though we don’t play it-, and so many other things. We were in love. Military life for me, during those years, was not kind on the marriage for many reasons. I was always away on training, later in wars, and finally in 2004 when I finally left the military after 2 war deployments she and I began our marriage. During the time that I was home we had fun. We watched tons of stuff together, we decorated the apartment really cool with hanging vines, and figurines we began to collect together, we always ate what we wanted which was mostly frozen food, but we were thrilled to spend time with each other. Every moment was bliss. At some point I took to video gaming, on the computer, rather heavily and began to go to sleep a bit later than her, but I tried real hard to give her as much of my time as possible because… well I loved her and enjoyed being next to her. It may sound silly but it’s the truth. We lived a fairy tale of our own making. After the military we moved back to Florida with my in-laws, the same who received us back in 2000, and lived there for 4 more years until which time I had graduated from university, my spouse had given birth to our wonderful son after many miscarriages, and my spouse was in a job she enjoyed very much, a job that supported us both since I was not-yet working being a full time student and after university full-time dad. 

We had a lot of fun. We used to go to a nearby marina where hundreds of boats either floated by or were docked there for the season at various times of the year. There was also a park there where we walked a ton, held hands, and continued to talk about our plans for the future, and enjoy one another. We lived in a tiny room in my in-laws’ home; my son, my spouse, and I along with a ton of the boxes where we had boxed our military lives in all surrounding us in our tiny space of heaven. We made tables with some of the boxes, used others for supporting other things, needless to say we got very creative with the tiny home we had in that room. My wonderful spouse all the while working hard and with a smile from ear-to-ear every night when she came home to take our son from my hands so that I could study, do homework, and when possible watch a movie with her, or perhaps get a little game cession going for myself. My boy’s hands over mine as I played first person shooters games, car racing games, or other multiplayer games. His little hands over mine laughing when I punched in some keys on the keyboard moving left or right by pressing the A or D keys respectively to do so, or his hand moving all over the place as I moved the mouse and his little hand propelled his body in all kinds of directions as I moved, laughing all the while. But it wasn’t just us three. My father-in-law and I talked all the time. He, a philosopher of sorts, talked about his beliefs and why those beliefs came to be, and we often discussed many subjects. My mother-in-law, bless her heart, another fantastic person, always available, listening, and too eager to all sorts of stuff, whether it was cooking, talking, giving us directions to go to places, or hundreds of other things. I will never forget how important my father-in-law and mother-in-law were in making all those things possible. 

I had such an incredible time going out to walk my son, when still a baby, I would place him on the stroller and just walk around the neighborhood with him, singing songs of childhood, and learning the entire time we were out, both he and I. So many were the times when I put some kid show on the background for him as he was going to sleep while I typed a university paper on the background. My spouse and I were already big Disney fans before our son, but after he came about, we began to rewatch all the old VHS tapes I still had, rerun after rerun, sometimes leaving the rewinding of the VHS for after the boy fell asleep. I sang to him, read to him, rocked him, carried him, played with him, and did everything with him. Yet, when mom arrived from work, her face would always light up with such an incredibly glow of happiness… I could never get that from her, but it was and is alright, he is her boy and she loves him her way, and I admire that!

I fell in love again with her again and again during our time together. Her strength as a person during our separations during the military, while writing letters to one another, me having to hang up our once-a-month phone call because we were being attacked and I didn’t want her to worry. Her strenghts as a woman and person every time we planned to have a child and destiny brought about a miscarriage and all of the pains, anguish, and agony that I will never understand as a man, but saw so clearly in her tears and felt as we hugged. I fell in love with my spouse so many times… I still do. After almost 20 years, we have undergone so many pressures, overcome so many impossibilities, seen so much tragedy and error, and lived through it all with the strength that we provide one another. 

We now have a home for the first time, our son thrives, and our marriage has seen good and bad things and surpassed it all through our love. Whether it was during a long conversation about this or that, a hug at night, an impromptu kiss, a flower at work, a whole week of birthday gifting and celebrating, what seems like an endless assortment of gifts during Christmas, or just a quiet look into each other’s eyes… those eyes, she kills me with her eyes. They are brown, dark enough to look black from a distance, but clear enough to see the imperfections in them when we stare closely into each other's gaze. They are small and sexy, true and honest, and share with me still the love they shared that night staring at the starry skies. 

I love my spouse not because of a court appointment or paper we signed in front of a judge one afternoon in February in the year 2000, but because the same way I enjoy breathing without as much as a clue as to how I am able to do it, the same way I love her without a clue of where it is coming from, where it draws its strengths from, or how it all works. I just feel peace, peaceful, and at peace every moment of the day I think of her, which is too often I dare admit. That is not to say that things are perfect, they are not. 

We have our disagreements, from time to time. Yet, we find a way to come to terms with those disagreements. One thing we developed was to tell each other when the other is getting out of hand, especially if the conversation(s) with our son is going a bit longer than necessary. A mere look, that is all it takes for the other to know that enough has been reached. I don’t remember agreeing to that signal being the it that would stop something, yet it does, it works, and we use it. Like that, there are so many little things, quirks, and mannerisms we have both arrived to, obtained, or developed through time as a means to deal with things as necessary and all the meanwhile being respectful and thoughtful with one another. It is not easy by any means, adults are complex creatures with very different likings and almost daily changing natures, yet we have managed to cope with the changes, talk about the things we like and do not, and come to an agreement in most cases, on others where an agreement hasn’t been made, we are still working on it!

It is interesting to see her bring work home in her head, talk to herself trying to arrive at a solution, or perhaps just sit somewhere and just stare at a wall while machinating complex scenarios which will help her with something. She never really did explain that to me, but I find it to be a very interesting and unique way to deal with problems, and I must say, it works for her. Other times she would be folding clothes, and I can hear her voice coming from the room and just stand by the stairs listening to her going on about this or that, having a full conversation with herself about just about anything under the sun. It’s peaceful, because I know whatever it is she is concentrated on, she will be able to see it through or clearly by the time she is done with her thing. Other times, she’d get coffee and sit on the living room rocking chair or on a chair outside on the front porch and just admire the little things around her that sometimes go unnoticed, a mantle on a table, a cat toy in a place where none should be, or just looking out in contemplation of where her life has taken her and all of the things she has been able to accomplish to date… all these things in silence, without ever telling me about it, but somehow in my love, I just feel it all, know it to be that, and feel at peace as she does.  

Some part of me knows she doesn’t like reading, long stuff at that, and perhaps this may fall in that category. Yet, I hope that one day you can read this my lovely Karen and know in a very small way what you mean to me. 

Short Story: No More Beauty

Sea before us, for all its turbulence, anger, and disdain, finally abated by time itself. Rivalry and the comfort of the cease of battle merging into the melancholy of all afterward events. Dew, of the trepidation found this night covering grass and warrior alike, drops of the tumultuous sea lightly falling over the sanguine river of burgundy below the grayed out sky as wave after wave it clashes upon this end of sorts. Thunderous affair overhead as the rumble of low pitch sounds clash against higher ones, on a coming and going of waves both above as below, making the felt sensation of the moving affair felt more and stronger with every sound.

Prevailing scent of perseverance, agony, disdain, and hope, battered to silence underneath, while above, light flashes completely unhinged of the sounds. Chorus of drizzle, sensation, sound, and lights in a spectacle for the senses. 

Dirt rivers amidst the burgundy, beginning to form a tear between wall and wall, allowing water to pass slowly as if mourning the calamity through which it travels. Salacious affair between blood, suckling the confused dirt it covers with its crimson joy, fed with the irony that is this product of avarice.  Covered flower petals with colors never intended by nature to drip to the ground from their fragrance covered soft skins with parapets of burgundy the emissary of all dull smells now produced.

End, suffering supreme, end now and thus with this end never reproduce the disarray which of my tales is its core. Entice no more the thinking to the thoughtless affair of bringing such futility to the shores of this sea, to fill the rain with its martyrdom, prevent odorous winds from ever procuring from this place again, and with every drop of burgundy take beauty to its own demise.

Sun, shine away the still and dry colors which like a mantle cover what was yesterday a beautiful field of golden glow and late goldenrod, let the mountain asper and daffodil die as they must, but repopulate the area once more with the beauty them imparted on this landscape which once held beauty, but now only the vein of humanity. 

Spume rise no more from your inherent coming and going, be swept no more and disappear. Return, oh sight of nature, alas thrive and once more let your emerald, pearl, blond, chocolate, and sapphire shades reign over this region as clouds should above and not the tempest which upon us abates the very sight into the very inhospitable landscape that now exists.

Essay: I am not a hypocrite

A notion exists as the idea that I am something, can be something, or that through seeking something, something else entirely may become. This is somehow obfuscated in the rationale we employ when thinking outside of the box when either, wanting to believe in something, or no longer wanting to. Where hypocrisy is concerned in relation to the mentioned, we want to rise above any notion that is perceived as beneath us and we do so with great desire and force of will. Yet, I must wonder if that is enough for that something else to become.

Long ago I moved away from folklore and costumes. As most adults, I too have come to understand things in my own way, applied my experience and schooling to those things, and came up with a view and understanding of those things that is unique to me. Is that bad? Why am I not a hypocrite when it comes to costumes?

In my culture, I was born to Puertorrican parents, it is typical to give a kiss and hug, to a person when they are family, a friend, or a mixture of the two. Greetings basically extend beyond a handshake to putting your face against that of another and mimic the kissing sound. Generally this is done whether you care about the person or not, you just go along with the costume and hypocritically convey the motions of public standards upon this person whom in any other circumstance you would probably avoid. 

I don’t do that. I just happened to have developed some social fears which completely usurped my ability to create a fantasy where one shouldn’t exist. I don’t know, call me crazy, but if I don’t like someone I tell them in the best way possible -usually in extreme fashion or rather very straight forward- and generally that is more than enough to have a person stop talking to me, because who enjoys the truth on their face when they too are the subject of avoidance of said truth merely because no one is brave enough to speak of it in the person’s face; the public generally has no issues going behind people’s back and smearing their names and persona all over the proverbial moron they really believe the person to be, that is to say, as long as it is done without the person’s knowledge. 

This has gotten me in quite a bit of trouble over the years. I mean, I don’t believe people are morons, or even ignorant, however unenlightened they may appear to be, because of my beliefs. I have a simple rule: do not judge, no matter what. There are a number of factors which are beyond our reach -to any and all of us- when we look at another person. Starting from the present and going backwards, the kind of mood they are presently in, what health issues they may be undergoing, therapy -whether physical or mental-, the good or bad day they’ve had, family or friend issues they are immediately involved in/with, whether the week’s goals have been accomplished or not, if the month has gone as planned, how much school they have attended and what accolades they have earned, their personal take on an event or thing that may be happening, and so on and so much more. Due to all those unknowns it would be inappropriate and borderline irresponsible to call a person ignorant merely because they believe something you don’t. Yet, that being the case, those who opt to call others or judge others as ignorant end up in a very interesting loop where both parties say the same about the other; after all you think you know this and that, but you cannot see eye-to-eye with the other person who also knows what they know.

Another costume is to ask family members for a blessing upon first contact with them and before leaving their presence, not in question form, but in a statement. It is done as such because the costume is so inherent/ingrained that it is expected rather than sought. This, sadly, takes me to religion. I am agnostic, more towards atheist, but not my immediate family. Mom and dad, like theirs before them, are Catholic. The Roman Catholic type that goes to church not because it is the right thing to do, not because they are good people, not because they carry the word of their god in their hearts, and certainly not because they follow the teachings and exercise it in their day-to-day lives, but merely because it is tradition and thus expected. I however, don’t believe in much or any of that. I understand that people err, I think heavily on how we wish we were a bit more perfect and could somehow avoid all the issue of living which is making those mistakes, and ultimately understand the need to blame someone else for issues which you are not yet, or may never be ready to accept as being your own. I get it, mostly because through personal experience I have done the same in many of those situations myself. Yet, I opted to leave hypocrisy behind and apply what I learned to lead the best life all those teachings brought about. Does that mean I have fashioned my own beliefs, systems, and even costumes? Not necessarily. 

A good human, arguably, is someone who is able to see uncertainty in front of them, take that uncertainty and ponder on it, look for more information about it, seek out gurus on the subjects and get taught by its teachers, and then make an informed decision on how to most appropriately view that uncertainty. Does that mean the person will make a good choice or in fact be or become a good human? No, not really. Like me, a sufferer of depression, post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, someone who has seen and heard hallucinations, someone who has been a part of those Catholic movements and groups and have gone the extra mile and done some strenuous walks with the groups as well as other very taxing rituals, someone whose wife miscarried several times, someone who was declined entrance to the United States Marine Corps several times yet served in the Army for 4 years in 2 wars, someone married 20 years with a teenage son, someone who leaves their house no more than 30 times a years and most are for doctor appointments...  but like I was about to mention, like me there are many with their own problems and past, with their own tough decisions to make.  Some whom are single parents with ample responsibilities and find time to be involved in many different affairs, many whose lives are looked upon and talked about as being perfectly normal, or even above average, those unlucky enough to have witnessed an event and now lead different lives through repatriation or being elsewhere, and so many others who find the notion of being a good human something somewhat surreal.

We are legion, in the sense that those of us who suffer the faculty that is living through our inept or limited understanding of other things and could almost never reach the pinnacle of anything… yes our numbers are vast. Just to throw a number at the circumstance, there are roughly 7.7 billion humans on Earth (and I make the distinction expecting that in a few decades there may be some on the Moon, Mars, and perhaps elsewhere) of whom about 30% play a video game of sorts, whether the games are accessed on a desktop computer, console, mobile device, tablet, laptop, cloud, or other electronic device.  The notion that almost 50% of the world is involved with the sport of soccer be it through personal taste, have played the game, know friends or family that play, or just enjoy the pastime of watching a good game is also quite a statement. We are similar in many other ways too, we want the best for our respective families, our search to better ourselves is seemingly endless, we gravitate more towards others whose ideas mirror our own, and so on. We are nations/legion of individuals seeking an unknown, together, the fact that the unknown itself varies is seemingly inconsequential when we understand that we all seek it.

Yet, whether similar, different, or individual we seem to all have a hand in hypocrisy. If you believe that hypocrisy is saying, doing, mimicking, or thinking of something that you don’t believe in for the purpose of doing it well, then you fall in line with the rest of us who practice it daily. I don’t mean to open my eyes in the morning any more than I plan how long the next breath I take will be, nor the rhythm to which my heart palpitations will go today; perhaps to a waltz, or rap depending on your likings. I certainly do not mean to believe that I am right or have better footing on a subject than someone else, especially if I don’t know that person.  Yet, after first hearing a rendition of an idea we almost immediately fall on one side of it, the you believe it or not sides of it, and of course the more complex the item the more sides it can possibly have, thus further dividing the belief and its supporters into subset after subset. 

Why then do I believe not to be a hypocrite? I kiss and hug my sister, as culture demands, because I love her. On the other hand, out of respect and not personal choice, I do the same were I to see my father. I respect the man very much like I respect others whose views I cannot tolerate. Yet, I fail to remove myself from hypocrisy’s vile intent, because the river of turbulence that may be summoned were I to follow instinct and desire over cultural expectations would be almost impossible to traverse. I am no better than the person, whom like I, chooses the hypocrite way of going about something in order to avoid the unknown. It seems like an inherent means which is deployed upon contact with a situation whose impact will be so incredible and yet incomprehensible, that nature takes over, and like a heartbeat, deploys the modus operandi that will best steer us through incoming rapids without our knowledge or consent. This is, I infer/posit a defense mechanism more than it is the fallacy of humanity to be unique and form their own opinion and life outside of the herd that is culture. 

Thus, as shown I am as fallible as the sheep that goes to the river for a drink not knowing of the rise of the same, a current whose force impending comes to disrupt matters in seconds, leaving nothing but dismay and questions behind. It appears that despite cultural uprooting, the natural divergence between progeny and parent can be detrimental for the progression of the self where the wrong stimulation perpetuates cultural norms that perhaps ought to be evolving with the natural flow of world/surrounding events. The belief that we are different merely because we have applied some fact to our ideas does not seem like enough of a leap into a new reality bereft of the things we imply have been left behind, yet can never be replaced or removed. Whether the matter is religion, a cultural belief, folklore, or otherwise it appears that a closer examination of the self may reveal some truths that are lurking behind false beliefs we concoct in order to feel safe in the environment we reside in. When confronted by the many realities that are being alive, aging, and everything that brings, we realize that not only are we closer to those beliefs that we attempt to usurp than we imagined, but that we have inadvertently used them as part of the model or canon which we follow in our new-modeled lives. The matter that is nature versus nurture in an environment where we seek betterment seems to be trumped by nature when matters are trivial but highly valued by us for personal reasons. It seems that while I attempt to escape hypocrisy through the reworking of ideas, thoughts, and teachings, it all somehow permeates in the background to all those things. As much as I want to believe that I am in control, I is not just the me who writes, the me who thinks, or the me who acts, but the me inside, the me whose actions are driven by everything and not just beliefs or wants. Then, the something else that prevails is the one that has always existed, but has somehow grown to some extent into something we end of calling our own, however much it is filled with things beyond our wants, needs, or desires. The hypocrisy of it all is believing that I am not a hypocrite. 

We Are All Masochists

I am a perfectionist. Everything bothers me because it is somehow not right, not fully, or not all the way. Nothing is where I left it. What I had mentioned bothered me went without notice again today as I found it in disarray. Where is the love and care of others who say care or love me, that worry and have/feel concern and yet when these things I dislike are present it is all forgotten somehow? The funny thing is, and it has to be very funny because I am the only idiot who is somehow perturbed by it all, that no one else sees it. It is as if I somehow made it and make it all up.

Things like let’s keep the home picked up, you know, if you have something on your hands, put it where it belongs once you’re done with it, dispose of it if it is trash, place it back on its receptacle if reusable, and etcetera. The washed dishes resting wet on the counter as if they couldn’t be dried and placed back in the cupboard. The asthma pump tube, the one that delivers the air from the machine to the mask lying on the floor as if the cats didn’t already tear up a lot of other things that are plastic which were lying on the floor in the past and we all addressed in conversation like mature adults, yet there it lies.

To err is as much a quality of humanity as is that of glass being fragile, and it is understandable, but every single time? I feel as if I was the safety officer at a plant and as I entered saw that the entrance had iced over throughout the night, reported it to the people responsible for keeping the area safe and clean, and at the end of the day I fell on the ice which had not been touched; yet somehow it is still my fault for coming in the next morning, having a meeting about it, and everyone in the crew responsible for taking care of the ice being utterly upset at me for bringing it up. How dare I, right?

Am I as much to blame for these things? I have thought about that. I try my best to ensure that I am the prime example of how things ought to be accomplished.  Is my example followed? Not at all. It all falls on deaf ears, blind eyes, and unmovable hands. Do I get upset? Every single time. Is what I am upset about addressed? Not at all.  However, I do get a lot bewildered looks very often, in the form of “I wonder why he is upset” or my favorite, “what did I do now”. And while those are in the forms of looks, which I cannot describe in words, the words do follow after a few days of me having to put up with this madness, because it is madness isn’t it? I am going to therapy because of this anxiety I have all the time and in the background of it all, while I am at the therapist, the home is being slowly put in the disarray that landed me in therapy so that I have more to say next week… I imagine that is the reason, otherwise they are trying their best to make me insane and just get me out of the house by way of a sanitorium. 

After seven cats, 2 of them diseased, you’d think that someone in the family would notice that the cats eat, sleep, urinate and defecate, drink water, and require human hands for all those things to happen. For instance, if the cat has been sleeping in point A of the house for the past month, and is now sleeping in point B for the following month, and one more time switches from B, now to C, never returning to the previous comfortable spot in which they slept/rested back at A or B, then let us humans see if there is anything wrong with point A, just because we care about the inhabitants of the home if nothing else. But no, the spots remains full of shed hair, hairballs, and abandoned because of how uncomfortable and unbearable it is to lay there now that it is no longer clean until I go and take care of it. Even at times when the duty of cleaning the automatic cat bathroom (Cat Litter III) an event that encompasses, 

1. ensuring that the room/floor is cleaned, 
2. their water is filled, 
3. their dry-food dispenser full, 
4. the automatic pet-bathroom cleaned,
5. and the same having enough cat-litter inside to the fillable brim -not necessarily in that order- 

what gets done appears to me to depend greatly on the day it was done, the mood of the person that did it was in, etcetera, that is what determines how many of the tasks I mentioned get accomplished; somethingI take care of regardless of how wonderful or otherwise I feel.

You know, I don’t like the lights on. I suffer from cluster-migraines. Very often, as I come in a room, whoever is in it will do me the favor of turning the lights off or lowering the intensity. I am thankful as I suffer from photophobia due to the cluster-migraines. But, why is it, in a perfectly sunny day that all the lights are on in the kitchen, the window curtains and front door are opened all the way allowing the sun to pour through them, the under-the-counter lights shining over the marble countertops which reflects light, the light of the coffee maker shining it’s colors about its water dispenser further helping the overhead lights to shine throughout, the refrigerator having its own sets of lights which come on when opened, and whatever other device whether a cellphone, or tablet on, all of which have their own light sources, are always on? You know what is hilarious to all this in a perfectly sarcastic way, that when someone leaves the lights on in the living room, that pisses off my other half… the person who in the first place had all the lights on in the perfectly well-lit kitchen. It is beyond incomprehensible, what it is in fact is looney! Yet, I am the one that complains about everything, perhaps because of my depression, or post traumatic stress disorder, or because I just like to whine… regrettably, there can be no other possible sane solution or answer.

I remember my other half saying to me, “please don’t say the word relax to me, as I discovered in a psychology cession that it is a trigger to my anxiety”. To my surprise, being the perfectionist person that I am, I stopped saying the word. Why? Because my other half is sensitive to it and the last thing I want to do to this person I love is be insensitive, deaf, or blind to the issues which could be prevented so that her life is as best as I can help it be. Yet, that is not the treatment I see as being rewarded to me.

It is alright I suppose, as we are bound for imperfection in a life lived in a human carcass. No problem. I have to remind myself that it is not that I have had 20 years of marriage and experience to help me with the life I live today, but that life is in fact very unpredictable and the past is as much the past for people who have died as much as it is for love felt, nice things performed, and etcetera. At the end of the day it must all amount to nothing, because in the same way that I do not know the names of my great grandparents, no one will know of the anxieties that living bring about in my life, the terror that my life brings to those that I surround, and the fallacy that is the belief that we or anything can get better with time; for as I have learned, time only exists in people’s brains, reality is full of nothing but daily unknowns. 

Yes, I will continue to keep the house in order, I will mention the things that I feel are out of place, I will resist the urge to get angry when I am looked upon with disbelief as I open my mouth to utter these nonsense words that are nothing but the overly repeated nonsense of yesterdays past, I will deal with the cats as they are my responsibility as they are everyone else’s, I will ponder over the lights being on all the time or the lights needing to be off in some places but not others, and I will continue to use my view of life starting every day over again instead of it being the culmination of events leading to today as I ponder heavily on how I loved yesterday because I wanted to. I love today because I feel it, should tomorrow come to pass, I feel that love can continue, not because I want to, but perhaps because underneath it all we are all masochists. 

Essay: Through The Eyes of the Imperfect

The tenet of this farce I dare delve into is nothing more than that of judging someone other, something that comes easier and easier with the passing of time. Respect, once appeared to be a resident in everyone’s tongue, leaving conversation about private matters to private settings. That is to say, imagine I began to go to the nearest supermarket, squat in the middle of the entrance and defecate there, use the entrance carpet to wipe, and then go about my shopping as if the action was normal merely because apparently others are doing it elsewhere too. Sounds gross to say the least right? To do something in a place where the place is not meant to or for it is deemed by society to be out of the norm? The same way in which twitter, facebook, and other such entities have become the supermarket where everyone goes to look for a place of like-minded individuals or shop for their topic of likeness, or for a particular purpose, and suddenly unknown individuals come and begin to litter jihadist propaganda on your wall, page, or feed, or someone else comes in to regirgitate white power rhethoric all over the pages where your family and friends come to, share with their own family and friends, or may even have their children invited to, now in essence defacting their beliefs and disgusts in your place of solace and space of peace. At first, I began by expressing the reservations of folk about public matters mainly because of the shame it would bring the family if someone found their brother had effeminate inclinations, or that one event in your family where to protect their land, they went out to the perimeter with their rifles and slaughtered that other family that was not only vagrant there but without as much as a word of permission began to use it as their own. Those type of things would be shared in private, because of the shame (to have slaughtered mother and daughter where they slept), or because of the reprisals it could bring whether by law or family seeking to reunite. 

Those lines however, now blurred, like in a thick blizzard depriving us of sight, we just moved on, left behind those mores that society was once bound to and just created new ones; ones where it is still not okay to use the supermarket as a toilet, but quite pleasing in nature to take any other personal, private matter, and divulge it to the world without fear of anything whatsoever. Is it then the lack of fear that has allowed this venture of consent to share to overwhelm social mediums? There once was maturity and respect, now there seems to be none. The blurring lines of one subject/thing, have slowly begun to tear away at the fabric of society. The result is one that is hard to understand, harder to accept, and ultimately still an evolving one. Thus, I find myself in this corner of the earth below my tired feet thinking about just how it is that overcoming this particular stage starts (or if it is even warranted, for it could be a naturally evolving stage that could propel humanity into unknowns far-too-complex to delve into).

At last, in disbelief, I take a step back from the reality of others to attempt to conjure ways in which to better understand the processes by which they choose to believe one thing or another. The fallacy which is the credence with which believers flock to an enterprise in order to have a place where conjoined by illusion be able to say they’ve tried; church, temple, or whatever other place of gathering. It is curious, the endeavor of attempting to understand things, as one observes the opposite end of the spectrum and those who reside within its parameters, and those who deem it irrelevant merely because of the fantasy involved in them. I speak on this latter subject of people who come together to enjoy things like Dungeons and Dragons, Vampire the Masquerade, Steampunk, Warhammer, Magic The Gathering, Star Wars Destiny, or others. Somehow, these latter ones are the weirdos.

In this American Enterprise I live in and through daily, the happenstance which comes from not caring is tantamount to the equality of the races in a world where they all live, must share, and ultimately die in. Yet, all is so different and unequally represented throughout. Societies have accepted the horse, then bicycle, later followed by trains, and cars, and lastly airplanes. These things we can agree on. Eating of fruit, vegetables, and other things of the land have had no issue in being accepted worldly as sufficiently pleasing. Thinking sports like chess, or more corporeal ones like the javelin throw too have been regarded as fun, and ones where friendly competition is an endeavor worth seeking by one and all alike. Yet, the most basic of all, the being with other humans, that somehow has been the hardest enterprise ever attempted, and I believe judging has an incredible negative part to play in all those things.

I judge not because I understand the matter, but because the matter being different than what I believe threatens the very foundation of the things I understand.

Planets all differ in their composition. Some have rain in the form of acid, others have storms of gases we would suffocate in, while others are frigid and dark, or too hot for many metals to retain their hardened states. We discriminate less against those things outside of the world, the ones we shouldn’t fret over, than the opposite. It is more than a mental exercise in trying to understand why humanity -with such powerful thinking tool- to surmise it better that some things are better or not-at-all relevant to one another in a world, in a place where it is more than obvious that everything coincides in the natural circle of recurrence that is life; which without the individual parts of any whole could never be.

Wordly is the desire for happiness in one form or another, one belief or another, and in all a life away. For it takes the individual parts to realign, in this clock which is ticking away slower and slower as one of the batteries of society’s acceptability runs low making the others work harder, with another slowly losing their dependance on reason and joining the others running low, until eventually the clock may stop. The social enigma of “someone else will do it” in a world with billions of individuals all saying the same thing ends up with the chain breaking quickly and a message never reaching very far because its sentiment is not one of error, mishap, and demise, yet those of evil and feats of ire, those are powered quickly by the sun that is public opinion and like fire spread through the wilderness that is societies mediums of communication ironically in the most speedy of fashions.

What then is public opinion? Not new certainly, but frankly the coming together of ignorant ideas from point A through Z without any real care for understanding the underlying cause/reason of anything. We live in an epoch where only the parents of dying children truly care about gun violence, where those affected by people they dislike, being proponents of gun laws, where the fear of running into all those who oppose you in social media is such a real concern that carrying a weapon is easier and much more efficient than changing an old standing tree with its many roots, by replanting it someplace else.

Easy and blind is the road taken to facilitate wellbeing. The I don’t care, and the that is your opinion phrases now overwhelm our speech. Freedom to speak is what freedom of speech has been converted into. I loathe not the blind for they cannot comment on my visible errors, nor the deaf who cannot speak to my spoken irregularities, nor the dead who are not affected by any one of my actions, but anyone who chooses to think that opinion is a right, and that a right must be respected, and that respect is allowing anyone to do anything they please no matter what; like defecate on a supermarket floor for example. 

I am dumbfounded by the rules with which any of these things I mentioned are measured. There seems to be a moving line on the measuring stick that slowly allows more and more to fit into criteria that was once carefully thought to be outside of an allowable spectrum. Yes, I am surprised, yet understand that without change new things could never be harnessed. But, I dare not speak of change in a way that is beneficial; as science -an example- has shown us that error is a means where advancement lurks quietly and on the tepid tongue of a vanguard I believe we are not meant to comprehend.

I then observe and by doing so make small boxes where I can put things as they occur, violence, teachings, foundings, discoveries, illusions, dreams, fantasy, and religion among others. So, observing allows for the placing of similar things in their similar boxes so that when full one can better appreciate the nature of things as they exist today, rather than one-by-one applying one’s very subjective view to every which element of life we are cataclysmically attached to. One way or another our demise will follow an event, the event may be natural or otherwise, and that will be preceded by something another and so, in a minute-by-minute recount of what exactly? Were you to look at your own life fully -like a playing video of sorts-, believing that somehow your life will be displayed on a type of video format and on loop in an alien planet museum where humanity has fled to in order to propagate in efforts to deter an apparent inevitable demise should they stay put. What would you like your life to say to those outer-humans who watch it as they see you, like you would a statue made by Greek sculptors in a museum? What things would shame you? What would you say or not, what would you change or not do?

There should be nothing. A life well lived is a life where not only is looking back unnecessary, but one where acceptance of things done because they were done to the best of your capabilities is more than a given, but a truth. Is that to say that mistakes will not be made? Clearly not for to err is as human an action as is breathing. 

I cannot accept the things I cannot understand, because I dare not accept them -in fear of something I do not know-, and do not know what has never been made present to me, yet I decry the things I abhor because I understand that because they could hurt me in turn could others as well.

I know not what I know, nor what I lack in knowledge, nor what falsehoods exist in my own human trepidation recorded as what I know which all-in-all is later used as the basis with which we dare judge others; through the eyes of the imperfect.