There was material here before. It doesn't really matter. I'm restarting this now for a couple of reasons.
First, I hate angst. I hate self-delusion and self-abuse and self-introspection and self-flipperfloppery. Can't stand it. And that's all this was -- feeling sorry for myself. The world, and the people that know me, and the person who reads this, probably have enough of that.
Second, to take it in a new direction. Of saying things that are hard to say in person that go well on the printed page. To use it as a tool , or to make a journey of exploration that might make me a better person rather than a more histrionic jackass.
I wish I could write a smoothly flowing blog about something vaguely interesting where a few friends might put in with pithy comments and talk about the weekend football game. But that isn't to be. Best that I be myself.
Monday, October 6
Friday, October 3
Back to writing
I got away from doing this. I shouldn't have. I think I'll restart, and I'll go into why.
It's amusing, really. I despise stream-of-consciousness writing like this as the height of narcissistic, self-inflated ego blathering. It's the sort of useless capering about that most people regurgitate seeking comfort, or attention, or praise, or just someone to listen to them. Venting is a mechanical process used to eliminate waste, and my emotions and feelings are not waste to be jettisoned.
And yet here I am regurgitating emotions for the sake of ... what? Pretending they aren't there? Am I so terrified of the fact that I'm in love that I can't process thoughts correctly? Is the concept that I'm being open with someone, that someone can hurt me for realz that goddamned horrifying? If so, what does that make me?
I wish I knew.
So why am I doing this? It's easier for me to express what I feel here than it is in an email, or in chat, or over the phone, or in person. It's easier for me to get it out and then read it back over and analyze how I feel.
And how do I feel, this wonderful grey morning?
I'm suspended between finally having a reason to live , and finally having a reason to give up entirely. I'm not sure if the fundamental essence of who and what I am is a positive or a negative. I'm not sure if what I want is to be happy or to do the right thing.
I am not used to people seeing me as I am. Perhaps my facades have taken so many body blows in the past few days that they no longer function. Perhaps there isn't anything under the facade, and I haven't yet realized that.
I'm lost in emotions and I have no good direction on where to go. I can't say "I'm having problems with my girlfriend" since she's not my girlfriend, doesn't know what she feels and might be gone tomorrow. I can't say "I'm having to face what I am" because everyone clings to their own view of me and won't discard it for the reality. I can't say "I'm trying to fix myself" because I'm not even sure what's wrong with me.
And I know that, no matter what, the things I've said up to this point in this blog aren't what need to be said. The things I've DONE up to this point in my life aren't what need to be done.
I have to change.
It's amusing, really. I despise stream-of-consciousness writing like this as the height of narcissistic, self-inflated ego blathering. It's the sort of useless capering about that most people regurgitate seeking comfort, or attention, or praise, or just someone to listen to them. Venting is a mechanical process used to eliminate waste, and my emotions and feelings are not waste to be jettisoned.
And yet here I am regurgitating emotions for the sake of ... what? Pretending they aren't there? Am I so terrified of the fact that I'm in love that I can't process thoughts correctly? Is the concept that I'm being open with someone, that someone can hurt me for realz that goddamned horrifying? If so, what does that make me?
I wish I knew.
So why am I doing this? It's easier for me to express what I feel here than it is in an email, or in chat, or over the phone, or in person. It's easier for me to get it out and then read it back over and analyze how I feel.
And how do I feel, this wonderful grey morning?
I'm suspended between finally having a reason to live , and finally having a reason to give up entirely. I'm not sure if the fundamental essence of who and what I am is a positive or a negative. I'm not sure if what I want is to be happy or to do the right thing.
I am not used to people seeing me as I am. Perhaps my facades have taken so many body blows in the past few days that they no longer function. Perhaps there isn't anything under the facade, and I haven't yet realized that.
I'm lost in emotions and I have no good direction on where to go. I can't say "I'm having problems with my girlfriend" since she's not my girlfriend, doesn't know what she feels and might be gone tomorrow. I can't say "I'm having to face what I am" because everyone clings to their own view of me and won't discard it for the reality. I can't say "I'm trying to fix myself" because I'm not even sure what's wrong with me.
And I know that, no matter what, the things I've said up to this point in this blog aren't what need to be said. The things I've DONE up to this point in my life aren't what need to be done.
I have to change.
Tuesday, September 16
The opening statement for the defense
I'm here to talk about me, I suppose.
If I'm honest (which is, I must admit, usually a rarity), there's not much worth knowing about me. I'm strictly average in some ways and unusual but hardly interesting in others. I'm of average height, slightly overweight (which means a beer gut and a soft jawline) and mixed heritage (which is what they call a mulatto in the South, in their infinite ability to insult.)
A lot of what I've achieved in life I'm proud of. I've been places where few other humans have gone, under the seas of the earth upon a submarine, and I've proven myself there. I've written and argued, I've saved the lives of six people through simply talking and being there, I've helped people get married and I'm told I kept one person from divorce. I've put myself through college, on my own hard work, with my own money, and taken the classes to get a degree that has actual application in the fucked-up workforce of today. I've managed to grow a sinister looking goatee like I always really wanted after watching the Master in old runs of Dr. Who.
A lot of I've achieved in life is also not very proud for me. I didn't measure up as well as I could have in the Navy, despite letters of commendations and awards and medals. I've disappointed my father, had to question my sexual orientation, and have found it all too expedient to simply manipulate and lie and mislead people to fit in than try to change myself. My best friend in this entire world walked away from my side in 1995 because he ended up becoming a transsexual and my own fears about how I felt kept me from being her friend the way I was his friend.
I've met three women in my life I've loved: The woman in high school, the woman in the poem, and the woman in the photo. Naming names is irrelevant, what they mean to me isn't. One moved on when I showed who I was to her, thinking to trust her. One moved on when I couldn't twist myself into what she wanted, and one moved on when I concealed what I was and twisted her to what I wanted.
My interests are in politics , religion, technology, public opinion, race in terms of a social construct, and sexuality (not sexology). My interests are of personal impact on me, my interests are in areas I can hold forth on quite confidently. I'm not a "liberal" or a "conservative" , for both of those positions imply government should be posited to some "goal for society" and that it should regulate how people think. I'm not a communist or a fascist, since I don't believe that people are good, and I'm certainly not a Libertarian, since I have a goddamned IQ higher than room temperature. I'm a statist.
My religion is Christianity, practiced as my Lord told me to. That means I pray where no one can hear me. I pray for others, rarely for myself. I consider myself a sinner and that means I need to work on fixing myself before I go off preaching at others. I believe that a God who can create a system of rules that allows everything to develop in intricate, infinite complexity, who can create all systems and make man in his image by His laws and His will, is a lot more impressive than a stage magician who makes man from clay. I believe that God transmitted His will and words to us through images in days of old, and that those men recorded things they had no frame of reference for. The Bible is not literal in terms of being used for history, or for science, or for dealing with the world of nature. I follow the parts that show where God speaks and Jesus speaks and I quite frankly don't believe a word of the Apostles once Jesus was resurrected, because at that point they were more concerned with spreading the message than comprehending it, a trait they showed constantly in the Bible. I'm not born again, I'll be born again when I die and God receives my immortal soul. My religion does not require me to hate gays or lesbians. It doesn't require me to hate Muslims. It doesn't require me to preach at you and tell you how stupid you are. And it certainly does not require me to support creationism, intelligent design, young earth theory, or any other mouth-breathing idiocy.
I'm interested in technology because it's the genie out of the bottle. Nanotechnology, viral therapy, genetic mapping, high energy particle physics -- we are moving into areas where even science fiction is guessing. Just as with the old serials of the 1930's, where we had ray guns and rocket ships but no computers, internet, cell phones or plastics -- I suspect where we think we'll be and where we'll actually be are going to be far, far apart. I worry about technology because humans are fundamentally stupid. We adapt too fast, we change too fast, we never stop to consider consequences. We tested atomic weapons without even being sure they wouldn't simply continue the chain reaction and destroy the planet, and we're so ignorant I cringe whenever I think of some alien race ever receiving our television signals with their images of our savagery and cruelty to our own kind. Technology does help us, but it also makes us better at killing.
I'm interested in race because I straddle the line -- black father, white mother. A strong successful black man, uneducated and yet achieving first after first in his industry -- first black assistant manager, first black manager, first black man in the food industry to win major awards, first black manager to open new cafeterias and serve as the point man for a major food corporation, first black supervisor -- all of these things in the highly segregated and racist South, and more so in the cafeteria industry which has catered to good ole boys since before Bull Run. A white mother, brought up in a strong family, highly intelligent, educated -- and yet achieved nothing and wants nothing. Race defines how I'm seen, how I'm viewed, how I interact with the world whether I like it not.
I'm interested in sexuality because I don't know what mine is. Am I really bisexual or just confused? Should I be with men or women? My impulses towards men and women are different, my wishes confusing and my interactions problematic. I don't have anyone to figure this out with and everything is dark -- so, I might as well throw it out to the world.
I'm sure -- assuming anyone ever bothers to read this, which is mind-blastingly unlikely -- that by now someone is quite sure I am bat-fuck insane. I might very well be. It's hard for me to assess that. But that's what the blog is for, I guess -- to spew word of mouth stream of conciousness gibberish until
If I'm honest (which is, I must admit, usually a rarity), there's not much worth knowing about me. I'm strictly average in some ways and unusual but hardly interesting in others. I'm of average height, slightly overweight (which means a beer gut and a soft jawline) and mixed heritage (which is what they call a mulatto in the South, in their infinite ability to insult.)
A lot of what I've achieved in life I'm proud of. I've been places where few other humans have gone, under the seas of the earth upon a submarine, and I've proven myself there. I've written and argued, I've saved the lives of six people through simply talking and being there, I've helped people get married and I'm told I kept one person from divorce. I've put myself through college, on my own hard work, with my own money, and taken the classes to get a degree that has actual application in the fucked-up workforce of today. I've managed to grow a sinister looking goatee like I always really wanted after watching the Master in old runs of Dr. Who.
A lot of I've achieved in life is also not very proud for me. I didn't measure up as well as I could have in the Navy, despite letters of commendations and awards and medals. I've disappointed my father, had to question my sexual orientation, and have found it all too expedient to simply manipulate and lie and mislead people to fit in than try to change myself. My best friend in this entire world walked away from my side in 1995 because he ended up becoming a transsexual and my own fears about how I felt kept me from being her friend the way I was his friend.
I've met three women in my life I've loved: The woman in high school, the woman in the poem, and the woman in the photo. Naming names is irrelevant, what they mean to me isn't. One moved on when I showed who I was to her, thinking to trust her. One moved on when I couldn't twist myself into what she wanted, and one moved on when I concealed what I was and twisted her to what I wanted.
My interests are in politics , religion, technology, public opinion, race in terms of a social construct, and sexuality (not sexology). My interests are of personal impact on me, my interests are in areas I can hold forth on quite confidently. I'm not a "liberal" or a "conservative" , for both of those positions imply government should be posited to some "goal for society" and that it should regulate how people think. I'm not a communist or a fascist, since I don't believe that people are good, and I'm certainly not a Libertarian, since I have a goddamned IQ higher than room temperature. I'm a statist.
My religion is Christianity, practiced as my Lord told me to. That means I pray where no one can hear me. I pray for others, rarely for myself. I consider myself a sinner and that means I need to work on fixing myself before I go off preaching at others. I believe that a God who can create a system of rules that allows everything to develop in intricate, infinite complexity, who can create all systems and make man in his image by His laws and His will, is a lot more impressive than a stage magician who makes man from clay. I believe that God transmitted His will and words to us through images in days of old, and that those men recorded things they had no frame of reference for. The Bible is not literal in terms of being used for history, or for science, or for dealing with the world of nature. I follow the parts that show where God speaks and Jesus speaks and I quite frankly don't believe a word of the Apostles once Jesus was resurrected, because at that point they were more concerned with spreading the message than comprehending it, a trait they showed constantly in the Bible. I'm not born again, I'll be born again when I die and God receives my immortal soul. My religion does not require me to hate gays or lesbians. It doesn't require me to hate Muslims. It doesn't require me to preach at you and tell you how stupid you are. And it certainly does not require me to support creationism, intelligent design, young earth theory, or any other mouth-breathing idiocy.
I'm interested in technology because it's the genie out of the bottle. Nanotechnology, viral therapy, genetic mapping, high energy particle physics -- we are moving into areas where even science fiction is guessing. Just as with the old serials of the 1930's, where we had ray guns and rocket ships but no computers, internet, cell phones or plastics -- I suspect where we think we'll be and where we'll actually be are going to be far, far apart. I worry about technology because humans are fundamentally stupid. We adapt too fast, we change too fast, we never stop to consider consequences. We tested atomic weapons without even being sure they wouldn't simply continue the chain reaction and destroy the planet, and we're so ignorant I cringe whenever I think of some alien race ever receiving our television signals with their images of our savagery and cruelty to our own kind. Technology does help us, but it also makes us better at killing.
I'm interested in race because I straddle the line -- black father, white mother. A strong successful black man, uneducated and yet achieving first after first in his industry -- first black assistant manager, first black manager, first black man in the food industry to win major awards, first black manager to open new cafeterias and serve as the point man for a major food corporation, first black supervisor -- all of these things in the highly segregated and racist South, and more so in the cafeteria industry which has catered to good ole boys since before Bull Run. A white mother, brought up in a strong family, highly intelligent, educated -- and yet achieved nothing and wants nothing. Race defines how I'm seen, how I'm viewed, how I interact with the world whether I like it not.
I'm interested in sexuality because I don't know what mine is. Am I really bisexual or just confused? Should I be with men or women? My impulses towards men and women are different, my wishes confusing and my interactions problematic. I don't have anyone to figure this out with and everything is dark -- so, I might as well throw it out to the world.
I'm sure -- assuming anyone ever bothers to read this, which is mind-blastingly unlikely -- that by now someone is quite sure I am bat-fuck insane. I might very well be. It's hard for me to assess that. But that's what the blog is for, I guess -- to spew word of mouth stream of conciousness gibberish until
- It's all out there so I can shut up, or
- It's all out there so I can be humiliated and proven wrong, or
- It's all out there so someone can help me, or
- It's all out there so you can get a goddamned good laugh and plaster me all over ED.
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