Imitation; is it really the most sincere form of flattery?

I get my best writing ideas in the morning, even though I'm a night-owl.  Something happens in my brain after sleep.  Maybe it is an ignorance of my body pains which return in the morning and gradually increase as the day goes on.  It gets very distracting by noon.  But early on, I have a fresh mind.

Lately, I've heard some podcasters/radio shows on Spreaker/iHeartRadio sharing my ideas as their own as I have shows on those networks as well.  It's the little things, here and there, such as hearing, "Don't believe anything I say; look it up," and "If somebody wants an ass-kicking, you can come pick it up; I don't stalk so I don't offer delivery," and "why do you believe in things you can't prove?"  Those are just a few--there are many more.  I wonder if those podcasters realize they are copying me, or if they're just thinking they heard these phrases "somewhere,"  or if they did hear them somewhere else.  But the specificity of the ideas gives me doubt; I know when I hear something that's mine.

Ideally, I should be happy.  That means that my messages are resonating after doing 335 episodes averaging about 1.6 hours per, give or take.  As you may or may not be aware, I do a "big" show called "Truth on Tap," focused on truth in media, advertising, and most importantly, critical thinking, then I have a tiny show I do called "Caps on Tap," about my favorite NHL hockey team, the Washington Capitals.

Perhaps the difference in my mind is that I try to come up with more original (my) ideas or ideas from experts, while I hear some other shows just sort of reading out the news or trying to be funny, and some are hilarious.  I hear shows read a headline and then ask callers/chatroom participants asked, "What do you think about that," to the host, and off the show runs in that direction.  I killed my pride some time ago, and ego, and I don't need large listener bases or fame.  I think we all started out with a dream of going big but I found reality quickly, and while I still won't rule out the possibility of a paid, syndicated show of some type, it is no longer my goal.  My goal is to help my fellow humans wipe away the falsity of bad belies from their daily life and learn all the truths they can so we can make progress in thinking, which always precedes action, but I don't want to take the "magic" of life out so I encourage them to return to any fantasy world they like in their off time.  Disney movies.  Fiction books (I have a few out there).  Daydreaming about flying and living in a different Universe.  It's just important to me that they know the truth, and they know the critical thinking techniques that will get them as close to the truth as possible when it's time to do some rational thinking, keeping emotions to a minimum.

I guess I do find hearing my own ideas repeated by other hosts as their own (without proper accreditation) as flattering.  It's not much more to me than a measure of how far my ideas are being spread, and believed.  As a former psych. and English major with a writing concentration academically yet vocational training in computers and electronics, I've tried to round out my education.  But where I find my interest is in how the human mind works (go psych!), philosophy, critical thinking, and the pure folly of the human mind, especially when you mix logical thought with emotion and perceptual errors.  The only problem with being flattered is not having an ego to receive the prideful feelings.  I could be the most famous person in the world and literally brush it off; I suppose I'm a hermit by nature.  That's likely genetic.  I don't need other peoples' approval, though I do like to be liked.  I have a quiet mental and physical confidence that I haven't seen rivaled often; I stay cool in disasters and fear no man, and people sense that.  Even though I don't have room to feel "pride" over that, I like having that.  It feels comforting to have those qualities.  Not a lot of people can keep a cool head when a house is on fire, or after a car accident, or in the middle of a bar-room brawl.  That's when I'm at my most focused on calm, probably because I know I have to be to perform well.

So go ahead, fellow hosts, steal my ideas if you like them.  Adopt my philosophy if you like it.  It's an informational yard sale here, with everything free.  But eventually, work on being original.  Give the world something new. 

Impromptu; The Last Fast Art of Words

I suppose it'll be a poem I'll choose, right now, off the top of my head
As I put forth a favorable vote for impromptu which is anything but dead
Humans who can think fast with no editorial desire or need
Are quick and resourceful and impress me with speed.

Ten minutes is usually what I allot myself to fire something off,
Ten minutes to turn a blank page into the tangible, if soft.
I'm on three minutes now so should probably pick up the pace
Even if my previous record is my only opponent in the race.

Do you like impromptu?  Like they do on "Whose Line?"
Do you like public speakers who speak without time
I find certain purity and truth, even through irksome styles
In the non-prepared statements of the verbally versatile.

You should test yourself sometime.  No need for a poem.
Just try to write something in which ideas conjoin.
Anything.  A love letter.  An e-mail or a text.
Do it fast, don't hold back, and watch what happens next.

(Finished in 7mins).

A Terrifying Truth; We Are Figuring Out Humans

I was reading a psych. study not long ago on my favorite topic (the human brain and how and why it works) and I came to a realization that would scare the average person.

Long story short, they figured out that psychopaths in prison, when talking with interviewers, were far more likely than non-psychopaths to mention things such as food, water, and shelter--the lowest level of basics.  They also were able to tell you exactly how the people they had hurt/murdered did them wrong/offended them/committed some injustice against them more than the average non-psychopath serving time for assault or a similar charge was able to describe his victim's infractions.

We had no idea.  And since this study is a preliminary finding, the critical thinkers among you know a few things right away; sensational headlines make news, and science, which psychology is (no matter how many insist it is not), insists that these studies be repeatable with control groups, blinded, representative, etc.

I suspect, though, based on some combination of my gut feeling and the early results that this one will pan out.  I don't think it'll turn out to be a false study, or have unfair controls, or anything of that nature, but while we're on that, let's do a fun little Kev sidebar.
   
Kev's fun little sidebar: Think of all the things you could ask about the above study that were not asked.  For example; we know the sample size was pretty large, but did it spread out over different prisons and cultures?  If it was a geographically tight sample, what if it's just normal for, say, alpha males to talk about basics and also for alpha males to be the most likely to become psychopaths (correlation v. causation arises, but is not important, yet) in that specific region?  Did we check for diversity?  Black, white, old, young, educated, uneducated, treated, untreated, or even short/ tall or skinny/fat differences?  Was any of that accounted for?  If we go on, we could ask a hundred meaningful questions, and our final conclusion might come out looking like this; A collection of respectable studies suggest that most psychopaths who are in prison across the world for murder enjoy talking about food and lodging, and are more likely to be white, short, skinny, educated, untreated males than any other combination  NOW we're getting specific, aren't we?  Sure, there will be exceptions, but as I recently heard a neurologist say (and a philosopher shortly after him also repeated the sentiment), science is not only self-correcting (and it is) but it takes a finding or findings and digs deeper and deeper until the answers become more and more subtle (in other words, as we keep digging, we can start splitting hairs).  

Anyway, the truth is that we're figuring people out, and we're doing it in a variety of ways, and some of them are solid, and new solid ways are coming.  There is software being tested now that will detect lies in the subtle harmonics of the human voice; the FBI is already in testing phases with it.  One day it will be in courtrooms; I wish it had been during my divorce proceedings and custody battle.  We are learning about people dead and alive what categories they may fit in, from pedophile to rapist, from murderer to money-launderer, from assassin to mafia enforcer.  In other words, while you lived a life that seemed normal enough to you and those around you, we're now picking up ways to identify other tendencies that go along with your patterns of behavior, and you might just find yourself exposed or even unfairly targeted.  Are we ready for this?  In my experience with humans, people love pointing fingers in every direction except in a mirror.  The ego must be cuddled and stroked; the fault placed outside.

As you know, I push rather hard for critical thinking.  It's a process.  The dedicated among us do not tell you what to think; we try to teach you human thinking weaknesses and strengths, as well as signs and symptoms of different kinds of logical paths and fallacies so that you can choose your path of interest that runs closest to the truth about those interests.  You cannot have truth without critical thinking, and you cannot be an honestly solid critical thinker without pointing your spotlight upon your own mind and examining, harshly, where you've gone wrong before, where you're going wrong now, and where you might go wrong in the future.  You cannot feel "elevated" because you're a critical thinker or you've come into it for the wrong reasons; you CAN feel "elevated" that you insist on employing the process of thinking well before you commit to any cause or belief; a process which includes routinely admitting that you are or may be wrong, a process in which you are forever willing to take in new evidence in order to stay nearest to the truth.  You cannot let one news agency, one political party, one religion, one race, one country, one family or one organization of any type tell you exactly how it is.  You must learn to think well and then find out exactly how it is, slamming shut that emotional side of yourself that is your ego in favor of lighting the fire of knowledge and learning in a way that will cause it to burn forever.  If you must give your ego some cookies, let the cookies be that you employ critical thinking all the time, that you are willing to admit when you are wrong (which most of us routinely are) and that you will listen to perfect strangers and ideological opposition and keep an open mind.  Nobody gains from holding their position for no good reason, and many lose. 

It's just an opinion, but since we are going to figure you out in very subtle ways, you should start really using and practicing critical thinking.  I'm no expert in it yet, but I aim to be, and I'm getting better, and for reasons I don't fully understand, critical thinking is hugely important to me.  If life were a book, the Table of Contents would be invisible without critical thinking.  It needs to be in place and sharp before you go any further.  

Demeanor Chasms

Picture yourself at work and how you act.  Now picture yourself at home and how you act.  Finally, picture yourself at a grocery store and how you act there, and how that changes when you meet a friend in the store.

Do you lose your essence in any of those situations?  If you do, you're killing your identity.  The strongest and greatest people to ever make their way into our history books were describable.  Are you describable, or do you change so much between one role and the next that you're a different person?

I believe the words "spirit" and "soul" are too flimsy and imprecise--too open to interpretation.  But you have an essence; a thing that most of your casual friends think about right away when they think of you.  You're super-nice, or intelligent, or giving, or demanding, or commanding, or sneaky, or unpredictable, or extreme.  People think some thing about you.  If the people at work and the people at home and your friends are all thinking different things, then you don't know who you are.  I could write 10,000 cliches here to help define this: misery loves company, familiarity breeds contempt, distance maketh the heart grow fond... Hell, even Superman was Clark Kent.  But if you ask me, that person was only his true self when he was Superman.  Fiction aside, many can relate.

The most enduring names in human history have belonged to humans who are describable, and in terms that people from different of their social circles could agree upon.  I say you have to have one or two or three big things.  I only hope for your own happiness and a little less sorrow in the world that people won't mark you as hateful, angry, or lacking critical thinking skills (or lacking the willingness to use those skills).

Chances are, you have two challenges ahead of you if you want to beat this conundrum.  First, crack the nut that is you and have a good, hard look at it and employ changes where necessary to get to who you want to be.  Secondly, be that person 'round the clock. I've cracked the nut and remain in inventory stages right now; slow process if you're careful.  But the push is on.  Good luck.

Death as the Predator

Always on the hunt is death for one more dance partner
Since the beginning of life it has had no problem finding one
And its cold bones reach out to grab unwilling shoulders
That it will dance to a place that cannot be undone.

It sneaks around now, no ego to serve
Pointing and planning, waiting for the next call
Just willing and waiting but not hesitating
To toss whole groups over that shallow, life-harboring wall.

It's behind you right now, having a peek at your vitals
Checking your car, and your heart, and your careless style
Not rushing you, just checking, to see if your time's up
Or if you'll keep rolling for one more of life's miles.

No other threat is more calm and prepared
And not rude but not caring, reliably moving
Toward one or more partners for the fast or slow dance
The guarantee of an end is all that it's proving.

You can't fight it, it ducks and it bobs and it weaves
Not interested in winning some spiritual fight
It has work to do, some days more than others
It has work to do, pulling life into the night. 

Les Humains: Past, Present, Future

I have a few things figured out regarding humans.  I couldn't think of a better time to share them than now.  As one doctor said quoting another, "Inviting me to engage in futurism is inviting me to be a fool."  I don't mind being a fool.  Let's take some shots.

Past: Humans were pure animal, really, before a few thousand years ago.  It was about the bottom rung of Maslow's Hierarchy (a pyramid I fully subscribe to, while leaving openings at each level of it for human changes/adaptations).  Food, water, shelter, sex.  People used bravery, strength, trickery and intelligence to make their mating selections, to acquire and maintain food and water supplies, and to have a shelter from the weather.  Evolution did what it did, as Darwin said, and forced adaptation.  If you didn't or couldn't adapt, you died off and produced no offspring.  If you could hold on long enough in a given lifetime, you generally did continue to contribute to the gene pool.  In cosmic time, humans have been here for a very brief period, so a relatively small amount of harsh, future-shaping adaptations have strained the human line.  We haven't been tested like many other species have.

Present: At the beginning of the 21st century, we are about to make a sharp turn.  Right now, scientists are actively researching and working on electronic implants, chemicals, and training methods that will meld computer speed and memory capacity with the human mind.  Before the end of the century, these enhancements to humans will be commonplace.  Humans will desire to have them be introduced by genes, so that these extra strengths will pass on automatically and I suspect we will work toward that.  But gene therapy, or pimping your genes, will be limited.  Added to that will be electronic forms of memory, connected to the largest networks.  You could have no knowledge of a state and yet in the time it takes to make the thought, you will have "downloaded" the state's road maps into your frontal cortex.  You will literally be Think-Googling (perhaps they'll call it Thoogling).

Designer children will be allowed, no mate required.  Sex robots will be made remarkably human and will be the most popular robot available, worldwide, followed closely by personal robots (the type that will help the sick move around, clean house, fetch necessities, go shopping, and walk the dog.... eventually, those robots will also be sex-enhanced... people will put more thought into designing their robots than designing their kids).

Wars will be fought with robots, first controlled by humans, and then by AI.  Humans will be sufficiently smart in design and control as to not let robots "take over."  Those types of Hollywood themes are popular because people fear the unknown and are always looking for something to put in their "fear hole," (my term).  Computers will continue to drive cars, but will show up also in courtrooms and sports venues to make accurate calls/verdicts, according to the rules/laws.  Computer code will be open to inspection at all time, preventing any chance of human error, bribery, or bias.  If we want mathematical precision in the application of our laws and rules, we will need computers to do it.  Finally, fairness will be achieved to a point satisfactory to the people of a community.  This will be one of the best things to happen this century.

With hardware brain add-ons and enhancements, we elders will feel a bit like outdated version of humans for having to go through years of college and many more years of living to gain an experienced education when people will be downloading their educations on demand, or designing high-IQ babies.  That will sting a little for those not wealthy enough to buy the enhancements.  Almost all surgical and repair operations will be done without human hands, as well as food service, repair services, and delivery services.  Large social programs will be needed to help people find new careers as the machines are used for any programmable tasks (which is about all of them).

Future:  Space will be colonized by man and machine.  Humans will spread out.  Homes will be made on asteroids, moons, and planets.  Warped space travel (to reduce time needed for journeys) will be perfected to allow travel to different solar systems, and eventually galaxies.  Humans will fundamentally branch off from one another here as their new environments begin to shape them, and any biological enhancements at a genetic level may turn out to be deadly or necessary, depending on the situation.  The power will be in numbers... many humans and machines sent in many different directions.  Planets like Mars will be terraformed and other duplicates of Earth will be made, either naturally or artificially.

It will be hundreds, perhaps thousands of years before we figure out practical inter-dimensional travel or useful time travel.  Using weak black holes, time travel will become relatively routine once it starts.  It is possible then that if somebody travels to or through your "current moment," it is not the first time you have been through that moment, and it may not be the last.  This may have some connection to deja-vu, as the chances that this is the first time we've come through the year 2016 are remarkably slim.  But even if it is, you will relive 2016 many, many times as time travelers re-activate the moments that they choose to arrive in.  This may also be a cause of or at least discovery of parallel realities since time and space can stretch and shrink; there may be a million of "you" living on different time/space/dimensional lines.  If so, that will eventually be proven.

New diseases will be encountered in new places as we colonize.  Whole colonies will be wiped out before some are resolved.  It is in human nature to explore, and so we will take those risks, and we will never stop searching, even if we don't know exactly what we're searching for or why.  Traditional religion will die, replaced with solid philosophy and critical thinking and a belief not in a big daddy in the sky but in human ingenuity and adaptation as its own force.  We will discover other intelligent life and at least initially, that will go well as life has a tendency, when intelligence is involved, to root for itself.  A super-intelligent but desperate life form my bring new problems.  Humans will learn that thinking outside of the box is no longer an optional exercise to do once in a while in a board room but must be practiced and used daily.  Love will not lose any of the passion it is capable of having, but due to supplemental forms of artificial love available, it will be experienced less per capita than it is now (gene manipulation, robots, and drugs will be found to be less challenging to accomplish a similar feeling to raging love, and this may be one of the worst things that could happen to humans).

Humans will make it a remarkably long time as we spread out, but in truth, the new divisions will differ so much from one another after millions of years of change that we will have new species that just used to be human.  Add to that the complications of gene manipulation and robotic enhancement, and you'll see some interesting characters out there.  Overall, unless answered after death, the question of "Why are we alive?" will probably never be answered.  The prevailing motto will be, "Just keep going in order to keep going."  

Always the new path, and it starts with apologies

Lately, I've had some drama to deal with and those that know me know I avoid drama.  Drama generally shows up in what the smart folk call ad-hominem, or personal attacks.  This can be painful, embarrassing, and cause serious damage to one's peace of mind, regardless of how much truth or accuracy is in the attacks.

I know who I am inside.  And I know that when the sea of drama rises, I have to swim through it to get to peaceful waters.  But I'm getting better and better at it, swimming faster, and eventually will see it from far enough away to avoid it altogether.  Life would be so much easier, wouldn't it, if you didn't care about people?  I care about people.  When I see them attacked, or I'm attacked, it's immediate pain and a feeling of depression.  I can't be the judge and jury; only they know the truths about their personal lives.  But I can feel for them, no matter what they did that didn't match up with somebody else's view of good behavior.

My friend Shane taught me two things; first, he told me I have a problem with forgiveness.  I had no idea.  And he was dead-on.  And I STILL have that problem; he told me this six years ago so I could begin working on it.  He's a peaceful, mature, good person, down at the soul level.  He's the kind of guy I always strive to be like.  He also told me that he believes in karma; I still don't.  I've seen too many aholes get through life with reasonable ease and unless they are getting their justice from some higher authority after life, I don't see karma at work.  I HOPE karma is real and justice finds its way into everybody's life.  And I hope justice has at least a touch of forgiveness in it.

But if I'm going to do what I say, and continue to close down or at least control this part of myself that gets affected by drama, there is only one real way to start out.  That is to say I'm sorry.  I'm sorry to anyone who I have ever hurt, or embarrassed, or caused any discomfort.  If karma is real, I can assure you that I've already been paid back ten-fold for those I have hurt if we're measuring in physical and psychological pain.   If karma is real, I'm thinking maybe it forgot to stop punishing me once justice was served.  So by saying and feeling that I'm sorry for those that I've hurt, I can begin to (hopefully quickly) forgive myself for those actions.  And maybe if I can forgive myself, I can forgive others.  But if I'm going anti-drama, or with the create-a-better-world-for-people philosophy, there is no place to start except to say that I'm sorry for any drama I've caused anybody, ever, or anything I did that made your world anything but a better world.

With that out of the way, which just made me literally breathe in some fresh air and feel weight come off of me, I can get on to the business of making sure that I don't go near rising seas of drama, and regardless of how much pain I'm in, nobody deserves to be snapped at because I'm hurting, even if they do something out of line.  My goal is peace of mind and helping people when I can.  I want those two things more than anything, and they have become the goals that I will now live for and repeat to myself every day.  You've heard all of the cliches; life is too short, golden rule, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all, if you're not giving, you're not living... well, I have nothing to add to that except that I do know from experience that good feelings and peace of mind come from just such behaviors.  

Kev Still Says Get the Negative OUT!

I've seen the thought gaining momentum lately and I just want to do my bi-annual push for it as well.

Cut the negative people and thoughts out of your life.  You'll be doing yourself and those around you a huge favor.

When two of my sisters and I stood in a little circle outside the house at my Mom's 70th birthday party some years back and made a pact to kick out and keep out the negative everything from our lives, I knew it was a big deal.  I had never even considered it.  My imagination (which can be my greatest strength or weakness) immediately felt the power in it.

From that day on, I've stuck to it like glue.  I wasn't even on Facebook yet; I think it was just in its early stages then.  I don't even remember what got us talking about removing the negative stuff, but the agreement was that once we realized we were having negative thoughts or were spending much time around a negative person, they had to go.  Distance had to go between us and the thought/person.

At the time, when I told people about it, I would say, "If you've got negative people in your life, you have to toss them over the fence, out of your daily circles."  And I was careful to separate negative people from people just having a bad day or even a bad month, or a good friend or family member just giving you some difficult truths to help you see one or more of your blind spots.  The negative people we were talking about were people who lived to complain about and scorn other people, places, and things.  An example might be a coworker who starts his day telling you, "Damned traffic sucked.  Did you see the Mets last night?  Terrible.  Ok, let's go see what my dumbass boss has for me today.  He'll probably have us have a meeting at that sucky restaurant again.  I think I'll take my horrific wife their next week; she deserves it.  Hey, are you working the Anderson account?  Yes?  Good, I hated those people.  They actually think I care about them.  Ah, this coffee sucks.  And I hope our president has a terrible fishing accident today.  Where's Mills at?  Is he late again?  God that bastard is a loser.  How did he even get hired here?"

Get away from that co-worker, and stay away, if you even want a reasonable shot at true happiness.  And that goes for people in any other category.  If you can't get away from them because you have to be shoulder-to-shoulder for some reason, just stop talking to them.  They'll get the idea.  You can also send your friends and family a personal memo: "Hey, I'm trying a new thing.  Starting next month, I'm going to be putting some distance between myself and people that seem to be constantly negative--just wanted to give everybody a heads up."  Or however you would word that.  More and more, with technology, we can cut people out of our circles that bring is pain routinely or who just seek to attack.  Or you may find that you just disagree with somebody on so many fundamental levels that there is no real point in keeping them in your circles, because every conversation turns into a debate or dismissive attitudes.

If you care about other humans, you will automatically be influenced by their moods in your presence, and if they carry around a dark shadow of doom and gloom and hate and remain discontent no matter how well things are going, you will sink to the bottom with them.  It's just a matter of time.  People with no empathy have a strong advantage here--I'll call it a psycho-perk.  If you aren't concerned about others, you won't be influenced by their feelings or moods.

With the internet the way it is now, people can drag up any mistakes you've ever made and they can usually remain anonymous doing it so they have no moral equivalence test to take in order to make sure they aren't being hypocrites.  They can hurt you, your family, your friends, perfect strangers; some get joy out of it.  Normally, that comes from their own pain; projection could be happening, or they feel like failures at some/most things, and in what I believe is the most selfish kind of behavior, they seek to make others hurt just because they hurt.  I have so much "dirt" on people, I don't know where to store it all.  But I don't share it.  Most of it was shared with me in confidence; some is just stuff I stumbled across.  It is not only just mean to share that type of information, but it's not interesting to me.  Personal attacks aren't interesting.  There's probably some science behind why astrophysicists don't watch Jerry Springer re-runs.

One of the greater ironies is that most of those that are judging are self-proclaimed Christians.  How is it that I, as an Ignostic, can be less judgmental with no definitive guide to lead me than a Christian who is taught directly not to judge if they want to live the Christian life?  Say nothing of turning the other cheek or following the 10 commandments.  If it weren't so sad--this mountain of cognitive dissonance that allows them to turn off the rules when convenient--it would be hilarious.  And this goes really for all rigid religious directives or even strong personal constitutions (for example, somebody who is always preaching about how the death penalty is a good thing until somebody they know and like ends up on trial).  I know plenty of religious folks who do live by the word or their tenets, but I know too many that do not.

Overall, I believe we humans are pretty weak.  I believe we're still mostly animal, but I'm encouraged because I know we have the power to love, forgive, and, assuming normal psychological health, to empathize with our fellow human, regardless of their race, sex, oreintation, religion, or any other quality that would warrant a label or category.  As I get older, I'm losing a little bit of heart and become less defensive over my general belief system which I would normally defend pretty rigorously since it took a lot of reading and thinking and note-taking to arrive at what I believe is an accurate reality.  I couldn't possibly sell that exact reality to everybody because they took different notes, did different reading, and had different thoughts, say nothing of genetic and environmental differences or early-life influences (such as being brought up by parents of a certain religion or political party).

One thing I do know is that the ultimate freedom for the mind comes only when you can truly think for yourself (those who don't have this yet are either ditto-heads or are constantly in search of a perfect leader to lead them), but the freedom of the heart, if you care about others, is only gained when you move the haters away from this sensitive thing that you love with.  I'll treat my heart like a small, warm fire that I only let the kindest, purest, most honest people near, and I know a lot of them, so we'll have to pack in tight already, but the dark and cold personalities will have to just stay out in the dark and cold, where they like it.  If you let them near your fire, they'll just pee on it.  

When Cops Kill

Do you think you are a fair-minded American?  Listen to this story real quick:

A cop has pulled over a 20-year old male who has no license plate on his car.  The rap music coming from the car is so loud the cop has to cover his ears as he approaches the car.  "License and registration, please!," he yells as the man rolls his window down.

"Here you go," the man says, handing some papers out the window.  The cop says, "Do you realize you don't have a tag on the back?  Your rear license plate is missing."  The mans says, "Aww, naww, it musta fell off somewhere.  It's one on the front if you wanna look at that."

The officer confirms the front does have a plate, which matches the registration and the man on the license.  He goes back to his cruiser to run the man's plates and name to check for warrants.  He gets a hit on his computer that the man has a warrant for felony assault out on him.  He calls in to the dispatcher to tell them he'll be making an arrest.

He steps back up to the man's car and says, "I need you to step out of the car and place your hands behind your back."  The man pulls out a handgun and shoots the officer 7 times, killing him instantly, and speeds away.  He is never caught.


The question is: how do you feel about this?  Please take a minute to think about it.  What should happen to the man?  What about the officer's family; how should they be taken care of?  Should policies change instantly?

Now, if you were imagining the cop as white and the suspect as black as most people do, reverse it.  Black cop, white suspect, same story.  The difference you felt when you did that (or reversed it from whatever you had imagined) is what racism is.  It's really that simple.  

Twas the night before Christmas, and some fads have gone wrong

The English part of me that really loves the language has been baking on something for a while  There is this saying going around--was made even more popular in the video game Far Cry 3 but has been going around for probably ten or twenty years now--that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

All one really has to do is think about it for a few moments to realize that that's silly.  That's the definition, maybe, of stubbornness.  Maybe it's the definition for unintelligent, misguided persistence.  But not insanity.

No, insanity is far more complex.  Repeating the same action over and over and expecting a new result is fine.  Can you imagine the first person who began using a sharp rock to chop down a tree?  He should have stopped chopping after the first couple of times, shouldn't he have?  Unless he was insane?

What's alarming is that I saw this very incorrect and really unintelligent sentiment recently used on a political post.  I could normally let something like this go, because I don't expect a sentiment like this to gain traction, but it has.

So here is the true medical definition of insanity: 1. Persistent mental disorder or derangement. Not in scientific use.

2. Unsoundness of mind sufficient in the judgment of a civil court to render a person unfit to maintain a contractual or other legal relationship or to warrant commitment to a mental health facility.

3. In most criminal jurisdictions, a degree of mental malfunctioning considered to be sufficient to relieve the accused of legal responsibility for the act committed.

Now that we have that out of the way, we can get back to being smarter than taking pop-definitions as the gospel.  Have a happy holiday and great new year!

Where in the world is Kevin SanDiego?

A quick post to let you know I'm alive.  I'm putting most of my energy into my radio shows and writing has taken a back-burner position, but don't worry if you were waiting for my next novel.  I was born a writer.  When I'm writing, I feel like I'm doing what I was created for.  I just needed a break from it after putting out four novels and writing two more that have yet to be published.

For those interested in the radio show, which focuses on capital-T Truth, please check it out.  It has been picked up by iHeartRadio!  I do two shows; the one picked up by iHeartRadio is called Truth on Tap.  The other show I do is about the Washington Capitals and is called Caps on Tap.  Both shows' Facebook page is http://www.facebook.com/TruthOnTapShow and you can hear the shows on both Spreaker and iHeartRadio at the links below:

Spreaker: http://www.spreaker.com/user/truthontap

iHeartRadio: http://www.iheart.com/show/Truth-On-Tap/

The Thing in my Stomach is ALIVE

I can imagine this.

A younger man is in an airport, with plans and enough confidence.  A baby is screaming.
The man is now pained; he needed to make a call, and cannot move because he has papers spread out all over his lap.  The baby is having severe stomach cramps--the equivelant pain of being cut across the stomach with a sharp knife.  The baby thinks she's being attacked--from the outside or inside is not a thought.  The only thought is that it hurts.

Quick hop from imagination to potentially linked truth:


Day six of fighting the Beast in the Belly has taught me to be cautious about praising a product too quickly.  The pink chewies from Rexall didn't help me at all (this is for a stomach bug with cramping and the other thing but not nausea, or very little, and only at the beginning).  The Kaopectate pills work great, for about 8 hours.  Then it's like your body says, "Get that sh** out of here," (naww mean?) and finally, Imodium functions great to keep you off of the commodium, but none of the above (nor pain meds) have calmed the stomach cramping. 

A week of this is too much. 

If I had to do it all over again, I'd start with Imodium and skip the rest.  It's exhausting.  No sleep.  Dehydration.  There is a very palpable weakness.  It's tiring my hands typing right now.  My other medical conditions that are painful are somehow slightly disconnected, like I'm too flat-lined to fully process all the pain signals.  Everything is confusing and annoying.  Sometimes when I think about very remote possibilities, I figure if I'm paying for something I did in the past or some past life, I must have really done it up right.  This is no plea for sympathy, as I find that embarrassing and emasculating, to a degree.  It's almost a prideful moment, like telling a war story.

I like telling stories through writing, so a war story it will be; here's a drama based on a true story...

It must have been the summer of 2014.  I was no stranger to frequent runs to the bathroom on occasion.  Far as I knew, that was normal for people to have a few times a year, or sometimes more.

But this time was different.

It started with the cramps--you know, the jellyfish-like motion your stomach starts making when it has business to take care of in a hurry.  It's your 3-minute warning, mostly.  And my alarm was ringing right across the country side.  My commander, Mother Nature, had called me, and ordered me to report to the Port of Porcelain.

It was in that port that I spent the better part of the next six days (at least).  My ass developed a horseshoe-shaped bruise in the perfect shape of a toilet lid.  My asteroids were a blazing, burning red after a few days there. 

At times, it was like pure rainfall.  At other times, it was like wet clay mortars going off just below me.  I won't lie--I was frightened, as I had no back-up.  I was tempted on several occasions to flee the Port of Porcelain without clearance, but then I realized that the result might be peace of mind for me, but it would make a mess for the locals, so I kept my post, and I ruled my throne like a slightly-overweight, exhausted elephant seal, flopping around, reaching in what became a routine between toilet paper, books, and the bathtub rim to brace myself for the larger bombs. 

As time went on, the bombs stopped and the rains were constant.  It was all wrong.  My energy was gone, and I mean the kind of gone like after a football game that goes to overtime.  You have no legs.  You have no will.  You aren't even that interested in survival; it's something you half-heartedly hope will happen passively, without any effort on your part, because you have no effort left to give.  After that sixth day, when PTSD and really, the older fashioned "shell shock" had set in, there was a certain comfort.  It's a strange comfort, not a good comfort--one like you'd feel if you knew you were going to die in ten minutes and had a thought about paying taxes.  That kind of comfort.  I survived.  I can die now, sure, but I survived something I shouldn't have, and doesn't it feel great to have been measured so directly and viciously by General Mother Nature, who expected you to fall in battle--doesn't it feel good to be able to crawl out of it and give her a nod, even if you knew you would die just after. 

She knew, from experience, that I would not sleep... that all of my current physical ailments would be magnified at first, and then almost irrelevant later--more like a decoration I carried as I dealt with the real pain she had brought down.  She knew I would eat fried foods and dairy and things that would make the war worse, but maybe she's not just an evil bitch--maybe she wanted me stronger.  She tends to favor the stronger ones. 

I began to wonder; "Mother Nature hasn't really created this body and mind of man very well if such small wars can render him entirely useless instead of just partially useless like I was.  She knew that my over-exposure to the town surrounding the Port would create familiarity which breeds contempt, and that lack of sleep and presence of new pain would compound the psychological component." 

My realization is that mankind is, if he should continue long enough for this phase to matter, a seriously under-developed work in progress.  Denis Leary said happiness comes in small doses; it's a cookie, a cigarette, a 5-second orgasm.  That means the rest of life is either uneventful or painful, and who needs that?  I'm fighting your little war, Mother Nature, ma'am, but just to prove to myself I can do it because I can think of a thousand ways to die that would be less unpleasant than this. 

And as for this thing in my stomach that I'm almost certain is at least the size of a midget alien, I'm going to cut it out and beat it to death with yardstick just to prolong its suffering.

What's Wrong with the Younger Generation? The Same Thing that was Wrong with Yours.

I'm 42 years-old.  I have a lot of flaws, and have made so many mistakes that all my fingers and toes AND a calculator couldn't count them.

One of the very few areas I have not made a mistake in is wondering what it would be like when I got older, or more actively, imagining what it would be like.  Turns out I was mostly right about what I had guessed, and one thing I had guessed is that I will see the younger generation(s) as less honorable, disciplined, and respectful than mine.

Well, here we are.  2014.  I have friends who have posted as recently as today on Facebook about how much our youth is lacking--in his case, his flash of awareness came from watching a certain network that he is certain is aimed at 20-somethings, since it has mindless programs with more magic than plot--more eye candy than brain candy.

But then I thought back at the programs we used to watch.  A-Team.  Incredible Hulk.  Spencer for Hire.  MacGyver.  The Cosby Show.  Three's Company.  The Andy Griffith Show.  Saturday morning cartoons.  While a few of them taught something, most of them were mindless consumables.  Violence.  Green dudes with big muscles.  A black guy with a mohawk who feared flying, probably fearing it even more when flying with his normal pilot, an 80's version of Jim Carrey in The Mask.  Were we any better?  According to our elders then, it was mindless junk.  I keep using that word, mindless.  It's so befitting.

But that friend who questioned today's programming toward the next generation down also wondered where our species was going.  I must agree that even though the generational doubt about what we imagine is a decline in values will be ongoing, perpetually, we must admit that the line of cultural change continues to move and meander as it always has.  Change is underway, as it always has been, and because it seems rather unpredictable, it's reasonable to wonder where we are going.

There are major dichotomies at work right now.  For example, the average kid scores higher on intelligence tests now than one generation ago, yet cannot answer fundamental questions about his country, such as where California is on a map or in what century the Civil War was fought.  Because intelligence tests have only been around for a few hundred years and have undergone constant changes of their own, we can't know if that steady growth in intelligence has been linear, or cyclical, or even random.

American programming is aimed at Americans, for the most part, even though audiences are fast becoming global.  American kids are having a harder time answering questions about their country, yet intelligence tests seem to show an increasing intelligence.  Even so, regarding basic facts that you would not find in intelligence tests, America is slipping, quickly, in world rankings.

Or are we?

Isn't it possible that other nations are just suddenly tapped in to things like the internet and new mediums such that their own children have an easier time getting their hands on information?  Couldn't it just be relativity that makes us look like we're slipping, when really, our car isn't rolling backwards--the cars around us are just lurching forward?  In America, the single-parent household has skyrocketed with the fall of religion making divorce more acceptable, and therefore, a more likely choice among couples having hard times.  This alone could throw off a child's ability to focus on study, say nothing of modern, sudden changes in educational standards and testing.  Toss in with that the wide array of distractions now available to a kid than we had generations before in electronics and media access that speak directly to the more primitive areas of the mind (fear generating a need for power, lack of control generating a need for control, apathy generating a need for mind-jarring effects in entertainment, and then on to the simpler ones like the need to be liked, loved, popular, then later to escape pain with drugs, alcohol, or cutting, or the use of sex for the same affect) and you've got a bubbling soup of I-don't-know-how-this-shit-will-turn-out.

One of the biggest causes of the change we're seeing now that we're not acknowledging is the perfect intersection of the population ramp going nearly vertical (extreme population growth) at the same time that information access and global connections are reaching a fever pitch.  These two things did not necessarily have to happen at the same time, but they did, and the combination created a global curve-ball that I don't think anybody was able to predict and certainly now is making the future even harder to predict.

Maybe it's wishful thinking in part along with my own version of prediction, but I think our ultimate direction, as my friend was asking, is off of the planet.  Colonizing the portion of the Universe that we can spread out to.  That's in our nature, whether you see us more as angels or locusts, we grow and spread.  Hell, that's life's nature.  Just ask a bacterium or fire ant or rat.

There may be no real connection between that and the "new" attitudes of the younger generations, but maybe there is.  Maybe we'll need a psychologically tough, nearly numb, race of people to be able to come up with the courage to leave Earth and the fortitude to keep from snapping once away from her.  Maybe that is something that the X-Box and the internet and easy, less cerebral television programming is helping us to build.

Every generation is worse than the last, isn't it?  They don't have respect these days, you hear.  Everybody's ex is psychotic (that totally cheapens mine because she REALLY IS).  The stores charge too much.  The politicians are lying more than ever.  The music lacks culture.  These are complaints that have come from the older generations forever, and I don't expect they'll ever stop.

Who Should Have Mercy

Maybe I'm selfish.  Maybe thoughts like mine should belong
to the mother whose water broke as she stumbled along
Maybe thoughts like mine should be held back and stored
So I can live up to man-image who's pain is ignored.

If I have no ego to protect, why would I do that?

Medicine surpassed rubbing of leaves on the wounds
and it evolved past the sexes and roles of the goons
and it reached up and out quickly to touch children and women
and has arrived now to touch both Lions and Tinmen.

But I can't.  I'm a man.  I played football and skydived and
got into fistfights and jumped off of high dives
and joined the world's strongest military, serving with honor.
Saved drowning victims twice.  Fished with Grizzlies just yonder.

Opened my knee with a chainsaw, broke my foot sliding into home,
Ate a worm for a dollar, lost both big toenails from moving , alone.
Rode an unbroken horse and stayed unbroken after impact
Jumped off bridges, fled cops, all wearing underwear and a ball cap.

And I sit here in pain so severe that I can't describe it
My spine and my knee keep it constantly ignited.

The medicine has evolved, it's able to treat me
to force pain to subside the the point I could be me
But me is no more, that boy from the past
Who ran down a hiked mountain with a sprained ankle, fast
With concern that if we went slow, it would swell up too large
I'm down now, rolling down, arms still raised in victory
Rolling down like a stump who needs only to look tough
While the fire in my mind asks, "When is enough?

My blog is like my lawn mower

I don't post often, then sometimes, I post in bunches.

I don't cut grass often, but sometimes, again, in bunches, depending on rain and growth.

So the point is; is there really any bother that the interval changes?  Does the grass still not get cut?  Does the blog still not see the light of day?  Can a break from either lead to growth in the operator?  I believe so.

So, lately, I've been up to very little writing (which sucks cuz I have a book due out in April) lots of hurting (let it go), lots of paracord creations like bracelets; paracord is short for parachute cord and has 32 trillion uses and is, no matter how many dudes deny it, man-knitting, and it does VERY well at distracting one from one's problems.

I could write the best blog on the planet.  I've read some of this one popular guy's blog and how famous he has become (the 30-something that gave up his radio show to blog full time?) because I have full confidence in my ability to see well below the surface in human motivation and resulting endeavor.  The question is motive.

Do I really give a goddam if I help to save us?

I'll go think about it.

The Blog Resurrected

Contrary to popular belief, I do live.  I've been devoting a lot of time to my new radio show; if you haven't checked it out, please do.  It's all about capital-T "Truth," in politics, advertising, media and also covers lots of psychology/sociology issues and news items, as well as many comedic breaks.  You can call in/chat in on LIVE shows!  Show has been picked up already by iHeartRadio and I've only been doing it for a few months!  Check this jank!  http://www.facebook.com/TruthOnTapShow

I expect some blog posts again soon as I do have a fifth book due for release on 4-14-14 (Vol. 1 of the People Phenomenal series: Flight Fortemente).  Thanks for checking everything out!

The Temptation of the Public Poetry Reading, Issue 2: In the Truth of Lacking Intelligence

You can be an optimist or a pessimist, or somewhere in-between, but no matter where your mark is on that scale, you should have no opinions on math.  And who should?

Mathematically, your experiences in this world can be summed up as everything you've gone through as calculated by your mind.  Your experiences are not everything you've gone through, of course, except as calculated by your mind.  A person who may be called disconnected from reality is, of course, having a reality of his own, marked not by level of accuracy regarding what's really happening--marked only by how he perceives it, and how much of it he perceives, and how long he can remember any of it.  Without memory, there can be nothing drawn from an experience except for the immediate emotions or other thoughts it gives birth to, and without memory, the traceability of that path disappears, and therefore, can never be proven to have existed until science can record the path.  Don't hold your breath for that one.

To that end of having experienced, we are only limited by intelligence once health and normal cognitive abilities are accounted for, those being the engine of experience.  Intelligence is our legend for the map of experience, isn't it?  How can we know what we are experiencing without it?  And a lack of intelligence, which every human alive today lives with, is a measure of our ability to understand a given experience, or ascribe any value to it or even more importantly, to draw anything valuable from it.

Since we are all lacking some intelligence, leaving us all somewhere between knowing nothing and knowing it all, then we are all immeasurably limited until we find our what the end of intelligence is, and in my own humble wager, intelligence is not limited--it's a perpetual compounder, if nothing else.

Imagine if you did know it all; would you even know what to do with that?  Is it fair to even argue that knowing it all would necessarily include having the knowledge of how best to use the information you have to further (what?  Your life?  Humanity?  Science?) something or someone?

The truth in realizing that you lack intelligence is a promotion of yourself.  I'll say it aloud.  You are promoting the accuracy of your understanding of your importance and of your value to this world when you realize that, compared to all knowledge, you can't possibly have even scratched into a millionth of a millionth of one percent of it all.  This world is temporary, just as you are; your importance to it is no more measurable than is the measure of your importance to the ground compared to the train's importance to the ground that you are riding on.

By recognizing the truth of lacking intelligence, you decisively are placed into a category made by nothing more than circumstance that insists upon your expendability.  The Earth and her people can afford to lose you.  The skies stay blue even in your absence, until She, the Mother, is devoured by a dying sun and the mathematical certainty that she will be consumed by a black hole long after she has lost her ability to sustain life of any type.  And just as traffic will still move long after you're gone, the Universe will still thump long after She's gone.

The implicit idea is not that having total intelligence would make you indispensable--nothing would still rely on you for its survival; having total intelligence would make you indestructible, except by your own choosing, and anything in existence that might choose to destroy itself or allow itself to be destroyed when it doesn't have to must be lacking intelligence.  Assuming choice is never removed, total intelligence is not possible as long as choice is possible, and who among us would give up choice to have total intelligence?  Who would walk into the cell of knowledge and slam the door behind him, knowing that that would be the last decision he ever made, just to roll around in the mind of all information and it's applicability?

People will not tolerate you enjoying your life, so you'll have to do it alone

There are only a couple of things I really dislike.  One is constant negativity, and the other is hypocrisy.

The negativity isn't something I always hated.  I didn't even isolate it from everyday, normal conversation until a few years back.  I just incorporated it within life as a part of life.  Once I separated it in my mind, I realized that I didn't have to tolerate it.  The negativity was coming from people.  All I had to do was either get those people out of my life, or insist on the old maxim, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all."  Easier said than done; I know.  I worked with a guy who was always negative, so I couldn't just cast him out of my social circles.  And I didn't want to say old maxims to him; sounds bossy and judgmental.  Instead, after he would say something, I would always say some variation of, "Oh, I don't know.  When it comes to negative stuff, I just don't get involved."  He finally got the message, and because he didn't know how not to be negative, he stayed quiet a lot, which was ok with me.

It was ok with me because I had decided to have no more negativity in my life.

On my mom's 70th birthday, about 4 years ago, my youngest sister, Kelley, was visiting and she and I made a little pact while standing around outside.  Something got us talking about negative people, and particularly, critics.  We both believed that you shouldn't criticize anybody until your got your own back yard perfect, unless they asked for your honest opinion.  We both knew that some people love to stew in negativity; that steamy, acidic broth from which all of their thoughts and actions emanate, seen usually in the form of their criticism of you or other people, or places/things.  Always putting something, person, or place down.  Always, always complaining.  Just unhappiness, paraded.  We knew everybody had days like this; Hell, even weeks like this, or occasionally, an entirely bad month.  But those folks are easy to separate from those who live in the steamy broth, the acidic, corrosive poison that moves them from thought to thought, and therefore, from action to action, which usually materializes as criticism.

We made that pact.  We decided to work hard, really hard if necessary, to get negative people not only out of our social and co-worker circles but even family members.  Even siblings, parents, whomever; if they were negative, and always prone to criticize you or others, or tell you how to live (implying how you're living wrong), off they go.  Out of the circles.  You launch them over the fence of your everyday yard.  You are free to warn them; give them a month.  Tell them, "In 30 days from now, I'm going to stop hanging around or talking to anybody who I see as negative.  Not because I'm judging them or any other reason except that it brings me down, and this life is hard enough.  I don't want help to feel bad.  I don't need bricks tossed into my leaky lifeboat.  I can't handle it, and even if I could, I'm going to choose not to, because nowhere have I read that I'm not entitled to take a good, hard, fair shot at happiness.  If I'm going to take that shot--to make a real effort toward it--I have to get the negative people out of my daily communications.  There is no other way."

While hypocrisy and negativity are not necessarily related, I think they do hang out a lot together.  A hypocrite must necessarily be telling others how to live to be a hypocrite; he must also not be living by his own advice/demands.  The ultimate, near-combo mixture for me that just drives me berzerk is a hypocrite being a hypocrite while criticizing me.  A christian, for example, telling me I won't make it to heaven, when I personally know that he breaks 5 of the sacred 10 commandments weekly but believes he's forgiven if he says sorry every Sunday.  I have many, many more examples that do not involve religion, and I'm not here to pick on religion, but it is the first example that popped into my head.

While I may occasionally contradict myself, I'm ok with that.  My life path is clear to me now, at almost 41-years old.  I know a lot of people that live off of government checks when they could be working, yet they criticize others for not working.  I know plenty of people who have diets or lifestyles that are very unhealthy, yet they criticize others for eating too much or smoking cigarettes.  That's not contradiction, because they would have to believe in (and would thereby live) a healthy lifestyle in order to be contradicting themselves while criticizing the choices of others.  I contradict myself occasionally with philosophies.  Walt Whitman said, "Do I contradict myself?  Very well, I contradict myself.  I am large.  I contain multitudes," in Song to Myself.

I don't know about being large or even containing multitudes, but I'm not bothered by when I contradict myself.  I see it as almost unavoidable if you think a lot.

My girlfriend, Tanya, has a very positive outlook on life, in general.  I'm super lucky for that, because I promised myself before I started dating that I could not be in a relationship with anybody who was consistently negative.  And that now goes for my friends, too.

So this blog post is one that I made mostly to help me crystallize this particular series of beliefs that absolutely must define how I deal with others.  I'll probably refer people to it. It's very confrontational in my view to just come out and tell somebody, "You're too negative.  I'm going to avoid you from now on," yet I've had to do it, and I'll have to do it again.  If I seem to have disappeared from your life, and you happen to stumble across this, you may get a clue into what I was thinking when I removed myself from your daily life.  To sum up, this life is a bitch, no matter which way you slice it.  There's a few good things, and a shitload of bad things.  I choose to focus on the good things.  My choice may be good or bad, but it is my choice and one that I adhere to with maximum dedication.  I would advise this to anybody, this choice to not hang around/be around negative folks and hypocrites.  But yet I don't, because advising anything sounds... pushy.  There is one other context I need to put this in, though; I genuinely believe that if you don't live by this model or some variation of it, you cannot have a decent shot at real happiness.  I'm giving myself, and the people around me, the best chance possible to have happiness.

Another degrading comment from my ex-Monster in Law

I can't be sure it was from my ex. ass-in-law, especially considering the name is bart_BOY_1 but I have to go from experience.

Let me take you back.

It's July 4th, 2001.  We're gathering to watch fireworks on a lake.  In comes the ass-in-law; hyper, just smoked a big, fat joint, and she's all in my daughter's face.  100mph, this nutcase goes.  My daughter can't stand her personality; she's almost in tears as her grandma hits her with 10,000 Amps of stimulus per second in her stoned rampage.

And that was a mellow evening.

Since then, she and her daughter, my ex, have gone on a concentrated mission to separate me from my daughter, and have been fairly successful.  After I found out my ex was cheating with gawd knows how many men, I immediately filed for divorce.  I had sole custody of my daughter but with her polished court appearance at the final divorce (mostly lies; even got caught in a lie where the judge said, "What?"), she got custody back.  Some lawyers tell me it was because I was leaving the state and was honest about that (she since left and moved to another state with my daugher); others tell me it was because I lacked a vagina.  I took it to the state supreme court (I will not capitalize it) and lost again.

There was a sneakiness that pervaded my ex-ass and ex-ass-in-law's behavior; it was always in their M.O.  "Don't tell Curt," (my ex father-in-law) was something I heard every day.  It was always about hiding and lying with her and her two kids.  She also tried to get me to lie and not tell a clinic that was giving my daughter checkups for free that I had gotten a job and could afford medical care/food so I could keep getting benefits. She flat out told me, "Lie to them.  Don't tell them you have a job."  I refused.  This VA boy wasn't playing that scam game up in VT.

So tell me something.

If your husband and daughter (AND her current husband, the 4th or 5th, I've lost count) all three lived off of a check from the government, and you and your son were potheads, would you be able to easily launch attacks upon others?  Is it jealousy?  Is it just diminished brain capacity? 

It always gives me a chuckle.  But I'll probably write a lot more about them now; the government funded, pothead family. Next time, I'll leak some names.  Come poke at a sleeping dog, well...

The Temptation of the Public Poetry Reading, Issue 1: Who You Are

An old friend of mine once introduced me to the idea of going to an open session for poetry reading.  I'm not a huge fan of the rhymy stuff; I can write it all day, but to have to rhyme is to have to be confined.  So I prefer the prose.  I've never been to one; I may never go to one, but the thought that I might like to read aloud at one gives me a small thrill.  With that sentiment, I start the series of writings that I would actually be willing to read aloud.  To qualify, in my mind, they must be ones that I could read with at least bouts of incredibly emotional emphasis--they must be moving, by my reckoning (and, I hope, they are moving by yours).  So, tonight, I begin.

I don't know exactly who you are, but I know it must be enough.  It can't be any other way.

Who you are--who I am--is defined by what we have been.  And what we have been has been a result of our choices, our genetic bridles,  our interpretation of the world's acts upon us, and the actual acts of the world upon us.

As a kid, I was a natural at baseball, but I lost the love too early.  I was passionately and fanatically in love with football, but I started the effort too late.  My spirit, both the built and the inherent, was the spirit and remains the spirit of William Wallace--of an unquenchable thirst to see the abused vindicated and the abusers punished.  A close friend told me a few years ago that I have a problem with forgiveness.  He's right, and part of what I have trouble forgiving is my past, and I would have that trouble regardless of what my past was.

You are who you are.  You love what you love.  The story that creates the you of right this moment is a story that, fast-forwarded, would look like popcorn in a machine, going from seed to popped, or unpopped and remaining seed, bouncing all around in the machine by various forces that, alone, are specific and detailed but together are fully unpredictable, yet when you look at all the popcorn in the machine after the popping is done, the popcorn and the remaining kernels that are unpopped fell in exactly one way.  One, single, defined way.  That became the you of right now.

I accept the me.  I look at my life, right now, and I see the fluffy popcorn in its cubic arrangement.  I see every kernel that didn't pop and lay dormant, I see every unique shape and position of each piece, and I am not allowed to go into the popcorn and swoosh it about, for it is in the past and that's that.  Time travel wouldn't help, because if I swished it all about, then the present me would have no idea what he had interfered with and resurfaced.

Nobody would argue that you can change this or that starting in this present moment, and, indeed, the world would have it no other way.  Anything being shaped is constantly in a process of leaving its old state.  Nobody would argue that accepting your present state is more peaceful and much easier than fighting it.  And in truth, why would you fight it?  Change all you want starting now, but until starting, you can change nothing, so why not accept your present state?  All that has made you is in the past.

You are, right now, exactly what you absolutely must be.  In the future, go ahead, become anew, but what you are right this moment is and forever will be enough for you, because you have no choice in the matter.  All the toil and panic you can muster will not change it.  Would you dare go as far as to accept it and even celebrate it?  I would.  I celebrate who I am right now because the past will never be re-written.  I am a leaf, half-grown from a tree that will die.  I am information that will pass leisurely into and through your eye.  From your moment of birth, you are falling toward your death, and I'm falling with you, and we will both be entirely satisfied with that, in one way or another.