Because Judgement Day Came and Went

APOCALYPSE NOW!

Nothing is ever a dry black and white. Similarly, reality isn't 2-dimensional. There are times when you are told "you shouldn't judge" or something akin to that nature; and it is precisely because you do not own a wide enough perspective, an overall omniscient view with which you could fairly place an idea, concept, or person in a definition box. No one really has the capacity for true judgment. Only opinions, which vary in ignorance.

With every life decision being the tip of the iceberg, its rather unfair to not consider the mass, submerged in cold, icy waters--the slow or otherwise intense build up of sequences which one by one lead to the resulting consequence. And since I suspect most of us act on what we believe to be the best choices we can make for ourselves, whether the criteria be comfort, conditioning, or culture, what ends up on that tapering iceberg's nexus is, on some level, fundamentally well-intentioned and self-interested. And why shouldn't it? We don't walk around deciding for strangers, nor do they decide for us. Sure some us may be more susceptible to suggestions than others but we still have the choice of whether or not we accept influence.

If every choice we make is driven by the outcome that best interests us individually, then letting another determine what's right for you may be done out of convenience. At times, things like faith and trust are just that, convenient--as they allow us to remove our hands from the reigns and be subject to the mercy of those who we deem qualified by experience, wisdom, relation, etc. Regardless of what they chose for you, whether helpful or harmful--you complacently went along because you believed, as they believed, that this was the right course to take among the vast, open sea of outcomes.

In such a situation the choice is to allow another to make the choice. In an undecided situation however, you are trying to choose a solution, unable to work out which is the best for you. But as you take too long to decide its as if the choice chooses itself. Things just happen, "it ain't all waiting on you." The universe moves, expands, contracts; within it, things change so often that from one second to the next you are technically, physically transported from one universe to another, as no two seconds are identical. In such instances its not a choice to not choose--its the despair of trying to decide and having the moment pass you by, voiding your chance to determine for yourself what's best for you.

Whatever the case, it isn't a light matter, to decide what's in your best interest. Life at times can seem like you're driving an oversized vehicle for which you can either look out the front window at the road or keep your foot on the gas pedal--either/or, but never both. Hindsight is 20/20 but anything before it is fog. Added to which, we don't want to hurt others; all the factors we include in our decisions can lecture the most expert spider a thing or two about webs. To not disappoint, to please, remain consistent, and act as truthfully as we can allow ourselves--the ideal would seem to be, a decision that can balance each affected facet's threshold. In other words, act in honesty without breaking anything. A beautiful thought but not a realistic one. You can't give everyone what they want. There's too many of them and its not worth it if what they want want directly contradicts what you feel is right for yourself. What's right for yourself? So much time and effort exerted on the practice of examining what's right and wrong that not enough emphasis is placed on the fact that a choice has finally been elected. A movement forward has come into light. Essentially, every choice is the right choice in terms of kinesis.

How could you judge the right choice of another? What or whom are you comparing the person or choice with? Your life? Your decisions? Your morality and ethics? You are unique, paradoxically, as is everyone else--you can't even be sure you and your closest friend see colors the same. Nevermind common interests and shared beliefs, you could never understand a person 100% unless that person happens to be you. How do you measure the mass of an iceberg by simply observing its tip? Especially when to take in the entire picture requires the omniscience of a supernatural deity. It only makes me wonder, would we even bother to judge at all if we possessed the true capacity for judgment. If such an understanding from omniscience were permitted, then the phrase "only God can judge me" would be corrected to "even God wouldn't judge me." If I believed in religion I would advise let us be like God--since I don't I'll just say don't judge others when you could be much better at judging yourself.

Clean Living

To the angry little asian man in a royal blue windbreaker jacket, I hope you made it home well. You sat on the morning D train with the two seats to your left, awkwardly unoccupied, as the cart was significantly full. It was with a sudden energy, easily confused for violence, that you appeared a paper towel in hand and wiped down the seat next to you. You then indicated the seat's availability to some of the orbiting commuters who watched you. None sat. You weren't please by this.

Frustrated at having your kind gesture declined, you yelled out more words, foreign to myself and most others around; then you resumed your bacterial purging, this time stretching your attack upwards to include the college advertisement. Perhaps you were sending a message to any of the observing students, those who dreamt of an un-matriculated adulthood

After a few more tries, you caught your fish. Or did you? She was tall and possibly, not a student; her body seemed tense and blossomed by anxious nerves that caused an almost seemingly suspension of breath, as she descended onto the offered seat. No doubt she had seen your crusade at its various spasms, having been witness to it for a good two stations before deciding to sit. Why did she sit? Did you wonder at all? It almost made one imagine her having OCD, or being a mysophobe. A brave one, who thought the morning a perfect canvas for painting a challenge to her fear.

I almost burst into laugh fragments when you turned your head to face her, and delivered the longest awkward-laden glance I've ever seen. It was a look of disappointment, of letdown, and regret. As if at that moment, you had immediately come to the fork in your road. And between having seated neighbors and not, you had finally chosen Not, when she decided to park beside you. Maybe you sensed her discomfort and you felt it defeated your purpose. Maybe, she seemed too obvious about appeasing, what seemed to her to be, your otherwise ridiculous action. Maybe she smelled bad. Who knows? All I know is you reached out over her head and gave the college ad another once-over, maybe stressing to her that you had meant for a student to sit beside you. I again, almost died when she leaned forward to accommodate you. She sat at the edge of her seat.

You didn't mind to stare at the side of her face as she sat forward and began to text. Your eyes fell right into her screen and either read or scrutinized. All the while, I never noticed you had a friend with you, who sat perpendicular and was hidden, to me, by standing and most interfering passengers. It dried off some of the imagined hysteria I previously drowned upon you. You passed comments to this individual who didn't seem as serious as much as worried. At some point, you and the OCD wipe the seat and college ad together--I had to look away for fear lest I rupture.

When you exited the cart on Grand Street, I for some reason imagined you in a turtle costume, with a great big mahogany shell.

You left. Your friend remained, as did your neighbor. I left one stop away. I hope you found a fine day. I hope sincerity and honesty were displayed before you and the way a current runs through a battery--I hope it was as that, that you found use for these things.

Love, Respect, and Dexterity

Dear Brother,

It pleases me intensely to see you so strong, so balanced and coordinated. For the moment we have traded roles. I, in my bandaged and partially immobile state can only admire the simple freedoms in you, that not too long ago were not only my right but also my identity. Dexterity is such a difference between us--as all our lives, it has been me that has lead, that has taken charge, that has lifted and maintained most of the burdens, selfishly but also arrogantly. I was always proud of you though and secretly wished for you to be as strong and reliable as me, if you recall moments when I was put aside and you were then placed on the spot--I watched as you held your own for as long as you could. And now, when I look over and see you with this new speed and confidence of motion so familiar and nostalgic to me, it is as if I were being shown footage of myself through a glass mirror. It shall be a while before I fully recover dearest twin, but you have made it that a new dexterity may exist now between us. A combined power and coordination that, when I return to top form, shall give us a wider range of control.

I am eager to escape this cage of a splint, to remove the gauze and bandage. Look at how dirty and dry I've become--at times swollen and darkened with dirt. I can neither lean forward nor back. Between my thumb, index and middle finger is shared the mobility and synergy meant for five fingers--is it any wonder, Brother, that they at times become plump with the strain of attempting to compensate for the two, completely immobilized. Look too, Brother, upon my arm and compare it to yours. The muscle is gone loose and an overall thinness now starves it. Clench a fist and see the difference for yourself. With your thumb and middle finger as a clamp you can observe that on my side, your fingers are closer to meeting than mine on yours, when they attempt to girth the forearm.

You are beautiful and unique even with a twin. Stretch and grip, shake and writhe, all with the beauty of activity. Even typing this I look over to you, resting over the keyboard and finding the letters with such an ease and shy grace, that I am humbled into myself with a numbness that folds me still and silent until I am, for the moment, unfelt---as if I have been cut off and am complete with in you twin.

That is all.

Your ever admiring and loving brother,

Right.

My Brother and My Sister Don't Speak to Me--But I Don't Blame Them

AND IT MIGHT GO ON FOREVER UNSAID

Do I care? I think others wonder that of me. I think the few individuals for whom I truly, genuinely do care for, even they aren't sure. How closed up am I? How introverted that they can't tell. I wonder if maybe just one among them understands--Can see pass my code and read me as I am. Because I do care, in my own way. However, I don't blame them if they can't see, it because I don't show it. Like all things that mean anything to me, I like to keep them, selfishly, inside to myself. But maybe my definition isn't valid. Perhaps there is no care if it is not visible. Its action v. thought, which one is real? Are we who we think we are or what we do, what and how others see us.

I don't have answers. I am only locked in my mind and from there, see things as I am accustomed to making sense of them. Though true, that with age and its accompanied experience the faculty for making sense of these things expands but for the most part questions answered lead to newer questions asked.

I wish the people I care for could know that but maybe since I don't want to change the way I express myself, then maybe its true, that I really don't care. Maybe thats the action confessing the truth about thought.

A Pervert is Touching Me

On Perversion

Every artist has to be a pervert. The beauty of Art, or what makes Art special, is that its a perversion. A twist of the norm altered into exceptionality. Even a renaissance painting, even a still life of fruits on a table, focuses on a perversion of attention, for why take note of such a thing as a fruit bowl enough to paint it? Should we spare ideas for the preservation of comfort and conformity? Should there be a respect for the norm? I believe nothing is normal, there is only the strange we are used to and the strange we aren't used to. In a forum-lecture on cognition I once attended, it was said that consciousness is attention. We become accustomed to forms and ideas and they take on a comfortable familiarity in the background of the blur we call "everyday life". The perversion of these forms and ideas is what challenges us, what expands our understanding of the relationship between us and them. If the universe is wanting to become information as Terence McKenna has stated, if all points are in fact seeking to connect to one another, then perversion of what has been temporarily installed as "established" is universal stimulation to this penultimate goal.

While Facing a Broken Tune

Iron & Fur

You woke up with a knife in your mouth, you woke up and it was heaviness to talk. Your wooden thoughts creak and crack, you carve them into unassuming shapes--the seeking of warmth and cold simultaneously; a blurring picture in the back of your eyes. The burning silence of life and its only condolences have forgotten how to speak, thus muted by memory.

there are times you belong in a bottle; there are times you belong in a cargo moonship. I dive blindly into ramparts of waves; the ones that static the surface, glisten the brow while episodal moods pale your smiles and dry out your depths. I seek coolness as my body overheats easily; my mouth bleeds with aborted words--useful as ink, in it, the knife does dip and marks on flesh what a voice will not.

Motion as Noise

SLOW MOTION WATCHERS

My new neighborhood being the tame, domestic corpse that it is, there isn't much by way of variables. Things seem pretty constant, and that constant is a still collection of quiet moments; the deafening absence of energy that by comparison makes ones most minute spark of excitement seem a cambrian explosion of living, raging plasma. Against this canvas of silence, every sudden deviation from normal seems supernatural. Which is why in the mornings, while walking to the train station, I sometimes am relief to see a certain young man...you may call him challenged...Retarded, is the word I really want to use but everyone is so PC and generally overly sensitive. Retarded, and yet Accelerated would better fit to describe this, either young looking man or old looking teen. His head jerks around and he looks about as if just let out for the first time. He slaps leaves on branches and runs across the street even when he has the light. There is a parking lot everyone cuts through to sneak some seconds off their morning walk to the station, there's a sharp corner that hides the coming from the going--and at this twilight, I noticed he seems to rev himself up for the stage at this isolated parenthesis. He runs, jumps, spins, dances, really lets loose. Its great to watch and I, as well as others observe, timid and jealous, wishing we were as accelerated as he.