Take Your Existential Crisis Seriously Youngling

   For as long as western education has been in action, it has been men, giving up the animalistic life to pursue the noble life of the mind. Women have been lumped with the family, treated as a distraction, a life of debauchery or meaningless labor was a life with women.
   Honorable, scholarly men rejected these lives and the sirens on those shoaly rocks as mere temptations away from the dignified path of education.

   Does this fact explain why I struggle in college?
   (PREFACE HATERS: I am not making an excuse for laziness. You can discuss such options with my GPA where you'll be proven wrong.)
   So much of my brain-power is overwhelmed with the male presence in my classroom. Even in the darkest caves of study, my mind will wander into the much lighter, easier realm of who to distract, to lure into a home with me.
   How unhealthy is this? And how irritating. Why have I made the deepest, most travelled paths through my jungle of a mind such that all I think about are boys, babies, and houses.
   It is this trend that encourages me to reject male distraction. I am not the one distracting my male counterparts to the domestic life, my male peers are the ones distracting me! The tables have turned and my response is the same. Begone petty boys.

   You cannot keep me from my goals, my huge inevitable achievements.
   Just like men shed the yoke of family and women, so do I cast away their offers of domesticity to find my own purpose, my own meaning.

Things that make me go "grrr"

So one of my dear roommates came home from work at the mall with a very funny and sad story last week. A mother, whose intentions are explanatory in the post below, was first hunting for her son's eye candy in the mall. Apparently she didn't find what she was looking for and so here we find her craigslist post: 

"Looking for 4-6 fun, bubbly, very outgoing & pretty WWU girls to deliver bday cake and gifts to my son @ Rudys Pizza this Friday night, 4/12. 
Stay for dinner with him and his buddies and enjoy a free fun meal! Not geeky guys, I swear. They all go to WWU and are athletic, funny, smart, etc. This is not about hooking up, its just a fun way to add an element of surprise and silliness to his bday dinner. After dinner you're done, easy peasy. :)
**Attractiveness is a MUST, shy girls need not apply. Best scenario is for all the girls to be friends, for moral support ya know? :)
$25 per girl + free yummy dinner with cute guys, you'll never find a job as fun and easy as this one! Call or text 425-239-4162"

First let me shake my damn head at the horrors of a mother inflicting this kind of attitude on her son. We do not live in a perfect world. Here's my response:

"I laughed when I heard about your hunt for pretty girls at the mall and it makes me glad to know you've been unsuccessful so far. I hope you remain so. But more than that, I am sad. I'm sad to find that even our own mothers do not stand for the respect of the female gender we deserve. No amount of money makes up for the objectification you're trying to inflict. Please reassess your intentions for the kind of man you wish to raise because the shallow, petty, and disrespectful attitude you have will not be attractive in your son to any self-respecting woman."

And yes, that is her phone number. Obviously she doesn't mind calls about this job listing if you're feeling particularly angry about this. Oh and here's the original post if it's not flagged already: http://bellingham.craigslist.org/fbh/3736221992.html

EDIT: My lovely, clever, and vicious roommate has volunteered to publish her response as well. Maybe enough voices will change the attitude. 

"Please tell me this ad is a joke. How can you NOT see how disrespectful this is to women? Do you really think your son is so shallow that he needs the attention of only attractive women? It was bad enough when I heard that you had asked girls who work at the mall to throw away their self respect (which is already being threatened in a work environment like that) to hand presents to your kid. Seriously, If you want to do something nice for your son on his birthday, maybe teach him that there is more to life than pretty girls and having a good time. Where is he going to learn how to respect women if not from you?"

Inherent Wickedness

Holding onto the belief that humanity is inherently wicked prevents us from emerging into the next great chapter of human achievement.
I have a problem with Christianity that has very little to do with the existence of God. My problem is not with only Christianity, but with all major monotheistic religions to influence human history.
There are certain beliefs that have stemmed from the Great Belief that have permeated the psyche of western culture, beyond the faithful. Though these beliefs are actively practiced by the religious, they have also been adopted without awareness by many who live on this planet.
The doctrine that I believe to be greatly damaging is the concept of being born wicked and needing God for goodness. Holding onto the belief that humanity is inherently wicked prevents us from emerging into the next great chapter of human achievement.
Christianity and other popular religions of similar origin teach that the human heart is born bad. The blood of Jesus Christ (or simply the forgiveness of God) is needed to wash us clean, not once in our lives but constantly because we are incapable of ever having a pure heart. We are always wicked, no matter the individual.
This aspect of faith has been the fuel for religions expansion and also many other aspects of human life.
Now in my position, I can feel two things in my species around me. I feel the excitement of being on the cusp of a great enlightenment. We are on the verge of a change that will alter the course of human evolution.
The second thing I sense in my peers is constant self-doubt. No one has confidence in their lives, in themselves as people, nor in their place in the universe.
One of the major things holding us back from this potentially brilliant chapter of human history, I believe, is our common thought that we are inherently wicked.
I encourage everyone to imagine that they are not born evil, but instead good. Just telling oneself that one is truly good at the heart of it all is an uplifting experience in great ways.
The next step is to imagine a world in which everyone believed that themselves and everyone else are, by default, good. That is much more difficult, we have no grounding reference.
Thousands of years of human history have been forged in this belief. There are few times in which man did not think in such a way but it is easy to see that our history is not one without great sin and evil in huge amounts. The history of humanity and the ancient beliefs of inherent wickedness make it difficult to imagine a world of inherent goodness (or the belief of such), it takes much imagination.
The damage the doctrine has had on the psyche has been dealt for thousands of years of written history in such effective ways, it's impossible to comprehend. It could very well be a possible cause of the bloodier parts of history.
The change I call for does not necessitate a divorce from God. Instead, we much change the relationship we have with ourselves and then reevaluate our relationship with God.

Band Aid

Arming schools is putting a band-aid on cancer. It's not mad minds in a sane world, but sane minds in a mad world. Our economy is based on organizations making a profit off of our own poor self-esteem, poor self-image, self loathing, and sick needs and we've made our economy our most important abstract concept. This results in a non-stop attack on our psyches and selves every single day, at home or outside and when we falter in such an aggressive, awful world, we are medicated, we get locked up or kick out of the system. The sanest way to respond to our environment is to lose it, to go crazy in self defense.
Kids grow up being assaulted on all sides and it's only a natural response to lash out. We've isolated our kids and the communities that are available to them are exclusive, bigoted  misguided, and fail to respond to the real needs of my generation. They don't satisfy the questions that arise when God dies to us, we our parents divorce or when we lose our meaning in a vast and careless world. They call us sick, disturbed, delinquent and shove pills in our face. The problem isn't mental illness, the problem is the world that sprouts the "illness" that we all struggle though.
So don't point that fat finger at me. Look at yourselves. We are a product of your convenience-driven lifestyles and we will not be convenient. We will not take your dangerous and thoughtless medication. We will not go complacently. We will force you to look at what you've done to us, we will shove your nose in your own dog shit and pray you see what you've done.

Love, Evie

Just found this in my drafts.

First of all,

Candid Xander, if you still read these: I miss you and hope you're living a life that makes you happy. 

Secondly, 

I love being poor. I love that it's been less than a week since my last paycheck and I have absolutely none of it  now because I paid a bill and my monthly rent. 

Maybe you're thinking I'm saying this just to convince myself of this, but that is not the case. I genuinely love it. 

I have many desires. I want good food, I want drugs, alcohol, vacations, clothing, and so many other things and I work in an environment that displays and sells many of the things I want. 

So many times I've picked out a toaster that I would save up for, or a dress that would have been just cheap enough and sold it to a customer that same day.
Material desires be damned and I need to remember that, forever. 

Wisps

As we destroy our environment we destroy ourselves.
Our rootlessness, depression, and lack of purpose all stem from our disassociation from our natural world.
We think we are better, smarter, cooler, than the cycle of life but we never have been and we never will be. This illusion of separation is isolating and toxic to our psyche.
And soon, we won't have a cycle to return to. We will forever be lost in our own shallow, unfulfilling creations.

Making myself feel better about having to drop a class.

Sometimes I feel better when I think about what it means to really be human, to feel the way we do and think the way we do.
Because then, even in a sad and lonely life there is still beauty in the struggle and that is only because it's a struggle we alone have.
Only we can feel the void the way we do. Only we can appreciate our futility and mortality.
It's not that we are all special.
It's that there are some of us that are really special. There are the few gems that push us forward.
The move continues.
The march of life evolves on
and we are passed over like little river stones.
And that is to be a part of something, to belong.
And what an incredible thing to be a part of. What amazing things have been achieved by this continuation of life and we are so fortunate to witness and appreciate it's beauty.
We are the only things who can and only to us does it matter so.

I refer to us under the assumption I am not a brain in a vat.

But what if? Let's say this whole creation is a simulation to me.
What a rich story! This is the best epic that exists, this whole universe and what's beyond.
From the microlevel to the vastness of space, from the beginning of it all to the imminent end,
it's overwhelming.
It's the greatest story of all and I get to live it.

I've been struck, several times every day, by just how mortal we all are and the thought, "I'm going to one day cease to exist and everyone I know will one day do the same" crosses my mind. All the damn time. Sometimes it gets to where I'm thinking, "one day I'm going to die and it may be much sooner than I anticipate". Our lives are so fragile and when we're being truly honest with ourselves, we do NOT know what happens after that.
It could be that that's it. The mass that makes up our bodies will decompose and take on another form of life or matter. The chemical reactions in our minds, making up our personality and 'soul' will stop and 'we' will end.
It could be that we all are endowed with souls that answer for their actions in the physical world after the physical vessel shuts down. Some of us suffering for eternity, some of us lounging in a paradise all in accord with some divine, moral scale.
Truth is, we have no idea. We have absolutely NO proof of either one and, at least using science in it's strictest definition, we will never have scientific proof telling us one way or another. We can believe one or another based on testimony or logic, but never will we be 100% certain as we are today.

So essentially, there is a point in time in which everything we know ends for us and something else ENTIRELY foreign begins.

And yet, in spite of this completely inevitable mystery to our lives, we act as if we have an eternity to waste. We sit in front of televisions and stare at screens until our eyes dry up and shrivel out of our skulls. We satisfy our deep need for touch and companionship and clan with cheap, shallow experiences that leave us empty. We have replaced kinship with a screen thinking we need nothing else.

We drive cars.

Shallow husks, constantly drugged, entertained, and stimulated, we wonder at our rising depression and cancer.

But because that's the way it is for the majority of Western civilization, does not mean that's how it's going to be forever or that it has to be that way for me or you. We as individuals can break free from that system and lead real lives, fulfilling lives with the intent of truly enjoying that truly fleeting sentience we've been endowed with.

We can make our own movement, or own rebellion against this oppressive and sedating lifestyle. In doing so, we can hope to show everyone around us the benefits of stepping outside, adventuring, and truly meeting the people we encounter. We can show people what life is supposed to be, what love is supposed to feel like, and what real enjoyment we can get out of it.

I've been thinking about this a long time. It's been brewing inside, getting angry at times and screaming with elation at other times. Next post will be thoughts on steps to take to replace the processed entertainment we've been fed with genuine experience and fulfillment.

Which is better?
Retail drone with cancer, television shows and a little bit of sleep
OR
Homeless.

EDIT: Being homeless and having cancer are not mutually exclusive, I know. Question remains.

Retail

My blogs, seemingly for no one, really for me, have very little continuity nor do they seem to have purpose.

And yet, here I return, every long night, every torn thought spit onto this blog for the whole damn world to see, regardless of whether they choose to or not.

I work in retail now. No more galley open to the vast wilderness of Alaska. No more kayaking with bigger-than-life humpbacks. Just a bunch of lazy people and young people, selling used shit to old people and poor people. Maybe that's not very charitable, but that's how it feels today.

Today, the highlight of my day was... no wait, there wasn't a highlight. That was actually me, trying to think of one. I made no meaningful connection with a single person today. I ate hard candy and pasta noodles with fake butter on them.

I'm watching Battlestar Galactica and currently feeling more alive sitting in this comfy chair in sweats, alone, and hungry than I have all day long.

I miss my family. I cried today thinking about my little sister graduating high school and coming to Western this next year. I'm supposed to be her rolemodel and she looks at me as such and I spent all day fakely chatting and killing time...

waiting and waiting for 8:30 to roll around and then waiting and waiting for midnight to roll around and for what? For another episode of Battlestar Galactica, alone in a dark room and cold tea.

Dark rooms and cold tea are my two best friends.

Bitches won't understand.

I stand alone with hearts at my feet. Squished between my toes and flat under my heels, poor, beautiful, gentle, kind, fragile hearts have fallen at my feel. Sharper than eggshells, they pierce my souls, worming into my veins, making their way through my bloodstream to my head and heart where they stay forever. A needle in my eye. A sting in my heart.

I know what I want. I alone can hear my own heart sing. I watch and observe the pitter and patter of her whims and wants and when she ignores the arrow shot from a boy, pushing me forward, pushing me elsewhere, I can't help but look behind me at the carnage. I try. I constantly battle. Force myself to get to know the boy behind the man's face.

But that only makes it harder when I keep moving forward. To know exactly what I've done to a person I've grown to love in another way.

But no one feels bad for the rejector. It's only the rejected the people pity. Do I not also feel pain? Another day, I am alone. Another day my blood stained feet carry me forward, split on bone and weary. To fall into another's arms would feel so sweet, but my bitch of a heart won't fall for one, fall into any set of arms.

She wants to be here, alone on the battlefield. "Victorious" to some, I only feel empty. I will always be here, I will always be alone. A bitter shield, blocking those sweet affections, keeps me isolated.

Against my will, I stand, my malicious little heart and I, over the bodies of those potential lovers, those potential Valentine's Days, those long, potential nights of bliss.

What happens?

"no dawn no day i'm always in this twilight"

Again I'm awake in the corners of night

my mind in hallways decorated excessively.

With paintings of cupid in his chubby smiles

teasing and tormenting

pleasing and fermenting

ideas of childish pursuit.

Thriving and striving

off the fruits of romance.

Feeling the burn of excitement as

my firefly heart flutters around

this cage of a body.

Looking for the escape.

Stuck as long as my mouth

remains shut.

Drones

Want to talk about drones in war? Probably not but I don't give a shit.

We have mentally armed a youth greedy for action and violence. In the past this would have been fine, they'd have joined the military, killed a man and been scarred for life. They'd learn a reverence for life and creation and beauty after some possible therapy.

We have put a curtain between our soldiers and their "enemy" with drones. It's a new video game. It's now a game. You don't see the face of you'r victim. You don't understand the magnitude of your actions. You stare at a screen and miss the heavy, horrible consequences of your actions.

Drones are a step in the wrong direction.

We are turning war into a game. No, we can't call that war. That's a massacre. We have become a monster.

We are murdering from a distance. Helpless people who are fighting for things they value are being cut down like a lawn and our soldiers see no bloodshed.

This is wrong.

To me it's not different than buying your meat vacuum packed and clean instead of prizing it from an animal you fought yourself. But that's a different blog...

Eyeshine

Leave it to a windy day and a gloomy man to buff out the clouds over my eyes

Pretty's all you got.

When you can't be beautiful and you can't be perfect and you can't be flawless, what do you do?

When the appeal is out of reach from your clean, average fingers, where do they go to next?

You get hard, you get fast, and you get a passion. You get smart and fierce and you're fooled by no one. People will not love you for your face, they will fear you for your attitude and your speed.

And if that fails, you give up.

Restless

To live without dead time means to embody a great refusal, to find pleasure in struggle, to transform every moment of existence into a repudiation of the consumerist nightmare and an affirmation of revolutionary possibility. A semester, a year, a decade without Big Macs, Frappucinos and World of Warcraft but overflowing with midnight adventures of blackspotted billboards, guerrilla gardening and spectacular synchronized global memewar actions. Imagine if a huge number of us start living in this way, turning daily life itself into a form of resistance that re-enchants the city and reawakens the promise of a people’s insurrection. The way forward is through this kind of radical play.

-Adbusters

It's been a long time.

And I'm still incredibly overwhelmed with this summer.
Remember that To Do List I had? I really didn't need it and don't remember anything that was on it. I'm still having an amazing summer in spite of so much and because of so much more.
In the end I will say this.
Thanks Universe.

Foundations

There is something to be said for living on land.
Going to sleep and waking up every night and morning on a ground that won't stand still gets to be very old.
Grabbing for something that was once stable where you're from and realizing that it is falling with you is the most unpleasant experience you can imagine. Not the worst, certainly, but the most unpleasant, undoubtedly.
I miss knowing that the step I'm about to take will land on something. I miss being sure of the faces I will see everyday.
Believe it or not, I'm excited for an average work day with an average commute and average homework.

At least I am a third of the way done now... and making boatloads of money.

In which we explain the previous post!

"Think about the way other people work—lawyers, for example. They get up from their desk, they walk into the doorway of the office next door, and say, Hey, do you remember that Warthog v. Warthog case from two years ago? and they talk about it, and that’s work. They go out, meet clients and take depositions, they have meetings where they discuss strategies for pursuing a particular case—it’s a very social profession. I wonder how much of their time is actually spent dead alone, producing hard solitary thought for hours a day. That’s what writing is and in that way it’s very hard work and it absolutely requires all the conditions that make one a bore: You have to be alone a lot, you have to be rather sedentary, you have to be a creature of routine, you have to fetishize your solitude, and you have to become very, very selfish about your time."

I honestly do not know another career path best suited for myself.

Thanks, Tobias Wolff, for putting it so clearly for me.

Hermits

I remember back in high school when every problem disappeared if I sat in my room and read long enough book. Everything faded, nothing was permanent.
I have a whole stack of books on my desk, waiting to erase my dinghy world.
But things are different.
The world won't forget about me, no matter how long I try to forget about it.

Have I just been destined to live in seclusion since day one?