birthday randomness

I ponder this thought: is being alive really being alive, by definition to be alive is to function in society and interact with those living in said society. If I step out for a day and night and sleep amongst the stars, do I become "un-alive"? I can not be dead because by definition "death" is to be not living. But by being all alone by my above definition I am not alive because I have secluded myself from society and am no longer functioning in it's processes.

So, with this, today, my family and I are dead to the world. Staying inside on my birthday (by definition on my absence from normal social interaction, my deathday) hanging out alone. It is quiet, calm and non-productive. Just the way a birthday(deathday) should be.

Thanks everyone for the birthday wishes, and those of you requesting the very social interactions I have avoided today, give it time. Good things come to those who wait (and earn it), but good is just another way of saying not necessarily evil.

The Unsocial Animal

Upon realizing my status in my current state, I have noticed an anomaly. I am a very anti-social creature. I do not think this is by nature, as I have in my past had friends, though they were few but they were very close to me. Family, they were more like family.


In a Hannah Arendt sense of the word WORK (derived from her Vita Activa) the current work role that I fulfill keeps me away from home for what seems like days at a time,. I find this to be a partial reasoning for my lack of social activities. I am in a town in which I know practically no one. I wonder amongst myself if this is on purpose?Do I avoid most human contact, having a daughter and a wife I must say MOST in this scenario. Have I become so inwardly drawn into my own shell that I avid contact with the outside world? More than anything I question weather I still fear those things beyond my front porch.


We as humans must have some sort of social contact. There are those who spend years away from people only to find insanity hiding in there corner. I believe in some sort of ritual to obtain acceptance, I, use my wife and daughter as a filler for the lack of other human contact. Though they are my heart and soul, they are all I ever see, minus the hours spent working.


I seem to be steering in some sort of chaos, arriving at a place where it is OK to have these varying constants. I seem to justify having a few people in my life to get just enough happiness to remain sane, but not so much that I have broken the cycle of abandonment issues stemming from my younger years. Here to I question my actions. How can I preach of breaking cycles and circles when I contain a perfect sphere inside of my own mind.


Can I, or better yet, can WE as a species continue on in life without social connections to the outside world. Does the apparent truth of a tainted reality that lies outside of my norm, really belong in my/our lives?


My daughter seems to be forced into taking on this character flaw of mine. Because I do not feel like going somewhere, she does not get to. Though I have tried to take her places, it seems as if I am forcing myself out of my shell, in which my addiction to be alone was created, and also seems a sanctuary.


How an I change this? I know that all human thought is able to change with the right amount of focus and determination I can change my way of thinking. My addictions can become a subsided event. Knowing the answer does not mean I know the path to obtaining it. I know the ending of the movie, but I still need to know the events that lead up to the climax. As human beings we struggle with addictions daily. We fight urges we dare not speak of to another. I know in my own mind I am guilty of things I wish not to speak of, but have the ability to avoid these situations, the reasoning to see past charades to inner chaos of others, and of myself. I, as many others, do not act on these urges. The proposed plan of action involves a similar change in thought pattern. I must achieve my goals... I am sick of being alone in my own mind...

Beyond the front porch

Attempting to take on a rational opinion of the outside world becomes a deepening tragedy. In my more youth filled days, (though they may have been more of drug hazed filled days) I ponder many times of the world around me. Seeing that events never stop occuring, that the world turns even in our darkest hours, is a hard reality to grasp. Knowing that all in all we are nothing more than a speck of dust in a Dr. Suess story can be terrifying. That we are at the whims of the universe, or the subservient side effect of a higher powers after thoughts.


Digging deeper I should reveal that at one point in my life (I say one point but more like a decade) even walking outside to sit on my porch brought on experiences that drove my senses wild. I stayed locked in my room, to myself so much that I began to question if the world outside of my house was real. If the 3d reality I thought was there hanging around outside was just a figment of my imagination. If I honestly were to ask myself this question now, being as I have come much further out of my homebody shell, the answer would be of course it is real.


Again digging deeper, I ask the question; If the reality I see outside of my front door is real, then who's reality is it? Did i dream it all up moments before I opened the screen door? Do these sensations of crisp morning air really exist, or is it something I have come to expect to sense when I do this thing I rarely do. In exploring this thought I have to determine my experience and relate it to others in my surrounding.


This only brings on more questions, how can I take the word of another in place of what I am experiencing. Do their experiences override mine if they received a different clarity of the event. My initial thought says, well maybe I am wrong?, or maybe I overlooked a sensation that they as my accomplice did not. Did I hold my breath a moment longer than they, so now that crisp air hitting my lungs is hidden by the distracting brightness of the sun beating down on my face? A simple second of space and time is enough for our views on the same event to be altered and vary. All of this boils down to a path which is built based on one response to a screen door opening. What if by chance I disregard my friend as even being real?


What if, based on my rejection of reality of the world outside my door, I say my friend is also nothing more than my fore-thoughts creating not just his reaction to the ensuing events, but that he himself is a creation of my mind. It would be difficult in my view to prove this otherwise. I can not see the world truely from his eyes. The only nose I will ever stare down from this vantage point is my own. So, how can I really be convinced that he is nothing more than a true creation of my own imagination. I know that people exist. I know that most of us have the freedom of conscious thought. But, how can I be sure he is one of them?


Not to stray to far from the topic I want to add the above relation of mentally creating our realities, as a view point to look to when we need to sit back and review events philosophically. Building a base line of possible viewpoints gives us the ability to truely think outside of the box.


Now that I have leaked out my visions of what is real and what may not be in the realm of things outside of my door, I want to return to the fact that in feeling these things, I have made it a point with my family to step outside more often. To really absorb the world around me. I have come to some conclusions that maybe the reality outside of my door is a collaberation of the people in it. A fully functioning collective. We share and interact with one another creating and dismantaling what we preceive as a working reality. When my wife and I step outside to walk to our car our minds collectively produce the results we both are thinking. Nether one of our projections overriding the other but some how seamlessly merging our realities. Together, we create and live in a world we have built. An ever evolving reality.


In what will surely not be the final conclusion on the matter, I hope that those days in which I retreated to my room in fear of the unknown outside of my door are over, leaving me to go outside to further observe my world, to question and create the events in my life, giving no one but myself the right to shape the things I go through.

...and it begins.

It's funny that through the deception, brought on by what I thought were family ties, seem to have left me baren. I find myself struggling from day to day wondering what is real in my past. An inner search through what may be yeilded as a mid-life crisis seems to be fully functioning inside of me. Do I really dare to call it a MID-life crisis, when all that seems to be affected is certain memeories of my past. Should this semi selfimposed drama, I say drama but it should be refered to as a battle or a war raging inside my head, because of the actions of a section of family I have begun to question the simple choices I made leading up to my current life. Are the situtaions I placed myself in, steering havoc towards me to attain a goal I wanted (at the time) more than anything. Can choosing to do what I must (then) to get to her really have made such a substancial differance in who, and what I have become. Are these things chosen by fate? Are these paths unfolded on the fly? Opening doorways as I twist and turn through an endless labyrinth which is my life, though it is nothing more than a blink of the eye, in a universal spectrum of space and time.


I guess a better question is, staying away from the dreaded "what was I supposed to do", and gearing my rational senses to a more respectable question, "what could I have done". What choices could I have made in my life that would have still lead me to the place I am today. I love the life I have now, rid myself of a lifetime of bad experiences, which lead me here. If, and I do state this as an "IF", I chose to say; not fight as hard as I did would I have still ended up a user? Would I have taken that roll? Would I have continued to college and become some self loving jack-ass? All my concern is leading me to believe NO. Though these option (I will call them options) were open to me I chose otherwise, constructing the person I am. I have learned through time that it is these experiences that cause us to be who we are. Placing it as nature vs. nurture, in this scenario I say nature. Shaping and molding us to be who we are. Though some of our paths are chosen because of the nurturing we receive, in reality we do struggle to rebel and go opposite paths of those chosen by of nurturers. Thus, is human nature. Wait I thought it was nurture?


In all this reality, I know that keeping a person from my life now in hindsight is something that must be done. Regardless of the fight I have had trying to gain and keep her here with me. Is it really all worth it? I believed so in the beginning, but have come to realize, though I am shaped by those events and am the ME that I am today, the answer is NO. Once again a NO. Leading ones self around through turmoil just to obtain more turmoil is indeed not a necessary experience, but one where constance, though varying, are needed, I am an addict. Though my drug of choice has always been my own self loathing. It is how I grow. It is where my inspiration comes from. My muse is my own fear, that who I am is who I chose to be. My self induced reality, stencled in line for line, by me.


To touch again upon my PAST-life crisis, let me say that I left a lot behind me. Friends and family I am just now reuniting with. I seem to be torn between doing this heartfelt charade, and continuing on with the life I have built for me. Is it really that vain of me to want to just focus on what is it front of me? All I want is, to quote Justin Furstenfeld, A Quiet Mind. A moment in which the world stops revolving around the sun. A moment in which I can have all to myself.


In keeping in touch with my previous realities, I have come into contact with people from my past. Old friends that I thought would have by now forgotten me. It seems they have not. Is it possible that I made an impact on someones life? That, regardless of my transgressions, I belong in someones memories. It is hard to see the world beyond the tip of your nose. Through my random ranting here I have found a certain peace and coping mechanism. I thank my hands for baring the pressure of each key stroked, while I do what I do best.


Attempt to clear the crystalline lens, that have become so cloudy.