Whatever I did to deserve this life, please lord, forgive me.

In the future, when everything has been covered in asphalt and concrete, we will paint flowers on the sidewalks and buildings, and our children will never know the difference.

"Let's layoff the executives and keep the employees"

Transferred this here from a status post & comment I made on Facebook. Figured I'd give it a little more permanence. Also, three words were added for the purpose of flow.

Why is that in a struggling economy all I seem to hear about is corporations cutting more and more jobs?

Out of curiosity, how many of those positions could be saved if you skipped your executives bonuses for the year? Or heaven forbid some folks at the top take a slight pay cut. 

I understand that in times of hardship sacrifices must be made. But why does it seem like its always those of us at the bottom taking the brunt of them?

Furthermore, if government officials really wanted to help the economy they would put effort towards the reduction of crude oil prices. As near as I can tell, the cost of oil (specifically diesel) is one of the largest contributing factors to inflation.

The price of diesel goes up, the cost of shipping goes up. The cost of shipping goes up, the cost of goods goes up. Also, warehouse positions and wages are cut.

Prices go up, sales go down. People have to limit their spending to essentials (and gasoline). The service industry (both retail and food) takes a hit. Stores and restaurants close. More and more people are unemployed, further straining government programs and also diminishing the amount of money that can be spent on goods and services, causing even more cuts and closures.

Meanwhile oil companies continue to make record profits.

And that's just one (albeit large) contributing factor to the downturn of economy. That's not including banking, loan, and credit practices. That's not including tax cuts for the rich. That's not including the price of insurance and healthcare. That's not including expensive quagmires of wars we should never have started.

That's not including individuals and families who hoard money, requiring the continual generation of new funds, which contributes to the devaluation of currency and rise of inflation.

And that's also not including politicians who need to get their fucking act together, stop taking bribes and special interest kickbacks, AND DO THEIR GODDAMN FUCKING JOBS AND LOOK AFTER THE GODDAMN CONSTITUENTS WHO ELECTED THEM INTO THEIR CUSHY FUCKING POSITIONS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

End point.

Despite a dose of Nyquil fucking with my vision, I still can't sleep. So I'll write. My apologies for any  typos or grammatical errors that escape my drug-effected eyes.

I don't understand why we cling so desperately to life.  Why we dictate that life is precious, that life must be preserved at all costs and then sow death and misery in our wake.

I don't understand how someone can condemn a doctor for aborting a baby conceived by rape, and then say that our warmongering in the Middle East is "justified."

Then I remember what motivates the people that these people listen to: money.  And I remember that people compelled by greed don't care about others.  They don't care about who is hurt in the wake of their lust.

Most people are easily-swayed.  A smaller group of people recognize this and take advantage of it.  They rally the masses behind a cause, but in truth only care about their own self-interests.

And the masses believe the words that they are told, because the words are convincing, despite being insincere.  Perhaps the one who tells them actually believes the words, but that does not make them true.

But again, I don't understand why we cling so desperately to life.  We, as a whole, seem to place such a value on it, but for so many people in this world, life fucking sucks.

Famine, disease, war, poverty.  Death.  These are the things that make up the daily existence for so many on this planet.  If you're reading this, obviously not for you. Luck of the dice, we say.

But even at our level, life doesn't feel so great.  Most of have jobs we don't like, even hate.  Jobs that make us miserable. But hey, gotta pay the rent, right?

And no matter how much we make (and for most of us it isn't much) it's never enough.  Most of us are in debt.  Credit cards, mortgages, student loans, car loans, unpaid tickets, whatever.

Still we toil on, hoping that eventually we'll find success and live the life we've always wanted.  Or, more reasonably, that we'll at least be able to retire someday.

There are old people on social security eating dog food out there. There are cats eating better food than 3/4 of the population of Africa.  Are you starting to see my fucking point yet?

This world is all fucked up.  And every connotation of that sentence I can think of applies, which makes things even worse.

And looking back at what I know of history, life actually seems to be getting BETTER.  The average American has a better life than the vast majority of people in human history.

One of the problems is that we look back at history and get this skewed idea of what it was like.  We romanticize it, we turn it into some fantasy about noble-minded people pursuing noble things.

Wrong, fail, die.  History is really the same shit over and over again, but with ever-improving technology.  It sucked then, and it sucks now.

BUT IT DOESN'T FUCKING HAVE TO AND I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY THE REST OF YOU CAN'T GET THIS INTO YOUR THICK FUCKING SKULLS.

Don't get me wrong.  Life has it's moments.  And these moments usually involve family, friends, nature, food and art.  Actually, food falls into the art category.  Nature might too.  Fuck it, everything is art.

I guess what my point is that imagine if those moments that make life wonderful WERE life.  I don't see any valid reason why it can't be that way.  Except for maybe excessive and ever-increasing overpopulation.

And yes, there is some redundancy in the phrase "excessive and ever-increasing overpopulation".  It's intentional.  It's to prove a point.  A point about excessive and ever-increasing overpopulation.

There are waaaaaaaay too many people inhabiting this globalsphere.  The world can't sustain us.  We can't sustain us.  And we keep popping out more babies.

I'm not saying that we need to kill off a whole bunch of people.  We just need to let a whole bunch of people die off, and then not replace them.

Nonononononono, get that look off your face.  I'm not saying "stop humanitarian aid and let the tossers rot".  I'm just saying LAY OFF THE FUCKING BABIES FOR AWHILE PEOPLE.

People want children: adopt.  People want large families: get back in touch with your existing family, get over past differences, mend old grudges, or if that fails, make a family of friends.

You don't need to share blood to be a family.  Most of the best families share as little blood as possible.  We need to get over this species-imperative natural-instinct brainwashing.

I keep hearing the phrase "...of my own".  Raise children...of my own.  Have a big family...of my own.  Translation: pop out six babies, replace myself and my other three times over.

I hate to break it to you, but most children live to adulthood now.  We can close down the baby factories.  Save some wear and tear on the...ok, I won't finish that.

Time we learn to make do with what we got.  And if we all stopped to look around a bit more, and learned to get past our trivial and petty differences we'd realize that's actually a lot.

All differences are in fact petty and trivial.  And even as overpopulated as the planet is, there's plenty to go around if everyone could LEARN TO FUCKING SHARE, WE'RE NOT IN KINDERGARTEN.

I'm not saying life would be a fantasy.  That our every whim and desire would be catered to.  That's not life.  Life requires effort, that will never change.

I'm just saying that life could be better for everyone.  That we could accomplish more, and with less toil.  And it's possible we could still have all the shiny baubles that make us happy.

But with life the way it is, why do we prolong suffering?  When people are in constant pain and ready to die, why not let them?  Why make them endure it just because you're not ready to let go?

Life isn't as precious as we think.  Life is fleeting, life ends.  It is the way of things.  One life ends so another can continue, or whatever.  Or maybe that makes life even more precious than we think.  Semantics.

Throughout the span of human civilization lives have been needlessly spent for worthless causes.  Because no matter how noble it may seem, whatever really started it was just some bullshit between bastards.

And nothing has changed.  It's still happening today.  People fighting for causes they believe in because some fucker with an agenda told them to believe in it.

Okay, so sometimes it's people with causes they believe in fighting against some fucker with an agenda.  But most of the same words are still there.  And there's always some fucker with an agenda.


So I guess what I'm really saying is that I don't understand why we cling so desperately to THIS life.  'Cause this life isn't worth the cotton-fiber paper it's printed on.

I'm not very good at emotional processing.  I tend to get caught up in waves of emotion that are bigger than my understanding, and I don't really know how to deal with them.  And after they ebb I'm never sure if my response was the correct one.  Frequently I know it wasn't.

I just keep finding myself in these moments of complete distress.  Teetering on what feels like the brink of ruin, in above my head and unsure how I'll make it thru. Unsure how I am making it thru.

Because despite the panic, in the end I make it through.

Right now it's mostly happening at work.  I've built up unhealthy levels of anxiety around my job.  And I'm having difficulty judging how much of it is valid, and how much of it is just in my head.  How much of it is just some kind of persecution complex.  Either way, I'm doing a piss-poor job of coping with it.

I keep getting this feeling that I'm just being entirely too melodramatic.  I get worked up, and then later, sometime after the fact, I detach myself from it.  And in the end, quite generally unsure of whether I was right.  Whether or not there was a "right" at all.

I've realized the I have no ability to gauge it.  No standard for comparison.  So when looking back, no longer feeling the emotion or the panic of the moment, I'm left to assume that my reaction is excessive.  That it was unnecessary.

And I'm rambling.  I started writing this because I'm coming to terms with the fact that my grandmother is dying.  I've know it for awhile, but today I was reminded of it in terms that leave no room for leeway.  And then I went to work.  It was not a pleasant shift.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, or what I'm trying to say.  So I guess that's a good enough reason to stop.

People are always trying to find the meaning of life.

It's actually quite simple: Learn to coexist.

After that everything else'll make sense.

I'm tired.

And I don't like this world.

I used to think it was just a matter of changing the world. Finding a new way, a better way, for people to live. These days, I'm not so sure. I'm losing faith.

Too much carelessness. Too much recklessness. Too much dumb.

Too little compassion, concern for the well-being of others.

Our behavior on the micro-scale isn't necessarily so bad, but on the macro-scale, it's terrible.

We seem to be on the brink of something. Political revolutions right and left in Africa and the Middle East. Oppressive regimes being toppled by the will of the people.

But not here. Or at least not yet.

So many people seem ready for change. Social and political change on a global level.

The U.S. is headed towards collapse. I'm not saying it's imminent, and nor that it's irreversible. I'm just saying it's the direction we're pointing. The foundations are crumbling, and the people up top keep digging away at them in the pursuit of their own interests, all the while arguing over whose fault it is, as opposed to making any real, sincere, effort to fix things (probably because they honestly have no idea).

They got us into this mess, and now they're not sure how to get us back out.

But they're not completely to blame. A lot of it falls on us too. It's not like we live under a military dictatorship that has been in power before we were born and will not hesitate to kill us if we ever even so slightly step out of line.

Nope, we gave them the keys to drive (or at least picked which ones got to drive after they already had the keys) and we've been along for the whole ride.

But I digress.

I just feel like no matter what we do it won't be enough. So much of everything that defines modern human civilization needs to change. How we interact with the ecosphere, how we interact with the environment (yes, these are different concepts; no, I don't want to take time to explain), and how we interact with each other, both as individuals and as groups.

And most people don't seem to see it. Or they just see a little bit of it.

Or maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I've blown everything way out of proportion.

Doesn't really matter. Whether I'm right or wrong doesn't really change things for me.

I'm tired either way.

And as the years go by, I have a harder time finding a reason to stick around.

Suicidal ideation.

The words are new to me, but the concept I'm quite familiar with. Wikipedia defines it as such:

"...a common medical term for thoughts about suicide, which may be as detailed as a formulated plan, without the suicidal act itself..."

That's me starting roughly age 14.

Frequent, recurring bouts continue to present day.

It ranges from quick flashing thought to long drawn out contemplation. A lot of the time it's less focused on committing suicide and more focused on "I don't really want to be alive anymore." The first four years it was largely just that thought while lying in bed at night. Around year six it became more expansive.

It ebbs and flows. In intensity. In frequency.

Occasionally I'll get a break from it for a few weeks.

At it's worst it becomes a near-constant thought process. Quietly spinning in the background while I go about my day and interact, moving loudly into the foreground whenever I'm left to my thoughts.

After a month or two of this I start cracking. So far I always pull out of it. Sometimes it takes some (or a lot) of outside help.

I don't own a gun. This is because I don't say any real need to have one.

And because I don't trust myself.

A couple seconds and a few pounds of pressure and that is a decision that is not unmade.

I got pretty close winter before last. Real close. There'd been a couple other times over the years, but this was worse. One-foot-in-the-grave bad. Coming back from that took about six months. And I'm still not completely back.

I know that this isn't healthy.

It's a mental defect.

There is probably a pill for it.


None of those things really mean anything to me.

I don't know if I really want to die. But I certainly think about it a lot. And it's wearing. Very wearing.

It's not something I talk about a lot. Or at least not directly. Can't say I said anything about it at all for the first 5 years. It's not something people react well to. And it's not something most people will/can understand.

I read this earlier tonight:

Suicide is neither wrong nor right; it is not a defect of character; it is morally neutral. It is simply an imbalance of pain versus coping resources.

This is not how most people approach the concept. It's unfortunate. Just makes it harder for all parties involved.

Now don't get me wrong. None of this should be considered cause for concern. I'm not planning on killing myself any time soon. I just thought I should say something.


The greatest achievement in my life so far is that I'm still here.

There's only a half dozen or so people in this world who know how much of an achievement that is.

Follow-up to that last part.

I'm thinking that in the near(...ish) future, I'll be exporting most of these posts to a separate blog, and turning this one into what it was supposed to be in the first place. I'm not really sure what exactly that was, but not this.

It's the name. The name doesn't fit this.

There's a shadow that keeps following me around.

Too many days of being tired. Body and mind. Enough days that they've have piled up into years.

I get a break from it from time to time. But when it comes back, it feels like it's never left.


Double vision's been kicking in worse than usual. Doesn't matter how much or how little sleep I get it almost always feels the same when I wake up. It's rare I actually feel rested.

Stomach seems to be getting worse, might be actually be time to go see a doctor.

Every time it seems like things are on the upswing it's not long before they swing back down.

A lot of my jokes keep falling flat (or worse). The inflection keeps coming out wrong.


But none of this is new. It's all really, really familiar.




Someday I'll turn this blog into something that's less than a journal, but it won't be today.

Time for another round of "Dear Online Diary". Aren't you excited? I certainly am.

I'm a little different. It might not be noticeable to most people, but it is to me. It affects the way I interact with people, and I tend to get uncomfortable in social settings.

When dealing with people passively (i.e. in transit, or in public places) I keep to myself, and just generally try to be as unobtrusive as possible. Yet at the same time, part of me always wants to be noticed. But not by everyone, mind you. Just those passing few unique individuals, people like me per se (but more outgoing). This is why, for example, when I'm in a bar (the rare occasion which that is) and I don't have someone to directly talk to (that I want to talk to) you'll find me drawing. It really boils down to "if I'm bored, I'm going to entertain myself in the manner I see fit".

When I have to interact with people I don't know, I instinctively do my best to act normal. And tend to overcompensate. This results in me behaving in a way that is more affected than natural. The problem is that I know I'm behaving in a way that isn't natural to me, and I get uncomfortable.

It really boils down to comfort zones for me. When I'm in an environment that I'm comfortable in, I'm myself and, generally speaking, that means I am engaging, funny, caring, and a little bit rude (but mostly for the sake of humor). When I'm in an environment that I'm not comfortable in, I tend to be distant/detached, quiet and/or clumsy. I also tend to be nervous, self-conscious, lack confidence, and am more likely to be insincere.

And apparently I've been frequently known, when not in my comfort zone, to come off as being "too cool" (not my words). When the truth is I'm mostly kind of a dork.

And yes, I do know that it's all in my head. That really doesn't help. Kinda makes it worse, actually.

I don't normally write blogs for specific people (other than the time I took requests, RIP Myspace Blog), but tonight I'm going to make an exception. Luckily the person I have in mind is the one person I know will actually read this, at least within a reasonable stretch of time (and thank you for that, btw).

I've been reminded why longtime close friends go to blows over stupid, petty things. It's because the longer you've known someone, the closer they are to you, the higher your expectations of them (for them) tend to be. And those expectations are high because you know that person is worthy of them.

The downside is that when it comes to fairly arbitrary and/or meaningless things, high expectations tend to get in the way. Because we're still human, we're still living things, and therefore are prone to make mistakes. (Yes, I am insinuating that animals make mistakes too. This is a fact that should be obvious, but which we Cro Magnon-Spawn tend to overlook)

And sometimes brevity is best. Whether or not it's the case in this instance is up for debate.

I guess this was part round-about apology, part rumination, and part crap-I-pulled-out-of-my-ass (which might actually be the same thing as 'rumination').

My what grand dreams I had for this place. Oh well, such is life.

I didn't know where else to write this so it goes here. I had an insight into "the smart kid who doesn't succeed (or at least not yet)". This is admittedly based off personal experience, though I have recognized the behavior in others that I've known. I apologize in advance, but for the sake of ease and time (I have to be up early tomorrow) I'm going to put this is in terms that might feel a bit exclusive. You are free to debate my usage later. I however, will not be joining you.

I want to clear up a misconception. We do not enjoy school any more than you. It is as equally challenging, or as equally, boring as it is for you.

There are those who are driven to success, and those who are not. Intelligence has little to do with this. When a truly intelligent person becomes an astrophysicist, a mathematician, a nuclear chemist, a psychiatrist, a medical researcher, a whatever-you-get-the-point, it's usually a side effect. It's because they've found something that catches their attention, and they've run with it. They will follow it to the ends of the earth if they have to, and devote their life to the pursuit of it.

But if it ever becomes boring, they will lose interest and walk away. It's what we do. Everyday (mundane) life generally lacks interest for us. Let me rephrase: there's precious little in everyday that holds our attention. Most actions can be done without thought. That's not to say that you don't think while you're doing them; you just don't have to think while doing them. And thus is the fatal flaw. We don't stop thinking.

[random transition of narrative perspective]

I have a running train of thought. It is near-constant, stopping only when my full attention is required (which is rare) or when my interest is caught (which is, unfortunately, also rare). This is why I spend most of my free time the way I do: reading books, watching movies or television series, or less often, playing video games. Because I want to be actually interest in something for a change. Because everyday life is almost unbearably tedious and boring.

And so is school.

And some of us don't succeed because we don't find something to catch our interest, something to single-mindedly pursue, before the tedium becomes too much to bear and we walk away.