genius

these men? these men are heroes, son. fashion yourself after them. burrow your soul in the wombs of their writings and sap on the teets of their knowledge. for if i am to be considered man at all, then it is only because their genius has long outlasted their genes.

thank god for these men and others like them. for they have done most to shape our species into one of pride.

heed not that outsized rewards are granted to those that play on field and screen and with money. it will long be this way, as our advance is ever mitigated with wanton desire. but immortality will be granted not to these men; for that will be the province of lasting genius - those that have deceived the deity and altered the course of his divine plan.

Are you a strong man, a hero...a conqueror? Barrel chested? Destroying opponents and mocking the weak? Brow thickening and intimidating when furrowed? Confident like the alpha lion and with the coveting mates to match? No one left to insult you? Nothing existing to suprise you? Never having been subordinated? A supercilious hero? Face kept stone when life - the only one who truly can - slaps it? Or, better yet, an ironical smile, because you had anticipated this and expected that very slap at that very moment...are you immutable and blessed by the Gorgon?

No, I am sorry, you are not.

You are, my friend, soft and mealy. Mottled and pallid. An over-ripened apple. A milquetoast. A fragile ego with insecure intelligence. Clinging to life with brittle and rusted ties. A mere gust of wind would blow your world to dust...and you? Staring at the sky with those X's over your eyes.

You pathetic fool! You cartoon! Can you at least balance your worthlessness with some reserve and end this, this naivete? Can you not, for once, react like the hero, indifferently when life treats you as God Job? Who is to blame?

I see, my son, that you have grown your hair to hide the face God granted you. And, that you are - brick after slow brick - building your wall. If you remain muted, you'll end a neurotic, conversing with himself...ruined. Who will take you in then? Who will listen to the ravings of a madman. Who will be the one to carefully and painstakingly loosen and untie the bunched and clustered knot your ego has become then?

Surely, not I.

open letter to science

you and your induction. everything you have taught us, so fragile. nothing i'm afraid can ever be proven by such methods, regardless of the number of successful repetiticns. asymmetry abound - one nonsuccess or contradiction and, ah, all is lost even after seemingly-infinite successes.

forever yours,
- mathematics

walking across the desert

"it's...just...laying me to waste"

And now 30.

And only a slightly more melancholic version of the decade-junior.

Face unshaven, hair caked with filth, brain knotted and immobile and heavy, sad eyes and hands tucked into armpits, a slight rocking motion for comfort, and sentences amiss. Insufficient vocabulary to explain - noone to understand, anyway. Social skills long extinct, barked at an adolescent today. A litter of thoughts fighting for a spot...

...our proud jesus, disengaged and walking across the desert, sun sapping the fucking life out of him.

And now slowly lifting leg into casket - just to try, just to lay down for a moment, just one minute I swear. Final thin pages of an average and unexciting book turning mindlessly in the draft, dust-wooden, empty room...blue-gray...

"Let me see your tongue, son"

the rote individual

The man who has acquired knowledge via memorization and without intellectual challenge has suffered a grave disservice. Becoming, in life, a sickly and vile man to work with. His entire being now functioning via rote processes and rules manufactured in head; rigid and defined and incapable of responding appropriately to dynamic situations. One can almost smell the painful inner deliberations, almost all of which end in rejection (which, to be sure, serves to protect and preserve). "Where does this fit? How to react? What rule to follow?" "Warning...exiting comfort zone!!"

One may award him the euphemism 'principled' but a more precise categorization would be automaton.

"Normal"

An operational definition:

That which is currently and has been, in recent times (for the most recent ten year period), practiced by a majority (greater than 50%) of your population sample.

For example: working a greater-than-40-hour work week is normal while maintaining a blog of harebrained non-verbal recitations of personal literature and inner cannibalistications is not.

For example: stress, normal; congruence, saved for one or two weeks per annum.

king of the world

Well, I will wake up with my lights on because this feeling is all I've got.
So, give me five more minutes and, I swear, I'll be - King of the World.

And, of all the shapes that I've taken on, I swear, I like this one the best.
Suicide in hand and I look back at all my names; I swear, I like this one the best.

"I know that you said you could never go home
Well I hope you know that that is not your fault.

"So, as you watch all you dreams roll by and the road you're on, folded up and gone.
Just know that I could be just like you, but still know there's a better way out.

"I know that you said you could never go home
Well I hope you know that that is not your fault.

It's okay...it's okay.