Because I am done with hate

First, let me give credit for inspiring this post to my Mom who wrote a very nice lesson about the Commandment "You shall not kill". My mother has been writing a number of lessons for our Church's "upper-level" Sunday-school program, which also go out to various people who are family, friends, or interested in the materials (a group which includes me).

This lesson in particular struck a cord in me. When I was little "You shall not kill" seemed like the Commandment least useful for daily living. But as my mother noted, Jesus taught that "You shall not kill" also applies to anger and hatred. After all, murder comes from such feelings.

But sometimes it feels like that as long as you don't act on the anger and hatred, it's fine to store it up inside you. At least, I used to think that way. When I was in middle school in particular, every grade there would be one or two kids who I hated, who made me constantly angry. I thought I was justified in my anger because they didn't seem to care about the effect of their jokes and teasing, and because they hit on topics that very sensitive for me at the time, but thinking back on it perhaps I just didn't understand them, or perhaps they had too much on their mind from other matters that made them careless, as my Mom pointed out, God asks us not to judge.

In any case, my anger, my hatred got me nothing. There were a few cases where I tried telling them off, but those were always ineffective (I've found that telling someone to stop a hurtful behavior works if that person was your friend to begin with, but is much more difficult when there isn't that bond). The anger also never gave me any sense of release for my frustrations, I had many of them in middle school and I thought perhaps if I could focus my irritations on a few people I could release it. Instead, I found my frustrations intensified as my thoughts circled around my anger. I found that when I was angry or caught up in hate, my enjoyment of life lessened, my relationships with those I cared about suffered, and my spiritual life faltered.

I'm not sure if there was a special moment when I decided to stop hating people. In fact, even now there are moments when I slip into that state of mind, but nowadays I take care to pull myself out of it. Sometime around my freshman year of high school a change happened in my way of thought. Whether there was a moment or not, I do believe this was a gift from God. I began to notice that I had no objects of hate, and though I tried to pick out historical figures or concepts to hate, I realized there was no need to hate. Anger and hate simply kept me from growing closer to God.

Later in high school, as I became more convinced that hate was harmful to the soul, I found to my surprise, without intending it, I had befriended most of those classmates I had once considered my enemies. Thinking about my later friendships, my previous anger seems silly.

I get angry at times, but I've been making the effort to catch myself and stop myself from being caught up in anger. Anger, hatred, even if they don't lead to actions like murder, the person who bears them I believe suffers, the mind, body, and spirit become corrupted, and the sin of hate pollutes the person's relationship with God. And it is so unnecessary. At least in my life, I have found that if I seek to embrace love and reject hate, I am much happier for it, I am much more successful in life for it, and I feel closer to God.

After all, if we love God, shouldn't we love his children, who are created in his image?

Those are just some thoughts I had about this Commandment, and I thought I'd share them.

Anywho, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

I suppose I was bold that day

Rand writes. It's what I do. It's something I've done for quite a while, sometimes by necessity, most often by choice, and always with awesomeness. And thus I have a number of scraps of writing like this, written long-ago in my prehistoric high school junior year, which despite their age have quite a bit of life to them and are deserving of throwing onto the web. And who am I to make such a judgment?

I AM RAND!

“Just because someone smells does not make them any less of a person!” I shouted in the late September, early October day. Those may not have been my exact words, but I remember the feeling of frustrated anger. I stood tall that day, eyebrows raised and nostrils flaring. I was pissed off because a kid was getting picked on because people said he smell. I don’t remember smelling anything, but my opinion is biased. The entire room turned against him, and even the adults joined in. That was the way group therapy was supposed to work, but this wasn’t a sin, some gaping flaw that made the kid, named Bill (not the real name for obvious reason), any less ofa man. At the worse this was a minor annoyance that it would be nice for Bill to change. Perhaps my anger came from other reasons. Many of my friends have been picked on because of how they smell, they have been alienated and made outcasts. While I’ll admit some of them did not smell pleasant, they had good hearts, and that is what ought to have been judged on. And perhaps my anger came from another reason. Perhaps it was because I had been in a mental hospital far too long.

The days pass in a mental hospital like slugs. My two weeks of in-patient confinement and 2-4 weeks of outpatient therapy seems now like a lifetime. Some of the people there, they didn’t deserve it. Bill told me he was sent there because he was sitting on the roof singing, heck, if I knew an easy route to my roof I might do the same. Others were sent there because of zero tolerance policies and abusive parents. Of course some of us needed to be there. Some of us needed some of the constant surveillance. Not all of the maddening rules, mind you, but some of them. Some of those people were like me, with a disease in the brain that wanted very much to kill them. Still after a week or so of in-patient therapy I was pissed off royally at the world. And so I didn’t take it when my friend was being picked on.

That alone is sort of standing up to authority, I suppose. The authority of my peers. And I am proud of the act if just for that. But one thing must be remembered about the mental hospital I was in, though nearly all of them were signed in ‘voluntary,’ we could only leave when the doctors gave the go ahead. Getting pissed off and yelling isn’t a good way to look sane.

Of course for all of the dramatics of my act it wasn’t all glamour. I hurt someone’s feeling, and I apologized for yelling. Yet I did not take back my message. Over the next week I tried my best to stick up for Bill whenever I could. Occasionally I got pissed off, though it never came to fists for me (though Bill ended up getting into two fights in the hospital, one the starter I do not know, but the second was most definitely not started by him). Still I felt like I stood against the grain, and against the sheep-makers in the mental hospital. I was his friend till he left. I suppose I stood up against authority that day, maybe, maybe I was just being a friend, I dunno, but heck, I helped Bill out, so that’s worth quite a bit.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

Let me sing these songs of freedom... but not right now

Determined far past a fault into a virtue and past that into... something, something, obscure pop-culture reference... I continue my experiment with living in the moment.

But to be truthful, this has to do with more than living in the moment. Intertwined with an out-of-moment perspective has always been me looking forward and back with my hopes and ambitions. Just as important an element of this experiment has been living without my usual grand ambitions. Essentially, for the moment I've tried to scale down my thoughts and maybe consider normal ambitions, and a normal life, and in particular the path that was set out for me at birth.

Get a good paying job
Get a wife
Have kids
Do family stuff

It's not a bad life by any means, and it is certainly one I'd recommend for many people and even many of my friends. It certainly beats drinking till your liver explodes and you're too much of a drunken slob to be any sort of husband/wife or father/mother. Sadly I worry about some of my friends on that path.

But the perhaps advantage of living in the moment and without grand ambitions, is that you just accept those sort of sad things. They are out of your control, yes, but more importantly they are outside your sphere of activity, maybe (although with helping friends kick a bad habit... but then that depends how strong and close the friendships are (I'm not sure I have that many friends that are that close)).

So that is the experiment. There were elements of weariness, and even spite that compelled me to try living this way, but I find that is far too little justification for turning my entire life upside down like this (in terms of activity my life has changed very little, but this has in fact turned my life upside down because one's experience of life is determined by one's perspective and that perspective has been heavily inverted). And if I am doing this just to avoid the costs of my grand ambitions, the recurring failures, despite the fact that most of the grandness of the ambition is internal, and the worry, and the anxiety and the obligations... well, that's a bit of a burden, but not so much as losing your parents, or taking care of a child, or any number of other experiences other people go through, and it is certainly less of an obligation than a cross. So essentially I would be sinning then.

But the core reason (at least this is what I'm telling myself, hopefully truthfully) for this experiment is to see if the ambitious path is right for me. Or perhaps a more humble one, or rather since part of my ambition is too be more humble, a more simple one. That is to say, ought I live in the moment, or live with the future often on my mind? Should I concentrate and find joy in the small things, or should I connect even the small things with the big picture and find joy and direction through that? I have often grappled with this choice, and dabbled with both sides, but largely chose the path of larger ambitions than smaller ones. However, there is something to be said that you can't judge a life until you've lived it, and the life of smaller ambitions I admit is not without merits... and my life of larger ambition is not without faults, many of which have been very clear of late.

In the end though, this is not about which path I find more happy moments on, but rather which path is the one God wants for me. Or in more secular terms, which path is my real purpose on. Perhaps the answer to that question will not come within the next 3 days (I was going to have this for another week but I realized that certain problems would arise if I decided to go back to larger ambitions and then dived straight into a rather busy weekend), but I think overall this experiment has given me some valuable food for thought so far, and probably the next few days will as well. Even if I do go back to living ambitiously, I think I've learned at least some useful techniques. And if it turns out my life is more correct in smaller terms, well...

In the end, one must do what is right, or at least try to, the best he can.

Even in defeat, one can reap the dividends of peace

Let me now not speak for current times but for the future,
And for the past,
But not for the present,
For that would be reckless,
Careless
And I have sworn off such ways

If you do not understand me
That's not unusual
We are humans are we not?
At least on the inside
At least for now

Even if we speak in the same language
Do we really use the same words
Each sentence, each body movement, each thought
Is enveloped in connotations, denotations, emotions and assumptions
Till the common syntax is an obscurer of the truth rather than an aide

And that is without getting to the intangibles

And what is life without the intangibles

And what is life without that most misunderstood intangible
We bear to each other
And we do not understand the other
Nor their understanding of us
But what is life without that dream of understanding

And so we try to impose a bridge upon this chaos
We try to force an understanding to bring down the truth
Of that feeling we have for another
That feeling that it is so essential that we give without misunderstanding
That feeling that we so desperately want to understand in the others' eyes

And so it comes to war
We misunderstanding
Take advantage of the fog of our mutual fiction of communication
To bring down what we wish were the feelings that are being misunderstood
That we might be able to understand
But without agreement
And how can their be agreement
And in such conflict

Yet to understand is not always to triumph
Your conception may not be conveyable
It might not even exist
Even in your mind
And if what you wanted to understand
Is worth understanding
Then can it be worth understanding even if it is only the others' definition
That remains

And so it comes to failure
To defeat
Both dismal and deep
But we emerge a little closer
Not understanding still
But a little closer

And in that we advance the longer triumph
Far down the road

These are the songs we sing

Not because it brings us happiness, but because it is who we are.

Happiness seems to be elusive of late. I've never had a great trust in happiness to begin with, but it's resilient defiance of my will is irritating. Ah, but so it is, so it is, and so...

Here's some poetry:

I will always be insane

I will always be insane

You will always be a bitch

I will always be insane

You will always be a jerk

I will always be insane

You will always have that hairy little growth on the back of your neck

These things we can pick at and try to remove

And we can succeed

But the damage has already been done

The imprint is final

These flaws have been buried deep within our pysche

Left there to twist our thoughts for all the years to come

Thus I will always be insane

And you will always be my friend

-Rand

Space Oddity

It's been a while since I really made an effort to find good links for this blog, and the occasion did remind of why. Despite having found superb music videos on the interweb, checking for these videos for quality always ends up causing my session-writing time to go up by an order-of-magnitude. Oh, well, it's not like I have anything tomorrow, just work.

Well, here are the fruits of this particular labor:
A classic music video of Space Oddity by David Bowie
The music set to scenes of the amazing anime movie Royal Space Force: Wings of Honneamise.

To top it off here's the lyrics.

The thought came to my mind for so many, many reasons, top of which is BOWIE rocks!!! (The Guild of Calaminous Intent doesn't deserve such a man!)

But I was thinking about some matters, especially about professionalism (I can't believe the Simpsons "To Professionalism!" scene isn't on youtube yet (season 8, homer's enemy, after being told he ought to be more professional, Homer, sitting in him car about to drive to work in the morning, cries out "TO PROFESSIONALISM!" and pulls out a bottle of champaign and starts chugging it. Sooner or later, I got to try that out at my job.) And I had talked to someone who had recommended a professional relationship on a matter (as this vagueness might imply this is a rumination on a personal matter with a subject who may or may not be reading this post, and my rule of thumb is to not rule with my thumb and keep people anonymous most generally).

The essence of the matter and the thoughts which I consider interesting enough to outweigh the awkwardness of writing about this situation is that the implied opinion I got form this person was that professional relationships were important, and I could not help but find this inconceivably odd.

Now I am an odd man. There is a denying that, weighing my oddness against the general oddity of people in general, and one could also weigh it against how normal I might be if I applied myself. But I am comfortable in declaring myself odd overall. I think thoughts rarely thought, I do things in a manner rarely copied, and I in general have a certain tension between my way of living and the way of living common to the world around me, and by those measures I am odd. I've come to peace with that more or less, but it leaves me admittedly with little ground to call someone else odd.

Now the arguer on professional relationships is I think odd, all and all, but the opinion expressed was perhaps less odd than my own, and so perhaps that point can not be listed as a factor of oddity. The position that I have come to realize might be quite common but which I thought was odd at first, is that at work relationships should be restricted to professional relationships so you can do your work without distraction to the maximum of your potential. I have to say, that just seemed ridiculous.

But upon thinking of it, I think most people, or at least a lot of people, to a lesser or greater degree believe in these sort of professional relationships. Then perhaps I'm the odd-man out, but that's never been a fault for me.

In the end, I don't believe in professional relationships because, meh, work's work, it's really not important enough to infringe on relationships. I mean people's are peoples after all. Then there's the Christian aspect. I take a very idealized view of love, (platonic, familial, and romantic, etc.) and take this world and its haughty workings purposefully lightly. But perhaps I can understand how other people can take their work seriously, especially if this is the work that really touches on something central to their identity. Maybe, maybe perhaps if I were a professional writer...

Yet then again, I suppose I do have a profession. A jack-of-all-trades who philosophizes, wanders between communities, and dreams of dreams, I suppose my profession is ultimately living, best I can to do good and hopefully help others do good. Perhaps in that respect all my relationships are professional, I do after all keep my friends in my AIM co-workers section (an odd remark I do not deny), and I have to say I have a tendency to view a failed relationship or lost friendship as a failed project or venture. In a way I am almost sterile while looking at relationships, a fact I regret at times, immensely.

And so then, then when it comes to professionalism. Professionalism for me is friendship, best I can manage. Honestly when it comes to relationships, I can only target friendship or something more, although I can at times offer a completely false relationship that ignores the essential human essence of the other party, but as that sounds, it is distasteful, and something I inevitably regret.

If that makes me odd, well...

Let me not act superior, my life and the life of many around me would be much better if I did not take relationships so seriously and work so lightly, and maybe I'm wrong, I find upon reckoning that my emotions toward people are often more complex than I give them credit for, mingled with my own issues, preconceptions, circumstances and histories. In the end, I have to say that overall I treat relationships so simply and so idealistically is because I lack the talent and confidence to do otherwise, or maybe it just isn't who I am, with me being the sum of my nature and experiences. And in the end, I am what I am, and despite my own anxieties and self-doubt, I do not care to be anything else. Those words have been ringing in my head for a while now and I find here they seem appropriate. I can change to be more true to these ideals, to chase a more central goal, or to do the Lord's will, but not for a job, and for what else... (and where does my writerly and otherwise artistic intentions factor into all of this, I'm honestly not sure, but I think one necessarily feeds and follows the other)

The future's still open... and though I feel a bit lonely right now, I still believe in the ideals of family, friends, love and God... and God-willing I will be able to make good on those beliefs, in the end that's all I really need, as the man says, "Forget your lust for the rich mans gold/ All that you need is in your soul" (-Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd)

And be a simple kind of man. (That said song's music video)

(If there's anything that can make you feel good about all your moods, both good and bad, well there's lot's of things, but nothing quite like rocking with Lynyrd Skynyrd)

Anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

Have Mojo, Will Travel

So let's raise a toast to women: The cause of and solution to all of life's problems.

So a girl for, well, let's say I've had a crush on (I really hate the word crush, it is far too immature for feelings that can be a serious matter, and yet the feelings aren't strong enough to be declared love), well, she has a boyfriend. I thought that might be the case, but she had been out of the country for so long, well, the matter is thus. And so now I must bring this to an end, somewhat.

She's still my friend and a good friend at that. To be honest I wanted to spend more time with her because I thought there was a potential for a relationship. But I also like to spend time for her because it's just fun to spend time with her. I've been worrying about telling her how I feel about her because it might hurt our friendship. That was the case in my first heartbreak (who ironically (no actually this is in no way ironic, just a conwinkidink) lives near the girl I currently have a crush on (ie the girl who's the main topic of this post)). And although it might be a little uncomfortable at times now (at least I haven't seen her and her boyfriend together this semester, feelings usually only get really uncomfortable when you see PDA's (public displays of affection)), at least she doesn't really know how I feel about her. This means she won't be really uncomfortable around me, nor will I have to explain myself, and it gives me much more control over our relationship (I'm using that in the general sense of the word).

I'd hate to be the kind of guy who gets close to a girl just because he has a crush on her and then once she lets him down he forgets that she existed. That would be a truly assish thing to do. A good friendship is a terrible thing to waste. And so I do not intend to waste this friendship, but still, it all feels a bit weird. I'm actually glad to some degree, because feelings like those are a bit of a burden and it's probably easier to try to craft a relationship fresh instead of tweaking a friendship into a romance. But still, I had liked the idea of us getting together, and you can't dismiss feelings by flicking your fingers.

But I'm not going to try to steal another man's girlfriend, it's disrespectful to the other man, but also to the girl, herself. It has an essence of, you're all wrong about your life choices, to it, but moreover it's painfully disruptive to all involved. And she seems to have real feelings for her boyfriend (she has met his parents, so this is something significant), so 99% chance I lose against him, and then I'm miserable and our friendship is hurt. 1% chance I win against him, he's crushed, she's with me but torn, and it's an ugly situation. Plus the whole sinful nature of the business. I mean, a dating romance (the terminology of dating is really lackluster, I think I might have to invent some words) isn't a marriage, so this isn't an adultery class sin by any means, but it's certainly a jerk class sin and a sin against God as well. Even romantic relationships not sealed by marriage have a holiness to them that shouldn't be lightly trifled with.

So what to do with the feeling eh? Again, I'm almost relieved, but I feel in the pit of my soul a feeling that probably soon will blossom into sorrow. It'll suck, but I'll put it out of my mind. Whenever I think of her, some romantic thoughts might be hovering in the background, but I'll put those out of my mind too. I'll keep doing this until the feelings fade. I doubt they'll truly erase themselves until I actually find another girl, but they should become manageable. I actually had to do this same process for her freshmen year when I started getting feelings for her. Then I found out she had a boyfriend, and besides she left the country. But I was so sure she had broken up with her boyfriend in that long interval abroad, but I guess that wasn't the case.

I shouldn't say unfortunately that wasn't the case, because I guess I'm happy for her. I complain a lot about how lonely I am and how I wish I had a romantic partner, she found one, so good for her. As for me I'll move on.

After all, you can always say this about me: Have Mojo, Will Travel.

So, why don't we lift a glass to women, those impossibly enchanting creatures?

Why not lift a glass to all the girls I've ever loved and all those I've had crushes on?

Why not lift a glass to you, girl whom I had a crush on which now must be dismissed and tossed to the wind?

Actually, I'm drinking out a cup, not a glass, but here's to you.

So anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

Creep

I'd like to think I'm not really a creep. But I do creepy stuff sometimes. Nothing I care to go into though. But part of writing is revisiting painful incidents far more often than is at all sane. Earlier this semester I had a writing assignment that while beginning humorous ended in a scene of painful lost love. That scene touched my heart a little and reminded me of all my lost loves. And then I had to revisit it. Again the painfully emotional scene hitting me. Then again, revisiting it. More painful emotional scene hitting. And then more revisiting, etc. Not very nice stuff. But that's what I writer's got to be doing. So yeah, creep.

I have a vague recollection of when that song came out, I think it was my early high school years, although apparently it was done in 1992 or 93, so that would have to be a good deal back before my school years, maybe around middle school or even tail end of elementary school. But I guess it was in high school my musicality was at its peak (or at least at its peak for that period, I'm having a new Renaissance of musicality right now) and so that was when I heard that Radiohead song, Creep. It struck a cord.

Apparently, the songwriter was talking about gender-identity issues with the song, least that's what he said. I took the song as sort of an outsider unrequited love song (part of the reason for my differing interpretation is probably because the radio edit changed a line from "You're so fucking special" to "You're so very special" but I get into some of that below). And so it felt very natural to me, who felt perpetually the outsider, and who in his early high school years had some unrequited love. I've talked about one case of this before, in my Here is Gone session, but as I noted there, that was about my second heartbreak, but this song resounds more accurately and more tightly with my first heartbreak, and so it is in the light of that I'm going to do some explicating (explication nation, what's your temptation).

Creep by Radiohead from the album Pablo Honey

When you were here before

She didn't just appear, she had been my friend for a long time, since elementary school. We used to walk home together, maybe around 3rd or 2nd grade. During 4th grade and 5th to some degree there was a separation of boys and girls and so to a degree we lost touch. But we still went to the same schools and greeted each other with friendship. In eighth grade I actually thought she would be the ideal person to have a crush on, and to a degree I suppose I harvested those emotions. But by the end of summer I had largely forgot of the matter. Until of course, school resumed and I saw her again. But those feelings had a different flavor to them, an intensity that I wasn't used to, which I embraced as love.

Couldn't look you in the eye

But while I embraced the feelings, I couldn't stand staying in her presence. I hated myself, I hated myself viciously, and being near her seemed just another opportunity for me to fail at my efforts of contact. Worse yet, it was an opportunity for her to see the person I thought I was, an utter monster. A creep if you will. (and I will, for I am RAND.)

You're just like an angel

I idealized her utterly and completely. It was from a distance of course so I couldn't assign to her definite idealized characteristics, so instead I assigned to her all idealized traits. I imagined her like an angel. A creature of utter purity. The only real traits I can assign to her is that she's kind and strongly social competent (she has a social comfortableness that is enviable, at least by one such as me), but it's hard for me to really fix her character beyond that because of all my idealization. So I thought of her like an angel. It's such a hollow description really, especially without any theology behind it, but I never had enough courage to make my emotions anything more than hollow.

Your skin makes me cry

Always with skin. It tends to be regarded as so important. As for the obvious matter. Yes, she was white, and yes I'm brown, but that really had no importance for anything, although I was paranoid about it. But in a more teenage sense skin mattered otherwise. I always hated my skin's oils and pimples. I can't say I'm too fond of them now, but I can tolerate my skin since I don't have much acne anymore. But back then, it was quite a bit. It added to my whole, I hate myself, and especially my body thing, and so it didn't help that she was beautiful. I can't even remember if truthfully she had no acne, but she certainly had less than me, what is true is her skin seemed perfect to me. She seemed beautiful and I felt unforgivably ugly.

You float like a feather
In a beautiful world

She hung out with a more popular crowd, I on the other hand. I didn't really have a crowd. I suppose this is the point I should say I was fat (or thought myself as such), given the feather analogy, etc. But everything about her, the people she hung out with, the way she looked, the way she carried itself. It seemed so immensely better than everything that was me.

And I wish I was special

Back then I felt anonymous, insignificant, and pointless. I can't say I don't have those emotions now sometimes.

Youre so (very) fuckin special

She seemed on the other hand to be at the center of her own little world, and it was a damn nice world. The original version of this song I listened to (that is not to say the original version of the song itself, but the radio edit), used very instead of fuckin'. It does take the edge off this verse. I can't say I was angry at her for these emotions, but I was angry at myself for not acting on them, and I was angry at the universe for making me me.



But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo.

I've never been quite normal in any social circle, and that sense of isolation, so heightened during high school and complemented with anxiety and self-hate. I felt I was a creep. I can't say I really was one. Probably the actually creepiest thing I did was, well, I didn't follow her, but I would remember where I saw her at certain times of the day. We all have our little habits after all. And I'd just try to be near her at that time of the day. I wouldn't want her to see me, because then she might think I was stalking her, or worse yet might engage me in conversation, but rather I just wanted to get a glimpse of her. My emotions would fill me then, and I'd get an invigorated euphoria that would fade the moment she left my sight and I remembered how lonely I felt.

What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here.

Yeah, I can say I didn't belong. I didn't have a clique or anything in that sense. But really when it comes down to belonging on this earth, what is the criteria. If you're a human being, that gives you a certain necessity of spending some time on earth doesn't it. If you're born, doesn't that give you the right to belong to the living? And if you have a soul doesn't that give you a right to belong to God's children.



I don't care if it hurts

This line always reminds me of pimple popping, especially in combination with the perfect skin line. It was a nasty habit of mine, especially since I knew excessive pimple popping actually aggravated the acne. But I wanted so badly to feel pain. It fed the hatred so completely and satisfied it as well. A nice little vicious cycle. (just like a demon bike)

I want to have control

I've always had problems of control. Controlling my eating, my laziness, most of all my mental illness. Life always seemed to come so easily for everyone else, for her. However, that is one of those nice little lies we tell ourselves to makes us feel nicely persecuted. Everyone has problems, it's best not to try to rank them.

I want a perfect body
I want a perfect soul

As much as I hated my body when depressed, I hated my soul even more. Because when I was in the depths of depression I believed I was an absolute monster barely contained. It was a good way to justify my self-hatred even though I believed people should be judged on their internal goodness and not their external appearances.

I want you to notice
When I'm not around

That was always something for me. I wanted to feel like I made a difference in the world and that without me people would be worse off. I suppose it is true, but on the other hand. On the other hand during my periodic absences from social life during breakdowns, nobody seemed really to care. But on the plus side, they did seem to enjoy my company. Still, it would be nice, if people noticed when I wasn't around, especially her. (Of course, you people, my loyal readers would notice when I'm not around, eh? Ah, bums! Meh, in the end it doesn't matter if people care when you're not around, God notices when you withdraw into yourself, when you breakdown, and He offers to carry you through the pain, as I have found out time and time again)

You're so (very) fuckin' special
I wish I was special

But I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo.
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here.

She's running out again,
She's running out
She's run run run running out...

Let me tell you the story of how I confessed to her. My buddy Howard says it shows me as brave. I'd disagree. Anyways, in my high school and even middle school we had various services which would deliver cards and presents to those whom you had crushes on or just wanted to give a present to. I actually did give her cards for years since eighth grade up to sophmore year. However I always kept it as from a secret admirer. Until that final card. Sophmore year I decided to sign it as myself. And so she found out about my feelings. And then... I passionately avoided her for the rest of the year and the summer. Yeah, I really don't think the story depicts me as brave. But then junior year came around. The beginning of every year I always tend to be somewhat manic. So I had a great idea, why not invite everyone in the school to a party? It didn't work out so well, well, no it was fun, even if only 4 people came. But I had invited her, and then, then I was rejected.

Whatever makes you happy
Whatever you want

To make a girl I like happy, that's just awesome. To see her smile. I've always had trouble reading facial expressions, but I know a smile is a smile. And so I give gifts, I tell jokes, I do anything to make them smile. But unfortunately I rarely listen to them, I usually am so self-absorbed, and so obsessed with the emotion of love, I forget to some degree about the actual girl. Perhaps really then, it wasn't love with this girl, just being in love with the feeling of love. With later girls I liked I've tried to listen more, and I consider my feelings more legitimate, but perhaps it's just the pains in that period leave me as somewhat cynical about that period in my life

Youre so fuckin special
I wish I was special...

But Im a creep, Im a weirdo,
What the hell am I doing here?
I dont belong here.
I dont belong here.


And then after confessing to her and being rejected, after the party that didn't work out as I had planned, and after failing to really resolve a conflict between two people I cared about, my depression grew to a point where it became to much. I've always wanted control, especially for those moments like this when depression is this overwhelming. But I didn't have self-control. And so, well, let me not relate the exact details, but I resolved to kill myself. But in the end, I didn't even have the self-control for that. I was too afraid of pain, and so I resolved that I would try to overdose on my medicine. But then my father came home and stopped me. And then I was hospitalized.

That experience casts a taint over this period, and over my relations with that girl. When she rejected me she said it was because she didn't want to ruin our friendship. She also made several other efforts to reach out to me as a friend. I sort of ignored them. It was hard to think of her without thinking of that period in my life when I became obsessed with my emotions of love for her, and ultimately ended up hospitalized. It's a shame though. Friendships are something highly valuable, and not to be discarded. So maybe someday, when I become a little bit more mature I renew my friendship with that girl. Is that day today? Maybe, one never knows what the future might bring.

So anyways, that's the story of my first heartbreak. There's some lessons in there if you want to take them, I don't feel like spelling them out explicitly. I always wonder what could have been though, but that's usually a useless conjecture, not worthy of Rand the mighty and glorious.

So anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

For James

I've been in a down cycle (this doesn't necessarily mean I'm depressed, but rather I'm in a state where I'm prone to becoming depressed) lately and one of the most frustrating things about this is it becomes harder for me to think. This doesn't actually mean I'm less creative, I still get random interesting thoughts, I still play with interesting stories, I still mess around with worlds in my head, but it becomes very difficult for me to access that creativity when it comes to crunch time, ie when I get to a place where I can sit down and write, like here. It's time like these, as well as all other times, I wish I could simply access my memories (as well as my dreams which are usually pretty cool but often easily forgotten), like a computer, just at will. There's so much of my life, so many of my memories and ideas that have been lost by the passage of time.

This brings me I think to an apology I've been meaning to make. One of the nice things about placing things on the public record is there is the off chance that someone with whom you've lost contact might read it, and so perhaps you can send them a message. This is to my buddy James, or Jim. If anyone read the corpus of my half-finished stories they might discover that I use the name James a lot, perhaps this is because in 2nd grade (maybe 3rd) me and my friend James were inseperable, we were the best of friends. Back then I had this sort of mental test for best friends. I used to be a crybaby and I hated that fact intensely, and furthermore I knew that everyone in the class would make fun of me, so the rule was if I cried in public and my friend stood by me and defended me, he was one of my best friends (perhaps my best friend in elementry school, Kyle, never actually encountered this test, but eventually I realized that it was very possible that the rare occassion where I cried in public might not happen in front of Kyle and yet he still was of the caliber of friend where he would have defended me if it had happened). James encountered this test; in class we had been given peanuts for something or other, and my teacher, who while she was a very good teacher had a short temper, warned us not to throw the peanut shells in the trash can. However I did and the teacher saw it and started yelling (well, not really yelling that much, just sort of yelling) at me and I was overcome with guilt and embarressment and fear of punishment and further embarressment and I started to cry and the class started (I think if my memory serves me right) to make fun of me or laugh and James stood by my side and defended and comforted me. He was most certainly a good friend.

However, after that 2nd (again or maybe 3rd) grade year, James moved away or something like that, and even in those years I had enough social anxiety that calling to invite someone over to my house seemed like an impossibility (or perhaps I was just so unused to it it just didn't seem like an option), and so we lost contact completely. It was sad, and this coupled with the later lost contact with my friend Matt, led me to conclude that for many years that lost contact with friends was a simple inevitability (a position I have since fiercely reversed, which I think will be the center of my Knights of Mars organization). I always wished that I could meet James again and resume our friendship.

And then, I got that lucky wish, in high school I was wandering around when I bumped into some guys I didn't really know, and one of them started insisting that I knew him. Apparently he was called Jim and while he insisted I knew him I could not recall the memory. And I could not remember his face. He eventually gave up on the attempt to remind me and I walked away. But suddenly it clicked. Jim was short for James. It was James, my childhood chum, this was great. I ran back over to him and greeted him enthusiastically. I couldn't spend that much time with him though, I think I had to go somewhere or he had to go somewhere, but I promised him that I would talk to him more the next day in school.

But at that time, I think it was freshman or sophmore year of high school, I was at the peak of my depression and anxiety. And I had this paralyzing fear that I was going to forget his face. I tried so hard to picture it exactly in my head but every time I tried I became afraid it wasn't right or that I wasn't going to be able to. I tried so hard that I had to try to remember the exact features on James' face, but I couldn't, and by the next day I couldn't for sure say what James' face looked like. I just couldn't remember. I think I saw him (although I wasn't sure if it was actually him) many times in school and I would glance at him and wish that I would overcome my fears and greet him and if I got the wrong person or if he called me on forgetting his face, well so be it, whatever embarressment I would have had would be a small price to pay for having a good friend back. But I was too afraid, too full of anxiety and too full of self-hatred to believe that I could overcome that anxiety. So I never talked to him again. And for that I am sorry.



If you ever read this James, this is John Thomas your buddy from 2nd (or maybe 3rd grade) in Littlebrook Elementry School, and I'm sorry for forgetting your face and not talking to you. I am so sorry.



But now I'm in college and the halls of high school where everyone would see everyone are gone. Sometimes I think I see someone who kind of looks like James around town but I'm so unsure of it that I usually just dismiss the thought. Or maybe it's just my cowardice acting up again. I don't know.

Similar things have happened to me with other friends and some of my relatives, especially one aunt of mine. But usually either the person will come up to me and remind me of themselves or they weren't that good of a friend to begin with. I don't think I ever had a memory-loss which affected me as much as this incident with James. But then again, in trying to remember an occasion bigger than this, I'm relying on my memory, which I find so flawed, so completely faulty sometimes, it tears at me, it fuels my self-hatred. I wish so much that there was some recorder you could install in your brain to remember everything. But there isn't. And all I am left with is memories, and those all tend to fade.