Ink

{ Crossing his legs on the corner of a bench in his favorite park about a block from his apartment, he propped his notebook up against his knee and proceeded to jot down his feelings for the day. Looking up only a few times to make sense of his thoughts by gazing into mesh of colors that made up the tie-dyed horizon, he maintained a steady conversion of memories to ink until the surface of the paper reflected exactly what existed in his mind. With each new sentence, a new smirk emerged on his face as he the relationship he had with himself continued to evolve.

Meanwhile the earth continued to revolve, revealing less and less of the sunlight that allowed this boy to make the most important connections of his life. With the wind picking up slightly along with a drop in temperature as the sun left the sky, he scribbled his last words for the day. He slipped the pen in his right-hand pocket and after closing his notebook, he placed it at the very edge of bench to his left. Being in a relatively good mood without having to be anywhere else, he figured he'd enjoy the peacefulness of the area until the moon came out. He knew it wasn't yet in the first quarter, so he wouldn't have to wait long. He pivoted his body clockwise, lifted his feet up onto the bench, laid back, and folded his arms on his chest as he gazed East into the sky where the moon would soon become visible.

As it became dark enough, the lights throughout the park started to flicker on, one by one. There was a light at every bench, separated by about forty yards along the sidewalk which cut through the center of the park. It was a different place at night. Simultaneously quaint and mysterious, he felt as if the park encompassed the personality of something or someone he longed for. If he just waited there long enough, he would be able to communicate with the night, bridging the gap from the previous day in which he discovered himself. He closed his eyes for a brief moment in an honest attempt.

A shriek of wind stirred at the very end of the walkway and he sat up with a start. A chill shot up his spine when it happened again. He stared down the sidewalk to the last light he could see. Each burst of wind became increasingly louder, sounding more similar to screams as their intensity grew. All of a sudden, as if contained within a funnel from where the sound emitted from, a gust of wind spiraled his way, knocking his notebook to the ground. The pages flipped and eventually landed on the entry he had just finished writing. While pondering this for a second, he heard a light bulb burst in the distance. After a second, another one broke. Like a row of firecrackers, the lights exploded in quick succession toward him, adding a new layer of darkness to the night.

It all happened so fast he didn't have time to react. Like a deer in the headlights, he had no choice but to stand there and watch fate unfolded in front of him. He glanced down at his notebook and read the last seven words of his entry, "my imagination will never cease to exist". And just like that, there was silence. He looked up and witnessed a vast tidal wave of darkness that stretched to the edge of the park down to the last line of his journal entry. He took his pen out of his right pocket, unscrewed the top, and held it out in front of him. The ink condensed and made its way back to where it belonged, revealing the sidewalk and the lights that illuminated it.

Opening his eyes, he didn't see the moon to the East where he was facing, but to the West. It was smiling at him, and he was smiling back. } - A short story by Jordan

Birds Eye View

As discovered from Timothy "Speed" Levitch in one of my favorites films Waking Life, Thomas Mann admitted that he would rather participate in life than write 100 stories. As a writer this must have meant that while he was writing his stories, he would have preferred to be somewhere else. To me, this could have been for two possible reasons. One, a physical problem: he was in a situation where he couldn't actually participate. Maybe he was stuck in the hospital or his wife was away. Two, a mental problem: perhaps even though he said he would rather participate, his personality prevents him from doing so. Either he prefers to just watch as the world goes by from a birds eye view, or he sees things that are unfolding in front of him that he would rather now be involved in. I consider the latter to be a possibility because some folks wish that they were ignorant so that they could be happy. As the saying goes, ignorance is bliss.

In a sense, what Mann is saying is that he would rather live a fully content day-to-day life instead of writing at all. Being a Wistful Author, he writes about things that bother him. If nothing bothered him, he might abstain from writing altogether. You start thinking about people's ratios of participation and observation. What Mann is describing is 100% participation. While this is not possible due to human's ability to think and find faults, it would probably be everyone's preference; it would be equivalent to pure bliss. Imagine a love-long orgasm, a permanent lovers embrace, or a constant state of the 'holy moment' acted out in the film.

Timothy goes on to say that 'an assumption develops' that you cannot live and understand life simultaneously. In my opinion some folks spend an excess amount of time trying to understand this absurd life. Well-known authors such as Friedrich Nietzsche and possibly David Wallace ended their own lives because they thought too much, to the point of madness. I'm making a huge assumption here, but bare with me while I attempt to make a point. Being very intelligent and logical, their happiness came from understanding. In their tireless quest to understand, the life in which they knew became meaningless to the point of not worth living. In a depressing sort of way, their suicides proved this assumption right.

Adding his own belief, Timothy says that 'life understood is life lived'. I don't agree entirely. One of the biggest reasons is that I don't believe it is possible for humans to fully understand life. But at the same time like Nietzsche, I cannot stop trying to figure it out; it's in my nature and is what I get most of my fulfillment from. I would tweak the quote a bit by saying that even though it may be impossible to understand life completely, the quality of life depends entirely on the undertaking. Depending wholly on the person and their need to understand, failing in that attempt will prove to be an empty life. With the realization though that you can never hope to understand life to any final degree, you can learn to balance your evolving comprehension with the rest of your human instincts. With this in mind, you can avoid the fate of some of the greatest thinkers in history.

Holding Hands: A Short Fiction

{ "Have fun tonight sweetie, make some friends!", his mother said as he stepped out of the car. With a bland smirk he glanced at her and said, "I'll try, mom". He gently closed the door and made his way over the side entrance of the church. The other kids were doing the same, but they were running. When he got to the door, he looked back and waved as his mother drove away. Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and entered the last place he'd prefer to be on a beautiful Sunday evening.

Through the first door way with his hands in his pockets, he strolled over to the meeting room where everyone was. Amongst the chatter, he squeezed through the crowd and sat down on one of the benches. After about five minutes, one of the grown ups in charge walked to the center of the room and starting calling out names by age, and sorted the children into groups of ten or so with an appointed instructor. Hearing his name, he quickly popped off the bench and shuffled over to his group. Two boys in front of him where whispering to each other. A moment later one of them sneaked up behind a girl in front of the group, knelt down and peaked up her skirt. Not wanting to be caught, he moved fast and got back to his friend as soon as he could. Having slightly too much momentum, he could not stop himself soon enough before bumping into the boy who caught him in the act. "Hey man, sorry about that. What's your name? I'm Mark". Red in the face, he gulped hard and replied hesitantly."My name is Alex, nice to meet you".

All the groups were sorted by now, so each instructor lead each of them into the nearest hallway, further into the building to their designated classrooms. Holding his right hand out, he felt the studded paneling as he walked and noticed the many photographs equally spaced out on the wall. Each one was of an elderly man dressed up in white Alex assumed were past Priests and Bishops of the church. Less than half of them were smiling.

Walking in the back of the group, he had the last choice of a seat when they entered the room. Luckily there was a seat open to the right of Mark. The room was very small, white, and confining with a circular table in the middle. There was one window, but the blinds were closed. Up on the walls there were pictures of nature with passages from the bible written on them as well as a calender of various church-related events.

After taking attendance and introducing herself, the instructor stood up and said, "Let us begin with a prayer". She held out her arms and instructed everyone to hold hands. Alex took hers in right hand and Mark's in his left. "Since this is our first day, it's OK if you don't know the words; but I expect all of you learn them for next week". Alex knew the words, but pretended he didn't. The prayer started and everyone stared down at the table as they spoke in a monotone. Alex did the same but he kept glancing up around the room in a counter-clockwise motion to see if anyone else remained silent. To his surprise, everyone was speaking. He turned his head slightly to the left at Mark and his eyes slowly traveled from his eyes, shoulder, arm, and finally to his side where their hands were clasped together.

He felt completely at ease. All his nervousness and tension leading up to this point had suddenly disappeared. He was in another world. The walls of the room floated away revealing the beautiful autumn sky. The table was no longer there and all was serene. There were trees around them and grass at their feet. Hands together, the two of them floated there together as if nothing else mattered in the world. His vision not budging from the connection they made, he expressed a melancholic smile and his tear ducts began to swell.

"Let go of my hand fag!". The whole class burst out in laughter. Coming to, Alex quickly released his grip from Mark's hand. Eyes wide, breathing fast, he sat down with a thump, moved his chair over the right a little, stared down at the white table and let out a weak, "I'm sorry". The instructor looked at Alex oddly for a few seconds, and then as if nothing had happened, continued the class. Alex spent the next forty minutes pretending he didn't exist.

On the way home, he tried his best to look as cheerful as possible. Alex loved his mother very much and he knew she had high hopes for him. "How was your first day honey?" "Oh, it was OK" "Did you meet any new friends?" "Yeah, a few" "You know, I still remember my first day. I was very shy like you are; I was a nervous wreck. It might sound silly, but as soon as we all held hands for our first prayer, I felt like I fit in. After that, I was fine. Do they still do that?" "Yes, they do."

Alone in is bed later that night, he was finally able to let go. Soaking his pillow with a steady and silent flow of tears, he was able to drift away to a place where he felt most comfortable. } - A short story by the Blog creator

Walking Cliches

Have you ever imagined yourself as nothing more than a blip on a radar screen, drifting to-and-fro among millions of others? Perhaps as a flower in a field of daisies as they sway back and forth together as the wind blows, or a random color in a box of crayons? Are we content with the idea that we are just like everyone else? I'm guessing the general answer would probably be no. What it seems like is that most folks make every effort possible to be different. Makes you wonder why.

Many of us are raised with the idea that we are special and unique, and that there's one thing we can do better than anyone else. To me, this simply is not true. But I would imagine that it is this teaching that promotes growth in many people and leads them to successful careers. It urges us to find this one thing that is special about us, to find a direction, and to feel like an individual. While this may not be the only factor that contributes to how we live ours lives, it certainly has a large effect.

I think that most people hate the idea of being slaves to their genes. Our bodies are just a robotic shell, whose actions are dictated by our DNA and the endless instructions carried out by the brain. From a scientific standpoint, humans are 99.9% alike. That last 0.1% refers to an ever so slight difference in a section of double helix, which contributes to our slight difference of appearance and personality. In a sense, this difference is what makes us unique from each other. Even though this difference isn't really very significant, our strong urge to be different actually contributes to many benefits including variety, which generally give more options, and as a result makes the human race more prosperous.

As well as our strong desire to feel like a separate and unique entity, our competitive society also forces us to live and act beyond our normal persona. While I'd like to think that this superficial obligation only exists in a business environment, I think maybe it also has quite a large role in our personal lives. In order to be noticed, you must take special measures; whether it be for a potential job or a mate. It may even be that by doing this, we've conditioned our brains to act this way automatically without actually being aware of it. I've always felt comfortable with the idea though that we are constantly aware of acting outside of who we are.

For the longest time, I tried very hard to not fall into the category of any cliche. Along with my personal need to feel different, I always took anything that was considered 'normal' with a grain of salt. While it may be a bit depressing at first, I've realized that I am just like everyone else; and the more I try to be different, the more I am cheating myself. I am slowly learning to embrace my subtle differences, and while doing this may disallow me to obtain some of things I long for, nothing is worth being fake.

The Art of Fiction

{ Swinging his arms with the natural movement of his body; putting one foot in front of that other as if each step would add another day to his life, he continued his steady jog down the sidewalk on main street towards the bridge that leads into the city. With his eyes transfixed on the lights of the sun as they bounced off he moon and streamed their way through the earth's atmosphere to illuminate his path, he trudged on through the night's cool air.

Navigating himself across the street before the bridge and through the enclosed entrance, he continued on to the separated walk area on the left side. Having a slight incline, he strained a bit to keep up his pace, but tried his best to ignore the pain as he approached the plateau. Having no real destination, he used the moon as his compass and continued to make his way across this man-made structure with a spherical glow in his sights.

He chose the left side so that he could see the oncoming traffic. While there was a divider, it was only waste-high and he felt more secure knowing what was coming. Deep in his thoughts though, who knows if anything could have caused him to break out of his trance. Shuffling through the chaotic memories, one in particular he concentrated on for five, six, seven steps, and like a light beam had burned right through the back of eye and continued to pass through his brain and out of the back of his head and down to the earth, anchoring him to the ground, everything became still.

A moment later, what seemed like an eternity to him, the beam shattered and his head reverberated, producing a mind-numbing ring. He mistook it for a horn, and not seeing anything in front him he whipped his head around his shoulder. Such a sudden movement threw him off balance and as he tried to turn straight ahead, he tripped over his own feet causing his body to be thrown right into the divider. Being exceptionally agile, while his feet were all tangled, he was able to catch himself somewhat without actually topping over into the road. Slouching over the cement wedge staring at the ground, he heard the distinct sound of a car horn. Looking to where the sound was coming from, his left, two miniature moons were coming his way, and fast. Pushing off as hard as he could, he launched himself backward onto the sidewalk, landing first on his ass and having no choice but to stabilize himself with his elbows.

Not wanting to think about the pain, he lay down and looked up at what comforted him the most, the night sky. Two tears streaming down the sides of his face, the moon was now oblong and he found this strangely comforting. Embracing himself and closing his eyes, he continue to lay there as a part of the bridge. As cars traversed the bridge, it would shake, and with his hands on his chest, he would match the rumbles to the beats of his heart.

After a while, he glanced to the right to see that there was a small opening to allow water to pass through at the bottom of the divider to his right. He watched several cars pass, although all he could see were the tires and bottom portion of the frame. From his sideways perspective, three cars traveled North and four cars traveled South. Looking down the sidewalk itself, he saw an army of ants marching North, with huge amounts of dirt on their back. Just the fact that he witnessed more cars traveling in the opposite direction of the ants made him smile. He would finish his run while clinging on to this very thought. } - A short story

Fluid Emotion

Imagine a big bowl of liquid happiness. You can't simply use your hand and scoop it out as you please, but instead you must use two fingers and pinch together as much as you can before it evaporates. Slowly I'm coming to the realization that happiness and fulfillment are extremely temporary and fleeting. You don't simply find it; you must constantly work to hold onto it. You often see in the movies someone who becomes happy and blurts out something along the lines of, "I'm so happy, I could die right now". This might lead you to believe that once you achieve it, you won't ever lose it. This might be why I have trouble with Buddhism and the "enlightenment" process. Like most of my posts, I have done no research prior to writing them. I am under the assumption that once you become enlightened, you are indefinitely fulfilled. It all seems like a final destination, and of course I have huge issues with anything that's considered to be final.

A friend was once described to me as never being happy. This didn't strike me as being odd, because, well, who is every really happy? I suppose maybe this person has higher standards than most people, and so it is that much harder for them to find whatever it is they want. The point I want to get across though is that happiness isn't constant and only occurs in short bursts. So in a sense, we are all essentially wistful by nature. While it is possible to come to a point in your life where happiness occurs more often, it's virtually impossible for it to be constant.

When thinking about the millions of connections that are made in the brain every second, it's hard to believe all of them would contain thoughts of happiness. Longing for example is something most experience every single day. It's quite unavoidable and is just one instance that detracts from our happiness. We all yearn for something, and have incessant needs that do not dissipate over time. We all changed psychologically over time as well and those needs change.

Much like plucking a fly out of the air with a pair of tweezers, we have to learn how to obtain what we want and maintain a strict effort to make it last. I might sound like I'm contradicting my earlier post about free will and determinism if I say it's completely up to us and our efforts to obtain happiness, so I will say this: Human are whimsical beings. We may never understand what exactly makes us happy, but we have a general idea. While our happiness may be entirely deterministic, if you throw enough darts, sooner or later, you'll hit the center. Eventually, while you may never get the exact muscle memory to do it every time, you can learn to hit it much more often. We make whimsical changes to our lives out of pure curiosity and we learn to harness these changes so that have a higher chances of hitting the bulls-eye. Avoiding any conflictions with my strong devotion to determinism, all of these are indirect changes. Not entirely a shot in the dark, much like quantum mechanics, but an educated guess.

The Wistful Author

I'm not sure if it's just the authors I have been reading, but beneath all of the stories there seems to be an underlying tone of melancholy integrated into each sentence. I went to a museum of art yesterday with my father and stepmother and we took a small tour in which they explained how they used an x-ray to authenticate each painting. By scanning through each layer, you can see how the painting was produced, step by step. By doing this you can better imagine what the artist was thinking while they worked. The first layer of one painting contained a sketch of a woman's face, and the complete product was that of a flower garden.

If only this were possible with literature. I remember watching an interview on television of an author of a book about her family. The interviewer brought up that while reading her book, even though it wasn't written from a third person perspective, he felt as if she was doing just that. Mind you this was several years ago, so I'm not exactly sure what they said. But when he questioned her about how he felt that her writing seemed to be somewhat detached, she didn't wholly refute it. He then asked her if she felt that most authors were introverts and actually prefer to observe and write about their surroundings instead of actually being involved. A few details aside, I believe she agreed with his assertion. From her tone of voice and body language, she was a little hesitant in admitting it, but you could tell that's how she felt.

I certainly can't assign this home-made stereotype to every author who ever existed, but perhaps a big chunk of them. Of course the one that pops into my head first is Jane Austin. I've never read any biographies of her, but I did see the movie Becoming Jane; from what I've heard, it's pretty accurate. Her real-life romance did not endure, but she vowed that women in her novels would not share the same fate. These authors yearn for something incredible, something of great value to them, and after coming to the realization that these things are very rarely obtained in real-life, they've devoted themselves to creating this special something in their own writing. This is why they write. This is why I write.

Relating to the comics in my last post, for some folks it just isn't enough to experience something. By writing their thoughts down, they are either making more sense of past events (non-fiction), or morphing experiences into an alternate reality (fiction) which tells a story that encompasses a more complete and fulfilling experience; or it could be a mixture of the two. Either way, it seems to me that these authors aren't content until they get the contents of their mind on paper. So I wonder if we were all to become content with our lives as is, would there be any more literature? I suppose science-related work would be exempt here. I believe they say that most art (including novels) stem from extreme emotion generated from some sort of tragedy. Imagine if you could somehow examine every single penny in every single fountain in the world and trace it back to the wish of the person who made it. "World Peace", would be in the majority. Imagine if that were to come true.