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I need a break from life and from this computer. Period.

A terrible mistake

There isn’t much to report this week; a bad choice of words on my part helped to bring about an uncomfortable situation with a friend who now doubts my authenticity as a person. This is what I get for putting myself out to interested parties without realizing the consequences of actions. As I am not in the business of breaking hearts, I have decided to be on guard with myself and with people in general and my ability to make emotional covenants with them.

As that is, I feel horrible right now, very depressed this day.

I had an altercation with my little brother on account of me of partly eating a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos; even though they are his I was hungry and I had promised to buy him another bag. Instead of assenting he threw a tantrum that developed into a situation where he and I were yelling at one another. The entire backstory to this is that he raised his voice at Mom yesterday in the presence of some of her co-workers, who were astonished at his behavior towards her. I intervened and called him out for it. Anyone who calls my mother a bitch and demands things like a spoiled child is not worthy of a car. He accuses us of eating us out of house and home, when in fact he gorges himself on entire bags of potato chips as soon as they come out of the grocery store. He causes impromptu parties which keep me and my mom up all night, takes the family car without permission and is generally disagreeable when he doesn’t get what he wants.

I wish I didn’t have to deal with circumstances like these. I am tired of screaming at the top of my lungs, of threatening violence, of dealing with my little brother’s stingy-roommate-like selfishness and secrecy, much less his refusal to share foodstuffs with his family (which is a capital sin, by the way), and his childish insistence that he is, and will always be, correct. I have sworn, as The Lord Almighty is my witness, that the next time he endeavors to insult me or my mother, it will be the end of my stay here in this house.

Ich bin der Welt…

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,
Mit der ich sonst viele Zeit verdorben,
Sie hat so lange nichts von mir vernommen,
Sie mag wohl glauben, ich sei gestorben!

Es ist mir auch gar nichts daran gelegen,
Ob sie mich für gestorben hält,
Ich kann auch gar nichts sagen dagegen,
Denn wirklich bin ich gestorben der Welt.

Ich bin gestorben dem Weltgetümmel,
Und ruh’ in einem stillen Gebiet!
Ich leb’ allein in meinem Himmel,
In meinem Lieben, in meinem Lied!

I am lost to the world
with which I used to waste so much time,
It has heard nothing from me for so long
That it may very well believe that I am dead!

It is of no consequence to me
Whether it thinks me dead;
I cannot deny it,
For I really am dead to the world.

I am dead to the world’s tumult,
And I rest in a quiet realm!
I live alone in my heaven,
In my love and in my song!

–Friedrich Ruckert (1788-1866)

Good Friends/The Mysterious Barricades

I have recently noticed some marked changes in my outward behavior and outlook on life; whether these are indicative of large-scale changes in my personality or perhaps a reflection of past events coming back into the present sphere of reality, I am not sure; nonetheless I feel I am compelled today to write about the sentiments which have late perturbed me so.

I am worried about my friends. I have made many this year, thank God, but I am not sure if their current state in my life is permanent. For most of my life I’ve had people come in and out so quickly that I feel myself longing for a more static group to be around. I remind myself, however, that people on average do not have very secure relationships with others, and that aside from the people we settle down with, most humans are either friendless or very isolated from one another, for various socioeconomic, geographical, or ethical reasons.

It was surprising to others, and not necessarily to myself, that I would adopt such a view. But now that youth has slackened itself from me somewhat, I realize my views would probably be considered as jaded, or even nihilistic, but somehow coherent to reality.

I’m pulling away from Christianity in a way that scares me and satisfies me. The various sentiments of my friends in the Christian community–who, it seems, are more uniformly concerned with criticizing other elements of Christianity and other creeds, rather than applying the Gospel to their daily lives. My relations with Pastor Kevin, for example, are no longer on warm terms, despite his obvious attempts to affect personal success within me, because of his increasingly shrill declamations of Mormonism, Catholicism and Islam, in addition to a vocal dislike of the Jewish people. I am worried that these ministrations, done in the name of the Loving Savior, may turn people away from grace rather than affect them to it. What worries me is that his intolerance of my sexual orientation may be the final straw for him–it doesn’t worry me so much as it did a couple of months ago. I realize now that people who are critical of something uniquely personal and natural to me aren’t worthy of my consideration, since they are either not intelligent enough to understand it, nor open-minded enough to appreciate it effects.

And on the opposite side of the coin, I feel like lately I’ve been so absolutely vindictive with people that I’ve called friends, and even those who might harbor romantic affections for me. I have been mindful that I do like to hurt people on occasion, for various, sometimes nonexistent reasons. One thing that worries me is when that need for hurting people will manifest itself in a trait to do so–or if it is already present, when it will become active. I’m a nice person. I’m intelligent, humble, well-mannered, and well-spoken. Why do I see fit to hurt people in retaliation for supposed wrongs? What is in me that causes me to do this?

Peter often describes his experiences–his frustration and indignation–at what he sees as selling himself and his personality to people. But I realize nowadays that is the norm–one gets online, puts up a profile, and invites passersby to take advantage of “good opportunities”–and then there are others, more still, who just take and take and take and never give back, never love, never appreciate, never exchange, but keep on perpetuating the abuse in their lives. These people are in high positions–students on the verge of graduation, businesspeople, who are either too bored with the mess they’ve made of their lives at home and seek outward tranquillity or too deluded to care. And these are the people I’m somehow burdened with. And my negative opinion of them taints my ability to like and enjoy the company of others, so much so that it makes me depressed and suicidal. I keep on reiterating the statement to people I do talk to: I don’t like irresponsible people. Because, if you have no accountability with anything or anyone else, then how am I to be convinced that you are accountable with me? Some of these people have the highest and most sophisticated of degrees, excel in their fields, advance art–but they are degenerate in their tastes and desires, and base in their aspirations and humanity. This makes me hate humanity. It has caused me to lose faith in it.

I thought I had good friends for awhile, but now I’m not so convinced of it. I’m ignored. People never come by, or visit, or call, or even write. I am background noise to them; the ineffectual memory of an action–a conversation held some years ago, a card sent in the mail, an IM session a couple of months ago. People don’t want to spend time with me because they feel I’m tedious. Or I don’t offer up to them something they can take advantage of easily. And because I do have a conscience, because I say the things that I do because I truly worry about who we are as a people–I am excluded. I embrace the exclusion. Better to be a martyr for a belief than a whore for the opposition. No trips to other countries to see decaying works of art could possibly satisfy the need that eats people alive–the need to live apart from the material, apart from the coprophagy of this world.

I am losing my friends. And I am not getting older. I am glad, though, that I am increasing in a knowledge of what people do and how they are to be dealt with. I have no hope in living anymore. Life isn’t a goal or something to look forward to; it’s more like a series of interrelated experiences with a great amount of consequences. You pick and choose what happens to you–inevitably, things are good for awhile, and then bad things reign, and good things come back. There are these mysterious walls between people that need to be broken down. I wonder what death is like–so many people that were close to me have died this year–and I feel now I can appreciate its gravity and its transcendence. And maybe, there is nothing I crave for more than death–death to myself, death to the world as we know it, death to pain and suffering–I crave it and want it so badly. And yet, unbelievably, I want to live and experience as much as I can.

10 Things You Must Know About Me

1. I’m an experimental musician and a composer. That doesn’t mean I can play Für Elise like Alicia Keys, or the Super Mario Bros. Theme (although I have tried).

2. I love bodybuilding and weightlifting in general, having recently picked it up after not being able to in some time. And while that means I’m generally bigger than most people, it doesn’t mean I’m an idiot for just being built.

3. I graduated summa cum laude, the only person to do so in my field (Experimental Music) and the only music student of my very small college to do so. It’s academically significant, but serves little but to bolster my name among my peers (most of whom have the same title in their degrees).

4. I am of a mixed race.

5. I like to sleep on my side. I also like to sleep on my back, but with my neck and shoulders supported, since it is more comfortable for me.

6. In high school I wrote a scurrilous, homoerotic “novel” about four Roman Catholic priests living in a large Cathedral in Chicago, Illinois. I burned it when I was eighteen as a sign of artistic defiance. It was more than 300 pages long.

7. I was conceived at a be-in.

8. I have lived in New Mexico, Texas, California, Alaska, New York, and Michigan.