Category: philosophy

it’s not getting better

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It’s not getting worse either, but everything seems difficult.

Each and all is one calamity after the other, one hurdle after another.

If this universe is intended to be benevolent, or even just in its neutrality, then it is doing a poor job.

We have found hell, and it is life.

Target: 600 words
Written: 733 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: People Of The Deer, Farley Mowat
Comics: Monstress 29-30, Monstress: Talk Stories 1-2
Music: Voodoo People, The Prodigy (pretty much the only electronic music I consistently enjoy; the rest is mostly bullshit)

the science of trauma

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It’s the science of impact, not influence, but impact, IMPACT, something smashing into you so hard, like a monster asteroid that slams you off course, out of your steady elliptical orbit, to plummet out into space, away from your neighbours, away from the source of your light and heat, away from where you’re supposed to be, out into the endless void, where it is dark and frozen and immensely lonely and the only hope is that somehow, there’s something close enough, large enough, with enough gravity to suck you in and put you back on your axis, but the void is so big, and so empty, and there’s no guarantee you’ll be close enough to centre in your new rotation, that you’ll be in that sweet spot where life can bloom, but instead you’re cold, cold, cold, shivering without relent, or on fire, burning, bleeding, blisters bursting in poison gas…

This is the nature of trauma, and it pays to remember: there’s a hell of a lot more void than stars.

Target: 600 words
Written: 269 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: People Of The Deer, Farley Mowat
Comics: Monstress 17-20
Music: Volumen 1993-2003, Bjork (I don't know what it is about her, but there is no female artist on the planet I connect with more; something about it - there's an innate empathy, an honesty, an innocence that's somehow all mixed up with sex and love, but in the sweetest way... Maybe it's youthful memory, but there's love in them there words)

welcome back to emotional destitution

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I know people don’t care and they sneer at people when they’re suffering, the whole “suck it up, princess” thing and sometimes, that’s a valid requirement for getting out of the shit, but sometimes…

Fuck you. Sanctimonious fucks.

Those same people often rip open their chests to show us their bleeding hearts when the sum total requirement of their action and empathy is a post on social or an off-hand comment about those poor people.

But when it counts?

When it’s people they might actually have to deal with in their lives, rather than just people they can posture around? When the reality comes in?

Suck it up, princess.

Useless.

Eye rolls.

“They just want drama.”

Absolute dismissal.

If your empathy and ability to understand the struggles and needs of those around you ends with a couple of lines on Facebook or an off-hand comment about how hard someone has it to friends to forgive behaviour that doesn’t affect you in the slightest?

You’re not empathetic. You’re not compassionate. You’re not an open-minded person who wants to help people. If you can’t hold that same empathy and understanding for the people actually in your life, whose behaviour influences your world?

Well, then, fuck you. You’re just another self-important prick, more interested in looking good than being good.

Target: 600 words
Written: 369 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: People Of The Deer, Farley Mowat
Comics: Monstress 13-16
Music: Volume 2, CKY

man

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It all gets away from us so easily, doesn’t it?

Like trying to hold on to glass covered in WD-40.

Target: 500 words
Written: 1286 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: The Sword Of Shannara, Terry Brooks
Comics: Y The Last Man 49-52
Music: The Voice: The Best Of Ultravox, Ultravox

one hundred

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A hundred days into this year and we’ve already had multiple collapses, blood issues and a totality.

Sometimes, I’d like there to be a totality inside me, either to end it all or to burn away all the shit. Blind it with a shining aura, a brilliance unendurable except with the darkest glasses.

But the world keeps turning, a disturbing number of people think a man who thought it was intelligent to stare directly at an eclipse is a genius and hate seems to creep further into our lives each and every day.

We need another revolution. Another love-in.

Where’s our John and Yoko? Our sexual revolution appears to revolve around people making sex tapes, where wearing bikinis on your social media is a viable career path.

Where’s our screaming punk? Where’s our Kurt Cobain, hitting the nerves of a generation so raw that it changes entire cultures?

Where’s logic? Where’s freedom? Where are hearts and connection and compassion and a basic understanding of kindness?

Where’s the less ineffectual left? Where’s the sober right?

Where the fuck is everybody?

Social media is madness. Our world is mad.

This has been your daily agonized howl into the void, unable to stand anymore.

Target: 500 words
Written: 191 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 21-24
Music: Villains, The Verve Pipe

some music

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Some music just moves you. I just finished writing and while James Brown and Night Train was cool, I definitely funked out more to Modest Mouse and Steam Engenius, because SO. FUCKING. GOOD.

My tastes range, and it’s fine. I don’t mind following up Minor Threat with Rihanna or Dean Martin with Henry Rollins. There’s nothing wrong with an Eminem and Beatles mix, or Pink Floyd and NOFX.

It’s all about being open, and enjoying the moment. Falling into it and letting it happen, letting it be what it is and letting go of whatever else is happening.

Music is the most powerful presence creator; there’s a reason we love it in all its forms. It speaks to something primal within us that just wants to live. Here, now, forever in the groove, connecting and commiserating with our fellow humanity, free from all the rest of the world’s shit.

Target: 500 words
Written: 209 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: High Hunt, David Eddings
Comics: Y The Last Man 5-8
Music: Vespertine, Bjork

dance good

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My niece is a competitive dancer; she’s pretty darn good. I, on the other hand, do a passable white man at best.

I can sort of do the Carlton (and yes, I have a couple of favourite Tom Jones songs – probably the same ones as every other white boy).

I am a basic bitch.

But she is not. She is skilled to the point where maybe it could be a career. I’m not sure dancers make careers out of it for the cash, but rather, the love of the dance, the camaraderie, possibly even the travel.

And then, of course, a school. Teaching what can be taught to the willing and unwilling alike.

But it is the love of the thing that makes it worthwhile; it is a failure of our society not to reward the arts as it would any other profession. A dancer plays a role in society, with more love than some paper-pusher. It is refreshing to the soul, ours and the artist’s.

That’s worth something, is it not?

Target: 500 words
Written: 308 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Dancing Barefoot, Wil Wheaton
Comics: Rat Queens 4-7
Music: Venue Songs, They Might Be Giant (an entire album of hastily composed songs about the stages upon which they played on a particular tour?  Well, then.  Kind of brilliant, in a way.)

yellow birds

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My sister-in-law wrote a book. She’s been in the game longer than I have, and thus, has much better connections, and so, it was only a little surprising to see the quality turnout at her book launch tonight.

It was fun, good to see people I haven’t seen in a while, surprising to see people I have never seen show up in abundance.

The power of networking, I suppose, of actually talking to people in the flesh.

Me, I’m more of a one-on-one kind of person, and I’d rather be alone than not.

Still, it was nice to see that people will still come out to support people, even when they’re only loosely connected.

My dream is of a world that supports art for the sake of art, and that it doesn’t need to be commercialized or branded; it can just be.

That was a nice reminder that this can still happen.

Target: 500 words
Written: 196 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Pride And Prejudice And Zombies, Seth Grahame-Smith
Comics: East Of West 32-35
Music: The Vanilla Tapes, The Clash

grandaughterin’

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We are off to see that baby bundle of toddler joy once again, on a long weekend celebrating my wife’s birthday, my Irish background and the fact of my granddaughter’s existence, a miracle unto itself.

Of course, that we’re here at all is a miracle of chance and collision, an order within the chaos, neither of which could have come without the other.

Target: 500 words
Written: 194 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, Tucker Max
Comics: East Of West 16-19
Music: Know Your Enemy, Green Day (I do - apathy and greed, consumerism and the overarching need to feed, feed, feed)

yesterday

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Sorry about that. I guess maybe we’re not in a place where green apple splatters and sexual proclivities are ready to be discussed.

But…

This is the thing about this blog. I never started it intending to pretend to be someone else. I spent too many years full of shit and now, I am doing my best to transition into being someone who is honest, open and compassionate, who always makes the effort to see as many perspectives as he can, while not ignoring the simple realities of things.

A softy without blinders.

A man of honest assessment, without pretense or bullshit.

Because I don’t want to be an icon. I don’t want to be a role model, though I know, if I can live the way I would like, it would inevitably set an example. Of course, every way anyone behaves sets an example; whether it’s a good one or whether anyone follows it are separate questions.

I want to be honest, and that means warts. That means too much information. That means nothing is out of bounds, save the desires of those around me not to be discussed (filtered where appropriate). I respect the privacy of others. I am a private man myself, despite my admissions.

I don’t want people all up in my business, but neither do I want to hide my foibles.

I suppose I shouldn’t hide my successes either, but damned if I won’t try to downplay them; I don’t live for praise. I would just like people to be able to see my work.

I’m not a good networker.

These things are all true.

These things are all filtered, as is everything.

Cognitive filtration is automatic.

Target: 400 words
Written: 341 words, novella: The Mungk

Read: Welcome To Night Vale, Cranor/Fink (Fink/Cranor?)
Comics: Tokyo Ghost 9-10 (seriously - maybe the best comic of all time.  It deserves to be in the conversation with Watchmen, Miller's Dark Knight, etc.)
Music: The King Of Limbs, Radiohead