The room is a trap. The boxes stack themselves into a barricade of cardboard and plastic. The paint sits in a frustrating, color-coordinated pattern. The tubes mimic and taunt while the brushes lay angrily without patience. I can't concentrate. I can't think. I can't produce original concepts that are striking in technique. I can't compete with high school graduates who have taken more than a semester of an entry level drawing and painting class. I can't focus on anything. Nothing is important. The rage has been building and in a near-tears panic, the boxes form a circle, encompassing my head. Why do I learn? Why don't I? What happened to my desire to excel? Why does everything I attempt seem so far out of reach and why the hell have I lost all motivation to do absolutely anything? Nothing seems worth while. I don't like it here. Drowning in a sea of doubt and failure, it is impossible to emerge. Failure is staying down. I don't remember what it was like to be above water. I don't remember what it was like to feel success.

The Conveyor Belt

I hate being stuck on the conveyor belt, but I guess I'm scared of jumping off, because that would really be the only way to get off of it. One abrupt leap signifying the end of your traveling along the belt. Then what happens? Failure? Certainly not failure, otherwise you wouldn't have jumped in the first place. Or would you have? Maybe the risk of failure was worth the jump in the first place because the conveyor belt was leading you down an inescapable tunnel and you only had moments to make your decision. Perhaps you were forced off. Despite how one would remove themselves from the belt, there is still the question of what happens next? At first, you can't step into anything overly ambitious.

He's there in case I wandered off.
He's scared cause I warned
He's scared cause I want it all
He's scared cause I won.

I want to be consistently productive. I want to be innovative. I want to force a mirror in front of society and dismantle the conveyor belt. I want my art to be sought after and admired. I want my art to be that mirror. I want to explore beyond the boundaries of beyond the boundaries. I want to be somebody, do something, go somewhere and change everything. And yet, I am stuck on the conveyor belt.. going forward towards the tunnel and I don't know what will happen if I jump.

Where are we?

Point to yourself.

Where is your finger aimed? You chest? Perhaps your head?
Are you either of those things? Are you your chest or head?
No, those are parts of you. But where are you?

You are thoughts inside of your mind. Your body is not you, but merely an appearance representing you as in fact, your body exists. All people are essentially thoughts. Do not become angry or fearful of people so much as the ideas they are projecting. Most ideas have been thought before, so why are we important?
We are important in decreasing the amount of suffering each other experiences. Our entire lives, we suffer. From the moment we are born, we are crying and throughout our lives we will again feel sadness or pain or discontentment. To be alive is to suffer.
Though to be alive is not only to suffer, but to rejoice; to feel pleasure and enjoyment. All things are temporary yet we seek pleasure and happiness from these temporary things. Happiness is to feel pleasure, contentment or joy. True happiness can be found not in material possessions or wealth or power, but in love.   Love is a profoundly tender or passionate affection. Love for another person is true when you do not care whether or not they make you happy, including by being in love with you. Love for another person is when you want them to be happy and are willing to help them achieve such contentment despite your own. Love is wanting for all people to be happy and wanting all thoughts to be content.

Are you satisfied?
Do you want anything? Have you any desires? Most likely, you will. But this can be overcome. Once you experience pleasure and happiness in an instance, you will desire to feel that way again. But you must remember, everything is impermanent. Do not become attached to people or things.
And this is where I stop you.
Do not become attached to people or things? Is attachment what causes suffering? When you like something or another person and suddenly, you can not have this thing or person any longer, you suffer. You desire for that feeling of happiness and contentment to continue. Would you not be lonely and saddened to release yourself from attachment? I suppose you must in the end, live for others, not just for one other and not just for yourself, but for all. That is when you become truly happy, but very few people will experience this.

Failure and Apathy

Never have I spent so great an abundance of effort on schoolwork only to be dissatisfied with the outcome. I feel nothing but miserable apathy and a conflicting urge to succeed yet give no regard to my education. Art is a passion that I have always had, one that has risen and sunk at varies times over the past sixteen years. Creating is something I want to spend the rest of my life doing and so far, I am quite content with this. However, this societal structure in which I am forced to reside in until I become of legal age, is one that bombards the youth with an idealized notion of happiness and success via completion of high school with approximately a 4.0, followed by the admittance to a prestigious university. Perhaps it is merely the town in which I am raised that pressures us to compete fiercely among our peers and beloved friends. Regardless, I feel that the standard is set to an emotionally and mentally strenuous level that is completely unnecessary for all youth to undergo. My passion can be lived with absolutely no school. I have always been self-taught and for others whose life goal may stray towards another light, a rigid and thorough educational process could be construed as applicable. Of course, this is all coming from an individual who is careless and desires ultimate freedom to creative expression. I loathe all limits and law that keep me chained to a desk and chair at odd hours of the night only to further my understanding of insignificant (in terms of my life-goal) subjects which consequently deny me the opportunity to create and enjoy life. Life is far too brief to spend dwindling away precious time with negligible pursuits. Unfortunately, the next year and half of my high school career will, as I anticipate, slowly suffocate all artistic and creative potential I once had. I will maintain a mundane observation of the environment which confines me to this hell for as long as is necessary to satisfy the requirements of ravenous wolves and pigs.

The Utopian Ideal

I've come about a dissatisfaction with my community and not to offend anyone, but in general, my peers. I'm not so cynical as to detest the entire human race and care nothing for the common good of the people. I'm not Ayn Rand. But certainly, I feel that being a minority in beliefs, such as I am, it's hard to not feel like on a daily basis, that I am putting forth a facade. The notion that I too, believe in what is fed to me, that I too will aggressively assert the rationality and realistic principles of a standard governing society. On the contrary, I detest out society. Not the people within the community, as they all have immense potential to extract themselves of this materialistic, competitive, consumerist, environment of societal and religious dogma. However, there is such conflict over the way our people ought to be ruled. Yes, ruled. Consciously diving into a typical nonconformist, anti-society rant that I know so many people would mock and yet, I believe there is truth in the nonconformist ideal. I've heard a number of my peers proclaim that they do what they want and live the lives they want, but I assure you, this is anything but true. We, as people, we do not seek this lifestyle. Some will say that people by nature are mere sheep, following the herd or leader. This is true to some extent, but few individuals as unfortunate as that is, choose to stray past those societal barriers. If you want the truth, I could not care less about material possessions. Take my bass, take my cell phone, take my ipod. Just leave me with my dignity and self-respect. This is not typical, the whole "minimalist" lifestyle, but it is the last freedom we have. The journey to this realization is not for the emotionally weak but for the few that make it here, it is the most liberating experience. After you reach this point in your life, all you see when you look around at others is misery. Others won't be aware of their misery, but they will be drowning in it. You may or may not choose to save them. I don't advise it as people are nearly impossible to change in their ways, as many a people can be stubborn and close-minded. Not to say that all people are, and I'm sure this entire rant is coming off as arrogant and condescending, but I assure you that I do not mean for it to. People by nature are corruptible and susceptible to a path of self-destruction and greed. I believe this can be controlled to a great extent. An extent so great that I believe in the utopia. I identify myself as a Social Anarchist. Immediately upon hearing the word "anarchy" a good deal of people are put off and aren't willing to consider it anymore than what they've been taught. The ... I don't want to say idiots, but I will anyway.. idiots would assume that anarchy is synonymous with chaos and destruction, a "free for all" if you will. No, that's exactly what anarchism is trying to avoid. Anarchism is a term that is extremely hard to define. It can refer to many different ideas and concepts. I suppose in a vague sense, it would be a lack of government. It would be a society run by communities of people without a state or federal government controlling their lives. It would be freedom at it's purist but never without personal and moral responsibility. Responsibility is a major factor in anarchism. It would not be plausible if each individual was not taught how to interact in the society so as to make the society functional. An anarchist society would in fact incorporate democratic principles as well as socialism and the European definition of "libertarianism", (If you have ever read or heard Chomsky's linguistic theories relative to political theory terms, you will understand that for different cultures there are different meanings of different words.) as well as communism. Communism in it's most pure form (and I think this is where all the other societal structures who have attempted communism have failed by having an authoritative government asserting dominance over the public to any degree.) is essentially anarchism as anarchism is stateless communism. Anarchism is based on the idea of all individuals working together for the common good with no corporations of politicians making a benefit off of them, at their expense. For example, I volunteer at a radically-leftist community center and bookstore. We have monthly meetings and at each meeting, we take votes on what we want to do with any extra money we've made or what to do about changing the keys or what have you. We do have managers who essentially elect themselves depending on whether or not they're up for the position and most people are not because it is a great deal of work. Regardless, we do have "managers" and we do take votes and we do have assigned projects and positions, yet this is anarchism. Nothing is mandatory, there is no dress code, there are no rules, we just ask that you do not steal or offend. We do not threaten those that might steal with prosecution, we just explain why they should not, as we are a nonprofit organization and we contribute to the community and are trying to re-educate others and offer alternative materials, etc. Another example of anarchism in the community is the RRFM or the "Really Really Free Market" in carrboro that occurs on the first saturday of the month. This is based on the gift-economy concept. Anyone who has extra items, materials, products or services or means of entertainment are welcome to show up and provide them to the public, which receives the aforementioned and may also give back. It ensures that all people within the community have what they need and can give what they have an excess of. Of course this is all optional and made into an enjoyable experience so nobody feels trapped in the process. This gift-economy eliminates the need for a middle man and large corporations with absurdly greedy CEO's. It has been working among our anarchist community for years. Anarchism does work, as it is working, however at the moment just as individualist anarchists within their community and not as an entire society. Most people will claim that anarchism, or any other radical-leftist political ideal is denying human nature. They claim that human nature is to reflexively and instinctively steal, lie, murder, rape, covet, etc without laws to prevent them from doing so. Laws are simply restraints. Laws have their faults (need I remind us of the law banning same-sex marriage from most states, the law banning marijuana, or the fact that for so long there were laws banning females the right to vote, that we were legally bound to segregation and slavery, that we instilled the patriot's act in our society to reenact big brother, or that for a few periods in time, abortion was illegal, etc.) and therefore, just as someone could claim that anarchism, communism, socialism etc are idealist utopias, well so are democracy and capitalism if you want them to be pure. We have lobbyists who can buy elections, we have wars that are fought for oil and claimed for terror, we have countries that claim to be the land of the free that advocated for child labor in factories and still advocates for child labor in foreign countries of which we supply our corporations with their stocks. We have innocent men and women being sentenced to death or multiple years in prison, we have doctors put in jail for assisted suicide when we allow euthanasia in pets because we see only that as humane. We are corrupt and we call ourselves a democracy. I'll rant more about this at a later time.

I'm Not Happy

If you're reading this, I won't mention you by name, I just thought what you said was important enough to blog about.

There have been numerous times in my life that I haven't exactly felt "happy". But what is "happy"? To feel happy is "delighted, pleased, or glad, as over a particular thing", meaning there has to be something to cause the happiness, "a particular thing". Honestly, the only times I've been depressed was during my childhood for certain reasons but I was never just not happy but not depressed. But I think as a person grows and discovers their identity and purpose in the world, their cause for living, they question everything and they go on this inner journey to "find themselves" as cliche as that may sound. During this process, a person can feel so out of body, like just thoughts within a different person who moves around the brain. It's the strangest feeling, almost scary, to look in the mirror and not recognize yourself. To look at the reflection and think to yourself "who is that? is that what I look like? Is that me?". It's utterly perplexing when your get so lost in your head that you become unaware of your outer self. Before I get off topic, that point in your life which comes at varies stages in your young adulthood where you are somewhat apprehensive about "leaving the nest" and finding your own path is terrifying. It's difficult to make that leap and take a risk that could screw up the rest of your life if you don't land where you intended to. The in between period is even worse, the one where you know you have to make that leap but you can't for whatever reason. You must wait and it's slowly killing you inside to know that now's the time. Now you must move but you can't. Perhaps this is why some people are unhappy. Of course in the broader sense of unhappy, for most it is simply the feeling of not having things turn out the way you'd prefer or to not have someone in your life to love and share romantic feelings with. Maybe right now, you were supposed to have achieved so much more in your life than you have. For the longest time, maybe 5 months, I was very empty. Like I could smile and fake excitement and spend time with friends but I could never stop myself from thinking "I'm not happy." I kept returning to certain events in the past, emotions and memories that held me back from creating new memories, from being happy and accepting new experiences. Of course this was a process relevant to myself, maybe others if they were in the same situation which isn't terribly uncommon, but after a while, you let down your walls again. It's a slow process, but you start to take things for their most beautiful and positive aspects. That moment of awakening is so liberating, to look around and just be able to appreciate life and mirth and true beauty. To see everything and everyone in such a light that gives it all such meaning and you such contentment. It's the feeling of lying on a hill in complete solitude and staring up at the clouds and really feeling the grass beneath you and the air around you. Unfortunately, the more naturalistic and existential self-liberation isn't quite successful for most. Some people require companions. They need others to make them happy. Not necessarily a significant other, but simply people surrounding them who care for them and find enjoyment in spending time with them. This is a good type of happiness, but people are imperfect therefore you will have your up and downs but more often than not you will be happy. Most unfortunate of all are the people who seek happiness in wealth and commodities. Meaningless possessions that merely pile up and hold no significance, just momentary healing. This is a bit off topic, but I do regret telling some people that I'll always be there for them if they need someone to talk to. It's frustrating and tedious when you have a handful of people coming to you with their problems on a daily basis. I'm far too impatient for that, but for some, there really will always be an opportunity for me to be there for you and I will make it whenever it need be. For very few people, I care very deeply about and want them to find true happiness. It's saddening to know that those people might be unhappy. For few people, my love for them as individuals runs much deeper than my love for all people of the human race which carries so much potential, but I rarely tell those few people that I love them. I hope they know that I do. I just want them to be happy.

Minimalism

I'm sure I've touched on this subject or at the least of the basic principles pertaining to 'minimalism', but I really do want to specify in detail why it's so important. Minimalism is to be stripped down to the most fundamental features. I try to embrace this idea as much as possible because one must live simply so that others may simply live. I'll paint an abstract picture for you, if you will. A blank platform floating in space, unweighted. Slowly, the platform is bombarded with rocky textures spread across, silky transparent flows boring holes in the rock, which creates an edging of green material. Suddenly varies creatures of all shapes and sizes advance upon the green, forcing them to clear paths of it for their individual settlements. This is fine, the platform is able to sustain the amount of creatures and landforms. However, the creatures of course, forsaking the abstract now, are greedy, civilized yet uncivilized at the heart of the matter fools that take for granted all that their platform is capable of possessing. The people are innovative which is appropriate to certain extents. Innovation in itself satisfies a couple different needs. It supplies the demand of the people who desire advanced products. Of course the majority of the time, the people are unaware of this desire until the innovators convince them that they would be happier if they had more and better products. The other demand that innovation satisfies is the need within oneself. The need to create and engineer in order to challenge oneself and keep the mind and hand occupied. What is life without a purpose? But surely this purpose can be used in more productive ways than updating a cellular phone with multifarious capabilities that we don't necessarily want nor require.  Technological advancement is good, all societal revolutions and advancements should be encouraged so that we progress as a species but clinging to materialism and embracing consumerism is an atrocious disease that is spread amongst our culture. When did money create taste? Why do we not question our lifestyles? What makes teenagers so susceptible to consumerism in particular? Why is the American dream to live in suburbia with a white picket fence in back and 2.5 children with a husband who works and a wife who tends to the domestic areas. Personally, I object to all of that. I completely disagree that the only way for people to change their habits is for them to be forced or to be physically shown the negative impact of their lifestyle. You can simply be open minded or hear from another person's experience or even develop your own idea from different events. For example, we're polluting the only environment we have access to by burning oil for gas in our cars. But people don't see harsh enough effects of it to make us stop. Not all people though, some understand this concept without actually running out of oil to burn or being choked to death in a black smog. I think the real issue is laziness and apathy. That is the root of our problems. Specifically the generation before my own's problem. My own generation has unknowingly accepted the lovely chore of fixing everything. Well, either fixing or further destroying. Most of the general public would be so much happier, not to mention healthier if we lived simply. Not to say we should live like the Amish, because I really don't like the Amish, but maybe a small studio apartment would become the new ideal. Perhaps growing your own garden and eating from it on a regular basis would become the norm. Imagine if we all learned to knit and weave and could fashion our own clothing, or at least took advantage of secondhand stores where the idea is to recycle so as not to create additional waste. I will probably revisit this topic at a later time, but for now I'll leave it at that.

Because I Always Have a Topic

Today, no topic. No guidelines. Just write.

So, this format of writing suggests no prior outline or thought, or really very much effort. It feels odd, like I'm vulnerable which is crap because this is my blog, I make the decisions.

Regardless, I suppose I'll just write about current events that are unique to myself. That's a problem, I'm not unique, nothing that I have done recently or am doing currently has not been done by somebody else. Is that a problem? No, no I don't really think it is. You have options, or rather, I have options as to what I draw from in this pool of what has already been done. So now that we've cleared that up, I have been doing what a good deal of people do- practicing bass. I have a fender deluxe jazz bass (and the bridge happens to say "badass bass", because really, a bass is the most badass instrument in a typical "rock" band.) Oh, while we're on the subject of "rock band" instruments, I would like to say one thing. Bass is a damn cool instrument. I'm tired of all these guitarists saying that bass is unimportant and insignificant and hardly qualifies as a real instrument. Well, try taking it out of any band and notice the huge empty gap you hear which is regularly filled in by the bass. Seven Nation Army by the white stripes might have well included a bass because the guitar part was practically and imitation bass-line. The bass provides a low, deep, intimidating sound that fill the room and vibrates sound waves of massive proportions. Not to mention, it keeps the beat along with the drums, a steady, consistent beat, which without, there would be no purpose to the song, just a mishmash of notes that follow no order. Oh, and I'm especially tired of guys saying that only girls play bass. Not true, there are plenty of female guitarists and a few female drummers. Brody Dalle, for one. Kim Gordon played guitar as well as bass. The bass guitar is a lot heavier than the electric guitar and the neck is a shitload longer and the frets are a lot wider apart and the strings are goddamn ginormous, not to mention the bass amps themselves are heavy as shit. I can't even lift my small one, I have to let the drummer carry it up and down the stairs for practice and even he struggles. That was my semi-mini-defense rant about bass guitar.

What else have I been up to? Rediscovering art, for one. I'm taking two art classes in school, which I'm happy about because I'm too busy to do any artwork outside of school, which is a shame because that was my passion until I lost time for it. Today was the first day in months that I had held a piece of charcoal. It was liberating. I never wash it off my hands because the streak of your preferred medium is a badge of honor. You wear it with pride or you don't deserve it at all.

Other than bass and art, school. I actually don't hate all of my classes this year. In fact, I hate none. In my U.S. history class, a girl was trying to argue with me. She said that Sarah Palin had nothing to do with the tea party and that she is "not that conservative". She said it with such determination like she couldn't possibly be wrong and she said it in such a manner that she got other people to believe her. So I'm like "No, Sarah Palin most definitely endorsed campaigns for tea party activists and works with them and is definitely associated with tea partiers. And um, in case you didn't notice, Sarah Palin is the poster-girl for conservative." But she wouldn't listen. I think she's a republican. Or an idiot. Pshh like there's a distinction.

Oh, and still volunteering at Internationalist Books. Still fun. I like how every new volunteer we get, on their first day at the store, they always wear their che guevara t-shirts like they have to impress everyone. I find it cute. They're so enthusiastic because they think they're gonna learn a lot about radical leftism, mostly anarchism and then they figure out-nope. You're gonna learn how to shelve books. You might hear the occasional ramblings about "those damn corporate pigs!" every now and then, but it's not like we got a chomsky sittin in the back presenting speeches and opening up debates. No, we're a bookstore. We specialize in literature. Not to say we're not the coolest most radical bookstore ever and I love it so much I work for free, but yeah, still sell books people.

Guess that's about it. Still have no life plan. You know, besides happiness.

Personal Experience With Religion

I wrote this for a class, initially.

Personal Experience Reflection

      I signed up for this particular class, Comparative Religions, because one thing that I regard as a factor in my identity is my religious background, or lack thereof. It is unacceptable, in my opinion, for an individual who claims to reject religion in their personal life to be ignorant of different religions and have no justification for their decision aside from simple apathy. I want to educate myself, at least at a beginner’s level on varies religions that most of our human population follow. Religion can sometimes define a culture or a community or even an individual and it’s important to be aware of their beliefs.

      I hope that by taking this class, I will better my understanding of major religions and become familiar with particular customs, days of observations and a history or background of each. I’d like to find out the exact structure, composition, history, etc of the Christian bible. I’d like to learn more about the process of becoming an adult at age 13 for an individual who follows Judaism. I hope to obtain a firmer grasp of Islam and the guidelines Muslims live by. I’d love to learn the philosophies and beliefs of a Buddhist as well as the precedents and lifestyle of an individual who is Hindu.

      I was never raised in a particularly religious or spiritual background. My father’s side of the family consists, mainly of different denominations of Christians, while my mother’s side of the family is mainly Islamic. My father himself practices no religion while my mother used to enforce select Islamic beliefs in me such as not eating pork because the pig was seen as an “unclean” animal. At age 8, I disregarded all religious influence anyone might have had on me and chose for myself with previously no advanced knowledge of other religions. I had been exposed to my mother’s side of the family more than I had my father’s and had attended a few Muslim weddings and taken part in prayers and readings. At a very early age, probably from the age when a child can comprehend ideas such as religion and gods and such, I was influenced to believe that there was some higher power guiding its people spiritually and showing them guidance and then rewarding them. However as I though about it more and more and about human existence, I decided that religion is useful and unites people and provides guidelines to those who need or seek it and is a basis for community and culture in some circumstances, but was not for me. Somewhere around second grade, I declared myself atheist and it wasn’t until just recently that I felt the need to identify with something more than a rejection of a certain idea. I came about a few philosophies that I identify with and have chosen to find meaning in. Those philosophies include humanism, because I believe that meaning is found in people and that life itself is magnificent and alluring and all products of the being are of significance. Along with identifying as a humanist, I also am a bit of a naturalist as I find meaning in nature and the world that surrounds us. We are, after all, a product of our environment. Also, I am quite the existentialist, which can pose a problem every once in a while when I over analyze human existence. It’s extraordinary; the search for purpose and it’s interesting and yet mentally draining to constantly be pondering why we interact the way we do within our environment and for what cause do we live. I suppose psychology plays a role in all philosophies, and religions are more or less philosophies that influence your decisions and lifestyle.

What is beauty?

 Beauty, by definition is a quality within a thing or being that evokes pleasure or satisfaction. This definition is rather vague and offers a multitude of examples that might fit. Among mainstream society, “beauty” might be the face of a plastic, overly made up and anemic model on the cover of the most popular magazine, of which happens to contain an endless supply of advertisements for atrocious cosmetics. These products are the basis of beauty for the reader; the quest for success ends with the encouraging idea that beauty is this pseudo ideal set up by companies to profit at the expense of the self esteem of the general public. That is not beauty. That is an outrageous facade hand-fed to the youngest of children. Adversely, beauty, by the nonconformist’s standards, tends to be intentionally the opposite of what the public domain suggests as beauty. Personally, I feel that beauty is subjective. Beauty is everything and very few things all at the same time. Beauty, from the existential stand point comes from life and pure existence. Life in itself is a beautiful miracle. A humanist might say that people are limitless fountains of beauty, constantly projecting beautiful ideas, products and emotions. Whereas a naturalist might feel that beauty is within nature, land, the air we breathe. Beauty is all of those things; it is in people of all backgrounds, ideas of all sizes, emotions of all degrees of purity and everything inside and outside of every universe. Everything is beautiful to someone; everything is a highly symbolic work of art whether it is a product of society, the individual or raw emotion.  

Here's One of the Problems with Being an Existentialist

I've narrowed down the essence of my existence. The 'cabin in the woods' lifestyle appeals greatly to me. I seek flight, I want to escape, I wish to breathe easy and weightless among nature. I want to find serenity upon the earth where I shall forever lie. But I don't wish to do this alone. Like Frodo, I require a companion for this journey, a Sam, if you will. Certainly not a Sid, because I don't much care for Nancy. Independence is vital and the price of owning oneself is never too high. At times, I don't think petty interests such as politics are of much importance. Music, art, conversation, beautiful instances of joyful ... fuck this.
I stare out windows. A lot. I'll be sitting across from someone, and I'll look past them out the window. I'll think about everything. About how we're inside, contained in more or less a box because we've chosen that path, about how others walk freely outside because they have also chosen that path. I think about how all the people out there don't think about how they're free like that, but instead about how they're constantly in motion, on the way to being imprisoned. I think I have issues with buildings....
I lay in grass. This occurs frequently. Nothing matters more than the moment. Of course, I tend to analyze everything and it's like watching a movie and being aware of a specified plot the whole time and how the scene with the clouds is transitional or symbolic or something. This perspective certainly makes life a lot more interesting, and yet a lot more depressing. I can never live in the moment. It's terrible. I miss out on a lot of experiences by over analyzing them and fitting them into the overall picture of our existence. The grand scheme of things, where none of us are at all important. It's complex and hardly worth the time to debate, yet I find myself pondering it endlessly. I try not to, I try to live without those restraints, perhaps this is why I seek a free lifestyle, limitless.

Sigmund Freud is Influential

Attempting to bond with the external world is a failure as you can not simply fall out of this world. You must be pushed, or guided, to put it subtly. You are a product of your world and if you happen upon a factor in your surroundings that is unique and unknown to you, you will be inclined to take note of it. Perhaps if you were subconsciously seeking an alternative world, this factor might bring forth a notion of limitless possibilities. Limitless, as simply opening up a vacuum and being suctioned in to a dark hole of space. The hole is thought to  await someone such as yourself to fill it with your attempts to construct a new world in the only open space. Endeavoring in the presumptuous belief that a simple being can be of significance to infinite space. The factor that lead you to conceive such inclinations will in fact soon enough become your own reflection in your new world. Others will come and go as they please, but one will pause and observe the vision your left behind. And they, like you, will embark on an exploration past their grasp of boundaries for their own new world. The holes however, are submerged within a capsule of sand and dirt. Eventually, we will run out of space and worlds will compound as exhausted ideas will be recycled among a collage of advanced abstractions. New will be distinguished as old and worlds that we will seek, will have already been found. Now, you can perceive why this attempt, contrary to previously stated, was never completely a failure. Rather, an awakening and liberation of self. It was crucial in order to maintain emotional balance and mental stability.

Hedonism Versus Practicality

Recently, a friend asked me why they had such trouble accepting relationships. My friend explained that they felt a fear of rejection and accepting love. I myself have spent the last number of weeks troubled over a similar conflict. Is love worth the risk? I told my friend "You over analyze the relationship. The whole concept of being in a relationship, however committed it may be, is for two people who strongly like each other to share their infatuation between them. Don't dwell on the end of a relationship just because it's the inevitable. It's okay to make mistakes in a relationship because you can learn from them later. Just do what feels appropriate and don't become paranoid. Live in the moment and if that means letting yourself fall in love, don't be afraid of it. It's part of the experience."

That being said, in general, is it better to take the hedonistic approach? Is there a grey area that some would call the "practical hedonist"? Can you live in the moment and make the best decision at the same time? Will analyzing the situation really make you any more reassured? Can you always trust your gut? When does living in the moment become hazardous? Is the stress we feel from trying to make decisions completely self-inflicted or is it really valid? It's all a lot to wrap you head around and it can feel overwhelming. From someone who spent one year making quick, hasty decisions that felt right in the moment and then spent the following 6 months full of regret, I can tell you that there is no easy answer. There is no quick solution.

What we can do to help us in this frustrating conflict, is to have a few guidelines. Know that whatever life decision you are facing, you must not harm another person. You must not harm yourself. You must not do something that goes against your beliefs and philosophies. Do not let yourself be pressured into anything. Do not seek advice from acquaintances. But certainly, do not linger forever on one decision. Don't be afraid to take a risk. Be practical and responsible, but remember that life is only worth living if you are happy. 

A Mission Trip for an Atheist

I've made a decision. I'm going to apply myself. Starting a few days ago, which by the way speaks a great deal about my new change of pace considering that I'm a chronic procrastinator. I'm going to start caring about school and my education and my future. Last semester, I let myself get distracted by experiencing life without caring or thinking first. Now, I must make up for that. For the next year and a half, I will not engage in activities with others that might distract me from my mission, save the occasional band practice, which for all I know, might be part of the overall mission. In order to gain headway on my mission, I've started educating myself before the time is necessary to do so. I've learned that in order to be truly interested in a subject, I mustn't be forced to learn about it. I have to be willing. So, I started reading and taking notes and using different sources and looking at powerpoints and all of that. I'm reading all the classics as well. (Of Mice and Men made me cry at the end, which by the way, I am not at all afraid to admit because I do not see emotion as weakness) I'm trying to teach myself as much as possible within the next two weeks, so that when I am forced to learn the same material, I won't be opposed to it since I will already be interested in it and familiar with it.
Another part of my mission, is to make a final decision. Perhaps not for as long as a few years from now, but at some point, I need to decide. I've been told by an old friend (and when I say "old friend", I do not mean that this individual is old in age nor that I have known them for very long, but that they were a friend a long time ago) that one should never spend so much time trying to make a decision. Instead, one should simply do what feels right in the pit of their gut and if later it turns out that they're happy, then they made the right decision after all. He never mentioned what might happen if one turns out to be unhappy. As you can tell, I am the type of individual who needs decisions made clearly, though it is not time-sensitive. What I need to decide, is what makes me happy? No, that's not it. I know what makes me happy. I know what displeases me and everything in between. I've known myself for sixteen and half years, even better than others might know themselves because I've given it quite a bit more thought than most people I've talked to about it. I think my real problem is that I have no problem, really. I think I just seek reassurance that I will be fine with my decisions. I'm rather content, actually. Sure, I'd wish for a few things here and there to be different, but overall, I am rather pleased with the way my life is going.
Sometimes, when I need encouragement, or inspiration, I refer to a section of writing that I keep toward the back of my desk drawer. As I retrieve it now, I'm reading over the words that I regarded so highly, for so long. But now, I am confident that the author has seen things only one way. The writer has never looked at other options toward life and has been steering themselves down one path that is particularly difficult to turn back on. Regardless, I do find very much value in the writer's words, as I am sure you might. So I will share a few choice words with you. "You make your own life worth living", I agree with this. Do not limit yourself to your environment and what has been given to you. Go out and find a new environment and give to others what you never had. "Never be afraid to grasp life by the reigns and steer yourself in whatever direction you choose." I don't recommend that you live impulsively just for the hell of it, but do remember that the greatest risk in life is to take no risk at all. You learn from your mistakes, which is why it's important for you to regret some things, so that when you're faced with a similar situation later, you will understand how to address it. Most importantly, I want you, whoever is reading this, to know something very important. When you are experiencing something new and you feel extraordinary happiness in that moment, do not let yourself wander deeper than that moment. Do not think about how soon, that moment will be over and what a shame it will be that it could not last longer or that it might one day turn out to not be all that extraordinary in the grand scheme of things. Instead think that you are happy and it is a special feeling and just fix your eyes on something beautiful, for when you look back on that moment later in life to remember a moment when you were truly happy, you don't want to remember that moment as one where you knew you could never be truly happy. I've made that mistake and I don't wish for you to. Whoever you are, know that you need not limit your capabilities and that your passion in life comes at no price. It is okay to make mistakes and hold regret just as it is crucial that you do not spend your time thinking that if only you had taken a risk you could have a story to tell to others who also hold regret. With love to the potential in all members of this world, I end this here.

The Prison System & Anarchy

So, earlier today, I attended an informational... show of sorts about the prison system in the united states. They kept saying "but capitalists won :( ". See, capitalism is constantly mistaken for something bad. Adam Smith did not intend for capitalism to be as we perceive it. It was supposed to be the small town competition between ma n' pa stores. This, what we have currently, this is not capitalism, this is corporatism. Sure, capitalism can develop into large scale corporatism, but there is a difference.
On a different note, they had their facts straight for the most part and did include some witty humor and did a good job of comparing the societal conditioning here to in Sweden, where the crimes are far less dangerous and don't require the type of "prison system" we have here. They also did an excellent job of explaining the mentality behind prison wardens and how people with that much power over "the bad guys" will abuse it more often than not. They also went on to explain how the legal system classifies innocent people and political prisoners as "criminals" and how harsh the treatment inside the prisons is.
But what I totally was just like "WHAT THE FUCK" at was their "solution". Well, if we don't like the prison system... what do we do about it? Well, their answer was "BURN THEM DOWN!" Are you fucking kidding me? Really? They were like "Well, it's the way society is, we'll fix society so we won't need prisons!" AGAIN, ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?? Not to seem hostile here, but that's illogical and outrageous. What will we do with all the MS-13 members, rapists, murders, etc after we go and burn down the place where we contain them? Should we not do our best to end poverty and educate communities instead of going and burning these places down?
I hate anarchists who are so destructive and think that's the best way to create a societal revolution. But, they did give me a cookie... point is- Anarchy is associated with violence because of people with that kind of "I don't like it so I'll burn the motherfucker down!" mentality who claim to be anarchists. Other point being- we really do need to fix our prison system and unlike all the other anarchists, until we live in an anarchist society, I'm all for reform.

Just One Lost Soul Swimmin' in a Fish Bowl

Over the past 3 or so days, I managed to isolate myself from all technology except a cell phone for safety purposes. Once, I was conversing with someone about how television is but a box meant to keep the general public docile and misinformed and my friend looked at me and said "well, so is a computer. it has become the future generation's tv set." and I realized he spoke the truth. While the internet in all it's technologically advanced glory is one of the greatest inventions ever, it builds barriers upon barriers. So, I spent 3 days doing things like laying in grass, gazing at stars, playing bass with others, listening to old albums I haven't heard since I was younger, etc. I also used this time for self-analyzing and getting to know myself better, so I disconnected contact with friends, save one phone call. I took off from my shift at the bookstore and did some thinking. Quite a good deal of thinking.
After all this thinking, I've only come to a few conclusions and left most of my questions unresolved, but this is a good start, I think. One thing I have come to realize about myself, is that I tend to limit myself more than I should. If I have painted this large canvas and I took a few hours to finish it and I really enjoyed myself while I was painting, for the while as I am standing back and staring at my finished product, I am pretty well content with my work. However, if I so much as for a second look at someone else's artwork who might have done a better piece, I become discouraged and adopt the feeling of failure. As if no matter what the circumstances were, what it came down to in that instance was my failure and the other artist's success at producing a visually appealing and thought-provoking piece of art. When someone calls me an artist, I don't feel like I should accept such a highly-regarded compliment because I suppose I feel inadequate compared to other artists who have actually taken an art class, had some artistic training and have been practicing for years.
But art is just one small part of my life, of my interests. I don't know if I should fall back on what I for so long regarded as a hobby, as a career. This leaves me with more options than I want. What do I do after high school? College seems most practical, assuming that the state of the economy gets better in the next 6-8 years. If I get my bachelor's degree, I will definitely invest in obtaining a master's because having that second degree makes a world of a difference in the job market.
Speaking of the job market, I applied to two places within the last week. I already volunteer at Internationalist Books, so I used that as job experience on my resume. I emailed the store manager at Twig (they sell environmentally friendly products) an employment inquiry and a copy of my resume via email and an inquiry at Studio Supplies (an art supply store within walking distance to ibooks) who requested a hard copy of my resume at the store, which gave me a chance to meet at least one of the employees. I suppose if I work for a few years as an employee at say, that art store, I could one day work my way up to manager. However, that would mean staying in Chapel Hill all my life, which I don't want.
I want to travel, I want to experience different cultures and countries. I want to live in San Fran for a while (yes, I am fully aware of how expensive it is), I also want to try to go to college in Asheville NC, maybe spend a few years in Portland Oregon. Then visit Sweden for maybe a month and later in life, retire in Canada. Oh, and visit Seattle of course.
My career options are as follows: Freelance photographer, journalist (even though newspapers are becoming obsolete), news/radio broadcaster, high school art teacher, art gallery owner (rent out spaces), tattoo/piercing artist, design political/comical t-shirts etc, open up a community center/bookstore (basically be the next bob sheldon), club owner, documentary filmmaker, own a cd/record store (even though mp3s are more popular :P) etc.
I no longer feel like writing. BUT LIFE'S HARD, SO SUCK IT UP. ahem...
Anyway, I wish I was better at song writing. Maybe I just need more inspiration. Oh, bill S709 was passed a few days ago, so hydraulic fracking is now legal in our region. fucking bastards. Offshore drilling off the coast of NC might also become legal if bills S728 (i think?) passes. I HATE CORPORATISM. I HATE REPUBLICANS. GO. FUCKING. DIE.
Wow, my thoughts aren't really organized. I'm just very tired at the moment. I need to start listening to the males' punk bands' female counterparts. It's a shame that the only punk bands I can think of with prominent females off the top of my head are the distillers and bikini kill :(
Another thing I've been thinking about, is just how important are human relations, really? Part of me likes solidarity because I can think inside my own head a lot more which is nice, but what is even better, is to have someone think thoughts out loud and share different ideas with you. To collaborate. What I lack, at the moment, is someone who I can have deep conversation with. Well... I have a few people that if I wanted to, I could discuss topics on a deeper level of thinking, with them... but I want a person who will spontaneously go lay in the grass of some remote field only to star gaze and have an existential or naturalistic conversation. I want to share my thoughts and ideas with people, but for varies reasons I haven't done so in months. People who can look past the petty things that this plastic jungle can offer, and appreciate life for what is real and true, are the ones that I seek. Sadly, there are fewer than I would like. Or perhaps there are many, but they are just hidden amongst a sea of materialistic, self-absorbed, brainwashed, consumerist, conformist  morons who wouldn't dare think for themselves for once. And what's worse, is that those few people, or many i suppose, sometimes have the worst personalities making it hard to stomach them as a whole.
Fuck, I can't articulate my thoughts well enough to continue this blog post. It was poorly ...fuck i can't even think of a goddamn adjective to describe the way i structured this shit.... i'm so tired.... farewell.

Inner Conflict

I seem to be asking myself  "What the hell is wrong with you!?" so very very often. I'm in love with something I can never have. Something I did have. Which makes it all the worse because everything I do reminds me of it. It emerges in my dreams constantly and follows me around like my shadow. It, when I discovered it, was so so different than what I was, what I wanted. As I grew to appreciate this thing, I began to fall in love with it more than I expected. It's every imperfection was perfect in that it made it unique. But now, I find that this something is far more special than I thought. I find myself changing in the exact same direction as it is. It is extraordinarily rare for two things to change, both at the same rate and to the same degree in the same direction. Most compatible, am I with this dismissed thing. If I could find it and bring it back and show it all that is has missed by being lost, I think it would benefit. But maybe it's selfish to think that it might for some reason be better off not forgotten.  I think I've gone mad with paranoia. I wear a frown and confused eyes which do not suit me. Being truly infatuated with this idea or thing, it was never a doubt in my mind, and in my mind, being truly in attracted with something means you never stop being so. Maybe you forget about it, but the instant that you do remember, even for a second, you understand again just how much you miss it. How much it meant and how much it will always mean for being such a large role in your identity. If ever there was an opportunity for me to express my gratitude to it, I would jump at the chance. But I think that ship has long since sailed and left me standing at the dock. I'm deeply saddened by this, so now all I can do is hope that in time my memory will fade and it will lose all of it's importance in my life. Or perhaps it was never that important at all. No, I don't think it's worth anything now. Maybe then, but then is the past and now I am far from the stage where I'd ever want to retrace those steps. Those steps are now swept over with a tree limb.. and... that made no sense. No, it did, you just have to be in my head to understand it, I suppose.

Inadequate.

 Here's me about to be an idiot. Oh well :)

Just for a second I find myself no longer thinking about it. Completely recovered and no longer addicted to that lifestyle. But then today I realize how badly I want it. It's edgy, talented, prolific, comforting, it's got a slight hint of danger, it unleashes an abundance of adrenaline, it has no boundaries and it's absolutely perfect. It satisfies all of my cravings and even more, that until I was reintroduced to that lifestyle, I didn't even know I had. So here I am, thinking that either I have to rid the world of this lifestyle so that thinking about it constantly does not force me to kill myself in a violent rage or that I have to learn that I am not dependent on this lifestyle and can live a happy and fulfilling life sober. I was fine today, in fact, I was great today. Only thought about it once as I looked upon a trigger image, but then, I saw the lifestyle itself in all it's alluring glory and currently, it is consuming my every thought. I want to burn it and watch every last ounce of it smolder into an unforgiving fire where it can never trace its way back to me again. And yet, I can't help but imagine how amazing life would be with it. How much my creativity would spike, how much more spontaneous life would be, how much greater and vivid the passion for life might be. I can almost taste it, or feel it soaring through my veins sometimes. Sometimes I feel like I might die without it, like it was the only thing that I ever felt encouraged my existence. But this is insane. I could have lived a perfectly normal, happy life if I had never even put myself in the position to get acquainted with such a drug. But now that I have, it still to this day holds a heavy power over me. The rush of inhaling the tantalizing substances and the aromas that soothe the air. The hunger for the rush of exertion then the blissfully content incline that follows lasts for days and the moments enjoyed with such a powerful lifestyle can be recounted over and over. Now I'm stuck. I know I shouldn't even think about it, but it's impossible not to. It's driving me to insanity faster than I ever thought possible and it's all I can do to keep somewhat stable in the eyes of others. To not draw attention to the fact that I'm slowly getting closer to cracking and impulsively taking regrettable actions. I miss it. I still love it. I don't think I'll ever stop. Lifestyle.

The Writings of an Insomniac

So it's almost 5am and I can't sleep, so here I shall rant about all the things that keep me up on a night such as this one. First of all, I am sick of males opening doors for me because they think they have to. I'm tired of guys offering to pay for my shit but they don't even think to offer to pay for their other friend who happens to be a guy. I'm sick of getting texts at odd hours of the night from random ass 20 year old guys who are obviously desperate to get fucked and assume that high school girls are interested in getting an STD before they graduate. I'm tired of going to concerts and being the only girl at the show who doesn't fucking work at the club. I'm tired of not having females friends who have decent taste in music. I'm tired of guys saying that of course I play bass because a girl is a lot less likely to succeed at playing electric guitar in a band. I'm tired of guys that I'm friends with who have girlfriends, thinking that they can get somewhere that is completely off-limits. I'm sick of guys randomly asking me to "hook up" at 1am when I've only ever said two words to them in my entire life. AND I AM FUCKING TIRED OF NOT BEING ABLE TO SLEEP AT 5AM.
I hate that I suck at creating art. I hate that I suck at writing poetry. I hate that I suck at making music. I hate that I suck at everything I try to do because no matter how good I am at something, I'm always going to compare myself to someone else who has been doing that something their entire life, then I end up feeling like a failure and wanting to just give up. I'm scared of becoming an adult. I'm scared that I'll pick a major and spend 4 years in college and thousands of dollars just to figure out that I suck at everything and there's no point in me going to college because I couldn't possibly get a job much less a successful career and I'll end up homeless and living out of a cardboard box. Or that I'll decide to screw college altogether, hitchhike to san fran and live in a squat house then one day realize I completely hate that lifestyle and now I've wasted all that time and can't find a new one. I'm scared that I'll never be able to settle down because I'll never be satisfied or that I'll settle down without thinking things through first and then have committed to a life with a husband that I hate and a bunch of kids that I secretly want to murder. Yeah that's it. And I'm still not tired.

Punk, a Subculture of Anarchism

I wrote this after reading The Philosophy of Punk. Not quite Chomsky, but it's an okay start.

I am about halfway through the book and already enraged with excitement and epiphanies and thriving on the enlightenment. The struggles I found with a hopeless democracy are diminished with anarchism. Even liberalism now seems like a sad attempt at change.
While I was reading, I took about 3 pages of notes that include punk musical influences such as the sex pistols, british invasion, citizen fish and subhumans. I already knew of these bands, but it was interesting, them being identified as a universal theme for this subculture. I have learned to be a nonconformist , to use education and exposure to make decisions, not pressure from the media or peers. Also, that obedience to authority encourages it's brutality in some cases and that mainstream society sees "individualism" and deems it "deviant" whereas a conformist becomes a "team player". The punk lifestyle is centered around the basis of substance over style. The media portrays "punk" as a white middle class youth male wearing a leather jacket with spiked hair, when the philosophy of punk is more about thought and education and freedom and independence from society rather than violence and rebelling for the sake of an angst driven rebellion.
I've also come to the somewhat shocking realization that society was not made to sustain a civilization of individuals, but to force others to fit into a mold, resulting in 'institutionalized dehumanization'.
Punk can be defined as all of the following
1) a youth trend
2) a gut rebellion & change
3) the voice of opposition
I hope that what I've chosen is not simply "teen rebellion". I don't want to "go back to normal" once a "phase" is complete. This is a way of life and I'd hate to see it just written off  as hormones or some bullshit.
I've also learned that the media's misrepresentation of punks as: violent, involved in petty crime, drug abuse etc. has attracted a select demographic to the punk scene, legitimizing the media's misrepresentation and destroying the punk lifestyle and philosophy. Skin heads have also been lumped together with punks, if you will, because they attend a lot of the same gigs but breed a whole different concept. One of hate and racism and homophobia and patriotism. They even spread to the more conservative "straight edge" punk scene. A scene that I was voluntarily part of for a while until I got an understanding of how I'd been lied to all those years about marijuana usage.
Censorship, even to censor conservative republicans/libertarians or S.H.A.R.P. members is a crime. The public must be exposed to different views because censoring promotes harm to a free-speech oriented society and the people should be aware of expressed corruption and fault.
Great influential bands such as but not limited to: Crass, Conflict, Discharge, The Ex, BGK, MDC, Dead Kennedys, etc are the representation of the punk culture being rebellious thinkers as opposed to "rock 'n' rollers".
The Government is essentially produced and run by people who sought out an opportunity to maintain a wealthy lifestyle by making others work for them. In doing so, the scapegoats request 'reforms' to manage some stability and control over the government when in reality, a reform is simply an appeasement, when ultimately, what you want is freedom. Communism does level out the class system and eliminates the "takes" v "givers" aspect of society, but at the same time doesn't condone or express freedom from the system or encourage individualism any more than capitalism does.
I watched Obama's inaugural address (state of the union) and what he spoke about held strong in the ever determined, yet painfully passive liberal way. Speaking about plans to "send bills to congress" to evoke change even if the change are ideal concepts, you must realize that the country for the longest time has been hesitant towards change. In order to gain the kind of  independence  and change we require, it's going to take a lot more than Obama's proposed (and rather vague) ideas. But more than anything else, I could not get my mind off during his speech, was that although Obama supports change, does he not own billions of dollars worth of estate and commodities himself? Does he not have an ensured retirement fund waiting to cushion him? Foes he and every other politician in DC not take whatever drastic measure they find necessary to maintain a capitalist society with themselves on top and their wear strain of funding barely, if at all, reaching the lower classes at the bottom? Greed has gotten us nowhere but facing homelessness, classism and workplace exploitation. Why does success have to equal wealth and commodities and power over others? Capitalism equals cannibalism, in that a select few eat at the remains of he dignity and independence of the other people, feeding off of their labor at the sufferer's expense."

Since then, my views have changed a bit. I don't have the time to delve deeper into my current views, so I'll save that for a later time. But I will say that I think that anarchism is a long shot and is best kept to the individual until everyone is well educated and completely convinced that their actions must work towards the greater good for mankind. People would also have to depend on personal responsibility and a strength in community and mutual respect for the individual. But hey, it worked for three years in Spain! There is no perfect system that lasts long enough to sustain all of our population and future generations because each individual has different ideas about how things ought to be run and man is corrupt by nature. Believing in the utopia is considered radical, but not when everyone does.

Bucket List

I attended my grandmother's funeral a couple of weeks ago, and there's nothing like seeing an open casket with a relative's cold body lying inside. There's this overwhelming consciousness of mortality and in some ways, it's very inspiring to regroup your thoughts and get a better understanding of what's really important in your life and what you want to do with it. So I'm making a bucket list.

1- Come to a conclusion regarding my thoughts on marriage.
2- Read all of Shakespeare's plays
3- See Bill Maher perform live.
4- Go to a Michael Moore Rally
5- Be the next Bob Sheldon and open up a nonprofit community center
6- Get a bill to actually pass in congress
7- Open up a soup kitchen
8- Get vegetarianism to become the next anti-fur movement
9- Meet Immortal Technique
10-Meet Marilyn Manson
11- Live in San Fran for a couple years
12- Visit Seattle
13- Travel to Sweden
14- Retire in Canada
15- Grow/Sell my own.. substance....
16- Get an exhibit in an art gallery
17- Sell more than 100 bucks worth of art at a time
18- Get really good at guitar
19- Perform a Spoken Word
20- Travel to a third world country and do something productive
21- Put an end to Hyrdrolic-Fracking
22- Open up a shop where I sell handmade.. paraphernalia..
23- At least get an associate's degree in something or other
24- Burn something down with Matt Hill
25- Drink absinthe with Jake Shiffer
26- Listen to records with Connor Stanberry
27- Do a collaborative art piece with Isaiah Holmes
28- Do professional photography
29- Film shows for local bands
30- Be the next Tom Tomorrow and publish controversial comics
31- Meet Stephan Colbert
32- Have Jon Stewart sign my book "America: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction"
33- Write an autobiography
34- Write a fictional book
35- Make my own documentary
36- Adopt a Highway

Hope for Dope!

A lot of people tend to beat around the bush on this issue because they are uneducated about the subject and haven't really done any research themselves. But now, it is time that we all took a stand and educated ourselves on a very important, life-saving topic. Marijuana. What have we heard about marijuana in health class, from the media, teachers, coaches and even our parents? That it's a gateway drug, leads to addiction, ruins your life, kills brain cells, makes you do stupid things that are life-threatening, is illegal for a good reason and will give you lung cancer.

The main reason why marijuana is a 'gateway drug' is because in order to obtain the illegal substance, you might have to go to some sketchy dealer who also sells harder, actually dangerous and addictive, drugs. If marijuana was not illegal, younger kids and teenagers wouldn't seek it mostly for it's off-limits credibility and then wouldn't have the desire to try substances like LSD, ecstasy, cocaine, heroin, meth, etc. If people were properly educated about the different kinds of drugs, they would be less likely to partake in using actual drugs. These scare tactics adults use on students just destroys any trust amongst the two parties when the truth is revealed to the students. Making them go through drug tests and screenings is a violation of their privacy and sure as hell won't make them stop using the substance. There is a difference between certain types of "drugs" that make them 'good' and 'bad'.

Marijuana has no property in it that would make a person physically dependent on the use of the substance. Addiction in terms of marijuana is up to the person, not the pot. A person could be addicted to water or shopping, just as easily as they could to marijuana. Cannabis does not ruin peoples' lives. Again, it depends on the person, not the pot. If a person is generally an irresponsible and moronic individual, it's their own fault if they decide to do something stupid because if a responsible person uses marijuana, no harm is done. Not one person has ever died from smoking cannabis. You would have to smoke approximately 15,000 joints in under 20 minutes to get any toxic level of THC, making it impossible to overdose. But if you drank 15,000 cups of water in under 20 minutes, the end result probably wouldn't be too great either. However, about 400,000 people a year die from tobacco, 200,000 a year die from alcohol and 2,000 from caffiene.

Marijuana also does not kill brain cells. This misconception comes from a study performed on monkeys in the 70s where the monkeys were exposed to marijuana smoke, but the scientists didn't provide them with additional oxygen and the brain starts to lose cells after 5 minutes without oxygen. A second study was done a few years later, also on monkeys, but with additional oxygen and there was no decrease in the amount of braincells.
What seems to be a major concern for some people is this supposed risk of getting lung cancer from smoking. Studies show that people who smoke cannabis every so often and those who are nonsmokers have the same chance at getting lung cancer. In fact, marijuana has been shown to promote brain cell growth and heals damaged organ tissue. That is why medical marijuana is legal in 16 states. It is used as an alternative treatment for people with chronic illnesses, deteriorating health and even cancer. It also acts as a natural appetite inducer, which would help underweight individuals gain weight. However those who don't wish to, can control their increased appetite especially by how much they smoke. Without marijuana, most patients who use it regularly, would be suffering on a daily basis because typical, prescription medications aren't working. However, pharmaceutical companies are worried that if they allow marijuana to be legalized, they will lose profits on the manufactured pills they sell that cause even worse symptoms anyway. Marijuana has over 200 known medical uses and would have more if researchers had the funding to investigate more possibilities.

The male plant, hemp, can be used in over 30,000 different products, including food, fibers, fuel and textiles.  But of course those industries are afraid to legalize it because they fear a loss in profit and spending money to invest in a safer alternative. Cannabis has been used for over 10,000 years and nothing life-threatening has ever happened as a direct result. Marijuana was legal up until 1937 and it was illegal for farmers to refuse to grow hemp. Even Jimmy Carter, the 39th president from 1977-1981 tried to get a bill passed to reform the marijuana prohibition and not for the same reason why republicans such as Ron Paul want to end the federal prohibition (so state government can have more power over it's people than the federal without any regulations. If he really liked the idea of marijuana, he'd try to get it legalized, not just end the federal prohibition). If the prohibition on alcohol in the 20's through early 30's didn't work, why would the one on marijuana? It's relatively easy to find someone who can deal you some marijuana and it's a lot easier for most teenagers to get their hands on than any other drug.

The federal government now spends about 20,000,000 a year enforcing drug laws and about 2/3 of that is on marijuana. In North Carolina, just for having less than an 1/2 oz. the penalty is at least 30 days incarcerated and a $200 fine as well as it counting as a misdemeanor. If you have 1 1/2 oz, it's considered a felony and you could spend up to a year in prison. Just possessing paraphernalia counts as a misdemeanor and the minimum sentence is 6 months incarceration. Each year, about 700,000 americans are arrested for marijuana related "crimes" and about half of the marijuana-using african american population is targeted as suspects while less than half are caucasian because of racial discrimination. Originally, the majority of marijuana users were hispanic, so people were immediately turned off for the same reason why we have physical borders and arrest immigrants instead of the people who actually hire the immigrants. Propaganda is fed into our subconscious telling us that if you legalize marijuana, anyone can get it, especially criminals who will increase ratings in murder, rape and theft. All of which are false. Taxpayers spend 24,000 a year to keep innocent people in jail when that same money could be used towards a greater cause like paying teachers adequate salaries or keeping libraries open, parks maintained, fire stations available, etc.

Long ago, a plant, the 'sea squirt', showed to have contained THC which was ingested by an animal. The cannabinoid receptors in the central nervous system of the animal fit perfectly with the chemical THC, much like a puzzle piece. Therefore, we are all fundamentally wired to respond to marijuana whether you like it or not. If marijuana was legalized, we could tax it just as we do alcohol and cigarettes and maybe put that money towards, say, universal health care. There will always be a high demand for this product, and it would be smart, economically, to increase the availability of the supply. This would in turn, create a boom among the agricultural industry and prevent what might be a second economic collapse in the near future.

If you care about saving lives or the economy, you will fight to legalize it. Currently, a bill is in congress to end the federal prohibition on marijuana, but even that might not pass if it doesn't have enough support. However, just ending the prohibition isn't enough. Marijuana has to be legalized. If all Americans showed the government how much they need marijuana to be legalized, it would happen. You can take the first step by contacting your U.S. house representative. http://www.capwiz.com/norml2/issues/alert/?alertid=50800581

I highly suggest you watch this testimony: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQS3KEGtdBI&feature=related
If everyone fights for a common cause, change can be achieved, but if everyone assumes it's never going to happen and they refuse to take action, we will continue to live our lives as we are told they should be lived and we will continue to allow this corruption to spread.

Feel free to add any points I may have overlooked. =)

Mostly About The War on Terror (an older entry from another blog)

With recent world events such as the death of Osama Bin Laden last night, I feel now is a good time to bring up the corruption of the government (specifically with oil). Oil has been a factor in WWII, the invasion and occupation of Iraq and not to mention in third world exploitation. Claims for originally being in the middle east based on a WMD threat were obviously falsified, most especially because the whole invasion strategy used was to station troops and military bases DIRECTLY ON THE OIL FIELDS. derp. In late 2000 Saddam threatened to switch to the euro for oil trade and was going to convert 10 billion of Iraq's reserve fund to euros as well. But of course all these little details were censored in the media because when a country converts their money to say, the U.S. dollar, the value of said dollar increases, making the federal government more money especially when the price of oil itself is also increased. Then in comes North Korea and Iran, both wanting to switch to the euro. Damn, sounds like the fed would've lost a nice chunk of change from an opportunity cost there. And so, it being in the best interest of our fucked up government, we went to war. We also forced power plants into third world countries and loaned them the money that they would eventually have to pay us back, with interest. So we not only enslaved them to our dependence on oil, but to a heavy debt. During WWI the federal reserve managed to initiate a way for competing bankers to create a cartel to loan shit tons of money to other countries during the war.. but of course collect it back and then some, afterwards. The fed is able to print out money on a 9 to 1 ratio, meaning if you had a hundred dollars, it could easily become 10,000 in no time. But of course this process devalues the U.S. dollar. And then you have what we like to call: inflation. At that point, a dollar is no longer worth 100 pennies. The value of a dollar was at it's highest during the spanish-american war, took a steep drop after WWI then picked back up during the depression and then went downhill from WWII all the way to the war on terror. And well now, we're in a recession. We're also slaves to the oil companies. (ps, we should organize a strike on oil or some shit) so anyway, the government depends on the money it makes from oil from foreign countries. If North Korea, Iraq and Iran ("axis of evil") had switched to the euro, we wouldn't have been able to make any money off of them. So when our friendly axis threatened to do so, the bush administration made the case that we needed to invade the middle east in search of WMD aka: oil. While in Iraq, the military used strategies to try and fuck up Iraq's alternative energy research plants. Who exactly is making money off of the war on "terror"? Well, lets just say Dick Cheney had about 450 thousand stocks invested in Halliburton (yeah, they build prisons too) and the Carlyle group was making shit loads of money off of weapon contracts, plus international bankers make a nice bit of change off of our national debt. Now, when Reagan (yes, good old government-puppet-Ronald) was in office in the 80's, he supplied Saddam with chemical warfare weapons to go to war with Iran in exchange for hostages. (And I haven't researched this, but word on the street is reagan also gave osama weapons to fuck with the USSR and trained people to commit terrorist acts in Nicaragua and Cuba. Osama and terrorist acts, sound familiar?)

General Shit That I Am Angry About

Choosing a place to begin is the hardest bit about this because there are so many injustices that it's hard to choose which one is most important. Let's start with the environment. If a person ate at mcdonalds every day and used tap water they would defend that until their death because that is how they know to survive. If a person lived off their land and used water from a stream every day, they would defend their means of living just as well because that is how they know to survive. What we know and what we are told go hand in hand as we are constantly bombarded with information from our communities, peers, television, magazines, etc. When a person lives in an environment where they are only told that they would be happier IF they had this and this and this, then that message is drilled into their brains. It's an easy concept to follow. But what about the concept of ones environment? Why are we destroying the only place we can live in? Because certain people succeed in financial gain? Because the people being used at the bottom don't know any better to revolt? Oil companies will do anything within and out of their means to drill every fucking drop of oil available on this planet. At the expense of the planet. Off-shore drilling has resulted in some of the worst man-inflicted damage to our environment. 200 million barrels of oil were leaked in to the gulf coast last may. Did the government mandate any sort of regulations as to what is required when a company drills off-shore? Fuck no. Why? It means more money they have to spend to insure the security of our coast, when in fact, the cost of cleaning up an oil spill of that size costs way more than putting a goddamn cap on the drill in the first place, not to mention 120 miles of the coast line lost business during travel season and thousands of birds, fish, sea turtles and dolphins died.
Why do we, the most intelligent species, treat the rest of the entire planet as our own personal property? Why do we force our animals into a holocaust within slaughterhouses just because we can? Just because they can't escape our greedy grasps, does that mean we should poison them, eat them and thrust them into extinction? And we don't just stop there. No, we take the slave labor we force upon animals and transfer it into the work place. Ever wonder why the clothes on your back or the items in your household are cheaper than you would ever sell them for if you had to supply them for sale yourself? Because people in India, Guatemala, China, Taiwan, Japan, Cambodia, etc all make your shit while they work overtime for a dollar a day and if they even think about reporting the negligence and dangerous work environment, then they are fired immediately and replaced. And don't think for a second that the faceless corporations who create factories in foreign countries to ship their products back to the U.S. treat their American employees much better. When a company like Walmart tells their employees they need to sign up for Medicade and Welfare programs it's because they will not pay you enough to survive off of, ESPECIALLY for the amount of work an employee does. But this my friends, is a capitalist society. It puts people like the Waltons on top and people who work at Walmart on the bottom. It's the American Dream. They tell you that one day you could be rich and famous and live a life of luxury if you follow the rules and do as you're told. What they don't tell you is that it's unsustainable and at the expense of others and your environment. Who needs an expensive car? Who needs a new car? Who needs carbon dioxide emissions giving them lung cancer and creating a world where there's less air to burn than there is gas. You do. Because it'll make you happy. It'll make you happy to live with the wife or husband you secretly despise with 2.5 children you desperately want to strangle in a large house in the suburbs with a white picket fence in back. It'll make you happy to never see the face of the child who carries a 40 pound bucket of water on their back miles across a rocky path barefoot twice a day so their family can stay hydrated because their country can't afford clean water. It'll make you happy to see the men and women too old to have to work, slugging around over-sized bags of food onto the shelves of your favorite "made in america" store. It'll make you happy to see a calf forced into a cramped, dark, compartment awaiting it's death. It'll make you happy to realize that you were the cause of your own demise.

First Post: Spoken Word

I remember the first time I really cried.
It was a time more desperate and heart breaking,
Than when the first boy i really loved broke my heart.
I never thought life was as cruel as the time i saw a kid with cancer
Sitting alone in a hospital bed,
Staring at the blank wall in front of them.
Until i saw the big picture.
I finally saw the way the world worked
And how faceless corporations' lies
Cost children their lives.
I never understood why
Some kids get new sneakers while other kids die making them.
The day i realized the american dream
Was the thing killing america
Was the day i realized everything can be bought and sold for a bargain,
Including families living in poverty that are starvin.
We live with the "every man for himself" mentality
But we live in the 21st century
Where we shouldn't have to kill to survive.
Long after the days of slavery in america,
But im sure the people in the workplace would beg to differ.
See, i always thought we were a nation that fought against injustice,
But a nightmare is in just where we are.
Journalists are tortured for revealing the source of the tension
And they forget to mention,
That homeland security has been fightin terror since 1492.
You think we'd never let another holocaust happen?
Rwanda, Burma, Dar Fur, Sri Lanka.
Genocide isn't limited to just human beings neither.
We systematically slaughter herds of animals,
Treating them as our personal slaves as if one species is any better than another.
Apparently we've also forgotten about US manufactured missles and m-16s
Or media censorship bleeping out musicians' screams.
And of course everyone is so doped up on mk-ultra
That they believe we're fightin for democracy but we've ruined the middle east and unleashed a demon.
I can only speak for myself when i say,
The world would be a better place,
If politicians were judged based on their actions instead of intentions
And if we remembered to live simply so that others may simply live.
It was when all this came crashing down on me
That i felt an unbearable weight fall on top my shoulders,
One that my body just could not carry.
Ilet myself drop with the wait of the world,
All the corruption and greed and faulty facades.
And i've been atheist since age 8,
So i didn't pray to no gods.
I am no slave to no masters, just me myself and i,
As well as the hope that i can better the world before the day that i die.
So i brushed the saturated tears from my eyes
And decided the world is worth saving even if most people are blind.