On Facebook, my religious views are listed as agnostic. Most of the time, I’m an atheist-leaning agnostic. After much consideration, I feel comfortable in saying that the God described in the Bible doesn’t exist, but I do leave open the possibility of some kind of cosmic force, be it karma or something of the like. I know that people die. I know that as soon as a person is conceived, they start dying. It’s rather bittersweet. Life is beginning and ending at the same time. I’ve always found it kind of unfathomable to put an expiration date on life. As people, we have no idea what it’s like to not be alive. The closest thing that we get to being dead is blacking out, from which we eventually wake up. I think it’s safe to say that when things die, it’s like blacking out forever.

This concept is really hard to imagine. Maybe reincarnation is real. I think the part of our brain that fights to survive places that thought there, that even after a person is dead, there’s still a chance for him or her to be alive again. At some point one has to accept the fact that death is the inevitable end to life, that this doesn’t last forever.

I’ve had two grandparents pass away this year. I’ve handled their deaths a bit differently than the rest of my family, which initially surprised me. I think of myself as an emotional and sensual person. When I love something, I do it passionately. When I dislike something, I abhor it. But after these passings, I didn’t cry or question the heavens. I didn’t curse the Gods. I think I was firm enough in my understanding that you can’t stop death and it comforted me. People are born to die. They’ve simply done what they were supposed to do.

It’s definitely sad that my family and I will no longer get to enjoy their presence, and vice versa, but nothing lasts forever. I can look back at my grandmother and say that she was a great person, full of love, who took care of her family and did whatever she could to make people happy. I can look back at my grandfather and say that he was the best man I’ve ever known, a WWII veteran who worked as hard as he could, every day of his life, to make things better for his family and expected no praise. This is how they’ll be remembered. People will recall their triumphs and failures with fondness and admiration. And I’m perfectly comfortable with this. I think they would be too.

I feel like I’m always waiting. Like I’m standing at the center of a merry-go-round, and I can’t tell whether I’m spinning by everything or everything is spinning by me. It’s comparable to being a kid back in school, on summer break, waiting for Christmas. And then at Christmas, you’re waiting for summer break. Or your birthday; any somewhat significant event that marks the passing of time, as if things will have changed by this important date. You’ll turn 16 and have a car. You’ll graduate high school and go to college. Things will be better and you will be happy and it will be a celebration.

The problem with this outlook at this stage in my life is that I’ve got nothing to wait for. I’ve finished high school. I’ve taken an elongated break from college. I’m not even sure if what I was doing was actually college. Now I lay here in bed, with work in the morning, thinking of things to look forward to. A baseball game in a few weeks. A family vacation to the beach up north in July. I’ll have lost some weight by then. Maybe I’ll have a new girlfriend.

I’m stuck, when it comes down to it. I’m looking into my own future and the outlook is uninvitingly bleak. My friends are graduating and I’m just doing the same thing I’ve always done: try and take the easy way out. I feel deep down that I have a false sense of entitlement, that, to borrow a line from a Dave Eggers story, affords me “excuses to do things the wrong way, or not do them at all, to do anything [I want].” I obviously have no entitlement. I’m average. Lazy even. I expect things simply to happen to me. I expect to one day receive an e-mail saying “Hello. You are awesome. Here is a bunch of money for just being you. Move to California. Start a pizza place. Write stupid short prose and play on the internet all day.”

The glaring solution lies in the age-old idea, “If you aren’t happy with something, change it.” This isn’t a saying for someone like me. My saying is more along the lines of, “If you aren’t happy with something, complain about it to yourself and anyone else who will listen and see if something happens, but it probably won’t and you’ll get used to it.” In an answer to a question posed by Jesse Lacey, I do believe I’m missing out; that everything good is happening somewhere else.

I’m not long for a world in which the predominant idea is that there are a set of guidelines to follow and accomplishments to unlock in order to survive. That’s why I’m so in awe of people who use a talent or a gift and surpass the monotony of human life. But at the same time, I lack the dedication to attempt a decent piece of writing. I lack the patience to learn the guitar. I lack the money and the desire to go back to school and “make something of myself.”

Everyone tries to point out why they’re unique and so interesting and, especially in today’s youth culture, why they are so more outlandish and have such a huge burden of shit and weirdness thrust upon them, simply to impress or endear other people. I get the sense that we’re all wondering what the fuck we’re supposed to do next and just keep making up stuff to see if it helps.

we are collapsing from the inside out,
we are out of and under control.
hello, this is dawn and we are dying!
illuminated light bulbs fall from the sky
and crash down like raindrops onto the street
as we stand in awe and stare at the clouds
we are drowning in light.
this is life
and it too shall pass.

I wrote this a couple years ago. Rediscovering old stuff is interesting.

I fell asleep at 7:30 tonight, after I had dinner. I woke up to a drop of saliva sliding off my bottom lip and landing on the lid of my laptop. I was both aware and unaware that this was happening. I was dreaming about baseball, which made sense when I woke up to the Yankees / Red Sox game on ESPN.

My job is very boring, so even though I got a full night’s rest on Sunday, and did absolutely nothing at work, I still felt exhausted when I came home. I cooked a French bread pizza in the toaster oven. The Tigers game was postponed. I fell asleep.

This would be a problem if I had to work Tuesday, but I don’t. I’m estimating I’ll be awake until about 8 am or later. I’m just deciding whether or not I’d like to see the sun rise, which could possibly make me less apt to sleep.

There are times when I feel like I’ve stepped outside of my body, or at least been turned upside-down or inside-out; like I’m observing my thoughts from a separate perspective than the one that I’m used to. It’s often accompanied by a mood shift. Depressing is the word that comes to mind, but perhaps it’s more of a realist vibe. I’m assessing things, my life in general, focusing primarily on what I’m unhappy with.

I can scroll through Facebook and see 321 different faces, but only a handful elicit any kind of significant response. I take issue with these responses, however, because they aren’t based in reality. I’m having a terrible time convincing myself to face life, rather than what I’d like life to be. It’s easy to get wrapped up in habits and ideas; doing something because that’s just how it’s done. It’s how you’ve always done it. Doing it because you’re supposed to do it.

I think there is validity in the practice of knocking other people down a peg to make oneself feel better. If you’re looking at it on a moral compass, it’s nowhere to be found, but it’s valid in the fact that it works. “At least I’m not that guy. At least I don’t have a kid. At least I have no great tragedy.”

But sometimes I think I need a great tragedy, like I’d be better off if something awful were to happen. Maybe it would spark change. Maybe I’m just insane.

I was working on a short story, got disheartened, restarted it, and ended up with these 438 words. I’m tired of looking at it and poking at it and changing it. So I’m posting it. Here we go.

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hung up
two shoes, laced together, dangling from a telephone wire
dirtied, worn in, beaten up
seared in the sun
rotating, slowly, with the wind, never against
shifting, becoming familiar
nubuck, faux leather, faux suède
rough laces snaked through frayed eyelets
rain-soaked and heavy
shrunken and stale

I’m burning for you tonight;
a candle, lit at both ends,
the center is dynamite.
I’ve forgotten things I’ve never seen before
while you’ve invaded my brain and barricaded the door.
You can’t be trusted with keys,
like I can’t be bothered to sleep.
I’m chasing a ghost with nails in my feet.

I wrote some more stuff. This is 817 words about relationships as an idea. It asks a lot of rhetorical questions and rambles on with clever (to me) references that only I’ll understand. Read it if you want.

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