Invisible

Invisible

[not able to be seen with the eyes; hidden from view; not readily noticed or detected]

some people imagine invisible lines. they draw them in an intangible place somewhere in their heads. these lines, although they are never clearly defined, and never given any exact parameters, divide the one drawing from the one trying to cross over. but as i’ve said before, they are invisible. all of us do this without even realizing it. we send text messages, emails, facebook messages, and even on rare occasions will write letters to tell someone our perception of the particularities of a relationship. and in this distance, the one perpetuated by non-human interaction, invisible lines are drawn in an invisible place. they destroy us. they destroy our friendships. they destroy the parts of our lives that we grew up building and making strong.

sometimes it’s useful to imagine these lines are actually out there. i wonder how they would manifest. if we would all be encased in a cocoon. or if we would all start to get tangled within each other’s fears. but no matter how i imagine it manifesting, it always appears to me as a limitation. and i realized that these limitations are set by another invisible piece of the human condition.

                                                                                    fear.

           

                                               

                                                invisible lines

                                                            drawing invisible pictures

                                                                        of an invisible emotion.  

i’ve been angry over the past few days. very angry. very bitter. questioning how i allow myself to still feel the sting of something that has faded from my life. ashes in a storm. i let an invisible rage consume my invisible thoughts. so last night i drank myself to sleep instead of going out with my friends or watching the sopranos for hours on end. i sat in total darkness with my bottle of whiskey and contemplated the directions i could take from that point on. this was intentional. this was some kind of twisted meditation. but it fucking worked for me, believe it or not. i woke up this morning and realized that everything i have been feeling and thinking and wandering and hoping for is all

                                                                                                            invisible.

my fears, predominately, are invisible fears.

            my dreams, although vivid, are invisible dreams.

                        my goals, for the time being, are invisible goals.

and somehow there are people who believe that this whole blog, this project that i am doing for myself more than anything as a source of cathartic release, has some kind of specific purpose. those people can’t see that the purpose is also an invisible idea. 

fear is a funny thing. some people are afraid of the physical. but i would venture to say that most people on this planet fear things that they cannot see. and the fact that they can’t see any of it makes them even more afraid of it. and that fear snowballs and they begin to see their fears take shape in reality. but what they ignore, or fail to see, is that they are projecting their internal anguish - pain, doubt, regret - onto something that is easier for them to understand. they also fail to see that it is all invisible. it is all imaginary.

so what am i getting at? i don’t really know. i guess i just wanted to put more invisible ideas into the invisible cloud of invisible information and hope that some invisible peace will take place of some invisible fear and my invisible mind can rest for an invisible moment.

Faith

Faith

i sat and i listened when i was young. i was baptized and i was saved. saved from what? saved from who? i just don’t understand. when i break it down and dissect it all, i just become envious.

                                    maybe it’s because i’ve lost my faith.

which is not to say i don’t believe in… well fuck… i believe in something. i believe that at one point we were all part of the same hunk of shit. we were all clumped together in this giant ball of matter and eventually it exploded, or imploded, and the shit that made us up expanded and grew and evolved and here we are.

                         a bunch of faithful fucking humans.

i was raised in a religious household. my mom and dad, over the years, became more and more convinced that the church and the bible was full of truth. i don’t think they are wrong. i also don’t think they are right. i think they are investing their time in what makes them happy. and to me, as long as my parents are happy, and my sisters, and - well pretty much anyone who goes to church and believes in that shit – i think that is all that matters. i don’t buy into it. and that is my choice. i’ve always thought the church is a big fucking scam. and i’m sorry if that hurts anyone’s feelings.

but if there is a God then i truly believe he would be alright with me. maybe that is some kind of twisted self-righteous justification. but nonetheless, i really do believe there is more to our existence than living and dying. i think that we are tied together by some forces of nature that supersede human understanding.

there is this theory called the big crunch. much like the big bang, it is based on the idea that everything started off in this little atomic vortex and exploded out into oblivion. but the big crunch is what happens at the end of the big bang. the universe is expanding and growing and eventually it will stop. this theory suggests that once it stops growing, it will start moving in reverse. back to where it started. they tell you to imagine a heartbeat on a universal scale.

            bmp-bmp.

                        bmp-bmp.

                                    bmp-bmp.

now imagine each of these beats is our universe. the first compression is the big bang. and the space between this and the next compression is our existence. and the second compression is the big crunch. these scientists, or astronomers or whatever, can prove this. it's called red shift. this is how we know that the universe is expanding. and the way i understand it: (which isn't necessarily accurate because i'm a fucking writer and at the moment, i've had a few drinks) it's a "what goes up must come down" sort of situation. 

the point is that everything is relative.

                        that we can only see things on a relative scale and our perspective is limited.

and to have faith

                                                when everything is so obscure

                                                                                                            and abstract

                                                                                                well…

i

become

so

fucking

envious.

think about how many heartbeats you’ve produced in the time you’ve read these words. think of how many universes have existed and ceased to exist on a scale that we can’t even quantify from our perspective. think about the life and the death of a billion universes. a trillion galaxies. an infinite number of lives.

                                                                        gone in a matter of minutes.

                        yet faith alone carries us forward.

there are people in this world that read the bible and feel restored. they hear words from a preacher and feel rejuvenated.

                                    how?

                                                            why?

i think this is a matter that will never settle in my mind. mostly due to the fact that the God i believe in isn’t watching over me. the God i believe in is me. it is in my brain and in my blood and in my heart. and the interconnectivity of the human race with the rest of the universe, that is the soul.

it’s actually pretty scientific if you break it down. there are only a few chemicals and forces that have existed since the dawn of time. since the beginning. and those very physical aspects of our lives hold us together. like glue.

we

            are

                        all

                                    made

                                                from

                                                            the

                                                                        same

                                                                                    shit.

                                                                        yet

                                                            we

                                                all

                                    try

                        to

            deny

it.

we all want to be a unique piece of the puzzle

                                                but the puzzle is so much greater than us

                                    and we are all just one giant piece.

so in the midst of this, in trying to understand it all, there are the masses that have faith in something more. there are the hundreds of thousands that KNOW there is more to life than what is in front of us. and these people, whether you are one of them or not, carry us all forward. because by some miracle… by some chemical inaccuracy… these people have gone beyond reason and logic and science… and they have connected on a level that many of us will never achieve.

                                                and as i’ve said before.

                                                                                    i am envious.

i wish i could find the same faith in myself that i’ve seen other people find in God

Perfect

 Perfect.

i’ve climbed mountains. i’ve run miles. i’ve swam through oceans and lakes and rivers alike. i’ve flown across the world and back again. i’ve dived off of waterfalls. i’ve clung to the edges of the highest cliffs in the world. i’ve punched and kicked holes in more than a few walls. i’ve spent my time on my back in more than a few seedy clubs. i’ve broken my share of hearts. i’ve believed in three different Gods at the same time. i’ve stared at the television for hours on end. i’ve pulled a man out of an overturned car on a highway in south florida. i danced with my first true love under the Daytona moonlight. i wrote her name in the sand while she looked down from the top floor of a hotel and watched me spell it out. i’ve sang drunken songs with a broken old man. i’ve learned a thousand lessons from a faultless father. i’ve learned a thousand and one from my loving mother. i’ve walked into the sunset until i hit water. i’ve turned around and walked to the other side of the island. i’ve asked a girl to marry me on the lava rocks of hawaii. i’ve let that girl consume my every waking breath. i’ve taught hundreds of struggling writers how to tap into their souls for inspiration. i’ve smoked weed with friends and strangers alike. i’ve taken pills that made me walk the surface of mars. i’ve eaten dinner with the greatest chef i’ve ever met. i’ve become part of a hundred different families. i’ve sank my teeth into the shoulder of a girl i had never met as she moved on top of me in ways i didn’t know were possible. i’ve lied to every person i’ve ever known at least once. i’ve saved my sister from drowning. i am an eagle scout who was kicked out of summer camp one year for threatening to kill a man because he stole my soda. i am a narcissist. i’ve robbed a convenient store blind. i am not happy. i am self-conscious of the way i look and often get anxious if i feel someone is staring at me. i think more about what someone else thinks of me during a conversation than my own actual words. i get nostalgia thinking about the way things were ten years ago. i’ve lied about trying to kill myself. i’ve bragged about being a writer so much that all i want to be now is a musician. i’ve betrayed some of the only people that have been faithful to me in my lifetime. i am a pessimist. i am a realist. i am an existentialist. i am a writer. i am a fraud. i am sick of listening to myself complain. i am a cynic. i am a musician. i am prototypical. i am predictable. i am not concerned with grammar and spelling unless it is being graded or i am trying to help someone learn. i want to be a teacher but my biggest fear is that the people i teach start to realize that i am a condescending asshole. i can’t write my book because i’m too busy writing bullshit narcissistic blogs. i’ve hiked through the black hills of south dakota. i’ve ripped the braces off of my front teeth twice in my lifetime. i shot a bird with a BB gun in my backyard when i was 8 and i cried for hours because it was the first time i’d ever felt evil in my heart. i’ve been caught looking at porn twice in my life. i haven’t had sex in over two years and i lie about it constantly to boost my own ego. i am an alcoholic when i want to be. i only came back to hawaii to get my degree and i really feel completely alone here. i love my grandparents more than anything in the world and feel guilty for choosing my selfish cunt of an ex over them. i hate myself for drinking so much when i went to Europe because i don’t remember anything. i’ve been in love with a few girls and never grew the balls to tell them. i’ve imagined a future with complete strangers. i’m fully aware that this level of honesty will make people think differently of me which is why i’ve clumped it into a huge block of text and tried to deter people from reading the truth about me. i’ve had sex in a cemetery on multiple occasions. i have a tendency to fall in love with girls that will destroy me or my reputation. i am not ashamed of my choices. i tried cocaine once. i had a very very strange and traumatizing experience with a stripper in quincy illinois. i am deathly afraid of chickens. i love hockey. i love my family.

                                    i am not perfect and i don’t want to be.

                                                            perfect is fucking boring.

Void

Void

the hardest feeling to explain to people is the clear and impending absence of what used to be.

                                    i’m surrounded by beauty. sprawling mountain ranges. clear blue seas.                                       greens and jades and emeralds rolling in the grace of the pacific winds.                                       all of this surrounds me. and it is such a brilliantly inspiring ambiance.                                           and i’m overwhelmed.

            but not by the beauty.                                                           by the void.

these colors painted on the surfaces of this island are unparalleled. unmatched by any other place on this planet. so much so that the air is colorful in its transparency.

this is why people live here. this is what makes them happy.

but i can only speak for myself.

                        and for the void.

                                                            the overwhelming void.

i guess i can only explain it as my fall from grace. my experience is relative to what i can compare it to in my past. and when i first came to this island in january 2012, i was the happiest i have ever been in my life. i truly feel that it was the highest i’ve been in my 25 years. my mind was clear. my body was thriving with energy and enthusiasm. my heart was full. i felt complete. i felt like i belonged. i had love. the strongest and most radiant love i’ve ever known. and that feeling – to know that you are loved and you will be safe and you will always have a home with a human being that sees you for who you truly are – that feeling was the true cause of my peak of happiness. i reached that place because my hands weren’t empty. and i believed that they never would be again. the prodigious solace. the extraordinary comfort. everything worth living for.

maybe that is why it had to end. for something to feel so boundless and to naively trust that it would last into eternity. it’s as if there was a vacuum and inside it there was just her and i. and the pressure from the world, the reality of it all, started to condense us. and eventually, there was too much inside this vacuum. too many thoughts and emotions and dreams floating around carelessly with less and less space to move until eventually

                                                                                    we imploded

            a violent

                                                            bitter

                                                                                                                        tragic

                       

                                    unstoppable

                                                                                    incredible

ball of dust

lingered

in the air

for four months

until i disappeared and let those beautiful, unimaginable, incomparable hawaiian winds

                        sweep away the debris.

all that remains

is the void.

a black hole whose gravity i cannot escape.

as desperate and lethargic as it has become for me.

i will never escape its pull.

and so the beauty of it all

                        of the trees and the mountains and the ocean

                                    is a reminder of that void

                                                and therefore as much of a curse

                                                            as it is a blessing.

 please don’t think i am ungrateful or complacent. i chose this life. i accept the results of my decisions, whether or not they are my fault or if there is even any blame to place. but as i’ve said before there are certain things i cannot, and maybe will not be able to escape.

                       

                                    as long as there is a void i will never rest to fill it