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Friday, September 21
Thursday, September 20
In Deference To Others: The Aftermath of Change
"I feel so good right now, so good. My mind is clear, my body feels awesome, JR and I had the greatest sex last night, no fighting or anything. I just feel so wonderful - and I'm so happy to have you watching my back."
One phone call and I knew that things had changed. With one call from our third roommate I had proof that my letter had made a difference, that standing up and speaking directly to the issues could provide the bit of momentum that is required to change a life. It's not that he had wanted to be partying all the time, not that he loved coke or staying out 'til 3am and then skipping work, things just ended up that way. He had folded to the desires of others, those desires which we unconciously allow ourselves to follow even though the path which they lead down is visible - and dangerous. His situation was also unique because of a divorce that was unfolding as his first gay relationship in 10 years was growing, he had married his fag-hag and had a beautiful child - but the facade could not be maintained, and things were being dissolved. What's interesting is that his boyfriend was the influence for all the drugs and drink, their schedules diverging because of B's professional engagements, and JR's managerial role at said underwhelming bar/grill. A bit of turbulence when the issue of settling down was raised occured between the two of them. I bowed to their issues and gave as much support to my roommate as I could, niether encouraging him to change his relationship with JR, or change his relationship with me... all I reminded him of constantly was how strong he was to stand up for his own health and sanity, and how little change his life really required to be amazing. For if we can't see how easy it is to be happy in our lives, then we will never take the steps that can lead us to happiness.
Which brings me to John, the other roommate, who has - thus far - remained out of this post, even though he is the reason for it. I wanted to tell the story about B and his transformation that came about during the middle of January. Our move into the new house has disrupted all of our past schedules and habits, but also provided a fresh foundation for awesome times and a funky pad located close to all the gay hotspots of Cleveland (which aren't all that hot, but whatever, at least they're gay). John, it troubles me to say, hasn't quite accepted that a fresh start is what we need, and he's brought along his horrible habits - ghetto attitude of irrational entitlement - and dirt-ball stoner/loser habits. That description sounds rough, so how about I build a little background picture for you...
John: The Man Who Wasn't (a Man That is...)
Time is everything...
We are all just spending our time trying to save every last bit of it, all our generations past and present toiled to pass along the knowledge needed to sustain life - from the accumulated capital, the stores of knowledge inside books, down to the ancient hieroglyphics of the first civilizations we have found... time remains locked inside the bits of the past that surround us... and we can spend our days being miserable at the time we've wasted in not sustaining life, enjoying the living, breathing world around us. A child's simplicity is the time to incultate this knowledge, lest our will be sacrificed to those of another - this is why civilizations emerge, form bands of like-minded people building glorious structures towards maintaining and promoting life - the human struggle of evolution is merely the knowledge of millenniums of prior organization schemes failing to find a self-reproducing scheme for time... a scheme which may seem simple if you believe that time comes only from the physical representation of life. The law of entropy will eventually engulf all forms of organization - including that of our earth. The final vestiges of ancient knowledge have been rested from the hands of our physical bodies by our tormented spiritual worlds, our inner stores of knowledge, on a cellular level, commanded by our minds but directing the mass of cells which comprise our being to seek ever more complex solutions for extending time into infinity. This is the spiritual dream so many of us feel in our hearts, the journey so many of us seek to attain, the power so few of us grasp at would mean commanding the cells of many other complex organisms to sustain in perpetuity time and it's entrancing effects. Complex organization is the name of the game, it is why natural law exists, it explains the how of the why... and the why itself is time. I finally know what that old man was telling me so many, many years ago... when I was so desperate for anything human - any connection real - to find that merely enjoying my time until the end of this existence is the key to happiness, success - well, money is our developed source of time and represents the stored labour of ourselves and others - being pressed into service for use now. It is how time-based beings, who understand that our continued existence is merely the ever-aching grasp towards perpetuity of form, build and maintian the structures around us meant to sustain future generations long enough to figure out how to supply them the knowledge of everything without the knowledge to destroy it all. That is why the ancient records appear - the knolwedge lost until generations upon generations can see the simple truths - that time is for saving, time is for cherishing, time is for loving and moving endlessly forward, for without it we die, civilizations that feed on energy of a thousand generations of day and night find in the end, before it is all too late, that this is time - that the dying of our star, the entropy of our life giving force, is bound to reset everything to repeat again until a self-reinforcing system of organization, an endless time, the essence of conciousness, can be maintained... this is what the wars over resources and knowledge and the structures we leave behind mean... they are our glorious song to the wonders of time, our shared misery at having wasted it, our shared fear of never knowing it... the torment of memory and the utter bliss of the endless possibilities left to us to experiment, to find the simple combination that makes complex organization as utterly far advanced as any living thing, the essence of what we all know we must cherish, towards time. Thus we experience the aging of our solar system like the aging of our populations, steered towards the possible means of understanding this great, simple, wisdom - but never able to acheive it. The Folly and Beauty of Man.
Blowing Bubbles and The Wisdom of Grumpy Old Men
I've been experiencing something of a rebirth lately. Perhaps it's the changes to my diet freeing my soul from the torment I put it through, or a glint of light caught from the heap of experiences I'd thought were merely rusted out clunker memories. Whatever it may be it has awakened my soul from it's forced hibernation, and rekindled a fire for exploration, change and hope. It's drawn lines between the knowledge I've spent years attaining, which I'd thought was merely a good way to while away my hours on the Earth, and the experiences of people who come into my life for whatever brief moment of existence. This is the tale of a very grumpy man, and the truth that gets obscured by our self-centered political class.
Bubble Blowing and The Wisdom of Old Men
Most people have never heard of the Austrian School of Economics, the reasons why could probably be debated into infinity, but they have most likely heard of the Austrian School's political off-shoot - Libertarianism. The fundamental principles of the Austrian School speak to man's ultimate power to determine his own economic fate when left to his own devices. Men (and women too of course) of all talents have, in several long and glorious periods of human history, been left to determine the outcome of their lives and that of their families with fairly little intervention from outside compulsions. It was the way the original inhabitants of America lived, self-sufficient Native American families drew upon the in-born talents of their members to produce the stuff of life, and lived peacably within local tribes with whom they traded their abudant resources for those they may have lacked in. In modern American history there have been brief periods of this self-determination, immediately after the revolutionary war and upon the failing of the various schemes for federal control in the 1800's men's lives were their own to craft, the right to success or failure was theirs to pursue. In the early 1900's however, a curious but deliberatly steered intellectualism rose to the fore, funded and promoted by men whose names are still heralded more than a century later. These were self-made men, who took opportunities and put to use new technologies that brought them immense personal fortunes, and the power that comes with such riches. At the height of their power, and with the connections and knowledge at their disposal, they constructed a global system meant to 'freeze time' and ensure their permanent grasp on the power and wealth they'd acheived. This system is called Fractional Reserve Central Banking and it survives to this day in a form not far from that which it was created in.
Now you may be wondering at this point what the Austrian School, Native Americans, 19th century Industrialists and myself could possibly have connecting us. Let me tell you my brief experience with the grumpy old man in the title, and how he flicked the switch in my mind that shed light on the practices of the past which have gotten us to where we are today.
I began volunteering with a political action campaign in Cleveland in June of 2009. Initially I'd been signed up to do simple computer work for them, but I was prodded into joining an on-the-ground effort to explain our cause door-to-door, and collect signed postcards to be mailed to city council members
Chik-fil-a is still hatin' gays!
Although Chick-fil-A supposedly assured a Chicago alderman that it would stop donating to antigay groups, this week it held a fundraiser for one anyway.
The fast food chain promised in a letter to Alderman Proco "Joe" Moreno, reported by the Chicago Phoenix, that it would end giving to any groups with "political agendas," implying it had stopped a practice that had led to about $5 million for antigay groups. But there might be a loophole.
Read the rest at The Advocate >
My new games, now on the Google Play Store!
You can fill your Android phone with political in-correctness this election season. Vote with your download right now! To go red, download Whack-A-Bama HERE. If you're feeling a little more left-ish, get Whack-A-Romney HERE!
Gay Jesus: Season One
S.1:E.1 - Welcome Back Jesus!
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