Like the Jaded Sidewalkers

Men clad cleanly, polished boots and bowler hats,
Women wearing short skirts or long dress,
Boys no longer boys deny their old,
With rock and rap, skate shoes; how bold!

Indifferently they carry on,
I am you, and you are him,
She is fat and she is slim,
Registered in heads dead depth,
As we pretend to see no man who chokes on crystal meth.

Like the jaded sidewalkers,
Who cram these city streets;
A glance is but acknowledgment,
As all shuffle in quick feet.

To say the least, we will pay none,
To those who are not us;
To say the least, we think we've won,
Ignore the drunk mans fuss.

Like the jaded sidewalkers,
Who view in black-and-white;
No middle-ground perceives a frown,
As they sleep amid streetlights.

The morning rush and nightly blitz,
As people scurry too,
Destinations, dealing smiles;
Self-help books to start anew.

As talk through text, online, or phone,
Dominates the daze,
Indifferently, ignore eachother,
"Nothing need be said inside this maze."
The CEO, he acts as King,
With peasants treated well;
Their brains blunted to buried states,
"He's bad; but he'll get his due in hell."

Everyday they rise early,
To catch the mornings speed;
"I do this by the clock because,
A life, so rich, I'll lead."

"Conforming kills the mindless soul,
To fight off human urge;"
You're free, yet unaware of this,
So conforming, you won't purge.

Like the jaded sidewalkers,
Who, like zombies, follow sway,
A human hand on island sand,
'I saw him not,' or so I say.

To Hide Within Invisible Walls

Xenophobic, homophobic, racist, sexist, conservative, and rigid. Traditional values treated humans as sheep to a Shepard, and although modern values hold parallels and comparatives, it seems, at least the illusion of freedom prevails.

In the 1860’s, you would be shot for murder in the sense that the ‘punishment fits the crime.’ Life was expendable to the greater good, or, as the Wild West confirmed, for nothing greater at all. In addition, people of separate race, nationality, or sexuality were treated as inferior, and attempts at extermination would also be made from time to time as these feelings of ‘superiority’ came to a boiling point. Moreover, death became the norm; something everyone was required to deal with due to its almost daily inevitability due to a serious maintained decline in the health of the masses. Isn’t death commonplace in today’s world as well? Yes, but it seemed tradition almost endorsed it when it came to certain ‘undesirable’ members of society.

Now that’s not to say that this sort of thing doesn’t occur from time to time in our contemporary world, but it seems that it is a suppressed flipside of the projected reality we live in. Racism is kept to individuals or groups, masked as a joke, making it hard to really interpret when it’s meant playfully or seriously; yet it remains a very real part of modern society. As for xenophobia, homophobia, and sexism, they are just as real, but not quite as intertwined and widespread as racism seems to be. On the other hand, all of this seems to be pointing to the negativities of today, when in fact the positives outweigh them by ten to one. We have running water, both hot and cold; access to upwards of 1000 channels on television, which can either help or hinder our open-mindedness; and unconditional access to information on absolutely anything known to man via the internet, which can only help ones open-mindedness, as the internet is selective as opposed to subjective in what you will absorb.

There are many points of congruent similarity between the modern and traditional worlds; some of the more arbitrary points being the most outspoken in continuity, such as fathers still being abit more overprotective of their daughters than they are of their sons, in a hopeless attempt at the preservation of childhood innocence. This is not to say that it is as outspoken as it once was in the 1860’s, but it is to say that it is a very real remainder of the social programming we, as humans, underwent during the days of the Wild West and the Industrial Revolution. The very real existence of homophobia that still exists in today’s society is another point of congruent similarity one could draw on, yet it is a similarity with difference. In the 1860’s, homosexuality was effectively suppressed throughout every enclave of society as a whole, yet still stood defiant in its existence; but in the contemporary world, it would seem that the tables have turned, and it is now homophobia’s turn to be widely suppressed. Now, that is not to say that homosexuality is the preference of the majority, but it is to say that the acceptance of homosexuality is the preference of the majority. Sadly, just as homosexuality in the 1860’s, homophobia still stands stubbornly defiant in its tensely-guarded existence.

Nationality, and in a pseudo-realistic sense, nationalism, still remain as significant knots to our past, both recent and ancient, in the sense that they take from the past to build the identity of an arbitrarily marked geographic location in the present. I mean, honestly; what would Greece be like without Hercules? The United States without Abraham Lincoln or George W. Bush? Canada without John A. MacDonald? They’d be much different in the patriotic sense, that’s for sure. On the other hand, the difference is quite major once you really get down to it, requiring we’re not referring to Neoconservatives, whose nationalist rants tend to give government a bad face, time and time again. The difference is the idea that nationality can be exchanged, especially in North America, where a place like Canada acts more as the world’s Petri dish when it comes to diversity in every field, in which every country is represented as if each immigrant citizen were part of a foreign delegation directly representing the original; and places like the United States act as the world’s melting pot, as to create some sort of hybrid nationality in which every country is represented in a form autonomous to its origins. This isn’t to say that xenophobia no longer exists, as the Muslim scare among sects of the population throughout the western world following 9/11 clearly show, but it is to say that xenophobia has significantly eased its cruel restrictions since the days of Prime Minister Robert Borden, and President Taft.

Sexism, as is still obvious among the more ‘redneck’ members of society, holds similarities to the problems of modern racism in the sense that it is constantly masked as a joke, and as such is hard to interpret as a complete social reality. It is obviously still there, as there are still cases of men finding it hard to work under a female boss due to sexist reasoning in the sense that they seem to believe it is breaching their ‘code of masculinity,’ but as opposed to the dictated lower-wages for women prior to the Second World War, it is certainly a significant and positive difference. That is not to say that modern sexism only applies in the sense of men to women, as it very much applies in the sense of women to men. In the ‘less progressive’ sects of society, there are women who still believe in maintaining the masculine image upon men as the ones who go to work as the breadwinners, and leave the women at home to care for the house and the kids. These are usually the same women who jump to creating blanket-generalizations of men the world-over, especially when they have fallen victim to masculine arrogance from such men who truly believe in the stereotypes themselves. Now, on the other hand, modern society holds very large differences in contrast to the world of the 1860’s, one of which includes the acceptance, and occasionally endorsing of homosexuality, as was examined 2 paragraphs prior. It also holds a major difference in the sense that even a majority of mainstream society seems to look down in confusion on those who stick to the stereotypical traditions.

So, in all honesty, it seems that 1862 and 2010 have more in common than may have been previously thought in the field of human societal norms, yet progressive pins-and-needles seem to be pushing themselves through the fabric of tradition to weave a new reality. Even if we are still restricted within the walls of society, the illusion of freedom prevails as it never possibly could have in the old world.

Please Note: This was originally written as an essay for my Grade 12 English class.

Affairs as of Late

Well, cyberspace, I apologize once again for my momentary lapse in making addresses to the blogging world. I've been busy either relaxing, or spending time with what a friend of mine's horoscope described as his 'true-blue' friends.

For the most part, I've been quite happy and content, but in the complex intertwining of a still slightly developing teenage sense of self, there are momentary lapses in self-confidence and self-esteem, which are, of course, nothing new to myself or anyone else around my age.
You know the days...
Those days when you wake up at a friends place after spending the night, feeling kind've gross due to the fact that you didn't brush your teeth the night before, and you feel greasy due to not being able to shower or change out of the same clothes you've been wearing since yesterday morning.
It seems when you look in the mirror, the extra frizz on the top of your hair is more obviously outspoken than usual, even after a shake and a brush; and the gray rings underneath your eyes seem much more pronounced than you are usually used to noticing. Superficially, and at some mental degree, it doesn't really matter to you; but then theirs that part of the mind that governs social interaction that's telling you that you're not looking up-to-par with the rest of society.

Also, I've been back to school, and I'd honestly have to say that 3 out of my 4 classes are quite good and exactly to my satisfaction, even if my Psychology class isn't quite to my expectations in the sense of social interaction, as it's filled with a majority of people I either don't know, or just so happen to be the richer, generally more attractive side of the school society admirably nicknamed 'preps.' As for the fourth class, I'd honestly have to say it's my least favorite for a legion of reasons, the first and most obvious being that it's a math class; but that's hardly what I consider the problem so much as it's the fact that it's a Grade 10 Math class, and I just so happen to be a Grade 12 on my final year of high-school.
Now, that's not to say that I have any real problem with the age difference (in fact, 2 of my ex-girlfriends just so happen to be in the class, and luckily we all maintain good friendships between one-another), but I do conform in a sense to the school culture that people are part of their Grade's, and frankly, I feel completely out of place and a little embarrassed to be sitting in a class of a 2 year difference, which I was technically supposed to have done 2 years prior in the first place.

Some of you are probably going to (rightfully) assume that I must have failed somewhere along the line, and as such, am required to repeat the course. In reality, I never took that specific course in the first place. In Grade 9, I requested to be put in a simplified (Essentials) math course instead of the 'mainstream' (Principals) course, in an attempt to escape having to do math to any serious degree, and opting instead to simply scrape by until I could be finally free of such a burdensome course in Grade 11. Through some sudden sense of real intelligence, I realized I may, in fact, need the Principals course for future use, and decided to join the Introduction to Mathematics course as to transition back into the Principals course for the end of Grade 10. Half-way through the first semester, they split the Intro course in half, with certain people being above a certain percentage, and the other half below. I was in the group that was below, and as such, all of us were taken to a smaller room, in which we were given access to more one-on-one time with the teacher as to assist us further in learning.
By the end of the semester, everyone in the class had practically given up on any serious effort in the course, and the teacher decided to have us do a 2-week crash course in the Grade 10 Essentials course, as so we could at least take the Essentials exam and not need to take the course in the following semester. Needless to say, I passed the course, and passed Essentials of Math 10, moving on to Essentials 11 the next year.

Following the completion of my Essentials 11 course in the first semester of last year, we had a presentation of University and Colleges in the surrounding regions, and I decided to see what the requirements would be for the University of Victoria (UVIC), the school I'd had my eyes on for quite awhile, as I'm smart in a political, philosophical, historical, musical and poetic sense (but not in the sense of math), and discovered that I would be required to have Principals of Mathematics 11 to do absolutely any course at the University. In anguish, I decided I'd pursue the goal regardless, and signed up for Principals 10 and 11 for my Grade 12 year, asking for the Grade 10 course to be taken online (which, as obvious, I got in a classroom instead).
Basically, in my mission to cut down and possibly avoid math entirely, I ended up prolonging my need to endure it.

Hopefully, this calculated conundrum works out to my wanted specifications (and I apologize for the terrible pun). Until next time, peace out blue planet!

Step Forward, Step Foot.

I'd like to step foot,
In the land of dictatorships,
Despots,
And dead-men;
To voice my Western opinion,
Through the veil of the immune.

I'd like to step foot,
In the land of the lions,
The gazelle,
And bright birds,
To experience all,
That cannot be said through mere words.

I'd like to step foot,
In the land of old Queens;
The land of abdication,
From which the French coast, it gleams.

I'd like to step foot,
In the permafrost of the north,
And experience why,
Others don't venture forth.

I'd like to step foot,
In the tropics of the south,
Where the rain pounds just like,
A forgotten old sink,
In which the sound is so loud,
You can't hear yourself think.

I'd like to step foot,
On the island of the abnormal,
Off the coast of the near-east,
Where it seems strange to act formal.

I'd like to wade through,
The ocean of men,
In a Tokyo square,
In which you lose count at ten.

I'd like to float forth,
From the bounds of this Earth,
And with my own eyes,
See all life as it's worth,
From our desolate moon,
Watch our world as it rise,
And from eons away,
Watch a star as it sighs.

I'd like to see life,
Through my eyes,
As a prize.

The Cast-Iron Man

Young, was this boy,
When his father told him,
"Don't trust another, son;
All people lie, yes, it's grim,
But no one deserves more,
Than you do, you see?
Always put yourself first and foremost,
And stronger, you'll be."

He believed every word,
Stored each in his head;
To him, these were words,
To be believed and not said.

His father taught him,
How to be a true man.
He needed big muscles,
Strong words, and a tan.

He taught him his 'truth,'
For him to hold in his heart,
"What does not kill you, my son,
Makes you stronger, so start,
To take every tough time,
In stride, don't let up;
It is not right to shed tears;
As a man conceals all thoughts,
Of emotion and caring,
Beyond loving yourself;
You can pretend to love one girl,
But keep the truth on the shelf;
Make her work to earn you,
A man like you is a rare find.
Good looking, and tough;
Never tie loves loose bind."

As he grew up,
He'd start fights,
With men,
He claimed did him wrong.
"I have honor!" He'd scream,
This was his self-song;
An anthem, of sorts,
Which carried away,
All the thoughts that he was wasting,
Life, day after day;
Hiding all of his doubts,
Under a mask of pure mad;
Concealing insecurities,
With the punch he did have.

He dropped-out of school,
After his father fell ill;
The next day he died,
From one to many a pill,
Of what he called 'manly;'
Drugs on the run.
He wanted it over,
So he could live and die young.

His son was left lonely,
No family, no friends;
No real ones, at least.
They were just with him,
To enjoy a life short and simple,
One in which they die young,
So they need not endure,
Aching backs, and bad lungs.

It wasn't long before he was alone on the street;
His friends had deserted,
Either died, or hit limits in peaks,
Of drug overdoses,
It had come a surprise.
The cast-iron man,
Stopped when tears reached his eyes.

For two years, he spent,
Alone on the street;
Becoming weaker and weaker,
And his ignored need to eat,
In favor of drugs,
Such as crack,
Crystal meth;
He was becoming beyond words,
An image of death.

One day, he lay alone,
And he cried.
He hated himself for this lie,
He did hide,
Under what was left of his muscle,
His strength, and his words;
Hallucinations plagued him,
Of men with large swords;
Battling each-other,
To retain their true man,
Showing their muscles,
And boasting their tans,
As if mocking the poor,
Lonely, cast-iron man,
Many years ago,
His spirit had ran.

No, more accurately,
His spirit had died;
It had been stabbed far to much,
By those who had lied.

That night he had reached,
The end of the fast lane;
His body died, drenched,
In the cold winter rain,
As he followed his spirit,
To an opposite plain.

Nothing's wrong with this Earth,
It is man who's insane.

Duality: A Short Story

The jungle was relentless. It seemed as if as soon as it had you, you were trapped; fated to do battle not only with the forces of the Imperial Japanese Army, but with the unrelenting, merciless forces of mother nature.
It rained more than Colonel Jasper Ridgewood had ever thought possible, soaking him and his fellow Marines not only through the light fabric of their cheap military uniforms, but seemingly to the bone, simultaneously counteracting the nearly unbearable humid heat which was able to permeate ones sense of reality and replace it with a dizzy haze of constant movement and gunfire.

It was October 1942 on the remote island of Guadalcanal, and it seemed as if mother nature was on the side of the Japanese, as she seemed to override the backwardness of the seasons in the southern hemisphere, to which Colonol Ridgewood had been told it was now apparently summer, but his rightfully pessimistic mind continued to murmur to itself at the irony of such a statement. It hadn't rained virtually at all during the onset of the campaign two months prior, when he had been told that the slightly drier heat was what the people of this part of the world called 'winter.'

"Need a smoke, Colonel?" Private First Class Edward Kulshayski asked, holding out a nearly-empty box of Camel cigarettes in offering.
"As if that'd stay lit in this weather, Private." Ridgewood replied.
Ridgewood and Kulshayski had known each other since their freshman year at high school in Des Moines, Iowa, and had grown so close as to become undeclared best friends in the years to follow, playing together in the school band up until the onset of the war in Europe during their graduating year.

By 1940, and with both of them lacking any sort of employment yet itching for adventure, they had contemplated travelling to Canada together as to enlist in the fight against Hitler, yet even money for the trip was more than slightly tight for the time being.

On December 7th of the following year, their lucky break finally came with he onset of war against the expansive Japanese Empire to the east, immediately enlisting at their local American Armed Forces bureau. After four months of vigorous training at Fort Lauderdale, both Ridgewood and Kulshayski fought alongside one another at Midway, both earning promotions, with Ridgewood earning the greater of the two due to his saving the lives of several of his fellow Marines by commandeering a Japanese radio and contacting the Air force just in time to destroy a Japanese battleship before it could fire its cannons at the men trapped on the beach.

"You know what? We really shouldn't be addressing each other by our ranks; I mean, I'm older than you by 2 months, and somehow you hold some symbolic authority over me because the U.S. Military says so." Edward called, speaking over the sound of the pounding rain.
"2 months really doesn't mean much to either myself or the Marine Corp, therefore you don't have much ground to argue your point."
"Well.. I finished with over 96 percent in 12th Grade calculus, compared to your 67 percent."
Laughing, Ridgewood lightly pounded Edward on the arm.
"Shut up, you fucking dolt. I beat you in History class by at least 32 percent. Math just isn't my thing."
"Yeah, well I think it was because Mrs. Henderson had a crush on you." Kulshayski chuckled, a playful grin reaching from ear to ear as he continued to watch his step, wading carefully through the thick underbrush, and squinting slightly as water dripped off his helmet and onto his nose.
"Aw bullshit! She had more of a crush on-"
"Shh!" A Marine to the right of them called, slowing quickly and lifting his M1 Garand into a readied position close to his chest.

With his grin quickly fading to a look of wide-eyed concentration, Ridgewood watched as Kulshayski slung his Thompson from off his back and into a similar readied position as the other Marines which were slowing their paces in almost synchronized unison.
In the distance, Jasper could hear the muffled sound of voices speaking a language entirely alien to him, and undoubtedly that of the enemy.

"Down, down!" Sargent Huxley whispered from the front of the column, signalling with his left hand. Ridgewood, almost squatting, held his breath for a moment and listened intently.
There was a moment of silence that felt like an eternity. Even the whispering seemed as if it had ceased, and then- "Banzai!"
Suddenly, what would have been practically pitch darkness aside from the light provided by the moon was lit up in successive flashes as numerous machine guns began to flare back and forth.
The sound of bullets impacting the trees, or tearing through the bushes around him caused Jasper to instinctively fall forward and sprawl himself out on the jungles floor. Looking to his left amid the quickly unwinding chaos, he made eye contact with Edward, who had also gone as low as he could to find shelter from the bullets.

Maintaining eye contact, Kulshayski pointed forward towards what looked like a fallen log they could use as a firing position. Placing his M1 Garand on his back and making sure the broken sling was knotted properly on the other side, Jasper followed Edward in edging his way towards the log, and upon reaching it was quick to undue the knot and place himself in a sitting position as to see over their cover.
About three feet ahead of them, three Marines were sprawled out in the open, firing in long bursts from a makeshift machine gun position. Looking up, Jasper watched as an ocean of Japanese soldiers charged from the thick underbrush, only to be mowed down in a hail of bullets and blood.
Lifting his M1, Jasper began picking targets at random, hitting all but one, and occasionally mistaking Edward's kills for his own due to the epileptic confusion.
Finally, the determined battle cries of the Japanese stopped, and Huxley ordered everyone to cease fire. Yet more silence ensued.

Ten minutes passed, and Jasper looked towards Kulshayski, still rooted in his awkward battle stance.
"I- I think it's over." Edward said quietly. Slowly, he peaked his head further up and over the log.
"Banzai!"
"Shit!" He yelled.
"Edward, get down! Get the fuck down!" Jasper shouted amid the renewed sounds of gunfire.
But he didn't; he seemed oddly fixated on something, and then- thwup.
A spatter of warm wetness jumped across Jasper's face. When he opened his eyes, the motionless look of the curiously fixated face of Edward Kulshayski greeted him, with a small, deep, dripping hole on his forehead.
In shock, Jasper began to cry, closing his eyes and grabbing his own face as if he were going insane.

Edward Kulshayski was unmistakeably dead.


22 Years Later.

It had been exceptionally cold in Des Moines during the winter of 1964.
Jasper Ridgewood now had the solemn opportunity to move from the city to the family farm, which was now left completely vacant with his fathers recent death at the age of 81.
As distressed as he was with the death of the man that had raised him since his mothers death in 1936 due to cancer, he couldn't help but feel a strange sense of calm caught up in the winter-wonderland backdrop of the city at this time of year.
Pulling up to the funeral home for his fathers processions, he was slightly surprised to see how large the line-up outside was, filled with people from his past. He even noted the presence of a few old high school buddy's he hadn't seen since before the war, and was quick to solemnly greet them and thank them for there presence. He wasn't in much of a mood to ask as to what they had been up to since the last time he had seen them.

Moving politely through the crowd to the front of the line, and then into the funeral home itself, Jasper found the coroner agitatedly conversing with a white-haired man while flipping through the guestbook.
"Is there something wrong, Mr. Crestly?" Jasper intervened, "Yes, sir, there is. This man here claims to have known you and your father prior to your death during the war."
"My death? During the war?"
Jasper stopped, dead in his tracks, as he made eye-contact with the baffled-looking white-haired man.
"Kulshayski!" He yelled in shock.
"Ridgewood!" The white-haired man yelled back.

"But- but you're dead! I saw you get shot in the head on Guadalcanal! I even escorted your body back to the States!" Jasper said, his eyes widened in confused shock.
"What? No! No no no, I saw you get shot on Guadalcanal! I escorted your body back home!" Edward replied.

There was a moment of quiet between the two men as Jasper sunk to his knees and fell to Edward's feet and began to cry, hugging his old friend's legs in disbelief.

"What the hell is this? What the HELL is this?!?" Jasper wheezed as tears continued to run down his cheeks.

Update and Announcement

Hello there, world! I am, once again, regretful (ok, no so much regretful as sorry) about my absence from the blogging scene. This time around, my 'summer life' has very little to do with it. I've been spending the last few days either with family or simply alone, doing alot of reading, as well as conquering Asia in my forever-and-always favorite grand strategy video game, Hearts of Iron 2. Last night was actually the first time I've spent with friends since last Thursday, I believe. It's actually pretty nice to have extended time to yourself from time to time, although it seems my friends have less of an appreciation for me when I return to the social world after a few days, although that may simply be an arbitrary emotional bias brought on by slight insecurity.

Anyways, I'd like to announce that not a single full-fledged article is on its way, but instead a series of articles based on my personally-formed philosophies. The following subjects will be studied and discussed:

The Reality and Illusions of Reality,

Old-world Morals,

The Reality and Illusions of Dreams, Visions, and Memories,

Individual Outlooks on the World and the Universe,

The Existence/ Extent of Free-Will,

The Deceptions of Society,

The Role of Emotions,

The Requirement/ Use of Structure,

Life prior to Life,

Life after Death,

Personal Relationships,

Impersonal Relationships,

The Existence of Alternate States of Reality,

The Existence of Alternate States of Existence,

Natural Precognition,

The Existence of a Spirit or Soul,

And last, but not least: Existence Beyond the Human Mind.