A Brief Understanding

The hardest part of writing, for me, is trying to understand myself well enough to articulate it to someone else.

This is a lot harder than one would imagine.  We short-lived humans change, physically and mentally, every single day of our lives, yet the patterns we develop paint the appearance of consistency.  We meet the same people, have similar conversations, perform similar tasks, and go to bed thinking of ways to do it even better tomorrow.

But come across the slightest change to that schedule, and you’ll feel it.  The quickened pulse.  The heightened awareness.  That electrifying jolt of curiosity which overwhelms all other thoughts in your mind until satisfaction washes it away.

That, I believe, is the moment of change.  The powerful, yet quickly forgotten sensation of perspectives being widened, of synapses forming in the brain to hold new information.

This happens more often than we realize, which is what makes writing so hard.  Just when you think you’ve gotten a handle on your own thoughts and beliefs, life happens and changes them while you’re not looking.  Suddenly, you’re staring at a blank page, wondering when exactly your train of thought got derailed.

I experience this so often that I’ve become suspicious of anyone who claims to have hold on the “truth,” especially when that anyone is me.  I’m racked with doubt during every waking moment.  Writing is the only time I feel I’ve caught up with myself, yet the victory is always temporary.

How would you feel if every time you put pen to paper, the words you wrote became false the next day?  1 + 1 = 2?  Today it equals three.  Tomorrow, it’ll equal Banana.

It’s a maddening exercise.  And yet, it’s one I hold to be more valuable than any other, for with doubt comes freedom.  Freedom to believe that which makes sense to you.  Freedom to hold true to values that may not fit a given mold.  Freedom to create your own reality, and give others the chance to see something completely new.

I can’t purport to have all the answers on how one should live their life, though I’d certainly like to.  The world is such a beautiful place, I think it’s a crime that some people can live their entire lives without leaving their home town.  People always talk of vacations as if they’re escapes, places to go for a week or a month to “recharge the batteries.”

Not so for me.  My body aches to wander.  To see people and places that lie beyond the local horizon.  I could care less about starting a family, saving for retirement, or buying a house.  Our world is shrinking by the day and I don’t want to waste another minute not plumbing its depths.  The short time I spend at home, working and training, that’s the vacation for me.  Life waits impatiently in the traveler’s boots.

When I tell people about leaving, they always get that far off look in their eyes.  “Yeah,” they’ll whisper, “I’d like travel abroad one day.  After I retire, though.  There’s simply too much to do right now.”

It’s a line I’ve heard so often, from people in their 50’s and 60’s, that I can’t help but feel that they’ve wasted the precious little time they have on this planet.  I’m both saddened and infuriated, cursing the society we live in that tempts us with cages of plaster and carpet, chains of chain restaurants, pounds of debt and the shackles of obligation we willingly place upon ourselves, so eager to give up our freedom for comfort.

And yet, I recognize that by tomorrow, those words may very well collapse under the passage of time.  Just today, I spent my morning helping a friend’s family move from one house to another.  In the process, I saw how powerful the familial bond can be.  It is one thing to criticize an idea.  It is quite another to see it fully realized.

Doubt yet again creeps into the recesses of my mind, and so I find myself once more at the keyboard’s touch.  A series of letters, listed in some random order, waiting to be pressed into understanding.  Waiting for me to understand me.

The answers, as always, remain elusive, and so the endless hunt continues.  Passion drives me forward like a rocket into the night sky, flashing in brilliance before losing itself in the stars.  And there, among the heavens, I wait.  I reflect.  I change.  I live.

Read my words, dear readers, and embrace them for what they represent: A brief, fleeting moment in time when all the world falls into place.

That’s all for tonight.

Gods of Men

I remember, long ago, reading a book in the library of my elementary school.  It was a picture book about the pantheon of Gods and Goddesses from ancient Greece.  Illustrated stories of Zeus and Hera, Aphrodite and Athena, Hermes and Hades.  It was a joy to read tales of their pride and hubris, the bumblings of impossibly powerful deities constantly fucking up life for us humans.  These were beings who, for some imagined sleight, would raze entire cities to the ground.

What I remembered most, however, was the book’s final pages.  At the very end, there was a two-page foldout showing countless statues of these very Gods, broken and aged, lost in the sands of some forgotten desert.  It talked about the death of the Gods, who relied so much on our belief and worship that, when Man finally moved on, there was nothing left to sustain them.

That image has stayed with me ever since.  The idea that belief is what keeps reality in place has always been fairly unnerving.  We imbue existence with meaning whenever we call something by name or describe an idea to someone else.  Without language, without history or tradition, existence simply collapses in on itself, replaced by whatever mankind believes in next.

Take the Christian God.  Throughout the Old Testament, stories of his wrath are a dime a dozen.  He is a vengeful God in those early chapters, and it’s a miracle mankind survives long enough to see the birth of his son.  There’s a reason people use the saying “To put the fear of God into someone.”  Here was a being who could literally erase every human being in the blink of an eye, simply out of anger or jealousy.  There was no other choice but to obey.

The New Testament, apparently, reveals that the all-knowing, infallible, omniscient God has a change of heart.  I suppose having kids will do that, even to a God.  His son brings proclamations of forgiveness and salvation.  Suddenly, God changes from one of vengeance to one of love.  Humanity, it seemed, could relax a bit.

Which isn’t to say God lost any of those old powers.  Revelations is an end-of-days account of Michael Bay-esque destruction.  He’s still got the smoking gun and he’s reloading it as we speak.

Perhaps, however, it no longer matters.

In the last century alone, mankind has made technological advancements that in any other time period would seem like magic, pure and simple.  Though many would be reluctant to say it, I’d like to state that, by all accounts, we’ve achieved all the powers of the Old Testament Christian God.  Don’t believe me?  Let’s go through the list.

Omniscience:  God knows all things at all times.  He knows when you’re sleeping, when you’re awake, and especially when you’re being naughty or nice.  Sound like Santa Claus?  Or Big Brother?  In a world as connected as ours, via online communities and evolving demographic-collecting tech, governments and corporations have almost as much omniscience as the Gods of old.  They know what we Google, what we download, who we talk to, where we go, where we like to go, what we prefer to eat, what we want to do when we grow up, what we hate and love, and so much more.  Like God, they know more about us than we know about ourselves.

Destruction:  We have now at our disposal the means to wipe out all life on Earth, human or otherwise.  Nuclear weapons, biological warfare, monopoly of resources, and environmental pollution are just a few items on a list that grows by the day.  Compared to what we humans are capable of, a global flood seems merciful in comparison.

Miracles:  Just as we have the power to take life away, so we have the power to create it.  Cloning and stem cell research are just the tips of the iceberg.  Already we’ve created micro-organisms completely foreign to the planet’s ecosystem.  Soon, cybernetic augmentations will begin replacing all the gifts we received at birth.  Artificial intelligence will eventually replicate the very human soul that we cherish so dearly.  In our lifetimes, we may see the literal envisioning of the phrase, “Heroes aren’t born.  They’re made.”

What else is there?  Purpose?  Humanist philosophies offer plenty of meaning in the face of the void.  Even scientists have managed to find relevance on the edge of the cosmos (for we are all made of star stuff, are we not?).  Judgement?  We have judges who sentence varying levels of punishment to the guilty.  By all means, we have usurped the throne of the very King we have so devoutly obeyed.

I say this not in boast, however.  Far from it.  I say this as a warning.

For centuries, we have attributed all of these powers to a being we were never allowed to question.  Only God, in his infinite wisdom, could handle such powers.  We fallible humans needed only to accept that whatever happened in our lives, it was God’s will that decreed it.

And yet, in the span of just a hundred years, we’ve gained all these abilities, yet none of the wisdom needed to use them responsibly.  We’ve learned through trial and error, making mistakes of catastrophic proportions, both immediate and long-term.  It may come to pass that these powers are too much for us.  For all God’s parenting, we may still be children after all.

If we survive, it will be through a miracle of our own making, for we have, without intending it, left God behind in our search for more frontiers to cross.  We can no longer look up to the heavens and ask Him for help.  For better or for worse, there is little He can do that We cannot.

Voyager

When I was a kid, I remember getting this picture book from somewhere.  I don’t remember if my parents gave it to me or if I found it at school.

The book was about NASA’s Voyager probes.  Launched in the late 70’s, they were designed to take a tour of the planets beyond Earth:  Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, and Uranus.  At the time of my birth, the first photos of these planets were being sent back home, many of which were compiled in the book I found sometime before I was eleven years old.

Though I don’t remember how I got the book, I sure as heck remember the feeling I got reading it.  Every page revealed stunning photographs of our cosmic neighborhood.  Countless stars beyond the Solar system, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, Saturn’s icy rings, and the strange blue hues of Neptune and Uranus.

It was fascinating, seeing something so alien and different.  I couldn’t get enough of it.  I’d spend hours fantasizing about riding the Voyager probes further and further into the depths of space, flying through Saturn’s rings or discovering the secrets hidden beneath Jupiter’s gaseous surface.

Earth suddenly seemed so bland in comparison.  I just wanted to go into orbit.

Even as a child, however, I had some concept of the difficulty in becoming an astronaut.  These heroes were the stuff of legend.  Impossibly brave and intelligent, they spent their lives dedicated to the pursuit of traveling amongst the stars.  I’d spend many a night staring up at the moonlit sky, letting myself get lost in the grandeur of it all, praying that one day, I might get the chance to join them.

This memory came back to me today as I was reading through a book on astrophysics (Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Death by Black Hole).  In it, I discovered that the Voyager probes were the very same ones that Carl Sagan had used to send his golden records into space.  These records contained symbolic data, pictures, and even music from our planet, the hope being that some space faring alien species might come across it, unlock its secrets, and come to know something about the intelligent beings residing on that “Pale Blue Dot.”

I find it comforting to find how my fantasies of voyaging to new and distant places managed to persist and grow into my adulthood.  Unable to travel to the stars just yet, I hope to bide my time by traveling around the globe.

There is something so primal about this desire, so singular about its manifestation in my life, that I can’t help but feel as if it’s the only logical path available to me.  Since childhood, I’ve been exposed to stories of heroes braving the great unknown, defying all odds in pursuit of their dreams, that I can’t help but try to join their ranks.

It was Arnold Schwarzenegger who said, “It is one thing to idolize heroes. It is quite another to visualize yourself in their place.”

So here I am, following in the footsteps of a lonely probe, carrying on its back the whole of humanity.  I don’t expect my life to be one of safety, security, or companionship.  I expect it to be one of endless discovery and open frontiers.  So calls the open road.

Questions

Follow me on this one.

The most terrifying thing I’ve encountered in my life, so far, has been the nature of my own existence.

There are moments, though rare, when this reality dawns on me with its terrible weight.  It can be at any time, at any place, with anyone, but without fail, the feeling is always the same.  It’s also something I’ve had great difficulty explaining to others.  I will try here.

People always make the mistake of assuming that life has existed for billions of years, and will continue to exist for countless eons more.  Even in the short span of time in which intelligent life has flourished here on Earth, our written history is rife with tales of humanity rising and falling, loving and fighting, living and dying.  We stand today, it is assumed, on the shoulders of our ancestors, looking ahead to an unknown future armed with the accumulated knowledge of an entire race.

This entire concept is unbelievably false.

For all intents and purposes, life, the universe, and all of eternity, everything exists merely in the tiny blink of cosmic time that is our own personal existence.  When I am born, the universe is observed, and therefore exists.  When I die, it is observed no longer, and thus it ceases to be.

Logically, we can imagine that the world goes on.  Death comes, life is born anew, and so the endless circle of life continues on and on and on.  But, for all practical purposes, the story of our lives will only have meaning during the brief time we have to observe it for ourselves.

And therein lies the horror.  I, Matthew Cabrera, was born on August 11, 1988, to a family of practicing Catholics in Southern California.  Though the date of my death cannot be known, there’s certainly a ballpark figure I could conjure up (I’ll be kind and give myself 80 years).  In those 80 years, nothing is guaranteed.  I may grow up to be the most important human figure in written history, or I may end up penniless and crippled in some dark alleyway in Hell’s Kitchen.

My fear, primal and naked, comes in the knowledge that my one life, the only one, for all practical purposes, which will ever exist, is the only story I will ever completely know.  And I’m not even guaranteed a good show at that.  I am a passenger locked into the roller coaster of existence, set to spend my life interacting and observing until the ride is over, and then to flutter off into some religious unknown.

Do you see it yet?  The horror?

Why was I not born in 1987, to a poor widowed housewife in Iran?  Why was I not born in 400 B.C. to some political elite?  Why was I born human at all?  Or on planet Earth?  Or in the Local Cluster?  Or hell, if we’re going to get hypothetical, in this universe/dimension?

Of all the infinite possible timelines my life could have occupied, why was it from 1988 to XXXX?

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful.  I feel no particular distaste for this time period, or this country, or this planet, or this galaxy, and so on.  But I am plagued with the great unanswerable question:  What determined my placement in this location?

The meta-nature of this question tends to be lost on those blessed with less paranoid minds, but it is a question that literally makes me sick to my stomach, quivering uncontrollably with terror, eyes wide, staring into some distant void where intelligent beings were never meant to wander.

There are, I suppose, several answers to the terrible question.  It is a black hole onto which we can plaster any number of comfortable answers.  Religion, philosophy, common sense; even mathematics has a few theories to add to the pile.  But much like the ancient Japanese who believed spirits inhabited every rock, tree and river on Earth, the things we hold to be true are rarely that.  We live in a world where nothing is certain.  Questions must be asked constantly, lest we miss a truth that seemed impossible in some distant age.

The most fiercely held beliefs of one generation can become the very meaning of foolishness and folly in the next.  Even the laws of physics, which govern how the universe works, which insure that if nothing else, we can at least expect an apple to fall to the ground every time it drops, are by no means set in stone.  New discoveries are made every day that bring into frightening doubt even the most basic of scientific certainties.

If these uncontested truths can be slain like cattle on the farm, what can we hope to salvage from that which operates merely on faith or rhetoric?

I suppose, if you’re still reading, you’re wondering what the point of all this is.

I mean only to remind the reader that if he or she is to live their one chance at existence, not in the best way, but in the most complete way, they absolutely must question everything at least once.  Give the questions whatever answer fits you best, whether it be religious, scientific, philosophical, or just plain nonsensical, but for God’s sake, ask the questions.  If you don’t, if you never take the time to take at least one peek into the world as it may be, rather than what it is believed to be, you risk living a life that is not your own.

We were born into this timeline for a reason, which, thankfully, doesn’t matter one bit.  Everything about us will be influenced by this era’s morality, ideas, inventions, and social mores.  If we don’t take the opportunity to question these things, we risk getting caught up in the waves of time, lost in whatever mold we allow ourselves to fall into.

Now, it is my personal belief that the more we question, the more we wrestle the chains of fate back into our own hands.  But that is simply one answer of countless others.  Despite that, however, it is my answer, one that I can truly claim as my own because I bothered to ask the question.

Take of this what you will, as either the ramblings of a paranoid or the warnings of one who is simply, merely, and possibly human.  After all, it’s your life.  What do you think?

This happened

The drink is cold in my hand, condensation soaking the skin as if I were squeezing a sponge.  It is tall, heavy, and suddenly I realize that the only reason people are expected to drink this much water is because the heavily salted restaurant food would be fatal without some dilution.

Probably.

I am absolutely absorbed by this revelation, forgetting for a moment that I am sitting with three other people at a table in a crowded downtown bar.  I am in public, I realize, and quickly remember my manners.

“So, how did you guys meet?” I ask.  Their answers are brief and uninteresting, and I quickly move on with some story about teaching English to refugee Haitians.  Maybe that’ll spark some dialogue.

It doesn’t, and soon an unbearably long silence takes over our group.  Before I realize it, the drink is in my hand, up to my mouth, and dispensing another mouthful of icy, fill-the-silence-with-pointless-action water.

I hate bars.  The noise, the intimidatingly attractive waitresses, and the cramped space all coalesce into a situation that brings out such anger and contempt in me.  The “game” is on, groups of people far more outgoing than I cheering for such-and-such team in this-or-that sport and I realize that even though I’m yelling just to hear myself over everyone else, they are probably doing the same thing and we all just end up yelling louder and louder making it worse and worse and it’s always the same in places like this, like a traffic jam of human voices.

I realize how much I’d rather be at home, listening to music I like, sitting with my feet on the desk and my back tilted well beyond ninety degrees.  Suddenly, I am resentful of the people I’m stuck with, my mind bubbling over with venomous thoughts and silent rage.  I need to get out, need to leave before I say something awful or slam my fists against the cheap wooden table.

“But you won’t ever get gray hair, will you?” one of the women asks me.  Why it is this question that breaks me out of my rage trance baffles me, but I ask her for clarification nonetheless.

“Huh?” I say.

“Well, you’re Mexican.  They rarely get gray hair until really late, much less lose it all together.”  She looks at me expecting a response.  Instead, I blush, completely flattered and thankful that this random fact has washed away any would-be concerns I could ever have had about the subject.

And then, everything changes.  The waitresses seem to smile more sweetly, the patrons seem more cheerful and friendly, and above all, the conversation now has my utmost attention.  “Well,” I reply, “I guess that’s true.  My dad’s 56 and he’s still got a full head of black, bouncy hair.  I suppose it’ll be the same for me!”  I smile, turn to my friend, who had invited me in the first place to meet both his new girlfriend and his co-worker, and pat his shoulder with pity.  “I promise to lend you some of my hair when you start balding, Colin.”

My teasing goes over well, and a light laughter breaks out all around.  I’m so clever.

The laughter soon dies, however, and silence rears it’s ugly head once more.  A feeling of imagined claustrophobia begins to weigh down on me, and hell, if I don’t say anything, no one will, and then we’ll all realize that we have nothing in common and this whole outing will become a disaster and Jesus Christ, Matt, just say something, anything!

“So yeah, what are you guys majoring in, college-wise?”  College-wise?  Where the hell else would they major in something?

They rattle off their answers and again, silence consumes us all.  I feel like I’m drowning, struggling to doggy-paddle my way to a conversation that’ll last longer than a two word answer, and why the hell isn’t anyone else saying anything?  Why the hell am I the only one trying to break the silence?  Aren’t we here to get to know each other?  Say something, you assholes! Damn it all!

I lose my patience.  “So yeah, I majored in Communications.  I was a shy kid in High School and I figured it’d help me get over that.”  My stock answer to a question no one asked.  As I expect, I get nothing but polite smiles, and again the silence comes.  I am in agony.

Each second that passes is a dagger piercing my soul.  My rage quickly returns, and in an instant, the bar regains its sordid atmosphere, the waitresses their taunting good looks, as if they were just as untouchable as the comfort I so sorely desired in this damned social nightmare.

It occurs to me that if I had an addiction to anything, I’d be reaching for it right now.  But I do not drink.  I do not smoke.  I resort to the only respite I can manage.

“Be right back, guys.  I’m heading to the bathroom.”

I leave, head to the back, and find an exit leading out into the cool night air.  As I walk out, the noise dies away behind me, leaving only the quiet sound of passing cars and singing crickets in its wake.  My head has broken the surface of the waves.  I am taking in lungfuls of white noise, reveling in the fact that nature needs no ice breakers.  I consider walking home right then and there.  It’s not like I ordered anything.  I ate before coming.  Ate before coming to a dinner I knew about three days in advance.  Smart.

But I simply take a moment to stop thinking entirely, letting the breeze flow over me like a healing salve.  I could almost cry at how grateful I am.  I look up and see that the night sky is blank but for a few stars, sterile and unmoving.  And yet, I pick out the brightest star anyway and just stare.

I am no longer here.  I am gone.

Floating on waves of silence.

Lost in space with but one lighthouse in the distance.

Calling me to another world, another life.

Soon, I become another star nearby.  This is my home now.  The glittering canvas of the universe laid out before me in its dazzling beauty, and I looking down upon some tiny stranger standing next to a dimly-lit bar on the side of the road, just staring.

How quaint.

And then I am back.  The sobering aroma of reality hitting me square in the face.  They are probably finished eating by now.  Probably paying their bills.  Probably getting ready to leave.

It occurs to me that I am incredibly selfish to abandon my friend like this.  I reconcile this with the fact that I probably would have done something even more embarrassing had I stayed.  Either way, I don’t imagine he’ll be happy.

“What’s wrong with me?” I ask myself.  This can’t be normal.  But it is a question I’ve asked too many times before and an answer is just as vacant now as it has always been.  The feeling of self-pity quickly fades, however, as I decide to put it away for a better time.  I am needed elsewhere.

I go back in to say my goodbyes.

-End

Writer’s Block

Read more, write more.

Those are the two things needed to improve as a writer.  There are, of course, nuances and details, but it mostly boils down to that.

Well, I’ve been reading most of my life.  Writing, less so.  In fact, this blog contains most of what I’ve done outside of school.

Three weeks ago, that came to a grinding halt.

I’m not sure why.  If anything, I’ve spent the last three weeks immersing myself in new material.  Novels, games, short stories, anything to try breaking through the block.  I thought I’d be brimming with ideas, and yet, all I feel is this strange, foreign paralysis.

I have suspicions.  This blog has served purely as my own emotional outlet.  It’s become a form of self-therapy, allowing me to probe my mind through the medium I love.  And yet, the more I write, and the more I read, the more I want to believe I can do more than wax poetic about my feelings.

I’d very much like to write fiction, mainly because fiction has, in a very real sense, made me who I am.  So much of the enjoyment I get out of life comes directly from the stories I’ve read.  To be able to bestow that same gift on someone else would mean so much to me.  To convince someone, if only for a few moments, that monsters really are lurking in the shadows, or that the villains we despise may not be so different from ourselves, or that the world still holds mysteries which could shake the very foundations of society… That, I think, is something the world sorely needs.  To believe that life is more than what we can see and touch.  To know that stories are fuel for the imagination, and that imagination is what fuels humanity.  To understand that fiction isn’t just an escape from our reality, but rather, a window through which we can see and explore new ones.

The night holds more potency after reading a horror story.  Our forests and plains more beauty after reading a post-apocalyptic tale.  Our people more depth after reading a drama, because every time we visit another world through fiction, we return with a little bit more than when we left.

Anyway.  This isn’t much of an update, but it’ll do for now.  Till next time.

On Writing

Stephen King once wrote, “If God gives you something you can do, why in God’s name wouldn’t you do it?”

That quote’s been on my mind for some time now.  I love writing.  It certainly doesn’t consume my life (that’s a job for video games), but the act of it gives me immense satisfaction.  I want to be very clear when I say this: Writing is not, to me, a simple transmission of information.  Words are not sterile, lifeless things that you consume without thought.

Writing is, to me, an act of artistry.  I’m not just telling you things.  I’m trying to craft a living, breathing entity, something you can interact with, fight with, and even fall in love with.  I choose some words over others with the express intention of making you feel any one of the wonderful, complex emotions of which we humans are uniquely capable.

Now, do I actually achieve any of this?  Hard to say.  It’s something almost entirely relegated to the murky waters of opinion.  I can tell you that there are times (many of them) when I read my own stuff and think, “Holy shit, that’s amazing.  That is a goddamn showstopper.”  These heights of pride are always followed by swift checks and rationalizations.  “Don’t let your ego get too big, kid.  The best writers are supposed to be overly critical of their work.  If you aren’t, then are you actually good, or just delusional?”

The thoughts are there.  What if this is nothing more than literary masturbation?  Simply the solipsistic ramblings of a self-important beatnik?  Hell, Matt, do you even know what the word ‘solipsistic’ means?

Not entirely, no.  After looking it up, though, it kind of fits.  Certainly sounds nice.

Hence, the quote.  What happens if your God-given gift is being obtuse, pretentious, and overly wrought?

There is a certain guilt that follows my writing.  A sense that my talents could be better spent elsewhere.  The knowledge that while I may know what ‘ostentatious’ means, I still don’t know what the fuck a ‘deductible’ is.  Writing fancy doesn’t make me any better or worse than anyone else.  Sure, I can turn a phrase, but fuck me if I can drive stick or cook a meal.

In other words, what good is a God-given talent if it doesn’t help people in a clear and practical way?  What good has my writing done for the human race?  Hell, for the people in my own town?  What is the point?

It’s at these times that I remember why I began to love writing in the first place.  Stories woven with the threads of imagination, decorated with morals, ideas, and such awe-inspiring beauty that they’ve forever changed how I look at the world.

These are more than just words.  More than just information.

I know first-hand the magic this art contains.  I want desperately to impart some of that onto others.  The world is so much more than we realize, life so much more amazing than we could ever dream.  Good writing helps you see all that; perspectives painted by the palette of our imagination.  Life doesn’t have to be normal, and most likely shouldn’t be at all.

“…And maddest of all: to see life as it is, and not as it should be!”

-Miguel De Cervantes

(Love that quote so damn much!)

 

 

The Matrix

I watched “The Matrix” again today.  One of my favorite films (it’s always pained me that the sequels never lived up to the original).

I watched it for a reason, though.  For the past several weeks, I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with myself.  It’s clear now that I’m in DeKalb for the long haul.  My desire to travel abroad has, for whatever reason, disappeared.  I want little more than to immerse myself in shallow, safe activities.

And the worst part of it is, I’ve watched myself fall further and further into a complacent slump and done little to slow my descent.

I’m not mad at myself for my current state of affairs.  The more I get comfortable in this life, the more I realize how hard life was back in California.  Not just physically, but emotionally and mentally as well.  Yes, the experience was a life changing one, but it was also saddled with pain, despair, and even death.  The truth of what life could be was a harsh and bitter pill to swallow.

And yet, I know for a fact that I found more satisfaction from those days in the desert than I have with all the movies and games I’ve consumed over the last few weeks.

So yes.  “The Matrix.”

For those who haven’t seen it, the premise is that our life is nothing more than a computer simulation, built to keep mankind complacent while higher powers use us for their own selfish needs.  There’s more to it than that, but the analogy to our lives is clear.  We live in a dream world, our minds locked away in a prison that we’re unable to recognize.  Our lives continue in a haze of days indistinguishable from each other, and the worst part of it is, we are willing accomplices in our own imprisonment. Ignorance, as they say, is bliss.

A beautiful message for the anarchists of this world.  An eye-rolling science fiction trope to others.  I suspect the majority of viewers were simply satisfied with the film’s jaw-dropping visuals and leather-n’-shades aesthetic.

There are others, however, for whom the message of the film strikes a particularly powerful chord.  We want so strongly to believe that the world is not as it seems, that there is a glorious truth out there, hidden in plain sight.  Put whatever mask on it you like, whether it be religion, philosophy, magic, whatever; the chord that this film strikes so powerfully is our shared desire for an escape from a prison we believe we’ve been born into.

For the past two weeks, I’ve been sick.  Bronchitis, it seems, wanted to pay me another visit.  Needless to say, I spent my time in relative inactivity.  Hibernation, almost.  I was glued to my computer chair, spending hours reading articles online, watching YouTube videos, checking e-mails and Facebook, playing games, etc.

I don’t know when it finally struck me, but at some point, it occurred to me that my room had become  a sort of prison.  The keys to my escape were right there within my reach (hell, my bedroom door was open half the time), but the allure of the internet blinded me to everything else.  Sickness aside, I could have done anything in that time.  Read books, written stories, practiced yoga, started a new hobby; I had every possibility laid bare at my feet, and I chose instead to watch sketch comedy videos online.

This morning, I became so sick with myself that I unplugged the ethernet cable from my computer in disgust.  I then watched “The Matrix.”

Afterwards, I jogged, worked out, ate a healthy meal, and took a pleasant nap.

For the moment, I am “free.”  And yet, I feel just as trapped as before.  I feel like a dog who’s momentarily caught it’s own tail and now doesn’t know what to do with it.  If you could start something with a 100% guaranteed chance of success, what would you do?

The seemingly infinite possibilities life holds for us, combined with the necessity for us to choose a precious few to pursue in the limited time we have, has always paralyzed me.  I’m a healthy, young adult in a free world with access to everything I could ever want.  I could do literally anything, anything at all.

But…what do I want?

Gosh, that’s such a hard question.  Maybe I’ll figure it out after I watch a few videos of cats on the internet.

Annnd there’s another day lost.  Have I thought up anything in the past 24 hours to help make my decision?  No?  Back to the cats, then.

The cycle repeats itself day after day.  Paralyzed by fear, I settle for easily attained pleasures, all the while willingly giving up more and more of my life to a system that wants nothing more than another view, another purchase, another subscription.  I’ve gained nothing, and continue to lose something utterly irreplaceable.

In actuality, I’ve always had dreams of making my own video games or short stories.  I feel like I’ve experienced so many of the stories that I like.  I would very much enjoy adding my own to the pile now.

And yet, what are books and video games but further distractions to keep us “imprisoned,” so to speak?  I remember watching a cartoon as a teenager.  It was about a shy boy who wants nothing more than to be strong.  To achieve this, he starts boxing.  He throws himself into this new activity, training every hour he can.  After countless hours of sweat and tears, failures and frustrations, he begins to make strides in the boxing world.  The series follows his rise to success, each victory built on the foundation of hard work and dedication.

I remember being so inspired by his quest for self-improvement.  I wanted to want something just as badly as he did.  When I finished the series, I felt like I could take on the world.  And what did I do?

I started to watch another cartoon series.  Another show to give me that same feeling of motivation.

It took me a few episodes before I realized that all the motivation I’d received from the previous show was going to waste.  What good was being inspired by a good story if you weren’t going to change anything about your life?

The day I had that revelation was the day I stopped watching cartoons and started working out.

Don’t get me wrong, I love these shows, these games, these books.  They capture perfectly what makes life so amazing.  They make me want to live and have adventures of my own.  And yet, by consuming more of these stories, I’m wasting more and more of my life, squandering hours that could be spent living, rather than experiencing another story.

I want so badly to create stories that inspire, that touch people’s lives.  And yet, I still want people to go out and live!  To see the world and follow their dreams!  I could never forgive myself for adding to a collection of entertainment that continues to keep people complacent by living vicariously through fictional characters.

It’s a bitter internal struggle that I’ve had for quite a while now.  I think it says so much that some of the most powerful, emotionally captivating moments of my life have been experienced while sitting in front of a computer screen.  Video games in particular have always held a special place in my heart.  And yet, have I wasted months, even years of my life living in digital dreams?  Are these moments worth any less just because they didn’t happen in real life?  Are these emotions any less valid because they came from a computer program?

I honestly can’t answer these questions.  I’m not even sure I want to.  What constitutes a life well lived?  How do you define something like that?  Is the woodsman who lives off the land, hidden away in the forest, selfish because he does not create anything of use for the rest of mankind?  Is the business man who sacrifices so much, providing jobs for thousands, selfish because he doesn’t hug trees or save whales?  Is either pursuit worth more or less than the other?  Is there even a rating scale for something like this, or is it just something we humans create to feel better about ourselves?

Do you spend your life doing what you love, or doing what you think is right?  What if they’re not the same thing?

Hard questions, especially for someone who over-analyzes things.  In the end, however, all I get from these questions is further paralysis.  In lieu of answers, I sit scared and impotent, unwilling to make a move in so uncertain a maze as this.

Regardless, this is getting far too long for my own good.  I will stop here for now.  Answers, I’m sure, will come in time.

Valentine’s Day

Last week, I was asked to write an article concerning my experience with the 2008 shootings on campus.  When they occurred, I happened to be standing right outside Cole Hall as the last few students sprinted away.  The gruesome scene which then awaited me would forever change my life.

The thing is, it’s a story that’s already been told countless times, from several perspectives.  Mine offers no more answers than anyone else’s, nor does mine stray far from the official account freely available online.  This article isn’t about the shootings, the gunman, or the students who lost their lives.

It’s about what happens to someone who encounters the abyss.

Though I can’t speak for everyone, I know I certainly felt a deep emptiness after witnessing the immediate aftermath of those attacks.  As if my mind had simply shut down.  Scientifically, I suppose this would be called Shock. It took a long time for that feeling to diminish, coupled with many therapy sessions.  In a sense, it never vanished completely.

The wounds of the mind are far more persistent than those of the flesh.

I remember the person I used to be before that Valentine’s Day.  Stout Catholic, optimistic jokester, driven by a desire to fit in with everyone else.  I lost all of that in the abyss I encountered behind Cole Hall.  For a while, I was able to keep up a façade, a rough estimation of the character traits I exhibited before the shootings.  I sensed, however, cracks.  Like a pebble that hits a window just right, sending one splinter across the pane.  With enough pressure, the splinter breaks off into more and more branches, until finally…

The moment I snapped came at the end of my fourth year at NIU.  Fortunately, it was not a violent or belligerent affair.  It was simply the point at which I stopped believing in everything I thought I knew.

I’d been taught to stay healthy, go to school, get a nice job, find a lovely wife, raise a few kids, see to their development, save for retirement, and enjoy my twilight years surrounded by loved ones.  It occurred to me, however, that at any point in that timeline, I could be gunned down like those kids in Cole Hall.  The safe, tested path that I had been traveling all along was anything but.

The idea of striving to be safe and secure in a world where unspeakable tragedy could befall you anywhere, anytime, became so…offensive to me…that I threw every expectation and belief I held out the proverbial window.  None of it fit with this new revelation.  It was all a lie.  My greatest hopes and dreams could be snuffed out tomorrow by a gunman, or a falling brick, or a damned chunk of improperly chewed food.  I felt like I had truly lost everything of value.

It was only when I lost everything…well, to use the cliche…that I felt like I had nothing to lose.

So, I decided to finish college for no other reason than I had nary a year left to go.  After that, I dropped my desire to go to graduate school, gave away all my possessions, and left to travel alone in California with nothing but a backpack and a few changes of clothes.

I was hellbent on determining my own truth, on living life on my own terms.  If my life could be stolen from me at any moment, I sure as hell wasn’t going to sit around waiting for Death to come to me.  Everything that I had feared suddenly became an object of obsession.  Dangerous situations became just another opportunity to say “Fuck you” to fate and destiny.  There were several times when I could have died; hell, when I should have died.  Yet every time, I walked away battered, but alive.

By the end of my most perilous trip, a two day walk along the barren coast of the Salton Sea, where the only living things I saw were stray dogs and haggard seagulls picking away at literally miles of fish carcasses dried up on the beach, I still had no idea where I was going or what I was doing.  I was just…wandering.  Lost, even.

It was there, in the middle of the desert, that I found someone who brought me back to my senses.  What I lost from the shootings will never return to me, but what I found in the desert more than made up for it.

This is not the place for that tale, however.  If it seems as if I’ve gone off on a tangent, there’s a reason.  It’s as I said…

The wounds of the mind are far more persistent than those of the flesh.

The trauma of that single event followed me for years afterwards, tore apart everything I believed in, and left me in a state where I wanted nothing more than to cheat Death again and again.  Even with therapy, even with the greatest family and friends a guy like me could ask for, the depth of my pain eluded all healing.  It is only now that I’ve finally begun to make healthy strides towards recovery.  This article is, in a sense, evidence of that.  For the first time, I feel like I can look back on that turbulent period with a sense of objectivity.

This article is not the story of my recovery, but rather the tale of my loss.  It is, as I was asked, an article concerning the effects the Valentine’s Day shooting had on me.

Those who encounter that abyss, who lose something to trauma that is never returned to them, each have a unique story.  Though the tragedy may have been the same for everyone that day, the steps we took in coping with it afterwards were what truly defined our experiences.  I hope this article offers some insight into my experience.  As such, I’ll end with a quote; one that was on my mind throughout much of this period…

“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster.  And when you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”

-Friedrich Nietzsche

New Dawn

A woman on OkCupid once asked me, “Are you looking for someone to complete you?”

I replied, “Look, there’s a lot we can do to raise each other up in a relationship.  At the same time, it’s not your job to complete me.  It’s mine.”

She liked that, apparently.

As many of you know, I’ve just entered a new relationship.  Ironically, it wasn’t with anyone on OkCupid (though there were certainly appealing options available).  I will eschew the details of said relationship, for the sole reason that some things must be kept private.  You cannot “let someone in” intimately if everything has been left out for show.

Rather, I’m going to focus on what this means for the future.

Make no mistake, the person I used to be is gone.  As I’ve mentioned, I’m eager to see how I handle a relationship, given the multitude of things I’ve learned and experienced.  I chose this particular woman because I saw in her something I could relate to:  A strong desire not to let the tragedies in our lives define us.

Everyone experiences some level of hardship.  Not everyone handles it the same way.  I find, however, that you can learn more about a person by how they react to a crisis than by any conversation or love-making session.  I get the sense my ability to judge character is somewhat weak, but you can’t make pancakes without breaking a few eggs and spilling some milk.

So it is that I’ve decided to jump into this relationship head first, with every intention of following it through to its conclusion, wherever it may lead.  The idea of having a partner through the coming months is comforting, especially with someone who “gets” you.  I hope the same can be said vice versa.

—-

I’ve been seeing a lot recently concerning artists.  Authors, developers, directors, musicians, etc.  People who fostered a dream into fruition with only the hope that there would be people on the other side willing to enjoy their creation.  What strikes me most about this isn’t that they’re successful (or in the case of Simon Spurrier, not), but rather that they seemed so possessed by this desire that they worked through the fears of failure and self-doubt to create something wholly their own.

It occurs to me that throughout the many generations man has walked the Earth, we’ve always striven to better our condition.  From the caves of shelter our ancestors sought out in the freezing rain, to the fields of crops the ancient Egyptians cultivated from the land, to the breakthroughs in science that could turn magic into reality.  Always, this drum of progress beats onward, never relenting, never ceasing.

Though the exact quote escapes me at the moment, there’s a conversation in Mass Effect (a game about interstellar adventure) that has always struck me as uplifting.  A Human is speaking to an Asari (I believe), one of a race of aliens who live for hundreds of years.  While discussing the quick rise of humanity to a place of prominence within the galaxy, the Asari muses for a moment.

She believes Humans have gained their greatness due to the brevity of their lives.  The Asari, who live for generations, have all the time in the world to ponder decisions, research various fields, and enjoy life.  Humans, however, do not share that luxury, and as a result, have made use of what little time they have progressing their race at a breakneck speed.  To live a life one realizes is short is to live with an intensity and passion that is lost on the comfortable.  This makes humans a race to be respected, and perhaps, in some ways, feared.

We are currently soaring on the winds produced by countless breathes of life, some which originate from the first humans that walked the Earth.  Our current state is such that we want for little and need even less, though society may try to convince us differently.  When humanity, at least in a first world country like ours, has reached the level on Maslow’s Hierarchy just below self-actualization, what stops us from then realizing our potential?

We have an opportunity (a rare one at that) to spend our days not fighting over limited resources, but rather pondering the meaning of our lives and choosing to do something about it.  When we are secure enough that we can literally spend our entire lives locked away inside watching television and still be better off than the rest of the world, it only serves to show how much potential we actually have, even if we aren’t using it.

It is that realization that inspires in me a desire to create, rather than consume.  To dream, rather than fear.  There is something in me, in all of us, that deserves to be thrown into the great melting pot that is the human consciousness.  We may be a bunch of scared animals, frittering about on a rock floating through some forgotten corner of the universe, but our story is still being told along with everyone else’s.  The story of Earth, and the strange species which, for a brief time, thought themselves kings of the cosmos.

I believe I’ve talked enough for one day.  Expect more creations in the future, however.  It’s time I added more exposition to the story of our lives.