Warning Sign

"Warning Sign"

She had decided to stay for a night in a hotel, as a "self-esteem exercise." Outside the hotel room, some distance away: images of bloody bathtubs and death from intoxication, from overdose, from sorrow.

Pages pulled up on the glowing screen-- excerpts from Wikipedia, regarding bipolar disorder. Perhaps. It is a possibility, though labels in and of themselves are no solution.

Inside his head: doubts thrown in the garbage bin (after they'd first been dug up). He'd thought he was over this. He had thought he already knew. And for a brief moment, his assuredness had wavered.

He had regained it now. His dignity, too-- though he shouldn't have fallen for the same old trick, it was no longer a threat to his dignity. Dignity did not matter. The only thing which mattered was steadfastness.

He would not play into its hands. He would not play the disease's game. He was done; the game was childish, and he was sick of it, he'd had it; no more fucking around.

This was serious business.

Some distance away, in a hotel room: clouded thoughts, sour breath, pickled grey matter, phantoms that would not go away. Ghosts which still would not forsake their haunt.

A child huddling, sleeping, crying: alone.

Forty-seven years; and still-- in so many ways, though fewer and fewer with each hotel, each check-in-- still a child, abandoned by her father.

The disease had taken him as well.

With the Space of the Sky Inside

I am cold. I wanna be warm.

I miss summer nights when I feel like this and I can just go and sit outside-- and it's warm, and there's lots of air and wind and silence, and it feels like there exists enough space for all of the feelings and thoughts. They have the space to lose themselves in.

I can feel connected with something because I'm alive in the light of time shining from the stars, watching hundreds of millions of years of history and living in this moment. These feelings can stretch themselves out, twining round and round the strands of time flowing from stars which may no longer exist. They have their place in the history of things. There's more space to dream.

One or two in the morning, when everything and everyone else is in another world.

Mmmm, boy does that feel good-- those thoughts.

I want people to connect with, too-- people who have those same thoughts. People who have that depth and space and wonder of the warm night sky inside them. Without the existence of waking people to clutter it up.

People who just have that big black star-studded silence inside their hearts and heads-- that darkness of the soul that is so absorbing and otherworldly, like the openness in the eternal hour between one and two in the morning.

Perhaps I feel better a bit now, like I've got a sky to empty into; space to fill. Thank you.

Still-- the weird sadness, but somehow less.

As Yet Untitled

I'd ask if someone might enlighten me and give me reason and impetus to write, but I have realized that writing must be soulful and spring forth from regions unknown.

Just because it must come from the self does not mean that it must be waited for-- one can certainly search for the source-- but it can not come from outside the self.

Taking inspiration from the surrounding world is merely a mutation of the self; to pontificate on the glories of nature is to envelop one's surroundings with one's entire being, whilst observing from a more removed (yet altogether unified) set of personal beliefs.

What will come forth? What have I inside that does not represent itself superficially?

Perhaps I could talk about my most recent change of heart regarding corporate entities and salesmen. At work, I am required to sell; I have become a salesman. The most cynical part of myself would hate this, because salesmen are liars, manipulators, and pawns of a greater evil entity.

But after working for as many months, I've come to realize salesmanship is about communication. No doubt, there are salesmen out there who are trying-- at this very moment-- to sell people on some completely unnecessary luxury. No doubt there exist salesmen who truly have scumbag hearts-- who cheat, con and manipulate poor pigeons out of their money for some service or product which promises Midas' golden touch without allegorical morals.

But when it comes to my job, I simply inform. I am not heartless. I inform customers that there exist programs which may better be specified to their desires or needs. I use combinations of audio and visual stimuli to deliver information, and I try to present customers with as little extraneous information as possible. For those who give me the time to speak, for those who are in no rush to race off to some other location or event, I outline the basics of a particular program which I believe-- based on a customer's history with our company-- might be beneficial to him or her.

It is an art, this ability to communicate and delight. Six months back I would have been turned off slightly-- if not outright disgusted-- by these things I say and believe now. But now knowing what it's like to hold and maintain a job, what it's like to perform as your boss or manager expects whilst still retaining your own beliefs and your sense of self-- having experienced all this, I now have a greater appreciation both for myself and for the working proletariat. It is so fulfilling to learn, to change your actions whilst keeping your beliefs and intentions the same.

Will I ever go to formal school? Yes, I will. When? I do not know. Is it even necessary? In my opinion, yes. It is perhaps more difficult than holding a paying job; when enrolled in school, one must change his or her actions in order to please teachers, professors and so-called experienced professionals. Some even change their sense of self, and this can be quite deteriorating, degrading and upsetting-- and unnecessary. The true key to succeeding in schooling (and in this greater world) is to use your abilities in creative ways which fit the man-made laws of society (and the natural laws of reality).

For me, I think, a taste of the working world was and still is appropriate and necessary to help me learn all this. Now that I have seen some of what you wise men call the Greater Truth, I can understand better the reasons for and the reasons behind your demands, your rules, your systems and your structure.

More and more every day, I feel confident in myself and in my ability to work my way through school. After twelve years of mutation, self-degradation, accomplishment and frustration in the schooling world, I feel it was necessary to take a break from that particular system and put my skills to the challenge inside another well-oiled machine. I think I now better understand the workings of various interrelated systems, and I think I am better prepared to commit myself to the clockwork of higher education.

Now, after all, I have the tools and the know-how to aid my mechanical knowledge. I am oiled up, and ready to run.