February 5, 2002

"Mom can't watch the news at night, there's too much stuff that's making her cry."

I've stopped watching the evening news. For the longest of times, I watched it diligently. I felt compelled to learn what was going on in the world around me. Suddenly, though the news seems so bias and meaningless. It is only filled with human interest stories, yet I am human and they hold no interest for me.

We have declared war and yet it hardly makes the top news story most days. I read someone's node about how this is the lest fun war we have ever been engaged in. Our nation has seemed to forget we are at war, much less thought about whether it was fun, right, wrong, or otherwise. This is not a 'conflict' or 'dispute', we are at war. And yet, somehow, nothing has changed. No one seems to be for or against the war.

I hate this war.

I hate how we never seem to hear the whole story on the news. I'm left trying to dig it up on the internet. And yet, does it matter? Who cares that more civilians have been killed in Afghanistan due to our bombing campaigns then were killed in the September 11 attacks? Apparently no one, and the news isn't volunteering this information either. We have freedom of speech, but what about when the news agencies are bias and the government is slow to release details. We are free to talk about the little that we know, but is it the truth?

"the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God."

We don't know the whole truth and perhaps shall never do so. In the end, what really matters? I'm not sure, and this worries me.

Disclaimer: I did not write this for sympathy, comments or even as a cry for help. It is a way for me to put current events in my life into perspective. I am not suicidal. This writeup is not intended for people with a simplistic world view.

---

I would very much like to commit suicide.

It's not that I have a bad life. Compared to most people, I've had it extraordinarily easy. I am a spoiled child, along with my brother. I actually have a lot of friends. I'm comfortably secure living at home, studying multimedia design, playing music, noding, writing, what have you.

It's just that I live a very pointless life. I have a number of talents - the aforementioned writing and music being the obvious two. The problem with these is that they are creative traits - they are not things that can be measured or weighed or even academically judged. They are not things I can build a solid future on.

I am no good at anything academic. My mind doesn't work that way. The worst subject in school was always math, because it forced you to memorize and repeat, robot-like, treading through logic problems like trekking through well-chartered mud. People had already been down that road; why should I? I like to think logically and rationally. But not about problems that don't actually solve anything.

I am no good at menial work. I lack the organisational skills or even the basic social skills to be able to function adequately as eg. a cashier or a clerk. I lack the motor skills to function as a machine operator or a cook or anything like that. Now, I can type fast - notoriously fast, even - but even office jobs require other skills I do not possess; diplomas I have no hope of getting; vast arrays of mindnumbingly tedious methods and models that, to me, are perfectly obvious and even natural, but to everyone else foreign and hard to grasp. Simple formatting and visual style are abstract and useless concepts to most people, whereas I seem to have spent the better parts of my youth teaching myself how to format writings and developing visual skills. And to what end?

Maybe I should've spent more time with people and less time perfecting myself? Maybe I should've been busy figuring out other things, instead of things that I now realize amount to little more than shit. At least, in the eyes of the world around me. Nobody ever taught me how to fit in. Nobody even bothered telling me how to act appropriately. To this day, common emotional outbursts such as sadness over the loss of a dear one, the worries on behalf of other people's tribulations, or the honest giving-of-a-shit about people's opinions only amount to confusion for me. Why should I? I can fake it, yes, but it's not real. I can pretend to feel sad that a close relative of mine is dying - and he is a close relative that I have many fond memories of - but it's not real. Why not? Why am I so cold? The only real emotions I seem to be able to produce is self-loathing and anger (usually directed at my self-loathing). It makes me feel empty. And my hatred grows even stronger when I take this into account - I can't even get myself together to feel for others. It's an endless, unhealthy cycle and I know it - but I can't stop it. This sort of emotionally stunted development can't be natural. Or maybe it is, and everyone else is just that much better at dealing with it than me?

I can remember I used to be over-emotional in my early school days - but looking back on it, I realize it was just stupid. What was the point of getting angry over that someone bested me in a spelling contest? Jealousy is idiotic and arrogant. What was the point of crying after a couple of idiots from a few grades up pushed me down the stairs every once in a while and called me a fagget? They were projecting their own insecurities on me and I knew damn well at the time. But from looking at everyone else, crying seemed to be the right way to express my disagreement, so I did.

Something went wrong during my upbringing. Or, more than likely, a lot of things went wrong. I have no idea who to blame.

I've always wanted to do things differently. This is not as good as it sounds. It leads to highly unpredictable results. If I don't see the point, especially in the academic sense, my interest wanes to below measurable levels - and my level of enthusiasm drops offensively low. Gym class had that effect on me. Art class had that effect on me. Hell, if it wasn't because the endless theories and models and guidelines on how to do your work like a mindless drone didn't let up every few weeks and we got to do a lengthy group-based project, multimedia design would probably have that effect on me as well.

I am increasingly of the opinion that most of the people close to me do not as much value my friendship as tolerate my company. This is probably the most clichéd, angsty thing I could say up until this point. If I may digress for a while, there is nothing more personally disheartening than learning that you, in fact, feel just like a fucking Staind song - not in the way Aaron Lewis pouts and moans almost mockingly on stage, but well and truly. I don't want to be categorised next to whining maggots like that - and to be honest, I know a fair bit of them. They fill me with disgust. I can't stand angsty teens; I can't stand all the pissing and moaning I see every day from people who are just having problems dealing with puberty. And yet, I am no different.

If I were to disappear, I honestly can't think of anyone who'd still remember me twelve months after the fact.

Ask my friends and of course they'll disagree. But I'm not so sure they're able to think about this objectively. Would I be sad if one of my best friends took his own life? I'm not sure. Not if he had a good reason. In fact, one of my best friends has, with straight-faced seriousness and only a slight slur in his voice, announced that if things don't work out for him in ten years time, he'll off himself. Upon hearing this story, people vehemently urge me to convince him otherwise. They urge me to help him. I can't see why. I've stopped telling people about him. He's not being rash about this. He's thought it through.

So, I believe, have I. I mean, what else have I been doing all this time? Moaning and whining at myself? Yes, that too. But I'm not content with simply accepting the fact "I'm miserable" without figuring out why. And I've come a long way. Unless there's some deep, psychological key that escapes me, I think I've pretty much figured out why I'm this depressed.

The thing that bugs me is that there really isn't anything to do about it. I can do all these things. But not well enough for people to take notice. I can't pick my career. Nothing established appeals to me. I'm not content with withering away in an office or a cubicle somewhere, or even behind the cash register of a supermarket.

So what do I want to do? Actually, if you think about it, my needs are pretty simple. I like my relaxation. I like my creativity. I like branching out, discovering new things about myself and people around me.

In the eyes of society, this makes me a slob.

I like watching people. I like watching their behaviors. I like trying to tune myself into their behaviors and, chameleon-like, adapt to their surroundings. This is why I have so many varied friends. I have geek friends, movie friends, party friends, street thug friends, goth friends, stupid friends. But which one, if anyone, of those is me?

I ponder over things like why are we here, what's the point of existence. It's useless, I know, because the odds of me actually figuring out why are beyond astronomical. And I have pretty much settled into the whole nihilistic, cynical worldview of no god, no afterlife, no real point of existence, and 'mankind is probably a virus' outlook anyway. But for some reason, I keep at it. I look at the grand scheme of things. I look at how far the human race has come in fifty years; a hundred years; five hundred years; a million. A billion. Before time, what were we? Did we crawl out of the oceans? Were we placed here to function as an ant colony for a race of sadistic aliens? Maybe there really is a God? Maybe the planet is alive and we're the germ. Maybe none of us exist. Maybe my mind is just imagining all this.

Maybe I'm not alive to begin with.

And in the grand scheme of things, what does my existence matter? Am I going to make any sort of difference? Probably not. The so-called "great" people throughout history didn't make any lasting difference. They simply altered the flow of time for a while and basked in the reverence of the blind afterwards. I have no intention of following them. Or in their footsteps.

At the moment, I'm safe. A place to stay. A social environment. Money in the bank. Friends, family, healthy interests, beer.

But where am I in five years time? It should be such a relatively simple question to answer. "After this, I'm thinking of studying for my Bachelors" - or "after this, I think I'll be moving abroad and getting a job". Or even "I'm planning on squatting a partly demolished house with three of my most drugged-out friends until I get a fucking record deal".

For me, there's just a blank. I'm not really studying multimedia design. I'm biding my time. Because once this is over - which it will be in one and a half year - I won't have anything to do.

And I do wonder ... once this is all over, does that mean myself as well?

It's all angst. It's all pathetic. But don't tell me you haven't been here to. And if you haven't, you will. I'm not asking for your help.

I should just pull myself together. I can only do the next best thing. I can ignore it. I can ignore it and go about my life - shallow as it may be. The last thing I want to hear is the patronizing of others; the warmth and comfort of someone who, let's face it, shouldn't really care. I mean, what do you care? Why are you even reading this?

I'll ignore it. I ignored it yesterday. I'll ignore it today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow. I'll probably keep on ignoring it until I find an answer or 'till the day I die.

Be it self-inflicted or not.

Life burns eternal.

We four horsemen gathered at noonday with horses provided by the ring-bearer. Also riding were Godmade and Mathematician. As we rode to Cucina Presto, we discussed stars and their relative movements with respect to us in all directions. At our destination, we once again ventured into the mines of denial by talking of The Man of La Mancha, Waiting for Godot, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Reality became subjective and we disproved Pythagorus. The winds of science raged around us, but we were well protected by the Shield of Literature, a gift from Candle and Teardrop's tribes simultaneously. It was a fifth dimensional tool accessible only by the most powerful of minds. We patted each other on the back. Like old friends.

Geometry lay vanquished by the side of the ring as we assumed quantum time and distance. Our gray decks were stacked against the gray wizard's tribe. We fought gray with grey. I held the fellowship together, while Candle became our spirit. There would be only four individuals in all of creation yesterday, like The Four Guardians of the Square. Mathematician temporarily held the north, the ring-bearer the east, I the south, and Godmade the west. We were crystalline as our audience breathed a sigh of relief in the third person. Who's writing this story anyway?

---

_.i|i._

---

Before lunch, EDB was wielding his toothpick again. He suggested we divide up the new powers among three. We invited the ring-bearer back into the tribunal. Gray power would be dispersed evenly as chosen among the three (third person truths) after it was discovered they were rare. EDB chose nature's fury, the ring-bearer had at first chosen dark freedom but settled on rule reformation, while I took the remaining creative chaos. RGB.

Soon, a pitched battle raged between the Game of Life and the Order of Chaos. Illusion of Control watched from the sidelines. The green|gray wizard elf appeared to be losing ground quickly until a remarkable comeback allowed him to best the red|gray human. The elf was congratulated. Fate smiled upon him. Candle was slanted, across the page, floating like fire in the air.

---

_.i|i._

---

I attempted to project myself outside my own life. That evening, I offered my Order of Chaos deck to the wizard in the red tower. However, it was refused friendlily. The knowledge was already shared. I plane shifted. The tribes were reset. Teams would have to be rechosen, and we would have to reexamine our history to determine the pre-existing tribes. The wizard in the red tower joined Eden's tribe. Red fused with green, for speed. He would soon live younger as well. Never to truly surrender. The match of merge MtG was over.

It was deemed fair. We would do better next time. The thunder rolled in and lightning flashed across the sky. We each held up a negative and a positive chopstick, an remembered the power was within. The fork of electricity turned into soup and drizzled down upon the cup of earth. Mmm... chicken noodle.

Today is last day at work for me with the Law Firm that I have worked for during the past year. Onwards and downwards tomorrow with my brand spanking new job at a company that produces enough wine for a small continent, but is somehow consumed annually by the 400 odd thousand alcoholics clinging to a rock, affectionately nick-named "Maltese". Well, they do export some of it but nowhere near the right amount to justify local consumption.

The post has the poncey title of "Brand Manager" and it apparently involves wearing a costume and turning up at the cellars at 4 every morning. In a ceremony full of pomp, splendour, and early-morning eye-crusts, I shall taste a random sample from each delivery truck leaving the cellars, certify it as meeting the standards of a groggy teetotaller(myself), and fall asleep curled up in a misty haze of early-morning inebriation. I shall then be woken up in time for lunch, stripped of my ceremonial costume by a small troupe of chambermaids, unfolded into a suit and tie, to spend the rest of the afternoon speaking to clients across a boardroom table over some more glasses of the finest vintage.

At some time in the afternoon that happens to tickle my fancy, a horse-drawn cart reminiscent of the early carriages used to transport wines at the turn of the century will pass for me and take me back home.
That is what my new job promises.
I'll let you all know if there should be any changes in the above schedule, but I doubt that there will be too much variation on what they described to me in purring tones, holding my hands while I signed the contract.

It’s just a football game. That’s all

I missed it, I planned on getting home from work, going to sleep a few hours and waking up to watch the Superbowl at the local tourist pub all night,.

But I got home and “she” said she might come over, and I thought… the Superbowl always sucks anyways and I haven’t been following the NFL much this year.

At 23:30 I called her asking her what’s up, she said she’d call me later…. At 23:45 I decided to go eat Hummus with a different friend. We went to Hummus Ashkara (the best Hummus in Tel Aviv) she confessed I was her best / second best friend (her best friend is moving to Australia in 3 weeks).

We talked, her about breaking up from her 7-year boyfriend. I talked about “her” standing me up…. Only see before I went out for the hummus, when I had just stepped out the door… “she” called…

DAMN stuff like that drives me crazy.

I have decided to stay in Israel for now. I have decided I don’t feel like moving to NY or studying in San Diego or traveling in the Far East or going back to South America.

I am realizing my mood is severely weather induced, and on cloudy morning days, I am depressed.

I played basketball last night, had Asthma and muscle aches all day today cause of it… will I learn? Should I?

Oh and yesterday, all day, damn Israelis who know nothing about football were telling me how great the damn Superbowl was…

Life isn’t ironic, it’s a sadistic joke… the more you roll with it and laugh, the better you will feel when you wake up after your death.

"It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job;
it's a depression when you lose your own."
Harry S. Truman

Something was up. That much was apparent. I walked into work and saw him sitting there grim faced, waiting for me. I steeled myself for what I had felt coming for months. I was prepared for something else. I was not expecting this.

"I've been laid off"

Firepower of rapid thoughts attack in swift succession as the ground crumbles away from beneath my feet and I am plummeting down free falling...

First thought..."What the heck? What company spends thousands of dollars to relocate a family across the country to cut the employee loose a year and a half later?" second thought ..."Call his boss and give him a piece of my mind. Doesn't he realize the hardships we've faced for this job? Doesn't he care?" third..."I cannot support my family on this job selling kid shoes. What are we going to do? How on earth can I make this better?" fourth...."I need some soup"

and then my jacket is snagged on a branch and I am anchored for the moment dangling against the cliff wall able to catch my breath suspended in time...

Sometimes...
the best thing you can do is
listen to soothing jazz music
light a few sandalwood scented candles
soak in some bubbling hot water
have a little french onion soup
(not skimping on the toasted french bread
and melty provolone cheese)
wrap yourself in a warm blanket
and tell yourself you'll deal with it in the morning
Sometimes...
it's the only thing you can do

and I look out over the ocean spread there before me. I watch the tide as it comes in and again later as it goes out. It's done this since the beginning of time. The waters ebb and flow. That's the way of things.

I reek.

I don’t smoke, and generally don’t frequent bars as I prefer not to deal with it. The benefit of my entering must significantly outweigh the cost. A few weeks ago, it was free movie passes (and I was disgusted for the two minutes I was in there). This evening, it will be to see Gaelic Storm.

However, I didn’t expect to have a smokey odor until closer to midnight. Instead, it is mid-afternoon, and I feel like I should have a buzz to go along with the smell.

What caused this? Well, the only place the eight of us could agree on for lunch was Skyline Chili. The only place they could find places for eight was on the border with the smoking section. Through an accident of seating and being a southpaw, I was one of the closest to the DMZ.

However, smoke is not like a solid, or even as well behaved as spilled pop. It goes wherever it feels like. And, a chain smoker sat as my mirror. It wasn’t too bad while I was in there, but now I feel like every where I go, a foul cloud follows.

I can’t wait until five. I get on a bus, get home, and hit the shower!

the letter lay quietly in the mailbox.

i wake it from slumber and bring it inside. small pink leaves float to the floor as i slit it

open...nice touch kir, I think.

and i read.

it's all wrong.

realize the leaves are only the veiny skeletons..bones

I have nothing more to say.

Spoke with my girlfriend this evening, and she was telling me about how everyone was on pins and needles at the daycare where she worked. Apparently, some psycho threatened to shoot people for some odd reason. I don't have all the details, so I won't share them here. Being that she and I are separated by a lot of real estate and that my money disappears quickly, I can't go to where she lives and see her. It seems that everytime I want to put some money aside, something comes along and eats up whatever amount you want to put aside.

I also realized that I need more business cards for my business. I ran out of cards last week, and only have my flyers with my contact info printed on them to hand out to prospects. I hope there's a printer that can do a small quantity of cards before Friday. It sucks when you are just out of college, and people don't want to pay you more than peanuts for your time at a job. I think it's worse when you also have a business that is also holding its own and you are strapped for time in looking for ways to increase the profitability. I know it can be done, and it will require some creative thinking on my part to do it.

being a
Dick
with License

There has been a long and glorious history to the esteemed tradition of being a dick. Nero was a dick to the christians, Caesar was a dick to the germanic tribes and Cher was a dick to Sonny. It is a long story of people being jerks, ass wipes and assholes-in-general. This is really old news in this day and age with legendary dicks like Putin and Bush (senior), but only recently has the phenomenon of being a dick with license been improved.

The process of Dickage with License (DwL) takes the regular methods of being short, curt and unreasonable one step further toward the ultimate goal of total second-party alienation. While being a dick will achieve this given time, the benefit of DwL is that you achieve this end without the tedious end of admitting you are a actually doing it. This is a beautiful design because it will allow you to be as unfairly unpleasant as you like while leaving the party no other recourse to respond. This is the "license" part: to make the abuse completely one sided so an argument can be as absurd as you like -- in fact, the more obtuse the abuse the better.

There are three ways to achieve this successfully. The first way is to end the abuse after the initial assault has been made wither by walking away or preferably by not allowing the other party to talk afterward. The second is the most difficult which is to constantly deride, in any way, the rebuttals being made -- these responses should be as harsh and painful as possible. However, the third and most rewarding way is to be in a position of power to where the party receiving your abuses cannot respond for fear of unrelated retaliation (e.g. physical harm, kick/ban etc); this is the the mode to be aspired to because it makes you appear to be in a position of almost messianic power.

Remember, abuse of power and position is the greatest thing you can attain in your short, empty and pointless existence.