"I want to shoot technology in the face." [laughs] In the face? "In it's stupid, smug...
Cyclical?
"...smug, cyclical face."
You realize you'd be shooting it with technology. "No I wouldn't. I'd shoot it with fire."
So you want to shoot Technology in it's smug, cyclical face with fire. "Yes. I hate it."
This moonlit chill in my chest fills my head with doubts and my breath with fog. All of these broken playgrounds of swing-set hearts... it’s all just... rusted. Everyone’s made of recycled air.
Every girl is a fallen star collection; a pixie, imperfect. Warm hearts and frozen fingers are the order of the evening - every evening - until 5:47 a.m., when heavy lids take the place of weary souls and emotion invincible. The most important moments that govern our lives always seem to take place in our absence. And that itself fuels our fear of slumber.
So much can be lost through gallons of apathy and yet so much can be avoided: White knuckles and crumbling plaster, living quick and dying faster. We’re all just static romances. With fluorescent hums in place of hopes, replacing dreams...colliding perpetually in cathode rays of light, being watched by someone else; Someone far grander than we can conceive.
He must be watching - but laughing -at all this poetic numbness.
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.
The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. He asked once more if the jar was full.. The students responded with a unanimous 'yes.'
The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand.The students laughed..
"Now," said the professor as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things - your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favorite passions - and if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car... The sand is everything else: the small stuff.
"If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you."
Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.
There's not much left you can say when you're soul is no longer whole. You can find esoteric words to use, but none of them hold meaning or can come close to accurately defining the depths of you.
Some people are drawn to brilliance and will chase it endlessly; like a naive moth fluttering around life's porch light in a futile attempt to catch... something. Who knows? Its own agenda.
Other people respond to bitterness, and will only react to the negative in life. They crave friction. The good things may be cautiously accepted, but it's the dark that truly stirs their mental tanks. And then they wonder why it keeps reoccurring, never realizing that just by reacting to the negative, it positively reinforces the cycle.
I'm broken. But, like a boulder that's been obliterated by dynamite, I still exist, even if half of me has disappeared into dust. The rest of me resides in little pieces - never to be whole again - for everyone who knows me to pick up their own special fragment of what I mean to them. No one I know in my life has ever seen me whole, but everyone's got a piece of me in their pocket to keep. They freely take it with them via memories, and I freely let them have it.
But not you...
I wanted you to see me put together again. I wanted to be whole with you. To be something - someone - you could lean on. To give you shade during those especially tough days. To protect you when you needed someone to hide behind. To stand on when you wanted a better view of the world. And to always be there when you needed me, and you would always know where to look and find me.
There's always those moments when you kiss someone new where they feel alien. Standing up and kissing them... gently pressing lips to lips that aren't yours... new scents and sensations you've never pressed before. Her breath so dissimilar yet humid and fresh... nervous to go on. Her smaller body curving, molding into mine... so invigorating and terrifying. Her smaller and more slender fingers wrapped around my neck, and another hand along my arm... I would never get used to it.I would never grow tired of it. Each kiss is another lesson. Each kiss you learn something new about their rhythm, their pace, their preference of top or bottom; when to breathe and when to hold it in; the signals their jaw gives. And the absolute best and treasured of them all... the kiss that inexorably turns into a smile... the smile that you feel with your eyes closed. Feeling their lips tighten and hear that breathing grin.
Arms wrap around and pull you down on the floor with a giggle, never missing a heartfelt beat. The warmth of their skin, the way her hair behaves when she rolls around on the ground, as she tries to "win". Senses so untrained to each others movements... You strive for that one reaction you want to induce over and over again.
Love - in those very secret moments - is in its truest element; where is belongs. You are both meant. You are both meant to be there. You still have so much of each other to explore and the adventure is just getting started.... with a kiss.
"And not in a friendly way, although I think we’re great friends. And not in a misplaced affection, puppy-dog way, although I’m sure that’s what you’ll call it. And it’s not because you’re unattainable. I love you. Very simple, very truly. You’re the epitome of every attribute and quality I’ve ever looked for in another person. I know you think of me as just a friend and crossing that line is the furthest thing from an option you’d ever consider. But I can’t do this any longer. I can’t stand next to you without wanting to hold you. I can’t look into your eyes without feeling that longing you only read about in trashy romance novels. I can’t talk to you without wanting to express my love for everything you are. I know this will probably queer our friendship - no pun intended - but I had to say it, because I’ve never felt this before, and I like who I am because of it.
"And if bringing it to light means we can’t hang out anymore, then that hurts me. But I couldn’t allow another day to go by without getting it out there, regardless of the outcome, which by the look on your face is to be the inevitable shoot- down. And I’ll accept that. But I know some part of you is hesitating for a moment, and if there is a moment of hesitation, that means you feel something too. All I ask is that you not suppress that - at least for ten minutes - and try to dwell in it before you dismiss it.
"There isn’t another soul on this fucking planet who’s ever made me the person I am when I’m with you, and I would risk this friendship for the chance to take it to the next plateau. Because it’s there between you and me. You can’t deny that. And even if we never speak again after tonight, please know that I’m forever changed because of you and what you’ve meant to me, which - while I do appreciate it - I’d never need a painting of birds bought at a diner to remind me of."
We do understand the tides, actually. Now, if he used an example of something that we don't currently understand, this would be less susceptible to comedic mockery than, "Tides come in, tides go out, you can't explain that." Yes we do. We've known how to explain that for the last couple hundred years. Give a better example. If he said, "There's dark matter and dark energy forcing the expansion of the universe so fast that it's accelerating. You can't explain that." Right! We can't explain it. I don't think Bill knows enough about physics to tell us what we don't understand yet.
But here's the paradox: If he wants to use that line of reasoning for his explanation of God, all we have to do is come back and ask, "If you don't understand something and the community of physicists don't currently understand something, does that means God did it?" Is that how you want to play this game? Because if it is, there's a list of things in the past that the physicists at the time didn't understand. And a talk show Bill might have conducted 200 years ago would have said, "The planets do retrograde? You can't explain that. Must be God." And at the time we'd say, "You know, you're right." And then ten years later we'd understand it. So then what do you do?
Winds and fire and lightning were explained by Aeolus, Vulcan and Zeus. The moon and earthquakes were explained by ravens and turtles. Over the centuries, science has proved physics and evolution as the catalyst and answer for mysteries, and not ethereal deities that judge us from on high. Christianity is merely one of the newest religions to form and try to use their god as the explanation for the currently unexplainable. Until we find the answer. And then it's on to something else to assign "God" to.
If that's how you want to invoke your evidence for God, then the notion of God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance. It's getting smaller and smaller as time moves on. So be ready for that to happen if that's how you want to come at the problem. It's simply the God-Of-The-Gaps argument that's been around forever.
And for the record, I don't even mind or care if someone wants to say, "You don't understand that? God did it." That doesn't bother me. What does bother me is when a person is so content in that answer that they no longer have curiosity to learn how it happened. The day you stop looking and trying to learn because you're content "God did it," I don't need you anymore.
You're useless on the frontier of understanding the nature of the world.
Warren Buffett once said, "I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," on CNBC. "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election". The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only three months ans eight days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971; before computers, e-mail, cell phones, etc. Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven took a year or less to become the law of the land, all because of public pressure.
*Congressional Reform Act of 2011*
1. No Tenure / No Pension. A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
2. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people. It may not be used for any other purpose.
3. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.
4. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
5. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
6. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.
7. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12. The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves. Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term's), then go home and back to work.
A lot of people got shot this summer and since we’re not going to do anything about any of it – not even a token gesture with real impact – it’ll happen again soon. And everyone’s reactions will be exactly the same. So just imagine another shooter. Let’s say he’s got green hair this time and he hated working at Lobster Pot – it doesn’t matter. This is now the mass-shooting template for America:
► Day one: The shooting. The shock. The live coverage. Footage of crying people hugging and police in riot gear making their way through the building. Death tolls indicate the amount of coverage: Below five: it’s a one-day story. If it’s above five, it’s officially a national tragedy. Brian Williams is going to be there all week.
Both candidates release statements saying they’re shocked by this senseless tragedy and their hearts go out to the victims and their families and the community at large. They will rebuild.
► Day two: We find out who the gunman is. We’ll also find out it was easy for him to build a small arsenal. Interviews with neighbors former teachers, etc. Lots of shots of candles and teddy bears by a fence.
► Day three: We find out someone warned someone else about the gunman being a nut. The media asks, “Could more have been done?”
The NRA sends out a fundraising letter saying Obama will use this to come and take your guns.
► Day four: Here come the stories of heroism. They replace the stories of tragedy. You’ll hear the term “guardian angel.” A lot. Because viewers can only do tragedy for so long. They want to hear about someone taking a bullet for a loved one.
► Day five: Liberal columnists start pressing the gun issue. Conservative columnists respond by saying more people with guns could have shot the gunman earlier. Nobody changes their mind.
► Day six: President Obama tells us to search our souls. Which sounds better than “Really, stop asking me to do something about guns. It’s election season. And I don’t care.”
