You're living in the past...man.

So, a work colleague showed me this photograph today and I almost started tearing up. It rankles me to get emotional about the past because, well, the past is the past.

I don’t know what this photo means to me, whether it harkens back to old times, to bad times and so that pushes a button somewhere inside. Or whether it’s just plain old nostalgia, reminding me of a simpler, gentler time when the world wasn’t in quite such a rush to self-destruct.

It does, however, remind me of summers spent riding my bike around the “tougher”, “meaner” parts of the neighbourhood, when you were always just a little bit scared , making sure you didn’t slow down for fear of a bully, or worse still, an angry dog trying some freedom on for size, just waiting for a juicy seven year old to torment with it’s own special brand of canine persecution.

Nevertheless, I don’t know exactly what it is, if it’s all of these things or none of them but…yeah. Oh, did I mention that said photograph was taken but four weeks ago?

Breathe for freedom.

In an age where, at least to me anyway, imagination is not valued, or at times even seems to be discouraged, I find I'm asking myself; "What is wrong with ambiguity?"

I like to be able to read a line in a poem or hear a line in a song and be able to carry it with me for an hour, a day a week or even a month for that matter until I can decide what the writer/singer means or even more satisfying, what it means to me.

The deliciousness of the ambiguity can feed my imagination for hours if I want it to. To be able to just sit with something and pull it apart, reassemble it in different ways until it "fits", that's one of the beautiful processes that my mind allows me in a world that is all too quick to want to catergorise, compartmentilise and move onto what's next. A world where everything, everything must be explicit.

Well, I for one want some mystery, some ambiguity in my appreciation of art, music, literature, even conversation. Sure, it can be frustrating, exasperating, unnerving, even just plain scary at times but for the most part it feeds me in a way that gives me, I dunno, not joy or exhultation but it's one of the things that makes me gratified/satisfied?, to still exsist.

Anyway...

Harvester Of Sorrow

My life suffocates
Planting seeds of hate
I've loved, turned to hate
Trapped far beyond my fate

I give, you take
This life that I forsake
Been cheated of my youth
You turned this lie to truth

Anger, misery
You'll suffer unto me

Harvester of sorrow
Language of the mad
Harvester of sorrow

Pure black, looking clear
My work is done soon here
Try getting back to me
Get back which used to be

Drink up
Shoot in
Let the beatings begin
Distributor of pain
Your loss becomes my gain

Anger
Misery
You'll suffer unto me

Harvester of sorrow
Language of the mad
Harvester of sorrow

All have said their prayers
Invade their nightmares
To see into my eyes
You'll find where murder lies

Infanticide

Harvester of sorrow
Language of the mad

-James Hetfield

The Outsider

Help me if you can
It's just that this, this is not the way I'm wired
So could you please,

Help me understand why
You've given in to all these
Reckless dark desires

You're lying to yourself again
Suicidal imbecile
Think about it, put it on the faultline
What'll it take to get it through to you precious
Over this. Why do you wanna throw it away like this
Such a mess. I don't want to watch you.

Disconnect and self destruct one bullet at a time
What's your rush now, everyone will have his day to die

Medicated, drama queen, picture perfect, numb belligerence
Narcissistic, drama queen, craving fame and all its decadence

Lying through your teeth again
Suicidal imbecile
Think about it, put it on the fautline
What'll it take to get it through to you precious
Go with this, why do you wanna throw it away like this
Such a mess, I don't wanna watch you...

Disconnect and self destruct one bullet at a time
What's your rush now, everyone will have his day to die

They were right about you
They were right about you

Lying to my face again
Suicidal imbecile
Think about it put it on the fautline
What'll it take to get it through to you precious
Over this, why do you wanna throw it away like this
Such a mess, come to this, come to this

Disconnect and self destruct, one bullet at a time
What's your hurry, everyone will have his day to die
If you choose to pull the trigger, should your drama prove sincere,
Do it somewhere far away from here
-A Perfect Circle

Me, my enemy.

Okay, so I guess I've gotta expand upon that, don't I? I'm just fucking sick and tired of everyone and everything and this whole I don't know what, that we're participating in. At the moment, for the most part, I feel like I just wanna get off. I don't want to realise my mortality or some such Plathian gesture but the longer that "life" goes on the more it's not really working for me.

And now to totally contradict myself, in some ways this thing is working better than ever. There are times recently when I've experienced a clarity that I've never achieved before in my life and an inner "peace"? that is becoming a more frequent visitor. Yet I still so often feel a dissatisfaction and a constriction within the confines of my existence.

So, I guess I've gotta look at the upside, such as it is, right?

"When your sense of self is no longer tied to thought, is no longer conceptual, there is a depth of feeling, of sensing, of compassion, of loving, that was not there when you were trapped in mental concepts. You are that depth."
- Eckhart Tolle

Short & sweet.

FUCK YOU!

Truer words...

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us. -
Henry David Thoreau