Smoke and Mirrors

What is smoke?
In my current state I find it to cover my apartment, clothes, and somehow my spirit

It is by no intention or desire of my own
Nor will it ever be
However, this smoke, this smoke of cannabis and tobacco still proliferates itself upon me

And that is where the others some in
The others who exist, rather are, in my habitat find the byproduct of this smoke to define who/what they are

Their identity is, and feel free to argue, is to feel nothing, I take that back, to not feel reality. To escape the demands of reality is to coward away from a mans calling and created mission. Reality is a fun place to be if you have set yourself up to experience it fully and naturally. But yet this cowardness is some well regarded and accepted practice. Beyond that…it is attractive…beyond me

How is running away the new sex symbol?
Why isn’t refinement, knowledge, the desire of wisdom, the will to learn, and the passion to teach not desirable?

Is there no mirror of morality and humanity to look in?
I guess that wouldn’t work anyway because the problem with a mirror is that it only shows the exterior, which apparently also isn’t a problem because people wake up everyday and greet their own pitiful, worthless selves and smile because they know their escape is only a breath away, time to go to work

The only examination that goes beyond skin deep is that of the living Word. But, we all know how far away the inhalers and exhalers are from its beat. They mock it, judge it, and defile it. But, they are of no credible source with sound argument

I find them empty, nothing, and an abuse of air. A waste of life by which change is not conducive nor interested in. There is nothing like rolling out of bed and hitting that pipe. Feeling the properties of cannabis burn your throat, flow through your lungs, into your blood stream, slowing your heart beat, and numbing your nerves…the breakfast of champions. I can only assume that is what goes through their minds, once a blank slate for knowledge and wisdom, now just blank

Am I cruel?
Shouldn’t I respect one’s freedom and personal convictions?
First, I don’t care about a perceived freedom, and second, there is no respect in manipulated convictions.

So, for one who swims in this smoke, and who’s lungs begs for the skyline of a third world country, I’m not judging. I’m making an observation of the perverse talent of persuasion and the view points of self-worth. Now take a deep breath

The Court of Moral Compass

There seems to be a thought that man has no moral compass

But when called to the stand many arguments of the cricket ring true

How is it then that on two opposite sides of this massive planet the same critique can exist?

Drowning themselves in a liquid brown secret apparently they strive to find purpose

Slicing themselves through their liquid red secret they attempt to find pure feeling

And inhaling unto themselves the not so liquid green announcement to encourage indifference

All of this to address the thought of a day is lost without enthusiasm; life is not lived without natural living and again, the challenge of truly meeting those demands of reality

If man does in-fact have a moral compass why does he introduce decoys of life into his daily existence?

When the principles of present time are sidelined due to the introduction of foreign economics to the local being, moral consciousness is altered and reconstituted

A new accepted system of principles sets in for the moment, then is gone

But, in that moment of the new economy, the transactions that are had are often mis-appropriated and negligent

And if called to the same stand as our friend the cricket, the jury would find the testimony of the
Fiddler down in Georgia to set a standard, and Mr. Twain would be sitting coy ready to follow with his rebuttal

When the final divorce from the court room occurs from an indignant real boy, he is left shouting, “at least I tried, at least I tried”

One can chase words of justification but only actions that feature vindication may entice a favorable judgment

Credit for the unnoticed is rarely given, yet it is the hardest to deserve

For a reflection of The Image is what we were created to be, but a mere shard of glass is all we can physically attain on this earth

The Thoughts Abroad - Local Mindsets

Local Mindsets

I’ve tried to be honest
Tried to find a way
Not to be “That American”

I don’t eat at McDonalds
I don’t fight for the war
But still it comes out

It’s the hanging off of a train
Enjoying the wind pass though my hair
Finding contentment

Also, its the brashness of protection
The killer instinct
The wanting of need (purpose)

I believe it is more than “American”
It is a healthy male soul
Maybe just not seeing the total picture

In a country torn apart
A man helps and asks for money
Apparently, what was given was not fitting for the action

His pride and ignorance rose up with his voice
(Directed to the bestowing women)
And I soon met him with an action

Was the action “right”? (I’m not in my country, I’m in his)
But no doubt classified “American”
Why the classification?

Should it not just be a just action?
(Towards a coward raising and forcing his voice on a woman)
Thats the 22

What was he trying to do?
I didn’t know his language
I think I know what he was after

He didn’t want glory
Didn’t want pity
No, he didn’t even want money

He wanted to be right
To be justified
To be acknowledged for his inadequacies

Is that pity?
No, its being self-righteous
Only by verbally assaulting a woman, did he attempt to find it

Am I self righteous for saying so?
Maybe, not because I expose but because I position
How easy is it to classify others who are vulnerable?

I think it is solved by constantly seeking to understand
Not to dismiss by with a fashionable opinion
But to put on an old, worn out pair of shoes

Swiss Breeze

The lake is quiet
The mood is slow
And the water is calm

A quick move by a sailor
A pour of wine
And the gaze of a girl

Where am I?
In my own world
Away from others and their ideals

But this time is ticking away
A vibrant picture fading to black and white
All I want is to stay in color

What holds me back?
The oppression of my own rational
When a large shadow is cast, the plants wither

I dare not converse with the time keeper
He only bares news of entrapment
Closer with every tick

Who bears news of freedom?
That same timekeeper
It all depends on the need

What makes this so good?
The view of a lake, an old boat, rolling hills, smooth jazz, a good wine, and solitude
These are the things that make a paradise

After all, this is what recharges a life
The curse of reality is knocking
Too bad there is no snooze for life

For now, the world envies me
But I will soon join them
Let me have my time

Hidden in a cove I enjoy my peace
In the glistening water and green hills I find my awe
In the dome and foreign language I find my interest

(In the moment I find my escape)

Freely Ignorant

When we go abroad we enter another world, another home, another culture. Everywhere we go in today’s world we are noticed, not because of our dress, not because of our thoughts, but because of our actions.
Actions that are a disgrace to our founding fathers and the fighting of our grandfathers.
Actions that consist of: Blatant laziness, not being prepared, not taking ownership of your own actions, don’t blame a different way of thinking.

Nobody cares how much you know
People don’t want to see your excuse for comfort
Only you want to hear you ask a question that you know the answer to because the right answer is your own opinion

Feel free to not talk on your cell phone in front of the Last Supper
Feel free to not say “oh wow” or I don’t get it” every time you see something new or different
Feel free to blend in and enjoy the culture you are immersed in

Don’t eat fast food
Don’t tell everybody where you’re from
Don’t blatantly abuse the language

Make an effort to appreciate the differences
Make an effort to learn the culture
Make an effort to not stand out

Use your brain not your mouth
Use your eyes not your book
Use your thoughts not your feelings

Things may taste funny
People may sound different
It may be uncomfortable
(But that doesn’t give you license to comment on it)

Thinking is better than talking
Looking is better than critiquing
Silence is better than noise

Keep your comments to yourself
Keep your prejudgments to a zero
Keep your wants separate from your needs

Don’t blame me for others disposition
Don’t scar your country with your judgments
Don’t choose an open mouth over a closed one

An open mouth forcing ideals
Forcing actions
Forcing yourself on others
(These are the worst)

Show acceptance
Show gratitude
Show no right of passage

A righteous anger is showed
A hateful thought is deserved
A drastic change is needed

The change is long
The change is a logic
The change is a love

A love of respect
A love of rational
A love of relation

Do some discovering of your own
Answer your own questions
Because the answer is in the question or in front of you

Do something that takes you out of your comfort zone and don’t tell everybody how hard it is. It is your own growth and personal education
If you are the man, take the responsibility
Don’t rely on others to do your job of leading and providing. Get over yourself and do your God given assignment

You make safety
You make awkwardness
You make enemies

You make comfort
You make fun
You make hospitality

Find a new obsession
Find a new view
Find a new reason

I dare you to get over your ignorance
I dare you to learn a new way
I dare you to try

So, those of us who get it, we have to live though your shadow, because it is the largest.
We try to fix things, but we are still known as “That American”. So, next time think before you desecrate our name.

Don’t get me started

(Beauty lies not in the perfectly manicured tourist destinations, but in the lives of the average people) – Kira McMurran

(Inspection)
How dare you condemn an infraction that is less than yours, especially one that is of you youth when you are aged. Don’t look in the mirror, it might show the real sin. If everybody sins is it still wrong? Or if everybody is addicted, do we call it a way of life? The inspection must be case by case, individual by individual. But by no means does that qualify the condemnation.

Dave Eggers: Selling Out

Those who bestow sellouthood upon their former heroes are driven to do so by, first and foremost, the unshakable need to reduce. The average one of us - a taker-in of various and constant media, is absolutely overwhelmed - as he or she should be - with the sheer volume of artistic output in every conceivable medium given to the world every day - it is simply too much to begin to process or comprehend - and so we are forced to try to sort, to reduce. We designate, we label, we diminish, we create hierarchies and categories.

But you know what is easiest of all? When we dismiss.

Oh how gloriously comforting, to be able to write someone off. Thus, in the overcrowded pantheon of alternarock bands, at a certain juncture, it became necessary for a certain brand of person to write off The Flaming Lips, despite the fact that everyone knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that their music was superb and groundbreaking and real.

The only thing worse than this sort of activity is when people, students and teachers alike, run around college campuses calling each other racists and anti-Semites. It's born of boredom, lassitude. Too cowardly to address problems of substance where such problems actually are, we claw at those close to us. We point to our neighbor, in the khakis and sweater, and cry foul. It's ridiculous. We find enemies among our peers because we know them better, and their proximity and familiarity means we don't have to get off the couch to dismantle them.

You want to know how big a sellout I am?

A few months ago I wrote an article for Time magazine and was paid $12,000 for it I am about to write something, 1,000 words, 3 pages or so, for something called Forbes ASAP, and for that I will be paid $6,000 For two years, until five months ago, I was on the payroll of ESPN magazine, as a consultant and sometime contributor. I was paid handsomely for doing very little. Same with my stint at Esquire. One year I spent there, with little to no duties. I wore khakis every day. Another Might editor and I, for almost a year, contributed to Details magazine, under pseudonyms, and were paid $2000 each for what never amounted to more than 10 minutes work - honestly never more than that. People from Hollywood want to make my book into a movie, and I am probably going to let them do so, and they will likely pay me a great deal of money for the privilege.

Do I care about this money? I do. Will I keep this money? Very little of it. Within the year I will have given away almost a million dollars to about 100 charities and individuals, benefiting everything from hospice care to an artist who makes sculptures from Burger King bags. And the rest will be going into publishing books through McSweeney's. Would I have been able to publish McSweeney's if I had not worked at Esquire? Probably not. Where is the $6000 from Forbes going? To a guy named Joe Polevy, who wants to write a book about the effects of radiator noise on children in New England.

The thing is, I really like saying yes. I like new things, projects, plans, getting people together and doing something, trying something, even when it's corny or stupid. I am not good at saying no. And I do not get along with people who say no. When you die, and it really could be this afternoon, under the same bus wheels I'll stick my head if need be, you will not be happy about having said no. You will be kicking your ass about all the no's you've said. No to that opportunity, or no to that trip to Nova Scotia or no to that night out, or no to that project.

No is for wimps. No is to live small and embittered, cherishing the opportunities you missed because they might have sent the wrong message.

There is a point in one's life when one cares about selling out and not selling out. One worries whether or not wearing a certain shirt means that they are behind the curve or ahead of it, or that having certain music in one's collection means that they are impressive, or unimpressive.

What matters is that you do good work. What matters is that you produce things that are true and will stand. What matters is not the perception, nor the fashion, not who's up and who's down, but what someone has done and if they meant it. What matters is that you want to see and make and do, on as grand a scale as you want, regardless of what the tiny voices of tiny people say. Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a load of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes.

For full article: http://www.armchairnews.com/freelance/eggers.html

Bono's NAACP Chairman's Award Acceptance Speech

True religion will not let us fall asleep in the comfort of our freedom. “Love thy neighbor” is not a piece of advice, it’s a command. And that means a lot. That means that in the global village, we’re going to have to start loving a whole lot more people. That’s what that means. That’s right–its truth is marching on...and to those in the church who still sit in judgement on the AIDS emergency, let me climb into the pulpit for just one moment. Because whatever thoughts we have about God who he is, or even if God exists, most will agree that God has a special place for the poor.

The poor are where God lives. God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is where the opportunity is lost and lives are shattered. (Standing ovation.) God is with the mother who has infected a child with a virus that will take both their lives. God is under the rubble in the cries we hear during wartime. God, my friends, is with the poor, and God is with us if we are with them.

This is not a burden–this is an adventure! And don’t let anyone tell you it cannot be done. We can be the generation that ends extreme poverty! Thank you.

Booker T. Washington: Atlanta Compromise (Section)

A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal,“Water, water; we die of thirst!” The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” A second time the signal, “Water, water; send us water!” ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” And a third and fourth signal for water was answered, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh, sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. To those of my race who depend on bettering their condition in a foreign land or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the Southern white man, who is their next-door neighbor, I would say: “Cast down your bucket where you are”— cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.

Cast it down in agriculture, mechanics, in commerce, in domestic service, and in the professions. And in this connection it is well to bear in mind that whatever other sins the South may be called to bear, when it comes to business, pure and simple, it is in the South that the Negro is given a man’s chance in the commercial world, and in nothing is this Exposition more eloquent than in emphasizing this chance. Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour, and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.

Al Pacino: Any Given Sunday Locker Room Speech

I don't know what to say really.
Three minutes
to the biggest battle of our professional lives
all comes down to today.
Either
we heal
as a team
or we are going to crumble.
Inch by inch
play by play
till we're finished.
We are in hell right now, gentlemen
believe me
and
we can stay here
and get the shit kicked out of us
or
we can fight our way
back into the light.
We can climb out of hell.
One inch, at a time.

Now I can't do it for you.
I'm too old.
I look around and I see these young faces
and I think
I mean
I made every wrong choice a middle age man could make.
I uh....
I pissed away all my money
believe it or not.
I chased off
anyone who has ever loved me.
And lately,
I can't even stand the face I see in the mirror.

You know when you get old in life
things get taken from you.
That's, that's part of life.
But,
you only learn that when you start losing stuff.
You find out that life is just a game of inches.
So is football.
Because in either game
life or football
the margin for error is so small.
I mean
one half step too late or to early
you don't quite make it.
One half second too slow or too fast
and you don't quite catch it.
The inches we need are everywhere around us.
They are in ever break of the game
every minute, every second.

On this team, we fight for that inch
On this team, we tear ourselves, and everyone around us
to pieces for that inch.
We CLAW with our finger nails for that inch.
Cause we know
when we add up all those inches
that's going to make the fucking difference
between WINNING and LOSING
between LIVING and DYING.

I'll tell you this
in any fight
it is the guy who is willing to die
who is going to win that inch.
And I know
if I am going to have any life anymore
it is because, I am still willing to fight, and die for that inch
because that is what LIVING is.
The six inches in front of your face.

Now I can't make you do it.
You gotta look at the guy next to you.
Look into his eyes.
Now I think you are going to see a guy who will go that inch with you.
You are going to see a guy
who will sacrifice himself for this team
because he knows when it comes down to it,
you are gonna do the same thing for him.

That's a team, gentlemen
and either we heal now, as a team,
or we will die as individuals.
That's football guys.
That's all it is.
Now, whattaya gonna do?