A(nother) Poem: It’s Not You. It’s Me.
By Billy | July 14, 2008
The universe seems to work most frequently in patterns. I love watching these things play themselves out, develop, progress, and repeat themselves. The universe is nothing but a big game of pong; evenly matched players that are both the cause and result of events. I feel that we are each the ball in this game. Sit back and let the game be played. The funny thing is that I probably won’t agree with this position in a few weeks as a result of other causes and conditions. Weeks after that, I will be back to where I am at this moment. Maybe not.
All I’m trying to say is that I have undergone a definitive change of seasons for the time being. (That time period is extremely random, but should probably be measured in days) While I was on a roll (yes, a roll in my opinion can be two in a row/short period of time!) at one time with writing The Story of Brahman, then I shifted and was very much into writing about philosophical topics, I am now in the mood to express my poetic self.
This one is written as a dialog with myself. I don’t think there’s much more explanation required for this it. Let’s call it: It’s Not You. It’s Me.
–
you laugh because it’s pointless
you laugh and feel insane
you laugh as your eyes tear up
you laugh to hide the pain
the distance you’ve created;
you and your mistakes
that’s why I’m so lonely
that’s why my heart breaks
your negativity gets to me
and makes me wish you dead
you fill my heart with apathy
and evil in my head
you laugh and then you wonder why
you laughed but wanted just to cry
“ridiculous,” you always say
that anyone should feel this way
you clench your fists and bite your lip
you’re the thorn in your own hip
you close your eyes and count your breath
you sit around and wait for death
you’re going nowhere
nowhere fast
just ignore your empty past
you beat yourself into the ground
made unsure the love you’ve found
you all too often just lose sight
keep it up and lose the fight
the cycle never ends this way
nothing else is left to say
the cycle never ends this way
–
I don’t really like the ending. It does seem to reinforce the second to last line by ending so abruptly, and that is the way the solution came to me as I wrote, so I have elected not to change it. I am usually reluctant to change poems from their original verbage in order to preserve the emotion captured in the moment. If it continues to bother me, or if I get any encouragement from my readership to consider changing any part of it, I will do so.
That’s just about all I wanted to get across today. Blogging rule #1 says to never vent in your blog, and since I’m still recovering from an exhausting weekend, dealing with an allergic reaction to a bee sting, having been delayed 40 minutes on the bus this morning due to traffic, and since I’m still frustrated from finding my car door wide open inviting last nights torrential rain in, I should stop typing before some sort of passive-aggressive venting comes out at the end of this post.
Since I want to end on a happy note… Isn’t this face cute? o_O Yeah, I think so too.
Topics: Utterly Random | 2 Comments »
Wishing: A Slice of Poetry
By Billy | July 8, 2008
I spent a long time in high school pouring over a notebook I had filled with ridiculous poems. I guarded this book ferociously—it contained my most genuine self at the time. On a whim, I remember, one summer day I asking my friend for a critique—I was secretly hoping she’d catch onto the cryptic, hidden meaning and offer me advice on the issue I was too timid to simply explain. When she had finished reading, she replied with something along the lines of, “Billy. I have no clue what this means, but it strikes a chord in me. I hope you show me some more—I hope you show a lot of people.”
It took a long time to build up any confidence in my writing ability, but I do come up with a poem or two every now and then that I am actually proud of. Despite winning contests, being selected for publication three times, and positive feedback from friends, I still feel that it’s pure luck when those few good poems happen to flow from my fingers. In any case, I’d like to share with you some works from time to time; those rare one’s I think people might find interesting.
This one is about a girl– a pretty (and) special one. I wrote it in the fall of 2007. I suppose I will call it Wishes.
I wish I were your pillow
and wish I were your sheets.well I wish I were that little place
that your neck and hairline meets.
I wish I were that blanket that you’ve
had since you were young.
I wish I were those whispered words
springing from your tongue.
I wish I were the rays of sun that come
to wake you up,
or at least that bag of tea there
sitting in your cup.
I wish I were the rising steam
which makes your shower warm,
or that silly old umbrella there to
shield you from the storm.
I wish I were those absent thoughts
running through your mind,
I wish I were the cause of that
feeling you can’t find.
I wish I were the reason that
you got up today,
I wish I were the cause of
your smiling that way.
I wish your throat would knot up
when someone says my name.
I wish you knew the way I feel
I wish you felt the same.
I wish that I could save you.
As foolish as it seems,
I wish we shared the love that
we do in all my dreams.
As always, all critiques and comments are greatly appreciated. I will answer as many specifics as I am comfortable with, so don’t hesitate. Thanks for taking the time to read it. 😀
Topics: Utterly Random | 1 Comment »
Buddha-nature and Finding Your Glasses
By Billy | July 2, 2008
You just realize you have no idea where your glasses have gone.
Damn it, you think to yourself. Did I even have them getting on the train?
It’s already been a long day and this is the last thing you need to worry about. You’re half way up the escalator and you watch the train lurch its way down the tracks. You do remember taking your glasses off when you first sat down in the train car so that you could wipe off a smudge. That doesn’t help you too much.
Pockets? No. Shirt collar? Nope. What am I going to do?
This is like Buddha-nature.
At first you are 100% oblivious to the fact that your glasses were resting on your head the whole time. For some time, don’t even know you are missing them. When you realize they are gone, you feel worried; frantic. Angry, even. You search for them with a certain ferocity that depends on:
a) How badly you need glasses for vision,
b)How soon you need them again, and
c)The urgency you feel that you might never get the chance to find them again. (i.e. you believe you have left them on the train)
Eventually you realize that you have had them all along. At this discovery, you feel silly. For a brief second you can’t even believe you thought you had lost them. You might feel stupid for a while, but ultimately you realize that what you need to do is put on the glasses and use them as a tool to help you live your life. You feel relief for a time, and happiness. The last step is just wearing them and seeing clearly.
The Platform Sutra of the 6th Patriarch, Hui-neng, contains two verses about enlightenment. The first was written by a prominent monk who was well educated in Buddhism. The second was written by an illiterate orphan who had to dictate his verse to someone who knew how to write. He was the least educated in the monastery. The first authors name is immaterial and lost in history, the second author is named Hui-neng. His verse corrected the first, and was deemed by his teacher to hold infinite wisdom.
First Verse:
This body is Bodhi tree
And the spirit is like a clean mirror set on a support
Let us clean it untiringly
And allow no grain of dust to fall over it.
Second Verse:
Wisdom knows no tree to grow
And the mirror leans on nothing
There was nothing from the beginning,
So where could the dust fall over?
This verse exemplifies one of Zen’s most prominent themes. Everyone (even you) is enlightened from the very beginning. The paradox is that we, as enlightened beings, create confusion through attachments and desires that cloud our perfect vision. Only (actually?) enlightened beings can understand this paradox. How can a perfect being delude themselves with attachments and desires? I use the word ‘actually’ to distinguish the ‘enlightened due to Buddha-nature’ from the ‘enlightened due to practice, study, and understanding.’
The verse Hui-neng wrote explains that wisdom comes spontaneously. It has no form or inherent function. Our window into our true selves—our ability to be enlightened—is not clouded by our bodies, spirits, or even our delusions when you get right down to it. There isn’t even a definite “you” to become deluded.
Buddha-nature—referring to our inherent enlightenment—is something that we need to forget we’ve forgotten. A little more complex than Epictetus, no? If you think so, you’re trying too hard.
The answer is literally right in front of your eyes. In Zen, we try to drive home the point that the solution was already there in front of you. This is to say, the glasses weren’t even just on your head, but you were already wearing them correctly!
Do you remember those 3 points I brought up about the urgency with which you want to find your glasses? “How badly you need glasses for vision, How soon you need them again, and The urgency you feel that you might never get the chance to find them again.” That’s right, those ones.
Those represent a few things that drive us to discover Buddha-nature. You might think since you’re not Buddhist that you’ve never felt it, but that’s just silly. Buddha-nature is what makes us sing and laugh. It’s the stuff that tells you to dance, paint, smile, write, compose, read, kick the soccer ball, and enjoy the rays of the sun. Buddha-nature is intimately related to love, joy, and personal expansion. You know how when the soccer ball lands at your feet and you seem to just go into autodrive? All of the sudden, someone swapped your cleats with Hermes’. There’s no stopping you. You’re not even thinking. A Taoist will tell you that you were intimate with the Tao, I say you’re finding your Buddha-nature. This phenomenon happens when we let ourselves be who we are.
It’s not that wings attached to your shoes, but that you shrugged off all the weight you bear while pretending to be someone or something that you’re not. Time seems to have gotten confused while you were like that, didn’t it? You sat down to write a Java program for 10 minutes and ended up there for 4 hours. You wanted to sit and write a short blog post making a connection between Buddha-nature and losing your glasses, and end up with 3 pages with plenty more to write. All I’m trying to say is that you have without a doubt felt the urge to find your Buddha-nature. It expresses itself in the empty feeling you get when you haven’t indulged in these activities, for starters.
How badly you need glasses for vision: This criterion depends on the way you were born. Whether you believe God gave you this attribute, cause and effect leading back to the big bang made this attribute inevitable, or maybe your past actions lead to your eyesight—Whatever the case is, you are born with your eyesight. Similarly, some people feel the call to live deeply more than others. Some people have a sense of how to find the Tao in everything they do. Some people you just look at and say, “Wow. I wonder what the world looks like to this person. He’s on another level entirely.” Some people just seem to care more about this than others. They are neither more nor less happy with their lives because of this.
How soon you need them again: The time limit we have on living this life is sometimes not clear. In this day and age, I sometimes wonder whether we will learn to grow new organs and if we’ll ever need to die. Other times life seems like it might end any second. How long will it be until you need to see clearly? How much time do you have to figure out the meaning behind it all and how to do it properly? Sometimes the time difference is so great, we put off looking for the glasses. “I don’t need ‘em till next month, so I can stop worrying for a while.” That’s fine, but make sure you keep track of time. Days turn into weeks which turn into months very quickly. You may be old and grey before you realize you have been putting off living for far too long. You may also find out you need them at a moment’s notice. Imagine missing the most spectacular sight in your life because you were unprepared. What if there’s a moment when having a strong understanding of yourself would come in handy? What if knowing yourself (and by extension much, much more about the world) is required at the end.
The urgency you feel that you might never get the chance to find them again: The traditional belief in Buddhism, as in all Dharmic religions, is that every being has uncountable numbers of lives to live. To be born as a Human is very fortunate, and not an opportunity to be wasted. What about you? Is this your only life? If you waste this one, will you have to wait in purgatory until you’ve found yourself? (Finding yourself intrinsically implies sorrow for sins, forgiveness of others, and I believe many other qualifiers for the Kingdom of Heaven) Do you even get that, or is death like going to a dreamless sleep. Carrying the great mathematician and philosopher, Blaise Pascal’s, wager a bit further, I beg you to find yourself, Buddha-nature, and the Tao (they’re all the same…) while you still can. If there’s a god, he’ll be happy for you. If there’s not, you’ll have at least found worldly happiness and, since there’s nothing beyond that, who could complain with that. We all have some sense of urgency that we’ll never be able to find our glasses again, but many of us don’t let that sink in. It’s almost like we kid ourselves and say, “I probably left it at the office.” How many chances at this life do you really think you get? At least how many do you know without a doubt you’ll receive?
When you start to find yourself, you’ll learn how foolish it was to live an empty life for so long. Sometimes you’ll even get mad at yourself for waiting so long to come to your senses. The process of discovering Buddha-nature is one of positive feedback. Positive feedback is like what happens when you put a microphone up to its speaker. The white noise coming out of the speaker gets amplified by the mic which makes the speaker produce amplified white noise which the mic eats up and the speaker spits out amplified amplified white noise. Eventually everything, including the speaker, the mic, and our eardrums has exploded. (Funny Simpsons episode about that…) The path is one of the goals when it comes to Buddha-nature. You start getting the rewards as you strive to get your reward. They will encourage you overall, but sometimes make you feel silly, stupid, sad, or confused.
The realization of Buddha-nature is not something you sit back and reap the benefits of. It’s something you take to the streets. As a boyscout, I have climbed my fair share of mountains. Not once did we think, “Hey, the view is nice, the weather is fine, let’s just live here on the summit.” What we did was we turned around (actually we usually walked down the other side) and we climbed right on down. When we got down, we had some valuable experiences. Realizing Buddha-nature is not the end. Since you had it all along, how could it be? This is why the last step in the whole glasses-losing-scenario is that we eventually put on the glasses, and proceed with perfect vision.
This last comment has been added after 21 hours of thinking about the post… I just wanted to comment that I make the entire process seem very simple. It is. I want to make a distinction between realizing Buddha-nature and connecting with the Tao, in that the former is an extremely rare thing to do, while the latter is a common experience. Connecting with the Tao, getting our energy right, getting in the Zone, etc., helps us find our way to self awareness. It comes through spontenaity and intuitiveness that we understand our Buddha-nature. Don’t think I’m saying you can become enlightened over night. You wont. At the same time, don’t forget that you’re already enlightened. Try and remember it.
Confusion is a good thing. That’s a step in the right direction; often the first one.
If anyone’s continued to read this far, I’ll be amazed, but if you are, Thanks.
May you life go well.
Topics: Philosophy | 2 Comments »
The Art of Living: Stoicism
By Billy | June 30, 2008
I’d like to take just a small moment to thank my brother in this post—I will do so by sending him on a sentimental trip down memory lane. Jim got married two weekends ago to my now-sister-in-law, Elizabeth (about which I couldn’t be more thrilled). He’s been a role model to me, a source of inspiration, an enlightening conversationalist, and one of those go-to guys who seemingly knows everything worth knowing. For causes and conditions beyond our control (for, like Michael Phillips explains in Chapter 1 of The Utopographer, our lives are simply following the paths created by our pasts) Jim and I missed a lot of great conversations and experiences we might have shared, had that butterfly in Africa flapped his wings in another direction ten thousand years ago.
I often yearn for the old sort of fun we used to have; building the worlds greatest fort in the back yard, taking our evil dog for 5 mile runs together, playing Starcraft on the computer, or just holding a ridiculous conversation as we fall asleep in the room we shared. Nowadays, what with working or going to school full time, him seeing the world as a Navy guy, both of us trying to manage a more or less long distance relationship, all the while trying to understand ourselves and our place in the world… our conversations are brief, deep, intense, exciting, and, above all, utterly random.
One such conversation occurred whilst waiting for a bus to Georgetown on a sunny afternoon this spring. As my brother explains a genre of philosophy in which he expressed great interest, I realized I may have been researching and practicing the same school as he, my approach though the medium we call Buddhism. Jim threw some general ideals of Stoicism out at me and I gobbled them up, but couldn’t dare separate the similarities between what he was saying and what I already knew as a student of Zen. I find it no surprise that Jim’s path up the mountain and mine are different, and yet very, very similar.
Allow me to give an example:
“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will” –Epictetus (Prolific Stoic Philosopher)
As opposed to:
“If you have fear of some pain or suffering, you should examine whether there is anything you can do about it. If you can, there is no need to worry about it; if you cannot do anything, then there is also no need to worry.” –The 14th Dalai Lama (Definitely not a “Buddhist Pope” as believed by many, but a wise and notable dude, nonetheless)
Jim, sensing my interest, went out and bought me what he called, “The Stoic Handbook.” It took me 22 days of sitting on my dresser before I decided to ‘pick up and read’ (anyone get the St. Augustine reference??? Okay, no.) but I am very glad I did. I only spent an hour reading, and am 25% of the way through, which tells you how quick and easy of a read the thing is. I will just say it now, for ANYONE interested in becoming even a little bit happier in their life, I’d go and drop the 12 bucks it takes to buy “The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness, and Effectiveness” as interpreted by Sharon Lebell.
To give you a better idea of what sort of book this is, in both content and style, I will write an entire chapter here for you to read.
Nothing can truly be taken from us. There is nothing to lose. Inner peace begins when we stop saying of things, “I have lost it” and instead say, “It has been returned to where it came from.” Have your children died? They are returned to where they came from. Has your mate died? Your mate is returned to where he or she came from. Have your possessions and property been taken from you? They too have been returned to where they came from.
Perhaps you are vexed because a bad person took your belongings. But why should it be any concern of yours who gives your things back to the world that gave them to you?
The important this is to take great care with what you have while the world lets you have it, just as a traveler takes core of a room at an inn.
That’s it. Too deep for you? I doubt it. It’s fairly simple, I think. What about it being too metaphysical? All the references to returning to “that which it came from:” Who is that talking about??? That’s where a lot of people need help when reading anything religious or philosophical. If you keep your mind open, you can see the similarities the most diametrically opposed philosophies and religions.
“That which it came from” can refer to whatever you’d like to let it mean. Some, I know, will believe that everything comes from God, and to God it shall return.
A Buddhist could read this text and allow their resolve in the impermanence of all things to be reaffirmed. Thus, they would say, “all things that come to me do so through a myriad of causes and conditions. The world is ever changing, and more causes and conditions will lead these things; my children, my mate, my belongings, out of my possession, even if I try to cling to them.”
If nothing else, you can’t really argue that the earth, in combination with the sun, and possibly other parts of the uni/multi-verse have provided you with any thing you have. The earth delivers us with the atoms and conditions that bring about all things you have. The sun in conjunction with the earth’s bounty (notably chlorophyll) provides a reliable source of energy for much of what we think we need. If you have some possession that leaves your grasp, it has, at least, returned back to the universe. Atheists, non-theists, and theists can agree here: we are but travelers in this body, and our possessions are not more ours than the furniture in the hotel.
Stoicism really tries to separate everything into two categories:
1) Things I can change: my attitude, my decisions at the present and my planned decisions, etc.. and
2) Things I can not change: The way other people act, external forces like nature (both human and nature like in the sense of forests), how my body is constructed, etc..
As Both Epictetus and The Dalai Lama advise; don’t worry about what you can’t change, and just change what you can.
This book my brother gave me points out how similar Epictetus’s ancient advice is to the contemporary serenity prayer, “Grant me the strength to change what I can, the patience to accept what I cannot, and the wisdom to know the difference.” In my opinion, Patience is what’s really important here. As you practice, you will fail from time to time. The space in between will grow as you practice, provided you don’t get disheartened. That’s why patience is so darn important. You will, without a doubt, catch yourself being attached to ephemeral pleasures and get frustrated when these slip from your grasp. You’ll probably blame yourself (which Epictetus explains is worthless), and get frustrated at your inability to uphold these principles which are so obvious as you read them, and so difficult when you apply them to your life. That’s just how it works. You need patience to stay encouraged. If you’re worried about how frequently you fail at this, don’t be. If you can do something about it, do it. Sound familiar? Thought so.
In time and with practice, you will learn to not only distinguish what is in and out of your control, but to actually internalize the concept. You’ll be late for work and just miss the bus because someone’s car stalled at the light; you are already running late because the power outage reset your alarm clock. You’ll look at this situation and realize that you finally get to sit down and relax for a few minutes, while waiting for the next bus. Worrying about the bus that’s already pulled away is only going to make you more stressed. It’s foolish, but even the long time stoic might find themselves reciting some mantra to remind themselves, it’s out of my control. It’s out of my control. Someday, you will get it, though.
Just to throw in a little Buddhist side note: This is the purpose of meditation in many schools of Buddhism; both Theravada and Mahanyana, for sure. When focusing on breathing, for example, we learn to understand cause and effect relationship of a simple experience. When I contract my diaphragm, my lungs expand to fill the vacuum, which causes the air to flow into my nostrils, which gives me the sensation in feel in my nose, then on my palette, and down into my throat, and into my lungs. Eventually you will go through similar steps when in walking meditation, regarding the way you keep balance, propel your body forward, fail to fall through the floor, etc.. This practice is internalized and doesn’t even need to be thought consciously eventually. This helps make the process of remaining calm as your bus pulls away a little easier. In fact, it is said that meditation will train your body to focus its energy (Chi or Qi, if you know anything about Chinese medicine) in the right places to utilize it for more productive thoughts, as opposed to getting placed into worry.
I have been relating stoicism to Buddhism exclusively in this post, but should mention that stoic thought is found in many eastern philosophies. This might be a good precursor to reading the Tao Te Ching if you’re at all interested in Taoism. It will also help make any of Buddha’s teachings a little easier to understand since it more clearly distinguishes the fact that “the world is full of suffering unless I master my mind” found in stoicism, with “the world is ugly and pointless,” which is nihilistic.
I have made this an extremely long (but hopefully not too boring) post and should probably stop at about this point. I am officially placing this book on the Recommended Reading List, and bringing this post to a close. Here’s hoping that you walk away feeling a like you didn’t just waste your time. If you did, I hope you practice realizing that certain causes and conditions lead you to doing so, and that grumbling about that is useless. On the other hand, a quick comment as feedback will help me know how to do better next time, so: Don’t grumble to yourself, but please do so to me, so I can fix the problem.
Topics: Philosophy | 2 Comments »
Hello! Who are you!? No really.
By Billy | June 27, 2008
Hello again. I know I just posted yesterday, but I have had some free time to think and though I’d like to space my posts out, I see no reason not to keep the content flowing for now. In fact, I hadn’t put the connection together consciously, but the very same reason I have refrained from posting little poopy posts saying, “hey guys I’m really busy, here’s a fun link. Watch this video, kthxbiai!” is the blogger about whom today’s post is focused.
Last summer I worked for a real estate company called Elite Homes, working for a realtor who named Christine Richardson. As my family lives in an Elite Home, sold to us by Christine, I can attest that both of these resources are great if you’re looking for a home in the Northern Virginia region. Anyway, Christine had put me in charge of researching web site traffic— more specifically how to generate it. This is how I first came across Steve Pavlina and www.stevepavlina.com
His personal bio is just plain ridiculous. A few of the more notable interesting facts about him are that he’s a colorblind, left handed, vegan, who managed to get himself thrown in jail while still in his teens. He decided to change his ways and graduate college (should I bother mentioning he got into Berkley?) with 2 bachelors degrees……in 3 semesters (having gotten special permission to take more than twice the usual credit load). His GPA was a 3.9 and the last semester was also spent working full time. Though it would have made that part more believable if he had been conducting this experiment during college, but later on he would become a polyphasic sleeper, following a rigid nap schedule that added up to 2 hours of sleep a day. He slept 2 hours a day for a month. Another month long experiment included eating nothing but raw, vegan food. That means no refrigeration, no meats, no dairy, no eggs. He also chose to go without salt, honey or other sweeteners, and no strong spices. He quit his last job in his 20’s (in the early 90’s) and encourages his readers to quit their jobs and never work a day again.
As I said, I discovered this website whilst trying to boost traffic for a website. This page is what I stumbled across. I think his points are spot on, here. Quality over quantity, write for your readers, etc..
I do tend to avoid some of his posts, as I am quickly intimidated by subject matters about which I know very little and have no ingrained interest in. I have read briefly the posts about the Law of Attraction, and Manifestation of Intentions. I probably avoid these, though, mainly because as a Buddhist, I care less for how to attain my goals and achieve my desires, and more for how to live aimlessly and stop wanting. (“The path is the goal,” “That which you are seeking is causing you to seek.”) Either way, the information is well presented and has a good deal of merit to it.
This is, clearly, a personal improvement website. There are some obvious reads if you’re looking to improve yourself: How to become an early riser, how to get from a 7 to a 10, how to find your purpose in life, and plenty of articles about motivation and success. He has a cornucopia of information about dieting/health, sleep, and spirituality/things like extra sensory perception (ESP), as well.
If you haven’t noticed, I’m quite a fan of the whole personal development thing. I make it a goal to develop myself and help other people develop themselves as well. Wow, I just inserted all those links and.. phew! At any rate, I encourage you to go explore Steve’s site. I hope you find something there as helpful as I have!
Topics: Utterly Random | 1 Comment »
The Utopographer: Chapter 2
By Billy | June 26, 2008
Well I have been VERY busy lately, what with starting a new job, participating in my brother’s wedding, and organizing a camping trip with 6 friends that was most successful. Excuses aside, I have finally found the time (made the time..) to get around to coming up with another post for all my loyal (all two of you) readers. This is potentially the second chapter of what I’m called The Story of Brahman, (since that name is totally arbitrary) but it has some intrinsic problems.
Before I go any further, I will advise anyone who is not caught up to try the first chapter first. This will be filed under “The Story of Brahman” at the bottom, in case you can’t find the posts in the future.
The narrator in the first chapter mentions an experiment held by Dr. Margana– the outcome of which I will keep vague until the time comes. The problem is that this chapter set up implies that they (at least a handful of them) have survived the experiment. Since I will be revealing this in the next chapter, I’ll spill the beans now that the experimentee’s honestly thought they were not going to make it through the duration of the experiment. I’m trying to decide whether I want the readers to be under the same impression or not.
I want to make sure I can legitimately find a way to express certain personal qualities about the characters- which is very easy to do if I utilize diary entries like chapter 1 along with dialog with 3rd person narrative. I am now trying to engineer the plot such that I can keep these people’s surviving a mystery until it happens, but there are surely other options that can perpetuate the mystery, like: these characters escaped somehow, or even were released through a lottery system like the movie The Island or something.
The surefire way to keep the outcome of the experiment a mystery, my original intent, is to make the entire story in record form, both using voice and video recording as well as written record. Still a possibility, but I hope it doesn’t come to that.
Anyway– Yes I’m getting to the story soon. If you have any comments or suggestions, do let me know.
Chapter 2:
“You want my honest opinion? It’s good and all but nobody wants to read this shit.” He said as he always speaks; sandwiching the sentences between long cigarette drags. The child sitting to the left of him in the booth let out an unintentional peep of protest at the man’s choice of words, which earned him a cold, piercing glare and an exhale of smoke in his face as a reply.
“Do you think people in years to come will get the ‘Alice in Wonderland’ reference? I was thinking of comparing myself to Gilliver and the Lilliputians and then considering The Wizard of Oz, and even Dante’s Inferno. I want this to be a piece of literature someday. These details are very important. Do you think I should invoke a muse the way Milton did, so as to say, “Listen up. This is as important as those epic legends!” I almost think I need–” But he had been interrupted by the chain smoker across the table.
“Look Phillips, It’s like I said. Even if they knew your story was true: nobody wants to read your gay little diary. Especially with all that philosophical mumbo jumbo you’re throwing on ’em. Secondly, nobody is going to believe your story.”
“It’s your story too!” The boy interjected, “it’s all of our story. And I think we should all have a chapter in his book.” The boy gestured for the book, and contemplated its empty pages. The one hundred and ninety nine unused sheets of paper were to represent their pasts; an impossible task. “We’ll let them decide if they want to read it or not.”
“That’s right. And even if nobody reads it at all, I feel the need to do this for myself, too. C’mon Alex, what have you got to lose?” Alex looked up at him under a heavily furrowed brow while smoke seeped out his nostrils. To the child next to him, he looked like he might turn into, if he wasn’t already, a dragon. “Hey, hey. I didn’t mean it that way. I meant that no harm could come from helping me write this down.”
“I don’t have time for this shit,” he said, placing particular emphasis on the last word as he turned and made eye contact with the boy.
“Right, like you have some place better to be, I suppose?” The voice came as a surprise to everyone at the table; she had almost been forgotten, sitting there so quietly until now. “Now I aint sayin’ I’m ready to sit and talk about this, either, but I know you aint got plans for a while, on account of the rest of the world thinkin’ you’s dead and all, not that anyone cares one way or another. Probably the way you prefer it anyhow.” She had the courage the writer was so clearly lacking; standing up to Alexander Trunkenkuss is asking for trouble. Sandy was already in it and had nothing to lose.
Without a word, Alex took one last and exceptionally long drag of his cigarette, smugly snuffed it out on the cover of the diary, stood up, and stormed away from the table. He hadn’t left the diner parking lot before he turned around and marched back in.
“Look. I don’t care what any of you do. I’m leaving this god forsaken wherever-the-hell we are. I hope you all have nice lives. All but you.” He pointed directly to the young boy. His tobacco stained index finger hovered inches from the child’s nose. The boy was petrified. “Yeah, I hope you die an early, painful, and very lonely death. No, no, no, no.” He spoke softly at first, but his sentence made a crescendo; he had become maniacal. “I hope you live to be a hundred. Yes, I hope everything you ever love is ripped from your hands and that you spend every waking moment looking at those empty hands wondering, ‘how did I let it slip away?’ I hope you consistently wake up from your dreams and. And you believe for a while that you still have them; those things you love, but then you’re left to realize the truth. And then you go through the whole process of losing them again. Mmm.”
He broke eye contact with the boy, turned, and chugged the second half of the young lady at the table’s coffee as he mocked her southern accent saying, “I’ll be seein’ y’all ’round, now.” He quickly changed character back to his usual self and said, “but hopefully not. You worthless puddles of slime.” As he turned around, he bumped into a waitress who couldn’t have been more than 16 years old. “You clumsy whore!” He yelled, as he knocked the tray she had just barely kept balance of out of her hands and onto the floor. She joined the young boy in crying, not even trying to hide it.
That time he made it past the parking lot. Alex Trunkenkuss had been let loose into the world; No money, no mode of transportation, no idea where he is, and worst of all— only four cigarettes left.
—–
Just for the record, I’m terrible at choosing names and, if you didn’t notice already, Trunkenkuss is a very near approximation of the German words for drunken kiss. Cool character name suggestions are also welcome.
Topics: The Story of Brahman, Works of Fiction | 1 Comment »
The Musical Journey
By Billy | June 12, 2008
Thus far I have been thoroughly enjoying spectacular sounding post titles. As these rarely indicate what the post is actually about, I may change my ways at some point. Till then, you’re stuck reading the actual post to find out what the topic is. Today I’m talking about finding new music. I have found that I have fairly broad tastes in music, but my favorite niche at the moment is found in some pretty obscure genres. I am am always looking for more music to fill my 320 gig external hard drive with. I am going to list and explain a few of my favorite ways to come across new artists, songs, and even genres.
Years ago, when I first started watching music videos online, the choices were limited. If I liked a song, it was a gamble as to whether or not launch.com, the yahoo run website I watched videos on, would have the song I wanted. Perhaps it was my ignorance of the internet, or maybe the net hadn’t reached this point yet, but now we have the glory of youtube. Youtube is a great place to look up songs by artists you read or hear about, whether it’s comedy songs like Flight of the Conchords or melodic death metal like In Flames. Youtube is the first place you’ll want to stop for a quick preview of a lot different songs.
If youtube doesn’t have the songs you’re looking for, you can try and hit up songza. This searches through various media playing websites and collects the results, though I have experienced a few difficulties with the song length being inaccurate according to songza’s player. Other than that, and having little warning if you’re listening to a live performance or not, it’s a safe bet. The plus to this is that you don’t have to watch a Naruto (or other anime) video while listening to the song you want, as is common at youtube.
These two websites are free to use, and require no sign-in. (You’ll find that virtually everything I do on the net, I do for free) The following site does require you to sign in, but I find it entirely worth it.
www.imeem.com is a site I visit very frequently. A friend of mine, (hi, Mike!) used to wander in to my dorm room from time to time hoping to talk music with me. A lot of the time, he’d have an obscure punk band to talk about. I’d usually go straight to imeem to see what he’s talking about, since youtube and songza rarely did. imeem is simply an online community where different sorts of media is uploaded and shared. You can search artists, albums, songs, and even playlists. All of the sites I have mentioned so far have ways to see and play related media. imeem has reliably good quality sound, which is important to me, so I highly recommend signing up (remember… it’s free).
Okay, so all this is useless if you have no idea where to start. One great place to start is Pandora. Pandora is an internet radio station that does something different from most places that suggest music based on what your input. The developers have analyzed a huge amount of music out there, and labeled artists and songs according to different attributes. I have no idea what half of these attributes, like minor or major key tonality, mean. In any case, the ultimate outcome is that when you give a “seed” song, whereby you create a station, most of the songs that are played have many of the same things you liked about your original song. Your station is controlled by your input of a thumbs up or thumbs down. Thumbs down means you never want to hear the song again, and thumbs up means you want to expand your station to include similar songs. As a result, a station created with the ‘seed’ artist of Mindless Self Indulgence, will have a lot of Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson played, because they have many of the same sounds in their songs. Dashboard Confessional and Sum 41 can be found on many of the same stations, etc. There are also genre stations (which tend to be too broad for my liking) that can give you a broad scope of different genres in which you may be interested.
Pandora may take a while to settle down and focus on exactly the type of songs you want, or you might enjoy every song from the very start. I think it’s entirely worth the wait that it sometimes takes. If you start to get tired of the songs you keep hearing, you can always elect to “not play the song for a month.”
The next place I’d like to introduce you to is called the Music Map. This is an interactive site that works off of user input. One option is to simply type in an artist and see what happens. Let’s go with one of my favorite German bands that falls under the genre the Neue Deutsche Härte. (New German Hardness) Rammstein has influences of electronica and heavy metal in many of their songs. To no surprise, many of the bands that appear on the web/map of musicians have similar qualities about them. Some of the bands I expected to find, (and did) were Oomph!, Eisbrecher, Megaherz, and Crematory. All of these bands happen to be German, but I expected to find them moreso because of the sound of music, not the language. The other option with the Music Map is to use Gnoosic. Gnoosic is the concept/site that runs the music map. At gnoosic.com, you plug in your three favorite bands and based on other user input, receive a list of artists and are prompted to give a: “I like this,” “I don’t like this,” or “I’ve never heard of these guys.” Based on your answers, you are suggested some bands to look into. After you’re given these suggestions (or you take suggestions from music-map.com) go to any of the other sites mentioned today and check ’em out.
The final site I wanted to mention today is last.fm. Last.fm is another community for music whose potential I have yet to fully tap into. You can preview virtually any band from across the globe, so long as they, or their fans, have uploaded some music to the site. This is where I first found one of my favorite bands, a Russian post-doom metal band called The Morningside. As you can see from their site, you can preview their music with last.fm, and even download a song for free. Many bands elect to have their songs downloadable. Last.fm also has the ability to create stations and give feedback like Pandora. Additionally, last.fm has the ability to tag artists and songs in any way you’d like. I use the tagging system mainly to find out what weird genre I’m listening to at the moment, but you can also find obscure genre stations like Crust Punk, which my friend Mike likes, and I haven’t met any other fans in my life. Last.fm also shows you what fans of the song or artist like in addition. You can see that fans of The Morningside also like Agalloch, Novembre, and other folk influenced doom metal bands. The chances of me running across another fan of Post-Doom-Folk-Metal in real life are slim, but I can easily find fans online with Last.fm. Also, there are groups you can join that will help last.fm make suggestions for you.
Phew! All that typing has made me hungry. (Come to think of it, I’m always hungry!) I’m going to add these links to my page and call it a day!
Namaste!
Topics: Utterly Random | Comments Off on The Musical Journey
an meinem Geburtstag
By Billy | June 9, 2008
Dear Fantastic Rumbelow Readers,
While I maybe have been far too busy doing amazing and awesome stuff yesterday, so I couldn’t make a post on my REAL birthday, just for you I took some time out today (the day after) to write and entertain you. Since late birthday presents are just as horrible as no presents at all, the following list is what I want, nay, what I need by or for my next birthday. I will accept no substitutes or I.O.U.’s.
For starters: a puppy. More than one would be acceptable.
Secondly: A Bugatti Veyron. Filled with puppies is preferred.
Thirdly: A Tesla Roadster for my brother. He won’t stop talking about these things! (A post will be made about these guys in his honor soon).
Fourth on my list: The Original Gutenberg Bible. If you could teach me some more German or spark my interest in Christianity, that’d be acceptable, but I just think this would be sweet to have in my library.
Now.. I don’t want people to think that I’m selfish, so I’d like to take a minute out to inform you that I would, of course, want to treat my friends as well. That’s why my party will take place on a super yacht, off the coast of Dubai; all expenses paid.
I will, of course, be having a performance at my party. I will be dissatisfied unless no other than 21 dolphins perform an elaborate and beautiful dance-like aerobatic performance for me. There will be hoops of fire, fights to the death, a love story, and a hidden political statement (like in the Wizard of Oz).
There are just a few more orders of business I must address. The state of the world is bothersome to me, and I expect everyone to wise up come my 21st birthday. What I mean to say is that by the time the dolphin performance has ended, I expect to hear that someone has resolved that darn hole-in-the-ozone problem that I keep hearing about. Additionally, someone sure as heck had better truly get rid of the caste system (as well as any other discriminative class systems in the world), put an end to slavery in Indonesia (and everywhere else, too), resolve the world hunger issue, end the oil crisis, and have all the world leaders come to a peaceful agreement.
I realize that these last few demands are a bit more complicated than the first ones. I understand if you have to go through hell to get there, whether it’s sacrificing your delicious and environmentally inefficient meals, choosing the silly-rather-than-manly car, or starting the peace building process in your very own heart. I would be willing to give up my party, my cars, and EVEN my puppies, if we could start making some progress towards the latter set of gifts.
You have my orders, now go!
You only have 364 days left….
(p.s. [since I couldn’t find a better place to include this…] The title of today’s post translates from German to say, “on my birthday.”)
Topics: Utterly Random | 4 Comments »
Killer Robots Are Coming!
By Billy | June 3, 2008
Actually, no killer robots are coming. I just wanted to make the title appealing so as to drag you in! Muahaha.
This one’s actually just a post about the ridiculously exciting technology that’s emerging these days. My brother was the one to show this video to me; he said that this sort of work is not atypical of his peers at Carnegie Mellon University. Johnny Lee, the developer of the 3d Wii program I am linking below, graduated from UVA in just 2001, and now is a Ph.D Grad Student at CMU in Pittsburgh. Rather than type your eyes out, I’m just going to show you the video.
This is fairly impressive, in my humble opinion. The applications of this (remember: this was made pre-Wii Fit technology) are plentiful. The one downfall is the fact that this is only compatible with one screen. Fortunately, technology is being developed that allows regular eyeglasses to have a computer-like display on them. The combination of these two technologies will make all sorts of activities possible. Other than making first person shooters, this technology makes tourism and exploration entirely possible. We will even be able to explore places no person has ever stepped, so long as we have pictures of the place…
Now I know these have been long videos so just bear with me. (Note to self: Make pointless blog entry about how ridiculous phrases like “bear with me” really are. Also, find some origins..) I actually have other videos in my head that I’d like to share with you guys that show off the amazing technology we’re up against these days, but I don’t want to be a bore! (I know it’s silly to ask for feedback when nobody reads this, but…) If I should have included more, let me know. The next video was going to be about a type of robot that is composed of many small robots. The video shows said robot walking (crawling) across the room, then being kicked apart into 3 pieces, reassembling itself, and continuing its trek across the room. That kinda calls to mind Terminator (to me, anyway…)
Anyway. I’m just exploring my boundaries and inserting new types of media in the posts. Stay tuned… More interesting things to come another day…
Topics: Utterly Random | 1 Comment »
The Joy of lolcats!
By Billy | June 2, 2008
By my standards, the fact that I am here writing for a second day indicates that this is more than just a random and whimsical project. Granted, I have been thinking about this for more than a year, but I think about a lot of things that I would never actually do. In short, I’m excited. And you should be too! I mean, you (I know nobody’s reading this, but it’s fun to pretend!) get to pour over these words, taking in these terribly important ideas that I have. Who loses here?
Since I am nowhere near having my photos organized and won’t even attempt to begin uploading them onto Rumbelow yet, I will make this post one of those shameless website/service promotion days. What I’m promoting today is something I managed to be totally oblivious to until this year. I hate senseless buildup, so here’s what I’m talking about. lolcats. I love these things. Or, should I say, “lolcats: i wuvz dem”?
This guy is a prime example of what lolcats are all about. Recipe for a lolcat photo:
1) Cute cat picture
2) An added caption referring to the gesture or position of said kitty
3) Horrible grammar and bad spelling
4) Love (This last ingredient is subtle but extremely important)
You can find lots of lolcats on the web. There are even loldogs and lolruses (lolruses is the plural form of lolrus, the lol walrus).
You can either search on Google, for example, to find them, or go to places like icanhascheezburger.com and catwack.com: My two favorite lolsites. (I don’t know if that’s the official term for them, I just made it up)
I recently used the following lolcat for my final presentation (about Buddhism) in my Peace/Conflict Resolution class at American University. I was pleased to hear a number of people in the class laugh out loud and one classmate cheered, “yes! lolcats are the best!” The fact that a minority of the class were in-the-know about lolcats is what prompted me to share them with the world. It seems like not enough people know about lolcats; they are ignorant as I was a year ago. I cannot allow this travesty to continue without doing something about it!
And on that note, I am going to bring this important post to and end. It’s probably a good thing that I make my first post including pictures an informal one. I hope that I’ll get better at integrating the photos into my posts (they seem very sloppy here and I don’t know how to fix that yet) as I do it more often. practise, praktice, practice!
On that note, I’m done here. kthxbai!
Topics: Utterly Random | Comments Off on The Joy of lolcats!
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