You can't yet appreciate harmony.

Evan Pugh

Schuh, English 101-15

December 1^st, 2006

Gods of Realization and Actualization

Although it may seem, as in Waiting for Godot, that we as people are generally sifting through the madness of everyday life and seeking our self in its cyclical repetition, the truth is that, unlike Waiting for Godot, our self often comes. And often with great force.

Using my previous essay as a catalyst, I will further synthesize the idea that Adrienne Rich put forth in her essay “Split at the Root,” and the media’s influence on these ideas as presented by Howard Zinn in his essay, “Stories Hollywood Never Tells.” Between the two, we get the sense that self-realization is a road often hindered by life whereas our existence is constantly pushing us forward, constantly trying to get us by these road blocks and into the greater depth of ourselves.

The stories that Hollywood never tells are those tales of dissent and of passion against the grain, tales of what the enemy was thinking. Zinn states there have been few exceptions, mentioning All Quiet on the Western Front and The Slaughterhouse Five, but how appropriate is it that they were both adaptations of novels because most, if not all, revolutions were started by one man’s writing. From John Locke to Upton Sinclair. The trend has been, throughout the ages, to have great ideas start out in words.

The story that Hollywood would tell is that of Adrienne Rich: Half-Jewish and confused, going to Radcliffe with the Jewish intellectuals, becoming a lesbian, having her husband die. It would make for a good movie, even using the biographical cinema tool known as “rosebud,” which is where there is one central theme running through the movie. That central theme would be her Judaic roots, and her searching and spelunking to figure out how she fits together.

In that vein, though, it would be a long movie, and one without an ending, because that’s what this road is: unending, save for those few who, according to Buddhist faith, become one with God. According to that same article, “Becoming one with the father is the experience of Self-Realization, which cuts the chain of death and rebirth once for all.” Zinn cut the chain of death with his activism and his publications, becoming immortal in the literary canon. Rich performed the same. Self-Realization comes when you realize that you can live forever in your own way through the remembrance of others.

However, that is only one view, and one that I tend to disagree with, because the article goes on to state that Self-Realization comes when someone states that they are God, much like Jesus proclaiming, “I and the Father are one.” But, then again, on my own road of self-realization, I have also hit this road block, the questioning of my relationship between my Father and I. This has lead me to question that, if all things are of God, created by God, God breathed, God inspired, and loved by God, then are we not a mere extension of he whom we are imaged after?

In that vein, then, Bob Dylan, in his song, “Blowin’ in the Wind,” asks the question of “How many roads must a man walk down before you can call him a man?” How many roads must a man walk down before he can proclaim he’s man of God? That he is God? The political aspect of this song ties into what Howard Zinn talked about in essay, in the sense of, “When will these people who are enslaved and hated and segregated have the chance to have their side of the story heard? When will their collective image and their collective struggle be heard and break free of the chain of death, and into the chain of remembrance?”

Therefore, the unending waiting and waiting and Waiting for Godot has been actualized and realized because it is eternal, it is unending, and Godot will never come but their acts and their nonsense will long be remembered.

Suddenly, it becomes the idea of, “If I do not become a self-realized human being, if I don’t become immortal in some way, will I then become reborn and reborn until I then am remembered enough to the point beyond Déjà vu and, ‘Do I know you from somewhere?’ and into the canon of those that are the most important figures of our gilded age of internet and rock ‘n’ roll?” The questioning that began because of one woman admitting that she was Split at the Root, has extended beyond her own questions and into my own, as any and all and only great literature can do. Great literature and great writers assert their ideas into your life and pray upon your soul for only in depravity can true knowledge and true realization and true need be realized. And the true need will become your self-actualization and your own remembrance until Kingdom Come.

So, yes, in a sense, we are all gods in the making. But not in the sense of, “I am God,” but, instead, “I cannot come back for my soul has already fulfilled its purpose.” But the souls of those not actualized and realized just may come back and be reborn and start again until they have made their mark. For every great generation needs great leaders and ideas and revolutionaries.

If someone always remembers you and your essence, how can you and your ideas be reborn? And then when that soul feels dejected because every one of their ideas has been taken up by some guy named John Locke, whom they actually were in a past life, they commit suicide and thusly cut the chain of death again. That’s another possibility.

I will admit that this train of thought is completely against my own WASP ideals, my ideals of one life and eternal life. But if I do not change the world, and I do not change all things and all thought beyond comprehension, then what has this life been but a sad and destitute prelude to a long summer?

Our Christian media tells us and tells us of one side of the story, the American side, the Protestant side of things, but not the circular, back and forth of the Eastern thought, and how everything comes back again until actualization and realization and only then can you and the Father be one.

I am God.

----

The essay that I used is only available to CSUSB students. However, if you want a copy of it, just go ahead and ask.

Wolf, Shadow, Sheep, and Black Socks. Still Life.

Things that get so down sometimes; you know you need a girlfriend when your best friend tells you that you need one.

Oh this the lonesomeness!

So okay, here it goes: JP is leaving. He's moving to San Luis Obisbo, almost positively, in August of next year. And then where am I? I am again lonely, again sad, again gone into myself and at home on friday saturday thursday nights. And then where am I? How selfish is this that I want him here and around so that I don't have to seek out again, to find out again just how lonely I can get. Because lonely is a little less worse when you have a best friend like him. But when he moves up and out and ceases to exist save for on holidays...What will I become but what I was once already before: lonely and seeking.

Why is life so goddamned cycical!? I feel like College is nothing but another beginning. I feel like JP's leaving is nothing but another beginning. When will things stop replaying? When will I get to finally say, "Okay, it's not going to start over?" When is this Mobius Strip going to straighten out and lace up and oh my God I'm so afraid. I put my faith in him, for I know nothing else to do. He's the one that's caused all of this, he'll make that which is loop'd, straight. He'll fix it. Eventually. But do I want eventually? No, goddammit. Because eventually has been his fucking response for the past 2, going on 3, years. I've been patient long enough, you've given me JP, and now you're going to take him away again. If I'm hitting for the cycle, I may as well bow out now. End it. End life. Not necessarily existence, but bow out of life. Fuck it. Quit school, quit my job, and sleep all day. That way, I can't have friends move away, I can't get rejected, I can't fail tests. Nothing bad can happen because nothing good can happen.

But what is good when it moves away or stays away or strays away?!

What is good in all this bullshit? What is good in all this bad?!

I'll crawl back into baseball season, I'll alienate myself. For nothing bad can happen if nothing good happens. And the cycle the cycle the cycle returns around and spits in my goddamned face. Because I really do feel damned.

And you assholes wonder what I do for fun!?

Allocate the harvest and Sacrifice the Living.

The sun hates the moon. It takes its time off and turns it into splendor.

I hit a curb today... Again. In my nice car, this time, too. I have to get it realigned, and I hopefully didn't crack the axle like I did the first time. In my Buick.

Whatever. I'll pay for it and suffer for it, like usual. That's what mistakes are made for. They're made for lessons. Anyway, I digress.

Digress unto what though? Was there really a central theme? No, Not really. I would like to think there was. But is there really a central theme to any of life? Or undercurrents, like religion. And subplots, like relationships and jobs and everything we think is central.

Well, yea, I guess there is. It's morbid though. It's death. That's the central theme. That's what we're living for: death. All religions, all actualizations, revolve around the theme of making whatever is after our death all the better--make the world better so that all your shit's in heaven or in the next life for the next person to inhabit your soul, to wear your pants, etcetera etcetera. Death is our ultimate goal, and y'know why? Because it's scary and it's unavoidable. So we try and make it as nice as we possibly can.

But what if we could live forever? Not like the Highlander, where they can die by another Highlander, or Elves in the Lord of the Rings, that can get killed, but rather, unable to die by any means. As in, indestructible. As in, you're here and you always will be. What great burden would that be? 1000 years with a beard, then 2000 clean-shaven. That's a lot of razors. That's a lot of time. A lot of technology. A lot of baseball. I'd get all the supposed-to-kill-you things out of the way.

I'd drop a toaster in the tub. Then jump out of an airplane and not deploy my parachute. Then put my head in a railroad track. Would the train derail? Probably.

But then what purpose would I serve?

My purpose is to die. And to help those that are afraid, less afraid. To make life a little better for others, even if it means making it a little worse for myself. I don't exist.

So praise God the father for he is reality. And he controls death! Controlling Purpose! LA ILLAHA IL ALLAHU!

Earth is Distant.

The waether is getting colder, and that only means one thing: downturn in my emotions. It gets darker and all I want to do is stay in bed all day. My production and my mood slide downhill. I'll live though.

Blue Velvet.

"Penthouse. One year, $4.75."

"Whaaaaht?"

"Yea, who said it wasn't worth it."

I'm tired, but I feel like such a sissy lala when I go to bed early on a Saturday. Cunundrum. I mean, in the last two hours, I've had three and a half cups of coffee, too, so I shouldn't be tired. But all I want to do is crawl in and read The Adventures of Augie March, and think of someone special that doesn't think the same about me, because that's how it goes I guess.

And then fall asleep writing about her because I can't fall asleep with her.

Hopeless romantic and rise up!

Alfaro Vive Carajo!

¿Conejo?

Blue Velvet

There is no such thing as a concept album. All albums have a running theme, that which was the basis of life at the time of writing one`s album.

Also, I should probably be in bed.

Smokin' Cigarettes and Watchin' Captain Kangaroo.

I often struggle with the idea of existence... If we are all of carbon, then are we not all the same? And if we are all in God's image, of God's created dust, are we not, then, God--especially if we are but mere facsimiles oh so so so distorted of the true and most beautiful Christ?

I will be the first to admit that existence would be much easier without life.

And I will be the first to state, here, that the Mountains will move come time soon, and that the Rocks with speak praises and hymns. I will say here that LOVE means more than BELIEFS. I will say that our actions in love speak louder than our words in vernacular--as in, a hug often outweighs the weight of the passive use of the verb "fuck."

It is absurd to think that Jesus\Christ came to the Earth to destroy the legalism that we have returned to. Jesus made reversals and corrolaries, not new laws entirely. Paul made suggestions, not reprieves and judgments and "musts." How holistically distorted is our perception of the Great and Wonderful Father who I often hate so much for making me me!

I will be the first to admit that I blame everything on God, yet I also praise God for everything. For he is all good and all evil and all things beyond all things. Christ and Jesus and Man of God of Man beyond all perceived reality.

I am bipolar, I am man, I am one of God's chosen.

I am weak, I cry, I suffer from too much pathos. Beware.

Kvetching towards Nirvana.

Catacomb spread out across Summer's Eve... (Not this one: )

So, okay, have you seen the commercial with Abe Lincoln playing chess with a beaver? Well, as the avid dodger fan that I am, I saw it and instantly thought, "My goodness, that's what Mark Hendrickson does in the offseason! Makes commercials!) Just check out this comparison:

Mark Hendrickson:


And the commercial (I know that by posting it I'm adhering to the ultimate marketing philosophy of "Make it good and the internet will create buzz about your product." Even worse is that it's a freakin' medication... Anyway,):



And, since we're on the topic of Mark Hendrickson, and dabbling in YouTube, here's the video of him falling off the mound earlier this season. Vin Scully said he went down like a giant Redwood tree:




That never gets old... A lot of people dislike him because he's not necessarily a great pitcher... But I've talked about this before with my friend and he think it's because he's trying to be a fastball pitcher when he should be throwing a bunch of offspeed stuff and then surprise the batter with his whopping 88MPH fastball, because, after a 75MPH curve\slider\breaking ball, it looks like a fuckin' 100MPH fireball that came from Zumaya.
(Pay close attention to the pitch-speed in the corner. Goddayum! But then again, he can't field worth a damn... So, take it with a grain of salt.)





--

If you couldn't tell, I'm bored. It's 1:25 AM, and I have no intention or need of going to bed... I could read the book I'm reading, which has been called the great American novel before, by some dude on the back cover. I just finished reading his Seize the Day, so I'm excited...

I collect books, by the way. I'm that nerdy.

Check out my Last.fm profile, see what I'm listening to, or have been listening to! Ye, ungh, word. Ethnic. World Music.

I need companionship, I am a needy, dependent soul. Will you come home to me one day?

I think Schmuck is a word that isn't used enough these days... As Safran-Foer wrote in his book, Everything is Illuminated:

"Shtetls. A shtetl is like a village." "Why don't you merely dub it a village?" "It's a Jewish word." "A Jewish word?" "Yiddish, like schmuck." "What does it mean schmuck?" "Someone who does something that you don't agree with is a schmuck." "Teach me another." "Putz." "What does that mean?" "It's like schmuck." "Teach me another." ""Schmendrik." "What does that mean?" "It's also like schmuck." "Do you know any words that are not like schmuck?" He pondered for a moment. "Shalom," he said, "which is actually three words, but that's Hebrew, not Yiddish. Everything I can think of is basically schmuck. The Eskimos have 400 words for snow, and the Jews have 400 words for Schmuck." I wondered, what is an Eskimo? (p. 60 of Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer.)

Yea, severely under-rated word... As well as author. Other underrated authors: Bukowski, Rand, AC Grayling, Bellow (why haven't I heard of him until now?!).

I think it's time to seize the motherfuckin' day.

MySpace, to link you back, those who came from there.

It's official: I've acknowledged a problem and solved it. There are parental filters on my computers now that I installed using email addresses I don't know the passwords to so that I can't get temporary passwords... Damn you Geek Squad for showing me all those ways around it!

Run like a Race Horse Sodomized

or

Synecdoche!

Is there anything worth living for anymore? Oh the love of God but it is not as strong as the love of a woman or the scent of a woman or the "I care" of a friend--all of which I feel i don't have. There seems to be no purpose, even in these the last days of my life. It feels so pointless and terrible and I hate it all. You're all a bunch of cunts but only because I have a distorted view of reality.

I can't sleep because I'm feeling like dying. I can't sleep because I am so discontent.

Maybe this is goodbye, maybe I'll finally gain the fucking balls to do it this time...

Or maybe there will be another post for another day...

Damn you, God, i just want love. I just want friendship, I just want camaraderie. Why can't you just give it to me?!

As if this will change your life.

Use life as a catalyst, not as a purgatory.

Don't be an asshole, unless someone really deserves it.

Be honest, man up when you're not.

You are perfect.

Be as pure as you can be, however you can be, whatever that may be.

Do not sit when you can stand; do not sing when you can shout.

Fear to be alone is one of the most hindering things a person can contain. Strike out on your own.

Be syllogistic and have sound reasoning.

Try not to be didactic.

Laugh more than you cry; keep the ratio as high as possible: for in laughter there are only tears of joy. Tears of sorrow will bring you more sorrow. However, everyone needs a good cry now and again. Tears of joy should roll more than tears of sorrow.

Believe.

Seek out love but do not be disheartened when it does not come in the form you preferred. The form of love God has for you is shapeless, and he will give you a love--as well as his love--that will be shapeless also.

Stretch your soul out to meet the needs of others.

Smile often, hug often--touch heals.

Eat well, be well.

Never be narrowminded or shut up inside of yourself. Always be honest.

Never be afraid.

Dick Laurent is Dead.

By the by, we extradite more often than we contain. We spill what we cannot contain, for it overflows.

We all seek love so that our cup can reach that point where nothing else can enter, because we are so full of life... We seek love because it's supposed to epitomize and, itself, contain all emotions, as if love itself is a life itself. And so, thus, vicariously, we seek our life through our seeking for love. We want affirmation and confirmation that we human and that we are alive and that we are indeed worth living another day for--love confirms that someone else thinks we're good enough to live another day. God gives us love, but a partner gives us physical love, gives us a hug when a prayer just won't do.

I can see a lot of life in you.

I want love and want life, as well, but my glass if half empty and I am 1\4ths bullshit.

You look beautiful.

Bird Stealing Bread.

150 days until baseball season starts.

Go Clippers.

I almost got 34 hours of work next week, but the GM had a bitch fit. Ugh, I want money to buy me hoes.

In in one of those moods where everything comes out a curse word. I could say "comma x" and it'd sound like "cunty cunt mcFucks a lot."

I don't know why I swear so much, I guess it's purely indoctrination of what my family thinks is okay, and to them, swearing is okay. Swearing, to them, is part and parcel--comes with the territory. It's like that twisted oak down by the river on your fifty acres of farm in the Salinas Valley: it just comes with the territory (and would be a great place to commit suicide.)

Charles worked hard, had calloused hands, and died a lonely cook.

If I drive to school at the right time, I pass bus #7, which has some Spanish radio talent named "El Cucuy." I'm glad Mancow's Morning Madhouse got cancelled, because of El Cucuy.

It's nearing 1AM, I have school tomorrow, I can't sleep. I should get drunk and pass out. But I want to be a church patron, church leader, and not drinking now is definitely a good place to start.

Both defiance and submission will wind you up in Hell. In room 101.

All those bullshit cunts were faking tenacity.

Intransigence.

Nights for all those insomniacs and you. Notes to the dawn and letters to the sea, a marriage of glass-bottle and sea-salt proportions. Grow up and walk out and drown out all fears.

Tessla's mortal coil.

And I'm still waiting for Godot.