Always Through The Glass

Life isn't about civility. To be human is to be animal. One cannot embrace life without the cold presence of death.

Always through the glass. No. That's not life. Barriers must be destroyed. If we all got inside... happiness would be no stag in a mystical forest we're all chasing.

I hope everyone can understand what I mean by these posts- these strings of words and ideas I call posts.

I Do Not Know What Tomorrow Will Bring

This will be very short and seemingly unremarkable but it has as much meaning as anything I've ever seen or thought. It started the first day of Purdue's week long orientation process, BGR (Boiler Gold Rush), when I met my Team Leader and a guy called Tyler (Stephenson).

Four days later, it's my Team Leader's birthday... And this night turned to be the most remarkable of any one night I've experienced.

The precise moment I remarked on the greatness of the night, it got better. This happened five marked times. There was the two hour comedy act of Buzz Sutherland that had us crying for days and days. Jump to the party that had three floors packed with the best-looking women on campus... 20th birthday... after party... guys in front of Tark... the guy in Tark. Absolutely ethereal evening and night.

These are the broadest of strokes. I doubt I'll ever blog about it again; I'm not completely organized right now. There is no meaning in these twenty-eight words, but it's thick as a Van Gogh.

Culture.

Ok, Herrrre's Katie

Quid Pro Quo

Any endeavor in which you seek to gain will have a cost. Life is an input output system. Whether you double or triple your knowledge, strength, endurance etc... you must start with something and you must give to it. The product of zero and anything is zero.

Your car won't look good unless you wash it. Your relationship won't last unless you work on it. I could go on all day, but I have the feeling you understand my point.

There is a fantastic movie starring Col. J. Depp called The Libertine. I recommend that movie to Christians and Atheists alike. In it, there is a line or two that strikes me, but the one that inspired this post is this. "Any experiment of interest in life will be carried out at your own expense." - Second Earl of Rochester.

Watch the movie and let me know what you think.

Piety

It seem that in my excitement today I forgot the element most essential to a Successful person: Piety. I was raised Baptist (Fuck You), baptized Serbian Orthodox, converted to atheism as an eleven year old, decided there might be a god at sixteen (started calling myself agnostic), and most recently finally got Mr. Dennis Hearne's religion lesson from sophomore year of high school. He said he was raised Catholic, but developed his own ideas and worshipped and believed his own way. I didn't give it much thought at the time, I just agreed, because it made sense. It's funny how the best and most Right answers seem so simple, but when you arrive at the conclusion yourself, it's quite different and hardly simple.

Every man is a King, it's true. But even a king has his superior, whether it's a god he believes in or the People of his Land. I'm struck by something I saw in Emir Kusturica's film Underground. In the early nineties, Yugoslavia was destroyed by civil war and became five different countries, with Serbian and Montenegro counting as one as well as Boznia and Herzegovinia, but that's another story entirely. Anyway, in this movie, a character is leading a great division of troops, and is fighting everybody. A scout or some shit asks what side he is on, to which he replied, "I'm on my own side." Next the inquiry was given as to whether or not he had any superiors. "Yes! My country! Jugoslavia!" was the reply.

A True and Good life is led when there is a belief in something. I'm not advocating organized religion, quite the contrary actually, but pious action has always merited a just consequence (that word can be positive or negative). I won't display my religious views here, but you can always contact me. We'll talk, it'll be Swell.

...I like it, it's there to remind us there is something above us.

Disconnected Final Thoughts from the High School Realm

In these past four years, I have learned many things. Yet, what I've learned has taken the back seat to the process, the ability and desire to learn. Many lessons have made their way into the warm gray matter of my brain and have embedded themselves underneath the hard cold concrete of my foundation, like a worm living its life beneath a driveway. You must be the strongest person you know, because God Helps a man who Helps himself.

Never fight against who you are. Only the hardest creeps and craziest loons can win the fight against Nurture, but not even Jesus could win the fight against Nature. You are who you are, and it is as that person and that person only that you will ever conquer yourself and others. Self awareness is your ticket to grabbing the wolf that is life by the ears and hanging on for dear life, lest you have the sick desire to be ripped to bloody shreds and force your young parents to bury their child before his time. There are many enemies, and they can, will, and shall enjoy destroying every fiber of muscle, every plate of bone, and every powerful idea that holds your existence together.

Stealth will ever get more done than a stick, but some Enemies can only understand the pitchfork and burning torch. If ever in this situation, may you make a wondrous escape and laugh like a fourteen year old boy throwing beer bottles through neighborhood windows. There is no more sure way to success than the ability to remain undetected. The importance of flying under the radar is paramount, because any white-trash Rapist can walk into a bank with a ski mask and shotgun, but it takes a special breed to do business with the bank manager for thirty years and walk in for a chat and a handshake and walk out with fifty million electronic dollars. Res ipsa loquitur.

If ever you seek to raise yourself and raise yourself high high High, you must know, understand, and remember that you must elevate those around you as well. Oskar Schindler, George Jung, Jiri Orlov, Pablo Escobar, fuck even George W. know this bear/bore the fruits of this mighty and partially unknown tree. In order to get, you must give. This includes giving wonderful and extravagant gifts, unnecessary spending to promote friendship, keeping usual undesirables on your payroll, and spreading the bread down the long table of friends. What would have happened to Al Capone (Scarface) if he hadn't bought beautiful suits and lusty whores for his friends and bodyguards? He would have been one failure of a gangster. Schindler would have been caught and executed during World War II, but he understood and made use of the real golden rule: Spread the Wealth (and they'll drink to your Health.)

Never forget who your friends are. I could argue all day long about facts of the world, did this happen, or seem to? What do we really know about this incident? What would Mr. X gain by this irregular behavior? Thoughts are depressing, confusing, and above all Troublesome. As men, we are thinkers, the gods voices are not heard in our logic and reason, they are felt in our gut and the involuntary twitch of an arm when it's time to fight. Emotions can be more real and true and Right than Calculus. Mercy may give way to anger.

I'm no writer, I'm no teacher, and I'm certainly no preacher. In the end, you simply have to do things for yourself. If a man is used to walking the Valley of Darkness with nothing but a clenched fist and racing heart, going to a frat party where he knows nobody will be easier than waking up and stretching. You play as you practice, keep your training (in whatever you do) a step or four above and beyond that of your opponents and the world will ever be yours. Speed dies. Endurance lasts forever. I simply cannot bring myself to implore you people to read anymore, so I'll end here. Festina Lente.

Loyalty is a gem for which there is no price.

Dollar and cents make fools of men. Our integrity is worth less than a double-cheeseburger at Mickey D's, but once we really analyze ouselves, it is all that we really have.

So long, my short high school years. I hated you with a true passion of which few can boast, and I rid myself of you such as a member of the 17th century English aristocracy rids himself of a shit covered whore.

Sic transit Gloria mundi.
Thus passes the Glory of the world.

Ghost of Happniess

What do you think? This was '96 sometime, when my parents went out to dinner with the owner of Hubler Nissan, where my dad was currently employed.

Godlessness

All the gods are to be feared and respected.

The secret to success is biological.

And: Zeus of the lightning shield.