Friday, May 17, 2013

Absolutely B-Grade writing





Life is the odd cool night in May. Life is the sound of the beach and the wind running through the trees.  It's the sound of cellos being plucked. Of sad and happy tunes, floating through our minds. It's visions of grandeur, and realities of war.

Life is buying vegtables at the market. Having the sun stare down and you and later wave good bye. Life is the sun rising over a sleeping city or the sahara or the savana. Life is getting up and at it. Life is breaking down. Life is tangled cables and dandruff free hair.

Life is easy. Life is morning wood. Life upliftment from all pain and sorrow. Life is being thrust into darkness. Life is the eventual outcome of just one possibility among millions. Life shouldn't be, but is anyway. So are fridays. And Murders.

Life is a mathematical equasion, incomprehensible but clear to some mind's eye. Life is the sound of ice crushing beneath his feet, or her feet, or mine. Life is a lonely outlaw in the wild wild west. Life is agirl with a broken past and a gorrila who just ate his banana.

Life is an apple. Life is a bee. Life is microwave oven, heating a bowl of noodles or a family of three. Life is an inglorious basterd. Life is puppy dog eyes, and a keyboard, and the trombone!

Life is yellow carpets on grey concrete floors on peach colored ceiling paint. Life is the lawn and the needle on a fly. Life is over before it even begins, it's the longest pair of legs you've ever seen, or a kiss, or a hug or a dream. Life is just perfect. It doesn't exist. It's still not sure.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

The Truth


Remember the first time you heard rock 'n' roll? Remember that overpowering guitar riff? Those Punchy as FUCK Drums? Do you remember when you first heard the truth?

No. I'm not saying Rock 'n' Roll is your truth. Our realities differ. And that's okay. It could be some pop or classical song you heard (Fur Elise was that piece of music for me) but that isn't the point. Remember that one song that changed your world? Go listen to it again. Right now. And if you feel the same insane thrill (nostalgia doesn’t count), that song is the truth for you. And hold on to that truth man. In case that song isn’t the truth, go listen to more songs that had that effect on you. And if none of them work, go listen to one hundred new songs. Not as they come to you. There’s no joy in listening to a song just because the radio decided to play the new big bollywood hit. No. Go find some music. Hell! Go ask your grandparents or parents or your uncles or aunts or neighbor or annoying cousin a what they’re listening to. Go ask an obscure friend for some. Or go to 8tracks. Google great songs. Youtube the fuck out of the idea. And a few years from now, maybe, just maybe, you’ll listen to one or more of those again and say to yourself, “Yeah, that’s the truth!”

Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not trying to be preachy. And I’m not just talking about music. I’m talking about books and poems and movies and paintings and essays too. Man, I’m talking about life.

I’m talking about the motherfucking passion to LOOK for something! I’m talking about that yearning to explore the unknown. The addiction to knowing more. That dirty dirty habit of questioning. I’m talking about the truth.

Every single day, I realize more and more and more that for some obscure reason, we’ve just stopped asking questions. Not silly little questions like ‘when is the next MI match’ but more important ones. Essential ones. Like, ‘Is there anything more to this?’ or ‘What’s the story behind that?’ or ‘How does all this work?’.

It’s that gradually growing lack of curiosity that has made it possible of us to allow ourselves, almost willingly, to be dumbed down to the point where we find so many of us believing in and defending this notion that we posses the God given right to mediocrity. To a mundane existence. To not giving a damn. To being okay with something that we know in our bones, is fundamentally wrong.

Of course, we rarely even know if something is wrong or right. We’ve been so very successful in closing ourselves into that fuckall tiny box full of Bollywood and alcohol and the latest scam to even realize the real problems we’re facing both as individuals and a people.

When was the last time you asked yourself what your deepest darkest problem was? When was the last time you asked yourself about your demons? I’m not asking you to fight them. That is not my place. But I’m asking you a question in the hope that maybe, just maybe, it’ll make your ask yourself one or two.

I can’t say that I’m some supreme being. Some awakened wizened soul. But I can tell you without an ounce of dishonesty that I’m trying my very  best to be the best I can. When was the last time you honestly tried that?

No. It doesn’t make you a good or a bad person. In my experience, everyone’s an asshole and everyone’s nice depending on how well you know ‘em. It hardly matters. But maybe that’s the problem huh?

Maybe if it was drilled into our heads that questioning all that we see is the supreme right. Maybe the idea of blind obedience was never taught in schools. Maybe you’d have heard the truth ten times over today.

Again, I guess it really isn’t my place to say. So I’ll stop here. But I’ll ask you this one more time. Remember the first time you hear that Rock ‘n’ Roll?

Friday, May 3, 2013

The Tales of Bengrid The Lost: Delusion



They told him he was delusional. They told him all the time. When he was smiling and laughing and dying within himself, a mere being on the outside, an entire universe on the inside, he was told he was delusional. And mad. And crazy. One day he replied to the claims. It was summer. It was night. He said:

"You are all correct. I am delusional. But what is delusion? What is and is not real? How can anyone truly tell? For me, delusion is as much of a part of my reality as the trees or the sun and the sound of cellos in the distance. How can you tell me that the visions of my veins pulsing blue or green or red are any less real than a child's laughter or the feeling of a soft cotton shirt when both are so deep and true to my mind's eye? This is my reality. This is what is and that is all."

He walked away slowly. He was silent for many moons to come.