"The Paradoxical Commandments" by Kent M. Keith

"People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Be good anyway.
Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs, but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway.
People need help, but may attack you if you do help them. Help them anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway."

Cynicism is so easy...such a lazy means of being.
The urge to rude and hide grows...clings and burrows to my soul.
New...old...nothing and everything.

So much to miss.
Ache to see.
Feel the sun again,
and know the world will be renewed.

Sheer hilarity of life never ends.
However...I am so blessed at the same time.
Some wonders are afoot...

I really need to remember to celebrate on the 20th...one of the best days of my life...with no hyperbole.

Freedom never came for free.
And certainly that was a miracle I didn't know I was looking for.

...what an arguably sad waste of human genetic material.
And for once this isn't a veiled self focused attack concerning how much disdain I hold for myself...

It...is...just people.
And sadness.

There isn't one person...one thing, life is more...more confusing and less sense making...and I feel like...

It will all be washed away by the ebbs and flows of time.
A truer horror show never has been known.

Wow.
Humanity sucks.
I really should work on that...

Meek Meanings

Oh the things I thought...the words that were said.
So silly.
So silly.
All in passing and all is fading.
All is so silly, so fleeting.
Words cast about in new light,
burning as it were
losing all that meaning.
Acid etched in the mind,
on the soul
and such belligerent numb feelings.

...Ann?

o_O

Scattered Lights

The anger and bitterness...
It's tangible.
The taste is in my mouth.
I'm not sure what happened.
Maybe it just is.

Black and white
while wrapped in gray,
I stand here
looking out to sea,
wandering
just when,
when I might might
look and see,
find You standing here
alongside me.

Whispers of a Muse
from across the channels of life
and I miss you.

More than words,
sentiment or feelings
just the sad truth
of a wanderer who has broken down.

Pretending to be
the sort of man
I could never be,
sitting and looking out.

It's a new day,
new sunrise
and soon to fall.

New way,
new life
and hopes.

It's not about finishing order.
It's about survival.

Humanity is such a sad waste of life and oxygen...

Only

Hemph.

Not sure why...or how...or even a what...

The harder I try to fit in...really the less I do.
The more the reason why I see I just don't belong.
More and more.
A quarter of a century into this...train wreck lovingly called life...
I just don't have it in me to play...

I'm not really sure who, what, when, why...any of it, any of it...

Things are so superficial with so many people.
Maybe it's been the reclusive nature of the summer...but the more I'm around people, the worst I feel...the more alien...the more dirt that seems to flow through my veins, sticking like mud.

I've got nothing and have nothing to really offer or give...
Just these jaded and skewed views.
That may or may not be...or not...

Honestly...that is even a part of it.
Honesty.
Regression.
Regret.

If only it was a simple as brushing things past and moving on.
There are somethings...others...
Nothing?
Relative.
Oh if only...

Only this, only that
and every shade
the truth could be colored in
and framed for all to see.

Truth ever so subjective
and brought under the whims
of the poison
via the vox populi,
a vis-à-vis of the soul
just like you imagined.

It's all fiction
and some lies
mixed with feel goodness.
Right?

I can't take this drink
or dance to this song,
all I want is the dark
and silence to be wrapped in.

Everything has become so spread out
and feeling so flawed,
infected by imperfections
and cancers.

Only this,
only that
and every way you twist the truth
to help you swallow it.

Shame and pain
and maybe just a sprinkle of powder
or whatever venom
it is you draw with.

Goodnight, Farewell Regression

I wouldn't know what to do with so much hope if it wasn't delivered while I wasn't looking.

So many of my fears, uncertainties and broken memories...come back from this lack of trust.

I run, try to run from myself...and so many thing suffer.
I cause so much indecisive pain because of fear...

Curious.
And sad.

So much,
so little
and time is passing...fading from sight.

Even the pain can look beautiful
when seen from perspective
and time enough to heal.

I never thought I would grow weary of words for their own sake.

From Here to There, Eternity's Breadth During a Breath

I've got nothing
and all busy being a nobody.
Life happens while looking the other way
and falls together while I consider.

Beauty in the moment,
passing and fading
as much as you are you.

Reminding, the fall and pain.
What is the point of such,
silly embracing of pain and sin?

The hands shake, break and fall apart,
past here and there
with the awaking thoughts
and dawn of horror.

Who am I?
Why should my concerns carry weight?

Being, trying, feeling, reminding,
falling, sinning, collapsing,
...all it's own sin.

Such worry for its own sake.
Sin running circles around itself
and reminding life for its own sake.

Life isn't grace to be wasted,
drank away
and spat on by my sins.

Grace, beauty in its ability to hunt,
follow and never leave me alone.
Beauty wanting and willing to chase
no matter the extent of my stupidity.

I want to scream,
roar in pain
and make this about me.
A drama
and stage play
all revolving around,
spinning about me.

Pragmatic idealist...was that it?

That should be pragmatic dreamer...or really anything that is a reminder of my contradictory silliness.

Yay for being a pragmatic realist.

Scattered thoughts...all across the horizon.
Time is spent far too quickly, just as expensive as blood.
Where are things going?
Spinning out of sync?
At least there is healing in the silence.
Redemption even of this hour.

Too many thoughts...and nowhere enough time or ability to make sense of them.

I can't keep track of all the memories.

I suppose in ways it would be nice to find a way to just purge things...organize, find a way to make sense of things...

Nothing is slowing down or stopping to make sense.
It just continues to spiral off in directions all helter skelter like.

A Quarter of a Century

Meep.

Such a silly roller coaster of health.

I always plan on writing some long introspective piece about my life on this day...but it just doesn't happen.

Which is a metaphor for life.
I think part of the reason I am not writing as much...is because when I am busy living life...I forget to write.

Most of my problems occur when I have far too much free time to lay down, think and hurt.

Sure I've spent most of today alone in a physical sense...but I have had phone calls, voice mails and emails from wonderful people.

I can get out and see people any day...it says something when people put forth the effort to come find you.

I am far, far, far too tired and sick to spend it at a loud, busy and dramatic place...instead I look forward to spending it with just a couple of people...here, later, another time, another place...another way, another day...maybe even another Age.

Time with continue to flow.

With or without me.

While I am here...I need to breath, to feel myself rocked by the ebb and flow of time...that I was born for this day, this age...purpose.

Purpose I may never understand.

But I try, I will try and will never give up.

I can say thank You Father, with an exhausted and knowing smile.
I will doubt.
I will hurt.
But this heart, this soul cannot be killed.
I will get sicker.
The flesh will fail...but one day all of this will be healed.
Everything made new.

Until then I hope in an impossible God whose love has carried me further then I ever thought possible.

"As the Ruin Falls" by C.S. Lewis

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk Greek--
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

And...I'm about to be a quarter of a century old.
Good heavens.
I need to reevaluate this whole aging and growing up thing.

Despite my passive aggressive silliness...being the bigger person is always nice.

Moral high ground for the win.

Hrmm...it may be slightly evil that I cackle every time I realize that I am freed from and no longer have to tolerate certain people and their questionable...immaturity.

Cackle that I am free and that some other much more naive and foolish person than I is the acting man of the hour...or minute as it were.