Posted on by chris

where elements meet

I went to Venice Beach with a pad and a pen, and a singular purpose: to write…something. I had no idea what I wanted to write…perhaps I wanted my own small Walden. I went, I stood, and I wrote what came to me. There’s no real point to it other than writing for the sake of writing.

At the edge of the world, two of the fundamental elements collide in a never ending struggle. The ocean crashes onto the soft granular bulwark of the beach, eating away at it with each rolling wave. The earth draws the overreaching waters down into itself, recovering what was taken and reinforcing itself against the impending assault. Neither side able to press advantage and turn the tide (if you’ll pardon the phrase) in its favor.

Here I stand, at the edge of existence,
Firmly rooted in soft, yet stable earth,
Watching as the waves grow with persistence,
Roaring in with inimitable mirth.

This is nothing new. For longer than history, the waves have crashed against the shores. I suppose, in the bigger picture, there are more examples of aquatic victories than those of the earth, but these are the battles not of decades or even generations, but of eons and eras. They share commonalities, water and earth…they both support life, and both contain oxygen in their respective molecular makeups. They share commonalities with each other, but neither can truly ever be the other.

The world of water and the world of earth are intrinsically different.

As it is with water and earth, so it is with people. We share many commonalities with each other, but our collective experience can never be truly duplicated in another. We are each the product of our own unique existence.

I will never see the world as you do;
We may never see eye to eye.
I may never understand what drives you,
But it costs me nothing to stop and try.

Water and earth are what they are; they can not choose to be or not to be. People are blessed (and cursed) with self awareness, and with it, the ability to understand.

It is a choice unique to us. Why should we not take advantage of it? I suppose it was best said by a pair of time traveling philosophers…

In the words of Ted Logan and Bill S. Preston, Esq.:

Be excellent to each other.

[future edit: little did I know, but I was touching on an idea I would learn about a year and a half or so later in grad school: existential isolation.]

Posted on by chris

i cannot abide fake people

I cannot abide fake people. Now, when I say “fake people,” I don’t mean fictional characters, figments of my imagination, mannequins, homunculi, shapeshifting aliens, or any other way in which it can be taken as a person who is not really a person. No, when I talk about “fake people” I am referring to a specific type of person that has become increasingly prevalent in our society; the sycophant. I consider sycophants to be as low and worthy of disdain as hypocrites (I wrote a poem about hypocrisy, years ago; if I find it, I’ll post it to make my feelings on the subject clear). There is a plague (metaphorical, not literal, unless you’re using the term “literal” hyperbolically, in which case stop it because you’re killing English) of sycophancy spreading throughout this world, and it is incredibly disappointing.

Let me assure you of one thing: if I’m your friend, it’s because I like you, not because you can do something for me. I’m not your friend because of any social status boost I get by being your friend. I’m not your friend because I know I’ll need something from you now or in the future. I’m not your friend because you’re the person that everyone wants to be friends with. I’m your friend because I think you’re cool, and I want to be friends. I’m not going to reject your friendship simply because you have nothing to offer me beyond your friendship.

Then again, I’m not a self-centered asshole (I don’t think).

[future edit: I was almost certainly being passive-aggressive about someone during a time in my life when I didn’t use a lot of my friendships or support systems effectively.]

Posted on by chris

surprise step-siblings

Let me preface the rest of this by saying that I’m not making excuses for my behavior or his, but I do want to paint a picture of this time in my life in order to provide a better context for this tale. That being said, I went through a period of a few years where I didn’t talk to my father. It started either in late 1996 or early 1997 (the most I can narrow it down is that school year, my last before high school), and if I recall correctly (which I’m probably not), lasted until after I had completed high school (my junior year).

That would put our reconnection somewhere around the year 2000 at the earliest, more likely in the 2001-2003 range.

The year leading up to…the incident…was not exactly the highlight of my life. In the summer of 1996, my parents divorced and my maternal grandmother died. I went into the eighth grade with drastic changes at home, and losing a person who meant more to me than words can ever properly convey. Needless to say, I was not what one could consider “well.” Looking back, though I thought I was doing fine at the time, I can see now that I was not handling events with any semblance of grace. I was unreasonably difficult to my mother (for which I carry a deep regret), reactionary to my father (for various reasons), and I didn’t care about school in the slightest.

It’s this last bit that sparked…the incident (oooh, dramatic!).

My father was a teacher at the magnet school I was attending (he still is). He pulled me out of my advanced algebra course and into his classroom during one of his planning periods in response to a notice he had received from one of my teachers (I forget which). Our conversation became heated, and I said and did some things that I am not proud of. However, both of us being of stubborn stock, neither of us would apologize for our behavior, and thus began years of silence between us.

When we finally reconnected, I discovered that he had remarried during our silence. His high-school sweetheart, Pam, was the lucky lady, and a mother of three; I had two step-sisters and a step-brother! I had met her and the youngest of her children sometime after my parents’ divorce, and had interacted with them on occasion (mostly while playing Hearts with my father’s duplex neighbor), but I never met (or I don’t remember meeting) the others.

Did I mention that by the time my father and I had reconnected, he was no longer married to Pam? That’s right, folks; for a year or two, unbeknownst to me, this only child had three step-siblings.

Crazy world, huh?