Grow up.

OK...first of all, more Federal funding, per se, does not equal socialism. If it does, the Bush administration is balls deep in all sorts of "Socialist" ventures.

Secondly, why are you so against socialized systems in the first place? Obviously there are issues, but Capitalism, as evidenced by our dismal economic state, isn't exactly fool proof either. If socialized health care and education are inherently evil, why is it that the nations of Scandinavia, that hotbed of pinko-commies, boast some of the highest life expectancies and quality-of-life measurements in the world? It appears that a free-market economy, combined with a strong welfare system, can be effective. The sheer size and demographic makeup of the United States is what make social systems such a difficult fit, not ineffectiveness (or to use the popular vernacular, 'suckiness') of the systems themselves.

Ok, so we've nixed the "if we socialize medicine, everyone explodes" family of arguments. What about the ideological stance? In oversimplified form; our Founding Fathers, champions of righteousness and tolerance, created an infallible system meant to staunchly stand the test of time. It's a beautiful idea. Let's delve a little deeper. Are any of you really convinced that the constitution was set forth by perfect men? This isn't just recreational iconoclasm, folks - let's face it - the founding fathers were adulterers, slave owners, and believe it or not, circumventors of their own Constitutional document. For crap sake, we've got the captain of a near genocide on our twenty dollar bill.
So now I've stirred the proverbial hornets nest. My point is this - we have an imperfect system set forth by imperfect men. Despite the flaws of these men and the document they created, our government remains the best system in the world. Why? I believe the element that gives our system its strength is its intrinsic flexibility. In other words, our ability to alter our political machine in order to better serve the masses. So, if you truly have respect for the foundations our ancestors laid down, you have to acknowledge that the best course of action is to make our government work to our best interest, even if that means abandoning the Grand-Old status quo.
It will be a challenge for many rise above the temptation to misconstrue. I am proud to be an American, and I am so sorry that in the 2008, there are those among us who still tote ignorance like their fathers gun. If you disagree, no problem. However, please construct a reasoned argument before you start spewing your knee-jerk Cold War sentiment. If that's too much for you, feel free to slide back into your intellectual cesspool and take a few minutes to collect your thoughts. Dictionary.com is always there for you.

Self-Actualization

I kept a promise to myself today, and it felt wonderful.

Once upon a time, I promised myself that if I ever found a pair of black Adidas superstars, in my size, for under fifty dollars, I'd buy them on the spot.

Today, I found those superstars, and snatched them from the shelf like an eagle snatches a baby from its mother's arms. What?

I've been thinking. I felt better today than I have in perhaps the last two weeks. Why is that?
It's because I kept that promise. I reached back to a previous self and a torch was passed. It has been a long time since I have lived up to my own expectations.

Maybe I just need to set smaller goals for myself. Achievement always makes me feel good, even if I'm not achieving anything effectual. I need to construct my days of small, worthless milestones so that I can feel like I've accomplished something.

What can I promise myself tonight? What can I shred so I might leave a trail of breadcrumbs back to acceptance?

The next time someone asks about my friend, I will have only good to say.

There Will Be Blood

1 - Man falls into mineshaft, breaks leg
2 - Man with broken leg crawls across an enormous desert, and learns that he's found hisself some BLACK GOLD!
3 - Poorly co...(read more)nstructed pulley system falls into oil well, killing a man
4 - Broken leg man, now healed, feeds high-proof alcohol to now-fatherless infant (see #3)
5 - All manner of crazy religious zealotry and creepy healings and castin' outs a' satan
6 - Drill Piston is knocked into well, graphically killing yet another unforunate employee of Crazy Daniel Day-Lewis Inc.
7 - Oil Well Explodes
8 - Once-Fatherless-and-fed-high-proof-alcohol-as-a-baby-now-adopted-and-raised-by-Crazy-Daniel-Day--Lewis is deafened in the explosion.
9 - Crazy DDL beats up creepy preacher man
10 - CDDL's crazy fake brother shows up
11- O-F-a-f-h-p-a-b-n-a-a-r-b-CDDL (Deaf Boy) (see #8) lights fake brothers bed on fire
12 - CDDL abandons deaf son on a train. Believe it.
13 - CDDL finds out Fake Brother is a Fake and shoots him in the head
14 - CDDL threatens to slit a man's throat for pretty much no reason (this one is way out of order but i didn't want to renumber)
15 - CDDL fake converts to creepy Christian sect
16 - Deaf son returns years in the future to find CDDL a rich raving drunk. CDDL calls him a bastard in a basket and then gets told off, SIGN-LAGUAGE STYLE!
17 - Creepy preacher shows up looking for money, CDDL makes him denounce God, makes a weird intense Milkshake analogy and beats CP to death with a bowling pin from his private alley.

that's all you need to know.

Perchance to Dream

On brittle autumn night, I got into my car and drove. I leapt out into the night, a wingless, hopeless bird. I ventured forth, not to kill time or to escape the reek of the dishes piled in our kitchen (which was considerable) but to decide whether or not my life should continue. My motivations were manifold, but thinking back to that portentous night, I begin to recognize the theme of my despair – a perceived inability to connect and communicate with the world enveloping me.

In an attempt to classify and understand my plight, I thought back to a sociology course. Although I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to determine if my professor had teeth, I did remember distinctly a lecture concerning sociological explanations for suicide. Pioneering Sociologist Emile Durkheim was one of the first to look at suicide as the result of societal influences rather than individual weakness or dementia (Emile-Durkheim.com).
"Collective tendencies have an existence of their own;” Durkheim wrote, “they are forces as real as cosmic forces, though of another sort; they, likewise, affect the individual from without..." (Thompson 109 [excerpt from Durkheim’s Suicide])

Durkheim set forth several empirically based explanations for how collective tendencies affected suicidal motivations. They are organized into four major categories, subdivided into two spectrums – social integration and moral regulation (Archive). The first is designated as altruistic suicide. According to our friend Emile, altruistic suicides occur when an individual is over-integrated into a society or group. This type of suicide is associated with self sacrifice, and often occurs when an individual feels that the needs of the pertinent group outweigh his/her own needs (Dunman). On the opposite end of the social integration spectrum is egoistic suicide. When an individual feels that he has no ties to a group, the perception of social cause and effect diminishes. If choices are inefficacious, suicide loses its repercussive weight. An individual asks the question, “If nobody will miss me, why should I stay?”

The morally regulated designations of suicide are anomic and fatalistic. Anomic suicides were of particular interest to Durkheim since they dealt with the inability of social institutions to meet the needs of individuals (Dunman). Subgroups of anomie include a general loss of satisfaction with social institutions such as religion, changes in a micro-social position, as in widowhood, and long term dissolution of traditional stabilizers, caused by a long-term societal shift such as revolution (Dunham).

The last of Durkheim’s suicidal designation is fatalistic, which stems from an over-regulated, under-fulfilling life. Fatalistic lives are perceptually rife with process and devoid of progress; Durkheim cited slaves, childless young wives, and young husbands (Dunham).
Wandering through the still and frigid air on an October night, which of Emile’s categories was I languishing in? As with any case of depression or suicidal thought, it’s impossible to perfectly define strife. However, as an adolescent living away from home, I did feel isolated. As a college student, I felt ineffectual, effectively immobile – Cache Valley’s own overweight Holden Caulfield. As a failing member of a pervasive religion, I felt like a broken toy.

Having grown in up in the heart of the Promised Land, I was well aware of the distance and dissatisfaction brought on by disobedience to the socio-religious norms of the area. This is feeling shared by many, and its effects are visibly documented. Utah boasts significantly higher suicide rates than is nationally typical, and suicide rates are inversely associated with activity in church activity (Hilton 413).

I was a disturbed sampler plate of a whole buffet of sociological ills, and I had had enough. I turned my distressed attention to the burning aftermath of my decision. How will I go about this? I’d prefer not to put my brains on a wall, but I do want it to be quick. Who will find my body? Will it ruin them?

I did my best to press those thoughts into the overstuffed closet of my subconscious and twisted my focus onto more feasibly answerable queries. If I end up pushing daisies, what will I leave behind? A ridiculous pile of free t-shirts, horded like some people collect stamps, boxes of knick-knacks, an unmade bed, atrophied friendships, and wasted potential, and a note.

The last was already taken care of. I had written a suicide note long before I thought of suicide. A death-note, rather. Nothing particularly morbid, just a list of things I’d like to pass on if were suddenly snuffed out, the victim of a broken roller-coaster track or a divine lightning bolt. It was on the night before a minor surgical procedure that I first stood on the edge of the world and looked into the gaping abyss beyond. What if I don’t come out of anesthesia? What if instead of thrashing into consciousness in a stiff-sheeted bed, I bumped my elbows on pitch black silk? Would I be greeted by the kind and sterile faces of orderlies, or winged cherubim, or cackling imps...or worst of all...Nothing?

Confronted with such existential terrors for the first time in my life, I asked myself the best questions I could conjure, and recorded the answer. What did I know that would be useful to others? What message could I leave my family to help them through life's rigors? Above all, why did I feel the need to impart something meaningful?

I collapsed next to my car with a tattered notebook, and made some additions to my postmortem address. I spoke of my frustrations, of insolvable questions, of insurmountable guilt,

of nameless desperations. And I decided that it was not my time to go.

Since that time I found ways to overcome such thoughts, to do battle with the forces that would have me on my way. I have spent many a sleepless night coming to terms with the reasons for my cosmic near-miss. I have come to the conclusion that I fit into a category of my own creation – communicative suicide. As I reread the contents of my declaration, I realized that part of the grim glamour of taking my life was in the note itself. I was poised to blow out my candle because there were things penned in my darkest hour that I felt unable to communicate in any other medium but blood.

My father, a police officer for almost a decade, responded personally to approximately a dozen suicides. Of those poor souls, only one crossed Styx without leaving some sort of message (Roden). Regardless of one’s motivation, a suicide message makes sense. To leave something when you go seems natural. I argue though, that that communication can be a factor in the mortal decision itself. Perhaps for some individuals, the only way to combat egoistic and anomic influence, the only way to make oneself known, and thusly find one’s place, is to leave a trail of breadcrumbs into the world beyond.

Any form of sadness, whether or not it culminates in loss of life, is the product of unmet needs. The challenge for individuals like me is realizing that there are open ears and open hearts – validation and expression are indeed possible above ground. In days before I flirted with Hela I scoffed at the idea of talk, writing it off as worthless emotional catharsis. However, it is therein is in care and question that healing can be found. Much of my recovery has been verbal. I realized that my deepest, darkest thoughts could indeed by conveyed by my mouth rather than my shroud.

“But since it falls unto my lot,
that I should rise and you should not
I'll gently rise and softly callGood night and joy be with you all. (Ren Faire)”

I know now that I when I finally leave this place, I need not leave desperation. I hope to raise the parting glass, free of regret, knowing that my life has sent a message that my demise never could.
There you have it...I'm laying it on a bit thick there at the end…these Honors dudes love it

Acccesssorriees?!?

The man purse seems better and better with every breath I take. I am sick of lumpy pockets. I am sick of getting inky-wrist stabs when I reach in for a pen. I'm sick of my over-stuffed wallet leaving indentations in my butt when I watch a movie. I think I am going to drop-kick caution to the wind and start rocking the man bag. WHAT?!?! WHAT?!?!? YOU GOT A PRO'LEM?!?! Apparently I'm too FIERCE to notice

if i read one more political blog on Myspace

something is going to need to stay in vegas after occuring in vegas.

it seems to me that many people are so desperate to seem well rounded and active that they spout off about topics about which they know very little. they spend fifteen or so minutes intellectually masturbating, and then go back to playing WoW or smoking weed or whatever it is they do. Nodody actually DOES anything, they just lampoon the state of affairs and rage against the generalized machine and try make themselves feel smart.

If you really care about your buzzword crusades (sticking it to the man, shaking up the "staus quo," bringing sexy back, etc.) go picket, go vote, go streaking through the capitol (a or o...i'm not quite certain) building. go out and get your efficacious jollies. don't blog.case in point :the blog i've just written.

epilogue: you may (if anyone actually read this, which i doubt) find yourself thinking, "Ben, this is so hypocritical. You spent the last paragraph assaulting our generation of feaux activism, of digital inaction. This is all well and good, but aren't you just reinforcing your own complaints, proving yourself to be exactly the kind of person you so openly criticize?" To which I might answer (once again, given that somebody actually reads this crap),

"Yes, my child. You are quite correct...but it doesn't matter. I define myself by my impotent tirades. I don't believe in our democracy. I don't believe individuals have power.
Our world is doomed, and I'm going to mow the lawn. Without a shirt. You're welcome, ladies."