The truth might not always set you free but it always comes to light sooner or later.. and so the idea is to be on the telling end of it, before it does come to light. You might not be scot-free.. but you'll land better and you'll feel better, not to mention that you'll avoid lots of explosive drama, by being the one to reveal it.
   

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I do hate sometimes that it leaves me with less than what I have before, but I think of it as trading that bit of money for a bit of credit. It also helps to be able to look back and say.. so-and-so is still alive because of me.. or.. she was able to do this-or-that because I helped.. or he got this because of me.

No one can ever say I never gave them anything... if I'm the one who's there when they need something and not likely to decline if they're a friend or blood who's truly in need.

What's funny is that I've found that ..most of my family and people I call friends aren't dependable in the same way, and I've even been called selfish on a number of occasions. Go figure.
   

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As times get tough. Things are realistically gonna get harder to launch, let alone stay gone, for people who haven't done so. The thing to do is work with what you have and be functional, no matter what your situation is.

How or who you live with doesn't matter.. cuz I mean.. there's bums who have homes wives and children.. and there's well-off people who choose to camp the 'rents house because it's strategically good for them or because they don't see a reason why the family has to separate and subdivide if... there aren't respect or individuality issues at stake.

In some places in the world, people live with their families and it's kinda weird for people to live alone or in separate houses.. mostly because in those places.. people value their family and togetherness and all that, and the way they live reflects that. Lots of people live at home, and the whole place functions as a unit; everybody works and contributes and looks out for eachother.. I guess the way a family ideally would. This is only possible where people don't estrange and get sick of eachother.

I think that we in the west have way too much of just that.. people getting sick of eachother.. people wanting their own way or no way.. and a lot of.. family dysfunction and bad history. In short, our culture has a lack of unity and a lot of self involved sentiment, in this generation in particular.

This is why people look down on or think less of those who live at home and this is why young people.. try so hard to move away when they go to college or failing that.. in their early 20s.. even if it means a steady diet of noodles and pizza, or settling for a 10 by 10 foot dorm.. to be able to maintain it.

There's people who want to go away, but can't, nowadays. Families are consolidating more than they have in the years before because the economy is kicking ass and taking names. People can't afford to live by themselves and even families are retreating back to the already-paid-off homes of their folks.

I'm not sure what to think of it, accept to say that what people think and what's logistically possible tend to be two different things.. and when it's you living the life, what people think doesn't tend to matter as much as what you have to do in order to live and sleep somewhere.

I would say.. the only problem I ever have with people living at home is when.. their families don't exist or function as a unit.. when it's their parents carrying all the weight.. and they're doing nothing to change that status.

I'd say that.. by the time you're 28-30ish.. you should've managed to finish college and get something going.. but as long as you're not 35-40, working at a video store with no education and with no end in sight.. do what you have to do to live and make something of yourself so that you can go out into the world.

As for.. what people think of a man or woman who lives at home.. well I don't think it matters what people think as long as you're doing what you have to to live and advance.. and so long as you're doing what your circumstances will allow.

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I've had lots of things to say, lately, but no ability to say them since my PC's been undergoing repairs and I've been busy, double and trippling work, the last couple weeks. I've not been home too often, and there's no end in sight for that, but I've built up a small surplus and am continuing to build it.

What will it be used for, you wonder? My next planned attack, of course :p. This shouldn't surprise anyone, by now.

That's going unusually well and without incident, and this is enabling me to take the winter head-on as it's coming, because I don't feel immobilized what so ever. I've been getting sick pretty often, but my spirit is high, all things considered. So.. no seasonal drain, this time around.

I spent some time here and there, 3 days at the end of last week thinking about Kirsten. I had tried to call her.. maybe 3 weeks ago?.. but I only let it ring once, before I changed my mind. Ever since, I've just had random spells of thoughts about her.

 I dunno if that happened before or after I opened my ..I guess you could call it a war chest, ..even it's more like an antique chess set in which I store a handful of keepsakes.. I came across it while cleaning around.. and wanting to make sure I hadn't lost any of the handcarved chess pieces.. or any of her pictures, I opened it up.

In it is.. a little jewely thing she gave me (some sorta bracelet chain type thing), ticket stubs, pictures.. and her.. folded, still perfectly legible .."farewell" letter, written to me the night before I returned home.

I opened it up.. took note of the date: December 7th.. 06.. and I read it to myself, for the second time.. the first time being when I was on a train to Rennsellair, NY.. during which I failed miserably to contain the tears.

This time, though, it just made me think. Sure it's a different world, now, but ..a lot of what she wrote and how she wrote it seemed to be.. timeless in nature. Like.. she wanted it to be taken as true, no matter what happened or how far into the future I next came across her writing.

I'm still unsure how much of it was true, but having been angry and outraged and every class of hostile in between.. and then having been told things that prompted me to ..not believe in there being any definites.. and be open to whatever does happen.. I can't say that I'm all that distrustful anymore.

I stopped thinking of it, a couple nights ago.. but I think I've always wondered, in the back of my mind, if she would ever really come back. Conventional wisdom says no. Some people I've asked say that it's possible (and they argue the reasoning well).

She said she would, if she ever felt the need to. And she convinced me that..whatever it was that did go wrong, I still left the same kind of ..deep footprint on her that she did on me. I was able to believe it more, this time around.

So, I just wonder.. if there will there come a day.. 1..5...20 years from now, when she makes good on that. I'm not at all ashamed to admit that will put one or two of the right screws back in. I'm also not ashamed to admit I miss that girl . I really do.

I wonder if she ever has moments where she sits and thinks about me,... or ever gets the urge to get up and turn back, at all costs. Probably not. I only have them because something inside always reminds me, sometimes subtly, sometimes not so.. that.. we had raised something that wasn't just any ol' thing like the kind people break up and forget about every day. It also reminds me that she got away, taking it with her. I wonder if she feels the same.

Who really knows, though. I haven't spoken to her since the late summer. The last thing she said was about wanting to come visit.

I'm not mad or anything.. but it goes like this pretty often. It isn't that I don't want to speak. It's just not like before. The one thing that's changed is that I just don't feel welcome. That's why I don't take it too much for granted whenever our paths do cross.

I never can think of any reason to talk, though.. and I always feel like I would be disturbing her life, because she's gotten herself ...I guess some form of one that doesn't seem to have room for intrusion.. and because even she says we're worlds different now (which was always true, actually.. just that she means to say we've got nothing much in common. That isn't true either, because the part of her that's as .. extreme about things .. and some other parts.. stick out like polar bears in a wheat field.. when they want to. I never  argue that point, though it's true).

... and that's all I have to say about that. It's been bouncing around my head, for a little bit.

There's other noteworthy things, too, though.

Bout an hour ago, I was clearing out my email box when I noticed something odd.. 3 emails.. addressed from myself(?).. with subjects and body lines: "I miss you". Thye were sent within 3 minutes of eachother. I didn't write them, though. My PC was still being repaired and I was out driving around West Bloomfield (to go get my nieces from school)  at the time they were sent.
I thought maybe it's a virus.. or someone's haxored the account and sent em. I haven't bothered trying to figure it out, but it was pretty weird.

I found out.. CT and his fiance broke up (not surprised one bit about that) and he moved away. Give and take life, for him. I still feel heavily betrayed, however.. I've been wanting to extend some kind of olive branch, because he and I considered eachother brothers for a number of years.. and I'm not sure if I do or don't feel that's important enough to try safeguarding. It could be that things are just fine, the way they are. I've lost friends before and lived. It just seems like a bit of a shame, this time.

I'll figure it out, eventually.

I've been watching the election news, having not much better to do at home or out to work. I can't wait for it to be over. xD Either way, I'm outta this country within 4 years. I guess the outcome only affects how cumbersome that is gonna be.

On a related but not exact note, I can't seem to get over this feeling I have that ..I dunno.. somethin' bad is coming. Can't really say what.. just.. something seems wrong. I've had this feeling before and was right, then, too.

It may be time for me to ...ante up and go do my part, this time, too. We'll see. If so, I'm taking names and rolling heads, this time .

I have a path to keep cutting, though. I'm a bit unsure about some specifics pertaining to my immediate future, but I am building up resources so that when the appropriate time comes, I can make the next move I'm going to.

My 23rd birthday is coming up, soon. Things aren't too bad, now, but I am determined to make another move of change, on or around that time.. so that I can begin that year, moving in the direction I wish to.

That's all, for this edition.

I decided it would be really irresponsible, not to mention cowardly, to go on naming names and making accusations, especially considering none of it matters, at this point. I will instead offer my words and my pardons, and I will explain myself, in effort to relieve you of as many tears as possible, because today is not a day to cry.

Whether or not you understood my path, you did see that, with each waking moment, I lived and I died in search of home and for the sake of greater things than myself. My plan was introduced to God's plan and now my war is finished, on Earth, as you know. My life was unfinished, to me, as I never made a family like I'd wanted and, most pressingly ..even now, I died without anyone's hand to hold, but rest assured that I have gone straight home, now.

I feel no pain. I know no suffering. I have forgiven everything. Be happy and healthy and wise, until such time that you, too, are called home. Take every moment, until then, to grab hold of everything that you have that I didn't.. and get a hold of everything that you wish to hold, before you are gone from the Earth. Be tenacious in this endeavour.

That is what life is for. A lesson learned, shortly before dying, now passed to you, the living.

Just as I have, you will go home, too. And it will be a better place. But I ask you to do that because I could not, yet I can watch, with a few years of my newfound eternity, as you do... and I may rejoice in that.

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It's not that it hurt, neccesarily the "most". I would say the time I went through a glass table in a fight back home keeps that award.. but that's the thing that cut deepest into me.

I mean.. it goes without saying I got my heartbroken, and that in itself was a death without dying, but uh.. it also meant the end of, what was for me, a campaign for my own escape.

What, then happened was,.. to me.. this was a cancelling of those plans.. a cutting off of said escape.. which is something I clung into for dear life, quite literally.

On top of having hurt feelings and.. well a freshly broken dream.. I felt like someone took my best chance at a worthwhile life away.  That someone not neccesarily being her, though it actually was her to took it. But I mean.. I also felt powerless. Cornered and defeated, by all accounts. There had come a point,  some years before then, where ..I just felt that I was living every moment before that, just so I could have that, someday. I had decided it was worth fighting for and worth enduring more of what I already had going against me. So I did. Nothing could hurt me at all, because I just knew in my heart and mind.. the day would come when it'd be over and out of range.. and I'd have something better to hold and work for and build upon. At no point did I think it was too good to be true.. it was just something I had faith in... real ..faith.

So, when this happened.. and that deal was suddenly broken, to me, I was angry. Angry like nothing before it had ever managed to make me. Why? Because something was given to me that mattered to me, for the first time. Nothing before it that I was ever given really mattered like that did. Lots of things were taken away from me, but none of them struck any chords.. because they didn't mattter. I hadn't invested in them. I hadn't trusted in them. I hadn't given up trying to destroy myself, (Yes, contrary to popular belief, I was suicidal long before that ever happened, xD. It's worth laughing at now but there's times when I do feel plenty ashamed of it) for anything else.

I did with that, though. I've since learned not to ever do that, just based on how easily it can be taken away, but at the time.. that was the dealbreaker. I was angry about that.. and finally angry about everything before it.

SO.. did it make me stronger to have that happen? Well.. not before it made me crawl and cry and stay up for lots of nights, just to avoid nightmares and injur myself at work; This loss turned me inside out, upside down and into remains very much nonviewable, for a long while.

It took me a while to surface from feeling like nothing and like nothing mattered anymore.

But.. since I stayed angry for... well I haven't yet stopped being angry, in general..(because I feel that the minute I do, progress will slow to a halt) but.. I learned to channel it into productive energy... once I again stopped trying to destroy myself, xD.

I trained myself to a doctrine which said "never again" to everything that led to that point. This meant standing my ground, in all situations and contexts, henceforth. This meant closing my heart and mind to the vast majority of people. This meant abandoning a lot of principal and moral statutes (most of which I've recovered, by now) that i felt were inhibitions. It meant walking headlong into painful or terrifying situations, ignoring conventional fear, in the name of progress. It meant declaring a state of war to take what I needed from life, over and through who or whatever I had to, since it evidentally wouldn't come quietly.

I didn't allow myself to be treated the same, at any point after returning home (I went a long way to fight for what was mine. 847 Miles, to be exact). I made resolutions for myself.. and I've been at war to achieve them, eversince. I've.. strengthened myself physically.. and I've tried picking up and reassembling the pieces, mentally.. and I know what needs to be done spiritually; I need to strike a balance between what I've become and who I used to be. What I've become is angry, brutish, resolute and strong... but I've also become extremely cynical and distrustful, though that's met a lot of improvement.

I have ground to cover on my wish to return to myself, still. It used to be virtually impossible to get me upset or very angry.. and I never used to yell about anything or at anyone. This is as easy as anybody else, now. I'm not saying I should be abnormal, but for most of my life, I was cool and collected and mild tempered.. and now I'm not.

I was tolerent and I legitimately didn't hate too much of anything before. Now I have times where I can't help but be hateful of some people.. and sometimes racist, even.(Which isn't all the time nor reflective of my treatment of anyone.. just sometimes I can't help but think certain things that I know are not right).

So what has happened is that ..I've grown stronger, fiscally.. but I've become a complex being, like I never used to be. This change is responsible for my current level of prosperity.. and there are parts of it that will probably be my undoing, if left unchanged. It took a dropping on my head, which could just as easily have killed me, to provoke the complete unleashing of these things. It will take some fine tuning and re-education to get back some of the goodness I lost in the process.

I have definitely become different. Definitely stronger in a lot of ways. Definitely bigger, faster, smarter and more tough. But being a thick skinned brute has it's shortfalls, too. I keep mindful of those, and make continual effort at balance between the two editions of my persona.. even as it's the angry, stubborn, hard to kill and full of fight brute that's responsible for my very existence as well as my current resiliance and general prosperity, to date.

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What do I think about the world's economy going under...?..Well, the same thing I feel about a lot of the world being at war (as if people care about most of it), there being whole nations worth of poor and starving while there's  individual people richer than entire regions of the world:

This is when the imperfections and flaws in man's design of civilization start to render. I happen to believe in a cyclical nature of all things, as I've said before, and in the tendancy of all things to right themselves when offset.

Nature's been abused badly by industrial man, and what's Earth doing now but responding with increasingly ferocious and collaterally destructive storms and climates.. why? Because it's trying to right itself. It's trying to heal and undo the damage.. not so much punishing us as if Earth were a sentient and vengeful being.

Anyway.. human nature works the same, and the same type of future is ahead of us, if you ask me. It's not.. natural.. for one person to have and sit on billions and billions and corporate entities to do the same with hundreds of billions more.. while the vast majority of people scrimp and save, increasingly more futily as prices go up, wages go down and bills get higher and more voracious.

This has probably been a long time coming, and, to me, the corporate imperialist CEOs, and the politicians who deregulate them, are responsible.

Why? The corporate CEO is a different animal than anything else. It lives to profit and profit is it's function. It will not sacrifice profit, even when it can afford to or when it'll help others. Therefore, directing provisions at it and not the people around it, is pretty much giving it all the meat... and then not making it follow pretty strict guidelines to keep resources in the loops of their host nations.. is essentially letting it off the leash to do what it wants.

Now.. what we have here is a world in economic turmoil.. and executive pigs being the only ones who will endure and come out of this will full and overstuffed pockets. Meanwhile, people losign jobs that the corporate world no longer is obligated to provide, and losign wages that they are no longer willing or required to provide.

Again, costs of living goes up.. but of course not so much the cost of doing every business (just as an example.. it costs about 10-15 cents to make the average large softdrink in a fountain cup, yet in the last year, retail prices for one at any given place have soared nearly 2 USD. Why does an item so cheap to produce need that kind of price hike?).. yet prices fly in industries who aren't integrally dependant on fossil fuel costs.. like telecommunications. Why? Because those in control don't want to sacrifice any bit of their huge profits.

Jobs are (and have been for a while) going away and dissapearing altogether. Why? Maximizing profit and reducing costs.

Utilities are going up, mostly because of companies conglomerating and merging and cornering markets, which isn't supposed to even be allowed.. and people are getting angry, because it's going out of control.

Even the banking crisis was caused by their CEOs who really didn't give a damn accept to maximize their accoutn recievable numbers.. and didn't think out the long term. Now, economies the world over are crumbling (in all the free world nations, anyway).. and CEOs are still walking away with billions.

This is the flaw in laissez-faire (which pretty much means "anything goes") capitalism and the banking system coming to a head, along with the supposed trickle-down economics that's never ever worked because it depends too much on the good will within an animal in which none of the kind sought is present.

Not to say it's an evil being, but a coporate entity is not an animal that cares about the little ones around it.. not even the ones who helped make it what it is. It's ont purely out for it's own good.. and most domestic policymaking has not reflected an understanding of this nature, despite a long time of observation of it.

What's going to happen? Well I can't speak for every other country, but my country in particular might go the way of the USSR. Broken, bankrupt and dissarayed concievably for the next decade and forced to rebuild in a different way, same as all the Soviet republics were. There might be violence and such in between, because I did say there is a lot of anger building over this. And everyone knows that anger subdues rationality as it builds.. and also that we have no shortage of hate, militarist, and anarchist groups and organizations along with other radical people waiting for their chance to cause trouble.. or.. rather.. acomplish their agenda.

Even though people don't see it, or write it off as.. doom and gloom speculation.. you kinda have to see that, at least, the beggining of some significant downfall is at hand.. and because of that, and judging by a world history littered with man-made atrocity, war, revolt, rebellion, unruliness and mob violence.. these further radical developments are a very real possibility and that's just some of the bad way we're in currently. It's only beggining, now, but the idea of things heading in such directions and in even worse directions.. is more surreal than it's ever been.

Why? Because the system, by crashing, is revealing it's flaws. The offset is finally rendering, the outrage with it is surfacing and building, more overtly everyday... and the balancing acts are probably going to have to begin, soon.

For me, the economy has sucked for... at least the last half-decade, LOL. So it's not like I'm suddenly going from a good life to one headed for hard times. More like hard to harder. I've struggled to find and keep a job. I've learned half a dozen marketable and equitable skills and such.. all in the name of making money.. and I've stockpiled cash, though I've given a lot of it out to help others.. thereby delaying my own plans. This just means I'll have to work harder, work faster and maybe start looking out more exclusively for myself.

Economic crash or not, I am still at war, so this doesn't do much for me, other than turning up the difficulty. I've earned more money recently than I have in a while, so the concurrent "ouch" has yet to hit me. I'm sure it will, though. 

I am in no way religious, or extremist of any kind.. but I'm calling it as I see things likely happening, because I have seen what humans do, for less.. I've studied histories of how people respond and react to depressions and declines.. and also how people scapegoat and eat their own society alive, starting with others and then themselves.. when they're outraged. So, I think that in the coming days and years, as thing change for the worse and times get tougher .. we're gonna see a different world than what we've known.. and it's gonna require those who wish to survive the changes.. to accept and adapt to them.

Goodness knows how it'll effect me.. but my only plan is to continue my campaign at my own life and continue picking others up on their feet, or trying to, along the way. Who knows how I'll end up or where or doing what.. but I do know that, even if all that I've said happens.. I wont be in fear or panic of any of it.

I'll go through this world as long as I can pursuing and keeping a home, and defending it to the grave if and when that's asked of me.

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Some others that come to mind.. Main Title Theme's of.. The Last Emperor, Wild Wild West, letters From Iwo Jima & Flags of Our Fathers.
   

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 You can only make sure you give all you can to it. You do that by surrendering to it, learning it and living it. That's the only way it exists in form enough for you to feel it, anyway.

You mistreat it, even a little, it's gone. Take it for granted? Gone. Make one single concession in the way you love that leads to it becoming lazy? Gone.

If it's meant to be.. it'll stay, come back however much time later, whatever.. you'll have it, in the end and that's all that matters.

There are two things that you can do, though. You can have faith that you'll end up where you need to be, though even for me that's easier said than done. And you can keep trying to find it, till you get it right.

Either way you're gonna take a beating in the soul, as there are an untold number of bumps and bruises (none of them physical..) to be had, on this pursuit but the objective is to make it home, concievably to a place where the love is real and not going anywhere.

Just keep a few things in mind:

*Ask yourself this (the featured question) before something bad has happened or a tough time has hit your relationship. If you are reactive, it will probably be too late to think about solutions, in all likelihood.

*If you find yourself alone and searching once again, remember that on this particular battlefield, nothing that happens is absolute. Chaos is abundant and there are two kinds of soldiers present: Ones who are out to do no good by you, and one's who just want to make it home.

Decide which kind you are and then know how to steer clear of the opposite.

*Love is real. Many humans have just lost the way. Do not let the bad things you come across, that are a product of that lost way, erase your knowledge of the first statement.

*Know who you are and what type of lover you are. Don't change. Don't give up. Don't be anything else for anyone else. Eventually you have to find a match for your heart's way... and (though I actually don't know this for a fact) this match will be worth the wait.

*Prepare for all sorts of events. Forgive, except, be patient, be cool. This will keep any stupid little thing from killing a really big thing.
 
What I have learned about it is that a preservationist way of
thinking does noooo good, toward love. It does no good to wish the bad away or look over your shoulder in fear of what might happen, because there's probably no fighting or winning against whatever does. SO.. enjoy it and cherish it like the commodity it is.

Otherwise, it just hurts you very much
and keeps you up fruitlessly, at night, especially once things have taken that nightmarish turn toward a reality.. outside that love. Maybe even before that point. If you're anything like me, it's exactly that .

You can only do the best you can and hope you make it to forever, or hope it's just a test when you get stripped of it.

But there is no making it stay. Or at least I haven't found a way to,
yet. See you can do all of the above, and it can still go away.

I guess
it's just a matter of luck. Just because it goes, though, doesn't mean that's it for you and love.. or that that particular one won't resurface.

To really know this kind of secret, you'd have to know what's meant to be, in life. No one ever does, though.

This is one of those things you just have to.. muttle through, the best you can, and try not to do too many irrevocable things.

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