December 12, 2011

  • Restoration

      
    I have a moment of misappropriated time to discuss the events of the last 6 or so months. This time has been very... robust despite my not having written much during. To put it simply, I didn't feel up to it.

    I said I'd take the war up a few notches and I did. I said I'd bring it to a close and I did. But that doesn't quite say everything of interest.

    I don't remember where I left off, but I should mention that school is still going very well. Either it is very easy or I've evolved into a smart person but I've made straight A's this entire year. There are 2 more years to knock down but, at this point, I don't feel like they are especial challenges. I have had no positive support from family, although no one can say anything particularly bad about this personal choice, so no one has, yet. There's been plenty of criticism as to what I chose to study, but oh well. I committed to it already and won't deviate. I think, at some point near the start, people got that from my demeanor and have given up opposing. I will be finished with this degree in no time at all. That's all I have to say about that.

    Oh yeah, I made the Dean's list for this semester. That doesn't mean very much inside me, but I guess it's worth mentioning.

    I think the most interesting thing to happen this year was the wedding of two of my friends. That happened last August. Once again, I was called to lend what I couldn't afford to lend and I (foolishly?) did. This was to tie up loose ends that CT and Vanessa hadn't thought of or planned for.

    The first time was to help pay for some operation and supplies for this little bugger:


    My supposed Godson, Dominic, whom I've never met.. but who is alive and no longer afflicted of his birth condition because of what I ( and apparently I, alone, at the time) was able to help him get.

    Both things lopped off large sums of money which I had been working for, by myself, for my own purposes. I have sacrificed every luxury possible and learned to do for myself what many people conveniently pay for, only to have my campaign stifled by a bad debtor.

    My two thoughts about these things are conflicting. On the one hand, it appalls me that CT (and she) can just take from people with no inclination toward or guilt about his debts to people. It should be known that they borrowed considerably from a lot of people. To me, if they felt that strongly about each other, they should've just eloped and saved the ceremonial plans for.. whenever they could afford to have one on their own power.

    It bothers me that they aren't pulling out all their device to make things right.

    It bothers me the most because since before that and ever since then, they've borrowed endlessly for this and that, knowing what I planned to do and knowing it wasn't expendable to me.

    On the other hand, the reason I reached into my pocket each of those times is because CT is one of the only remaining people I call friend at all and, although this last year he's been a pretty shitty one, it's one out of several years which have been generally good. The other reason is because this was an important moment for he and Vanessa. It wasn't the time to make a principal stand. Not over money, especially.

    It only bothers me that his and their sense of obligation isn't as absolute. I don't think I regret the final product, this time, though.

    I think that this is a dispute that will be unresolved indefinitely. I guess I'm fine with that.

    The reason I'm fine with it is because I (believe I) have been rewarded for my brief selflessness. That and... admittedly, it's a beautiful thing to see unity happen and to see people you care about get something good in life.


    One of the things I do feel is that they have one of things I want for myself. I'm glad to have been a part of that, I think.

    As for my reward: One morning, this November, I woke up with another email from one of the grants I applied for. It was actually 3:30am when I noticed it and the other email from Sallie Mae, who handles the surplus funds from grants and financial aid.

    The basic gist of the messages was that a couple thousand dollars had found its way to my bank account, not really doubling it in size but adding a very hope-restoring chunk. It gave me the motivation to go out and save a couple more. What I now have is a sizable fund to execute my intentions.

    As a brief reminder, that intention was to leave here. And I certainly will. As another reminder, it has been a long time since that intention was dissociated from exclusively negative feelings. It's no longer about who did what to me, in this life.

    It is about escaping to better circumstances. I live in a dead city, in a discombobulating country with nothing much to show for it but fairly bad memories. I have given peace a chance only to have it spat back in my face, earlier this year. I have found myself to be spiritually bankrupt as a result of the last few years. Of all the things that I just named, it is most important for me to change whatever I need to change in order to restore, in myself, the cleanliness and partial beauty that I know I once had and to exchange this self for the one which has been in control.. this uglier, mostly impenitent warlike being that I've become, though out of necessity.

    So, at the end of last month, I filed for what will be the first of many visas to enter and reside a while, somewhere else. At the start of last week, I bought a flight to said place. I've now put my money where my mouth has been for the last 6 years.

    I don't hate America. I've said for a very very long time, thought, that it wasn't meant to be, for me. A few things came along to change my mind briefly. Overall, everything that has happened since I first made that statement in my mind, over 10 years ago now, has confirmed the truth of it. I have failed in all my trying to find a home and to match myself to it. I am implicitly acknowledging that I am the one who's probably not been good enough to be here, thrive here, make life work out normally here.

     So I have laid out another 5-year plan. One that returning to school was a part of. The reason I choose now to start moving is because everyone else seems to be moving on and up and I've done well as a start, but now I have to do something to add to the momentum. I also need to fulfill some obligations I have made and to secure greater peace for myself, while I'm able.

    And now the moment I suppose anyone who's been following me has been waiting for:

    The last steps to put and end to the conflict which has dominated my adult life and open a brand new chapter.. which for all I know might be saturated with comparable hardships.. begins at the end of this month.

    December 30, 2011: The last day, for a very long time at the least, that I will spend on this side of Earth.

    On the morning of the 31st, this chapter of my life and the war for high-ground that dominated it, ends for good. The next days, weeks, months and years will be written in terms of a different struggle: one waged not for liberation for for establishment and restoration. I will be up against new obstacles and face new difficulties and I will do it for a new purpose: to cut out a life to live, now that I have claimed the means to, at the cost of so much time and so many lost things.

    There are those who thought me defeated, just because I grew less radiant and vocal. I let my actions say the last few words. There are those who've been unable to identify or sympathize with the state of war that I declared into being and followed through with.

    On the 29th, which has been called by those who know about this as the time to celebrate, I will be asked to explain myself, and so I will. I've been asked to say my final peace about it. So, I will.

    I will say my last words that I hope are heard by everyone left behind and still at war for their own day in the sun.

    The next day, the march to victory will occur, in broad daylight. I will walk tall, with my face to the sun to look at it with a different look than I've had in any recent time.

    I may or may not return here, to chronicle the next part of life. I may be too busy.

    So, for those who've wondered, this is how the war ends. In final victory, at long last.

    As a final word here, I may post what I say on the 30th. Then it will be goodbye, for now.

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November 30, 2011

  • What are your thoughts on divorce? Are you or your parents divorced? How has it affected you?


    I... don't think I could do it, personally.

    I dunno, I don't handle break ups well because I'm not a person who rations their contribution to a relationship for sake of damage control.

    I can only imagine how devastated I'd be after some woman that I love and poured everything into decides to leave. I can say I wouldn't have done anything to deserve it, as much as I might look back and magnify shortcomings to be equivalent.

    :D I think that'd be the end of my pursuit of happiness for this lifetime. I can't imagine it'd be a worthwhile pursuit after that.

    Some people can do it. I can't. I really don't understand why people get married on a whim if they quit as easily as people do these days.

    My parents are divorced.. and they probably should be. They're pretty incompatible and both nuttier than a bag of paydays.

    As far as I can tell, it only amounted to me having a distant relationship with my dad and an uncomfortably clingy one with my mom. I don't think I have any issues stemming from them being separated, since that's all I've ever known (they've been divorced since before I was born). I do have some issues with my relationships to them but I don't blame them being apart for that. They could easily have put more effort into normalizing relationships with me and I would never know the difference.

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  • What matters most to you about the opposite sex? Looks, personality, etc? Why?


    That really depends on what I'm looking for from them.

    I have never been a person who looks for Mrs. Right Now. I sometimes feel like I lost out on some good times by never having that phase.

    Based on my experience, I would say that what matters the most about a woman is where her heart is.

    I can deal with a woman who isn't a perfect 10. In fact, I'd rather deal with one who isn't :P . I wouldn't ever feel within my league otherwise and I'd always have to keep a billy club handy for all the covetous gents around.

    I can deal with a woman who doesn't quite know what to do with her life. In fact, I could be the most useful to someone in that condition. I am a world-class support system.

    The best part of any relationship is when you connect to that person completely and it becomes something shared.. almost like having family. Things like physical and mental attraction thrive in that kind of relationship if you really try.

    I think I'd just like not to be so expendable to someone, because that's been the majority of my relationship experience. It's the reason I declared a state of war to initiated sweeping personal changes for myself. It's the reason I have a few entrenched reservations about women and relationships.

    I need to be re-educated and I know it. It would take a woman with a good heart a fair bit of patience to do that.

    It's the last thing on my mind to look for though. One will find me, when it's time.

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  • Do you believe in heaven and/or hell? Why or why not?


    Sure. I just have different ideas about what they are. I believe heaven and hell are right here, on Earth.

    I believe you make your own heaven and you make your own hell, then you live with it and then you die and spend your eternity with it.

    Why I believe this has to do with the way I believe things work. I do not believe that heaven and hell are special collectives of extremely themed spiritual nature, like what religion teaches. I do not believe there is "nothing" after death because science, itself, dictates that neither matter or energy go to "nothing".. and those are the two things of which you're composite.

    The body doesn't go to "nothing" when it dies. It merely changes form and is deposited back to the whole from which it's elements came. Why wouldn't it stand to reason that the energy base that forms our consciousness does something of the same?

    The body's former elements are subject to recommission in another body at some time, by re-absorption into the living end of the life cycle. Why wouldn't the soul be?

    So there's my "why".

    The belief is actually very simple: As this life goes on, you suffer and prosper by the decisions you make, for they create the reality you live. In death, those decisions are forever in memory to be remembered, seen and reflected on, so that suffering/prosperity you created and lived goes on with you, in spirit, constituting your personal heaven to reside in or hell to endure.
       

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  • If you had the chance to redo high school, knowing what you know now, how would you redo it?


    At this point? I'm really not sure how anything I would have done in high school would have made things different for me, today.

    One of the things I came to realize, as an adult, is that all that teenage angst and even all that academic pressure to succeed so as to get into a good college... doesn't matter. College is the real battlefield because it's already knee deep in real world elements and implications. Of course they tell you that, but nothing that you do in high school really gets you ready for it.

    Other than that, my "real" friendships that I had from that time lived on and everything else faded away into distant memory. Academics turned out not to matter. I'm a straight A student now. It's almost effortless. As soon as I leave the bull pin I'm gonna start to follow my plan.

    Going back to high school wouldn't likely change the way things have panned out.  

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November 24, 2011

  • The End; The Beginning


    The war was declared over, roughly 6 months ago but it has, indeed, continued. What I can say is that, at that time, it reached a point of no return. The trend of defeat ended in June.

    There are stories to tell about the last few months, but right now things are moving too quickly to stop and tell. So, for those of you who've wanted to know, stay tuned for the exciting conclusion of the war.

June 2, 2011

  • May 17, 2005- June 1, 2011


    This year has been one of incredible contrast. It first began like the last 3 years have, only with a little more take-away than usual. I can't remember all the things I lost, in fact, only that, by January my capacity to make war was diminished.

    Still, I did not admit defeat nor rescind my state of war, even as I lost my home for a short while (again..) and even as those who I helped in their times of need did nothing to show their support.

    This year began with a downfall, in which I made several mistakes. One of those mistakes was trying to.. make peace with or.. reconcile my goals with the people around me, family in particular. I've been told that one should never pit themselves against family and that family is the last line of defense even when you have no one else.

    After much giving those notions a legitimate chance, I've found that not to be true, in my case. I have never placed my family as enemies against which I have some goal. But I've always seen them as people who make no effort to understand or support or encourage. This much is unequivocally true. I've always felt that if we did come to odds or blows, as we frequently have, it would be because what I want for myself differs from their vision.

    I am entitiled to mine and that is why, for the last 6 years, I've been at war to put it together. I think about this because we've always been close by to each other and I've never been completely uncaring of what the opposition thinks. The problem with that is, as I've recently found, it does nothing to negotiate or be transparent or communicate to people who do not know you.

    That is what I tried to do with my parents, both of them. I tried also with my two siblings and.. well it was an educational experience but overall a diplomatic effort was a waste of time. My siblings have seen that I am a doing person. They know I'm capable of anything I set forth to do. They have been waiting to be impressed, I suppose.

    My parents, though, they still don't think I'm capable of doing anything. They lack even the basic foundation of adult respect. On the one hand I can understand, since I don't tell them very much and never have. On the other hand, this is exactly why.

    SO.. that's what began the year: A disaster of an effort to be more open. "Communicate" more. I will not be trying that again. As I was advised by my elder siblings, I will go on with my campaign, and say what I need to say with the results of that.

    I did begin a second front, which will last approximately 3 more years, but is going well. I am a university student again, since February, and I'm managing straight A's, so far. I've only had 4 accelerated classes, though, so we'll see how long my excelling spree lasts. My objective, in doing this, is to knock down the degree that I will need to go on, in an above-ground life, in a few more years.

    Yes, that means the war, as a whole, is far from over. I did say, though, that I would not report back until I had made substantial war progress. I'm here to do that, today.

    January's incidents only made me fight harder, and since then I have saved an actionable sum, giving nothing to any expense but the most necessary. The primary objective, of saving what I required to go where I have the opportunity to make a better situation, has been achieved. It has taken 6 long years to arrive at and complete this objective, but I am able to report that the first, biggest hill has finally been taken.

    I will only be able to say that I have "won out" in this stage of the war, when I have seated on an aircraft and set off on my 26 hour flight to my destination, though. That moment is no longer an uncertainty but a certain prospect for the future. I have purposefully pursued a venue of education that can follow me, to wherever I go. That means I am free to go, for good, as I've said from the begging that I would.

    The violent revolution stage of this war is over. The era of loss and depression dies with it. So, too, must my current configuration of mind and body be changed from a machine of war, to one of peaceful construction.

     All which has been done against me is forgiven, truly, and all but the most recent debts to me are forgiven, as of this moment.

    I have what I want and I have the ability to get what I want from this point to the next in life. Therefore, pending the success of the last few movements, there is no reason to carry on wartime policy.

    The next phase of my concerted effort will be toward building the state that I've fought for the right and secured the means to. As much sleep as  have lost over this, and as far from peace as I have been for not achieving this, I thought I'd be a little more excited and/or than I feel at this moment.

    Maybe it could be that I am anticipating what else could go wrong or take this away from me. It could be that I'm too preoccupied with the work that still has to be done. I have some state hoping to do and a handful more covert operations to carry out for the end game.

    My final task will be the deliverance of  an explanation of what is about to happen, as a last effort to maintain a lasting peace with the people I call family. It falls on them to accept my design and not be offended by my concerted follow through. It is my responsibility to explain myself, up to that point.
    There is still much work to do and not all of it is straight forward. Still, I think I should feel better. The hardest part is over, at long last.

    Maybe it just hasn't sunk in, yet, that victory is absolutely mine, even though I absolutely hold it, literally, in my hands, this time.

December 5, 2010

  • Spotless

    I read an article about a week ago that said that scientists were actually close to finding a way to permanently erase bad memories.

    I just found it again, here.

    Anyway, while I'm sure that would be an.. inaccessible/extremely expensive procedure, it was fascinating enough to get me to ask myself if I'd consider it for myself.

    Sure enough, a procedure like that carries with it.. the potential for liberation from heavy things that a person carries on their heart and mind. Sure enough, freedom from such things is not possible, currently, by any other means or with any amount of time. Sure enough, to have memories of people, places, and things that have inflicted wounds on one's mind, body or soul... just wiped away as if they were never a part of your life... that seems like a god-sent gift.

    But is it? For me, questions would have to be asked about.. what could happen, as a result. I'm not talking about.. what would happen if it goes wrong.. or they screw up and etch-a-sketch my whole brain but I mean... what would happen if it goes right?

    Suppose I do have my memories edited, filtering out the bad ones. What happens to me? I would certainly change, as a person. Probably into a person who is radically different than I am, now. I am a person who has, in some ways, been defined by my lifetime of bumps, bruises, cuts and mortal wounds. For better or worse, they've been a large part of who I am and how I see things and how I do things.

    I'm not certain if that's a bad thing, though. I've often said, and truly meant it when I did, that I wish I could return to the way I was, of course referring to how I might've been before X, Y, or Z happened.

    The consequences, I think, wouldn't be limited to my insides, though.

    I would.. discontinue my entire war effort. I would be able to make peace with my enemies on this Earth, long before the appropriate time or place for that.. because I'd be unable to remember what they did to me. I'd soon break the commitments I've made on the other side of my goals. I'd stop everything and stare, wondering what made me decide to do it.. wondering why I'm at war.. what I'm at war against... and I'd be in a poor position to go on to the next thing as I've planned to.. without being able to remember what brought me to this point.

    I'd hurt some people in ways I'd never understand.. by dissociating with them.. because I can't remember who they are or why I know them. Ironically, it might be something hurtful enough to avenge me, but it would be purely unintended.

    I can't really see those as acceptable consequences.

    When I've completed my life's current task, finishing the war I've started, I will be a very far distance from where I am, at this moment. It's at that point in time when I believe it will be possible to close the books on the ugliness that has consumed much of my lifetime.. as well as on the intricacies of the last nearly 6 years of concerted, bitter struggle against it. When that's done, I'm sure small flecks of memory will survive and continue to have a say in..little parts of the way I am and the way I live.

    I actually think some of those developments are positive and could be relevant to my continued survival on this planet, after the war's long over. I wouldn't want to lose them.. but that is exactly what would happen if I were to go messing around in my memories, trying to weed out the bad ones.

    There have been things horrific enough to make me sick.. and.. hurtful enough to bring me, a grown man, to tears. They're gone and in the past, though. They've had their moment to cause me pain.. and their time at the forefront as obstacles of my progress. Now they are experiences. Though grim, each one has a value.. and each one provided me with something.

    Even if they didn't.. I'm about to be 25, and the end product of a quarter of my life's fury driven efforts is about to render. It's really too late for a mental wiping to do any good. It might have done be well 5 or 10 years ago.. but now, what's done is done, I am who I am headed in the direction I am.. all a product of those and other experiences.

    I know, then, to take that away would take away a too-large part of myself. So, therefore, I wouldn't do it.

    How about you others? Would you erase the bad memories in your lives? Would you consider them invaluable, or do you think it'd be better if you did dump them?

December 4, 2010

  • Sorry

     
    Sorry I've abandoned you, Xanga. I did so for 3 good reasons, though.

    1: Something with Flashplayer 10.1 broke my browser. For some reason, none of my web browsers would behave normally when I viewed my own xanga, especially when I had my background music, an inexorable part of my page's theme, enabled.. and I've only recently discovered that it's working again.. probably the result of my most recent smacking around of my PC for another problem it had. Up to then I was unable to view, let alone update my xanga.

    2: Xanga has stopped the featured questions. I distinctly remember them saying it was only supposed to be for a little while, but they've not ever resumed them. This has deprived me of a major source of writing material.

    3: There have only been minor developments in my war effort. I believe a final breakthrough is close at hand but it's too soon to tell. I intended for the very next thing I wrote on the subject to be a message reporting that it's panned out and that a peacetime is imminent. I'm not yet able to report as much, though.

    Just sit tight and be patient, will you?

June 25, 2010