Why I don't mind laying down in the Dark:

Why I don't mind laying down in the Dark:
Tiny bits of wisdom in the midnight hour

This week, in a lot of ways, has been a roller-coaster ride. It's been a lot of ups, downs, good moments, highlights of hardships, and quiet moments of reflection. It's been a week of sitting around until sunrise, sharing words, sharing drinks, and it's given me a lot to think about. It's been another of those weeks that reminds me, rightfully so, why I am who I am and why it is that I do what I do in life.What is it you do? Some of you might ask and the answer is really goddamned simple: I live.

While that might not seem like much to some of you, it might seem like an awful lot to others. To those of you who it doesn't sound like much? I'll tip my hat and raise my glass to you. To those of you who understand what a terrifying thing that life has the potential to be, I have something entirely different to say to you: I understand, but it's still worth it. Life's a scary fucking thing, if only because it has the very real potential to be just about anything. That's daunting to everyone, whether they admit it or not, but admitting it isn't the important part.

What is the important part? The important part is accepting it, and simply deciding that it's not enough to beat you -- because when life beats you, you're dead. That's it. It's over. Life's finally outlasted you. It's finally outrun you and there is no chance to pick yourself back up and start trying to run again. You get one chance in life and when the checkered flag drops for you, you are where you are, you've done what you've done, and whatever mark you were hoping to make on the world had damn well better be there, because your time's up.

This is why I do what it is that I do, and why I do it every day, with everything I have to give. That's why I think it's so important to sit down and enjoy life, but equally as important to get up and make sure you chase it down too. You can't let life get away from you because, once again, once it's gone, it's gone.

It's why, while the rest of the world settles down to sleep, I put words on a page or when the world falls down around some people I know, I show up with a shovel and a jackhammer. It's why, when the loud noise starts flying around the world and leaving people deaf and stunned, I'm there to take them by the hand and try and lead them into some kind of peace. It's why when the weight is just too heavy, I'm there to share it or when the feeling is just too strong, I'm there to try and lighten the blow. When the world finds itself on fire, set ablaze in rage in bullshit, I'm there too, doing my best to try and find a safe way to walk through the fire and come out on the other side. Why? I'm doing these things because they're things that drive me. They're some of the things I am passionate about in life.

These things I do are fundamental to my existence, to my living, and I'd be even more mad if I didn't do them.

Life isn't all about roses and storm clouds. Life isn't all about drinking into the early hours of the day, trying to sort out everything that's somehow gone wrong. Life isn't just about laughing, life isn't just about dreaming or doing any more than it is about breathing and eating. Life's about living and, while sometimes that means getting through the bullshit, it also means enjoy the good moments too - and it's so, so, much more than to boot.

Life's not about mindless toil toward bullshit and happiness. It's not about trying to make it, it's not even about dreaming and laughing. Life's about doing, about loving, and, most importantly, life's about living. It doesn't matter where, what, why, or even how you do it - but you've got to do it. It's about looking at yourself, at the end of the day, and figuring out if there was anything you wish you would have done. It's about sitting down and really thinking about your time and seeing how you really feel about it.

Life is not about regret, because that would be just too damn easy. Life isn't about loss either, for the same reason. It's not about the bangs and bumps you get along the way and, like I said, it's not about smelling the flowers either. Sometimes, at the end of the day, there just wasn't a flower to smell, and your shoes are covered in shit. Sometimes it rains on your parade, sometimes the picnic goes perfect, sometimes someone calls you cute and it puts a bounce in your step, other times you can't get the time of day from someone who you've tried your best to be noticed by. Sometimes you get kissed and sometimes you get left standing around with your proverbial dick in your hand.

What life is about is making the most of what's right in front of you. It's about grabbing the damn bull by the horns. Taking your time on a stroll through the forest, a glass of good drink, a good cigarette, great sex, the man or woman you've been chasing for years finally giving you the attention you've been working for, the beat goddamned steak in the world, a good hug, a shoulder to cry on, a hand to hold, someone to share the weight of the world with, all these things don't mean a goddamned thing in life if you don't sit down and acknowledge them - and the same thing applies to all the things in your life that you really think went wrong.

Shit happens, doesn't matter who you are, it does, plain and simple. Sometimes it's going to rain, sometimes it'll be sunny. Sometimes you'll step in shit and sometimes you'll miss it without ever knowing it. It doesn't matter what happens, you've got to make the most of it. You've got to be true to who you are, what you know, what you think and believe, and, and this is the most important part, you've got to be okay if you find yourself questioning those things - if not deciding they're outright wrong - at the end of the day.

This is a fraction of what I've learned, what I've seen, what I've felt, and what I really believe. None of life really matters if you don't put yourself in it. All of life is wasted if you just let it pass you by, if you don't reach out there and take a handful of it, just to see what it is. You've got to be ready for the moments when it'll be sharp, jagged, jarring, and painful. You've got to be ready to set those bits down and put your hand right back in there. That's what life is: It's accepting that, like it or not, it'll cut you sometimes but, at the same time, you can't be afraid of what's out there. If you spend your whole life living in fear what will happen if you put yourself out in life, then you're not really living anyway.

Be the friend who's there, always, if that's your thing. Be the angry, cynical, whiskey drinking, bastard, if that's your thing. Be quiet and reserved, watching the world, if that's your thing, but don't do any of these things far away. Don't be removed from the world around you, or the people that you love, or the things that you like. Take risks, get the shit knocked out of you, pick yourself up bruised and bloody off the sidewalk a few times, because that's just what happens when you live.

It's a gamble where you always win, but you actually have to play. It's all about trying because if you don't try, then you'll never know. I can't imagine a goddamned thing more horrible than having to ask the questions all your life about the things you never did, never said and never acted on at all. It's better to live life now, while it's there, than it is to sit back and ask all the questions about what you might have done when you're laying down in the dark.

A Large Collection of Horseshit and Rubbish

A Large Collection of horse-shit and rubbish:

Otherwise known as making excuses for not doing what you want

Dear reader,

I was sitting on a shaded patio, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, when I found myself bombarded with a series of messages and emails today. This isn't terribly unusual or even all that strange, as I openly welcome people to seek me out when they're truly stumped or fucked, but it was the commonality of questions and themes that struck me. Everyone seemed to be surrounded by circumstances which they felt genuinely kept them from being able to properly 'enjoy' the life they had around them and it ran the gambit in terms of tone.

Some people were having relationship problems, others were having money issues, and some people just felt they were in a place they did not belong. This is just a broad glimpse of what I saw and what was brought to my attention, and I think they're arguably the more relatable positions. We've all been there or at least somewhere similar, at some point in our lives. We've all stared down the barrel of that gun and felt inexplicably helpless to make any kind of real change.

Then, when presented with a laundry list of suggestions, ideas, thoughts, and so on, I started to hear one word become strangely overpowering. It was the word ‘too’. This word started be placed in front of nearly every reason why something someone wanted, simply could not be – which was highlighted by the fact that, less than twenty four hours ago, I’d had a very similar conversation about that word with a very close friend and confidant of mine.

Now, I’m not going to be an asshole here and say that every reason given was entirely invalid or just some whored up excuse for not doing something, some people had legitimate reasons for not being able to do things right now. For some people it was a sense of being logistically unable to pursue what it was they wanted, they didn’t have enough money right now, it was too far away right now, or that right now it was just too complicated and they had other things they needed to focus on.

These things made sense and I wasn’t about to say “Fuck off and quit whining.” Instead we built plans, shared ideas and got some thoughts about how to make it work for the future. This seemed acceptable and the problem was decidedly ‘worked on’, and life resumed as normal, but, by no measure, was this the bulk of the presented process. In fact, despair and a long stream of bullshit seemed to be the norm.

It was like everyone around me had suddenly descended into the notion that life, in all its glory and fucked up wisdom, was just too goddamned hard. It was too tough, or too scary, or too much struggle– and, too me, that was all just too much horse-shit. What follows is a harsh and unforgiving opinion on the matter, as well as a relative perspective that might be worthwhile to adopt.

Is life hard? Yes, absolutely. It’s wild, feral, unforgiving, and it will not stop unless you want to get drastic and plan your own exit. Some people opt for this choice, for reasons that I cannot currently begin to fathom, but this isn’t for those people. Those people have, at the very least, made a straight forward plan of action and followed it through to a final fruition. While I might not condone that choice, while it might not be one I’d make, it’s one that is at least taking control of the situation. Is draining all the life from your body the only way? Fuck no. This is for the people who don’t want to exit stage left, but rather just want to find a new stage.

First things first, if all of your rationale boils down to a stream of excuses then, and I’ll say this quite frankly, it’s your own damn fault. If your only reason for not being in a relationship is that meeting people frightens you? Fucking work on it. The world is full of people, and if you’re discontent with the notion of being goddamned algae, sitting around stagnating in your own filth and muck, then don’t. Get off your ass and force yourself to meet new people and stop trying to justify not doing it, because the only person you’re ever really going to convince is you. Again, it’s your own fault.

Evolution – or ‘God’ if that’s more your cup of tea – has gifted you with countless means by which you can make the most out of your life. You’ve been given hands, words, teeth, tongue, claws, and, my personal favorite, imagination. These are all things that, with actual effort, can provide you with all the roads and answers you’ll ever need, you just can’t expect it to magically happen with no effort from you.

The world is full of tools – and there’s more meaning there if you opt to read into it – but the thing about tools is that, for them to do anything, you have to actually use them. You’re a human being; you’ve evolved to use tools to make your life easier, smoother, and readily available to be lived. However, if all you’re going to do is sit there and stare at a pile of tools, expecting them do something without any work from you, then you’re going to end up with exactly what you deserve – nothing will change, and you’ll still be surrounded by tools.

You are the one sitting there, piling on shovels full of shit and excuses as to why you can’t do something until it looks like a goddamned mountain you will have to climb – which then of course means it’s a fucking mountain you have to climb and you have one more reason to not do it. You know what? That’s rubbish. You’re raping your own desires and ambitions because you’ve swallowed down sour experiences and just can’t be bothered to look for the sunshine and sweet treats any more.

It’s as if the majority of the world has simply decided to go ahead and be gluttonous, fat, Romans. You want sit around and refuse to eat unless someone is hand feeding them while two others fuck for your amusement and finish each other off with swords. You want the world on a silver platter like that, there’s only one way you’re going to get it: Go mine the goddamned silver, smelt it, forge it into a plate, build the world you want, and then serve it to yourself. That is the only way it will ever work.

If you’re dating a shitty boyfriend who doesn’t make you happy, then work to change it. If you’re not happy with where you’re living, then work to change it. If you’re not happy with what you’re doing with yourself, then, you guessed it, work to change it. You have to use your hands, use your mind, use your words, use your imagination, and use whatever you’ve got on hand to get to where you want to be, but stop using everything in front of you as a reason to do nothing.

If you’re not willing to do these things for yourself, if you’re not willing to invest the time to get your world to where you want it to be? That’s fine. That’s your choice, but with that choice you’ve revoked your own right to really complain about it. To put it in another light, it would be much akin to someone who wanted steak, who went out to eat at a place that had steak for sale, and ordered chicken – and then spent the rest of the meal bitching they didn’t have the steak they wanted.

If you want steak, then you’d better fucking order the steak. If you want to be happy, then you’d better fucking be willing to work for it and not just sit where you are for whatever cacophonous pile of horse-shit reasoning you’re selling yourself. The only person in the entire world who can keep you from the genuine pursuit of your wants is you, and if you simply refuse to invest the time in you, toward working what you want, then don’t expect the world to just hand it over to you.

The world is yours for the making, yours for the building, yours to frame and see. Being happy with where you are, what you do, and where your life is going is all a simple matter of working at it. So, the next time you opt to sit down and come up with a laundry list of reasons, all of which smell like shit, for why you shouldn’t do something, consider this a strong suggestion to look at how you’re investing your time.

It’s really damned easy to sit down and see what you don’t want. It’s all too easy to sit down and abuse the hell out of the word ‘too’, to apply it to all the reasons you can then use to justify simply doing nothing. You can look at that monstrous pile of, self-invented, bullshit and then just decide to give up the idea of trying to climb over it altogether. It’s really damned easy to do all those things, and I’m sure that’s a large part of the appeal, but think about this instead.

The next time you sit down to look at everything that’s wrong, and everything you can think of that says you shouldn’t do this, or that, whatever it is, here’s my advice: Don’t. Stop wasting time thinking of ways in which you are limited, unable, unqualified, whatever, just stop. Instead, take all that time you would have spent trying to get neck deep in bullshit, and turn it around.

Think about all the things you can do, think about ways to change what makes you unhappy in your life, think about what it is you want and how the fuck it is you’re going to get there. When you come across those things, and everyone has them, that you simply cannot change, then you have only one thing you can really do. You’ve got to find a way to own it, to adapt to it, to carry on in spite of it. If you’re really unwilling to do that?

Well, you’ve cashed your check already then and really can’t complain you’re not getting the full value out of life.

Sincerely yours, with no apologies,

The resident Gimp.

The Guns of God and the Constitution:

The Guns of God and the Constitution:
A gun safety course on religion in the United States of America

A note from the Author: While this piece will deal with the concept of freedom to do with religion and ones freedom to believe and worship how they choose, a lot of the examples I cite will be directly taken from my own personal experiences within the realm of Christianity. The suggested principles I put forth are not meant to target any one religion or religious group.

This is a piece for everyone about everyone’s right to have their guns, but how they’re not allowed to use them according to the very law that gives them the right in the first place.

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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

In a world where everything about who you are and what you believe is so readily questioned and attacked, it becomes a bit easier to lose sight of just why your constitution, as an American, gave you things like the first amendment.  In a world where your faith is questioned by those who don’t share it with you, in a world where one’s faith can spread to be an all-encompassing bubble, in a world where religious wars are waged behind white picket fences as well as from either side of concrete walls, it becomes increasing more important to remember just why the constitution gave you these protections.

Everyone has a right to believe whatever they want. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Buddhist, a Christian, a Muslim, a Scientologist, – yeah, I said it – a practitioner of old world shamanistic magic, a Wiccan, or any cross pollinated amalgam of whatever religion you find out there. It is your right to follow as many or as few of these things as you want. It is your constitutional right to bring your guns down from on high and level them at anyone who tries to take it away from you – but there’s a catch.

Before you all start throwing stones and shouting at heathens, before you decide to strip away state benefits for the poor because of a stance on abortion and planned parenthood, before you petition with big signs with pictures of dead babies on them, before you stand outside a funeral home thanking God for IEDs, before you lock someone up in a hotel room and refuse to give them medical treatment because they have alien souls attached to them, before you tell the world that God is coming back to the oval office through you, you need to stop and really look at what you’re doing.

Religion is a personal belief, period. It’s what you feel to be right in your universe, what helps you make sense of the fucked up world around you, and provides you with a base guideline for how to live your life. It’s pretty clear that a lot of them are exclusive unto themselves in terms of telling you what’s right, but their basic purpose is all the same. It’s the faith that, so long as you live righteously in the eyes of whatever higher power you follow, be it a God or little green men, that you’re going to end up wherever it is you want to go when you die.

Not everyone is going to agree with you. Not everyone is going to believe what you believe, and that’s their choice. It’s how they feel about the world around them and that has to be okay. Anyone and everyone has a different life, sees different things, has different experiences, and it’s these things that make up the basis for faith. It’s what you see, what you feel, and what moves you that determine how you come to the conclusions of faith. No matter how simple it might seem to an outsider, it’s what you believe, and it’s your right not to have that taken away from you – again, so long as you don’t try and take it away from anyone else.

It’s the same basic principle as to why series killers are condemned and not granted some kind of freedom under the pretense of religious sacrifice. In a lot of cases they see something wrong with the world and, from their perspective, what they’re doing is often a way to clean that up and make the world better, the voices stop, and so on. Where they cross the line is when they force others into their system of belief by force or coercion. The same theory applies to any religion that adopts the ‘convert or die’ mentality. A choice of faith is not something I see as having any reason to get you killed.

This is why we have the freedom of religion in America. The freedom of religion is in place to protect your right to practice whatever the hell you want; so long as you’re the only person it impacts. You have every right to have the option of worship in whatever way you choose, so long as it doesn’t force anyone else to adhere to your tenets of faith, but you have to accept that not everyone out there will agree with you and if they don’t, that’s their constitutional right.

These guns are not there for the purpose of attack, the justification of law, or to demand the conversion of another to your faith under duress and threat. You do not have the right to tout you political agenda as being in line with God or make the laws that God would want you to make. God does not live in America, the people live in America and, if you’re going to follow the faith of God into the hellfire of politics, you’ve got to remember what your own faith teaches you: God made everyone and only he gets to judge what they do as being right and wrong.

As a Christian, you do not have the right to say that it is illegal to have an abortion. It is not a religious argument in terms of legality, but rather a debate on the tenets of your faith in terms of a social practice. It is perfectly okay to come to the conclusion that God would not want you to get an abortion so you can’t have one, but it is not okay to say “God doesn’t want me to have one, so nobody else should either.” It doesn’t matter how virtuously you whore it up, the bottom line is that you’re oppression people’s right to believe what they want with your pseudo-righteous savior practices.

As a government body, be it federal or state, you do not have the right to enact laws or decisions on the basis of faith alone. It’s this high-and-mighty; lord on high in mind, decision making that drove many of the original pilgrims and settlers away in the first place. People want the right to practice their faith, and they should have it, and that’s it. They shouldn’t have, and flat out do not have, the right to tell you that this law enforces or is in response to the will of any God. This is a fraudulent adaptation of the first and second amendments simultaneously, in every way shape and form.

Religious freedoms is like gun safety, everyone should be taught it and follow certain principles of respect about how to wield religion in a way that keeps it safe and sound for everyone. It’s your obligation to understand that religion is a powerful thing and, if you use it, you have to be very respectful with how you choose to bring it into your world. You can’t bring your guns to bear on anyone who doesn’t agree with you. You can’t put your finger on the trigger in an attempt to prove you’re right or force anyone to think the way you do. That, again, isn’t why you’re allowed to carry the gun.

What these guns are here for is, is for you to defend your right of religion against the encroachment of government, the people, or other religions. It is your right to believe whatever you want to believe so long as you do not enforce that belief on anyone else. Nobody has the right to tell you what you can and can’t believe or can and can’t follow – so long as you understand that you’re not allowed to do the same to anyone else either.

So, when presented with charlatanic practices like the denial of welfare based on a decision about planned parenthood, you’ve got every damned right to pick up your Guns for God and say “I don’t fucking think so. I don’t agree with this and you can’t tell me I have to because that goes against everything this country was founded.” It’s these fundamentalist rights rapists that really do a good number on how the country looks as a whole. We’re supposed to be the land of the free, where people can come to live and believe as they will, and here we are, forcing people to chew on the sandals of God and crank out children from the product of rape because ‘it’s a miracle from God’.

Last I checked, no religion was a democratic society unto itself, nobody voted for God, and nobody should be forced to live under the rule that they did. You did not have to be a person of faith to live anywhere in America and it was not a requirement of anyone to go to church and thank Jesus for taking the dive for the rest of our sins.

To turn it around, if religion was a political debate – and keep in mind the constitution strictly states that that should never be the case – you’d have all manner of extremist degenerates screaming about how Jesus was a Marxist bastard who only cured the poor so he could better control them down the line, and Rabbi’s would be the Anti-Christ and the undoing of all things right and good in the world. We’re lucky it’s not that way all the time, but when you start imposing those same kind of ideas on the political level, about the welfare of your people and the state in which you live, it’s a slippery slope.

Being a person of faith is personal. It’s not legal, should have no bearing on law, and should not be a requirement of life. If you are one of those followers, for instance who is genuinely concerned for those around you who don’t follow because they’re staring down the face of eternal damnation? I feel for you in a lot of ways. You want to do right by the world and try and show people something you believe so strongly that it could fix everything that’s wrong with them and, you know what? That’s okay, as long as you let them say that they’re not interested.

It’s an option presented to everyone, even people like me who just like to give a tip of the hat in thanks because we know, if it’s true, we get our money’s worth out of a sacrifice like that. Still, no matter why anyone chooses to accept it, it’s their choice, plain and simple. Nobody has to take it and you can’t make them and, when someone aims their God-cannon at you in attempt to get you to submit to what they want in the world, you have the right to say no.

You have the right to stand your own ground of faith and conviction and do whatever you have to do. That’s your obligation as a practitioner of faith – stand by what you believe or it all counts for shit anyway. You have the right to stand up and say “I will not be forced to live this way because my constitution says I don’t have to."

You were given the right to be free from religious oppression, no matter how socially acceptable that religion is; you were given the right to have whatever relationship with God you want, you were given the right to believe or not believe based on what you saw. Anyone who tries to slap a law down around those foundations of your religion, who tries to tell you that this religion is better than that religion and this law should reflect that, is a snake oil salesman. Make the choices that are right for you and stand up for anyone’s right to choose whatever the hell they want.

It doesn’t matter if you’re a Catholic who attends mass six times a week at midnight, A Sunday Christian Soccer Mom, a Jewish person who never says a word, an Agnostic who doesn’t know what to believe but doesn’t want to discount anything, an atheist who thinks it’s all bullshit – at the end of the day, what you follow doesn’t matter. You’re a citizen of America first and whatever duty you may think you have to God comes second to the notion that you are not allowed to force that on anyone by any means.

If you decide that doesn’t work for you? You can go elsewhere. I want my leaders to get off the pulpit, to stop shaking hands with Jesus and throwing stones at who they perceive to be sinners like it’s their duty to this country. It’s not. As a politician it’s your job to leave your religious biases at the door and do what’s right for the people as a whole. If you can’t do that I imagine you and God aren’t on the best of terms anyway and remember this:

It doesn’t matter what faith you follow, your higher power – even if it’s science – made everything, even the people you think are misguided and wrong. It is okay to debate them, to try and understand, but if you try and demand they convert? Well, they’ve got every right to tell you, and quite plainly, to fuck off and I hope that some of them will take full use of their American liberty and do just that.

Faith may be the rock of the world, but the constitution is written on paper and everybody knows that paper beats rock.

The Self-Importance of looking in the Mirror: And making sure you understand what you see there.

The Self-Importance of looking in the Mirror:
And making sure you understand what you see there.

Too often am I presented with the circumstance of people able to look at their world and see all the things wrong with it. Too often I see a world of people swallowed up by the constant need for outside validation, by an over-active sense of empathy poorly balanced by an ability to take a good, long look at what’s going on behind the scenes in the mirror. Too often I see people taken down by a desire to be compassionate, to be understanding, to be fair, and balanced. Too often I see people being honest with the entire world around them, but staring at their reflection and telling themselves bold faced lies about what they see there. Too often I see people brushing aside their own lines in the sand to make way for someone else. This is why I think that’s no way to live, at all.

The world is full of people and things that will tell you ‘this is how to live, this is the right way to be, this is how to be healthy and happy and carry on’. I’ve been known to, for a lot of people, be one such force in life. Hell, this whole goddamned monkey show is, pretty much, to that point. It’s taking a long, hard, look at what’s actually going on in front of me and finding a way to retell it back to the lot of you with the appropriate shadings of insanity I tend to perceive in it. There’s something about it, however, that I do my best to try and tell you all.

What I see, what I say, what I think, isn’t the way I think it should be for everyone, but rather something I see that, to me, doesn’t work or doesn’t make sense. It’s something I look at, examine in a three hundred and sixty degree fashion, and, if I find nothing about it that fits what I see as a model for good and honest living, then I attack it like a swarm and present evidence for an alternative way of thinking. This does not mean, in any way, that I am right. It does not imply that my way is the way it should be, the only way, or even the best way for anyone but me.

I see a lot of people looking at this, at what I write, and a handful of other commercials and other forms of pandering media, and simply accepting that this is the way to be without a whole lot of thought on the matter. I see people taking what they see, what they hear, putting a personal brand-stamp on it, and tra-la-la-ing though fields of absolute bullshit – which says to me they’ve paid absolutely no attention to the things they’re claiming to use as dogma, mantra, or whatever pseudo-spiritual-life affirming wisdom based term they choose to apply. This, in black and white terms, is a huge problem – and it’s insulting to boot.

I understand it’s easy to sit there and do this, because it saves you the trouble of actual, perspective thinking. I can see the appeal there, but this is still a cautionary tale of self-told lies and a warning about taking in what’s in front of you without thinking about it.

We live in a world where compassion and empathy are expected, commercialized commodities.  We’re expected to think about how other people feel, we’re expected to see and feel the way other people do. It’s common consensus that, if you don’t do these things, you’re a selfish, greedy, asshole. If you don’t do these things, if you don’t put yourself in someone else’s shoes you can’t fairly formulate an opinion on what they’re thinking or doing. If you don’t do these things you’re a bad, bad, person and the world will hate you for it – and I challenge that notion to the fullest.

You’re worth more than the simple and thoughtless adoption of the present idea; I don’t care what the idea is and who you are as a person. Every damn one of you is a person of their own experience, their own perspective, their own ideas, their own thoughts, feelings, and so on. None of you should be sitting there, staring at whatever screen it is, even if it’s someone’s face, and simply accepting anything that comes off it without taking a moment to stop and think of how it applies to you.

If you simply take empathy to a mandated level of making excuses for someone else, then I will think you’re an asshole because you’re pissing all over something and someone – yourself – without even thinking about it, and I have no time for people covered in their own vocal piss.

It’s one thing to look at a situation and try and figure out how an outside perspective can be validated and make sense. For instance, if you have a partner who feels insecure about everything that you do, it is sensible to take a look at that and try and understand why. It is a fair expectation of emotional compromise to try and put your perspective behind their eyes and understand just what’s going on inside their head. This makes for a valid perspective and understanding, this is fair compromise, and this is what relationships, regardless of what level they’re on, work.

On the other side of the coin, if you’re one half of a relationship where you’re making excuses for privacy invasions, being blatantly mistreated and socially objectified because ‘someone’s had a fucked up life’, then you’re not doing them any favors at all. You’re pandering to their existence, you’re reinforcing everything that you’re trying to help them with, and you’re ultimately selling yourself with some backwater notion about an altruistic endeavor. You’re effectively fucking over everyone involved because you’re simply unwilling to take a look in the mirror and be honest with yourself about what’s really going on.

It’s in this sense that I actually advocate being selfish, where I strongly suggest sitting down in front of a mirror and telling the rest of the world to just fuck off, and take a long look at you for a change. Deal with the guilt, put it out there too, but really look at what’s going on around you. Look at your life, look at your world, look at your relationship, look at your boyfriend or girlfriend, look at your marriage, and ask yourself the questions that are, ultimately, the only ones that really matter: Is this what I want? Am I happy with this? Am I doing this because it’s what I believe, or just what I feel I should be doing?

Asking these questions is entirely selfish, because you’re putting yourself before anyone or anything else in your life, and it is one of the most important things you can ever do for yourself. It is not a bad thing; it is nothing that makes you insensitive or greedy. It does not devalue you as a person, just because you put value on yourself enough to look at your life and make decisions based on what you’re actually seeing, rather than some impromptu, emotional decision based on the consensus of appeasing your over-active conscience and trying to be the ‘better person’.

This is one of the biggest problems I see with the notion of ‘being selfish’. Just about everyone will stand up and say “YOU SELFISH BASTARD” and rarely, if ever, do you hear about the pragmatic, if not outright good, side of being selfish. Nobody wants to look at being selfish as one of those things that’s vital to living a continued and happy existence, because we’ve painted it up all up and black and turned it into something really only favored by serial rapists, child molesters, public masturbaters and murderers who like to choke out prostitutes in seedy motels with dirty sheets and broken air conditioning.

I counter this by saying that anyone who is incapable of being selfish deserves a wide berth. Anyone who is unwilling, for whatever reason, to put themselves first in life, is setting fire to their sails and dooming themselves to a lifetime of charred maps and sailing in circles.

It’s these frustrated and unkempt individuals who’re some of the most dangerous beasts that prowl the world in which we live. They’re too caught up in the commercialized altruism, in giving money to starving African children, but stoning the poor bastard who came up with the idea because he likes fucking himself in public. It’s these people who sell themselves out to be ‘good’, who shut down anything that’s bad, never mind the big picture, and refuse to acknowledge that they’re the most important people in their universe, that one should strongly consider running away from in abject terror.

They’re the people who’re always putting themselves out there selflessly with warm smiles and hugs for the world, the people who are always remembered as ‘such a nice guy’ before walking into a fast food restaurant and smashing someone in the face with a twelve gauge round because the cook forgot to hold the ketchup. It’s people like this that, again, serve as an illustration as to why being selfish, from time to time, is one of the most important things you can do for yourself as a person.

If you’re unable or, worse yet, unwilling to put yourself first then you’re ultimately repressing your own desires and aspirations for life. I don’t trust these people on principle because they don’t look at what they’re doing, and can’t really trust themselves. It’s these people who change when they drink, or make excuses about doing drugs because it makes them do things they don’t want to do. It’s these people who make excuses for being abused by themselves or others, and these people who walk around in endless circles, drooling and crying on their shoes.

Life is all about what you, the amazing bastard you are, living it. It’s about you making the right choices for you and trying to get those choices to line up in a way that lets you carry on the way you want to and be happy. This is why it’s important to look in the mirror, look at the world around you, look at what’s happening right behind you, and figure out, from a selfish perspective, if it’s what you want for yourself.

This practice doesn’t make you an asshole and anyone who tells you otherwise deserves a full on dose of claws and teeth. Being selfish doesn’t mean you’re an asshole. Being selfish doesn’t make you a bad person. Being selfish means that you’re looking at the world out of your own eyes and making the decision that’s best for you. If that happens to line up with your altruistic intention of doing good by your fellow man? Great, that’s an noble ambition. If it doesn’t, and you’re sticking around anyway? Congratulations on fucking yourself.

Just to be clear, however, this is not saying there is nothing good about trying to be an altruist or that your empathy and compassion are wasted skills in a bankrupt wasteland of bullshit. Both of these things are, on paper, noble, but you’ve got to temper them with good, old fashioned, bouts of self-indulgence and taking some time to put yourself first. Without you, your life will not go on, and there is absolutely no point in living life for anyone but you.

So if you want to go out and life, trying not to step on toes? I’ll stand up and clap my hands for you. If you set out promising you’ll never step on a toe or put yourself first? I’ll call you a twisted, strange, beast, a liar, and steer clear of whatever ocean you have decided to call your own.

Again, the point of life is to live it, and if you’re living for someone else, to borrow a phrase from the internet generation, “You’re doing it wrong.”

The Importance of being Morally Clever

The Importance of Being Morally Clever:
because there’s always something out there bigger than you.

In writing correspondence to a friend of mine this morning, who was writing some understandably frustrated words at the world, several things about which I have not written about, occurred to me. I should go on record as saying I do not have all the facts about the situation, but neither did I find that I needed them to formulate the response. The long and short of it seemed to be that there was an unpleasant separation of people and the generic shit-storm of drama that tends to go around when that kind of thing happens. It got me thinking, which led to a drink or two, and now this piece relative to the matter at hand. No names will be mentioned in the interest of protecting the innocent.

One of the fundamental troubles that often come from having a relationship with another person is that you are, in no mistake, dealing with another person. This is regardless of what your actual relationship to them may, or may not, be in the real world. New friends, old friends, best friends, lovers, partners, strangers, one night stands, a room full of polyamorous swingers at a key party, drunken ruffians in a bar, or the person standing ahead of you in line at your favorite fast-food, restaurant, all of these people, who are all over the world, are people and if there’s one thing you can say about humans it’s that they are really, really, clever.

In fact, it’s in our hardwired nature to be clever, to be the smartest sonofabitch to ever terrorize the planet on which we live. It’s cleverness that got us out of the ocean, with all its big scary monsters, cleverness that had us find a way to harvest fire, cleverness that had a us invent the wheel, and tools, and cleverness that taught us to harness electricity. Cleverness has been that single bit of near insanity that has, through necessity, paved the roadways of our evolution – never mind that the byproduct of this evolutionary trait seems to be that we’ve made evolution a little bit pointless.

Still, in terms of natural abilities, we can no longer swim underwater indefinitely, we do not have the sharpest teeth, we cannot fly, we are not the fastest predator on the planet, nor do we have all sorts of bits and pieces that let us lay trap doors, change our colors, and so on. What we have is a brain; a fantastic supercomputer capable of all manner of insane ideas and thoughts and guess what? On top of an imaginative brain full of great and wonderful imaginations, we figure out a way to turn roughly ninety percent of those ideas into actual tools we can use.

Now, let’s take a step back and take a look at how being impacts the world in ways that aren’t related to visiting the bottom of the Marianas Trench. What does it really mean to be clever, socially, in this world? What does it really take to keep you not only in the game of life, but also somewhere close to the lead? What does it really take to keep up with the world around you which, with the help of modern technology like cell phones, the internet, Facebook and so on, is bigger and smaller than it’s ever been at any other point in human history?

There’s an inherent, intrinsic sort of wisdom that the animal worlds tends to understand. Weak things are easier to prey upon than healthy, strong, things. It’s a simple fact of the animal world, even if it’s one we don’t think about, I have a hard time looking at the world without seeing examples of it everywhere. A prime example of this, that is present (and complained about) in everyday life would be this:

You know someone, he or she has just separated from their respective partner in some way that could be considered unpleasant. There will be three types of people who universally appear on either side of that line; there will be those who were friends regardless, those mutual acquaintances who side with one or the other and begin a campaign of social genocide, and those social scavengers who have been waiting, stalking, just outside the wings of your everyday life, waiting for that moment for you to let your guard down so they can sweep in for the kill.

These latter are people we tend to shun, abhor, condemn, and cast out for being unscrupulous, self-serving, and bastards in general and while I am no stranger to such thoughts about people who would execute this tactic, there is something about it that warrants another look from a different perspective.

We live in a world that is full, nearly to bursting, with people; a world bristling with thought, cultures, ideals, and principles. We live in a world where everyone has a different idea about what they want, what they deserve, what they should be able to have, and it’s getting harder and harder to satisfy everyone.

For example, most everyone has their idea of ‘the perfect partner’ and probably someone they know who fits within those parameters. If we look at the 2011 sex ratio which postulates that there are only 984 women to every 1,000 men, then, by that number alone, if you assume only twenty percent fall into either a homosexual/asexual category (taking into account that these numbers would decrease within their own gender alone if not taking them out of the equation completely, there still isn’t enough for everyone to have what it is they’d want in black and white.

Okay, no problem. So people have to make choices about what they want, about what they’re willing to settle for and what they’re willing to compromise on. That seems pretty reasonable – except that it’s not. In a social sense we’re saturated with advertisements and social reinforcement that says ‘if you want it, then it’s you’re right to have it, but what happens when you can’t have it because it just isn’t there for you to have? What happens when your perfect man or woman is already with someone else? It then becomes your best interest, if the objective is to fuck and satisfy your desires, or to procreate and pass on a line age, to be seedy, perhaps a bit underhanded, and, without a doubt, clever.

It’s a simple fact: Being clever and having a willingness to be a bit underhanded increases your odds of survival. This is something that could, and often is, expressed in more areas of our life than we could possibly begin to understand – and it’s really easy to sit down and want to take a shit all over it. It’s really easy to sit down and look at the world like it’s full of monsters and assholes whose singular purpose in life is to wait for you to wander off on your own, and then tear your to shreds like some vicious predator who is ravenous with hunger.

It’s not in anyone’s best interest if we all fucking go out in a blaze of glory and fallout. It’s not in anyone’s best interest if the world comes to a crashing halt. It takes a genuine sense of cleverness to keep that from happening or, at the very least, a very large stick to beat anyone who offers that up as a serious threat. That works great for the world at large, even if ‘large’ is a bit of a stretch, but what about everyone in the world? How do we survive without becoming angry and jaded beasts looking to eat until we burst?

Then question then becomes ‘How do we survive and thrive without fucking someone over?’ There’s a simple answer to this one too: You don’t. You will fuck someone over, somewhere along your forward progress no matter what you do – even if that person ends up being you. It doesn’t matter who you are where you live, or what direction your moral compass points you. Eventually you’re going to bend someone over in a way they don’t like and give them something very uncomfortable to take one way or another.

It then becomes a question of value and worth. Will there be people out there who choose to place no value on morals? Abso-fucking-lutely. It is, without a doubt the easier way to be in life. You just worry about you and everything else can fuck off, eat shit, or get eaten. Will there also be people out there who say “Yes, I could fuck you in any way I so goddamn choose because I can, but I could also do this where my intention is to not fuck you and still get ahead? Again, abso-fucking-lutely. Does this always work? No.

So, everyone will fuck you over. Everyone will, at some point or another, act in their own self-interest. Everyone will do something that serves to get them ahead in a way that will set you back ten steps. With this rationale it becomes very easy to be bitter and willing to smash your moral compass with the hammer of success. It makes it very easy to keep your teeth sharp, your claws out, and your eyes always on the lookout for the weakest link you can step on, over or through.

How then, do we justify not bombing ourselves back into the Stone Age? How do we sit back and convince one another that humanity is, in fact, not worth vaporizing with the push of a big, shinny, red, button? The answer becomes identical to the problem: We’re really goddamned clever.

It is possible to be clever and hang on to your moral compass, no matter the incentive. It is possible not to cut deals with horned bastards or men in suit who have spikes tails when you see their reflection in the mirror. It is possible to say “Me first” without adding “So fuck you.” It is possible to step up and say “I didn’t mean for this to happen, but it did. I’m sorry, but in the process I set myself up rather well, is there anything I can do to help you?”

At the end of the day, what it really boils down to is choice. You have no, real, choice but to accept the fact that there simply isn’t enough for everyone to win the race, but there’s certainly enough for everyone to finish it without having to take the risk of crashing into a fuel truck and fuck it all up for everyone. We live in a world where we’ve gotten clever enough to make sure everyone has a shot to survive and that we have all the resources to make sure everyone can live, but that’s the catch; everyone has enough to live, but living isn’t the end all be all of life.

We’re clever. We’re smart. We’ve invented the wheel, we’ve learned how to fly, we can make fire, and we can split the fucking atom. We can bomb ourselves into oblivion, we can lie, cheat, swindle, scam, and steal our way into some, self-actualized, sense of importance and superiority, but we all have to answer the same question every day: Is it worth it to me, to keep doing this, just to make it?

Some people will answer that question with a resounding ‘yes’. Some people find no cost too great, some people would be willing to sell their metaphorical testicles if it meant making that extra bit of distance between them and whoever else was either ahead or behind them, but that’s just some people. That’s not everyone. There are people out there who would answer that question differently enough that they’re completely separated from members of the pack who don’t care if they starve to death.

Are they the majority? No, but that shouldn’t matter. They’re the kind of people, the type we all have the potential to be, who are morally clever. They’re a modern Tesla of sorts, people who just want to do what it is that they do best for everyone. It may be easy to miss them in a sea of monsters, it may be easy to overlook them in the pages of history, it may be easy to be angry at them because it looks like they’re trying to swoop in and steal the woman you used to be dating. They might look like the world’s biggest, most self-serving asshole you’ve ever met, but you’re clever.

Take another look at it. The next time you see someone who steps up and decides to commit to the path of pillaging and plundering without remorse, look again. Are they really doing what you think they are? Ask yourself the same question the next time you see someone do something that seems wholly altruistic. Are they, are you, doing something with a genuine intent? What is it you seek to gain from what you’re doing, and, if you look at these things are you okay with it? Is this something you would be okay being done to you?

You’re a human being. You’re designed to survive; you’ve evolved to be clever. Neither of these things gives you the right to be an asshole or to fuck the world over. All it gives you is the right to choose to weigh it out and look in the mirror to decide if it was worth it. There will always be bastards in the world, and there will always be those out there clever enough to get around them. There will always be monsters in the world and those clever enough to bring them down. There will always be evils in the world, and those morally clever enough to find a way to make the world better in spite of them.

This is why it’s so important to be morally clever, because not everyone else is in the world. Not everyone will stop and think of you, in fact most people won’t. It may be easy to say ‘Well, if they don’t care, why should I care either?’ and the answer is simple: You shouldn’t care if you don’t want to, but what’s someone who’s clever and doesn’t care about what that cleverness does to the world around them? You’re clever. Look around your world, if nobody really did care about anyone but themselves, if you really did just give up and decide to get drunk on power and put the petal underfoot, if everyone else decided to do that, where would we all end up?

Cleverness is power, great power, but you know what Uncle Ben always used to say about great power…