Christmas is finally over, what a relief. By the time dinner comes around everyone is so exhausted from delivering presents and decorating we all fall in a heap trying to watch Zatoichi. Still worth it...we ought to have more holidays. People won't commit to a gathering without days off.
Now I can focus on the little things, like a haircut.
I'm a little nervous because I fixed Jan. 1st as an significant date in my destiny, and now I have to owe up to it. Clean up a substance problem here or there, and begin working earnestly as an artist, as opposed to merely practicing technique.
Found that old articles from my days as a student journalist are making their way onto various strange websites: Mulatto.org, Tobacco.org, Barack-obama.tv. These pieces are rising like ghosts out of the internet graveyard. Weird. Hopefully when I die I won't be trapped in cyberspace. Goes to show that people will eventually track down anything, which is exciting but also something to keep in mind when we begin publishing serious work online.
Anyway...here's hoping the post-X-mas hangover is not too severe. Do people feel better or worse afterwards? Christmas is sort of reaching Dionysian heights; the only pleasure people distill is the delusion we imbibe. Like a cheap one night stand.
Fortunately now we can get on to the best holiday, the New Year. 2008 = 2 + 8 = 10 = 1 = new beginnings. No more cynicism, even from me. Because I have less than eight months until another benchmark I've set, my 23rd Birthday, and I must live sincerely at that point.
So we anxiously await 2008, an escape from 2007 = 9 which is a sign of transition, and we've been stuck in transit for a while now. Are we ready for the next stage, both in our personal lives and society, of a post 9-11 world, a hopeful and less dreary epoch than the police state mentality we cultivated when we handed our mythology to the neo-cons.
Please prove to be stronger than the smarmy, chickenshit ignoramuses that hid behind middle America the last time around; those that allowed their wounded pride and pathetic egos to be manipulated into populist fervor for war and a childish insistence on xenophobia. In the end, was our invasion of Iraq driven by anything less than what propelled the Nazi war-machine? Leaders decried the death of values, stroked the fear of invisible enemies in our midst organized around a racial and religious stereotype, an invasion launched on the first aggressive pretense available, dependent upon the a middle class with puerile worldviews and pathetic faith in the lies they heard in kindergarten.
Due to extreme ideology America failed to recognize that the problem lies in our unspoken commitment, our open secret, our worship of capital that crushes our time and space and way of life, and instead sought to blame outside forces. It failed to heed the gospels - he that is without sin may cast the first stone.
The rest of us, let's embrace 2008 and the healing it affords. For everyone's sake, hopefully the new feels completely refreshing. I am sick of being angry. But such anger is one of the most successful avenues for sincere art, because we have been harvesting it for so many empty years. But hurry and get such work out of the way so we can focus more on the optimistic, as hard as it feels right now. Save the punishment for God. Hate, empty grief and lust for vengeance will only haunt us later.
America will turn and find their fields ruined by drought, their children lost and bitter, a foolish laughingstock in the eyes of the world. And will have no one to blame but itself. But that doesn't mean that we should let it wither away. There is goodness and truth in everything. Our country provides as good a framework as any.
Shalom!
Now I can focus on the little things, like a haircut.
I'm a little nervous because I fixed Jan. 1st as an significant date in my destiny, and now I have to owe up to it. Clean up a substance problem here or there, and begin working earnestly as an artist, as opposed to merely practicing technique.
Found that old articles from my days as a student journalist are making their way onto various strange websites: Mulatto.org, Tobacco.org, Barack-obama.tv. These pieces are rising like ghosts out of the internet graveyard. Weird. Hopefully when I die I won't be trapped in cyberspace. Goes to show that people will eventually track down anything, which is exciting but also something to keep in mind when we begin publishing serious work online.
Anyway...here's hoping the post-X-mas hangover is not too severe. Do people feel better or worse afterwards? Christmas is sort of reaching Dionysian heights; the only pleasure people distill is the delusion we imbibe. Like a cheap one night stand.
Fortunately now we can get on to the best holiday, the New Year. 2008 = 2 + 8 = 10 = 1 = new beginnings. No more cynicism, even from me. Because I have less than eight months until another benchmark I've set, my 23rd Birthday, and I must live sincerely at that point.
So we anxiously await 2008, an escape from 2007 = 9 which is a sign of transition, and we've been stuck in transit for a while now. Are we ready for the next stage, both in our personal lives and society, of a post 9-11 world, a hopeful and less dreary epoch than the police state mentality we cultivated when we handed our mythology to the neo-cons.
Please prove to be stronger than the smarmy, chickenshit ignoramuses that hid behind middle America the last time around; those that allowed their wounded pride and pathetic egos to be manipulated into populist fervor for war and a childish insistence on xenophobia. In the end, was our invasion of Iraq driven by anything less than what propelled the Nazi war-machine? Leaders decried the death of values, stroked the fear of invisible enemies in our midst organized around a racial and religious stereotype, an invasion launched on the first aggressive pretense available, dependent upon the a middle class with puerile worldviews and pathetic faith in the lies they heard in kindergarten.
Due to extreme ideology America failed to recognize that the problem lies in our unspoken commitment, our open secret, our worship of capital that crushes our time and space and way of life, and instead sought to blame outside forces. It failed to heed the gospels - he that is without sin may cast the first stone.
The rest of us, let's embrace 2008 and the healing it affords. For everyone's sake, hopefully the new feels completely refreshing. I am sick of being angry. But such anger is one of the most successful avenues for sincere art, because we have been harvesting it for so many empty years. But hurry and get such work out of the way so we can focus more on the optimistic, as hard as it feels right now. Save the punishment for God. Hate, empty grief and lust for vengeance will only haunt us later.
America will turn and find their fields ruined by drought, their children lost and bitter, a foolish laughingstock in the eyes of the world. And will have no one to blame but itself. But that doesn't mean that we should let it wither away. There is goodness and truth in everything. Our country provides as good a framework as any.
Shalom!
posted by Deadondres at 7:28 AM
0 comments
