It Always Comes Back to You

It always comes back to you.
Memories you try to forget,
Images you try to unsee,
Words you try to unsay,
Feelings you try to unfeel.

Playing tug-of-war with
Grenades made of steel.
Shiny bulbs and pockets
Of warmth turned cold
With an age-worn peel.

It always comes back to you.
The memories you want back,
Rolling in a reel of sepia-
Toned movies of nostalgic
Joy that soon fades to black.

It always comes back to you.
The images you cannot deny,
Flashing in unison with a snap
Of remorse and regret, still
Painted on the walls of my eye.

It always comes back to you.
The words you wish had been said,
Always lined up so perfectly,
Just too late to have an effect
After they got caught in your head.

I always come back to you.
Feelings that will always remain
In my heart. No matter how hard I try
To refrain from thinking or feeling
You simply because of the pain.

Grocery Store Hijinx

There is a lot of room for practical fun in grocery stores. Like bringing in a sharpie and drawing faces on all the produce. Or filling up several carts with a massive amount of weird stuff and leaving them around the store. Maybe even take a bunch of fresh vegetables and leave them sporadically inside the freezer section.

I'm actually compiling a grocery list to use in a practical joke.

Milk
Eggs
Hershey's Chocolate Bar
Orange Juice
Steak
Potatoes
Broccoli
Lettuce
Cheerios

I'm going to go into a grocery store and buy all of this. Then I'm gonna leave and go to the nearest grocery store to the first. I'm gonna bring in the groceries I just bought and exchange what I bought in the first store with items from the second store.

Does this qualify as shoplifting? Technically, I didn't pay for any of it, but I left the exact same object in its place...same brand and everything. I'd be willing to bet I'd get in a major hassle for doing it though. Makes very little sense to me, but sounds pretty funny. Hell, maybe don't even exchange them. Just keep on bringing small grocery items in without buying anything. Just bring some random groceries in each day and leave them there. See how long it takes them to confront you about it. I'd give it a week.

Take This with a Grain of Salt...

While driving behind someone with an absurdly closed-minded pro-life (not all pro-lifers are closed-minded, but this particular one happened to be) bumper sticker yesterday, my brain started running. I just kept on toying with the idea of how to thoroughly offend someone who has no logic behind their own position on abortion and simply blindly believes what their religion has told them about it.

I have nothing against religious people, just people who blindly follow anything, and that just happens to describe some religious people. So, although I don't actually agree with these statements, I came up with them while driving and attempting to think of the most ridiculously offensive things anyone could ever say to a religious fanatic fighting against abortion.

Abortion: Simply Sending Unborn Babies to God Sooner Rather than Later

Abortion: Send a Baby to God Before it can be Born and Tainted with Original Sin.

Abortion: Send a Baby to God Sooner than you Expected

Abortion: If Jesus had been Aborted, he wouldn't have had to Suffer on the Cross to get to Heaven.


Sometimes the way my mind works actually scares me...

"They" are Taking Over!

Paranoia is for idiots. Unless of course they are actually out to get you. I mean, it can only be an inflated ego that makes someone think that people are paying so much attention to them that everyone is actually colluding to destroy them in some grandiose plan. But what if someone is actually trying to do that? Everyone would think you were crazy, but it does happen, right? It would just make it that much worse because everyone would think you were crazy...which you probably are. There obviously aren't any large conspiracies against you.

But what about small conspiracies...How many people does it take to make a conspiracy? I bet I could get three people together to hate someone and attempt to socially destroy them. Does three people make a conspiracy? I bet I could find three people who hate me and want to destroy me too. Does that make me paranoid? Or am I just paranoid that I might be paranoid? What if you were paranoid and never knew it?! How would you ever solve your problem of paranoia? Or even worse, what if you weren't paranoid and should be?! Someone is actually trying to destroy you and you wouldn't be able to do anything about it because you don't suspect them of anything!

This is why we need security at the airport, random police searches of individuals for no reason and internments camps for people who think about possibly committing a crime. We need to protect ourselves.

Catharsis

How is it possible to feel so loved by the people around you yet hate everything at the same time? I've wished so many times in my life to be the one who cares less about the other person because so often I am the one who cares more. The one who cares more is always the one who is hurt more. I wish I had a metal heart. I wish I had the ability to be selfish. I so rarely do, and when I actually am selfish, I wind up feeling such a useless emotion such as guilt about it. This might even sound like I'm pouring my heart out in a sob story, but frankly, I don't give half a shit anymore. I hate being the one who cares less. In that particular situation, I feel like ten pounds of shit in a two pound bag and I hate that feeling.

I don't even give a shit that I get hurt. I'd rather care about people rather than ignore their feelings in favor of myself. And frankly, I can take it. If it means caring about someone in a way that transcends myself, I can take the punishment. I don't like taking it. When it occurs, it makes me want to live someone else's life. The simple fact remains that I can handle it eventually. I can take the punishment. I can withstand the torture. I can absorb the ache. I can heal the wounds. And yet, with all the wounds I lick and all the gashes I bandage, I still feel that I personally could not live any other way. I just couldn't give up the possibility of someone giving back to me what I want to give to them. It is simply a curse and a blessing at the same time.

Finding Fear

Fear is a tricky thing. It doesn't quite serve a practical purpose, but it is a fundamental human emotion. It is so pervasive to the human situation that it is practically a human condition. Fear itself is the motivating factor for so many things in humanity. Terrorism is so terrifyingly successful because it preys on fear. People can actually be afraid of two opposing factors at the same time. There have been times in my life in which I have been simultaneously afraid of success and failure. It seems so counter-intuitive, but it still happens somehow.

Fear is primarily psychological, but it actually runs deeper than that. It's so primal that it is actually a baser instinct. It also means that it is incredibly hard to control and conquer. Ask anybody with an irrational phobia. It isn't something that you can just immerse yourself in and get over. It is so much more than that. It runs so much deeper than a psychological condition.

Fear can be used as well, but it is such a dangerous tool simply because of its sheer power. It may be one of the single most influential powers on the planet: simple fear. It's a simple concept with a ridiculously complex spiral of uses and manifestations. Life is a battle between overcoming fear and finding comfort, but it is also oddly about finding fear and fighting comfort.

This is what goes through my mind when I am attempting to sleep. I guess Aristotle would be proud, but my guess is he would be the only one.

All the Same, Same the All

You can tell pretty easily what is important to people. Just look at what they choose to brag about. The boasting doesn't have to be (and most often isn't) verbal or direct. It is simply what they take pride in, what they desire, what they show off, what they present, what foot they put forward.

That middle-aged man you saw driving down the street in a Ferrari.

That woman you saw walking in $3000 boots from a designer you can't pronounce.

That guy in the bar drinking a beer 8 times more expensive than all the others.

They are all making a statement that can basically be drilled down to "I'm better than you." Everyone tries to differentiate themselves. Everyone tries to show people they are better than others. There are seemingly endless avenues for this.

The actual reality though is that it is just overcompensation for an insecurity. The fact is that fundamentally, we are all the same. I don't even mean strictly that people are the same as other human beings. I mean that we are all the same as any other organism in existence. We are walking protoplasm that masquerades as something more glorious than worm food. This sounds nihilistic, but I assure you it is not. I have no issue with valuing human life as being worth more than other forms of life. In fact, I think you are screwed up if you don't (You hear me, PETA?!)

There is a clear separation between realizing that you are not objectively superior or even different than a tree or a virus and placing personal value on yourself, your species, your tribe, etc. Life shouldn't be changed by the realization that it ends. You should have always known that anyway. In fact, it should only spur you to value it more. These values are universal.

There is no point in valuing someone for their car. You receive nothing in the grand scheme of things by proving yourself smarter than someone else. You show nothing by flaunting the fact that you have more money. You still die. You still fade. Your effect on the earth is nothing more than that of a rock or a tree. Just in the same way that the earth's effect on the universe is nothing more than the sun or Alpha Centauri. The real point is to just enjoy yourself with the time you have. It is actually quite liberating to realize that you are no more than dirt or air or fire or dust or wind or dust in the wind.