Entropy

It’s not that I haven’t updated.  I mean, yes – it is, fuck you for being so literal and all.  All of my energy this weekend has been poured so thoroughly into packing the house for a major move (and Pinterest), that I am just beat by the time eleven rolls around.  Friday’s draft never made Saturday’s edit, as I was representing at the animal shelter I volunteer for.  We were having an open house, in hopes of generating some additional donations.

Packing the house has actually left a lot of thoughts rolling around inside my head.  This has been quite nice as they aren’t math related.  Also, they are not ways to extrapolate my history into some boring tirade about tea in Indonesia.

One key I’ve pulled away is that no matter how much I improve myself, I always fall back on my cynicism.  These lessons in elocution have done more for improving the efficacy of my venomous wit, than in relaxing my rage on humanity.  I’m at a happy place with humanity, but I still have troubles suffering the daft.  I mean, if you act like a poo-flinging monkey, you shouldn’t be insulted when I treat you like a damn poo-flinging monkey.  Personal issues aside, it’s just a matter of reciprocity, and, my desire to not want to figure out why someone is a damn moron. 

Another thought, is why aren’t there more cynical motivational speakers?  You know, for the disenfranchised self-entitled generation.  We need fewer people to hold their hands, and more to smack them in the mouth while holding a mirror, so that they can better understand who failed them in life.

Seeing the house in disarray is also digging into my cerebral cortex.  I run outside for my workouts (we’ve covered that).  I’m still fairly demotivated, so this is about it.  I don’t really do crunches or sit-ups; I gave up on the Army workout ages ago.  I like to stay below a target weight, though, so I do what I can to keep off extra ass…ets.  I started running after going through a ton of therapy for my feet and legs, and I tell ya – it feels freaking amazing to know that my gimpy feet can go for two or more miles. 

What I hate, is the way this community completely saps my desire to run around.  Throughout spring of 2011, I would reflect on the how our little rental complex – while a little aged and lived in – was rather aesthetically pleasing.  Hell, I even bought a 35mm camera and went to town on this place.  Over time, the chance for good photos diminished, as the rough spots weren’t smoothed out.  In fact, it was getting worse.  Among many issues, there were dents in vinyl siding, gutters falling from rooftops, trash emanating up to a ten-foot radius from the dumpsters, and a rough smattering of children’s toys stretching up to fifteen feet from a unit’s patio. 

The road through the complex is – at most – ten feet from a unit, so you can see how that last one used to irritate the hell out of me.  I’d go to work in a retail store that was cleaned and fully restored the night prior, just to see it torn apart by noon the next day.  I wanted to smack the face of every little child that couldn’t understand why “P” does not come immediately after “B.”  Without proper outer-order, it is impossible to find inner-order, and I was surrounding myself with chaos.

Now, the natural progression of life towards a state of entropy, chaos, and destruction means life as we know it is against you from the first smack of the ass.  No matter your state of positivity throughout the day, you may still look this fact in the face while smacking a snooze button in the morning.  It creeps up during cellphone call drops.  When you’re missing a sock after running a pair through the dryer.  Worse, when your favorite hoodie goes through the drier.  Before The Great Severing, I had no perspective for this.

By being alive, life in general is out to kill you.  Your presence as a creature that can fight with tools, breed by combining traits that make you more resistant to bacteria and viruses, and oppose every natural order of things, makes you the largest threat alive today.  Think of this and your greatness within the natural order, the next time you feel ashamed for hiding in your car wolfing down only the sauce from a big mac.  I mean, it’s my favorite part, too, but I at least climb on the hood and get all Coyote Ugly with it.  Rubbing that special sauce on my chest while blasting Ke$ha is the best part.

The Spartan’s understood the crudest concept of the natural order.  Hell, they helped it along: child born weak? - Crush it against rocks.  In a way, every possible modern influence is still trying to toss us over the gorge.  From carcinogens, to natural viruses, ceiling collapses, PTSD - even to conventions of modern times, society, cultures, and populations.  One caveat, though: this process is one that goes for as long as people let it.

Since it’s a force that can be allowed to continue by people, you have the power to stop it.  No, you can’t stop death, but you can restrict how the chaos influences you.  I can’t stop the neighbors from leaving their kid’s toys all over the place, nor can I reasonably crush it under the wheels of my lovely car. 

Oh good lord how I would laugh at the looks on their young, innocent faces as those toys were destroyed beyond disrepair.  The conflict is: how does that make me better than the predecessors that contributed to what I am now?  How does that subtract from the influence of chaos?  Sadly, it doesn’t.  But at least it gives me perspective.

Perspective is a hell of a thing.  It is unique and all-encompassing, or it can be small, and singularly influential.  Perspective allows me to realize that any force can only hold the power to bring you down if you let it.  A religion can’t make you religious; talking about crime doesn’t make you criminal.  Whatever you do with the circumstance is on you.

That is why, after four bouts of insanity (see: ceiling collapse one, water main explosion 1, water main explosion 2, and ceiling collapse 2), Rae and I are just taking our lumps and moving on.  Literally 0 we move in out of here in less than six days.  Perspective allowed me to see what our bargaining chips were, and bring that power to the table in terms of relocating.  I had the wherewithal to create a legal debacle that would have been in our favor.  Yet, sometimes, the strongest thing someone can do is the subtlest.

Take the worst mistake I could have made in the past nine years – this turned into the best road for me.  Well, there was that Foo-Manchu mustache, but that’s not what I mean here.  The mistake found me bored out of my mind, out of a full-time job, and did not navigate itself to my advantage – hell, if left to its own devices I’d probably be taking offers for gay porn at $120 a film.  Every situation has every outcome – it all depends on what you want that outcome to be.  Do you want an excuse?  Do you want to be yourself?  Do you want to be proud of your actions?

I do.  I’m exhausted of living a life filled with biased news and fake smiles; half-assed excuses and political positions based on happenstance and conflicting emotions; a religion that is a default for the overly judgmental, as well as the socially introverted.  I don’t want to see a world of all things moving towards a state of absolute finality - all I can see is absolute possibility.  My perspective can only ever affect me the way that I allow it, but I wish more people could see the shape of the world from my eyes.