happy new years baby

Agenda

Dave's agenda ;

1. see 'Milk' last nite (it was great)
2. have brian talk me down off a (metaphorical) bridge last nite (this was, to be fair, pretty great as well)
3. make some coffee, put on clothes
4. Buy new canvas' from Pearl, make something
5. renew passport because it expires in Feb '09
6. go to tattoo shop, figure out prices, set... an.... appointment...????
7. go somewhere for new years eve, maybe in a car
8. figure out if i have a job, and react accordingly
9. plan a trip to somewhere
10. don't go crazy
11. if crazy, get help
12. seduce women by playing guitar in foreign countries
13. write about it

what would joni do

sometimes i write some stupid things at 4 am when ive been drinking. sorry about that.

we have one week left in this year of 2008, and i think it's fair to say that most things have gone the way of the buffalo. But the sunset tonite was still amazing. Theres so many songs that talk about new years resolutions and how stuff is shit, i will probably listen to these songs. Things are strange. I thought i knew alot of things, but i didnt.

"But to the rest speak I, not the Lord: if any brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away." (I COR. 7:12)

"...and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; else were your children unclean; but now they are holy." (I COR. 7:14)

Turns out, love is the most important thing. How do i constantly, constantly forget to love, knowing its the most important part of being who i am. Paul is clear that He is saying what he says in those verses, not God, meaning it's just his opinion - which is strange because it's in the Bible, which is supposed to be all true. There is, however, alot of other implications for the man in this, if he is to follow through on this. There are no rules, at least that I have found, that tell you about going into a relationship, or any of that. Imagine, not being told what to do. Either way, this shit shook my mind. What a surprise, i may have done something impulsive. Well anyway, its almost time for church. Keep your eyes on Gaza and all that is happening. Dont get scared just yet.
Joni will show you what to do.

forget your problems, at least youre not in the gaza strip right now.

pray for peace, even though it will signal the end of the world.

.right.

christmas

merry christmas to everyone. i love you all very much.
this movie is my fondest of all childhood memories.

http://www.fanpop.com/spots/christmas/videos/13835


...and this is just good

What a wicked game to play

we cant toy with all of these hearts at once
or, okay, well, maybe we can
I never imagine that I will end up on the losing end
And my clothes will at least be clean at the end of the day
And anyway you were wrong from the first
When you called it a game
It’s amazing, how all the things we say we could say at any time now
And noone would think we were too young anymore
I’ve been sleeping too long, wishing for some arms to wrap my own around
Give me a reason to lie here a little longer
Instead of regrets and bitter memory to bed down in
Its right now that I realize - that none of this could possibly matter
Otherwise we would all be a waste, and what a tragedy it would be for us all to be following after something we can never find
There has to be something else besides our silly games
A crown that even love needs to wear, something else we don’t understand
It’s been so many weeks, and I wonder why you affect me the way you do
Where you get your timing from, how you knew the day I would be open on the table
Here on this bus, on the way through this winter
sometimes, when I think of you
Sometimes, I get so short of breath
And I have to remember I cant be responsible for anyone, no more
And how I’ve grown to hate the thought of our bodies
Your body
And im sorry, I don’t have the gift, I cant make you cry on cue, but I can promise you
I felt it just as much as anyone ever has
So here I am, always a few pints gone, asking after every pretty face I thought
might one day have a chance with, whispering, wondering is this what I was born for
I’ve been thinking about what it would really feel like to jump in the shoes
Of all the life-darkened faces I see
And what you all think my eyes have seen in this short time, because
I couldn’t care anymore about all of that bullshit tragedy
What we’ve all got to say is not enough to make it right, all I’ve got are these arrows on my sleeves, some guidelines, my fabulous unproven point
once every 3 years. All I can offer is my body, maybe a few words that may or may not make you feel anything for me, depending on the day
I cant promise you that we will bask in some glory of the grand finale
of time falling down, because now I know it won’t be so beautiful without you
knowing you’re still down in the out, and that maybe I could have done something different, I could have certainly been a better man
That together we’d greet the end knowing we were right, now
We just sink into something else, wondering where the truth lied between us
And how heartbroken one of us will be to say I told you so
I guess I’ll just try to rise above
And figure out what that means hopefully after I’ve done it

youre welcome

http://filmdrunk.uproxx.com/?p=7538

damn

science. look it up

http://www.cracked.com/article_16871_6-insane-discoveries-that-science-cant-explain.html

sure wish i had seen this

the new dream team

the moon and i

the full moon tonight (friday december 12th) will be the closest the moon has been to the earth in 15 years. go look at it.

a break from feelings

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7774287.stm

i post this story because i know it will upset adam, or at least make him be annoyed.
black holes = not real. question mark? How can you say if the very thing you're trying to prove cant actually be seen? quantum gravity is something i cant even think about, because i dont know how.

i'm not going to talk about the nature of infinity because i am not qualified, but infinity by nature has to contain everything (but you just said....) . God is infinite, but able to bend the rules? He is, after all, God. Because God by nature cannot have any sin.
.....Dave by nature is so interested in things he cannot understand because they are impossible for him to figure out.
i cant find my philosophy book
one more thing - when you are faced with something that you consider to be beautiful, be it a painting, or the ocean, or whatever strikes your fancy, what is the thing it reminds you of? If you spend enough time looking at something you find beautiful, does it always remind you of the same thing, the same person, is there a common thread in things in the world that are beautiful? Does it stand alone, or are you always reminded of something else that is in your mind or perceptions of beautiful (God, angels, vampires, the devil, you know whatever strikes your fancy). It's fair to say that some things are beautiful only to you. maybe. i dont really know what im getting at. i had first started to think about this when i was looking at the ocean every nite on the cruise ship i attended this past summer, and how it is the best thing for me to look at, thinking about the straight horizon line and (cough) infinity, the above and below both going on forever, light and dark, water and fire, love and hate, the moon existing in the sky and in the surface of the water. and yes, i'm talking about my paintings now too. anyway
i found my philosophy book

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole
http://www.gotquestions.org/infinite-God.html

master fader

http://www.phillyturkey.com/InTheCity/#2

today was a great day.

interesting things are happening in greece.

God is still here, and He's still doing good stuff

and i wont lie - the new fall out boy leaked today, and i am in teenage heaven


and oh yeah - God is still here, and He's still doing good stuff.

and then, i got better

here is what today was like
tonite, i walked home from kung fu necktie with a hockey stick i found on the side of the alleyway. i thought it was menacing as could be. plus, i had just got done listening to nachmystium, so you can imagine how pumped i was. right?
the hummus i am eating right now smells like cat food. i think it is safe to say that it has gone bad. and yet, it tastes the same as when it had gone good. i bought saltines because they were cheaper than triscuits.
this morning i went to friendly's to meet with a bride who wanted to meet me to see if i would be okay to dj her wedding next month. she had a lazy eye. but that was okay by me. stephen asked if we had smile cones together, and the answer was no, we did not. truthfully, i have never heard of a smile cone before, and am skeptical as to whether it's real or not.
after this i went and visited my dog for a minute (it was on the way). I picked up some cassette tapes that my brother had owned from a small compartment that smelled like memories underneath the water bed. Then i went to the grocery store.
At the beer man store near my house they are giving away cups. This is fantastic for the obvious reasons.
i was thinking walking home, in the dark alley, with my hockey stick, how many people lived on just this one small street in this one small part of this city, and how impossible it is to care about even all of them, let alone all of the other people. do you need to focus on what you can, what you know, does alot of that consist of looking at yourself? that's okay, maybe. maybe that's all you are able to do. i hope i can move out from myself and onto other people. if you tarry until youre ready, you'll never come at all. you know?
i love to look at the sky at nite. and okay, during the day, too. i saw a huge shooting star the other nite (before i was in the hot tub), and it reminded me of alot of things, and was full of joy.
ive been thinking alot about rome, and all of the things that happened there. i think that maybe i am starting to figure myself out.
ive been reading a survey of the new testament
tomorrow i will make brownies.
just seeing your hands from two chairs across is enough to distract me for a full hour.

in the hoons crib

boy i feel bad recently. it's okay, i know why.
tonight i will stay at my parents house, it is 2:20 am, and i am there. I thought about getting in the hot tub, and maybe i will do that, after this. There was a holiday party tonight for a company going out of business, and as such they went out with a bang. There was even karaoke, if you can imagine. And a boss dancing his single dance move precariously close to the overly-friendly-now-that-she's-drunk woman, the same one who i'm pretty sure was silently weeping when she thought she couldn't have one of the inflatable penguins which wears a hat. That grammar is questionable. I can't believe it's christmas time already, and that people actually expect me to play christmas songs. When did the months go by?
It's been a tough couple of days, lots of loneliness among large amounts of people, lots of lost sleep that is then regained during the day when I should be awake. Lots of headaches. I've never been able to break through to the other side of this yet. I don't really know what I should try to think about, it seems like everything leads me to the same point of me being upset. I was thinking today how lonely my brother must be. He only hangs out with my parents, does some odd jobs for people he does not know, then has to go home at 8 every night and be there, by himself, with nothing but a little tv and his thoughts in a room that is as big as my old bedroom i'm inside right now. This troubled me. It's as they say that if you want to find something to be sad about it you need only to open your eyes. Maybe it's a point of view thing. Regardless, i don't know what my role is in all of this (a common theme with me). I suppose the alternatives are worse.
I think i have a hard time believing that i will or should get something good out of life. For the most part, I haven't tried all that hard to achieve it. The things I think are great to pursue are usually not. It's a good thing you don't have to deserve good stuff in order to get it. I'm also tired of being a sad sack. This is difficult when at the same time I martyr myself left and right and seem to actually seek it out. I've been thinking about California, and maybe getting a bartenders license, and a motorcycle, and to actually start saving up money for that tattoo I want. I don't want to bring unneeded or hasty change just because I want it, I think i've done that quite enough, thank you.
i think i'm going to end every post i do for awhile with "God is still here, and He's still doing good stuff". maybe then i'll start to think it's true more than every 3 to 4 days.
Still looking for that roommate....

so.....

it is official. stephen is moving out on january 1st. anyway who is reading this or knows somebody that would be a good fit for our house here in the north of philadelphia, with me and megin, and the recently engaged brian (who will move out in a few more months), please let me know asap so i can rigourously screen and interview you. i actually won't do any of those things. for more than a few minutes.
i had some good conversations tonite. does it make me feel cool when people advocate therapy to me? well yeah, but no. i like the idea of a non biased, non objective listener, but dont i already have one of those in my own mind?

woops.....

i believe in the sun, though it is late to rise
i believe in love, though i do not feel it
i believe in God, though i cannot see him

happy christmas month starting tomorrow

i had a dream today where i was hearing this song, and my dad said to me 'see, sometimes songs are quick to take away the heartbreak.' But i'm not sure if he was right, because it made me cry.
....it was a vanessa carlton song, 'more than this'. Get off my case about it.
I hope everyone had a good thanksgiving and vacation weekend. Mine was nice. I think i'm going to resolve to not drink for awhile. my head needs the break. So here it is, december already.
there might be some openings in my house soon, if you would like to move in with me. There will, of course, be an interviewing process.
i wish my mom would stop calling me to remind me i forgot to go there today and set up the Christmas tree.
you knew i had one, so here it is, the obligatory break up poem i made last week. enjoy.

i dont know, im none too sure
maybe its all the same, maybe i've made some choice at some point
i wish there was a way, to know for sure, inside
but in some place, there is always someone who doesnt
for the time, i am convinced
we all ask why we live here, if love is the way we always thought it would be
when can i have an answer that suits me, or at least settles me
down and out of a complacent shrug
for when things don't quite work the way i had thought they might
but work is still what things somehow end up doing
and i know i'll learn to live with new memories
its just that work seems to be the key verb here

dear God please help us, i think i've heard your voice again
and its my blame that you needed to filter it so many times until i knew it was you
we spent so many years, trying to convince me that the words were just from the other me
and how i can't trust him, when things are turning out this way
but tonight, there was no mistake
and my eyes were convincing me that it really was the end
i had hoped that getting far from you would bring me close to Him
but now, today, i just don't know where i am
and God's far, and you're still farther, and im sitting still
i'm trying to find her, to get rid of you
and i'm trying to imagine you with him, to get rid of me
but mostly i'm trying to not imagine anything at all

i know we'll be fine
i think we'll be fine
i hope you will let me know that you are doing fine

so, here it is, 5 am, thanksgiving morning. at some point last nite i fell asleep. i dont remember when. i finished two new paintings yesterday. they will be up when i have a camera again. my old one (the one in my phone) is gone, because that phone is broken. it is the quietest right now. noone else is around. i might love it, or i might not. i have a huge headache. there were terrorists in india who killed alot of people, i am reading. and there might be a new military coup in thailand (thanks to the PAD thai, which is only a little bit hilarious). and some people are fighting a war right now.
so. happy thanksgiving, i hope we can really know how blessed we are.

not much really

my parents came to visit.
so apparently i am being slowly killed via carbon monoxide. unconfrimed, but it would explain why i get so sleepy when im up in my room, closest to the heater and its many illustrious fumes. I was promised a CO detector for Christmas. Hopefully that won't be too late....
just joking, but seriously.
i dont know when i work next. maybe i got fired. i did not do my homework.
i've been reading about things, and thinking about active love and acceptance of others. its hard to forgive people, especially myself as the main person who i need to get over. Changing my entire mindset will take work i am assuming. im trying to get back to somewhere, a place i cant even remember, except i think it was real. maybe it's entirely new. either way i have to stay excited about it actively, or i crawl right back into this mope tree and go under the blankets. i got friends, to help me pull through. well, most of the time.

best songs these days - kanye west - love lockdown, manchester orchestra - i can feel a hot one, sia - breathe me, the kinks - strangers, manchester orchestra - badges and badges, decemberists- raincoat song

happy birthday

happy 31st to The mr daniel james montgomery, love peace and rest

feeling guilty for wanting to live a happy life, when the world is so fucked that maybe being sad with it is the least i could do? what a waste of time.
so, what do we do? try to change it all? try to change where we live? go somewhere else and try to change that? or do i try to change myself? I feel humble before it all. because i dont understand it all, i dont understand it at all.

new paint

these posted in reverse order, but i'm not going to change it. the second picture is the first state and the first picture is the (semi) finished product. not too complicated. i'm thinking maybe one more crisp racing stripe near the top, maybe not. give me a few more looks.
i was so close to going into the basketball game across the street tonight, not to play (i am astronomically bad at basketball) but to watch and have interest, but there were some scary looking people at the entrance when i made a lap. turns out im a racist too. baby steps, at least i was out in the park at night, and having a very nice time. a sligthly hazy, smoky, very nice time.

reading into the nite

a beautiful sunday, but it felt cold by the end.

i have to admit, it turns out, i enjoy grey's anatomy. my apologies. for that among so many other things. i wrote alot of things today, after hours of whiskey and church and medical and funeral home-related drama, but it's nothing that should be repeated, at least not to everyone. I am trying so hard to start.

listen to 'right away, great captain'. God is the captain. do you get it?

i'll be sad when my dog dies

i feel no different for trying

“the gods put us down with a certain arbitrary glee in the wrong place – and what we seek is who we really ought to be, like Parcheesi which I don’t remember how to play.”

all i could think in church today (though im not supposed to call it church) is that so many times we do the right thing,we make the right choice, without any acknowledgment of why we do it, and it becomes so useless to do things "for God" because that wasn't our original intention, just a happy afterthought. I'm hoping that it turns out to really not be about me at all, because if that was the case, all i did was make a mess of it all.

some things

the first thing my assistant said to me today was ' you look like a french gentleman'.
not even 'hello'.
i said 'you better take care not to offend me so often'. He assured me he meant well by it. I am no longer exactly certain of the purpose of this blog, and i guess i never was, whether it's for artwork or ideas or being jaunty, or a lopsided combination of the 3. It's been some heavy days lately, and alot of water has fallen. I am trying very hard to not get depressed. i have reached season 5 of six feet under.
the best part was when the man said 'you people hang on to your pain like it means something, like it's worth something; well, let me tell you, it ain't worth shit.' why do we hang on to pain like it's going to help us out sometime later, or make us feel cool, or get us some sympathy from someone who otherwise would find you uninteresting? hmph. i guess sometimes we just do.

I am at work on a large square canvas, with paint chips and ocean water in the works. i started reading either/or again, as well as some weird book my mom gave me called 'the shack'. When i go to work, all i am thinking is that i should quit the next day, then after the job is over, all i am thinking is 'maybe it's okay if i keep it'. I am thinking this is a personality flaw. My dad is unhappy with Obama. I'm listening to the wall-e soundtrack, which is surprisingly making me fairly unhappy, not because it's not great, mind you. Something is wrong outside right now; a car horn keeps beeping and its 2:30am. someone else is yelling to 'shut the f up'. I sometimes think i've slept so much that I could stay up for days without getting tired. It's never turned out to be true. I have been trying hard to wake up early (ie 9-10 am) so that I can enjoy a full day. It's hard when you can hear the rain on the rooftop above. the other day dante said about our age group of people that 'we all see where we want to be and what we want to do over there; But, we're over here, and we have no idea how to get to there.' Me personally? i think id like to go on a trip.

i dont know what it is, but the fact that everyone is so excited about obama being the president and that they're all so sure that he is going to change the world and now they're proud of their country and new puppies and yada yada really makes me feel like like 'uh-oh, what's really going to happen, with all of these hopes getting up, surely he is going to usher in the apocalypse.' i hope things get better, thats why i voted, but this feeling is worth mentioning, question mark? either way, alot of people's color is showing these days, which is great. silly racists.

growth involves change
and change involves pain

SHOWWW

sign of the times

so, after talking with brian today about fema and their disposable coffins and their containment camps and martial law....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P-hvPJPTi4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYp85QMJd1Q&feature=related (in case you havent seen this BS yet)

the end of the world is exciting, i guess. Im not going to promote or demote anything about conspiracy theories because they are, by and large, retarded (i guess that was a demotion). I do want to think about my role in the mess though. I dont think it's the end of the world. Maybe the end of America. But what kind of attitude is appropriate if that is the case? People don't understand if i tell them i have no hope in my country and instead have hope in my God. Now that doesn't mean being apathetic towards what happens in the US and not hoping for a revolution along with most other people i know, but if it doesn't happen, despite our best efforts (which honestly, are pretty meager), will I really care? If the country did 'go under', life would get substantially harder. But i don't know what that would even look like, except that it would suck, for everyone, simultaneously. It's dumb to say "well it's going to happen anyway, so i won't try to make it right." I want life to improve for the millions of people living here for which life is getting more difficult, not to mention the rest of the world. But at the same time, I really think that it will happen at some point, maybe not in my lifetime, maybe so. For thousands of years, people have been saying "the end is near; tomorrow, probably, is when it's coming." It kind of seems like an easy answer to say "I trust God, not my country, or my government, or even myself." That can be a ticket to not really do too much, or maybe just to accept what is going on. Lately i've been on the news like a bee on the honey, and the more you do that, the more you get pretty sure that we are totally f'ed. The dichotomy of a Christian's viewpoint- hoping in a happy afterlife, expecting the end to come at any time, but also living in it and trying to ease the suffering- is a funny thing.
I've been trying to understand how terrible it must be to have someone die that you love and to know, in your heart, that you will never see them again. Or whether I can even believe it, whether I really think I will see my brother, my aunt, again; in some magical place. On one front that seems like a pretty huge denial of grief, but i've lived through it, and i can honestly say 'hey, it's totally fine.' There are others who may never get over something similar, or (probably) way worse. Am I the crazy one, less in touch with reality, and is that a bad place to be? And what can I do to help other people with that? Not much, it turns out. God is good, you've gotta believe me. Okay, my job is done. I guess.

and, to end on a lighter note, watch this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOFRIWx5F9c

sick day

i reworked this painting until it was better. the phillies lost today. i have been deathly ill for the last 3 days, which were coincidentally the 3 days i worked this week. i have a post to write, about revolution and the afterlife, but i want to sleep tonight instead

october

seriously. this is all i have to show for a months worth of blog negligence. i did clean my room, too. i like the weather.

far behind

so apparently i am on a month by month basis on posting. damn what happened. oh, i remember.

it is unconstitutionally beautiful out tonight. The clouds are the kind that used to be making storms but are now trying to fly away and separate and be their own man, breaking up into pieces, turning yellow and white. I counted 25 people visible to my naked eye at one given moment from the fire escape just now. And i dont mean the people who were in the cars, though i counted two who were in a stationary car. These were just people walking around on the street at 20 till 7 on a wednesday night. I thought it was alot, but i might be wrong. but probably not. im so happy octoberfest is out and that i could afford it at least once this season. for that matter, this season - does it get better?

so here's whats been going on, if you dont know.

i got my nose pierced last week. a stud for now, because i dont want to lose my job just quite yet, at least not for this, as it pays (most) of my bills. Dante and Stephen also chose to modify their nose space at the same time, dante a ring, stephen a diamond. This is suitable. We made the piercing lady laugh heartily, which was scary, as she was holding something sharp near my eyes and face areas while she did this.

Speaking of dante, we have started a band which includes colin. We have practice all the time, but only one song which is consistently 3 quarters of the way done. I make sounds and vocals, and have a hard time taking it seriously. It is fun though. That is for sure. Making music that is good is hard work, who knew? i am blowing off band practice tomorrow to go to the beach. who's the rock star around here?

my lady friend returned from her journeys afar, and things have been pretty great. it turns out that honesty about everything is important, not just some things. i dont want to talk about relationships on a blog, so i will leave it at this.

i saw wall-e last night, at last. it was pretty great. i started watching true blood, and am not sure if i like it. especially while i am still in the 3rd season of six feet under and having that kick my ass so hard. also, dexter versus jimmy smits!

i havent been working hard, really. i need to read some more, make some new art, market my old art to the gallery world. my pace is slower than you can probably imagine. but i have been busy nonetheless. i need to maybe find a new job for during the week, let loose the dj job. i figured i could live like this perpetually. it might not be so.

i continue to be afraid of russia and china. mostly russia. this is self explanatory. i was supposed to be studying free will versus determinism. i havent forgotten, but i have been sidetracked.

painting season

someday i'll have photo editing software againa so the pictures i take dont look really poor, but until that day....

a mess

heres that painting, as it appears right now in the hall

what a lazy guy

I bought a new book! It's called Either/Or by Soren Kierkegaard. I know what you're thinking, and you're right. I'll talk about that in a minute, Here's some notes from the last 24 hours.

I will have these nights, moments really, where i can, for just this second, be sure of how i feel. Where there are no questions, no second thoughts, this love is pure and eternal and overflowing out of somewhere in me. On such a night i am always inclined to write it down, to document that "tonight, i was in love - let it be known. If i die tonight, you will all know who to tell that i was thinking of them, that I did, actually, love them." This is my best attempt at a static emotion. One moment. Single nights of assurance amongst a sea of doubt. Always when I'm alone, always with music, always with this fear of an unfulfilled legacy that needs to be appreciated by the rest of the world. This is always supplemented with all of the different ways I could die immediately afterwards.

i have a hard time knowing what to ask people when i meet them for the first time anymore, which is more or less frequent. What could I find out about you that I really want to know and would care about? What should I know, and what will you be able to construct a conversation out of? I have no idea. This is my only chance after all. I frequently say nothing in an attempt to get to know who you are better

dont ever let someone (esp. yourself) make you think you don't deserve the things you want

Most discussions always end in a grey area, an either/or - you should be somewhere in the middle... are we so void of passions, is there anything proven we can take a stand on? Abortion? Well, yes, for some, but no for others. Creation? Well, maybe, but probably with some evolution mixed in with it. Is the world a great big compromise? We don't have any answers. Does it take courage or maybe foolishness
Is there time to consider everything all at once or any one thing for long enough to really understand it

so, yes, this book. I made a painting of a brain connected to a dick that is fucking it from behind...

"pleasure dissappoints; possibility does not

To a knowledge of the truth, I perhaps have come; to salvation, surely not. What shall I do? Be active in the world, people say. Should I then communicate my sorrow to the world, make one more contribution to prove how pitiable and wretched everything is, perhaps discover a new, hitherto undetected stain in human life? I could then reap the rare reward of becoming famous, just like the man who discovered the spots on Jupiter. I still prefer to remain silent

recollection is more richly satisfying than all actuality, and it has a security that no actuality possesses."

The either part of this very large volume is the esthetic, as told by a "Mr. A", who by my accounts thus far is a cynical bastard but also smart as hell. This is attractive for obvious reasons, and makes alot of sense most of the time. I wish i could post all of the quotes i highlighted so far, but i am five pints deep and really cant do it. sorry i have been away for so long, i am dissappointed with my mind as well. I bought a book by kierkegaard today, two blank canvases, and a case of beer.... i have every intention to fix this slump in the way i best know how. lots of elliott smith too. cheers folks!

thanks for making me write it down

here are things i wrote down while on my cruise (in chronological order)"pity and shame are the two extremes of pride" - there were alot of people on the boat who were very rich, and who didnt like .... well anything. At lunch one day i sat with these people who had a house in manhattan, and london, and florida, and they were talking shit on these fat people who had been gorging themselves, and the one person was like i feel so bad for them and the other was like they were so gross and i thought "you both are assholes, just in different ways." ive been working with being humble recently, and of course along with that the ability to love people for who they are, as equals. The pastor man with the tattoos said yesterday 'if your head is close enough to the ground, youll never know (or care, i might add) when people are disrespecting you." and i thought that was excellent. close to the ground meaning the level playing field, 'in it', as it were.

"love is either being blind to the facts or having faith in nothing ever going wrong. This is not to say that there is always something wrong, but that's just because that's nothing we like to say." I came up with what i think is a good solution, at least one that made me feel good, which comes at the end.this is chronological, after all.

"....but this isn't true either. Some art speaks without ever speaking of anything at all. Some words are only available when they are being used, when they are being heard in your ears, seen in your eyes - there is no need for you to say 'this is how it is' because it does not matter how it is, only that it IS, and you know it, and I know it. and we know it. and it is."thinking about storytelling in art, making a statement, beauty, believing in this shit. next to these in my sketchbook is a picture of a man in full terrorist garb (scarf over heaf, AK on his shoulder) sitting in a strip club, watching a naked lady. I think i am going to paint this next. because it will be fun.

"i think to mysel 'but what do i know?' and the answer is that I do not know much at all"

and lastly, from my moleskin, which is almost full, on the final day at sea, when the sun was setting over top of the water and i was being the exact feeling i always want to be (i am in love with the ocean, i came to terms with it - and hiroshi sugimoto, by extension, because of the eternity of the ocean, and the horizon line, cutting straight across, and all the colors and the deepness, and the blue of infinity.... anyway thats a tattoo for another day)"These answers come to me, and i don't remember taking time to think about reaching this conclusion - just knew there was a question that needed a solution (maybe this is some kind of proof that without my input there is something above me working and revealing) - Love is the knowledge, or rather the assurance, that no matter what others have had of yourself or her, that we know, beyond measure, that they never can have as much of that other person that we have had and have found. in each other. and that is enough, to pale out all insecurities, to quell all fears."we need to reveal it all, invest the whole mind and body, to find what we are looking for.

somebody pulling on my sleeve

A short story - On sunday afternoon, I went to church one time. A place called Liberti. It was great and I learned alot of important things. I came home and thought "maybe I should go to that other church where all my roommates go." It started at 7. It was 5. I thought another thought "Maybe I'll play zelda instead." So i did. And I played. I defeated the great deku tree, and was just about to learn the plot of the game, when the screen went crazy (see above). I said aloud "huh........well, what time is it?" I look at my phone. It's 7 pm. I say "Alllright already God, I'll go to that damn church!" Who ever heard of this happening? a 64 game? I think alot is happening betwixt me and God, and I am excited but also nervous, because there are some things I don't want to lose.

Notes from church - It doesn't take much effort to condemn yourself.

There isn't anyone else I need to be accountable to for doing anything wrong besides God, because noone else is any authority, noone else can be a perfect judge

we have no other reason to love those around us except because they are there, and we are here

in dreams begin responsibilities

so then I painted today. I couldnt think of anything, and the mirror was right there. I borrowed dante's idea of painting the colors as I saw them. It was fun. and i did more to this: (images taken with camera phone, and as such, are way shitty)

oh and one more thing

my dad would love this, and will, when i show it to him later today.

it's only your life

(taken from 'Socrates to Sartre', Samuel Enoch Stumpf)

".... James argues that certain kinds of truths become possible only when we put ourselves in the position for the truth fully to materialize itself. If we fail to make ourselves 'available', we risk losing the truth. Suppose a young man wants to know whether a certain young lady loves him. Let us also suppose that objectively it is a fact that she loves him but he does not know it. If he assumes that she does not, if, that is, he does not will to believe that she loves him, his doubt will prevent him from saying or doing what would cause her to reveal her love. In this case, he would 'lose the truth'. His will to believe would not necessarily create the love: that is already there. Belief has the effect of making what is already there come full circle. If the young man required evidence before he could know the truth, he would never know it, because the evidence he is looking for can become available only after he willed to believe it is true. In this case, the will to believe would have discovered a fact that already existed. (William) James did not want to argue that the will to believe would 'create' the existence of God as the product of a mere wish. He rather thought that the truth of religion and the power of God in human experience is the discovery, through the will to believe, of what is in fact (already) "there". Some truths forever escape us until we plunge into the stream of experience."

Oh, Pragmatism. William James to be exact. I tried to explain this to Dante last night at 3 am. We agreed that it was a better example if the girl was dead instead of alive.

Here's a painting.

bands that have made july promising -

right away, great captain

made out of babies

coldplay

ray lamontagne

and also the movie 'the assassination of jesse james by yada yada yada'

what i learned last night

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1imThTYBhZ8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpT3TqsNqBY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_e7yyloq2o


that last one = the best

and to a lesser extent, here's this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-3qncy5Qfk

if you haven't seen it, its new to you!

let's start a war

oh.............. hey. My internet just started to work yesterday. Comcast. I have been away, accidentally put on the italics. I haven't done alot of reading of the philosophy lately, which I find disappointing. I've tried to study some spanish language skills, and keep up with the drawing a picture every day. I made this painting in the past week or two. I am working on a new one of a similar style. I dont know how I feel about it. I'm trying to do what comes naturally, maybe. I like to have fun when I make something. My brain has been short circuiting lately and my creative days have suffered. I am trying very hard to stay happy, knowing that I am in control of it. I attended a discussion about prayer last nite (mostly because it took place in my house) that was interesting for several reasons. We were talking about the balance of worship and prayer 'the way you want it' and the way God said He wants it. I think it's easy to say oh I am praying all the time and to keep God in your mind in everything you do - something i generally advocate, and wish was true of most of the things I do. If you did everything for God, everything would be ........ good? maybe. maybe not so much. It seems to me that at the same time, while that is good, God also asked us to be in contact with Him, to spend time with Him. Does that mean you need to sit down and pray in a quiet room for an hour a day? maybe it does. What if you have serious a.d.d.? im not saying i do, but what if you did? anyway. The point i made at the end was that if you look for God in anything hard enough, you're going to find Him, because He's there. What does that mean exactly? There's some good in everything, because it's made by God? Just because you're good, doesn't mean everything you make is good. And sometimes if the thing you make can do whatever it wants, it will do something less than good, like be an SS doctor on the run in argentina (who i was reading about today). God is strange. And also fun.

So that leads me to the next thing - forgiveness. get real. What does it mean to actually forgive someone, to actually love someone else as yourself? There are alot of bad people i know of, but i never felt like there was any need for me to forgive them, because they didn't affect me, besides to maybe make me 'pissed off at the world dave'. They were never directly connected to me, so i didn't need to care what they did (not really anyway), and never really thought about what it would take to forgive them of the terrible things they do, to love a person who shoots another dude for an i-pod. But that has changed. I seem to be learning lately what I am capable of, how bad people can be, how bad i could be, and that forgiving someone for something unspeakable is difficult to do. Just because I know I could kill someone, doesn't seem to help me relate to someone who actually does, maybe I am just not realizing it on a deep enough level. It hurts to rationalize that you're the worst person in the world, if wrong is wrong and it all deserves the same death. But that's the story of sin nature. Does that help you to love other people - we're all fuck-ups, trying to make it work? I think it does, but in a weird way. I feel like I only know it on the surface and it doesn't get inside, and now I am trying to let it. Bad stuff going on close to home has that effect. I was really struggling until someone i love said to me 'who are you to judge? noone.' and this isn't because i have a history of crime but just because it's true. Everybody is great and really terrible. Doesn't that lead right into the idea that we need something extra-personal to really fix us and take away that thing in us that could make us do all of the worst things in history? That we need to get rid of that ability in us to ever really not be able to do those bad things again? oh hey.

my internet hasnt been working well, so i havent been working here

Here is something interesting to read. As far as i know there has been peace between Palestine and Israel since that 'tentative' treaty earlier this month. Methinks that maybe the way Palestine feels about the temple mount is gonna cause a problem. maybe.


Monday, June 09, 2008

Temple Mount '100% Islamic'
Jerusalem and the Temple Mount belong to the Muslims and any Israeli action that "offends" the Mount will be answered by 1.5 billion Muslims, declared the chief of staff for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. "Jerusalem is Muslim. The blessed Al Aqsa mosque and Harem Al Sharif (Temple Mount) is 100 percent Muslim. The Israelis are playing with fire when they threaten Al Aqsa with digging that is taking place," said Abbas' chief of staff Rafiq Al Husseini. Husseini was referring to Israeli plans to construct a new bridge from the Western Wall area to the Temple Mount. The old bridge was damaged two years ago. When Israeli workers tried to repair it, Palestinian leaders claimed the work was threatening the Al Aqsa Mosque, even though the mosque is located hundreds of feet away, the work did not tunnel under any Mount foundation or touch any structure connected to the mosque, and the repair work – which had been pre-approved by Jordan and the Mount's Muslim custodians – was conducted under the scrutiny of an accessible 24/7 webcam. "Any hurting of Jerusalem will explode the whole negotiations between us and the Israelis ... we must work to strengthen Palestinian ties to Jerusalem," al-Husseini said. Mainstream Palestinian leaders claim the Temple Mount is Muslim in spite of overwhelming archaeological evidence documenting the first and second Jewish temples. "Israel started since 1967 making archeological digs to show Jewish signs to prove the relationship between Judaism and the city and they found nothing. There is no Jewish connection to Israel before the Jews invaded in the 1880s," said Tamimi. "About these so-called two Temples, they never existed, certainly not at the [Temple Mount]," Tamimi said during a sit-down interview in his eastern Jerusalem office. The Palestinian cleric denied the validity of dozens of digs verified by experts worldwide revealing Jewish artifacts from the First and Second Temples throughout Jerusalem, including on the Temple Mount itself; excavations revealing Jewish homes and a synagogue in a site in Jerusalem called the City of David; or even the recent discovery of a Second Temple Jewish city in the vicinity of Jerusalem. Tamimi said descriptions of the Jewish Temples in the Hebrew Tanach, in the Talmud and in Byzantine and Roman writings from the Temple periods were forged, and that the Torah was falsified to claim biblical patriarchs and matriarchs were Jewish when indeed they were prophets for Islam. "All this is not real. We don't believe in all your versions. Your Torah was falsified. The text as given to the Muslim prophet Moses never mentions Jerusalem. Maybe Jerusalem was mentioned in the rest of the Torah, which was falsified by the Jews," said Tamimi. He said Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Jesus were "prophets for the Israelites sent by Allah as to usher in Islam."

me and kierkegaard, down by the school yard

So. I am at my parents house tonight. It is 10:30. They have gone to bed. I spent some time looking at old notebooks from art history, mainly for the pictures i drew that cover the margins and, sometimes, the notes. anyway.
Kierkegaard. Pretty cool. He kind of started existentialism, thinking about "stuff" in terms of each individual. This is a big shift from the concept of everything boiling down to universals, or forms. What's more important than the personal choices that one makes, conscious participation in life and the living of it? He says what's the point of all these general problems when in the end it's just you, needing to make a decision, regardless of what you know?
"The most poignant moments in life are personal, where one becomes aware of oneself as a subject." Not what do we have in common, but what makes me unique. It feels good to think like that, and that's probably why I like it.
"Truth is made."
"What is 'out there' is 'an objective uncertainty' - 'the highest truth attainable for an individual is simply an objective uncertainty held fast in the most passionate personal experience'"
Basically, the "truth" is something you can't prove, just something that you think (or believe) is right. Feeeelings, nothing more than feeelingsss...
Next is Kierkegaard explaining how we live, moving from our essential being to the existential condition. A person starts to get a move on when they sense that they are not what they ought to be, which, as we know, causes anxiety (a little bit). The individual tries to 'do something' to alleviate this, but, kierky says, the only thing worth doing is to try and relate oneself to God. The anxiety is caused by the awareness of our alienation from our essential self in God, and the drive to be returned to that. To get back to this, there are 3 stages, each coming about by a personal commitment. Yep, actualization of one's self by making choices.
The first stage is the aesthetic self, living by impulse and emotion, whose chief motivation is pleasure. In this a person still exists in that they choose to live as an aesthetic person, and in addition they are made aware that there is more - "that life consists, or ought to consist, of more than emotive and sense experiences."This awareness of these two possibilities is what triggers the movement into the next stage, that life is not fully actualized at this level and I need to choose to do something more than just do whatever I want all day. I am thinking it might take a very long time to realize that.
This brings on the Ethical Stage - accepting that there are, in fact, some things you shouldn't do, based on a moral understanding. It's a self imposed limitation, and brings with it the feeling that the bad things you do are caused either by ignorance or a lack of will (mostly a lack of will, from my experience). But what happens now is the individual who tries to do good finds out that they are incapable of doing it, that in fact they deliberately don't do the right thing (on occasion). What's this all about? If you cant do what you know youre supposed to do, you can either a) keep trying or b) respond to your new awareness that you are insufficient at living by yourself. You cant just think it, you have to do it - make a commitment (choice) - hey God who i'm estranged from, i'd like to not be, so much.
The final step he called the religious stage. The trouble here is that it is subjective - as individuals our relationship with God is unique, and "there is no way, prior to the actual relationship, to get any knowledge about it." There is no rational or conceptual or objective knowledge about one's relationship to God. An act of faith is the only assurance. That we must find our self-fulfillment in God comes about from our trying and failing to find it elsewhere. "The existence of God is suggested to us in our awareness of our self-alienation", that we aren't exactly who we think we should be. We can and do exist at all levels, and only through living at each do we realize that we aren't quite there yet. Kierk-a says that relating to God is the way.
So, we haven't proven anything. What goes on inside me is what goes on inside me, nowhere else, and it's the same for you. I just know there is someone who's going to say "wait, cant there be universals and personal uniqueness, together?" Sometimes I flip ahead in my 'Socrates to Sartre' book, which is why i'm at kierkegaard now, instead of aristotle. The self is important, because it's all i know. It's not that I learned something new from this, just that it was said in ways that made more sense than i had heard before. But how can you trust yourself if you are very much aware that you are inadequate at living a perfect life? What is the perfect life for the individual - to be completely actualized? to be happy? knowing that you did what you were supposed to do? The most important thing that's happened to me so far as that now when i say "that's something i should think about." i dont just say it, but i actually do it.

answers to questions in comments, because the comment back was becoming very long

whoo. here's some things, which may serve as answers. thanks for thinking with me

i think there are always regrets, no matter who you are, and to be able to look back on your life and the consequences you brought on, or even see the possibilities of doing something different? wild child. how can a life that is such a small spot on your existence of forever (if you believe that sort of thing) mean so much?


"I am the way, the truth, and the life, no man comes to the Father except through me." i forgot to mention this ever popular Jesus quote in my posting, but will do so soon.
The way I understand it, prior to Jesus' appearance, people who worshipped God (and by this i mean only the people of God, The Israelites - yes i know, what about everyone else who existed during these, i dont know, thousands upon thousands of years) ... people who worshipped God were required to sacrifice a 'clean' animal in proportion to the sins they had committed in order to cover for them. Jesus came forward as the ultimate clean sacrifice because He had led a perfect life (no sin by way of being the son of God) and as such no more sacrifices were needed, just acceptance of that final sacrifice. This is what people mean when they say accepting 'Jesus as their Savior' - accepting that his perfect sacrifice is the end all and covers their ass for the rest of all of their sinning, which was inherent in them from birth (dont get me started on the idea of sin nature, or wait, do.)
Jesus did seem to say that it was His way or the highway in regards to believeing in anyone but Him. If you really think he was/is God, this seems like a justifiable thing, because hey, He can do what He wants, He made us. The sticky thing is that God also says He loves everyone that He has ever made, though He hates the sin they commit, the one thing He said - "hey guys, please dont do that." , and yet we did it anyway. I would be pissed as well.
It's God's nature to not be able to 'allow' sin in His presence, and anyone who has it, cannot be with God, and instead is forever separated (hell). "The sacrifice that covers your ass" takes away all of the sin and allows you to be in that presence (heaven).
Blind faith is difficult (extremely), if we are honest with ourselves. I think it's absolutely true that many people use Christianity as a fire escape from feeling lost in the world, esp. in the west. I would hesitate to say any of these people are not genuinely changed and /or 'saved'. But there is alot more to think about, and I think God wants us to question Him, wants us to try and figure out what it is He is up to, because in doing this we understand better the world and become closer with Him, the whole point of becoming a Christian in the first place.
Jesus was met with mixed reviews when he showed up. Jewish people were currently under Roman rule and were hoping for a warrior messiah to show up and kick them out. But what the prophets in the old testament meant when they said that a messiah was coming that would change everything, they didnt mean anything military, but someone who would change people and the way they live, which come on, is way more important. So naturally alot of people were like 'This Jesus cat is just some poor guy who's telling us we should love each other, come on.' and Him claiming to be God was kind of a problem if you didn't think He was, so they went ahead and killed Him. This was the sacrifice. Something innocent in exchange for someone like me. It was necessary for Him to die if we were to ever be completely free of ourselves, and it was necessary for Him to come back to life to prove that He was who He said He was and to show that things were changed.
.....So that's why Jesus was important, according to how my beliefs work. I was raised on this stuff since I was little, but when I hit college I saw that there was indeed alot of other things going on in the world . I started to back down off my high horse and realize that I wasn't quite so sure of what I thought I was while I had attended a conservative Christian high school, church and home. I think it's so important to know the world, and be a part of it, and to understand and empathize with everyone (isn't that what 'love everyone as yourself' really means?) These questions I have have been boiling in me for quite awhile and I have been struck with how very very important this information is recently (read last few posts). Pursuing God can never be a bad thing, I am thinking.
This probably did a bad job of answering the questions, or maybe it did a good job when I was wasn't looking. In the meantime, i'll keep reading about zoroastrianism (joke) and again thanks for keeping up.

universalism

"While the human mind and inclination occur in an innumerable variety, four broadtypes of men may be recognised for practical purposes : the man of action, the man of emotion, the mystic or man of spirit, and the philosopher or man of intellect. Religion must offer a path for each type to follow, suited to the nature of each type. Ancient religion in India offered four such paths, known as Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raja Yoga and Jnana Yoga. These paths transform the selfish to the selfless and lead to Yoga or Union or Realisation of the ultimate Truth.
"It is imperative that all these Yogas should be carried out in practice. Mere theories about them will not do any good. ... Religion is realisation, not talk, nor doctrine, nor theories, however beautiful they may be. It is being and becoming, not hearing or acknowledging; it is the whole soul becoming changed into what it believes. That is religion"

-- Swami Vivekananda

The idea here is that there is such an enormous variety of people in the world, that it became imperative to have a variety of religions as well. So it is logical, then, that no one religion could "satisfy" every single person that has ever existed. Well, noone said God was logical.

http://www.wku.edu/~jan.garrett/urrd.htm

this is an interesting article to read, though with some flawed thinking. Here's what i learned:

exclusivism - my faith is the only true faith. All other's are totally and completely wrong

preparationism - all other faiths are good in some ways in that they are getting those people ready for the ultimate faith, which is mine. There are bits and pieces of good stuff but they do
not have the full understanding yet.

....what happens now is that you say "wait, if my faith is the ultimate one, and if that exists in the world, then what's the point in all these other 'preparatory' religions still hanging around?
It still leads you to the need to change other people and starts to lean right back into exclusivism.

relativism - seeking to find inhereent value or goodness in every religion, including your own.

I particularly liked this part:
"The Christian religion is in every moment a purely historical phenomenon." Thus "it is subject to all the limitations to which any individual historical phenomenon is exposed, just like the other great religions." For Troeltsch all religions were products of particular historical events "which gave them their unique substance and form"; therefore none could claim absolute legitimacy. Later he wrote,
Christianity could not be the religion of such ...mighty spiritual power and truth...if it were not, in some degree, a manifestation of the Divine life itself. The evidence we have for this remains the same . . . it is the evidence of a profound inner experience. This experience is undoubtedly the criterion of its validity, but . . . only of its validity for us. . . . It is final and unconditional for us because we have nothing else . . .According to Troeltsch, it is also possible that
other . . . groups . . . may experience their contact with the Divine Life in a quite different way, and may themselves also possess a religion which has grown up with them, and from which they cannot sever themselves so long as they remain what they are . . . .

Religion is at it's core a very personal journey. No two people can feel the same way about a God or about what it means to love. Wait, is this true? This has alot to do with philosophy, and the idea of universal forms (thanks plato from last night). Is there a universal idea of truth, or God?
...It goes on to talk about how religions have borrowed from each other all through history and how cultures are no longer exclusive to themselves.

sycretistic universalism - here's where things, i thought, got kind of hairy. The thinking here is that every religion can be melted down into particular ideas that are universal to all religions, that at the root they are all the same. As a result, we should be all smiles and rainbows.

....but we're not. Most of the critiques about universalism were good (i need to check some of the facts on the religionsthat I shamefully know very little about). I think the danger here is putting to much stock in yourself, and what you can understand. God is not something you should put in a box, because he does not fit inside of there. We are not the smartest of people and our own experiences are flawed through perception. It is not us but God who causes any change, who shows any glimpse of truth in a world of unsurety. But hey! How can we know for sure? Are we hooked on a feeling, that tingling in the back of your head when you think you're doing something extra-religious? I guess we'll just have to believe.... yeah im not satisfied either.
I dont want to give up control. I want to be able to understand the concept of infinity, and time, and being outside of time. Where is the line where you have to stop and say "i cant go beyond this." and give the wheel to your higher power? im glad that the heatwave is done because i can actually think now. anyway. more later on.

Is there such a thing as nothing?

some notes on the conversation i had yesterday and today (though today was with myself)

Everybody dies. It's a fact that noone would try to deny you. We all know it. No single person can escape their own death (unless you count elijah, and i susupect not many of you will). If you really think about it, consider it........ it's fucking scary as hell. I am going to die. I dont know when, or how, but i am absolutely certain, it's gonna happen. Now does this make me complacent about other people who die (like, everybody does it, big deal if you do it now or not)? Of course not, which brings me to the next point.
I am a Christian. I know, if you know me, you're like, yeah, we know, but who cares, youre not a crazy one. Well maybe that's my bad, but that's not what i'm getting at. In accordance with my beliefs, anyone who is not a christian will die, and will go to hell. forever. FOREVER. If any of my 'beliefs' were true at all, wouldn't i be running out on the street right now, grabbing people and slapping them and saying "holy shit dude, you've gotta believe this????" That might not be the best tactic anyway, but it makes me know how strong my faith is, and it always makes me want to be doing more. And that's good. My "tactic" has always been to live a good, happy life as the best evidence that my life is indeed changed by the grace of God. I realize that lately (read: last few years) I have not always been the best display of that. But ANYWAY.
To try to wrap your head around forever, whether it be heaven or hell, or just falling out of existence for all of the rest of time - to put it eloquently - What The Fuck?? I could be kept up all night every night trying to understand eternity, no matter where it is. Maybe I should for awhile. But how do we say "it's okay, i'll worry about it later." all of the time?? I know i'm going to die, and i dont know what will happen after that, at all. This should be my first and last thought every day of my life, as well as all of the ones in between. Seriously, what the fuck?
In addition - how can I tell someone I love " You know those people who you loved that are dead now, those great people who changed your life forever - that word again - those people are in hell forever, and ever." Life breaks my heart, so I sit and deny it, dont believe it, and it's convenient to live this way. It's convenient to be unsure of your beliefs because then you dont have to act on them at all. On top of it, how can I tell a devout Buddhist, or Muslim, or anyone - "you're condemned to eternal hellfire unless you believe in Jesus the way I do." ? This has been my problem for awhile now, and it's why i haven't moved in any direction, except for a few inches down into the ground.
Now, i know, we're all bad people. Everyone is not inherently good, in fact they are the opposite, and everyone, including me, deserves a hell if there is one. But that's so loaded too that I really need to think about it for a year or two. Maybe that's my problem - that I dont feel like some people deserve it. Or most people. And I know that if my God exists that He loves all these people way more than I love them, and I'm ready to let them all in to heaven right now. I know i'm not God, and I don't understand, but I want to so very much. And I know, I'm not really responsible for anyone else in the whole of history except for myself (another wild thing to consider) and i cannot know anyone else's heart, but that kind of feels like selfishness on the other end of the spectrum. I can really only look into myself to know how shitty or not shitty the human person is, and while I am not Dahmer, I can tell you that in my life, I have made a few poor choices that I would consider to be "one hundred percent wrong".
So what does it mean? I say all the time "I keep my religion because it works for me; I understand if it doesn't work for you." I cant say if what you believe is right or wrong, or maybe I should have the balls (or is it something else?) to say that every time. Is it about tact, or cowardice? And is anything going to change?
This is hard, but i'm going to try and address it - see what others have to say about it, if anyone has written anything about it, come up with some kind of pathway to a solution. I say pathway because in the end, there is no right answer. That's another thing I need to remember. I can't prove a damn thing. I cant know for sure, ever in time, if I was right or I was wrong. That's what we mean when we say "faith". I dont want a God that says "Just trust Me." and I know that I dont have one, everyone has logic and a ton of questions that we keep on asking. We're made for a reason and we all work singularly and as a group just so. I want this to be as real as possible.
Early philosophy said that there can be no nothing, because the idea of nothing is something. Then some other people said wait a minute, what?? That's as far as I've gotten in my studying of philosophy, i'll let you know what happens next. In the meantime - if you read this, and you have something to teach me, please do so. I want to start a big dialogue. I'll try not to do it for selfish reasons.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7440472.stm

wtf. Israel is crazy, but at least they would probably win.

the new world

The internet now comes to me from across the room, through the air, into this little gray card that's hanging over near my screens that keep the living room out. That's very exciting if you think about it. Did you know i live in a room in the air, where you climb a ladder or rope or some combination of the two just to get inside? my hands can prove that part about the rope. My mattress is on the floor, where it will stay, because it is more comfortable that way. And there is no room for standing as it is. I am becoming happy in kensington, because there are peacocks living nearby, and block parties, and a dog who howls sometimes to wake me up in the morning. I wake up in the morning, if you can imagine. I should be getting a second job sometime, and maybe i will. There are alot of people getting married this weekend, and i will see 6 of them. I woke up this morning to a viola at the foot of my ladder, a cup of coffee at the top of it. I cut my hair to appear more sexually viable to the opposite sex. I dont think it will work, or if i will care when it doesnt. I have been indifferent to it since i started feeling things again. anyway. Love is an adventure. I have a painting to do today, or at least to begin, so i can prove it when people ask me what i do and i say 'during the week, im an artist.' im certainly doing something.

#5

November 17th, 1977 - May 15th, 2003

trying to be not lazy

here is the new sh*t. done all in one night, like a whirlwind. it's strange how the next very obvious step to take sometimes alludes you for a long time and when it comes, you're like "oh, right...... paint chips under the paint........ huh." so im still in the old house, amongst the bare skeleton of order that it once was, ordering pizzas, watching the history channel, putting things in boxes. And i can read wherever i want, which means in bed. It's been May for awhile and things, as expected, are all in limbo. It's the most wonderful time of the year. we'll all be glad when we get our tax relief check and it's all over. Speaking of which, how about this recession fear-mongering? im not sure how nervous to be, between whats real and whats sensational, but its not like i have any stocks........... so...... china is scary. everything turns gray. and then you cant tell the difference. and also, take a minute to be sad for the 10's of thousands of people who just died in that cyclone, and make some art about all these issues, because i sure as hell dont know how to. you can only do what you can do. right?

oh, and heres what happened to this. i like it so much now

Look it up

http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2008/04/changing_belief_in_free_will_c.php

....the best part about this is there is a guy named david montgomery who left a comment, and that he was pretty clever about what he said. Us guys... are awesome.

Dark Secret

This is what happens on the floor these days. The paper is 9 by 9 foot and then I paint a bullseye in gradients getting lighter out towards the edges, THEN I cut and paste the paint chips in an reverse pattern (light going out to dark). I still dont have enough 'dark secret' (the black ones) to cover the whole page, and it might take a long time until i do. The corners are black, which is great. I think I need to work on my intention being a bit more clear, ie making the painting or 'my hand' be extremely sloppy and prove that some dude with moderate painting skill did it, and then become incresingly geometric and specific with the swatches. There is a dialogue (or argument) going on but it could, as always, be stronger

this week is great

dear andrew hart - i hope you dont mind me using your comic on my blog. if you do, in fact, mind, please let me know, and i will stop.

sorry guys, just some legal mumbo jumbo above. lets all read the philly turkey
that way, when i talk about it, noone will have to pretend i've told a good story and pretend to laugh. this will save alot of self esteem for everyone.

oh yeah we're gonna keep on doin it too

how will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?

if everything is to come out even in the end, then the end is farther away than anticipated

the past is a set of clues to navigate the present

desire is full of endless distances - This book i am reading said all these things to me, or rather i said them to me when i was going over what she had said to herself, in her book.

you can no longer desire something when you have achieved it. To want something is to not have it. This has alot to do with being satisfied with what you have, doesn't it? Though you can want something again, because when you got it, it was great. But still, there has to be a time when you are doing the wanting, or otherwise, you wouldn't. wow, concise.
So wait, what are the implications? I guess it's important to know the nature of your wants, and to take stock in what you are constantly wanting after (probably the things you are not getting).
Adam and I made speak about what sorts of things can be defined as wants as opposed to needs. It turned out that we dont really need anything - you dont need food - if you dont have it, you will die, but you will not cease to exist, you will just be the dead you - just like you dont need religion - if you have it, you might get a better eternal situation, but you will not cease to be you. You dont need anything to be who you are. There are only things you want, things that you think will help you at being you and doing that being better than you were before. b's b's b's.
Are some things not worth spending alot of your wanting on? no, who's going to say, and how would you know? It's easy to see how you can get caught up in yourself and pinned down by it, thinking about how you work and never being able to stop, because it's too much to do. Let's not forget that everyone else is doing the same thing, and that they are equalling your desires and have all of their own unique to themselves. Like the man at church said, the commandment didn't start off telling you you need to love yourself, it knew you would have that pretty well covered, but it said that you have to try and have that same love you spend on the deep you and have it for everyone else*. I asked myself 'and why is it that i should do that?' well, it seems like a good idea, is the answer i've come up with. but anyway.
the distance. its always the distance, and once you go there, its not there anymore. its in the distance. oh no im buried in thinking thoughts......

*If you dont know what i'm talking about, this cat Jesus broke all the rules right near the end of his hang out and said "there's just this one new commandment and its more important than all the other ones, and here it is - love everyone else as much as you love yourself and as much as I loved you." (thats the king david translation)

oh and ps - does the fact that you are always you stand as a good argument for eternal life? well, i guess the only evidence that people in history were themselves is in that history which could be made to make them seem like something they entirely were not. Think about just yourself, then. and how to go about not losing you. even though you cant. so the answer is no, then.

is this how a blog is supposed to be

I was reading a thing today about an artist who caught a sick, stray dog and chained it up in a gallery so people could watch it slowly starve to death. What was excellent about this is that people went absolutely crazy about how it wasn't art and that the guy was inhumane and OMG we should chain him to a wall and watch him starve to death..... which he might not be too adverse to, if he read all of the comments all over the place about it. Did you ever notice how people care more about animals getting hurt and killed than they do about people getting hurt or killed? You would get a stronger reaction from a video of a bunch of dogs being beaten and starved then you would of prisoners being water boarded or children in Africa being starved and killed in a genocide. I'm going to make art where I starve animals with a backdrop of videos of human suffering, just so I can make fun of people pretending to care about all the sorts of things they think they care about.
Wait, I have a better idea now - I will starve animals in a progression, like starting with bugs and spiders and then moving up to mice and rats and so on and so on. People would raise a million dollars to shut me up but will walk right past a homeless man to do it. I like art that kicks your ass, and I will strive to make some of it.

anyway. i would like to have a dog, and not for torturing purposes. i love dogs, equally as much as i love people.

i've been thinking about why i should do artwork anymore, i mean besides the thing inside that beats me if i do not make artwork. what difference do i make, how much of the world can be changed by the things that i do? i don't know if im happy with my 'i'm screwing the man' answer, in which i take money from people who dont deserve it and then get to have it, as another person who does not deserve it. I would give it away (maybe). I like the idea of art as the unifier, bringing people together and changing the way they exist to each other. Like i said, art that kicks your ass. There are only so many things that are important to me

Obcession is not the same thing as love, and love is not the same thing as comfort

this is what i wrote down yesterday, and I wish to expound on it in every direction until i make everyone feel bad. This is a honorable(?) task. Most relationships sit real heavily on one side or the other and something called settling happens. and i'm terrified of it. and not enough people are, too. I am beginning to know that i've never been in real love at all, no matter how much i thought i was, and that if i want to be, i will have to work extremely hard to get there.

Adam and I were talking and the idea of a fourth dimension that is neither love, obcession, or comfort was brought up. I think it was called 'old (or mature) love', and may not, however, exist.

And maybe it's possible that if you're focusing too much on how things are supposed to be, then you lose sight of how wonderful things are in the present. I am so guilty of this. I need to not be able to think my way out of feeling any certain way, and this has proven to be a difficult task. I am hard at work trying to figure myself out, and sit back and know what i really feel about all the things that have happened and deal with them, or at least invent a new way to block them out. I am not nearly finished. Love is not any kind of magic that fixes things - it's completely the opposite. now that i am a walking cliche', i will go to bed.

noone's gonna tell you
you've made it
noone's gonna tell you
you're doing the best that you can
noone's gonna tell you
that you're finally in love at last
so doesn't that mean
that maybe you get to tell yourself?