foreclosure

My heart is caught between the crosshairs of desire and nonchalance. Everywhere I go I see birds chirping, rainbows splashed across the sky, enamored smiles and giggles, and I hear orchestras proclaiming the love around me. But I'm just an observer in this realm, all I am is a spectator, an invader, someone who doesn't make sense here.
I bleed truth, compassion and forgiveness and still clean up after myself. I consider myself one of those "damn good" catches, but it just hasn't caught on yet.
It alludes me whether or not it's a good thing, or a mood thing or a lewd thing, but I just can't figure it out. I'm caught between "yes" and "no" and nowhere else to go. My heart isn't rash; I can't make decisions in a flash. I take time to consider my options and I just haven't had time yet, I'm sorry, come again later and your answer might be ready by then.
I'm admittedly hot and cold simultaneously, I'm annoyed and overjoyed all at the same time and it's confusing. I understand that I make no sense but it's how I've become accustomed to living. Ambiguity and responsibility are my scapegoats from sin and there's nothing anyone can do about it.
All I need are things I'll never get, things I fence off into a district I prohibit myself from visiting, an anamoly I don't even allow myself to throw spare change at. And it's this self-inflicted torture that keeps my wounds fresh, the fingers that pry off the scabs and the consequent bandages until regret is a hole in my flesh. But like a schizophrenic I can't hold myself back, I can't contain my madness. All I can do is take my heart by its fragile hands and show it the rusted "for sale" sign on this internal garden of sadness..

from Dante Alighieri's "Inferno"

I thought this was an absolutely beautiful translation, although its content may be more relevant as spring approaches. Either way, enjoy:

"In the turning season of the youthful year,

when the sun is warming his rays beneath Aquarius

and the days and nights already begin to near

their perfect balance; the hoar-frost copies then

the image of his white sister on the ground,

but the first sun wipes away the work of his pen."

Wickless candles

Fall leaves me barren
like dry petals dangling
from dehydrated roots


Wax drips off me
and down me
and into every pore


With all that I am,
I want to want.


Courage doesn't find me
and thus I am left
Empty with longing

Fragments

2,010
Desperate trembles
Choked-up embraces
Goals fulfilled
Prayers unanswered

Transitioning
to adulthood
to responsibility
 to lust
to love
to life
and back again

Learning to let go
attempting to
let my soul
be

Be it blind with ambition,
paralyzed by loss
or inundated by inexperience.

Perhaps it's not what has been gained
but what has remained

Of which is much
that has stayed precisely
the same.

Fragments of a broken dream
unfulfilled
slipping through
the cracks of helpless fingers

escaping containment
flying toward constellations
I will never reach

At year's end, much is left unreported
What's a headline
if there's no story?

With a new moon shifting
I remain
stagnant
in what I am and try to be

No matter.
I'll just splinter
into different strands of the
same tangent

And hope for the best

Information overload should cause a systematic reboot

I kind-of-recently read a New York Times article about the flaws of multitasking as a cognitive function. I mentally sticky-noted my brain to investigate into this topic to learn more later. But I forgot. Attempting to (and failing at) multitasking further proved this point.

The reason this topic revolved back to the forefront of my thought process is because in my Human Geography class, we watched a segment of a PBS documentary about multi-taskers, specifically college students who thought they had it down. The Reader's Digest version of the story is that no matter how good we think we are at performing multiple tasks at once, we can't do much more simultaneously than walk and chew gum without engaging in some mild application of neuroplasticity, the re-organization of the brain itself.

This got me to thinking about how in our information-hungry and globalized world, our lives are saturated with technology. That's obvious. But it's difficult -- actually, pretty much impossible -- to completely know to what kind of state this obsession will lead our society to.

During a discussion after the film, there was a high-frequency interruption heard between an incoming text message and the computer which showed the video. For some reason, this struck me as such: that is precisely how our brains work -- as a computer. We can't learn with so many incoming and outgoing feeds between our fingers, flashing before our eyes. It's like when the hour glass graphic appears in place of a mouse on a PC -- information overload. Too much going on at once. But that's exactly the mindset Generation 2000 has convinced itself it has adapted to.

It also makes me inquire about future generations, though. What about the kids born yesterday, today, tomorrow? What about my future children? What are they going to experience as adolescents that affects their sentient in untested and potentially egregious ways? Will they ever have the need to express themselves utilizing a voice box? Will I even know the sound of their voice? Will they be required to or be able to learn about the Roman Empire or will I have to board an Airbus A380 (or any creative futuristic transportation devise) to show them what remains of the Colosseum, if anything, in 2020? Will "txt" become a possible language of study? Will vowels consequently become obsolete?

Just so it's out there, I don't intend much point to this blog other than to raise awareness of the acute weirdness of the time/place/mindset we live in. Most of my close friends know I think cell phones (as a telephone held to the ear or used via Bluetooth) are this generation's legal/unstudied cigarette, and will most likely lead to some mutant form of brain or ear cancer as time progresses, repeating history as cigarettes were once considered safe and socially acceptable but now are known to cause chronic diseases. But I'm not talking about just that. I'm saying everything about technology -- while it indubitably has its substantial merits -- is, well, sketchy. Learning more in-depth about the ways in which the addiction to social technology can affect cognition just confirms my trepidation for totally immersing myself in the digital world. Not that I'm suggesting that modern homo sapiens should regress back to caveman status, but it wouldn't be a bad thing to pull back the reins on the sterioded-up Secretariat that is 21st-century technology.

Simple Solutions to a Complex Catastrophe

The first step is admitting that you have a problem.

And the April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion and the consequential Gulf Coast obliteration is something Beyond Petroleum evidently refuses to take seriously. So much so that BP chief executive Tony Hayward was quoted saying “I would like my life back,” about a month into the catastrophe.

Sure, BP has successfully jammed a pudgy finger into a single fractured oil pipe, but that hasn’t made much of an impact in the wider scheme of things. The next solution up for execution had been the containment cap effort, which was ultimately a flop. And the list of BP oil containment fiascos range from the slightly sensible (okay, giant shears) to the straight-up ridiculous (really, “junk shot” garbage disposal?), and have all been proven foolishly unsuccessful.

Since April 20, the internet has seen a proliferation of mostly innovative ideas and suggestions that BP and the containment effort has failed to acknowledge. And I'm not talking sexiigurl92’s YouTube feed; scientists, environmentalists, mariners, and various respectable, learned professionals are stepping up and speaking out. However, these independent and creative solutions are being fired at ignorantly deaf ears.

According to the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command website, “the IATAP and the RDC will screen and triage submissions based on technical feasibility, efficacy and deployability.” But what happened when independent filmmaker and CNN iReporter Johnny Colt accompanied C.W. Roberts contractors Darryl Carpenter and Otis Goodman as they traveled into the Florida Gulf to help contain oil using hay before it reached beaches in Destin? They were literally evacuated by the Coast Guard, who said they had it taken care of. 12 hours later, oil reached the shores of Destin.

Solution submissions like the “top hat” that couldn’t handle more than 18,000 of the estimated 60,000 barrels a day gushing from the earth’s core are approved by BP, but we ask: Since when has covering up the problem been an acceptable solution? Yet still, two months later, solutions to contain oil already affecting the Gulf Coast environment are stuck waiting in line as tar balls pollute beaches and coastal habitats and cancel tourists’ reservations.

I took the liberty of Googling “oil spill solutions.” And got 4,220,000 results in .27 seconds.

The most promising contenders among the 8,000-plus answers stuffed into BP’s suggestion box? Using nuclear or other explosives to just demolish the sunken well; call on the Dutch government that offered their “sweeping arm systems” proven since 1996; applying micronized polyeurothane (MPU), peat moss, hair, straw, wood chips, soap, or hay as mega-oil-absorbents; $5-per-square-foot absorbent Aerogel insulation that separates oil from water; and/or utilizing Kevin Costner’s $24 million centrifuge oil-separation project or James Cameron’s “Titanic” fleet of deep-sea subs.

It’s difficult to separate the trash from the treasure when slammed with over 8,000 proposals, but definitely not impossible. BP or the U.S. Coast Guard should expedite a process of hiring a legitimate board of specialists to review the inventions and innovative solutions presented to them. This way, all ideas can be considered equally, and perhaps a quick fix can finally be achieved. But in order to do this, BP must take the blame in full, and act responsibly to save the world that they destroyed.

This is a state of emergency to the 500th power -- politicians and executives must treat it like one. Or is that too difficult to admit?

2000 AD Originality

Specialization is no longer common in our so-called advanced civilization. The media mass-broadcasts on the big screen and out smaller TV's what we should act like, talk like, look like, what we should be.

Originality is no longer an accessible commodity in a world where it's all been seen, said, or done before. Every kiss, every line simply has lost its allure.

Stolen rhymes, forged answers and exhausted dreams define the fraudulent, corrupt realm we exist in. We simply buy into the typical, the predictable, simply because there's nothing else tangible that we can grasp onto.

It's hard to stay what they'd call "unique: after the whole world has already walked in and worn out your shoes long before you.

So honestly, what can generation 2000 AD start new that nobody else knew how or at least thought of to do?

What we need more than everything else is just room to breathe, some room to step back and truly see the allegedly benevolent products of our mass-produced, cookie-cutter society.

What we need most... is to think.

Because what if we were supposed to be the ones to finally, actually prohibit the chemicals, the drugs that influence us, the very elements of nature that tear us apart? It's evident that nobody's done that

Or what if we were the ones to finally step forward and into the perfection and balance of the rustic mantra of freedom, peace and love?

What if we were the ones to make an impact right now by walking roads laid out and worn down by our predecessors? And instead of destroying these familiar cliched foundations, what if we happened to amble across these ramshackle roads into out own very unique destiny?