16 September 2008

Gladiators

I'll preface this by saying the following as bluntly as possible: I hate election years. I hate the bipartisal system. I am not a supporter of John McCain or Sarah Palin; I am not a supporter of Barack Obama or Joe Biden. I do not support some left-field party hoping to "break ground" and be the first real threat from a new ticket. I'm not Green, Libertarian, or Prohobitionist. I'm an American, and nothing more.

I really hate election years. They bring out the worst in absolutely everyone; suddenly, mudslinging is the new black, and everyone's a Paris-bound fashion mogul. I'm bombarded from all sides with tales of how Candidate X wants to tax the poor but Candidate Y wants to give them handouts and dive national debt. Debates fling across networks, campaign advertisements plague every channel, every lawn, every news article. Everything -- even new scientific research -- comes with a left- or right-wing pundit heralding the advancement of the human race or the degradation of its morals. There's not a single American news report, nor news report about America, that doesn't include a political sideline, footnote, or other jab; anything left untouched by the writers and editors is quickly picked up as a banner by one camp of commentors or another, and soon, it's as if any given website is the central hub for pre-election coverage of the rampant hatred seething under the skin of every principled American.

The real kicker, I think, is that everyone thinks they have an obligation to vote. An obligation to support one of the major tickets. An obligation to empower a half-formed opinion bolstered by party lines, colorful speeches, and media-frenzies based on half-truths (Palin book banning) or association (Rev. Wright) -- things with no real relevance to the task at hand. I challenge this obligation by choosing not to vote; this isn't a refusal or decision to not voice an opinion by any means. Voting is a process by which any given individual pledges their support for another individual based on their personal feelings about any of a number of various factors -- some people vote "party line", some vote because they believe in one candidate or the other, some vote along the "lesser of two evils" line, and some for reasons that I don't know or don't care to list here. Those are all well and good for those people, but I feel that it's just as valid an option to refuse to vote if there are no candidates on the ballot that I can support in good faith. It's like the conscientious objector for the new age, and damned if it doesn't carry a similar stigma.

The real thing that gets me irked, though, is just the increased level of aggravation, of spite, of spitting venom at one another. Everyone gets caught up in their own digs, in their own pseudoreligious fervor for their Chosen One to Whom All Truth Shall Bow, and we spark intense, raging arguments and fights with one another on things that are entirely unrelated! There's just such an overflow of sheer irritation with the Other Side that people are testy about any subject, and are willing to preach their platform on it, going so far as to sever ties that have outlasted several similar elections before. We forego the notion that we are all Americans, and we become only Liberals or Conservatives, drawing battle lines as clear as we did in 1861 with the onset of our nation's civil war. It's as if we forget that after the election, we're going to be forced to continue living with the folks that we've so strongly opposed in the weeks and months leading up to that magical date.

As for me? I'm not voting in this election, nor do I plan to in any election hence. Call me when one of the parties finally admits their facist regime and is ready to make it happen.

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09 September 2008

Drifting

Life comes at you fast, and if you fail to keep up, then the road is going to rise to meet your face before you even realise that your gravity is off. You have to keep on running despite any hurdle that throws itself in front of you, or you're never going to make it to the next one; even when you fall, you must do so with enough forward momentum that you can continue, uninterrupted, to the next event unfolding before you. There's no pause, no stop, no time for a Slo-Mo replay examination of your latest success or failure. This is the big leagues of universal participation and everything is on the line with each move you make; chances are, just by taking the time to read this paragraph, you've missed something that could have been vitally more important than doing so. Of course, reading this could also be the single most important thing you've ever done, or will ever do. Gotta take chances, I guess, if you're looking to find prizes at the end of the tunnel where the light fades off into the blackness of the unknown, sometimes referred to as 'tomorrow' or, stranger yet, as 'yesterday'.

I've been out of sorts lately. Work has been unkind, and life is curving like an acid-dosed python in a wind tunnel full of rat scent. Twists upon turns upon coils of what looked to be circles but in the end are only spirals further into some depth yet unfathomed by Man. Sleep is lost as the hours fade into days taking up the weeks that build and build and build to join up to some cataclysm that looms. I think maybe it'd be nice if the apocalypse happened, if only because then the chaos that is my head might splash out across the CNN website with vivid color and broadcast with unique theme music that captures the sense of not knowing what's going on. For all the uncertainty about the future, we still seem so focused on it. Projections, predictions, prophecies all, like oracular divestitures of ages long since passed and soon to come again.

This, too, shall pass.

All things must end. All ends must have a means. All means must have purpose.

When life is turned for the worst, it is important to remember that no matter how terrible, how depressive, how distraught, it will end. It will change. Things will be different.

When life is bursting with greatness, it is important to remember that no matter how wonderful, how elating, how fantastic, it will end. It will change. Things will be different.

The only cosmic truth is that there is no truth to the cosmos. Science disproves itself on a nigh-daily basis now, refuting the foolish predispositions and conclusions of great thinkers of the past. How much further before they all realize that no constant needs to remain? Seekers will always seek, and will never find, for that is not their purpose. Anything collected on the path of the Seeker is not a truth, but an evident footprint from where the truth may have stepped while sprinting headlong into wherever it's hiding now. Ask the quantum-theorists. They ought to know where it's gone by the time I've finished wondering if I should even bother asking.

I guess what I'm saying is that I know there are no answers, only questions. But this, too, shall pass! While answers may not exist, the simple fact of shifting truth must dictate to itself that eventually, the eventuality of events will evince the evident evidence of itself. I can't even make sense of it myself, but I can't imagine it any other way.

I think I'm just confused and confounded by the way that the path interacts with the traveller, inexorably editing the predestination percieved by the one who does the travelling, thus changing the place being travelled to. What we expect is not what we recieve. What we recieve is what we should have expected. We've been through it all before, but refuse to learn anything new about the processes that dictate the facts of the case. It's all laid out, cut and dry, but the jury is refusing to cease deliberations, and I'm pretty sure the judge paid the bailiff to block the defendant's entry to the room.
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