“I run and I run but I don’t get far…”

I stopped reading his blog some time ago.

Admittedly, I skim it, now and then.

But I’ve long since stopped reading.

Why?

Quite frankly, because I have 5 years of work, both online and on paper, that says all the exact same things.

Well, eerily similar, at the very least.

And, to continue with my usual candor:

He’s not a good writer [yet].

Oh, he’s outstandingly skilled.

Extremely technically proficient.

I will deny neither.

But he’s not “good” [yet].

If he were “good”, I’d digest his words for days, if not months, after I’d encountered them.

Instead, I consume them quickly and with some enjoyment.

As his namesake indicates.

Plus, it’s simply indicative of the rest of his life.

While he works arduously for the fine physique he has, he remains “unattractive”.

While he lives in the most admired part of the USA [if not the world], he feels lost.

Yet, he’ll never bring himself to leave because that’s where all those who are still seeking external attention and validation reside.

We’re all comfortable on a bed of nails if we’ve grown up sleeping on needles.

I know; been there, done that.

Even the booze, drugs and smoking seem hollow to him.

Because he perceives them to be integral to being an artist.

When, in actuality, we artists do those things because we’re shitty at making decisions [see my post regarding Maslow], as compared to most.

I don’t spend all night staring at porn because the real beast that needs feeding is too busy hammering against my ribcage like the prison bars they are to it.

I don’t spend much time with the women that fly out to meet me because I’m in the corner of a bar scribbling furiously in a moleskin notebook as I ignore lewd photos and texts enticing me to return home.

I drink so I keep myself from deleting everything in a fit of self-loathing at the behest of the echoes of my father’s voice telling me nothing is good enough.

I smoke so I have something to slow my fingers as the words spew out of them like the vomit from the emotional bulimic I am.

I’ll forgo my usual cryptic style here:

I am not throwing stones at Delicious Tacos.

I am hurling rocks at a mirror with a 6 year old reflection.

I finally learned approval and validation come from within.

I learned that I could compose “Stairway To Heaven”, write “Notes From Underground” or record “Louder Than Hell”:

And my family would still never give me what I need.

I pray, Truly, he learns this, too.

In conclusion, I write this to aid and enlighten— both he and countless other men of great potential.

Should it be misinterpreted as an attack, a defamation or even a slight:

Mea Culpa.

I have failed.

It wasn’t my first failure.

It won’t be my last.

Ω

“He called my name and my heart stood still…”

In a night–shrouded parking–lot, on his last day at the job, he shakes my hand.

He’s 15+ years younger than I and he never knew all he was capable of doing.

He shakes my hand with a firm yet gentle grip, saying:

“Knowing you was life–changing.”

I never see him again.

 

 

She thanks me over AIM, when she realizes she’s lost 40 pounds.

She was the one that hit the gym daily, pushed past every bad habit and counted calories with Germanic efficiency.

But she thanks me, just the same.

I tell her:

Don’t thank me; you earned it.

To which she replies:

“I couldn’t have done it without you.”

 

 

Once I’m out of earshot, my black co-worker hears the customer call me a profiling racist.

He rebukes her sharply, saying [as he later related to me]:

“Don’t you dare say that.

I’ve worked with him for a while and he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body.”

Looking me in the eye, he admits:

“I was offended for you.”

 

 

It seems I’m a better Roman Catholic than I thought I was.

I’ve become “Christ–like” as I was commanded to be.

In the part of the world that is my “kingdom”:

I’m at the top of the heap.

Yet, at the bottom of the pile.

A “witness to the Truth”.

The Alpha.

And—

Ω

I am as I am.

http://yousowould.wordpress.com/ writes:

“I have this mental image (sound) of your voice kind of being deep and gravelly, I don’t know why…”

 

Folks, you have utterly no idea how much I hate to shatter that particular illusion.

Truly.

But here I am, in my collected audio posts:

 

 

 

 

 

Ω

“Keep fighting ’til the end and past the end you will be strong.”

 

[I wrote this more than two years ago/three months prior to my mother dying of cancer. I rediscovered it going through some older works of mine and, for some reason, felt I should share it.]

 

She tells me:

“For years, you’ve been vulnerable.

Like a defenseless kitten.

You’ve been on a downward slope.

Financially.

Emotionally.

Socially.

You walked into a tunnel – into darkness.

I think, now, you’re walking through the tunnel toward light.”

 

 

Never have I been compared to a kitten.

A tiger – yes.

But never to its youthful progeny.

 

 

My mother makes this observation over the phone.

She is not wrong.

I’ve been told, more than once, I can read people with no more than a few scraps of information over thousands of miles of distance.

I see where I get the talent/curse.

 

 

Her words strike me with supreme force since, mere days ago, I’d realized that about myself.

How much losing my career shattered my Portuguese-hard-working pride.

How the woman I thought I’d marry leaving me for another man slew my faith in relationships.

How falling into such debt ruined my confidence in my financial savvy.

Worst of all, how the totality of hardships almost obliterated my faith in God.

 

 

There’s a point in the conversation where she starts to weep softly.

Bemoaning mistakes she made raising me.

I can tell she wants me to exonerate her.

I don’t.

Nor do I damn her, however.

I was raised to appropriately assign blame and culpability.

My response is curt but compassionate:

The past is gone.

All we can do is move forward.

I continue:

I feel safer than I have in years.

I feel more at home where I am now than I have in a while.

 

 

She sighs with relief.

She lets me know that knowledge eases her burden of worry concerning me.

She says:

“That’s because you feel loved.

You’ve always been told you were.

But now you feel it.”

 

 

I reveal to her that I’ve moved a photo of my grandparents, more than half a century old, to a new location.

So I can see it every morning.

As well as throughout the day.

Each and every time I pass the portrait, I cross myself in the Roman Catholic fashion and thank them for providing my place of residence.

While wishing my grandfather peace in the hereafter.

See, when you live a life as hard as mine, you remember to be grateful.

For everything.

 

 

I don’t tell her that I finally feel loved because, for the first time I can remember:

My parents have shown their love through action.

Rather than words.

I remain silent on that point.

Instead, remain grateful.

 

 

We hang up.

I crack the first beer I can recall in forever.

Light a cigarette.

And step into my backyard.

 

 

I watch the sun set.

Behind clouds of my own manufacture.

I say a wordless prayer of thanks for the friends that have stood by me.

For all the women who have entrusted me with their hearts over the past few years.

Even for the girl who destroyed the man I was –

Forcing me to be the man I am.

Strong.

Wise.

Loved.

You know, when you’ve walked as stony a path as mine, you remember to be grateful.

For everything.

 

 

 

Ω

“Imma run a backhoe n’ uproot that tree…”

 

 

 

I recently read in a female friend’s blog:

“While walking down the path to my front door, I glanced past the clovers as I usually do (always on the hunt for 4 leaves) and realized “love” is much like clovers – you can sit in a field, picking through dozens of 3 leafed clovers, but it’s only when you stop looking that the 4 leafed clovers find you. You never find the 4 leafed ones when you’re looking, they just randomly draw themselves in to your eye sight as you walk past.”

There’s an old saying that goes:

“You always find a lover when you’re not looking for one.”

This is very rarely True for men since men must be constantly active in the search.

It’s both biologically and, by extension, socially mandated that men be the seekers while women are the sought.

Therefore, it’s tantamount to wishful thinking, at best.

 

 

However, for women, it’s so very frequently True as to warrant explanation.

Women, while rarely actively seeking, are always passively seeking.

It’s in their nature [hypergamy].

The statement rings True for women because most women are passively seeking using a stringent and seriously flawed method.

 

 

They, regardless of claims, tend heavily to look for reasons to reject a man rather than reasons to find him acceptable.

This one’s too short.

This one’s too fat.

This one’s too poor.

This one’s too indecisive.

 

 

To put it in terms of the analogy repeated above:

They pull leaves off the clover and are disappointed when they don’t total four.

As opposed to when they are at their least degree of passively seeking.

 

 

It’s then their eyes are struck (and are, themselves, drawn in) by the magickal, attention–grabbing fourth leaf.

The “fourth leaf” could be humor, intelligence, confidence, charisma, talent at an art, etc.

Something/anything that commands notice.

This then gets them to notice the other leaves in all their verdant, emerald glory.

Thus (again, due to hypergamy), count by the leaves that are there.

Rather than those that are not.

 

 

Ω

 

“Sharing one cigarette…”

 

 

 

We all have songs that cause us to recall fond memories.

One that does such a thing for me is Type O Negative’s ► My Girlfriend’s Girlfriend ◄ .

To this day, every time I hear the tune, I still conjure the vision of a woman with whom I was involved and I driving on a road trip together.

Now and then, she’d grab a cigarette from my pack of Marlboro No. 27’s off the dashboard, light it, take a couple drags, then hand it to me.

 

 

 

Words can’t describe how much I enjoyed that small yet powerful act of intimacy.

Eventually, I’d have sex with her and her friend simultaneously in a breathtaking threesome.

But, believe it or not:

The memory of each event fills me with an equal amount of joy.

 

 

 

Ω

“Burn it, rip it, drag and drop it…”

 

 

I’m a big fan of Viktor Frankl.

His work, Man’s Search For Meaning, is one of the greatest books I have ever read.

Indeed, it is the definition of “life changing”.

 

 

Within that work, he discusses the “crisis of meaninglessness”.

The greatest stressor, he claims, in the lives of modern Westerners.

An existential vacuum that swallows purposeless individuals.

Drowning them in cynicism, lethargy, and endless self–doubt/questioning.

From these ideas, he’s credited with coining the phrase “Sunday Neurosis”.

[ http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Sunday+Neurosis ]

 

 

Now, I believe this affliction plagues both men and women.

However, I believe women suffer from it (on the whole) to a much larger degree—

As feminism has robbed them of their biologically based/traditionally bestowed purposes, the manifest symptoms thusly:

 

“persons who function well in planned and organised work settings”  = addiction to attending school/pursuing degrees

“dissociative states” = glued to smartphones, addicted to Facebook, texts only; no calls.

“obsessions” = celebrities, reality television, Apple products, Starbucks

“compulsions” = eating, foodie culture

 

 

Therefore, I conclude the glut of social media and attention whoring has reached such terrible degrees due to women’s feeling more existentially meaningless than at any time prior.

Which is why they pursue “Alphas” with heretofore unseen fervor.

Anything – anything – to grant a purpose or meaning to their lives.

Whether it be to support a purposeful man or to try to alter his purpose or a combination thereof, they are willing to debase themselves (for the right man) now, more than ever before.

Indeed, desperate times call for desperate measures.

 

 

Which brings me to this [h/t to Jack Lane at vivalamanosphere.com]:

 

My reply to this would have been:

k. nice meeting you,

 

 

 

Ω