Sea of Memories

My memories flow around me, in a torrent of multi-colored water. An infinitely small slice of time experienced representing a single droplet of liquid. The positive collection of moments forms the most pleasant of areas, bright colors and gentle waves. The negative areas form torrential storms and roiling waters. My consciousness walks along the surface, my footsteps across the shifting surface sending ripples forever across my sub-consciousness. My thoughts are each miniscule wave that reverberates out like the movement of sound across the skin of a drum. Sometimes, they strike an object, flotsam and jetsam left by others that have come into my life.  Their consciousness’s touch my own, floating along in a paper boat, absorbing the water within words they utter to me. This world has no rules, and no boundaries with which they can operate within. These boats, transmuted by emotions, become more than life craft created from pulped vegetation. Instead, they join the sea, rooting themselves in an island of moments, forever imprinted while they sail. Like the movements of the continents, their existence within me moves along the slivers of time they have made themselves of. They build, create. Papyrus becomes stone, steel, dirt. Islands of glorious beauty arise from the roiling multi-colored waters, splashing up against their rocky shores, the smooth beaches. Some drift like a man lost at sea into the dark areas. The rain that falls in these terrible places filled with my imperfections, boil away the emotional alchemy.  Poison, acid, the droplets eat away at the bonds holding the material together and soon the island is destroyed. Ripped away by the scared visitor who cries tears of black. I watch. My footsteps carry me into those storms and I watch as every droplet of imperfections destroys every created bond or link, leaving behind whatever floating wreckage that refuses to be dismantled. I watch, and I learn.

Today, my footsteps carry me onto the shores of a new island. A fascinating place of memory and an astonishing case...so quickly has it built itself, and so swift the person commanding the consciousness that drives the emotional alchemy has worked their way into my core.

The bright white sand sinks as my weight is applied, parting for my presence and accepting me. Soft waves of deep blue wash away my trail, consuming the particles of time I have shifted, only to deposit more in a dynamic display of emotion. On this small beach I see thousands of lights, dimmed in the rays of sunlight, but sparkling vividly to me still. I can feel them, the photons hitting me from hundreds of directions, penetrating my very being. Apprehension, and nervousness, residual emotions echo from across the waves, pounding into my back even as my path continues forward, into the crystalline forest that dots this particular island.  Between two monoliths I walk, and I can feel it. The fear shocks me as I’m forced to sit, as I’ve done before. Waiting…my focus on the fears of the two towers of transmuted time. My consciousness could be crushed by either rejection to my right, or disappointment to my left. Soon though, the visitor arrives, pulls me from my place with a warm smile, before skittering off like a playful fairy into the forest. I do not catch the form, what projection it has assumed, but I follow…

Soon I am no longer walked, I fly along in a silver chariot, pulled by invisible horses into the forest. The forest blurs from crystal to steal and asphalt, then finally to dust and dirt…a road that snakes up the side of a monstrous rock formation. I look out from my seat and can see the shore of the island, yet I have not gone far. I feel small in comparison to the alchemical wonder that built this titan I now climb. The wind caresses my skin, chilling the flesh as the chariot races on. I can feel the consciousness next to me, a constant smile on it’s face. I hear the words, my lips move as well. But the chariot moves too fast, and they are whipped away on a breeze of time, lost along the road we both now travel. Beauty returns, vegetation sprouts up around us, white powder coat the sides of the titan, hanging from the branches. The summit is reached and the scene shifts as we disembark. The ground is hard beneath our feet, the wind cold yet caressing, soothing both of our raging souls. I notice then, the definite form: silken hair, pale skin and perfect teeth. My consciousness reaches out, testing my mind. Reality cannot be so kind to me. Gingerly, dark skin touches pale, and the image doesn’t immediately shatter. I am relieved, but the world blurs around us. No longer are we on a titan’s back, our hands outstretched towards the gods above. It is dark here…

Dim lights and laughter fill my mind. I can’t seem to make out everything around me, but it doesn’t matter. My focus is sharpened to a point, and embedded into the soft wooden table that separates our two entities. Laughter flits across, occasionally interrupted by a brief visitor, an annoyance. Kind at heart I can tell, but her form is not definite, it will leave no trace here among the void that surrounds this small paradise. Silence, laughter, words. They ebb and flow like the tide crashing on the beach of this island. Soon we emerge from this dark place, this cave of solitude. Into the night our forms travel, path lit in the darkness of it by pinpricks of light, small organisms of transformed material.

Darkness surrounds us for a brief moment, before I step across the threshold to a new place, foreign place. Within is a home of white, speckled with color and life. There are holes within this canvas, where my mind can peer into distant memories. A sanctum this is, a home of memories and love. I can feel it in the walls, the cold floor beneath my feet. Life was created here, the blessings it bestowed granted lovely emotions in the visitor. That is where the talent and strength must originate. Life has flowed through the visitor, and thus creation is simple to those callused hands. Hands that have given, taken, and held the weight of others up. Those hands have reached out to help, only to be lashed and scarred, but they try again, and again. I have felt the kindness and purity beneath every worn line. I can feel the pain, inflicted by another just beneath the surface. Why? I ask myself. How? How could anyone harm such a sanctum, injure such an entity?

We meld in the night, a writhing mass of coiled fabric and flesh. Inexperience is tossed aside, my mind guides me through the warm tunnel. The pounding beat of life reverberates in this soft place of solitude. The island boils away from us, and nothing else exists. Time flows from our bodies to pool around our forms. They coalesce into a multi-colored fountain emerging in the middle of this pooling lake of emotions and memories. It  will forever stay a dot of pleasure amongst the sea of other such slices in time.

I travel through the rest of the island, through the memories. Yet I can never stay away for long. That one pool, that one oasis in the middle of the island weighs heavily on my mind. It bends the area around it, pulling my thoughts down into the depths of it’s own gravity well. I try to move away from it, I try to seek elsewhere. Yet for some reason my footsteps return to that bright white beach. If only to visit the entity that resides on it.

I know one thing.

I don’t want this island to be destroyed.

I want it to remain forever, and continue to grow and build.

Glimpse of the lives lost

CC and what not.



The above comic got me thinking awhile back. Wouldn't it be interesting if the entire world worked like that? A simple mod here,a tweak there, maybe some kind of pacemaker thing tied to our soldiers. A brief glimpse into their lives as their life's blood spills upon the ground. Would our opponents call us infidels then? Would they still slaughter our children and our children's children for the sake of some war waged for whatever reason?


Or maybe an evolutionary thing, or simply something to ponder about. Just for a moment lets sit down and think about what such snip-its might reveal, what preventative measures.

I'm no killer, but I'm sure there is a sense of detachment there, that there is some sort of dehumanization going on in the psychopathic mind. A few brief moments of the victims life flashed before them, permanently seared into their consciousness. Burning through whatever haze of mental disorder they've constructed or that their mind has been wrapped in to fully impact their psyche in all of its horror.

Perhaps that would stop more then one killing?

Or maybe not.

I'm sure that for some there would be some kind of sick pleasure in knowing that this was the life that was being led and now it is no more. Weird little fetishes would probably arise.


Hm. Interesting. What if it was simply some kind of social thing, get a glimpse into the person you are looking at. Might be a nice way to break the ice if I do say so myself. If it was socially acceptable at least to breach the surface with something like that.

Then again that might be my male side begging for an easier way to start conversations with anyone really. If something in common isn't readily apparent conversation usually becomes boring and dull. At the very least if you can glimpse that you both loved to eat peanut-butter sandwiches you could segue into some other kind of talk about whatever else.

Meh.

Sometimes I think I just want to read minds.

Education

Here begins my first little rant.


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     In all the years of my life I have been considered a 'smart' person. Family members viewed me in part as a "Straight A student". Despite the obvious paper-evidence that would contest to this, a lot of those I knew and still know today have some sort of framework I'm supposed to fill. Now this is no rant on my own shortcomings or how they are or are not justified, but rather a more in-depth look at the education system today, or at the very least the education system that I've been put through as a child born and raised in America.


     There is first the education your parents give you before you enter the official education system. They teach you to share if you have siblings, they teach you to be polite, and to be kind to others. Or at least this is my hope. Unfortunately this isn't always the case. What happens more often than not is parents impart their values onto their children at a very early age. We're born a blank slate but that slate is quickly tarnished or colored with what our parents view and how they think. I'm sure there are books and books about the sociological aspects as well as they psychological facets of this early "brain-washing", but that's not really the purpose of this rant.

     The reason I bring the early stages up is because of what happens. Usually parents limit their children because they are afraid they would get hurt. they shelter us and keep us indoors for the most part, tossing colorful toys at our feet in an attempt to keep us busy for as long as possible while they go about their busy day. This is far more evident in single-parent households, as the parent usually has to cook,clean,and work while also taking care of the child. With the teenage birth rate being what it is in America, a lot of the single-mothers are also working multiple jobs, and in some cases still going to school if they haven't dropped out.


This puts a rather large strain on the mother and puts a large damp on the child's early 'education'. Many can't wait until their son or daughter gets into the government funded education system so they can have more time to themselves. Who can blame them, having a child is a huge responsibility, stacked on top of the already large pile of responsibility that being a responsible adult already comes with. I congratulate any woman or man who can be a successful parent; in that they find some sort of balance between the Adult-world and that world that contains only the parent and child, in which the child thrives in ignorance of what lies outside of it.

Now let us assume that a child has two parents, and has a dedicated stay-at-home parent in which to learn from. The early years, from around birth to around four years of age, is mostly a parent-child relationship. Between then and perhaps even after or during, children are introduced to other children. This brings another facet of sociology to mind, and no doubt is another form of education. The first time one child meets another is a sort of crucible for them both.  Can they apply what their parents have taught them to a complete stranger? Can they be friendly? Can they share? Be nice?

Sometimes they can't, perhaps the personalities of the children clash and they don't get along for whatever reason. Other times they become best of friends and turn into, depending on the coupling, tiny little heathens or perfect little angels. A cute sight really, and the more children added into the mix the larger the world they live in becomes. They form their own society, containing parental contact, but mostly consisting of the love or hate shared between the children.

Adventure becomes the most important thing, and imagination flourishes. Baring the psychological disadvantages that a child may have doing certain things at such a young age, or being able to grasp certain concepts, the world they live in is usually defined by happiness. Its what our childhood memories are built on.
The only memory I have of myself as a child playing alone was when I tried pulling a T.V off a table. Everything else included my sister or my friends. These memories are the best to form and the one's you'll look back on the most.

   However, to get back on track, learning throughout the early stages of childhood development is only in preparation for the first day of formal education. The first introduction to a perfectly strange adult that isn't connected via some sort of parental link directly or indirectly. The concept of learning from someone other then the close friends of parents or family members is introduced. How kids take this usually depends on how the child was raised. Its easy to see who the spoiled and sheltered ones are when they cling to the parents leg in a desperate attempt to stay away from formal education.

    That fear is usually overcome, and from day one we are taught what others believe we need to be taught. Its a wide variety of subjects ranging from simple math to the history of our country.It is here we can see those who many consider to become the 'smart' one's develop. They absorb the information like the sponge we turn them into. Being able to regurgitate facts at the slightest of squeezes and soak up any change to those facts rather easily. This continues all the way through high school, with the children and then young adults not having much, if any input into what they would want to learn.

Everything is standardized. Work and Classes are structured and built around standards and test scores. Which boils ultimately down to money. The higher the test scores the more money a school receives in a direct or indirect way. The only reason anyone ever presents to these students is always "because you need to know" or "because you'll need it for the test. Anyone who questions why the students would ever need to learn this or that is immediately labeled a slacker or lazy. Not wanting to absorb the liquid knowledge or wanting to examine it at any rate is viewed as impeding the flow of learning and most questions are discarded, or ignored.

It limits the students and instead keeps them in the sponge stage for the most part. Its a wonder many go into college wondering what the fuck they're going to do with their life. Its no wonder that many of them never move past the 'party' stage in their life and instead just work at some boring 9-to-5 job that they hate for most of their life. They were sponges, all they knew how to do was absorb information and release information on command. Who's job is it to frame their lives?

We are the sum total of our actions and the actions of others. We take in what we believe to be right and correct and reject others. Those teachers that reinforce this behavior should be awarded. Usually its those in the literature and 'English' fields. Obviously, you can't simply spit out facts about a book and expect to get a good grade. Its here that we develop a sense of real self. What ideals do I hold? What paradigms shape my world? What ideas and concepts do I hold above the others?

It is really the only place where a teacher will as your opinion on something, or anything.

"What do you think?"

A question that truly shapes who and what we become at these stages.
Those that form their own opinion and think for themselves through the early points in their adult lives become "smarter" and more "educated."

Unfortunately a lot of parents simply don't care what their child thinks, and only cares about what grade they get. I remember enjoying showing my papers to my father or mother and hearing what they had to say. Over the years they stopped asking for them, I stopped caring to show them. Aside from the validation it gave, it was interesting to hear their own views, which could have easily been supplemented by actual conversations.

Something that should never stop throughout any one's life. Question, talk.

That is the true way you can learn, and the true education. That is how someone becomes well 'educated'.

In the current day and age however, many things are taboo, or not politically correct. Teachers and students are to not share each others opinions with each other because of this 'sponge' status they've put each student in.  Afraid for obvious reasons that no one would contest against whatever thoughts the teacher might have.

Maybe that is true, but coupled with a constant influence from the parents, friends, and other adults, then perhaps more would find themselves thinking for themselves and forming their own opinions.

Then maybe more of us will become more well "educated".

Which is better?
A sponge soaked in the opinions of others with no room for its own, or a dried sponge filled with only concrete beliefs, self made opinions and little of the 'outside'.

Who I Am

I am enigmatic
I am logical
I am young
I am old
I am you
I am me
I am love
I am happiness
I am thought
I am what I am