Under the Brightest Stars – My Story

So much can happen in a year that it is little wonder that time is the great equalizer. I’ve always felt that time in and of itself is the greatest judge, the most effective executioner, and the most passionate protector. While time delivers us onto the chopping block of life, dismembering all semblance of our former selves with one last breath, one last quake, it also holds off the inevitable decay, and heals the microscopic rips and tears of our hearts. Time has the power to heal, to destroy – to equalize.

So much has changed – my wife and I, deeply in love, married in March of 2009. On our honeymoon, a great revelation in drunken stupor lead to a new spiritual awakening. Time has healed the rifts between my father and I, and has closed the great chasm between my mother and I as well. My sister and I have a new relationship, a new genesis of understanding and mutual respect. My art has culminated in satisfaction, and its fruition has become a staple in our decrepit scene.

For now – I sleep. Tomorrow, we talk. There’s much more to hear, friend. Silence comes when you grow old and sad, then die. I plan on doing neither of those any time soon.

See you soon kid.

Alone in a cold, dark bedroom, I stare at the patterns in my carpet, shifting consciously between states of apathy and desolation. The phone, alive in my hand, keeps shaking in it’s vibrations, threatening to wake the gods with it’s deafening silence, shaking the earth into a rhythmic motion of somnambulism and despair. I had expected this moment to happen, but was surprised by it’s sudden appearance – almost as if you called an old friend in a store who happened to be in the adjacent aisle – you know it’s going to happen, but it still frightens you. The sensation of ice creeps across my skin, both the icy breathe of despair and the white hot rage of consistent anger and frustration. I answer the phone delicately, asking why she continues to abuse me this way. I lash out, unable to hold back anymore, and finally ask her the intent of all of this. I wait with abated breath, hands shaking with anger, disappointment and betrayal, waiting for the sickly poison to drip from those cracked lips and broken teeth. I feel so incredibly alone in my average situation, which only increases the drama and irony of it all. She is the most insane, abusive, disloyal person I  have ever met, but all these emotions, suppressed in the twilight hours of morning, serve only to highlight the fact that I have convinced myself of an emotion that is non-existent – my fear of being alone has forced me into this condition which, ironically, is one of loneliness.

She has decided to be a whore. She has made the conscious choice to have as much sex with as many people as possible, and that hurts me – but I realize in that instance that the fake emotion that I’ve convinced myself I feel is not what has caused the pain inside me. Oh no, I could care less for her. She is trash, a waste of space, excrement of the earth fit more for decomposition than walking in her current state of reanimated corruption and deceit. What hurts me the most is that I am just one more line in a journal, one more memory that can be locked away. I am an errant word on a piece of paper, decaying in a trash heap. That, more than anything, causes me to snap. I tell her it’s over, that I hate her, that I hope she realizes one day, while she is in a drugged up stupor, having degraded herself and destroyed her soul, that she gave up the single person who has ever given more than two seconds of care for her. I hang up the phone. A week later, I tell her that I never want her to call me again, that I hate her, and that she is a waste of humanity. I have only talked to her once since then, and she is as predicted – destroyed, utterly. I rejoice.

That causes such an internal friction inside me, however – rejoicing in another persons pain. As I alluded in an earlier piece, I am a Christian, one of idealistic values of morality and justice, even against the corruption of the fundamental. So how can I, a Christian, claim joy over another persons suffering? After a year, I still held such anger towards her. Why? The circumstance isn’t unique – I’m sure I’m not the first person to be damaged by the morally questionable activities of another, nor am I the last. I wonder how many thousands of people have been abused before me, and how many will be after me? The emotional scars I hold are identical to many others, even those in my own life, so what can cause such anger, why do I still hold such a derisive hatred towards her? The answer, as with most answers in life, is complex in it’s simplicity – I am alone. We are all alone. The suffering of life is simple and collective – as per the human condition, we are made to suffer by our actions and inaction. We are, realistically, all alone, in a collective mass of despair and regret. How is this possible, to be lonely yet surrounded?

Firstly, we are born into a world which we did not ask to be part of. We exist for unknown reasons, in a world that is damaged so heavily by the actions of those who have decided we should be part-and-parcel to it. We did not ask to be brought here, but brought here we are, to this world of such intense sorrow, joy, suffering and delight, confused by our inadequate understanding and pompous in our self righteous attitude. We can’t be told anything – we are humans! We are the dominate species! We waste as we want, destroy as we want, do as we want, for we, despite claims to the contrary, see ourselves as our own God. We are our own personal messiahs. We are born into peaceful ignorance, and ascend generally into deliberate idiocy.

Secondly, the idle conformity of youth acts as a second scene in the grand operatic depression. We resist our ascendancy to idiocy, trying however unfruitful to maintain the innocence and joy of youth. We resist conformity because to conform is to become that which we hate – the very image and type that caused such despair and destruction in this world in the first place. We are asked to become like those who forced us into this world; we are forced to become like those who destroyed this world. We suffer and rejoice through bad and good, but we ultimately are alone.

Third, and finally, we die alone. We lose our loved one (or abandon them, as the case may be), at least if we are lucky enough to have had a loved one, and then leave this world that we became part of without our agreement by force. We never asked to be brought here, yet we never asked to be taken out. It’s the grand irony of existence – there was no consultation, no intent on being created, yet when we are created with our will being known, we cling to existence, however menial, however desperate, fearing the unknown. We are untimely alone.

I know a large group of people are currently staring at these pages (or computer screen, depending on how you are currently reading this), and questioning to themselves how this all fits in with my idealistic view of God and existence. How can such despair permeate the world? Simply, we choose to be alone. We choose to continue this cycle of despair, we choose to submit, we choose to conform. Simply, we choose to be part of a collective of despair and negativity. This collective despair, however, is the very key to joy – rejoice in the suffering of life by supporting each other. Give love and happiness, honor the world for what it is, and do you very best to change it. One cannot simply accuse society of faults and then refuse to fix it – be the change you want to see in the world (to paraphrase a great mind). You are not alone – your situation is not unique. Somewhere in the world, someone is suffering as you are, being rejected as you were, or is being oppressed as you will be. We are, by nature, a collective of both great joy and suffering, but it does not have to be this way. When we acknowledge that we all suffer, when we acknowledge that pain is universal, only then can we move forward and support each other through love and understanding. If a man lashes out at you in anger, find the fault in that mans life, and support him. You may be who he needs. If a woman rejects you, honor the decision – it has a purpose, a reason. Support her by accepting, and move on. If you are wronged, do not “get even”, acknowledge that person is so damaged as to feel the need to attack you. Refuse to be alone.

It’s been a few years since that night. I don’t harbor hatred anymore. Eating at my soul, the hatred took hold and began to sprout ignorance and defensiveness in my soul. I refused to be alone, rejected it by the Lord, and have found closure. I encourage anyone that needs closure to do the same. Even if you do not have a faith, find something to discover closure in, whether it be your own God, a book, a song from a forgotten record, or a journal entry from long years passed. I am no longer filled with anger. I am filled with joy – I am not alone in my suffering. I am loved by a beautiful woman who is loyal, beautiful, and kind. She is bearing my child, and we are happy together. We refuse to be alone. As for the former relationship – I only hope that she, and others like her, find solace and compassion where they need to find it. I hope they become what they were intended to be, whatever that is, and that they find fault in their actions and seek forgiveness, from themselves, from those they’ve wronged, and from where they need to find it. God bless the fallen. We’re all mad here.

Clad in ripped jeans and a hoodie, life rushing by in milliseconds captured and flashes of red, blue and black, I’m staring at the lonely faces surrounding me. A man, deep in a book I could never hope to read, a woman, engrossed in a silent conversation on her white cellphone, and a child, fast asleep against his sister, dreaming of the life he’ll have and the happiness he’ll give to others. I’m sitting on the JR Line in Japan, returning to Matsudo, where our guide Aya lives. I smile, tired from the day, but fulfilled. A long day of sight seeing had culminated first in a nice, full shot glass of sake, and then with a wonderful session of Karaoke. Joined by drunk business men across the hall and the wonderful hostess who guided us to the private room, Wayne and I had sung like there was no tomorrow – we sang combinations of heavy metal, prog rock, and finally ended it all with a delightfully depressing rendition of “Iris” by the Goo Goo Dolls (which, by the way, still brings water to my eyes whenever I hear it – ah nostalgia!). I close my eyes, and the memories, anxieties, emotions, and thoughts of the day catch up to me, rushing behind the eyelid like a broken movie theater projectionist, running reel after reel of disjointed scenes in his mad candor.

It flies by in a split second, and I can feel my heart skip a beat. Slowly, the heat in my body increases, and I can feel the beginnings of a migraine creeping into my temples. My smile slowly drops, and then quickly deepens into a scowl. My mind races, my heart slams against my chest, and my breath comes quickly. My brain jumps around, trying to find out why I’m reacting this way, and it hits me like a ton of bricks – at this very second, we could all die. Now, don’t take that the wrong way – it’s not as if I’m a remarkably morbid person. I have my moments, and although my humor has been regarded with many a sour face, I am generally a happy person. Regardless, the thought hits again – at this very second, we could all die.

Looking around at the lonely faces, I wonder – what have these people become, if we do die? In others words, what is the sum total of their lives? The man, deeply engrossed in his book – what has he done with his life that could make his existence warranted, or at the very least, a positive influence? The woman talking, the children sleep, myself – what have we done? It’s not as if we could control it, either – a man who has six months to live will do everything in his power to leave something of himself behind, some legacy, some influence. It’s, after all, human genetics – we are programmed to leave a piece of us behind, through either procreation or legacy. We wouldn’t choose to die at this very second, but if we did, what positive would we have injected into the world? What action, what word, what attitude would have made our existence not a waste?

Fundamentally, we tend to think we control the universe – man is a very self-centered being, and we’ve convinced ourselves of some percieved supremacy. We hunt living beings for food, we cut down nature to write on it, we burn entire forested areas for strip malls. At the end of the day, however, we control nothing. Allow that to soak in for a minute – we truly control nothing. We don’t control our bodies – if we did, then we would not have cancer, AIDS, or even assault and murder. We don’t control our money – in the modern day economy, that is blatantly obvious. Even with the smartest investments, you could be screwed. Even if you left it all in the bank, you could be screwed. If it’s under the mattress, you could be robbed. We control almost nothing.

This comes across as depressing, but I want to point out something I said above – we control almost nothing. The only thing we can ever hope to control, ever hope to understand, is integrity, and more specifically, honesty. We, as a society, have become a group of liars and thieves in every sense of the word. It’s not entirely our fault, however – people are told by society that if you’re “normal”, you’re welcome, and if you’re not “normal”, you better at least fake it. We’ve been conditioned to lie – don’t ask don’t tell, counter culture suppression, government mandates, tyrannical rule of free information – it’s all been designed to keep us in another persons view of the straight and narrow, or at the very least, designed to make us pretend to be in the straight and narrow. Every single person knows at least one other person who has committed a crime, has a weird fetish, has cheated on someone, or any number of truths, and continues to make the choice to hide them behind lies.

A second memory comes to mind, and is the perfect example – I’m standing on the sightseeing deck at Narita International, looking at a plane taking off. That plane could crash before even taking off the runway, and all those people would be forgotten within weeks by the majority of the world. All their bank accounts would be depleted in some way or another, their jobs would be filled by another cog, their children would find another father in the man mommy decides to have sex with, and they would be truly forgotten. As depressing as that is, it’s true – nothing in their lives would make their existence warranted, except for the microcosm of impacts they left. Say out of the 60 people on a plane, only one of them told the truth about a friend who abuses his child. That child would be freed from abuse, and could someday grow up to start an organization for the safety of children and abuse education. Directly due to this institution, another child could be freed, and that child could remember the positive impacts of that organization, and choose to use it as a platform for politics. Someday, he could become a leader of Japan, and move for tougher regulation on the treatment of children and women, therefore liberating an entire section of the population.

If the man keeps silent? Who knows. All that can be said is the sum total of positive possibility that could be derived from his life is gone. He has left nothing. He has had no impact.

My heart slows, and my smile returns. I know that it’s a side effect of me being tired, and that the sort of thought that runs through the mind at one in the morning typically isn’t one of intelligence. I simply think to myself – “Maybe I should tell Jenny how I feel. Yeah…”. Almost two years later, I’m free of all the addictions that plagued my body, and I’m going to be the father of a beautiful baby boy. All because of telling one simple truth.

Come on people now. Smile on your brother, everybody get together. Try and love another right now.

The memory, as most of my fondest do, begins in Japan – more accurately, in the least accurate terms, somewhere amongst the scattered tourists and natives celebrating the New Year, spinning through the crowds like an oceanside torrent, a current of life. I’m six stories up, staring at a white wall, bobbing my head silently – Tower Records is a strange kind of place, hidden away at the top floor, minimal in it’s complexity, yet complex in it’s absent minded decoration. Walking past a kiosk, I had heard jazzy beats emanating from a pair of headphones, suspended off a hook, vibrating to the ‘bumps’ and ‘ticks’ of the drum line, and was intrigued – though I was a Jazz fan, I was more a fan in the school of Take Five and Bunny Berigan, and had not yet heard the smooth beats of club jazz and acid groove. Nonetheless, I was intrigued, and upon hearing several fifteen second clips, I promptly demanded a piece of paper of the hostess, who responded kindly in good, yet broken, English – “Is Indigo Jam Unit – good jazz!”. After writing their name in semi-inebriated and exhausted scrawl, I bid my farewells, and joined Aya and Wayne on their exit with the Mars Volta and The Pillows secure in my backpack. I spent the next week checking to see if I had the name written down – one in my wallet, one in my pocket, one on the laptop, over and over again. For some reason, I felt it was important.

Almost two years later, it’s occurred to me – jazz is like life. Well, any music really, but particularly jazz. Life is like jazz in the sense that there are a multitude of parts, all working in harmony, to produce one of two classes of jazz (and really, there are only two main classes) – pure unlistenable noise, or pure delicious audio sex. Of all the comparisons that can be made, however, the one that catches my attention is the drumline, in all it’s complexity and planning. The drumbeat is but a section of life, and to me best represents the concept of memories – not the memories themselves, but the grand overall place for them in the human experience. Each hit, each cymbal strike, each roll of the bass, is a memory – all with varying degrees of recollection and strength, all with varying levels of pertinence. The pattern rolls on, forgetting each note, driving forward always – however, no matter how driving the beat, it means nothing without referencing a previous sample of sound – after all, how strange would a song sound if the composer refused to remember any previously played note?

Memory, as a whole, proceeds in much the same equation, though we tend to go to one of two extremes. On the one hand, there are those that pick each note and hit methodically, bogging so far down in details that the overall composition suffers, or refuses to be completed. On the other hand, there are those compositions that drive fully ahead, with no reference point, continuity, or logic – the aforementioned noise. In each of these cases, the overall line suffers, and a song is only as good as it’s weakest part. If the drumline fails, the bassline will lose rhythm, the guitar will strike absently, the brass and percussionists will fail to find their place – it’ll be a mess, punctuated by horrible authorship. It is only when a delicate balance is discovered that the song comes to fruition, and it’s potential is realized. For those who live in the past, picking each detail one by one, the future rushes by – for those who spend their live pushing forward, it all ends suddenly, having experienced nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Really, it’s not the composers fault in the end – it’s the human condition. We tend to think of the moment as being of singular importance – Carpe Diem, as they say. The only thing that matters is us, the here and now, the impermeant. It’s a defense mechanism – when the hatred of our condition and situation exceeds of tolerance to pain and loss, we retreat into the past, or march ignorantly into the future. It’s pure escapism. What we need to realize, though, is that there is more than one song on this Earth – there are millions of drum lines, millions of songs, and our single instrument, though important to us, is really, truly, and completely insignificant. This is not a thing of despair - a record can only work with songs that are in harmony. When we recognize the darkness in the world that we wish to change, we can then flood it with the light of understanding and peace. I’m sure we’ll meet again, old friend. In this life, or the next.

So long, Tokyo.

Leaning against the railing of a wrought-iron balcony in Chiba, Japan, I stare out at the sprawling black road in front of me, covered in the moisture of seaboard air. The air passing over a cigarette in one hand elicits a glowing red spark, sending burning red paper swirling in the air, fluttering onto my hand, which seizes in response. The ember burns the skin, but only as deep as the cold coastal night ambiance has permeated. Flicking the Lucky Strike into the street below, I watch as it plummets, striking the ground with a silent grace, and I find myself unable to look away. Staring at the black asphalt, my mind races with possibilities, ranging from the extremities of running into the mountains to disappear , seizing the opportunity to drift to the earth in an extremely lacking grace, and the natural concepts of slow assimilation and a career abroad. I am unhappy with my life – the multitude of failures and ultimately useless decisions has caused my life to slowly fall apart, tearing at the seams; the nature of expression has dulled, and the art that once seemed vibrant and colorful seems listless and grey at best, and utterly pointless in those black, worsening hours. My old age has come to soon, capturing my youth in adolescent cries and yearning for peace and tranquility. I grin and bear it, as I usually do, and decide that my only chance at survival is one of assimilation – to give up ones dreams is to succumb to the poisons of reality, to allow oneself to be happy with sub parity and discontent. Love is but a fleeting dream, and peace is a bitches brew that burns my tongue as it slips away in the vomit of depression. I slide the door open, laying down on the cheap plastic mat that I’m borrowing from the person that I am staying with, a person that I have never met in my entire life, but that is seemingly happy and content with my brief stay. I envy the happiness she could feel – with little to no money or credibility to her name, she somehow manages to smile and prosper while faced with the daunting prospects of mothering her newborn child and maintaining a job she loathes. I envy that. I really fucking do.

Less than a year later, I am on one knee, ring in my hand, proposing to the love that I never acknowledged. I was so afraid that she would hate me, that the love I had for her would be unrequited, and so I kept my heart sealed away in a formaldehyde jar, sitting next to that peace and tranquility I so desperately reached for, collecting dust amongst the various dreams I had given away and the pounds of flesh gouged out by toxic people who, as passersby in a life filled with inexpensive cardboard furniture and wasted moments, slowly bled me dry of what was left. That elusive happiness that I found so far away has come in full force, healing the wounds in my heart torn open by the liars and oppressors of years gone by, allowing me to breathe the air that I found so cold and desolate. I am happy and in love, something never experienced before, and it seems that in such a short time, my life has come full circle. From the nicotine addicted waste of humanity, suffering in silent desperation and depression, to the incredibly happy, newly healed, devout man – I have come full circle.

The human response to longing and pain will, generally at least, be one of seclusion – like a tortoise in the midst of fear, we pull our heads back into our shells, hiding out in the requisite darkness and safety of our own consciousness. I suppose that all human response is, in some form, an effort at self preservation – the response of anger resulting from past predatory experiences as the essence of self defense, sorrow from a need to separate negative emotions entirely from our everyday selves, happiness a signal of wellness and achievement, and so forth. The very nature of emotion must be tied at least primally to the status of the individual, affected only by variation within the species subgroup and the individual perspective. Of the two statuses, one of subgroup and the other of point of view, I suppose that perspective is the singular variable that is truly controllable. Our lineage is predetermined, our genetic faults set in stone, and our species variations by their very nature unpredictable but at the end of the day, it is our primarily self driven environment that controls perspective and emotion.

In reality, it truly is the perspective that controls the emotion – the primary driving factor of any representation or emotional causeway is perception and perspective, subtly different yet interchangeable. It is the perspective, the point of view of the individual, that causes the emotional response to the physical or mental stimulus, and it is this driving factor that immediately causes and can be interchanged with perception, the understanding of that stimulus as driven by perspective. The two, though interchangeable, share the strange amorphous quality of resemblance with a nearly divergent result. For instance, in my past experience mentioned above on the balcony, my perspective was that of the distraught – with this perspective in mind, it is extremely evident what the driving factors of those thoughts were – my perspective, doused in angst and feelings of failure, led to the perception of the world as it was to my mind. In my situation, I perceived the world as a violent, cold, uncaring place, and my options limited to only running for a destructive life or ending it all. This was of course idiotic, but that perception and perspective changed the situation into what it was.

What we need to keep in mind, however, is that our current predicament, perspective, or perception (I must subtly enjoy alliteration) is temporary, and most likely incorrect. If I had acted on the emotions in Japan, you would not be reading this. If I acted on the emotions the next morning, I would have stayed, and missed out on my wife, child, and everything in life that is worth living for. Carpe Diem, but keep the future in mind. I know this all seems somewhat jumbled, even psuedo-stream of consciousness, but above all else, never forget that life is a series of passing moments – each second passes by with our decisions, our lives, our selves, giving an essence of themselves to it. We have but one life. Live it well, friends.

I suppose one of the most difficult of procedures a human can undertake can also notably be the most difficult to commit to – after all, the procedure is completely contrary to both our natural humanistic tendencies and our survival instincts as predators. Belonging the predator class entails certain classes of characteristics which are not necessarily exclusive to said class, but rather prominent as compared to less prevalent traits. As a class of predators, we have become a paranoid species, one with little trust for those outside our close knit community, and in all honesty, phobic of all culture, personality, and emotion foreign to our preconception. So the procedure which I consider of prime importance is not only difficult to achieve due to some sense of self protection or defensive nature, but due to our very nature as predators to reject that which hams the community as well, regardless of intent. We reject the procedure because to enact it would be to possibly put ourselves in harms way, to allow ourselves the opportunity to become the prey, rather than the predator. Of course, such a primal urge so easily falling into the “nature” categorization is effectivelty forgetting the possibility of “nurture” – is it the anger of a persons experience, which in itself can be argued between nature and nurture, that causes resistance? Could the anger resulting from experience or acquaintance by proxy of another being be the cause of such seemingly primal urges? More to the point, can the actions undertaken by one individual to cause such feelings in another be themselves a result of said resistence?

It seems to be natural and in line with the human condition to resist forgiveness, but as previously stated, it may be the most important procedure mankind can ever undertake. Conflict, by definition, is a state of disharmony between incompatible groups or ideas – in simple terms, conflict arises when two individuals refuse to acknowledge the other. It may seem like a gross over-simplification, but conflict can truly be broken down into the basic argument of correctness. Take, for example, the Six Days War, a war fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab troops led by Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Whilst the publicised cause of war – the Egyptian expelling of the United Nations Emergency Force invasion of the Suez Canal as a response to the prior English-French-Israeli invasion – still remains central in most arguments related to the war, the cause of the conflict can be traced even further back – it can be said the origins of the war find it’s home more in the Imperialist nature of the French and English as well as the seclusionary nature of the Arabs, and even further back, in the ancient arguments in regards to the legitimacy of Ishmael and Isaac. While the Islamic populace of Arab contries generally believe Ishmael to be the legitime heir to Abraham, the Jewish people generally believe that Ishmael’s brother, Isaac, is the only legitimate heir. This incompatibility in faith is one of many debates raging between the two groups, and has been the repeated cause of combat – each side believes themselves to be blessed by a higher power, correct in methodology and theology. The inability of the Arab and Jewish people to live as brothers and sisters of the Abrahamic faith has led to warfare, terrorism, genocide, and racial hatred.

Though this is an extreme case, it is a fine example of the need for forgiveness, and through forgiveness, peace and understanding. I’m not suggesting that one forfeit his rights, beliefs, or fundamental values – I am merely postulating a state of coexistence. What I am suggesting is that two seemingly incompatible ideas can exist without the need for bloodshed – despite human nature, or perhaps because of it, we are given the ability to forgive. As author Linda W. Rooks once said,

Forgiveness is one of the most painful decisions we can make. We know that somehow we’re supposed to forgive, but when we step right up to it, we feel as though we’re being asked to turn ourselves inside out, tear out our hearts, and give them into the hands of our enemy.

Linda W. Rooks, “Broken Hearts on Hold”

That’s not to say there is no place for conflict, or that they are themselves incompatible concepts – as I said before, I’m not suggesting that we allow things so obviously imcompatible to our worldview and theology to affect and control our lives, I’m only suggesting that we pick our battles. More often than not, I see people fighting over the most frivilous things, and this definitely expands onto the international political stage – is money all that important? Is the number of people subjugated under your rule truly important? Does it really matter whether a country is socialist or not, as long as they have decent human rights standards and aren’t aiming nuclear and biological weapons at your backdoor? I currently reside in the United States, but this is not a limited problem – this world has become war centric, and to a point, the military industrial complex has become the powerfigure of this planet, and that’s a very sad thing. We have thousands of people currently losing their jobs, millions of people dying of hunger around the world, genocide being waged over entire continents, nuclear weapons constantly trained on strategically and socially important locations, and our legislature is arguing over gay marriage. Is it really that important? Does it matter whether a man loves a woman or a woman loves a woman? As a Christian, I oppose gay marriage, but as a citizen and a patriot, I honestly don’t care – I couldn’t give any less of a shit about gay marriage if I tried. I’ll start caring when our men and women stop dying fighting an enemy who literally believes,

It is far better for anyone to kill a single American soldier than to squander his efforts on other activities.

Osama Bin Laden

This issue is not entirely limited to politics – only a few decades ago, injustice against the minority of races in America was rampant, ranging from denial of basic civil liberties to outright murder. What was the purpose of all of this? Some perceived wrong perpetrated by a minority set of people? Some prejudice as old as the act of subjugation itself? What was and is the purpose of racism, sexism, or any of the multitudes of “-isms” that seeks to persecute any set of people for such basic qualities as the color of skin, type of reproductive organ, or level of intelligence? Frankly, there is none – there is no acceptable reason for any of this. All of this, however, has resulted in a greater calamity – the inability of both populations to forgive the other has lead to racial tension, favoritism, and racial action against both minority and majority groups. I’m not suggesting we forget about racism, sexism, or any of those “isms” mentioned, but to dwell on them and demand retribution for the actions of ancestors that may or may not share the same believes as ourselves only bolsters the presence of the racist, sexist thought pattern, and allows the scourge to continue living.

The point of all of this is simple – forgive. Despite all of your human nature telling you to do the opposite, forgive – but do not forget. I have mentioned several times the insane relationships that I have had in my life, and the negative impacts they have caused. If I were to dwell on this and lack forgiveness, I could fall into a pit of hatred and darkness deeper than any I have ever seen. Instead, I choose to forgive – there must have been something in their lives that have caused them to commit such crimes, to dedicate themselves to wrong-doing, but at the end of the day, I have no right to judge them – whether or not you believe in life after death, we will all have to account for our actions, either to ourselves or to a higher power, when we pass. It is not my place to pass judgement – that shall happen on it’s own. Forgive. Do not allow yourself to continually be hurt, and do not allow those who have hurt you to continue their actions, but do not dwell on the past. Only with open hearts can the evil of the world see the wrong in it’s activities. Perhaps if we can all forgive each other for the atrocities we continually subconsciously use as the root of all conflict, we can begin anew and finally find some semblence of peace. Defend yourself, defend your home, defend your beliefs – but choose your battles.

I set my pen down, looking at the treatise of peace and harmony etched into the old notebook I packed for purposes unknown. A new beginning is on the horizon – I’ve come to that crossroad where choice meets future, and it’s obvious which of the two I can control. I either forgive and move on, remembering the lessons I’ve learned, or I dwell and become the same kind of person as the ones that have continually hurt me over the years. I choose to become a new person. I’ve made the choice to forgive.

An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind. Power is of two kinds. One is obtained by the fear of punishment and the other by acts of love. Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Waiting for his train, a miner shifts from foot to foot, watching for the tale-tell lights issuing forth from a tunnel that would signal it’s arrival. Simultaneously, a thirty-eight year old General issues orders that would forever change a families lineage. The decree issued, weapons readied, riders set out into the sunset to seize their target. The miner, asleep on the doomed train that would be the target of the Villistas, or followers of the infamous Pancho Villa, is awoken by gunshots and the smell of grinding steel. Stealing a glance, he spots a sign for Santa Isabel, a town within the Mexican territory of Chihuahua. Nervously, he arises to his feet, only to have his caution and reserve destroyed in seconds, pulled along with the fleeing members of the train. Without knowledge of this chaos, driven by fear and confusion, he rushes outside the train, only to be met by riders in black atop horses, firing on the fleeing workers who were contracted by the ASARCO mining, smelting and refining company. He dodges in between fleeing workers, and as his friends and co-workers drop bloodied to the ground, bullets fly by. Praying, he sees the promise of escape, only to have an unfamiliar, excruciating pain issue from his chest. As he falls, he twists from the pain of the blast, landing awkwardly on his side. Thinking of his newly pregnant wife, he gasps with blood filled lungs, and as his vision slowly fades from full color and perception to dark, hazy circles with bright splotches, he coughs up the last of his bloody cries. A member of my heritage, sharing the Morris blood, which would later become the Sandoval family, has been shot in cold blood by a Villista under orders of a “national hero”, Pancho Villa.

Heritage is such a tricky thing. As I’ve said before, one must live in the present, not the past, and must always prepare for the future. Using this logic, it is completely understandable and admittedly easy to dismiss heritage as being that of the past. One must remember, however, that I made one very important point – the present is who you are according to your past. Your current self is the sum total of all decisions and influences in the past, and this includes your heritage. So one must not immediately and unequivocally deny themselves their heritage – in fact, it is my belief than unless one understands, accepts and loves their heritage, one cannot fully become the person he is meant to be in the present, and thus cannot do what must be done in the future. If one is to comprehend themselves – and I mean truly understand, love, and accept their current self – one must truly understand, love and accept their families identity, whilst allowing themselves enough individual thought to not be caught in the proverbial riptide of ancestry, falling into a stereotype or archetype of familial progression.

My heritage is spread into many seperate bloodlines, but I prefer the categorization in simplest terms to that of the complex nature presented in geneology – roughly speaking, I am a mix of European and Hispanic, Hispanic roughly encapsulating Native Americans, Mexicans, Spanish and Porteguese bloodlines. Morris, whose son would bear the name Sandoval in later years, was a Welch miner under contract of the ASARCO mining company, which was operating in Mexican territory. The Welch born had married and impregnated a native mexican, resulting in a child with both European and Hispanic blood. Before the Welch influence of Morris, his wife had Cuban ancestry, tracing back to a Cuban conqueror, a freedom fighter, and even short lived royalty. Under my mothers family, a wealth of European blood flows in her veins, ranging from English to French, from Welch to Russian, joining at some point with Native American blood of the Cherokee Indian tribe. My ancestry is as diverse as it is sprawling, but for reasons unknown to me, I have always identified with the Hispanic side more, most likely as a result of the upbrining given to my dad by my Great Gandfather. Grandfather Sandoval, as he is known, was an immigrant who worked almost as hard as he played, which is saying something. The family system he set up early in his marriage extends to my father through the passing of lessons and wisdom, and through him to myself.

The first signs of my Latin heritage came as early as 8 or 9, as i remember it. After falling in love with the music of Elton John and Queen, I was heavily ingrained in music – but I always ran into the same problem. I was missing something. It’s almost like that feeling when you take a road trip – you’re halfway down the street when you get that sinking feeling. You know you’re missing something, but you just don’t know what. You could rip apart the gently packed luggage and sports gear all day, but it wouldn’t do a bit of good – you can’t know you don’t have something you don’t know you don’t have. In simpler terms, I knew I was missing something, but I wasn’t sure whether or not that feeling was legitimate. I had no way of knowing what I was missing, because if I was truly missing it, if I was truly lacking the presence of something so immense and unfamiliar, I had no way of knowing who or what this secret thing was – I had never known it for the entirety of my life, how was I expected to know it now?

Then, I discovered Tito Puente. For the first time in my life, things…clicked. The rythm trapped in my body started to trickle out, the beginning of a leak in the Hoover Damn that would become the largest flood this country had ever seen. I was playing Saxaphone lines permeating his music, and thus was exposed to more of this new, terrifyingly perfect art form. Santana, Gloria Estefan, Celia Cruz, and Jorge Negrete formed the cruz of my spanning classical and ryhtm based repetoire, filling my heart and ears with a sound and beat I had never heard before. It was truly an awakening – it’s like that room metaphor I used in past stories, where each stage of development was closer to the light. Now, imagine turning on the light and opening the door, only to find yourself in a castle on the edge of a waterfall, falling into the ocean with thunderous fanfare. The whole word is your playground, and your awareness is assaulted with new realization and understanding. I began to investiage my heritage, to dig up the past I spent so much time ignoring and running from. I began to celebrate the typical holidays – Dia de los Reyes Magos, Feast de la Nuestra Sra. de Altagracia, Dia de la Paz de Guadalupe Hidalgo, and of course the holiday of Dia de los Muertos and Dia de los Santos. I began to allow my culture to infiltrate my life, learning the food, music, and language of my people.

I learned a great deal of the Spanish language and heritage, and soon began to naturally explore the other sides of my heritage. Having lived in England for four and a half years, my interest in England stemmed mostly from my love of Medieval Literature and modern English Comedy. Exploring the halls of Warwick castle and the streets of Edinburgh, I grew to appreciate my European heritage, extending this appreciating into visits to France and Germany. Soon, my appreciation extend to national cultures, with my visits taking me from California to Japan, spanning countries in between such as Morrocco in Africa, Bethlehem in Israel, and Salzburg in Australia. I began to understand nationality as but one more way to separate ourselves from each other, and dedicated myself to breaking down my personal national walls of separation. Beginning to view the heritages of my religion in Israel and Palestine, my spirituality and mystic viewpoints evolved and devolved, eventually culminating in the view point I currently hold today. My music, influenced by the street violins of Agadez and the accordion performers of Paris, began to mix with the influence of La Musica de Latinos. As art from all countries entered my view, I truly began to view the world as a family, and it’s history as heritage.

That’s the entire point, I believe. I said earlier that one cannot understand who he is today without first recognizing his heritage and past. I’d like to take that a step further, and state that one cannot understand what the world is today without first recognizing it’s heritage and past. So I implore you – please, explore your heritage. Explore the world. Allow the wonders and pleasures of the world to fill all your senses. Do not allow preconceptions, racism, nationalism, or anything else to block your mind. Free your heart and soul – only in understanding of the past and present, acceptance of heritage, and acknowledgement of our potential future, can we ever find the peace that we so desperately seek.

I spend far too much time in airports. My feet resting gently upon my black suitcase, I’m slouching in my chair, almost as if I made the decision to rage chiropractic war against my body – I’m half asleep, shifting between the state of enraged awareness and sloppy exhaustion. Waiting for my plane to arrive after a night of partying and physical exertion, I am entirely exhausted, and exhausted entirely – but more than that, I am hungry. So, placing my oversize feet into my undersized shoes, grasping my suitcase by it’s dilapidated plastic handle, and standing on weary legs, I begin to seek the nourishment that I never look forward to – like five dollar gas station meals of top ramen, soda and a candy bar, airport food is only rivaled in lack of nourishment and taste by the dull soda and disgusting peanuts of the plane ride itself. Behold, tell your people that you have led to the desert of the airport that the promised land is before you – the sickly sugar laden confectioneries and pure corporeal destructiveness of airport food awaits.

I find nothing, following Wayne, Aya and Akiko throughout the Narita airport. I’m hungry, tired, sad, the range of emotions only matched by the extreme nature in which I shift through them. Aya and Akiko leave, seeking something secretly, and with Wayne’s departure for the bathrooms, I am left alone. Sitting down, I stare out the window, discovering an observation deck facing the open side of the airport, where runways and nature collide in visceral discordance. Rebelling against the angry woman who has been screaming at me for the past three hours to always maintain sight of my baggage, I silently stand, creeping towards the door, opening it with slight hesitation, only to be greeted with perhaps the most concussive disparate sensations I have recieved since my arrival in Japan. Behind me, the hustle and bustle of the airport deafens, destroying any thought and perception as the heating system slowly creeps through your body, permeating clothing and food in a small sense of discomfort. In front of me, the cold Narita weather chills me pleasantly, whilst the utter lack of heat destroys the illusion of warmth. The silence of this place destroys all confusion, as if one were to suddenly become deaf save the sounds of nature.

Resting my back against the railing of the large and empty observation deck, I look towards my previous place of rest. Observing the deck, not a single soul shares this moment with me, resulting in a large, empty space occupied only by black plastic chairs and railings. I turn around, staring down at the planes and the horizon, and begin to think. It hits me suddenly and completely. All of my life, my past and present, has happened exclusively to arrive at this moment. That’s not to say everything was specifically designed to reach this moment, but rather that every action, every choice, every implication has the end result of the one following it, logically resulting in every moment being the culmination of those preceding it. Whether or not this is the intention, the fact remains that it is the result. I begin thinking about my trip, and more specifically about it’s end – what happens when this is all over? The time I spent in Japan resulted in a massive change in thought and emotion, and the decisions I made resulted in such massive life changes that I can’t help but claim it as one of the most important endeavors I have ever undertaken. Knowing this in retrospect and to a lesser degree at that exact moment, I wondered to myself what would happen when it’s all over? And more to the point, staying in line with my comments on the recent story regarding Tetragrammaton, does it all matter?

Why are we so infatuated with the past? What pulls us into contemplation, taking events that would otherwise be simple and finite and examining them with such intensity that the verisimilitude of our results can be so unquestionable, regardless of outside opinion or fact? More than anything, it is my opinion that humanity operates on comfort and safety. As a primal urge, we constantly seek safety for ourselves and that which is close to us, which is generally tied directly to comfort – the so called “comfort zone” ultimately resulting in that misplaced feeling of ultimate ability and strength in our current position. We are, naturally, afraid of change in that comfort and safety – the unfamiliar terrifies us, even if it does not directly impact us, and as a result, we decide to live in that which we understand. Almost all of that which has happened to us can be understood perfectly in retrospect, or at the very least, ignored. It is this status that draws us to the past – topics, emotions and situations cannot broach our comfort zone if they do not exist, and if they do exist in our perception of the past and are not ignored, they are generally understood, resulting in the balance of power being leveled completely on our present selves.

If this is true, what does that mean in regards to our present? The present is often terrifying, but is truly fleeting. Let me show you an example. Touch your nose. Now stop. Read this sentence. Did you know that in your past, you touched your nose? Yes, it was barely seconds ago, but the fact of the matter is that you did it, regardless of my reasoning. You had no reason to believe me, yet you did it anyways. You were not aware or concerned of the consequences of your action, because you had no past judgments or future expectations to draw upon. Humanity ignores the present by nature – we are not concerned with what we are doing, only what we have done and might do. This falls in direct line with the concepts of safety and comfort that I mentioned – we are ignoring the future, thus to us our entire experience of life is encapsulated in the future and past.

So where then does this place the future? The future is percieved in one of two ways – it can be percieved as the great equalizer, or the great fear. Time is the only truly renwable resource that man has – everyone has the same amount of time, 24 hours a day, and it is up to us how to spend it. Working too much? Quit your job, accept the consequences, or find a better job. Equal oppurtunity at it’s most primal. Regardless of perception, death is the only truly equal process (everyone gets one), and time is the only truly renewable resource. So why, then, do we fear the future as we so often do? We fear the future because we do not understand it. We ignore the present due to the ease of said process, and live in the past because it is understandable and by definition familiar. We fear the future because it is neither of these things – it is impossible to ignore the future, as your past results in reflection and learning that forces recognization of the ripples and tides that can affect the future, and it is by far unfamiliar because we have no way of knowing what will happen. We seek to be in control, and the future is by it’s very nature uncontrallable in it’s current state.

This is, of course, a lapse in thinking. By ignoring our present, we doom our future, as we cannot change it to what we see fit. We ignore the present, even though it is the only true tool that we can use to affect our destiny – our decisions now result in our lives tomorrow. Like the thought I had on that observation deck, the sum total of our decisions and actions result in our present, which we can continue to affect, which will result in the sum total decision moment of tomorrow. So what is the point of all of this? What is my entire conceptual point here? Live for the moment, because it’s the only one you get. For all you know, as soon as you are done reading this, you will die of a heart attack. There’s no way to know when you will die. Do not live in the past – what has happened as happened, and even the smallest change – say you fight that kid that gave you shit in the third grade – will change everything. Your past is who you were, but your future is who you can be, only if you accept your present, which is who you are. It is never too late to change, never too late to make that life saving choice. Live for the moment, because you don’t know how many you get.

As I said on that observation deck, staring into the fog as Wayne approached me – “Carpe Diem”.