Vice of a Million Faces

When do people blur into numbers? Where exactly is the tipping point that turns good intentions into could-have-beens?

There is a limit to how many individuals one human can imagine. Call it a flaw in our evolution. Never in our history have we needed to comprehend the value of numbers greater than those in our physical proximity.

It stands to reason, the smaller our personal circles, the less we understand. Simply “growing” these circles cannot prepare us for the sheer number of people there are. Cannot stop us from categorizing and labeling in ways that strip the individual from the digit.

There is no cure for that.

It compounds itself exponentially when those massive numbers, an unfathomable group, declares itself a collective, or is declared such. A collective is easier to imagine than a million faces. Easier to control.

And simultaneously, harder to live up to.

Especially when this group is yours. Parades the name you chose for yourself as it’s moniker of community. How does a person become an idea?

What was done to those millions of faces is done to you by them.

The leader, the only measure for a group, becomes a symbol.

Unfortunately, humans are fallible. Humans can’t be symbols.

If you want to change the world, you have to wander it. In silent acts of kindness and courage. In whispered rumors and gossip.

A thief in the night will do more for change than a good person in the sun’s light.

Stay good and keep transmitting.

August 26, 2015 0

Rumination 13

Constrained and managed lives are difficult to lead. Entire industries are built around the projection and public cultivation of image. The higher you go, the greater the spin. Eventually your individuality, your humanity is stripped away and only a caricature of a person remains. You find yourself defending the idea of what you should be.

You don’t know why you don’t want to give it up.

The faster the ascent; the more basic the idea.

It doesn’t have time to form. No chance to cultivate in heartbreaking anonymity. Its black and white; no range to be a vice you can live with. Anything that flies in the way, any small indiscretion is an attack on the image itself. It starts to suffocate.

So, how do you escape? How do you stop hiding in front of the world?

You don’t.

If you want out, you have to burn it to the ground. Even if it is everything you have ever built over the course of your consciousness. Your whole life.

Even if it burns you in the process.

Start a fire and raze the foundation.

Then on the blackened ground where your life used to shine, build it again. Slower this time. Of your own volition. Take the old lessons. The immature missteps, learn from them.

Move forward.

Sometimes the life you should save is your own.

-Stay good and keep transmitting.

August 16, 2015 0

Catharsis

This should be Rumination 13, but hey, like much else in my life; we all know how that will go.

I will start by admitting I don’t exercise this catharsis as much as I used to; unfortunately, there have come to be a greater number of eyes on these places than before. I would chalk it up to anxiety, however, even I remember those days before, when this space was more frequented than ever.

So, let’s dive in.

I’m in a rather strange place. A few interesting turns of events have somehow dropped me into the midst of people I never knew about and somehow now do. More personal attacks have put upon me choices I have dreaded for longer than I remember. The last eight months have dredged up memories I would rather leave in the past.

Until a few months ago, I would have called this the worst year of my life, no matter how adamantly I attempted to salvage it.

I can’t now. Too much has happened. To call it the worst would mean there was nothing to be learned from the fires burning around me. To label it so would be giving the world too little credit. And blatantly denying the fact there are four whole years of my life lost to God knows what, because I just CAN’T REMEMBER.

I have met, in this three quarter done year, the strongest and hardest working people I will ever know. I have met people who’ve told me that a stranger has given them a bit of happiness. I’ve re-introduced myself to everyone that once knew me. Lost something and someone I’d held very dear, but didn’t treat as if they were dear to me. Lost something I hated and, for some reason, feel it’s void more strongly than anything else.

I opined about two pink totes and a suitcase. Begged for the chance to live without ties to anyone or thing. Labored over my life’s work. Now I’m sitting at a keyboard struggling my way through a rumination that would have once taken maybe twenty minutes.

I’m still excited. I’m still crazy enough to believe I can do those wonderful and crazy things I’ve always imagined. I know I can’t do them alone. But I know that if I keep screaming into the void long enough, someone out there will hear me. And one voice will become two, until the voices become so deafening that I won’t need to scream anymore.

See, wanders like me, we’re temporary. We show up to tell you the tide can be changed, but you do the changing; in the process you change us. We’re not the leaders, those are born among you.

So, until next time, stay good and keep transmitting.

August 9, 2015 0

Rumination 12

WHY. Why do I have so much stuff? I used to be able to fit my life into 2 pink totes and a suitcase. Now I have a whole house worth of things without a whole house to put them in.

I have TWO cupcake makers. WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND NEEDS TWO CUPCAKE MAKERS? Like 10 different candy molds, a cake pop maker, (have I ever even used it? WHAT?) FIVE CUSTOM CAKE MOLDS. The one that is shaped like a book fits into a tote and it will be mine forever. I will be buried with it.

I have 3 sets of GOBLETS? THREE? Buffet patters (I HAVE LITERALLY NEVER THROWN A PARTY. EVER.) AN EIGHT PERSON CUTLERY SET. WHAT? (Edit: I just looked at the box, it’s from Macy’s; it was $80) When am I going to use these? A SPICE RACK?!?!

The note cards and journals. I love them, I really do, but they only add to the clutter around me. Journals, I intend on slowly giving away to people I find fascinating. I’m going to miss them, but I know I would much rather they find use and not storage. There are journals that are nearly 15 years old.

The note cards will always find use. I have so many people to thank, and there will only be so many more.

I just can’t find it in me to throw anything out. Even when it’s obvious I don’t need it. I’m holding on to things better left in the past. Sure, I might get my own place again one day. But today isn’t that day. I can sit here letting the toxicity of this place ruin me, or I can venture out and find that forever I’ve always dreamt of.

I won’t let depression keep me. I won’t let my mistakes define me. There are symbols in this hoard of the person I was expected to be. Someone I never was, no matter how hard I tried.

I can’t sit still. I need the quiet comfort of lonely wandering. It’s maddening to think I can’t just be a wander. I can’t just pack up and hop a plane to nowhere. I don’t want the things everyone around me wants. I don’t want to get married, I’ve been on this Earth a while now and I’ve yet to find someone I could even fantasize a family with. I don’t want a place to which I am bound.

It’s lonely I know. But I crave the silence of a long drive. I yearn for the books read on wordless flights. I ache for places I’ve never seen.

I’m not naive enough to think two lives can run parallel eternal, but for the times some will run next to mine, I will offer the one eternity I can give; a space in my heart.

I am selfish, there is no defending that. I will wear it proudly. I am selfish. I think of my own happiness before progeny. I am selfish, because I want that which is most difficult to give. I want a space in your memories. I don’t want any more to be a passing glance on a sidewalk or a subway. Sad eye contact until the next bus stop.

I want to arrive at my death with open arms. Welcome embrace from a friend foiled twice. There will never be enough time; I just want to do enough in my time.

June 1, 2015 0