Dad Bod And The Mind Of A Philosopher King.

I want to write an essay. 

What about? I don’t know. I think I can do it though. It is going to take some trying and some discipline from me though. 

Week has been stressful. I don’t know if it really was stressful or if my brain just told me it was stressful. Even under stress, I found myself bored as hell. Maybe that’s a sign of progress. Bored by stress? I’ve been put down for the count by that sort of thing before so yeah, I’m going to go ahead and label that progress. 

Haven’t done much in the way of writing this week. That was laziness. That was me slacking off. That’s something I do. I need to chill on the slacking. How do I focus myself? How do I stay present? How do I be? 

That’s what I’m trying to figure out. 

Just tryin’ to figure out how to be 

in this game 

I never wanted to play 

but here I am 

cuz I’m what emerged 

from a night the magic happened 

or maybe a night there wasn’t anything on TV. 

Boy, what’s your excuse? 

Read all the lines that occur before the above one 

Yeah, best I can do right now 

Sometimes your best ain’t happenin’ 

Maybe it’s never gonna happen 

Maybe you’re on the team that loses in the movie 

just there to lose to the hero 

but you mattered too. 

You had a journey 

You had training montages 

You fell in love with a girl who has no personality but lovin’ you

and on the other side of this 

You’re the hero. 

On the other side of this 

You’re wise and kinda sad 

but one day 

you just find a way to be. 

We’ve all been traumatized by the society we find ourselves in. Some of us get traumatized more than others but most all of us have had pain heaped upon us by a society that is profoundly fucked up.

If ya get a chance to talk to people. Like, really talk. This shit is gonna come up. 

I'm turning 41 this weekend...

Sick Dogs and Our Bad Conscience

I spent a bunch of time with a sick dog this weekend. I’ve known this dog since she was 8 months old and rowdy as hell. I really thought that she might die. I cried buckets. It looks like it isn’t this dog’s time though. As a result, my emotions are still pretty raw. I ain’t got tears to cry but I’ve still got plenty of feeling. 

Compassion that moves me to anger. Furious anger. Righteous anger. I don’t know what it is about the drive home from work that makes me think about all the big picture stuff. Big picture stuff? Shit. That’s so inadequate but I don’t know what else to call it. It’s burning anger about all the injustice that’s bigger than me. The injustice that happens while I watch a clock. It’s monstrous shit. It’s shit for The Hague. It’s shit that gets Meryl Streep Academy Awards for starring in fucking movies about it. It’s shit that grieves my fuckin’ spirit but at the end of the day doesn’t even really inconvenience me because of the accident of my birth. 

My country puts little brown children in concentration camps. They cry for their mommies and daddies. These facilities are often run for a profit and the guards go home, drink beer, watch the game on occasion and probably beat their wives and then promise to never ever do it again. They can do what they do and then they can go to Home Depot or Cabela’s and never give a second thought to what they are doing to earn a pay check. Banality of evil. They’re just doin’ their jobs. Maybe they’re all grim about it. Maybe they’re tormented. Maybe they lose sleep over it. I know some of ‘em enjoy it. They are having the time of their lives.

Yeah, immigration cops are bastards. It’s a popular thing in certain circles to say that all cops are bastards. I didn’t use to believe that but I’m starting to. I got a relative who is a deputy sheriff. I’ve watched him joke about running over protesters. I’ve seen his buddies mock African American Vernacular English. I’ve seen them drink a beer while rockin’ a Punisher skull on their chests. They’re bloodthirsty, suburban warrior fascists. They are the soldiers of this sad apocalypse. 

The enforcers of this shameful order are one thing but then there are the people on the sidelines. There are people who see the pictures of weeping children behind chain link fences and are thankful. They smile. They could not be happier. They are seein’ America become great again. They are seein’ people who are not like them suffer. They are watching a man who says the vile shit they say in their taverns and their country clubs in front of the whole nation proudly and without any shame at all. They got a man leading the country who has given permission for the demons that lurk inside them to run wild. 

I sit here at my desk and pound my keyboard and I got no idea what to do. I wish that I could tell you what to do. Tomorrow I’ll go back into work, the machine will grind on and I kinda hate myself because anything I might do or say is ineffectual in the face of this grave evil. 

Here’s what I’m going to do. It’s not much. All I can think to do right now at this moment is to tell you the truth as I see it. It is that bad. My country is engaged in a great evil. If there be a God and that God is just, he must punish us. I do not know if there is a god. I do know evil though. We’re seeing it. I don’t give a flying fuck about flags or anthems. I care about what’s true. 

God. Damn. It. 

I will never forgive the people who perpetrated these atrocities. As far as I am concerned, names like Trump, Miller, Sessions, Kelly and the whole Satanic cabal of them deserve to live in infamy. They should be hauled before a court and sentenced for crimes against humanity. 

A Conclusion

I’ve come to a conclusion. A lot of the conclusions I come to are tentative but this one is definitive. 

Two days off are not enough to recover from five days on. 

It just doesn’t happen, man. 

It doesn’t matter if you hate your job or not. 

It just ain’t enough time to breathe and remember that you’re a human being. It’s not enough time to be still know and know that He is God if that’s what you’re into. 

Not interesting

I need to get the fuck outta here. 

These roommates really are not working out. 

Like, being here irritates me. 

I need to be alone. Truly alone sometimes. 

I cannot be hearing the bickering and arguing that is the byproduct of your fucked up, sad marriage. 

I can’t come “home” at the end of my 9 to 5 what a way to make a living day to scary cable news propaganda. That shit gets to me on a deep level. Like, maybe it’s the holy spirit helping me recognize with banal evil is. Seriously. 

I probably need to be sitting down and talking to someone. I don’t want to take medication cuz it does nothing. The only drugs I’ll be taking are for the fun of it. Seriously. I’m only going to alter my mind with drugs if I feel like it. Not doing it on doctor’s orders if I can help it. Fuck that. Real talk though. I need to be talking to a professional probably. Don’t worry too much. I just need the perspective of someone with a more level-head than I’ve got. 

Aight. Back to our regular scheduled programming. 

Sometimes the sun shines 

and somehow I’m okay with that 

The wind tickles me like it does 

and I really can’t protest 

even if I got no clue 

what the sweat and the tears 

were for. 

Aight. So, I’m gonna blow away the dust. Blow the dust off my soul. Gonna awaken from my comatose state. 

That’s what life is, kids. 

It’s a series of awakenings. 

It’s staring at cave drawings. 

The f-f-flicker of fire’s light against the cold stone. 

The stick figures the aliens left us to tell us who are god(s) were. 

The warmth of the burning bush

feels like the home you can never remember 

The voice that comes from it sounds like

FRED MCFEELY ROGERS 

it tells you it’s a lie

and that you shouldn’t be afraid 

and that you’ll go home some day 

but until then 

you carry the medicine.