Activism for Epics

Writing Journal: Deities and Races, Volume IX; Apothos, Dragons, and Humanity

2010-05-05T08:29:00.000-07:00

Apothos comes from the root of the word "Apathy," due to the fact that Apothos himself was relatively disinterested in most of the process of Creation. He was not inspired by the acts of his fellow deities during their attempts to create value within it, nor was he incensed by the efforts like those who thought it could have been done better. While some acts or others might have been vaguely intriguing to him, in general Apothos remained detached and uncaring. In fact, the only reason why Apothos had ever gotten as involved in the process as he did, was that he truly had nothing else to focus on. For reality and Creation was, for lack of a better analogy, the only thing that was on.

The thing that makes it ironic, then, is the fact that his two contributions to Creation had such tremendous impact upon all of the rest. His first Creation was dragons. And his second, humanity. And both concluded very separate eras in the process of Creation itself.

First came Dragons, and upon nothing more than the simple utterance of "I wonder..." One would potentially wonder, though, what was so significant about Dragons, as opposed to the initial Creation of life itself. Or so many of the other aspects of Creation. The point was that Dragons pushed the limits of every other act of Creation before it. Dragons were just like beasts and birds to the degree that they preyed upon others, they ruled from either above or below, but they stretched the limits of what other creatures could do. Dragons were the first creatures to walk upon Creation with sentience greater than the beasts. They were therefore not only conscious, but SELF-conscious. In addition, they pushed the laws of physics with their ability to fly or burrow with bodies that otherwise would have been difficult to produce such efforts. They were mortal, yes, but their lifespans lasted so long that it was difficult to see how that could possibly make a difference.

Everything about Dragons sent awe through the rest of the deities. Here were creatures that ruled over the rest of Creation as if it had been placed there for their amusement. And yet they lacked any unifying purpose. Most of the deaths of the dragons that occurred had been by the teeth and claws of their own kind. Some of the Dragons became reclusive to themselves and wallowed in whatever holes they could find until they could find their deaths. Others traveled abroad and left paths of destruction everywhere they went. Still others found environments they loved, and protected them and helped them thrive and prosper, even defending them from harm caused by others of their kind. Dragons did as they would without any singular driving force, with a greater variety than even Eleuth had instilled within the world.

Each deity, however, viewed Dragons with a different mindset. Fyrste, quite obviously, saw them as a threat. An act of destruction for which Creation itself would be undone. Which was what prompted him to try to counter Dragons themselves with the Creation of a mortal race. Nasci, as always, saw potential for beauty and harmony even within the most destructive of the Dragons, and thought that they too would find a home within the world in some way. Scieppend saw their potential both to Create and to Destroy, and was puzzled by them, thus attempting to draw her own attention away from the problem of their existence and focusing on other, newer Creations herself. Eleuth was both delighted and frightened by what he saw. He was delighted to consider creatures that could make so many choices and have such infinite variety to them, but also ultimately saw the potential within Dragonkind to even overthrow the very essence of the deity-hood of each of his own kind. Heah found the entire Creation of Dragons entirely distasteful for their boundless variations were so difficult to track and quantify. Weyveren felt embittered that such destructive creatures were not his own idea, and immediately hated them for jealousy that Apothos had come up with the idea first. Malithia saw potential in them to finally unmake what had been made, and start anew. Koshiri, in the meantime, saw that they pushed the limits of all Creation, yet still remained confined within them, and therefore saw them as yet another failure and obstacle to the plan of unmaking Creation.

What also seemed to arise within the birth of Dragons, however, was something else entirely. It was the birth of Magic. Those magics were limited, and seemed trivial compared to the other abilities possessed by Dragonkind at the time, but yet it was still something of wonder to many of the deities. What was this power, and how did it come to pass? How exactly was it that Dragons themselves came to begin to command such a power? And the power itself varied amongst those Dragons who commanded it. Some Dragons utilized their powers over nature and the elements. Others utilized it as a tool of rage and destruction. And still others used Magic to control, manipulate, and order the world around them. The deities made other theories about Magic, as well, and accused Apothos of being the Creator of such a force.

However, that was not the case, though no denials by Apothos himself had ever been able to convince many of the other deities to the contrary. The true, raw essence of Magic was simply the raw concentration of unrealized Possibility. It was the very same power that the deities had utilized to Create the universe themselves, in smaller quantities. What became true, is that those creatures with sentience, in the form of self-consciousness, were granted some portion of the powers of the deities themselves to shape the world around them.

It should be noted, however, that Magic itself is not available for use by just any being or creature with self-consciousness, however. In fact, only a very small minority of any member of each race, including Dragons themselves, have ever been able to develop magical powers at all. Many theorists have spent their lifetimes trying to consider such a reason, as well. Particularly given the fact that each of the first eight mortal races have very particular specializations within Magical power at all, while humans and Dragons both seem to be able to pick up particular pieces of various types of Magic from the other races' specialties. Dragons and Humans, therefore, are considered the "jacks of all trades, masters of none," but even that is misleading. For it is rare for even the most Magically gifted Human or Dragon to utilize more than just one form of Magic. As rare amongst Magicians as Magicians are amongst the rest of the populace.

What is it that brings one into contact with the powers of the divine, then? What is the realm of Magic that proves to be so elusive of most of the population? Magic is the realm of the Dreamers. The Questioners. Those who take their own self-consciousness to another level entirely. Therefore, it is not simply a matter of whether one does or does not have the ability to develop an affinity for Magic, it is that few ever take the time to do so.

Magic is not just for those who ask questions, however. The sad fact is that many devoted scientists have dedicated their lifetimes trying to develop magical talents, continually asking themselves questions time and again. The problem is that these individuals are consistently asking the wrong questions. For they are infinitely interested simply in the question "How?" Where Magic as a power is firmly rooted in the crafting of the question "Why?" As such, it is the philosophers, the dreamers, and those whose questions seem the most firmly impractical who seem most suited to wielding the Arcane Arts. For even beasts are able to experiment, find and utilize tools, and manipulate their environment through use of the question How? It is only those creatures that are self-conscious, that is, conscious of their own consciousness, that even have the ability to delve into the Magics of the world.

And it is that very self-consciousness that composes the fabric of Magic itself. For their is no Possibility without somebody to Dream that Possibility into a Reality. And thus were the deities to find that their mortal Creations even surpassed themselves in overall power, not individually, but wholly, as they conjointly delved into the realms of Possibility to create cultures, societies, and communions with one another in ways that the deities had never before imagined. Creation fell out of the hands of the Deities, and into the hands of mortals.

And thus, with the final Creations of the deities being their own mortal races, it was Apothos who concluded the act of Creation once again, with the Creation of Humanity. Humanity was a race that he Created with the greatest potential for Possibility. They were not bent towards their own destinies, as the Luthans, nor were they Created to celebrate, perpetuate, or defend Creation as the Changelings, Artere, and Bergan were. They were not made to facilitate Destruction as the Algein, Pueri, or Heuvians. And they were not merely tools for the study of Creation as the Makhan. They were, however, still an experiment by Apothos. The key, for Apothos, to answer the questions regarding a Prime Creator, or a sense of whether Creation was or was not worthy of sustenance, would lie within the race that had the greatest sway over Possibility itself. And thus were Humans created to be the bearers of the greatest questions of Creation.

Humans have potential for both Creation and Destruction, they can have extremely law-bound principles that control variances for the purpose of study. They also are boundless in their own variations and desires. Humanity encompasses much of the possibility of every other race and deity, to some degree. And within all of that Possibility, it was Apothos's feeling, that eventually some answers would be forthcoming. And it would happen without him having to intervene in any further way, for the answers would come directly from the actions and choices of the mortals themselves. And thus did Apothos, the most distant of the deities, absolve himself from any further responsibility in the world, and therefore left it to sleep ever after.

Writing Journal: Deities and Races, Volume VIII; Eleuth and the Luthans

2010-04-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

Eleuth comes from the word "Freedom," which is exactly how I conceived of the idea for that deity. The race that he created being named directly after him, the Luthans, are the epitome of a free species.

Eleuth has already been described as having been intrigued more than anything else by the plight that the deities themselves found themselves in. While he seems insistent upon his assertion that there is no Prime Creator, Eleuth's belief is that the rest of existence and reality is of their own makings.

Eleuth watched with mostly amusement and fascination at the works of the other deities in the course of Creation, and only stepped in at what later seemed to be the last moment, when Heah created orderly systems for the universe.

Eleuth's fear in that moment was that all of existence, not only Creation, but the actions of the deities themselves as well, would devolve into mindless, predictable realities, which caused Eleuth to balk and imagine an eternity without any sort of surprise or variation. In effect, Eleuth's greatest fear is of an eternity of boredom.

As such, his action within Creation was to add variation and diversity to all of existence, such that no two living things will ever be exactly alike. He could not undo Heah's impact by creating rules and laws by which the universe behaved, but within those confines, Eleuth still found ways to create infinite variety within the world.

Later, as the various deities were creating their mortal races, Eleuth again watched in wonder. He found himself feeling something of a mix between horror and fascination as most of the deities Created races that would serve their own ends, but who were otherwise nothing other than tools of their Creators' own desires. Eleuth felt strongly that, although he had his own thoughts regarding his own race's goals, that ultimately, they should be responsible for their own destinies. In fact, his entire goal FOR his race was to show to the rest of the mortal world, and hopefully to the deities themselves, that they ARE responsible for their own destinies.

And thus were the Luthans born. In some ways, they were given the greatest gifts of all of the mortal races from their Creator, though they were also given the greatest of burdens, as well. For each one of them is able to see a short duration of all of the possible futures before them. Thus, every Luthan is burdened with the reality that they are TRULY choosing each of their actions, as they know exactly what the consequences of their acts are, as well as what the consequences would be if they chose a different course. No Luthan can ever plead ignorance or naivete when they take a course of action that another finds unpleasant. They are, at base, ultimately responsible for their own choices.

And thus do most Luthans act in the interest of forcing the rest of Creation to see that they are likewise responsible for their own courses of action. For many Luthans, they see many things like politics and policy to be such a major bungling job for many races, and particularly in interpersonal relationships, Luthans view other races as a curiosity. For their part, they end up believing that most individuals spend more of their lifetimes trying to avoid responsibility or having to actually define themselves than they do actually living their lives. And in some cases, this actually brings about a certain jealousy in many Luthans, who would rather mitigate some of their own responsibilities and accept the comforts of ignorance. After all, every Luthan was given enough freedom from their Creator to choose their own destiny, even if that leads to wishing that they had no control over their own destiny whatsoever...

Another interesting thing to note regarding the Luthan race is that they are a race who do not, for the most part, believe in luck. For when you are merely able to jump aside before lightning strikes, or you recognize that shifting your palm slightly before releasing the dice will have a completely different outcome, you tend to find that what most other races denote as "luck" is simply foreseeing an outcome that has too many variables for you to be able to entirely control or maneuver.

In terms of other races' views and responses to Luthans, the responses tend to be a mixed bag. Luthans have no organized society of their own, but instead mix in with various other races, or tend to live nomadic sorts of lives on their own. And yet, they always seem to be a bit at odds with the rest of the world around them. When people are in bad situations, having somebody tell them that they are in control of their situation and that they are choosing to remain in their unhappy state tend to not be smiled upon. At the same time, though Luthans themselves tend not to believe in such a thing as luck, they always seem by others to be extraordinary benefactors of said resource. If they play at games of chance, they always seem to win. When there is an opportunity for one to stride ahead compared to somebody else, the Luthan always seems to find the way to get the edge. Luthans, therefore, regularly engender bitterness amongst those who do not necessarily control their own destinies. And at the same time, most Luthans actively manipulate many situations in order to prove the need to take responsibility for one's actions, even to the potential detriment of individuals or societies at times. As such, they are not often readily trusted, if not actively chased out or executed.

In the end, however, every Luthan knows that he/she brought him/herself to their own destinies through the choices that they made. And not a single one of them would have made different choices if they knew then what they know now...

Writing Journal: Deities and Races, Volume VII; Heah and the Makhan

2010-04-21T12:44:00.000-07:00

The names for Heah and the Makhan are based upon the fact that my concept for them is very mechanical. They are supposed to be the epitome of order, without any blurring of the lines for good or evil, a desire to preserve creation or destroy it, but simply and purely to obey the rules and laws of the world that they live within. Thus, for that mechanical aspect, I started searching for words similar to construction and building. In the end, Heah means "high" which sounds like a far stretch, but apparently all of the old Latin words for things being built or constructed are based upon the concept of heaping things on top of each other. Which sort of makes sense when you consider that without a great deal of technology, a lot of building started out as exactly that. Makhan, of course, is relatively self-explanatory as a slight variation on the word associated with Making, thus kind of turning them into "The Made."

Heah is the final deity, along with Fyrste and Malithia, who believes that there is a Prime Creator, and who therefore thinks that there is a very particular plan or map for the universe and Creation. However, unlike Fyrste, he does not assume that what has been done necessarily follows along that plan, with the fact that what has been done being unable to be undone not necessarily being evidence that what was done was somehow "right" or following along that plan. However, he is also not in agreement with Malithia that what has been done was wrong, and that it should be destroyed in order to start doing things along the "true" path of the Creator.

Instead, Heah is the eternal scientist. While Koshiri is also methodical in her own path, Koshiri still acts upon her own emotions and feelings, with a certain compulsion towards her sense that Creation is wrong somehow. Heah, in the meantime, does not act towards the pursuit of either the preservation OR the destruction of Creation at all. Instead, Heah has acted towards nothing but the attempt to determine through facts what may or may not have fallen into the plan of the Prime Creator.

The ironic thing here is that Heah *has* acted upon an initial assumption that there IS a Prime Creator in the first place, but given that initial assumption, Heah has not made any further major assumptions about Creation. As such, Heah did very little in the acts of Creation, as he was attempting to formulate a judgement regarding Creation itself.

However, once Koshiri created the inevitability of Death, Heah recognized that the constant feuding between those deities who wanted to preserve and destroy Creation would not end soon. He also recognized that their actions upon Creation were being done reflexively against one another, and happening too fast to study properly. And so Heah's primary action within Creation was to put order and systems to the universe. Suddenly, creatures would still eventually die, but they would go through a particular course of aging and development first. Certain physical properties and laws persisted from one creature or object to another. There was a certain consistency and predictability to Creation as a whole. This made it easier in Heah's mind to study and test certain aspects of Creation in order to make a final judgment regarding the need to Preserve or Destroy it.

By the time the deities began to Create their mortal races, it had become clear that they would have very little to do with direct impact upon Creation itself. For one thing about the inability of the deities to undo what had been done, was that every act that they had taken reduced the possibility for certain other acts. For example, as much as Nasci had attempted to touch Creation to find a way around that inevitability of death, what Koshiri had done could not be undone. There was therefore no way around that aspect of Creation. Just as the initial acts of Creation itself could not be undone. What the gods found, therefore, was that they were actually losing power. Not in a sense of being somehow drained, but because they began with limitless potential before any of that possibility was actualized, but once actualization of Creation began, there were less alternative possibilities that could be enacted. It was almost as if the deities had Created a box for themselves in action.

As such, it was extremely important for each of the deities, in Creating their mortal races, that they Create the race in a way that would allow them to best achieve their individual goals with regard to Creation. Thus, the Makhan were not Created as a tool for the implementation of an overall preservation or destruction of Creation, but instead as a tool to implement Heah's desire to study and categorize Creation. As a means of determining whether Creation was worthy of protection or destruction in the first place.

The Makhan are quite literally a mechanical race. For those with longer backgrounds in mythology or fantasy, they are most closely resembling golems than anything else. However, they are sentient and intelligent. Their society is one of absolute law, of which no Makhan ever disobeys, which helps them to operate and function without need of a disciplinary system.

However, in their interactions with other races, they are not naive to the fact that laws don't mean nearly as much to those other races, nor to the fact that those races do not necessarily recognize the laws of the Makhan. While this does allow them to be relatively forgiving of slight transgressions, they do not hesitate to exact justice upon major violations, in particular in cases of breaches of contracts and agreements. In fact, many races view their system of law to be confusing and foreign because it does not seem intuitive to many, but that system of law is logical and based upon very strict systems. The Makhan revere predictability, and anything that threatens such predictability threatens the basis for their scientific inquiries, muddies the waters, and makes their conclusions inexact. Without predictability, their system would fall apart, and therefore they exact justice against transgressions to such predictability with extreme prejudice.

As such, and as one would predict, this places Heah and the Makhan greatly at odds with Eleuth above all. Even the act of Eleuth upon the world in creating diversity was a source of frustration for Heah's desire to have order and control over his ability to study Creation. And with the Luthans' preoccupation with promoting, and in some cases some may argue forcing, individual choice, Heah and the Makhan cannot quantify specific, observable trends and patterns. For when everything falls to individual will, then there is too much room for variation and inconclusiveness. And these are the greatest threats to Heah's ultimate goals.

The magic of the Makhan is a magic of order and alignment. It is heavily focused upon artifice, granting power to objects and tools than being centered upon individuals. Electricity is another heavy theme for Makhan magics. In fact, heortstaal, or "heartsteel" is one of the primary sources of magic for the Makhan. It is a metal that is both highly electrically conductive, but also acts strongly as a conduit for magical energy, as well. It is at the core of every Makhan, serving as a source for life and power, and has in some rare cases (where a Makhan has been known to intervene in the affairs of another mortal race) been linked with certain healing and life-giving practices amongst other races, as well. However, that is not to say that there are not also many very destructive properties of the magics of the Makhan, as one can no doubt guess by the effects of lightning strikes and the like in general.

Overall, the Makhan are a race that is slow to act, but once motivated to take action for a particular goal, they act decisively and see their actions through to the end. They are therefore capable of being stalwart allies or fearsome opponents, depending upon which side of their inquiries one lies. That is, of course, if one could manage to get any of the Makhan to care enough regarding their existence either way...

Writing Journal: Deities and Races, Volume VI; Koshiri and the Pueri

2010-04-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

I got the name Koshiri as a combination of the terms Kosmos (universe) and Hostis (enemy). Pueri comes from the term for children, in this case being children of the enemy.

Koshiri is one of the deities who was undecided regarding whether there was some sort of master plan for the universe, and because of that indecision, was incensed that Fyrste would go about the business of enacting Creation in the way that he did. Koshiri, like Malithia, had believed in the idea of coming to consensus before action was taken.

As soon as Fyrste acted, however, Koshiri's first response was to undo what was done and to attempt to unmake it. She found that she could not, of course. When Malithia convinced Fyrste to attempt to unmake his own Creation, it seemed as though the answer was clear: what has been done cannot be undone. The fact became a bitter debate. However, Koshiri still maintained a thoughtful dedication towards her desire to see Creation begin from a better point of origin. Koshiri believed that there were still many points that had to be tested, and many questions answered. Like perhaps Fyrste's Creation could not be undone because Nasci and Scieppend had already acted upon it? What if they could be convinced to undo their own acts of Creation one at a time, backwards from the order that they were completed?

By this point, however, it seemed like a hopeless task to unravel all of the doings that had been done before. Malithia and Weyveren had already acted, and Nasci had acted upon those creations, as well. Koshiri then decided to act in a very small way, creating creatures that flew through the air, to lord over the rest of Creation from above. It was a move not so much to attempt to destroy Creation as it was to insult it a bit by placing it below Koshiri's small contribution to Creation, and to give Koshiri a point to work from. For as soon as she created them, she attempted to unmake them, as well.

It was then that Koshiri felt certain that what was made could not be unmade. And the fact disturbs and frightens her far more than the other deities. In fact, the expressions by Eleuth of wonder and promise given from this fact have incensed Koshiri to such a degree that she and her followers will attempt to bring down the followers of Eleuth wherever they may find them.

It was then that Koshiri came to act once more upon Creation by creating Death. Certainly, death existed to some degree from the creatures that Malithia and Weyveren had Created already, but those were deaths that could be considered to be preventable or deterred by the individual acts of the creatures themselves. What Koshiri created here was the inevitability of death for all creatures, great and small, animal or plant.

This act itself sent a chill through all but one of the deities. And while Nasci still found a means of weaving life cycles in a way that was beautiful and harmonious, even she had to pause and shiver at the totality that was offered by Koshiri's primary act of Creation. In what had been a flurry of activity moving back and forth between Fyrste, Scieppend, and Nasci, and their rivals Malithia and Weyveren, now there was very little, but carefully articulated action going on.

In fact, once Nasci touched that inevitable Death and wove it into the harmony of life cycles in the world, none of the other gods acted for quite some time, with the exceptions of Heah and Eleuth, who put in their own contributions before the rest of the deities stopped and considered all of Creation as a whole. At least, up until Apothos created dragons, which sparked an entirely new set of Creations in the mortal races.

In fact, it was Koshiri's careful dedication, and her desire to attempt to unravel Creation in a backwards sort of spin, that caused her to consider opting out of Creating a mortal race in the first place. Hers was the second to the last race to be born. However, create a race she did. And the Pueri are unlike what any of the other deities suspected.

While the races of the Algein and the Heuvians are monstrous and fearsome in appearance, the Pueri rival even the Artere in beauty and grace. They are of the highest intelligence, and are relatively unfettered by communal needs or by constant agony. They are a people Created solely for the purpose of enacting Koshiri's desire to unmake Creation.

In so doing, however, they are still unlike Weyveren's Algein in terms of attempting direct assault in most cases against many of the powers associated with Creation. They have developed armies and enacted such aggression at times, of course, but such direct aggression was never Koshiri's style. Her desire to unmake Creation is not borne out of sheer hatred and anger, as Weyveren and Malithia have. And in fact, Koshiri bears no particular ill will towards specific aspects of Creation itself. It is simply this: she is focused specifically and solely upon the goal of unmaking Creation for the purpose of starting over.

As such, her people do not enact cruelty for its own sake. However, when their needs serve, they make for the greatest implementers of torture due specifically to their desire to be the most efficient and productive in the method, so as to reach their goal. The Pueri are the undoubted greatest chroniclers of history in the world. Their purpose, of course, is to document every event that ever happened in Creation so as to be able to undo those acts. However, that does not mean that they have not developed vast historical resources and archives.

The primary acts of the Pueri, however, are usually acts of subtlety, subterfuge, and manipulation. Their ultimate goals are to bring the high to the level of the lowly, and to undermine even the greatest within the world. Thus, the Pueri delight in managing to cause a Bergan to bring about destruction, to wither an Artere's sense of artistic wonder and creative impulse, or to devolve Changelings into bestial predation. The Pueri seek out Makhan to attempt to manipulate them into breaking laws and systems, or to break the will of Luthans to make them bend to another's will and judgment. When they kill, they utilize grace and care. The greatest assassins in the world are Pueri. Poison is one of the common tools of the people of a deity who wishes to unmake Creation from within itself.

The magics of the Pueri are subtle. And yet they are extremely powerful. Pueri magics are those that intrude upon the will of others and weaken their resolve. But they also are magics that erode away at the earth, suffocate fires, or pollute the air or water. Koshiri's magics have a deadening and stilling effect upon their targets, and nearly all of the magics of the Pueri are offensive in some way. The only exceptions are those magics that the Pueri use to garner knowledge of history and Creation. For they must get to know and learn their enemies before they can strike definitively against them.

Writing Journal: Deities and Races, Volume V; Weyveren and the Algein

2010-04-04T19:12:00.001-07:00

I've taken the name for Weyveren from the root of indecision. My concept for Weyveren is of one who was not quite the brightest deity. Uncertain as to what to do or how to act, Creation was well underway before he had a chance to form an opinion of what he actually wanted. As such, he was extremely frustrated and angry at his fellow deities. And although Malithia had used him as an example in her arguments to Fyrste to attempt to undo his first act of Creation, Weyveren didn't feel the same compulsion to be as merciful of Malithia's acts in return.

Effectively, I do kind of see Weyveren as the individual who is a petulant child that wants to pack up their marbles and go home. Except that they're kind of stuck dealing with everyone else. Thus, when Malithia stepped forward to create creatures that would work towards the destruction of Creation, Weyveren followed suit, but made certain to create other creatures that preyed upon even those first creatures. He did manage some creativity with the concepts of parasites and diseases.

However, Weyveren's distaste for Creation is complete. Rather than having mere philosophical differences between the way that he believes it should have been done and what was actually done, and believing in the idea of scrapping it and starting fresh, Weyveren is more like a suicidal depressive cursed with immortality. He feels threatened and embittered towards his fellow deities, who he believes are condescending and sniping, and in turn he wins no awards for maintaining relationships with any of his fellow beings.

Weyveren is a joyless deity who takes delight in absolutely nothing. He is so immersed in his own insecurities that he can see no good or beauty in anyone or anything else, leastwise in the acts of Creation.

At the same time, Weyveren is so afraid of being "left out" that he still impacts himself upon Creation, rather than leaving well enough alone. Thus, while the rest of the deities began to create their mortal races, Weyveren openly stated that it was clearly another failure of an idea, he still took part in the creation of his own.

The word "Algein" translates literally to "to feel pain." And this is truly the result of Weyveren's creation. While Malithia created a race designed to destroy and found within it a thing to love within Creation, Weyveren still took no pleasure in the Creation of his race. In fact, the race itself bears the brunt of Weyveren's disdain for it in its inception.

The Algein are aberrations, one and all. They take a variety of shapes and sizes, reproduce in various ways, and there is very little continuity in their existences. While all are sentient creatures, their intelligences are varied, as well. The only things that are common to all Algein are suffering and hunger. For to be an Algein at all means that one is in constant agony, just in their very existences. Some Algein lack certain bone or muscular structures that cause their bodies to be unable to properly support themselves. Some have extraneous bones that extrude from their flesh and constantly tear at it as they move. Still others are host to a horde of smaller creatures residing within them, threatening to eat away at them from the inside.

Whatever the cause or means may be, Weyveren's utter hatred for his own Creation is apparent within their being. These creatures, though sentient, are full of rage, hunger, and resentment. It is only in the process of feeding that they feel any sort of relief from their pain, and thus do many Algein attempt to feed constantly. Thus is it that the Algein also then act as the means towards Weyveren's plans for the destruction of Creation.

What Weyveren did not account for, and yet actually acts as his own proof that Creation never does what the Creators have expected them to, is that some particularly strong-willed, intelligent, or otherwise persistent Algein have actually found some beauty or pleasure in their own existences. Some of the most philosophical of these creatures feel as if finding a way to find meaning within their pain and backwards purpose gives them a greater sense of their own destinies. Weyveren, in the meanwhile, blames such propensity on Eleuth for touching his creations with his penchance for logical puzzles or other such weirdness.

For the Algein, magic does not come frequently, but it is a blessing for some few of them. The magic of the Algein comes directly from raw emotion. Most prominently amongst these are rage, hatred, and misery, but rarely do some of those particularly philosophical Algein find a means to magical power based upon pity or remorse. Always, however, these magics are impulsive, difficult to control, and are never delicate or subtle. Those Algein who are able to wield magics always bear the potential for a great deal of destruction, but they rarely if ever form into any sort of community with others, for if they did, their emotional states would likely tear their fellows apart, thus renewing their isolation again.

Then again, that sort of continually-renewing isolation is just the sort of ongoing misery that Weyveren designed for his Creation. And if he hadn't long ago cast aside the hope or belief that he could find joy in anything, would have been quite the type of thing that he would relish.

Writing Journal: Deities and Races, Volume IV; Malithia and the Hive

2010-04-03T15:30:00.000-07:00

When Fyrste first created the world, Malithia was incensed. She had been entirely in agreement with Fyrste in their initial bearings on the existence of a first Creator and a definitive plan. Then, when his first act of Creation was so at odds with what she had envisioned, and knowing that he had done so without seeking consensus from the rest of Fyrste's peers, she could not fathom what to do.

While it was Koshiri who first attempted to undo the first act of Creation by Fyrste, and therefore discovered that, once something has been done, it could not therefore be undone, Malithia did not believe it until she tried it herself. Of course, the same was true of Weyveren, as well. In fact, Malithia considered that perhaps it had to be the one who had performed the Doing who could be the only one to Undo it, and tried to convince Fyrste to unmake his Creation.

When Fyrste himself stated that he could not, Malithia had to test this out for herself. She had therefore become the first of the deities who were revolted by the very act of Creation itself to take a hand in the making of it at all.

By the time she had the ability to act, Nasci and Scieppend had already taken their own hands to developing Creation. While Malithia hadn't really taken much notice to what was done, since she was so incensed and focused upon the initial act and what seemed to be so wrong with it, she simply looked to destroy it all. When she contemplated a thing to Create, she thought she would gain some satisfaction by creating something that would work towards the destruction of the previous acts of Creation themselves.

Malithia therefore created creatures in a multitude of shapes and sizes. From small to large, they trampled grasses, knocked over trees, consumed the very plant life that Scieppend had created, used claws to mar the ground and burrow holes through it, who drank of and also polluted the waters of the world. Her Creation was terrible to behold for both Fyrste and Scieppend, who were incensed by the audacity of Malithia to act in such a manner to affront what they had put so much work and effort into. Scieppend felt alienated from her own Creation, and pondered the implications of the imperfection of it. Fyrste, in the meantime, vowed to take a hand against Malithia and her Creations.

Malithia took great pleasure in this response, for she cared not for the creatures themselves, despite having delighted in their ability to have such a destructive impact upon the world around them, and to create such a sense of horror in her two fellow deity-beings, thinking that perhaps now they understood how she and the others had felt at witnessing Fyrste's first act, which had taken place without a proper set of consensus amongst the group. She then agreed to undo the Creation of the beasts, and found that Fyrste had not been lying. She could not undo that which she had done.

This was the moment of positive recognition for all of the deities that there was a limit to their own abilities, and that was the fact that whatever choices they might make, there was no way to undo them. This became something that disturbed many of the deities, though others, such as Eleuth, were delighted by the possibility inherent in such a premise.

At this point, argument raged even further amongst the deities regarding the nature of such a limitation, and whether such a fact was proof or disproof of the existence of a First Creator. Those who believed such a higher being might exist, such as Malithia herself, asserted that such a definitive rule could not exist if it were not made as a definite limitation upon their being. Others, however, were not necessarily convinced. Eleuth, particularly, waxed philosophical about it, and stated that were their acts able to be undone, so would their memories, which would mean that they would fall into infinite loops of doing and undoing the same things, since their undoing would therefore cause them to forget having done the doing in the first place.

Such talk only made the rest of the deities angry and dismissive of Eleuth. It seemed too abstract a concept, and too complex for some of them to understand entirely. While Nasci seemed to be the only one moved by the passion with which he spoke, Eleuth became a bit of a pariah amongst the rest of the deities.

Weyveren and Koshiri had taken their own hands in Creation by this point, as well, figuring that they would take their own parts in attempting to destroy that which was Created through their own interventions. Weyveren went a step farther by creating predators, diseases, and parasites, while Koshiri created creatures that took to the air and ruled over all with dominion.

Creation took hold, with Nasci taking on the adoption of life and nature, and the other gods warring with one another, taking their hands affecting bits and pieces of Creation itself. Nasci created harmony amongst the various types of life, while Koshiri cursed all life with inevitable mortality. Heah finally stepped into the process by constructing laws and rules by which all existence would interact over time, creating life cycles, and laws relating to matter and energy. Eleuth in the meantime touched all of Creation with variation and diversity, such that no two entities would ever be exactly the same.

Finally, when Apothos, who had stood apart from most of the debate and the acts of Creation, stepped forward to create Dragons, the bid for the mortal races of Creation began.

It was already stated that Fyrste was again the first to create his own mortal race in the Bergan. But Malithia was the second. She saw the untapped potential that existed within these mortal, sentient beings who could think and act for themselves, utilize tools and manufacture and construct mundane creations of their own, and knew that she could continue to serve her purpose of destroying all Creation with something of her own. And thus, Malithia crafted The Hive, otherwise known as the Heuvians.

Heuvians resemble various insectoid creatures in humanoid form. They are able to manipulate tools and bore sentience of their own. However, their sentience was not solitary like the Bergan or the dragons' were. Instead, each colony of Heuvians shares a singular shared consciousness. Each individual Heuvian lives for the sake of the rest of their colony, with the prime importance of the Queen being the most important.

The reproduction of the Heuvians requires living victims, as Malithia borrowed her brother Weyveren's concept of the parasite in contemplating the development of the Heuvian race. Thus do the Heuvians constantly seek out new victims and new conquests in order to maintain their own existences. And similarly are the Heuvians offended by the concept of individual thought and consciousness. The first blow to Malithia's pride came from the lack of unified purpose in Fyrste's initial act of Creation, and so she imparted her own bruised ego into her mortal race's consciousness.

The irony herein, is that Malithia, in developing a race bent upon the destruction of Creation, actually constructed something that she loved that exists within the realm of Creation. While it is not something that she relishes the thought of, for to realize her eventual plan, she would then have to witness the end of the race whose Creation she has come to love, she frequently does intervene in the interests of her peoples.

The magics of the Heuvians are based upon concentrated action. It usually takes several Heuvians to act in concert to enact any magic, and even then, the results are often not particularly dramatic. The basis of this magic is the identical "chattering" of several Heuvians at once. The first effect of this, is that the ritualistic chanting therefore has a mesmerizing effect upon those who hear it. The magical effects are often things that deal with the mind, and are focused upon enslaving, dominating, and subverting the thoughts of others. The power of such magics are also relative to the number of Heuvians acting in concert to perform these ritualistic chants.

The Hives of the Heuvians bore deeply into some of the largest trees, hills, and often deep into the earth. While they require water, the hives themselves are often dry. The fact that each colony of Heuvians share a hive-mind, it is nearly impossible to surprise them or catch them unawares, and they are frequently willing to sacrifice a few of their members for the larger goal before them. As such, they were created as a definite foil to the Bergan, whose military organization pales by comparison to the complete tuned-in sharing of thoughts that The Hive possess. Usually, Bergan victories over The Hive have been the results of superior numbers, or of devastating strategies by particularly gifted Bergan generals. Otherwise, the Hive are a constantly fearsome threat for the civilized peoples of the world.

It is the Changelings that often provide the greatest threats to the seditious interests of The Hive, for their individualism and disorganization provides little for the Hive to strike out at, while the power and effectiveness of even a singular Changeling can take down Heuvians in far greater numbers, a sacrifice that many Hives are unable or unwilling to make.

Writing Journal: Deities and Races, Volume III; Scieppend and the Artere

2010-03-29T20:35:00.000-07:00

Just as Fyrste began the act of Creation, and Nasci continued it, Scieppend had been the third to act. I've already stated that Scieppend was relatively unimpressed with the initial act of Creation performed by Fyrste. However, somehow Nasci's impact upon that act was what gave Scieppend her own inspiration for the creation of life itself.

Also already discussed was how several of the various gods acted out in Creation to try to destroy it, which caused Nasci to become the adopted mother of the creatures of the natural world. However, what has NOT yet been discussed, is why Nasci should be considered to be an adoptive mother over even the plants within the world, when Scieppend was clearly not intending their existence to be any sort of attack upon what had already been created.

After all, the beasts were never intended to have any beauty or good associated with them, so for Nasci to find beauty and harmony in their existence and take them unto her own seems reasonable. But surely, Scieppend, who is the third and final god of the prime Creators, would have maintained domain over her own initial creations, wouldn't she?

This was not actually the case. Like a great many of the gods, Scieppend became disillusioned with her own Creation shortly after it was made. This is, in fact, part of the entirety of what the conflict between good and evil has been made about, after all. The gods of evil believe that Creation was an utter failure, and should be scrapped in favor of the option of trying to start over again, this time getting the job done better. The gods of good, in the meantime, defend Creation as a benefit and a boon in some way.

While Nasci clearly bore the gift of seeing beauty and harmony in everything that she saw was Created by others, Scieppend's visions have always been more fleeting. For Scieppend, the initial act of Creation was a bore. It was formless and monotonous. The second act, however, brought interest and possibility to Creation. And while life itself was a complex and wondrous thing, Scieppend felt that the Creation of the evil gods following her own Creation was thus simultaneously proven to be uninspired and fallible. She therefore lost interest in them almost right away.

The gifts and continuous interventions of Nasci later provided little comfort for Scieppend, for she believed that her interventions were making imperfect things better, but yet still imperfect. And yet, Scieppend shared a bit of the sense of Malitia that it all could have been done better, and more perfectly.

What beliefs about Creation that Scieppend maintains apart from Malitia is a sense that, however flawed Creation itself may be, it still maintains a certain right to its own imperfection. And that the dissonance and imperfections inherent within Creation are in their own way somewhat beautiful.

What therefore began to draw Scieppend's attention, and that which continues to keep Scieppend continuously drawn into investment within Creation, were art and culture. Once sentient life began to move upon the world, its culture and its artistic perspective on the world instantly intrigued Scieppend. And thus was she inspired to create her own mortal race, the Artere.

The Artere are a race of beauty. They are a race of boundless creativity, culture, ingenuity, and invention. Some Artere are jacks of all trades in manners of expounding upon their creative endeavors. Others focus upon a singular form of artistic expression, and pursue it to utter perfection. The magic of the Artere is found within inspiration. Verse, prose, sculpture, and movement. These are the invocations to unlock the infinite mysteries of magical power for the Artere.

The Artere are the creators of the most wondrous and beautiful cities that the world has ever seen. The Artere, however, have also seen more of these cities laid to ruin and waste due to a lack of drive to defend and protect their own creations. Just like art and inspiration themselves are fleeting, with only hints and remnants of the initial inspiration echoing through time following their creation, thus are many of the histories of the Artere's most wondrous cultural creations.

It is just as Scieppend revels in each individual act of inspiration and creation, but then as quickly becomes bored of it and finds interest in another, fresher scene of inspiration that the Artere seem to be lost within their own boundless, and yet seemingly pointless, acts of creation.

While the Bergan are militant defenders of Creation against those forces that would threaten it, and the Changelings are fierce defenders of Nature, the Artere, being so bound to only follow the most fleeting glimpses of inspiration, do little to follow up to preserve and protect their own creations, or even themselves. Certainly, there are some Artere who follow the art of War, or who take up the sport of fencing, or the art of the melee, and these individual Artere are as much a terror to their foes as they are a wonder to witness on the battlefield, they are but that. Individuals. Artists. They lack the organization of the Bergan to maintain discipline and structure within military endeavors. And they also lack the force of individual conviction that the Changelings maintain to be able to ensure that their acts in lesser numbers matter for nearly enough.

Thus has Scieppend become the goddess of art, culture, and inspiration. She is a goddess of whimsy and beauty, but lacking in motivation or conviction. Her people are responsible for the most wondrous creations in existence, and yet they find themselves and their creations continually falling short on expectation, and declining into ruin. Often, quite literally. One frustrated Bergan scholar once noted, "The Artere are the makers of the finest ruins in all of Creation." Thus seems to be their lot. And yet, their magics are powerful, and they never seem to run out of their boundless quest for more and greater creations and innovations throughout the world.

Writing Journal: Deities and Races, Volume II; Nasci and the Changelings

2010-03-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

Since I dedicated the first volume towards the first of the deities to act in the process of Creation, it seems that I should follow up with the second of the deities to act next. Nasci is an enigma in many ways. She is a fierce contender that there is no such thing as an Over-god, and yet also is one of the fiercest defenders of Creation in existence. She maintains a certain demeanor of alliance with Fyrste, as both take great stride towards defending and maintaining Creation. And yet amongst the deities themselves, Eleuth holds Nasci and her followers under great respect. In fact, amongst all of the workings and machinations of the Luthans to play at pranks and tear down the highest ideals of many great civilizations, the Luthans for the most part do not meddle in the affairs of the Changelings or their societies... where they have developed them, that is.

While Nasci is most associated with nature and the natural world, she was not actually the original creator of the plants, nor of the creatures that walk, swim, or burrow across the world. However, she has taken all of those creations into her heart, and defends their existence and Creation as if they were her own. To that degree, there is a great deal of contention regarding the creative energies of Nasci in the first place. She is set apart from her fellow deities in the sense that none of her acts upon Creation were themselves a new and unique creation in themselves. Instead, her acts were all modifications, separations, and the instillment of harmony upon those things that others had created themselves. In many cases, scholars contend that Nasci is therefore the least creative of the deities. Others, in the meantime, contend that Nasci bears the greatest creativity, for she was able to take even the most horrid examples of Creation, and find some form of beauty within them, and draw out that beauty in the world.

Thus was the case with Nasci's first act upon Creation. While Fyrst's act provoked shock, amazement, and anger from the rest of the deities, Nasci was unphased. She saw what was done, and saw something for her part to add to it. Thus did the formless, shapeless mass of the earth become separated into land, sea, air and fire. The four forces were relatively inert still, but they shifted and had interplay between them. It was a constant motion, and yet there was a harmony within that motion.

Up until that point, Scieppend had taken in with the rest of the deities who either didn't know what to think of this new Creation, or that it was an erronious failure. It was within the moment of Nasci's separation of the earth into the four elemental forces, and the harmony of their interplay was witnessed, that Scieppend saw beauty and possibility in the world. And thus, life and the natural world was borne out of Scieppend's contribution to it. And thus has Scieppend's name been generated from "creator" for although she had not been one of the first to act, she had been the first to generate life.

Again, though, I am drifting off-track. For this journal is about Nasci, and not Scieppend. One would wonder, however, why Nasci, who had not been a part of creating life or the plants of the world, nor was she the creator of the animals or other creatures of the world, that she would be born of the name originating from "nature." The reason is because she had taken the first hand in claiming all that there was of it. For when Malitia acted next, spitefully attempting to prove how disastrous this Creation was by creating creatures that burrowed into the ground to dig grooves within it, creatures that fed upon the plants and the mushrooms that grew upon it, and others that consumed the plants and growth within the seas, it was Nasci who saw beauty within them, and blessed them again with harmony. Whatever was consumed, found its way back into the land to feed the plants again.

And again, when Weyveren created diseases, parasites, and still more creatures that fed upon the other creatures that walked upon the land, Nasci was the one who again intervened and found beauty and harmony within their creations. The same was true when Koshiri created the creatures of the sky, who ruled over all from the high places, dropping down to strike terror in those who dwelt below them. Thus a wonderful chain of a natural cycle was formed between the bare nutrients of the earth, the plants and fungus that fed upon them, the creatures who fed upon those plants and fungus, and even those creatures who preyed upon the rest. All of it was made beautiful and harmonious by the intervention of Nasci. And thus do some contend that Nasci's powers have been borne of the greatest creativity, for even in the acts of attempted destruction at the hands of Malithia, Koshiri, and Weyveren, Nasci found beauty and harmony, transforming their terribleness into something that was instead awe-inspiring.

When the mortal races were being born, it is difficult to say when Nasci had acted. While the Bergan were borne to defend Creation against that which would threaten and overthrow it, the Changelings became defenders of a different sort altogether. Changelings' forms all vary, and as their name implies, many of them have developed means to change their forms at a whim, as well. All of them, however, bear striking connections to the natural world around them. Many have wings like the birds in the sky, others have claws, fangs, or talons. Most of their forms combine a sense of the bestial with that which is humanoid. Thus do each have a constant reminder of the beauty that is within the natural world, for they share that same beauty within their own forms.

The magic of the Changelings is drawn directly from the natural world itself. They utilize the power of the four elemental forces that Nasci had initially separated the world between. But beyond that, they also bear a strong bond with the living creatures that are bound to the world itself. Thus do their magics affect plants, and take form around the beasts and birds.

Changelings have little use or utilization of civilization and the wonders contained therein. Scieppend was the patron of those things, and even the Bergan maintain hierarchical order within their communities. Changelings are more disorganized, some of them working alone, others taking either pack or tribal structures, but rarely are there Changeling communities that develop any larger than a singular village. There is great oral history and storytelling amongst the Changelings, with those in full capability of their form-changing powers providing the most amazement in their stories. Art and history amongst the Changelings are lessons in beauty, harmony, and above all else, survival.

Changelings revere life. They celebrate it regularly. And they defend it fiercely. While they do not organize into massive military campaigns such as the Bergan do, small packs of Changelings have been known to harass even armies with tactics that have made many a military force pack up and move away from a heavily forested area, or another resource revered for its ecological wonders. Thus do the Changelings serve their patron goddess. With reverence, love, and fierce loyalty as the adopted mother of all of the natural world.

Writing Journal: Deities and Races, Volume I; Fyrste and the Bergan

2010-03-23T07:39:00.000-07:00

I was initially thinking that I would start with one of the evil races to detail out in my journal. However, in constructing names for both the races and the deities, and some of the history that I plan on developing within that sequence, it became clear that it would be most appropriate to first reveal the first-acting deity within the hand of creation, whose name I have identified with the very root of the word "First."

When the deities all came into being, they already had disagreements as to whence they came and what their purpose for existence might be. But they existed in a realm that was full of endless possibility. It then was the first act of one who believed that there was a prior Creator who had a plan for the universe and for the deity-beings themselves, who had the sureness that his own compunctions were part of a larger purpose, to be the first to act.

And thus, it was Fyrste who created the world itself. It was a vast expansive mass, but at that time it had little in the way of shape or differentiation. Some contend that the initial creation was a singular landmass, from whence Nasci had created the oceans. While others argue that because the world is so vastly composed of water, that Nasci's contribution was to raise the land out of the oceans. There is some evidence that the initial structure of the world was a fiery core, from whence the rest sprang forth. These arguments are semantic at best amongst those who argue, for the two main points are that Fyrste was the first to play his hand upon creation. And it was Nasci who divided out what have been known as the elemental forces in land, sea, air, and fire.

The contributions of Nasci will be discussed in another journal, however. For it was the initial contribution of Fyrste that will spell out what happened after that. Some of the other deities delighted in the initial act of creation made by Fyrste. Nasci, in particular, as being the next to act, may have believed that the self-assured belief that Fyrste acted according to the will of another nameless being was suspect, but delighted in the possibilities that could be made from such an act of creation, and played her own hand within it. The same was true of Scieppend, who took the next play of hand in the act.

By that time, Creation itself was fully underway. But those who were last to act, either because of slowness or a sense of uncertainty, or because they disagreed with the means of even Fyrste's initial creation of the world itself, felt a combination of jealousy, hurt, and had a sense of discontinuity of purpose. Fyrste had not consulted his fellow beings before he made his first act, but did so. And somehow, each knew that they could not undo what had been done.

Malithia, whose name I derived from the root of the word Spite, or Malice, in particular wanted to bring down the Creation that Fyrste had initiated. Malithia agreed with Fyrste on his conception of a grand deity, but believed that Fyrste's initial act had fallen short somehow, and thought it should have been done better, with proper planning having gone into it. And so, with the acts of Malithia, and her brooding brother Weyveren acting in ways that threatened the destruction of Creation, Fyrste and the other gods themselves became hurt. They had placed such value in their own acts, that the workings of Malithia and Weyveren seemed personal attacks against the value of their actions.

It was actually the final act by Apathos, who seemed to waver constantly, and seemed almost entirely disinterested, that had driven Fyrste's final rage which sprung the first humanoids into existence. Apathos, who hadn't seemed to have any interest in the acts of Creation at all, simply uttered the words "I wonder..." and dragons had sprung into being within the world. Dragons had taken the beautiful equilibrium of the world, and had thrown it off course. They ruled over the lands within which they dwelled, and they were sentient in ways that the beasts and creatures of the land could not achieve. Dragons were great and terrible, and wise, seemingly all at once. In many ways, Apathos's creation was greater than any of the rest, and yet it was also the most terrible.

Fyrste took the act as a further attempt at the destruction of the world, and yet he saw the beauty that came with the first sentient creatures. And thus, the Bergan were born. The Bergan are long-lived, sturdy, and highly militaristic. Their society is hierarchical, with very strict laws. Those who disobey are punished readily and harshly, though there never seems to be ill will against those who bear such punishments. It is simply the way toward the greater good.

There are some magics that are performed amongst the Bergan, and those magics are the result of precise, deliberate actions, enacted through exacting rituals, and within which all elements are controlled. There is no such thing as dabbling in magic amongst the Bergan, for it is a power that is to be respected, and thus practitioners of the Science are to be dedicated and specialized in what they do.

The Bergan, whose name originates from the roots of Protection, maintain some of the greatest marshal forces in the world. Their duty is to protect the world and all Creation from the forces that would see it thrown to waste. The Bergan recognize Fyrste as the original creator of the world, and they revere him. They also believe that the universe is heading toward an inevitable final confrontation, in which the forces of evil and destruction will finally be overthrown, and the course of Creation will take a final step toward perfection.

In the meantime, the Bergan believe themselves to be the stewards and protectors of Creation until that time at the end of days. They are stern and harsh in their manner, though one would not necessarily consider them joyless. Theirs is a philosophy of pragmatism. What serves the ultimate goal of preserving Creation and allowing the world to see the end of days must reside primarily within the thoughts and hearts of its people. Other things are distractions. The Bergan have a number of holidays and celebrations. All of which center around reminders of the beauty of that which has been Created, and therefore the reminders of why they live and die to protect such beauty and wonder. And thus do they stand in opposition to those forces that would seek to destroy the world or bring harm to any other portion of Creation.

I hope everyone is enjoying this exercise, and I certainly welcome feedback regarding the process or the writing itself. Please feel free to post comments, questions, or criticisms. I would appreciate hearing what people think.

The Project

2010-03-21T08:26:00.000-07:00

Ok, so my blog has been stagnant for a while, but I've also not begun any of my writing project for years. So I think I'm going to do at least a temporary transformation of my blog into a journal of the progress as I'm going for my writing project.

The project is going to be in the realm of high fantasy. The initial concept that I had come up with, and this was years ago, was of a cosmos where a group of deity-like beings come into existence. Think of a polytheistic religion and the deities of that religion. Except they seem to just pop into existence out of nothing, and they themselves don't know of their origin. Many cosmologies that have been made before have a sort of Over-god, or singular initial creator. This one specifically may or may not. And part of what sparks the conflict within creation is the disagreement between these deity-beings regarding what the nature of their own existence and creation itself actually means.

There are other cosmologies within which either the Void or Chaos is the primordial reality, and then reality springs forth from it. It's basically the concept that in a non-existent universe, where everything is possible, reality springs forth as an actualized possibility. Again, I wanted to steer away from this directly, as well, and have the deities not really know.

Within a lot of fantasy, then, there is a deviation of moral standards based upon alignment-based tenets. Specifically, there are two axes upon which everyone functions primarily. Law vs Chaos, and Good vs Evil. But what is it that makes something Lawful versus Chaotic if everyone has various principles that they adhere to, to some degree? And what makes something Good versus Evil if there are no fundamentally-defined rules for existence?

The way I divided it up was that the axis for Law versus Chaos is entirely surrounded by the philosophy of the deities on whether or not there is the existence of an Over-god, or some sort of over-arching plan for the universe. Those who are Lawful, believe that there IS, in fact, a greater plan that either has been or must be set into motion. Those who are Chaotic, in the meantime, assert that there is no such Over-god or definitive plan, and creation is simply the result of the choices and actions of those who exist.

In the meantime, how I divided up Good versus Evil is an attitude towards Creation. It was the deity-beings who began the act of Creation, and they honestly didn't really know much of what they were doing until they already started doing it. And since one of the other major philosophical tenets that I'm going for with this universe, is the fact that no act that is done can ever be undone. The deities could not UN-create that which they have created. Destroying it is certainly an option, of course, which is where Evil comes into being, but even Destruction cannot cause something or someone to never have been in the first place. Those who are Good assert that Creation is good. And even if there may have been some experiments that didn't turn out as planned or intended, they are ultimately good and that they need to be preserved, protected and celebrated. Whereas Evil determines that a mistake must be erased and eliminated, Creation was a mistake, and therefore we need to do away with all of it in order to start fresh and get it right the next time around.

These are all the concepts that I've had floating around in my head for years now. What I began today is actually taking the time and fleshing all of this out. If there is one race that is going to be embodied by their particular deity's philosophy, and each philosophy is governed by a single deity, what will each of those deities' races look like?

I had the option to take the easy route and utilize pre-governed races that are commonly known throughout the realms of fantasy. Elves would be the prototypical Chaotic Good, while Dwarves fundamentally embody that which is Lawful Good. Orcs have always been the Chaotic Good, and you can readily call upon the existence of devils as a Lawful Evil force. But that would be using concepts that are already created and there. It wouldn't be creative enough, and furthermore, it would be a less perfect representation. All of those races have been built upon different rules from what I would conceive as the purpose for them. And so I've decided to pave my own way, and construct eight distinct races embodying each of the extremes of philosophy.

If you're as much of a dork as me, you probably asked yourself "Eight? But that diagram should have NINE. Geez, you're fucking it all up already." Well, like any good fantasy series, you always have to factor in humanity. Humanity is always the wild card, the keeper of destiny. It is always a human that unlocks the mysteries of the universe. Who has the potential to change the world. Humans are the key. And so Humanity takes the place of Whoopi Goldberg. Humans are the center square. Ok, sorry, I had to do it. :p

Thus far, I've got general ideas out for each of the nine races, and what exactly the governing of those races might be. For now, I am going to cut this blog short and let it be the overall scheme. The next eight or nine blogs, however, will be about each of the races individually. Stay tuned.

Reminder

2010-03-12T20:51:00.001-08:00

This is a quick reminder to myself that, yes, I still have a blog, and that yes, I REALLY need to update it again...

Unfamiliarity

2009-09-08T15:00:00.001-07:00

Wow... it's been a while since I've updated this last again... hmmm, I'll have to post much more often.

This one is more intellectual than most of my posts, as it's more of a stream of consciousness piece, or at least some prose, possibly even the basic work of an essay that I'd likely never finish, but I was thrilled to feel it come upon me...

I was sitting around at a friend's, and this kind of came upon me, which was really nice because it's not very often that I feel particularly inspired to write, and even less frequently that I have the tools at my disposal to put my thoughts down. So this was very refreshing, and my thanks to Jaime for allowing the stars to align in this particular way.

When it comes to thought and emotion, it's pretty much established that we are all on a journey. What I've found, though, is that in some ways we can readily revisit a place along the journey that we've been before. Not literally or physically, as we can't see people we've lost or from whom we've been estranged, etc, but in the way of recalling how we felt at a very particular moment, and even going so far as to relive that moment in the feeling or feelings that were evoked from it. While the thought is initially fascinating, this seems to also be inherently dangerous when one considers many of the places that a lot of us have been in our lifetimes. For as those of us who, like myself, have crawled our way up from the fetid pits and craters within our own souls, can become greatly happy and together, we still have the possibility and the tendency to revisit those dark and lowly places.

This also becomes true based upon numerous trigger factors that remind us of those times and moments. Tokens and remembrances can have powerful impacts upon our psyches. Some of the things that visit us inside our heads are sometimes, therefore, potentially dangerous pieces, for they can act as fetters for our psychological well-being. It then, therefore, becomes somewhat necessary for us to have triggers that also take us OUT of our heads. Escapism, therefore, is not just a method of, as the name implies, escape, but instead an expedient method for us to press an internal "reset" button in our own psyches: a means to take us back out of those fetid pits and craters and bring us back to the peaks and valleys in which our current states are more developmentally suited.

(this next part actually came a little bit later, after further thought and consideration, but is still inherently related)

If the ability to revisit places in our emotional progression over time is based upon the conceptual ingraining of patterns of thought and feeling into the psychic foundations of our thought, then this is evidence of a need for the unfamiliar. This unfamiliarity is precisely what provides the escape, or reset, that we need. This is also because of the fact that, being unfamiliar, there is no past pre-set or default condition or pattern for our psyches to revert to in their experience. Being new and unfamiliar, we can only experience them in our current state, whereas familiarity bears the possibility of allowing our mental state to take the easy way out and take a path or revert to a state that it has already followed before.

A Final Farewell

2009-05-31T08:15:00.001-07:00

It's been a long time since I've last blogged. Unfortunately, a lot of what I've been wanting to post, I haven't for fear that it would be violating one person or another's privacy, or that somebody might or might not get their feelings hurt.

At this point, it's either say it and possibly hurt people and hope they understand, or don't post anything. And I suppose it's just about posting it.

The reason why I want to share this, is because it marks a very big landmark for me. I admit that I probably should have gotten to this place about 2 years ago, but I was holding on for far too long. And this was the last e-mail that I sent to Ray, kind of marking my final sense of closure regarding our relationship.

This was also a landmark because, despite the fact that it was a direct 1-on-1, it was also the marking of me gaining closure on several other items. And also the thing that triggered me to finally say something to Julie about my sense of wanting something different with regard to our living situation... not entirely certain yet what it is, but at least we've begun dialogue about what is or is not working, how we may be able to solve it, and at the very least getting over the sense of dread that perhaps, if I *did* express some degree of dissatisfaction, that there might have been a very different, negative reaction in response to it.

It's very good to know that I was able to express needing something else, and have somebody say "I am upset that this is not working for you, but I don't want to prevent your happiness," to give a solid foundation to the fact that I can step forward and start spending some time and energy on myself, and find a way of making myself happy, without having to break down every relationship I've ever built to do it. Or without potentially harming my relationship with my children.

Below is the copied version of my last e-mail to Ray. After sending it, I sent him a text saying that I had sent this, and that I was then deleting his number out of my phone. That he was free to contact me if ever he wanted to, but otherwise I am not going to contact him again...

"Sometimes life moves faster than our ability to process how we feel about it."

I think that sums up the majority of my adulthood, actually. I think that even the phrase "hindsight is 20/20" is partially just a symptom of the fact that we're constantly only just trying to make sense of what has already happened, and perhaps not yet catching up to what is happening right at the moment.

So I don't really know where I am right now, but I'm in a major turning point in my life. I'd been over you to some degree until the last major hurdle I'd gotten over, and suddenly I found that I had several regrets... and that my feelings for you had resurged a bit because of my recognition of those regrets. When I realized how much I was ok even whenever I felt lonely, towards the end of my relationship with Vic, I thought about the fact that I shouldn't want to be with somebody that I haven't fallen in love with for the sake of being with somebody. But more than that, I realized that I'm ok, regardless of anything.

I think I've come to start accepting myself better than I ever have before. And in so doing, I started to recognize the ways that I never did accept myself. We've said it before, but when I was with you, I was constantly trying to make myself as small as possible, to make myself fit into your life as it was. But more than that, I recognized that there were 2 things that I honestly have regretted since then. The first was the conversation that we had, where we both expressed concern that our relationship with each other would somehow damage your relationship with Steve. The second, which is related in my mind, was that whenever it became clear that Steve was never going to make room for me, I didn't fight for you, but instead I simply ran away. I left, because my assumption in both of those cases, was that you were always clearly better off with Steve than you were with me. And I made that choice for you, instead of recognizing that it was then, and
always has been, your choice, not mine, and not Steve's.

What I've been having a lack of closure on lately, and why I had that resurgence of feeling for you, which prompted a lot of the drunk texts, was to confront those regrets, and to put the choice back firmly in your hands. The choice is still, and will always be, yours to make.

The thing that I needed was to give that back to you. To let you know that the power that I took from you by leaving, is back in your hands. From your last text to me, it seems clear to me what your choice is. And I'm ok with that. In fact, I think that's good for me in a lot of ways. I've come to an interesting place in my own journey here... this is the first time that I really feel like I am getting absolute closure with regard to you. Not that I think that I'll somehow either never see you again or somehow renew some new and different sort of relationship with you, but because I feel like there's nothing more that I need to go through. This is it. The ability is yours to choose what type of relationship, if any at all, you want to have. Because I don't need to run anything more by you, or to wonder whether your last conversation was a subtle way of you trying to tell me something, or whether you are as resolved to the way things went as I have
been.

For the last several months, I've been trepidaciously considering having a confrontation with my mother about our relationship, with the possible conclusion of cutting her out. At the same time, at my last therapy appointment, I finally admitted my feelings of feeling trapped in my living situation and several of my thoughts regarding moving out and being more independant.

When Andy and Ben backed out of camping, I was initially really upset. In my opinion, they were my "stable" friends, the ones that I feel like I can rely on. They have been playing the role of my anchor. Just like you had for a while, within a different context. Things have also come to *a* conclusion (though not even necessarily *the* conclusion) with regard to Barry. And even now, after reconciling with Matt, I've also pretty much let go of him as being relatively superfluous to my life.

For the first time, I'm looking to the possibility of having a life that has absolutely no anchor at all. Of being fully and entirely on my own. And knowing that it's not because of the fact that I'm incapable of having somebody care about me, or because of other people's abandonment or anything of that sort, but almost like an opportunity. An opportunity to achieve something of my own, and to be completely dependant completely upon myself. That is very frightening in a lot of ways. At the same time, it also feels extremely freeing, because for the first time ever, I also know that I am not wondering whether or not I *CAN* do it or not. Because I know that I can.

In that sense, I don't even need to hold onto you any more. I don't have to think of you as a possible safety net or "what if" factor, that maybe... if things went south at home, then maybe somehow some fairy tale ending could still happen with you... But I don't need that, either. I don't need you to catch me if I fall. I don't even have to worry about falling or not. The universe doesn't have to provide to know that I'll figure something out, no matter what happens. My legs are strong, and I've grown so much, year after year, ever since I moved, that I've surpassed the need for requiring other people's validation, or support, or love. Sure, love is nice, and I certainly won't turn it down, ever. But neither am I going to be so afraid of doing without it.

I want you to know that I'm ok. With or without you, I'm really ok. And sure, I'll always treasure many of the memories I have of you. You have often said that you have always felt like it was your job to make everybody happy, and that you always seem to fail at it. Well, you hadn't. Some of the moments that we shared were amongst the happiest I had experienced. But I need to make myself happy now. And I hope that one day you'll start working on making yourself happy. Because I'm also letting go of that fairy tale hope that maybe one day I can be the one to make you happy. That, too, I am giving back to you. Your happiness is your own.

About a month ago, you looked into my eyes, and then you said that you still wanted to see if it was still there. It is, of course. But again, I'm letting go of the fairy tale dream that somehow things might change, and "it" being there will make all of the difference in the world. We live different lives. And I don't envy you yours. Nor do I lament mine. Despite the job I'm unhappy with, despite the debt, or my family problems, or my sense of being on my own, I still feel like I have a pretty good life. And it's not because of anything other than me. Because I'm the one who can still have pretty much any experience I want to. Even with my kids being what I would have considered my last anchor, the reality is that I can have a relationship with them no matter what I do. And maybe I'll have opportunities in another place entirely. There is nothing stopping me from touching down in another city or state, living the type of life that I want to
lead, and doing what comes naturally to me. Spending time with whoever feels welcoming to me. And perhaps even loving anyone that feels exciting to me. And I can do all of that, or none of it, all based upon my own choices.

I'm in a great place. But also a very scary one. And this time, I don't need to lean back on a sense that maybe, just maybe, things will work out. And not only with you, but for years I'd felt as if I was waiting for Ben, too. In many ways, it was my psychological safety net. But I don't need it. I'm ok, with or without Ben, and with or without you. I wish you the world. Because you've meant that much to me at times. This time, though, I need to give that world to myself. Because I've recently discovered somebody there that I've been taking far too much for granted, and discovering that he's a pretty amazing person himself. And in this chapter of my own story, I am looking forward to seeing what happens next...

Forever in my heart,
Brant

A Call for Direct Action

2009-02-24T14:27:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, at lobby day, we had gone through all of the District 32 delegates, and I was surprised by 2 things...

First was the fact that every single delegate seemed to have made tremendous headway from the previous year in terms of where they stood on personally supporting us on our issues. Even Sophocleus, who every year previously would miraculously come up with a reason why he wasn't able to meet with us, seemed relatively supportive. It showed that we were making some sort of progress somewhere, and it made me far more hopeful for change in the future.

The second thing was the fact that every delegate also cited a lot of pressure coming from our opposition. And specifically, that all of the groups cited were religious institutions.

Having grown up Catholic, I've seen the tremendous gap between the positions that the Church as an institution and the run of the mill Catholic have been. This was made even more prominent in my religious studies education, having gone to a school where the premiere liberation theology professor was somebody who has specifically likened the structure of how oppression develops and functions in the world as something that exists between the lay and the clergy within the Church.

Finally, as somebody who came out in relative isolation, having utilized my activism as a means of feeling one with the community in a situation where I didn't have many friends or lovers to talk to or relate to, only history books and political sources, I admit that I developed a sense of (perhaps misplaced) nostalgia for the days of Act Up and Queer Nation.

It's with this background that I can't help but think that if the Catholic Conference and several specific parishes of varying denominations are the source of power for people to maintain their bastion of oppression against us, I believe that it may be time to begin the sort of take-it-to-the-streets direct action that has characterized much of the most trying times for our community that have existed.

Let's be real about a few things, here. First, the economic situation has struck our organizations hard. Budget cuts and layoffs are the reality of the day, and all of our organizations are struggling to keep their doors open at all, let alone striving to act out in ways that are going to be unpopular. In fact, in order to keep their doors open, most organizations can't help but do what there's money for, and nothing more.

In order to maintain an air of legitimacy, our organizations can't afford to be seen hitting the streets, marching and leafleting to oppose the efforts of our opponents to undermine our rights, continually dehumanize us, and make us less than what we are. We need to be able to hit the streets ourselves, independently of any organizations that we support.

Many in the community may see us getting in the faces of our opponents as inappropriate, misguided, or a failure of belief in "the process." There is room for pages and hours of dialogue arguing that point back and forth. All I can say for myself is that I'm more than used to being a scapegoat, and that my own positions have been labeled as irrelevant to the movement as it stands already. So I have nothing to lose in this. And everything to gain, because for the first time, I'll be able to act from my own training and development as an activist, utilizing the skills and action-planning abilities that I developed during my college years and after as a part of the Catholic Worker movement. I'll be acting from my own set of beliefs on where our movement needs to go, not by what a major donor or funding organization believes is the next pragmatic step.

I've determined that action is necessary, and I fully intend to move forward with some plans to implement it. My call is to everyone else who believes that our organizations are not able to take on the type of action that is necessary to be done right now. To everyone who has felt powerless in a political process that seems far too large for them to influence alone. To everyone who is angry at the fact that voters across the nation are making decisions about OUR lives and relationships. My call is to ask you to consider what you are willing to do in order to attain your goals, to seek justice, and to create the better world that is only possible when ordinary citizens stand up and say "no more."

I am in the process of formulating the first action. It will involve development of a flyer with information on the actions of several parishes and religious organizations, and I intend to rotate between those largest antagonistic entities, stand outside and pass out flyers, asking those individuals entering or exiting whether they know what their Church is doing. I intend to make these churches accountable to their membership. Amongst Catholics, there is significant talk about the Body of Christ. And the Body is not composed of clergy alone, but of every single lay person throughout the Church. And it's time that the Body woke up and started to realize what the Head is doing... not just amongst those Catholic institutions in Maryland that need to be our first targets, but for every parish. To make people who have been giving money to their churches every week for the last 20 years finally say "I had no idea that they were doing that." And make them stop supporting an institution that is tarnished by oppression and greed. Until their churches start re-prioritizing their missions and re-developing their budgets to support real human needs and interests, rather than continuing to scapegoat and attack people and communities that it deems to be less valuable.

If anyone is interested in taking part, let me know. If you have information about a specific religious institution or body in the local area that we can include in an informational flyer, please pass the information on. And, most of all, if you are willing to stand outside one day, disseminate information, and are willing to look your fellow human beings in the eye and ask "Do you know what your Church is doing?" then please, please join with me on this important struggle.

We are in another important political day. And we can't hide behind our organizations any longer. We need to act on our own. So thank you in advance for those who are willing to stand and act... I am greatly looking forward to struggling alongside you.

Intention and Justification

2009-02-10T05:44:00.000-08:00

I was watching The Dark Knight again the other night, and I have to say that I really think that it's quite a brilliant film. I always look at the world as a place where there is tremendous moral struggle. Where there is always hope for a better world, struggling against what is easy and comfortable.

When I first saw the film, I admit identifying with the concept of Batman making himself into a scapegoat, while simultaneously being solely responsible for the welfare of the people who scapegoated him. I have to admit, though, that I have outgrown that self-deprecating vision of myself, and what I've been working on for so much of this time frame has been allowing myself to recognize my own value without having to destroy myself and raise everyone else up at the same time.

What strikes me about the moral struggles of the film, however, is the moral downward spiral that the Joker represents. Every crime that the Joker commits, is one in which he brings out the worst in humanity. The entire movie is centered around the concept of corruption and hitting on all of the key vulnerabilities of human frailty to compel them to make difficult choices.

This is exactly what the Joker stated to Batman as the "battle for Gotham's soul." Interestingly, I see this as the constant moral struggle within the world. And it inevitably highlights the primary difference for me on what makes the character of a person.

The difference, as I see it, deals with the contrast between identification and justification. As an understanding human being, I can see a lot of people do some pretty despicable things, and I can see why they do it, can understand their motivation, and recognize the justification behind it. For the vast majority of the world, the difference between creating good or doing evil all truly boils down to a point of position and context. Few people in the world actively make their own moral choices in a way that is thoughtful and intentional to the concept of what type of person they wish to be on any given day.

I believe that one of the underlying realities behind this is the concept of the godhead religious figure who dangles the realities of heaven and hell before us. The reward-punishment moral framework that simplifies everything down to a "yes-or-no" question does not allow for the complexity of real-world functions to permeate into people's actual decision-making processes. In the end, if you can justify your actions through the moral framework, then that should be enough. It doesn't matter whether you did the *best* thing, just so long as what you did was acceptable. This is the justification framework. Everything you do, has to be justified. But, so long as you have justification for what you do, then there is no compulsion or reason to ever be better.

By contrast, I always look at myself in the world as self-defining. I am very much in tune with the Existential concepts of responsibility and self-creation. I am who I make myself to be, and I make myself through the actions and choices that I make every day. So every day that I choose to help or support another person, I am making myself into the type of person who would help or support others. Every time that I reach out to somebody who is in pain, I am making myself into the type of person who reaches out to others.

Within this framework, justification can always still come up, but you still always only define your own moral limits by what you are able to justify to yourself. But there is always room for improvement, and always room for growth. Because I can do what is justifiable, but at that moment, I am only choosing to be the type of person who performs actions that are justifiable. If I instead act in a way that is intentional, where I weigh the benefits of what I do in the world against the type of person that I will be if I take different sorts of actions, then I will always continue to grow and expand my own moral self into something better, every day.

This is the point where I have found my one greatest gift in the world, and where I have found the keystone to finding my own value. I don't need to sacrifice myself for the benefit of the world in order to maintain my "best course of action" any more. In fact, as an individual, I now have to consider that looking out for myself and things that will help me, is helping yet one more person along their journey as well. I have known people who have been hurtful towards me, and yet I have determined that I can be the type of person who can forgive them, step forward, and still help to cultivate their humanity.

At the same time, I don't need to do it in a way that allows them to further humiliate, demean, or harm my own humanity, because I can stand firm in the fact that I have a tremendous amount of value. And I don't deserve mistreatment in the midst of my own desire to raise the world up. Because the world isn't in a zero-sum gain. I don't have to lose in order for others to win. And now, I can see that my own willingness and desire to help improve the world, is also my greatest asset to helping myself to win, as well. I have human needs, and today, I choose to be the type of person who can meet my own needs, so that I can continue to grow and become a better person than I was yesterday. And THAT is the key to my own intentionality.

Breaking the Lock

2009-01-28T05:36:00.000-08:00

For a very long time, I had a great deal of challenge seeing de facto value for myself. For a while, it seemed ironic, because of the fact that I would always use my identification as an activist to support and reinforce the value that other people have simply for the fact of their being human.

I even remember one of our NMAC staff retreats, I don't remember what the topic was, but I recall several of my coworkers stating that I was very hard on myself, including both of my supervisors. Not to get too much into the paranoia I frequently get in whenever I think that my work is somehow not on par with what somebody else's expectations, but I was a bit taken aback by it. I also remember the people there saying something about how I viewed other people, and why I seemed so willing to be ok with other people's mistakes, and not my own. I also remember vividly the look of shock on everyone's faces whenever I stated that it somehow seemed ok for other people, but that I felt like I had to have a different standard for myself.

It's taken me years to be able to overcome this sense within myself of having to somehow prove my own value to myself, or somehow, to the universe, in some way. To a limited degree, I wonder if it has anything to do with my image of God. For myself, I identify as an atheist not so much because I feel as if God *cannot* exist, but rather that I view God as retributive, selfish, and ultimately mean-spirited, and therefore, I choose to believe in a universe that is not predestined to misery by some sort of force that is more powerful than all of us together. Years ago, toward the end of my high school days, is when I came to this conclusion...

Interestingly, prior to coming to that conclusion, I had been *extremely* religious, and as such had fallen into a lot of the conservative culture. To the extent that it had been a point of pride for myself how many times I'd read the Bible cover to cover, how well I understood or could argue certain of the lessons within it, etc. And for years afterward, it was always (and likely still is, but I choose most of the time not to banter with fundamentalists and other conservatives later in life) a constant nail in the coffin of anybody who tried to argue either politics or religion with me, because it's difficult to make an argument based upon religion against somebody who is infinitely more qualified to interpret religious texts and doctrine than you. Which, to some degree, was also part of the reason why I'd focused on Religious Studies as one of my majors in college. (I'll let you take my stand on personal standards into place whenever I then point out again that I had a double major in Philosophy and Religious Studies, and also a double minor in Legal Studies and Women's Studies... especially with having been called the king of incompletes because, as one of my Women's Studies professors stated to me about turning in one particular assignment "We know whatever you turn in is going to be great, and it doesn't have to be perfect. Just turn something in to us. Don't worry about having to do additional research or getting more data. Just turn in what you have." Sadly, I still couldn't do it, and even when I *did* turn in what I had, I was terribly disappointed in it.)

Those tangents aside, the main point being that I had determined that it was my goal to do the right thing in the world, even if it meant going against the will of God. And as such, it also meant that I would try to live my life doing the right thing at all times, with the consideration that "if God is in any way benevolent, then He will determine that I've lived my life doing my best to make the world a better place, or else God is a tyrant, and I will gladly go to Hell in protest to an unjust deity."

It almost seems arrogant whenever I tell it to others. But it was also a bad setup that I placed myself in. Because it was so global, so cosmic of a goal, that it requires every moment of every day to be made as if it's some sort of move on a grand chess board, with me on one side of the action and God on the other. It also set me up to have a very low opinion of myself every time I made a false move, failed in some way, or did something that was hurtful to others.

In this sense, I suppose it's only a matter of distance from that previous belief that has gotten me to a point that has come to start finally accepting myself and my value for what and who it is that I am, not as some sort of grand schemer who can best some fictional divine being at a cosmic game of morality. My own sense of worth comes from myself, not from what degree I'm able to come out ahead in the game and be *just that much* better. I can't pinpoint any moment where this has made less of a difference or impact upon me, but it's something recent, at the very least. And so it's only distance that I can explain it out as. I have to relate it to Ani Difranco here:

"I was locked, into being my mother's daughter. I was just eating bread and water, thinking 'nothing ever changes.' I was shocked, to see the mistakes of each generation will fade like a radio station if you drive out of range."

In the end, I'm finally starting to like myself a heck of a lot better. And I don't need to have anybody give me that value, or find it in providing something to others. Or even in finding the right thing to do, particularly at my own expense. I still do take a great deal of pride in being able to look at a situation and doing the right thing, but there is a different feeling to it now. First of all, I don't have to do it at the expense of my own self, and it doesn't have some lower value for doing the right thing just because I haven't sacrificed anything for it. Now, though, I know I have a choice in anything I do, and that I can consider my own well-being just as much as I am considering everyone else's, at the same time. It's a relief to know, and a great thing to hold onto, and I am glad for the opportunity now to love myself in a way that I never have been able to before...

Cassandra

2009-01-03T05:11:00.000-08:00

In a lot of my profiles, games, and such, I've taken on a screen name that has spoken highly of my desire to stand up for what is right, stand by my decisions, and stand against what may seem to be overwhelming opposition in the form of Orestes. The version, in order to fully clarify, that is told in Sartre's re-telling of the ancient Greek myth as stated in "The Flies."

Lately, I have felt more and more in touch with the myth of Cassandra. Cassandra was granted the gift of prophecy, but because she did not return love for Apollo, he twisted the gift into a curse. Thus she was given the gift of foresight, but without anybody ever believing her.

I am an extremely empathetic person in general, and I can see things several moves or steps in advance. The problem is that it doesn't do me any lick of good to see it. People need to go through their own processes, they need to learn each of their own lessons the hard way, and they need to do it all on their own, as help or guidance from somebody else just doesn't do much for anyone.

When the predictions are foretellings of doom, the "gift" becomes even more frustrating, because as much as people don't believe you despite the fact that you may have been right about something, I admit that I often HOPE that I am wrong. In those cases, it feels to me as if I'd rather have to eat crow than to witness the end result of a bad situation.

Recently, I just saw a piece of that very same situation, and I admit that I'm having a difficult time with my own feelings of powerlessness within the situation. It is incredibly difficult for me particularly, being able to see what somebody is going through, to love them deeply, and yet to know that you cannot do a single thing to either prevent them from the pain that they are going through, or to make it any easier to take the first step towards becoming a healthier person.

A while back, I had been accused of being excessively harsh with regard to my interaction with a particular person, somebody who I have loved very deeply. It had come to the point where it had impacted several of my friendships, and while I stood my ground, I had to wonder if perhaps I might actually be wrong about things. With a very recent phone call from one of those friends that confirmed what I had foreseen happening, I have to say that I take very little solace in knowing that I was right. What is the benefit? Where's the prize in it? That I still get to watch (albeit right now from a long distance) as somebody slowly destroys himself? To know the terrible pain that he is going through, knowing that there is absolutely nothing that I can do or say to make it any better?

As an activist particularly, it is even more difficult for me to be in this position. The whole point of activism for me, from the very beginning, was to NOT stand idly by while there is hope for a better tomorrow. And yet, any degree to which I will attempt to make the situation better would be potentially making the situation worse, with no hope of making it any better at all. It's almost as if it is some form of cosmic torture to have to be in this position. Wouldn't it be better to not know, so that I never have to think about it? Wouldn't I be better off if I was simply able to let go and not care? It's the caring, and the hoping, and the loving that make it all that much more difficult to wait for somebody to hit rock bottom before they're capable of working themselves up.

At the very least, I have this outlet. Hopefully it will take the edge off of my own psyche for a few days, perhaps even a couple of weeks. I hope. In the meantime, the only other thing I can say is that Matt, wherever you are, I love you and I hope that you start getting better soon...

Winter

2008-12-17T08:05:00.000-08:00

Ok, I'd let this drop off for way too long again...

Winter is my least favorite time of the year. It's cold, it becomes a pain in the butt to go anywhere, it's dark all the time, and it's just plain depressing. Throw holidays into the mix, and it's just one big recipe for people being constantly upset.

It's been a bit of a while for me feeling ready to head back into the nonprofit world, but yet it looks like I'm still going to have to wait a while in order to get some momentum going on that trajectory.

So this year, it seems, is going to be like any other year, where it looks like I'll just be surviving through the winter. And with hope and maybe some luck, spring will be the time to bring better things...

Sorry I don't have anything more upbeat or even detailed for those of you who follow at the moment, but winter tends to make me tired and just a little bit depressed, if you couldn't tell. Hopefully I'll have better updates sooner...

Mawwiage...

2008-11-09T16:48:00.000-08:00

After my last post, and realizing how strongly I came across with regard to the whole "Marriage is the WRONG FIGHT" thing, I think I need to dedicate a full post to my position on the entire Marriage thing and talk about it in full.

I think this is particularly because of the fact that I have a LOT of friends who had a vested interest in what was happening in CA, and that it is important to recognize that I'm not saying that what happened in all of those states was not important, that they shouldn't be hurt or upset about what happened, or that there has been such a large outcry from so many people in our country telling them/us that their relationships don't matter.

Here's the thing. With the end to sodomy, I feel like we had the chance to really sit down and strategize about where we wanted to go as a movement. And that we should have taken the precedent set in the establishment of privacy in the sodomy cases, that we should have focused on getting the government OUT of the business of marriage or of regulating relationships at all, in the first place.

The issues at hand are things like inheritance taxes that everybody other than married people have to pay, visitation and medical decision-making precedents, health and life insurance coverage, etc.

All of these things can be provided without needing to be connected to marriage. In fact, the reality that it is connected to marriage at the moment doesn't only leave out monogamous gay couples. It also leaves out polyamorous people (of which I identify), it leaves out families like my own that are parenting with more than 2 people even though there is only one primary monogamous couple within it, it leaves out adult people who are living with an elderly parent or grandparent, leaves out pairs or groups of elderly people who live together for mutual support and friendship (think the Golden Girls here, people!), and a ton of other people.

What we *could* have been doing in the past several years, instead of talking so much about how marriage was the key and that we wanted in, we COULD have been working towards getting the government OUT of marriage entirely. We COULD have been building coalitions with all of the other people above who have been left out of the marriage discussion, and adjoining our struggle for liberation with theirs, and with the betterment of not only the lives of a portion of our community, but to ALL of our community, and many people who otherwise would never have had any connection to us at all.

Instead, I've spent the last several years feeling like an outcast to my own community. Because every time we talk about the fight for marriage as if it's THE most important struggle in the movement, I hear a voice saying "you're a freak for not wanting monogamy, and you don't deserve to have the same rights as all of these couples." And yet, in the meantime, I had spent so many years feeling as if I'd given my life to the movement, and suddenly I was dedicating my life to a movement that considered me to be disposable.

So here we are now. Some states allow marriage, but many MANY others have constitutional amendments banning it. In all of those states, and in the ones that have not made either decision, what do we do? Where do we go from here?

This is where I believe we can finally start to work on the tasks that, in my opinion, we should have begun years ago when sodomy was finally struck down by the Supreme Court. Get the state out of the business of marriage. Set precedents that allow for people who are in intimate, loving relationships with each other to be able to visit and make medical decisions for one another, regardless of the type of relationship that they are in. Give us universal health coverage, so that no person is left without insurance, whether or not they are in a relationship with a partner who can provide it for them. Set a better precedent for dealing with inheritance and transfer of possessions.

We have a lot more work ahead of us to see the true differentiation between setting benefits for all people and only giving them based upon their relationship status. But it's the best and ultimate goal that we, as a movement, need to work toward. And in those states, like California, where people feel devastated and at a loss for what to do or where to go next, at least we can provide some direction. And in my opinion, it is sad that we had to go through the pain of having all of those couples needing to be told that their relationship doesn't matter by the state and by the majority of voters in their states, but I was not the one who chose the direction of the movement. I would argue that the people who decided that marriage was the real best fight owe all of those couples an apology, at least, for putting them through the pain and heartache. But even then, I don't believe that would help to heal the wounds that were dealt to them. Because in the meantime, their lives and relationships are still vulnerable. They still need their rights.

So let's not give up and give in to despair. Let's get out there and get them their rights. And get the rest of our communities their rights. Let's start networking and coalition-building. Let's focus on the core issues and needs that our community faces, and let's start fighting. And let's not give up until EVERYONE is covered by the same umbrella, and that EVERYONE is safe. We have a lot of work to do, and there isn't a moment to lose...

What This Means to Me - Bio

2008-11-05T09:17:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of things that the election of Barack Obama means to me. There are a lot of very specific reasons why I feel so much more full of hope today than I did when I woke up yesterday. And in order to do that, I need to explain some context for me.

The first election I was able to vote in, I voted for Bill Clinton. I was excited, saw hope for the ability to take part in a political process, and saw the world as a much more clearly-defined fight of good versus evil. During that term, Bill Clinton turned around to offer us the Defense of Marriage Act, Don't Ask Don't Tell, only increased HIV/AIDS funding by a fraction of what we had hoped he would, and got us involved in several overseas military operations. We enacted sanctions against Iraq that served only to bolster Saddam Hussein's power base within that nation while crippling the livelihoods of most of the citizenship of the country. And finally, when Clinton himself failed to be there to support the queer community in our struggles, he found himself in a public scandal where he abused his power and position by engaging in a sexual relationship with an intern, and turned back to the same community he neglected, saying "you know what it's like to be marginalized because of your sexuality, why don't you come help bail me out of this now?" And most of the members of the leadership of our community seemed to take that line.

That was the guy I voted for. That was the result of my first vote as a full-fledged citizen of the United States of America. That was the action that I was supposed to be proud of.

In the meantime, I came out of the closet myself in the same year. After somebody scrawled an anti-gay epithet on my dorm-room door sophomore year, I reacted with probably more fear than should have been resultant of what was likely more a random act than something that was specifically targeted toward me. But I then channeled that fear, became angry, and realized that I didn't want anybody else to have to live with the fear that I had experienced. I sought out the university's multicultural division, attempted to resurrect an existent-but-dead gay-straight alliance, and though I was told that the organization wouldn't be able to have an official connection to the multicultural division, they expressed support for what I was doing.

In those days, I had effectively kicked down the closet doors. I determined that making the organization into a support group, while nice for the couple of students that showed up for meetings, would not allow for any sort of real or long-term change, I had determined that I wanted the organization to be more activist and social-change-based in nature. With a long history of Catholic upbringing, and a connection to various Catholic social justice teaching at my back, I was able to ward off and fight against all of the religious-zeal opponents to SAYSO's mission, and was able to sway public culture within the university.

At the same time, I took my anger at not being included in the multicultural division's umbrella and turned it around. I recognized that I had no right whatsoever to be angry at others not reaching out to help mend our issues as queer students, if I myself was unwilling to understand and take on the issues of the POC on campus. And thus I began reaching out to the AHANA communities on campus, attended as many cultural celebration events as I could, engaged in struggles, joined the multicultural task force, helped organize the diversity conference held at the school, and even became, my senior year, one of the co-directors of cultural celebrations on the student council.

Those same years also marked the height of activism surrounding the janitorial staff on the university. Before I'd entered it, the university had decided to fire the entire staff and re-hire them the very next day through an outsourcing company. This cut their wages substantially, meant that they were no longer eligible for benefits (including tuition remission for themselves and their children, which was a tremendous blow to opportunity), and that they were greatly more vulnerable in their positions. Over the course of years, students, faculty and staff had been mounting protest to the decision and asking for some sort of benefits for the mistreated workers to be enacted, that the university was responsible for their welfare. This all came to a head while I was at school, and I took part in rallies, teach-ins, a sit-in, and a hunger strike. I was one of two students chosen to sit on a committee with two faculty and two administrators to come up with university policy dealing with any outsourced workers. Including the right to organize.

The janitorial staff finally gained recognition of their union, were awarded their first union contract while I was there, and while struggle was everywhere, everything was possible. Few students wanted to take part in the goings-on with the gay-straight alliance, so I did most of the work on that front. I was one of about 15 key players in the unionization fight, and I was one of the most prominent white students in the multicultural relations division. When I was getting ready to graduate, and I approached a counselor because of all that I saw still needing to be changed, and felt as if I hadn't done enough, one of the most shining memories in my life was her response that "my name has become synonymous with change on this campus."

Even still, when I look back and see the changes that have occurred on the campus of that university, which has now enacted a full-fledged safe space program, is being recognized as the most queer-friendly catholic institution in the US, and has slowly grown to become a campus where diversity is a prominent issue, I can't help but look back with a sense of pride. Because in those days, the struggle was uphill, and I always felt alone, but I also felt that I could do anything. Even as a single person, I was able to move mountains.

I graduated in 2000, and instead of doing the expected thing and going to grad school, I went to live in the New Haven Catholic Worker. At the time it was entitled the "Cesar Jerez Catholic Worker" but has since changed its name to the "Amistad Catholic Worker". I took part in an action protesting Sikorsky Aircraft and the fact that it lobbied Congress to waive its own human rights standards for giving foreign military aid to Columbia, then turned around and was awarded a $13 billion dollar contract to construct Blackhawk Helicopters to the Columbian military. Helicopters which had already been known for use in terrorizing dissidents in the nation, including assassinating union organizers, supporting paramilitary groups, and other acts of state-sponsored terror. I was arrested for trespassing in an act of civil disobedience.

During this time, I saw the campaign of Al Gore and realized that his policies would have meant more of the same betrayals that Bill Clinton had heaped upon my first political act. Knowing that the Green Party had no chance of winning anything, I determined that I'd feel better voting for somebody who I believed in, rather than voting for somebody that I thought would merely be marginally better than the other guy who had a shot.

When Julie approached me about parenting, my first thought was an emphatic "hell no." But after a lot of thought, I realized that I had always wanted to be a parent as a child, growing up, until the point where I came out and simply *assumed* that I could never parent as a gay male. I also had very doubtful concepts about the prospects of relationships in general being unstable, and so I figured that if ever there was a way that I would bring a child into the world, that was the type of situation I'd do it in... a friendship, based upon concepts of community and mutual responsibility. I moved to Maryland in December of 2000, only six months after having moved into the Catholic Worker, and began a new life.

I spent many of the next years volunteering with Amnesty International, The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League, and was a member of a community advisory board for HIV vaccine trials. I got a job that I loved working as a conference organizer at the National Minority AIDS Council, and stayed there for three years.

But in 2000, Bush went into office, even based upon a stolen election. In 2001, at the first conference that I was organizing for the National Minority AIDS Council, the United States Conference on AIDS that was scheduled to begin on September 13th had to be canceled because of the terrorist attack that had occurred exactly 2 days earlier. I witnessed activists in those couple of days scramble to do whatever they could to get to the hotel, make it to the conference anyway, and put together whatever bare-bones program they could, because the mission was more important than the fear.

Bush cut HIV/AIDS spending substantially, many program funds were diverted into faith-based and abstinence-only programs, and after 3 years with NMAC, I was laid off due to a lack of unrestricted funds in the organization. I had identified so strongly as an activist that I took the first non-profit job I could find, as an office manager for an environmental funding organization for the Galapagos Islands. The mere three months that I spent there, I realized that I had a problem with an overinflated ego for the accomplishments I'd made, as I disdained doing filing and answering telephones as my primary job functions, couldn't bear the constant racism of the director and two of the other people in the office who could never stop talking about why Asians shouldn't be allowed to drive, and that the people of Ecuador couldn't figure out a way to run an organization properly if their lives depended on it, and how stupid they all were. That I was having to commute 2 hours each way to get there didn't help matters much. Three months later, it was mutually decided that the relationship wasn't working, and we parted ways. I took a job temporarily at Home Depot while applying to other activist jobs.

When I landed at the Family Pride Coalition as a Development Associate, I thought I'd finally landed home. I was greatly demoralized already by what had happened, but had seen a great deal of possibility. Unfortunately, I also learned that I was not the superman I'd envisioned myself as in college. Development work comes hard for me, and outside of grant writing, I haven't tended to be particularly successful at it. The people I invited to our major annual fundraising event never materialized, keeping track of the membership database gave me bad flashbacks of my previous job doing filing, and prospecting for corporate sponsorships was immensely straining. I managed to get through it, and was building their grant program from scratch, but after another short three-month stint, the Executive Director called me in and told me that, while she liked the grant work I was doing, she couldn't justify continuing to pay me a salary. I was out of a job again, and more demoralized than I had ever been before.

By this point, Bush took office again, and this time it was clear that he didn't steal it, but the American people offered it to him freely. I went crawling back to Home Depot, and promised to stay for a year so that I could add some degree of stability to my resume again.

If ever there was a time where I crashed and hit a low, that was it. The thing that kept me going at that point was the fact that Sara was pregnant with Dayton, and I continued to do volunteer and consulting work with the Task Force, Equality Maryland, Amnesty International, and the DC Rape Crisis Center.

But as my one-year commitment turned to two and then three, and I realized that I was straining my time while still not getting any jobs, and never feeling as if I'd come out of the state of burn-out that I'd gotten myself into, I had to cut myself off from all volunteering and other political activity completely.

What conclusions I'd come to were the fact that I'd literally given my life for the sake of change, and yet time and again, it felt as if organizations and the people within them were doing it for the sake of their own careers, and were willing to do anything to anybody in order to get what they wanted. I took very small consolation whenever I found out that the ED who'd been running Family Pride at the time of my departure had almost driven the organization into the ground, and that the ED who inherited the organization from her was having trouble paying the bills in the years to follow. I still had taken the firing as a blow to my own abilities, and to my own self.

This is where I lost all hope in humanity and the world. People had CHOSEN George W Bush to lead them, TWICE. I'd lost my job in the HIV/AIDS field because funding was becoming scarce there, and I realized exactly how unstable it was of a field. I realized that I couldn't bring myself to work in an organization that didn't share my values, but also realized how few organizations DO share my values. And again, Family Pride had been the Mack Truck to my limping pride, for it told me that I not only was not the superman who was able to accomplish anything with determination alone that I'd believed myself to be four years earlier, but that stability wasn't anywhere. Not only that, but what sacrifices I'd made for the community and the world in years past didn't matter now, and never would again. What mattered was what I was doing now. And what I was doing now, and still am, is working at Home Depot, a company that has anti-union policies, that despite reputation does NOT treat its workers well, and which is a company focused not on values but on profit.

Given all of that, I shouldn't wonder about the fact that I started feeling abandonment issues and an overwhelming need for validation from loved ones. In the days since, I've fallen into a pattern of neediness, obsession, and self-victimization in some sort of search for love that is supposed to give me the sense of meaning that I used to find in the world.

But today is a different day. Today, voters across the country have re-affirmed to me that we CAN make a difference again. That maybe the need for a connection with one another is more important than the desire to set ourselves apart. This morning, I've read exhortations from other nations that have been borderline adversarial with the United States, brimming with excitement for a new day, where we can work together WITH our fellow nations, rather than as a bullying dictator of nations. Today, I live in a world where economic recession will only continue so far before it backtracks and returns. Today, I live in a nation that is going to recognize the NEED for social programs, the overwhelming need for HIV/AIDS funding, the crisis that exists within Washington, DC itself with such high incidences of HIV infections.

Is this world or nation perfect now, and getting better? Not yet. The votes have still come in that have given California, Arkansas, and a number of other states constitutional amendments writing discrimination into law in those states. However, I also can't help but remember when the Romer decision came out, banning all sodomy laws, and thinking "Thank god, now we can really strategize our movement, get the government out of the business of determining what types of relationships really matter, and create a REAL social change in how our nation defines human interactions and relationships with one another." Before hours later, when Robin Tyler and other activists hijacked our movement, made public declarations that marriage was the next battlefront, and forced the entire movement into a stage-play that was inevitably headed towards this tragedy.

There is still a silver lining to that, though. We have our proof that Marriage was the WRONG FIGHT. We know now that the REAL challenge is social change. The REAL challenge is to get the government OUT of the business of marriage entirely, not to simply open up the window of marriage a little bit to include a few more people. The REAL challenge is to make *everybody* matter, not just a couple more than yesterday.

And today, with our first-ever Black President-Elect, we have the ability to DO that social change-building. We have the opportunity to change people's hearts and minds. We have the chance to enact universal health coverage, recognize the needs of ALL people within our nation and world, and work towards a better place for all of us. Not just the few and the powerful. Not just the Bushes, or the Clintons, or the Robin Tylers, or the HRC's, who can make back-room deals that cut out entire sections of our community in the name of marginal, incremental, or "pragmatic" improvements that set more obstacles towards future progress. Instead, we have opened up the path towards REAL progress. Towards a politics that does what is right, not just what is the next step that some privileged pundit has laid out for us.

Possibility has opened back up. We have a voice again. And we can express it. And with that renewed voice, I have felt empowered now in a way that I haven't since college, or that first doomed USCA. We can do it. With shoestrings and breadcrumbs, if need be. But we can do it. *I* can do it again. *I* have a voice, and I can speak out with it, to make certain that our movement is not hijacked again. To make certain that our country is not hijacked again. To make sure that our WORLD is not hijacked again. Because today, it is ours. I have a piece of that world again, and this time, I know that I cannot let it go. Because I've seen where that leads, and I never again want to go back into that dark, cold night.

Daring to Hope

2008-11-04T21:21:00.000-08:00

I've been extremely skeptical coming into this election year. For me, it has seemed far too much that change has been too far away. That so often, our allies were even the ones who placed barriers in front of our goals for change.

Particularly in the past few years, being disillusioned and cynical, I've been keeping my distance from the political process, from the activist world that I have generally otherwise maintained as a part of my identity. I have not had very much hope in the world.

Even seeing the progression of the campaigns, I've maintained a certain emotional distance, thinking that it might be more of the politics of the same, even with the players being different in some way.

And yet, as I watched the election results roll in, I couldn't help but be overwhelmed by emotion. Not only have we made a blip in history by electing the first black president of the United States, but we have seen a tremendous amount of change already. People came out to vote in record numbers today. People who have felt isolated from the political process, who have considered themselves to be outsiders to the decisions that have been made on the Hill, came out and voted in numbers that have not been seen before.

For years, I became jaded to the sense of apathy that I couldn't bear to witness amongst my peers, amongst the general public, amongst so many people that I've had contact with. And for once, I have to admit, ashamed though I may be about it, I began developing that hard shell of apathy even within myself.

The significance of what just happened today is more than just the fact that we have the first-ever black President. What happened today is far more significant than that. For the first time since I can remember, I feel as if the country is finally OURS again. That it is not a nation that is run by a few powerful families like the Bushes, it is not run by oil companies, the military-industrial complex, or any other industry. It is OURS.

I haven't felt this way in a very long time. The world seems possible again, in ways that I'd given up on since college. Just watching the speeches, I can recognize a connection to the process that I don't believe I've ever felt before. I feel like I can re-engage in the struggle, and dedicate myself 100% once more. That the work I've done before, and that the work I'll do in the future will MEAN something.

For the first time in a very long time, I am actually proud of my country again. I don't have to look at a flag and think that it is one of "their" tools. But I can look at it and say that it is a symbol of OUR country. That change is just as intrinsic to the symbol now as the hurt and war and bloodshed that I used to associate it with has been.

Today, I celebrate a new vision of America. I celebrate the fact that I live in a different country than I did before, because I live in a country that is so much more possible than the one I've been living in. I have hope for a new day. I have hope that tomorrow will truly be better than today.

I hadn't realized how far I'd sunk or how jaded I'd become until this moment. How much I'd allowed myself to be beaten down. Until now, when all doors are open again. Now that we live in a nation, a world, that has so much more possibility than it did before. That so many of us can step forward and work together toward a future that is so much brighter than I'd imagined it to be.

So from today, I am going to make several commitments. I commit to never allow myself to lose hope the way that I had again. I commit to re-engaging in the political process. I commit to making my life into a tool and instrument for positive change in the world again. I commit to looking into the future and seeing the possibilities inherent within it. But most of all, I commit to hope.

Writing My Book

2008-11-01T08:32:00.000-07:00

So I have a major challenge ahead of me.

In the past, I've kind of viewed myself as a sort of competition between these two sides of myself that include being a selfish, manipulative jerk, which includes all of my cynicism, my calculating of other people's motivations and efforts, etc. And the other side being the more "reasonable" me, which is willing to do the right thing despite having been hurt or slighted, to do whatever I can to help people, and to try to make the world a better place in some way.

Apparently, there's a third component in there somewhere, which my therapist not-so-subtly described as the "core self". That both of those other Brants are themselves just an extension of my defense mechanisms and insecurities. In effect, they are the accumulation of my defense against being hurt, and my desire for affirmation within the world. But that neither one of them is truly me.

The problem is... I didn't even have an idea that some third me even existed, let alone that it is my core self. Which really gets down into the dirt of the statement "I don't know who I am." Apparently, my assignment is to delve down into myself, find that self, and start feeding it, because it's apparently been getting starved out for the past 30 years.

Ok, sounds like a good idea. But how do you learn more about and start feeding something that you still have trouble imagining in the first place? It feels to me like somebody telling you that you have a third psychic eye, and that all you have to do is tap into it to start moving objects around with your mind. Just do it. Where do you even start with something like this?

At least in theory, I'd say that I'd need to determine all of the things about me that have nothing to do with building up a wall against other people, or wanting to help anybody. I then have to take out all of the things that I enjoy that are simply reminders of things that I have done or used to do with other people, because those tend to muddy the waters a lot. Then, I start to think about games and things, as the fact that I am an avid Dungeons and Dragons player might be something that distinguishes me a bit, but there are a ton of questions even within that. Like the fact that I'm always trying to find a non-standard type of character to play, the whole concept that I like about it that it makes you feel as if you have some sense of control in a world that is bigger than you, where you don't have that same sense of control in the real world. In general, I'd say somewhere in there, all of my issues of all of my other two selves get wrapped up in there, so I don't think that I can use D&D or other role-playing games as examples there...

But with all of the questions that get raised in that, then it even goes so far as to be the same with movies! Do I only shy away from scary movies because of some bleak view of the world that they denote, or the basest parts of human nature that my affirmation-seeking self would like to steer away from? Does an enjoyment of action movies come from that same desire to wrest a sense of control and order in the world in the face of chaos and oppression? Do I land on comedies just for the sense of community gained from giving in to laughter? Is my sense of being drawn to cartoons somehow related to the loss of self I experienced from my early childhood, and some sort of innate desire to find that core self?

At the point where I can no longer trust that any part of my likes, desires, or activities is anything other than a part of those complex and competing internal struggles, then truly, how do you even begin to try to find a self that is somehow other than those struggles?

I feel as if I'm plodding blindly through a marsh without a guide or any resources, trying to find some sort of miraculous clue to a treasure that I don't even know what it is.

Or, going back to my writing example. I've sat down to write the book of my self, but I don't have any notes, there are no guidelines or bases for the topic, and I'm suffering from writer's block.

You Wouldn't Like Me When I'm Angry...

2008-10-23T08:20:00.000-07:00

...or maybe you would.

The past couple of days, I've been surprisingly mellow, for some reason. No breakdowns, or long periods of loneliness or isolation or whatever. Just kind of going about my daily business, as if nothing ever happened.

Which shouldn't be a problem, but I was kind of wondering about WHY exactly that is the case. After all, given the fact that Matt pretty much said that there's no way he's sticking around as my friend given my emotional state, and then pushing Kevin away to do the same thing, you'd think I'd be a little bit more... broken down.

One of the odd things, however, is the fact that both of them, in saying that they can't be my friend right now, stated that they would, at some point in the vague future, like to re-engage in a friendship whenever I'm doing a bit better.

The odd thing is, what I've been thinking over the past few days, is that if they don't have the fortitude to be there when I'm at my worst, why do I want to have them be there when I'm at my best?

In that sense, I've come to the Dar quote from "Spring Street."

"I was thinking about the easy courage of my distant friends.
Saying 'you could let this bridge wash out, and never make amends.'"

At the same time, I'm starting to relate a bit back to the book "She's Come Undone." I admit that the most disturbing thing about the book to me was the concept that Delores might never make amends with her father, and the fact that a certain one of her therapists states that it's actually ok for her to decide never to make those amends. I can't say how much that concept bothered me, at the time.

Right now, however, I think that I understand it a bit. Like the fact that part of what all of my insecurities have been over the course of years is the fact that I've needed to be able to find some sort of closure on any of the situations that I've been in with different people. So the long period of not speaking to Ray or Steve bothered me, because that closure hadn't happened, and so long as it hadn't happened, I had a sense of overwhelming anxiety. The same, to some extent, with Matt.

I don't know what just snapped inside of me, but I've actually come to look at Matt's decision to not stick by me as a recognition of the type of person that Matt is. It doesn't matter that he is extremely intelligent, or how charming he is, or how much he tends to enjoy introspective music, the reality is that the way he has built his life is shallow and selfish. And seeing that, I actually don't have any need or desire to compel myself to get better so that I can try to be friends with him again. I can find other intelligent people in my life, and not all of them will be as selfish and shallow as Matt was, and I simply don't ever need to re-engage or reconcile with him.

The same is true of my friendship with Kevin. It's seemed way too often that Kevin's thought processes and moral convictions came after his decisions. Every time I heard him spout a "I'm the type of person who..." it seemed to be more of a justification for what he'd already decided to do, instead of a thought process that occurred in the preludes to making the decision. And honestly, I've been friends with too many females who have literally been "the other woman" to see a gay man go through the same thing, making the same mistakes, and pretending that he is completely unique and separate in what he's going through, when it's the oldest story in the book.

Do I wish them well? Of course. I certainly don't wish anything negative to happen to them, at all. But I wonder if this is where I let this bridge wash out, and never make amends.

There is still a part of me that wonders if this thought process is too soon. And the other theory I have for my own current emotional state is the fact that, to some extent, I'm simply working from a place of anger. After all, Matt abandoned me in my time of need, and Kevin stuck up for him and placed the blame on me. Certainly things that would provoke an anger response, and I have to recognize that all of the times that I've accomplished the best and most amazing things in my life, were times that I was working out of anger. I've used anger as the fuel for most of my best pieces of writing, as the fuel that shaped my early activism, and to stoke my motivation within a multitude of the jobs, classes, and positions that I've been in.

Granted, overwhelming "I can't see but for the red haze in front of my face" anger is overdone, but I can't help but wonder how I might be able to channel my anger positively, stoke it a little bit and keep it fueled, so I might be able to utilize it and maintain some sort of running motivator for years to come. I think anger suits me. It keeps me going, and my blood pumping. And it keeps me from going into that wallowing little mire of indignation and resentment where I become worthless.

So maybe that's the ticket. Give me a few days, let my anger run down, and I'll be back to wallowing in my own misery. But knowing that even just a little bit of anger can pull me out is a nice little trick up my sleeve for when I need to be productive later. In the meantime, here's to a healthy dose of anger!

Unconditional

2008-10-22T07:15:00.000-07:00

For a very long time, I've struggled with the concept of unconditional love, and whether it actually exists. I've gotta say, I'm really thinking "no," at this point. At the same time, isn't it a basic human need? Isn't one of the bases for human beings having the ability to interact with one another having the ability to recognize that they have a worth that is separate from their own moods or behaviors?

For all that anybody may say that I have going for me in terms of looks, intelligence, or genuine sense of care for others, I can't help but believe that it's all a farce in some way. And I can't help but fall back on that sense, if I am so valuable and so worthy of love, why is it that nobody has been able to find a means to love me?

I have to admit that I've really put a lot of my friendships to the test recently. And I feel more than a little bit guilty for the way that I pushed Kevin away. He seemed to be moving in that direction already, and I gave one big shove. At the same time, I gave Matt the excuse that I pushed him away, and he took the excuse, but all of everything I did was practically begging him to stick by me. Perhaps the better parts of me will still be able to find a way to forgive him for it, and maybe one day I will. But right now, I can't help but just feel angry.

As I've said before, I'm having trouble letting go and ceasing my curating of the museum of my own personal injuries and slights, and maybe that's the one place I still need to manage before I can get any better. But in the meantime, I can't help but see the pattern of most of my friendships and relationships as a series of people who may think I'm fun or interesting at first, before they know me, and then, once they get close enough, they see whatever it is of me that is this horrible thing, and they find some way to opt out.

In that sense, I do have to be thankful for the friendships I have, where people have stuck by me, despite the fact that I feel like I'm taking so much more than I've been giving back. The people who have seen me at my weakest and my shittiest moments, and who are still willing to be my friend. Not only that, but not venture into viewing or framing my friendship as a burden to be endured, either.

I suppose in times like this, when I'm sitting alone, and the worst of the nasty little nagging thoughts erupt from my psyche, that's what I need to focus on first. It's so easy to remind myself of Matt, and Kevin, and Ray and Steve, and all of the people who have failed me in some way, instead of focusing on Andy and Ben, and Faisal, and Dan, and Julie, who stick by me every time, see me at my most vulnerable, and somehow manage to find something within that mess that they take away as something more to love.

In that sense, I suppose I have the tools at my disposal, after all. It's just a matter of figuring out when to pull them out when I need them the most, and how to use them properly. I suppose that I never was very much good at using tools...

Looking Overboard

2008-10-20T16:14:00.000-07:00

Ok, so at the prompting of my friend Kevin, I've been listening to a whole lot of Savage Love podcasts. Which I enjoy because they're funny, despite the fact that the particular podcasts that Kevin directs me to are, for the most part, not really very informative on the particular situations that I find myself in. But he means well, and we love him for it.

There is one thing about the podcasts that has seemed to make a lot of sense to me, though, and it's centered around the concept of fluidity with regard to the openness of relationships. For a very long time, I've considered that most relationships that start out monogamous are better off staying that way, because at that point the first person to mention the possibility of opening up a relationship immediately becomes Public Enemy #1 and the relationship is doomed to end soon thereafter. Whereas, on the other hand, relationships that begin open stay open and succeed or fail of their own accord.

Apparently, according to the experience of Dan Savage, whose credibility, wherever it lies, is certainly better than my own... it seems that the most successful relationships are those that begin exclusively in order to create a security with both partners that shows them each that they are a priority for the other, and THEN they open up the relationship to others after they've successfully prioritized each other and feel more secure in one another's primacy.

Now, I've considered myself to be a long-standing believer that human emotions and affection should not be limited artificially, and therefore have remained pretty firmly on the side against monogamy in general. After all, if you care about somebody, why does that mean you should necessarily cut yourself off from being sexual, or even possibly caring, about somebody else, so long as you promise not to stop caring for your original partner?

I admit that one of the most attractive things for me regarding nonmonogamy is exactly the opposite of what most people accuse me of. Everybody who is monogamy-centric always says "you're just always looking for something better." This is really not the case, even at the times that I've been seeing multiple people at the same time. In fact, part of my PROBLEM has been that, once I fall in love with somebody, I become SO engulfed in my own emotional attachment to them, that I tend to lose myself in the process. Instead, a large portion of what I recognize to be an attractive feature of openness, is that if I assume that my partner is always going to be looking for something better, and because my self-esteem is low enough that I feel like they're pretty much guaranteed to find it within the week, then when they DO find something better, at least I can have some leverage for them not to immediately LEAVE me for that something better... I know, it's kind of self-defeating, but one of the few things I CAN say for myself is that I'm QUITE aware of what my issues are. Not that it seems to be helping me get OVER them very well, but whatever. That's why I blog. Because my therapist had no availability this week, and if I don't get shit like this out somehow, I do crazy things. Like lock myself in a bathroom at a queer wedding and text everyone I've ever been with telling them how much I miss them... I know, don't ask. And don't ask why I didn't make somebody take my damned phone away from me, either.

ANYWAY... part of the thing I'm really trying to work through right now is how in the world to resolve the situation with Barry. Barry, like so many of my other "relationships," is not REALLY a relationship. Yeah, I know, if I could have a dollar for every guy I ever cared about and was "with" without actually being "WITH" them, I'd be rich. There are really two obstacles that have made us pretty much say that a real relationship wouldn't work between us and therefore why we've never really tried anything. The first is that I live in Maryland, and he lives in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania very close to Maryland, but still... it's out of state and far enough away that we don't see one another very often. Even if we do share several text messages a day.

The other major obstacle comes from the fact that I've been very open and public about my stance regarding monogamy. He has been the same regarding his desire to have it. So here's the rub. Lately, after listening to these podcasts, and considering for a bit, I've realized that my own insecurities in the relationships... or non-relationships as most of them have been... have centered around the fact that, in private, those people I've been with have been very close, and very sweet, and we've had very intense personal connections. But in public, or even when anybody else was around at all, there'd been an almost nothing happening.

This has made me consider... maybe it WOULD be a good idea, at least for some indeterminate amount of time, to consider monogamy for the sake of proving a certain prioritization for one another. I admit that, given a monogamous relationship, I'd be able to be secure that I *do* matter and have primacy to the other person, because they are, in fact, sharing something with me that they are not sharing with anyone else, and also that they are making some sort of sacrifice for the sake of being with me.

Then, of course, my over-intellectual self steps in, and starts wondering about everything else, specifically with regard to Barry. Am I only thinking this because this is the largest obstacle between myself and Barry? Am I, instead of breaking out of one unhealthy dynamic of pushing people away through my insistence on complete openness right from the start, instead repeating another unhealthy dynamic pattern of simply paving over certain parts of myself in order to be accepted and loved by another person? Am I being so intensely focused on wanting to find a way to make things work with Barry only because of the fact that I have been feeling so lonely, and if so, is that really fair to him? Or am I over-processing this because I'm trying to find a way to justify my internal sense that I am doomed to forever be alone? And finally, even if we ARE able to work out this one obstacle, are we still doomed because of the distance?

The most trying thing, however, is the fact that I still have my insecurities. What if I mention the fact that I might be willing to try out monogamy, at least for a while, with Barry, and remove the largest obstacle between us, just to find out that the obstacle was more of an excuse for the fact that he pure and simple isn't really interested in a relationship with me? And would knowing that help me in some way, or would it set me back even further than I already am? After all, living with the illusion of hope sometimes seems as if it is a mixed blessing and curse in a lot of ways. Particularly given my current job prospects, having some sense that a ray of light can be coming seems to be pretty important to me right now. But at the same time, maintaining a delusion for the sake of moving on is never healthy, either.

Of course, the other problem is the fact that I've only very vaguely been talking to Barry about these concerns. On one hand, I feel as if it's important to have a discussion about a lot of this in person. But with both of our work schedules, combined with said distance, face-to-face time is rare. And we've already determined that I'm crazy enough that I can't keep on just bottling all of this in. At the same time, I also don't want him to feel as if he is somehow less because of the fact that things with Matt had just gone over so recently, too. Especially considering, had things not fallen through with Matt, it would have been particularly difficult to consider monogamy with Barry. At least not successfully. And it's hard to be able to give somebody the recognition that they are important and valuable of their own accord. I know as well as anyone, because I've been one NEEDY son of a bitch sometimes.

The fact is, I feel like I'm on a boat looking overboard at the ocean. On one hand, the water looks nice and cool, and pleasant enough to want to jump in and swim. On the other hand, this is a big fucking ocean, and I really don't want to drown in it...

Wedding Tribute

2008-10-19T17:02:00.001-07:00

Instead of a regular blog, I'm just going to post here the words that I spoke for Julie and Sara's wedding. It was a little bit long, but it was very encompassing of most of what I feel regarding them and their marriage to one another...

"They say that relationships take on a life of their own in some ways. That a relationship becomes its own being, which requires attention, nurturing and respect for its own ability to grow and thrive. If this is true, then I feel especially honoured to be able to stand here today in front of all of you and give a testimonial for this relationship that we are honouring today. The reason is because of the fact that I have had the opportunity to be there from the birth of this relationship throughout the growing maturation of it over the years.

In that sense, I believe that today is the day that we are celebrating the adulthood of Julie and Sara’s togetherness. Today, I take the analogy of the quincenera or the bah mitzvah, the day that a child becomes an adult. Because truly, the love between Julie and Sara has grown, developed and matured over the course of years. And it has developed into something that I am proud to say that I have known.

It’s been eight years, and it is difficult to wrap your head around what exactly eight years signifies in a relationship like this. I think that we so very often cheapen the value and the lessons that are inherent in any experience by placing tags of years on things like this. But just to give some examples of how much the union between these two people has changed over the years, I’ll explain some of the major events that contributed to the shaping of this unit.

I look back and see so many things from that first, tenuous meeting at a Task Force table in the back of an Ani Difranco concert all those years ago. I remember Sara’s struggles with school, the years of manipulation and harassment she experienced from her church, including her excommunication, and the fact that she grew to overcome it all and be able to stand on her own. I’ve seen Julie through the Task Force’s largest financial and structural struggles, as well as through its period of struggling the most with its values. Where she’s been torn and uncertain about where she stood with the organization and whether she should continue along with it. I’ve been able to witness this couple through the development of friendships and professional undertakings, some of which have since been dissolved and others which have thrived, with many of you being here to bear witness for these two today. I have had the honor of being present at the birth of two children, seen them endure through some of the most terrifying medical crises and decision-making processes that any parent would ever have to go through. I’ve seen them through the growth and development of their children into school age, to see them move into their own rooms and beds, and begin a longer process of growth and development. I’ve been there to witness these two people through some of the best times, and I’ve also been there through some of the worst. I’ve seen them through the involvement of a live-in coparent who honestly has probably acted as just as much of a strain on the relationship as he is a support.

And to see this event as a culmination of what has come before, as the evidence that the relationship between them has come to maturity to be recognized... to see that it has thrived through all that has taken place before, I can only use that itself as evidence and testimony that I look forward to living through and bearing witness to all that they are able to do together in the years to come. Mazel tov."

Pushback

2008-10-17T06:11:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I have to admit that, in my life, I've pretty much allowed myself to be a doormat. Coming with the whole thing of saying that I'll generally make sure that I'll do the right thing regardless of the fact that it might hurt me, I've started realizing that there's a great deal of harm to myself that I've been doing. To some extent, I've been telling myself, and everybody else as well, that I'm pure and simple not as valuable as others. That their feelings are worth more than my feelings.

So I've taken a step and determined that maybe being "old reliable" is putting myself in a position that I really don't want to be in. I take, for example, the Task Force. I've been applying to work at the Task Force since 1999. I've been an intern there, I've volunteered, I've been a consultant... I've done pretty much anything that they could possibly have me do, except get hired by them. A few months ago, my dream job opened up. Not only was it my dream job in terms of the fact that it was exactly the work I want to do right now, but it had potential to build into the position that I want to retire into. And Sue, if you're reading this, you're correct in knowing that your job is the one I'm talking about.

Now this job was great, and on top of everything, it seemed to be made for me in terms of the fact that I was completely qualified for it in every way. In those terms, I was actually far and above OVERqualified for the position. Not to get into the gritty details of it, but in a group interview process, where an entire department gave feedback, it *seemed* to me that the director of the department played a maverick move and hired somebody else for the position against the better wishes of the rest of the department.

It turns out that this other hire wasn't quite qualified enough for the position, and seven weeks later, they are no longer with the organization. And there is a big part of me that feels a flutter of hope that maybe they'll finally consider me for the position again.

Here's the problem, though. What kind of message does that send to the organization, to the director of that department, and ultimately, to myself? Gee, I'll just hold out here at a job that doesn't further my career, which doesn't pay very well, and which treats me like crap all the time, until you go through some of your other options, because they have timelines to follow, and after all, I'm not going anywhere, right? Don't worry about pushing me off to the side, it's ok! I'll just be here waiting for whenever you decide that you really can't do it with anybody other than me...

So now I'm thinking about the fact that their major annual conference is coming up in February, and not only did they put off the hire for two extra months to save money, but they also hired somebody else who didn't do the job satisfactorily for another seven weeks beyond that. So in effect, nothing has been done to prepare for this conference during the most critical portions of conference development overall. So again, that part of me thinks how great it might be to finally have an opportunity to take the position. Ok, and I admit it, I had a sadistic little fantasy about them opening up interviews for it again, and having me come in with a ripped pair of jeans and a t-shirt, throwing my feet up on the table, and saying "you know what? I dare you to not hire me again." But even doing something like that, wouldn't I still be allowing them to set me up for failure, since they already missed most of their deadlines? Would I then be putting myself in a position to be nothing more than a scapegoat for their own already-made blunders? And what, then, are the consequences to them for having made those mistakes?

I think that the road toward becoming a non-doormat is paved with me breaking a few dishes and making there be consequences for poor decision-making. I think that the greater road says "sorry, I had my availability to you, and you decided that you'd prefer to go with somebody else. You are now at a point where I can't even step in and fix the mess you've made with Creating Change this year, and I don't want to be your scapegoat." I think that my road has to allow them to go through a bad Creating Change and suffer through it knowing that they had the option for a better conference that they allowed to pass through the assumption that I would simply do whatever it was they needed, regardless of how poorly they treated me along the way. After that, sure, I'd be more than happy, even possibly thrilled, to take up the slack again and move into the position. But until then, I can't be as readily available as I've been in the past.

The same is true with my personal life. I recently came to the realization that I have never once in my life been with a guy who could publicly acknowledge who I am or what I mean to them in public. Even Ben, who was my boyfriend for a year, would have me hide when chatting with exes on ICU, and would just introduce me as "this is Brant" to people in public, not as his boyfriend or partner or whatever, and his fear of PDAs was outstanding, as well. And after I'd come to that recognition, I had to think about it.

Why in the world WOULD somebody take the risks associated with public acknowledgement of a relationship with me, if I never have any consequences for it? If I'll stick by them regardless of how poorly they treat me, or how often they place me in a box on the side, if I just pop up when they take me out of the box in private and say how grateful I am that they're paying attention to me *now*. There is no reason. Devoid of any consequences for failing to recognize my value, there is no reason for anybody to do anything other than failing me in that way.

Now, what I find relatively ironic, is seeing how much pushback you can get for finally standing up for yourself. And not even standing up for yourself in a hostile or nasty way, but just making simple statements acknowledging that the other person has done you wrong.

So I have a friend with a history of blowing off plans with me. About 50% of the time that we've had a plan in place for something, he's had something come up. And every time, I was understanding, and I told him it was ok, and that I understood, and all that jazz. Well, about a week or two ago, he mentioned going to a concert together. Great! A Dar Williams concert, so just for some background, he IS the only other gay man I know who is a fan of Dar. And given my family situation, me going with either Julie or Sara means the other one gets to stay home with the kids by themselves. So it's not like there's much of an option for me to go with anybody else other than this guy.

So a few days ago, I ask this friend what the deal is with plans, and are we still planning on going to the concert? If so, what should we do about tickets? He says "yeah, I definitely still want to go. Hey, why don't you buy the tickets and I'll just pay you back?" At this point, I get a little bit nervous because, quite frankly, we've put our entire household on a cash budget to save our credit cards for emergencies or gas, and I've got $40 in the bank and $30 in my pocket. The total of which, combined, doesn't come out to the $91 it costs for 2 tickets.

I go to lunch with him and a friend, and he asks if I've gotten the tickets yet. I admit that, no, I haven't, since I need to get a bit more money in my account since we're on a cash budget now. To which he responds with a snide remark about how I'm waiting for the tickets to sell out. Another day and anxiety attack later, I mention to him that the tickets are all standing room only anyway, and would he mind if we each buy our own separate tickets? He finally offers to buy them both and have me pay him back, which is ok, except that literally one minute later he says "oh, crap, I need to travel for work that weekend."

The old Brant would have said "wow, I'm so sorry that it's not going to work out. I know that you were really looking forward to seeing the show, since you haven't seen Dar in concert yet, and I know how much you like her." I would like to think that a far more prickish Brant would have said "so it would have been ok for me to shell out money that I don't have to buy tickets for a show that you never even checked you were able to actually attend, but now that you're laying your money down, NOW it's ok to take a look at your calendar?!"

I took neither route, since I'm neither the old Brant nor a far more prickish Brant. Instead, what I said was, "Not to sound like a jerk, but I kind of figured." He admitted that he thought that sounded kind of jerky, to which I explained that he was being really vague about it, and that I had the impression that he was leaving a back door open. He again stated that I was really being a jerk about it, and the conversation ended soon after. Just slightly upset that he would have accused me of being such a major asshole for saying that I assumed that he was going to cancel (which, just to remind everyone, that he DID actually cancel), I talked to a friend during my lunch break, who apparently had lunch with this other friend already, and agreed that what I did was act like a total jerk.

The fact is that this guy is, legitimately, going on a business trip, and he did really want to go to the concert. Ok, point taken. However, points should also be taken that he has a habit of bailing on me, some legitimate, and some like deciding to take a recreational trip to Rehoboth instead of showing up to my 30th birthday party. Point should also be taken that I specifically asked if he was still able/willing to go before we started nailing down plans, and he said yes. Finally, points should be noted that he actually made me feel bad about not buying the tickets sooner because I was allowing for an opportunity for the show to have sold out.

But why is it that all of these other points are somehow so easily able to be ignored, just because of the fact that THIS time, the REASON that he bailed out on me, is a legitimate one? So then it's not ok to point out that I assumed that he was going to bail on me? It's not like I called him names, or said that he was the worst friend ever, or anything like that. I just said that I figured he was going to bail. Which, again, he did.

Here's why both of these friends think that what I said was being an asshole. In a nutshell, I'm not being Old Brant anymore. And let's be honest, as much as Old Brant is not the guy that you choose to go out drinking with, or having fun with, or dating, or doing anything that you really WANT to do with, because Old Brant is the guy you come to when you're down, when all of your other plans have fallen through and you've exhausted all of your other possibilities, because you start thinking about Old Brant in terms of bad times, because Old Brant is the guy who's constantly picking you up OUT of those bad times. And we all want to have the security and reliability that is Old Brant there, ready for us, to pick up the pieces and not ask why, and not to judge the poor decisions that got us there, but just to tell us "it's ok. I'm sorry that happened to you. I'm sure that things will turn out better the next time."

But to not be Old Brant anymore, and to say, in effect "you know, you've made it a pattern of canceling plans with me, so I pretty much assumed that this time would be no different," suddenly creates a consequence for people's poor decision-making. Just like the Task Force, I can't simply allow my friends to exhaust every other possibility before maybe finally settling on me... until something better comes along again, that is. People don't want consequences, and they don't want to be told that they've made bad decisions. They just want to have Old Brant there, patting them on the back and telling them that everything is all ok.

But if I'm to stop making everybody else's feelings more valuable than my own, and if I'm going to stop settling to be sitting on the sidelines of life, waiting for somebody to get hurt so that I can go rushing in and make them feel better, then I need to start demanding that respect, and let people know the consequences of their actions. And I need to make myself matter more. The largest component of which is to say "I'm sorry, but I cannot allow you to brush me aside without consequences. I understand that you're in a bind right now, but I can't fix it for you this time. I would like to be there for you, but not as a last resort. I can prioritize you, but only if you commit to making me as high of a priority as you want me to make you."

People don't like that, and people are going to push back. But this time around, I'm the one who wants to put Old Brant on the side. This is a new and different form of Brant. One who will not accept other people defining how important or valuable he is. The Brant who is going to make himself a priority, offer consequences to people who fail to give him the respect and consideration that he deserves, and who is going to take a place amongst the rest of the world, instead of off to the side of them, watching out for all of their stumbles and scraped knees...

With all of that pushback on just one little statement, it would have been easy and tempting to say "well, I have felt kind of hurt that he'd canceled on all of that other stuff, but I understand that this time wasn't really his fault, and I guess what I said was a little bit insensitive." But that would have been giving in to Old Brant. So instead, I stood my ground. Even to my friend yelling at me over the phone and telling me how much I was pissing him off.

And for all of that pushback, I do have to say, I'm thinking that I like this New Brant, after all.

J'Accuse!

2008-10-06T14:43:00.000-07:00

I was originally intending this post to be entitled "The Butterfly Effect" because of the fact that it really does seem as if there is some sort of malevolent force in the universe that just continues to take every good intention you ever have and corrupt it. To force every action that intends to make the world a better place, to instead leave hurt and anguish behind.

Unfortunately, in the midst of lying in bed, wallowing in my sense of my own wrethedness, I started staring upward at the ceiling. And without my glasses, everything looks blurry enough, but given the shadow that played on the ceiling at the time of day, I've decided that I hate those orb-like ceiling spot-lights. I hate them because I started staring at the one spotlight right at the foot of my bed, and realized how much it looks like a single, gigantic, eyeball. And like most giant eyeballs above our heads, it was staring directly at me.

The thing about giant eyeballs is that there's something in us that makes us believe that they see everything about us. Our entire lives, our souls, in one perfect snapshot. And, this eye being a light bulb and not really an eye at all, it was unblinking. Which is always that unnerving thing, too. There is no break in it, no room for a slip or a failure, just always, constantly, "on."

The truth is that I so often feel as if I'm such a fraud. Looking back on my early childhood, most of my memories revolve around being a spoiled, selfish brat of a kid. The kind who tormented and pestered his older brothers, but worked up enough manipulativeness even at such a young age to realize that just turning on the doe-eyes and saying "I love you mommy" would mean that I wouldn't get in trouble for anything I did. That was, at least, until my mother walked down the hall one day and caught me dancing in front of both of my brothers singing "I got away with it, I got away with it." After that day, I never really got away with anything anymore.

But since then, I can't help but wonder if that bratty little kid was my core persona. If perhaps, at my base, I'm just this selfish little rotten person that deserves to get his ass kicked because all he does is stir up trouble and manipulate people. And that this baseline persona is exactly the reason why all of my good intentions turn out wrong.

The fact is, Matt was still trying to let me down easy when he said that I was a healer. When he talked about all of the good that I do, and try to do, for everyone I meet in the world. And I admit that I've really made that desire to make the world a better place than I found it a part of my identity, that I want to leave each person I encounter a little bit better, happier. I want to find suffering and mitigate it to the best of my ability. I find somebody struggling, and I want to help them along their journey.

I did that to him, and he saw exactly what I was trying to do. And he praised me for it, perhaps in the best way it possibly could have been presented to me, too. So maybe this whole self-accusation problem, the eye and the accusation within it, is just my own inability to see the good in myself. That entire self-scouring, trying to find the answer to what there is of value within myself, when all I see is some twisted, malformed monster.

I gave Matt my journal on Saturday, but I honestly did it in anger. At the height of the issue, he was pushing me away just for the sake of pushing me away, and I admit that he was really cruel by telling me that I didn't know him and didn't understand anything about him. So I threw the most secretive pieces of my psyche, some of them from the time in my life that I truly hate who I was, as well. High school was a dark time for me. College was much better, of course, and I had a lot of writing from back then, too, but my writing had always had that sense of being some audience that I could write to, but still be my own private thing. That nobody would ever see it, and so it was a way to get things out without having to actually tell anybody.

But I gave it to him. Perhaps that, too, is part of the sense of the eye. For the first time, there is somebody out there who knows how terrible of a poet I am. Who knows some of the things that I thought about myself and about other people throughout both my worst years, and my best, as the dichotomy between high school and college both were.

Part of me thinks of it as odd that he doesn't see me as a monster, as well. Then again, everybody has their own nightmares to fight through, Matt not the least of them, and I remind myself that he was still trying to let me down easy. Because the fact is that we have inverse curses. He can't for the life of him come to fall in love with somebody else. And I am incapable of actually being loved. I suppose he still feels guilty about everything, and he knows, at least, who I've been trying to be. It really was a great gift. But the eye keeps on staring at me, even now while I have my back turned to it while I sit at my computer typing this. The accusation of true sight.

I keep on coming back to a song that has had all too much meaning for me over the years. Melissa Ferrick's "To Let You See Me," the refrain which states:
"But oh, to let you see me
because I am not that pretty
oh but you will find out, and then,
you will leave me."

That's it right there, the height of my own insecurities, in one well-worded and beautifully vocalized phrase. My fear of abandonment, my sense that I am completely incapable of being loved, my fear that I really have nothing to offer other than a host of good intentions that I constantly fail miserably at coming to the completion of. Because in all of his own good intentions, and his compliments, and his desire to build me up, the fact is that he truly did spend several months trying to love me. And whether it was his incapability or mine, the one thing I still walk away from is that it was one more of a series of people who saw me, and just couldn't bring themselves to love me.

Ok, I'm just realizing now that there are people out there that are actually going to READ this crap. To all of you, I really apologize. This is not the type of shit you read this blog for. Or maybe it is, in which case you are one masochistic son of a bitch. No, really, though, I'm sorry. This is my process, and unfortunately, paper and pen stopped working for me after college. For the most part, at least. Typing is what I do, and I don't have some elastic-bound, private, never-to-be-actually-read volume that is somehow going to make me excise all of this cancer from my being so that I can move on to something a little bit less paralyzed.

Which, I suppose, brings me back to the topic that this blog was supposed to be about. And yeah, I admit that I was reminded of it by watching Heroes. Not that I didn't already have some sense of it, but the last episode had actually rung it home a bit in that way... It's the sense of not knowing what to DO. So what if there actually IS some sort of rule that if you are doomed to cause more pain and suffering every time you try to do something good, or that every time you attempt to mend a wound, that you're destined somehow to cause it to grow, then what do you do? I can't for the life of me imagine even being able to try to stop myself from doing the best I can by the world. I can't help but attempt to step in and take action when I see suffering, or a need that must be fulfilled. And even knowing that my own intervention has the potential to make things that much worse, how can I help myself but still at least try to intervene?

This is why I choose not to believe in God. Because in a universe that is inherently meaningless, finding yourself in a situation where you do the best you can with what you have actually makes itself into a positive lesson. A sort of putting an order to the chaos. Whereas the world being as it is, and knowing that there is a being the likes of which we are nothing in comparison to, who actually made the world this way... I may know that my mission is bigger than myself, but at least in the universe that I conceive, every little bit counts. In a world that was ordered specifically in this way by a divine power, however, I simply refer back to the words of Elphaba in the musical Wicked: "No good deed goes unpunished."

And perhaps it's not just in myself that the rule goes. For all of what it was worth, Matt telling me that I'm a healer would have been the best thing that he possibly could have done. But the eye still mocks me, looking through my floundering to witness my failure, and as it stares at me, all I can think of it saying is "J'accuse!" And in that sense, I'll never know the alternative, but... I wonder if perhaps it may not have been better for him not to have tried to point out the good in me, after all...

Jumping the Track

2008-09-26T09:45:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I haven't updated this again in a while. It's kind of sad when you check back in to edit the profile, and it lists you at a different age than you are now.

I've probably got a lot to post about, but I think I'm still working through most of it, so for now I guess I'll just talk a little bit about the fact that I'm 30 now.

Yeah, I know, 30 is just a number. But it represents a lot of things. Like the fact that I'm yet one more year working in retail at Home Depot and making excuses why I haven't left yet. Or like the fact that my age has finally caught up with my dating pool, as I always preferred the company of 30-something gay men to anyone else.

I honestly had been looking forward to 30 a great deal, though. My 20s were a little bit of a train wreck in terms of the fact that they started out with me feeling like I was on a train ride where the rails were already set in a certain path, and that's where I was going to go. Well, I jumped that first train when I went off and lived in the New Haven Catholic Worker instead of taking the obvious path out to grad school. Then I jumped it again when I moved to MD in order to parent.

My own train got derailed a bit when I was laid off by NMAC, and I honestly have gotten to the point where I really don't like the train I'm on. To the point where that grad school train is looking extremely worthwhile. Heck, I'm even considering law school now.

But even through all this, I've already found myself making excuses that tuition is too difficult, and that the failure of several banks that provide for most financial aid means I likely won't be able to make it. I've cut myself off from the possibility of working anywhere other than the Task Force, and yet I haven't really done enough work of looking at other places to really know that there aren't a ton of other places where I'd really like to be.

And even through all of this, I haven't gotten myself up the motivation to actually DO anything about this. I've actually allowed myself to become the victim of my own apathy, a trait that I railed against everybody else for having throughout my school days. In that time, nobody seemed to care about anything but their own career paths, and in the meantime, now, I'm stuck with apathy over that one very thing. It's almost mocking in the sense that it's almost as if they were all right, and I was wrong. I focused on the wrong things at the wrong time, because I didn't focus on myself and make sure that I was taken care of. And now it's a struggle to recognize that I have to be my own priority.

So here I am at 30, trying to figure out what it is that I want to do, and needing to build up the will to make it happen. I guess the first step to that is getting off of this website and setting myself some priorities... We'll see how that goes next time...

Curating the Museum

2008-08-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

I've always been impressed whenever literature can truly act as a mirror for my own soul. When a character can learn a lesson, be floored, and at the exact same moment, be floored myself right along with them. I want to give props in this blog to Wally Lamb for that, as the book "I Know This Much is True" gave me one of those moments, as well.

For those of you who haven't read the book, I'd definitely recommend reading it. And possibly holding off on this entry until you do. Not that I'll give anything major away, but still, even the lesson itself is sometimes best left as a surprise, for it is sometimes best to have it whallop you across the temple from out of nowhere.

That said, I admit to having been left in a bit of turmoil by the book. For all of the growth, reconstruction, and stabilization I've done in the last few months, I feel that I was forced, through Dominick's character, to examine my own "museum of pain" or "sanctuary of justifiable indignation." To consider what I was doing with my collection of painful memories and the sense of myself that I've had for such a long time, that I would be able to do the right thing, even in the face of great personal loss or pain. ESPECIALLY in the face of great personal loss or pain.

I see the problem, and the solution, but it's hard to simply let go. Even now, when I can still see how everyone is coming from a place of hurt, and knowing that I don't want to contribute any more to it, I still cling to my wounds and injuries as if they're a series of treasures. That every slight, every rejection, every sacrifice, can then be put together with all of the rest to give me... what? That's what I don't even understand. That I don't even know what they give me that I have so much difficulty letting go.

I have the whole collection laid out before my eyes, too. My mother, first of all and most of all, then moving to my father, all of the kids I grew up with, went to school with, moving on to all of the betrayals, whether real or only real to me when I experienced them, such as those inflicted by my best friend in high school and my crush, who later became my girlfriend, and the further collection of wrongs that I've placed on my mantel from her... I move to college, and have a whole new set of wrongs that I've collected, the writing on my college dorm door, the rejection of the gay-straight alliance to become part of a larger anti-oppression network of student organizations, the isolation I felt from other queer students, the isolation from Mike... Mike, whose hurt holds a special place as a prize in my museum of misery, even today. Moving on to Bond, another special little hurt. To Ben, and after that to my self-inflicted wrongs with GC, just to prove to myself that Ben had no more power over me... and onward out to Ray and Steve, and the wrongs I've placed in my museum from them. All of the wrongs and hurts that I've catalogued, all of the times I've been stood up, or rejected, even Matt's struggling conversation based entirely upon honesty, sure, the conversation was great, and we've been able to talk well with one another since then, but what did I do as soon as I hung up the phone? What else but twist the entire thing in the most self-deprecating way, and feed it into my twisted collection of pain and injustice?

The book is brilliant, really, in its scope and purpose. For its ability to simply tell you to let it go, cleanse yourself of the hurt and forgive, in order to better move on. But it's simply too hard for me to accomplish right now. And looking back, I know how hard it has always been. That I've been collecting these early, and had the struggle even way back when.

I remember having such a sense of injustice in theology classes, and at masses, with the story of the prodigal son. Because, after all, why DID the good son have to miss out on the ability to have some sense of validation that he had done the right thing all along? Even as a child, it burned me up to think that religious figures like Paul and Augustine were the centralized figures of the Church's development and power because of the fact that they were such despicable people throughout their lives, and just up and one day decided "hey, I'm going to do something different now." Suddenly, they were literally saints and could do nothing wrong, could not be contradicted, and in many cases, the teachings and decisions they'd made since their conversions were just as despicable as their acts before. And where did that leave us? Those who had been faithful all along and done what we were supposed to do?

It's why, when I left Christianity, I've STILL found myself returning again and again to the book of Job as my favorite book of the Bible. Because it's the book that shows us what a son of a bitch God is. That's the irony, though, as well. That my identity as an atheist doesn't come about because I straight-out don't believe in God at all, but more of the fact that I feel that, if God *does* exist, then He's a massive son of a bitch, the biggest bully out there, and that it's better to simply not believe in a God than to believe that that bastard has any control over us, because you know that the first chance he gets, which is infinite, he's going to screw any one of us over. Just to prove a point, or to force us to obey him, or to make us place value on Him more than anything else... as if He *needs* it. Human beings, all frail creatures, every one of us who has been broken by the world in some way, all needing a little bit of tenderness, and what does Christianity tell us? Put God before anything. As if every single human being immediately and eternally ceasing to give God credit for anything would even have any sort of negative impact upon God... would hurt Him, or make Him cease to exist or something. But we're supposed to bleed out our lives to *serve* Him? That's a fucked up recipe if I've ever seen one.

But here it is again. I'm left back to my sense of righteous indignation and the fact that I just can't seem to let it go. To just allow all of those past slights, injuries, rejections, and attacks simply be in the past. To just look forward and live, and stop tending to my museum of pain and injustice... I don't know what the answer is, honestly. What the trick or the secret is to just letting it all drift away from me. I know it's there, and I know it's unhealthy. But it's the thing that you just can't bring yourself to throw away, no matter how rotten it is, or how much it's stinking up the place.

I guess I still have a lot more work to do...

Damaged Goods

2008-08-08T19:37:00.001-07:00

Ok, it's been a really long time since I've updated this blog, and it's more than time to do it. Over the last few months, I've really honed in on something major, and I think I've really hit on a breakthrough. At least to me, though everyone else may look at it as a "duh" moment.

I have, for a very long time, considered that most of the human race is damaged or has been broken in some way. And I always thought of it as a very sad reality, as well. Just seeing so much potential within each individual, yet never seeing that potential realized because of all of the hurt and mistrust that we always end up having for one another.

Within the queer community, this reality is even more realized, and then again even more so within the bear community. We have all been given messages from outside of us that we are not of value, and we all have been broken or damaged in some way.

What I've found is that we often then close ourselves off to the rest of the world, the rest of the community, and often end up having in-fighting, drama, and bitterness continue to drive further wedges between us within the community.

I'm no different, and I have come to recognize a lot of the ways that I've hurt other people and put them on the defensive by doing things that were meant to simply protect myself, or to cover, hide, or detract from my own pain. But I've come to the realization that I'm only multiplying the hurt, rather than reducing it. In this case, it is NOT better to share, but to let the hurt end with you.

So here's my commitment, from here on out. I'm no longer going to allow my hurt to dictate my behavior. I'm not going to take out my hurt, disappointment, or insecurity on anybody else outside of me. And most of all, I'm not going to pass on the insecurity or isolation that I have felt to others. The hurt stops here. I've been hurt before, and I've survived, so I can survive it again. People have lashed out at me due to their insecurities, and I've made it through, so I can again. But this time around, I'm not going to keep myself at a distance from the rest of the world to insulate myself, I'm going to engage. And I'm not going to take my setbacks as proof that the world can't be trusted. Instead, I'm going to take my lumps and keep on going, proving to the world that I'll still be here to take what they've got to give, and that I'm not going anywhere.

And my hope is, maybe others can follow along and do the same. We're all in the same boat in that sense. We've all been hurt, taken for granted or taken advantage of, and we've all responded in kind. Let's remember that even the biggest jerk out there is acting, at base, from a place of hurt. And I'll commit myself today to be the first one to recognize that, and instead of firing back, turn around, see the hurt that their cruelty is coming from, and tell them that I understand, and that it's ok.

Maybe, if I'm able to continue to live up to this, then we can make some progress to TRULY create some change in this world...

House of Mirrors

2008-07-09T06:47:00.000-07:00

I have had a number of relationships in my life where I view a high degree of similarity between myself and the other person, and within that similarity, I'm able to come up with a single difference between us that I see as defining. I liken it to being a mirror image. The image in the mirror is effectively the same, but inverted. There are actually three of these sorts that I find particularly informative to myself at the present moment.

The first, and the longest, is dealing with my elder brother. Not only do we look frighteningly similar to one another, but we also were the nerdy, awkward kids growing up. Both of us are gay, and both of us have had at least some degree of "needing to be needed." There's a lot more to it, but I think you get the point.

My brother's favorite book of all time was "The Catcher in the Rye." And he still firmly identifies himself with Holden Caulfield. The baseline reason for this is that, for him, adults are selfish and hurtful beings, for the most part. Children, while being very self-centered, tend to also be more giving and ultimately concerned for the well-being of others than adults. Particularly when one considers the hurtful ways that many parents use their children against one another, children themselves are often the victims of the selfish posturing of adults. And so thus, not only do those children become victims of adults, but they then have the tools hard-wired into them to become those hurtful adults who had victimized them. Thus, my brother has become a school psychologist, has a very small group of friends that he feels that he can trust, and otherwise remains wary of the rest of the adult world.

I have found that I am similar to him in this fact, not because I'm focused on children versus adults or anything like that, but because I do see that there is a lot of hurt in the world. Even with regard to activism, I have always taken the position that human beings are intrinsically able to have so much potential, but because every single person in the world has been hurt, they act out to hurt others. This hurt takes on such a large scale that the hurtfulness seems overwhelming. I can't help but sometimes take the look that everyone in the world is broken in some way... and that those feelings of being hurt and broken frequently lead people to act out in ways that hurt and break others. It is thus a never-ending cycle.

The true extent of finding myself similar to my brother was shortly after my last break-up. He had stated that every time he has fallen in love, it was *just* at the moment when he felt somehow safe. Not only did I come to a major realization within myself for that reason, but was put in a bit of a more agitated position when talking to Julie about the recognition, as she flippantly stated "but relationships are never safe. They're always a risk." This to the guy who was really hurt, but who kept running to one of the guys he was seeing whenever he felt hurt to hold and feel better... it wasn't one of my best moments, I'll admit. But I learned from it.

And yet, here's where the difference between myself and my brother comes in. We both see the world as a place that has so much potential to hurt people. And both of us see ourselves as taking an essential role in mitigating this hurt in some way. But where my brother, from my perspective, sees no hope in the world of adults and thereby attempts to protect children from the world, I see things differently. I see potential hope for all of us, so long as we can move PAST the hurt, past what has broken us, and to allow the cycle to end there. I believe that there are adults in the world who have been able to say "I've been hurt. I have this broken piece inside of me, but I'm not going to allow it to control me or to cause me to hurt or break anybody else."

And this is where I see my own role in mitigating the hurt and the brokenness of the world. And where I've made a determination for myself even within the realm of relationships. No longer will I fear love as an inevitability of being hurt and fight it every step of the way, and no longer will I build up barriers to trusting other adults. I will give everyone a fair shot of trust, respect, and mindfulness. And if and when they take that trust, reject it and reach down into their own pits of hurt to throw that trust in my face? I will not allow it to contribute back to that hurt and cause me to continue the cycle. I will communicate my hurt, and I'll be open and honest about my position, but I will write nobody off completely, and I will continue to validate the existence and feelings of those people who have hurt me. And my hope is that my example of allowing myself to be hurt without lashing back out will have a true and lasting impact upon them, and it may help them move past their own hurt, to stop the cycle of hurting other people.

And with regard to love? I'm not going to build my defenses higher, or put up more barriers to prevent myself from falling in. I'm in the process of breaking them down. I've been hurt before, and I've survived. And even the most painful of those relationships have left me learning a great deal about myself and other people. And so I give myself over. I am ready to be hurt again, because I am not going to try to protect myself and others FROM the world. I'm looking to fix the problem, and to begin the process of healing. Starting with myself, and moving on to others...

The second of these is far less on a grand scale. But it's a reflection nonetheless. It is actually a sense that I've had from one of the couple I'd last dated. And sorry to everyone if you thought I should be more anonymous with my blogs, or change people's names, but... that's not me. I'm honest, no matter what.

While I was never as close to Steve as I was to Ray directly, I also saw many frightening similarities between myself and Steve. One of those particularly, became especially apparent during my birthday dinner, when Steve had discussed a certain strategy for manipulating a supervisor to get a dispensation he'd been looking for. Apparently Ray had not agreed with Steve's ability to get the dispensation, or the method that he was using to get it. Steve's response, of course, was to merely point out how much Ray didn't understand how to properly manipulate people.

Sadly, I got this. For my own point of similarity, my mother was, and still is, one of the most manipulative people in existence. To this day, she has excelled at making it seem as if her meeting some of her own needs is somehow tied to something important for YOU, and as such, you owe her something for it. It's like getting a two-for deal. She meets her own needs, and then gets you to feel obligated to her for it besides. In high school, this meant that there was an all-out war between us. It was mostly a "silent" war, as of course it involved *relatively* little violence... well, for my part, at least. It was instead a war of manipulation, as I saw my only means of escape as being able to beat her at her own game. And I became VERY adept at it. Which again brought out many issues, including a sense of profound satisfaction any time I managed to drive her to acting out in violence, as I never reciprocated. It gave me a sense of victory, of winning... and when I finally went to college, and when she attempted to direct my course in college, I had what I'd considered my "final victory" where she no longer had any power over me.

The degree of the manipulation was immense. To the point where my brothers and I even to this day will point out a habit, a thought process, or even a way of arguing that one or another of us will use, and say "you know that's not normal, right? That comes from Mom." And yet, at least at the time, I'd taken a profound satisfaction from the fact that, in fact, I had beaten her at her own game.

The problem becomes that I have absolutely no desire to be that person, and therefore attempt regularly to NOT engage in such manipulation. It has taken me years, but I've come to see the silver lining in it, which is the fact that the attentiveness that comes from knowing how to manipulate, also brings with it a sense of empathy. For the manipulative person, like my mother or Steve, to get back to the original topic, you need to be able to read people and see where they are, in order to understand where to push this or that button and therefore to trigger the effect that you're looking for. After you become adept at reading the signs, however, you can also turn things around and do what you can to help *prevent* the breakdowns, recognize what somebody might need despite what may or may not benefit you, and help to ease tensions instead of generating more of them.

And so is the difference in the reflection of what I see in Steve. He takes a great sense of pride in his ability to manipulate others, and maintains it as one of his greatest strengths. In effect, he uses it as a means to protect himself by trying to be in complete control over every interpersonal relationship he has. He benefits from it in a great many ways, as well. For a brief while, I was actually even somewhat jealous and upset that he managed to get away with it so amazingly, whereas my refusal to "stoop to the level" had managed to mean that I got to be the person hurt the most by the situation... and yet, over time, I've recognized one thing. By controlling each relationship, you are maintaining a static environment, and you are never growing. I may have been hurt, but I've grown from the experience and have moved onward. And even when I sent my last message stating that I understand the place of hurt that he had come from, and that I still cared deeply for both him and Ray, his scathing response... the one that came from that place of hurt and brokenness, made me realize that mine is truly the better way. And my hope is that my refusal to give back that hurt and pain will help him to realize that maybe there is some room for being open to hurt, after all.

Finally, and I apologize for this being a much more long-winded entry than it should have been (now that I think on it, I should've broken it down into 3 separate entries), is my friend Aileen. We both had gone to the same Jesuit college where we met, and she has been one of my greatest friends. I still remember her as having one of the most positive reactions to my coming out, having put her arms around me and hugging me, and congratulating me on being able to come to that point. Aileen is also an activist. Aileen is a strong feminist, as am I. After Fairfield, both of us spent the same summer at the New Haven Catholic Worker. Our positions are very similar to one another.

But in many, many ways I am a separatist. Aileen is a reformer. I saw the Catholic Church, and indeed Christianity overall, as being horribly linked to sexist, homophobic values and have summarily rejected it, in favor of coming to a cosmology that is more humanist, affirming, and value-centered. Aileen always saw the same problems that I have, and yet has always felt that there is room to reform the institutions from within.

It is similar with regard to the idea of marriage and monogamy. I reject both institutions, seeing marriage as having started as a means of documenting possession and control of women, and having not improved substantially since its inception. Aileen has always been more "traditional" when it comes to dating and relationships.

In taking on our activism, it was always somewhat profound to me that we would be able to go about our work in such meaningful ways, and with such a continuity of spirit, when our philosophies were also so different, as well. In a sense, and you'll forgive me for the nerdy comic book reference, I have always seen myself as the Magneto to her Charles Xavier, or for a more realistic reference, as the Malcolm X to her MLK.

I admit, however, to being a little bit nervous about one thing. In most of our discussions, I can remember having said "I hope I'm wrong, and that you are able to make the changes that you want to make within the institutions. But I don't think I am, and that the institutions are doomed to forever be perpetrators of oppression."

I'd lost contact with Aileen for many years, and only just recently have re-connected with her again. She is still one of my best friends in existence, despite the years and distance intervening. And yet, on her facebook profile, the one thing I've read that I have yet to mention in my conversations with her thus far, was that her religion section lists the word "Episcopalian." It makes sense, of course. She can become the minister she has always wanted to be within the Episcopal Church, and the teachings of the Episcopal Church are still extremely similar to the Catholic Church.

For once, I get the fear that I was right. I can't help but feel conflicted. She is clearly going to be happier as an Episcopalian than she ever could have been as a Catholic. But the fact remains that I can't help but imagine what it must have been like for her on that day, to come to the conclusion that, yes "this institution is not going to change. I no longer have hope for it, and therefore I must leave it to become a part of something better." Part of me is relieved that I was not around on that day, because such a decision speaks of having a sense of lost hope. And yet, I wish that I could have been there to tell her, at least, that yes, there is more out there that is better. And even though you are rejecting this institution, you are leaving room for building something that is better.

These are my mirrors. I admit to taking a bit of satisfaction in witnessing how much I've developed by relating back to them again, in some way. But even in the course of writing this, I've even still learned something else that is new. Each of the people who I consider to be one of my mirrors, the difference that I see, is dealing in some way with growth and the way we relate to the world. And it is a question of growth versus safety. Whether it is the safety of an institution, or safety in distance from the adult world, or even in manipulation and control over your relationships, there is a safety that comes as a result. In each of these, however, I have taken the path of less safety. The path of risk. And yet, I think that the safety I take from my position is knowing that I can always relate myself back to each of them. That to some extent, while I have prioritized my need to grow and become something better, to create something greater, I can always turn either back or to the side and see those who have found an anchor. Perhaps they aren't my mirrors after all, but my lighthouses. Those who provide a point to which I can always refer back, even as I venture out into uncharted territory...

The Waiting Game

2008-07-05T02:16:00.001-07:00

There is very little that can be considered one of my triggers than getting stood up. Particularly getting stood up by gay men. And I honestly don't know what it is either about me, or about gay men, that makes it so overwhelmingly easy to make it continue to happen as frequently as it does.

I certainly understand that this may not be as much of a function of gay men in general as simply what gay men I've been in contact with, some signals that I am giving off, or some other functional relation that I have yet to discover. And yet, I still can't for the life of me figure out what it is that is driving this constant problem.

But let me assure you, that it is, in fact, a constant problem. I've been stood up on plenty of first dates, first times meeting with people who are interested in friendship, and both of those are actually somewhat understandable. I've also been stood up on second and third dates, and by people who I've been hanging out with more frequently.

I also tend to consider myself reasonable. With enough prior communication, and at least a semi-plausible reason or excuse, I'll forgive pretty much anything. Heck, forget semi-plausible, I'll even take a "I really don't feel like hanging out with you tonight. I'm feeling much more insterested in doing x instead." Even if x happens to be hooking up with some random trick that the person has never met before and will never see again after. So long as they're honest about it. Generally, I always put my friendships first, and while sex is great, there is nothing about it that can ever trump a friendship.

This is one thing I've learned is very different with me from the majority of the rest of the gay male community, however. In my experience, for most gay men, there is nothing that trumps sex. And most of the times that I've been ditched by friends, it has been for some random trick or another. Admittedly, as I said above, it's a hot-button topic for me. But we also all know how far in advance most tricks are set up. Right the heck now. So my question always is, "if we had plans, why did you suddenly go start looking for a random hook-up half an hour ahead of time?" Then again, maybe part of my problem is that I have yet to actually verbalize that question in the face of such cancellations.

I've also discovered that holidays are actually another hot-button for me. Thus this post. There is nothing quite like waiting around for over 5 hours for a couple of friends who made plans with you, and announced 1 hour before your plans that they were at a party and therefore asked you to call before you leave "just in case they aren't there." To call and find out they are still at the party and are drunk is one thing. It's annoying, but ok, it IS the 4th of July after all, right? Two hours later, calling again and being told that they'll call whenever they're getting ready to leave is pretty outright rude. But whatever, I ended up finding a trick of my own. After finishing with that, and coming back home, however, I came to the conclusion that further waiting was not only not an option any more, but that I was willing to be pretty harsh in explaining that I wasn't willing to wait any more. Scratch one more friendship.

Of course, in the face of that, the holiday card came up a few other times in my last relationship, and it was Thanksgiving that played the trigger for that relationship ending. There's nothing like leaving home to spend the night away from your kids to be with the men you love, only to have them unfold an air mattress and announce that that's where you can stay to make a man feel truly appreciated. Right?

The thing that I understand the least, actually, is how or why, and in what realm of the universe, do any of these people believe that what they're doing is ok? And what boggles my mind even more than that, is that ALL of these people in some way or another have determined that this type of behavior is ok. Otherwise, it wouldn't be such a prevalent problem!

This is what makes me believe that I'm the one who is somehow sending out signals that this type of behavior is somehow acceptable. I tend to be pretty open about my own issues, feelings, or positions with people, and so I would scratch that off of the list of options for it. I also have had enough of a problem with this situation in particular that people know it's a problem for me before they do it, as well, so I'd say that rules out another possibility.

What other possibilities exist, I either don't know, or are far too self-deprecating to mention. This would bring me to the possibility of it being more about them again, rather than me. Partially, them knowing that it's an issue may mean that they are attempting to self-sabotage things before they even get started, so as to head off any future issues, or to prove that the friendship/relationship/whatever-it-would-have-been was doomed to failure from the start. Maybe it's a result of some internal self-esteem problem, and proving that nobody is ever going to continue to love somebody or be friends with somebody unconditionally, because look how much this person got angry over a single incident of missing out on plans...

I really don't know what it is. And maybe part of it is that I don't want to know, either. Back to those self-deprecating options. The fact is, I'm still completely baffled, and with every new incident that comes up, the stronger and stronger my reactions to that behavior have been getting. But may goodness help the next guy who stands me up at the last minute. And for their sake, it had better not be on a holiday...

Sex, Love and Friendship

2008-07-01T07:41:00.000-07:00

For a very long time, I've thought that the words sex, love and friendship are WAY too general to be considered particularly helpful in many people's lives. Particularly more so within my own life, but whenever I feel as if I'm simply too far gone from the traditional bounds of relationships, friendships and sexuality, I'm reminded by every sitcom, romantic comedy, and drama that I watch, exactly why I'm not so different from everyone else in that sense after all.

For every romance that we see, there is confusion, a need to identify boundaries, to determine the true feelings that each person has for one another, and a series of possibilities. There is always the mystery of who the protagonist will "end up with" and what exactly will their final relationship be to the one(s) who were their other possibilities?

The fact is that love, romance, and sexuality are far too complicated to be able to fit into the mold that our culture has attempted to box them into. So why, then, do we continue to box ourselves in? Partially, I think of it as a sort of inertia. There were good reasons for having delineated separations between friendships and relationships due to issues such as disease, inheritance, etc. ages ago, which developed the familial structures that are centered around marriage with a singular exclusive partner, and because that has been the structure that has been in existence, diversion from this paradigm has been slow. Granted, there have been a great deal of changes, merely from the fact that we can consider that people no longer marry for political or economic reasons (at least not always), and that marriage is considered, at least in theory, to be based upon love.

There is another reason, I believe, as well. And that comes simply from my experience of the complexities that are involved with diverging from this cookie-cutter model existence. When one diverges from already-existing models, you are left without default options. Once everything becomes possible, then truly everything IS possible. In the minute that happens, more than ever, one must truly be in touch with themselves and their own feelings, and they need to be able to communicate those feelings to others, as well. It seems simple enough, and no matter how often I believe that I've achieved the requisite level of self-awareness, transparency, and communicativeness, I find more boxes and more shadows within myself.

I consider this. I am quite possibly one of the most sex-positive individuals that I know. I have moved well beyond the recognition that as much as we culturally view sex as something dangerous that needs to be controlled. And I have done more than my fair share of breaking down that stereotype and opening myself up to proving that sex is something that is positive, affirming, and full of potential. Sex, just like relationships, can take a multitude of forms and possibilities, and all that we are required to do is to be open to those possibilities.

But for all of the sex-positiveness that I so often exude, I have yet found multiple inconsistencies within myself. Small things that reflect a certain reservedness or timidity in the face of certain sexual encounters, or even potential sexual encounters. I will be the first to say that, while sex is certainly possible to be devoid of a great deal of emotional entanglements, as the vast number of one-night-stands can imply, the fact is that sex is still simultaneously an extremely powerful emotional tool.

It is this potential for emotion within sex that finds me more reluctant to open the door to sexual overtones within certain of my friendships. With one friend, for example, there had been a sexual tension between us for a very long time. However, from primarily my own choice, I had decided years ago that it was far too much of a risk to engage in a sexual relationship with that friend. That friendship has remained to this day one of my most bolstering friendships. It is a friendship where we understand one another, have the ability to talk for hours, days actually, without ever running out of things to talk about, and where we can emotionally rely upon one another. There is nothing that we cannot share with one another about our vulnerabilities, insecurities, or fears.

Except that it is false. There is one topic that still remains a bit of a smokescreen, and that is something that I only have discovered in the past few weeks. As both of us have re-entered "single" life within the past 6 months, and each of us has entered therapy, it has become highlighted for each of us that we have a bit more of a connection with one another than a standard friendship, and quite honestly that fact terrifies me. I cannot help but find it odd that it does frighten me as much as this, as well, because of the fact that I have been so open to so much else in my lifetime, and yet there is something about this single friendship which the potential of changing one of the basic dynamics of it fills me with a tremendous amount of anxiety.

At the same time, I am also meeting a number of new people. After ending my last relationship about 6 months ago, I found myself not only out of a relationship, but strongly lacking in my number of friendships, as well. And in meeting most new people, for once, I found that most people were interested in sex far more than they had any interest whatsoever in friendship. I can't help but laugh at myself for the fact, as my college days when everybody wanted to be my friend and tried to date my roommate, I had secretly begged for this conundrum. And the universe apparently answered my wish in a most scathing manner. Be careful what you wish for, and all that jazz.

Despite everything, however, I have made friends over the past few months, and some of those friends I have played with, others I haven't. One of those friendships was with somebody who had numerous times expressed an interest in moving to a sexual level, but I resisted. I had convinced myself that because of the issues that he had with his own self-image and sexuality, that he needed friends who would be his friends regardless, and not because he could provide them with something, namely sex. What I'd found, however, was that I was projecting heavily upon him. It was me who wanted the friendship without a sexual bargain attached, and while the friendship has taken on a sexual component since, it was a lesson that I have certainly learned.

The difficulty that has come up since then is that I have another similar friendship. It is with a couple where there is a clear mutual attraction, but which I have drawn a clear boundary with. Coming into this situation now, I recognize that part of the reason I have been so compelled to maintain this boundary was to have the ability to be certain that our friendship was out of a genuine desire to be friends, and to have the emotional security that I associate with my friendships. Recently, it has become more clear that there is a genuine sexual interest on all sides, as well, yet I still find a reluctance to step forward and engage due to some sense that the friendship may give way before a more sex-based relationship.

And last but not least, having re-entered the dating pool, I have met somebody who I have found that I really like a lot. Ironically, while still being the sex-positive person that I am, I had decided that I liked him so much on the first date that I didn't want to have sex with him right away. We've been talking regularly, have gone out one more time since, and there is a connection like electricity between us. And yet we still haven't taken that step towards sex. And the ironic thing about it, is that it is, for me at least, entirely a function of a sense that I really like him, and that I am hoping for some more long-term potential from the relationship.

The problem is not nearly as difficult as I have made it out to be, in reality. I can still consider myself sex-positive, and love sex and all of its possibilities, and yet maintain these conundrums. The fact is that sex IS a powerful force and tool. One-night-stands are able to work because of the context in which they occur. And yet, I have known people who have begun relationships through nothing other than a singular such encounter. Fuck-buddies, friends with benefits, and other such relational models still exist, and sex is a strong force within those friendships. Sex is bigger than many of us make it out to be, probably because we're all a little bit afraid of what that fact implies. But sex is simultaneously far more beautiful than any of our detractors would have us believe, and it does not need to be controlled and restricted at all costs.

Sex is nothing to fear, but it needs to be respected. It is like fire. It has a myriad of uses, its potential for use is nearly limitless, and it is truly a wondrous thing. But just like fire, we need to be mindful of where it is, and what exactly it is doing, or we may find that we can be burned by it, as well...

Pink Triangles, Blue Squares, and Bears... Oh My!

2008-06-24T05:09:00.000-07:00

Ok, so maybe I can't help but continue to express my ultimate disdain for HRC time and again. They truly are the great evil within the queer community, in my mind. Not even gay Republicans get to me as much as HRC does.

Here's the thing. I liken HRC to the Democratic Party. These are the people who are SUPPOSED to be on our side. And yet, every time there's a major decision to be made, and you just think logically to yourself: "What could the worst possible outcome of this be?" You will always come up with the solution that both of those organizations give. It's exactly how I knew that Cardinal Ratzinger was going to be the next Pope two months before the old Pope died. "Who could possibly be the worst candidate for the papacy?"

Now don't get me wrong on the whole Democrat thing. It's really not like I like the Republicans any better. But to some extent, at least the hardcore right-wing Republicans have a stance that makes sense. You know, it's like ultimate evil. You see somebody running around trying to cause as much damage as they possibly can, and at least you know where they stand, you know? There's no guessing that they ARE, in fact, out to get you. So they have coherent policies and mission statements that are all centered around trying to get you. It makes sense in a logical fashion in that way.

The Democrats, however, don't make any sense to me. Like the fact that, a few years ago, they ceased putting money into outreach programs for the queer community and the black community. They pretty much figured that queers and blacks will vote for the Democratic candidate anyway, so why spend money trying to court their votes? At the same time, they left the fundraising committees doing work in those communities in place. So we're not good enough to be courted for our votes, but yet you'll leave infrastructure in place to take our money? Gee! Why don't I just go and vote for YOU!

My friend David, back in the last election, or maybe it was the one before now. Man, time is really passing by quickly here... Anyway, David had once stated that the Republican party does well because their dialogue is always centered around "energizing their base," which means catering to all of the zealoutrous absolutist Christian nutjobs who, as stated above, are really and truly in politics because that's how they can get at us. In the meantime, the Democratic party has always taken the position, election after election, that "We need to appeal to the center."

I like to think of this as a card tower, if you will. One side of the tower is leaning heavily to the right. Instead of counterbalancing by having the other side lean to the left, it instead ALSO leans to the right. You know, to fill in the middle just a bit. What exactly happens to that tower?

It's why I still continue to see American political discourse shifting consistently and inexorably towards the right. The reason is because there's no leftist political discourse whatsoever. Our positions just aren't being heard, at all, because they've been left on the side as having been deemed irrelevant. But when people such as myself who want to join a political party because we, I don't know, actually want to believe in the actual standpoints and goals of that party, decide to defect from the Democrats and join in with the Green party... Suddenly we're Public Enemy number 1 for the Democrats! Suddenly it's OUR fault that they lost. Because, you know, all of those people in the center who keep on saying "I just didn't like that Democratic guy. I could never tell where he really stood on any issues" weren't giving some sort of indication of where the fault of political discourse within the Democratic agenda lies...

Anyway, done with that analogy. Back to me hating on HRC. And before you get your panties in a bunch saying how biased I am for having been a strong Task Force supporter for so many years, then sure. Of course I'm biased. However, the facts remain the same. How is it that an organization can consistently make poor decisions like making back-room deals to allow for the exclusion of the Trans community in bills like ENDA, and yet face such little financial pushback from our own community? Sadly, it's because of one of two things, either of which is just as scary as the other, from my perspective.

One is that people just really don't know, and perhaps don't care to know, what it is that most of the organizations on the political field today actually DO. They don't really know who HRC is, or who the Task Force is, but since HRC has their own little store and market around their cute little blue-and-gold equal sign that they put on everything, then they win the PR war. The Task Force's color pallet hasn't quite caught up yet.

The other thing is that people know, and yet don't care. Or that they actually believe that the Trans community is disposable enough to be written out of legislation. The whole "let's get ours" crowd. Granted, I'm very far from the idealistic young political queer that I was in college. I don't have that belief in the possibility that we, as queer people, have the opportunity to be better... Well, actually, I do still. I just recognize that the vast majority of the queer community excels at allowing good opportunities to pass them by.

Yes, I know. I'm very jaded. But if you're regularly reading this, then you love me for it. Or this is your last trip to read my blog before you realized that you just really don't want to have anything to do with me. In that case, please take a flyer on the way out, and we have some lovely parting gifts. Wait, what?

The Task Force, in the meantime, definitely takes a lot of heat within the community. Like all of the marriage fanatics who believe the organization should make itself a one-issue wonder and screw all of the rest of the needs of the community. Now I won't go off about marriage right now, but I'm sure that all of you are aware that as a feminist-identified, polyamorous bearish queer father of two girls who I am raising with two lesbians, it's hard for me to see how marriage might really make my life any better. Or anybody else's, really. There are just so many other OPTIONS. But again, who wants options? As I said before, the vast majority of the queer community loves to allow great opportunities to simply pass them by.

Regardless, the reason I wanted to post this blog was because of one very simple realization that just kept hitting me as I attended Pride this year. HRC hasn't changed at all. They're still using the same tactics that they always ever had. And for years, my friends and I would always either joke or complain, depending upon which mood had been striking us, that during Pride season, HRC would round up every little pretty-boy twink that they could muster, and send them out in droves with clipboards. For a very long time, it was quite effective. To some degree, it still is, though much less so lately.

Because here's the thing that I noticed. Ever since the relative mainstreaming of the bear community, I think that HRC's outreach efforts have faltered a little bit. And not just because of the fact that HRC has failed miserably on dealing with overall queer health issues, building self-esteem and pride for different body types, hasn't reached out to all of the bears who are into leather, kink and the like, or any of the other things that have caused the organization to completely ignore the bear community. But mostly, HRC doesn't seem to have its same outreach muster because, throw a goattee onto a twink, and you've still got a twink.

Sorry HRC, but this bear ain't biting...

Trust and Respect

2008-06-18T10:11:00.000-07:00

My apologies on this one, as it's a bit more serious and less light-hearted as the other two... so if you're looking for some humor, you might want to skip this entry...

One of the primary values I maintain as a leftist is that every person in the world is deserving of respect. Every human being possesses an intrinsic value that doesn't diminish or dissipate based upon any of the terms and conditions that most of the rest of the world might utilize to write somebody off. The prime tenet is that life is a journey, and that everybody is on their own place within that journey.

What this implies is that people make mistakes, maintain ignorance, and often will do things that are less than savory, but that so long as they learn and grow from their mistakes, and consistently become better people as they develop, then they are at least moving in the right direction. Hope is alive and well in the world.

As part of my perspective of giving every person respect and recognizing their intrinsic value, I believe that every person is deserving of trust, as well. All too often, I've found that people's defense mechanisms are the very things that cause hurt and pain to so many others. It's their own lack of trust of others that so often causes them to become untrustworthy themselves.

The problem then becomes what to do when somebody proves themselves to be untrustworthy. I will be the first to admit that my policy has always caused me a bit more pain and frustration that I could likely have otherwise avoided. However, it has also allowed me to make a great deal of friendships that I otherwise would never have made. And I believe that, even in the cases of people who have hurt me, I have been able to have a positive impact upon their lives by giving them that degree of trust and respect.

The problem I'm encountering now is one of continuity. If everyone is on a certain place on their journey, there is a certain degree that people who have been untrustworthy can become more trustworthy in the future. In general, one would think that so long as you see any degree of change in an individual, then they should then be worthy of trust once more.

It's not as simple as that, however, as any of us with life experience can tell. Once you've been burned, it's difficult to simply put your hand back on the stove. Such is the case with a former friend who has been staying with us the past few days. A person who seemed extremely selfless, progressive, and understanding that turned out to be selfish, manipulative, and malicious and who we therefore cut out of our lives.

For some reason, Julie invited the person to have contact with us for a business matter, but who then started to have more social contact with us, which turned from a couple of days trip to the area into a more than week-long stay. I have to say I haven't been happy about the situation in the first place, and we're now on the day of the trip to the beach. Sara and Julie are taking the kids and the dogs, leaving me alone in the house. Except that this person is also still here, and that I have no particular desire to have this person remain in the house once Julie and Sara are gone.

Has she been riling up drama while she's here, refusing to help, or draining our resources? No. However, the history of her role has made me extremely wary of her presence, and I am having incredible difficulty maintaining my composure as the confusion of the day is continuing to progress. And on top of everything, there has not been a single private moment throughout the entire week that I have had any opportunity to bring up my concerns.

I'll be leaving for work in about an hour, and many of these issues will work themselves out in time. But my internal questions remain. How much do I trust, and where is the fine line between giving every human being their intrinsic respect and merely opening yourself up to becoming a doormat?

The Power of Bjork

2008-06-17T14:02:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I've been having a difficult couple of days with the kids. I love my kids, don't get me wrong, but anybody who has children will understand that love them all you might, kids can be very, VERY difficult.

Well, as Julie and Sara are preparing to bring the kids to the beach for the week, it was my job to take Dayton, my soon-to-be-4-year-old, to school. You would think this would be an easy task, but not when she's already assigned the task to Sara. This means that leaving with her entailed 2 fully separate temper tantrums and half of a car ride of screaming and crying. Which of course carried over into her 1-year-old sister, who of course is willing to cry just because somebody else is crying.

Often, car rides are filled with either Diego the Animal Rescuer, Laurie Berkner, the Sound of Music, or some other kid-friendly music. But today, I decided that the screaming was enough, and I just wanted something that I might enjoy listening to.

While Bjork may not always be my first choice, I do enjoy Bjork. And, it being Sara's car that I was taking, it's not like I had one of my primary choices immediately at hand. So Bjork it was.

Little did I know how ingenious of a decision this was! Once Dayton and Saunder piped down enough to actually hear the music, and I started getting some sanity back, I heard Dayton pipe up with a quick little question: "What is she singing about?"

Now, I do really like Bjork. But you've gotta admit. You don't know what in the heck she's saying any more than I do. Part of her appeal is the fact that she's a bit of a lunatic and she's almost totally incomprehensible.

What made this great was, it not only distracted the kids enough through their confusion, but it allowed me to answer pretty much any way that I wanted. I got to start making it up for every song. I even got to include a nice little lesson about how big girls go to the potty and don't wear diapers any more. It was fantastic! I'm making a mental note that, from now on, I'm listening to more artists with unintelligible lyrics. Maybe I'll be able to give some messages about sleeping in your own room and learning to share...

Of Epics and Activism

2008-06-16T09:55:00.000-07:00

Those of you who may be reading this may be wondering: Who the hell are you and why should I be reading this crap just because you've got an internet connection and a keyboard?

All I can really say to that is, you're the one reading it, so I guess you've already found your reason. I'm typing this because I want to.

Overall, I am looking forward to this stint of blogging as somebody who has been going way too long outside of the realm of writing, and needing a fast, easy method to continue doing so. Honestly, the hardest thing I found for creating this blog was a title for the blog itself. I was looking for something witty, but still me. Unfortunately, most of what I came up with was either witty, but not witty enough, or witty, but then didn't really describe me at all. Or it described me, but wasn't witty at all, and finally, the witty and described me, but then seemed to come across as far too self-aggrandizing or self-deprecating. Which, honestly, is a very strange dichotomy.

It seems as if there's a very fine line in the world between over-bloating your own ego, and participating in self-negation. In general, I think that all of us participate in far more self-negation than we recognize, but I think that would be a topic for a whole new entry. And this is already starting to get long, before I've even gotten onto the particular topic for THIS entry.

So why Activism for Epics? Couldn't I have found another combination of witty and descriptive? Is this truly the crux of my creative potential, and if so, why are you bothering to read it if I'm so bereft of creative genius? Whatever. It's your 10-20 minutes of life to do with what you want to by reading or not reading this. You chose to take a peek inside of my head, I raise all disclaimers now to anything you find in there that you don't like.

Obviously, you'll probably notice that I consider myself an activist, and identify particularly strongly as such. I'm about as far-left as you can get, politically, and will frequently argue with people about even the very definition of what it means to be ON the left, as well. Because of course everybody brings up all of these supposed examples of left-wing societies and governments that don't work, until you look at them and notice that their entire structure seems about as left-wing as the Married Christian Military Fatherhood League. But whatever. The point is, I'm a leftist. And I'm proud of it.

The epics part is kind of a dual thing, here. I am a total nerd. I like playing Dungeons and Dragons, subscribe to World of Warcraft, and I even collect comic books. Yes, that's right. Absolut Dork would just have a picture of me trapped within a bottle. Probably wondering how I'd been tricked into getting into a bottle that had no actual vodka in it, and being very disappointed.

Now, if you're also a dork, then you'll forgive me right now for describing to the normals what epics are. And if you don't, then fine, don't forgive me. See if I care. Anyway...

Many of these games, particularly the computer games, have items that make your character better. For some reason, in all of these things, wearing different clothes makes you stronger, faster, smarter, etc. Why the fashion industry hasn't gotten in on this, I don't know. I just wouldn't be surprised if in one of the next seasons of Project Runway, Heidi Klum doesn't assign the designers to create the new tiered raid set for a World of Warcraft character. I can just imagine Tim Gunn asking "but just remember that the player will have to be able to click on things on the other side of those monstrous shoulderpads... make it work!"

Regardless, so clothes are magic. And they make you better than you could be without them. So being naked is a bad thing. Which makes me believe that the Catholic Church may actually be funding all of these gaming companies. I'm just saying...

Some magic clothes are better than others, however. You have common clothes, uncommon clothes, rare clothes, and finally, you get epic clothes. Epic clothes are the ones that everybody wants, but generally, fewer people are able to get them. It's a status thing. People whine and cry when too many people are able to afford the new Dolce and Gabana or Prada stuff, because it makes them feel less special.

Now, the other thing, however, is that I am a writer. Duh, as if me writing a blog doesn't, de facto, make me a writer. Anywho, the more traditional notion of epic relates back to the sagas of a constant struggle either to survive in a harsh world, or a battle between good and evil. And they're stories.

So thus comes my title, Activism for Epics. I've been through a lot in my times as an activist thus far, and have a great deal of time yet to come, and am passionate enough about my beliefs to think of a great deal of my work to be a part of the struggle between good and evil besides. And using a little bit of a nerd reference never really hurt anybody. Well, unless you count being beaten up and humiliated in grade schools and high schools throughout the nation, or having to deal with developmental experiences of wedgies and swirlies. But other than that, nerdy references haven't really had THAT much of a negative impact on people... I think...

For those of you who have read this through, and haven't gone running screaming or pounding mercilessly on your keyboard to get to a different site, thanks for reading. And I'll be looking forward to posting more stuff here to waste your time and mine, as well.