Indulging in Human Pleasures

I'm wearing my Anger Management T-Shirt today. I got it at one of the best concerts I have ever attended, the Anger Management Tour featuring Ludicrous, Papa Roach, and Eminem, several years ago.

I was thinking that anger has to be included on the list of guilty pleasures we indulge in.

Some people are angry too much, like a person that eats too much ice cream. They give into the anger impulse too frequently.

Going to an angry rock concert is like having dessert.

Understanding and maybe justice are the real foods to satisfy anger, but sometimes the body just wants to indulge in the emotion.

Good People

Sometimes you have to join a big group of people that like the same music you like so you can remember that people don't suck. Sometimes you forget that when you look at how much shit is going on in the world and how inconsiderate people can be.

I'm on Treasure Island about to watch Justice perform. Someone was kind enough to lend me a scarf so I am freezing less.

I've decided while listening to techno today outdoors, that my backup careers (if massage business owner, coach, chemical engineer, psychologist, philosopher, teacher, admin assistant, yoga teacher, and president of the usa don't work out) will be fashion designer or a DJ. It's good to have a fallback.

So many callings, so little time.

Nothing to Say

Politics are like sports
Not yet blood sports
In this country
But the hockey moms
Want to change that

A party bound to religion
Must lie about science
Or betray their allegiance
To unchallengable dogma

The easy position is theirs;
Protect the unborn innocent
And kill the guilty offender

I take the hard road to defend
The wider way of freedom

That sometimes the guilty
Deserve a second chance
And sometimes the unborn innocent
Must die so that quality of life
For those already here
Can be maintained

"Filling the Earth"
Through science is now possible
But is it moral?
I have over 100,000 unborn children inside me
They could all grow in a petri dish
I could fill a small city
But it wouldn't be right

We don't need them now
They would only hurt us
Because we don't know what to do
With ourselves yet

What is the Reason?

We wake up in these bodies
That change everyday
We self-help
And group help
To repair our brains

But what is the purpose?
The ultimate goal?
Are we conscious just so
to experience our soul?

From ashes to ashes
And dust to dust
What's the point of the detour?
Wasn't dust good enough?

Why did dust need to breathe
And get teased in its youth
Then spend college years
Searching for truth

We pursue peace and joy
To balance our vices
We fall, get back up
And warn those behind us

Being human seems a unique
Punishment
A strange way to experience
The vast firmament

More eyes than a rock
Less heart than a dog
More freedom than the tree
Less freedom than the fog

So we live day to day
Inside of these bodies
And open our minds
So we can find God.

Dealing with It

I've found that recipients of abusive behavior act in one of two ways: they either externalize it (act out the same abusive energy on others) or they internalize it (take the abusive energy into themselves as shame or self-abuse). Both methods perpetuate pain. The externalists tend to be male, and they tend to end up in prison. They will typically wear their anger on their sleeve. Women tend to internalize the abuse, and rather than carry out the act on others, they will bottle up their emotions, often resorting in self-medicating behaviors such as overeating, over-exercising, compulsive behavior, and occasional volcanic fits of rage.

What both methods have in common is that the abuse continues in a new manifestation. It is difficult yet possible to stop the cycles of abuse. I believe the energy of abuse does need to be dissipated in a controlled setting. The victim should be allowed to scream, cry, punch/kick inanimate objects, throw things, in a way that does not harm them or anyone else.

They also need to develop an understanding of their abuser as someone who was not an evil person, but was someone who was certainly a victim themselves, and who did not understand how to properly expel the demon of abuse. And they need to understand that nothing their attacker said to them or did to them had any merit or meaning, as they did not have their victim's best interest at heart when they spoke or acted.

What Colors are you Shining?

"Can you feel it crush you?
does it seem to bring the worst in you out?
there's no running away from these things that hold you down
do they complicate you because they make you feel like this?
of all the colors that you've shined this is surely not your best...

i know you feel alone yeah and no one else can figure you out
but don't you ever turn away from the ones that help you down
well they'd love to save you don't you know they love to see you smile
but these colors that you've shined are surely not your style

...i know you feeling like you're lost
you feel you've drifted way too far
but did you know these colors that you shine
are surely not the best colors that you've shined"

~Colors, Crossfade

Too Busy

I'm slowly dying
Like a once beautiful houseplant
That had so much potential
You walked by, and,
Seeing my brown tips,
Dumped the rest
Of your coffee at my feet
On your way to the sink.
That was 60 days ago
I'm still thirsty
And you know you should stop
Do the right thing
But there's still some green left
And you're sure I'll last another day or two.
Besides
Plants don't scream like children
Or cling as tightly
But your heart still hurts when you lose one
Because they were in your care
And you vow not to make the same mistakes
Next time you get a plant

Pain

The only way out
Is through
Stop running
Let the pain
Pierce your heart a thousand times
Or a thousand days
If that's what it takes
Scream in your grief
Acknowledge your loss
Let your faults, errors and shortcomings
Stream from your eyes
Stop drinking.
You think your numbness
Keeps you from dying
But your pain won't kill you
Only you can kill you
And that is your choice.
You can kill yourself slowly with a bottle
Or quickly with a gun
Or you can let your greatest fears
And feelings of failure
Die in your chest
Instead
Don't let them take you down with them
You are not your pain
You are not your past
Choose life
Choose pain over death
Pain is a teacher
Swallow your shame
Like medicine
Let it seep into every cell
And it won't kill you
Only you can kill you
Study your pain
Feel where it lives in your body
Like a needy child,
It just wants your attention
Your pain will purify you from inside out
If you let it teach you who you are
And who you are not
And eventually if you keep your head up
You will see the light at the end of the tunnel
And life becomes beautiful again

Telephone Support & the DMV

Telephone support & the DMV are nice microcosms for what is wrong with huge organizations. The latest inefficient annoyance is the fake human on the phone that you can 'speak' your responses to. A real person would actually be the best interpretor for that information transfer, but real people cost too much. I'm waiting for the commercial where some people are sitting down to dinner and and the waitor starts talking about the menu and he is interrupted with a response before he is finished by someone too used to these phone systems.
But it's not just the fake person, corporations have managed to make idiotic robots out of the real people by giving them scripts for things someone of an average intelligence wouldn't need a script for. You actually have to interrupt the real people too when they keep reading a script that has nothing to do with your reason for calling. Aaaargh!

Maybe there should be a size limit on corporations and governments. No more than 1000 employees. Tops. KISS.

Uphill Both Ways

After taking the bus in San Francisco for 2 weeks, I now realize it is actually possible to work in a location where you have to walk uphill both to and from work. Wow, my kids are really going to hear it someday!