Insanity...

"Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results" - Albert Einstein

Let he who is not guilty of insanity speak up now or forever hold your peace. When we are little, everything in life is a game. You look to the bottom of the stairs, and rather than seeing carpet, you see a swimming pool. Imagination... do you remember it? I do.

I grew up without a lot of friends, so imagination was a tool that I used frequently, and with abandon. I was able to derive pleasure from the simplest things. (A silk sheet I used as a wind catch.) It was old and brown, but brought me hours of pleasure. (A cardboard box that was my vehicle to the stars) Everyone else saw a packing crate, but for me it was mission control, a space ship to the moon, and most importantly a kingdom where all of my friends would greet me kindly and say "King Xane! We love you!"  As I got older, it became "Uncool" to play and imagine. You had to "Hang out" and play with real toys. If you can imagine it, I wasn't very popular.

If we continue to play imagination based games as adults without children, people look at us and think that we are mentally challeged, or insane. To this I say to you:

"I am an airplane, flying through life untouched by gravity."

"I am an olympic downhill skier, about to win my 10th Gold Medal."

"I am a dinosaur hunter out to bag the biggest T-Rex ever seen."

What, you can't see it?

I'm sorry! I truely am, but know that just because you are unable to understand, doesn't mean that I am not any of the things above. And without imagination, your life must be outrageously boring, maybe I'm not sorry for you, but I feel pitty none the less. Your everyday life must be excruciating, caught in reality as you are. Unable to fly, or swim the seas, stuck in a cubicle surrounded by silent snores. When my thoughts are at their most unbound, I couldn't even imagine something so cruel. So I am sorry.

Am I insane? Maybe. But I'm okay with it, now if you'll excuse me. I'm about run into a burning building, and save some co-workers trapped in a blaze. "Our Hero!" they'll exclaim, then lift me onto their soot covered shoulders and say, "Someone give him the key to the city!"

"Don't forget that without our imaginations, we would never have achieved anything. People saw the Wright brothers as insane... and they managed to create a flying machine." - Timothy Ralston

Then he said...

For the last few months, I have been feeling trapped. Like a bear in a, well... a trap. (Wasn't as creative as I would have liked.) It has continuously gotten worse, and worse. My job, my home, and with everyone I know. More and more weight pressing down on my shoulders until all my insides were ready to squish out my eyeballs. (How's that for creative?) I have been considering life, and who I was before now.

At one point I was carefree, I lived everyday without worry of consequence. Then one day, it changed. I can't pinpoint when it did, I can't even tell you what caused it. However something flipped, and I got comfortable with my discomfort. Suddenly I was drowning in my own life. Trying to survive, afraid to let loose, of what people thought of me. I was no longer free to be me. (Stupid non-creative bear trap...)

I just can't take it anymore! You can probably tell from my previous post that I have had it up to here (You can't see it, by my hand is really high) with all the crap that is being pushed on top of me... on top of us! Bills galore, politicians making decisions for us that has nothing to do with them, 80 hour work weeks, and not nearly enough time. Then tonight, I had what many therapists (I have problems with the fact that word spells "the rapist") might call a breakthrough.

I said, "FUCK IT!"

I am done with the bullshit I'm swimming in. Take a good look, because I am back, and this time... I'm here to stay. My thoughts, are not yours to control. In fact, they are the only thing keeping me sane. My body is my own, and where it goes, who it knows, and what it sees. Is up to me. Your oppinions matter too.... to you. What I think about you doesn't matter, what your mother, sister, uncle, minister, or third grade teacher thinks... is obtuse, and only important to them. I am tired of being afraid of where I am going, solely because someone may not like it.

And with that realization... He lived happily ever after.

No one else to blame...

Went to bed last night in a world of Technicolor, woke up this morning surrounded by gray. What happened to make me feel this way? Living in a world of people who don’t give a damn, constantly bombarded by hatred and small mindedness, it’s exhausting, it’s depressing, and it’s what we all deal with every day. But I have to ask myself why? Why is it this way? Who was the person who started this snowball rolling downhill of dark and dreary dismay? Then I trace my finger back through history at the excuses of misery thrown around like a child throwing snowballs with friends. We have replaced happiness with desire for something more, something that doesn’t exist. We have placed our belief in God, or Grace, or whatever you might call it. We have washed our hands clean of our mistakes by saying that it was meant to be… well guess what. It isn’t meant to be, things are not supposed to be this way. We use our faith in a higher power as an excuse to be evil and cruel to people who don’t believe. We have removed the possibility of forgiveness because we think that we have already been forgiven. I don’t forgive you, not any of you, you have not even tried to do anything worthy of that. I see someone broken on the street, and my heart bleeds, I feel their pain, I feel their sorrows. And you just walk by, pretending that they don’t exist. Maybe they are homeless, maybe that will be you one day, that is when I will scoff at the beggar lying at my feet. “Please, Please!” You’ll cry, and I will ask if you remembered when it was you standing in my shoes? That’s not true, I could never be so callous, I could never ignore the ignorance and cause more disdain. A helping hand is all you need, and then I’ll pray that your eyes will finally open past what you see, so you might feel what your actions and words do to others. It’s time to care about something more than what meets the eye, because one day we all will die. That’s life’s one certainty, that’s the one thing rich or poor we all share. Not one of us the better, we’re truly all the same... No one else to blame. Except ourselves, and that’s the shame…