Because because because

The many differences that set each of us apart inevitably and inexorably force us back into the realms of conformity. We are all different, which makes us all the same. Thus, the many facets of blogging all force us into one, common hobby. We have all our own pages, our own words, yet we all must be thrust into the same capacity as a means of expression.

Well, I guess these capacities and media can vary, but in general, we as a modern society rely on cinema, music, blogging/writing, reading, gardening, running/exercising, playing video games, watching TV, sleeping, eating and any number forms of excess, superfluous action in order to assert what we hope and think is our individuality and what we hope gives meaning to our lives.

Yet we carry on, often without the thought of life in the absence of meaning. Does life have to have a purpose? Is there necessarily a crux or cruces that make our lives worthwhile?


I think not. Our lives should be worthwhile already without any added flavor.

But I guess it does help to have something for which we focus and into which we delve our noblest efforts and thoughts. The meditative among us wish to extend an invitation. Enjoy.



Let the Rivers and Rivulets, Pt. 1
A Short Story About One Man's Place in the World (or Lack Thereof)

The rocks that lined the Colorado River had seen their fair share of rough times. Millions of years had colored, shaped and thus defined them to their identities and their place along the banks of the often turbulent, always uncaring waters. There seemed to be an unnecessary anger to the motion of the Colorado's waves, and indeed to many waters familiar or unchartered. Nature minds her own, with little regard for the frivolities that are human desire.

Gary was minding his own as well, as he watched the water fall smoothly and succinctly into Feldman's Creek that flowed violently into Feldman's Lake. A lake, in Gary's mind, was a beautiful thing. So too, was the concept of an angry river. Feldman's Creek was no Colorado, but nor was it the gentle, passive and submissive rivulet that so often appeared along the sidewalks after a hard rain, disappearing with an hour of sunlight as the water rode quietly below the asphalt into their temporary homes, the sewers. Those lonely tunnels were foster homes to the orphaned rainwater, collected into a network of tubes and channels, finally placing them in a new home, once again without regard for their own desires. Too much is out of our control, but somehow, there is an order to things.

Feldman's Creek was simply a place to watch the water release its frustration. Feldman's water had no control over its fate. The water was comfortable somewhere, undisturbed and certainly not complaining, until it was forced to fall, as if nature deigned to drop all things, push all things off a cliff to her own liking. The water had no choice to go where it had to, but nor did it give up easily. No, Feldman's water was determined to fight until it was forced into submission by the clutching claws of the lake. The lake, it seemed, was a likely sedative to tame the wild nature of Feldman, but the creek had no such calm, no such submission. The creek made manifest all the contained anger, the bound rage the waters must have felt once subjugated to the inevitability of fate. And of course, this anger is again quelled by fate's forceful hand.

But Gary loved watching the creek scream and thrash. It calmed him to watch the waters fight against the inevitable. In the end, they must lose, as all things must, but their fight, their unending battle to escape their destiny brought hope in Gary's eyes. The taciturn life he led was made righteous because there would always be someone or something else fighting when he could not. Gary could settle for that. In a sense, he had to settle for that. The waters that settled in the lake had to settle, but maybe they felt better knowing that others still fought against nature and her uncaring plans.

Gary was the lake. He had no fight in him, and only remembered the fights that once were, the battles that raged and shaped him into his calm, uneventful life as it was now. He had drive once, Gary did, and it was a drive that thrashed every bit as much, if not more than these waters in front of him now did. Gary was old and had given up. His fights were battles lost and won, tiresome in their majesty and grandiosity. He was 18.