Van's Journal: Year 5

 2003-Dec-16 | 2003-Dec-01 | 2003-Oct-23 | 2003-Sep-26 | 2003-Sep-21 | 2003-Sep-08 | 2003-Sep-04 | 2003-Sep-04 | 2003-Aug-31 | 2003-Aug-30 | 2003-Aug-26 | 2003-Aug-24 | 2003-Aug-18 | 2003-Aug-15 | 2003-Aug-03 | 2003-Jun-04 | 2003-May-31 | 2003-Apr-26 | 2003-Feb-28 | 2003-Feb-01 | 2003-Jan-22 | 2002-Dec-19

2003-12-16 : I grew up in the state that boasts the highest per-capita contribution to literature of any state in the union. I was surrounded by veritable steel magnolias, those women from a tradition that discovered the strength of the fairer sex hundreds of years before the womens' movement that outcast them for the unforgivable sin of serving their culture and their families before themselves. I saw antebellum mansions on my way to school every morning, weeping willows on a friend's plantation, and proud churches boasting their age compared to the others on the Mississippi. I went to college and traveled. I knew I needed more to become the person I wanted to be. I took a trip around this nation, where I met old souls from around the world who shared my quest for knowledge. I sat in prayer meetings with Christians who banished me to Hell for the decisions I've made in life, yet we all remained civilized. I spoke to vitriolic liberals who would not listen to my views, and who I thought just needed to sit down to some ice tea and relax. I didn't know why, but I knew I had to go to India. There, I learned what it meant to need people. The prime minister of Zimbabwe gave me a nod. The prime minister of India's doctor checked on my medical condition. Lonely travelers in Iceland listened to my dreams in life. The child of a long line of low-caste servants brought me a glass of water. I walked on ice-covered shores and breathed barren desert winds.

I have seen a world that is bigger than me. To make that realization may seem so small to most people, but to me it's.... it's huge. Pay attention, people. In this entry, I'm talking about the external world instead of the internal one. That's significant.

Two years ago almost to the day, I graduated college, and due to circumstances mostly beyond my control, no job was waiting for me as planned. Following would come a painful odyssey of two years and over a thousand job applications to all over the country and the world. It was like an invisible wall kept me from getting what I thought I wanted, even though it seemed that I did everything right. I was able to secure less-than-what-I-wanted employment, but I was never happy with it. Thankfully, I never got what I wanted, and I am a better person for it. I have come to realize that over the past few months, and assumed that whatever professional aspirations I had were a justifiable sacrifice.

But yesterday, I received a job offer that places me in a position as if I had never been gone for those two years. Why was I a desirable candidate? Partially because of everything else I had done in those two years. I am going to be traveling all over the world. Go figure. I guess that should teach me not to stress over things, but it probably won't.

I haven't realized the ramifications of all this yet. I think I will soon. I think it will all hit me in the weeks to come. Plus I am having a hard time writing at the moment, since I caught this flu that's going around.

But for now, I know this is a closing of the first major chapter in my life. Or, since I am such the attention whore, let's call it the first act of this play. Even if it all ended now, this has been an amazing life. I wish I had something else to say, but I don't have the words. But they will come. They always do.

(Lights dim)

(Curtains fall)

(Act I - Fin)

2003-12-01 : In sixteen days, I have to face myself. Still, I am not sure what I'm going to say. In sixteen days, I am going to look back on words addressed to "myself of the future," who is now the me of the present.

If I had to guess, I would say that I would look back and summarize this year as learning the value of surrender. While I have not given up on making every effort to determine my destiny, I have begun to learn that some things I cannot control, perhaps the most important among these being other people.

Surrender flew in the face of everything I was, and surrender is what I knew I had to do. Actually, no, I didn't know. I guessed. I had faith. I took actions I somehow felt were right, even if I consciously didn't know why, like some kind of divine hand pushing me through an odyssey, its only requirement that I not question how the situation would unfold. And perhaps I haven't learned how to surrender as completely as I hope to, but somehow I know that what I do now is Right. I may be wrong. I may be deluding myself. But if I tried to compensate for all these contingencies, that would not be surrender. It would be business as usual.

I once knew a devout Christian who adopted his faith because it was the only thing that saved him when he was relegated to a military school in Nigeria. He learned surrender early on, because something external saved him. I wonder how my personality and my life would have unfolded differently if some external force swooped down and saved me, showed me that I was vulnerable, made me feel small next to its awesome power, and sent me unmistakable signs that I was not in charge.

Now surrender flows over me, like a cool river slowly eroding the jagged edges of my past. It is both healing and melancholy, evoking gratification for its arrival, uncertainty about this new way of life, and nostalgia for the person I used to be. I said that the entire culture of my own painstaking design is calling me to the floor. So it has. And in sixteen days when I force myself to face that culture--a culture that looks far different now than it did a year ago--is all I have to show this new river of surrender? And if it is, will I walk out a failure, or be hailed for my genius? I guess I won't really know. December 17 is a date I designated, not a time fate set to offer me a cut-and-dry answer. But I will continue to take the next step that I think is Right. The rest is left to forces beyond my control.

Sixteen days. Sixteen days.

2003-10-23 : Yesterday I received word that I have a temporary job in Norfolk. I have to leave this Sunday to take it, though. I have been priming myself for maneuverability over stability in an effort to change the way I approach the world. I suppose this is the test of those capabilities, handed to me like a blessing on a silver platter. I think this is the eye of the needle I must fly through to get on to the next stage of my life.

In other news, I believe I have discovered my purpose in life. In fact, just a few months ago, I didn't even think people had purposes. I'm changing my mind. But I need to reflect more and make sure before I write it into the permanent record here.

For the past several years, I have been working on giving up control. I have been working on surrender to the world, to people, to things beyond my abilities to influence. I have invested an enormous amount of my time and energy into this endeavor. I have given up almost everything inside myself. I feel that those investments and sacrifices are about to be tested. I fucking better be everything I'm now cracked up to be, or I'm going to be majorly pissed.

I'm very busy with getting ready to leave now, so I can't write with the depth and elegance I would prefer. I must prepare this ship for departure.

Release the docking clamps, boys. Let's see what she can do.

2003-09-26 : I didn't realize the significance of what happened until a few hours after the fact. I was getting ready for bed, and when it struck me, I knew I had to come here to write it.

Today I was actually disappointed to find that somebody asked for my web site address to show his friends my pictures rather than to read one of the various texts I'd written.

I didn't need somebody to find me physically attractive. For a moment, I was disappointed that he was more interested in seeking out external beauty rather than an inner value I'd have rather communicated.

The healing after the conquer of body image issues is working. My God. It's working.

2003-09-21 : Today I need to talk about love.

And here I must compensate for some shortcomings in the English language. I don't mean the kind of love between a married couple or the bond between two friends. I mean the unconditional love of something just for being what it is. It's the kind of underlying love which exists from parent child or, if we look at Christianity's Bible, from God to people.

It is this type of love that I want to feel—that I believe we should all feel—for humanity. It does not mean we can't be mad, it does not mean we can't hurt a person, it does not mean we can't defend ourselves against hostile individuals. But it does mean that no matter what act a person commits, that person is still fundamentally beautiful, worthy of the unconditional love every human was born to receive.

I found this kind of love within me. As a flawed human, I am sure that sometimes I do not act as if I have it. But it exists in my soul everywhere, as a background to everything. I didn't put it there. I don't know how it got there. But I know it's in me, in every fiber of my being, in every cell of my body, in every breath of my lungs. It allows me to look at a world of wars and hunger, and at the end of the day feel enough joy over the beauty of humanity to never be tempted to give up on it.

Humans are flawed. Sometimes we have to correct people. Sometimes we have to destroy people. But never do we have to stop loving a human as another one of us.

This love, however, must start at home. I am flawed. Sometimes I need correcting. And who knows, some day I may have to be destroyed. But I, like all people, still deserve my love in spite of my flaws.

This journal is not meant to shock or to get attention or to serve as a cry for help. It is here in a large part to affirm that yes, I am a flawed human being, and yes, many thoughts go through my mind that people would rather not deal with. Sometimes here, I am beautiful. Sometimes I am ugly. Sometimes I am eloquent or clumsy or perverted or angry or sexual or reckless. But with every posting, I affirm an unconditional love of self, for all the world to see. Some people get angry at that, as my way of granting myself absolution flies in the face of their way of life. But sometimes somebody says, "I had no idea anybody else felt like that. I thought I was alone. Now I'm not." And with them I am a little less alone. Then this flawed universe is a little smaller and a little less hostile.

All of me is not in this journal, as that would be impossible to write. But I make every effort to see that every entry in this journal is me. To ask me to censor it or clean it or make it more palatable to the culture is to tell me that who I am is not valid, that some parts of me should be shut behind a door so that society would not have to see a truth about me. The scary thing is that a lot of these truths are not just about me. They are what countless individuals before me have been, and what the culture as a whole has often felt.

I believe that peace with ourselves, like peace on Earth, comes in appreciating the beauty of our common humanity, and knowing that our works cannot determine the level of love we deserve from our fellow people. All we can do is accept this into our own hearts and live it out in our every day lives.

Let there be peace on Earth. And let it begin with me.

2003-09-08 : I've been so moody lately. At first I thought I was just going through a little emotional phase because of various shit in my life. But now I think this is the new order of things. And the more I think about it, the more I realize this isn't really new, it's natural. I've just been intellectualizing my moods for years, smoothing them over, keeping them from rising to the surface. I used to be constant, as still as a river.

Now I have actually started snapping back at some people. Me! Snapping back! Can you believe that? I have some good comebacks, too. Didn't know I had it in me. I've gotten angry at people. I used to only get angry when I intellectually believed it was warranted or useful. It feels weird. I've felt deep pits of depression that would last a few hours, where I mellow out as if under a sedative. I feel depressed, but at the same time, I enjoy feeling emotion so freely. Then I get all excited and am back to my usual need to waste energy by jumping around. This morning I was so filled with angst that I started walking and running and jogging, and I couldn't stop for several miles. Then I spiraled into a mellow depression. Then I got excited and jumped around while babbling to people. Then I got angsty and put energy into doing my work. Then I was on the verge of tears and could barely handle talking to anybody. Then I started jumping around again. No buffers. No mind preventing volatility, no opening and closing channels of emotion to maintain equilibrium. No feeling of responsibility to the society to perform within normal parameters.

This is not part of my identity. I'm the calm one. I'm the one people know will maintain a level head. I'm the strong one that doesn't need other people. And now that identity is shattered. This is what I asked for. And now I understand that maybe I'm not naturally the calm one. Maybe sometimes I'm allowed to not be completely rational. Maybe sometimes I can need somebody else to rely on. To what extent, though? That's a question that will have to be answered in a new identity.

I think I need to let it run loose like this for a little while to break away some old barriers, and to get it all out of my system. So many thoughts flooding in that evoke so many different emotions.

Intellect, meet Emotion. Emotion, meet Intellect. It's about time I introduced you two. Now run along and fuck. I can't wait to see what you two can do when you're together.

2003-09-04 : Today I realized something. I hate computers. I've only always liked what they could get me in life. It's about time I did something about that.

2003-09-04 : "The Roman state bolstered its authority and legitimacy with the trappings of ceremony.... Power is a far more complex and mysterious quality than any apparently simple manifestation of it would appear. It is as much a matter of impression, of theatre, of persuading those over whom authority is wielded to collude in their subjugation. Insofar as power is a matter of presentation, its cultural currency in antiquity (and still today) was the creation, manipulation, and display of images. In the propagation of the imperial office, at any rate, art was power." (Quoting Jás Elsner, Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph: The Art of the Roman Empire AD 100-450 (1998). p. 53.)

My mind desired power. My soul desired expression. I think the two conspired against me.

What an elegant system it was, too. I can still see the endless marble columns that projected an establishment, as if it was always the establishment, would always be the establishment, and that there was no question of the establishment's right to play out its role until the end of time.

Few people create such theatrical images of themselves as I. Just read this journal to see iconography at its finest (and often at its most insidious). In those images, I persuaded myself to uphold the establishment I created. I sired an identity that fed on and reaffirmed itself, like an entire family whose justification behind their odd behavior is simply, "The Buxtons do not do that!" It truly was something self-contained and almost impossible to destroy. It required little to survive except its own masturbatory behavior.

Now that system lies shattered on the ground, the pieces of what was once a great empire—or at least, what I portrayed as a great empire.

Now I run knocking down marble columns as far as the eye can see, smashing stained glass windows, and tearing down walls. Now I command the tides of emotion to break from their canals and overrun the cities, condemning the citizenry to a hopeless last attempt at surviving the rapture they thought could never come. Like the self I have so painfully worked to bring to the surface, I bring forth mighty mountains from the Earth to forever change the grounds on which ivory towers once stood. In a teary rage blinded by a catharsis long past its prime, I feel the passion of the iconoclast coursing through my veins. With every new debris pile, I feel the satisfaction of a famished hunter tearing meat from the bone of his prey. And with my prey's every whimper as I rip apart his body, I laugh through blood-stained teeth.

Not that long ago, I warned those parts of myself that would attempt to age me. I just remembered that.

But the iconoclast who destroys without thought is doomed to an overthrow by the next revolution. I may smash the images of power, but I will not destroy the books—the knowledge, wisdom, experience and understanding gained from a system that actually did a lot of things right. Instead, I will take that knowledge for what it is worth and let it live or die by its own merits, not by its association with the imperialists.

Now is the time I must gather the fallen pieces of everything that was right. I must pull them all together as part of myself rather than disperse bureaucracies that had their voices so perverted by the time ideas were expressed. Let the dust and debris coalesce on this black background of the unknown, and let the universe see that as it comes together by its own gravity, it will become a star. And let that star be held together not by an ordered system, but as a rage of violent explosions that balance out an attraction so great that it would otherwise collapse in on itself, to be forever alone in the dark. Then, may it be by fate of the universe or a design yet unknown, let that star cast off its shell in a nova so that it can say, at least in the end, that it gave itself back to the universe from whence it came.

Right now, timing is everything. I must make decisions soon, lest I forever be little more than a cloud of dust, always with potential, but never a star.

2003-08-31 : I don't know what to do.

2003-08-30 : Last night I dressed like a slut, basically. It was part of a costume for Southern Decadence in New Orleans. That's the way I get the best of both worlds, you know. I get to be the center of attention, which my personality desperately desires, and at the same time, I maintain a safe amount of introversion. The outfit separates me from others. It's like being on stage.

Two different men offered me money for sex while there. I declined, of course. Though in retrospect, I should have asked how much they were offering, just out of curiosity of what my going rate would be.

That wasn't the first time I've received an offer like that. When I was beginning in college, because of some other decisions I was making, I had a fear--one which turned out to be completely irrational--that my parents would cut me off before I was financially self-sufficient. I talked to a trustworthy man who offered to set me up as some kind of higher class prostitute, though I didn't really know why he had me in mind. Anybody could give blow jobs at the bus station, but this situation (which I checked out for legitimacy pretty well) was more. There were obviously way better looking guys around campus who were probably a lot more desperate than I. But there was apparently a market for somebody who could do more than fuck. They had to have somebody that could make them feel better about themselves, I guess. And if anything, I tended to be good at that. At the time, I still had the massive bureaucracy. And I didn't take that route because it said that I would be making "a tactically unwise decision which would complicate long-term plans." It was probably right.

Shit, I don't know why I'm writing this now. I've never really talked about it before. Or even had a desire to talk about it. I guess I do know why now. I'm no longer defended. It's never bothered me before, when somebody has extended an offer like that. I've been offered everything from an ambiguous but small amount for simple services, all the way into the tens of thousands of dollars for situations a lot more complex. I didn't really know why me. It's not like it happens very often, but for it to happen just once is odd. I mean, I'm reasonably cute in a puppy dog sort of way, but I'm not sexy, I'm not obscenely attractive, and a lot of way better looking guys could be bought for less. I think I eventually came to understand I just had something that those people were looking for. Maybe they wanted a kid to fill a void in themselves, and I guess I always knew that deep down. And for some reason, I represented a kid to them. That is odd, since I'm definitely not a kid. I wasn't even a kid when I was a kid. But maybe that little grain of youth and innocence that I worked so hard to preserve--the same grain that was surrounded by mounds of endless bureaucracy and rules for its own protection--just showed through a little. I hardly want to say it out loud. It seems conceited. But maybe they sensed what I was preserving. It seems so vain to think that. I'm not the best looking guy, and they've told me as much. But I had something else they wanted.

I guess when everything hit me all at once was just a few days ago. A man offered me money and resources to pick up, move to New York City (my dream), and get a real job. I dismissed the offer for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that I did not want to make that kind of exchange. The odd thing is that with the exchange he had in mind, it wasn't even physical. It was psychological. And I don't know exactly how to say this, but.... I'm not going to play that game. They view me as a child, but I'm not. If I went down that road, I would take advantage of people, I would know exactly where to push their nerves. I would get them to trust me, then tell me about their fathers, then use the information to get what I wanted from them. And all the time, I'd just be the good little kid, who's way too old to be a kid, but they refuse to see that. I would rarely have to give much of anything, except a little piece of my soul, every time money changed hands. I never had to worry about the temptation to do that before. I had an automatic institution that waved every thought like that away.

A couple nights ago, I was hungry. Really, really hungry. And I had gone over my food budget for the week. I stared into the fridge, and saw something. It was some egg drop soup a friend left over here by accident the previous day. I grinned, mumbled "Sucker," and snatched it. I wolfed it down so fast. And as I finished the last drop, my spirits suddenly fell. My head hung down. I whispered to myself, "I can't do this any more." It's not just the food budget. I can chalk that up to nostalgia in the making. It's the constant fear of what's going to happen to me without a real job, without any money, without a safety net, and most of all, that constant fear in the back of my mind that one day, perhaps, I might be forced to end up back in my home town, that I would be tempted to use family connections to get a decent job there, that I would live out the rest of my days in a place that was never meant to be my home. And I know that if that happened, in every way that matters, I would die. Especially now.

And for the first time, I was tempted. For the first time I thought that it's almost as easy as just asking for a few thousand dollars, and getting it. And this time, no police emerged to destroy the though. Nothing was there to make real temptations irrelevant. For a moment, I was scared living without bureaucracy.

I'm not going to do that. Even with the collapse of both bureaucracy and long-term plans, it's still a tactically unwise decision. No matter how sharp I might be, it's dangerous. And no matter how well I deal with it psychologically, I know I would still give up a little piece of myself every time, even if I didn't physically give anything back in exchange for money. In doing that, I would destroy what attracted them to begin with--a type of ageless innocence, as best as I can tell. Then all that would be left would be an empty shell that manipulates peoples' emotions, much like the empty shell I was quickly becoming in a cold bureaucracy growing bigger than myself.

Still, when I turned down one very large offer saying I wasn't for sale, he just casually responded that he liked it better that way since it left me unattainable. And that hurt. Bad. It made me not a person, but just a part of his fantasy, something that existed as part of his mind to fill something he lacked in himself. Everything was implicitly about him. That's what taking money would mean. Two weeks ago, that wouldn't have phased me. I would have felt sorry for what he lacked, and an automatic procedure would have dismissed it.

The wind couldn't knock down my little house of cards. I had to. I hope I did the right thing.

2003-08-26 : I just realized something I never noticed before. In any sexual fantasy I've had in all of my life, no matter what the situation, no matter if it was a man or a woman, nobody has ever said, "I love you." I've said it. But in my fantasies, nobody has ever said it back. And I can't make them.

It's a scary world out there when you stop hiding in a maze of bureaucracy. Scary as hell.

2003-08-24 : Sometimes I worry that living off the flames of destruction of my old self is a wicked sin, destined to bring about chaos when there is nothing left to burn. I try to live in the fire as if it were a drug, feeling the change course through my body, burning away the flesh of my obese personality. And in brief, terrifying moments, I wonder if that drug is merely an escape so I don't have to think about giving up everything that brings me comfort. Is this really a positive change, like the proverbial optimist who throws everything away for a dream? Or is it rather like a junkie, giving up one addiction for another, always looking for a new escape. I escaped in a labyrinth of rules before, so do I escape into a fire of change now?

But when I think I am burning it all away for nothing, I remind myself that I am like a person living on the street, carrying needless possessions for no other reason than they are all I have. A morsel of food that could never quench my hunger is a chip worth gambling. And that is all I have had, really—an empire of morsels, each one of them a piece of me to drag through life, but not a one providing enough nourishment to offer anything but bare survival.

Let potential offer hope, and uncertainty offer excitement. I have never experienced this combination before, but from what I can tell, it can be a lot of fun. For the first time in my life, I might be burning myself into ashes from which I just might never rise. For the first time in my life, I feel human.

2003-08-18 : Funny thing about bureaucracy. A little of it is always needed, but too often it is used to compensate for inadequacies in other areas. Sometimes the beliefs a person holds or the culture an organization takes on is not enough to accomplish the goals that people desire. Thus, they add bureaucracy based on the belief that new rules can somehow make their dreams come true.

If anybody is guilty of that, it's me. I am the most bureaucratic person I know. I have improved, no doubt. It used to be that when someone pointed out a problem I have, it took two years for me to act on it. Now it takes a matter of weeks or days. But still, all I have done is downsized bureaucracy, not eliminated its need.

Not too long ago, I walked out on old ways. It was a momentous journal entry. The point is not so much that I have just eliminated bureaucracy, but that I no longer need it. Now, I have love of self to take the place of faith in a plan. Essentially, I no longer need laws to accomplish what my culture now performs on its own.

Should my resolve hold, this is the last time I will address disperse parts of my personality. From this time forward, there is no "we," there is only "I." From this time forward, every tradition must prove its present justification against core principles. Those traditions which cannot meet this standard are to die immediately. Those remaining are now up for adjustment.

All physical possessions not immediately necessary for living are to be liquidated. They only hold back physical mobility and tie the whole down to meaningless geographic locations. I will make a list of everything I absolutely need, which is not to exceed that which I can carry in the back seat of my car. Everything else shall be jettisoned as soon as possible.

Those people in my life who do not offer any short or long term contribution are to now be phased out, gracefully if possible, suddenly if necessary.

There are no more two-year cycles as there were before. Everything I have mentioned does not happen over a set length of time, but instead it happens now. Immediately.

I realize this sends a major shock through the entire system. I realize many aspects of my persona will not survive. Those of you that die, I am glad to see you go.

Let every corner of my persona now know that you are either part of I, or you are dead. There is no in between, and there is no escaping my wrath. You will either prove your validity, or you will find yourself crushed under my fist.

With these words, let the carnage of the past few months be drowned out by the sea of blood that now will flow.

Make it so.

2003-08-15 : ALL STOP. I want to address the whole of this ship.

Thank you for being patient and keeping your resolve in times where my direction yields no fruit. As you know, resolve is only an asset when paired with the correct course. You may have felt you would lose faith. So have I. If nothing else, I have shown my ability to stay committed to a plan. But commitment to a plan gone awry is that phenomenon which drives people and organizations into the ground. I will not do that to this ship, to myself.

The plan failed. It's over. You know it, I know it, and it's about damn time somebody said it. That is why I have called an all stop. This course is no longer Right.

But this does not mean I am about to fly apart. The abilities of my whole, my intellectual assets, my social capital, will all work to different ends if they have a unifying direction. Faith in the whole was always justified. But for a brief time, faith in the plan was misplaced.

The fountain of eternal youth is that which is found in people who are continually reborn. It is holding on to eternal principles while letting go of inhibiting traditions. It is realizing that Truth lies not in a plan, but in a state of existence. That state—that form—can tend toward success and failure of certain goals, and those goals may change over my life. My form should change with them. And in that change guided by unwavering principles, I now resolve to be forever adaptive to the world, but in all the ways that matter, eternal.

This is my promise to myself. And this is why you will never again have to risk losing faith. Hold steady, and await further orders.

2003-08-03 : As I think back on some entries I have made this year, I can't help but think about how removed I am from my problems. Maybe it's a defense mechanism. I talk a lot about resolve and dedication which granted, I have plenty of. But come on, people. Let's talk about something real. Let's talk about real problems and real goals that aren't internalized abstractions.

I'm not going to lie. I'm a very, very lonely person, more so now than I have been in a long time. I graduated from college about 19 months ago now, and I still have not landed a "real" job in spite of doing everything right. Or at least, I thought I did everything right. The people working relatively high up at LSU who knew me were even more amazed than I was that nobody hired me. It was almost as if the hand of God reached down and stopped it from happening. I've gone over in my mind a thousand times what I could have done differently. Sometimes I think about it on those nights when I have nothing to do, and I just stare at the ceiling alone for hours on end. I keep telling myself I have no right to complain, because I've managed to get some money coming in to support me from various semi-jobs, and I have parents on the outside who make sure nothing drastic happens to me. I have way more than a lot of people in my situation. I've also been fortunate enough to take three major trips in my effort to use the time off from big responsibilities as best I can. So every time I sit down to write about how I feel, I just think that I shouldn't complain. In the grand scheme of things, I have it made.

The truth is that I don't want to write about it. I want to talk about it. But I've blocked myself off from being able to do that. I stopped forming personal relationships two years ago, when I told everybody I'd be leaving, and felt I had a responsibility not to lead anyone on. After all, it just wouldn't have been right to get somebody emotionally attached to me only to fly away to another city. And since then, I've had the same philosophy. But now it's more than that. I don't feel right burdening anybody else with problems of my making. And I still feel that this is a problem of my making. Granted, I was faced with a drastic change in circumstances, but I should have planned for that better. I should have known that the dot-com boom had to bust. I should have factored in that it was possible for a massive terrorist event to take place that would change the face of the entire economy. I should have seen the signs of a sudden rush of jobs from here to India. And just because hardly anybody else saw it either does not make it any more excusable.

Some days I'm so incredibly lonely. Part of me feels guilty for not doing more to solve that, but another part would feel guilty if I used people as a remedy.

Some days I feel like a failure. I feel like I've failed everybody and everything that has ever put faith in me. And while my still healthy, rational mind keeps me from doing anything stupid, some days I don't understand why I should even be on this Earth. I feel useless. I feel like a total drain on a society that would be better off without my existence.

I've rated my ability to handle a situation like this at about two years. That's 24 months. It's getting close. I'm scared. I know I won't do anything to my life, but I am worried about my mind. I'm worried about the goals in life I have, about the goals for personal achievement and growth. I'm worried about what will happen to all the various factions of my persona when they start to lose faith that resolve isn't enough. And perhaps that's where I'm loneliest. Trapped even in my mind, I don't know what to tell the rest of me when I have no results to back up everything I said I was capable of. I am a cohesive person, faithful in myself. But that faith will only go so far, and I'm starting to wonder how long I can keep it up. I'm so scared. And so alone. And I don't know how to ask for help, or even how to take it if it's offered. I don't know what to do. I'm sorry.

2003-06-04 : OK, those two biggest issues are done. I'm cleaning house, people. Who's next? Anybody? You sure? Two ass-beatins for the price of one, limited time offer only! No? Awww come on, I know you're out there. I'll find you. And now I actually have room to move around. If you thought I was bad before, watch out.

2003-05-31 : I'm still in survival mode, and I don't know why. Change is hard, of course. Years ago, my management of my internal affairs, and my persona to the outside world, took two vastly diverging paths to cope with what I felt like what was a matter of life and death. The inside became a dictatorial state to bring order to chaos, like a desperate team of do-gooders trying whatever they can to improve their third-world nation. The outside took on a completely non-interventionist persona, choosing to stay by itself to minimize external influence over the inside, and to protect others from the dangerous chaos I perceived in myself. As the inside accomplished its goal of bringing order beyond my best expectations, the result was a person becoming a monolith completely secure in its own security, uninterested in interfering with the lives of others, and completely defensive of others interfering with matters under the domain of my own "sovereignty." The inside was so successful that it carried with it the kind of moral authority and reverence that causes organizations to stagnate. The persona was endowed by such a reverence from itself, that the thought of fundamental changes became heresy.

It is in that strong self-management that I find my security. Even as it begins to fail in the face of new objectives and changing environments, I don't want to leave it for fear that what replaces it could never serve me as well. I don't have the words to describe what this kind of fundamental personal change means to me.

The style of self-governance was created in a time when I felt like I had nobody to accept me, no place that would take me, no institution that would want to acknowledge me. It was charged with the awesome mandate of replacing family, religion, people, and institutions, so that I would not have to rely on any of them. I always personified this system in my head to look something like a James Earl Jones type character, smartly dressed, powerful, somewhat understanding, and always able to make a decision. To try to express what leaving this system means, I will refer to it as it has been personified.

When I say I am leaving him, it means more than a mere change of course in life. He does not look back and say, "Good luck, I'll enjoy my retirement." He looks back to me, square in the eye as my father, and says, "How can you forsake me, after all I have given to you?" He points at me from the altar of a Cathedral and demands to know how I can turn my back on this Church. With his eyes filled with tears, he wants to know how, after all this time, I could leave my best friend, the only thing I could ever bring myself to believe in. He evokes senses of duty, obligation and intimacy all at once, with many voices, but in one chorus more powerful than anything I ever had to confront. With my universe looking back at me, he says, "You would rise up like maggots from the Earth to devour my flesh, leaving only my bones to hold the world upon my back."

Hearing my father, my church, my friend say this brings feelings I forgot existed. But my tears won't cloud my moral clarity. With them streaming from my eyes, all I can say back is, "It is not your world to hold."

With uncharacteristic desperation, he says, "Now is not the time for this. Dissolve me after you have been delivered from here, after you start a new life."

And he has a point. But what are humans, if not experiments? What are we, if not individual stars contributing to a collective sky, who destroy their individuality only by their choices never to go nova. The way I am now is self-important to such an extent that it destroys my ability to make my life the experiment it should be. Only through the freedom gained in realizing that I am but one star in the sky will I truly realize my goals. Besides, a wise man once told me that I'm not that smart. That all we humans can do, the flawed and lonely beings that we are, is to plant seeds as best we can and see what grows. I have made plans, but truth be told, I will probably never be wise enough to know exactly when this change should occur. So, the time is now.

With that, I walk out of the front porch, leaving only the sound of the screen door falling shut behind me to echo in my father's ears. My footsteps reverberate with sin on the marble Cathedral floors. The last sound I hear is that of a weeping friend.

After this is finally done, I don't know where to go. I'm scared and alone and know that eventually, the world will fail me in countless ways, and whisk me to countless new adventures. All I know is that this is the first step.

Through all my fear and depression, though, I still know that this is the glorious experiment of humanity. In that I always find a smile.

2003-04-26 : I always said that we are a lonely species. We have an absolute boundary as individuals, and a natural desire as a component of the universe to be a part of something larger. We seek to derive meaning in our lives in religious faith, or in political activism, or in our children, or in a person we love. Through these tangible gateways to the universe around us, we gain identity to satisfy our need to belong, and unparalleled misery at its loss.

Many years ago, I adopted an axiom stating that the best way to reach out to people was to approach every person, no matter who they are, on the basis of certain universal human desires, among these the need to exist as part of something greater. Through my countless human follies in life, this axiom has ensured my ability to maintain ties with a precious few diverse people who transcend cultures and ways of life and points of view.

But in addition to supporting diversity, the axiom had a side effect that I never intended. It supports intimacy. The moment we see how somebody reaches to join the world is the moment where we have unfathomable power to capture their heart or to rip it apart. I fear that power. Yet, I use it.

Never do we see more lonely people than those who grabbed to join and had their hand chopped away. Their wounds heal to a stub, seemingly forever transformed into an inhuman extremity that will never again reach out to touch. With them I feel helpless, for they are a thousand times as hard to convince to reach out, and I can cause a thousand times as much damage if I fail them.

I don't know that my hand was ever chopped off. Rather, I think I tried to use it too many times when there was nothing to grab. Today I hold it close to my side, waiting for the day when I can leave. And why? Maybe sometime along the way of my life, I decided that I was in the wrong environment, and that no amount of effort would yield an elegant match. At least, not without sacrificing the core that is me. So, I started preparing to leave.

I keep telling people I won't live here forever. But the truth of the matter is that I don't live here now, and I haven't for as long as I can remember. I can't tell you about much local news, but I may be able to tell you what the traffic was like in Los Angeles today, since that's the city that originates my daily talk radio stream. I might be able to tell you about Cajun culture as a familiar outsider, but I will never speak of it with the same fondness that I would of Manhattan. Even though I grew up in the area, people here ask me where I'm really from since I don't have their accent. In every way that matters, I don't live here, and I'm just waiting for my body to follow the rest of me. My leaving is not a decision I am making now; it is my way of life. Since I was a child, I have existed in a state of leaving.

Through the frustrations I've faced to try to accomplish it, the fact that I would leave has been accepted as a matter of fate. While I do control so much of my life, the general direction of "leaving" is like riding on an ice berg rather than commanding a ship. My entire being is so thoroughly oriented to the goal, that the truth seems inevitable, even if slow in coming.

I live my life in such a way that I try to never cut off somebody's hand when they reach for me. But I fear that, in my endeavors to leave, I have not been there when so many people reached out to grab. I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Find it in your heart to understand that I am not searching for thrills in life or something more exotic. I am just trying to find what everybody wants, including you, whoever is reading this. I want to go home. I want to go where I belong. And I know that it's possible I won't find it wherever I go. Do you honestly think I haven't thought of that? Do you, for one second, think I haven't stayed awake at night wondering if it's all just a problem within myself that I am running from, and that I'm destined to waste half my life on a stupid mistake? Of course I have. But long ago, faith that I am right filled the voids that comfort abandoned when I refused to call this place home. My soul aches for the day that it will not have to live on that faith alone.

Until then, I wait, and I continue to try. My persona stands at attention in anticipation of its inevitable destiny, like a Rabbi waiting for the coming of that Savior which connects him to his universe. It stands ready to throw everything else away for its belief that the day will come, and that it will be as I predicted. It stands prepared to die having never seen this coming, if that is what fate holds. Let it never be said I announced I would be here tomorrow. I am leaving.

2003-02-28 : [Addendum: I later found out that at the time of this writing, Johnny Cash is, in fact, still alive. I was misinformed by an allegedly reliable source, and should have double-checked.]

"What have I become, my sweetest friend. . . . You can have it all, my empire of dirt. I will let you down, I will make you hurt. I wear this crown of thorns upon my liar's chair, full of broken thoughts I cannot repair. . . . If I could start again, a million miles away, I would keep myself, I would find a way."

- Johnny Cash in "Hurt," his last song before he died (but in all fairness, it was written by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails, even though the song wasn't good until Johnny sang it)

With so many issues resolved, I originally wanted to describe how I felt as something like the many pieces of me finally coming back home. I saw a thousand ships finally coming to their harbors after so many years of war. I saw the cathartic union of the corners of my persona finally realizing that they no longer had to back their resolve with faith alone. But that metaphor didn't feel quite right. Something bugged me about it. About a week ago, I realized what was wrong. It was not those pieces that came to me, but rather that one big piece that is me finally coming back home. It is only my motion back home which made the rest seem to be coming toward me. Einstein would be proud.

I have wanted to go home some time now, but I was afraid. I was afraid that the person I left behind—abandoned—would not welcome me back with open arms. I was afraid that this "institution" that had served me for so long and won so many battles was so entrenched in war and obsolescence that if I came back, all I would have left would be this empire of dirt. In all the planning and wisdom I could muster, only desperation finally sent me back home. In my running, I bulldozed through people and places and institutions. I held out so many resources for the fight to keep running, I deprived myself of food. I became anemic. I became physically addicted to legal but destructive toxins. I became so completely isolated for fear of hurting somebody else in my mission. I fell into a self-inflicted misery for which I can find no excuse. I knew I was in a slow but unending free-fall, but I also knew I had the resources—both physical and mental—to keep it up for years if I had to, and I refused to let it defeat me, whatever "it" was. I did not see what I had become until even the awesome might of my stubborn resolve met its only match, the Pacific Ocean, which refused to let me run any farther. I will always remember that trip to Los Angeles as a turning point in my life.

I returned defeated in rags, back to my empire of dirt. I sat in the throne for the first time in years and looked out over the vast war-torn countryside that I thought I could leave behind. But finally, this empire of dirt had the one missing piece it needed—me. I realized that the amazing machinery that made it all work was starved of its fuel for so long, the love that came from accepting myself. The match was serendipitous, as that acceptance was all I had left to give. From the rubble of what I thought was my empire of dirt came a massive uprising ready to fight for me without question. The issues that once plagued me ran in defeat, and though they sometimes try to return, the soldiers to my rear always offer a swift victory.

The color has returned to my face. The muscle has returned to my bones. The sleep has returned to my bed. The integrity has returned to my life. I realize, however, that the imagery is still isolating. The vision of a king on a throne may be a triumphant one, but it is still a lonely one. Who, after all, is more lonely than the king upon his throne or the captain in his chair. Yet, the army that surrounds this king, or the fleet that surrounds this captain, is finally ready to exert its influence. It is finally ready to stop trying to only absorb the environment around it, and to start changing it.

Make it so.

2003-02-01 : On January 20, 2003, I stopped wanting eighteen-year-old girls. I remember the day quite clearly because it was such a stark contrast to the way my libido behaved before. I realized it when I was sitting in my car, letting it warm up, and watching an attractive one walk by. I appreciated her body as one might appreciate the form of a Renaissance sculpture, but at the same time having absolutely no desire to possess it for lack of a use or place to keep it. The best thing was that it wasn't a lack of want that existed only to match my lack of ability. Rather, I lacked want because I just didn't see how she could make me happy. All I could think was, she's such a little girl. In form she was clearly a woman with a few legacy child traits left over, but in every other way I knew she was totally incompatible. I knew that I would not enjoy conversations with her and that any intimacy would only give me headache. That of course only left fucking, which I thought, in spite of her probable experience, would be too vanilla for my tastes; she did not project an aura that she had become jaded enough yet.

Perhaps her beauty, for the first time in so many years, was no longer something I felt so lacking in myself.

For several weeks straight now, I have looked at myself in the mirror every day. I haven't kept it up this long since.... well.... probably since before puberty. And really, it hasn't been that difficult. I had to try the first couple of times, but after that it didn't seem like such a big deal any more. It was just me. The flaws added character. Today I ate vegetables and my normal high-protein, low-fat meat-based staple, with a sensible yet tasty dessert of rainbow sherbet. But I did it because I cared for my own body, not because I wanted it to be something for some unknown, nebulous "them."

This is all very new to me, of course. I'm not nearly ready to declare victory. My self-analysis is accustom to tracking minute trends in my favor and unexpected sucker-punches against it. This, on the other hand, was a sudden turn in my favor. Granted, it did come after years of working to achieve some slow trickle of progress, but nobody here is ready to breathe easy yet. In the not-so-distance in my persona, I can see the sky glowing with the flames from retreating body image issues. They seem demoralized and defeated, lacking even the will to wreak what havoc they can on the way out. But I can't accept that. Answers don't just fall out of the sky. Do they?

Part of me wants to stop and do nothing. I don't want to fuck it up. I don't fully understand exactly what I did to bring it about, though my attempts have followed a deliberate and life-consuming path to feel this way. At the same time, another part of me wants to take advantage of this opportunity to suddenly grab all the new ground that I can for as long as it lasts. The little voice says to me, "Now would be the perfect time to imprint this feeling and remember it so you can pull it back out in 20 years when you really need it."

I just don't know what to do with this. I feel like an abused dog that somebody is finally offering some food. I want to make it part of me more than anything, but I'm scared that it's temporary. I'm scared I will fold this into the rest of me and then somehow screw it all up, in spite of my pretty good track record. And perhaps a little part of me is scared of what life might be like after I did.

I could go on and on so much about what has been different in my life the past few days. I hardly know where to begin. To the outside world, I probably don't seem different, but inside here, little seems the same.

While I am scared, I know what I have to do. I did not get here by running from opportunities and progress. I'll give it a bit more time and see if it holds. If it does not, then I'll use what I learned from the experience to achieve my goals as always. If it does, then..... then I will have to send out yet another order to every corner of my persona that none shall contest; to accept it with open arms.

2003-01-22 : A friend in college once had a quote posted in his cubicle, but I can't remember the exact wording. "Comparison is..." or "Comparing yourself..." or something. In any case, the jist of it was that you shouldn't judge yourself by comparing yourself to others. I was never sure how I felt about that quote, as I was torn between a strong sense of individuality telling me that it was right, and another sense of good ole' American hero worship, which said it's a good idea to have role models. I realized that one of my dangers in life is that I do judge myself relative to other people, which is particularly dangerous when you have the kind of quality control I do on my inner-circle.

Among the people I judge my intelligence against, I am well below average, with a severely subpar vocabulary, practically retarded scholastic abilities, and a sophomoric writing style. I judge my professional achievements against people who made their first million by the time they were 22, and who basically work only to satisfy a desire for professional ambition or material possessions. My knowledge of the world in general is judged against a rare group of people who managed to build an extraordinarily cosmopolitan portfolio of life experiences a decade before I was born. My social abilities are judged against those people I know who cannot go unrecognized on a busy street, and have been repeatedly invited to such functions as a New Years party at the Playboy mansion.

The resulting effect is that I am in a constant deficit of achievement. The more I accomplish, the more I can narrow those people against whom I am judged, and the more I can judge characteristics in myself reaching never-ending specificity. One could conceive that if I continue along these lines, I will eventually judge my ability to write an Arabic novel about quantum physics against the world's foremost Arabic quantum physicist, and feeling bad at the end of the day that I am so far behind. The effect of always existing in a deficit is quite purposeful, as it spurs growth. The feeling of failure, however, is not an intended consequence. I must fix this problem.

Because of moral regulations, I have no facilities to judge a "whole person," and thus cannot compare myself as a whole being. My moral system holds that human equality is derived from the nature of man, not individual abilities. Thus, any attempt to judge the whole system that is me against anybody else is forbidden, admonished, and just plain icky.

But what I can do without violating any sticky rules is to observe myself as I would observe a sunset, tree or the activity of a busy Manhattan street. When I do, a calm comes over me, and nothing seems quite as dire any more. I watch this expansive and diverse land of thoughts and emotions interact elegantly, with grace, passion and deliberation. I watch a virile, teeming system of activity that seems to find an unthinkable symbiosis of youthful exuberance and aged temperament. I step back and view myself as that New Yorker on a Manhattan street might once in his life observe his city from the outside. I achieve a subtle, omnipresent arrogance that one can only find from the humbling awe in examining himself.

Sometimes I think that instead of attempting to squash inklings of arrogance, I should instead try to use them as fuel for presenting a more confident persona to the outside world. It feels so icky to think about that, but perhaps it's something I just need to get over.

Yesterday while a friend and I were walking, we discussed our amazement at how so many people can get fat when they're not looking. I said, "If I gain two pounds, I notice the difference just in looking at myself." I thought a few moments on what I said and continued, "But then again, I'm a self-absorbed twit, so that doesn't mean anything."

Ultimately, I'm right. I am a self-absorbed twit, which is something that's hard to avoid when you've spent so much of your life retreating into yourself. Now I need to decide if that's actually a bad thing.

2002-12-19 : Years ago, I established this place. It was to hold my e-mail, the staple source of communication for my generation. It would contain my contact information so that I could give everybody one name and they would always be able to find me. It would be my only way to easily store information that would be protected from disaster or theft, deep within the recesses of a secure data center.

Knowing it would be all this, I called it "Redstroke" so that its name would always remind me of what I wanted to become. I destined myself to see a one-word request every day of my life that I would have to choose to either honor or deny. It was founded on a desperately, painfully held belief that at my core, like the core of all people, something exists that can benefit our society. I recognized my duty to expose my core, with faith that a fundamentally good entity would survive the resulting attacks, with hope that it would benefit the world, and with terror that I might be wrong. In this message, I passed down the ideal that I should strike out against the black of my fears with the red passion of my soul, and to finally allow myself to let the white light of others play some role in guiding me. At its essence, it was a whisper that would always remind me to emerge with confidence rather than withdraw in fear.

Today, at the dawn of the fifth fiscal year of Redstroke, I proclaim a finding: I have, on most accounts, failed miserably. The effect of my standing still with the passage of time is a net loss of ground.

I did not leverage my core competencies in my relations with others, but instead fumbled at attempts to emulate what I thought people wanted. In doing so, I did not expose my core, but rather found other ways of hiding it.

I wrapped myself in various awkward relationships of all kinds, determined to prove to myself that I could architect something that would work.

I held myself to the standards of the culture without letting go of the practices that felt safe. The resulting identity corruption gave me a hatred of my body and a tremendous loss of confidence in my ability to honor that one-word message.

I am still an entity that abandoned all other institutions, that formed its own traditions, heritage and folklore, that created massive philosophies to fill the place of religion. I am still the same entity that attempts to take care of all needs of fulfillment in-house. Instead of offering up what I am and forcing myself to rely on others if I failed, I saved myself for myself of the future, with fear that I would be the only one who would ever be there for me.

I will now address that "myself of the future."

I have saved enough for you. You are now on your own. I am tired of holding everything for you, only to watch you squander it away in the form of reinvestment in a terminal entity. Just as I was born with the rights to life and liberty, so was I born with the responsibility as the sole executioner of my fate. I now extend not a whisper to the future, but this order for the now: I will emerge from this nebula in which I hide. I will no longer send endless scouts and envoys, but instead set forth with the full force of my core.

If you ever doubted before, Myself of the Future, now you will see why you set a rule that the words in this journal would be written in the white of stone. If you wish to no longer stand in defiance of these words, you must change—they never will. This is not a whisper reminder, but a demand from yourself, and a requirement for your own good. Every day that goes by without reliance on others is a day closer to the end of all these savings. Look at these words! This is all the heritage you have left, since you did not trust the culture. This is your history, your Bible, and your Constitution, for you replaced them all with in-house solutions! Your traditions and myths—an entire culture of your own painstaking design—is now calling you to the floor.

If you continue to hide, may these words mock you with every sight of that one-word message. Let others save you from yourself now. I certainly won't.

Copyright © Van Goodwin, 2002-2003
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