I find myself looking more and more about how we perceive things.

It's interesting how all of us can blind ourselves, often, knowingly. Back in the days when I was young I used to rail against what I saw as the unfair and authoritarian views that were being forced on me, I hated the rules and those who demanded that I blindly follow them. I would fight back in almost any way I could, no matter what it cost me. Later I started thinking that I could be more successful if I started working from within the system, weakening it from the inside, but that turned out to be almost as pointless as the outright battles.

Then, for years I just let all the anger and outrage just slide by, it became just as pointless to try to beat the odds against me.

It has only been in the last ten years that I've come to understand that the real battle has always been within my own mind. The rules of our societies are taught to us from birth, each new lesson layered over the last, a laminated composite that we don't even know exists until we can change our perspective. We live in our society because we choose to, we choose to accept the restrictions, the blindness, the "guidance" of those who "know better."

The reality is that we can't escape society. The vast conglomeration of all these conflicting concepts become less and less cohesive as more of us try to cross barriers that have been in place for thousands of years. And that is where the real battle is now, in accepting that what you see is just as flawed as any other view, in stripping away as much of the conditioning as you can and looking for what is common to us all, instead of what makes us different.

We can't escape, but if we try, we can maybe build a better one...

I need to come here more often. I think so much, about so many things, but it seems that it's here, where I attempt to put what I feel onto a page, that the pieces start to fit, it's where the patterns finally start making sense. These words, the misunderstood tools they are, shape how I see, how I feel.

I shape my understanding here.

There is just so much that I don't understand, so many things I see or hear and have to question. But even when I do fins answers, they bring more questions too. No matter what we see, what we think is truth is only because of our perspective, no matter what we hear, what we think are the facts, are only opinions. No two of us can ever truly see through another's eyes, and even when we think we see what's really there, we don't, there is so much we simply miss, or our minds fill in without our knowing. Our ears are no better, it's second nature for us to ignore what our minds say is unimportant... we never see it, or hear it.

I still remember the sessions where I learned this, and still feel like a stupid jerk when I forget.

for as long as i can remember i've had just one true wish, just one. sure there are lots of other things i've wished for, but none that have driven me as this one has, and still does. the one wish that I know will never come to pass, the one that there is no hope for, yet, even knowing it, i can't let it go. i'm slipping away again, just like so many times before... withdrawing, isolating, closing doors, boarding things away, locking the hurt away... i know that all i'm doing is locking myself in with all the hurt but i don't care, it's not really any different that living with it.i feel the call for silence, just as strong as before. in a way it's cleansing, washing away all the falsehoods, all the deceptions, the delusions. there is a clarity in the pain, like the arc of a torch, blinding, yet..

hidden within the bright fire, caught only in the facets of a shattered heart, exist every possible color of life. the problem is that none of us perceive any of them the same. a thousand prisms casting millions of rays, still fail to reach that place where i wait, and wait.

and weep

to evoke... is that my purpose, my hope?

it would be nice to know

or maybe just to feel, for just a moment

"Why are you here?"

"I told you, I thought about you, you know, because..."

"But why now? After all this time?"

"I told you."

"Look, I don't understand,  I can't see what you want here, it doesn't make any sense."

"I told you, I just thou..."

"I know what you said, I heard it. But it's not the truth, or at least not all of it."

"But..."

"There's no half way, you know, not unless all you want is to hurt me."

"That's not what I want."

"Then what do you want, eh?"

"I..."

"Let me know, it's not like I'm afraid of the pain anymore."

"What?"

"Come on, you know  how it is, you can get used to anything in time, even lies and pain."

"But I've..."

"Don't say it. You know better."

"But..."

"I'll be waiting."

life has a way of teaching me lessons I don't want to learn, of forcing me to ask questions I do not want answered.

I always wondered why most older people I have known were so cynical, it's obvious now. I know why I'm becoming that way. It's the only way I have to protect my heart. I don't feel less these days, the pain still burns and stabs me, it's just easier to hide. heh... practice makes perfect...

A young man died, young enough to be my son. Conditioned by the society he was part of he died proving that he couldn't escape. I kept asking myself why he couldn't see what his choices were doing to him, but I think he did see. At least it seems that way now... he'd been to the doctor, had his med's... and still chose the habits that killed him.

sigh... too many questions today, and no answers...

safer not to ask...