Firewalking

So you know how I like to drink alot? I think I should maybe, I dunno I'm just throwing this out there, chill out a bit? I know, it's crazy, I can't believe I just said that. Who are you and what have you done to Greg? Really though, I keep a close monitor on the way I feel, I'm very privy to the delicate balance my body maintains, and lately I've just been fuuucked up. I feel slower. Like there's some ongoing joke out there and I'm the last one to laugh. Okay fuck the bullshit, I'll admit it. I'm getting a beer belly.

But whatever, that's a touchy subject and I don't want to talk about it. Kidding. I just think its slightly torturous to watch my abs and consolidated carbs battle it out on my goddamn belly. Beer may lose a battle but it has never lost a war, ya dig?

I did some firewalking last night. Sounded like a good idea at the time. There were the smoldering hot remnants of a bonfire in front of me and 10 bucks waiting at the end if I could pull it off. It was a small pit, two steps at the max. Sounded like a good idea at the time. 10 bux? Hells yes. I'm drunk. Watch me.

Seen it on TV, this ain't shit.

The moment I put a single foot onto those goddamn embers I yelped like a beaten puppy and jumped onto the sand, pouring beer all over my foot. A vein popped out in my forhead, I shed a tear, the pain was intense. Fire hurts man. I was afraid my foot would look something like cottage cheese. It didn't. Fuckin felt it though.

It didn't occur to me at the time that there's a difference between walking on coals and walking on embers. Embers break open when you step on them, exposing their fiery cores to my precious feet. Coals don't. My foot hurt all night. It's better now though, only first degree burns. I shoulda fucking meditated before I stepped on those embers. I shoulda levitated myself over them or some shit. That would have been more impressive.

I'm still proud of myself though. I think my balls finally dropped last night. Puberty, where have you been all this time? That was some manly shit to do if you ask me. Stupid, but manly. Who wants some dick?

What debate?

So about the whole evolution versus creationism thing, I just gotta put this out there because I find it funny how people are still arguing over this. Since when did it become a choice to believe in evolution?

That's like someone saying, "Yeah bro, it makes so much more sense that the world is flat. Screw spheres man, I'm not down with spheres. I'm a flat surface man myself. Don't even like big breasts..."

But as always, people will have their agenda and focus only on the missing pieces of the puzzle. Ya have the silly Creationists. Explaining evolution to them is like playing Wheel of Fortune with someone who insists on spelling out the entire word, even if they could have easily guessed it. Point being, sometimes it isn't necessary to have all the details to know what the big picture is. Evolution is the big picture.

I see the sucker everywhere. Even when I close my eyes, I see those little worm thingies evolving, morphing, adapting to their ominous black environment. It's everywhere man. Shut your fucking doors.

I'm not a depressive pessimist so often people want to know why I don't believe in free will. Evolution is one of the reasons why I don't. Not only are we one with the animal kingdom, but evolution applies to the mind as well. Many tend to think in terms of physical evolution, but the mind does what it must do to survive, to be comfortable its environment. Cry, stab, masturbate. I look at humans and see correlations and predictability; as if I were looking at different species of minds. Give us these biological features and this habitat, and what you have in an adapted mind. It becomes harder and harder to blame. Even Micheal Jackson.

The evolution of concepts, the evolution of ourselves, language, music, clouds, my erections, so fourth and so on. It's like a law that things will evolve, like a truth without a premise, it just must be so.

Which brings me to what Maug said earlier today. His quote was,

"...We use our intelligence to observe order...that is what science is all about. Kinda wierd huh? That we use intelligence to note design as a fundamental scientific approach, then say there is no intelligent design?"

On his site he sort of went into how this is not a black and white topic. He suggested there could be intelligent design without God. I disagree though. My response would be that without an intelligent creator there can be no intelligent design, just design. Why not call it good design? Lucky design? It seems like nothing but semantics to claim Intelligent Design when there is no intelligence in the design other than the appearance of being so, and appearance certainly isn't merit for the title. The Blind Watchmaker, right?

But I digress.

It's funny. There are millions of people out there who refuse to bite the bullet and believe we came from apes. As if that were tough to swallow. Imagine their disbelief if faced with an even more fascinating truth - we evolved from stardust. The very atoms that make up the molecules that make up the cells that make up the organs that make up our bodies were forged in the violent furnaces of stars, billions of years ago. Our bodies are as old as the universe. Somehow shit just worked out. It's a beautiful thing.

This harmony was a long time in the making.

My car got keyed.

Someone keyed my car. Someone keyed my fucking car! My poor 95 explorer has been keyed. On the drivers side is a gigantic scribble, and written all big on my passenger door is PUAB, whatever the fuck that means.

I don't think this dude realized what I'm capable of doing when I get angry. I'm very coolheaded, but because I'm so coolheaded, it takes alot to make me snap, meaning that when I finally do, I SNAP.

I know who did it too. I was heading to my night class at SMC and I found a narrow spot between an X5 and a beat up Toyota, so I park there. The driver was still in the X5, talking on his phone. Some ugly Persian motherfucker who I hated as soon as I laid eyes on. I get out of the car making sure not to his gay X5 that mommy must have bought and I reach to the passenger side to grab my backpack, but as I sling it over my shoulder, the little plastic clasp-on things at the end swing back and tap his car. Not hard or anything, they certainly didn't scratch it. The just made a tapping sound.

3 hours later I come back and my car is fully keyed. Words can't even describe how badly I want to knock this guy's teeth out, and I will if I see him. The problem is that memory is mutable and I can never be sure I am knocking the right guy's teeth out. And even if i see the guy coming out of the X5 and I'm justifiably certain, I can never know 100% it was him that keyed my car. So alas nothing will be done and that frustrates me to kill.

But whatever, there is nothing I can do but let go and move on. I just hate the thought of driving around with a keyed up car. People are gonna look at me and think I'm a scumbag, and assume I did something to deserve getting keyed. When I'm just a loveable human being. Shit, I'm so loveable if a grizzly bear saw me in the woods he'd just want to cuddle. Fuck the haters man... Fuck the haters.

The Conversation

I used to be one of those people who never had anything to talk about. Conversation wasn't exactly what I'd call a free flowing river. More like trying to pee with herpes. In the dark. Not that I'm a social dunce, I'm just a bit "spacey" as one might point out, and I'm constantly surrenduring my attention to shit like fat pigeons, or anything for that matter. So I set out on a journey to figure the essence of stimulating conversation, so I could make like an existentialist pigeon and fly, fly past the elements.

I think my first realization was that I needed to pay attention, but at the same time I couldn't come off as being too "aware". It's hard to seem cool when you're too aware of what you're doing. That's the opposite of being natural, instinctual, a sex machine. Asian drivers blow double-fold because since they can't drive, they become extra conscious of the fact that they are driving, to the point where become uptight and suck even more. The best drivers act as if they're half-asleep. Shutting off my mind is one of the best things I can do when talking to someone.

And I figure that most of conversation is based on selfishness. As in, the conversation is great until someone else starts talking. It's okay to admit it. You love the sound of your own voice, even if you don't actually like sound of your voice. Unless you mean to say you truly care about what - lets name him Bob - has to say over by the water cooler.

Bob: Yeah I went to Home Depot the other day. Got some new patio furnature.
Me: Got new patio furniture you say? How about I stab you in the fucking face?

It's sort of an overgeneralized rule - people want to talk about the sort of things they think about. Sports, music, politics, what cream is good for curing vaginal dryness. But Bob here is talkin about goddamn patio furniture. So listen folks, (not that you'd ever do this) while it may be tempting to talk about how you did not one, but TWO loads of laundry on Sunday, or how you bought new place mats from IKEA, don't make already inattentive saps like me have to brainstorm potential replies to your nitwitted statements about your life which I already care nothing about. Besides, everybody knows I have a fake smile and know how to use it. This branch of conversation evolved backwards.

Ya gotta move forward. But it's funny because sometimes I'll evesdrop on other people and listen as two more or less freshly introduced people talk. You can tell they're not fully comfortable, and there is a sense of self-awareness to their actions that creates an awkwardness that neither of them try to show. And they'd be talking about things like, why they wish cars could fly because traffic sucks. But they're really just trying to get to know each other, so why the hell are they talking about flying cars? Their conversation isn't moving, it's caught in the doldrums.

They missed each other's clue-ins. My over-generalized rule was that people talk about the things they think about, but then there are the things they think about, but know better than to bring up. I love psychology but I’m not going up to people like, “So… howabout that neo cortex?”. Instead, I'll drop suttle clues, words that hint at my inner passions, hoping that the other person will notice them and follow. We all do this, usually unwittingly. I'll casually say something like, “I wanna spank Freud in the ass”. I’ll get a twinkle in my eyes and that's someone's cue to entertain my inklings. Point being, we're beat-around-the-bushers and sometimes it takes a bit of attention and intuition to sniff out our eager ideas from the occasionally uninspired drone of small talk.

Because small talk isn't all bad. There's so much going on during small talk, way more than the name implies. It a common thought that during any conversation runs a discreet, often unnoticed internal dialogue that runs parallel to everything you say. It is that voice of your inner self and he would like to represent you but it's hard. He's often afraid. Two strangers talking about nothing is a way for their internal voices to say, "what can I talk about with you, how comfortable can I be?" They're just trying to figure a way to share their inner world.

But there will always be a gap between any two people. And within every individual him or herself lay a similar disconnect, from what is a true representation to what is represented. The truth about communication is, there will always be a certain disconnect. Sometimes it even seems as if we're merely talking to each other's shadows, because nothing is more true and pure than our inner voice, yet nothing is more deceiving than human communication. It seems as if our best bonds are formed when our internal voices align and speak to each other, without our ever knowing. And that's nothing spiritual, metaphysical or poetic, it's simply true.

Sometimes we're like that dumb kid sitting in a class who understands nothing written on the board, yet is utterly fascinated by the concept of chalk and erasers. We find meaning in the medium, not always in the details. They say God is in the details, but I never knew what that meant. A flower may be made of atoms but at the end of the day, it's still a flower. Right?