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Of_Wolf_And_Man
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Name: Richard
Country: Canada
Birthday: 8/27/1987
Gender: Male
Interests: Existing and existance.
Expertise: I'm good at ranting rambled crap... as you can see. We'll leave it at that.
Occupation: Student
Message: message meEmail: email me
Member Since:
3/20/2003
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| Wow. It's seriously been so long that this has gotten really unfamiliar. All I remember about the last post was it was a long time ago, when I was still in a really bad place. I'm mostly out of there now, I guess I'd say. I wouldn't say I'm glad with where I stand now, but I am indeed a lot more stable, and a lot stronger. I'm in a place that I'm capable of action once again, where I'm somewhat centered and the things are do are a matter of thought out intention instead of panicked desperation. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself. I don't really have a state that's "normal" per say. I tend to fuck with myself about as much as I figure I can tolerate at a single point and time, and because of that it's just a matter of shifting from one state of abnormality to another. This state, at this moment, seems about as "normal" as I get, but since that term is so relative and pretty useless, let's just claim that I'm stable...ish.
So why the hell am I writing today? Did anything happen today, or recently, that should be moving me in any particular way? No. In fact, nothing really of note as far as events goes has happened to me in a couple of months now. I hang out on occasion with several friends. My circle is mostly old, with just enough new to keep myself from being bored to tears. I repeat easy patterns, doing many things in the same routine every week as I plan, as I center, as I continue to try to understand.
I could go on about a lot of things, but at this particular time I have one interest that was getting to me as I was walking. I think it's faded quite a bit, and this method of expression is tainting it, but I'll do my best. My communication is so out of practice in about a million ways that I need to at least try to keep the skills from atrophying. I don't really have a centered 'project' at the moment because I don't really care about anything enough to make it a 'priority' right now. Mostly, I'm just doing experiments with aspects of myself far too long ignored and hidden away. Amusingly enough, the key to a lot of this random experiments seems to be the concept of obsession.
Now, let me explain briefly. I'm not saying I'm actively researching obsession, or that everything I do is leading to obsession. More so... obsession seems to be some sort of underlying theme that I'm choosing to attach everything to. I see it all around me, just as I could see a million other things, but because it is what interests me at this moment and time I'm seeing the world in light of how obsession effects it. It is by putting myself into obsession, obsessively should I have cared more, that I can seek to understand it and how it can influence people. It's a touchy subject, to be sure. Very few people will claim themselves proud of obsession under such a term itself. Nobody likes to claim they're obsessive. It has negative connotations, or maybe is just a negative word itself. I'm not really so sure I dislike it, to be honest. Different, it most definitely is. In fact, it exists as one of the few key notable factors in deciding what is different and what is not. Still, it has power in that.
I like to think of myself as somebody who tries to sit on the line between obsessive and not obsessive. Such a line is a completely ridiculous concept entirely, so really I just try to remain in the grey zone as much as I can. Trying is a key word here, I guess. I fail horribly a lot of the time and I'm completely aware of this. I'm not claiming that I'm never obsessive, and I keep some sort of balance away from being non-obsessive. No, quite the opposite. I indulge in obsession often, and in many different forms. It's my ability to be aware of my own obsession, and thus distort it or even escape it with a relative (and constantly increasing) ease. Maybe this is some sort of boastings of an arrogant boy, and that maybe isn't really a maybe and more of an "I want to make it sound less bad by softening the blow". Still, despite the arrogance I know how I do things is something of an exception. I don't completely understand the differences between me and most others, but as I sit back and try to watch with some sort of unbiased opinion, I can't help but see that I do make some sort of large exception. Even larger than I once thought (at least in the ways I'm currently looking. I spent most of last fall and a good amount of the winter proving I'm normal in a million ways I hated for years, so there's always a little balance for ya).
Robin told me a few times that obsession can never be good. It is entirely a negative thing. This is something I've been all over the map with. Sometimes I agreed, other times I didn't, but... what it really comes down to, as it usually does in this case, is good old moral relativism. What the hell is 'good' or 'bad' and with the confused definitions we realize that we can't really define the bitch, so instead we can just look at it's qualities and see possibly if it can be defined as 'useful to me' or 'not so much'.
So, obsession rears it's ugly head in a million forms in a million people around me. I find that most people have a touch of it here or there. I have plenty that I'll openly admit to. I have an obsession with truth. Some people would try to argue this, saying I don't actually actively seek truth a lot of the time, things like my arrogance and pride will get in the way of my search and usually I'm my own damned biggest obstacle in the search itself. On top of all that, they'd say it wasn't really truth I was looking for anyways. I just put the label truth on it because I expect truth the give me the other things I'm really looking for, which aren't truth at all. My reply would then be that you understand obsession really well, or not in the slightest, based upon what you just said.
I also indulge in various forms of obsessions along the way. I believe in putting your whole into things you believe in. Most people do not agree. As the old saying goes, don't test the depth of water with both feet. I don't agree with this. I find a deep puddle will, if nothing else, teach me to swim. I have absolutely no faith in myself as a decent human being. I know that the only way to ever really learn about myself isn't to sit there and think about who I am. I lie far too easily, especially when I want certain answers, and anybody who's looking at themselves can't help but want certain answers. How can you not want yourself to be something? How can you not see something as valuable when you spent years earning it, working on it, even if it's a piece of shit and actually weighing you down and preventing you from being yourself? Rule number one when trying to understand yourself... you are not trustworthy. Not even in the slightest, at any time. You will always be wrong when it comes to who you think you are. You can only get closer, and every time you think you have gotten closer be very skeptical. Always ask why you think these new things, and there will always be a reason. Then you have to decide what reasons are good, and which are bad, which comes from your moral placement... which comes from something you can't trust. See my point? So how do you try to get anything useful out of something like that? Well, the only trusted method I've ever found is cornering the bastard and beating the hell out of it and seeing what happens. Seeing what people do in extreme circumstances is probably the most revealing way to ever see them. Learning who you are when the chips are down allows you to influence that, or predict it and act ahead. See the general idea of my plan? A lot easier said than done.
How does one corner themselves? How do you really truly bring out a full aspect of yourself. To really see yourself, you really have to be doing it. You can't play paintball and expect it to show you about who you'd be in a real gunfight. Without the real danger, it doesn't mean the same thing. The only way to really understand yourself is to really be the person, really take the hits. You can't know heartbreak without ever really loving. It's kind of amazing, isn't it, how really giving into the obsession is the only way to understand it, and in that way the only way to break it, only way to get out. Then again, that's said of somebody who's prone to obsession. I prefer to take action within myself. I'd rather throw myself all in and get hurt than have held back from the beginning, and never had a risk to worry about. My way of dealing with a new risk and problem is always to throw myself more into the issue, to involve myself with my whole even more. It gets me hurt more, and in that way Ted's right, I seem to seek out punishment. It's not the pain itself I want, but the sensation of overcoming it that I seem to be addicted to. I like walking out more for everything that tried to take me down, stronger and smarter. This is something only obsession can teach.
Well, I'm supposed to be somewhere as it is, and honestly I've strayed so much from what I actually wanted to say that it's almost lost it's point. I guess a lot of the reason I wrote this is because somebody sort of vaguely asked me from a distance not to stop, which I had. I've got plenty to say, and have had for a long time. It's amazing, when you really sit down and pause... you realize how few people are really truly listening. You can pause and notice how little is really getting through. Talking is nice, explaining... rationalizing that what you have to say, what you have to think... and what you're living for... thinking that it's not all that useless if at least this one person cares enough to take the effort to listen. It's funny, though, what listening really is... but listening is another topic I could go on about for years. I just know nobody cares enough to listen, and I mean really listen... and I stopped blaming them some time ago. I'm fine with me, and my own. At least I know it's mine, and it's real.
~Richard
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| Jeeze, it's been three months since I wrote last. Three really really really really fucking long months. I really cannot even begin to express everything that's happened, and how much I've changed, and still am changing... but then again, doesn't that phrase sound a little familiar? Haven't you heard it before somewhere? I know I have. I say it all the freaking time, enough to sound like a broken record, and I keep saying it like I didn't expect that, like it was some sort of brand new thing that's never happened before. It's happened before. Change has happened, and it's damned well likely to happen again. Today isn't some sort of special moment that defines my life. Today isn't that moment where I sit, and think... "Damn, this is the beginning and end of so many things... damn... change is all so much more visible today than it usually is." No, today is just another damned day. Today is just another day where I slept in too late, another day where I stay up all night alone, thinking, and restless as all hell. The only thing that's different about tonight than any others lately is the fact that when writing in my book alone didn't help, I actually came here for once. It's been a long damned time since I've done that, because I don't really like this place any more. Usually, it doesn't do it for me, but in that sense... nothing does any more. Trust me, I'm trying wider and wider possibilities, and if you guys have some sort of magical cure you think I haven't tried, I'm likely to be all ears. I can honestly say I'm in a bad place. Am I worse than any other place? Or any other person? Fuck if I know. I'm far too selfish and self centered to think of anything but me, in this moment which is mine, and which hurts. Why the hell else should I care about anything else? It's sad, actually... I always used to have an answer I believed whenever I asked myself that question. Somehow, these days, there just seems to be alot less of everything.
I've already been writing for hours. I just put my journal away, unsatisfied but knowing that I could only pause and stare at the page so many times. I don't know why, but sometimes I really want to say something and writing in the journal just never seems to express it. Sometimes, it's great, and other times... I really think I need to write towards something... I need to write something I really believe somebody will read. Not many people will read this, and honestly... I doubt anybody will get it, I bet less people will give half as much of a damn as I'd actually need for them to be of any help to me, and I really have no faith in the slightest that it'll really help me in any way that has to do with my relationships with those around me. Still, lets be honest here... I've fucked around with those around me enough that seriously... what's a little bit more on that front? If they're still here at this point, they're not likely to leave any time soon. If they're gone... then they're probably the smart ones, and should be smart enough to stay they. Especially these days. Still, I'm here writing. Not because I really give a damn if you're reading this, and not because I expect a reaction or want something from you. No, those expectations have died quite some time ago, and I really think I'm getting to the point where I almost don't even care any more. No, I'm writing here because I think I'll write differently to you than I will to myself, or into a book that nobody is supposed to have read (I don't really trust that nobody has taken that chance, since I have left it out a few times... but what the hell do I care... as long as I don't know they broke my trust, then what loss have I?)
So why will I write differently to you than I will myself? I guess it has to do with our relationship. None of you really know anything. Anybody who reads this is so damned far behind in the game that is my mind that really, you don't really count these days. I've seriously gone through so much shit that the idea of trying to catch you up seems daunting, and not worth the effort. The idea of being alone seems an inevitability with really all of my issues, so what difference does it make if I keep telling you what I do as I do it? Will it bring us a little bit closer? To what purpose? I have nothing really you want, nothing worth taking and nothing worth giving. I really think I've at best caught you in a web of bullshit, or else you've caught yourself, and either way it's pretty damned unhealthy. Maybe cutting is the best thing for all of us. Then again, who's to say how honest I'm being now? I can honestly (HA!) say that I have absolutely no confidence in my honesty towards you any more. Why the hell should I tell you the truth, any more? You never really cared, and never really noticed, when I gave you that much more. You were just some reader, who sat there and didn't say anything and felt or thought whatever it is you did from this. Does it really make a difference to me? Should I care if it does?
I think, honestly, I'm just angry at you. You not being the individual but you as in the 'they' of the world, but you is closer than they are. I address you directly. You are the ones close to me, the ones who are supposed to listen, supposed to care, supposed to be for me. I can't really say you weren't. I've heard alot of people say 'call me' and 'if you need to talk'. I've heard alot of promises from alot of people, though, and honestly... you really lose more and more faith in everything in life until you reach a point where people's disappointing you not only makes you lose more faith in them, but even in yourself. Eventually, everybody disappoints you so many damned times that you think... I'm human... so are they... maybe I've just been lying to myself all of this time, all of these years. Have I not failed people? Have there not been times when I wasn't there for them, when I hurt them? Yes, I disappoint them as much as they disappoint me, and we are all human, and we are all horrible. This is life, and sadly, this is truth, and I'm really fucking scared of that kind of monster that kind of truth with make me. What happens to the kind of person who accepts something like that as truth, and stops caring? This is what accepting something as truth does... it makes you stop caring. I guess that's what my fight for truth really, much more deeply, comes down to. It's not a question of wanting freedom, or absolution, but simply a deep and overwhelming numbness. I don't need to care.... I know.
So what is it I expect from you any more? Nothing, to be honest. What can I expect? Everything I want from you is something I'd never do for you, so how can it possibly be expected in return? The only one I can turn to is myself, and thusly, the only one I can trust, or even hope to trust, is myself. It's like a payment plan... eventually, if I work hard enough at it, I may one day reach a point where I can trust myself, somewhat... just a little... maybe enough. Maybe enough, some day. The hope of reaching the point of enough.... I'm not greedy, I won't say fully, but enough. Enough to get by, enough to wake up in a day and not feel like shit, enough to want to be awake more than I want to be asleep.
Don't I sound emo? It's sexy. I'd sex me. No, that's a lie, I wouldn't touch me with a 20 foot pole, so don't feel bad, you're not alone.
That's a lie, you totally are.
Wow, I'm really bitter tonight. No, that's not really a properly stated comment. True, yes, but I'm saying it as if it were exclusive. Today, I seem to have some sort of hope that writing will bring some sort of catharsis. Logically, I know better. I know it'll just tire me and I'll crawl into bed and when Robbo wakes me up in the morning, I'll get up but be really unhappy about it because I'd rather be sleeping. True, I woke up today without that... or, got up after hours of being awake I should say... but that's because I knew time between sleep passes faster when I'm up instead of in bed. It's just trying to pass the time between sleep these days... a lovely notion of complete and utter waste and unappreciation of the beauty around me... but I'm not a good person. It takes a much better person than me to live life in a fashion that the life they have deserves. I apologize, all those gifts given to me. You deserve to be with a more worthy host, one willing to use and appreciate you. Heh. I bet a lot of lovely women would love to hear "You deserve to be with somebody who'll use you more." Anyways, the whole point is I'm not just bitter tonight. I'm like this every damned day, and it disgusts me. I disgust me, and that doesn't help. I can't even count the ways I find myself disgusting in a day, and I run by trying to think of something else which always leads to another reason all over again as to why I should hate myself. Sometimes, I even get lucky and figure out a brand new one. Isn't waking life dandy?
So Christmas is coming, people are coming home and I'm expected to do things. I've gotten away with not calling people by simply not explaining myself, and people seem to be content with that. Unlikely excuses, or entire lack of response... really, it doesn't even take that much. My normal apathy, some sort of minimal effort without much enthusiasm... nothing scares away potentially helpful friends then halfassedness. Being bitter, being pathetic... all of these things inspires them to try to be decent people. Being mediocure, being bland, being unexciting and unworthy of note. This is where the true escape lies. Sleeping. "I'm tired." "I need sleep for work." What a beautiful thing, that is. Oh gorgeous sleep, you're there for me over half the time, and that's plenty more than most, even myself these days. How can I ever thank you? A morally acceptable way to numb away the time, and a hell of alot cheaper than booze. Hell, I can sleep and laugh at those suckers who drank away their problems, feeling better than any alcoholic. At least mine isn't too bad for your health. I won't go into details, because it really isn't great, but oh well.
I know I shouldn't post this, and I know I probably will. I'm an asshole like that. I'll make you all feel bad, and when you try to do something I'll make you feel worse, and neither of us will have gained from it all. I can justify it with alot of reasons. I believe in honesty. What a load of shit. Who does something for just that sake? You do honesty because you think it's good, and you do good for what reason? To feel better about yourself? To feel justified in your areas that you lack, where you're immoral? I guess it's excusable to be a monster... as long as you're an honest monster. "Don't worry about me raping you! It's not about the sex, it's about the power! Jeeze, some girls are so misinformed today... oh wait, dangly bits. You're a boy! Christmas came early!" So why should I post? I guess I really just can't see why I shouldn't. I wouldn't be getting things out if I didn't have the sensation that some of this would be shared. It would be the same as writing to myself if nobody would read this. I need you to suffer to get anything out of this. Damned, if that ain't sick! I guess I'm just a little twisted... but remember... at least I'm being honest to you about it.
It's kind of a funny thing, isn't it? I seem to have this need, this inexplicable need, to get a reaction out of people. I don't really give a damn what it is. I don't need it to be them caring. It can be them angry, it can be anything. I need bounce. I need something to work with. I need a reaction, an outside source. I need comparison. I need definition. It doesn't matter what I spew out. It can be any part of me with any sort of bias or filter. It can be complete and utter shit. The same with whatever response I get, even if it's none at all. What difference does it make? I know who reads this. A lack of a reaction IS a reaction. I can even rebound off of silence... so why do I need to post this at all? It's that stupid honesty. I have to know that there's a silence to believe in it. I have to convince myself before I can move on. I have to believe that somebody will read this to write in this manner. It's really no different now than it was in my journal, except this is typed and that was by hand.... still., I'm writing and writing here, when I just had nothing to say in the journal right before I started here. I knew I had more to say, the key was that I just didn't have anything to say to it. I needed a new medium, and here it is. I've done talking, I've done writing to self, and now... the public expression. The share, and the judgement that comes with it. Don't worry, I judge you for the same damned things, so don't feel so guilty about it. We all do it, we might as well be honest about it (HA! Seriously, this honesty bit is cracking me up.)
I guess I'm writing here out of a sense of guilt. I've spent a bit too much time picking on individuals lately with my bitterness, and at least most people will think if I write on here it's not directed towards them, of it they're half as self centered as I am, they'll think it's all about them. Honestly, do whatever the hell you want with this, I don't really care. I just needed to get some stuff out so I didn't sit there thinking for hours in the dark, alone as all hell, like I always do. I'd much rather piss it all out on here, pass out completely emotionally and creatively exhausted (yeah, sad... even this writing takes creative energy...) and sweet, beautiful sleep will completely and utterly ingulf me and I'll just float away another few miserable hours without giving a damn. Seriously, that sounds amazing, and I think I've really go it in me to manage just that, so I think I'm gonna crawl into a hole now. Night-o.
~Richard
PS - Jeeze, the sun never seems to be up these days... | | |
| Well, boys and girls, this is it. 'Ere I sit, alone in the dark. Today, however, it is in Ottawa on my mother's 'cute' little laptop (you had to have been there yesterday... don't ask). I'm on the eve of what will surely be one of my great adventures, whether it's the first of many or the only one before I find something and settle down... honestly, who knows? That's part of the beauty of this moment, right here. I have a freedom right now unlike any I've had before, and I can almost feel my wings even now. I just woke up from the restless slumber of a half drunken fool that's probably getting more excited than he's willing to admit. Tommorow, August 27th, I turn 20 years old over the Atlantic ocean, flying straight into the sunrise, and get to accomplish a handful of my life's goals. Over the next year, I'll be doing even more of those. I always knew that eventually this feeling inside of me of wanting to see more, to do more, to go out and just... BE more would come to something. When you finally see it start to come to pass, when you've seen enough change in yourself and enough understanding in your own development... I understand how much this is going to change me. I only have a few vague clues as to how, and honestly I bet there's alot more I'll never be able to forsee than the things I will. That's what things are right now, though. I'm riding the wave, and it's going to take me where it may. It'll ride me on through Germany, through things like Octoberfest and hopefully many other good times. I'm hoping before Christmas I'll have gone to Norway and seen the Maelstrom for myself, crossing another of the great things I have wanted to see in my life off the list. I have the next five days in France all to myself. I'll be wandering through (esspecially if old Montreal was any hint of what's to come) some of the most beautiful cities in the world. I could probably spend a day gazing at archetecture. I don't know how to really express this because it's not the excitement I'm trying to express. I'm not trying to explain how fun it's all going to be, which it is, or how grand or anything of those. I'm trying to explain... the becoming that is coming with this. Almost everything in my life has come together right now for this moment, this moment of freedom where I take the time to go off and become. I'm off to become the man I want to be, off to learn the lessons I want to learn and find the place I want to be. My mom has said it more than once this past little stretch, and after seeing three of Canada's main other cities in the past week I think I may agree with her a little. Winnipeg is a great place to be from. I'll never look back on my childhood wishing I'd grown up somewhere else, and I know it's a great place to raise kids. If I ever come to that road, then I'll deal with it when I get there. But... lets be honest here. I really really love walking, I love biking and spending time outside. I hate not being able to do that for half the year because of the snow. I love the water, I love the sea. I love really old buildings with that smell of history (esspecially filled with old books...). I love just laying in a field for hours, looking at the sky. I love new places and new adventures. Winnipeg is in my heart, but... and I say this with the excitement of a foolish young'un on the eve of the begining of his first really big adventure, not the end, that I don't expect to be coming home at the end of this. The world has more to offer me than I could ever imagine, and the least I could do is go out looking for some of it. I have drinks to drink, food to eat and pretty girls to kiss on the Eiffle Tower (We'll just... avoid elaborating... and if you didn't think of what I thought you thought of there, then just don't think and don't ask either). I'm really glad to have known you all. I'm really glad for those of you that spent my last day with me, esspecially those who were there right till the end. I'll definately keep in touch, and if I never really come back to Winnipeg, you know I'll come to visit some day. I'll leave you with a song that I don't really expect most of you to like because nobody likes my taste in songs I post on here as much as I seem to. It's Great Big Sea, so sea ditty kind of stuff. "The River Driver"
I was just the age of sixteen when I first went on the drive,
After six months hard labor, at home I did arrive.
I courted with a pretty girl, t'was her caused me to roam,
Now I'm just a river driver and I'm far away from home.
I'll eat when I am hungry and I'll drink when I am dry,
Get drunk whenever I'm ready, get sober by and by,
And if this river don't drown me, it's down I'll mean to roam,
For I'm a river driver and I'm far away from home.
I'll build a lonesome castle upon some mountain high,
Where she can sit and view me as I go passing by
Where she can sit and view me as I go marching on,
For I'm a river driver and I'm far away from home.
I'll eat when I am hungry and I'll drink when I am dry,
Get drunk whenever I'm ready, get sober by and by,
And if this river don't drown me, it's down I'll mean to roam,
For I'm a river driver and I'm far away from home.
When I am old and feeble and in my sickness lie,
Just wrap me up in a blanket and lay me down to die
Just get a little bluebird to sing for me alone,
For I'm a river driver and I'm far away from home.
I'll eat when I am hungry and I'll drink when I am dry,
Get drunk whenever I'm ready, get sober by and by,
And if this river don't drown me, it's down I'll mean to roam,
For I'm a river driver and I'm far away from home.
I'll eat when I am hungry and I'll drink when I am dry,
Get drunk whenever I'm ready, get sober by and by,
And if this river don't drown me, it's down I'll mean to roam,
For I'm a river driver and I'm far away from home.
For I'm a river driver and I'm far away from home.
G'night, folks. If you miss me, look towards the sunrise. I'm somewhere off in that light, losing myself to find just the same. ~Richard | | |
| Okay ladies, it is now official. I purchased the plane ticket earlier today for August 22nd. I will be leaving at 6am for Toronto where I will spend a few days with my mom and getting my visa in Toronto. I will then proceed to leave (still theoretical on this one) on August 26th, traveling to London and making my way to Gatwick for a flight to Bordeaux, likely arriving on my 20th birthday. The return ticket isn't quite an open ticket, but the date won't be set for quite some time (too lazy to explain) and basically is up to me. If all goes as planned, I don't think I will return until September 2008. My flight back is to Toronto, and I may not even come back to Winnipeg straight from there, and almost definitely not right away. Alot is still up in the air, but I can't go back on this date of leaving to Toronto any longer, so that is the definite time line.
~Richard
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