Pain is a Permanent Resident

Pain is a Permanent resident
Sorrow seems to Stay
Tears an endless Torrent
Apathy takes Away

Breathing is a Broken bottle
Crying as the shards Cut
Victory a mere Vision
Empathy's not Enough

Pain is a Permanent resident
So think what you might do
When gleaming chandeliers of light
Come crashing down on you

But in all things remember
That to a rock held fast
Above all the sufferings
Love Lasts

Don't Call it a Comeback

If you did that, it would insinuate that my previous state was a state of failure. That somehow, I had something to come back too. That's just not so. I don't know what I can tell you - how to make it sound, I don't know, intelligible. I've suffered loss. I've suffered heartbreak, but who hasn't? In that respect my recent victories are no more of a comeback than a kid who picks himself up from a fall. Now, that's something I can latch onto. Everyone falls. Don't get me wrong - there's nothing wrong with the phrase "come back." It's the major theme of one of my favorite songs. It's just as romantic and versatile as any phrase out there. It just doesn't apply. I'm moving forward, if anything, to places I've never been. And that, to me, is much more admirable than a "comeback." What is this anyway? A baseball game? I'm sick and tired of people comparing life to a game. Using phrases like "winners" and "losers." Again, metaphors are great, but for me they just don't apply. I start going down that road, I might not make it back. That's the road I used to take, assigning value to words and phrases thinking that somehow they would rise up and liberate me from - what? Myself. Though I didn't know it at the time. See, we exist in an isolated system. You, me, my dog. Each of us only having the perception of numero uno -a one-of-a-kind superhuman me. Right? That's a trap in itself. Isn't it?

Whatever came to mind...

This was written by me in a topic which called for flash essays without prompt... it was a "whatever first comes to your mind, and go" type of thing.

So as I was reading through these wall of texts (btw I really don't care if there are spaces or not) I got a bunch of great ideas to put in a wall of text of my own.

Then I realized that doing such a thing would violate my very rules. So let's talk about rules. What are the biggest ones? the oldest ones? The Ten Commandments? Wrong. There was one before. I'm sorry to go all biblical here but this furious ranting has left me no option. There was a rule before, and that rule was simple. Be perfect. Be like God. But we ****ed it up. So God broke it down into ten. And they're alright. But we still can't do it. So God broke it down into a thousand pager, and over half of us decide to ignore it or attack it as untrue.

Why do people attack things? It's kind of an unanswerable question, and a random one at that. One obvious answer is self defense. If something is threatening you, you must, in order to preserve your very self, attack it to keep it from attacking you. Are there other reasons? Malice, of course. Are there really any others? Probably, but I'm not thinking long enough to find them. Of the two, I wonder which one fits the situation in the ladder-wall above? It's funny, because a book can't attack people. It can cause people to attack people, but it doesn't leap out and try to bite you. I had a dream that a hamster bit me. Anyway, do we have the right to take out secondary sources of influence? I suppose so. But you have to acknowledge the fact that the only reason to take out a secondary source is because you're too weak to deal with the primary. If an evangelist comes to your house and you can't deal with him in a way that you see ideally, then the logical step is to attack their belief system. Because you failed to attack them.

Isn't that kind of cowardly?

Keyboard Master

This makes me think of Guitar Hero for some reason. And, if a game were to come out anything like guitar hero using a keyboard, I can only imagine the colossal train wreck that would result.

Now with FIVE buttons, for a complete piano experience!

Oh boy. What is this world coming to, that we sit around playing plastic guitars with five buttons before learning an actual guitar? If today’s society would apply itself, think of what we could accomplish? I don’t know what else I can say about it. It’s not just music. It’s everything that we put aside to play videogames. And I’m just about as guilty as anyone. I mean, I have a stack of books that I need to read which is far too large for my tastes. And they’re by authors I like. So what’s the problem?

I think it has something to do with the intensity of life. Videogames are relaxing in that they don’t require thought. Concentration, yes, but thought? Not so much. Have you every played videogames at an all-nighter? I have. I could feel my brain meting away from sleep deprivation, and my videogame performance was hardly affected. Have you ever tried to read when you’re tired? It can’t be done. Maybe we should put flashing lights on our books. And out guitars. And our keyboards. Maybe we can put flashing lights on our friends and our teachers, and maybe on some poor children that only need a bit of care.

Maybe then some things will get done.

Stay calm

Occasionally, the situation calls for some chaos. Some raised voices or frantic action.

But let's be honest.

How many times could you get by without causing all that ruckus?

Choose your words carefully.

Step lightly and carry a big stick.

-Theodore Roosevelt on foreign policy

Keep your wits about you and when the time comes that you must escalate the mood, you won't be the boy who cried wolf.

Don't be afraid to let someone else lead

There are leaders and there are followers. Which are you?

I'm interested to know. What's the percentage on a question like that?

I can guess.

Lets say that everyone in the worlds is to be sorted onto a team of ten. Ten individuals per team. Assuming that there is one leader among those ten, this means that 10% of the world leads and 90% follows (even in a democracy, there is a leader). Where does that leave you?

I said I could guess what percentage said they would be leaders, and, using simple arithmetic, deduce the other. I'd guess 50%. Why?

It's called a self serving bias. This phenomenon has been documented across cultures, and in a great number of studies. Over half of the population likes to believe that they're different, or special. Somehow set apart from the majority. And you're reading the words of one just as guilty.

Now, that's not to say that nobody is special or different, but you can see how those people, in order to be different or special, would have to constitute far less than half of the population.

Don't be afraid to let someone else lead.

Allow for the possibility that you're not the right guy for the job - and if you are, when you step into position, you'll be all the more aware.

Sorry for the ups and downs

After some additional thought, I have decided that Dominism, not this blog, is dead.

Everything I said in the last post was true, but it doesn't call for the shutdown of the whole operation.

For a while I had a new blog at aluminumexile.blogspot.com. Don't bother going there, it's gone now. I was going to make a transition there and start a new chapter of sorts but...

I forgot to post the link to aluminumexile here.

*facepalm*

So, with complete disregard for my number of posts as well as the idea of Dominism, let us all move on and remember why we do what we do.

We write because...

*billions of blogging ideas rush to the brain*

Um... I'll get back to you on that.

Emily gets the credit for showing me where I'd gone astray, Will gets the credit for showing me the error of my over calculations, and John gets the credit for supporting me no matter what.

(Also, just because Dominism as an idea is dead doesn't mean that Dominist ideals are. Just because it got a little full of itself and power hungry doesn't mean it had bad intentions. What it stood for is still good. How I tried to put it into use... bad. All bad.)

Endgame

This post marks the 200th overall post on Dominism, previously titled I Am One, Killer 8, and who knows what else.

And, speaking of posts, this one also marks the last.

I know that at 100 I yanked your chain on April Fool's Day. Today is not April Fool's Day.

Dominism was a miscalculation. Dominism is something that needs to take place in a more private sector, wherein I can be assured of it being taken seriously as well as ensuring that it stays meaningful. I spoke of how I didn't know to what end Dominism would take me, and how I figured I would find out along the way.

I didn't.

So, if my writing is to continue (I assure you it will), it must continue with direction, with poise and purpose.

Thanks for all the comments, and I'll see you in a few.