If I am constantly changing, then there is no fixed "I" to speak of.

We are empty. We are swirls of smoke that are here for an instant and then fade back into the medium from which we came. We, in our arrogance, think that we are solid beings who can manipulate and form the world to our liking. Smoke can displace smoke, but not steel.

We are dark. We are beings of shadow who crawl on the ground following whatever solid form we can latch on to. We have no essence of our own. We exist as we do because there is an area where light cannot penetrate. We can mimic the form of the solid object, but so much is lost in the process. The best we can do is a sad representation of that which we try earnestly to resemble.

We are children at best. What we call maturity is simply a recognition of the loss of innocence. We are born supreme... and rot from there on. We are subjects to a kingdom of death and decay. As we become more like it, so we become less alive.

I want everything and nothing

I am conflicted and in harmony

I love and I despise everyone

I do not worship what I know

I do not know what I worship

I am intertwined and I am alone

I am wise and decieved

I am smart and stupid

My only enemy is time

slowly taking everything from me

slowly grabbing all I have with a grin of inevitability

turning me into two different people who constantly struggle for control of who "I" really am.

Who am I?

A whisper? A shadow? A puff of smoke?

-Hoping Not to be Thought of as Emo

Next Week: Illegal smugling ring discovered using the windows to the soul!

6:36 PM - 5 Comments - 7 Kudos - Add Comment

"What are you thinking about?" "Oh, nothing"

Imagine the inverse of Everything. Take your mind to the edge of reason, to the border of imagination, to the dead end at which point the logical progression of thoughts finally stops. Imagine Nothing. Do not imagine a world with no life forms. Neither think of a universe that is only black. Take away even the idea of consciousness. Imagine the lack of existence.

Take that lack, that void, and place it in a glass ball. Now try to picture yourself inside the glass ball - entering the abyss, as it were. You are not hot nor cold. You see neither color nor blackness. You hear neither sound nor silence. You experience (and, for that matter, do not experience) the nothingness.

Now imagine that same glass ball only this time you are looking at it from the darkness and it contains the whole universe inside. The glass is the window between the world of "is" and the world of "is not"

Lastly I want you to take note of just exactly where the spherical window exists. No, it is not at some location in space to where I could give you coordinates and you could go there in your magical spaceship. Notice instead that the only place such a barrier exists in in your imagination in the first place.

I will not think less of you for losing sleep over this one.

-The Doll-eye Llama

Next Week: How to attain enlightenment AND do your taxes in 3 easy steps!

9:08 PM - 5 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

The Storm

All calm in the metallic valley
plateaus stacked on top of one another
fallen pillars
with untensile feel

Suddenly
a downpour
water falling,
falling,
falling
relentless

the falling storm brought up suds
that cover the metallic valley
like snow

out of nowhere two hands appear
soft and delicate
how like an angel
how like a god

manipulating the plateaus and pillars
rubbing the snow into them
washing everything clean
and then proceeding to move the very landscape
out of the metallic valley

and put everything
into the dishwasher

2:05 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

to tell you the truth...

A man of consequence once asked: "what is truth?" Whether he was a great philosoher or a great idiot, whether he was being sincere or rhetorical, is not of any real importance. If I could tell you that I had the truth then it should be obvious to everyone once I presented it. Why, then, do I not find this to be the case when I present my findings to the world? I believe that the strong majority of people are decent and intellegent enough to spot truth when they see it. I don't even think it takes that much intellegence to recognize that which we are looking for once we've found it. If these things are so then why should so many people fight for so many years over the answers to the questions that everybody asks?

My best guess (and trust me that's all it is) is that we are thinking about answers all wrong. Truth is not found as AN answer. Instead it is found in the form of BEING answered. We pick up pieces along the way and, eventually, looking back it all makes sense how they fit into the puzzle. I hope that I am not straying too far into the cliche. Make no mistake - I am not saying anything analagous to "the joy is in the journey," or: "It doesn't matter where you go but rather how you get there." No, quite the contrary, we are meant to find AN answer (and there is only one answer to any given question for two answers to one question would nullify the question). Truth is like a riddle: the path to the answer is part of the answer.

So try the best you can. Walk the path with fearlessness and curiousity. And one day, when it hits you that you have found what you have always sought, then drop me a line and tell me if I was right or not.

-J. A. Prufrock

Next Week: Why hot dogs come in packages of ten and hot dog buns come in packages of eight. (The answer will surprise you!)

7:38 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

reaching the end of it all

The end of a year is like the end of anything else. To live is to live with the expectation of death. To start is to commence with the certainty of finishing. There is a path that is followed, a course which we always walk backwards with our backs to the road ahead.

We struggle along, oh do we struggle. And for what? Not for happiness itself but for the promise of it. We are given that which is almost what we want but never what we want. It's like bitting into a hamburger and discovering it to be a patty made out of soy and mushroom.

But it is not prudent to always talk about the pitfalls and potholes that we find along the way. So let us keep an optimism that only comes from facing the past and continue on - resolved to learn new things but learning nothing.

-Traveller

Next Week: The Existential Conundrum resolved!

3:58 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment