The Creation of a Cynic

My parents were nice people. They’re still nice, and I’d tell people that, too, if they cared enough to ask. They usually don’t. People often inquire about my childhood, and I can’t tell if it’s an innocent curiosity or some attempt to draw an answer up about some question imposed by my current self. Believe me, I’m not that unbearable to be around, but don’t tell anyone. Don’t tell anyone, either, that my parents had little to do with my up-to-date loathings and hatreds, and subsequent ill behavior. This is natural. Pure, unfiltered Darwinism.

Anyway, my parents were nice. They were divorced which I’ve never held against them, and wouldn’t, still, had I been old enough to even remember it. I wasn’t. My first nightmare was about the Flying Monkeys from The Wizard of Oz, not of my parents being divorced.

Both my parents believed in God, and I never really held that against them, either. Unlike my normal, people-caused views, I didn’t think this made them stupid. I still don’t, and in a way, I’m glad they have that — God, I mean. Or Him. Or whatever. It doesn’t matter, as long as they have something to look forward to, and I don’t call them stupid for it. I think it’s nice.

And that’s what it is. Nice. Nice, because they’re not telling me homosexuality is an abomination, or that Hell is a place God sends sinners. I think they realize that God’s Will, as a thing, eliminates any possibility of Hell. I don’t always capitalize God. In regards to my parents, I will. Hell or no Hell, they strive to be better people. I like that.

I have two friends, both Atheists, who don’t believe in Marriage Equality. There’s nothing scarier, as there is no belief system, no matter how flawed, backing this up. It’s pure intolerance for no reason other than disliking a group of people. I hate them.

I bring them up to show something. It isn’t people like my parents who have made me spit at the world. It’s people like these two “friends” of mine. I think their views on god are lies. I think they disbelieve purely because it’s becoming the cool thing to do, as if somehow it’s now edgy, like immortal rebellion. I think deep down they’re just two more god-fearing, hate mongers. Their ideologies are confusing. Both of them are racist, sexist, homophobes, who have actually questioned me as to why I’m so disgusted by rape. Seriously. Needless to say, they are both republicans. This, generally, goes against everything an atheist usually is. I don’t like Liars. I don’t like fakes. They attempt to insult me by calling me ” Fucking Democrat”. They don’t understand what it is about them that I can’t stand.

The world is full of them, these fakes; these liars, and so are our TVs. My parents never watched reality television. This, I am grateful for. They never got into celebrity gossip, either. No TMZ or HLN. No MTV or E! News. My heroes were never destined to be Perez Hilton or Kim Kardashian.  I never looked at anybody from The Real World, or Jersey Shore with anything other than disdain. The only reason I even know who these people are is because of people other than my parents. I had boring ex-girlfriends who didn’t like to do much more than watch American Idol or Desperate Housewives. I’ve had, and still have, friends who spend their time wasting away, being brain-murdered by Buckwild; Survivor; Operation Repo; the likes. Suicide really does seem painless compared to sitting through that shit.

My parents, instead, taught me the value of books. Now I scroll through FaceBook, and see people who’s favorite book’s section reads: I don’t read; Fuck Reading; or I hate Books. Look at their favorite movie’s section to find a list longer than Netflix’s. Look at their hobbies: Partying. Girls. Hunting. Cars. Busch Light. Wrestling. Shootin’ Stuff.

Are you starting to see where my negativity comes from? It was never my parents. Never my childhood. It came from growing up and meeting people. When I was in High school, it didn’t matter whether someone had the same T-shirt, it mattered who got it first because it would have been more expensive. Why the fuck would that possibly matter. The separation and divider of students grew and grew right in front of my eyes, as kids who had always been cool no longer were because their plain white T was different than the exact same plain white T with a certain name over the left side of the chest. Kids became walking billboards and clothing company’s reaped the benefits. It’s at its worst today. Back then, even the nicest button-ups were about $60. Today, they’re about $99-$130. And parents buy their kids this shit, instilling in them this idea that what you wear defines you. So now, we have spray tanned, roided-out, pink-lipped, debt-growers all circling around the shallowest beings they can find, looking for acceptance. If parents simply taught acceptance, we could have avoided this cycle. My friend just bought a fedora. A fucking Fedora. With a skull on it. He sleeps with a different girl every week. He never calls them again. They don’t mind. This. This is what happens.

Can we go back. This awful cynicism I have (and no doubt many others), would die if parenting were done the way it should be. We all cynics need to unite and breed and have cynic children, so that this wave of douchebaggery can die under the cogs of our brutal machine called progress; under these swinging iron fists war-bent on beating back the hordes of culture cannibals. Down with modern culture. Down with the dumbing of our nation. Down with materialistic competition. Teach your kids to read and to be curious. Teach them the value of work and the honor in respect. Above all, teach your kids to doubt.

“The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid people are so sure about things and the intelligent folks are so full of doubts.”  -Bertrand Russell

Boredom & Expectations: What’s Killing You?

I think my problem with life-longevity boils down to a simple fear of boredom. This idea, the one that’s ingrained in us since birth (c’mon you know the one), just seems so unrealistic when speaking in terms of happiness.

We’re supposed to waste our childhood studying, right? Just studying away, click-clacking through Google and Wikipedia while our friends are out cow-tipping or getting arrested for turfing the football field? For what? To get into a good school where we click-clack over Google and Wikipedia even harder just to be told our opinions are shit. (Side note: I had a professor in college who was an Irish Catholic who believed in Creationism!) Meanwhile, our friends are out crowd surfacing and getting arrested for selling mushrooms for $45 an eighth (that’s a crime in itself!)! Double exclamations — you know I’m serious.

And then what? ( Young Jeezy in head now.) Then, the worst part, we’re supposed to find some job? Some measly little “new hire” job, where we get paid in elephant peanuts because we have no reference level, no work experience, and no fucking idea how to tie the full-Windsor? Oh yeah, don’t forget, we’re already, basically supposed to have a spouse, or someone that resembles one, picked out by now, because, you know, we’ve had so much fucking free-time.

So here we sit in life (you still with me?), fresh out of school, new job where you already want to jump out of the window with your mouse cord noosed around your chicken neck, just praying your computer will catch on the edge of the sill so you can hang in front of everybody’s fucking face instead if splat on the sidewalk, because you want people to know who you are? Ok, maybe not that last part. Where were we? Ah yes, new job, it sucks anal (we’ll leave it at that), and you’re about to get married, oh, God! Good for you, with that wedding, the big-ass wedding she wants that you can’t afford on your “new hire” salary.

And then, boom! Debt, son. Mad debt. Car payments, mortgage, student loans, credit cards, traffic tickets, hospital bills,… Wait. Hospital bills? Yes, sir, your spouse just popped out some kids. They kind of look like you, but you can’t be too sure. Might as well argue about some shit! Maybe threaten a divorce, shit, maybe get a fuckin’ divorce, I mean, the kids are young enough, right, they won’t remember… Right?

And this is where the cycle starts all over again. Your kids, quiet in their rooms, click-clacking over Google and Wikipedia, questioning why any of this matters. And the truth is, you never tell them, is that it doesn’t. What matters is living, and none of us are really doing it.

Call into work and go drink a beer, or margarita, or whatever. Go play air-hockey with a bunch of neighborhood delinquents. I dare you. Get shit-faced, and prank call your boss, saying: “Worship Satan, pussy.”

Why not, Gaylords? Why. Not. It will be delightful, I promise.

This will segue nicely into my next post, titled: Why Drink!?

Chop Suey

This is a very short piece of fiction I wrote while being bored at work. I work with the mentally ill, so this sort of writing kind of creeps up on me from time to time. It’s supposed to bring awareness to the millions of people struggling with depression or some other form of mental illness who never seek help for it. Tragedies like this happen every day. If you know someone struggling with depression, please, encourage them to seek help.

Shannon closed the door behind her, and let out a sigh. The sound of the bus’s engine faded down the street, and she didn’t even bother to look out the window. She just sat there smiling, fingering away a tear of relief that nestled in the corner of her eye. This was the day. At last.

A laugh escaped her quivering lips, so unexpected that it made her jump. The laugh finished its dying echo through the empty chambers of the house, reverberating off the cool oak decor and the extra tall ceiling of the main room, and all was still again.

Still.

No Goddamn kid’s running-footsteps breaking the sweetened silence, no fucking ringing phone, no Goddamn David tapping his fucking shoe on the floor while he watches reruns of Married with Children, laughing a little too hard at Al’s disdain for his stupid wife. Bitterness still hung in the air from David’s coffee, though, still sitting on the table next to the unopened paper, cold and untouched. Cold and untouched just like Shannon. Just like this fucking house.

Shannon smiled, flipping her dress and twirling around in the open foray beside the staircase, alone at last. As she danced, she got goosebumps imagining what her family would see when they got home. That was the best part. God, that look on David’s face, alone, would be to die for. And, yes, that was part of it. God, what a bore David was. Is. And those kids, would they even give a shit? Or would they just go on, leaving their stupid fucking things all over the stupid fucking house. Would they even notice? Would they even see her? Would they cry? Shannon laughed again.

When she first took it from David’s drawer, it felt so cold and made her shiver as she slipped it in the band of her pants, but now it had grown warm, being pressed against her skin for so long. She pulled it out and kissed it. The pistol, her savior, was black as David’s coffee, and just about as plain as he was. Nothing special. Just a cheap little nine millimeter. Oh, but the things that it could do! So unlike David in that aspect.

The kitchen lay to the left of the foray, and there on the table, Shannon wrote her family a note. This is all she had to say: “Fuck you.” Another smile snuck out through her lips.

Shannon danced back toward the front door, and as her goosebumps peaked and the butterflies in her stomach flew their greatest flight yet, she put the pistol to her temple and squeezed the trigger, painting that bitter oak with vibrant arcs of red and gray. Her feet stopped moving and over she fell, her head bouncing off the floor to land emotionless, staring at the front door, pupils expanding to ever-black. Before remnants of the last breath left her lungs, Shannon forced an honest smile to greet her family with. It would be the only one she ever gave.

PSA: We’re All Doomed. Unless…

This is another rant of mine, but I feel that it serves a purpose. It might make you mad. That’s the point. If you don’t like reading my rants, this is where you should disembark.

Here’s the thing: We’re all dying. Every last one of us. The vibrant young twenty-somethings; the grandpas and grandmas; the children, I mean, yeah, them too. Eventually, right? Some sooner than others, anyway. Most of us that have ever lived are already dead, and the rest of us–well, we aren’t getting any younger.

Every single day, we’re working harder towards dying and we don’t stop to look around. Never. We’re too preoccupied with the appearance of our little lawns, or our glassed-cased china sets to look beyond and imagine better things. What’s more satisfying than image? Progress. What’s more satisfying than progress? Fulfilling a dream. What could be better than that? Dreaming. Period.

In this world where each step — each second — takes us closer to the end, what dreams can we really have besides the skin deep, surface scratching bores that fill the little holes of our insecurity? You want a steady job? Fine. You want that trip to Cancun? Great. You want those ugly-ass boots that cost $200, even though you could buy the knock-off for a tenth of the price? Ugg!, have at it, loser. These things don’t fucking define you. In the end, nobody really cares, and nobody is going to remember you unless you do something.

I dream of beauty. What I want is beauty in the world. I should have been born in a different era, sitting by the sea, dreaming of what’s beyond. Not sitting under smog, knowing what’s causing it. People always ask me why I’m depressed. I tell them I’m not depressed. Then, I’m usually hit with: “Why do you hate everything?” Here’s another thing: I don’t hate everything. Quite the contrary. I love everything. I just hate what we’ve done to it all. It’s not just ourselves we’re killing, it’s everything. No, I’m not about to go on a rampage about pollution, or other hippie crap. When I say everything, I’m not just talking about the environment. If Beethoven were alive today, he couldn’t get a show at a Piano Bar. Bach would make dubstep. Van Gogh would again be a nobody, but wouldn’t get the fame after his death this time. And Hemingway, poor Hemingway, would be rejected quicker than the Twilight movies sold out in theaters. The times have changed and people keep getting dumber.

Where’s the beauty anymore? Industry has ruined the landscape, and the will to do anything; technology has just made us better, lazier killers; and politics has just pitted humanity against each other. Religion makes us stupid and teaches us that hating each other isn’t our own faults; tells us that we’re all equal, but convinces us to kill each other over minuscule differences. They say it’s not that way anymore. I say, what’s the difference? Instead of using advancement to further our species, we’ve only worked harder to destroy it. More bombs. More guns. Who knows, maybe that’s not a bad thing.

I say, let’s end this suicide.

I was a kid once. I grew up. Most people that ever lived are dead, and the rest of us are on our way. I was a kid once. Some people never even made it that far. A lot that did, never grew up. And those that did–grow up, I mean–mostly regretted it until they died. I do, and I will. Unless something changes.

I’m not depressed. I don’t hate life. I’m just disenchanted. Discontent. Dissatisfied. People are ugly. The world we’ve created is ugly. Do something today to better the world and you will truly feel something. I promise, it will be a better feeling than buying something; than bragging about something; than destroying something.

Stop.

I don’t want to live in a world where we can put a multi-billion dollar rover on Mars, but just overseas, forced female castration still exists, and is widely “practiced”; where the biggest export is bootlegged DVDs, and women get their fucking hand chopped off for showing an ankle; where little girls get shot in the fucking head for wanting to go to school. The biggest business in the world is the porn business, but a close second is human trafficking, where psychopaths pay big money to rape a drugged up, underage girl. This happens. All this shit happens, yet we debate on things like cutting funding for education, or whether or not birth control is “right”, or whether the President’s birth certificate is legitimate, or whether or not people we’ve never met should have the right to marry one another; where idiotic comparisons are made to the likes of: “What’s to stop people from marrying a toaster?”

Do something. Make a difference. This world needs to be livable again. If you are content in your perfect little shell, you are part of the problem.

Judgment: An Exercise.

I like to do writing exercises. I especially like those which force you to use a style you aren’t completely comfortable with. This is just a little message I free-wrote about my feelings towards judgmental people. There seems to be a lot of them in my life lately. Although I can’t exactly describe the style used, and for how uncomfortable it was for me, I think it turned out all right. Let me know what you think…

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we’re here today to profess the innocence of a young man, an innocence you, men and women not void of faith or morality, will agree with as certainly as the waves agree with the wind, and as surely as the moon draws the tide. Innocence in commitment of crime, surely, but what is to be examined so objectively is not a crime such as law would define, but one that condemns ones mortal being–the essence of the self. Life and death both hang in the balance, swaying with each pulsating heartbeat, each puppet string yanked by the banality of the everyday normal, by you all–sitting and judging so vehemently, so vile and silent in your sneers. Yes, you’ll agree that the soul is innocent, and maybe there was more at play. Ladies and gentlemen: I present this taciturn host.

I, for importance of accuracy, shall recount through much internal struggle absolutely NONE of the events which lead to this now, this sickening display–so slighted as you are–that has me prostrated before a jury not of my peers, but a jury of judges and accusers; internally of course, as this trial carries on in my heart, thus being far more taxing upon my soul than it could possibly be upon your pointing finger.

In truth, a care (if one could call it such), I haven’t given until now, and just now the whole idea seems–that of caring–a bit much, if honesty were questioned. Now this thing, this boring little piece you drag me here for, I can’t exactly discern. All fingers, shaking in their absolution; pointing with trite justification as if your views matter in my life. To the people who’ve held and now hold me in your disapproving gaze: your judgment means naught, and I’ll be good-god-damned if I’ll ever sit and beg for some drab-ish, fatuous, half-witted, doltish highfalutin, peremptory lowlife for forgiveness, or god-willing (laugh), to somehow be found innocent of your impassable acceptance test.

To all opposed: Get lost.

I live my life as a life should be lived, and that, my enemies, is as if it could be lost tomorrow, and on that notion of free will, an acceptance that there is probably nothing beyond to guide a soul (much less, my own) comes the ability to live freely, and only freely, and to hope for nothing less than satisfaction. I suggest to all of you nosy-naggers and finger fellators the act of letting go. Worry more about yourselves. Let me be me.

Let
Me
Be

Of Memory

Just a poem…

Sordid tongues that hiss bored regret.
Singing songs of the infinite.
Through tempered eyes; windowed souls.
I see infinity: Embossed in coal.

But before we fly on these weathered sails,
So brightly binded and post-impaled.
Remember youth beneath the sun,
Of slighted years: Those sordid tongues.

And in hateful times, slipped broken steps.
Had cracked the soles of our moment’s breath.
For many years, who fear to come.
The thoughts remain: Forced chosen ones.

When repress is chosen, a conscious goal.
The snakes of treason, invade–dethroned.
They spill the glass; a memory.
And in remission, flood back unseen.

Marking souls, cortex requesting molds.
Guided scars, mapping ruby-dotted holes.
Behold, the pariah dying like the old.
Desensitized by the liar’s grinding woes.

With softened smiles, like infants’ breaths.
We capitalize on our loneliness.
So take your nails, and tear the seams.
Become the scars of eternal-dream.

And when the gleam, fades forever severed clean.
To the stars, we part exempt from what we think.
Celestial paths; too far to ever see.
Bodies barren–void of voice: Empty.

Thoughts on Fiction: Adverbs and Dialogue.

The strange thing about fiction is this: Every single thing you write is a lie. All of it. Every last word. Once you understand this, you must also understand that the success of your story depends on your lies telling the truth. For your lies to tell the truth, your words must describe certain truths that are familiar. This brings me to the killer of prose.

Adverbs.

Adverbs don’t tell a reader anything, and more often than not they are far more deceiving than truthful. When you write that someone “walked vehemently”, you are not showing your reader anything. In fact, you’re telling UNtruthful lies. People can walk vehemently, this we know, but how, is the question. Instead of copping out and writing lazily (some adverbs are unavoidable), you must show the reader how something is done. This is where adverbs are deceiving.

Vehemently can mean a couple different things. Was this person walking with some intense feeling and conviction, say, on their way to fulfill their destiny? Or, were they simply walking with force, as in a march, maybe? Don’t be flat and just tell your reader some vague, far-stretching action. You have to show them. Instead of: “Mark walked vehemently into the darkness.”, say something like: “Mark stepped into the darkness with purpose, his conviction echoing off the ashen walls with each forceful step.” Now, that isn’t perfect either, but you get the idea, and you can tell the manner in which Mark was walking.

Summary: You’re no longer in kindergarten. Telling is off the table and it’s all show from here, baby.

Advice: Download a free program called SmartEdit. It will scan your work and list every adverb as well as cliché phrases and overused words.

Now. On to dialogue.

Dialogue is where realism really counts. If your dialog isn’t believable, your characters can’t possibly seem real. A common mistake I see is people thinking they have to come up with some special tag every time someone speaks.

Take this for example: “I hate you,” John hissed. Most amateur writers will think nothing is wrong with this. Two main things make this a failure, though. First: If it is already established that John is the speaker, you should absolutely, not f-in’ ever use John’s name. “He” is completely fine here. The second problem with this is the hiss part. There isn’t a single s in that sentence. You can’t hiss without making an s sound. The best tag here (and believe it or not, almost always), is a simple “he said”.

It’s difficult for new writers to grasp the simplicity of that. They often feel it’s overdone. It’s not. And trust me when I say that most readers will waft their eyes over it and not think twice.

Now, what is a better way to write that little piece of dialogue? Well, if you originally wrote hissed, I would assume that John said what he said with malice. Instead of just telling someone that, it’s much more effective to show the reader that he said it through clenched teeth, or whilst slamming his fist on the table. Maybe spit seeped from between the cracks of his grinding teeth as he accentuated the transfer from the t sound in hate to the y sound of the you. I don’t care how you do it; you’re the writer.

Also common is the addition of adverbs to dialogue tags. “John yelled violently.”

Yuck.

Like I said before: Showing is the name of the game. Do it with beauty and you will have your readers. The job you must do, is to find that happy medium between too much detail and too little. Too much drowns the reader. You want your reader to see truths to them with their own eyes. If you describe how someone said something angrily, you want them to remember what that looks and feels like to them, personally.

Evoke emotion at all cost. Even if it means sacrificing yourself.