I realized that in my downward spiral of hopelessness, I was actually falling into the huge hole created by my absence of basic human graces. The most obvious was forgiveness. When relationships become a ledger of profit and loss, you have no friends. Just pluses and minuses. You are absolutely alone.
Kahekili
Thunder is an emotion. I remember crying when I heard it. I never felt tough. I was never that guy. I was the one that had thoughts in my head. I was beat up by guys like you. I wasn’t fond of taking a slap.
But I guess you had to endure the pains life gave you. Gives you. Keeps giving. You may have asked for this. I didn’t ask for this. It just sort of happened.
I keep attention maybe two seconds at a time. It’s a blessing and a curse. Most likely a curse if you don’t like what I have to say. That doesn’t make me wrong.
Life is a mystery inside a riddle inside an absurdity. And we all know it. And we ignore it. You are a mess. I am a mess. And it’s such a mess when we push our mess together.
If you’d have asked me ten years ago, I would say I hate myself and want to die. Now people like that frustrate me. They make me sad in a way that I don’t like to be sad.
Words come easily. Words come like water. They flow. Sometimes they overwhelm me. They’re like a wave. They feel bigger than me. They are larger than life. But they’re just syllables. Just harmless vowels and consonants. They push together to make ideas. Ideas are what’s truly fucked. They make you think things. I’d prefer to have ice cream.
Be here to love
Be here to love, otherwise everything is speculation. I’m not here to be angry, though given the right circumstance I can usually be counted on to be so. Old behavior is extrapolated into guesses about what will happen. Vague memories have a way of becoming hard truth. Everyone knows what happened, but everyone knows differently, passionately. There are no witnesses that have actually seen anything except what they’ve heard. Credibility is a measure more valuable than a credit score. It means more than the truth.
Nothing happens without an equal and opposite reaction. Lies beget lies. Sorrow makes thing sad. Revenge makes retaliation inevitable. I’m not interested in propagating any of that. I realize my choices might put me in the background for now. I’ve never stayed there before. Why would I?
What’s happening outside is not an ever after. Things will get worse before they get better. But things will change. It always has a way of coming around. See less
Light years
We all go through this life. Some moments happy. Some sad. Most boring. But when you can see the inevitable. When you look at the dumb star that makes wind possible. Think. Turn on a light. It seems instantaneous. That light in the sky took eight minutes to get here. About 93 million miles. And that star is close. The next closest one would shine on you in about four and a half years. That is how small you are.
You
You is a three-headed ghost from at least six different past lives. You is an empty canvas, therefore you is always full. You is the one. You is until something better comes along. You is an idea. You is an emotion. You is forever fleeting, therefore you is eternal. You is everyone. Therefore, you is no one. One of the cold comforts of a photographic memory, is that you can’t take away anything I have ever seen. And that is why you is always with me. I’ve seen you. Many sides of you. And I will have you until I see you again and forever after that. Even if I never see you again.
Coyote ugly
“You un-friended me? That’s like a modern-day public pillorying.”
“Oh god, Kalani, you’re so dramatic. I had to cut you off. You kept posting weird shit on my wall. My family reads that you know?”
“I was just telling you that it’s probably not a good idea to friend your kids. Your 16-year-old doesn’t need to know what you look like dancing on the bar at Coyote Ugly.”
“Well, if it makes you feel better, I deactivated my account completely.”
“It actually does. Singling out one person out of 3 billion users is quite a statement, don’t you think? At least now I blend in with the rest of the planet.”
“I wanted my privacy back. And I felt like I had to respond to everyone who contacted me. I don’t need that. I actually feel free.”
“Hippie.”
Look both ways before you cross
Nothing living—actually living—wants to die. Not fish. Not trees. I’m pretty sure bacteria don’t want that petri dish to burn. People are an unusual problem. Who invented self-flagellation? There must have been a reason at the time. Sentience is pain. Not knowing doesn’t hurt. Look at the feral cat smashed on the street. I guarantee he didn’t know it was Wednesday. But if he did and knew there were no more Wednesdays? He might have looked both ways.
Construction
How much of our lives and belief systems are just some construct or other? What we experience in real-time is as often predetermined as it is any sort of real stream of consciousness. In hindsight, it is a rare occurrence where we might surprise ourselves.
The upshot of this realization is that there really are no excuses. Everything is a choice. I own this. I’ve chosen this. This is my choice.
Dervish
I heard the words and did not recognize myself. What had I become? I would never hurt you on purpose. But when I was a whirling dervish, you were just standing too close. Don’t worry, it ends. It all ends. Everything ends. You just have to wait for the moment.
Punk muppets
It’s a success. The Muppets cover Nirvana now. Pearl Jam covers the Makaha Sons of Ni’ihau. We made what we wanted for everyone. You might argue it’s been co-opted. But punk is inside now. People who never would have known it have it in their awareness.