Officially

In the past few months, I have moved.

I have moved on. I have become an activist, you could say. I have become more active - if nothing else. I have been paying better attention.

We have been making plans.
Change is in the air. We are changing.

As such, this is the official announcement that Crying for Contextualization (CfC) has come to an end. It served its purpose, got me through several difficult years, and helped to convey important thoughts for me. It has been a part of my heart and my life. It will live on in that way, forever.

But, there is something new now. Something not connected to Microsoft and Youtube and, and, and, and. The corporate conglomerations will continue. But, so will the fight.,

So. If you haven't wandered over to Context in Motion, you should. That is where I have been writing - and where I will continue from here on out.

Please, come join me and join the conversation about where we, as the people, are headed.

Becoming an occupier...

In two days, I will be enbarking on a journey to become an occupier and a journalist for 8 days.

I will be going to Occupy Wall Street. I will be engaging in the social experiment, first hand.
I will be sharing with you what I see and what I think of it.
But. I will not be sharing it here.

In combination with my experiment to be an occupier, to engage in this new model - this new symbol of a new society - I will be also engaging in a new blogging site.

The reason? Just as with my society, I have become increasingly disappointed with the profiteering I see, each day, finding new combinations and new ways into my life and my abilities and my contact anything outside of myself. Blogger has been subsumed and subsumed and subsumed by for-profit companies that have made it impossible to continue on with a clear conscious and an engaged mind.

And so, I am looking for a new home.
I have heard good things of Wordpress, and so for now - as an experiment - that is where I will be while I engage in this other social experiment. I am not claiming this is where I will land. I am just saying this is, for now, where I will be.

You will find the Occupy Wall Street posts here: Context in Motion

Please, join me on this journey and share your thoughts.

In occupation and cooperation with my fellow humans

I haven't written anything as of yet on this because I have been involved on several levels organizing and preparing for it:

Occupy PDX.

If you haven't heard about the movement that began as a media-blacked-out protest in New York City and has continued to gather steam all over the country, then you need to educate yourself:

Read about Occupy Wall Street.
Read about Occupy Together.

People like myself have finally raised their voice and have come out of their houses and themselves and are working toward something exciting and challenging and new. People who were fed up having to serve this system that serves corruption and violence and crime all over the world. People who were tired of having their voice and their ideologies and their ideas tossed away and dwindled down by "just getting by" in a world where we have plenty to go around, but hoard and hoard and hoard so that everyone is suffering. People who knew that these systems were bad but felt like they had such a tight grip on us that there was no way out.

But, in realising together that we all felt this way - we have discovered that there is another way. And so, we have begun taking it.

We don't know where exactly it's going because it's a work-in-progress, something we will continue to evolve and change as we evolve and change. Something, though, that gets at the spirit of life and human interaction. Something that gets at human needs and human desires. Something that fills the hole that our systems throughout our lives here has created.

We, the people of our communities, are beginning to move.
Expect us to make a change.
Because, if we all keep on and keep heart and keep on the course - we will.

This is extremely important

In a world when we're constantly climbing uphill to learn the things the generations before us thought okay and even necessary to forget, we need to fight battles like this. Because food is one of the basic building blocks of life. And without an understanding of it and the right to take it into our own hands, how can we consider this life?
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A teacher in Memphis Tennessee is trying to have a garden and teach his students about the ability to grow food and understand nature. In response, the neighborhood is annoyed by the nuissance and the courts have ordered he get rid of it.

Read the following and take some action with me: Adam Guerrerro's front yard garden

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Here was my response to Judge Larry Potter:

Dear Judge Larry Potter,

I am writing to you about the issue of Adam Guerrerro's front yard garden. Please reconsider this issue and allow him to maintain the front yard garden. It is good for the individual, good for his students, and good for the community in which he resides to see someone taking charge of their own food.

I think it is a shame that front yard gardens are discouraged in this country due to the petty issue of appearance. When did we become so concerned with the outward look of a thing over its true functionality?

Growing food is one of the most basic ways of meeting the human need of nourishment. Why should taking control of what one consumes be illegal? I thought it was the goal of this country to protect personal freedoms and autonomy. It is a sad day when the government cares more about how a thing appears over what its function is. And, it is an even sadder day when the government moves to take away a person's autonomy and ability to sustain him or herself, placing their basic human needs instead in the hands of companies that grow food on large scales and don't answer directly to the individual.

What's more, it is imperative that the children of this country understand that food comes from the ground, not from a shelf in a store. How do we expect to be able to show the youth what food is and how it is grown if the mere appearance of a garden is a nuisance?

Again, please allow Adam Guerrerro to continue his gardening efforts in plain sight of his neighborhood. Naturally, the garden should be kept in good working order, free from trash and free from obstructing walkways and pathways and driveways. But please, don't allow the mere look of the thing to trump its use.

Besides, how much better would our neighborhoods be if we began seeing the beauty of nature and how it produces our sustenance, instead of thinking that anything out of the ordinary grass lawn (which has no nutritional benefit and wastes water to the end of mere appearances while a garden can be useful and educational)? My opinion is that they would be wholly better.

Sincerely,
Rae Ashenden

Equinox

It seems only a few days ago that it was the longest day, and we stood in the balmy evening, overlooking the river and that magnificent fiery orange sunset until nine at night. Just a few days since we felt the coming of the darkness.

And now, here we are just about halfway through, babe.

It wasn't or hasn't been as bad or as good as we thought it'd be. In reality, it's been somewhere in between both. Half awful and have awesome. Half unbearable and half wonderful.

And so, with that in mind, the coming Equinox feels wholly appropriate. The coming of the rain and the grey and the half of all this that brings us closer to the death of winter, the covering up and hardening down of life. The sleep.

I'm always excited by the prospect of change. Always eager to delve right in. Always read for something strange and uncomfortable and unfamiliar. Discovering a new mode of being and a new way of feeling and a new way of dealing with new struggles is, for me, enlivening.

And then it all comes down, calms, mellows. And then its back into the normal swing of things, only from a slightly different angle that has - hopefully - realigned me. Back to writing and playing music and learning and reading and working and practicing. Back to having no "spare time" other than time for socializing and engaging in whatever "community" I can still cobble together in this day and phase of things.

There really isn't anything other than those things. In an existence where our physical survival is met, there is only philosophy left. Art and creativity that strives for some purpose. Some enlightenment or engagement of its audience. Some truth of some value to be shared.

Entertainment for entertainment's sake as a means of life is complete bullshit, an enormous waste of life.

And yet, the argument goes: when there is such an over-abundance of life,it is not only understood but necessary for some of it to be wasted on vapid activity or mere inactivity.

I can't agree. When there is such an over-abundance of problems we still have yet to solve, that fragile excuse simply doesn't hold weight.
Let's throw it out, once and for good.

Who says adults don't fall?

I'm falling.

Only now learning those things about myself I "should have known" years before. But I was never told to bother learning them. Only told to be put to sleep by my entertained mindset and told to seek the thrills of my entertaining lifestyle. So that I thought I knew myself and the world around me.

Which is how I got to where I am now. Faced again and again with myself sitting afraid in corners of rooms I never thought I'd be in.

Receding, fading.

Not so much pushed back as pulled away. Split. Almost directly down the middle. Two sides of one shape, you say? Or just two angles of the same face. Two views of the same vista.

Or, perhaps - two weathers that this vista gradiates between.

I guess I thought the darker, colder, quieter, stripped back part of me was gone. The uninterruptive one. The unimpressive one. The silent, invisible one. The one that hid in rooms from life when life felt too heavy. The one who hid in closets when life was unbearable to lift. And yet, here I am. As far away from you, from this life, from all of it as I can go. Hiding inside myself because I'm afraid I have no recourse now.

Honesty and openness and frank directness failed me.
What is left?

When there is no other course, we have to learn to walk the one before us anyway. When we can't bear the one we've found ourselves on, we have to find a place where we can breathe the air again. When we've become something we can't imagine being, we have to find some way back to where we used to be.

Or, when we fall from where we've climbed too, we have to find another route back up.

I've fallen and I have to find another route back up. Even if it changes something about the way I used to climb. I have to get back to where I was, at whatever cost it bears. Because I can't bear what I've become back down here. And no Asher or Brandon or god is going to save me with any magic mysticism.
No matter how hard I cry.

And there won't be any rescue from behind or beside me. Because out here, we're all alone. Because we all live at a modern pace. And at that pace, at some point, we all decided that we'd be better off alone. So, we all go it solo because, at some point, we all decided that we could do it better that way. So, we just have to go forward from here into wherever there is to go. Just hold on to whatever scraps of truth about ourselves are left and just move on.

Which means, now the question stands more than any other:
Where would I go if I went, and what would I do when I got there?

To be honest, it's the only thing stopping me. It's always been the thing stopping me. I can't just go. I can't just walk out of a door without knowing where I'm headed when I get out. I can't keep moving unless I know why.

Unity. It all has to come together for some reason with some purpose. Then, I could get through anything. I could believe in anything. I do be and do anything. I could live anywhere. I could live through it all.

If I only knew what it all added up to.

This is the problem I'm always faced with. When I can't see what I'm doing adding up to anything, but I can't see any other option that does, either. When I'm stuck between nowhere and no-one. In a hole of nothing amounting to anything.

I can't go on, but I can't go back, and I can't just stay where I am.
So then, what?

What is there for someone like me who can't add it all up but who can't do it without the addition? Who can't find the purpose and can't function without one?

I guess I'll just do what I've always done. What Jay and I decided I had to do way back beside the fire in my early college years. Pacing back and forth along a ledge I knew I couldn't jump from and couldn't turn round on.

Just wait, until the wind pushes you over the edge. Just wait, until you can stand to jump.

So now, I'm just waiting for the push. Waiting for a wind that's strong enough to push me over. Or push me down.

Whichever comes first, actually.

Bitterness waxing and waning

I have to admit: the last two posts were excessively bitter.

I'm struggling with changes and stresses and ideas colliding like two trains speeding toward one another.

But, try to remember that I am trying. And if you have any suggestions for ways out of this kind of thought-process, go ahead and offer them.

I think talking about this thought revolution that we're trying to get off the ground is helping.

Let's see how long until the tannins built again and the bitter air vents from the cavity of my chest like a bad, bitter explosion.

Did you forget I showed you?

This was hard to write. Harder to admit. Even harder to publish.
Here it is for what it's worth, anyway.

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I was trying so hard to like you.
To get you. To get to you. To get to know you.
Harder than you'd know.
Harder than you'd guess.
Harder than I'd want to say aloud.

And now, here we are - sitting across from one another in a painstaking silence that I'm wondering if you notice. In an uncomfortable position that, if I could be honest, I'd realise I only brought on myself.

So, here it is. This is the backlash.
Y'know, the one we were talking about?

The one that comes when something - whatever it is - in your head tells you that someone is "great", is "wonderful", is going to "make the difference". Then, time passes and you suddenly realise that the "greatness" your head (or whatever) assumed was there has dissipated into reality. And now, you're stuck with the feeling of being robbed, cheated, wronged. Betrayed.

Which leads to the bitterness and the loathing and the pushing that same someone into trashcans and calling them crumby and a load of shit. And then, after that the avoidance, and maybe we can see somewhat clearly after all that.

More than likely, though, you won't. And the let-down will never fade - fully. Because it never does. Because once someone falls from wherever that somewhere is inside of you, they can't get back up.

And everyone falls.

Even you.

So, if we're going to move forward in any beneficial way, we have to figure out what that ledge is, why everyone in god's name ends up on it, and why everyone (including yourself) has fallen, and why that in and of itself didn't destroy your goddamn concept of the ledge.

Even though it should have.

But you keep all the old concepts with you, despite the fact that you're a writer and you prise yourself on knowing yourself more than others because you spend so much time thinking about motivation, ideaologies, characteristics - all the things that make up a character, and likewise, a person.

But do you really think that just by its nature, a writer knows any more than anyone else? That just because you delve into the depths of humanity and so, as a result, are frequently faced with the opportunity to do the same to the self - that you actually do it with clarity and regularity?

Do you reall think that as a result of sheer repetition, you often go that route?
More likely, you're in a deep hole of avoidance and patting yourself on the back and telling yourself you have all the answers - when in reality what you have is a load of fear, self-pity, self-exultation, and bitterness.

But, you are trying. Right?
Just like the other writers in your league, in your line of work, in your strain of thought - you must be trying. Trying to know something more about reality. About yourself. About cause and effect of life when others can't be bothered.
Then again, perhaps you tell yourself that to make yourself feel better for being just as narrow-minded.

I feel I'm on the brink of a very bad decision, all the time now. Between going too far in and being pushed too far out. Between being irrelevant and psychotic. And the more I go into myself, the further I go from the life I had before and the closer I go toward a life I wasn't sure I could have, or even wanted.

The more I become Brandon, which is terrifying in its own way.
I'm not so sure I could be Brandon, even if I wanted to be.
I'm not sure I want to be.

But, I'm not sure what else I can be, either.
A shell of the person I was and a ghost of the person I can't or won't be. Stuck in the middle, in between, in suspension. In irrelevancy and psychosis.

I think I thought I was making life better, thought I was interpreting that reading that we did altogether, thought I was making life richer, thought I was pulling everything together.

I think I really fucked up this time.
Backed myself down a hole I, now, don't like either end of.
And I'm pretty sure there's not another way back out.
Well, shit.

Where do we go from here?
Well, the fact that the old adage is coming up is itself the answer, isn't it? Not a question, just a turn of phrase that we'll go around living by, I suppose. What else is there to do? What else can we do? Just ride out the backlash, because it probably isn't as bad as you're thinking it is. Is it ever?

In five, fifteen, fifty, five-hundred years, someone is going to look back on all this and have figured it all out and all of the things that I'm struggling with and mulling over and trying and trying and trying to get right won't really matter. Because it will have all faded away.

The water will have risen and people will be gone and the few of them that are left will get another shitty chance to do something, or to believe that it can be done. And then, they'll see that five-hundred years ago, we got so backwards that the backlash lasted up until where they are. And then, they'll see how bad we had it - or just how bad we made it. And maybe one or two of them will realise that maybe it was worse or just as bad for some of us who didn't want to be going that way - but that we had no control, and sometimes that's the worst.

And the future might even have compassion on us where we are.
Maybe just a little.

But. For now?

Oh, we'll just sit in the same room and not have to look at each other and not have to face the hard facts that we can't get along together, because we have so many layers between the couch and the chair that it's impossible to get through.

So, no worries. I won't ever, ever, ever have to face you. And you won't ever, ever, ever have to face the things I'd probably be saying if we ever did. The things that might have made this backlash less awful. The things that might have made us both better. The things that might have made all the difference from the very start.

And we won't ever have to say any of them.
Is that fair? It's fair enough, anyway. Too bad, but fair enough, I suppose.
In theory.

And maybe, in theory, the future will get better from here. I don't have a lot of hope that anything will actually change, but then, it would be hard-pressed to get any worse unless something traumatic were to happen. Which is always a possibility, I suppose.

So, we'll see if one of us dies or if we both make it out alive.
If we're both still alive.
I'm not sure that we are.
But then, in this age, it's so goddamn hard to tell.