today is going to be a long long post. a lot has happened since the last time I posted. Soo, bare with me.
I’m a utilitarian in many ways. Parts of me would not mind great expanses of old housing torn down, and old buildings to build high(er) density living and working spaces. build up, not out. that’s the logic in me… the part that says there’s little point in being sentimental and crying when an old house is torn down. This is the same part of me that would love to see people from eugene bussed up to corvalis for a few years while they tore down UO and rebuilt it. Because really, it’s a pretty poor use of space, and they’re out of it. Campus is hemmed in by downtown, and the river on two sides, and historic housing on the other two sides. This part of me wouldn’t mind seeing man wiped off the face of the planet because really, man is more of a scourge on the planet than a benifit.
Another part of me, the part that it would seem (as Rachel put it) few people see, is the heartfelt side. The side that wonders at the marvels of humanity. The beauty it is capable of. Seeing wonderful architecture, watching the interaction of a mother and her child, two people, hand in hand. These are beautiful things, and wonderous things. They say life is a miracle… well, if chaos and random chance are miracles, then yes it is. What is the “miracle” I think is that life can be more than it’s parts. Saccarides, Proteins, Amino Acids, all these things are very simple relative to the complexity of what they make when thrown together in a certain way. Sure, you can say the most egotistical idea is the one man lives by, which is that the human brain is the most advanced one on the planet. I mean, it’s the brain saying that… but beauty isn’t held just to man. Watching ants systematically carry away a piece of food, watching a wasp build a nest, watching a group of deer cross a road. All these things are wonderous… what is really amazing is that with all the damage man has done, and all the pain he causes to the other species of the world… that really, they can continue living in that world, and adapt to live in the world. It makes my heart happy to see these things… to see a man offer another a seat on the bus, or to see some random person offer to hold a stroller for a woman because there was no room for it to be stored in the wheelchair section. These are random acts of kindness. They still exist in the world… and that makes me happy.
On the other hand, what pains me more than anything, are premeditated acts of emotional or mental violence. I posted earlier about seeing the wonders of a couple, and all that… and it was true, then. maybe I’m too trusting… maybe I have too much faith in people. That’s not going to change… I still will trust people before not trusting them, but it hurts like nothing else when I see that trust completely taken advantage of and torn appart. I friend of mine was completely used… like a lab rat. A test subject. But not just that…. it would be like using a test subject to test VX gas. The tester knows it’s going to kill the subject… but they want to see how well it works, and whether or not they should improve the formula. Oddly, such atrocities have been done, but that aside, that type of thing is what happened to my friend. She was used to test what someone felt his type was, though he knew she wasn’t his type. That he MIGHT grow to love her. I say bull shit. You don’t grow to love someone like you grow a leek… it isn’t something you plant and water every little while. Love is something that’s there… you must realize that love before you can hope to ever gain a partner. It’s difficult, for many people, to tell lust from love… but it’s sociopathic behavior like this that perpetuates this difficulty, and spreads it. The innocent suddenly start wondering whether love exits, or whether it’s just lust. If you don’t believe me, just go to Reed sometime… it’s a school full of sociopathic behavior.
I am not a violent man… but sometimes I can almost bring myself to justify action against some people. It goes against my very grain… and I am assamed everytime I think this way… but that admission, I suppose, is the thing that will allow me to get past it. The first step to recovery.
I was up very late last night… first driving home from portland, then talking with my said friend for a few hours in a field not far from her house, and then talking for many hours with my companion. I got a lot of thinking done this weekend… a lot of honest and self prevailing thought. I thank the powers that be that I can sit down and write again… that the “pen” has returned to my “hand”. I don’t know why specifically… maybe it’s this blog, maybe it’s a friend, or maybe I’ve just had enough time (interally) to get over the pain I caused someone very special to me. I’m not going to question it outright… but rather use it while I can, because I have no idea when it’ll be gone again.
To all my friends in the world, both the ones I talk to regularly, and the ones I haven’t spoken to in far too long, I want to say that you mean more to me than I can ever express. You make me who I am… While I could walk through life not caring one way or the other about anyone, I find that I can truly breathe free and be happy when I think of all the wonderful people that have touched my life (for good or bad) and that I wouldn’t be me if they hadn’t. I love you all.