Unknown.

"The loneliest people are the kindest. The saddest people smile the brightest. The most damaged people are the wisest. All because they do not wish to see anyone suffer the way they do".

~ Unknown

Innocence

I've heard it said that the innocence of childhood is over the moment you know one day you have to die. I think about that five year old boy, stooped next to his grief stricken mother, picking up the broken remains of the car his father died in the night before.

Broken glass in a cheap cup. Stifled tears. Mangled and broken pieces of a 1955 Chevy they all loved...as much as they could carry.

He used to sit in the engine compartment while his father worked on that car. Both wearing their bandanas and white t-shirts. He loved the smell under that hood. Loved to watch his father work.

The glass looked green, shattered and spread across the dirt. Cars passed by like nothing had ever happened. He didn't understand it, but he knew that one day he too had to die.

One by one they all left. He waited his turn. He wondered how it would happen, wondered if he would see it coming, but he never let go of what little innocence he had left. He guarded it fiercely. He never strayed too far from her side. It was all he knew.

It was all he had left.

-Restless Regards

Regarding the complex nature of simplicity...

A trend has revealed itself to me time and again throughout the years; when people say their personal situations are "complex" or even "complicated", the truth is that the situation is exceedingly simple, just extremely fucked up. Usually the heart of the matter is quite easy to understand, but difficult to approve of. People want to do whatever they want without consequence, and are surprised and offended when they are looked upon with the stigma that comes along with the reputation they rightfully earned.

Everyone may be the hero of their own story, but it would seem they are also the victim and the fool.

-Restless Regards

What I know.

"Has this world been so kind to you that you should leave it with regret? There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind." C.S. Lewis

I recently attended several lectures regarding writing within the entertainment industry. The advice was well and good. Over the years I've attended many such discussion panels and nearly all of them included the same bit of advice: "Write what you know".  This often came up in my old writing group as well.

So what do I know? I could speak of with some authority include music, a smattering of philosophy, and various other subjects I have spent time with in my life. Still, what is it that I know best? What overall theme do I really have a grasp on?

Death. Loss. Anger.

I couldn't write comedy, I'm not very funny. What I know is the lifelong pain of loss. What I know is the life long rise of anger that poisons. I know hatred of alcohol. I know hatred of those who abuse people and substances. What I carry with me every day is the fear of who dies next? The self ridicule of how ridiculous my fears are sounds daily in my imagination. I am not the only one to lose loved ones. Who am I to indulge such drama and loathing? 

What I know is a dark place to enter to tell a story, a place I hesitate to wander. I know a life of coming to terms with death.



What I know scares me.

-Restless Regards

Fire Flies.

Some nights inspiration dances about like fire flies; bright and random. If only it were as easy to catch with the mason jars I so often employed in my youth!

-Restless Regards

Mirror, Mirror

If tomorrow, I were to die, these words would confuse you. Perhaps you never knew me? What does it all mean? Was he disturbed?

Yes I was. I was disturbed by the nature of men and women, yet I was not crazy. You too should be disturbed. You should be saddened by the things you see.

There is great joy to be known by all. You should expect more from people. I have known great happiness and great pain. I have written of both, yet the pain required more words to heal.

What would they say of you if you were gone?

-Restless Regards

Wicked

"Therefore the wicked shall not rise again in judgment: nor sinners in the council of the just."

Every so often, I am overwhelmed by the darkness of the world, and the pain carelessly inflicted between us all for selfish means. Perhaps it would disturb me less if I could see remorse, but I see only apathy. The burden of their darkness weighs heavy on so few souls. Relieved of affliction, the status quo seem all too happy to go about their day, creating new ways to hurt and deceive.

Could they ever understand? I wonder.

-Restless Regards