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

Decisions, Poor and Decadent...

For the greater part of my life I have followed my instincts, held true to my integrity, and gained insight from ethical introspect. These choices have not been easy nor have they been without criticism. Since I was very young I have journeyed with my head down and my commitment to what I have felt right and good fiercely guarded.  I have taken whatever path I could, traveled or otherwise. It is only now as I take rest to look around that I see so very few along side me. I am so very grateful for their company.

Keep the faith my friends. The sheep of the world may mock you, but you are stones of truth they shall never upturn.

-Restless Regards.

Always outnumbered.

I am one who is very lucky to call such loyal and upstanding people as I know, friends. Each one would gladly be there for me in my most desperate hour. Yet it is without them I must fight the most difficult battles within my own heart and mind, outnumbered by sorrows and fears. In desperation I reach out for comfort, yet tonight there is no one.  Very well. Let it be war upon you, my darkest thoughts. I will burn the ground you walk upon until sleep comes for us both. Tomorrow I will smile to spite you.

Fire Escape

Change seems only to present itself when one least expects it or needs it least. Tonight once more the walls around me feel like a prison. No matter where I go they haunt me. There is a discontent demon tugging at my heart and beating drums within my mind.

Images of past romance knock upon the door while the hope of future love is distant and isolated. I am in desperate need of a fire escape into the imagination, one that would cause such distraction my heart could find rest.

Where to now?

-Restless Regards

Lost

"All those moments will be lost in time...like tears in rain." -Blade Runner

Sometimes it is hard to imagine powerful moments, full of life and love, fading into memory. Revelations so important, dispersed into nothing.

I have long held to the belief that all things happen for a reason. The caveat that follows is a burden much harder to accept. For what reason? What purpose did it serve?

The heart must endure much whilst it beats abreast its peers; perhaps more so when it beats alone.

-Restless Regards

Geometry of hearts

Love triangles are best experienced in 35mm.

-Restless Regards

"It's in my nature" said the scorpion to the frog...

Then they both drown. The end, sleep well.You've learned much from this beloved parable. Who's fault is it? The scorpion for stinging the frog, or the frog for trusting the scorpion? Oh so complex a thing...

Except it is the scorpion's fault. To all the scorpions of the world: Stop blaming your nature and evolve.  

-Restless Regards

Whatever bastard first said...

 “words don’t hurt” should be shot repeatedly through the heart with large caliber bullets.

-Restless Regards
 

Planet of Sound

I find that even the most formidable of emotional demons can be slain with progressively louder guitars. In those rare moments when I have been too weak to reach for my own, the heroes of my youth have never failed me.

-Restless Regards

Dear Life,

Take your best shot you son of a bitch.

I’ll keep getting back up.

-Restless Regards

Clarity for the Blind

I get it. There will always be people that one meets that simply don’t get who they are , or why they live the lives they lead. It is a somewhat disappointing realization to come to save one thing. The opposite is also true; there will always be people that one meets that simply get who they are, and why they live the lives they lead.

 That is the most comforting thought I can imagine. Even when it feels like there is no one, there is, somewhere searching,  more than likely looking just as hard for you as you are for them. 

Get up. Get moving.

-Restless Regards

In the Company of Thieves

I've known many a thief in my moderate number of years drawing breath. Very few of them have stolen objects. Some have taken trust, others  faith. Most all of these loathsome, shallow creatures have stolen innocence. They have many well rehearsed arguments as to how such a thing cannot be stolen, but rather given willfully. It is a skillful lie. The worst of their crimes is convincing one to trust them.

Manipulation is a cruel form of human usage.

The common price all of them have given is the loss of their integrity. It is a thing they rarely miss, because they never understood it from the start.

Restless Regards,
-M

Fight.

On serious ground, gather in plunder.

In difficult ground, keep steadily on the march.

On hemmed-in ground, resort to stratagem.

On desperate ground, fight.


I was recently reminded of these words from a close friend who happened to be reading "In Death Ground" by David Webber. The author's translation provided in the book adapted from Sun Tzu's "Art of War" was a bit more dramatic to great effect:

"In difficult ground, press on; On hemmed-in ground, use subterfuge; In death ground, fight."


Good words.

Restless Regards,
-Monolith

The Irony of Open Minds.

Does it seem odd to anyone else that the people whom claim to have the most open minds are often the most closed minded people? The widely accepted conventions of modern society seem to be rather simplistic; religion is a lie, traditional values are bondage, we are all entitled to sex with whoever we choose and whenever we want it, all men are oppressors, the rights I agree with are okay, but the rest should be illegal.

I have yet to meet an open minded atheist. Most of them are at very least as dogmatic as any priest.

We live in an awkward world.  The ones who claim to be victims are often the bullies. The true victims rarely get a chance to speak.

The key to a good open mind these days would seem to be picking an ideology, forcing it on others, declare one's superiority, and only listen long enough to make one's next point.

I would trust an honest heart over these open minds any day.

Restless Regards,
-Monolith