Things said and unsaid
Promises made and broken
Agency denied by silence
And no recourse but to keep going
As I slowly drown
Animal shelters shelter behinds word choice
No kill animal shelters are liars. They say no kill because they catagorize their killing. To them, killing is done just because. But euthanasia is done if the quality of life of the cat would be low.
In your head, you might be thinking, well if the animal is dying then maybe its necessary. Maybe.
But that’s not the only circumstance that they ‘euthanize’. They do so also if they feel it would be hard to get the animal adopted. How do I know? Well here’s a heartbreaking story.
A few years ago my mom, who loves all animals and kitties and doggos especially, found a small litter of kittens without their mother. The mother cat did not come back. So she took the 3 kittens in. She hand fed them for a couple of days but was unable to find them homes and had 3 cats of her own. She was full up. So she found a no kill shelter. In this case the Arizona Humane Society.
She took them and they cooed and awed over the kitties. After 2 days, she decided she could make room for the kitties and went back. 1 had been adopted. 2 had been killed.
For what reason? Terminal illness? No. Because they were black. Black cats are killed. Its their policy. Black cats are harder to adopt. So they murdered 2 innocent kittens.
No kill is a lie that they tell themselves to assuage their guilt over their actual actions.
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Wet eyes of a future unlikely
I want to be
To read books and be
To eat good food and drink good drinks
And be
I want to be warm in winter
And cool in summer
To read by a fire
Drink thick coffee
I want to let go concern
Control
Be held safe in another’s arms
And hold them safe in turn
No steadfast rules
No judgment
Just time
And books
And love and comfort
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Is this depression wearing a different mask?
I think we all get to the point where we don’t like where we are in life but don’t see any way out of it. Basically, I just want to read and be with the people I love but I can’t. And it’s the same reason for most problems at this level. Namely, money. If I had started saving/investing 20 years ago I would be in a different position. I would be able to see light at the end of tunnel. And it wouldn’t be another train. But, as it stands, unless something breaks my way in some kind of sustainable way, I’m stuck.
I used to have writing as a way of processing and as a possible way out. Yeah, we’ve all seen where that got me. Occasionally published poems, a ebook no one buys or reads and minimal traffic to the audio story I worked on for over 2 years.
I stopped publishing 3 times a week because I was burnt out. But, its 2 years later and I’m still burnt out and I have to consider that this is just life now.
I spent years climbing out of a deep hole of depression and never considered how to live once I was out.
What I found was that I had time traveled 10 years. Time travel the long way. I’d lived those years but they weren’t mine. Not wholly. They were depressions.
There aren’t a lot of laughs in my life now but there also aren’t alot of bleak emptiness days either.
Sometimes I miss that depression. Which is fucked up. But it was familiar. I knew how to handle it. How to cope. I was used to the stress. To the impending doom. That razors edge.
My new normal…I have no blueprint for. And what I had hoped for at the top of that deep well, just manifested as this exceedingly normal life.
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The lies we tell ourselves-entrepreneur edition
Why is it that wealthy or well off people always riff about how always being positive/realistic is a key to their success?
Yes, believing in yourself is helpful. But not as helpful as others believing in you. I’ve seen plenty of successful narcissists who believed in what they were doing while at the same time being completely full of shit.
If you can’t get others to believe in your projects, you aren’t going anywhere. And for every success story in hustle culture there are a thousand others who failed. And a large percentage of those failures were because one or two things failed to break their way at the right time.
Wealthy people want it to be about their work ethic or their intelligence. They want it to be about the actions they took.
Do people fail because they didn’t start? Yes.
Do people fail because they fuck up? Sure.
To get from nothing to well off takes luck. No amount of knowledge or hard work will substitute. If you don’t have relationships which foster that luck, you aren’t going anywhere.
That’s not an excuse to not take those chances, make that effort, or to not network. If this is what you want then go for it. But don’t delude yourself once you are there that it was your exceptionalism which made it all possible. Don’t be that person.
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Existence is a fraught journey
The problem with understanding things is that you understand them.
So when you interact with the world, you do so with that understanding. And what may seem like an ‘of course’ to you may seem like an insurmountable obstacle to others. What seems simple to you, seems like magic to them.
Technology is the easiest example. What I view as common and everyday is something many would find to be frustrating and opaque.
And when that understanding moves beyond the realm of physical things…you’re distance from others grows as well. Because the world you are experiencing is not the world they are experiencing.
I often say to myself, “Sonder.”
Sonder is the understanding that each being you experience is living an entire reality that you cannot understand.
And it applies to yourself as well. The life you are experiencing, cannot be fully understood by anyone else.
We can be truthful. We can be open and honest. We can be emotionally intelligent and caring. But our understanding of our reality means that we will leave things out of that discourse. Because, to us, it is a given. Something we just accept and know.
This is why we experience pushback when we explain things to people. Because our inherent understanding is different from their inherent understanding. And what they perceive as real is not what you perceive as real. Not fully. Not completely. Even when you approach parity.
All we can do is understand where they are coming from, as much as possible, and meet them where they are.
And beyond that, be humble. Because what you understand needs to evolve. You cannot rest on your own understanding. Stagnation is death.
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It’s always something
You know what really gets me about my emotional journey? It’s that I’ve work for about a decade to get to a good place. And still, I find myself crying over almost anything
Hell, I’m crying while writing this.
And I had a bit of a breakthrough. At least a threshold. I used a technique where I just keep asking myself questions and being relentless until I fimd what feels like a real answer.
And the question I asked is “Why do depictions of love destroy me?”
And the first answer is that I love people making that emotional connection. And while that’s true, it also wasn’t the reason.
So I ask again, “Why does love make you cry?”
And I say, because of trauma because of Morgan.
But that’s a lie. I’ve spent 10+ years working on that trauma and I’m in a good place with it.
So why? And I’m wracking my brain for the real answer and it pops in
It makes me cry because I feel like I don’t deserve love. And I pursue that.
“Why don’t I feel like I deserve love?”
And I reply, because I’m a monster. What I desire is monstrous and how can anyone love me with those desires?
Which doesn’t make sense. But it feels right.
I’m in a relationship with someone who accepts that part of me. But still. I can’t work my way past it.
There are almost always new horizons. And growth and the journey never end.
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Odd forms of comfort
The only certainty is existence.
It is not death.
Death is a horizon. A event that changes state. A change of state does not nullify existence.
Saying that because I existed today and died tomorrow does not negate the fact of my existence nor does it negate the fact of my continued existence, albeit in a changed state.
Humans see things through the lense of perception but that presents false images.
What is, is. And always will be. Even at the death of the universe what was still is. It may have changed its state or configuration multiple times. Even nigh infinite times. But it still is. It still exists and will into eternity.
Only complete non-existence is the opposite of existence. The complete annihilation of existence.
And that does not exist in our reality.
I may be weird. But I find that completely comforting.
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The blindfold is sheer, the scales are weighted
I recently stumbled on a question that was asked with incredulity, “Do we deserve the justice system we have?”
And at first blush, the answer must be no. We, as a nation, as a people, do not deserve a justice system plagued by corruption, bias, and racism. All of which are at the very core of this broken system.
But, a second look…and I have to say yes. We deserve this system. We deserve it because while we lament it; While we scream about it; Change our Facebook profile pic and Tweet about it.
When it comes right down to it, we haven’t ripped it out by its roots, lit it and its every remnant on fire and put in place something that actual brings justice.
So, yes. Until we collectively take action and destroy what kills us, lies to us, imprisons us, cages our minds and diminishes our souls…
Yes, we have the justice system we deserve.
And if that doesn’t infuriate you, then you haven’t been paying attention.
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One last journey
I may seem callous in the face of death. Like it doesn’t touch me or effect me. And, in many ways, it doesn’t. Because I don’t think of death as a finality.
It is, instead, an inflection point. A transition from one state to another. And for the soul, the beginning of its next journey. From this life to the next. I know this. Blood and bone. It is not belief. Or hope. Or faith. It simply is. And because of that I don’t view death the same way.
But still I mourn. Not for those I love who slip beyond the veil to that next journey. No. I mourn for all of us still left here. Bereft of this person we love. Forced to endure without the beacon of their soul. Lost on these treacherous and hollow shores.
I mourn for us.
But I also am cheered. Whatever pain and hardship this life had offered are gone. And whatever joy and love it offered is carried forth. As they embark on the next journey. May they carry us well. Knowing eternally, they were loved. And they will be missed.
Pelgris 