To the new mythology,

there’s a hero and he has a million faces. He looks just like her, just like him, and has a body of a tired extinguished star. We’ve seen this hero in our dreams, in our fantasies beyond the realm of what is; the hero surpasses being throughout the infinite. Therefore we can not see the hero, we can not be the hero. The hero only exists in our dreams, in between the synapses eluding reification and materialization, in-between the lines of poems written by the worlds writers. The hero knows nothing about quotidian plebeian life; the hero has nothing to do with this. The hero wants nothing but the best for everyone, a schizophrenic lover and and despondent foe. The hero is a manifestation of the plight of mankind. Man made the hero what it is today, that is to say, man made the idea of the hero, which could not exist without man’s understanding of what the hero purports to be… when the hero falls in the woods, everyone hears his pain. The hero craves nothing more than that which the hero needs, which is to say, nothing more than the ego-less protection of the hero’s surrounding: you and me.

-The Anti-hero

How many years has it been since I’ve written in this journal? What started as an escape plan from my own insanity has become an epic journey into the mind and heart of a lover’s path. Once a burning fire in my soul, you’ve now become a faint and distant star glowing in a sea of gaseous balls in the night sky. I know you’re out there and somehow effect me in ways I won’t pretend to comprehend; your effect is amongst the gravity of the infinite parts of a whole. I feel whole again. When I gaze into at the stars, I no longer feel an empty and cold universe staring back at me. Nietzsche’s quote “when one stares into the abyss, the abyss stares back” is but mere philosophical poetry. The warmth from all the parts and pieces ignites my passions and I know I’ll make my way through the darkness and into the light. Joseph Campell was right to study mythologies and how they interact with our personal understanding of the self. One can not feel or see the light until one is at the mercy of the bitter acrid darkness. I can not attest to how long this feeling of joy will reside in me and I do not care to know the answer. I’ve grown to love myself, to love the moments in life which remind us of who we are, where we have been and where we are going.

My arrogance and my ego are the cause for my need to help others. It makes me feel better about myself when others are benefited by my actions. However this will never fully satisfy my desire to truly help others. In fact, it shields me from ever satisfying my desires to be confident and rewarding, brave, the fearless rock I’ve always had the potential to be. And so, after supposing she would find safety in my forest, I found she was still lost, at no fault of mine. It hurts because I feel I have failed. All I ever wanted was for her to be happy, but I can not assist her happiness if I’m not happy with myself, if I just come with my bag full of ego-tricks, falsely helping others just to reward myself. I’ve been a martyr when I should have been a warrior. Yet I lack the wisdom to be brave, albeit, the ultimate warrior ensconced within will prevail: ego-less, selflessness, gentle, fearless, intelligent, powerful, just, caring, magical (inner and outer), ready to engage the world, implying truth, the jungle tiger, the snow leopard, the garuda (mythical bird), the dragon, meek, perky, outrageous, inscrutable. When I exist, I will exist for myself, bettering myself, my posture, the way in which I engage with my world– perception is key, slowing my actions, following through with my commitments, not forcing loved ones to improve themselves, but to be gentle and fearless, allowing the drala to interact with them. Not becoming sad and fearful, doubtful of the primordial goodness in the cosmic mirror. I will pay attention to space, existence in a vacuum. I must remember to give up hope, for if things don’t work out, I won’t be disappointed. I must remember to be doubtless, never “ah ha” or “I’m there” because there is no there. I will exist egoless, without “I”.

-the warrior

To the serious side,

I have just realized something very interesting about how serious I take my lovers, but more importantly how serious I take my break ups. I don’t choose to be so dramatic; my mind just seems to go in the direction of depression and self-loathing when love fails. It’s as if I were predisposed to depression after an intense emotional relationship. I wonder if anyone else has come to this conclusion about his or her post-love state of being? Am I the only one in this world who feels destitute at the end of a relationship? Maybe I should develop a fallout out plan for myself, which I can follow like a nuclear threat document. A step-by-step guide to ending a relationship might be the only way I will survive my next love. Instead of making enemies with my ex-lovers, which I always seem to do, maybe a goal oriented document which I use as a daily reference, can lead me on the path of, dare I say, friendship? The steps to such an instructional manual would read as follows:
1. No! Whatever you are thinking right now is wrong.
2. Breathe.
3. You are making assumptions out of your emotional disfigurement which only have superficial relevancy to YOUR well-being.
4. Stop making universal conclusions about this breakup.
5. Smile if you know what’s good for you.
6. It’s not the end of the world, unless you kill yourself.
7. Breathe again.
8. Now is the time for you to turn to your friends without embarrassment to ask for their help and support. Don’t worry, that’s what they’re there for.
9. You are going to get through this, if you want to.
10. Stop blaming yourself, even if it was your fault. Shit happens, people separate, new loves are conceived, and yes, people die alone.
11. People dying is a metaphor; get used to it buddy.
12. Find something beautiful today, even if it is something minuscule or temporary.
13. Keep fucking breathing asshole.
14.  Do you really think God has time to get vengeance on you? No! God didn’t do this to you and neither did the devil. Remember, shit happens.
15. Crying is natural. Don’t hold in your emotions. That shit can kill you.
16. Someday, I promise you, you will laugh again. Even if it’s a macabre ironical laugh on your deathbed; you’ll still crack a lame ass death-grin.
17. You may never find another person like this one. But why would you want to anyway? If things didn’t work out the first time, they sure as hell won’t work out the second time.
18. Go watch the sunrise. Then go watch the sunset. Now think about home many people saw the same thing. You are not alone.
19. Stop winging about your loss. If you don’t smile, I’ll beat a smile into you.
20. Be nice to yourself. You’re all you have in this world now.

In conclusion, if you’re still feeling suicidal, sad, lonely, depressed, unnerved, restless, demonic, etc., feel free to punch things like walls and cars. However, just know, walls and cars don’t care about you, just like your ex lover. They will hurt you ten fold. Good luck, stay sharp, stay smart and remember, BREATHE ASSHOLE.

As you can tell, our breakup damaged me pretty badly, and I can only imagine how horrific the next breakup for me could be. In fact, the fear of what’s to come inhibits me from pursuing the thought or action of finding a next love. In terms of emotional connections with other humans, especially women, I’ve been recluse, almost to an extreme agoraphobic state.

-Silly me

Divorce Papers,

You’ve signed them and mailed them back to the Los Angeles court house. I’ve been meaning to go check up on the process, but haven’t had the will power to do so. The courthouse is only ten blocks from here. Again, I’ve failed. My phone rang a month ago. Your voice on the other end of the line sounded like the sweet currents in the rivers of Hell. You asked if I had heard from the courts. No. I haven’t. And I don’t expect to. Not for another 4 months at least. I’m not sure why you decided to share this with me, but you told me you had plans to leave the country, to go travel to South America with friends. How lovely that sounds to my deaf ears. I want to be happy for you, happy for your travel plans, for your ongoing life. But I will not allow myself to feed on that pleasure. Depression is setting in. I can feel it in the back of my head. The muscles around my temples are spasming and my mind is clearly fogged. I feel confused by my wandering thoughts during lonely nights. The bed seems empty and cold and wrapping myself in a blanket makes me uneasily claustrophobic. It’ll be my 25th birthday in two days. And here I sit, a year and a half after our break up, lamenting and tormenting. The ghosts scream thoughts of suicide and self-destruction. 25 years old, and I’m lonely, cold and tired. I’m tired of meeting new acquaintances that go nowhere. I’m tired of thoughts full of self-doubt and pity. It exhausts me to think that I may never know another lover with eyes wide open. I’m mentally sleepy, and it shames me. I don’t write to you often. Now it seems, only in moments of desperate sadness do I turn to these journals to share with you the darkest side of my psyche. Good things have happened since my last entry, yet I can’t recall a single one of them. The nature of depression is the nature of the beast. Like Saturn eating her young in Francisco Goya’s painting, the ugly mother eats at my thoughts. Even before the depression, I have tell-tale signs of its oncoming. I start to feel numb to the world. My inner vision fine-tunes itself into a myopic tunnel. The world around me collapses as I refuse to interact with “the other”. Sadness prevails as I am swept away into the bleak and miserable void. Am I a cliché because of how inescapable desperation makes me? Are these the feelings of the classic manic-depressive states? If only there were a pill to make it all go away. Not just something to cure the symptoms, but something to dissipate everything. Is that death? Does it all end when I end? Wouldn’t the irony of an afterlife be a miserable conclusion to the nihilist? For my sake, and for the sake of anyone who just wants to finalize these curious demons, I hope there is no heaven or hell. I hope reincarnation doesn’t exist. I hope that when I die, I die forever. As a side note, there is a bible that has been sitting next to my desk for a few weeks now. I know I’m getting desperate because the thought of starting to believe in something better than the daily squalor I interact with is getting stronger. Weakness propagates the onset of depression. I want to find strength, somewhere, in something; and I know it’s not inside me.

-Depressed

Valentines Day

Let us discuss this day of love. Let us delve into why this day even exists. That damn Grecian angel of love comes down into our lives, a living in hell, and shoots us with his hypnotic goddamn arrows of slavery. What kind of bastard anarchist saint of god would trap us in the dungeons of chains for its own amusement? No! No minion of a good lord would enslave humans in such a dark myopic cage! Cupid must be a servant of evil, or the lord Satan himself. Ever since I can remember, and from what I have read in human history, love has been on the tips of human’s tongues (and genitals). Love has been the epitome of “ultimate self-realization” because one can only love another if one loves oneself. Well, I say fuck this clichéd assumption of what love has been for humans in the thousands of years of our silly traditions. Let’s restate what love is for individuals living now, in the year 2006 (of our dear lord). Love is not an ultimate or a truth to cling on to, as if it were a scientific discovery of universality. “Love” is a word imagined by human-beings through their subjective understanding of their experiences; it does not define any truism set forth by god, saints, prophets or holy magistrates, and it does not constitute any sort of ultimate ominous doctrine for existence. Must one love another to procreate? No! Must one love another to cause pain and suffering? No! Must one understand a socially acceptable definition of love to gain social status? No! Our western (American) faith in the etymology of the word “love” convolutes the diverse and fluid existence of our human neurological process which we coin the term “love” as representing. “Love” is not monogamy. “Love” is not a tax break. “Love” is not a state issued marriage certificate. “Love” is not what we’ve come to understand through language. However, “Love” is a prominent goal in our western culture. “Love” is a wonderful feeling that westerners fight for, lie for and die for. We have faith in “love”. We believe that “love” is an ultimate stasis which can cure any illness, physical or neurological, no matter how far we stray from “love’s” path. But, let me tell you, my dear, “love” doesn’t destroy any demons we have stowed away in our inner neurological suitcases. “Love” is only a high that leads to clandestine machinations of our super ego. “Love” is an unlawful addiction without a 12-step program. Furthermore, “Love” is the culprit which makes hate possible. For what reason do we celebrate such an insidious emotion on this day, February 14th? As I pause to contemplate what I’ve just written, a voice inside is telling me how wrongfully hateful I am being. Ergo, I’d like to state a disclaimer to this letter: I do believe “Love” is the most important thing a human can hold on to. “Love” is the propagation of faith, which in turn is the answer to intuition, where intuition is the nurtured response to the nature of survival; hence, “Love” is Darwinian, meaning it exists to propagate survival, yet at the same time, “Love” is the only reason artists make art, while art has nothing to do with survival. “Love” is the only reason why I write these letters to you.

-A lover

Dear 2006,

You’ve come too soon, like an inexperienced man with no stamina during his first sexual encounter. Or maybe it was I who has come too late, possibly never cumming at all? Did you come tonight? I’ve yet to have sex with anyone besides you in the year 2005, which is a disappointment. Nevertheless, when I am sexually active, there is usually a feeling of emotional and/or physical satisfaction- post ejaculation- which is the evolutionary byproduct of survival; however, right now I am feeling nothing that resembles the sort of neural satisfaction I tend to enjoy post coitus because I know with the birth of a new year, coincidentally there is also a funeral for the death of the year which has just passed. We celebrate new beginnings with hope and promise for a better year filled with new endeavors, friendships, hopes, dreams and love; yet concurrently we mourn the loss of friends who have moved away, loved-ones who have died, lost jobs, depreciating bank accounts and fucked up events that preceded tonight’s celebrated (holy-day) holiday. On this eve there is an abundance of reflexive thoughts echoing through the minds of every American. It’s not just me this time! Cliché questions like, “what have I become?” “Where are we going?” “What’s the purpose in all this?” stroke the inquisitive minds of even semi-conscious beings. We think in terms of progression and digression when we dog-ear chapters in time. Henceforth, we make New Year’s resolutions that answer the mind’s plagued ponderings. “What can I do better this year, which hitherto tonight, for some reason or another, I couldn’t do last year?” “Who or what can I appreciate more this time around?” “Does any of this even matter?” Yes and no. New years are a time for reflection, a time to anticipate the future and to let go of the past. You are the past; you are my past– a most emotional time, a roaring rapid of lust and passion, of anger and aggression, blah blah blah. The new year is a time to wrestle with the brain and to figure what the fuck to do with ourselves for the next holy year, in the year of our lord, Jesus Christ the savior. Amen. New Year’s eve is an interesting holiday. It has astrological origins as well as religious ones’. It’s an agreed upon number by cultures throughout the world. I’d almost go as far to say it’s a humanistic universal standard (if there could be such a thing). It is the one day we celebrate as the defining point to start another trip around the sun. But how can one keep looking foreword when one is so fixated on the past? The new year is upon us: new beginnings and final endings; a time to reflect on what’s happened to us in the past 365 days and what to look towards for the next 365. Last year’s New Year’s eve was a tumultuous night for us, as I recall. We were at an anarchist punk show in the Mission where there were no rules, no laws, 40 Oz’s and gutter-punks. The smell emitting from the venue wasn’t from the stains on the floor, but from the stains on the clothes of the dirty mother bastards we called friends. Well, they were more your friends than mine, however I never had anything against them. They were some of the most passionate people I’d met in a long time. I could especially feel their enthusiasm in the moshpit. That night, I got clocked in the face with an elbow. My front tooth was pushed back a bit, but I didn’t mind. It was fun. Yet, That was then and this is now. I spent this New Year’s eve with my good friend Alexia who was in town for a few days this holiday. I even got a kiss from her when the clocks turned midnight. How sweet of her to bless me with her lips. We made our rounds around town by stopping at a few house parties. Nothing extreme happened, which I consider a good thing. Sometimes, no news is good news.

-XXOOXX to the new year