A four-section poem of reflection after reading the 16th chapter of The 5000 Year Leap:

Empire of Liberty
Where purpose ripples through
the laws incorporate
and kindnesses individual Each
fit for their spheres.

The rampart nation
steeled to a code
Resolute.
Within the channels of law / vast tracts of freedom are preserved,
Wherein men may act as good as gods sharing what they safe-ly possess.

It is man that is broken; needing a fence of rules at every turn,
Separated in his thoughts away from all around,
A selfish ingrown will.
Mankind - willing to tread on the fingers of his brother,
each reaching for individual satisfaction.
Even the best visions of law only show the callow colors of our motivation.

I await the perfect leader
healing he will bring
we'll act in righteous pro-duc-tivity
in hope for life of perfected thought - I wait
here speaking from the shadows.

Some food thoughts

There is much for me to discover when pay close attention during my experiences. I have found it very hard to resist eating candy bars out of the vending machines at school. I try not to, since they cost 85 cents and are a part of an unbalanced diet. Buying cheap candy from stores is also ineffective, because it is then available all the time and I usually eat it up too quickly. Today I didn’t bring a lunch and subsequently spent 2.60 on vended items and 2.05 on frozen yogurt. $4.65 is a pretty bad score for what I got. The opposition to this is taking the time to make my own food. If I’m going to take the effort, I put in a little more and end up with toasted homemade bread, meat I prepared toasted cheeses, pickles, olives, and there are plenty of microwaves to warm up what I bring. And overall, its cheaper. To tip things even further, this last candy bar wasn’t even tasty, its strident sweetness and clumsy flavors made me glad to wash it off of my tongue with a bottle of drinking fountain water. So why do I like vending machines? It is the experience, which I need to find a remedy for. Vending machines only draw when I am hungry. They are both conveniently near, but not everywhere on campus, usually I have to go at least half a building or one and a half buildings to get to one. Then I need cash; not carrying any is a good way to make them inaccessible. Money as tokens (as opposed to plastic access cards) have weight, form, unique wear and markings for where and when they are made, so measuring out change is an information packed ritual. (I used to collect coins, and still look at them as items with a historical origin.) Then there is the participatory mechanics of putting the change into the machine, and pressing buttons. As a person who grew up in an age of personal electronics, pressing buttons means access, getting what I want, and having a voice. Button pressing is its own reward. Then the machine responds with a show, humming its motors, clattering the change in with the rest of its take, the spring shelving turns and down falls the brightly printed candy bar. I then get to push open the double flap and hold my prize. Having attained a Butterfingers, I can put it in my coat pocket and walk around until I find a good spot to sit and eat it.

Eating is the most disappointing part, it is not as enjoyable as getting. Afterwards I’m happy to be not-hungry, but other than satisfying a craving for sugar there is nothing else to experience, it all has passed. Perhaps what I need is to find better containers for my lunches. If they had a better experience than plastic tubs and aluminum foil, lunch could then rival the vending machines. Some container of porcelain, metal and enamel, something both functional and artistic, and complicated latches would be nice. Combination locks would be interesting. How about a temperature read out? Such a lunch box would be really striking. To be useful it would have to be a porcelain food dish that a metal lid latched around. The dish would be removable to be microwaved, and since custom made ceramics is beyond my knowledge, it should be a store bought dish. The metal lid could have a rubber gasket to transport wet things. The lid would have a band (links or a metal strip) that goes around the dish to clamp on tightly. The top and or bottom could be inlayed with wood.

Such a device would be limited next to the lightness of ubiquitous plastic, but if you can make such an item, do go for it.

Grady Houger

Allegiance

If my body is my own, I can do whatever I want to it. But if it is not my own, if there are liens against it, or allegiances that transcend individual autonomy, then I cannot rightfully pursue any course of behavior. Inappropriate actions against myself are then just as wrong as when done against another person, and exactly what is prohibited is a choice for those higher authorities to decide.

This gives grounds for regulation in matters of sexual conduct, suicide, physical upkeep, and use of time.

Thus categorically, a Christian is not authorized to follow any impulse that comes into their head. We are "free", unrestricted in body to think, speak and move as our mind wishes, and therein is a great dilemma, we are capable of doing far more than we ought. What we ought to do overlaps poorly with what we can do. Thus we must decide what we will do.

We should even think twice before saying "I". Not because we need a bizarre new symbol in its place (such as "this one"), but just to keep in mind the insistent philosophy of personal autonomy attached to saying "I will do this or that." We should not throw away the reality that we are each individual agents controlling the body we inhabit. The whole point to this is to remember our allegiance comes with both benefits and a duty to perform. we Christians are not our own. We where bought with a price. Its not the sort of price you can repay, then go do as you like, free from any oversight or restrictions. Its a price as in a positive value necessary to bring a sum out of the negative. It is like a essential component given where the lack meant utter destruction.

Therefore honor God with your body.

Momentary Status

How are my college classes going? Well, this quarter I got in ones that I didn't have specific expectations for. They are just OK picks. Without any strong preformed expectations, I don't have anything to evaluate them by. If I study thoroughly, I should find them quite rewarding.

Two realizations have been intersecting with my awareness recently. One is seeing my surroundings as a singular 3-D solid instead of a multitude of individual pieces. The other is the insight that my dissatisfaction with life has an obvious cause in my anti-social choices. Alongside those is my tendency to react instead of deciding to do things of my own decision.

Instead of going out and doing something new, I repeat the patterns of behavior that have been my M.O. throughout life. Of course you say. Habits are a common sociological pattern. They define us. Make us predictable. Obviously the issue is changing undesirable ones. Here are some that have came to mind today:

Collecting interesting projects and not completing them.

Collecting interesting objects and not putting them into use.

Avoiding social events.

Wishing for friendship.

Wishing for marriage.

Wishing something that demanded my loyalty and service.

But I asked myself, if you where married right now, what would I be wanting to do? Likely there would be the same things on hand, things like a sink of dishes, a bathroom to clean, video games to play, books to read, stories to write, floors to vacuum, a budget to balance, photos to edit, a website to enhance, emails to respond to, people to pray for, shopping to plan, meals to make for later, instruments to practice, gas in the tank to roll down the road.

As a single person I can look at all those things and decide without having to consider the interaction of another fully complex human being. So why does it feel that my life would have more meaning if I where married? Would having another sentient entity in tight proximity make my life better? If I am unhappy now, by what operations is the state of wedlock going to improve that?

I should ask my married friends. I'm sure they will have something sensible to say.

To avoid having to face the lack of prime motivation in my life, it looks like dusting my desk is the most compelling option.

Earlier today I wrote in class:

“I have the sudden perception that this crowd of students is a sea of grass in this specific pressure and atmosphere we survive in. Plants, a chatting crop of identical things that don't know it. In some cosmic sense, can we not be a mobile, socketable, vegetation compared with all possible higher entities?

~

We blow in the wind of the word structures we speak. The spewed communication is more than words – its motion – genuflection to the shape of thoughts. The thought moves the creature.”

Such words are of course, bizarre and disturbing. Such effects are bound to happen when one seeks to think up things that are, to some extent, unique. Why such an impulse? Its just one of the many things that fits with a lifestyle seeks a stable place in keeping with avoiding people. I find myself interested in popular things, but not held by them. If everyone is chasing after something, well then, what are they overlooking? Perhaps something equally enjoyable. Thats one of the reasons I find myself attracted to polka music. Its good stuff, AND totally opposes the styles of the ignorant masses I am aloof from. Christian fundamentalism is another thing I adhere to, for many reasons, but its anti-populist and exclusivity certainly feel good.

Yet fortunately, some ingrained sensibility stops me from giving in to misanthropic hate. I do want to be a friendly and personable neighbor. My tastes are no less stupid than those of people higher on the bell curve.

If resistance to other people drove me towards my current life of morose art, obscure forms of idleness, and deep philosophical study, is it any wonder that I haven't found satisfaction? No amount of negatives become positive.

Those times in my life when I was unable to avoid human companionship or secure enough to seek it out I have found quite enjoyable. Sometimes greatly so. And in fiction those times then everything works out, and people come to gather to do some great feat, thats awesome. I'd like to be apart of something like that. Maybe some day I can.

Two Poems

Drinking tap water from a Ball Brand 'Mason' jar:

Lines on the side. 

6oz it so happens. 

Exactly. 

Natural tremble holding it, gazing.

Water level shifts in this cylinder - circle

into ovals, constant variation with the tilt.

Breath rippling this mirror.

Peering through layers of transparent reflections - the room light, The molded bumps on the jar bottom, the mottled surface of the jar wall, fingerprints on the side. The water surface wiggling.

Rolling water, sliding back into itself, beads left behind.

Tilted upward now, a little river left in the glass valley bottom; breath fogging the canopy of heaven.

Path of words 

Melodic. Clear sliding

Glass. Gifted synthesizers

Keening. Artificial brightness 

In curled bulbs. I lost

Awareness -

Of neck pain.