The Year of the Conquered.

So I wrote my first list. The list of my aspirations. I look it over and know that if I ever had goals, if I ever had dreams, then that list tells the tale of those dreams. There’s a stirring of excitement in my chest when I look at it. A feeling of hope that soars into my lungs and makes me breathe life in the midst of a room full of apathy and decay. A cool drop of water on a tongue starved of moisture. My midsummer’s rain. But even so, I have yet to overcome.

You know how when you go to a Chinese restaurant they always have those little paper place mats that tell you what animal you’d be in a box of animal crackers? Or something like that anyway. They’re based on the Chinese Zodiac (as far as I know) that rotates through a cycle of animals every year, one year it’s “The Year of the Tiger”, and the following year it may be “The Year of the Boar”, etc. When I think about that, I kinda see those animals as the “gods” or deities for that year. Whichever animal is up dominates the overall feel of the year, influencing it more than anything else, it’s a thread that runs the course of every experience had throughout the year. Looking back over this past year, I tried to think of the one thought, the one underlying feeling that could best describe how I’ve come to see the events that have occurred in my recent past. It wasn’t the year of the joyous that popped into my head, nor the mellow, angry, etc. It was The Year of the Conquered.

It’s as if I started the year cocky, over-confident, and totally secure…and now, I have been greatly humbled. I’ve been reminded of who I am when my head’s on straight. My perception of life has completely changed. I’ve had good times, bad times…just times, yet in every instance, I have been conquered. This year has chipped away at everything I’ve built myself up to be. It’s shattered hopes, torn apart “dreams”, completely destroyed my plans and my “routine”. Haha. I went from the man that had no need of conquering the world, to a robotic zombie the world had deemed fit for conquering.

Jesus I’m tired of writing “fancy” crap. Let’s simplify this.

The Year if the Conquered wiped Schyler off the face of the Earth and replaced him with an empty shell. So far all that’s happened is this shell has lived day to day life not doing anything worth a shit…eating, sleeping, attaching itself to mindless entertainment. One day the shell stepped outside (a rare occurrence in itself), looked at the sky and said to itself “There’s gotta be more…I remember there being more than this.” That sparked a flame within that shell which has sat dormant for a while and is waiting for whatever it takes to fuel that fire and burn the shell away. Once the shell is gone, I will remain.

Being conquered is something that I wasn’t concerned about. Conquered is what I have become. Conquerer is what I will become. I am the fuel for that fire. I am the inspiration, motivation, determination that will replace an empty shell with the man that I want to be. Here’s to the reckless destruction of life as I’ve know it. For real this time. For real, for real.

That didn’t really get much simpler did it? I guess complication runs in my blood. xD

Two Lists of Twenty (Part 1)

I’ve spent the last month or so feeling like my life has ground to an undeniable halt. As I’ve thought and fought and struggled over and over to figure out what the heck is going on in my life, I’ve constantly been overcome with frustration. But I have discovered one thing…maybe something I already knew, but needed a good reminding of. The thing that drives me, keeps me motivated, moving, alive, thriving, the key to making my life feel fresh and new…is dreams. And currently, I have no dreams. Or perhaps I’ve just buried them and lost the motivation to pursue them. In an effort to reawaken these dreams, to get my life moving, to have a tangible idea of what dreams I do have…I’ve compiled this list. It’s not a list I grabbed off some website, and nor does it really have any rules. It is, simply, a list (in no particular order) of things that I want to accomplish. The “desires of my heart” you might say.

1. Learn to play the piano. Trust me, I’d love to be able to play every instrument out there (that comes later ), but for some reason, piano stands out above the rest. I think about playing the piano, and I can’t even explain the feeling.

2. Figure out whether I believe in a god who exists and is actively involved in my life, a god who exists and doesn’t do anything concerning me, or no god at all. Honestly, I go back and forth so many times it just gets on my nerves. I get doubting god and all that, but that’s not what I mean…I mean, just figuring out my fundamental belief and sticking with it.

3. Write a book. Fiction, non-Fiction, whatever. I don’t care…I want to write a BOOK…not just blogs or essays or whatever, but a full complete book. About anything. Or everything.

4. Acquire the look of the starving artist that I have in my head. Wow. I almost didn’t put that one. Studio, gear/instruments laid out everywhere. The jacket, the hat (which I’ve already got!). There’s a picture in my head, and I don’t know…it’s mad appealing to me.

5. Go to school for something. I don’t know what yet (although I have a few ideas), but I just want to go. Get my car paid off could go along with this one.

6. Find “that” girl. Yeah, you know the one.

7. LEARN JAPANESE AND MOVE TO JAPAN. Or at least visit. I’ll say again: learn Japanese and move to Japan. Watch anime. Visit the geek happy malls. Check out the Asian women. See the sights. Have all my preconceptions shattered. XD (‘cept the one about the women…that one can stay)

8. Be a songwriter. A mad crazy musician who can produce songs on the computer. Better at guitar. Can play several instruments. Including the sax again. Keyboards. Drums. Tecno stuff. I want it all.

9. Be able to watch anime RAW (without subs), listen to J-Music and understand what they’re saying, and be up to date on all that stuff. To know the popular artists, who they are, what their albums are…all that jazz. Watch the crazy music videos.

10. Get the World of Warcraft completely and totally out of my life. Period. No more. Go away addiction!

11. Find people who like to do stuff outside. And do stuff outside. Sports, gardening, raking, bike riding, walks, rain battles with cattails…whatever.

12. Get Photoshop back on my computer and start web designing again. God I miss that. Tons. I want to be making websites and banners and avatars again. To open up Photoshop and stare at 209483498587345 colors for an hour.

13. Become a more active part of my family. ‘Cause they need it as much as I do.

14. Get a job that doesn’t suck ass. A career that I’ll have loads and loads of fun with. Even if it doesn’t pay me in magical paychecks that give me everything I want…I’d rather be happy.

15. Two words: Road Trip. Cross-country, visiting all the friends/family I know along the way. Seeing the sights, and (this is coming from the me that believes god exists and does things in my life) seeing what amazing things God can do.

16. Get to the point in my life where I wake up 5/7 mornings excited about the day and everything it holds. And by the time the day is over, to look back and say I had an amazing day and that I did something to be proud of.

17. Watch 345023750893475739845 more awesome animes. Yes, it gets it’s own number. Why? Because I love it that much.

18. Break every inhibition I have and live life the way I want to. Not the way I feel like I have to or the way people want me to…to just be me, for better or worse.

19. I want to make someone laugh every single day. I know that doesn’t really fit into this type of list, but hey, there’s no rules anyway. I want to make someone’s day every day…to convince someone that life is worth living by living.

20. This last one is pretty random, and I can’t believe I didn’t remember it until now. I want a cat. Yep, a cat. A indoor/outdoor pet cat (gender doesn’t really matter) that I can give some random japanese/anime name and chill with when I’m lazy.

The sun has gone dry, so we can sleep forever.

I was rocking some music tonight, like I do sometimes when I’m taking a break from talking to people on the web, when a particular song popped up and caught my attention. I had made a playlist of blood-pumping, exciting music to use during pvp combat in World of Warcraft, and included in the list was a song by the band Norma Jean. The song is titled “Amnesty Please”, and the line that caught my attention and made me take a closer song was “I’ve been so bitter towards you, I’ve been so bitter.” Why’d it catch my attention? My heart is full of bitterness. It’s a plague I can’t seem to escape. I wake up in the morning and think about how my life is so dull and uninspiring. I go to sleep thinking “Wow, I did absolutely nothing to be proud of today”. In both cases, there’s a bitterness that arises in me against the state my life is in.

I’ve become bitter in regards to myself. I’m disappointed in people who have let me down and led me on. And to be honest, I’ve got a heart’s worth of bitterness towards a God that I can no longer seem to appreciate. It’s funny, I know I should get to know God and all that…but know one wants to get to know someone that they think has done them wrong over and over again.

“Burn this to ashes, ashes and framework.” Maybe that’s what is happening, maybe this struggle for meaning, companionship…for life…maybe it’s all an attempt to reach the circumstances under which we can strip away every mask, every facade, everything that we think about ourselves. To burn away all the stuff that makes us appealing and prove that our framework is of itself a thing of strength and beauty. That when we are nothing but ourselves, we are something of worth.

“A dying man needs to die, as a tired man needs to sleep…And there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist.” I feel like a tired, dying man. I man fighting death, fighting sleep, fighting life. Perhaps, in a way I don’t understand, there are parts of me that need to be burned away, surrendered to the grave. Maybe I need to pass away in order to be reborn, to be burned away so that I can see for myself and know that my framework and foundation are beautiful and worth living for. In dying, my bitterness, sadness, regret, confusion, and so many other conflicting emotions that hold sway in my life, could be carried away and after taking a deep breath, I can start over.

I don’t want to sleep forever. I’m still far too young.

Breaking a Wall, Part 2.

As I was re-reading the previous post, I realized something. It’s no longer enough that God just exists in my life. It’s no longer enough that God seems to do things for me…sometimes. Those things no longer sustain me. It’s not that I want God to be there and to do things, but that I want to know God. To get to know who he is, to learn how he thinks, to get to know him as I would a friend.

That’s what’s wrong with me. It’s what I’ve been doing wrong. There was a time in my life not too long ago when I was on the right track. I remember talking to a friend about how I thought that God actually wanted to get to know us, and for us to get to know him. That maybe it’s not only me that needs God, but God that needs me as well. God doesn’t need me to exist, or to do the things he wants, he needs me to know him, because he loves me and I was created to love and know him. To be in fellowship with him, to have a relational friendship with him.

As if I’m slowly waking up from a dream that I’d been having for a long time, my eyes are opening, the blindness is receding, and though my vision is blurry, it’s clearing up. It’s just taking time. But I’ve begun to change my outlook on things, and not just my outlook, but my intake as well. I’m a machine that’s ripping it’s insides out, and changing the entire way that I function. Why? Because I’m not really a machine, I’m a person that God considers amazing, a person that God wants and has intended to have an intimate relationship with since before I was born.

Not to know that he exists, not to see what he does for me, but to know him and who he is.

Breaking a Wall, Part 1.

I’m so out of touch that I don’t even know where to start. I sit here for hours and just think and think and think…and still, I wind up staring around and wondering where all the soul, all the passion in me went. Did I hide it somewhere for later? Did I lose it and just never notice? What happened? I search my past and try to figure it out, but my mind draws a blank. In fact, that seems to be the only thing my mind is drawing lately…nothing. It’s as if I’ve gone from being the wielder of a pen, drawing dreams and visions with hope as my ink and inspiration as my paper, a creator, to a mindless child brandishing an eraser and destroying beauty without even realizing what it is. I’ve slowly but surely been erasing my life.

I keep doing all this random stuff on impulse in an attempt to find out what’s real, what’s truth…to find a way out. I’ll sporadically draw, write, sing, play guitar, go for a walk…all this stuff on impulse. It’s like I try to jump at every opportunity to feel real, to feel alive. But I’m drawing everything in pencil, everything is temporary, filled with extreme highs and lows. There are all these grand, sweeping gestures inside of me. Like I’m on a giant swing or something. I don’t understand what’s going on. I don’t understand why I have to be let down so much. I’m tired of trying and trying. What am I doing wrong?

I keep telling myself that I’m a sinner. But I’m not…I was a sinner. I still sin, but I’m forgiven. I keep telling myself that I’m not passionate, that I just don’t care…but that’s not true either, I do care, so much that I sit here miserable because I know there’s something wrong. I’m trying to convince myself that I’m not hurting when my world is pain and disappointment. I’m gonna make it, I say, while wondering how I’m “gonna make it” when I can’t even move. Maybe I’ll just sit here miserable and hope that one day something will change. I’ll pray that something saves me. I feel horribly trapped. I feel like, if a door would just open, I might be able to get the hell out of where I am.

The only thing that holds me anymore is music. I don’t feel like I’m close to any of my friends anymore. I feel outcast, like I’m an outsider to their lives, and they don’t want anything to do with mine. When all I want to do is give up, I turn on some music, and it doesn’t really matter what or who it is, something stirs inside me and for a while, I feel alive. But it’s not enough.

Where are you at? Right here with me? Right here with me, but silent and asleep? I can’t live on just the thoughts in my head and the words from people around me anymore. They aren’t enough. The you I have isn’t enough. More, more, more, more. Take me somewhere. Take me on a journey towards something unbelievable. Push me towards amazing. Drag me through unwilling. Challenge my fear…do something. Be a God that moves and breathes. Existing isn’t enough anymore…for you, or me. I don’t care whether you exist or not, I care about whether you’re a God that not only exists, but moves, changes, gives, takes, breathes, speaks, laughs, cries, loves…truly loves. And I don’t care whether or not I exist anymore…the way it is, there’s no point…I’m a vegetable, wasting away in my house. Killing days, killing time, killing myself.

I don’t even honestly believe that you’ll do anything anymore. But I can hope. I can decide to love you anyway. It doesn’t make any sense to me…why love someone who’s just there and doesn’t really do much? And yet, I do it with some of my friends every day, love them just because they’re there, even if I don’t “get” anything out of it. In fact, that’s what was pissing me off about people…being so selfish that nothing was worth any effort unless they got something out of it…even if it did end up helping someone. Wow, that’s me. That’s me when it comes to you. Wow, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. Haha…I’m an idiot.

XD That’s a good note to end on I think. Thanks. You always make me look retarded…but it’s ’cause you love me and want me to learn. Sorry for being oblivious 90% of the time.

When words embrace my mind like the ring upon your finger.

There are certain songs I’ve heard lately that have struck some buried cable in my mind. I thought you buried things to get rid of them, to move them out of the way. Out of sight, out of mind’s the way it goes right? Perhaps in doing my best to bury everything, I only dug the hole that became the birthing place for a seed of something far greater, something even more unconquerable than what I already faced. What am I talking about? Read on and see…

“I warned you what could happen if you should decide to live your life from the 9 to 5 … they found a way to reassure you that everything would be okay. Reach out today now I implore you to remember who you are. Return to days when you knew you still felt alive. Reveal the way you felt when you could look inside… Break the walls between building atrophy causing all your problems to recede… Take back the beat in your heart, why fight when you can’t be bought?” – Atrophy by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus

“You left behind hopes and dreams of a life left incomplete. You walked away from every thing you believed in when you wanted to change the world.” – Needles by Haste the Day

“ This paper posed as photographs. This promise snapped with time elapsed. You think you do, but you don’t know me at all. Last chance to find what we believe. I hope you save those you’ve deceived. You think you do, but you don’t know me at all. (You can’t hold your breath forever) ” – F-Stop by Sullivan

” I stared into oblivion and found my home. I stared into oblivion, and found my own reflection there.” – Into Oblivion (Reunion) by Funeral for a Friend

” Tell myself, on the ride home. Getting tired, hating all I’ve known. Holding on, like it’s all I have. Count me out, when it’s clear that I, find it hard to say. And you, find it hard to care.” – Different by Acceptance

I’ll just say it like this: I used to have dreams…dreams to change things, to make a difference. I used to care, not just about myself, but about others as well. I used to this, I used to that…I used to be a Christian. The point to note here is that I used to. I’m not now. I got tired, I got fed-up, I ran everything through my head and it came out as bullshit. I threw away God and everything in my life that I had associated with him. I left everything I knew behind and put on a new pair of shoes and headed out to wherever life would take me.

Ironically enough, it didn’t really take me anywhere. I’m stuck in stasis…no passion, no movement, no change. And I am wholly unsatisfied. In almost every way possible I feel unfilled, unnoticed, irrelevant. Sad to say, but I drown myself in World of Warcraft and whatever else I can get my hands on to distract me from the fact that when I have the time to think, all I can think about is how desolate, bored and miserable I feel.

I need a breath of fresh air, a chance to reinvent myself…a chance, just maybe, to reach heavenward again for the breath of change that lingers there. I can’t get off my feet to move, and I feel that it will take someone dragging me along, face down up a cliff, to get me anywhere. I can’t live like this. I’m mean, look at me…I sit down to spontaneously write, and all this emo bs comes out. That’s definitely NOT what I’m shooting for. So I’m turning my ass around, headed back to where I was, and doing everything I can to get out of this hell hole that I’ve buried myself in. I’d like to end off here with the finishing stanza from Different:

” I’m taking a chance, this could be different. This could be all I’m waiting for. Taking a chance, this could be different. This could be all I’m waiting for.”

A Fairy Tale, Perhaps?

In the spirit of boredom, creativity, or some odd combination of the two, I’ve decided to start writing a fairy tale. It’s my first ever, and I’m writing it in an open, “this is what popped into my head first” fashion. Note that everything you read is a DRAFT, a WIP (work-in-progress), and I’m posting it that way so that I can get comments and feedback about what I should do with it. So let me know if you want changes here or there, or what you what to see happen next, anything.

<-START->

It is said, that when the world came to be, Time had the mannerisms of an incredibly energetic child. Bouncing back and forth, to and fro, often changing it’s mind about the way things went here, or how this was said there. He had a devilish sort of attitude, breaking all the rules and making all the other BLAHS* jealous (especially Fate…afterall, how was one to decide how things were going to be in the distant future if you always had Time to go around messing things up?).

Sadly though, as Time grew older, he settled down with a rather nice lady and unfortunately, lost the oomph from his younger days. As the millennia went on, the spark in Time slowly died until one day, he up and kicked the bucket (afterwards, Fate threw a party, saying it was “destined to be” and other such nonsense. Not many BLAHS showed up though…they decided to use what was left of Time wisely…and no, it didn’t involve a barbecue).

When Time died, his body shattered (slowly, in an overly dramatic fashion) into billions of tiny rectangles (Time’s favorite shape). Each of the rectangles was incredibly thin, thinner even than paper, and on each one was a depiction of a different moment or series of events in history. It is on one of these “slices” of Time , if you will, that our story takes place…

<-END->

* I haven’t come up with a name for the collective members of creation and emotions or whatever (Fate, Future, Apathy…etc). Suggestions welcome.

The idea with this fairy tale is to keep things relatively simple, so that the reader doesn’t have to waste brain power on memorizing complex names and can just dive in to the story and enjoy it. All this, while still maintaining some originality and, of course, a decent sense of humor. That’s the intro, and it’s open to praise and/or criticism.