Wednesday, July 21, 2010

thoughts and a short story. ball and biscuit.

Sometimes one just has to humor the thoughts that pop into their heads... so allow me to divulge into such a topic.

Recently I realized while being the teacher at youth group, it really doesn't matter. I'm considered as just a child and at most someone to pawn things off of. Your child lied? I'm sorry, I told him not to. I'm at fault, because... I told him too? I remember very differently... ok, guess it doesn't matter. I'm the fall man and since you consider me a child, why do I put time and effort into lessons? You don't seem to care about me, I'm a baby sitter... a child watching after children. I guess I should feed them milk as well. Get the pun there? ahaha I laughed, I need the humor.

So to my point... it seems every time I work and strive to help, well I think I'm doing good work and God is working through me. The opposite happens. I get run out of town, not literally. ahaha feels like it. Maybe it is as Wesley says, if I haven't been run out of town I haven't preached the gospel correctly. This could be by actually living and preaching the gospel or great circumstances.

I knew this kid, I wasn't a close friend of his... but I really can't be now. I heard the story of how he passed and it's sort of stuck with me for some reason or another. This will be depressing, I must warn you. one night, the wrong night.. he got drunk. In the wrong part of town and decided to use a phone. Wrong neighborhood, wrong time, wrong house to knock on the door. This guy apparently had a bad night and was waiting for someone else. This drunk young gentlemen was treated to being shot at the wrong house. All created by bad circumstances.

Now I know, the fall of man and the entrance of sin. Bad things happen...but it does lead one to wonder, what is the point? When a barrel is waiting at the next random house on a bad evening... just waiting there for you to make one uneducated mistake. He shouldn't of been drunk, nor went to a random house. In a way we are all stumbling through life and can make such a mistake ourselves.

So it could be a grander plan or it could be nothing... ahaha not really sure, I'll let you know when my day comes and I sit in front of my maker. Well if I do make it there.

anywho, here is a short story I wrote.
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In the purpose of story, I am not a man to care about what most would see as significant knowledge. It really is not of great purpose in what I do. I mean, it is as simple saying I ask not how this existence has come about? I ask, why and to what extent is it here? 'How?' has too many theories and you could say that even 'why?' has just as many or more. It is really an issue of empirical knowledge vs rhetorical. The how it happened can have palpable truths, but the why is far more paradoxical. The moral paradox seems much more enthralling than a theory of two universes converging in a wormhole.

Saying all that, I must wonder who in their right minds would relate to a character such as myself. I mean, relating and having empathy for a character is what draws one in, yes? I would not feel any pains or lasting sadness if you were to put this short story down right now.

If it is not something you dig, then continue on your search. Perhaps you will find relevancy and shalom (peace) elsewhere friend. I mean, what common person wants to be Holden Caufield, Tony Stark and for some of us Ayn Rand? Even Kierkegaard forced himself into despair, what a fine idea he had.

My apologies, I have not properly introduced myself. I am Thomas Whitman. Not Tom, not Whit or Wit. Please no witty or lame nicknames. It's either Thomas, Whitman or Thomas Whitman. I have no middle name. No, I never wrote down no middle name on documents. I have no jokes of any sort pertaining to it. For any matter, since I don't have a middle name... I do not write down a middle name. It's just a useless spot on forms in my opinion.

I digress, I am a man of many ages. I find the older I become the younger I am. Dylan said once, "Ah, but I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." You'll find that I am a man of quotes, Solomon the wise said, there is nothing new under the sun. Which is the smartest thing he ever said. You have to be pretty intelligent to figure out something so obvious. Being an analytical man myself, I miss the bigger picture. But do no fret, the portrait is mostly hidden anyhow. You see no cat and no cradle... but so it goes. (Vonnegut)

Alas, I have so much to say... but I have so little time my dear friend. For I fear my time is near. Wait, I do not know why I wrote that last sentence. I do not fear the end of my time. "Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread you last day. Nor long for it." Marcus Aurelius. He may have been a horrid man in the eyes of some of my brothers and sisters, but his philosophies were fabulous. Even poetics and Christian morals can come from a man who persecuted them. You can find great hope from a single crack in the darkest of moments.

Perhaps not telling you simply about myself will be the better choice. It appears one could pull out some understanding even from such a diatribe so poorly written. Do not worry, there is a story at play here. Patience just does not appear, it is gained with great trial. Some call via salutus (way to salvation), holiness or deification.

I ponder as to how I am at this place you see me now. As you hopefully have noticed there are three sets of prints. Two of them going up... as you can tell mine end where you have found me. One heading back down, I would assume and another that continues after I had fallen. I do not fear my end, but the taste of the fruits that grow up top that I will not receive. For that taste and sight over that mountain top seems so appealing to every sense of my mortal and eternal being.

On the other hand the mountain top could be tainted fruits or in some perpetual nonexistence. Which baffles me if so, the dirt below my feet makes the journey so real. What sick and hideous joke it would be if it was so different than my presuppositions have always lead me to believe. Wait! Not presuppositions, for my conscious has been as a compass and the pointer has lead the way.

If finding nonexistence was the pointing light of the soul; Then why would there be moral obligations naturally set into our subconscious? If the moral self was in constant leading into no existence while embracing a false self; Why would uneducated anarchy not reign supreme?

Knowing that you have read this far and not put down my letter. I feel we would have been friends and such a splendid dialogue would ensue. In another life I suppose.

I do not wish to take much of your time, for you have further to go I would guess. Also, I wish to assist you. For what is a life worth living if they do not help in making the world a better place? Do not look to live just as I did, for not even the saints would wish that. I would think they would want you to learn from them and be your own. Take from their mistakes and triumphs. They were sand, just as you or I.

As you think of me, I don't need to be remembered specifically. For behind this mask of a Thomas Whitman there is a plethora of layers in which make my soul. Without even being there, I know you are just the same. Consisting of a million different faces, places, perspectives, sufferings, passions and loves. Both self-loathing and narcissistic, you find yourself the same place as I. For better or worse, you shall find out.

I have never sought after much. I don't think people seek narcissism or how to love themselves. For that, I don't think many people seek fame. It just happens or I could be placing my ideas on others. For I didn't seek to be where I ever was. It happened and whatever I was or am came from such happenings. Like this mountain top, it was in the list of happenings. It was the next most probable and logical occurrence of course.

I hope not to cause a disconnect here. For we do not all live in happenings or a similar logic. I must ask though that for this moment, you accept that. To at least place yourself in my shoes. I must once again go back to the beginning, I will not hold anything against you for getting up and to decide to never finish reading. I never will read any novel by Faulkner. Forever I will pick it up and set it back down, to never be finished. I will not hold a double standard in such a matter.

I am sorry if it seems I am lecturing. In my days I was a professor and a preacher, it's what comes naturally to me. The combination makes for a man who does not shut up when asked of his opinion. You may laugh, that was my crack at humor

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