The Thoughtful Penthouse

I awake every day and lie to myself
Opening my eyes into a reality that I quickly push away
And place a foot down onto the warm floor of ignorance
On my way to take a shit.

I push myself every day
Thinking I’m happy, wanting to be happy
Projecting into the question why
Caught between knowing I don’t want my reality
And I do not want to be alone.

I fold upon myself every day
Dropping into heaviness, exhausted of my light
Apathetic from the truth that people are animals
Wondering how trust and wild coexist
Do tigers make good lovers?
Do I make good decisions?

I fall asleep every day
Hoping I glance a seductive smile
With a heart and mind of human behind it
A sense of thoughtfulness and caring
A will to be above the tree line
And fly atop the winds of reasons that matter.

I dream every night
Of a world where people care
Where altruism pours from taps and soaks kisses
And a person’s weight is measured accurately
On the scale of humanity by all
For all.

In love and life and strangers we trust
A soldier’s motto to continue marching
A shaman’s utterance to continue summoning
As the search goes on in nature and nurture for someone
To take my lies away
To rest my fight
To unfold this weight
To soften my pillow
To sing in my dreams
Of the need to live knowing
Someone worth dying for.

My best friend asked me tonight if I missed my ex-wife (missed the love we had). I replied, “You know what I miss? I miss the simplicity”. He looked at me questioningly.

I didn’t mean to sound cold. My ex and I had been through a lot together, and that had its costs, but of course I missed her much like any man who’s ever fallen in love would miss the good times he spent with a woman he called his own. Yet after years of dealing with relationships in the aftermath, what I’ve come to long for the most is truly the simple understanding of love I once knew.

And so I turned and told him the best analogy I could muster. I said, “when you’re young, it’s like being in a house together that has no exits. When the house catches fire you do everything you possibly can to put the fire out because if you don’t, you’ll die. But once you get a divorce, you realize there’s a back door. From then on, when a fire breaks out there will always be a choice. There will be a point where that fire gets too hot, and you’ll want to run for the door. You might not always do it, but you’ll always know its there.” And I looked at him and shook my head, “I miss not knowing there was a back door.”

In response to a comment about how we will end up like a impoverished culture, starving, as the 1% swims in their gold…

No we won’t. It’s a well documented principle in the art of war that a good warlord must allow his subjects to have their own to some extent. Otherwise, they will rise up against the warlord and overthrow him/her. Any money-whoring 1%’r is either going to be skillful enough to keep the public just happy enough to keep them working, or they are going to be overtaken by another 1%’r who sees the flaw of their unbalance, and does it for them (after taking their money). This is fully employed already by those 1%’r for hundreds of years in both business and (**cough**) religion. What we have going on now is not the pinnacle of civil unrest. It is merely the smallest fraction of dissatisfaction with the system. We are nowhere near the true *beginning* of such an uprising – true civil war. And only that is going to tear us apart so much that we end up starving like that top pic.

I definitely agree that we have problems with our nation, but a lot of these problems are an after-shock of the collapsing economy based on the backside of the digital revolution (we over-bet on it), and the ignorance of our own people (us all believing we could afford things we really couldn’t). Not to mention the constant abandonment of our responsibility (our own laziness) to those 1%’rs, corporations, and law makers that offer to make it easier for us in exchange for granting them control. This is evident in our legal and financial systems where ridiculous laws exist to provide us with the simple common sense our ancestors knew they had to hold dear and protect, and that we, so absorbed in our selfish routes, happily gave to them to get it off our minds.

 No one ever told us that we didn’t have to be careful with our home loans, and no one ever guaranteed us that education was going to assure us a well-employed, wealthy future. Ask anyone who majored in Renaissance Literature… they had a choice… and they chose passion over practicality. And now, they line up in the streets, blocking small business that they are so ‘diligently’ fighting for, mocking and fighting hard-working (and sometimes genuine) police who have NOTHING to do with their often self-induced plight, and using their education to make clever cardboard signs showing how unjust our nation treats them, even though they live better than a LARGE% of the rest of the world.

Yeah… 99%… whatever.

Sometimes in life, you’ve just got to move on. It takes an inner strength and resilience towards things that you don’t like, even if they’re subtle. If something is making you uncomfortable over and over again, it may be the case that something in your life is fundamentally wrong and it’s time to let go.

It may take patience and time to heal from these moves. It may leave you in a land full of shadows and doubts, but it’s imperative to realize the land you now feel lost in is very akin to the land you just left. Perhaps it is now a matter of adventure and maturing through a place you were headed anyways.

People make choices in life and you cannot rule them. You cannot control them nor should you. Life is not about controlling life. If the will of things feels wrong to you, then you should move to those things that will not feel as strange.

You should not blame others for their will. They have a life full of dreams and aspirations. They want their destiny just as much as you want yours. And although it may be saddening to realize your wants are not the same anymore, you should rely on the fact that the universe is unfolding as it should. Life takes turns and you may not have the choice you want, but you still have other choices to live by.

Life can be hard on you. It can be demanding at times when you want anything but challenge. But it is through these hardships that you grow. The ability to accept these tribulations is fundamental to being healthy with yourself. And although these challenges may feel heavy, you will become stronger from the exercise.

I am sorry for anyone who ever passes here. But I can assure you, with the minimum amount of self support, caring, and diligence towards listening to your own destiny, you will find sunshine and a beach somewhere ahead. Take time to enjoy the landscape of your life as you travel forward, and do not forget where you came from, or how you get to where you’re going.

You are strong. Love yourself, and love your journey. In the end, it may not just be the places you’ve lived, but the roads in between that you cherish the most.