Attempt 3: why what you have is never good enough

Partly it’s the education

I know things exist

They are all pictured, exquisitely, on the internet

On poster walls

Partly it’s the feeling

An ache

That says

That something else is better

Something else is correct

Partly it’s the knowledge

That I didn’t want it in the first place

Partly it’s the knowledge

That I have exactly what I wanted all along

There is nothing in a couplet

that exposes meaning

it’s only in the word

alone

or in the middle of so many other words that it’s drowning and waiting for something to stand out from the bunch and just say something anything really that would have the potential to get at the heart of any matter that matters to you

but all

the talking

but all

the words

don’t amount

to that thing that very dream you wonder about.

Nothing answers the question

Especially when

Asking is unpermitted

Attempt 2: why what you have is never good enough

There was a thought

Rolling across my face

You saw it

I saw it

I can deny it

But the thought

It rolled

Slowly, creaking, stopped right smack

In the middle of my face

Undeniable

Tangible

Destructive

Space between what I know and what I don’t

Fills up with dreams

Tangible dreams

Asking me, slowly, what I think

Asking me, slowly, what I feel

(it’s the same thing)

Fickle animal, fleeing for the woods, on a whim

Following after rabbits, red and white

Behind cracked doors

Recreating the math

Why what you have is never good enough

Craggy river bottom

Pursues the top

Pushes her sea glass emeralds in all directions

Forces them to lose their edge

Before

Undressing them in front of the sun

But the effort

Is a loss

A thing changed

A pain

From a lost limb, a lost edginess

The sharp point

The collaboration of events

Urging each other together

Before splitting up again

Constant hum of a good song

One you’ve heard a million times before

The phrase that unarms you

Rhythmically

Needs compensation for the pleasure

Needs to take a break

While another newer thing is found

To take its place

Another attempt: Why what you have is never good enough

Work work working hard working

For the dream

Gold goal, pinnacle of gods

Little voices

Becoming the rabble of billionaires

Stallions running backwards

Back into their caves of coal and glass

They all know

They all work work and work and keep running

Because glory

Beauty and the love

is bathing

naked

in front of wolves

we run and run and run

the sword is clanking

guns are shooting

to save it all

to save it all now

because we know without looking

we all share it without speaking

we all know

exactly

what

we

want

pride

Objectivism, it would seem, is among the few philosophies and/or religions that list pride as a virtue. According to Ayn Rand, pride is one of the seven main virtues. In The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand wrote

The virtue of Pride can best be described by the term: “moral ambitiousness.” It means that one must earn the right to hold oneself as one’s own highest value by achieving one’s own moral perfection—which one achieves by never accepting any code of irrational virtues impossible to practice and by never failing to practice the virtues one knows to be rational—by never accepting an unearned guilt and never earning any, or, if one has earned it, never leaving it uncorrected—by never resigning oneself passively to any flaws in one’s character—by never placing any concern, wish, fear or mood of the moment above the reality of one’s own self-esteem. And, above all, it means one’s rejection of the role of a sacrificial animal, the rejection of any doctrine that preaches self-immolation as a moral virtue or duty.^[3]

Pride is thus seen as a positive, correct life-affirming attitude to have, as it celebrates one's achievements and promoted selfworth. It is achieved by consistently practicing productiveness, rationality, independence, honesty, integrity, justice and all of the other virtues, and the end result is one of the three cardinal Objectivist values: self-esteem.

Reflections of a Dying May

When the owl blinks

I’ll give the signal

No one will be watching

It’s a blind flash

The whole forest

Of alpine

Will fall asleep

Together and think of nothing

While we wake up

While we let our eyes readjust

To black

You probably weren’t there

You were gazing with the ground

Seeking out a thought

That ended up all wrong

But I saw the whole thing

Unravel from my bed

I wish I had caught it in a jar

Before it was dead

Great white silence

Yelling back in hollow waves

Shattering against the hooves

Of things running far away

It’s not useless, of course

The corpse has a key inside

Its throat

waiting to sing out

But won’t

Until you give the word again

jonny greenwood

fitter happier--by radiohead

more productive
comfortable
not drinking too much
regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries
at ease
eating well (no more microwave dinners and saturated fats)
a patient better driver
a safer car (baby smiling in back seat)
sleeping well (no bad dreams)
no paranoia
careful to all animals (never washing spiders down the plughole)
keep in contact with old friends (enjoy a drink now and then)
will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in wall)
favours for favours
fond but not in love
charity standing orders
on sundays ring road supermarket
(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants)
car wash (also on sundays)
no longer afraid of the dark
or midday shadows
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate
nothing so childish
at a better pace
slower and more calculated
no chance of escape
now self-employed
concerned (but powerless)
an empowered and informed member of society (pragmatism not idealism)
will not cry in public
less chance of illness
tires that grip in the wet (shot of baby strapped in back seat)
a good memory
still cries at a good film
still kisses with saliva
no longer empty and frantic
like a cat
tied to a stick
that's driven into
frozen winter shit (the ability to laugh at weakness)
calm
fitter, healthier and more productive
a pig
in a cage
on antibiotics

1. http://http://z.about.com/d/psychology/1/0/I/dendrites.jpg

wonder

I wonder

And no one can take that away

No one can steal the wonder

The thought

I imagine

I can see it

I can feel it beneath my hands, behind my chest

I know it

And no one can take that away

Except you

You could steal my thoughts

turn them from magic into the real

help me feel it in my hands, on my chest

And no one could take that away

Except me

I wonder

triumph

Triumph

In the form of stillness

Disquiet

Corrupting itself

The colors shake and leafs fall while birthing

References to the sun

Winning while the competition is dead

Players take off

Their coats

And walk naked, pink, brown, and red

Eyes closed

And groping for a safe landing midst the fall

Here again

Spreading out

Away from the

Seed

Breaking at the tips

Crushed by the impact

Of directly careless fleet

Running

In triumph

2 moons

Sacred posturing

Laying down earth incense

Lighting it in praise of the hidden second moon

The moon’s lover

Constant within the sun’s shadow

Keeps the shining ardor of his lover

On the path

Of godliness

In front the tide, ruling birthing cycles,

Insisting on paradox

Between chaos and order

In her cyclical way

The other side

The dark side

So often unnoticed, so often written off

Feels the fire

On his back and stays warm

By consistent contact

With his dualism

Everywhere

still waiting...

Wait, don’t tell me

I’ll find out anyways

Tomorrow

The day after next

At some point within the spread outside

I’ll enter that point

And never return

differential equations

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_equation

THIS is the great American

Right here

Doing this

On her ass

BEHOLD the greatness

That is this American

Plugging away the dollars

Sleeping with his eyes open

Contemplating dead options

Again!

HOORAY!

I said HOORAY!

For the nothing and nothing and the nothing

Reading the Onion

Passing time over the clock

Ignoring the ringing

Letting the alarm

Become a rhythm to live life by

photo BOMB

hi, i made a mixtape if you're interested...http://alexistentialism.muxtape.com/
(its free...)

True Story

On the day of april 15^th

An hour after sunrise

A giant tree, the one in the front yard

Starting whispering stories

About a collapse

About splitting in half

No one could hear

But it so happened

I was sleeping

under a lazy sun snooping through window slits

But I heard no tree

I don’t remember dreaming trees

Only the simple tone

of my friend

telling me to go

To go in her car

To drive away

“its ok”

Next to the lot

Where the car was parked

A branch the size of a tree

Hollow and buzzing

Lay on asphalt

Looking innocent, out of context

My three roommates

Questioning me

“where did you go?”

“who said you could take my car?”

I don’t know, I don’t know

The branch teases me

Nonchalantly mixing with gravity

But the branch lay next to the car’s former spot

And not directly

Where the car would be

Teasing me

Young people who wanted you

Fade away

They move for the mountains

Slowly stay where they lay

But their colors become gentler

Don’t take it personally

Everyone who speaks

To you

Means the words they say

Even if you cannot decipher the meaning

They mean them any way

But don’t take them personally

Days are inches on a hem

Growing slowly towards the floor

The light grows quieter

In the late afternoon

As it softly surrounds former half shadows

That once framed your face

But don’t take it personally

It is all obliged to grow dim

The closer

You get

A gaseous mirage of oxygen

followed me

under water

I slipped down

closer to dirty sand

My hands

gripping rubbery vines running towards the sun

allow panicked breathes to escape

My lungs sucked out the air

from between sheets of

glass

I awoke tasting

a transparent film of juice on my lips

trickling to my tongue

There is a thought across from mine

faceless, opaque,

demanding that I follow

to the bottom

where I find

unpredictable doors