Discussed Anger (Brain Droppings)

I realized something today.  I mentioned in a previous post that as a child and adolescent, my family never discussed politics and that I must have fallen far from the tree. I think about politics and the state of the world a lot. The internet and social media have made it possible fo me to deliver my opinion to others. I have been called passionate and have entered into my fair share of flame wars.

I know now that this desire to tell people what I think, to debate when it is better left alone, when most people would move along, is related to my upbringing.

Last night, I had dinner with my father. On the tip of my brain was the election, but given past habits, I did not bring it up. Before last night, I had decided to not let who they voted for affect how I feel about my family. But, it still pisses me off. It disgusts me when I see decisions certain politicians have made or plan to make that will have detrimental effects on my family and I think, 'How could they.' For example, I thought that today after my wife talked about unions and the effects current negotiations could have on our family. I thought, 'Why dad?'

I think the reason I am passionate about politics and eagerly enter into the fray is not so much an effect of our family not talking about it--not directly, way--as it is that I know I can't talk about it out of respect, but it still pisses me off, and this anger is injected into my discussions with other people.

Disillusioned (Brain Droppings)

So, I found out my parents voted for Trump.

On Saturday family day trip, we took a detour on the way home and went to my parents' house for a visit.  We were there long enough that I laid down and took a nap. I overheard my wife and mom talking about the election and ho they voted for.

How could they? Did I fall far from the tree? They have a son whose family, mainly his autistic son, who depends on some of the programs that are likely to be cut by the President-elect. Who depends on a certain amount of benefits that could possibly get cut. So, did they just not pay attention to the issues?

Here's the thing. You never would guess it, but I was raised not to talk about politics. It was never spoken or discussed in our house. Neither was religion...and we were Catholic. So if we had opinions on such matters, we held it in. There was no abuse or fear, we just didn't talk about it. It was a sign of respect NOT to talk about it. I am not surprised that it was my mother who talked to my wife, after I was asleep.

I believe it was this attitude that inspired me to ask questions. I had always been the kid to ask, 'why?' Even though I continued to never take things at face value, I learned that it was better to pick my battles. That slowly became an attitude of mind your own business. Today, I continue to have these conflicting values: Always ask questions vs. Leave well enough alone.

I hope that someday we can talk about it, but I honestly do not think that any good would come of it.

Similar Articles

You can't work with abhorrent inexperience
Disappointment is not hatred
Misogyny, Racism and Ableism are not okay now
Even Hitler had his Good Days

Gum

Causes are effects
Emotions, rootless

consequences precursors
to more failure

Life stumbles forward
carrying us on the

bottom of its shoe.

---

More by me: 

Zombie Bait:Pieces of my brain for you to digest-A book of poems

Zombie Bait 2: More Bits (more poems)

Smoldering Phoenix

The strings leave
too much slack

Their balls to small

to fill their sacks

They crumble and fall
Eager for the pain to end

The puppeteer stalks,
Checks the strings

Attached, he kicks them
They lie still

They gather their string and

Wait for their time.

Costumed nihilist

Rise up
As I walk

My fingers claw
at the inside of my shins
hands grab an pull

the rest of me
buoyed by half-assed
optimism


I stand within myself
push my feet into my skin
like climbing into favorite jeans

Slip my arms into worn skin
like an old coat, over my shoulders
I shake and thrust out my arms

Reposition my sockets to see through the
holes, I blink. Work my jaw and open my maw
widen it into a grotesque smile

I squeeze air through my lungs
because that's what people do when
they don't want to die.


----





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Grave efforts

Struggling to reach normal
                      be the perfect father
                                 compassionate husband


with no definition.
Climbing with no direction
I grip for the level above,
when all I do is dig deeper

Up is down.
Life the grave.




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Bound away.

The thoughts leave,
they escape.

Gone until I see them
later

Faded and worn, vague
representations

I call to them, coo words
similar


But they cock their heads and
bound away.



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To be heard.

Hands slap my face
Futile revival of a
Sluggish mind

Catching up to a
Speeding cart
Carrying life away

Blind, fingerless
slapping, poking
the keyboard words


once they leave my
mind, they dissipate
into the air, gone

Ideas held back, run
and batter into my
skull, and scream

To be heard

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Journal: Writer, Where Art Thou?

I've lost all desire to write. I write this, but outside the quick spurts, I don't feel compelled to write. Three months ago, I was collaborating with my friend on a book; I barely give a shit when I lost the drive the book was on.

I found the will after a long dry spell before. It will happen again.

Boiled down loathing

I will never tell off the people I perceive dislike you because you smell, are hateful, paranoid.

Because I agree with them.

I am

I am:
resentful
Sad
apathetic
aloof
cowardly
deviant
unfaithful
perverted


....and that's in my own head.

Burn Bridges

Burn bridges to get
Get away.
Build walls against the
Past.
Run away from possible
Pain.



Look across, They're
Gone.
Wall becomes brittle
Old.
Everything feels so
Dead.

Life Excision

Exhausted
Each morning.

Nausea,
Stomach nervous.

Hate
Eluding logic.

Morals
Kill rationality.

Head,
Swooning balance.

Heart
Racing away

Anger
Barely tethered.

Writhing Contradiction

I have become my own worst enemy. I contradict myself at every turn, deciding and acting one day and questioning and chastising myself the next.

I have values, but when I assert them, become aggressive, I find the contradiction. The two, aggressive and passive, constantly push against each other. Never touching bet always fending each other off.

I know I am passionate, but I hate interacting with people, which is also at odds with how I want friends. I know there are people who are repulsed by how I voice my opinion, even my 'friends.' It saddens me, but I have tried playing the game and being positive, and it doesn't work.

So, I have two choices: Driving people away and being sad every once in awhile not having any friends or not being myself and having friends, all the while crawling in my skin.

Even Hitler had his good days

Forgive me if this post seems redundant of a previous FB post, but I feel it's worth more thought. So, I've seen this video floating around supporting the thought that Trump is not a despicable person.  Not misogynistic. Not ableist. Ignorant to what his supporters have been doing in his name during the campaign and after the election.

Oh, that's it, we have all just misunderstood him. Granted, some of the things that are cited as racist statements can be argued otherwise, or as being ambiguous at best.  Those alone, I MIGHT have been able to give them the benefit of the doubt. But coupled with his condoning of the acts on is behalf, is almost as bad as the acts themselves.

Hitler had his good days. Charles Manson had his good days. Show those times, and maybe you'll be convinced they were royal douchebags.

Here are 13 Examples of Trump Being a Racist

We Shouldn't Forget Trump's Bigotry and Hate Just Because He Won the Election 

These 49 quotes are all things Trump actually said

Protesting: It's your right

I realized I don't have to address every slight or enter every argument.

I found myself arguing with someone about something government related. While I was ticked off, I did not rush back to my feed to see what he said next or try to bash or insult him. The point of all this is not to argue and insult the other side. The point of this is not to run away from arguments. The point of this is not to run to arguments either. 'Start the dialogue' doesn't mean trying  to do so to show them how it's done.

If you are upset over the election results, if you are scared or pissed or sad, you have to realize that what happened was not unforeseen. It was preventable, though. Everyone except his supporters underestimated him. He was an entertaining soundbite, fodder for jokes. He was not seen for the threat that he actually was.

You'll be called names. You might even be threatened, but if you persist in realizing that people lash out when threatened. Many see a discussion as a threat. Eventually, I think you will be able to stand being called names. And remember, every battle is fought differently. Some aren't worth your time.

You are not whiners. You are not babies. You are not sore losers. Whether people agree with you or not as to why you are protesting, it is your right. One of the first things they will tell you is that what you are doing is a waste of tie. They are merely pissed because the people who were screwed over actually have a voice, or they are jealous that you have the courage to make your voice heard.

New Kind of Anger

So I was an unprecedentedly calm and cool the night of the election. A lot of it was that it was over. The kind of calm I used to feel after the conclusion of a big exam for which I prepared little or not at all. Don't get me wrong. I was not happy. But I went to bed thinking we move on. It might suck. It might be okay.

Then I woke up. The next morning I was surly. After dropping the kids off at school, I started feeling a little bit sad. I was looking at Facebook and saw all the 'Day after' photos (people were calling them 'day one' photos, but technically, that day is not yet here), of racist epithets and acts of hate against people of different races. Still on Facebook, I scrolled to find that an old acquaintance of mine had called people who were upset about the election "butthurt whiners."

Click.

I didn't get angry, all hot in the head. I realized that there is no reason I have to respond to anything. No rule says I have to read and respond. What is also true is that I also don't have to take shit from people. Just because someone types in all caps does not mean I need to take them seriously or be scared of them. Most of the time, name callers just want to break you down; all they want is an argument. I used to get all nervous about starting arguments, avoiding confrontation. If you want to open dialogue, don't be scared of bloviating assholes, calm them down and talk to them.

The whole point of getting involved is to converse.

Racism, Misogyny, Ableism is not okay now

The day before the election, my seven year old talked to us about voting. His class had a mock election and he told us that he was voting for Trump because that is who was going to win; that's what people said. we explained to him that he should inform himself and vote the way he felt was right, not the way other people told him to.

This morning, I told my kids that Trump won. I told them that because this is the man the country has elected, we we need to respect that. But, they are not blind or deaf. Over the course of the election, they saw and heard all the deplorable things come from this man.  I told them that just because he won, does not make what he said and did okay. I know this will be the case, because it happened on a smaller scale here in Riverside. Candidates slammed, slandered and intimidated candidates and voters, and validated their actions, dismissing them, actually, because they won. Well, people did not shut up. I have seen my friends, Christine Kirkwood and Kevin Kiene, keep up their cause, their belief in a Riverside that does not need to falling to line with other small towns that accept the corn stalk hierarchy, and blindly support or overlook the actions of someone just because they are of certain families.

These are the people I want to use as an example going forward, not just for myself, but for my children. You can't change things overnight, and you can't change things if you sit on your ass.

You can be respectful and still stick it to them.

Disappointment is not Hatred

But isn't that hate? I ask myself, Aren't you doing exactly what you say is bad: hating people because they are different?

I don't hate them. I don't. But I know that my thoughts and my actions can come across as being hateful. I unfriended people I knew or had good cause to believe were supporting Trump. I have been very vocal in my secluded little world about my disdain for him; then again, at no time did anyone want to talk about it. No one. Which absolutely does not surprise me.

As is the case with Trump supporters, I distance myself from them because I know that their support for the man has something to do with hate (for the system, for women, for minorities, Hillary, Obama, themselves, what have you).

Part of it is that I don't want to be around people, so I don't put myself in situations that cause me to experience that. I do judge people. I think you need to judge people to protect you and yours. If you don't, then you are not going to be able to discern between good people and bad people. Where we run into a problem is when people have a skewed or warped sense of good and bad and how to identify it, when they have a fucked up metric or labels, 'telling' them who is good and who is bad.

You can't work with abhorrent inexperience

Strip away everything else about Trump, a man with no political experience has been elected president. If Trump wins, for the people who didn’t for Trump,  this won’t be the normal conceding to someone you disagree with on economic or educational issues. Fighting against the establishment, this ‘movement’ he started, is nothing more than a validation of the county’s abhorrent racism, sexism, and intolerance.

I understand when people write that no matter the outcome, we are still together as a country. Let me tell you something. This country has never been more vulnerable. Insurance will be lost; people who enjoyed insurance for the first times in their lives will lose it. Vital services. Gone. Life saving procedures. Gone. 

And what will happen to all those “handouts” conservatives are complaining about…more than a few people depend on those handouts to live. We’re on the street, or the disrupt the stable environment we have established for Keegan, because…I know I’ll sound lazy…either I will or my wife will have to work more. 

So keep talking about pulling together and being one nation and working together when this man, essentially puts you neighbors, you children or friends out on the street. Keep talking when people, citizens, are deported for being in a different religion. 

And for fuck’s sake, he will have the nuclear codes. 

internal

At odds, at odds, odds
I make myself pay every day

No good, no good, good
Deplorable, I become loving

So shallow, so shallow. Shallow.
I dig to the surface, breathe

I dig, I dig, dig
Daily, I dig out of the hole

I fight, I fight. Fight.
Pity vs. Confidence, no winner.

Shameless self-promotion...just add the shame

I was cleaning out my file cabinet and came across a stack of paper and partially filled notebooks. Filling the papers were a crap ton of poems. A handful were from when I was still in high school, but a good portion was from college and post-college. I struggled to interpret a lot of it. There were quite a few that dug into my heart and threatened to push it out through my chest. Love lost(sometimes on purpose or through my own stupidity).  Many of the mistakes I made are there, most of their lessons not learned until much later.

I want to share this with others. Two links. Two books. There is a fiction series by the same name. Mine's the poetry.

Enjoy.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MSGZHZW/ref=sr_1_22?ie=UTF8&qid=1478228719&sr=8-22&keywords=zombie+bait 

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B01M3YZAXO/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1478469790&sr=8-1&pi=SY200_QL40&keywords=zombie+bait+2&dpPl=1&dpID=51grjB6eIiL&ref=plSrch

Protection from Life

Stone wall
Headlong
Numbs more than
Replenishes

Time spent building not
Futile
Protection, safety never a
Waste

Running into it loosened
A brick
I see other lives
Lived by masked
Simulations

Yet I'm still jealous
Time spent building is not Futile
Protection, never a waste
But

Time spent building is not without its
Consequences

If this is the simulation, then what's the real world like?

I had a great idea for a story, until I watched the next in the series in the show Black Window,  San Junipero. The series depicts individuals in abnormal and sometimes surreal situations that usually result in tragedy and/or horror. This particular episode was a story about two women who regularly visit what you first believe is the past or the future. It turns out they regularly go into a simulated reality that provides refuge and/or stimulation to old and/or terminally ill people. 

http://www.themarysue.com/san-junipero-playlist/

I'm planning on revisiting the idea. It could still work, because I have a different twist. It became weird when I grouped it with a couple other occurrences. The other day, I was leafing through a book and talking to my wife and I referred to apples, and the next page I turned to, Eve was picking an apple. Then, yesterday, I asked my son where the phone was, and it rang.

Coincidences like this make me question reality.

Light Reading: My Existence

I've been reading The God Delusion and I recently picked up the books Philosophy in Minutes (2014) by Marcus Weeks, Existentialism: All that Matters (2015) by David Cerbone and Trivium: The Classical Liberal Arts of Grammar, Logic, & Rhetoric (2016) John Martineau, editor. I was drawn to existentialism in college. I was taking a rhetoric or logic class and either overhead Sartre's name or tumbled on it in a bookstore, not sure. But, it was one of the few papers I wrote in college that I actually worked on. No last minute bullshit for this one. I pored myself into it. I could not wait to get to work and was disappointed when the work was done. Little did I know that I would revisit it again and again throughout my life. So, here I am today.

The focus on the individual, the subjective human experience appeals to me today more than ever. I have always been somewhat self-centered anyway because I have such a problem interacting with others, unless it is through sarcasm or humor. It applies to me to day as well because of my relatively recent realization of my atheism. I hadn't thought about it then, but I certainly had the same feelings of disillusionment and 'that's a load of shit' then that I do now. I have just been acknowledging it now, over the recent years.

The subjective human experience, existential angst, and our relationship to the world applies to thoughts of god and whether or not he exists. We have our life, and that's it rather than God pulling our strings or setting the script.

Under my skin: A short summary of an anomaly.

I am not the social butterfly I envisioned I would be in a town this size. I tell myself that I don't want to be around people. For the most part, that is true, but there is the conflicting feeling of jealousy over what other people have, or what I perceive them to have. I picture people calling each other on the phone or hopping over or dropping in, to talk about something weird that happened, to remind them of a meeting at the school, or to invite them to the party they're throwing together that day.

When you get right down to it, I could care less what people think. Sure there's that initial sting and occasional bad taste, but for the most part, I am able to cut people off with such precision. If I am done with someone, I barely recognize them if I see them in public. Being so good at that has not only caused many burnt bridges, but it has also left a persistent lack of trust in others, an assumption that others fail me.

I have had social misstep after social misstep. I have been this way my whole life. When communication breaks down, embarrassment leads to avoidance. I always seem to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. I am all too accustomed with the taste of my foot.

That's why I write.


We have a dirty and smelly house. Busy? Sure. High ratio of people to space? Definitely. Too much shit? Yup. Self-esteem, anxiety, depression and medication issues? Yes, uh-huh, affirmative, and that's a big 10-4.

I don't drink,  I don't like sports, and I don't like dropping in to people's places. I wrote a blog that covered the bullshit in my local government, which, I believe, paints me as a negative person and has ostracized me from many. That blog is the one thing that has changed me in both good and bad ways.

The good: I have met some great people (to whom this post is dedicated). I write more.  Who am I kidding...I actually write. Before the blog, I wrote the occasional human interest or city council piece, but I never wrote for myself. Now, I write and work for me. I have this blog, I write short stories and I also volunteer at the library by writing their quarterly newspaper. I have recently completed a research project for a neighboring town.

The bad: But the blog soured me toward people. I poured my heart and soul into that thing (Riverside's government, specifically) and I wrongly expected my readers to do the same. I received hateful messages and snideful comments, and been removed from a city Board. I drew the ire of 'important' people in this town and I don't have a lot to show for it. All that has left me bitter.

I've been cut off from my immediate world for awhile, from people I care about. Been sorting through my life, getting my shit together, etc.

I'm here. I'm fine.

Excuses, excuses (Brain Droppings)

I stopped writing because I lost my thumbdrive AND my computer took a shit. I thin I might have unconsciously taken it as an omen. I have been coming up with excuses on why I shouldn't write, stories that is, but I force myself to post to this blog.

I love it when my personalities squabble.

Silhouette in the dark (Brain Droppings)

The kind of feeling of sorrow on which you can build.

It is how you feel when you feel sad or nostalgic, but then you realize 'I'm still here. I got this far. Fuck the world. The things this world puts in your way are but things. Words are but words. Nothing can get in your way

There is no impending doom of the future, or the futility of it all.

It is the closest to happiness, real happiness with myself.