Alive Again For One More Year (Happy Birthday to We)

Happy Birthday to my twin brother Tory. I shared a room with him for 19 years. He has always saved me. My mother wanted to run away from our life in Renton, Washington when we were both in the second grade. It was our first trip to Los Angeles. She drove. That trip I almost drowned in a relatives backyard pool, twice. My brother Tory saved me. That's what he is always doing. He's a savior.

I had a conversation with my grandma a week or so ago about what I believe. Specifically, she asked me if I believed in god. My exact quote was "I don't think I do. I don't. I think it's possible." She is an intensely religious person. A very resilient woman. Doctors told her that she wouldn't live past seven years old and she proved those fucking clowns wrong. I understand why she believes in god. Why a god's existence is important to her. It explains her life long pain. And god does exist. He is the greatest character ever written. No matter what I think about religion this character, God, has undoubtedly affected the human universe from the macro society to the individual's own micro, most narcissistic thinking. Whether you're Pagan or Atheist or Buddhist or Hindu or Mormon or Catholic or Muslim or what-the-fuck-ever, I don't give a fuck! This notion of something invisible but greater than you; exists to you. That is what characters in novels are. So why not these deities that superofficiously manage lives and existence? Do you believe in an alternate reality that is perfect? Despite the fact (in my incredibly entropic view of the universe) that perfection has never existed. EVER! At least as most religions or "Ways of Life" expect you to believe. They beg that you strive for everyday behavior, against all natural inclinations. They expect you to behave in a manner that again, HAS NEVER EXISTED! Perfection is ambiguous. A three hundred pound person who is 4'6" is disgusting to most people in a world where thinness controls vanity, but this person (some think oddly) is married. They are someone's angel. A person who is twenty-eight and broke as fuck, can't pay any of their bills on time (if at all), a person whose credit score is the average temperature of Siberia, a person still in pursuit of a Bachelor's Degree, a lazy ass mother fucker who only wants to interpret what they see (based upon their perception from adolescence to the end of this sentence), someone loves intensely. Someone loves a selfish person. Someone who is an opinionated human disease. This person, inexplicably, is the love of some person's life. Religion is important, I'll concede that point. But this post isn't about that inane institution, it's about my growth. My life at twenty-eight years of age. My birthday is today.

I think that God and Satan are great characters but I don't think that the philosophies to which they are attached, should govern the human spirit or condition. That's my stance. I'm not a Satanist or Atheist (despite some of my words and some of the images I am attracted to, also the themes that influence a lot of my writing). That's how I feel. But fuck all of that. Like I just wrote, this is about my twenty-eighth birthday, this is about my growth.

January 27th, 2014 is the beginning of my eighth year in Los Angeles and it is this year that I will become a father. I thought it would change my view on the universe. I thought that I would begin to view the universe in a perfectly Christian, "Godly" perspective (which I won't define and will assume you will). But I haven't and have yet to adopt that thinking. I will get back to my new way of thinking, as molded by my eight adult years in Los Angeles. But my child (as it should be) is my first priority.

I'm terrified. I don't want to fuck this up! I'm obsessed with not fucking this up but in the back of my mind I can't help but understand that I can be a runner just like my father was. Whatever he was. I don't want to be whatever he was. I don't know him. I literally wouldn't know him if I saw him. I don't want to be invisible. I don't want to be a subjective god or savior. That is all I know right now. At twenty-eight years old. My child will understand that his birth wasn't some immaculate conception. It has already been the most difficult idea that I have had to grasp. The idea that I've created life. A life that has to believe in me. A life that has to be certain that I exist. I have never wanted to pursue perfection more than now. My child will know no pain (which is most often the crux of perfection).

I am not naive. I know that my child will feel a shit load of pain and has to. My child will understand and discover, that pain is inevitable and beautiful. When my child has a child they will feel as I do right now. They will have advanced that understanding.

My seventh year in Los Angeles. I self-published a book of my own poetry and I began considering myself an artist. There is nothing more vainglorious. In the back of my mind when I hit Blogger's Publish button is the thought "Am I this vain? I think that people actually give a fuck about how I view the universe?" Then I think "politicians think that they should govern. Musicians think that the notes they choose to play are most important. Other writers believed in their words. Directors believed that their vision was the truest." My seventh year in Los Angeles I also discovered that writing is something that I will do for the rest of my life. I can't help it. So when I hit Blogger's "Publish" button I am doing something natural to me. I can't wait to publish more about my kid. My kid will be crazier than its father. 

I love my baby's mother. That's how I know my child already has it amazing. Admittedly, our child was not planned but as soon as Liz told me that she was pregnant we both believed that the life we created must be exalted and celebrated. We understood that our lives were to be lived for the little mother fucker in her womb.

I'm so impatient. I cannot wait! I hope the baby looks like me. Although, Liz is a million times more beautiful than I.

How did I grow in Los Angeles? I haven't, I guess. Sometimes I am depressing and loathsome to be around. I understand that about myself and I could argue as others could also argue, that I've digressed as a person. I have never been one to compromise what I think and how I view the universe for someone else's comfort, even though I sometimes dramatize my experiences like an episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit. My experiences are valid, the same as every individual. Popularly defined notions of socially positive morality aren't apt to everyone. I get tired of people enforcing beliefs with an infinite number of contrary notions upon humanity. Women are not equal in society as a whole but can be tyrannical matriarchs. A black man can be ostracized and a discriminator equally. White men can be oppressed. Societal trends of discrimination are not the rule. I'm not saying that people should not fight to eliminate discrimination and elitism, I'm saying that often we are what we are fighting against and often we aren't fighting against oppression, we're begging for sympathy and absolution of our own digression. That's how I grew here. I realized that I am responsible for my position in the universe no matter how "outside forces" influence and try to maneuver me into a subjugated position (if any). It isn't for me to blame my failure to accomplish my view of success on "outside forces" that aren't truly quantifiable.

I said earlier that I have a very entropic view of the universe. I believe that the universe was born from chaos and that it is always descending towards chaos. And as a soon-to-be father I have tried to think of a universe that trends towards positivity. But I can't lie to myself and I don't want to lie to my child. What is it that certain people see to maintain happiness? What privilege have you accumulated to think that the world is getting better? You don't read or watch the news? Are you completely unplugged and completely deny the tenants of social media? Humanity is as selfish as your happiness. Walk over the homeless man on your steps on the way into your apartment, smiling. I don't want to absolve personally responsibility. I understand that that homeless man could have a drug addiction that put him on the streets but maybe he was molested as a child and that's why he's addicted to meth or crack-cocaine. Maybe, that is the reason why he is an alcoholic. 

People aren't getting better. People are becoming more egocentric. People are in complete denial of other ways to view the universe as if life can't prosper unless their view is accepted by every person on this goddamn planet. I am not an Atheist, Satanist or any of that bull shit but I do consider myself a Nihilist. I believe that nothing means nothing. I believe that definition is meant to be challenged.

One irritating argument directed towards my entropic and nihilistic view of the universe is "why not kill yourself then? Your life doesn't mean anything." All I mean by writing that I am a nihilist is that truth is subjective. Also, I don't live for belief. I live for pleasure and pain and for what I believe love is. I live to write. I live to hang out with friends who do believe and argue with them until the sun comes up. I believe that I don't have a narrow minded view of the universe. I believe that in the proposed history of the universe that I won't mean much and I'm fine with that. I don't have this need to feel like my life is super important. I don't feel the need to lust for an afterlife where I will live better or forever. I don't feel that I need to make the unknown the crux of my being. I know what I feel and what I have felt and I hope to feel some great shit later in my life. Other than that I am not living to make sure that people or some being remembers me or rewards me for living a "Way of Life" proposed and written by other humans just like me. I'm living my life. I am being myself. I am accepting my mistakes and understand that my triumphs aren't so. I am here to have this child with Liz. We are here to perpetuate life. 

Humanity is descending. There's a selfie trend, an incredibly vain trend. "Look at me. What I'm doing is so important I'm going to take a picture of myself doing it. Even if I'm just pausing in the middle of a text message. Even if I'm taking a shit or I'm just at my computer in the middle of the night, again. Look at my face. Just look at my face and body." It's interesting how willingly we are to change our looks for vanity but can't change our minds for progress. There is always someone who is anti-selfie but has that post "my one and only selfie." Confront your own insecurities, if you don't have any, confront your own vanity and egotism. I am not against this trend. I like looking at faces. People are awesome to look at. I just find it interesting what people are willing to change about their face and body to get people to enjoy looking at them. Insecurity is at an all time high. That is understandable. Most people want to feel accepted for who they are even if they have to change who they are. 

This post was supposed to be about how I've changed, how I have grown in my seven plus years in one of the greatest cities in the universe. But the truth is that I haven't grown. I can't explain it as you have read. I haven't progressed, maybe I've digressed or maybe I've just stayed the same and I've become what I always should have been. All I know is that I have survived another year. More time discover who I am. Happy birthday to we.