The Connection

I was floating in a primordial lake…weightless.  Clueless.  Pained.

It burned. 

A small light appeared on the blurred horizon, a hand, a ladder, a fix, a cure, a boat? a rope…

A life line. 

She had no idea.

Just some guy.

I WAS SAVED.

The rope was strong and bright and lovely and beautiful and I pulled it.  And pulled it.  And pulled it.  Straining, sweating, and I found the end. 

The light was there, still…and I held the END of the rope in my hand.  Confused.

And the light started to fade.  And fade.  Fade.

Wait!   Then…is the light brighter…or the same as it was just before? 

My hand dripped with the fresh water from the rope, the line.  The LIFE line.  The HOPE line.  It seemed to shimmer with the light.  Or did it?  My eyes were playing tricks on me. 

But my hands were empty.  Still wet, still burning, still tired and sore, but empty.  Sweat dripped from my brow.   I couldn’t feel the rope, but I could feel where it had been.  Or?  It wasn’t there now.  Was it ever?

Was she?

Was I?

-Bodi

 

Thou Shall Not

I lost everything I wanted,

And I was angry.

 

I lost everything I had,

And I was humbled.

 

I lost everything I needed,

And I was terrified.

 

-Ome

 

Paradox

Why?

That’s the question I ask more than any other.  I ask it every day at least 100 times out loud, mentally and in writing.  In the same manner that I will tear into the instruction manual of a new electronic gadget I have purchased, not setting it down until I am completely versed in every single function the gadget performs including those I will never need, I require a complete understanding of any given situation or interaction to feel comfortable with it.  This is not realistic, granted.  Nonetheless, I seek this understanding in almost everything that transpires in my life to a fault.

Today I ask the question again regarding my decision to write online.  Why?

There are blogs that serve a purpose.  Political or news blogs, for example, that broadcast events and information that the public may find useful, have a purpose.

Music review blogs are another example.  They expose us to new artists that we may not have found otherwise and allow smaller independent labels to gain market share that simply wouldn’t have been possible without that network.  Purpose.

Tech tips and troubleshooting blogs.  Purpose.  Religion and philosophy blogs.  Purpose.  The list goes on and on.

The blogs I write, however, do not. Additionally, the blogs that many others write within the circle in which I can be found, do not.  They lack creativity.  They lack insight and originality. They lack substance and they most certainly lack purpose.

It is not fair for me to criticize a group of people who are doing no harm, have no ill will towards me and, in truth, are completely innocent of any wrongdoing whatsoever.  They are simply going along writing and behaving in the same manner they always have.  They always will.  So perhaps it’s more appropriate to make the observation that I may simply be outgrowing this circle of people.  I don’t mean this in a condescending manner, I mean it literally.  Ten years ago you could find me on any given Saturday night in any given bar or nightclub at three in the morning snorting blow off a key in the men’s room while tipping back my seventh Jack on the rocks.  I was just like any other twenty-something LA club hopper.  I was just looking for the party.  Looking for a good time.  I wasn’t thinking about where it was all going or what it all meant, it was just fun.

I have no interest in doing that now.  It had no purpose.  I outgrew it.

The same is true with blogging.  Even the term makes me shudder a bit.  As I grow older, write longer and experience more, I realize that blogging is simply a Mobius Strip of fluff, flirtation, gossip and foolishness.  I liken it to waiting tables as a career.  Sooner or later if one doesn’t move on, one will look around and realize that, while they weren’t paying attention, all the other servers became much younger, as did their behavior and interests.  Fitting in is no longer desirable or even an option.  This is where I stand.

Those who have read my writing know that I have a sincere desire to do something with it; to accomplish something more than my 500^th “OMG you’re so funny!” comment.  I need closure.  I need an ending.  There has to be more to this whole medium than spewing “today I start my life anew for the twenty third time,” or “My heart is broken. I have learned that love is not always a two way street, and will NOT waste my time on people who don’t love me back” rubbish out into the world to be unceremoniously absorbed into the mass of identical posts found virtually anywhere on the internet. To add to my concern, in order to function among these writers and stay “relevant”, I must engage myself in this behavior to some degree and that, like it or not, makes me a hypocrite.

My cousin has written a book and had it published.  The content is so technical and specialized that it makes me feel stupid.  It will undoubtedly benefit architects and engineers for years to come.  Purpose.

My friend is writing a book.  Its going to be dark and funny and, I would expect, make the reader both incredibly comfortable and incredibly uncomfortable at the same time, leaving a lasting impression on them for the foreseeable future.  Purpose.

I think, perhaps, that if I can find the courage and the willpower to do so, writing for the printed page may provide the closure that I am seeking.  A book has a beginning, middle and end.  A book is tangible.  It has a smell, it has a weight.  In a sense, simply the fact that the book exists validates the author’s desire to write it.  A book is the next level; the next rung on the ladder for long-in-the-tooth bloggers no longer interested in reading about boobs or vibrators.  It’s a grown up’s medium, and I believe I can get there.

I’m going to try to get there.  Lets just hope I’m a grown up.

-Ome

 

Where There’s Smoke

Hello Apple Fight, we meet again.  You thought you had escaped me.  You thought you could sit here quietly in your little electronic corner and never again be forced to carry forth and speak the ravings of some god forsaken emotional lunatic.  You thought you were free.  Think again, my dear blog.  I am back.  And you will tell people what I have to say.

I think I am sick of blogging.  I think it offends me in ways I never expected.  It causes me to roll my eyes and, frankly, feel sick to my stomach.  “Because you write so much better than everyone else,” you ask?  Nope.  Not even close.  I’ll tell you why.  Because of all the b-u-l-l-s-h-i-t.  There is so much bullshit surrounding the blogosphere its almost as if the actual writing is a sidenote.

I just got finished reading a post.  It’s a post exactly like thousands of others I have read before.  These posts are interchangeable.  They are prefabricated, cookie cutter clones of one another and I hate them, not for what they are saying, but for what they mean.

Usually when I come across one of these, which is often, I just delete it and go about my day, not allowing myself to bothered by something so trivial.  Today, however, I was affected.  My face flushed and I felt my blood boil.  I became temporarily ill and found myself wondering if it was all even worth it in the end, this blogging thing.

This post was one of those bleeding heart, transitional, I am strong and independent, love-love-yuck-yuck, “secret message” posts.  Everyone has read them.  From what I can derive, the purpose of these posts is twofold.  The first is to gush about oneself to anyone who will listen.  The second, and the source of my frustration and disgust, is to publicly hint at or elude to a situation that has caused you some form of Romeo and Julietan heartbreak, whether real or imagined.  The 800-lb gorilla in the room when it comes to blogging is that everyone knows its public.  Everyone knows it will be read and everyone knows that people will try to figure out what’s being hinted at and, right or wrong, will eventually draw their own conclusion.  Bloggers who write these posts like to act as if they are hiding some deep, dark secret from the rest of the blogosphere that only they and maybe a few other people know. They spew forth disrespectful advances, sordid details of personal affairs (again, real or imagined), and selfish disclosure of feelings which, I should point out are many times uninvited, all the while pretending to hide behind a thin shroud of what they would have you believe is secrecy.  It’s not.  Everyone knows or thinks they know what these posts are about.  To make matters worse, the posts author’s knows they know.  It has simply become a way to bolster one’s own ego by leaning on one’s comment section while at the same time taking public, literary digs at others and dipping dirty fingers into personal lives where they do not belong.  It is bullshit.

I do not take part in that.  Nor do the people I associate with.  It would seem that so many others do, though, that it will be assumed that I do regardless of my own behavior.  I will be forever be grouped into that large universe of people that, for whatever reason, seem completely content with having their talents associated with being drunken hook-up having, boob-grabbing, belly-shot taking, generally-acting-like-complete-fuckups-with-no-moral-fiber-or-intelligence-to-speak-of types of people and I don’t want to be.

Blogging for me is a way to meet people and build relationships, sure.  Above and beyond that, I actually like to write online.  I like the audience and I like the feedback.  I enjoy how it pushes me to be more creative in that someone might actually read what I have written.  I try to make it matter.  I try to make it entertaining.  A vast network of computers spanning across the globe with billions and billions of users is no place for me to fuck around with other peoples lives and, to be honest, you won’t catch me doing that in private either.  So if I happen to meet a few people along the way who share similar interests, and approach blogging with a certain level of maturity and dignity I would consider that a blessing, because, god help me, there certainly don’t seem to be many of them out there.

I am a 37-year-old, Caucasian male.  It’s safe to say that I haven’t had to deal with very much prejudice throughout the entirety of my life.  But I am absolutely paying for that now.

I’m a blogger.

Party on.

-Ome

 

Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?

Maybe its because I just had a son and I am exhausted.  Maybe its because I’ve decided to focus more of my efforts on my other blog where the benefits of writing frequently can pay off more quickly than they can here.  Maybe its because I am fairly happy in my life at the moment and, aside from a few rather large personal issues, have no major complaints.  Whatever the reason, I am having difficulty creating meaningful posts here on Apple Fight.

I’ve been looking back at some of the things I have written.  I actually think some of it is pretty good.  It seems that I have at least a hint of an ability to be able to approach topics from an emotional standpoint that, when I re-read these posts now, still tug at the strings of my heart which happened to be connected to those particular topics at the time.  The problem is, I can’t connect at the moment.  I can vaguely recall the feeling of hitting “publish” late at night and thinking to myself: That was pretty good.  It felt right, and I think I was able to put myself out there emotionally without sounding too sappy.  I’m proud of this one. Then I remember checking the traffic meter, looking for additional hits just to see if anyone was paying attention, feeling excited when it went up by one or two visits over the course of a few days.  Now, unfortunately, not only am I unable to come up with the content that I want to publish here, I don’t care.

What happened?  Where did I lose my ability to connect with myself emotionally, then put it all out there?  Its as if someone just magically turned off a switch in my brain and doused all the turmoil and passion, leaving it void of what I had, until now, mistakenly considered to be creativity and originality.  Perhaps its because, at the moment, I am channeling most of my creativity into drawing instead of writing.  Is it possible that we all have a limited amount of daily creative resource, and if we apply it to one outlet there is not enough left to apply to another?  Maybe.  But I think not.

Of course, I can sit down,  force myself to come up with something and write about it (much in the same manner that I did this post, I might add).  But until now, Apple Fight has been a catch-all for those ideas, inspirational moments and concepts that I simply could not wait to get down on paper.  I HAD to get to a computer before I lost the spark of the idea.

There are no sparks.  No ideas.

I imagine that those reading this would consider my tone to be negative, and assume that this lack of “inspiration” is a bad thing.  It is not.  I also suppose that one might be tempted to classify this as typical writer’s block.  I believe that it’s a great deal more than that.  I am almost certain that it signals the closing of a chapter in my life that was one of the most inspirational I have ever experienced.  Granted, when one chapter is finished, a new one begins which compounds and builds on the previous chapter, usually providing more clarification to the storyline and, as is the case here, delivering even more delight and fulfillment that its predecessor, but I would be lying if I said I wouldn’t miss the old chapter.  There will most certainly be times in the future when I will wish it were back.  However, as is always the case with the past, when it’s gone it’s gone.  And time spent gazing back on it is time missed in the present, and the present is infinitely more valuable to me as an individual than the past.

Is this my Swan Song?  A farewell to the pen?  Absolutely not.  I will continue to write here and in other places, as often as I possibly can.  This is, however, the end of Ome as you’ve come to know him, and marks the day he began laying the very first bricks, building something new and infinitely more beautiful and permanent on a foundation made possible by the past.  And he is smiling.

-Ome