I wrote this reply to this entry in the comments but a friend suggested I make it my own entry. So here it goes.

Original Entry: Snopes says it is true…………… I wanted to send⦠| WiLD4SURFiNG’s Xanga Site – Weblog

Our fears push and pull us at the same time. We forget that sometimes.
We think that the things we fear only push us away from them, making us
avoid them, making us hide from them or do whatever is in our power to
keep them from coming to pass.  But that isn’t really the entire nature
of fear. Fear pulls too.

Sometimes we do things knowing that they will result in the realization
of our fears. We aren’t necessarily fully cognitive of our decision to
do these things, and if we are, we don’t realize that it is our fears
driving us to these actions. But it is the fear. In a sense we are
challenging the fear. Bating the fear. It’s as if a part of ourselves
needs to see deep inside the heart of our fear before we can fully
excise it. The stronger and deeper the fear, the more it pulls us
toward it.

Never is this more true than with the classical fears that are
associated in modern culture with social anxiety. We act in accordance
with these fears sometimes, running and hiding from them, but other
times we do the opposite, destructively and recklessly embracing them. 
We feel both the push and the pull and we are shifted back and forth
like a rag doll. We keep striving to keep our fears from being realized
while at the same time acting in a manner that we know is most likely
to result in that fear coming to pass.

So one who fears abandonment might purposefully do things to push the
very people they least want to lose away from them. One who fears
commitment might make increasingly strong commitments that they may
well not be able to keep. One who fears failure might explicitly choose
not to act to achieve things well within their power to achieve,
purposefully letting themselves fail. One who fears intimacy might
share intimate details about his or herself, sometimes negative
details, to those who don’t know them very well. One who fears his or
her own inadequacy might hesitate to strive or fight for the things he
or she wants or needs to achieve. And one who fears his or own
immorality might knowingly choose to be cruel and to hurt others around
them whom they care about.

All these things are examples of the pull of fear leading us to act in
a manner that is counter to ourselves. We bring about the very thing
that we were terrified might come to pass, the very thing we fear the
most, through our actions. It’s as if we want it to happen, as if we
need it to happen.

Why is this? It seems pretty masochistic when you think about it, but
we certainly do do this to ourselves, far more often than we would
like. Why would we want to make choices that are almost assured to lead
to doing harm to ourselves? It is passing strange, to say the least.

Perhaps part of us thinks that in order to get past the fear we have to
face the worst case scenario and see that it wasn’t real or that we
could get past it and still thrive. To be stronger than the fear. To
win over the fear. Maybe that is the need that drives us to these acts.
When stuck within a tyranny of fear, a part of us feels the need to
rebel, to reclaim our honor, so that we can really be free of it.

But the fallacy in this kind of reasoning should be clear. If you fear
abandonment or failure or inadequacy or any other feeling due to
personal experience with it, when you experience it again, it doesn’t
hurt less. It hurts more. And certainly the knowledge that you in part
did it to yourself doesn’t help any. Can you really and truly banish a
fear that you wanted to bring about in the first place? Worse, the pain
un-vanquished will just make you fear it all the more.

Still, perhaps you think that it is possible to suffer the same sorrow
enough times that it will become impossible for it to hurt you any
more. You can become used to it. You can become numb to it. Maybe that
is possible. But the only way I can see that happening is if you give
up much of your emotional attachment to your experiences. In that case
wouldn’t you have lost so much of yourself that the ‘cure’ you enacted
will prove far worse than the disease?

So if the experience of our deepest fears is just a way in which we
succumb to the manipulations of those same said fears, what does it
mean really to ‘face’ our fears? Surely facing our fears is good and
essential for our future growth. We can’t just let ourselves be pushed
away from them, for that way lies cowardice. But letting ourselves get
pulled into them can be just as bad if not worse.

There is only one other option of course. To stand our ground. We need
not rush toward our fears or away from them. We can simply face them as
they come to pass or not and accept them and learn from them. We can
feel the push of the fear demanding we flee and just say “No. I won’t
run away.” and stand our ground.  We can suffer that insidious need
pulling us into our fear so that we may wallow in it and say “No. That
pain isn’t worth it” and choose instead to stay where we are.

We just instead make choices based on our reason and our wants and
our needs and… what? just ignore the fear I guess. Don’t let it pull
you. Don’t let it push you. Just choose anyway. The fear will come
anyway. We can’t avoid it, but this way, we can calmly await the fear and when it comes we can accept it and
just maybe we’ll learn a little bit from it too. Maybe that’s how to face fear.

This is an old entry from back before anyone read my blog that I felt like re-posting.

—————
What is. What was. Is. Was.

Some times you feel like you’ve gone full circle, shifting through
realities to become what you once were. Is it real though? An act, appearance? Does it matter?

Feel the weight of them. Their substance. Feel their shape, their
curve. What I was in my left hand. What I am in my right hand.

Why is it that I never remember the important parts of a conversation
until months past its day, an eternity past its point of greatest
relevance?

Shall I cast one aspect aside? Abandon those thoughts and dreams that
defined the you that was once or the you that has become? Is it even
possible? Or would it only be false shadows of a you that had vanished,
grasping glimpses of fading light?

Past in the left hand. Present in the right.  Trace the fingers around
their circumference. Note the cracks and crevices in the past. See the
fault lines in your nature, note the shallow places, the bumps and
valleys of an inconstant being.

Sometimes you see someone and you start to think that maybe they’ve changed…

Changes twisted essence hides behind pretense, shelters beneath shame.
It doesn’t really matter that we’ve changed, the only question is what
we’ve lost and what we’ve gained.

Right hand. Left hand. Feel the scars left by cracks healed; the mounds
from valleys filled. Feel the new fissures in the present. New bumps.
New holes.

Have you ever wondered about opportunities lost, what could have been more? Illusions or truth? reason or pretense?

The present yearns equally for the future as for the past. The need is
to connect that broken circle. To make consistent all that was with all
that ever could be through the filter of that which is. We change. We
change back.

Weigh them against each other. That which we were. That which we are.
Left. Right. Feel the points where one is shallow, the places where the
other is dense. All so real, yet all so ephemeral.

Juggle the aspects of our nature. Left to right. Circling ever after.
That which was becomes that which could be. That which is yields to
that which would be. Grasp at those aspects we dare not lose. Better be
quick. Don’t miss a beat. Never a toss too hard or a catch too light.
Drop but one piece and they’ll all scatter and be lost. So keep your
eyes sharp, your mind and spirit ready. Connect with yourself again and
again, piece by piece, aspect by aspect.  Faster. What I was. What I
am.  Faster and faster. Catch and catch again. 

Returning to what you were. Changing into something you’ve never been.
The cycle of becoming flows and flows. What is and what was melds into
and becomes what yet unknown will be.

Well I haven’t written one of these what’s happening in my life posts in a long time. I’m bored so I might as well.

Let’s see where the heck to begin? I guess I’ll start when changes
started. I was plodding along at my job bored out of my mind and
worried about my online friend who had disappeared for a long time amongst other things. I
was particularly concerned about this disappearance because just before she’d
disappeared she’d said she might need a place to stay… a place to
escape to. Plus… well.. eh never mind about that.

Then *poof* she appeared again. Like magic. She was just there online
again and freaking out a bit and as promised she needed to get away.
The situation she was in was bad. She needed to start over. So I offered as I had before a place to stay. Actually I had been planning to go down there and try and find her anyways.

So long story short, I had a vacation in Florida for like a week and
now I have a roommate who I met first on Xanga. Here‘s her blog. Go say hi! She’s
sleeping in the other room right now I as I write this. She’s nocturnal
you see. I sort of suspect she might be a Vampire, or as she would
correct me a Vampyre.  She has fangs and the light burns her too. And
she knows how to summon ghosts and hangs out with lycanthropes. I’m not
even joking…  There’s other evidence too but I don’t want to bore you.

But the question is, is there such a thing as a Wiccan Buddhist Nature Loving Animal Loving Vampire? I suppose even Vampires… vampyres… must have their eccentrics.

Haha. Well I always wanted a more adventurous interesting life! I guess I found it! ^_^

So far she hasn’t turned me into a vampire in my sleep and I haven’t
staked her in hers, so I guess we’re getting along pretty good all
things considered. I used to eat primarily frozen dinners but now she
cooks stuff. And it’s quite good. It’s so weird. I’m so not used to
eating stuff that’s actually cooked except on special occasion. Not
since I was living at home. It feels like the whole world is all out of
whack, but in a good kinda way . I’m helping her search for a job and
stuff and she’s getting back in touch with family and all that. I’m
really glad to see her life really seems to be taking a turn for the
better and I’m happy to have been a small part of helping make that
happen.

So what else? Well I’ve been a bit concerned with my financial
situation in spite of my good job and cheap rent. The economy’s got me a little
freaked and I hate credit cards with umm… a burning passion greater
than a thousand suns. Yeah that’s the expression! ^_^

I’m starting to realize that I’m really not as good at saving money as
I thought. I’m trying to teach myself to be more frugal though.

Work sucks ass though and I want to quit. Oh sure it’s the best job
I’ve ever had in my entire life. It’s easy. It pays well. And I’ve got
the best boss in the history of the Universe.  But…  I still hate it.
I hate programming. All I ever want to do every day at work is write.
So I procrastinate and days and days go by in which I do absolutely
nothing except chat online and Xanga-ing.  Part of the problem is I’m
not generating ideas which I enjoy. I’m just implementing them. And
it’s boring and time consuming and tedious. This is a task for robots
not thinking people.

Well my procrastination bit me in the ass this past week. Since we’re
going live with the big project. Part 1 goes out Monday, Part two a
week later, and part 3 a week after that.  And yeah there was a shit
load of improvements I still wanted to make to make things awesome. So
I worked late Tuesday through Thursday last week and by late I mean
until like 2 am.  I also worked most of Saturday and long into the
night Saturday night.

Now I just get to wait until everything breaks tomorrow and I get to
fix everything all week. Then I’ll realize I’m not ready for part 2 on
Tuesday and have to work all weekend. Repeat the process the following
week. Fun fun fun! The life of a grunt worker. Maybe the US economy
will self destruct sparing me from having to do this any more. I’ll be
like out on the street gambling with people for games of Chess and
Magic and earning money for my next meal ticket. Luckily I have a
Vampyric friend who will keep the shadier parts of the dark underbelly
of Indianapolis away from me. ^_^

Or I guess I could just move back to Delaware in that case…. But that
would probably drive me batshit insane. Don’t get me wrong, I love my
family. But I need my space.

Saturday wasn’t *all* programming. I had a really fun nice evening too
which is good cuz I woke up sickeningly depressed. Oh yeah I’m supposed
to use anime nicknames for all characters in these life summary posts.
I almost forgot.  So my roommate I’ll call Seras Victoria for the
duration of this post.

Well Seras and I met up with Yuko Ichihara and Alice Seno that evening
for dinner at the Chinese Buffet place which is a great place to eat.
Food is only a little over $5 per person and they have a huge variety.
Yuko and Alice had been working at the Halloween store seasonal part
time that just so happened to be close to where I live. So when I
needed a break from work I went and picked them and my roommate up.

During dinner we had many interesting conversations that I can’t
remember at all. I think we mostly talked about writing and costumes or
something. My brain is not working because it is all stuffed full of
if-then statements and while-loops right now. Fucking programming.

Afterward dinner I didn’t want to go back to work so I kidnapped my
three semi-willing guests and took them to the movie theater where I
bought them all tickets to see Eagle Eye.

Which is a pretty awesome movie btw I thought. I have a few complaints
about it but it was a good decent story and very fast paced and
exciting. Nothing particularly shocking at the end but still very
entertaining. My biggest complaint as it always is with these super
evil computer stories is Why The Fuck Did The Computer Lose!?!?!?!  
Why are intelligent computers in movies so damnably STUPID. Humanity
should NOT be able to outsmart these things. It amazes me. The Matrix
is the worst of these btw, but they’re all like that. It drives me
nutts. But I still find the movies quite entertaining. 

As Oniisan always says the primary purpose of Science Fiction is to
teach humanity the overriding principle of “Never Build Intelligent
Machines”.

I’m already up to the present and I missed about fifty million pieces
of information about the many weeks inbetween. Therefore this enty will
in no way be chronological. In fact from this point on I’m going to go
backwards.

Friday night I watched a movie with Sera from Netflix called The
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Now THAT movie was wonderful. I mean
I was shocked that it so suited the books. I was expecting it to be a
travesty. It worked because they kept so very many of the words from
the books in tact. Had they not it would have been horrible.

I’ve seen a lot of other movies too over the weeks I’ve been not
writing anything interesting on this Xanga. Some on Netflix with Seras.
Some while visiting Yuko and Alice (and Kyo who was also there
sometimes). Let’s just list them:

National Treasure :  I give it a B
National Treasure 2: A B+
Stargate Continuum:  A+++  (but I’m a huge Stargate fan, but Alice is
more fanatical about it than I am. But I’m more of a fan than Seras and
I think Yuko too)
Stargate The Arc of Truth: A++
Happy Feet:  A (i was surprised, didn’t think I’l like penguins that much)
Sweeney Todd:  A+ (dark but beautiful. incredible acting)
Hot Fuzz: A (a great comedy, probably one of my favorite comedies in a
long time, but I’m not a big comedy fan. It has the prhase “By the
Power of Grayskull” TWICE!)
Sean of the Dead: A-  (inferior to Hot Fuzz but still good)
Card Captor Sakura Movie 1: The Sealed Card:   B (it’s CCS so it’s good, but it wasn’t anything special)
Ultraviolet: B+ (fun mindless action. I like)
Hellboy II: A-  (I LOVE Hellboy. But this should have been more violent)
House of Flying Daggers:  B (this would have been much higher but the
ending RUINED it for me. It’s beautiful and the action was great but I
can’t take that kinda fucked up ending. It was A+ level up until the
end. Still Zhang Ziyi is really awesome…)

Well I think that’s it. I can’t remember. There were some Jason
Stratham movies I was subjected to… but I think I kept falling asleep
much to the consternation of my allies.  I also watched the first half
and the first disc of the second half of Card Captor Sakura.  I’ve seen
lots of random episodes before but this was the first time I’d watched
them stright through in order. I’m going to finish it one day soon and
watch the second movie.

Also checked out an anime called Mirage of Blaze which is… odd. I
only saw the first disc so far. It looks like it could be good though.

Ah now where was I. Oh yeah. It was last Friday. Haha. At this rate
I’ll finish this entry at just a little bit after the End of Time. 
Bear with me though. There’s more exciting stuff to come!

Like… like….

Friday I WORKED ALL DAY AT WORK!  Amaazing isn’t it!!  Shocking!

Except I didn’t. At lunch time my great boss ordered us Chinese which
was delicious. My fortune said “You are never selfish with your advice
or your help.” Bleh what a bunch of BS. I don’t like fortunes like that
because it’s sort of like binding you to a statement of fact. Almost
like a curse. Maybe now that I’ve opened that fortune I can NEVER be
selfish with my advice or help even if I WANTED to. Why? Because it
said so! It’s my fortune. It must be true.  But I’m a natural
contrarian. I really want to make this not true. Quick somebody ask me
for advice!  …. No! You CAN’T HAVE IT!! No Advice for You! I’m too
selfish

Proceeding backwards through time….

Tuesday through Thursday were unremarkable except that I worked my ass off and wanted to pound nails into my skull every day.

Monday I also worked but that evening I delivered a new router and dvd player to Yuko-chan and Alice-chan.

The DVD player was in exchange for the xbox 360 I had lent them and
recently taken back so I can play my Rockband 2 again and my new Soul
Caliber IV game I just got.

The fucking brand new router WOULD NOT WORK!!  I tried setting it up
and spent like over an hour on it. Or maybe it was two or more I can’t
remember. but it pissed me off. I was angry and annoyed .This was after
having watched an episode of Heroes which also pissed me off and in
part it was because I’d only gotten two or three hours of sleep the
night before. I went to sleep really late because I’d been playing
video games long into the night I think and doing laundry, I can’t
remember exactly. Also kept waking up in the middle of the night cuz of
some kind of noises, not sure what it was. 

Anyway I was pissed and depressed so even the Sugar cookies Yuko had
baked could not cheer me up. I no doubt worried my friends as I
suddenly gave up on the router and left and drove home feeling all
kinds of out of sorts. I’d meant to go to work that night and get some
work done. And I’d meant ot stop for gas near Yuko and Alice-chan’s
place since gas is cheaper there. But I just plain forgot.

The next day I completely forgot to bring my wallet with me to work and
so I ate absolutely nothing that entire day until I got home around
midnight. When we ordered papa johns.

You like how I started moving forward in time again like that?  Slipped
it right in there didn’t I. You probably didn’t even notice.

Yeah Wednesday through Friday Seras was super nice fixing me big
breakfasts and coffee in the morning. but she seemed quite annoyed at
me for not having eaten anything on Tuesday. But I got the feeling it was sort of transference too. She was more annoyed at someone else who wasn’t eating right, but that’s a story for another day…

Probably I wouldn’t have
eaten much of anything all week if she hadn’t been there. I would have
survived on massive quantities of Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts coffee.
Hooray for roommates! Even vampires serve their purposes. ur…
vampyres…

I’d talk about the weeks prior to that but I can’t seriously remember
that far back. I know some general details. I registered to vote in Indianapolis at some point. Which is good cuz it’s a swing state that
is leaning red but I want Obama to win so hopefully my vote will help.
I’m a little worried about being able to vote though cuz I don’t have
an Indianapolis ID or License and you need a government issued photo
identification card at the place of polling when you vote in Indiana.
Yeah Indiana has the most restrictive identification law in the
country. Yippee. My concern is whether my Delaware license will be
sufficient or if I will need one that proves I am an Indiana resident.
Perhaps I can bring my DE license + some other proof of residency.

I should have an Indiana license. I went to the DMV with many forms of
identification and I passed the written and  the vision test. But the
one form of ID I didn’t have was my birth certificate and apparently
nothing less will do. Well a passport might do but I don’t hjave one of
those. I tore apart my room the next day searching for my birth
certificate copy that I ordered at the end of last year and found
NOTHING! My room is still a disaster area to this very moment by the
way. But man it was clean before that. I’d cleaned up quite thoroughly
before I acquired a roommate. I’ll clean it up at some point again I
guess. When I get bored again.

Not that I clean when I’m bored. I ramble when I’m bored. Sometimes I even rant like
crazy. And my ranting IS very crazy. My ranting and rambling is also quite depressing. I
recommend you entertain me when I am bored or else I’ll bore you with
my rambling.

I tend to clean when I wake up in the middle of the night having a
nightmare that I never remember. That’s when I go on a cleaning spree.
Hasn’t happened in a long time. I rarely dream. It’s sad but true.
Apparently Vampires dream a lot though and their dreams are quite
random. So do Lotus Word masters. And both of their dreams I’m told
tend to come true. Wish I were that cool.

I was going to mail in for my Birth Certificate but it would take three
weeks so I’d probably miss the election. So I hit upon another plan! It
just so happens that for the first time in ages I live near where I was
Born!  I was born in Toledo, OH. So I can actually just drive on down
there and get me a birth certificate in person. How cool is that?  It’s
a bout a three hour drive to the office which is close to columbus than
Toledo.  Problem is they are only open on weekdays so I need to take a
day off from work whcih I can’t do unless I can get far enough ahead on
my work that I feel comfortable taking a day off. Hence my fanatical
programming marathons. Gah! If it isn’t one thing it’s another.

Well if Obama loses because he loses Indiana by one vote I’ll… I
dunno what I’ll do. I guess I could kill myself but that’s a cheesy cop
out.  I think I’d have to become an assassin and take out Sarah Palin.
That’s the only responsible thing to do.  Yuko can probably assist me
in that endeavor.

Now a few other random things that have nothing to do with anyhing I’ve said so far.

I’ve recently rediscovered Naruto manga and read all the way up to
chapter 421. Yeah it’s still fucking awesome. I’m not a Naruto fanatic.
Don’t associate me with those people. I just think it’s a good story.
So sue me.

I also read Ororon manga way back when. I hated it. What a lame manga.
But maybe I didn’t like it cuz I couldn’t concentrate on it very well.
I’ve been having a hard time concentrating on my reading lately. These
days I’ve read so little my friends from back home and family wouldn’t
even be able to recognize me. I used to devour books. Now I’ve got
bookshelves full of half read books and series.

That plus the forgetfulness is scaring me a little. Plus repeated bouts
of depression that have lasted for days. This is really unusual for me.
It’s creeping me out. I sort of won’t be surprised at all if I develop
Alzheimer’s disease, even though nobody in my family to my knowledge
has ever been diagnosed. I know some of my older family members have
gotten very forgetful in their old age. But it’s sort of hard to
imagine me being more forgetful than I am now.

I’ve been reading A Song For Arbonne. It’s taking me a while to get
through it but so far I’m really enjoying this book. I’m still not
really a Kaye fan but I like it. So far…

I picked up the Watchmen comic which I intend to read next. Hopefully
they will settle the BS involved with it and end up making that movie
about it after all.

My other recent reading project has been all of VaultESL‘s old blog
entries. Yep voyeuristic xanga spying at it’s worst. But in my defense
I’m doing it as research material for an entry I wanted to write for
the longst time. And also because he is an insanely awesome writer and
I didn’t realize how awesome until I started reading all his old
entries.  *jealous look*  You disgust me Vault! Yeah I can say that
with impunity cuz he isn’t around.

Next up I intend to sell most if not all of my magic collections both
online and offline. I’m enlisting the aid of some of my friends to help
sort them and list them on ebay. I’m not going to sell them as one
collection though. Rather I’m going to sell them piece by piece to try
and maximize profits. Yeah my cards are in terrible condition but
hopefully there are people out there who like me don’t give a damn
provided the card is playable. I should be able to make a good amount
of money from them.

Which will be good because I’d like to move into a bigger apartment.
But I don’t feel safe about doing that with my current financial
situation. Soon though. After Seras gets a job unless she decides to go
back to Hellsing headquarters instead in which case there won’t be any
need.

The graphics on Soul Caliber IV are awesome. The Yoda in this game amuses me to no end. Character creation is cool.

Rock Band II is exactly the same as Rock Band I almost. In other words
awesome. My Xbox ate my Rock Band I anyways so I needed Rock Band II. I
miss some of the Rock Band I songs though.

I still have a stack of unsent gifts in the corner and things to return to people. Lol one day I will.

Neverwinter Nights 2 is kinda a cool game. It’s based on D&D though
and D&D 3.5 is kinda a lame system. It needs serious revamping.

I’m curious to try the game Spore but I refuse to get it on account of the DRM.

I should try Google Chrome… but my beloved Firefox is so perfect
already, why should I switch? Why does Google have to go and make a
browser?

My brother sent me Kotor to finally play around with which will be
cool. He’s a partial Red Sox fan iirc and according to Alice needs to
be lined up with the rest of their ilk and shot. Wow, sports can get
kinda violent. My other brother is a Phillies fan. I think sports are
silly.

It’s weird having a roommate again. I’d just gotten used to being by
myself again.  But I’m glad to have one. It’s fun too sometimes. Haha I
haven’t told my parents or siblings about said roommate yet. Maybe they
will find out by reading this blog entry.

I’m still trying to fix my cousin’s laptop I borrowed. (i lent her my uber laptop in its place) The hard drive of this piece of crap
is slowing dying. I ordered a new one but it’s taking a while to arrive.

If you hate what someone writes in their blog should you usubscribe?
What if you think what that person is writing are blatant lies? (like say for example about politics) Isn’t
unsubscribing just letting them get away with it? Isn’t that the
coward’s way out?  But then again if you comment aren’t you just adding
to that blogger’s comment and view count increasing the probability
that others will read their blatant lies?

I’ve been following politics and economics like a fanatic and wanting to write about it all but never finding time.

I wish I had money to invest in stocks right now. But even if I had
money, I probably wouldn’t invest it in stocks. I think there are
better investments.

I still don’t like Macbooks…

Pirates are better than Ninjas. And Pirates can be devious too! Kaiju ninjas are scary though. Don’t piss them off.

I have a pounding headache right now.

Soon my Xanga will turn into raving lunatic writing again. And all the world will rejoice.

I intend to be a published writer of some sort by this time next year or die trying.  And if I die, then my writing’ll get REALLY good.

I’m totally behind on my writing assignments. I really dropped the ball on that project. Oh well. Deal with it. I hope more people start doing them.

Heroes is a dumbass show. Why do I still like it?  The Universe may never know.

I think I’ve met a few too many people who like the taste of or have consumed quantities of blood in their life times of late. Life is odd sometimes.

Colin Powell endorsed Obama how cool is that?

I lost my keys. I’m using my spare keys now. They’ve been missing for like two weeks. Pathetic I know.

I used to hate eggs but now I love them. Isn’t that odd?

I’ve become really random in this entry…

So I guess I’ll end it. End it forever… Die entry!!

Good night all!

- Sorcerer

Read. Critique. Laugh at. Or whatever.  And of course feel free to Join in the fun and do your own! There are no rules. Just something for all of you aspiring writers out there.

* == Newly Added

Assignment #1: Tell a story in less than ten sentences.

Assignment #2: Tell a story in ten words.

Assignment #3: Write a great first line.

Assignment #4: Write a second great line.

Assignment #5: Write a great first half page.

Assignment #6: Write a great last paragraph.

Assignment #7: Write an amazing reflection [a paragraph] using third person.

Assignment #8: Free write for 15 minutes without stopping; then read
what you’ve written, cross out/make changes where you feel necessary..

Assignment #9: Write 5 paragraphs or less. Have a thrilling ending.

Assignment #10: Write a story using the following words: thread, threat.

Assignment #11: Free write for 5 minutes. Don’t change anything after you’re done. And just read.

Assignment #12, 13 & 14: The next three assignments will deal with
an emotion. Basically, this is an exercise to see how well emotions can
be conveyed through words. The three emotions are love, anger, and
surprise. There is no word limit or length. Preferably write in two
paragraphs or less

Assignment #17: Write a description of yourself as if you were introducing yourself as a character in a story

This index was created just cuz I’m lazy and want to link to only one place. And so I don’t annoy you all as much.

Please feel free to link to this on your own entries and recommend it or whatever. I
will update this regularly and re-timstamp about once a week if there
have been significant additions or less often if there aren’t. That’s just a warning.  You can reply to this entry with links to your entries and that will make my life easier.

If you *don’t* want me to list you here. Let me know asap and I’ll remove your links. I’m just trying to make things easier on everyone.

Also consider adding new entries to the Webblog Pool of the BlogRing! That makes it much easier for everyone to browse through everyone’s entries.

Happy Writing!

To be perfectly honest I’ve never been particularly brave. When I was very little I was afraid of the dark. Well afraid is an understatement. Terrified is more accurate. And although I deal with the dark now, I’d still rather do without it. Darkness is just fine so long as it’s over there and I’m over here in the light.  I sleep with the lights on sometimes and off other times but I do not wake up unless there is light somewhere. I don’t like darkness. I never have.

I was also not the kind of kid who did things like roller coasters. Man I hated it. When I went to amusement parks I’d only do the easy rides. The safe ones. If a particular ride disturbed me even if everyone said it was safe it would take a long time for me to build up the courage to try it. And then when I did I’d still be afraid the next time. I’d have to do it half a dozen times before I finally got to the point where I could do and pretend to enjoy the experience.

That’s kind of weird because I kind of appreciated having new experiences and tying new things and learning from them. It’s just the fear I could do without. So honestly I didn’t have much enthusiasm about going to the amusement parks. I’d want to go play video games instead or something. 

I also don’t like scary movies or books. A certain kind of suspense bothers me a lot. I mean A LOT. I know lots of movies and books people say are scary that once I’ve experienced I shrug adn say it didn’t bother me. But there are others, far too many others, that make me want to run away and hide. I always jump half way out of my skin at the shocking moment. No matter the movie and even when I predicted it. And yeah  there’s a number of Stephen King books I wish I’d never read. And by the way it’s not so much how grotesque it is. Mutilation doesn’t bother me at all. That I think is why I’ve never experienced a video game I thought was frightening. None of them build up the kind of eerie suspense that really makes me feel creeped out.

As I’ve grown older of course I’ve been better able to avoid revelation of such character elements. Most people wouldn’t know how afraid I get and how frequently certain things bother me. I don’t let on that I don’t like driving at night or in a storm. I don’t do thrilling things very often and if I do, I do them carefully and with much preparation. And I also push myself these days. I used to go to the half made park by myself at 2 or 3 AM where there are no lights and electricity yet and walk around the track a couple times for exercise. I never brought a flash light. I was freaked out the entire time, especially as I walked within the trees, but I did it anyway because I wanted to not be afraid.

Also I don’t show my emotions as clearly as I did when I was a kid. Most people don’t know when I’m afraid because I’ve had so much experience with fear I’v learned to hide it. If I’m obviously afraid then it means I’m really really terrified and on the verge of running for it.  Most of the time I’m doing things that frighten me and leaving my normal impassive expression on my face. It’s not the only reason I am cautious about showing my feelings in my expressions but it is a major cause.

So yesterday I did something weird. There was a thought that popped into my head once about a weird possibility so I shared it with a friend. But whether or not it was true, that was the question and I needed it answered in order to be able to help another friend who means a great deal to me. My friend suggested a means to find the answer and perhaps a way to help that friend as well. And I really wanted to help.

So I went through with it in spite of misgivings and doubts and partially thinking it would be nothing at all. And because I was asked to and because I was curious and truly and honestly wanted to know what it would be like.

And for a while it was fine. But then I felt, I don’t know what. An extreme feeling of misgiving. A shiver running down my spine and all the way down my back. A feeling that what I was doing was wrong. And a sense of pressure from my head to my toe and I knew I didn’t want to continue. I stopped.

Most likely I am delusional. It’s the same old thing. I am a very fearful person at heart. Much in this world I choose to avoid out of fear and self doubt. But it bothers me that I gave up on this. Since what kind of a person doesn’t do something that might help a friend just because of a shiver? But it’s my nature I guess. I’d rather find another way than feel like that again. But if there’s no other choice I will try that method again.

People will ramble on about how the government is “inherently” inefficient and to put all your faith in private enterprise to bring about world peace, end world hunger, defeat all forms of alien invasions, and clip your fingernails for you too. But the thing is, there isn’t any appreciable inherent difference between government and free enterprise that automatically makes Government worthlessly inefficient in natural comparison. No one has been able to effectively make that link.

Rather the arguments that are made tend to be historical with questionable interpretations of the history that the writers use. Indeed, it should be no surprise whatsoever that if you want to explore the historical record of the planet and find cases where Governments have screwed up that you find quite a lot of examples of that. However, that is far from enough to conclude that government is by its very nature a fundamental evil and that the proper duty of mankind in the modern era is to abolish as much of the government as is humanly possible. (short of anarchy of course)

If you can’t find an inherent causal link between something being by definition a government or a government policy and poor economic performance then not only do you have to find a case where government intervention was less than optimal but you have to show that in every case more government intervention resulted in a worse scenario than those with less government intervention regardless of the character or type of that intervention. Even that would not result in a particularly strong case for universal government elimination since governments could, presumably, in the future just act differently than they have in the past, and learn from their mistakes. Still if we did have that strong a historical case I could see where we would want to hesitate before trusting government based solutions in the future.

The problem is we DON’T have that strong of a historical case. The history is much much more ambiguous than that.

One of the difficulties we find in trying to make this case is that we don’t have a good control. Every so called “free” society has been rift with massive government intervention. Government in the United States is huge and growing bigger. It always has been, even in the supposed golden ages of Ronald Reagan. And government intervention in the economy has always been a huge part of American policy for all of recent memory. The government has used tarriffs and taxes to influence behavior from the beginning. It’s also always made humongous investments in the military, technology development, infrastructure, and space travel that have had profound impacts on the direction in which the nation has gone. It’s the government that has done these things, not free enterprise. A very strong argument can and has been made that government intervention like this is a huge part of what keeps our economy chugging along at any given time.

And when you start to look at things like this, it becomes very difficult to say with a straight face that government intervention *always* resulted in a worse outcome than the lack of it. Not if you are honest about it anyway. And that doesn’t even begin to get into the question of what was to blame and what was the solution to the Great Depression or discussion of our current financial crises or the apparent successfulness of certain commonly derided socialist or partially socialist states.

But really then when we start to open our mind and look at reality from a broader perspective one can’t help but begin to wonder what is the *point* to all this effort being put into proving or disproving the relevance or significance of government?  Maybe, just maybe the government good/government bad axis isn’t the most important dimension of analysis when trying to get to the bottom of economic crises or figuring out how to spur economic growth and prosperity. There are, perhaps, a great many other factors that ought to be examined.

On top of that, I think the very idea of government reduction is a delusional pipe dream in the modern era. As populations grow and technology advances and we become more interdependent, the problems we face as a planet grow exponentially in scale and difficulty. So whatever you consider the proper scope of government, that scope is going to require bigger and bigger investments, more massive programs and greater interference EVEN IF we restrict it only to certain areas of the economy. And all those areas ae so directly tied in with the rest of the economy even restricting the domain of the government intervention is largely little more than a pointless gesture.

Instead, of all this government good/bad nonsense, I believe the proper way to understand the boom and bust cycle of governments AND businesses and how it ties directly to popular prosperity is rather simple.  It’s basically a matter of perverse incentives. Incentives that encourage executives, businessmen, politicians, investors, and the populace all to act essentially like crooks.

It’s really not hard to understand. Most of the stories of government failures have involved corrupt leaders basically stealing money directly from the populace. Rather than acting in the public trust, they would, basically tax the people and then spend their money for their own ends, buying goods for themselves and thsoe loyal to them and funding their own private army. They are thieves pure and simple even though a great many of them believe what they are doing is in the best interest of their country. It hardly matters their motives. They drained the public coffers and did not promote growth that benefited the people or anyone. As a result these nations economies collapsed or persisted in economic poverty without significant growth for generations. This is quite predictable.

Modern governments contain controls specifically to prevent that kind of thing from happening. What they do is try to align the incentives of the leaders with that of the people. That’s the whole POINT of representative democracy. It isn’t fairness or right or any of that BS. If we don’t have checks and balances on our leaders they become corrupt, they have every incentive to be corrupt. It’s as simple as that.

But the same thing happens in private industry. If you are an executive in a company you have primarily your own interest at heart. Meaning what do you want? Money. Power. Respect. Those are your goals. The survival and propogation of your actual company is surprisingly of secondary concern. If you can become wealthy and walk away with your money even as your business crumbles and falls after your departure, why wouldn’t you do that? You have EVERY incentive to do exactly that.  And that’s basically being a crook. Doesn’t matter if you are acting in perfect accordance with the law and following all the rules. It doesn’t even matter that you believe that you are acting in the best interest of your company and in good faith. It doesn’t even matter if you’ve bought into this idea that your being rich will ultimately eventually help everyone. (Through charity or whatever) You’re still basically taking peoples money and hard work and running away with the proceeds. You’re being a crook.

And that’s what a lot of these leaders and smart people in many companies were doing. They had every incentive to twist the rules and cook the books and manipulate things to their short term advantage. Salaries were so large that keeping it up for a few years was more than sufficient to result in profits to set these people up for life. The threat of long term legal consquences apparently were not large enough to discourage questionable behavior when there weren’t known explicit laws forebidding the behaviors.

The modern era created yet a third kind of crook hitherto unknown to the world. In the past you had government crooks restrained by the people, and industry crooks restrained by the government. Now you’ve got government crooks who instead of stealing directly from the people, steal from the people by way of the industry crooks. That is, collusion occurs whereby government policy makers make policies that favor the businesses who in turn pay them off through lobbying efforts and behind the scenes transactions or more directly by giving them high paying jobs before and/or after their terms in office. 

Again, it’s perverse incentives. Politicians have every incentive to act like crooks and betray the public interest. It’s by following the interests of the businessmen that they get elected and that they get rich. Why should they care about anyone else? As long as advertising tricks enables industry to pull the wool over the eyes of the people, talking directly to the people and trying to win their approval is largely a waste of time and energy for the politican. Politics is now all about the money. And MOST of the people don’t have that much. It’s all already been stolen from them.

And believe it or not there’s even ANOTHER kind of crook to watch out for. It’s the regular joe crook. You see, you and me, we have EVERY incentive to steal back. We should wrack up credit card debts and mortgage debts and leverage our future for as long as we can. Since the odds of getting wealthy without debt are so highly stacked up against us, it’s in our interest to float the wave. Charge it. Cheat. It hardly matters that you are in effect stealing from others who aren’t as credit savvy as you.  Why should you do anything that doesn’t ensure your greatest comfort for as long as possible?

It’s like there’s this big no holds bar fight over the supply of wealth available. Everyone is scrambling trying to steal as much as possible no matter the cost.

But everyone knows the credit empire can’t last forever. Even if we get past this current crises there will be another worse one and another. And each time everyone with power acts like a crook they steal a little bit more weatlh from the people which in turn encourages them to act like a crook and steal a little bit more wealth from the rest of the world and ultimately from futrue generations. That’s the way the system works right now.  That’s where the incentives lie.

So… that’s the bad news. So what do we DO about it?

The answer is NOT yell at everyone and tell them to stop being crooks! That doesn’t work. Trying to ask people not to be selfish is like trying to ask for the Oceans to turn to solid gold. It isn’t going to happen. Perhaps you get a really motivational speaker that encourages a lot of people to act with more of a conscience but that most likely will be 1. short lived, and 2. only a mechanism that allows those who don’t listen and remain dishonest to steal even more.  Likewise with attempts to punish the dishonest. It doesn’t last and it probably just leads to more abuses.

No the answer is to CHANGE the incentives. The system has to be setup so that it is in everyone’s interest to share the wealth and play by the rules.

We need to have Government learn a little bit from private industry and Private industry learn a LOT from government. Industry needs checks and balances that work a lot LIKE democracy. Decisions made in private industry need to be partially controlled by the populace in a fair way. Leaders in private industries need to have their salaries and their very futures dependent not just on the performance of their company’s stocks but the actual welfare of their employees and shareholders.  A CEO needs to be risking his very future if he takes on a risk that endangers his company. Same with a finance officer or any one. 

On the other hand Government needs to adopt a system that involves even further competition. Politicans need to be encouraged to develop, test, and implement innovative new ideas to maximize the wealth of the people.  If their ideas fail, there has to be a system that boots them out, immediately. They have to be risking their future on their intelligence and their performance in office NOT just the easily short term manipulated will of the people. Politicians need to feel as if they are in a struggle for survival of the fittest.

As for the people… Well if you correct the above, regular peoples incentives will likely correct themselves. People will take more stake in the future of their politicians and in the fate of the companies they buy from, work for, and invest in and fight to ensure that these entities work toward their own best interest.  Since people generally will WANT a fairer playing field and nobody likes to be up to their heads in debts, they will pressure politicians to implement policies that restrict their own capacity to steal through excessive debt acquisition and pressure industries to implement more responsible policies in the issuance of debt.

These are just basic outlines but the ideas are fairly simple and not beyond our capacity to implement.

Once this financial crises comes to an end there will be a chance to re-analyze and redesign our entire social and economic system of the planet.  Please, please, please don’t just decide to mindless increase or reduce government involvement in the economy. Systems that do not correct the fundamental incentives lying beneath all of our behaviors will do little more than ensure a future of perpetual chains of disasters.

I’d like to give everyone working in the financial industry a book called “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to WallStreet”  It’ll say “DON’T PANIC” in large friendly letters on the cover.

Is it just me?

Or does the world seem too quiet to you? I get this feeling that everyone is distracted, worried, holding their breathe. Everything is happening as normal, only there’s less of it. Even online, in all the forums and blogs I frequent, people are quieter. There’s not as much talk about recent television shows, movies, video games, books, or even sports.  Even the Presidential debates have gotten little response. It’s like nobody knows what to say anymore. And the things people do talk about… be they important or trivial, there’s less enthusiasm in the words. There’s more caution. There’s a sense of uncertainty and hesitation that seems to permeate the world. It’s like… people just don’t have any clue what happens next.

Do you?

I’m low on inspiration so this is a repost from a long time ago. I had forgotten I’d written this story. I wrote it based on one of my few dreams. Enjoy!

***********

They were my friends, the two of them who asked me to journey with
them. And they needed my help, so I agreed. They spoke of the joy of
adventure, the pleasure of discovery, and the possibility of treasure
at the end with such enthusiasm that I felt my enthusiasm growing too.
But I was cautious. Such journeys are not without their risks.

We
entered the ruins together and slowly we traversed them. There were
dangers a plenty, traps and pitfalls and strange powers barring our
way.  My power was enough to disarm many, my presence could diffuse the
risk of others. But for the rest, we helped each other, worked together
to keep each other safe. It was harder than we expected even with my
ability and several times we feared for our lives, but somehow we
managed to make our way through the maze like caverns and find our way
to their end.

A grand hall awaits us by there is no treasure to
be seen. Only ahead at the back wall of the strange chamber there is a
gaping square hole like a shoot just barely wide enough for a grown man
to slide through, above it are strange runes and symbols of a bygone
era.

My friends approach it eagerly I hold back but they can
find nothing interesting about the wall. They wonder if they should try
entering the shoot and seeing what is beyond.

“Wait.”  I say.

As
I said, I was cautious. So I slowly walked up to the front of the room
and my friends make way for me.  As I come up to the shoot the words
above it start to glow reacting to my presence. I am not surprised,
these sorts of things tends to happen when you command the power.

A
moment passes and then we hear a mysterious disembodied voice and I
know that it is stating the words inscribed in the runes. It states:

“For each, ask and receive a treasure of great desire or for one enter and experience a moment of perfect happiness.”

Trepidation
strikes me. Something isn’t right. I look to my left and to my right at
my companions and then I see it in their eyes.  There is guilt
overwhelmed by desire. They want it. Badly.  They had known of this.
This was why they really came, why they brought me to this place and
asked for my help. They needed me but they knew that only one of us
could claim the prize.

What would have happened next? Would
they have begged me? Forced me to choose between one friend and
another. Both had used me. Both had betrayed me in this. But even had
they not I could never pick one over the other. 

Or would we fight for it? Would our friendship shatter here? I could not bare it.

I
could ask, but for what? And would we not wonder always what we had
missed? I knew it was the safer course to take the consolation prize
and be happy and together, but I wondered if the insidiousness of
uncertainty would undermine our alliance. Who was I to choose for them?
And I could see in their eyes that neither would ever agree to anything
less than perfection.

I had one advantage left and only one
choice that I could be made.  I was closest. So I jumped in before they
could react and stop me. If only one could take the risk let it be me.
Or was it just that I was just as selfish and filled with greed and I
wanted it as much or more than them?

I find myself lying on my
back in an idyllic landscape.  Above me, I watch beautiful clouds float
by, the sky is a perfect blue. I feel the warmth of the sun heating my
face while the cool ground cools my back and a gentle wind floats over
me.  I am younger here. Just a kid again. All the burdens that had
plagued me daily of doubt and fear and an underlying anger were all
gone as were the memories of hurt and fear and pain. I never knew how
heavy a burden they had been for me until they were lifted.

Beside
me lying on his back as well is a person that I know instantly to be my
closest friend. There are no names in this place, none that can be
vocalized but I know his and he knows mine. We lie looking up in
companionable silence, lost in our own thoughts but they don’t feel to
be separate thoughts. I feel as if we are two sides of the same coin
and  that all that we do is linked.

After a moment there is a
rustle in the trees and we hear soft laughter coming from beyond. We
both sit up at the same time and stare off to see our friends emerge
from the tree. There are four of them, two girls and two guys and they
look at us with their happy smiling familiar faces. I know them all,
trust them all, and I know that they are amongst the only people in the
world that I would want to spend time with.

“What’s so funny?”  my friend asks, with pretend hurt.

They don’t respond directly,  but one of the guys says “You two weren’t going to keep this place all to yourselves were you?”

We
laugh and talk companionably and soon we have an impromptu picnic in
the glade. We eat and talk and play and chatter about pointless things.
But never a word causes me discomfort and I never feel at a loss of
what to say or never feel a sense of fear of what they might think.  It
was perfect. Almost.

As its get’s later, I ask the question.  I
know her name and we all do, the seventh and last member of our group
who is absent from our revelry. Someone snickers. A girl tells me that
she went to sit by the lake. I twirl a blade of grass in my hand and
stare at it as everyone grows quiet around me.  My closest friend looks
at me with concern. My other friends look at me with curiosity.

I
give some pointless excuse that all can see through and stand up and
walk off away from our pleasant companionship to find her. Through the
trees I travel and to the lake where I see her sitting on a peer that
stretches out into the water. The sunset shines behind her.

I
walk over and sit beside her, our legs are dangling out over the water.
She turns at my presence and smiles at me. I smile back and ask her the
obvious question.

“What are you doing out here by yourself.”

She turns away from me still smiling and answers me with a question.

“Have you ever seen a more beautiful sight?”

I
cannot deny it. Eventually I turn my eyes from her and stare out to see
what she sees. The beauty of a perfect sunset over the twinkling water,
a sight alone that seems to make life worth living. We sit in silence
staring at the light, she rests her hand lightly upon mine.

This
was it, a group of perfect friends, a perfect moment of companionship.
No fears, no doubts, only the comfort of knowing your place in the
world and experiencing the joy of the perfect beauty that surrounds us.
I thought that I was happy truly. Perfectly happy.

As I have
this thought, she turns to me suddenly. The light from the sun is more
than three quarters gone. Soon it will have faded.  In her eyes is a
seriousness and a certainty that I had never seen before. She looks me
right in the eyes and says the words that haunt me still. There is a
deep sadness tinging her voice as she says them

“Not even perfect happiness lasts forever.”

With
that her face contorts into a kind of anger and rage I’ve never
imagined. She grips me harshly and throws me into the lake leaping in
after me. There she hold my head under the water while her eyes glare
at me with unfathomable depths of raging hatred. I’ve never seen such
fiery despite in the eyes of another. I’ve never felt anyone look upon
me as if I was the lowest of the low, worthy of nothing more than total
elimination.

I look up through the clear water through which my
head is submerged. I look beyond her to the side of the lake and I see
them. My four friends standing there and pointing at us in the water.
But none make a move to save me. No. Instead, though my ears are filled
with water I  can hear their laughter floating up toward me. They are
shaking with laughter pointing and mocking me. To them my drowning is a
joke. I am not worthy to be saved, but I am worthy of giving them a
moment’s amusement as I suffer.

I shudder but one thing keeps
me sane, and keeps me struggling to force my way up for air and breathe
and life. My closest friend is not amongst them. He is not there
laughing at me. He wouldn’t I think. 

But where is he? I look
around desperately while I struggle, always trying to keep my eyes away
from seeing the fiery hatred in her eyes or the sparkling laughter of
those on the shore.  Eventually I look up to the pier from which we had
jumped and I see first his shoes at the edge of the pier and I feel a
sense of deep relief. He has come all the way out here to save me!
Surely he won’t abandon me.  I reach out my hand towards him thinking
and hoping that he is reaching down to grasp mine. My eyes travel up
and up his body as I stretch further and more desperately. Until I
finally see him.

He is not reaching toward me. His eyes are
clasped firmly in front of him. And his eyes, his terrible eyes. The
sight cursed me to a lifetime of nightmares of those eyes. In them
there was not laughter nor fierceness only a coldness deeper than the
frigid waters beneath a thousand miles of ice. Everything about them
screamed out a kind of cold disregard and disgust that I knew was
devoted solely ant totally toward me. His eyes spoke condemnation at
me. They screamed at me. Though he never said a word I knew exactly
what he was saying with those eyes and the message rent my soul.  “How
could you,” they said,  ” How can you be so weak?”

I gasped in
the anger and sorrow and fear and embarrassment I felt. And with it, I
finally let the water into my lungs and with a moment of perfect
despair I collapsed into emptiness.

I awoke screaming at the top
of my lungs with tears flying down my face. I struggled fiercely at
hands that gripped me my mind fully lost to me for that moment still
thinking I was drowning in the water.

It took a long moment
before I gained control of myself and I heard my name being spoken over
and over again  by them who were with me still my two friends who had
journeyed here with me who had fought with me to reach this place, to
get this so called “treasure”. 

I see in their eyes their deep
concern for me. I wonder how long they had been there with me holding
me, striving to bring me back to sanity. I gasp and choke an tears and
I grip their hands tightly as the images of my experiences float back
through my mind replaying through the clouds. I see the clouds, the
sunset. I see their facing happy and smiling then filled with hatred,
and scorn and overwhelming disappointment. 

It seemed like I
sat there on the stones for an eternity but eventually I got up and
they my friends ever present stood with me. I wiped my eyes and found
my center. I shook off their grasp and walked slowly on my own around
the small room that must have been at the bottom of the shoot where we
all now stood. I walked slowly two circuits around the room taking deep
breathes the entire time until I knew for certain that I was in
complete control of my faculties.

Finally I came back to my friends and I looked at them and it was as if I saw seeing them for the first time.

“Are you ok?”   One of them asked with trepidation.

I
didn’t answer. But I looked at them closely. They were truly concerned
for my well being. I knew that this that had happened to me weighed
heavily on them. They felt the guilt for it even not knowing what it
was that had happened.  But just below the surface I could see it in
them too the burning question that next to knowing that I was ok was
the one thing they most desired to know, needed to know, would not be
satisfied without knowing. It was why they came. It was why we are all
here now.

They must have seen it in my eyes. The certainty of
the demand that they ask and ask now. I would not volunteer it unless
they asked.

“What was it like…” one of them started his eyes turned away unable to face me.

“…
that… moment of perfect happiness?” the other finished, her face
filled with shame and uncertainty as she tried to look anywhere but
into my eyes.

And I thought about it then and I knew the answer.
There in that place I had experienced ‘perfect’ friends and ‘perfect’
experiences but they had been unreal, illusions. Those friends would
commit no wrongs feel no doubts, fear no evils. But these friends
before me know. They felt shame and uncertainty. They had their own
wants and needs independent of me that could drive them to great evil
or great good. And yet they had a concern for me, had come after me
when they heard me screaming alone in the darkness, had tried to save
me. Those people in the other world, they had been been the perfect
friends. But these friends here in this world. They were real.

I gripped both of their hands in mine fiercely.

“Perfect happiness…” I started.

I
waited until they both looked up and met my gaze squarely. Then I spoke
with more seriousness and conviction than I had ever spoken before.

“There is no such thing!”

And
then I smiled at them, softening my grip but still holding their hands
and they smiled back cautiously at me. These were my friends. My real
friends. Hopeless real and hopelessly flawed just as I was. I needed
them as they are and what they are. I didn’t want perfect happiness.
Just a chance to find even a little was good enough for me.

“Let’s go home.”