Who cares?

The depth of humanity does not lie within the brightest corners of their mind, but rather the darkest.  I once heard a quote that stated something along the lines of how a person can eat dinner with someone every night for the course of their entire life, sharing conversations about every aspect of their lives, but if they truly wanted to know someone's core then they'd hang them over a volcano.  I believe that there is quite a significant amount of truth to that.

So when you meet someone who has the ability to walk through life's trauma as easily as they could stroll through a park then you've clearly met someone who is quite amazing.  That is, perhaps, the most empowering thing to watch someone do.  You see, at the end of the day, the things that one person can accomplish in their lifetime is something that thousands, or even millions, could have also potentially done.  Of course, because no two lives have been lived identically, those capable of such powerful lives may not ever get the chance to express them.

A person who currently resides in a Brazilian favela, as an example, could have potentially been the next Einstein had they been born in another country and to a far wealthier family.  Instead, their intelligence is reserved to the day to day survival of, essentially, street life.

Another person who is born into a wealthy family and with all the opportunities in the world may resign themselves to only valuing themselves based on the car they drive, or the clothes they wear, or their social status amongst their peers while otherwise being a person without substance. 

So, of course, it goes without saying that those who survive their struggles to come out the other side will learn things that others may never have the ability to learn.  A poor person will know far better on how to survive off of basic meals while a rich person would scoff at the notion of eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  The protein in peanut butter goes a long way when you're a growing kid.

It extends well beyond that, of course.  You give a poor person a ten dollar bill and it is far more likely that they will do everything in their power to make it up to you.  You give a rich person a ten dollar bill and they'd likely set it on fire by buying something of little to no meaning.  The amount a person can value something depends strictly on their understanding of what the value is.

So of course, when a poor person gives you the shirt off of their back then it is likely all they really have to give.  A rich person, on the other hand, could just go to the closet and pick out a nicer one. 

No doubt, of course, that there are plenty of rich people out there who have a deep appreciation for the poor.  There are also a plethora of poor people who are only poor because of their bad choices in life.  There is just a portion of me who really wishes that the world could understand that all people - rich, poor, and indifferent - could understand that we're all capable of good or bad equally and use that knowledge to learn to appreciate everyone. 

-Dustin S. Stover

Alone

The truth is,
we're all alone.
We reproduce to ensure we're not,
but they leave.
We marry so someone is there,
but they aren't.
We pretend that those we choose
to have in our lives
are substantially defeating our loneliness,
but as we talk to them
they can't understand.
Because they
are not us.

So we're all alone,
and we fill that loneliness
with everything we possibly can.
From buying shit we don't need
to friends who create more pain than they are worth
to vices that take us away from
the very loneliness we should face.
Head on.
Because while we are
lying on our death beds
what is going on in our own heads
is exclusive to us.
As it is every other minute
of every other day.

Sure, there may be people who try
to connect on some level.
And maybe they succeed
to a degree,
and maybe that is enough for some of you,
but it doesn't take away from the fact
that you're still alone.

I'd love to take every hand
of every person I have discovered
to be special
and walk through the dark with them,
to help alleviate that loneliness,
but the best I could ever achieve
is for them to just feel less alone.
Which is to say they are still
very much so
alone.

Loneliness does not come
from external sources.
It comes from realizing
no one is you,
and thus
no one can understand
You.

So let us find
temporary releases from that loneliness
and hope that they last
longer than most,
but never forget
that they are just that.
Maybe then, maybe just,
we can learn to appreciate one another
a little bit more,
and that dark walk
can be just a little bit less
Alone.

-Dustin S. Stover

The Blackened Page

The page blackens at a deadening fast pace.  The words flow from his finger tips in a fever dream state, and that is where the art comes in.  Taken out of context, the words lose all shape and meaning, yet when placed in the sequence of the blackening page, meaning takes shape.  A poetic sense of justice for a man who is just desperate to find someone to understand.

A consequence, then, of the hallucinatory agent he took mere hours ago.  His mental state at the cusp of going in any singular emotional direction - albeit, even if very temporarily, it feels the most pure to him as he experiences it.  The senses have heightened and he believes what he sees.  He writes as he feels.  The elegant poetry, while lost in the initial intent, forms a bond with what is between the lines.

He sees no monsters you typically hear the stories about with such substances.  The room just feels more vibrant.  His head takes the shape of his greatest desires and grandiose ideas.  Still, in the purity of his emotions, words flow.

This man knows a thing or two about where art comes from.  He indulges in every emotional state he can.  He justifies experiences with knowing that they will shape his tomorrow in ways he could not otherwise fathom, and won't fathom until he can process.

This is where his appreciation comes from, while also fully understanding just how slippery the slope of imposing emotions can be.  So he finds himself in solitude with his hallucinations, still bringing him pure, unadultered emotional madness.

A memory inside him sparks.  A long lost love - his childhood dog, the kind of love that is absolute and pure, without the messy complications of human complexity.  It is far from a pleasant memory, however.  He remembers wanting to protect the dog and being unable to as tears begin to flood the ground beneath his chair.

Still, the page blackens even more.

He processes the emotion even more, the only way he can in this state - nearly incapable of doing anything other than writing about it in some convoluted, twisted story.  He will spend tomorrow editing it to make sense, but right now it is more important to get the words upon the page.

The room is filling with his tears and he begins to feel claustrophobic, but still the words are pouring out of him.  They've taken control now, as his hands turn into blurs before his very eyes.  Still, the image of that dog - him standing in front of it while his mother holds a belt and is ready to whip the dog into shape - has been etching itself, detail by detail, as a pure emotional image inside his mind.  

The tears clear the top of the chair.  His face, feeling as though it is melting.  He is too far gone, but tomorrow he will question whether he over indulged.  His hands have never moved as fast as he sees them moving now.  The dog, whimpering behind his legs as it knows what it did wrong.  The man, only as a child, doesn't care what the dog did wrong.  He knows the dog doesn't deserve this.  He knows that he must stop his mother from doing the damage to the poor, innocent dog, but he is too small and easily gets pushed aside.

The tears are to his mouth now while his face begins dissolving into the salty liquid.  His hands, obscured and slowed by the water, now look like they are darting in all sorts of odd directions as the pool of tears splash around the room.  He must finish blackening the page.

The tears rush over his head as he takes his final breathe.  His head topples onto the desk between his arms, which are still extended to the keyboard.  The room is dry.  The memory has subsided.  For now, he dreams of things he could only hope to remember.

He awakes in the morning, feeling refreshed and new.  He looks at the blackened page.  It wasn't black.  In fact, there was only one line - "I love dogs."

- Dustin S. Stover

The Dangers of Religion: Volume 2

I will preface this entry with stating that I do not believe that religion inherently makes you a bad person. 

Now, having gotten that out of the way.

Ego.  Religion teaches the religious to be humble to a degree, but only to a falsehood.  The contradiction comes about once you delve into the belief that the religious is going to a heaven while the non-religious are going to hell.  This will inherently lead one to believe that, due to the sacrifices they've made in their lives for the religion they so choose to be a part of, they are better than those who have not made the same sacrifices.

Of course, this also must fall back on the faith in the religious themselves that they are correct in their religious perspective.  If the faith gets shaken at all, or they fall into a different religion - even a different sect of the same religion - then one must alter their lifestyle to accommodate that new system of beliefs.  So the faith that they are correct in their personal religious choice then also adds to the concept of their superiority.

The two fundamental ways in which Western religions choose to persuade their believers are through either happiness - typically by creating a sense of community between those who have joined, usually through song and events that cater to making people feel more connected - and through fear - the crowd in which strict lifestyles must be maintained or the threat of eternal damnation will be the most assured result. 

In the case of happiness, it leads one to feel superior in that they have a connection with those who they share their religion with whereas those outside of that bubble may appear to have less of that happiness.  Even though these people tend to have a significant less emphasis on eternal damnation, their community spirit leads them to believe that they have something others don't have.  This will obviously lead to a feeling of being better than others.

In terms of the fear strategy, these are the primary groups that sacrifice the pleasures of life more readily as a means to not offend their God.  Of course, when you sacrifice things like alcohol, drugs, premarital sex, cursing, and even to such great extents of healthcare for prayer then it is very easy to look at people who do these things as significantly worse off.  Add in that those people, at least in their minds, are going to Hell to burn for all eternity then it is clear to see how they would believe the religious perspective is has the higher ground, and thus must be more valuable as humans,

Going back to the faith aspect, however, it is also easy to see how the shaking of one's faith in their own perspective of their chosen religion would also be so offensive to their ego, which is fundamentally attached to the religion they are a part of.  It creates a very frail balance of believing to fill a meaning in one's life and keeping that belief structure just to support the individuals own ego.    Of course, the harder these people's lives get then the harder they can potentially grasp onto their religion.  A desperate clutching to ensure that their ego doesn't get damaged - a means to ensure their life's value doesn't slip away in the process.

-Dustin S. Stover

Small

Truly,

he felt there had to be

something

more in life than what he was getting.

That wasn't the case, of course,

as the more he took from life

the more he felt he needed.

Experiences have a means

to make a person feel small.

Small is exactly what he was.

Small, the way everyone is.

The conscious perspective of being

however,

made it that much more difficult to live with.

He admired people's ability to get lost

within their trivial existences

the way they put importance in

the shoes they wore

the cars they drove

the way they looked while ordering

their fucking coffee

while he just picked the clothes on top

of the clean pile

and hoped it matched.

He looked at art

and tried to understand the emotion

behind the paint strokes.

He listened to music

attempting to feel something new.

He listened to other's problems

with the hope

the sincere hope

that he could understand humanity

a little bit better.

But after a lifetime of doing these things,

he still knew

how very small he is

and how very small

he will always be.

-Dustin S. Stover

The Music Plays

The music continues.

It plays as background noise.

It plays as an emotion.

It plays as confirmation.

It plays as interaction.

Mostly, it plays.

Whether we want it to or not.

-Dustin S. Stover

Accomplishing Fear

Once you know what you want out of life,

how do you go about accomplishing it?

The sickly, fickle, and trepidatious

nature of being human

ruins all the greatest things

we ever accomplish

if we ever accomplish

anything at all.

And when we don't,

we ruin other people's lives.

-Dustin S. Stover

There's no Tune

He tries to find the note, but it is like searching for something that doesn't exist.  The light feels blinding, The throbbing behind his eyes is mind numbing, but still he searched.

The guitar drops onto the guitar rack as he pulls out a bottle of pills.  He pops a couple to relieve the tension building behind his eyes, but it will take quite some time before the relief comes.  An argument forms inside his mind - does he give up on it all or does he fight to hold onto what he cherishes.

The keyboard, perhaps, will be easier to find the tune he searches for, so he sits at the bench.  His hands can't even reach for the keys - the effort feels to be too much as his eyes feel as though they are bulging out of his skull.

Years ago, it was discovered that he typed best while he wasn't looking.  It was as though he could sense the keys before they struck, and he could correct as he went along.  He opens his laptop and begins to type up a story, or song lyrics, or even simply words to fill up a page; however, as his eyes open, they reveal little more than a blank page. 

A memory appears as though it is filling the entire room.  A woman rolling her eyes and speaking about how much time and money are wasted on these instruments.  She takes a violin and smashes it into the desk, shattering it into a million pieces.  The words become more sympathetic, but not towards him.  "You are ruining our lives."

His eyes open again to reveal the keyboard in front of him still, but once again he does not reach forward.  He gets up and walks to his room without the note or tune being explored.

The bright light is still intensifying the pain behind his eyes.

Another memory - this one of a better time, a time of hope - fills his mind.  The notes come easy no matter what instruments he picks up, and he can hear them fitting so perfectly.  The beat he devours into on drums and the rhythm of the bass set the mood.  Synthesizer adds more atmosphere.  The melody of the lead guitar adds a real punch.  It doesn't even feel real at this point.

A lump works it's way up his throat before he swallows it back down.  It is a hard swallow, but he presses forward with it and it slowly reaches back down to his stomach.

An image of the broken violin fills his mind again.  Maybe this is what he should be doing, but he has lost everything else anyway. 

The headache has started to reside, but still fills a very prominent space. 

"Not tonight," he tells himself.  "Not fucking tonight."  He presses a key on the keyboard and it rings out, but it still doesn't fit what he is trying to find.  A chord, but still wrong.  He tries another position, but still wrong.  He glances back at the guitar, but interest just doesn't come. 

His head still has yet to escape the pain.  He closes his eyes one more time, reaching his finger and thumb to squeeze the bridge of his nose.  It helps slightly, but there is too much pain.  His eyes open, he gets off of the bench, and walks out of the room - flipping the light switch as he exits. 

Stumbling through the pitch black hall, feeling the walls for guidance, he eventually finds his bedroom.  His head hurts so badly that he refuses to even so much as turn on the light.  He knows where the bed is, he plops down into bed, and closes his eyes for one final time tonight.  Memories of the arguments, the broken violin, the feeling of worthlessness do not grant him the same luxury.

-Dustin S. Stover

Ranting

There's an abundance of evidence within humanity that it has never been the researched proof that dissuades personal beliefs, but rather, that emotions guide personal bias. Abortion is a prime example. Racism and prejudice in general. One could even go as far as to claim the plethora of religions as yet another. Whether someone believes in climate change or not. The support of politicians, and which side of politics you fall on. To be a human is to be perpetually lost within your own insignificance. Allowing one to invest significance in what justifies their own personal feelings is just a means to bring value to their lives without putting in substantial work to create the value. It is also quite the perplexing notion that those with the most conviction for their personal biases are also the ones most angered by those who disagree with them. Except, their's nothing perplexing about it once you consider that they've placed their entire value into their personal beliefs, thus leading to feeling insulted when someone disagrees with them.

-Dustin S. Stover

Not Your Hero

I am not your hero.
I wear the dirt on my face,
scars upon my brow,
and muck upon my hands.

The same as everyone else.

I am not your hero.
Despite your claims,
your desires to put me on a platform,
and despite the things I have helped with.

I just care, the way I feel we all should.

I'm not your fucking hero.
I'm just another person.
I'm just another person.
I'm just.

A hero wears a cape.
They do nothing wrong.
They rescue people from trains.
They have comic books written about them.

All I've done is listened.
And perhaps, offered advice.

So I'm not a fucking hero. 
I don't want to hear about how you feel that I am.
I don't want the praise of being a hero.
I am the same as everyone else.

I just cared.

-Dustin S. Stover

Days (Gone By)

We work our lives away,
so we can retire some day,
and watch the bluejay
float and flutter another way.

We regret our lives spent
wasted on work days and repent.
Life, it came and went
without our permission, heaven sent.

The notion of heaven is hard.
No guarantee, not even a shard.
Filled with sugar and lard,
our lives full of guards.

Wasted.

A smarter person
would learn to live early on;
their end days being spent
reliving the good times.




-Dustin S. Stover

The Dangers of Religion: Volume 1

Before I get started, I will preface this by stating that I do not believe that religion makes you a bad person.  In no way do I believe that it would reduce your value as a human being in any way.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, I will start.

Let us start with the foundation of all religions - faith.  It requires faith for anyone to believe in any religion.  Now, humanity, in essence, has to have faith in something in order to not lose hope in their future.  Upon examining society as a whole, it is easy to lose yourself in all the negativity from the most external sources - murder, rape, and Donald Trump - to the most internal - the philosophical questioning of what meaning there is in this world to us as individuals or even as a society.  Faith that there is meaning, that we won't know someone who gets murdered, raped, or turn into Donald Trump, that's what keeps us together through the bad times.

Faith is also what prevents us from taking things to a whole different level of understanding.  From a philosophical standpoint, there requires an inherent distrust in faith in order to even want to research an understanding of a topic.  If, then, faith is a necessity and also something that prevents us from understanding more deeply, where is the breaking point?

This is the most dangerous aspect of religion.  Ingrained in every religion is an inherent distrust in questioning the religion itself.  Religion teaches us that by searching for meaning outside of the religion, to search for an understanding of the world around us, is to betray the very faith one has in the religion itself.  Religion requires absolutely no proof to support it's claim - it only requires itself and the one believing it to affirm it's existence.

Thusly, we have a circular pattern that encapsulates nothing more than itself, and the more one dedicates themselves to that circle the more they stop relying on proof to believe something.  Eventually, because there is no supporting evidence for any religion, one must ignore all proof in order to justify their very belief system.

This is the foundation of what makes religion so dangerous.  When confronting a religious person as to the evidence of the Big Bang Theory, as an example, the religious will come up with various stories to confirm their own belief in their religion as opposed to look at the evidence and see even an inkling of potential truth in the theory.  If one can be so blind to facts as to essentially shun the very notion then immediately you're automatically stuck in a scenario where reality as ceased to matter.

Of course, that scenario is a rather extreme one so let me dial it back a bit to the faith that God always has a plan, which is often times preached by Christians and the subsets of Christianity as a means to justify bad things that happen.  This is perhaps the most bothersome saying, at least to me, as all it really does is confirm their own justification in their faith as it can be said in any event and hold equal weight - which is to say it holds none.  If a person gets murdered or raped or turned into Donald Trump, by saying that one phrase that person is essentially saying that no matter how bad things just got for that person, it is okay.  Just get over it.  It is a complete lack of empathy for someone, presumably, they supposedly care about.

That touches upon a whole other danger of religion, but I will try to stay on track of faith for now. 

Then, of course, no one can possibly understand God's plan so don't even bother questioning that, either.  Yet another case where faith is a requirement as opposed to realizing that it is a societal issue.

The entire concept that we should go through our lives without questioning things is absolutely absurd.  The one thing that drives humanity, and has gotten humanity to the point we are currently at, is questioning things.  No one ever achieved anything by just putting faith into things getting better, or some magical all seeing spirit in the sky was watching over everything.  No, even when a religious person accomplished something it was because they made actions.

I can see all the religious screaming at their computer screens now about how it was God's will that they did whatever they did.  Yeah, and it was God's will that a girl got their drink spiked at a Brett Kavanaugh party, too.  It was also God's will that your Republican candidate is paying some male prostitute to fuck him in the ass, too, while his wife is at home crying herself to sleep because her husband won't include her.  Or is that one Satan accomplishing the impossible by defeating God's plan?  Only God knows, so just put your faith in him.  It definitely couldn't be because they like raping women or getting ass fucked.  A George Michaels song just popped into my head.

Praying is, perhaps, the most egregious example of faith.  If your all knowing, all powerful God has a plan for everything and everyone, what do you believe praying is going to do?  If he has a plan for everything then thanking him for doing whatever he was going to do anyway is not going to accomplish anything.  Praying as an effort to get him to change his mind for whatever his plan is, again, will do nothing because he has a plan.  That damn George Michaels song is haunting me for some reason.

More than anything else, though, faith just prevents people from taking responsibility for their own lives.  A person who believes something so completely as to disregard all evidence to the contrary means that they can justify anything action or outcome their heart and mind desire to justify. 

And now fucking Fred Durst had to go and ruin a perfectly good - alright, it was a pretty lame original, too - song.

-Dustin S. Stover