Volume I/ Composition
//The following is a
com·pi·la·tion
/kämpəˈlāSH(ə)n/
noun
a thing, especially a book, record, or broadcast program, that is put together by assembling previously separate items
of
journal entries
phone notes
miscellaneous sticky notes
backs of [important] documents
paper towels
scribbled debris
col·lect·ed
/kəˈlektəd/
adjective
(of individual works) brought together in one volume or edition
over eleven years;
ages
seventeen to twenty-eight.
— i —
Playing it Safe
10152011
You know, I never really get too involved. I seem to always keep a safe distance from things. Never fully commit.
I also seem to be ever-searching for role models. For idols. For heroes. For strength in others I take for lacking in my own.
I’ve learned the meaning of, “I apply my personality in a paste.”
I am very talented at turning bad into good. My impulsiveness takes me places. Not always good. Not always bad.
Am I a complainer? I don’t think so. I believe I share my troubles in a healthy and respectable way, as well as my accomplishments. I keep a balanced, natural flow. Going with the flow is good, but it’s also good to know where the flow is going.
Consistently keeping a safe distance isn’t a bad thing, though. It could indicate a sense of responsibility and selectivity with what one lends their passion to. Wildly surrendering deep commitment all about is a burning strain. It seems almost irresponsible, though (easily) admirable. I think many irresponsible things are admirable. “I really admire ______ for what they’re doing…I know I could never do it.”
What does it mean to be…idk…something big and impressive, paradoxical would be alright but expected and overplayed in this instance, which waters-down the gravity of the insight. Simple would be preferred, truly alternative in perspective (at least to the ones involved). Something so simple and beautifully re-viewed it strikes everyone with a strong, “Wow! How could I have never seen it that way before?” Something so obvious it pops-up everywhere in sight and sound, in touch and all of the senses, constantly resurfacing unignorably such that it truly does offer a lasting new perspective on one, some, many, everything, life; not just to serve the narrow moment of the conversation and create a superficial cloud of pondering; something that utters, “You know what? I’m gonna take a couple of days on that one,” (as if it were a choice). This country (world? whathaveyou) is stamping out love and passion with drugs and institutions.
Fuck.
That.
.intrabit.
— ii —
07312009
When I genuinely like a girl, I’m not clever anymore. I’m not smooth or witty. I try to muster the same slick lines and mastery and fluency that I can normally play out on the other girls - but I just make an ass of myself.
03:48 AM
08012009
I. What if we can have spiritual abnormalities? There are physical, mental, why not spiritual as well?
II. Oh please, by all means, share your deepest thoughts and opinions on existence, the state of existence, and the goings-on of existence, asshole! You’re just so goddamn smart, aren’t you?!? You just fucking know everything. The most ingenious motherfucker to ever grace this fucking planet. You are just so goddamn original and unique and special and attractive and deep and charming and perceptive MOTHERFUCKER. Who wouldn't want to be like you? ASSHOLE.
00:59 AM
III. This book would have to be my only installment. If I have a shitload of these then I’m never going to look through them later. I mean, if I just keep doing this, book after book, it will get boring, routine. It will just fall in as something I take for granted instead of something unique.
IV. I just wish I could see me through her eyes. She made me - MADE me. For her to think, “Wow, that came out of me…a living, functioning being, doing the things he does. It must be unbelievably rewarding just to see me alive, much less doing anything even slightly impressive. I get it now. All moms over-hype their kids like that because its amazing to them that they created life, a life that can do things with their talents, TALENTS! They made something that has a talent! Incredible…it truly is.
V. Poetry has been hitting me in waves and God are these waves beautiful. It’s gotta be that bathroom. I think of some crazy shit in there. It's like a think tank.
08032009
Who’s making the wrong choice? She could be making the wrong choice of guys but I could be making the wrong choice of not trying harder…DO I EVEN HAVE A CHANCE?! FUCK! I have no idea…
18:37 PM
08032009
You wrote this on a day—Wednesday—seven slash twenty-nine slash oh-nine. You were 17 years old. Questioning whether or not [she] was still interested. It seemed to bottom-out but you felt like maybe she still did, it was an odd feeling. That was kind of a weird night for you. You had Channel 16 on the TV for 6+ hours because it was soothing static. You were heavily debating whether you wanted to read all of this over the phone to [her] or let her read it herself. You’re a weird kid, just so you know.
— 1 —
Indignance
10162009
I can’t stand the people
All the greed
All the malice
It’s poisoning me
It's blinding me
Keeping me from who I could be
I need time away
To wash away
This slime
This sludge
It covers
It coats
It conceals
It keeps
The good in me
From shining through
What is true?
Where’s the good?
Where’s the God?
I’m dying inside
I’m losing life
Becoming numb
— 2 —
Miscellaneous Philosophies
10272009 (12312008)
Never underestimate the healing power of good conversation.
Don’t live down to your stereotypes.
Social Formalities
I don’t want to get a job, go to college, get a car, fall into place in society and “contribute” the way everyone else does. Our country is overly privileged and the world power. Our people don’t need help. The countries we are ignoring and the countries we are trampling on to get what we want are the ones that need help. I want to do what I can for the people living in those countries. The American definition of “success” is material: having a car, house, steady job, large family, a college degree. My definition of success is doing what one can to help people in the world who need it most. I simply don't care to participate in the social formalities; the rite of passage growing-up in America.
I want to help people, people in deprived and warring countries who really need it. I don’t want to get a job or go to college or participate in any of the other formalities of society because I don't want to have to work harder just to be unhappy like everyone else in this country. While I say I want to help these people; by not wanting to “do what it takes” (social formalities) to get there, it makes me question if I really want to help them so badly. I realize that - to me - helping those in the world who need it most is the most good a person can do in their life. Where there is a god, an afterlife, or some greater scheme to life. Helping those who need it most is the most good you can do.
Wavelength Philosophy
Life occurs across what can be described as a wavelength; more specifically, a pattern of ups and downs lasting over different lengths of time and varying highs and lows. As good as a person’s life may be, their life will inevitably reach a low. There is not a set amount of low points in any person’s life, but it is certain they will occur and most likely more than once. The same goes for a person in a slump, eventually, their life will pick back up onto the positive side of the wavelength. There is no way to predict how high or how low these curves will go. Everyone’s baselines are also at different levels, so their lows and highs can start from different points. One person’s high point might be another’s low (even if they are both the same distance from their respective baselines). A high or low point may last different lengths of time as well. There is no telling when a high will fall into a low or a low build to a high.
Scope Philosophy
“Life is what you make it.”
It’s all in how you look at it. Say you’re looking at a picture on a computer, if you zoom in you can see every little imperfection, a jumble of pixels. If you look at it in standard view it’s a beautiful image. There might be an imperfection here and there, but that’s what makes it so beautiful altogether. Now, if you were to try and zoom in real close to those imperfections and fix
them, the image would become distorted. If you zoom all the way out, the image looks like a tiny little square and you can’t see the beauty of it.
— 3 —
The image is life, and the imperfections are your problems. If you zoom in too far, all you’ll see are problems and you won’t realize how beautiful it is. If you zoom out too far, you’ll see life from beginning to end, the picture in its entirety, so small and minuscule that it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t hold any beauty or value - as small as a single pixel. You’re born, then you die, what’s the beauty in that? It’s about finding the right scope so you can see the good and the bad collaborating together to create the masterpiece.
The Self-Serving Nature of Humans and Life
All beings live to serve themselves. Everything we do can be traced back to the motivation to better our own situation.
My Purpose in Life
Maybe my purpose in life is to be the person they can count on; that one person that no matter what will always be a shoulder to cry on, an open ear, a well of advice and a source of blunt truth and honesty.
Death
Death is not a loss, but a finality to a contribution, the release of a purpose served, therefore: a happy sacrifice.
Most Things Happen for a Reason
I once thought everything happens for a reason, but perhaps not everything. I don’t believe such superlatives can be applied. There are some things that seem small, but given time, a moment can send ripples.
12142009
The Meaning of life is to give life meaning.
03152010
You may not be able to change the world, but you can make a difference in one person’s life at a time.
03162010
It can be just as scary knowing and planning your future as not knowing.
— 4 —
Lost in Lust
11052009
Will she ever feel the same about me?
And with every situation
I make a relation
To my station
With her
These thoughts are
Breaking through my
Mental barriers
Will I ever be able to tell her how I feel?
I’m trying to block out
What hurts
But with every
Scenario
When I see a movie
A TV show or
Hear a song
She laces through my mind
Bound up in a rat’s nest
How many nights have I gone to bed thinking and wondering about her?
Can’t escape her
Can’t evade her
Can’t erase her
Can’t replace her
Will she ever understand?
Hope it all works out
In my favor
If I am in her nightmares, at least she’ll be thinking of me
— 5 —
Anger
06152010
Muscles tightening
Relaxation unwinding
Heat is rising
Anger is blinding
The stress is unbelievable
Pressure is inconceivable
Can’t stand it
Want to scream
Need to be alone
Blow off some steam
Got to breathe
Breathe out the hate
Have no choice
But to alleviate
The hate inside
Is wounding me
Blinding me
— 6 —
Facade
05032010
As we grow
We draw lines around
What we know
We learn to differentiate
Between what’s real and what’s fake
The facts that we get straight
For granted are what we take
We swallow what we’re served
So we get what we deserve
We can’t make up our own minds
So we stand in our according lines
[CHORUS]
Facade
The real world isn't real
Facade
We don’t say what we really feel
Facade
We all just put a smile on
Facade
Unoffensive
And full of charm
As we live another year
The picture’s supposed to
Become more clear
But with a year of hindsight
The picture doesn't seem as bright
As I practice please politely
For the foes who plot to fight me
I can’t remember who I am
My mirror is a trash can
[CHORUS]
I see this life is not a dream
It’s only full of misery
Deeply-seated is my hatred
For the blood and the tears shed
To perpetuate politeness
In place of open-mindedness
[CHORUS]
[BREAKDOWN]
I wish everyone would
Get the fuck away
But my need for companionship
Puts that at bay
I don’t question this reality
I question those that surround me
[CHORUS x2]
[OUTRO]
— 7 —
Reflections on Volume I
“Composition” follows me from 17 to 19 years old in 2009 and 2010. This is when I was initiated into my journaling journey. These years were rife with hormones, lust confused for love, and lust lost. If some of these pieces made you writhe in reflection of your own adolescent angst, buckle up buttercup.
As with most things, it all started with a girl. It seemed like our crazies matched and our weirdnesses complemented each other. I was struck with inspiration to start scrawling my inner world one night, lying on the floor of her hurricane-organized room. Blue light on. Amongst the erratic system of memorabilia strewn across her dwelling, I started picking up composition books–journals–a dozen of them written in at random and kept in the same order as the rest of her life. I may have been in love. A month later her lost lover returned after a year hiatus to sweep her off her feet once more. She left me with a glitter bouncy ball, note taped to it (likely an inside joke we developed that I can’t remember now), ding-dong-ditched at my door. I didn’t take it personally. It was fresh enough that I accepted it as a passing fancy—less than two months—of what could have been and promptly dove into writing my every musing down for the next several years.
This took place during what some may distastefully refer to as a “grudge” with another girl. I would argue that you can’t hate what isn’t there. She was dead to me. Try as I might to take the higher path, my heart felt it best not to acknowledge her existence for two years. What’s a guy to do? I had the opportunity to do so almost daily as I spent the bulk of my time with my best friend, who also happened to be her brother. She helped me to understand betrayal, a gift I later repaid in ways unbeknownst to her. Once I knew satisfaction, she was resurrected the following morning from the runoff of my cold shoulder, thawed overnight by the comforting flame of revenge, which leads me to back to my thesis: love lost in lust.
Towards the end of this chapter in my life, I met my first love, one that would leave a mark in an all-too-unpleasant way. Things happened fast. Her mother kicked her out of the house (again), and I welcomed her into my room (in my mom’s house). We dropped the “L” bomb on each other in that first month. Halfway through the relationship, I gave her the ultimatum that if she wanted to continue stripping and overdosing in my arms, then she would need to find another boyfriend. Come six months, she cheated on me on Valentine’s Day. I broke up with her. I struggled to hold my own boundary and kept coming back. She got pregnant with him. They ran off together selling meat out of a truck with a traveling circus fair. More on this later.
Enough about the girls, though. Back to what every teenager thinks they understand: myself. There were fantastic events, too. I fumbled my way into becoming the frontman for that same best friend’s punk/ska band: H1N1 (formerly the Sellouts of Ska) when their frontman quit because of his girlfriend (lots of everyone having girlfriend problems). My friend slammed the car door upon his return, looked at me in the backseat, and asked, “So, you wanna join a band?” I spent the seven-hour drive to the show rehearsing every song and forgot everything in front of our enamored audience of four people shooting pool. The show organizers were nowhere to be found. We believed they were likely too high on meth to remember. These were some of the best three years of my life. I discovered an outlet for my seemingly limitless rage and inversely limited ability to regulate it. When you’re on stage with a microphone, you’re untouchable. I commanded my power and presence. Every practice, every performance, I screamed myself hoarse, sweated into my eyes until I couldn’t see anything, stripped to my underwear, and thrashed my body into others in solidarity of our confused discontent.
— 8 —
This also catalyzed my formal departure from childhood, when we went on mini-tours or road trips to attend bigger festivals, and my mother had several panic attacks about her baby leaving the county or state without an “adult.” I got my first job that wasn’t as a summer camp counselor. I got my first car for $500 (RIP Franky: shit-brown, 1988 Toyota Camry, later sold for $600), which was the equivalent of less than two monthly car insurance payments. I started attending parties. I started throwing parties. I started experimenting with the low-key, business-as-usual substances, which I got opportunities to see again in the early morning on the floor, my clothes, or––if I was lucky—in the toilet. At long last, I was a full-blown teenager. Oh, did I mention my strained relationship with my father which led me to stop responding to his emails from Greece? More on this later.
Although I had many reasons to build and burn an effigy of what I was learning about the pain of love and relationships, I had enough positive influences in my life to offer me alternatives and challenge those beliefs. The ska community emphasized something which already had roots in my upbringing and worldview, its primary subcultural value and maxim: unity. I was educated by the community about LGBTQ+ issues, racial inequality, politics, and the unending bi-partisan debate between Streetlight Manifesto or Catch-22 (obviously Catch is superior, you cretins).
I found love and belonging for the first time. I found power in my voice and cathartic release. I found heartbreak and so set the stage for later heart-healing. I found mental stimulation and challenge. When my teen years opened with the sapling of an ego, I began to contemplate deeper meaning in my life, in the world around me, in existence itself. In these critical years, when we can be considered a “legal adult” for the first time, I grappled for my independence and freedom.
It’s not about finding a label
It’s about making your own
This day and age
If it’s not new
It’s old//
— 9 —
