Best Suicide Note Ever?

"Hell is for children"

"Don't say a word," demands the rapist.

"Don't say a word," demands Mommy.

"Don't say a word," demands Daddy.

"Don't say a word," demands the boss.

"Don't say a word," demands the bankster.

"Don't say a word," demands a dying world...

Silence - though often praised as something noble - is deadly. To "endure without complaint" is considered a virtue by some - but only by those looking to do you harm. Everyone has a right to a good life. You do not have the right to disavow this to yourself and keep quiet. Problem is, who can you tell in a rape happy world?

It would not surprise me to learn that this child's rapist was raped himself. We are not a good and caring people but we have to pretend we are and thus claim help is always out there. People who rape their environment, wage wars for fun and worship monetary rape aren't going to help anyone. I realize I'm in the minority in that opinion but time is on my side in this case.

This note was written by someone with a very deep-seated anger. He was never able to dislodge that anger from its throne. 27 is always a pivotal age and when he met That Special One and found he could not connect he realized his future was lost on the path he was on. Don't listen to those who would lead you astray, love really is not optional. Is there some sort of balancing act nature provides when horrible deeds like this are committed to a child? I would like to think so.

My only question here is: what if he had sent out this note and not killed himself?

Bill Zeller, a Princeton Ph.D candidate and renowned internet programmer, died Wednesday from injuries sustained in a suicide attempt. He was 27.

Zeller stunned the programming community with a 4,000-word suicide note detailing a childhood of physical and sexual abuse, which he had never before disclosed to anyone.

Zeller was a programming whiz kid, responsible for creating applications such as Graph Your Inbox, which visualizes Gmail use over time, and myTunes, which enables users to download others' iTunes music. Zeller made the latter program while an undergraduate at Trinity College.

The note:

I have the urge to declare my sanity and justify my actions, but I assume I'll never be able to convince anyone that this was the right decision. Maybe it's true that anyone who does this is insane by definition, but I can at least explain my reasoning. I considered not writing any of this because of how personal it is, but I like tying up loose ends and don't want people to wonder why I did this. Since I've never spoken to anyone about what happened to me, people would likely draw the wrong conclusions.

My first memories as a child are of being raped, repeatedly. This has affected every aspect of my life. This darkness, which is the only way I can describe it, has followed me like a fog, but at times intensified and overwhelmed me, usually triggered by a distinct situation. In kindergarten I couldn't use the bathroom and would stand petrified whenever I needed to, which started a trend of awkward and unexplained social behavior. The damage that was done to my body still prevents me from using the bathroom normally, but now it's less of a physical impediment than a daily reminder of what was done to me.

This darkness followed me as I grew up. I remember spending hours playing with legos, having my world consist of me and a box of cold, plastic blocks. Just waiting for everything to end. It's the same thing I do now, but instead of legos it's surfing the web or reading or listening to a baseball game. Most of my life has been spent feeling dead inside, waiting for my body to catch up.

At times growing up I would feel inconsolable rage, but I never connected this to what happened until puberty. I was able to keep the darkness at bay for a few hours at a time by doing things that required intense concentration, but it would always come back. Programming appealed to me for this reason. I was never particularly fond of computers or mathematically inclined, but the temporary peace it would provide was like a drug. But the darkness always returned and built up something like a tolerance, because programming has become less and less of a refuge.

The darkness is with me nearly every time I wake up. I feel like a grime is covering me. I feel like I'm trapped in a contimated body that no amount of washing will clean. Whenever I think about what happened I feel manic and itchy and can't concentrate on anything else. It manifests itself in hours of eating or staying up for days at a time or sleeping for sixteen hours straight or week long programming binges or constantly going to the gym. I'm exhausted from feeling like this every hour of every day.

Three to four nights a week I have nightmares about what happened. It makes me avoid sleep and constantly tired, because sleeping with what feels like hours of nightmares is not restful. I wake up sweaty and furious. I'm reminded every morning of what was done to me and the control it has over my life.

I've never been able to stop thinking about what happened to me and this hampered my social interactions. I would be angry and lost in thought and then be interrupted by someone saying "Hi" or making small talk, unable to understand why I seemed cold and distant. I walked around, viewing the outside world from a distant portal behind my eyes, unable to perform normal human niceties. I wondered what it would be like to take to other people without what happened constantly on my mind, and I wondered if other people had similar experiences that they were better able to mask.

Alcohol was also something that let me escape the darkness. It would always find me later, though, and it was always angry that I managed to escape and it made me pay. Many of the irresponsible things I did were the result of the darkness. Obviously I'm responsible for every decision and action, including this one, but there are reasons why things happen the way they do.

Alcohol and other drugs provided a way to ignore the realities of my situation. It was easy to spend the night drinking and forget that I had no future to look forward to. I never liked what alcohol did to me, but it was better than facing my existence honestly. I haven't touched alcohol or any other drug in over seven months (and no drugs or alcohol will be involved when I do this) and this has forced me to evaluate my life in an honest and clear way. There's no future here. The darkness will always be with me.

I used to think if I solved some problem or achieved some goal, maybe he would leave. It was comforting to identify tangible issues as the source of my problems instead of something that I'll never be able to change. I thought that if I got into to a good college, or a good grad school, or lost weight, or went to the gym nearly every day for a year, or created programs that millions of people used, or spent a summer or California or New York or published papers that I was proud of, then maybe I would feel some peace and not be constantly haunted and unhappy. But nothing I did made a dent in how depressed I was on a daily basis and nothing was in any way fulfilling. I'm not sure why I ever thought that would change anything.

I didn't realize how deep a hold he had on me and my life until my first relationship. I stupidly assumed that no matter how the darkness affected me personally, my romantic relationships would somehow be separated and protected. Growing up I viewed my future relationships as a possible escape from this thing that haunts me every day, but I began to realize how entangled it was with every aspect of my life and how it is never going to release me. Instead of being an escape, relationships and romantic contact with other people only intensified everything about him that I couldn't stand. I will never be able to have a relationship in which he is not the focus, affecting every aspect of my romantic interactions.

Relationships always started out fine and I'd be able to ignore him for a few weeks. But as we got closer emotionally the darkness would return and every night it'd be me, her and the darkness in a black and gruesome threesome. He would surround me and penetrate me and the more we did the more intense it became. It made me hate being touched, because as long as we were separated I could view her like an outsider viewing something good and kind and untainted. Once we touched, the darkness would envelope her too and take her over and the evil inside me would surround her. I always felt like I was infecting anyone I was with.

Relationships didn't work. No one I dated was the right match, and I thought that maybe if I found the right person it would overwhelm him. Part of me knew that finding the right person wouldn't help, so I became interested in girls who obviously had no interest in me. For a while I thought I was gay. I convinced myself that it wasn't the darkness at all, but rather my orientation, because this would give me control over why things didn't feel "right". The fact that the darkness affected sexual matters most intensely made this idea make some sense and I convinced myself of this for a number of years, starting in college after my first relationship ended. I told people I was gay (at Trinity, not at Princeton), even though I wasn't attracted to men and kept finding myself interested in girls. Because if being gay wasn't the answer, then what was? People thought I was avoiding my orientation, but I was actually avoiding the truth, which is that while I'm straight, I will never be content with anyone. I know now that the darkness will never leave.

Last spring I met someone who was unlike anyone else I'd ever met. Someone who showed me just how well two people could get along and how much I could care about another human being. Someone I know I could be with and love for the rest of my life, if I weren't so fucked up. Amazingly, she liked me. She liked the shell of the man the darkness had left behind. But it didn't matter because I couldn't be alone with her. It was never just the two of us, it was always the three of us: her, me and the darkness. The closer we got, the more intensely I'd feel the darkness, like some evil mirror of my emotions. All the closeness we had and I loved was complemented by agony that I couldn't stand, from him. I realized that I would never be able to give her, or anyone, all of me or only me. She could never have me without the darkness and evil inside me. I could never have just her, without the darkness being a part of all of our interactions. I will never be able to be at peace or content or in a healthy relationship. I realized the futility of the romantic part of my life. If I had never met her, I would have realized this as soon as I met someone else who I meshed similarly well with. It's likely that things wouldn't have worked out with her and we would have broken up (with our relationship ending, like the majority of relationships do) even if I didn't have this problem, since we only dated for a short time. But I will face exactly the same problems with the darkness with anyone else. Despite my hopes, love and compatability is not enough. Nothing is enough. There's no way I can fix this or even push the darkness down far enough to make a relationship or any type of intimacy feasible.

So I watched as things fell apart between us. I had put an explicit time limit on our relationship, since I knew it couldn't last because of the darkness and didn't want to hold her back, and this caused a variety of problems. She was put in an unnatural situation that she never should have been a part of. It must have been very hard for her, not knowing what was actually going on with me, but this is not something I've ever been able to talk about with anyone. Losing her was very hard for me as well. Not because of her (I got over our relationship relatively quickly), but because of the realization that I would never have another relationship and because it signified the last true, exclusive personal connection I could ever have. This wasn't apparent to other people, because I could never talk about the real reasons for my sadness. I was very sad in the summer and fall, but it was not because of her, it was because I will never escape the darkness with anyone. She was so loving and kind to me and gave me everything I could have asked for under the circumstances. I'll never forget how much happiness she brought me in those briefs moments when I could ignore the darkness. I had originally planned to kill myself last winter but never got around to it. (Parts of this letter were written over a year ago, other parts days before doing this.) It was wrong of me to involve myself in her life if this were a possibility and I should have just left her alone, even though we only dated for a few months and things ended a long time ago. She's just one more person in a long list of people I've hurt.

I could spend pages talking about the other relationships I've had that were ruined because of my problems and my confusion related to the darkness. I've hurt so many great people because of who I am and my inability to experience what needs to be experienced. All I can say is that I tried to be honest with people about what I thought was true.

I've spent my life hurting people. Today will be the last time.

I've told different people a lot of things, but I've never told anyone about what happened to me, ever, for obvious reasons. It took me a while to realize that no matter how close you are to someone or how much they claim to love you, people simply cannot keep secrets. I learned this a few years ago when I thought I was gay and told people. The more harmful the secret, the juicier the gossip and the more likely you are to be betrayed. People don't care about their word or what they've promised, they just do whatever the fuck they want and justify it later. It feels incredibly lonely to realize you can never share something with someone and have it be between just the two of you. I don't blame anyone in particular, I guess it's just how people are. Even if I felt like this is something I could have shared, I have no interest in being part of a friendship or relationship where the other person views me as the damaged and contaminated person that I am. So even if I were able to trust someone, I probably would not have told them about what happened to me. At this point I simply don't care who knows.

I feel an evil inside me. An evil that makes me want to end life. I need to stop this. I need to make sure I don't kill someone, which is not something that can be easily undone. I don't know if this is related to what happened to me or something different. I recognize the irony of killing myself to prevent myself from killing someone else, but this decision should indicate what I'm capable of.

So I've realized I will never escape the darkness or misery associated with it and I have a responsibility to stop myself from physically harming others.

I'm just a broken, miserable shell of a human being. Being molested has defined me as a person and shaped me as a human being and it has made me the monster I am and there's nothing I can do to escape it. I don't know any other existence. I don't know what life feels like where I'm apart from any of this. I actively despise the person I am. I just feel fundamentally broken, almost non-human. I feel like an animal that woke up one day in a human body, trying to make sense of a foreign world, living among creatures it doesn't understand and can't connect with.

I have accepted that the darkness will never allow me to be in a relationship. I will never go to sleep with someone in my arms, feeling the comfort of their hands around me. I will never know what uncontimated intimacy is like. I will never have an exclusive bond with someone, someone who can be the recipient of all the love I have to give. I will never have children, and I wanted to be a father so badly. I think I would have made a good dad. And even if I had fought through the darkness and married and had children all while being unable to feel intimacy, I could have never done that if suicide were a possibility. I did try to minimize pain, although I know that this decision will hurt many of you. If this hurts you, I hope that you can at least forget about me quickly.

There's no point in identifying who molested me, so I'm just going to leave it at that. I doubt the word of a dead guy with no evidence about something that happened over twenty years ago would have much sway.

You may wonder why I didn't just talk to a professional about this. I've seen a number of doctors since I was a teenager to talk about other issues and I'm positive that another doctor would not have helped. I was never given one piece of actionable advice, ever. More than a few spent a large part of the session reading their notes to remember who I was. And I have no interest in talking about being raped as a child, both because I know it wouldn't help and because I have no confidence it would remain secret. I know the legal and practical limits of doctor/patient confidentiality, growing up in a house where we'd hear stories about the various mental illnesses of famous people, stories that were passed down through generations. All it takes is one doctor who thinks my story is interesting enough to share or a doctor who thinks it's her right or responsibility to contact the authorities and have me identify the molestor (justifying her decision by telling herself that someone else might be in danger). All it takes is a single doctor who violates my trust, just like the "friends" who I told I was gay did, and everything would be made public and I'd be forced to live in a world where people would know how fucked up I am. And yes, I realize this indicates that I have severe trust issues, but they're based on a large number of experiences with people who have shown a profound disrepect for their word and the privacy of others.

People say suicide is selfish. I think it's selfish to ask people to continue living painful and miserable lives, just so you possibly won't feel sad for a week or two. Suicide may be a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but it's also a permanent solution to a ~23 year-old problem that grows more intense and overwhelming every day.

Some people are just dealt bad hands in this life. I know many people have it worse than I do, and maybe I'm just not a strong person, but I really did try to deal with this. I've tried to deal with this every day for the last 23 years and I just can't fucking take it anymore.

I often wonder what life must be like for other people. People who can feel the love from others and give it back unadulterated, people who can experience sex as an intimate and joyous experience, people who can experience the colors and happenings of this world without constant misery. I wonder who I'd be if things had been different or if I were a stronger person. It sounds pretty great.

I'm prepared for death. I'm prepared for the pain and I am ready to no longer exist. Thanks to the strictness of New Jersey gun laws this will probably be much more painful than it needs to be, but what can you do. My only fear at this point is messing something up and surviving.

---

I'd also like to address my family, if you can call them that. I despise everything they stand for and I truly hate them, in a non-emotional, dispassionate and what I believe is a healthy way. The world will be a better place when they're dead--one with less hatred and intolerance.

If you're unfamiliar with the situation, my parents are fundamentalist Christians who kicked me out of their house and cut me off financially when I was 19 because I refused to attend seven hours of church a week.

They live in a black and white reality they've constructed for themselves. They partition the world into good and evil and survive by hating everything they fear or misunderstand and calling it love. They don't understand that good and decent people exist all around us, "saved" or not, and that evil and cruel people occupy a large percentage of their church. They take advantage of people looking for hope by teaching them to practice the same hatred they practice.

A random example:

"I am personally convinced that if a Muslim truly believes and obeys the Koran, he will be a terrorist." - George Zeller, August 24, 2010.

If you choose to follow a religion where, for example, devout Catholics who are trying to be good people are all going to Hell but child molestors go to Heaven (as long as they were "saved" at some point), that's your choice, but it's fucked up. Maybe a God who operates by those rules does exist. If so, fuck Him.

Their church was always more important than the members of their family and they happily sacrificed whatever necessary in order to satisfy their contrived beliefs about who they should be.

I grew up in a house where love was proxied through a God I could never believe in. A house where the love of music with any sort of a beat was literally beaten out of me. A house full of hatred and intolerance, run by two people who were experts at appearing kind and warm when others were around. Parents who tell an eight year old that his grandmother is going to Hell because she's Catholic. Parents who claim not to be racist but then talk about the horrors of miscegenation. I could list hundreds of other examples, but it's tiring.

Since being kicked out, I've interacted with them in relatively normal ways. I talk to them on the phone like nothing happened. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I like pretending I have a family. Maybe I like having people I can talk to about what's been going on in my life. Whatever the reason, it's not real and it feels like a sham. I should have never allowed this reconnection to happen.

I wrote the above a while ago, and I do feel like that much of the time. At other times, though, I feel less hateful. I know my parents honestly believe the crap they believe in. I know that my mom, at least, loved me very much and tried her best. One reason I put this off for so long is because I know how much pain it will cause her. She has been sad since she found out I wasn't "saved", since she believes I'm going to Hell, which is not a sadness for which I am responsible. That was never going to change, and presumably she believes the state of my physical body is much less important than the state of my soul. Still, I cannot intellectually justify this decision, knowing how much it will hurt her. Maybe my ability to take my own life, knowing how much pain it will cause, shows that I am a monster who doesn't deserve to live. All I know is that I can't deal with this pain any longer and I'm am truly sorry I couldn't wait until my family and everyone I knew died so this could be done without hurting anyone. For years I've wished that I'd be hit by a bus or die while saving a baby from drowning so my death might be more acceptable, but I was never so lucky.

---

To those of you who have shown me love, thank you for putting up with all my shittiness and moodiness and arbitrariness. I was never the person I wanted to be. Maybe without the darkness I would have been a better person, maybe not. I did try to be a good person, but I realize I never got very far.

I'm sorry for the pain this causes. I really do wish I had another option. I hope this letter explains why I needed to do this. If you can't understand this decision, I hope you can at least forgive me.

Bill Zeller

---

Please save this letter and repost it if gets deleted. I don't want people to wonder why I did this. I disseminated it more widely than I might have otherwise because I'm worried that my family might try to restrict access to it. I don't mind if this letter is made public. In fact, I'd prefer it be made public to people being unable to read it and drawing their own conclusions.

Feel free to republish this letter, but only if it is reproduced in its entirety.

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HELL is for children!

Timebomb Tom Is Ticking

Call this a close second

"I want to be rich enough to buy my emotions."

The room was full when Tom said that amid the recurring discussion of imagined lottery winnings. And the remark struck plenty as a pretentious one. I remember this black guy saying, "What you mean buy your emotions.' What kinda shit is that?" Beyond that the conversation descended into an indiscernible ruckus to my ears, because I understood exactly what he said and I was smiling ear to ear inside. Tom wanted time. The only thing I didn't like about that wonderfully turned phrase was that I didn't say it. Truth be told, I think everyone else was pissed they didn't say it too.

Timebomb Tom was always the smartest guy in the room - any room at any time. And by smart I don't mean Jeopardy smart, full of trivia and knowledge, speaking six languages. And I don't mean smart as in someone who has insight into one part of a situation and then goes on to think that's all there is to it, continuously squawking, "Can't you see? Can't you see?" And I don't mean smart as in someone who finds cleverness in lies. I mean smart as in a relentlessly open mind.

Timebomb Tom's favorite quote was "Truth is life", from Frank Lloyd Wright. But he didn't say anything, just observed. Frankly, I avoided the fucker, not wanting to hear what he possibly might say about me. I like to think I can stand up to anybody anywhere, but I can't. Aggressive women scare me too - they too are borne of independent thought. Bottom line is: when he spoke, I listened.

Knowledge of mere facts won't build you this

Rare was the conversation he'd let himself get sucked into. It was funny watching him as I sensed he had the same feeling watching us discuss the world as Einstein would have listening to high school students discuss quantum mechanics. Not that he was condescending. He got really excited when someone would declare a truth, egging them on to run with it. It was like watching a starving man devouring found food. Ultimately, I think Tom wanted each of us to discover the truth in ourselves.

From the light in his eyes at those times, you could see he believed that would save the world.

But in the marketplace of opinions, his was just one of many tossed into the ring where value was determined more by sensationalism than reality. Much more fun to talk about a flat income tax than ending greed. And so Timebomb Tom...seethed. (Only I call him Timebomb Tom. I have a bit of intelligence myself but if the others didn't see his precarious position then I'd let time educate them). And I wondered: what was the real truth Tom could not get out?

The first red flag went up when I noticed he hated being called smart. That look on his face, it was like someone had stabbed him. He didn't want to look like an idiot and deny the obvious, and he couldn't respond honestly because he was unable to get his own truth out, so he was stuck - like a knife in the belly. Then he'd just walk away without answering. That's when I said to myself: "Someday that boy is going to explode."

Ask a homeless person what he or she wants most and the answer (outside of a home) is privacy. How does the idea of shitting on public toilets for the rest of your life suit you? If you can stand it, good for you. Don't ask me to. So we all do what we can to get away. Since we can't own any space, we try to at least own some time. But that's hard to do when you can't ever find a safe spot. And Tom was in what he thought was a safe place when I fatefully overheard him.

Some spots people pass by never giving a second thought. Little corners of hiding or enclaves that homeless eyes are always on the lookout for, a hideaway to pause from the perpetual running. At first glance the row of overlapping evergreens looked impassible. But then I spotted a slight opening. So I figured that would be a good getaway spot for me, thinking most folks wouldn't see that opening and they'd be forced the long way around.

Apparently, Tom had had that same thought process.

Tom was lucky. He had a cell phone and having a contact number to give out can be a huge advantage. Even people with actual homes give out their cell as a main contact number. Makes one almost think one is normal - normal enough for phone sex anyway, as was the case here. I heard Tom talking on his knees in an unusual voice, that of an immature young adult hopelessly naive to the world. Then he started making strange animal sounds at the behest of the operator on the other end of the line. When he stopped, I could hear her laughing even from where I was.

She called Tom the biggest moron who'd ever called her as he told her wild tales of forced humiliation and chronic stupidity. He was very convincing in his role and suddenly it struck me: he was getting his truth out. I knew that - but didn't quite understand that. His stories were pure fabrication, wild tales that reached into his inner soul, dazzling the listener with his talent as a character actor. And here all this time I thought phone sex lines were just a long dead joke no one really used.

Now I knew Tom diverted his energies to the wind, forever hopeless to find a home, chronic like I am.

Then something happened I truly hate: one of those out-of-body experiences where all control is lost. It was one of those rare moments where one gets a wholly honest glimpse of oneself, like it or not. And sure enough as he was closing up his phone, I knew the first thing Tom was going to do was turn around and look right at me. And yet even knowing that, I could not move or tear myself away. I was frozen, waiting to get caught.

I've analyzed it afterwards, curious as to my own motivation. Was the fact I heard him just something I could not hide? Did I so secretly want to see the look on his face I couldn't pull away? Was it because I'd latently hoped to be his friend I decided to suddenly jump in with both feet? All I can really judge it by is his own reaction: incredulous at first, then softening and unreservedly accepting. Jesus, I wish I could have seen the what had to be an understanding look on my face that gave him cause to react like that.

Website said she is a real phone sex operator

"It's all I've got," he nervously explained - as if he need justify himself to me in this hellhole world. Tom went on to say even though the stories weren't real, the feelings were, concluding with, "I'm a broken person, useless to the world." As a broken person myself I knew what he meant: he could care less about the world, he meant useless to women. Then he reached his final confession: "I'm know people think I'm smart. How do I tell them I'm actually the biggest idiot in the world when it comes to what counts?"

Another famous zinger from Tom I store away as my own accoutrement was his mocking of the job selection for the homeless: "You can have any job you want - as long as you don't want to live." He'd said it on the sly, knowing not everyone would appreciate it. With that background I sat down on the grass beside him as he told the story of his incapacitation. Guess he figured the cat was out of the bag or that maybe he suddenly realized his need for someone - anyone - to understand.

He told me last January he was working as a "lunch processor" - assembling school lunch items together encased in plastic wrap. I said, "Oh yeah, where you freeze your ass off and wear a stupid hair net." Like wounded war veterans, we need say no more on the war, Tom noddingly smiled. The supervisor there was a woman named Michelle. Tom had fallen for her like a ton of bricks. But he'd been trumped by his uselessness and he began to slowly sabotage the relationship until finally she got so fed up with him she cut off the lines of communication.

How to get her to reject you

"I just thought - if you call it thinking - that if I got her to reject me she'd never get the chance to see the real me." Tom is too smart for his own good. "What am I going to do? Share a phone sex session with her? What's really bad is she brought out the best in me. I was a different person with her. Which is the real me?" Tom wasn't really asking me, but himself - I think for maybe the thousandth continual time.

Tom's final doom came when a group of torn items slid down the conveyor belt to him. Who knows what happened, could have been done anywhere along the way. But like a conspiracy of the universe, Michelle arrives just after Tom gets the items. She looks at them, then looks at Tom and lights right into him as if he were the cause of their shitty state.

"Basically, she was saying I was shitty. I couldn't deny it and she took my silence as an admission of guilt, thinking I did it to make her look bad. Hurt like hell her chewing me out like that for something I didn't do - would never do. She still thinks I tore those items up just to piss her off. But I felt too guilty to contradict her even though I knew she should know the truth. Now here it is a year later and it's still eating on me. Can I die now, please?"

I stood up. I sensed he was nearing the end and if not, I couldn't take hearing him anymore anyway. This was waaaay too uncomfortable for me and my own sins of omission. In the comedy that is the human story, I felt the need to make Tom feel smart. I play these foolish manipulative games in helpless idiocy. Plus, I just wanted to get away.

Some things are just too awkward

"Well, have you tried talking to the counselor about this?" I instantly regretted saying it even though I knew my emotional motivation for it. Who knows, maybe I was channeling Tom. I saw the initial reaction in his face: Fuck no, I wouldn't talk to that idiot! But then I saw the wheels begin to turn, taking into account I'd been his friend here and whatnot until finally he processed his thought as, "No. Would you?"

I started laughing, probably more than I should have but it was such a relief from the tension I couldn't stop. Tom laughed a bit too, just happy to see I agreed with his opinion of so-called "professional help". Shit, it was only personal moments like these that ever helped anyone. (Most of us just play act we're better to please the authority figures.) All I had left was this painfully lame dismount: "You hang in there, OK?"

Again, I watched him process my words. What you really mean is you want to get the hell out of here. Yeah, me too. He tersely waved me off, me being unable to help him with his pain. But that walk back through the evergreens was etched upon my pounding heart, our meaningful words lost and unrecorded, my ears pulsing with the sound of a ticking time bomb as the heavens above gathered dark clouds of its own storm, and whether true or not I took that as a sign that at least God had listened.

That long cool woman had it all

Jesus Having A Bad Day

Will you listen this time?

Jesus was ascending the mount to give another parable to the masses when a man in a flaming tunic approached him. "Please, sir, will you sign this?"

A scroll of many words was held before Jesus but he said and did nothing. The man explained. "It's a release form to use your likeness on a new line of tunics I have coming. You can use the royalties to give to charity. That way you can serve Caesar and God both!"

Jesus muttered, "I do not seek to serve Ceasar," and continued his climb - still muttering.

The flaming tunic man was elated. "Awesome! That means you won't sue!"

But from that point forward Jesus knew it was going to be "one of those days".

Verily he spoke:

"A landowner divided his land among ten farmers, each to work and reap for his own reward. In return he asked for ten percent of the yield. At first the farmers were delighted by this deal as it gave them greater power and freedom than they'd ever known before. Other landowners took all the yield and only gave back to the farmers just enough to survive.

But soon the farmers started to slander the landowner, calling his yoke an unreasonable one and refused to pay the full share. Only one continued to pay in full and the landowner rewarded him by doubling his lands in an effort to show the benefits of fulfilling the contract between them. But the other nine farmers grew envious of the faithful farmer and killed him. Seeing this, the landowner expelled the remaining farmers back to their former landlords who then treated them extra brutally for leaving."

Jesus stopped and the crowd neither spoke nor moved lest one call attention to one's own guilt. Finally, a man pretended to be a moron to escape his responsibility. "Tell us, master, what does it mean!"

"Tell me what you think it means."

The man sat back down afraid to either lie or reveal his truth before Jesus. The Son of God looked out over the crowd. "Anyone? Someone? Bueller...Bueller..."

But the oppression of the silence crushed them, finally forcing out words.

"I know what it means! It means if you're neighbor don't get ya, God will! We're the fucked!"

"That's right! If you're alive it must mean you're a bad person cuz all the good ones gets killed!"

"You wanna make widows and orphans of our families! We can't let that happen! I ain't payin' no full share neither."

God these people are depressing!

Jesus slouched as he realized he lived at the mercy of such tormented souls.

"Jesus, dude, don't look so sad. Them farmers don't want to pay up I know these guys from Nazareth that got a way of talkin' folks into it - if ya know what I mean!"

"Surely, this could have been resolved by a contract dispute court before things had gotten out of hand. As a registered lawyer I can fix these sort of situations for a handsome fee. Have that landowner give me a call."

"Maybe the landowner went off and died! How did the farmers know he even still existed?"

And Jesus wept.

Then a man stood tall, taking on the burden of the unruly crowd. "And what if each farmer had kept his word then to find his lands doubled in time? Was it not their own lives the farmers betrayed when they betrayed the landowner? Ask yourselves: Where does my true reward lie? Only by fulfilling the contract and nowhere else. Better death than to give that up!"

Properly shamed, the crowd dispersed. Jesus stood up.

"Thank you. These congregations can really get me down sometimes, and we're two thousands years away from any decent meds."

"No problem. It's obvious they were disingenuous in their words, looking to justify their failings rather than face them."

"Very good. Would like to become a disciple of mine?"

"Would I? Very much so! It is you who spreads the true word of God!"

"Excellent! Tell me, what is your name?"

"Judas Iscariot."

"Do you think the crowds will come back, Judas? Do you believe they will truly accept the good news meant for them even if they do seem to follow me?"

"Hard to say. Not easy to admit when you've cheated yourself." Judas smiled at his new master but then thought to himself: Not that you would know anything about that, you perfect fuck!

But Jesus knew in the end, the bad days are numbered but the good ones are both timeless and countless.

Your time will come!

--------------

Another song stuck in my head

In Perfect Times

Looking down
so easy to see
clearly now...

This perfect park made
with innocent minds
to celebrate innocent times.

They never saw me coming.

Where is the park for despair?
Where is the park for disrepair?

There are none.
I guess we thought
good times last forever.

***

I loved that park in the before times,
When I "belonged" there.

Did I really belong just because I had love?

Because even if I had the love again
I don't feel I'd belong again.

Somewhere a trust has been broken.

You said it was me,
that I must have done wrong
to be on the outs.

That's when I saw your back
in my hour of need.

That's when I lost my innocence:
When I saw there was no place
to be imperfect.

***

What a mistake to take you at your word!

So easy to see now
as my spirit drifts upwards
lost to the sky.

You gather 'round my dead cells
angry that I broke the illusion
of happiness for all.

And I'm left asking,
What of my love?
Was it true it was needed?

That dream of all dreams.

Suddenly I can hear the souls
of those who stand over me.
They too are wondering,
What of my love?
Was it true it was needed?

It's two thousand eleven
and the world is lost.

----------------------------------------

King Con

I'd never seen a town so dead. It started with the old man leaning on his cane on the way out of town as I was on my way in. His stooped back stopped me in my tracks. He was slow and deliberate but steadfast and determined as if the hounds of hell were on his heels. I looked behind him but the road was empty.

He passed by me, noticing me as no more than an insignificant roadside shrub. That's when I heard his words: "The lies always win. The lies always win." The bent, grey man was possessed by those words, saying them to everyone and yet to no one. In his voice I heard the story of his life. I don't think anyone had listened to him in decades - it had taken his mind.

The rest of the citizens weren't much better. Half were living right on the edge, another good chunk were living well but losing ground and the last group bloated fatter and fatter like a giant mosquito sucking the life out of the rest of them. I studied them with a curious eye, wondering why no one smacked down the mosquito who caused such hopeless misery. In fact, they rebelled not at all, seeing their self-imposed bondage as the stairway to heaven.

That's when I knew there had to be a king. Suckers like these always need a god to fulfill their fantasies. You can smell it a mile away - you just can't say anything. Attack another man's god and he will strike you down just prove his god holy. So I'm trapped in silence by the cons I see. For me, they're always easy to spot: I'm a con man too.

I heard them grumble about the king, complain about him, moan about him and wail about him. But never ever deny his right to be. That's what happens when everyone wants to be king. I watched a woman outraged with the death of her child by virtue of the king's edicts come storming into the streets with the limp body in her arms. She demanded the king must go. But she was quickly hushed up as "a threat to the common good".

I had no problem letting these people die. They wanted a king to do their thinking, run their lives for them and then conveniently take the blame. But when the bill comes due they always bitch about the payment. Seen it a million times before. No saving sheep like that. If I'd had any doubt, the hanging revealed them for the civilized savages they were.

The townspeople hated him, seething and boiling over in anger. You'd think their very eyes were being clawed out the venom was so strong. I asked what the victim's crime was: He continually paid his rent in full. This so jeopardized the villagers married to their cheating ways he'd made their lies impossible to live with. After the hanging they found out it only made life harder.

Yes, I read their stories of pathetic hardship born of their ill-gotten ways and I was moved not. And since I don't usually move in on another man's con - not unless one wants full scale war - I was more than happy to see that town die as it so stubbornly claimed to be on the path to life. Good riddance!

But one free thinking group wanted to live. They came marching down the street chanting, "Liberté! Liberté!" They wanted no king to rule them, no rules to bind them, no bindings to enslave them. Let go and trust nature's order, they said, the universe was designed for life. That only provoked their fellow citizens who threw rocks and chastising comments. "You're just trying to get us killed! We have to have a king!"

Now usually my cons are for my benefit only as I slide by on the vices of others. But I got to thinking. What if I could turn this town on its ear? I never had any respect for these sort of institutionalized con men who ingratiated themselves into positions of trust, feeding off the internal fears of the populace. Oh sure, they were skilled liars and all that, but they had no daring, no liberal thought. Just dead men looking for a place to die.

"Why don't I give it to them?" I smirked to myself. Always good to try something new.

I asked a child - in order to get an unvarnished answer - what method the king used to control their godforsaken lives, what was it they denied themselves.

"It's the water, sir. We only get a few drops a day. They say there's not enough to go around and we don't deserve no more and shouldn't drink none anyway. They wouldn't say that if it wasn't true would they, mister?" I couldn't resist asking him if he'd seen the oversized swimming pools of the royal court. "But he's the king!" parroted the brainwashed boy. Yup, these folks were in deep, children infected in an Old Testament way. The game was afoot!

I put in ad asking for "honest and god fearing folks only!" These ads bring out the worst types. Thinking it will con me, I had them share their water with me to "prove" their holiness. They were only too happy to oblige and have me think well of them. But I knew they only did it to set me up for a later betrayal. I thanked them and drank every last drop out of view. I knew it would be a long time before I drank again.

I joined the Liberté marchers, energizing them as I spoke to the crowds. "Listen to me! Each and every one of you deserves all the water you need. Your suffering does not have to be. Don't believe the evil lies that you 'deserve' so little water. A full measure is owed to each and every person by virtue of birth. Let us celebrate the truth at last!"

You could see the claws falling out of their hearts, wishing to believe but afraid to dare do so. Fearmongers rose up, accusing me of spreading fear. Warmongers rose up accusing me of divisiveness. Hatemongers rose up accusing me of undermining the future. I asked them if their mother knew what they were doing and they spat at me and ran off. I knew that would not be the last of them.

We actually did gain a few converts but most feared their hearts knowing the damage their lies had already done. Who had the nerve to go back on what they had told their children? For them, the truth could wait another day. So be it. I am no man's savior, salvation comes from within - which is why they kept looking for it from without. Regardless, I continued my behavior until I could see I was wearing out my welcome as my insistence was clearly forcing a decision. That's when the king's men struck back.

"The man is a liar and a fraud! Have you not heard him preach of the goodness of full water rations? Have you not heard him say to drink water to attain life? And yet this man drinks none!" The crowd gasped in horrified shock. I yawned. "He is one of the great deceivers the Good King Who Hoards All Water warned you about. He is tricking you into destruction for his own selfish gain! We have proof! Not a drop drank since he's been here! You can read it on the internet!"

I shrugged in resignation. "If it's on the internet it must be true."

Someone made a plastic Moses!
Now we know he's a liar!

I was promptly run out of town and the Liberté movement was discredited by townspeople emboldened with a newfound sense of sanctioned righteousness. The decision had been made at last: no more water for them! Even as they died they slapped each other on the back, congratulating one another on "doing right" and "showing that fraud what's what". Yup, they showed me alright - right into the grave. When it was all over the only people left were the water hoarders and the Liberté group who mutinously continued drinking regardless of what anyone else thought.

They confronted the king who yelled for his dead army to rise. But they had been good soldiers and given their lives away in dehydration as well. Finding himself suddenly useless but gripped by pride, the king and the hoarders wandered bitter streets the rest of their lives as the Free Thinkers moved on, sharing water for all and teaching the vital need for understanding the truth of life. Yes, a most satisfying con.

The free thinkers invited me to live among them but a con man has no place among the likes of their shiny and open lives. The king's men were right all along: I'm a royal hypocrite in my dark and dastardly deeds. But the truth is available to anyone.

Rush Limbaugh Applauds Jesus' Death!

It is the beginning of the end as Mankind is forced to rear its ugly face at last. The guilt of this moment will last for centuries, plunging the world into the Dark Ages where mere talk of the Lord and the righteousness of man will spark both killing battles and sadistic persecution. Finally, we inch back into the light daring once more to reveal ourselves - and finding rebirth for those who can struggle past the ancient sin.

But there are also those who choose not to struggle. To simply declare themselves "saved" and holy by virtue of superstitious ritual. Corrupted by this self-deceit and without true hope, their all consuming goal becomes absolution by the eradication of self-guilt - and to inflict their fate upon their fellow man. For just as the truly saved soul seeks to save, the doomed soul seeks to doom.

-----------------------------------------------

[Seeing a profitable market for lies of false redemption, the King of Liars slanders and defames the King of Kings. 2,000 years later as consciousness changes, he will claim to be a friend to the slain man - but persecute him just the same. We hear the shameless soul speak now to a crowd eager for lies and pretty thoughts. In exchange for 30 pieces of silver, the slanderer does a spot at the end of his diatribe for Saul's Sandal Repair shop.]

Can you feel my evil!

There you have this little boy - a child I tell you! - talking back to his temple elders. Outrageous! These kids nowadays have no respect for authority. There's a reason why they are the elders and you the student who needs to keep his mouth shut and his ears open.

Permissive parenting at its worst, folks. A backtalking child in church of all places. Do liberals have no shame?

And then when this poorly parented child grows up he has the nerve to lecture the rest of us! See, folks? This is the kind of wrongheaded delusional thinking I've been talking about! These liberals believe they should be running the world! Do you want to hear some of perverted sayings this man has said? I'll give you a few examples:

Blessed are the poor in spirit

What kind of god-fearing person says something like that? Like all liberals, he wants a godless world where he's free to commit whatever sort of mayhem he pleases. It's conservatives who want to fill the world with God's spirit. These people have no morals at all!

Then he says this:

For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

See, folks? He places himself above the law! This all goes back to his backtalking in the temple as a child. Do not spare the rod if you've got a kid who sticks up for his own opinions. Next thing you know that will go to his head and he's liable to deceive himself into believing anything! They aren't like us at all, I tell you!

He's stealing that lamb, folks!

He says he's a man of God but his words reveal the truth of who he really is! You're lucky folks to have me the great truthteller spreading the real facts of what's going. I can do all your thinking! This charade has got to stop! Listen to his own hypocrisy as he projects his sin onto others:

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men.

What "man of God" comes out against praying in the synagogue! Maybe if he'd spent a little less time mouthing off as a child he'd know what synagogues are for. And if a man prays on a street corner, good for him I say! This Jesus fellow treats him like a prostitute! No man should hide his light under a bushel. Any man of the true religion knows this. All the prophets are my friends, folks.

And what he calls miracles I call a seduction to weakness. The man has no sense of personal responsibility, feeding endless loaves and fishes to idlers goldbricking from their jobs. Outrageous! This is the worst kind of socialism, folks, making them completely dependent on government! Do not be deceived! He's merely trying to bribe them with free food and telling them what they want to hear. Start feeding everyone and the whole world goes to hell! The man needs to learn that lesson before he has the whole country wanting a handout.

Then he has to gall to make this complaint:

Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.

Outrageous, folks! He expects to sponge off everyone else the rest of his life! This man's idea of salvation is to get a free ride off the hard work of the achievers and the successful builders who made this world. It boggles the mind to understand how someone could go around like this saying whatever he pleases just to push his own selfish agenda. I know why you listen to me, folks: It's because I speak the truth!

But now I would like to get to the heart of the matter. Maybe you think I've been too hard on this guy or not given him a fair chance. Now mind you, I'm going to read you his own words here and you can decide if this is a true man of God or merely a self-seeking self-promoter who needs to be put down:

Do not suppose I've come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn

'a man against his father,

a daughter against her mother,

a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law -

a man's enemies will be members of his own household.'

Anyone who loves his father and mother more than me is not worthy of me.

Folks, these are sad times we live in when someone makes a sin of loving your parents and raises himself over your family like a cult leader! You know it has gone too far and it's time for the good and moral folks  to speak out and take a stand against corrosive lying designed to inflame hearts and split families. It's people like this who want to destroy the world and it's done out of sheer jealousy and envy because they have not the moral courage to do the right and honorable thing.

When all else fails:
Make God in your own image!

Today, I stand with Pontius Pilate and heartily applaud the death of the troublemaker Jesus. We all have to find our own way and we all say stupid things at times because that's the way of youth. But this fellow openly and unrepentantly advocated the destruction of family and society! That's just beyond stupidity, folks! That's outright blasphemy, willfully and knowingly with no excuses about it. Folks like that have to pay. To use his own metaphor against him, better he'd cut out his own tongue out than ever to have spoken a word!

Thank you, everyone. This is the excellence in bombast network, highest rated show in all of Jerusalem! And you know what means: it means I speak the truth!

An Artist's Lot

Nothing is ever mine.

It's always their car,

their road,

their house,

their factory,

their government,

their job,

their place in the world,

their dreams,

their future,

their time,

their decision,

their trees,

their pollution,

their war,

their story,

their gift,

their way,

their insolence,

their privilege,

their crime of the century,

their enforcement,

their medals,

their prostitutes,

their there,

their world.

Whatever I try to grasp

slips through my fingers

unpossessed.

The artist's gift.

Random Thoughtlessness

God says to follow love - but does not fund it. We are expected to give our all in that pursuit - yet get nothing to survive in return.

I'll be damned, God is a Republican after all.

How does a dishonorable person sit at a table of honorable people and not be Judas? Both leaving and staying seem a betrayal. My outlaw ways have done me in. But in their eyes I see they assumed better of me.

Fuck, I'm fucked.

Outside, they love me for my lies and hate me for my truths. Inside, I hate me for my lies and love me for my truths. But in the end, my dick is killing me.

All wars are just extensions of men's dicks killing them.

I met this woman who bar hops for sex in secret from her relatives. She seduces ex-Mossad agents with her long, luscious legs but has creeping doubts on her ability to decide who to marry. She will wholly dedicate herself to her family when the time comes. But does she know she must dedicate herself to her own life first to be the mother she wishes to be? Power in all forms corrupts.

A sniper guy told me of his taking out an NVA general in a secret (i.e. illegal) mission in Cambodia. He said eight maybe ten guys in the world could have made that shot. High winds separate the best from the merely great, he explained. I think when he shot his rifle it was the only time he felt alive: when taking lives and above the law. He held up his empty glass and looked at me through the distorting curves. The sniper had no interest in reality unfiltered. Maybe he feared to find he'd killed for no reason.

I saw the President take a dump on the White House lawn right in front of God and everybody. This happened on my way to church to buy a big screen TV. He asked the reporters following him if his shit stunk (and if they wanted to be at the next White House briefing). Headlines the next day blared, "President's shit does not stink!" This was considered a great political victory for him. Several supporters swore his shit smelled like sweet flowers - thinking that clever! His detractors said his whole body stinks like shit - thinking that clever! The debate rages on but no one knows why.

The rest of us live with the reality of the stinky shit.

After listening to the bar-hopping sex lady, I told her how I like to masturbate to the fantasy of being Britney Spear's hot tub sex slave with her gorgeous foot pushing down on my head. She stopped talking to me after that. She thought I would be blind to her reaction. What happens if she finds out I was not?

This aging slut walks by, 45 going on 25. Her low cut jeans reveal forming age spots but she's nervously oblivious to it (and takes drugs for that). If she can just lie to herself one more day, that's all she asks. I overhear her talking to a friend. "A husband is the LAST thing I want! Never again!" I think she will be very lonely in the nursing home.

I've been making movies on the computer. But when I'd play the finished product they'd start stuttering near the end. I was like, "Fuck! Damn! Shit! Hell! All this goddam work and the file is corrupt! Motherfucker!" Panicked, I replicated it in another format. Same fucking thing! I'm pulling my hair out, not understanding why it runs fine in preview but the final result craps out. I spend precious cash looking for better editing software. Same fucking thing! I got no way to troubleshoot this shit. God and his sniper rifle tag me once again.

Though wounded, I fought on. Finally I find out the PC software that plays movies is what's crappy, not the actual movie file itself. Runs just fine on YouTube. So there are two lessons here: 1. Don't always believe God is out to get you and 2. Life is a mind fuck.

Random Sunday Video: Serenity From The Ashes

I was at the TV section of Walmart on April 19, 1993. There across multiple screens I and a few other gatherers watched in shock as the Branch Davidian compound went up in flames. It had been an amazing standoff but after the four ATF officers got killed I had a hard time imagining a nonviolent ending. To this day I do not believe the government has told the whole truth though I do not care to speculate what that truth may be. I'll let those that know carry it on their heads.

What I did know was that the compound was bulldozed and all the trace evidence destroyed. I'm sure a plausible reason was given for that, there always is. But to me in my mind, the site remained smoldering for many years and needed to be put to rest for healing. Hasn't been until the last couple of years that I have wanted to visit and each time I have there is one thing I noticed that jumped out at me: peaceful serenity.

It literally took an effort for me to leave on this late Sunday afternoon. The wind was still, the birds tweeted softly and the shadows were friendly. I did not want to leave that oasis in the world! The land I decided needed to rest invited me to rest. I had to share this for everyone to see. I patched together this video for your entertainment and to hopefully let you experience a taste of what I did. I have a feeling I'll be going back on that peaceful road.

---------------------------------------

Random Sunday Video: Going To Temple

Many are those who say they don't believe in God - but do. Many are those who say they believe in God - but don't. And that is why I never listen to what people say! I just watch what they do. I see on what they place the most importance. Undeniable is the drive in every human to serve something outside of himself, something bigger than he is, something to die for. You're going to pick something, may as well pick wisely.

I realize that in order to go along to get along I too must conform to the values and mores of my fellow man - no matter how mad or delusional. I reasoned to myself: that which we suffer for the most must be the greatest god in all the land! In the olden days we had kings and the king would take all our stuff for himself. Men in priestly robes would declare that God's will - and then they wanted all our shit too. Today, it's different.

Or is it?

Who are the new kings who plunder at will? Who are the new priests we dare not question? What omnipotent purpose do we allow to control our lives and fates? Seek and ye shall find!

Making Everyone Jesus

So I pull into Albertsons with a repressed mind scared out of my wits buck naked in this huge oversized cargo van with giant windows on all sides and I'm right in front of the store with its long wide row of full length plate glass windows but I don't think about that as I get out of the van and run to this hidden spot between a square brick pillar and some vending machines and it's there I stand to go pee but then I realize I can't do that because it will take too long and someone's bound to see my naked ass and just because I think it's OK to be naked I will be crucified by people who believe they will never get into heaven unless they crucify me so it's life and death on all sides as I try to wriggle my way back to the car unseen but to do that I have to go back in front of the plate glass windows where all the shoppers and employees are and I start to wonder if I've been already seen anyway since I decided not to look when I got out of the van because I so badly wanted to believe I could be naked keeping my eyes shut and not facing up to anything so that's when waves and waves of panic and constricting fear strangle and wrangle me paralyzing me in my dilemma to get back inside the van with the huge windows where I might be seen anyway but I find myself telling myself all over again "Don't worry about the windows no one can see you" just like when I left the van but to make things worse on the other side of the pillar is this famous guy who cannot communicate except with his "hand with only three bones in it" which is what the 60 Minutes guy said when he interviewed him as the guy showed him how he has overcome everything to be successful against all odds and here I am who was born with everything and then some standing naked in the Albertsons parking lot dying of shame and I'm thinking it's moments like this why I can't have any friends or lovers and once again I catch myself praying for instant death then there's another famous guy next to the first one who's writing down all these huge numbers interspersed with letters and he claims he's writing the formula for life which I think is all bullshit but he got interviewed on 60 Minutes too and I'm thinking at least well he's famous and can live well and is revered even though he's full of shit and I have to ask myself would I want to be successful even if in reality it wasn't true and I feared I might say yes because anything beats standing naked in front of a busy grocery store needing to pee and sure enough here come some people headed to the front door from the lot trapping me where I am and as I peek through the large store window I see a large red headed woman working in the meat department and I can tell she's a "no nonsense" type of person meaning she never thinks just acts and if she sees me it will be a swift and certain death as she imagines telling all her friends at church how she put down a pervert and saved the world just like Jesus and I realized I was making everyone in the store Jesus as I saw this pair of good ol' boys who would love to capture me and be hero to all the nooky in the store so they could "prove" how moral and hateful they are of naked men so they could get naked later on with the women they hoped to impress and even though my van is only a few cars away it seems like a thousand miles and I can't take it anymore having a heart attack dying naked in the daylight on black asphalt and finally I'm known at last to everyone but only as "the guy who died naked alone outside"

Sara Smile

"You don’t understand," she asserted. "It’s complicated and you have no idea what my life is really like."

“You mean those secret self-doubts you never talk about to anyone that make you question your massive self-confidence and lead you to think your "image" is oh-so-necessary and vital when in reality if you would open up you’d find you’re fine and don’t need it but you’re afraid to do that because that would mean a loss of control and your mistakes would be out there for all to see and everyone would find out for real if you’ve got what it takes or not?”

Sara is someone you could put in a burlap bag and she’d still be dressed to the nines. She carries that much class. But she had come to a crossroads in her life: keep her art alive or keep her image alive. So here she was explaining to me over lunch why she no longer paints. She thought her pain was special, unique in all the world! How fucking quaint. Yes, Sara, you are the first and only person to suffer from self-doubt, I could not possibly know about such things.

Art is a never-ending path, scary and deflating yet holding the promise of ultimate truth and beauty. And it can be like punching holes in the wind: what’s the point of even trying? All I can say is we are bound to search for that which is its own reward. Some are only willing to sing in the dark. Some are only willing to masquerade in the light. So much easier to be Oz behind the curtain, pulling the levers of manipulation, fooling the discontented people – and fooling yourself into perceiving a benefit.

Sara owned a shop where she sold dead items for dead money and walking away from that was too much too ask. She felt guilty that the only time she felt alive was when she painted. She made no money from it, ergo it was not a responsible thing. Or so she tried to convince herself. Her true secret doubts were not about the worth of her paintings but about the worth of her life without them. Painting’s passion pulled her away from the safety of the shop; pulled her into life.

As a compromise Sara tried painting without passion, the best of both worlds she reasoned, to paint without being pulled away. But the reactions to those paintings were minimal and apathetic. To an artist, apathy is far more fatal than hate. That’s when she found herself in a position never before in her life: at the choosing crossroads. Having reached it she took the path of self-pity’s least resistance, telling herself that the reaction from her passionless paintings proved she had no worth as a painter. Like all of us, Sara sought an argument that no one can debate.

But I knew more than what I said to Sara, seeing the obvious joy she got from her first burst of paintings and the discovery of the magic of creating life. No one else gave it much thought when she quit and she was glad to pass it off as a mere dalliance of which stopping meant no consequence. But she didn’t fool me. As much as she tried to feed herself her “inarguable argument” that her life belonged in the shop, I saw now the consuming emptiness in her eyes, pleading to escape.

Sara looked up from her artsy sandwich to see my face with an expression that could only be described as saying, “Well??” I tried not to laugh as she recognized the futility of arguing with me. I saw the wheels turning in her head: Should I use my shop argument on him? What excuse can I give that he will buy? How can I get out of this with my image intact? But her image meant nothing to me. Only she did. (Though I sweated blood I wasn’t handling all this like a jackass – as is my wont.)

Sara’s mind had come full circle: she started to say “You don’t understand” all over again but the obvious lameness of it prevented her. She merely mumbled, “Yeah, well…” and lowered her eyes back to her plate, daring me to pursue her. I was too scared for that. Who knew what inner vases I might break in my clumsiness? Ah, to be more sure of myself! I started out strong but ended the coward. Maybe there was nothing more I could do anyway?

All I know is that evening in the shop as the late rays of the winter sun peeked through the store window as Sara turned the sign to “Closed” she was free-falling in a seemingly bottomless well; no apparent way out. I knew her brow was wrinkled in concern finding stupidities in her life she’d never experienced before. Dare she paint again? Even now, after betraying it and having doubtlessly angering the art gods? What worth repentance?

But Sara I’ve already seen you - your generosity, your warmth, your wonderful sense of family. So smile Sara smile. It’s true your image hides the true you – but having seen the true you this I can say: you are love. Love that made my heart sing to the heavens, giving me life like I hadn’t known in years. All the world should know that beauty. And though flowers pulled may not be replanted, eager seeds await in your hand for life’s pursuit anew.

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