Memories of a time past.

Just downloaded two my morning jacket albums.. Ready for the 45 minute drive to the restaurant. Driving in our truck in my old seat I sat in all the time.. Before I had a car. We all have our unspoken places in the car. Mine is right behind the passenger seat. I like sitting on the right side of the car when im not driving.. I think unconsciously it's because I an better able to analyze what the driver is doing. I can see the gauges, our speed, gas level ect.. I can see how much the driver Is moving the steering wheel so as to know what to expect.. But anyway back to my old seat.. Being here again reminds me of back than especially because I'm doing what I'd do in the seat normally.. I'd plug into my iPod.. Before hand I did it more so as to avoid conversations and the annoyances of my sisters whether they were fighting or just being irritating.. My parents were going through a rough patch most of my growing up.. My dad drives aggressively and my mom gets car sick easily which lead to many arguments in the car. This was a big reason why I lost myself from the car into my world of music.. I didn't have to hear everything.. I would keep my eyes down so as not to see angry frustrated movements, wide open mouths, obviously speaking angrily.. Things have gotten better since than.. It's not frequent like it was than.. It'll still creep out every now And than mainly when there are other annoyances such as the girls fighting and moms nausea.. That's not the reason I do it today.. I do it today to pass the time and avoid that godawful alleged music my sisters convince my parents to play.. But it brings back the memories of another time.

Ironical Irony.

My dad grew up in Brooklyn NY. My dad and I have never had a great relationship. Admittedly it has gotten better in recent years, but we still can not see eye to eye on anything, but maybe we do see eye to eye more than we let on to or realize. He is definitely a left brain person whereas I use more of my right. In layman's terms, he thinks mechanically and conservatively (to a degree) whereas I think creatively and liberally. He doesn't understand that part of me, well I suppose you can say to a degree he understands, but doesn't really support that ideology. Just as I understand to a degree the way his mind works, but don't favor it. We both are arrogant. We both want people to see our way. This is where our conflict stems. We can't see things the way the other does, because it's not how our respective minds work. I hated him growing up. He expected too much of me. He expects too much of everyone. He expects everyone to automatically think the way he does and therefore do things exactly as he would. I always failed him, sometimes it was because I was being lazy, a lot of the times it was because I had no idea of what I was supposed to be doing or how I was supposed to be doing it. I always told myself I would never be him. I see a lot of him in me. People tell me I'm a lot like him. I suppose when it comes down to it our persona is quite similar. It's just the way we go about it that's different. I spent the greater portion of last Friday in a place called Williamsburg Brooklyn. Not too far off form where my pops stomping grounds were. Williamsburg is a fantastic little place. Especially for my type of people (creative, artistic, thinking, arrogant, stubborn people with some sense of fashion). I absolutely loved it. All day I couldn't get it out of my mind though that I thought it was ironical that I could love a place so close to the place, in fact in the same borough, as my father, the one I disliked so much growing up. Which is when it hit me that perhaps I do have more in common with my dad than I thought. I won't parent like he did. That I swear to you. His parenting definitely took a toll on me and my mind. I can't say I'd be the person I am today though had it not happened this way. Maybe I've been looking at the situation all wrong all this time. Truthfully he does have good qualities, but honestly the bad overpower his good ones. Maybe he hates this life we have to live in this cursed world as much as I do. Maybe he just doesn't let on to it as I do so openly. Maybe he does and doesn't realize how much he does. Maybe I'm crazy. Who knows, who knows?

The Problems of a Problematic World.

Open your damn eyes. The people of society today all have their eyes closed. This frustrates me to a great extent. The kind of extent that makes me not want to be a part of this damned society. Everyone pretends. They live their life in complete and total naivety. Will you use that amazing thing encapsulated in your skull for one moment. I realize it hurts to do so, to see what life is today in its raw form. I understand that, but this is what we live in. This is the way things are, and if you can't and won't let yourself see that than you don't deserve to be here. You can distract yourself all you want but don't pretend. Don't pretend everything is ok and that life isn't completely unfair and random. Because that's what it is. We are all a bag of cells with an expiration date. Granted we have a higher purpose than 8/10ths of the population doesn't know of. That will be fulfilled at a later date, Until than all we have is to contribute to that purpose. But we are all alone. We come into this world alone and go out of it alone. Even if we die next to the person we love, we all die with our own ideals and perceptions and way of living that is unique to us, which in the end equals to us being one sole alone person. Stop pretending people. Stop.

Just a little paragraph I found to share my ideals.

Boiled down, these trips we're on are precariously short. They are magically abrupt, truncated briefings on the bigger pictures that we'll only get to step back from long, long after we can do anything about them. We won't be able to pull out the frame. We won't be able to tuck at the corners. We'll not be able to make ourselves look better in the photographs taken to recall these days. We'll not be able to take ourselves out of any of these photographs, nor will we be able to insert the people into them that we really wished were there at the times that we needed them to be there, or wanted them to be there. These are the heroic, solitary journeys that are done quietly, without so much as a hello or goodbye, just those footnotes that we give them. If only we were allowed some mulligans or given the chance to do a little editing, heaven help us. We'd make something spectacular out of these spare parts and these wild, flaying brambles. We are left out here with our limps, our eyes, our hearts and some spare change and we're supposed to get around on our own. We're supposed to figure it all out. We're supposed to find the right words to be said to the person or people in our lives who deserve all the right words being said to them. We're supposed to figure out the appropriate people to place our love in and we're to do so in a goddamn hurry. We're not supposed to mess it up over and over. We're supposed to get brighter and we're supposed to figure it out - figure out how to be right, to not feel broken all the time and how to makes others feel right and not so broken all of their time.

Societies Media Deception.

I hate society and the media there within. I really do. Here is the stupid part though, to me media is a necessary evil. I can't tell you I refuse to watch television, because i don't. I actually embrace it. I use it as a way to pass time and take my mind off of the evils of life. I watch others fake lives and make believe for the time that its real. Their problems become the focus of that time instead of our own. At least for me anyway. Its a corruption of our minds though. In essence its a brainwashing. It tells us that the dramatized fake realities are normal. It tells us those dramatized lives are reality, when in reality they are not. I watch television knowing this is happening to me. I hate that this is what television does. Media tells us its absolutely necessary to have a counterpart no matter how old you are. This is not true. I believe people need to discover themselves before they embark on a journey with another. Media corrupts this truth though and tells us, no you need a person of the opposite sex to venture life with, always. In turn we watch this through the media and it develops a sort of peer pressure. We feel the need to relate and follow the norm of media. It's interesting. People don't realize television brainwashes them. The government is interesting. I love how hypocritical the government is. I love how hypocritical everyone is. Media is a distraction from real life and it corrupts minds, but we watch it anyways. To bring this fact out is the sole purpose if this post.

Painting the Film

I've had this theory for a while that I've been meaning to share. Considering photography to be an art form has long been debated. I have my own view on this as all do. Personally, I am a photographer, I am a creative and artistic individual. First to dive in to this discussion we must first come to common ground on what "art" is. Merriam-Webster's first definition of art is as follows, and I quote, "skill acquired by experience, study, or observation". Dictionary.com's first definition is as follows "the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance." By these definitions there is no argument that photography can be called art. It also can be called just that, photography. Though it depends on the photographer and his shots. It really is a matter of opinion. I must say though, I have seen many beautiful shots from a camera. Dare I say more beautiful than some famous paintings, which no one dares to say painting is no art form. Some may say, though, photography can be considered art, sure, a lazy man's art. A machine does the work for you! I have a further argument though. Just the way a painter composes his painting, a photographer composes his shot. The only difference? A painter makes the composition from scratch, a photographer has to work with what he is given and make it beautiful. He arranges what he is given in front of him and works himself around that to compose a beautiful shot. Is that easier than placing subjects on the canvas exactly where you want them? It's just different. A painter is a specific type of person, just as a writer is. We are all creative individuals, we simply work with our creative tendencies in different ways, different mediums. Is painting hard work? Sure it is! It takes a lot of hard work, whether mixing colors to perfection, or emulating the real world through paint, it most certainly is work. I argue though, that photography is not easier. Sure you have a device that "paints" for you, but arranging the elements in the shot is the difficult part. Yes anyone can take a picture. But that's what separates an artistic photographer from just any one clicking a camera. Remember our definitions? If someone studies photography, with the goal of producing aesthetically pleasing photographs, it in effect becomes art. When forced not to create on canvas something aesthetically pleasing, but arrange elements in front of you photography becomes work. It becomes art.

The Inevitable Algorithm of Life.

Would you my reader like to know the algorithm of life? Well today I'm offering just that. The price? Minutes of your time and the reading of this post. Yes that's it folks. Quite the deal we have here. Jump on it before its too late. Well you see, life is not like a freaking box of chocolates. If it were I would be quite happy. I rarely ever pick up a chocolate i dislike out of those variety boxes. Life is very much not that way. You see life is actually like a rollercoaster. The ups and downs. It always, and I don't care who disagrees with this statement, fools, it ALWAYS goes this way. You get to the top and things are going great. The sun is there, you are on top of your game, everything is seeming to go your way. Nothing can get you down, You are on top of the world! The negatives of life fade to the back as if transparent. And than just like that. They all come crashing to the foreground of everything. Yes that's right, you are descending the rail at the speed of light it seems. You come to the bottom and everything seems to plateau. Everything still sucks, but hey at least its steady.. And you inevitably begin to ascend again and things get better and better until once again you are at the top .. Awaiting the great inevitable fall once again. Sometimes the drop isn't as far as other times. But this is the algorithm of life. I've figured it out.