Reality

Someday I'm going to lose my fucking mind. It's an almost certainty for me. I think so goddamn much that I'm pretty sure the line that separates reality from whatever I have made up in my head is just going to blur to the point of disappearing. When it happens I think it will be similar to things you hear about kids going on acid trips and then never being able to come out. I don't need the acid. I think so much. Too much. At some point I'm pretty sure I'm just going to go too deep and get lost. Sometimes I honestly think I already have. I wonder if I didn't just make my whole life up. I joke about it sometimes but the truth is that I really mean it.

Sometimes this really bothers me but lately I've gotten some relief. I guess when I get down to the brass tacks of things it doesn't really matter if this is real life or if I'm locked inside my imagination while my actual body is curled up in a ball on the floor of a padded room or if we're all in the Matrix. Does it really matter? Honestly..

.. I'm going to start talking about existentialism again so brace yourself....

Is my life really any more or less absurd if I'm living it for real or if it's all just an elaborate dream? What real difference is made? No matter what my thought process always comes back to the weird place where I'm hanging out right now. I am a person who embraces the idea that there is no master plan. I think life is an accident. I think all of the ingredients just happened to be at the right place at the right time and here we are. No plan. No direction. No meaning. No nothing. Just us and the world (which may or not be a fictional storyland made up in our heads or a new map on WOW).

Especially lately it all just seems like a big joke. Not like a cruel joke or something that doesn't matter. But legitimately funny. People running around like their lives matter trying to make sure they get everything just right and fussing over the proper way to live their lives. People sitting at their computers typing out convoluted drivel about reality and the absurd like it even matters. In the end what are we gaining? What are we trying to prove? Why so serious?

This kind of thinking and questioning leads one down a dangerous path. It's proven near fatal for me a couple of times. I've sat down before and come to the conclusion that life is just a big game with no winners. On top of that it's a pain in the ass. So why should I even play? Then I realized I had the option to quit if I wanted to and like I've said before I've ended up wrestling with the idea of suicide.

I guess though the one thing that saved me in all of this is something I've talked about before: embracing the absurdity. It's hard to do. Whether you're religious or not we're all taught from a very young age that the reason to do anything is because you get something out of it. You finish your dinner so you can have your dessert. You do good in school because you get a grade. You go to work because you get a paycheck. It's as if that shit actually matters. We're all working toward these ends that, once they come, aren't worth shit. At the same time we end up missing out on what matters. I guess what I'm saying is that if we're always working toward something then our lives are pretty shallow because when that something comes it's just not going to matter. Money is paper. Degrees are paper. Grades are letters. There is one certainty in life: You're going to die. When you die all of your pride and sense of purpose and achievement will be buried with you. What you pass on to future generations doesn't really matter because humanity is just waiting for a reason to push the button to eradicate itself. Eventually all of this will just be a blip in time.

Wow Ted. You're really a ray of fucking sunshine today.

I'm honestly not trying to be a downer. Accepting that life is death and that most of this is just a big joke has been really eye opening for me. Someday none of us will be here. Someday our accomplishments will mean jack shit. Someday after we're all dead and gone all of our money and diplomas will break down and be reclaimed by the earth. Someday after the next evil super-villain builds some new crazy bomb that can blow up everything in one foul swoop everything around you will be a pile of rubble. I honestly believe if I had the ability to live through that mess I'd look at the carnage and think back to May 15, 2008 when I sat and watched a fountain dance around in Clinton Square in Syracuse. I'd think back to school and how good it was to just learn new things. I'll be proud of myself for managing to lose every diploma or award I've ever received. I'd think back to life and it would probably slap me in the face how good it was... especially on days when I was with my friends driving nowhere just for the sake of driving nowhere.

Yeah that's right. After all this insanity talk this is just another rant about not taking things for granted and making sure to be awake in the here and now. The truth is that I really think that without meaning and without God and without all of the pressure we put on ourselves to do something we are free to just live and bask in the ridiculousness of it all. This is ridiculous. And it's also very beautiful. Anything you can do to remind yourself of that fact is time well spent. I think people wrapped up in trying to figure out how to get where they are going are stupid. Because where you're going is to a graveyard or a little tin can. I can guarantee you that. Worry less about where you're going and more about where you are. For the last 5o years humanity has owned power that we don't have the resources to control (I'm still shaken up by atomic cafe. Watch it). That means that a handful of people have the ability to completely erase humanity in a few swift movements. The sun will not burn forever. Disasters strike every day. This could all end at any minute and there is no way for us to predict or control any of it. I know it seems strange but that thought is very reassuring for me because it reminds me not to worry so much because in the end there's nothing I can do about it except dance while I've still got feet. And whether the music is real or made up in my head? Yeah. Don't care.


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Catharsis

We just played a show in Oswego that, as far as I'm concerned was the best we've had in over a year. I'm exhausted but I need to write this out before I fall asleep. This band, for whatever reason, helps me cope. It's a forum where I can say what's on my mind and express what's stewing in my guts. It's where I can take off some of my armor and some of my costume and just be. It doesn't happen all the time. Sometime I'm a dickhead with a microphone performing. But when it's good it's when I can just shed my outer layers and be naked in a way. That's what I felt tonight.

I've had friends come up to me in the past and tell me that when I'm playing in this band or when I'm saying something serious between songs they can't take me seriously because they know what I'm like in every day life. "That's just not you" they say. I've got news. You don't know who the fuck I am. I walk around every day of my life wearing my armor. We all do. We'd be stupid not to. The world isn't safe for people to walk around exposed all the time. There are certain times when I can take it all off and just be. When all things are aligned right and the atmosphere is just so, this is my tool for connecting with things.

It takes all my strength to not to tell lies... not to sugar coat things for your liking. Some days I can actually get to a point where what I'm doing is more important than how you see it and a lot of the time it occurs in this context. It is really frustrating to me when people I consider friends don't get that. On nights like tonight my ears ring so loud that I can't sleep and I get to lay in it and feel good about what I've done. I get to feel good about doing something good for myself and maybe even doing something good for somebody else in the process. I get to feel like I'm not completely full of shit. Please don't take that away from me.


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LSD and a bowling ball

A couple of years ago we were on tour and we ended up having a couple of shows with a band called Robot Has Werewolf Hand. Just a bit of trivia - we grew up with the drummer of this band and without his influence, Another Breath would have never existed. Anyway, we ended up having a show with them at Pirate's Cove in Allentown, PA which was great because it meant that we could play a show together and then all hang out afterward since we were all sleeping at the house where the show took place.

At some point in the evening someone found a bowling ball in the basement. The question came up, "what's at the center of a bowling ball?" Nobody really knew. The best we could come up with was that it either had a hard core or it was hollow. We had nothing better to do so Robot's guitarist Justin found someone that lived at the house and asked permission to crack their bowling ball open. It was decided that the goal of the evening would be to crack the bowling ball open to see what's inside. Around the same time it was decided by a couple of the guys in Robot that they would eat a couple tabs of acid.

At first Justin found a hacksaw and figured with enough elbow grease he could just saw right to the center of the thing but once the acid took hold the project took a new direction. The work stopped and a conference was held to determine exactly how one cracks open a bowling ball. They decided they would climb up to the roof and drop it. It didn't even leave a scratch. They decided they would fill the holes with m80s we had picked up the day before and try to blow it open. Again, nothing. I still don't know where it came from but at one point I went outside to see someone wailing into the bowling ball with a pickax. It made a couple of dents but it just didn't want to budge.

After assaulting the bowling ball every way possible they had run into a dead end. They brought it inside, put it on the kitchen table, and stared at it. They sized up their common enemy in silence for a good 10-15 minutes before someone spoke up, "We've worked so hard and we haven't even begun to dig into the surface of this thing. Something this unwilling to be cracked must be protecting something incredible. I bet there's a treasure at the center of this bowling ball." Everyone's eyes got wide as they realized the raw potential that they were sitting on. There could be anything at the center of this unrelenting ball.

Then the conversation started. It was a long time ago so I can't remember the exact time order but I think by this point the LSD had taken its full grip. With that in mind I believe all actual conversation had stopped and the guys had actually started talking to each other through sock puppets they had made somewhere along the way. It doesn't really matter but watching grown men with socks on their hands talk to each other only through said sock puppets in high pitched voices about what could possibly be at the center of a bowling ball was my favorite part of the evening. I just wanted to try to share that with you.

I can't remember the specifics of what was said but I do know the gist of it which was this: They knew there was something big at the center of the ball. At first they thought it was some sort of treasure but they quickly decided that they were thinking way too small. This ball had withstood falls from heights exceeding 10 feet, explosions, saws, and all forms of verbal abuse. No substance known to man should be able to take that kind of punishment. Therefore, there must be magic inside.... or better yet, dark matter. "Or a turkey sandwich!," yelled Justin. Probably not a turkey sandwich. Most likely it was dark matter.

After this conversation everything changed. This was no longer a fun little outing to figure out if a bowling ball is hollow or not. This was a mission to get the dark matter. They disappeared into the basement and vowed not to come up until they got what they were looking for. At that point the amusement had kind of worn off for those of us who were sober so we found something else to do. I think we left the house for a while because I remember coming back and seeing Steve from Robot sitting in the living room kind of zoning out and staring out the window or something. I said, "Hey Steve, what happened to the bowling ball? Did you guys give up?" He didn't even look at me. He just raised his hand and with the sock puppet that was still covering it motioned toward the kitchen and said "Kitchen table." I looked over at the kitchen table and sure enough there was a bowling ball split in two halves. I was astounded that they managed to get it open and asked how they did it. Once again the sock puppet looked at me and said, "Hack Saw." I guess they just went in the basement and kept sawing until it split.

There was no dark matter in the bowling ball. No magic. No turkey sandwich. It looked exactly how you might expect it to... kind of like the picture I posted with this entry. Just a lot of hard fibrous plastic wood. Those guys had worked their asses off for hours and although we ended up with a funny tour story there was nothing to show for it. What's more, the bowling ball was now useless. In the end, after all the work they were doing, after all of the exciting things they thought would happen if the could just manage to split this fucking thing open, after all of the sheer obsession, they ended up with an irreparable bowling ball and the exhaustion that came from all of the work they did.

So why am I telling you this? Other than telling you what I think is a funny story. What's the point of this? The point is that I want to tell you about how my friends wrecked their bowling ball and found out there was no dark matter inside. See, the bowling ball wasn't meant to be cracked open and understood. It's for rolling at pins and sometimes for throwing out car windows. I guess sometimes that isn't good enough. The truth is and always will be, though, that a bowling ball is what it is. Regardless of whether you know what's inside of it. I want you to know what happens when someone gets their mind going a thousand miles an hour and decides that they need to know what's inside a bowling ball. That way you don't have to wreck yours and you can still bowl with it. It's just that simple.


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