A chaotic sequence of choices.

You see things while you’re alive.
You say things because you’re alive.
Because you can.

It’s dark and hot, in this place where I sit.
The window is cracked just enough to let the sounds of those evil, evil crickets slip in here, letting them sing their songs before they hop on in and smother me with hundreds of writhing bodies. Or not. The air is hot, tonight. Hot enough to drive the sweat out of my forehead and my chest, mingling with my hairs in a special way, helping me to concentrate. I appreciate it, this sweat. The kind of sweat that beads, the kind embodied by enormous bulbous drops of salt; the sweat that doesn’t just cover one with a light film of discomfort in the heat of a mid-afternoon sun. The real sweat. The sweat that helps you think.

The sweat that makes you feel real.
That isn’t what this is about. As far as these things go, it’s really quite gratuitous. Even for me. But still.

It’s dark in here.
And as it is known to do, the world has once again changed. But not here. The air is still hot. The world is still dark. I’m sure that the sun is going to rise. But still -- things are different. Things have changed, in the way that they do.
Because they can.

You get to a point where your world has changed, but not for you. Not because of you, and not in any way that really, truly affects you. But it does. It does. It does. It does, because of the people that you know. Because of the thoughts that you have, because of the feelings that you feel. Because you’re sitting in the dark, listening to quiet music play, letting the sweat bead upon your forehead. It affects you simply because it can.

Because you want them to.
Because you’re alive.
Because you’re only human.

And like a human, you get lost and confused.
It’s a problem, in a way. You see things that aren’t yours, people who are separate from you. Ideas that weren’t made in your honor, concepts that were formed for a purpose entirely separate from your agenda. Gadgets and gizmos aplenty, lives that aren’t yours, loves that aren’t yours. You see pain that isn’t your own, pain that isn’t stabbing into your gut.

We see things separate from our immediate selves, parts of the world that concurrently are a part, and are not a part of the world that you live in. What they are to you, how they exist to you, around you -- that is simply a choice. Always. Always.

Chaos and Choice.
Way of the world. Right?

Do you take your world in, or do you let it pass you by?
What does it take, to be a real person in public? To be a man? To be yourself?
To be the kind of a person that is respected, that is loved? That people see clearly, with eyes that don’t turn away as they try to conceal silent mirth?

What does it take be accepted?
And even if you knew -- would you choose to do it?
We hide our grief. We hide our fear, we hide our everything. We clam up and keep silent, letting ourselves seem stoic and weighted in the face of the everyday. Because after all, you can.

“The less words you say, the more god-like you are.” Such a thing has been noted as of late, by a friend of mine. She said that those who are less inclined to speak are those who have the most to say. It was said by her, it was said by many. That old image of the Man-With-No-Name, cheroot gripped firmly within the space of his teeth, spilling out more smoke than syllables. Standing tall in the burning sun. Not sweating. Not sweating nearly enough.

Because he isn’t one of us.
Because…because he isn’t human.

Talking makes us human, just another pack of cheap crooks with gaudy patter.
Which is alright. We might not know just what to say, we might stammer over our sentences and lose our meaning in the shuffle. We might alienate and discombobulate, making people decide to declare your madness without knowing your real thoughts. They certainly do it in regards to me. But it’s alright. It happens, and it’s still happening. And it will keep happening.

Because people are flawed.
Because people are trying.
Because people keep going.

Moving and moving, doing our things, interacting with people and seeking out our dreams. Always doing what we can, doing what we must; doing what we can with whatever suddenly THUDS! into the realm of our reality like a corpse falling out of the sky. Things happen, and we move with them. Move around them. Be water, my friend.

Because you can.
Because that’s what people do.
Because that’s what we are.

Because that’s the very best we can do. We take what we have, and we make what we can of it. We make our choices, wrong or right, and we live with them, whether or not we find ourselves able to stand by them down the traveled road. They’re what we’re given, and they’re what we do. Always. Always.

Because we have to.

We have to see things, have to let them help us live.

Because it isn’t it easy.
It isn’t easy, seeing things happening to people who aren’t you, people who are in situations because of the choices that they made and the worldly chaos that surrounds the choices to begin with. It isn’t easy being a part of that. A part of something that you aren’t a part of, but you are, because of the way you chose to become a part of something outside of your world. And as it stands, it becomes your world. And it makes sense, even though it’s all completely ridiculous.
“Nothing means anything, unless you want it to.” Way of the world.

People have been known to become cynical because of thoughts like that. They go straight to that extreme, losing their trust in the folks that they see around, because they don’t know what it is that they should trust; and that means that they should trust nothing. Cynicism carries within it an inherent absence of hope, one that people almost seem to wear as a badge. Truly, that is just another rutting shame.

Because there are people. Good people.
Because we can be skeptics, and still see a chance.
Because we have a choice.

Chaos and Choice. The stuff that life is made of. Right?

How confusing. Because it is. Always.
Because it has to be. Because we built our beautiful somethings out of nothing, and we made the nothing something by choosing to declare it so. And it works. It has to work. Because because because because because, because of the wonderful things it does.

I’m still sweating. I imagine I smell rather ripe by now.
Still sweating, still sitting in the dark. Still trying to choose what to think too much about, with the friends who have made choices, with the actions that that have taken place around them, with the discontent and the hurt that may or may not exist. With the things that may have been obvious, if they had chosen to see them. With the things that occurred, because things always occur. Still feeling real.

Because that’s the way life is.
Because it’s complicated.
Because life, life is beautiful.

And yes, I’m affected by things that don’t affect me, because I have to be, because of the person I’ve become and the people who’ve chosen to help me become that way. There’s absolutely nothing that I may do, nothing I can see within the realm of our chaotic world that could make something right. Because it’s not my world. Even though it is. Even though they’re part of me, they’re very far away.

They usually are. So many things, so many parts, so many droplets. So many realities. So many choices. Whether writing this was the right choice or not, it was still a choice. Always. Because ideas shape our choices, and words shape our ideas. Because that’s what people do. Because people shape our world.

Basically…I don’t know. Not really, not nearly enough.
But I had to say something. About chances, about choices.
Because I’m alive.

“A sudden or capricious idea”

Well.
You're bored. That's how it is, on and on, so on and so forth.
So.

Look at me, look at you, look at us.

Look at the place where we’re standing; look at the places where we’ve been.
Look at the people that we know; look at the people who have long since moved on. Look at the sky when it’s bright blue; look at the sky when it turns pale gray. Look at the time of day; look at the time of night. Look at the ways that you’ve changed; look at the ways that you know you’re still the same. Look at the things that you know right now; look at the things that you have a chance to know sometime in the future.

Look at the memories.
Look at the now.

Look at the gifts that you’ve been given; look at the joy that you’ve been graced with. Look at the people who you wish would own your time; look at the people who you wish would leave you the fuck alone. Look at the sun when it wanes; look at the sun when it opens up the horizon. Look at the things that you want; look at the things that you know you can never have.

Look at the better.
Look at the worse.

Look at the crazy man who wanders around seeking change or violence; look at the way he sleeps and at the face he carries. Look at the ground moving beneath your feet; look at the ground when you’re standing still. Look at the veins pumping underneath your skin; look at the blood oozing out from that cut on your finger. Look at the way your breath steams up a window in the cold; look at the way the steam heats up your breath when you’ve made it hot. Look at the flesh; look at the bone.

Look at the people you’ve built up.
Look at the people you’ve laid bare.

Look at faces that you know you’ll always remember; look at the faces that vanish into the crowd. Look at the fish swimming in the Adriatic sea; look at the animals running across the dry land of the Serengeti. Look at our modern tendency to make haste; look at all the waste that the haste leaves in its wake. Look at the times where you felt a cool breeze chilling the sweat that gathered on your back; look at the times where the exertion you put forth made the sweat exist in the first place.

Look at the moments where it all seems clear.
Look at the vast stretches of time where nothing ever seems to make sense.

Look at those that you love with everything you have and more; look at those who you hate with a seething derision that seems as if it were endless. Look at the spittle gathering in the corners of your mouth; look at phlegm that you just hacked out onto a tissue. Look at the dreams; look at the realities. Look at the Earth; look at the space around the Earth.

Look at the Mondays.
Look at the Fridays.

Look at the words written by the wise and the knowing; look at the words of the young and the foolish. Look at the books that right now clutter up your desk without being read; look at the books that clutter up your mind after you read them over and over again.

Look at your being alive.
Look at the everything and the nothing of the world.

Look at your life.
Yea.