A feeling.

I had to.
I had to do it, that very night.
I had to do it, that very night -- I had to wander around that town, out in the night, out in the cold. Stopping and scribbling and hastily scrawling on white sheets of notebook paper, my fingers trying to outrun the cold that was grabbing them by their roots.

When I felt like I might stop, I moved.
Started again.

It happened a few times, more times than I can even be bothered to recall. And so, I do not bother. I focus more on the other things: On the frigidness of the air; on the light borrowed from unattended windowsills, creeping up to them as if I were tackily stealing a cooling pie. I focus on that which I had to do.

It got done. It really did. I felt something inside me that had been crashing around my subconscious for far longer than it ever should have; crying with a sound like the hollow echo of an incarcerated man, running his tin cup over the bars of his frigid cell. Keeping it trapped nearly ruined me. So I, I, I set it free. I had to.

It was in that action, that I remembered.
Everything.

I remembered who I was, in the words that clawed their way from me as if they had some manner of demonic compulsion. I gave those words everything, shoving my whole body into that unassuming collection of seven pages, the pages that were wrinkled and cold after the song of the night.
But still -- they shone.

Brightly.

Days like that are a wonder.

I don’t think it’s beyond the realm of possibility to say that sometimes, every once in a collection of whiles, we all have our days like that. Days of being wild, days of living in a way that doesn’t exactly burn a hole through the Earth, but still -- you know. Days that mean more, because they’ve done something. To your life. To your thoughts. To you.

One of those days might have occurred. Now.
Here, in this place. It might have occurred. It’s hard to know for sure, without the clarifying passes of time gone by to truly let me know. But right now, I’m in this scratchy chair, with John Danielle and his Goats of the Mountain crackling out of tiny laptop speakers; right now, I can feel it. I can feel wonder. The wonder of the day.

And for whatever reason, despite the way that things tend to happen, despite the way that people usually feel…the day appears to have continued, to have gone on. And on.
I wonder if I can feel?

I can.
I have to.
I have to, because, because…
Because something might be happening.

Something is happening.
To fuckery with all of the times before, when I didn’t know what was going on within myself, with all the times where the world seemed clear but was really lying through yellowed teeth; to hell with the lines that past experiences have drawn in the sand.
It rained, today. I laughed, today.
Something is happening.
It has to be.

I can feel it. I can feel the same twinges that happened within me that very afternoon, when I knew that I would have to stop my life in the evening, if only so I could find something new in the world of graphite and wood pulp. That day, I knew. I knew with such madness, that I could drive myself towards being the kind of man that I am today. Before then, I’d wanted it. That day?

I felt closer to it than I ever had before.
From the heart of that wonder, I found something in me. Something that I liked. Something that in a way, is alive, even though it’s invisible to the naked eye. Something that meant a change. Something that still means the world.

Yes.

There is wonder, here. And if you see wonder, wonder that you can hold with your hands and hear with your ears, wonder that crackles like a fireplace in a winter household…then you might not be able to do anything but let it warm you. When you feel like you might stop, you move. Let it start you again. Whether it be noon, night, or morning.
It’s beautiful to be in morning.

That’s where we are. We’re in a day that feels like morning, sun barely peeking over the edge of the horizon, clouds across the sky suddenly shimmering gold. You can look at many things, so many things in life. You can make a lot of choices. You can see a lot of things occurring everywhere. But when you see this this, you cannot deny it. It’s shining.

Brightly.

There’s a life to be lived here. Whatever that means, whatever that brings. Whatever the future holds. Something right now is happening, and that cannot be cast aside. It’s a beautiful thing.

A bolt of lightning strikes my heart, and I shiver as it leaves me cold.
But still -- I’m warm.

A sinful heart, a satisfied mind.

"After the thing went off, after it was a sure thing that America could wipe out a city with just one bomb, a scientist turned to Father and said, 'Science has now known sin.' And do you know what Father said?"
-- Cat’s Cradle


Hello there.

I am a person of this Earth.
I work 11 hours a day, 5 days a week. I take my coffee with milk, not cream, and I’m perfectly content with the notion of drinking it 3 times a day. I don’t smoke. I love my family. I love knowledge. I love my friends, and I have no problem with them calling me up at 1 in the morning to discuss their shattered emotional state, even if I happen to be driving down a darkened stretch of soul-swallowing highway at the time. I don’t like violence if it can be avoided. I love math, even though it hates me. I don’t drink. I believe in cold nights, and quiet mornings. I believe in the world.

And I am a sinner. Very much so.

For I have done things, many things…many things deemed somewhat immoral, many things deemed inadmissible in the face of the Sabbath. I’ve coveted, I’ve loathed. I’ve stolen, I’ve lied. I’ve looked through my eyes like they were shotgun barrels, aimed right at someone’s putrid heart, wishing for someone to call “Pull”.

I’ve caressed soft skin. I’ve been alive.
I am a sinner. And it is for that life, for the life of me, that I cannot understand why that is considered such a bad thing. Do you believe in sin?

Do you know it?
Or do you think that the world as a whole has moved beyond such archaic, dogmatic notions, bringing us into an era of something far more important: the notion of right, and the notion of wrong?

It’s an interesting question. Interesting, because it’s everywhere. Every second of the day, every moment locked into time. Haven’t you seen it in your daily life? Seen it in the actions of people you haven’t met, people that you sneer at as cruel and/or unusual? And yet, haven’t you also seen it in the very hands of all the people that you have ever known, ever loved, ever saw in the last blaze of afternoon sun? If you have been alive, eyes open, hands outstretched -- you have seen it. It’s alright, there’s no need to deny such things. You’ve seen it. Seen it in the people you care for. Seen it in the people you love. So now I must ask you: If you, who believes in the divine, if you truly believed in this concept, and understood what it is supposed to mean -- would you condemn them? Damn the people that you love? The people that you trust?
Do you understand it?

Do you understand that archaic notions supposedly govern our worldly actions, supposedly being the basis for a moral compass that affects the world at large, a divine presence taking all the credit for the good you do? Hm. Sins do exist.
They exist all around us. All the time, every day; every sweet moment that you wish you could distill, if only so that on days of fear and hardship you could put a single drop upon your tongue -- and let the chills run over you. We’re locked in it. We live with it. We’re made by it.

Right there, made from that initially sinfully -- beautifully -- carnal act, fingernails digging into backs and twisting hair, mouths moving anywhere they can, as long as they hold the hope of tasting sweet flesh -- kissingrubbingtouchingsweatingdrippingloving. That sweaty sweetness that is right down there at the base of the pedestal that makes up human nature. We deny it sometimes, but we all know that it is something to appreciate. To love. To need. And it is from that action, that we bring ourselves into the world.

That action that leaves some of us emblazoned with that scarlet “A,” for committing something which was wrong in some fashion, yes, but should not cause an otherwise decent human to be wholly shunned. To be disregarded. To be treated as if they were a beast. No cause for looking over at these people, and then shouting over at them with the first spark of blazing contempt: “MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH!” Demanding then that the ten-horned beast eat her flesh and burn her with fire.

No.
No.
No. That is not our world.
For ours is a world of sinners. All for one, one for all, the whole damn lot of us. Born of it, bred in it, know of it. Live with it. Except in other ways, we live by something else. Something less archaic, something decidedly more complicated. Because the world, our world…

Because our world is beyond sin.

Now, don’t mistake me; this isn’t a declaration of nihilism, or hedonism, or any sort of ism-type-thing that screams about doing whatever the fuck-balls you want, regardless of consequences to the people around you. No. Not selfishness, not denial, not a lack of anything. Within any given situation, there is a right, and there tends to be a goddamn galaxy of wrong; but those situations, they are changing, always changing, always being molded anew by the state of things. And such a malleable concept cannot be defined by something as singular and rigid as the construct of 'sin'.

Because the very notion of such a thing denies the good in us.
Truth, Life, Love. Right?

Right. Because we are. We are sinners, yes. And yet despite all things, Calvin was wrong; there is an underlying goodness to people, most people, and it is by that that we live and function. It's because of that that we choose to do well. Not for anything. Not for anything but ourselves, and our own natures. This is what we have, and this is what we work with, day after day. After all, the notion of the World having a solitary ethical construct is notable as an ideal; but it is by no means absolute. Meaning we follow it when we choose to. So the fact that it is followed at all, by anyone, anywhere across the globe: That means that something is right.

This is what we have. There is no true absolution, just as there is no true damnation -- there is merely life, and how we choose to live it. As well as live with it.
Hawthorne's unpardonable sinner be damned.

(rimshot)

Why am I saying this?
A few reasons. This website, aside from a handful of sporadic visitors that are directed here by way of forum links, is generally only viewed by people who I have met in person, who know me and might find me the slightest bit interesting. There are only two readers who I have never met in person, who still continue to come back to this place and read whatever nonsense this solitary fool has smashed out. One is in Oregon, and one is in Texas. So for them, the people who this place is designed for, I wanted to say something even slightly meaningful. Because time has passed on by, and although it is somewhat arbitrary, I noticed something. This is post number the 50th, for this particular corner of the intertron. And hey, why not have an anniversary of sorts? Still…
Why am I saying this?

Why unleash this armada of thoughts? Why point out that we are steeped in something, are part of something that is almost universally condemned? Why demand that the world stand up and be counted as something that moves on its own?

Because people need to remember that it does.
Because this is our home. And because our home, the world, isn’t in the best place right now.

The Doomsday Clock has once again adjusted its hands, moving us one “minute,” closer to that day of reckoning, of Revelations, of Ragnarök, of whatever you see fit to call that supposed End of Days. We’re quietly sitting in our homes as if they were foxholes, waiting for that whistling to come through the air, signifying our end. We want to atone.

Atone for our hubris, atone for our hate, atone for actions made during a time when we understood less of the scientific principles that governed our existence, not trusting the labcoats to guide us into the future. But you know what? They did.

They did, we did.
We’ve brought ourselves into our future, a little bit at a time. Into a world where not everyone is destroyed for the sins they’ve committed, but can indeed be punished for their true crimes. And we did it all as world of supposedly contemptible sinners. We brought ourselves into a future, which lets us know: The future is inherently a good thing. Built upon improvements, on newly discovered scientific principles to touch our lives.
In a manner of speaking, sinners create the future.

For the future is always evolving, the ashes of life made of our sin providing an opportunity to rise. Whether it be silently or violent, the burgeoning presence makes itself known, not dwelling upon the sins of the past, but seeing how life is now, and then taking what may be done with that to bring us into a place of change and wonder. Keep the sins of the father, I’ve got my own. Keep your damnation to yourself.
Cruciatus in crucem. Eas in crucem!

Yes, yes indeed. Looking over the woven tapestry that depicts the events of my life, I can see the individual threads, the ones that represent friends of mine. Real ones. Ones that I love and trust, that I would do anything for. I look at them, and I can see their sins. They all have them. Terrible and minute, things that you might not know them well enough to understand, but you may still appreciate the grand affect their sins had upon them. Upon the people around them. Yet even with such things, they are good and grand. And they are loved. That’s because it’s a part of us. It doesn’t divide, it unites, giving a common ground amidst the unmistakable differences between the brotherhood of men.

We have our faults. But we try to know what is right, try to know what is wrong, try to let that knowledge guide us past our personal transgressions into a place where we might see the future coming. Where we might still be alive, knowing that being sinners doesn’t immediately make us a pack of murdering cannibalistic rapists, but instead makes us entirely human.

There's truth in that, as well as ambiguity. And yes, foolishness as well.
But hey, it’s a new year, friends. We still have a ways to go to see it at its end. So let us walk our line, so that we may reach that other side -- just to see it begin again.

Happy New Year.

"He said, 'What is sin?'"