Straying the Course...

weaned from the sun
dropped on the ground
feet falling in step
an army on the march
crushing my baked cookie house
food for ants dodging boots
arms in cadence
feet in measure
rows and columns of man grown crops
planted armlength apart
never touching
never trying
ever following the row ahead
I dart avoiding hollow bodies
breathing to the beat
their minds flow in rhythm
learning to sidestep
growing elusive
kick them
trip them
it no longer entertains
becoming the linear opposite
reversed flow
twice the progress
peering down the line
foreign foot matches my own
stop and get trampled
move and be the same
high time to leap

Two Thousand Dead...

A mean of twenty
decked in gray, tan and mauve
dowsed in red turning brown

draped with linen
of red white and blue
forbidden for most eyes to see

A young passion
misled and abused
by beasts so hungry and shrewd

And brothers and sisters
to frightened to speak
let crimes continue unstopped

Believing the lies
veiling the windows
the parents silently weep

The wicked endure
at the head of the train
of gravy black and crude

Gold is in motion
from left hand to right
each weasel steals a taste

Puppets lead children
and priests urge them on
to spill Ishmaelian blood

A dragon is stirring
in the middle land
rousing to life once more

Its fire is growing
and soon may consume
food of eagles out west

With claws in the desert
and beaks in the ground
these birds notice naught

Gases and fumes
from poisonous wells
scalds the air and corrupts the mind

The seas start raging
and reason dissolves
pressure and friction soon peak

To prevent this fate
man must arise
and remove the addict's syringe

And silence the pulpit
naive to sins
of wardens to babies unborn

For god as a pawn
upon the snake's board
is exploited ever more

But its not too late
nor is it too hard
to end this sinister game

Two thousand dead
and more on the way
we haven't an instant to lose

Obscured by Clouds...

Damn, I've smoked too much. It's been so long since the last time, I could be losing my tolerance. Why did I accept that hitter when I know I can't handle it? Because, I can't deny that I love this roller coaster ride. Best option is to not think of what's to come and I'll be fine.

What's that buzzing? No doubt its the vibration of the car from the wind. My senses are unusually acute right now. I think I can hear my heart beating in my ears. Funny how that sound seems to disappear during sobriety, but I never tend to miss it.

Wait that's not my heart, it's coming from behind me. The capillaries are near the back of the ear. I think I'm freaking out. Maybe it's a car behind us. I have to try to look inconspicuous just in case it's a cop, not too fast or slow or jerky. Focus on the finesse of the motion.

No one there, we're alone on the highway. Should I ask the others if they hear it? Bad idea, they'll ostracize me as being the first to wig out and this whole trip will be a paranoid spiral into the depths of humiliation. I'd rather just ride this out and hope for the best.

I think I just heard a guitar cord. There it is again. Coming from behind you, I'm an idiot! Its the speakers. Keep listening, pay attention to the words. The messages are the strongest while on herb...

Still no words. Time must be slowing to a crawl. The present is devouring the past and future. Maybe this is all just one long present. What's the difference between remembering back to the last time I was stoned in a car, being stoned in a car and anticipating being stoned in a car? Nothing.

One thing is, the older I get the better I get at foreseeing and remembering. But I'm only in my mid twenties. They say a person reaches their mental processing peak about then. Think about it. Einstein was 26 when he came up with special relativity. Richard Feynman was 23 working on the Manhattan Project. Galois was 19 when he came up with group theory.

But what happens after the peak? Do you become skeptical of the new truths like Einstein, ride out your intellectual celebrity like Feynman or simply die early like Galois?

Maybe the spirit within jumps ship. Sure if a part of me had a chance to abandon this world of physical limitations and the cognitive restraints of time and space, you better bet that part of me won't hesitate to jump. To hell with the future of this pitiful heap of decaying mass... No, no, no, can't think like that. I may never get to jump ship.

The way I look at myself will determine whether I'm happy or not. I can force myself to enjoy anything, why not the rotting away of my body and mind? Damn, I hope this refer isn't speeding up the decay. I bet it damages the body while expanding the mind. There is always a give and take to everything. That's Karma for you, the good old tit-for-tat.

I think that this whole Karma thing is just a by product of time. Sure, it's like that Markov chain idea, where each event is only dependent upon the immediate precedents, and that long term probabilities mean nothing. So the eventual chances counteracting one another may happen but also might not. So Karma is a probability not a given.

God, this pot has me reeling. I have to be careful, with this state of mind it could be very easy for the soul to unwind and slip over the fine line and not even know you're trapped on the other side. But, I can't be too careful now, otherwise I'll get paranoid and my soul will tighten up into point, resist every comfort and doubt everything and everyone.

I've got to relax. Remember that people are good... for the most part anyway. Speaking of people, why hasn't anyone in the car spoken yet? Well, there dancing through their minds just as I am. I wonder if everyone thought of the exact same thing at the same time. It happens sometimes where a whole group of people are in tune to the same wavelength; three or four people say and do the same thing at the same time. We all suffer from the human condition and are bound to have identical symptoms simultaneously.

But the whole range of behavior is understandable. I've been acquainted with a variety of people from all different backgrounds, and they all start out roughly the same. The subtle changes in each environment accumulate over time and are responsible for the vast continuum of human behavior.

I get to thinking at moments like this if we are all the same mind, just different bodies. Then when we die do we get redistributed evenly amongst all the mind? Can we choose where we go? Is there any residual impression of what we were? No doubt, this big old knot we all have tied up in our heads prohibits us from ever seeing past ourselves to where we were before and where we will go.

Shit, my heart's pounding. Am I dying? Maybe this whole trip has nothing to do with the drugs. Maybe this is enlightenment and the soul is about to jump ship and the body will return to the earth. Maybe this is what everyone goes through right before they die, only some get the express route to enlightenment. Rather I'm just gradually dying.

Stop thinking like that! I keep ignoring the power of affirmation. If you believe something enough, your subjective experience will eventually come into accordance. It's no different than the power of prayer.

I've thought long and hard about that phenomenon and am quite certain that the mechanics behind it mesh with contemporary science. Its that whole quantum tunneling thing combined with the path of least resistance. This means that an event will occur more readily if a observer is ready to witness it. So by getting my mind ready to witness an event I prime my neurons to observe that event and propagate from my retina until the signal dies in my cerebral depths. So this whole relay of observation compounds the strength of the power of affirmation. Meaning that if I believe something with every fiber of my being, having even the nerves connected to the muscles at the base of every hair on my body primed and ready for an event, then that event has a much higher likelihood of occurring. But we consciously only have a limited control over this mental power. We are conditioned to believe in certain restrictions in the world. For instance the fragility of the body...

My skin feels hot. My hands are clammy. I think I may be losing this high. Well, it was fun while it lasted. For a while there I thought my head would explode, or at least I would end up passing out from a seizure induced by brain fever. Ha! Brain fever, I haven't heard that term since the last Dostoevsky novel I read. Maybe I have brain fever, or rather a mild case of schizophrenia (people make the mind much more complicated than they need to live), I have many of the symptoms: disruption in cognition, loss of temporal perception, inability to distinguish the self, fixation on delusions, and inability to concentrate on any one thing. I'd like to thank my psychology teacher for her rigorous teaching of the DSM-IV.

The most profound symptom during this trip so far has been the loss of time. For a while there I didn't know if I was thinking about how this episode might be, actually living through it, or recalling it at some later time. It's probably the last one.

Blind Past to the Social Caste...

Poets commissioned to fill a role
To Convince the doubters amongst the elite
By bluring with words and southing flow
The scandals that once brought people to their feet

These cultured mercenaries of spite
Mock with sharp tongues of venom
Those that still stand up to fight
Against their opulent sultan

But sheep tend to stray from every flock
And these underlings remain beside the shepherd
No voice to be heard, their principles rocked
A stain to their past, a generation's bastard.

With eyes on today
They hasten to be
The star on display
Despite what they see

Force of Consciousness...

According to physics there are three or four forces at play in the universe. Three if they are comfortable with the combination of the electromagnetic force with the weak atomic, but if the person is not confident with the relationship between the photon and the W or Z boson, then they uphold the four forces. I would like to propose another force.

As you probably predicted from the title the proposed force is that of consciousness. One might consider this force ridiculous, for what evidence do I have that supports the addition of another force in the universe. It appears to be such a bold claim that no physicist would take me seriously. My evidence is irrefutable and has consistently stood up to comprehensive and exhaustive experimental testing.

What is this testing that proves that consciousness is a force? To answer that I must explain the experiment...

EXPERIMENT
Create a vacuum in which to shoot a single photon toward a beam splitter (any dichroic mirrored prism will do). Place a photomultiplier a distance from the beam splitter and connect the photomultiplier to a counter. Shoot a single photon into the beam splitter and record which photomultiplier will receive the photon. With the beam splitter the photon has a 50:50 chance of reaching either photomultiplier. This however doesn't occur because the photon will consistently be received by the photomultiplier located closer to the beam splitter. This will happen every time. No matter which direction from the beam splitter you place the photomultiplier, the result will always favor the closer of the two.

So what does this mean? This is a phenomena intrinsic of wave particle duality. Since the beam splitter divides the wave in two, the closer of the two photomultipliers will encounter the wave first. But the wave would be equally halved, so wouldn't each photomultiplier detect the photon? No because the act of the first photomultiplier detecting the wave transforms the entire wave into a single particle. This detection acts as a funnel to channel the dispersed energy of the wave into a single point of interaction. This interaction is analogous to observation, or a behavior of consciousness.

From a higher perspective it would appear that the observation itself attracts the photon, much like a massive body is attracted to another or how a positively charged atom is attracted to a negatively charged one. In other words this phenomenon cannot be distinguished from that of a force. So if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

The location of energy particles (ie. photons, gravitons, gluons, etc...) cannot be determined unless an interaction takes place (this is rigorously explained and tested by the uncertainty principle). The interaction itself acts as the funnel to collect all the possibilities of where the particle of energy MAY BE to a location where it IS. The interaction, or rather observation of interaction, becomes the guiding force of particle locality, and in fact makes the world concrete and distinguishable. If it weren't for the force of consciousness, this world would be empty (or at best an ambiguous haze).

Every force influences particles according to the path of least resistance. Meaning that everything in nature is lazy and would rather do nothing than anything, unless acted upon by a force. Since these waves are cascading throughout the universe, it would require influence to channel these waves to a single point. This influence results in an observation of an interaction (ie. photon making a mark on photographic paper, light hitting a cone in the retina, etc...). Consciousness is the force wielding the influence to make a wave into a particle. The potentiality of consciousness determines how a wave will become a particle. Just like in the experiment described above, the photon was consistently detected by the closer photomultiplier because the photon would have had to travel farther and work harder to make it to the other. So since both time and space take effort to traverse, the photon, from sheer laziness, will be attracted to the closest receiver.

So the questions that I would like to have answered is how this force can be magnified, enhanced or manipulated...

At Least We Weren't Robbed...

I awoke with a pounding headache. I must have forgotten to down a couple of cups of water before I went to sleep. I tried to force myself back to sleep, hoping that another hour or two of slumber would wipe the pain from the back of my head. No chance. I hurt too bad to sleep, not to mention it was really bright in the room.

I looked around. The drapes were wide open and the screen from the window was beside a chair. I remembered talking about partying on the roof of this hotel the night before. I tried to scan my memory but was only greeted with a searing pain. Thinking is out of the question right now, I thought to myself.

I get out of bed quietly and went to the bathroom and then to the sink to try to drown the pain in my head. Looking at the beds I noticed the other two stirring. "Damn, its seven o'clock," one said. And the other, "what happened last night." I told him I had no idea, the other said, "At least we weren't robbed." I chuckled and nodded.

I noticed that I was still dressed in the clothes I wore to the wedding reception last night, except I was missing a shoe. I started to search for the other and found it deep under the bed next to the remote for the television. I came out with both.

The television had been on the whole time with the channel tuned to the home shopping network. I decided to change the channel to the sports station to find out how the games that I missed last night turned out. I tried to watch but I couldn't bring myself to follow the conversation of the anchors.

My eyes caught sight of the miniature coffee maker and I anxiously made the two cup pitcher. The other two can fight for the other cup, I thought to myself. It seemed like that was the way things were going, everybody fighting not to become the third wheel, although I felt like it most of the time. I avoided that feeling by going my own way and if the others wanted to accompany me I wouldn't treat them as anything but equals. I rarely got the same courtesy in return.

Again, the roommate asked if either of us remembered anything from the night before. He walked to the window and noticed footprints on the roof. "We must've jumped out the window," he said. The other roommate lying on the bed didn't respond but kept watching the television.

I poured my coffee, used a rationed amount of powdered cream and blend of sugar and its substitute. I savored the caffeine acting as an ignition to my brain. I started to feel normal again.

I walked over to the window beside the other roommate and noted the footsteps that speckled the dusty rooftop. They seemed to lead right to the edge of the roof beside a 3 story drop to the asphalt parking lot below. "It looks like someone leaped from the roof last night; maybe one of us is dead," I said jokingly. Neither laughed.

The one on the bed said, "the good thing is that we all got back from the reception safely and none of us were robbed." I started to notice the theme of his statements and checked for my wallet in my back pocket. Nothing there, but I wasn't concerned. I was amongst friends and we tend to look out for each other.

The roommate on the bed said we should go to the complementary breakfast being served down stairs. So we all put on our shoes, I grabbed a key and headed out the door. On the way down we were passing a couple that both kept looking at us conspicuously from the corners of their eyes. One roommate announced to them that he didn't remember anything from the previous night and asked them if they had any clue as to what happened. The furtive glancing man unconvincingly told us that he had no idea, without even stopping down the hallway.

We all shrugged and continued to the staircase. We arrived at the lounge where breakfast was being served and found an incredibly long line. A woman in her thirties passed by and murmured under her breath, "party animals".

Looking confused, one roommate asked, "what the hell did we do last night?" I shook my head and shrugged and the other roommate said, "don't worry about it; we're all alive and nobody's missing anything."

"What's the latest memory you have of last night?" the former roommate asked. The latter said, "the last I remember is you," nodding at me, "with your arm around somebody's shoulder joking around." I thought back and didn't remember any of that and thought to myself that I'm not the type to put my arm around anyone since I'm usually not that touchy feely, but disregarded it since I was drinking and often act randomly in such situations.

The former roommate said, "I wonder if we were all drugged." neither of us responded because by that time we were at the buffet table. We all grabbed our plates and silverware and stacked biscuits, eggs, sausage and hash browns on our plates. I grabbed another cup of coffee and stocked up on creamer and sugar.

There were no tables available in the lounge so we had to go up to the room to eat. The roommates were waiting for me in the hallway, since I was the only person to bring a key. We hurried upstairs to our room and devoured our food.

I noticed the roommate with the theme drinking his coffee black. I offered him a creamer and he declined saying he preferred black coffee. The conversation was scarce and television was boring.

The black coffee drinker said we should get on the road soon. The other called and made arrangements to play golf, hinting several times to me seeing if I would join him. I told him I had work to do later on (which wasn't a false excuse).

We all started getting ready. The one going golfing, while packing his stuff, said "I can't believe that none of us remembers anything from yesterday." The black coffee drinker said, "it really doesn't matter if we did since we're all alright and nobody was robbed."

Right then I found my wallet under my jacket on the table. I put on my jacket and made sure I had my keys and music player. For curiosity sake I opened my wallet. I had brought two hundred dollars with me. I remembered spending almost a hundred on booze, cigarettes and food. I brought the rest as flight money just in case I had the need to find my way to a bus and back home. But that money was gone.

I had been robbed.

¿Dónde está Guillermo?

Has he had enough? Has the straw finally brought down the camel. I can understand why its all too much. This ball of shit wrapped in cellophane is just oozing in the putrid stench of the filth that fills it. There are too many people poking holes in this shitball, that anybody trying to plug them just gets covered in shit. So if someone has any threshold for punishment, they'll eventually give up. That is unless one is a masochist like me, then they just tolerate the shit while they work towards that non-existent and idealic reality they hope to bring about through futile efforts and marginal influence.

I am well aware of the current reality, but would prefer to believe in one with less filth, less corruption, less pollution, and more truth. I guess that makes me part of the problem since I don't honor the truth and would rather imagine a purer world than what it is.

Maybe the problem is that too many people have a consistent and similar warped perception of the world. If everybody was allowed to develop their own warped model of their environment, then the collective influence of the conception would cancel since all randomness averages to zero. So if we have a billion people imagining a certain reality, then it would only take time before that reality comes to fruition.

Look at our present shitball. We have these shitheads as figureheads of a whole cultural ethic that at one point in history burned and tortured people who denied their warped concept of reality. These fanatics pay no heed to what is right or wrong, because they have a book that defines their warped rules, and if something isn't in that rule book then it just a load of shit.

This book also states that their game has no end, so why not steal everybody else's points. They can also train players to be your pawns and have them mine points for them. They develop a pyramid of shit, supporting their warped ideology and farming for more shitheads to supply points in their game and further support the pyramid.

And there is no toppling the piles of shit within a lifetime. So no matter how hard you try to fix this shitball, you'll never see the fruits of your labors. The most you can do is hope to plant a seed that will live on beyond your years. Even then you have to be subtle enough to slink past the shitheads.

They are starting to realize that they have to be clever in order to rule the shit they claim as theirs. They've monitored and controlled the flow of shit from every orifice, feeding little mushrooms a steady diet of shit and darkness. With such nutrition they'll never grow tall enough to see, but that is the intent of the shitheads...

But I'm getting way off course. Where did he go? Is he fighting a growing insurgency in Iraq so that he won't be required to fight Iran later on? Has he moved to a shack in the Canadian countryside to escape the reach of the shitheads? Is he renting a room in the slums as he writes tracts to slowly try to topple the piles of shit? Has he contained his aversion and made a promise to himself to wield his power for good when he reaches a position of influence? Did he realize that all those actions are equally ineffective in making a difference and just give up all hope? Or is he taking a break, continuing his education and holding off the battle until he feels more up to it? Who knows...

Nothing would surprise me.

Gas Guzzling by Necessity...

Speaking as a concerned member of the global body, I am finding it hard to act in accordance with what is good for the environment. I have been wanting for some time to be more fuel efficient with my traveling. Currently, I go through 17 gallons of gas a week and travel a little over 300 miles doing so. This 17 gallons costs me around $50.

I have been keeping a close eye on hybrid vehicles, being very eager to send my car to the big junkyard in the sky in exchange for one of these more green-friendly machines. Several years ago when I first learned about these cars, I noticed that the price was well beyond my budget. Back in 2000 I couldn't find a Toyota Prius for less than $35K, and now I can't seem to find one less than $22K. Honda is not much better. The Civic hybrid is running $20K while its less efficient counterpart is $14K.

So, with this data I bust out the calculator and crunch some numbers. If I were to buy a hybrid I would get 55 miles per gallon. So if I were to travel 16,000 miles a year I would spend around $900 a year as opposed to $2500 I currently spend, a savings of $1600 per year. To make up the $6000 difference would take me almost 4 years. That length of time is roughly the average duration that people continue to own the same car, leaving both cars as an equal investment.

The hybrid engines are still largely untested. There is no saying that the hybrid engine will last as long as a regular engine. Plus repairs will demand I go to auto technicians that are knowledgeable of the technology, which will most likely cost more. So the other costs involved influence me (along with my limited budget) to refrain from making the switch to being more environmentally responsible.

So due to the risks involved and the costs, the only benefit is the decreased emissions and lower consumption of fuel. No amount of money would be saved in comparison to owning a less efficient car, but instead I would take on the risk of costly long term problems (i.e. repairs and breakdowns).

I can't help but feel forced to continue to drive my current car, even though it doesn't get great gas mileage. But once these car manufacturers lower the price or the regulations mandate that they have all vehicle meet with higher MPG standards, I plan to make the big jump. Until then, I will be eagerly awaiting and limiting my driving to the bare necessities.