kneeling/sitting and the national anthem

I have been avoiding posting here with the political climate being what it is, but on this issue I feel I need to say something. You see I have said it before and I will say it again, I believe in the Constitution...the whole Constitution and not just the parts that make me comfortable.  Again the First amendment has come to the forefront of all the hoopla surrounding athletes sitting, standing, or kneeling during the national anthem.  As I see it, the first amendment gives everyone the right to express his or her opinion on whatever it is that moves them.  In this case, the act of kneeling etc. is not to disrespect anything but rather to express the need to have meaningful conversation on the topic of racial equality.  Being an openly gay man, I understand being treated less than because of a trait that cannot change (save the nature vs. nurture argument for another post please).  The point is that there are people being disrespected every day based on the color of their skin or their religion.  This needs to stop.  The only way these celebrity athletes can get their point into the light where it can be looked at and discussed is by taking a knee during what is unquestionably one of the most patriotic events in any sports venue.  And so far it has worked, but at what cost?  Many of them have lost endorsement deals and garnered unwarranted punishment for expressing a right. 

I know that many of you feel that there are other ways to bring the issue to the forefront, but thus far using the "proper" way has done nothing to fix the problem.  Sometimes it takes a brave individual to put his livelihood on the line to say enough is enough.  Let's instead of focusing on the men "disrespecting their country" or "being unpatriotic", focus on the problem of inequality in the USA.  It is not really about just racial inequality, though that is what started the discussion.  All manner of inequality exists and needs to be corrected.  From Muslim hate crimes all the way to unarmed blacks getting killed by police to gay bashing...it all needs to stop. 

The US Constitution guarantees ALL men the rights expressed therein.  It does not say only white, Christian, patriotic, and straight Americans are protected, but everyone.  The US was built on the principle of acceptance and diversity.  We have come a long way in the last 100 years, but we still have miles to go until all men (women too!) can walk out of their homes and not feel like they will be shot, stabbed, harassed, or injured because they believe in or walk a different path than what you think is right.  We are a mixed up box of crayons that color in many different races, religions, sexual identity, orientation, and ethnic backgrounds.  Our diversity is what makes us the greatest nation ever created and is our greatest strength. 

Blessed be brothers and sisters!  We are all in this together...

Only me...

Some days I feel like I have wasted the last 20 years.  I mean, I know that I did the right thing, but sometimes I think that maybe if I had made different choices, my life would be different right now.  I can step back in time to 2008 when I first landed in Nashville, TN.  I was very optimistic about life.  I was prepared to get a good job and start living a good life.  Somewhere along the way, something happened.  My feelings changed.  I do not know whether it was my mom going back north or me starting school.  I look back and feel like I was an imposter.  I was not being me.  I was learning about myself, but I was not being true to my nature.  I felt guilty.  I felt like I had forsaken my duty and tried to take some time for me without consideration for anyone else.  In doing so, I feel like I set into motion a set of circumstances that has forever jaded me into a feeling of unworthiness and fakery. 

First, I left NH with my mom after my dad died to get a change in scenery and perhaps begin to live anew.  I got a decent temp job with a company and made some pretty ok money.  Over a short time (like 4 months), mom began to miss home and decided she was leaving.  I could not go as we had signed a lease and I had started school.  Thus begins my failure as a person.  Soon after, mom went back to NH or Maine and I tried to live alone.  For the first time in my life, the only person I needed to worry about was me.  I thought I would be ok.  I got a different job working on computers.  It was a nearly perfect situation.  I had a car, a nice apartment, a decent job, and I was ok.  Then the recession happened. 

All at once, my life crumbled.  The company I was working for started mass lay-offs, which included me, and suddenly I could do nothing.  I was still in school though and luckily qualified for work-study (which incidentally had nothing to do with what I was in school for, but it paid the bills).  Suddenly I am forced to downsize to a studio apartment, getting food assistance, and dong this work-study while trying to do something with myself.  After a little while, things settled into a steady rhythm.  I went to class, I went to work, and I tried to live a life.  I made a few friends in school.  At some point, I met Joe. 

Joe it turned out, would be the love of my life.  I wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with him.  He was my everything.  Suddenly nothing else mattered as long as I had Joe.  For about a year, I was happy.  Completely and totally happy.  Never in my life had I felt that content with anything.  I knew that no matter what life threw at  me, it would be ok because I had Joe.  Then mom started getting sicker.  I had to make the hardest choice of my life.  I had to leave.  Joe had all his family there in TN and he could not leave, but I had to. This was September 2011.  I finished my schooling and had to make tough decisions.  Though in retrospect, there really was no decision to make.  It was expected that I move back to my mom.  So I said goodbye to Joe and Nashville.  Since then, my life has sucked.  I since developed the deepest depression of my life and faced the hardest time I have ever endured.  Not only did I lose my Joe, but my mom died in November of 2013. 

To many, this seems like a complaint...a woe is me type of thing.  I really do not want anyone to say anything about this.  I just want it understood that what I had given up and what I have left.  There is a legitimate reason I feel the way I do.  It is not in my head and I do not have to pretend to be ok if I am not.  I am who I am and will be who I am.  If you do not like it, then do not follow me.  Do not try to tell me how to "get over it." 

I will not pretend to be ok.  I will not be someone that another person wants me to be.  I am only me. 

Alone

These days I am feeling more alone than ever.  Before I go too much further, please note that this is not a complaint, or a criticism of the folks around me.  This is about how I see myself in the scale of things.  I know that I have friends and folks that care about me, I just wonder why.  I am a very solitary individual.  To many, I would seem to be a borderline hermit.  I like my alone time, but I still need company from time to time.  That is not to say that people do not visit with me, but that when we do visit, we have very little to talk about.  I enjoy time spent with a friend, but sometimes, I need more.  I need to find people that share my passions. 

Last night, I was restless.  I was craving interpersonal connection.  I felt like I was climbing through the roof while at the same time, burrowing into my den.  I do not know where to find a person I can talk to that understands me.  I tried once to explain to a counselor what it felt like to be in my head.  I started with a picture of me.  I then added pictures of different things that evoked feeling to me and still it felt inadequate to define who I am or who I feel like I am.  I can add pictures all day and never completely define what I feel.  It is almost like I speak Simlish.  It should be understood, but for some reason, it is completely untranslatable.   I feel like I will never find someone that will understand me as I speak without having to create metaphor or speak examples to make myself clear. 

All of this being said, I do very much appreciate the people in my life right now that are enabling me to grow and understand myself.  I just feel like it is an exercise in futility.  Despite being content with who I am as a person, I really would like to connect to someone on an intimate level.  Intimate to me is not necessarily sexual, though it could include sex.  I need intelligence and wit.  I need knowledge and understanding.  I need physical intimacy interspersed with intellectual speculation.  I just do not know how to go about finding it. 

I have been hurt in my life.  I have baggage...or luggage or a trunk of shit.  It is hard for me to trust. It is hard for me to share.  I have a deep desire to share my whole being with someone, but I fear that there is no person strong enough.  I want to submit, body and soul, yet I fear that I will lose my identity.  I want to be me, but also I want to belong.  I feel like a tribe of one.  I feel like there is not another person in the world that can understand me, yet I desperately search for him.  I am losing my mind.  I am wasting away.  I am fading into obscurity...

Confused

I am just as cynical as the next guy.  I doubt 99% of what is told to me unless I see hard fact to back up the story.  What I do not get is when people are shown in black and white hard researched facts, how they can still deny the truth.  I am not saying that everything printed is a fact...not by any stretch.  I am however saying that when 1,000 people all come to the very same conclusion based on the same information, that there just might be something true there.   It is easy today to create an opinion based on flawed information.  News outlets do it all the time.  In an effort to be first to report, they often do not completely do their due diligence and research.  It is apparently much easier to apologize for a mistaken report than it is to give correct information. 

This rant is not aimed at any one individual or group.  I am just irritated.  It is very upsetting when "everybody knows" something and that particular something is impossible.  I am not the smartest person in the world, but I do know how to research.  When someone presents me with a "fact" that I am in doubt of (if I even really care), I will look it up and check several different sources both proving and disproving the "fact".  I then make up my own mind as to whether to believe it or not.  If the "fact" is not really a fact but more of an universal opinion, I will correct the person offering the fact.  I will not demean or belittle anyone based on what they truly believe, but I will inform them that their wording should change from it is a "fact" to it is an "universal opinion". 

The art of understanding and learning is about taking things that are believed and challenging them.  Putting them to the test of truth and balancing opinion with hard fact.  I believe that anyone can learn about anything they choose to.  I also urge folks to fact check before accepting anything at face value.  Just because I say that it is an elephant, does not make it so.  Do your research, learn what makes an elephant and decide for yourself if the thing I present as an elephant is indeed an elephant.  I will do the same thing and together we can learn and share what we know.  This is how the world will grow together instead of growing apart. 

I accept your opinion.  It may or may not match mine, but I respect your view.  All I ask is for you to take that same mind set, and carry it forth.  Spread it around liberally and watch the peace and harmony bloom.  It is not rocket science...

Today

Today there is a presence in my life that I cannot describe.  It almost feels like a strong expectation of something...but not even remotely defined.  Like I am waiting for an event to happen or to not happen as it were.  I feel the event is not going to be life altering, but it will affect how I feel.  There is a pressure.  A sort of heaviness to the world. I feel like I am carrying weight, but I cannot see it.  For days now, I have felt off.  Not really good, not really bad...just kind of meh.  I feel like nothing is important right now.  Stuff I should be engaged with, I cannot.  I could just as easily sleep as watch TV or read a book.  I feel undefined.  Pliable and moldable, but only to the extent I allow.  I am content, but on edge.  The term pregnant silence has form today.  It is as if there is a bubble floating around...and I am watching and waiting for it to land on something or pop.  I think it could be related to the conjunction of the Solstice and a full moon.  Again though, there is no evidence of anything awry.  Just feelings and expectation...I feel anxious about something I cannot see.  I feel expectation and anticipation, yet I see nothing impending...nothing in the horizon...but there is something. 

Those who know me, know that I am sensitive.  I feel things that most people cannot.  I sense things.  I can usually walk into a room and feel the energy of the space.  I can tell where there is something happening.  Today, I feel like the world is that room.  I can sense something preparing to come to pass.  I feel like it will be important, but not detrimental to life.  Time of course will tell what it is/was and vindicate my feelings.  Until then, I remain ambivalent and uncommitted.  As I commit these words to the aether, I cast my fortune into the void.  Let the future come as it will.  I will survive it.

Optimistically Pessimistic Post about Everything and Nothing...

Today I feel strange.  Not bad, not good...just odd.  I am feeling cautiously optimistic, yet tragically pessimistic at the same time.  There is a chasm of disparity in me.  I want to risk, yet am petrified into inactivity...I want to write, yet I fear what might come out.  I laid in my bed...just laid there...not awake, not asleep...adrift in the in-between twilight of consciousness.  I want to DO, but can't.  I want to feel...but not sure how...I want to try.  I could cry...but why?  I could also laugh...same question though, why?  Ambiguity rules me today.  I am yes and no, black and white, happy and sad, good and evil...realistic and abstract...I scream in my head...I laugh in my soul...tormented and afraid...I wait to be consumed...help me...I seek validation, yet do not care what you think...torn into a million pieces, set afire...I do not burn...I love...yet I cannot...I hate...yet I cannot...I want...yet I do not...anachronism abounds...I belong here...yet the past owns me...the future is assured...today, tomorrow and yesterday crash into one another...a blur of color and confusion...I am and cannot possibly be...I exist...but do I really? 

A Dangerous Road

This is not so much a pro-democrat blog post as much as it is an anti-Trump post.  Clearly it would be preferable to have nearly anyone in the presidency other than Trump.  The problem lies with the split in the GOP.  Earlier I mentioned Sanders having one of the 7 potential votes.  Lets assume for a second any other third party candidate taking the place of Sanders.  The same catastrophic result would occur.  Any vote against Clinton is a vote FOR Trump.  Let that sink in for a minute.  

I am not a fan of the political process any more than the next guy.  As I see it, we have 3 folks vying for the attention of the nation.  It is a very dangerous game that is being played.  For the sake of visualization, let us assume there are only 7 votes available.  Of those 7, three are republican and 4 are democrat.  In a 2 person race, this would likely be a best case scenario.  In a 3 person race, this is catastrophic.  As I see it right now, Trump has 3 votes, Clinton has 3, and Sanders has 1.  This cannot be allowed to continue.  The possibility of a Trump presidency has me terrified and I am not alone.

Let us take a look at the results of a possible Trump presidency.  In the first place, he has taken a very hard edge on (illegal or Muslim) immigration.  Playing into the worldwide anti-Muslim crusade has made Middle Eastern countries (and even some in Europe) rally against our already strained relations in the world.  (http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/11/politics/donald-trump-world-allies-turn-on-candidate/ )  He has proposed building a wall between the US and Mexico and making Mexico pay for it ( http://www.forbes.com/sites/doliaestevez/2016/05/05/the-possibility-of-donald-trump-becoming-president-alarms-mexico/#3ff569ca38c1 ) and rescinding of NAFTA which could cause monetary inflation worldwide.  Ok so now that more than half the world hates us and money is worth nothing, what else could happen?  The potential for social uprising or unrest is a very real possibility.  Many in the GOP do not like him and have gone so far as to burn their voter registration cards in defiance.  ( http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36205223 ) 

I am a Dem through and through.  I would vote for Sanders just as readily as Clinton in a general election.  This election is far from being a slam dunk for anyone, but it is clear that if the GOP stays divided, Trump will be President.  If the Dems stay divided, Trump will be President.  If a third party candidate comes out, Trump will be President.  The only way for us to avoid a Trump-tastrophy is getting behind the party candidate of your choice.  Take a stand and be counted.