The process of “knowing oneself” is the full acknowledgement and realization of one’s mortality.

Sometimes my mind lies to me, and sometimes my heart is stupid. These are facts.

“In the current age of rapid and perpetual technical advance, all countries have become ‘backward’ on a permanent basis. Hence the institutionalization of wartime methods, the suspension of peacetime values, the blurring distinctions between the state and society, and the apparent erosion of cultural differences around the world.” – Walter A. McDougall, (…The Heavens and the Earth, 1986)

Through exploration humankind expands its imagination and thus our own avenues for life on spiritual, emotional, and physical, levels. In the current age, exploration into space and the microcosm has made humankind more acutely aware of our own mortality and the passage of time. This dynamic is most important when considering the development of humankind and its experience.

I can.

Tonight, I would like to write about my struggles. It has occurred to me that men in our society do not speak about their struggles with one another. So, that is what I will do now.

My Struggles

I struggle with my pain. I struggle with family pain. I struggle with emotional pain. Sometimes I push it down real deep to where I cannot find it anymore. I push it down so far that it comes out in ways disguised to me. I struggle with this culture of “quick sex”. I struggle to connect with women on an emotional level. I struggle to attract women. I struggle to allow my emotions to flow around women which makes me quiet and reserved. I struggle with addiction. I struggle to make healthy boundaries for myself. I struggle with my past. I struggle with what could have been, what might have been, and what may have been. I struggle with my mistakes. I struggle to accept my authentic self. I struggle with knowing who I am. I struggle with creating images of myself that are unrealistic and fake. I struggle with my relationships. I struggle with allowing others the space to speak. I struggle with leaving others emotions untouched and true. I struggle with giving people advice and acting like I have all the answers. I struggle with wanting things that I act contrary to. I struggle with sexuality. I struggle with knowing and accepting who I am sexually. I struggle with morality. I struggle with religion and its judgements of good and evil. I struggle with dealing with people less intelligent than myself. I struggle with my passion. I struggle with allowing passion to exist as my sole purpose when life is in reality very multi-faceted. I struggle with wanting to be the best at everything. I struggle with defeat. I struggle with not living up to my expectations. I struggle with being patient. I struggle with being brave. I struggle with knowing that I am not always right. I struggle with believing life has some special purpose for me. I struggle with being unique. I struggle with death. I struggle with the darkness that exists in life. I struggle with the amount of hate, ignorance, and greed, that is rampant in this world. I struggle to accept the beauty of life. I struggle to accept and find joy in my life. I struggle to leave things untouched and authentic. I struggle with wanting to take control of everything. I struggle with things that are messy. I struggle with my family relationships. I struggle with my friendships. I struggle with my personal relationship and capabilities. I struggle with failure. I struggle with not being enough. I struggle with actually not being enough. I struggle with rewarding myself. I struggle with rewarding myself with things that are harmful to me. I struggle with drugs and alcohol. I struggle with mental stability. I struggle with being honest in love. I struggle with being honest. I struggle with humility. I struggle with pride. I struggle with cowardice. I struggle.

-Zazzo

I want nothing more than to love. – Zazzo

“The easiest method of acquiring the scientific habit is through acquiring the ability to express oneself clearly in discussing and disputing scientific problems. This is what clarifies their import and makes them understandable. Some students spend most of their lives attending scholarly sessions. Still, one finds them silent. They do not talk, and do not discuss matters. More than is necessary, they are concerned with memorizing. Thus, they do not obtain much of a habit in the practice of science and scientific instruction. Some of them think that they have obtained the habit. But when they enter into a discussion or disputation, or do some teaching, their scientific habit is found to be defective.” – Ibn Khaldun, “The Introduction” 1377 AD

Ibn Khaldun wrote the book this quote is found in during the 14th century. I am posting this not only to direct a critical eye towards common education (same as Ibn Khaldun). I also want to draw another observation; that some things really havent changed. And most likely, some things may never change.

Life is in many ways, the process of taking pain and turning it into something beautiful. -Zazzo

Do not be afraid. – The Ether

This night, I want to talk about politics. I want to touch on channels and processes of power. First off, we live in society, society being a mass of people who think and offer judgement on similar topics. In the United States at the current time, there is perceived to be a great divide in political thought. What I want to tell American society; is that we are discussing topics as if they were completely abstract. I mean that, we have a great many people who offer opinions based solely on personal vindication, forgetting the larger world in which these topics exist. Our current society seems to be in one word; immature. We expect change to occur tomorrow, or the next day, and we forget that the world is fairly unforgiving in its openness to dramatic change. The sacrifices of those great heroes and heroines of the past seem to us appropriate and correct because we perceive that those people were “correct” or living a “life of truth and justice”. It seems to me that we have forgotten what it means to live this life of truth and justice, what it means to take correct action. The actions we take and the words we speak, may be true, and still, they may not be met with a welcome reception and a feeling of satisfaction. There is more to this life than being in the right. So, how do we deal with this reality? Here I attempt to emphasize the qualities of grace, compassion, and bravery. To address the first two, grace and compassion may seem, according to some, to exist in a situation of weakness or inability to solve some problem. This is not the case. Grace and compassion are actions that include the life and experience of all those around us, including our strengths as well as our weaknesses and shortcomings. These qualities emanate from a person who is strong and true in their direction, from a person who understands the frivolity and whims of a harsh life. This person is strong and provides a foundation for society to have discourse and to disagree with one another. We need not only be right, we must stand together as a people. Society is constantly fragmented and divided, this is the given. It is given that not all of us believe the same thing and have the same experiences. What is not given, is that we will stand together through the winter. That we will stand unified against opposition. And I am not speaking about opposition to that which is right. Right and wrong truly only exist in society. I am speaking about that opposition which comes from our natural lives. Our whimsical and passionate lives. Lives that will end in death. We are humans, and this is something we must remember. To be correct is not what is required to form the foundation of society, what is required is a strong and dependable person. To be strong and dependable, is to create a world where understanding is manifested between people while they are unaware of the foundation they stand upon. What that foundation requires is grace and compassion for our fellow men and women, as this will allow for weakness and failure which is ever present in the human experience and which must be included in discourse and perception. To exclude this weakness is to ignore an enormous part of human character, and ignoring people in this way will alienate them which will further the gap between persons and will ultimately breakdown our channels and processes of communication. Lastly, bravery is the internal journey which decides how we can provide this foundation to our loved ones and our community. Believe it, live it, breathe it. I can only hope that my message has been received, as my intentions do not lay with commenting on what is right or wrong. I only mean to point out, that society is the game by which rules we play. If we create an uncompassionate and ungraceful society. We can expect to foster hate, dis-ingenuousness, and ill-temperateness.

-Zazzo