Confessions of a Crap Artist: Can't Get Over Overdraft

About Not Having Money and Overdraft

Modern Marvels should one day include the bank concept known as Overdraft. Concept is an underplay, Phenomenon would be more accurate. The Phenomenon Known as Overdraft. Nice ring to it...could be, a one day title to a literary work of genius. A coming of age tale about some hero and his dire straits.

Jokes aside, I find it nothing but interesting that without a single cent in my bank account I will have paid my phone, web hosting, and metrocard. Of course there's the overdraft charge as nothing in life is free. When the bank covers you (or at least, when my bank covers me) there is a $32.00 or so charge that is taken from your account. Now being that there is no money in the account (that is why, after all, the account went into overdraft) this brings your account into the negatives. So when you start to fill your imaginary piggy bank, its to get your account to zero before you can actually have any real number in there.

Does it Bother Me?

Not really. I mean...in principle it sort of does but the bother doesn't really amount to much. Now that I'm working it'll sort itself out, I'm not going to waste my time and energy being angry about a few dollars here and there. Some people get really worked up over such matters. My mother for instance, was furious that I was being charged overdraft. She in a very sweet and scary, overprotective mother fashion took to shaking her fist, cursing, and snickering at the bank who handles my account. As if they could hear her from her kitchen. My mother gets excited about being angry, her temper is short, her gall is tall, and her subtlety is as bad as her english.

I don't get too angry because if you really think about it. I shouldn't have been able to pay with money that isn't really there. But I did and I was charged for it. Is it a scam? Of course, Life is one big scam and we're all scam artist...its all about who finds the best medium to work on.

Just Because I'm Losing Doesn't Mean I'm Lost

The Truth is that which is there, it is the extension of reality. About reality, Philip K. Dick wrote it is, that which does not cease to exist when you stop believing in it. After watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for the second time, I find myself sitting here in bed, thinking about a certain truth. Mortal Truth. I think about age, I think about time, circumstance, direction, ambition; I think about motivation, determination, strive and fear. At my hands, do my eyes fall, searching for younger layers of youth, curious of future layers of age. I sit here on this bed and more or less think about Death and all his Friends.

I see this place in terms of Universe. I don't live in an apartment, street, city, state, country, etc...I live in a universe. It has to be that sparse, that complex, otherwise I'm not impressed. Life is too large, too interwoven with multi-facets to be limited in the frame of planet or solar system. Life would burst the seams, compromise the foundation, if such the idea would be to attempt its maintenance within so small a border. Life needs an entire Universe in order to operate.

I hold sacred that every moment is in fact a new universe, an infinity of combinations and codes, endlessly spiraling, with no two moments ever universally repeating. Thats my definition of Life. In this manner it can be said that no one is ever really one person or ever even in the same place twice, we are all cosmonauts, ever changing like scramble suits, indefinitely traveling throughout a universe in a ship called Life that so happens to also be an ocean.

But Life ends. The Universe might have no end, Life does. The Ocean dries up, concentrates into a powerful drop that eventually also departs, evaporates, fuses with the rest of time and space. Its the best you can do to make every moment the Prime of all its possibilities, of all its potentialities. You'll never know if you're right or wrong, there will be no judge, no guideline, no examples from which your recourse will be contrasted to and decided whether you played the right card, took the right door, were at the right places at the right time and so forth. Sure, on Earth others can judge these things, on Earth we have formed opinions about what feels good and what doesn't, what a good life is and what a good life isn't. However, if you're not careful you might fall into the idea that another person's opinion, because it seems more generally observed than others, is a fact. But here I say to you my opinion: your universe and their universe will never be one. There is no right choice or wrong one, there is only the choice...and having made it, you have changed the universe and if it feels right to you then you've made your right choice.

Fish Out of Water

I had a dream last night

a fish on land

gasping for breath

just laughed

and sang this song

is life like this for everyone?

is life like this for everyone?

Gill Expansion

I love these lyrics. They are by an artist who's songs are instantly residence of my heart and mind. Lhasa de Sela, who I have blogged about a number of times already, is like if my brain were to separate from my body and sing to me riddles that may one day lead to a reunion.

Forget that "fish" is a very common symbol for savior, forget that "water" similarly symbolizes origin or purity and truth, just think of yourself and your life, just think about how you breathe. Its no big deal to you because you are used to it. How painful it must be to a fish? What were the steps for that ancestor of ours that dared to venture further than the rest and emerge from that primordial beach. Surely Grandpa Zoa had to become amphibious before reptilian and later mammal. How painful was it, breathing air, to the amphibian pioneers? That is before they got used to it.

I immediately think about scent. Have you ever been on a train with a noxiously oppressive odor? Have you noticed that some commuters remain in that same train car, regardless of the green cloud above their heads. After a while, the olfactory senses become used to the otherwise repugnant stench. The way a serious cigarette smoker can't smell his/her clothes the way a non-smoker (like myself) can immediately become repulsed by it.

The lyrics bring to my mind, overstimulation and how an outsider may respond to what may appear absolutely normal and in fact, natural to others.

I love that the fish laughs, perhaps finding the situation ridiculous. "Only a masochist would live under these conditions," the fish might think to itself. If breathing in this song can be said to be the act of living itself, then you may do well to conclude the fish observes a pain that rolls synonymous to living. A somewhat prerequisite suffering taxed on us land breathing creatures. If this is the case then we don't seem to mind, in fact, some of us believe it natural. "Life's a bitch and then you die!"

I don't think Life is a bitch, Aesop Rock sums it quite nicely when he said, "Life's not a bitch/ life is a beautiful woman/ you're just mad cuz she won't let you get that pussy/ maybe she didn't feel ya shared any similar interests/ or maybe you're just an asshole who couldn't sweet talk the princess..." Its all about circumstance, true-- but is pain truly part of life? Has someone lived more simply under the basis that they've experienced more pain and suffering than another? Or even experience itself, is Life defined by experience? If a person does, by comparison, very "little" in life, does that in some sense imply that that person has wasted a chance to truly live? By such criteria, only the thrill seekers are worth the lungs in their chests. But most thrill seekers are just bored and overstimulated, they constantly need to "raise the bar" to feel as if Life has any meaning. Nothing wrong with that. I myself am bored and in many aspects overstimulated. But is there anything wrong with being satisfied, truly satisfied and happy doing nothing.

What was I talking about? Whatever!

Confessions of a Crap Artist: New Directions

New Country for Young Men

"At this hour of night, his life seemed so remote to him, he was so solitary and indifferent to everything and to himself as well...he had at last attained what he was seeking, that the peace which filled him now was born of that patient self-abandonment he had pursued and achieved with the help of this warm world so willing to deny him without anger."

In the wake of a new job with very little hours and lesser pay than my previous; at the news that my parents are moving off to DR next year and my sister and myself left to fend for ourselves; in view that most of my childhood friends are married or parents, if not simply career holding individuals, I should think myself worried about the current state of my life. But I'm not. I mean, I'm somewhat concerned but overall, it doesn't really intimidate me.

The news is all good and I'm flying higher, I'm back on my own. Don't worry about me I got no more baggage...threw all my old things away. I got your letter and thanks for the offer, I really don't need a thing...open the door in front of me.

I'd rather die than get more hours at my current job (I hate that place), and so long as I withhold from spend drifting, I'll be alright. My parents, well they deserve DR as much as I want to move the hell out! I'm glad they're leaving, I'm tired of home cook meals, domestic household interaction, and ultimately, I'm tired of seeing my family everyday. As far as friends that are married, parents, or just successful, thats all good but all I want to do is make music, art, and write...if wifing a dime, sprouting a jr., or becoming a professional will allow me unlimited time and space to work on the bright little activities that keep the darkness from swallowing me into the shape of an average american adult, then by all means count me in!

I spoke with my homegirl recently, we texted back and forth about how strange the sensation was that, even though ones life is out of certainty, even though the mind may be stressed and uncomfortable, the body can remain steady. I feel energetic and fit, my body feels responsive and alive. Movement has always been associated with life for me; animation even contains within it, the word "anima" which means "life" and "soul." The Body is not less than the Mind nor visa versa, the Mind any lesser than the Body. The collaboration of the two is life. These events that have recently introduced themselves to me as Crisis have brought forth the internal realization that the needs of my body are just as important as those of my mind. And since, of the two, my body feels more primitive and therefore all the more urgent, then those needs of the mind such as psychological security and social standardization are deemed subordinate at the moment, outweighed by the almighty id. To my advantage, this keeps me from feeling stressed out and depressed.

The sun is now shining on me; meet me as soon as you can, bring me the money you're holding for me...taking my head out of sand.

Thank You, Lhasa and Albert

whatever is going on through your head right now,
whatever reason shoves you forward;
here is something you should consider,
nothing is going to happen in the end.
no one will cheer, smile, pat you on the back.
there will be no applause.
no standing ovation.
definitely no trophy.
you will have came and went.
you will not be judged.
you will not be congratulated
or condemned.
there was ultimately nothing
added to you after you left.
at the end, all you were
was finished.

you will not re-awaken with
a lesson learned.
nothing is going to happen in the end.
you will not sit through
a review of your merits or,
an analysis of your flaws.
nothing is going to happen in the end.
and if this makes you give up
and decide its not worth the walk.
then, that is where you stop walking.
but I don't care if
nothing is going to happen in the end.
I still enjoy my walk