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I find that situations going poorly as a result of my own error are by far the worst. Even though I understand that I am almost entirely to blame I search for fault in others. This search to extricate oneself from any wrong doing is the process of reducing cognitive dissonance. The mind becomes unable to reconcile the truth with the desired truth. The beginnings of denial.
TK411 · Sat May 05, 2012 @ 10:49pm · 0 Comments |
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When you are a kid and your mother says, "do you want the red shoes or the white shoes?" it does not matter what you pick because both options are acceptable. Forgotten: the option of no shoes. You feel in control, but you still end up wearing shoes. Ultimate control, when you do not even know it is happening. I hold a remote in my hand, despite many buttons the options are finite. I push the 'all on' button. TV on, cable box on, stereo on. A screen presents me with choices. I feel in control because I get to make decisions. On the surface control is about making decisions. Do I watch Jersey Shore, or How it's Made? Only problem is I control which channel I watch, but not the available channels. There are many options but none that I want. Just like mother, screens are tools of control. They set up a system that forces the user to make decisions. The user feels in control, but can only decide on acceptable options. I turn off the TV, the cable box, the stereo. I am back in control.
TK411 · Mon Nov 01, 2010 @ 04:04am · 0 Comments |
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When you grow up with someone who is scared you never notice that they are different. You see them every day and simply do not question why they look different. I did not know until the fourth grade that my dad had been in a fire. Even ten years later I am still finding out things that I did not know. I am so used to seeing his scared face, ears, arm, legs that I just never actually thought about why. People usually assume that he was burned after he got married, but they are wrong. He was 16. How did the fire start? It was his fault. He was making baked apples in the fire place and the wood was wet, he had tried to light it with a match and failed, so stupid teenager he dumped a tank of gasoline one the damp wood. There was a spark and an explosion. He walked to his neighbors house and knocked on their door, but they did not recognise the blacked piece of flesh that had collapsed on their front porch. Luckily it was raining and they called an ambulence and quickly determined who it was on their porch. People do not expect terrible things to happen. We expect that they will not happen. We avoid people to whom terrible things happen. My dad was he senior class president, after 6 months having to repeat the tenth grade, relearn to walk and his family moving. There is a certain type of breathing that means that a person is going to die. It is a gasping for air accompanied by a slower heart beat. Seven times while he was in the hospital he stared to breathe like that. I only found that out last summer. I was visiting my aunts and they started talking about visiting my dad in the hospital. Their older brother would take them, they did not like going. The room smelled bad, and they could not recognize their brother in the mass of bandages that surrounded a broken body.
TK411 · Fri Apr 13, 2007 @ 05:04pm · 0 Comments |
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Has there ever been something so terrible that you never wanted to think about it again? A memory that keep haunting you, making you feel uncomfortable even with in you own house. I have. Sometimes I wish that I had a big eraser and I could go through my life erasing things. I wish I could see the picture in my mindseye and erase it, starting from the bottom and going to the top. I can do that with real pictures, why not my life. The counter arguement is that our memories define who we are, they make us people, if you erase something then you will no longer be the same person. But is that all bad? Maybe I do not want to be the same person. Ignorance is bliss. Maybe I want to go back to being innocent little me, before.... But I cannot. Just like my minds eraser, my real eraser is always missing, lost. Just like me.
TK411 · Fri Mar 23, 2007 @ 04:04am · 0 Comments |
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“Aaron! The men, they are coming!” “How do you know this?” “Trust me, the birds told me, it’s a trick I learned in the mountains listen to the animals and they will tell you all you need to know.” I grabbed my stuff but had my bow on the ready, on arrow knocked. Aaron hesitated; I grabbed his arm, “c’mon!” I started running in the opposite direction of the small trilled warnings, my silent feet on the moss covered floor. I searched frantically for a tree that had branches that were low enough that we could get to them and climb up. After we’d been running for a bout a half hour I spotted a tree that would suffice. “Aaron, quick climb the branches, hurry.” I started to climb which was rather difficult as I had both my staff and bow. Aaron was just ahead of me and climbing fast we were nearing the top and I motioned him to stop. The men that were chasing us, and I’m still not exactly sure why, were not used to walking with a silent tread, so it was easy to tell when they neared. “Where is she,” a gruff voice came from below us, “She’d better not show her face again, the little witch.” I was now really confused. I had understood every word spoken by the dreadful man but I could have sworn I only knew one language. Why would they call me a witch? Just because I speak the old tongue doesn’t make me a witch, does it. I could hardly breathe for fear that the mob below would notice. They had been dispersed throughout the forest, creeping about like madmen from the netherworld for a full half hour at least, if not more. My left leg was numb and tingly, and Aaron didn’t look too comfortable either, having to crane his neck sideways between two diverging branches. I prayed that their eyes would not follow the slight rustle of the leaves, though it was obvious that these men did not know the forest as I did. I wondered when we would be able to get out of this godforsaken tree.
TK411 · Fri Mar 16, 2007 @ 05:12pm · 0 Comments |
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My sister tells a story. A story about the impossible, it goes like this: "Joe Craven said nobod could lick their own elbow, I said I could, and I did." I love the simplicity of that little story. My little sister can lick her own elbow. She place her hand of the floor, straightens her arm, twists her head around and sticks out her tounge. I have neer seen anyone else who could. We first discoverd that she could lick her elbow when we read the back of an M&M that it was impossible. But it wasn't. She did it then too, tells the story, "I said, 'I think I can do that' and then I did".
TK411 · Thu Mar 01, 2007 @ 06:59pm · 0 Comments |
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Have you ever felt called? A feeling that you have a mission? What do you do with it? It is persistant, you cannot ignore it. I am overwhelmed with the force of the need. I cannot solve the worlds problems, but a community can. I feel like a connecter, a middle person, someone who has to look out for others, make them feel included. I am afraid of being alone. Not necessarily by myself, but isolated, cut off, and outsider. I feel that if I can include others, that they will not suffer my fear. I am sadended every time I see someone standing by themselves, looking lost, and yet I seem to find myself in that position all the time. I get images from another life, staring out the window of a train, somehow knowing that I am seeing the scenery for the last time. I can close my eyes and watch myself staring out a window, at a foggy medow. It is like a movie that replays over and over. I wonder who that person is. They have a sad, heart wrenching sorrow. Is it me? It is my face. It is like I have been forced to leave. Who am I? Somethimes I feel like I am the reincarnation of a person who died to young to complete their purpose. Will I be successful?
TK411 · Sat Feb 10, 2007 @ 10:42pm · 0 Comments |
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Finally, the stranger put me down; we were standing in a small moss covered clearing, the trees forming a wall around us. “It is safe to talk here and rest for a short while; I do not think that they would dare penetrate this far into the woods.” “Um, who is the ‘they’ that you speak of?” “They are the people of the hamlet.” “Why would they want to kill me? And why would you save me? And what is your name?” “First they want to kill you because you speak the old tongue. This is the language that you are speaking now, and I am speaking to you. That is also the reason I saved you. My name is Aaronidin and what, pray tell, is yours?” “Zandreia, but you can call me Zane for short. Why would speaking the old tongue give me a death warrant, it is the only language I know. How would they know that I spoke the old tongue anyway?” “They knew because of the way you dressed; only women of the old world wear trousers or for that matter have such fine weapons as the ones you carry, no woman in that town would even be allowed one look at a sword like the one you got.” “I’ve had this sword all my life, it was my father’s,” My throat closed as I remembered his face telling me that this sword was his life and when he passed it to me, it would be my life. “And I have never worn anything but trousers and my mother never wore of those weird things that the women of the hamlet were wearing.” To my surprise Aaron started to laugh, “Are you trying to tell me that your parents never told you what a dress was, or a skirt for that matter?” “I have never heard of a dress and if my parents neglected to mention it then it probably wasn’t important.” “Where have you been?! Didn’t any of your childhood friends have dresses or skirts?” “I didn’t have any child hood friends. My parents were the only people I knew. But my father did say a lot of stuff about the outside world. I lived my life in a cabin on those mountains until I was seventeen and both of my parents had passed on. And this is the only language they spoke and is the only language I speak!” I had become quiet upset during this explanation and felt an oncoming of tears. I stood up and walked to the edge of the clearing trying to calm down. The birds I hadn’t noticed before chirped and sang above me, their songs were so soothing. Then as I stood there I realized that the men from the village were coming into the forest because the bird’s songs were changing from soothing to warning.
TK411 · Sat Feb 10, 2007 @ 10:26pm · 0 Comments |
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I continued walking. The road was old and bumpy, made in the age of kings long ago. Father had often told tales of that time, it was his favorite era. I followed the road until noon, whereupon I reached a small hamlet. The houses there were run down and the stores lacked most everything. I had no money, on a mountain it was not needed but father had explained it to me before he died. I looked around for a place that I might be allowed to stay. It was then I noticed how quiet it was. I saw a small group of women and men huddled in a group staring at me. Why were they staring so, did I not look normal? I looked closely at the women and noticed that they were wearing something very strange. It was almost the same as breeches but the leg holes were cut open and sewn together and the shirt was sewn onto the re-sewn breeches. Maybe these funny clothes were normal but to me it looked rather uncomfortable. Mother had never worn anything of this sort. Had father forgotten to explain something? The people’s faces had been slowly changing from shock to anger. A whisper passed among them and one of them moved forward. I was about to greet him when he drew a knife and threw it. I caught it to prevent harm but when more of the peasants moved forward with kinves I bolted. As I ran I took note that the men chasing me were clearly not used to running after girl who ran so fast. I was used to running and could run for hours on end, well jog anyway, due to father’s harsh training. These men had probably never run more than a mile at a time. A little while later I sat down to rest, I had long lost my pursuers. A hand came from nowhere and covered my mouth. A man soon followed. He appeared to be in the mid twenties with dark almost black hair. Father had neglected to teach me a maneuver to get out of this kind of hold. I struggled trying to get free of my captor but he was to strong. “Watch it you don’t want us to be seen.” “Why should I care if we are seen?” I was forced to mumble against his hand. “Because they’ll kill you if you are found, now be quiet till we can get some where safe.” The black haired man lifted me under his arm, weapons and all, and started to walk over the leaf covered ground with an amazingly silent tread. I was not sure I wanted to trust this stranger; father had warned me against trusting people I didn’t know. But I really had no choice he had the advantage of strength, which is saying something, because I have never considered myself a weakling. I started to say that I was perfectly capable of walking but he glared and shut me up. He switched my position so I looked like a dead deer hanging over his shoulder with my arms hanging down his back. I studied the forest floor because there seemed nothing better to do while being held prisoner over a strangers shoulder. The tree roots seem to get bigger and bigger as we, or should I say he, walked deeper in to the woods and a sort of old feeling came over me. I knew that these trees must have been here long before my time or my father’s time.
TK411 · Mon Feb 05, 2007 @ 11:22pm · 0 Comments |
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