Maladjusted Jester

When I was younger, I wish that I would have known better.
Better love makes a fat romance, that lasts for more than a shoe shine.
I’m older, took all the words of my mother, saying, It could be worse, could be born with that disease, instead of catching it first.
So let’s go back, to the first time, that I met you, in your Chevy, with your hands stretched, and me crying, screaming, “Mercy. Mercy.”
But I know that, I was put here, to fight Vikings, in the cold war, with my arms out, in the front lines, singing, “Dare me. Dare me.”
But these things take time love.
These things take backbone.
And they’ll tell you what you want to hear ’cause they think it’s better. Better.
But you better know how to point out the liars.
You’ve got to weigh your wars make sure you’re not fighting for nothing. Nothing.
Are you fighting for nothing?
It feels like this world has been growing slowly upside down.
Maybe I should move to China, and straighten this mess out.
Maybe I’ll be a poet.
Watch all the sky for falling words.
And write about my grandma’s curtains, or the lady who put the Chinese buffet in her purse.
I’ve got my mouth.
It’s a weapon. It’s a bombshell. It’s a cannon. I’ve got my words.
I won’t give them mercy. Mercy. I’ve got my words. I hope they hurt you.
I hope they scar you. I hope they heal you.
I hope they cut you open, make you see you’ve been warring for all the wrong reasons.
Make you see that some things are worth bruising for.
Make you see that your name is your honor code.
Make you see that your hands you’re accounted for.
Pick and choose where your sweat and your blood will go.
Make you see your life’s not to be lived alone.
"If you're going to try, go all the way. Otherwise don't even start. This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs. And maybe your mind. It could mean not eating for three or four days. It could mean freezing on a park bench. It could mean jail. It could mean derision. It could mean mockery, isolation. Isolation is the gift. All the others are a test of your endurance. Of how much you really want to do it. And you'll do it, despite rejection in the worst odds. And it will be better than anything else you can imagine. If you're going to try, go all the way. There is no other feeling like that. You will be alone with the gods. And the nights will flame with fire. You will ride life straight to perfect laughter. It's the only good fight there is."
-Factotum, Bukowski
We can spend our lives letting the world tell us who we are:
Sane or insane.
Saints or sex addicts.
Heros or victims.
Letting history tell us how good or bad we are.
Letting our past decide our future.
Or we can decide for ourselves.
And maybe it's our job to invent something better.
You take the blue pill:
the story ends,
you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe.
You take the red pill:
you stay in Wonderland
and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes.
It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything.
I can believe things that are true and I can believe things that aren't true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they're true or not. I believe that mankind's destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it's aerodynamically impossible for a bumblebee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there's a cat in a box somewhere who's alive and dead at the same time (although if they don't ever open the box to feed it it'll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang with her girlfriends and doesn't even know that I'm alive. I believe in an empty and godless universe of causal chaos, background noise, and sheer blind luck. I believe in a woman's right to choose, a baby's right to live, that while all human life is sacred there's nothing wrong with the death penalty if you can trust the legal system implicitly, and that no one but a moron would ever trust the legal system. I believe that life is a game, that life is a cruel joke, and that life is what happens when you're alive and that you might as well lie back and enjoy it.
- Neil Gaiman