I Tried To Write...

I sat down to start writing-not this entry you are reading-but to work on one of the many books I have either started or had an idea to make onto paper as the next great novel in mankind’s history. I have started many books, and a few that I decided to make into screenplays and vice versa, how much have I finished? Well I feel like Franz Kafka the German speaking Jewish Czech writer, who never finishing a piece of work to his complete satisfaction (aside from maybe Metamorphosis). But I live in the age of distractions, the age of overloading of knowledge: books upon books, plays, movies, television, magazines, short stories, poetry, music-oh don’t forget the abundance of music!-I know friends that are distracted by sports, and yet complain about government. See and feel the pain of driving inefficient transportation, and yet are forced to do so for a job to get food on the table and water to continue running. Just as my soul, life, and body feel incomplete without love, it feels incomplete without my work being finished, my friends family and my world-our world-being incomplete without a genuine and virtuous reason to continue getting up each day. Our reason is not fame or fortune, at least not for everyone. But then what is it, to live life like a party? a game? a risk to take?...let me ask you: what’s at risk? Who would that affect? What would you gain? Is it worth it?

            Welcome to my “non-fictionalized” world. It feels so much like a fantasy horror-like that of a Kafka story-that no wonder I wished for film to be a “career”. I guess I wished to no longer see me and everyone go through the motions unhappily doing what society dictated because no one can no longer tolerate, observe, understand-we just disagree. And what a piece of non-fiction this is! All I said was I sat down: I sat at my desk with a chair and wheels that roll on the carpet of my room. However, now I have my feet up on my bed and my computer on my lap-warming it. I stopped writing about midway through the last paragraph as I was distracted (not by any media or cultural thing) but because I seriously thought my nails could use a trim. They have been looking worse lately. Possibly due to my “nasty habit” which I agree-it is quite bad. Some of my nails are bumpy and yes a little yellow at the tips of the nails. The skin on my fingers is soft, as I haven’t practiced the guitar in some time. All the work at my dead-end part-time job is preventing me, however I need the job in order to pay off student loans, and so what is preventing me is my debt, but I wished for an education in the field of film, and now I have one-whatever that is-but can’t get a good job unless I go into further debt or unless I sell out and care little of the world and environment around me. I could say: if not me, then someone else will. True, perhaps, but I wouldn’t be able to live with myself, I’m barely able to now, especially when this affected by the world.

            People say the world isn’t fair. Okay I’ll take that for a fact then. But fair or not, how can one justify war and killing people, or a single person? The person can be a terrorist. Then jail is perfectly fine to lock up a psychopath, a sociopath, or just keep the irresponsible idiots out of the decision making processes. Right now, locking up so many citizens in a country claiming to be free, it’s not just ironic-it’s plain stupidity. The prison system, the judicial system, the police, the education system, our world: it’s being run like a business…one that’s too big to fail?

            Alright, I’m sorry for typing at my computer and spewing crap all about in the form of language and words. The trees outside are starting to grow green again and for me, that’s hope. Of life continuing to cycle, to continue on. Change is all about me, even if I’m twenty-three and still live in my parent’s house…(sigh) c’est la vie.

Justin Vaisnor

The Thoughts at a Single Moment

As I drove down an interstate to a relative’s distant house, I noticed an American flag. Normally I would have thought nothing of it, or if I did, I would think of the freedom the flag represents. Lately however, the flag is used for what symbols are always used as, nationalism and propaganda, but - for our flag specifically – the forgotten values and knowledge attained at the time of the American flag’s first formation, of our founding fathers true personalities – though the personalities of some of our leaders haven’t changed – we have forgotten that government is opposed to freedom and longs to expand influence and obtain more resources continuously – this includes human lives: rather through voluntary cooperation (usually working just to live and provide), ignorant enslavement, or - hopefully never, though seemingly unavoidable - enslavement of the many serving the few. This destiny is possible to escape; the thought process of the many needs an awakening. If governments are to be run by people once again and the corporations (which are only concerned for profits and not human or animal life) are eliminated from the influential positions they uphold currently (this includes the private bank firm of the Feds) then peace will not be too far out of reach, but it would most certainly be closer. Thus the stars and planets of our galaxy would be closer as that is the next frontier, space. Mankind exploring space peaceably is the goal our society should be striving for. A planet united not through religion, or a nations flag or even a corporation’s symbol, but the world’s symbol: Earth. A glob peacefully united while divided, this is how mankind can look at our existence, and then maybe religion will be a thing of the past and knowledge will be the true thing to seek, as it is the only real thing to believe. Religion is still possible to believe in, though as an extremist view, that belief can be harmful. Any belief to an extreme can and is harmful (if not to the believer, then the belief is hurtful to others).

            And this all came from the viewing of a symbol, an American flag fluttering in the breeze. What I really thought of at that moment when my eyes saw the symbol has much to do with how the flag looked at that moment. The flag whipped in the wind, without control, but the wind did not have the strength to unfurl the flag entirely to view completely. This, to me, spoke more words than any one picture speaking volumes. The flag had hidden stars or lines that were incomplete. The flag pointed down toward the soil of the earth, symbolizing to me, a nation on the decline, one that has been for a long period of time (in more ways than one). The wind, or the course of evolution and life, whipped the flag about as it had no control of it’s hanging. The stars were secrets hidden from us and the lines are half-truths, or blocking and fogging up, just and right morals. This is done by the mainstream media, which uses questions where none are needed for something like torture. The media uses doublespeak (what George Orwell warned and spoke of in his book 1984), now Americans even doublethink, and have debates when morals are forgotten. The American nation is an empire of corporations and of a military industrial complex that Eisenhower spoke of. Even Franklin D. Roosevelt said Presidents are chosen and not elected. I like to think that this started after 1913 when the Federal Reserve took control of the country, after that, America became a tool for the bankers to one day seize control of the world. And by control, I mean no freedom and the enslavement of humanity. The last president that attempted to abolish the Federal Reserve was Kennedy (although sadly he supported war and had a few other stances that I oppose). Now freedom, and the exploration of space, is on hold and at a full stop.

I am hopeful in the kindness that rests in each one of us, but I am afraid of the ignorance of many, the laziness of others (even myself at times), the consuming blindness Americans live in, the television they sit in front of, and the slow take over of what freedom is while we consume nearly unconsciously. The walls are closing in, as they say. And as for being safe, we can be pelted by an asteroid, struck by lightening, killed by human error at the wheel – rather on a cell phone or changing the radio station – or the house collapsing due to faulty construction, an air borne disease, or food poisoning; the point is: we can die a number of ways, but to give up freedom for safety is ludicrous, or as they said give up liberty for freedom (which is the same damn thing and again is doublespeak). I believe we need to help each other and be happy-as it looks, we have only one life-lets not spoil ours, mine, yours, theirs, everyone. “The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either” -Benjamin Franklin.

There is no word more powerful, more evasive, more elastic, nor more neglected in foreign policies, mainstream cinema and everyday life than that word called love.

Justin Vaisnor