=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = F.U.C.K. - Fucked Up College Kids - Born Jan. 24th, 1993 - F.U.C.K. = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Emotional census and a glass of self ------------------------------------ Is the glass half-empty or half-full? Nothing feels worse than having a tired cliché as that sum up a feeling or sentiment. Still, sometimes we fight the urge within ourselves to find the perfect and eloquent way to express something when a tired rhetorical or metaphor fits all too well. Sometimes, the reason these cliches have become so is because they are the essence of how things are, already perfectly pre-worded. The empty/full rationale, in this case, in an emotional one. I think it is a common human condition to look within us, to see if everything is as it should be, or at least running parallel to how we think it should be. To find out if our successes are what we had in mind, if our quality of life meets the demands we set months and years ago, and if our hearts are fulfilled as they need to be in order to make life itself an enjoyable, worthwhile, and livable endeavor. I've been polling myself of late, and have found, empty or full, I am half of what I have known myself to be and short of what I want to be. Career, goals, and successes are all approximate to what I've had in mind at various points in my life. All are "full enough", for all intents and purposes. I have a home, friends, and can feel the warmth of my parents love for me, even this far away from them, as if I still clung to chest with a hand no larger than quail^Òs egg. But what of the heart? It is far from full. I know so, because I can clearly recall the feeling of it being so. With that in mind, I wondered if that were in fact true, why was I still happy? If I were "half a man", so to speak, I should not be content with life as I am. So that raised the next obvious question: do we necessarily need to be "full". Our hearts crave substance, and abhor emptiness. We lament and feel the perceived fullness of the hearts around us as way of applying emotional spackle to our vacancies. We find ourselves renting romantic comedies or even finding human depth and fulfillment in Hallmark commercials in some depraved effort to consume empty calories of a heart-warmed meal of surrogate love. I used to sustain myself thus, and ache more at that need to do so than the times of unfulfillment themselves. At the same time, I can think of times that there was a "full". When every cache and crevasse was filled to bursting with friends, lovers, and loved ones. They sit before me like those yellow and black monochrome photographs from the turn of the century - somehow seeming clearer and crisper than the vibrant Kodachrome we have available to us today. Why do we keep photographs? The moments within them are clearly gone, escaped from us due to the passing of time. We keep them, whether available, displayed, or on our person, because they are moments worth keeping and cherishing. Emotion, feeling, and even the ache of feelings gone by should be perceived no differently. But I digress. So I am neither empty nor full is that a concern? What I've found poignant is not the empty/fullness, but rather the lack of concern about it, one way or the other. As I've said, I can remember fullness, and touch times of emptiness if I feel so compelled to stand emotionally naked before myself. But do I crave it? Do I *need* it as I think I do, or should for that matter? I say nay. Like old photographs, I don't look at them to conjure up the urge to crawl within that moment. To crave the past is to express, without admitting so, that we are emptier than we can possibly face that we've allowed things to fall so far from grace, when we obviously had right at some previous point in time. Another digression, my apologies. They seem as controllable as the ability to fly when we fall in a dream. As I said, I have come to wonder if it is basically important to be full. I will not advocate the benefits of being emotionally empty. I will say one needs to traverse there (and generally we all do, and rarely by our own design) in order to know the capacity of ourselves how vacant we can be in order to better see how much is required to become full. One thing I have come to appreciate about "halfness" (poetic license, not poor grammar, rest assured) is that it brings us something that fullness lacks. It creates a fire of passion within us, with the ache of vacancy as a fuel. Never are we hungrier than when we are without. One could agree that that emptiness, by virtue of being more vacant, would have more fuel, and would thus burn hotter and stronger. I disagree as many may already have, that this is generally not true. Emptiness contains nothing, and as a result, has nothing to consume. It is only when we need to fend off the abyss, and at the same time, obtain our desires, that we have enough character to stoke with a poker of motivation and not desperation. When we are full, we become complacent. Some are wise and perceptive enough to appreciate these moments and give them their due. But for the most of us, we can recall too many occasions that our complacency made our passions lapse and become lazy and as a result, we allowed the fires to dwindle far past the point to save, no matter the amount desperate rekindling. Almost all of us have lost in this manner. Still, we mustn't shun these times. We must also embrace these as we do the emptiness. We must let these times or the loss of them become the piss and vinegar burning in our hungry stomachs. We must allow them to be become an obtainable beacon, even if they be only the empty allure of the green light seen from Gatsby's dock. I think of the example of the tales of knights and chivalry. I didn't realize until late in life until the fables had been too often told that they generally did not end up with their lady faire. They did everything for them, and selflessly in their name, without sex, without a kiss, and sometimes, without a touch at all. Instead, it was the gesture that was their foremost goal, and they filled their "manly" needs with handmaidens and whores. But when it came to the heart, it was fulfilled in spirit alone. With all this in mind, tangents both included and aside, I have come to appreciate the "halfness". I come to appreciate what I have so easily neglected and forgotten in times past. When we are unmotivated, nothing propels our ambition like hunger. I think trying to tack this hunger upon someone in an effort fill it, as would some ambitious landlord to an empty space, is poorly crafted logic. There are not many times in our lives that we are passionate and not passionate in the traditional sense that we often think of when involved with another. I'm talking about a raw, unfocused, passion. I'm talking about the passion for words, for company, for expression, and for self. I'm talking about enjoying the nuances of thought, be it another's or ours. To hone and whet that sensation is to appreciate wielding it. The better tempered it is, the stronger it becomes. I do not crave a lifetime of "halfness", and I think that goes without saying. While there is value in longing, well applied, there is no benefit to denial for the sake of some composed nobility via emotional martyrdom. Instead, I'm just saying that I will no longer call these times as being "without". There is so much of one's self to fill that space with, and not with the wispy smoke of want and desire. Instead, it can be filled with all the parts of ourselves we never know until we are alone: the aforementioned passion, the strength, and the strength to admit the frailties we discover along the way. When the time comes, this is the part we bring to another honestly, openly, and willingly with more than enough to spare. And, just for the sake of not leaving anything uncrossed or undotted: if the glass has something in it, it's full enough. - capone =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = Questions, Comments, Bitches, Ideas, Rants, Death Threats, Submissions = = Mail: jericho@dimensional.com (Mail is welcomed) = =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= = To receive new issues through mail, mail majordomo@attrition.org with = = "subscribe fuck". 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