Monday, March 1, 2004

Change (in the House of Flies)

This is just personal post crap I've been making in a word document. . .I've decided to post it here. Ignore most of it. Most of it's just hyperbole, I think, but. . .but it helps me to get rid of some crap when it hits me. So yeah. Reader beware.

On a criminally random note, I should be writing. I've been skipping it quite often. But ah well. I just don't feel like it. . .but I should still be doing it. Ah well, ah well. Do I really think writing will get me anywhere? No, not really. So I don't see the big deal. . .or do I? Who knows. Shutting up.

---

2.23.2004

Okay. I want to discuss the atom.

I don't know extensive information about the atom, but I did a report on Democritus, so I have an idea.

The atom, from its initial conception, has gone a long way.

First, I'll start this off with my report I wrote about Democritus. From there, I'll expand on the atom and what it means, and go into a more interesting tangent about it and what it means:

Democritus was born 460 BC. He died 370 BC. Little is known of his life, and what there is to gather may but more assumption than fact. Most of what is known of him is his philosophies and, of course, his atomic theory. Although he wasn't the first to state something of an atomic theory. His teacher, Leucippus, had proposed an atomic system; and even before Leucippus, other Greeks had theorized that there might be atoms in some shape or form, such as: Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, and even Pythagoras, who proposed regular solids played a fundamental role in the makeup of the universe. It may be stretching it saying this about Pythagoras, and other Greeks—but Democritus is still widely more known for his theories of the atom.

Democritus was a materialist. He believed all things—even thinking—are carried out by perhaps atoms, by material means. He also believed nature behaved like a machine: that it is nothing more than a complex mechanism. In this theory, atoms are eternal and motion is as well; and he said the collisions of atoms to one another caused worlds to form, for things to be created. He said nature was a thing doing what it did. There was no divine intervention in this theory, there was only atoms randomly hitting to create. The atoms were the creators—not God, not some divine being. The world existed through the nature of atoms themselves, and everything else was controlled by them.

Democritus was also known as a great geometer; had his work in geometry survived, calculus would have came quite earlier than it did (which was around the time of Isaac Newton). And he, too, was known as a prolific writer who made somewhere around fifty-five works (which were lost mostly); but still, most of all, he is remembered for his atomic theory.

Democritus's atomic theory developed from what he was taught by his teacher, Leucippus. He took what Leucippus said and gave it a much more systematic, orchestrated appeal.

First, he took what Leucippus said. All things are made up of small, indivisible particles, called atoms. These bits of matter are too small to see. Democritus quotes Leucippus: "The atomists hold that splitting stops when it reaches indivisible particles and does not go on infinitely."

Democritus reasoned that if matter could be continued to break down, it would get to the point where it couldn't be put back together and would disintegrate. Although matter can be destroyed by repeated splitting, new things can be made by joining cruder, more simple pieces of matter together. This means the process of disintegration and reintegration is reversible. Thus there must be a form of matter that is it at its smallest, simplest. Could matter split infinitely, then there is nothing to stop it from destroying all matter completely. And that is not so—so there must be a form of matter at its simplest, Democritus said.

Second, there is empty space, vacuum, or void, between other atoms. Aristotle, another Greek who apposed Democritus in his atom theory, and who was the one who caused his atomic theory to be so detested, and fall into the backdrop (he also rote extensively of Democritus's works, which allowed what we have to be preserved), quotes Democritus: "Unless there is a void with a separate being of its own, 'what is' cannot be moved-nor again can it be 'many', since there is nothing to keep things apart." This states there has to be a space for many things to move around in, space to keep it apart. Without this void, space, atoms wouldn't be able to move and wouldn't be able to be "many." And so there must be space.

Third, atoms are completely solid, Democritus said. We know this assumption is incorrect. The scientist, Ernest Rutherford, discovered the atom's nucleus, showing that an atom is actually mostly empty space inside.

This notion which Democritus believed—that atoms are completely solid, compact, and don't have a vacuum, emptiness in themselves—lead to the belief atoms are heterogeneous; that they are the same all throughout. Another way to state this would be an atom has no internal structure. Again, this assumption is wrong; J.J. Thomson's discovery of the atom's electron rightfully showed it so.

And fourth, Democritus said of atoms: "They have all sorts of shapes and appearances and different sizes.... Some are rough, some hook-shaped, some concave, some convex and some have other innumerable variations." Democritus believed atoms were only different in their shapes and sizes. Later, Epicurus, another Greek, stated also that weight was another thing atoms were different in. For, to allow an object to move, inertia is required, and inertia requires an object have weight. As written by Aristotle: "Democritus recognized only two basic properties of the atom: size and shape. But Epicurus added weight as a third. For, according to him, the bodies move by necessity through the force of weight."

After Democritus, the atomic theory was long set aside. Aristotle opposed Democritus's beliefs, and said to the church that with this theory came Godlessness. Because of this, many of Democritus's books on the atomist theory were burned, and scholars who accepted and believed in the theory were prosecuted for their Godlessness.

Although the atomist theory certainly didn't lay around, many believe it wasn't until John Dalton's belief of the atom on a solid scientific basis that it came back into the forefront. There were, in fact, many scholars who upheld the atomist theory before Dalton. But Aristotle had been the kiss of death to it, and those scholars were far and few between because of the message that the atom theory was unGodly. So there it lay, dormant and crawling, dissipating, until John Dalton came along. From there, the rest gave us what we have of the atom today.

This said, the atom has changed much from this first conception of it.

We're now given the Bohr Model, and even more, we're given the Quantum Mechanical Model.

We're just going over this in my Chemistry class, so I don't know much about the Quantum Mechanical Model. I know that it has to deal with electrons, and how they levy out in an atom; that it has to deal with shells, or energy levels, that it uses probability. I know what we've started to get about atomic orbitals. But I won't squeeze that into this. I'll give a more simple explanation. (I also think that if you've taken your required science classes, you probably already know most of this anyway. But for the purposes of this, it doesn't hurt anything to explain it.)

So here's the Bohr Model. It says the atom is like planets orbiting the sun. The nucleus of the atom is orbited by its electrons (which are negatively charged particles which weight next to nothing). Bohr was somewhat right in saying this, but we've found his model is more of an average of how electrons work in the atom.

Keeping this simple, we've found electrons in an atom don't move in a straight set path around the nucleus. They sort of wobble around in there. Move all around in 3d dimensions. There's various mathematical garbage behind how this all works, but I don't understand it yet, and I don't want to add it to this either.

Now, electrons move extremely fast. So fast that it makes layers in an atom on the energy level it follows. When you look at an atom from what we can see, you see a fuzzy ball (at least from my understanding). Electrons are what cause chemical reactions to happen. An atom, if it has one electron in its outermost energy level, would want to get rid of it. And an atom with an almost full energy level would want to get the needed electrons to fill the energy level. That's how chemical reactions happen, and from my vague understanding (we haven't even hit this in Chemistry yet, but I remember learning it) the atoms share electrons. Thus maybe a hydrogen and an oxygen atom find each other and they share each other's electrons to make water.

I wonder something. Is the atom as we define it really an atom? Remember, Democritus said atoms were "indivisible"—they can't be broken down. And we've found we can splice atoms, we can fission them. Are what we call atoms really the smallest form of matter? I don't think so. I think we can even go smaller. I mean, there's the theorized quarks (basically more subatomic particles) as well as neutrons, electrons, protons. And an atom can be broken down, it can be cut, and spliced. Is an atom really an atom, as Democritus said? I mean, we can go smaller than an atom. There's subatomic particles. What's beyond these subatomic particles? What's beyond whatever's beyond these subatomic particles?

When you think about it, for all we as a human race know, we know little. We still don't know a lot about the atom, and I find that most of it seems to be mathematical garbage. But the garbage is important all the same, but it's not the stuff I like to look at. I like to look at the big picture: what does the atom mean. That's the big picture.

The atom means understanding the fundamental makeup of everything. It means understanding incomprehensible things. It's highly unlikely in my time, or anyone's who is alive now, that we'll figure out everything about the atom.

When you think about it, it's crazy. An atom, they're so small, but they make up everything. They're even smaller than bacteria, even smaller than cells; they're much more smaller, since they in fact make up cells themselves, right? Yes.

It's funny how Aristotle brought Democritus's atomic theory to the church, saying it was next to Godlessness. I suppose back then it was like that, but really, I find that science tends to agree with the theory of God in some aspects It's the opposite. Science and Religion can coexist; it's just that some people don't see it. If more than anything, the atomic theory presents more reason that there could, in fact, be a God. We see the atoms have an orderly, mathematical way about them. They do what they do with a certain autonomy. They do it with a set purpose. Just like our cells do; just like nature does (which I agree with what Democritus said; nature is a lot like a machine, a complex organism that does what it does). Just like our brains. Just like everything else we observe. Everything serves its purpose and does it.

But, on the other hand, science also supports the theory of something like the Big Bang theory, or any other theory one can think of of how what we have now is here.

Perhaps my mind wants to think it like this: First there had to be nothing, and then somehow, from that nothing, something was made. But what, perhaps, if there was always something here? There was always space. There was only the needed things to happen in the right way as to make the universe as it is today?

Another question: is the universe infinite. My gut feeling says no: and it's mostly my common sense speaking here. When you look at everything, we see everything is finite; it doesn't last forever. The sun will one day be gone. The earth cannot sustain itself forever, and will degrade to something like Mars (on a side note, I hope they find there once was life on Mars with the recent missions). I do not think the universe is infinite. But then again, if it is, then it is. I'm just theorizing, using what's in front of me and giving a go. And what I see tells me that it's not infinite. It has to end somewhere. It just doesn't span all over.

So if it's finite, how does that work? I'm not quite sure. Perhaps the universe is ever-expanding? Perhaps the universe is still growing? Perhaps new planets are being created quickly, slowly, but being created the same? Perhaps to us the universe may seem to go on forever, but it doesn't, it just goes on a long time.

As for other forms of life: definitely. There must be other life out there. This I'm pretty certain of, and I'm sure will one day be found to be true. But that's in another lifetime, another time, when the earth's all used up and we're in space, exploring. I do see that happening: stuff like star trek and all that. It'll happen eventually. We can't just stay on earth all the lasting of our race. We must leave.

Or face extinction, that is.

And who the hell knows. A meteor five hundred miles wide could hurtle towards the earth this very moment, and kill us all. That's the way it is. It giveth and it taketh away. Living is a privilege. We could all die any moment.

I could step outside of my house right now, and if things go right, I could be ran over by a car. And die just as suddenly as I live.

Few people seem to see this, though, and don't take life as something too hot to handle. They take it as something that's given. And living like that's wrong. You've got to live like any second you could be dead. Don't be depressed with how crappy this world is, just be glad you're alive.

Another side of me says it's pointless to live. But I've mostly tackled that side away. But that side has some good points.

Why live if all you learn and capture will die soon after, if not before, if not with you? Why live life if the world's as messed up as it is, and you can't just enjoy being alive, but you have toil to do it, too? Why live at all when there's people out there that're far more genius than you and will learn more than you ever will? Why do anything when it means nothing to you? Why even care?

All of these are good points. And there's many more I could give.

I'll probably plunge into this feeling once more some day. But for right now, I'm over it. Many call this angst, I just call it living. Life's not all straight and clear-cut, you know. It goes up and down, it doesn't stay level, and you can't always be happy with what you have. It's in us that when we have something, we take it for granted, and want more. That's what we all fall into. And then there's the whole feeling that life's not worth it. And that it's a waste of time. And we just live to die. And it'd be better to not suffer at all and not have existed.

Parts of me agree with this pessimistic, negative view of life. But not lately. Lately I'm just telling myself there's some things to live for in this world. The world can look all complex, atoms can look all complex, the universe can look all complex, anything and everything can look complex, but you can still simplify it.

There's some nice feeling to simple things, to small things. And these are the things that make my day.

Things like finding out what a word means, or reading a book and finding some interesting strain of thought brought on from it.

Why, today I even had fun doing math. If you know me, I despise math with a burning passion. Math to me is the devil incarnate, and I cannot stand to do it. And Geometry I put even a step above this. Geometry's like the Whore of Babylon, and it's even worse than math. Geometry's not even math to me at times. But it is math nonetheless.

In Geometry we're doing trigonomic ratios. You know, tangent, cosine, sine. And today we went onto being able to find all the parts of a triangle. It's fairly easy stuff, but I find it enjoyable just because I feel confident in it (which is a rare thing for math) and I feel that it makes sense and that it's not bad at all. I feel it's fun in its own way.

It's easy. You're given two sides of a triangle. You use the Pythagorean theorem to find the third side. Then you use the property of cosine, sine, and tangent to find the measure of the acute angle, and that's about it. It's easy.

Today I was reading The Silence of the Lambs and I came upon the phrase quid pro quo. I looked it up in the dictionary and found it means asking for someone to give you something and then you giving that person something. Just learning this has made me in a better mood. It's the small things that are the biggest difference.

I still do have a cynical outlook, I just try to keep it in. I usually am able to do this because I write most of my cynicism away in my writing, or get rid of it from some other way. It seems to work out in the end.

I think my grades are still terrible, but I'll get them up (or so I keep on saying. We'll see if it actually happens). It's not good that I have a Latin test tomorrow and I didn't even really study tonight. I'll probably do bad. I didn't do my math either. But I already got most of that done, and hopefully that's good and the teacher won't collect the assignment or anything.

It's also my mom's birthday today. I sent her all my stories I've written. It was a pretty sizable collection. I'm pleased with how many stories I have with how little it seems I've put into writing. I hope she enjoys those.

On another note, I should mention that one day my dad had that talk with me. I think that's for a different post, since I'm mostly worn out right now and about ready to quit writing. It's for another time I guess.

Dad's also off and at Utah this week until Thursday. My grandma's up here with us until then. My brother's been particularly wild lately. My mom seems to be doing good. What else? Not much else.

This turned out lame towards the end, didn't it?

Ah.

What I wanted to address.

Here's an interesting thought:

If God's the creator of Heaven and Earth, and the universe, then what created him, or it, or whatever God is?

I bet you can't answer that one.

Think about it for a while. It shows just how assuming it is to believe in God. I'm not saying it's bad to believe in God, not at all, I'm just saying there couldn't be a God just as much as there could. You might say everything you see gives more to your assumption of God. Well, everything I may see also may give me more assumption that there isn't God.

Here's how I feel about God, though: I feel it doesn't matter to me.

I also feel Heaven and Hell probably don't exist. There's also been an underworld and some sort of Heaven. It's in Norse Mythology, in Roman Mythology, in any religion we see almost. I highly doubt there's a heaven or a hell. It seems most just want to scare you about life, and make you worry about death your entire life.

That's not how it should be. You should rather live to your fullest and not worry about death at all. Death will come when it comes, and when it does you'll find out finally what there is after life.

I've come to the conclusion I'd just like to die and cease to exist, and perhaps my writing to live on. But it's highly doubtful I'll become something well-known like Poe, or Twain, or Hemingway, or Stephen King. It's highly doubtful I'll even make it big as a writer. I'm slacking as it is again on making my stories, but I suppose this suffices as my 2,000 words. Plus, there's good ideas in here for stories.

Also, I think I should mention this.

They've sort of found that time travel exists.

This is going to be vague, since I'm only recalling it from memory from what my Chemistry teacher said about it.

Okay. So they did a gold foil experiment like Rutherford did. The gold foil experiment is basically sending a beam of alpha particles at a foil of gold. In Rutherford's experiment, he examined that the particles bounced off the gold foil at angles, and some straight back. This showed there was a nucleus in the atom.

Now, they did it again, purposely missing the nucleus and electrons to see if the speed and all of the alpha particles remained the same. They found in some cases the alpha particles sped up, and in other cases slowed down.

Now, Einstein predicted this. I don't know where exactly he said it, or whatever else, but he said that time was a property of atoms like weight is and so on. He said time isn't like what we say it is, but time is a property, as weight is, as I said. He said it's not a certain elapse of a set variable, but it's actually a property.

So maybe time can be sped up and slowed down? Maybe it even further shows time travel's possible?

We don't quite know at this time. What I do know is that unlocking all the atom's secrets is the key to unlocking many other things. Maybe even the ability to play God and create things at our own will, and to change things at the atomic level at our own will.

It's so interesting, yet so alien to see this stuff. It makes you think how the world will be one day, far away. I'm not looking to the future, and I'm glad I don't exist there, but I'd be amazed to see what's going to happen in the far future.

Also, think about this. What if time in the future is going on as time here in the past is going on. What if time in the past is going on while we're here in the present. What if it replays over and over again, or it keeps going (maybe in separate dimensions, maybe something else) at its own level. I've mentioned this before, but it's things to think about I have deja vu some times. This would explain it. Somehow the world's bending and you're understanding something that's happened in the past (or maybe it was just in a dream, whatever the case sometimes reality doesn't seem so real. And it's when it's like that that it's so strange, as if there's something you can't quite put your finger on.)

Or perhaps, what if our understandings of past, present, future, are fundamentally flawed. What if there's just time, going on, and there was never past but where we see it. There was never future but where we see it. What if there's just the present, and the past is gone forever, and you can't go back to it, and you also can't go to the future because it hasn't been made yet? If things are relative like this, then time travel is impossible.

But I believe time travel may be possible, but if it is possible, it has some very easy ways to totally mess up things as we know them. You know the whole thing. If you change one thing, it changes many things, like dominoes falling in rapid succession.

Whatever the reality of time is, and if there's future and past or not, who knows. It's just interesting to think highly outside the box and think over how things could be.

I think the atom is what'll unlock many things for us. But it won't be happening in my time, nor yours, nor many others. But I see shimmers and glances of it here and there, like with that experiment with the gold foil that proved Einstein right.

Einstein must've been a genius. I'll have to read some of his other things someday. See what there is to see there. It's amazing he predicted that. Just like it's amazing Democritus predicted what he did way back when.

2.24.2004 (I hate this post, but whatever, I'll post it. . .)

I can't write. This sucks.

. . .I'm listening to a song from FF7. I love this song. It's from in Nibelheim, when you're in the scene with Sephiroth. Not the Sephiroth music, but the soothing, sort of flittery song. I can't explain what song it is. Just know it's a rather calm song that seems to have a disillusioned veneer to it.

I was trying to write down what this song makes me think of. It's hard to pin it down. I think it's quite a beautiful song.

What does it make me think of. . .? I don't know. It makes me think of FF7 and what a beautiful, wonderful game that is. It makes me feel like hugging something. It makes me feel like sleeping, like escaping things.

The music is subtle but grabbing. Solemn but mysterious. Sullen but devised.

I think it makes me think of too much to just put down here all at once. It sort of is so beautiful I can't even think about what it makes me think about. All it makes me think about is it.

I can't finger it. I don't know. All I know is I like this song. . .

I feel. I don't know. I don't want to know. I don't want to explain. I don't want to care. I don't want it to be tomorrow, I just want it to be now, or maybe that I go to sleep soon and I sleep a full sleep that lasts forever. Not death, but just sleep, a sleep where I dream forever but don't wake up, and the dream is so much better than anything here. A dream where I'm not limited by these emotions I feel; these anythings I feel.

What am I even saying? I don't know. I. Don't. Know.

I feel. . .frustrated. And I'm doing it consciously. We do control how we feel, and so do I. I'm not even looking at the keys as I type. Not even looking at this screen. I'm sort of putting my head down on my chair, shutting my eyes, and trying to make all of this go away. I'm trying to blank out. . .is that the word? I don't know. I don't know the word. It feels so frustra right now, so in vain, so ego sum nihil. I think I'd like to just lie in bed, alone, and just feel passionate alone with myself. That would feel good. But feeling passionate in a romantic sense has been far and few lately. Lately.

The words won't come out I'm holding them in because I don't think they're the right words I think they're the wrong words. Not the good ones, not the ones that I think are the real ones that are me. The words don't feel like anything, they feel like roadkill on a road that's been ran over by car after car and a large desolate freeway to nowhere, from nowhere, into nowhere, and being the center for nowehere that the roadkill lies on. Tires are round and spin forever and are black, and they just revolve, like the planets around the sun, like flies sweltered to a carcass, spinning madly around, madly madly around. Oh it's so mad. . .So very mad.

I think I just need to sleep. But I don't want to sleep. I want to know that I can write, but I can't right now, and I don't have the will, and I just want things to be easy. I want things to be out of the way and for everything to be what it should be.

And I'm just ranting endlessly, provincially, with no point or purpose or mean or reign or home,. I'm just saying to say to say, and speaking to speak to speak, and writing to write to write. And I'm just here to be here to be here.

We eat babies.

I think that should've been on the Star's shirts.

I wish I could write something. I tried a poem but it didn't work. It turned out terrible. Is poetry done for with me? I can force myself to write it, but that's not fun.

Writing's not fun when you force it. And that's what it's all becoming.

All you can do is remain strong, isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it? I'm not strong. I'm weak. I'm pitiful. I can break and I'm fragile as a sandcastle on a beach by the lapping shore.

. . .Fragile as a sandcastle on a beach by the lapping shore,
. . .Go on roach, yell the antenna high, this is this and I've died,
. . .Death is release, a bloodsoaked fan. thank god for that much to have had.
. . .The god is in bloom, handcuffed and raped.
. . .

I still remember that poem, don't I?

Cloud water
endlessly deep
for someone to keep

Only underneath
that cloudy water
will you sleep

It still seems good now.

I'm just going to go to sleep, maybe read some Silence of the Lambs. I need to sleep, I can feel it. But in that same moment, in this same, I don't want it to be tomorrow. When it's tomorrow there's a whole new day of school to tackle, a whole new everything that's everything that's the world, and society.

It's a whole lotta things to break you and it's a whole lotta things for you, for you you trashcan man, you crash dummy, you vase with a wilted plant on it that's falling off the unkempt shelf. An unkempt shelf. An unkempt shelf. . .

And where is the self? The frame with the picture. And where is the self. . .an unkempt shelf? And where is the self?. . .An unkempt shelf?

And where is
the self?

2.26.2004

I just got done listening to my brother scream at me.

You see, being the selfish little boy he is, he decided to take the PS2 upstairs to his room. Now, you'll notice I didn't say our PS2. I'll explain this.

The Christmas we got the PS2, I found it in my dad's closet, an easy find that wasn't even hid well. And so, because of this, my parents got angry and took back some of the gifts they bought me and told me that I shouldn't look for presents like that again, and that the PS2 will be owned by my brother instead of both of us.

But he isn't supposed to have it in his room.

So, being the calm, collected person I am, I stepped into his room. He was playing Max Payne 2, a game that is mine, but I let him play it anyway. So, I ask him, "You need to take the PS2 downstairs. You know grandma's told you to do it many times. And you know it's against the rules to have it up here."

He screams, quite loud and quite rudely, "GET OUT OF MY ROOM."

So, being the calm and collected person I am, I stood there, and wouldn't give it up. Slowly, quietly, "You're going to take it out of your room."

Being the brat he is, he screams, loud enough for the neighbors on the next block to hear and get a headache from, "I SAID GET OUT OF MY ROOM."

So, being the calm, collected person I am, I still stood there, but my emotions were mounting. Why was my brother screaming at me? I hadn't done anything wrong. I had only came into his room to tell him he should take "his" PS2 downstairs because that's the rules—he's not supposed to have it in his room.

I take the memory card from its slot in the PS2, saying I won't give it up back until he takes the PS2 downstairs.

"I'M NOT TAKING IT DOWNSTAIRS GET OUT OF MY ROOM LEAVE ME ALONE I'M NOT TAKING IT DOWNSTAIRS—"

And here I was. The kid stood up out of his seat, began screaming incessantly. What a brat, I thought. I wanted to smack some sense into his stupid, ignorant way he was talking to me—by just screaming. In the other room I heard my mom slam her door—she was on the phone. Doesn't this kid know how to control his temper? Doesn't he know I'm just trying to have him do something simple?

"—GET OUT OF MY ROOM I'M NOT TAKING IT DOWNSTAIRS I'M NOT TAKING IT DOWN THERE GET OUT OF—"

He's starting to scream even louder now. Everything he says is in a high-pitched squeal. I wonder if his throat will hurt from that? Maybe. Spit starts flying down, and I hold him light by the shoulders and say, "Calm down. There's nothing to be screaming about." I say it all in my cool demeanor, in the nicest way I can, but inside I feel a need to hit this kid as hard as I can over the head to knock some sense into his stupid head.

I decide it's hopeless. My mom's on the phone, and if I were to do anything that made progress, it would be hitting my brother. And hitting my brother isn't a good thing. Each and every time I have hit him I have had to come to my dad and get bitched at endlessly that it's wrong to hit him.

But it seems it's okay for him to hit me. He's still screaming, spit coming everywhere, I see spots on his sweatshirt. Why does he scream? He has a temper just like my (step)father. Well, I'm not like that. I don't know why he has to be like that. Screaming like this is no way to act. In a few days he'll be 13. A 13-year-old that doesn't even act like one. Soon he'll be in 7th grade. Then what? Will he still be like this?

"—GET OUT OF MY ROOM AND LEAVE ME ALONE I'M NOT TAKING IT DOWN THERE GET—"

He hits me light, and I decide I need to leave, and act on it this time. He's just going to end up biting me, or hitting me, as he always does. I walk out.

I had wanted to sock the kid on the head, knock some sense into him. But I can't do that. Violence isn't endorsed by the family's ten commandments. "Thou shalt not hit." I guess I can't do that. Guess I have to follow what this house believes.

I feel frustration, anger, as I walk down here and start typing. I feel a want to cry, but I don't. Cry for what? The day hasn't be so bad that I need to do that. Crying's bad. I think it's weak. I don't want to look weak. Always keep the emotions in, and let them out somehow else. Don't show any emotion but what you feel inside, and keep it inside. Let people do what they do. Let the kid sit up there with this PS2 and go against the rules and do what he wants. He's always gotten his way since he was little. He wasn't even spanked much at all. One time he had spray painted the garage. Oh, but that's okay. My parents just cleaned it off because for some reason a kid isn't supposed to be responsible for his actions, he's supposed to blame others. That's fine, isn't it? Just dandy. It really teaches him how to act.

Oh, and he always gets his way. And when he doesn't he screams like a brat. That's okay too, isn't it? I'm sure when he's trying to get a job and they won't hire him he can just sit there and scream at them and yell his "GET OUT OF HERE" all over them and scream his yawp all over the world. I guess that's okay. He'll go real far.

He's been terrible lately. He's hyper, and knows it. He does everything and he knows it. He sometimes bounces all over our furniture making bang! and boom! and pow! noises as if he's playing with something I can't see. Why does he do that? Why does he have to be so hyper?

I love this kid. But not lately. He's just been bad company to be around. He swears, he acts annoying. It's gotten to the point where no one wants to be around him because he's so annoying. He doesn't even have any friends.

I guess I see a lot of me at his age in me. Perhaps I was this bad? But I know I didn't have a temper like that, and that I felt responsible for my actions, unlike him. I also know that I did just as bad in school, but shaped up 7th grade.

He has a lot of growing up to do. This growing up will probably crush him just like it crushes me right now. He'll learn. He'll be tamed by how things bend him and divot him. He'll figure it out.

All I know is I can't stand being around him right now. I can't even approach him and ask him to do something without being screamed at. Usually I try to stay away from telling him what to do, but my dad's gone. And also, my dad's also given this kid so much slack over the years. He's never punished, and when he is it isn't long. He knows how to play my dad and make him sing. He can play hell with my dad's heart and make it all his. I could never do that. My dad and I aren't the same people.

Some of it is probably that he's his real son. It must be part of it. It has to be. But I know my dad loves me as much as he does my brother. Sometimes it's questionable though. Sometimes I wonder. But what's new.

What my brother did has offset my mood. But what can you do.

I'm sitting here in my room, the lights off, loud, nice, soothing music booming in my ears. Since I stayed up so late last night, I feel like I could just sleep now. I think that'd be nice. Just to sleep. And not be here right now.

I feel at times all this crap is overbearing.

To quote a reliable source and end this: "few, if any, survive their teens."

Think about that.

You change so much these few years it's insane. I feel it's for the worst. I'd rather just be an ignorant stupid kid like my brother is right now. But time's not like that. Time's a real bastard. Not much else can be said.

2.27.2004

Today had been going fine. Had been going just wonderful great whatever adverb you want to use. Whatever shrugging shoulder you want to shame.

It had been going good. But then I come home.

My dad's been gone all this week. He came back last night.

Since I had nothing to do, I went to my friend Ryan's house last night. I hadn't been to his house for quite some time, and everyone needs to be with someone else once in a while. I just needed to get the hell out of here.

Went over there and my brother was left home alone. The kid's going to be thirteen. I thought it would be all right.

I tried to call my mom before I left, but I got no answer on her cell phone.

So ten o' clock rolls around. My dad calls me at Ryan's. I had been about ready to go. He tells me to get home now, I'm in trouble.

In trouble for what? Oh, that's right. For leaving my brother home alone when he did just fine, and when I called him once to catch up on things. He was only playing his game the whole time. And the kid doesn't even listen to me. Many times he just screams endlessly at me, or he grabs scissors or a knife and threatens me with it so I won't do anything. And if I hit him back or fight him back I'm the one that's in trouble because I was just knocking some sense into his head. But it's all right for him to walk up to my daily and tell me to shut up and call me bad names, but if I call him any bad names I get hell. So I don't see how I do much of anything when I watch the kid. Because I don't.

But I guess I can't even do anything much even though I'm currently about seventeen years old. Even though next year I'm graduating from high school. Even though my mom says I'm mature and responsible while my dad sits here and tells me on a daily basis I'm a loser and I'm a slob and that I'm lazy and all these little things that add up in the end. I guess leaving my brother because I needed the get the hell out of the house for once was wrong. I guess doing this makes me a horrible person. I guess trying to give me some me time isn't right in anyone's eyes. This week's been stressful, there's no way around it. Every week is stressful. I've been trying to hold myself up and keep on going, but now it feels like it's all coming down.

It's the little things. They gnaw on you till you're raw—visceral—till you're just a bleeding, bloody chunk that doesn't even look like what you want to look like. You look in the mirror and it's not even you there, and all you see is the little things, the small things, the gnawing depravation of your skin.

Since I went to Ryan's and left my brother home alone I'm being penalized like some sissy little kid. I'm grounded. I'm grounded because I left my brother who's going to be thirteen soon and should be able to be home alone fine. I'm grounded because I just needed a break from everything. I guess I'm just a terrible person. I guess I should just go shoot myself in the head because I can't do anything right, and I can't even stay home and watch my brother when I'm supposed to. I guess I deserved to be grounded for something when I don't even see it as bad. My parents are so overreacting it makes me want to just scream in endless frustration.

Whatever. And oh well. Wonderful phrases, aren't they? Yes they are. Yes. They. Are. They're the best things I can say.

Going to Ryan's would be very nice right now. Just getting the hell out of here would be nice too. But I get to be treated like I'm some stupid ignorant little kid and I'm grounded. I'm just so frustrated and sick of this daily crap from all sides. There's school, there's this, there's the need to get a job, there's the need to get ready and on my way to college, there's the need to give myself some time to unstrain this, there's a need for me to just relax and not be so serious all the time. There's a need for everything and I'm sick of giving what I need. I'm sick of the meticulum, the tedium, the entire useless drone this world's adhering to.

I was doing fine earlier today. I actually tried and cared about what I was learning about as much as I could. I came home and I felt that I could write my 2,000 words today, that I could give myself some me time. Because it's the weekend after all.

I guess not though. I guess I'm still cemented, still perversed, to these interdictioned chains. I guess all I do is in vain.

I just feel like pounding monotonously on a wall in thick, heavy strokes, and feeling the numbness in my hand tinge up to my shoulder tinge up to my head. I feel like sleeping. I feel that nothing matters because I can't even go and do things with my friends even though I'd like to.

I don't know why I'm doing this. I guess I'm just reactive. I try to tell myself I'm fine and I'm going to get going on things. I tell myself to keep at it all and it'll work.

Today was registration for the ACT. Got that out of the way. And I don't care. I don't care I don't care I don't care.

Half of it is I'm cranky from not sleeping too much, and half of it is the real feelings that I constantly suppress. Whatever it is it doesn't matter.

Why should I even do anything? Why should I even go to college? Right now it seems useless, stupid, inane. Right now I don't want to do anything but lie down and not have to sit here day-by-day and feel or know or see or anything.

I don't even know why I'm moaning. Writing down it doesn't do anything. It seems useless as everything else.

At least I get to go see Passion with my friend Ryan and Dusten from newspaper. But Ryan has to pick me up, since my dad's being so goddamned anal about me leaving my brother.

Here I thought, "Yes! It's the weekend! I can finally do things with my friends!" But now it's, "No! I can't do anything because I'm a terrible person who left his brother at home alone when he's going to be thirteen and he's completely able to watch over himself and sustain himself for a few hours! And I even called him in those few hours and because of my decision to leave I'm grounded and I can't do anything for no reason at all just because my dad seems to think I deserved to be punished for doing nothing! Yes!"

It's a 360 degree turn of turns. It's a circumvention of the sides. It's a radius on the sides. It's a circle spinning spinning—spinning.

Enough of this then. It didn't help too much. I need to do something and take off all this humdrum crap off my mind. Stupid world. I hate it.

I'm in a System of a Down sort of mood. "Sugar" is a great song. . .I recommend it to sate the pains.
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