I just got back

Cogito ergo non sum: I think therefore I’m not, I wonder if René meant that as well. To be means to think, so to think means to be? I feel like Shakespeare, the son of god, the oldest trick we got in the book. I guess we’ll go over schematic lifeless information, the stuff we know and love, seeing that I have yet to break my own promise to myself: separating thing from idea.

Pooping has never been the same ever since we left Sardegna more than two months ago. You ever poop on the beach? Digging the hole, squatting, watching your insides come out of you. It’s quite beautiful, the human body, and I still don’t get this “natural ugliness” that we tend to inherit after the first few years of our lives. When exactly does the body get ugly? When is it weird to touch kids? I think it has something to do with function. You pick a kid up to say hello, but when is the kid not a kid? Aren’t we always going to be children, isn’t that a genetic definition? Seems like morality once again has turned it into a psychological state of mind, and it’s ok to be a child when you are a child, which in my case would be forever, but when you are acting like a child (happy without any reason to be happy, feeling no guilt or self-esteem issues (until you learn those from your parents)) it’s somehow negative. Logic, reasoning, excommunication. We should be like children without being like children, or at least not my idea of children, which is a good one, because I still see myself as one, more biologically than religiously, what was the difference again?

So poop magically avoided that paragraph. It just feels so much better to put pressure on your intestines to squeeze out the brown excrement, making room for more lard. Apparently it’s also more natural (not that word again). Sitting on a toilet isn’t comfortable for me anymore and ever since I was younger I would always lean as far forward as I can, putting pressure on my intestines (I didn’t know this at the time). So I guess you could call me a born-again shitter. Why is it illegal again?

Well, number 1, it stinks, and that’s inconvenient (woe is me).

Number 2, it’s bad for my health, so I need a place to do it out of the way.

3, I’m ashamed of pooping in front of friends. Public decency anybody? Respect?

Which leads us back to fear, and this idea of the body being this dirty disgusting collection of matter. This right and wrong schematic, this backwards cause and effect we’re taught, and we like it, and it makes sense. Woe is me.

So I’m back in the states and it’s supposed to feel different. I should be as depressed as the economy, and should feel bad for not having a job, not supporting nor respecting government nor religion, which brings me to the same point I have been writing over and over again: we, being insecure, feel threatened when people stop being afraid of us. Aren’t republicans against big government? Aren’t democrats for it? The conversion to socialism is almost complete, thank you messiah. Change is what we needed, and change is what we got, right? I mean, look at everything that’s changed.

A funny quote came across me the other day, “Preventing people from failing will only make them fail.” I like it, it’s dark, it doesn’t invoke this fear of being wrong, of being unhappy. We can do it, it’s ok. Let the kids fail, it’s better they know now instead of being lied to their whole lives.

Empiric knowledge is another laughter box that I like to eat out of daily. The Church is great, when it comes to marriage, nothing like a bunch of virgins telling you how to raise a family and when to have sex. We don’t trust the homeless for financial advice, nor do we let leapers give facials (thanks Robin), so why, how can we put our trust into those uneducated folks with the multi-colored robes? How can I listen to myself, seeing that I don’t have a degree? The hypocrisy is peaking.

The idea of the subconscious was bugging me on the train as I said goodbye to one of the Italian families. I wanted to cry, I tried to, and I told them, but it didn’t work. Talk about the end of a good film, the whole family accompanied me to the train station and then waved a handkerchief in the air. Little hands and wind are what I remember most vividly.

So we don’t directly control things that happen in our body, like when my heart beats, it beats, but I don’t control it, that is, with my conscious body. Aren’t we missing the fundamental assumption? We need to have control over our own bodies, even if we don’t, so we make up this subconscious so that we can blame ourselves and be responsible for things that we don’t either know about nor think about. “It’s probably my subconscious,” well if we don’t have control over it then how do we know we don’t have control over it? It’s a great idea, I just don’t see the logic. Why do we have to have control over our bodies?

I never told you about the crotch-less experiment. I had a pair of shorts with a broken zipper and instead of getting self-conscious and afraid I decided to walk around Florence with a broken zipper. I did not, for the record, go commando.

So at first it was weird, different, and then I did something so irrational that it’s rational: I got used to it. Most people wouldn’t say anything about it in passing, but when we were around a group of people, sitting down for example, they would start out by casually saying, “You’re fly is down.” When I responded with, “Thanks,” they stopped, but when I responded with, “Thanks for looking at my crotch and having the decency to tell me,” they started getting defensive. What’s with the penis and vagina that makes them superhuman? I guess it has to do with the sexual/reproductive side of things, but I don’t get the hierarchy.

Looking for a job and will probably graduate in a year, welcome back to the system Anthony. It’s funny, the one question I have been hearing from just about everyone is, “So what are you going to do now?” And my answer, for at least the next 6 months, is going to be: “I just got back.”

-Anthony