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Where meaning may not.

Every time it turned, it sent a flurry of kaleidoscopic hues dancing across the ceiling. I sat there for hours playing with it, like a little boy lain in the grass trying to conjure images out of clouds. In Technicolor and fast-forward.

Scientists have all but proven that much of faith was in infancy, is the result of altered states of consciousness. Ultra-aware (or unaware) interpretations of shadows and plays of light. The unfettering of information contained in our many strands of junk DNA. Angels, Aliens, Apocalypses and Apostles. Through meditation, mind bending substances, masochistic rituals of self deprivation and exhaustion, the elders of our sapien brood, and in turn we, seek to find meaning in the world around us by looking through a crystal that distorts angles, softens corners and allows us to hope that there is more.

What if, and humor me here, there isn’t? Fortunately, this is not a discussion, so the argument is unilateral.

Would the inevitability of a final nothingness be too horrible to contemplate? Is the promise of an afterhere to the worthy that makes humanity human? Why would anyone want to own a Chihuahua?

In my humble (just kidding) opinion, there is nothing wrong with the concept of a void in the post mortem part of life (I know it’s an oxymoron you moron). The logical acceptance of the absence of The One would lead people to strip off their pretensions of piousness, be free to experiment with life, throw fear of brimstone induced caution to the wind and, perhaps, heaven forbid, be good to one another because it is the right thing to do. Not because cloud man said it was.

Pictured here is the book ‘God is not great’ by Christopher Hitchens. Buy it (this is not a plug).

May your universe never collapse into itself.

Malice.

P.S. A big “I love you” to K, who will absolutely hate this one.

Here comes the...rant.

Has there ever been anything as banal as love? It is the ultimate cliché, a Hollywood fallback that 4th rate hack writers revert to over the Valentine’s season to put bums in seats, replete with violins and a teary Kate Hudson. This cynical society, it of the speed date, 3 minute meal and instant gratification, is as overtly weary of love as a bearded man is of airport security at La Guardia. Approaching it with shoes in hand and arms over face for fear of being simultaneously stripped and maced. And yet…

And yet, we crave that cliché, we yen to yearn and prostate ourselves to perpetual pining in the hopes that we shall be plucked by the hand of happiness from the depths of disbelief onto the dizzying dreamweave of Dionysusian deliverance. Love is the saviour, love is the end all to all end, love is, well, love.

I, for one, hate love. I despise the fact that it is so intangible, deplore the pervasiveness of it, abhor the way it populates your every pore and dictates your every existential moment. I am, sadly, in love. When I say that I am in love, I don’t mean that I just fell into it like the proverbial mother goosish character descending suddenly off a hill. I have been sinking, gradually but steadily into it for a number of months. Like quicksand, the more you struggle, the more entombed you are likely to become, and believe me; I thrashed about for all my life was worth.

I will not bore you with the details, save to say that I have truly met my match, in every sense except the obvious (you can see that in the picture) and that I have surrendered, against my cynical will to this, most confusing of emotions.

To those of you unaware, I have asked Karen to marry me, and she has, unwisely agreed.

Your blessings can be addressed to me and your pities to her.

May your bowls be eternally curved.

Malice

Of life and other vegetables.

Having recently taken the time to read my own tripe, which considering the levels of egotism that I have long believed I possessed, is not something I do as much as I should (because I am brilliant and good looking), it struck me, with a blunt and rather weighty piece of scrap metal, that I have been progressively more mediocre and maudlin in what I project into the infinity of cyberspace.

While what I contribute in bytes may never be of any real significance to the world at large, or event to a particularly small and blithe township in Hicksville, it doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t be making the effort to entertain the masses and offend the select few who have proved themselves worthy of my disdain.

I have found myself becoming increasingly wary of the dramatic, insofar that my tolerance to people taking what is essentially a grain of life, placing it on a stark white tiled surface, pointing at it frantically and screaming for all to contest, ‘it’s a mountain!’. The ongoing upheavals that existence buffets us with, while seemingly pressing and palpable, are merely the price tag on an intricate, though normally unprepossessing, Persian rug. To lose your head looking down off the rope bridges that ferry us from one mountain range of life to another means that you really aren’t looking ahead of you, which, if I may be permitted to sound condescending, is what you should be doing.

Please bear with me as take you trough the following misty landscape (these posts are fed into a social networking site, which is accessible by everyone I have ever said good morning to, hence the need for discretion). Imagine, if you will, a man who has been classically trained in the ancient arts of panic, brooding and self imposed stoicism. Now imagine, again if it so pleases you, that said protagonist in his amblings kicks open a crate filled with shiny new situations (retail value nil, durability between 3 microseconds and the rest of your life). There are really only a pair of deployable courses of action, being; either to attempt to juggle them all and walk along fretting about when on will drop on his foot and result in tarsal tunnel, or to calmly pull his life binder out, place each one of the situations under the appropriate divider and deal with them in a rational (if boring), project managed way. There are pros and cons to each.

Needless to say that the manner in which one decides to deal with the misnomers of the earthly plane define a person. Those who deem it wise to learn, develop and ultimately build from the mortar of experience, will (theoretically), lead a life worth leading. The other contingent, who prefer to lose their heads over the minutiae and focus on the irrelevant, will as a result, step into a steaming pile of fido’s best work.

God Speed.

May the New Year bring no falling anvils upon your hallowed head.

Malice

Light hearted and heavy handed

For all those of you out there who have become bogged down in the minutiae of day to day survival and as a result have resolutely taken the view that life does not move very fast and offers only enough in the way of variety to ensure that you continue paying attention, I have come to deliver tidings of hope. This does effectively mean that I get to prove you wrong, so everyone’s happy.

In the course of my sage musings on the fragrant fruit of life, the depth of the oceans of thought and the way lint accumulates in belly buttons I have been bombarded by revelations, epiphanies and the occasional consignment of pigeon poo, to the extent that I lost sight of where my closely held beliefs began and where possibility ended… but come, what does that mean to you apart from the fact that I have just wasted a minute and a half of your time on a preamble?

The problem with mankind in general and opinionated Middle Eastern males in particular is that they were never taught that they could be wrong. So the individuals comprising the world bumble along, shouldering through the myriad of obstacles that they encounter in absolute conviction that this is the only way. And why? Simply because they never stopped to consider that there could be an alternative as simple as stepping around the offending igneous formations.

I believe that everyone has a day, a moment, be it brief or prolonged, in time where something or someone happens to cause, not only a existential shift, but a desire for said shift in the being of an individual. The trick to harnessing the potential of this altering force, and this is crucial, is to be awake.

116 after that ‘that’ day, I find myself trying to reconcile what I have long held fast to and what I want to put my faith in, and just getting this far has been arduous. I want to believe that things will turn out for the best, but my ragged intestines tell me that is romantic hogwash, I need to be good to people, even those who are fleeting on the stage of my life, but my insides scream, ‘what for?’

A paradox to be sure, but one that I endure and embrace with the brightest of eyes and bushiest of tails, there is change to be had, and I want to feast upon it.

This one’s dedicated to my life catalyst, you know who you are.

May your toenails pierce not your socks.
Malice

Kiss from a prose

I have, and not putting too fine a point on this, been happier than normal (the adjective to be read as ‘catatonic’) for the past couple of weeks (since the evening of the 16th of August if you must know). This is annoying me.

I am having difficulty intimidating people and being angry at the world; and my coach is pretty ticked off too, I may not make the Olympic cut in those two events. I find myself spontaneously smiling and singing at the slightest provocation. If there was a god, I would have harsh words with him/her!

During this most befuddling of times, there has been a bilateral exchange of rhyme, which I am posting for your amusement (and not your inane critiques, opinions and / or bodily fluids).

He Said;

There was once a girl called Karen,
Whose house was frightfully barren,
She plotted and planned
She dug up some land
And now she lives in a warren

She Said;

A grassy knoll, we did lie,
Looking for diamonds in the sky

A shooting star, he did miss
Caught by Aurora and shared with a kiss

The cold sparkling fountain, she did play
Warmed by Pharaoh, keeping the chill away

The night draws to a close and
The beer takes it toll
Yet I won’t be forgetting the grassy knoll


You see where I am coming from, I just don’t know whether I am strumming or bowing.

May your suppositories be well lubricated.
Malice

A ray of bitter sunshine

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls.

Step right up and prepare to be amazed. See the dancing ferrets as they trip the light fantastic, witness the marvel of human peanut butter sandwich as he devours himself aided only by a tall glass of milk and gasp in awe at that rarest of beasts, The Happy Cynic.

I must confess (although anyone with enough free time on their hands and an hourly nervous synapse would have realised this) that I have used this forum in the past for the sole reason of venting my frustrations and rallying against a world two sizes too small. Not this time, and hopefully not for a long time. It seems that the pitcher of fate has thrown me a knuckle ball that I did not expect, which hit me squarely in the face but turned out to be made of the most ambrosial marshmallow.

Not wanting to bore you (actually I don’t really care, your opinion means as much to me as a burnt matchstick recently dislodged from the rectum of mine enemy), I have been subject to a recent revelation, a full ten days of them actually. These I will dispense to you at no additional, please leave the agreed upon amount under the rug on your way out, charge.

Life is not out to get you, it doesn’t care about you. So you can sulk in the corner or go out there and buy a hamster.
Your soul mate may be out there somewhere, but to the best of my knowledge, even romantic ideals need help once in a while. While you are out, we’re out of soda, please pick up a six pack.
Alcohol can only get you so far, after that you may need to borrow a personality or a nice shirt.
Pretty girls aren’t as scary as they seem. They are actually terrifying. Just remember, being nervous and profuse flop sweat are infinitely sexy (there is something to be said for getting your dating advice from startrekfanatics.com).

All this positivism is giving me a headache. How do optimists survive.

This one’s for K and K.

May your eyebrows never meet.
Malice