Segment I: Commencement
Things are rapidly changing for most of the people I know. This is the time of year we usually dedicate to graduates. Hundreds of thousands of speeches will be given across the nation at every high school, public and private; and in majority they will proclaim a message of bright futures and grand opportunities. The great potential of our generation will be cited, but it seems for the first time those promises, or rather the promise of this generation will be tested.
Where have all these promising graduates to go in an ever-declining world? With a national deficit owed to the people who are completely oblivious to their own nigh on inevitable disaster; and who have become completely dependent on a market, government and theology that is specifically designed to take away from them; what point is there in promising a bright future?
What started as a republic, and is believed to be a mob ruled democracy, is now nothing more than a governmentally reliant nation that has lots its will to fend for itself. Here is the true vision we are the man who hasn’t left his house in five years, and is working at a pointless computer job in a pool of his own piss because he is too fat and lazy to leave the desk in his bedroom. His body is crushing him, he is dying, and his only aim is to continue his own weak existence. It wont be long before the world powers have to cut a hole in the wall of his apartment and lift him out with a crane because there is no other way to move the dead mass that was the United states of America and make room for whatever body that the UN will decide we should have.
Our laws are being made for us; either by a disjointed, separated, rank body of elected officials, or by forgiven powers to whom those politicians have further federated our once sovereign nation. The entire purpose of such a federal control system is to promote a peace and unity that has only served to further destroy the fabric of what was once a unified nation into political parties so diverse and intermingled that there is hardly any point to their existence. The government is struggling to keep its own head on, and it is rotting well beyond the core.
America is owned by the nation we have exported our jobs to. In a mad rush to make more money as a nation, we have given up our ability to make money as individuals. To the new crop of graduates; high school, collegiate, and doctorate all, you will see the bulk of your employment given away in order to provide life at as little cost as possible. You no longer have the option to work hard for your dream, as the rewards will not be enough to substantiate you. Oh the irony that Americas attempt to reach the American Dream has now suffocated the life of that dream away.
I would beg you to turn to the church, but alas even that once holy body is now so lost that it has forgotten from whence it came. Churches are pro-life and pro-choice, for a millennial reign and against it; homosexual, legalistic, liberal, secular, humanist, evolutionary, incestuous, hopeless, economic, and popularity based bodies all gather in the name of the same God, with the hope that their denominational differences give them justification for whatever difference they have from other bodies. And even then those churches that do stand for some method of true righteousness are on the brink of collapse, with pews that appear less used every passing week. Believe whatever you want about God and Christ, and there is a church for you. If you are able to weed through all of the lies, the losses, the agendas, and the politics to see the truth of God that has been abandoned by and for the Church of Self, then cling to that truth.
So here, Graduates, is your Commencement. Whatever you believe and stand for, and however you intend to act on your convictions, be ready. The world you are entering has never been easy to any generation. But to you the perils are greater than perhaps ever. You stand at a point of history where all odds are against you. The Government can only think to help itself; the economy is bereft of benefits; and the church barely clings to the name of God. The world is on the brink of collapse around you and there is no place you can turn that will be safe.
Though trite and cliché, the world will be what you make it, for it stands on the edge of a knife, and a historical change is about to commence. We are the deciders. It falls to us to re make the world form the putrid remnants of our predecessors decisions. Where we go from here is up to you.
Segment II: Fight
On a large enough time line, the survival rate for everyone will drop to zero. ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 2
For thousands of years, human beings had screwed up and trashed and crapped on this planet, and now history expected me to clean up after everyone. I have to wash out and flatten my soup cans. And account for every drop of used motor oil. And I have to foot the bill for nuclear waste and buried gasoline tanks and landfilled toxic sludge dumped a generation before I was born. ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 16
I see the strongest and the smartest men who have ever lived... and these men are pumping gas and waiting tables. ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 19
All a gun does is focus an explosion in one direction. You have a class of young strong men and women, and they want to give their lives to something. Advertising has these people chasing cars and clothes they don't need. Generations have been working in jobs they hate, just so they can buy what they don't really need. ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 19
We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression. ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 19
Segment III: Webster
http://1828.mshaffer.com/d/search/word,Marry
Segment IV: Unsettled
Without question my life is completely uprooted right now. For those of you that know my often flights of drama or exaggeration, please do not assume at first that the statement previous is such an instance. I ask that you hear what I have to say and then decide how true my feelings and expressions are.
After only three weeks on the market, my family’s house sold. In the middle of a horrific turn in the market for housing, we were able to see the fastest turn around on any house since my parents first moved in together. While on the outside this may seem good news, it brings to light a problem. We now have nowhere to live.
As most houses available in the area are owned by the bank and are wither trash or out of our price range, options for new places to live are far more rare for us that we originally thought. The one house we are interested in (bank owned) may not even be near closing for six months. The bank is under the delusion that they can appraise it and get more money out of the house than it is actually worth. From my little understanding, it appears that by the end of the week my family may not have anywhere to live.
Interestingly enough, my family also is lacking in a spiritual home. For nearly a year we have been searching for a new church only to become more and more distressed at the well being of the body of Christ here in Lansing. Congregation after congregation are led or filled with spiritually bereft pastors and elders. Some meet in decayed buildings where the pastor is old and running out of energy, while others meet in grand halls only to have slovenly parishioners, who do no credit tot eh name of God by their actions. And in nearly all cases, even those churches that seem string in doctrine, theology and character, the attendance is low, and more often than not borders on dying.
The social world around me is completely new even from what it was at the beginning of the year. I am surrounded now by a new family of people I care about deeply and who care about me in spite of what I believed were insurmountable character flaws. However, regardless of my love for my family I seem to always be in some sort of struggle with the way things are with them. My hearts is always in chaos, no matter how much peace they offer me. I worry that on some level, a large part of me want to be alone, separate from people who would care about me, and that’s is why I am unable to ne still and content with the support they have shown me. But even more so I am unable to shake the feeling that somehow I will hurt them all in the end and be forced to leave again. I believe that I will inevitabely hurt the people I have come to care about. At times I can explain why, others I cant. At this moment I cant.
In the past weeks I have been haunted by the memory of a mistake that cost me dearly almost a year ago. But alas, following my ever-masochistic nature, I feel myself wanting to prolong my exposure to that which reminds me so completely of every thing about myself that I hate. Every time I am exposed to this “source” even in the most remote way, I get the mental image of the flash of a firearm, its bullet forcing its way into my body. Head, stomach, chest, back, the target ever changes, but the image and desire are always the same: I feel that it would be easier to live with this image of death than how I feel about myself. That is the most honest way I can word this.
After being denied entrance to Hillsdale I feel separated from a path that I once held strongly to. I feel without real purpose or direction. Any goal I once had has left me, and I don’t know that I have the strength to find it again. I work at Subway; though not as deeply pathetic as it could be, I don’t feel that I could fall any lower.
What am I? I don’t have a role or function of necessity in any place. I’m not a student, or a child. I’m not an adult. In some ways I belong where I am. But I’m still floating, nameless and meaningless.
These are my feelings as best as I can express them. These words, as they often do, fail to explain what I feel or think. I am trapped inside my mind, unable to get free because I lack the words to explain. I want to claw my way out of my own head. What does that say about me?
Segment V: Sister
He is home. Not as exciting as used to be for me. Every time I try to go and talk to him when he gets back from one of his every more frequent late night excursions he gets mad at me. “Go to Bed, Alyssa.” Doesn’t he realize how hard it is to sleep when I am so worried about him. He’s My brother. No matter how much he tries to push me away I cant help but worry. Something happened to him, but I can’t make him tell me what. I know he will tell me when he is ready, but what could have hurt him so badly that he is keeping it from me so vehemently. Oh, dear Nathan, why won’t you let me help you?
I’m the only one in the world who can even tell something is wrong with him. Well maybe not they only one, but I am the only person who can guess at the real reason. Nathan, or Antien, as he remembers his name, isn’t normal. He was born just like anyone else I’ve ever heard of, and as far as I know he was just another growing boy until he was fourteen.
My parents were very close friends with Nathan’s parents as far back as I can remember. The were so close that when my Dad lost his job, I’m told, we moved in with them till we got back on our feet. They were even so close that when my parents died, the Sisson’s adopted me. My Parents old car didn’t have ABS, and in December of 2002, on the icy Mid-Michigan roads, we weren’t able to stop from sliding into oncoming traffic. I still remember the Sound of the semi-truck’s blaring horn. No one knows how I survived.
I don’t remember much else of that Christmas. I’m guessing I blocked it out because of how hard it was for me. Nate became my adopted brother before the end of January. It took him a long time to get used to me as a permanent addition to his family. However, after a time, we both were glad to share the moments of our young lives together. And in the summer of 2005 we were both very glad of it.
I remember that summer well. Both of us do. Without many details, it was between the first and third weeks of SSI (Student Statesmanship Institute) the program to which m brother has all but dedicated his life to since then.
I woke in the middle of the night with my brother leaning over my on my bed. I never knew how or why something was wrong, but I knew my brother needed me. I grabbed into his shaking form, holding him in my tightest eleven year old hug, hoping that it would be enough to protect him.
I cant say what was going on. There is no way of explaining it. We were being pulled from our bodies. That’s all I can say for sure. My eyes were torn out of my head, though without any pain. Being so close to him, I could feel what was happening to him. For him there was pain. I reached for his hand, but there was none to find. I was blind, thought I doubt there would have been anything for me to see. Everything was being torn away from us, including what we knew as ourselves.
Every molecule of his body was being pulled apart. As it is nothing any human has experienced, there is no comparison even remotely accurate. The force that took things away from us, the bed I was on, my room, our clothes; it was now pulling his body away from him, atom by atom. It was silent and terrible, but there was simultaneously a torrent of power around us and in us, flowing through us like water through net.
I have never been more alone than in that moment, as what I knew as my brother was taken from me forever and able to even know what was happening, let alone stop it.
Without much Detail: our existence was torn away from us.
Segment VI: Inside
I try to make it through my life, in my way, there's you
I try to make it through these lies, and that's all I do
Just don't deny it,
Don't try to fight this , and deal with it
that's just part of it,
If you were dead or still alive
I don't care, I don't care
Just go and leave this all behind
Cause i swear, i don't care
I try to make you see my side
Always trying to stay in line
But your eyes see right through
That's all they do
I'm getting buried in this place
I got no room your in my face
Don't say anything just go away
Love changing everything
You won't be left for me
I don't care, I don't care
At All
Segment VII: Skyward
