I Think This Might Be Done For a While

I need to find beauty in something to write. Even if what I'm writing about is ugly, it takes the acknowledgment of beauty found elsewhere for me to be able to write a poem, or a short story, or a script, or anything. Everything just looks gross to me, these days. The world is overflowing with gross things, and I don't believe there's any human brave enough, or any collection of humans large enough, to ever stop it. What's the point in writing about that? Everyone is miserable, and they're right to be. That's all there is left to say.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love All Three Hobbit Movies

I think we reading-enthusiasts might do well to develop a different attitude when it comes to movies that are based upon beloved books. Because we tend to go into frankly disturbing levels of rage when a film commits the unconscionable sin of deviating from a previously established storyline, to the point where we apparently feel like the book itself has been insulted by said changes.

But films based upon books are just that: Based on them. The book serves as the base, the initial inspiration, and from that, the filmmakers essentially do whatever they want. We act as though it’s the duty of the filmmakers to represent the book as faithfully as possible, but that’s ridiculous, because the book represents itself. A truly good book doesn’t need a movie to do the representing, it’s doing just fine on its own, thanks. The filmmakers are taking the most base elements of a book, and using those elements to create something. That’s why it says “Based on the book by Suchandsuch Whathaveyou” and not, “Painstakingly transmogrified into sights and sounds from the words contained within the book by Suchandsuch Whathaveyou”

Sometimes, such films wind up strikingly similar to the books upon which they’re based, like Catching Fire, or Holes. Sometimes, they end up pretty different, like The Shining, or the trilogy based on The Hobbit. And if the movie sucks, the movie sucks, but it’s because it failed at being a good movie, not because it failed to follow the sacred text in every conceivable way. As a reader, going into a movie with a mindset of, “I hope this is a DIRECT CARBON-COPY OF THE BOOK I LOVED” is ludicrous, when instead the mindset should just be, “I hope this is a quality film.”

Why Do You Suppose

Why do you suppose
even for each of those
from whom no goodness shows,
on and on life goes?
If none want to stay,
and all want them away,
then tell me why, I pray,
they remain today.

I keep praying for God to kill me, and he won't do it. He won't even give me the bravery to do it myself. He just keeps me here, unhappy, unfruitful, a miserable stain on my family, friends, and everything they could be. There are so many good people around me and he doesn't even care enough about them to take me out of their way.

Vanessa Carlton is in My Head Today

This song is more or less everything I'm feeling lately.

A Few Small Things

If a BETTER you
is NOT a you,
then what a tiresome thing to do,
to KILL a you
to MAKE a you
over and over before you are through.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

When others know the things I did,

praises from their lips will pour

out about those things I did.

They say, "People should do them more!"

Yes, many love the things I did.

Just not the one I did them for.

--------------------------------------------------------

But what relief is there to give,

what newfound cure to try

on they who lack a reason to live

yet lack the courage to die?

Don't Listen to Your Heart

It's hilarious to me that 'trust/listen/follow your heart' is still a thing.

People automatically assume it's sage advice, because....well, their hearts are telling them it's sage advice. They're taking the advice before they take the take the advice in order to take the advice. Whoa.

Let's put this advice through the Bullcrap Translator real quick, and see what comes out.

.....

.....

.....

...Ding!

"Do whatever the heck you want."

Yeah, listening to your heart is just doing whatever feels good. I ask you, how many people have *ever* lived fulfilling lives by just doing whatever they felt like at any given moment?

You may be thinking, "But your conscience! Your conscience is in the general area of the heart, right?! And you should listen to that!" Well yes, yes you should. Sometimes. Not all the time, actually. But sometimes, when we act like jerks, we feel bad about it. In those particular instances, we should act on those guilty feelings and try to fix whatever screwed up thing we just did.

But we only feel bad about doing bad things *because we know in our brains that those things are bad*. Imagine a universe where murder is perfectly acceptable. Killing people is as commonplace as killing houseflies (PETA would be very happy in this universe. Let's teleport them there). In this universe, would you feel bad about cutting down the guy who just cut in front of you in line? No, why should you? You didn't do anything wrong, as far as you know. You swatted a fly.

That's because guilt comes from the voice in our *heads* telling us that we just did a terrible thing. We *feel* guilt in our hearts because we *know* in our minds that we ought to feel guilty, even if we try to push that to the back of our minds.

The greatest mistakes of my life were made because I listened to my heart and did what I wanted. I'm not saying I have any brilliant new revolutionary info here. Others have said this kind of thing before. It just really, really bugs me that they're all continuously drowned out by things like, "follow your heart and you'll never get lost" and "the heart never lies" and other such innumerable falsehoods.

Your heart knows how to pump blood. That's it. Your brain is *specifically designed for the sole purpose of knowing stuff* and yet we still don't listen to it. We listen to the blood pumper, because hey, he looks like he really knows what he's talking about right?

College

I am going to College.

I am terrified because I unmotivated and also unintelligent.

*nobodyreadsthis

*thisisbasicallyajournalnow

*astericksaremyhashtags

*thesearethewaysirebel