Pariah: "Remember who you are."

A friend of mine on YouTube, dospook, sent me a message in response to one of my latest videos entitled Heretical Aesthetica, wherein I did a highly stylized lip-sync of a Nine Inch Nails track called Right As It Belongs V2.

The reason I bring it up is because there is something very profound about this message. The first thing that struck me was the title, Pariah. This word was completely new to me, so I looked it up. Here's what I got from dictionary.com

Pariah (n):
1. an outcast.
2. any person or animal that is generally despised or avoided.
3. (initial capital letter) a member of a low caste in southern India and Burma.

Origin:
1605–15; < style="font-style: italic;">from a hereditary duty of the caste), deriv. of paṟai a festival drum

So, basically, a pariah is an outcast drummer. :) Brilliant word, yes? Well, I love it.

Anyway, as I said, I used this song by Nine Inch Nails, which is basically a herald of skepticism. There were clips interspersed throughout of myself playing drums in a worship band from 2006, back when I was still a Christian. It was fitting, as a retrospect of how far I had come in thought in the last year, from being what you would call a 'fundamentalist' Christian to being a very liberal type of person, with intricate and complex views on god, that both transcend and embark from Christianity.

At the end of this video, having done my best to make it look like I was making a clear statement against Christianity, I said something along the lines of: "I guess, then, that the question is this: Just how can I exclude myself?" What I meant, was to exclude myself from the standard I had seemingly set, because there is no distinction that would justify my recent, supposedly belligerent path.

Dospook, Mike, wrote this in response:

I think hate and rage against anything common to other people, and moving against their best interests and tastes is a good why to 'exclude oneself', maybe don't interact or speak much at all, get a fake lD, seclude yourself, fake your own death, then actually go to the woods and live as long as you can until you do die.

But that wasn't your question.... JUST how could I exclude myself? well, that seems like you are answering the question to yourself about your historic abandon from the group religion, group choir and human like sing along. questing another pattern, frequency, something honest with your halo's center.

I wish I found the answer to " Just how could I have excluded myself" followed by how do I continue to exclude myself and how do I begin including myself, for my own benefit.

Honestly, I'm so locked into my own head I can barely form tangents of thought, for long terms of communication with people, that don't twist, bend into non-associative ideas, and ether like thoughts of seeing our lives as reflections of our lives. but that is the grand mythos of our religious histories & language, echoed in media and mono-izing in a global 'beat of one drummer' hence common mythos. And what makes the mythos not a real reality where we can spend our time and endurances considering what we sense as the case? I would say a practical view of space and home going through presumed pragmatics behaviors, like chores or common work with common work language.

Az (Azrienoch) has been taking the argument that man is not an island and I sense that to be the case, moreso with sounds & atmosphere and the fact that we speak when we speak and with whom we speak, but spend lessor time assuming that we have all share the same temperance for one another on some pre-modernist base level of human nature.

So is man an island, In my world, no because the island has clouds and water & sky, in az land, i assume, the answer is yes, because I am a head sticking out of the water and so are you, both commonly sharing air with one another.

I dunno. it's a morning ramble.

The phrase "something more honest with your halo's center" resonates, here. (Aside from what I'm about to say, it's interesting because Nine Inch Nails releases albums / singles as "Halos," The song that I used is I think "Halo 27," because it was on it's own CD that was released in Japan only.) Deep down, I think Mike was right; I have been looking for something more honest with my center; my ethereal aura, so to speak, this... energy that calls itself James Elliott.

This is going to be a bit of a complex metaphor, but just trust me.

Imagine a point, like a dot in the middle of a blank paper. That's you, no more, and no less. You alone. Now imagine another point - obviously this would be another person (or personality), so go ahead and project who ever you want to on it. We'll say that this point rotates around you. To follow the metaphor, we might call this rotation 'influence.' In rotation, it forms a circle; a halo. Now, I'm a musician, so I like to refer to this as a fifth, musically speaking - although, it is subjective, and the second point can be anything you like. The important thing is that it has to be an influence.

If another point comes in, you're probably going to want that point to line up on that circle, right? It just wouldn't be an influence if it wasn't in your circle. This is why I refer to it as a fifth - if it's not right on that circle, it's not 'perfect.' If it's too close, there's a dissonance, and if it's too far, then it's vague and unapproachable.

There was a time when my relationship with Christ and my relationship with my girlfriend were both perfect on my Halo - 'sharing common air.' The halo of both of them intersected perfectly with my center, and the edge of my halo perfectly intersected with the center of those circles. But as time moved on, things oscillated. Something along the line thrust itself into my circle, (transplanted itself, if you will) and my circle was unbalanced. It moved - closer toward the girl. Farther away from the god.

I was closer to her, yes, but dissonant, and my halo overlapped her. She couldn't breathe, being pulled into my center like that. Drowning in the inner ethereal of pure commitment of my being that neither of us were really quite ready for. And things spiraled. The fifth became a fourth. Then a third. Then a second, closer until things were so dissonant and I had forgotten how to define myself anything except for hers. On the surface, this would look extremely poetic, and sweet.

And by now, you should know what happened with Christianity, which I moved so far away from that it seemed to have lost all meaning. Yet... somehow those words and memories still have their meaning. Advice from friends whose trust and respect in and for me is long gone by now (or should be), still pains me; still affects me.

Advice is a pretty interesting thing, isn't it? In concept, at least.

---------

I have a letter thumb-tacked my wall, from a woman named Suzanne. Suzanne had a daughter, she wrote, who is only a few years older than I am, and was finishing up college as an international studies major and was going into the peace corps. She had a poster on her bedroom wall that said, "You cannot have a favorite place until you've seen them all." She also loved Starbucks, and couldn't keep her room clean. Her daughter's name was Molly.

One night, Molly got in an absolutely horrible single car accident on a country road with no drugs or alcohol involved. She lived for eleven days on life support in a coma, with almost no chance of ever regaining consciousness, much less living a meaningful life. I bet she had ambition, motivation; made good grades in school. Wanted to succeed, even if it did mean going with the grain of that arbitrary expectation.

"Remember who you are."

On the eleventh day, they took her off life support. She died within the hour (barely), under stable conditions, with a medical team close by to harvest her organs. It is her kidney that I now carry with me everywhere I go; a reminder of the unfairness of life.

"Remember who you are," is what Suzanne had said.

Two years ago, I would never have complained about my medical difficulties; would've never evoked my past as an excuse to evade responsibility. Two years ago, nobody knew even a single shadow of what I had been through. Two years ago, I stoic enough that I could take a psychological bullying with a smile on my face, and not even cared. Two years ago, I allowed myself to be vulnerable enough to allow my emotions to override my rationality; to come to a new place where I felt at peace and one with the world around me and with God, even if only for a minute, even if only til the end of the song. Yes, I suppose words and memories still have some meaning. Consider this bit of lament I received from a former spiritual mentor.

"I will be honest though, it does hurt me deep inside to see the young man who myself (and several others in this church) actively prayed for during a several year period. We prayed that God would intervene and provide him with whatever is necessary to improve his health. When our God answers that prayer in a mighty and powerful way, the young man then gets up and begins to question the existence, the sovereignty, and the infallibility of the very God who healed his broken body. Kinda felt like a slap in the face, like, 'thanks, but no thanks.' But nevertheless, I know that on the other side of this expanse, God has got an incredible and fulfilling plan for your life. I just hope the train doesn’t derail before we cross the bridge."

It impacted me, at one point. But as the Beatles said: "All of these memories lose their meaning when I think of love as something new." And in retrospect, that memory had lost most of its meaning. Apparently so, since I have since rejected the Christian god as being anything more than poetic mythos. But, still...

"Remember who you are."

Oh, I remember. But some things cannot be taken back. Some things cannot be unsaid. Some broken hearts cannot be mended. Some sins cannot be forgiven.

But do I accept the title of pariah, again. I take up my proverbial cross, still, in the face of everything I've said. I don't need to reject my interests, influences and goals to accept, and commit to another person's world in a deep, meaningful way.

So, now, I do accept my burden. My challenges. My meaningless little games I would play to take my mind off away from thinking about my past and place in this world. It used to be fun to keep that all a secret. I didn't want anyone to think I was weak, but now the word 'weak,' has turned into 'human,' and I'm making excuses for myself, instead of crushing them under my foot when they are offered. Like I used to.

I've become stoic and closed off toward people that I can trust to see my vulnerability. And vulnerable and far too open toward people whom I have no reason to trust. Vulnerable, sure. But I'm kidding myself if I think I'm venerable and worthy of some respect. Because I'm not - I'm a bit more manipulative than we might give me credit for... (I mean, I deconstructed the parenting techniques of my stepfather when I was a sophomore in High School - never shown it to him, though. There's only one person that I'm close to that I haven't been able to deconstruct yet, and it's not for lack of trying. I, thankfully, always get it wrong.)

I live on my own, now. I think independence is key. Stepping back to where my halo naturally originates. Away from dissonance with the girl, closer to our natural, perfect harmony. Her position has only changed slightly in response to my erratic philosophizing (thankfully!), but I can't see where Christianity is, so I don't know if it awaits closer, or if I will manage to elude it. There are more other, deeper types of spirituality that I want to explore, anyway. Maybe pry open my third eye; separate my body from my mind; witness a ua neeb; feel the rhythm. I choose to recursively uncover my own hypocrisy as something profound. I choose to see the man in the mirror as he is and not who I convince myself to see him as.

I'll make you all ask me the hardest questions I see, and have no respectable answer to. Make you ask me why I cannot even force myself to read your truths without considerable anger, while I'm only far too eager to embrace her spiritual truth which she is only marginally indifferent about. So back me into a corner; assert yourself over me. The bullied becomes the bully becomes the bullied. Shove me down on my face. Push the sole of your shoe / boot / heel into my chest / face / throat. Really throw your back into it. I deserve it, for all I've said and done and said I'd do and never did.

One of the few benefits of the painful past I've had... cause me as much pain as possible. Serious. It will be fine with me, because if she and I can intersect our ethereal halos again in just the perfect way... we'll form, again, a common bond, that is entirely devoid of everything else (including painful memories and friends long gone) but us (while retaining our own distinct personalities and webwork of lives and space), from which we can give birth to greatness, and new things. Two points, revolving around each other, in greatness. A vesica piscis.


to part: sometimes at night i wonder if anyone's life was changed by my irreverence to "the system" in high school... i spent five years proving that a grade point average is not indicative of intelligence, in any sense... i wonder if it was worth it... I had a 1.45 gpa (4.0 scale) and the valedictorian of the preceding class told me I should write a book....

did anyone put the pieces together....?
or were there even pieces at all...?

it sucks to hoist up a flag of love with a sword...