A Sort of Homecoming

It's 23:23 of December 5th, a Monday night. I'm tweaking out hardcore from drinking my very first Monster energy drink, and it is without doubt the most disgusting thing that has ever putrefied my tongue ever ever. I'm drinking this terrible sludge because I need to pull an all-nighter in order to finish my work on time, which is fine, it's just that I've never done that before.

I realize I haven't written anything in over 3 weeks, which is my longest unannounced hiatus ever. This is bad for a number of reasons.

1. I am going to be a writer for a career. That means I need to write as much as possible.
2. I use writing to unwind and decompress-- I haven't been able to do that for the past 3 weeks.
3. I got my 6,000th view and WASN'T THERE TO SEE IT.
4. You all want to know everything about me! Right? .... Right?

So, I'm treating this post as a sort of return, a reincarnation-- a sort of homecoming. I'm just going to be listing a few things that have been going on with me, and tomorrow (if I get a chance-- if not, later this week) I'll give you the second section to my music suggestion series, Sharing is Caring.

First and foremost, I got a girlfriend. Weird, I know-- I didn't think I had it in me, either. Technically, she started it all and initiated the relationship. She's a short one, with beautiful, long, curly black hair and mad curves with a smile that sneaks up on you and steals your attention away. She asked me out for coffee one night, and after a follow-up date to my favorite Vietnamese restaurant, I knew I needed to stay after her.

Second, my penultimate semester at my community college is slowly (and stressfully) coming to a close.  I had a hold on my student account because some joker who worked in the library missed checking in ONE of my returned DVDs, and so it was counted as late and I was duly penalized. So, I got that figured out. After that, I needed a book for one of my finals, and it only arrived 3 days AFTER THE FINAL WAS DUE. Baaaaahhhhghghgh!!! So, needless to say, I've been kind of Hulking out the past few days.

Third, I'm working a lot. Too much, in fact. I'm beginning to smell like bread all of the time. Delicious, yet distracting. It's getting kind of exhausting, but the people are great, so it's no big deal. I've made two fast friends and I look forward to continuing working with them.

Fourth, I'm starting to return back to my roots in Eastern thought, which is proving to be a welcome comfort as the vice of the end of the year closes around my scrotum. I'm making more time to meditate, drink green tea, and study the Dao as well as learn a bit about Reform Judaism (which is best Judaism in my opinion) and a bit about the freedom (yet social inequalities) of Hinduism, just for funsies.

Fifth and finally, I'm beginning to realize who my true friends really are. I've been going through a handful of hardships, and the ones who have been there to clap their hands on my shoulder have been proving a wonderful source of strength, so to all of those who have seen me at my angriest, my most distraught, my most off-course, my most un-Dao, thank you for sticking with me.

That's all for now-- Time for me to get started on the second half of my all-nighter.

If you like my writing, you can join the site to the right of the page, like Speaking with Storms on Facebook or follow me on Twitter and Google+ . If you have questions or just want to chat, I'm on Formspring too!

Thanks for reading. Stay human, my friends.

Duality: From Jekyll and Hyde to Universal Morality

Greetings, blogosphere. Today is the first day of one of my favorite months! October is a fantastic month. The beginning starts off relatively warm, and the temperature continually drops off to accent the falling leaves of orange and red as the month closes up with one of my favorite holidays.

This is going to be a happily busy month for me. I've been cast in a play based off of one of my favorite novellas: Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I play Mr. Gabriel John Utterson, Jekyll's lawyer who has a bit of a dark side. I really love the part I'm in, and I'm blessed to be with such talented actors.

For those that are unfamiliar with the plot of the novella, Dr. Henry Jekyll is a doctor whose work is specialized in understanding what Jekyll calls "the primitive duality of man". His work begins to consume him as he makes a breakthrough and develops an alternative personality named Edward Hyde, who embodies the evil side of Jekyll. Hyde goes on continuous crime sprees, and grows more powerful each time he emerges to the point where Jekyll begins to lose control. I won't spoil the ending, though!

"Man is not truly one, but truly two!" Jekyll makes this claim numerous times. The dual nature of man is one of good and one of evil. "He who has the two forces of good and evil under such control that the good always balances the evil is indeed blessed," he states in the script of my play.

I was stricken with curiosity (as I do more and more each day) on this notion. Is the human mind so easily dichotomized into good and evil? This isn't an uncommon idea. The history of art, religions, and literature throughout the world is fraught with this concept of good combating against and (most of the time) triumphing over evil. Why is this so?

Well, it makes for a good story. The concept of good defeating evil plays right into the human sense of morality as well as the natural desire found in humans for revenge. However, this conflict is most often between two separate parties, not between two sides of the same person.

Regardless, we need to take it back to basics. Definitions of good and evil. Are there really such things, or are they simply social constructs? Is there such a thing as universal morality, or does society bring us up to think they are? After many debates, discussions, and meditations, I've come to believe that even if it is a social construction, it's a necessary one put in place in order to benefit society rather than the individual.

The conflict of what benefits society rather than the individual, I think, strikes at the core of what "good" and "evil" are. Good is generous, giving, polite, positive. It is based on the community. Evil is selfish, vindictive, rude, and negative. Good is selfless, Evil is selfish.* So, it all comes down to who you choose to work for the benefit of.

If you have any input, I appreciate it if you put something in the comments. Is there such a thing as Evil? What constitutes Good? Is everything just Neutral? Does it even matter?



*This is why, when I play DnD, I tend to reject the Alignment System's Good-Evil axis and replace it with the Communal-Individual axis. Sure, "Chaotic Communal" and "Neutral Individual" don't really sound as awesome as "Chaotic Good" and "Neutral Evil", but I think it better (not perfectly, but better) reflects the human psyche and motivations.

If you like my writing, you can join the site to the right of the page, like Speaking with Storms on Facebook or follow me on Twitter and Google+ . If you have questions or just want to chat, I'm on Formspring too!

Thanks for reading. Stay human, my friends.