2003-02-10 - 11:33 a.m.: liquid nails

such simple things make my mind rumble and my heart sing.

and that's dangerous.

i took my brother home this weekend after playing big sister for a day... and found my family to be suffocating in the arms of a soft, warm complacency. they know nothing about current events. they don't watch the news. if something disturbing creeps into their lives they close their eyes and turn up the volume on their squawking schedules, domestic demands... the mobile drones that follow them to work and back. i asked them what they thought about the war. they didn't want to talk about it. "we don't have enough information to really say," they said. "we're too busy to keep up on things like that."

ahhh. so THAT's how they win. fill peoples' minds with pebbles so they have no room for rocks.

and.. i know it sounds hypocritical for me to say that "we don't have enough information to really say" is a bad thing to express. i say or think the same thing several times a day. but... then i try to use that opportunity to gather more information. they use it as an opportunity to change topics. i think there's a difference. i'm not sure.

so.. simple things. i sometimes feel as though it would be very easy for me to slip into the role of a builder. i enjoy building more than i enjoy deconstructing... and this society needs to be deconstructed before anything new can be built. shaken to its foundations. melted. i want to hammer nails into boards, paint walls and tie up loose ends. i could secret myself in the back room of a shabby dig and hum old songs all day, every day. i could be happy without a tv. i could be happy without a conscience. i could be in heaven treading the depths of a few good minds isolated from circumstance, idle in play. i could read the same book again and again. dangerous?

yes. that's deadly.

so.. i need reminding. if you see me trying to paint a wall... just nudge me and say, "hey... that needs knocking down, actually."

maybe we'll save the pieces and use them later to make cool sculptures.

p.s. snapshot of a moment: looking out the window to see that the world is swirling whiteness like a snowglobe. turning back to work to realize that i am the one encased in glass.

inward...outward