The soul selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.

Unmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.

I've known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone.

Am I still tough enough?
Feels like I’m wearing down.
Is my viciousness losing ground?
Am I taking too much? Did I cross a line?
I need my role in this very clearly defined.

I need your discipline; I need your help...
You know once I start I cannot help myself

And now it's starting up, feels like I'm losing touch.
Nothing matters to me; nothing matters as much
-Discipline, NIN

I hope they cannot see the limitless potential living inside of me.
I hope they cannot see I am the great destroyer.
-NIN

"I'd rather die than give you control." — Trent Reznor

"Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who know love's tragedies." — Oscar Wilde

"When the soul suffers too much, it develops a taste for misfortune."— Albert Camus

"Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life. " — George Gordon Byron

"Every heart has its secret sorrows which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad." — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell." — Oscar Wilde

"With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy? " — Oscar Wilde

I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them."— Oscar Wilde

"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on." — Robert Frost

"Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood." — Ralph Waldo Emerson (Self Reliance)

"Be careful, lest in casting out your demon you exorcise the best thing in you."
— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

"Remorse.-- Never yield to remorse, but at once tell yourself: remorse would simply mean adding to the first act of stupidity a second."— Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

My head is filled with silvery stars -Wilco

Lately I've been thinking a lot about God. I know that no matter what happens, I will never believe that God is real. There is no way that God, if he existed, would allow the world to exist as it is now. Unless he's a sociopathic freak who enjoys watching pain. But I doubt that. I don't know why we are here, or how the universe got created. Part of me thinks it has to be a miracle of some sort, but part of me also thinks that it just happened. There was an explosion or something and now after much evolution we are here. We aren't special or important, we're just animals that evolved from some cells, and we aren't the be all and end all. Humans are here for now, but eventually we won't be. We've only been here a short time, but we think we're the most important thing ever.

I guess that's part of why religion irks me. Because it feeds into the notion that we are so very special. The earth is young, we were the first creatures, and the earth is here for us to "subdue and have dominion over" (Genesis). This is just wrong. We don't matter any more than the lichen on trees matter.

This does not mean that I don't find the world amazing and beautiful and complex and fascinating. I can bring myself to awed tears if I think hard enough about the fact that we are here, and the universe is infinite. Human beings cannot even comprehend what infinity is, because we are finite beings.

Lately, I've been trying to grapple with how people can live their daily lives with certainty that God is an actual man or entity. I'm willing to concede some sort of spirituality, but I could never ever believe that there is an ACTUAL real God. And the idea that plenty of people, many who are quite intelligent, think God is real astounds me.

Am I missing out on something by lacking any sort of faith in a higher power? I really don't know. But I'm too rational and set in my ways to ever accept God as fact. I don't even like capitalizing the word God. It annoys me. I don't think that having faith necessarily makes you a better person or happier. It surely can, but it isn't a guarantee.

I'm trying really hard to evaluate my life and understand who I really am. But God is not going to help me do this. Other people might look to God, but I look to myself. And what worries me is that by always looking to myself, I will never grow into a less self-centered person. I have the ability to love very deeply, but I also have the ability to hurt very deeply, frequently without real remorse.

But so many great minds and great thinkers have been atheistic, self-serving, and messed up that it makes me think I don't really want or need to change. Even if I manage to grow and manage not to hurt people directly, I think I will always still see people as insignificant in some way. There is a very limited number of people who I would truly put before myself. Everyone else is secondary to me, my goals, my desires, and my life. Half the time I don't even see other people.

Waiting for sedation to disconnect my head. -Elliott Smith

I keep collections of some of my favorite quotes.... so here is one collection of similar themes. Next post will be my favorite happy/love/nature quotes.

God is dead and no one cares
If there is a Hell, I'll see you there
-Heresy, NIN

Truth be told, I'm lying.
You wonder where it all went wrong...the list goes on and on.
-Gives You Hell, All American Rejects

Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others.
— Oscar Wilde

I have the feeling that drinking is a form of suicide where you're allowed to return to life and begin all over the next day. It's like killing yourself, and then you're reborn. I guess I've lived about ten or fifteen thousand lives now.
— Charles Bukowski

Lying's the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off. But it's better if you do.
-Closer

The blackest sea
And it runs deeper than you
Wave goodbye
To what you were
The rules have changed
The lines begin to blur
She makes you hard
It comes on strong
You finally found
The place where you belong
-With Teeth, NIN

Work is the disease of the drinking classes.
-Oscar Wilde

On the surface, all is calm.
-Swimming Pool

You can do what you want to, whenever you want to, though it doesn't mean a thing...Big nothing.
-Elliott Smith, Either/Or

I am so all-American, I'll sell you suicide.
I am totalitarian, I've got abortions in my eyes.
I hate the hater, I'd rape the raper.
I wasn't born with enough middle fingers.
Let's just kill everyone and let your god sort them out.
-Irresponsible Hate Anthem, Marilyn Manson

Remember what you said
You know the part about life,
Is just a waking dream
Well I know what you mean
But that ain't how it seems right here, right now
How can this be real?
I can hardly feel
Anymore
-NIN

You're distant and cold, and a sight to behold... everybody just sighs. But no one gets off with you very long, cause you don't feel bad when you lie.
-Shooting Star, Elliott Smith

Religion is a crutch for people not strong enough to stand up to the unknown without help.
-Robert A. Heinlein

First of all, whenever I hear anything described as a heartless assault on our children, I tend to think it’s a good idea. I’m happy that the president’s willing to do something bad for the kids.
-William Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard

Hatred, the mischievous delight in the misfortune of others, the lust to rob and dominate, and whatever else is called evil belongs to the most amazing economy of the preservation of the species.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

I am the voice inside your head
I am the hate you try to hide
I am the high you can't sustain
I am the need you have for more
I am the bullet in the gun
I am the truth from which you run
I am the silencing machine
I am the end of all your dreams
And I control you
You let me do this to you.
-Nine Inch Nails

Listen carefully....... That's the sound of me not caring.
-Pretty Persuasion

So once again the way you feel will never ever stay the same and I'm to blame. I wonder just who made the rules up for this game. Well I guess I just don't understand about what you want and what you need. And I guess I just don't understand about how it has to be.
-Nine Inch Nails

I'm drunk, and right now I'm so in love with you. And I don't want to think too much about what we should or shouldn't do. My moral standing is lying down. This is the only time I really feel alive.
-The Only Time, NIN

Who's my next victim? You?
-Nola Rice, Match Point

If you want to lie with me
You're going to be a liar
-Marilyn Manson

But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable... I simply am not there.
-American Psycho

Guilt is a rope that wears thin.
- Ayn Rand

All it amounts to is a tear in a salted sea
-10,000 Maniacs

MEOW!

Can't we all just get along?

If evil were a lesser breed than justice, after all these years the righteous would have freed the world of sin.

When they finally come to destroy the earth, they'll have to go through you first. They'll have to deal with you first, and my money says they won't know about the thousand Fahrenheit hot metal lights behind your eyes. That crushing, crashing, atom-smashing, white-hot thing... It's invincible. When they finally come, what will you do to them? Gonna decimate them like you did to me? Will you leave them stunned and stuttering? When they finally come, how will you handle them? Will you devastate them deliberately? So, please use your powers for good. You're invincible.
-Ok go

Chaos? Check. Dancing star? Getting there.

Having spent your entire life exactly where you are tonight in the valley between intent and deed, you must have mastered this, the fragile art of a good excuse, the little things that get you to believe. You've spent your entire life quick-tongued and always right. Hasn't being right just let you down? Don't you think that maybe, this time, you were wrong? -Ok go

I may know the way to comfort and soothe a weary face, but turn away indifferent

Sit back, matter of fact, teasing, toying, turning, chatting, charming, hissing, playing the crowd.
Play that song again, another couple Klonopin, a nod, a glance, a half-hearted bow.
Oh such grace, oh such beauty, and lipstick and callous and fishnets and malice.
So precious, suspicious, and charming, and vicious. You're a million ways to be cruel.
-Ok go

Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more
-Lord Byron, from Canto IV of Childe Harold

Heaven is just a rumour I'll dispel

Those who do not like you fall into two categories: the stupid and the envious. The stupid will like you in five years, the envious, never.

-The Libertine

Always learn poems by heart. They have to become the marrow in your bones. Like fluoride in the water, they'll make your soul impervious to the world's soft decay.
-Janet Fitch, White Oleander

Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life.
-Mary Manin Morrissey

You and I, we may look the same, but we are very far apart. There are bullet holes where my compassion used to be, and there is violence in my heart.
-NIN

Fall in love or fall in hate. Get inspired or be depressed. Flunk a class or ace a test. Become a slut or be reborn a virgin. Get fit or get fat. Make babies or make art. Speak the truth or lie and cheat. Live happily ever after or get divorced. Dance on tables or sit in the corner and be shy. It doesn't matter. Nobody’s actually watching. Life is divine chaos. Embrace it. - Solbeam

I may forget you, but not forgive. -Natalie Merchant

I do not hope for a better world for anyone, in fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape, but even after admitting this there is no catharsis, my punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself; no new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing.
-American Psycho

She makes the depression business look surprisingly novel.
Paradise isn't lost, it was hiding all along.
There's the ones that you love,
The ones that love you,
The ones that make you come unglued.
-Marilyn Manson

Just Relax...Permit yourself to enjoy the "gentle indifference of the universe"

Children's Books That I Wish Existed

You've got a pretty picture in your head, a pencil full of poison lead, and a sickened smile illegal in every town...

Even after all these years (it's been 7), Elliott Smith is still my favorite and the most likely cure when I'm feeling terrible. I don't listen to him nearly as much as I used to, but every time I go back to him, he's just as good and just as helpful.

Clearly, I was right to select my name from one of his songs. It wasn't a high school crush, it's true love. And I think this name fits me, and I think it always will.

As the years have passed and I've grown up, I've learned things about Elliott Smith that are kind of funny. For example, his song "St. Ives Heaven" is about the cheap malt liquor St. Ives. I never knew that, just listened to the song and wondered what it was about. Now, since being at college, I've found out about what it is, and now the song makes a lot more sense. It's also sadder (but isn't that the essence of Elliott Smith anyway). As a mark of my adult life, I've seen just how gross malt liquor is...I've sat in the middle of a field in the middle of the night, wrapped up in a blanket, smoking hookah, and watching a drunk girl chug "hobo wine" out of a bottle. I've dated a frat boy who got so drunk on none other than St. Ives that he kicked me out of his room and then didn't remember doing it the next day. Ahhh, growing up.

After doing some research, I learned that "hobo wine" is the downfall of the homeless, and around the Skid Row district in California, the sale of malt liqour is actually banned. Go read Elliott Smith's song and you'll understand just how damaging the stuff is.

The other artist who I tend to seek solace in is Trent Reznor. Nine Inch Nails has some fantastic lyrics and angry beats, but Elliott Smith wins in this department. His lyrics are incredible, and always make me stop what I'm doing and want to write them down. Once, in high school, for an assignment I thought was stupid (we were assigned to write our personal Weltanschauung...for anyone who has seen Annie Hall, you know just how pompous and moronic this is) I just turned in a collection of Elliott Smith and NIN lyrics. Needless to say, I put myself on that teacher's shit list. Oh well... I still ended up at a great college. But that's another rant for another day.

Go listen to some music.

Toxic Girl

She's intoxicated by herself
Everyday she's seen with someone else
And every night she kisses someone new
Never you

You're waiting in the shadows for a chance
Because you believe at heart that if you can
Show to her what love is all about
She'll change

She'll talk to you with no one else around
But only if you're able to entertain her
The moment conversation stops she's gone
Again

-The Kings of Convenience

A Poison Tree

I was angry with my friend;

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.

And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.

And it grew both day and night,
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.

And into my garden stole.
When the night had veiled the pole;
In the morning glad I see,
My foe outstretchd beneath the tree.

-William Blake

You can't have the elite without the proletariat...

Rape is a Word With a Face

"Not rape, not quite that, but undesired nevertheless, undesired to the core. As though she had decided to go slack, die within herself for the duration, like a rabbit when the jaws of the fox close on its neck. So that everything done to her might be done, as it were, from far away."
-Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee

Love Will Tear Us Apart...Again

Albert Camus is my hero

"Charm is a way of getting the answer 'yes' without asking a clear question."

"Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal."

"To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others."

"Idleness is fatal only to the mediocre."

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."

The Velvet Underground

This is a great song...good for studying too (because that's all I do lately!)
Femme Fatale by The Velvet Underground

Here she comes, you better watch your step
Shes going to break your heart in two, it's true
It's not hard to realize
Just look into her false colored eyes
She builds you up to just put you down, what a clown

'Cause everybody knows
The things she does to please
She's just a little tease
See the way she walks
Hear the way she talks

You're written in her book
You're number 37, have a look
Shes gonna play you for a fool, yes its true

The Spirit is the True Self -Cicero

Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal
the way you dream, the things you feel.
Deep in your spirit let them rise
akin to stars in crystal skies
that set before the night is blurred:
delight in them and speak no word.

How can a heart expression find?
How should another know your mind?
Will he discern what quickens you?
A thought once uttered is untrue.
Dimmed is the fountainhead when stirred:
drink at the source and speak no word.

Live in your inner self alone
within your soul a world has grown,
the magic of veiled thoughts that might
be blinded by the outer light,
drowned in the noise of day, unheard...
take in their song and speak no word.

F.I. Tyutchev
/translated by Vladimir Nabokov/

Funniest Shit Ever

This was passed along by my friend Bill. It's a mix of an actual Nick Jr. program and a rap video. Anything that perverts something intended for children is great in my book. Plus this is so damn catchy it kills me. Just look at her face!!

Gossip Girl was so good tonight!!!

So Beautiful, it Almost Makes Me Cry

Sonnet 17
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

in which there is no I or you
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand
so intimate that when you fall asleep it is my eyes that close


Pablo Neruda

Blair Waldorf is My Hero

Several posts back, I shared Chuck Bass' theme song and promo from the CW. Now Blair has one too! Thank God...

Be Un-apologetically Yourself

Witty

Maddox Makes Me Laugh, Even Though He is Most Likely a Balding Pedophile Writing from His Mother's Basement

From the thebestpageintheuniverse.net:

When I see people wearing Crocs, I know immediately that we have nothing in common, and that we could never be friends or have any meaningful kind of relationship. They come in every color imaginable yet look bad with every other article of clothing ever created. The only thing that goes with Crocs is social ostracism.