mindjames

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  • The HyperZone

    When I turned 6 I got a Super Nintendo for my birthday. With it, came two games. Super Mario World, and an obscure F-Zero-esque space shooter called HyperZone. In my near 20 years of owning it, I’ve never beat it.

    Today, my nephew came over and played SNES with me for the last time before he moves to Hawaii. He couldn’t beat the first level and I kept telling him if he keeps trying he will be able to. So he kept trying, After an hour on his own, he was beating it.

    The story doesn’t end here because that game is nutsy hard, and he couldn’t quite conquer level 2. So he begged me to beat it and the next level and the next. Finally, I threw down everything I did and resolved to beat it for him. Unfortunately, he had to leave right as I was about to beat the 6th level (there are 8).

    He left, but I was only more determined to keep trying for him. I can finally say that after 20 years of never beating that blasted game, I just beat HyperZone. The fact that he couldn’t be there to celebrate with me makes it a sad victory, but I couldn’t have done it without him teaching me to keep trying.

    I’m going to miss that little guy, as well as my niece, as well as my sister (you don’t count, Michael, we’ve already been missing you). They are moving away in a couple days. Love you guys.

  • declarations of an unheard voice

    You could call me a non-conformist, but you’d be wrong.

    And I guess since I usually disagree with non-conformists, you could even go as far as to call me a hipster, ideologically speaking, but you’d be wrong.

    I can’t help it. I’m just me. And I just so happen to disagree with almost everything, but I guess most of you would never know.

    I probably think you’re stupid, too.

    I think a lot of people are stupid. I’m not an elitist, I swear.

    I honestly believe I don’t hold a higher opinion of myself.

    But I do– honestly– believe that pretty much everyone is stupid.

    I’ll volunteer myself for that list first.

    Don’t take it for negativity. When I think people are stupid, it is because someone has to hold us to higher standards.

    We should all hold ourselves to higher standards.

    Say I’m wrong, but I don’t see most people holding themselves to higher standards.

    And for that, we are stupid.

    I hate stereotypes.

    Correction, I hate how it seems like everything is a stereotype.

    I am sure my wedding will be a joyful day, but the last thing I want are the stereotypical photographs of me and my bride.

    I don’t want to sell the image that we are the happiest, most perfectly paired two people put on this planet.

    I don’t want to sell the sappy, stale, stereotyped, sterile, smiling, supposedly special standard stained stigma that’s supposed to be the happiest day of our lives.

    And I don’t want that sold to me.

    I don’t want to be mistaken for saying I want to be and appear to be miserable.

    But I don’t want to be fake.

    I want to be happy, but I want to be stressed out.

    And everything else I will be on such a day.

    Let me show it.

    I don’t want to be manufactured.

    I don’t know what organic is, though.

    If I recognize I can choose what to absorb, am I not manufacturing myself?

    If I don’t, isn’t the world around me just manufacturing me?

    I just want to be me.

    I don’t want to be you.

    I don’t want to be MTV.

    I don’t want to be TLC.

    I don’t want to be HGTV.

    I don’t even want to be my parents.

    I don’t want to be the shade of the same color segregated in our little section of the room.

    I don’t want to walk into a place and not be accepted because I don’t dress a certain way, or give off the same vibe that says I don’t care what I look like, cause that’s what us people do.

    Or to receive the same sentiment because my appearance doesn’t say that I don’t give off the same vibe that says I do care what I look like, because to be interested in these things, I should.

    I don’t want to be a jellybean, and I certainly don’t want you guessing how many of me there are in the jar. This is not your contest.

    I don’t want to be judged, I want to be received.

    I don’t want to judge, I want to receive.

    I don’t want to do things the same way everyone else does because that is how the game is played.

    Yet, I don’t want to do things to the contrary because I’m making a point.

    I just want to do things in the same way my mind has always figured things out; like a kid.

    I want to be a kid.

    I want to be me, and I want to have a voice.

    But I don’t see what the point a voice is without an audience.

    Yes, like the voice, the tree that falls in the forest does make a sound even if nobody is there to hear it

    But it doesn’t make a notable impact on anything if nothing was around.

  • Make Them Words

    Words. Words. Words.

    Blown out of my mouth like bubbles

    Floating about

    Hollow things

    Make them pop.

    The best wordsmiths

    Sometimes able to take useless words

    And bend them into ideas.

    Hollow words

    Make them stop.

    Friends who are so into these words

    Take your marvel

    Take your scrolls

    Take your poetry

    Take your words

    And find a better hobby.

    There’s nothing more hollow

    than the words

    “I’m sorry.”

  • father and son fighting

    “You’re being a stereotypical 60 year old!”

    “And you’re being a typical.. whatever age you are!”

    And neither one of them could disagree with the other.

  • a promise

    I’ll refertilize the Earth with fresh minds like a new green cut of lettuce picked from the garden on a dewey spring day.

  • Thought of the Day – June 2nd, 2012

    It’s no wonder why I sometimes feel like I’ve become a hypochondriac.

    Seems like everything I must do in life makes me feel sick to the darkest crypts of my digestive tract.

  • Victory

    If I am lucky, I wake up and have the concerted thought towards improving myself and life. It is at least a goal of everyday to at least have that thought before I go to sleep.

    To me, that thought represents victory, because if I can concentrate on it long enough to think it, then I can make myself do the things I must to make it happen.

    One step at a time is worthy of cliche, because it is such a profound and true statement.

    I’ve lived the past couple with improvement being synonymous with rehabilitation. I am close to the point where I can just call it improvement.

    I am a dirty, vile person, but I at least long to be clean.

    Today, and every day, I just need to find my victory.