An excerpt from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land.

"What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust. "

 Wow, powerful stuff. Eliot has become one of my favorite poets just with poems like this, The Hollow Men, and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. This is my favorite section of The Waste Land, especially those last three lines. That final line is simply haunting.
I'm actually thinking about trying to focus my major paper on this section and discuss how the "shadow at morning striding behind you" represents the past and all that man has accomplished and the "shadow at evening rising to meet you" represents the future and what man will accomplish and then show how Eliot argues that it is all meaningless. "The fear" that comes about in this "handful of dust" is the reminder that "From dust you were formed and to dust you will return." It's this idea that is similar to much of the book of Ecclesiastes that all is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I love it. I could read and write about Eliot's poetry for a while, though it may be harder to write a paper with a specific topic in mind and carry it 7-10 pages in length. Oh well.

It's Been A Long Time and other short stories

Language warning: The following post contains "cuss words," so read at your own risk. I explained my position on language in an earlier post so if you want to know more, go look at that.

I'm typing this up while watching the Boondock Saints, which has an awful lot of f-words, so I'll probably be influenced to drop some here since that is obviously how things work.
It's been a couple weeks since I last updated this. I've been busy, distracted, and haven't had many things to rant on or any major girl problems to whine about. I don't really have that much to whine about now, but I do have a couple things to rant about. 

First off, teenagers are fucking stupid. In general but specifically, I'm thinking of a situation with a friend of a friend who decided to be an original and have sex with her boyfriend, who she is supposedly planning on breaking up with soon, on prom night. I know, what a shocker. Personally, I'm against sex outside of marriage I think sex is a gift meant for marriage and without the commitment of a marriage vow and the weight behind it, what keeps a horny dude from faking his affection to a girl just so he can sleep with her and then dump her after he gets his kicks? Not only am I against premarital sex but the girl is like 17, she doesn't know shit about life. That, plus the fact that she isn't even doing it for some stupid secret-life-of-the-american-teenager-i'm-a-kid-and-i-know-what-real-love-is bullshit. I mean, I can't pretend I know what she was thinking but based on what I've seen from following her on twitter for like a month and from what my friend has told me, the girl is a shallow, self-involved, brat. 
I just don't get teenagers having sex. I mean, I think it's wrong when adults have sex outside of marriage but I can grasp people's reasons, however wrong they are, for doing it. But seeing as how I'm still a teenager, I don't really get why teenagers do it. Yeah, hormones, horniness, the bullshit idea of "love" that goes streaming through the airwaves. I've been there, I've felt all that crap, and I still don't get why a teenage girl would give her body away to someone she doesn't even "love." I guess I just can't relate to a teenage girl. Regardless, I think what the girl did and what a lot of stupid teenagers do on prom night is foolish and empty. This whole thing reminds me of a song by a band called Frightened Rabbit. The song is called Keep Yourself Warm and it's about the emptiness/hollowness of casual sex. It's not one of my favorite songs by that band, mainly because it's got a lot of f-words in it and it gets a bit too blunt with the lyrics at times, but its meaning remains the same. I don't really mind the f-word but I dislike it when it's used in its true sexual context, like in this song. However, the main line in the chorus has a lot to say despite it's profanity. It goes, "It takes more than fucking someone to keep yourself warm." 
I think maybe everybody is looking for something or someone to hold on to, something tangible, something lasting. Honestly, I don't think that really exists outside of God because man is being that will last forever where as relationships, possessions, and all the rest will fade or be destroyed. God won't fade or be destroyed or anything, he is eternal too. I don't really have a whole lot of experience in dealing with people who have had sex outside of marriage but I imagine most people do it either to get love, show "love," or feel a physical feeling. Either way, it, like most things in this world, is empty. This too shall pass.



Now before I sign off this time, I'd like to post my thoughts on marriage. I think marriage is between a man and a woman (i'm still undecided on the whole homosexuals and civil unions and that hornets nest) and I think it is important because, as someone I read once said, love is being committed to someone and committing to doing what's best for them and since you can't vow the feel affection for someone 20 years down the road, you can only vow to try and love them through your actions and put them before yourself 20 years down the road. I think there's plenty more reasons to get married over just living together or something like that, but I wanna focus on the movie now.