Backyardigans

Hi, I'm Pablo.
My name's Tyrone.
I'm Uniqua.
I'm Tasha.
And my name is Austin.
And we're ...

Your backyard friends, the Backyardigans!
Together in the backyard again,
In the place where we belong,
Where we'll prob'ly sing a song,
And we'll maybe dance along.

We've got the whole wide world in our yard to explore.
We always find things we've never seen before.
That's why every day we're back for more
With your friends, the Backyardigans.

benefiCently gig ohM sTorm

The boy sat alone in the darkness. He couldn't hear the voices anymore. Light was filtering in through the window on the far side of the room. The rising sun reached into the small room revealing a set of bunk-beds, one opened chest, and toys scattered across the floor. The minature models of cars, robots, and people were abandoned in awkward positions. There was no more play left within them. In the streaming light dust danced with itself within the silence only broken by the soft breathing coming from within the closet.

S.I.M.P.L.E.

Life as a child was simple. It was less violent and more of a 'living for the next day' mentality. As we grow up, the time we live for grows longer and longer, a week ahead turns into months and then years. SOon enough we start thinking about retirement without any care in the world for tomorrow. Actually the truth is we ARE thinking about tomorrow. We think too much about tomorrow. Tomorrow is so planned out that we can't live without a tomorrow planned out! Even our weekends and vacations are planned to the hour. This is a way to 'maximize' potential resting time, but isn't this what we are trying to escape? Every time my relatives come over they try to not 'plan' anything so that they can do what they want. In the end it turns into what is everyone else doing and they end up planning to include us. I think a cruise would be a good way to release someone from the bonds of planning, but the problem there is that you are on the boat's schedule. No matter where you look there is always scheduling. One of my good friends just told me he likes to "Leave the weekends open to change" or "Not have anything planned" which turns into them staying home all day doing absolutely nothing. Is that a childish act? Does the need to remain "unplanned" paralell to the need to retreat into our childish past? Again with old people, I admire them. They are at the end of their lives and still they have to plan according to the world around them. They don't want to do anything anymore except be with other people and not be judged (in my personal opinion). I was just talking to this older woman the other day and recieved word from a friend that she couldn't believe I talked to her like I did. Not in a bad way... but I talked to her like she was just some ordinary person I would find around the states. Actually I shouldn't say that. People change dynamiclly depending upon their region. This older woman was from the North-Eastern part of the country. She lives in an apartment complex for old people.

the forcible CRy

The problem with me is I don't understand what I want.
I know what I think I want, but could it be that what I want is what I need?
No, that doesn't make sense... it isn't what I need.
If I needed it I would have had it long ago and still had it.
But... I just got it... so how could I need it now?
I was doing fine before I found it.
Well... no I wasn't...
I was practically lying to myself actually.
Who didn't know that?
But I don't understand how I could have this.
Why have I been disease sticken if the whole world isn't?
Doesn't desire, such as a disease itself, become contracted from an outside host?
Or is this plague a Stand Alone Complex?
An illness that inhabits others too but has no origin...
It sounds farfetched.
Even unlikely.
It sounds like something I couldn't understand.
But I do now.
And if a Stand Alone Complex is occuring...
Then what makes these people any different from anyone else?
Is it something like... a super-hero?
All super-heros are the same, yet very different.
Each has a different power from a different source, yet all lead to the same title.
They are their own individuals with their own powers, yet each one has been granted it for very different reasons.
But what about those like the fantastic four who contracted powers through the same event?
All of those involved in the conflict were exposed to the same "host" of their powers, but all of them have different powers.
They aren't standing alone.
Then why do I make this comparison?
Maybe it is because,
I feel like I am standing alone.
My mind tells me that to be like this is not alright.
Yet the youth inside desires to be like the heros we idolize.
I want to be a Stand Alone Complex.
To be unique.
But to be unique is to be alone.
This is against our inner most desires.
So do I isolate myself because of this illness?
The virus I have carried that I do not want to spread did not even have an original host.
I am the original host.
Unless someone with my blood felt the same.
If they felt they were alone in the world...
Then why was I granted their mentality if it forced one into isolation?
I am not a direct desendant so I could not have been afflicted the same way.
Then maybe my assumptions are correct.
I do stand alone.
Although someone before me once stood alone, they no longer stand to be beside me.
So in the end I am the only true carrier.
But what about the others who are also affected?
What about those who aren't?
If I seek others then I will only be hurting myself.
Everything I have worked for will fall apart.
This is my prediction now, but in five years I bet this disease will have faded.
In its place will be something even more grotesque.
Isolationism.
After I knew about it, this was the only choice.
There was no other choice.
But Isolationism is hard to practice.
One deserves to be loved.
Now thats probubly the most powerful word I could name off the top of my head.
Its power is fading every day, and yet it is growing stronger.
In the end the meaning is changing.
What will replace love?
So far there seems to be nothing but a shell of what love was.
The true definition, along with the meaning, of love will be lost.
What can one define as love?
Does it depend on your society or culture?
Sometimes I just don't know.
I can only barter with myself endlessly until I agree with myself.
Then, when the rare person trails into my thoughts, they can challenge me.
In this way I develop.
But because I doubt myself so much I immediatly think they are correct.
And so I lose my own opinion.
This is not always the case.
In some issues I do know where I stand.
And there I stand firmly.
For example: The issue of Art.
What is Art?
A timeless answer that will indefinatly vary.
In my own eyes, I understand artwork completely.
In one glance I can see what is 'right' and what is 'wrong' with thie piece.
In almost every case though... I need to get close to the artwork itself.
I need to feel the paint strokes, the shape of the handworked clay, or the worked material.
In this way, I believe, one can truely understand what the artist was feeling when the piece was created.
Some people are more skilled at portraying their emotions, but everyone does it equally.
And this is why I cannot continue as an art major.
I understand what others cannot.
No matter how far I could get... I would still feel the same way.
Nothing would change.
Only "generalizations" could be agreed upon.
But I will always feel the same way.
You will always feel the same way.
That accomplishes nothing.
All we do is agree to agree that this piece fits this status.
Nothing more and nothing less.
It is something I know, somehow, that I have recieved from my ancestors.
Maybe that is how intellectuals are made.
Throughout time, the process of discovering pieces of the world are combined until one person exists with complete knowledge.
After that person has existed with all of these pieces in place, they can end the cycle eternally.
It reminds me of how some religions focus on the rebirth of the soul until one is 'pure' or enlightened.
Could the alternate meaning of enlightenment be all-knowing?
I have to look this one up.
Dictionary.com has defined the verb 'to be enlightened' as "make understand".
Does a complete understanding of the world coencide with salvation from life?
By 'salvation of life' I mean the end of the painful cycle of birth, death, and rebirth.
Yes, if you didn't know it being born hurts.
Yes, sometimes death hurts. But every time it is emotionally damaging.
Well, if birth hurt the first time... it can be assumed it will hurt again.
Does this cycle parallel to something else besides life?
Could it be the biggest generalization to the world?
Could you bring everything from your life and put it into this wheel of rebirth?
Would it all fit?
I think so.
Maybe that is all that counts.

a divinity loud If Unity

Is there such thing as individuality?
Individuality is something that distinguishes us from someone else.
But what if we aren't individuals?
We are trained to be as individual as possible.
At least in modern society.
Even now I am constructing something based upon my cultural struture.
How individual is that?
There is no benefit from individuality for a society.
If everyone were to become uniform and focus on their objective we would prosper.
There would be no thoughts against one another because without one we aren't a whole.

I'm getting off track tring to be on track.
Or maybe this is my mind secretly evading this subject because I have been trained to think. My mind had been manipulated into thinking that society is good. Or maybe my inner self knows that this is just more than an empty feeling. Could it be that there was something beyond this democracy that was much better?

Democracy has been shown to rise and fall quickly. As a philosopher once theorized, a democracy eventually evolves into a communist dictatorship. If you don't understand how this could possibly happen, let me enlighten you:

The Fall of Democracy in a Nutshell

First we start with the beginning. We are all happy with electing officials and owning our own buisnesses. This is a nice little democracy we have going. Slowly though, larger companies evolve out of the smaller ones. This causes a fall in the amount of private buisnesses that the consumers can look toward and they end up purchasing from these larger companies. Eventually this turns into our classic Walmart situation where there are loads of big companies but few small, private ones. Now that most of the small companies are extinguished, the bigger ones start buying each other out. This leaves us with a few enormous companies that pretty much govern what we buy at what price. This causes a roit amonst the people and the government is forced to take control over these big companies so that items can be distrubited in an economically profitable way. With this evolution comes the change from democracy to socialists where there is no longer a president that governs the country, but a group of elected officials. This goes on for a while until an event occurs... let's say a war breaks out. Amongst the elected officials comes the rise of a single leader, the dictator, and takes hold of the country. Thus we have come to communism where the dictator tells us "Who will go and who will stay" in a basic sense.

So we fear not only other economies, but our own too. In the end wasn't it simpler to be just a small group of villages or city states? Unfortunatly, humanity has a basic instinct we cannot escape. The need for unity.

We can all get together and have a party, but it wouldn't be as fun if the same people came around all the time. Trade routes would eventually develop and goods exchanged for nessesities. The conductivity of this would spark a new urge to join with these other people, the "grass is greener on the other side" theory we all follow by.

Even now people go back to ancient religious views shared by their ancestors... but how does that fulfill them? All they are doing is revisiting an old way of life. Isn't the purpose of life to be individualized? Unique?! AH!

This culture thing is getting to my brain. Its like one of those alien-babies from Alien. It attached to your face and stays there until it plants itself inside of you so it can feast of your body until it can live on its own. That is a democracy. An alien trying to use us until we can't be used anymore. Go visit the elderly sometime and ask them how retirement is. How would you feel if you had to sit around all day with no one to talk to except other old people? There had better be something for me to do when I get that old.

In other cultures being old was a gift! Oh god, they get treated with such respect and reverance just because they survived life. Those old people are always the ones that get it good.

Old people should learn how to use the internet.

Then again, when I am as old as them I wouldn't want to think about trying to learn something new all over again like I did for my entire life every-single-day.

cRies in me

I began to read them.
They were so old that they almost to frail to read.
Dust seemed to fly away as my eyes moved down the epitaph before me.
So many memories filled the spaces between sentences...
Ghosts began to emerge from the sea of letters and reach out their hands.

I could only watch their helpless gazes with half-hearten smiles and frown.
These shells were only fragments that I wanted to see.
My hands were blistered from reaching to these Ghosts.
It was like watching a play unfold before my eyes that I'd seen before.
But I did not cry when the Ghost had gone.

This was only a shell of someone who once was, but one I had only wanted to see.
This only a shell of someone that I wanted to see.
This shell that I wanted to see.
This shell I wanted.
This shell I.
This I.
I.

Not they, but I could see.
It was a dream once lost for them, but one I carried.
Maybe they too had this dream in a pit somewhere.
Lost forever in a junk pile they were waiting to erase.
Or maybe they already erased.

Which means only I hold on to a dream, not mine.
Which means I hold a dream, not mine.
Which I hold a dream, not mine.
Which a dream, not mine.
Which dream, not mine.
dream, not mine.
not mine.

This is not my dream, but then why do I carry this dream?
A dream another shares to another and then dies from the host.
What becomes of that dream?
Why must I be charged with the final release of it?
The problem resides with giving back the dream to be properly disposed.

Or is the dream really ever disposed?
Does one dream stand alone or is it shared by others?
Is it they who make the dream true?
When we see a child get a gift they have dreamed of having,

Is that child's dream fulfilled or is it a dream we stole to fulfill our self?
Is that child dream a dream we stole to fulfill ourselves?
Is that dream a dream we stole to ourselves?
Is that a dream we stole?
A dream we stole?
We stole.

But if the original carrier of that dream threw it away,
Then we can conclude they didn't want it anymore.
So how do we justify fulfilling a dream not ours in the first place?
Is it for ourselves so we can enjoy the fulfillment of A dream?
What if the original host of the dream discovers you fulfilled it?
Will they hate you for being a cheat?
Or praise you for doing what they never did?

These shells sleep until awaken by the sound of memories and dreams.
Then these fragments hold out their hands and ask for help.
Just smile and remember that these shells will always beg to you.
But it is the original that made the ghost in the first place for you to admire,
or scorn.

but nevertheless love.