Ignorance

I walked right past the Kirkwood Imo's Pizza on Sunday.

Monday, I hung out with my baby half-brother, Jacob, who is actually eleven. He lives in St. Louis, with my dad. 

Tuesday, I watched the news. A boy had been kidnapped from Union, MO. His name was Ben Ownby and he was twelve.  

Wednesday, I talked to my dad. Things were normal.  

Thursday, I went for a run. Things were normal. 

Friday, I watched the news and the manager from the Kirkwood Imo's, whom I had seen on Monday, adorned the screen. 

Saturday, my dad called me and asked if I had heard the story. He also asked if I had heard from my other brother, Jackson. 

Michael Devlin, the manager of the Kirkwood Imo's Pizza was taken into custody on Friday. On Monday, a boy named Ben Ownby had been kidnapped by a white truck from Union, MO. An identical white truck sat outside of Mike Devlins apartment and some neighbors thought it looked familiar to the vehicle the news declared was the captor of Ben Ownby. Police arrived at the house in southeast Kirkwood, two miles from my dad's house. Here, they found not only Ben Ownby, but another boy named Shawn Hornbeck. Hornbeck looked oddly familiar to a boy that had been kidnapped four years prior.  Indeed, it was the male from Richwoods, MO who had been kidnapped at age twelve. He was now sixteen. Hornbeck and Ownby were found at Michael Devlin's apartment in January 2007. Days later, Devlin would be accused. Months later, he would be sentenced to three life sentences for sodomy and kidnap and molestation. 

Saturday, my dad had watched the news with my little brother Jacob. Due to the age similarity between Ownby and my brother, my father ignorantly said, "Jacob, if anyone ever touched you, I hope you would feel comfortable enough to tell me. Okay?" Jacob looked away. My dad said, "Son...you know I love you. You can tell me anything." And Jacob cried. He broke down when my dad asked him who had touched him. And my dad became furious. 

The following day, Sunday, my dad drove to my mom's house, a mile away, where my brother Jackson lived. He lost it at the door and told my mother to let him in. When my mother asked what was wrong, my dad said that he was going to murder Jackson, his own son. 

"Jackson is at a friends house," my mom said, "And Rob, it's the Lord's day."

The Atomicity of Reinhold

Karl Leonhard Reinhold was a major proponent, but often over looked promoter of the German Idealism movement. He is not familiar to our time but was relevant and criticized by figures like Kant, Fichte, Schelling, etc. He was commonly called one of the greatest acute thinkers of our time as he takes Kant further by suggesting a single principle of consciousness. Sometimes he was called a pop philosopher of Kant but this will later be disagreed with as it assumes circularity. 

Reinhold was claimed to have been, if neo-Kant, a fall into transcendental metaphysical mysticism. He goes through the phases of the systems in an attempt to discover the underlying premise of metaphysics. He's received a lot of criticism in being far too little autonomous for a philosopher in that he viewed truth, originally, as given and not through reason. Yet, he was a remarkable emergence away from the thing and began the focus on the self for consciousness of representations. 

Reinhold was regarded as eclectic and inconstant. This critique was developed as Reinhold transitioned from Christianity through masonry from Catholicism and into bouts of Aetheism but back to Lutheranism. He had a deep desire to get to the bottom of truth and this made him skeptical as he first sought to achieve it through reason and philosophy. 

Reinhold views morality, moving toward the holy will, as the underpin of all philosophy. This was greatly influenced by Protestantism which allowed a synthesis between knowledge and faith through the use of free reason with an incomplete historical realization. Reinhold expounds Kant in his letters, the first of immorality of the soul and the second of God's existence. He loved Kant because he thought that he was able to bridge the head and the heart. They must involve a system of reason because the practical action, through practical reason is based on rational belief. So, because man must be moral, he must be rational; this requires reasoning. Reflective reason adjoins morality and religion. It is sense and freedom that pivots philosophy. He seeks to resolve the action of consciousness which was missing from Kant, where grounds are experience. 

Kant builds a theory but Reinhold must take it down to a single principle If he tried to do this with Kant's theory as the primary, it would be circular. The singular proposition must be propaedeutic to metaphysics. His principle is that: In consciousness, representation is distinguished by the subject from the subject and the object, and then related to both. All philosophy must be derived from a single principle, from which, all theory will derive and does derive. He takes this  to the consciousness. This principle assumes bidimensionalism because we have both the empirical facts understood through abstraction and reflection. Inner experience must be the foundation of philosophy. This is a major proponent of German Idealism. The primary cohesion between the subject and object must be one of atomicity. 

Any pursuit of truth is based in a moral seeking. Then, the practical rules of reason, which morality is dependent on the theoretical. this is because one meets demands by desire. Will is connected to this but is distinct from sense and reason because it is the power of one to determine self to meet demands. 

Reinhold likes Fichte on two accounts. he likes the focus on morality but doesn't resolve the thing in itself. He views absolute freedom as the beginning of philosophy. Reinhold steps away from trying to fully relieve the disparity between religion and life by making philosophy a separate endeavor. Religion requires absolute objectivity and philosophy requires absolute subjectivity because it is based on the experience of presentations. 

Reinhold later turns from this kind of thinking as well as he seeks to embrace logical realism. However, despite his changes, he was a prominent source in the development and emergence of German Idealism. 

a tid bit o' poetry from the summer

it's pretty simple

1+1 always equals two

and twos of two, never more than four

and in the east, the sun also rises,

before it's power nap in the west

 

it's pretty simple

that a woman and man make children

and that children are always small

that the primary colors aren't purple

and that blue, red, and yellow are the sum of it all

 

it's pretty simple

that two eyes are necessary

for depth and perception and stuff

sure, one hand does the job some nights...

...but two will build a house...

sure, it's pretty simple.

 

but then Johnny told me about quantum mechanics

and David about revolutions

and Mary all about Allah

(coincidental I've never thought)

and Joey about delusions

Rob said he only has one eye

And Albert all about genesis

Sophie said something...but I just forgot...

 

Then Michael drew me to the edge,

where the wild fountains lay

they begin from this hole

under that dead rock

and that dead rock was shaped

like a dragon

Ralph sat me on a hill and had me count the stars,

whispering with angels,

whose feet he says he feels

the clouds dispersed in quiet association,

with something majestic, and damn...it was loud...

I saw the first trumpet and that night

it rained lavender

in floods of locusts and hoppers and honeybees

and then I heard that laughter

wondering, who was watching we

 

we,

we dug a stone and built a hole

and made home awhile with the gas of mustards

pellets of rucus drew tears of sadness and death felt the greatest loss

bodies flew to temperatures of cold I've never known

I tried telling Debbie, "it doesn't fucking matter"

but her face sent shivers of black

up through my fingertipped nail

 

the spindle of the vine gathered

an unharmonic dare

graves of swallows, cadavers, and lions

lay below the nasty track

a sky said goodbye and left the night whistling

an old plantation tune...

so if it's pretty simple-

how does that excuse?

and if it's pretty simple,

nothing is then new news to you

 

you say it's pretty simple

and I said "I think I agree"

but if all is so very simple,

how then trite

is posterity.

the chosen one

First of all, this picture is hilarious. Hilarious like the people that have pictures of them with their southern trucks or their new jetta that dad bought for them recently or the -this is the worst by far- chromed out motorcycle. I was about to apologize for offending someone, but then I realized that you should have to apologize for posting something as ridiculous as you with your mode of transportation, unless it's some fixed gear bicycle from 1960, but then you'll still  be a poser. And yes, I'm talking about facebook profile pictures, which is actually just as lame of me...You're forgiven. 

The reason why I'm writing this is because something happened to me the other day that caused me to believe in modernized versions of burning bushes for supernatural communication.  I don't know what was meant to be communicated, but I do know that I actually felt chosen after what happened to me about 3 weeks ago. 

My car was struck by lightening. I think. I mean, I'm pretty sure. 

So, I get home from a late night out of pbr six packs, manslaughter, adultery, habitual lies involving my ancestral or ethnic origin, pre-marital sex, and...a really low cut shirt from american apparel. Jersey style. A night full of collegiate debauchery.

No. I actually spent the whole day at a nursing home, taking care of the elderly, saving a kitten from a flowering dogwood, stopping a child from falling into a creek, and the reason I got home so late is because I was just listening to a friend who needed a shoulder pad to cry on....I should stop shopping at Maude.  

Ok. I don't know. I don't know why I was chosen to have my car struck by lightening. I don't know why that night I came home at 2 am. Those details seem inconsequential. All I know is that it was a torrential downpour.

I get home. park the car outside of the garage next to the other three cars of my roommates. downpour. loud. i get out, cover my head and run 5 steps to the garage door opener. 5*6*. enter. garage open. and then....

all around me went white. everything was illuminated. everything. i looked back for that .3 mili-second and saw my car...lit up from the inside...like an ethereal dream...or an automobile bonfire...something. 

it went dark again. and i looked at my car. like thomas the train, it suddenly developed eyes. EYES!!! The lights starting blinking-the horn went off-the alarm sounded-the lights on the inside flickered....and my truck flew open mid storm like a buoy. 

God hates me. That was my first thought. 

I wasn't completely shocked yet. And didn't think it could be lightening really. So, I walked through the rain, everything still sounding and blinking, and shut the trunk timidly, trying to barely make contact. I stood there and just looked at the car. Everything blinking. Everything flickering. Everything so damn loud. I tried shutting it off with my key set. To no avail. 

So, I went inside and sat by the door for five minutes. Hoping my roommates wouldn't wake up.  And then, it went off. So, I went to bed. 

The next morning I woke up. 7am. 2 hours till class. some tea. some downtime. some natural lighting. perfect.  I go out to my car. I pop my trunk....

and the car alarm goes off. So, I thought I hit the wrong button. I press car alarm...and the trunk flew open. I looked at my key set. Made sure I wasn't dizzy with rooibios. And then calmly placed my pack in the back and shut it. The alarm was still sounding. So, I thought I'd just open the door and start the car to turn it off. I press unlock....and the alarm turns off. Hmmm.  I tried, then, just using my key to get in my car...but the updownupdownupdownupdown of the locks in my car prevented me from being able to stick the key in. It gave me about .001 seconds to get the angle just right before it would go up and lock me out. Sweet. updownupdownupdown. I looked up to the sky and said, "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?!?!" Updownupdownupdown. I tried it again. It worked. I got into my car and the horn started, and the alarm sounded. I put the key in the ignition...and everything went calm. 

"Good gosh," accompanied my sign of relief. 

I started the car and sat for about 5 calming seconds before I pulled up the emergency brake and backed out. Look over my shoulder. Back up turned left. Shift to drive and 

HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONK hoooonk HONK HonK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hadn't touched the horn. So, I kept driving. 

HOOOONkkkk HooooooooNNNNNKKKKK. 

I honked the entire 2.4 miles to campus, waving apologies to opposite passerbys. 

"uh, sorry, yeah...sorry..." my hands up in the air, throwing out that innocent smile, like "whoops, haha. yeah. haha." No one was really paying much attention to me, but I kept apologizing. Cool. I parked at my favorite cafe-Uprise-and went inside to let the car calm down. 

I literally felt chosen. Like, I was waiting for some guy in a suit with a briefcase to walk into the cafe and sit down at my table while the soundtrack to twilight sounded, doo doo doo doo, doodudoodu, and for him to reach out his hand and say under sunglasses, "come with me, emily." 

So when the man in his mid-thirties, wearing a suit and with his briefcase, asked if he could sit down at my table, I mildly seizured. He didn't tell me I was chosen. He didn't ask me to come with him. Instead, he just asked me if he could take me out to a coffee sometime and talk. I don't really know what that means, but it seemed harmless when he asked for my email address. I'd never seen him before. 

This is all so weird still. 

He left because I was consumed with this book and paper before my class and he could tell I wasn't in the mood to have conversation. So, I guess he emailed me. 

Anyway, my car calmed down. It's fine now. I got a ticket the other day for failure to stay within the lane, around 12 in the afternoon. 

This recession is screwing everyone. 

for emma, forever ago

i remember when i used to do this thing.

i was five.

and i would walk away, from the house of sons and peters...

i would find a place. far from there. grab a stick. and sit.

digging into the surface of the rocks. i kept digging. removing each rock from it's fevered domain. digging. i kept digging.

or i would go to the woods. and sit. with a stick. and dig. knowing that each displacement only lead to further displacement.

and now, my clouded woods are a back parking lot. a rocked ground on the back end.

i pulled out a stick tonight. and dug. removing each rock, from it's fevered domain. sitting in the dirt, the mudded ground at the back end of the lot. amidst automobiles and silly greek songs.

i sat down. and dug. kept digging. one hand holding the native addiction. the other, a stick. a bigger stick. i sat and dug. removing each rock. only to find more. but some comfort in the childlike nostalgia.

some loneliness still. in the filled gravel. noting a dead branch ahead of me. and a dead stick held. and a rock removed.

and then i went inside. and found a friend named andre. and sat.

i sat down and dug, kept digging. only to find a deeper rock, hidden. disabled from movement.

i sat down. and remembered.

danbury baptists of 1802 post modernized

the separation of God and man, a difficult, still painful distinction, to vie for a being contained not by standards of man. when religiosity has so deeply permeated my understanding of what may or may  not exist as a reality. anger plagues the confusion of distinction, when position requires unthought boundaries, socialized within the confines of modern-technologically advanced, Constantined society. 

to seek God, a being or a divine or a nothingness, festers as a thought, or as a pursuit of a sovereign entity of present credit, allowance. disdain for limitations, sore chains of suffrage and rioting, the initial exhaustion, or apathy, have settled, along with the increasing tension of bonded arms amid natural beauty. 

I did not move, but sat, like a stagnant creature stilled by a prey of fatigue. the languor of fighting, deeply concerned by an inability to know, facaded by a pride of resolve, perpetuated a wrestle unknown, categorized not by freedom. in opposition of the leveled eye, rather than a submission of seeking, creatively disillusioned not by 20th century, cyclical thought, the blooded breast beckoned defeat. 

if bowing is to a formulated existence, rebellion I then choose-for what is of consequence anyway? (but suffocation.)

preliminary hunting does not hope to separate human from divine, as initially presumed, but to join two, perhaps opposing forces, into a colored juxtaposition of real understanding. so then, in the deconstruction of influence, attached to a figured or proposed value, I am seeking--perhaps for the first time--and not simply in existence, but in purpose. 

and freedom, in the cause of understanding, sings harmonically, while the effect awaits anxiously, and perhaps never known. 

delayed falls

advice: once in canada, tis not a worthwhile decision to make a quick trip back to new york to see the falls from a different perspective. 

i've always thought perspective meant everything.

 so, when left-winged perspective is seemingly controversial, should one disengage their efforts to understand the opposing side, or even to see, simply? i can't figure this one out. but i do know, three minute visits over the border led to intense police speculation such as drug-lord vehicle inspection, key expulsion, and a quantity of questions. 

whoops.

 

perspective.