Motion or death - molecular inertia and the concept of complete stillness.

Is motion our "natural" state? Is stasis? If you're not living, you're dead, right - and if you're not dead, well - you're living. Either zero or one, not both, right?

I mean, you can't be "kinda pregnant", right?

So, this sets me to wondering about the implications of Newton's laws of inertia. Does an object in motion stay in motion and does an object at rest stay at rest, until acted upon by another force?

What starts an electron moving? And if Newton has adequately explained what *keeps* it moving, then does this mean that gravity is an astronomical force that has nano-limits? Why doesn't the neutron act upon the electron as Earth acts upon us?

Is gravity the only thing that keeps us still? Would we otherwise be naturally inclined to move and go lest the alternative become inevitable? What alternative? Well - *not* moving. Inert...uh...ness. Molecular inertia. Absolute zero. Death.

Brrrr!!!

Streaming and Screaming

Let me ask you something: Does a person who expects to be heard, who has the power and/or assumes the authority to impose some consequence upon those who either defy, disbelieve, ignore or "misconstrue" (as in take literally, for example, which is after all, a more accurate mindset and which is also why I will KEEP misconstrue in quotation marks, as that description is but one manifestion of neurotypical prejudice - and assumed privilige!) his words (and/or orders) have the right to be immoral? Untruthful? Ever?

How about in that circumstance in which he is expecting such obedience, reverence and/or compliance?

Now - what if this guy is a cop? And what if he just *expects* you to "get" his meaning and not "antagonize" him or his fellow officers? What if, let's say, he is ambiguous at best in his instructions. Even more - what if his and others' words directly contradict each other or even yet a third or more persons?

Continuing - what if the legality of those instructions is normally nonexistant, but may have been rendered so legal under some order that itself was illegally conceived and drawn up ex post facto?

Is such an order - to obey the directions that haven't been legally authorized - and the citizen's understandable confusion over said order and subsequent ATTEMPT to question and clarify what the officer was saying, all done with the respect and even tone of a guy who's about pissing his pants about the trouble he seems to be in and which he can't for the life of him understand - GROUNDS FOR ARREST???

In other words, is it lawful to arrest somebody for trying to clarify an officer's orders, and answering that officer's questions honestly, AND because he "disobeyed" an order that was never, ever presented to him, and in spite of the fact (and it is truly and ironically *documented* fact) that the document with which he was supposed to be complying was only ever even DRAFTED and signed (by one officer Christopher O'Sullivan of the Massasoit Community College Police Department) AFTER said arrest?

Is it constitutional to detain somebody and ask him many questions, some confusing, and mock him! (asked the arrestee if he had ever been suicidal, and upon arrestee's affirmative answer, had the fucking gall to ask "what happened"? - DUH!!!!!!!!!!!) and only after over an hour in said "custody" words to that effect were even used when said arrestee, who had been uncuffed so that the officer could accompany him to the ATM so that he could withdraw some money ($50) to give to some guy who wouldn't show up for yet another hour or so, was in the process of being cuffed to the radiator yet again, uttered "you've gotta be kidding me" - O'Sullivan's reply being something to the effect of "Hey, you're in my custody, so..." - and not Mirandize him until after all this time and goings on, at which point he clumsily and nervously began "Uh...wait...be quiet...no...just be quiet for a sec....You have the right to remain silent..."

Seriously???

---------------------------------------------



How 'bout this, then? Is it right that a person so arrested and charged is further extorted (beyond the fifty bucks he never saw again!) into agreeing to a plea/arrangement of "stay off the property for six months and pay fifty bucks sound fair?" (spoken from one slimeball personnel to his Chesterfield phlegmball hacking counterpart) under the threat that "Ya wanna spend Thanksgiving in county? Cause if you wanna fight this we can do that..."

No - he did not want to spend Thanksgiving in "county". No - he did NOT have several hundred dollars an hour to spend paying somebody to help him get out of a mess that was not of his own making to begin with - who said justice is free? (I wish he'd appear right in front of me now so that I could stab him in the heart like his precious lady liberty has stabbed me in the back!) - and he did not want to roll the dice and see if the guy with the gavel wasn't as stupid and mean and as much of an asshole as the guy with the gun.


Tell me if you wonder how such a thing could happen in America - hell in any decent society - but America especially because these very principles are the ESSENCE of who we are as a people, it is what many have died for defending (and not all who have died in battle were defending such important ideals!) - it is what is SO vitally important to us that our forefathers battled a frontier as long and wet and deep as any men before them, and then took over the land on which they came to rest.

It is the ideals that *transcend* our own forefathers occasional folly, but which they upheld as righteously as they thought they were being, that DO count and matter as much today as they ever have - in ours or any other society in human history.

Or at least they SHOULD matter.

But then - *this* citizen has learned that the ideals are a mere slogan that does not really apply in the day to day shit that is governance and corruption.

At least if we had ONE system - the rules could be known and understood by everyone who calls himself a citizen of this country. But the hayseeds and survivalists and local bubbas insist they have the right to do things "their way".

Really? How come I wasn't taught this in school? How come I and everybody else has to learn the "real world" ex post facto??

Can you answer that for me? Then get the hell off of your pedestal and restore my rights!

I Might Have Been

Help me! Help!
I'm stuck I am so stuck!
Black inertia has been the bane
- it has been THE enemy -
and stronger thus far.
I do not have it in me
to fight.

No - I am not possessed
of strength or faith -
of patience or TRUST
to know that I am safe
on the other side of chance.
I cannot see the ground
as I am on it.

Lost in a tunnel and dizzy as to front or back -
start or finish -
even the a/b decisions are tortuously -torturously!- impossible
And as I see the bullet heading squarely and surely
for my soul's and sentience's middle
I can neither move left nor right
I cannot choose, faced with "maybe" or "might".

This has been the longest night
and I am done!
The villian has won...
...I cannot be found,
for my past and present and all I ever had or was
has wed me forever to this ground
as I am in it.

When is it going to change? What I mean to ask is, when are humans going to change. I have to admit, I do not have any perspective as to whether or not I'm being impatient about the behavioral and attitudinal flaws of my species, but I'm sure I don't have it in me to bust and bust and cry to affect change that will fully manifest only after this temporary biological form I've taken gets sucked back into natures bigger cycle of which me and now is an infinitely fractious subordinate.

That urgent and anxious impatience is my own frailty - I get that. Let me try to explain what I mean by "lack of perspective".

So far, this piece sounds like it's going to be some big pedantic and cliche'd rant about some the basic imperfection of being a person. Nope.

I want the reader to understand that this is very personal and heartfelt. I'm talking about being tired. I'm talking about wanting and wanting and bouncing between confusion and tenacity like some orbitting electron. No start - no finish - but these are inextricable parts of a cycle I cannot even define.

I am sick of wondering if I'm "doing it right".

One person or book or school of thought tells you that there is no second place. This side wants you to act. You who wish to plan and think are indulging your fears and even laziness by this procrastination and inertia. This side says that you are the sum of your actions, your accomplishments, your work, your sweat, your power, your gain, your accumulation of stuff done and stuff gotten. They use words, phrases and fortune cookie wisdom like "weak" and "whiner" and "no excuses!" and "bootstraps" and "tow the line" and "there's no 'I' in team" and "you gotta want it" and "no pain no gain" and "there's no such thing as 'can't'!".

I'm from the other school. I'm a waiter. I'm a worrier. But, in moments and phases of self-critical anxiety, which can border on hysteria or panic, I am overcome by the guilt that tells me I'm weak, a whiner, an excuse-maker.

please don't walk away

Yin: "Why did you have Juan clean up if he wasn't done?"

Yang: "Well, I thought it might be considered finished - at least that I was supposed to respect his effort and call it his art."

Yin: "Didn't you see the other (widgets) get painted 2 colors?"

Yang: "Sure - they look great, too."

Yin: "You didn't think maybe Juan was supposed to use two colors, too?"

Yang: "No. Nobody said anything to me. I thought this was supposed to be the kids' work." (not said - I don't operate well in "real time" dialogue).

Yin: "Come onnnn, Yang. You don't expect (me to give such specific directions/me to believe that you can't figure this stuff out on your own)!"

Yang:


Yang doesn't get to take this conversation where it needs to go. Real life doesn't wait for Yang to process it. Real life doesn't understand that Yang needs language to process absolutely EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!!

Yang is getting tired of this.

Yang is getting tired.

Yang thinks life sucks.

Yang has Nonverbal Learning Disability.

Yang is a fucking nervous wreck most of the time.

Yang knows he is always being judged.

That is why Yang is such a nervous wreck.

Yang has had quite enough of this.

Yang has had more of this than he can take.

Yang has had more of this than he can handle.

Yang has just about had enough of life.

A non-meta-pseudo-quasi-intro

Character 1: "You need to pay attention to all of your surroundings."

Fred (so he's named): "You mean I've got to focus more?"

Character 1: "Exactly."

Fred: "But doesn't focus mean to narrow in on a specific thing and concentrate and block out the rest?"

Character 1: "Well...you need to focus on everything."

Fred: "So, I've got to narrow in on everything and block out everything?"

Character 1: "Yes. No, wait. No. No, see, the thing is...what was I saying?"