Lost in Living

Somehow, I wish I could stop time. Just for an hour or so. I'd love to feel how I did when I was young - when summers were and eternity. Time seems to flow so quickly now that I often times feel like the details are all blurred. It's like I'm riding on a rocket and I'm watching the world pass by in semi-coherent shapes and colors as I head toward my destination. I've been at my job two and a half years and it feels like it's been no time at all. It somewhat frightens me. Will I just wake up soon and be retiring? Do kids slow life down, or is that why parents always say "it seems like just yesterday that you were this high?" I fear quick change. I can handle slow changes, like the transition from youth into adulthood. I was ready to make that transition. This - however - is something altogether completely different.

-V-

Artistic Renewal

I bought a CanoScan 8600F over the weekend. It's amazing. I finally feel like I could take my artistic desires to a new level with this scanner. I already uploaded nearly all the scans I've done so far to my Deviant Art account, but I'll post a few examples here. Hope you like them!

and you shall know them by the trail of their dead...

tell me a story

tell me a story
just speak it in rhyme
if all others fail
least we'll have a good time

the world here was happy
or so it said it was
sometimes so uncertain
coming down off the buzz

lost comprehension
of war in the east
and of something dying
was it men or was it peace?

tell me a story
just tell it through song
when all others fail
we'll still be humming along

instruments of death
on a stage born of pain
while the players grind teeth
verses seemingly in vain

the tune may have changed
twisted timing and words
but it's still just an echo
of the previously played chords

yes, tell me a story
but don't let it be sad
tell me stories of glories
some already in writing, some to be had


by Jonathan VanValkenburg (2007)

I've never served in the military, obviously, but I think I have an understaning of how horrible wartime really is. Sometimes, I think our media, while they try to make it so horrible, actually take some of the edge off of it by exposing us to it so often that we try to become numb to it -- try to ignore it. I know I do. I hate hearing things like, "today was one of the deadliest days in the war in Iraq in the last year." Perhaps I'm alone in this sentiment, but while I love that soldiers are getting individual attention for their service, it takes alot of the true glory away from the path of a soldier. What happened to fighting for our country because it was the right thing to do instead of because it was something to do? Or worse, as a way to release the ID that has been slowly consuming the mind until there's nothing more than animal instinct left? You want to know who the real heroes are? They're the vets who don't speak about the wars they have fought in. IT WAS THEIR DUTY, NOT THEIR GOAL. That made them heroes.