we're into the wandering realm of the season of death, and i shall say how death brings her beauty- in falling leaves. but even more, in welcome brisk nights where you underestimate your bicycle ride, and you are cold.

we fill our bellies with warm things. we reap the fruit of the land in the season of harvest, then we sit around the fire and reap the fruit of good friendship. we give thanks, and it is good. and yet we remember those who have not the means to engage in such heartwarming activities, and we pray for their peace and prosperity.

we wind away, ever casually, towards the dark black night of winter, asking God, who is ever present so deep inside our hearts, to grant us peace and mercy until the long shadows disappear, and we find ourselves once again inside the garden of Eden, as children, not lonely, no, but rejuvenated again by the light of the life-giving rays of spring and the purpose-giving work that is before our hands.

who is the man who makes the music?

we might never know

i realized tonight that i dont think its really possible for aaron to stop talking like aaron. and i know how i do it, its crazy, and i dont want to admit to it or draw attention to it, some things just need to be. but i thought for a minute what it would be like to sit down at a table across from myself and listen to myself rant about some utterly ridiculous thing and struggle to get out phrases that i only half understand myself in my attempt to materialize my very abstract thoughts.

the conclusion that i came to is that i am completely ridiculous. i dont talk in normal terms. i dont think in normal terms. or perhaps i think exactly in normal terms. it is quite possible that even the greatest extent to which we are convinced of our own anomolies is actually bullshit- im no different than anybody else.

sitting across the table, i would say "who is this guy?" in a specific tone of voice. i would also probably say something like "you're nuts" or some similar quip like that.

but im tired of talking about myself. what about you? you matter. what are things you believe to be unique about yourself? im sure you have some. they're not bad. do you struggle with perception too? are you too hard on yourself? self-deprecating?

alright

tonight there is only home, an open window above my bed, and the exceedingly calming and familiar spiced air of an October midnight silence in rural Chester County.

i am invited to rest.

theres a clock ticking down to the zero hour at which point i will become, whether self-prescribed or other, a full grown man. full grown men are by definition good, and full grown men act a certain way, mainly, full grown men do not damn themselves. they are capable of accepting salvation.

it is not necessary for you to be this way. we're growing up, and im tired of your cursing. im tired of your smoking and your drinking. and im tired of your depression and your sophisticated concrete slabs. im tired of this rambling academia and its nuclear-powered agenda of deconstruction. im tired of existing only in the world of ideas while simultaneously ignoring the world of action. im tired of doubting God when his entire creation is displayed before me each morning, whether in the trees of my neighborhood or in the people that constantly surround me. im tired of pushing people away. its time to be a father now. and i will let myself be fathered, and i will make peace with my tradition. its time to move to the country, get married, quit the band, committ to someone/something, be a father and a husband. its time to work on a farm. its time to love and make music which inspires peace and goodness and avoid music which draws attention to its own state of helpless apathy, brought about not as the product of some divine scourge but solely by the lies which we have believed about the extent of our helplessness in the world. its time to stop being so hard on myself. its time to be ok with never writing another song for the rest of my life. im tired of you loving the sound of your own voice.

ive played the role of the lonely intellectual wanderer for a while now, and im ready to engage in the kind of relationship that will quiet many of those fears forever. for now i will wait patiently.

today i was forced, through a set of external circumstances, to put to bed a particular part of my past that i was not necessarily prepared to let go of.

goodbye

so for those times when i dont feel like dabbling with an alter ego, i thought maybe id create a real blog, you know, a normal one, where i could talk about cool stuff in a normal way, and it would be me, and you wouldnt have to second guess yourself.

and these two parallel things would represent different things, because i would want them to, and set them up in such a way as to make the one more experimental/stream of consciousness (here you are), and the other more normal, more straightforward you know? i like normal people and sometimes i just wanna talk about what im listening to, but come on should that really be on the same page as my crazy rants? this is not business, people, ok? you probably just want to hear a normal voice by now, someone you can trust.

so its coming, as soon as i have the motivation to create it, a normal blog that is. and perhaps you can tell me which you like better- or, even better, you can choose which one you want to be the actual representation of me, and roll with it.

im far more normal in everyday life anyway. ive created these people, remember?