Life's what you make it

I know quite a few people who have all said similar things. And these are people separated by time and space.  These people I'm referring to are, in the nicest way I can think of...Naysayers. I love Urban Dictionary's definition of this unfortunate sect...

naysayer

One who frequently engages in excessive complaining, negative banter and/or a genuinely poor and downbeat attitude. Naysayers are distinguished by their tendency to consistently view the glass half empty, make frequent one-way trips to negative town, and constantly emphasize the worst of a situation. They have the capacity to rant and whine for hours on end about the most insignificant inconveniences. They tend to travel solo, but have the keen ability to spread their pessimistic attitude to a group of unsuspecting bystanders and encourage others to employ their mindset. Naysayers tend to blend in with those around them rather well, granted they have learned over the years to adapt to their surroundings. However, when the opportunity arises, their true nature will be exposed and they will stop at nothing to exclude others or bring a general sense of negativity to any situation. Not to be confused with non-naysayers who fight against the negativity brought forth by naysayers, make the best of a situation and are not afraid to call out a naysayer on the spot.

I'm not going to sit here and say that I've never had a negative view on the world. There was a period in my life, that my best friend John will attest to, that was a very dark time. It was like the period in the galaxy far, far away between Episodes 3 and 4.  I had become very depressed and cynical. I can say now, it was the saddest I've ever been in my life so far. It made me uncomfortable to be around. No one WANTS to be around an unhappy pessimist. Today, I feel fortunate that I snapped the fuck out of it. My glass isn't half full. It IS full. Because honestly, why the hell shouldn't it be?

Let's face facts right now. The truth of the matter is...YES. The world can suck. It can be discriminatory, disturbing, disgusting, discouraging, dejecting and dispiriting. I would hope that no one would actually disagree with that. But, at the same time, life is a many splendid thing. It lifts us up where we belong. Without life, there would be nothing. The truth is, the planet we all live on, is Earth and while it is argued to be run by a small sector of people who don't have everyone's best interests in mind, it's still our planet. We need to accept things. Acceptance to me, seems to be the key. Once you come to an understanding of the wickedness of it all, and just lay the cards on the table, then you can finally move forward. Yeah, shit sucks, there's child molesters, greedy fucks, murderers, dog punchers, war enthusiasts, and many more monsters scouring this big blue ball of life, but hey....THAT is life.

Since all that really matters is YOUR life, then it seems obvious that people should basically live the way THEY want to live. I do believe that everyone has the right to do what they think is best for them, just as long as they're not intentionally hurting others or the planet while doing it.

I've heard people say things like:
"Well, you know, really, we're born, we live, and we die. So really, what's the point of it all?"

While that is true. We are born, we do live, and we inevitably die, that doesn't mean we have to spend the 70-90 year period on this beautiful world in a constant state of negativity and unhappiness. What a waste of time. The following is a response from a person whose opinion I greatly respect, when I asked him, "What's the meaning of life?"....

"To have as much fun as possible."

So to those people who say, What's the point? I say this:

Fun, love, happiness, sex, drugs, movies, food, the outdoors, alcohol, music, friendships, family, knowledge, surprises.

Now those are just a few of the things that I personally love about life. How cool is it that we have the opportunity to watch 'The Avengers' or eat an ice cream sandwich? There's literally millions of trees that we can climb. And that shit is totally fun. Sometimes, it really is the little things that count. So you really should ask yourself...What are YOU living for?

The following are responses from some of my friends and family when I asked what the meaning of life was to them:


"Love, happiness, success and legacy"

"Life is about experiencing everything and anything that makes you happy. To be on your deathbed
and simply say "that was so much fun""

"To cooperate with the Universe's pattern and thrive"

"FBGM"


"-To experience a full range of human emotion.
-To question everything in search of truth.
-To understand that life is not about knowledge, power, and money - but mystery.
-To choose happiness.
-To love other humans and interact with them."


"The meaning of life is to answer to the one true gift we have. FREE WILL. To fight your free will, to go against your natural instinct is sin. We as humans have a gift, free will. Be free, stay free and think free."


"All in all, life is subjective, just like Aristotle said. Define your parameters and 
find your own damn meaning. Also, having fun is cool, too."


"In my opinion there is no meaning. It's the arrogance of man to assume a grand position in the scheme of the galaxy."

""You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. -Albert Camus""

"42"

"I don't know so much about the meaning of life, but I've always felt that the purpose of life is to learn and experience as much as possible. And don't be a cunt."



-Dom

The Shadow Man Cometh

I'll be the first one to admit that I'm a scaredy-cat. It's never taken much to startle me. Walk around the corner at the right moment and you'll most likely jolt me. I've always been afraid of things. Even to this day, I battle with a moderate fear of the dark. This all started about 2 months ago that one night when I was on mushrooms, I walked out the front door and saw a figure on the sidewalk. All black. It didn't even look like this "person" was wearing clothes necessarily. It looked like the cut out of a human, but with no dimensions. He was all black. Like a walking abyss of nothingness. Basically, this figure acted like he noticed me standing there. It's head turned at me abruptly and then quickly started shuffling its feet and began running toward me. To say the least, I freaked the fuck out and slammed the door shut. Breathing heavy and being scared as shit, I panicked and tried locking the door as quickly as possible. I was actually in such a state of fear, that I really couldn't get the lock to turn over. I stood there, with my hands on the door, holding it shut, breathing hard, my heart pumping rapidly, just hoping this being/figure/man/meth head, whatever it was, didn't try and get in the house. After about 15 seconds, I realized no one was there. I opened the door and saw no one. Not even someone walking down the street. Hands down, one of the scariest things I've ever experienced. The whole situation reminded me of a nightmare. In my dreams, I've always escaped scary situations by curling up in to a ball, which to this day, still wakes me up. A defense mechanism I suppose. But this wasn't a dream. This was reality. This was something occurring in front of my waking eyes.

By the by, I refer to this being as The Shadow Man. It makes the most sense to me. "Shadow Man" also conjures memories of Mega Man. Who fought a master robot with the same name. It just so happens that this character appears in Mega Man 3. Which also was my favorite of the Mega Man series. If that wasn't enough, before I began writing this article, I looked up Shadow Man's level on MM3, on youtube. The video for it is 3:30 minutes long.

So now,  let's talk about Monday, August 20th 2012. Around 6 am, I was dreaming. I was sleeping over at a friend's house, in his brother's room, since he was out and about at the time. Basically, the part of the dream I remembered is when I was standing on grass, looking at a street, with houses behind it. I assumed I was just in a front yard. In front of me, I see someone riding a bicycle. It's the Shadow Man! I shit you not. All black. No clothes. He turned to me, quickly, jumped off the bike and started sprinting toward me. He got so close that I saw him 2 inches away from my face. I was terrified and did what I do best, and curled up in to a ball. I jolted back in to reality. Breathing hard, sweating, thanking the Gods that I got to wake up.

The next day, I told the owner of the room about it. He said, non nonchalantly, "Oh, so you saw the shadow man, huh?" I was confused. I hadn't told him about my past experiences with this shadow being. He explains to me that his room has some weird shit going on in it.  He constantly has strange dreams and even sees shadow beings in his mirror sometimes. Pretty fucking bizarre if you ask me. Even though it was a terrifying dream, the possibility of a room with an invisible power like that intrigued me. I decided to sleep in the room again the next night so I could potentially call upon the shadow man in order to extinguish my fears and confront the demon, so to speak. The second night didn't attract the shadow man, but I did still dream. In fact, I became somewhat lucid in said dream.  Which in itself was rewarding seeing as how I've been attempting to harness the power of lucidity for about 2 decades. Very detailed and very auditory. I heard voices and sounds and I usually don't recall sounds in dreams.

So why is this happening? What is the potential cause of this flux of weird energy? It can't all be in my head, right? Others see shadow men too. Not just my friend.  After this dream, I simply googled, "Shadow Man". The wikipedia page being the first site. The way that people describe their encounters with these beings, is almost word for word how I felt. So no, this is not just in my head. This is not a coincidence.  My main theory is that this figure is either a manifestation of internal fear OR an inter dimensional being that preys on fear.  Whenever this Shadow Man turns and looks at me, it feels like I might be somewhere I'm not supposed to be and this being knows it. Running after me may simply be to chase me out of "his or her" world. I also think that maybe in whatever dimension this figure resides in, perhaps, I appear to him as a shadow man. It's all very intriguing. Only time will tell, but I feel like I haven't seen the last of the Shadow Man.

-Dom

Is Hollywood Spying On Me?

So let me tell you a little story.
A movie came out in 1990, when I was 4, called 'Kindergarten Cop'.

It starred this man:








The movie was about a cop going undercover as a kindergarten teacher in order to find a fugitive who was planning to reunite with his son.  The son being in this kindergarten class.

The boy's name was Dominic.
My name is Dominic.
We both had blonde hair and blue eyes and kind of looked alike.
His Mother in the film's name was Joyce.
My Mother's name is Joyce.
The movie also came out a year before I was to enter kindergarten.
Also, me and this kid had the same shirt.

-Dom