Reece Churilla's blog

A New Direction

To the great disappointment of many peoples of many great nations, I regretfully announce that I probably cannot continue my ultra cool science fiction thing -- simply due to the lack of this moment's lifetime. If I had more time to do some pleasure-writing, I would, but the transition from my summer internship to the beginning of another college year has not been easy.

I sprained my ankle. Missed a couple classes ALREADY. Hosted an unregistered guest or two (promoting grave security risks.) And did my best to lessen the effects of 19 credit hours.

Time management. The key to success, maybe. Thankfully I have a single room this year to escape the chaos.

Anyway, the biggest reason I can't continue is because I have to focus on another blog as part of a media course at Marietta College. This blog will be a citizen journalist type thing where I'll actually try to appeal to the interests of others. Once it's put together, I'll post a link. I really encourage everyone to check it out.

The new blog will be quite interesting to read in contrast to these long, philosophical ramblings of a madman. You might find something you like there.

Also FAWM.

Though I've had my share of misfortunes, I've already had an awesome time with Todd and Matt (who has transferred to Ohio University). I wish he could have stayed here, but I can't blame his transfer for financial reasons. We watched The Happening and laughed for hours. Do watch it. The script, acting, casting... they will all change your life.

I was also disappointed that the Westboro Baptist Church had no representative at Club MC this year. Oh well... we can always hope for the future.

Peace,

Reece

Let the serial begin - and some Mashed Potatoes

With enough feedback from Facebook, I'm happy to say we can begin the story soon -- early next week!

Now, let's take our brains and mash them together. How shall this grand tale begin? Here and now, or in some distant arena beyond our reach?

Thiiiinking.
Thiiiiiiiinking.

Hah! I've got it!
I need one word to begin this-- an imaginative word that could be a place, a person, a thought, or a wish.

Equipped with this word, we will sail for the seas of the unknown!

Sit down, kids.

It's story-time!

(Oh, and I don't mind questionable content for suggestions but remember I'm looking for some level of consistency.)

Serial - I know you want to do this!

Everyone:

I would like to try an attempt at actively engaging my creative mind -- as well as keeping some type of readership.

After some brainstorming, I plan to start a constantly updated, interactive serial of a fiction story. I have no ideas at this moment of setting, characters, or anything--I want it to be all spontaneous and fun.

Any of you are welcome to participate and share ideas that can dramatically affect the direction of the story, but I have to set a few ground rules:

1)Suggestions must be posted as comments at the end of the previous story in order to be considered.
2) Only 1 suggestion will be selected per essay.
3) Suggestions must be limited to three sentences and contain information that is somewhat
    relevant to the story, OR relevant pictures or photos may be submitted that might be synthesized into the piece. (Nothing totally off-the-wall ridiculous unless it makes sense to the serial up to that point.)
4) Somewhere in the story, credit will be cleverly given due to whoever successfully made the changes. But don't expect to take full control. (Hehehehe)

Is anybody willing to do this? My goal is three posts per week, and WE will begin whenever I have enough feedback from all of you!

Texture1

CrackintheWall

I can see through a crack in the wall.

It travels upward from behind the computer monitor, reaching a lightly shadowed ceiling.

Whatever waits from behind the wide panels must see me too as I sit at this desk and type away. Whether I'm chucking out a press release or an article for some type of publication, or picking stray taps without meaning, the silver mystery on the other side must sense it.

Nonetheless, here I am among them.

A separate breed of monsters unlike any other force of evil. They wake up to the sound of the alarm, walk to the kitchen for a morning meal, turn, enter the shower, dress themselves, stare at the babbling box, turn again, march down the stairs, enter a vehicle, drive to work with eyes fixed forward, work all day in systematic rhythms, go home, lie down, and go to sleep.

Rinse

And repeat.

Children are often considered puppets of their masters, yet these human adults appear to be puppets of an even larger entity unseen. Still, I am courteous to them. I smile and listen to their problems. I fulfill the image they have of me, taking care not to reveal my true character. I pretend to want to live out a long and normal life as they do, and that I can assume an array of hypocritical stances such as compassion and greed/self-lust. That I am easily offended by the terrible things that happen in this world.

No, I could never say that I find pleasure in life's full package--including tragic and unexpected death. I could never argue that there is honor and prestige available in hypnotic passions that bring more to life than a likable paycheck.
In the real world, I could never be myself.

But here, beyond the confines of local control, there are worlds of cultures of all sorts! In this digital realm, the true nature of man is apparent and powerful. The dual-existence is appreciated and unavoidable.

The possibilities are infinite.

This crack in the wall might be my only escape, but for now I'll stay and see what happens. Acting has always been my kind of thing. But when you put up an act for so long, you start to lose yourself.

Who am I, again? It doesn't matter.

Ouch!

The strings from the ceiling dig deep into my back.

Time to go to work.

Synchronicity

Oh, to dream the dream of Vishnu.

Where the lotus unfolds from his navel bearing Brahma, a universe is born.

Vishnu closes his eyes.

The Universe fades.

He opens his eyes.

Another one is born.

He closes his eyes.

The dream dissolves.

The Great Brahma's role has ended, thus the Gods implode upon one another, allowing for the next Brahma to take his place among the Timeless. To create for himself a million, searing Universes.

Bang.

A big one, big enough to bust a singularity into a seemingly endless collection of potential matter. Time is once again introduced into the system. Galaxies, nebulae, planets, and stars are all formed by this mysterious, formless craftsman.

Many suns are introduced so that they may bring light to life, eat away the darkness. The moons hang desolate within the shadow.

Death. A cosmic and hungry death built to devour time itself.

The Gods implode upon one another, molding into another singularity.

Bang.

Rebirth.

Quoting Michael Talbot from his book, The Holographic Universe, page 79 of the paperback:

"According to Bohm, the apparent separateness of consciousness and matter is an illusion, an artifact that occurs only after both have unfolded into the explicate world of objects and sequential time. If there is no division between mind and matter in the implicate, the ground from which all things spring, then it is not unusual to expect that reality might still be shot through with traces of this deep connectivity. F. David Peat (a physicist) believes that synchronicities are therefore 'flaws' in the fabric of reality, momentary fissures that allow us a brief glimpse of immense and unitary order underlying all nature."

Do we not all have synchronicity in our lives, at some point? Call it fate, destiny, but in essence they are those unexplainable moments that occur and defy all rational probability. A connective tissue of alien organs. As Talbot suggests, you hear a word for the first time, and it is repeated randomly throughout your day. A name that meant nothing before now has all the meaning in the world, and everybody somehow has something to do with it. Deja Vu, anyone?

Science and mysticism can work in tandem, and it is only through this way that our society may progress. There are so many things that hurt me when I observe them--here and now in this place. Our television is such a frightful device designed to persuade and poison the mind. Children are growing up in a world that has no wonder or mystery--a land of dead beasts and fallen angels, where the power of belief is chastised and cast out. Compassion is a secondary emotion.

Even our religious ethics designed to do good in the world have been warped into some strange concoction that somehow defies our place in nature.

Man, born from the earth at his feet, installing himself as his own enemy.

When I examine a religion that praises itself for being old, I would say all the more wiser--but you'd best actually be old.

The Ancient Greeks before the Hellenistic Period. Shamanic tribes married to nature. The humble Hindu, pre-Buddhist, frozen in deep meditation thousands of years BC. Ah, what undeniable truth for anyone willing to open their eyes.

What sacred wisdom.

There is but One Source whose heartbeat stills our empty minds. Listen to silence, you might catch the rhythm of the Universe.

Om Mani Padme Hum

Tat Tvam Asi - Thou Art That. Nothing separate, but only of yourself, of your own dream, a bubble rising to surface in this grand ocean.

"Behold this dreamer cometh."
-Genesis 37:19

We witness but glimpses of this captivating unity. They are the smaller things in life that communicate the message to us, that our journey though difficult contains no material vessel. That dogmatic institutions that kill nature are the institutions of man's ignorance. They kill God. They kill our children.

We seek self-mastery, we seek self-salvation.

I desire deliverance from this continuous duality.

Grant me a lotus of my own, that I may float through the passageways of our ancients. Lay me to sleep with all that is my Universe.

Show me time without time and all that is deathless.

Maybe I am but a synchronicity.

My Best Friend, Death

I'm tired.

Tired of it all:

Of growing up and growing old.
Of being in this existence, this same old
atmosphere, shrouded in the unknown.
Of other people.
Of waking up to find myself
the same person.

No one really reads this, so this is for myself and whoever. Hell, I'll probably end up removing this to protect myself in the future.

I can't stop thinking about death and what it must be like to die. Most people die because they haven't a choice, but for those who do have the choice, was it escape? Or do some go because of that intrigue--that clock's ticking becoming ever so defined, alluring? Lately, I've been afraid to go to sleep at night. That's when I see my own death. And when I wake up, I am instantly reminded.

"Face it," they say, "we are all going to die." But what does that mean? Obsession rolls in. Life becomes less exciting.

This place is all about balance, that's a fact. Any level of happiness you reach, any moment of overwhelming euphoria will be matched by an equally proportional serving of pain. When I am "happy," I start thinking about what tremendous suffering equals the feeling on the inevitable flip-side. I refuse to love, because of the betrayal that waits at the end of the Love-Tunnel. I guess I want to remain.

I wish I could be Peter Pan. An innocent youth of eternity, one who never dreams of death, and whose life is imbued with endless adventure. Someone who does not measure his own value through the eyes of others. Someone who has no use for friends.

I could fly away in a moment's notice.

But I think of myself. Where I have been, what I am becoming. I question this reality. I don't think this is the greater reality; we are living some bizarre memory that is floating in space. Everything has come and gone already, we're just riding along unluckily waiting for cues. Once, I was unconscious--but alive. A tiny cell of potential. Was it then that I was human? Or was it when I acquired the capacity to acknowledge myself, to shed this ignorance and realize death?

Is a cell and a man the same thing?

If they are, maybe that is what I would become if it were to end. This body would return to the dust and form as something else, develop an entirely new consciousness. And if that's the case, who knows what I was?

Perhaps I was you.

I am disgusted with so many things--the worst is my lack of control over anything. My displeasure with the vessel I occupy. The herd-mind of the living. You're all rotten zombies now, sleeping in coffins. I have tried to wake up, which is what scares me.

I used to think dying would be like sleeping forever. Some kind of fragmented dream. But too often my dreams become lucid, and I know I'm dreaming. Most of the time, those dreams terrify me, because the reality I had thought I was experiencing became something surreal and absurd.

It's happening again. In this reality. Can I wake up twice? Maybe I have to go to sleep again.

Sleep.

I don't want to be happy. I want to destroy this conditioning. When you're happy, everyone leaves you alone. They return to their purposeless desires, their search for fulfillment. So I can pretend, for their sake. Yet they will discover as easily as you and me that we are mere images in a photo album.

Suspended in some concrete block over a crowd of onlookers.

We are the decapitated soldier, whose limp body dangles above a joyous procession.

I'm tired.

I'm already dead.

Forever

What is forever?

Is it cold and unchanging
or blessed with the beauty of transformation?

When I was younger, I would wake up to a beautiful morning and ask myself, "Am I alive?" The dream from moments before seemed like an entire lifetime laid out in a mysterious wonder. Who's to say that we don't die each and every night to be reborn again as someone new, awakening with a preselected memory? I imagined myself as a prince somewhere in another reality--uniting kingdoms and pursuing a princess. But then I would die, after a long life, and awaken in this form, in this time.

I recall having a series of dreams throughout my childhood that began through a crack in a wall in my house. Gleefully I'd slide under and gaze at strange creatures that were warm with welcome. They were my friends and mentors. And each time I slipped through that crack, I would learn something new about my universe and the people who would be in it. They deeply loved and cared for me.

One night, in the midst of a very fateful sleep, these abstract friends of mine looked sad. I knew that something was wrong. I was told that I had learned all I needed, and it was time for me to go so that I could make room for others. I remember vividly these things encircling me, bowing their heads, and some were crying. They paraded me to the crack in the wall, all their hands on me. Carefully, they pushed me out and I felt a terrible sadness overcome my little body. When I turned around again, the crack was gone. Only a wall stood before me. A blank, impersonal, uninviting wall; and since that time, I've never had a dream of the sort since.

I've always had odd nightly experiences, sometimes too emotional for me to handle. I can become so convinced that something is real only to watch it vanish in front of my eyes. But then I think this place, the so-called real world, is not so dissimilar. Time escapes me, constantly--making me bleed out these funny dreams. If such things are a product of my own self, I guess I can say I've been one of my own greatest teachers. The hardest thing for me is falling in love. Whoever she may be, she has disappeared by morning with no record of ever existing.

Whatever creative substance that pummels all circumstance through the network is something so beautiful and dangerous. One thing, regarding love, that my dreams have taught me is that all of us can never live in the same place. I mean, think about it! The world that I see is a far different place than what--probably--you see, packed with a plethora of different characters. I meet you, know your facts, develop in my mind who you are, and treat you as such. But do we really know anybody? That is debatable. But can we operate in the same world? I really don't think so.

I can write about something: describe it and tell you what it means to me. Still, unless you walk into my nervous system and borrow my mind for awhile, you cannot experience an identical sensation. Sure, I can be close in my description. But does it really do it justice?

Or lovers locked beneath twilight. Are they forever strangers locked within themselves, doing their best to take if even one look into the vastness that is the other's existence?

I have been captivated by people that are not accessible, and these are not only dream-situations. When I was 8, I loved this girl on t.v. I still do. The image haunts me to this day. Or even people who are dead. From this, I have embraced my current path of the Lone Observer. You reach out to touch something that isn't there, and even if you feel something, it isn't forever.

We long for a forever without change. Something to defy the entire science and purpose of our lonely reality.

With the brains we have now, we cannot perceive forever as a beautiful thing. We might whisper to silence once in awhile, but this is a void that is not born and does not die. There is no memory of itself. It doesn't laugh or smile, and it's far too old to cry.

If it calls to me, it's in my dreams as a tempter of escape, and as something that cannot be realized in waking life. Yet, it is our only pure unity. A great sea of quiet possibility.

When it's time, wake me up.

All of us.

the Sounds of Home

My little country town hums along to the discordant rhythms of the weather. One day, a light jacket is all that may be required, while the next day it's more like a thick coat and snow-boots just to make it to class. I've become sick in the midst of all this. I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner. I've got that extended cough reaching deep into the bowels of the lungs, a never-ending supply of nose run, and a simple desire to do nothing. Yes, absolutely nothing.

But what is most interesting about this state of mind is where my thought is directed. Like when I was younger, I am suddenly captivated by small circumstances: morning light steadily creeping through the blinds, the pitter-patter of flip-flopped feet in the hall, and that solemn awareness of time's quiet movement. I am happy when I am sick--strange isn't it?--yet I'm in no way happy to be sick. Things, triggers, activate these neural nets which in turn activate a whole string of similarly associated thoughts! I dissolve within the mind and go for the ride. I reach out for those I once cherished, but have long since left behind at a sun-burnt schoolyard or within the forest of youth. In some ways, I have abandoned my own being, but I think that's part of growing up. We are not designed to remain one person--always dreaming the same lifelong dream, or seeking static goals. It's dangerous, exciting, tragic, and mysterious. When I am aware of the swirling of the earth within the galaxy, the galaxy within the larger universe, and the universe a part of whatever unimaginable possibility it may be, I am inanimate if only for that moment. Transfixed. There is nothing I can do at this place to not be religious, when the boundaries of spirit are caressed with wonder.

I know my near future does not rest in this town, and often I ask myself why I am still here. Sure, I get restless once in awhile. I've even tried to leave once or twice and live elsewhere. But each time I leave this place, I miss it dearly. Maybe no one else can see such things as I do: in a selfish manner, I would rather have it that way. I have walked through this town countless times as several forms. I have witnessed the touching of each simple scene by an array of lights that forever change the mood and personality of them. I have cried here and asked the ground to kindly support me, and the sky to not take me away. I have loved in this place a deep-rooted love that will never die--even when parking lots cement over the scenes of my heart, or they lie buried beneath an untamed river. You watch seasons come and go, you start to feel it. You realize the sacred in nature, the many cycles that are limitless, woven into the fabrics of existence.

People complain that they need others to secure their minds. A lonely, simple environment yields no adventure or even prosperity in the end. As someone who knows he will one day be condemned to such a horizon of people, prosperity, and skyscraper chaos, I know I will long for my home, quiet and simple. True adventure is at the heart of the trails men have fewest tread. When droplets of water are suddenly carried to the ground, slowly forming the wet hollow of a new puddle, a new lake. And no one is there to see it.

No matter where I end up, the songs from home I will carry for my soundtrack. Because it doesn't matter where I go--I'll always get sick.

Destiny

I see what others do not.

Maybe they did at one time, but most people have long since abandoned truly mysterious or spiritual things. They mistake what is perceived in a concrete frenzy beneath the limits of the five senses as the only truth before them; yet, I feel what else exists beneath the surface, within the child, dying with the adult. It calls to me when I close my eyes, vanishes when I open them. This phantom melody tempts me from afar only to lead me to silence.

Take a step back. See what is birthed, transformed, integrated all around you. Immerse yourself in the stories you are surrounded by.

No one I've met is fully on the outside because they have not fully explored the inside. They are trapped like birds within their own delusion of mindless ignorance.

Explode.
Collapse.

Venture inside to see what is outside.

The astronaut need not a spaceship to go to the stars.

I see the path before me as something fresh, yet there is evidence that it has been walked before. Am I following the footprints of another? Are they yours or my own?

Lead me to the fields of my ancestors, let their eternal fire guide me through the cold darkness. Cleanse me, let me remain with the imaginative disposition of a child, but with the knowledge of lifetimes. I hear you. I see you. Let it matter not,
if I create you.

Love and Writing

I cannot write unless I feel compelled. It's awful, really. I open up the word processor, carefully place my fingertips on the keyboard, and then I come to the conclusion that now is not the right time. There are actually three problems, as of late, that I have encountered involving writing:

1) I cannot engage in the personal writing process during active hours. For example, it is 2:23 AM and the whole of my world is sleeping. The only distractions I come across are those I intend for myself, like the music in the background, rocking my fingers into motion. But when the sun is dominant in the sky or others surround me, I cannot throw myself into writing creatively (unless it is a paper for class.)

2) I have become attached to the ever-dying art of pen to paper. I love how my ink spreads across an empty white in a way that feels eternal. There is no 'delete,' and the shapes of my letters are of my sole discretion. I have developed a visual style I am in love with that defines my ink work. The computer displays only words in the way that everyone writes and everyone reads. The originality is apparent only through the choice of words and their arrangement in the piece. Certain reappearing themes or words may indicate that it is indeed something of mine, but you cannot just take a glance and know for a fact. This particular problem prevents me from producing my writing electronically like this. Instead, they remain in the private vault of my own satisfaction.

3) After various criticisms that were meant to be constructive, I honestly felt devalued. Basically, when others complain about the quality of something I have written with no good explanation as to what the problem is or how it can be remedied, I automatically fall back into this static shell. I never expect anything I do to blow anyone away, but maybe I am just rambling sometimes. The therapeutic aspect of the act is becoming the dominant factor, overriding the fundamental rules of good writing. Yet, I cannot change. I may try, but this is my thought process. Motivation comes from inside and is externally exhibited in this form. Whether it  fails to comply with rules or comes across in some unfortunate fashion to the eyes of critics is not my primary concern. I only wish to write for the sake of writing. Clarification is not always necessary.

Other than that, there is the time factor. Time is such an odd concept to me, because though there seems to be a objective chronology to it, I am not always convinced that it is real. And because of it, I rarely have time to find a moment for peace, to work on myself and help me develop. The American lifestyle is hectic, rushed, awesome at moments, but has little place for self-exploration. I do not define myself through relationships, or even tangible items or features. It is something deep within that calls to me. The Eternal Truth. However, most of my time is spent in the ephemeral realm of shared illusion. It's not too bad. Many people here are in need. And it would be selfish of me to spend all my time in pursuit of something as esoteric as an inner being.

What motivates me to write more than anything is probably the most cliched subject of pursuit: love. If it affects me greatly, or harshly, suddenly I'm compelled to express myself in the most straightforward way--writing about it!

I am in love, now. I am in love with someone whose face I have never seen, whose whispers have never broken my silence. Is it such a difficult thing to believe? Before me lies a sacred line branching into various sectors that consistently grant evolution. Acknowledging this line, ending God-knows-where, I accept today and tomorrow. I am without regret. Somewhere, across the universe, we are all ahead of ourselves: living out the life we are working for now. And they're thinking about us, back here on the other side of space and time.

I think I run into him once in awhile. We think the same thought, maybe, or dream the same dream. There is a moment between doppelgangers, and time's dramatic performance halts before its own travesty of reality. Is it deja vu? I feel conscious of the whole span of my life, from start to finish. I can grasp any given second. Every beat of the clock is laid out before me, like a Thanksgiving feast. And as quickly as it appears, it fades away. I return to my immediate surroundings.

How can I be the same person in the picture before me? I am aged and resemble him little. I yearn for different things, focus my attention on separate goals. My perception has drastically shifted. My cells are no longer the same. We become so different. Why?

I am in love, now. I love her, an invisible person shielded by time. I love time itself, for granting me awareness of its own elusive properties. For not allowing me to become lazy, mindless, and unmoved by the wonders of human existence. After all, being too analytical is a far greater and more enlightening pursuit than the reckless and wasteful ride of a stolid life.