The Scribbles of A Broken Man

I found myself in a rather philosophical mood today.  Perhaps it’s the dread of the inevitability of re-kindering old flames, but I found myself thinking this question: Is it real? What do I mean by it? Well, is my own voice in which I have full-fledged conversations with myself real? Obviously, I know that it is not a physical entity. It is not someone I can physically see or touch. Then again, neither is gravity. So what dictates being real? Well, the most basic, most simplistic answer I know of is that the difference between my inner thoughts and gravity is that gravity exists regardless of my presence, while my innermost thoughts can only exist through me. That alone should be settle that question, except for the fact that ideas can exist through multiple people. What can an idea be classified as? As rant-like as this may seem, I believe there is something more to what I am trying to illustrate.

  An idea despite it being culturally “good” or “bad” is irrelevant to the fact that it is a thought. A thought that may or may not be implanted into someone else through verbal means or otherwise. Gravity for example, existed as merely an idea at one point. Obviously it existed but no mind had thought of it until the first brave soul did.

  What does this mean? I am not saying that everyone’s most inner thoughts are ideas that haven’t been observed by someone else in a physical manner. Unless of course, they are. Allow me to expand before I lose all of you.

   If someone had it in their minds that they had a sixth sense, an ability that could not be explained except by the person it belonged to, if that person spent their entire lives dedicated to explaining his or her sense to the public in order to help others with the same hypothetical sixth sense. If that person who truly thought they had a sixth sense died, and some random person who followed the teachings of the fellow sixth sensor believed he too was gifted, then would that not mean that the thought has hypothetically been carried over? That hypothetical sixth sense, whether it existed or not, now exists in the mind of the follower.

  What am I trying to say? Honestly I have no idea. I lack the proper intelligence and thought process to properly illustrate what exactly I wanted to say. Perhaps I shall revisit this concept once I can be more versatile in both my speech and thought provoking processes. 

  I can feel myself closer to destruction. I don’t know when but one of these days, my last moment of sorrow will occur and I shall turn into either the person I have always dreamt of being or an empty vessel. With these precious moments I confess. I miss her. I miss her dearly. I miss my best friend. The person I could trust. I felt at home. The person I felt the happiest with. I could just feel. She didn’t think me as strange.

Once upon a time there was a boy, curious and brave. He dreamt of becoming someone strong. He dreamed of finding love.

  Once upon a time that boy grew. He failed and lost. He found love and gained trust.

My mind was free. I awoke from one of the most insightful and awe struck dreams I have ever had. I dreamt of dogs and mountain lions, I dreamt of cities and rural areas, I dreamt of slums and backways, alleys filled with collectibles and towns brightly light within the night’ sky. I dreamt of volunteers from near past and near future. I dreamt of friends long past their allotted memories. I dreamt of actresses and friends conspiring against me and I dreamt of sadness. I dreamt of happy intellect and of sorrowful energy. It is hard to say exactly what I dreamt, but it was all too clear to ignore. These past few days have become a time stamp in what I believe to be a turning point in my processes. I can sit and wonder at all who know how to create, or I can join the fun and the revolution of it all and attempt to satisfy my own needs and wants. I am human. I am Human. That phrase shall never fail to identify my personality. I love and have been loved. I mourn and can feel sorrow. I exaggerate beyond belief and wonder in awestruck wonder. I make mistakes. I can become incoherent. But I can also write. And if anything, writing can help me piece together any parts of me that become lost as I dive into the realm of impossibilities.

  I have thought of a new approach to art. A new approach to fun. My fun. It was a similar style to one of the lectures I was fortunate enough to witness firsthand. A series of tell-tale narratives and stories that portray what I have created. I want to show, no, I want to create a world of my own. I want to illustrate within the minds of every individual who takes the time to allow me into their thoughts, a world where what I write and what I show aesthetically, all come together into one.

I'll never speak another word of what blinds my mind everyday.

You'll never understand, if only.

and yet, there are no regrets. Mistakes are what compose us. 

We are married to our work. That shall always be.

You will never feel for me the way I feel for you. So shall it be.

Please know this. Always know this. You are my friend. One of the closest I have.

I love you and I wish the best for you.

You have success in your blood. 

There is no question you'll achieve your goals. 

I'm glad I met you. 

  Dreary restlessness. I cannot sleep and I cannot dream without dreaming of excessive unnecessary thoughts. I feel everyday just as exhausted and drained as the last. Each day appears to begin with myself approaching the morning a sense of enthusiastic and cheerful contemplation. A few events happen here and there and as the day progresses I find myself feeling, well empty. As if I have a jar full of happiness that gets absorbed by sunlight as the day goes on. I hope to find a cure. Or at the very least a remedy that can control it.

  Dread that I fear shall come far too soon. Time lost and time not yet found, I try and piece together words of cohesive contemplativeness but I find instead, undefined feelings towards memories repressed within my mind. I can only speak in clichés and dramatizations. What I once had has been significantly altered if not destroyed. Friends have come and gone. My iterations of my own embodiment have gone along with them. I no longer know if I am the same person, physically, as I was a year ago. The cells within me have been long banished into unwilling hosts. The particles that construct others whose faith has been most unfortunate, have found their way into my atomic structure. Surely this would explain why I rant? Why my language is nothing more than mere blabbering of the mind. Why is it that I must find resolution and recognition in what I do? Why is it that after all I have experienced alone, I have no intention of staying alone. Why must I long for companionship while simultaneously dreading the day I find love once again? I wish I could rant like others can. Their meaningless words create the structure of stupid songs. Where language structure is thrown out of the metaphoric window in order to create illustrative words on canvas. From the words, incoherent beauty is exaggerated and idealized into something that only new age banjo bands can sing. “I found my light to which I am the early rain. I became a figment if implementation with a mermaid of endless regret” The fuck is that shit supposed to even mean? My vocabulary might be cliché and quite cheesy but at the least, it is somewhat coherent. I actually know what I talk about.

  A change is in order. A change needs to happen quickly. One way or another it shall happen. I cannot and shall not continue my path in such a manner as to please others. I am going to be selfish in order to gain my objectives in the bitch I call life. I shall find my goals and aspirations and I shall meet every last one of them. IT is all I am programmed to do and it is all I shall achieve.

  An end to this scribble I do not have. All I can offer is my meek expressions of thought. My mind is my most valued object and it is what I offer.

I have met them.

I have lived with them.

I have dated them.

I have helped them.

I have belittled them.

I have angered them.

They have angered me.

I have been through hell alongside them.

I have seen them succeed.

I have seen their eyes.

I have seen myself in those very eyes.

I have seen myself.

We are equal and we are one.

  I have met myself.

I have lived with myself.

I have dated myself.

I have helped myself.

I have belittled myself.

I have angered myself.

I have angered myself.

I have been through hell alongside myself.

I have seen myself succeed.

I have seen my eyes.

  Our eyes.

Ourselves.

Here I find myself typing my thoughts as I talk to myself within my mind. A lonely soul to what once was a happy entity. I cannot find comfort.  Have no shoulder. I have to swallow my tears and sleep off my depression. I hold no one close. This is what I have grown to familiarize. I have lost many dear ones that I once held close. Every day is a constant struggle. I have to constantly ignore my mind and keep myself sane. I suffer through this alone. I have gained many experiences. I have a long way to go. I make mistakes constantly. I am my own mistake. 

My name is Antonio Morales Gutierrez Jr. I was given this name by my parents and by society and also by culture. I am fascinated by mental disorders. I am a depressive schizophrenic with a tendency of paranoia. I don’t believe in ADD but if I did, I would have it. I hate people and I love people simultaneously and separately. Rather, I love people’s minds. I am kind and I am also bitter. I am an endless cycle of unfathomable emotions and I am also numb. I am the definition of contrast. I exist in opposition and coexistence with my own mind. I have been pressured by those who call me family, and I have been ignored by those I call friends. I ask not for pity, grievance, sympathy nor empathy. I hope for love because I give it, but it does not mean that I expect it. This is my story and this is who I am. I am not aggressive and I lack assertion from time to time. I have been used by many and neglected by most. I am broken. I am not useless. I have risen beyond my self-doubt. I have strived to achieve what others said I could never hope to believe. I exist for no one but my own self. I believe in good and I believe in evil. I believe that the purpose of life revolves around fear and love. I believe that I have beliefs. I believe that every thought, every idea, every concept that my mind conjures up, is simply that, a belief. A system of thought processes that have been formed and shaped into what defines who I am based on how I was raised. I am human. I am nowhere near perfect. I am as strong as I am weak. I strive to succeed as much as I long to fail. I want to achieve innovation beyond comprehension. I want to achieve artistic ingenuity that challenges the everyday perception of art itself. I am not a hero or a good-doer. I am human. I worship ideals not entities. I believe that all positivity cannot exist without negativity. I am not a revolutionist or a rebel. I am simply one man trying to live out his life the only way he knows how. I have been called many things before. All I ask is that you call me human.

Someone once asked me what it was like inside such a mind like mine. It is only until now that I can truly, and accurately answer that question.

If you would allow me to do so, I would like to illustrate my headspace as best as I can with the language I have been trained to understand.

For a moment, imagine your greatest fear. Cloud your headspace with this insecurity. Let it surround your mind. Allow yourself to fear your fear. 

Now, gradually imagine your fondest memory. The thought that forces you to smile.  

Forget all else.

Let that thought linger on within your mind as if it were a brilliant memory. Just as your entire soul has been filled with the fondness of this mind fragment, I want you to simultaneously envision your previous fear. Let them co-exist within your mind. 

Let both your greatest fear and your fondest memory happen inside your mind at the same time. Let them converse, let them bicker, let them fight, but most importantly, let them balance each other out. 

It is now your duty to take them out of context. To do this, picture them in an unfamiliar setting. For some people it's a grassy field, for others an abandoned castle. Really, it can be any setting that you are unfamiliar with.

Now I want you to place your fear and your treasured memory inside of that setting. Let them explore their surroundings and engage with one another. Let them quarrel and bicker. Let them find armies that will fight alongside them. 

Now you have an entire war inside your mind. Imagine each individual person taking place in that war as if they were fragments of your countless memories. Good memories, bad memories, dark or somber, these memories compose each and every one of your individual soldiers that fight inside your desired setting. 

As the war wages on, the greater soldiers conquer the lesser ones. Eventually, the numbers dwindle. At that moment moment, everything shall seem to come to an end. That moment shall be short-lived however. Soon after, a great beast emerges from underneath the ground of the soldiers and swallows everything up. A beast so grand in stature and so unrecognizable in form, that you simply refer to it as depression. 

Inside the belly of this grand beast is darkness. Pure, complete darkness. 

Venture forth through it until you reach the center of the beast. 

Here you find a light. 

For some it is more evident than others. It may flicker from time to time, but there is no mistake. This is indeed a source of warmth.

I implore you to touch that light, however dim it may be. Let it glow from your fingertips and let it engulf you just as the beast engulfed your thoughts not too long ago. 

Let yourself be surrounded by the warmth of the light. 

Warm your headspace. 

You are now at the center of your mind. 

You have reached the very pinnacle of who you are. 

Here, at your inner center, you find the unexpected. A pack of ravenous wolves. 

Some wolves appear plump while others seem starved. These wolves are your emotions. 

I want you  to feed these wolves as best you can and as much as you can.  Give them the proper nutrition they need and allow them to thrive. 

Do this every day.

Skip ahead a few days. I want you to realize that you are human. I want you to realize that you are forgetful. You have now forgotten to feed one wolf. One small wolf that seemed to have evaded you for these past few days.

It has become malnourished. So much so that it becomes desperate. It consumes the other wolves around it.

It is now your job to make sure that wolf regurgitates the others. 

Will you kill the wolf? Will you stick your hand down its throat and cause it to vomit several wolves into your hands? How you decide to do this depends on you. 

This is what it's like inside of my mind. 

This is what I go through every day. 

I see myself as a broken man.

I say this, not in a negative fashion, but rather, as a fact of the spiral of human process.

I shall continue to be broken until I succeed.

I shall not claim to be successful until I can confidently piece myself back together.

You see, I believe that we are all born whole.

As infants, we live as a complete, true and pure unit.

As we grow we wear and tear, we chip and break until we become someone unrecognizable from our infant selves.

The common misconception however, is that we become empty, hollow shells incapable of emotion.

That is not the case.

We will always have fragments of ourselves embedded into our physical identities.

As we grow, we find fragments and stitches that we repair ourselves with like patchwork.

We must.

For those who fail to do so, are no longer considered human.

The more we experience our external world around us, the more filaments we find. We fill our minds with bits and pieces from all over the multiverse, in the hopes that one day, we can find enough fragments to call ourselves whole again.

That is my idea of success.

So I say to unto you once again, I am a broken man.

I have yet to find enough patches to complete the proper notion of a body.

Despite this, I can however say, with a glimmer of light to my face, that I am much closer now than I was in the past. I am much closer to success. Closer to becoming whole. And, although I won't be the same body as I was in infancy, I will be a body composed of the external world I have personally experienced.