Bitter Rich Fool

                                       Part 3.5

                             ****   9   ******  lucky me again

___Brent woke up to a scream in the night.  A howl of some creature disturbed and flitters of burning light outside danced in the windowpane as Brent's dreary mind sprung alive lazily.
"I'll kill everyone of you sons of bitches! Get the law called on me, I'll burn your carcasses and leave the bones for strays!"
 ___ This burst obviously came from Mr. Stevens.  Jill even caught a bit of the rant as she stirred in bed.  Brent went to the window and there was Mr. Stevens in his house coat and boots drinking whiskey from the bottle while holding a burning Maltav cocktail.  Brent could hear the raccoons scatter from the garbage in the back of the house.  Mr. Stevens took a stumbling run and threw the cocktail into a group of retreating animals.  They scurried quickly away and it didn't seem that any were injured.  Brent watched the old man as he collapsed and knelt down on the ground watching the fire burn up scortching the lively lawn and dying out in the cool night.  Brent felt like he understood the man a little more in seeing his sad nature quietly.
____We all die.  It doesn't matter if your worth a million dollars, have a thousand kids, invent the most amazing thing ever, you are expendable. 
____Mr. Stevens stared blankly into the advertising box in his living room.  He rolled around thoughts inspecting loopholes and options. He did this process frequently with no avail.  He eventually forgot what he was doing in the first place.  This kept him sharp, but his information was all mixed up.  He couldn't differentiate reality from fiction.  He didn't know the difference between the truth and fiction, most of which he had made up without  recalling his true meaning.  This left him uneasy and often afraid of everything outside of himself and outside of his control, because with all this time checking facts and separating created meaning from true meaning had robbed him of most organizational ability.  He drove himself mad when deciding on dinner for the evening.  The proper placement of silverware and a thousand thoughts on ettiquite, dining, and entertainment filled his head, beckoning him to make everything perfect.  In reality he was surrounded in a mess.  Yes it was often tidy, but no place of comfort.  He often sat in his room enjoying a book, because the insanity would die down behind the words.  He would often not even absorb what he had read, but just sit there calmly running his eyes over the words and mouthing or humming a slight tune as he did so to balance with the piercing silence of his lonely dark hollow.
___look out

In my own words

War is hell. A soldier in every war in history must have uttered these words or soemthing similar. I've said it more often than not. When I was in Afghanistan I made a mural on the wall of my straw mud hooch and it included a peace sign with horns on it, and around the ouside of the ring it said L'WAR'A IS HELL. People are too ignorant to have peace, at least thats what I believed then. I can't say I'm sure about anything anymore. I know it's been a strange road back to life in this country. I've been coming to terms with what they call "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder". Why the name as softened over time I don't understand. I actually prefer "Shell Shock" but I'll save that argument for another time.
Since I came home I've been divorced, but the marriage was over while I was in Afghanistan. I came home and it wasn't there anymore. I did not and could not feel the same way I did before. I was changed forever by war. I lost my youth and a big part of my personality. I had talked to behavioral health while in the Army, hell while I was in Afghanistan. I don't like pills. I do not like the way I feel or think when taking pills. This makes it difficult considering I don't really like being analyzed or sitting in groups talking about my problems either. Breaking away from the friendships I had in the army and a divorce that hurt took me even more away from the world. I was depressed, anxious, happy and sad all at the same time. Loneliness led to depression, which led to alcohol. One thing about booze is that it may smolder your emotions temporarily, but as soon as your done consuming it's even worse than when you start.
I started working harder at my job in a hotel restaurant. I started playing more guitar and eventually going to more and more open mics. I met a girl and finally had someone not affiliated with the military to tell my stories to. After a deep crying session, I think I started feeling a little better. I applied to art school, and I got accepted. I got scholarships and some hope. If war is hell then anxiety is a bitch. It hits you anywhere any time and hits you from all sides. Things may be going good but all you can focus on is the negative. I battled doubt in myself for months and finally decided to pack up and go regardless of the consequences. I needed a change.
Here I am in Chicago. I'm doing good in school and I've proudly been a part of the Veterans Art Project. I've found a community of people who care that I didn't have or even know existed before moving here. I've been putting out endless amounts of music, words, drawings and sculpture. These may consciously or unconsciously conveying my experience, but I know it helps. It all helps, and this helps too. I think more vets should open up to art and educating their community about the views and experiences of war. I am not a man who sugarcoats anything and I don't think any soldier should. People should see the blood and destruction waged by war if they will ever understand what it is truly about.
I don't look for help from God, psychiatrists, or prescription drugs. I try to balance myself. One thing that I noticed is really helping me is this stuff called 5HTP. I read about it replenishing seratonin in the brain. It does not directly tell your body to produce more, instead it gives the means for your body to create more itself. I feel the depression setting in if I stop taking it, but otherwise I feel a lot better and more confident than before. I mix this with St. Johns Wort and multivitamins to keep my body and mind in balance more naturally.
I hope to use this blog for many things and one of the most promising is as a natural guide to healing for veterans like me. So if your reading this and you feel hopeless, and you think like I think then try some of what I have said. I'm hoping to start a section of the Veterans Art Foundation here in Chicago and work hand in hand with the Vet Art Project spreading across the country. I want to make a real change, unlike the VA who can't even file medical records because they are busy shredding them.

Hail to the Chief

I watched Obama speak at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina today. It made me wonder what my service would have been like if I had the confidence that soldiers now must have in our government. I felt like a weapon being used by tyrants during my service. I do not support Obama but I think I would feel a lot better about what I was doing with him as my commander in chief. Something about a businessman from Texas with multiple failed ventures and hazy military service history makes you doubt the intentions and direction of the government.
When they said there was going to be a pullout in Aug. 2010, I was momentarily excited. Then they said 50,000 troops would remain and forces are still being increased in Afghanistan. Somehow I do not feel that these soldiers need to remain. Islamic extremism and terrorism are cancerous, and contagious. It is bound to spread, but our gone friends and family can never be replaced. You can not stabalize that which has no flat surface for stabalization. There is a reason we have a seperation of church and state here, and it is because religion is not bound to reality. When you have a society that only has religion to believe in you are doomed to never have true liberty.
John McCain tells us that we need to take care not to withdrawal too soon as our acheivements will be reversed. I don't believe the things we have done in either country will stand regardless if we were there for a hundred more years. Until the people have real schools seperated from religion, honest people coming forth to take the reigns of responsibility, and an Army with a sense of dignity and pride, there is no chance of progeress. American has no morals for any other country to follow anymore. We teach greed, we teach egotism. In this country we can't even take care of ourselves. Our government runs rampant with no guidance from the people. The system is corrupt, the people have become docile, and our hearts are broken as we walk down the streets in the shrouds of media, and life. We don't care anymore. Nature offers no guidance to the rapers of the planet. I don't even think evolution can instill us with a sense of self worth in a world that does not need us.

In Other News
I created a Contemporary sculpture today. I filled bland clothes with sheets and towels and made it look like a homeless person. I placed it outside of a subway stop in downtown. I made a sign and it was a poem called Solitude:

Solitude

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

LAUGH, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
For the sad old earth must borrow it's mirth,
But has trouble enough of it's own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air.
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go.
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all.
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life's gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a long and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

It was a good time and I actually talked with a few homeless fellows who were some of the few that read the whole thing. I'm working on a blog about combating PTSD naturally so look for it very soon, also on Wednesday Chicago NPR will be playing a portion of my songs from the vet art project in a story on the event. Be sure to check it out here.

Treating the symptoms of war

The Vet Art Projects New Artwork presentation has finished. My journey and creative expression has not. I am proud of what I'm doing. I feel like life has a direction and there is a need for this cog in the machine. Although my view and beliefs of life and the system we live in are dark, dismal, and full of anger, I find comfort in the work that I do and the interesting people I meet. It makes me wonder with this many fantastic caring people who are doing amazing things, how our country even became what it is now. We are a country that freaks out if personal space is invaded, yet we let our government invade countries, peoples homes, and almost every facet of our lives. Look at your hands, because they are stained with the blood of dead civilians, enemies, and soldiers protecting you. If you choose not to take a stand and help to end this war you are enabling the people who want to invade, kill, and destroy. So many of us want to avoid confrontation in our lives, why not let our country take that stance. Are we too proud to end something most of us know little to nothing about. If I spun a globe would one in ten Americans even know where Iraq or Afghanistan were? Probably not. There is one thing we all have though, an opinoin of beauty. If I can make images in peoples heads to show them the evils of war and the beauty of peace maybe I can make a change. I will fill in a small gap. There are millions so there have to be a lot more artists to help me. We will fill the gaps between what we see on the news or in movies. What the military advertisements tell us or the left wing/right wing so called talk "news" hosts guide us to believe. You want an end to soldiers pain suffering and suicide. You want to treat post traumatic stress disorder? Then start with the root of the problem, war. I listened to Dr. John Fisher tonight tell a group of us about his journey in dealing with his ptsd and all I could think about was how he was right. The military, the VA, and doctors in general are treating the syptoms of PTSD and not getting to the root. We as a society are not getting to the root! We need to embrace our pain and let it become a part of us so it can spread and the feeling that war is wrong and devastating is shared among us as a society. Don't wait til your children, brothers, uncles, or cousins get drawn into the endeavors of beaurocratic despotists before you act to prevent the loss of more souls. In time all systems fail. War can not be the only means of solution in our country.