» Good Profile: Still Too Young to Care

"And you can't feel grief unless you've had love before it - grief is the final outcome of love, because it's love lost. You do understand; I know you do. But you just don't want to think about it. It's the cycle of love completed: to love, to lose, to feel grief, to leave, and then to love again. Grief is the awareness that you will have to be alone, and there is nothing beyond that because being alone is the final destiny of each individual living creature."

Sometimes I think that my waking life is nothing more than a constant battle between reality and idealism. I find myself grappling to intertwine the two. I eat black beans and rice for dinner thinking that, ideally, I'm reducing my carbon footprint and saving a few fury creatures along the way; and then I'm informed about the great gifts at Omaha Steaks and how they're busier than ever. I find nothing more exhilarating than the buzz I get from smoking a cigarette and drinking a cup of coffee at the same time, until I stop to think about my instantly increasing blood pressure and heart rate. I know that my soul belongs somewhere in the Pacific North West, until I realize that I'm an atheist with a Buddhist philosophy - and "I" don't exist, neither does my soul. I read the craigslist personals mostly to admire them as an artform - a literature all their own - but also, in part, because I hope that somewhere out there somebody else does the same thing. And then I realize that 95% of the postings I read are from obese, homely, mentally ill, uneducated and/or socially dependent people who are posting ads because they genuinely need human companionship. I generally push human companionship away for whatever reason. I'm quite possibly too idealistic, pessimistic, narcissistic, hedonistic, hypocrtical, (insert unflattering adjective here) to reply to your e-mail if you choose to send one. I'm not looking for romance, definitely not a relationship, and probably not even companionship - after all, being alone is our final destiny. But if you think you could hold me in a conversation, or you read these ads strictly for their literary value, as art for art's sake, then I think that could be a pretty good start.