I truly believe there are more of us than there are of them. And I used to see things this way, life, people, and the interaction between us and them. I used to think about the different divisions of crowds. I’d think about the different regimes of popularity and the flavors of the crowds.
There are billions of people in this world. None of us are absolutely identical. We all have our similarities but yet, everyone of us alive has our own personal uniqueness. This is what makes us who we are.
I truly believe, however, that there are more of us each day who find that life is a hard place to be. There are those who have struggles in life. There are more of us than there are of them. Yet, there is this line in the sand that no one dares to cross or even acknowledge. There are these terms, which no one dares to address. There are words we use to define one another. There are judgements and stigmas that cripple us from saying anything about ourselves or coming forward. To believe that cancel culture is new does not make sense to me. We have been canceling out one another for centuries, — it’s just more televised now.

The world is a much different place when you’re young. Then again, everything is different when you’re young, crazy as ever and willing to dare it all on a whim. The world is so big and new, yet so small, consisting only of you, your friends, your family, the town, the same places you go and the same things you do. I knew there was more for me out there. I knew where I stood. Or, at least I knew where I was trying to stand. There are so many unspoken components to our youth. There are impulses and changes, which we cannot understand. There are different pressures to young life; pressure to fit and belong; pressure to perform and to produce.
I knew there were more things to do and more places to see. Like anyone else, I had a drive to be elsewhere. I wondered what it would be like to live somewhere else or be someone else.

1)

When I was a kid, someone told me that when it rains,
it means that God is crying
I figured, “This must be where the sea gets its salt.” 

Maybe this is why I find comfort in the tides.
Maybe I come here to weep too.
Maybe this is why I love the anonymity of the shore: 
each wave comes in to wash the sands
and each wave goes out
(to take away our secrets).

I am writing this ti empty my thoughts. I use this as an exercise and write my words without direction or coercion and without any force, except this, to free myself, — to breathe, to live, and to excuse myself from the mental congestion, which does nothing else but hold me back.

Are you ready?
Good, because here it goes . . .

I admit that yes, I have said this before. “Damn kids!” I admit this and laugh because I remember being a kid and laughing when some old person shook their fists and shouted the very same thing.
Damn kids!
I remember this. I remember the differences between the generations and the communication gap, which seemed to be ever-widening. There was us and them, the young and the old. Between the two views, never the twain shall meet. I say this with full recognition that this is an old, outdated saying, which means two things are too different to coexist, relate or understand each other. 

Where does anything begin? I suppose we begin everything from the start – and since we all have our own story, this means we all have our own page one. This means we all have our own beginning, middle and an end.
I think about this. I think about the different chapters of our life, which leads me to think about the opening of David Copperfield by Mark Twain, in which it says, “Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether this station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”

I sometimes wonder if art has been lost to technology. Or maybe it would be safer to say that art has been stolen right before our very eyes and no one saw it coming. Or did they?
I can say that the written word is hardly written anymore. It is more often typed now, or texted maybe. The glory of the pen to paper has been hijacked by small, handheld devices. I can say that yes, this is true and that yes, I have signed on to the social media bandits and yes, regretfully, I admit my attachment to my cellular device as if the device itself is more important than my wallet or my car keys.

As a writer, or wait, as someone that writes their thoughts down or as someone that even wrote a letter or a post card, can you remember the first time you felt the ballpoint pen on a page? Can you remember when your thoughts flowed into ink? Can you remember ever writing something down that was so freeing that the ink on the page meant more than just the words that were written?
I do.

This is somewhat a bit of an abstract theme. What I mean to say is this is only an exercise and so from here on, I will write in a stream of consciousness. There will be no rules. No form. And more importantly, no excuses or explanations. No, this is from me.
This will be from the inside and with no apologies. I will see this as a means to clean house  — and by house, I mean the one upstairs inside my head.