Class In Session

    Today, we’re going to talk about the young, the old, and the in-between.

    We’re also going to talk about why all the years in all the world don’t really make a damn bit of difference.

    If you’re scoffing as your read that opening sentence, do me a favor, shut up, read, and judge my conclusions as you will AFTER you read my article.

    Now, then…
   
    I’m just about twenty-one years old. Societal standards pretty much dictate that no one older than myself will take me the least bit seriously until I hit twenty-five, at a minimum. State regs say I was an adult at eighteen, they say that I’ll be fully responsible for myself as of next month- (and that legally, I will now be empowered to drink myself into a coma, but that’s neither here nor there…) and yet most of the “adults” around me will still treat me as a “child” for awhile yet.

    You look at someone my age, and you might be inclined to consider us “innocent”. Probably not in a sexual sense… Really, cruise around on the internet, find me a thirteen or fourteen year old of either gender that isn’t at least *trying* to bang anything that moves, and I will personally recommend you for a Goddamn commendation.

    Nope… not in a sexual sense. But “innocent” within the context of the world, within the confines of “real life”, within the structures of society, the way things work, the realities of existence… we “young people” seem to often be treated as though we know nothing about these things, simply by virtue of the fact we’re a relative few years younger than the person passing judgment.

    And you know what…? I don’t really like being treated as a child; never have. Never could stand being dismissed out of hand simply by virtue of my years, and to this day, it still really bothers me.

    But, what the hell. I’ll allow the possibility that you’re right. Those of you who sit in judgment, hey, why not. Maybe you’re absolutely right, and you’ve come to some grand realization that the younger generation has not.

    But here’s the kicker, boys and girls…

    Everybody’s learning. We never stop. I don’t care how old you get, the honest truth is that only the world’s most idiotic being will ever believe that they know everything.
   
    Until the day we return to dust, the world will be in constant flux; and the rules of life will be changing and warping long AFTER you and I kick the bucket. Long after we fade from memory, long after our friends are gone, their friends and their friends… barring some cataclysmic fuckup that kills every sentient being on the planet…

    (As an aside, PLEASE don’t even SAY 2012, I will scream “Y2K?” and gut-punch you…)

    BARRING THAT…

    Until such time as everyone and everything dies out for good, man… everything’s changing.

    Most people treat innocence as a handicap.

    Me, I treat it as a luxury.

    See, that’s why I get along with kids, and that’s why I think they’re the luckiest little bastards on the planet; because they’re still fully clinging to hope, and dreams, and all the beautiful, grand, adventurous imaginings inside their heads.

    Innocence is a blessing. It’s a treasure, it’s not something deserving a derisive smirk or a raucous round of pointing and laughing! Innocence is the act of holding onto those wildest, crazy, colorful concepts, and believing in your heart of hearts that somehow, someday, someway, they just might become reality.
   
    You explain to me then, what the hell is so bad about that.

    There really isn’t such a thing as knowing more about “life” than the other guy, young, old, or otherwise. I offer to you that there’s only PEOPLE, each of us surviving in the best way that we know how. Perhaps some of us have seen more than others, perhaps some of us know more about a given subject than him, her, them or whatever…

    But the world’s always changing, and Goddamnit, at the end of the day, I don’t care who you are, nor do I care how OLD you are or what you DO… all that matters is that you hold on.

    You live your life, you make it WORTH living.
   
    If on your final day, as you cast your eyes up, and you wonder what you’ll see when you go to meet your maker… if on that day, you can say there was at least one single thing you did, or saw, or heard, that was worth experiencing…

    Then in my book, you did all right.
   
    You held on for as long as you were going to. Life wasn’t a total bust, and there was at least one ace amongst the hand you were dealt… that, to me, is a good life.

    When that day comes, whatever WAS will BE, and nothing else is going to matter.

    This life is a test of survival. There’s no good way to play it, nor is there a bad way; everybody knows their joy and their pain. All we have is a moment, another, another, and maybe one moment more… then it’s back where we came from.

    So, in conclusion… here’s my thing about the concept of innocence.

    If life is just about getting what you can from it; finding as much enjoyment as you can… about laughing and learning as much as you can…

    Every day that a person can cling to innocence is a beautiful thing. Every single day they can look towards the next like it’s a kind of adventure… good for them.

    Don’t laugh at the people who can still trust, and laugh, and get giddy or excited. Don’t smirk at them and think, “Oh, you’ve got a lot to learn…”

    Truth is, chuckles, class hasn’t let out for you yet, either. The older you get, the harder it is to remember that. I know, because I do it myself more often than I should.

    You’ll never learn all the lessons, because nobody ever does… but between you and everybody else…

    I say the person who leaves this world the happiest, that’s your winner right there.

Responsibility... That Heavy, Heavy Word...

    My name is Joseph Bozlinski… “Joe” or “Jake” to my friends… and you know what?

   

    I care.

   

    I care a lot.

   

    Even though I spend much of my life trying to pretend I don’t, everyone knows better. Including me.

   

    Why do I do this?

   

    Why, because caring hurts. Hurts like hell… and in my world, I see all too much that’s worth caring about in the first place.

   

    With my own two eyes, this is the world I have seen:

   

    A world, in which I've seen a homeless man, curled up in the fetal position, trying to find some futile warmth in the uncaring brick of a gas station corner store, while a couple of drunken sods point, chuckle, and make it all-too *obvious* that they’re all too *happy* that *his* fate isn’t *their* fate.

   

    In which a working-class mother swings from honey-sweet, would-be mom of the friggin’ year, to getting plastered off her duff, and proclaiming to the whole of Myspace that her children are good-for-nothing, “stupid bitches”, laughable, ungrateful, wastes of human beings… when reading rants like that, I’ve wondered how often the woman’s taken a gander into the mirror.

   

    In which a pretty girl with a great mind is content to be used as a punching bag, an emotional scratching post, and a goddamn sperm receptacle on a day-to-day basis, because even though her life has become a special flavor of Hell, at least it’s a Hell in which she doesn’t have to be *alone*. (And I know more than one girl such as her…)

   

    In which the only way to solve a problem is to scream at it until the words are gone… fuck it until it doesn’t hurt anymore… or pummel it until it can’t get up anymore; and if none of those three options remain to you, then in this world, you'd best be ready to watch that problem take your life away.

   

    This is a world in which it takes some poor lady getting badly beaten and robbed to get a community off their lazy, collective asses for the first time in a *long* time.

   

    It’s a world in which the value of trust is measured in the amount of money and drugs on the table… in which kids know no greater aspiration than to be a bigger scumbag than the ones who pushed them, or their parents, around… where family values are overrated, and in which integrity and honor are two words that might as well move straight out of Webster’s and stay to languish in the history books.

   

    This is the world I’ve *seen*. We’ve *all* seen it, the only exceptions being those who’ve lived in lilly-white bubbles for the past long *ever* or so… and the lilly-white bubble is often called “denial”, more than any other name.

   

    There are, in this world, people appointed in their various fields, to help society out of its most destructive ruts; We’ve got therapists and counselors. We’ve got paramedics and doctors. There are police, there are soldiers, and there are other fields, with other folks, who each in their own way, try to dam the flow of hopelessness that batters at our way of life.

   

    Those people are people we desperately need... unfortunately, they make it all too easy for us humans to assume it's their job, to clean this world up; their job, not ours, *never* ours.

    The standpoint of John-Q and public...? It seems too often to be some variation of: “It’s not my business. It has nothing to do with me. I have no reason to get involved.”

   

    And that, dear readers, is the heart of this article.

   
    If you always wait for "somebody else" to take care of the problems you see in your world, well, then... you're letting evil grip us all just a little bit tighter. As it was once said... "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."

   Story of my damn life, that one. Honestly.

   For a very long time now, I’ve been criticized for trying to help those in need, for trying to make change for the better in my surroundings, for “sticking my nose in” where it supposedly doesn’t belong. An ex girlfriend of mine accuses me of being, and I quote, “Captain Save-a-Hoe”… because I am, and always have been, a sucker for a damsel in distress. But really anytime an injustice catches my attention, of *any* sort, I really *have* to do something, *anything* to try and help.

   

    Why?

   

    Because, in this world, which I’ve just laid before you within the context of this article, I see one simple, inescapable truth. That being…

   

    It is *our* world.

   

    Good or ill, beautiful or atrocious, this world is *ours*. It’s not one that you can just shove the responsibility for over to the shmuck that’s standing next to you on the street. It doesn’t *work* that way. You’re *both* equally responsible… you’re both bearing the burden of this world, this existence, and the only difference is how much of that responsibility you’re willing to admit.

   

    You cannot just stand by and let something wicked or cruel go on, unimpeded. In doing so, you’re contributing to that very same cruelty.

   

    The guy getting the crap kicked out of him by some mugger? Nobody’s asking you to rush in to his defense, fists swinging. But a call to 911 would be great, y’know? ‘Cause GOD FORBID, the next time it might be you sucking on some pavement, tasting your own blood in your mouth, and cursing the passerby for not helping you, for no better reason than “It’s not their business”.

   

    The woman sitting on the park bench, crying her eyes out? “I’m not going to ask. I’ve got enough problems of my own”… great. Wonderful. Beautiful, really… but imagine if she takes a swan-dive from the top of her apartment building a few days later, because she can’t find anyone to hear her out? Far-fetched, you think? Not as far-fetched as you think… there are a countless number of terrible things out there, that could’ve been avoided if just one good person would take the time to sit down and listen to a stranger’s pain.

   

    Those are some extremes; a lighter, but still perfectly relevant example; I’d ask my younger readers to consider one of your classmates; in school; struggling with his assignments. A couple hours of your time, y’know? Maybe that’d be all it would take to swing the kid’s grade from a “D” to a “C”, or better. Why not? Why couldn’t that happen, why couldn’t *you* be the ones to step forward and lend a hand?

   

    All it can take is one brave moment, or one kind word, and you could change someone’s whole life around. At the very least, you might be able to turn a frown into a smile!

   

    That’s true power, right there… the ability to leave this world one day, a better place than it was when you were born into it. It’s a wondrous power, a momentous power… a terrible responsibility, but still a truly beautiful thing.

   

    Everyday, I see something that makes me hate this town, hate this state, hate this country, hate this *world*… I see the kind of thing which the human animal happens to be… a creature ruled by selfishness and plagued with apathy. I see it, I recognize it, and I know the truth… that being, as someone once said;

   

    “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

    I am who I am, I do what I do, I live life as I do, because I want there to be a little more light in the dark. I can’t stand idly by, turning away from ugly sights because, well, “they aren’t *my* problem”.

   

    They are my problem. Because they’re within my world, they affect my fellow human beings, and I have the power to change it, by the smallest of actions… that’s a power we all *share* each and every one of us!

   

    Nobody’s asking you to run out in tights and a damn cape, to go save the world as we know it.

   

    But I’d ask *you* to ask *yourselves*, if maybe, just maybe… a smile and a hug to those who need it is worth your time? A kind word, a friendly piece of advice, or just a hand to hold?

   

    The world’s always going to need saving.

   

    Whatever we *do*, the world’s always going to be *changing*!

   

    What kind of changes those will be, that’s *our* responsibility.

   

    Tomorrow’s a question that only we can answer. End of story, dear readers.

    Now go, and live your lives.

Here's One For Openers...

Greetings, and welcome to "Swords and Solace"! It's my first post...! I don't know about you, dear readers, but I must say, I'm excited!

It's a cold day out today. But this winter has yielded some even worse ones already.

I live in Kingston, a city in the state of New York. She's got her good points, as well as her bad, just like any other city, town, or community worth framing into words... but one thing's for sure... last night, she was pretty frigid indeed.

Anyone else experience some cold days lately? Days where gloves were a must-have just for stepping out your front door? Where you found yourself making record time from point "A" to point "B", just 'cause you needed to keep *warm*? I know I have. I'm sure most of you reading have suffered much the same situation many, many times over.

Well... let me pose this question, for when the weather comes to be what it's been of late.

Have you ever thought what it'd be like, to have no choice but to brave the outdoors? 

As I've stated here on this site, I'm a self-proclaimed modern-day knight. No, I don't dress up in plate, clunking about with a broadsword at my hip, speaking in ye olde English... and no, pulling a Quixote and rushing into a grouping of windmills is a problem that simply hasn't come up for me yet. *Chuckles*. Instead, I've devoted myself to the supposedly 'dead' concepts of chivalry, trying to set an example, being a 'professional good guy' if you will, in a world that seems to be sorely lacking in them.

Well, I was having a conversation just the other night, with one of the men who's responsible for teaching me much of what I know about this particular path in life. I can't recall how it came up, but he was saying how he believed everyone should take the opportunity, just once, to leave their house-keys in the hands of someone trusted; then proceed to head out into the world for a weekend... with nothing on them but their ID.

Does that sound like an easy task?

It's not. I know, because I've done it. Only my go of it wasn't a choice.

Long story, really. Suffice it to say I fell on hard times a few years back. I was out in the town of Saugerties... I don't remember why, but I was out there. At this point in my life, I was at my wit's end, just about. Frayed at the edges, pretty much living from one crap-tastic moment to the next... and on that day, I had no money, save bus fare I'd intended to use to get back to the place where I'd been staying.

Well. That was a $1.25 I quickly started to wish would turn into a lot more, when I missed the last bus back.

I remember how my feelings began as simple grating annoyance. How could I manage to get back to Kingston?

Well... few hours went by, and suddenly, that simple feeling of grating annoyance had risen into a repeated uttering of the phrase, "Oh shit. Oh shit. Oh SHIT..."

Bypassing some twists and turns, let's get to the heart of the tale, here... I had nowhere to go, and no one I could ask for help. I was in trouble, folks.

I remember there being a lot of walking involved. I milled about, up and down the same streets, over and over and over again, trying to kill time however I could. I was still technically enrolled in the local high school, so I figured, if I could hang tough long enough, I'd be able to get some rest before class the next morning.

I made this decision at about half past 11 PM.

The school didn't open until sometime around 7 AM.

Up and about, around and around. Eventually, I'd get tired, and I'd have to park myself on a stoop, or a curb, or some such. People driving by would look at me every now and again, out their car windows, and I'd see everything ranging from vague concern, to the look one might offer their cat after it gets sick all over the bedsheets.

There's no worse feeling than being looked at like you're something less than human. I didn't know it, but I was going to have to get used to that look, soon.

 'Course, all that mattered right then was making it through the night.

Around and around, up and about. I remember how frustrating it was, looking at all the display windows of the shops and the stores, all darkened and lifeless as I passed them by. Their proprietors had gone home for the night; maybe to a family, or maybe just to a quiet dinner alone, but all the same... they'd gone home. They were safe and warm in their humble abodes. Me...? I was seeing the quaint town of Saugerties in a whole new bitter light I hadn't known existed.

The drudging dance amongst the roads seemed to stretch on forever. I can't remember the last time I felt that hopeless, that miserable. I lost track of the number of times I wanted to just collapse, fall asleep in the middle of the road, and never get up again. There were even a few moments where stepping into the path of one of the odd few cars that passed by now and again in the late hours seemed like a pretty perfect plan indeed.

Obviously, I did no such thing. But oh, believe me. The thought was a present one.

I tried hitchhiking. Something which heretofore I'd always been taught was a crazy idea, a surefire way to get hurt, don't try it, no good can come of it, Rutger Hauer, blah blah blah...

Nothing like the Rutger Hauer film happened, though. Namely 'cause no one was stupid enough to pick up the haggard looking kid at the side of the road at one o'clock in the friggin' morning.

I stopped behind one of the buildings in town. I'd been there for some twenty or thirty minutes, when some tenants from that building came home late. I was batting a thousand, mhm, yes indeed... they asked me what the hell I was doing lounging around on this bench in the back-lot when I obviously had no business being there. I gave a fake name, made up some stupid story, I forget what it was now, and once they backed off, I made a break for it, trying to bail before they called the cops about the funny looking vagrant near their property.

Yeah. That was fun.

After that, I finally touched down at the local baseball field. There was a dugout. I burrowed myself down in there, amongst the shadows, with my coat wrapped up against me like a second skin. It was brutal. So cold. So early in the morning, the cold was a merciless thing, snaking around me and grabbing whatever skin it could find. All I wanted to do was to wake up, and find the whole thing had been a nightmare. Barring that, I wanted to curl up in a ball and die.

Neither grace was shown to me, though. So, I managed to get an odd few hours sleep. Horrible, restless... but sleep nonetheless.

Eventually, I had to get up. There was a grounds crew or something, I guess, going over the place in the early-morning. (It was five AM or so by this point.)

Again, I made like a hobo-ninja, literally having to plaster myself into the shadow a tree at one point, then finally making it back to the street...

Then, I started walking. Again.

Eventually, I made it to the point where I could get onto school grounds without too many questions. I remember ducking into the auditorium and collapsing in a heap, right on one of the seats. I was so tired... I could feel it down to my bones... and I was so grateful, too, for the warmth of the building.

And here's the kicker, readers...

This was a quiet country town I was stuck in... and y'know? This was in the *springtime*.

It was cold enough then... and feeling as lonely, and embittered, and as hopeless as I did then... that made it all the more frigid, to be sure...

But to do it now, this time of the year...? When the winds snap up at you like elemental whips, looking for any scrap of skin that they can find? Where there are patches of ice scattered randomly, like toys left about by mother nature's sadistic child, waiting for someone to get careless and upend? Where the snow can seep into your boots, and chill your toes down to the core? Imagine no shelter, no safe place to rest... no doors are open, and the only looks people have to offer you are anything but kind? And to feel the things that I remember feeling... the hurt, the anguish, that isolated feeling that clings to your skin and won't let you go. You start to feel so very alone, and so very small. You're out here in the big bad world, and there's absolutely nothing to keep you safe.

Worse still... to do that every day...

There are people, here, now, in this very city, that have no real place to head to. It's one dreary trek from one soup kitchen to the next, one "charitable" organization to the other. When the winter dies down, they combat other extremes of temperature... the approaching heat will do its best to melt them down to a memory at best, and they'll pant and suffer, likely wearing layers upon layers, because they don't want to part with any of the few possessions that they have.

Every day, all year 'round, the whole world over... there are people facing hardships like this. One of 'em may find salvation, but there's always one more poor soul to fill their spot within the cracks, that too few people care about.

It's easy to get caught up in the comforts of our everyday life. Each of us could always have better, and we could always find worse, of that I can assure you. When all our luxuries disappear, it's a hell of a shock...

Some people, for whatever reason, they lose those luxuries. They may never get them back again.

So, I return to my instructor's belief, that I offered you at the start of this post... the whole "venture out there with nothing to your claim but your ID for a weekend" thing...

*Does* that sound like an easy task...?

If you feel like it's an experience worth undertaking, then I have the deepest respect for you. I salute you.

If it's something you think of, and counter with, "Oh, hell no, I wouldn't do that, not in a million years!"

Well. Please know, I understand. I bear you no ill will. Really, I would certainly never do that *again* if I had any choice!

But when the suggestion came up, and you said your "Hell no!"... was it because you didn't see the point?

Or because that thought scares you?

That fear, it's something I know. It brings on quite a chill all its own.

Thanks for reading. Hopefully, this was an eye-opener... or at the very least, an interesting anecdote on some level or another. I appreciate your time, any and all who came this far. Hopefully, you'll check out this blog again the future.

Stay warm, and best wishes.