Sometimes our perception should be considered instead.

Your world and frame of reference,

May not someone else’s preference.

Brilliance and balance, cleverness and comprehension,

May perhaps just be crafty deception.

The earth, the center, the universe moves around us,

A mind opened, history unwritten, due to a single man’s protest.

The ground from which we stand,

Can limit what we understand.

Our up could be someone else’s down,

Where a smile can be seen as a frown.

Be aware that there is always more then one point of view,

Because this world is viewed by everyone, not just you.

07/2010
David E. McCarthy

01.01.2009 – DAY ONE
Today was the first day of the new year and the first day of my silence so I decided to go and hang out with some friends. I was picked up by my friend Lisa and she was completely unaware that I would not be talking. She asked me are you seriously not going to talk? I replied yes with a head nod.

On the way there I asked her to stop at Right-AID via pen and inc. I needed to get some Ben-Gay for my knee, it was killing me. This was my first experience in a store not being able to talk. I found immediately that I wanted to ask where the Ben-Gay was. Not being able to talk, I had to look for it my self, something I would not normally do. Upon completion of my purchase the cashier said thank you and have a nice day, I sadly could not respond. This gave me a bad feeling, not being able to tell her you’re welcome or to also wish her a nice day was upsetting to me.

At the house I was immediately bombarded with questions such as what happens if you laugh and what happens if you burp or sneeze, so on and so forth. After about 20 minutes of silent Q&A we watched a movie, and played skatogories. It was an eventful day. I was treated by a few friends as if I were helpless. I mind as well had been disabled. Not talking was leading to some very interesting social occurrences. I am a scientist at heart, and I was loving every minute of this.

01.02.2009 – DAY TWO
I went snow boarding in Vermont with my friends Nick and Galen. On the way up I wanted to partake in the car ride conversation, but a part of me was getting used to not talking. I was learning that a lot of what I said to my friends was just mindless chit chat. The only times I felt compelled to talk were in instinctual situations. Saying God Bless you after someone sneezes, or excuse me if I burped.

In the lodge, a woman with forms asked Galen and I to fill out a survey to get a free hot chocolate. I had signaled to Galen for him to add my e-mail address to her list because I wanted to do it too. He then told her, “he can’t talk, well actually he is not talking for a week as part of his New Years revolution, and he can hear and talk perfectly fine.” She then told me that what I am doing is very interesting, and Galen replied with “try living with him.” She then asked me to thumbs up if liked it, so I did.
It was on the top of the mountain that I slipped and uttered a word fragment. Galen and I were posing for a photo at the top of the mountain. It was a strenuous awkward pose, and Nick had been just aiming the camera at us for about a minute already, not taking one photo. Finally he said OK and put the camera down. Not seeing the flash go off as it did with the others; I started to say, “You didn’t even take it!” All that actually came out was “yo…” I decided to at that point start my vow over. A day and a half was down the drain.

01.03.2009 – DAY THREE Coming soon…

The silence was remarkably insightful, it forced me to think more and act less. I was able to see where conversations would go with out adding my two cents. Above all I learned that its not what you say, its what you do. Benefiting from this seven days of reflection in more ways that I knew were possible, I decided to do it again; 2010.

01.01.2010 DAY I
At the strike of midnight dawning 2010, I silenced myself for seven days. I was at a friend’s house party to celebrate the New Year, not a typical place to be silent. Some of the people there knew my plan, others did not. Those who knew were awed by my vow, and those who were not informed just thought there was something wrong with me. I celebrated the morning of 01.01.2010 silently till about 3:30 am.

That night I had dreams about not talking. I dreamt that words were for sale, and people could not talk unless it was meaningful or valuable to others. There was more in the dreams, but I only disclose that in my dream journal… =].

The afternoon of 01.01.2010, my roommate and I went out to run a few errands, and I almost broke my silence streak. I attempted to talk was when I belched loudly in front of a man while getting a shopping cart at Wal-Mart. I immediately opened my mouth and thought the words “excuse me,” but never voiced them. Unfortunately for me that mans thoughts of my behavior must have been foul. As hard as it was I did not attempt to explain to him that I was under a vow of silence. I began to think about how people who actually can’t talk,  or don’t know the local language,  can’t voice a simple excuse me and could be judged for that. Forcing silence on myself, I am creating grounds to understand people in these predicaments. How can I or anyone for that matter help people as a therapist if we do not truly understand our clients perspective?

Wandering around the store for roughly 15 minutes looking for the stationary department, my instinct was to ask a floor representative for help. Being silent taught me that my instinct is not to look for things myself, but to ask for help; weakness learned. I eventually found the stationary department, where I then located a small dry-erase board to communicate with my client and his mother at work. I also used it to play monopoly later that night. We invited a few friends over and played monopoly for a few hours. Playing silently heightened my visual senses, as I could no longer relay on asking questions. I had to keep a keen eye on my properties, and I even made a few repetitive sayings chart on my dry-erase board. $200 for passing go, you owe me rent, and go F%$& yourself for those who offered me horrible deals for my properties.

What I was noticing more of this time around was that it was not how I would react to people, but how they would react to me. A few of my friends often felt confused. They felt because I was not talking that they could not talk to me. They voiced this strange anomaly with laughter.

01.02.2010 DAY II
For most of the day I remained at home catching up on some backed up computer work, but later that night I went out to socialize with some friends at a local pub. I decided to bring my dry-erase board out into the public, so I strung it around my neck. Not talking was making people want to talk to me more, as they clearly stated so. I met a very interesting young gentleman who was fascinated with my whiteboard. Our conversation started out casually as I wrote my limited responses on my board, but it slowly evolved into an intellectual conversation about the dynamics of the human brain. He studied neurology, and focused on the effects that music has on brain functioning and depression. I did not need words to have an intellectually stimulation conversation, who would of ever thought? A lot could be learn from this, for instance, less is more. I also met a couple of girls who offered me to sit and eat some of their french-fries with them. We had good conversations, mostly Q&A. I also met someone that told me that until he met me his night was uninteresting, “this is turning into a good night, it was bad before.” I even met one of the musical talents that night and discussed producing a music video for them; he gave me a copy of their new EP to review. I heard over and over that because I could not talk and my answers were limited to what little space I had on a whiteboard, that people were choosing their questions more carefully, “it’s filtering out all the useless chitchat.”

My silence still provoked confusion, as many people would repeatedly try to write their responses on my whiteboard. If I write a response to their oral question, does that not imply that I could hear? There were a few people that looked at me as if I was mentally challenged, but in all honesty, I had a dry-erase board hanging around my neck at a bar, that’s understandable; ha-ha.

I ordered two drinks last night and had two totally different experiences. The first time around it was a female bartender and it went very smooth. The second time it was a male and not so smooth.

Drink one- I wrote down my drink of choice on my board, Absolute & Club with lime, and held it up. She read it from about 30 feet away and in all actuality it was easier to order a drink with a whiteboard, I stood out and their eyes are not affected by bar chatter. She delivered my drink with out any questions, whether she judged me or not I will never know, but she did not make her thoughts or assumptions present to me. I liked that.

Drink two – The second drink was not such a pleasant experience. I wrote the same drink down and held up my sign. He came over with complete puzzlement, and said “what’s with the board?” A few of my friends were present at the time, and they told him that I took a vow of silence. They left before he brought me my drink, and as soon as they did he asked me what I wanted to drink again. I went to rewrite it because I had already wiped the board clean, and he said “no don’t write it, just tell me.” As I shook my head no he told me he would not tell my friends, I just kept writing my order down. He was mocking me and shaking his head. His friend had suggested to him that I was mute but the bartender said out loud, “no he’s not.” As he placed my drink down on the bar, he said “congratulations, you are my most annoying customer of the night.”

This is what my silence is all about, personal research into human social behavior, and I received a valuable piece of data with this guy. Here was a man that knows nothing about me, yet he feels knowledgeable of my status of mute or not. There was no doubt in my mind that he remembered my drink order, I knew he was just testing me to see if I would break my silence. He said he would not tell my friends, as if they who I am doing this for.

This is why I believe diets never work, because no one ever does anything for themselves. People are always two sided. One side is the person you see, and the other is the person you don’t. I have been told by many people that if they were me, they would be singing in the shower or in the car when no one is around. They say they don’t believe that I don’t because they would. My response to them is, “I’m not you.” What I am doing is a personal challenge, a test of will. Not too many people can understand this because will power is not all that common. Otherwise I believe we would less addicts or therapists for them in the world as we do today.

I get a lot of people saying that they want to get me to break, or want to make me slip. I believe it to be an unconscious urge of jealousy. It’s like you see in the behavior of children when their sibling(s) or friend(s) receives a toy that they wanted really bad. They either take it from them or break it. They can’t stand that someones else has something that they want, and I believe what I experienced with the second bartender was an adult generalization of this behavior. People fear what they don’t understand, and not many people understand my silence. I am not saying that he wanted to be silent, but I had something he did not, control. He wanted to make me talk, but that was out of his control. So I guess that’s what makes me annoying?

01.03.2010 DAY III
I was home for just about 22 hours this day. I left my house at about 3:00 to pick up a friend at the train station and we both went grocery shopping. It was beyond cold out; I don’t like to be outside when it hurts. I returned home a few hours later and ate dinner. Not too long after that I fell into what felt like a winter hibernation coma. I was asleep for about four hours.

I did a lot of reflecting on this cold snowy day. I processed what everyone has been saying to me. I found myself focusing on how people keep looking for a flaw in my silence. If I sneeze, people act like their favorite sports team just defeated its rival. “That was a sound, that counts, you broke!” First of all, I am doing this to myself, therefor I make the rules. Secondly, if anyone took to time to read this blog, they would learn that I already factored in biological sounds. How can I deny myself a sneeze, furthermore why would I? There very satisfying =]. Anyways, what people are failing to see is it’s not about making sounds, or seeing how long I can not speak, its about the experience.

I see this time and time again in our American culture, we are a very satisfaction driven society. Everyone wants to cut to the chase, or hurry up and get there. Taking this attitude towards life heavily impacts our perspective on the world around us. If those who seem to unconsciously want me to fail would stop and take a few steps back, they might see the whole picture. Maybe they will even realize that there is no victory to achieve here. It’s not about wining or losing, it’s about the experience. Even if I slip I will keep going. I am simply doing this to alter the way I interact with the world and gain a new perspective.

By eliminating a sense or strength, we grow in ways we couldn’t even fathom. It’s similar in baseball when a batter on deck will swing a bat with a weight on it. Practicing in a world that weighs more, when its time to bat he will remove the weight and feel a lighter swing and a stronger self. A BMX NBL racer will practice in a comparable way by tying a car tire to his bicycle seat post and riding around town. He is practicing in a world of resistance and when the tire is removed on race day, he will also feel a sense of strength and experience a lighter faster self.

Similarly, I am creating a world where voicing myself orally is not possible. Once the curtain of silence is removed, I will have also gained strength. I will be capable of communicating and expressing myself nonverbally more efficiently. I will choose my words more carefully and be more aware the things I say can effect others. I will also have gained an insight into the world of a deaf or mute person.

So to reiterate: coughing, belching, sneezing, etc., does not count. I am in control of the limitation I placed on my world. Even if I do slip, there is no winning or losing, only an experience. I have already proved to myself that I can go seven days with out talking last year; I have no desire to achieve this goal twice.

Things I miss the most – laughing, whistling, yelling, singing, talking to my father and uncle

01.04.2010 DAY IV
This was a day of challenges. I had a good amount of errands to run, followed by an afternoon of work with my client Matt. This was one of the first days that I actually became annoyed with my silence. I had a lot of face to face financial interactions to perform and I was not excited to see how they would play out.

First on my list was to pay rent to the company that my landlord has manage the house I live in. I walked into the office expecting things to be difficult, and was entirely surprised by how simple it turned out to be. I pointed to a post-it and he gave it to me. I wrote “rent for my address down,” and stuck it to the check. He said OK thank you, the end. Next up was to go to one of my banks to take out money to pay another bank. At the first bank I simply used the ATM, phew. The second bank is I have a loan out with and I had to somehow convey that I wanted to make a payment on my account. I have several accounts there, but only one with a loan and for some reason it’s always difficult for them to find the right account. I was not looking forward to this, but I was once again astonished by how simple it was. I wrote $200 dollars towards my loan followed by my name and my social security number on my parking validation. I handed it to her, and she handed it back stamped along with a transaction receipt; wow!

Next on the list was work with my client, and on schedule for today was to finish his latest painting. His fiftieth birthday is this coming Friday so he and I have been working on another rendition of the Eiffel-Tower as a gift for his twin sister. Matt has experienced my silence last year. This year I kept him very informed that it was coming again, so he was not in the dark. We had a great day of painting followed by a short walk and some hot tea downtown New Haven.

In the evening I went to C.O Jones for free food during happy hour with some friends. Other then the fact that I was not taking it was a typical night out. I went to sleep rather early that night, I have been feeling more tired then usual lately. I have also found my self napping on occasion, and I that is a very rare event in my life. I am not sure if all this is because I have less interactions with the world, or because there is less light in the winter months, further analysis is due here.

01.05.2010 DAY V
Today was a fairly simple day, I didn’t even leave the house. I awoke feeling ill and I believe this is the most likely reason behind my increased desire for sleep. I ate breakfast, watched some downloaded television programming, and then took a shower. Not feeling any better, I started myself on a treatment of Echinacea Root.

I used the afternoon time to edit some of my photographs from London, I really want to put these photos on my website before February. While I was editing them, my roommate explained to a mutual friend of ours that I was not talking for the first seven days of the New Year. She reacted just as many people initially do, a look of puzzlement, a loss of words, then immediately followed by a few questions that I respond to with head nods. She said something along the lines of, that seems cool or interesting. Galen (my roommate) made a rebuttal, “yeah, try living with him.” He also said the same thing last year.

I tried to learn something from what he had said by generalizing my situation. By becoming silent I removed a part of myself from the world, without intention. When verbal, I am usually quite comical and easy to converse with. While silent both of those means of communication become very difficult, although not impossible. In a broad view of my situation, I had removed the part of myself that allowed us to interact, relate, and communicate. I see this same unintentional behavior in the depressed or the addicted.

A drug-addict can become completely encompassed by their world of substances. As most of an addicts energy can easily become focused around obtaining and using their drug of choice. They often don’t leave much of themselves available to their loved ones. This is a commonality with those that suffer from depression. Their worlds have become altered and their ideals have changed. Though unlike depression, the initial stages of the disease called addiction, comes by choice. When people make the decision to begin to dance down the path of addiction, they are slowly removing parts of themselves and adding new ones. Think of your personality as a jar of water. My take on it is that we can only have so much water in the jar; we can only be so much of a person. Granted we change and our personalities evolve as we grow or mature, we often leave pieces of ourselves behind as we add new ones. An addict’s jar can become completely filled with the single desire to get high. The depressed seem to have spilt all the water out of their jars, as they often feel lost, and have no desires. Connecting the dots, I have detached a part of myself that everyone I know related to, similarly to that of an addict. My personality was no longer as outspoken as it usually was.

I have used my silence to catch a glimpse of the world around an addict through sober eyes. With this understanding, I am able to relate to how families or friends must feel when they watch the person they love slowly change into a person that they can not relate to anymore, or even communicate with. Sometimes we make decisions in our lives without even realizing how they effect those around us, I was able to see this more clearly while silent. I recognize that I have way over exaggerated my circumstance here, but I think my point of reference was not too far off.

01.06.2010 DAY VI
I woke up this morning and decided that I was going to make a phone call. My father and I usually spoke on a daily basis. I really missed his hearing his voice as I was sure he felt the same about mine. I dialed the number, placed the phone on speaker and eagerly awaited his answer. As my father said hello, so did I. To be more accurate, my computer speakers said hello. I was using windows type to speech. He did a lot of the talking, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. We caught each other up the best we could with the limitations of my computer voice, and shared a few laughs. Mine were silent; the computer could not process “hahaha” as laughter. He told me that I sounded like Steven Hawlking, so I immediately started to type in strange and inaccurate astronomy and physics facts, and it did sound just like him. I told him that I will be speaking this Thursday at midnight, and the phone call ended shortly after that.

I felt as though I was able to sympathize with Steven Hawking after making that phone call. I had so much that I wanted to say, so many thoughts to convey, yet I was no where near as limited as he is. I can’t imagine how he must feel or how frustrated he is, but I now have a minor understanding. I would’ve never of been able to remotely comprehend the level of irritation he must feel with all his limitations if I had never silenced myself. I am learning so much, feeling so much, and experiencing emotions I have never felt before, and yet I am more removed from the world then I have ever been.

This afternoon was another day with my client Matt. Today we went bowling and to the movie theaters, I love my job! I had quite an experience the last time I was silent at this bowling alley, I was very excited to see what was going to happen this time around. We walked in, walked up to the desk, and this time around I met Matt take care of business. The only time I intervened was to hold up two fingers representing the amount of games we wanted to play. The last time around I tried to control the situation which led to confusion, this time I let things take care of themselves which turned out to be a much easier way of conducting business silently. Last time Matt and I had a different clerk who gives me trouble even when I can speak. He always tries to charge my client full price when he has been getting a discounted rate there for many years.

Matt is an amazing bowler, he bowled for the Special Olympics for many years and I have witnessed him bowl over 200! When Matt bowls I usually provide a lot of support Silent support was an obstacle I now had to learn how to overcome. I began clapping, even if he was not knocking all the pins down. I smiled whenever possible, stood closer then usual, touched his shoulder from time to time, and provided as many high-fives as possible.

Later that evening my friends and I had another game night. About ten of us gathered at my friend’s apartment, and cranium was the first game up. A few people were reluctant to have me on their team, referring to me as a weakness. I had brought my dry-erase board, and with it I became my teams designated artist. The first opportunity our team had to play was an eyes closed drawing problem, with in the first 10 seconds my team had guessed what I was drawing. I was slowly realizing that speaking was not even required to accomplish many of these challenges as lots of them did not allow you to talk anyways. Long story short, the team with the silent link in the chain ended up winning. Having adjusted to having to interact with the world through symbols, makeshift sign language, and being able to write words with hast made me everything but a inconvenience, it made a an advantage. I have become more efficient at speaking with out speaking, life in a nonverbal world.

Further into the evening, my ability to empathize with those who are communicably impaired expanded greatly. Inside of me is a vocabulary that I am unable articulate with written word. I am a terrible speller and my dyslexia was beginning to prevail. One of my most common dyslexic mistakes is reversing the lowercase b and d, and that I did. Present were a few people that never even met me before, they have never heard me speak. I felt inadequately represented by my communication restriction, and there was nothing that I could do about it. The feeling inside of me was a form of irritation that I had never experienced before. I was upset, I was angry, and there was nothing that I could do to express it or explain myself.

In my line of work I have assisted many individuals that were completely aware of the world around them, but due to a debilitating disease were not able to communicate or interact. They have thoughts, feelings, emotions, and ideas that they can not voice. Granted my limitations were self inflicted and not at all debilitating, I had a glimpse into the world of someone who is. Imagine how it must feel to be completely conscious and not be able to speak or even have basic mussel control. Now imagine you are being pushed in a wheelchair through a mall, and have to look at people view you as a monstrosity. As your arms twitch and saliva glands salivate out of control, you are having clear thoughts but can not express them. I am of course over exaggerating, but to make a point. I was falling victim to this on a much smaller level. My silence has once again allowed my to walk the shoes of someone that is close impossible to identify with.

01.07.2010 DAY VII
Anticipation is in the air, I am very excited to hear my own voice and re-experience laughter. At the strike of midnight tonight, January seventh, I am going to speak my first words of 2010. I will be out with my friends, a Thursday night tradition.

Throughout the day I spent a lot of time thinking. I was soon going to be able to talk and yet a part of me did not want to. Yes it would make things easier, but is that something I even want? This modern western civilization is seems programmed to innovate an easier way of existence. Its aim is a hassle free life, but where is the fun in that? Some of the best times of my life were spent going under, over, or around obstacles. Does skimming the synopsis of a movie suffice, or do we yearn for the intimate details of the story? I cherish the little things in life: slipping on ice and catching my balance, the rush of accelerating through a yellow light, or getting lost and having to find my own way home. These challenges, or inconveniences society would rather define them, allow us the opportunity to see who we really are, to measure ourselves at least once. It’s important in life to not necessarily be strong, but to feel strong.

Modern civilization and technology is slowly removing all the challenges we face in life, its hard to experience anything original or even real anymore; another reason for my silence. Also it’s said that technology is supposed to bring us closer together but I feel that it just alienates us. I can send an instant message to china, order a pizza, and comment on my friend’s Facebook page with minimal key strokes, but yet I have no idea who my neighbors are. I feel more connected to the world by removing my ability to communicate with it vocally. It makes my interactions more meaningful. While silent and communicating with someone, it often became a very intimate experience. Words were chosen very carefully from both parties, and conversation slowed down, a refreshing break from hasty meaningless chatter.

At 12:03 am Friday the 8^th I spoke my first words of 2010. My silence was broken by the recital of a quotation from Leonardo Da Vinci, “Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.” I idolize Leonardo Da Vinci. I can identify with him and his endless intellectual inclinations. I share many of his scientific interests, personality traits, and admire his attitude towards life. He is deemed by many to be the greatest and most intelligent person to have ever walked the Earth. Unfortunately he is only widely famous for his paintings. Discovered and published to late, his journals reveal that his mind predated by hundreds of years those of the Wright Brothers, Galileo, Igor Sikorsky, Alfred Wegener, and the list goes on. An amazing observation made by him was that our eyes see by letting light inside. Science at the time dictated our eyes projected the visual world in front of us.

Once I began talking it as if an imaginary shield was lifted. The silence made me feel separated from the immediate world around me. I felt unplugged or like a fly on the wall, but once I became vocal I was reintegrated into the world. I was able to say what was on my mind, share in laughter, and just felt closer to those around me.

Overall Observations
People generally assumed that I was deaf, dumb, or mute. Even thought I establish again and again my ability to hear, I was astounded at how many would try reply to me in written word. A lot of my friends reported that because I was silent, they felt like they could not talk. I was contagious, the host of the virus of silence. It became clear to me that as silent as I could possibly be I was louder then ever before.

I noticed a dampened subjectivity to vocalizing when startled. Usually when I stub my toe or hear a loud clang, I vocalize. I found it peculiar that I was even able to control my reflexes at the autonomic level. Once I allowed my self to speak, it was like a switch was flipped. I was immediately letting out sighs, cries, and ouches. It’s nice to know that if need be I have the ability to control my reactions. I can choose to be silent.

I did feel a strange sense of being alone while silent, even in the presence of my friends. I could be standing among companions, listening and even participating in conversation, nonetheless I felt by myself. When we talk with our friends and family we speak our minds. It’s almost an instantaneous event, thought and word. However in my case, there were always delays, and moments were constantly slipping by. I was not able to be my outward self, and I am sure it was not only apparent to me. After a while I just gave up on trying to add to conversations unless I felt it absolutely necessary, and inconsequence I felt alone.

I was a prisoner in my own mind. As time passed, my mind flooded with thoughts. I was thinking faster, deeper, and more clearly then ever before, but keeping everything inside Thoughts grow, mature, and develop over time like seeds. Silence was the fertilizer to my field of thoughts. My ideas were incubated, cultivating more diverse and developed concepts and theories. Trapped inside my own mind I was forever observing, processing and thinking.

Silence taught me that many take language for granted. We live in a world that is very difficult and even shunning for those who are silent; so my experience educated me. Silence opened my eyes to see that language, written or spoken, is our most valuable tool. It allows us to live and learn from experiences that are not our own. It allows us visit the past producing a reduction of mistakes in the future. Without it, everything would have to be learned hands on or by personal demonstration. It also taught me that a lot of our language is communicated unconsciously. Our bodies speak without us even knowing it most of the time; this is how I often communicated. Hand gestures, eye movements, our bodies can be louder then our words. Silence placed me more in tune with my body and even more aware of the body language of those around me.

I now understand that it’s not what we say; it’s how we say it. Human beings since the beginning of time have significantly relied upon symbols, as we still today. This being said, a single word with symbolic implication can say more then a key note speaker. Swastika: behind this word are powerful feelings, violent experiences, war, death, and possibly more books then a single library can house. Granted it may not mean the same thing to all of those around the world, its original meaning of peace dates back to the Neolithic period. Stolen by the Germans and used to associate with the actions of the Nazi regime, its meaning has changed to the eyes of the western world; even outlawed in Germany. What I am getting at here is we can say more by speaking less. People often over explain things, at times drowning their points. I learned to choose my words more carefully, because one word can say more then all the words in the world.

What’s more alive, my reflections or I?
Do they reveal my inner side?

Are shiny surfaces doors to parallel universes?
Where everything is opposite, and I am the inverse

Do my loves become my hates?
Do my hates become my loves?
Or can I feel here and not there?
Do I breathe, and is there air?

Maybe that world is more real then this one, lately that would make more sense.
For I feel nothing like myself, and everything is less intense.

My hobbies are boring,
Things just feel a mess,
My free time feels wasted,
And I feel noting beating inside my chest.

What do I have to do to feel alive?
To feel happy,
Get excited,
To feel loved,
And not pushed aside.

When I look in a mirror, do I see my other side?
Do I see the positive me looking back at the negative side?

Am I real, am I alive?

David E. McCarthy
05/2008

A little harsh I know, but I was unaware that I could not ride my bicycle through there and I apologized for it. For reasons that I didn’t understand, he dragged it out and kept provoking me. One can only resist for so long, and I should only have to apologize once.

There’s a lot that can be learned from this experience.

We get caught up in the day-to-day, wake ,work, eat, sleep then you’re done
What ever happened to things we used to think when we were young

I wanna wander the world
Live where there’s snow, but ride a surfboard
I wanna drive by air, and walk by sea
Don’t want a lot of money, just a little is good for me

What if I was poor, but really happy
Would you walk right past, or stop and chat with me
Imagine your life, the way you wanted it to be
Is it just fine, or would you do things differently

The years seem to come faster now, makes it really hard to breath
We never have enough time, that’s our excuse for everything

Did this world decide to have me, or do I decide to have it
Does it come on a golden plate right next to a tasteless garnish

We pay for things even after were dead, our wallets out live us
Credit cards and Tax returns, I just want to stop thinking and live life instead

I wanna travel, see the world
Live in the snow, and ride a surf board
I wanna drive by air, and walk by sea
Don’t want a lot of money, just enough to live free

What if I was poor but happy, living in the street
Would you walk right past, or stop and chat with me
Imagine your life, the way you wanted it to be
Did it turn out just fine, or would you do things differently

What is this life, and what am I supposed to be
I ask my self these questions, but it’s these questions that s should ask me
So many things to think and thoughts to say without enough time in a day

Before we know it it’s a whole new year, and we just stacked our dreams to high to bare
There’s swims to swim and seas to see, but I am drowning in this ocean we call poverty
With mountains to dig and holes to climb, I just wonder when I will ever have the time

These places and cities to travel we dream,
Like a needle round a record, we feel stuck and scream
Are our lives predestined from beginning to end,
Or can I leave this groove, this path, this way we defend

Should I keep doing something because it’s what’s I’ve always done
Can I get off this path, or is there only one

So who am I in this world, do I even have a say
I think I will just start small by not living life day-to-day
Stop and listen, to what the kid in me has to say

David E. McCarthy
03/2008