Total Pageviews

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

On Love and Hate

Written some time ago the sentiments still ring true

We enter this world in pure innocence and naiveté initially believing out of ignorance that the world is a safe place, and eventually believing so out of experience, assuming we’re raised in a supportive and healthy environment. We try to make rules in order to make sense of things, and ultimately to protect ourselves from the things that can cause us harm. But we are in reality such fragile creatures, so vulnerable and susceptible to the awful things that can hurt us in our environment. Perhaps the only way to truly protect ourselves is to never leave the womb at all, because the moment we do we take our bodies and, more importantly, our souls in our hands. In reality the rules are more nonsense then we’d have ourselves believe and the world is far more chaotic for us to begin to exert any amount of control over it.

I cling to the hope that the story will have a different ending, hold tight to the idea that some things can be predicted, some rules can be made that have value and can protect us. And each time I am made a fool of all over again. How can a person go so quickly from being an angel to becoming a demon? How can a fellow human being go from being so sensitive and caring to being so utterly destructive and heartless? Desperate creatures do desperate things, and particularly when their survival, their very existence is at risk there is simply no limit to what they will do. We can never know what will set them off. We all have our Mr. Hydes lurking just beneath our surface ready to pounce in service of our souls protecting it from all impending dangers. Are we morally bound to sacrifice ourselves in order not to unleash the Mr. Hyde, in order NOT to cause such unbearable and unbridled harm to others? Is there a moral imperative that goes beyond our need for self-preservation? Are we to blame for not heeding to that moral call even if it does mean sacrificing a bit of ourselves? Can I rightfully judge others who have failed to heed this call out of their sheer need to protect themselves first and foremost? Do we not have an obligation to ourselves before we have an obligation to others? I am not sure I know the answers to these questions.

But there is simply something so cruel in the way that love can turn into hate. When unrestrained resentment and rage is unleashed without any regard whatsoever for the damage it may cause to the other. Is it merely a need for protection of self or a desire to exact revenge in payment for the harm that was perceived to be caused? Are we so empty inside that this is the only way we can fill ourselves? Are we filled with so much rage which has no other outlet that we must use the first outlet made available to us, such so that all the rage and anger from everything comes pouring into that very place? What was it that I did so wrong? Why did I deserve to be made to feel this way? It doesn’t seem to matter.

Our beautiful memories are so fleeting. We know that they go so quickly and we try so hard to hold onto them when we are in the grip of the moment itself. But at least after the fact we have the scent, a faint reminder of what was. But when someone systematically takes a bulldozer to all that was and digs up everything, twisting it into so many different grotesque forms that there can never again be any recollection of what was, is there anything more cruel? To not simply burn bridges but to attempt to annihilate the love that was once felt by replacing it entirely with unadulterated hatred and resentment. The more we love, the greater the potential we have to hate, for if we did not love we could not hate, as we would simply be indifferent.

And there is no protection, no safe haven from the cruelties that life and love have to offer. “Better to have loved and lost, then not to have loved at all”? But at what price? How many scars must we accumulate that will forever remind us of our past continually effecting our present? Can the heart eventually collapse from the sheer weight of it all? If we don’t open ourselves up, making ourselves vulnerable and subjecting ourselves to the many dangers that exist in the world, we can never be loved and stand to live a miserable and incredibly lonely existence. But the pain we sometimes endure can make anyone not want to EVER experience such a thing ever again, and the only way to do that is to close ourselves off completely. What a cruel situation it is to have to risk all that we are to become that which we so desperately long to become. But such is the way that God has designed the world. And whether indeed he has some sort of sick sense of humor is yet to be determined.

For now, I know that at least in retrospect things do become clearer. If we learn from our experiences then they are not for naught. If we use them to move on to the next place then our suffering will not be in vain. But the scars do remain, forever haunting us, reminding us of what we’ve been through, complicating the present with its constant comparisons with the past. It makes even shadows appear the most gruesome and threatening of creations. It makes it infinitely harder to enjoy the things that make us happy and to know what will indeed make us happy in the first place, having to constantly look over our shoulder for the potential Hyde lurking in the shadows. But such is life I guess and better to feel something then nothing at all. I only hope that it might end one day and the story can have a different conclusion. For now, I can only pray and have faith that this all happened for a reason.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

My Attempt at Free Verse Poetry

Smiling on Cue
By: Ben Draiman

Children don’t smile on cue.
They screw up their faces in what could pass for a smile,
But it’s clearly an empty gesture.

They don’t smile for the cameras,
They don’t smile for the family or the strangers,
They don’t smile when they’ve been naughty
To mask their obvious guilt
And they don’t smile politely
Moments after being offended.

Oh, but children do smile
They laugh, they play, they sing so we may hear them.
But their smile is theirs alone

They smile when they are happy
They smile when they’re content
They smile without reason
As it sometimes appears to be
And they smile unceasingly
Even at times when they shouldn’t be

And then children grow older.
They learn to do what they’re told.
Even if it’s clearly an empty gesture.

They smile for the cameras
A little less innocently then they used to
They smile for the family and for the strangers
Nearly the way they should be
They smile when they’ve been naughty
To cover up their guilt
And they smile politely
Even when offended

But even still they fail to smile on cue.
They laugh, they play, they sing so we may hear them
But the smile still clings to the moment. 

And then one day a smile appears where none used to be.
Prominently displayed broadly across their faces.
Appearing no different from any other.
Their teeth are made perfect, shining white every day.
Brushing them having become infinitely more important than it used to be.
Sometimes coy, sometimes shy, sometimes gay, and sometimes sly.
It has so many variations.
Years of practice has enabled the mastery over the muscles, contorting them just right to achieve the desired effect.
What was once an involuntary emotional response to stimuli has now become a mask to be used at will.
A fortress built to protect the delicate pearl within, to conceal the fragile within. 
For no one may see behind the mask
Though they long for the day someone might ask.

The camera flashes, and the smile is effortless, flawless.
The image, immaculate. 
The photograph, acceptable even among the harshest of critics.

Woe is the day that children learn to smile on cue.
When the smile that was once theirs alone belongs now to another.
Woe is the day when a smile expresses little more then the image of what the world wishes to see, needs to see.
For a smile remains a smile only as long as it continues to be ours alone. 

Monday, November 22, 2010

Would You Know Love?

Would You Know Love?
By: Ben Draiman, November 22, 2010

Would you know love if you met him on the weekend?
Would you know love if he called you on the phone?
Were you thinking of how much better it would be
If the fears you had were gone?
What could be so wrong?

Would you know love if it disturbed your busy life?
Would you know love if there was some other place you had to be?
Would you place it above anything and everything?
Without any guarantee
And wait for it patiently

Would you know love if it wasn’t so damn obvious?
Would you know love if it knocked on your front door?
What kind of love was the kind that you were hoping for?
Always wanting more
With so much left to explore

Would you know love if love was all you had to find?
Would you know love if you could find the space?
Have you had enough and just can’t seem to bring yourself
To lose what can’t be replaced
To have all you love be erased

You cry sometimes, but God hardly listens
He won’t waste his time breaking down your walls
You try all the time to keep yourself well hidden
So scared one day you’ll fall
Or that you’ll cease to care at all.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

From Regular Guy to Something So Much More


Mike Shinoda (Linkin Park), Ben Draiman, Donny K.

Linkin Park has to be one of the most successful rock bands of the past 10 years, consistently selling millions of albums worldwide.  They are certainly the prototypical "rock stars" by most standards, at least when it comes to level of fame and success.  The image that comes to mind is by far one of individuals who are so much larger than life.   One almost expects to see a glow coming off of their bodies.  But the grim reality is, at least the one I encountered when chatting with Mike, one of the band's founding fathers and co-lead vocalist, that they are quite ordinary people and the only thing glowing was the flash of my camera. 

He's a soft spoken, quite laid back guy who one might encounter just about anywhere.  He even appeared a bit shy, and certainly far from the cocky and arrogant stereotype of the extremely successful musician.  In fact, putting his fame and success aside, I had felt at the time that we had far more in common as fellow musicians than one might think. 

One might view the experience as a disappointing one.  It's not as fun as one might think to see behind the magician's curtain, seeing just how human our superheroes really are.  We subscribe to a fantasy where it is us that projects our hopes and desires unto our rock heroes, often expecting them to even surpass the fantasy.  It's less fun watching a magic show knowing what's behind the tricks, knowing the magician is less magical than he/she appears. 

Perhaps the most poignant of images that really strikes the point home was how along with me backstage was one of Israel's own superstars: a young and extremely talented musician by the name of Idan Reichal.  This is a guy who by Israeli standards is quite successful, never having a problem packing venues with 1000 or so persons (though sadly not much more than that).  You would never know any of this by looking at him and certainly not by the way he acted, holding in his hand a few of his cds he was hoping to present to the band perhaps with the intention of boosting his PR in the American scene, and anxiously waiting "to meet the band" along with the rest of us.  I had been meaning to go to his concert in Jerusalem just days beforehand, which was held in a very large venue and packed to capacity, or so I heard.  He was genuinely a really nice guy, which certainly enhanced my image of him, but I do wonder if the equivalent of seeing the pretty model without all her make-up and accessories, stripped bare of all that makes her so much larger than life, didn't damage my experience for the future. 

I was anxious to get back into the crowd, back to the front of the stage so that my whole experience wouldn't be too tainted.  And it wasn't.  The moment the lights came on, the music started pumping out of the huge speakers set up in the outdoor stadium of Tel-Aviv amidst the thousands of Israeli fans from all age groups, and the band came out, dark silhouettes in the mist encompassing the stage, I was caught up in the fantasy once again.  No matter how much I had "known" about them and their quite human nature, their stage presence, the lights, the music, the high tech visual effects in the background, they had temporarily been transformed into something so much more than they were.

Musicians are merely mediums by which beautiful music can find true expression.  They are the stuff we project our fantasies on, becoming the heroes we NEED them to be, if only for the brief moments of time that they can be found on stage.  Gone are the days when I can get starstruck, and there is perhaps something sad about that.  Almost like a childhood that has passed.  But still it is empowering to know that the magic that is created, the glamour, the intensity of the performance is just as much due to the audience as it is due to the musicians.  They need us almost as much, if not more, as we need them.