To be read to: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQ_V7itvLNE]

I feel emotion incredibly passionately. And not in a “I’ll yell at you for disagreeing with me at a work meeting, erm honey even the boss is scared of me, this is my office and I’ll have it my way dies of diabetes” way, more in a “whenever I listen to music without lyrics that I associate with a certain time of triumph or grievance I stay up until 2, 3 AM working through it, sometimes creatively, sometimes not” kind of way. And by working through it I don’t mean an “a lot going on at the moment t-shirt onstage” type shit, I mean “I let it bleed into the workday so now I’m distracted at the staff meeting thinking about everybody wins theory and a text from my best friend (I have a lot of them) pops up on my phone at just the right time to give me, even just for a fleeting moment, a full on lucid view of The Diagram, the Solution, the Great Answer, and now I have an intense urge to get up and leave in the middle of the meeting because the answer is right there, was right there the whole time, and my friends and family and everyone on earth is a part of it, if only I could communicate it to them, if only we could all just speak for one second we’d have it all figured out. And then everybody would win. Even them. The one you’re thinking of right now. Simply for possessing a human soul. Especially them.”

When I was 17 I met someone(s) who helped me reach towards the heavens. I still reach with them. I’m 26. We’re nowhere near reaching the peak, and when we die I can’t guarantee we’ll be there. But we’ll be closer than when we started. And maybe, if (when) we play our cards right, there will be little ones, somewhere, somehow, kin or not, who will reach just a little bit further starting where we left off. Spiraling and tumbling forward and ever higher like a drill. Maybe we’ll find ourselves in heaven with everything and more. I’m so fucking hopeful for them and for the people who don’t have anyone who’s hopeful for them and for that man I listened in on as part of an internship who had been clean 3 years and got a good work position. His wife and him were close to coming back together. The kids were happy to have their dad back. And even though I was dead and you were dead still the wheel kept turning and all were drowned in seas of red and still the wheel keeps turning, Shezzarines are you and me. The Missing God lives in the Red Mountain. The Yokudans live in Hammerfell. Akatosh and Alduin are one.

It’s actually pretty easy to transform the hate you feel on a daily basis. I think most can. Because to do so is to replace it with a love, nay a lust for existence, or madness. And no person, no people, no nation is too behind to let nothing get in their way and bring everyone else along with them.

I’ve always been better on defense anyways, and there’s work to be done aside from that which I get paid for, success, what “matters” be damned. Nothing can mean anything you want, its blank. The right focus might just get us all one inch closer to heaven.

The Christ smiled even after He was crucified. I can only begin to imagine why.

[ADMIN NOTE: This piece was written after a month of doing more than had been done in the course of half a year. From a beautiful wedding for two beautiful people, to a renaissance faire quest with a party I wouldn’t trade for the world (well, maybe if it included a few others in addition), to a failed expedition to meet the Lady of the Lake (we’ll get that sword, Kathy). While these words will always be true, I could not write them down in such a coherent manner had God not provided a bounty of Life so sweet I can only pray for more, undeserving though I am. In much the way Tolkien (or your beloved contributor to the great English canon of choice (again, nothing personal Randir, just another author I like and admire too, we are best friends after all, we’re gonna have the same interests)) had his Secret Vice, so too may my readers search for mine.]