A journal - ((Bad language may arise. Discretion advised))

[Frost]

A warning: if you seek a tale of great transformation... you may not find that which you seek here. Then again.. perhaps you shall.

This is as fictional as you make it.
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-Date obscured by ink blot-

Why do I do this to myself?
Why am I here?
I don't know if I belong - I never really jumped on many of the bandwagons. My 'alter-ego' is basically just me with a couple extra abilities, and those I mainly use to keep the peace. This is supposed to be a place of morphicism; a changing place.. and it is changing. Why should this come as any surprise to me?

I feel old when I talk like this. Real old.

I used to think I was here for some philosophical reason. I mean; I'm a guy. Happy to be so. The main theme of this locale, this area, seems to be swapping around. Trading plumbing as it were. Seeing how the other half lives.

I'm pretty sure the other half lives pretty much the same way I do - day by day. In my years here, and in pretty much all my life, I've never seen a one-step cure-all for the sins of the world. Bad water in a different jug will still make you well. Still, others have sworn by it as a remedy for the woes of the world; perhaps it is for them. I'm starting to feel different; like an empty jug, to fully over-extend the metaphor.

This isn't to say that I haven't enjoyed some of the changes, but.. eh.. it's kinda like going over to a hotel, for me. You might like the cable package that they have, you might like the pool.. but there's nothing more satisfying at the end of a trip, than just laying down in your own bed. At least for me. Of course, if we're going to over-do this metaphor too, sometimes it's nice to have a maid-staff come in and make your bed, and restaurants available to cook your food.. and the sun, and the sea..

Whatever. I'll try to cease in the digressions.

I used to think that I was here for a fairly existentialist reason. I liked to see change because all of life revolves around change - be it a metabolic process, the growth from child to adult; everywhere you look, there's something transitioning, without magic, or superscience, or all that crap. This.. is an extension of the world, I supposed. The change is more immediate in most cases, and more obvious in many, but change is natural, and I was here to be a part of a natural phenomenon strangely juxtaposed with an unnatural medium.

Why is it then, that with all my words and logic, I find myself caught in a sea of changes, a storming tempest of morphicism, and I, the drifter, looking for an inlet or shoal upon which I can ride it out? Why do I cast myself the drifter instead of a sailor or a swimmer? To ask of myself a question that oh-so-many have asked before me.. "what the HELL do I want?"

I'm myself. It's comfortable. I have considerable experience being.. it. I am... no. I surround myself with sharp comments and paunchy retorts. These are my barriers, my protectors; they save me from all else that is around me, and from myself.

Some embrace the change; I curl away. It's not hard to embrace; it shouldn't be, leastwise. Many do, some of whom you'd never expect, and some of whom... you would. The work is often done for you. All you have to do is reach out and accept.

I've not been burned. I haven't learned the instinct the hard way. I've never (metaphorically of course) touched the hot stove, and thereonforth been shy to touch again. I'm just.. comfortable in who I am. In what I am. In what I stand for, and in knowing what makes me.. me. It isn't the plumbing. What am I? A bundle of wits, at least half-ones. I am a sharp-tongue, and yet still someone to whom people can turn to (I hope) for aid when they need it, and someone that people can relax around and enjoy a good time with when they need no aid.

And yet... it isn't enough, it seems. Sometimes I feel like the one kid at the party who isn't drinking. What a prude, isn't he? I remain as calm and serene as possible, but half the time I want to get angry. Angry at myself. Angry at others. Angry at the world around me, because I've brought myself to a community where I don't know where or how I fit in.

Yet I do not leave. That would be the rational thing to do - if I have no place, I should take none up. Leaving isn't hard. We spin ourselves stories, and reasons, and motivations for not doing so, but leaving is NOT hard. Just walk away. Don't come back. The magic only has power over you if you let it do. That is, if there is any magic for you at all.

Even my rage, when it slips through my blockades, is impotent at best. I will rant, and rail, and occasionally do violence, mostly to myself. I'm not self-destroying, but I've grown used to a certain degree of self-deprication. So much emphasis here is put on strength, and yet I walk as gently as I can, because I know that to be strong means that you MUST be gentle... and that cruelty, or being an overpowering force, must be reserved for the weak. When needs must, I grow strong as I can, to accomodate something that I view as a threat... but are these efforts, these attempts to help, as impotent as my anger? Do I seek to aid others, or simply appear in the eyes of others to be a good, noble person?

This, I cannot say. But I do have a secret. For all my anger, all my contentment, and everything else I may put across..

I'm scared shitless.

All the time. It's a fear of unknown origin; this is a land of cartoonish quality. There is no lasting pain. There is hardly a lasting death here. Where the real things lie is in the people within the people, those small parts of them that are not what everyone sees. These people can be hurt. Can be hurt badly. I suppose I'm frightened to hurt these people, but there is something more to it. Some undefinable quality, like looking over my own shoulder and putting a red circle around the ink-blots on my soul that I don't like.

I beat myself for this, because I'm frightened to beat others. I can't bring myself to do it. So I verbally harangue, mock, ridicule, all the while feeling the smaller for it.

I seek catharsis. It's a greek term, meaning the expressing and thereby expunging of pity and fear. All the Greek tragedies were written to evoke it; this was the whole point of entertainment at one point. They focused around a famous historical character; Oedipus Rex, a notable example. The story would be one of unknowing self - destruction. It could not simply be destruction raining from the heavens, for that is the origin of a pathetic character, not a tragic one. The misfortune must occur, in such plays, to one whom the audience could relate to, one that was close enough to themselves that they could fear the same fates occurring to them, and pity the sorrowful wretch upon whom the world was collapsing.

Am I tragic myself? No...

But perhaps therein lies the answer to my question as to my continued presence. I fear change. I do. I know, as I stand by, being who I am, what my role is. What I can, and cannot do, and what is expected of me. I know my place. I often think I do at least.

I am an entertainer. Words, thoughts, ideas.. these encompass that which is me. I try to make people laugh, at me, at others, at themselves. It's better to laugh than to cry, isn't it? I can then laugh with them, because I know then that my jests and japes are not cruel. They are simply words that can be laughed at. If I lost that... would I truly lose myself, or find myself?

I fear change. Change means.. awkwardness sometimes. Unpleasant experiences. It forces choices. Often here, we go for a literalist, or fairy-tale viewpoint; that which is fair in appearance is fair in nature; that which is foul in appearance is similarly foul in nature. We all think ourselves heros, so we all put ourselves in the fairest forms we can muster, but is it real? This spares us a choice.

No. Of course not. We are all but people. We are falliable. We can be cruel, and our cruelty can match any. We can be kind, and likewise have as our own a level of kindness that is as great as any would deem to tell of.

I am afraid. But I can also be strong. Maybe that is why I remain - like a rollercoaster, I'm here because it evokes my fear. Expunges it. A sort of Swiffer Sweeper (tm) for the soul. I take comfort in knowing and being who I am, but also in knowing what I could be. Perhaps here is the place where one gets all the 'could be's that they want, without fear of pain. That is, I think, most of the point.

I am as cruel or as kind as any.
I love. Laugh. Lose and win. Win and lose some more.
I am falliable, and I make decisions I regret, but perhaps if I work, I can see beauty even in regret.

There is no one answer. Perhaps there is for someone else, but not for me. The goal, I think, is to find as many that work as I can.

I will find mine. You, gentle reader.. if you are blessed, you'll find yours.

For now.. I shall be here because this is where I shall be.

- Andrew Frost