"Are you ready to be revolutionary?"

Isn't this...
              ...Exactly where you'd like me?




       There is someone I work with who, I feel, and have felt since the day I saw him, that he had importance to him. It wasn't swag. It was just this sensation that I would feel.
       The past few drills he wasn't there. I sort of missed seeing him. Perhaps I had certainly envious of his wit, knowledge, and the balance he seemed to have. The kid is like nineteen or twenty. I'm twenty-one. He's done more in his life than I have. Can't I be just a little jealous?
       Anyways, as I had said, he didn't show up to the once-a-month. Then out of no where, he's back. We had scarcely talked before. My whole unit had gotten into a debate about computers, cell phones, carrier towers, blah blah blah. I couldn't keep up. So I stayed out of that conversation.
       When he returned from his break, those in my unit that basically musk testosterone were around him and I hadn't wanted to listen to their jokes and so-called humor. They annoy me sometimes. We looked squarely at each other and it were as if there were a silent exchange of code. To put it more interesting, as if we had known each other's story before. Cylons! Hahaha. 
       Being the lowest ranks, we had an opportunity to talk more privately. As I walked up to him, I blurted, "Are you ready to be revolutionary?" The universe has a way of acknowledging my presence or planning by constantly creating some sort of interruption--people kept walking right between us. RUDE AS HELL! 
       We talked randomly. 
       He's quite the intelligent fellow. 

Oh, the hassle of revision is the best part!

  

What you see above is a cover art design (jacket cover) for one of the books I am working on. With some help from my friend Jake "REVOLT" Riojas, we managed to accomplish this feet in a mere few hours. It's not a perfect picture and I know my book isn't perfect either yet. But there was some need to have a design to really image the story connected with--they're both in the working.

I suppose I should summarize the plot:     Four men, gifted with the will to manifest occurrences in reality, are drawn together by the use of their sheer will. They find that whenever they think something natural into existence, it exists, it becomes reality. With the help of another individual, a Neurological scientist, working with a company based on furthering biological engineering, inadvertently helps the four of them discover they are what can be perceived as the four horseman of the apocalypse. They, with a unanimous group vote, can decided the fate of the world. However, whatever choice they make, they can't imagine how drastically it will change the shape of things to come.

That is when I wish to connect that book with another, called "Being of Man." Because I am so proud of this, that I am constantly revising it, enjoying the words flowing through me, I have yet to post anything about it. Other than having close friends read it and critique me. I'm actually pretty nervous about it being finalized. Oh well, soon enough it will be. The picture above is from The Scorpion's album "Humanity." But, it gives good insight into what BoM is about. :) 

Damn You Mongolians!

We could have it all... You're gonna' wish you

Never had met me.

It's been a good minute since I've posted something new. So, lest I forget the stages of a life that I have begun to live, I will pick up again on this note:  Waiting. 

Yep, still waiting to go back to Technical School. The job I've been told I'm entitled with, and am entirely too excited to begin working in for the next four years, is an Aerospace Maintenance Crew Chief. I think I will be truly fascinated by working with such enormous biological constructs.

Indeed, I said, biological. I learned from Richard Dawkins, when I was younger, that such machinery are nothing more than biological objects. I can picture a scene from Battlestar Galactica where the sleeper agent known as Boomer is walking by a captive Cylon Viper in the Galactica hanger and she declares in order to get it working you have to treat it like a pet, as she pets its face.

As I've been waiting, I've also been writing a book that's been in the making since '09. It's called Being of Man and, not to give away too information, but it's about the recreation of an artificial intelligence species through an artificial species by recreating their creator. It's a bit of a mind frak. 

I've been hanging with my best friend so much lately, because I've missed feeling like I was myself. While I was in Tech School, before I failed my certification, I had truly felt like myself. It were as if I were coming into my destiny. Being back in my crummy town, not so much. But Jakerz and I always have the geekiest conversations and I've missed it. We can talk about physics without realizing we are doing so and we can just be ourselves around each other. I've found that it is scarce I can do so around so many others.

And it is in that...

That we realize our greatest strength together.

Also, if I can find out how to upload pics to here, I will. Pics of friends, daily life, etc. Oh! Also, when my cover art design for Being of Man and the BoM trilogy prequel are finished, thanks to Jakerz, I will attempt to upload them with an synopsis from both books.

I suppose this will be all of this post today. The randomness to the moments encountered in this past week can be summed up by the title. 

-FADE TO BLACK- 

As I listen to Suckerpunch ost.

I Sing This Song

To all the world, I sing this song:

Of a life full of tragedies,
perspectives seemed just
a young boy without a purpose,
a life not blossomed.

Oh, how sparse this life,
it's wishes unfulfilled
left breathing in cold air,
a life of running.

You Can't Go Home, Again (first post)

Methodically smoking my cigarette, with my breath I breathe in the day...

So begins this first post, in that one sentence, I think, all of the exhaustion and overwhelming frustrations can be captured. Or moreso, it can be thought of as a sigh of relief toward a new day--welcoming in new challenges. With that being said, I ask myself, Where do I begin?

...Nine months ago...

The person I was then seems so different from the person I am now, almost another lifetime. It seemed a whirlwind of emotions that were so easily vented through long nights of partying. I had one thing in mind and that was escaping myself. I had a plan at the time, it was one that had been in the making for years. That plan consisted of enlisting in the Air Force and from there working as Cyber Specialist, going to college for Neuroscience and Behavioral Science. You see, I want to be a neuropsychiatrist with a particular interest in Robotics.

So to abide with my plan, I had enlisted as Active in the United States Air Force. I was so excited to leave my town--proving it was not only myself that I was hoping to escape, but this place. All I had to do was wait to leave. So, I worked at Burger King. After only two weeks, and an obvious lack of well-developed management, being thrown around on their schedule as if I were someone with no life (which is the norm for the washed up in my town), I turned in my resignation. With my comical sarcasm, I declared, "This is Burger King and I'm not having it my way, so..."

I kept the hat.

I left my washed up town, and myself, two weeks later--headed for Basic Military Training. I don't think I had prepared myself for the experience I was soon to go through. Stepping off of that bus was, well, an experience. TI hats screaming and frantic glances shared. Well, they don't call the first week 'Hell Week' for nothing. Let's just say I blocked out that week. With the wonders of neuroplasticity that occurs within the brain, to compensate for fear or survival, I had adapted to the live I had to live for the next two months in only a week and a half. There were times when it was obvious myself and the members of my flight had become "complacent" in our training and we had to pay for it.

Anyways, I'm going to fast forward over graduation week and some of technical school (which I'll come back to in a later blog) and get more to the point. I think I'll pick up after my failing a commercial certification a second time. Yes, that's a more fitting place to continue. Well, after talking with my commander and being base restricted for a total of 15 days, during all in which I had studied and studied, I had begun talking to the more compassionate parent in my family--my mom. We had talked about the very real possibility that I may fail again and that if a reclass wasn't possible it would be a discharge. At that time, that option was entirely too frightening. However, we also discussed the proposition of a reclass. From my perspective, after having failed twice and extremely nervous of failing a third, I explained to her on numerous occasions that the only way I would be willing to accept a reclass in the career field would be if I was 100% certain that it would in fact be a job I would excell in. Having said that, let me continue with the following details.

I tested again, so many days later, and during that test my mind was focused on the information I had been acquiring since early September. Mind you, we are now in November. I had even helped, with the advice of another girl who had failed twice and was taking the course a third time with me, my second and my third class pass. But when it came to the very moment of testing, the moment of submitting my answers, a voice somewhere in the depth of my mind, somewhere that had been pushed aside to so wholly concern myself with nothing more than this certification, asked, "Do you really want this--to pass?" Having questioned myself, the railing that was my determination was finally unhinged. I looked around the room at the others who, the majority testing for the first time, nervously stared at their screen and would periodically tap at the mouse. I could do nothing but sigh, less confident in myself and my test then ever before, and submit. My results, well, they were worse than the first and second time. Much to my dismay, I bowed my head and almost chuckled. Despite having failed, I was finally finished with this course--as a failure.

There were conversations among some of the other students, mostly those whom had never taken the time to get to know me, that after having caught wind that I had failed three times, which was rare in itself, that I had deliberately chosen this. I couldn't help but laugh at that. Mostly, they hadn't known that I had questioned myself in the same way. Did I want to fail? Surely, I hadn't. But...

Well, to skip over some, I had to talk with my commander again. I placed my decision on the table, that I would accept a discharge over blindly accepting some random career and having to sit on my ass for the next few months. His words were truly touching. I had never been shed light onto in that manner--almost glorified. Rather, I wanted him to scream at me and make me choose the reclassification. But, instead, he made his peace and I had mine. I walked out of his office and into the men's latrine and sobbed.

Thus my outprocessing had begun--my separation from the United States Air Force. It was truly bittersweet. I had all of my things packed and was ready to go. As I was leaving, the looks on some of the people faces were those of people who had seen me for the person I had strived to be, someone "stellar." The most befitting thing is I had bumped into the Red Rope that had overseen my own Airman Leadership as a Green Rope. He had been handed a pretty difficult situation to overcome (again, I will touch on this subject when I come back to my time in the Air Force at a later time) but I didn't doubt him. I had begun to look up to this person as a brother of sorts. We shook hands and I was gone.

I had lied to my friend back home, the one person who made coming home seem so welcoming, and told him that I was stuck at my base. Shortly after arriving home, he concluded that I had been lying and told me to get my butt over there. I was so excited to see Jake. He was my best friend and had been just shortly after meeting him almost a year ago. You see, in my conquest to escape from myself, he did help in that. We would party together and just... escape. Well, coming home I had this quiet fear that things wouldn't be the same--that I wouldn't be the same. Meeting again was great! We shared quite a few hugs and laughed at some memories but then we seemingly feel into ourselves again so easily. But there was a nagging thought that something was different. I don't think it was evident in that first night, however in the nights that followed it was. I say nights because, to my annoyance, that is when we would get together. Never would be at any hour of the day, it was always at night. Had my friend become a vampire!?

I kid, I kid.

Coming back home, there was one morning when I slept in, something I hadn't been able to do except for on the weekends, and when my eyes opened to the scene of a cluttered, unpacked, room I wondered if I would look at a clock or calender and see that it was still April and nothing had changed--that everything had been some fantastic dream. Much to my appreciation, they hadn't been. I had met the most amazing people and gone through a short-lived adventure that had truly altered my perceptions and forced me to grow up, standing on my two feet that made them that much stronger.

I had had a plan when I accepted my fates, the discharge and coming home. I knew what I was going to feel, though I wouldn't embrace it. I walked away from a a road that would have taken me to a place where I wouldn't have been living comfortably but wouldn't be inspired to be the person I am--the type of guy who wants to help others and be revolutionary. Part of that plan was to go back and enlist as a reservist and go to college for Behavioral Science and then get into medical school. The job I intended to get would be under medical supervision. I will conclude this in more detail in a later post, as this is to summarize the past month of being back home and dealing with it. After that month had past, amazing things have unfolded, a subtle way of the universe acknowledging my decision and that it was right.

So, with that being said, I leave you, reader, with an image of the person I am, or at least intend to be:  A person who is compassionate to the world and it's many views, who thoroughly thinks things through before making a decision--though having a quite frequent tendency to be indecisive--, is understanding and puts trust out before him before distrust, as if my left foot before my right in marching. Yet, though knowing who I am, I find that I still don't know who I truly am and that in this beautiful journey that is my life, I've made mistake and prospered from thus, I am continuously discovering new concepts laid out before my very perceptions.

I am Richard Helgeson, an Airman and student.

This is detailed accounts of my own ideas and perceptions as I travel backward, with eyes closed, through life. With that, I thank you for reading my words and accompanying me on this journey.