People Bleed

People Bleed

by Robert S Strength

    My very first memory occurred when I was fairly young. It was the first thoughts that construct who I am, and therefore is the beginning of any story that is a story of me. I will tell it here in the hopes that my origin story will be far removed from the classical character's opening volumes, and interesting to you because. My memory was not happy, nor sad. I do not remember emotions from the time; only the stark images and the things I learned.

    I was crib-aged, and just tall enough to reach my arms over the edge. My crib sat by the window of the Boy's Room in our little home. At some point or another I woke up quietly in my crib. I must remind you that at this point my mind consisted of very little true intellect. I knew just enough about the world that I stood in my crib and shuffled to the end, where I could look out the window and view the backyard.

I do not remember how long I stood there looking at the things in the yard, but after a little while I saw my truck. I have had it confirmed from my Father that the truck was not mine, but in my little crib-life world it was mine, and so I tell it here. The truck was a treasure in my world. I knew that there were few things more important than my truck, and standing there at the window with that firmly taking up the forefront of my mind I realized that things outside got wet and would break. My dad had told me that.

    The panic that set into my mind was berserk and all alone. Losing my truck was all there was in my world. That thought came to me so suddenly that I could not remember not knowing it the moment before. I was going to lose my truck. Gone. Forever. It was as potent as anything in an adult's life. It was real fear and emotion. Today, your most important things are people. The thought of actually losing your son or daughter forever can paralyze you. It struck me with that same force when I was losing my truck.

    So what could I have done but what I did. I threw myself with all the power my tiny legs could muster into breaking down that window so that I could save my truck. I could see the wetness on the grass and I knew that any moment it would happen.

    The crib barely contained me and I threw my hands above my head and slammed them against the windows over and over. I had no idea then, or no memory of it now, but I was screaming. I was not wailing for attention or because I was awake, the way many children will. I was screaming in terror, and my parents could hear it.

    As they ran to the door they heard the distinct shatter of glass and the screaming stopped. I can only imagine how that sounds and silence must have crippled and hurried their charge to my bedroom.

    The moment that glass broke, I stopped. 

    There was a bright color across the glass. It was red, though I did not know the word then. I felt a sting on my hand and looked, and there the red was. It was sliding down my arm, and I realized it was coming out of me. It fell onto the mattress and the sheets and my legs. I was not afraid. The blood was a strange thing, but caused no alarm at all. I had forgotten my truck entirely by this point, and it was only many years later that my dad even learned the reasoning for my shattering of the window.

    I looked up as my Dad rushed through the door into my room, and he picked me up so fast and wrapped that arm up tight. He didn't let me look at it, and we went to the bathroom and washed the red away. It stung, which scared me a little, but before long I had a bandage and we were off to the doctor. I remember my Dad explaining blood along the way. It was confusing, but eventually I understood. I do not remember the doctor's office or the bandage I surely wore after. I don't even remember the day after or the months after that. I do remember my dad telling me that if you break a stuffed bear the stuffing comes out, and a car breaks and leaks oil, and a person breaks and you get blood. Bike tires leak, and people bleed.

    I will always remember that I started thinking in this world with a burst of desperation to save something I loved, and learning forever that people bleed. 

The First Rule of Phu

The First Rule

by Robert S Strength

     This blog is the personal account of Robert S Strength.

     I have a few rules. I break them sometimes, and usually regret doing so. I am not religious, or more accurately, I am an agnostic. (A person who does not make any claim to knowledge about the existance or nature of god or the unknowable.) My rules have become a philosophy. The rules don't have numbers on them, and I'm not going to give you a list and pretend that it is complete. The current list exists only in my head and is too long to remember in a sitting, but there is one rule that stands above all the other rules. It is the rule that started the whole concept of having a set of rules, or a code to live by. This is the First Rule.

Be good and right.

    That's the big first rule. It is the core of the entire philosophy and is the catalyst for most of my life. It is an order of action. It is a task given to myself in the effort of being a better person. In order to be what you believe is good and right, to be what you love, you have to know what you love. You have to understand yourself and your desires, and you have to seek reason and purpose in life.
    So what do I want to be? What is a "good" man, after all? We learn a lot from the people who raise us. Our parents give us some of our basic methods of thinking. Our friends show us things our parents didn't, and we grow more. We learn how to interact with the world in different ways, but most of us respect the same things. There are truths that everyone eventually arrives at.
    Why do so many people think that stealing is so obviously wrong? Theft is a crime in every single culture on Earth, and it is punishable harshly everywhere. Why is it wrong for one human being to take from another? Is survival not the end goal of all people? If I can take a person's things and survive easier, am I not fulfilling my human nature?
    There are so many people who have laid a foundation of philosophy that it would seem like a

simple task to hop on the internet and Google the term philosophy and spend a bit reading up. After that you would have a logical and diverse understanding of the function of morality on the actions of humans living in a society, right? Good...fucking...luck.
    The first two links there on Google are ads to some super-expensive skin creme and the third is for wikipedia, which has an astounding amount of information on the subject, about seven times as much information as would be needed to confuse Stephen Hawking. It's about as neatly bundled as a sack of leaves, and it means about as much.
    The truth is, your morality is built by your own experiences and your take on them. You simply can't learn them like you could learn math from a book. You have to have experiences and develop into your moral code. If a bully beats you up every day in school, the result is that your philosophy on life changes, and in your world bullies are a big problem. I happen to have been six feet tall since I started high school, and can't remember having been punched or punching anyone the entire course of my teenage years. In my world, bullies are not that big of a deal.
    All that long windedness comes down to this final point:
I am writing this blog to get experience as a writer. The subject matter will be largely drawn my own experiences and my personal take on the world. I will discuss, without asking forgiveness, every subject in candor and honesty. I will try to communicate my philosophy through my experiences and my ongoing life.