Sunday, December 30, 2007

Authenticity is everything

Be who you say you are. Do what you say you'll do. Don't waste peoples' time with bullshit, half-truths, or misinformation and they will respect you for it. Ascend high enough on the socioeconomic ladder, and they will hail you for it. Authenticity, as a byproduct of the soup created when one mixes integrity, courage, and will, provides a great internal strength. Why then do so many people seem so inauthentic? They must lack integrity, courage, and/or will.

No one likes it when their authenticity is brought to question. Amidst everything else that is happening at the office, I am now the subject of doubts by a select few coworkers. Some of this doubt is the result of a genuine misunderstanding, some of it is a byproduct of someone else's version of events(which is apparently inconsistent with mine), and the rest is a product of socially conditioned assumptions and the hazards of assuming. Without even realizing it, I have become the subject of office gossip and without having so much as kissed a coworker, ever, at any job I have ever had, find myself being looked upon as if I am covertly subverting females I work with.

Honestly, this sort of thing is the least of my problems, but it speaks to some fundamental truths that seem to pervade human social groups, or at least all the social groups I have ever been a part of. No matter how hard you work, no matter how honest you are, and no matter how genuinely you live, there will always be people assuming the worst. There will always people feeding the rumor mill and there will always be those ready to gossip. It is to be expected, so I shrug it off, most of the time anyway.

What is really bothering me is the question of what one has to do in order to quiet the doubters once and for all. How do you shut that valve definitively? I find myself wishing that technology allowed for hovering, digital, video recording devices, so that I could have inarguable proof of how I live my life. My life may be boring, it may even be pathetic by some peoples' standards, but if nothing else, it is what I claim it to be. I think that is more than a lot of people, particularly those doing all of this talking, can say about their own lives.

People are incredibly tedious and tiresome animals. I need to get myself a dog...

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Now playing: Katsuya Yokoyama - Sanya sugagaki
via FoxyTunes

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Tuesday, December 25, 2007

It is amazing what we take for granted

I know it's the holiday season and a title like the above would suggest I am about to post some sort of philosophical monologue about our sickening sense of entitlement as Americans and as people, but I'm not. It isn't that I feel there isn't much to be said, as I am sincerely thankful for what I have, despite the heightened tenor of my whining and bitching lately. Most Americans feel they are entitled to the world they live in. The idea that being thankful for what we have might be a good idea is irrelevant in a society Hell-bent on materialism. Like I said, there is a whole ream of paper that could be written on the subject by a layman like myself, I'm sure the experts have written volumes and then some. Fortunately, the idea that really sparked my need to write this post was that of how far communications technology has come in my lifetime and how incredibly normal what was once only dreamed of has become.

For instance, I have been sick as Hell lately. Since last Friday night, I have been battling a cold/flu that has stubbornly refused to give my body a moment's peace. Celebrating the onset of disease, I updated my Facebook status. A friend of mine saw this update and sent me a text message on my cell phone. This particular friend was in London visiting family at the time. Another friend caught wind of my Facebook update and shot me a text from Safety Harbor. Four or four thousand miles away, these people were only a few clicks away via my phone. I didn't speak to either of them, didn't whine in their ears or in their presence, but that didn't matter. It amazes me how connected we have become.

When I was a kid, we still had to make long distance phone calls on land lines and send letters through the mail. Companies were still communicating primarily through memos and hardcopy announcements. The web was something only a few humans on Earth even knew existed. The only cell phones around were massive bricks of plastic that required a huge battery and a transmitter/receiver which had to be carried. Only 15 or 20 years on and it seems almost primitive. The mind boggles at what might be possible in 15 or 20 more years.

Of course, the irony is that all this connectivity often leads to an increased sense of disconnection, in that we are always communicating through machines. My life has become so busy that I rarely see many of my friends face-to-face. We trade emails, text messages, and voice mails, but everyone's schedule is so packed with things to do that we rarely have the opportunity to sit down and enjoy each other's company. I suppose this lack of time has given rise to the popularity of electronic communication. We need to communicate, so we find whatever means we can to reach out of our own skins, even if the medium is artificial.

As artificial as it may be, and as relatively new as all of this technology really is, it all seems so normal as to have become a part of daily life, not unlike brushing our teeth or doing laundry. I can trade messages with relatives in Canada just as easily as I can trade emails with a cube farm neighbor. That is amazing to me, but to teenaged boys or girls, it is utterly mundane. For them, it is a part of the larger 'normal' that they accept as part and parcel of life's overall package. They have not known a world without internets, cell phones, PDAs, email, voicemail, etc. They are a generation steeped in connectivity, and yet, they suffer the same sense of disconnection and alienation so many of their less wired predecessors have experienced. We take communication for granted, but there simply is no replacement for direct contact. You would think that all of this technological advancement would provide us endless hours to interact with one another, but the further we go down this road, the less realistic that hope seems to be.

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Now playing: Tool - Third Eye [Live]
via FoxyTunes

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Friday, December 21, 2007

Just in time for Christmas...

Trust is such a dangerous thing. When you trust someone, you put a certain amount of your well being in their hands. Of course, how much of that well being you willfully entrust to another depends on circumstance. You will trust an acquaintance less than a friend, a friend less than a lover, a lover less than family, and family less than one's self, but there is always an element of risk in trusting someone other than ourselves. When someone violates that trust, it can be devastating.

One of my oldest friends recently learned how painful it can be to trust your heart to another. A girl he had thought himself to be on the path to marriage with was caught stoking the fires of another burgeoning relationship. He is now putting several years of time and energy away as a lesson learned, but he sounds prepared to make the rest of his life his own. For the first time in a long time, I think he may be focused on what matters, namely his own dreams and aspirations. If he can stay away from her for while, I think he will be OK, but she can be very manipulative and I expect she will do everything she can to regain the comfort of his loyalties. The next few months will be rocky and I intend to do what I can to back him up during what will surely be tumultuous times.

I am sincerely thankful that I haven't ever been in that position. Most of the time, not having a lot of relationship history is an asset, if not always pleasant. In this case, I would go so far as to call it a blessing. The one serious, physical relationship I've had was essentially over before it began, and in hindsight I think things worked out for the best for both of us. These long-term, rollercoaster "relationships" are something I have no firsthand experience with, but I have seen enough of my friends suffer through them to know that little good ever comes of such interactions. The people involved typically suffer the ups and downs of their ride with grim acceptance that hard times are part of the relationship experience. They have blowouts, even breakups, get back together, and do it all over again. Why anyone would do that to themselves, or each other, is beyond me.

They cheat, they lie, they hurt one another, and they call it love. That characterization of love is offensive and discouraging. Offensive, because it takes the highest state of human emotional interaction and defines it as a sickness. Discouraging because this diseased idea of love seems to be becoming how an alarming number of people live the word love. As someone who thinks very highly of love and what it means to be in it, it is almost sickening to see what humans have done to the word. My friend was sincerely in love with his vision of this girl, but she was not who he thought she was. Her concept of love is a crippled, decrepit thing, huddling in darkness and fed by deceit. We should only accept it as a thing strong, upright, and aglow with a light all its own. Anything less is settling and settling is ultimately worse than being alone.

Settling inherently cripples love and inhibits happiness. If we settle, we may as well surrender up our hopes and dreams for the same inhibited, shriveled reality people are continually trying to force upon each other. In 30 years, I could not count the number of times I have been questioned about my relationship status by people in miserable or stagnant relationships. How many of these people live love in their relationships? Not many, it seems to me. I am not talking fairy tale, pie in the sky, movie love. What I am talking about is mutually beneficial, supportive, healthy, comforting love, the kind everyone talks about but no one seems to believe in. Despite all I have seen, and the little I have experienced, I still believe it is out there. For my friend's sake, I hope he believes it too.

I may end up alone, but if I can't live love the way I envision it, then there really is no tragedy in not loving at all. Life is an all or nothing proposition, when you get right down to it.. I sometimes waiver, but there is a part of me that would rather live in pursuit of a dream than live with the costs of compromise. There is no question, life is too short. Love, as one of the most important facets of life, should be treated in the same fashion. Maybe I'm delusional, or immature, but after seeing all the shit people do to each other, I'm convinced that I have to at least try.

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Now playing: Aerosmith - Dream On

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Thursday, December 20, 2007

Just a draft

Sometimes I like to pretend I'm a poet.

Untitled

There isn't much left to say,
all these words, so many characters.
Nothing changed, nothing arranged,
still breathing murky solutions;
still crowded by fool dreams;
still that same dullard child
staring stupid into the sun.
Blind, burned, and bound,
eternal tethers these futile causes -
he becomes trifling amusement.

Self-determined souls sing a chorus,
melodies for the gods they make.
Rhythmic hymns of worship
as spirits recede and rescind
the words they spoke to believe,
embracing tired, conciliatory illusions.
Trodden down beneath the muck,
steeped through pore and orifice
under and into a higher purity -
they reap that so often sown.

Containment is where the heart resides
Bored and nailed against the light of eyes
glimmering hope and new day gold
For the sake of false prophecy
Misbegotten heretical work
Knotted tongue testimony on trusting minds
Entangled thoughts falter at his feet
Becoming the nest of lice and vermin
a powdery reality to lie within -
a fitting final resting space.

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Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Fucking A-??

An "A-"…what the fuck is an "A-"? My GPA just went from 4.0 to 3.97 and let me tell you, I couldn't be happier about it. In a year's time I will be competing to attend some of the best art schools in the country and instead of a 4.0, I will have to go to them with a 3.97. Fucking wonderful. When the hell did they start giving A- as a grade in fucking college? I remember getting them in elementary school, but college? I would have rather gotten a B, as that would have made retaking the class less painful, but having to try again over an A- makes my fucking guts roll. Fucking wonderful...

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Living around in circles

When we look back on our lives, can we possibly see things objectively, or do we fall victims to our tendency toward revised history? Do we bring a pure light into the darkness, so that our third eye receives our most honest reflections, or do we bring rose and black filters to bear on where we have been. The way in which we perceive who we are seems to have as much to do with who we are in the now as what we did in the then. If we experience a significant shift in mindset, what we did may become regrettable, or laudable, depending on our own perceptions. We may think ourselves fools, or failures, or geniuses, or heroes - it is all a matter of context and understanding.

Every year around this time, I find myself returning to the same tired, circular contemplations. I obsess over the idea of being perpetually alone through the years and worry at the current and long-term implications of all this time spent outside the relationship cycle. The more certain I am that I have made the right decisions in my own life, the more wrong what is going on around me feels, and the more alien living here becomes. Combine the consumption orgy that is Christmas with the hard truth of another New Year and you create an inescapable gravity, pulling me closer to my worries and apprehensions than at any other time during the year. Winter becomes something of an emotional Summer with all its reflections, confusion, and uncertainty creating a conflagration which turns my mind to embers.

So have all these years been for naught? If I were to be struck dead today, do I go in peace, my mind, body, and spirit at ease with who and where I've been? Have I done the little guy looking out that window justice? Would he be happy with who I am? I think so, but I am not sure that I know so. I think he would be satisfied with who he became, if not necessarily overly excited by the idea of being an office drone who gets borderline emo every year around the end of December. He would dig the car and the motorcycle, certainly, but he wouldn't understand the worries. Time for him was an endless field ripe to be trod on, explored, rode over, and laid upon. Most girls he knew were a bother, so he didn't pay them much attention. For the most part, his world revolved around football, Nintendo, and play. School was a distraction, Santa was still out there bringing joy, and my bike had pedals.

In so many ways, all we will ever be is bigger, older versions of who we were in our youth. In one hand, I see something almost pathetic in that reality, but in the other I see an incredible potential for rediscovery. We have not run out of chances until we have surrendered up the last bit of our youthful imagination. Once that imaginative essence is gone, we are truly on our way to dying. If we embrace what it meant to be a child, we open up new opportunities for living. The key is finding people who inspire and share that vision. They are conspicuous in their rarity, if not their outright absence, in most of our lives. And that is where walking alone returns to the equation and I find myself back at the beginning of this circle.

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Friday, December 14, 2007

Looking for that oasis

I have to believe that somewhere in this swirling world, there is an oasis, a place where a listless traveler might find a night or two of peace on which to rest tired bones. This oasis does not have to be an actual place, it could be a moment in time, a shared space with someone who makes any place the right place, or a state of mind that makes place completely irrelevant. Internal or external, real or imagined, material or completely formless, whatever form this respite takes, it would be a relief to know it.

It is time to move on, the pressure in my back, my head, and my gut are making that abundantly clear. At a time when things are going well in nearly all facets of my life, I still feel ill. Somehow, I am succeeding in making my dreams my reality, yet finding myself feeling more strained all the time. Maybe it is the pressure of getting closer that is causing some sort of increase in my desire to reach that next waypoint. There are no guarantees that moving away will make things better, but there is a guarantee that moving away will bring change, so an opportunity for something better may present itself. Right now, all I can be sure of is that the status quo is making me miserable.

Unfortunately, I am a year and an half away from finding out, regardless of where I go. None of the schools I am interested in attending accept graduate students during the Spring, so the earliest I might be moving away is in the Summer/Fall timeframe of 2009. I can almost feel my spirit groan as I type that. That means another year and an half of biding my time, another year and an half of holding out hope that change will bring with it new, positive opportunities and experiences. For once in my life, I am hoping that all of this work will bring a genuine pay off. I firmly believe in the idea that the journey(the work) is the real destination(reward), but it would be nice to reap some gratifying benefits from all this thinking, working, and digging.

I crossed paths with a bunch of friends from the old car scene, none of whom I had seen in a year or more. One of them once called Chicago home, so we got to talking about the city and the general vibe of the metropolitan mid-west. He had nothing but good things to say, though everyone who has ever been there agrees, the Winters are a bitch. From his description, Chicago sounds like New York, if New York were repopulated by decent human beings. Could such a place be characterized as an oasis? Somehow I doubt any place with over 1 million people living within miles of one another could be described as an oasis, but it would certainly be a change. At this point, any idiot can see that I am desperately in need of change. Finally, I am starting to see it too.

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Now playing: Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah
via FoxyTunes

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Remember when...

I remember being 6 or 7 years old and looking out my bedroom window up into the midnight sky. My brother and I were watching for a sign. It was Christmas Eve and we were unable to sleep, so we watched out the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Rudolph's red nose. We were so sure that Santa's arrival was imminent, and at the same time worried he might skip our house, were he top discover we were still awake. It is hard not to smile when I think back on nights like those.

If I try hard enough, I can remember how I felt at the time and reattach, at least in some tiny, indirect, nostalgia-laden way, with who I was then. More innocent, more comfortably naïve, certainly less encumbered by the cerebral burdens I have since taken on. Like most children at that age, I was content in my ignorance, because I did not know what I did not know and in so many ways this made me free.

I remember the annual Charlie Brown Christmas Special telecasts and find myself taken back to a time when it was fun to believe. At that age, almost all of us have enough innocence in our hearts to openly and freely Believe. I had not yet discovered that elves, reindeer, and a flying old man had nothing to do with the toys I would scramble to admire at 4:00 in the morning on Christmas Day. Life had not yet revealed how absent Christ is in this allegedly Christian holiday. I was years away from becoming a hopeless skeptic and nearly full-time pessimist. Christmas was still simple and The Peanuts were still relevant to my state of being, rather than a catalyst for reminiscing.

The power of music to conjure such ancient memories is a beautiful and essential thing. Christmas has become almost completely insignificant for me after all these years. With so much distance between my sense of spirituality and the Christian ceremonies that revolve around the holiday, there is no longer any integral attachment. I enjoy giving gifts, but do so for reasons that have nothing to do with the holiday. An attractive, 21 years old woman (who just so happens to think that I am a negative person - see previous post) asked me if I celebrate Christmas. Another gym patron and I were having an impromptu, philosophical debate and the subject came up. My answer was that I participate, but do not celebrate.

These things I think I know may make me wiser, but they certainly do not make me lighter. With some effort I try to stay in touch with that younger incarnation of myself. I think we all do, to some degree. There are still toys and sleepless nights, but the toys cost significantly more and the nights are often filled with questions that will not be answered by neatly wrapped presents under a shimmering Christmas tree.

Updated with a pic. :)



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Now playing: Vince Guaraldi - Christmas Time is Here[Instrumental Version]
via FoxyTunes

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Thursday, December 13, 2007

I may be a negative person

I know this probably comes as a shock to the people who know me, but some people...OK, a lot of people (if not everyone)...perceive me to be a person focused on negativity. While I might argue that what others perceive as negativity is really only me expressing my frustration and sadness at how far short our species seems to be of its true potential, most people would interpret that as inherently negative, so the argument is endless and circular.

That's not to say that these people may not be right. I am satisfied with the way I live my life and see brighter days in my future, but there is no denying that internal view does not transfer to my perception of the world external of my epidermis. Humanity at large seems to be stuck in a proverbial rut. We have it in our collective power to feed every man, woman, and child on the face of this Earth, yet people continue to starve. Our species has within its power to end all war and live in a harmonious balance with ourselves and with nature, but tomorrow someone will die in a voluntary conflict on one continent or another.

We have incredible potential, but fail to achieve it, often times failing to even consider making that potential a reality. We are too busy with more important things. Which begs the question, what the fuck is wrong with us? How do we live in a world where I can ride a $20,000 motorcycle, while another man cannot afford to put gas in his $200 car? How is obesity an epidemic in this country, while millions are malnourished in Ethiopia? There are no simple answers for those questions. Some of the discrepancy is tied to choices we make, some of it to the luck of our draw, and some of it to the collectively failure of our species to unite and genuinely care about one another.

We are still simple animals living in a world we have made incredibly complex. The potential is there for total unity, but the reality is that we are inherently self-interested, as animals it is incredibly difficult not to be. Self-interest is a part of our survival mechanism, just as it is a part of our overreaching drive toward innovation. This aspect of our general nature, human nature, is hard-wired, as evidenced by our species' historical behaviors.

So recognizing that, which is effectively admitting that we are simply not yet capable of achieving our fullest potential, sounds like an intrinsically negative perspective, but in reality it is nothing more than being objective. Accepting that contemporary humans are incapable of reaching the highest summits of cooperation does not mean that we have to cease climbing the mountain. The rule will have exceptions, and we may be lucky enough to be one of those exceptional humans. Is there any harm in aspiring to make an attempt in whichever way we can? Does any good come from denying the obstacle that is human nature? Certainly, I tend to dwell on the matter, but that is only because I am so bored with the distractions most people employ to keep their minds otherwise occupied.

If we are not at least trying to be part of the solution, we are by default becoming a part of the problem. My negativity is really a reaction to the divide between the world as it is and the world as it could be. I focus on the issue because very little else really matters, in my opinion. If enough people get upset enough about the state of our collective situation, the giant problems become miniscule. Change is slow, and so few Americans seem to give two shits about changing anything beyond the current television channel, so I get frustrated. That frustration is a part of who I am, for better or worse. If that makes me a negative personality or a lost soul, I may be helpless to do anything about it.



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Now playing: The Rolling Stones - Paint It, Black
via FoxyTunes

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Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Funny thing about Christmas

My Christmas gift list is relatively short and simple, as far as Christmas lists go. The 'rents, the Twins, my friend's 2 daughters, and now my BBBS little brother. Not too bad, since none of them ask for much and most of them are fairly easy to shop for. Unfortunately, spending money on others makes spending money on myself that much easier. Almost subliminally, I tend to spend a great deal of money on myself around the holidays. Whether it be a new STi drive train for Scooby (Winter of 2006), or a pair of Fat Daddy 50-spoke wheels for Audrey (this coming Saturday), or countless other examples of holiday spending splendor, loosening the purse strings to give makes firing up my desire to receive that much easier.

I suppose this is one of the advantages of always being single at the holidays, I can count on others to get me the things I need and for which I have no desire to shop (i.e. clothes), while I go about spending the big bucks on the things I want most. Of course, I realize that engaging in such blatant materialistic indulgences is the antithesis of spiritual ascension, but I'll be damned if it doesn't become difficult, particularly when the gifts in question will end up being parts of the machines that go vroom.

Of course, I have to find a way to justify spending such ridiculous amounts of money on machine components I have no real need for. Luckily, I am not ever short on justifications. This year, my reasoning is that I have survived one of the most trying six months I have been forced to deal with in a long, long time. From problems with people, to problems with work, to the mountain that is school, to seemingly endless sources of stress, it's been a rough term. What do I have to show for it? A pervasive sense of alienation, physical manifestations of stress overload, and 4 more 4.0s.

Is it all worth it? Absolutely. If I can keep this up for one more year, I will have a genuine shot at graduating near the top of my class, which should go a long way toward redeeming myself in my own eyes for having wasted so many opportunities before finally embracing this one. If I manage to graduate at or near the top of my class, my odds of being accepted to SAIC, RISD, or Yale certainly start to look better. Some of my instructors are starting to take notice of my work and my confidence in that work is starting to grow, so opportunities to show may start to appear. I'm busting my ass, and work is doing its best to break my spirit, but persistence is essential in the pursuit of transcendence. After all, everything that troubles and soothes is temporary.

So I choose to reward myself for my persistence as a form of encouragement, the carrot before my horse, if you will...and even if you won't. The Fat Daddy 50s are gorgeous, laced wheels that give nostalgic bikes like mine just a hint of gangster. To be honest, the deal I'm getting on the Fatties is so good that I'd be a fool to pass it up, particularly since these are the wheels I have envisioned going on the bike since I first crossed paths with a picture of them back in May. Sometimes you just have to move when an opportunity presents itself and this is one of those times. Besides, no one else is going to buy them for me! lol

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Now playing: Ben E. King - Stand By Me
via FoxyTunes

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Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Sometimes all we need is a good song..

to clear our heads. I suffered the worst migraine I have ever experienced today. The last time I had a migraine, I was 17 and a Senior in high school. Here I am today, 30 years old and finally a Senior in college, being reminded that stress, insomnia, and overexertion are a nasty mix. I need to leave my job, I need to focus on where I want to be, rather than where I am, and I need to get some sleep...soon. In the meantime, I'm going to listen to old songs with timeless messages and try to forget what has been, so that I can truly enjoy what's to come...

When I find myself in times of trouble
mother Mary comes to me
speaking words of wisdom
let it be
And in my hour of darkness
she is standing right in front of me
speaking words of wisdom
let it be

Let it be
let it be
let it be
let it be
Whisper words of wisdom
let it be

And when the broken hearted people
living in the world agree,
there will be an answer
let it be
For though they may be parted
there is still a chance that they will see
there will be an answer
Let it be

Let it be
let it be
let it be
let it be
Whisper words of wisdom
let it be

And when the night is cloudy
there is still a light that shines on me
shine until tomorrow
let it be
I wake up to the sound of music
mother Mary comes to me
speaking words of wisdom
let it be

Let it be
let it be
let it be
let it be
There will be an answer
let it be

Let it be
let it be
let it be
let it be
Whisper words of wisdom
let it be


Let it be - The Beatles

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Now playing: The Beatles - Let It Be
via FoxyTunes

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Monday, December 10, 2007

Wherefore art thou Optimism?

It is when we are in danger of giving in to hopelessness and cynicism that we are most free to rediscover possibilities. We are less constrained by what we believe we might lose, while being more focused on those things that carry real meaning. When the struggle to find external sources of hope becomes difficult, or even impossible, we must look within, and find a way to be our own engines of strength. We must find coping mechanisms, otherwise we risk being swept away. It is so easy to stand at the brink of giving up on humanity, and it seems more difficult to step away from that ledge all the time.

Whether we realize it or not, we all yearn to find a situation where we feel a sense of belonging. When we are not in that space, it is inevitable that our internal drive for contentment will begin generating subliminal pressures, which begin manifesting in the form of stress and malaise. Regardless of what our useless minds are telling us, our guts will make it known when things are right or wrong. Right now, things are obviously not right for me here. Sleep and I have not ever had a good relationship, but we are hardly speaking these days. Late to bed, early to rise gives a burned out drone red-ringed eyes. The idea of making a fresh start elsewhere is increasingly compelling to me.

So the rumors I have been hearing that another round of layoffs (this time referred to as 'outsourcing') might be on the way haven't distressed me much at all. In fact, the idea of voluntarily being laid off has become more interesting all the time. I spend nearly 8 hours in this office, and during those 8 hours I am filled with a desire to be somewhere else. There is so little reason for hope here that the situation has become pervasively miserable. My gut is generating so much pressure to leave that I am literally knotted up with tension. This place is a miserable world to be in right now.

Outside of work, school sits as a reservoir of hope, but I have very little affection left for my surroundings. Aside from family and a very few friends, there is not much keeping me here. There simply is not enough of what I am looking for to be had here. I want to be surrounded by people who inspire me to hope and dream, not to despair and surrender. So few people I know seem to have any strength or vision, I can hardly relate with their motivations. I feel as if my optimism is constantly under attack by a massive propaganda campaign that would have me believe life is about unfulfilling jobs, dysfunctional relationships, unmitigated self-interest, rampant materialism, and celebrity worship. Aspiring to anything more is a fool's errand and should be discouraged at every opportunity!

Obviously, I can't escape any of that through geography, I know that people are like this everywhere, but the real trouble is rooted in my struggles to escape within myself, or through my interests. The pace of my art production has picked up significantly, but the quality hasn't improved as much as I would like(of at all), so there is a persistent frustration that multiplies in and over itself. I love riding, but time, weather, and circumstances prevent me from riding as often as I would like. I write…probably much more than is necessary…but the relief is short lived, if there is any relief at all. I workout, but not as often as I used to, and I can feel the difference, physically and psychologically. In general, I feel totally uninspired by my current circumstances, so something has to change.

Did they get you to trade
Your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange
A walk on part in the war,
For a lead role in a cage?

Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd

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Now playing: Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
via FoxyTunes

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Friday, December 07, 2007

Mismatch

For whatever reason, I was thinking about my time as a paying, Match.com member this afternoon. Not because it was particularly interesting or fruitful, because it wound up being a total non-starter, but because I wish I would have spent the money on something more worthwhile. I joined up sometime in March, if memory serves, as they were running some kind of special that made signing up for 6 months the same price as normally signing up for 3. At that time, I was feeling a bit more optimistic, or adventurous, or Jebus only knows what, so I created a profile, transmitted my credit card information, and started building a profile. Once I had input all the necessary info…height, weight, interests, pictures, etc...I posted the profile and began clicking through listings. In my opinion, my profile was as clear and concise as possible, and I used a couple of normal pics, so that women would know I am not tragically deformed or morbidly obese.

My goal for signing up was fairly innocent and simple: meet one or two interesting women I might not have otherwise crossed paths with. I was looking for neither one night stands, nor marriage. I would have been happy meeting a girl and going to dinner a couple of times. Given the drought I've been in, that would at least have been something like progress. As it turned out, there really was not any progress to be made.

I thought it might be a little aggressive to start sending messages and/or winks right away, so I browsed profiles, picked a couple of ladies and sent them messages when I had time. People have described me with many words, but charming and flirtatious have not ever been amongst them, it wasn't a great surprise when I did not get any replies. Undeterred, I sent a few more messages over the next few weeks, as I crossed paths with interesting profiles. After my first month on, I had not received a single reply. Given my social disconnect and the nature of email, I wasn't surprised or particularly discouraged. I kept thinking that eventually I would get at least one or two nibblers. Then something strange happened, a girl contacted me. Honestly, that was the last thing I expected to have happen. We traded a couple of emails, then nothing. Assuming she didn't like what I had to say, I let it drop and pressed on.

Around the two month mark I noticed that Match provides a means of checking who has viewed your profile. Obviously, this seemed like a good way to track down potentially interested people, so I checked it out. Surprisingly, my profile had been visited by quite a few women. A couple of the profiles jumped out at me, so I sent those girls messages and sure enough, I received replies. The first girl was supposedly a working model. Judging by her pictures, it was a reasonable assertion. She was tall, and thin with good bone structure, basically what you'd expect from someone claiming to be a model. We traded a couple of messages and she seemed intelligent as well. I thought to myself, "Good times, maybe I need to meet this girl", but things stalled out. She would accept an invite, cancel with a claim of being busy, ask for a rain check, and be out or town or busy the next time I contacted her. That's all fine and good, I understand that people change their minds or decide they're not interested, but the repeated suggestions that we get together some other time started to sound like someone just being polite. The thing is, it was no big deal. If she wasn't interested, all she had to do was say that she wasn't interested. It wouldn't be the first time and probably won't be the last. I finally stopped trying to put something together and I haven't heard from her since.

The other girl just seemed strange. She was an attractive girl and she sounded reasonably sane in her profile, but her email messages were strange in a way I just can't put my finger on. Not threatening or overtly bizarre, but subliminally weird in their structure and how they moved from one subject to another without much provocation. We traded a few messages, talked about meeting up, but ultimately it went nowhere. By this point, I was around three months into a six month membership and already thoroughly bored with the idea of meeting someone online. My impression of Match is that it functions better as a hurry-up-and-hookup dating site, rather than a place where you might meet someone to have a drink and get to know. A friend I ride with was/is also a member and he has had much more success with hooking up than finding girls he would actually want to date. Fortunately for him, that is exactly what he is looking for. lol

So I let my membership lapse and wrote the experience off as another experiment in human sociology which yielded little or no useful results. Part of the blame rests on my shoulders, as my message sending tapered off sharply after the first month. The whole situation just seemed to a bad fit for me. So it is back to depending on random chance and circumstance. Not the best position to be in, but there's not much to be done about it. I think that is the most frustrating part of the whole situation. Not being able to effectively create change is tough to handle. Maybe Chicago, Savannah, or Rhode Island will yield better opportunities, since I will be surrounded by artists and people committed to pursuing art as a career...at least we will all have that in common. Unfortunately, we're looking at a year or more before I'll find out. In the meantime, I suppose I will have to be content with taking Audrey for long rides and busying myself with art making. Now that I think about it, I suppose it could be worse. :)

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Thursday, December 06, 2007

Act up...

and Ava is gonna put a whippin' on that ass! :)

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Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Change is in the air

Some drastic changes might be on their way in the near future. It is looking more and more like I will be leaving my job before the end of next year, which means a new environment, new responsibilities, and new variables will be a part of my Senior year at Eckerd. Not ideal, since EC requires a huge amount of work, but some things just can't be helped.

Rumor around the campfire is that the work situation could be going from bad to worse for us in the near future. If this happens, I will essentially have no choice but to leave. Conditions have gotten so ridiculous that nearly everyone I know is talking about exploring options, looking elsewhere, or quitting in the very near future. Slash-and-burn business practices are making the natives very restless, and the total lack of conscious displayed by senior management (Dave Calhoun and Mitchell Habib have reputations for being merciless slash-and-dash executives) are making life miserable for those of us who survived the first round of lay offs. A shaky work situation is just what the doctor ordered, particularly when you are trying to keep your grades up and build a portfolio worthy of being considered by the best art schools in the country.

Did I say "schools"? Well, my grad school options have begun to expand. SCAD is still an option, though I have read some unsettling things about the school recently, but schools like The School of the Art Institute of Chicago(SAIC) and the Rhode Island School of Design(RISD) have to be on my radar. Both offer incredible art programs and both cost around the same per years as I would be paying at SCAD. Even Yale could be an option..Yale? Could I really live with myself, were I to attend the same school that produces the likes of George W Bush and John Kerry? It is an interesting question. All cost about the same and those three schools are considered to be top 3 in the country, while I have learned that SCAD is not recognized as being in the same league by most industry professionals.

At the moment, I'm really interested in Chicago. The cold would be a nightmare...probably my worst nightmare...but the school is recognized the world over for the quality of its education. I hadn't ever considered them previously because of cost (only slightly more than SCAD, it turns out) and location. Chicago gets cold, bitterly, miserably, horribly cold. Worse still, it becomes a steaming cauldron that literally kills people during the Summer. On top of all that, large cities seem like little bits of Hell on Earth to my suburbanite, traditionalist mind. All of that might be offset by the quality of education I would receive there and the unique experience of attaining a SAIC Master of Fine Arts degree, but there are no guarantees.

Everything I can find about the school describes learning there as being a wonderful experience. Florida would only be 3 hours or so by air, and being in one of the country's largest cities would allow me opportunities to experience art in a way that being in Florida, or even Savannah, will not. Of course, Rhode Island and Yale also get very cold in the Winters, so there really is no upside to considering other top schools, so far as the weather is concerned.

It seems silly to even imagine that I might be accepted to any of them, particularly Yale, but I will not know if I do not apply. It's a difficult decision, and my portfolio may not be strong enough to gain admission to any of the aforementioned institutions, which means I would have to find a plan B in a big hurry. That said, I am making a point to keep my options as open as possible. I refused to apply to various colleges at 18, to my detriment, but I'm a bit wiser and more willing to look around at 30. I would really like to do my graduate work at the best school that would have me as a student, so not applying to the top 3 seems foolish. The worst they can say is, "No", in which case I go back to the drawing board (totally obvious, totally lame pun, I know).
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Now playing: Alice in Chains - Right Turn
via FoxyTunes

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Monday, December 03, 2007

Bystander burnout

I want to live in a place where slightly worn white boys with all their teeth, most of their marbles, and a few tricks up their sleeve can find harmony with the world around them. I want to live in a place where big wheeled cars can roar over smooth pavement under blue skies and rumbling motorcycles roll down roads with no intersections. I dream of living in a place where girls grow to be ladies, boys grow to be gentlemen, and grace is something more than a dying, dinner tradition.

I want to live less ordinary. I want to know what it means to live, so that I can lay peacefully down when I learn what it means to die. I want to travel the world, so that I can better appreciate what it means to be home. I want to live in a place where poetry, paintbrushes, and pistons coexist in a balanced resonance with one another. I want to live as a peasant, as a king, and as an ascetic spiritualist on the hilltop outside of town. I want to live a dream and know no nightmares.

I had a dream, not like Martin Luther King Jr.'s, but a dream nonetheless. I had this dream at least a decade ago now, and the details are murky at best now, but I remember being in love with a lady whose face I didn't recognize and can't remember. I remember having been in love with her for what seemed like a significant amount of time. I remember dreaming of this most unusual and unknown circumstance as if it were something ordinary, even comfortable. That was probably the strangest part of the dream and is very likely the only reason I remember it at all. Nothing seems more unusual and mysterious, even impossible, than the idea of being in love for any length of time.

Is that living? Sometimes it is hard to tell. I look at what my fellow humans have done to love, how they live it, and I take some comfort in knowing that I had nothing to do with what so many of them have done. I am not twisting, degrading, or insulting the idea of love. In some ways, I suppose that keeps me innocent, which is certainly better than bearing the burden of guilt. But I have also done nothing to right, elevate, and compliment the idea of love, which makes me as guilty as the so-called innocent bystander to a traffic accident who does their harm in not trying to help the wounded.

As I understand it, love is perpetually being crippled and healed by human beings. Some love in a detrimental and deteriorative way, hobbling an idea that holds the potential to see them racing toward transcendence with a friend to accompany them along the way. Others love truly, wholly, and with their entirety, setting themselves rocketing off into space, leaving contrails for other brave souls to follow. Most run at times, stumble at others, and fall down every once in a while. Occasionally, they step backward, or stop outright, but even in this they are playing a part in the great push and pull that makes up the swirling storm we call "love".

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Now playing: U2 - Luminous Times (Hold On To Love)
via FoxyTunes

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Sunday, December 02, 2007

We should be heroes

I need a hero, though I think I would prefer a heroine, or maybe I would be better off with some heroin instead - these days, I'm not always sure…

I remember all of the mythology I used to surround my childhood heroes with and long for that naivete sometimes. There was a time when who my heroes were as people meant nothing so long as their deeds were of suitable greatness as I interpreted the word then. Almost without exception, my the heroes of my youth were athletes and as far as I was concerned, what these men did on the field defined who they were. Growing up pre-internet, I did not have ready access to their private indiscretions and personal problems. If that sort of information did make its way into the wild, coverage was usually limited or outside of my ordinary viewing habits.

I didn't know Michael Jordan was a philandering gambler, or that Lawrence Taylor was a hopeless drug addict, until their playing careers had ended. That is not to say that some people didn't know, but the 80s and early-90s were still a time when such things were kept private, so that sports legends could be built and canonized for the sake of mass marketed imagery and maximum monetary gain. By the time I learned that most of the men I idolized as a child were highly flawed, largely average human beings, I had already begun questioning their relevancy. In a world where people like Gandhi, Mother Theresa, and Abraham Lincoln have existed, what does a man like Michael Jordan really matter? I came to realize that he doesn't. He was once a demigod in the catalog of my mind, but I came to realize that the historical significance of athletes and celebrities is effectively nil. In 500 years, will anyone remember any of them? Probably not.

My little BBBS brother and I went to see Beowulf 3D Sunday afternoon. The movie was better than I expected, and the 3D effects were excellent...every action/adventure movie should have 3D viewing as an option! The story may be several centuries old, but a good action/adventure doesn't seem to ever go out of style. After watching Beowulf in his epic struggle against evil demons, it occurred to me that the little's heroes are hardly on the level of being legendary. Fifty Cent ranks high on his list, for instance. The world has very few admirable personalities in leadership positions, so our youth are left to admire former crack dealers who have been shot and stabbed several times. Fantastic!

That's not to say I believe celebrities, entertainers, and athletes should be role models. On the contrary, I believe they should be seen as little more than sources of amusement. What we need is a redefined sense of scale and impact. Entertainers are just that, entertainers. If they are not living lives worthy of being admirable, it only makes sense that we not admire them. When considering their actions and significance, we need to keep in mind that they are little more than glorified court jesters. I would even include art in that category, unless it is instigating social change, or serving as a medium through which larger messages are being sent. Even then, its ultimate significance as a vehicle for change is highly debatable. My personal heroes are not necessarily heroic individuals, but then I am not trumpeting their virtues and suggesting that any of them are worth millions of dollars for their services.


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Now playing: David Bowie - Heroes
via FoxyTunes

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