Sunday, March 30, 2008
Spring is in the air
Spring is always a tough time for me. It is the time of sunshine, birdsong, and bikinis. This is Florida, this is the best time to live here, so what could possibly be wrong? The answer is one word: hormones. Hormones know no moral or ideological speed bumps. Hormones feel no need to consider ideals or discipline or hopeful aspirations for a life less ordinary.
During Spring, drives that are ordinarily smoldering start to flair and rise from their usual bed of ashes. Thoughts start drifting away from "thank Jebus I'm single" toward "Jebus, I'm lonely as Hell and horny like the Devil". A more functional person would probably go on the hunt, get laid, fall into some short-term "thing", and get "it" out of their system, but anyone who knows me knows that the odds of such a situation arising in my life are about even with those of Amy Winehouse growing a new bicuspid to replace the one conspicuously missing from what is left of her smile.
Spring, a time of "I'd like to, but I won't...fucking hell..."
On one side, a reasonably healthy body that fully understands its temporary and transient nature pounding on a door that has only been opened on the rarest of occasions. Manning the door's deadbolt from the other side is a mind that has, for all intents and purposes, given up hope for most (but not quite all) of Humanity, resigning itself to hoping for miracles even as it denies the probability of their existence. So you have a situation where the physical self, with all its chemicals, organic wiring, and hardwired reproductive programming, pleads endlessly with a nearly unyielding gatekeeper. So far, the gatekeeper has won most, if not all battles. Of course, he is helped by the fact that his only overseer is the spirit who can't be bothered with such things and tends to side with him in most matters.
So the gatekeeper holds fast, insisting that he is content to wait for a chance run-in with what amounts to a flying unicorn, while the physical is completely baffled by the concept of "now". Physical only understands here, now, and immediately. His mantra goes something like, "Take what you can get when you can get it, or risk never having it all." On the surface, such logic makes sense, but the mind believes that following through and giving in to such fearful insecurities is simultaneously pathetic and pointless. He tries to calm the physical with assurances that the Fates and Time will provide other options, but quietly, he has begun to have doubts.
When trying to come up with a solution to the stand-off, my internal dialog goes something like this:
Only a couple of months left in Spring, then it's on to Summer, when it gets too hot to care what the physical or mind have to say. Unfortunately, at my age, you never want to hurry time. It's going to be a long Spring, apparently.
Labels: life
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Stopping for those roses
Every once in a while, things pop up to put a pause in our step, so that we allow ourselves a moment to appreciate how pleasant life's simplicity can be. My BBBS Little recently rolled off three consecutive report periods on the honor roll at his middle school, a first for him, as far as I know. Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I am not in any way taking credit for this achievement. He and I rarely discuss school, and we haven't ever gone over his assignments together. Most of our time has been spent goofing off, talking about girls (he should be advising me on this one!), and general "what's up with you" conversations. Any talk of academics is limited and largely general "how's it going" stuff, so all the credit for his consistency belongs with his mother, his teachers, and himself.
He was recognized with the Dr. Mac Williams, Jr. Award for Academic Excellence along with 100 or so of his peers, for being amongst the top performing African-American students in Pinellas' middle and high schools (I can almost hear Laura sighing :) ). This award comes with award ceremonies at three different locations throughout the county, a certificate, and is only awarded once per school year. The ceremony went off smoothly and only took an hour or so, from start to finish. During that time, D's little cousin J, who is only 4 years old, couldn't sit still, or resist the urge to use me as a make shift jungle gym. It must be my lanky build and long arms that call out to kids' primal desires to climb and kick, because every child I cross paths with seems to eventually end up climbing on my back and administering a choke hold.
In some very real ways, I have become a part of this extended family. This past weekend D's mom, a BBBS rep, and myself sat down to go over the first year of our match. Overall, I would have to say that things have gone better than I expected. D seems pretty comfortable with the whole situation, and I feel like the simple act of hanging out has had a positive impact. We were all joking about how I have effectively become something like an adopted son over the past 12 months. It's been fun and I look forward to the next year.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
10 Rules of Making
10 Rules lifted from an art school's website that I unfortunately forgot to note. These work well for just about any facet of life. Wish I had stumbled across these 10 years ago!
1. Find a place you trust and then try trusting it for a while.
2. General duties of a student: pull everything out of your teacher, pull everything out of your fellow students.
3. General duties of a teacher: pull everything out of your students.
4. Consider everything an experiment.
5. Be self-disciplined. This means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
6. Nothing is a mistake. There is no win and no fail. There is only make.
7. The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all the time who eventually catch on to things.
8. Don’t try to create and analyse at the same time. They’re different processes.
9. Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
10. “We’re breaking all of the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.” - John Cage.
Helpful hints: Always be around. Come or go to everything always. Go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully often. Save everything, it might come in handy later.
There should be new rules next week.
A-mazing
I had dinner with an old friend over the weekend. Hadn't seen him in nearly 8 years or so and ran into him purely by chance. Mom and I were out for some reason and decided to grab lunch at the local Olive Garden. On the way, we decided to do the Macaroni Grill instead. While waiting for our meal, my old friend, his wife, and his mother came in. I didn't recognize him at first, but eventually I realized who he was, went over to say hello, and we traded information. Fast forward a couple of weeks and we met up for dinner at a local Thai restaurant. Through the course of the conversation, I came to really understand just how much time I had wasted through my 20s.
I look at the drawing I am currently working on and I realize that I can, in fact, draw - at least I have some ability. With that comes the regretful realization that I should have been drawing in earnest all these years. Instead of spending 1/3 of my life to date laboring at jobs that ultimately left me unfulfilled and my abilities wasted, I should have been working and refining and expanding those abilities. My friend was graduating from Northern Illinois and earning a Master's degree from the University of Tampa. He did two years in marketing with Big Brothers, Big Sisters where he met his wife. They bought a house and are currently working on kids.
How do you explain that you effectively abandoned your dreams and set off on a dead-end journey toward irrelevance to people who have their proverbial shit together? In my experience, there is no point in trying. Most people won't understand or care, because the end result is still the same: renting a room from the parental units while finishing up a degree at an age when most people are well into being "settled down". Honestly, I'm not sure how to feel about that. I definitely look at my 20s as 10 predominantly wasted years, but that waste has left me more motivated not to waste the next 10 than I probably would have been otherwise. I suppose the final verdict will have to wait another 10 years or so, but I have to admit that I found myself wishing that I had a few more stories to share that related to forward progress. All I have in hand today is "I hope so" and "I plan to", which equates to little more than hot air until something comes to fruition.
If I had kept drawing at the pace and with the energy I had as a teen, I very well might be a working artist today. There's no making up for lost time, so the only recourse is to make the most of out years to come, but that brings me back to the idea that relief is always "just around the corner", but these corners are so numerous that they become a maze and this maze becomes something like a spatial ball of yarn to run through.
Time for some comic relief thanks to Sarah Silverman...
Labels: life
Thursday, January 10, 2008
I am monotony
Sticking with the "I am" trend I have going on lately, I wanted to take a second to recognize the fact that I am something of a monotony machine. Our friends at Mirriam-Webster define monotony thusly:
1 : tedious sameness
2 : sameness of tone or sound
I do not feel that it is a self-defaming or demoralizing thing to recognize and admit that I exhibit largely monotonous tendencies in both my choice of topics and the tone in which I address them. The things that bother me when I write about them very likely bothered me for days, weeks, and years before I ever typed words in their directions and will almost certainly continue to bother me for days, weeks, and years to come. There will always be fecked up people, places, and things in our lives, which means there will always be something digging into the tender flesh between my fingernails.
Thankfully, there are also sources of goodness in this life. The past weekend saw my brother, the SIL, and The Twins come into town and we had a great time hanging out. Ava and Evelyn were a year old this past Saturday, so the family gathered up for a birthday party. The Twins partook in presents and Evelyn managed to smash her cake so thoroughly that it was barely recognizable. Ava needed a little help, but her cake was adequately demolished in short order. The SIL put together a nice little shindig, complete with a pinata for her sister's sons. Good times, even if I was hungover from partaking in a little too much whiskey the night before.
A little touch of randomness...this video morphing Van Gogh's self-portraits in a series
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Now playing: Sly & The Family Stone - Dance To The Music
via FoxyTunes
Labels: life
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
I'm just as lost as anybody
For some reason, I can't stop thinking about the fact that, no matter how high we rise or low we sink on life's imagined totem pole hierarchy, we are all equal in the end. Some of us will go peacefully, some of us will be taken horribly, but in the end, our bodies will all eventually fail. Buddhism uses this as evidence of the insignificance of our physical incarnation. Physical life is temporary and any perceived significance it might have(as a product of the egotistical mind) is illusory. Taoism tends to look at death as more or less a non-event, since life and death are essentially irrelevant to the spiritual truth of the Tao.
The idea is that oneness is the only truth, and the divisions we experience in life are muted by its cessation. How did the old poem put it? Something about Kings and peasants all being same when they are put in the ground...I can't remember off hand and I am too busy to look it up, but the concept is pervasive across all of human spirituality. The Judeo-Christian god does not care about a person's station, wealth, or power. His judgment comes down based upon the soul's actions and deeds in life. A good man can struggle in rags or riches, but his fate will be determined by how he lived and what he did…seems fair and logical to me.
So power, money, station, material wealth, etc are all trivial in every major religion I am aware of. Unless the materialist pagans were right, what you have in the physical world will ultimately mean nothing in the spiritual world. Sounds good, on the surface, but the problem is that most of the people I know believe no such thing. In fact, many would consider what I believe to be trivial, if not outright ridiculous. Their god is money and material, their spiritual mantra is ownership, and their prayers are transmitted electronically via credit card and debit transactions. There is no place in their worlds for day-to-day spirituality. The gods need edgier logos and better marketing reps. Someone call Saatchi and Saatchi!
It is an age-old divide, on one side the materialists, on the other the spiritualists, but in the end we are all ultimately unified, so even the idea of sides is ultimately meaningless. While a materialist will spend their entire life pursuing things, acquiring stuff, and seeking superiority, he or she still ends up in the great stillness, eventually. The spiritualist, recognizing the uselessness of pursuing things, lives a minimalist existence and one day too, finds their physical body being recycled into the Earth.
Will all the materialist’s work and struggle have been worth it? I suppose my answer is obvious, though I still have a few things that I struggle and strive for. While I try to reserve my genuine efforts for things that move my heart, mind, or (on lucky, rare occasions) soul, I am little more than a partially reformed materialist. In actuality, I may be even more materially deluded, in that I recognize the lie in material ownership, but willfully choose to chase specific material things anyway. The idea that what we own ends up owning us is real, and one of life's most obvious truths, yet I still work to own things. It’s a bizarre, paradoxical way to live, I suppose. Maybe I’m not ready for monkdom just yet, but I'm working on it.
Everyday People
Sometimes I'm right
And I can be wrong
My own beliefs are in my song
The butcher, the banker
The drummer and then
Makes no difference
What group I'm in
I am everyday people, yeah, yeah
There is a blue one
Who can't accept the green one
For living with a fat one
Trying to be a skinny one
Different strokes
For different folks
And so on and so on
And scooby dooby dooby
Oh sha sha
We got to live together
I am no better
And neither are you
We are the same whatever we do
You love me you hate me
You know me and then
You can't figure out
The bag I'm in
I am everyday people, yeah yeah
There is a long hair
That doesn't like the short hair
For bein' such a rich one
That will not help the poor one
Different strokes
For different folks
And so on and so on
And scooby dooby dooby
Oh sha sha
We got to live together
There is a yellow one
That won't accept the black one
That won't accept the red one
That won't accept the white one
Different strokes
For different folks
And so on and so on
And scooby dooby dooby
Oh sha sha
I am everyday people
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Now playing: Sly & the Family Stone - Everyday People
via FoxyTunes
Labels: life, spirituality
Sunday, January 06, 2008
I'm a hopeless dreamer
I like to daydream about an utopian existence. Reality is often so tiresome and mundane, I find small moments of relief in letting my imagination wander off into what could be, or more accurately where I would like to be. These imaginary worlds are not much different than the one we live in. Mother Nature knew what she was doing, so there's not much I would change about the stage on which humanity plays out its repetitious dramas. Even the people there aren't drastically different. For the most part, the only difference is that people are more in touch with what I understand 'good' to be. They speak more honestly, act less selfishly, and behave more courteously. They sincerely care about each other and themselves. They recognize that the differences between us are little more than trivial details and that the divisions caused by those differences are purely imagined.
Of course, these are only daydreams, and the world as I live it always finds a way to interrupt, but I feel better having let my imagination take a stroll through another pseudo-fairy tale. Of course, that is not reality. In reality, people quite often treat each other like shit. Being treated politely and courteously in this world is rare enough to be noteworthy, which is only noteworthy because it has always been this way. People being nice to people is as rare today as it was eons ago. Again, I am baffled by our species inability to make real progress in our collective sense of kindness and empathy.
Whatever this place is, it sure as hell ain't utopia, but songs like Lennon's Imagine and Richie Havens' Freedom ad lib from Woodstock always put me in the mood to get lost in imagination. If not for these occasional escapes, I would think things might become unbearably depressing. Between the liars, the cheaters, and the outright crazies, you have to focus on the exceptions to avoid being overwhelmed by the rule. I have this theory, or rather I have adopted my own version of other peoples' theories, about fear and how powerful it is as a motivator, but that's something for another time. I'm not sure it is within my intellectual capabilities to express said theory in a coherent, concise fashion anyway...
Oh, for the strength to stir them!
The power to cure them, or heart to soothe them,
so that we might bask in the glow of angels' eyes
beneath skies unburdened billowing obstructions;
all of us bladed grass nourished together as one
in a place unknown to these lost generations -
free to grow straight and strong.
Free - to love Earth, Sun, and Moon unconditional,
to love Life and to live Love unencumbered
by the failure of words uttered aloud
with only the fields, trees, and insects to hear them.
Sacred, subtle sentences that fire the conscious
describing a vision, a heartfelt faith in possibility -
what could be, what might be, elegant wishes
without fear to restrain their beautiful conjurations.
With no gods to divide and conquer such tiny musings,
only the powerful alchemy between heart and soul,
the unstoppable momentum in mind and body,
these parts find freedom to form mystical wholes -
something more, something less, complex simplicity
in the meandering vein of a leaf, limb, or land.
United, aligned, and willing to brave the maelstrom.
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Now playing: Richie Havens - Freedom (Live at Woodstock)
via FoxyTunes
Labels: life
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Thursday thoughts...I should be working
I have been thinking a lot about spirit these past few days, trying to get myself refocused, trying to get back to something resembling balance. There seems to be an infinite number of possibilities, where the spirit is concerned, but I find that having any original thoughts on the matter are almost impossible. Finding original thought out in the wild is just as difficult and finding people I have something in common with is as challenging as ever.
Through all of this, I have been reflecting on 2007. Despite how badly it finished for me, the year was largely a very good one. School went near flawlessly, I almost escaped the year without getting sick, and Audrey came into my life. Not bad, all things considered, but the year ended with a limp and a stumble, rather than on a gallop. I seem to have learned the lessons of 2006 well, as I kept my emotions safely contained, so there were no heartbreaks or dramas worth mentioning, my car made it through the entire year unscathed, and I completely avoided annihilating myself with drink. My mental health would appear to be holding steady and I certainly didn't gain any weight, so things could have certainly been worse.
Why then is there this lingering sense of dissatisfaction? Much of it has to do with work. There simply is no joy to be found there currently and things are only getting worse. We are short staffed and seeing a steady increase in individual workload as a result. Nearly everyone is starting to make mistakes and experience stress related maladies. Given enough time, prolonged stress begins to have adverse effects on your basic functionality. Pieces and parts start to break down, to the point that you start forgetting little details like when classes start next term, and that you needed to get some new tires for your car. You start getting sick, then have a harder time than usual fighting off whatever is ailing you. Everyone seems to feel physically drained, and no one seems to feel good about their work any longer. I find that even my sense of spirituality begins to suffer, so that I sink into a generalized state of malaise, losing sight of the things that define who I am.
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Now playing: Sufjan Stevens - Seven Swans
via FoxyTunes
Labels: life
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
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
Labels: life
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
Labels: life
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
Labels: life
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
Labels: life
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
Labels: life
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
Labels: Christmas, life, school
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
Labels: life
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
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. :)
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
Labels: life
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
Labels: life