The Requisite Audacity

Maintaining the shell of the inner self is a necessary component of a healthy state of mind.

Trying things is a necessary part of feeling like you're taking advantage of being alive.

Not doing things you disagree with is a prerequisite to self respect.

When you take a step back and stop trying to actively manage all of these things and just play your role, you realize that most people around you are just playing the roles they've selected for themselves.

I sometimes wonder how others justify their double standards.

Then I think, I wonder how many and what specific double standards I ignore.

I used to then say, "Let's sit down and discuss." The correct course of action is not paying it much mind.

A Million Lives to Live

Only one worth living.

The Viscera Don't Lie: Everything But "It"

I am, from time to time, plagued by the thought that I might trapped by my experiences. Despite my knowledge, though mostly secondary, of what many things are like, I cannot say that I have any sensory data on them. I know that sounds very clinical, and that my intuition and sensory memory of what many other things are like provides baseline or comparative information, but it is absolutely true for all the reasons that support the general argument that there is no substitute for experience.

I have had much, perhaps too much, experience, or perhaps time, in the last week that leads me to believe that familiarity, meaning experience with, is a prerequisite for comparison. I know this runs contrary to the very real growth of experience. People do new things all the time. I myself guess and/or stumble into new experiences everyday. On the contrary, I rely on my sense for "what it has been and therefore must be like" to answer questions related to:

-Problem Solving
-All Forms of Measurement
-Romance
-The Psychedelic
-Respect
-Religion

I think there is a very distinct etching upon your neural pathways, an imprinting, as it were, that guides your ability to manage things on an ongoing basis. The compounding computation and live management of many things requires the transcendence of certain things from an active "doing" to a passive "being". This may appear over-analyzed. I would think that you could relate. I could be wrong.

The notion that they might not be universal lessens my respect for others' experiences and forces me to take an offensive, as opposed to defensive, by which I mean conforming and adapting, mindset. I find this both saddening, as it decreases the ways in which I can relate to my fellow (wo)man, and gladdening, as it justifies my desire to do as I please and impose, both subtly and explicitly.

Yes and No

"I've been single for seven years and as I get older, I think all I want is to be loved. The world becomes a place where you think, let everyone else have it. Let them all fight over jobs and money... You want things in life that are lovely."
-Alec Baldwin

Yeah man. Forrealz.

I have neither put in the hard work nor achieved nearly the same things as Mr. Baldwin, but I can certainly sympathize. On one hand, maybe I'm just lazy and weak. I am relatively young after all and have not passed on (or been offered) many promises of happiness and adoration. And when I have passed, it has certainly not been for promises of wealth or status. It has been the result of fear and uncertainty, which are more common and less despicable in my eyes. Shit, at five years, my bacheloredom does not even come close to Baldwin's seven.

All that said, I've been bleeding affection for months now and can't help but feel a little embarrassed. I'm not running around with random peeps or anything, but I have a hard time managing the other 95% of life that grinds to a halt every time my mind wanders off to play in fantastical and semi-fictional worlds for a few hours.

I know the only solution I'll be able to look back at and be happy with is staying focused on performing my duties in life, staying hungry in my work, and letting things unfold naturally.

That said, I can't help but want to disappear every time I see a couple holding hands. What can I say? I love handholding.

Be Like This One. Be Like This Way.

So I had a Comp Sci teacher in high school who was very well educated, having had a graduate degree in the field, but spoke broken English. It was a pretty disastrous class. The students were disrespectful. He was constantly frustrated and harped on seemingly irrelevant details and examples. He even called me by someone else's last name until the very end of the year.

I arrived at his memory this morning in the indirect way that has become typical of me. This past week has been momentous. Not many things actually took place, but I spent a lot of time in my head and I went to bed last night with this feeling of enlightenment. You see, romance has become a black hole in my life in the past year. No amount of thinking or action has been enough to satisfy a lingering and (somehow) impending sense of failure. In reality, I haven't really met anyone or spent enough time around anyone or been interested enough in spending all my time with a particular person. Those seem like harsh things to say, but they're mostly the result of needing time to find satisfaction in my work and my own life... and are also the result of the luck/chance that shade all things, of course. Over the past few years (I jokingly refer to it as 'the better part of a decade' at pity parties), I have shied from inquiries (of varying degrees) and have stayed "out of the game." I have spent (I'll call it an investment when I come to believe that I did anything more than spin my wheels) countless hours worrying about qualification and proper perspective. I have wasted many hours trying to understand and measure the ever-widening gap between expectations (theirs' and mine). I have spent a lot of time investigating and analyzing the circumstances under which others have found their mates and thinking about my own experiences. And while none of these things have been enough to scratch the itch, I believe they have been instrumental in my own maturation and my own acceptance (a - I could just as eagerly call acceptance resignation here; b - maturation and acceptance are the same thing here) of how romance works.

Romance works like everything else in life works. You approach it with great excitement and proper respect and you're 90% of the way to success. The other 10% comes from the sense of astonishment and adventure that accompany a two-person endeavor into uncharted territory. Sure, you're not necessarily making history for the world, but it still feels historic.

I remember now, quite vividly, talking to a friend late in high school about what amazing an experience it is to look across a room and to know you share this private, effectively secret world with someone else. I also remember, in as incidental, impersonal a way as possible, that this observation holds true. I know what a stretch it might be to believe that this single thought and its associated visceral activities were enough to inspire me, but they were. It's the fine details that distinguish and define things after all. Knowing that I am capable of finding pure excitement and happiness in a common experience that is universally enjoyed regardless of variations in physical, spiritual, or material qualities means that I, in my own eyes, am ready. To paraphrase my old teacher, if I can "be like that one" or "be like that way", then I have nothing to worry to about. I can trust my intentions because I know where I want to go and I know why I want to go there.

So that's my story. Now that I've prattled on for bit and said all the things I wanted to say in the way I wanted to say them, let me get to the bullet points.

1) There are two sides to every coin. Every lens is built in such a way that it simultaneously focuses and scatters. Be happy.
2) One's story lives almost entirely in other people. There's something incredibly heavy and worthy of appreciation in this fact. Be kind.
3) You can respect someone while making fun of them so long as you've made it clear to them that your mockery is an integral part of demonstrating impact.

Adventures in Banality

Is there anything wrong with being typical?

Don't Fake It

This is a topic I go rounds with myself over. In many ways, it really is the largest issue I have left to reconcile. In other ways, it's completely irreconcilable. And in others still, there's nothing one can do but be natural and hold on for the ride.

The matter at hand is forgiveness vs. sympathy. They aren't exactly mutually exclusive or at odds with one another. So I guess I should say forgiveness and sympathy. One enables the other but doesn't inhibit it. The other just stands tall.

My issues with these two things (virtues, harbingers of good karma, and tools of deception) are that:

1) They are as much behaviors as they are intentions/wishes. They are often used as means. This most cynical perspective is probably rooted in encounters with and discovery of the disingenuous and seeing others' inability to discern between relation and manipulation. And

2) Transgressions and disasters precede forgiveness and sympathy. These events imply that relatively unundoable things have taken place. In the absence of magic, we have only classification of events/facts as unfair, unfortunate, unintended, and misdirected that we can share in and gather around.

Not that I'm always right about these things, but I have an above-average sense about people's intentions. Watching people get fooled outright is one of the most infuriating and demoralizing experiences one can endure. It usually leaves me feeling upset with the deceiver for being a predator and with the deceived for not seeing through it. It also contributes to an overall disregard for the sympathies and apologies of others. Moreover, it makes me hesitant to forgive or sympathize as the intention to modify behavior or share perspective and the actual modified behavior or new awareness are two completely different things. The act of calling these things out can feel like begging for attention. Just be good, you know?

All that said, as I've grown older, I've found myself more and more willing and wanting to offer up my sympathy and forgiveness. Salinger put it best when he wrote, "a man can't go on indefinitely carrying around in his pocket a key that doesn't fit anything."

What's more is that I feel like I understand the desire and ability to relate based on experience with events, but more importantly based on experience with sorrow and grief in a way that was simply beyond me in my adolescence. And while watching people fake it would really piss me off, I can accept that I was either missing the point or unequipped to participate. And I guess that's that. No matter what I feel about individual experiences or propensity for misfortune, compassion is universal and I think that's reason enough.

I can tell through observation and reflection that my natural reactions are slowly changing. In moments of frustration, I still get upset. But I'm aware of what's happenning and know how to reason with me. This is big. Not quite reconciliation, but at least there's a process in place.

Fondness, Illusion, and the Journey

I hung out with an old friend from college last night. He was in town for a family member's graduation and was able get away for an evening to have a few and see the town. We had a grand ole time catching up. I even got a few unbiased opinions about how green my grass is and heard about how other people live.

We haven't completely fallen out of contact, speaking on the phone every few months. Nonetheless, the conversation was rich with retelling stories and honest confrontation of life's challenges (ours and those of mutual friends). I was told I haven't changed dramatically, but that I look good and reflect, quite clearly, the changes that come with adulthood and a career. I think my buddy appeared happy overall, not to be confused with his general happy-go-lucky outlook on life or some fleeting moment of excitement, college mop hair and all.

We talked at length about romance and our current happenings. I wouldn't venture so far as to say I learned something great, but I was reminded of some very simple truths. You see, when he and I first became good friends, I was still chasing and trying to live out some great human experience with as little personal risk as possible. My buddy had just begun dating a girl who excited him to no end. Little did we know what changes were ahead of us.

I was reminded that simpler is better, inspiration is found in the trenches, and life's gardens are surrounded by seemingly insurmountable brick walls (thank you Gary Paucsh). And while I usually poke fun at fortune cookie wisdom (and spend a good amount of time hoping I'm not becoming a middle-aged, 20th century woman), I've found yet another case in point for things working out as they should.

I live thousands of miles away from those whom I care about now and while I complain all the time about it, I live a relatively painless life and have perspective on what is important and what is vanity. Even more, I'm finding myself actively prioritizing the important things. My buddy met a really nice girl this past year. After the sixth attempt, she even let him take her out on date. I hear a lot of nice things. And although most of them are from him, that itself is pretty telling.

The Storm after the Calm

Seattle is renown for its constant drizzle and absolute lack of sunshine for most of the year. But from late-June through Halloween, it boasts sunny days and 70 degree weather, and is, for all outdoors-related purposes, paradise.

I think we had an unusually dark and cold winter this year that lasted through March, but about two weeks ago, the blanket of clouds openned up and we got our first taste of summer. And as expected, the weather turned back into crap about a little over a week ago. I haven't lived here that long, but I've come to know Seattlites as laid back, easy going people, but this cold/rain snap appears to have broken everyone's spirit.

Honking in traffic.
Angry pedestrians waving fists.
Coworkers snapping (at each other, at shuttle/bus drivers, at receptionists).
Lifetime Seattlites openly questioning whether they should finally give it up.
Midwesterners swearing.

Putting a Face to the Name

There's nothing as exciting as finally seeing someone you've known, whether it be through letters, phone conversations, electronic correspondence, or through friends for the first time. This even holds true upon seeing someone again for the first time in a long time, or getting together with someone you once spent a brief period of time with.

The details of a person's face, their expressions, and their gestures all thrust themselves upon the vague impressions and suppositions you have in your mind. What do this person's mannerisms (inflection, pitch, moods, etc.) look like? Will the immediate, and granted much more sensory-rich, experience of being around a person eclipse or replace the things you've come to know? It's an extraordinary experience.

And no, I'm not e-dating. Not yet at least.