Happy New Years 2

Upon hauling the fifth and final garbage bag out of my room and towards the garage, the thin plastic gave way and spilled its contents. As an involuntarily reaction I tried to catch and contain its doomed contents, only to have my arm meet a shattered picture frame and what seemed to be the contents of a potted cactus minus the pot. After being stabbed by a sliver of glass and pricked by what once was a catcus, I immediately, abandoned efforts and let everything hit the floor followed by me. I sat there and cussed and cried for a good 45 minutes. When I finally got my breath back, I sat among the wreckage and noticed what I had been throwing away. My CD collection from the days of pre-ipod, A plant dirt and all, for some reason i saved the pot, one moccasin, random papers and things from around my room, and a photo album filled with pictures from my childhood. I immediately resumed crying and cussing, before saving this poor photo album that I mindlessly almost lost forever. After finding a place in my room for it, I began transferring the wreckage in my hallway to a new garbage bag, nothing else was worth saving. I returned to my much emptier room and decided it was time to stop throwing things away. The garbage bag explosion caused some kind of revelation, as I have lost the desire to throw things away. I am not sure what I have learned.

Happy New Years

I feel like vomiting, but I have nothing to vomit. I feel regret, remorse, shame failure. I sit alone in my empty house, I am throwing away nintey percent of what I own. I just can not take this anymore. In 365 days I have accomplished absolutely nothing. My conscious is making me feel empty inside, im not nauseous, I just want to vomit. I have no idea what I am doing or why, but every single thing I pick up goes right into the garbage. I have filled up three bags. I just want to move on, its impossible, I can not just move on, but it is all I want. I just want to forget all the times I fucked up this year. I want to forget the friends I am losing, I want to forget my sub par academic performance, I want to take out a loan and forget the debt I am burying myself in, I want to forget all the times I shattered my independence to ask for money, I want to forget my commitments, I want to forget all the people I fucking let down. I cant because everything I look at reminds me that I have accomplished nothing this year, in fact I have accomplished relatively little in my entire life. So instead of getting a fresh start, which is relatively impossible and borderline illegal, I am simply erasing the bad parts of my life, actually I am just blocking them out of my mind. I am trying to focus on the good but everythime I do, I realize how pointless those good times were, how shallow, how fleeting. My resolution stop depending on other people, it only leads to failure. It is time to finally focus on what I want to do, the friends that meet me halfway, I keep, the ones who continue to push away, fuck them, they are only holding me back. I just want to get drunk and forget all these fucking mistakes.

I love metaphors

Ten o'clock, the roads snow covered and extremely slippery, the snow is clearly covering a sheet of ice, I am heading home from sledding. I am driving on that extremely curvy part of Ballenger, taking my time, ten under the limit, my car loses traction. It has happened before, I know what to do, but I am still terrified. I slide around for a bit and regain control of my car, continue on my way, continue to sing along to whatever is playing in my ipod-less car like it never even happened. I know it is bound to happen again sometime, I hope it does not, but I know it will. I know I must not worry about what just happened or what may happen in the future, I need to focus on the strip of road that I presently drive above. I do not think I can make it anymore obvious. To bad when I lose traction in life, no standard procedure exists.

TTT (title translation time)

"Rejection is Change, but change reject no one." I use to think it made sense. It does, depending on how its read. True that rejection is change in the sense that when someone rejects something they are creating change. Diverging from or rejecting the norm creates change. Also I realize it could be taken as by rejecting, from the norms point a view, we create change. This is a contradiction because if by rejecting people and ideas we create change, there is no way to not reject. It also seems to imply that by rejecting we are forcing things to change. In order to not be rejected, one much change, conformity. That would basically mean conformity is unavoidable, not true, not what I am trying to say. Change rejecting no one is a completely true phrase however, anyone can change. It is true that many people resist change, but this is a decision they make they were not born lacking the ability to change. What I was trying to say by saying rejection is change, is saying when we reject the common belief we create change. I am not saying any belief held as common needs to be rejected, however, because that would become a circle. If the change created by rejecting the norm truly rejects none and becomes the norm, then if we were rejecting all norms, this change we made would be lost. The assumption I am making is that what we are rejecting is bad and we are rejecting it in favor of a change for that is arguably better, at least for the specific person. The title was only suppose to imply that if no one takes a stand, makes a rejection, then nothing will change, but if people begin to reject ideas, beliefs held common that are obviously flawed othe may follow and it would snowball into change.

This turned into a bit of a rant.

I need to understand and comprehend everything, because is not a sufficient answer for me. I always hated math because nothing was ever explained. It was always two plus nine equals eleven because it does, it always has. I can not accept such an answer. Through observation I have come to the conclusion that the majority of the human race shares this need of comprehension. The difference between what I see and what I need is that the majority of people can handle not understanding everything and also they are satisfied with extremely sketchy explanations. I may be overstepping my knowledge here, but the unknown in general seems to terrify people, I know it keeps me up a lot. To avoid this unknown we formulate questions aimed to explain it and then search for the answers, usually through trial and error. Sometimes it takes to long, sometimes the answers are vague, and sometimes no answers can be found. What bothers me most, is surprisingly not the lack of answers, although that bothers the shit out of me, but its the willingness of people to blindly accept the vague answers they are supplied. These vague answers are basically the human race making up elaborate stories that have no truth, no evidence, no fact. Its like putting wallpaper over a hole in the wall it fixes nothing. The world was flat not because it was observed but because it was the simplest explanation. No answer backed by any sort of evidence exists, for why people are alive. Instead the human race bases their faith on a ridiculous story more commonly known as religion. I think I might believe in religion if there were not so many different stories that started in so many different areas. The variations of religions led me to believe they are all made up. People isolated from each other all needed an answer to this question but instead of coming to the same conclusion, which would point to some sort of evidence or truth, they came up with individual stories, that are very different at times. The majority of people consider the religion of the ancient Egyptians or early Native Americans as storytelling, it is naive to believe that Christianity or Judaism is anything more.

Did not check grammer, deal with it

I remember waiting all night, patiently for it to be eleven thirty. Playing cards, eating tamales, making snowmen to pass the time. At eleven thirty, we would be forced out of the house, to go look at Christmas lights. Like clockwork we returned, a minute passed midnight. Promised every year we would not miss him, but every year he had just left. The traps we spent the entire afternoon on were sprung but alluded, the cookies gone, only the cookie we spiked with sleeping pills remained. The stockings were stuffed and beneath the tree presents were sprawled in heaps. As time went on, we tried less and less to catch this ninja like man who delivered toys and every year less and less of us still believed and every year christmas became more of a formality, less of a family tradition. This year christmas left me heartbroken, at least christmas at the house did. There was a shortage of family, no one young enough to still believe in Santa could make it so the gifts were set under the tree as we arrived instead of cleverly hidden until the house was mostly empty. The stockings remained unfilled for the entire night. No plan to capture santa was devised, no pinata hung in the living room, no intense game of snowball tag planned. We all just sat around the table playing card games and eating tamales as the clocked ticked away. Presents were opened, we shuffled off to mass, got drunk, fell asleep. It just was not the same tradition that I look forward to every years as soon as the leaves change. Christmas was not christmas at all this year, it was more of I have to to do this family stuff before I can do what I want. Luckily, christmas has one more shot at redemption, and I am looking forward to see how it does.

Evolution

Its not a deniable thing. It happened and it is continuing to happen. unfortunately, for the human race, we are evolving into less and less complex things. It is still called evolution because evolution does not mean to become more complex, it means to change, adapt, become better suited for an environment. While in general for the majority of the organisms on earth, it means becoming more complex, acquiring new traits, new ways to survive. For humans evolution is losing primitive unnecessary traits not needed to survive in our overly pampered lifestyles. Ideally, adapting to our environment would be a good thing, unfortunately for us the environment we are adapting to is highly unstable, man made, and could be gone in minutes. This is not a good thing. Evolution is good. Correction, evolution in nature is good, it takes a long time and adapts to an environment that changes very gradually, with some exceptions. This society driven evolution is bad, we are adapting to an environment that changes rapidly and is prone to disaster. The worst part about the evolution that the human race is experiencing, is it is making us dependent on technology, dependent on society. The human race is thus experiencing a slide into less and less complexity. We are thinking less, making less on our own, achieving less on our own. We are relying on machines to build for us, we have to grow our own food, we have to use fire to keep us warm. It is a slippery slope, and the majority of the human race do not seem to notice society barreling down it. Just saying

Working on it

I think I have finally come to realize my biggest personality flaw and it is devastating. I am extremely self-centered and selfish. Everything I am against is everything I am. All I ever seem to talk about is myself, if something does not go my way I get disappointed, if someone is not impressed by something I say I get offended. I am spending all this time worrying about my superficial problems, while so many people have problems that are way more problematic. I really need to stop focusing on myself.

sorry

About whining. I am done complaining. I am done with the system, because it just keeps fucking me over. Fuck it, I will figure this out on my own. I have played by the rules doing everything right for ten plus years, for nothing. I am done following the rules and filling out form after form, only to be shot down again and again. Fuck it. I am done with forms. People can not just be filed away. My story does not fit on a form, my value can be put in a standard form, photocopied and distibuted to thousands. There can not be a pre-determined scale for judging a persons worth. There are other factors, so many other factors. If trees were trees because they were green than garbage trucks would be trees, and each fall most trees would disapeer. There is a big picture but the system could care less. Fuck it. I am done.

Why I can not run, a list

1) Family - I am too close with too many people, my biological family, my non biological family. It is not even so much that I would miss them, I would, a lot, but I would feel more guilty knowing they were missing and worrying about me. Its hard to be free when I am weighed down by guilt.
2) Responsibility - Funny it is both my reason to stay and the thing I want to run from. I can not stand being expected to do so many things, but once again I would fill extremely guilty if I abandoned my responsibilities
3) Happiness - I am like moderately happy right now. Like if I took off there is potential to become less than moderately happy, but at the same time, there is potential to find total happiness.
4) Indecision - Every time I convince myself to go, and my adrenaline starts to rush, my rational self talks me out of it. It is like I always find a reason to stay, or I just create one.
5) Ignorance - I am not smart enough to survive on my own with out a circle of support, I do not think. Even if I was I do not want people to view me as a flunky. I want to prove I can become something, before I become nothing.
6) Goals - I want to change things, leave my mark. It can not be done by running from the problems that need to be changed. The moral high ground would be to stay.

Lifes purpose

I figured it out, the key to fulfillment and a happy life. The purpose of life the reason we roam the plant is to find the purpose of life. Its a thinker. Life is about new experiences. So if we are always looking for the purpose, meaning, truth of life, then we are always doing new things. learning, seeing, doing as much as we can. By never finding fulfillment to our ultimate question in some way we are having the best life experience possible. There is a catch, some people can not stand the constant question and replace it with superficial things; "success," money, family, religion. I by no means just bashed family, but some people use their families as a crutch. So if the purpose to life is to find the purpose of life, and everyone knows that the journey is better than the destination, the purpose of life is to just live it, realize it is fleeting and just live it and stop trying to justify life. I probably just contradicted something I said, but my mind is never made up, because it is against life's purpose, because if I made up my mind than I would not be doing new things, thus never getting closer to the impossible, thus not living life to the fullest.

shallow

Money is like the most terrible thing ever. It is really fucking screwing me over right now. Apparently I have too much money for the government to pay for my school at all, but somehow I can not pay for school at all on my own. How can the government assume I can if I so clearly can not. I have a job next semester, but that will barely cover my books. I wish I was poor so much right now. I feel so shallow because of this. It is like I am worried about getting a car that can survive marquette while the simple truth is, in the current, all data points to not being able to afford marquette. Christmas is coming up, unfortantly for me, all I want is money for tuition, but I only want it because I need it. In truth I want half a car and a snowboard and a GPS a new backpack like for hiking snowshoes and car insurance, but when asked I say tuition. I honestly do not want tuition, it is what I need, I guess. Actually what I need, ALL I NEED is a cosigner. If I had a cosigner my troubles would just vanish for four years. I could take my road trip, buy my snowboard and have a stress free break. Then after four years I would have a decent job and I could make payments, I honestly do not care that I will be charged intrest al all, Its worth it in the end. Too bad my dad refuses to even look at a contract for me let alone cosign. Moral of the story: Be poor. Be rich. Dont go to college. Those are your options. Sorry life sucks.

intelligence

Smart is a figure of speech. Dolphins are not smart, at least not completely. Dolphins are very socially intelligent animals. Dolphins can be trained to do simple tricks, that is it. The tricks dolphins do are less complex than the tricks rats can do. So rats are smarter than dolphins in some sense. Dolphins are socially more intelligent but rats are better at tricks and sequencing or tricks. Dolphins have extremely short term memory, compared to that of a gold finch as well. This bird hides over a hundred caches of food each year and succeeds at finding most of them, in chronological order, the first hid is the first found. This crow in the video can make a hook out of a piece wire to retrieve food, not just pick up a hook and use it but make a hook out of a piece of wire. Dolphins have nothing on that. I am not trying to hate on dolphins or anything, I just wish people would understand that all animals, humans included while not necessarily equal are all important and intelligent in their own ways. My ability to remember is dwarfed in comparison to a gold finch. While a crows ability to use tools is dwarfed by a chimp. The point being intelligence is not logical or definable. So every time a person claims intellectual superiority they are just proving their ignorance.

six years ago today

I remeber getting off the bus and seeing my sisters van in the driveway. I was filled with joy, spending the day with her was always a treat. My brother and I ran home full sprint, filled with excitement. We burst into the house and realized something was not right. My sister sat across from my dad, her eyes red and puffy from crying, my dad told us to sit down. I was already crying, but I did not know why. I heard my dad say, "Its your mom, she died last night in her sleep." I stared blankly out the window at the cold snowless ground and then I said, "what," and burst into tears again, before my dad even repeated the words. For the better part of a month after I heard those words, I believed it was a dream, every night I would hope to wake up to in my bed to my mom yelling that I was going to be late for school. At the funeral I was in a haze, hug, tears, story tears, hug, repeat. I never believed she was actully gone untill I saw her ashes catch in the breeze an settle into the indian river, where they would flow to lake michigan. My mom did not belong in a box, she deserved to be free. Everything reminds me of my mom. Nothing about living in Marquette does not remind me of my mom. Everytime I burn inscents, smell petulies, drink diet pepsi, listen to matchbox twenty, hear the world free or bird, see a mom hug her child, see someone get a care package signed love mom, my heart breaks a little bit. It just is not fair at all. Why was she so stupid? How could she overdose when she had five kids who needed her love? Did she not realize how terrible it would be to not have my mom get me ready for prom, watch me graduate, watch me grow up? How selfish it was to OD. I do not care if it was an accident or not. I do not care if she died peacefully. It fucking sucks to not have a mom to tell me she loves me on the phone, put on another coat, and embarass me in front of friends. She was the only person in my family like me. She made me think this way, believe what I believe and than she took off, and left me with thousands of questions and no answers. Everyone I talk-talk to thinks I am fucking crazy and it is all her fault. She left me alone and lost at the age of fourteen. I love her so much and I can not go a day without missing her, but she will never even know who I become, she will never be proud of me, she will never know how much like her I really am. but I will always have to love her and I will always have to miss her, and I will always feel like something is missing as I start to forget her voice and her face fades from my memory. RIP mom 12-11-2003

C for chemistry

The title says it well. I have officially without a doubt just passed my first semester of college. I received a C in chemistry, not a C minus, a C. My multiple choice skills are phenomenal. Also I received a nintey on my bio exam, not only did I pass, but I can work for the biology department now. Good news, definitely, but I know that is not going to last. I have never studied a day in my entire life and I skated through high school with about a 3.797, I said about, but went exact. I realized this semester that its not going to go that way in college. I think I am going to swallow my pride next semester and ask for help. College just keeps getting harder and I am not as smart as I thought I was.

life is a highway?

I was rear ended before I left the parking lot, you think northern students would know to pump their breaks. I went an hour out of the way to avoid a storm only to hit a storm. I ran out of wiper fluid. I lost control in a gas station parking lot. I spent a good 100 miles going 55 on the expressway because I could only see three feet ahead of me. A normally six and a half hour drive ended up taking me ten. Most people would say that today was a shitty day. Truth is, I am home. I made two friends. My car is not totaled just dented. I am alive. Something had my back today. I will never know anything as scary as driving down the expressway blind in a good foot of snow for a hundred miles in total darkness. I will not be this proud of myself for a while. I never knew that many people cared about me. Today was a good day.

tigers can not go to college

When I was younger I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. I would always answer quite confidentially, "a tiger" until I hit about seven years old. I gave up on my dreams at the age of seven? No, I just revised them. At a young age I was determined to become a tiger because they were what captained my interest At seven I was determined to become an optometrist, simply because I had to wear glasses and was around them a lot. From optometrist I moved on to a radio DJ, professional skateboarder, astronaut, president, teacher, lawyer, FBI agent, psychologist, park ranger, adventure guide, biologist, environmentalist, zoologist, bum, and currently I am aiming for field biology/ecology/naturalist. Each different future career came solely from what I was most concerned and fascinated with at the time. I am not sure I will accomplish my current career goal, but it does not really bother me anymore. It does not really mean I am giving up or losing ambition. If I stray away from this path it would simply mean I have changed my mind again. Everyday I learn who I am and everyday I change a little bit, I would be naive not to expect my goals to change. I honestly do not want to be a tiger anymore and could not care less about being the president. If I were to honor all the goals I have ever had I would be blowing way to much money on plastic surgery and full body tattoos. Not accomplishing some of my old goals is not letting myself down, trying to accomplish something I do not care about, that would be letting myself down.

If you read this you will probably hate me

God does not exist or Christians would be Christ like. I have never in my entire life met one single person who believed in god to the point of following the bible, well like a bible. If I knew god existed I would be the most selfless, giving, moral person ever as not to condemn myself to life in some hellish hell. I have never seen anyone with faith enough to convince me to believe and if I did, I and many "Christians " would probably write them off as insane. Rightly so, because if they were treating the bible like a bible not just a suggestion they would seem rather insane. Also the whole beg for forgiveness thing is the biggest joke I have ever heard. A person cannot be forgiven of sins unless at the time the sins were committed, the person did not know they were committing sins. Otherwise it is kind of like taking advantage of Jesus, a person can not consciously commit a sin apologize for it and be reconsidered a saintly person, especially if they ever recommit the sin. That would be like double hell because when someone apologizes that means they wont do something again, if they do it again that means they were lying to God. I know, I know, Jesus died for our sins. I am not sure that means people can do what ever they want and play the Jesus loves me card. I am not saying I do not believe in redemption a person can do something terrible and change, but I am willing to bet that person does not need to redeem themselves weekly in confessional if they our truly changed. I have done bad things and I really believe I have done enough to redeem myself morally. So if there is a god he is a total jerk if he believes words are bigger than actions. I know plenty of people who attend church weekly that are bad influences on me, and I go to mass only when forced to. I am a better person then them and if god does exist (slim chance), that should be enough for him. If you actually hate me because You read this, you are going to hell, because hate is murder and murder is against the ten commandments, well as long as you apologize, I guess.

Escape

I think it is about that time.

The dream

Fade in. Standing in line at some really sketchy club, me and three other non identifiable people, I am guessing they were friends, but they were blurry. We get to the front of the line and walk into an incredibly rundown building, we make our way to the center of the room, where there is an incredibly high tech looking elevator. We get inside and can not figure out how to work it, a good looking guy walks in the elevator and says he knows how to work it but that we wont be able to get in looking like that. Just then I wonder what exactly I was waiting in line for, in this really sketchy part of somewhere. One of the faceless friends asks the guy why it would be so hard to get in. He replies that the blines do not let just anyone into see them play. The blines? Apparently they are the black vines. In my dream I was really bummed, the random stranger guy asked if we wanted his help to get in. We accepted. He then asked us a series of questions. Do you have any piercings? Yes. Take them out. Do you have any tatoos? No. Here take one of my mine. He then proceeded to give me a tatoo in the elevator, I have no idea what it was of. Are you 18? yes. Good. Are you wearing shoes? No, I have extras. I apparently wasnt wearing any shoes. Then he informed thats all he could do to help and the rest was up to me and my blurry friends. All of a sudden I knew how to work the elevator and we made it just in time to see the blines. They were good, they sounded just like the vines, until they started singing folk. Also the were just like shadow blobs on a stage. The guy was no where to be found. End Dream. Moral of the dream. Always wear shoes?

never stop

I do not think I will ever be one of those people who wants to "settle down" and start a family. The very idea of settling down sounds terrible to me. Settling down sounds like the opposite of a happy exciting life, if anything I hope to stay riled up for a long time. to be riled up is to have passion and adventure, settled down is to have monotony and security. I really hope I never have security, I think it would kill my spirit, to always have something to fall back on. What is the point of trying something new if the monotony is so secure. Settling down sounds like pure torture. I have never been one of those people who when looking to the future saw a picket fence and a yard full of dogs and smiling children. When I looked to the future I was always in the middle of the Atlantic, on the top of a mountain, or jumping out of an airplane. Settling down is settling, settling is giving up. I do not have the ability to give up. I am not saying that I never want to start a family, of course I want a family, I just do not ever want to have to settle down to do it. I never want that nice suburban home, I never want to be a "soccer mom," It just is not who I am. I do not give up on my dreams, and I can not ignore my need to explore.

If the world's at large, why should I remain?

I always seem to disagree with society, and when I do not, I really want to. If I had the strength or the guts I would cut all ties with society and just leave, but for some reason I. need it. I am disgusted by it daily, the lies, the deceit, the hate, there is so much hate. The more I live among the human race the more desensitized to voilence and brutality I become, but I can not leave it. Without society I am weak, with society I am blind, or at least I have to seem blind. The thing is society has all this terrible, really really terrible stuff in it, but also it has love and compassion, it has what makes me human. Humans have flaws, humans make up society, society has flaws its inevitable, and no matter how hard I try to be above society, I will always just be human. I am unable to escape this society. I would like to believe the reason I stay is to change something or because I need human interaction, but I am just not to sure anymore. I know the reason I stay is not material but, I think the reason I stay is terror. Society is all I have ever known. How can I possibly be brave enough to leave the only thing I have ever known. I think I am going through some kind of mid-youth crisis. I am beginning to think I just need a break from the real world. I hope I can get over this by taking off for a week and just leaving, just going anywhere else. It is not necessarily leaving society, but leaving the society I am used to. Like I said, I am not brave enough to leave, leave.

Nine numbers and one paper make a person, another paper makes success

A college degree is a piece of paper, set apart from all other pieces of paper by words written on it in some fancy style. This paper symbolizes, this single piece of paper symbolizes four years of effort, four years of blind commitment. Commitment to what is commonly known as higher education, this paper symbolizes education. This piece of paper and this piece of paper alone means that a person is smart. Four years, eight thousand dollars, countless days stuck in the same place and what does it guarantee? Not a job, not financial stability, not fulfillment, not even happiness, No all it guarantees is a single very fancy piece of paper. A piece of paper that somehow proves a person is smart. Is it really that smart to place so much importance in something so superficial. I can not justify giving up four years of my life to a piece of paper. The piece of paper proves nothing, I know I am not smart because of it, I know it does not promise me any kind of future, I know there are plenty of people smarter than I ever will be who will never even try for it, but I have been conditioned to want it. Unfortunately the more time I invest in it and the more things I see other people invest in the less I seem to want it. I am nintey percent positive that I am not strong enough to not follow through with this. Chances are I will earn that piece of paper, I will be proud of that piece of paper, and one day I might even frame that piece of paper. I am certain however I will never define myself by that piece of my paper. It is just a piece of paper, I am so much more than a piece of paper and I will never let a piece of paper influence any decision I make. I will graduate and then maybe I will be myself.

If anything is karma, this is

(I know unheard of, but two today.) Negative people, hang out with negative people, and they just feed off each other. Of course you are going to feel like shit if all you talk about is how shitty your life is. I actually witnessed two people today like arguing over whose life was worse. They were exaggerating on the horrors of their lives. Feeding off the negativity. Never once did they stop and consoul each other, try to cheer each other up, no they just kept going, the cloud looming over them kept growing. Not once did either stop and say, it could be worse, we should be grateful. They are able to attend college, they were wearing clothes, they appeared to be well fed, they both had laptops, one of them had an iphone. Yeah, maybe that does not mean they have perfect lives, or even good lives, but it could be worse. This homeless man use to wander around my street back home and he would play basketball with me and my friends, he was always smiling telling us stories of his son that he was not aloud see. He was always optimistic. He always showed us the treasures that he would find on his dumpster exavations, and we would look on with wonder at the magnificant things. We asked him what he did with them and he told us honestly, he pawned them for food and clothes. He would share with us if he ever found something like a basketball or an armchair that would go nice in a clubhouse in the woods. This man who had nothing would share with us his only means of survival, when we were kids with nice warm beds and dinners to go home to every night. We asked him why he did not have a home? He was not offended, by the question and told us of how he once had a home and made a terrible mistake that cost him his job, his home, his family. What became of him? He eventully found a job at the Mcdonalds up the road and a kind neighbor lent him the basement of his home. The kind homeless man lived there and saved up his money, then he moved into his own apartment and fixed a guestroom for his son, who now visits him reguarly. The man ever greatful of the kindness he recieved continues to pay the neighbor who lent him his basement, even though the neighbor refuses the money. The moral of the story? There are people who have it way worse, like my still friend Mike, but with a little optimism and determination THINGS WILL GET BETTER. Suck it up, stop whining, help people who you can help, and get over it.

Leave the ocean's roar in the turquoise shell?

I can feel it burning inside of me this desire. It wants to do something and it wants to invest one hundred percent. My passion, it is not misguided, I just do not think it has anywhere to go right now. It wants to leave but it can not find a map, so it remains burning at my soul, trying to get out. Subconsciously I think I know there is only one thing worth the passion that is burning at me, I just do not consciously know exactly what that is. My subconscious mind is imprisoning my passion because it must know that consciously I have no idea what to do with it. Maybe it is not the right time for me to know yet, but maybe I am doing something wrong. It is not to say that I am not meant to know, because I already know subconsciously, I just refuse to tell my conscious self, for whatever reason. I do not believe in destiny and nothing happens for a reason, but everything has to belong somewhere. There is no predetermined path, but maybe as we mature we start to map it out in the back of our minds. We take all our values and dreams and we plot out this idealized life path. It is not for certain and is really nothing like a destiny, the path is just our deepest desire. At any rate, what is bothering me is the intensity, that I feel this desire burning. I feel like I am just going to get up and leave one day, because whatever I am doing right now is not working out. I feel like I am just at college because I was always told I had to go, not because it is where I planned my life to take me. It is not to say that I do not enjoy college, I am having a blast, college does not fulfill me though. It is like I chose this, because it made me happy and I just never gave anything else a shot. I went for door one without knowing there ever was a door two.

The need to rationalize

Approximately ninety percent of my blogs are rationalizations, approximately my entire life is a rationalization. Whenever I have a problem I use logic to rationalize a solution. Whenever something is unknown to me or nagging at my brain I WILL come up with a rational solution. At the same time that I find it necessary to rationalize everything, I believe there is no truth in life. The question remains how can I rationalize life, if life holds no truth? Where is the logical place to start if life has no truth to begin with? How can I rationalize something completely irrational. It is impossible, if I were to rationalize life I would have to base the rationalizations off of assumptions, assumptions that hold no truth. Logically speaking, all we know about life is that it happens. We do not know why. We most likely never will know why. Life just happens and people, animals, bacteria just live it, for no rational reason. Sure, we all make up these superficial reasons to be alive, things we "live for," but honestly they mean nothing and are not by any means universal. The only rational explanation for the need to live life is "because." No explanation exists, no explanation ever will exist. We are living because we are living, what we choose to do with life is a complete randomization. We are not guided by a higher power, we are not guided by some force of nation, we are guided only by some irrational craving we hold inside. If we choose to follow it, we should be led to happiness, but if we choose to ignore it, than we are not really alive at all. Either way it does not matter at all. Yeah, I just did that.

The Thoreau

I am highly disgusted how easily my feet found their way to my classes today. It was as if they followed the same footprints they have been following all semester. It was like they were sick of wandering around flint and ready to just go back to the beaten path they were so use to taking. It is the biggest tragedy ever. I want to live an unplanned life, basically I do not want to commit to anything major ever. However, everything thing meaningful in life has a plan, it needs a plan. So if a meaningful life needs a plan and I want a meaningful life then that means I need a plan. The problem with that logic is I despise a plan and I despise having a routine even more. Unfortunately no matter how hard I try to avoid a routine I fall, unknowingly, into one. When I realize it has happened, there is nothing that can be done about it. Luckily right now college gives me the flexibility to escape the routine now and again, unfortunately next semester that will not prove to be as easy, with the extra classes and part time job. College is giving me the freedom I craved for so long, but my life philosophy is forcing me to fill this freedom with structure, my soul screams. My soul is coping however when ever it gets the chance it does something new or makes me pierce my face, not really, I was planning that. Again with the constant plans. The addition of a car should help my soul cope by providing adventures farther than walking or biking distance away from campus.

I hate myself

I have come to realize, recently, that I could never be friends with myself. I would hate the shit out of myself if I ever got the chance. Like really my first impression of myself is poser, haha, I said poser. I am pretty sure I am not though, but if I saw myself I would think so. Then after getting to know myself I would realize myself and I had the same exact interests, so I would either accuse myself of lying to be liked or being a novice at all these so call interests. After this accusation I would see how cocky I am and hate myself even more. Eventully a competition would probably happen in which I accuse myself of cheating. Then I would be passively mean like I do when I do not like people, for a bit I will take it as joke, eventully finding out its actual hate.At that point I will return the favor. That is as far as it will ever get untill I drift away from myself, because I am not agressive enough to beat mtself up. Think god I am no schizo.(Ha you thought this was gonna be so damn emo)

The hometown was my home

I have been gone for about three months. That is not that long, but it is definatly an extended amount of time. For some reason I thought while I was gone everything I left behind froze and waited for me. I thought when I got back home my family and friends would drop everything to spend time with me. Needless to say it did not and they did not. It is not to say that I am getting left behind, or that I am leaving anyone behind, it is just that we are all going in our own directions. If I was not already, I am definitely starting over. I will have to face it, Flint is not my home anymore it is where I grew up, my hometown, I will always love it, but for the time being Marquette is my home. It is probably a good thing, the past needs to be in the past. I will reminisce when I am eighty. If I lose touch with friends than they were never really friends at all. If we keep in touch than it happens to be a special relationship. I never imagined staying ion touch with all my friends forever, but I thought we would last three months at least. It is not to say I have lost them all or anything, but I am kind of bummed by the amount who have already moved on. It is inevitable that people move on and things change and I am going to have to realize that it happens whether I am around to see it or not.

The Uncertainty

It is impossible for me to make up my mind ever. It is like one day I am one hundred percent committed to something and the next I kick myself for even considering it. I am not really sure what it is. I am beginning to think I might have some kind of fear of commitment, but only long term commitments. I can easily promise away every Sunday night for a year for hall gov or two hours a day for soccer practice. I can even commit to attending a four year college, but I can not come up with a legitimate career goal. Every time I do, I pick it apart until it loses all appeal. I would not travel enough, I would travel too much. I will not make enough money, I will make too much money. It does not even matter how random the reason is, I will allow myself nothing to strive for. Planning my life freaks me out. I mean honestly how irrational is planning for life. Thats all I got.

The realization

I am not who I used to be. I still do not know who I really am and who I am just pertending to be. I am sick of this double, triple life stuff.

The best way to live

Live each day like your last, is simply the worst saying ever. The average American would spend their last day in a feverish panic. They would probably have a full-fledged mental breakdown and freak out trying to find god and tying up loose ends. If someone told me that I would die at midnight and I believed them I would burst into tears and than spiral into depression. I would spend the entire day apologizing to everyone I know and try to write a memoir, and at 11:55 or when I could not take the knowledge of my demise anymore I would hurl myself off some giant object in one last attempt to be remembered always. Also, I would be tripping balls the entire time, cause I would be taking so many drugs. I would not wish a single day like that on even my worst enemies, let alone a lifetime. Then people say its just a saying and I say, "What kind of terrible saying is that?" In my opinion everyday should be spent like the very first, but at a persons current age, not as a newborn. Every day we are born again. We take joy in the simplest of objects and strive to see and learn more. We would spend the day exploring our surroundings, testing everything we come in contact with and questioning everything. We would never stop qeustioning. What a world we would live in if no body just accepted things as the norm if we were always open to new experiences. We would never take someones word for something we did not understand, we would find out for ourselves. Everyday would be new and excited, and we would never be slowly killed by routines. One day

The first time I have ever been this sure

Today in biology my prof was being so inspirational, at least to me, that I was writing his full quotes in the margins of my notebook He was lecturing on the definition of the word species, he said the most wildly used definition is "a group of organisms that interbreed and produce viable and fertile offspring." He than went on to list a good twenty examples of why this definition does not always hold water. He than said, "In biology hard and fast rules are not needed, terms describe most but in no way all." He then told us not to obsess over the definitions believed to be true, they should not fascinate us. We should be fascinated at the exceptions to the rules and try and come up with our best explanation for them. He told us though that ultimately whatever new theories come around an organism will always be, "what it is and have the properties that it has." He then went on to say that he knew the lack of being able to truly define anything might bother, even scare some us, but ultimately it should free us. He said if it doesn't, "I hope you are just taking this class as a liberal study." I realized it did not bother me at all but it is in fact the reason I want to be a biologist. All the rules can bend, there is no "standard procedure." Being a biologist is actually about constant learning, not memorizing some information that someone else already learned. The whole goal of a biology is to prove the accepted theories false. In biology we can only disprove or fail to disprove a hypothesis, it is impossible to prove truth. Nothing is ever the answer it is only ever the best possible guess. Biology is not an exact science, and nothing about it will ever suffocate me.

The one true belief

All people are not created equally, but all people have equal value. The things that make us value one life over another are all material. Material things mean nothing in the long run atheists and religious people agree, and what is knowledge really good for in the long run either. All lives are thus worth the same no matter how they are spent. A life is a constant. Gandhi's life was not greater in value than Hitler's, it was just put to better use. That sentence just pissed everyone off. Let me explain further, there was no way anyone could look at baby Gandhi and baby Hitler and decide which one would lead millions of people to a concept of peaceful resistance and which one would lead millions of people to believe that anyone different should be eliminated. Really, when it comes down to it, it might be possible that if we put Hitler in a different situation he could be a highly respected world leader and Gandhi in a different situation could have become the most hated oil tyrant ever, or something. What it comes down to is nature vs nurture. I am a firm believer in nurture. I can think of no values or beliefs that I was born with. Everything I believe in was learned. I have instincts and some people have natural abilities, but that really does have to do with good genes. Bird songs can sound identical among a species thinks to genes, voices sound similar, and vocal cords are arranged differently. Singing can be controlled by genes or learned. A belief in anything can not be passed through genes. I do not believe capitol punishment because my father does. To get back on topic, the point here is a individual is born and it is blank for the most part. As it grows it changes but that makes no difference its life will always have the same value as a totally different individual. Can we look at ants and decided which ones deserve to lift, does it really matter that a certain ant saved another ants life, or that this other ant ate its children. No most people will kill them all. Maybe gods just staring at an ant farm.

The nagging desire

I want to be that person everyone remembers, if they were friends with me or not. When looking back on their life, they will mention my name and knowingly sigh. They will remember what I did, what I said, what I changed, what I stood for. There are three ways to become so timeless. I either have to do something really bad, and be hated for all eternity, do something really good and be revered for all eternity, or I have to luck out and do the right thing, in the right place, at the right time and be small talk for eternity. The first one is defiantly out I do not think I can be that terrible ever. The last one is out, because there will always be those people who think, she was not that awesome she just lucked out. So I am stuck with the hardest path to achieve, and there is no guarantee I will make it. It actually almost guarantees my failure. I guess though I will have to live with the odds being so against me. My only real motivation in life has come from trying to prove people wrong anyway. The problem right now is I see the end, and I am at the beginning but I have no idea how to connect the dots. I do not know what I want to do. I can see many ways to be happy, but none of them help me reach my irrational goal. I really wish that I did not have a desire to inspire people or improve the world, because as much as I want to I do not know how to and I do not want to try and figure it out. I know it is human nature to want to help, but I really hope it is not this intense for everyone. So the desire is always there nagging at me asking if I have thought of anything yet, asking me what I am going to do with my life, asking me to satisfy it. I cant. I just do not know how. I am honestly beginning to think that it is not what I am destined for at all, and it both kills and relieves me. My whole life is a contradiction.

The thing I hate the most

I have always viewed things in a very optimistic light. The glass was always half full, the clouds always lined with silver, and the sun never missing its debut tomorrow. Everyone I met was a good person somewhere deep down, and every person that did a terrible thing felt remorse inside. I was gullible, naive, and ignorant. We all start out as optimistic children, than as life progresses and we realize the glass was empty to begin with, the only things lining the clouds are clouds, and the sun only shows up when it benefits. This sucks but nine times out of ten its true, so we start to ignore the one time when it is not. I cannot believe this is happening to me. I am beginning to become the thing I hate the most. I am the most cynical I have ever been. Now, when I look at people, instead of wondering what their thinking, I start wondering what their ulterior motives are. It is terrible, I am stereotyping the entire human race, I am prejudice against what I am. I try and try to remain optimistic. I look to the future with hope. I try and believe that people have the ability to change. Unfortunately disappointment can be very persuasive especially when it happens over and over again. I hate cynical people, they are close minded people, and they refuse to accept new ideas. At the same time though I hate naive optimistic people, they take everyone at their word, and will follow anyone with a microphone or uniform. When I feel myself slipping farther and farther into cynicism, I crawl my way back up to where the sun always shines and I get hurt. The hurt causes me to sink bank to the safety of cynicism. When I feel like the sun may actually always shine I crawl out again, I get hurt. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat again. Repeat until I die. Then Repeat with who ever I leave behind. This is my dilemma how can I remain optimistic and avoid getting hurt? How can I find the balance between what I wish to be true and what I despise?

The key to charisma

I am shy. True. To those who know me. False. To my friends I am outgoing, almost a leader. True. To those who do not try to know me I tend not to reach out. True. I am bad at making friends. False. People who show a tiny amount of interest in me, get ten fold in return. True. They always return the gesture. False. This is generally the way my life works. True. I will never take the first step. False. It all depends on the situation. True. Wow that was annoying as all hell. Anyway this is what I am saying. I am a generally outgoing person when I am in my element, at a concert, in the wilderness, hiking, with a group of friends, when interaction is forced, or when I have superior knowledge or age. I am not an outgoing person when I am out of my element, doing something I do not understand, when I am younger, when someone is presented as some sort of authority, alone at a party, or when I walk by someone. When I am outgoing two things seem to happen: 1) I gain the trust and respect of whoever I am meeting. 2) I somehow take charge of the situation, lead the conversation and plan for the future. I am glad as I gain knowledge of my current situation it is beginning to happen more and more. I feel more and more like I belong where I live, less new, more local. I am in my element. My element is good. My element is expanding.

The logic of life philosophy

Here is my current dilemma. I can not decide which is a better, "life philosophy." Living responsibly and planning for the future, or living like the future is no guarantee, in the here and now. The general thing people love to say is live like there is no tomorrow. I am pretty sure no one other than the sickly well off even have that ability. I like the whole idea of it, but chances are good that there is going to be a tomorrow. Without a tomorrow is there even a reason for living today. I am pretty sure I will never live like there is no tomorrow, doing so would be rather depressing. I will plan for the future and work for the future, always striving to reach some goal some prize, but I will never neglect the present. I think all that I really need to do now is to continue to look at the future with hope and determination while remembering that the present was once the future I looked to. By doing that I think I will be able to enjoy the present to the fullest and make sure if I live to tomorrow that tomorrow will also be enjoyable. The only thing about living like there is no tomorrow that has merit is not putting stuff off untill tommorow, not because there is no tommorw, but because not putting it off makes for more avalible things to do tomorrow. Moral of the blog: Live like there is plenty of time today, and also a tomorrow.

The casualty of a lost generation

Today I was told by an aging baby boomer that I am a poor casualty of, "The lost generation," and there is little to nothing I can do about it. She said that I, like the other members of my generation, am destined not to succeed to be young, jobless, and broke for all of my life. All this from a cashier at subway. I am at college bettering myself working to "success" doing all that society tells me that I should. It took all I had to not talk back, to be polite. Truth is I felt sorry for her, stuck in a dead end job in to her at least fifties. I do not know why she told me that if she was trying to validate her existence by telling me mine was worthless or if maybe she felt threatened by me or even she just misspoke. I payed for my sub and left. I was already the better person. I thought about it for the rest of the day. In all truth our generation did get the short end of the stick, but our generation is also a lot more forward thinking and way more open to change. So to all the lost casualties of our parents mistakes, keep doing what you love and find fulfilling, because as long as you are not broke and jobless who cares if you are young for the rest of your life. No my generation is not lost, my generation is just taking its time. We do have to pick up the pieces of the generation before us. We realize what is important, doing what makes us happy and if we happen to prove some aging subway employees wrong, while we do what we love so be it. If we don't, who gives a fuck, they will all be dead before they realize they were right.

The random thought

I came to the realization realize that I do not know what I am really good at. I am not sure I am "the best," or close to the best at anything. I am good at playing soccer. I am good at kayaking. I am good at biology. I am good at so many things. I am just not great at anything. Everyone I know is way better at something then I will ever be, but the reverse is not true. I am better at things than them, but really, I can think of people that are better than me at those same things. So I have decided it is either because I need more practice or I haven't found "my thing," yet. I have no musical abilities. I can not dance. I am mediocre at best at photography and writing. I really am not sure if it is a bad thing or not. I am not even really sure I am suppose to do something really good. Maybe I am really good at being average. I will just keep trying new things and doing the stuff I like no matter how bad I am at it.

The The

So I remembered what I forgot. So I was eating in the MP, I was having stir fry with general Tso's sauce and a veggie egg roll, and my friend was eating lucky charms. She said that her cereal tasted funny, but she would feel bad if she didn't eat it. I told her that it would be better if she felt bad for wasting nasty cereal then eating it and getting sick from spoiled milk. I had said that before, I am a hundred percent positive. That has been happening a lot lately. At first I was like these conversations sound so familar because I am meeting new people I tend to tell similar stories when I meet people. Then it started to get creepily specific. For example I went on a hike to a bog with a class of mine and I decided to crawl down the cliff so i could go "walk on water." When I got to the bottom rather quickly, I looked up, and saw a class mate trip and land a little above me. I swear on everything that is worth anything that had happened before. So I looked it up deja vu is the experience of thinking that a new situation had occurred before. I did not want to look up what it meant to have deja vu, or what a theory of what deja vu means is, because I wanted to figure it on me own. I really can not. All I can come up with is I rember a bunch of diffrent memories mashed up into one, that combined is what happened in the present. By the way the title has deja vu.

The blog block

So i had something really interesting to write about all day. I had been thinking it over from all perspectives and I could not wait to grace myself with typing it out. Unfortunately it was wiped from my memory by a ridiculous question. Before hall gov officially began we were just sitting around chatting as usual when someone asked, "What do blind people dream about?" I could think of nothing else, my blog topic was lost. Can they dream of tangible objects? can they see in their minds? Do people really know what anything looks like until they see it? It is said that everything in a dream plays off what we have seen. That does not explain monsters children see, during nightmares. I can make up many make believe objects and organisms in my mind, that to my knowledge I have never seen. Are even these make believe images based of shapes and structures that I have already seen. It is not really an unanswerable question except for at the moment because I do not know any blind people to ask. However, this question made me think deeper and now I wonder if fetuses in late stage have dreams? I do not see why they would not have thoughts late in a pregnancy assuming newborns think, which I believe they do. They must be simple thoughts but I am sure they exists. I just wonder if fetuses know whats going down as they are living in the womb, or if they are freaking out the whole time.

The stuff I learned today

I was at a leadership conference all day, that was mostly a group discussion. The main thing I learned was that we need to listen to each other. Having input is really cool, good leadership quality, but when the input being given has already been given by three other people it is not getting the discussion anywhere. Give input, mention other peoples ideas, build from them, or tear them down, but do not say them over again. People just need to remember that when in a discussion the only way to move the discussion forward is to say something knew. I feel like people who are aspiring to be better student leaders should learn that listening is the first step to good leadership. How can someone lead a group of people if they have no idea where those people want to go. The second thing I learned or somehow knew all along, without realizing it until today, are the best leaders do not necessarily excel in public speaking, they may not even hold a leadership position. The best leaders lead by example, they might not even say a word. They will just do what they believe and as people join them, they will work with them and encourage others to join. The best leader has passion for what they are leading towards. All that is needed after passion and an ability to listen is a desire to change something. I turns out I might just be a leader afterall.

The post thats just a thought

There is always kind of been this thing that happens to me and I am not sure like what It exactly means. People always seem to ask me for advice, or like guidance. Examples a plenty. My first day on campus like three people asked me where different things were located. One year I was on a hiking trip on IR the first time I had ever been there there was an obscured sign that seemed to read "trapl," it actually said trail. Everyone in my group including a counselor asked me what it meant. Its happened way more times. Someone told me I was a natural leader once. I am not so sure thats what it is. I want it to be. I think though maybe I just seem to know what I am doing maybe. I feel like if I were a natural leader I would be a little less shy.

The Bottom

There is no place to go but up, unless of course I had a shovel. I am sure someone will give me one before they help me up. Its not even so much that my life is hurling towards it. Its more that people always told me my hard work would pay off. I worked my ass of in high school to get into a good college, none of that matter because I could not afford any of them. The only one I thought I could is even too expensive for me. I used to believe in the system, somehow I thought it will make sure people get what they have earned. Apparently not everyone is important enough to afford college though. Where the hell is karma. I cant think of a single thing I have ever done that was terrible enough to justify why this is happening right me. I know people have it worse, and I feel for them. I just can not believe that all of my hard work is about to amount to one semester of college. I thought America was the land of opportunity, a place where I can reach my potential. No America is the land of red tape where everyone is just out to benefit themselves and screw everyone else. I am sick of getting denied. I am not poor enough to get help but I am not wealthy enough to afford more than a semester. I just wish shit would work out for me once in a while. Man, if I ever obtain some level of success or influence shit is going to change. That was my rant, I apologize, I hate them too

The facade slowly crumbles, the vandalism is gone

People are unique. Not obviously unique, but they are defiantly unique. That is why I love people. Unfortunately it is defiantly a love-hate relationship because a lot of people choose to oppress their uniqueness as much as possible and just kind of fall into the background. The world would be much more open and a lot less violent, I think, if people were willing to show who the really are. How can oppress the uniqueness of a group if we realize how uniquely strange we really are. In high school I think I was guilty of oppressing parts of me I thought would not be wildly accepted. College has shown me the light, I will never change who I am to fit in again unless I want to change who I am. I am forever me and I will not need someone elses approval from now on. I will still seek, I will always want to be liked, but I will be liked for exactly who I am. Not just, the watered down version. If everyone else would just follow this trend and let their selves be free, the world would be that much more intresting. Lets just drop the act people seriously, Im sick of it.

The theory of evolution

My biology professor was lecturing about evolution today, the first thing he said was, "evolution without it nothing in biology makes sense." He went on to explain that every piece of biological data we now have supports evolution, without evolution it would be invalid. Then a student rose his hand and asked, "Isn't evolution just a theory?" My biology professor replied with something along the lines of everything we now know as fact is really just a theory, and went into to saying that no matter how much evidence science or history puts behind something, someone who refuses to believe it will not believe. He wasn't rude about it at all however he explained that there is a debate in the social world about evolution but in the scientific world there is not debate of weather or not evolution occurred anymore. He even went as far as to set up a lecture earlier this evening to talk more about the sociological debate of evolution. I really wish I was able to go, because I know it would have of been very interesting. This is the thing I love about college is how bluntly honest professors can be, I remember in junior high it being a big deal trying to teach evolution with out stepping on feelings.

The allusion is made by the perspective

The reason we do not appreciate our lives is perspective. From our view our live is average, boring, and unexcited. Overtime we lose interest in most things. As a child we would wait and wait and wait to get that brand new car for Christmas, by the end of the week, we had forgotten all about it. We will always envy what we do not have, everything everyone else has is automatically more exciting than something we own. In our eyes our individual lives are boring and average compared to the next. It is so because we are so used to living this way. What we must realize that the people we may envy probably have the same view as us with their lives being boring and ultimately average to them. We get Chinese symbols tattooed on our skin because of how exotic an unknown they are. I have seen first hand the opposite being true just recently. It is what really got me thinking about how we view different things. Also when dealing with self pity perspective could really help to, for lack of a better phrase, put things into perspective.

The journey

So I recently heard a professor say in a lecture, "that with every step forward we take the farther our destination seems." My initial thought was that makes no sense the more I move forward the closer my destination becomes. It is like a law of physics. Then I caught the word seems. It is true when I find the ambition to begin a journey metaphorically or literally it is not till i begin that i realize how much work I have ahead of me. The more time i invest in this journey or task, the more I realize how much time it is actually going to require of me. Then the final stretch, where the destination is clearly visible always seems to take the longest time. I am tired, and really ready for my work to pay off. That moment when that destination is always the beginning of some other kind of journey. The moment when the journey ends, so does life. Conclusion? The journey metaphorically or literally is ultimately life. The majority of time is spent working towards the destination or goal. Time spent at the destination is usually minute or in comparison to the journey or it is a journey of its own. Enjoy the time spent getting to where you want to be, because when you get there you will miss the journey. (all my blogs are shitty metaphors now it seems)

The alcohol effect

I wish people would put some logical thought into the things they plan to say before they say them. Not just thinking before you speak, but understanding the ramifications of what you are planning on saying. I do not know how many good people sound like total bigots, because they do not understand what they are saying. How many bigots, for that matter, who have said some truly frightening and possibly illegal things. When politely corrected, they defend tooth and nail what they had just said, even if they realize they were mistaken or overly harsh. What is worse though is when people actually believe the bullshit they spew from their mouths. they then become very defensive and disturbing. My view on these people is to give up. Why try to convince someone to have an open mind, if they are too egocentric to look at something differently. They are always right, everyone else is always wrong, that is that. I have also noticed that alcohol elevates this behavior extremely.

The Aim conversation = inspiration

Sick rhyme, in the title. Today I realized that I just want to be happy. That I just want to go with the flow, and let life take me where it wants too. There is always some hitch in the plan though. I know I will not be happy just doing something I love, because I will not be happy unless I make my family proud. I also will not be happy just doing something to make them proud, doing something I love. No, I can not be happy unless I am making a difference in a large number of lives. So it is not just a matter of doing what I love anymore. The flow might just lead me to a waterfall, and somehow i need to avoid the bottom. I just do not know how exactly how to avoid it. Here is what I came up with so far. When I reach the edge, maybe I will need to get out of the river and go in a different direction. Like get out of the kayak and hike east instead of flow south. So I would not be going backwards, but a different direction completely. Some where I have not gone yet, but would not be able to get to with out first heading south. Either way I would be doing something I love and getting somewhere, new. That is my new outlook on life. Wander around productively, learning and seeing along the way, until someplace looks like a good destination. God I love shitty metaphors. I hope this makes sense. Actually I don't.

The fallout

I do not have the support system I had back home. I dont have people I can trust with my emotions. I have friends, people to hang out with, people to talk to. I just dont have those people I can open up fully with yet. Which is fine I excpect finding those people to take more than just a few weeks. What bothers me is that I am losing touch with the few people I had that relationship with. Some of the people I cared about more than anything, I havent been able to talk to in weeks. It is starting to get to me. I was one hundred percent ready to lose touch with a lot of the people I once knew. I just can not take some of the only people I trust slipping away from me. Its really starting to mess with me.

The truth

This is getting kind of old.

The free t-shirt

Today was make a difference day at Northern. I learned that people are more inclined to volunteer if it involves a free t shirt. No one is selfless. No matter what someone does they do it for themselves. Some how some way they benefit. I volunteer because it makes me feel less guilty. I truly enjoy helping people. I volunteer because it gives me joy. I get joy. People give their lives and in return they receive honor. I can think of no scenario where a person can do something selflessly. Someone once said organ donation is selfless but even that gives us a righteous feeling. When I got my drivers license, I said, "I would like to be an organ donor," the lady at SOS said, "good for you." It made me feel good. Selflessness was lost. I wish I could come up with one scenario that is truly selfless. It is impossible. I feel like if a conscious decision is made that decision can not be selfless.

The gift of inspiration

There are so many people who have inspired me to be who I want to be. I wish I could thank every single person who has shown me a better way to do something or different way of looking at something. Unfortunately, there are so many people who have opened my eyes, it would be impossible. A lot of them probably do not even know the impact they have had on me. So instead of thanking them, I want to prove it was worth it by inspiring as many people as I can. I have yet to become inspirational, but I feel as I am heading in the right direction. As long as there is always someone there to continue inspiring me, I know that one day I will inspire someone else.

The coincidental epiphany

Today someone told me it was a beautiful day. My reaction was "not really," because it was cold and rainy outside. They said, "every day is beautiful," as they walked away. My first reaction was he is in a cult, but I could not stop thinking about it for the rest of the day. I have never heard something so mind blowing. He was so right every day is beautiful, I cant believe I did not realize it. Just the fact that we our alive today is beautiful. It should be our duty to enjoy it. It has nothing to do with weather at all, everyday is beautiful, everyday is what you make it. I know that this is extremely cliche. I know this whole blog entry is extremely cliche. I totally would not of blogged at all if it was not for my iPod playing, "Beautiful Day," by U2 right before I got up to go to bed. I took it as a sign from coincidence to post this blog. Everyday can be beautiful, It is not up to the weather at all.

The "sounded better in my head" blog

It is funny the things that link us to our past. I never really think about things that happened to me when I first started preschool, until I was reminded of the school I went to. There is a set of stairs in the university center that absolutely reeks of that run down little school. Whenever I climb those stairs memories flood back of chicken pox, nap time, the bat in the chapel, and the crazy rules we had to follow. Eating a symphony bar reminds me of when I used to live in a rundown trailer park. I remember the trap in the living room floor, it was a hole invisible to the naked eye, the exact size of foot but the carpet remained, we would always catch our foot in it a trip. The snow days we spent reading books or just laying around because we did not have a TV back then. We called them lazy days. Matchbox twenty reminds me of my mom and summers on the beach spent blasting mad season. "Wagon wheel" reminds me of my family during the summer and at Christmas. The sound of waves or loons remind me of waking up at summer camp. Pudding reminds me of my old dog Mikey and her face after we fed it to her. These random things have the most minute connection to what I am forced to think of when I hear see or taste them, but that is all I want to think about. Now whenever I am in the university I go out of my way to use those stairs. I like thinking of my past because it is what made me me.

The (non)spotless mind

I think a lot. I have a lot of great thoughts. Unfortunately I am always thinking. I always have so much on my mind. Whether it is something I am trying to remember or something I am trying to figure out. Something is always there. So when I need to think about something it has to compete with all these other unfinished thoughts. I wish I could simply sit down and finishing thinking all these thoughts, but it is not that simple. The questions and problems that loom in my mind never seem to leave, no matter how much I think about them. No matter how many times I write them down or talk about them. They are always there. I do not even want to forget them. I wish I did. They are like those unanswerable questions. I know I can not answer them, because it is impossible, but I also know it is impossible for me to stop trying. I like the questions most of the time, though, they make me feel intelligent, I do not think that is the word I am looking for. To bad I never think of questions I can answer.

The blog that sounds familiar.

More and More I am starting to doubt the validity of "working now and playing later." I have heard that I am in the prime of my life. Should I not be playing now. I do not want to work til I am eighty and as soon as I can do whatever I will not be able to do anything. I hate being forced into a schedule, why is fourteen years of learning not enough. Why am i not aloud to decide what I need to succeed. What happened to learning by doing. I am sick and tired of perparing for my life. How old will I be when I am finally done perparing. How much useless shit will I have to learn. I just want to live now. I can only do so much on the weekends and after class. There is so much I want to do and see. I know i have to do this if I want anyone to ever take me seriously. Do not get me wrong I love college. I love NMU. Theres just so much that I love more. I cannot wait to be educated enough to make my mark. Until then I guess Carpe diem.

The knowledge of knowledge

While doing my the vocabulary in my homework today I came across the word Meta-cognition. The defintion is simply, knowing about kowing. Natrually I was intrigued and also slightly confused. I am pretty sure not to many people have this ability. People never seem to be able to admit when their wrong, they just believe they are always right. Yet at the same time there is no way to know if what a peson knows in the truth. People have always "known" things. We knew the world was flat. We knew that cocaine was good for you. Somehow we dont believe these things to be true. We can not possibly "know" anything for sure. So we can not even know about knowing. I thought it was kind of trippy. It had me thinking for a while.

The blame game

Blame is a loaded gun. When any huge tragedy is sustained, the question is never, "How can we make this right?" or "Did we deserve this?' No, it is always the same question, "Whose to blame and how can we punish them the best?" We can never get over a tragedy unless we have someone to blame. Hurricane Katrina a completely natural disaster, yet we still needed to find someone to blame, the government, the national guard, it does not matter unless it is someones fault. Why can we not take the energy we put in blaming into prevention or recovery? Blame is a terrible cycle we blame someone for something and punish them, they blame us for their punishment and we punish them, we view their punishment as unjust and punish them? Does this not sound a lot like the bickering we would do on the playground as children? Have we not progressed past childhood? I mean honestly at least children make amends and go pack to being friends eventually. Fighting can never be justified. Fighting made it possible for you to have this opinion... blah blah blah. True, this is a valid point, but let us examine why we fought. We fought because someone else wanted to fight us, we entertained this fight. So if they never needed to fight us we would have never fought them. We blamed them for starting it, thus we justified ourselves fighting back. You see, I am not bashing America, I am bashing the entire human race we are all at fault. "At fault," I just blamed the human race. We our all flawed we can not survive without blaming.

The world on my shoulders?

As a member of the youth of the nation, I apologize. I have not lived up to what you expect me to be. I can not fix the mistakes our nation and world has made. I know i am suppose to be a leader of tomorrow but all the pressure of tomorrow is ruining my today. We as a combined people of America are in quite a fix. Our world seems to be physically deteriorating before our eyes and everything we once knew is starting to disappear. We are in a state of economic turmoil. The rest of the world does not like America as country too much but in their times of need they still turn to us for an answer. In the past people my age have always fought for what is/was right. They have always found the answers. I am not so sure we as "a youth" have the passion for any one cause to push for the same change, search for the answers. I know it is not but it feels like the world has been placed on my shoulders more and more everyday and I do not know where to put it. Everyday theres another speaker at my college telling me to stand up for what I believe in. I am not as sure as I used to be what that is. I wish I knew. I am trying to find out, but everyday it seems like the things I was so passionate about were one sided. I want to find the answers. I just do not know where or how. I just hope I will or someone will before its to late.

The Fortune

Today I grabbed a fortune cookie as I walked out of my universities main dining hall. I cracked it open as I climbed the stairs to my room. I never really excpect to believe the fortune inside. Today, however, the fortune I got is something I really want to be true. I just do not think it is. The tiny paper with the five random "lucky numbers" and a phrase aimed at helping me to learn the complex language of chinese on one side said on the oppisite side, "Your sense of humor allows you to glide through these difficult times." I know I have a sense of humor and I now im having some tough times. Mentally im confused, really confused. And fiscally I do not know how I am going to pay for college. I just do not think that these problems are just things I can laugh off. I dont think it is that simple to get over my first finacial crisis or the moderate mental breakdown that is starting to consume me. So im really hoping this chinese wisdom is all it is cracked up to be and I will be able to laugh these problems off.

The timbers

Some nights it was freezing, other nights the heat was so intense, I was inspired to take a late night swim. Some nights were spent on a squeaky cot others were spent on the hard ground. I was usually eaten alive in my sleep. Yet it was the best place I was ever aloud to sleep. As I lay in my cozy bed now, I miss those nights I laid buried in my sleeping bag avoiding mosquitoes, half freezing, staring at the stars. The long nights spent hearing the life stories of new friends, sharing our dreams and aspirations. Feeling like I could trust seven other people, I had only know for a couple of weeks with my life. I spent days waking up to the sound of the loons on the lake and made hot cocoa over a smokey fire made of soaking wet wood, Filtering water from the middle of a smelly slimy bog. I rememberThe feelings of ectasy felt as I stood on top the world staring over a sea of birch to the mighty lake that was out final destination. Then racing to the bottom of the mountain only to climb another one in pure joy. Than once I reached my temorary home for the night I swam in a water fall, only to sit around a campfire pouring salt on my leeches as the others did the same. As I reached the end of my journey I was consumed with feelings of accomplishments and at the same time sorrow. The sorrow came from leaving the wilderness behind but also the knowledge that I would soon need to leave these people behind. Not even just thoses seven but all the people at the wonderful place, we all shared the same passion for the outdoors the same lust for adventure. This summer I can not wait to return to lead the next generation of youth to a love and respect for the wilderness. I can only hope I can help them see what I saw in the wilderness so many years ago. I hope they will run for the treeline or the shore whenever they get the chance. I can not wait to finally be the person who inspired me to be so many of the things I am today.

The same thing, i hope

Success sounds terrible. How can it even be measured. Do we count all the money someone has, because I am already out of the running. Is it accomplished by having a happy and healthy family, because I am not sure i want that either. Success cannot be something that has set unit of measurement, because it would be impossible for so many people with so many different ways of life to have achieved it. I conclude success must be impossible because is there not always someone more successful? The elusive perfect life of the Jones. We are forced to compare ourselves to the super rich and super happy and feel sorry for ourselves. We wish we could have that amount of success, but at the same time people in poverty think that having a minimum wage job is a success. That cannot be success either. No one is "rich in love," to the point where money does not matter. Money will always matter, it rules our lives. We need it. We need to need it, because if we did not what would we work for? Happiness? How can we be happy if the Jones are so successful and rich? Maybe the only way to find success is to stop looking for it, maybe we all just need to do what makes us happy. Saying we need to forget about money is not an option. I cannot be happy without money, because I cannot survive without money. I have come to the realization that I may never truly be "happy and successful," because I will always need money to travel, to explore, to hike, to read, to learn, to survive. I have realized that I can find a way to do what I want, I just have to be willing to work for it now. I do not know if I am, but i am going to try and work for it anyway. I just hope that I can handle it. Then when I am doing exclusively what I love, work and happiness will be the same thing. They have to be or I am just working for disappointment.

The depth or lack there of

I am shallow. Everyone is shallow. people that claim their not shallow, well, they are the shallowest. Its not just about appearance and it does not even have involve relationships or people. Shallowness is marked by those people who view the word as dealing with the attraction between two people. The word shallow has nothing to do with looks. Shallow means to lack depth. It has nothing to do with physical attraction. It has nothing to do with attraction. Its the depth of a persons intelligence of their emotions. The reason its used to describe someone who dates only "attractive" people is because we have stereotyped all attractive people to be shallow. That stereotyping in itself is shallow. People who claim they are not shallow are shallow for thinking that they can be above being shallow. Human minds can only get so deep, and its not that deep at all. There are so many things the human mind will never be able to comprehend. Imagine knowledge as the ocean. Human comprehension will never reach the botttom, we will think we have but we will never make it off the drop off. I mean we use metaphors to explain stuff still.

The problem

College hasn't been what i had hoped it to be yet. I haven't made that friend who is a mirror image of me. I have yet to meet that person that spends their free time as i do, who listens to the random blend of music that keeps me sane studying, who would be willing to drop anything to sleep under the stars, who is always up for random activities. I am not discouraged yet though because I haven't really put myself out there enough. College is also lacking the adventure i craved. I am so limited by the lack of a car, i dont know why i though i wouldnt need one. I really havent done any major hiking and im running out of places to bike to. Marquette has no lack of natrual beauty, but i want more. My feet are itching, I fear a routine forming. I want to get up to copper harbor. I want to head over to pardise when the falls freeze. I definatlly wouldnt mind heading to the porkies or seney. I am just so limited by lack of mobility right now. It's time for a vehicle. It's time for an adventure.

The ramble about music

So today I sat down and just listened to music for the first time in a long time. I haven't realized how emotional listening to good music can be. I am not talking about classical music. That is just good sound. I am talking about a combination of good sound and good lyrics. Not catchy lyrics necessarily but lyrics that are deer, that tell a story. I found myself closing my eyes and seeing the lyrics, understanding the song. I dont claim to have an ear for music or even an understanding of music. I just know that when i hear a song and feel a song at the same time, it is good music. Whats wierd is I was listening to a lot of folk, then hang by matchbox twenty came on, i felt the same thing. My love for matchbox twenty was renewed to say the least. I spent the better part of a couple of hours listining to every matchbox twenty song I could think of. It made me miss being a kid. I used to love matchbox twenty as a kid. Wow that was a bit of a rambiling entry.

The ideas

So I have good ideas. I am constantly thinking about some many things, all of which make perfect sense in my mind. The problem I have is conveying those ideas whether verbally or in print, they just never sound as profound or intelligent as they did in my head. I have noticed this more and more as I attempt to keep a blog. The idea I want to blog about always sounds really good in my head. Even as I am typing it, it sounds good. Then I read it and realize what i just typed either makes no sense or just sounds terrible. All the thought i put into it gets lost in translation. What I end up with always seems to be senseless babbling. I guess this entry serves as another prime example of that.

The problem with college

I have these mixed feelings about college now. I am beginning to hate the class aspect of college more and more and like they whole beginning g in college part more and more. Its not that i don't like learning or anything, I love to learn. I don't even hate all of my classes. I really only hate one, the others i just don't see a point to. The only class I enjoy having is Biology, its the only subject I care about. I don't understand why if I want to major in Biology, I have to take a few Chemistry classes, physics, and health. It seems like a waste of time. I would much rather focus my time and energy on something I actually care about and have passion for. Its not like my Chemistry class inspires me I am just trying to scrape by to get a passing grade. I just can not wait until I get all the prerequsites done with.

The break from reality

Today i took a nice bike ride along the shore of lake superior. It was a little chilly today so i had no trouble finding my own little place on the beach where i could sit and think. I was amazed at the emptiness of the once crowed beach. I felt a sense of accomplishment, because for the last couple of days i was really looking for a chance to go on a bike ride, but the rain deterred me. It was also clear to me that many people were deterred by the chill today, that i so blindly ignored. After my ride, I laid on the beach the waves still big from the storms a few days prior. Instead of thinking as I had planned i ended up just clearing my mind and listening to the waves, watching the clouds, and relaxing. I was nice to forget about the pressure of school and paying for school for a little while. Until i realized the clouds once white and fluffy had become a dark gray. I decided it was time to leave the relaxtion and bike my way back down the path and up the hill to responsibilities

The Televison

I do not understand what is appealing about watching TV. The whole concept is a little screwed up. We laze on our sofas in sweatpants and t-shirts, watching other people enjoy themselves, weather real or not. Then we somehow form these sick connections to made up people. Their sorrow becomes our sorrow. We share their joy, their feelings of accomplishment. We share their joy. We take this TV family and live with them. We are content in our TV world. While our real life responsibilities waste away. We have a million chances to experience our own joys, sorrows, accomplishments, and yet somehow we push them all aside an hour a night to watch other people live. The most disturbing part is some times I catch myself watching people on TV watch people on TV. I comfort myself with the fact that aside from a few shows to which I am addicted, I mostly just watch the discovery channel or national geographic. In these show people are exploring new things adventuring to exotic places. I am learning. I cant possibly feel guilty for watching this. Until I realized that I should be there first hand discovering new places, climbing mountains, living my life, learning, and growing Maybe these things are not possible for me now, but if I would take less time watching TV and more time tending to my responsibilities and trying to accomplish my goals they could happen for me very soon. So while I am not sure I could swear of TV entirely. I am promising myself that I will never again watch TV if something better or more exciting is going on

The confession

Somehow I thought this wouldn't happen, I thought it could avoid it. I am totally starting to miss home. I miss last minute movies and bonfires. I miss being able to anything with anyone on a moments notice. Even though i only had my license for like a week, I really miss driving to see people. But more than that I miss those few people that i held close enough to have a real conversation with. Right now in college I dont really trust anyone enough to have a deep conversation with, so im constantly just telling people stories or making small talk. It just all seems so fake, but I really just cant start a conversation with my highly oppinonated views on the world and excpect people to reply. Im just hoping overtime I will have someone to talk about these things with. Untill then I still miss home.

The reason

Every time I see a college student over the age 0f 40 I get extremely depressed. It is not because I feel they have made a mistake or because I do not approve of what they are doing. I believe it is never to late to go to college. The depression comes from one very important college student I knew. Her curiosity unending, her reasons for attending completely selfless. She went to college not just to better herself, not just to better the lives of her children, but to better as many young lives as she could. She had a passion for children and hoped to help those children most in need of a mothers love. She was in her third year of college at the age of 44 studying to become a teacher for students generally viewed as "menaces to society." Tragically that would be as far she would get in her higher education. On the night of December 11, 2003 she fell asleep for the last time. She has not died though, not in my eyes, I am not quite sure there is a heaven but if such a place exists she defiantly made it in. More importantly, then her place in heaven, was that her determination and her need to help others lives on. I am not 44 and i do not have a passion for kids, but I want to devote my life as selflessly as possible in her memory. I know my motives will never be as selfless as hers, but i will try. She is the reason I am here, the day she enrolled in College I knew I wanted nothing more. The day she died I promised her and myself I would. The day I enrolled I knew she was proud. She wanted nothing more, after all, then for her children to live happy lives. RIP mom

The ice breaker

So I told myself I would never blog. I put it off for so long because I felt as though blogging is just virtual whining to complete strangers. A way to vent and ramble to no one in particular. It could be more. I hope it will be a way to help me understand myself. Not just to whine, but to philosophize without a degree. This is my attempt to share my deepest thoughts with the world. Or pass of shallow thoughts off as deep ones to the one person that somehow got here during a freak Google accident. I don't have a purpose for this blog, i am not ending world hunger, or blogging for a cause. I probably wont even update this after the first month. I was rambling pointlessly just as I said i would. Anyway I am in college and this is my blog. Heres to enforcing the cliche