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.