About me...

It's almost 2 am, and I know I should sleep, but I've been so on edge lately that it is giving me weird dreams. It's hard to say precisely what it is that is bothering me. It is a little of everything I suppose... work, family, the living, the nearness of some to death, the inevitable drift of friends, school (or lack there of), wedding stuff, direction....

I suppose what bothers me the most is my inability to relate to people lately. Everything just seems so serious for everyone right now, but only the usual actions will be taken so they just want to talk about it. *sigh* I almost wish I could still do that. I lost the ability to freak out about things without doing something almost 7 years ago. Now I just regress into being totally mellow, even if the situation is terrible, if I even start to believe that I can't do anything about it. (I think it is a security measure that my mind developed out of necessity.) But anywho, enough of that...

So, basically my feeling of not being able to relate to people has prompted me to want to tell more about myself, since I don't really talk about my personal stuff much unless I'm asking for advice. So here are a few facts that few, if any of you know about me. Enjoy! :)

• I love hugs, but always worry that somebody is about to leave when I get one, on some level anyway.
• My first cd ever was Jimmy Buffett's Banana Wind. My mom ended out kidnapping it, but I still reclaim it whenever I need a pick-me-up. Track 3 is my favorite.
• I hate answering machines!!! Especially the preset ones.
• I don't think school is as important as learning... I just wish there was a way to get credit for what I do that is anti-curriculum. (Is the college from Accepted still taking students?)
• I have been to 35+ countries.
• For years my number one rule of dating was don't say yes to guys who give off bad vibes. Number 2? If he can't ask me in person, then the answer is no.
• I sometimes worry that I am actually totally loopy, and everyone is just being nice to me because they feel bad for me. It would explain a lot.
• My dyslexic tendencies make my reading comprehension higher because I have to really focus on what I'm reading otherwise it won't make any sense. Because of this I will probably never be able to speed read.
• I made a 89 in every math class I took from 7-12 grade. (It would have been a 86 in one of those, but I ended out having to take the final because I missed too many days.)
• If we have been friends for anywhere over 2 years, I have probably wanted to beat you down anime style at some point. At this point, you probably saw me rub my forehead and ask a follow-up question to whatever you just said.
• I do not yell when I get mad. My voice gets level, and I ask you all the questions that I know you don't want to consider while staring you down because I'm not going to let you get away with a lie much less a half-truth this time, and everybody has their tells.
• I hate yelling. If you yell, I won't listen.
• I am secretly a fat kid. I just have a really good metabolism.
• I keep a running tally of which acne products people recommend that I use. The tally so far this year runs: Proactiv 6, Lemon Juice 3, Tooth paste 2, Noxema 1, Drugs from the Derm. 3. I'm presently using Neutrogena and Aveda. I have tried all the suggestions at some point or another. None worked.
• I don't have a favorite song, but Hands by Jewel is definitely in my top 5.
• And finally last, but not least: I like to drink hot coffee because it makes me think of all the times I've sat with friends and family drinking coffee and just chilling. It's really more of a comfort thing then a desire for energy. (Actually, it kinda mellows me out anyway so...)

So, yeah... lots of stuff about me. Probably not much of it too interesting, but I thought I'd share. So, anything you want to share?

What am I doing?

So, for all my talk about how I'm not at Berry this semester, I ended out deciding to make a visit on the first day of classes.  It was nice to see everybody again, even if half the people I saw thought I was still at Berry.  Ha ha.

In a way, I felt almost guilty knowing that I was there actually having fun while everybody else hurried to go to class, bought the overpriced books and came to the startling realization that their "fun class" had a 12 page syllabus.  I've been there, got the t-shirt, won't be going back.  

The unanimous questions among friends seem to be: Where have I been going this summer? And where am I going in the future?  

Big questions, and what can I say?  This summer I updated my blog about half as much as I did during the school year, but I still feel good about those posts that I did make.  I got a job with zero prestige, but I'll be making more this year then I was previously figuring on making with a degree.  (Money isn't the only consideration on the job though, presently the job is funding my artistic pursuits, and the funding is always low for such things.)  Besides that I've basically cooked a little and tried to catch-up with friends whenever possible.

So basically, I've been doing what I was trying to get away to do: I got away from the stresses of school for a while and sat down and asked myself some important questions.  What have I found?  Basically what I already knew more or less on some level anyway.  What I want to do with my life is make something beautiful that will change the world in a way that will help people to be better people.   Now, I just have to narrow that down from Milky Way sized to, oh I dunno, the size of Jupiter. 

I've been trying to figure out a direction, and while I still don't know where I'm going, I'm trying to do the next best thing and go with the decisions that feel right.  I have made some pretty good intuitive decisions in the past, and in the face of the one large generalization that I have about what I want to do with my life, intuition seems best.

So, what are my plans?  Short term, I'll continue to write, paint, cook, plan the wedding and get together with friends as often as possible.  Long term, I'll... do something that I can be proud of.  I just hope that I can meet my own high expectations of myself.  I am my own harshest critic and my own biggest fan.  As such, I refuse to do anything less then incredible with this short time that I have on this little blue, green planet.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world."  -Mahatma Gandhi

Why I'm not going back to Berry this semester

"You really need to think about going back to school soon," my uncle told me in his most serious voice today after lunch.  Funny, I don't think anyone realizes just how much they're asking when they suggest that I return to school.

Flash back to spring:  I'm packing up all my stuff in the dorm.  I run across a second doctor's prescription for anti-depressants.  It had never been filled and never would be.  I through it in the trash with a slight flash of a grin at what the school shrink would think if he knew what I did with all his prescriptions.

Things were going downhill fast at school.  I kept falling asleep in class as professors droned on about the same s*** that was taught in high school, and when I didn't fall asleep I just zoned out for the whole class time.  It wasn't even that I didn't care so much as I couldn't seem to find a reason to care about the constant review.

I wanted to do something, create something and see things, meet people, all that jazz.  I still do.  That is why, the night after I went swimming in the Ford fountains at 3 am, I decided that I was leaving college and wasn't coming back unless somebody gave me a damn good reason why college counts for then a piece of paper saying that you went to class, did the reading and managed not to sleep through the final.

3 months later I don't know what to do.  I have painted a few things, cooked a little, and even worked on my drawing skills, but nothing major has been accomplished.  I have simply satisfied the the minimum requirements for not getting kicked out of the house.  I am still looking for direction, but in the very least I know where I'm not going.  I am not going to endure another 2 years of mind numbing torture for a piece of paper.  

There is a better way, and I will find it.

That which you call your soul or spirit is your consciousness, and that which you call 'free will' is your mind's freedom to think or not, the only will you have, your only freedom, the choice that controls all the choices you make and determines your life and your character. 

-Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

What do you do with a BA in English... or Communication for that matter?

First off, props to Avenue Q.  It has some great songs. 

Secondly, I bare news.  I have decided to stop putting off the inevitable and go try to do something with my life and my talents.  (Limited though they are.)  So, I guess I may never know what one does with a B.A. because I'm opting out of the process in favor of doing something that I love.  Once I actually figure out a plausible way to make money from sketching, writing and acting as an unofficial tour guide...

The best part of the whole thing is the role reversal though.  For the last year or more I've been asking myself what the **** I was doing in a hyper structured system while the family told me how wonderful it was that I had submitted myself to that system.  Now the family is asking me what on earth I'm thinking to leave the well paved path, but I'm practically (and sometimes literally) jumping for joy to be able to move in the direction of my dreams.  

It's not much but it's a start.  And as my fiancee reminded me as I pulled out of Berry's parking lot, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." (Lao Tzo)  This is my first step.  I'm scared to death, and excited beyond reason.  This is going to be one hell of a journey.

What if.

What if I'm not meant to follow the "normal" path

What if I go another way

What if for once I get brave

What if I find a new game to play

What if it doesn't matter

If your right and I am wrong

What if it is time to move on

And write my own life's song

What if I succeed 

What if I fail

What if....

"Sometimes I worry about being a success in a mediocre world." -Lily Tomlin

My life

I'm still trying to find a way out of this box I'm stuck in, and ran into an article in an old issue of Time on the subject.  Here is what it said:

So what do we learn from all this? Quit school? Go back to school? Walk away from our comfy, high-paying job? Run away to a Caribbean island? Bronson's subjects try all these solutions and more, but he has the good grace to spare us easy answers. The fact is, we already know from self-help gurus what to do. Follow your dreams. Never give up. Believe in yourself. The answers to the ultimate question are often cliches, and that doesn't mean they're wrong — they're just not very helpful. What's helpful is seeing that other people are trying too, even if they're failing.

Bronson is a fan of failure. "Failure's hard," he writes, "but success is far more dangerous. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever." Bronson believes, and his stories prove, that failure is how you eliminate the wrong turns on the way to the right one.  -Hint: It's Not Plastics, by Lev Grossman, Time

But, this still leaves me asking what are my dreams?  Am I strong enough to still believe in myself when I have failed so many times before?

Rut

I've been very conflicted about where I'm going lately.  I distract myself and deflect, but I can't help but realize that this process of sitting in dark rooms, listening to professors go on and on with their favorite process, repetition.  

So much...

...stagnation...

...here.

I can't stretch here.  I can't grow.  I can barely move.  This is hell on earth for me.  This forced attention to details that I'm only trying to make myself care about.  This isn't going to work.  I'm leaving.  

Only a few questions remain:

1. When?
2. Where will I go?
3. How will will I explain to the family?

I know that I am going though and have a rough idea of what I will do when I get there.  At least its a start.

Thought of the Day

I'm doing things that are more artistic again, more close to the material that I love. I don't disparage those things that I did. They're just not as much reflective of who I am. 

-Mira Sorvino, actress (Romy and Michele's High School Reunion)

The Meaning of Life

What is the meaning of life?  

Scholars have asked this question since as far back as man can remember, yet no one seems to know the answer.  It seems to be a simple question.  After all, it basically asks why are we here?  There has to be a reason.  Everything has some sort of reason, even if the reasons behind some things are stupid or confused in purpose or ineffective.  There is still a reason.

So, why are we here? On this planet.  In these specific geographic locals where we find ourselves.  Among these people with whom we interact on a daily basis.  What is the purpose of our being here?

There does not seem to be an easy answer in sight, so I find the answer the same way many modern people seek to have their queries answered:  I google it.  The answers display an interesting variety of opinions and philosophies.

The answers are:

• Monty Python
• 42
• God 
  
• Oneness
• Nothingness
• Life
• Love
• It is meaningless 
• 42 (about 70 more times)

There were a few others but that is the basic jest of it.  So, this leaves me back where I started, only with a little more information this time.  Why are we here?  What am I supposed to believe?  How will the meaning of life, affect my life?  But this is a big question, and I should have known better then to expect a simple answer from a big question.  Big questions give you more questions.  That is as simple as it is going to get.  

A few sites were of some help though, in this quest for truth.  First, a philosophical approach then, surprisingly, a pop culture character worked to give insight.

http://www.themeaningoflife.org/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb3GZ5DfaTY

Ultimately, I don't think I was really looking for an answer anyway, so much as wondering if there was one.  I like to ask questions.  I want to know what is there to be known, even if I can't know it all.  Maybe that is the meaning of life: Asking.