i totally survived ice day 2006. it was truly amazing to be sitting in hordes of traffic, sometimes not moving for a half hour. i was glad i had my book, i got some serious reading done in the 5 hours it took me to get back form the seahawk game. but i fared better than most. i know mike didn’t get back from the game until almost six in the morning, which is just ridiculous. i really wish i had had some sandbags for the back of my truck though, that was like steering a runner sled.

but that’s how we roll up here in northwest. oh sure, we start off mellow, but when things start to deviate from the norm, then waves of panic set in and we act like the stupid mass we are. panic panic panic. i can only imagine the people driving on the shoulders or in opposing lanes of traffic going “I CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!” and bolting for somewhere to go like a horse back into a burning barn.

i’m just glad i can walk to work from here, it’s nice to walk all bundled up for a little over a mile with hot tea to keep you warm. you have to be careful of ice of course, but there’s so much beautiful white around to look at. and watching ducks crammed to the only corner of the pond that isn’t frozen is something i find amusing. i’m definitely braving the elements here. i just need someone to pull my sled, and i’d be set.

should have brought some warmin’ whiskey for the walk home. that would have been nice, but more tea will be nice as well.

i really wish i could drink some tea right now. tea is marvelous to have while composing thoughts, but unfortunately, the lab isn’t really a safe place to be consuming beverages. cest’ la vie. soon enough i will have time to drink tea and maybe set up the hoop for some b-ball. soon i will be the only person here.

and suddenly i am. i was maybe going to write something, but that would be boring, since it would be mundane daily stuff, maybe leading into a life lesson. i’ll shorten it up for you people looking for a long diatribe.

use your body while you can. i’m going to use mine to buy fruit snacks out of the vending machine, cart the basketball hoop out into the loading dock, and scurry around in an attempt to get an orange ball through a hoop of steel. maybe bounce it around and work on dribbling as well. all the while enjoying my tea and fruit snacks.

they really bring the session together.

man, i need to get this down while it’s still fresh in my head. this show was unexpectedly fun. everyone there was kinda young, but all the acts were solid. half of binary star, one be lo (aka: one man army) was kind of the host of the night, coming in between all the acts with a few songs to keep the crowd moving. it was kinda disappointing that a large part of the crowd didn’t know who binary star were, and really, anyone there to see blue scholars should have at least heard of them.

then this cool soul group chokolate, and a strange hard reggae hip hop group that put on a good show. i thought their music was great, but the crowd grew impatient and some group of guys started chanting “blue schol-ars, blue schol-ars” when they had two songs left which was pretty whack. not very neighborly.

it was a long show but the blue scholars finally came on, and i screamed along with the songs i knew and listened as best i could to stuff they were still working on and won’t be available until next may. the crowd’s energy was so infectious though. the fact that some legitimate hip hop is putting seattle back on the map is a very exciting time. these two guys could potentially start a revolution in the scene around here.

but really, the show tonight was great, and i’m so mangled.

ahhh holidays. i bet i could ride from seattle to portland on my bike in about the same time it’s going to take most people to drive. i’m really looking forward to seeing the blue scholars tonight, but i know getting to seattle is going to be a grand time.

it’s funny, i feel like i got the writing bug after the past week, and now i find myself thinking through things i have already written and finding myself wanting to write more. only took a week to get the ball rolling, and now i wonder why i can’t find the time more often.

probably because it happens when it needs to, and now i have to finish work.

Day 7

I wasn’t sure if this was going to work, but it did. i can’t believe how just forcing myself to type everyday was also forcing me to think. i was thinking i was going to have to have a day 8 for this kind of reflection, but something happened last night and it came out. all that thought compressed into something tangible, and now i can look back and see how my mind can take a week, with little imput but the musing from the day before, and follow the path to another stop-gap.

i live in an environment of my choosing, of what i aspire for in my life. i want to achieve something in my life not to please others, not to justify my life to myself or anyone else, but to have that experience. to set out on a huge goal, achieve it, and see where it takes my life from there. i am capable of changing my environment, even swinging it to new extremes. i could move to europe in a heartbeat. it would be a lot of work to uproot myself from here and re-establish somewhere else, but it could be done, if i felt it was necesary. i have the privilage to have that kind of control, so maybe that’s why i hate complaining so much. complaints lie right at that point where you’re not happy with your surroundings, but you are somehow left with insufficient drive to try and change it. because as much as your job may suck, the prospect of finding a new job is a whole lot more work, and when you think about it, could end up being worse.

choice is power, such unimaginiable power. but this is why people seek truth, look for it, try to unearth it and apply it. i gather truth that fits me so that when i encounter a situation that is similar, but different, or completley different, i have an answer key of sorts. if you make random choices in every situation, you are going to be left flailing. but if you catalog and review past descisions, they can be applied and judgements can be made from that. the happiness recieved from these results is the direct consequence.

the more stock you put in some truths over others will show a trend, and choices will be made depending on that particular view. and it is so you. it is you in the basest of senses. judging people for their actions, their choices. trying to understand the situation that drove them to choose as they did. to have that kind of empathy, along with an ability to understand it, is what makes this crazy society, and such hugely abstract concepts like “dad” or “friend”.

i am not resigned to my fate, i am only waiting. waiting for the next change in my environment, the next change for me. because these things take time. it’s easy to let myself be mentally lazy, and sometimes it is needed and well deserved, but active thinking is needed just as much, just like going jogging a couple times a week, or rock climbing. i know this change will come about when i am most ready, because my choices will help push the idea along, until it comes to fruition.

i am on a long term track, but i am open enough to roll with the punches. because everything can change in the blink of an eye, and if choices cannot be made in response to it, i am lost. but i believe in the choices i have made, the person i have become and am content with it. i believe this is one of many ideal environments for me, because there is way more good than bad. it may be arbitrary, but that also makes it a representation of myself. but i know that this environment will not be the same forever, it will change, i will change, and my biggest hope is that i can move forward with this change, and make myself better. the irony is in how subjective that is, but i appreciate that. irony has always been one of my favorite sources of humor.

so here it is, all out there, in one week, i accomplished this. it feels like alot, and it kinda is, but at the same time it is only scratching the surface. i love this medium, but you can’t just go throwing out anything. just the idea that someone besides yourself is reading this allows for that type of voice to shine through, where you force yourself to think in a way to express your ideas to other people, and in turn find yourself that much richer for taking the time to think of how it could ever possibly be expressed. it gives that cement to the ideas, to formulate how they come, and what you can do with them.

i am a destroyer, because it is impossible to be a creator without the same capacity. sometimes, destroying barriers is way more difficult than creating new ones. my life is a direct result between this dichotomy in everything i have ever come to know, and i should never be afraid of something that is a part of me, because as misguided as it may be sometimes, there are also important life lessons to be learned because of them, choices to be made.

it seems strange to me that this work. i remember thinking “i have no idea where this is going, and i’m on day 4”. i knew at the time i thought it that the process was more important than the end product. i could think that to myself, but still couldn’t see it because i wasn’t at the end yet, had that uncertainty, that capacity for speculation. at some point the truth of the matter settles in, clicks and becomes much clearer, since it has come to be a part of everything else you think is established, with major ideas being reiterated over and over, with different situations to show why and how.

i did this and it worked, but i couldn’t keep it up for a month. i couldn’t do it a month from now, not at any set time period. it just feels right when you think of an idea and know you need to follow through with it. becuase that uncertainty allows for the ability to grow, even if it’s in directions that were completley unpredictable.

that unpredictablility is the good stuff. it really is.

Day 6

i am just engrossed an obsessed with environment. it surrounds me and it is me. it is what draws out parts of me to be expressed, parts of what i need to do the best that i can with that environment, and use it to my advantage. my advantage. it may seem all about my advantage, but it doesn’t mean that it’s no-hold-barred to reach that end, but that’s subjective, depending on the environment. i am surrounded by this cloister, my apartment, my workplace, the area i live around, it is my microcosm. even the surrounding area is other small microcosm. other people’s abodes. my parents house. the doctor’s office. the supermarket.

i take a car, or a bike. i think i love biking so much because it makes a trip into more. because when i am on a bike, i am outside, using my muscles for something that is so modern and human. an engineering marvel that is so efficient for our anatomical makeup, and an ability to be in more direct contact with the elements. to be an active part of your journey, as opposed to the more detached microcosm of your car, is just a huge difference. both are necessary for my microcosm though. there’s only so many roads i can take with a bike, and trails are safer than roads, so i’ll end up riding the most efficient route , because riding with cars just sucks, so i avoid it at all costs, leaving me with a lot less options. so i see pretty much the same route whenever i go for a ride anywhere within a 10 miles radius.

but i’m down with exploring. it’s fun to just ride wherever and flesh out the neighborhoods in the areas between the major thoroughfares and just go up countless dead ends, most of them with brutal hills. the more i ride it, the smaller it gets though. things are pretty close to each other around here. lake washington is around 13 miles end to end, and you can really cut down on the mileage when you can be alot closer to the shore, with no lights to slow you down.

but i digress. i’m still really thinking about microcosm and environments, just very specifically. those details are part of my microcosm, and i take all of these places i have ever been and jumble them all together in my head. this, for all intensive purposes is my universe. all the places i have seen from Bellingham to New York to Tokyo to Redmond and everything else in between is up in my noggin, to be remembered. maybe with a little embellishment, with a few events standing out more than others. they are the definitions for those areas. they are what you found in that environment, and what you appreciated most about it. you took that part in because out of sensory assault that is specific to every place you have ever been, a couple veins rose out of the patterns, and were in turn applied to everything else in the environment, like it just couldn’t be helped.

they are hazy when i try to recall them straight up. but if i have chances to revisit these areas, it’s nice to do from time to time. see what it’s like now, if it has changed. if it has changed, how do i react? i think i find it interesting. this area is growing as i grow. this environment i am a part of is growing as well, growing at a tremendous rate. i am a part of this community at times, when i go out in public. where just about anyone is allowed to roam free, to do mostly as they please. i join the hustle and bustle to live my life, tackling my environment with so much energy burned to get from one resting period to the next.

i think i see where news and politics and sports and reality tv and all other media fit into this community. in this area, if you’re say pumping gas, or waiting for an elevator, and there are people around you can inadvertently start talking about democrats taking over the house, but maybe not the senate, world affairs, local affairs, what happened on Lost last night. these are all an easy way to gauge people, with the complexities of social discourse. do they agree with you? do they disagree? resp[ectfully or disrespectfully? witty? dry humor?

a million variables that are broadcast through tone, inflection, gestures, in a hugely complex way of expressing ideas.but it must work sometimes as i would like to believe i have retained much of what i have gathered and stocked over my life, drawing life experience out of certain microcosm in my universe. knowing that moment where you realize what you should have done, how you could have nuanced the situation a little better and maybe achieved a different result, resulting in more general happiness for yourself and everyone else involved.

i exist in this environment, but it is also a projection of myself. i interact with parts of it directly and indirectly, and thus make it me. life experiences happen in these areas of my universe, and i use them to better myself, or for refuge, or to try something new. without this environment, i would not be the person i am today, not exactly. i would probably have a near same experience with my direct family, but if my parents had decided to live in ohio, with my dad at the steel mill, i would be a similar, yet completely different ryan.

and i think alot of musing always ends up on some tangent of how your life would be different if something did or didn’t happen. if i had chosen to work at a bike shop instead of the movie theater, i wouldn’t have met the love of my life, and my life would be completely different. what if? my environment is directly and indirectly responsible for all of this, as i react as the person i am, as what i prioritize in my life. with importance based on a scale only i can define.

i am so lucky as to be able to choose and thrive in an environment where i can be so free. this is so a privilege. of hard work generations before me, when i come in on the coat tails of the people that paved the way. there’s no way to really express gratitude but to keep going, to succeed, be somebody. i’m fine with that. as long as i get to have a say in some of it, following some rules isn’t that tough. it’s not like i haven’t had to work, but there have been comparable periods of just gliding by. but still, there is so much privilege involved. i guess there must be some reason behind the lower-middle class though, and i hope i am doing my part to contribute.

i really have to say that i am happy in my life. i feel i have come to terms with my environment, and in accepting that, come to terms with who i am and how i fit in. to my social network, to my family, to everyone involved in my life at other microcosm they share with me, with overlap. connections upon connections upon connections. of a universe i have chosen to the best of my ability with the information i had on hand at the time.

too pragmatic? perhaps. but then, that’s part of who i am, right?

Day 5

truth. do i seek it? can i know it? if there is no truth in my life, then things can shift whenever they feel like. but just because i have these truths in my life does not make them concrete, they are only that way to me. if i accept it as truth, doesn’t that make it so? if it has that kind of arbitrary nature, which is how i classify it, then why should i find it? won’t it find me?

there are so many facets to truth it feels overwhelming at times. some things are true given a certain environment, but are false in others. it depends on so many variables, so much speculation. but the speculation can’t be removed, it’s one of the foundations behind the truth. finding what is real in this oasis of reality. if i gather more truth, then will i find things better? if i am certain more often, will it make me better? gather. maybe i’m not an optimizer, maybe i’m a gatherer. i gather everything in my life, including physical representations of what i would like my reality to be, and cram it all in a closet. everything i gather has a meaning to me. if i look at it, feel it, smell it, hear it, i can evoke a memory, an emotion. you don’t realize it when it’s happening, but when you look back you can re-evaluate it.

how many times can you re-evaluate before it becomes meaningless? off to infinity. become that asymptote. approach infinity, but don’t touch it. not because you want to, but because you can’t. oh you can get close, so close as to actually feel like you are in full control, holding it. but you can only fool yourself, you can’t fool infinity. it knows it is untouchable.

i gather these untouchables in my head and keep their idea there by revisiting from time to time. but it cares not for me, i only care for it. because it gives me what i need in this life, something tangible. something i can wrap my brain around and fully realize as something that is a part of me, a projection, what i want it to be. i project what i want to. don’t i? sometimes i don’t, but in any given moment, that projection can be easily altered with any justification. so in that given moment, yes, i project what i want, but can look back and realize i didn’t want to. hindsight is so clear, given that you have all the variables to work with. no need to solve for x when you have it in your hand.

i gather, i optimize, i project, i react, i live. all this swirls into me and shoots right back out, to the rest of this reality. i am not the only one here. it is occupied by others. they do as they please when they can, as i do. other times both do what they can. i can’t live the debt free life i want, because i am a part of this construct, i choose to be inside. for that choice i forfeit everything and nothing. i give those debts meaning, and they are a part of me. despite all these musings, i still exist. am aware. do stuff.

i am a special snowflake. i form in the sky from water, in a pattern dictated by a million forces to create something unique. i then float down to the ground, where i melt and return to where i came. i spend this flight with billions like me, that all end up the same way. unique in one moment, common in the next.

am i a part of something larger? does it matter if i know? would knowing make my day to day grind any better? i have a feeling that it wouldn’t. but i have no idea what knowing of that level entails. but i feel my indifference will allow me to accept it if it comes along. is it indifference? how can you be open to everything without developing indifference? you get hurt, you experience joy. you get used to the idea that any idea is probably important in some way, but it’s meaning isn’t clear yet. and you can only wait, with patience. or without it. i’m going to wait anyways, i guess it’s in my nature to be patient about it. if i wasn’t then maybe i’d be that go-getter that changes the world. but i cannot force what i want into what i am too quickly, that will just ruin the whole batch of cookies.

i wonder if when you meet your maker, it turns out to be an idealized you. like looking in a mirror, but it’s the person who has the qualities you think of at times as the person you want to be. and you get to have a direct conversation. would i like that person? or would i think they were an ass? or would it just be the me i have always been, when i look in a mirror? not because i am that idealized person, but because i am who i am, and there is no ideal?

it makes sense, ideal candidates only fit best in their ideal environment.

i am my ideal environment.

Day 4

this is important. information. what is it? why do i choose the information i do, to process, to integrate? although this choice seems and feels trivial, it is so important. the information i choose will shape me as a person, and shape future descisions. why is it seemingly so trivial then? there is something deep inside of me that chooses to hear what i want, so that i can live the way i want. i dictate how this goes, to the best of my ability. this is such a key ability to the essence of me. but what is it? what dictates all this craziness?

how can i even be sure of this information? i choose to make it so, so it is. if enough people agree then it becomes and idea of sorts, something that is accepted. but why do i have to go along? why do i feel like somethings are worth going along with? does it make it easier to accept somethings as truths, even though i really have no idea? i choose ideas to be building blocks, foundations, something to anchor in everything else. without these anchors, do i have nothing? i wouldn’t even know about how to get rid of these anchors anyways. there must be a point an idea becomes more than an abstraction and is integrated. to differentiate it back out seems almost impossible.

the info isn’t necessarily as important as the choice. the choice is what makes it mine. makes it a part of me. there must be a million factors that go into these, that make me who i am. just a bunch of neurons? there are trillions of them, which makes for such a massive set of odds of combinations. it’s dizzying to think about. and yet they form patterns, have divisions of labor that will carry out the tasks that have to be done, but leaves some parts to chance, the natural variability. necessary? it might just be, but that would entail accepting the fact that these neurons have that much control. i don’t think i’m willing to go that far yet, but i still think it’s a big part.

my poor brain, doing what it can to survive, along with everyone else’s. full of information, full of opinions based on that information. depending on the reality they want to accept. should i ever accept my reality? i think i might just do it automatically, anyways. there’s always something to do, something to distract , and yet still a part of the reality of my choosing.

i desperately want to make the right choice, all the time. of course it doesn’t work like that, but it still doesn’t keep me from doing the things i do as myself to optimize my chances. optimize, efficiency, is that what there is to strive for? something to do to maximize our time to do whatever we want? work and reward. work and reward. work for reward? work as reward? depends on how you look at it. i think the point is to just accomplish something, anything, to have that feeling of accomplishment. is it puritan work ethic or something deeper? must be puritan. look at europe, look at asia, totally different attitude. striving to be the best and create the most. or just living with what they got.

optimize out to infinity, approach that infinity dammit. make yourself so efficient that you can do everything you’ve ever wanted. everything. so much, so unfathomable. it is something i strive for though. i want to fit as much as i can into a day. so much growth, so much rest, so much time spent with others, with myself, with everything i want to do and accomplish. i don’t feel like i spread myself too thin, but i am starting to realize it’s not the best way to live. but at the same time, i love it. i love being able to have everything work out as planned so that i got alot done in the time i had, and i get frustrated when things change course. it used to be bad, but now i can control it better and think more about what i’m going to do, as opposed to hating that things went different than planned. one snippet of growth, i suppose.

i can optimize forever though, there’s always better way to do things, faster, smaller….better? that’s a bit more open to debate, but i think the focusing on optimizing is…shit, it’s what i am. not a creator, an optimizer. it’s kind of a depressing thought, but i think it’s because people hold such regard for those who innovate, those who create. no one remembers the followers. it doesn’t make them any less important, just less noticed. it’s not that depressing though, i don’;t really care so much if i’m an optimizer or not, i just have leanings toward it, i can still create, it just doesn’t come as easily as being provided with an idea and running from there. my choices dictate as such. i think there’s probably more options than these two, but i feel like those are the two extremes for the idea i’m trying to express. can an optimizer be a destroyer?

could i be a destroyer? i’ll come back to that one. maybe not for awhile, that’s scary. even if i am, i guess i’m an informed one. there’s that.

man, i want it all, truth, information, choices. i’m just a greedy bastard. ut what point is there to all these choices if nothing comes from it? keep expanding that picture and it really looks like nothing. but can i even care about that? shouldn’t i just be focusing on what i have here, now, and deal with it? what does knowing that insignifigance add to what i already have? would it matter if i knew the earth was round and revolved around the sun? i think it wouldn’t effect my life so drastically, but knowing the general concepts behind these ideas allows me to think in different ways. i about things like mass and density, and i can make judgements based off of those. they’re too integrated to pull out of my psyche, they are a part of me. do i have to live with it, how can i extract it? is there something i know, deep within that this is the actual truth? i’ve fooled myself so many times, willfully, or unwillfully. the results are the same either way though. but having a truth seems impossible, without a few chinks in the armor. maybe that’s what makes it true, it needs those holes.

is truth that important?

Day 3

look around me. all these people. do they think like me? not necessarily the exact same thoughts, but they gotta be similar. even my parents must have once thought like this. what happened? people everywhere more consumed about elements out of control, without really looking at themselves as a person. i look at myself as a person and wonder what the hell is going on, but i carry it along anyways. i kinda have to, i think. but people get consumed by something. something that keeps them from seeing the ridiculous for what it is, ridiculous. everyone takes things seriously to different degrees, even me.

i can be serious, i can be ridiculous. i can even be both at the same time if the situation presents itself. i think this week long diatribe is a good example of that. i’m not going to question where this went until the end though, no stop-gap benchmarks. ridiculous. i am ridiculous, and i should know it to the core, but it’s only a surface thing. if it was more at the core, i think i’d be a much more extroverted person, with less regard for anything. but that’s sheer speculation. ridiculosity burgeoning everywhere i look.

serious = the adult (right brain?).
ridiculous = the kid (left brain?).

i am both, i am neither. i can see situations with both, but normally one comes out on top. if i was too kid like i’d probably be a nutcase, if i was too serious i’d be a nutcase as well, but probably evangelical. i like the kid in me, he’s the more personable of the two. but he can be annoying, and very whiny at times. i like being serious too, i can analyze things more for what they are as opposed to what they imply. the adult is just struggling to keep the kid under control.

how can there be this dichotamy in me, without something to control it? it has to exist. left vs. right. why vs.? just because only one can prevail, doesn’t mean anything. anything can be looked at as winning. check the history books. this ambiguity has been beaten form us though. something to be frowned upon. a character flaw. people like deciders, not a waffler. those that are ambiguous can be molded? can be taken from their indecisiveness and placed on a path to deciding something through the influence of others? sounds pretty elementary, not a great thing for ambiguity either, since it is probably frowned upon because they make good sheep. i’m good at being ambiguous though. i suppose i’m good at being a sheep then.

but what choice do i have, between confrontation and sheep? i don’t like being a sheep, but i enjoy confrontation even less. must i become confrontational to grow? is there no other option? it’s definitely one thing missing from my reportoire. is it necessary though? how will i ever know unless i try? have i tried and just not been comfortable with it, and just stopped?

comfort is something that needs to be addressed. i am comfortable almost all the time. so much so that stupid things like headaches can become severly annoying. i am sitting now, very comfortably. i live in a very comfortable area of the northwest with a comfortable job living in a very comfortable apartment surrounded by many comfortable people. comfort leads to crap like this. no meaning, except what i feel, and that’s a load of crap. it makes me want to stop typing right now and end this shit, but i think there’s something behind that reaction as well.

there is no strife in my life. nothing i would consider strifeful enough. mostly money. ridiculous. if there were, i’m sure i could create something much better than i have before because the stakes are different. there are no stakes in my life, only very small ones compared with the rest of this earth. i’m always caught up in this. things could be so much worse, almost unimaginably so. everything that would steal this life from me and then some. my strife is so trivial though, and that makes my life feel the same. and yet i’m not an activist. not one of those agents of change. i am not an agent of change. then what am i? who cares? it’s trivial, right?

i like that i’m angry right now. this can affect my words so, make them bitter, make them stupid. there is absolutely nothing to be angry at. and yet i am. i feel everything i say is tinged with stupidty, everything everyone says seems tinged with it. like there’s a meaning right underneath that is not superficial, but it bestows it on a whole article of thought because it was there all along. it wants to hit me, it wants to point out all that is wrong with the existence i am a part of but i only passively observe. it wants me to be angry at everything, but that makes it only more ridiculous. the only true place to direct anger is at myself. for being so stupid and not realizing it, for being duped, for being a part in the first place. anger for me being myself. what the hell kind of way is that to go about things? i don’t want to be angry at myself. i’m quick to forgive others, but not myself? now who’s a double standard?

but my emotions linger, pointing, trying to get my attention. it influences my actions and thoughts. and not just anger, my emotions. anger is just one i can put a name to. even if i could just turn them off though, would i do it? these emtions make me what i am. it directs my intellect in ways i cannot fathom. my emotional base is me. but it shifts so often and one thing i care about deeply at one moment is pushed aside the next, depending on my emotions. but they bring me so much happiness as well. if i didn’t know this irrational anger, i wouldn’t know the irrational happy either.

it just seems like a wave, recede and come back, between everything in my life. i am a victim of sine waves wheter i like it or not. the patterns are unrecognizable, the frequency, wavelength are all unfathomable. what can i do but ride the wave? swim against it? swim with it? swim perpendicular? dive under? which direction is which? what will come form each action? what to choose? you can only choose one, make it a good one. only one choice, only one path, only one reaction. seems limited to me.

so maybe it takes work. strive for strife. get up out of bed and charge head on and be a doer. a person that does things. i wonder if i have to experience it first hand to see what it is like compared to what i have now. i find when i do things just to see what it is like, i end up in the same place i started though. a little more perspective maybe, but nothing that my person doesn’t feel like it didn’t know before. but that’s what i’m trying to break free of. the resignation to my fate.

there has got to be a different way besides resigning myself to my fate, which is to be me. maybe that isn’t so bad. maybe it is inevitable. things will definitely change, and maybe it is a good thing i’m not surprised anymore. it is part of me not to be surprised, just react accordingly. maybe it’s not the fact that i’m not surprised about anything anymore, but the fact that i don’t care. is that a part of me? why do i let myself get away with saying fuck it to somethings, but not others? why not? it’s easy isn’t it? would it even matter if i could care the way i wanted to? wouldn’t that make life more difficult?

what if the growing is already done? that’s real scary. i think there’s more room to grow but it’s going to be way out of my comfort zone, and i wouldn’t even know how to go about it. things seem to take care of themselves in the end, but the end sometimes takes a little longer to get there. so i can get out of my comfort zone, it just takes me more time.

that’s comforting.

Day 2

mask to the ball. i like the idea of that. i feel like i do it all the time, but i don’t feel like i’m covering up anything, denying parts of myself to others, that may or may not deserve it. everything doesn’t need to be known to everyone. without that ability to control information , then you’re left to the whims of everyone else. even if it’s a small piece of control, it’s about all you have in the social arena. but where does this arena exist, if only just outside of yourself? what kind of world would you create in your mind without what exists outside of it.

wouldn’t it need to be similar to the way things are now, just more idealized? what else do i have to go off of though, besides that which i observe? if i let my inner self run free, would it be happier in something that it built for itself? if i could start from scratch and make a world in my own choosing, wouldn’t there have to be threads of recognition, parts that are necessary to keep it from ripping itself apart? maybe the reason people interact and create is to keep that fabric from absorbing itself. there has to be key elements that run to the core of society, just as to the self. without some foundation, the rest will be built until it can’t support itself. i am similar to this social arena in that sense. there is a core, must be, for all of this to exist.

what is this core though, are they similar to each other, some quintessential pieces that are the foundation for any conscious being? consciousness as opposed to life? they have to thread together, for consciousness is totally based on life to exist. but then it does exist and it has a direct influence on life. to work against, or turn against the master? what is giveth can be taken away, but totally at the whim of the conscious.

at the same time, our frame of time is so small, so minute compared to anything on this earth. think of how many species of plant and animal have existed since the earth was born and look at today. only evolved ancestors have made it, but consciousness has only appeared in around the last 40,000 years or so. not many years when the earth is over 4 billion. with such a small time frame, how can we expect to know anything without a couple of billion years to sort through it all? are we so accelerated? if we all died the earth would continue spinning, the sun would continue shining, the tides to rise and fall. life cares not for us, we must care for life. it created us, but we are subject to it’s rules, which mostly only entails death.

death, the opposite of life, with consciousness sitting somewhere in between, and arbitrator of sorts. it must be a natural progression of life, because it sure isn’t necessary. at least in my limited scope. it’s just another way to channel the entropy, to create something in the middle before it heads to the extreme.

so huzzah for consciousness, you allow me to write this stuff. stuff that means something. stuff that carries meaning between me and every other organism like me who can read in this arbitrary language, on this arbitrary medium. out there, but destined to have little to no impact. one screaming vessel striving to the highest point to gather the most sun it can before it goes away again, back to where it came from. where does all this striving lead? what can i get out of all this effort i expend.

it comes everyday in the people i interact with, this is what i live for. to help others, to please others, it’s what i want to do. i feel better about myself when i do these things, to people that appreciate them, or even when they don’t. just to be busy. to be doing something. i choose these people though, and they choose me. it’s mutual in some respects anyways. but my information keeps me in control of my own domain, and other people theirs. it’s not a struggle for control. is it? i don’t think it is, but i can see how it would be played that way.

the control you seek over yourself, do you seek it in others as well? consciously or unconsciously? hard wired with animal instincts, hard wired with biology. consciousness in biology, the final frontier. i am part of this construct, part of this infancy. i contribute to the whole while taking what i can for myself. what else am i to do though? live off society, live off the earth, it seems the same to me. systems to be utilized. gains and losses to be balanced. mental vs physical exertion. give me control and all will be well. what do you do with it once you have it? why would anyone want it? so much responsibility, i can hardly fathom. i do not like responsibility, but will take it when it needs to be, when it will expedite something, or make things easier in the long run. some people want control, and others would rather be. i’m in the rather be column, but only to certain extents. everyone seems to be in one camp or the other with leanings toward the other when need be. preferred modes of action won’t always get you what you want, but it can most often get you what you need.

needs and wants. another blessing/curse of being aware? in this life i live, wants can become needs. that’s how good i have it. i try and differentiate, and i know at an intellectual level what the difference is, but that holds no sway over my emotions unless i try really hard. how can my intellectual be at such odds with emotions all the time. am i such an imperfect machine that even though i may rationally understand an idea, my emotions influence me to reject that reason, to go with it. if i try to dominate my feelings with intellect, does that mean i am quashing a part of me? suppressing a part? denying a part? forcing submission of one part of me to satisfy another? a tug of war where no one wins the war, just daily battles.

i want more than that. how do i even go about talking to the parts of me. is it the same me, only looking at the situation from a different angle? determining if any viewpoint is more right seems such a daunting task, a commitment, something i’m not the biggest fan of. not a risk taker, so which ends up being the dominant trait, the outward expression the viewpoint from others? the facets of me fractal, spiral off in directions i have no control over. the pattern i am is dictating where they go, but i have no control over that, just an emotional base to work from. dictated by my intellect which only gives me partial control. what a crazy system of self, all the chaos and order, only to be bestowed on anyone, including me.

is coming to terms with that the only way to deal? i bet if i meditated more often and alot harder, i would have more control. but what would that bring me? would it give me a different perspective of the social arena, of this earth i live on, different from what i have already come to accept? what do i accept about this planet? the fact that it is another vessel, spinning around the sun, with things working out just so, so that life could form over billions of years? is god someone who is like us, but billions of years old and is now propagating this life in the only way it knows will give it any permanence? would god make things simpler?

even if all my misgivings were directed squarely at god, that would crop up a whole other can of worms, all most basing itself firmly in the question of why. why would he create us like this? to what purpose? why all the circles? do we need this roundabout path to realize we need to break free of it? break free to where? then what? i think the same questions apply without god anyways.

if the only purpose of life is to live and make each other happy, that seems a bit small in scheme. but that what may make it so fiendishly brilliant. simple. form, function, coming together to create something of supreme beauty and quality. things i have come to admire throughout my life. things i understand very little of but could put to words if pressed. what is beauty to me? truth? justice? a representaion of them, in physical form? what the hell? simple or complex, both are beautiful, there has to be more of an essence, more of a core quality that brings about this beauty. understanding? not necessary. beauty is inherent, but only recognizable to some. does an understanding of what is not beautiful help in what is? perhaps. but it’s so arbitrary that it could be assigned either way, depending on the viewpoint. i don’t even know if i want to know. mystery adds so much to beauty sometimes.

maybe the mystery is at the core. something not to be understood, only appreciated. something to be left out of the equation, as it won’t fit those parameters anyways. another set of parameters though, what are they? are they self dictated? you have what is given to you, but depending on how you feel, that is how it will be interpreted? is that the extent of it then? the construct i am in. the way that i live. choices and shape.

interpret.