being sick makes me weird, i’m not sure why, but i always end up being just a little off-kilter when it happens, and it doesn’t go away for awhile. but i ams who i ams.

i keep wondering lately how i’m going to turn out in another 40 years. i look at how there is such a generational gap between us and our parents, and a gap consisting of light years between grandparents. but i look at the differences and most of them are skin deep, but the major difference is openness. it’s there to a point where an acceptance of ideas is discarded. there is no wonder in seeing new things, just resignation to the fact that there will be new things.

but after accepting so much stimuli over decades of life, how could you not shut yourself off at a certain point? or on the other hand, with so much out there to experience, how could you ever close yourself off? it has to be some sort of personality trait, something that is integral to the vision you have of yourself. adding new information all the time to this idea of yourself can either be taxing, or something that is integral to growth. no right or wrong here though, despite my lopsided wording.

but i can’t help wondering how i’ll turn out. i mean, i try and keep myself as open as possible, because i feel like i’ve made way more mistakes in my life because i was closed off as opposed to being open about things. it’s what i can hope for, but my guess is alot will change by the time i’m sixty. so there is not really anything to do but wait for it. which i’m good with, but it’s still interesting to ponder. will i someday be as dense as the people i wish not to emulate? it’s always a possiblity, as it wouldn’t be the first 180 in my life.

i think the real gift is the privilege to even make it that far in life.

there are always days like today. i write about them somewhat frequently, because i normally end up here when i have them. but today is a mix, a blend, a hybrid of inner hollowness and outward joy that is inexpressible, but makes sense because there is no sense to it. but the senselessness gives it sense. it’s really what gives life some perspective.

as i wrote that paragraph, i took a sidetrack to see what was going on the unchained mind, and i find once again, i have beaten to the punch, but it doesn’t really matter because we’re both just bouncing off each other anyways, two blogs forces combined to make the super blog. at least the one that has ideas harmonious enough to build on each other.

but anyways, the idea was the fact that knowledge comes gradually. i mean, if you wanted to know all the wisdom of the past ages, there are tomes of it over thousands of years to peruse. but there is a big difference between knowing such information and understanding this information. i could read until my eyes bled, but i wouldn’t have the understanding until there are events that plant them in, to make the understanding complete.

so this leaves the question (to me anyways), can you force the understanding? there’s a voice screaming from the depths of my primal soul that immediately screams “NOOO” and i’m prone to listen to that voice. but i can also let it fester and then something is forced to happen, because it was bound to at sometime. so then there’s that balance between forcing it, and letting it be. try and get to the apex of that bell curve and find that harmonious, creamy middle. but it has to be done by playing by ear, because the variables are all unknown, and you gotta go by gut instinct. because you don’t have the necessary wisdom, right? says me, anyways.

i got more thinkin’ to do.

you know, despite the things running through my head, i have no inclination to write them down. i have this feeling that somethings are meant to be written down and expanded on, but other things are just there to flit around in your head, distract it for a bit, and then go back to from whence it came.

but at the same time, writing them down will leave them here, for me to find at a later point in time. since i don’t remember it mostly, this would be an ideal place to put everything down so i can review it later and make wise, well thought out implications from said thoughts. i heard about people who wear cameras around their necks and create a lifeblog, where every part of your day is recorded and cataloged. it sounds useful, but i don’t think i could handle it. being able to forget is really a key component to being human.

what is going on these days now though? nothing! and that’s pretty much the way it is for now. that first few weeks after the holidays where it’s time to relax after seeing everyone and being on point and all that other stress. not to mention the amount of money spent. it’s kinda a wacky paradigm where you spend lots of money on other people, and end up getting roughly the same value of money back from things given to you through other people. so getting gifts for others means getting gifts yourself, and all the other foibles of the hunt, the wrap, and finding a way to get it to them. i still got two sixers sitting in my bedroom that need to be distributed to others. but this winter stout i gave out to everyone was the finest beer i’ve crafted yet, and i kinda want to keep them to myself. at the same time, i can always make more, which i will. i got a pale ale that’s ready to be racked for a bit and then subsequently bottled, and i have a feeling it’s going to be good. of course, i’ve had that feeling with everything i’ve brewed for awhile now, but hey, i haven’t been wrong so far.

brewing is awesome. i got my transcript heading down from western so i can apply for brewmaster’s college for the next year starting jan 23rd. that’s only a year away and it’s kinda sobering. 6 months of hard engineering and science, and my brain a little atrophied from under use, but it’s time to get crackin’. this has been a fun little pop stand for a bit, but it’s time to blow on out of here. it’s exciting to say the least.

on a more tangential note, on my run this morning i somehow ended up back on zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance (probably because i finally found a copy to buy) and the idea of quality. for some reason instead of subjective vs. objective, the idea of time vs. investment came in. what i hammered out in the 20 seconds i thought about it was that for something to inherently have quality, there has to be time spent on it, and a certain amount of investment (care, ability, materials) to create that quality. if you look at time as the independent variable, and investment as the dependent, then i think that makes some kind of sense. but at the same time you can’t just pump in more investment or more time and expect to get a product of higher quality. i have no idea about these kinds of maths but i figure that it’s not exponential or any graph like that but something sinusoidal where by finding certain harmonies between the two, you find something of higher quality. at least it’s some form of quantification.

granted this is very loose and fast, and more of a technical approach, but i think something’s there and by writing it down i can check back in at some point and see that this was some turning point where i started to see the light, or feel foolish at the way i thought back in the good ol’ days, where i had nowhere near enough wisdom or experience to really complain about anything (but did anyways). i guess at least it’s down. i can hardly remember what happened a couple of weeks ago.

god bless the internets!

let’s do something useful! strike one by coming here. this really isn’t useful for anything. my existentialism gets the best of me sometimes and i succumb to that bigger picture. it makes me feel serene, i wonder if that’s a good thing? shouldn’t i believe in the power of humanity? heck, why not. we might as well make a go of it.

i seem to hear alot of inadvertent existential talk where people discuss the big ideas like happiness and sorrow, and don’t even realize it. i don’t even realize it most of the time. i couldn’t even write down major ideas besides the fact that this universe is too big for anything to really matter. but it’s just too subjective.

but really, look at what’s going on right now in iowa. a preliminary race to see who gets to run for the president of the united states as sanctioned by a huge mix of large interest groups, the mainstream media, and the citizenry of our country. and i eat it all up, looking for the numbers of who’s ahead at the moment based on entry polls. mere numbers representing the opinion of people in iowa, where i have a vague notion that people indeed do live. i know no one in iowa, and yet i am part of this collective force to choose a leader (or two major candidates to vote between, and other ancillary third partiers). and it’s so very distracting.

which is why i focus on it. the indifference of random chance always staring you in the face beyond this state, beyond this country, beyond this earth. trillions of variables coming together to cause effects. at least i can see a system organized by humans here. at least i can have a pretty good comprehension of what’s going on here, questions with answers. i mean, there are people in vegas right now betting money on who’s going to win in iowa tonight. how human is that? i don’t know…is it human enough? what’s a boy to do?

everybody’s right, but there’s nuggets of wrong distributed through it, like chocolate chips in cookies. even a cookie is too small to embody everything though. i mean, i can look at a cookie and see it for everything it is. not so much with the universe. it mostly just is.

and then something happened.

yup….

slow night in the blog factory, been nigh on till a fortnight since last we spoke. or was it a score? my memory fails me at times, makes me think when the factory was seein’ better days. yup, fallen on tough times, the factory has. with no new orders and thoughts being outsourced the way they are, it’s a wonder we haven’t been tore down yet. only a matter of time i suppose, that time it does keep marchin’ on.

i remember the good ol’ days when thoughts weren’t prepackaged, and they all had their own nuiances and imperfections. gave em’ a sense of humanity, know what i mean? those days are long past though. now everything’s all cookie-cutter and rigid, with no room for leeway. brings a tear to my eye, it does. it pains the soul to think of what was once created here, now brought down to being efficient and avoiding mediocrity at all costs. yup, things ain’t what they used ta be.

used to make judgements around here we did. boy, if you could’ve seen the rows and rows of thoughts back in those days….seemed to go out to stretch out to infinity. now we got a few dusty talking points and some pornos scattered around here, no one to really keep track of anything anymore.

but i suppose those are the breaks as a wise fella once told me. easy come, easy go, as another wise man told me. all that intelligence and not a lick of common sense, a shame i tell ya, a shame. if only he’d a listened to me, we wouldn’t be in this pickle now. but no one ever listens to wisdom until it’s too late. part of the human condition, i suppose. probably what makes it wisdom in the first place. i’ll concede it’s tough to see the forest for the trees sometimes though. can’t say i’m perfect, and that hindsight is always 20/20.

nothing ta do, but while away the time, waitin’ for the inevitable. time waits for no one and all the hullabaloo. at least i got my whittlin’ stick. better get comfy so i can whittle a little, then take a nap in the ol’ rocking chair.

now wait…what was i talkin’ about again?

some reflection?

there is just chaos everywhere, imbued in every person walking around right now. there is always a quantity that is palpable between everyone you encounter for whatever reason. at this time of year though, the chaos comes screaming to the surface with no sense of decency.

it is the holiday season, and it is almost done. i have everything set up and now that the dominos are already falling and i am fully prepared, i guess i can take a breather for a second and be that surfer that gets to enjoy a wave that took some timing and preparation to ride, and exist in that glorious instant that only occurs to you while you are in it.

which brings me here, as mundane as it seems. it’s the end of another year, and there is so much running around seeing people, eating, drinking, and hopefully, plenty of joy to be shared. and this is some prep time, before scurrying off to another destination, another social event, another family gathering. to take a little stock and try and be as non-ironical as possible when expressing happiness and self-satisfaction, because it’s tough to turn these ideas over in your head without a smidge of good ol’ irony peeping through, smirking as you think you have a grasp on an idea. even a bit of cynicism is tought to avoid sometimes no matter how hard you try.

leaving me to express what, exactly?

not sure in that department, feelings translate into words only occasionally for me, and i can write so much here but still leave all sorts of gaps for me to fill in later, to read between the lines of something i may or may not have tried to express in this electronic wonderland. a rosetta stone in my head that is always there, to make my writing mine again, where ideas are not expressed in stark contrast to its surroundings, but being layered without me even meaning to do so. my brain talking to itself, in a language only it can dictate or explain. because the idea in itself doesn’t matter, because it justifies itself just in its being.

i type things carefully, turning words over in my head, seeing if they sound right. to see if they ring true with what my idealized inner monologue is when i can take time to plot it out. here it is, photoshopped and cropped to leave traces of true meaning, but ending up as some strange hybrid of inner thoughts applied to external filters, to create something so pure and inane as to almost have no substance, only form.

it’s very similar to how it feels when you catch that wave.

feeeeeeeeeeelin’ sick.

gotttttttttttttttttttta work.

shoot me in the head.

so prolific.

i haven’t been here for almost three weeks now, but it feels like an eternity. i feel like i don’t know how to form a cognizant sentence let alone a paragraph. that may be my mind feeling so burned out though, for whatever reason. the dull comfort of stillness and a blank stare, giving some reprieve to my aching left knee, which also hurts for whatever reason.

i got nothing, but i still want to write something, because it’s been so long, and i feel out of practice. i could choose something, sure, but i don’t want to. i just want something to grow out of nothing and make some sense later when i come back at some point.

maybe this nothing is what should be written about. that wonderful sedation that comes with mental burnout. i guess not burnout per se, but just the mental exhaustion that comes because of sickness or overexertion. i think i might be getting sick, but it’s only going to make the next week tough because it will suck my will to do anything. not sick enough to actually miss anything, but sick enough to make anything feel far more laborious than it really is.

i notice i’ve been using more words lately, like laborious or cognizant. i avoid using this kind of vocabulary in speech because it sounds pretentious, but lately it has still been slipping out. i don’t really care anymore if it sounds egalitarian, or if i have to look for a synonym when someone asks what a word means (forcing myself to define words gives me a better understanding of them).

engilsh has hundreds of thousands of words that are never used outside of pedantic circles and god help me, i may be one of them. i can’t help it, i just look for a word that best describes what i’m trying to express and that’s that. books i read subconciously trickle in, and words that have more buoyancy float up and are expelled only because they’re the most visible. it just pops into my head and i’ve been suppressing it for too long. at least i’ll begin doing it more here anyways, but that just depends on if i start thinking less and writing more.

thinking less…check.

man, just listen to that noise. all around you, at all times. even a refrigerator running or the monotonous hum of a computer has a tone. it has that potential of musicality going for it. if i focus on it, all the dissonance hurts my head. which is probably why i push it to the background most of the time.

there has to be something here i could say that i haven’t put forth in some form or another. i haven’t been writing anything of consequence for what feels like forever, but is probably closer to 6 months. my feeling of time is being relatively adjusted by myself. but lately i keep asking myself what i want out of this life, and keep drawing a blank. anything sounds pretty good to me, considering i have the option to do almost whatever i want. i could do anything and be moderately good at it, and then move on to being moderately satisfied. how very mediocre of me.

but what would be that push for greatness, that burning desire to achieve more? to what end? all my life i’ve never really aspired for anything, never thought “i’m not going to rest until i achieve this goal” unless it was assignment/requirement, and i’ve been OK with that. but if i am OK with it, then why do i question what i want out of life, since by my definition, i already have it?

touche, ego. but you’re not getting off that easy. unfortunately, neither am i.

i see it raining outside, and even though i cannot hear it, i can conjure up the sounds, the feel of that rain. i can feel the noise wash over me, with its regular percussion. the cold wet feeling that erases all conscious thought, filling up into a sea of forgetfulness, wondering if i’ll ever be dry again. wash out all this order and chaos, cleanse me of assigning values and judgment calls, and let me be.

drain me of that which i am, and leave the husk to discover what is truly missing without me. my body and spirit, left at an arms-length apart, but with no perspective to see it for what it is. both staring into an empty void, unable to reconcile that which does not exist, left clawing at nothing. who are you? soft whispers of what could be dance slowly to the ground, in a waltz both terrifying and enchanting. a single point of light emanating from an unknown source destined to go at the speed of light to a destination that does not matter.

it all comes full circle, in the end.

it’s kinda nice that i get back from hawaii, and it’s already time for thanksgiving. days off rule. it’s also nice to be back in a climate that i can deal with again. having it between 70-and 80 all the time is nice, but i would have to put forth a very concerted effort to exist in it all the time, as i feel great in this cold weather, and ahve the ablility to sleep through the night again.

i did manage to propose to heather as well while i was out there (and she said yes), so all in all it was a great trip of snorkling, and hanging out at various beaches around the island.

it’s much more laid back there as you imagine a tropical paradise would be though, which is pretty much polar opposite from here, and i’ll miss that much. it at least gives me the perspective that i do live in an area that is just tragically hip, a battleground where people fight for the honor of becoming the most hip.

it’s a never-ending struggle, unless of course something of real importance comes up.