It Never Ends

There's a fire at the throat of the world, and I can feel its pulse. The older I get, the deeper everything becomes, and the less need I have to show off myself. I am not very competitive by nature, but I've always felt a strong desire to succeed, and in intellectual areas especially. It's probably my Fe (read: I'm an INFJ) nature to want to impress others to some extent with my capabilities. I work hard to maintain my humility and now I never feel the need to brag. As I mature, I find that the desire for praise has become a more abstract desire to accomplish things praiseworthy, and to find happiness from a job well done. I'm becoming increasingly more self-sufficient with regards to my positive emotions.

I have felt the calming of the fiery, heated passion of my emotions with great dismay and neutral observance. As I've exited the stage of rampant hormones, I've developed an almost constant, calm sense of serenity. But for one who used to rage with a torrential inferno of feelings that rained molten terror upon the desolate landscapes of my imagination, this calm feels like a death. Have I lost the raging fury of my indomitable spirit? Where did my desire to fight an endless battle against the unjust go?

At any rate, I certainly haven't lost my flare for the dramatic, as you can tell. And I haven't lost my need to share with others, certainly - for I only write blog and journal entries like this to post in some public space for others to read, even if I know they most likely will never be seen. But there's some fundamental hope within me that they will be discovered and enjoyed by someone important, and that such a person will be able to understand me on a deeper level. As an Enneagram 4w5, being understood is at the core of my wishes. And those dreams of a future filled with the care and discernment of another never cease.

I would say the fire still readily exists; it has just been buried deep beneath the waters of my soul. I really have become much more like a slowly flowing river than the pyre of rage of my past. I wasn't really a hot-headed crazy man yelling and storming around in anger all the time; I was merely just someone with fierce emotions of all kinds. And I think now my emotionality has turned to depth instead of violent energy. I am no longer filled to bursting with my feelings, but they extend down eternally into the inner chambers of my self. It certainly feels like my atman is pervading the entirety of brahman. I've always been a deep person, whose wells of life extend deep into the essence of the soul, but now it feels like my whole being is submerged and drags on into infinity, not just the innermost point.

As much as I consciously am aware of this shift, and as much as I say to myself that I dislike it, I have no feelings towards it one way or another. Life just happens, and I change along with it. My philosophy of "go with the flow" has been much more deeply integrated into my being, and I've been able to let go of many negative emotions and memories. Maybe I am on the Eightfold Path in a natural attempt to reach Nirvana. That has certainly never been a goal of mine, just a consequence of how life unfurls itself. My emotions have always been quite precious to me, so I have tended to hold on to them tightly. But now they flow through me as smoothly as my life flows through time. I wonder where my fate will take me next.

Every time I read entries by myself from periods past, I always tend to smirk. I guess it's because I can see the maturation process. But the words I've written before will always ring true, as they live unto themselves. Those feelings I had were encapsulated in them, and give a peak into my being. Even if I have changed, I can still feel how the words are a part of me, and how my feelings now have evolved from those prior. It's kind of strange, how drastically we change. Some things stay ever constant, but other things that used to mean so much just drifted away.

I wonder where I'll drift to next. I wonder where she is.

A blast from the past...

Thought I'd repost this entry from an old journal now (that unfortunately no longer exists, but I at least have all the entries saved). I wrote it for an old friend, and it's easy to tell who if you look in the right places. Sorry about the length of some of the paragraphs, but it was necessary. Here goes...

Wake From the Dream

Invariably, life switches between the mundane and the unoriginal, swerving every now and then to annex something that no one understands or can wholly comprehend.

Like a new breath to an old hulk, the hulk of the mountain captured by its own beautiful gaze of azure swirling mist and lightning strikes, emanating a template of beauty that pierces deep within the heart to make a resonance of something purely intricate with golden tendrils wrapping with warmth. On such the set of sun that brings forth the rays of the sandy haze to be trapped into one’s mind before the onset of night can occur, forcing the mind to carry with it the warmth of the last lighted breeze of sand winding its way towards infinity as the beach and everything else in consumed in darkness. Verily it traverses the border between the realms, and arrives amongst the dreamy-eyed world of the mountain so pure and simple, with a cliff of the highest order of majesty resting upon its highest peak. Every wonder of the world is carried by the life of the cliff, which is responsible for the tainted azure light that looms over the entire mountain, illuminating the path so lightly for all adventurers who are drawn to this by the evanescent dream flowers that reside all along the great path to the peak.

Yet these flowers ostensibly hold less beauty to any who approach them, as they are apetalous flowers with the fragrance of the night-time breeze behind them, chilling and unforgiving as time, which sends any who venture near into a daze of unreality, which issues forth a haze among the terrain that wearies even the greatest of travelers. Ornate visions fill the mind and soul as walking loses its appeal, as legs no longer have use in such a land where spirits are free to roam, and the seeker must continue henceforth with a new disposition of total hopelessness for reality, as the mind bends and turns in unfashionable ways to attempt to instill a truer sense of beauty and peace to the soul, as no limitations of physical nature are abound in a world so true. Untarnished by time and elements of hazard, the world can only grow more beauteous and less focused, as the shimmering azure light at the crest of this world emanates ever further into the darkness beyond, acting as a beacon to any lost deep in the darkness to come and find sanctuary and a haven from the cold.

Misty and dreamy with swirling clouds and softly floating golden tendrils along the path must the adventurer go on, impervious to and augmented by the flowers scattered around, for if one does not venture too close, the fragrance exhaled by the flowers breathes a special empowering spirit to bolster the fortunate passerby with a sort of heavenly faith, and imbue into them a stronger capacity for hope and brilliance as the odyssey towards light continues. Imagining a goal, mystically setting down any trepidations and fears and watching them roll carelessly down the mountain as the azure glow forces them downward and out into the darkness that lies beyond, being lost in the sea with all delusions and false prophecies. Suns do not set as the wanderer moves ahead, dreary without revitalization spewing forth from a sun to warm the skin and glow the heart, as only the waves of azure light flow over the mountain periodically, as if it were that the mountain had its own pulse, with each wave of light giving warmth and solace to all who ascend, encouraging and uplifting those who might fall without support. So tantalizingly comfortable and warm each glimmering wave is, even as one sees it approaching, like a million tiny amethysts rolling down the slope, glimmering as they roll and sending shimmering rays of warmth to all who view them, warming and comforting so as to make the climber wish for rest and sleep, intoxicated by the comforting aura of the mountain, wanting nothing less than to drift into a forever sleep right there on the soft earth.

But to sleep in a land so great is to miss all of its beauty and grandeur, and sleeping before completion of the great ascent to the peak would be a tragedy far greater than the mind can comprehend, even when set free in the world of dreams. And so the flowers’ fragrance reaches the weary traveler once more, restoring and revitalizing the will to continue on, to reach the insurmountable task that they set before themselves, allowing the adventurer to experience with each movement a renewed sense of purpose and life, bringing a deeper significance to the human heart and spirit. In doing so, the climber realizes a deeper sense of want and desire to attain a more beautiful way, expanding their soul to become permeable to all aspects of the mountain, allowing them to become completely engulfed in the essence of the place, twisting and molding to the energies roaming through the air. Lest the adventurer forget their humanity, the mountain contains upon its surface the makings of all human beings, interwoven into the ground and stitched betwixt the roots of the dream flowers, always secretly absorbing into the wanderer to keep them whole, enveloping them in a sweet sense of home. Even as this occurs, the adventurer ascends further towards the peak, traveling on and on towards infinity, spending countless eternities getting ever closer, never ceasing to stretch out an arm to reach the so distantly near, only falling short by the smallest inconceivable amount, as time disappears for a moment. Yearning for the promise of the mountain, the adventurer forces onward, until distance and eternity meet and end, concluding one with the other and reforming to a more practical state of unbelivability, where upon the wanderer finally reaches their most sought out destination at the crest of the world.

Directly facing them now appears a sight too beautiful and beyond capacity of unreality that only a reality of time could allow for such an existence. Even wonder of the mind and strength of the spirit can not allow for this to be understandable, even in a world where each are expanded ten thousand fold and even upwards to infinity just to try and grasp an idea that such an amazing essence could be so readily emanating from the peak of such a perfectly azure mountain. Laying a most understand hold on the adventurer, the mountain allows the impossibility of stopping them from blinking for eternity, to never allow such a sight to be lost for an instant, for even the shortest amount of infinitely small time would break the heart a thousand times over if anyone were to be without sight of true life.

Dancing lights of immense intensity emanate from there, light so intense it would burn the sun out a thousand times over, and go beyond to light up the rest of eternity for as long as it existed. On and on it would illuminate and burn, consuming and healing every eternity and infinity ever imagined and once more for each one, not stopping as the light which can not be stopped should not be, as it turns worlds and imaginations for eons. Not knowing such a light could be possible, the wanderer stares at it, transfixed until time stops one more time, allowing the adventurer to stay in awe forever, but bringing them back right when the light becomes second to an entity far more awesome and striking. Not even time could control such a creature, so pure and unimaginable. Amazement augments every descript and nondescript description of something so lovely and pure, so magnificent and unruly, so lively and right, so gorgeous and linen, so ethereal and fascinating.

Sweet dreams are made exactly of this, and the sweetest dream to ever be had would never come close to this, as this world of hers is made of sweeter dreams than humans will ever dream, and this world exists because of her. And so the fabric of reality is unwoven around the wanderer, pieces tearing and melting away, folding and aging, returning to previous states of being, disappearing and dismantling, all to bring the adventurer closer to the being of the realm. Barely audible, she speaks, to say all the things important to her world, and none of things important to ours. Little by little she explains of her world and its dreams, of the light and the life, with purity in every utterance from her mouth, with words that flow like a breeze towards your ears, circling your head and moving your hair before settling deep into your heart, warming it and holding it so close and dear. Only the adventurer will ever hear this, so sweet and magniloquent the sounds, the deep love and care instilled into each minute syllable, each word a symbol of the truth and helm of the world, and the sea, and the sky. Can the adventurer even hear anymore, is to be asked and pondered, for there is no such thing as hearing in this world anymore, only a deep connection that allows them to hear her, in the softest and most soothing of ways, until rivers run out and mountains do fall from the sky, until space runs outs and eons run dry. Knotted are the energies crackling around, as the heavens open up and pull the adventurer from her, bringing them higher and higher to a brighter land, where glee and joy sprinkle the air with happiness and livelihood, where everything is perfect and the sun shines still and sleep never graces the minds of its inhabitants, so sunny and warm and joyous, but it is not like her…

*****

Yesterday does not exist in this place where sleep meets not its inhabitants, totally dismissed without recognition and forgotten by the sands that time has swept up the mountain, the wanderer sees the original cyclone that brought him to the mountain drift by and is only seen for a fleeting glance before it moves onward past the monuments of pearl and luxurious marble flooring. Ornate to the point of ivory bones breaking from the chest of once satin elephants, every objects and entity here shines with an opalescent beauty and savory scents fill the air from each and every delectably optically pleasing morsel of physical terrain and sustenance. Under the glazing eyes of any other person that could exist, the realm of unfathomable beauty and homeliness would appeal deeply into the soul of even the least superficial, a bastion of hope and sanctity from the cruel evils of the world which they previously new, a righteous rewards for the blackened and maliciously broody journey they had to endure on a planet so deranged and unreal, but the adventurous heart who has journeyed to the edge of insanity and beyond the bones of hallowed time can not feel a tragically thunderstruck emotion quite like all others.

Aromatic scents are repelled at every magically lit corner, with a deep, warm glow to comfort the mind and inspire those to take the air in through every pore in their body with the lightest expenditure of energy, quite daringly challenged by the wanderer who has come too far to question feelings but none yet too far to accept anything so bright and scintillating as such a light. Rarely knowing what lay ahead, and never quite knowing natures of the past that haunt their bedecked soul, wandering further leads towards a slightly tainted view of the otherwise perfect world where nothing knows of rest due to the infinitely revitalizing energies of the world. Every step oscillates through the world and seems to come back later, sharing a similar but altogether different clap of sound which echoes slightly on down the way as each progressive step brings new confidence and enlightenment to the wanderer.

Where each step brings new knowledge of an infinitely large world, never ceasing to walk would bring an astonishingly massive slew of knowledge, perfect for the eternal seekers and curious alike, welcoming and replenishing the mind with more imagery and lasting wonder than could ever be found at the end of an endless supply of stories, yet altogether the greatest catastrophe that could befall any ignorant enough to try. Having limitless knowledge of the wonders of a world would leave minds muddled and focused solely on the beauty that is, never on the grander possibility of beauty that might be, could be, and will be, and continuing on eternally would leave no time to review all the past wonders that were lost in time in the mind of someone so utterly blind. Even at the end of a rainbow that stretched for as long as one could walk, satisfaction would be demolished in all totality, shards of emeralds and rubies dashing forlornly to endless ends of the powder blue sky that levitates softly above the intrepid terrain, lost now to the entire universe to never be replaced. Rendering the journey useless wholly diminishes the point of the mendacious freedom granted by the joyfully constructed wonder presented unendingly to the oblivious inhabitants gleaming with happiness and amazement at their fortune to belong to an existence so augmented by their truly unique disposition of eternal light and airiness that they can not harbor fantasies of losing their beloved realm of a higher gravity and levity than possible by human measure. Even the rich need no money for there is no lack or want of all the beauteous and endearing elements of a twisted soul scattered through this land of mystics.

Thus the world remains in perfect harmony with its ability to heal and energize itself, replenishing its own use for life with itself, a perpetual place of perfect pleasure. Heathen to the mildest anarchist, no chaos exists in an infallibly structured land of bliss, pure to its own, independent from the universe of reality, unstainable and clean, tarnished not by the winds of tempests or the torrents of the seas, a land where water does not ripple and ice is only nice when held in the hand because it bears no lack of heat and remains wholly not cold. Except for the highest reaches of the stars, cold does not exist in such a place, snow and ice cream do not melt, the breeze is nowhere to be found and water does not feel different from the air, no scars of cold can be found throughout the expanse of land, and warmth hides even in the darkest of shadows, which are but the lightest gray due to the perpetual light radiating through the world.

Somewhere amongst the rolling hills is found the adventurer, seeking out anything of distraction or coolness, aiming to find a dark place to sit and rest, even without the need or physical desire to do so, needing a break from the light, broken by their changed soul in a land of wholeness and completion. Ultimately failing after seeking in vain the desperately needed shelter, sitting atop a hill brings wishes of outward seeking means to leave a land so fitfully bright and energetic that could not be haltered by the greatest fleeting emotion brought about by all the energies in the land where manifestations of dreams have never existed. Never has such great depression brewed within one in this land as now exists in the climber, and erosion of the perfectly twined energies emancipates the grass near them, causing it to wilt and slowly die as blade fall and roll on down the hill, away from their point of origin, spreading a seemingly fatal illness to all the life of this land it comes into contact with. Seeing the world decaying beneath them, the adventurer plucks individual blades of grass and proceeds to throw them down the hill, causing little pools of dead grass where ever a blade happens to settle, causing the hill to become spotted with dead grass except for the much larger area of decay where the adventurer sits. Eventually a wind gently passes by their neck, gliding and tingling the hairs to stand on end, energized with a cool life force flowing through them, raising themselves at the prospect of a different world, wishing flutteringly for coldness to reign upon them in an icy torrent of hail and snow. Teeming with force, the breeze garners all its strength to become a fully realized gust of wind that tears the dead grass from the earth and sends it flying towards the surrounding hills, blades making contact everywhere around the adventurer, a downpour of poison on the once mighty hills now emptying of life.

Inexorably spreading from hill to hill as more gusts of winds pour in to assist the spreading plague, the sky above becomes overcast with dark and brooding clouds that sow torment and horror into the land below that has never witnessed a color darker than pale orange. Newly formed yet brimming with water, the storm clouds release shower upon shower of the coolest rain to ever grace the skin, furiously pouring torrents of rain all upon the wanderer and the lands, stretching out in concentric circles from the wanderer’s hill to beyond the horizon, drowning the grass for untold miles and poisoning it all, decaying it instantly and washing it down into the wet earth. Tearing apart blade after blade, disintegrating and deliberating all too quickly on which blade should be demolished next, the rains torment the land and rip it of its former emerald beauty, with lightning beginning to strike all nearby trees and causing them to splinter and crack as the explode with each successive strike from the heavens, delivering them from a stagnant existence of continual light. Every tree is turned to splintered dust and every roots is seemingly torn up by the cyclones that now begin appearing everywhere to further ravage and annihilate the life of the land, spinning at such a rate to tear the soul from the body, utterly devastating any object in their path, and grinding it to miniscule pieces within its flurry of a whirling body. Relishing the transformation occurring all around them, the wanderer stands to face the new world, ravishing in the cool rain and hard winds and so decides to spin around, mimicking the cyclones spinning all around and imitating their awesomely destructive power before starting to run. Ceaselessly running away like a steed just freed from a life of bondage and servitude, finally allowed breathing new air and living without pause, regret or restraint, carelessly running for the simple joy of running, without need to please or uphold any bargains. Entertaining the fantasy of a darker world, the adventurer runs and runs until they tire and find it necessary to stop and gasp for air, feeling a burn and feeling alive, examining the real blood pumping through their arteries and veins, bringing them the precious oxygen they so ingest through their lungs. Parrying the desire to run on with the overwhelming need to sit and rest, the adventurer sits down once more on the wet dirt atop another hill countless lives away from the last, with a life more worth living and a heart more worth filling. Turning and obliterating all there is to see, the storm has ravaged countless fields of despair of wrought turmoil amidst the soil that used to never see the replenishing qualities of the rain. Somehow through the rain and ravaging, a cloud has been broken by a miracle that was never meant to grace this land, and the golden rays of the sun pour through a small hole in the heavens, which gradually widens to reveal a beautifully lively sun ready and willing to shine on all the land and bring its special energies to the soils.

This begins happening as the clouds dissipate ever so slowly to allow more and more sunlight through, touching the ancient but now renewed dirt of ages past, bringing the life of the sun into them and creating with that life a new kind of life not akin to this place. Hearing an all too familiar sound, the adventurer turns their head to view once more the passing cyclone of sand as it travels over the land, leaving tiny pieces of itself amongst the wet earth now being warmed by the sun. Each and every piece that falls off of the cyclone is sowed into the ground and at each and every spot a small plant starts to emerge, very slowly at first, then more gradually until it ends up growing altogether so fast it garners full maturity within a matter of minutes, allowing it to spread its seeds into the barren land not traversed upon by the cyclone, which in turn starts to grow the same, and soon the fields and hills around the adventurer are covered in beautiful grasses and flowers that are randomly dispersed and happily alive with the once missing energies of the sun and a truer world.

Perhaps a greater event than could be fully appreciated by a human mind, the adventurer becomes overcome with unbridled emotions and starts to cry, the tears falling from their face to the ground beneath them, where upon starts to grow the most beautiful flower to ever grace any land. Once the wanderer ceases to cry and recognizes the flower’s existence, they immediately know this flower from its distinctive purple glass stem, the stem of the flowers on the mountain of dreams. Instinctively, the adventurer smells the flower, which bears its petals in the daylight, and breathes deep of its beautiful fragrance that puts all to sleep who smell it by day, and so the adventurer falls into a deep sleep, but not before wishing to see the beauty at the top of their mountain. Soon time spins down and the adventurers falls through the universe and all the realms of dreams and lands of wonder as he descends onto the beach from whence they started their journey. On the gentle feeling of the waves washing of their face, the adventurer awakens in the twilight on the beach, gently lifting their head to open their eyes and listen to hear that old familiar sound of the cyclone of sand which passes by right before them. Now the adventurer opens his eyes to see only a blinding light in the shape of the sun, with the silhouette of the girl he left back on the mountain top, whom he loved.

Late

It feels incredibly late, and already in this sentence I've had a few spelling errors I've had to fix. I'm just approaching a full day of wakefulness now (16 hour standard), so naturally I should be ready for bed-tired. But it's layered on extra thick because I stayed up so long yesterday and didn't get more than 8 hours of sleep last night to make up for it. So that means that I'm really tired and if I go to sleep now it'll be at the same time as yesterday. And I can't promise I'll sleep more than 8 hours (I don't sleep for very long, lately). So therefore I can't promise progress if I don't stay up at least a little later!

Maybe that's why I'm writing this (well no, it isn't, but I can give a practical reason, can't I???). I have some nice background music (DooM 1 and 2 remixes from OCRemix.org. Srsly, go check it out!), and I just finished watching the *second* Joan Fontaine movie in a row. (There's an Alfred Hitchcock marathon on TCM all day - no commercials, no editing! A good motivation for staying up) And holy bageezus, she might be the prettiest lady who has ever lived! She also did a really great job in both movies (Suspicion and Rebecca), and I guess the Academy agreed - she was nominated for one and won the Oscar for the other.

I guess that relates more to why I'm writing, but I'll finish the semantics first. Since Sacred 2 has been borked, I installed Far Cry and Quake 4. I had issues the first time playing Far Cry (read: didn't like it so I didn't get very far), so I'm made it my mission to eventually try it again and have some fun with it. That means I'm replaying Quake 4 (WHICH IS AWESOME).

I've been doing some hardcore music listening recently (nothing out of the ordinary). I've also started watching Burn Notice, and I think it's a very well made show, especially for USA.

There's been a change of plans for coming back to MA - now the ferry ride is scheduled for Tuesday at 1100! Dad has a Monday appointment, so we decided to just stay the extra few days instead of go home and come back.

It has been really rainy down here, but it's finally nice for a couple days. We had a great thunderstorm last night (which I woke up to). I've pretty much ceased the great war on spiders that began in my room weeks ago. There are just too many down here to make a fight plausible. So basically I'm stuck doing recon and avoiding them as they wander around the corners/ceiling. I've positioned my bed in the middle of the big bedroom and have no covers hanging over the edge of the bed to deter spiders wandering up there while I sleep. So far it's been successful. And so far I haven't seen any mean looking spiders. There was one giant wood spider that was chilling on the outside steps, though. (Dad took that one out)

I've been having some pretty cool dreams lately. Too tired right now to remember many specific things, but mostly they're just random dreams that involve most of my friends. They're fairly enjoyably random, as I don't really have anything plaguing my mind right now. This gives them free range to just do whatever, instead of focus as an outlet of upset emotions or what have you.

My loner persona is getting a little extreme and edged out lately. It's definitely taking full advantage of the lull in emotional turbulence or stress. I guess in that respect it's a little bit of a dangerous time to go through a(n outward?) change - there's nothing to keep it in check or bounded as there's nothing to check it against on any quotidien(ne) basis. {There's the phenomenon where I will start speaking/using French words when I become tired. I don't understand why it happens that I remember French/certain French words better than English words sometimes when I'm tired. Shouldn't my life-long reinforcement of all things English give them priority in order of thought appearance? Maybe French is still just fresher in my memory. I dunno}

I'm starting to get a little anxious as to how this much more loner-oriented mentality is going to play out for me. I've never been a big fan of the super-cool or removed disposition that so often comes out, so this seems like it's just going to be way too far in that direction. Maybe all my worries are unwarranted - I mean, this *is* me, and I'm changing into myself only. If future me happens to be radically different than present me, that's not really a bad thing. It's just different. It's just scary to think about.

It's similar to what I always used to worry about - amnesia and what it means to be living. If you can't remember who you are, is that a fate worse than death? I came to conclusions that the answer was a resounding no, but it would still be incredibly tragic. This fear of memory loss came to a strange height - where I would (for strings of up to maybe 5 minutes at a time) continually think to myself (you're going to forget this moment - what you're thinking right now). Somehow I got it into my head that forgetting *anything* meant that I was completely losing myself, just as if I had total amnesia (because losing a part of me was equivalent to losing the whole of me at any one moment in time - cool, eh?).

Needless to say, it was rather stupid and an obnoxious waste of my own thoughts. I generally never view things as a waste because you do what you want at the time, so you achieve what you wanted when you do something. But this really was a waste. I guess I did it with some hopes of spurring myself to remember all the moments when I had this conversation with myself. But honestly, why the heck would I ever want to remember myself telling myself that I was going to forget the very exact wording of what I was saying (which was that I was going to forget, anyways!). It was all very contrived and pointless. An example of how a possibly rational fear can lead to an irrational fear and then to utter nonsense. (I still remember very well quite a few times I did it, and the exact words I used, too! Funny how that works, eh? =P)

I don't think I'm meant for conventional love (if I am even meant for love at all). This loner mentality is seriously skewing my thoughts, needs, desires and feelings about love. I'm going from the ultimate romantic to ultimately nonchalant. Maybe I just need to give loneliness some time to kick in and set my head straight, but more and more it seems like I'm just changing. It doesn't really seem fair - I used to be so proud of my feelings and passionate nature. Now I really don't believe I'll be able to write how I used to, or even close, or even in the same vein. And without my poetry, God, I shudder to think. You can't take that away from me, can you?...

Here's hoping for the best... At least that has never changed.
1208

Waiting... - City and Colour

Last day in Long Island for a little while, at least. Coming home on the 1100 ferry (Susan Anne). Long Island has been pretty rainy/overcast everyday so far, with maybe one exception where there was some blue sky. The second trip to the grocery store (a few days ago) saw a setting sun right on the horizon. When we first pulled out I thought the yellow/golden aura was just a mistake and did not look in that direction again for a few minutes. When I finally did, it was a beautiful sight, and there was something incredibly sad about it. I don't know why; I wasn't sad. But it just had a look to it, a certain feeling.

And I thought that scenes and beautiful things like that happen all over the world, and there are times and places when just one singular person sees something so beautiful and maybe sad. That singularity gives it an incredible sense of loneliness, but at the same time a very special, unique feeling. It's something I have always liked to call twilight sadness/happiness, depending on the mood, I guess. It's all ethereal and disconnected from reality, to an extent. But then again, it *is* reality, so it makes me question what reality is. Most of the time everyone defines it as the most practical, mundane, sane and concrete part of life. Like a 9-5 job, or going to see a movie, doing taxes, riding a bike, getting a bruise, making a call, digging a hole, building a house, etc... But I think reality has distinct qualities that are unexplainable, can only be experienced through feelings, intuitions, emotions, etc. The world is a very strange place, and I think that abstractness is not really embraced by people as a whole; it's too unsettling and uncomfortable. I think I live in and relish it too much for most people; I'm weird.

I realize my paragraphs are probably too long most of the time, but the typing window here is much wider than the final version in the blog, so I'm constantly being mislead! Sorry if it makes it daunting to read sometimes.

We got some Chinese food last night, it was pretty good. I'm starting to like and eat a lot wider variety of foods now. The lady at the restaurant (take-out only) speaks only so-so English, and they have you circle what you want on the menu. Made me think of my good Colby friends from China. <3

Another friend from all the way across the world seems to be in a slump, and has rather down/boredom-induced sadness. It seems that when people are left with nothing to do, their mind and mood kind of stagnates (this has happened to me before). It's weird seeing someone so sad and with such down-turned thoughts, as usually they would have always been me. But now I'm rather unbothered by a lack of activity, as it were. Even when I have nothing to do, and no motivation to start to do the things I say I want to do (restart a game, play a new game, write a story, write poetry, etc, etc), I don't mind. I can still simply sit there and just be content. Maybe browse some forums, definitely listen to some music (read: a lot), watch some TV (not that much), but just generally chill. (And I wish this girl all the best and hope she feels happy and better soon. Really, much <3)

I'm starting to become completely okay and nonchalant with where I'm headed (the thing I've always feared the most), and the fear is gone and I don't really care very much any more. It's funny that I always knew it would happen just like this, yet I won't (or can't?) stop it. But if I'm okay with it, then it really isn't too bad. It's just not what could have been, I guess?

I keep slowly adding to the scenes in this story I've been thinking of everytime I think of something that should fit. They're all pretty isolated from each other, but have the same theme, so it should make sure I give movement and action to the story so it doesn't suffer from lethargy and become ass boring. It still might, but I hope not!

I'm moving further away from the idea of verse dialogue, but right now it's still way too cute of an idea to drop. That's probably the only barrier between it being a serious endeavor and a more whimsical one. But poetry is just too high quality for me to disregard. Oh well!

I still need to write two letters (been meaning to for a while now!), so hopefully I do that either today or tomorrow. They're two very different letters, to two very different people! It should be an adventure doing them back-to-back.

I'll be back sooner or later!
1747

Late

I've been going to bed around 2200 lately, so being up this late I'm rather exhausted. Listening to that George Winston piano music CD again. I've always really liked solo piano music, and his is simple enough that it really sets a good somber tone. It's still complex enough to move the pieces forward, though, and create at least a small range of emotions. It's just easier to listen to than most music because it's simple and only one instrument.

I think I'm moving on to FEAR 1 now in the video games department. I just beat FEAR 2 and read the whole field guild for it to get the backstory on everything that has happened. This all made me curious because it set a lot of things from the first game straight and pulled a lot together which were not made clear to me playing through the first game (I have a few times). This means it's back to the first game to see how it all plays out with the foreknowledge I now have! (And besides, the gameplay in the first one is simply a lot better, even though there are a few good guns in the second one). Also, FEAR 2 completely ignores the FEAR 1 expansions, so I can just lol my way through those. I also kind of want to play Oblivion, but everytime I go back to it now I can't seem to find a class that's fun. I guess my main problem with the game is finding goals to achieve that I haven't done already and that are actually fun and not just tedious or pointless.

I have a new scene planned for the book, and it can be taken in any one of many directions depending on what I actually want to do with the story. I've had a lot of ideas over the past few months before I really considered writing a story, so I may try milling my memories and see what comes up.

I think it's bed time for me now. There were a lot more important things to say, but those usually don't come out. Oh well, there's always tomorrow.

0227

Da Bears

Okay, George Winston piano music is pretty depressing. But it's pretty good, too.

Summer is pretty well under way. I'm in the process of cleaning out my room. It's taking a long time because there's just so much stuff to sift through, and I have to throw a bunch of it out. This means I'm trying to soak up all the old memories one last time in hopes I'll remember some of it way down the road. And don't worry, I'm still keeping some things (generally the more important things). I dunno, I feel like after my first year at college, I've changed considerably. I'm more able to just let material things go and get on with life. I still have the memories of things somewhere in my head, so nothing is really lost. And even if I do never remember many little things, those things are not especially important to remember. They're just little niceties that make me smile.

Life's a weird thing. My perception of it seems to constantly time. Now it's kind of in a maturing stage since I feel myself getting older. But I'm not sure this new perception is necessarily better or more worthwhile. It's just different, older. I guess it's based on more experiences so it has more 'street cred.' Who knows? I usually like my own perceptions and positions on life because I make them myself! It's funny how that works.

I'm not really sure where my life is going. Obviously it's going on the same track of college and then probably grad school, but metaphorically and meaningfully, I'm just coasting along as always, experiencing things as they come. I think I may finally have decided to achieve something morally and meaningfully, though. I'm in the process of laying out ideas and the basic foundation for a story I want to write (like long story, book length!). I have the basic premise and all, and I have a scene and therefore three characters already. I have the main character to an extent. It's just hard to think of a good backstory, and good motivations for the characters. There's also a problem of action and plot - I don't have driving motivation for anything to go in any direction yet. I should probably know the ending before I get too far into it, shouldn't I? Maybe it's not that important, but then the book would be more about the journey to get to some unknown ending, and I'm not sure I want it to be like that exactly.

It should be interesting to say the least. I have a fun idea for extended dialogue/monologues that is truly in my own fashion. It's a pretty heavy idea emotionally, so it'll take a lot of work to actually be able to get through it, but that's where the challenge comes in. I see it as the first meaningful self-contained body of work I will have done (that's rather large, to clarify). Maybe I'm over-looking things with that statement, but I will say that it's inherently different from things I have done previously in my life, so it should be meaningful to me.

I think I'm finally starting to warm up to my personality, and be more expressively myself. This has always been incredibly difficult for me because I have such sharp edges and furious passions, but things are kind of melting off and rounding out. It's rather hard to describe, but I think my innate sense of goodness that few rarely ever see is starting to rise to the surface. Probably because I'm starting to view life differently and act in more accordance with that. My trepidations about all of it still get the best of me, for the most part, though. I still have too much trouble with evil and insincerity. I just can't accept them.

The biggest problem for me is that I'm headed down a path I always knew I was heading down, but I've never really wanted. It's not bad; it's not evil; it's incredibly sincere. But I just have never wanted it. I don't like what it means for me, even if it is a very good thing. I dunno. There's not much I can really do about it; it's always just been taking its course since forever. Oh well, it's not the end of the world.

I'm sure I'll have more to say soon... I always do, even if it doesn't get written here.
1230

Bubblegum Wrapper

A lot of crazy stuff has been going on lately. Nothing too significant for other people, but I think really important for me, at least. I'm in the most peculiar state of mind and being and it's just getting weirder as it continues.

Being home is a wonderful thing. Everything seems right again; it's all so safe and warming. No other place will ever be my home, for better or worse.

I missed having a real subwoofer. I did not realize how much until right now. I missed having my juice all the time. I missed that feeling of complete connection with the world, and having decisions and actions be completely meaningless in light of simply existing. It's a dangerous feeling, really. On one hand, it doesn't do anything to give life meaning or purpose; it's just a blind acceptance and complete carelessness for details. On the other hand, it's uncontrollably liberating; it's impossible to be bothered by trivialities or even great evils, to some extent. I can just walk around, sleep during the part of the day for which I do not want to be awake, acknowledge the sunset and really appreciate the sunrise, and generally live in this world in a way that's quite welcoming.

Celtics lost in the playoffs. At least next year KG will be playing again.

A very strange and sad thing happened just recently, too. 3D Realms, now Apogee Software (their old name that they've now gone back to) just went under. They had to lay off everyone, and now it's just Scott and George (as far as I know). For all those who don't know, they made the Duke Nukem games, and were scheduled to make Duke Nukem Forever, which is notorious for having the longest game development cycle of all time (12 years now!). Everyone was always saying DNF would never come out, because they restarted it 3 times, and generally they wanted to make it the perfect game.

Just this year, it seemed to the public eye that it might have a chance of actually coming out. Obviously this was a hopeful interpretation, but it seemed just as likely as any time before. Then, we get a strange press release from them that they couldn't strike a deal with Take Two (who was publishing/financing the game to some degree), and so they had to let the whole development team go and there's gone the company! And Take Two are now suing them for damages or some such. Wow.

It's really strange. Duke Nukem 3D is by far my favorite game of all time. I've spent more hours playing that than most every other game combined (I played it *that* much), and I've always followed 3D Realms closely on the website and all, got their other games (Wolf 3D anybody? =P Death Rally, Raptor: Call of the Shadows (an all-time great!), Max Payne!), and have just generally been a fan of them in general.

I always had hopes for DNF, and never assumed it would be canceled and that it would always come out. It didn't really matter to me if it took 12 or more years, I was always there waiting and reading the most recent updates and all. I think I never got impatient for it because I always believed it was going to come out, and generally be my next favorite game, and quite possibly the best FPS of all time (right now I still believe DooM holds that title. The very first one, thank you).

But now it seems like all the pessimists were correct; DNF will never be completed and released. While it technically is still possible (we don't know how far it is from completion right now, the guys said around 90% maybe?) for it to be released, it, uhh, doesn't look good, so to speak. It's really strange, considering it's probably my longest standing hope (I was 7 when it started being made, that's a long time ago!).

It's very strange and quite annoying that I'd have to lose my life's longest standing hope right now, of all times. It's especially strange because STALKER (it was in development forever, too) actually came out and thus kind of proved that hope in DNF was valid. And I had nearly as much desire to play that as DNF (as close as you could get, DNF was the ultimate video game for me, STALKER, while an ideal idea, was still second best).

So what now? Well, gaming-wise, I won't have DNF on my list of games to wait for (unless we hear anything about it, I doubt it) release. Not a bad thing, as it would have happened eventually, but I always thought it would then immediately go to my list of owned and loved games. Not so. So I'll still look forward to games announced in the immediate future (like STALKER: CoP, Diablo 3, DooM 4, Rage, Mass Effect 2, and probably some others), but I'll have no games in the back of my mind to be like: Hey can't wait for the day that happens!

Ah well, I guess the world doesn't always work out the way you'd think it would. This was one possibility I had never anticipated (them going out of business as the reason for DNF to be canceled). It's sad in its own right, and I don't exactly know how to approach it. I guess I'll just remember the wait for it with nostalgia sometime in the future, and think of what might have been. And since it technically still could come out, maybe I'll look back and say: what a terrible time, indeed! Scared me so much...

Maybe the worst part is it seems like the world is trying to tell me something that I don't want to hear. I don't know how stubborn and unrelenting I can be in light of everything being thrown at me. But, I'm sure I haven't been pushed too far quite yet. I can push back pretty hard, so only time will tell what waits for me.

On a lighter note, being home means I get to be me; so I think of surprised a few people who thought they had some idea about me. ;) Most people don't get that chance, so it's nice when someone does and appreciates it. I think I might just be able to pull off being more in harmony with myself, too. Time will tell, indeed.

2257

Lost...

I just completely lost the poem I was writing here...
I don't think I've felt very much worse in my life than right this moment..

All that I can remember:

Lullaby

Allow me to sing [your heart a lullaby], my dearest

May your heart be soft,
Though your head lie weary;
And [your soul be] loft,
With [your eyes] so cheery.
The world is for you
O Joy and the dearest
With an angel in blue,
To my heart you are nearest.

The title, the first line, and (most of) the last stanza. There were four stanzas. 12/10/10/8 lines, with 8/8/8/(5/6) syllables each. AABB/AABB/AABB/ABAB.

It was so beautiful... It meant so much...

The Dream

I just woke up from a very strange and powerful dream. It's hard really to describe where it took place, as dreams aren't always very concrete, but for the most part it took place in a dream-realized version of my dorm room - it was a little bit bigger, and my bed was the other way against the wall and quite bigger, with my desk and computer nowhere to be found. The whole of the interesting part I guess took place there in my room, because it was centered around the dreams I was having (inside the dream!). I can't remember all of the first part, much to my dismay, but it involved me dreaming about me reading a book. I was having reoccuring dreams about reading this book. It was a story about a very kind and gentle man, but rather silent (think Atticus Finch, but quieter).

The reoccuring dreams had me reading more and more about the life of this man in the "present" of the book. The first reoccuring dreams I don't remember too well (maybe this was an element of the dream - it was modeling the realistic nature that I usually forget the earliest dreams I have in a night while sleeping), but they involved details about how the man lived day to day. And the awesome thing about this book was that it was laid out in such a unique way - it starts describing the life of the man in more and more detail as you went on, and you found out more and more practical and normal things about him that you might find in the beginning of any other book. For example, you didn't learn until chapter 6 or 7 that he had a daughter, but the beginning chapters had been describing his present life continuously.

This next part is the clearest, and is so due to the nature of how it was presented in the dream. In the dream, I was awoken by three people knocking on the door/coming in, understood by me in the dream as: the girl I love, two other friends, and my roommate was also in the room (who I could easily recognize outside of this dream, it did look like him!). And so I started to tell them that I was reading a book, except I was sure I was reading it in my dreams! These dreams about reading the book were *extremely* important to me, and I wanted to express that to the people there by telling them all about it. So they came and sat on the bed as I began to explain.

When I described how I knew I was reading the books in the dream, I got an image that dream-me imagined as him sitting on a floor next to a bed (it looked like an emptier version of dream-dorm room), and flipping through the pages of the book. (Remember chapters 6 and 7 from earlier? Yeah, this is where I saw the numbers of the chapters on the pages) I explained the way the book had been set up, learning more about the man as the book went on in such a strange way. Then I explained the episode to them from chapters 6 and 7.

The beginning of the scene is rather fuzzy and unclear, but it involves the man in his bedroom, whereupon his daughter (a few years old) runs in with some kind of injury on her arm (something like a cut or scratch, but it had a little bit of blood that needed to be cleaned up). The man opens a box and pulls out a white (silky maybe?) piece of cloth and wipes of the blood on her arm. The daughter pulls back her arm quickly as if it hurt, and this somehow leads into an explanation of where the cloth comes from (I imagine it would have gone something like the girl asked what the cloth was, or why it hurt). The explanation is rather a weird one and why he used it is not perfectly clear, but no matter.

The scene quickly changes to the man on his wedding day (we find out he had a wife!), and he's involved in a rather peculiar ceremony. He pours wine into a rather strange devise - think of a bronze-ish metal tray with only two circular depressions, and now put that on a small stand with two legs. Once the two depressions are filled with the wine, he turns it over onto something (this part is really fuzzy and wasn't clear in the first place), maybe a book (the Bible?) or some kind of pendant on a book. At best I can say that this is a symbolic act of unity (two goes to one?), to even more clearly show that the man was indeed married. The man then uses the silky white cloth to clean up the alcohol.

We then flash back to the present, with him washing the cloth. It's pretty clear it has not been washed until now - as a lot of color comes out of it in the sink. This part is really hard to understand, as dream me gave it INCREDIBLE significance, and dream me knows what's up, so let's look at it.

Basically, the convoluted reason that the man used the cloth to clean his daughter's cut is because it had alcohol in it (put alcohol on your wounds for sterilization, eh?). This is pretty ridiculous, as it's obviously been a long time since the wedding and that's just not feasible anyways. Even dream me understands this, and dream me comes to the conclusion that using the cloth like this is just a literary device of the author to segway into the wedding scene to show us this man was married. Pretty cool dream literary device, eh? There is also some ambiguity here for me, because in the dream, his daughter did ask what a video cassette is (I think she meant tape, but being a child didn't know the right word for it), and this seemed to have the same segway potential to talking about the wedding.

This part seems to make some logical sense. I think first the cloth segwayed to the symbolic scene of the wedding, then we come back to the present to the man washing the cloth, and then we have the daughter ask what a video cassette it. This is probably due to the fact that the symbolic wedding scene is the man explaining where the cloth comes from to his daughter (because in this dream, whenever an explanation happens we segway into a scene of the actual event). Somewhere in this explanation, he tells his daughter that the wedding was taped on video, with a tape or something. She then either goes and finds it and asks what it does, or simply asks when he tells her that the tape exists. Briefly then there is a very weird image on a TV screen about to play the tape.

But right then, we are drawn back to dream me reading the book on the floor in his dream. I get a clear view of the pages again, and what I'm reading makes sense (it doesn't make sense to me now, but in the dream it did), until a certain point. Somewhere into chapter 7, the text says something like: "a recap of chapter 6 and things that were left out or unexplained." Then the text starts making no sense to dream me. Then the scene is drawn back from his dream scene of reading the book on the floor to being back in the bed explaining it to the people there. Dream me then says that the text started making no sense because he was dreaming it (Ha!), and dreams have a funny way of making books and things unreadable at random points.

He seemed eager to explain the meaningfulness of this man and this book to his friends, and they listened seemingly intently up until that point in the story. But once dream me tried to explain the significance and meaning of the man in the book (how he related to his current situation with this girl he loved), one of the other friends started talking about something, and dream me got really upset and told them to leave. It is important here to note that (at seemingly random times? I can't explain the chronology of this part) he would tell this girl he loved strange things seemingly to compliment her and hint at some meaning in the story (he uses an expression (legendary maybe?) to describe something about her. He tells her that it had incredibly signicance in his dream story, and he uses this term specifically three times, each time the phrase is a little differently modified. I don't really know what this means, except that he was hinting at his love and the similarness of his situation to the man in the story. Perhaps this is why the story was so important and the man so dear to him. There was a sense of desperation almost in dream me, and a kind of hopeless shame.

This then segwayed into another dream where they went to some man's house (that had something to do with the movie Spanglish, the friends even said so in the dream), but this part is unclear and I was woken up by my alarm before it could go very far. I did not expect the explanation of the dream to be this long (I woke up and started to think about it right away to remember it), but I guess a lot did happen in a seemingly short amount of time.

I wish I had this book. I don't think I'd ever be able to write it because the dream imagery is strange and wouldn't make too much sense to write something that convoluted. Whatever it is, it had a lot of significance to dream me, which probably says something about me. I never got to the end of the story in the reoccuring dreams, and I doubt I'll ever have this dream again, so I might never get a different angle on it. The man from the story had a quiet sadness about him, but he was so gentle and almost dutiful. I'm not sure exactly what to make of it (maybe I am, but I don't think I'll say it at any rate). Maybe it'll mean something to you.

Easter Weekend/Passover

This week went pretty well. I had a heck of a day Tuesday with homework (even Thursday to some degree), and I had a test in Linear Algebra on Wednesday (Excuse me, someone has told me to call midterms by their appropriate names, not just as "tests," in order to give them proper credit, I guess). My weeks seem to be pretty busy, but it's always alright and not too bad by the end of it.

I started playing Resident Evil 4 on the Game Cube today after watching Tim beat the entire thing on the hardest difficulty. It's pretty good, and still a bit of a challenge, even though I'm only playing on normal. Duncan and Francesco have been playing Final Fantasy 12 or 13 or something or other, and I kind of want to play that (I've only ever played the first one, I haven't been able to get into any of the other ones). The only problem is I don't really have that much time outside of homework to be playing all these different games at once (I'm still playing STALKER:SoC and FEAR 2 and GH:Metallica as well). That's pretty much the point of the weekend for me lately, though I should be doing more homework so I don't have to do as much during the week (yeah, right!). I guess I'm doing okay though, because I got a 47/40 on my math test, and did well on all my other recent midterms.

I'm checking out what courses to take for next semester, and I'm still deciding what actually to declare for my two majors/one minor. Physics is a major for sure, but I'm not sure what would be better to declare as my second major: religious studies or math? It doesn't *really* matter, because I'm going to be taking most if not all of the classes anyways, but I feel like whichever I choose for my major now will stay my major until graduation. I'm not as much worried about that as to whether or not I'll be willing to make the right compromises when it comes time to pick classes in future semesters (like, gopher the math class or the religion class that would take the same slot?). My advising dean said that I could consider an independent major, but that doesn't really work for me; I can't imagine any way that would make the situation better, because you can't combine math and religious studies. And math/science only makes me take math classes that are pertinent to physics, and I want to take legitimate, theoretical math courses.

It seems like it will just boil down to how I'm feeling at the moment I finally decide to go and push the buttons on the website. But at any rate, I'm still left considering taking the same classes for next year! I don't know the times of any of them yet, so I can't get a good feel for what would be definites versus ones I'd likely take later/not at all. For Physics is pretty simple, I have 241: Modern Physics I. It's the only class I can take without having had vector calc (it hurts, I know!). Which means that for math I'm considering: 302: Vector Calculus (it's offered fall and spring), 311: Introduction to Differential Equations (offered fall and spring), and 274: Introduction to Abstract Mathematical Thought (only fall). I need vector calc and diffeq's to do absolutely anything in physics (it's *already* keeping me from taking courses), so they're definites, although now that I look at the physics/math courses for the semester after that, it doesn't seem to matter which order I take them in (which is good, I need classes that give me options in scheduling). 274 is a definite for next semester, however, as it's only offered in the fall and I need it for pretty much every math course ever.

For religious studies it's much more open-ended, especially if I choose it to be my minor (slight tilt towards this? Not positive...). There's: 181: Conceptions of Jews and Judaism, 211: Religions of India, and then the second semester of my Biblical Hebrew independent study if my professor has enough time next semester. I'm also on the fence with the powers that be here at Colby as to whether I can get language credit for my independent study, which might affect the plausibilty of getting it all three semesters in a row. Which leads to the other possibilities for classes next semester...

Language classes! If I don't get Biblical Hebrew (or maybe even if I do!), I have the inkling to take some other language, if not to get my college language requirement fulfilled, then to have my personal language requirement fulfilled. (It wouldn't be a bad thing for me to major in languages in general - I'd love to be a translator) So basically my options are: Chinese, Greek, Italian and Russian for intro courses. To a lesser extent there's always German and Spanish, though I'm not as much interested in them, but they would not be uninteresting. There is also the possibility of me studying this summer my Latin and/or French and then retaking the Latin placement exam to get into third semester Latin (I definitely have the chops, just need to get the rust out), or possibly take the placement exam for French out and test out of my language requirement. I could always do both anyways just for the heck of it, and to see what options they give me.

I hear not amazing things about the Greek teacher, but this has never really deterred me from a class before; it can't be *that* bad that I wouldn't be able to learn the language and alphabet, which is my primary goal. I'm also a little on the edge with Chinese (Mandarin). It's a 5 credit course, so it's undeniably a lot of work and probably pretty hard. Another thing is I'm attempting to learn a little on my own (thx interwebz! u rox), which could hurt or help me if I decide to take it (like I can figure out how to pronounce and intonate all this stuff on my own???). It would be fun, but I don't like conversational languages too much (just the conversing part, I'm a shy person), and having to deal with intonation is a little daunting, considering next semester I'm taking at *least* 5 classes, if not petitioning to take 6. In that case, a 5 credit course would be a little iffy and likely end up on the cutting room floor. However, I've never been deterred by a challenge before, so it's always still in consideration. (The most likely thing that would affect whether or not I ultimately took it is WHEN it was scheduled)

All intro language courses seem to be 4-5 times a week, with sometimes a conversational class thrown in there to boot. This could be potentially dangerous to fit into my schedule, as it's going to be chock full already. However, it probably won't be *too* much of a problem, because these courses are usually really early in the morning. Which, quite honestly, is a bigger problem in itself. I don't like getting up early, because I go to bed late, because I like doing homework late. Especially next semester, I'm going to be doing homework until all hours of the night (and I won't even start late! I'll start right when I get out of classes, which will be late because I'll have so many! =P)

This leaves Italian and Russian as the most likely candidates (as to how much more likely than the others, not much, really). If I could fit any of them and I had to choose, I don't know what I'd choose, to be honest. Russian, Chinese and Greek all have new alphabets which I'd like to learn, Italian is a language I've always wanted to learn (it's close to home, I'm Italian and I've already taken a lot of Latin), Latin has always been near and dear to my heart, and French was my first foreign language. At the end of the day, there just isn't enough time to take everything I want to take. Ah well, there's always my ability to learn them on my own (it doesn't work out *that* well, but it's better than nothing), and there's always the summer where I can take additional courses.

I don't really know what I'm better at schoolwise. Physics/Math/English(Religious Studies - Essays and interpretations, analysis, it's a more in-depth English major focused on religion)/Languages. It's hard to say what's more fun - I've always loved physics and it's a joy to figure out problems after I learn things; math has always been fun in that it's a more fundamental type of physics, and now is starting to get considerably abstract, which is fine with me!; reading religious materials and writing about them is a whole lot of fun; and I've always adored languages - grammar, translation, differing thought patterns, etc. None of them is fun in the same way, which is why it's hard to compare.

Am I necessarily better at one than the other? Do I understand one area quicker than the other? I'm not so sure about that. I seem to take a keen understanding of each pretty quickly as they're taught to me, and when I don't understand I'm not afraid to brute force my way through it, because I enjoy it. Each area has its own set of difficulties/general work to push through - problems in problem sets, abstract ideas, essays and interpretation, vocabulary and grammar rules. While they may not be the most fun at the time, they're all so incredibly rewarding once worked on to a high degree.

I can't really ever decide between them, so up until this point I haven't really done that. And I can't see myself really choosing between them in the future - I'm resigning myself to 5, if not *6* classes! I'm a little off my rocker, to be honest. And for me, it's not too hard, it's just a lot of work. Am I willing to do all that work? If next semester is harder than this one (which it will be), then it's possible. I'm starting to get better habits for my work, simply because I need to or I wouldn't get it all done (and that's one thing I always try and do). (And for relational purposes, the mode for classes at Colby is 4 classes at 3-4 credits a piece. Some people do 3 if they have really hard classes. You're not recommended to do 5, and you're not allowed to go over 20 credits in a semester unless you petition for it. A lot of people I've talked to from other colleges have 5 classes, and quite honestly they don't seem to be nearly as much work as I am. Most of these classes are hard and not a joke, something I'd expect from a college that claims to be as good as it is, and costs as much as it does.)

If this sounds like I'm insinuating something, I am. I work hard. And I do it because I love that for which I am working. Am I the best at what I do? No. Do I do the best for what I want to do? Yes. And I always will. I fulfill myself, and my standards for myself are pretty high. That's why I'm usually one of the hardest workers in my classes, and it's why I've generally been a good student so far. I love to learn what I'm learning, so I'll work hard to make sure I learn it well. I've never wanted to be the best, but I'm slowly edging more towards the high end as I push myself harder and harder to incorporate more and more areas and classes into my life. Am I going to push myself too hard or too far? I don't think so, I don't think I can do that. I naturally get to points where I stabilize and say "I have no need to do more than this right now." But right now I'm not at that point, and I want to push harder, so next semester is going to be tough. I'm learning about myself as much as I'm learning about subjects and interesting ideas. I have a sharp and vivid edge of myself I haven't delved too deeply into figuring out, and now's as good a time as any to go exploring.

Where will the story of Todd go? Well, stay tuned and hopefully you can discover it at the same time as I do.

2300

All eyes are on me now...

Let's get a Floorplan going for the way of the world - the dark won't come soon enough for me, so let's just call it off.

Musical allusions aside, a post has been long overdue! To all of you who thought I was done with things to say: quite the contrary! I've been meaning to write quite a lot of things on here recently, and have even gone on at length with myself about them (creepy, I know!), but I didn't have the will, time or means (take your pick) to put it up here. I'm sure they'll all work their way onto here eventually (potentially!). Anywho, I thought I'd dedicate my time now to what's been frustrating me lately: judgements and superficiality!

Okay, big topic, big deal, etc, etc, etc. Quite frankly, while it is a big topic and important in general, it's not the most important thing in the universe, and I'm concentrating on a small part of it (you'll understand soon enough). I'm not too interested right now in talking about grand or ethical judgements, but maybe I'll talk about them a bit in general along the way for reference.

So my feelings and frustrations with this particular topic seem to fluctuate (sometimes rapidly over a short period of time, sometimes very slowly over long periods of time when it takes a back-burner and is not constantly at the forefront of my thought. These time differences are probably directly related to how prevalent it is in my thoughts, though). Some times I feel very compelled to write a scathing arguement of damnation, and other times it falls off my shoulders, and plops to the ground, maybe like a giant bowl of peanut butter. (plop! Come on, you can imagine the sound) Right now I'm more towards the latter (not the ladder, although that would make a much louder plop), probably because I'm rocking out. But that's besides the point. Let's get cereal.

Okay, I had Cocoa Pebbles, how about you? (No seriously, they're right here!) Judgements and superficiality. Do not judge lest thee be judged thyself. Okie dokie. Good place to start. And sure, it makes a lot of sense. Don't judge others, a good way to go about things, and you can expect/demand not to be judged in return to ensure all fairness. But when the heck is that going to happen? I think it's very important here to look at a realistic approach to judgement.

So if our ideal is not to judge at all, how can we try to approach this ideal in a sensible way? Well, we can try to categorize judgements into distinct classes - something like ethical or moral judgements, ideological judgements, physical judgements, etc. Now to be ideal, it would seem that the most significant judgements would be the least desirable, and that the smaller judgements would therefore be more acceptable and approaching closer to the ideal. I think this is quite opposite in common practice in this society.

I make a few assumptions here, based on my knowledge of the society I live in and the ideals it portrays (these points are quite free to argue, but should be fairly obvious and factual). It seems to be that our society values ethical and moral judgements, and to a lesser extent ideological judgements, over superficial and physical judgements. This recurs commonly in everyday phrases, especially in post Martin Luther King Jr. America. We're supposed to judge people according to the content of their character and not on the color of their skin (or any other physical characteristics, for that matter). This presents a bit of a problem for our ideal scenario.

On one hand, we're not judging people for petty or irrelevant (seemingly) things that they have no control over, and we're judging them for their actions *for which they are responsible*. This seems like a logical conclusion to us - why would you not hold someone accountable for their own actions? We fully believe in the idea of free will under our law codes and social constructs. (Some say religions and philosophers argue against free will, but that doesn't really apply to everyday living, as you WILL be arrested for breaking the law for what is discerned as your own volitions) So we believe it is acceptable to judge people for their actions, and this seems to be a societal ideal.

This creates some issues. There's a large arguement here over HOW one should judge people because of their actions. This, I believe, draws largely from the original ideal that we should not judge others at all. "How can you judge others' actions if you don't know their intentions, motivations, background, all the events leading up to it, etc?" This is a hard arguement to counter, but it's antithesis also has an equally strong point. "Why does one's intentions matter if one kills someone else? Is it not the same outcome of another person dead?" There is a heck of a lot to say for both of this, so let's look just a little bit deeper.

We generally say the ideal of not judging is a good one, because we don't know everything. This assumes that if we did, we could theoretically judge (and judge correctly). In religion this right is reserved to an all-knowing deity, because it is omniscient. So, in order to reconcile our non-omniscient judgements, we try to find a balance between knowledge and ignorance. This is probably the most direct cause of the split between the two sides of this arguement (intentions vs. outcome).

Some would say that there is an acceptable amount of knowledge you can have in order to adequately judge someone ethically/morally. This is manifest most clearly in our law codes. If you kill someone, but it's purely by accident, you are considered less guilty (so to speak) and receive a lesser punishment than if you are found to have killed someone very purposefully. But while law codes are a good reflection of societal values, they are restricted by common practice and applicability (they have to work for everyone in the society, so they tend to be a little broad).

The more knowledge we accumulate on someone's intentions about an action, and all the influences that lead to that actions, we can start to understand the decision that was made. This is commonly referred to as "walking a mile in someone's shoes." If we understand enough about the influences that lead to the decision, we can see how we would react in the same situation, and we then judge accordingly. ***We here can justify judging because we see what WE would do, and a person generally knows themself better than anyone else, because a person knows one's own thoughts, feelings, motivations, influences, life, etc. We take it as given that we know ourselves completely (at least AS completely AS possible, in general), and therefore it always seems acceptable to judge oneself)*** While this is a good idea, it has one critical flaw: though we can receive almost limitless knowledge over limitless time as to every influence and feeling in a person's life that lead to that point, we'll never have everything. Only that one person has experienced their life exactly, and so we will never have enough to be able to change ourselves into them in order to judge them perfectly "in their shoes".

This is quite the limiting factor, and guarantees that no judgement one makes about another's actions will ever be perfectly correct. In order to remedy this situation, we try to set up a range of acceptability for understanding a person's situation. This differs from person to person, and has no clear definition in society. It's a very subjective thing, and the only guideline society has is to give us the ideal of knowing them completely (which is impossible). The "mile" one has to walk is different for everyone, to continue the analogy. This leads to an impractical means to universalize judgements about ethical and moral actions/issues. This leads to the curious question of: do the intentions even matter? The act was done by a person, that person must be held responsible.

It seems fairly reasonable and accepted that if someone forces another to do something, the person forced is not at fault, or at least the fault is incredibly diminished. This is a tough situation to remedy. Obviously there is a great influence in their action, that being the threats (assumed) of something undesirable to the one committing the act, but in the end, the person who does commit the act does not actually have to do it. Some might say death, exposure, torture, etc. are not things for which you can demand a person to suffer in order to make the "right" decision. But, this is also subjective. It is a very humanitarian effort by society to give comfort to those who commit acts under such briberies, as they would assumedly not commit this acts otherwise.

Even the ideal in this instance is not 100% concrete. Obviously, it seems like not listening to bribery and suffering whatever punishment (even death) would be the ideal. But if you're threatened to give a million dollars to charity (a good act by society's definition) because you stole it, or you're threatened with revelation of the fact you stole it, is it ideal to give the money to charity? Is it to give it back? Is it to resist and accept public blame? Most people would say this is a loaded question to begin with because you have commited the act of stealing, which is generally seen as bad. But what if your motivation for stealing the money was "good"? What if someone threatened death on you otherwise? That would bring us back to the ideal of resisting, but what if your motivations for stealing were to do better "good" with the money than it was being used for already? This is a judgementally disgusting situation, and rightfully so!

Judging such a situation is very difficult, even knowing all motivations and what would otherwise be done if everything were left. This brings others to the idea that leaving "matter in its place" is the most righteous route to take, and to not "upset the universe" or "create waves." This would certainly be a foundation for the idea that motivations don't matter, and that culpability comes from the act. If you had just left everything in its place, nothing "bad" would have happened. This is difficult to justify as well - how do we judge how difficult it is to leave something in its place, and how to we judge the necessity to move something out of its place? There are no set laws for moving ethical/moral things out of place like there are for moving massive objects like in physics. This makes everything subjective *still*.

Okay, I wanted to try a less loaded example before I lost it. Let's say you're given the million dollars this time. And you're threatened again with something (let's say less intense than death, assuming death is the most intense, or near it...). We already have a problem. With what are you being threatened? The goodness of our actions seem to hinge almost entirely on this question once again, because it's a very strong indicator of past events that would shine light on the current situation. If we say something like defamation, it would still seem righteous to keep the money, but if it's revealing bribery or something "bad", then obviously it seems more righteous to give the money. But this situation is utterly ridiculous - we can't go into it with prejudgements and prejudice, as that defeats the purpose.

So let's try to make it basic and say the threat is ambiguous, you don't know what it is, but it is significant enough to make you make a decision. (This vagueness really limits the example, and I'm not even sure it's still an acceptable example without more clarity. This is turning into a subjectivity nightmate) In this case, it is acceptable to give the money to charity, because society says it's okay under a significant threat (which this is defined as being). And giving to charity is a righteous act anyways, which is how it would be viewed from an outside perspective. Not giving in to the threat would be righteous from an inside perspective. However, this comes with a complimentary judgement of you keeping money that would otherwise go to charity. Since you were given the money, it's hard to determine where "matter out of place" works into this. Does the money belong with you, to whom it was given, to the one who gave it to you, to charity because of the events as they have unfolded, to no one or no where? A difficult question to ponder, and seemingly subjective yet again.

This seems to be another counter arguement against the culpability of only actions. The person forced to give up money to charity is not doing so out of their own volitions, so by some (should have stated earlier) part of society's overall grasp they are NOT responsible for their actions. So that would mean they don't commit a righteous act in donating the money. But the act itself is seen as righteous. So righteousness *happens* without anyone being righteous. Is this an acceptable way to look at it? Well, not exactly, though I do considerably like it.

The culpability of the act falls on the person who made the threat. They have whatever motivations to make the person donate the money. So they cause a righteous act by acting unrighteously. So... Um... Does this balance out? Subjective. Is it more one way or the other? Subjective. Is this ridiculous? Yes.

Okay, so now that I've been thoroughly confusing, let us look at a MUCH more concrete example. That of physical/superficial judgements in society. This ideal is more clear in theory - it is better to approach the ultimate ideal of *no judgements*. This, however, does not happen very often in practice. It may even be impossible in practice to make no "superficial" judgements. This is somewhat subjective, as definitions for superficial can vary.

We'll generally say superficial judgements are judgements that are not based on actions, but on appearance. In other words, they have no significant "meaning." If that one thing changed, in general, someone would not say it was "bad" or "good." This seems to remove an ethical/moral/ideological emphasis on the judgements.

Okay, so what usually goes down? This is more difficult to say, and varies from person to person. (Although usually the ideal is understood pretty standardly, if not followed) People seem to "know" it's not okay to judge someone by their looks, their attire, their method of transportation, material objects, possessions, wealth, etc, etc. While these things can all have personal significance and meaning to the owner, they don't seem to have any general significance to anyone else in particular.

This seems pretty straightforward, and is why it is generally taught in society "people are equal," "don't judge a book by its cover," Martin Luther King Jr. references, etc. This generally takes on an important role in society (the ideal was a strong arguement and reason for emancipation, rights, suffrage, etc). This seems to be something most people are willing to practice generally and can be brought to others through experience, or taken away by experience. This is what I think causes the ideal to breakdown on personal, or smaller levels.

When we see someone dressed in all black, painted black nails, black boots, chains, pins, all sorts of other things, we generally *avoid* them. This kind of phenomenon has to do with mental/brain associations. Black - scary color, night time, badness!, chains - restraint, jails, etc, pins - sharp, pain, ouchies, resulting in the conclusions: GOTH, or more contemporarily: emo. Some people who dress similarly might be endeared towards this person instead of repulsed. This association process directly leads to superficial judgements. We associate certain aspects about how people look, what they wear, etc, etc with certain things. This is a natural process that our brain does, and is unavoidable. This means that we are guaranteed to make at least subconscious superficial judgements all the time.

Now you might ask: what does that mean? It depends on how we define judgements. If we say all judgements are bad, then by definition, a normal person (read: healthy, or more really: not brain-dead) will always commit bad acts. This is a little ridiculous. So, we need to allow certain judgements to exist, and then we have to judge according to how we act about those judgements.

Using judgements here is a little ambiguous. The brain associates certain things with others, so seeing someone dressed a certain way will bring up all the most prevalent associations. The most prevalent are the ones that happen the most often and are therefore the most reinforced. So, if you see a necklace (or certain type, more likely) worn on people most often at "fancy" events, you'd come to expect to see it there. And when it was on someone who wasn't there (matter out of place), you'd notice because it was different, and you'd wonder why. This may not always happen consciously for everything (we can't notice everything all the time!), but would most likely surface for something that is readily available to see or significant in our memories (different for each person).

Seeing this necklace out of place, one might think "this person is not dressed correctly for the occasion" and that might lead to "maybe I should find out why." This might often lead to things like "oh that's a nice necklace" or "you're dressed fancy." People just seem to be curious, and this is not a bad thing. There seems to be no bad intentions in seeking out why matter is out of place. (You could say that you shouldn't act differently at all to be totally fair and righteous, but ehhh)

However, there seems to be something wrong with judging *because* superficial matter is out of place, or at the very least *acting* differently (read: in a "bad" manner) because of it. It's okay to think that the person dressed in all black is scary (black and pins and chains might bring up an association of fear or pain), but it seems to be the case that one needs to act no differently to this person because of their appearance. In this case, it is "bad" to think lesser of them, or to think of them in even a negative manner, based on this superficial judgement. However, if you have moral/ethical reasons for disliking the way this person dresses (read: PERSONAL reasons, like that this specific person dresses this specific way for a reason you find "wrong" or "bad"), it seems acceptable to act differently. It, however, never seems acceptable to superficially judge someone just because of their appearance, without knowing the motivations for that attire.

It's all pretty convoluted in the area of judgements for motivations, as we saw earlier, so this superficiality is not completely set in stone. In general, it seems to be that whatever happens naturally is not a "bad" thing, as there is nothing one can do about it. This brings back culpability of actions. There seems to be no way to control feelings or mental associations that happen, so those do not render someone "bad" by themselves. It seems solely to hinge on how a person acts in light of such unstoppable events.

This seems to become a bit more convoluted when dealing with "good looks" or physical attractiveness. We roll this into the superficial category in general, but it poses a bit of a problem in some instances. Just like mental associations and feelings, it is a natural event for one to be attracted to another, and there is seemingly nothing one can do to stop that. This means that it is perfectly acceptable to be attracted or not to anyone in particular, but then it follows from before that one should not act different towards them.

This is where there is a bit of a problem. The societal ideal for a relationship hinges on attraction, compatability and a whole host of other things, but mostly the ideal is that it matters how emotionally and mentally compatible two people are. This seems like a righteous choice, except for the fact that people naturally are attracted or not physically to one another. This asks the question of the importance of physical attraction to a relationship, and this also would determine if it is acceptable or not to act different to someone you are or are not attracted to. It seems to make sense that you would act (in order to preserve righteousness) the same to all those whom you find attractive, and then the same to all those you do not, exclusively. This is a difficult thing to justify - you don't want to degrade one group over the other. This presents a dualistic quality to one's actions that represents the fundamental option of choice.

Every different group, idealistically, is treated with the same level of "something" by any one individual. This would present the ideal that all people are equal (superficially). This means that you're constantly acting different to different groups, but somehow you have to balance the interactions between the groups so that all are equal with this important "something." From a judgemental sense, maybe it is enough to say that you treat all groups differerently with the same amount of "goodness." The now impossible problem arrives of how we measure this idea of "goodness." If we have to balance it equally, how do we judge it ourselves? Basically, this is based on intuition and common sense, and is entirely subjective. It really is a whole slosh of guessing and trying, as there isn't even a clear ideal set by society for this one.

But this also asks the question: if we can't accurately judge or measure the level of goodness we're presenting to all these different groups, is it really acceptable to act differently to anyone at all? It could go either way. It's easy enough to say no and be done with it, because that has a very strong arguement. But yes seems to be the more realistic choice and represents our world more accurately. Nothing is exactly ideal, nothing is perfect, nothing is clear cut and so on. There are a lot of variances and changes that happen dynamically and in real time that influence even this very question itself and how we interpret it. Basically, it's up in the air. What do I think about it? Well, I just try to be a nice guy. =P Now what does that entail? We can see from what is written previously, that it's all a hodge posh of estimations and blah. So take your interpretation, fancy it up a little bit, round off the edges, make it a little bit more universal, make it a little less demanding, a little more worldly, and a tiny bit more fun. That's really what I do, and I do it because I respect and care about others. It's all up to you, this is how you live your life. I can only suggest that you live it well. I know I certainly try.

BTW, My Number = best song ever (well, maybe second or so). Kthx4reading. Bai.
1651

Honesty

Today I've been filled with a deep sense of sadness and regret. The world just feels different and homeless tonight. I considered life in a much different way for a moment today as I was walking back up to Heights (my dorm). I was kicking little pebbles, and the thought occured to me that millions of little bacteria were living on the rocks, and as I kicked them and they scraped against the ground, I was killing so much life without even thinking about it. Then I looked up as a bird landed on a tree, turned its head around and crowed. It made me think about how chaotic life is, and it made me wonder what made a bird's life so much more valuable and sacred than the millions of micro-organisms that live on rocks. I guess it's just their relative status to humans - we perceive human life to be the ultimate, and animals/beings closer to us therefore have more relative value when their lives are concerned. That makes the little bacteria on the rock almost worthless in comparison. But then I thought that to the universe, to the world, to the chaos that allowed life to come into being and continue here on Earth, we probably are no more important than the bacteria on the rock.

But that did not arouse any great sadness in my heart, for all my life I have valued humans above animals above micro-organisms and so on down the line. It's just natural, being from the society I am, and especially as a human being myself. Today was a strange day (classes were canceled, everything happened in a different order, just not the normitive Monday for me), and it got even stranger when one of my good friends told me someone she was friends with just died. I was sympathetic, of course, and then I thought that I'd never be able to handle it if someone close to me died. It was just a fleeting thought, and I rather simply passed it from my mind and went on to other things (like dinner, homework, etc.). But I think it stayed with me somewhere in the back of my mind and heart.

A long time ago, whenever someone told me that someone they knew died, it didn't really sink in too well. My grandfather died when I was around 5 years old, so I never really knew him so well. My grandparents' brothers and sisters have died since then, but I never really knew them so well, either. People I've been close to have never died; some people have passed out of my life and into the world somewhere, however. And so when someone told me that someone died, I always used to think it a terrible tragedy (I was sympathetic for them; I don't want my friends being hurt), but not for the most obvious reason. I always thought that that was one person I would never, could never, meet and get to know. I always wondered why it happened that way - I would never know them, and the only connection to them I had was through this other person. What did the deceased have to do with me? How should I feel for them? I always thought it incredibly saddening that they were gone from the world, no longer able to affect it personally, meet new people, feel love, live life.

I still don't know how I feel about this. Today I am much more respectful in my feelings for the people who actually know the deceased (I feel bad due to sympathy, not out of tragedy). I've seem to come to accept the way of things and the planned nature they follow. It may not be planned, but considering it did not happen any other way, I see no problem calling the past a map of all that has happened. Some may say it could have all been different, someone didn't have to die. I'd like to believe that, I'd like to believe people didn't have to die when they did. Life seems like something you should be deserving to get as much as you want of; but that is probably very rarely the case.

So what does this have to do with me, personally? (And hence be put in here) Well, it made me consider deeply how I would feel if someone close to me did die. I still can not fathom how I would respond to that; it's just not something to which I can realistic envision me responding. I just don't know how it will be. But it did make me realize that I would want anyone who was close to me to know who I am, assuming anyone I know died, or even potentially me, myself. It's a harsh reality to consider, but it's made me realize that for possibly the first time in my life, I regret something. I regret not letting people know (even if it's just the closest people) much of anything about me. Yes, you learn a lot about a person by interacting with them, even asking them questions about things and such, but most people don't really know me as I exist and view myself. I've said something to this effect throughout this blog, but it was not a very legitimate effort. This deep sense of sadness and regret requires me to be very honest for the first time in my life in this manner. I don't know why now, or if it matters, or if I'll ever feel this way again and shun all this tomorrow. All I know is what is going on right now, and that's what's driving me.

Who am I? What am I all about? What means something to me? What is life to me? Who are my friends? For whom do I really care? Whom do I love? Why do I love? I'll try to be as emotionally honest as I can be (no arrogance intended). If I seem to take leaps of confidence, try and remember, I've lived with myself all my life, I know many things about me that none others do.

I am he who loves uncontrollably. I haven fallen for many girls in my day, in many different ways. I will say truly that I have only fallen in love once - and this is not a simple matter. I refused to let myself believe it at first, so great was its pull. And so tragic at the time. It meant making sacrifices I never considered outside of my worst fantasies of dark futures. I don't think it will leave me. I don't think it has to.

I am he who loves completely. My heart fulfills all prophesies of the grandeur of love - it is given over in totality when it falls. I resist it not a bit, for even when I try it makes no difference. I don't know if I love more than others do; maybe I am just more open with myself about it. I can't hide my feelings from myself.

I am he who cares for others more than himself. People are the world to me. My fulfillment comes from others' happiness. I feel my place is to be for others.

I am he who is self-sacrificing. I will always suffer pains rather than let others do so if I can. I will stay silent in the midst of endless pain, rather than allow someone for which I care to suffer the slightest. I admittedly feel quite a bit of pain for this. Yet no one ever finds out the pains I suffer for them, and most likely never will; my love is too great.

I am he who listens. My natural state is to listen to those around me in order to understand. I feel at peace in the words of others; their stories soothe and warm me. I often will get lost in someone's story.

I am he who lost in eyes. When someone tells me a story, I connect with them. I will often stare into their eyes, and assimilate myself with their soul if they continue long enough. My love for someone sincere grows the longer I stare into their eyes.

I am he who learns from eyes. I understand people by looking into them. Someone's eyes have never lied to me, in truth. I stare back, with equal confidence my eyes hide nothing that I know or feel.

I am he who never lies. A little here, a little there. I try to only tell untruths in jest or sarcasm. I have never lied to a serious question, it just has no feeling for me. I, unfortunately, craft my words in such ways as to avoid lies by hiding the truth far more often. This mostly comes to shield others from pain, and has adapted into other, more common uses.

I am he who wants not to lie. I feel like I should never have to lie. I want everyone to know the truth all the time. I want those whom I protect to know from what I protect them, and how it makes me feel. I know I will never tell them.

I am he who is resigned to fate. I understand some things I will never be able to say, and some things I will never be able to do. I understand why, usually. I understand that the past happened as it did for the reasons of that time, and can not be changed. I understand that my place in the future will be set when I get there.

I am he who turns the lights out after everyone has gone to bed. I always clean up and put things in their place after all have gone to sleep. I am almost always the last one to go to sleep; it's in my nature of caring for others. I often stand at a gateway to the outside world after I turn off all the lights and wonder. I feel lonely, but I feel right at the same time. I will always be the one to tuck someone in, to carry them to their bed, to clean up anything left out, to store it safely and put it back in its proper place.

I am the one who loves so much. I will always care for someone deeply, without recourse. I will always be there to tuck them in, even when they do not need it. I will always be the one waiting to help, looking out from afar. I will always make sure no harm comes. I will always be willing to sacrifice. I will always be the last one up at night.

I am the one who lives by hope. Hope is all I have to live off. When there are no concrete things to keep me afloat, I soar on hope. My whole life is based around hope. My whole future is based off hope. All my love is based off hope.

I am the one who hopes for romantic love. The only purpose to my life is to find someone to love who will love me in return. All other goals, aspirations, hopes, dreams and wishes are secondary. I feel it will bring a sense of ultimate happiness. I do not believe this is being naive. I also don't know if it will ever happen.

I am the one who was made to be one. Everything about me is set up to be independent. Everything about me is set up to be solitary. I love completely, without love in return. I suffer silently, without external reward. I complain only to myself. I need no one to sustain me. I have strength greater than I could express. I have strength greater than I could believe.

I am the one who is the weakest of them all. I am struck low by devastation. I am crushed by heartbreak. I am leveled by disappointment. I am wasted by failure. While success is prideful and fleeting, failure remains in my heart for all time. I can relive embarrassments at any time and feel as badly as when they first happened.

I am the one who needs to be perfect. Failure is my greatest enemy. I feel a dire need to act perfectly for those I care about. I feel the pressure to be a flawless support. I feel it a requirement to have useful and meaningful advice. I am struck horribly through my heart when I fail to see something. I am tormented when I say the wrong things.

I am the one who speaks very rarely. My words can have beauty far beyond ordinary means. They can have insight and depth and meaning without parallel. I always have something contributive or meaningful to say. I only speak on things when I'm sure nothing is wrong with what I have to say. I am very rarely positive that what I say is perfect. I don't ever say very much out loud.

I am the one who has lost his compliments. I used to be wonderfully charming. I used to say a lot of very nice things. I used to say them in earnest. I used to sincerely tell people great wonders about themselves. I used to brighten people's day. I don't do this anymore. I am too afraid of rejection. I am too afraid of it being misinterpretted. I am too afraid of being insincere.

I am the one who is only sincere. In all my respects, feelings, sayings and actions, I am sincere in my intent. I try to be as kind and gentle as I can be. I've stopped being mean to people as a whole. I care much more deeply for people in general. I tell them no lies about themselves. I honestly want to help them. I honestly care for them. I have never faked a feeling.

I am one who judges. I expect people to be sincere in all their actions and intentions. I expect people not to be greedy. I expect people to be perfect. I realize they can not be. I accept people for who they are.

I am the one who forgives. I never used to forgive anyone of anything. Now I forgive everyone of everything, in time. I care too much for people now. I can easily be taken advantage of, again. I can defend myself, but I forgive all transgressions against me.

I am the one who lives. Life is important and meaningful to me. I spend every day doing things I feel like I should be doing. I want to do the things I do. If I don't want to do something, I don't do it. I don't waste my time living a life I don't want to live. I love my life and that of which it is comprised.

I am one with the world. I live in the world and draw energy from it. I draw back into it when life gets hard. I come shining forth from it when life is beautiful. My whole life is centered around the world and its beauty. I often stare out into the world, the sky, the trees, the plains, the mountains, the ocean, everything. I love emotionally in the world. It is a part of me as I am a part of it. I love the world, as it loves me.

I am the one who appreciates beauty. Beauty is extremely important to me. It is not superficial. I find beauty in the souls of others. I have only ever loved beautiful people. I believe all people can be in some way beautiful. Some people call this goodness. I don't believe that truly captures the picture. There's some inexpressible quality that only beauty can encapsulate. A sunset over the ocean can not simply be expressed as good. It has a quality all its own, that deeply fills our souls with wonder.

I am one who writes poetry. This is the greatest expression of my sincerity and intent. It has always been misinterpretted for something much more superficial and something much less sincere. I've stopped writing poems for other people. It hurts too much to have people consider me insincere. I've never written wholly for myself. Poetry is the most important and meaningful thing I have ever created. It lies in a realm all its own. I don't know if I can still write it. I believe sometime soon I will try. I don't know what soon means, unfortunately.

I am one who loves. It is as simple as that. The beauty in the words, in my words, in its meaning, in their meaning, is profound. I love so very deeply. I don't know if it's understandable. I'm sure I want someone special to understand that. I don't know if I've met that person yet. I do know how I feel about that. I hope endlessly for it in the future.

I'm not sure if this is done. It doesn't feel complete. I don't think any amount of words could make it feel that way. But for this very moment, it is complete. I hope I return to it. It's very important to me. I want people to know. I don't know if I'll ever feel this way ever again. I'm sure I'll say more, at least to some people. I wish those people could be the ones about which my words will be concerned. But I know I can't say certain things to certain people. I don't want to end on a sad note, that doesn't seem fair. My life is not a sad note; I'm very appreciative of it, and now I'm happy more often than I am not. But right now it's important for me to be sad. I've had my whole life to express myself to others, and I've only done so in such a tiny amount here, and it may be the last. I can't help but wonder why and how it has all happened as it has. I'm trying to stick with a meaning for it all. It's evading me right now; I'm grabbing at wisps of the tendrils of smoke. But I know my hope is in there. All will never be lost. Have heart, dear one. I care for you, and that is all that matters for the moment. Maybe forever. I love you. Good night.

0445