30 Minutes of Work. No Reward. Sleep is my escape. It's the only thing right now that will allievate the burden of this exercise. I hope one day it's no longer perceived to myself as a burden. I can extract some joy from the stress it provides. I can be happy that I've exhausted it. But I feel that day will never come and I will be forever trying to attain it, miserable and uninspired. Yeah, probably, but you know what:
It's for the best.
You don't want to be a lazy slug who can easily manipulate his own happiness. You try to achieve happiness by overcoming challenges. You can remove all the challenges from your life, or make them much more trivial, aka, lowering the bar, but that's not going to make you happy. It's providing the illusion of happiness. It's making you content. You are winning the consolation prize. Human by nature by default seeks perpetual improvement. It's why if you had a direct neural link to stimulate happiness in your brain you'd press it all day, at an ever increasing rate. It'd make you happier despite the fact you've done next to nothing to achieve it. If you can derive satisfaction from an insubstantial activity, then you are deceiving yourself and being a self consuming disease, a virus of your own body and mind. I've always somewhat known this, but I don't think I've ever put it into such explicit words in writing: Pain is necessary. It's good to make yourself miserable to attain the sweetest happiness. Once you get to the next level, keep climbing. Keep struggling. If you are slipping downwards, gain solid footing, restore your homeostasis and push on. But never stop, otherwise, you might as well just die and get it over with. If you aren't going to get any further than you are now, what's the sense of keeping on going? Don't put up with this charade.
Ah, this thought chain. I want to call it existential, but it's even more nihilist. I don't know what to call but this is how I feel: Life is so devoid of solid meaning. We need to use intangible / imaginary concepts such as happiness and emotions to give ourselves a semblance of certainty and morality on the world. But honestly, these things are merely the stepping stones to what makes us human: are ability to act way beyond them. To be able to name them, see them, describe them, understand them, and hopefully overcome them. The self examining recursive nature of our thought processes may just be the only thing that makes humans unique.
But it really makes it tough to live life. What really excites me? What really surprises me? What inspires me anymore? Not much. I appreciate being able to seeing things, but rarely do they effect great emotions in me. I can find the beauty in the aesthetics of a building or sight, but life-changing? No. Not even close. I've become a sponge. I soak absorb so many ideas and reject so few, so it's hard to really find something that much different in my diverse eco-system of a mind. I refuse to let myself be surprised due to my own ignorance, so I must be in a constant state of improvement and expansion. Exponential growth of the mind. Ah, humanity. Wanting and expecting more than is likely possible and only really being happy once the nearly impossible has been achieved.
So why did I really go on this trip to Brazil? I honestly can't tell you what the exact mindset I was in when I bought those tickets. I feel like I was probably high, but the specific thought processes and the hopes and intentions of what I'd get of it? No, those I can't remember exactly. Perhaps I never really thought them all the way through. Perhaps I just had this nebulous notion that it was the right thing to do. I suppose I could scour my journal for details to shed some light on this mystery, but it'll have to wait, it's hypothesis writing time.
If I had to go off my vague notions, I'd say it was to challenge myself. To screw myself over. In some senses I knew I was becoming entirely too comfortable with my life. Becoming addicting to my routine of medicrity—well, perhaps not mediocrity but of doing a routine that didn't really meet my full potential. Something that let me be comfortable, perhaps even live a nice easy life, but not something that left me feeling fulfilled. Nothing that allievated that notion in my mind that I was being a waste of life. The belief that I was selling my own mind short, letting parts dwindle and die off due to negative self-perceptions and my various methods of circumventing them.
Yes. I needed to fuck myself over. Make myself really panic mentally. Make myself really uncomfortable, confused, at the fate of my own wits and intuition. I don't do that very often. I'm a meticulous planner or a cautious experimenter. It's rare I can't undo what I've just done. It's why programming feels so safe to me. There aren't any dead-ends or undoable actions assuming—well, there are substantially less. The turn-around time to redeem any mistakes is pretty quick and relies entirely on your own ability to solve a problem. It's not that bad.
Because honestly, I don't like talking to people. It makes me uncomfortable. I hate speaking in general. I don't like talking for a long time. When I'm speaking, I want to make a point, and quickly. I feel as if every breath I'm expending is wasting someone else's time unless I'm starting to make perfect sense quickly. But it's funny, I don't really feel that way when people are talking to me at all. I enjoy listening to people speak, it's a time when I can just go into data-retrieval mode. Why do I have these seemingly hypocritical views? Does my reluctant to speak come from the fact that I'm greedy with my own ideas? It does seem “safer” to be a listener than a speaker, indeed, you cannot offend someone by listening to them, but it's easy to say something that will make people rather uncomfortable. I suppose that may be one of the reasons why people enjoy speaking to me, or why I get called “approachable,” I'm seemingly the most nonjudgmental person there is. Nobody can offend me, so people probably feel quite comfortable saying anything around me. I guess that means people are just as self conscious as me about speaking, but they just feel the need to get a lot off their chest. Haha. I'm self conscious about speaking and really don't feel compelled in the least to say shit unless I feel it's pertinent.
I really wonder what drives people's desires to speak? Is it just a method of externalizing your own thoughts? Hey, you, buddy, do thinking for me and transmit it back in English. Oh, I like that idea, I'll use it. Thanks for sparing my brain some effort there, as it was easier for me to ask you and quickly assess the quality of the idea than uniquely come up with one on my own! You're the best (I hope)!
Ah, what the fuck am I talking about. I want to talk about the trip. Yeah, the trip. It was pretty good. I tell people it was amazing, but that's really what they want to hear. I don't think it was tremendously awesome by any stretch. It could have been a lot better. What the fuck is wrong with me. I had a great time and I still say it could have been tremendously better. Most people would say that I'm being too harsh or negative, but I don't feel that in the least. I guess most people don't understand that I can be 100% satisfied with a trip, feel I got lot out of it AND somewhat regret that I didn't do it better. These are not mutually exclusive emotions. I feel it's very healthy to have the second, more negative, emotion, as, it will only push me to have a better trip next time. So, thank you for yielding a negative emotion Mr. Good emotion. You're the best! At least it's a genuine feeling!
Genuine feeling, what a funny term for me to be throwing around. I guess I sense all too often that there are imitated or unsubstantiated feelings in people all too often. Imititated ideas are easy to understand how they come to be, by merely copying someone. But unsubstantiated feelings tend to derive from being the erosion of an idea into a mind, fitting the square peg into the round hole by using a mind trick to pretend it's not there. Or even worse, entirely removing the faculties for identifying what's a round hole and a square peg. Yes I'm making lots of references to humans in gov't nationalisms, religious followers, and double-think in general. I think such attributes were a necessary part of evolution of the human organism.
If you really think about it, human beings have become a giant organism that's more or less taken over the world. We even have specialized cells (people) that control such huge facets of our life (govt's and/or anything that may be true in conspiracy theories), which are more or less unaware of the whole. Without the coordination and growth of other cells would the human organism grow to its current size. There's an enormous about of interdependence amongst all the cells, and failure of a large group would have major rippling effects on the other portions. The scales of size and time are just a bit different.
Just as it's impossible for a cell in my toe to really directly talk and know what's going on with a cell ear, humans are often out of reach of one another. Yet we're all on the same ship (environment) sharing the same body.
Monday, December 21, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Dream Log night of 10/08
Lots of dreams last night. I dreamed Obama was entering one of my class room's and taking Q&A. My class wound up asking him way tougher questions than the media does. (not part of the dream) I woke up to found out he'd been given the Nobel peace prize, wtf?
Another dream, which I believe was one of my first of the night. There's a beginning to this dream that I'm not remembering but... what I do remembered started off with me driving in a city-scape similar to boston. I needed to go to an ATM to pickup money... which I get the impression was for drugs. When I was nearby the ATM, there wasn't any convenient parking nearby. However, there was an ally, which I pulled down, and had some yellow barred spot (like where you're not supposed to park) where I figured I could park for 5 minutes while I went to the ATM. I knew at the time it was a calculated risk.
Soon after parking, some hobo wound up stealing some groceries that I had. When I asked for them back, the woman sounded all snobby as if she were entitled to steal from people “in better situations from her.” I don't remember the exact conversation. I'm pretty sure she was trying to convince me to give her money afterwards, which I may have even done. I'm not sure how my opinion swayed.
For whatever reason, I wound up following her back to her Shanty shack place or whatever. There were lots of hobos there. They all seemed quite friendly and what not. For some reasons I was even trying to flatter them explaining how hobos “have a lot of culture and always great stories to tell.” WTF Brian. It was a generally happy time, and I left the place without much of an issue, though, still without my groceries. For whatever reason, I'd given up on them at that point.
When I got back to my car, I was saddened to find that it was not only blocked in, but completely surrounded by other cars. Ulgh, pretty shitty. In order to get to my car I had to crawl under piping and squeeze through tight spaces. Once I got there I was appalled to see my car up on jacks, in the progress of being stripped or something... there were 4 people there doing it. While I was still halfway under a pipe, one of them came over to me. I tried to scare them away, but it was to no avail. I think the one hit me with a monkey wrench or something, but it didn't really hurt. I'm pretty sure I started crawling away at this point, considering how outnumbered I was.
Then, somehow it kinda broke to a news break or something in my mind. And I realized that the 4 people stealing my car were 4 of the hobos from before, just now looking slightly different. The scene broke away almost like a player profile for a spots game or something with just them visible and the background cutout. I was infuriated and felt completely betrayed. I remember somehow afterwards peering at them from above, as if sitting on a high up platform, but I don't really remember much past that.
Earlier in the night I had a dream about visiting someone's house. I don't know where or why, but it had a vaguely familiar atmosphere similar to the couple of homes I visited in Rochester. I can't say I can I knew anyone there, which was strange, yet I felt rather at comfort. I was sitting on a couch eventually, when someone sat down next to me. Oddly, they wanted to lay down, and immediately asked if they could lay down on me, to which I let them. They weren't like obnoxious, but it definitely had some homo-sexual connotations and atmosphere which I was plenty of aware of in the dream.
Eventually he sat up and we began talking. I believe he asked who I was. I knew who he was: Erin's uncle. (I'm pretty sure she doesn't even have one of those). Anyway, my answer was “I used to date your niece for 2.25 years.” To which he replied, “oh the old one, haha! Now she's been dating some other one for 4 months.” To which I replied “As if I cared!” causing the whole room to laugh with me. It felt like I was just masking my feelings with laughter though, as in some ways it made me kinda sad to know she was dating someone else.
Now that I'm conscious again though I really don't give a fuck. I'm guessing the dream was pointing out to me that there is still some residual emotional attachment even though I haven't talked to since May or so. Weird how that works.
Another dream, which I believe was one of my first of the night. There's a beginning to this dream that I'm not remembering but... what I do remembered started off with me driving in a city-scape similar to boston. I needed to go to an ATM to pickup money... which I get the impression was for drugs. When I was nearby the ATM, there wasn't any convenient parking nearby. However, there was an ally, which I pulled down, and had some yellow barred spot (like where you're not supposed to park) where I figured I could park for 5 minutes while I went to the ATM. I knew at the time it was a calculated risk.
Soon after parking, some hobo wound up stealing some groceries that I had. When I asked for them back, the woman sounded all snobby as if she were entitled to steal from people “in better situations from her.” I don't remember the exact conversation. I'm pretty sure she was trying to convince me to give her money afterwards, which I may have even done. I'm not sure how my opinion swayed.
For whatever reason, I wound up following her back to her Shanty shack place or whatever. There were lots of hobos there. They all seemed quite friendly and what not. For some reasons I was even trying to flatter them explaining how hobos “have a lot of culture and always great stories to tell.” WTF Brian. It was a generally happy time, and I left the place without much of an issue, though, still without my groceries. For whatever reason, I'd given up on them at that point.
When I got back to my car, I was saddened to find that it was not only blocked in, but completely surrounded by other cars. Ulgh, pretty shitty. In order to get to my car I had to crawl under piping and squeeze through tight spaces. Once I got there I was appalled to see my car up on jacks, in the progress of being stripped or something... there were 4 people there doing it. While I was still halfway under a pipe, one of them came over to me. I tried to scare them away, but it was to no avail. I think the one hit me with a monkey wrench or something, but it didn't really hurt. I'm pretty sure I started crawling away at this point, considering how outnumbered I was.
Then, somehow it kinda broke to a news break or something in my mind. And I realized that the 4 people stealing my car were 4 of the hobos from before, just now looking slightly different. The scene broke away almost like a player profile for a spots game or something with just them visible and the background cutout. I was infuriated and felt completely betrayed. I remember somehow afterwards peering at them from above, as if sitting on a high up platform, but I don't really remember much past that.
Earlier in the night I had a dream about visiting someone's house. I don't know where or why, but it had a vaguely familiar atmosphere similar to the couple of homes I visited in Rochester. I can't say I can I knew anyone there, which was strange, yet I felt rather at comfort. I was sitting on a couch eventually, when someone sat down next to me. Oddly, they wanted to lay down, and immediately asked if they could lay down on me, to which I let them. They weren't like obnoxious, but it definitely had some homo-sexual connotations and atmosphere which I was plenty of aware of in the dream.
Eventually he sat up and we began talking. I believe he asked who I was. I knew who he was: Erin's uncle. (I'm pretty sure she doesn't even have one of those). Anyway, my answer was “I used to date your niece for 2.25 years.” To which he replied, “oh the old one, haha! Now she's been dating some other one for 4 months.” To which I replied “As if I cared!” causing the whole room to laugh with me. It felt like I was just masking my feelings with laughter though, as in some ways it made me kinda sad to know she was dating someone else.
Now that I'm conscious again though I really don't give a fuck. I'm guessing the dream was pointing out to me that there is still some residual emotional attachment even though I haven't talked to since May or so. Weird how that works.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Night of 10/03/09 dream log
Only remember two dreams last night. Wasn't really in much control of either of them, but they were rather interesting.
The first one involved me going to some party walking distance away from my apt. in Boston, but certainly the landscape didn't match. I just had that impression the entire time. I'm not sure what sparked me getting there, but even so, I was there. It seemed like some big street celebration or holiday parade. Anyway, I was wandering around the anarchy that was the party, not really interacting with someone. I didn't want to stay there too long, my pretentious vibes made me think “jeez these people are all so young.” While I was on my way out so me extremely retarded looking and sounding person was asking me if I had alcohol to spare him or knew where the beer was—I forget which, but I was just only extra disgusted by him, politely told him no, and went outside.
It was nighttime, and many people from the party were now laying on the grass outside. It looked cozy so I did it myself. Of all the people in the dreamworld, I ran into Ashley Bloom and Ally Strong, who seemed like bestest buds still. We all had a very friendly conversation and started laying down together. It was funny, we wound up being in a big cuddle pile. I remember them asking me where I lived, and I said “New Jersey” and then later correcting them and being like “oh no what the fuck, Boston... still. I live in Boston.” Either way it was just a nice big cuddle pile that was rather cozy.
Eventually, I started talking to a big black guy, who was surprisingly polite and well spoken, despite what he was about to say: “Yeah, we're going to run the train on these girls. You're more than welcome to join us if you'd like. We'll be upstairs. Sound like something you'd be interested in?” Haha, what the fuck! I felt really weird and confused, so I awkwardly declined and the girls went off downstairs. I almost feel like the guy was a little disappointed and didn't expect me to turn down such a generous offer, but they went off, and I decided to head off on my own home.
I was walking home, past the pile of people still laying in the grass, and down the street. At this point, I was approached by a pretty, but young girl, who asked me “Could I lick your shirt?” She tried to get in close to me very quickly, I felt like I was going to be robbed or something and got very defensive and kept her away. I think I was screaming at her that she was something like a “Russian slave girl” who was trying to get me to buy her or something. She kept following me for a little bit, and even her pimpette princess start chasing after me, but I ran faster than they could. When I finally had a safe distance from her and was hidden behind some fencing box thing, I saw her again and yelled to now just the manager-pimpette-fugly monster “WHAT THE FUCK, what do you want from me?! I don't want to buy someone.” She reluctantly told me “well we're just the transporters.” as if that was somehow going to change things. Oh well, she stopped pursing me regardless.
By now, it was getting light outside, it was dawn of the next day. I was still walking home. I saw a few kids and a family outside who saw me, obviously distraught, and asked me what's up. I told them something like a crazy russian princess was trying to attack me—even though that wasn't exactly what happened. Either way, they emphathized, and told me I should inform the police. There just happened to be a postman though, who, for some reason, they were treating like a police officer. So, I did as well and told him what happened
He immediately assured me that I should go down to the station and file a report. He would take me there. He was upset about that meaning something like “well, that means we'll have to get on 90” which, I suppose solidifies my assumptions that the dreamscape was taking place in Boston, as that actually makes some sense. Either way, the car ride was very brief, and I don't remember it too much, and we arrived at “the station” which wasn't a police station at all.
It was instead almost like an office from the game FarCry overlooking a big field. I knew something was wrong. Anyway, next time I turned over to look at him, he clearly was not a police officer and was being more like a vampire or monster with red eyes. I was more like agitated that I still wasn't home by now, or filed a real police report, afterall, I didn't even want to go here in the first place. So then, rather than frightened or anything, I knew what needed to be done: kill this mother fucker. Somehow I had my trusty new Kitchen knife, Wurstoff or something, and I stabbed that mother fucker in the neck making short work of it.
That ends this phase of the dream.
My second dream phase started off in my manager's office, Matt. Though, we were more in a building resembling LiveTechnology than anything that is currently at Nuance. Either way, he seemed agitated about something, and I think even Dave might have been having a meeting with him. Either way, he was going somewhere far away, and I didn't know where exactly.
So somehow I get home, I'm sitting in front of my computer. It's now definitely nighttime. I'm looking at my cell phone, and realize somehow that if I send myself a text message with the country name that I'll be instantly teleported there. Pretty cool power. So, for whatever reason I type in the name of the country Matt was traveling to. Like magic I'm somewhere completely different.
I'm not sure what country it was, if I had to guess, it'd be Germany, Sweden, Australia, or Iceland. It was night time there as well, which probably makes little to no-sense considering it was night time where I was on the east coast initially, but that'd of been hilarious of my dreams actually took that into consideration. Either way, I started out wandering around some outdoor party. It was a pretty big festival, with plenty of people, bon fires, and a generally happy atmosphere. I couldn't understand anyone really, since they were speaking another language.
So, after wandering around for awhile, I was checking my cell phone trying to figure out how to use it again. My cell phone in my dream was way cooler than my current one. It had video emails, which I had a few of which I think were rather sexual in nature and I quickly skipped over. I'm fairly certain I got the impression they were from Kira, which makes sense, because when I got her voicemail last time it was pretty unexpected. Anyway, I was approached by some 2-3 guys who wanted to take a look at my phone. Knowing I just wanted to teleport and be done with it, I didn't let them. I tried to move away.
The more I resisted, the more confrontational they became, eventually grabbing me. Fortunately, another guy came to my assitance, demanding that I be let go and he had a metal pole by which to enforce such a demand. His friends reluctantly let me go, and he gave a short talk to them. However, he wasn't completely my friend either. They all seemed to bore some aggression against myself and Americans in general. When I gave a speech on how I just wanted privacy and be able to look at my messages in peace they almost seemed insulted. I either jumped or was tossed onto dinner table and started fleeing away.
But somehow, I was now indoors. So there weren't too many places I could flee to. I fled to the back right corner of the room where some blonde girl was telling me how I was going to be able to keep running for too long. People were getting suspicious and were going to soon start asking me for my papers. I still couldn't figure out how to get my cell phone to send me a text message. She asked me where my father was from, and I told him “Queens, New York” And she as if agitated by such a response replied “How am I supposed to know where that is?!”
To which I all too obnoxiously replied “Well, uh, I'm sure you've heard of New York City, and there are eight Burroughs to it. Queens is one of them. That is where he's from.” (even though there are only 5 borroughs...) She clearly felt humbled by such an initially succinct and sufficient for anyone who thought it through initial answer I gave her. To which she responded with “Well, you wouldn't know where the Plains of Rjorvak (or something like that)” are now would you? I didn't even respond.
Either way, as if by magic, all her anger now subsided and she was just hugging me. It felt really good to be held.
The dream ended there.
I wonder if these dreams are just telling me I have a big desire to be smushed.
The first one involved me going to some party walking distance away from my apt. in Boston, but certainly the landscape didn't match. I just had that impression the entire time. I'm not sure what sparked me getting there, but even so, I was there. It seemed like some big street celebration or holiday parade. Anyway, I was wandering around the anarchy that was the party, not really interacting with someone. I didn't want to stay there too long, my pretentious vibes made me think “jeez these people are all so young.” While I was on my way out so me extremely retarded looking and sounding person was asking me if I had alcohol to spare him or knew where the beer was—I forget which, but I was just only extra disgusted by him, politely told him no, and went outside.
It was nighttime, and many people from the party were now laying on the grass outside. It looked cozy so I did it myself. Of all the people in the dreamworld, I ran into Ashley Bloom and Ally Strong, who seemed like bestest buds still. We all had a very friendly conversation and started laying down together. It was funny, we wound up being in a big cuddle pile. I remember them asking me where I lived, and I said “New Jersey” and then later correcting them and being like “oh no what the fuck, Boston... still. I live in Boston.” Either way it was just a nice big cuddle pile that was rather cozy.
Eventually, I started talking to a big black guy, who was surprisingly polite and well spoken, despite what he was about to say: “Yeah, we're going to run the train on these girls. You're more than welcome to join us if you'd like. We'll be upstairs. Sound like something you'd be interested in?” Haha, what the fuck! I felt really weird and confused, so I awkwardly declined and the girls went off downstairs. I almost feel like the guy was a little disappointed and didn't expect me to turn down such a generous offer, but they went off, and I decided to head off on my own home.
I was walking home, past the pile of people still laying in the grass, and down the street. At this point, I was approached by a pretty, but young girl, who asked me “Could I lick your shirt?” She tried to get in close to me very quickly, I felt like I was going to be robbed or something and got very defensive and kept her away. I think I was screaming at her that she was something like a “Russian slave girl” who was trying to get me to buy her or something. She kept following me for a little bit, and even her pimpette princess start chasing after me, but I ran faster than they could. When I finally had a safe distance from her and was hidden behind some fencing box thing, I saw her again and yelled to now just the manager-pimpette-fugly monster “WHAT THE FUCK, what do you want from me?! I don't want to buy someone.” She reluctantly told me “well we're just the transporters.” as if that was somehow going to change things. Oh well, she stopped pursing me regardless.
By now, it was getting light outside, it was dawn of the next day. I was still walking home. I saw a few kids and a family outside who saw me, obviously distraught, and asked me what's up. I told them something like a crazy russian princess was trying to attack me—even though that wasn't exactly what happened. Either way, they emphathized, and told me I should inform the police. There just happened to be a postman though, who, for some reason, they were treating like a police officer. So, I did as well and told him what happened
He immediately assured me that I should go down to the station and file a report. He would take me there. He was upset about that meaning something like “well, that means we'll have to get on 90” which, I suppose solidifies my assumptions that the dreamscape was taking place in Boston, as that actually makes some sense. Either way, the car ride was very brief, and I don't remember it too much, and we arrived at “the station” which wasn't a police station at all.
It was instead almost like an office from the game FarCry overlooking a big field. I knew something was wrong. Anyway, next time I turned over to look at him, he clearly was not a police officer and was being more like a vampire or monster with red eyes. I was more like agitated that I still wasn't home by now, or filed a real police report, afterall, I didn't even want to go here in the first place. So then, rather than frightened or anything, I knew what needed to be done: kill this mother fucker. Somehow I had my trusty new Kitchen knife, Wurstoff or something, and I stabbed that mother fucker in the neck making short work of it.
That ends this phase of the dream.
My second dream phase started off in my manager's office, Matt. Though, we were more in a building resembling LiveTechnology than anything that is currently at Nuance. Either way, he seemed agitated about something, and I think even Dave might have been having a meeting with him. Either way, he was going somewhere far away, and I didn't know where exactly.
So somehow I get home, I'm sitting in front of my computer. It's now definitely nighttime. I'm looking at my cell phone, and realize somehow that if I send myself a text message with the country name that I'll be instantly teleported there. Pretty cool power. So, for whatever reason I type in the name of the country Matt was traveling to. Like magic I'm somewhere completely different.
I'm not sure what country it was, if I had to guess, it'd be Germany, Sweden, Australia, or Iceland. It was night time there as well, which probably makes little to no-sense considering it was night time where I was on the east coast initially, but that'd of been hilarious of my dreams actually took that into consideration. Either way, I started out wandering around some outdoor party. It was a pretty big festival, with plenty of people, bon fires, and a generally happy atmosphere. I couldn't understand anyone really, since they were speaking another language.
So, after wandering around for awhile, I was checking my cell phone trying to figure out how to use it again. My cell phone in my dream was way cooler than my current one. It had video emails, which I had a few of which I think were rather sexual in nature and I quickly skipped over. I'm fairly certain I got the impression they were from Kira, which makes sense, because when I got her voicemail last time it was pretty unexpected. Anyway, I was approached by some 2-3 guys who wanted to take a look at my phone. Knowing I just wanted to teleport and be done with it, I didn't let them. I tried to move away.
The more I resisted, the more confrontational they became, eventually grabbing me. Fortunately, another guy came to my assitance, demanding that I be let go and he had a metal pole by which to enforce such a demand. His friends reluctantly let me go, and he gave a short talk to them. However, he wasn't completely my friend either. They all seemed to bore some aggression against myself and Americans in general. When I gave a speech on how I just wanted privacy and be able to look at my messages in peace they almost seemed insulted. I either jumped or was tossed onto dinner table and started fleeing away.
But somehow, I was now indoors. So there weren't too many places I could flee to. I fled to the back right corner of the room where some blonde girl was telling me how I was going to be able to keep running for too long. People were getting suspicious and were going to soon start asking me for my papers. I still couldn't figure out how to get my cell phone to send me a text message. She asked me where my father was from, and I told him “Queens, New York” And she as if agitated by such a response replied “How am I supposed to know where that is?!”
To which I all too obnoxiously replied “Well, uh, I'm sure you've heard of New York City, and there are eight Burroughs to it. Queens is one of them. That is where he's from.” (even though there are only 5 borroughs...) She clearly felt humbled by such an initially succinct and sufficient for anyone who thought it through initial answer I gave her. To which she responded with “Well, you wouldn't know where the Plains of Rjorvak (or something like that)” are now would you? I didn't even respond.
Either way, as if by magic, all her anger now subsided and she was just hugging me. It felt really good to be held.
The dream ended there.
I wonder if these dreams are just telling me I have a big desire to be smushed.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Dream log for night of 9/28
Last night / this morning my dreams were pretty trippy. I was part of a big musical production, I did lots of backflips. Matt was there, miss Orestano was there. It was huge and elaborate and I played one of the main roles and it went successfully.
I had another dream in which my cousin Paula's car was completely snowed in. My mom was there along with my cousin Phillip and it was night time and we were trying to drive somewhere. Driving never seems to go too well, and after I got in the car with Barbara it wasn't long before we were out of control and at some field party (during the day) that gave me the impression / vaguely resemebled the field across the street from me in Monticello.
I think like Donovan Monahan, James Clouser, and Mike Murdoch were there, drinking beer, being rowdy. Me being embarrassed to know them, and moving on further down the muddy path. I remember arriving at a big tent / convention / party. The people I was with weren't really sure what was going on. My entourage somehow shifted to Carlo and Raphael. We were still at this large tent / crowd convention thing, and everyone had fishing poles. I remember hearing it wound up being some anti-gay convention that I was aware of, that Carlo and Raph seemed slower to catch onto. I feel like I may have interacted with one male adult there briefly, but I don't really remember...
Next I saw Becca, she was further up the field and alone. I immediately went over to talk to her and yelled her name. This was a very strange interaction. I got the impression that from the concert that happened before I was now some sort of actor and so was she. She was happy to see me, or seemed to say so at first, but as we had a conversation it just seemed to give me more and more the impression that she was pushing me away and trying not to hurt my feelings by telling me she just wasn't interested. This was probably the easiest to see reflected in real life probably closer than any other situation that happened in the dream; that's exactly what's going on. Eventually, she left walking down to the rest of the crowd ahead of me and I somewhat following her not really wanting to acknowledge what exactly was going on. At this point I got the impression that I was playing the role of Michael Cera in some movie or event. I'm not really sure what else happened once we rejoined the main group.
Hmm... actually the most lucid part of my dreams were definitely the first section. It started off with me and Eric Brown being in some room, clearly at night, in a big building or house. The doors are locked. Eric is trying to remain in control, and I feel like in the dream I just have become aware or woken up. There are two entrances to this door, and they are both locked shut. Eric tells me, or I somehow get the impression I'm not supposed to be opening them. However,I hear people outside and they're knocking on the door. When I see it's two youngish / moderately attractive girls, I let them in, and they immediately start interrogating Eric. I feel kinda bad for betraying him, but I was trapped in there with him and he clearly didn't have a well thought out plan for reconciliation. I hear these girls asking him questions like “When are we going to get our money?” Ulgh, poor Eric. Either way, I start sneaking off exploring the rest of the house, which is quickly degrading into a highly raucous party. I don't know where my shoes are, but I do know I want to get the fuck out of there. Eventually, I sneak out of some back entrance, run in my barefeet over rough ground, and get outside. It's been night time the entire time, but I'm concerned the police are going to come and bust this party and me be lumped in when I have no desire to be there. While outside and have escaped from the house, I get the impression that I may have had in a confrontation, but this scene of my dream kinda blurs from existence and I don't remember there being much of a resolution.
I vaguely remember there being another dream section where I was in a wal-mart / grocery store hybrid, that was where the Jamesway was in Monticello. Home Depot wasn't there. It was also night time and raining, I remember the reflections of the puddles in the parking lot rather vividly. Brian Schulman was somehow involved in this scene.
Probably the most self referential and recursive section of my dream was also early on, where I was dreaming about sleeping. I was sleeping in my own very bed. To a certain extent, I was aware that I was dreaming, and in my own bed, but considering I was also having dreams about dreaming... it was recursive and fucked with my so hard. But I love it. I have the feeling that this part of the dream came early on and maybe one of the section about wal-mart or Eric were part of an inner-dream that I “woke out of” into this dream. Still, in this dream, it was all about bodily sensations and about a big emotional let down: I had the impression I was sleeping with someone. That we were cuddled up together and that I was sleeping with them wrapped up. I'm positive it was Erin, as, she's really the only girl I've ever shared a bed with enveloped with. Still, I never saw her face, and, as I was saying, in this section of the dream, I was dreaming, but was just aware. It's like I knew I was in bed dreaming but I could feel my bodily sensations around me and those of another person wrapped around me. It was very satisfying. Then my bubble burst: I realized it was all a charade. None of it was true. I wasn't really sleeping with a girl so intimately at that very moment. The emotions kind of crushed me, as my sense of certainty against me just collapsed. I was very aware at that moment that I knew that I was dreaming about dreaming, and I interpreted the emotion as something to the effect of “Wow, I guess this means you really are seeking to be intimate with someone in your life and it crushes you to lose it.” I got over the emotion very quickly once I accepted that analysis.
Another part of the dream, which I'm feeling occurred towards the end, involved me being at my grandparent's trailer in Bethel, NY... which I spent copious time as as a child. I was in the hallway, close to the living room, sitting down in it on no chair, and I had the impression there was one or two family members (probably my mom or brother) to my left, but I couldn't tell you who. Sitting in his chair was grandpa. I remember a dog, who, in the dream was actually a coyote was coming down the hallway from the bedroom and was being annoying, aggressive, and trying to bite me. Fortunately it had no teeth, but it still tried to chomp down on most of my forearm. I get the impression that someone from the kitchen yelled at the dog-coyotee hybrid thing, and got it to go away, but it just went after grandpa next. He yelled for help of “Help me with this dog” and seemed unable to do much himself. It was climbing up onto his lap and what not. To which he got a response “Oh you can deal with the dog.” Clearly he couldn't. Still, I didn't do anything either...
That's about all I remember, but pretty crazy dreams overall. It took me awhile to get to sleep last night, as I was in a very intense mental mindset beforehand contemplating a great deal of things. The day overall started off with very high energy levels, work going very smoothly, but after work I kinda felt unproductive and unsatisfied. Reading Overthrow just intensified my feelings of discontent, as I was now miserable at the world. Fortunately,once I decided to go to bed, my mind became very active, I contemplated many important topics, and my mental and emotional wellness rebounded considerably. It was nice a nice finish. Still, I say this, because I feel those conditions strongly increased the vividness of my dreams. Also, I've been making a more conscious effort when I go to sleep to try and be aware / remember my dreams / possibly take control during them. I had a long pre-sleep stage where I was very aware that my body was shutting down and falling asleep yet I couldn't / didn't want to fully engage it as I was afraid it'd wind up waking me up. I'm sure that also contributed to me remembering almost every dream I had last night.
Yeesh, all of this is so personal to me. I haven't even gotten into interpreting it all...
I had another dream in which my cousin Paula's car was completely snowed in. My mom was there along with my cousin Phillip and it was night time and we were trying to drive somewhere. Driving never seems to go too well, and after I got in the car with Barbara it wasn't long before we were out of control and at some field party (during the day) that gave me the impression / vaguely resemebled the field across the street from me in Monticello.
I think like Donovan Monahan, James Clouser, and Mike Murdoch were there, drinking beer, being rowdy. Me being embarrassed to know them, and moving on further down the muddy path. I remember arriving at a big tent / convention / party. The people I was with weren't really sure what was going on. My entourage somehow shifted to Carlo and Raphael. We were still at this large tent / crowd convention thing, and everyone had fishing poles. I remember hearing it wound up being some anti-gay convention that I was aware of, that Carlo and Raph seemed slower to catch onto. I feel like I may have interacted with one male adult there briefly, but I don't really remember...
Next I saw Becca, she was further up the field and alone. I immediately went over to talk to her and yelled her name. This was a very strange interaction. I got the impression that from the concert that happened before I was now some sort of actor and so was she. She was happy to see me, or seemed to say so at first, but as we had a conversation it just seemed to give me more and more the impression that she was pushing me away and trying not to hurt my feelings by telling me she just wasn't interested. This was probably the easiest to see reflected in real life probably closer than any other situation that happened in the dream; that's exactly what's going on. Eventually, she left walking down to the rest of the crowd ahead of me and I somewhat following her not really wanting to acknowledge what exactly was going on. At this point I got the impression that I was playing the role of Michael Cera in some movie or event. I'm not really sure what else happened once we rejoined the main group.
Hmm... actually the most lucid part of my dreams were definitely the first section. It started off with me and Eric Brown being in some room, clearly at night, in a big building or house. The doors are locked. Eric is trying to remain in control, and I feel like in the dream I just have become aware or woken up. There are two entrances to this door, and they are both locked shut. Eric tells me, or I somehow get the impression I'm not supposed to be opening them. However,I hear people outside and they're knocking on the door. When I see it's two youngish / moderately attractive girls, I let them in, and they immediately start interrogating Eric. I feel kinda bad for betraying him, but I was trapped in there with him and he clearly didn't have a well thought out plan for reconciliation. I hear these girls asking him questions like “When are we going to get our money?” Ulgh, poor Eric. Either way, I start sneaking off exploring the rest of the house, which is quickly degrading into a highly raucous party. I don't know where my shoes are, but I do know I want to get the fuck out of there. Eventually, I sneak out of some back entrance, run in my barefeet over rough ground, and get outside. It's been night time the entire time, but I'm concerned the police are going to come and bust this party and me be lumped in when I have no desire to be there. While outside and have escaped from the house, I get the impression that I may have had in a confrontation, but this scene of my dream kinda blurs from existence and I don't remember there being much of a resolution.
I vaguely remember there being another dream section where I was in a wal-mart / grocery store hybrid, that was where the Jamesway was in Monticello. Home Depot wasn't there. It was also night time and raining, I remember the reflections of the puddles in the parking lot rather vividly. Brian Schulman was somehow involved in this scene.
Probably the most self referential and recursive section of my dream was also early on, where I was dreaming about sleeping. I was sleeping in my own very bed. To a certain extent, I was aware that I was dreaming, and in my own bed, but considering I was also having dreams about dreaming... it was recursive and fucked with my so hard. But I love it. I have the feeling that this part of the dream came early on and maybe one of the section about wal-mart or Eric were part of an inner-dream that I “woke out of” into this dream. Still, in this dream, it was all about bodily sensations and about a big emotional let down: I had the impression I was sleeping with someone. That we were cuddled up together and that I was sleeping with them wrapped up. I'm positive it was Erin, as, she's really the only girl I've ever shared a bed with enveloped with. Still, I never saw her face, and, as I was saying, in this section of the dream, I was dreaming, but was just aware. It's like I knew I was in bed dreaming but I could feel my bodily sensations around me and those of another person wrapped around me. It was very satisfying. Then my bubble burst: I realized it was all a charade. None of it was true. I wasn't really sleeping with a girl so intimately at that very moment. The emotions kind of crushed me, as my sense of certainty against me just collapsed. I was very aware at that moment that I knew that I was dreaming about dreaming, and I interpreted the emotion as something to the effect of “Wow, I guess this means you really are seeking to be intimate with someone in your life and it crushes you to lose it.” I got over the emotion very quickly once I accepted that analysis.
Another part of the dream, which I'm feeling occurred towards the end, involved me being at my grandparent's trailer in Bethel, NY... which I spent copious time as as a child. I was in the hallway, close to the living room, sitting down in it on no chair, and I had the impression there was one or two family members (probably my mom or brother) to my left, but I couldn't tell you who. Sitting in his chair was grandpa. I remember a dog, who, in the dream was actually a coyote was coming down the hallway from the bedroom and was being annoying, aggressive, and trying to bite me. Fortunately it had no teeth, but it still tried to chomp down on most of my forearm. I get the impression that someone from the kitchen yelled at the dog-coyotee hybrid thing, and got it to go away, but it just went after grandpa next. He yelled for help of “Help me with this dog” and seemed unable to do much himself. It was climbing up onto his lap and what not. To which he got a response “Oh you can deal with the dog.” Clearly he couldn't. Still, I didn't do anything either...
That's about all I remember, but pretty crazy dreams overall. It took me awhile to get to sleep last night, as I was in a very intense mental mindset beforehand contemplating a great deal of things. The day overall started off with very high energy levels, work going very smoothly, but after work I kinda felt unproductive and unsatisfied. Reading Overthrow just intensified my feelings of discontent, as I was now miserable at the world. Fortunately,once I decided to go to bed, my mind became very active, I contemplated many important topics, and my mental and emotional wellness rebounded considerably. It was nice a nice finish. Still, I say this, because I feel those conditions strongly increased the vividness of my dreams. Also, I've been making a more conscious effort when I go to sleep to try and be aware / remember my dreams / possibly take control during them. I had a long pre-sleep stage where I was very aware that my body was shutting down and falling asleep yet I couldn't / didn't want to fully engage it as I was afraid it'd wind up waking me up. I'm sure that also contributed to me remembering almost every dream I had last night.
Yeesh, all of this is so personal to me. I haven't even gotten into interpreting it all...
Saturday, March 21, 2009
If that's the way it is, then that's the way it is. Cope with it.
Edit: I also added an older, drunker post... it's after this one, I put the real date I wrote it, since I left it in its near original state.
Well, I haven't written in quite some time... so I apologize. It's amazing how fast a month passes. I did write one entry, but while really drunk, and I still haven't brought myself to editing it for the web. Not that I'd care if drunken writing was put on the web, just it got a little more personal than I was expecting. If I'm any good I'll force myself to edit it after this.
I just wanted to say thank you to all the people who've read my last blog and the feed back and discussions I've gotten out of it. In general the responses were positive. The most unexpected / hilarious one I had was (paraphrased) “who the fuck do you think you are writing essays for blogs.” With that being said, I'd just like to say that any and all feedback is welcome, don't be afraid to talk shit, I'm pretty good at taking criticism, and I generally find it funny.
Now that we got that out of the way, we can move right along. In this entry I really just want to talk about my self perception and how I work to maintain it. I think this will be really interesting to look back on a few years from now, and plus, I'd love to hear if/how people see me differently.
Back in September I remember having a conversation with my brother that spawned a question I hadn't really figured out the answer to until recently. I was pretty much telling him that at this point in my life I have accomplished everything that I truly felt was important and that I was in a position to make sure that I could most likely sustain it. That is, I had finally achieved what I always wanted when I was a growing up: complete independence from relying on others, financial stability, a handful of very good friends, and for the icing on the cake, a stable relationship (note: Erin and I have since broken up). I really didn't have any more clear cut goals in life left. There was a void in my life, in that, in some ways, I felt like I had beaten the game. I won life, good job, but at the same time, I felt, this really can't be it. What else do I really want to accomplish?
George didn't know the answer, but I didn't either. I mean, I didn't just want to fill my life with activities, like becoming an adrenaline junky, just to keep myself from being bored. I never wanted to become a engrossed in my job or my work, or be in fervent pursuit of the all mighty dollar either. I've watched plenty of people do that shit, and it's not what I want. I crave working towards worthwhile goals. I want to live each day knowing I'm doing more with my life than just trying to maintain and/or improve my quality of life. I have my material needs satisfied—I don't need or want all the shit this consumer regime tells me I do. As such, for me, making money merely solidifies that stability; I've maxed out the comfort that money-alone can provide.
I've also seen the opposite end of the spectrum, where I think many more people are, living life without any real direction or goals, just sort of riding the waves of others, rarely making any big changes or tough decisions with their life unless their backs are up against a wall. As much as I love just riding my impulses and going with the flow, I don't feel it necessarily will bring me to where I want to go (happiness), but rather, where the current is taking me. Living life without direction is inefficient and slow, living life as a workaholic seems to just be a big rush and grind to keep yourself occupied while in pursuit of a false dream / ideal. So what the fuck should I do?
What I came up with seems painfully obvious in hindsight, and it's something I did anyway, but nothing well defined. So what did I come up with? Since I have satisfied to a reasonable amount my physical needs, I must work on the only thing I can be sure I will have for the rest of my life: myself. That is, my goal in life is now to make myself into the person I want to be and remove the aspects of myself are inhibiting such progress. This idea may sound just like what I've preaching before, but I don't think I ever spelled it out in plain English: My goal in life is to improve.
When I say I want to improve myself, I mainly mean it in the sense that I want to eliminate bad habits, understand how more things work, have greater exposure and more well-rounded abilities. I love feeling useful and helpful. The more knowledge I possess and more capable I am of sharing and expressing that knowledge, the better. It's not that I don't think I'm good at doing these things now—I really do think I'm good at all these things, but I want to be great. I feel that happiness is not a destination, the final stopping on the train of life, but happiness is the trip itself and the satisfaction that the places it takes you are the result of. If I don't keep trying to learn more and improve I eventually drift towards just feeling stagnant and unfulfilled.
This is a much trickier task to tackle than the problems I used to work towards in the past, which were mainly external related, are now internal. This is a task I cannot really accomplish through the direct guidance or over sight in others. To change myself, I have to define what I want to be, I have to create the yardstick for measurements, I have to decide what habits need to be culled and which need to be fostered. I have to force myself to wage an internal and non-essential war against my own impulses and instincts. There is nothing straight-forward, clear-cut, or easy about this. It requires being brutally honest with myself, frustrating myself, breaking habits of convenience, and figuring out how best to change myself. There are many techniques and tools I've developed to help me on this journal, and it's safe to say that this blog is one of the tools. Ultimately though, tools and techniques are only as good as their user, so the burden can never be shifted anywhere else, it lies entirely on my shoulders.
One of the cool parts about this war is all the shit that I continue to find out about myself. With the desire to improve comes the requirement to know where I stand now, so I examine my own habits as objectively as possible. Combined with the intimate knowledge of my own memories and insight, I can even generate theories onto why I act, how I act, to the point where I find myself pretty predictable. Isn't that a silly concept? Being able to predict yourself? I feel the general notion I feel is that you would never need to 'predict' how you'd act, because you have this magical thing called 'free will,' and when confronted with a situation a person can decide their actions against their beliefs and moral values. But if anything my personal observations have told me, it's not the case. Not even remotely. Most behaviors are quite predictable. There is always a root reason and causation for your actions, just usually we aren't aware of them. You have to really step back and eliminate that root issue if you ever want to solve the problem. Otherwise, you're just treating an immediate symptom. Just like makeup can hide flaws, hiding your bad habits and tendencies or merely finding environments in which they are acceptable doesn't really treat the issue, it masks them. It delays the inevitable, doesn't make you a better person, but makes you look better on paper. That is not good enough for me. At the end of the day I want to make myself happy, and as a harmonious byproduct make the world appreciate me for that. I don't' want to make the world appreciate me for something and then derive my happiness from that, but I see a lot of people work that way.
At the moment, my major personal improvement projects revolve mainly revolve around what I would call mental discipline. Through the wonderful powers of meta-cognition, I realize quite easily when I'm bored or distracted, but I don't always have the willpower to force myself to be productive. It's odd to say this, but I really don't control my thoughts that much. They are very fluid for the most part and my active mind more or less has to corral them to go in the right direction. For something as focused, specific, and needs to have a wholesome feeling as this writing or a blog entry, that requires a great deal of active thought management, and sometimes I'm just too lazy or unfocused to do it. It's seems paradoxical to be able to think that you don't want to be thinking about something and then think about it anyway, but it happens all the time.
One of the other things I've been working on is trying to make myself more open, transparent, and social. There are very few things I hide about myself or wouldn't be willing to tell someone. I don't have secrets and I'm not going to try to pretend that I haven't ever fucked up or been foolish in the past. Yet, I don't share this with many people, not even myself really. It seems so pointless for me to have all these ideas and thoughts and then not share them with others. There are plenty of people who would appreciate hearing them, as well as plenty of people who would not be too fond to hear them. But, my bodily instincts keep me very hermit-like. I'm not socially awkward, but for whatever reason my impulses to keep myself at home instead of going out tend to prevail. It requires a lot of energy for me to want to go out, but then when I do, I almost never regret it. It's like my imagination is my worst enemy. But even still, I usually do get very worn out from going out and need to spend alone time. Achieving a healthy balance is what I'm striving for.
Well, I hope what you can take away from this blog is that I believe we all can be better ourselves. I didn't want to merely rant that I have issues that I need to fix, but I wanted to lay out the argument for why I want to improve, how I hope to go about it, and share what I've learned so far. I'm open to questions, and I encourage you to ask and give feed back. I'd encourage you to use the 'Add Comments' link below, but feel free to comment on facebook or just drop me an IM or whatever.
Just as an aside, here are some of the things going on or recently going on in my life:
Well, I haven't written in quite some time... so I apologize. It's amazing how fast a month passes. I did write one entry, but while really drunk, and I still haven't brought myself to editing it for the web. Not that I'd care if drunken writing was put on the web, just it got a little more personal than I was expecting. If I'm any good I'll force myself to edit it after this.
I just wanted to say thank you to all the people who've read my last blog and the feed back and discussions I've gotten out of it. In general the responses were positive. The most unexpected / hilarious one I had was (paraphrased) “who the fuck do you think you are writing essays for blogs.” With that being said, I'd just like to say that any and all feedback is welcome, don't be afraid to talk shit, I'm pretty good at taking criticism, and I generally find it funny.
Now that we got that out of the way, we can move right along. In this entry I really just want to talk about my self perception and how I work to maintain it. I think this will be really interesting to look back on a few years from now, and plus, I'd love to hear if/how people see me differently.
Back in September I remember having a conversation with my brother that spawned a question I hadn't really figured out the answer to until recently. I was pretty much telling him that at this point in my life I have accomplished everything that I truly felt was important and that I was in a position to make sure that I could most likely sustain it. That is, I had finally achieved what I always wanted when I was a growing up: complete independence from relying on others, financial stability, a handful of very good friends, and for the icing on the cake, a stable relationship (note: Erin and I have since broken up). I really didn't have any more clear cut goals in life left. There was a void in my life, in that, in some ways, I felt like I had beaten the game. I won life, good job, but at the same time, I felt, this really can't be it. What else do I really want to accomplish?
George didn't know the answer, but I didn't either. I mean, I didn't just want to fill my life with activities, like becoming an adrenaline junky, just to keep myself from being bored. I never wanted to become a engrossed in my job or my work, or be in fervent pursuit of the all mighty dollar either. I've watched plenty of people do that shit, and it's not what I want. I crave working towards worthwhile goals. I want to live each day knowing I'm doing more with my life than just trying to maintain and/or improve my quality of life. I have my material needs satisfied—I don't need or want all the shit this consumer regime tells me I do. As such, for me, making money merely solidifies that stability; I've maxed out the comfort that money-alone can provide.
I've also seen the opposite end of the spectrum, where I think many more people are, living life without any real direction or goals, just sort of riding the waves of others, rarely making any big changes or tough decisions with their life unless their backs are up against a wall. As much as I love just riding my impulses and going with the flow, I don't feel it necessarily will bring me to where I want to go (happiness), but rather, where the current is taking me. Living life without direction is inefficient and slow, living life as a workaholic seems to just be a big rush and grind to keep yourself occupied while in pursuit of a false dream / ideal. So what the fuck should I do?
What I came up with seems painfully obvious in hindsight, and it's something I did anyway, but nothing well defined. So what did I come up with? Since I have satisfied to a reasonable amount my physical needs, I must work on the only thing I can be sure I will have for the rest of my life: myself. That is, my goal in life is now to make myself into the person I want to be and remove the aspects of myself are inhibiting such progress. This idea may sound just like what I've preaching before, but I don't think I ever spelled it out in plain English: My goal in life is to improve.
When I say I want to improve myself, I mainly mean it in the sense that I want to eliminate bad habits, understand how more things work, have greater exposure and more well-rounded abilities. I love feeling useful and helpful. The more knowledge I possess and more capable I am of sharing and expressing that knowledge, the better. It's not that I don't think I'm good at doing these things now—I really do think I'm good at all these things, but I want to be great. I feel that happiness is not a destination, the final stopping on the train of life, but happiness is the trip itself and the satisfaction that the places it takes you are the result of. If I don't keep trying to learn more and improve I eventually drift towards just feeling stagnant and unfulfilled.
This is a much trickier task to tackle than the problems I used to work towards in the past, which were mainly external related, are now internal. This is a task I cannot really accomplish through the direct guidance or over sight in others. To change myself, I have to define what I want to be, I have to create the yardstick for measurements, I have to decide what habits need to be culled and which need to be fostered. I have to force myself to wage an internal and non-essential war against my own impulses and instincts. There is nothing straight-forward, clear-cut, or easy about this. It requires being brutally honest with myself, frustrating myself, breaking habits of convenience, and figuring out how best to change myself. There are many techniques and tools I've developed to help me on this journal, and it's safe to say that this blog is one of the tools. Ultimately though, tools and techniques are only as good as their user, so the burden can never be shifted anywhere else, it lies entirely on my shoulders.
One of the cool parts about this war is all the shit that I continue to find out about myself. With the desire to improve comes the requirement to know where I stand now, so I examine my own habits as objectively as possible. Combined with the intimate knowledge of my own memories and insight, I can even generate theories onto why I act, how I act, to the point where I find myself pretty predictable. Isn't that a silly concept? Being able to predict yourself? I feel the general notion I feel is that you would never need to 'predict' how you'd act, because you have this magical thing called 'free will,' and when confronted with a situation a person can decide their actions against their beliefs and moral values. But if anything my personal observations have told me, it's not the case. Not even remotely. Most behaviors are quite predictable. There is always a root reason and causation for your actions, just usually we aren't aware of them. You have to really step back and eliminate that root issue if you ever want to solve the problem. Otherwise, you're just treating an immediate symptom. Just like makeup can hide flaws, hiding your bad habits and tendencies or merely finding environments in which they are acceptable doesn't really treat the issue, it masks them. It delays the inevitable, doesn't make you a better person, but makes you look better on paper. That is not good enough for me. At the end of the day I want to make myself happy, and as a harmonious byproduct make the world appreciate me for that. I don't' want to make the world appreciate me for something and then derive my happiness from that, but I see a lot of people work that way.
At the moment, my major personal improvement projects revolve mainly revolve around what I would call mental discipline. Through the wonderful powers of meta-cognition, I realize quite easily when I'm bored or distracted, but I don't always have the willpower to force myself to be productive. It's odd to say this, but I really don't control my thoughts that much. They are very fluid for the most part and my active mind more or less has to corral them to go in the right direction. For something as focused, specific, and needs to have a wholesome feeling as this writing or a blog entry, that requires a great deal of active thought management, and sometimes I'm just too lazy or unfocused to do it. It's seems paradoxical to be able to think that you don't want to be thinking about something and then think about it anyway, but it happens all the time.
One of the other things I've been working on is trying to make myself more open, transparent, and social. There are very few things I hide about myself or wouldn't be willing to tell someone. I don't have secrets and I'm not going to try to pretend that I haven't ever fucked up or been foolish in the past. Yet, I don't share this with many people, not even myself really. It seems so pointless for me to have all these ideas and thoughts and then not share them with others. There are plenty of people who would appreciate hearing them, as well as plenty of people who would not be too fond to hear them. But, my bodily instincts keep me very hermit-like. I'm not socially awkward, but for whatever reason my impulses to keep myself at home instead of going out tend to prevail. It requires a lot of energy for me to want to go out, but then when I do, I almost never regret it. It's like my imagination is my worst enemy. But even still, I usually do get very worn out from going out and need to spend alone time. Achieving a healthy balance is what I'm striving for.
Well, I hope what you can take away from this blog is that I believe we all can be better ourselves. I didn't want to merely rant that I have issues that I need to fix, but I wanted to lay out the argument for why I want to improve, how I hope to go about it, and share what I've learned so far. I'm open to questions, and I encourage you to ask and give feed back. I'd encourage you to use the 'Add Comments' link below, but feel free to comment on facebook or just drop me an IM or whatever.
Just as an aside, here are some of the things going on or recently going on in my life:
- end of Feb, Erin and I broke up after ~2.25 years
- I learned how to make my own pizza dough, om nom nom
- Yesterday and the day before I saw two concerts, Bloc Party nd private concert, respectively
- I'm getting visitors! Hooray. My cousin in the beginning of April, and my Dad and Brother for my dad's birthday May 22nd. We're going to see the Mets vs Red Sox
- Ratatat Concert 4/20
- Read the book Guns, Germs, and Steel, then World War Z. Both awesome. I'm now working on One Dimensional Man... so dense... next book is definitely going to be more leisurely
Friday, March 6, 2009
drunken ramblings
I must say, I'm very content with my life. Right now I'm feeling rather whimsical and very much like a yuppy, reveling in my modest decadence, enjoying some cranberry-apple wine, multi-grain trader jooe's entertainment crackers, and sharp chedder cheese... while writing a blog entry. Hahaha... the world economy is going to shit and here I am being blissful, oh what a lovely contrast. I could see how this might come off as bragging, but if you were so easily offended, I doubt you'd be reading my blog in the first place. But back to the regularly scheduled broadcast....
It's hard to say exactly what I want to talk about in this entry. I have in front of me nearly two pages of notes—ideas more accurately, but a natural grouping cannot be easily put on them. But in essence, I would like to talk about my philosophy towards friends, how I form relationships and friendships, and how I perceive the world – fuck this I'm drunk this is going to be a raw ass blog entry and you'll love it.
I'm fucking weird with friends. I dont' know anyone really who has or maintains friendships quite like me. I don't know if it's because I'm just that fucking good or if it's because everyone else just doesn't give a shit and is really selective, but this is how it is:
I have a lot of different types of friends. That is to say, I get a long with a lot of different groups of people, can interact seemlessly with them, and float between them. This has pretty much been true my entire life, I've usually had rather mutually exclusive groups of friends. In case you don't know what mutually exclusive means, that means they dont' really intermix or fit with each other that well. I don't know why, but I never take it upon myself to try to integrate or mix my friends. If I have a group of friends, I tend to just hang out with them and go with their flow, rather than ever try to pull two groups or peoples together to make them buddies. There are some exceptions, but they're mainly far and few between!
So you must be thinking (or probably not, but thanks for not thinking that so it gives me a talking point!), wtf dude, I'm your friend, how come I never heard about your other friends? You have friends? I thought you were just a fucking loser! Hahaha, I know you don't think that, but let me tell you all about my various types of friends and then you can try to guess which group you fit in....
I have hard friends, soft friends, family friends, non-friends, situational friends and the such. I feel all my friends kinda fall into the same silos and are pushed towards groupings. My hard friends are the friends that really meet a large criteria base, I'm fucking picky about my friends, so here's what it takes to be hardcore friend:
I need to find value in maintaining the friendship
it needs to be fucking reciprical
you need to be receptive to very “out there” ideas
you need to be a non-aggressive, open minded person. You can be critical but not overly judgemental. There is a fine line that quickly turns to disgust for me.
You either need to have admirable traits or share my values. But you can't be my fucking mimic.
It's weird, I'm really lazy with maintaining friendships. At the same time, I'm relaly good at making friends, but not fusing with others. I don't think I know anyone that really hates me, and that's probably why I have a good amount of friends. But at the same time, I really passively make new friends. Or not, I dont' know.
At some level I feel like your friends are your spokemens. That is to say, you are very much judged by the company you keep, but for me, much of the company I keep does not overlap perfectly and their value set cannot therefore be clearly defined. Thus, I am a fucking awesome omnivore universal friend. Let me too my own horn some more, I am awesome! YEAAAAAAH!
Why the fuck do people make drunk blog so incoherent? Clearly mien is not. Hahaha fuck you, I'm not being serious.
I like when people I hate like me. It gives me some satisfaction that I can adapt to a very hostile environment in which I want nothing more than to make the person's life utterly miserable but realize it's not beneficial so I instead make the most of the situation and charm the asshole into liking me. Fuck you person who likes me, I fucking hate you. You don't know who you are.
At the same time, I fucking HATE maintaining relationships. If it wasn't for the fact that I need friends to fucking make sure I'm not insane, prevent me from being utterly depressed, and to escape the reverberations of hearing my own voice in my own head, to provide contrast and perspective into my own life, I would never fucking have friends. It takes so much energy to maintain friendships! For fucks sake, it's so easy to take care of yourself. That's all I've ever wanted to do, just be self-reliant, why the hell does it seem like nobod yfucking else can. People either fawn over some fucking lover to try to make their life complete or reduce their life to social event after social event. Fuck you losers, I'm going to hang out by myself and continue to improve against my own standard while you continue to seek others to compare towards you. Your shit does stink. You're not as good as you think you are. Fuck you.
FUCK FUCASDFUYASDFJKASDF
I love the word fuck.
Fuck.
FUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCK
ahahahahahaha
Yeah, I should stop drinking, but I can't. It's taken over.
Really, though, while I'm being honest, let me all let you in on a secret: I'm always judging you. I'm always evaluating you. There are so many thoughts I never say to your face that I feel. If you feel, no, not feel, but KNOW this isn't the case, then you are probably the few people in this world that I fucking consider to be a real true friend. You are the people I love. You are the greatest. Is it because you share some values that I share and therefore it's some circular way of loving myself? Id ont' fucking know. I don't care. All I know is that w/o people like you, I might go insane. But you know what, asshole, friendships require constant sacrifice. You need to bite your tongue or quite frankily you're going to offended the asshole you are so benevolent to call a friend, and ruin everything. It's funny, because this same sacsrifice is always what makes people hate each other. They become so afraid and bite their tonguse so much that they never fucking tell people how much they hate what they're doing until it escalates irreperably. They shoulda saw it comeing, but people are dumb and don't.
[Edit: Removed Personal Paragraph]
Hi. Welcome back to Brian brain dump 101. Fuckkkkkkkkkkk, who is going to read this besides me? I'm too embarressed to re-read this probbaly. But I probably should. I mus tbe more mentally discipline like stevie. Good old stevie. You're a fucking good friend. Hahaha nobody else who's a good friend is going to get an explicit hello, so you'll just have to guess. Well, I'll tell you if you relaly want to know, but chances are it'll be WAY too awkward after reading this shit.
Going back to how I make friendships, I think it's safe to say for the most part I avoid negatives. That it to say, I try my hardest to never hurt someone else's feelings. In fact, I take my time to scout out what new groups of friends are, establish what I believe their beliefs systems are, and then begin in the most politically neutral way to confront them. I think I do this so formally and non-chalanelty tha tmost people don't realize, but once I get the lay of the land, I definitely start become more and more raw with you. With that being said, I like to avoid negatives and confrontation like the plague. I try to focus purely on positives and always try to redirect conversations and confrontations towards resolutions, even at the sacrifice of myself. To me, I've never been one to NOT sacrifice short term pleasures (or lack of displeasures) for long term gains. I live in the future, I live for the future, and the only way to have a brighter future is to get over the problems of today and not postpone them. I feel mots people dont' realize this.
I find it really interesting to study how other people interact with each other. In a sense, I love to be an observer. I've always been one. I'm kinda introverted in the first plcae, so I am impressionable, and have tried to contort myself to other people, but I never really could figure out how adults/ other people could interact and get along with other people, until Ir ealized something: they most often don't. People avoid confrontation and uncomfortabale situations really really hard, even when they may not necessarily know why they think it's uncofomrotable. I think people judge a lot of shit in retrospect.\
But like, I know how I make friends. I am adaptable. I am flexible. But how the fuck do other people do it! They don't! They just avoid other people and cling to like minded individuals. Am I really so different? No. But I think I do thrive in intermediate zones a lot better than other people, and I definitely don't let myself become insulated from those I dislike. As I said before, I like when people I hate like me.
GOD THIS IS SO FUCKING INCOHERENT AND NON-SEQUITOR. FUCK I NEED TO DO MAJOR EDITIONG. MAYBE I'LL LET ONE PERSON READ IT OVER BEFORE.
You want a conclusion? You want a summary? Fuck that, I'm too drunk to write one, all you'll get is this gem: Facts hold not merit or value unless they can be applied to knowledge. Fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
I LOVE SAYING WHAT I REALLY FEEL. I NEVER USED TO DO THIS SO UNADULTERATED, BUT SPEWING MY RAW EMOTIONS AND FEELINGS FEELS SO FUCKING GOOD. AND THE BEST PART IS, I FEEL LIKE PEOPLE LOVE TO HEAR IT, BECAUSE WHAT I FEEL/SAY IS WHAT THEY CONNECT WITH.
It's hard to say exactly what I want to talk about in this entry. I have in front of me nearly two pages of notes—ideas more accurately, but a natural grouping cannot be easily put on them. But in essence, I would like to talk about my philosophy towards friends, how I form relationships and friendships, and how I perceive the world – fuck this I'm drunk this is going to be a raw ass blog entry and you'll love it.
I'm fucking weird with friends. I dont' know anyone really who has or maintains friendships quite like me. I don't know if it's because I'm just that fucking good or if it's because everyone else just doesn't give a shit and is really selective, but this is how it is:
I have a lot of different types of friends. That is to say, I get a long with a lot of different groups of people, can interact seemlessly with them, and float between them. This has pretty much been true my entire life, I've usually had rather mutually exclusive groups of friends. In case you don't know what mutually exclusive means, that means they dont' really intermix or fit with each other that well. I don't know why, but I never take it upon myself to try to integrate or mix my friends. If I have a group of friends, I tend to just hang out with them and go with their flow, rather than ever try to pull two groups or peoples together to make them buddies. There are some exceptions, but they're mainly far and few between!
So you must be thinking (or probably not, but thanks for not thinking that so it gives me a talking point!), wtf dude, I'm your friend, how come I never heard about your other friends? You have friends? I thought you were just a fucking loser! Hahaha, I know you don't think that, but let me tell you all about my various types of friends and then you can try to guess which group you fit in....
I have hard friends, soft friends, family friends, non-friends, situational friends and the such. I feel all my friends kinda fall into the same silos and are pushed towards groupings. My hard friends are the friends that really meet a large criteria base, I'm fucking picky about my friends, so here's what it takes to be hardcore friend:
I need to find value in maintaining the friendship
it needs to be fucking reciprical
you need to be receptive to very “out there” ideas
you need to be a non-aggressive, open minded person. You can be critical but not overly judgemental. There is a fine line that quickly turns to disgust for me.
You either need to have admirable traits or share my values. But you can't be my fucking mimic.
It's weird, I'm really lazy with maintaining friendships. At the same time, I'm relaly good at making friends, but not fusing with others. I don't think I know anyone that really hates me, and that's probably why I have a good amount of friends. But at the same time, I really passively make new friends. Or not, I dont' know.
At some level I feel like your friends are your spokemens. That is to say, you are very much judged by the company you keep, but for me, much of the company I keep does not overlap perfectly and their value set cannot therefore be clearly defined. Thus, I am a fucking awesome omnivore universal friend. Let me too my own horn some more, I am awesome! YEAAAAAAH!
Why the fuck do people make drunk blog so incoherent? Clearly mien is not. Hahaha fuck you, I'm not being serious.
I like when people I hate like me. It gives me some satisfaction that I can adapt to a very hostile environment in which I want nothing more than to make the person's life utterly miserable but realize it's not beneficial so I instead make the most of the situation and charm the asshole into liking me. Fuck you person who likes me, I fucking hate you. You don't know who you are.
At the same time, I fucking HATE maintaining relationships. If it wasn't for the fact that I need friends to fucking make sure I'm not insane, prevent me from being utterly depressed, and to escape the reverberations of hearing my own voice in my own head, to provide contrast and perspective into my own life, I would never fucking have friends. It takes so much energy to maintain friendships! For fucks sake, it's so easy to take care of yourself. That's all I've ever wanted to do, just be self-reliant, why the hell does it seem like nobod yfucking else can. People either fawn over some fucking lover to try to make their life complete or reduce their life to social event after social event. Fuck you losers, I'm going to hang out by myself and continue to improve against my own standard while you continue to seek others to compare towards you. Your shit does stink. You're not as good as you think you are. Fuck you.
FUCK FUCASDFUYASDFJKASDF
I love the word fuck.
Fuck.
FUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCK
ahahahahahaha
Yeah, I should stop drinking, but I can't. It's taken over.
Really, though, while I'm being honest, let me all let you in on a secret: I'm always judging you. I'm always evaluating you. There are so many thoughts I never say to your face that I feel. If you feel, no, not feel, but KNOW this isn't the case, then you are probably the few people in this world that I fucking consider to be a real true friend. You are the people I love. You are the greatest. Is it because you share some values that I share and therefore it's some circular way of loving myself? Id ont' fucking know. I don't care. All I know is that w/o people like you, I might go insane. But you know what, asshole, friendships require constant sacrifice. You need to bite your tongue or quite frankily you're going to offended the asshole you are so benevolent to call a friend, and ruin everything. It's funny, because this same sacsrifice is always what makes people hate each other. They become so afraid and bite their tonguse so much that they never fucking tell people how much they hate what they're doing until it escalates irreperably. They shoulda saw it comeing, but people are dumb and don't.
[Edit: Removed Personal Paragraph]
Hi. Welcome back to Brian brain dump 101. Fuckkkkkkkkkkk, who is going to read this besides me? I'm too embarressed to re-read this probbaly. But I probably should. I mus tbe more mentally discipline like stevie. Good old stevie. You're a fucking good friend. Hahaha nobody else who's a good friend is going to get an explicit hello, so you'll just have to guess. Well, I'll tell you if you relaly want to know, but chances are it'll be WAY too awkward after reading this shit.
Going back to how I make friendships, I think it's safe to say for the most part I avoid negatives. That it to say, I try my hardest to never hurt someone else's feelings. In fact, I take my time to scout out what new groups of friends are, establish what I believe their beliefs systems are, and then begin in the most politically neutral way to confront them. I think I do this so formally and non-chalanelty tha tmost people don't realize, but once I get the lay of the land, I definitely start become more and more raw with you. With that being said, I like to avoid negatives and confrontation like the plague. I try to focus purely on positives and always try to redirect conversations and confrontations towards resolutions, even at the sacrifice of myself. To me, I've never been one to NOT sacrifice short term pleasures (or lack of displeasures) for long term gains. I live in the future, I live for the future, and the only way to have a brighter future is to get over the problems of today and not postpone them. I feel mots people dont' realize this.
I find it really interesting to study how other people interact with each other. In a sense, I love to be an observer. I've always been one. I'm kinda introverted in the first plcae, so I am impressionable, and have tried to contort myself to other people, but I never really could figure out how adults/ other people could interact and get along with other people, until Ir ealized something: they most often don't. People avoid confrontation and uncomfortabale situations really really hard, even when they may not necessarily know why they think it's uncofomrotable. I think people judge a lot of shit in retrospect.\
But like, I know how I make friends. I am adaptable. I am flexible. But how the fuck do other people do it! They don't! They just avoid other people and cling to like minded individuals. Am I really so different? No. But I think I do thrive in intermediate zones a lot better than other people, and I definitely don't let myself become insulated from those I dislike. As I said before, I like when people I hate like me.
GOD THIS IS SO FUCKING INCOHERENT AND NON-SEQUITOR. FUCK I NEED TO DO MAJOR EDITIONG. MAYBE I'LL LET ONE PERSON READ IT OVER BEFORE.
You want a conclusion? You want a summary? Fuck that, I'm too drunk to write one, all you'll get is this gem: Facts hold not merit or value unless they can be applied to knowledge. Fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk
I LOVE SAYING WHAT I REALLY FEEL. I NEVER USED TO DO THIS SO UNADULTERATED, BUT SPEWING MY RAW EMOTIONS AND FEELINGS FEELS SO FUCKING GOOD. AND THE BEST PART IS, I FEEL LIKE PEOPLE LOVE TO HEAR IT, BECAUSE WHAT I FEEL/SAY IS WHAT THEY CONNECT WITH.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
God damn that's a smug title for a blog
Hello World,
I've been putting this off for months now. But finally, here it is, my first baby step towards actually writing regularly. It's taken a lot of soul searching, failed attempts, free writes, scratches of notes, conversations saying “I really wanna write” and finally manipulating myself to actually make any headway writing. In the past, I noticed I'd only update my journal when I was feeling sad, or melancholy, and writing would act as a nice therapy. But more recently, since my life has been in a grand state of happiness, whenever I've sat down to actually type stuff out, my mind goes blank and my motivation plummets. This has been a bit of an puzzle for me, because most of the other time I do want to write. For the most part, I live in my own mind. Throughout each day, my mind buzzes with thoughts that I want to expand and explore, ideas I want to share with the world, and observations and questions that I want to discuss with other people. Often though, I forget, I don't write a good idea, or I don't know who'd be interested in hearing refine ideas.
Aside from being a good way to remember and iron through ideas, I want to write as a way to record my life progress. Since I last wrote, I've changed drastically. Actually, I've always been changing; everyone and everything constantly changes. There really isn't anything permanent in this world except change. Personal growth and development is something very hard to track, and looking back at your own history is very difficult to do objectively and accurately. One of my strongest life philosophies and goals is to continually self improve. A prerequisite to measuring one's progress is knowing what you were like before you changed. As such, I want to write as a way to maintain a permanent record of my prior thoughts, so that myself and others can better see who I was and how I got that way.
But, perhaps the most selfish and driving factor for writing is that I want to share and hammer out my life philosophies. I am averse to talking about myself unsolicited; but really feel like others can benefit or are interested in what I have to say. Everyone has problems and nobody has everything figured out, sharing small slice of knowledge may help someone have an epiphany of their own. I love that feeling of “getting it,” and I hope to share that with as many people as possible. While that sounds rather altruistic, at the same I suppose I just want to share my ideas just to make sure I'm not crazy (everyone else is =P).
I'm sure there are more reasons why I want to write that I'm not even aware of. There are however, definitely things I know I do not to write about. I don't want to merely jot down my day to day activities. I want to write to allow people to know me, give insight into how my mind ticks. I don't want to just give facts about me and my mundane activities. For instance, I could tell you a lot of facts about me, and you still wouldn't know that much about me:
I'm Brian C Brandes, a 22 year old web developer (software engineer). I have a girlfriend named Erin and we've been dating for a couple months over 2 years now. I was born and raised in Sullivan County, NY, but now live in Boston (I've been here for a little over a year now). My parents divorced when I was 4 or 5. I was valedictorian of my high school and went on to get a bachelors from Alfred State College in three years. My favorite color is green. I could probably use a haircut.
Honestly, those things are well and good, but it doesn't really tell you that much about me. This is exactly what I don't want to write about. It doesn't give anyone insight into my mind, it doesn't allow anyone to predict how I'd behave in a situation, it doesn't let my personality shine through, and it wouldn't be of any immediate use to anyone. At best, it may give you some vague inclination that I'm somewhat intelligent, but I don't think anyone could size me up from those details and genuinely think “that's a cool cat” or “I want to be his friend.” If just from those details you do, well, you're probably superficial and wouldn't make a good friend. So, if you are reading this not to get a blow by blow on my life history, good, because, this following paragraphs are a better example of the crash course of stuff I do want to talk about:
I strongly believe in self awareness and self-criticism. Perpetually questioning and interrogating your own ideas, actions, and emotions is the only way to be certain you aren't deceiving yourself. You must continually change and reevaluate your own beliefs, because it's so easy to forget their basis. Not knowing the 'why you believe it' portion to your beliefs and opinions opens you up to self-contradiction and undermines the whole purpose of having beliefs. How can you truly believe something and not know why you believe it? You can't! Every time you act on such unfounded beliefs you open yourself up to hypocrisy. You can't be certain you're right. In fact, you pretty much can't be certain about anything, much less something and fragile malleable as ideas. So time to time, from the ground up, you need to rethink and reevaluate your previous beliefs, incorporating what you've learned up to date. Otherwise, you just let your mind grow comfortable and idle. In doing, you undermine progress, leading to stagnation and unhappiness. At least, I'm pretty sure.
I feel this belief, and much of life philosophy in general has developed rather reactionary. In that, I notice things I hate about people and I've tried to justify to myself why they're wrong—I'm sure everyone does that though. But, unlike most people, in trying to justify my seething anger and belief the other person is wrong, I've realized many times, that I am imperfect as well. I, too, may be doing the same behaviors and actions that bothered me when someone else did someone. It's hard to objectively judge yourself and it's so easy to judge others. But really, unless you know yourself, you don't have your own moral system. Your morals are just what you have to incorporated from other people mixed with justifications for emotions. It's shocking how often you find in life people that have the audacity to judge others when they either do not know their own why their basis for judging them was developed, or are just echoing what someone else *cough*religion/media*cough* told them to believe. You should have to prove your morals to yourself before you can attempt to prove someone else's incorrect.
But I digress, rants like that are just the tip of the iceberg. I hope in future posts to expand more on how I apply these beliefs to my own life, expand on others, and what not. But, there are so many more things than just philosophy I can rant about. As such, I'd love to hear all of your input on what YOU want to hear about, because quite frankly, it motivates me a lot more to write knowing someone wants something and not just me. So, here's a quick brain storm of topics I'd write about, if any of them interest you, let me know:
I've been putting this off for months now. But finally, here it is, my first baby step towards actually writing regularly. It's taken a lot of soul searching, failed attempts, free writes, scratches of notes, conversations saying “I really wanna write” and finally manipulating myself to actually make any headway writing. In the past, I noticed I'd only update my journal when I was feeling sad, or melancholy, and writing would act as a nice therapy. But more recently, since my life has been in a grand state of happiness, whenever I've sat down to actually type stuff out, my mind goes blank and my motivation plummets. This has been a bit of an puzzle for me, because most of the other time I do want to write. For the most part, I live in my own mind. Throughout each day, my mind buzzes with thoughts that I want to expand and explore, ideas I want to share with the world, and observations and questions that I want to discuss with other people. Often though, I forget, I don't write a good idea, or I don't know who'd be interested in hearing refine ideas.
Aside from being a good way to remember and iron through ideas, I want to write as a way to record my life progress. Since I last wrote, I've changed drastically. Actually, I've always been changing; everyone and everything constantly changes. There really isn't anything permanent in this world except change. Personal growth and development is something very hard to track, and looking back at your own history is very difficult to do objectively and accurately. One of my strongest life philosophies and goals is to continually self improve. A prerequisite to measuring one's progress is knowing what you were like before you changed. As such, I want to write as a way to maintain a permanent record of my prior thoughts, so that myself and others can better see who I was and how I got that way.
But, perhaps the most selfish and driving factor for writing is that I want to share and hammer out my life philosophies. I am averse to talking about myself unsolicited; but really feel like others can benefit or are interested in what I have to say. Everyone has problems and nobody has everything figured out, sharing small slice of knowledge may help someone have an epiphany of their own. I love that feeling of “getting it,” and I hope to share that with as many people as possible. While that sounds rather altruistic, at the same I suppose I just want to share my ideas just to make sure I'm not crazy (everyone else is =P).
I'm sure there are more reasons why I want to write that I'm not even aware of. There are however, definitely things I know I do not to write about. I don't want to merely jot down my day to day activities. I want to write to allow people to know me, give insight into how my mind ticks. I don't want to just give facts about me and my mundane activities. For instance, I could tell you a lot of facts about me, and you still wouldn't know that much about me:
I'm Brian C Brandes, a 22 year old web developer (software engineer). I have a girlfriend named Erin and we've been dating for a couple months over 2 years now. I was born and raised in Sullivan County, NY, but now live in Boston (I've been here for a little over a year now). My parents divorced when I was 4 or 5. I was valedictorian of my high school and went on to get a bachelors from Alfred State College in three years. My favorite color is green. I could probably use a haircut.
Honestly, those things are well and good, but it doesn't really tell you that much about me. This is exactly what I don't want to write about. It doesn't give anyone insight into my mind, it doesn't allow anyone to predict how I'd behave in a situation, it doesn't let my personality shine through, and it wouldn't be of any immediate use to anyone. At best, it may give you some vague inclination that I'm somewhat intelligent, but I don't think anyone could size me up from those details and genuinely think “that's a cool cat” or “I want to be his friend.” If just from those details you do, well, you're probably superficial and wouldn't make a good friend. So, if you are reading this not to get a blow by blow on my life history, good, because, this following paragraphs are a better example of the crash course of stuff I do want to talk about:
I strongly believe in self awareness and self-criticism. Perpetually questioning and interrogating your own ideas, actions, and emotions is the only way to be certain you aren't deceiving yourself. You must continually change and reevaluate your own beliefs, because it's so easy to forget their basis. Not knowing the 'why you believe it' portion to your beliefs and opinions opens you up to self-contradiction and undermines the whole purpose of having beliefs. How can you truly believe something and not know why you believe it? You can't! Every time you act on such unfounded beliefs you open yourself up to hypocrisy. You can't be certain you're right. In fact, you pretty much can't be certain about anything, much less something and fragile malleable as ideas. So time to time, from the ground up, you need to rethink and reevaluate your previous beliefs, incorporating what you've learned up to date. Otherwise, you just let your mind grow comfortable and idle. In doing, you undermine progress, leading to stagnation and unhappiness. At least, I'm pretty sure.
I feel this belief, and much of life philosophy in general has developed rather reactionary. In that, I notice things I hate about people and I've tried to justify to myself why they're wrong—I'm sure everyone does that though. But, unlike most people, in trying to justify my seething anger and belief the other person is wrong, I've realized many times, that I am imperfect as well. I, too, may be doing the same behaviors and actions that bothered me when someone else did someone. It's hard to objectively judge yourself and it's so easy to judge others. But really, unless you know yourself, you don't have your own moral system. Your morals are just what you have to incorporated from other people mixed with justifications for emotions. It's shocking how often you find in life people that have the audacity to judge others when they either do not know their own why their basis for judging them was developed, or are just echoing what someone else *cough*religion/media*cough* told them to believe. You should have to prove your morals to yourself before you can attempt to prove someone else's incorrect.
But I digress, rants like that are just the tip of the iceberg. I hope in future posts to expand more on how I apply these beliefs to my own life, expand on others, and what not. But, there are so many more things than just philosophy I can rant about. As such, I'd love to hear all of your input on what YOU want to hear about, because quite frankly, it motivates me a lot more to write knowing someone wants something and not just me. So, here's a quick brain storm of topics I'd write about, if any of them interest you, let me know:
- Weeds analysis (the tv show)
- Favorite foods
- my life goals / plans
- coping with life / how I feel others cope
- Handling my emotions
- Learning to not trust myself
- religious rants / bashing
- the ideal girlfriend
- friendships: the wide variety I have, their purpose, nad how they've all changed
- life management
- fantasy basketball
- my joie de vivre
- family development / growing up / interactions
- How I conduct conversation
- Why lying sucks
- How I view myself
- How it's hard to judge the world being locked in your own mindset
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