A Series of Epiphinettes

Sweat

2011-09-11T20:35:00.000-06:00

I loved that feeling of being on top of the mountain, sweating under all the layers, squinting in the sun, relishing in nothing but what was around and how it made, nay, makes me feel. The soreness and fatigue were part of the wonderful discount-package-deal, and weren’t unpleasant at all. THAT was/is what LIVING IS. The unabashed, simple but not trivial, full enjoyment of who and where I am.

My homework isn’t done, and won’t be, but that’s fine. I am conscious that I am a judgmental person, and I am working on it. I enjoy Nutella. I am getting fit, and want to become and stay more so. The only boundaries I have are the ones I set for myself.

What am I doing at St. John’s? Searching for knowledge. There is an infinite number of things I can learn from the absolutely incredible minds that created the works I am studying. But more important than this, I am searching for myself. It’s a not a one-time find, but a slow progression. The next step, and really the only step, is to forget the progression, the kind of 12-step program, of development. Just go. Just go. Just GO.

How much can I do? I don’t know yet. I haven’t even set the bar very high for myself at this point. Most things I’ve done thus far has challenged me in some way, but nothing has been truly hard. I must confront the impossible distance, force the incomprehensible into the light. I have to bend the wild to my will.

Or rather, I must let the wild be my will.

Sleeping in New Places

2011-08-08T20:55:00.006-06:00

The pure exponential force would probably implode a lot of things, but that’s beside the point.

It would be there.

The map may fold out, and you’ll never get it back the same way it was, but you’re probably pretty jaded to that kind of thing by now. It takes longer for the gloss to wear away, so you will still have that. Enjoy it while you can. Eventually you’ll become jaded to that as well.

But the important thing is not which way the seams go, or how shiny the gloss is. The points on the map, especially the well-worn ones, are the most interesting. Some may be circled in pen, others may have large XXs through them, and arrows may point from one to another via a different route than you would expect. The routes are something else entirely. Highlights are valuable neon yellow and blue stripes across a beige topographical spectrum, showing where you have been or plan to go. Whether you’ve been or will be there, the important part is that you know that’s what you want.

And now I must dispense with the poetic vagueries, because although I do have a physical map that I just acquired, it is entirely unmarked and therefore not yet valuable. Beyond that, it only covers the immediate geographical around my current residence. It has worth in that it has potential, but I have not imbued it with my own, personal value. Anyway, I choose to caulk the wagon and ford the river, so we move on to specifics.

I often think about being aware, conscious, in-touch, perceptive, and many other synonyms of that ilk, and thus I sometimes write about it. I am learning what this awareness is, and it is not so much about finding the definition of “aware,” but about learning what learning is. I can foresee myself looking back on my current perspective with distaste for my naiveté, but that is the beauty of growing. Learning is not reading or hearing somebody else’s thoughts, but experiencing everything for yourself. And that experiencing is not a one-time, instantaneous checkbox to mark, but more of a process that takes time. Sometimes it takes a lot of time.

I have been working full-time this summer, which is a good thing, because I now may be able to do some things I’ve wanted to for a long time. However, I would be hard-pressed to say that my job is the most fulfilling thing on the planet. The work isn’t bad by any means, and the people are great, but it is not something I want to be doing my entire life, for example. I now know for a fact that I must be doing something I find meaningful and important. It doesn’t matter how much money I am making, or how great the perks are. If I am making 7 cents per hour on a farm in Peru, and I’m happy, then that is the right place. Alright, so Peru might be quite a nice destination, and I want to go there anyway, so maybe it’s not the greatest example for a terrible-yet-wonderful job, but you get my gist.

It all boils down to the fact that I’m slowly learning (see definition above): NOTHING MATTERS. Now, I don’t mean that in a nihilistic or pessimistic way at all, but I also don’t mean it in an overly optimistic way. I don’t harbor disdain for all emotion or disregard the fact that “life is lumpy,” and sometimes the punches you have to roll with really hurt. It’s not that nothing has value and so doesn’t matter, but rather that everything will always be OK. Many things have incredible value, but even if they're lost, you’re fine. Sure, some errors could be more detrimental than others (I’m just conjecturing now, I hope you know), but you will recover.

Aristotle says there is only “now,” and “time” is just a system we members of mankind have created to keep track of this perpetual now-ness streaming out behind us. Or at least he said something like that. If you understood Physics better than I, enlightenment would be greatly appreciated. And as Thich Nhat Hahn knows so well, the only place you can exist is the present. Because the past is gone and the future is nothing to fear, it would be best to live where you exist.

The point is, live in the present. It’s the best way to be.

I seem to have reverted to the non-specific “you,” but I am still talking about things I am learning. Living in the present doesn’t mean I shouldn’t think about my future, just that I shouldn’t worry about it. David Allen knows not to worry about things he can’t do anything about right now, and he seems to have his life under control. The future not something to dwell on, nor is the past. In some sense the past brought you to where you are now, but it certainly doesn’t define where you are now. I am finding that I can’t let old conceptions I have of people (or conceptions I think people may have of me) instruct how we interact now, because that was then and this is distinctly now. I am not who I was then, and neither are they. You, it, we, and they all exist purely in the present moment.

That moment that is the present is just dying to be savored. Literally, each second is dying, being relegated to the netherworld of the past, never to be seen again. All we can do is pay it the attention it deserves, which is really just paying ourselves the attention we deserve. It is only through being mindful that we can grow. Growing does not mean moving on or leaving behind, it simply means finding what we are and what we seek to be with each breath.

That breath is quite a rush.

Read Some

2011-08-07T18:38:00.000-06:00

Freedom

2011-07-23T17:08:00.003-06:00

Love it will not betray you
Dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be

Sigh No More
Mumford and Sons

Contradict

2011-07-23T17:05:00.000-06:00

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Song of Myself
Walt Whitman

Ἐνεργεία, or Being-At-Work

2011-04-11T23:03:00.000-06:00

Life is thoroughly confusing. There is so much to do, and yet breaks must be taken. Relaxation is necessary for activity. Aristotle knew.

I'm incredibly busy. Between being embroiled with Sweeney Todd (un-italicized so as to preserve the ambiguity of discussing either the show or the character), writing a paper on Nicomachean Ethics, doing the normal load of St. John's homework, and working part-time at the art gallery, I haven't exactly had much time for leisure. No worries, though, as it will all be over soon.

Stress is directly linked to health (as I learned last year), and I have been improving on that front. I may have a lot on my plate, but it's still not worth it to be worrying about things when I am not or can't work on them. I have avoided becoming ill this entire semester, which in my current situation is a feat (no jinxes, please).

Working through Aristotle, Plato, Lucretius, Sophocles, Aeschylus, Homer, and other authors of their ilk is really giving me perspective on the levels of achievement possible. Not only did all these guys think for a good long while about stuff, but they are still conveying those ideas to us in an interesting and engaging way thousands of years later. Not only their original words, but the translators we are reading are taking the ideas and literally re-forming them into a new language we can understand. Joe Sachs may be my new hero. The power and immortality of the written word occupies my thoughts more and more often.

On a less philosophical level, I am wondering about my choice to stay here in Santa Fe this summer. I'll be working full-time, which means income (which hopefully means a digital SLR in my future), but I won't be at home. It's all just life, and the only thing constant is change, so I can't fight it. They say home is where you hang your hat, or where your heart is, or something like that, but it doesn't feel like I can so easily change my definition. I have my better-than-ideal home situation, my family, and at least a part of me will always consider that home. Nonetheless, I must first take a step forward to be able to really decide if I want to stay put. I'll go on the Oregon Trail, see the Pacific, and then decide if I want to return to the East. Hopefully I won't die of dysentery on the way.

I am making good friends here, but more importantly, I am becoming self-sufficient. Like James Redfield says in The Celestine Prophecy, people are always looking for the other half to complete their circle, but they don't realize that they must first complete their own circle, and then they can join it with another full circle. Though, looking back on that book, it has much less weight than it did when I first read it, if any, so I'll take whatever it says with a big grain of salt. Like the kind a horse licks. A horse-lick of salt, you could say. A salty horse-lick. A licky horse-salt. Yes.

Free and wanton and enigmatic and perverse and infatuated and scared and confused and ecstatic and fulfilled and desirous and prepossessed.

Nothing like nice series of adjectives to sum up an evening.

On The Nature Of Things

2011-03-30T21:37:00.002-06:00

Apply your mind now, hear the truth of reason!
A new fact fights to clear its way, to accost you
And show you a new aspect of the world.
Nothing's so very easy to believe
Which at first does not seem incredible;
So too nothing's so great or wondrous, whose
Wonder will not diminish, little by little.
The purity and brilliance of the sky–
Observe it first, and all that it encloses,
The planets that veer, the moon, the splendor of sunlight–
If all these, out of the blue, now hurled themselves
For the first time before our human sight,
What could be called more wonderful than they?
What would we less have dared to prophesy?
Nothing. We'd have beheld this sky with awe.
Now no one even deigns to lift his eyes
To the light-filled temples of heaven, so stuffed, so weary
We are with its sight. Leave, then, this terror of mere
Novelty, cease to spit up the truth, but rather
Weigh with a keener judgment; if it seems true,
Surrender; if false, strap on your armor against it.
For the mind seeks to know: if boundless space
Stretches beyond the battlements of the world,
What lies at last where thought desires to glimpse,
Where the hurl of the mind soars far at liberty?

On The Nature Of Things, II.1025-1045 – Lucretius, Esolen translation

Currently

2011-03-23T16:30:00.001-06:00

At this distinct moment in time, powered by donuts, coffee, and copious amounts of to-read literature, all I really want to do is a moment-by-moment, perfect, immaculate real-life recreation of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I would obviously play the part of Cameron. I just need, khakis, the shirt, and loafers. I already have the suspenders and swagger. I also need to fill all the other characters, but I have enough people in my life who have attained a sufficiently high level of awesome that could more than suffice.

Who would you be? Ferris, or Rooney?

TRON XTENDED

2011-03-04T22:36:00.003-07:00

Oh how I want this.

Journey

2011-03-01T21:55:00.002-07:00

Keeping aware is hard. There are approximately 700,000 things happening this very second, if not more. How in the world can I keep track of them? I can’t. I can fess up to that right now. So there. Done.

I have this ideal image of a machine, a brilliant mechanism of spectacular technical capabilities. Taking in and putting out clear, clean, precise information in an easy, efficient manner. Little bits of knowledge on a crystal-fragment series of conveyor belts, never being misplaced or forgotten for a second.

We’re all on this perpetual, mandatory journey. All the street signs glare at us, giving so many options. Sometimes opportunities, sometimes distractions, sometimes disappointments. We sleep, we drive cars, we play baseball, we write novels, we go swimming, we screw in lightbulbs. Infinitely intricate simplicity.

I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m going nonetheless. I’m learning to simplify, to appreciate, to love. I’m learning.

Streetlights above, I strive.

11-02-2011

2011-02-11T21:49:00.003-07:00

Sometimes I just want to get these clear, wonderful objects out of my head and onto the page, but I know they will never be the same. Great as they are at helping me experience the world, my fingers are not very good at communicating. Nor is my voice. Everything tries, and everything struggles.

It’s like these little bits of light that bounce around inside my head, orbiting around the various gravity centers of my brain, all searching for meaning and purpose. But that’s really just the big, corporate monolith Conscience talking. The lights aren’t looking for anything, because they just are. And that’s what I want them to be. The communication conveyor belt is still routed through the corporate underground, and management isn’t always happy with me, so the lights come out a bit fragmented and significantly dimmed.

Sometimes, late at night, or in a warm shower, I think. The beams shine around and illuminate incredible, vast landscapes filled to the nth degree with intricate detail. Vagueries and inconsistent comprehensions flub out onto aural and visual pathways, but they get run over by the cross traffic in the process. I see, hear, and feel so much, but it’s all stuck inside. I can try to share the picture, and a muffled version might escape, but the resulting image will be a whole new panorama.

Iridescent thoughts and indefinable mental creations. Incommunicable. Who knew this gray matter in my head was so enigmatic?

I wish you could see it. I’ll keep practicing. Maybe someday you will.

Maybe someday you will.

The King's Speech

2011-02-06T11:32:00.000-07:00

This is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. See it.

Above

2011-01-23T21:44:00.000-07:00

Imagine

2011-01-22T17:26:00.004-07:00

What I Do

2011-01-22T13:47:00.000-07:00

Take perspectives, create ceramic intimacies, juxtapose the early morning with the instant gloss of figurative sunshine, and see.

Bright Guitar

2011-01-20T11:48:00.001-07:00

Bryce And The Black Hole

2011-01-18T19:30:00.002-07:00

Last summer I worked at the Boys and Girls Club, working with first- and second-grade kids. One boy named Bryce came up to me while we were in the “Chillax Room,” where there were board games, puzzles, Disney movies, and books. He was obviously very upset. I asked him what was wrong (seven-year-olds often cry, and it’s usually nothing life-threatening), and through the tears he said “Planets can be destroyed!” I said, “What?” He just repeated himself, so I asked him what he had been doing. He said he had been reading a book, so I asked him to show me the book. It was a very large science book about space. He said, “See? Planets can be completely destroyed!” He pointed to an illustration on a page titled “BLACK HOLES” where a warped image of earth was being sucked into a black hole. At first I had to contain my laughter, but I restrained myself and tried to explain the improbability of this situation happening. He was resolute, saying “But it could happen! You know it could!” I had to agree, but told him that no one in the entire history of humans had ever had it happen to them. After a few minutes of talking, he calmed down a bit, and then his mom came to pick him up. Still slightly upset, Bryce said, “Mom, planets can be destroyed!” Mom gave me a quizzical look, and I explained that we had been reading about black holes. She said “Bryce, I’ll make you a bet. If that ever happens, I’ll give you one hundred dollars.” Being the bright kid he was, Bryce said “No you won’t, because we’ll all be dead!” Mom laughed as I again contained my laughter, and they left. I think Bryce left this very humorous crisis a little calmer than when he made that unsettling discovery.

Entwine

2011-01-16T22:55:00.000-07:00

Ignoramuses plomp along sidewalks, and they really like what they see. Concrete, stores, brilliant dazzles of shiny glory, people their size. Then they can glance at the skyline and see nothing but buildings. Giant, oppressive buildings, looming above. Not imminently looming, but being the loom that weaves our tapestry. The warp and weft of all they've ever known. Just look one level higher, take one more step, breathe one breath deeper, and see the mountains! Cliché terms describe because they're true. Majestic, awesome mountains of the possibilities that lie in waiting. You could be hitch-hiking along life's road, and a potential will come along and run you over. But you won't die, or even be hit. You'll be doing consecutive backflips of pure, lucid joy as you radiate across the desert. You won't be wearing the same old clothes, because you'll have your own style.

Find your needle, and thread it.

Uplifting

2011-01-11T10:47:00.000-07:00

I saw this in a magazine in Rediscovered Books downtown. This makes me smile.

Interview + Pictures
JR Art website

711

2011-01-08T00:18:00.000-07:00

Windows I've Never Seen

2011-01-02T01:23:00.000-07:00

Did you just look out your window?
I can't say that I've ever had spontaneous thoughts of stars.
But you would.
You would not just glance in passing as you got up.
Or as you went to bed.
Nor would you see and not wonder.
You would have the dark, brilliant impulse.
And you would follow with true, beautiful thoughts.
Those pinpricks stabbing your finger would be love.
You find in those what everyone wants to find everywhere.
And you bring it here.
Lightyears of wisdom transpire in a single moment of appreciation.
You burn bright.

I can't say I've ever had spontaneous thoughts of stars.

I'm Published!

2010-12-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

Well, sort of. St. John's publishes a literary magazine of student work every semester, called The Grout, and I got a couple pieces in it! It's a little book about 15 pages long, so it's nothing earth-shattering, but still pretty cool. I submitted a picture I took a couple years ago back in Rock Springs, and the story I wrote recently, Walking Is Like Running While Appreciating.

The iPhonization of My Life

2010-11-19T17:17:00.001-07:00

I wonder about levels of purity within myself. In both the physical and mental/spiritual senses. There are things I can do or not do, habits I can adopt or abolish, things I can strive for or disregard. What things are best? This depends on what I want. So what do I want?

That gargantuan question aside, my decision rests on
1. what I want to be taking in, and
2. what I am spending my time putting out.

Now, more on each point in simultaneity. Though some things might be pleasant, are they what I want to be spending my time on? This sounds petty and ridiculous, but I have a Twitter. It's dumb, really. I originally made it to easily track what news articles I was reading, and I still think it can function in that capacity. But the draw of mostly-worthless 144-character comments by celebrities and people I don't really know is just a time-suck. I should never actually open the site; I should just post things by clicking the "Share" button.

Moving on from what could become a pitiful whine-session about the faults of Twitter, we can look at the more abstract elements it represents. I'm putting out worthless things (tweets), and taking in worthless things (more tweets). As Stephen Covey would say, this is a lose-lose situation. Do I really need to read all those Tumblr posts? How much profit/pleasure do I really get out of reading friends' Facebook statuses? The answers to these questions are stop, no, and not much.

I have been thinking about this for awhile, and always have to some extent, but what really clarified my thoughts was learning about John's Phones. It's a phone that does absolutely nothing but make calls. It has a one-line display on the top, and you keep your contact numbers in a little paper booklet tucked in the back of the phone. It's quad-band and takes any SIM card, so it will work with practically any network.

Take this in contrast to the iPhone (or any "normal" cell phone). It represents so much *stuff* that can attack at any moment: you could get an email, a text, a Facebook alert, the Dictionary.com word of the day, a note that you need to update 7 of your 41 apps, and maybe a call or two. This all sits somewhere within your conscious or subconscious self, cluttering up the space, if not actively distracting. Being productive is about focus; humans can't actually multi-task.

Beyond what I'm taking in and putting out, it's about what I allow into my life. If I don't buy that full season of that one great TV show, I won't have the temptation to watch it. Plus I'll have thirty extra bucks to boot. But there is a place for that TV show. As I always seem to say, it boils down to balance. There are nights that it's OK to just sit and enjoy some mindless entertainment.

The essential question (at least today) is where that balance lies. To at least get closer to this balance, we must simply live and make, but not repeat, mistakes. The fear of mis-stepping prevents us from walking.

The bombardment of following the news just needs constant examination. In light of these thoughts, I just need to think ahead about what I will get out of it, and decide if that outcome is beneficial, neutral, or negative. Being aware, allowing myself to make mistakes, and learning from them is the key. Living is the key. Living, consciously.

The unexamined life is not worth living.
-- Socrates, Apology

Where?

2010-10-22T09:02:00.002-06:00

Where has this world gone?

It spilled out into the oceans from oil tankers
It bled out of innocent victims of genocide
It escaped through gaping holes in consciences and the ozone
It all went into the silicon-based things your hand holds
It found an escape from pain in death
It suffocated not under feet, but footprints
It is gone, simply

Walking is like running while appreciating

2010-10-19T20:44:00.000-06:00

You don’t even know where you’re going. There are a million tiny busses running on a million tiny little tracks, and you don’t even know the track, let alone the bus. Trees scratch the windows, scarring paint tracks painted by people who weren’t making minimum wage, and you just keep your eyes significantly drier than the torrents of oil falling from the sky outside. The driver glances back in his bubble-distortion mirror, and you find yourself smiling at him whenever he glances up. He’s probably in his sixties, divorced, and has one daughter he loves more than life itself. He drives this bus that you don’t know the destination of across the country, the world, his life, so he can give her presents at Christmas. Once she couldn’t come home for the holidays, so he sent her packages with her gifts, but she never said “Thank you, Dad. I love you, Dad.” He still drives, sends packages, and calls when he can, though she rarely picks up the phone. You think all this to yourself, so you smile at him, your face distorted into a half-moon that resembles the one reflected on the wet pavement. The bus comes to a stop, and you decide to get off. The driver kindly winks at you as you pass, and you just smile again. It’s still pouring fixed-gear bicycles and unneeded plastic objects out here, so you pull up the dark hood of your now damp, blue hoody. The corner up from the one you started on has a convenience store on it. Surreally awful music from the early 1990s plays over the intercom, tinny and with the depth of character similar to that of a bowl of phillips-head screws for breakfast. Reflective linoleum requires you to look at the garish fluorescent lights tepidly looming above you. There is just another woman in the store with her three- or four-year-old son. He’s picked up a Batman action figure and is running around, fighting with gallons of milk and bags of Cheetos. Thunder rolls from the slate-colored night outside, his eyes get big, and he and Batman run back to Mom and hold her leg through her skirt. She absent-mindedly rubs his head, the thunder fades, and Batman’s nemesis is now her left shoe. You smile, again, and walk back out into the street, leaving behind footprints that won’t disappear until the 11:00 mopping. Headlights show you a silhouette you don’t really recognize on broken-down brick buildings, whipping by; Doppler moves faster than you. A cat runs down an alley behind a dumpster. Freakishly realistic newspapers display last week’s news as you begin to whistle the tune of Somewhere Over the Rainbow. You don’t mind that your feet are wet from the downfalls of the sky’s civilizations because you know that everything is just collateral damage. Something is only made out of the destruction of something else. Finite lines crease your face through winces of impartial anger for an unfulfilled past and misinterpreted prophecies. You remember the time that you cared, but now you care more, and by caring more, care less about most things. Wet shoes and busses and skirts are still just as they were after moisture citizens show up, silhouettes are what you make of them, and nothing defines anything unless you want it to. You reach the edge of town, still not knowing where you are, and watch lightning strike a giant oak in the center of a field. Rabbits and other wildlife run out from the small fire that results, looking like bits of ashen newspaper that now hold nothing but warmth. The half-moon looks back at you and the crisp, cool rain kisses you a little too forcefully, but you like that. You think you might see a figure, another silhouette across the field, but you don’t make any effort to see for sure or make any greeting. You’re contented to find a seat in the wet grass, lay back, and look at the light show while the half-moon holds you tight and you’re simultaneously found and lost a million times every second by each drop of oh-so realistic beauty. It’s Christmas day. You smile.