The District Sleeps Alone Tonight

Tonight is interesting. It's been so long since I've written that I feel I should have some deep insightful opinions to share with you, but I don't. I have many deep-running emotions, but none of them lend readily to words. The Postal Service says it well, "I seem so out of context in this gaudy apartment complex". While I am not in any apartments, the sentiment holds true. I have a vision in my head, it is of me, my future, my destiny. However, to share it with anyone is madness, because none would understand. I am a paradox. I do not state this ironically in some emo self fulfilling dream of meaning that devolves into a love poem to the psyche. This sentence only makes sense if one has read the typical drivel of self-analyzing and situation-deploring that so often springs unwanted from tongues with no taste to fall unheard onto the concrete sidewalks where it fuels the fires of yet another narcissistic, indulgent 'artist' who cries against the 'machines cold heart'. There are some people out there who have true talent, these people are few and far between, and instead of loudly proclaiming their own ability they instead continue to write and sing and publish because it is what they love to do, not because it draws attention to them. If you're reading this you know who you are, tell Pandora I said hi (you're the latter, not the former).
My, I apparently did have opinions worth standing up on my soapbox of self-apparent superiority to express. I have some coherency beginning to form regarding emotions and other such things, however, I do not feel worthy of expressing them tonight. With that, I leave, feeling fulfilled that i have written, yet I did not make a point, nor did I convey emotion. Therefore i have failed both to express argument, or to create art. This is the fundamental difference between justifying one's existence, and living a meaningful life.


And now I have made a point.......thus, the paradox begins. /0

Pro Spem scribo, propter Spem pugno, cum Spem ibo

The frightened trapeze swinger

For starters, there is little better than standing around a camp fire, smoking hookah, and singing ska as loud as possible with a good group of friends.
I always wondered what drew the line between belief and knowledge. Tonight I've realized that there isn't one. Knowledge is belief. It must be, we don't notice it, but it is a conscious or unconscious decision to trust the inputs we receive as truth. We must choose at some level to decide what we will perceive as reality. I know that when a hand encounters a table saw a finger comes off, but I also know that when my grandfather used to 'pull his finger off' he was playing a trick. What is the difference? I used to believe he actually could pull a finger off, I knew it, but as I grew older my perception changed, and I believed in a different reality. With the saw, my perception hasn't changed, and I believe in that reality. Some people say that knowledge is based on facts, whereas belief is based on faith in unknowns. Well what are facts? Facts are things that we believe to be true so strongly that we don't question them. Things like, the earth is round, space is big, gravity pulls us down, these are facts. Then again these also used to be facts: the earth is flat, the sky is a roof on the earth, country music is good. What changed? Our perception? Our 'knowledge'? Our willingness to believe the things we experience.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not making the logical fallacy of saying that belief is knowledge. A=B, B~=A. Belief is having faith in what is truth without proof. God could come down and sign his name on your car, but if you choose not to believe in God, there is no knowledge of Him.

Really, that was just a rant of something I realized, not the actual point of the post, but it does sort of tie in nicely without being directly related. What point has to arrive before you realize that the gut feeling you have is not just a feeling, but a belief, and then a knowledge? Do you have to be shown proof? Or do you simply have to choose to believe strongly enough? I believe in something. Many do not approve, more don't understand, but that is their perception of reality. I'm not trying to disprove absolute objective truth, but who defines it? I agree it must exist, but right and wrong are a belief system. I believe in mine strongly enough that I feel (know) it is the right one, but that is my opinion. My opinion holds no weight in the jungles of Cameroon. The question is, once you identify a truth, once you realize a problem, can you really not acknowledge it? The question is not whether we should or should not act. The question is, can we rightfully justify inaction? I don't believe so. I do not relish the thought of people judging me harshly, being disappointed in me, or disapproving my actions, but in truth, the only real judge of my actions is not mortal. I must judge myself as I believe He would, in hopes that when the time comes for me to be judged in the only court that matters, I will be able to stand and say, "I did my best. It was not good enough, I fall on your mercy, but I did do my best. Forgive me, and accept what little enough I can offer." I'm not perfect, I'm not close, but I'm trying.


Pro Spem pugno

Kira

Lessons in domestication

Good morning dear reader, today, and probably for the next two days, we will be doing a bit on domestication and housekeeping. This is amusing because my mature big brother is our case study, and he is my primary follower on here, and, I'm kind of living with him for fall break.

Things to bear in mind, I do not have any false sense of being a good house(apartment)keeper. I am considered by college peers to be a slob, mediocre cook, and all around bum. Now then:

Lesson #1
Appropriate storage use

Beer is delicious
Beer is what's good
It makes us loquacious
But it's not really food
When in college we were
And Yoda was cool
One maintained a beer fridge
As a general rule
Yet as we are done
And on to real life
This you should remember
More goes in the damn refrigerator than just beer and good cheese and snack packs :)

Lesson #2
Proper food

When from whiskey I first weaned
At the meek age of three
There was naught I loved more
Than Chef Boyardee

But now I'm a man
I'm back on the bottle
This delectable dish
A distant memory
One does not make a dinner
On Chef Boyardee
Chicken nuggets and hot dogs
Macaroni and cheese
These are far better options
For an evening entree

That's all for now readers, I do have more lessons for tomorrow. Mom if you're reading this you should call and back me up.

Somewhere in the between

No, seriously. I mean, what else is there to do when you have to write and re-write everyone's slides and then write them scripts to go along with the slides so that you don't have time to review your own and end up winging it and still end up doing better than others so you have to help them improve and you remain mediocre.
Annnnnddd I love engineering. What I don't love is the arbitrary processes that are supposedly 'requisite' in American engineering society. Yeah, we have a code of ethics to stand up to, it's called help people and do it right. On the bright side I might have invented a new concept in my field, might have revolutionized everything, and become famous. Hooray bacon!
I totally got to run around in the woods today, crawling through deer runs and stuff looking for hazardous waste. Chyeah, love me some exploratizing.
And now I'm actually gonna go to bed, cause I'm past the sleep deprived slap happy part and on to the terminal depression part. Tomorrow is a long day, but it's another day.

"I'm not leaving this place
Unless I'm leaving with you
Cause you're the only person
With a half decent heart
And I know you will put it to use"

Our endless numbered days

I really should be asleep. But then again, there's a lot of things I really should do. It's kind of amusing in a sick and sad way, now that I know where I want to go, what I want to do, it terrifies me. As a far off dream it was okay, it was acceptable, but now that it's a tangible reality I am frightened away. What if I'm unworthy? What if I'm not able to live up to my own hopes? On the other hand there's the other fears, What if I let this chance go? What if I forget my dreams and become just another one?
My justification for my dream is this. I know that we're all put here to change the world in some way. For most of us, this will be a quietly significant way. It will be the loving of someone, the creation of children and loving them, who in turn will change the world in a quietly significant way. I won't deny that statistically this is what I will end up doing. However, as of now I have no prospects, no aspirations of that sort, so instead I must find my own way of changing the world. I refuse to plan to do nothing. Since I have no quiet prospects, I propose in my mind something a tad more garish, more my style. By and large my dream will be mocked, it's not the societal norm. I know and understand that the odds of me ending up with a prospect and settling down and living quietly opposed to following and achieving my dream is about 100-1 or greater. Should this occur I will reconcile myself to it gladly, because in the end, that might be my destiny. The changing of one moment, one day, one life.
The road from here is not easy, it is not marked, but the mountains lay spread out before me, and they call to me. No longer can I ignore them, I must take up my path and follow it where it leads. The path behind is nothing more than an access trail. I'm standing on the cliff, the plaque is here in the rock. So many have set out from this point, and none is the same, nor will I be.

This is Me, justified and stripped

So, it's kind of funny, taking personality surveys is something I abhor and find to be worthless in general. However, after taking two of them recently for a class I came to a realization. I didn't learn anything new about my strengths and weaknesses. I learned just how silly it is for me to take them. Each question, no matter what, both answers could potentially be mine. After thinking about this I realized why it was so silly, I might as well be two personalities. Sometimes I wonder where the quiet shy kid went from so long ago. This week I discovered where he went, or rather, why he went. When I became an SA it was imperative that I become something else, that I develop the ability to switch my personality like a lightbulb. On and off, on and off, time after time. After flicking my personality around like a switch for so long I wonder anymore which is the real me. Am I the quiet and shy boy from years ago? Am I the precocious and outgoing mentor that worked so hard to help people with their lives at the sacrifice of his own mental well-being? Or am I the third? This third one that has grown so much in the past year. The recognition of the stark realities of this world has left me jaded, my realization of weakness in myself and others has changed the way I see things. I have discovered despisal, abhorrence and hate. Some days it seems like that's all I remember.
Somehow, I think that I am none of them, or maybe all of them, combining again to form an animal of a completely different nature. Whatever it is it struggles and fights, continuously marching ahead into the darkness, only to run headfirst into a wall time and time again. Each time it picks itself up and sets out into the dark again, sometimes directly back into the wall it ran into.

On a completely different note, is it weird that after meeting an absolutely gorgeous girl who's nice, funny, easy to talk to and smart that I began considering her more as a little sister (despite her being just 1 year younger than me) before i even found out she has a boyfriend? If so, well, I'm weird, if not, well, it doesn't really matter anyway.
Sorry for not updating in a while, this whole school and having to invent and entirely new technology in the next two months is somewhat pressuring.

You must remember this
a kiss is just a kiss
A sigh is just a sigh
The fundamental things in life
As time goes by

Iron & Wine

Sitting here at work, not much to do, listening to the Around the Well album. Wow! This guy's good. Take the poetry of Dylan or Simon, the voice of Damien Rice, and the guitar work that fades from Simon to Ry Cooder. My pants are dirty :( . That's what I get I guess for helping the delivery guys unload.

This is shaping up to be an eventful year. So far I've been contracted to invent sky hooks, I've already aced two quizzes, and I met a girl who's so far beyond ordinary as to be altogether surprising. Beer tastes good, family guy is still funny, homework has turned into project work which is much more fun. Oh, and the whole chance to make a lot of money thing, that's nice too. For right now though I gotta run, I might actually have work to do. Before I go, Butch Walker-Letters and Iron and Wine-Around the Well are stellar from what I've heard. These are two albums I'll be requesting int he near future. Check 'em out. Peace.