:: 2013 19 May :: 2.24 pm

Shame murders progress.

1 = | +

:: 2012 7 May :: 1.33 pm

I am addicted to that certainty in whose absence my selfishness is

naked.

In the first moments I was action. I moved, even though my certainty and knowledge had been shattered. From here, I can't see precisely what moved me. Some inexplicable sense that the next step, despite not mattering, was worth making.

But I've coasted to a halt. I sit motionless and restless. That is my selfishness. Though I have no certainty to speak of, it should be obvious what the next step is. [I]It's all out there[/I].

But then I stop. There are people, connections, responsibilities. Am I allowing myself to be especially possessed? Have I surrendered myself to be objectified? Does covenant imply objectification?

I am living in a paralyzing tension- on the one hand, the potential for absolute freedom. On the other, knowing how alone that freedom makes me.

Can I bind myself that way? Is there anything else to do?

_|_ If it looks something like that, then I have some writing to do.

It's funny that tripping over the answer gets me to ask the right question. My life would move along more quickly if I could do things the other way around.

+

:: 2012 6 May :: 6.05 pm
:: Music: The dog days are over

+

:: 2012 1 April :: 10.12 pm

I don't know anything.

What if I had it and I threw it away?

+

:: 2012 20 February :: 2.28 pm

Is it like this in everyone's head? Not writing this sentence might have been the first step in differntiating between what's in here and everything- everyone- else out there.

Am I an angry person?

+

:: 2011 17 February :: 4.28 pm

What does it mean to be an individual?

2 = | +

:: 2011 12 January :: 6.54 pm

It's time for an adventure.

2 = | +

:: 2010 8 December :: 9.42 pm

Goddamn it I could just burn this whole journal and tell you my life is beautiful and maybe that would make some sense.

The beauty in the world I chase so hard chases back.

2 = | +

:: 2010 8 December :: 9.33 pm

The funny thing is, whether it was learning an indigenous language on a mountain thousands of miles, or here at my desk writing philosophy, or napping with her on the couch...

now I'm just lost in the music. Haha, look at me go. Here we go?

Don't suppose I'm as crude of an instrument as I look, there's something very elegant going on here. We may be social dinosaurs, and maybe you don't believe in these sorts of dinosaurs, but I like to think they existed. If they didn't, then this isn't old fashioned, it's revolutionary.

On second thought, it's a revolution anyway. In my private little world, it's a revolution. I imagine it would be in yours, too.

Be balanced, but not compromised. Of course of course of course live this fiercely. Dive in.

And if the music is what makes the feeling, there's always people making more music.

+

:: 2010 8 December :: 9.30 pm

I have existed twice and all at once.

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:: 2010 29 September :: 6.06 pm
:: Music: ratatat

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:: 2010 19 September :: 6.00 pm

My life is beautiful.

The dichotomy here is that I'm inclined to say something I know isn't true. So let's call it a feeling, not a thought

but

They can call me pretentious, I don't really mind. The meek and meager inherit the Earth, and the bold and reckless inherit the sky.

Mostly just love so powerful that when strikes me I could forget my own name. And finally a world of people who know what that means.

Oh, for the record: I really love that girl.

+

:: 2009 8 December :: 9.22 pm

I feel good. Rough around the edges, but things are changing. Maybe it's thinking back to the things that mattered before this weird fog. Maybe it's the major key playing in the stereo.

Most people get out- I know that I need to break out and shine anyway.

I'm carrying this belief that if I go, I'll fuck it up- that the new people won't like me, that I won't succeed in the new place.

All of that is juvenile- this place started as passion and a way with words. All the pretentious anti-personal anti-poetry came later.

My roots as a person are the things that I can't make sense out of.

Maybe I should let myself acknowledge how foreign all of the rest is to me right now.

I can't breathe, but there's a big smile on my face anyway.

"But the oranges just sit there and never ripen!"

"Stalinist fruit."

+

:: 2009 8 December :: 9.19 pm

"This is what I'm learning from this trip; I need friends, true friends, talk deeply, laugh deeply friends. And I need self-control. I need to not get away from myself or my best intentions. And I need to really live, really connect, really be human. Really.

I need to love, really. That's important. I need to be as human as I can without being human at everyone else's expense."

June 21st, 2009

How do people loose sight of moments like these?

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:: 2009 7 October :: 11.45 am

Those are the things that stun me.

Life has so much continuity, it gives me goose bumps.

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:: 2009 17 September :: 3.56 pm

I was there. I took the step, I bridged the gap.

I'm still afraid, and I'm still dodging my best intentions, letting myself get away from myself.

I know who I am. He's not just coming into view, but exploding into Technicolor.

This is without system or method- I know that's hard for people to understand. Everyone feels abandoned by me, but it's not abandonment. It's just a newer (older?) me.

And this is deep. A lot deeper than anything I've ever experienced. Quiet, calm, almost still- but the vibrancy is undeniable and inescapable. I've always been afraid I would lose it, but I think it's been chasing me all along.

He's there, but he's very different than I expected. I expected either loud or quiet, fun or solemn. I expected him to fit.

And it's ironic. What I realized was how bad I need people, and what I did was ignore all of them.

I feel awful- but it's just begun.

And she's right, haahaha. She's got us pegged. I wonder if they all accept that better than I realized? They don't protest.

I never knew as much as I thought. But this is freedom, and I like it a little better.

1 = | +

:: 2009 7 May :: 9.57 pm

Baby I've been here before,
I've seen this room and I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch
but love is not a victory march
it's a cold
and it's a broken

hallelujah.

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you.
And even though it all went wrong
I'll stand before the lord of song
with nothing on my tongue

but hallelujah.

1 = | +

:: 2009 1 April :: 10.18 pm

I remember that beach. Dinner on the porch, everyone dressed well. The heat lamps and laughter and the unity of awe over the sunset on the water. The feel, the vibrancy, the laughter, and closeness in the air.

Like the square, with the fountains and all the prayer.

It's everything this cold, empty, loneliness isn't.

I guess I know how much it meant to me. Such a small thing, but now that it's gone, I feel like I've lost the whole world.

I love you, man. Never doubt that. And I'm on your side, when it does come to sides. And really, so is he, even if that doesn't mean a thing to you.

Still my friend...but not the same. It changes nothing, but everything's different.

I don't get it either, I just wish things were the way they were. I wish we were eating dinner on that beach. I wish we were in that square, arms locked. I pray that tonight, as I sleep, those memories will pass through my mind a hundred times. I love those memories.

I have regrets. I can't deny that. I've treated you like shit, and I turned a shoulder when you needed me the most. I see that now. But I never turned my back, and it couldn't have been that way forever. Things move on, people grow up, and maybe that's what this is all about. Or maybe it's about being young.

I know how this will end, I guess. One of two ways, and either is fine because it's your choice. But I'm a liar and a false friend if I tell you I'm not scared.

My God,
You know it's true; I am so scared.

+

:: 2009 22 January :: 10.38 pm

Sometimes I'm made of clay, and sometimes steel. I'm either waiting for the hands to mold me, create me, and put me through fire or I'm cold and still, isolated. I know I should always be clay, but I always want to be steel. Nonetheless, sometimes I'm made of clay, and sometimes steel.

I just want to know if there's such thing as a should.

I feel like there is, in the deepest corners of my soul. But my brain tells me other wise.

I can't help but feel that my brain tells me wrong. I can't be both steel and clay, but I have to.

I want to. I want to be that nobody that is everything and knows everyone, but is still nobody.

That's the kind of person I want to be.

But I'm not.

1 = | +

:: 2008 12 December :: 11.08 am

I found my computer, I aced my History final, all my grades are being submitted today, I'm going to eat pho in two hours.

But I still don't know if I'm accepted to Whitworth for (potentially) six more hours. I might shit myself.

1 = | +

:: 2008 31 October :: 12.18 am

And so she limps back into port.

Why the hell am I not doing my homework?

5 = | +

:: 2008 12 October :: 9.48 pm

The cynicism that wants to say I'm just chasing memories is dying away. I'm not, and what would it even matter if I was?

I can't be too concerned with this. I just need the emotional detox from time to time. It's a way out of myself and into something else.

I'm exhausted.

Every time I launch down one of these intellectual tangents I find myself back in this place. Answerless.

I'm not an academic, God forbid I should ever be. What a worthless, pitiful, miserable waste of life. Do I want to spend the rest of my days comforting myself with the illusion that by faking omniscience and judging others I'm some how pushing the progress of humanity? Fifty thousand years of human experience and all we've managed to "progress" to is some fancy gadgets and the undermining of moral uniformity. What do we award people Nobel prizes for again?

We have not changed. We will not change. Unless we evolve into something else (which we won't, thankfully, because the general public doesn't look favorably on social Darwinism) we will never move past our shadow.

I refuse (and please, please hold me to this) to devote my life to figuring anything out. I'm not God, I don't want to be. I just want to love people. That's all. Love God, love people, and that's it. That's all I've got left in me.

I've exhausted my ability to understand. I'm done with the books and the debates. I'm done with academia. I don't care. I don't care because I don't understand, and I don't care because I don't think anyone else understands either.

Lewis got to a point where he said, "I have no answers anymore; only the life I have lived."

I have been so blindingly afraid of coming to that point because it seems illegitimate, even scandalous for and eighteen year old of a mediocre intellect to make the same claims as one of the twentieth century's philosophical giants made, much less at the end of his life.

Nonetheless, here I stand. I haven't any answers. I don't want answers, I want life. I want love. I'm done with this philosophical wall-flowering. I don't want an outside perspective, an objective view. I want to be in the thick of it, and know it first hand. I don't think there is any teacher more legitimate than experience, and experience is not objective.

8 = | +

:: 2008 28 September :: 10.50 pm

And maybe, on that note, it's better not to make a big deal out of all this. This isn't a revelation, it's a return to normalcy. It's not an addition, it's just putting it all back together. And nothing's different, it's just complete.

So I'm just me.

And what I feel at this moment is overwhelming love for almost everyone I can think of. Which feels a lot like me.

+

:: 2008 28 September :: 8.52 pm

Kirsten and I have been dating eleven months tomorrow. Which makes today the eleventh month since I chickened out on asking her out.

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:: 2008 28 September :: 8.46 pm

As for the crocs thing, my dad had bought him and I a pair because they were on blow out and, more importantly, actually in our size (we have the same shoe size).

I was offended. No idea why. I can't begin to explain why it would've offended me, it just did. It was insulting.

I've always thought they looked a little silly, but I've never felt strongly about them.

I wore them around for a while and they actually grew on me. With wool socks, it's like wearing slippers but lighter.

+

:: 2008 28 September :: 8.43 pm

Gender is a strange thing.

+

:: 2008 13 September :: 11.19 pm

Why would I have an ethical aversion to wearing crocs?

6 = | +

:: 2008 1 September :: 12.07 pm

I'm not being left behind
but it seems like everyone's left. This is a prime opportunity. This is starting over without abandoning everything I've built thus far.

3 = | +

:: 2008 31 July :: 1.36 pm

I can actually feel the line being pushed and battered. With every minute it moves farther.

Attack. Counter-attack. Progress. Ambush. Retreat. Attack. Attack. Counter-attack. Progress. Ambush. Retreat.

I don't hate people. I love people. But something in me lunges forward at prime opportunities to convince myself otherwise.

+

:: 2008 11 June :: 11.41 am
:: Mood: angry

I'm not sure what makes me so angry. In truth, I just want to be able to enjoy it like a normal person. At a distance, from a calm, inactive standpoint. Mentally passive observation, acknowledging it's presence and accepting the benefit of that, but not experiencing the mess that comes with it.

I can sort of coax myself into it...but what happens if I stop paying attention, cut off the effort? Do I fall back into hate and rage, or does my soul linger in the vibrant, energetic comfort of the situation?

Or is it all just fear, and I a coward?

...
...

Do you ever write something and not understand why? This whole passage begs a question, and it's one that I can't answer for anyone who would be reading this. And yet I want someone to know, even if they don't understand.

But what I really want is for someone to understand.

2 = | +