Figuring Stuff Out

goodbye

:: 2010 14 September :: 1.05am

Truth
Every shadow, no matter how deep, is threatened by morning light.

:: 2009 8 December :: 9.22pm

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 :: 9.19pm

"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?

:: 2009 7 October :: 11.45am

Those are the things that stun me.

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

:: 2009 17 September :: 3.56pm

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.

:: 2009 27 June :: 6.01pm

On following God's will...
"This process makes me think of a cross-country runner. Getting to the point where it's enjoyable to run requires the runner to work and do things that may not be easy. But when the runner is in great shape, it is a true joy to run. Likewise, once we start down the path of doing the work God calls us to do, we find great joy in doing it."

:: 2009 21 June :: 8.47pm

I sometimes wish responsibility didn't exist.

:: 2009 6 June :: 8.19pm

Even though we all drifted apart, we're still connected.
Connected through this place, it brought us together and tore us apart and brought us together again.

Funny how that works.

:: 2009 20 May :: 4.49pm

Why are we still here?

:: 2009 7 May :: 9.57pm

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.

:: 2009 16 April :: 2.28pm

I thought it was going to end better than this.

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:: 2009 1 April :: 10.18pm

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 23 March :: 6.15pm

I think I'm finally beginning to understand...

:: 2009 22 January :: 10.38pm

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.

:: 2008 12 December :: 11.08am

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.

:: 2008 18 November :: 7.43pm

You boys be stupid.

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:: 2008 11 November :: 2.20pm

Happy 5 year birthday old journal.

:: 2008 31 October :: 12.18am

And so she limps back into port.

Why the hell am I not doing my homework?

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:: 2008 22 October :: 6.20pm
:: Music: Read My Mind // The Killers

We talked for like three days and then all of a sudden crickets.
What the hell happened?
What did I do?

:: 2008 12 October :: 9.48pm

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.

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:: 2008 28 September :: 10.50pm

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 :: 8.52pm

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

:: 2008 28 September :: 8.46pm

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 :: 8.43pm

Gender is a strange thing.

:: 2008 13 September :: 11.19pm

Why would I have an ethical aversion to wearing crocs?

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:: 2008 1 September :: 12.07pm

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.

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:: 2008 31 July :: 1.36pm

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 :: 11.41am
:: 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.

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:: 2008 24 May :: 3.19pm
:: Mood: amused/comfortable

hahaha...I guess that the noun would be the verb, then, wouldn't it?

In both trust and love. And faith, too, I suppose. Hope follows in form of faith. So all of life's goals are passively active? In all things I should actively not pursue, but rather relax, give up my "fish and loaves", and surrender myself to the consequences in full knowledge that they are to my benefit, although I may not see from here why? Yes.

To be as I am and know I am without really considering the purpose of it being that way. I don't know why I was made male over female anymore than I know why I am white and not black, American and not Chinese, Human and not a dog. I am, and should act. Funny that acting on those things is a surrender for me. How I have struggled so furiously to understand without realizing by doing so I was doing nothing...the Hamlet effect. In summary, I think too much. If I don't shut myself up from time to time, I'll never get anything done. The simpler way of thinking might better suit me. Wisdom is powerful, but only in context of simplicity. That's what makes it Wisdom instead of knowledge. You can know everything there is to know without being wise, and you can be the wisest person in the world without ever knowing anything. Maybe then wisdom is simply taking what we don't know and using it in context of what we do.

I need to be a more practically minded individual in order to achieve my ideals. That's the chasm, the leap of faith. I must surrender my ideals to obtain them. "Whoever keeps his life shall lose it, but whoever gives up his life for my sake shall keep it." God's economy, if God can be described as economical.

Oh there I go again.