Shift

I haven't been taking as many pictures lately. Granted, there is the same old white snow everywhere, and there is not ample time to do anything other than homework currently, but I still feel as if I'm getting away from what I generally relate to in this blog. I have instead been filling that time with musics. On occasions I can see color pouring out of my guitar as I play. It fills the room with its rich sound, and emotion. It speaks. If only I had the talent to play it into articulate words. This is also true with the piano. I need to learn how to be competent at these things. Time is flying right now. It is Monday, but it might as well be Friday in terms of deadlines. If said task is not completed by tonight, then it MUST be done the next day in order to be ready for Thursday.. It's like the in between days have already gone. I feel trapped. I'm still free to walk my own road, that now has rectified large walls along the sides. There will not be anymore visitors to walk with. Not for a long time. I need to get used to transgressing in isolation.

*Click*

This weekend was a much needed one. I just needed a break. for a while. I am feeling less bad still, and have again, come to important conclusions that I intend to keep. Even though my actions speak out against it, I feel as if I should be working more, or shift my view towards my work more. I need to remember what is important. There is a specific perception that I am viewing right now, it is not for the first time, and I don't know how to describe it other than a familiar feeling. It has a cool color, and sensation. There is something different than before, that is to be expected. In order to survive it will have to adapt itself to the environment and prevail. I fear that in my want to do things that are healthy, I am not doing things that are necessary. It is easy to justify taking an hour to play Mass Effect, or Halo 3 or play guitar or piano, or do something that I know will be calming, but how much calming is needed? Surely there is some point where one must stop this nonsense and emerge.
I have been thinking more about colleges lately. I still feel that Reed would be an adventure worth taking, but I don't know whether or not it is one that should be taken for my own mental safety. I fear being crushed into a fine dust as I realize I am outside my league, or due to my inability to speak what I mean, or even what I think in an understandable manner to others.
I feel as if I am in a moment where that primal instinct of survival tendencies is easier to listen to, much as if someone who has been yelling at you in the far distant has slowly walked their way over to you in order for conversation.
I plan on drawing a little more.. It is something I should continue to do.

Journal

Grief

Nostalgia

Loss

Dipping into the Past with the Future

I have had my ipod on shuffle for the last 3 days. This is supposed to allow me to remember songs that i have forgotten about. What it has resulted in has been almost a physical yanking of consciousness. I remember when I used to have this song on repeat for a whole week, I remember how I couldn't bare to listen to this one, I didn't listen to the lyrics like this before, this one has a different color than before. I also fear the repeat function of ipods. It is so easy to just repeat a playlist of set songs. After listening to that playlist for too long, you can become trapped within the mood of that playlist. At the same time, I think it is therapeutics to listen to songs that are able to musically relate, and speak lyrically about your relative situations or feelings. But like anything in repetition, it can warp your way of thinking, and impair you. That is why I am under the goal of, while i'm skipping songs every now and then, at least saying in shuffle mode until I have gone through my whole library.


The philosopher Schopenhauer gave an often-quoted example of porcupines trying to get through a cold winter. They huddle together for warmth, but their sharp quills prick each other, so they pull away. But then they get cold. The have to keep adjusting their closeness and distance to keep from freezing and from getting pricked by their fellow porcupines-the source of both comfort and pain.

We need to et close to each other to have a sense of community , to feel we're not alone in the world. But we need to keep our distance from each other to preserve our independence, so others don't impose on or engulf us. This duality reflects the human condition. We are individual and social creatures. We need other people to survive, but we want to survive as individuals.
-The Workings of Conversational style
-Deborah Tannen, Ph. D.

I am ok in the sense that I feel neutral. Things are still so awkward, but I do not know how to distance myself. Am I too close physically? Am I too far away psychologically? I need to continue to preserve my neutral self, while adding improvements, before I can move on to preserve other people.

Help

Negative Hibernation

A good fried of mine gave me a deadline.
"You have until the end of February." she said.
I told her that I thought it was a good thing to tell me. I have something to work toward, I have a goal.
"Yeah,.... I never keep my deadlines though."

I am feeling confident that I can make it.


I got some plaster and started working on the cracks. It worked pretty well, and I know that I can live in this building and neighborhood for a while longer. I don't think that my plaster is going to ever completely fix those cracks. I've come to the conclusion that that must be done by someone else. I don't know who they are yet,but I have an idea, and I don't know what they are going to use, but the material will be perfect, and it will be applied so that it lasts.

I think that I have finally turned a corner so to say.This road is still hazardous, and I still have to take time to rest and remove the thorns from my unprotected feet, but through the ground I can feel a rythm. It is full of life, and is like a warm sound of orange and blue entertwined. It reminds me to remember myself.

The snow right now is both beautiful and annoying. Taking walks at night is so peaceful. I reccomend walking in the very center of the road and listening to string based instrumentals, or songs that could be seen as "background soundtrack" type for a movie, and watching how the snow falls. Here it is nice beacuse no one ever drives late anymore. Down side is the cold, but it is not that bad.
I'm still not using my time as wisely as I maybe should be. Right now I'm taking time to do this post instead of do homework that probably should get done sooner or later. While I should probably change this, I also feel that this is how things are going to continue to be. Just as long as I don't procrastinate on anything important.

Drifting

Cycle

(better viewed bigger)

I have talked with Tracy about the idea of cycles. The idea that you shift between mind sets, and what you may have thought when you were twelve, discarded as you grew older, and then as you go through the cycle, even come back to that same conclusion when you are twenty that you had when you were twelve. Things that you thought were concrete and obvious, can turn into obscurity with startling speed, only to come back into vision, and then be lost just as fast. I think I'm becoming more understanding of the phoenix. It continues through its life, knowing that it is just a matter of time before it meets a fiery death. Only after that plunge into the flames can it break its self down to the tiny fragments of ash and bone, and begin again, slowly reforming, slowly becoming reminiscent of its former self.

"Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me."
-Beatles

These lyrics have been stuck in my head lately. Maybe it has been my over exposure to Beatles songs over the weekend, and watching Across the Universe, which I probably won't watch a second time, there are definitely worse movies to see twice. I had thought that I had smoothed out the plaster over the cracks, and that much like a new building, it would take some time for it to look normal in its surroundings.. but I found a crack, and upon closer inspection, the crack was not singular, but one of a vein of cracks, resembling much like a creeping vine that covers foundations like these. They are annoying to have to continue to deal with, but I don't think that I will ever get rid of them. A friend exterminated his hamsters.. I need to find a way to exterminate this weed before it consumes me.

Quotes and Lyrics

"NO! Be CONFIDENT!"-Jenny

"...pick yourself up my friend,
don't let the empty win,
sure life is hard but it's harder when you give in.
Pick yourself up my friend, they say dreams may come and,
where will you go now that you have lived all of them?
***
If you only crave for what you can not have,
You end up alone."-Jimmy: Poor Bakers' Dozen

"I'm diving in I'm going deep in over my head I want to be
Caught in the rush, lost in the flow, in over my head I want to go
The rivers deep the rivers wide the rivers water is alive
So sink or swim I'm diving in."-Dive: Steven Curtis Chapman

"You didn't give anything of yourself to her, you just shared it. All you have to do is reclaim it."

"We are searching for rational reasons for believing in the absurd."
"Keep to the small."
"You can only care so much about other people. Let them work on their own."
"They are still human."
"You are not an experiment."
"Man.. the Ice-wizard is such a pa-toot.
-Dude! He's like... FIFTY pa-toots!"

"Was my befriendness inadequate? Could we again-like find space to up and be pals?"

"This is the correlation of salvation and love.
(Dont drop your arms)
Dont drop your arms.
I'll guard your heart.
With quite words I'll lead you in."-The Unwinding Cable Car: Anberlin

Priorities

I have been thinking a lot lately. I have had to rearrange the way I think, the way I view, and safety measures. I have heard many helpful things, and many hurtful ones. I have had to relearn myself. I still don't understand why this happened, but I am going to survive it, and learn. I'm still not there. I feel kind of how a Velcro piece does as it's being peeled off. There's still a connection, but that doesn't mean progress isn't being made. I am still in a state of "don't know". I don't know what's going on, and I don't know what I am thinking. I need to be self aware, and divvy out maintenance to where it is due. I told myself I was going to be alright.
I don't intent to not carry out that promise.

Options

"Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional."

-Dali Lama





I need to remember not to lean too hard.

I Would Have Stayed Up With You All Night...

Lack of Words

Respect the Octopus

I have no real intent on saying something in this post. maybe i thought it would be therapeutic. maybe in my talkings i would say something clever and full of truth, that i might notice it and take to it.

Surviving the Storm