life is...insane

I woke up from a weird dream this morning. A friend of mine, E, told me about some new writing she will be doing about her dreams. I associate E with the field of psychology and so when she said she was going to write out her dreams I recalled that psychologists love to analyze patient's dreams--non-patients too. I thought it was pretty daring of her to expose herself like that, but I have yet to hear anything further about this project...

I don't remember my dreams. The moment that I leave my bed they are sapped from me. It's quite unfair because I would very much like to remember them, A) for the purpose of analyzing them and figuring out what my problems are and B) because I'm sure they would spawn great movie ideas if I had the time to think about them. The sad thing about this morning is that although I can remember I had a dream, and I remember it being significant because my friend had a conversation about writing out her dreams, I cannot remember what my dream was about. I was interrupted by a phone call from another friend, and that is why I happened to get a glimpse of the dream I was having and also the reason why I can't remember the dream.

The one thing I took away from the dream though was to send out my question of the day--I've found that whenever I"m on vacation I have time to text friends and ask them my question of the day. Any question that is on my mind during the day. Yesterday it was what people thought about people who elope. Today's question was why brilliant people tend to have abnormal psyches.

Try this exercise: picture any successful person you know that most people who know them would claim they are successful (which could pretty much be anyone, really...) and then see if you can't spot something peculiar about them. It doesn't matter if they are business-successful, religious-successful, or family-successful. There is always something "odd" about them. Take for instance the woman who is super-skilled with kids: she talks, acts, and thinks like a kid. In an "adult" world, she might be considered crazy--in fact, many soccer moms and van drivers ARE considered crazy. But she's "successful" too. What about Lois' father on Family Guy. He's business-successful, but when put in a rest home he goes veggie and they pull him out of retirement.--I think Seth MacFarlane has a point (just watch the episode and you'll see what I mean). I read in the paper yesterday about a local minister who is allowing a service for dogs...She's also building a dog area in the homeless shelter she is building. She sounds crazy, but it's also pure genius. People who wouldn't go to her church are going to go just because they can bring their dogs with. Homeless people are going to benefit from the companionship of dogs.

When I asked E my question of the day, she said that she thinks, if we get down to it, everyone is crazy. There is no correlation between being crazy and successful, because there is a 1.0 correlation between being crazy and successful and there is a 1.0 correlation between being crazy and unsuccessful. I pointed out to her that that defeats the purpose of defining society as "normal" because insanity is therefore normal, and she probably laughed knowing something I don't know--everyone is abnormal.
It prompted me to think about whether or not psychologists attempt to make people conform to society, or if they make people more crazy. It was an insane loop in the space-logic continuum::: shrinks make you "normal" by making you crazy, then they realize you're crazy and you need to be more "normal" again so they constantly "change" you and try to make you into something else, ever recycling the old you and making you new again. Meanwhile they get paid massive amounts of money.
Since life-coaching is similar to the head-picking process, one that I've engaged in before, in the same instant I got sucked into another dimension of the space-logic continuum::: Life coaches have a bad rapt because they are "unskilled" versions of shrinks. They say fancy stuff about light and energy and potential and burdens, and they pump you up into thinking you can conquer the world. They make you build a reliance on them to the point where they NEED you in order to feel successful.--even though their goal is to convince their client that their client can go off into the big scary world on their own and accomplish anything. Oddly, shrinks and psychiatrists' main objective is to help the client manage their life and emotions on their own.

I've had three people come to me in the last 24 hrs to inform me of their "problems" and/or progress. Most people, I think, just want someone to talk to, because talking to someone seems to patch problems better than actions do. Honestly, the advice most people need me to explain to them is that they should just say "Hakuna Matata" and not worry about it. Let things roll of your shoulders and don't let them sink into your skin.
 Not only do people hear put-downs all of the time, but our society and culture makes us think we need to look, sound, smell, act, and pleasure in a certain way, and when they sink in, they cause us all sorts of mental and emotional problems. All of the five senses are controlled and regulated by the forces surrounding us. Truthfully, they're just hegemonic arguments. We accept them because they are the "consensus" of our local society and the outside world. We don't question them. Many of them are planted into our heads at a young age when we haven't developed our reasoning powers to defend ourselves. Is that cultish? I think so. But then again, EVERY institution is therefore a cult. Every religion, every form of education, even our own families.
Is it immoral to convince someone of something that might not be true? Depends: does thinking that way benefit them and others, or does it harm them or others? Utilitarianism. When you look at life under this light, you realize that all of those crazy people out there, all of those cults, all of those cultures and lifestyles: none of them are judge worthy; it's not cut and dry when it comes down to judging them. The polygamists in the FLDS church, who I learned a couple days ago that they are professing the end of the world, the need for new baptisms, and that it's time to move to a new zion (suspected in North Dakota), there's really nothing immoral with the way they believe and operate. They are providing a meaningful life for many people, and from what I understand, they are also good hard workers for the outside community (to non-FLDS).
I don't think they're closer to the truth, but I don't see anything immoral in their behavior as long as they don't "rape" anyone (I forget...did I publish that ultra-controversial article about rape?--maybe some other time). Even the child marriages and all that stuff I can see as morally alright as long as it is the greatest good for the greatest number of people over the greatest amount of time. (I usually don't think about the 3rd dimension, time, but I need to be P.C. here.)

I had a peer who was a communist. I'm a pretty firm Capitalist, but he and I got along well. He seems like a bright enough man. At one point in my life I investigated communism--back in my naive days as a young teen when I thought there were things wrong with society and that we needed to fight on every social conflict. There were aspects of communism that I thought were realistic--socialism really--but eventually I realized how realistic Capitalism is and how it trumps communism.
Now I'm more moderate. I take the trump cards out of the capitalist deck and the ideal aspects of socialism and I'm left with a quasi-idealist version of Social Capitalism. I see it as possible only if all participants are voluntary and sanctioned in a capitalist world--hey, we ARE in a capitalist world! In other words, kid, if a small band of people want to form a social community in which they share everything and work towards the same goals and everyone is completely equal and all decisions are made by a majority vote of a committee, that's fine. In fact, you'd be surprised at how many communities are exactly that. Stalin and Lenin and Hitler and Jang Qi Shek-- whatever his name is, they were all successful, but they were also crazy. They overlooked the fact that Communism is bureaucracy and at the head of communism there is still a guy in a fancy chair giving the yes or no, much like any monarch or president.

I could go on for a long time about government. My own government has the same problems that any government in history has ever had. I think all governments share the same problems and, as yet, no one has been able to find solutions for them.



I too am insane[[I know it's hard for you, my readers, to fathom, but I'm just as insane as the next guy, maybe even more--hopefully]]. I'm just like any other insane person in that I don't know what make me crazy. The fact that I think deeply about things and come to anti-conclusions, conclusions contrary to popular society--ya, that's insane. The fact that I want to be something important in the world and think my ideas are new and exciting and my skills are unique when what I say echos what ancients have said and my 100k's of people have the same unique abilities as I do--ya, that's insane.
 Some days I go on hyper spurts where I razz everyone, take no prisoners, bully everyone around me that I care about and assert my domain. It's probably caused by the fact that I'm just a little fish in a big pond and no one gives a shit about me and probably wouldn't care if I dropped dead--and it would be hypocritical of me to want them to care about me because honestly if most of the world dropped dead I wouldn't care that they died. I typically don't care when I hear about people dying across the globe. I typically don't care when soldiers die or terrorists die. I don't even care when young girls in a city next to my hometown are kidnapped, raped, and left to die in the woods.Yes, I think it's bad, sad, and disturbing, and I think the killer ought to be kidnapped, raped and left to die in the woods as well (viva Dexter), but I just don't care about that kind of stuff. I'm a little crazy, cut me some slack. I barely care that my own grandmother has been dead for a year now. I'm not going to fake these feelings. When they happen, they happen.

Right now, I'm just trying to figure out what I care about in life. I'm in my mid-twenties and I feel like I haven't experienced anything even though I know I have. I've experienced many feelings and emotions. I've liked some, disliked others. I've met MANY people and learned from their experiences. I have a good memory when I am prompted to recall it, and I constantly recall my past experiences just so I can reassure myself that life is grand because I've experienced so much and improved so far... (I'm doing it right now). I think it would be great fun if you and I compared lives--our memory of them at least--and we came to a conclusion about who has had more experience. I imagine we would take turns saying one thing we did and asking if the other person did it or not. They would then say, "oh yes, I've had that before: this is how it turned out. Have you ever..." I'm sure we could go on for a long time, but whether because I've had more experiences or because I have a better memory, I would win. [[I'm gonna call this the reminisce game]]

Well, I'm turning into a crazy Nihilist so I better quit.
...
I've said it before but I'll say it again: for the time being I'm going to focus on figuring out what I really care about. That way in the future of my crazy life I'll at least know what to hold on to and what to give up...

Life is...Lucky

I'm going to start a line-up of related articles titled "Life is..." This is the first one.

Life is Lucky.

We are born into such a scary, crazy world. It makes no sense to me why or how it all fits together. Perhaps I have lost my initial grounding in faith: I do believe there is a God, Christ came and atoned for my sins, and the Holy Ghost enlightens our minds. --it's just... Why are some people born or placed into circumstances where their options are so limited that they have to resort to wickedness just to survive? No, no. Not just people living in the dark ages when God was seemingly nowhere to be found, but people in our modern times who have it rough. Why can't everyone be "normal" or equal? Why are there bums living in the streets and hoes living in the ghetto? Why are there some people, men and women, who can't seem to hold a job, yet others can quit and get hired anywhere? Why do some people have opportunities and others do not?

I used to be under the impression that we earn everything we receive.--Whether good or bad. It was foolish of me. Very one-sided. Very judgmental, even though I never judged anyone. I looked at life in a paradigm that when bad things happened to people it was due to their own achievement, karma, and good grace with God; and when bad things happened to someone, I figured it was their own fault, karma, lack of graces with God, or because God was testing and trying them. But why would God use a round about way to teach someone a lesson?--Under that same line of thinking, if the lesson was learned, why aren't they immediately brought into good graces with God again and everything sorted out just fine? To justify my paradigm, I'd say that God wants us to work for the things we earn so that we really do earn everything we receive.
Thinking about it now, that just seems stupid. Why would someone who loves you and wants you to learn and grow, just like God, put you through trials without offering a means for escape? For instance, why would God try you by making it an extra challenge for you to get a job and steady income, and then even though you might learn whatever lesson it is he's trying to teach you (let's say He wants you to learn that any job is better than no job and not to be picky)--after you learn that lesson, why must you still get beat up over getting a job? If you learn the lesson, you would be in graces again, right? And whenever you're in graces, God grants you blessings, right? And so the next job interview you g into ought to be the one you stag, correct?--That's just not how life works. You still have to work for everything. Whether you're in God's favor or not, He still makes you do all the work necessary. He doesn't grant you little favors because you're doing the right thing. He also doesn't harm you because you're doing the wrong thing--that would be malicious and god isn't malicious.
So why are some people given lucky circumstances, others are not, and some even receive unlucky circumstances? As I mentioned above, I'm convinced that God wouldn't give us a trial unless he prepared a way to escape the trial, either by learning what we need to learn or doing what we need to do. Upon doing those things, we would be freed of the trial and brought back into the good-life. --this happens, I'm sure, but not often. So what about the rest of the time, is that Satan tormenting us?--Again, God has power over Satan and so if we're in God's graces then Satan shouldn't harm us, correct?

So if it's not God, and it's not Satan, that leaves man.

Man has the power to propel other men's successes or to limit them. Because of man's agency, at times it feels as though man is more powerful than God--in this life anyway. If I find grace in the eyes of a powerful man, he can grant me blessings. But if I disgrace a man who is powerful, he could as easily retaliate against me.
That is different from what I understand about God: instead of personal retaliation, God would permit Satan to torment me--that sounds too much like Calvinism: 'Sinners held up in the hand of an angry God who at any moment could drop us into living Hell if we upset Him enough with our wickedness'. --No, no. Again, it's not like that. Satan only takes hold of our lives IF we break commandments. God has nothing to do with it... So again: do we receive everything we earn and do we earn everything we receive?
I don't think so. Some people don't do anything, and yet they are showered with blessings. Others don't do anything and are showered with curses. Some people are very talented and yet no one will give them their "lucky" break.--wouldn't God or Satan be a part of that? I don't see how. Even I have that problem, I don't deserve any blessings from God from what I do, nor do I deserve any curses from Satan, I receive blessings from man all the time--and occasionally curses too, but nothing to propel me forward or set me back.

I think sometimes life is just pure luck and a touch of free choice....

I'm writing Tragedies that are also Sins

This day I could have been married.
Hah!
What a sick joke.

Technically my marriage is saved

I'm finally ready to make a public statement about the scene.--I think I fully understand what happened, and I think I am calmed down enough to share my side of the story without being emotional:

A few months ago, I drove down to T, her home town, to have a chat with N. She knew ahead of time what  we would be chatting about. I was going to give her her stuff back, and she was going to give my ring back. It was a week or so before my fall school semester started. I knew that the distance would kill us. I knew that my lack of time would kill us. I knew that I was fed up and frustrated by her and I didn't want any more to do with her. I went through a struggle with her which I shouldn't have had to. True, I learned many things from it, but only if I can only make sense of the things I learned, and I'm still trying to make sense of it all.

Let me back up.

In my past, I have been known to act the paladin. Many people see it, but most of the time I am oblivious to it. I wish I were not a paladin because it causes me more trouble than it helps others; it isn't very efficient, I sacrifice a lot and others only get a little. I'd do much better, utility-wise, in helping myself and swearing off everyone else. A paladin type is someone who goes out of their way to "rescue" others in distress, particularly damsels. Because there is a false misconception that women are oppressed more than men, and because men are attracted to women, male 'paladin types' are prone to fall for women who need rescuing. I do that without knowing it.

N needed rescuing. She was living in Logan and her aunt and uncles'. She was making minimum wage. She was anti-social and didn't know how to make friends in a new town. She was tricked into get student loans for a degree that would get her a job that wouldn't even pay for the student loans, and on top of that she had a car loan. She was born poor, in T--a lower class town in a middle-class state. To add to it, she was uneducated--she wasted her public-school education and barely got by with the basics. She and her family were destined, before they were born, to live an unambitious life. The most ambitious one in their family, N's older sister, ruined her life at a young age by getting pregnant and having three kids, out of wedlock. And if all that wasn't enough, they were among the blind and disillusioned who live on the culture of church rather than the root of religion.

I wanted to help N so badly. I can remember, after our first date, thinking how she might turn into a sweet person if she only had more confidence and talked more. So my paladin side stepped in and wanted to help her break out of her shell. I spent more and more time with her thinking I could change her and, as I put it at the time "if nothing else, she'll becoming exactly what I want; I am not going to give up on her until she has been molded."
Not only do I have a nasty habit of playing the paladin, I also have a nasty habit of playing the artist--on people. I want to perfect people, make them better, improve them. Everyone I meet, I want them to succeed. I want them to leave me a better person. Some people appreciate this--no one has rooted for them  before and they want so much to have that support.--I've made MANY close friends because of this. But at other times, my playing the artist is more a force of my own personality convincing and persuading them to become something they are not and do not want to be.

After a while, the exact thing happened that shouldn't happen: she started fitting the part. I let her read a copy of an Evil book that I wrote. It is a book for women meant to explain to them exactly what men want. It's very Mary Wolstencraftian. For some reason, I still cling to the belief that women are divinely designed to be a help-meet for their husbands. Something deep inside of me encourages me to believe that a non-patriarchal society would be very faulty, just as it was in Cihuatlan, Mexico anciently. Something tells me that men and women can never be complete equals because men and women are unique and different. But women can be masters of their own lives. They can be the masters of their own sphere. They can navigate the world in the way that it presently is, and that can grant them anything that they want, but only if they develop the right skills and talents. --I told you it was an evil book. Even though it might be insightful, the presentation and the initial premises of the book taint the rest of the book. Anyone who reads that book will be able to act the part--but being a film director, I know that acting is not reality, and acting isn't for everyone.
N began to play the part. Mixed with my own desires to find someone who was the part, and my desires to morph her into what I wanted--and even my arrogant belief that if anyone can get people to change, it is I--I began to plan my life around the world I had created. But it wasn't her own choosing. The only thing N had was more of a tabula rasa than most people--she wasn't confident enough to project her own reality and went along with everything I said, plus she was too uneducated to know if what I said was correct or not and she assumed that I had the best intentions in mind.
It wasn't until she was provoked that she started to get smart and play cunning; subconsciously, or perhaps it is just by some sort of fate, she realized that she was not being herself. Although I had her best interests in mind, although I was willing to offer her more than she could ever give me in return, she couldn't handle the acting and she gave up on me. I was a monarch in our relationship, and the unfortunate thing about monarchs is that they are only as powerful as the power they have in the present, not their past or future power. I had none.
It was some time around when I moved back home, because I couldn't stay in Logan, that she ran away and gave up. She was all alone again. She wasn't tied with an umbilical cord 5 minutes away from me. She didn't have friends to entertain her, and with me gone, the movie dream went with it. Everything I ever created for her, my web of magic spells, future deams--they were gone because I couldn't maintain them.
The trouble with people who don't have confidence (which is most everyone) is that they can be led around by those who do have confidence. The sooner you believe in yourself, believe that you matter, that you can accomplish things, that you don't need to rely on other people--in that moment, you will have the world in your hands and no one will persuade you unless they have more confidence than you do. N had that problem--her family, her old friends, others beside myself were feeding her their own desires. They controlled her. They controlled her better than I ever could. Especially living 45 minutes away.

[[--Lest anyone get carried away with my metaphors: I am not a wizard. I did not cast some "spell" on her. I didn't breathe lies into her head. I had as much influence on her as I do other people. But because of the way humans work--the way the world works--the way life works, some people are more prone to be "persuaded" than others are; and I mean persuaded in the rhetorical sense. This isn't a magic trick. However, I will confess to ALSO having a problem where I am TOO persuasive--had I been a country bumpkin with no rhetorical muscle memory, none of this would have occurred.]]

Others convinced her to abandon me, to return to her hometown. They probably did so with good intentions, but good intentions do not amount to moral acts. Good intentions, I found the hard way, often lead to bad outcomes, and bad outcomes are all that matter in a utilitarian world. This was for the better though--it has aided me at least, and who else matters in my world!? (I'm practicing) At home she was exposed to more of others influence, and the more that others persuade her, the more my influence doesn't work.
Influence is a funny thing, it requires constant input in order to succeed, because if you stop influencing something it reverts back to its internal state. If I stop listening to dirty music, my mind gets out of the gutter because I am not being influenced by it. If I stop reading my scriptures and going to church, then I stop being a religious person because it's not in me to be religious. To overcome the natural man, we have to influence ourselves otherwise, until eventually our core has been transformed. For instance, I have never smoked or drank and it is not in my internal state (although it is part of the natural man) to do so. I would need other influences to get me to drink or smoke...such is the way our eternal world works: power and influence. :-/

I found, when I moved away from Logan, that N was slowly re-attaching herself to her family. All young people attach themselves to things they know are familiar--women especially (here I go again with my patriarchal views, but psychological science argues this, not me [not that their science has any more authority than human science...]) N strengthened the strings she still had attached to her others. Instead of tying herself to me and our future, she tightened the chains she had around her others. It was then that I began to realize everything I saw was a creation of my own hands. N moved back home to T to be back with her old influences. That's all she ever knew, and she wasn't ready to spread her wings and soar.

I made N into that sweet girl, when she was a spoiled brat of a poor family. I made her into a confident young woman who could do anything independently, when really she required my assistance to believe in anything. She was confident--but only in me. [[I can't stand people like that. That's called hero worship in my book of life.--Get your own gods and quit worshiping me. Search inside of that hell you call yourself and anchor yourself to what's inside of you, not what's out in the world, because if you don't you'll be lost!--my two cents]] Once she lost her confidence in me, she realized that she was in no situation to get married. She was too poor to afford me at the time, even if I could have paid off all of her debts with the money I have stored away. She wasn't mature enough, or independent enough, to separate herself from the rest of the world and anchor herself to a husband--she only thought she could do it. It was all just a dream, a wish, a want. Her blind following of her culture led her to believe that she was at th

With me not around, she reverted to her old ways. I started to notice that she acted like a little kid when she wasn't acting for me. I started to notice that she was rude and selfish to everyone around her, especially to me--she was probably taking her frustrations out on me for putting a spell on her. I came to the realization that she was not the person she seemed--or rather, the person that I wanted her to be. She didn't have the potential to become what I wanted her to be and she wasn't anywhere near the kind of person I wanted to be anyway.
I kept up with the magic for a couple months, thinking that eventually I could cast my greatest spell and that everything would be fixed magically.--there were things I could have done, I'm not an innocent twit, I know how to manipulate people, how to brainwash people, how to control people. But I'm not like that. I would never do that. Besides, is it worth it? Is it worth it to waste away your energy fighting a war just to win, or is it better to make peace, cut your losses, and save yourself from your bad decisions? --I would much rather correct myself, lick my wounds, and grow into a bigger person with a gorgeous wife than tame a young shrew who could never be anything more than a shrew. Taming a shrew is only worth it if she has mountains of gold tied to her name...and I don't need to repeat what I said earlier. If anything, I have the right to be a shrew, not her!

After several trials of my patience, the time wound down to where I knew I would be moving further way from her and that would bring more problems. T is about 2.5 hrs from Logan. If I thought it was bad being 45 min away, or being 1.5hrs away, I could imagine what it would be like 2.5 hours away. I knew things were only going to get worse, especially since I was taking a maxed out school schedule and probably wouldn't have time for anything. Lack of time and excessive distance really harmed our relationship.
Knowing that things were only going to get worse for us, and realizing that she was only being what I wanted her to be and not what she really was, I knew I needed to change our relationship. She was false--as false as an actor is not a real person. It hurt me to think that I had created the mess I was in. It hurt me more that she went along with it. I realized I couldn't marry her, and yet I stuck with her because I kept telling myself a lot of evil thoughts like "all relationships are that way for you and you'll just have to get used to forcing people to act around you" or "you're poor and stupid right now, but now is your only chance to get married because when you're older you won't be as interested in marriage because you'll be smarter and richer," and all other sorts of evil thoughts that would have only led me to unhappiness.
Things happened just as I thought they would. I watched our relationship fall apart because she wasn't real. The girl I knew and wanted to marry was no the girl I was engaged to. The girl I was engaged to, I learned, was more interested in getting married than she was in me. The fact that I had money encouraged her; and now we return to my initial statement: I could have been married this day. Hah! What a sick joke.

What is love? Why do young girls want love so badly that they will give up everything for what they think is love, only to realize it is passion? Why do young men want love so badly that they will ignore their gut feelings and proceed to be cuckold?

My life will continue. It always does. I'm not ready to be married... not until I can fully support myself. Not until I'm living on my own entirely. Marriage is for wimps who have given up on the real world and all they want is a woman to take care of them. No, I'm not getting married until I meet someone smarter than I am. I'll be in good hands at that point and I can finally give up--the world will be in good hands. ;D

There will be time--two of the best warriors!

I really like the Arabian Nights. It's possibly one of my favorite stories--plural, because there are SO many stories in it. Although, if you know me well enough, you could argue that one reason it is one of my favorite stories is because there are many stories in Arabian Nights--so many that English does not know, that an English storyteller could make up their own stories and claim they are a part of the Arabian Nights collection, and people would believe them, even though they were the storyteller's own invention.
That's not the topic I want to discuss in this essay, though I think it does point out something significant in literature that is intriguing and, if analyzed carefully enough, it brings insight into several aspects of human nature. (I can think of the fact that people are often okay with not taking credit for their own creations if those creations are bigger than they could ever be--humans want to be a part of something bigger than themselves)

My favorite book of all time is War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Arabian Nights comes in a close second, but I think War and Peace has more that my American culture can relate to than the absurdities you might find in Arabian Nights... This weekend I had the privilege of watching the film for War and Peace over Netflix--it was my first time, I enjoyed the film, though I don't think that it is the kind of film a normal person would enjoy--you have to read the book in order to enjoy it, I'd argue. The film does little more than summarize the book in just over 3 hours, but it skips many important scenes and their interpretation (and the casting! Ugh, of the main character, Piere, is so terrible!) [Dear director, Piere is a nerdy, timid, bumbling giant.--not the Henry Fonda type...]. I liked the film mostly because it brought up my memories of the book--my connections with the book. The cherished moments I enjoyed as I discovered things about human nature, and myself, while reading the book. It's such a powerful book, it's only a shame that in order to experience those things which the book has to offer, the reader has to embrace a book from the top 20 longest books of all time (and one of the very few from that list which are translated into English!)

With such length, you either have to have some sort of incentive for finishing it, or you have to be a complete genius in relation to human behavior. --I was both, and I barely made it through. I have completed it_once_. It was the months before my LDS mission. My sister gave it to me for either Christmas or Birthday, I can't remember which, but the book is long enough that it could have been Christmas... Either way, I began reading and finished a month before I set off, pledging not to read anything other than the scriptures for 2 years. My incentive was that I wanted to read something--something big, so that my heart would be set and capable of lasting for 2 years. If I didn't finish it, I would be disappointed for 2 years. That was my incentive
To portray to you my "incentive" I want to use a metaphor: Imagine you are taken captive by Persian pirates, who tell you "I will give you one last request before we must kill you" To which you say: "I am a scholarly type, my last request is that I may read one book before I perish." The pirate king agrees and asks "which book would you have me fetch for you?" Your response: "War and Peace." --Why War and Peace? --it's obvious isn't it? Because that could buy you some time as you think about your life coming to an end, and maybe it could even give you the time you need to convince the pirate king to let you live.
Pirate kings and Arabian nights aside, I had a goal that I wanted to read the book so that I could say I read it--little did I know that it would be the best book ever written! The movie argues that the main theme of the book is that no matter how rough life is, we need to learn to enjoy it, and it closes the film with the following quote from the book: "The most difficult thing--but an essential one--is to love Life, to love it even while one suffers, because Life is all. Life is God and to love Life means to love God."--I think that is ONE of the themes, but I'm not settled yet on it being the MAIN theme.

Lately, I have been thinking of a specific story in War and Peace, that of Andre Bolkonsky. In the beginning, he abandons his wife to fight for his country, a noble act, but he tells his friend that it is to get away from his wife and his father. In war he gets injured, while being a war hero--a true hero-- and his heroic act impresses Napoleon, his enemy, who lends him his doctor and ultimately saves his life in time to return home to his wife just to watch her die giving birth to his son. He then falls in love with a younger, naive, girl because she brings him back to happiness, but she betrays his love and trust during their lengthy engagement period, and he refuses to forgive her until he is on his death bed. He is on his death bed because he tries to escape life, again, by going off to war, and a cannon shell hits him, mortally wounding him.

Some people claim that Andre is the epitome of the pessimist, but I think those people don't read enough into his character. He is only a pessimist because of what he has seen, and he has seen more than the other characters. Each of the characters have a "down" moment--a pessimist moment. What separates Andre is that he sees through all of the "fake" parties that his wife attends, he sees through all of the military shows, the religious doctrine, he sees right through all of the politics and the assumptions that the other characters have. He is very much a realist and he has a knack for recognizing the root of everything. He sees quite clearly. The other characters always have something to hide behind--Pytor becomes mystified by war and is led astray into believing that it will bring him to a greater, more heroic end--he is killed quite non-heroically in battle. Piere is intellectual and is mystified by what he thinks he understands, and often argues about things he doesn't know anything about, does things he doesn't know what he's doing, &c.--he makes several people offended, marries a gold digger, &c.. Natasha is just a silly little girl who thinks life is all about romance and is mystified by the thing called love, when Anatole tells her he loves her, she thinks she's found love and it turns out Anatole is just a rake, and she ruined her chances with a much better man. Andre isn't a pessimist--he's just the only character who sees things the way they really are. He isn't hindered by having to frame reality into his little world. He accepts things the way they are and although he struggles by having those views, I don't see why someone could confuse his complaints about how gruesome war is or how upset he is about the fakeness of society life, because that's just how war and peace really is. War is gruesome and peace is often false.
I am more inclined to believe that the main theme of War and Peace is that no matter how you look at the world, it still exists and everything you do makes a difference, or put another way: no matter what you believe, the truth about life is that it simply is.

Everything in Andre's life that he does, thinking it is a good cause, turns out to only bite him in the rear once it is over; poor guy. I think everyone has experienced this before in their life. The devil just doesn't relent. Like I said, I have been thinking about Andre's story lately because I feel I can relate to him quite well, and as I look at my life I am concerned about similar things that I think Andre was concerned about. We both have a knack for seeing through the costumes and fluff and looking at the bare bones, root of reality. We both have been disillusioned by the things we once held precious. We've both experienced what it is like to give our friends advice only to have them disregard it because they are too blinded by their own desires.

--

I'm 22 years old. Quite young really. I've looked into my future--as best as any man can guess at how his life is going to pan out--maybe I'm superstitious for believing that I know myself well enough and how life works that I can make reasonable estimates of my future. In one of T.S. Eliot's poems, "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Proofrock," Alfred keeps telling himself that "there will be time" to talk to women, and so he never has a relationship with any of them and he sees himself dying without a woman in the end, even though it is something he wants. I have my reasons for wanting the same thing, maybe it's something all men want deep down, to get married. But I don't see myself getting married any time soon. I don't WANT to get married any time soon. Not that I don't think I could handle it, not because I'm scared, or timid, and I don't think getting married is going to hold me back--if anything it will set me free, make me less scared, less timid, and what man COULD handle getting married, am I right? (I'm beginning to understand the old saying: "women, can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em").
Because I see my future, the root of it mind you, I know that I have to be very picky about how I handle marriage. It is going to be a very tricky subject for me, finding a woman capable of sticking with me, and I honestly don't know how to go about it. I've go through every trick in the book that I know how, save one, and none of them work. My final option is to trust in Tolstoy's advice about the two greatest warriors "patience and time..." I'm sure many wars were won that way. . .

But I have one other wild-card up my sleeve--I've always thought this would be a good idea, but I'm not sure how it would work or rather I wasn't sure if it was a card I wanted to play. Now I'm beginning to think that it is the BEST card in my hand and that I MUST play it, otherwise I'll never win:

Before I consider marrying anyone, I'm going to force my future wife to read War and Peace. In fact, given the low probability of things I'll be quite direct, open, and simple. If any attractive, single, young, LDS woman can read War and Peace from the beginning to the end and can give me ONE new insight about the book or how it relates to life that I don't already know, I will pledge my soul to them. That's my ONLY requirement about marriage.

It sounds very much like a story out of The Arabian Nights... In fact, it is quite similar! And I'm willing to share my requirement because I know that it is so difficult. I know that very few women can handle it--very few people in the entire history of the world have read the book entirely without skipping a few pages. I'm also fairly confident that anyone who reads that book will feel, and learn, all of the human emotions that I expect my future wife to experience before marrying me. And if any woman can tell me something very intriguing that I don't already know about War and Peace, then she is more intelligent than I am, and that would put her very high on my list.

As I said before, you need one or two things in order to finish the book: incentive, or being a genius. I'm merely providing you with the incentive--if you're a genius, it will be an easy read for you.


"Open up your mind and see like me" and if you still can't see my vision in presenting this requirement,  "please don't complicate" and just listen to this song and picture me singing it to you on our wedding night.



so, what are you waiting for? Get started! http://www.amazon.com/dp/1400079985/ref=rdr_ext_sb_ti_hist_1

No room at the Inn

I take my religion seriously. In fact, I don't seem much of a difference between my religion and my life--in everything I do I need to make moral decisions, I need to live a Christ-centered life. I feel obligated to "[be] honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and [to do] good to my fellow men" (AF 13). I also feel obligated to seek after righteousness for righteousness' sake, and to bring dark dealings to light--I suppose that that is a fancy way of saying that I feel it necessary, at times, to make people aware of actions and decisions that can lead to evil. My voice will not remain silent as I watch other people tear down the good in the world.

This Christmas season, I want to focus more on the the story of the Truth and the Light of this world: Jesus Christ. I do not want to be like the many hotel owners who did not have room for Him in their inns because they were too preoccupied with appeasing the majority of people. It is sad to think that because they were busy with the hundreds of other, unimportant patrons, that they missed out on the best thing since their escape from Egyptian bondage.

I was asked recently what I thought was the most "evil" thing our society (I suppose they meant the one that she and I are a part of) is facing. I didn't necessarily have an answer--I often do not have answers right at the time that people want to know them. But I have an answer now:
--- (if you don't care for reading my lead-in, skip down to the next set of dashes) ---
The most 'evil' thing threatening our society is that there are so few people who have the truth, and even fewer who know how to find it. Most people in my age range (18-30) are completely ignorant on how to determine truth, they assume that the majority opinion is the true course, and they believe that they cannot go wrong if most people believe the way that they do. My friends, that is a very sophist way of thinking. Sophists do not follow the truth, they justify their own behavior, whether it is founded on absolute truth or not.
Sophist Story:
Around the great Greek rhetorician Aristotle's time, there was a philosophical debate over what constituted truth and how one could come to know the truth. One one side of the argument there was Aristotle and his pupils, and on the other were the sophists. Sophists argued that truth was whatever people believed it was: that if the majority of people agreed to it, then it simply must be true. They argued that that was the only way in which we as humans could know the truth; by devising some method to tally the number of people on each side of an argument and calculating which side had the most votes. Aristotle, having thought more deeply about the matter realized a flaw in such thinking, and it can be illustrated by a mock court case (since the judicial system was where it was necessary to discover truth) :

Tyros purchases a cow with a star pattern on its belly from a far away village, it is late when he gets home and so he lets it out to pasture for the night.
Pyrinthia, a thief, catches the cow at night and ties it up at his house.
The next day, Printhia tells his neighbors that he just bought a cow and he shows it off to them.
Tyros searches for his cow and discovers it at Pyrinthia's house. He serves Pyrinthia, suing him for the theft of his cow.
In the court case, Pyrinthia calls all of his neighbors as witnesses. They affirm that Pyrinthia purchased the cow and that they saw it at his house.
Tyros argues that he took it from him the night of the purchase, but since no one saw him with it, Pyrinthia claimed that "maybe Tyros dreamed that he bought my cow". The crowd laughed and the judge called for a vote. Since the majority of people sided with Pyrinthia, the judged declared Pyrinthia in the right.

According to the sophist way of reckoning, the truth was that Pyrinthia was right because everyone seemed to believe his side of the story. But the real truth is that Tyros purchased the cow and Pyrinthia stole it...
Aristotle claimed that there is an eternal truth--what actually happened. How do we determine that though? Tyros could call, as a witness, the seller of the cow, who could testify in his behalf. But what if the cow salesman is blind and could not describe the man who purchased the cow? How do we determine the truth?

The reason why sophistry is so popular is because it's so easy. Truth was never easy. Our entire global society, from the early ages of man up until now, has followed the sophist view of truth--because there is a simple method for measuring it. We have modified our methods of course: some peoples' votes count more than others, but overall it is the majority who control truth. An environmental scientist who has been conducting research for 50 years has more weight in environmental matters than the hundred people who call him a farce and yet have never done any research in their life. But the sophist way of thought still applies: if the majority of people believe something is true, then it is true.

Aristotle claimed that the only way to come to the truth is to debate it, to present all sides of the argument and to present all of the facts that each side sees as important, and then to use those facts and points to prove the fallacies of the other arguments. In order for this to work, realistically, each side would need to be persuadable--they would need to leave themselves open enough to realize the flaws in their thinking. To Aristotle, the truth is not something that we, as a society, can come to all at once--it is an individual path, something that we must all take. It is not something that we can merely trust one individual on. To realize the truth we need to experience both sides of the argument. --This sounds a lot like the principle of Agency, "in order to make a decision with full agency, we need to know what both sides of our decision are like," we need to have knowledge that is founded on experience. Aristotle was on to something very deep and very great.
 Unfortunately, Aristotle's argument is like a voice of the past--people in the modern times care very little for age old voices, they always want "new" and "better." The Truth never gets old however, but like many foods, it gets better with time.

My friends, if Christ is symbolic of the truth, because he possessed the truth, then the story of the Savior's birth takes on a new meaning. All of the many inns, who housed many people, much like a sophist might persuade many people to agree with them, missed their shot at the truth--not knowingly, but unknowingly. They missed their shot at the truth because they did not leave sufficient room in their inn to be wrong. Not only did they fail to house the Savior of the world, they failed to house the direct blood lineage of David--if they had had a king, Jesus would have been it. But the innkeepers, for whatever reason, did not leave any spare rooms.
--- ---
My point is, there are many cultural tendencies, particularly over the last couple years, that distract us from seeing the truth. We are more concerned about how many people like our stupid Youtube videos than we are about figuring it out for ourselves. We are more concerned with rallying and holding sit-ins than we are about discovering the truth. We are more concerned with watching prime-time, reality television than we are about experiencing the world for ourselves. We are more concerned with posting our status on Facebook and twitter and reading others' posts than we are about visiting with our friends and family in person.
If you want to know the truth, you literally have to seek it out: you have to investigate all sides (it might surprise you, but there are at least two sides to everything you hear or see).
The trickiest thing that Satan has done is convince people that the truth is easy to find and that lots of people have the truth. He has made it appear as though everyone else knows what they are doing, when really, very few people know what they are doing--in general, or in life. Few people possess the truth, and they only possess the truth because they have devoted a lot of time to discovering it.

The low stress approach to finals

I took my last final today and I feel inclined to report on an interesting strategy that I found works. I call it "the low stress approach." Rather than starting with a description of the wonders it does for you and how it works, I'll start by explaining what I did:

Some background info first:
I'm taking 18 credits, 15 of which are English courses. Anyone who has taken an English course knows that they can, and often are, more challenging than any other subject. The reason for this is because English courses don't teach you factual data and perfected methods that lead to the same results. English, and other humanities, courses are designed to teach you how to understand life and human nature, and develop your own connection to it. In math and science courses you learn a specific pattern to follow in order to reach a result. In business related courses they approach them in a scientific manner: good businesses excel because they have access to the best resources (i.e. human resources, cash resources, product materials &c.). For instance, marketing is all about reaching the greatest number of people who have the potential to buy the product and to determine the worth of a marketing campaign, one would gather statistical data and plug it into a finely tuned formula that quantifies the amount of resources that can reasonably be spent in order for the company to earn a profit. Engineering--same thing, mathematics and physics determine the necessary components.
But humanity is not easily understood using a simple formula. It is too complex for that and the variables involved are so innumerable and ever changing that no amount of science can hypothesize about human nature. It is impossible. (on a side note, this is the entire reason why we do not bother with lie detectors in the court system to determine the guilt of an individual...) Science has its faults even though it has its benefits.
With such an intensive school load, full of courses that teach "deep thinking" skills, studying for finals could become an issue. Typically, to save college students from a mental breakdown, English professors do not require their students to have final exams--in substitution, they have massive final researched papers with intricate rules regarding length and how much in-depth research is required. Other courses do not compare with the intensity and rigidity of English paper assignments. I had nearly 100pages worth of in-depth writing to complete for the end of this semester. It was hard. it was difficult. It required every, all-day Saturday for the last 7 weeks of my life in order to complete it, plus the countless hours I devoted during the week to revise and perform research tasks. In all each of those pages probably had about 5 hours put into them, or, for all of your math nerds, 71 hrs a week devoted to writing, plus attending 18 hrs worth of classes (although...I didn't always attend class). Either way, I devoted at least 89 hrs a week to school related functions and just under 56 to sleeping. I had a measly 3 hrs a day to eat breakfast lunch and dinner, relax, and take a dump in the bathroom--That is...when I wasn't studying on the john...Those closest to me can attest to my workload. It has been one rough semester.

In any case, I knew I just didn't have the time to study for exams--really study...the kind of studying that gets A+ grades (which, sadly, it has been a long time since I got those kind of grades). Instead, I developed a study plan in which I could still pass all my classes and not have a mental breakdown (though I found myself singing out loud to myself throughout the day to some of my favorite songs stuck in my head [the killers christmas lineup is good around this time of year]--I'm not known to sing outloud very often).
In my study plan, for how I would pas my classes, I would devote my full attention in class during the study and review sections--I did not take notes, because notes are often my own interpretation of what the professor is saying. I focused on figuring out what my professor was thinking, I tried to memorize, word for word, what my professor was saying or at least emphasizing. Again...I did not take any notes; this was all done in my head. I gave 100% attention to the prepared review lectures, and I gave 100% to participating in any group review sections the professor put us in. That included sharing my ideas, asking and answering questions, refuting and debating ideas that were on the table, and being basically a model student.
A week went by and I did not study anything. I was too busy refining my papers, to care, and when I wasn't refining my papers, I made an oath to myself that I would relax. I played a lot of video games late at night, I watched a few movies--things I never get to do. I approached that week and a half with the attitude that: "If I haven't already learned what the professor wants me to learn, then no amount of studying and cramming is going to help me right now." --as a side note, I am a model student... I do my best to make class enjoyable and learnable, I ask a lot of questions, meet with professors after class, answer questions, &c. I learn.
So during my no-stress week, I wasn't stressed. I was having the time of my life, and all because I wasn't working on anything that I didn't want to. Everything was grand, everything was great.

When the exams came this week (one a day mon-wed), the night before, I reviewed the syllabus to make sure I could remember everything we study in the course. This was mostly to make sure I knew the names of books and stories, and the names of main characters and authors. During the exams, I sailed! The questions that were asked, answers came to my mind so quickly. The wording and writing, it all formulated in my head so clearly and easily. I was quite surprised. While everyone around me in the testing room was stumped on what to write, while they were staring blankly, scared, at the black writing on the white paper, I had already formulated my answer and was deep into it. Needless to say I finished the test 30 minutes early. When I looked up at the clock I got a puzzled look--I'm never the first one finished with an exam, and I've never been 30 minutes early. These weren't easy questions either. So I went back through and reread my responses. I practically revised my essays in 15 minutes, inserting necessary details and changing things that didn't make sense, and then I didn't have anything more to do or say, so I turned them in. This happened on all of my exams.

My analysis of what happened is simple: because I was not stressed out, my brain was working at perfect performance. Because I wasn't trying to recall the information in my notes, but instead the memorized emphasis' and  key lines that the professor spoke, all of that information came to the front of my mind so easily. And because it was so easy, I felt confident the whole way through my writing. That confidence helped me to formulate a concise answer to the questions that covered the most important points. I was surprised as I reread my responses because they were so clear and so detailed--some of my better writing! Most importantly, I walked out of those exams feeling comfortable with my answers. It's not something I stress about. Normally, I would have been worrying all this week and next about what score I received and if I passed the class or not--not this time. I have managed to work wonders this week--I feel like a magician with all of the things I managed to accomplish, because my life has played out magically.

Stress brings you down. Take it from me. I've committed myself to live a less stressful life. I suspect good things are going to happen from it.
 A big grin on my face right now, wish you could see it!

Michael Buble: The Man's Christmas Wish

Michael Buble got his start when he was 16 and his Granddad traded plumbing services for stage time at local bars. His dad was a commercial fisherman and when he was 14 took him on the ship as hired crew. Just think: If Buble didn't have the support of Men, where would he be?

Men, real men, please join with me this Christmas and let's fight the plagues of mankind: there are many young men out there who lack of self-confidence, fear the future, lack of ambition to accomplish anything with their lives. There are also many young men out there who have all of these things, but they can't seem to get passed the suppressing powers-that-be, no one will give them a chance, no one will mentor them, no one will support them. Worst of all, the only voices they hear are that of the cynic--the pessimist who can't seem to see beyond the negative aspects of life.
Our young men of the future need your help. They need you to teach them, to encourage them, and most of all they need you to be patient with them. We as a society cannot surpass the negative parts of life if we do not support the future generations of mankind. Who do you want to teach your children how to defend themselves? Who do you want to teach your sons how to command their lives? Who do you want to teach your sons how to love? If you do not teach them these things, and other men do not teach them these things, then they will be taught by women or they will be taught by the worst kind of men.
We don't want our young men to be taught to be sissies. We don't want them to be taught to be uncivil and manipulative. We want our men to be men, taught by Men, to be what they ought to be: Men!

This Christmas, join with me in supporting the rising generation of boys who will one day be men. Find a protege and don't stop until you can say that you helped shape that young man's life for the better. Don't stop until you can say that you made him into more of a man than he already is. Don't stop until you can say that he is more of a man than you are. We CAN beat the plagues of mankind, but only if we come together as Men.

Have a Merry Christmas Season and a Happy New Year,

Yours Truely,

Kyle Oakeson


p.s. Women and Men, please pass this important message along to the men in your life: the old men, the middle aged men, and the young men.

God Bless!

---

this comes in response to the concert Buble put on recently. Watch this: Buble invites a young man to sing with him

Pure Freedom, Agency, Liberty

Well, here I am, at it again. Another insane post by K. Oakes. If you're serious about reading this blog you've probably noticed how deep I go and you may recognize a time or two (probably hundreds) of times where my points don't make a lot of sense or that you strongly disagree with them because they are highly flawed and built on incorrect premises. Sadly, I have to apologize, because no one comments either way on these articles, so whether you like them or not I don't know that and therefore don't invest sufficient time to correcting any false premises that I currently believe. I'm banking on the fact that when I write something out it gives me a little more room to think about and clean up my thoughts than when I just think it in my head.

Here's another one to consider:
What would you do with pure freedom/liberty/agency? If you had the ability to do anything--if you were not required to do anything in order to exist. If you could do anything right now... what would you do with that ability?

Me, personally, I probably wouldn't do anything.--I'm too obsessed with doing what I can't do. When I think about freedom, I think about the things that I can't do right now. When I think about liberty, I think of what I would rather be doing, and when I think of agency, I think about what I can do right now and how I have other things that I NEED to do.

My agency is limited. Not because I am prevented from doing anything, but because I have other things that I need to do before I can do those things.--finding food, water, and shelter is more on the top of my mind than having friends to spend time with. Securing my future well-being is more important to me than anyone. And I hate that. I hate that everything I'm doing right now is all about preserving my agency so that one day--some day in the future--I will be able to use my agency.
All of my hobbies of late are merely preoccupations of my mind on the dream of one day making money with them--the film making. The dating coaching site. Writing stories and poem. Learning to program Java/make android apps. All of those things that I find "fun", I'm noticing, are really just because one day they'll make me worth a lot of money--for knowing how to do/combine/apply them. --who am I? This is about how I feel...and I don't even drink!



I live a lot of my life wishing I was in a better position. People look at me and if they heard me say that they'd REALLY think I was crazy (whereas I'm only half crazy right now).
Let's face it. If I had a 40hr/week job that paid for an apartment and groceries I think I'd be set for life. There would be no end to where I could go. There would be no end to what I would do. No one would stop me from accomplishing anything.




Why?




Because I have a very intelligent brain: I've come to realize a lot of things about life. I'm talented at so many things. I'm creative. Let's face it: I've got it made before I've even got it.
But somewhere along the line I made a few messed up decisions that I'm still banking are going to pay off, and those things have locked me in, strapped me for time, killed my energy and have got me so worried about the future that I can't focus on actually accomplishing anything until I'm finished with them. (School for example).

When I've finally moved out of this hell hole called Logan, I hope my next life isn't going to be this depressing. I hope my next life is going to grant me more liberty than this shitty place. I have very little good to say about this town. Honestly. If it were possible I'd redo all of my decisions and go to some other college, some other city, do things differently, because right now I don't have pure freedom.

In my head, pure freedom is possible. I believe it's possible to have the world at your front door and all you have to do is take a step out. I've seen it--rather, read it in some of the most successful people I know--of my heros. But I know all too well how bad luck can just happen. How unforeseen consequences can occur. I know all too well how your decisions can damn you because I've not only seen it in other people, but I've seen it in myself.

So again.

What would you do with pure freedom?
If you woke up and realized you were living in a prison and that today was your last day--you were finally getting out...what would you do?
If today you graduated. If today you got out of that contract. If you just got off your mission. If your demented elderly parent died. If your kids just moved out of the house. If today you were to retire. What would you do?


Most people who get out of prison don't know what to do--they've been in prison too long and they don't remember what life is like outside of it. The same is true with missionaries. When a live-in parent you were taking care of for years suddenly passes away, half of your pain is not knowing what to do with your time, what to devote your thoughts to. I think everything is that way. We as humans become shocked.
People are adverse to change. Not because things actually change, because often times change is good, but because it means they need to adapt and change.

That's also the reason why so many people are opposed to new ideas. --because they have to change in order to accept those things. Because it makes them more free. And with freedom comes confusion--not the typical confusion, but the confusion of not knowing what will happen.

When, in America, the blacks were finally freedmen, many of them did not know what to do with themselves. Some of them knew exactly what to do: find their separated family, but they didn't know where to look. Most of them stayed within a 5 mile radius of their southern plantation and worked as a freed farmer. A lot of them became paid servants on southern plantations.

So again, what would you do with freedom if you had it?--pure freedom, not just the freedom you have being an American, etc.

I'm not sure I would do anything differently. If I took a plane trip that crash landed on a remote island, I would finally be free. But I'd still be focusing on finding food.--it might be a little easier because I could go about it resourcefully: hunting, fishing, gathering, planting. --I might enjoy it a little better sometimes, and other times I'd feel as though I wish I had more food --a steady supply.


To me, I see a connection between freedom and newness. The truth is: we are always limited by our decision. And we can either make a decision that leads to future decision, or we can choose a decision where we HAVE to accept our decision.


::What I'm getting at is this: I don't see any difference in agency between me and the bum on the street who drugged and drunk himself to where he is now. The difference I do see is that that bum is more free: because he know's he's in a situation with limited freedom. He knows he's at rock bottom. He faces the same things I do, but he knows he can't go much lower. He knows just as much as I do that what he does each day doesn't matter to anyone except for himself. He knows as much as I do that he's a sinner, he knows he's got nothing. He knows that there is more out there in the world and that he can't have it. But he doesn't know that I'm the same way. That's because THESE FEELINGS are human. All humans feel this way at some point or another in their life. Some only briefly. Me...I've felt it for going on five years.

I've felt a lot of human experiences: what's more, I've recognized them and made connections to other things in my lfie. And freedom still eludes me.



So maybe you, READER, can help me. In our modern times, is there any sort of job--any way to make a living--in which I get to use my human experiences, get to use my life, get to explain the things I've learned. That's about all I'm good at. It's my master talent, recognizing and (eventually) explaining human thought and emotion.
Is there an occupation for this?

Writer? Film Maker? Public Speaker? --I've tried them all and I'm not good enough. Singer?...country singer? Ya...maybe I could try that next. I'm just running out of ideas, because I can't keep doing what I'm doing...I'm just not successful enough at it. I don't make enough connections with the right people (the ones with money). I just don't feel free.

And as I sit here thinking about what all this means, I get going in a giant circle: I want to be free, then I realize there's nothing to it because everyone's facing the same thing, so I tell myself to just be happy with where I am, then I worry about whether I"m going to be able to continue doing things like I am, then I'm back to wanting to be free.

I think I like being happy with how things are...and hoping for a bright future the best...

<TO BE CONTINUED>