think-ing

i know that you understand
all that i am,
all that i think,
and all that i do

but do you understand the
power of your words?
the strength that you hold?
the energy that you bring
forth in the form of a
breath, a sigh, a whisper?

it pushes all thoughts
away from my head
and into a void
that you continue to fill.

blue green morning night

moment

understand that we have so much ahead of us,
so incredibly much and so little behind us,
so very, very little.

echo

i'm sorry you saw that
and i apologize for the
pain? i apologize for the
truth that it exposed.
have you ever known me?

i've lost my "mind".

When I consider Thy heavens, the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which Thou hast ordained;
What is Man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the son of Man, that Thou visitest him?
For Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor.
Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands; Thou hast put all things under his feet:
All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field;
The fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passeth through the paths of the seas. [Psalm 8]


it seems that it is hard to deny that man is a most unusual species of being. many others are better adapted to their environment, faster, stronger, etc. what is it then that seperates us from all others? some suggest that our most extraordinary characteristic is our capacity to conceptualize the world and to communicate those conceptions symbolically.

i think that it is the idea that we have no udnerstanding of what we are. at the best level, we can attempt to explain things, but when you get down to it, we have no clue what is happening. we are so complex. we are so unique.

i don't know what to think anymore. it's amazing.

not an accident

love, ever unsatisfied, lives always in the
moment that is about to come.

embrace

it is just at the beginning
that we realize that it might
be the end.

at least we can come to the
realization that what we are
is not what we understand
ourselves to be
but always something greater
always something beyond
what it is that we see.

inside-out hoodie.

“The breathing, sensing body draws its sustenance and its very substance from the soils, plants, and elements that surround it; it continually contributes itself, in turn, to the air, to the composting earth, to the nourishment of insects and oak trees and squirrels, ceaselessly spreading out of itself as well as breathing the world into itself, so that it is very difficult to discern, at any moment, precisely where this living body begins and where it ends.”

Sometimes, I don’t understand where I begin and where I end. This, as I have learned in the past, leads to confusion. I think that over the past few weeks I’ve come to understand what confusion means. How mis-communication can put so many things into motion that one never intended to. How it takes not just two sides for a story to be complete, but all sides of a story. I’ve discovered how so incredibly interconnected we all are, on some level or another, groups of friends have so many intricate inner workings that it leaves me in amazement of the human ability to form friendships in the first place. We are constantly trying to understand each other, when sometimes all we need to do is understand ourselves. We want to escape that sort of self-realization that comes with introspective thought in order to think about other situations that are happening. We take ourselves for granted, pretending to know what we are all about, how we will react, when really, each new experience is making an impact us in ways that we don’t fully understand or see when they are happening. Only when we look at the situation from a different perspective, step away from it, can we start to see ourselves as being changed—as growing new branches to reach out to new parts of us—parts we knew were there, but parts we didn’t really [want to] understand.

I’ve felt very connected to people in new ways over the past month or so. Like I said before, I think I’ve gotten to know myself a bit better. But new connections are always a little bit like getting into a hot bath. At first, it is startling, but as you sink into it, it gets better and better. That’s how things have been progressing. Slow at first, but amazingly wonderful as it has moved along. It is a great feeling to really be able to understand—to have a connection that seems to transcend normal understanding. To not only learn about your relationships, but yourself in return, because of those people.

As I get ready to leave in a few months, I’m constantly reminded about how little time I have left here in the States, at least for awhile, and about how little time we seem to have in general. How to squander it is to let ourselves be somehow tricked. I’m feeling very much in the mind set now of “tell everyone everything you want to tell them” don’t let anything pass through your mind that you don’t act on. No thoughts about love. No thoughts about hurt or pain. Not thoughts about fear. Engaging those thoughts in life is what it is all about. Taking charge when it is difficult to do so. Not trying to escape from them, not trying to run away from them or denying them, but acting on them. Talking. Loving. Crying. We’re all in it together.

a direct experience.

scramble

But to tear down a factory or to revolt against a government or to avoid repair of a motorcycle because it is a system is to attack effects rather than causes; and as long as the attack is upon effects only, no change is possible. The true system, the real system, is our present construction of systematic thought itself, rationality itself, and if a factory is torn down but the rationality which produced it is left standing, then that rationality will simply produce another factory. If a revolution destroys a systematic government, but the systematic patterns of thought that produced that government are left intact, then those patterns will repeat themselves in the succeding government. There's so mch talk about the system. And so little understanding.

-Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Robert M. Pirsig

Among other things from the book so far, this stuck out to me today as I read it on my break at work.

7,8,9,

so many thoughts running through my head.
running out of breath. understanding that you
are the one that understands what is going on.
i am the one that is going on. my breath
is silent as i wait for you to come around
again and find what it is that you are longing
for. i know it is here. i know you feel it too.
i know. i know. you know. we know.
i, you, we, me, us,

not running away. not running past. not escaping
but letting it overtake.

x marks the spot.

What we love, we are.

“A classical understanding sees the world primarily as underlying form itself. A romantic understanding sees it primarily in terms of immediate appearance. The romantic mode is primarily inspirational, imaginative, creative, intuitive. Feelings rather than facts predominate. Art as opposed to science.”
--Phaedrus

I tend to have mostly “romantic” friends. It is difficult when they are always making passes. It took me awhile to come to understand what romantic means in terms that are not related, necessarily, to love. To continue on a direction of my previous post, I think that being a romantic is somehow related to nature. But, in contrast, I also think that being classical in thought, is also related to nature. Both areas of thought have different aspects of how they understand nature and the world. The romantic sees the world as beauty, they look at the trees, see the wind, hear the birds, and then they go and write, paint, photograph, talk, discuss, etc. about all of these things. They like to play in the dirt. The classical understanding of nature, from my perspective, tends to be more of an understanding of how nature works, and why it works. Instead of seeing it from the outside, they understand it from the inside. Romantics are not necessarily concerned with the way things work, only that they work. From my understanding though, if we didn’t have the classical people to help the romantics understand life, then the world would just be overrun with people that have a lot of emotional energy and no way to understand it all—there would be SO much art produced that no one would care because everyone would be doing it.

That might be stretching it a little.

When we are young, we are trying to understand the world in terms of being “classical” only we don’t know that’s what we are doing. We want to know how everything works. What it’s made of, how it got there, where it is going etc. But then at some point in our lives our ideas change. Instead of what it’s made of, we ask why it looks the way it does. We talk about our thoughts instead of our toys. Our ideas slowly turn from Ninja Turtles to the color of the turtles and their belts. As I’m writing this I am trying to think of when in my life I came to this understanding of ideas, of feelings and emotions instead of actions and physical things, and for the life of my I can’t remember or think of a time when I had my first “romantic” idea, moment, thought, experience. Shouldn’t that be a turning point in our lives? Shouldn’t that be remembered? When we start to not only understand the world around us, but we start to understand the world around us that we can’t see. Each person’s experience is obviously going to be different. Some early on, some late. Some parents guide their kids towards romanticism early, some still haven’t had their own romantic experiences.

All this to say that romantic and classical people co-exist and without each, it would get to be just a bit too much to bear.

1,2,3,

And confusion
sets in....


evey time i see you my heart breaks because i know that when that moment is over, all i will have is the memory. all i want is the moment.

Therefore...

Disconnection from the natural world is something I think is inevitable when one lives in a city—or even when one lives in a city not. I’ve been reading a book called “The Te of Piglet” which is the 2nd book by Benjamin Hoff, his first being “The Tao of Pooh”. One part of the book in particular struck me as going along with a lot of different aspects of my thoughts and life, currently.

“In other words, modern man’s difficulties, dangerous beliefs, and feelings of loneliness, spiritual emptiness, and personal weakness are caused by his illusions about, and separation from, the natural world. Well, the Taoists told us this sort of mess would happen, and they told us what we could do about it.”


To put it in easy terms, the solution to being separated from nature is reality appreciation. One of the best examples of this is with the non-official Taoist writer Henry David Thoreau:

“…shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life, to compare it with such things as we know, would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments…children who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure…”

I have always had a bit of a problem connecting with reality. I am never too sure of how to explain it in terms that are rational, but I have several writings from when I’ve felt that disconnectedness the most that, well, don’t exactly make the most sense—but in a way make all the sense in the world. I don’t really know what triggers this intense feeling of needing to get away, to connect somehow with what is happening—what I’m experiencing or what others are experiencing. I think that escaping is always my answer to my issues and for a while I thought that was not a good way to deal, but as I’ve seen, it is one of the only ways I can re-connect myself with something that is real, something that is tangible. I might just need to take a walk or a hike or ride my bike or drive across town—sometimes I might need to go further from home, someplace new, maybe I need to take a journey to prove to myself that I can do it—that I’m in control of me—of my actions and my thoughts—proving something to yourself is sometimes the most difficult thing in the world. Especially when you have to prove something like reality or something like self-determination.


Now, I’m not for sure if I can follow myself here, but I just watched the film “Lord of the Flies” from 1962, (Criterion Collection—black and white) an amazing tribute to not only film but also to the human condition, the separation of man from nature and then what happens to man when he is returned to nature, by chance, not by choice. Granted that all of the characters in the story are boys, I don’t think that is a great excuse—just a means to show that even the innocent can prove to be real in some form. If you haven’t read the story, pick up the book first, it is an easy read, but one that has great depth into man, the savage and man the humanitarian. A large group of boys get stranded on a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific and have to use their own instincts to take care of themselves. As the story starts the boys are intent on being true to their English nature, leaving their ties and shirts on until they just can’t take it any more. Slowly their bodies become battered, their clothes become ragged, their nature becomes more and more animalistic, and their minds tend to desert them as slowly they become their “true” selves. One of the characters referred to as Piggy says at one point “I bet it’s gone past tea time” and we are reminded that they are indeed products of their society, products of their schooling, and how ingrained that is, in not only them, but also in us. Drop us onto a deserted island and I’m sure that our true actions and thoughts would soon start to develop, albeit slowly. Isolation is not what this is about, don’t start thinking “Castaway” the Tom Hanks film from a few years back, this is about group dynamics, power, faith and sacrifice. Sacrifices are constantly made by a couple of the characters in particular—if you get the chance to watch the film, watch the progression of two specific characters, Simon and Ralph—both of which show the greatest consistency in their actions—but slowly even they succumb to the wildness that is their home.

I’m not for sure if I have the understanding of myself enough to understand how all this is coming together for me now—how conversations seem to come at just the right time—how thoughts and actions and conversations can all pull themselves together for one sort of thought or idea. All I know is that maybe sometimes what we all think is so “natural” is completely not—maybe we all need to be dropped onto a deserted island, with no idea of when our rescue will arrive just to see ourselves as maybe we should be seen. I hate using a computer, I hate using cell phones and I hate seeing people go so completely crazy over money. Buildings are not really that great, highways cause more stress than the jobs people use them to get to. It is almost too much—just too much to take—and that is where the struggle with reality seems to begin.

So, when thinking about if we are products of our society I lean towards yes—yes we should be more connected with our surroundings that are not concrete and steel—we should attempt to make a connection with ourselves, with our friends—to have true relationships with not only each other but with nature—I don’t like living in the city but I like living near it. I do like having a large park close at hand though, and if you ride deep enough into it you might not realize that you’re in a city, you might just realize that the city is in the park.

Food for thought?

There are somewhere around 10 billion insects for every square kilometer of land surface. Think about all those lives, all those murderers and egg raiders, cooperators and queens. Here’s a hypothetical: If a pair of houseflies and all their descendants were allowed to reproduce, without attrition, for a single summer, their offspring would, according to entomologist Gilbert Waldbauer, “cover the Earth to a depth of 47 feet.

Te of Piglet

"It is hard to be brave," said Piglet, sniffing slightly, "when you're only a Very Small Animal."
Rabbit, who had begun to write very busily, looked up and said:
"It is because you are a very small animal that you will be useful in the adventure before us."

I don't believe. I realize.

As I sit and sip my coffee eagerly on this fall day, some things become more apparent to me. When I start to think about goals, short term goals, long term goals, social goals and even economic goals, things start to overwhelm me and my senses, and that is where the problem begins.

My friend C has been talking a lot about goals lately. His goals for the next year are not all the most realistic but he understand that. He knows his limits but he also knows that life is subject to change at any given moment. Talking about goals is a scary thing for me, mostly because I don't know what I want out of life right now. I don't' seem to be content with living in the city I live in, or with the job that I happen to have, but I do seem to be content to be poor and read a lot. I'm not for sure what that means.

I think that for everyone, setting goals is an important part of processing what is happening around us. We each have goals that we set for the day, such as, I need to get to the grocery store, or I need to do my laundry. If those goals are met, then well, life goes on and things don't change much. I guess overall if we don't reach our goals things don't change much, unless it is a goal that our employer has set for us. That is that is the dangerous goal, when we feel pressured to obtain something that won't actually benefit us.

I think that goals should not only have personal ramifications, but also goals should reflect the sort of lives that we wish to lead. Our goals should be not only to provide for ourselves and those we love but also those around us that are needy as well. Those around us that are caught in a world that doesn't provide them with what they need. Since we live in a world that seems to have everything planned out for us--everything is taken care of and we generally have our basic needs met, maybe some of our goals should engage ourselves to try and provide for those that don't have their basic needs met.

I'm not for sure where it is that I'm going with this, but it is prompted by a homily I heard the other day. It was on being alone and challenging ourselves to be quiet, to take time out to just be quite and alone, and through that we will be able to discover more about ourselves and more about our relationships with each other and more so, with a God. At one point in the homily, he mentioned that to serve the poor from the point of being rich, is not the way things were intended. In fact blessed are the poor. In some way I feel like I need to validate my life right now, and part of that is in not having money. I don't have money to squander on things like clothes and new books. I have the occasional cup of coffee and the occasional dinner out and that is about it. I'm not saying that my "goal" for my life right now is serving the poor directly--I'm not trying to validate laziness...even though I think that sometimes is the idea that people get when I tell them what I'm doing, how I'm feeling. Maybe the people I'm trying to reach are my friends--my family--my relationships. Maybe those people are the ones that I've been deemed to be with--to help and to somehow, help validate their existence now. For awhile I've said I just want a job that will pay me to hang out with the friends I currently have. Well, maybe a job isn't what I'm supposed to have. Maybe I'm just supposed to be with them--listen to them--treat them like an equal and understand their situation and their lives. I love it. Maybe I'm supposed to learn reliance on a community that loves me for who I am--and for me to understand that is the hardest part. To learn to accept what others give to me is so difficult for me to understand. Whether it is a conversation over coffee or a place to sleep and eat, my friends are giving me validation for my life now. They are understanding, loving, giving, and graceful. To get to the point, sometimes to be a giving person doesn't mean going out and feeding the homeless, sometimes being a giving and caring person means sitting and listening to your friend, buying them a cup of coffee, making dinner for someone, or simply giving someone an opportunity to escape.

Thanks to you who allow me to escape. I'm trying to accept your grace.

I am not real.

It is intense sometimes the feeling that one can get just from being around another person. To sit and listen to them talk about their life and their struggles—to see the pain in their eyes and hear the pain in their voice. It’s hard. It is hard not to get angry at life in general sometimes because it makes you feel like shit.

I’ve recently learned that it is difficult to live vicariously through others. To be able to have this alternate reality happening—one that is not quite as good as it could be if you were actually living it, but I guess that is just a fact of life. We all have regrets about this that we have done or things we have left undone, but at the end of the day it is these things that make us who we are. That push us to be better people, to make the effort to listen more and to understand what is happening, even though we have no idea what is happening to ourselves. It’s not easy, it’s not simple, and it’s not fun. I used to say that I never have regrets, but now as I sit and think about that more, with things that are happening around me now, I realize more and more that I probably do have a few regrets. There are some things I would have liked to done. There are some things that I wish I had thought about more before doing them. Oh well I guess, but it’s not that easy sometimes. I think that when we feel like we have wasted our time or missed out on something, we tend to think about all of the negative aspects that has brought to our life. But when we think about the things that those decisions put into motion, some of those things would not have happened. Many of those things would not have made it out—they would still be trapped inside, just waiting for the right moment that might not ever come. It hurts me to think about these things. Probably for good reason, but maybe because they are so real. They are amazingly real, and that is scary.

Intense feelings seem to be flowing from my heart. Intense for so many things. Feelings of love, hurt, joy, pain. I’ve been angry and I don’t like it. I don’t like to be mad because I feel like it is rarely prompted. It is rarely needed. To be truly mad. I don’t normally get angry with people, I get angry with myself and that is when I bottom out. I get so worked up inside about something and don’t feel like I have any way to get it out of me. I want to say the thoughts I have to the people I have them about. I want to be honest with myself and with my community. I want to not think about things too much, which I seem to be doing lately. Give it a rest man, I need to mellow out my mind for a while because it is in overload mode and it is making it hard to give the attention to my friends. I’m distracted by my thoughts. They take over. I want to be me, more.

Sometimes desperation is the only thing that gives me hope for something better.

Waiting to be seen. (not my best post)

I’ve been considering a lot lately about relationships. What they mean. How they form, and how they sometimes deteriorate into something that we never intended—or on the opposite how they end up as something we never even thought possible. I’m currently in one of those moments in life where strange thoughts form and odd words flow from people about odd things. It is fall, which is not an excuse, but it is a strange time of year. When things are dying all around us and all we look forward to is warm cider and a fire, but yet all we can seem to muster sometimes is a glass of water and a match.

Friendships seem to drift in this third realm for awhile. A realm of limbo, where they aren’t dead but they aren’t very much alive at all. Then, once some event happens, some gathering, some trip to some place happens, suddenly the friendship is brought out of limbo and into this world again. It takes odd moments of life for certain relationships to be brought back to life. I think this is called being dis-connected, and usually happens when one moves away and leaves their community.

But, what happens when one has friends that are involved in their lives currently. They are around a lot, do things together and have common friends. Then at some point in that short amount of time, something changes and things become different, awkward even. What happens? What is happening? What has changed? Inside information? Definitely not a fight—but maybe something just didn’t click? I’m not for sure. I’m know that we have all experienced this sort of mysticism in friends. One moment certain, the next un.

There is another type of relationship that also happens on a quick and different level, such as the one I mentioned above. The friend that suddenly comes into one’s life and makes a dramatic impact on your thinking, thoughts, feelings and life that you can’t remember a time when that person wasn’t part of your community. This also happened to me recently, as did the above situation. This one is interesting though because I never expected this person to become such a good friend, and I never thought they would have so many similar thoughts and ideas. It is a great thing when something like this happens. When you feel like after a few months you can be completely natural and upfront. You can talk openly and freely and know that they understand what your saying. You listen more and more and realize how much they are like you. People tell you how much you remind them of this person. It’s crazy.

This person doesn’t judge you. They don’t hold you captive based on their assumptions. They let you go, let you be yourself.

One of my goals is to start listening to my friends more. To totally try to understand them, listen to what they are saying, comprehend their words. It’s hard. It is hard to keep myself accountable with something like this, mostly because I have some sort of need to be talking, to get my ideas out there, my thoughts known. I’m trying to keep more to myself, to pay attention. Pay attention.

I guess I’ll have to start trying harder…I’m not for sure if I’m accomplishing my goal.

Since the house is on fire, let us warm ourselves.

A few thoughts on a book my friend J. got me for my birthday. It is called “Status Anxiety” and is by Alain de Botton, a great philosopher from England who wrote one of my favorite books “The Art of Travel”.

There are 5 main causes for status anxiety, and they are: lovelessness, expectation, meritocracy, snobbery and dependence. The 5 solutions that he proposes for status anxiety are: philosophy, art, politics, religion and bohemia.

Our sense of identity is held captive by the judgments of those we live among.

The price we have paid for expecting to be so much more than our ancestors is a perpetual anxiety that we are far from being all we might be.

What is art good for?

Wealth has become the conventional basis of esteem.

The ruling ideas of every age are always the ideas of the ruling class.

Such destitution was, for a bohemian, vastly to be preferred to the horror of wasting his life on a job he despised. charles Baudelaire declared that all occupation were soul-destroying, save for writing poetry and –even less plausibly—being a warrior. When Marcel Duchamp visited New York in 1915, he described Greenwich Village as a “true bohemia” because the place was, he said “full of people doing nothing”.

A mature solution to status anxiety may be said to begin with the recognition that status is available from, and awarded by, a variety of different audiences—industrialists, bohemians, families, philosophers—and that our choice among them may be free and willed.

Dependence

Several things have recently been on my mind, as I wondered about the state of Illinois this past weekend. I was able to go to Chicago with my friend and former professor R, who was gracious enough to let me tromp to the windy city with about 40 college sophomores. That in itself is proof of a tiring weekend, but throw in a trip to a Catholic Cathedral, an Orthodox Church a Synagogue, a Mosque, an Episcopal cathedral and a Mennonite commune and you have a glimpse of my weekend of questions and reflection.
Going on this trip for the 3rd time, it provided me a great awareness of my own personal change and progression in my religious thought over the past few years. Moving from what one might call a modern view to a more and ever increasing postmodern view of Christianity and religion as a whole. One of the ideas that stands out to me the most from this past weekend is the easiness with which I was able, in my mind, to accept each of the different views on God, worship, and salvation. I was able to understand, on a better level than before, what each was trying to achieve and how the faith they practice helps them reach for their oneness with God. It was great to be able to see the three major monotheistic religions in a new light: Christianity (Catholic, Episcopal, Mennonite, Orthodox), Judaism and Islam. Three from one is what I like to think, and as I mentioned before, it was much easier this time for me to understand. I learned that there are just as many different Islamic groups as there are Christian. I learned that Islam grants women more rights than other religions and that it is through cultural differences in various countries that we get our distorted view of the oppression of women, not from Islam itself. An idea that was reinforced was that there will be radicals in every religion. Radicalism can be positive and negative. It can force us to think about the status quo or it can force us further into a negative conception of what it represents. Overall, grace and respect is what drives each of the religious leaders that we met with. Respect for not only other religions, other faith and practices, but for integration and dialogue between themselves. Respect for the person that rejects and for the person that accepts and for all in between. Grace and respect lead them to peace, which in my view, is what we all seek in this walk.

Lost.

Stars

Birthday Thoughts

Today is my birthday. Maybe that means that 2 posts in one day is alright. At any rate, it is always an interesting to think about what I was doing a year ago, where I was at, how I was feeling. This time last year I was still in the beginning of film school in L.A. I still didn't have a set group of friends, but I did have some that became great friends. I remember going to get Thai food and to the beach, it was nice.
24 isn't all that old I keep telling myself, even though I realize that it is almost 1/2 way to 50. I don't like to think about things like that. I think I have a fear of aging, and it is something I've been noticing more and more as I get older. I don't want to loose track of what is new and cool--the hip crowd. I think I might drag all of that with me throughout my years. Yes, I might be the one who is listening to radio hits when I'm 50, oh well, I know several people who might be there with me. At any rate, it is nice to be 24, and it is nice to have people around me that are supportive and wonderful. I've found that the key to a birthday isn't to dwell on what I've done or haven't done, and it isn't to look ahead for the coming year, but to live in the present and soak in the moment. There are 24 hours today and I turn 24, is that so strange?

Hearing Voices

I was recently reading a magazine article in National Geographic Traveler about this new project they have started to track DNA throughout time, following the movements of people and different ethnic groups around the globe. People like you and I can send in something like $100 with a DNA sample and within a few weeks they will send you back a very detailed list of your more ancient ancestors, where they were from and from which world groups you are a part of. This doesn’t mean they are going to tell you where your great great great grandpa lived and came from, it is more like telling you that you are a descendent of people from Egypt or ancient Rome. We aren’t talking 200 years or historical background more like 20,000 years of background. One of the first people to have this done was writing an article about his findings about his own background. He talked about how his descendants came from England in the 1600’s and how his grandparents passed down stories and documents to prove it. With a quick swab of his inner cheek (for the DNA) he was able to get a bigger perspective of his past. From Tanzania to Lebanon and Uzbekistan to Spain and finally England, his past involved a lot more than just jolly old England.
Throughout the article he tells us how he visited each of these groups now, wanting to see something of his past, meet the people that might be his relatives and discover a bit more about himself in the process. The one thing that he found, if nothing else, is that even in today’s world, a society brimming with modernization, Wal-Mart’s, fast paced societies, there are people in different parts of that world that still hold a connection to each other—a connection that has lasted thousands of years. The Hadzabe tribe in Tanzania welcomed him with open arms, as if he was one of their own villagers that had been away on a long trip. The chief of the tribe welcomed him home. At one instance while in Tanzania, the chief told him “We are all descendants of this tree”, referring to the large baobab tree that women for thousands of years have given birth under—somehow connecting him to that place, that tree, that experience, those people. Through this one mans account of his trip to far off lands, he has connected with me. It isn’t often that I find a magazine article that happens to say many of the things I have been contemplating. In my last passage I was talking about finding a piece of me in each place that I go, and I found this article, these words to connect with that beautifully. In each place, Mr. Webster was able to find a pieces of himself—many of them sitting and waiting for maybe thousands of years to be found. He found them though and with those pieces, he is able to start putting himself back together. It all makes me wonder where my ancient ancestors came from—what they contemporaries do, think, worship and feel. Where they live and how the world is affecting them. I wonder where in the world I would be taken with the same such journey—possibly some of the places I’ve already been, probably many new ones.
It was a good feeling to know that someone else was on the same sort of life journey that I feel like I’m on—a journey that I think, in a way, I’ve been beaconed to by the forces that be; God if you like. A light is flashing in front of me, guiding my movements, wayward as they might become, it always brings me back on course.

Finding time to Think.

My friend C and I are on a mission to challenge ourselves. So, based on the movie “The 5 Obstructions” we have came up with a plan to send missions, in a sense, to each other and see what happens. The first mission that C gave me was based on the song “Boots of Spanish Leather” a Bob Dylan cover by Nancy Griffith. My constraints are as follows: I must take photographs. I must be within 5 feet of my subject. I must set my aperture and shutter speed for the first picture then use that setting for all of the pictures. All of the pictures must be outside.
I listened to the song a few times over. I like it, and at first I didn’t realize it was a Dylan cover. I think it works for me and I’ve managed to get some inspiration out of it. I’m working now on getting my pictures together in my head before I head out to take them. I’ll post a couple of them on here when I’m finished.
Keeping along the lines of my friend C, we have been debating lately the thoughts of a possible road trip ala moped. Now, to some this might sound a bit ridiculous, or it might sound like a knock-off of the Motorcycle Diaries, well that it might be, but if you can picture 2 20 something guys on small 1970’s Vespa’s, then you get the picture of this sort of trip. Road trips are interesting in that sometimes, we feel it might take something like that to help us “find ourselves” in a sense. We go out on the open road and just see what happens. There have countless movies and books on this sort of subject and probably the most famous of them all might possible be “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac. I myself have not read this book yet, even though I own a nice old copy of it. I’m waiting, of course, for a road trip to inspire me to read it. I recently heard that the director Walter Salles (Motorcycle Diaries, Central Station etc.) is planning on adapting the book to film. This, I feel, is a great challenge for not only Salles, but also the writer and actors. Bringing a book of such great heights to the screen is never an easy task. Of course, Salles has the Motorcycle Diaries under his belt, also a road trip story, but he wasn’t starting to mess with the likes of Kerouac. Beats around the world will either a.) flock to see the film in droves or b.) not because of the pure nature of adapting such a classic of that culture. I salute Salles for making the attempt.
So road trips. Ah, finding yourself. I think it is interesting the ways that we go about finding ourselves, looking around Europe, and on the open road of the United States or anywhere else for that matter. I myself attempt each time I travel overseas to find some piece of myself that I feel is lost in each one of those places, waiting on me to come and claim it. It’s like a big puzzle, and each piece is in a different country. The puzzle can’t be completed until all of the pieces are put together. Granted that a lot of those pieces have been right here in the US at school, at a friend’s house, at a concert, in a coffee shop or perhaps on the road. Sometimes these pieces are terribly difficult to track down, but then just when I’m not expecting it, it just appears and I calmly pick it up and realize that my time there might be over soon.
I once heard this quote:
“Maybe what we go in search of abroad is what we hunger in vain for at home”
and realized that sometimes it is true. I go in search of so much other places and sometimes all I have to do is look around the place I’m in.

Keep walking, there's no place to go.

I’ve been reluctant to start this for a long time now. When I returned from L.A. this past winter, my friend Z and I were amazed to see how many people were now addicted to this little web page called Myspace. What is myspace, we would ask. We were reluctant to get into something that, to us, seemed not only to be amazingly impersonal, but also we are both out for true community to win over the newly created e-community. Blogs, for the longest time, I felt were the same story. A place for people to be heard, but not seen. To tell it like it is, even though if they were standing on street corner things might be different. A place where they can keep up with their friends, family and those afar, just by posting a single entry. I must admit, that this side of a blog does appeal to me. I think I could get used to not sending mass emails, and just posting a little something on here once in a while, when I’m overseas. But to get back to my point, I was discussing this with someone once this past month, when they said Hey did you know that Prof. H has a blog? I said, no. Of all the people to get a blog, he never crossed my mind. I was surprised and intrigued. I found out the address and I’m now a relentless reader of his post of wisdom, encouragement, peace and thoughtful reflections. He has in a sense, restored my faith in the blog by creating a space that isn’t about ranting, raving or merely discussing gossip with friends, but a space that is about thinking, challenging and addressing ideas and thoughts that are important not only to him, but to the community that he lives and works in. This is great, I thought. I check in to see if there is anything new almost daily, and if there isn’t, I continue to read anyway, refreshing whatever ideas he has presented. So, as I begin this blog, I’m not for sure if I will be able to keep such a rigorous routine of posting quality work or thoughts, but it is my proposed purpose to try. I will try not to rant on and on. Likewise, I will try not to rave on and on. Not to say that I won’t mention a good film or some piece of interesting news once in a while. And, once I moved back overseas I will probably update every now and then with something interesting about life there. Don’t get me wrong; I will never abandon email for this blog. I still value those long, rambling emails from friends near and far as well as the occasional real pen and paper letter that sometimes finds its way to my post box. Thanks to those who still buy stamps.

P.S. I don’t mean to diss the myspace community too much, I realize how important it has become to upcoming bands and the like. But honestly, walk down the hall and say hi to your friends.