Leaving the Scene of a Crash

I may have slain one of my computers, a laptop my parents gave me the summer before I entered my freshman year of college. If this is the end, perhaps it is a fitting time for that machine to go. I've finally received a physical copy of my diploma in the last few weeks, and I'm interviewing for what would be my first paying job after graduation tomorrow. A symbol of my late adolescence may have chosen to exit stage left.

This is the computer that helped me become an atheist, helped me win and lose my first girlfriend, find and secure several jobs and internships, and stored countless memories.

It would be easy to feel that I am burning down part of my past, but that's not how I choose to see the situation. I am leaving a part of my life behind me, where it belongs, to embrace new adventures. That's not just about the computer, by the way.

***

I've finished my interview, and it went well enough. The job is in telemarketing, so it's probably not going to be super challenging and the hours aren't that great -- but I need the money. I got great news today that I got an interview for another job - this time, one in advocacy that is ideal for me. It's something I can do at the same time as my Hill internship, which is really neat.

I'm feeling especially adult today. I've been incredibly productive. I wrote several people to ask where they're living after the spring, and soon I hope that I'll have arrangements for where I'm living after my current lease expires.

If I manage to land a paying job, even a part-time one, and I can find another good place to live for awhile, I'll feel pretty set for the time being. I still have a lot of leads, and I'm really feeling good about my life. I feel very proactive.

Every time I go to the grocery store and get food to eat instead of going out or ordering, every time I pick up dry cleaning and put it away instead of leaving it out, every time I write someone back quickly instead of dilly-dallying and forgetting to contact them...I feel progressively better about my life and what I'm accomplishing.

I'm not doing anything monumental yet, but I am seeking to become a master of small details that should add up to a larger picture. I'm taking time to establish a good, well-ordered life for myself as best I can, and I'm trying to manage the chaos and enjoy what I'm doing in the meantime.

I realize that today and yesterday are parts of the days where I don't feel like I have anything interesting to say. Still, I'm not writing this blog only to be interesting. I need to write, and I don't particularly care whether I say interesting things or not. I need to be persistent. I can't let the perfect become the enemy of the good, because goodness knows I've done that often enough in my life already.

Existential Sonatas in Pacific Time

I almost forgot to write a blog post for today - then I realized that even though it is technically early Saturday morning...for me...that my blog publishes my date-line according to Pacific time. So it will appear that I did write an entry for Friday! Muahaha! Of course, that I'm telling you about this insight does undercut my point, but I'm still happy to attain the technical accomplishment of keeping my promise alive for one more day.

I've been paying more attention to my experiences of time since I started my most recent internship. I've had days where I feel that I just arrived for the office opening at 9 am ten minutes ago -- when it's already past 6 pm. Some parts of my day feel especially fast or slow.

Lunch, overall, moves very quickly but each moment passes meaningfully. I am aware that I am running out of time - I know if I'm outside the office longer than I want to be - I can feel the moments expiring as they happen, individually and in sequence. But then what feels like ten minutes, when I look at my phone, was actually half an hour.

After work today, I met several of my close friends. One of these friends is a physics major. He told me that he gets aggravated by his quantum physics class which starts at 8:55 am. Or, as I told him, "you get mad about your 8:55 am quantum physics class that starts at 3 pm?"

I feel no fear when I'm with my closest friends. I say absolutely preposterous things. I utter words that would be reckless for me to say anywhere else. I am greatly fortunate to have such wonderful friends in my life. I've felt awkward and apprehensive around other people so often before now, that making and keeping friends has eluded me for some longer stretches of my life than I care to admit. (For instance, pretty much my entire freshman year of college.)

I have zero shame when I am with my friends. Even when I do something that I legitimately regret, I am able to move on and not hold onto the guilt as I would in other circumstances. My friends tolerate my quirks and don't judge me negatively.

It is now so late that I don't feel like writing any more words. I heavily resist the impulse to write further, yet I still feel incomplete. Tonight, I am thankful for my friends, my internship, my family, my senses, my learning, my home, and my creativity. I am thankful for time and change and entropy. I'm thankful that when I got really hot water from the cooler at work, that eventually it was only lukewarm so I could drink it before I left.

Everything ends, even days that you measure in Pacific time. But the most important thing is to make the most of the time you have, and that's what I'm trying to do. I am, again, exceedingly appreciative of the time I have, and to those who are sharing that time with me as we all journey into the unknown future.

Poetry Digest: #4

From time to time, I hope to publish a collection of a few of my recent poems. I will refer to this series of posts as my "Poetry Digest". This is Poetry Digest #4.



No Apology

there's something to say
to credit Winslow Homer
or Edward Hopper

for longing for clouds
Socrates drank his hemlock
no more Socrates

yet, you know better:
the clouds are, in fact, still there,
Aristophanes

even more than books
even more than life itself
I prefer the clouds

artists may capture
a brief moment of rapture --
that is all there is


The Fog Cycle

before rain arrives
my breath joins the clouds above
we are fog machines

slip into the night
filter your own outpouring
water the cycle

condensation drips
and travels through all of us
so I relinquish

the trees fill my lungs
their shadows overcome doubt
sustaining my life

I pine for a hush
that will return my silence
better than I found


advance

sprint
forward
do not stop
nor halt progress
keep running apace
if you sputter
company
will bring
you


exile

last
winter
gaping wounds
exposed my fears
I walked silently
no companion
averted
trials
fought


rationale

sleep
is not
an excuse
it is my foil
to suspend my doubts
moving deadlines
encourage
undue
haste


paradox

change
I am
change itself
to be the change
I remain the change
that is no change
I must change
the same
change


Into The Void

if I am not long for the world of dreams
I can consider anything
all possibilities
stir together
endless

formless
yet to take shape
a place where time ceases
between everywhere and nowhere
I am on the shoals of consciousness

tell me which direction I am heading
my only guarantee is fear
I must wait until dawn
when I wake up
to know

before
I can relax
I will pay my respects
to the memory of each day
to a story with a life of its own


Rush

I could be the Vice President,
Since I'm great at undoing ties.
I am careful how I present.
As each one of my fingers flies,
Why do I have all these buttons?
Clocks race, adrenaline heightens:
Who is that stranger in the suit?
I forget during the pursuit.
Zipping alongside the platform,
I look for the right car to catch -
Or wait, sit down, and start to kvetch.
As a queue begins to reform,
I find a window -- look within --
To find the place where I come in.


Reference Point

I'm not the one to strike boldly.
Look elsewhere for the first to stride.
I would rather detach coldly;
Stress needs a place and time to bide.
I will change nothing, and needing
Nothing changed, I will do nothing.
Frequent madness is my advice,
But few exist to pay that price.
Above all, do not be passive.
Supply a beginning, and end -
Join them together as you bend
Timing, enormous and massive.
I warn all those who dare ignore:
There is no such thing as before.


In the Year of the Lighthouse

When I'm drifting and I'm falling,
I don't even know where to start.
I keep swimming, I keep searching -
I reach for something in my heart,
Catch that beacon, and I follow:
Not to let my love lie fallow.
I turn those pages, flip a switch --
My light and signal, perfect pitch.
Here's my harbor, here's my guidance.
Raging waters aren't what I seek,
But without waves there is no peak:
I cry out for deliverance!
Watching you, I unleash my sails,
Now I'm fearless - come tide or gales.

"Disambiguation": A Poem In Two Parts

Disambiguation, Part One

I’m running. Split into 4 guys remaking Cool Runnings. Like the Epic Rap Battle of History.

I like history jokes. I don’t want to know what happens below your 38th parallel. There is no cease fire. The fire burns white hot.

I heard a TED Talk. As far as talking goes, it’s a fine medium of communication. Not that I would know lately.

Some woman with schizophrenia, mentioned her obsession with wordplay. That reminded me of a poem: I wanted to write yesterday. I’ve wanted to write every day. I’ve wanted every day. I’m overrun with wanting.

It’s why I’m still running. I have so much left to prove. Yet it is mathematically impossible, to divide by zero.

I take the remainder of my wants: the silence divides my wants...but I cannot continue. I cannot produce irrationality.

The answer is not infinite. The answer does not exist. I live without answers, even as I have every answer: a list of possible references and explanations.

I see everything and know nothing. I’m the epitome of my age: too little skill, too much meandering. Overstimulated and underexperienced, underqualified and overwrought.

I forsake knowledge. I forsake friendship. All I have is instant gratification.

Will I never learn? Will I always be this empty?

I am sorry. I am very sorry.

***

Disambiguation, Part Two

I shaved today. I saved face. I shaved my face. I cut myself, and my chin wouldn't stop bleeding.

If it bleeds, it leads. That's what my dad always said. That's what I told my friend Michael yesterday.

Yesterday I had not yet shaved. I saved that for today. Every day the blade of time grinds against the face of humanity.

The blade is a decade. If only I could get each decade spayed, the moments of my life could have stayed.

Judgment cannot be stayed. Justice is blind, but it must be paid. There is no karma, or if there is, it's delayed.

Delayed like the Metro and the bus. An omnibus. Everything slows. Distance only grows. Perhaps those are inextricably linked.

I've got to hit the links, but I can't play golf. I can't save Rolfe. I just watched The Sound of Music. How can you watch a sound?

Time is already at the pound, that's why it's spayed. Time's never made a sound. Therefore sound does not exist, yet somehow sound persists.

I saved time and sound today. I saved spacetime by shaving. Is this the expression I'm craving? Is this incoherent raving?

I'm caving in. Like Plato's Allegory of the Cave. What's shadow and what's real? What do I hide and what do I conceal? The answers refuse to congeal. The wound on my chin refuses to heal.

There's too much depth, I cannot feel. Too much death, but it's a wheel. I'm taking life for a spin, I'm finally caving in, but I'm short a tail-fin. Fin. As in, the end. What is my end? What is my design? What is my teleology? Perhaps my questions are a matter of psychology. I do not question that psychology matters, but I'd like to thank the woman from the TED Talk for an educating me phenomenally.

Up All Night: Eternal Meaning

I've had many debates with one of my closest friends on the subjects of politics and religion, those twin goblins of good graces in conversation. Recently, he shared his opinion on the differences between a secular and (his) Christian view, when one compares how the differing views perceive the meaningfulness of human actions over time.

My Christian friend notes that the reasons I give to establish the meaning of my life - as a non-religious person who doesn't believe in an afterlife - are fleeting, brief, ephemeral. A Christian has eternal meaning, he said. Eternal meaning? Let us examine this eternal meaning.

The very language which I'm using to speak to you is deeply and hopelessly flawed, if you accept my friend's interpretation of Christianity. I'm speaking in early 21st century American English, in case you couldn't tell, my brave future anthropological readers. English has evolved at a very high frequency for hundreds of years, yet I am writing this paragraph and you (wise future interpreters of ancient English!) somehow manage to read my thoughts. Despite undergoing extensive change, my words are somehow...not meaningless!

When you're reading my words, do you understand what I say? How is that possible? People who lived hundreds of years ago would not be able to understand, yet their words gave birth to mine. If people exist in hundreds of years, I'm sure they will barely comprehend my present speech, even though my words will have made their own possible. Yet this change has absolutely no point of relevance to our current conversation. Past and future changes in meaning have no impact upon our current meaning. This present moment is fully meaningful, just by itself. If you want eternal meaning, stick with mathematics:

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Do you see what I've just written? I wrote a series of zeroes. I wrote eternity. Eternity continues for an uncountable number of years...if we tried to count the time, it would begin with a one, and conclude with some combination such as:

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Eventually, the weight of zeroes eclipses the relevance of all which existed before its passage. Memory is another important example to demonstrate how present meaning is more relevant than any possible eternal meaning. Let's assume someone is currently reading this text: are you going to remember every word I've uttered? No. Does your inability to remember much of what I've said strip my words of purpose? No. The purpose of my words is not directly related to your ability to remember everything I've said. The purpose of my words is related to the immediate and to the long-terms effect they unleash on you, the reader. These effects occur on a finite basis, but they are meaningful and they are important.

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

This focus on the zeroes, and the focus on eternity, just doesn't matter. Now matters. I defend the present, the temporary, the things that deteriorate, the things we forget, and the things we lose. Why? Because those are things that truly matter in our lives. How we treat each other at this instant determines the kind of world we have, because in

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

years we won't have a world - if we do have one, it will cease to resemble the world we have now, and it will be entirely foreign to us in such a profound degree that it will cease to be our world at all. That's why we need to concern ourselves with the present, with all its fleeting, brief, ephemeral warts and worries. Now is the only time that's truly important, because now is the only time we truly own.