and another thing... or three...

because i love this little survey...
because i'm not sure what to post...
because there are just certain things that the public has a right to know...
because i've been entirely too serious lately...
because i'm the only one who has yet to complete this thing...

i post THE 'THREE THINGS' SURVEY
THREE NAMES YOU GO BY: 1. Shawn 2. Gingy 3. Rhodes
THREE SCREEN NAMES YOU HAVE HAD: 1. paradoxology 2. not_chosen_saul_saw 3. agrajag
THREE THINGS YOU LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:1. my sense of humor 2. my ability to reason and think 3. my strength with language
THREE THINGS YOU DON'T LIKE ABOUT YOURSELF:1. the way i corrupt my sense of humor with unnecessary sarcasm 2. the way i corrupt my reasoning abilities by twisting logic to serve my ends 3. the way i corrupt my language through lies and deceit.
THREE PARTS OF YOUR HERITAGE:1. Scottish 2. English 3. RussianTHREE THINGS THAT SCARE YOU:1. the negative evaluation of others 2. letting people actually know me 3. hope
THREE OF YOUR EVERYDAY ESSENTIALS:1. Shower 2. toothpicks 3. hope
THREE THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW:1. my favorite ultra-pocketed jeans 2. my safest, oldest sweatshirt 3. white socks (always)
THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE BANDS (or artists) at this moment:1. The Trews 2. Velvet Revolver 3. The Killers
THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE SONGS AT PRESENT:1. Hotel California (brilliant lyrics, really)2. Rich Girl (Gwen Stefani) (shows how little making sense has to do with what i listen to sometimes...) 3. My 1st Single (eminem) (yeah, i know, it's not brilliant either... but it's fun and irreverant...)
THREE NEW THINGS YOU WANT TO TRY IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS:1. Being Completely Honest 2. Curling 3.
THREE THINGS YOU WANT IN A RELATIONSHIP (love is a given):1. Loyalty 2. Mirth 3. The Truth
TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: 1. I am the pumpkin king 2. I can't believe i ate the whole thing 3. I was made for loving you, baby.
THREE THINGS ABOUT THE OPPOSITE SEX THAT APPEAL TO YOU: 1. a cheerful disposition 2. eyes that can speak when words are unnecessary 3. a warm smile
THREE THINGS YOU JUST CAN'T DO: 1. let something go when i know i'm right 2. lose graciously 3. stop stop the rain
THREE OF YOUR FAVORITE HOBBIES: 1. poetry 2. singing 3. reading
THREE THINGS YOU WANT TO DO REALLY BADLY RIGHT NOW: 1. quit my job 2. spend some more time with my girlfriend 3. forget my wife
THREE CAREERS YOU'RE CONSIDERING: 1. law 2. graphic art 3. engineering
THREE PLACES YOU WANT TO GO ON VACATION: 1. Scotland 2. Bosnia 3. HollandTHREE KIDS NAMES: 1. Mercy 2. Gavin 3. Sebastian
THREE THINGS TO DO BEFORE YOU DIE: 1. own a house 2. overcome my past 3. solve a rubik's cube

yeah... so that's it, i guess... not as clever and witty as i'd like, such is life, but for the one, or dare i dream, 2 people who might ever read it, another layer of insight into who i am, on a nice safe level that leaves everyone feeling good.

adios until next itme.

i don't even really know...

this isn't going to make a lick of sense to anyone, and for that, i'm sorry... but it's in my head, and i can't keep it, it smells funny and i'm starting to see things that don't exist, the fumes have to stop before i go blind or insane.
it's the things we cost ourselves that seem to come with the most interest, the most hidden bank fees, the most subtle perpetual price. it doesn't matter what size they are, although it seems to me, especially lately, that it's the little things that actually end up feeling the biggest... the tiny things that make us feel normal, the things that shouldn't be a problem, that should be the easiest to experience and to use to make us a part of regular humanity.
i want to go sledding on saturday. it would be a lot of fun. i can't, and it bugs the hell out of me. i know it's entirely, or almost entirely, my fault, althought i can think of a million ways, even now, to shift the blame and justify the way i feel to myself. but i don't benefit from that justification... the ways i would absolve myself are really created for the express purpose of explaining myself to others in a way that makes me acceptable in their eyes... i'm so seldom acceptable in my own, because i've spent my life building my appearance to convince others of whatever concepts of reality i wanted them to have at the time... a seperate version of me for everyone, custom-tailored to their expectations as i choose to interpret and infer them.
i'm tired of all of that, really i am, and i'm trying my hardest to be authentic... but part of being authentic is explaining the lies, the history... and that has the potential to bring it all to the forefront again, to create illusions that are not even deliberate, to give impressions that i once gave, rather than the reality that i so badly want to give now...
what to do... what to do...

hope, i guess.
trust, that everyone will see the truth, that reality will make itself whole and real... that all will reveal itself for what it is, for once.

here's hoping.

choices. the sequel.

the problem with...
wait.
i dislike starting posts this way, and apologize if it makes it sound like i'm looking for the flaw, like i'm tearing something down... i'm not. when i talk about the flaws, the difficulties, the obstacles to overcoming, they are not the focus. instead, i'm looking for the answer. hoping, begging from myself, from others, from anyone who might know, to find the solution. there can be no solution without a recognition of the problem.
so like i was about to say...
the problem with discovering that we are who or what we choose to be is that we then have to make a choice. this, in itself, is not necessarily difficult for a lot of people. but it is for me. because one of the central beliefs i have formerly created in the formation of my character is an inate inability to make decisions, a foreknowledge that i will most likely make the wrong one, a paralysis of contemplation of consequences and possibilities that leaves me mired in between all of the potential versions of me, stranded, a stranger to everyone, most particularly myself, because of all the things that are so uncertain, so flimsy, mirages of someone who may or may not ever become me.
so the first necessary choice is to choose to change my view of the concept of choice itself.
yikes.
the solution, as is often the case, has so much potential to become part of the problem, to perpetuate the weaknesses, to give me the excuse i crave to do nothing, the cop-out from effort, from change, that will allow me to wallow once more in all the insecurities that are immensely familiar and comfort me in the same way that liquor comforts the reluctant alcoholic. it's fake comfort, hollow, and if i could just stop drinking altogether, i'd feel better, live better, and be a better companion on the road to all the people who still remain in my life, the ones who have yet to tire of the facade.

but it's less and less of a facade each day.
the choice is easy, in fact, to make. once. or twice.
the real, absolute difficulty, as the drunk will assuredly tell you, is not putting down the bottle, or even deciding not to pick one up for a while.
it's a permanance of choice that is truly difficult. a complete change. wholeness.
because how do you ever know if this is the way you're supposed to go? how can you ever be certain that you won't want to go back? and if you do, does that invalidate the previous choice to leave it in the first place? if you destroy everything from your old life, and then find yourself wanting it back next week, how do you keep from hating yourself for impeding your selfishness, when it's all you can see in the blaze of your pride? how do you accept humility as being a denial of the indulgences that you don't think you can live without, and then step out and PROVE that you can live without them, only to falter and prove that you CAN'T, in fact, the moment you step back?
of course, that's just a mistake, and people make mistakes all the time, fail, fall. that's what's going to happen when you try... nobody succeeds all the time, it's impossible. and ego hates that. failure isn't just one failure to ego... it's a label, it's something inescapable.

but the TRUTH is, it's not permanant. we're not our mistakes, we're what we choose. what we want to be. what we allow ourselves to believe we are. and we deceive ourselves SO much.

i'm rambling. it's time to stop.
i'm choosing to stop.

this time.

alive...

now that i'm quite sure nobody reads my posts anymore, i'm free to say what i actually mean and want to talk about... lol...
actually, i have little to say today. i love that. it means that i'm living more outside of my head than in it, and it's a beautiful place to be. the world has more texture than this fabricated, online existance... there is more hope in the actual world than in the one i might create for myself here, despite the fact that i can create anything i want here. because, in reality, i can create any life i want out there, too... it just takes more effort.
a small admission, which anyone who reads this better keep a secret... much of the way i feel, i owe to a girl.
i don't know quite how to explain it, because i've never felt this way because of someone. even my wife, whom i loved and believed with all my heart was meant to be my life partner, did not give me this strange feeling.
now, when i walk, i take up more space. where i would have shuffled along, eyes down, arms pinned to my ribs, now i stand, gaze at the sun, spread my limbs in a jaunty manner into the world around me. she makes me want to be more a part of this world. she makes me want to take up space here, not just to exist but to flaunt my existance, even if the only person who notices the difference is me.
before, when i would sit alone, wherever i was, i would leave the lights off, would want to be in the darkness, to pretend i wasn't even there, that i wasn't even real. now, i want the lights on. i want brightness, brightness that matches my hope. i want to be in the light. i want to know that i'm alive, because i'm grateful for the opportunity, and i want to be able to see that gratitude clearly lest i forget what it looks like.
it's not that i don't love my wife. i will always, always love my wife. much of what i know of real love, much of what i have ever understood of that mystery, i owe to her.
but new hope is precious for the amazing impossibility of it.
there are so few things that i understand, even now (lol), as i'm sure i will attest on my deathbed, many, many years from now, but i am learning instead to appreciate the things that i don't understand for their mysterious qualities, and to accept them for what they are regardless of my inability to know exactly what that might ever mean.
in short, i feel alive.
again.
for the first time.

and no matter what i lose, no matter what goes wrong, i will do everything in my limited power to be grateful.
for life.
for friends.
for second (and third, and fourth...) chances.

thank you, God. for keeping me, most particularly when i don't notice you doing it.

why am i still surprised...

today, in roman news...
good is brought before pilate... sentenced to melt into the symbolistic white walls. beats crucifixtion, anyway.

in other news...
i'm still not over being 25, and i'm 26. it's a perpetual wonder to me, but not necessarily always in a good way. i was never meant to reach this age. i knew it. it was preordained. but here i am, with even less understanding now than ever because i'm trying to understand something that i understood with certainty wouldn't even exist.
it's not all bad, though. mysterious, and complex, and confusing, and frightening, yes... but not all bad.
i think it's just like everything in my life... subtle changes in perspective that allow me to create functional frameworks in which my life will, eventually, function. i've already redefined so many things... the way i see God, the way i remember my wife, the way i look at my friendships and past relationships, the way i'm trying to look at the new ones that come along and surprise me with their happy potential...
it's all so strange, and yet instead of trying to control it, or make it what i want it to be, or even to know what it's going to be 50 steps in advance just so that i can sleep at night, i'm just taking things as they are... whatever it is, it is. not complex. terrifying in it's simplicity, because i live in my head so much of the time, and without overthinking everything, control slips occasionally, and i feel very much lost... but i'm learning that i don't even have to know where i am all the time... if i don't have a map, i'll just enjoy the walk. if i end up somewhere awful, i'll go back. if i can't go back, i'll be grateful for the company, at least, since i have decided no longer to walk alone in the journey, no matter how selfish that may sound. i'm tired of "sparing people from me"... that's arrogant, and infers a level of mindreading that i don't possess... who am i to claim that they don't want me around, even when i know that i wouldn't want me around if i were them... that's me judging myself, condemning myself, and walking in some kind of false righteousness created out of self-pity and sin. net benefits to me and anyone in my life? none.
so. learning to be 26. can't be any harder than anything else i've ever learned. maybe, if i hurry, i can get the hang of it just in time to turn 27.
strangely, i'm pretty sure, for once, that that will happen.
weird.

snippets from my mind...

sometimes, things can be so bad that they turn out okay...
for instance, today, short-staffed beyond possibility, facing counting a bargain store and a saan in the same day with 7 people, i thought for sure we'd be counting until 4 in the morning (again) before driving the few hours home. however, when we didn't finish the first store until 6:30 this evening (we started at 9 in the morning... the joys of having a bunch of new people who don't know what they're doing...) we drove straight home instead of counting for another 8 hours straight... i think it's because our vp found out we wern't sleeping or resting in favor of work and actually decided to do something about it. what that solution is, short of rescheduling one store that will still take us just as long on any other day on which we do it, is still a mystery.
still, in the interim, it'll be nice to get a few hours of sleep.

here's a couple of quotes that are interesting in combination.

"the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result" - Albert Einstein
" When we pray, if we do not obtain the thing the first time, pray again; and if we do not obtain it the second time, pray a third time; and if we do not obtain it the hundredth time, go on praying until we do get it." - R. A. Torrey

hmmmmmm...

valentine's day is coming up... i'm thinking about getting my wife an annullment... hope it goes with her drapes... and my furniture...
i let god pick the last girl i was with, and look how that turned out... this time, it's my turn to pick... god will just have to deal with it. lol.

finding god is easy... he's everywhere... losing god is just as easy... he's only where you look for him... so look for him everywhere. god doesn't live in the bible, nor does he exclusively live in the hearts of "christians"... find him where you can. love him how you're able. he'll understand, he knew it would happen, he's part of the reason it's happening. life is worship, hope is prayer, love is god. free yourself from human constructs, from the childish restraints we place on something infinite and above everything we can invent. religion can help you find the truth, but it is not the truth.

and i'm done for tonite. i think i've said enough controversial things to keep the first stoked for a while longer.

i think, therefore i am.

Salad Gressing, Lettuce Leaves...

the di re of a head on a different, backward gradient...

my life story.

nature-walk...

song of the week: hotel california
monkey of the week: ring-tailed lemur
too-cutely-named sports personality of the week: peekaboo street
candy of the week: pixie stix
patron saint of the week: St. Barbara, patron saint against mine collapse (i wish i was kidding...)
my attempt to be clever of the week: don't walk away, i lean.
guy who, despite being the best at what he does, you've never heard of, of the week: Alain Trudel (if only he played professional sports, you'd probably have 2 pairs of his shoes in your closet right now...)
my top-ten list of the week:
top ten names for groups of things that don't have names
10. a fugue of vagrants
9. a turbulance of midgets
8. a bracket of termites
7. a mullet of commercials
6. a travesty of balloon animals
5. a convolusion of sofas
4. a melody of engineers
3. a sacrilage of lint
2.an enigma of nickels
1. a conniption of shoes

so, on a serious note...
i've been thinking and reading the bible at the same time, which i know is reckless behaviour, since mindless faith and ignorant adherance to the ways we've created, manipulated, and represented God would probably allow me to fit in a little better.
such is life.
this morning, for instance, i was thinking about this verse... it's in romans, 9:19-21

One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?” 20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ ”[h] 21Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?

that's fine. i'm cool with being whatever God makes me. but that also means that we're absolved. it means that if one person is designed as a flower pot, he gains no glory at the end for the lovely smell that he has upon his arrival at the gate. and it also means that if another person is designed as a chamber-pot, his stench brings him no discrimination or judgment. we can't be judged for what's in us if the content is dependent upon the design.

besides, who's to say what's a flaw and what isn't...? after all, God has a vested interest in sin. how else do you explain how he shapes people's lives? joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers, then imprisoned on account of a woman's lust, all to become egypt's eventual vessel to God's salvation. without the sins of others, Joseph would have remained a mildly arogant daddys boy. it was God's plan for those sins to be comitted.

now, a couple examples from the arts, which, i'm told, reflect life on occasion.

the first is from my favorite cartoon movie (and originally a book i have yet to read, sadly...), The Iron Giant.
if you haven't seen it and want to, don't read this, i'll probably spoil the whole thing.

so, a giant robot falls from the sky. a kid finds him. he's got a bump on his head (not the kid), and a robot's equivalent of amnesia. the fbi sends someone to investigate. the kid hides the robot, gets to know him, teaches him about life, and discovers that, whatever else it may be, it's got the capacity to feel and love. eventually, however, he's found. the army attacks. the bump pops out, and the robot turns into the most lethal weapon imaginable. he starts attacking the army. the fbi guy (a complete egomaniac completely absorbed with destroying the robot) tells an offshore ship to fire a nuclear weapon. it will destroy not only the robot, but much of the kid's hometown. the robot flies into the sky and destroys the bomb in space before it gets there. he's decided he's not going to be a weapon, despite his design, he's going to be a saviour.

now let's look at the lord of the rings. gollum, in particular. he was obviously tormented from the very beginning by his jealous nature. falling prey to it also meant, in one case, falling prey to the power of the ring, which is more or less an amplifier of greed and power-lust. he is driven to hide, living forever, being further and further consumed by the ring, his nature becoming more and more aligned with the qualities of the ring. then one day, he loses it (or, the ring loses him, if you prefer, since it was always seeking a return to its master), and gollum is lost. ruined. through a strange combination of twists of fate, he ends up guiding frodo, the new ring-bearer, to mount doom, for the purposes of destroying the ring. he's conflicted, because he still very desperately wants the ring for himself. he fights the compulsion, however, and honestly becomes kind for a while, does a great service to the bearer in getting him into mordor. but his greatest service is yet to come. frodo, stradling the edge of the fiery crack of mount doom, poised to destroy once and for all the ring of power, can't bring himself to toss it in. and gollum, in his final act of absolute unthinking avarice, attacks frodo, biting off the finger on which the ring rests... and it falls into the fire, thus saving middle earth. gollum's disease, his unconquerable nature, saved the world.

so, redemption is found either way. without evil, nothing would have happened. the good parts and the evil parts all played their roles and altered the course of the future, and one without the other would have ceased to matter.

what i'm trying to say, i guess, is the same thing jesus said, but in a different way. the last shall be first and the first shall be last. that doesn't mean a role-reversal. that means that the last shall be equal to the first and the first shall be equal to the last. last and first will mean nothing. like the mountains being made plains and the valleys being raised up. everything balances, humanity included. that's why it's "believe and be saved", not "do and be saved". because we can't contravene the shape in which we were made, but we can trust that, at the end of the day, all of the vessels, no matter what the intention of their design, belong to the potter.