well i remember…

I’ve mostly converted to paper journalling for a couple reasons:  A.) because it forces me to slow down and think more about what I am writing and chronicling; 2.) because I can have a paper journal with me at all times and record lessons given me by God before I lose significant detail and subject matter, thus, better enabling me to remember and reflect subsequently; and lastly.) because it’s quaint, stylish, private, more enduring, more energy efficient and it gets me away from a computer generated micro-cosm of a thing called the internet which tends to aid in the skewing of my perception of reality.  -My imagination and my selfish mind are more than able on their own to keep me busy trying to stave off confusion and unrealistic views/ideas/perceptions.

I may venture back this-a-way sometime, but for now, I don’t plan on it.

One evening, the early.morn lay down and rested it’s burden; serving it’s purpose still as a ghostly friend to introspective, speculative and searching souls; ever absent, yet in direct connection to the inner currents of the tide pools that lay at the heart of man.  His confidence dismissed and sentry duty for the season continuing, he takes a bow, rolling out his trained and constant constant arms across the nothing of 1’s and 0’s; settling in for a steadfast watch keeping silence as his charge.   For now his orders stay and so does he; long he’ll remain in landless expanse watching o’er the volume of human thought in electrons and waves, and time waxes on unmarked.

The Lord has promised good to me; his word my hope secures.  He will my shield and portion be as long as life endures.  My chains are gone.  I’ve been set free.  Unending love.  Amazing grace.

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well-rehearsed happy feet

Gene Kelly tap dances on roller-skates; its impressive.

Movies will always reflect the ideals of the culture they’re made for.  The ideals may not be daily realities, but they are still esteemed as valuable.  I look at the older movies of our American culture and I see a lot of things I like:  every-day common decency in public, politeness and courtesy, having personal integrity, real ‘stand up’ guys and so forth…  I’m not saying these were pictures of the practice of the day, but they were something for people to aspire to.  As far as entertainment goes, its a nice thought that one could retreat into a world where there’s happiness and promise and even morality.  There’s a ‘brighter side’ to those movies that I think we lack in our modern super-movies.

Today we can do almost anything we want in our movies with all the technology we have.  I think more often than not, though, our reaction to the ‘ideal’ image of popular culture in movies(the swing to authenticity and gritty reality) can hinder our view of life.  Our story telling, in moving to more raw-feeling and sometimes more relateable narratives seems like it may foster a more pessimistic point of view about the way of the world.  Indeed, the world is far from perfect and is most grizzly in many regions, but the security individuals need here cannot be merely ‘found within’ as all the movies these days would suggest.  A person alone is hard-pressed to deal positively with their own faults and difficulties, but it’s so rare to see a movie with a community focus!  The ‘broken trust’ is such a common element, but what about team-work?  What about talking through the idea and reality that you have to bend to others sometimes in order to get along and how in the bending you may become a better person?  -Yes, indeed, you may actually grow in understanding and in love and friendship!

I’m not talking about fairy-floaty love bubbles here, but just the other side of the coin that so often is flipped face down.  Its not unrealistic and it does happen in real life.  Is life perfect for anyone anywhere?  No, of course not, and that will be understood always, but I really wonder if the more promising realities are understood the way they should be, too.

Increasingly, our cultural identity dissipates as our personal identities become more and more vital.  Self-improvement, self-awareness, and self-interest in general is robbing a lot of people, including myself, of clear vision of others.  People are people, wonderful in a very unique way, but still they have a common element to them all… they’re just like you.  They eat, they sleep, they have needs, wants, fears, feelings, thoughts and questions.  They have struggles and hard times and good times, or at least a desire for them. When you find the time to take a break from worrying about your own flaws/less-than-ideal whatevers, you see a whole bunch of people who need someone to reach into their world just as much as you need someone to reach into yours!

Try talking to a stranger 2 times a week where a conversation gets going.  You’d be surprised how your view of people changes.  Suddenly you may realize that people don’t necessarily pay any attention to you out and about.  You’re a person and they are, too, and they may not be thinking about their rude driving while trying not to be late, just like you.  They may think they’re wants take precedence over yours just like you tend to, and they may want to be secure as badly as you want to feel good about who you are.  Just saying, if you feel a little insecure, you’re way not alone.

So I like Gene Kelly movies.  He dances confidently, sings in public, has a bright and positive outlook, is courteous to most people, and he usually has a soft heart.  I’ve got a growing bitter disposition, reputation obsession, ungracious thought-life, I’m afraid to be wrong, and I always want to be first in my book.  A bit extremist, sure, but you get the idea.

Gene Kelly tap dances on roller-skates; its impressive.

good freakin’ grief

What really stresses me out are tedious tasks that require tedious reading.  Right now… it’s the style manual for my school.  I’ve never understood how to ‘properly’ format bibliographies, even with ‘step by step’ instructions; no matter what level of schooling I was in, or apparently AM in, I’ve just never understood it.  There is a sheer tedium to the work of reading about how to format such a small thing that sends me into fits of frustration and even spasms.  Really and truly, I can’t understand them.  I understand their function, and I understand they’re relatively simple when you just look at one, but writing a book about how to form them is rediculous to me.  Essentially it’s a book of words talking about how to arrange words, and there are a number of different formats to choose from!  What gives?  I really think a chart would do just fine; take up one or two pages for the different types of sources and label the different parts of a full bibliography and then leave instructions to simply omit whatever information is not given by the source.  The whole thing is so nit-picky about the smallest details of a PREFERENCE of style.  I detest this.  It really iritates and frustrates me to no end.  Translation:  this is no small matter for me and really does put me into an extremely edgy frame of mind.  So much so that if you leave even one comment that says anything akin to ‘tough it out’ or ‘hang in there’ I’ll delete it immediately because it illustrates you don’t understand my mindset over this.

age-old youngster

I’ve looked and looked, and I can’t find any store online that will custom print a photo onto an umbrella just once.  It looks like I may have to settle for a mug.  Why?  -Inside joke.

Over the years I’ve seen myself pick and choose activities and sometimes viewpoints; styles, clothes, language, and objects; in an ongoing effort to add to my character in some way; as if there is some state ‘out there’ that I might find myself in one day (if I could just find the right combination of experiences acquired interests and opinions) that would suddenly make me feel secure about where I am and who I am.  It’s a buggar of a challenge, and one that I’ve grown weary of.  Truthfully, in some ways, it’s brought me to wonderful new places and shown me more of reality in the process; however, it’s also left me feeling quite hollow.

“Who am I?”  The age-old youngster quandary.

The question is only begged by the horribly in-sensitive response: ‘Why, you’re Andy!’  It’s not an offensive response at all, but one that doesn’t take into account the seriousness of the question.  Interestingly enough, it’s probably only that particular person who askes said question who doesn’t know the answer.  Just about everyone else has an idea about who the person is, and often, why they may be asking that question.  (Though not everyone is presumptuous enough to assume their idea’s validity.)

The thought crosses my mind in asking the question that I may be tired of who I’ve been, and so the response internally is to disassociate my thinking-will from my automatic-will.  (Some people would say this is ‘who you are’.)  But then, lacking any sort of change, I just become confused at my behavior and frustrated with a lack of noticeable, exciting change.  Actually, I think I’m starting to confuse myself now…

Who am I?  I think maybe I am who I am when I’m with strangers.  Surely enough, I will be myself with those whom I know well, and with the different social spheres there will be different aspects which shine through, or withdraw temporarily, but who I am with strangers, who have no construct of who I should or should not be, would conceivably be the most likely mean of ‘who I am’.  I haven’t talked to strangers much in recent years… -A fact which doesn’t seem to me an amicable one.  Perhaps, when I think about it sometime, I’ll take a stroll down a populated street and stop to enjoy the company of whomever I chance upon.

All in all, with further thought and excercise of the idea, I probably do know who I am.  Perhaps I’m only frustrated by the seeming pause in expression whilst my time and energy are consumed in only two or three main activities.  There is a restlessness in schooling; a longing to apply myself; though, the more I know, the more I know I don’t know.  Heh, in that respect, I’ve only become more sheepish in a crowd.  The lesson should be to grasp humility, but I think it more often breeds a fear of man.

In a recent evaluation of my character by my peers, solicited by me, I am confident in my demeanor, though to a fault at times.  I can seem harsh.  Gentleness is the expression of love and patience; I question my possession of both at times due to my seeming lack of command over either.  Though I know I don’t lack these qualities entirely, I do aspire to greater heights of both.

So then, this blog, a tool to be used, at one time conjured an impression in me that in the usage thereof I might be helped along in becoming a person of some depth; as such it began, and it continues on in it’s current state, as yet to be judged in it’s usefulness pertaining to that goal.  Maybe there’s been some help found here, and maybe not.  These are likely one-sided meanderings that will never be had aloud, and maybe never thought of again, anyway.  All the better that so few people read them.  Those that are had aloud are the ones worth having aloud, hopefully; if God is sovereign and good and purposeful in guiding my life.

Blurb:  Humble circumstances seem to bother those who desire wealthy living most; those who are humble seem to find joy in all of it.  Who really finds the treasure this side of Heaven?

Happily, I find myself missing a small unheated shack previously inhabited by some friends of mine.  Nicities are pleasant, and numbing in their way; but those humble times poured life, thick and sweet, into my veins.  Beautiful life.

and address of the preceeding

I’m not great at ‘journaling’ as so many of my peers are.  The preceeding 4 posts were in my saved draft folder.  At one time or another I intended to revisit, revise and complete them all… but that intention never found fruition.  <–( Totally just used that word to have it be used. )  So there they are, whatever they are, and they’re never to be completed.  -or are they ultimately supposed to be that way?

a lost thought pt. IV -“a way from what came before”

The present reality of things, as always, lacks meaning without history and without direction (a set course or future). Indeed, why would the now matter if everything blipped into existence and then out again in a moment of time; without context, without reasoning? So I’m thinking: understanding the history of where everything comes from is important for my life in the now; even though I could, as much of America does, simply take things as they are and work with them in order to further my gains and fancies of the moment. But understanding where things have come from, and, often in so knowing, understanding why they are just the way they are, brings light to their future purposes and their value or worthlessness now. Life is so much more enjoyable and adventuresome when everything has purpose and meaning and significance and either helps to shape your character or gives indication of where your character lays now so that you may evaluate it. All of this shapes your culture and relies on the past culture that directly influences the now. Cultures all over the world have been shaped by their past culture, and that’s not to say their past generations didn’t make changes, but it would be naive to think that one could escape such influence: as if this generation can be so much different; the influence continues regardless of personal preference or desire to be ‘different’. I think such desires are foolish in a way: thinking that you can change who your people have made you to be. No, it takes more than determination and one’s own will to change who you are. It takes a total overhaul of the self and the spirit of a man to overcome his past culture, if his past culture is in need of overcoming, that is (in part or in whole).  -Only God can do that.

but then take the history of an individual life and you have an entirely different perspective and system of thought, hopes, dreams, schemes.

a lost thought pt. III -“part II”

The universe, from macro to micro, is comprised of countless interdependent parts that all work together in it’s present function. Humans are the only ones out of line. We don’t seek to operate in the order of all things; we withdraw, and we destroy; both what is around us, and ourselves.  We don’t want to work in harmony with God’s world in God’s way, we want to do things our own way and so we fall out of order.

a lost thought pt.II -“worlds apart, part I”

In a conversation with my mother about the world, falsehood of other religions, and the way things should be, somehow I got the idea to describe two worlds in which mankind can live and function. By our nature, as seen in the bible and by common sense and logic, we live in one of them, and the other, is a vision of a perfect world which can be completely toppled and broken by one selfish person.

I think it started out as me enumerating all the different facts I had recently learned about Mormonism and discussing how I couldn’t see the way it made any sense to anybody apart from completely blind faith; no hard facts, no physical/historical evidence, false historical accounts, etc.  -Another post for another time, but that’s how it started.

Eventually, we moved into Christianity and it’s accounts of history, and then somehow into human nature, which I tied back into the kind of people Christians are becoming ultimately; though my thought process, which I will try to lay out, follows an extreme idea/thought-flow that is more meant to illustrate a point rather than lay out God’s plan of redemption.  So there’s my disclaimer, and now comes the idea:

There are two possible ways of mankind living on this earth: either with every man for himself, or every man for the other man; any mixture of the two results in destruction.

Two Worlds

“The world in which we, as a species, physically survive must necessarily rely on one thing: mans’ service to mans’ self.  Where ever you find a man serving another man before the self, there you will find a deity, for no other nature than a deity can afford such reckless abandon of needs.”

a lost thought pt.I

I have to wonder, sometimes, if I’m not a simpler creature than a modern mind would give me credit for being. Hampster. Alone. Heartache. Sister.