The Poison of Time

So, yeah, this happened:

and this...

 

and this

 

this was good too

The second road trip out to see a friend in the last couple weeks. I don't really miss home, but I think it'd be healthy (for my bank account) to just sit still for a while. I'm still sore from the beach. I still miss being in house of a friend, and considered family. I was never peed on though; that's a bit disappointing.

I was wet and nekkid on more occasions than originally planned; but I'm not complaining ;-)



































Ode to the Soggy Commando Triumvirate

I love these people for the time they let me spend with them, but I hate them for how much they make me miss them and how much it hurts <3

Take care,

The Ill-usion

Goodness, a concept of time has slipped my senses again. Though I seem to be keeping better track of things than usual. I only really lack initiative.

The problem with memory is that it's dynamic. It will change with us. Not only how we remember, but also what we remember.

Lately, I've been searching my memory for signs of whether or not someone was being truthful. I have my own gimmicks for determining a person's legitimacy, roughly based around how I would BS a situation. So we're starting with an already broken method for filtering legitimacy. But, on top of that, my memory was of a time when I was drinking. AND, I have powerful personal biases for how I would like the situation I am remembering to have been.

The core of the problem for me seems to be, or at least the part I would like to think is the core, is my indecisive record-keeping. I'm not going to use alcohol as an excuse. And I do not plan on going in to some philosophical tirade that discusses the implications of false memories (Inception-style).

As far as I'm concerned, memories are inherently unreliable, as records of realty, from the moment they are created. Now I'm saying that based on a sliding scale of accuracy: obviously more recent and potent memories will be more accurate, and reliable, than others. I also take in to account that some people, probably based on a combination of early development and genetics, have different ways of remembering things. But the general problem seems to be that people will use their memories to form conclusions about their futures. Now take a breathe, I'm absolutely in agreement with "who we were, makes who we are." I'm not shooting that down, or criticizing it. But what's been bugging me, in my pursuit of past legitimacy, is the idea that spending too much time thinking about a memory may have altered it beyond any salvageable amount of authenticity. From there, not only will I be working with, effectively, stale and corrupted ingredients but I may make the further error of drawing a conclusion from it and assimilating it in to my future.

So, how do you stop it? How do you know when enough searching is too much? What is legitimacy if our only torch lighting our path, marching towards the dark unknown of the future, is our messy memories? Writing stuff down, for one, helps. Pictures are nice too. Other forms of external memory/record-keeping make things easier. Each other. My scrambled memories, if nothing else, stand to prove to me that moving forward is not something I should do alone; or for all I know, could do.

Memories. The future. The Now. What do I really want with it? I just want it to work. I think I have a hard time figuring out what I actually want in anything because I tend to be too isolated: I have too vague and colorless a sense of relativity and need more exposure to more colorful forms of relativity. I try too hard to not ask for help, or even look for it, when I really should. Pride, or arrogance, is something I feel like I need to come to terms with and sort out before I make too many other major decisions.

If anything, I fear not being who I'd like to think I am. I want to be more confident and in control of myself. I don't want to have to second-guess everything about me, and fear that the life I've created is something forged from an endless and convoluted history of preventable slip-ups.

Before I go back and sift through my memories for something useful again, especially a memory involving another person, I should consult things outside of my own head. Rely less on theories, and more on facts. Good advise for anyone; but in the eye of the beholder, it's easier said(understood) than done(committed to).

Take care,
-Etrius

Time is on our side

For starters; I just woke up, and stayed awake, from a 16-ish hour sleeping session. I crashed at about 9 last night, and woke up again at around 2 to feed my cat, then woke up again to a text, then finally got out of bed at about 1PM. I don't think I've ever slept that long and I'm, quite frankly, worried. I mean, I was tired yesterday because I had to get up early to accompany my Mom to her doctor's appointment at around 7:30AM or so. Instead of napping when I got back at around noon, I decided to call up a friend to hang out. Then I went to my Sister's concert. I literally just took a shower and went to bed once we got back. Concert was good, btw.

I'm not in to Facebook apps or games in any serious way, especially those silly questionnaire things that only stand to remind me of my myspace days. However, this one thing stuck in my mind from a post a friend made a long time ago that went something like: "Look at the top five people on your friend's list; it's the zombie apocalypse, are you screwed?" Now, every time I go on to my profile page, I look at the top five friends that come up and think: "if I was stuck with these five people during a zombie apocalypse, how would we do?" I can't stop thinking that every time now. Some times, it's turned out pretty well: I was given a group of friends that I think it would actually be enjoyable to be in that situation with, on top of being able to hold out. Other times, I think: "Wow, we wouldn't last a day." Then there are other times when the arrangement would be in such a way where I think: "Well, we probably wouldn't make it very long, but we'd go out in an orgy." One more way Facebook wastes my time.

I still fake my age on those video-things that ask for your age because it's either mature or "R" rated content. I've been old enough to not fake my age for a while now but it's just quicker for me to select, at least on the drop-down versions, the first day of the first month on the year that my scroll wheel lands on.

I was going to describe my concept of God to finish this post off, then decided not to on account of it probably being too long.
Then I decided I'll go ahead with it anyways, because my concept of God is pretty simple to describe. For starters, I only refer to it as "God" when speaking about it to others, because it is my equivalent to the general public's "God." I don't really have any special name for it, nor do I worship it or have any particular rituals to show my belief to it. I simply respect it for what it is, and respect that it will always be there; controlling everything, as it always has been. My concept of "God" is Time.
So, when I think of what "God" is, I think of it based on what other concepts of God have shown me "God" to be: something that has been there since the beginning and will continue to be till the end of everything, it creates and destroys, and it can never really be measured. Based on these; I have decided, for myself that if I were to consider anything an "all-powerful, omnipresent, and omniscient" thing, it would be Time.
Upon further intellectual inspection, with respect to the religious community, my perspective may come off as the "lazy" way to conceive "God." Or, that other forms of the concept require "faith." Now, I'll admit I don't know too much about "faith," and in common-speak I can't say I have too much "faith" in too many things. I accept that I can't understand everything all of the time, so I tend to delegate unknowns to "hope" and "luck;" which is just my way of making the world easier to live in. But the kind of "faith" that most other concepts of "God" require take a lot of personal investment. I'm just the kind of person, and mind, that feels like what I have of me to invest in to anything (like "faith)" is best utilized by "investing accordingly." Or, I'll spend myself when and where I feel like my life needs it the most.
And as I said before, my masochistic tendencies are my effective "wrench" in the gears. I will also say that I truly am happy for my, otherwise, religious friends and the happiness that their respective religions give them. A good head on your shoulders should see you through most anything, or at least improve your odds.

In unrelated news, Kevin managed to get the sound to work on RE5 again, so I switched the color back on and...we couldn't even get a "SS" rank. Guess we should try it in silent-film mode next time.

Take care,

To Collect Debts in Full

Okay, I suppose I should start with this "couple things" announcement, just because it's my preferred way to break things down. The main difference being that I do not know how many pieces this one will consist of: so it may take a while. This one's also going to be pretty heavy, so brace yourself.

Small stuff first; or, stuff that's inherently good first. I was out and about to deliver a bomb when I ran in to my high school friend Jacey who was on her way to the mall with her brother and sister. I gave her a big hug. She, among many others, graduated this Spring. She'll also be working at the Ren Fair this Summer: count me jealous.

As for the not-so-good stuff, I'll start light. On my bike, I have an extra cushion, given to me by my friend John. The cushion...numbs me. Or, more specifically, it puts things to sleep. And no, I'm not saying "things" in place of testicles; everything down there just falls asleep on this cushion after too long. I forgot this, and about 15 minutes out, I noticed I couldn't feel my penis; so I sit up a bit. I begin to regain feeling in it, but in the way that you regain feeling in, say, your arm or leg after they fall asleep. That's right...the tingles. And not the good ones. The taser-powered pop-rocks tingles. And like anything else, movement made it worse, so I just coasted a bit till everything was back.

Oh yes, and there were plenty of dead turtles on the sides of the roads; like, an unusual amount of them. I found this interesting because this is following a story my Dad was telling me about yesterday, when he encountered a snapping turtle in our yard. That time of the year, I guess?

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Okay, I'm going to try and maintain some semblance of decency with this while being as completely honest as I can. I'm not sure how to word it. I have some things going through my head, that have forced me to write some things in this blog. Those things provoked the attention of someone I haven't talked to in a while. About 2 years. We've not communicated due to our respective personal lives to cater to, rather than whatever could have been between us. I'd like to think the distance has done us some good. My issue is, I don't know how to handle it any more. We are each rather particular people, in that, we each have a way about us that demands a specific set of standards to deal with respectably: especially when dealing with each other. This particularity worked wonders that neither of us could have imagined when we first met, and for what it's worth, I think we each needed it. "It" meaning whatever it was that we created. But we developed differently. We took something different from the thing we created and, in-turn, became different things ourselves. I think the major divide came between us when those two things we became, no longer needed one another in order to satisfy. The underlying "connection" was surely something to fight for in and of itself, but it needed to be re-designed: we're not who we were. This isn't me saying "goodbye," prematurely; it's me begging the question: "to what end?"

Next thing, my personal issue with promises and honesty. Yes, they are directly related to the same thing. Some time ago, I made a promise to myself that I would not lie to my friends. That's the simple end of it. Now, I made this promise a long time ago, and I think I've only held on to it for so long because I don't have any other particular beliefs or habits I can call my own. Unfortunately, as I grew up with it over my head, I learned to approach it like a lawyer looking for a loophole. To this day, I can not recall explicitly lying to a friend, but I have found ways to liberally interpret what "friend" and "truth" mean to me. The most deliberate way for any sensible person to look at "honesty" is that though honesty may oft be the best policy, there are levels of appropriate honesty that vary with circumstance. Especially in "normal" society. In situations when I find nothing fruitful to give to the context verbally, I just won't say anything.
This may also be due, in part, to my general difficulty finding the most appropriate words for...anything. Other than academic essays, I generally re-read, and re-think, everything I've written, or said several times over. But what this is coming to is; I feel like I'm sinking myself lower and lower until I no longer consider anyone a "friend" and relegate everything to vague and inhuman terms.
The moral of the story is: to be a human, among other humans, is to not live by absolute principles; to do otherwise, would be to unmake one's self as a human. My perspective is that even "human" is a relative term; one whose vagaries can be weaponized by the otherwise inhuman. And it is through this weaponization of terms that I have inadvertently hurt not only myself, by stunting my personal development, but also my "friends," by giving them only pieces of a person.
I suppose where I am now, is trying to get back in touch with the rest of me: trying to feel more human without talking around it, and just try to be respectable to others. How hard I'll try to do this, is tough to say. I know what I want, but my otherwise masochistic tenancies may have something else to say about personal improvement. Be well, all.
Take care,

Lost Time

Well, the party was fun, from what I can remember. I drank myself stupid for most of it, which surprised even me. The drive was pretty brutal, though the company made it bearable.

I come back to an offer for driving lessons, I accepted of course. What ever was left of my self-esteem I am throwing a goodbye party for this week. I know I'm a few years late on this whole license thing. I never claimed to be above confidence issues, especially when it came to things like driving. After failing my first two road tests 3 or so years ago, I acquired something akin to anxiety towards driving. So I'm going for broke, and plan to just roll on through it; hopefully with a driver's license once all is said and done.

I was this close to having my own place, and not living here.

Of course the taste of fruit would make me want it more; want it more, as I stare in disbelief that it wasn't already mine.

Take care,
-Rich

6/3/11 YouTube Post

Check this out, let me know what you think...

Take care,

Mercenary Love

First, some things that have been going on; Second, some some stuff that's been on my mind.

Yesterday, which feels like today, since my sleep schedule's been off, was host to much in a short amount of time. One of my friends came over to hang out for a bit, initially so we could drink, talk and watch a movie; instead, it turned in to drinking, video games, and Bocci. Good enough. Our drink of choice was Guinness, which has become our preferred drink for social occasions. Our game of choice was Resident Evil 5 Mercenaries Reunion, an old past-time of ours. Our previous high score was 699K, achieved last Fall. If you're not sure what sense of scale to use in determining whether or not that is a lot, the game itself assigns grades based on score; the highest grade possible is a "SS," requiring a minimum of 150K. Needless to say, after a Guinness and a Monster each, Kevin and I were more than ready to finally kiss 700K. By our third try or so, we did it. Nuff said.

After that, we just talked a bit about things going on with me and junk. Then we figured that if it wasn't too hot out, we should play a game of Bocci; it wasn't, so we did. Kevin won.

Some time after he left, my new speakers arrived. I had to order new ones after my originals stopped working because my friend's computer broke them (not really). I still can't figure out what happened to them, they just stopped working after I used them for a movie-night thing on a friend's laptop. Anyway, I'm still getting use to how AWESOME these new speakers are. I've never owned a sub-woofer before, and it's down-firing; my room is earthquakes and thunder storms all of the time now...I'm happy. From there, I went to sleep at about 2 or 3 in the afternoon. I woke up at about 10 or so, and that is why I feel like today is, at least to some degree, yesterday.

Now, as for my second thing, I wanted to talk about "love." I put it in quotes, if anything, to best represent my view of it. But more importantly, I'd like to know what other people think of it. I feel that it, like other categories of expression, is entirely interpretive. This may seem like an, otherwise, obvious thing to some; but what of the view that sees love as an objective thing? I've only recently come to the crossroad of re-opening my eyes to the possibility that they are both correct; they each represent something inherent to the differences in people with respect to how they can differ in their feelings of "love." Or, that "love," and how it can be viewed, is another caricature of the human condition that people seem to utilize to better accept the world around them. The manner in which it is utilized depends entirely on the purpose for which it must serve.

This is, of course, just how I feel. I wish I could put that in to better words, but I'm a bit tired at the moment and would like to leave this open for outside input. I would greatly enjoy an intelligent dialogue on the subject.

I think I need a nap for now. Please leave some feedback for this one.
Take care,