Foundations

The title of this post reminds me of an excellent Kate Nash song.

As I've pretty thoroughly documented, my views about the universe have drastically altered. This is no an understatement. It's as if my life is a house. I undertook a renovation, building on the foundation and expanding a few things, only to make the horrifying (and costly) discovery that the foundation was bad. The whole house had to come down and a new one built in its place. I'm still under construction and will be for quite some time.

I'm desperately behind on reading (as is always the case), but hope to catch up soon. I'm keeping one whole day wide open this 3 day weekend. It's going to be quite lovely.

Since it's the middle of the year it's time to set my goals for the remainder of 2009.

Personal Goals:
Read More
Cook More
Bake More

Fitness Goals:
Run a 4-miler (or 5K)
Continue exercising 3 times a week
Eat less meat

Financial Goals:
Save 10% of my income
Eliminate the remainder of my debt (CC and Student Loans)

Travel Goals:
Houston
Grand Junction
Nashville
Montreal
Chicago
New York City

Happenings

I'm tired. My stomach hurts. I'm glad I can make this blog a place for thought provoking analysis of happenings in the universe. Ha.

I am in introvert cleverly disguised as an extrovert (according to a very eerie personality test I took). While I love interacting with people, I very much need personal time. I've got to recharge the batteries to be the bubbly, happy person I am in most of my interactions with humanity. Those two adjectives were used this week to describe me, hence their appearance in this blog.

After coming home from 2 weeks out I always find there is a huge amount of errands and other administrative tasks needing to be attended to. On top of that, work was extraordinarily busy with the wrapping up of a project, exam for a professional certification, and an abundant amount of activities for a charity event. Additionally, I've had a ton of family and friend happenings for which my attendance has been requested/mandated. While I'm quite fortunate to have a full social calendar, I'm tired. Last night I stayed out until 2 a.m. at a disco. Ha! Words cannot adequately describe how out of character this is for me. What's even crazier is how much fun I had! It's the first time I've gone to a bar and not thought everyone there was a sad, broken human being. This was a festive atmosphere where the aim was to have fun and interact (and dance), not get drunk and forget what happened. It was new, refreshing, and something I am definitely game for again.

Summer has struck with a vengeance. I loathe it. It's the worst it's been in a long time (at least that's how it seems) and I check the weather map daily to plot where I should be living. New England, San Francisco, and the Pacific Northwest are the top contenders. I recently uploaded photos to Flickr and thought I had shared the link here. However, it appears I have not. So, for your viewing pleasure check these out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/freelancer30

The link above contains photos from my recent trip. They are all horribly out of order, so please forgive me. Of course, you don't know their out of order, so I should have kept quiet.

In other news, running has been going well. If all goes right (and I stay focused) I'm going to run a 5K and then begin preparation for a half-marathon. Woot woot!

Dearest blog reader, I hope your life is well.

Failsafe

I was having a conversation with a close friend today. We'd just heard about the Dustin Lance Black incident and were curious about the photos. I'm terribly ashamed to say that I went to Perez Hilton's site. Gross, right?

Anyhow, the pictures are not out there. I imagine they've all been taken down and the ones I saw in blogs had been censored. After one attempt to find them I stopped. It was wrong. It was terrible of me to have any interest in them in the first place. Invading someone's privacy to satiate my morbid curiosity is despicable. It's morally wrong. I reached this conclusion with a quick Golden Rule check. If photos of me having sex with my boyfriend had been leaked online, would I want someone looking at them? Hell no.

So, as I continued talking to my friend (via messenger) I noticed he was distracted. I asked if he was still looking for the photos and he said yes. I exploded. I whipped out the soapbox, stood on my moral high ground, and told him off. I was honestly shocked that he was still looking for them. Also, I am certain he will persist in searching for them despite my whole Golden Rule explanation (I quoted Jesus and Rabbi Hillel for Pete's sake!). The fact is, he does not think it's that big a deal. He will rationalize it away as something not that bad because he's not hurting anyone, everyone has already seen them, he's curious, etc.

Now, lest you think I'm blasting my friend I must get to my point. Being the obnoxious, introspective person I am, I examined my own heart. What excuses do I make to rationalize things away? The answer is plenty.

I am in debt. Debt I should not be in. I understand it is bad. I live beyond my means. Everytime I talk about my debt I'm quick to say "it's not that much" or "it's school debt" or "I'm in better financial shape than most of my friends", "my job is secure", "I only graduated a year ago", on and on.

Bullshit. All of it. These are excuses I use to make myself feel better. If I was to honestly confront this debt I would see it was bad and needs to be eliminated. But, being human, my brain rationalizes it away to minimize cognitive dissonance. It keeps me from going insane (which I do appreciate). However, sometimes this natural "failsafe" needs to be overridden so that I can do the right thing.

I do the same kind of rationalization with numerous other things (like exercising, volunteering, eating meat). I take the easy way out more often than not.

What must we do to override the "failsafe" in order to truly do the moral (or in some cases just better) thing?

Restart

I've very been thinking about starting over. Beginning preparations to leave the south. I've called this place home for over a decade, and it's time to go elsewhere. Somewhere where the weather suits my soul.

Whenever I think about moving, fear creeps in. What will I do about money? Well, I intend to be enrolled in graduate school or working for another company in the field I'm currently in. Money is not my biggest concern. Ideally I'll have a few months worth of expenses saved up (I'm not one to make overly rash decisions). The next question is where? I'm thinking New England, Scotland, or out West. I think my big trip for next year will be Scotland. That's where I'm leaning towards journeying right now. I then question why? Am I just wanting to run away? Is this some attempt to find peace and happiness in my surroundings? Well, not really. I've nothing horrible to run from here. I'm in a rather pleasant place (despite how difficult it is to be gay here) and it's extraordinarily comfortable. My biggest concern is failing. I know that's really quite silly. What would I be failing at? Chasing my dreams? Living somewhere new? Having an adventure? None of those things you can really fail at.

I'm pretty content right now. However, I feel a sense that my time here is drawing to an end. The setting of my narrative isn't supposed to be here forever. At least, that's what it feels like.

We will see.

Wisdom

Due to an unexpected change in schedule I am home this weekend! It will allow me to run some errands and catch up with family and friends. I'm quite excited.

This week has been taxing. I've struggled greatly to be patient and for the most part it's worked out okay. I find one of the most helpful things is having someone to vent to. Thankfully I have plenty of flesh and blood friends who listen to my laments. You are spared.

I just wanted to say hello and share some quotes I found in some FB status updates. Haha.

"When I see I am nothing, that is wisdom. When I see I am everything, that is love. My life is a movement between these two". - Nisargadatta Maharaj

"Age doesn't bring wisdom. Sometimes it just comes alone".

The second quote is from my Grandpa's status update. Yes, he is on Facebook. And he's awesome. He just uploaded all his photos from his 50th wedding anniversary trip with my Grandma.

Literal Videos

Well, I'm off for a couple of weeks. Work is taking me away until the 19th, so please enjoy the following until I return:

Literal Music Videos

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Never Gonna Give You Up

Daydream Believer

Great Articles

Office Culture

Searching for Value in Ludicrous Ideas

Death/Life

A coworker of mine who just passed away had had two near death experiences. I was thinking about that recently as I reflected on him and the interaction we had when I used to work with him. He told me that they reminded him to focus on things that "really matter". Oddly enough, I came across this NYT blog today.

This struck me:

"I don’t know why we take our worst moods so much more seriously than our best ones, crediting depression with more clarity than euphoria."

I am extremely guilty of this. When I'm especially giddy or happy I tend to think of myself as being flippant. I need to return to a morose state of being immediately. Being in the latter mood allows me to more realistically understand my life. Ha!

Diverging slightly from the above train of thought, I often feel I can't allow myself to be happy in light of the serious suffering going on in the world. I tell myself that once I pay my penance by giving to the poor and tutoring refugee children I can feel better about having so much.

I want to give freely. I want to love freely. I don't want to do good because I feel guilty. I want to give because I want to give. Still, I don't think I can really say obligation is ever completely factored out. I definitely feel a sense of obligation. Maybe it's a moral one. When I considered myself Christian I would have said it was a Christian obligation to act charitably, but now that I don't consider myself a Christian I am still compelled to charity. In fact, I'm compelled to live for a lot of things (kindness, truthfulness, justice). I hope to follow-up on some of these thoughts later. For now, it's time to get to bed.

On a random note, I finally decided to put up some photos. Many of you have already seen them, but for those who haven't, enjoy them while they last. Note: I think they are backwards and you should start from the last page (The "new" mosque should be first).

Ignorance

So sad:

http://www.commercialappeal.com/videos/detail/pastors-speak-out/

I'll add some additional commentary later.