Firefly

 

A guy like me, doesn’t get hit on a lot.  My life isn’t exactly full of gays and most women know enough about me to know not to bother.  But when that one odd moment happens, where a woman does express interest in me, I can’t help but feign interest.

It’s fun to be hit on, it is a form of social acceptance which we all crave.  But for me it is a very unique experience, and I just simply cannot help myself.  Conversations of the flirtatious are different than normal ones.  You can take the conversation past the natural limit and not be reprimanded for your pervasiveness.  Instead you’ll end up engaging your companion, making them believe that the feeling of romance is mutual, that the conversation is unlocking a hidden potential between the two of you.

When I converse like this, I’m usually just cheating whomever I ‘m chatting with.  I’m fine making them feel liked and engaged even though my personal emotional level is empty.  It makes good practice for me.  Lying is half the game of life, and even though my behavior is morally corrupt I cannot help myself.  It’s something I’m not exactly proud of. 

When I do get hit on by a legitimate suitor it’s much different.  In those conversations I don’t have the same control I do elsewhere.  I can feel my heart wanting to escape through my mouth, and it gets in the way of all the words behind it.  I don’t function properly even when it comes to suitors I am disinterested in.  The opportunity is so rare and unique that I am caught off guard and unaware. Curiosity is a powerful thing, it keeps the conversation going even when I’m completely over it.

Eventually I find myself locked, engaged in a conversation without the means of polite escape.  It makes me go further in the conversation than I had planned or intended.  Sometimes resulting in the most dire of consequences.  But when our chemistry does mix, when we both feel that unique and special bond that engages both of us.  The conversation itself drops away, and is replaced by a silence that is emotionally full and broad.

No starry night’s sky, sunset, mountainside, or ocean view can compare to the wealth of emotions that come.  A deep and lasting fulfillment begins to compose inside me like an infection, changing my goals and my alignments, my virtues and values.  The change is different though than the ones that I am accustomed to: forming in front of me like an insurmountable wave—growing larger and stronger from the beaches seepage.  Instead it approaches calmly, peacefully, with a serenity that is pure and promising.

Those are the moments that I live for.

Memorable Quotes I

 

      “Now,” he said, “talk.  Talk about the things you really want said.  Don’t tell me about your family, your childhood, your friends or your feelings.  Tell me about the things you think.”

     Mallory looked at him incredulously and whispered:

     “How did you know that?”
      Roark smiled and said nothing.

      “How did you know what’s been killing me?  Slowly, for years, driving me to hate people when I don’t want to hate. . . . Have you felt it, too?  Have you seen how your best friends love everything about you—except the things that count?  And your most important is nothing to them, nothing, not even a sound they can recognize.  You mean, you want to hear?  You want to know what I do and why I do it, you want to know what I think?  It’s not boring to you?  It’s important?”

From Ann Rand’s The Fountainhead

Reconstruction

 

I didn’t always have the frame of mind I had in the article Serenity.  It took a long time for me to reach that framework, perhaps even over a year.  I cannot find a specific day upon which John and my friendship changed, but I know the number of seasons that have passed since that change took place.

My new mental framework is more flexible than the old one: it is adaptable and allows for faults in the design.  Stress is measured in tolerances instead of limits, and a large safety factor is now in place of the former incautious one.  My old framework was restrictive, required stressful and constant maintenance, yet stood despite the quicksand its foundation was laid upon.

I used to compare my relationship with John to a romance—the item that I was trying to keep our friendship away from in the first place.  I thought that by comparing myself directly to that which I avoided would make me grow stronger.  I wasn’t prepared for the strain it had on my psyche, and I didn’t recognize the damage I was doing to my friend.

It started with syntax; friendship became relationship, hanging out became quality time, and jokes became physicality.  With the change in syntax I couldn’t help to change my outlook.  I couldn’t mentally start thinking of my best friend as a lifetime partner and not realize the potential that such a relationship held.  Logic became twisted and my actions devolved to those of a helpless romantic. 

John recognized the change before I did; in response he pulled back.  In my inebriated mental state I couldn’t recognize what was taking place, and I reacted like a baby losing his pacifier.  I cried, kicked, screamed, and tried to grasp onto what was taken away from me.  John pulled back even more, and our friendship had its first true test.

We both were both so taken by emotion that neither of us could remember why the fight started.  Yet, we reluctantly settled our dispute, both of us trying desperately to restore what we had lost.  While I cannot speak for John, I know that the message hadn’t sunk in personally—my mental framework had kept it out.

The imbalance in my life made me physically ill.  I became anxious and depressed, lost the will to live healthily, and was relentlessly attacked by a number of unsolvable stomach issues.  It wasn’t until later that an unrelated incident brought my framework crumbling down.  And when it did, everything changed.

Imagine if you had lived in twilight your whole life.  You never knew sunlight, only the eerie glow that made up your day.  The first time you saw the sun, it would blind you—leave you empty.  The insurmountable magnitude of that first experience might cause you to ignore it.  But when you noticed it again, this time ready for the experience, you finally realize what your life had been missing.  A plethora of new colors are added to your reality, and with it new details that you have never seen before.

When I felt this way I knew I couldn’t continue living my life status quo.  I burnt the framework of my mentality to the ground, erecting a healthier one in its place.  The process almost destroyed our friendship; it could have destroyed my life.  Worse, it almost destroyed my ideals.

I survived the challenge and became stronger from it.  My new framework is made of newer, more ductile and flexible materials.  The lifespan is longer, the quality of life is better, and the cost is so much less.  It’s not perfect yet, but it is always improving.   It is unfinished, evolving in response to the requirements my environment places upon it.

Serenity

 

Envy is a blunt pain in the bottom of your gut.  It’s worse than heartburn.  In a some sense it’s like a kick to the stomach because you can’t breathe, you can’t think.  But in other ways it’s like a migraine that never truly disappears.

Envy has triumphed every internal struggle my psyche has ever had..  With each experience the pain gets worse and worse until it’s reached it’s goals.  I lack the necessary strength, and perseverance to battle envy.  Some people claim that my jealousy stems from a lack of personal confidence, when others claim that it is a being of obsession.  I however, think that I am rational, and that I am experiencing a perfectly natural response to a precisely normal situation.

 

I am not going to use names.  But there is one friend whom I am extremely jealous of, let’s refer to him as John Doe.   John is very successful and handsome.  He has had great grades in school and excellent employment opportunities.  He’s traveled the world, and is an excellent athlete.  He is financially comfortable—though not rich in any sense.  He has a loving family who he’s in constant contact with, and a great wide friend base where he’s able to pick and chose those who he wishes to grow close to.  John has everything that I want.

John used to be my closest friend, we used to  be extremely open to each other.  We were interested in the dynamic differences between our two lives and developed a unique bond that made us foils.  We played off of each other’s experience and developed traits that we hadn’t ever experienced.  We smiled, laughed, and cried together.  John meant a lot to me- and he still does.

John taught me how to work, how to stand tall, and how to represent what I believed in.  In return, I showed John emotion- he learned how to express himself, he experienced pain and learned how to control it, he began to openly love, cherish, and respect.  Life became more than just the absolute, he learned the obscure, and the obtuse.

We had developed a beautiful harmony.

The problem is that we’ve both grown in such a way that neither of us foil the other anymore.  We’ve absorbed the best qualities, and now stare gapingly at the voids left by our individual problems.  We no longer focus on the good in our friendship, we can only see the bad.

Recently he’s found a new foil- who he is now closer to thanks to the development he went through with me.  And as I sit out in the cold, I can only feel envious of what he now is, and what he was able to find.

 

I don’t envy him because of love, I am not obsessed with him, nor do I envy him because of his achievements.  I envy his relationship with his new friend.  Because it is a friendship that I once shared with him, and now there is an emptiness left where those experiences lived.

The solution that I want - a return of the old friendship - simply cannot happen.  There isn’t necessarily anything left to absorb, we can only live together and share the present- we’ve emptied the past of every last drop of information.

I have to learn to evolve, I have to kindle a new friendship with a new basis and hope that it takes as deep of root as the old one.  John means a lot to me, and he knows it, and I’m confident enough to say that he feels the same way I do.  We both want it to work, we just don’t know how. 

With time, I am confident, that things will be fine.  John and I will always share a unique and special bond that cannot be replicated or replaced in our lives.  There is a truism of trust and experiences behind us, and we will never outgrow the experiences that have shaped us.

Just a Stage without the Actors

 If there is one thing I’ve learned in college it’s that home is not, strictly speaking, a place.  In no way is home a neighborhood, restaurants, and attractions.  For if you remove the soul of the place, you are left with nothing but a used, old, decrepit building.  Home is soul.

 

Home is made up of family- those who you live with and those you communicate with deeply and frequently.  When I long for home I long for my dogs, brother, parents, and friends.

 

I also long for special locations.  I long for the beach, Disneyland, and the local shopping district.  But see, those items aren’t what I’m really longing for.  I’m longing for the connection I’ve made with people there, the memories that I have made over time.  I can visit any of those locations on a perfect sunny day, and it will only dig the pit in my stomach deeper, leaving me feeling more empty than I had before arrival.

 

I want to share a lot of these locations with my friends at school.  So they can see where I’ve grown up, where I came from, what made me who I am today.  But I don’t what to show them the places, I want to show them the memories. I feel like my old home explains a lot about myself, and I feel like the act of sharing these memories will make the bond between my friends and I closer than it ever was before.

 

See, home is where your heart is, and for me, that’s at school.  The last five years has been a slow process of moving, and in four months I’m going to be kicked out, and go homeless again.  Nostalgia will be all that I have left.

 

A lot of people have questioned my obsession with Disneyland.  They want to understand what it comes from, and how I can go time and time again and not get bored of the same rides and shows.  I’ve never really given anyone the same answer.  For some I’ve said the rides, for most I say the atmosphere.  But really, it’s none of these things.

 

I think my feelings towards Disneyland can best be captured by Steve Martin in his autobiography Born Standing Up.

Ten years later, after the Beatles, drugs, and Vietnam had changed the entire tenor of American life, I returned to the magic shop at Disneyland and stood as a stranger. As I looked around the eerily familiar room another first came over me, a previously unknown emotion, one that was to have a curious force over me for the rest my life: the longing tug of nostalgia. Looking at the counter where I pitched Svengali Decks and the Incredible Shrinking Die, I was awash with the recollection of indelible nights where the sky was blown open by fireworks and big band sounds drifted through trees strung with fairy lights. I remembered my youth, when every moment was crisply present, when heartbreak and joy replaced each other quickly, fully and without trauma. Even now when I visit Disneyland, I am steeped in melancholy, because a corporation has preserved my nostalgia impeccably. Every nail and screw is the same, and Disneyland looks as new now as it did then. The paint is fresh, and the only wear allowed is faux. In fact, only I have changed. In the dream-like world of childhood memories, so often vague and imprecise, Disneyland remains for me not only vivid in memory, but vivid in fact.

 

What does home mean to you?

Editorial III: Out and about

I’m currently running around in Santa Barbra and just south of LA, as a result I can’t post a big update this week.  However I am getting plenty of material for future posts.

I just got new editing software, which allowed me to put pictures in the last post, however I am still having some trouble formatting on blogspot, though I’m looking forward to working through that soon.

I will be returning to New York next week, and things should slow back down around then and become more stable.  I am also looking to make a big advertising push when I get back there as well.  So hopefully we’ll have some avid new readers who will like to make comments!

Have a safe three day weekend.

-Kyle

That Big Moment

Everyone can remember that pivotal moment- that one big event that changed their life.  You obsess over it, and if it’s good you embrace it.  But if it’s horrible you would do anything to counteract it.  At night you have dreams of life without it, and during the day you do everything you can to correct your error.  You might not realize it but the mistake shapes your character.  That moment had such a profound impact upon your life that you’ll carry it with you forever.  The question is will you be the slave or the master?

 

Slaves, by definition, lack control.  They find their emotions overwhelming and become compromised when reminded of the past.  At the slightest mention of the smallest relevance their body’s posture will go through monumental adjustments.  Some will seek addiction, others therapy.  Some will be emancipated with time while others will struggle on, indentured until the end.

 

There is no easy way out of it—sometimes you might get lucky, and spot freedom like the light at the end of a tunnel.  But for some people they just have to carry on through the darkness, as the light slowly creeps in and overtakes them—like a hazy dawn-less morning to a dreary day.  No matter what your situation is though, perseverance in the face of adversity is always the best strategy.

 

Stand strong proud and vigilant.  You are who you are and there’s nothing wrong with you.  Don’t doubt yourself, don’t doubt your friends.  Know thyself and know thy enemy.

Downloading Instant Gratification.doc

Whomever said "happiness is acquired through time" lied.

Society has a really successful way of advancing.  First we hunted and gathered, then we decided we were sick of that so we raised cattle and grew crops.  This took less time out of our day, and with new time, came leisure.  We built homes instead of living in caves and we started talking and communicating out of more than necessity.  We even created music.

All of our monumental cultural achievements have been created out of  boredom or annoyance with the norm.  We wanted something new and since we couldn't find it we invented it ourselves.  Humanity is great at coming up with new ideas to fill our time and minds, but as of late, we've been struggling a little.

See with shorter activities, comes shorter attention spans.  Nowadays we like to do things instantly: "instant coffee", "instant communication", "instant access".  No longer do kids dream for years about becoming a superstar: they can achieve it overnight with Guitar Hero.  Want to be an athlete?  Awesome, how about watching the NFL, starting your own fantasy football league, and playing Madden on the 360!

All of these activities were created to motivate entertain and enable people (or to simply play off of motives- but you can flip that coin either way).  However, when you cram everything you can down a kid's throat you end up overexposing them to that dream.  Fill that dream up with all of this junk and it just pops.  For no longer is there any space left for imagination.  Without imagination... well it's just no fun any more.

Children are jumping around from dream to dream today.  Not because they don’t know what they want, or through a lack of motivation. It's simply because people want to exercise their creative muscle: they want to dream and imagine.  We’re tearing ourselves apart by devaluing what makes kids kids.  People complain because children no longer seem as motivated as they used to but really it is society that’s destroying motivation, not anything else.

We live life with scheduled insanity.  People wake up and drink coffee, go out and work, play, work, play, and play until midnight.  Then they grab grab six hours of sleep and repeat the process.  Oh... don’t forget the Ambien they take to help themselves fall asleep, or the ibuprofen and ice after the big workout.

I told you where the problem starts, you show me when it will end?

Silent Victory

Mistakes burn you down to the core.  When I realize that I have made one, and truly care about it, I want to apologize more than I possibly can with words.  I want to forget it, fix it, or remove it.  But I can’t do any of those—it’s happened and the mistakes from my actions are creating fallout and havoc.  I feel like I’m spinning without control.

The sensation leaves a hole inside me, burning and aching like the worst heartburn.  

The best antacid though isn’t a good apology, hug, or sensual recourse.  It’s forgiving yourself despite everything that’s happened.  Big mistakes will cause damage, and there will be consequence.

It usually takes me a while to get to that point when I make a big mistake.  Usually the person who I have wronged forgives me before I, myself.  But when I do forgive myself, and I beat the wronged individual to it… well, sometimes that can hurt more than the mistake itself.

When you make a mistake the person who you have hurt will raise their barriers like sliding glass doors to the elements.  They will close themselves off from you and back away in order to protect themselves from further harm.  We’re all very reactionary and protective people and we’re willing to do everything we can to prevent ourselves from getting hurt more.

Sometimes when we close our doors, we make them so thick that they become walls.  We shut that person out and make it so that they can never get that close again.  It can even happen to the best of friends.

I’ve had friends in the past who have done that to me.  They’ve closed the door, and I kept trying to communicate through it until I turned and walked away.  They didn’t realize what they had done until they smacked their nose on the glass, trying to follow me.