I have always enjoyed creating things. Ever since I was a little kid I used to play with trash and make creations out of the combination of my imagination and nimble fingers. I always loved the time spent on this, it was very much the childlike wonder and amazement people speak of. I remember playing with a refrigerator box for 3 weeks because it was my fighter plane, space shuttle, and lair. I remember making a “working” robot piggy bank out of a shampoo bottle. Somehow these creations didn’t last long around Mom.
As I’ve gotten older the materials and methods of construction available to me have enhanced and become infinitely more complex and nuanced. However this means that so too has the results of these methods and materials become accordingly amazing and mind boggling. This is a fact we often times forget as our imaginations become whetted by the razors of reality and dulled by the drudgery of daily life. To be successful social creatures our imaginations have to fall by the wayside and we have to buy in to consensual reality. Those who do not become labeled psychotic (whose definition is “out of touch with consensual reality”).
I have always had a vivid imagination. My elementary school teachers would tiredly agree with me on that one. I enjoy mental construction of a place different from the world we exist in. Unfortunately the more time I spend trying to become a ‘successful social creature’ the more I let the muscle that is imagination atrophy.
All’s it took to rile up my imagination was a table.
*dramatic paragraph break*
*wonders if making fun of myself too much diminishes my message*
See how I cleverly made that paragraph break ever more dramatic? Anywho, in the process of building my table for the new apartment, I remembered how fun it is to build. I love legos like nothing else, and this was a free-form of legos to me. I knew the pieces had to fit together, but I got to decide how I wanted them to fit together, what to use, and how to do so. Putting your own touch and character into something is very powerful. It was incredible fun bringing an idea from my head into dimensions on a paper, to a receipt for materials, to hours spent working on it, to a table. Hard work, help from my pops, and knowledge helped transform something intangible into something that actually exists. How cool is that?
2 more events lead me to the Universe creating path.
A paper titled, “How to Create a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart 2 Days Later” and a tv show (Defying Gravity) that created situations and stories that asked deep questions.
The first, the paper, listed and examined the questions the author (a sci fi novelist) had faced over and over in his career. Guidelines of sorts. The 2nd the tv show put it all together for me.
I want to create a universe where I can create. I’ve loved to build things since I was a kid, and now that I’ve recognized the importance of my mind and an imagination better, the ultimate thing I can build is something engendered from the bizarreness of my mind. In a universe of my own creation I can tell stories, examine characters, deal with problems, and ask deep philosophical questions and see how complex characters answer complex questions.
I think simply creating it will be 50% of the whole shebang, and half the fun. Researching and setting guidelines and rules for existence. One of my big forks in the road is whether to create a huge sandbox universe where I can treat it as my playground and have multiple stories and characters existing together, but separate. OR do I choose to go with a story universe that has a long arc planned out in entirety in advance.
Regardless it might take years or decades to create, but the biggest choice is simply to start.
"What are 10 things you want to see, do, and/or experience in your lifetime?"
1. Be in love/Work for love 2. Raise children/ be a father 3. Fly a Wingsuit 4. Go on a cruise (nude sunbath) 5. Find the dream career which = I love it, helps others, provides for my family 6. Visit a deeply spiritual place, maybe the Himalayas 7. Design a house that has my own library. Oval shaped with rolling ladder, huge ceilings, columns between book shelves, leather couches, a fireplace, a mahogany desk and a secret passage way. 8. Keep close with my life long friends 9. Get my mustang =D 10. Never stop learning and work toward becoming an "Advanced Soul"
That is the question, and drawing up the formidable depths and volume of my own personal love life (oh look he's holding a metaphorical teacup) I shall answer decisively and not at all tangentially. Riiiiiiiiiight.
Reason 1: People want what they can't have.
The most scrumptious cream puffs I've ever had where the ones I stole as a kid from the freezer when my mom wasn’t looking, and secretly hide and let defrost for half an hour. Yes I'm comparing delectable pastry treats to love, but my point stands. People always desire that which they can't have. Ladies, ever gazed longingly at a pair of shoes you know you couldn't afford? It's a basic human curiosity and usually gets us in trouble.
Reason 2: Attention.
Let's all admit it, we love attention. To those of you who just scoffed at me and airily thought, "That's ridiculous, I am more mature than that, I'm perfectly fine without attention" let me ask you a question. Of your top 10 best memories of being alive in this world, how many of them were in total and complete isolation, utterly disconnected from another living organism? I'm going to wager not many, and in fact would bet considerable money that an overwhelming majority of them were comprised of other people, maybe even those whom you love platonic or otherwise.
People love attention even when they say they don't, but to be fair people have varying levels of attention that they want. But very few people can survive on their own without attention and human, or animal, interaction.
Now take our Hollywood Romantic Love which by all accounts is the highest form of attention. A complete and total devotion of attention for a lifetime without waver is a pretty attractive prospect. And for the most part, most depictions of Hollywood love are so farfetched it's ridiculous. It's portrayed as a force of nature: unbendable, absolute, and resolute. That sort of love doesn't account for the imperfect people who wield it. Perhaps true love transcends our imperfections. I wouldn't know about that, but I do know I'm a widely imperfect guy and it would take a strong love to iron out my flaws.
Reason 3: Archetypes
In these Hollywood love stories, the characters are archetypes, a paragon of a certain personality or trait. The dashing Prince Charming never shows up late to a meeting, always writes thank you cards, and I'm even willing to bet he puts the toilet seat down when he's done. Also his smile cures cancer, but that is neither here nor there.
What I'm saying is that when us normal, mundane, imperfect people watch a character like that find true love, we might tend to associate being in love with being them, all perfect and junk. Maybe true love does do that, but again I have no anecdotal evidence.
Reason 4: Society/Culture
Believe it or not, romantic love is a fairly new concept. For the bulk of human existence, marriages were the pairings of power. Be it land, money, or resources, the purpose of marrying (one of the highest acts of romantic love) range from creating peace between warring nations to making sure you didn't have any bastard children. The concept that a mystical, undefinable constant (love) would be the guiding force in connecting two people together for a lifetime is fairly new and still evolving.
However since this idea has existed, it's been pumped into our media and society. Why else? It sells. When you have a story that consists of something rare, sought after, and fulfills multiple desires (attention, personality, and lifestyle change) you are gonna sell the shit out of that. And once something stays in media long enough it becomes part of society, and occasionally once it permeates society enough, it just might become part of one's culture.
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But Josh, all those reasons don't answer that question, you are in fact supporting the idea that everyone wants Hollywood love!
Not everyone. In fact alot of people don't want it. As I mentioned above, Romantic Love sells. But an important caveat in that idea is that you're selling to a demographic. Lots of people in the world aren’t in that demographic or are out of your market. And when you take the perspective of a global-historical context, your market is pretty fucking small.
Maybe in some more isolated part of the world, a young man sees love as complete dedication to his future mate who will help raise his children. Not having the same tastes in music or similar views on politics, just dedication to her survival and existence. Perhaps love is seen as something that comes after decades are spent together and a companionate love develops. Some couples see love as putting food on the table and making sure bills get paid every month. There are so many ideas of love that putting on spin on it is a rather difficult proposition.
However the idea of love has been shaped in a way so that most stories about it agree with each other. Although I do immensely enjoy getting to watch newer movies these days where the guy doesn't get the girl, especially when it's because of his/her flaws. Sure I feel a little bit disappointed at the end, but like everyone else I have not escaped the conditioning of romantic love.
I know very little about love but here is what it means to me.
Trust and loyalty beyond question because those I entrust my love I would have no qualms letting them hold my life in their hands.
Devotion, during outrageous things to make sure I do whatever they need. And standing by someone you love when it hurts you is worthy.
Compassion, because it’s more than likely they've sat and listened to my messed up problems and shown that compassion to me.
Willingness to hurt each other. Loving somebody means you want the best for them, and sometimes you have the better perspective on their functioning and need to tell them the honest truth to help them.
Hard Work. Love it isn't always easy and it's pocked marked by the inadequacies of human beings. I like small moments, and doing hard work when you're so tired, bored, frustrated, and disgusted, you've started hallucinating about smurfs taking slides down an ice sculpture--those are the moments I love working hard at the most, because no one ever will see it and grinding out for love is honest and good. Working all night in the backyard after a 12 hour shift at work building a table/bench with little light and no power tools (so you don't wake the recipient up) and throwing nails at sex-having cats then having to find said nails-- Those are the good moments.
Passion. This one and loyalty are pretty close to tied at the top of my list, because when I get passionate about something you can't stop me. I may seem outwardly gregarious to my friends, but I usually bury my emotions and feelings about most things, and my passion flows from that reserve and from it a joy that makes a smile an indelible expression on my face. All my energy for those other things comes from my passion.
I would kill and die for those I love. Because those that I love are just as--but usually more capable then I at doing good in this world.
Saying "I love you" isn't something that comes easy or ever often with me. But when I do say it, I mean it.
One day I hope to find the right girl and apply all my passion and quirks to creating our own love story. It'll be ours and it will be marked by all the things that are real to us, and hopefully nothing at all like a Hollywood love story, except the true love part.
Alright enough I am done being mushy, uhh Steaks! Hockey!! Strippers!!
Aah, the empty white box of a blog. From here limitless possibilities arise, and yet I am still flummoxed about the direction and magnitude of this blog. It has been eons since I've sat down and poured some passion into poorly formed and structurally unsafe words and paragraphs. The result is that I have fallen out of practice and I feel guilty because I read a certain Ms. Jessie's blog which is a whirlwind ride on a current of ideas, emotions, and words. Your writing prowess makes me feel sad about how shitty mine is, but then I see you want to be an international journalism writer and I feel a little bit better. However you were bemoaning the fact that everyone has stopped blogging on here and once again I am overridden with guilt.
So what to write? Well unfortunately I have no poignant--aside real quick, I just read the Sanford love letters, and damn, turns out he's not the most boring man in the world--observations to make that would impart any significance to anyone. Thus I will just have to stick what I hardly know best, me.
I feel like I have made some changes in my life these last 6 months or so since I have been away at school. These changes seem to be in how I think, and see the world. For a lack of buildup or a better phrase, I have been trying to be more peaceful with the world. Yes, let the hippie/college-cliche insults hurl. I would like to blame this new trend in my life on learning. You see, the more I learned at school, the more I realized how little I actually knew. And the extent of what I did know could be absorbed by a clever monkey. So I'm at a good school with little knowledge and in a major that's over-saturated. However I took some interesting classes. Dr. Byde and my Psychology of Science and Religion classes all imparted a common theme. Unconditional love. I even heard from a really smart guy with a PhD explain that the fundamental force of the objective reality of the universe as evidence by quantum computing was unconditional love (Conscious Realism if you're curious). I wrote a paper on that guy's idea and even though I rushed it the paper was quite tricky, interesting, and fun to write.
This theme of unconditional love intrigued me. If it is the pull of self-actualization, the plateau of enlightenment, the energy of a quantum universe, then fuck, maybe I should check it out. However I ran into some problems right away, namely the stubborn jerk named Josh. I tend to be arrogant, judgmental, and stubborn enough to out fart a cow. Don't ask me how or why, just be assured that I would give that cow a run for its money.
Using my own inadequacies as a starting point I was able to deduce that to have a shot at delving into the realm of unconditional love, I need to change myself a bit first and create a more apt state of mind. So, I've tried to be more peaceful. I've let stuff go. I've even admitted I'm wrong to other people. To put a crown jewel on my peacefulness tirade, I have even become less ferocious in my attacks on religion. Crazy-talk, I know. The results so far? Pretty relaxing.
Why? I can think of 2 reasons off the bat. 1. Control I like to be in control of my life and the things that affect it. And taking such a divergent turn upon my personality is more proof that I can control me. I like this. 2. It's a more effective life I am able to absorb so much more when I don't have to fight it right off the bat. Nowadays I am more likely to give an idea or a person the benefit of the doubt whereas before I would not have. I still maintain my paranoia and judgments of other people, but ideas and concepts seem to flow in easier. Being in an environment of learning has added to this allowing my worldview to grow without being entirely encumbered with my biases and judgments.
I still maintain my devotion to ideas however, even more so now. Floating in a realm of knowledge as a mere child has made me grasp onto those ideals and morals I have experienced to be truthful in my life. There's some artful imagery in there to better describe that, but it escapes me. My passion has not escaped me either. It is very invigorating know that the ideals I am deciphering and evaluating at this point in my life will be those that form the basis for the rest of my life. I owe it to myself and any person I have meaningful interactions with in the future to examine and choose the best morals I can. At first I thought my passion and zeal had dampened a bit in being more peaceful, however I realized that it has morphed into something much better, refined, and dare I say it--elegant? Hard to believe that when I started writing here more than 2,000 days ago I would describe something about me as elegant.
As my jaw surgery nears and essentially my 2009 Summer ends, I look forward to the amount of time I will have to start working on meditation.
