Sunday, June 25, 2006

Understand what you need


Sometimes when I wonder, thoughts come to my head that make me feel a little sad, glad, excited, overwhelmed, noncommittal, unsure, determined, reassured, and in-touch. Wondering about us. As a entity, a thing, a species, a cock-sure lump of nitwits who are determined to find out exactly how long it will take to eradicate all that surrounds us so as to assure our downfall. Regardless of whether some feel that we have no right to pull the planet along with us, we are doing it quite successfully. Isn’t that what they say? Survival of the fittest. Surely that implies that some are to not survive. Which in-turn implies that of those destined to not survive, and by the very nature of not surviving, there is bound to be an impact of some sort on the surrounding life and non-life. So not surprisingly, we are performing, as our own philosophy would have us perform where we in the place that we find our selves in.

It is no secret that geologically we have only realized the smallest fraction of our world’s existence. It is also no secret that regardless of our involvement, the world we inhabit has a definite life span, which is ultimately determined by our Sun and other objects flying through the vacuum far above our head and far below our feet. There are yet other determiners just geologic inches below our feet. Bubbling liquid minerals that feel quite an urge to surface and apply another coat. Like a cake with icing, sprinkled with powdered sugar. Boom! Ooze… Sprinkle :)

Why is it that the center of everything is only apparent when not being looked at? As in the behavior of a particle. Sure you can see many centers when looking away from the center, but stop to examine its exact location and pwang! It presents itself all over the place, simultaneously and/or concurrently. My oh my what a pleasure it is not knowing what is going on. It is still my standing that we need to ‘understand what you need.’ I made a bumper sticker that says just that. I sometimes wonder how many or if any people explore that statement to the extent that I intended. Understand what you need. The first interpretation is often to just understand what it is that you need so as to not overuse the resources that surround us on this planet. The intended meaning is to understand what you need to understand. We are in an informationally obsessed western world. I have found my self driven to the edge of a precipice by this information. It is no fun when the most easily obtained information is the negative stuff. Death despair disease crisis crime cunning news is all around us. There are a couple nifty things going on other than the quilters at the University Lutheran Church of Hope you know; but you have to dig deep and far to encounter that stuff first. Instead of trying to understand it all, or thinking that in some way I might be able to understand things that are ‘going on,’ I decided that I need to understand the things that I feel that I need to understand. Huh, imagine that. Putting societal pressures of what you should or should not know aside and focusing on the things that you feel are valuable. Let me try that.

On that note, I pass the candle on to the next brave soul who wishes to announce their nonsensical landerings in the direction of center.

Saturday, June 24, 2006

I thought.

Just when I thought it was time to come to some sort of conclusion, things changed. I am still waiting for something else to happen. However, it came to me the other day, as I was biking home, uphill, on my one-speed Schwinn, from seeing Mission Impossible III, and it was 1:30 in the morning, that it is me that decides my destiny. Silly really. That it even seemed like a revelation at the time. It also occurred to me that the things that I've been saying to teenagers for the past 6 years are the same things that I should be saying to myself. Actions speak louder than words. Stuff that you and I know, feel, sense, describe, know. But without doing any of those things they are worthless. Not to say that I would think of myself or anyone else as worthless if they didn't act on the very things that they are talking about. But the sentiment is one that appeals to me.
Now. I set out to perform something back in January of this year, and once I stopped just a little, I seemed to have stopped for sure. Silly me. This is what I want to be doing. Whether the prose is being read or not, for the time being. In order for it to happen I need to stand my ground and just make it so. Words seem choppy in the middle of the night.
It is with certainty that I remark. My only wisdom is that which befalls upon itself the tide that changes with time and knows not when to start, but when to stop.