|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| is a solvent. it evaporates extremely quickly and its fumes can result in some rather undesirable things from what i understand. what kinds of things? i don't know. and i won't be finding out, because i won't be using any more of it now that i know how useless it is at removing polyurethane resin.
Christmas concert today at my dear alma mater. how strange it did feel to sit in the auditorium and remember how it felt to be in those shoes. in that tux. performing with them. but ah, times have changed. still are changing. it was cool to see some people again. drum majors were in the same place for the first time i can remember since graduation. so that was cool. the younger murphy gave me a toothpick that was cinnamon flavored. it was nasty. bill and i exchanged old jokes. and that's about all. it was cool.
i'm wearing a bracelet that i forgot was very important to me. i stumbled across it today. i'm very glad. it doesn't mean what it used to, and i guess it never will again. things change. people change. i suppose i ought to take to heart those words inscribed upon it.
hm so i guess not too much has happened since last time i wrote here. which is why i haven't really been writing here. nothing's been happening to write about. all done for the semester, and i have been for one week now. i just saw all my grades. and here they are:
programming. A.
english. A-.
art. A.
precal. B+.
jazz lab. A.
jazz combo. A.
philosophy. B.
to be totally honest. i wanted more a's. but who doesn't want more a's? i suppose in view of everything, i did just fine. especially in english. thought i would fail that one. a-. not bad. all of this puts my gpa at 3.61. which is very good. so alrighty. good first run.
lately i've been going back and forth as regards how i look at the world. sometimes i'm ok with it, and i just want to keep on going and do things and even though some parts of life aren't going to be fun, maybe get some things done. other times i'm really excited about things and i know that life will ultimately be what i make of it and i can make it really good. i haven't been feeling that way so much lately. then sometimes my cynicism just takes hold of me, and it's like, i don't necessarily want to give up, but i don't want to put up with anything anymore. i don't want to not do anything. i just want everything to be cool. to be good. to work out. lately everything seems so difficult and unpleasant. i've always known i would eventually have to start actually working lol. but the world can be so discouraging. all this corporate nonsense. the only way to get out of it is to buy into it until you can, and i'm not the best person in the world. i know that. sometimes i worry about whether i won't lose sight of myself during the time when i have to put up with the world before i can get away from it. i guess that's a risk that i'll just have to take.
right now it just all looks so cold.
yeahyeah. it'll all work out and be fine and i'll make it through somehow and blah blah blah. i know. it'll be fine. i'll be fine. as long as i keep on fighting, i'll be fine.
sometimes it's just hard to take up arms.
| | |
| you look a bit bloodied. and i wonder what it could mean.
i wonder what lots of things could mean, really. i think it's just time right now for me not to know what everything means. and that's ok. i'll know eventually. for now, perhaps it is time that i took certain fates into my own hands.
school has been interesting. i've kind of been experiencing a revival of interest in just about everything - music, programming, philosophy - in addition to internalizing a few concepts that have opened the possibility of my enjoying things i never saw much use for before - english, for example.
now hold on, folks. i don't mean to say that i like english now. certainly not. i still despise the way it's conducted. i'm just saying that certain aspects of english, when their object is a piece of literature that is actually worth reading, can be quite beneficial, and yes, even enjoyable. the class as a whole, no, no. not enjoyable. but some parts of it certainly can be, if you know how to manipulate them.
by extension, i'm learning how to learn much more effectively. i've been trying to type this in a way that explains it effectively, but i can't seem to manage it, so i keep deleting what i have. i guess what it boils down to is that these days, i'm less concerned with what i DON'T want to learn, and more concerned with actually learning what i DO want to learn - a vast collection of knowledge which, i am finding, exists in far more places than i had perceived when i was viewing the world more cynically. i'll use my literature class as an example. in previous literature classes, i hadn't realized the value of the actual objective of writing papers, which is to analyze a piece of literature for what it is and organize your thoughts on it to construct a well-supported and meaningful presentation of said analysis. so i would grudgingly write a paper, investing little effort, not really trying to do anything other than compile enough textual evidence and force some unsupported interpretation that i invented in order to scrape by in the class and not have to think about it for any longer than the absolute minimum amount of time. but lately i've kinda realized that writing a paper is basically the same as writing a computer program. it's not so useless after all. there are actually ways to derive a legitimate interpretation from a piece of literature. i'm pretty convinced that davern ruined my chances of understanding that last year. THAT guy really did just make stuff up. but i dunno. i still don't LIKE it, but i'm starting to see that it's not USELESS. and now, i'm actually kind of anxious to finish my paper lol.
i can hit a high g on trumpet if i'm fresh. it's not the strongest note in the world, but i'm past the point of it just being a squeak now. it's an actual note. that's good progress man. i'm getting a lot better at jazz on piano. guitar is struggling to hold my interest, but i can enjoy it when i actually play. i don't play much baritone anymore, but i did a few days ago, and thanks to my recent trumpet infatuation, i can play super high on it lol. without warming up i played up to double f without trouble. and hm. that's where i am musically right now.
i haven't had pizza in foreverrr.
| | |
| plane? bus? fast train? gym floor?
oh, what a world...
in the dark icy solitude of my dorm room, watery sorrows from deep within manifested themselves as i remembered.
oh, what a world it seems we live in.
(insert bolero.)
there was one time very near the beginning of this semester when i was sitting in jazz workshop, listening like we used to in the beginning of it all to those blasted intervals and chords. over and over. what's this note? what's this note? how many notes am i playing, and what are they? i was pretty good with the intervals, if there were only a few. i wasn't too good at getting down those eight-bar melodies. and those chords nearly always had the best of me. but there was one time, one of the first times we had to say how many notes were in a chord, when i was listening. and i heard them. there were five. i heard them all. and suddenly, something made sense to me. something was opened. it wasn't just a musical something. though it was that. but no, it was not merely that. when my ear opened up, and i heard - no, FELT - all of those notes... i felt something of the world that i had never felt before. and the world itself became something it had never been before. not to me.
i can't stand it when people take the world at face value. when they think that what they see immediately is all there is to be seen. that the objective of life is to have a gigantic tv and lots of video games to go with it, inside of a mansion that they can afford thanks to their dead-end job at which they lie to other men every single day, which they drive to in their bmw. the american dream, it seems. or the anti-american dream, wherein the subject neglects all responsibilities, listens to underground music and smokes a pack a day, decrying such things as organized religion and "the man" whose oppression over him, unbeknownst to the victim, cannot rival his own careless oppression over himself. fine. but that's not life. don't ever tell me that's life. maybe it doesn't mean anything to anyone else in the world, but i heard five notes.
people seem content in believing this world to be essentially empty. perhaps it makes sense that i should struggle to find peace in a world bursting at its seams with meaning, only a miserable sliver of which i can grasp. a sad portion of which is made by empty men unavailable to good men.
i remember how it was to be cold.
| | |
| i am drinking a vast quantity of eggnog.
well, kind of. whenever i want a lot of it i just get a typical amount and then water it down with milk. it tastes pretty much exactly the same that way. so i can drink as much as i want and it's not TOO excessively unhealthy.
the season only comes around once a year, after all.
today was such a cool day. i did sleep entirely too late, which wasn't very good of me, but when i finally did crawl out of bed, i felt like everything was alright. like everything would keep on being alright. i was so happy to feel that way. sometimes i wake up with this horrible sense of dread, like "oh great, THIS is still happening." not today.
i did yardwork. the yard is all nice now. i wish i could have helped out my dad and brother at the warehouse, but i was supposed to do the yard last weekend. silly me, not wanting to do manual labor on a sunday. =|
so anyway, i did it today.
then i grilled fajitas because my relatives were coming over. they're still here now.
grilling has some effect on my mind that i can't really describe to you. it has that effect, though, because i grilled on one of the last days i was home before i left to go on tour. so now every time i fire up that beast, i start to feel a little like i did then. what a strange feeling. the sadness of knowing you're about to leave, but the enormous excitement at the journey that must be in front of you. ahh... felix culpa....
i love grilling for that reason. and also because i am very good at making those fajitas. those things were fantastic.
then we just finished up my uncle's website, which i mostly did, with some limited but extremely important help from my dad. he did a relatively small portion of it, but a portion that i could never have done by myself. can't blame me. i'm new in the industry. he has like twenty-five years' experience on me. i'm glad to have been able to work together with him on it.
and now, at the end of such a monumental day, i sit here, with my family, drinking eggnog. the feeling of grilling is still within me. i feel much like that now. sadness, because there are so many things that i know i can't have. still. and that i never will have. some that i don't know whether i ever will have. but none of those things are lost in vain. i, my friends, am here for a reason. i have a purpose in this world. and i will accept whatever consequences i must in order to serve it well. all of this will have been worth it to finally hear those words...
"euge bone serve et fidelis."
| | |
| it's a very sensitive subject, and one upon which i place great importance. a good man values his community, even if he does not enjoy it, and is obligated to treat every human being with as much respect and dignity as being human inherently demands. and so, i have a few points to bring to light.
it seems to me that one commonly overlooked issue of importance in human relations is the initial assumptions regarding the character of a person before you know anything about them. not only does this have enormous impact on the actual interaction between people, but it also speaks volumes of the one holding such assumptions. one with a more cynical outlook, assuming that everyone (or anyone) they meet will be bad, is probably someone who is cynical and malicious in many other respects. men who believe weakly in something get it right in the big picture. men who believe deeply in something get it right in every last detail. that being said, i believe that when it comes to judging a man as characterized by his actions - bearing in mind that his heart is God's alone to judge - one's initial view must always be positive. we must always think good of a person, because to think negatively of them must be justified. to say of a man, "he is probably honest," is a respectable and decent thing to say of him, not in that he necessarily has merited such a comment - at this point let us assume that he has merited no comment at all - but rather in that to say of him the opposite, "he is probably a liar," is groundlessly malicious and offensive. not only do such judgments offend the victim, but they make it more difficult for him to succeed in any kind of exchange between the two of us. it is more difficult to prove to a man who thinks you a liar that you are honest than it is to prove to a man who thinks you honest that you are a liar. therefore, in practice, it is destructive to assume the negative of someone because all mutual transactions are immediately hindered, which is to the advantage of no one, especially not if they are in fact the opposite of what you assume of them. if the quality of the accused is in fact good, yet the accuser assumes evil, the accuser loses at least as much, for he deprives himself the opportunity of a healthy bond with a good man. in principle, to assume the negative of a man is unwarranted malice, as contrasted with unwarranted love. which of those is preferable should be obvious. there is no contest.
moving past the first assumptions, first judgments should be made carefully and generally lightly. depending upon the severity of whatever action a man has committed to influence another man's opinion of him, the gravity of judgment warranted is variable. for example, if you watch a man kill a baby for fun, a heavy judgment is warranted. this is not the main focus of my concern, so of actions which very obviously must confer conclusive judgment, suffice it to say that a man's actions do indeed reflect his character. however, in common discourse the more frequent circumstance is one wherein some action subtly gives rise to an overall feeling of a man's character; for example, if one man does not speak at length with another man, an endless quantity possible explanations exist for that kind of behavior. to rashly assume that because a man speaks little to you, he does not like you or think you worthy of his company or respect, would be wrong. perhaps he simply does not know what you have in common, and so his knowledge of what to discuss is ill formed. perhaps upon getting to know you better, he could become a very close friend with whom you could discuss any topic in depth. granted, he may in truth think you unworthy of his company or respect. he may dislike you. perhaps even groundlessly. for this reason, it is of course not undesirable to take away a "first impression" from an experience. but it is unwise to judge any aspect of a man in excessive haste and little knowledge. in lighter articulation - get to know someone before you decide not to like them.
my final tangent for the night is of disagreements. surely within the course of human events, disagreements between men are inevitable. i think it extensively self-evident that no man is right in every dispute he encounters (save Christ and Mary, both without sin). therefore, sometime in the lifetime of each man, he will be wrong. this truth is important to understand as reciprocal. in any given dispute, though obviously one must think himself right, never should we forget that the other man is not alone in his ability to be wrong. so, too, can every man. it is important within the context of a dispute never to seek expressly the resolution of the dispute, for in so doing we seek for one man to triumph over another. thus the objective once more becomes one of destruction and malice. instead, we should seek for the truth to come to light, no matter who posses it initially, that the truth may be known by all. with this attitude we more aptly realize that the truth may not yet be in our hands, and with such an adjustment of objectives, the end result becomes not the triumph of one man over another, but the triumph of both men and the failure of satan, who is the father of all lies. bearing all of this in mind, we must proceed with the utmost caution and sincere self-examination in honest discourse. if you believe another man to be wrong, explain your own position, never denying him the dignity and respect that all men inherently deserve. when he explains his own, grant him the same good treatment, regardless of whether he returns it, and consider the reality that he may be right, and you, being but a man, may have been deceived. if ever you find such to be the case, as undoubtedly you must at some point, admit so quickly and emphatically. "i say! i've never seen it that way before. what you say makes sense. i see now that i have been utterly incorrect all this time. thank you, friend, for opening my eyes." and do keep sincerity in mind. insincerity of response is worse than no response at all, not only in that it will aggravate anyone else involved, but also in that when we see that we are wrong, we must truly believe and accept both that changing our stance will immerse us further in truth, and also that it is unsurprising that we could have erred. do not allow your own pride to cloud your judgment; you are always the worse for it, and others may be as well.
i have throughout this entry referred to that respect and dignity which all men inherently deserve. allow me to explain. all men are the children of God, and all men have the same potential for merit. humanity is beautiful, and any manifestation of humanity has some share in that beauty, no matter how much their choices eradicate any merit that may have been earned. certainly a man can earn his way out of being liked or respected. but no man can commit an atrocity of such nature as to remove his own worthiness of love. a man is still a man, even if he chooses to be filthy. his fundamental being is valuable. his soul is valuable. and for proof of this we look to the ultimate example, our Heavenly Father, who we are told loves all of His children unconditionally, regardless of what evils they may choose. this is not to say that their evils will pass without punishment. even the Lord will deny of the unrighteous what they have not earned. yet ever does He value them all the same, and the angels weep over souls lost to darkness. why, if their actions have merited no love? because their very being merits it. it does not merit favor, nor liking. but all men deserve love. we should never seek to harm even the most wicked of men, but to help him come to good.
we are all men. we ought all treat others how we expect to be treated. there's no sense in judging as you would not have yourself judged. no sense in refusing to admit your own fault when you demand of others that they admit theirs. please remember, friends, that in the end we are all called to be like Christ, who looked sinners in the eye, dined with them, forgave their sins.
Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum.
| | |
|
True