Y27

Once upon a time, I was born. It was an experience. I leave ‘experience’ free of adjectives because the first few I thought of sounded pretty gross and I had trouble (wasn’t willing to think about it for more than a few seconds) thinking of non-gross adjectives that I could actually confirm were true. You see, I don’t remember much about my birth. I do, however, remember a plethora of things that have happened since then. Turns out I’m alive, and when you’re alive, your brain captures and holds onto snippets of life that we like to call memories. In its capturing and general awareness, the brain is also pretty good at noticing things. Our ability to notice things and manipulate what we’ve noticed into self-awareness and observations and lessons and understandings separates our mental capacity as humans; our willingness to go through this process often and openly quantifies our capacity to live above the mundane. I like to think I’m not overly mundane, and I credit that to the aforementioned process, which is available to all humans, of which I am one.

Below you will find a blog post. I have written this blog post in honor of my birthday. This post has been posted a decent amount of time after my birthday due to lack of internet. It is still valid. I do this every year to recount important lessons I’ve learned from important experiences I’ve experienced since my last birthday. This year is no exception. Come and learn of my experience:

1.) True to yourself

In posts past, a common theme of my musing has been being true to myself. All of those musings attempted to approach the concept via the lens of integrity. Integrity is an intensely immensely important part of living a healthy and centered life, as far as I am concerned. However, this year, I want to muse the semantic opposite of this idea as originally phrased, and that means not being TOO true to oneself.

My integrity is something that I've always wanted to strengthen; and, no matter the level at which one’s integrity is found, can always be strengthened. Living with integrity involves, in essence, living according to what you know (or feel in the absence of unadulterated knowledge) to be true and right. If looked at in that sense, not being too true to yourself could fall under the spectrum of living with integrity. What I'm ultimately getting at is that sometimes our base desires go against our greater understanding or deeper feelings. And in those instances, we should try to be something a little different than what we are. Ejemplo: I am not the most proactive of people. I am not always outgoing or thoughtful or kind or social or understanding. And even though I can be these things sometimes, it’s not uncommon for my desire in any given situation to be to act in a way that is far from them. In short, I am human and am dross. My natural response in many situations is to take the low road. And were I to be unfalteringly true to myself, or to that desire, in all of those situations, I would be a pretty big douche.

I think self-mastery is one of the most important skills that we can develop. By definition, self-mastery involves overcoming (or maybe reconfiguring?) our base druthers. The very purpose of this would be to allow one to operate on a higher plane. Believing this to be the case then, my living in a way that discourages self-mastery is not living with integrity and is opening myself up to a series of feelings and actions that are perhaps the first to manifest, but the last to point me in the direction I know to be best.

So! I believe in being honest and patient with oneself and where one’s at, but I also believe in being discontent with the same. Honesty and patience are entirely different entities than lazy self-discipline, and should never be confused. I believe that we become better versions of ourselves when we exercise this honesty and patience in conjunction with aspiration and potential.  After all:

“We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are.”  - Max Dupree

I often like to look back and see how far I've come. That distance can never come to be if I continually stay where I am. Progress is made by being truer to one’s potential than to one’s present. Fake it ‘til you make it, because once you do, it's no longer fake.

2.) Creaturesque habit

Sometimes I feel like I repeat myself too much, and sometimes I feel like I don't repeat myself enough. The first is usually in terms of verbality, and the second in action. I'm a creature of habit. My Swype originally auto-corrected this to a creator of habit. That is something I need to be. And thus we embark on a new lesson. Thanks, Swype.

Forming good habits is a good thing—it's an essential thing in building towards a productive and fulfilling life. Forming good habits is hard. Forming good habits requires a lot of the things I described above, like self-mastery and large amounts of effort and uncomfortability and discipline and gumption and good habits and etc. But the nice thing about habits, is that once they they come to be, they become easy. A habit by definition is a habitual process or occurrence, i.e. one that requires little to no effort or comes naturally. Habits can only disappear when replaced by other habits, or habitual whatever. There's science involved in all this, but suffice it to say: It is important to form good habits. It is important to maintain good habits. It is important to avoid bad habits. Good habits maintained beget other goods habits. Bad habits maintained (even by inaction) beget bad habits. A series of bad habits compounded with more bad habits makes for a bad time, and is a difficult thing to bounce back from. I suppose in a way this ties in quite a bit to the previous section but I already wrote them separately and it would be hard to come up with a good segue. I choose to perpetuate my bad habit of taking the easy way out and promise to do better, and in doing so, simultaneously prepare for myself more opportunities to work on it in the future. I’m sure there’s a flaw in logic in there somewhere.

3. Brain Drain

Above, I said that something sufficed to be said. Apparently it did not, because herein I will expound on the aforementioned talking point. This is a section wherein I might discuss the glory of the human brain. An aspect of the brain in which I have particular interest is neural pathways. Neural pathways are the paths through which signals travel in our brains. The part of this process that is most pertinent and fascinating to me is the plasticity or adaptability of the brain and these pathways. Essentially, this points to how the pathways that are used or accessed more often become easier to… use or access—this is the science behind habits. Herein, then, lies the importance of proper brain maintenance. If one stops using neural pathways that have been developed by doing insert good thing here, those pathways get devoted to other things. If they were devoted to a good thing, you don’t want them to be replaced unless it’s by a better thing. It's easier to retain than to re-obtain. There are lots of ways to keep one’s mind fresh and growing. Do! It affects more things than one might realize! There are lots of easier ways to let your brain go. But don’t. It affects more things than one might realize.

4. Hail to the buttress

I think I’ve failed to make a secret of the fact that I feel relationships are important. For the longest time, I’ve had so many amazing people that have supported and inspired me throughout the years. Life, however, is not arranged in such a way as to be impervious to change. In recent times, a lot of close, amazing, closely amazing friends finished whatever brought them to my vicinity and moved on. I, however, did not, leaving me in whatever state I was in, but without them.

This was a difficult transition. I’m sure most have gone through a period where they have suddenly found themselves at a diminished level of support. The very definition of support is that it buoys and fortifies and uplifts. When that support is lost, a feeling of the opposite is sure to follow. Being affronted with a form of solitude, I chose to use it as an excuse to try and be more independent. I tried to use that time to refine myself as an individual. And that was good. But I realize now more than ever that it’s when I’m with and touched by others that I’m far and away at my best. Time that I spent trying to refine myself by myself was aight, but was also time that I could’ve spent practicing refinement in and through my interactions with others. And no matter how much I focus on and fight myself, more progress is always made when my focus is outward rather than inward.

Not to say that independence and autonomy are not important—on the contrary. But in my experience, I've found that it's easier to be independent and autonomous when I know that there's someone there to support and encourage me through it all. When we are independent and make independent decisions, we are bound to make poor decisions. It's easier to go through the whole process anyway when we know that there's someone to lift us back up when we've taken a spill. The way you get to have people in your life that are willing and able to do that is through being interdependent. Relationship-based investments pay the highest dividends.

5) Clever headline

Remember the past, but just enough to be grateful for the present. Old struggles may not be gone forever and may resurface when circumstances change. Be grateful for progress and for growth and for those struggles as they will help you be ready for whatever comes next (or at least to handle whatever comes next), which could be anything. Really.

6) Conclusion, of sorts

I like how these always start off detailed and descriptive and poetic and then trickle off into simple (more) to the point things. If you’ve made it this far, you probably understand the associated feeling because I wanted to be done writing as much as you probably wanted me to be done writing.

But! That in no way diminishes from the weight of these writings. A lot of bad decisions and thought processes went into them, and a few good ones. So they could potentially mean a lot. Life often takes unexpected turns. It often takes undesired turns. It will continue to twist and to turn. I’m happy about the things I get to continue to learn through the turns, though they may burn and feel stearn. I learned a lot last year, and I’ve already learned a lot this year. Our willingness to openly and frequently go through the process of learning from our past experiences quantifies our capacity to live above the mundane. Sometimes we end up being unwilling participants in this process. But willing or not, I’ve found it best to always be grateful for having participated, because: 1.) if you don’t glean the good from the bad, you end up with only bad  2.) something about never wanting to willingly do hard things because they’re hard, but also about some of the most precious moments coming from these times because they teach us what to value most.

That seemed like a powerful note to end on, but also seemed cliffhangerish. I don't know how to end this.

I've Been Away, pt. 2

Meaning is subjective. There are certain circumstances which hint at particular or common meanings, but ultimately, the meaning (or lack thereof) that we draw from any given _______ is pretty up to us. Because of its subjectivity, meaning can be found in just about anything. Even in cases where it might not inherently be present, the simple act of exploring possible meaning can reveal valuable insights and perspectives. I like to look for meaning in things. In my trip to the Dominican Republic, I did things. I chose to look for meaning therein, and this is what I found:

Education/Helping

Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” To an uneducated mind, referring to education as a weapon might be confusing. “edjikashun ain’t no sword” might go the refrain. True, uneducated person, but the pen is mightier than the sword, and pens are educational. Sometimes uneducated people don’t learn similes or metaphors. However, educated people learn things, and learned things become a weapon in the arsenal of learned people. Metaphorically. Hopefully not literally.

I ‘recently’ took a class on the wide variety of cultures in America. An eye-opening theme that was discussed at length was that of poverty and educational inequality. Educational opportunities can literally make a world of difference for their recipient. It was this realization that made we want to get involved in the DREAM Project in the first place. Their aim is essentially to provide these opportunities to youth and communities who wouldn’t receive them otherwise. This, to me, is meaningful, and something that I wanted to be a part of. It was inspiring to be able to interact with these kids and hope to influence their attitudes towards and capacity for educational progression. It also helped instill within me a new appreciation for something that sometimes seems like a burden. It is not uncommon for us to under-appreciate something until it’s gone, or, perhaps more accurately, until we witness the circumstance created by its absence. Witness I did, and appreciate I do.

New Relationships

Relationships are pretty cool, and are sufficiently valuable. While on my trip, I met people. Throughout the whole experience, I was able to establish relationships with these people. They all taught me and made my time there incoherently enjoyable. I couldn’t have asked to have been put with a better group of co-counselors, and the kids were the best. Although I was basically in a position as a teaching assistant, I feel like so much more of my time was spent learning, and much of that came from my interactions with others.

Old Relationships

Pop quiz:

I have been to the Dominican Republic:

a.) before

b.) , not

c.) .

If you guessed/asserted a and/or c, you are correct. For the purpose of this section, a is more accurate, and more telling. Before this summer, I had been to the Dominican Republic. Several years ago, I was called to the Dominican Republic as a missionary for my church. 

I spent two years there, getting to know people, serving them, and sharing a message I find of utmost importance. Just as it did this time around, spending that time working towards something meaningful resulted in some treasured relationships. Once I found out I would be returning, I contacted many of these people and was able to arrange to meet up with them after DREAM was over. Seeing them again resulted in some of the happier moments I've ever had. I also was able to go back and revisit a number of significant places from my past. Even if it was for a short while, these places were my home. I was able to walk the same streets, see the same sights, and feel similar feelings. 

It literally was a dream come true, and I’ll discuss why a bit more in the following section.

Revisiting the past

Sometimes, balance is difficult to find. Recently, for me, this has been a matter of learning from and appreciating the past while not living in it. However, while in the DR this summer, and especially after camp was over, I had no problem re-living the past.

Ever since having returned from the Dominican Republic the first time, I’ve wanted to go back. Badly. My first trip there has been the most influential period in my life to this point. When I touched down in Puerto Plata, I couldn’t believe I was back. As I rode to my hotel, passing so many familiar sights and sounds, it started to dawn on me. After spending a couple of weeks there, it felt like I hadn’t really ever left. In a lot of ways, returning physically allowed me to mentally and emotionally return to a time and mindset that were invaluable to me. As proposed above, sometimes we don’t know what we have until it’s gone. In this instance, I didn’t know what I had until I was gone. After having left the first time, I was able to more fully realize what this place truly meant to me, because of and in addition to what I had experienced there. Experiencing all of those same sights and sounds meant so much more this time around, as it was accompanied by an appreciation and gratitude that set what might seem plain apart as something special--something meaningful. And that’s what made my visit great: time travel. A lot of people say that they would love to live certain periods of their lives over again if they could do so knowing what they know now. And I got the chance to do that. Maybe not exactly, when it comes to the details, but in a way that was probably a bit more meaningful considering the stage of life that I’m currently at. Because of that, I have a bit of new experience to add to the old, and together they form something that makes me pero muy feliz.

Sapling

I recently graduated from college. An actual university has deemed my scholastic shenanigans worthy of accreditation. I view this as both an accomplishment and a successful pulling of wool over eyes.

The more time that passes, the more opportunity there is for occurrences to occur. I started college a while ago. Therefore, it could be (correctly) assumed that a lot has occurred since I started college. The impending ending of my college career has caused me to reflect on these occurrences. This process culminated on the last day of finals:  It was a beautiful day that began with my last trip to the testing center—a joyous occasion, until I got the score for my test. This reminded me why it was such a joyous occasion, and my joy forcefully poked my disappointment in the bum and asked it to leave. I then began the finishing touches on my final assignment as an undergraduate, a paper that simply needed to be turned in by the end of the day. I made quick (read not quick) work of the assignment, printed it off, stapled the crap out of it, put on my backpack, and jaunted down the stairs and out the door of my place of employment. Exhaustion and relief swarmed over me, but I was too exhausted to feel the relief, so exhaustion ultimately swarmed over me and my relief.

Per assignment, I headed toward the building wherein my destiny lie. Although I felt no need or desire to think, the significance of the moment was not lost on me—I was on my way to put the proverbial cherry on top of my non-proverbial undergraduate work. It had been a week of lasts, and, being a sucker for sentimental drivel, I had given due thought to each one that I had experienced to that point. This was likely the last of the lasts, and I gave it (more than) its due thought. For every building I passed, I took a moment to reflect on any memories I might’ve had there. There were a lot. I finally arrived at the building in question, got lost for 45 minutes looking for my professor’s office, lost my student ID card somehow, and dropped off my paper. Microcosms, chiasmi, etc.  Needless to say, this was a needlessly emotional experience for me. College over.

I have had the nostalgic experience of working near my Freshman dorm for the last 3 and a half years.  Most of the time, I didn’t think too much about it—the building was not in my direct path, so out of sight, out of mind.  It did become much more apparent, however, when the option of passing by was no longer available.  Recently, my university began the process of building new dorms, as the old ones had more than done their time.  I didn’t get long to be sentimental, though, as my old apartment building was one of the first they knocked down.  It was mildly sad when it happened.  But, with so many other things to think about, it quickly got pushed to the back of my mind.  However, it has begun to creep back to the forefront as of late.  And this because they have finally gotten around to building a new building in the exact location where the former stood. And this means construction. 

I love passing by construction sites; construction has always fascinated me. It’s fun for me to think about all of the possibilities of what that new structure or project could be. I imagine what it’s going to look like, what purpose it will serve, and how it will affect the surrounding area. After tickling my mind with all of the possibilities, I love watching the projects progress—the care in laying the foundation and the different strategies employed in sequentially completing each respective stage. And then the finished product is achieved and establishes itself in the collective stream of consciousness. Eventually, it stops being something new and exciting and it becomes a ‘permanent’ and regular fixture—after a while, it just becomes normal. You begin to forget that things weren’t always that way, and remembering back to when they weren’t takes progressively more effort.

I find a bit of significance in the timing of this new dorm. Said significance may not exist inherently, but Jung says that if I find significance, then it’s significant, and he’s famous, so there. In the process of reminiscing upon times past and younger days, I have continually been reminded that things are different now than they were then. It has become increasingly obvious that I am one of the things that is different. The more time that passes, the more opportunity there is for occurrences to occur. Therefore, it could be (correctly) assumed that a lot has occurred since I started college. Much that has occurred has played into my growth. Using the transitive property (I think. I don’t go to college), it can (also correctly) be assumed that I’ve grown a lot in and as a result of my time here. I myself have been a construction site, of sorts. Each new year, with its distinct twists and turns, has completed a new phase of the project that is me. I have yet to become a finished product (I hope), but my mind seemed to have forgotten some of the earlier stages of Project Me©. A perpetually interesting possibility when looking backwards is seeing how far we’ve come. Sometimes, this distance eludes us as we are wont to presently acknowledge only the aspects of ourselves which are most present—those which have become (and therefore have not always been) our norm. Looking back reminds us that often times they haven't always been the norm, and hopefully helps foster within us both appreciation for these changes and the process by which they’ve come about, as well as faith that we are capable of continuing similar processes in the future.

Maybe I’m just being a bit too sappy with all of this, as I am wont to be.  Maybe I’m just being a sapling.

These are pictures of saplings. I included the first one because it’s coming from an egg and that doesn’t make sense. I included the second one because it’s a sapling. Originally, I wrote sapling as a hilarious play on other words. Sap begets sappiness which is what I was demonstrating. Therefore, one who demonstrates sappiness would naturally be a sapling. I’ll give you a moment to stop laughing.  But upon further examination, sapling became the perfect word to describe much of my recent experience.  A sapling is a young tree or person. I’m not (particularly) young anymore, but I have been looking back on times when I was. Unpleasant and fecal as it may sound, I've been pruned and dunged and fertilized and have grown and been the better for it. There’s also the cyclical process of a new beginning stemming from any given end. This is the first time in a while that I haven’t had my immediate future planned out for me. I can do (almost) whatever I want. This is an extremely humbling and vulnerable thought. But vulnerability leads to tickling, which is always fun. And once I allow myself to get past the crippling fear of uncertainty, the prospects are extremely exciting. Life begins anew, so to speak, and the possibilities are endless. So I’m not too worried.  Another reason I chose the second picture above is because I found it significant that the sapling is gently held and supported by a pair of dutiful hands. I am and have been in the best of hands, and if I adhere to what I’ve learned through my experience (especially outside the classroom), nothing will go so wrong that it can’t eventually end up right. I can’t adequately express how grateful I am to all of those who have been a part of this experience, so here’s a picture of a dog on stilts:

And thus ends an era. As my old but meaningful building has crumbled and the construction of a new one has begun, one meaningful stage of life has ended and a new one has begun. I am but a mere sapling in the spice garden of life. The possibilities are endless and are currently tickling and crippling the crap out of my brain. Not literally, thankfully. Let’s see if I can’t make like Jurassic Park and turn this fortunate sap into something great.