Archive for February, 2010

A friends cat is passing away soon. Of course, the pet will be missed. This got my brain moving on ways to look at things in not such a negative light.

I’ve had the idea in the past that events are locked in history, and can’t be revisited. The idea went that in addition to exploring things geographically in 3 dimensions, you also have to be cognizant of your constant travel through the fourth dimension of time. Your life is like flowing down a river. You can steer yourself around, and see what you want, but you can’t travel back upstream, and once you past something, you can’t revisit it.

But, the important thing about a river is that that something is still there, even after you pass it. Just because you can’t get to it and interact with it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

By analogy, I assert that just because you aren’t presently experiencing something, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. The cat still exists between when it was born (1993?) to 2010. In fact, everything always exists. The fact is everything is going to end someday (morbid as it may seem) it doesn’t stop existing in space time. The cat left its mark on the world, it will always be there.

Christians are way obsessed with future rewards for current hardships. They are even more obsessed with death, and what happens after death. Most people get worried about what happens after one dies. I try to not look at things like that. I’m here now, I’m just experiencing the story of my life. Just because the story will be over one day, doesn’t mean the story stops existing. I’m here, right now, and I will always be here, right now. Its a much more pleasant way to look at the world, and also makes me realize that I have to keep my story fresh and interesting.

This isn’t so far away from the Hindu Religious belief of the world, I’m told. Where god is a director and the world is a acted as a some sort of cosmic play. (Not literally, anymore than christians believe god is really a giant bearded man who sits in the clouds).

Some things just aren’t possible. For example, this puzzle: Draw a line through the drawing below in such a way that you only go through each gap once (you can cross your own line):

You can keep trying, but its just not going to work. This applies to finding your place in the world, and finding people that think the same as you (friends!)

The smart people figure out right away that where you were born and were raised presents a problem. Were you were raised was made for raising families, not living a social life. The social ones move away. You go where you fit in, do what you like, and you don’t stay where you don’t fit in. If you like water, you’re going to have an unpleasant time in Saskatdewean – so naturally, you move to somewhere better, like California, where the sun is always shining, people are out walking around, and all the woman are beautiful (you sort of have to be to be comfortable in a swimsuit, and so you don’t sweat and overheat and die from obesity and warm weather).

Business man? Go to New York! Hardcore fighting machine? How about the Marines! One of those weird hippy types? Go buy a hookah and get a liberal arts degree on the St. Paul U of M campus! Like the outdoors? How about get a place up north, or out west! Party type? Go to St Cloud! Like guns? TEXAS. Party like a rockstar? Vegas! And this doesn’t even cover international destinations.

The point is its completely counterproductive to be in a culture that is incompatible with your goals or lifestyle, weather your culture is a product of your job, social circle, or geographic location. Case in point, it’s no surprise that there is nothing to do around here. Go to a city council meeting, you will confirm all the city does is build roads and manage infrastructure. Finding strangers up here is ridiculously difficult, much less a date or a wife. This city is made for raising families, social shutins, and retirement. If you want to find mothers and alcoholics, we have plenty in the suburbs. Thats what you do here. Everyone else on the dating scene, everyone else on the social scene, everyone else with any clue as to how cure their boredom has left.

So everyone left, the massive social network that was high school is suddenly gone. We’re left with just the few of us who are friends, and of course we think we will be friends forever. But we realize that isn’t possible, everything ends, in this case because either personalities change, or people get married, or become pregnant, or in general have a shift of a change of values. But the group gets smaller. It keeps getting smaller.

And we wonder why there’s nothing to do up here but drink. There’s nobody new to date, making us get so desperate we start dating close friends and screw up friendships in the wake. Nothing new to see. Its all just a depressing day to day blur.

Expecting something to happen that just won’t happen, well that sounds like agony. Like trying to draw a square circle, believing in something or forcing yourself to live some kind of impossible “not you” lifestyle, you’re just going to put yourself through agony and hell when it was never something that could have been delt with in the first place, at least not where / with who / how you thought you should have.

Try something different. Draw a rectangular square. Don’t even put up with following what you thought were the rules. Find something that makes sense to do. Anything is possible. You only live once.