Random Thought

So lately I write about stuff that's somewhat serious and everything, but I just have this crazy thought haha.

So, this happens quite frequently.....I spend a lot of time sitting at a desk at work. At least twice a week, I will have been sitting at my desk for HOURS, and when I go to get up and walk around, my stinkin' shoe is untied! I have not moved from my desk for them to work themselves loose, I have not moved for the "ears" of the tie to get caught on something to pull them apart. What is this phenomenon? I sometimes seriously beleive there really ARE little shoe-knomes that come and untie my shoes while I am diligently working at something.

And before you say it could just be something wierd with the shoes or laces.....it happens regardless of the shoes I am wearing, and regardless of wether or not I have tried new laces.

It's a conspiracy I tell you!

"Talking" and "Conversation"

For some reason lately I have been quite inspired to think about conventional society and the way people interact. I noticed something....that there is quite a huge difference between "talking" and having a conversation. Ever notice when you want to get to know someone, you almost 100% of the time are stuck in "small talk" and trivial jargon? Why is it so hard to just cut through all the bullshit and talk about REAL stuff?

"how was your day?"
"did you enjoy the nice weather we had the other day?"
"what's your favorite color?"

These questions are pretty unfascinating and don't tell you anything about the person answering them. So, why is it so "wierd" and difficult to get right to the questions you REALLY want answered? How do you make that transition? I recently noticed rather out of the blue that I FAR more enjoy talking to someone that is willing to ask questions beyond the standard trivial small talk. I like when my thoughts are challenged, when I can discuss the way I think about something and hear someone else's analysis. It made me wonder how and when the transition takes place when you meet someone....

How long before someone is comfortable enough to ask a REAL question? What are the chances the other person actually answers honestly, if at all? How do you know where someone's limit is as far as their comfort level of things to discuss?

Actually, I am just now remembering a situation I experienced while attending college. A complete stranger came up to me while I was sitting on a bench outside reading/studying and asked if I had a few minutes. He immediately asked me what religion I was, what my thoughts on God were, and what extend of a higher power I beleive in. Looking back, I had felt EXTREMELY akward about this conversation...but I did answer all of his questions honestly, and we had a little debate for maybe 5-10 mins. I feel bad now because I was so wierded out at the time, but this person gave me probably the most meaningful conversation I had all week at the time.

I think now that I have realized that's the type of exchange I prefer with someone, I somewhat wish I could go back and re-do that conversation a bit. Maybe even thank him for the debate and at least get his name. Nonetheless, I can't help but think that if I were to approach someone in a similar fashion they might be wierded out just as I was, regardless of topic. What makes people this way? Are we all this way? Born this way? Maybe we get raised and conditioned this way.

Methinks it's time to try being more direct with conversations and see how people react. Ask some crazy off-the-wall questions and see what happens.

I'll report back how it goes after a few tries haha

In a particularly good mood

As of late, I must say life is pretty awesome, so I figured I would share.

So I spent all of last week preparing my new house to move in. Old wallpaper was putting up a pretty darn good fight but in the end I prevailed, though not without completely chopping the crap out of my thumbs from gripping the putty knife so brutally. Moved all of my stuff in on Saturday, painted the kitchen, and set all of my stuff up where I wanted it. Did final cleanup and whatnot sunday morning, and then went and watched the superbowl at a buddies house.

Besides that, alot of the things I have been working towards have been falling into place just as I have been hoping for a long time. It feels good to know that I made a lot of correct decisions to arrive here. A year ago I was not very optimistic I would get to this point, but I worked hard for it and here I am.

I was supposed to have a room mate move in to my house with me, but things didn't work out as he planned so it's going to be cutting it pretty close financially, but I am up for promotion so it shouldn't be a strain for too long.

I'm looking forward to making changes and putting my personal touches into the house to make it my own. I think this summer is going to yeild a lot of great experiences and fun times.

My music is coming along, we almost have a complete line-up now for the band....we picked up a great bassist recently that works really well with our dynamic, now all we need is a great vocalist to tie up the loose ends and really get to writing more. I'm excited that this is finally coming together too, I went a long time wishing I could play more and learn things from other musicians and it's finally looking like a possibility. Not having cable/internet/TV at the house means I will spend more time practicing and learning new techniques and finding new sounds to use for my own writing.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed reading about the most recent fruits of my labor! I'll update again soon hopefully (if I don't get super involved in house stuff and whatnot)

How many lines do we walk?

So, after some rather deep conversation something struck a bit of a chord within me. The discussion was about the differences between Truth, Brutal Honesty, and Downright Rudeness.

It became immediately apparent that the lines that separate these three things are not only thin, but very grey. It ends up being more dependant on the person on the receiving end; that is to say how easily upset they are and how apt they are to letting someone hurt their feelings.

Each person has thier own perception of what is truth, what is brutal honesty, and what is rude.

The issue, is that not everyone's perception of these is the same......so who's perception is the right one? Is anyone's?

So after sleeping and thinking about this some more, I find myself wondering just how many other situations this applies to. How many lines are we each walking on a daily basis? hourly? every minute? every second?

I find myself wanting to ask people what they consider the difference to be between truth, brutal honesty, and rudeness now that this topic has come up....and maybe after that, I'll find some other "lines" to poll about.

Sometimes I really just think as a society we have all grown too "soft"....that we have all come to a point where we are so concerned with all the opinions besides our own that what other people think is capable of hurting our feelings so easily. We have evloved into a "bleeding heart society" and now governments, agencys, committees, etc. all create "rules" and "regulations" and "standards" to "protect" everyone's feelings. We are censored; forced to comform.....to be "politically correct".

It is rediculous......what happened to being able to be yourself? If I hurt someone's feelings....who's fault is it?

Is it my fault for saying it? Is it yours for caring what I think?

What if someone asks me a question, and at the end of the question says 'be honest'.....and I say something honest, but it is inherently a put-down? Am I at fault if I hurt their feelings? or can they value my honesty and accept it? afterall, they asked for my honesty right?

So what about you? Do you live your life expecting everyone to have something nice to say all the time? Do you like everything to come with a grain of salt, or a grain of sugar? Maybe there is no right answer, maybe it all depends on context....but what then, can be standardized?

There-in lies the beauty of human interaction.

Analyzing myself a bit....

So recently I have been talking with a couple close friends about their relationship issues (I'm everyone's favorite 'friend-to-confide-in') and it somewhat made me realize a lot about myself. (I actually enjoy having deep conversations about life's battles and do not mind being everyone's go-to-guy BTW) It's funny how you sometimes don't realize certain things about yourself until you are speaking with a friend about your experiences to try to help them wrap their head around their own problems.

What I have realized, is that I just plain don't beleive in the traditional concept of dating.

The traditional way goes something like this:

Two people meet, act a certain way to impress each other, do fancy things to demonstrate "value", decide to date exclusively, give up a bunch of other things in their lives to spend time together, and then from there they slowly alienate their friends and family until they either break up or get married(afterall, those are really the only two outcomes of a relationship).....and if they break up they each somewhat "run back" to their friends for sympathy and try to re-kindle the things they let suffer.

I strongly disagree with this process. I have come to realize that I quite like my life the way it is when I am single. I play by my own rules, attend to all my hobbies, and have strong relationships with my best of friends. I am almost always in a great mood unless I am ill. Overall, I am more productive, and less stressed.

The thing that kills me with relationships, is that I have noticed this "trend" of after about 4-6 months of serious dating it seems females feel that they should be the single most important aspect of their significant other's daily life. They get upset when their boyfriend wants to go have guys nights, hang out and watch sports games with their friends, spend time on a hobby, etc. I honestly have yet to meet a girl that does not apply to this analysis. Why are we expected to allow all of the other parts of our lives suffer in favor of catering to a female's need for constant validation? In my opinion, what makes the human race so great is that we are all such different people despite the fact that on a molecular level we are the same. Each one of us has our own hobbies, interests, values, etc. Why can't we just appreciate that about each other? In my opinion, there should be just as much quality time APART as quality time TOGETHER. Now I am not saying I think that someone should literally not change anything about the way the live their life to accomodate a relationship, I just think the extent of the expectations that seem to exist in society are way out of line. It is all too rare to have a friend who's girlfriend doesn't give him a hard time about regularly spending time with his friends (who have been around much longer that her and have probably influenced his life a great deal more), let alone ENCOURAGE free time apart.

I would hope that I can meet someone who is very independant much like I am, someone with her own group of friends that she spends time with regularly, someone with their own career and goals established, someone driven, someone with hobbies of their own,etc. I think the best thing would be to have to people that can grow together yet keep in touch with their friends and continue to indulge in their hobbies and dreams without it negatively affecting the other person. Is this too much to ask? I don't think so... and honestly I feel the odds are in my favor, because from a statistics standpoint their are more women then men in the world.....so I think I can afford to be a bit more picky than a female.

Had an Interesting Dream About Death....

So last night I had a rather strange dream. It was quite vivid and I don't fully know how I feel about it. I had a dream that I was in a strange place, waiting in some sort of line. This line was similar to what you find in the height of the summer at an amusement park waiting for a ride. I remember there being friends and aquaintances in this line with me, and we were discussing how we did not know what we were waiting in line for. At some point, we discussed what the last thing we remember was before all of a sudden being in this line, and the realization was that we had died. While waiting in the line, there was a large hill that seemed to go downwards for eternity, and more and more people were headed up the hill and getting into line as well... and we would see more people we knew.

I don't quite know what to make of this dream, but it was pretty strange. Maybe I will get out the ol' sketchbook and color up the image I remember from the dream....