What Makes Me Tick? 1st Post On Here In Years.

• Writing & Asking Questions - This has always been a passion of mine. My whole life (up until recently) has been documented on paper. I over think things, I wonder, I ask questions, I daydream, I replay certain situations in my head to figure out why everything panned out the way it did. I like to observe people and think about why they think or act the way they do. Albeit, I can be judgmental when I'm doing this, which is something I've been working on as I get older. I like to find patterns across the various tendencies that I see. I like to wonder about my future. I like to ask questions about people's motivations, things that happen in the world, things that don't happen in the wold, etc.
• Music - I love music in a different way than you do. For me it's nostalgic and certain songs bring me back to certain times, moods, or experiences in my life. That's why I'd rather listen to music on my headphones than in a crowded concert, but hey, that's just me.
• Work - It's exciting to know that I'm a small (yet influential) part of something way bigger than myself. I like feeling like I have an impact and seeing the results of my work.
• Social Interaction With Close Friends - I'll admit, I'm terrible at meeting people. But once I become close to someone, I can chat or complain or laugh with or encourage them all day every day (even if its online or via text). I value my close relationships a lot and maintaining them is very important to me. That's why generally, I'll ask "How was your day"? I talk to my close circle about their days all the time. I'll always know when they're having problems at work, going on a date, getting put into funny situation, etc.
• Things that make me think about life differently, even if its just for a little while - (movies, books, speeches from influential people, etc.) 
• Things that promote imagination - Pixar, stargazing, etc.

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Nostalgia, a diary entry

I'm on the ferry now and I thought back to when I took the ferry when I first started working and that memory felt strangely distant.  Time has literally flown right by me.  I don't even feel like its something I'm keeping up with.  Once June swings around I will have been a part of the "real world" for the equivalent of 1/4 of my entire college experience. How did I get here?  WHEN did I get here?  I almost felt older back when I was a senior in college because I was at the top of the hierarchy.  At the top, simply to end up right down at the bottom again.  


I've been reevaluating my outlook on a lot of things lately.  I think I've always made everything more difficult than it had to be.  Life is simple...you live it.  That's it.  It's funny how we tend to amplify our importance on earth when, in actuality, it all boils down to is survival (paying the bills) and reproduction (starting a family).  Any stresses beyond that, we've somehow fabricated for ourselves because we're afraid of feeling bored and/or lacking meaning.  I mean think about the people we look up to as kids - celebrities...and what are they doing?  Acting.

The Beatles

"I say in speeches that a plausible mission of artists is to make people appreciate being alive at least a little bit. I am then asked if I know of any artists who pulled that off. I reply, 'The Beatles did." 

— Kurt Vonnegut

NEW

Today in my diary, I started reminiscing about high school and how real the word "new" was to me back then.  "It was an exhilirating lifestyle, perfectly summed up by exciting and carefree.  All my significant first times piled into four years, experiencing everything with no memory of having done it in the past."


Then I started thinking about what life is, and how we slowly apply meaning to it with each first experience we give up.  I know that's phrased oddly, but if you think about it, every time you try something new, you lose the chance to ever get that one first-time feeling again.  I can still remember the first time I drove, how tightly I grasped the steering wheel and how slowly I took each turn.  The first time I snuck out of a house, and the first time I got caught.  Or the first time I really liked someone, and the first time I had my heart broken.  At first I felt a little nostalgic but then I realized...I'm experiencing everything new all over again.  I've recently delved into a life of 9-5's that I'm simply not used to.  Of course, it's been a little frustrating and hard to adjust but new none the less.  The thing is, experiencing something new in my life then and now feels different.  I feel more stable and ready this time, and that's when it hit me, this is what it feels like to grow up.  It's a sense a stability.... comfort...home.  I've worked my entire life sculpting myself into who I am today, and yet all I can do is miss who I was in the past.


So, I'm setting a goal for myself.  I'm going to step outside of my comfort zone, because I want feel "new" again.


Some photos dedicated to back in the day:

   

HOME IS NOT WHERE YOU LIVE, BUT WHERE THEY UNDERSTAND YOU

I never appreciated the beauty of this bridge until I left home for a while...

Puerto Rico Travel Photos

A visual entry of my recent trip to Puerto Rico:

the elegance of the hedgehog - Muriel Burbery

"If you imagine getting high at a party and sleeping around is going to propel you into a state of full adulthood, that's like thinking that dressing up as an indian is going to make you into an indian. It's a really weird way of looking at life to want to become an adult by imitating everything that is most catastrophic about adulthood."

"All happy families are alike, every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"

"Life becomes a quiet stroll, whereas our life, in the homes we have, seems like nothing so much as a series of intrusions."

"You must constantly rebuild your identity as an adult."

"Looking at me with big and serious eyes, she asks, 'Do you believe in that life that has meaning?'"

‎"There's so much humanity in a love of trees, so much nostalgia for our first sense of wonder, so much power in just feeling our own insignificance when we're surrounded by nature. Yes, thats it: just thinking about trees and their indifferent majesty and our love for them teaches us how ridiculous we are."

"Because beauty consists of its own passing, just as we reach for it. It's the ephemeral configuation of things in the moment, when you can see both their beauty and their death."

"But just by observing the adults around me, I understood very early on that life goes by in no time at all, yet they're always in such a hurry, so stressed out by deadlines, so eager for now that they needn't think about tomorrow. But if you dread tomorrow, its because you dont know how to build the present, and when you dont know how to build the present, you tell yourself you can deal with it tomorrow and its a lost cause anyways, because tomorrow always ends up becoming today."

"I'm afraid to go into myself and see what's going on in there. And I'm ashamed. I think I wanted to die and make Maman and Papa suffer because I had never really suffered. Or rather, I was suffering but it didn't hurt and, as a result all my little plans were just the luxury of some problem free teenager....For the first time in my life I understood the meaning of the word never. And it's really awful. You say the word a hundred times a day but you don't really know what you're saying until you're faced wiht a real "never again". Ultimately you always have the illusion that you're in control of what's happening; nothing seems definitive."

"True novelty is that which does not grow old despite the passage of time...The contemplation of eternity within the very moment of life."

"I have finally concluded, maybe that's what life is about: there's a lot of despair but also the odd moment of beauty, where time is no longer the same. It's as if those strains of music created a sort of interlude in time, something suspended, an elsewhere that had come to use, an always within never....Beauty, in this world."

"There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired" -GREAT GATSBY

Good songs and a Coachella Preview

I forgot to share some good music (which I've decided to do more frequently):

I posted this on my facebook a long time ago, but there's something so amazing about this girl's voice (one of the artists i'm actaully bummed about missing at Coachella 2011)

I dont know why, but I've always been a fan of the cigarette smoking indie/offbeat male vocals:

Mix between John Mayer and Bono (doesnt sound like it would be that great, but it is):

Cloud Watching or Star Gazing....only appropriate sitautions for this song:

This one's a little out there:

I would consider the Stars the original version of the XX (not illustrated by this song, but by their others):

And yes, i love ALL versions of my favorite song junior and senior year of HIGH SCHOOL (originally Postal Service):

PERFECT to chill out to:

Courtesy of Nicky Hoertkorn:

I absolutely love it when Piano and electronic music meet:

Real Housewives of Beverly Hills

I know it's a little ridiculous that my post begins with two photos of Camille and Kelsey Grammer at various events. And....I know that the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills has got to be one of the most superficial shows out there, but something really struck me tonight when I was watching the season finale.

Quick Background: Last episode, Kelsey (Frasier, as I like to call him) told Camille over the phone that he was done with their marriage. She begged him to change his mind and he agreed to spend a weekend with her to try and figure things out. He subsequentially flew her out to New York for the Tony awards, but upon her arrival, she was informed that she would be staying in a hotel room alone. Then, on top of that, when she tried to get into HER OWN apartment in New York, the doorman wouldn't let her in because "he had seen Kelsey's wife come home every night and it wasn't her".

I am well aware that this show's main intention is mindless entertainment. But, when I was watching Camille reiterate the details of her failed marriage, I have to say it scared me a little and made me think a lot. This is where the photos come in - if you compare the two, they're essentially identical. Kelsey's always smiling and Camille is kind of just standing there with barely any facial expression (most likely due to her massive amounts of plastic surgery). However, the main difference here is that in the first one, they're two happily married individuals, but in the second, Kelsey's trying to get rid of Camille and a little part of Camille is emotionally dying. I mean Camille almost looks happier amidst all of her emotional turmoil than she does when things were good.

Regardless, this is where my mind kind of ran wild. First, it made me contemplate the deceptive nature of surface appearances. There's only one person who ever really knows how you feel, and thats yourself. Anyone from the outside looking in can try to understand but will never get the full story. But, I don't really want to get into the details of that. The second thing that really got to me was that this show that I consider my entertainment happened to Camille in her real life. Moreover, I can confidently say that at one point, Camille watched someone (maybe a fictional character) get abandoned by their husband for a girl 20 years younger than them, and thought to herself "eh this is just entertainment, it's not going to happen to me"....and then it did.

I mean how scary is it that our whole lives we're taught that there's only one person out there for us - but then in reality over half of the people who get married divorce. I've finally realized what in life scares me the most - it's not being lonely, it's not being financially insecure, it's not being lost; it's knowing that all my efforts had been wasted or that all the things that I have centered my life around were wrong. And moreover, I'm scared that when (or if) I have this realization, I'll have to hide it and put on a happy face. I find it so crazy that the saddest person in the world can still smile, and the happiest person in the world can still cry.