Vibes

Humans have this weird ability to create something out of nothing. It causes problems for us, and is generally a step backwards in what I've dubbed our continuing "quest for clarity." We're always trying to figure things out, allow for things to make sense, and searching for peace, calm, tranquility, and that zen-one-ness stuff that people talk about. It's not necessarily something that me putting to words would do justice, so just bare with me, and take to heart and cherish any peace of mind you get, for its a rare thing in this day and age. John Mayer has a great song about his quest for clarity... properly enough it is indeed entitled Clarity:

I worry, I weigh three times my body,
I worry, I throw my fear around.
But this morning, There's a calm I can't explain.
The rock candy's melted, only diamonds now remain.

Yesterday I had called one of my friends to see whether or not they wanted to watch The Hills at one of my other friend's places. It's become somewhat of a tradition that I go over there on Wednesday nights to see what LC's latest shenanigans entail, and pretty much the best thing to look forward to on a crappy rainy Wednesday when you're stuck at work. They said they didn't particularly want to go, but further pestering and nosey-ness (I got a big nose to be nosey with mind you) procured from them that they were under the impression that friend A, the one who's apartment I was going over, didn't really like them. The ever-so-hard question of "why" that they thought that resulted in an answer of "I dunno, I get a vibe."

Are you serious? That's the best you can come up with? I understand that some people prefer to act on gut instincts and notions without much solid to go off of, but jumping off the jello of conjecture is going to do little more then land you in a puddle of drama. This is what I mean when I say humans have a weird ability to make something out of nothing. I'd like to know what exactly it was that caused my friend to feel that way, knowing both friend A and friend B, and knowing that regularly they're both very down to earth, reasonable, mellow, kind hearted people.

I should be careful about condemning this person though for doing that I realize, for I too am guilty of the crime of "I don't think this person really likes me." The difference though is that I try not to let that affect my ability to function, I'll still go watch The Hills with that person. I mean... it's The Hills after all... IT'S LC! All I'm really getting at though is that this kind of interaction between humans is rather silly, and "totally high school" if I may put it so valley girl-ish-ly. As if.

Unreliability, again?!

Progress is a funny word. It's usage as defined by the dictionary is "Movement, as toward a goal; advance." I certainly don't feel like too much of that is happening. Or rather, it is, but it's more of the 1-step-forward, 2-steps-backward variety. Keeping this as ambiguous as possible (for no conspicuous reason at all) a lot of times I feel like I'm putting a lot of effort into something, only to receive a very disproportionate amount in return. This is true of a lot of different things, such as fixing computers, studying, or even outside of academia in such vastly explored fields such as working on relationships. It always feels like I have to put in all kinds of time, all kinds of thought, all kinds of commitment into something, only to receive a very frustrating Blue Screen of Death (a very common occurence in olden times, now formally replaced by slightly less scary error messages with pretty "submit report" buttons that don't do much), or for me to forget those last three slides from lecture notes and have to go over them again, or for me go through a lot of effort securing a ride home from Lansing with a friend, make sure to call them four or five times, and get left with an "OH SHOOT I FORGOT, want me to turn around?"

It brings me to my point, which is that very few things, if any at all, are reliable. I've pointed it out before I'm sure, and I'm also fairly sure that I'm probably just unnecessarily complaining and hearking on an old beaten horse, but it's my blog and I'll cry if I want to. But frankly, few machines are reliable, few processes are gaurenteed to not break down, and very few people are reliable. It sucks though when you're someone like me for example, who is constantly forced to rely on people, only to be let down, again and again and again. Maybe I shouldn't let it get to me, maybe I should just brush it off a la Jay Z, and there's a good chance that me talking about it right now is making it worse, but I'd rather have my feelings down to reflect on later then not. I don't like that I don't really have a solid foundation to stand on, and that everything around me is very shaky at best. Tis the life of a college student I guess though. I'm still waiting for a friend to call me back who fifteen minutes ago said they'd call me back in five.

Bound by Intangibles

Honor is a very difficult ideal to describe. It’s a very difficult ideal to obtain, in part due to the difficulty to define it. I’ve found myself lately concerned with trying to be more “honorable”, more reliable, more Will Turner then Jack Sparrow. Today I went and saw the second pirates movie, during which I started to notice a lot of the different motifs popping up (my eleventh grade English teacher would be proud). The main motifs that I was concerned with though was that of honor, and that of the dichotomy of good and evil that a man can possess. It’s really interesting, because in particular with the second theme, I had noticed that there’s a part where the pirates are visiting this shamanistic woman/witch, that she asks them what it is that drives all men crazy, and the pirates all threw out a bunch of relevant answers, including gold, freedom, and one of the slightly less bright pirates said something about pondering about the dichotomy of good and evil in man. I kind of enjoyed that small little quip, regardless of if the pointing out the significance was actually intended or not. Either way, the main driving force behind the movie to me was the idea of honor. How do attain it? It’s interesting since it seems to go hand-in-hand with this shirt I got from Express a while back (great sales lately, thank god for my mom buying all the 14-14.5 1MX shirts she can find) that had this great quote on it. In fact, that gives me an idea; Instead of writing a long winded post about what exactly honor is, I’ll just list a bunch of examples that I think would qualify as honorable acts, starting with the quote from the shirt.

“To rule is not to reign but to garner respect, to lead by example and not by show of force. It is the involvement in the affairs of others and not meddling in them. This will pave the way to honor and once you attain honor, you should never once let it go.”

Honor is not telling your friend that you’ll come pick them up in half an hour, honor is telling them you’ll pick them up in half an hour and actually showing up.

Honor is the ability to hold your tongue about what you perceive as an individual’s flaws when you are in the company of others.

Honor is not having to smoke a cigarette when your friends are doing it.

Honor is electing to spend the night with your roommate because you realize s/he won’t have anything else to do if you’re to go out with your friends.

Honor is telling your friends not to mess with some stupid girl’s AIM who happens to save her password on a public computer.

Honor is making promises, and fulfilling your promises.

Honor is holding the door open.

Honor is picking up a dirty towel/napkin/tissue and throwing it away so you don’t leave the place in bad condition.

Honor is helping your parents with yard-work without being prompted to do it.

Honor is when someone is humbled that you say the words “I’ll be there” and trusting that you’ll get it done.

Honor is being able to admit when you are wrong.

Honor is picking up that guy’s notebook who dropped it in class and now its ten feet from him and two feet from you.

Now with that small little list of a couple examples, I whole-heartedly realize how idealistic and naïve I sound by saying these things. Words like honor, trust, and friendship all go together like Evan and Jaron, and they’re things I find myself thinking about constantly (also like Evan and Jaron…though I think they were constantly thinking about some girl). Regardless of the idealism, especially in the cynical, sarcastic, Raphael filled world we live in, we should all strive to be Leonardos, and that’s easier when you see other people doing it. I don’t really know where I’m going with this, other then to state that honor is not an empty idea, its something that is very, very, very worthy of pursuing, though unlike the quote on that Express shirt, I don’t think honor is something you can attain. It’s not a measurable quantity, (obviously), and we should always be looking for others to act as beacons of honor. I think this one pirate one time said something like “every man must at one time be tempted to ship out, hoist the black flag, and start slitting throats”, and while that may be true, we should all strive to be Will Turners, not Jack Sparrows. And we should all look for Keira Knightleys.

On a separate note, I’ve started to note that my readership is growing? Not really anything I intended, but it’s definitely really flattering to hear. Who would have thought that someone would want to read this idealistic crap? I sure don’t.

To the limit

Advances in any field are made by those who are knowledgeable in that field. For any field to progress, regardless of it being a scientific field, a sport, a business process, an engineering process, a hobby, anything that can be learned and made progress in, it is almost the responsibility of those on which that field seems unchallenging to create, innovate, and revolutionize. Jordan revolutionized basketball because he was so good at it, because it came so naturally to him. Einstein revolutionized and progressed the field of quantum physics because he understood it so well. Tom Cruise makes a great samurai in The Last Samurai which explains how he helps lead that village of samurais against the evil-bad progressive westernizing Japanese.

As much as humans respect these experts, as much as we hold these individuals on a pedestal and as much as we talk about them, the quality that they possess that I in particular am so fascinated with is the philosophical aspect that they seem to be able to incorporate into their particular expertise. Not only are they the best at what they do, but they are able to go above and beyond what they do. This is in part due to their ability to do it with seemingly less effort, and as a result this is portrayed in their more graceful movements, their larger leaps of logic, their faster moving swords, the things that set them apart from the rest. As this comes with less effort, it takes less concentration for them, and it is something that they concern themselves with less. Instead they are able to focus additionally upon how their craft relates to the human spirit, or how it relates to any other aspect of society at large, and can thus make big, bold, broad statements that seem so simple on the surface but contain allusions to the years and years of practice and mastery that their respective abilities have come from. It is through this dogged pursuit, this neverending quest to better themselves, even beyond the current visible limits, that they are able to break the barrier. They go the extra step.

These individuals provide extreme examples of inspiration for us, and with good reason. We should always be willing to go the extra mile. Mayeb you should concern yourself less with whatever your craft is, take a step back, do some introspection, and consider to yourself whether or not you're in the right field. I remember in high school, the dean of my math and sciences center would always tell me "I don't care what you do, as long as you're the best at it." He's absolutely right too, we should always try and do what we're best in.

Now I'm not trying to say by that that we needn't pursue things that we aren't necessarily the best at. I for example am horribly uncoordinated when it comes to team sports, but even I on occasion will go play some basketball, football, etc. As an aside, personally I prefer football because at least I know I'm not the only one who doesn't play it every freaking day, and thus I stand a chance. But we should never try and neglect what we really excel at, we should always try and continue to practice, learn, research, whatever it is that you do to better understand that specific facet of creation.

Finding out what you're good at is a difficult thing at times, especially since not everyone is willing to try new things. I for example recently found out I'm not as bad as I thought I'd be at ping pong, even though that could have just been a cool little lucky streak I had going on. One of the cliches I've spouted a couple times now has been how college is the time of our lives, when we experiment, find ourselves and all that jazz. This is yet another example of that, but trying to find out what we're good at doesn't have to end with college. Go ice skating at 30, even if its your first time trying. Who knows, you could just be the LeBron James of it.

Like I said though, I personally really enjoy hearing the introspection of these experts on their respective fields. It's awesome to understand how these people think that their crafts relate to every day human activity, and it is through these people that human kind truly progresses. It's a gift from God first and foremost for these people to have this talent of course, and again a gift for them to find their niches, and we must remember to be humble when we master our crafts. Anything you do though, due to the best of your ability, and if you're not the best, you should realize that you've got progress to make. Even if you are the best, you still got room to improve. Make it look easy, make your movements graceful, jump higher, and try fighting those scary Samurai-village-leader's-brothers like Tom Cruise. Did I go too far out with that allusion? I'm not quite sure...