Updates will be posted to this site, but live journals available @ Bleeding Heart.

realmofthegamers.disasterdigital.com

Wrong Conversations

The trolls are winning.  If you take a few steps back and look at the world for what it is, I think that you'll pretty clearly see that there is a lot of confusion.  The ability to clearly see confusion?  Follow me for just a minute, please.

When forced to analyze the validity and perspective of my world view, which happens often, I am often struck with the thought that I disagree with many things on many different levels.  When I get to the meat and bones of various topics, and it usually doesn't take me long to get there, I'm often left feeling as if the real topics are shrouded in misdirection.

Wrong Question: Is Global Climate Change real?

Real Questions: Are we excessively polluting our planet in the name of higher profits and GDP?  Is that pollution causing causing a reduction of biodiversity?  How do changes in biodiversity affect the health and survival of humanity on the grandest of scales?

This is probably the most infuriating question of our time.  In the name of money, we create arguments to dispute the validity of Global Climate Change.  Do I believe that Global Climate Change is real?  Yes, of course I do.  There is a lot of scientific evidence  to support this idea, but more importantly, we don't even have to look past our own kitchens and homes to see that we are far more wasteful than we need to be.  To clean up our own wastefulness would ultimately result in lower consumerism, which is bad for the economy, which is why the real questions don't get asked.  Make it a true or false question on whether or not the science is real, let American choose to believe either scientist A or scientist B, let's do that.

Wrong Question: Did Hilary really win the 2016 presidential election?

Real Questions: Did an internal or external body unfairly affect Any votes in fair of one candidate or another?  Can we hold faith in the security and accuracy of our current system?  Does anyone at the top care about what is moral?  Or do we only care if it affects the actual end results?

Yes I'm a liberal/socialist/supporter of not-trump.  Regardless, I do not hold any delusions of Hilary winning in a post-election controversial upset.  What I do hold delusions of is the idea that if there is reason to check into vote validity, then we should do it.  If the constituency believes that their vote doesn't count, then less voters will turn out, and the process becomes even less valid than it is already.  We need to believe that our system works, regardless of whether or not it affects the end results.  It's that whole "means are just as, if not more than, important than the ends" thing (I'm going to give a detailed explanation of my previously stated beliefs in a future post).

Wrong Question: Is not standing for the National Anthem an act of anti-patriotism?

Real Questions: Is standing during the National Anthem an act of patriotism?  Why does negative media coverage receive more attention than negative media coverage?  

If donating time in addition to millions of dollar to charity received as much attention as refusing to stand during the national anthem, then maybe we would see more positive action towards causes.  Discrimination is real.  As a professional athlete who is on television every week, I cannot think of a more effective way to communicate dissatisfaction with social inequities.  I'm not saying it's proper, but there are many improper things that go on in the world, this is certainly one of the least of these things.

There are many more questions that we will touch on in the future, but you get where I'm going with this.  The trolls are winning, you just don't know that they are winning because you don't know that they are trolls.  Instead of hurling insults, they hurl the things at you that you want to hear.  What you hear is what you need to hear, a perfectly valid sounding explanation to keep living life as you always have, the easy option.  "Remember, if the time should come when you have to make a choice between what is right, and what is easy, remember what happened to a boy who was good and kind and brave because he strayed across the path of Lord Voldemort"

Let's talk more soon.

Flickering Lights

     I'm not crazy.  Ok, I might be crazy. My thoughts wander aimlessly through halls of flicking lights, anxiously pushing through each set of swinging double doors only to find yet another empty hallway and more of those damn flickering lights. The air is stagnant and chilled, goosebumps prickle my brain, but I am not alone in this most uncomfortable of spaces.  

     Though there be a handful beside and behind me, outside there are more. The many desire nothing less than for all of us, me and these few, to find a room with a bed and shut our eyes to this world, their world.  A window in each of these blue and white tiled hallways shows us their numbers and their faces.  Some who could have been beside us are set to deny us, it stings, but we are not permitted to cry.

     I feel alone in my views, tilting towards what the others label as extremism.  Not extreme by action, but extreme by consequence, as to fix all that I view as obviously broken, would change the way every human on this planet lives.  Optional participation is not an option. And so, we are the few, lonely but not yet completely alone.

Comme ce comme ca

     My post from earlier this week was difficult.  I've had so many thoughts running through my head in the past few days that I find myself not knowing where to start, what to include, or the best way to conclude.  On top of that, everything has run through my brain so many times that I have to keep telling myself that it's all been in my head, and that it still needs to be written down.  There is also the small matter of specifics.  Sometimes it's just easier to write generically, rather than calling into play specific feelings and taking the time to explain and justify what I'm saying and how I'm trying to say it.  Explanations are important, eventually.
     Emotions are still running high.  This trip has done nothing to calm the vibrant nerves of the presidential election results, and I'm glad of that.  Our visit with Bob and Rachel created some great conversations from across different sides of the table.  Neither of them voted for Trump, but they do have pretty Republican oriented views and end up voting Republican pretty consistently as a result. This vacation has been a success in that way alone, having the opportunity to share thoughts with those whom I love and whose opinions matter immeasurably.  I don't believe that either of them has been converted more towards the way that I view the world, but I do think that each of us has a better grasp on how we feel and why it is we feel the way that we feel.
     Sharing opinions(beliefs) with people who do not live inside your life and experiences can be a tricky business.  I've come to the conclusion that it's next to impossible to directly change how someone views a particular topic unless they are already coming to that same or similar conclusion on their own; this is probably why cross-table talks are difficult at times.  It gets to the point where we feel the conversation isn't worth our time, because "you're going to walk away thinking the same things you thought before and I'm going to walk away thinking the same things that I've thought before as well."  This conundrum is largely, I think, an Americanized problem.  We don't want to wait for the webpage to load, we want results at the tap of a finger, click of the mouse.  The conversion of opinions(beliefs) is a far subtler business, more like nursing a pineapple into maturity.
     It surprises me that it's taken so many years to make this connection, but all of this opinion(belief) changing talk reminds me of the movie Inception.  You can't just walk into a room and expect to permanently alter the core of someone's being, who the fuck do you think you are?  You have to put in the time and find the roots of their belief systems, use your linguisticly intuitive fingers and try your best to understand where they are coming from; even then, there is no guarantee your idea will grasp hold of anything permanent.  As in Inception, most of our belief roots start with our parents, our childhoods, our experiences, events that are so unique and special to who we are that it's hard for us to think anyone could possibly relate or even begin to understand what makes us, us. The goal must not be to change opinions(beliefs), the goal should be to get people thinking, so that they can come to new conclusions on their own. There is a lesson here, and it's not deep.
     I've learned that there is a big change that needs to be made inside of me if I truly desire to be a part of these thought provoking conversations; the changing of my opinions(beliefs).  Well, not really, more like the changing of how I present them to others.  As I fall further down the rabbit hole of disillusionment, disestablishment, and disappointment, I've noticed that my views of the world have skewed sharply to the left.  I am in large part ok with this shift because of how well they match with my roots, but I've also noticed that people, even friends, have a tendency to shut your words out at the door, keep the core of what you are trying to talk with them about at arm's length, if that.  It's frustrating at times, but it is the way the world works, the way the game is played.  A dispassionate or moderate person is likely to tune out anything that feels like extremism, and extremists tune out fucking everything that doesn't match directly with their credo.  So, I do not want to be tuned out, nor do I want others to think that I am tuning them out.  The truth is, I want to both make people think and let them help me do the same.
    Change is hard.  Setbacks are frustrating.  Environmentally speaking, we need change now, but that isn't how the world works.  We do need to prepare ourselves for more than just thought provoking conversations, and that includes everyone sitting at the table(Earth).  Let's talk more soon.

Goals on Vacation

     Let's talk about goals again for a minute.  As we've previously established, goals are hard!  That's only half of the truth though, because from conception to completion, goals are composed of many different stages that can be difficult to properly appreciate.  Now, imagine those goal complexities and throw them into the blender that is vacation; let me know how that turns out for you.
     The word vacation can really be interchanged with any another other words that result in some kind of disruption to an established routine.  People from some studies that I don't really know much about say that repeating a new habit for over 20 days makes it much easier to incorporate into your everyday life for every day after the 20th.  I have to agree that daily goals / habits do become easier after that point, and not to downplay how hard it is to get to that point, because sometimes it feels impossible, but it really does get easier, ridiculously so.  The next big hurdle comes when your string of success finds an interruption, after the 20+ day count resets back to the big ZERO.
     I'm writing about this now because I'm on one of the goal destroying vacations.  Everything has gone out the window: French, exercise, writing, water drinking, meditation.  You might think that these are nothing to cry about, but I used to be on a 30+ day streak for all of these things.  Knowing that I've gone from the road to an outlying success story back towards a tale of an ordinary failure really sucks.
     In a moment of self-doubt, I remember what it was like back in the 997 days in a row that I was able to do 10,000 steps a day without any problems.  In that same 997 days, Brianna was attempting to accomplish the same feat, and because of a much more demanding life schedule, was failing.  Her failures aren't significant in and of themselves, but the large gaps of time in-between each attempt are. What's harder than achieving a new daily/regular goal?  Picking yourself up, dusting that ass off, and giving it another go the very next day.
     Vacations and other routine disruptions do not have to cause goal and habit failures.  The difference between temporary failure and permanent failure is acceptance of the result.  I did climb a mountain, that has to be worth something right?  One down, infinity to go.

Yes, I still feel guilty about vacationing.  Yes, I still believe that I can make a difference.  No, I'm still not 100% sure how to do that, but I have some goals.  Let's talk again soon.

Disney Wishes

     It's been about five days since we began our vacation travels.  I have learned much in this short period of time, whether or not they are things that I wanted or needed to learn is another matter.  Learned...? No... remembered, reminded... reobserved the unchanging belly that is the beast of an America.

     Allow me to begin by saying that I understand, perhaps better than you do, how hypocritical my recent journal entries seem after you hear that I spent this past weekend at both Disney World and Universal Studios.  The best I can do is to say that I have attempted to view this entire experience from hungry eyes.  Back home, from the comforts of my cemented basement walls, it's dangerously easy to presume that the world in which I live is similar to that of the rest of the world.  This vacation has reminded me the folly and danger of that thinking.  Some lessons can only be learned from travel and experience, I'll do my best to share with you the most recent of what has come unto me.

     From the very beginning, the planning of this vacation had me feeling very apprehenive.  The core of planned vacation activities were things that I absolutely wanted to partake in, seeing my old friends and their family, hiking in Tennessee, and spending some quality time with Brianna.  What bothered me about this vacation were the amusement park plans.  Yes, of course I wanted to see and experience Harry Potter World, but the bigger picture is a difficult reality for my changing core values to properly handle.  Imagine my changing core values as a no nonsense Monk with a very balanced view of the modern world (let's call him Gary). Now imagine that Disney World is a Titty bar and that Gary has been forced to spend several days in the dirty little stripe club and it's variety of patrons.  Gary is a very level headed, he realizes that good can be found in the oddest of places, but there are many places he would rather be practicing his meditations.

     Before we left on the trip, I felt like enduring the amusement parks would be a struggle for me because their existence is an affront to so many of my beliefs and feelings.  How much more wrong could I have been?  The amusement parks are not a personal affront at all, the world is, as a whole,  in stark contrast and disagreement with my beliefs, if not in thought, then certainly in practice. Yes, I am also an affront to myself, I'm working on it.

     I know what you might be thinking, "If you don't like how things are in this country, feel free to leave." Unfortunately, this is a world problem that cannot be run or moved away from.  When fight or flight takes over and flight is no longer an option, we fight.  We fight apathy, we fight hate, we fight gluttony, we fight selfishness, we fight consumerism, we fight people.  

     I realize that this blog has been a lot of words without really saying much.  My emotions have been hard for me to process and put into words, like eating ice cream when you're still full from dinner, it tastes great, and makes you feel like a fat wasteful fuck.  Well, it should make you feel all of those things, some people just feel fat and happy.  Finally, a paragraph with some meaning behind the words.  Let's talk again soon.

Moral, Duty, Honor

     Firstly, I feel the need to apologize for all of the political references.  Political frustration is what has been fueling my brain into this week or so of writing frenzy.  I listen to the radio, hear people talk about things in the office, watch videos on the internet... and my brain just goes to work.  Words rapidly pop into my head unlike I've experienced in many years.  It starts with a sentence that runs through the back of my eyeballs like a teleprompter stuck on repeat.  Before you know it, a second sentence crawls into the bottom of the picture.  By the time a third sentence is ready, words are pushing the sides of my skull in an attempt to escape.  It hurts, but it's closer to ecstasy than it is pain.

     There was an interview with a woman who once worked for NATO on NPR this morning.  I'm not going into great detail on what the conversation was about, but it was political in nature and most of, if not all of, the questions were in regards to her opinion on Trump as the new president.  The part of the interview that really sent my teleprompter on the fritz was at the very end.  This woman, and I apologize for not remembering her name or being able to quickly Google it successfully, her final words of the interview were something along the lines of "We have both a moral and civic duty to get 100% behind or president-elect."  Honestly, I'm not sure I could disagree more, and if I could disagree more, I can't even begin to imagine what that might look like.

     If it were me being interviewed, I probably would have said something more along the lines of "We as Americans have both a moral and civic duty to stand against that which infringes on or has the great potential to infringe on the freedoms that we hold so dear."  I have to wonder why these voices are being played to us in nearly every medium I allow into my ears.  What is the end game here?  If citizens disagree with policy, is it not our moral and civic duty to protest in the physical streets as well as the digital highway?  I know that I've said all of this before, but what I haven't mentioned is how scary it is that even NPR is sending these messages, unapologetically, unequivocally, repeatedly.

     There are so many examples in history, American history, where no change would have happened if the people hadn't voiced their opinions, some even sacrificing their lives.  How crazy is it to think that human-beings had to give their lives in order to be free, in order to be treated equally, in order to vote... and it's still not enough.  It's even crazier to think that they were fighting for these freedoms not from a dictatorship, not from a caesar,  but from a community of people who didn't like the color of the skin they were born with or the gender they were born as.  Those wars are still being waged, and it's difficult for me not to draw a direct connection to LGTB struggles of today as well.  Freedom to practice religion should not mean freedom to discriminate based on beliefs --> opinion or fact?

     A common saying in the United States is that people have the right to their own opinion.  I'd really like to talk more about what that really means, so let's talk more soon.

Valuable Actions

    One of the biggest struggles in my goal life and life life is me attempting to match my actions with my values.  There is a famous Dumbledore quote that talks about how we will soon have the option between doing what is right and what is easy --> this quote sums up the values to action struggle. Believing what I believe is the easy part, acting contrary to those stated beliefs really calls into question whether or not you believe what you say that you believe.
     If actions were an accurate measuring stick of values, the world would be a sad place indeed!  No, more often than not, our actions are driven by what's easy/normal rather than what's moral or correct. Of course that is just an opinion of mine, someone who does not view the act of going to church as an action of any value.  Actions of real value are those that are done for a moral purpose.

Example: Eating healthy is not in and of itself an action of value.  Eating healthy as to reduce waste and harmful practices is an action of value.

     It's funny that I'm writing this and explaining as if I'm some sort of 3rd grade level philosophy teacher.  There is a huge part of me that would super enjoy that profession, but as it stands, I'm ill-equipped to carry the conversation to the level it needs beyond what I feel it means to me.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to be able to look into the mirror and see the person that I want to be like.  I want to inspire myself through my own actions, and as a result of those actions.  I want to be a person who can openly speak of my values to other people and know without a doubt that I'm not some sham of a false ideal pushing robot flunky.
     The election has given me a lot of personal insight.  Listening to other's opinions has reminded me of how shallow those pools of thought can be.  More often than not, I'm not disagreeing with another person's beliefs because they are different from mine, I'm inclined to disagree with their beliefs because their words are wind.  My words are wind, that's what I'm trying to change, I'd like to be able to believe in myself.
     How does a person of specific values reconcile with everything else in life that happens?  Where is the line?  How do you not step over it?  I'm thinking all of these thoughts while a small Asian woman gets to the part of my pedicure that has her rubbing smooth warm rocks up and down my legs.  How can something that feels this good be even a little bit wrong?  Wrong isn't the word, on no planet is this experience wrong.  I really struggle with what the ideal me should and shouldn't do, not because this act is a particularly meaningful act, but because the slope is soooo slippery.  If you can justify getting a pedicure and going to Disney World, you can justify pretty much anything.  I honestly don't know how those two things fit into the equation that is the me I want to be, I probably need to learn more about my equation before I start deciding what's me and what isn't me. (Habitica Meditation Daily for the Win!)
     This is probably why many of the most powerful spiritual leaders abandon their belongings and hectic lifestyles for a much more basic existence.  Sure, it's leading by example, but it's also a necessary step towards enlightenment.  There are a million things going on in ourselves, and half of those million only exist to pay for the other half million things that we don't need.
     It's getting late and I'm getting tired, let's talk more soon.

Emotions Return

I'm angry.

It's been a long time since I have felt this way, and I'm sure it was probably having to do with some girl or other self serving reason.  This time, I'm angry for and at the world.  This time, it's more than just me.

I've said this a million times to the people in my life, but I feel like I need to clarify on here as well. We are not mad the Hilary lost the election, we are not making up reasons to be upset, we do not accept this result.  We are mad that our president elect is sexist and racist, among other things, children really were affected by the things our future president said, it is a democratic nation's responsibility to standup and speak out.

One time tested truth about civil unrest is that high emotion leads to exceptional art. For me, I'm no longer worried about whether or not I'm going to remember to write; I spend more time trying to figure out what website I want to write to.

I'm excited.

It's been a long time since I have felt this way, and I'm sure it was probably having to do with some girl or other self serving reason. This time, I'm excited for and at the world.  This time, we need a revolution, or nothing will ever change.

This is what I believe.

     Yesterday, when I said that it didn't matter who was a elected, I may have been full of shit.  All of those other reasons for anxiety were still real, and maybe I thought that it didn't matter to me at the time, but I can definitely feel how much it matters today.  Our fellow Americans have elected both a president and a congress that do not represent any of my values.  It's a gut punch.
     Thinking about this sudden bit of total disillusionment has me feeling like giving outspoken communication a try.  I'm not sure what people think that I feel about any worthwhile topic, but I think it might be time for me to tell them.  Could I?  Would I? Put my beliefs in a Facebook post for all to read?  Maybe.  The first step is writing said thing, and so that shall happen here.

______

     For most of my social media life, I've tried to veer safely away from anything that's not family, fun, or friend related.  For me, social media has always been about entertainment and staying in touch.  People who are my friends or followers already know how I feel about certain topics, don't they?  Maybe, Maybe not.  In any case, I would like to share my beliefs.

I understand that not everybody believes what I believe, but that's one of the awesome parts about living in this country and serving in it's military, especially on this Veteran's day.  We happily serve(d) side-by-side each other, regardless of whether or not we agree(d) with the other person's beliefs.


I believe that any sentence beginning with the words "I believe" is nothing more than an opinion, and opinions are often wrong.

I believe that it's possible to simultaneously both "support the troops" and disagree with the war they are fighting.

I believe that the USA was founded on hard work, immigration, and innovation.  Innovation is fostered by education and collaboration.

I believe that everyone should have access to higher education without the burden of a house payment sized loan.

I believe that hard work does does not guarantee a high quality finish nor does it necessarily deserve a high volume of payment.

I believe in equality.  Everyone should be treated with the same amount of human dignity, respect, and opportunity, regardless of their sex, race, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs.

I believe that regardless of whether or not Global Climate Change is real, we are polluting our planet and destroying it's biodiversity.

I believe that Americans are exceptional consumers, myself included.

I believe in social programs that support members of our society that are in need of support, even if that means higher taxes.

I believe that many Americans value their 2nd Amendment rights more than any other right.

I believe that the NRA (National Rifle Association) is very good at what it does.

I believe that due process is nearly impossible when proper legal representation is largely decided by how much money you have to spend on it.

I believe that our Justice system is far too broken to allow the death penalty in any state.

I believe that the correctional system assists with creating a cycle of repeat offenders.

I believe that Gerrymandering is real and that it's a problem.

I believe in the separation of church and state, but I also understand how difficult that truly is.

I believe in what the Bible teaches, not what the words say.

I believe that the ends do not always justify the means and that the means are just as important, if not more so, than the ends.

I believe that any sentence beginning with the words "I believe" is nothing more than an opinion, and opinions are often wrong.

Anxious Goals

     Writing about life in terms of goals is fun, and this season of our podcast(http://disasterdigital.com/) has given me the reason to do so.  Goals are both a piece of analogous gold, true to so many different parts of life.  Today I find myself in the midst of another goal stopping event: anxiety.
     It doesn't matter what goals you have slatted for the day or however many plans you've made for grandiose endeavors, when it comes, anxiety stops everything.  It's a form of paralyzation unlike anything I have experienced in my life.  I've been close to dying and close to death on several occasions and that experience is quite the opposite of an anxiety attack.  Being close to death slows everything down; a million thoughts in 60 seconds, impossible strength and speed.  Anxiety freezes your world, limits your mind to very specific thoughts, it traps you.
     Anxiety is one of those experiences that cannot be truly appreciated until you've experienced and accepted it's existence yourself, firsthand.  Before one of my best friends died, Aaron, he had been speaking of anxiety attacks for more years than I can properly remember.  It wasn't until I experienced my own first bout with anxiety that I was able to properly empathize with him, hell, I hadn't even really believed him.  As painful as it is to admit, in my head, I was thinking that he just needs to suck it up and deal with his shit like the rest of us have to.  Those thoughts were in error.  I should have been a better friend, more understanding, I should have believed what my best friend was telling me.
     I'm not sure if ironic is the correct word here, but Aaron is gone and now I'm the one with regular visits from the anxiety fairy.  Maybe people believe me, maybe they don't, my experience with Aaron and my own memories of how I reacted to it, or lack of appropriate action to it, limits how many people I feel should hear about my inner struggle.  I don't want people in my life to worry, and I definitely don't want to give them a chance to do to me what I did to Aaron, or didn't do for him.
     My anxiety comes from the world and our places in it.  I'm anxious about how selfishly driven we are towards things that we don't need or use.  The pollution of our planet and our lack of drive to explore the greater universe, it makes me anxious.  Our inability as humans to agree on much of anything, well, you get where I'm going.  These are just the macro anxieties, there are many micro-anxiety elements that branch out beneath each macro-anxiety trees.  I'll save the micro-anxiety branches for another day, they will do nothing but further illustrate problems that I'm not 100% ready to share yet.
    Today is election day, which as it turns out is a major source of anxiety (for me and a lot of people in the US & World).  At times, it seems as though I can feel the emotions of the world, if I try.  When those emotions run high, it feels like I can't turn them off, no matter how hard I try.  Believe me when I say that I know how crazy that sounds, I'm even willing to admit that there is a high probability that my empathicness is nothing more than self-delusion.  Just know that, self-delusion or no, I'm feeling a lot of something and I haven't found a way to control it.
     Personally, who wins doesn't get to me so much, it's that we as a people have allowed and accepted this point in time to happen.  It's that all of the important macro issues I mentioned above are not even on people's minds or coming out of people's mouths.  I don't think that there is anything I can do, but it also feels like doing nothing is not an acceptable option.  I don't know where I am and I don't know where to go.
     "Freedom isn't free" Is a line I've been thinking a lot about today.  I used to think that it was referring to the price that is paid in order to keep our freedom alive.  Now, it seems to be speaking to the idea that none of us is truly free.  Hmmmm another topic, another day.  Let's talk again soon.

Dangerous & Presumptuous

     One of the first things that people on the brink of goal failure say, including myself, is something along the lines of, "If reaching this goal is preventing me from doing the things that make me happy in life, then what's the point of living like this?"  That is a dangerous and presumptuous statement.  Dangerous because you're beginning to accept your own failure and presumptuous because your acceptance of this failure is based on bold assumptions.

Assumption #1: The activities or consumerisms that you're missing out on actually make you happy.

Assumption #2: You understand what actually makes you happy.


     I'd love to blame assumption #1 on the media, and yes they certainly play their part, but conditioning is also a large part of the equation as well.  The road of life is long, but it also has many circles, loops, roundabouts, and repeated streets.  Many of the things that "make us happy" are many of the things that feel comfortable.  And yes, there is happiness to be found in these activities, but it's often happiness via the path of least resistance or a happiness much less than we could achieve if we only tried harder.
     To revisit the road of life analogy: we drive the same road so often that our tires wear deep grooves into the pavement.  The road begins to control the vehicle so much so that we don't even have to keep our hands on the wheel anymore, life just goes.  Creating goals is all about putting our hands back on the wheel and jerking the tires out of the well worn grooves.
     Imagine all of the different kinds of happiness that might be found, if you would just give yourself the chance to experience them.  No, scratch that, don't even try to imagine such a thing, it will always fall short of the real feeling.  Drinking that Mountain Dew may give you some sense of pleasure, but I guarantee that a glass of water is much closer to happiness.
     Let's talk about assumption #2 for a minute.  I don't think that human happiness means what it once did.  Listening to people describe happiness, with how they are saying it and what they are saying it about, makes me feel like happiness is more commonly used to describe a lack of something negative.
     If I ask you, "What makes you happy?", what things come to mind?  Most people will rattle off the same first few, like family, friends, and pets.  I'm willing to bend the knee on those three, the nouns, but let's talk about what comes next.  For me, the next set of answers are things that I want to do more, but for one reason or another happen less frequently than other activities in my life.  How can that be... I'm a generally happy person, how can I be a happy person yet not do the things that I feel make me the most happy?  It doesn't make any sense.  Either I'm not as happy of a person as I think that I am or I'm using the same word, "Happy", in two completely different ways... and truthfully, it's probably a little bit of both.
     No, I do not believe that happiness means what we think that it does when we say it.  You'll know when someone experienced happiness when they use phrases like "I was really happy" or "It filled me with Pure Joy." The actual wording is less important than the emotion in their voices and language of their bodies as they say it.
     I'm not trying to talk down to you.  All I'm proposing is that you probably don't know yourself as well as you think that you do(again, I am not the exception to this rule either).  Close your eyes and listen to your body.  Happiness, like every emotion, is chemical based feeling with roots that draw liquid from everything we see, hear, and do.

  "Though many would seek shortcuts to the truth, there is no way around the simplest of tenets: hardship begets achievement and achievement begets joy, true joy, and the since of accomplishment that defines who we are as human beings...

The path to joy is paved in a sense of confidence and self-worth, a feeling that we have made the world a little better, perhaps, or that we fought on for our beliefs despite adversity."

"Drizzt" - In the Novel Sea of Swords


     I understand that not everyone wants to impact the world, just as not all beliefs are worth fighting through adversity for.  In fact, some beliefs are just flat wrong.  However, these are topics for another day, let's talk again soon.

Well, I'm not an artist, and I'm not a salesman. So what would you call it?

     Nowadays, when I think about goal successes and failures, I'm often reminded of a scene from "The Office" TV show.  Pam is the new Office Administrator and is having trouble dealing with Dwight, who has recently purchased their office building.  Pam and Jim are on the stairwell talking when she says:

Pam: I needed leverage so I pulled those pictures off the internet. It's just this Office Administrator thing, I don't wanna...
Jim: What?
Pam: Fail. I don't want to fail... again.
Jim: But you didn't fail.
Pam: And that's what you said about Art School, and that's what you said about sales.
Jim: And you didn't fail those things either.
Pam: Well, I'm not an artist, and I'm not a salesman. So what would you call it?

That conversation sums up my feelings on past and present goals pretty well, especially considering that most of my present goals are the same as they were in the past.  In my personal bubble that is an idealist's world, I haven't failed at learning to speak French or play the piano... but the reality of the situation is that I can neither speak French nor play the piano much better than I could 5 years ago.

     Over the weekend, while we hosted our annual Halloween party, I realized something quite embarrassing.  The sheet music on my piano stand is on the same song, "Alouette", as it was at the Halloween party 3 years ago.  Don't get me wrong, I've been very aware for a long time of how much piano progress I have not been making.  Perspective can be a bitch.  And the thing is, sometimes a punch in the gut is just a punch in the gut; thinking about my piano failures in this context does not motivate me, it just hurts and knocks the wind out my lungs.

     Maybe I'm not a failure, but I am also not an artist, pianist, or many of the other things I'm goaling towards at the moment.

     I need to think more before we continue down this road, let's talk again soon.

Treading Water

   There comes a time in every goal oriented journey where you are neither succeeding or failing.  The easy wins have been won, longer wins feel less fun, and the failures make you feel like everything you've tried to do is nothing but bullshit posturing.  In the business, we call this goal stage: Treading Water.
    Treading water is a worst phase of working towards goals because it truly feels as if you're doing nothing more than swimming in place.  Notice that the metaphor isn't "standing in place" or "sitting still", no it's called treading water because you're not just going nowhere, you're expending a shit ton of energy to get there... or not there... to get where you are, which is not where you want to be.  To tread water is to fatigue and fatigue is the precipice of defeat.
     How did we get here?  And why are we always surprised to have arrived when we've been here O'so many times before?   The lazy brain adds up how much time and energy we are expending to get nowhere.  Then, very quietly, the lazy brain whispers a not so subtle reminder to the motivated brain that we could get just as much accomplished sitting in a chair, in front of the television, with a controller in our hands, for hours on end.
     I find these gut check moments to be both intriguing and infuriating.  I don't get mad that they exist, but I can't help but be angry with myself for letting them get this far, so repeatedly and predictably.  Going to the gym 3 times a week, as well as swimming, biking, and running, is easy for me, but I'm unable to stop from stuffing face fulls of candy into my mouth after a long day of work? Are you fucking kidding me?
     I know, I know, if lack of self control in regards to candy eating is my biggest problem, then I should be thankful.  Well maybe that's the way you look at it, but that is not the way I look at it.  Firstly, candy is just the example I choose to share and I happen to think that it's an honestly good one.  My inability to stop myself from not just eating candy, but overeating candy, speaks to an underlining and very American thing that je deteste pour moi!  We can't be respectful of the world that we live in if that respect only happens when we're fully sated.  This is important to me, I do not want to be that person anymore.
     Did you hear that?  I just doggy paddled, even if only for a minute.
This was good, let's talk again soon.

Neither Can Live While the Other Survives

     With the Disaster Digital podcast season of "Self-Improvement" well under way, I've been spending a good amount of time thinking about goals and goal related things.  What does it mean to have a goal, to reach for a goal, to fail or to succeed.  Some might say that I spend far too much of my time thinking on abstract thoughts for the sake of abstract thought thinking, and those people might be right.  However, I've never had and never will I have a goal to spend less time deep in thought.
    Back to the point... One of the things that I have in common with a lot of other people out there is that I've both set goals and failed at goals.  Few things are as frustrating as wanting to do something, knowing it's within your abilities to succeed at, yet failing to do so.  Not just failing once even, many of us quickly dust ourselves off after the first fail and jump feet first directly into the next fail.  Why? Not why do we try again, giving up without reason is the ultimate fail, but why do we keep failing?  What are the differences between a successful goal campaign and a failed one?  I think I have a few ideas.
     Imagine your life is a puzzle.  Not one of those 25-piece easy-to-complete puzzles, but a 2000-piece get ready to blurt out a bunch of cuss words type puzzle.  As we grow up, the edge pieces find their way together and form the basis of whatever human being we can be.  Whether or not those edge pieces stay in the same spots, there always exists a frame of who were think that we are.  Globs of connected puzzle pieces take shape as we continue putting things together.  The globs sit inside the frame, sometimes independently, sometimes connected to other globs, but they sit there because we put them there, because we think that is where they belong.  Eventually, all we have left are a few small gaps in the puzzle as it nears closer and closer to completion.  The puzzle of life, however, is never complete, such is our struggle.
     In terms of this whole life puzzle thing, what is a goal have to do with any of it?  Essentially, each goal that we create for ourselves has to fit within the frames that we've created for ourselves.  Small goals can fit fairly easily into the holes around the globs, sometimes even connecting and becoming a part of the globs themselves.  The failure causing problems begin to pop-up when the size of our goals out grow the available space from which to put them in.  "This puzzle is only 2000 pieces, how did I get 500 extra pieces on the table!?"

     Here is my point, the title of this blog post that I've been working towards for 5 paragraphs and counting, "Neither can live while the other survives", it's not just an awesome Harry Potter quote.  The fact of what I'm methaporing about is this:  If you have desires for big change in your life, then the you that you want to be cannot exist while the you that you are survives.  Might be a mouthful, but it's just that easy.  The frame of our puzzle is non-negotiable, it doesn't get any larger, because it is  time.  Imagine trying to fit a new 200 piece glob of you into a puzzle that already appears as though it's 1750 pieces complete.  You might think that it fits, at least for a little while, but it doesn't, and that's goal failure.

     If you want to be something, if I want to be something other than what I am, then there is part of me that must... go away, change, or for lack of a better word - die.  Mull that one over in your brain for a minute.  Let's talk again soon.