Stiletto

So first of all, it's been a while since I've made a new post, and I want to apologize for those of you who actually take the time to read them. After my last two posts, which came out as sort of forced, I decided that I wouldn't make any new entries unless I legitimately had something I wanted to write about.

That being said, I have a new post for today, nice, chilled and fresh.

Okay, so here's what happened:

Today, two of my friends and I went to the new Sonic's that opened up in town. For those of you that don't know, Sonic's is a drive in restaurant, where servers bring your food to you on roller skates. Personally, their type of food doesn't interest me as it's a pretty standard burger joint, but that's beside the point.

So back to the story, we ordered our food and about fifteen minutes later, as expected, a girl on roller skates came up to our car to give us our food. While she was serving us, I started up some casual conversation with her for no particular reason. I just felt like chatting is all. The girl seemed to be enjoying our company, and from our perspectives, was genuinely trying to make our experience that day at Sonic's enjoyable. She asked if we needed anything else (salt, pepper, ketchup), and we said no thanks - we were all set.

Pretty standard, right? I bet you're wondering why I'm even telling you this story.

So we ate our food, had some minor mishaps with the order, and time passed; about 20 minutes or so. We were just about finished when our original server skated back up to our car with a whole slew of condiments and asked us if we needed anything else. I was the first to speak up and once again said that we were fine, and she smiled at me and skated away.

So yea, we finished up whatever food we had left an- wait a second, didn't we resolve the condiment issue earlier? You're probably asking why that even matters. Well, it just dawned on me that she could have come back with some sort of flirtatious agenda. What if the reason she came back was because she was hoping for some more chit chat, or to simply shift the interactional field from server to servee, to person to person. Purely human interaction, an interaction leading to some sort of prospective relationship.

Hey, it's not impossible.

Now don't get me wrong here; I'm not saying this girl was actually flirting with any of us, I'm not so sure that she was. My point is what if she was? If she was, I completely did not pick up on any of that. This is strange to me because usually when this sort of thing happens, I recognize that it's most likely not at attempt at a pickup, but I still play out the possibility in my head. This time around, I was completely dense in regards to the entire situation. None of this crossed my mind until after the fact, which I think is a little odd for me.

Some of you will think I'm reading to much into this, and I say you could be right, but I feel like there's something deeper to this whole thing. Another event happened inbetween our two encounters with our server girlie that also got me thinking after the fact.

Sonic messed up one of my friend's orders, so we called in to get it fixed. After our complaint, a different girl (not our original server) came up with the correct order to give to us. She had on red contacts - something I have never seen before. I was startled a bit, and even though I thought they were pretty cool, I just stared.

Quite frankly, I'm ashamed of myself. I've come to a mature enough standing in my life where I feel like I can speak my mind freely without making the situation awkward. By staring at that girl's eyes, I made the situation awkward. I'm sure she gets that kind of reaction all the time, but I just felt disappointed in myself in how I was unable to just come out and say that I thought her contacts were really cool (to be honest I found it a little attractive). This bothers me because I probably gave off the opposite impression. To her, I probably came off as someone who thought she was different in a bad way - the type of person which she is unfortunately all too familiar with. I doubt you'll ever find this, but if that girl is out there reading this, you're contacts were pretty rad.

So let me try and tie these two scenarios together with some kind of meaning, because this post is lacking direction.

These events made me ask myself, what if I'm becoming out of touch? In one of my first posts, I wrote about how I was uninterested in pursuing any kind of woman as of late, and I haven't been. But what if I've lost my edge from being off the game? Uh oh. I don't think I like that one bit. I'm no player, but I never find any situation involving interaction with a lady-type to be daunting. I'm usually calm, cool, and collected; I mean, what's the big deal, right? But today made me realize that these situations weren't about me being rusty, it was about me being out of touch completely.

So what gives? Do I just not care anymore? In my previous post, I talked about how recently every relationship with a girl that I've had has ended in me being pretty dissatisfied. Am I just getting to the point where I'm nonchalant when it comes to women? Isn't that strange?

Here, think of it this way: You're an avid sports fan, and one day you decide you just don't care about your favorite team anymore. You don't resent your old team, you just don't care.

That seems pretty odd if you ask me. Usually when people have a reason to dislike something, they continue to dislike whatever that thing may be. In this case however, I have no feelings of resentment, I've just possibly become oblivious. I don't like that very much. I enjoy being in control of my surroundings, and I'm usually pretty keen on other people's intentions and whatnot. As I said before, I'm just simply out of touch.

Actually, when I think about it, this makes sense to me considering how my life has been playing out over the past few months. School got so hectic the last few weeks that I had little time for myself, let alone anyone else. I was so caught up in school work that I was left no choice but to give up on some things temporarily (working out, games, social activities). Looking back to the sports example, if you became so consumed with work or some other activities, would it not be possible to forget about your favorite team for a little while?

Hmm... so what if the cause of all my disappointment in the realm of relationships is just due to me not having any time? That makes a lot of sense to me. Add this into that pot: as school progressed, I had less and less time to devote to other people, and thus I was unable to concern myself with anyone else at the time. That could explain why I haven't been on the lookout for women as of late.

So far this summer, I've had a lot of time to devote to myself again. I think that now since I've given myself enough "me time" I'm slowly starting to concern myself with the people around me again - which might explain why this whole conundrum dawned on me today. It's like that hierarchy of physiological needs whose name escapes me at the moment. It's all about priorities - I need to satisfy my personal needs before I can move onto satisfying my social needs.

Hmm, I think I may be on the way to my good ol' self again.

So, now that I'm done, let's get you thinking:

Can you ever really forget how to interact with people?

Do we ever become ants? Mindless drones who just move around without actually taking the time to get to know one another? What does that say about human nature?

Stay frosty.

Loophole?

This is going to be a short entry.

Yesterday I was sitting in my car by myself, stuck in traffic. So naturally, I started to think about a lot of random things... and then I noticed something:

People use the phrases, "to fall in/out of love"

as in, you fall in love, and you fall out of love.

See anything peculiar? You're falling each way. You fall into love, and then you fall out of it, you never rise up from what you've fallen into.

I find this amusing.

If we're only allowed to go down, then what's at the bottom? Where does it all lead to? Down is the only direction in this situation, which is a little disappointing in my opinion. It's like we're given two choices:

1) Go down
or
2) Don't fall in

Why is it that we have to fall anyhow? Why can't we rise? Is it because we have less control of when we fall then when we rise?

I don't know, but this is getting silly. I think I'll stop, haha.

I hope you enjoyed my pointless observation

:]

I am return

Hey everyone.

I haven't been able to post as frequently as I would have liked due to an excessive amount of schoolwork, but to make up for it, I have made two new posts for today.

Enjoy.

Now I am become light, giver of hope

"Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf-ra904rrw

So I was watching Donnie Darko recently, and I feel like talking about this quote. For those of you who haven't seen this movie, I'd highly recommend it. The above quote is one of my favorite quotes of all time (though I wish I could have found the director's cut version, I like the way he says it better there).

So moving on, I'm not going to be talking about what the quote means, that's not what this blog is about. Instead, what I'm going to do is talk about what the quote makes me feel/think about.

So now that we have the premise of this post set, let's get started.

What does the quote make me feel? It makes me ask myself who I am. What am I?

What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets (hehe, kudos if you got that reference).

But seriously, what are people? Does flesh and blood separate us from unity? Think about it. If we had no physical form, would we be interconnected?

Whoa hang on, I think I'm falling head-first into some Buddhist philosophies right now. Hmm... why the hell not?

So for those of you who don't know much about Buddhism, they hold this philosophy of emptiness, that nothing really exists. There's the conventional truth, and the absolute truth. We refer to each other as people as a convention, but ultimately, we are nothing. All is one, one is all, and then there is no one. It's a tad confusing, but we can apply it to this situation:

"Why are you wearing that stupid man suit?"

Man only exists conventionally... so why are wearing these costumes? Are we afraid to become one and the same? Are we afraid of exposing our true selves? Are we really man at all?

Is individuality really that important to us? What if individuality is like a survival mechanism? Or maybe, without it, we'd adopt a hive mentality... Then what does that say about other cultures who have low tolerances for individualism? Are they the equivalent to a million shades of grey on an ordinary canvas?

Well obviously those cultures don't act like a hive, and they still survive with restrained individuality. But I don't think we can draw any conclusions from that viewpoint. What if those people secretly long for uniqueness? Or what if we as people can hold onto even the tiniest shreds of individuality to ensure our existence?

Let's think about this. What do you think would happen in the hypothetical situation that nobody had anything unique about them? Everyone would be exactly the same, with no leaders to control them. All is one, one is all. Is that Nirvana?

I think I'm starting to get a little too broad with this topic, and I'd like to bring it back into scope. So why do I hide behind my mask? To look at it from a different angle, I tried to imagine myself in the scene I posted (because it's fun to put yourself in complicated situations). What did I feel when he asked me the question? I felt like he turned the world on my head. He was right, and I had been thinking about everything the wrong way up until this point. I wear a mask, but it's futile.

Actually, it reminded me of this short period of my childhood where I would speak in different voices all the time. I did it so frequently that I actually forgot what my original voice sounded like. Isn't that strange? Maybe I'm not afraid of who I am, but perhaps I have only forgotten? Could I have really forgotten something like that? In a previous post I said that I'm going to let my future define me rather than my past. In that case, how could I forget who I am if I won't be aware of it until the future is now?

This is getting complicated.

Well hang on a sec, let's use some literary techniques to figure this out. I said "maybe I forgot who I am" forgot is past tense, am is present tense. But if I talk about the future, I'd have to say "maybe I will forget who I am". That seems entirely plausible. I've forgotten who I was in the past, who is to say it won't happen again?

Let's touch base on the fear issue from this perspective. Instead of, "maybe I'm afraid of who I am", what if I said, "maybe I will be afraid of who I am". This future tense could be used in two ways:

1) At some point in the future, I will become afraid of who I was in the past.

2) I am afraid of who I will become in the future.

The first viewpoint is a little less interesting I think. In the future I could realize that I had been looking at life completely wrong in the past, in a way that I could find to be morally unacceptable. It's not so difficult to understand. It's the second viewpoint that I find intriguing.

What the second view would mean is that presently I am afraid of who I will become, which would imply that I am cognizant of the future. How is that even possible? Maybe it's a sixth sense, if you will. Maybe everyone has it. Wouldn't it be fascinating if everyone was aware of their future to some degree? What if we subconsciously know our futures, but our human costumes prevent us from seeing it?

Would that be a good or a bad thing? If we could all see the future, how would we act? Would knowing what events would occur ahead of time would make us more logical about life? If this were so, would we lose our individuality? Would we slowly start to act as one in the same?

I love how these thought patterns turn out sometimes; there's just so many things to think about, so many possibilities.

I'm going to leave it at that for now. I might touch upon this again at some future date, but for now I'm going to give it a rest.

So, now that you've read through my wild tangent, how's about I ask you a Q?

Given the choice to see the future, would you? If you could see the future, would you still retain your emotions if you knew everything that would happen ahead of time?

I'm not so sure I know about this myself. My best guess would be to make a reference to Jon from the Watchmen, but I'll leave that up to you guys.

Stay frosty.

Bonds of sea and fire

Okay, so about a week ago, the weather suddenly changed from rainy and cold, to magnificent and splendid (summer-like). I closely identify myself with summertime. It is by far my favorite season, and I truly feel alive when the weather is warm enough where I can just jump out of bed without being cold. To be corny, I feel like I'm walking on sunshine in the summertime. This strikes me as strange since in the past, I used to favor the winter much more to summer.

Now many of you know what my favorite question is, and not being one to disappoint, I'm going to ask it again. Why?

Okay, so let's analyze the past first, and then we'll step into the future. In the past, winter was my favorite season. I can think of one good reason why this was so: My birthday is in December. Now some of you may think, "oh, he liked the winter because that's when he would get gifts for his birthday". Well, that's actually not the reason. I've never been a greedy person, and while I enjoy getting gifts, I could have lived without them. So then what does my birthday have to do with me liking winter? Well, this may sound silly, but up until that point in my life, I could never identify what my favorite season was, so I decided that maybe I should just choose the season I was born in.

Hey, it made sense to me.

I just wanted to be able to say I had a favorite season. Don't ask me why, it's inexplicable. So if you look at it that way, it becomes easy to understand how I switched from liking winter to liking summer. Well, I guess it wasn't really a switch, considering that I had no real affinity with winter. What I find is the better question is why did I choose summer? Why not some other season?

Well, I'm sure plenty of you can come up with reasons for liking summer. It's a great season after all. But what reasons do I have for liking it so much? Let's dive in, shall we?

One thing that I would like for you to know about me is that I love the beach. Love it. I said love. Am I making this clear? I love the sand between my toes, I love jumping into crashing waves, I love how I can't breath in deep without coughing after I leave the beach. I feel as though the beach is where my soul belongs. Because of this, I actually get frustrated that I wear glasses. That probably doesn't make any sense, let me explain: when I go in the water, I have to take my glasses off, and so I can't enjoy the view while I'm in the water. Maybe I should suck it up and buy contacts... or get lazer eye surgery. Hmm... anyways, where was I?

Oh yea, so the beach. Actually, my favorite activity to do is to just walk up and down the shore line. To me, there's nothing like an uncrowded beach at high sun. Owning beach front property is my idea of a dream home.
Look at that. Look at it!
I mean wow, I dream to own a home like that one day. I can't say that my life will be complete until I do.

I'm talking to much about the beach, maybe I should move on.

Well, there is just one more thing I wanted to say in regards to the beach: I want to be a lifeguard at some point in my life. The idea just appeals to me so much... look at the url of this blog. Did you ever notice that?
hehe, I'm such a card. I think I'll write about the lifeguard thing some other time though.

So anyhow, the beach isn't the only thing about summer that I like. I just love being in warm weather. Heat rarely bothers me, but it takes only a little amount of cold to make me uncomfortable. When given the choice between hot or cold weather, I'll always opt for warm. Oh, by the by, did you know that most people in California complain about the heat when it's actually not that hot? Haha, it was over 100 degrees out when I was there, but 80 degrees and humid in New York feels so much hotter. Silly Californians don't know how good they have it.

I also tan very easily. 1 day out in the sun is all I need for a significant change in skin color. It's the guinea grease I suppose.

So yea, it's pretty easy to see why I would like summer, but I'm still not satisfied. There's something more to this and I know it. There has to be another reason why I prefer summer to the other three seasons. What about emotional reasons?

I'm not talking about personal stories that I have relating to summer, I'm talking about the season's ability to affect me emotionally. I'll give you a recent example:

About a week ago, the first day when the weather was what I like to call 'perfect', I decided to go out with some of my friends for lunch. We were driving in my friend's brand new Dodge Charger SRT8, a beast of a machine. My friend isn't one for speed limits, and so we were traveling at high velocities down this nice residential district with lots of nicely made homes, green parks, etc. The wind was whipping through my hair, I was enjoying my friend's company, and then I suddenly got depressed. I'm still in school. I had finals to study for. I was going to be trapped here for another few weeks. This all of a sudden felt like agony. I felt like my soul was trying to escape this place, but to no avail. In short, I had to endure the end of the semester. Then the weather started depressing me; I could be anywhere in the world at that moment, and could have been enjoying that beautiful day to it's maximum capacity, but I was stuck in a working world, where freedom never truly exists.

This just made me very sad. I may never get to a point in my life where I can just roam the beach and not worry about finances, obligations, or desires. Or if I ever do get to that point in my life, it might not be in the prime of my life, when I would be able to enjoy it most. To this day I still get upset about this. I really do feel like I won't be able to enjoy freedom on my terms.

So, to make my point, that one day a week ago brought out a lot of emotions for me. Emotions that the other three seasons have never been able to bring out.

...

Wait a tick, that's not true. What about that one day in winter that I described to you all as the greatest day of my life? That was certainly emotional. Hmm...

Okay so before when I said that winter was only chosen because I wanted a favorite season wasn't the whole truth apparently. I do know that that was the initial reason for me to like winter, but I guess over time I slowly found things in Winter that I enjoyed; that day that I described to you being one of them.

So then that leaves us in a pickle, doesn't it? Why then do I prefer summer now?

It's not because of emotion like I previously thought... maybe it has to do with the physical? In the past I used to be "chubby". Since then, I have lost a lot of weight, and now the cold weather gets to me a lot easier than it used to. On the other hand, the heat rarely bothers me. It would be high 90's and humid outside, and I'll go running for an hour and not be incredibly bothered by it. Could that be the reason why I switched? Cause I lost weight?

...that's kind of boring.

I don't really think that that is the reason, or at least I hope not. The only problem is, I think I'm stuck at this point. I think I'll just have to come back later and touch this post up a bit, if I feel so inclined.

So I think this is a good time to ask a question,

Do you know that you love something when it makes you happy? or when it makes you sad?

Can you be happy if sadness didn't exist? Think about it, if sadness is the opposite of happiness, then if one doesn't exist, then the other would have no meaning...

Stay frosty.