Damnit Daniel...

I seem to have lost the ability to express myself properly. Rest assured, I am doing my best to remedy the situation, but since I'm not alltogether sure of the catalyst that may take a bit longer than one would normally expect.

Sorry about that.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051019/ap_on_bi_ge/mass_transit_fuel

I think they say it's something like only 6 to 8 percent of a household budget that goes to energy costs. What about other industries?

"Mass transit systems nationwide are considering cutting service, laying off staff, raising fares and delaying capital spending to meet rising diesel fuel prices. The spike at the pumps could cost public transportation systems as much
as $750 million more a year."

"Going back to 1970, we usually budget around 91 cents a gallon," Jones said. "We added an extra 30 cents per gallon, but even then it simply wasn't enough.
We didn't anticipate the prices would be this high."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051019/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq

With that in mind, I find it strange how oval office is under the impression that they can continue stretching their resources in the future when they could be dealing with internal problems on a much bigger scale in the future. It's been said time and time again, but it really can't be said enough, and that is with the backgrounds of all major civilizations that have collapsed in the past (Rome and Mesopotamia come to mind), a major reason was extending it's resources further then could be handled and than succumbing to law of diminishing returns within. If energy prices rise to what some people are expecting them to rise to in the future, and no good alternatives are established, something rather unpleasant could end up happening.

Picked up a couple new cds on an impulse buy yesterday along with a dvd. Which cds you ask? Well, hmv had their 2 for 25 deal going on so I decided to pick up Death Cab’s new cd “plans” and The Constantine’s “Shine a Light. I listened to Death Cab in bed last night but seeing as I was drunk it was rather hard keep track of what I was hearing; I’m just listening to it now. Haven’t checked out The Constantines yet but I’ll be sure to report back on how they are. The dvd was also a Death Cab For Cutie thing. It’s called “Drive Well, Sleep Carefully” and I would recommend it to anyone into music documentaries.

It’s strange how you can tell people’s personalities by the music they listen to. Of course you can’t just lump one group of people into a certain category because they listen to one type of music, but I do find that there is a certain symmetry between the moods of certain genres of music and the general attitudes of how the people that listen to those genres look at life. I’d have to say indie rockers are my favorite types of people. Not that I’ve had the fortune of being friends with too many people that are into it, one of the draw back coming from a small town, but the mentality of those types of people I find are more in line with where I am at this point in my life.

I want to be a Death Cab For Cutie type guy. There is something dark about their music in the sense of those porno mags you keep under your bed and yet at the same time light and organic. Not as much now, but still a bit, I’ve tended to be into the dark corners of music that express the seemingly inescapable, yet pathetically weak, aspects of the human psyche. Actually, it’s not even that I’m not still into it, but I just want to be more easily drawn to a song like “The New Year” than a song like Scatter the Ashes’ “Caesura”. Both songs are great in their own right, but one has a much different outlook on life.

It’s kind of the chicken and the egg thing. Does the mood inside your heart and head draw you to the music first or does the music define what you get to feel and in doing so create a cycle of emotion that is particularly difficult to escape?

Listening to: The Tea Party- Angels

So, new blog...feels good.

If you look at one blog today, other than mine of course since if you're reading this you are indeed already here, look at Mercer's. The owl remark about Toni Valeri's picture is beyond funny.

Cook Book

Listening to: Explosions in the Sky- Magic Hours

Last real post on my old blog; figure it's appropriate here as the first.


“Watch your thoughts, they become your words
Watch your words, they become your actions
Watch your actions, they become your habits
Watch your habits, they become your character
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny”

~Unknown

I’m 20. I turned 20 at 2:00 P.M on a Tuesday a little more than a month ago; last year at 2:00 P.M on a Monday I was 19. A lot has happened since then.

I remember sitting in the academic councilors office back in September after I had had my first couple of classes and needed to switch a couple of them due to prior admission mistakes made the April earlier. There was a piece of paper up on this specific councilors office wall that read something I considered then, and even more so now, quintessential to where I would allow my head to lead me in life. I can’t remember the exact phrases but the thesis was about the light and strengths in people’s personalities allowing those they come in contact with to become better people themselves. After reading it I sat for a couple moments contemplating and then came to the abrupt conclusion the piece of paper was nothing more than asinine glossed over by euphonic writing skills. If anything at that point in time, at least in my own mind, the only thing people’s strengths did for me was blight out my own.

Looking back, nothing could be further from the truth.

If there has been one thing that has dominated the last year of my life it’s been trying to find myself and my strengths while among a chorus of amazing characters who know theirs’ extremely well. That’s not to say I wasn’t aware of the good qualities that were possessed by my own nature, looking back the amount of strength I was able to put into various projects without a certain amounts of input sometimes surprised me, it’s just I’ve never really been able to levitate myself to the levels of character I’ve come to understand and respect in the last 3 or 4 years from various different peoples.

But the more I think about the last year, meeting all the different people in my poli sci club, the different teachers I’ve had, and even the people I’ve worked with and had to deal with through work, I feel as if, by some strange form of osmosis, I’ve gained a new perspective on how to approach reality. Two persons in particular are Mark and Rod Schumacher. Mark was my supervisor, and manager of the IGA, when I was working there this summer and Mr. Schumacher was my English 219 professor last term. I’ve been sitting for quite some time trying to figure how to describe what it is about those two which makes me consider them people that persons are lucky enough to come into contact with maybe every decade. They’re most certainly is not cocky individuals, quit the opposite actually, but they both have this all encompassing radiation of certainty of character that I’ve very rarely seen in my lifetime (however young I may be). I’m not going to try and go into anymore detail because I’ll probably end up making an ass of myself so I’ll just leave it at that for now.


So how do Mark and Mr. Schumacher fit into all of this writing you ask? Well, they fit in here because if there is one thing that I would like to say I have come to the conclusion of within this last year it’s this: Ego is everything. Many make the mistake of confusing ego with cockiness and it is such thought that leads to the depreciation of ones currency of thought, and therefore, worth in action. Ego is confidence under all circumstances, even when you’re down for reason that can only be attributed to yourself, because it is an acknowledgement of those invariant strengths that are a part of your character now and forever. Ego is certainty. And if your mind is certain, then it’s clear.

Which in turn leads me to this.

I was reading an essay a couple days ago I stumbled upon while looking for interviews done with “Explosions in the Sky”. This one to be exact:

http://www.sickamongthepure.com/files/2005/03/12_genre/genre.html

I feel I should share an excerpt I find particularly important in what I’m trying to convey. Bear with me because this might seem like a large tangent to begin with.

“...It really is a matter of artist-audience exchange and consciousness on both sides; is music a product we consume and then get in line to consume again, or is there a continuous link from artist to audience that is perpetuated by both entities and aims toward greater interests of collective awareness – the ultimate catalyst for a generation stifled by a thousand different sensory devices.

After sufficiently absorbing an album, a girl is consciously informed by it and prepares to utilize it as a catalyst for her own project – let’s say she’s a sculptor. While listening to the album, she molds clay and water into a figure reflective of the sensations and impressions drawn from the music. There may be no obvious or physical connection between the content of the music and the sculpture, but her work is invested with the experience of listening to the album; part of the origin of the sculpture is the music.

She completes her work and displays it for her audience. She does not title the sculpture or list any identification (name, date of creation, etc.). The sculpture exists as it is. One person views her work, walking around the sculpture and perceiving it from all possible angles. He absorbs her work and is informed by it. While looking at the sculpture, he takes out a notebook and begins writing – let’s say he’s a poet. The individual completes a substantial poem indirectly informed by the sculpture; the content between the two works varies, but each is intrinsically linked to the other. Part of the origin of the poem is the sculpture.

Because the sculpture was informed by the album, the poem is informed by the album as well. Each artist is subordinate to her/his creation and understands that (s)he is only contributing to a pre-existing chain of social creations. While an artist may not perceive herself to be socially active (going out with friends, etc.), her art is fundamentally social. It must interact with an audience for it to evolve beyond the individual consciousness of the artist.”

It’s my belief that this philosophy, for lack of a better term calling it “the cook book philosophy ”, fits in all perceived notions of interaction with reality and the people interacting in those realities. Simply put, we all influence everything we come into contact with. The art we admire or connect with mold our philosophies’; the philosophy’s we choose to believe and follow affect those we act them out on; and in turn they affect us back. Show me love and I’ll show it back to you; show me hate and I’ll probably do the same in return; show me and intelligence and I'll do my best to search out the same to match it; and show me inspiration and I’ll give all of the same back.

You never quit changing. From the day you’re born to the day you die, you never quit. You’ll gain and lose and then gain and lose some more and then given the circumstances some things will stay with you longer than others. So make sure you surround yourself in thoughts, atmospheres and people who will change your ego for the better. Because in turn, whether you want to or not, you will and always are changing those who come into contact with you.