Naws Tal Jah - 21 is the new 0

I completed a lot of writing in the last couple of weeks. I've started a few projects and outlined others. I've made headway with larger tasks and generally I've been feeling pretty good about my progress. Today I found I had several documents open at once and decided to save them, then discovered while looking in the "My Documents" folder that it had become quite cluttered with a lot of documents from the past and a lot of things that aren't too important. More than that, even though some may be worth saving, the filing system for them was horrendous.

Anyway, I started going through and opening the documents, browsing through them, renaming them and moving them around to be better organized. I had a lot of documents tranferred to this computer from my family's home computer in the suburbs and it's got a small portion of files from my now deseased laptop. As a result I found myself looking at a relatively comprehensive survey of my writing in the past 4 years, similarly this represents a fairly accurate snapshot of my thoughts, feelings, and values throughout this time period. It's been quite revealing.

My writing hasn't really changed all that much over these years, I think it's probably a little more sophisticated, but the style has not changed very much at all, I'm still in love with alliteration and metaphors seem to be my favorite plaything, that sounds so nerdy. I've learned that the core of me really hasn't changed that much over the years either, I know I've gone through a lot of different phases, and a lot of people around me have talked about ways in which I've changed, but looking at my writing now I find that I really haven't changed on the inside, the changes that have occured largely fall into two groups: First, cosmetic changes, surface interests and actions, and Second, the apparent changes that have occured simply because I've been given occassion to show different sides of myself.

It's this second thing I want to talk about this evening. What I mean by this second set of changes is that they do not exist independently, but rather have come in the form of reactions to changing climates within my life. In this sense these things are a lot like what I was talking about a few weeks ago with never really knowing who we are until we are tested. Much as it may seem trite to quote from a genre movie I feel that this quote from Batman Begins is one I have thought of recently: "Deep down you may still be that same great kid you used to be. But it's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you."

I think that a lot of bad things happen to people in life, in the past 4 years I've had my ups and downs, and I have to say that looking back I'm fairly proud of the ways I've reacted, I think I've managed to stand up for what I believe in and represented what I feel is a general goodness. It's my 21st birthday at midnight and I'm taking solace in the battles I've weathered. I've acted poorly at times, but I think I've always recovered well enough and remained true to myself.

There are a lot of people in this world who are good, or want to say that they are, and perhaps they could be, but when the shit hits the fan and something bad happens to them they react equally badly. I can't blame you for this, we've all felt weak and vulnerable at times and we've all had bad things happen to us, what I'd like you to do is stop and consider what possible good you are serving in replicating those same bad things on others.

Those that know me also know that I have been through a lot of shitty situations in the past couple of years, I've made some mistakes and I've had some shitty things done to me. Last night I found myself thinking about how satisfying it might be to make someone else feel that way, how justified I would be in protecting myself from having the same shit pulled on me again by pulling it on others. The truth is I'll never be justified in hurting someone else, and I will always regret it if I do. So if I have ever hurt anyone out there, I probably do remember, and I am sorry.

In under an hour I will be 21. I've been feeling nostalgic tonight, but at the same time I'm looking ahead to the future. I'm nt going to allow my past to jade my future, and I'm not going to accept that in others any more. I'm wiping my slate clean and I'm starting fresh, I want to thank everyone who has brought me to this point in my life, apologize to those I might have wronged, forget all my history and wake up tomorrow renewed.

With Direction

So today I finally did it, I finally put enough pieces of my life together to form a cohesive plan for what I want to do with my life after graduation. This plan shall remain largely a secret except to those I have already entrusted it to, but suffice it to say, it is very much a plan in the strain of existence that people would expect. Needless to say it will involve drinking, sex, beaches and bitches.

I feel really good about myself now, probably better than I've felt since the days when I knew I wanted to be a pilot, there really is something to be said of having a dream and some direction in life. Anyway, I'm off to get drunk and celebrate, I hope everyone else has a wonderful night!

Welcome to the future

So I just came here from facebook where I took a look at a recently formed group entitled something along the lines of: "Join this group and petition so thet mountain dew Baja Blast is mass produced" which made me think a great many things. Firstly I think that this might be the best symbol of exactly what recent technological advances have given us.
When I get home I find myself going through a very definite routine. Check IM's, check email, check facebook. All over the place I now visit websites to find out if anything interesting has happened in my few hours absense from the screen. Not that there's anything wrong with any of these things, it's now ridiculously easy to leave shallow communications for whoever you want, to create groups and drive people to a purpose from behind your keyboard, or to fight for your cause in an internet forum.
My one lament in the midst of this technology has to be the death of the letter as an art form. The form of a letter, the effort involved and the fact that it takes such time to arrive makes it so that whatever is written within has to be something a fraction more lasting than an email instantly delivered or an IM conversation. Every now and again I attempt to ressurect letter writing, it's difficult though, much harder than just typing, you have to think about what you say when you hand write something because it's a lot harder to go back and change your spelling errors. The last letter I wrote was over a year ago, I wrote it to someone very important to me, and I sent them flowers. They didn't speak to me for over a week. Somehow letters have become the artform of stalkers I fear, and stationery caught up with a stigma of creepiness. Ah well, maybe I'll write another letter sometime soon with better results.
Cellphones and Instant Messenger are definitely the two most popular forms of communication now. I enjoy instant messenger a lot, cellphones less so, perhaps because mine sucks something awful. Cellphone conversations are alright I suppose, but whenever I'm having an actual conversation I can't help but keep wishing the person were there with me so we could just be hanging out having the conversation. Instant messenger is handy because you can talk to so many people at once, but by the same token instand messenger and other forms of online communication are rather inappropriate for certain forms of communication.
Arguments, internet arguments, oh God on high how have you delivered us to such times. Internet arguments are about as pointless as regular arguments, the only difference being that regular arguments are generally settled by who has the bigger ego and snuffs the weaker person, meanwhile on the internet there are very few ways for would-be tough-guys to swing their metaphoric dicks around effectively and as such the arguments just go on endlessly. You'll see this in a variety of places, and all the arguments are fruitless since each party is completely convinced of their side and will not listen to evidence to the contrary.
This is the problem I've always had with arguments in general, arguments are something which should generally be reserved for a personal level, like spouses in a disagreement. When people start shouting back and forth at each other about communism vs. capitalism or pro-life vs. pro-choice you just end up with an ugly shitstorm. What generally needs to happen is for each side to stop taking things so personally, to sit down and maybe discuss and try to understand one another better, rather than what tends to happen, which is that neither side actually seems to care about a given issue, they are more focused upon being the one who is right. The minute you start trying to be the one who is right rather than attempting to divine what right is you are in a fruitless argument.
Anyway, I dislike arguments in general, but I find the ones on the internet more tedious since they are more often waged between nerdy social rejects without the confidence to carry on their tirades in an actual forum, as opposed to real life arguments which are far more entertaining battles of ego and wits between two individuals who are both socially adept, posessed of a strong will and who have each read the Asshole Handbook from cover-to-cover. The real life ones are largely as pointless, but at least you get to see who the superior arguer is and get some mental ass-kicking entertainment out of it.
The second largely innapropriate set of dialogue to pursue online falls into a vein which I will refer to as Bleeding Heart Bullshit. This is a slightly inaccurate title, but it's catchy so I'm keeping it. What I'm talking about is dealing with romance online, I'd like to list a few big NO'S in my book and give brief reasons as to why:
1) Asking someone out online. To be honest I've always thought the idea of "asking someone out" is absolutely ridiculous. You ask someone to go somewhere with you, don't ask for the "going out" status. Status is a sham and it's bad enough to cling to such notions. But if you're going to ask someone to be your boyfriend/ girlfriend I think it's really best to do it in person. I mean, really the only excuse to do it online is if you just don't get the chance to see them for an extended period of time, and if that's the case then....should you really be 'going out'?
2) Dumping someone online. Alright, this one can be broken when you really don't want to see someone ever again.....but at the same time, do yourself a favor and tell them in person because the person you're dumping probably falls into one of two categories a) they are alright and deserve the respect of being told honestly in person why you're breaking up with them or b) they are a disgusting human being and seeing the look on their face as you remove all romantic prospects between the two of you will make you feel better about the time you've wasted with them, and perhaps it will teach them to shape up and be a more decent human being themselves in the future.
3) Arguing Online about relationship related things. Please please please take this to heart. I cannot possibly hope to stress this enough. IF you argue with a significant other online your words WILL be misconstrewn, just deal with it in person.
Long story short, dealing with romance online is a bad idea, forms of online communication remove candor and emotion and leave entirely too much room for rampant misinterpretation and manipulation. Anyway, this feels unfinished but I'm gonna go ahead and end it here anyway, have a good night everyone.