Sometimes I wonder if we're so busy that we don't ever really get a chance to carve out a time to have a deeper understanding of ourselves. Yes, there are times where I feel like I'm "wasting" my time. But whenever I share time with another, watching a favorite T.V. program, or movie, lounging in the sun I don't. This really only applies when I'm with another.
I suppose because life is short, and we're often so busy with sleep our own lives and goals with work, we really never get to know other people in higher ways. In fact, if we sleep and work for about 16 hours a day, commute for about an hour and a half, shower and eat another hour or so. We really about 5-6 hours of time to know another person. Add personal time like going to the gym, miscellaneous hobbies and so own, and time becomes even less. Hell, our bosses and co-workers have more opportunities to know us than our friends.
There is a way to remedy this, which is to find similar minded people and talk, talk, talk, sharing yourself with them as they do the same. And never wanting to stop talking helps too. When Krimull and I lived together, we'd I'd talk talk talk yak endlessly until one of us fell asleep. Usually it was him first.
Over the past three days I have been thinking about small talk. What is small talk? What is the most important thing you could find out about a person within the context of small talk? Music has to be in the top 5. "Why?" you ask? Because it's important to acknowledge someone's tastes, as listening to music is often what one enjoys doing with oneself.
If I ask a person what they listen to in terms of music, what they share with me, as above, is what they enjoy when they are alone. So for me to bash on what they like to do when they are alone is like bashing who they are as a person and individual. This is why music for small talk is important, however one shouldn't bullshit another with idiotic things like, "That's cool" when really one may have wanted to say I can't enjoy much like that.
Nothing is more depressing than telling someone you listen to genre X or band Y and hearing from a them,
"That's cool."
Yet 10 minutes later in the car they say something like,
"Can we listen to something else?"
What the fuck?
My advice is exactly what I said it is. Be honest and up front about your dislikes and likes. Don't try to be anything you're not. That calm, caring, nice, agreeable person, be it you or anyone who claims to be, only works when you're lying to your family/relatives, co-workers/customers, one-night-stands, and people you would never want to live with anyway.
Saying you agree with, also enjoy, or giving any reinforcement towards a music genre or song a person says they enjoy, for which you secretly disagree with, is like making a broken promise up front. You are promising a compliment, which the listener could take with sincerity - as they ought to trust your word right? - and then secretly at the same moment you clearly disagree on the inside. You didn't break a promise, you made something that was already broken.
This is why asking about music is not only serious but also important. We shouldn't compromise who we are with ourselves when we're trying to share ourselves with others. What we listen to for ourselves is part of that. What's the purpose of getting to know someone? When all we do is either shoot down in secret who they are or doing it with ourselves with them? What a big fucking waste of time. Unless our objective is to take what we want a leave... But that's another repugnant thought for another day.
Here's how it may or should go down,
"I like N'sync."
"I can't listen to them, (because of x reason here...)
If someone has a problem with how you feel about X or Y band, artist, song, concerto, whatever, you can tell that person to "go play hide and go fuck yourself." No one should judge you for who you are with you, unless you're lying or destroying integrity. On a side note I've beat down integrity to the point where only shame and pain is left. So certainly learn from my experience if you can. But time and time again, I ramble...
We should use even more caution with anyone who says,
"I like all types of music."
Unless they're God or a non-human, I'd say that person is flat out lying. We all know that a friend to all is a friend to none.
I can honestly say that I my closest friends have shared music with me in the best way possible. My ex-GFs like music, but whatever they shared with me I couldn't always connect with after we were no longer dating. It was like I loved the songs because I was with them. Yet with my closer friends, we'd basically play "music tag".
One week it's,
"Dude listen to this!"
And then the next,
"Oh dude! Check this band out!"
"Feeling like shit? This song might make you feel better!"
Suggesting songs to those I care about and those back to me, and even now when we hear those songs we sometimes go back to emotions we've had when we first heard it and/or started loving it.
Yes, music is important.
In fact, music shouldn't be an escape, although at times it can be one. The issue where music and sharing one's music with another person becomes difficult is when someone reflects on why they enjoy X or Y band. But don't confuse difficult with problematic in this case.
I think ANY time one reflects on the music they enjoy there is a deeper understand of oneself, but when one avoids explanation, with phrases like, "Just because". It's almost like a person is afraid to create depth within their own being. It's their choice, but personally I genuinely don't like being around people who like things for the sake of liking them or without explanation.
Then again, I believe anyone who bothers sharing anything with me ought to explain oneself, including myself for choosing to listen to them!
Just a few examples, nowhere near the amount I'd like to share,
And one of my personal favorite top 5 songs ever, ends up as tie by the same artist,
I was talking to a guy after morning prayers at shul. We had a bagel, and he offered me a pint of beer after our bagels were done. Now mind you, it's 10am in the morning and I'm offered beer. You have no idea how nice it is to relax in the morning 80 degree sun, with free beer and great company. At anytime in the morning on a day off it is wonderful to have a drink. It was even better that he was open to discussing a lot of things with me.
But the real issue of excitement and concern was when I asked him if he was a college student. He said he was a college drop out. He said,
"You don't really know where life will take you."
Seventeen years in the middle east, then ten years in Europe. Now he finds himself in Oregon, married, and enjoying where life is taking him. Of course America may or may not be the final destination, as at some-point he mentioned how he might want to immigrate to Israel.
I find myself a month away from graduation wondering what I may do. Just around the corner I could find work and/or try to work towards my goals withing the education realm. I'd much rather continue my opportunities to continue education, and I know it will be a struggle. Making money would certainly change things. It's very hard to go back to school after making money, because for one, I wouldn't really make money while going to graduate school and two I'd spending money to go to school.
Around the corner or not, I'm looking forward to graduating. I've got one ticket left for the ceremony, and I'm debating if it should go to my brother. My Grandmother, father, mother, Fozzjnen, and... Yet I haven't decided yet who will get the last. I'll figure something out. I'm not concerned, even though there is a degree of uncertainty. I'm doing exactly what I wanted from the get go, and I knew that my goals could take me here or there.
University life, or life in general, can be a tedious but rewarding experience. What does it mean to learn? Is it possible to really learn something, yet ignore it completely as if we had never really learned at all? Yes, it is. Sometimes we say one thing, do one thing, hear one thing, have one thing happen to us, then we claim to have learned, but in reality nothing changed. Because if we really learned anything would we not mature from the pain?
Should we gauge our happiness and success by comparing it with the past? I think we should constantly re-gauge ourselves, checking whether or not our intellectual, emotional, and spiritual instruments are working.
No one really knows for sure without overcoming a challenge. Sometimes there are two, three, even four or more challenges simultaneously. We have to decide which challenges are important to us and then go from there. Other times we can only pick one or none. Better pick the right challenge, or if one picks the wrong challenge, then one better not wait to correct it. The truth hates delays.
We can't totally live for tomorrow, yesterday, or today, since the days are interconnected. Ideally, we need to remember that as ourselves we should pick ourselves, then as ourselves we can go to God and God's teachings or commercialized holidays, greed, and self-idolatry. One can't learn without teaching. Can't teach without learning.
Teaching and learning in my case? In my case I have no choices on some issues, other than to find a way to advance or make one. Unfortunately and fortunately for me, my path doesn't go backwards only onward. A bridge breaking behind as I advance. Yes, there are stops along the way, but it only ends when I die or give up. What was that which Horace was claimed to have said? Something like,
"Aut insanit homo, aut versus facit "
(The Fellow is either mad or he is composing verses.)
I suppose that applies to me.
I remember once when I was somewhat pure, thinking that most things could be good and pure too. Now that I'm older, stupider, with fervor towards patient structures while expressing the same towards chaos, I find that nothing is at it seems. We sometimes wake up as sane people in an insane world. Somehow while things could be reversed, I believe not much would changed, except for the titles of things and tax-codes.
But it only matters if it matters. No matter, nor madder or matter in my bladder. The line between boring and pure excitement is whether or not there is a rail for your safety.
“There are no advanced techniques, only advanced applications of the basics.”
It's a shame that even I forget that sometimes. I forget that evolution sometimes is just an advanced application on the present and basic form. I forget. Only to remember when it matters most or when it is too late to change anything.
Sometimes when something is late it doesn't really matter when it happens. We just assume it's late because new information was brought forth, when in reality the truth sometimes is never subject to the limitations of time. In fact truth itself can dictate time. So when we learn something and think it's too late, it's never too late.
I keep wondering about things, I keep smiling, but I also keep thinking. As I said to someone in an email recently,
I'm sure it gives you a lot of time to think about the concept of "home", "community", and "friendship". I certainly thought about these things often while I was in Japan for a year. Even though I was studying, I was your age [...] at the time. This meant that I had a different outlook on life since I didn't immediately go to college when I was 18 (I started when I was 19-20). Nor did I "fit" in the crowd of people who graduated HS, and immediately went to college without work/life experience and personal responsibilities.
My thoughts never end.
Nor do I want them to end.
(By Helen Lundeberg, in 1934)
My road has been one with lot's of vegetation, difficult terrain, depression, cold nights and mornings, long dark night's of my soul, escapism vs stay, and so on. I wouldn't wish it on anyone else, but I certainly would feel a higher degree of camaraderie and jubilation knowing I'm with a companion on the trail.
"The only way you'll really know if you can lift 500 lbs is if you're willing to fail." - Arnold Schwarzenegger
He's right when he talks about the people who are afraid of failure will never grow, expounding on the issue further. Source here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvOUVil7W5s
I like Arnold, but for some reasons or another I look at as disappointing. Why? Because his advice is for an individual who is solely interested in being an individual. No surprise though, as I have never seen a self-help book that says, "How to help yourself and continue living an wonderful life with everyone else involved in your life." Self-help books are called self-help for a reason. If it goes beyond the self, it usually gets into the religious realm. The Torah is a good start.
No one has the right answer for another individual, outside of those who want to go "Even higher" (see Brainstorm). I suppose at this moment in time I reflect on life as if I were Faust himself. Kamelot's Abandoned is a great example of frustration and how one deals with it, or rather how one may be unable to cope with dealing with frustration.
Fun nonetheless. We want to do X, it has a price tag. How far are we willing to go?
Or as Arnold says indirectly "Are you willing to fail (several times even)?"
I suppose anyone who is my friend and/or if I am their friend, understands this concept beyond the intellectualization of it. Tonight we dine on our souls.
***
Today she told me three things she wanted to do in life.
"Please don't let it rain. Don't stumble on my pride." The lyrics were the only thing left that I could remember from the evening. Mose motioned to the driver, either money or something. I didn't care nor wait.
My eyes were heavy and blurry. I was still tired, and yet knowing I needed to be awake, my body could have cared less. I'd been awake for 16 hours, running on semi-empty. And no, I didn't just wake up. Yawning felt like it could have have sucked me into a deep sleep every time my jaw even made the motion to yawn.
In my office the desk seemed to warp before my eyes as if it were a distant mirage. It's grotesque dance only stimulated a brief smirk on my face. I don't think I could have done any other facial expressions without a biblical flood of negative emotions pouring down on my soul.
A warm burning sensation, neither pleasant or unpleasant crept up from my wrists and thighs up to my torso. I heard Mose behind me, but it didn't matter to me none. I think he was worse off. I took off my tie and threw it at the top of the file cabinet. It fell in the garbage bin.
"Rick I-uh, I'ma gonna go, unless you need anything." His speech slurred worse than a retard's.
"Yeah, I think that'd be a good idea. I think you've had enough for tonight."
He nodded as if he were actually retarded, then retreated from the office quietly closing the door locking it. I crept over to the desk, lording over some leftover alcohol that while covered, still lingered from the previous night. I'm sure it's still good. I told myself. Isn't alcohol an antiseptic?
Looking outside into the night I saw my reflection. You're still good. Damaged goods, refurbished, limited edition, working prototype, drinkin', hard-boiled... No that last part isn't totally true. As far as I'm concerned there are only three or four hard-boiled guys left alive. And I ain't one of them. Slouching at the desk chair I smiled at my reflection. Yeah maybe you're those things. Who knows?
"Still good."Who knows? Who the fuck cares outside of Arturo or Mose? No one else matters. You know you're like beer. I griped at myself. You're not like wine, you don't age. You ferment. Sitting on my chair I stared briefly outside then at the ceiling.
"Yes I do." I whispered to myself, reaching over to flick on the turntable.
Sometimes I wonder if we're so busy that we don't ever really get a chance to carve out a time to have a deeper understanding of ourselves. Yes, there are times where I feel like I'm "wasting" my time. But whenever I share time with another, watching a favorite T.V. program, or movie, lounging in the sun I don't. This really only applies when I'm with another. 
