comfort?

I knew it was 8:15 this morning. I listen to NPR overnight, and thus, in the morning, and these radio guys are pretty good at telling you what time it is in the morning lest their hordes of listeners be late for work. Present company included. I knew it was 8:15, but I didn't want to get out of bed. I was comfortable.

Then, when I was in the shower, I remembered something - I remembered that we're not supposed to be comfortable. I was reminded of this when I recalled a speech that Robert F. Kennedy made in Capetown, South Africa in 1966. He said (when speaking of the dangers that the world faces):

For the fortunate among us, the fourth danger is comfort, the temptation to follow the easy and familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread before those who have the privilege of education. But that is not the road history has marked out for us. There is a Chinese curse which says "May he live in interesting times." Like it or not we live in interesting times. They are times of danger and uncertainty; but they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time in history. And everyone here will ultimately be judged - will ultimately judge himself - on the effort he has contributed to building a new world society and the extent to which his ideals and goals have shaped that effort.

So we part, I to my country and you to remain...

So I trudged on - to shun the dangers of comfort, and embrace the virtues of adversity...

you had to fight to stay in control of the situation

I'm often misunderstood. I mean in general, but a specific example, that recently reminded of this occurred about a year ago: I told the friend of a girl I liked (we'll call her "_____") that _____ was "fucking insane". Word of my comment got back to _____ and I was basically yelled at and told that my comment was "not cool".

What _____ and her friend didn't understand is that in my world "fucking insane" is the highest compliment that one can receive. I had to attempt to explain this to _____ but to no avail. I tried explaining that I like people that say what they want to say, are uninhibited, and possess a sense of adventure. People that are uncommon, and do uncommon things - people that mire themselves in the mundane are a HUGE turn off for me and drain me of my energy nearly instantly.

After about an hour of defending my comment I was nowhere; _____ was still pretty pissed until I pulled out the "big guns". I quoted Kerouac:

The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars...

_____ finally understood, but it took me over an hour of being called some things I'd rather not be referred to as. I'm often misunderstood. Some people just "get it" though. I like those people too...

Do you ever just "crave" a song. That is, do you ever have a powerful urge to dig up a song from the past, that you haven't listened to in a long time, and just jam the hell out of it? For me, today, it was Borne on the FM Waves of the Heart, by Against Me! This song is particularly kick-ass because it features Tegan Quinn (1/2 of indie rock duo Tegan and Sara). Tegan has an angelic voice that is a great contrast to Tom Gabels' throaty salvos.

Against Me! - Borne On The FM Waves Of The Heart video

base

I'm sick of people moving away from noble ambitions and giving in to base desires...fucking sick of it. sick of time wasted. sick of not reaching for the stars while we have our mighty reach - we have a small window of time to do what must be done. sick of mediocrity, but most of all sick of pretending I'm not sick of it.

... It's time to reevaluate a lot of things and shed some things that are no longer inline with the goals that are set and the might of mind possessed. We move on in our lives, it's what we do - those near us that understand us; need us... we need them to(& too). The rest can go to hell. you've given all that you can. you come to the end of yourself. We witness not any movement to actualize change - so I'm sick.

Music? Did you say music? This is what I've been listening to: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart...

Gone too long

Blogging without anything to say is kind of pointless so that explains the reason for no posts in the past several weeks. There's really nothing to say now, but I feel obligated to blog once again or else I'll just wallow in the stagnation that has become this site.

So here goes: Things that are new that are worth talking about? I graduated, I moved, I'm going to Washington D.C. in 2 weeks...yea. This is totally not doing it for me. They say that when you leave for a long time and come back, it's never the same.

Maybe it's the fact that I have to come up with "interesting" blog posts for a living that has me so unwilling to do it for "fun". Maybe it's simply the fact that I really don't have anything to say that is relevant to the world of the blogosphere - DPRK underground nuke test? we saw that one coming - what is this malaise that has come over me?

Maybe I'm too content right now? Work is fucking fun - totally dig what I'm doing. The new place is comfortable. Graduated Summa Cum Laude (that's tits, baby). Am I not entitled to sit back and enjoy the fruits of my labor, if only for a little while? It won't be long until I'm back in the thick of the academicians' battlefield - gnashing teeth in a haze nocturnal creativity, days that tear the will asunder, and lecture halls ablaze with eager eyes which never shine as brilliantly as the mind of the foe. Pen wielded as sword; well worn pages held close as shield - we howl the weary battle cry of the lionhearted as we sacrifice all to rise amongst the ranks of the immortal few.

Since it was said, over the weekend, that I like poetry, maybe this will become a poets' blog. Here's one I like, by Tony Hoagland - reminds me of this time of year - birth and renewal; and perhaps, distantly, a special someone who's memory haunts the depths of the very soul:

"A Color of the Sky" by Tony Hoagland

Windy today and I feel less than brilliant,
driving over the hills from work.
There are the dark parts on the road
when you pass through clumps of wood
and the bright spots where you have a view of the ocean,
but that doesn’t make the road an allegory.

I should call Marie and apologize
for being so boring at dinner last night,
but can I really promise not to be that way again?
And anyway, I’d rather watch the trees, tossing
in what certainly looks like sexual arousal.

Otherwise it’s spring, and everything looks frail;
the sky is baby blue, and the just-unfurling leaves
are full of infant chlorophyll,
the very tint of inexperience.

Last summer’s song is making a comeback on the radio,
and on the highway overpass,
the only metaphysical vandal in America has written
MEMORY LOVES TIME
in big black spraypaint letters,

which makes us wonder if Time loves Memory back.

Last night I dreamed of X again.
She’s like a stain on my subconscious sheets.
Years ago she penetrated me
but though I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed,
I never got her out,
but now I’m glad.

What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle.
What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel.
What I thought was an injustice
turned out to be a color of the sky.

Outside the youth center, between the liquor store
and the police station,
a little dogwood tree is losing its mind;

overflowing with blossomfoam,
like a sudsy mug of beer;
like a bride ripping off her clothes,

dropping snow white petals to the ground in clouds,

so Nature’s wastefulness seems quietly obscene.
It’s been doing that all week:
making beauty,
and throwing it away,
and making more.

What I've been reading

It's been a pretty light week as far as homework is concerned so I've been catching up on the news ... and mindless, time wasting websites. Here's what I've been reading lately:

Time Wasters!:
* holytaco.com - hilarious article on the stages of drunk. Funny 'cuz it's true!
* textsfromlastnight.com - exactly what it sounds like; texts that you wish you hadn't sent. Much more funny than fmylife.com
* Failblog.org - My daily fail fix!

International:
* Al Jazeera - interesting article on a Palestinian version of a holocaust museum. Very thought provoking piece.
* Foreign Policy - pretty much all good.
* The Economist - Assessment of the World Bank. I had such high hopes for the WB when Zoellick took over from a corrupt Wolfowitz...sigh.

That's the stuff that I've been reading...anyone else got anything interesting to check out? Let me know!

Song I've been rocking: West Bank Blues by Reno Divorce. If you've never watched a video that I've posted before, please at least watch this one. please.

Specter-tacular?

You've no doubt heard by now: In a move that further weakens an already flailing GOP, Arlen Spector, senior senator from Pennsylvania, defected to the Democratic Party. Citing the fact that the GOP has “moved far to the right,” (source: Financial Times). Mr. Spector now gives the President the prospect of a filibuster proof 60% majority in the U.S. Legislature's upper house. This coupled with the Democrat's nearly 100 person majority in the House of Representatives should have the American citizenry bracing for President Obama to run rough-shod over any chance of the promotion of a Republican agenda.

However, the optimist that I am, I see Spector's defection as a good thing. Let this serve as a wake up call to my Party! No longer can Republicans be beholden to ideologues that wish promote legislation based on emotion rather than logic! let us find not only our will to fight, but our will to win. To carve out a place in history that is not dictated by fear, but by courage. Robert F. Kennedy once said, in a speech at the California Institute of Technology in 1968:

There are people in every time and every land who want to stop history in its tracks. They fear the future, mistrust the present, and invoke the security of a comfortable past which, in fact, never existed.

That, my friends, is our Grand Old Party today.

haha...I wish Spector's defection was framed as poetically as all that. The reality is that Spector faced a tough Republican primary challenge next spring. This conservative challenger, Pat Toomey, is the Party's retribution for Spector's backing of President Obama's $700 billion stimulus bill. We are witnessing my Republican party at its worst.

If the Republican Party is to remain viable with an increasingly younger, politically active voting block, then we must make a push to the center as so wisely stated by Olympia Snowe (R-Maine): “If the Republican party fully intends to become a majority party in the future, it must move from the far right back toward the middle.”

To Strive, To Seek, To Find...

Anyone that's known me long enough might know that I used to be a pretty big slacker; I just really didn't have that much of a drive. I was content, had money, decent cars, and a comfortable place to lay my head; life was good. But there comes a time in life when you realize that mankind is on a timeline of expiration. When you realize this there's only one thing you can do. And that one thing is "everything". You need to do everything you can to shape your own destiny. For me that moment came when I discovered Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. The struggles, both within and without, that Odysseus faced did more to shape his character than any level of comfort ever could.

For the past five years, or so, Ulysses has driven my life. I never told anyone because it was something that was mine, something that could inspire me to strive with Gods. If there was ever a moment that I questioned why I was doing what I was doing, why I put up with the late nights and the homework, I would remember Ulysses. If there was ever a moment that I thought that I'd rather be hanging out with friends having a "good time", I'd remember "how dull it is to pause, to make an end, to rust unburnished, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life!" I never shared it with anyone because it was the one thing that I could call my own, and I never wanted to cheapen it or have it be made less than by sharing it with someone else. I'm sharing it now because I've made a decision to move on with my life. I'm moving to a new town, leaving those I care about behind, and, in all reality I'll never see most of you again. We'll stay in touch, but it will never be the same...if there's one thing I've learned in life it's that people move on. So, I'm leaving, but I wanted to leave you with something that is very, very dear to me, something that after all these years can still find me, lift me up, and move me in the same way all of you have.

Ulysses
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel; I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea. I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known,-- cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all,--
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains; but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
to whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfill
This labor, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail;
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me,--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads,-- you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honor and his toil.
Death closes all; but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;
The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,--
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson