Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop

No excuses. I’ve been extremely lame recently. Have you ever gotten into one of those ruts and you don’t want to do anything productive ever? Yeah, that’s been me for over a month.

However, recently I’ve been getting the urge to actually do stuff for myself. I feel like I’m putting myself on the right track.

I have here for you this e-mail I wrote to a friend earlier this evening. We’ve been discussing this sort of dilemma that it seems a lot of people have, which is being afraid of falling into the cycle of your “average, everyday, middle American.” It seems like this is all I’ve been discussing with everybody these days. I suppose it’s a good thing that the people I know are realizing this so early so possibly they can prevent themselves from falling into the trap.

I cut out the beginning and the end because they’re not about the subject I introduced and I didn’t necessarily get the OK from my friend to go ahead and post this e-mail. I also cut out 2 names I used because it would more or less give it away to some people.

THE E-MAIL!!!

I’m actually having a bit of the same “nervous about getting myself going” problem you’re having. I spoke with my buddy Ishraq about this (he’s been a bit of therapist for me these past couple years) and he agrees that it’s difficult to get yourself going to do something because you’re nervous and/or scared of the unknown. Most people need pushing by the ones they love.

I can’t assume you haven’t expressed how completely bad ass the Peace Corp would be to ::name bajeeted::, ::name baleeted:: or any of your other loved ones, but you really should if you haven’t. I know for damn sure that either of them would love to constantly push and support you to reach your dream. That’s what my best friends do for me; that’s what they’re there for.

It seems a lot of people are going through the same thing you are. I had ANOTHER convo about this tonight with my cousin Kiki. I’m beginning to think everyone eventually comes to an impasse in their life where they realize they can shoot for their dreams or settle for a life of monotony. The strongest ones, the ones that want the most out of life, the ones that are brave, continue the struggle. I could quote a Robert Frost poem, but I fucking hate his poetry and feel it’d be cliche to use it, so fuck that guy.

I stirred some crazy shit last week when I asked my Mom if, on her death bed, she’ll think back and say to herself, “thank goodness I obsessively kept my house clean and owned all those Coach bags.” Your life isn’t going to be defined by your career, how much money you made, or how many pretty things you owned. It’ll be defined by all the awesome shit you did and the beautiful relationships you made along the way.

One last thing, if you need inspiration, go to http://www.plan-it-x.com/ and on the home page listen to Paul Baribeau’s song “Ten Things.” Whenever I hear this song (seriously) I get all jittery and want to go do everything ever, all at once.

You don’t know who it is, right? Good.

I love my Mom like crazy and regret saying that to her, it just saddens me a bit when I see where her priorities lie.

Obviously I’m not going to start the Monday through Friday thing again, there just ended up not being enough time in the day. I will, however, dedicate myself to writing a blog atleast once a week.

It was nice to see you again!

Stay hopeful,

Tim

Friends

My sincerest apologies to those of you who visited the site yesterday and were devastated to find that there was nothing to feast your hungry eyes on.  I actually had REAL WORK to do and when I got home I found that my computer had turned itself off and refused to return to its normal state of hot-pr0n-delivery-machine.

On the bright side, at least the best post (in my humble opinion) that I’ve written so far was up twice as long so for those of you who missed the awesome idea of A Day of Regression you had the chance to catch up.  Make sure you try it, too.  It would be hilarious to find that all my friends have been playing with LEGOS again or pulling out the old NES from the attic (you better have kept it) for some reminiscent gaming.

Wednesday evening I was lucky enough to have a fun, extremely drawn out hangs session with my friends Bryan, Ishraq and Pita.  We looks at some old photos from high school which was very funny, especially Bryan’s remarks about how Pita used to be HUGE, which he was.  The evening eventually progressed into a fairly deep philosophical conversation ranging from fairly surface level - like the source of Pita’s feud with another friend of ours - to the fairly obscure – like searching for true happiness.  I won’t get into detail, primarily because a lot of the concepts discussed I’m still working on grasping, but I came out feeling slightly more (at the risk of sounding over-dramatic) enlightened than earlier in the day.  This isn’t to say I suddenly became aware of my purpose and direction in life - I still feel very far from finding that - but I have a better idea of which way I should point myself.

This seems to happen quite often when I hang out with this specific group of friends, especially at Ishraq’s house.  Maybe its the atmosphere of his basement or how comfortable we are around each other because of how long we’ve known each other or a combination of both, but it seems that our presence around each other puts us all at ease and able to speak about every little thing that bothers us, frightens us, excites us or confuses us.  They’re truly the brothers I never had.

This is, I suppose, another method of therapy, much like the one in my previous post, except a more direct method because we’re essentially letting out everything we don’t say to everyone else around us.  I’m sure my friends feel the same way that I do because of how many times we say “I should really head home,” but then stay and talk for another couple hours.

For those of you who know you have this kind of friend, hold on to them.  They’re a special gift that comes once in a lifetime and can do wonders for your mental health and emotional balance.  For those who think you don’t, maybe you just haven’t tried talking to the right friend.  Maybe it’ll turn out that this friend understands you like no other and is on the exact same page as you. So strike up a deep conversation with a friend you may not know extremely well, just ask them ”What do you want to do with your life?” or “where do you see yourself 10 years from now?”

Maybe they’ll be the solid ground you’ve been searching for.

I’m blessed to have found mine.

Everyone have a spectacular weekend, I’ll see you Monday.

Stay friendly,

tim!

Let’s throw our money away pt. 2

Ishraq made a very good point in his comment on yesterday’s post, saying “i think you know my stance on gambling and drunken revelry. you’re getting mad at the actors in a system for not smiling while taking away your $$, yet to me the bigger absurdity is that people find enjoyment in the very concept of gambling, of which the function is appropriately described in your title.”  I agree about the ridiculousness of the concept of gambling which taps into one of the most disgusting of human traits, greed.  The opportunity to win loads of easy money by playing a game is often times too overwhelming for most people, and the fact that casinos play off of that is appalling.  There are also definitely more fun games to play if you’re merely doing it for the enjoyment (I’m looking at you, Scrabble).

However, in my last post, I was more aiming at it being kinda sad on a person to person level as opposed to a blanket statement about all casinos and its dealers.  Whether they’re taught to act like people who are new to the game should be shunned by the higher-ups or not I don’t know, but I can’t think of a reason why they would, besides them just being dicks.  I’ll admit that in the post I didn’t explain my objective as well as I should have, but that’s the whole reason why I’m writing this thing, so I can get better at expressing myself.  I know it seems like I harp on this being nice to people thing and it may sound like I’m getting a bit whiny, but I find it so easy to treat others with respect that I see no reason for anyone else not to.

Will I go back to a casino?  Most likely.  Money is not super-important to me so I don’t mind if I lose it (there’s always plenty more to make), but if I DO win I’ll be slightly more comfortable that I was before.  Also, to me the enjoyment wasn’t in the gambling but in spending time with good friends of mine in a place I’ve never been before, which is always a great recipe for getting ones fun on.

Hockey seems like an almost definite thing as long as we can get enough people.  I’m super-excited because I’ve never played hockey before, but super-nervous because I’ve NEVER PLAYED HOCKEY BEFORE!  I’m by no means a great athlete, but I can pick up a game pretty quickly and be semi-decent at it, but this will be different.  I’ve skated before, but this requires a whole new skill level of skating that’s going to take some practice.  Still, I feel like I’m up to the task.  I’m buying new skates and probably a new stick on Friday, so if you’re available let me know!

The Album-a-Day date seems like it’s going to be sometime in mid-August, let me know if you want to play in it.  Seriously, everyone’s more than welcome.  We would LOVE to have an accordion and a string section!

I feel like this is my worst post so far.  I’m very upset with myself and I’m pretty sure my day is ruined.  I PROMISE tomorrow’s will be a new topic and something more interesting.  Even looking back on the quote I don’t know if I properly responded to Ishraq.  Whatever, it’s all part of the learning process.

Stay confusing,

tim!