Things have been good recently. I have been doing my best to avoid family drama and people drama. I have my sights set on courses for the next semester, and it should prove to be the right balance of challenge and sanity (hopefully).

A friend said something beautiful the other day. We were discussing abortion (I had just had a class discussion about it in Ethics) and the essence of her idea was that it's not the biological fact of life processes that constitute a human "life" - it's the memories and connections one makes. There's plenty of ways to argue that's not true, but I'm attracted to the concept - it's very similar to Orson Scott Card's aiua-twining-ideas from Xenocide and Children of the Mind. I've always found the idea of real connections between people so intriguing.

So her words got me thinking about how we grow - our bodies obviously have the nutritive and growth aspects, and we go through a life cycle in that way. Far different is the way our souls are shaped - through encountering other souls, we learn, we gather more complexity, we connect, disconnect, and clash, and this is what affects our inner selves.

This all ties in to a poem I read last week - "Legion", by Craig Dworkin. It consisted of true or false questions from a psych evalutation (the MMPI), but in a particular order. Only a few phrases were repeated. The thing is, I didn't know that the text was from a psych test, so I read it trying to get an idea of the identity that was represented in the poem - I tried to get to know the speaker.

The result was difficult to grapple with. Because so many of the statements ("I think a person should never taste alcohol," and "I have used alcohol excessively") were directly contradictory, it made me wonder if the speaker was just a liar, or at best unreliable. Then, I wondered if it wasn't someone just being terribly honest - stating hidden thoughts over a period of time.

I found myself identifying with many of the statements in there. Others I was repulsed by. This gives the poem an interesting aspect of letting the reader form an identity for themselves by how much the various lines resonate with them. Another way to look at it is that the poem represents the American identity at large - these are the questions we ask people to determine what kind of person they are. If this poem can stand in for our national identity ... we are so neurotic, so paranoid. We are so concerned with things that are not worthy of so much concern.

That, of course, opens up the question of what IS worthy of concern. What constitutes a good life?

These questions are apt to remain at large in my brain for plenty of time. Other matters of the moment include my propensity to love - it seems I have trouble existing on the earth without having somebody to pine for. I am not sure why this is. I am functionally fine on my own. Even if I don't have somebody, I can be happy, productive, etc. However, it feels like there's something missing. I don't mean to say that I'm broken up over things ending with Lacey - it was definitely time for that to happen. I'm wondering about the larger issue here - why aren't I content to just remain alone?

Obvious answers - I enjoy security. I crave it. Any instance of feeling loved and worthy of someone's time and thought is like a drug. I crave to feel understood and accepted.

So why are THOSE feelings there? Is that digging deep enough? Is it enough to say "I crave the love of someone who I love as well", or is exploration into the "why" of that worthwhile? I'd say yes, but I think that's a question for another entry.

I'm sure someone's said it better than this, but the prevailing feeling is that I would walk miles for a moment of her warm regard. I would do much for little in return, but that wouldn't be enough. I can't stop until I can hold her and call her mine. I covet her trust and respect, and desperately want to genuinely trust her.

Dumb, fumbling articulation, but it's as true as anything else these days. I'm not being emo, just making my inner monologue an outer one. I wonder how much of it has to do with her and how much of it has to do with my need for solidarity.

I will probably set an alarm and poke my head outside to see if it's meteoring. A full-fledged watching session is too much sleep to give up, sadly.

It's both easy and hard to be reflective at this time of night. The thoughts are all bouncing around in there, but articulation and clear-headedness are difficult to attain. I spent the night with friends, laughing, enjoying their company. Having these positively-charged events and moments is so gratifying and pleasing - I don't know how I survived without it.

I suppose that's not true - for a long time after my hand accident, my social life was practically non-existent. Nobody came over, I rarely talked on the phone with anyone my age, and my only source of support was Lacey, which was pretty hit-or-miss. In times like this, I feel like I essentially hibernate. I retreat within myself, and even when out in the world I'm disconnected in a fundamental way from the people around me. It's unhealthy and unpleasant - but hasn't failed me yet.

It's such a hard balance to strike, being introverted the way I am. Not that I'm complaining - I just wish I were more constant for my and other people's convenience. Just when I'm having the most fun in the company of others, I want to be alone. Just when I've finally got the silence I need to focus on something, I get lonely.

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this or why I'm talking about it. Mainly I'm just thinking about friends - friends I've had, friends I have, and friends who I'm getting closer with. I'm so grateful for the people who tolerate, and even sometimes appear to enjoy my presence. Feeling welcome, feeling cared about, feeling loved - these feelings have been terribly absent my entire life. I crave them, and am elated when I get them. It's been so long since I felt appreciated, and I'm just beginning to get there again.

It's late; I should sleep, especially considering I only got three hours monday night. I both love and hate not being able to get something out of my mind. Thrilling and frustrating. Absorbing every spare moment.

August is Over was going to play a show in Vermont tonight, but one of Jeff's friends passed away last night, and he obviously must deal with that. I'm bummed that I don't get to play, and I feel selfish for it. I have the "oh, of course," understanding bit going on, but there's the not-quite-subconscious feeling of disappointment. Self-centered, but can you blame me? I like to play.

Life has been tumultuous recently, but I still feel that I'm not caught up. So much has happened between m last journal entry here and the present that I feel like I've got to at least pay lip service to the last year and a half.

( About my Father, LA, Lacey, and Weight )

'Til next time.

Writing in an online journal seems to come and go. I understand why I stopped writing last time - I can actually pinpoint the trend that caused it. I began walking from Ben's house in Malibu to the Starbucks a couple miles up the PCH. There I would sit, read, and people-watch, hoping I'd be approached and make a friend. I began disconnecting from the internet and ties to Massachusetts.

I did encounter a group of people my age that I was befriended by - a girl named Joanna worked in the adjacent CVS. When I bought something at her register, she said "aww, you hurt your paw!" (My hand was in the splint at this point.) I thought her usage of the word "paw" was adorable, and thus a friendship was born.

Anyway, I'm back to livejournal because I had dinner with a friend tonight who mentioned that she enjoyed my writing, back when I used to write. When she referenced livejournal, I remembered that I used to use it somewhat frequently. In times like these, a place to put it all on a page is invaluable, so here I am again.

I don't think that I'll go into details about what's happened recently. It's late at night (not that I have anything to do in the morning) and my head's a little muddled. Reading my older entries is a trip - Especially the thoughts right after I'd moved to Malibu. Those were dark times. Interesting how they seem so distant now.

Anyway, is anybody still my friend on here? If you read this, a welcome back would be fantastic. Is there anything shockingly new about LJ that I wouldn't know (haven't touched it since March 2008).

I think that I will write "write" on a post-it note and stick it to my computer. In the absence of a willing partner to discuss my thoughts with, I find that maintaining a monologue on-screen is great for fleshing out thoughts and ideas, as well as exploring the inner recesses of my mind. I hope to get around to it more often.

Oh shit, is there an LJ app for the iPhone? Must be. Yeah, I'll be writing often.

Good to be back, as far as I can tell.

I am awake at 5 am again and I am troubled.


I get pretty nostalgic sometimes. What I am scared by is the part where every now and then, a feeling comes up in me - a desperate, clawing need to return to childhood. I hear some music and it takes me back, and suddenly I'd rather be there than here. My heart fights to feel comforted, like somebody is taking care of it. I wonder if practicers of religion find this comfort in their God. I've seen some people who'd make me think so, but then there's all those who have all that hate and anger and God just makes them Right.

I feel like I did it wrong. Or maybe someone did me wrong. I feel that if life is a tower, I'm standing on top of some pretty weak foundations. I want to go back and do it differently - more than maybe with my Dad actually around. It was like I was raised with the bare minimum of guidance and comfort.

I need therapy - this is too large to straighten out all on my own, especially when I feel so... mixed up isn't what I mean. Derelict is closer. Like a nicely built but now abandoned building. Gutted. I know that I need to come to terms with the fact that I can't go back, I'm stuck with what I've got, and in fact it could have been way worse. It's hard to see the bigger picture, though, when the path I've carved through that picture still looks like a vacuum to me - so easy to get pulled into and lost inside.

I get most choked up when songs like the Host of Seraphim come on... that song is so beautiful, but it's associated with death, with desperate and merciful murder, with skulls stacked a dozen high and a hundred wide on a desert hovel floor. Powerful imagery, and none imagined either. My playlist is relentless tonight. I have one called 'slow', which I put together while stressing about my hand. I put it on shortly after waking, and it hit me with Host of Seraphim, Anniversary of an Uninteresting Event, Scars of Time, and now we're on EYEWTKAS. Daryl at the end of this song:
"I'm digging a hole. I'll shut out the world. This is what it's like to be alone."
That has always summed up depression pretty nicely for me.

It scares the shit out of me how a person can be happy and responsive, fully there during the day, but wake them up for no reason in the middle of the night and look what's inside... I wonder how many people experience this - demons during the night. What would happen if that energy were channeled or harnessed? What would emerge from that?

Mostly I just wish the gremlins controlling my inner workings would let me cry. I haven't, except for a few choked off attempts, since before the accident.

Mostly I am "overwhelmed with the sense that everything will be okay."

It will, and so will I. Friends, don't worry, I'm still all there. Just tired and working it out. Love you guys.

After the dream I just had, waking was a real disappointment.

When I got really lonely, I used to imagine I had others with me - sometime a pet who was gone, but through the power of mind I could (almost) convince myself that they were at the foot of the bed, even though in real life I never had a pet who slept there. Sometimes I'd imagine my father was asleep in the other room. which always made me want to sleep as soon as possible so I could wake up in the morning and spend time with him. How sad. 

Usually though, I'd imagine I was bunked up with some girl I had a crush on. We had just been through some awful trauma (ranging from hurricane or other awful storm to school shooting), and I played the part of quiet-but-strong man. This girl (who changed from month to month) now needed me in a way she never had before. We would huddle close together (if I really needed it, I'd hold onto a spare pillow) and I would create our conversation - we would just talk. 

These imaginations were fantasies, but rather than being sexual in nature, I was imagining a companion or friend. I was trying to drive away the loneliness with the creative ability I can sometimes access. I don't know, really, how to hold this in my memory. Do I remember it as pleasant and comforting? Acknowledge how sad and alone I must have felt? How insecure in my surroundings that I had to mentally excuse myself from reality? I would just let myself feel what I feel, but there's conflict. I guess, actually, that it's alright to feel both.

Anyway. What bothers me most is that I feel a different kind of lonely tonight. When I was a kid, it was that I had people around me, but they didn't want me or I didn't want them. Now I'm really very alone. I've felt this before, sure, but that doesn't make it stink any less. It makes me want to  return to that dream - I was myself, but as a swordsman (basically my personality with Link's skills) and I was leading some girl through all kinds of danger. I felt strong and useful. I felt courageous and fundamentally assured in the knowledge that I was a force of good. 

In contrast, I now sit on a threadbare futon mattress, covered under too many blankets because apparently even Malibu gets cold at night. I am typing with one hand because my right one is useless. It aches and throbs, and stings now because the took the sutures out yesterday. I miss my girlfriend, my dog, and I miss those few times in my life where I experienced that holy grail of friendship - the best friend. That person you did everything with, confided in, trusted, loved. You looked forward to seeing them the next day - to share what few occurrences there had been since a few hours ago. I worry that I will never again have anything close to that.

Malibu is paradise, but you can't beat somebody to talk to. I don't know how it'd be if my brain weren't big enough to talk to itself (I refer to discursive thought here, not talking to yourself). Would I be even lonelier? Or would I be so stupid that I wouldn't care... That reminds me of a wish I have made in the past. I used to show up at a new school system (this happened way too often) and see people walking around with friends they'd known since diapers. Those connections were so strong, how could I ever compare? I have often wished that I weren't so brainy, if only I could have not been so lonely. Those two don't necessarily have any correlation, but in some blaming kind of way my heart still believes they do, at least a little bit.

Having written for a half an hour now (with two hands it would have taken 10 minutes to write all this) I guess I'll try sleep again. Maybe I'll curl up with an imaginary Lacey, or Donnie, or some other cuddlebug. Probably not though - that stuff is for kids, and against all odds as well as against my will) I'm getting older now.

Goodnight?

-D

Alright, the answer you've all been waiting for:

I am leaving Massachusetts for good on March 22nd. Nothing is impossible, and I may come back someday, but right now I feel as if I have very little reason to ever return to this state - I've spent too many years of my life here, experienced too much pain here, you know?

I will almost certainly miss you if you know enough about me to be reading this. I'll miss being near where we met, spent time together, laughed, cried, all that cliché shit. I know I go with the support of many people though, and that feels wonderful.

I'll need that support as I venture off into what I feel is the unknown. I'll be living, disabled, in a place I've never been. It is only scarier (and more exciting) that this place is Malibu, California. Until recently, Jennifer Aniston lived across the street from the house where I'll be staying. My uncle, with whom I'll be staying, saw 1/2 of Metallica the other day at a little breakfast spot. I am going to live right on the coast, and hang with some movie stars for a few months. I am lucky and privileged to have this opportunity.

That doesn't mean I'm not scared though. Lacey may have to remain in MA for as much as a month. I will be lonely and struggling to do the things I was able to do with two hands. The best, most appreciated way any of you could help me is just keep in touch. Whether it's just letting me know now and then that you're thinking of me, or calling every other day to see how I am, and in turn let me know how you are - I've never been good at these kinds of things, and I need your help. I mean it. Your calls or texts or emails will always be welcome and wanted, no matter who you are, how long it's been since I've seen you, anything.

I get my sutures out tuesday. I will go to see (and hang out with!) ETID, The Bled, August Burns Red, and the other bands on the take action tour. Saturday I leave for paradise. My depression is slowly and reluctantly lifting (I hope those are not empty words). I don't know what else to say besides Thank you, to everyone who has contacted me in any way since the accident, big or small.

One more time for the road: my putting this information up here means that I want you to use it.

Phone: 413 687 1824
Email: d_marcus18@yahoo.com
AIM: DavidTMarcus

My most powerful love to all of you; goodbye.
-David

Hey, everybody.

The surgery has come and gone. Bloodflow has been restored. It seems that now all that remains are months of physical therapy and a good amount of luck to see if I'll regain sensation and control. My sutures come out in 10 days.

The surgeon seemed unsympathetic to my need to leave the area as soon as possible. It may be that surgeons are controlling by nature (the physical therapist's words, not mine,) but he suggested that if the case left his hands my results might not be as good. I see it this way - they have hospitals and physical therapists on the west coast, just as they do here. I should be able to get fine care out there.

What's crucially important is that I get out of here. I don't feel safe here in MA, for a number of reasons. I worry that my emotional state will deteriorate if I am forced to remain.

We are looking into whether our health insurance will cover care in California, and that seems to be the next step or question. I am discouraged and scared. I think I'm going to begin talking to some kind of therapist as soon as I can, whether I'm here or there. I had hoped to wait until I was clear of this area before I began therapy but I think that starting soon may be more necessary than I'm willing to admit.

So. For now I am staying in a hotel to keep away from the (STILL) drama-filled and stressful place that was
once my home. I am happy to answer anyone's questions and even happier to just talk with anybody. It is a hard road I have ahead of me, but (I hope) the hardest part is behind me, and the support I've had so far from everybody has just been amazing. If you wanna come visit, you are beyond welcome. Get in touch with me for the hotel and room number.

Love and thanks,
Dave

Everyone -

I’m typing this to you with my left hand only. Why? Well.
I wish it was just to prove I can do it. However, I dont have much of a choice.
Yesterday I cut off the middle, ring, and pinky fingers of my right hand. This was a really awful accident, and to be honest, I’m not quite okay.

How did it happen? As you may or may not know, my family situation is not great. I have been having some not-so-awesome thoughts recently, and have been pretty depressed. During one of the all-too-frequent family battles, the dam broke. All the anger that I’ve been piling up since my parents split tried to come out at once. This manifested in me snagging a paring knife off the counter. As soon as I had picked it up, I regretted it, and I tried to jam it into a nearby wall. I hit a solid part of the wall and my hand slipped from the handle and slid along the blade. Everything but the bones were severed.

I spent the rest of the day in the hospital. My fingers are sutured back together for now, and tomorrow I’ll go under the knife for microvascular surgery tomorrow afternoon, and they hope to put me back together again.

To be clear: I’m not suicidal. I was angry, and my anger made me lose control, causing a really bad accident. I would never intentionally hurt myself (or anyone for that matter) so please: nobody even go there.

I am, however, scared. I don’t know what this means for me in so many ways: as a musician, as a writer, as a worker. I am worried that I will never be able to use these three fingers again. How will I type? Play the piano? It’s not good.

I have known that I need to not be in this family situation for years. I could have just gotten in my car and left, consequences be damned, but that’d be dumb. I’d have ended up in debt and unhappy. I have tried to find a responsible way out, and until now it’s been fruitless. The recent event has made it obvious to my family that a change needs to be made, and luckily my Uncle is stepping up. As soon as I’m recovered from surgery I’ll be heading to Malibu to stay with him. Once it’s summer I’ll move north to the santa cruz area and live with my Dad, who’ll be moving back to the states from Indonesia.

So, this means I’m leaving Massachusetts soon and I may never come back. If you want to set up a time to see me or even just talk to me, here’s how:

Phone - 413.687.1824
E-mail - d_marcus18@yahoo.com
AIM - davidtmarcus

Thanks to everyone who’s been so supportive so far.
-Dave

EDIT--------------
I had the surgery on Monday, and the surgeon said it went well. I have no clue how long it will be before i can feel anything or control the fingers again. I am looking forward to leaving as soon as i can. I will ask the doctors tomorrow if i'll be able to leave soon.
Everyone who has shown me love or support through IM, calling, or visiting.... thank you so much, you have made a trying time a little easier.

There has been so much going on recently.

I can't really deal with writing it all out right now.

I will synopsize.
-I am not going to Full Sail anymore. Full Sail is a lie, just like the cake. (Portal? Anyone?)

- I am taking classes at HCC because the deadline for UMass was in November and I want to salvage what is left of this semester.

- After this semester, hopefully I will be on tour with my band.

- If not, I will move to California to live with my family out there and finish my 4-year degree.

- The whole time I will catch up on lost years of X-men comics.

I just saw Cloverfield, and I thought it was brilliant. Anyone else see it and have any thoughts?

If you have specific questions about the many turns my life has taken recently, contact me. If you depend on myspace, facebook, or livejournal to know what's up with me ... well, you get the picture.

email - d_marcus18@yahoo.com (people still write emails, right?)
AIM - DavidTMarcus
You either know my phone number, or at no point during our time together did I think "it'd be cool if they called me up sometime."

Love,
Dave.

I've been on an X-men kick recently.
Been watching the old animated series that was on fox kids.
Downloading every comic every published.
mm. Nostalgia.

So I'm going to Florida in a couple days. Practice tomorrow. I should pack and shit, but I find it hard to focus on anything, being sick and all.

Once I've got my head back, hopefully I'll write something interesting in here.

At practice on wednesday, we played the set 3 times through at full energy. I feel like the biggest wimp saying this, but I'm out of shape and it wore me out. There isn't an inch of muscle that doesn't ache. I can't turn my head left or right.
To top that off, I've got some gnarly cold/fever deal going on.

Uggggh.

In happier news, I leave to visit Florida in three days. I'm beyond psyched. Lacey and I will drive down to Winter Park, stay for a couple of weeks, then drive back just in time for me to play a show with the Red Chord. That should be fun.

I taught lacey to drive my car tonight, played COD4 for like 5 hours, and then read about the history of the X-Men. I had a crush on Rogue when I was a kid. I might still. mm.

I've been telling myself I'll go to bed when I feel like I could fall asleep despite everything hurting, but nothing's getting better, so I'll just go now.

arg.

My brother walks like he's falling forward, but catching himself at the last by stepping forward.
Which is to say, it's really freaking loud.
At 8:30 AM. On a late night delivery guy's schedule, this is like 5 AM.
I feel feverish and ooky.
I played terribly last night in COD4.
When my right hip pops, it sounds like a balloon exploding.
I threw a plastic shovel over the wall of our fort last night and hit Lacey in the arm. I felt ( and feel ) so incredibly terrible about it. I'm grateful that she is not the kind of girl who sulked and pouted and made me feel like more of a douchebag. I definitely don't think I could have regretted my shovel placement any worse.
She's a genuinely good person. I should surround myself with more of those, in order to make myself more like them.

I just had a killer snowball fight in my backyard with Chris, Mike and Lacey.
Holy fun.

Tonight is Call of Duty 4 night with Jay and the rest of the crew. I'm stoked.
I'm going on vacation to Florida for 2 weeks starting.... a week from yesterday. YES.

I don't think there is any joint in my body that doesn't crack, pop, or make noise somehow.
That's bad.

I figured out how to put any ringtone I want on my iPhone today. I have 30 second clips ranging from Bela Fleck to the Bled. Oooh. I should put a weezer one on there. I wonder what made me think of that.

This post is not about intellectual stuff. It is an exhausted, I just had a great time throwing snow at people, I smell awful, and I'm about to frag some good friends on the internet.

Love,
Dave.

Man.
Outsourcing is killing me.
The past three times I've called a tech support place, I have had mounds of trouble trying to get my question answered by someone whose first language is clearly not English. I have no problem with diversity in the workplace, but it's obvious that these people know very little about the products they're supposed to assist people with. They're reading from a computer knowledge base, which is likely not too different from the one I can access on my own. The reason I call technical support is to talk to someone who knows more about the problem than I do. These guys just put me on hold for 20 minutes while they talk to a "specialist". The phone menu said I was being transferred to a specialist in the first place.

I hope I'm not coming off as bitchy or snooty. This comes after a looong trial, trying to get my technology to work, and I think I'm cursed. Really. The mac helps, because it seems to be (mostly) curse-proof, but for anything else, it just seems to not want to work the second my hands touch it. This is bad news for someone who wants to go into audio (eek).

On the biological side of things, last night was full of drama (wasn't I just writing how free of that I am/was?) I am hopeful still, but every incident brings me closer to declaring that all this struggling is just not worth it. Sometimes I think I'd be better off with just me and Donnie and all my technology that doesn't work.

Sigh.

I just got instant messaged by a robot.
Or a kid who has noooo clue.
Oh man.

Me - "Why'd you IM me man? I mean, I don't wanna be rude, but I don't know you, and I don't normally get random IMs from people I don't know. Was there something you wanted?"
him - "oh we live in the same town"
him - "amherst massachusetts"

he also asked if I do sports.

whaaaaaaaaat?

Lacey got me a Nintendo-themed monopoly set for Christmas.
It's the fucking coolest.

However, I find myself feeling more than a little weird playing it, being old and knowing about money now. People get genuinely stressed when they lose shitty paper money that isn't legal tender in the U.S. Is this a product of capitalism, or a product of humans' need to hoard and keep?

Obviously that latter need is a pretty sweeping generalization, but it's a rare person I've met who isn't at least sort of a pack rat. Those few who live with spartan accomodations and are able to just let go of belongings, saying "it's just stuff" make me feel bad for being so reluctant to get rid of all my "stuff". I admire those people a great bit. Whenever I imagine my future dwelling, where I live on my own (or with Lacey), I imagine it being simple - not cluttered like the houses I've lived in forever. Stuff that needs to be hung onto will be stored somewhere out of the way, organized and neat. Things that are part of the place like furniture, electronics, etc., will not necessarily be minimal but at the least very smartly put together so that the place feels spacious enough for people to exist in.

Hmm.

That said, I'm trying to sell a bunch of music gear.
If you know anyone trying to start a band, or someone looking to buy a very nice Desktop PC, leave a comment.

We're apparently having a nice dinner tonight. A pot roast? I've got to say, my mom has definitely been putting an effort into being more of a mom since all the drama drama drama that occurred a couple of months ago. Of course, she's not like a mom in an orange juice commercial, but she's not going overboard, which is good for her. I don't think I've fought with her or Chris recently, which is refreshing, for sure.

That said, I can't fucking wait to get out of Massachusetts, whether in a tour van or a moving van. I was ready to set out on my own before I graduated high school, and a couple poor decisions have kept me sitting in MA, bored and unchallenged, for the past year and a half. It's time to leave.

Gonna go find Lacey.
Nevermind, she just walked in.
I'll just go over and see her instead.

I work at a pizza joint.

It's not a glamorous job. It's not a good job. It's not the job I'm going to have forever, but for some reason I always find myself grateful that I got involved with Domino's while I was in high school.

Delivering pizza is the ultimate pick up and go job. You can work for a few nights and never come back, or you can work full time. The money, for such an on-again, off-again job, is incredible. Wherever I move in America, I can walk into a store and say "I need a job for a couple of weeks while I get on my feet. I delivered for Domino's for 4 years, and I have a GPS and a good sense of direction." Their response will almost invariably be "We'll see you tonight then?"

It's fun, to be honest. You get acquainted with a lot of people. You see a lot of what people are like when they feel at home. The delivery guy is neutral - expected not to judge, expected not to expect much from you. If you answer the door in your sweats, or your underwear, (or even naked. This happened once.), it doesn't matter - the delivery guy won't care. If you are the delivery guy and this stuff bothers you, you shouldn't be delivering.

It also allows a lot of time for reflection. If you're familiar with the locale, the time spent driving from place to place is really good for mulling things over.

I have work in an hour and a half. I wouldn't say I'm excited, but I don't mind that I'm going. I'll make money, probably get some reading done, and maybe come home with some new thoughts to post. Maybe not.

Thankfully, I've begun reading again. I've tried to write a few sentences describing what exactly I mean by that, but they all come out wrong. All I mean, I think, is that it's a good thing. Good for my head.

I re-started with a long essay titled "On Bullshit". More on that later.

I continued with a brief look at philosophy in a short book by Thomas Nagel. I found that it really condensed what philosophy is for me, and I'm glad of that. Basically, as I now understand it, it's just the struggle to understand what our minds do not readily understand. Philosophy is like the greatest puzzle one could ever try to tackle, because it deals with problems that are so integral to our everyday lives as humans.

This makes sense. This is why the early philosophers were treading new ground. I guess I always just called up the image of a man in a toga, occasionally with a younger man... every book I ever read that mentioned philosophy seemed to mention they were homosexuals and pederasts. Hmm.

Not that that matters. Anyway, my brain feels at least a little bit larger now that I understand some of the more standard questions that philosophy tries to take on. Stuff like the existence of free will, the nature of morality, and even the existence of the external world. I had my own thoughts while reading through, but I consider myself humble enough to withhold those thoughts until they're a bit more fleshed out. I hope that I find myself mulling these problems over during my long hours at work instead of worrying about which size pizza box I'm folding.

Then again, they're frustrating questions. Part of me begs the rest of me to just leave it alone and continue living life, allowing the mysteries to exist. That part of me suggests that these problems taunt humanity - luring them further into madness with their hugeness of scope. Isn't it better to, upon encountering these questions, to come up with answers that work for you and move on? Do we HAVE to know whether there is any external base for morality? Are we ever going to know what controls (or really if anything controls) our choices? Does it matter?

And then there's the question of, does any of it matter. That's the one that's so depressing that I try my hardest to leave it alone. Obviously, they're fantastic exercises for the brain, and they're ones I did without the aid of this intro to philosophy, but when you get too deep into it, you end up saying "well since I can argue that my life has no immortal meaning, what's the point" and becoming some kind of shell until somebody snaps you out of it or you commit suicide.

Sheesh.

I have to admit, I'd like to mutate my writing style a bit to mirror my Uncle Ben's. He's a funny man, and obviously a great writer. Eloquent without being too wordy. If you read this, Ben, don't let it go to your head.

I'm probably off track by now, and I'm sure I contradicted myself at least once (didn't I say I was going to withhold commentary on philosophy for now? So much for that.)

I'd like to blog more often. I'd like to be involved in bigger blogging communities. I'd like to perhaps deal with some of my inner thoughts more effectively. I'd like to get a blog that works, that many people use, and that I can use to connect to other people whose thoughts I find interesting. Maybe it's just that my circle of friends on livejournal is just a bunch of people I knew a few years ago and don't talk to all that much anymore. Can somebody (anybody) point me in the right direction?

It feels good to get these things out of my head. There's too much in there as far as I'm concerned. Maybe a blog will be useful as a vessel for the thoughts that stop making sense if they sit on the brain's catalog shelves for too long. Yeah.

Oh, and I just watched the Simpsons movie and it wasn't as awesome as I expected. My fault for expecting a lot, but then again, a lot of people I know did talk it up. Or maybe that was 20th Century Fox. Hmm. Family Guy 4 Lyfe!!!