Self-Sabotage

I don't even know at this point how to spell savotage or sabotage or whatever... That's what I get for staying up incredibly late every night this week. My word is telling me that "sabotage" is correct but I'm always weary. It never catches the comma that is supposed to support "but" statements.

As far as actual self-sabotage goes (we'll go with that spelling as long as it accepts it), I found I do it a lot. I'm terrified of a lot of things. I'm afraid of dogs, heights, small spaces, and this weird thing that keeps making my whole body convulse that I'm too afraid of to go to a doctor about (irony? money. ohhhhhh.... Yeah, I'm afraid of my figurative life ending WAY more than my literal one). Unfortunately, those aren't the fears I self-sabotage with...

I'm afraid of being in charge. I'm afraid of being a leader. I'm afraid of being depended upon. I'm afraid of leading the people I care most about to their certain deaths (or depression of ANY kind for that matter!). I'm afraid of blame and afraid of commitment. I'm afraid that I won't be trusted. I'm afraid of being feared. I'm afraid of being disappointing or disillusioning. I'm afraid of hurting those who trust me. I'm afraid of finding out that I really really matter to someone and that they see me for someone I'm not. I'm afraid of not being who they thought I was or who I was supposed to be.

I'm not that good. I try but I fail. I don't want to hear anyone call me up or text me to tell me I'm wrong there because if you don't know, it's probably because you haven't known me that long. I disappoint people constantly. I let people down ALL OF THE TIME! I am a HUGE let-down to people who count on me most.

I'm not afraid to stand up for something I know is right. I'm not afraid of being blunt and in some ways callous regarding the traditions that our society has impressed upon us. I can stand up when I'm called upon. That's not the problem.

The problem is my memory.

I'm writing a story right now. It's just a story. It'll never really grow into a book, I don't think. Who isn't writing a story, though? I guess I could have left that out. Full discretion... The story is about a man whose wife and daughter were taken from him. His best friend tells the story. They begin a few years after his wife and daughter were taken. They travel around the United States searching for plans for a machine that will send a person back in time. The machine supposedly doesn't work. Each time someone is sent back in time they never reappear. The experiments are ludicrous, of course, but in the story, those who are sent back in time are really sent back. They aren't fully grown men and women like they had previously assumed would happen but in order for the person to be sent, their spirit alone was all that the machine could transfer. The person had to be born again. They kept some memories, but the memories only really developed after they reached the ages at which they gained the memories to begin with. Why the story like that? Well, the best friend is sent back in time as such and has begun writing this story as though it were a book. While he writes, he realizes that the story is his story and instead of inspiration, they're memories.

My memories are lost. If you read back a few entries you'll see me mention werewolf-like moments. My memory is faulty at best. I can't remember names, experiences, times, or places. When someone depends on you to remember places, names, people, etc. what happens when you can't? How does it feel to know you can't access that part of your brain. When werewolf time happens, my memory lapses again. names are lost, times are gone, and my ability to keep thoughts leaves. Even if I care about it more than anything else, if I'm not paying attention, it's gone. By "gone", I mean "GONE". We saw a TV show tonight, my roommates and I, about a woman who was losing her memories due to Alzheimer's. My roommates were talking about how awful it would be to forget everything and know that something great happened and you will never remember it. It's not as scary as you might think. It's sad. Mostly sad. Sometimes comforting.

Self-sabotage? Full circle, I know there are people who want to help me. I know many people who are so kind and loving that they will push through the terrible stuff to keep me. I know I let them down often and forget a lot. Last weekend I took my first vacation from my medication I have had in a long time. It stopped working for a couple of days so I put it to rest to see if it would help. It did, but that weekend I can't remember much of anything. I remember doing something and promising something, but I can't remember what it was. I remember it was something I wanted SO MUCH! I remember wanting it SO BADLY! I remember being scared to forget it. I even remembered being afraid that I couldn't live up to my promise. I forgot. My brain misfired and I couldn't bring it back. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't get it back... Until tonight. I remembered that I was supposed to go out with one of the dearest, most forgiving friends I have and I forgot.

I realized that I tend to fade into the background a lot. I realized that I can appreciate people forgetting me. Even when I remember them for the rest of my life, I try to be forgotten. I can make an impression to last a lifetime, change everything about them but still want to fall into the pavement, never to be found again. It's because of exactly what happened this last week. I want to keep my friendships, the loves, the family, the experiences, the hopes, the dreams, the everythings I've built, but I know that I hurt the ones I care most about when I do.

So I forget, I vanish, and I disappear into the background. Who am I to ruin your life or disappoint you? Who am I to tell you what you will and will not expect? Who am I to ask you for something I can never give back?

I hurt people... and then they forget me. I become just another bitter memory of a friend they used to have.

What's the point of the post? Why do I even bother with this? Y'know, I had no idea until just now. I didn't realized it until right this very second. I realized that I want to say what I want more than anything in the whole wide world. I want everyone to know what I wish I could have. I want the world to know that I have a desire that is more powerful, meaningful, and selfish than anything I have ever wanted before.

I want to be OK. I want to be normal. I want to be healthy. I want to think like everyone else. I want to feel like everyone else. I want to think like someone other than me. Why am I the only person I know who hurts every single time I'm NEAR someone who hurts? Why am I the only person I know who hates practical jokes because they're unkind? Why am I the only person I know with the brain that turns on and off for absolutely no good reason? Why can't I just learn like everyone else? Why can't I focus like everyone else? Why do I have to be so DAMN DIFFERENT?!

Why can't I just be like everyone else? Why does everyone else get to feel like they aren't part of everything else? Why can't anyone be like me? Why can't I just feel like I fit without someone having to reach out to me? I could scream at the sky for being so "unfair". I've prayed about it, studied it out, thought it over.

You know what the worst part of it is? I know there's a reason. I've already sworn here and I don't feel like I want to take it back so here's the last time you'll see it in this blog: There's a damn good reason. There is no other word that works there. I tried "really" and I tried "very". Immensly, powerfully, exponentially great, super..., incredibly, and mega all came to mind along with hundreds of others. None of them give the feeling I want you to get when you read that sentence. I want you to wince. I want you to know that I don't know what the reason is but as sure as there is an earth under my feet there is a reason. I know there's a reason I don't know. I have to. I never really had a chance not to. I know it better than I know my own name.

How bad is it to want to be like everyone else? Really? To know that you're worth the work? To know that people can trust you? To be in complete control of your actions?

Is it wrong to want to be normal?

Special kinda sucks.

An Honest Seeker of Truth

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It has come to my attention that there are few honest seekers of truth left. Watching shows like Bones, Psych, and House have really started to bug the crap out of me. Each one of them has a perfect belief and subsequently a perfect understanding of an incredible number of subjects. These subjects generally cover areas that the normal person in their position would have very little real knowledge of. For instance, who knows the chemical composition of a tire, most perfumes, accelerants, incense, and synthetic fibers? Apparently, Hodgens does. Who can be so perceptive to know that a single strand of hair on the mat on the driver’s side of a car would be pertinent to an investigation if the person is a slob? Shawn can, of course! Who would have come within an inch of their life, see the future, have psychic contact with several patients, and meet a man who was only admitted to his hospital because of a “vision of deity” only to find that his condition was totally unrelated to the vision and the symptoms only appeared within moments before he was unable to be saved and still stands ever more resolutely to the belief that there is no god? Gregory House.

People on television like this are flooding the streets with what seems to be a greater epidemic of stupid than we have ever had to suffer before. Just because they are gifted, talented, and intelligent, they know everything. They are never wrong and will fight to the death to defend themselves. Each of these different shows seem to profess that all people can make a claim and it is true.

The first time that this idea was brought to my attention was in high school. I went to a performing arts charter school where the academic standard was quite a bit higher than every other school in the area. The intelligence of the normal student was, to be fair, a bit better than those around us. I was on the lower end of the testing rates and I made it into a major, four-year university and have plans to get a doctorate in medicine. We learned concepts and beliefs that we may not have ever been able to obtain under any other circumstance. One of the greatest lessons learned through my six years (it was 7-12 grade) at that school was to question everything. We were not allowed to take anything for granted.

One of the best history professors I had at that school told us that we had to understand all of the circumstances surrounding the incident before we started shouting our beliefs or standing for something. If you are to understand the truth, you must know both sides of the story well enough to defend either one. Then you choose. If you never consider the other side, never really give the other side a chance; you will never know the truth. In short, you are useless if you can’t think outside of yourself.

It was after this class that I heard the phrase, “Man is a universe within himself”. Bob Marley did not say this to me directly. A girl who listened to Bob Marley did. She went on to explain that every man has their own truth; that truth is not absolute and that each mans experience teaches him the only truth that can be fully believed. She believed that no man can see outside of their own experience or grow beyond what they themselves have seen, heard, or felt. She told me that there was no absolute truth.

I beg to differ, but first, we will define our terms: Why? Because if we don’t you will never understand me and we cannot become anything greater than what we are right here, right now. Use my terms if you want to talk to me. Don’t give me new definitions. Use new words with new definitions if you must but when I say “truth” and “absolute truth” I expect that you will use the same definition.

SKIP SPECIFYING:

I like analogies. If you and I have a common feeling, understanding, or baseline, I can show you exactly what I mean. These sections (SKIP) are for those who want to understand a little better the way I see things. Feel free to respond with analogies of your own. If you just want to read my thoughts and you feel like you get what I’m trying to say, go to “_____ IS OVER” to keep going.

Absolute truth and truth are two different things as far as I’m concerned. The way the girl defined absolute truth is “that which everyone must accept to be true”. That seemed a bit squishy of a definition to me. I can say that an absolute truth is that the earth revolves around the sun. As much as I believe that to be true and I have plenty of empirical science to prove it, there are still people in modern day Rio de Janeiro who don’t believe it and don’t have to to survive or progress. The “must accept” part of it was the part that I couldn’t. For the definition of “absolute truth” I will use the following, “Absolute truth is that which is not decided upon nor believed in but exists regardless of belief or understanding”. I believe that we can know absolute truth, but not every absolute truth as long as we live. It would be folly to assume that we did.

Truth has been a word abused throughout the centuries which his why we need a distinction between truth and absolute truth. Absolute truth can come through experience or testing or even revelation, but we can’t say that it’s absolute truth without a perfect knower of all things telling us. I know that a lot of the readers here are rolling their eyes saying something akin to, “He’s getting spiritual on us” or “his definitions rely upon a god”. They don’t, actually. If you don’t believe in a god, according to scientific inquiry and the way in which most people define pure knowledge, a person cannot have absolute truth. You do not have every experience possible with a subject, substance, or circumstance so you cannot claim to have absolute truth unless you believe yourself to be the only being in existence. That’s called egocentrism with a touch of narcissism, though, and I won’t be going into that. Truth, as used in this document, will be defined as, “a belief in something obtained through searching and testing”.

Everyone has at least a general belief about everything. They don’t have truth about everything. I believe that the moon above this planet is incredibly far away, it’s cold and I would suffocate without a space suit. It’s true for me and I trust the people that have told me that. I believe that what they said was truth because they have tried and tested it. Is it absolute truth? I can’t tell you that because I haven’t been there and I don’t interact with the moon enough to know for absolute truth that that is exactly how it happened. We all believe in truth and hope that that truth is absolute truth.

As a side note, I’m probably going to use “believe” as: something you think is true and it has an effect on your actions.

THE SPECIFYING IS OVER

The girl who told me that “there is no such thing as Absolute truth” believed that the universes created by our different beliefs and experiences that floated around our heads were the only truths that there were. To tell someone else that something is “true” may simply be “true to you but not to me”. She has a point. How do you know that what you’re telling one person is necessarily true for everyone else? The answer is simple. I know most of you were expecting something like, “You can’t”, but I believe you can.

It takes a linguistic change. The problem is first found in how you tried to say that truth. Did you say, “sunshine is better than snow” or did you say something more like, “I think sunshine is better than snow”. One is true and the other is not. The first one makes a snow-lover think you are a pompous, ignorant sunshine-addict and the second makes the snow-lover ask why you have such a strong opinion. What’s the difference?

You have to understand that they may disagree. You have to be willing to let someone else believe that you are wrong. If you don’t you will never learn. Ever. To follow this analogy further, what happens to the sunshine-lover? The snow lover in the first occasion says, “Snow is better! Sunshine is hot and oppressive and people die of heatstroke and we need water and water comes from runoff from the mountains after snow!” How does Sunny respond? “Sunshine gives life and not everywhere in the world gets snow and everyone is just fine without it! People die of frostbite, it’s harder to drive, and you have to work really hard to stay warm if it’s cold!” They have to attack and defend.

ANALOGY

If I come at you with a knife trying to teach you that knives are dangerous, how well will you accept the lesson? Answer: Not well. You will probably pick up a chair and try to bludgeon me in the name of self-defense. Even if you don’t believe that my particular knife is not dangerous, you know well enough that if you are wrong, the consequences suck. You will use what you know to be right and attack me right back. The same happens in conversation. If I take out a hardboiled egg and put it on the counter and cut it, you could pick up a chair and crush the egg bits when I was done thus proving that your chair and my knife were both dangerous. The chair is probably more dangerous for the egg than my knife but the point was made and we can be satisfied with the results. We might even go on to a more exciting topic of just how much more dangerous a chair is than a knife, but, again, that’s a different discussion better left without me stabbing you our you breaking my ribs.

ANALOGY IS OVER

If you believe something to be true, say you believe it to be true. If you “know” something, tell me that you “know” it. If you tell me you “know” something is “true”, you had better be able to tell me why it’s true and how you know that it is. If I really want to know or my beliefs are very much in opposition to it, I had better be ready to tell you why I believe what I do and you had better be willing to listen. If we have a test or an experience we need to share or if there is anything we can do to prove one side over the other, an honest seeker of truth will do it. An honest person will shut up and do everything necessary to find out the truth, right or wrong. A liar will claim that the test is inconclusive because it isn’t what they thought before. A liar will fight in every way against change just to say that the test was inconclusive. When I was looking for ways to find out whether or not my friend cared about me, I asked another friend what they thought.

He gave me three tests to see if they were worth keeping as a friend. I told him my friend had been thoughtless and unkind two days prior having nothing to do whatsoever with the tests. He gave me an analogy I’ll never forget.

ANALOGY

If I want to practice writing Arabic script (as I have studied Arabic for a short time) I need a pen. If I have my paper on the table I want my pen to be there as well. There is no pen on the table. I go to my friend and say, “There is no pen.”

He says to me, “Why don’t you think there’s a pen?”

I say to him, “The pen is supposed to be on the table, so it can’t exist.”

He tells me, “There is a pen in the drawer.”

I can tell him, “But it’s not on the table” all I want. There’s still a pen and it still exists it’s just not on the table.

ANALOGY OVER

Long story short, my friend passed the test and I didn’t know he had just broken up with his girlfriend the day before the incident. Just because the answer wasn’t where I wanted it to be doesn’t make it change. It just means I have to stop assuming that every time I think something, it’s true. Better yet, just because I want it to be as such, doesn’t mean it’s absolute truth.

Why the essay on truth all of a sudden? Well, I keep meeting people over and over who think it their role on earth to teach me what I am doing wrong or why I’m incompetent. I talked to a girl for a while about my understanding of a subject for half-an-hour once trying to explain where my understanding of a certain moral came from. After trying for so long to help her see what I saw, the only thing she said was, “You know better.” Apparently, I don’t. I received instruction on how I was meant to perform a certain task and how I was meant to delegate the responsibilities including how I was supposed to handle a situation if the delegated work wasn’t done. I followed my instructions to the best of my abilities and was chastised for doing so. When I tried to defend myself later, I was met with hostility and reproach once again.

I have been taking flack from everyone for my choice of major and career. It’s one of the most commonly mocked sciences (when they let me call it a science at all) if not the most commonly mocked. This last week I have been approached by no less than twelve friends who have openly mocked my study and all but told me it was pointless, useless, and selfish to study something so imperfect. When I defended myself, I was told that my tests, proof, and desires were as pointless and falsified as my major itself.

As television, movies, and most popular culture items have screamed since many of Freud’s original underlings were found to be frauds, psychology is rarely considered a real field of study. The results are imperfect, the popular culture has defined its growth rate, and most “intellects” hate the idea that there is a science that openly claims that it isn’t finished. The important part of that statement is “openly claims”.

For the idiot “intellects” in this world that hate psychology, please, tell me how gravity works? Don’t describe it to me. I want you to tell me how gravity works. In order for me to believe in physics the same way you need to believe in psychology, show me what attracts atoms to density? On a related note, I need someone to describe electric and magnetic charge. In order for me to believe that charge exists, I need to know why electrons move the way they do in a positively charged field. Show me the interactions that they have and tell me why they work the way they do and I will accept electrical engineering as a science. You can show me that it works, but if you can’t show me how, it works, I’m afraid you fall in the same trap you set for psychology.

Physics is an incredibly imperfect science, but the only reason why nobody questions it is that we have been dealing with it for centuries. Popular culture burned men and women at the stake for claiming that the earth revolved around the sun. We are doing basically the same thing to psychology and any other science in its infancy. We know that psychology can work. We know that all men and women work on the same general set of rules. Now that we have finally started searching for the absolute truth of the difference between the mind and the brain, imperfection is suddenly not only undesirable, it’s the butt of every scientific joke, the redheaded step-child of the academic world, and the heretic of all that is “absolute truth”.

I’m tired of people telling me that my science is any less than any other. We study, we research, we have findings, and we have proof. Psychology is not just mind reading. Psychology is not just what you think and why. Psychology includes what happens to your body when you get mad, why your blood pressure rises when you become stressed, and why, in every culture ever studied, the same muscles move in your face when surprised or truly happy or guilty.

Psychology is trying to understand what everyone has been telling us for years “just is”. We know so much more now than ever before due to psychology: things we never thought we would believe. Distance does not make the heart grow fonder. Sexy meant “healthy” back in the day. At a certain point, the more choices we have, the less popular the restaurant.

Before you decide to tell me what you believe to be truth, let me know how much you think you know. Tell me how much time you have put into finding out why I believe what I do. The next time Dr. Brennan says that we have biologically evolved into the desires we have. Find out what science lies at the bottom of those desires. I think that anthropology is just a covert name for “macro-psychology”.

Great Day

I had a great day yesterday and today. They were almost identical in classes and I worked hard to get what I did. I ended up working really hard on a couple of assignments that almost killed me but that's not what this post is about.

What? Not about a great day I had? Yeah. Sorry. It was a sour day gone supernova. A few days ago I was trying to get everything done that I was supposed to, I forgot a huge number of things I was asked to do, I missed two appointments regarding that assignment stated earlier, and I was totally ignored for the chunk I was supposed to be helped with. I felt frustrated if not just a little toyed with. I saw the people I was supposed to be helped by immediately after seeing the person I was abandoned by. I was furious. I was trying to make it a productive Sunday but little to nothing was going my way.

I ended up at the end of the day feeling pretty dang tired and really useless. I had a couple of good things happen to me before I went to bed but I was pretty depressed. My roommate and I usually talk for a while before totally falling asleep and I always appreciate his insight. We come from very different backgrounds but we have some surprisingly similar experiences. It's really interesting to talk to him about what is happening in his life versus the lives of those across the hall from us. It's the highlight of my day more often than I can say.

That night he said, "I really appreciate you." There is no way I can describe how happy that made me. The best part is that I know he meant it. I may be really single, I may have some of the greatest difficulties ahead of me than I have ever had, and I may be working to get used to my new brain but knowing that someone appreciates you and says it, makes the really really hard things... better. My last few days have been great more because I feel like I matter than because things went right. It really made things go right, knowing that.

Y'know what? I really appreciate him too. It makes life... better.

HIgh to low

I have an idea of what I want to say when I first start typing here but for some reason it never really comes out the way I want it to. This time, I'm writing because two things happened. Where it goes from there, I won't know 'til it's done. That's the magic of writing.

First, I started on 20mg yesterday. That's four times what I started at. It was a really good day most of the day. I was able to keep my head for a good long time (with a pretty bad drop in the middle but I recovered). I competed in a Latin Ballroom competition. I got to the semi finals and was quite pleased with my performance. I know if I'd been in a different spot at the last dance we might have made it to the finals but I find comfort knowing that four of the six finalists were competing down (they had taken classes above the rest of us and, quite frankly, it wasn't fair for any of the rest of us). I made it to the top 8 in that case! I was really excited to do it and when I got home I was really psyched about the whole thing.

As soon as I got home I lost it. All of the focus I had been putting in, all of the pressure I'd been putting on myself to remember where my hand goes, legs go, feet face, etc. I sat down for the first time in a good long time and my brain dropped. I was pushing too hard all day and I snapped. My good roommate and his good girlfriend were there. I felt like I had stepped into a private moment again. I say again because I do it a lot. I try to hide in a corner whenever that happens and look as small as possible so they can just get on doing whatever they do without my invading but I couldn't get myself to hide. Right after I had just been center stage performing my heart out looking like I knew what I was doing, getting into the semi-finals after everything I had done that day, I felt like I was supposed to vanish again. My brain couldn't take it. I sat on the couch and attempted the impossible, bashing my head against a wall: trying to understand my physics homework.

I have nothing against people in love and I have nothing against kissing, sweetness, valentines, etc. I just... It made my performance feel small and frivolous. The more they kissed, the more I failed at trying to shove numbers up ridiculous formulas that I don't understand, HOPING that somehow it will make sense when it's all over, the more retarded I felt. I know I was getting more and more angry, less and less kind, more and more bitter and I couldn't stop it.

My good roommate sat with me and explained all of the physics to me after his girlfriend went home. I kept thinking, "Why can't I just GET this? Why can't I just figure this out?! Wasn't I good at this?" I WAS once. I hate being stupid. I hate not knowing and I hate needing someone else to do what I used to do all of the time without thinking.

I think now is a good time to introduce a verb: werewolfing. In short: I werewolfed on both of them and I wish I could just get over it. I wish I could just get a hold of my feeble, blasted little mind and stop hurting the people I care about most.

I think it's time to move again. I hate moving. I hate picking up everything I own and changing my life, roommates, world. I hate moving. I've done it so often you'd think I would learn to enjoy it but I never have and I never will. I'm just tired of hurting great people because I'm retarded.

Y'know, I don't feel like this when the medication is working. I get frustrated but at least I can deal with it. I'm actually considering changing from XR to the regular and take it three times a day just to make the day last just a little longer. Brilliant, I am. Caring, I try to be. The man a woman can love all day...

It makes a guy turn to God and scream, "Why can't I just be like everyone else? Why can't I just enjoy my successes? Why can't I have a disability you can ACTUALLY cure?"

I don't think I could condemn any woman to a life with me for ever.

Not like this anyway.

It's OK

From the title you would think this post is about things being pretty OK with some punctuation underlying my true grief on the world and trying to convince myself of a perfectly obvious untruth. Not true.

The purpose of this blog today is a statement by the guy behind me. He was talking to a friend about people who are "filthy" rich. Those who have more money than they need, it would seem. He said, "Being rich only means that you have and someone else doesn't. People try to get away saying things like 'but I'm helping people with my money' but it's just justifying." That, friend, is not justification. That's resonsibility. If you have a million dollars and you give up one percent of that to people who really need it at a moment. (that's 10,000 for those of you keeping track at home) in funds to help a family get back on their feet. Why didn't you give up the other 990,000?

If every man was to give up 990,000 and keep 10,000 to themselves, what would they live on? Why should a person who has worked hard for what they earn have to give up everything they make to those who didn't work that hard or, in the case of the man behind me, don't want to work that hard? Yes, there are ways in which those who become rich stay rich and there are bad ways to do that. There are also GREAT ways to make and keep money that don't include giving it away!

Any economist worth his salt knows that it takes money to make money. It takes investment to create a business. It takes capital and overhead at least. You have to have a product to sell and getting that product takes money. Those without any money at all must work for those who have put money into an investment and begun building something.

If no man believed in making money to get money and spread money around, it would be ridiculous to believe that economics was a zero sum game. There is not a stagnant amount of money in the country. As more people are born and die, inventions are created, bought, and sold, and we export as well as import, goods rare bought and sold. Some investments are quite a bit more lucrative and many more are dangerous to the point of stupidity. some are less stupid and some are less lucrative. That is why it's called an investment. It's not a promise, not a guarantee, and it's not a sure fire bet that everything will work out. It's a chance. Those who take big chances and run with them and get lucky (or blessed) can make great money.

In turn, jobs are made. I now I already made the statement that we need people to stand up in this country and make it count. Now I say we need people who want to start something and policies to make it possible. If we keep making the initiation of businesses as difficult as we have (defining small business as one with 500 workers where Australia allows a small business to have up to 15 with quite a bit more incentives than we give) we won't be making jobs. We'll just be giving the big businesses less competition and more power. We need competition to keep things affordable and progressive. Affordable and progressive mean more jobs, more innovation, and more ingenuity. We start building people at that point, not just jobs.

One of my best friends' uncles has a great deal of money and he makes movies. He funds unknown actors to be in films that go to lesser known everything which, in many cases end up making millions for everyone! And he didn't start off with all that much.

Now I'm returning to the original point. Just like the bible says, "to be learned is good" so is being rich. It's only good if you're using what you have to the best of your abilities. BEING rich isn't the problem. It's keeping it all to yourself and ignoring the plights and needs of those right around you that's the problem.

I am poor. I have been most of my life. Not destitute per say but not the most affluent. I'm actually pretty dang OK with that. I don't really need that much to be happy and I don't really fear living on top-ramen for weeks on end. With a budget for frozen foods (even canned foods aren't that bad) and enough top-ramen, my dad taught me how to mix and match for different flavors, textures, and nutrients. I know I'll be OK.

Quite frankly, even though I can complain all day about the things that happened to me today and yesterday and my werewolf-ism, I'm OK. I have a couple of tests to take soon but I got a new charger for my phone, found my i-pod (again) and have another appointment for next week to donate plasma. Look, things might not be perfect or even great but I'm not living in "crappy" and "hell hole" doesn't really approach my arrangements. I might move next year and I might not. I don't have to worry about that right now. That's really nice.

I don't have to be rich, I don't have to hate on people who are, and I don't have to do much more than study and work. Y'know what?

I'm fine with OK.

High and Dry

Have you ever been asked to do a favor and never received an explanation as to how to do it? Welcome to my today.

I'm currently not eating for a day for religious purposes. That means I'm Were-add all day and grumpy. That's fine though. I've lived for a good long time before I found out what was happening and I can be just fine... well... I can survive. Problem? I got little sleep last night. May the sweet woman and man I woke up at five this morning for never read this blog. It was very little sleep. I have since had a nap but I'm getting a head of myself.

I have been asked to be in charge of a group of people who transcribe old documents for family history purposes. We are asked to work on at least one page of a census document every week. It's a huge, world-wide project so our part is vital. Every first Sunday of the month we have the great opportunity to meet together and talk about problems we're having, how important the work is, and how we can do better.

The favor: Be in charge.

What I don't know: What I'm supposed to do as a leader.

Task at hand: Lead the meeting.

Problem 1: I've never been to a meeting.

Problem 2: The woman who is supposed to be teaching me is MIA.

I get to the meeting after trying to contact this woman all week especially yesterday in hopes of planning something to do today so that we can make this work better. I really just want this to go smoothly and get as many people to participate as possible. We have some people who have been asked specifically (they signed up and were asked to be on the committee, basically) to transcribe these names (50 each week). They aren't paid... They are students just like myself and the other woman and I'm supposed to make transcribing over 50 names every week (what could very well seem like a simple task but really comes out to be very arduous and painful sometimes) sound as important as it is while admitting that it can be a bit boring.

She isn't there. I just barely found out where the meeting was before it started. We waited and hoped. I asked if anyone had seen her yet that day. No response. She left me completely abandoned at a meeting I've never been to with absolutely no idea what I'm doing and a group of people who don't even know who I am trying to sputter on about something I know so much less than them about for an hour.

There was a whoosh of wind and a sputter of inspiration. I felt like I was throwing up on them. I was already light headed from not eating and residual effects of the medication not to mention the incredible lack of sleep from the night before. I tried to reach out to them and said things I wasn't expecting. I think I did some good but I have to really just give all the credit to God. Thanks!

It ended really well and we got some good things done. She abandoned me again later that day when we met up one last time this week to do some practical application stuff with the transcriptions. I've done that and there's no leadership needed for it. I passed out on my couch after the meeting and was out cold until 15 minutes after the meeting was supposed to begin. Nobody came looking for me (that I know of) and she responded to a text from me as soon as I woke up asking her if she was able to attend as is her assignment (which she only does on occasion so far). She did not. She was sick.

Just a note to all you great people in blog-reading-world: If you have to bail, at least let someone know before you do. Just not showing up is rude and frustrating. To a person who hates being the center of attention (if you know me this may be a surprise, I REALLY HATE being the center of attention) it's just down-right cruel.

Nobody deserves to be left out in the cold. Nobody.

The news

I became more accepting of the idea that I am never going to be completely like everyone else. I understand and I'm OK with it. Well, as OK as a person can be when they find out that there is no cure for werewolf-ism.

I have never watched the news and I never really plan to. I know that things are happening in the world and I get that I am affected by the things in the world. We need to understand that the world around us really does do something for us and against us. We need to know that we are not alone on this planet and that the things that happen to people in Kansas hurt or help people in California. People in New Mexico have an impact on people in New York. Panic in Montana can kill people in Florida and a new factory in Oklahoma could mean peace in a family in Washington. I know first-hand what that means. Yes... I get that.

What I don't get or what I can't really want to get my head around is why my roommate from England suddenly started watching the news (CNN and FOX specifically) all of a sudden. I get the news and I'm involved in stuff that happens but I don't turn on the TV and fill the air around me with more and more waves of fear and danger 24/7. It's important to know but what good has it done us but make everyone in this apartment more scared to graduate for fear that we will never get a job. At least while we're in school, we have a university who takes a huge risk in giving students jobs while they're here. Just enough to keep us alive and here.

I don't think I can take too much more of the people in Egypt and quite ignorantly racist comments about the Arabic people. I say ignorantly because I have been studying their religion, their culture, and their people and it's not that bad! Yes there are some things that our culture totally says is NOT OK. I'm not advocating those bits. but we keep trying to impose our values on theirs as though we are the only people who value or developed at all.

Our culture has decided how OK it is to be offensive, cruel, unthoughtful, and stupid for the purpose of entertainment. We have allowed so much vile garbage to pour out of our televisions and computers into our laps and all over our families that any other country looks at us with shame. When we as a society have condemned the sensors and praised frivolous lifestyles in the name of individuality and art, how dare we condemn others for making God part of their everyday life?

You disagree? Do you believe that most of the population of the United States really believes in righteous living and kind behavior? Do you really believe that violence being smattered all over our televisions, video games, news and sex plastered all over the same thing should be offensive? Do something. How much fun is it to hear about civil unrest and complain at home? This is me trying. I am getting my degree in college to change this stupid world we live in. I'm blogging with the hopes that someone will hear me.

I want the last lines in my blogs to be the most important ones in the whole document. Nobody could give a crap what you know until you do something. What does an education do if you aren't willing to make something better? If you aren't willing to take flack for doing the right thing, nobody ever will who is going to stand with you. We need someone to be willing to take a bullet. We need someone who can represent every non-politician in this country. We need a hand, not a puppet.

This may have seemed like a tangent, but how much does the news mean to you? What good does knowing anything do if you don't do anything with it?That's why I hate the news. Too many people talking and nobody changing. At least try to understand why anyone else thinks differently from you.

There are none so dumb that they have no reason.