Kicking it up with InfiniteRand

Long time since I've posted anything, something of a long time since I've written anything. This prompts the question of who would have any interest in reading what I have to write. My brother gave me a good suggestion, thinking about writing for my daughters. While I try to be open with them about a lot of things, there are some things I keep to myself, and even more that I just do not have the time or occasion or expression to share. At the very least, what I write might be useful for them to have, even though I suspect even if they have it they are probably not likely to read it, after all how many go through all of the family photos except once in a blue moon, but in their lives they are likely to have a blue moon once and again.

Of course, that makes me think it's probably best to have some backup set up in case Google gets tired of this blogspot abandonware or gives some opt-in prompt that I neglect in my old age, consigning my words to oblivion.

Anyways, that is the minimum, I have two intelligent and curious little girls, and whether or not they read my words having the words would be a comfort, and it might be a discomfort for them to think that I stopped writing around the time I had them (the timelines do not line up for that, in fact my last post was before I met their mother, but people have a way of overlooking blurry timelines in these type of things, although I hope that is something I can teach them to avoid). So there is that minimum. And perhaps there are more that might enjoy my words, perhaps, perhaps, perhaps... (I want to say that is from some British sitcom but I can't recall the name, maybe Coupling?)

Why I stopped or at least paused my writing? Many reasons, if I'm honest sloth is among them, fear of writing something bad, fear my creativity might be gone, apathy, feeling that my writing is worthless (so rather than giving up my writing for the sake of my kids, my kids have given me a counteraction against one of my hindrances, and yes kids, I expect you to learn all of those big words), questioning my place in the big scheme of things. None of that is especially new (well me not writing is not especially new at this point).

Perhaps what it is, and there is a little supporting evidence of this, is at the time of my life when I decided to get serious about being married, I decided to put focus on the rituals, procedures, and habits necessary to help me find a wife. I can go into this more a different day, but much of this rubbed against my anxieties, social and otherwise, and it took a considerable mental effort to push on this.

Essentially, to make it short, making a concerted effort to find a wife was stressful for me.

This is also why I resigned as a member of the national board of the MCYM, despite that being one of my preferred social and to some degree creative outlets (more on that a different day, in fact pretty much all of these sentences could be fleshed out into a paragraph or two, but I have promises to keep...), the stress of the obligations of my duties as a national board member (which perhaps I took too seriously) was a weight that I knew would be difficult to me to bear in addition to these new stresses.

While I did not make a decision to stop writing them, that stress did decrease my output (although it would be interesting to go into my notebooks and to see to what degree at what point, of course for that be accurate I would need dates on everything which I don't have). Then the stress of marriage, married life, eventually parenthood, all vital things I wanted in my life, these did not directly work against me writing but what they did do is leave less energy to fight against the old fears and anxieties associated with writing, which as always grew the longer I stayed away from writing. While this can be looked at as some unfortunate accident, I do remember at times reflecting on the trade-off between the married/fatherly life I was pursuing and the effort needed to sustain me as a writer, ultimately I made a choice. Not a choice to stop writing, but a choice to pursue the family life I wanted and believed was a vital part of my life's vocation, even if my writing life suffered.

I made a choice and I still believe it was the correct one. I look at my wife and my girls, and we have built something beautiful together, something blessed by God and sacred.

There's some simplification there, and so other factors that I know played a role, but I think this assessment is true enough to let it stand.

This leads me to say, there is no reason why I shouldn't write now, although it shouldn't be at the expense of this life I have built, if the two do not work against each other, why not write? (From the assessment above, you might say well it sounds like they do work against each other, but the relationship between different responsibilities, hobbies, duties and stress is more complex and subtle than that, they will sometimes work against each other, sometimes they will help each other, and sometimes each must be given a certain amount due, and sometimes some must be pushed to the background)

And it is worth coming back to the minimum reasons for me to write, in addition to my girls, there is a certain feeling of sacred duty to God. I often think of the story of the king who gave his servants different sums of money to invest, God has given me some talents of creativeness and some tendency toward writing, and so I ought to use it if I can, and share it if I can. God has given me other blessings more precious to me in the form of my family, and that sacred duty comes first. But if the clouds of my anxiety and the mysterious inner workings of my mind align just right, so that writing is possible without the neglect of family, then I ought take the chance, and I think that it is God's will for me to do so.

More could be written about this, but time conspires against me here. I do have other duties related to my family life (to be less vague, I have to do my job), while I have taken time away from that to write this, in some ways writing has cleared my mind more to help me tackle those duties. If I used that as an excuse to spend all my time away from my work, it would be counter-productive, and so I must set a limit and come to an end. (Although the story never ends...)

Anywho, take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

The wizard will wait

What does that mean?

I dunno, something.

And if that aimless beginning implies a certain aimless-ness of my life of late, then it may very well be true. But then again, all aims have their seasons.

In actuality little of my ambition has been lost, perhaps just buried for a moment here and there, covered over by some disappointment and miscalculation.

Ah, miscalculation, and that perhaps is the rub, for so much easier and indeed more successful would my ventures be without calculation, but the requirements of pushing myself beyond my comfort zone, the limits of which are my death, does require a bit of skill and cleverness.

And a bit of a gamble. So I calculate. So I lie. So I pretend and dabble and fail and fumble, but then again... As a priest pointed out at my last Confession, I am too hard on myself. Yes I do need motivation, but I'm trying, I'm striving, and if I don't always succeed...

Ah well, all of this rumbling does not solve my problems, of which there aren't any... well not really, nothing urgent, nothing pressing, hence the aimless-ness. In this sort of uncomfortable haze of a life, relying not on the thrill (because life does go on without it) of life but rather the inertia... it's easy... and that I'm trying to get free (perhaps the solution is that I need to get out of California, except I'm in New Jersey), well that's something.

Still, I'd like something more to come from my life, and in response to that I think I ought have faith in He who I love above all else, and in Him is the hope of all possibilities, of striving toward all goodness, and finding it in His Infinite Love.

God's Love, it's just so beautiful.

So what am I complaining about... really I mean come on! I have God with me, always, forever, what more can I ask for, what more do I need? And if the road is tough, perhaps it is just tough to bring me closer to He who shouldered the Cross on a very tough road, and if I fall sometimes, perhaps it is just so I have the honor of Him picking me up. And the Lord remains always.

And so, even in the cold midnight, it's still a beautiful day.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

With or without you

I've made my share of mistakes in my life, and when it comes to those, this is, well, not really huge, ind of big, but it's annoying.
What's annoying is, I've given up my tendencies to care. Well, not really. What it is though is I've lowered the bar of my social anxiety tolerance, things bugging me started pressing down and I decided to press down as well. Unfortunately, while that left me less bothered by social anxieties, it also left me less motivated. Because in the end, I still like people, and interacting with them, helping them, making them happy, that makes me motivated and driven. But I stepped back from that risky proposition of social interaction in my workplace (on the other hand, not elsewhere, which gives the whole situation the annoying possibility of indefinitability).
So that approach to things, that was a mistake. But it's always easier to turn off my sociability than to turn it back on. And now I'm feeling a little bit too low with motivation to get past it. And so... and so... I don't know. But that's okay.
Still the Lord remains.
So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!
And God Bless.

My dreams, they`ve got a kiss me, 'because I don't get sleep

As much as I'd like to pretend otherwise, my sleep has rarely been due to my mad busy-ness (or lack there of as the moment may demand). Thus "Feel Good Inc" has always had a special resonance on that line (Lyrics here).

More usually, my lack of sleep is deeply intertwined with my mental health. Sleep to some degree is an instrument my depression can use to prick my comfort, but there is also a rational aspect of my insomnia. Deep in the night, my work is done, new work is far away in the hours until the day. And moreover, I am in control of my world deep in the night, no one directing me here, there or the yet third direction, and so on beyond. But perhaps, a more cowardly way of looking at it, I am alone deep in the night, hours past my last interaction with someone, hours until my next, and I am free of the inevitable stress and pain of those interactions, and yes I feel the fear that comes from knowing that the stress and pain is coming upon the morning.

And so my instinct is not to sleep. But instinct can go to hell. Screw cowardliness, screw control, screw work and its avoidance, to live, to live and to serve God, I am going to need some sleep. And so screw all that which stands between, and indeed I must now begin my march toward sleep.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

Because nothing changes on New Year's Day

Or so sayth U2 as per their song. As I think I've mentioned before, that song is a particularly odd mix of great lines that never really comes together. Which can be compared to...

Some stuff I'm sure.

But seeing as it's not New Year's Day I can hope for some changes... and moving past the bad jokes part of this posting, let me get to the noting of the lack of posting... I really have been letting things go with this blog, more than a month... dude, lame...

Segwaying violently without a care for even the spelling of the word, let me move on.

I am constantly terrified of my creativity waning. This worry tends to be amplified by periods of little creative production, such as lately, but part of it comes from an essential doubt... if that creative process pulls things together into something you haven't thought of before, how can you be sure that it'll work again?

After all, perhaps it was just an odd grouping of circumstances that's kept things creative so far, or maybe an odd grouping of circumstances have dislodged those areas of your imagination that used to function so splendidly or...

The solution to this irrational paranoia, as usual is to push through it.

But the solution to the existential dilemma... and now as happens from time to time, I use existential dilemma in all seriousness...

Creative work on the one hand emerges from different elements of the mind (or spirit or however you want to formulate it who you are), but it represents a change in those concepts' relationship to each other so much so that the flux can be isolated and stabilized into a concept separate enough to be called a new idea. From this perspective though the newness is only illusionary.

But on the other hand, that reconfiguring of old concepts, the rearranging of their relationships, and the teasing out of that stable new gem of a idea, it does seem like something, if not out of nothing, at least something out of unreliable luck.

It seems little comfort to reflect that the continued existence of our lives, given dangers both near and far, is itself a matter of luck, of a lesser or greater degree.

Yet in a way that must be admitted to seem strange, it is a bit of a comfort.

Because I have to say, while I accept that my life may end at any time, yet for now while I live I plan for the future, so that as my life continues I might act better in any given now assuming that the future is likely. Perhaps I can accept my creativity on the same terms. While it has waned and waxed through the years, overall I've been blessed with a decent amount of creativity throughout my life. I have no reason to believe that it will be taken from me, and so I might as well enjoy it and use it and plan for its continued existence while I've got it. Tomorrow it may be gone, but tomorrow it may still be around, and I'd rather waste a little effort in misplaced honing of creativity later lost than to not take advantage of creativity given.

In a sense, this reminds me of Jesus' parable of the master and 3 servants - to be blessed with opportunity to good in this life and to do nothing with that is like the servant who did nothing with the money he was entrusted with.

And a creative mind is a terrible thing to waste, even if it may vanish in but a moment... but such is life. And that's okay.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

The politics of the fool

I often repeat myself in sessions, often because a point reoccurs to me and I forgot that I dealt with it before, or in better cases because I figure out another angle on something. Now even in the latter case one must be careful lest laziness and the recursion of revisiting revisted topics lead to madness and rather poor reading, however, given the complexity of the human mind, a good topic often deserves more than one angle and more than one session to boot.

But who then can determine whether the booting requires the revisiting or whether upon that road lies madness, madness! I CAN, for I am Rand, the great and glorious.

And so I shall revisit the fool, or rather my fool-ness or fool-i-ocity, or if you insist on the grammatical, my foolishness.

I've dealt with the topic as an ideal (dedicated to God, of course), but let me now migrate a bit into the practical, or perhaps the pragmatic, or perhaps just the otherwise.

At this point in my life, I'm rather satisfied with the role of the fool, with some qualifications and ample wiggle room. Indeed, I do aspire to the path of the holy fool. However, it is not necessarily my natural role, largely because there is only a minor fraction of our souls presented in our outward faces, thus one can fit many of these fractions in a mind, and thus many roles can be elegantly natural.

That is to say, I can play other roles.

I can play the insistent idealist, the apathetic pragmatist, the careful politician, the passionate artist, the dedicated scientist, and the austere monk. And I do play these roles all from time to time, and more.

But when push comes to shove, my default face to the world is that of the fool. For better or for worse. For now.

I can justify this position in a variety of ways. I find it grating to take myself too seriously, moreover I find it grating to take others too seriously, yet I hate to offend, and I hate to cause trouble. But most importantly, the fool does tend to entertain.

This is a principle point. I like making people happy. I enjoy the happiness of others. I like interacting with happy people. And me playing the fool often makes people happy.

Though to be truthful sometimes I wonder, whether people actually do enjoy the act, and as importantly whether they like the sincerity behind it. Because as much as my fool-ness is an act, it is an act based on my thoughts and feelings, essentially it is me expressing myself. And in that sense, it is me being myself.

On the other hand, I could for example be myself by throwing myself 110% into writing, however... being a writer or an artist, while requiring one to draw upon others, is an essentially solitary craft. That's fine when I'm alone, but to make this the face I use to interact with others would risk pushing others into roles relative to my artistic drives and ambitions, denying them a real relationship based on mutual humanity. That is not to say others have not taken the writer role and ran with it, limiting its excesses so that their relationships are full and rich while mining its virtues for all that they can get... I'm just saying that as a public face, I don't think the writer is for me.

I could go through many other roles and pick them apart. I can also pick apart the role of the fool, for example the barriers it throws against me being taken seriously or being able to deal with people seriously.

What it comes down to, with the pluses and minuses, is how comfortable you are with dealing with the minuses, and how much you like the pluses, and ultimately, how much God wants you to follow that path. To be fair that's a lot of factors that are hard to figure out all in their wholeness. Hence one often bounces between things back and forth and finds revelations and insights and mistakes, and so on and so on, et al.

One thing you also fine with roles that fit you better or worse, is those that don't fit you at all. I've tried playing the counter-cultural, the over-achiever, the techie. Parts work alright for me, but I find only a minimal passion. Ususally to find some real satisfaction I need to mix it up with some foolishness.

And this is an aspect of my problems with my life at now. To say overall, I must say the work environment doesn't suit me well. I am every now and then able to pull out my fool card, but there's an essentially lacking element for me to comfortably play that role, or really any role with satisfaction. To have some satisfaction in my human interactions I must have some confidence that how I interact with people is either appreciated or at least enjoyed in a general sense, and I must have some confidence that my faux pas's, my miscalculated gestures, my inarticulate attempts at communication, these will be generally tolerated. That is actually a rather heavy demand to require of everyone, and so I don't. But for me that is the basis of a real, meaningful relationship, otherwise all you have is confused postering.

The work environment seems to lend itself to the confused postering. Afterall, a faux pas can get you fired. But moreover, there is this great ambiguity about relationships. What is the proper ettiquette of a professional relationship, what is too far, how do these relationships weigh and interact with other ones, how do these fit into life outside of work. It doesn't help that my professional role has no real need to inteact with anyone besides my boss, so what is the professional relationship of coworkers who have no professional need to interact. I am always perpetually insecure with my relationships, but with my professional relationships, I find it is a constant drain of stress. And this isn't the fault of anyone, this is just the nature of me and my circumstances.

Let me backtrack, with most people in the office, there is a degree to which they approach that mark of trust where I find my relationships both meaningful and comfortable, and there are some who are just easy to deal with and wonderful to be around. But as a whole... as a whole work is stress, there are times when it is less stressful, and I sometimes wonder if work could be otherwise... but then again, in the long run, perhaps that's irrelevant. Afterall, work is but so many hours, and life is so many more, and in those hours I should be able to find time to play the fool.

But then again I wonder... I am undecided the extent to which I want to write off some degree of comfortableness at work. Moreover, if I can hit that degree of comfortableness, there is a good chance that I harnest a general affection for the people at my office toward feeling more satisfied with work, and yet... It is all so complex, the hodgepodge of different emotions and thoughts that run an office's social ecosystem, and my tradition has been to step back and create my own social ecosystem when my frustration with my current one runs too high. But with work, I don't really have the option of stepping back...

But then what would the fool do? If I really do aspire to the path of the holy fool, what ought I do. More importantly, and in all seriousness what would Jesus do?

The answer is a path of love, but here's the question, does that path lead me deeper into the office-universe or further away?

I am not idle on this question, but I am ambivalent, but in the end, I am also awesome.

Which does give me the edge.

And so despite my confusion, despite my cowardly indecision, despite my frustration, I still must ask myself in the morning, how can I be a fool today?

So anywho, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight folks!

And God Bless.

Because me, myself, I come and go

Excuse the bubbliness of this post, it's actually something I wrote some time ago, which doesn't really explain anything, since as bubbliness goes, it comes and goes, it comes and goes... karma...karma..karma..karma chameleon...

Anywho...

Welcome to the wonderful world of Rand! It's been a while since I've started out with a greeting so I thought I'd spit one out. Anyways when I'm depressed, apathetic, feeling empty or any combination of the three (there are differences between the three but the differences do not constitute a barrier, they are more like shades of being really screwed up) I can only watch certain TV shows. Simpsons always, and Scrubs usually. Other shows I tend to get tired of very quickly even if they are shows I love and I can see that they are high quality and that on normal occassions I would love to watch them.
I think why the Simpsons is so easy to watch is because it never gets too serious and because it is just completely hilarious. Also there's nostalgic value. Even that said, there are certain episodes I can't watch. Lisa's Rival for example I can't watch, probably because I don't like seeing Lisa suffering, even if the episode is pretty good (the most awesome gag is Bart getting Milhouse on the FBI's Most Wanted List and then tipping the FBI off and finally the Fugitive scene). But most of the episodes of the Simpsons have such non-stop crazy off the wall humor that it's very easy to watch, and very easy on the nerves.
Scrubs also has a lot of that crazy off the wall humor and maybe that's why it's easy to watch. But what's strange is that it is also a semi-dramatic show, and in most cases dramas are the first to go when my depression interferes with my tv watching. Scrubs involves death, character growth, etc., so it's strange that when my mind is in a state that usually wants to avoid anything actually pulling at the emotions it should choose Scrubs. But maybe its the fact when Scrubs pulls at you, it pulls at you in situations that it depicts as ordinary. Thus you don't have to dig into your heart for emotions you weren't prepared for and for extraordinary variants of those emotions, the ordinary sort of sadness is appropriate, the ordinary sort of self-reflection is alright. That said, there are still certain Scrubs episodes I can't watch, I haven't been able to get myself to watch My Own Personal Jesus even though it's an episode I'd really like to watch. (On the other hand this theory might be completely off or it might be a combination of this plus most of the sadness is not critical of the characters which allows me to feel that emotion without feeling the pull of sympathetic guilt, which may be what I'm really trying to avoid, maybe, I'm not sure, one can never truly stare into their head and completely understand it, Godel actually proved that.)
I write this for a couple reasons, first of all, this is what's in my head right now, secondly, this is one of those odd little things about how my mind works that I and hopefully some of you find fascinating, thirdly, I take my tv watching pretty seriously. Well, maybe not that seriously, I can enjoy it without analyzing it. But tv provokes me, it touches me, it keeps my mind active by pulling out emotions that were inactive, forcing me to think out jokes and dramatic situations, and sparking my imagination. To rebuke those who say tv kills imagination, I'd say my imagination is build up by tv. I'm able to access the ideas, words, and images of tv to build up my ideas, to use as inspiration. Many of jokes were inspired (although not necessarily copied) from the Simpsons. I only really thought of robotic life after watching transformers. My first ideas about mecha only came after watching Gundam Wing. My ideas about the fantasy epic really took off only after watching Record of Lodoss War. But my ideas did not stay derivitive copies of these tv shows, rather they evolved into other directions, sometimes making them untracable to their origin. On the shoulders of these giants my ideas stand. Some may argue books can play the same role, and they can, but tv provides images, which helps my imagination imagine images built on those of tv, that is not to say that books are worse, books force my mind to imagine my own images, on the other hand tv helps my mind imagine more complex images, and anyways, the worth of a story depends most importantly on the story not the medium.
Some would argue that it is best for the mind to be untainted by tv so it can imagine ideas completely original. I remember a story by Orson Scott Card called "Unaccompanied Sonata," it is an amazing story and everyone should read it. Among the many concepts it contained (although this was not the theme, but rather a background concept, and it didn't really recommend this so much as say this was how the world of this story worked) was the idea that a musician to be truely original had to be completely cut off from any music. When the musician of the story did hear music suddenly he started altering his music based on what he heard, making it in some way just a little derivative. Because of this he was cast out of music. The idea is intriguing, but I like the idea that just like science art can build upon itself. Yes, it is interesting to see fresh perspectives from those who haven't studied the art (and I use art in a broad way including tv, books, etc.), but those who have studied art can build on the past, learning from the flaws and successes to perfect the art. Yes, things will be a little derivative in some ways, but honestly, I'm not afraid of things being a little derivative, as long as it's done well. TV is just like any other art in the fact that it can offer ideas, words and images which can be used to build more stories and art. So I do watch tv with pride and appreciation, at its best it is art, and it is wonderful.
And on a more personal note, when I'm really depressed sometimes TV with the ideas it gives me helps push me out of my depression just like a book might or a painting might. On the other hand, tv does provide a distraction, which has cost me much time, but no blessing in this world is without its drawbacks. Yet I think tv is most definitely worth its drawbacks.
That's about all I want to say about that, so take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

Patience

If I wait
For my hope to return
I will lack the time to carve out a future,
and I will curse the present.
So even with despair nestled in my skull,
I must prepare
to be born again,
Just as when living
I must prepare to die again.


With the cyclical disease
granting depression and ecstasy,
I die and am born again and again.
I do not reincarnate,
But when my feelings run low
I destroy my life,
I rush myself towards death,
and if I recover
I pull myself together,
I force myself to move towards life.


If I try to understand
why I am this way
and what exactly is wrong,
I will wonder for a lifetime
and I will one day look back
and I will see that my disease has spent my human moment.
I have to move,
I must bring energy to my limbs,
I must force blood into my brain,
I have to restore my soul to my body,
I must make myself hope now and forever.

- Rand

Blaze ye stars, let me not see you whimper

And what now of the next chapter of Rand?

I wonder...

It's actually becoming rather repetitive to find myself on the verge of a life-revamp. Which in fact does make some sense given that I have a lot of potential to certain matters, but have a tendency toward certain repeated mistakes, and have certain issues holding me back...ie...

I AM MAN OF FIRE AND ICE!

Or something of the like.

Still, as I look to the future, I wonder what will I become...

Certainly I can strive to do good, to follow God always...

But what will God have me be...

A man of love, or who bears the weight of the lonely?
A man of passion or careful analysis?
A creature of action or an advisor to thought?

What...?

One of the most challenging facets of a trusting faith in God, is you must remain trusting even when you do not know the slightest detail of the plan. But He is in charge, and trusting in Him, I can be sure of this, His love will be with me, and that will be enough.

And if I can keep that in mind in times where I'm tending to forget it...

Well, there's always someway back, love, always love http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K0adFYuNuns

And it all makes you want to scream

A little something from the late great Michael Jackson - Scream

I've been mapping out my past, a common enough task I think, and I've found there are many benefits. You gain a degree of self-learning, a clarification of your understanding of the past, an improvement of your appreciation of good memories and good poeple, and a great story.

There are dangers though: wallowing in self-pity, obsession on the past, renewed bitterness, over-attachment to this life, etc.

But perhaps the most repeated lesson I've found looking over my past is that things were never as bad as I thought they were, nor are they ever as good.

Looking at the past also helps put the present in perspective. I can say that my current life has been a bit rough at times (though not nearly as rough as the life of others mind you), but looking back I find it's amazing that my life is at least better than this period or that period, and so it's not that bad, and I ought to thank God that I got past those past crises because they were pretty damn bad.

Take for example my crisis of April/May 2008 - where I was almost certain I was going to fail a number of classes and need to take another semester (although in retrospect it may have been a good idea to take another semester and get a CS double-major, although who knows how that would have reshaped who I am today?)

Compared to that crisis, my feelings today are light and fluffy, and while I should not take my feelings to lightly (after all, like speed they can kill), it is a bit comforting that I got over that, it chastises my self-pity a bit, and it reminds me - life can suck sometimes, but it is still worth it. I look at that period and there's no way I can reconcile it with the idea I was secretly happy, no I was miserable, but there was still a beauty in that period of life, because I strove to live and live rightly and serve God in my life. Screw the misery, even the crises are beautiful.

And I got a little Facebook posting from that period to prove my point. As miserable and self-pitying that the posting is, I like to think it's a good piece of writing, and well worth looking back upon, or for those who have not read it, for the first time upon. Especially as the most major of the points are still valid, you can always trust God to get you through the bad times, and even when the thrill of life is gone, you still got to go on (and indeed move along):

So here's the posting which I after the fact labeled "Scream":

Oh yeah, life goes on, long after the thrill of living is gone

Little bit of Jack and Diane
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QT9tpKXFd8A

Of course the best thing that John Cougar Mellencamp has given us is this line from How I Met Your Mother (Aldrin Justice):

Barney: Tonight, just like John Mellencamp, I am going to get rid of the cougar once and for all.

If you don't get it watch the episode.

Anywho, I'd like to thank everyone who gave me birthday messages, it was a nice gesture. If it seems odd to not write this till now, well, my life has been a little bit of a crapstorm this last couple weeks. And now that I come to the end of this semester it seems everything is coming up failure, partial or completely, and even my successes seem to be interspliced with failure. And this has all left me pretty miserable.

If I had some time to relax and move away from that mindset, maybe that wouldn't matter so much, but I have more work to do, I have to clean up the mess I've been dealing with lately, I have to deal with potentially failing one or more classes, and this sucks. So life's not going to be enjoyable for a while now.

But life goes on. And one day, really one day, maybe in a month, maybe in two, someday probably not too far from now, I will be getting out of this crapstorm, or I will learn to deal with it. I have great faith that God will get me through all this, but I'm having trouble finding enjoyment in life anyways, and in worse case senario, and I need to deal with the aftermath of these failures and the reactions of my family to these matters, which will likely be as uncomfortable as the problems themselves, I might be living in a crapstorm till the end of the summer or beyond. But still life goes on, I'll have moments of happiness now and then, and someday life will get better. So life goes on.

Even if for now, the thrill of living is gone.

-- Fin --

So how thrilling is living now?
At times very much so, at times terrible. Are things getting better? Off and on, yes. Do I trust God for the future, I am trying to, and I think for the most part succeeding. And looking back, I can say all and all, things are not so bad, maybe not great, but, to paraphrase Hamlet:

In this sleep of life, what dreams may come?
And then in death too, what dreams might appear?

Anywho, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

Damn it didn't I tell you to Ultra-Relax!

I'm tempted time from time, moment from moment, to worry and think about what people think about me, whether or not I'm normal, whether or not I fit in and all that jazz (all that rotten jazz, rotten apple eating mean non-funky jazz monkey, etc. et al., and so on). But then I remember, always, always, tooooooooooooooooooooooooo

ULTRA-RELAX

Go Kodocha!

And here's the lyrics, via Naokochan (the notes are via spontaneous awesomeness)

Plenty of free time today and tomorrow
(oh so much time, got to webinate the web, but when you gotta be cool, you can find time to cool it up and cool it down)
Taking an overnight trip by the four of my family
(Because my family is awesome, they just are)
Seeing Sphinx with an Egyptian air
(Because more history=more better)
Seeing Texas with an American feeling!
(USA rules!!! But as nice as Texas is, Jersey rocks!!!)
Just be as cool as a cucumber
(mmmm, cucumber)
And laidback all the time
Then bugs in your stomach bugging you
Will just go off!
(those bugs (or maybe they're worms...) might be tempting, but just remember, ain't no bugs in this world that are really worth worrying about... after all, if God's with me, all the world's just a bitty bug ain't it?)
I'm ultra-relaxed
Gracefully, unbeatably relaxed
(Soooo relaxed, though my acid reflux, occasional breakdowns, frequent insomnia might argue different...)
Just a little bit different deluxe
Scatterbrained but...
(Scatterbrained who...something, something, scatterbraininess)
When you call me, "pah pah pah pahng"!
(That's my other name)
I'm always relaxed
Wabi-sabi-seasoned deluxe
(Because nothing's as relaxing as wasabi. Take it with some hot sauce to cool the tempers)
Bright! Clear! -Headed!
Brainy! Pitt! Pitt!
Watch no one but me!
(Because I'm awesome, and though I stress out over everything, but when push gets to pushy, I do become ULTRARELAX!!!)

Oh yeah!

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

None the less, Doom my friends, doom

Since the latest reboot of the Rand Show, a couple weeks ago or such and such, (actually at least a couple months ago, dude, my sense of time is wack, yo!), this almost week without posting has been the longest such period.

Peeling out why, I can say probably that it has to do with the relative calm and decent feelings I have and my fear that actually doing something meaningul/useful/relevant in my life might mess that up.

I could go into that further, but I don't feel like it.

Also, your face is smelly.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

Excuse me, please miss

I'm sorry
Excuse me
Just a moment
Please miss
I simply want to say
You have the most beautiful arch of the neck
I have ever seen

No that would be creepy
But I could say
You have the most amazing eyes
Make sure to mention the color
Maybe that's too cliché
But maybe it's worth a try
I've got to say something
Before the moment is gone
She steps out of the train
And though I saw her four times on this route
I can't parse her face from the crowd anymore

And so it goes
Life moves on

Because I'm easy, easy like Sunday morning

Least this week.

So I've decided to summarize my experiment in perspective (detailed two days ago) as an experiment in "living in the moment." That doesn't quite explain it, as it also has an element of minimizing worry, and other details, but that phrase sums it up decently. And by my pre-decided and a little arbitrary timeline, I got another week in this.

So far it's been interesting, from a human nature study point of view (less so from a living point of view), but my new attitude has been hard to hold for a while, and is only now starting to sink in.

I find myself with less highs, fewer lows, less ambitious, more calm, a little blander overall. Perhaps. But I'm also starting to be a little more comfortable with doing some of the things I want to do that I used to worry about (like these sessions actually), and while I'm a bit reluctant to admit it, perhaps there's something to all this.

On the other hand, I'm getting less of that sense of that good struggle to do right, but...

I dunno, worrying too much about that kind of stuff (though I'm still maintaining my faith and my desire to do God's will and be a good person as a whole) is what I'm trying to avoid so...

Anywho, I'm still rocking, just in another way, at least I think so. I guess I'll figure it out in a week (though I may need 1-2 wks in my old attitude to fairly evaluate things).

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

And God Bless.

The Man from Tallahasse

Sometimes syllables just go together. It just rolls off your tongue don't it?

The reference is actually to an episode/character of Lost (and to make matters clear, here's a music video featuring The Man From Tallahasse (the character that is, none of those scenes are from the episode of that name)) and I plan to do a whole bunch of stuff about Lost later since the show has somehow, despite my disappointments managed to draw me back in.

But otherwise I've got to say I've over all been feeling a lot more out than in.

Not a perfect transition, and with the great and glorious Rand they can all be winners, but I have not the time and/or the energy and/or the care, and I'm decently satisfied with that transition, even though now it's been derailed into a rough break. Oh 'twell.

Anywho, I've found myself low stressed lately. Oddly so because I've been dealing with some high stress situations with only mixed results. Take for example this morning/last night. I slashed them together because I did not sleep last night (or well, I did take a nap for two hours or so, but it wasn't anything more than I would take during a normal work-day), yet despite my successful all-nighter (usually I have to struggle a lot more to pull an all-nighter) I only barely finished 10 pages of unedited half-gibberish historical essay (for a teacher who points out before hand that he grades partially on proper form) as well as just finishing 3 pages of un-collated short story strung out over 6 copies. I will not go into the exact details of the mess because if they are not boring to read, they are at least boring to write about.

That level of productivity itself is not too shameful; it's not fantastic but it's not horrible. But I feel like I definitely could have done more, especially since I spend a good chunk of time watching episodes of Lost (while I was paying attention through most of the 1st season and I kept up with a good chunk of the second season, by the beginning of the third season the show was dead to me; however, I occasionally would check in on it through the posts of the illustrious Mr. Sepinwall, and after he said that the third season finale was awesome, I was like dude, sweet). Yet still it's better than I've done on other occasions.

So up to that point, no real sign of oddly low stress levels, but I did find myself a bit calmer than I should be when I was late for class and facing the prospect of handing in an unedited paper. But the real sign of the low stress is that I did not try to get out of handing-in the paper un-edited. I could have sneaked off to the computer lab and snuck the paper into the pile at the end of the class, but that kind of last-minute weaseling, which I have practiced most of my school career and which I think is a necessary part of any good school career, suddenly seemed very servile.

I suppose it's since I'm graduating soon, and I'm graduating with a decent GPA (unless I horrifically mess up this semester and maybe even if, as long as the New Brunswick administration actual does its job on a certain matter again too boring (on either writing or reading level, pick which one makes you feel better) to get into percisely), and moreover it's the beginning of the semester... so what if I get marked off on this essay. I actually sort of wanted to hand in the unedited version even though I asked for permission to edit it and email it to him, since the unedited version goes into some cool alternate history speculation that would likely be cut if I was being organizationally strict.

I want to get a good grade on that paper, I really do, but ultimately I don't care too much about it. Nor do I care that much about a homework assignment I missed while completing the two more lengthy and important ones before. Well, I do care, and I do worry, and I am a bit concerned right now about the sleep I'm going to miss finishing up the homework I have for tomorrow. But school is not pressing down on me too much.

Nor is in fact, this webpost. I want it to do well, but in the end, it not being done well is not too big of a problem, I have the future to perfect the art, and with two new webposts in incubation, there is a lot of prospect to the future. But no real tension, no real deadline. There's graduation and I need to watch myself so I graduate well, but...

After that then what?

Living I suppose.

Even without definite medium term goals (I have my long term of ultra-success, I have my short term of graduation, there's just that gap in the middle), there's still certain contours of my life. Friends, writing, gaining skills, etc. But there's no pressing need for immediate cash, immediate job success, or even immediate publishing. And that is refreshing and relieving but also...

It makes me feel a bit lost as well. I'm used to seeing a goal ahead of me and charging to it until my body and mind give way (best example: finals time when I stress myself to breaking and indulge in all the unhealthy habits I can imagine to maximize efficiency) (or at least that's how it seems to me right now, even when we look back on our short-term past, our current mind-set colors our memories), this is new and a bit disorienting. Perhaps I might take some time to get used to it, or perhaps I might indulge it. Eventually I need those medium-term goals to get towards my long-term goals, but perhaps it might be time to take a break, and maybe I'll just deal with the day-to-day stuff that still has a lot of satisfaction it in:

Friends, Art, and God.

The embodiments of love.

Least that's how I see it.

I can't really think of a good transition to exit, but this seems as good of a point as any to make a rough break.

So anywho, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

Where I go I just don't know, I might end up somewhere in Mexico

I can't say things are going bad, and I can't say I'm mad but I can't help but be a leetle beet sad.

Ah maybe that's overstating things, and maybe it's just a matter of my usual nightly depression slump. But still my mind turns to that old Red Hot Chilli peppers song referenced in the title. I suppose it's a matter of the timing of a bunch of stressful things starting to come together after a period of relative relaxation. This is something that can't really be avoided since a period of time either has a largish number of stressful items or a smallish number of stressful items and it's hard to maintain things so that it's constantly one or the other.

But I can't help but feel a little scared. Because right now my life could become so much better, if I just play my cards right. But I suppose... well if I'm honest with myself, my life's not that bad right now, especially if I take my meds and put some hard work on keeping my mind intact. And so any bonus to my life would just add to the good, so no matter how little I actually get of the opportunities to make my life better, it'll still probably be fine.

Yeah, I think I'm going to be fine.

Afterall, I've got God on my side.

Anyways, for a bonus for my faithful readers (especially since I didn't post yesterday and am posting rather late today) (although how many of you are actually faithful to me, really?) I'm giving you some bits from a bio I did for work.

1. I'm currently enrolled at Rutgers University, although I will graduate in May 2008 and I am not planning on grad school. I am a History major with a Math and Computer Science minor.

2. Teaching SAT review (least for the Princeton Review (this is a webpost-only comment not actually part of the bio I sent them)) is a well-paying job with a flexible schedule which has allowed me to interact with fun people, both co-workers and students, in an easy-going environment. But also important to me is the fact that I can get a sense of satisfaction from helping my students improve their SAT scores. It's nice to feel like you might have helped a kid get into a better school or maybe even helped a student get a scholarship.

3. I dream of being able to write for a new Star Trek series, and I believe Jean-Luc Picard is the best captain of the Enterprise.

4. While I was born in Minnesota, my parents come from Kerala, a state on the southern tip of India. It is a gorgeous area with a climate actually similar to a rain forest and if you know where to go you can find elephants, monkeys, snakes, and even an occasional mongoose. I try to visit my parents' areas every couple years to stay in touch with relatives especially my grandmother.

5. I like to write in my spare time, mostly short stories and a blog. I try to read a good deal and I enjoy watching tv and movies. I also enjoy biking and playing poker. I am also an avid fan of sleeping.

And here's a photo of yours truly: (ain't I gorgeous?)

One hand might wash the other but who washes the arms?

The hands of course. When I thought of that phrase, it had such a faux profound sense to it, but now that I realize it has such a simple answer. Well, I suppose that just emphasizes the faux in the faux profound.

Greetings y'all, and welcome to another session of the Rand Show. Should I open things like that always? I've always been of mixed feelings about a standardized opener. On the one hand, it's cool, it builds the brand, and it gives a feeling of greater consistency. On the other hand, often my thoughts flow directly from the title, or just directly from my head and I don't want to interrupt things for an opener. Oh, choices, choices. Of course I could try the opener and on and off for a while.

Ah experimentation, something, something, something or other.

I got to say I've been a bit lazy with my phrases lazy. But perhaps that's just because I've been feeling a bit unwell.

"I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell, I know right now you can't tell"

(On a stylistic note, I wonder if any of you have noticed my increased use of links. Part of this is simply the fact that more links helps search engines find webpages, but also I think this helps break up the visual monotony of the reading lots of words on the computer and the conceptual monotony of just having words in front of you)

In a recent session I thought I had located the prime source of my feeling unwell (perhaps that's the wrong word for it, I'm at least feeling a little bit off). My analysis was it was because of fear of bad things happening and anxiety over me doing not enough good. I'm not saying that's wrong, but it's not I think the full case. There's still something off inside me and I'm not sure what.

But perhaps that's just something I need to live with. I've often stated that people can never fully understand my mind, and maybe it's time for me to start relaxing a little about that fact. Perhaps it's okay to live in a world where I can't know every little bit of my thoughts. Perhaps, blah, blah, blah.

I think I've hit up that subject well enough.

Moving on to other matters, I'm planning to post up some sessions with linked up versions of Russian films. Why? Because I'm doing some research into old quality Russian films and I think it's pretty cool that they're available on the web and so I'll be posting them up.

In other news, I've got a lot of work to do and so I should be moving on to doing it.

That's about it for now. So take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

Awesomeness always returns

And so I am back. After several days of weak and sporadic sessions I have returned to give meaning to your bummy lives. All hail the returning Rand!!! And so on.

Well, it has been a nice Thanksgiving break, but now life must resume, or else, well, things aren't good then. But anyways,

Zoonga, zoonga, zoonga.

Bet you weren't expecting that! (Or if you had been paying attention to my previous sessions and had noticed my tendency to break up ponderous, incomplete, overly serious thought with odd-sounding nonsense, you might have been expecting that, and that is why the bet I mad was a gentleman's one, I know you people are probably not gentlemen but I am willing to be merciful.)

Anywho, it's strange (as I've remarked several times over and over again to various people until their heads want to explode), after that break I'm starting to feel the pressures of school and personal work, as well as future prospects and plans begin to impose themselves on me. In my pre-Thanksgiving session I commented on how vacation from school does not equal vacation from my personal work, yet honestly I pretty much did take a vacation from personal work (and I extended my vacation from school work to the extend of semi-falling behind). And so now I'm honestly finding it a bit tricky falling back into the tap of things, like getting back into the posting schedule and such (for a little while I was in a nice posting schedule where I was posting every day at a morningish time (I think (although don't quote me on this) that my views increase when I post early)), but more badishly I find some old feelings rising up (I see a bad moon rising).

I mentioned a while ago that I was done with my most recent crisis but that after a number of highly wah-wah sessions I didn't want to cap it off with even more extra super more wah-wah. But since y'all have had the intervening days of the Thanksgiving break + a little more let me chat a little 'bout it all. And by chat I mean say this:

I think a lot of my problems come from my impending, overwhelming desire to change/save/rule the world and my constant belief I'm not doing enough by that. It's aggravating, every day bad things happen. Whether you believe the world's getting better or worse (I tend to believe neither exactly, try to figure out how history's going is the easy path to madness), bad things will keep on happening, and that includes really bad things and things that are really bad personally. And every time that happens, I feel like I've failed. And then there's every moment I'm still, every moment I haven't accomplished something absolutely fantastic I feel like I've failed because I haven't made things better. That just seems insane, it just seems like an absolute and terrible monstrous mistake. It just seems like I'm fiddling while Rome burns. It just seems like I'm a part of the horror, since I'm not stopping it.

It's so easy to feel that way.

It makes me feel like even a moment spent inactive is my mark of failure. Moreover it places pressure on me to save the world with the next moment.

And yet, to feel that way, even Rand the Grand and Glorious can't do it all, and he can't always be trying even, especially since he too is a part of this messed up world.

One more thing if you think about it. If human beings deserve happiness, than don't those who want to help people have a right for happiness too.

But scrap all that, no screw all that. To tell you the truth, no matter how much I do it's still not going to be enough to stop bad stuff from happening, moreover the further into the future the effects of my accomplishments go the less control I'll have over them. So scrap that too.

How to deal with it all then? I appreciate the beauty of life, the universe, and people, wonderful old people. Life is beautiful, and if things go wrong, it might become less pretty, but even less pretty it is infinitely beautiful. So while life might not be as good as you want, it still is so damn beautiful.

And in the end, God will take care.

And yes, there will be horror.

But God will make the best of this world.

And it will still be so damn, incredibly beautiful.

So that's about that.

And those pressures seem a little bit lighter.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

People, something vague and grandiose

It is a mark of my ambivalence about the subject that I cannot even summon up a specific vague and grandiose statement about it. But I love people. They're good folk. Especially friends and such. But they do fill me up with immense and often agonizing amounts of anxiety. Friends and such less so. Usually I don't find friends as discomfort producing. Ah, but here's the rub, I like being around my friends, but the act of contacting them, creating a contact as opposed to simply being exposed to one, there's a big anxiety creator. But hey, no pain, no gain. And I must gain the glory, for I am Rand the Great and Glorious!!!

A matter of clouds

I, I the man of the Rand and the Rand of the man, persevere in spite of attempts by giant fish to stop me. But no giant fish will defeat me, for I am John!!!

But let that matter be discarded. I remember in about 4th or 5th grade I still liked school. Perhaps I didn't admit it because of peer pressure, but overall I enjoyed being at school. It was only with middle school school really started to bug me. Perhaps that was because with the dawning of my hormones my anxiety problems got kicked into to overdrive.

After that, minor social anxiety blossomed into full on social paranoia (I use paranoia here in a very loose, ultra-loose, barely hanging on to the threads of syntax loose sense (basically any rapid-fire depressing, self-hating, fearful thoughts)). Basically my mind exploded. And any sense of social satisfaction I got from school evaporated. And so I had school work. But investing myself in my school work put such intense performance stress on me that it almost killed the alien embryo that I'm raising in my stomach. Or maybe it just gave me anxiety attacks, either one.

So I had to choose whether or not I wanted to attach my worth to my grades. And all my upbringing, my experiences, my culture, etc. suggested to me in the end that while grades were good and an accomplishment, they were not a measure of worth. But let me caution, I presented here a relatively linear process of an intellectual trend, but the mind doesn't work that way, it don't, my friend, it simply don't. Another factor to my disconnecting my sense of worth from my school work was my disconnect from the idea of school being its own universe with teachers having a natural, if not always welcome spot at it head, to it simply being a tiny piece of the universe with teachers being just people without an inherent superiority to me. Suddenly doing well by their measures seemed submitting to an unnecessary (and by my then reasoning automatically unjust) authority. Teenage rebellion, et. al. I suppose. And then there was my religious journey which led me to conclude that earthly authorities must always be subject to heavenly authorities. Etc. So there were a lot of factors.

Then if school (and let me include college here (although college does differ from primary and secondary schooling in some theoretical points which I won't get into here)) wasn't a measure of worth, then what was it supposed to be. More or less a stepping stone, a tool. Intellectually that's how I view it. But emotionally, it's hard to see it as less than confinement. Perhaps that's just a manifestation of my wanderlust soul. Or in more charitable terms an imposition. It's hard to stand that, and perhaps that's a reason why I have such trouble sticking to my classes. But in the way I think about things I actually have less care for school than work. At least when I'm working I get a feeling that I'm building some organization or something, but with school it feels like all my effort is going to nothing except satisfying the expectations of others. Perhaps I can say that when I'm in lecture there's the satisfaction of learning but with tests, projects, and essays, etc. (although occasionally I do feel satisfaction from projects and essays since they involve some creativity, it usually is as much or more giving a feeling of burden). In the end, I just can't take a great deal of satisfaction from school, at least as long as I keep on looking on it as a burden.

Perhaps a better way of looking at matters would be to see school as a game. And the whole matter becomes a competition when it comes to grades. Now many people dislike that analogy because it puts too much stress on kids and undermines their feelings of friendship. But that's only if you look at it as an immensely important game. But let's take this as a pretty important game, not hugely important, you can rebound from bad grades, but it's still got some gravity to it. And there is some fun to it with the learning and all. And then there is some accomplishment to getting a good grade. But it isn't the accomplishment of say a medal of honor, or something that suggests quality in a person (even if a person's true quality is a matter hidden in the brain, personal, and in my mind moreover a matter of how they view the world instead of what they accomplish, etc., etc., etc., blah, blah, blah). Rather a good grade in school is like a victory in football, or soccer, or Magic: The Gathering.

And when it comes down to it, it isn't really a victory over your competitors, they rather are your fellow-travelers in the game, a victory in a game is a victory over its rules, its obstacles and your own limits. Perhaps, if I looked at school like that, it might become palatable again. Stranger things have happened.

Anyways, take it to your head, take it to your heart, and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!