For some reason I can't explain, once you were gone it was never the same

When I ruled the world,
But that was when I ruled the world

Story of my life, more or less.

Or perhaps my life is best summarized by another quote, this time by myself: "I wax poetic, but wane pathetic."

I am a bit apologetic for missing a massive number of posts of late, but I am also a bit apathetic, as long as my work schedule is chaotic it'll be hard for me to maintain a blogging schedule, and as long as my emotions are turbulent...

Ah but that, that one cannot predict. Except in hindsight I could have. Something that struck me from the start was how much the working world was like high school. The rigid formalities and artificial roles, the sense of community and imprisonment, yada, yada, yada...

But taking that as a base, the state of my life currently, recovering from a crush, emotionally flip-flopping at the slightest provocation, envying the social ease of those around me but without taking any constructive steps... yada, yada, yada,

And these complaints too, this is all... all the same.

And then was college any dream? I remember quite a few nights sitting alone hating my life then.

And what of elementary school? There were those days I spent sitting, class phonebook in hand, trying to gather up the courage to call a friend.

It is very easy then to slip into the mindset that nothing has changed and nothing changes?

But what is your measure of change and what is your goal?

I have gained knowledge, I have gained bits of wisdom here and there, and when I reflect on my life I find I have a measure of peace, perhaps not as much as I ought to have, and a measure of satisfaction, perhaps not as much as I could, which I certainly didn't have all my life.

In the end, I'd hesitate to say I'm at a peak, but I'm not at the bottom of a trench.

And yet how does one measure these things?

Let me not play the full Socratic game, as it can become overly long and diluting of my ideas.

But let me say it makes no sense to judge by accomplishments, which pass from this world like dust.

Even less to judge by people's opinions of you, mere dust in the wind.

By God's eye of course, but what does that mean?

Well in the end, there are many things you can measure your life by, and many ways of saying it less than good and better than bad and justifying it all. One of the grand dilemmas of our mortal nature is our alienation from the essential moral essence of the universe. And the bridge?

Love always, my friend.

Coming off of these abstractions, I can take some satisfaction in the love that I give and the love that I hold, and I can try to do more with it and more for it.

So backing away from it all, there's a satisfaction there, in the long view.

But now, what of now? Looking at my work, it has it's nice points, but I do not love it, more importantly though I do not love who I am in it and it does not grow my capacity to love. Indeed what does it offer me then? Saying that, I can name a number of things. But none of it seems enough, nothing there seems to really grow my spirit, creatively, socially, spiritually (all inter-related realms by the way, though not fully so, and the last in the end reigns supreme).

But then again, would any other job grow me? In the end it is I who does the growing? Is it not a matter of how I look at things, is it not a matter of my perspective, of my sense of ...

But are there not ways of life that give me more or less in all of that? Are there not ways of life that if not give me growth of soul, at least lend me better opportunties? Are there not places where I can love more fully and truly?

And in moments like this I realize that I am not happy with my job, and indeed, increasingly I hate it.

And there is a threat of despair there. Especially since it would be unwise to move hasty in this situation, even when feelings seem to pull you toward haste.

But then you can stop for a moment, and realize you were moving all along. Even in realizing that this is not where I want to be in life, there is movement, and even if my goals are still far away, as I ponder them, I can see them clearer, and then it comes down to just forcing my wheels to keep spinning and there is motion and then...

And so to sum up, I've said very little here. Disappointingly little for a come back to blogging after a month of idleness.

Yet in the end the sentiment is to have hope and to chase it, and even when you realize you are far from hope, take satisfaction from the hope itself, and your faith in yourself to pursue that hope, and always, always, take satisfaction in Love.

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

And God Bless.

Archimedes Rules!!! Woo!!!

Imported from Mathimoto's Complaint (a failed blogging venture that nonetheless produced some good work):
I'm not a Hellenophile, I have a good taste for the Classics mind you, but I'm not one of those who say the Greeks invented everything. With Math, for example, despite the immense Greek influence (often not done by actual Greeks but by Egyptians or Syrians who spoke Greek), but India, Arabia, and China also had a huge impact on the history of Math. And yet, there is one Greek, who's outstanding enough that I can never get tired of hearing about him.

ARCHIMEDES!!!

So we have a man who created ancient war machines that matched even the Romans for years. Yet despite the mountains of gold that earned him, the war machines were a distraction. His love was Math. Pure Math. And it was there he performed miracles. Mechanics of Floating Objects. Combinatric speculation. Areas of curves and spheres. And the number of grains of sands that it would take to fill up the universe.

He was so high up the math ladder he had to invent his own number system. He dabbled with the basics of integral calculus and said that they weren't rigorous enough for him.

And the man doesn't stop giving. The Archimedes Palimpsest, the best collection of Archimedes writings despite being buried under layers of rewritten parchment, has never been in the best condition, having been mold encrusted, painted over, and scraped apart. Yet with a little patience, a little hard work, and some ultra-fancy X-rays, the Palimpsest is still giving up new texts by, about, or unrelated to Archimedes. As late as April 2007, a new commentary about Archimedes was discovered.

Check out more info about the Archimedes Palimpsest.

Because I got to keep moving on

My scheme to slowly import my old blogs into the Rand Show as a means of avoiding real posting has ended. Instead I have mass imported them, and left them for the most part at their original dates. Thus I will have to actually work on new posts, instead of relying on the old. Stupid non-laziness.

These are the songs we sing

Not because it brings us happiness, but because it is who we are.

Happiness seems to be elusive of late. I've never had a great trust in happiness to begin with, but it's resilient defiance of my will is irritating. Ah, but so it is, so it is, and so...

Here's some poetry:

I will always be insane

I will always be insane

You will always be a bitch

I will always be insane

You will always be a jerk

I will always be insane

You will always have that hairy little growth on the back of your neck

These things we can pick at and try to remove

And we can succeed

But the damage has already been done

The imprint is final

These flaws have been buried deep within our pysche

Left there to twist our thoughts for all the years to come

Thus I will always be insane

And you will always be my friend

-Rand