day number one1

It's no surprise that you have to try something different every now and then. It's no surprise that as you grow older, you grow up.; or at least are encouraged to / forced to / mind-bent into. I'm not in college anymore, but I don't think I'm quite the appropriate and politically correct grown up either. In between? (pssh, that seems a bit much cliche to accept.) I'm not happy with the former and not sure I'm ready for the latter. Relatively, the former is easy, the latter is important. College has been just a bunch of fucked up rendezvous, talking to people like you care about them, being best friends with people because they're your drinking partner, and sleeping with girls because... why not? It is transparent. Empty. An apparition that attempts volume but evaporates at the shortest sign of reality. Apparently that shit doesn't carry in the latter reality of us grownups.

The Bible says you can't serve two masters. Physics says you can't be in two places. Psychology probably says something about the fact that it's preferred for you not to be two people (please, no multi-personality bullshit comments). It all comes down to the inability to maintain two lifestyles. You can't seek something real while you're cluttering your life with the exact fucked up opposite. Do I even need to bother to phrase the question: "well, which one would you prefer?"

The issue is not preferring one over the other, but instead dropping one without the immediate pickup of the other. Once again the "in between" that can always be used as a proper excuse. Nobody wants to be empty. Alone. Without. But would you rather be cluttered with business that leads to nothing in the long run? Or sacrifice in the short for the possibility of what could build to something real. Does it even need to be "alone / empty" time? Ironically, it would be more filling to drop a small amount of real volume compared to a truckload of empty air.

Oh analogies, oh walkarounds. I am emptying my calendar. I am cleaning out and only pushing forward when there is purpose to. I am making a quasi-commitment to myself to not pursue situations with knowingly empty dead ends. I'm not going to waste another minute on something that doesn't deserve another minute..

I've mentioned many times before how time is the most critical thing to not be wasted. Money? Fuck it. It can always be overcome, or recovered. Time can't. If you are meant to live T years, and you spend half your life chasing after X... what happens when you realize at time T/2 that you X doesn't matter? Y is what matters. And unforuntaly it takes Z time to fully realize Y and it's super unfortunate, because Z > T/2.

How the hell are you supposed to know everything up front? You don't. You don't even realize the problem until you delve into it. It takes half the time figuring out whats going on before you direct yourself. I don't think there's any shortcut to that. Yah, it'd be great to be 100% convinced by some older, wiser person at a time before he realized it, but... once again, easier for him to be fully convinced after the fact than for you to be convinced blindly.

That's what this is. A journey of introduction. Experimentation.. and potential Discovery.

mistake acceptance

Here I am thinking. Again. Like I've always been, and yet like I've never been before.

Life will never repeat itself exactly, but it does follow patterns. Similar situations; new details. Similar problems; new people, new effects, and new results. It's funny. There's no single uniform solution to "solve" it. No single cure. I'm not completely sure. With similar situations, you just have to adapt similar previous solutions. Adaptation: I think that might be it. Learn how to adapt previous lessons into new situations.

My mom used to always say my life motto would be "always make new mistakes". A funny little way of saying that you won't always be lucky enough to avoid mistakes, but at least you can be smart enough to avoid repeating the same ones. But that could be a little bit easier since life always throws new situations, new problems, and new potential mistakes at you to be made. So, avoid similar mistakes too. Avoid old mistakes. Avoid similar mistakes. Make crazy, new, unique ones... if you have to make them (which you do).

I wish I could share some of my new life mistakes; however, it's been unfortunate that I don't make them anymore. That's right. I've cleared that area of my life last month. Pssh, yah right. Things are going pretty well though. I will let loose more tomorrow on one of "my life" posts: the fun ones with the new people, new situations, and new details, as described as above... Those are the best and worst posts I have, anyway.

Guitar Post

I'm pretty sure I enjoyed my weekend. Although it bothers me that I am unsure of my feelings.

I have my actuary exam in 10 days. Six fucking months of studying and it all comes down to 3 hours on a Wednesday morning. Pass or Fail; no in between. Important moments in life are normally binary like that. Right or Left, This or That, One or Zero.

There will be an overwhelming space of time opened up after this is through. Regardless of the outcome. Let me be cliche real quick and acknowledge that I have realized what people mean when they say "time is precious" ... There's so much to do, and it all requires time. Whether you want to invest your time into studying or reading or learning anything, it requires time. Even if you fuck up and put your time to a use that doesn't work out, you've gotta do something. Idle is the worst.

Take a risk. Don't do nothing.

I am tempted to invest time and money back into playing poker. Not just fucking around for entertainment, but actually learning. Being good at poker is a stair step progress. There are different levels of skill, and I have been stuck at the same level since early college years. That's when I last invested time into playing. If I want to ever improve, I've got to get back to the grind. Read, play, think, learn. It could end up a total flop, but... take a risk, right?

I also started a new book How We Decide. That's another thing I want to do... tear through my bookshelf. I finally finished Fountainhead after what seems like forever. Great book, but I'm happy to pick up a new one.

Okay, I'll go ahead and write about the one thing I want to write about: I'm taking a trip up to Michigan this Fall to see a girl I met this Summer. I feel like I'm in middle school again talking to her. It's not that it's uncomfortable talking with her, it's just different. There's been too many girls that you don't really care as much about that you're more care free. If you say something dumb to them or mess up, no biggie. Here, I don't want to mess anything up.

Really, I'm likely overplaying how big of a deal this is to start with. I have a terrible habit of building things up way more than they are before they even happen. It's not optimism, but it's kind of like brainwashing yourself. If you keep telling yourself one thing, it'll become true... in your head. That's gotta match what's actually going on though.

My guitar is getting better.

Time Continuum

Sunday is the most popular day to return to writing. It makes sense, kind of. Typically, you don't have as many obligations, you need something to fill your time, and events from the past week/ weekend are still rummaging through your head and I prefer to vent them out. Or at least that's the case with this Sunday.

I re-read my previous posts (which takes like 5 minutes to do), and I can remember thinking and feeling what I was talking about. I'm happy to say that on some accounts, I've followed through with issues that were bothering me then. I was mad at myself for always planning way too much and never traveling or doing fun things in the present. Well, I took a trip to Boston in May and that was a blast. I have another trip to DC in September and I hope it to be the same. I remember somebody telling me once that it's a skill to be able save money; however, it's also a skill to be able to spend it. So I'm trying to be smart and strategic with my money, but I'm also making sure to 'pay myself' and have fun in the meantime. So far, so good.

I wish I had more time. You'll always hear people getting old and looking back and saying "there's so much more I should have done in my life", but... that's just inevitable. You can only do so much, and you can only distribute your time and resources to so many things. I want to be good at golf. Not like professional good (obviously), but I've been dedicating a lot of time and money to learning, practicing and playing. I also want to continue this actuarial exams. This, also, requires a LOT of time studying and preparing for exams. I also want to play poker and read and travel and train for a marathon and be with friends and do a million other things, but you can really only do so much. So, if I end up dedicating my time to golf and exams and friends and whatever else, there's always going to be something that will be left out. So when I get older and look back at my life and what I've done, I will try my hardest not to say "I wish I could have done that thing". Because apparently I don't. It all comes down to making sure you're selecting the right things to spend your time on, and ideally that will lead to looking back at life and saying "I'm glad I did this thing"

back-ish

Yah Yah... I'm just going to have to accept the fact that I'm going to post in swings! I'll get motivated to write, I'll write, and then I'll go do something else for a while. Then I'll feel like such a bum for breaking my "stay and write" goal, so I'll stay not writing.. Well, fuck that. i'll do my best to keep writing when I have good stuff to say.

I deactivated my Facebook too. That felt really good! I've been contemplating it since I graduated in December, but thought I simply couldn't do without it.

Well.

I can.

I've spent more time reading, studying and playing guitar since that's been gone, which is totally preferred to sitting online and talking to random old 'friends' who I would really be just as fine doing without. So, that's that!