Friday, May 21, 2010

Turning Tomorrow

I'm an intrapaneur... It's not a word but it's been created to define the people that commit themselves to the efforts of entrepreneurs building their team.

So I got drafted. I'm the first one here apparently.

Now that's not a bad thing though the circles in which people grab hold and rise are difficult to find if you're not looking. You're only hope is your own voice.

Getting acclimated to speaking is having an interesting affect on my observations. Real time acclimation betrays the sort of brooding that writers feed on. There are too many nuances in the results of self-improvement to record accurately. You can miss the good stuff if you're trying to hard to hold on to it.

Recently I was told that "he who hesitates is lost . . . and then you gotta go and jerk off."

I'm gonna let that simmer a little while.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Life is movement

Watching, waiting, pondering, all have a finite amount of gravity to any cause. At a certain point you become a coil winded until the tension is lost in the ether. Within that time you have the severe opportunity to lash out and cause the kinetic gratification only the soul can know and drink in. Often our senses betray what's at stake too late to make a difference. I made a general reference but the metaphor was apparent when the micro-sleep assaulted me during this day's venture into technology training.

A possible future income stream, when observed, slowly fades into scenery and stretches thin all things civil in an academically acclimated individual. I fall asleep, against my will, quickly waking, my lapses hopefully imperceptible to a room full of attentive participants. The experience is invaluable but it's also important to pay attention to the way I work. How far should a person push their limitations in unfamiliar environments? Maybe the answer to that is a non issue for those committed to evolving their life.

I hope I didn't snore.
I get most sleepy after lunch.

The direct conversations afterward are infinitely more engaging because I'm finally involved again. I think, like most people, I'm starting to lose my appreciation of the sidelines. Patience inner padawan. I say this to myself.

On to other news: I think I'm fairly perceptive to important details of a given social environment. But the amount of things left for me to learn are absurd. Programming languages, sales techniques, fitness and diet disciplines left to maintain not just for life benefit but for work benefit, active hourly planning and goal setting, being a better person in general to everyone I know: the list goes on and the priorities are always shifting and I'll be turning 27 soon . . . It's not really old or anything but as for getting my shit together you'd think some of this would have dawned on me a few years ago. where was I? I don't want to entertain the whole complacency spiel over again. It's been rubbed dry. I've always wanted momentum and opportunity and resources. The idea that it all comes down to the right connection is baffling for the amount of personal investment that becomes necessary to deserve the affiliation and make the most of it. Does it come down to natural ambition or social compassion? It's probably both right? You and the whole world important together? We are one?


It's interesting to see how the answers can't be glimpsed until your almost too busy to recognize them, as if they are meant for everyone else but you. Is assurance not meant for the leader, would that assurance betray their vigor? Are leaders meant to carry their insecurities along side their maturation? Why are demons so integral to process? Is it as simple as resistance, like gravity and muscle tone?

I'm transcending terms and making no stances. It's all fun, it's all fluff. I may perform this year at a slam somewhere. Lets see, I'd love to get some people on here.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Late in the night

I never feel lonely when I'm warm. Even if the place is empty. Warmth is comfort. It speaks to the nerves in a distinct way. Presently I'm freezing, attempting to pacify the shivers with the movement of my hands. I'm getting rid of the funk by spending the time with you guys.

Not sleeping enough will eat up your life years. All the regret sucks. Everyday you wake up knowing you had another 5 hours to go is another day you substitute peace for caffeine and fortitude for instability. But I'm here in stead, standing in the way of my physical needs, for one much higher. Consistency.

But I think now, ciao.

Much love to midnight word-stuffers.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

These are not threats

Just lies in hope's twilight.

Currently I'm reading "Never Eat Alone" by Keith Ferrazi. The man simultaneously makes the case for and against "the natural." Someone with his dedication is quite unique, and while he may prod the impetus existing inside those with the interest, I am certain the world remains divided by those born to lead and those born to follow. Greatness lies anywhere but is it really possible that an originator can be revealed in the brush of mediocrity?

I want a Bentley. If I can't have that I want a Ford Mustang. I want to make money and enjoy the process. I am never so great as I am in a strange land. At home I'm beloved. Abroad I represent opportunity, or at least I'm learning to. Finite and Infinite potential exist in the polarities of perspective and who's perspective is quite intriguing. Other people are game changers . . . well. When they apply themselves they are. Engaging circumstance is an indication of your traction in this world, regardless of the discomfort. Ferrazi wrote a book because it was truly in him to do it. Not simply a dream forever to become. He's one of these others that our internal projections tend to bounce off when we're tuned into a path of progressive living. Thought, it's easy to swing it into self-help and leave it there.

I'm operating on a fine line and I'm doing it badly. But it's in my nature to struggle with faith. I do it while whittling away at a blog in mid distraction of a show reminding me vaguely of every high school day dream I may have had about righteous confessions of love i had for this girl or that girl, full with chorus, dancing and live musicians sounding the charge and pulling whomever she was, my way.

I'm writing now to keep it all fluid, but it feels anything but. Ugh.

On to other news: I'm in Philadelphia considering a future in presentations and relationships and hotels with cheap everything and luke warm meals. There's money here and a chance to write and a lot to stretch thin in the interim. I walk around pretending to be George Clooney, except hispanic and not a celebrity. There's nothing in popular culture I care to regurgitate to make this simple practice a worthwhile investment for anyone but myself, unless of course you like the self-speculating mood you may be overtaken with in strange environments while trying to change the future of your legacy.

There may be better places for this, but until I get my act together and begin accepting the truth of the seven circles of submission purgatory (I've butchered a reference and I don't care), this is as good as I care to make it. Should a reader ever go retro-grade on the history of this miasma, I'd be pretty interested in the side-effects.

Ah well. Dreams.

Monday, May 10, 2010

the lodestar

It's not quite magic, the way relationships work. But to remove any type of metaphysical principle to the laws of attraction isn't logical. People may be drawn to one another for mutual benefit but there's a lot to be said for instinct and we can blame it on the genes all we want, but there was still a time when the genes didn't have a clue.

I said earlier today that it payed to be reminded of chaos. Exposure to it is intrinsic to our survival. Man is on the top of the food chain on this planet because we alone have the capability of navigating through it. We have imagination. Our emotions are rocket thrusters for the projections changing the face of the planet. With that in mind, unions are the pulse of civilization. I'm agreeable to the cause and effect but I have my reservations. I'm a new yorker. I got a big "fuck-you" in my pocket for any occasion. But unloading that out of pure cynicism is not the way to live.

A few entries ago, I complained about sales. I questioned the most basic frustration of any ignorant generalizer, can we really sell something we don't believe in and why? But everything I've heard is becoming clear. It's not about the product, it's about your relationship and the nearer you can get to displaying your awareness and consideration, the better you are at having the opportunity to provide value in the form of whatever it is you carry around. I don't believe sales has anything to do with pressure, just humility and observation and homework.

I'm in Philadelphia this week learning a million new things I hope to make the best of. We should all know that hope, however, just won't do. In America, hope is for the people that don't accomplish. With all the opportunity being created by people who do, the hope is unknowingly placed in the percentage of those who stop waiting to keep the world moving. They move it and the rest of the planet gets on with their lives. I wish I could still give all the credit to mother nature, but we'd be satisfied in loin cloths if she was the destination, rather than spring-board. Industry and Evolution beckon to all of us. There's a responsibility in that whether we choose to recognize it or not.

Friday, May 7, 2010

Registered

After about 5 semesters of above average performance, I take a nose dive and fail the 5 classes I register for in the following 2 semesters. My will plummets. I'm shaken and unwilling to risk any more time and money. I take a year off to forget it all with the notion that being a full-time student, while attending a different school online for a separate degree, while working full time, is not so much about confidence as it is about insecurity.

Performing obligations independent of some external prompt is not something they teach you in school. They build the routines that service you through a stagnant, if stable, career. The most you can do to show some element of control is pile your plate and accomplish the string of commands, making the most of it while you go along. The less it impresses upon you any strife, the more you can do. But the minute you question it all, the minute you suffer any debilitating emotional effects, the whole house of effort comes crashing down and on an institutional timetable, that means a full stop. I withdrew from school because up until this point, I had not had an upset to this degree. It happened in large part, due to my experience in my first film production.

I was coming to class late. I was having a hard time getting my storyboards completed. My drawing skills a mess. My short film ideas were tossed, one after another. My camera only recorded half the footage I shot for my final. Much of what was left was overdeveloped. I had the bad juju, and my lax ways in the beginning of the semester didn't help me pull through. At the end, my professor was convinced to prove every possible way I would fail. I came late to class on the day everyone was showing their dailies, and I left without entering.

Since then I've attempted to review books on visual storytelling and on drawing. I've thought a lot about what stories I would offer and if I shouldn't go ahead and put a production into play just to practice what I've been taught. But outside of an institution I have to motivate myself and I'm left to wonder about how truly passionate people resolve their issues. To wait to be told to do this or that is just evidence of a grand fault that will affect me for the rest of my life. There are reasons to spare myself the anguish of another trial I don't have the heart for.

But to admit defeat is to turn my back on a deep desire molded since I was 10 years old. I enjoyed my youth, I played video games, like girls, scraped my knees, rebelled against my mom and all that. It never came fully to surface but I thought then and I still believe that constructing stories for a living is probably the best damn career I can think of. In fact, I don't even see it as a career but an instrumental function in my design; to use my imagination to show people what's possible.

I admit, you couldn't hinge the world's fate on my shoulders without me knowing and expect me to come through. The peace in between moments is precious. I would sit out on a stoop and daydream to senility if the weather was good enough and my bills were paid. But reaching that calm plateau in life should come earned and with people to share it with. And how could I even begin to accept those blessing if I'm unhappy with my legacy (that is hoping there is a legacy to feel one way or the other about).

Fitness, relationships, wealth segment my life and my day into a series of activities, some of which I constantly trade away for pause or distraction. But at my age I want more and I don't have it and I only have myself to blame. Conditioned by the complacency of my childhood, I could argue against the universe and my parents and whomever. But life being what it is, what more can I expect to control than myself once I'm cognizant. Heroism displays the higher objective always. That's why a transformation is involved and an icon created. The act of fighting our own hesitation and impulses is an ancient formula, but school doesn't teach that.

I've re-admitted myself to the fun-house; college. I'm going back, if for nothing else, to finish what I started or at least let the clock run out on my financial aid. I don't have faith in myself, only in the moment and its power to make the future. I hope my regard for time has matured enough to be an asset in the coming challenges this fall and beyond. I pray that the love I have for realizing tall tales and romance and epic dangers doesn't fail itself under the weight of cynicism. Wish me fore-sight, clarity, will power, and luck.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Not Quite Daily Yet

With so much crap to do I can easily spend half the day between sorting out what's necessary, what's interesting, what I've put off for too long. Somewhere in between my mind gets tired and I nap. If I look at something for too long without acting on it, it's like some timer goes off and my body starts to shut down. Stimulation works as it should like direct questions, orders, threats, requests and gravity (moving around and moving things around often require spacial awareness, I don't fall asleep when I'm moving). Original projects seem to strip the life from my bones. I'm not sure what state I was in to write the entirety of my last blog entry but I'm sure I stepped away once to lie down. Currently I have tea and a sandwich to keep me moving and distracted but I feel the weight on brow, the droop in my eyes and that calm equilibrium that goes from shoulder to shoulder that I get when resting becomes like stasis. Writing is calming no doubt and I really hope the peace stems the risk of heart disease. But what if it doesn't and I need to pay for something?

As of now, years into this blog, I have yet to find one subscriber. I don't talk about current events. Often I digress into the vague of subconscious. I hope that people can relate but often I go back and I don't even relate. My thematic curve is over the individual investment in living in a "free" world. Do we fully appreciate it? Why don't we make the best use of it? How do the "bad" neighborhoods end up that way? Why are children roaming around unguided? I only have guesses. I'm not interested in research. I speak to people, I observe my community, I read the news some times but generally leave it there. Somehow I've got an answer for everything regardless.

It doesn't make me feel better that I can go on and on, but I'm fueled to in spite of myself . . . when I actually sit down to do something. Where do my days go? I'm convinced that wealth begins with a state of mind. I don't have whatever that state is and since I'm finding it I'm pretty much uncomfortable in some way on a daily basis. I'm prepared to lay down right now, but I'm hunched over this thing with an excuse for being otherwise productive, or otherwise a quitter. I woke up not 2.5 hours ago and I'm mighty tired. I've got calls to make and a book 7 pages in and 3 miles to run and gf getting home soon and tickets to buy for something on M-day and birthday party to go to and an extreme desire to play almost any slightly compelling video game. Did I forget it'd be awesome if I cooked my own food?

I've tried the planner thing. I'm going to have to try it again but I don't really feel motivated to look at it or even follow it once it's all down. How can I be this conscious of what's needed to improve my life and have this much disinterest at the same time? How can I pursue something I'm also avoiding? Right now I suck but it's inconceivable to be on the verge of 27 without a flag in the ground.

Sigh, I'm giving my body 15 minutes to get the droopy out of its system. Then I'm going to starbucks to listen to some strange world music, purchase one overly pricey latte, and believe among strangers that I am far more conditioned than my privacy would reveal.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

The Things That Make Us Strong

A complete list couldn't be warranted. No one knows the complete truth about the mystery that compels us. Some of us need quiet time to wonder and contemplate about the breeze or the way sunshine feels or the intent behind the hand caressed by yours.

We don't truly know any perspective beside that of our own. It can be a source for anxiety or even peace depending on a variety of factors. But there are no more important elements than the one we base our decisions on. In a life where the worst thing that happened to me was a seed of doubt, I have little to fret over. The little is enough to stem the courage I believe I have inside, needed for the efforts required in my destiny. It is a choice, and if you prepare, not one you will suffer as greatly for. All change hurts a little for the letting go. And until we trust ourselves to the seasons before us, we are in the dark, senses betraying an alien manifest.

This is each year of my life and fear is the stabilizer. It always has been. How we judge the calming effects of hesitation can be viewed over a life time of perilous waters, not for the chances taken but for those passed up to maintain an equilibrium in the mounting expanse of our potential. Venture too far out and you can, and perhaps will, get lost. The acquisition of personal power is not without an element of danger. If your will is too wide, too far reaching, you may thin out and lose your connection to anywhere and anyone.

The void is worthy of fearing. And the fear is its own danger. It may hold you in the grip of the thing you loathe, and the relationship is intense for its proximity to your thoughts. Obligations keep you busy. Distractions keep you away. The world was meant to be engaged as an adventure. But we are complacent in the immediate. Time passes. Opportunities dwindle. Energy becomes stagnant. And the question arrives: Is it worth it? What I'm doing, where I'm going, the people I'm involved with, the patterns I've invested in? Not thinking is easier and widely considered the higher alternative. Speculation is tied to indecision; a negative. It's sad that realization has become an island.

All the while you trade external experiences for internal ones and vice versa. You beat around the bush, circling the truth defined by the limitations you refuse explore. The silhouette of a different life takes mold and old decisions come to the surface; old mistakes perhaps and chances long gone.

"What is Love?
Baby don't hurt me.
Don't hurt me,
No more."

Yeah I know. : P

It's a classic that speaks to something generally untouched but all too common. We can build a dream in something that has no place for us and the prospect of taking control and building that place seems daunting for the lack of consideration from the environment or the minds that police it.

The relationship you want, the career you want, the home you want. Everything else is some extraneous side-story to the needs of today's children. Survival is an emotional, social thing now. Living means connecting. And some of us strive for the strength to turn the connections true and to make our hearts soluble or solvent. We need homes for the heart and mind and when we can't have them at the time we feel we need them, we suffer.

It all comes down to the quiet. It's fair to wonder if you're truly happy. Cynicism being the trend in the modern era, even the question is a painful practice because of what it means; primarily vulnerability. No is invulnerable and yet everyone moves forward. Everyone acknowledges the truth in some way; if not that they're lonely, that they do exist in a solitary viewpoint. Your environment's understanding is not guaranteed. The danger is in dissolution and a thousand smiles can't make up for genuine silence among the family you make.

The lost boys and their leader had their happy thoughts and it gave strength. It's childish to think something that simple can help people fly and be brave. I've spent a long time seeing the silly in it and protecting myself against thoughts that threatened my constitution and pointed at dreams I've long since abandoned. I did it because accepting these influences would make me subservient to unrealistic wishes, incapable of the strength I so desired; unable to live independent from the errant machinations of chivalrous dreaming.

It's bullshit but the world has no problem prizing the fantastic as fiction and in commune we follow the faiths of our projected ideals, each of us in secret revelry of a worlds full of justice and love requited and life-glory. We go home and hold our wishes deep down as the days pass until they are partially forgotten or the obligations return to claim time away from the spirit's endeavor to proceed as it should.

I've been blessed with a great dream, and the will to form it was . . . altered, sometime ago. I search now for the way to accept that the dream has always been stronger than its obstruction, that indeed the obstructions are the consequence of fears for the truth being real and a world truly capable of accepting the glory we may yet form in it. At the bottom, I see something sensible and fundamental in the thought that what makes us strong doesn't exist. It is woven into dark fabric representing the chaos of all possibility. It is the virtue reflected off our hearts, unattainable, beautiful, infinite.

Is that OK? To never truly have something, and spend your life creating it? In our wildest dreams we say YES! I never exploited that energy. I will try.