Sunday, October 30, 2011

Poetry Hour :)

It’s easy to breathe when you let it all go.
It’s easy to see if you watch the wind blow.
If knowledge is power then who’s really dumb?
If it is so bad, then why’s it so fun?
If this is your dream, then where do you go –
To visit those places where nobody knows?
I spin in a circle, I never slow down.
I do it to keep my feet on the ground.
So listen for what you don’t usually hear.
And you might be amazed at what will appear…

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Goals

"Goals are overrated. Too many variables that can cause you to fail. And I’m not certain if the goal you are trying to meet is the same goal you want to accomplish."
A good friend told me that once. Actually, more than once, in so many words. We’ve had a few conversations about goals over the years.
We weren’t talking about the big goals here – the ones we set for ourselves to give us the end result we want in life. Those goals are important, and whether we ever achieve them or not doesn’t matter. What’s more important with these is their ability to give us purpose on our path to the finish line. They give us a reason to push forward and accomplish something.
No, we were talking about the smaller goals. Those little ones we set during our days to get little things done (or not done in my case). These are the overrated ones; the ones we need to not put too much weight on, for in the big scheme of things, they barely matter.
In this case, the goal I set was for something I didn’t want to do. Actually it was something I wanted to do but was trying to not do. I gave myself a frame of time, and if I made it, I would reward myself. Not that I would necessarily punish myself if I failed, and what’s worse, the reward was nothing more than allowing myself to do what I’d been trying to not do. Therefore, if I failed in my goal, it was by taking the reward I sought sooner rather than later. So really it was a win-win, or lose-lose, depending on how you view things. Accomplishment brought reward, as did failure.
And in retrospect, my friend was right. The goal I was trying to meet was not one I really wanted to accomplish. Well, I suppose I did, or I wouldn’t have set it, but it wasn’t something that would propel me forward or help me in the bigger picture. All it did, for fail it I did, was leave me without a sense of accomplishment (not that it mattered, for either way I was going to get what I wanted). 
But then I think, if I failed to accomplish something I didn’t really want to accomplish in the first place, isn't that accomplishing it in the end?

Friday, October 14, 2011

...

It wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. This isn’t to say there was anything wrong with what it was – it just wasn’t precisely how I had imagined it. But then, I would surmise it is hard to imagine something that is new…maybe not new so much as different. Now you might ask what it is I imagined at this point, and that would be a legitimate question. I would have to admit at this point that I’m not real sure what I envisioned.
I suppose I imagined a bunch of things, many different realities so to speak. Some of these possibilities converged easily, allowing for many different scenarios to intertwine and overlap, and there were others that stood alone. And since I had given myself so many options for how it might be, one might think that certainly I hit at least one of my imaginings, but I don’t think I did.
Maybe it was simply something that was unimaginable. Maybe there was no way any foreshadowing could take place, for what can we know of a future event when the paths that lead us there twist and turn in totally discombobulated ways. J

Monday, October 3, 2011

Drivel

I tried to watch some drivel earlier. I couldn’t. Normally I can, as drivel is one of my favorite things to watch in those rare moments I get to watch TV. I enjoy it because it’s so mind-numbingly stupid; your brain processes literally have to slow down in order to understand it.
It also allows me to think of errant things – those things your life rarely gives you time to think about, for they are really so unimportant that you cannot allocate the much needed space in your otherwise busy day (and I’m qualifying even merely watching paint dry as a busy day). For instance, I tend to wander off and start to think about things like the complexities that make up a system that allows us to qualify this as entertainment. Who controls this system and how far do its hands reach? Are those in control programming us or are we programming them? Who, at the end of the day, when all is said and done, really has the power?
I would like to say it’s not me – and I’m using “me” to mean a lot of us – for I would hope this is not what I would produce if I held the reigns. But then again, in some respects, I do. If the signals for it are beaming down into my house, then I am one more person that is watching, and every person does count when it comes to ratings.
Then I wonder, who else is watching this drivel and why? Do they get the same value out of it that I do? Or are they watching for much different reasons? I know a few people who truly enjoy keeping up with some of these shows, really get into the whole faux-story being told. I suppose we all have our own guilty pleasures, although mine lay in other arenas. Drivel merely allows me to not think about what is in front of me. And not that I’m watching the drivel per se; it is just keeping the latent processes working and focused so the rest can flourish.
But for some reason I couldn’t watch it earlier. Not sure why. I tried 3 or 4 times – I’d walk away then go back, but I just couldn’t stop and get interested. This is odd, since I usually don’t have issues stopping to do nothing. But it did lead me to do something productive, so I suppose my lack of interest in what is usually interesting – my lack of interest in drivel – did serve a purpose. Maybe not a greater purpose, but hey, we take what we can get right? J